* By this means the Romans establish'd their Empire in sharing the Advantages of it among the People whose Obedience is secur'd by Acts of Grace and Protection from Danger and truly did not the boundless Ambition of Unwary Monarchs blind the Eyes of their Reason from discerning their True and Lasting Interests they would never run into such Extreams of Arbitrary Sway as render'd their Government Odious and their Persons Hated No King in Europe has more his own Will and lives more happily than He which conforms his Inclinations and Actions to the Sense of the Law and the Love of his People and in this Sense he may be as Absolute as he pleases without Overturning the World to accomplish it He can Desire nothing but what will be freely Granted him nor Do any thing that will be Distasted And what can the greatest Monarch in the World desire more than to have his Wants Liberally Supply'd his Actions Universally Approv'd and Applauded This and no other End is the Design of the Resistance contended for but that a Prince misguided by ill Counsel may without Injury to his Person or Diminution to his Rightful Authority if fair Means can prevail be Reclaim'd from Violating the Rights of his Subjects and brought to a Temper consistent with his Own and his Subjects Happiness And if any Ill-minded Men carry it further we can only say that the Abuse of a Thing does not impeach the Lawful Use of it Let those that offend the Law suffer for the Breach of it Another End of Resistance is the Good of the People for when all other Means to reduce the Prince into a right Temper has with all due Respect and Submission been us'd but effected nothing then and not before Resistance is necessary for our Privileges are granted by the same Laws by which the Prince has his Authority and makes an Universal Defection or Resistance lawful when all would be Ruin'd without it for the Doctrine of Non-Resistance is not of Constant and Eternal Obligation in all Circumstances Calling to Account are Acts of Authority but Resistance for Self-Defence is a Right of Nature and Inalienable In every Province and Kingdom of the Universe we may find Instances where Subjects have been necessitated to secure Themselves their Religion and Liberties by Resisting their Prince whose repeated Acts of Tyranny did visibly threaten their Ruin and this was always look'd upon as a sufficient Reason to dispence with their Allegiance especially when the Necessity was not pretended or Created by themselves but apparently forc'd on them by their Prince who was oblig'd to preserve them When our Saviour was walking in the Garden and expected the Jews to come and Seize him by Violence he was pleas'd to command that he which had a Sword should take it and being told there were Two Swords he said it was Enough How Enough Not to encounter the Arm'd Multitude that came along with Judas he could not think so But they were Enough to let his Disciples know that upon such Occasions they had a Right to defend themselves In Extream Dangers we are allow'd to make use of Extream Remedies Former Ages it seems were Strangers to the Doctrine of Non-Resistance for Resistance has been allow'd by Kings themselves Henry the Second allow'd it by causing his * Barons to Swear â—russel's History of 〈…〉 that if he should not perform the Covenants between himself the King of France and Richard Earl of Poictou his Son they should renounce him and join with the King of France and Earl Richard against him Richard the First when he went to War in the Holy Land substituted William Bishop of Ely and Lord Chancellor of England to Govern in his Absence who abusing his Authority the Bishops Earls and Barons having Routed his Party they Depos'd and Banish'd him and these Proceedings were approv'd and confirm'd by the King himself at his Return So that in those Early Days the Nobility Clergy and People had no Apprehensions of an Irresistible Power in Kings and those Commission'd by them when they found their Power grew Tyrannical and Unsupportable King John attempting to destroy the Liberties and Privileges of his Subjects granted by Magna Charta the Bishops Barons and Great Men of the Kingdom of all Degrees and Conditions took up Arms against him and never laid them down till the King and the Prince his Son had sworn upon the Holy Evangelists to maintain the Subjects Privileges and if they should break them that it should be lawful for his Subjects to Renounce their King and to gain them by Force And this was never accounted Rebellion for the Pardon that follow'd it was mutual not only for those that adher'd to the Earl of Gloucester but for those also that took part with the King In the Reign of Edward the Second this Doctrine of Resistance was asserted upon several Occasions and so gross were the Enormities of this Prince that in an Act of Indempnity in the First of Edward the Third the particular Illegal Acts of the King his Father are recited and all that Resisted him are Pardon'd without loading their Memories with Reproachful Epithets Henry Duke of Gloucester oppos'd the Tyranny of Richard the Second and had the Crown for his pains and those that came over with him were pardon'd in decent Language without calling them Rebels or Traytors So that it seems the Parliaments of Edward the Third and Henry the Fourth that Pass'd these Acts of Indempnity had no ill Opinion of the Doctrine of Resistance in Cases of Extream Necessity To which give me Leave to add the Opinion of a Learned Man on this Subject and I shall ease the Reader of further Trouble 'T is * Opusc advers Adulat consid 7. Gerson the famous Chancellor of the University of Paris who says 'T is an Errour to assert that an Earthly Prince as long as his Dominion lasts is not engag'd to his Subjects in any thing for according to the Divine Law Natural Equity and the true End of Power as Subjects owe their Prince Fidelity Subsidy and Obedience so their Prince owes them Fidelity and Protection and in case he does Publickly Obstinately and Imperiously oppress them their Natural Right takes place and makes it Lawful for them to Repel Force by Force So that the late King James has no Reason to complain of Hard Measure from his late Subjects For if the King of England be a Limited Prince as certainly he is and bound by Oath to Govern according to Law and that his Authority depends upon the Right Exercise of it and can claim no Allegiance but upon those Conditions they are not to blame for they did not Desert or Resist him till he had Renounc'd to be their King according to the Constitution by avowing to Govern by a Despotick Power unknown to the Constitution and Inconsistent with it The Breach was first made on his part by Renouncing to be their King according to the Law that made
Laws do not only totally exclude Papists from Military Offices but injoin them to be Disarm'd also Notwithstanding James the Second did not only Arm them but put them into the First Employments of the Army and all other Stations And was so fond of them that no Consideration either of Quality Loyalty or Merit except he was a Papist could Recommend any Man to this King's Favour or give him Title to the common Kindness of a Civil Reception but all were Smil'd or Frown'd on as they were distinguish'd by their Religious Principles Men may live happily under a Government and yet be excluded from having any Office or exercising any Authority under it and therefore the late King's Fondness and the Papists Forwardness to thrust themselves into Employments gave a great Suspition that it was for no good End that he put Wise and Experienc'd Men out to make room for a sort of Raw Papists who being not us'd to Publick Business were not capacitated for it No Man can imagin that the late King made this bold Adventure in Employing Papists for nothing or that he would disoblige the Body of his People for their sakes only without designing some other Advantage to himself by it He must have some peculiar Service for these Unqualify'd Favourites to do in which the rest of the Nation would not inter-meddle The Contest was between the King 's Absolute Power on the one side and our Laws and Religion on the other And therefore to know what Work their King had for them to do and to what End he would have employ'd these Services here is but to see Vide State of Ireland under the Reign of the late King James what Use he put them to in Ireland and how they demean'd themselves towards Protestants where the Scene was open'd and all manner of Violences committed upon Protestants by his Authority He also corrupted the Exercise of Justice on which depends the Safety of the Nation and the Stability of the Throne The Judges were Tamper'd with and Admitted upon Condition of favouring and promoting the late King 's Arbitrary Power and the Popish Interest Those Judges were Depos'd who were fix'd in their Religion and Resolutely defended the True Interest of their Country and others put into their Places of no Honour Integrity or Capacity but known Temporizers or Papists who were excluded by the Laws of their Country Upon this follow'd very Arbitrary and Illegal Proceedings in the Courts of Judicature A Prosecution was carry'd on against Seven Reverend Prelates for Petitioning the King to Redress their Grievances and giving their Reasons why they could not obey his Arbitrary Commands Causes were Try'd in the Court of King's Bench that were only Cognizable in Parliament Partial Corrupt and Unqualify'd Persons were Return'd and Serv'd on Juries in Cases of High Treason that were not Free-Holders Great Bail requir'd of Persons Committed in Criminal Causes Excessive Fines Impos'd for small Offences Illegal and Cruel Punishments Inflicted without Example or Law to warrant them And for a finishing Stroke The late King was also pleas'd to Grant and Seal a Commission to several Unqualify'd Persons to Examine the Revenues and Search into the Foundations of all the Hospitals in the Kingdom and see to what Uses they were first given by their Benefactors And into the Estates that some time ago belong'd to Monks Friars and other Religious Orders of the Romish Church with Intent to Restore them to the Papists who complain'd to the late King that they were Wrongfully Depriv'd of them In brief Never any Prince in so short a time committed so many Irregularities and made such Inroads upon our All as James the Second did by his Dispencing Power in England his Absolute Power without Reserve in Scotland and his Actual and Absolute Destruction of the Liberties and Religion of the Protestants in Ireland To which if we add the more than seeming Probability of the late King 's Leaguing with France for the Extirpation of the Northern Heresie 't will compleat his Design and make the intended Ruin of England unavoidable for more Hands would have made lighter Work and Experienc'd Artists would have finish'd it sooner I will not urge this League as a plain and positive Truth tho' I am strongly inclin'd to believe it and therefore shall only produce my Reasons and leave them with the Reader to judge as he pleases Mr. Coleman who must be presum'd to know much of his Master's Mind being in the same Interest and the Tool he work'd with in all his Secret Practices gives great Suspicion of the Truth of this Combination in a Letter to Sir William Throgmorton Feb. 1. 1678. You well know saith he that when the Duke comes to be Master of our Affairs i. e. to be King of England the King of France will have Reason to promise himself All things that he can desire And in a Letter to Father Le Chaise Confessor to the French King he says That His Royal Highness was convinc'd that His Interest and the King of France 's were the same And whether he ever thought fit to change his Mind since his Accession to the Crown his own Actions will better declare than any Gloss of mine In this State of Amity Things continu'd between the French King and the Duke of York till he was King And when the Prince of Orange's Fleet was preparing for his Noble Expedition into England they seem'd to rest on the same Foot for Monsieur le Comte d' Avaux the French King's Ambassador at the Hague in a Memorial to the States General acquaints them That his Master knowing the great Preparations for War that their Lordships were making both by Sea and Land was not without some Design form'd answuerable to the greatness of those preparations and his Master believing that it threaten'd England he had Commanded him to declare on his part that the Bands of Friendship and Allyance between him and the King of Great Britain will oblige him not only to assist him but also to look upon the first Act of Hostility that shall be committed by your Troops or your Fleet against his Majesty of Great Britain as a manifest Rupture of the Peace and a Breach with his Crown To this Memorial the States of Holland gave Answer That they Arm'd after the Example of their Neighbours to be ready upon Occasion 'T is true the French Ambassador does not mention the League in express words yet he gives very shrewd Hints that there was some such thing as a League or an Equivilent between the two Crowns and so the States of Holland took it For in their Answer to the English * The Marquiss d'Arbaville Ambassadors's Memorial their Lordships tell him That they were long since fully convinc'd of the Allyance which the King his Master had treated with France and which has been mention'd by Mr. Le Comte d'Avaux in his Memorial The Industry and Care that has been us'd to stifle this League does also
give cause to suspect it For the Revoking and Imprisoning Sir Bevel Skelton the English Agent in France upon a Supposition that he had talk'd of it and Rewarding him afterwards with the Lieutenancy of the Tower are plain Contradictions and therefore the English and Dutch had reason to believe the League and Insist upon it when the French themselves had discover'd it Now compare all this with Mr. Coleman's Letters and the barbarous persecutions of the French Protestants so tragically carried on in France and which were also going on to be Imitated in England at the same time that the French Memorial was deliver'd and you will have all the Reason in the World to to continue your belief of it for the greater security of England Thus have I given a brief Survey of the late King's Tyranny in Matters of publick Fact as the natural consequence of his Espousing and Advancing the Popish Religion upon the Ruins of the Reformed I must now acquaint you what Course the Nation took to procure their Deliverance Who seeing themselves Involv'd in such deplorable Circumstances Gaul'd under the Yoke of Papistick Tyranny Afflicted at the dismal prospect of being depriv'd of the Exercise of their Establish'd Religion and the loss of their Civil Properties and Privileges After they had ineffectually imploy'd all Dutiful and Obliging Methods to Reclaim the King and waited till England was on the Brink of Destruction before they would assume their Natural Right and Defend themselves God Almighty who from Heaven beheld their approaching Calamities put it into the Hearts of some thoughtful Persons of all Qualities Degrees and Conditions in the Kingdom to make their humble Application to the Illustrious Prince of Orange who as a Soveraign Independant Prince nearly allyed by his own Blood but nearer by his Virtuous Princess to the Crown of England and a Protestant in his Religion had an undoubted Right to interpose between the late King and his injur'd Subjects and according to his own Benignity and the Example of his Illustrious Progenitors Defend and Deliver an oppress'd People Divine Providence having thus prescrib'd the Means of our Deliverance some good Men whose Names ought to be Celebrated with Eternal praises found a way maugre the danger that attended it to Address this magnanimous Prince Lay the Complaints and Dangers of the Kingdom before him and Implore his Gracious Aid and Effectual Assistance to Free a Languishing people from inevitable Ruin promising to Live and Dye with his Highness in so Glorious an Enterprize Animated by his known Piety and Christian Compassion his Native Heroick Bravery and the Prayers and Necessities of a miserably Harrass'd and almost Ruin'd Kingdom he was pleas'd to undertake our Deliverance and to the Goodness of God and this Great Prince's Wise and Valiant Conduct only We owe that Mercy for tho God can work miraculously for the Accomplishment of his own Will yet in Human Reasoning no other Prince but our now Gracious King was qualify'd to undertake it For He is a Prince of a Ripe and Excellent Apprehension of a strong and profound Judgment has a Right Notion in all Ambiguities and is not easily Impos'd upon by the Sentiments of others Able to Determine in all Occurrences by the strength of his own Genius and yet never unwilling to hear the Opinions of his Counsellors Deliberate in his Resolves and Firm in his Purposes Undaunted in Dangers and of a steddy Conduct in Security That knows how to gain Power and how to make it Pleasant and dureable by the Regular use of it as appeared to all the World in the Upright and Discreet management of this Great and almost Miraculous Revolution The States of Holland accommodated the Prince of Orange with Shipping and other Necessaries for this glorious Expedient and meritted our eternal Gratitude but having met with ill Returns * Dutch Design Anatomized from some Mercenary Pens I shall take off the Scandal and Reproach they have thrown upon that Action by shewing it Kind Grateful and Justifiable to all the World There are many Considerations that justify the Interposition of the States of Holland and the first is That 't was to preserve the Peace of Europe for all their Neighbouring Princes perceiving the growing power of France to threaten the Welfare and Quiet of Christendom and that the Obsequious compliance of the late King James in all the Proceedings of that Towering Monarch as well as Monsieur le Comte d'Avaux's Memorial shew'd a dangerous Allyance between those Two Crowns the Princes of Europe and the States of Holland enter'd into a Confederacy to prevent the Conjunction of the Armies of these two Princes and save Europe This memorable Concurrence happening about the same time that the Prince of Orange had promis'd to Assist the People of England in Redressing their Grievances and Restoring them to their Just Rights and Privileges Whilst the Prince of Orange was doing that Good Office in England the other Princes in the League watch'd the the Motions of France and made them uncapable of helping each other and so the Emperor of Germany the Pope himself and the rest of the Confederate Princes as well as the States of Holland were in the same design against the late King James as the only means to preserve the peace of Europe Besides in this Generous Action the States of Holland writ after an English Copy and express'd their Gratitude for the same Good Office the English did them on the like occasion * Hist Belg. p. 203. when the Spaniards threaten'd not to leave a Protestant alive in Holland Those Provinces are of the same Religion with us and when they saw our Prince had form'd Designs to make us all Papists or Destroy us even Humanity oblig'd them to succour us when the whole Nation so apparently wanted it but the best Reason for what they did except those of common Christianity is given by themselves as I find it in an Extract of the Resolutions of the States of Holland upon the 28th of October 1688. where among other Reasons for Assisting the Prince of Orange with a Fleet and an Army this is one The King of France say they hath upon several Occasions shew'd himself disaffected to that State which gave Cause to fear and apprehend that in case the King of Great Britain should happen to obtain an Absolute Power over his People that then both Kings out of Interest of State and Hatred and Zeal against the Protestant Religion would endeavour to bring that State to confusion and if possible quite subject it There is no question but this Wise and Prudent State saw our Ruine would in time prove their own also and Foreseeing and Preventing it will Justify them before God and all the World Now to shew that other Princes were of the same Opinion with the States of Holland and saw the Designs of the F. K. and the late King James threaten'd the Peace and Safety of Europe Let us take a
