amongst whom God himself seemed to reserve the Legislative to himself having given them a body of Laws necessary to conserve Peace or do Justice about Inheritances Injurys Marriages c. the manner of the King whom they would have to go in and out before them after the manner of other Nations 1 Sam. 8.11 We find indeed that in most of the Eastern Empires yea and in the Roman Empire after the Lex Regia was past both Legislative and executive Powers were without restraint in the Emperour And the Placita Principum or Edicta Imperatoria were perfect Laws after the promulgation of them It was a mistake therefore in him who writ the Life of Julian the Apostate to call Christianity the Religion of the Empire when Julian had declared by his Royal Edicts for Paganism And probably such absolute Monarchys were all which arose out of Conquest and Compacts issuing from Conquest But in many of the Northern Nations the Offspring of Japhet the Elder we have reason to believe there was a restraint upon the Legislative till the Nobles Majorum Minorum Gentium did at least legem petere eligere request and chuse or propose a Bill to be enacted a Law And the Power to deny a proposed Bill was in the Prince and the Power to execute Laws wholly in him and both without Power in the combining Patriarks to call him to account for Administration of either or to reassume the Power or any part of it without the Princes Voluntary consent these speculations about the passing of the Patriarchal Monarchy into larger Governments gave us Royalists light enough to discover that the pretensions of the Parliament-Party and the maxims they had espoused were both unpolitical and unpeaceable Such as those before mentioned That the People are the original Power that men are born in a state of Independent Liberty and consequently in a State of War That the Power of the Supreme Governour is but a revocable trust and he liable to censure for Male-administration And that the King tho singulis Major is universis Minor for how can he be less than all who hath the Power of all concentring in him Another suggestion also by that side in the late times I will here take notice of tho it lye not in the direct run and way of my Discourse And it was this that a Republick or Aristocracy was more eligible than a Monarchy In the manage of which their Writers dealt very deceitfully for they usually compared a King misgoverning with a Republick Governing well whereas if they had stated the comparison as of right it should have been betwixt a King and a Commonwealth both Ruling well or both Ruling ill it would be most evident both from reason and History to which adds also the experience of the English Nation in the late Confusions that less evils did arise to the People from a King misgoverning and gratifying the Lust of his Minions than from an Aristocracy misgoverning and every one of them preying for himself and his Dependents upon the Poor oppressed People and contrarily that more good comes to a People by the Government of a wise and good King then by the Government of even wise and good Nobilissimo's as at Venice But that which especially prevailed upon us Cavaleers conscientiously to ingage for our Soveraign was the consideration of the Government under which we were Born For we knew it from our Fathers and their Tradition and from our Old Historians writing in the Ages past That this Government was an hereditary Monarchy immemorially whence we inferr'd That all the rights of Monarchy were inherent in our Kings It is true we found the Royal Legislative Authority by Ancient Custom was not put in exercise without the consent of the two Houses of Parliament And Custom is Common-Law in England And that thus it was we had no reason to be displeased nor did we sollicitously inquire into the Original of that usage whether in the Primitive coalition of the Government the several Patriarks of Angels Jutes and Saxons had so compacted with him whom they consented should be the Universal Monarch over them and their Clans or rather whether our Kings had granted that high Priviledge to our Fathers the Valiant Angles Jutes and Saxons to ingage their Valour and fidelity in their warlike expeditions and after extended the same Priviledge in a great measure to the Britains growing up into one People with us or whether any other way this came about we could not tell thus we found it and found the Government the best tempered Government in the World And we bless God for it and rejoiced under the shadow of it Only this we judged from the preambles of ancient Statutes and from the Kings Coronation Oath That the two Houses did Legem petere eligere but the King did Legem ferre jubere the Priviledge of the two Houses of Parliament was to chuse and desire such a Bill to be a Law and the Prerogative of the King to enact and will it If herein we were mistaken we were mistaken But be it as it will we Primitive Cavaleers were far from designing to remove the Ancient Land-marks which our Fathers had set Nor did we ever think it agreeable to modesty for us private Men to set bounds to the Power of the Parliament during its Session further than that they could do nothing to any Effect without the Royal Assent We believed therefore they could call any Subject to account for ill behaviour in any Office Military or Civil by Bill of Attainder or otherwise according to the Usages of Parliament they could change Tenures put down some Courts of Justice erect new ones and what not If the King Consented and we found that our Kings seldom denied the desires and Requests of their Parliaments in matters fit and just But we detested the contrivance of some Factious Men who brought the Rout to call for Justice against the Earl of Strafford and Arch-Bishop Laud. And tho there have been oft