which are the great Bulwark of the Kingdom had been intermitted for sixteen years at length when no man did expect one is called but suddenly dissolved Yet the Scots entred with a puissant Army into the Kingdom made a necessity of calling a second which is summoned confirmed by an act of continuance acts high makes great demands continues long Yet it 's deserted by the King and many of the Members opposed by an Army defends it self undertakes the King in England Scotland Ireland It maker a new broad Seal having formerly seized upon the Navy and the Ports recruits it self by new Elections Then they fall out with the Army after that they are divided amongst themselves In the end follows the seclusion of many of the Members and the remnant act and by the Army and the Navy doth great things but at last even this remnant by this Army is totally routed and dissolved This is that long-sitting Parliament which some say might have been good Physick but proved bad Diet. Never Parliament of England varied more never any more opposed never any suffered more never any acted higher never any effected greater things It made an end of Kings and new model'd the Government 3. The King deserting the Parliament set up his Royal Standard and is opposed fought beaten finally and totally conquered delivered by the Scots into the Parliaments hands is confined secured as a guilty person tried judged condemned to death executed His Family and Children banished and disinherited of the Crown wander in foreign Countries and many great Ones suffered and fell with him Many foreign States stood amazed when they saw the potent Prince and Monarch of three Kingdoms reigning in greater power and splendour than ever any of his Predecessours cast down so suddenly from the heighth of his excellency laid in the dust and brought to nothing 4. The Civil Government was much changed from the primitive Constitution neither could the Petition of Right help much because the King and Ministers of State would not observe it but acted contrary unto it So that it was arrived almost at the height of an absolute Monarchy But as the winding of a string too high is the breaking of it so it fell out with Monarchy 1. The Parliament first require an explication of that Act for Liberty afterwards limit the Regal Power curb it assume it exercise it and in the end take it wholly away Some indeed of the Lords and Commons declare That they had no intention to change the fundamental Government by King Peers and Commons and perhaps really intended what they spake yet they could not perform for that very frame was taken asunder and abolished Upon which followed three several models one after another The 1. By the act of alteration The 2. By the new instrument The 3. and last by the humble petition of advice and yet we are not well setled So difficult it is after that a Constitution is once dissolved to establish a new frame So that it may be truely said that never King acted so much against a Parliament never Parliament prevailed so much against a King. Some were for the State of Venice and that form of Government as the most perfect model for England Some intend levelling some did judge it best that the General should have continued onely General for a while and to head onely the godly party a strange fancy and conceit 5. As for the Church many of the English began to look towards Rome many came home unto the Church and turned Papists Innovasions were daily made in Doctrine and Discipline and Prelacy seemed to advance with the Royal Power But this great Parliament puts a stay to all begins to reform and in reforming incline to an extream They take away Episcopacy Root and Branch abrogate the Liturgy make some alterations in the Doctrine compose a new Confession of Faith a Directory for worship and begin to settle a Presbyterian Discipline Yet that in the very rise was opposed by the Dissenting Brethren and never could be fully and universally so imposed as to be received Hereupon contrary to promise the Golden Reins of Discipline were loosed a general Liberty taken and swarms of Sects appear profess and Separate Errors Heresies Blasphemies do almost darken this Church and overspread the same Never from the first receiving of Christianity in this Nation was there so great a change in Religion known to be made in so short a time 6. Yet after all these bloody Wars and greatest Alterations in Church and State the substance of the Protestant Religion continues the Universities stand Schools remain Learning flourisheth Sabbaths are observed Ministers maintain'd never better Sermons never better Books The Orthodox Christian is confirmed Matters in Religion are not so much taken upon trust and tradition as formerly Arts and Languages advance the light of the Gospel shines The Laws abide in force Justice is administred peace enjoyed the Protestant Interest in forraign parts maintain'd England is become a warlike Nation furnished with gallant Men both by Sea and Land is courted by great Princes is a terrour to our Enemies a protection to our