which they have here Asserted and from all other Attempts upon their Religion Rights and Liberties The said Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons Assembl'd at Westminster do Resolve That William and Mary Prince and Princess of Orange be and be Declar'd King and Queen of England France and Ireland and the Dominions thereunto belonging to Hold the Crown and Royal Dignity of the said Kingdoms and Dominions to them the said Prince and Princess during their Lives and the Life of the Survivor of them And that the Sole and Full Exercise of the Regal Power be only in and Executed by the said Prince of Orange in the Names of the said Prince and Princess during their Joint Lives And after their Deceases the said Crown and Royal Dignity of the said Kingdoms and Dominions to be to the Heirs of the Body of the said Princess and for Default of such Issue to the Princess Anne of Denmark and the Heirs of her Body and for Default of such Issue to the Heirs of the Body of the said Prince of Orange And the said Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons do Pray the said Prince and Princess of Orange to Accept the same accordingly This Offer being made in due Form and Accepted by the Prince and Princess of Orange now our Gracious King William and the late Queen Mary of Blessed Memory on the 13th Day of February 1688. the Lords and Commons order'd the following Proclamation to be Publish'd and Made WHereas it hath pleas'd Almighty God in his great Mercy to this Kingdom to vouchsafe us a Miraculous Deliverance from Popery and Arbitrary Power and that our Preservation is due next under God to the Resolution and Conduct of His Highness the Prince of Orange whom God hath chosen to be the Glorious Instrument of such an Inestimable Happiness to us and our Posterity and being highly sensible and fully persuaded of the Great and Eminent Vertues of Her Highness the Princess of Orange whose Zeal for the Protestant Religion will no doubt bring a Blessing along with her upon this Nation And whereas the Lords and Commons now Assembled at Westminster have made a Declaration and presented the same to the said Prince and Princess of Orange and therein desir'd them to accept the Crown who have accepted the same accordingly We therefore the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons together with the Lord Mayor and Citizens of London and others of the Commons of this Realm do with full Consent Publish and Proclaim according to the said Declaration William and Mary Prince and Princess of Orange to be King and Queen of England France and Ireland with all the Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging who are accordingly so to be Own'd Deem'd and Taken by all the People of the aforesaid Realms and Dominions who are from henceforward bound to acknowledge and pay unto them all Faith and True Allegiance Beseeching God by whom Kings Reign to Bless King William and Queen Mary with Long and Happy Years to Reign over us God save King WILLIAM and Queen MARY Joh. Brown Cler. Parl. These Ample and Affectionate Demonstrations of the Nation 's Gratitude were as Kindly receiv'd by the King and Queen as they were Dutifully offer'd by their Subjects And thus the King was pleas'd to express himself upon the Notice of it to the Lords and Commons My Lords and Gentlemen THis is certainly the greatest Proof of the Trust you have in Us that can be given which is the Thing that makes Us value it the more and We thankfully accept what you have offer'd And as I had no other Intentious in my coming hither than to preserve your Religion Laws and Liberties so you may be sure that I shall endeavour to support them and shall be willing to do any thing that shall be for the Good of the Kingdom and to do all that is in My Power to advance the Welfare and Glory of the Nation And now with what Inexpressible Joy and Entire Satisfaction the whole Nation entertain'd Their Majesties Accession to the Throne and seeing those Illustrious Princes that had been hitherto their Hopes and Desires now become their Glory and Crown of Rejoicing is easier to imagin than delineate and therefore I must content the Reader by only saying that nothing was omitted that might express a True and Unfeigned Joy upon that Extraordinary Occasion Thus have I shew'd how by a continual Series of Illegal Actions the late King proceeded to Abdicate and Renounce the Government of these Kingdoms till he compleated it by leaving the Realm And also what an Inevitable Necessity there was at that Conjuncture and as Affairs then stood to supply the Vacancy of the Throne by the Inauguration of that Meritorious Prince that now enjoys it And tho' there needs no other Reasons to satisfie the Scrupulous and command a quiet Submission than that it was done purely for the Welfare of the Nation and was settl'd by Lawful Authority yet because the Enemies of our Peace and Settlement take too great a Liberty to Asperse these Proceedings and Amuse the Unthinking and Unsteady People with contrary Opinions I hope 't will be pardonable to Administer an Antidote against the Infection of Virulent Tongues and Seditious Practices and Reconcile those to Reason and their Duty that have been or still do lie in danger of being perverted by the Sophistry of a Turbulent Faction And this I shall endeavour by shewing that the late King 1. Did Voluntarily Abdicate the Government 2. That the Proceedings of the Convention of the Estates were Just and Necessary That 3. King William's Title to the Crown is Indisputable And 4. The Obedience of his Subjects their Indispensible Duty The late King was under an Obligation by virtue of the Original Contract between the King and People which Compact is Imbody'd in our Constitution Imply'd in our Laws and Runs through all our Histories his Coronation-Oath and the Trust repos'd in him by his People to govern according to the Tenour of our Laws as has been already largely prov'd But on the contrary he broke all the Fundamental Laws fell foul upon the very Essence of the Constitution it self and gave no Quarter to any thing that oppos'd his Arbitrary Usurpation And was not this a publick Declaration that he would not be kept within the Bounds of Law nor hold his Kingly Office upon those Terms The Original Contract made him a Legal King but if he might not act the part of a Tyrant he would be nothing at all He was oblig'd by Law to protect and defend the Protestant Religion but by his unfortunate Persuasion in Religion and his moderate Affectation of Arbitrary Power he thought himself concerned to Suspend the Laws that were the Barriers to secure it and to treat it as the Northern Heresie What was his Actual Suspending and Annulling Laws without Consent of Parliament but a necessary Implication in Common Sense as well as Legal Acceptation that he Renounc'd his Kingly Office
Inactivity to which the Kings of France were then accustom'd was grown very disadvantageous to the Government But France was not in danger of perishing by his Idleness and England was on the very Moment of being destroy'd by the late King's Tyranny and Subversion of the Laws And so much Difference as there was between doing Nothing and endeavouring to Ruin All so much Difference was there between the Dethronement of Childeric and that of James the Second There have been Kings Depos'd for Involuntary Absence upon certain Occasions but that cannot stand in Competition with the late King 's wilful Renunciation of the Government by refusing to Govern by the Laws of the Constitution and his Voluntary Deserting the Kingdom when no Force compell'd him to it Was there ever any Mention of Introducing another King till the Throne stood empty by the late King 's going away Did ever so Great a People comport themselves with so little Disorder when they were Lawless and without a Government And was it not high time to provide for the Safety of the Nation when he that should have Govern'd it had voluntarily left it and not only so but left it in the greatest Confusion he could possibly reduce it to and went off only to procure a Foreign Army to Conquer and Subdue the whole Nation into Slavery and profest himself an open and Hostile Enemy to the Kingdom Was the Absence of a Prince to be compar'd with these Extravagancies Were they any longer to be submitted to when there was no Hope of Amendment They that assert such Contradictions and Improbabilities might as well affirm that a Fever was a Recipe for Health and the Plague a Medicine for Long Life and would gain Credit as soon to one as they can do to the other Subjects have Renounc'd their Kings for Usurping a Power to treat them as they pleas'd as was the Case of Rehoboam and Jeroboam But what is Arbitrary Power tho' bad enough too when compar'd with an Actual Necessity of Destroying the Nation and that Necessity impos'd upon the Prince by his Conscience under the Expectation of Eternal Rewards in the World to come There may be Hopes of Reclaiming a Prince from the Evil Counsel of Others but there is no dividing a Man from himself In culpa est Animus * Hor. lib. 1. ep 14. qui se non effugit unquam In James the Second's Mind the Fault did lie That never from it self could fly Constantius Copronimus was Deposed for Impiety but that being a Personal Evil affected the Publick only by the Ill Consequences of a Regale Example And Impiety was never the Parent of so many Cruelties as the Superstition we are speaking of has been amongst us Atheism and Infidelity are Sins of the highest nature but never were guilty of Shedding so much Humane Blood as Superstition And therefore Princes have not been thought so Justly to deserve a Deprivation and the Loss of their Crowns and Countries as a Prince Superstitiously devoted to a False Religion who thinks his Actions Pious at the same time that he is * Que est facto pius est sceleratus eodem committing the greatest Wickedness and †Crudelitas nobilitata Religione rendring himself Infamous by Inglorious Cruelties to his Subjects Which we had Cause to dread for * Lucret. l. 5. Saepius olim Religio peperit Scelerosa atque Impia facta In our Fore-Fathers Times Religion did commit the foulest Crimes Some Princes have been Depos'd for Cruelty but their Cruelty not to be compar'd with his for a Transient Cruelty was always thought more tolerable than one that was Durable A particular rather than a publick Mischief A Cruelty hated by all the World as appearing in its own Likeness frightful rather than a Cruelty hidden under the pretext of Piety and Religion A Cruelty which destroys the Body only rather than a Cruelty that destroys both Body and Soul at the same time A tolerable Cruelty and Oppression before a Cruelty advanc'd before we are aware into an Inviolable Law of the Kingdom and may be justly nam'd an * Immortale odium nunquam Sanabile Vulnus Juvenal Sat. 13. Immortal Hatred and an Incurable Wound in the Body Politick that threatens Destruction to the whole Nation Such was the Tyranny of the late King whose Outside was Devotion and In-side Destruction for tho' in the general Representation of Things he seem'd but to take off the Penal Laws against Papists yet in the Distinct Idea he design'd to execute the Penal Decrees of the Church of Rome against Protestants which was visible in setting up Popish Magistrates who think themselves oblig'd to work our Ruin And in these cover'd Designs he exceeded most of the Tyrants that went before him who were contented to abuse their Subjects themselves without endowing their Inferiour Magistrates with a Supream Power for the same Purposes Nero kill'd his Mother and Brother and most of his Honest Courtiers but did not command his Governors of Provinces to follow his wicked Example Astiages gave his Favourite the Head of his Son to eat but did not impose upon his Lieutenants a Necessity of Imitating him in his Barbarous Repasts The Roman Emperors persecuted the Primitive Christians with all manner of Cruelties but we do not find that they were so oblig'd in Conscience to do it that they put it out of their power to shew them any Mercy But that Popery does it is known to Heaven and Earth and they must pull out their Eyes that will not perceive it So that our Adversaries must consent that the Proceedings of the late Convention of Estates in Deposing James the Second were the most Natural Just Necessary and Lawful that ever was or can be on the like Occasion And they have nothing left them to object unless they can prove that the Laws of which we have spoken were not of great Consequence to the Nation or that the late King did not break them since I have already prov'd that no Prince can have such an Absolute Right to a Crown but for the Safety of a Kingdom he may be Dethron'd For By the same Reason that he may Lose it to a Conqueror or Resign it to a Successor he may Abdicate it Otherwise the very End of Government would be lost if the Prince that endeavours to subvert the Kingdom does not at the same time forfeit his own Right to it And therefore the Convention of Estates who bless'd the Nation with the present Settlement had been Justifiable though they had fail'd of Success the late King having long before ceas'd to be a Legal King of England My next Undertaking is to shew that King William the Third now in the Throne of his Ancestors is Rightful and Lawful King of England Scotland France and Ireland and the Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging And to prove this beyond all possibility of Dispute tho' I need use no other Argument than that he is King by the
Ishbosheth had Right by Descent from Saul but David was made King And 't was for the sake of Religion that they were thus Plac'd and Displac'd In France Childeric was Depos'd and Egidius or Gillon a mere Stranger but in Reputation for Probity and Wisdom was Elected in his stead Pepin was Elected King and Thierry Depos'd Pepin Grandson to the former was by Parliament Crown'd King tho' there was of that Marovinian Race in Being Charlemain's and Hugh Capet's best if not only Title was the Choice of the People So that I wonder the French Writers should question the Legality of the late Revolution in England since if we look back into the Original of other Kings and how they came to their Crowns King William's Title to the Crown of England is as good as the best and much better than some now Reigning in Europe for if all the Monarchs and Governments in Europe that have succeeded such Depositions or Abdications have been Unlawful and Usurp'd there is not one Monarch or Government in all Europe nay scarce in the whole World that can say they have a Lawful Authority but must acknowledge according to the Doctrine of D' Orleance that they are all Usurpers Which I wonder he had the Confidence to Assert since he cannot be ignorant that the French Kings enjoy their Crowns in Consequence of the Abdications and Depositions of their Predecessors and the People's Elections which succeeded those Dethronements So that King William 's Title to the Crown of England is as good as King Lewis's to France if not better for their own Historians give great Suspicion of Unfair Dealings and Sly Practices in the Elections of some of the French Kings but neither Envy it self nor the most Inveterate of all our Enemies could ever object it against King William that by any Acts of Force or Arts of Corruption he endeavour'd to work on the Members of either House to labour his own Advancement but that it was the Free Election of the Majority after long Debates and Consultations on other Expedients His Majesty did not like King Harold lay Violent Hands upon a Crown but only Accepted it when it was Offer'd And which shews his Goodness and Justice he receiv'd it too on the Conditions that were offer'd with it which gives us a lasting Assurance of the Regularity of his Government His Vertue and his Merit recommended him to England by their Free Election he was made King and that is the Right he Claims by and being the most Righteous and Lawful that can be without a Miracle it makes out Allegiance and Obedience to him become our Indispencible Duty But That which I but hinted before and now comes to Crown all the rest and put it quite out of Dispute for ever is It was God's Doing the Immediate Hand of Heaven was in it And truly nothing less could have accomplish'd such Miraculous Things We all know what the Nation Felt and Fear'd the Overturning of this Church and the Subverting this Government Now all this being stopp'd our Religion secur'd our Temporalities safe and a Check put to the Spirit of Persecution and all in so short a Time must be ascrib'd to an Almighty Power and Goodness That when the Design of our Deliverance was Form'd and Essaying there should be so extraordinary a Concurrence of all Favourable Accidents and disposing all Men's Minds the same Way That the