Factions in Parliaments since that unhappy Distinction of a Court-Party and a Country-Party and tho the Rump Parliament had cast us into horrid Confusions and robbed us of the best of Kings yet were we not weary of Parliaments or forward to inslave our selves or our Posterity We therefore with thankfulness to God above all and to our good Kings and Parliaments under them remembred that Parliaments were the great Conservers of the English Libertys against all unjust Judges and Officers and how they oft attempted even in Popery times and at last Effected the deliverance of the Kingdom and Church of England from the Usurpation of the Bishop of Rome and secured the People from the crueltys of the Bloody Clergy thereof But tho we owned thus that our Kings had not exercised the Legislative Power immemorially without the proposal and consent of the two Houses yet we easily discovered the cheat of that Parliament comment on the Political maxim Coordinata
Elective Kingdom when they devoled it on any one Patriark and his Successors this was also an elective Kingdom in the origination of it but became in process and Succession an Hereditary Monarchy or Kingdom And such are most of the Kingdoms of the World at this day As for Democracy wherein the whole body of the People meeting in their Comitial or General Assemblys did make Plebiscita or popular Decrees it is hard for me to guess how Patriarchal power ever came to be so ravilled out into that form unless the Multitude forced their Patriarks to yield them a share in the Government either by Tumults or Secessions and departing from their Nobles or Patricii of which there are many instances in the Roman Common-Wealth for that any People whether the heads of several Familys or the whole body of the People should only conditionally intrust the Government in the hands of a Soveraign or a Senate with power of revocation of their trust upon Male-administration is such an unpolitical phancy as deserves to be exploded by all who wish well to the Peace of the World and of the Nations in it for such a constitution carrys self-destroying principles in it seeing every ambitious or discontented person making himself Popular might easily perswade the multitude who are generally prone to Change and Querulous against their Governors that their Superiors had forfeited their trust and they might resume their Power betrusted and commit it into better hands And to be sure when an Army was on Foot whose Commanders were prompted by their interest in the Soldiery to aspire this pretence would be ready at hand that the Soveraign or the Senate had failed in their trust and that the People might reassume the Government and withal that Populus Armatus is est Populus that those who had the Arms of the Nation in their hands were the People This was the very Plea which the Phanatick Army under Cromwel did make and it pleased us Old Cavaleers well when we saw Cromwel turn the point of this Principle upon his Masters and turn the Rump out of doors alledging and with truth enough that they had failed in the trust reposed in them by the good People of England On the same account we Old Cavaleers detested as unpolitical and laying the Foundation for perpetual civil jars the swearing of Allegiance to the Supream Power with limitation as it was in that called the Solemn-League and Covenant Pagragraph the 2d wherein they promised to preserve the Kings Person and Authority in the preservation of the true Religion and Libertys of the Kingdoms When therefore the Scotch Commissioners Pleaded their Engagement by Covenant to appear against the Execrable Murdering of our late Soveraign the Royal Martyr I well remember that the Rump in their Declaration and answer to the Papers of the Scotch Commissioners Pleaded that the Covenant only obliged them to endeavor the Preservation of the Kings Person in the Preservation of the true Religion and the Libertys of the Kingdoms and that in limited Propositions Limitatio est pars potior the Limitation is the predominant part And that therefore seeing it was apparent to them that the King had violated the true Religion and the Libertys of the Kingdoms they who had taken the Covenant as well as the Scots looked on themselves as obliged by Covenant to depose the King and bring him to condign Punishment But our Contemplations in prosecution of this Subject about the Original and exercise of Power ran yet on further for we observed that there were two parts of the Patriarchal Governing Power appointed by God namely the Legislative Power to enact wholsom constitutions for the good of the Clan or Family He is the Minister of God to us for good Rom. 13. And the executive Power to put those Laws in Execution as also to compell his Descendents to obey the Divine Laws both Moral and Positive and this also was part of the executive Power For where human Powers command what God hath commanded before their Laws are not constitutive but only declarative of the duty only they may be constitutive of the Penalty and Sanction Both these Powers the Legislative and executive under which is comprized the Power to Levy moneys for this cause pay you Tribute Rom. 13. were intirely in every Patriark But when many Patriarchates or Clans were imbodied into a larger Regality or Kingdom by voluntary compact it is easy to conceive that these Powers might be diversly betrusted And the former the Legislative Power might only be intrusted to the elected King and his Successors in concomitancy with the other Patriarks But still we are to observe that if the Elected King and his Successors had only a Vote in the making Laws with the other Patriarks so that the Majority of Votes over ruled against his Vote then tho he had the name King he was indeed no King nor Supreme Governour but