Friends and if we could agree amongst our selves it is an happy Nation Yet all this is from the wonderful wisdom of our God who knows how to bring Light out of darkness good out of Evil and from his Exceeding mercy who hath heard the Prayers of a remnant of his people in behalf of this Nation to which he intends good if our sins do not hinder And for my part I will not cease to Honour and to pray for such as from their hearts have endeavoured our good and especially for such which God hath made so eminently instrumental for our present happiness Such as are trusted with great power and employed in great business are many times perplexed with great difficulties and especially in distracted times And if they do something amiss we should not harshly Censure much less envy them but rather pity them and pray for them and remember our own frailty and that if we had been in their place we might have done worse But to draw unto a Conclusion of this long Chapter and not to offend the Reader let 's consider what may be done to finish and perfect any thing begun tending to our settlement Far be it from me to presume to prescribe any thing to wiser men who have seriously considered of this very thing already Yet I may be bold to deliver mine own Opinon with humble submission to my betters and if I err I may have the greater hope of pardon because I shall speak as one unbiassed and aiming with a sincere heart at the publick good of the English Church and State which though fearfully shaken and shattered are not yet destroyed And 1. This is certain that there are but two reasons of our unsettlement 1. Ignorance 2. Wilfulness For we either know not how to settle and what the best means are which most effeually
Scot and the Independent began to clash So the state of the controversie seemed to be altered For both these Parties at the first professed themselves enemies only to Popery and arbitrary Government which all true English Protestants were bound to oppose and by the Laws of the Land might justly do it But neither Presbytery nor Independency could be for our true interest but rather against it The truth is they were not unanimously resolved what they should build up though they agreed well enough in pulling down And surely it 's not wisdom to pull down and raze to the ground an old House which being repaired might serve the turn before they had a new one and the same better ready to set up or rather finished to their hands Yet this was not all the difference between the Parties but after the Conquest of Hambleton and all the Royal party rising and ready to joyn with him yet some of them who were real and cordial and did really joyn together laying aside for the time the difference of Presbytery and Independency in subduing the Adversary were willing to joyn with the King upon certain terms in the Isle of Wight They thought that such an agreement if it might be made was the only way to settle us in peace Others conceived that such an agreement if once made was destructive of all former designs and proceedings and that if the King was guilty of so much blood and other crying sins as the Parliament and especially the Kirk of Scotland had charged them withal then to agree with him was to destroy the English interest and bring innocent blood upon themselves and the Nation Therefore in an order for a solemn Thanksgiving made by the Kirk one particular mercy to be remembred in that Service was that the Treaty with the King in the Isle of Wight did not take effect From this fearful guilt if justly charged upon the King and his party some would dare to conclude That they who attempted to make an agreement with the Enemy so guilty could not be so faithful as those who refused all such reconciliation and endeavoured to take away all causes of future danger Yet if these latter after a full and final ruine of the malignant party as they called them should not proceed impartially to reduce the Government to the primitive Constitution and labour to settle the Protestant Religion for the substance and the good Laws of the Common-wealth they might prove more faithful in destroying than in building and laying the Foundation of our future happiness For to pull down one arbitrary Power to erect another and neglecting the substance of the Protestant Religion to protect Sectaries and erect new models of their own brain can be no act of fidelity I will not enter upon particulars nor reflect upon any person or persons for my intelligence is not so perfect as to know the secret designs and hidden motions of several parties which if I did know I might the better regulate mine own judgment in this point though I could not satisfie others Therefore I will leave all to the judgment of the Eternal God and pray for future peace and humbly request him for to bless and prosper all such as with an upright heart have endeavoured and do still labour to establish a wise and just Government And I further desire all those whom God hath preserved and blessed with great success to make a right use of God's mercies lest in the