Precipitation and Folly of our Persecutors in opening their Ill Designs so Early and the Unrelenting Cruelty put in practice in a Neighbouring Kingdom should send us over so many Thousand Witnesses to awaken us and shew us what we were to expect when that Bloody Religion became Triumphant amongst us and what all Oaths Promises and Laws should signifie as soon as they could break through them And that this should happen at the same time when the late King was Suspending Laws in favour of the Papists That our Enemies should go on so fast and Bare-fac'd That they should grasp so much at once and suffer the Hook to be so ill cover'd when the Bait was thrown out And that all their Designs should be blasted by themselves must be ascrib'd to the Eternal who brings to Light the hidden Things of Darkness and suffers the Wicked to be taken in the Snare they prepar'd for others Further That the great Supporter of Persecution should start a Quarrel with the Head of that Mystical Babylon and divert his Force to a New War an unjust one to be sure since he began it And so many great Princes should Unite to Stop his Carier and preserve Europe That so great an Army as the late King had Rais'd from whom our present King might expect a stout Opposition should voluntarily Desert grow Supine and comply with Reason and the Good of the Nation That such a Divided People should so Unanimously Concurr in in Electing the same Person to be their King and that this mighty Deliverance should be perfected without Shedding of Blood agreeable to the Proposals and Intentions of our Great Deliverer the Laws of the Land and the present and future Tranquility of the whole Nation must be the Lord 's Doing and ought to be Commemorated to his Eternal Glory and Accompany'd with a Grateful Retribution and Dutiful Obedience to our Gracious King who hath done such great Things for us Which is the last Particular 'T is doubtless one of the most palpable Signs of a Base Profligate Nature not to be oblig'd by Favours 'T would be an Injury to a Beast to call him Ingrateful That Epithet no Being can deserve but one that is degenerated into something more Vile than the worst of Animals that has broke through all that is Modest Ingenious and Tender and Apprehensive in Humane Nature And for the Noble Creature Man to be guilty of Ingratitude in Offending our Deliverer or Dishonouring our Sovereign by any Rash or Unadvis'd Words or Actions who sav'd us from Ruin who snatch'd us from the Brink of Destruction To return him Evil for Good to requite his Favours with Indignities to Diminish his Power by taking too much upon themselves to Mis-represent his Gratious Intention or Lessen or Detract from his Goodness is to sink below Comprehension and render himself unworthy of the Blackest Thought With what Emotion and Grief of Mind then can we think of those that are already grown so Insensible of their past Dangers and forgetting the Mercy of their Deliverance abuse Modest Ears with Invidious Reflections upon the Supream and Subordinate Authority they ought to obey How is Conversation Sour'd by those Animals that like Tame Ducks are always dabling in Nasty Gutturs that Espy and Publish all Men's Faults but their own and can no more rest from Reproaching their Superiours than a Crow from feeding on Carrion Jealousies like Bull-Rushes grow out of the Mud of their own Brains and their Suspicious and Ungrounded Glances discover more Rancour than direct Contumelies They boast of their Affection and mighty
the very first Descent that it could never be throughly setled in after Ages The Truth is before the Flood the Scripture is so silent in this matter that no Man can affirm whether the Government of the World in those yearly Ages was Regal Aristocratical or Paternal and consequently not in which Form to fix this pretended Divine Right without offering injury to the other Nor after the Flood do we mind this Right granted to Noah in greater proportion than to his Sons in common Which was to acquire what they could and enjoy what they acquir'd for these are the words of their Charter to subdue the earth and * Gen. 9. possess it The New Testament gives no greater incouragement to this pretence of Divine Right than the Old for tho' in the Theocracy Kings were set up by God yet that method ceas'd when Shylo came and tho' the blessed Jesus and his Holy Apostles were very pressing in those Moral duties of Obedience to Superiors yet they no where asserted a Divine Right nor prescrib'd any Forms of Government or making alterations but yielded a cheerful Submission to the Reigning Powers where they came without calling their Titles into doubtful Disputations Now seeing we cannot find this Divine Right of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession granted by the Law of God as founded in Paternal or Patriarchal Authority nor Morally impress'd on human Nature nor possitively Reveal'd in holy Scripture which I shall particularly discourse hereafter let us descend into our own Histories and if we cannot find it there we must leave it as a Chimera or a politick Stratagem to Introduce Tyranny Democracy was the first Government in this British Isle Their Druids serv'd both for Priests and Judges the whole Nation were a barbarous People that knew not God and worship'd Idols And it would seem strange to search for a Pearle in this Dunghil to derive a Pedigree from these bruitish Ancestors or build a Divine Right of Succession upon such a Heathenish foundation when a Human Right is more Eligible and Honourable After the Druids succeeded a Race of Lords or Petty Kings that divided Britain into eight and twenty Provinces and chang'd the Democracy into an Aristocracy every Province paying Allegiance to their own Lord and because among such a Medly it would be hard to find from which of them to derive a Divine Right of Succession I shall leave it as too Nice and Intricate a matter and pass to the Romans Whose Government when Julius Caesar made his first and second Descent into Britain was Aristocratical and he himself had then no greater title than Dictator and if we examine the whole time of their continuance here which was Five hundred Years we shall find that all the several Governors came in by Intrusion Usurpation Adoption Confirmation or Purchase but not one of them ever claim'd by Hereditary Succession Britain being abandon'd by the Romans they elected Vortigern Earl Cornwall King but upon the Leudness and Debauchery of his life and neglecting the true Interest of the Kingdom they Depos'd him and chose his Son Vortimer and after his decease upon promising to Govern more Regularly by a new Election re-inthron'd Vortigern who was Conquer'd by the Saxons whom he call'd in to assist him in his Wars against the Picts and Scots so that here also we have quite lost all pretences to a lineal Succession from the Britains or a pretended Power from God to Oppress and Ruin his People The Saxons were a Wild Illeterate and Barbarous People living by Plunder and Rapine Souldiers of Fortune without any certain Habitation and having no Title of their own as they Demean'd themselves could very ill pretend to have one from God nor could their Heptarchy introduce a Divine Right among us for then we must allow seven Kings at once to Govern by Divine Right in England The Danes drove out the Saxons injoy'd the Monarchy many Years and after much strugling were repuls'd by the Saxons and they again by the Danes among whom were so many Kings Banish'd Murther'd and Depos'd that 't is impossible with any kind of certainty to fix a Succession from any of them For Edward the Confessor that succeeded Harold the last Danish King in England and in whom for want of Issue that Line was extinguish'd had no Hereditary Right 'T was at first indisputably in Edward Son of Edmond Ironside Father to Edgar Etheling his Nephew during his Life and after his Decease to that Edgar who was also Nephew to the Confessor Harold Son of Earl Godwyn that without other Ceremony set the Crown upon his own Head had no pretence of Right to it tho' as affairs then stood was very fit for it for Edgar Etheling was then living and claim'd it tho' he wanted Power to maintain his Right and so Harold kept the Crown till he was depriv'd of that and his Life by one of another Family and a Foreign Nation which has utterly destroy'd all pretensions to the Divine Right of Succession in this Kingdom unless you will make God the Author of all those horrid Murthers Devastations and Confusions that were committed by many of these Princes in acquiring their Crowns And here I must pursue the Succession from the Norman Race William the First was Illegitimate and had no Right but from his Sword and the Peoples submission and Electing him after he had subdu'd King Harold and the latter Right he always preferr'd before the former William the second was Elected against the Right of his Elder Brother Robert who was then living Henry the first was Elected King Favente Clero Populo his Elder Brother Robert being living at the same time and claim'd the Crown in Right of his Birth King Stephen was Elected a Clero Populo and Maud who had the Right of Succession was excluded Henry the second came in by consent yet he had no Hereditary Right for his Mother Maud the Empress Daughter and Heir to Henry the First was then living King John had no Right of Succession for he had an Elder Brother Jeffery Earl of Brittany who had issue Arthur and Eleanor whose Heirs for ought we know to the contrary may still have a being in the World but John tho' Arthur his Eldest Brother's Son was then living was Elected a Clero Populo and being divorc'd from his Wife had Henry the Third by his new Queen Henry the third was Crown'd and settl'd in the Kingdom by the general Election of the People tho' he had no Right to the Succession for Eleanor Daughter to Jeoffry his Father's Eldest Brother was then living Roger Mortimer Earl of March Son of Edmund by Philippa Daughter and Heiress to Lionel Duke of Clarence a younger Son of Edward the Third was by Parliament in the 9 R. 2. declared Heir apparent to the Crown which could not be but by vertue of an Act of Parliament Henry the Fourth came to the Crown by way of Election and in the eighth Year
of his Reign was the first Act of Parliament made for entailing the Crown with Remainders By vertue of which Entail his Son Henry the fifth became King and after him Henry the sixth in whose time Richard Duke of York claim'd the Crown and an Act of Parliament was made 39 Hen. 6. that Henry should enjoy the Crown for his Life and Richard and his Heirs after him After which King Henry raise's an Army kills Richard for which He the Queen and Prince were all Attainted 1 Edw. 4. because Richard was declared Heir apparent to the Crown after Henry by Act of Parliament but this Attainder was repeal'd in terms of Disgrace and Detestation 1 Hen. 7. Rot. Parl. 1 Hen. 7. Edward the fourth succeeded Henry 6. by vertue of an Act of Parliament made in the time of Hen. 6 for entailing the Crown as Son and Heir to the Duke of York Richard the third was confirmed King by Act of Parliament tho' he came to it by blood and murther Henry the seventh comes in by no Legal Title because Edw. the fourth's Daughter and his own Mother were both living In his time the Crown was entail'd on him and his Heirs by an Act of Parliament and he would never suffer any other Title to declare his Right Henry the eighth succeeded who as all his Laws speak deriv'd his Title to the Crown from his Father by vertue of the Act of Parliament above-nam'd and not by any Title from his Mother tho' by the Law of Succession his Right from Queen Elizabeth Daughter of Edw. 4. was indisputable In his Reign the Crown was thrice entail'd but the great one was that of 35. c. 1. by which Edward the sixth Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth succeeded in whose Reign was made an Act of Parliament making it high Treason to say it was not in the Power of Parliaments to limit the Succession of the Crown Upon the Marriage of Queen Mary to King Philip of Spain both the Crowns of England and Spain were entail'd and the Articles of Marriage confirm'd by Act of Parliament and by that Act of Parliament Philip was created King and exercis'd Sovereign Authority and particularly in making Laws together with the Queen the Style of the Royal Assent to Bills in Parliament being at that time Le Roy La Reigne les veulent by all which it appears that the Kings of England since the Crown was setl'd in a particular Family as well as before are Kings by the Laws of the 〈…〉 of human Constitution tho' their Power is from God Almighty Nor does this opinion aim at the changing our Hereditary Monarchy into an Elective Kingdom but shews that there is no such absolute necessity of keeping the Lineal Descent in respect of a single Person that it cannot be chang'd for the preservation of a Kingdom contrary to the Opinion of our Lawyers who affirm from History Records and Law-Books that our Monarchy is Hereditary as to a Family but Elective as to Persons However to obviate the prejudice that might arise from that preconceit I shall shew you 't is Hereditary and yet that that Hereditary Right came also by Law and therefore may be interrupted by our Legislators That England is an Hereditary Monarchy and that the common course of Succession is to be inviolably observ'd when it consists with the publick good and safety of the Kingdom none will deny for our own Laws have so determin'd it as a custom grounded upon sufficient Reasons Our Ancestors perceiving that the way of Electing Kings was subject to many Inconveniencies and often expos'd the Kingdom to Tempests Interregnum's and Revolutions as well as to the seditious commotions of under-hand dealers and the Pride and Ambition of Men too desirous to be uppermost And that Kings coming to the Crown by Election neglected the Demeans and squander'd away the Treasure of the Nation because they had no prospect of leaving the Crown to their Heirs 't was therefore thought advisable and beneficial to the Publick to fix the Royalty in a particular Family As for example In the eighth of Hen. the fourth there was an Act of Parliament which entail'd the Crown with Remainders And to name no other instances of the like kind it was made Treasonable by an Act of Parliament in the thirteenth of Queen Elizabeth for any Man to affirm that the common Laws of this Realm ought not to direct the Right of the Crown of England or that the Laws were not of sufficient force and validity to limit and bind the Crown of this Realm and the Descent Limitation Inheritance and Government thereof So that 't is plain an Hereditary Right is a Right by the Laws of England and not otherwise And what need is there of any other since a Right by Law makes a Rightful and Lawful King in despite of all the over-nice Distinctions of State-Criticks to the contrary And truly Of all Men living the late King James and his Defenders have least Reason to quarrel this Right by Law For How came it to pass that the Line of the Stewarts had a better Title to the Crown of Scotland than that of the Baliols but only that the Laws of Scotland that is the Consent of the Estates of that Kingdom made them so For otherwise if we search into the Pedigrees of those two Families we shall find that Baliol according to the common receiv'd Rules of Descent was nearer in Blood to the last King David than Bruce and was so adjudg'd at a solemn Hearing * Bak. Chron. pag. 96. between both Parties by our King Edward the First in Parliament Besides the late King has left it upon Record from his own Mouth that the Laws of England were able to make a King as great and happy as he could desire to be and after that I cannot imagine what he could wish for next But His Intentions being fix'd to destroy those Laws that in observing them would have made him great and happy he stood in need of a Title Superior to them therefore his Flatterers contriv'd one of a Divine Original and yet it dy'd before him the Divinity of his Office was more Mortal than that of his Person and well it might having no Being unless in the Heads of its first Inventore The Scripture has declar'd the Falsity of this new Hypothesis †Rom. 13. St. Paul saying There is no Power but of God must be understood of Government in general For the Apostle does not say There is no Prince but is of God but There is no Power but of God St. Peter also makes Kings to be of Humane Constitution as well as our Laws which know no such thing as a Personal Authority in the King Antecedent and Superiour to all Laws nor no Divine Law or just Inference from it which does any where set aside Humane Constitutions agreeable to Christianity and beneficial to Civil Societies Therefore if a King by Lawful Succession shall act unlawfully and