only the chief Magistrate such were the Kings of Sparta the Lacedemonian Government therefore is reckoned truly an Aristocracy or Democracy But some Nations might perhaps find out a better way namely that the Legislative Power was betrusted to the elected Patriark and his Successors yet so that it should not be exerted without the consent of the combining Patriarks but still the Legislative was so in the King that the Votes of all the combining Patriarks could not constitute Law without a Le Roy Le Voult the King consents and commands it to be And this Government undoubtedly is a Monarchy not deprived of any part of the Power Patriarchal but only restrained in the exercise of one part of it namely the Legislative without the concurrence of others But we observed further that though in a Monarch there might be a restriction of the exercise of the Patriarchal Legislative power there could be none in the exercise of the Executive power for if that could not be exerted but with the consent of others such a Nominal King was no Monarch or Supreme Governour but only the chief Magistrats as we said before And no man can reasonably suppose that a Patriark who had the plenary power both Legislative and Executive over his own Clan and probably was the cheif in puissance amongst the Patriarks combining as the Hethites told Abraham Gen. 23.6 My Lord thou art a mighty Prince amongst us would ever consent to abate any thing of his Regalia over his own Clan as to the Legislative and suffer others to have a restraint upon the exercise of it unless upon the terms premised viz. That the exerting his Legislative should not indeed be without the Concurence of the other Patriarks but withal that all they Voting together should not be able to make a Law without his Royal Authority and consent and that also the intire executive Power not only over his own Clan but even over the Combining Patriarks and their Clans should be his without Compere or Coordinate Thus Samuel expounds to the Israelites
se invicem supplent tho the proper words are Coordinata se invicem Complent whence they of that side argued That seeing Coordinates do mutually supply and compleat one another and that the King withdraw from his Parliament the two Houses whom they judged Coordinate with the King in the Legislative might supply by an ordinance his absence or dissent which is an inference contrary to all reason and sense for the true sense of that Maxim is this That Coordinate suppose three do so mutually supply force to and compleat on another that the concurrence of no two of them is Efficacious to the intent for which they are Coordinate without the Concurrence of the third Thus if we should yield a Coordination as to the Legislative Power betwixt the King and two Houses yet the Votes of the two Houses are no Law in England without the Royal Assent Obj. It was then usually objected That this Doctrine puts the King and either House into a capacity to hinder a good and wholsom Law Sol. To this it is answered that the Laws in being are to be supposed sufficient in the Judgment of our Fathers of the last Age to conserve the State in its being and whether the Bill proposed be conducing to the better being of it or no must be submitted to the judgment of the King But still we looked upon the executive Power of Law as wholly and intirely Inherent in our Soveraign without Compere or Coordinate who could at his pleasure derive that Power to others Legally Commissioned by him to put the Laws in Execution And that therefore the Power of the Militia of making Judges and Officers of conferring Honours of making War or Peace or Leagues with Forreiners was wholly in the King But if any of the Kings Officers violate our Rights and Priviledges either Civil or Ecclesiastical which are by Acts of Parliament or Immemorial Custom instated on the Subject the Subject might sue the violaters in the Kings Courts So that greater security for the Rights of any People I think cannot by any human Wisdom be invented then what we English-men injoy For First we have the protection of the Kings Royal Authority whose interest it is seeing the Throne is Established by Justice to make his Officers Peace and his Exactors Righteousness Isai 60.17 Next we have the security of the Laws in being and of the Reverend and Learned Judges Commissioned for the execution of them who we may think will be very unwilling to infringe our Rights by Law Established both because they are for the same accountable at all times to the King and also to a Parliament when it shall sit and likewise because they cannot inslave us by denying us the just protection of the Laws at a cheaper rate then inslaving their own Posterity also And lastly We have the security of Parliaments who cannot only propose and enact with the Royal Assent new Laws for our future defence against unjust Officers but can also call them to account for the breach of the Laws already made this was the Political Creed of the old Cavaleers and we triumphed in the Victory of Truth when any being convinced of the agreeableness of our Principles both to Scripture Reason and the Constitution we were under came over and Espoused our cause Thus it appears from what we have said that we Cavaleers had the better cause but our Sins ruined us and it and deprived us of the best Earthly King in the World who was Murdered by Bloudy Men our high provocations drawing God into the quarrel against us Though after he had Scourged us he was pleased in infinite Mercy and by Miraculous Providence to make up our breaches in the happy Restoration of his Sacred Majesty who now Reigns and long may he Reign over us and our Children GOD SAVE THE KING FINIS LONDON Printed By George Croom at the Blew-Ball in Thames-street over against Baynard's Castle 1684.