end they suffer the same or like judgments as God by them hath executed upon others for their sins Though it be material to know who have been most faithful and by whose means under God for the present we enjoy peace and the Gospel yet it may be of more moment and also more useful to take notice of the errours mistakes and miscarriages both of Parliament and Army from first to last For by the knowledge hereof we gain some advantage and wise men may easily understand how to avoid the like and to prevent such miseries for time to come as we have suffered in time past 2. To observe God's proceedings and the order which he hath observed in all our confusions and the end whereat he aims and the duties he expects after so many judgments executed 3. To consider what Families and persons God hath punished in these sad times and for what sins and if we after so great success fall into the same sins we must expect the like punishments 4. Not to mention the great alterations in the Dominions of Spain Turkey China of late days let 's consider in brief the strange works and proceedings of the Almighty with us in this corner of the world To this end let us take a short view of the Wars 2. The Parliaments 3. The King. 4. The Civil Government 5. The Church 6. Our present condition 1. The Wars are Civil or Foreign Civil in England Ireland Scotland The Royal Standard of England marcheth into Scotland where an Army is ready to oppose Yet no blow given no blood shed After this we see two potent Armies in England and only a little skirmish at the first a pacification is made the National League concluded both the Armies disbanded But after this no man fearing it a bloody massacre of two hundred thousand in the space of one month besides many thousand slain and butchered afterwards begins the Tragedy in Ireland Forces are sent to revenge that blood and thousands of the bloody Irish are sacrificed to expiate the former murthers At length a Civil War is commenced in England the same very bloody continues long many thousands are slain the Sword rageth in every corner the cry goes up to Heaven The Parliament desiring not only to defend it self but to relieve bleeding Ireland is brought very low is ready to submit calls in the Scot recovers prevails beats the King's party in the field reduceth all their Garrisons and obtains a total Victory in England Ireland almost lost is recovered again first in field-battel then by reducing all their Garrisons And in that Kingdom from first to last millions are slain the ancient great Families cut off and the Land for the greatest part made desolate which was a dreadful judgment of the most just Judge of Heaven and Earth Scotland where the fire began to smoke at first scaped long at last felt the bottoms and cruelty of a bloody War managed against them by Montross who at first was one of their Covenantiers Yet this fire is quenched They invade England twice and are twice scornfully foiled and shattered to pieces in England and at length wholly subdued by our English Forces in Scotland and remain subject to our Power to this very day Never so many fearful Judgments executed never so many bloody Wars in so short a time can we read of in all our former Histories Before these Wars are ended they beat the Netherlanders the most potent people by Sea in the World. 2. Parliaments
Subject as a Subject The Question is therefore Whether he that is a Soveraign may not be in some case resisted by the people and if he may in what case a resistance is lawful and free from the guilt of Rebellion Our Case in England is extraordinary and not easily known by many of our own much less by strangers not acquainted with our Government The Resistance in the late Wars was not the first that was made against the Kings of England by the people of England though it differed from all the former The difference was between the King and Parliament whereof he was a part yet severing himself from the whole body And the Parliament was no Subject considered as a Parliament for then the King himself being an essential part thereof should be a Subject As he was divided willingly or wilfully from it he could be no King no Soveraign For if the power was in the King and Parliament joyntly it could not be in him alone Besides when there is no Parliament we know he is a King by Law and the Kingdom is Regnum pactionatum non absolutum If he make himself absolute by that very act he makes himself no King of England For the common and fundamental Law knows no such King. Yet this was all either he or his party could say to justifie themselves If he say the Militia was his the Parliament will say it 's theirs as well as his and except he be absolute it must needs be so For if the supream power be in King Peers and Commons joyntly the Militia which is an essential part of this power could not be his alone The Parliament conceived that when he left them he left his power with them if that could be made good by the Fundamental Constitution then all England was bound to subject to them for the time and obey their