instead of preserving the Religious and Civil Rights of his Subjects shall endeavour to destroy them he may be set aside without Prejudice to the Constitution since we are not oblig'd to preserve the Right of the Succession to the Destruction of the Kingdom Fit and Just ought to over-rule Custom and Formalities give way to the Necessities of the Publick 'T was a common Saying amongst the late King James's Favourites that their King had a Divine Right and therefore he would not be a Slave to the Law And there is greater Reason that his Subjects should not be Slaves to a Tyrant that broke them nor Millions of Souls be ruin'd to humour a Single Person No pretended Right whatsoever can Legitimate Unlawful Practices and therefore when a King forgetting whose Minister he is degenerates into Tyrant and deprives the Nation of all those Blessings that Heaven had given us the quiet Enjoyment of I think there can be no Reason assign'd why we should endure those Violences any longer than till we are in a Capacity to help our selves The Right of Succession has been always Claim'd but not constantly Enjoy'd and the Two Houses of Parliament notwithstanding this Claim have set the Crown upon the Heads of those Princes whom they knew had no Hereditary Right to it and yet they have been esteem'd as Lawful Kings in all our Chronicles and Laws while those who were next of Blood were laid Aside when the Safety of the Kingdom which is to be consider'd in the first and chiefest place makes it necessary so to do Into what a lamentable Condition would this Kingdom have been reduc'd if the Law that Intails the Succession on the Next in Blood should also give him a Power to do what he pleases be it Right or Wrong Wherefore as the Law has often dispenc'd with the Next Heir before he came to the Crown for the former Reasons so it shews us that we are no ways bound to a Prince on the Throne who by Breaking the Laws of the Constitution has Abdicated the Government and stands Virtually Depos'd by his own Actions as well as by a Law as antient as Edward the Confessor or rather Edgar his Grandfather which says If the King refuseth to govern by Law not so much as the Name or Title of King remains to him For * Nec nomen Regis in eo constabit Spel. Concil leg Guil. c. 6. Hoveden's Annals Part 2. p. 608. he ceases to be King that governs by his own Will and not according to Law So that 't is plain the Kings of England are not Kings by a Divine but Humane Appointment They are not Absolute but Limited Monarchs and Circumscrib'd and Bounded in their Powers and Prerogatives from Oppressing and Destroying their Subjects which if the late King had observ'd without suffering himself to have been abus'd by False Notions and Fawning Flatteries he might have been as Great and as Happy a Prince as he could have wish'd himself to be Whereas striving to be above all has reduc'd him into a Mean and Insignificant Station So true is that Maxim That they which Wrestle with Laws are always Thrown and fall Uneasie and Unpity'd But As Mischiefs seldom come Alone so this pretended Divine Right was accompany'd with the Doctrine of Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance the first set him above all kind of Restraint and the other laid his Subjects under his Feet to be Trampled on or Destroy'd at his Pleasure and both being of pernicious Consequence I shall endeavour to stop the Currency of the latter also by shewing that the Doctrine of Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance are False in their Application of it and Dangerous to Kings and Destructive to Subjects They are false as the Authors apply them in Licensing all kind of Wickedness and putting it into the Power of every Arbitrary Ruler to invade the Laws and Liberties the Lives and Fortunes of his Subjects and to do what Mischief he pleases whilst by a Voluntary Submission we yield up our Rights which tho we might have been able to have Kept them while we had them may never be in any possibility of Regaining them when we have lost them Nam quid vis citius dissolvi posse videmus Quam rursus reficio For Things much sooner perish than attain Being dissolv'd to be repair'd again Sad Examples whereof we have in our Neighbouring Kingdoms who for want of a timely opposing the Arbitrary Power of their Kings have fallen into Governments as Absolute and Tyrannical as the Ottoman Empire where no Man can call any thing his own Certainly those which with so much Zeal contend for Passive Obedience never consider'd the Consequences of it What would not some Princes do if they were assured that no body would oppose them Nay what would not the late King have done had he been let alone to pursue his Violent Methods without that most admirable Check of Providence that encounter'd him Nature has founded our Obedience upon a Supposition that it was for the Good of the Community and not otherwise And would it not be a Contradiction if Princes might extend their Authority beyond the Design of its Institution and attempt the Destruction of the Society and we quietly submit to whatever they pleas'd to do I am as far from denying the Persons of the Kings and Queens of this Nation to be Sacred and Inviolable as any Man living yet I dare not say they are to be Obey'd in All Cases whatsoever for then the Doctrine of Passive Obedience and the Bow-string would be the same and we must owe our Lives to Fortune not to Justice What if a King should take pleasure in Burning of Cities Murthering Men and Ravishing Women for such Kings there have been in the World and what has been may be again Sure 't would be a piece of the greatest Impiety and Wickedness but to imagin he might do it without Control Fathers by the Law of Nature have a greater Authority over their Children than Kings have over their Subjects and yet if a Father comes to kill his Child he is not oblig'd to submit and open his Breast to the Dagger or hold up his Throat whilst his Father cuts it No Nature Common Sense Self-preservation and the Practice of all Nations is too powerful for the Sophistry of such Principles and those that cannot reason can feel what they are to do in such Cases Grotius says The King must be bereav'd of his Wits that attempts the Destruction of his whole People but grants that they do sometimes destroy one Part for the sake of another as King James's Design was to destroy the Protestants in favour of the Papists and the English in favour of the Irish but says he ought not to be Obey'd in such Frentick Depopulations And if Grotius thinks the Prince Mad that attempts it we may conclude them little better that mis-apply their Parts to defend it For tho' the Scripture commands Obedience to Authority without Exception
but the Almighty power that gave them If an Inferior Magistrate Governor of a Province or City Rebels against the King from whom he received his Authority in order to deprive him of his Crown and Dignity none will scruple to resist him in defence of the King who is Supreme Lord both of him and us And by the same Reason may a Sovereign Prince be Resisted that Usurps upon the Rights of God for no Prince is more Superior to his Subalterns than God Almighty is to all the Kings and Potentates of the whole Earth Reason and Religion command and commend a dutiful submission to Authority but neither Reason Nature nor Religion obliges us to comply with the Sovereignty of the Creature to the prejudice of the Creator or subscribe to such orders of an Arbitrary Prince as manifestly oppose the Rights of God unless we are fond of Inheriting the Title of being Cruel to our selves Unnatural to our Children and profess'd Enemies of our Country for tho' slavery may be the misfortune of good People to submit to it can never be their Duty Another great Engine wherewith our Adversaries serve themselves to batter down the Doctrine of Resistance is the Law of the Land and particularly the Act of Parliament made in the 13th of King Charles the Second which seems in their apprehensions to extirpate this Principal Root and Branch tho' I believe 't will fail them when we have consider'd the Occasion of that Law and the Intention of the Ligislators And this I hope to do with a Modesty suitable to the great Veneration and Esteem that is due to those August Assemblies Acts of Parliament in my opinion being only subject to the Censure of those that have a Right and Power to make them And yet I hope with submission 't will not be indecent to say that Laws made in extraordinary Heats are not Regular Obligations nor ought to let Loose the Kings Hands and Tie up the Subjects England had been long Harrass'd Enslav'd and almost Ruin'd by an Unnatural War Scandaliz'd by the Murther of a King under Forms of Law and Justice Oppress'd by the Tyranny of their Fellow-Subjects and wearied out with changes of Governments and variety of afflictions Sometimes a Common-Wealth the Keepers of the Liberties of England a Rump Parliament then two successive Protectors a Council of Officers a Committee of Safety the Rump restor'd another Committee of Officers the Fag end again the Secluded Members a Junto that brought in King Charles the Second and deliver'd England out of Cruel Servitude that was so sick with changing Masters that when King Charles was Inthron'd and call'd a Parliament which chiefly consisted of Sufferers under the late Mock-Governments or the Persons Sons or Relations of such as had been in actual War against the Parliament or Sufferers for Charles the first the Excess of Joy that attended their Deliverance and a Resolution to prevent such Commotions and troubles for the future so transported them that they thought they could never do enough to Greaten their Monarch or discountenance the late Republicans and therefore in the heat of their Zeal tho' they aim'd well might overshoot the mark and stretch the Prerogative of the King and the Obedience of the Subject beyond their ordinary Limits and like Fond Bridegrooms give away more Authority in a Week than they could Redeem in their whole Lives which has been too often practis'd in England in former times in hopes to oblige their Monarchs tho' as often attended with Sorrow and Repentance and these or at leastwise some of these things might be the occasion of that Law For it could never be the Intention of a Parliament to make the most Violent and Illegal Actions of Arbitrary power wholly Irresistable or pull down the excellent structure of a Limited Monarchy and set up an Absolute Despotick Tyranny where the King and those commission'd by him might do what they pleas'd with our Religion Lives and Estates and make it Treason to resist in any case whatsoever Was not this to give away their own share in the Legislative Power and contradict the Preamble of every Act of Parliament which says all Laws are made by the consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons assembled in Parliament and by the Authority of the same never failing to insert those Words And that this would have been the inevitable consequence of such an Unlimited obligation upon the People is plain for what makes a King Absolute but that his Subjects are under a necessity of Obeying him without reserve i. e. never to oppose his commands in any case whatsoever And to confirm my self that they never intended such a breach in our constitution is because the extravagancy of the Act with such a design would have accus'd both their prudence and Fidelity Judge Cook in his Institutes says that Laws made against Right Reason and the Law of Nature are void in themselves and then there 's no necessity of obeying them longer than till we are in a capacity to deny or dispute it what Man of Common Sense can believe that so many Wise Men how good an opinion soever they might have of the King then in the Throne would Arm all his Successors with a power as Despotick and Absolute as the great Turk who may have the Heads and Estates of his Subjects as often as he pleases to command them The last Argument I shall use to shew that that Parliament did not Intend to couch the People under such an Intire and Universal Submission as is maintain'd by our Adversaries is because they had no Power to do it for no Power can reach beyond the Reason of its Institution which is to preserve the Lives and Priviledges of the People and not make 'em Slaves and Vassals to a Delegated Authority Who can believe that the Nation ever Intrusted any sort of Men with a Power to destroy them or to Surrender their All into the Hands of a Cruel Tyrant As Representatives of the People they could have no more Power than the People could give them nor could it be extended beyond theirs from whom it was derived or that is allow'd by the Law of Nature Nam quodcunque suis mutatum sinibus exit * Lucrit l. â— Continuo hoc mors est illius quod fuit ante Since what doth its limits pass By change quite perishes from what it was because it was not in their power to grant it No Man can licence another to kill him because the consent is Unnatural and Null and Void in it self so no Community can give any persons power to destroy them either directly or by consequence for 't is preposterous in Nature that the Means should be destructive in the End and that those that were substituted for our Preservation should be the Instruments of our Ruin which must necessarily follow if they Intended by that Law to Invest all our Princes with a Power to do whatever they please
and that in no case whatsoever they might be Resisted to which I shall add no more till I have answer'd the Calumny of the Papists who charge the Revolution upon the Principles of our Religion Pere d'Orleans the Jesuit with design to draw off the Roman Catholick Princes from a * Revolution d'Angleterre Tom 3. p. 395. Confederacy with King William and other Protestant Princes for the preservation of Europe and to perswade them to unite their Arms with those of France and the late King James on whose success as he says depends the Glory and Stability of the Popish Religion after he has scandalously told them that this Confederacy was a Combination against God and his Messias the subtle Missionary would insinuate that the late King was Depos'd merely upon the account of his Religion and that if he had been of no Religion or any thing but a Papist he had never lost his Crown which is a great Calumny and to say no worse a wilful mistake for in Antient times long before the Reformation had footing in England and when the profession of the same Religion ty'd Men in one Communion and Worship and when there could be no Apprehension of Grudges upon the Pretence of Different Persuasions in Religion there were equal Animosities and Struglings between the Antient Britains and their Kings as often as they thought their Laws and Liberties were in danger of being Invaded or Destroy'd by them None that converse with History can be ignorant that the same Innate and Congenial Temper has always sway'd these Northern Climates in all Ages within the Reach of History and was observ'd to be Predominate by Julius Caesar him self in his own Reign here Tacitus has an Instance very applicable to this purpose * Ipsi Britanni selectum tributa injuncta Imperii munera impigre obeunt si Injuriae absint has aegre tolerant jam domiti ut pareant nondum ut serviant Tacit. in Vita Agricolae Sect. 13. The Britains saith he are easily assembl'd pay Taxes freely and execute Offices in the Government chearfully if no Injuries be offer'd them for they are willing Subjects but impatient under Slavery When they were under the Power of the Normans they had often Recourse to their Arms to prevent the Incroachments and abate the Oppressions of that Race of Kings although they were All of the same Religion as is apparent in the Reign of William the First who upon the Opposition he met with relinquish'd his Pretence to Conquest and swore to govern the Kingdom by its Antient Laws William the Second was defeated by many of his Subjects who took part with his Elder Brother Robert Duke of Normandy because Rufus had violated the Laws From the same Cause when Duke Robert rais'd an Army against his other Brother Henry the First the greatest part of Henry's Army Revolted to Robert because as Matthew Paris says Henry had already been a Tyrant Another Commotion was rais'd against this Prince and the Party headed by Stephen Archbishop of Canterbury King John was brought to Reason by the Resistance he found by the Great Prelates Nobility and Gentry who slighted the Pope's Bull for Abolishing their Great Charter and valu'd neither the King's Arms nor the Pope's Excommunicating of them all when they stood in Competition with their Antient Rights and Privileges What Troubles and Danger did the Barons and Bishops bring upon Henry the Third for Violating their Privileges His Reign gave Birth to the Complaint that fill'd the Subjects Mouths in the Reign of King James viz. That Judgment was committed to the Unjust the Laws to the Lawless Peace to Men of Discord and Justice to the Injurious So that not only the Nobility Gentry and Commonalty but the Bishops of his own Church Warr'd against him threaten'd him with Excommunication and that if he would not be reclaim'd from his Illegal and Arbitrary Proceedings they would conferr with the other Estates of the Realm and as they had done in his Predecessor's Time would chuse a New King And if in so Antient Times when Popery was on the Meridian of Glory and Power not only the Laity but the Prelates of the Church thought it Lawful to Resist their Monarchs who were breaking in upon their Liberties why may not Protestants do the same without Scandal to their Holy Religion when they had greater Reasons and stronger Provocations than former Times could pretend to Their Religion was never in danger by any of those Kings But ours had receiv'd a deadly Wound by James the Second and was almost Expiring till we took shelter under a Prince who is not only able to Protect his own Subjects but to hinder other Nations from being brought under the Yoke of Slavery The Reader I hope will easily perceive that these Instances are not urg'd to flatter the Rage or gratifie the Passions of Seditious Rebels but only to shew that it has always been the Genius of the English Nation under all Forms of Religion to be very Tender of their Privileges and gave greater Proofs of their Zeal for them in Times of Popery than ever they have done since ehe Protestant Religion obtain'd amongst us Which may at once confute the Jesuits and convince the World that we did not resist the late King James because he was a Papist but because he was a Tyrant tho' it has been observ'd in England that Popery was the first Step to Arbitrary Power and the nearer any of our Kings inclin'd to Popery so much the more did our Privileges decline till at last they were almost totally destroy'd by a Prince that openly profess'd it and all our Crime is that we would not be content to be Ruin'd by the late King and his Popish Emmissaries and rather chose to desire Protection Liberty and the Restitution of our Privileges from His Present Majesty than abide in the Condition of the vilest Slaves to the late King James A Crime for which I am very confident no Papist tho' he Rail at us with his Tongue can condemn us in his Conscience And this brings us to the last Plea that our Opponents are pleas'd to enter against the Doctrine of Resistance and securing our Obedience to the late King viz. That we are oblig'd by our Oaths to Obey and not Resist him upon any Pretence whatsoever To which I Answer How large an Extent soever some Men may give to the Oaths they took in pursuance of an Act of Parliament in the 13th of Charles the Second yet they ought to remember what must always be suppos'd as the Natural Condition of every Oath Rebus sic stantibus Things continuing in the same State as they were in at the Time of Taking these Oaths for otherwise the Obligation ceases when Things are so changed that they are Unlawful or impossible to be observ'd When we took these Oaths to the late King we believ'd he would observe and keep his own Oath at his Coronation and protect us in
our Religious and Civil Rights and therefore we swore to obey him But when he broke his own Oath and employ'd his Power to Ruin us and our Religion out Allegiance was at an End and we had no Reason to observe those Oaths that were taken when Things were in a better Posture and which we should never have took if we could have fore-seen what since has unfortunately happen'd for tho' we were cheated by our Credulity the Change of Circumstances has cancell'd the Obligation of those Oaths and made it our Duty to do the contrary We are oblig'd to obey our Parents while they maintain their Characters but our Obedience ceases when they command what is sinful Nature founded our Obedience to Authority upon a Supposition that it was for the Good of the Community Kings are the Guarrantees of this Formal Alliance and from the Obligation of the Original Compact arises our Submission But if Princes extend their Authority beyond the first Design of its Institution and destroy the Society over which they preside our Obedience is at an end and we may justly oppose them for no Oath or Promise of Obedience can supercede our Antecedent Obligations to our selves or our Country Had King James kept his own Oath we had been oblig'd to ours but his changing from what he promis'd to be set us at liberty The Deceit was his own Contrivance in disguising himself for had he appear'd in his own Likeness and honestly told us what he design'd before we were decoy'd into Oaths I believe there would have been as many Non-Jurants then as there were Honest and Thinking Men in the Kingdom All Oaths tho' never so cautiously worded have still some Tacit Exceptions or else they would sometimes Interfere with Common Equity Therefore 't is a good Exception in Law and a Salvo in Conscience to say that the Thing when the Oath was taken was Unforeseen and so unlikely to happen that it was thought almost impossible to come to pass viz. That the late King James should endeavour to Ruin his Subjects which of necessity must have been his own Ruin also when the Account should be adjusted between himself and Partners Again As the late King manag'd his Affairs these Oaths and our Obedience were Contradictory to themselves and therefore not Obliging We swore in the Oath of Supremacy that the King is Supream Head and Governor in his Dominions and that the Pope neither hath nor ought to have any Superiority or Authority therein But the late King notwithstanding this Law would have the Pope Supream in Spirituals Could we make him what he would not be Could he absolve us from those Oaths after we had taken them Or how was it possible for to observe them but we must offend one Way or t'other The Low says we must take these Oaths or pay Five Hunder'd Pounds besides other Penal Disabilities The King says we must not take them upon pain of his Displeasure and being turn'd out of the Offices we enjoy as our Freeholds by taking the Oaths what must the Subject do when the Law and the King are at so great Variance and the Subjects Duty involv'd in such Intricacies that could never be salv'd but by the Monarch's Abdication But That which utterly puts an End to the Obligatory Part of these Oaths and makes them Null and Void was his Voluntary Withdrawing himself from the Kingdom Abdicating the Government and Leaving the Throne Vacant for that set his Subjects Free to all Intents and Purposes because he that leaves the Government of his Subjects must be suppos'd to Resign his Interest in them for Government is so necessary for the Preservation of Subjects that he who intends to have Subjects must at the same time intend to have them Govern'd or their whole Allegiance ceases Nor if he could pretend he was forc'd to go off will that avail him because it was of his own procuring He might have prevented it by Calling a Parliament and Complying with Justice and the not doing what he ought makes his Desertion Voluntary I mention this only to answer those that object it without Cause whose Partiality spoils their Judgments and drives them to little Shifts to support their false Pretences His Departure into France and Desertion of the Crown was whol Voluntary no Force compell'd him no Danger threaten'd him the People were willing to have Retain'd him but he according to Hales's and Brent's Advices would leave the Kingdom in Confusion that he might return the sooner and have his Ends of us which would bear very Severe Reflections but his Going off being the only kind Act that ever that King did for England I shall omit them now out of pure Gratitude for that transcendent Favour What remains then but a serious Advice to our Scrupulous or Obstinate Brethren that they would no longer insist upon Controverted Cases and Ill-tim'd Niceties that hinder their Obedience or slacken their Gratitude to God and our Sovereign Lord King William for our Miraculous Deliverance nor Ruin themselves nor expose the Nation to Danger for the sake of the late King when they neither ought nor can do him any Service for seeing by the Law of Nature the Design of Government and the Practice of all Nations the late King hath Forfeited and Renounc'd his Right and they are discharg'd from their Oaths and Allegiance to him that they would now honourably deliver up that Pretence which they can no longer defend and pay their Obedience where Divine Providence the Laws of the Land and an Extraorninary Merit has made it due What can be more dishonourable than that the Dishonour and Loss that has befallen this Unfortunate Prince was the Consequence of his own Arbitrary Actions and is primarily to be imputed to himself in exceeding the Bounds of his Limited Authority which he ought in no wise to have done for the Royal Dignity of England is so far from being a Despotick kind of Government that it carries along with it in its very Essence a Mixture of Interests betwixt King and People and lays an Obligation upon the King to govern not by his own Arbitrary Will but according to Law And so careful have the English Subjects always been to preserve the Government in this Equal Poize that every Deviation from it has been look'd upon by them as a Step towards Tyranny And not only the English but so strangely has all Antiquity look'd upon the Affectation of Absolute Power that Isidore lays it down as the Character of a Tyrant That he is Ambitious of Absolute Dominion and oppresses his Subjects by a Lawless Authority And the Scholiast of Aristophanes says That a King differs from a Tyrant in this that a King possesses his Kingdom as receiving it from his Subject upon certain Conditions prescrib'd by Law but a Tyrant Enters and Rules by Force and Violence James the Second could not be ignorant that other Kings of England have sometimes shew'd their Inclinations and made some
private Lashes and subtile Essays towards an Unlimited Power but being told of it as an Incroachment upon the Laws they have always publickly disclaim'd it and yet the late King would attempt it Fortunae miseras auximus arte vias Propert. lib. 3. El. 6. He with Misfortune ' gainst himself took part And his own Wickedness increas'd by Art King Charles the First in his Declaration from * 1694. Newmarket shew'd the Unlawfulness of it for says he The Laws are the Measures of my Power Few Words but very significant and agree with what was said by that great Lawyer Bracton That he is no King that governs by his own Will and not by Law nor are his Commands obliging Which made King James in one of his Speeches to the Parliament call those Flatterers that persuade Kings not to confine themselves within the Bounds oâ— their own Laws Vipers and the Pests of King and Kingdom And the Lord Verulam says the People have as good a Right to their Laws as to the Air they breath in and he that persuades his Prince to break them is as great a Traytor to him in the Court of Heaven as the Villain that draws his Sword upon him in his own Palace Lewis the Eleventh of France tho' he had been a very Arbitrary Prince when he lay upon his Death-Bed told his Son Charles the Eighth that it was a Diminution to the Greatness of a King not to govern by Law and treat his Subjects Humanely for no Man can be call'd a King but he that governs Free-men King James the First in another Speech to his Parliament sums up all in this memorable Passage viz. That a King governing in a settl'd Kingdom leaves to be a King and degenerates into a Tyrant when he ceases to rule according to Law And yet all this could not restrain James the Second from endeavouring after an Absolute Power The Sentiments of these Great Men might be very prevalent upon Ingenuous Princes yet our Ancestors unwilling to expose themselves and us to Contingent Hazards or leave it to the Mercy or trust only to the Good Nature of Princes who being but Men might be sway'd by their own Passions abus'd by their Credulity or mis-guided by Evil Counsellors to act against their own and their Kingdom 's Safety they thought fit to bind up their Kings from Invading their Laws or venturing upon an Unlimited Power by the most Sacred Obligation in the World viz. a Solemn Oath and Promise at their Coronations to govern according to the Laws of the Land And Taking this Oath has always been the constant Practice of our Saxon Danish and Norman Kings even to James the Second who made no Scruple in Taking nor no Conscience in Breaking it To this I might add that our Kings are Circumscrib'd by Law because in many Instances the Law hath determined what they can and what they cannot do lawfully But because this Point has been Invidiously and Indecently handl'd by some Perulant and froward Tempers who have set too narrow Bounds to the Royal Prerogative I shall wave it and conclude this Paragraph with that excellent Saying of King James the First to both Houses of Parliament Wherein he expresly tells them * See his Works That a King of England binds himself by a double Oath to the Observation of the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom Tacitly as being a King and so bound to protect his People and the Laws of the Kingdom And Expresly by his Oath at his Coronation So that every King in a settl'd Kingdom is bound to observe that Paction made to his People by his Laws in framing his Government agreeably thereunto according to the Paction that God made with Noah after the Deluge To Recite more upon this Head was to pour Water into the Sea for that King that does not think himself oblig'd by his Oath to govern according to Law no other Legal Mound can hold him from breaking down the Fences of the Kingdom and laying all Waste before him Which tho' others might aim at by a Side-Wind no King of England ever claim'd a Right to it but the late King James and it was a piece of Haughtiness and Extravagance above all Example except what his own following Practices has furnished us with And having thus proved that the late King James was by his Oath oblig'd to Govern by Law I proceed to shew you that instead of Answering this great End He made it the whole Business of his Reign to act directly against the Laws to subvert the whole Constitution and expose the Nation to certain Ruin and Destruction And Secondly That by so doing he renounc'd to be our King and justify'd the Legality of the Estates proceedings against him That he intended no Good to England might plainly be discern'd by the great Number of Jesuits and Popish Priests that from all Parts flocked about him and were Caress'd and Indear'd by him at his very first Accession to the Crown for if Charity could have oblig'd us to believe him never so Good-natur'd it was Morally Impossible for him to continue Good in such Ill Company who where-e'er they come set the Country in a Flame that receives them 'T was I say a Sign that some very Ill Thing was to be done when such Sanguinary Hands were to be employ'd as were Reeking hot in the Blood of Neighbouring Protestants and against whose Cruelties Self-Interest Love of Glory Greatness of Mind nor Goodness of Nature could never divert those Princes from Persecuting and Rooting out their Protestant Subjects that had once imbibed the pernicious Principles of the Jesuits who like their Father the Davil are always wandring about seeking whom they may devour In what a happy Estate was the German Empire till the Jesuits prevail'd with the Emperor to espouse their Interest and rather than let a few Protestants live peaceably in Hungary involv'd the Empire in a War that has lasted Thirty Years already and God only knows when there will be an End of it What Scandalous Breaches of Promises and Havock has been among the Hugonots in France by Merciless Cruelties Murthers Thefts Rapine and all kind of Devastations since the Jesuits have been permitted to influence the Affairs of that Kingdom To give no more Presidents of their Barbarities to Protestants and bewitching with their Poysonous Tenents the Counsels of Unwary or Bigotted Princes How have they persuaded the Duke of Savoy contrary to all Politicks to Persecute and Banish his Protestant Subjects who in all probability would have given him the best Assistance when he shall want their Service for the Preservation of his Dukedom And how far the late King James would have follow'd those Presidents while these Incendiaries were the Directors of his Conscience may be easily understood by the first Steps he made towards the Ruin of the Protestant Interest First In Setting up a Dispencing Power and Assuming an Arbitrary Authority that should know no Bounds but what his
own Will should prescribe to it By virtue of this Unlimited Power he brought a Jesuit into the Privy-Council made a Profess'd Papist Secretary of State constituted two Popish Judges and fill'd up many of the most Important Offices and Places of Trust and Profit in the Kingdom with Papists such as Sheriffs Justices of the Peace Mayors of Cities and Corporations and Officers in his Army And that he might be able to gain his Point and force those that refus'd to comply voluntarily he put the Tower of London the great Magazin of England and Keeper of the Regalia into the Hands of Sir Edward Hales as Rank and Sowr a Papist as ever our Soil produc'd and fill'd all the Vacant Places of his Army with Popish Officers By the same Authority he granted an Ecclesiastical Commission gave Four Popish Bishops Power to visit several Districts in England plac'd a Society of Jesuits in the Savoy and erected Popish Schools and Mass-Houses in most of our Cities and Corporations And Lastly To annoy his Subjects and force his Way through all Difficulties in Times of Peace kept a Standing Army 'T is needless to tell the Reader that these Proceedings were contrary to the Laws of the Land and wholly Inconsistent with them for there are very few or none but know it already in general Terms I shall therefore apply my self to shew you how it was against Law and what would have been the Consequences of this Unlimited Power if the late King had continu'd longer amongst us And this brings me to shew you his particular Actions To feel the Pulse of England and try how they Resented his Proceedings the late King commonly began the Exercise of his Arbitrary Power in Scotland and from the Measures that were taken there we might take a Prospect of his Tyranny and our own Calamities for tho' he shew'd us his Designs under the Soft Title of Dispencing in Scotland he threw off that Vizor and explained himself in calling it Vide Scotch Declaration Annulling and Disabling Laws And to shew all the World his Arbitrary Ends he gave such a Specimen of his Single Unlimited Power there that he attempted to do more in that Kingdom which as well as ours is a Limited Monarchy than the United Power of King Lords and Commons together were able to do and that was by imposing an Oath on that People contrary to Law in these Words You shall swear to the utmost of your Power to Defend Assist and Maintain the King and his Successors in the Exercise of their Absolute Power And this I take Leave to say the King and Parliament could not impose upon the Subject because it was in it self a Subversion of the Constitution as being an Obligation to support a Power destructive to the whole Frame of the Government This Caprichio of the late King James was the Master-piece of all his Jesuited Counsels and the Finishing Stroke of an Eternal Vassalage for this Oath was created by his Arbitrary Power and his Arbitrary Power was to be supported by this Oath and both must grow together and run in an Endless Circle to the utter Extinction of all the Remains of our Natural Liberty or Legal Government And what was done in Scotland we have Reason to believe in its Course must have been exercis'd in England also the late King having no more or other Authority in one Kingdom than he has in the other and both then govern'd by the same Arbitrary Maxims and Popish Ministers In England the late King assuming a Dispensing power Usurp'd the whole Legislative Authority into his own Hands for to Dispense with Laws is as great a power as to make them and by the exercise of it invested himself with a power as great if not greater than that of King and Parliament together who can joyntly but not severally give any Resolve the Authority of a Law The pretences to justifie this Action was that he might have the assistance of all his Subjects and that the Papists having been equally Loyal to his Progenitors they might not be discourag'd by legal Discriminations This was but a light pretence tho' part of the Intrigue for his dispencing power was chiefly directed to another and more considerable purpose From the latter end of King Charles's Reign the Press was loaden with Pamphlets and City and Country fill'd with invectives against Parliaments as unnecessary Wenns in the Government that were fit to be cut off that the Royal Authority might be without any Legal or Pecuniary Restraint or Limitation Now the Dispencing Power would do this Work effectually for it put the whole Legislative Authority into the King's Hands and made Parliaments Useless and signifie Nothing For this End was it set up And the Employing Papists that were Unqualify'd by Law was for no other End but to support the Dispencing Power till it had accomplish'd what was intended by it Protestants could not be suppos'd to engage in this Design for the Law was made in their Favour and was their Security against Romish Persecutions and Depredations and therefore the late King would bring Papists into the Government to whom the Laws were Enemies that in requital they might be Enemies to to the Laws and stick at nothing to support their King's Power that made them what they were and would only continue them in their Advantageous Stations So that if that King should gain his Point there seem'd a kind of Mutual Necessity for the late King to Introduce Papists and for Papists to execute his Orders or the Power and the Officers would sink into their Original Nothing But the Snare is broken and we are Deliver'd Strong Desires are the Common Temptations to the Use of Ill Means and never did any Man grasp at the Power to do Mischief without the Purpose If ever there have been such mysterious Riddles of Irregular Vertue yet James the Second never gave any Instances of it for it plainly appear'd in him how effectually the Temptation of Unlimited Power work'd in his Ambitious Humour He never thought any thing Enough till he had ingross'd a Power to Ruin All and turn Old England into a Wilderness of New Confusions By this Dispencing Power he at once suspended above Forty Statures relalating to our Religion and the next Week by the same Arbitrary Power might have suspended Forty more that secur'd our Civil Properties likewise for he had no more Right to do the one than the other and so might have gone on to the End of the Chapter till he had Abrogated all the Laws in the Statute-Book and acted here as afterwards Doctor King tells us he did in Ireland * State of Ireland p. 92. Seize Men's Goods for his own Use by a File of Musqueteers or at best by his own Warrant without any kind of Legal Process and to which he had no other Claim but that he wanted them Now if this be not Tyranny nothing in the World can merit that Appellation and therefore