just Commands And if it were not so how could all such as took up Arms with the King against them be adjudged Traytors as they were If these things be so there could be no Rebellion upon the Parliaments side because according to the Rules the Parliament was no Subject the King then separated from the Parliament refusing to Act with them Acting and Warring against them was no Soveraign The Question in the time of those bloody and unnatural Dissentions was stated several ways as Whether it was Rebellion in Subjects Commissioned by the Parliament to resist evil Counsellours Agents Ministers of State and Delinquents sheltring themselves under the King as divided from the Parliament and acting against the Laws by his Commissions or Whether the Parliament of England lawfully Assembled where the King virtually is may by Arms defend the Religion established by the same Power together with the Laws and Liberties of the Nation against Delinquents detaining with them the Kings seduced person or Whether the Parliament might not grant a Commission to the Earl of Essex by a force to apprehend Delinquents about the King to bring them to a due Tryal and this even against the personal will of the King Or whether after the Parliament had passed a Judgment against the King they might not lawfully give Commission to General Fairfaxe to apprehend the Kings person and bring him to the Parliament or Supposing the King to be an Absolute Monarch whether any of these things could be done by any Commission from the Parliament as the Condition of the Kingdom stood at that time Thus and several ways was the Question then stated and debated But the Truth is that if the Fundamental Government be by King Peers and Commons joyntly and that neither the Parliament consisting of these three States nor the Parliament as distinct from the King nor the King as divided from the Parliament could alter this Constitution nor lawfully act any thing contrary unto it then so soon as the Commission of Array on one side and of the Militia on the other were issued out and were put in Execution the Subjects in strict sense were freed from their Allegiance And if they acted upon either side their actings were just or unjust as they were agreeable or disagreeable to the Fundamental Laws and the general and principal end of Government For even then their subjection to the Laws of God and Fundamental Constitution of the Kingdom did continue and they were even then most of all bound to endeavour with all their power the good and preservation of their Country bleeding and conflicting with the pangs of Death And in that cause no man was bound too scrupulously to observe the petty Rules of our ordinary administration which were proper for a time of Peace which could not help but hinder her recovery In such an extraordinary case many extraordinary things if not in themselves unjust might have been done to prevent her ruine And if the Parliament had gone at first far higher than they did they had prevented the ruin of the King the dis-inherison of His Children and very much effusion of blood which followed afterwards The business then was easie which afterwards became difficult and could not be effected but with the loss of many thousands and the hazard of themselves for their Cause at first was well resented and had many advantages but was much prejudicial by too much intermedling with Religion and making some alterations in the Church before the time section 9 The next Question is whether since the Commencement of the War there was any certain ordinary legal Power which could induce an Obligation or there was any such Power after the Wars was begun it continued after the War was ended till the secluding of the Members and upon that seclusion ceased The answer unto these two Questions seems not to be difficult For there neither was nor could be any such certain ordinary legal Power which could in the strict letter of the Law bind all English Subjects to subjection For during a Parliament this binding power is in King Peers and Commons joyntly in the Intervals of Parliament it s in the King acting according to the Laws of Administration But all this while nay to this day there is no such Parliament no such King. And both in the time of the Wars and after both King and Parliament acted not only above but contrary to many of our Laws which in the time of Peace are ordinarily observed Neither of them could give us any Precedent for many things done by them and those few Precedents alledged for some of their Actions were extraordinary and Acts of extraordinary times If the Counties and People of England had not been ignorant and divided the division of King and Parliament did give them far greater power than they or their Forefathers had for many years But it did not seem good to the Eternal Wise and Just Providence to make them so happy Punished we must be that was his sentence and punished we have been yet few of us receive correction or return to him that Smote us Some
sanctified person is a Priest to offer spiritual Sacrifice to God. Yet this doth not make any such person a Minister and publick Officer of Christ who must sequester himself from worldly business more than other men to tend his Calling to which he is consecrated and solemnly devoted With this distinction agrees that of the Clergy and Laity Whence the name Clerus the Clergy for the Ministry should have its original is uncertain The people of Israel sanctified and consecrated unto God were call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lot or Inheritance of God and the Priests and Ministers were the eminent party of this Lot and people For the people as distinct from the Pastours are called the Clergy Lot or Heritage of God 1 Pet. 5.3 in which it cannot be proper to the Ministers It 's true that the first Officer made by the Church after that Christ was glorified was made by Lot For the Lot that is Cleros fell upon Matthias Acts 1.26 From whence some think the system of Presbyters and Deacons were called the Clergy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signify one made and an Officer by Lot. As for Laity we find often in the Old Testament the people as distinct from the Priests and Levites called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Laity The Apostle and seventy Disciples were distinguished from the rest of the Disciples and Believers The Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastours and Teachers were different orders from the rest of the Church The twenty four Elders which signifie the Priests and Levites divided into orders by Lot were distinct from the four Beasts that is the main body of the Church but these are days of confusion and disorder Every one will be a Prophet and a Teacher either presuming upon their gifts yet scorning to engage themselves for the service of Christ in the poor and much despised Ministery or pretending blasphemously to the Spirit which God never gave them There is another distinction of Subjects in Nobiles Plebaeos Some are Noble some of a lower Form and Rank Nobilis is any Gentleman well descended Yet there is a difference inter Nobilem Generosum for though Omnis Generosus sit Nobilis yet Omnis nobilis non est Generosus because Generosus is not only one well born but also one vertuous In this respect the word of a Gentleman is more than the word of a Nobleman nay than the word of a King yet Nobility with us is taken more strictly and is given to none under a Baron and Peer of the Kingdom which hath right of suffrage in Parliament as one of the House of Lords The ancient Nobility of England is much diminished and decayed and many of their Estates alienated and the late Barons created by Patent do much obscure them and if these as Barons have their suffrage in the House of Lords by vertue of their Honour and not their Vertue and Wisdom I do not see how the Parliament should be Wittena Gemott the Meeting of Wise Men. It were wisdom by some strict Law to limit Jus Nobilitandi unto Vertue and Wisdom For Honours should be conferred rarely and upon merit and worth for they have great priviledges which should not be made so common and prostituted to the Lust and Ambition of every one that can pay for them The subjects of lower Rank if Freeholders have also their priviledges and one principal is a power to Elect the Knights of the County to represent in Parliaments There be other accidental differences of less moment which I pass by section 14 After these distinctions follows a division of the whole body of the Subjects into parts and this is necessary especially in respect of the Administration For without an orderly division the subjects cannot be well governed Israel was divided into Tribes Tribes into Families Families into Housholds Housholds into Persons Thus they were divided and according to this order Achan was discovered Josh. 7.16 17 18. and they had their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heads of their Tribes and their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heads of their Hundreds as Masius upon the place observes The Romans were also divided in Tribus Tribus in Curias and after these we read of Centurias and Decurias We read that Alfred divided England into Counties Counties into Hundreds the Hundreds into Allotments In some Counties we find Ridings and Wapentakes yet Sir Henry Spelman under the word Hundreds understands by Wapentake an Hundred which in the Welsh is called Cantreda where he adds that the Counties were divided into Tithings Rapes and Laths and Hundreds were divided into Tithings and Friberges Upon this division made it 's said that Justice was administred with that ease exactness and severity that any man's goods might at any time be secure in any place Yea they might hang golden Bracelets in the High-way-side and in open view and none durst meddle with them To this head belongs the numbring the people by pole enrowling their Names and Estates without which Taxations cannot be justly imposed The end of this distribution was to reduce the people into a certain order according to which the equal parts