End agree with that of Popery which is to Exterminate Hereticks By the Law of Government we are Objects of Protection by the Law of Popery we are Subjects of Destruction The Prince receives from God and the Society a Power to protect his People but he receives from the Church his Mother an Order to destroy them as Condemn'd Hereticks And which of these two Orders think you shall prevail with a Popish King above the other Why thot in which he is most Concern'd and to which Eternal Recompences are inseparably annex'd And then in what a sad Condition were the Protestants of England in the Reign of the late King Thirdly Against 3. The Law of Royalty to which Popery in the Case suppos'd has an absolute Antipathy as will appear if you consider that all Royalty necessarily contains three Things viz. the Consent of the People engaging to obey the Consent of the King promising to protect and the Manner by which the King and People confirm their Promises which is a Religious Oath Now a Popish Prince that governs a Protestant People will be always wanting on his part of the Contract if he takes the Maxims of his own Religion for the Rule of his Government 'T is a Contradiction to believe he will act against his own Inclination or that he will cancel the Antecedent Obligation which he was under to the Church his Mother in preserving Hereticks that are not a People but a loose sort of Animals doom'd to Destruction Does the Prince break his Faith in not performing the Oath he took when Invested with his Kingly Authority and promis'd to protect his People No say the Directors of his Conscience The Oath was against the Laws of Holy Church therefore sinful and void Besides say they the Prince took the Oath with Intention to break it and the Intention must always govern the Action especially when it falls under the Church's General Rule of not keeping Faith with Hereticks 4. To dismiss this Argument Popery is particularly against the Laws of a Mix'd Monarchy such as England's is because the Prince believes he has a Right to treat Hereticks as he pleases and may lawfully take away their Lives and seize their Estates without doing them any kind of Injustice for being fallen from the Right of Society he can do them no Wrong Besides All Princes that attribute to themselves an Absolute Power think they owe an Account of their Actions to none but God and a Prince under the Circumstances that we have observed will never think he displeases God by destroying Hereticks * Durand a San. Port. quaest 5. utr sint tolerand that as their Writers say are Enemies to GOD and Man So that we see the Advancement of Popery in a Protestant Kingdom is a necessary Introduction of Tyranny and Intails a Law of Misery and Desolation upon all Protestants And such was King James's Design here Let no Man argue the Impossibility of Introducing Popery into this Kingdom because the Number of Papists are but small in respect of the Protestants for that will not render the Design Impracticable but rather make the Execution of it more cruel and barbarous A whole Nation upon the matter must be coâ—rupted from the Faith of the True Religion or be destroy'd You know what Progresses were made towards it by Tying all Preferments to Popery Unarming Protestants putting the whole Strength and Power of the Kingdom into the Hands of Papists and sending over Irish Soldiers to increase a needless and dangerous Army And what this might have grown to in time was easier to foresee than Remedy for an Ordinary Strength Unresisted might Assassinate a whole Nation Fifthly 5. In the Heat of the late King's Zeal and Fury to procure such a Parliament as might set up a Power and Interest agreeable to his Humour and destructive to the Kingdom Quo Warranto's like Bombs were thrown into Cities and Boroughs to destroy the Freedom of Elections which is the Foundation of Government for What will become of the Liberty of Parliaments without the Freedom of Elections And how can England enjoy their Privileges without the Freedom of Parliaments All which were to be violated at once by this Undermining Project and Persons must be imposed upon them for their Representatives in Parliament which were none of their Choice but Press'd by a Popish Court and solely at their King's Devotion Some are pleas'd to express themselves in very harsh Language against that which they call the Pentionary Parliament as more zealous for the Advantage of the Crown than the Welfare of the Kingdom But what dreadful Consequences might be predicted from a Parliament consisting both of Papists and Popish Pensioners if it had been possible for the late King to have accomplish'd his Designs are almost beyond the Power of Melancholy to suggest them in Figures black enough to express their Horrour The Choice of a Parliament that would do whatever he thought fit was the only thing wanting therefore all things were dispos'd and regulated after such a manner as might bring such a sort of Men together at Westminster as might gratifie his Popish Arbitrary Ends and Vote Protestants to be the main Grievance of the Nation 6. Another Intrigue of the late King 's was to Ruin the Kingdom by a Chain of Consequences and as the Destruction of the Liberties of England was the Overthrow of the Protestant Religion so he would make the Subversion of our Religion serve to destroy our Liberties This made him impatiently covet that Papists might be freed from the Penal Laws and Tests which were the Barriers to Defend the Nation from Romish Usurpation And this piece of Tyranny above all the rest is most notorious A Protestant Nation makes Laws to preserve themselves from being Victims of Popish Fury These Laws were necessary at all times but more especially under the Reign of a King that had been pleas'd to declare himself a Papist and yet these are the Laws that the late King would violate and not violate only but utterly * Non tam commutandarum sed evertendarum rerum cupidi Abolish and persecuted those who had a Zeal to preserve them Imprisoning some Destituting others and Threatning all without Exception that dar'd to gain-say it For this End he rais'd an Army kept it up in Time of Peace and put into it as many Irish as he could find of the Posterity of those who committed the Barbarous and Bloody Murthers and Massacres on the Bodies of English Protestants in 1641. and to do the like to us in England or force us to submit to the cruel Yoke of Slavery and Superstition 'T is natural for a Prince to Raise Forces for the Defence of his Dominions when he fears Enemies from abroad But to entertain an Army in Times of Peace only to Rob his People of their Laws and Privileges to Ravage his Universities and to put publick Destroyers into the Govent must surely pass for a manifest Tyranny Our
particular account of the Prince his successful and prosperous Expedition where there were so many Eye-Witnesses of that great and miraculous Providence that was visible in the progress thereof which was such as shew'd the undertaking to be acceptable to Almighty God who prospers the endeavours of Good Men but taketh the wicked in the Nets which they spread for the Innocent I shall therefore only tell the Reader that His Highness the Prince of Orange being happily and safely arriv'd in England He was Saluted and Welcom'd with all the demonstrations and transports of Joy and Gladness that an ill us'd Nation were able to Express under a sense of their Calamity and a hopeful prospect of Deliverance from a cruel Tyranny This Joy and Satisfaction daily increas'd as his Highness's Declaration was spread through the Kingdom For the Jesuits having loaded this Pious and Noble Expedition with all the Odium of Virulent Pens and Tongues his Highness's Declaration which shew'd the End of his coming was not with any design upon the Person of the late King Aspiring at his Crown or with any intention to subdue the Kingdom as had been maliciously suggested but purely that the Abuses and Grievances of the People Pathetically and Truly Enumerated in his Highness's Declaration might be Redress'd by a Parliament free in all its circumstances all Fears and Jealousies vanish'd and Men of all Qualities hasten'd to put themselves under the Auspicious Conduct of this Illustrious Prince that God in the Eternal Counsel of his Wisdom had Appointed to be the Glorious Deliverer of England Now let all Men judge of the Equity of his Highness's Demands and the Justice of his Proceedings His Own and his Princess's Right to the Succession of the Crown was like to be supplanted by a supposititious Child and a flourishing Kingdom in danger of Destruction and both evidently plainly and certainly so And can any Man think he ought to Renounce his Own and his Princess's Right and frustrate the Expectation of a whole Kingdom to which he was Allied by Blood Nature and all the sacred Obligations of Religion rather than disturb the progress of a Jesuitick Tyranny cover'd under Royal Authority Sure none in the World can think so Had this Illustrious Prince conceiv'd any Prejudice against this Unfortunate Monarch James II. Turn'd his Eye toward the Crown or would have seen England's Misery before the Oppress'd Subjects themselves Represented it to him and pray'd his Relief His Highness was not without an earlier * Defence de la Nation Britanique p. â—â— knowledge of it and Solicitations to do what at last Necessity compell'd him to For there are many yet alive in Germany Holland and England that very well remember how much his Highness was Importun'd at James the 2d's first coming to the Crown to make a Descent into England with a Force able to Redress the Affairs of that Country and prevent the inevitable Ruin which so openly threaten'd it This was known immediately after the Death of Charles the Second when one of the most powerful Princes of Europe having represented to his Highness that All was going to Ruin and would be utterly lost in England if a sudden Interposition of the Prince of Orange did not prevent its impending Destruction and therefore Offer'd him what Assistance was requisite for such a Noble and Pious Enterprize but that Puissant Prince receiv'd no other Answer but that his Highness was in hopes that God and that King 's own Interest would possess him with better Sentiments and therefore his Highness would Attempt nothing in that kind against the late King till he was forc'd to it by the last Extremity but if his hopes were disappointed and there was no other Remedy he would not be wanting in his Duty And God be prais'd his Highness at length in due time perform'd his Promise and Silenc'd all that declaim against it It cannot be imagin'd that his Highness was pleas'd to see the Efforts of the late King in abolishing the Penal Laws against Papists which were so essentially necessary to our Preservation nor can his Highness be thought easy at the sight of the late King 's climbing up a Precipice from which he must necessarily fall or by an Artificial and Politick Silence incourage K. James's Ministers to carry all things to such Extremities as might render his Conduct Odious for the Letter of Mr. Fagell upon this Subject will be an Eternal Monument of the Free and Sincere proceedings of his Highness with the late King in this whole Matter Much less can our Adversary deny that his Highness was Requested by the People to Defend their Religion Rights and Privileges for God Almighty to the eternal Confusion of our Enemies suffer'd themselves to declare it in a Memorial they publish'd to all the Confederate Princes with design to break the League they were so much afraid of for after they had in that paper undecently treated his Highness and menac'd him with I know not how many Tragical Stories they yet acknowledge that He was Invited by the Nation Nor could his Highness hinder the Lords and other Persons of the best Quality in England from shewing their Grievances and Imploring his Gracious Succor when the Extremities they were under compell'd them to it and also told Him that if his Highness refus'd them they would enter into their Natural Right and Defend themselves by their own strength against a Power which was become as they declar'd to his Highness in their Memorial a Power of Destruction Let our Adversaries now tell us if the Case was not very Important and whether the Prince of Orange ought to have contemn'd the just Fears of the English and all the Protestants of Europe who are imbark'd in the same Interest and Danger and have slighted all the Princes that either by themselves or by their Ministers perswaded his Highness to enter upon an Action on which depended the Common Safety of Europe I don't believe they dare say after all the Facts we have enumerated that his Highness ought to contemn the Publick or dispute Matters of so great Notoriety but if the English Fears were well grounded and their Oppressions True and Real and that if his Highness could not perswade himself from being of the same Opinion with the rest of the World that he could refuse to assist those that requested it in such a pressing necessity and on an Occasion where Providence appear'd so expresly for our Deliverance and which if neglected perhaps could never be Retriev'd Now let the French Missionaries or their English Pupils produce their Fine Reasons and tell us if his Highness ought to forget his God his Religion the Rights of his Princess his Own the Liberty of England and of Holland which must Infallibly share in the Misfortunes and Depredations of England the Protestant Religion breathing its last and all Europe in danger of losing its Liberty Let them also tell us if they can whether the Respects due to a Father
Consideration of Affairs Abroad which makes it fit for you to expedite your Business not only for making a Settlement at home upon a good Foundation but for the Safety of all Europe The Lords having declar'd by a Vote of that House That Popery was Inconsistent with the Government of England the Commons upon the 28th of January passed the following Vote viz. Resolved THat King James the Second having endeavour'd to Subvert the Constitution of this Kingdom by breaking the Original Contract between King and People and by the Advice of Jesuits and other Wicked Persons having withdrawn himself out of this Kingdom hath Abdicated the Government and that the Throne is thereby Vacant This Vote occasion'd several Conferences between the two Houses of Lords and Commons in the Painted Chamber at Westminster the Substance whereof as they are transmitted * 〈◊〉 Debate at large between the House of Lords and House of Câ—â—â—â—â—â— to us will be occasionally produc'd in the Sequel But on the 7th of February the Lords sending a Message to the Commons that they had Agreed to the Vote sent them up on the 28th of January last without any Alterations on the 12th of February following both Houses Unanimously Agreed to Declare as followeth The Declaration of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons Assembled at Westminster VVHereas the late King James the Second by the Assistance of divers Evil Counsellors Judges and Ministers employ'd by him did endeavour to Subject and Extirpate the Protestant Religion and the Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom By Assuming and Exercising a Power of Dispencing with and Suspending of Laws and the Execution of Laws without Consent of Parliament By Committing and Persecuting divers Worthy Prelates for humbly Petitioning to be excus'd from Concurring to the said Assumed Power By Issuing and Causing to be Executed a Commission under the Broad Seal for Erecting a Court call'd The Court of Commission for Ecclesiastical Affairs By Levying Money for and to the Use of the Crown by Pretence of Prerogative for other Time and in other Manner than the same was Granted by Parliament By Raising and Keeping a Standing Army within the Kingdom in Time of Peace without Consent of Parliament and Quartering of Soldiers contrary to Law By Causing several good Subjects being Protestants to be Dis-arm'd at the same time when Papists were both Arm'd and Employ'd contrary to Law By Violating the Freedom of Elections of Members to Serve in Parliament By Prosecutions in the Court of King's Bench for Matters and Causes Cognizable only in Parliament and by divers other Arbitrary and Illegal Courses And whereas of late Years Partial Corrupt and Unqualify'd Persons have been Return'd and Serv'd on Juries in Trials and particularly divers Jurors Serv'd in Trials for High Treason which were not Free-holders And Excessive Bail had been Required of Persons Committed in Criminal Causes to Elude the Benefit of the Laws made for the Liberty of the Subject And Excessive Fines have been Impos'd And Illegal and Cruel Punishments Inflicted And several Grants and Promises made of Fines and Forfeitures before any Conviction or Judgment against the the Persons upon whom the same were to be Levy'd All which are utterly and directly contrary to the known Laws and Statutes and Freedom of this Realm And whereas the late King James the Second having Abdicated the Government and the Throne being thereby Vacant His Highness the Prince of Orange whom it hath pleas'd Almighty God to make the Glorious Instrument of Delivering this Kingdom from Popery and Arbitrary Power did by the Advice of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and divers Principal Persons of the Commons cause Letters to be written to the Lords Spiritual and Temporal being Protestants and other Letters to the several Counties Cities Universities Boroughs and Cinque-Ports for the Choosing such Persons to represent them as were of Right to be sent to Parliament to Meet and Sit at Westminster upon the 22th Day of January 1688. in order to such an Establishment as that their Religion Laws and Liberties might not again be in danger of being Subverted Upon which Letters Elections have been made And thereupon the said Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons pursuant to their respective Letters and Elections being now Assembl'd in a Full and Free Representative of this Nation taking into their most Serious Consideration the best Means for attaining the Ends aforesaid do in the first place as their Ancestors in like Cases have formerly done for the Vindicating and Asserting their Antient Rights and Liberties Declare That the Pretended Power of Suspending of Laws or the Execution of Laws by Regal Authority without Consent of Parliament is Illegal That the Pretended Power of Dispencing with Laws or the Exercise of Laws by Regal Authority as has been Assum'd and Practis'd of late is Illegal That the Commission for Erecting the late Court of Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes and all other Commissions and Courts of the like nature are Illegal and Pernicious That Levying of Money to or for the Use of the Crown by Pretence of Prerogative without Grant of Parliament for a longer Time or in other Manner than the same is or shall be Granted is Illegal That it is the Right of the Subject to Petition the King and all Commitments and Prosecutions for such Petitioning is Illegal That the Raising or Keeping a Standing Army within the Kingdom in Time of Peace unless it be by Consent of Parliament is against Law That the Subjects being Protestants may have Arms for their Defence suitable to their Condition and as Allow'd by Law That the Election of Members of Parliament ought to be Free That the Freedom of Speech and Debates or Proceedings in Parliament ought not to be Impeach'd or Question'd in any Court or Place out of Parliament That Excessive Bail ought not to be Requir'd nor Excessive Fines Impos'd nor Cruel and Unusual Punishments Inflicted That Jurors ought to be duly Impannell'd and Return'd and Jurors which Pass upon Men in Trials for High Treason ought to be Free-Holders That all Grants and Promises of Fines and Forfeitures of particular Persons before Conviction are Illegal and Void That for Redress of all Grievances and for the Amending Strengthening and Preserving of the Laws Parliaments ought to be held frequently And they do Claim Demand and Insist upon all and singular the Premisses as their Undoubted Rights and Liberties and that no Declarations Judgments Doings or Proceedings to the Prejudice of the People in any of the said Premisses ought in any wise to be drawn hereafter into Consequence or Example To which Demand of their Rights they are particularly Encourag'd by the Declaration of His Highness the Prince of Orange as being the only Means for Obtaining a full Redress and Remedy therein Having therefore an Entire Confidence that His said Highness the Prince of Orange will perfect the Deliverance so far advanc'd by him and will still preserve them from the Violation of their Rights
As for his Departure out of the Kingdom tho' I have already prov'd it was a Plot of his own laying in hopes to Involve the Nation in greater Confusions than his own Conduct had already reduc'd it to yet in this Case 't is not material whether it was Voluntary or Involuntary since his Withdrawing himself was but a Continuation of his former Actings wherein he declar'd he would not govern by those Laws that made him King of England and was an express Renunciation of his Regal Authority To say that Abdication implies a Formal Renunciation by Deed is to mistake the Case for in the Common Law of England and in the Civil Law and in Common Acceptation there are Express Acts of Renunciation that are not by Deeds * Debate between Lords and Commons pag. 35 36. The Government and Magistracy are under a Trust and Acting contrary to that Trust is a Renunciation of that Trust tho' it be not a Renouncing by a Formanl Deed for it is a plain Declaration by Act and Deed tho' not in Writing that he who hath the Trust and acting contrary is a Disclaimer of the Trust especially if the Actings be such as are Inconsistent with and Subversive of this Trust For how can a Man in Reason or Sense express a greater Renunciation of a Trust than by the constant Declarations of his Actions to be quite contrary to that Trust and therefore must be constru'd an Abdication and Formal Resignation of it That a King may Renounce his Kingship may be made out by Law and Fact as well as any other Renunciation And that it may and hath been will be no Difficulty to to make out by Instances in all Countries not only where the Crown is or was Elective but also where it was Hereditary and Successive * Debate aforesaid p. 76. If a King will Resign or Renounce he may do so as particularly Charles the First did 'T is an Act of the Will and consequently in his Power to do as he thinks fit And the late King gave manifest Declarations of his Resolutions to do it in several Instances as has been particularly shew'd already Grotius and all other Authors that treat of this Matter and the Nature of it do agree That if there be any Word or Action that does sufficiently manifest the Intention of the Mind and Will to part with his Office that will amount to an Abdication or Renouncing Now had King James the Second came into †Idem p. â—7 â—8 an Assembly of Lords and Commons in Parliament and expressed himself in Writing or Words to this purpose I was born an Heir to the Crown of England which is a Government limited by Laws made in full Parliament by King Nobles and Commonalty and upon the Death of my last Predecessor I am in Possession of the Throne and now I find I cannot make Laws without the Consent of the Lords and Representatives of the Commons in Parliament I cannot suspend Laws that have been so made without the Consent of my People This indeed is the Title of Kingship I hold by Original Contract and the Fundamental Constitution of the Government and my Succession to and Possession of the Crown on these Terms is part of that Contract This part of the Contract I am Weary of I do Renounce it I will not be oblig'd to observe it I will not execute the Laws that have been made nor suffer others to be made as my People shall desire for their Security in Religion Liberty and Property which are the two main Parts of the Kingly Office in this Nation I say suppose he had so express'd himself doubtless this had been a plain Renouncing of that Legal Regular Title which came to him by Descent If then he by particular Acts such as are enumerated in the Vote of the Convention of the 27th of January he has declar'd as much or more than these Words can amount to then he has thereby Declar'd his Will to Renounce the Government He has by the Acts before-mention'd manifestly declar'd that he will not govern according to the Laws made nay he cannot do so for he is under a strict Obligation yea the strictest and Superiour to that of the Original Compact between King and People to Act contrary to the Laws or to Suspend them This did amount to a manifest Declaration of his Will that he would no longer retain the Exercise of his Kingly Power as it was Limited and Restrain'd and sufficiently declar'd his Renouncing the very Office And his Actings declar'd quo Animo that he went away because he could no longer pursue nor accomplish what he design'd and was so strongly oblig'd to that the Splendour of three Crowns could never divert him from it It was an Abdication in the highest Instances Not a particular Law was violated but he fell upon the whole Constitution in the very Foundation of the Legislature Not only particular Persons were injur'd but the whole Frame of the Kingdom the Protestant Religion and our Laws and Liberties were all in danger of being Subverted And which aggravates the Circumstances the late King himself who had the Administration Intrusted to him was the Author and Agent in it And when he cold no longer afflict us himself went away with Design to obtain Foreign Forces to compel our Submission to his Arbitrary Power Now because the late King had thus Violated the Constitution by which the Law stood as the Rule both of the King's Government and the People's Obedience therefore it was judg'd an Abdication to all Intents and Purposes and that by his Abdication the Throne became Vacant Nothing less than Things grown to such Extremities could warrant these Proceedings for God forbid every Violation of the Law or Deviation from it should be accounted an Abdication of the Government The Thoughts of such a Severity upon * Debate between the Lords and Common pag. 86. Crown'd Heads is abhorr'd by all Good Men. For when a King breaks the Laws in some few particular Instances it is sufficient to take an Account of it from those Ill Ministers that were Instrumental in it Why such a thing was done contrary to Law Why such a Law was not put in Execution by them whose Duty it was to see it done In Ordinary Cases of Breaking the Laws you have Remedy in Ordinary Courts of Justice and in Extraordinary Cases in the Extraordinary Court of Parliamentary Proceedings But in our Case where we were left without Redress the Malefactor being both a Party and Judge of his own Breaches of Law made Extream Remedies absolutely necessary and has been always practis'd upon the like Emergencies For The Great Council or Assembly of the Estates of this Kingdom from the first Institution of the Government had an Inherent Right to Assemble themselves in all Cases of Necessity such as Abdications Depositions Disputable Titles to the Crown Setling the Successions and to supply the Vacancy of the Throne as the
King of Poland that if he broke his Oath and violated the Laws the People of that Kingdom should not be oblig'd to pay him Obedience and these two Cases are Parallel in Fact with the late King James's in Deserting the Kingdom of England The Fundamental Laws of Hungary * Bonfin decad 4. lib. 9. C. 11. Restrain and Limit the Power of their Kings by a Coronation Oath expresly conditional and have given so many Instances of their Right to Depose them * Chalcondil Hist l. 2. p. 120. that 't were lost labour to Recite them having refer'd to the Authors that Treat on that Subject In Spain we find Peter of Castile Depos'd for a Suppositious Birth and Philip of Arragon for Incontinency Indeed the Nobility and Commonality of that Kingdom have formerly took such a Power and Liberty in Censuring the Actions and Deposing their Kings for slight and trivial Causes that they are not fit to be reckon'd among the material Instances of other Nations in cases of Certain and extreme Necessity In the ancient Kingdoms of Denmark * Pontanus l. 8. c. 9. Sweden and Norway which are all of Gothic Original the meanest people had a Voice in the Elections of their Kings and if mistaken in their Choice they Depos'd him and chose another still giving preference to the Royal Family if there were any of them qualify'd Sometimes they wholly neglected that Method and Elected the Brave and Valiant Hero that had signaliz'd his Kindness and Courage in the Expulsion of a Tyrant and Rescuing their Privileges out of the hands of an Oppressor And sometimes they chose a private Person whose Eminent Parts and Probity had mark'd out as worthy of that Dignity which himself ne're thought on Give me leave to give you a Remarkable Instance in the Kingdom of Sweden of the Tyranny of an Absolute Monarch Christern the Second King of Denmark obtain'd the Crown of Sweden by Conquest and looking upon the Ancient Privileges of those Subjects as Inconsistent with his Royal Dignity quickly came to Resolutions of destroying of the Senators and Principal Noble-men that he thought Enemies of his Imperial Arbitrary Power and to facilitate the execution of his barbarous Decree he put on a Kinder Visage than he commonly wore suffering no Cloud to possess his Royal Brow but appear'd in shew of Respect and Kindness that he might oblige them to trust that before suspected him Under this Visor of Friendship and Affability he invites the Lords to a magnificent Feast at Stockholm where two days together they were splendidly treated and the third day basely Murther'd This surprizing bloody start from a King to a Tyrant so terrify'd the Nation that it put them upon freeing themselves and whilst they were revolving various Means to Accomplish it a Deliverer appears in the Person of Gustavus Ericson descended from the Ancient Kings of Sweden and Nephew to King Canutson who so effectually check'd the Tyrant that Christern who had Abdicated the Government by his continued Tyranny was so Hated by his Subjects Deserted by his Soldiers and beaten by his Rival that he consummated his Abdication by flying out of the Kingdom and Gustavus the Generous Deliverer by a Convention of the Estates * Peterson in Chronic. Holsat l. 8. was Elected and Crown'd King of Sweden which he Govern'd happily all the days of his Life I am sensible that some will tell me that things are now otherwise than I have related of Denmark and that the Government there is an Absolute Monarchy to which I reply Let them take it for their pains I did not speak of things as they are now perverted by Fear and Force but as they were Originally constituted and dare promise him that will give himself the pleasure of reading the English History of the State of that Kingdom he will not think the Model ought to be transported into England Portugal by telling Alphonsus the Third that if he would not adict himself to the Affairs of the * History Portual in Reign Alphons 3. l. 6. and Ordin Portugal 17. l. 2. Sect. 3. 4. 5. 6. Kingdom the Estates of the Realm would Depose him and Elect another King and by Banishing their late Monarch for the barbarous Effect of his Frenzy have fully declar'd their Opinions in that Matter When the Kings of France abus'd their Authority that Nation afferted their Right as in Deposing Childeric Father of * Greg. Tower l. 2. c 11. Clowis and in the same manner proceeded against another Childeric in the Eighth Century And if we descend to the Race of Charles the Great their Histories will inform us that Louis Surnam'd The Good was Dopos'd by a General Assembly of the Estates at Thionville and the Articles on which they proceeded to his Deposition are to be read in Baronius and du Chesne le Comte After him the Estates Depos'd Charles the Gross and Charles the Simple and stood so much upon their Right to do it that when in another Instance they were threatned by Pope Adrian the Second with Excommunication they sent him word They would defend their Privileges and their Liberties unto Death In the Second Race of their Kings notwithstanding Charles of Lorrain was * Guil. de Nanz. ad an 987. Heir to Lewis the Fifth and consequently ought to have enjoy'd the Crown of France yet the Estates laid him aside for no other Reason but because he was suspected to be in the German Interest who were Enemies to France and gave the Crown to Hugh Capet Henry the Third that had been Depos'd in Poland was also Depos'd in France by Advice of the Sorbonne and the greatest part of the Estates When Theodore the Second attempted to make himself Master of the Lives and Estates of his Subjects they â—â—se against him Depos'd him Shav'd him thrust him into a Monastery and plac'd his Brother Chilpric in the Throne In the Time of Charles the Simple mention'd before finding him unfit to encounter the Insults of the Normans the Estates conferr'd the Soverignty on Lewis and Charlemain who tho' of the same Blood had not the same Right to the Crown And 't is but consulting their own * Important Maxims publish'd by Mr. Joly in 1663 Can. d' Egles Paris Histories to shew that that Nation was always in Possession of the Right of Explaining Limiting Extending and Altering the Succession as often as their Circumstances requir'd it And truly I cannot but wonder the French Jesuits who in favour of the late King James have so slovenly Rail'd against our †Pere d'Orleans Hist Revol d'Angleterre Convention of Estates for Deposing him dare bespatter the Judgment of their Infallible Pope Zachary whose Opinion being ask'd by the French Lords about the Lawfulness of Deposing King Childeric answer'd That the French were discharg'd of their Oath of Fidelity to Childeric since he had not acquitted himself towards them as he had solemnly promised the Nature of Conditional Contracts
being such that where one Party does not perform his Covenant the other are absolv'd from theirs Which Advice being approv'd the Lords and Great Men of the Kingdom Assemble at Soissons Depose Childeric and Elect Pepin to be their King But above all I am amaz'd to hear the * Advice de Refugies p. 60. French Missionaries and other Writers so openly and scandalously Declaim against Dethroning Kings when the very Monarch that now enjoys the Crown of France wears the Crown in Consequence and by Right of such Depositions Nay It would be no hard matter to prove that almost all the Governments in the World owe their Settlements to Conventions of Estates Assembl'd and Authoriz'd by a Necessity of providing for the Publick Safety So that the Conventional Parliament of England in Deposing James the Second made no Incroachment upon the Rights of Kings nor Violation of the Law of God of Nature or the Law of Nations but agreeably to all these Laws Asserted their own Rights in taking more Care for the Safety of a whole Kingdom than the Pretentions of a Single Person who endeavour'd to destroy it And in this they did but follow the Practice of former Ages in their own Country as will appear by and by in the following Examples God has invested Kings with a Power to do Justice but not to commit Violences and therefore when they wilfully convert their Authority into a Power of Destruction as James the Second did Subjects have a Right by the Law of Nature to Repel Force by Force for the Necessity of Publick Safety is a Law so Sacred that it Abolisheth all others that oppose it and Justifies all the Revolutions and Settlements in the World that are built upon that Foundation It is the First and greatest Obligation of Mankind to procure and promote the Welfare of the Body whereof they are Members which if every one would think himself oblig'd to do there would be a Circulation of Safety and Prosperity through the whole * Eâque lege notus sis ut ea habeas principia naturae quibus parere quae semper sequi debeas ut utilitas tua communis utilitas sit vicissimque communis utilitas tua sit Cicero lib. 3. expresseth this to the Life in saying That we are born under a Law and instructed by the Principles of Nature that oblige us to prefer the Common Good before our own so that at length the Common Good may be our own Advantage also With a single Respect to this Common and Mutual Good the Light of Reason shining in Wiser Heathens which yet shines brighter in Christians exalted by Revelation dictated the Necessity of Government as an Instrument without which it could not possibly be attain'd Fair Useful Just and Equal Rules of Conversation were by Common Consent agreed on and some One or More Persons Renown'd for Wisdom Probity and Courage were Intrusted and Impower'd to Inforce as Occasion should require the Community to observe them Which Ruler was bound by Mutual Compact to govern by the Rules agreed on and under that Condition the People gave their Oaths to obey him So that those People that think themselves bound by their Oaths to an Absolute Obedience to their Prince without Reserve forget that the Rulers Office is merely Relative to their People's Welfare and they also forget their first Obligation to seek the Good of the Community If a Ruler act contrary to his Trust by setting aside the Laws of the Constitution made and agreed on by Prince and People as necessary for the Conservation of every Individual Person and by excercising an Arbitrary Power of his Own Erecting evidently seeks the Ruin of that Body he ought to preserve the Necessary Defence of themselves is no Offence against the Nature of Government which was Originally Instituted for the Preservation and not for the Destruction of the Society and therefore cannot be looked upon as Criminal The Judgment of the great Melancton concerning Government in his Exposition on the Fifth Commandment will clear this Point In regard saith he something will go amiss in every Society for the Love of Peace we must bear with many Faults of our Princes and so long as they design well in the main tho' they fall into Mistakes we ought to bear them with Patience and hide their Frailties as much as possibly we can But of a Tyrant he says a few Lines before * Nec praetextu operis Divini excusanda aut tuenda sunt vitia nec propter loci dignitatem tolerandae sunt manifestae Atroces injuriae impietates flagitiosae libidines Tyrannorum sine fine grassantium sed reliqua politia cui Deus gladium dedit recte facit cum Caligulas Nerones similia portenta removent a Gubernatione That the Pretence of a Divine Right can neither excuse or justifie his Crimes nor the Dignity of his Office tolerate him to exercise a Wicked and Wilful Tyranny but when his Impieties and Injuries to his People are evident and unsufferable the Powers to whom God hath in such an Extremity committed the Sword to protect and deliver an Oppress'd Nation may remove him from the Government as the Romans did Caligula Nero and other Monsters of Cruelty who were not only Enemies to the Commonwealth but to all Mankind Indeed when an Absolute Government hath for the Sins of the People taken firm Rooting which Thanks be to God was not England's Case I deny not but such as were born under it ought to be content with their Servile Condition till Heaven is prevail'd with by their Prayers and Piety to release them from Thraldom But in a Free Estate the Case stands as is before rehears'd Polanus in proposing the Question whether we ought to obey an Absolute and Tyrannical Prince exactly answers the Case of England under the Reign of the late King James saying We must distinguish between an Absolute and a Limited Monarchy in the former it must be born with because the Prince does but exercise his own Authority like Nebuchadnezzar But Sed si Rex seu Princeps habeat limitatum adstrictum certis conditionibus in quas juravit seu quas se promisit servaturum Penes Status aut Primores Regni seu Principatus est coercere Regis seu Principis Tyrannidem immanitatem Syntag. lib. 10. cap. 62. if the King or Prince governs in a Limited Monarchy where he receives his Crown on certain Conditions which he promises and swears to observe but instead of it breaks his Oath and sets up a Despotick Power unknown to the Constitution and Inconsistent with the Safety of it the Estates of the Kingdom may depose him from his Royal Dignity And this is Melancton's meaning also as may be collected from his Words already cited cui Deus gladium dedit to whom God hath given the Authority The Case thus stated makes England unconcern'd in the Deep Submissions of the Primitive Christians who tho'
Injury So that the Inference from these Premisses will utterly overthrow the Objection of our Adversaries in favour of the late King James For if a Patron that out of a Principle of Cruelty exposeth the Life of his Slave makes a Forfeiture of his Property in him much more may a Prince for the same Reason forfeit all his Interest in his Free-born Subjects And if a Natural Father who seeks the Destruction of his Son does therefore lose all just Claim to that Son's Obedience much more may a Prince who is but a Casul Political Father and is invested with that Relation only by Agreement and Compact may a Fortiori for the same Reason make a just Forfeiture and lose all just Claim to the Obedience of his Political Children So that the Convention of the Estates Assembl'd at Westminster in Deposing the late King and conferring the Crown upon our Gracious King William the Third have done nothing against the late King James but what they were necessitated to do and what they are justify'd in doing by the greatest Authorities in the Christian World At the late King 's Going off and making no manner of Provision for the Administration of the Government the Nation seem'd to be in the same Condition they were in when the Original Contract was first made and the same Care was requisite to settle the Distracted Affairs of the Realm under that Confusion wherein he left it as if we never had been bless'd with any Settlement at all and consequently the Convention upon the Vacancy of the Throne had Power to Model Things as the present Circumstances of the Publick exacted without being confin'd to the Presidents of former Ages and yet so great was the Modesty of that Venerable Assembly and their Care to prevent Innovations that they did nothing but what had been already done upon the like Occasion many Hundred Years before How the Clergy the Barons and the Commons deported themselves towards King John five Hundred Years ago and Deposing him and Electing Lewis of France I have already acquainted you and therefore shall say no more here than that the Grounds of their Proceedings were for Re-gaining those Franchises that were notoriously invaded by that Arbitrary Prince and are contain'd in the Great Charter of England King Edward the Second tracing the same Arbitrary Methods the Barons send him word That * Trussell 's Hist p. 2â—6 unless he put away Peirce Gaveston that corrupted his Counsels and squander'd his Revenue and also addicted himself to Govern by the Laws of the Land they would with one Consent Rise in Arms against him as a Perjur'd Person And so they did and Beheaded his Minion Gaveston notwithstanding the King 's earnest Sollicitation for his Life The same Fate attended the Spencers And a Parliament being call'd without his Consent at length himself was Depos'd who confess'd the Sentence of his Deposition was just that he was sorry he had so offended the State as they should utterly Reject him but gave the Parliament Thanks that they were so * Trussell 's Hist p. 218. gracious to him as to Elect his Eldest Son their King King Richard the Second being laps'd into the same Misfortune of Affecting a Tyrannical Government the Lords and Commons declare unto him then at Eltham That †Knighton An. 1386. in case he would not be govern'd by the Laws Statutes and Laudable Customs and Ordinances of the Realm and the Wholsome Advice of the Lords and Peers but in a Head-strong Way would exercise his own Will they would Depose him from his Regal Throne and promote some Kinsman of his of the Royal Family to the Throne of the Kingdom in his stead But this Warning having no Effect at length a Parliament is Call'd without the King's Consent or Approbation by Henry Duke of Lancaster They requir'd him to Resign his Crown which tho' he condescended to and actually perform'd it as directed yet the * Trussell l. 2. p. 43. Parliament then Sitting thinking this Abdication not sufficient to build upon because the Writing might be the Effect of Fear and so not Voluntary and Spontaneous they thereupon proceed to a Formal Deposition in the Names of all the Commons of England upon the Articles Exhibited against him which consisted of Twenty nine Particulars and the greatest part of them relating to the Affairs of that Time in which this Age is not concern'd I have contracted them into a narrower Compass than in the Trussell's Hist Original without omitting any thing that is material and are what follows viz. That King Richard the Second wasted the Treasure of the Realm That he Impeach'd several Great Lords of High Treason that Acted for the Good of the Kingdom by Order of Parliament That he perverted the Course of Justice and took away the Lives and Estates of certain Noble-Men without Form of Law That he affirm'd All Law lay in his Head and Breast and that all the Lives and Estates of his Subjects were in his Hands to dispose of at pleasure That he put out divers Knights and Burgesses Legally Elected and put in others of his own Choice to serve his Turn That he Rais'd Taxes contrary to Law and his own Oath And Banish'd the Archbishop of Canterbury without Just Cause or Legal Judgment pronounc'd against him For these Reasons he was formally Depos'd by Parliament who at the same time Consented that Henry Duke of Lancaster should be Crown'd King tho' the Right of Blood was in Edmund Earl of March because now Henry the Fourth had signaliz'd himself in Delivering the Nation from the Tyranny of Richard the Second And after the same manner tho' with a more Free and Absolute Election proceeded the late Convention of Estates in Deposing James the Second and filling the Vacant Throne with our present Monarch William the Third who under God was the Glorious and Happy Instrument of Freeing England from the Tyranny of the late King These Proceedings I have already prov'd to be consentaneous to all Laws And to confirm it shall only add That amongst all the Unfortunate Princes that have been laid aside by their Subjects none were more justly Dethron'd than James the Second We read of some Princes that were Depos'd because they were Infected with the Leprosie but I think none will pretend that Leprosie under the Law was as Incompatible with the Government as Tyranny and Setting up of Idolatry was at this Juncture for that Disease was not in the power of Oziah to help but Tyranny was the Efflux of the late King 's Arbitrary Will and the Gratification of his Sensual Appetite Besides Leprosie is but a Disease in the Body but Tyranny in the Soul Leprosie was but a Ceremonial Evil but according to this manner of Speaking Tyranny is a Moral Evil. Leprosie does but infect Tyranny destroys King Childeric of France was Depos'd for Slothfulness and neglecting the Affairs of the Kingdom and it it must be acknowledg'd this shameful
Unanimous Vote and Universal Election of the People Confirm'd and Recogniz'd by the same Authority and Law of England by which all his Royal Predecessors enjoy'd the Imperial Crowns of these Kingdoms besides the Undoubted Right of his Excellent Princess and his own Right of Blood and that the Submission of the People and Determination of the Estates of the Kingdom grounded not only upon the Supream Law of Publick Good but also upon the Known and Declar'd Positive Laws and Constitutions of this Government as there has been Occasion in all Ages from the first Foundation of this Limited Monarchy and that this is Conclusive to all Private Subjects Yet because we ought to Resolve Cases here that may stand with the Reason of Mankind when they are debated abroad and that some that have writ on the Behalf of the Government by their weak and precarious Arguments have set up divers Titles that make it look like a Fanciful Chimera or built upon a Sandy or Fictitious Bottom and have more disparag'd the Revolution by their Impertinencies than all that have exercis'd their Pens or Spleens against it I crave Leave to be a little more particular upon it The Crown of England as placed on the Head of our Dread Sovereign William the Third stands Firm and Immoveable there on the Right of the Case and the Reason of the Thing without the Props of Art Oratory or Learning to support it Shuffling between Providential Settlement Conquest and Topping Protections of Power scandalize the King 's Legal Title and mis-lead his Subjects Let but the Matter express it self plainly and it will carry an Entire Conviction and Satisfaction with it in its own Genuine Phrase and Designment 'T is truly and plainly stated in the Prince of Orange's Declaration and is neither more nor less than what briefly follows James the Second directly contrary to his Coronation-Oath breaks through all the Establish'd Laws of the Land Invades and Subverts the Religious and Civil Rights Liberties Privileges and Properties of his Subjects which he solemnly Swore to Protect and Defend and in an Arbitrary and Tyrannical Manner Dissolves the Constitution of Church and State by Usurping a Power unknown to the Constitution and as Inconsistent with it as Light with Darkness His Subjects perceiving All going to Ruin having first us'd all Means to Reclaim him but to no purpose Assume their Natural Right in Defence of their Laws their Lives their Religion and to preserve them Entire oppose the Violent and Arbitrary Methods of the late King and apply themselves to the Prince of Orange our now Gracious King who had a Just Expectation of a Right to the Crown and humbly pray His Highness to assist them in Recovering and Defending their Legal Rights together with his own Title to the Succession both apparently Invaded and endeavouring to be Destroy'd by Clandestine Methods This Illustrious Prince gives the People Assistance and by the Blessing of God and the Mutual Appearance of the Nation for their Self-Defence and Preservation James the Second Conscious of his own Guilt in endeavouring to subvert the Constitution and breaking the Original Contract between King and People and that by the Advice of Jesuits and other Wicked People he had Violated the Fundamental Laws and thereby Abdicated the Government he leaves the Kingdom Upon which Vacancy of the Throne His Highness the Prince of Orange together with his Royal Consort of ever Blessed Memory the next Indisputable Heir to the Crown in a Full and Free Representation of the whole Community and Body of the Kingdom is and are Declar'd and Constituted King and Queen of England c. Now since 't is visible that the late King James was fled and that it was absolutely necessary the Government should be supply'd and some other King plac'd in the Throne who accepting the Crown upon the Conditions tender'd with it would give Assurance of Governing by the Laws of the Constitution and secure our Happiness under him there can remain no reasonable Objection against his Title Besides His Sacred Majesty King William the Third in a more especial manner is God's King as being appointed by his Providence by whom Kings Reign assisted by his Almighty Power and the Glorious Instrument in his Hand to Enterprize and Accomplish such a Deliverance as in common Gratitude without Respect to other Right in all Nations of the World has been constantly Rewarded with a Crown and more particularly in England upon that Respect Alone has justly meritted the Sovereignty His present Majesty is also God's King as being the Wise and Valiant Champion of all the Reformed Churches in Europe and who with his Sword his Head and Heart fights for Christ's Religion and to rescue the Professors of it from mighty Combinations to destroy them Root and Branch In which Great and Glorious Work God Almighty has signally own'd him as his Anointed King in preserving his Sacred Person in the Open Dangers of Wars and from the many Close and Barbarous Conspiracies of Ingrateful Regicides He is also the People's King as being their Voluntary Choice when they had no King and Establish'd by those Laws that were of their own making and the Precedents of their Fore-Fathers on the like Occasions For to rise no higher than the Norman Race William the Second Henry the First King John King Stephen Henry the Fourth Henry the Fifth Henry the Sixth and Henry the Seventh had no other Title but the Consent Election of the People and a Parliamentary Recognition of their Rights But King William the Third 's Right is not only Recogniz'd by a Statute-Law but his Person and Right is Guarded by an Act of Assotiation wherein all his Subjects have oblig'd themselves to Defend him with their Lives and Fortunes and to Revenge the Injury of his Person upon all the Agressors And what could be more done to declare his Right and engage our Obedience 'T is the Rarity of these Things happening and a general Ignorance in the History of Precedent Times that makes such Proceedings seem strange and unaccountable to those who have been Nurs'd up in Slavish Notions and apprehend not the Necessity of those Overtures against King James the Second and Supplying the Throne by the Coronation of William the Third For Our present King William came into as Empty a Throne as the late King James himself did a Civil Death in the Eye of the Law making as effectual a Vacancy as a Natural Death and therefore King William had the same Forms of Investiture as if his Abdicated Predecessor had left the World as well as his Native Country Why then should Men create themselves Trouble or disquiet their own and other Men's Consciences by Vexatious Disputes against the Divine Will Positive Laws and the Concurrence of a whole Nation Solomon was not David's Heir and yet he Reigned and was Obey'd with good Conscience Joram was Ahab's Son but Jehu succeeded King Joram had a Right from Ahab but Jehu from God