were to co-ordinate one with another as Counties with Counties Hundreds with Hundreds so that one had no Jurisdiction over another The unequal were less or greater and were subordinate the less to the greater which had Jurisdiction over the less and all the parts were subject to the whole This was necessary for Judicial proceedings that Actions in Law might proceed according to the subordination of Courts For anciently with us Actions did commence in the Courts held by the Lords of the Mannors if the cause were too high or could not there be determined or Justice had Appeal was made to the Hundred Court from thence to the County Court from thence to the King's Court. In the word Comitatus Sir Henry Spelman observes this was the ancient Order and thinks it an abuse and great disorder that in our days every petty Business and Cause is brought into the King's Court at Westminster What the Division of this Nation was under the Romans is not so well known except we may conjecture of it by the ancient Division of the Provinces and the Cathedral Seas and Diocesses which much differ from these of latter times Cambden finds some divisions of England in the time of the Romans yet they are not clear and certain Under the Saxons he finds several divisisions 1. Some according to certain proportions of Lands 2. He makes the Heptarchy an argument that it was divided into seven parts At length he concludes his political Division with that of Counties which he as Sir Henry Spelman ascribes to the King Alfred But I have read that it was thus divided before his time and this is more probable because the Myrrour informs us of Counties and of Counties before there were any Saxon Kings Vt subditi section 15 distinguuntur sic distincti dividuntur educantur
nascenti pagina Romae Ne vacet Egeriam consuluisse Numae Nôsset Sparta isthaec duro formata Lycurgo Secula mansisset quot stetit illa dies Nec tibi Parthenope gemino quater amplius anno Mutâsset dominos plebs malefida suos Nec sibi foedâsset fastos tam turpiter Anglus Mille per incertas mobilis usque vices Quam bene Lawsoni magni dignissimus haeres Nominis ille salo jura dat ipse solo Qui regnare doces qui parere libenter Imperium calami cedimus ecce tibi Te tantum genuit vicus brevis angulus orbis Langcliff nascenti conscia terra mihi Eborac invideant vel Athenae debeo plura Jam pro te patriae pro patriâque tibi J. Carr M. D. The Arguments of the several Chapters CHAP. I. THE Propriety of God acquired by Creation and continued by Preservation the ground of God's Supream Dominion and Power which is Vniversal over all Creatures more particular and special over Men and Angels who are capable of Laws Rewards Punishments not only Temporal but Eternal The exercise of this Power over men immediate or mediate Mediate in his Government by men over men is either Temporal and Civil or Spiritual and Ecclesiastical Of the Government Spiriritual before Christ's incarnation and after his Session at the right hand of God. Of the Church Christian Triumphant Militant Mystical Visible Vniversal Particular The particular parts of the Vniversal Church as visible the principal subject of the following Discourse Of our Differences and the Causes thereof of hope of better times and the Author's disposition and intention CHAP. II. Of a Community Civil What Politica is what a Common-wealth the subject of Politica What the parts of a Common-wealth what a Community in general which is the subject of a Common-wealth the name and nature of it Of a Community Civil the matter and the form thereof the Original of Civil Communities the members both natural and naturalized whether they be imperfectly or formally or eminently such The capacity of this Association to receive the form of a Civil Government Liberty Equality Propriety Adjuncts to this Community CHAP. III. Of an Ecclesiastical Community The Definition of it the explication of the Definition The distinction of the Members less or more perfectly such the manner of Incorporation Liberty Equality and aptitude to receive a form of Discipline Proprieties of this Society Where something concerning Children born of Christian Parents whether they be members of the Church or no. CHAP. IV. Of Power Civil The parts of Politica Constitution and Administration what Constitution is and what the parts of a Common-wealth both Civil and Ecclesiastical which are two 1. Soveraign 2. Subjects What Power in general what Power Civil what Supream Power or Majesty Civil the Branches thereof which are called Jura Majestatis the multitude of them reduced to order by several Writers and by the Author The Properties of Majesty which is real or personal What Soveraign real and personal may do The subject of Real Majesty in England the personal Majesty of the Parliament and of the King. CHAP. V. Of the Acquisition of Civil Power and the Amission thereof Civil Power not essential but accidental to any Person It 's acquired in an extrordinary or ordinary way In an ordinary way by consent or Conquest justly or unjustly as by Vsurpation Vsurpation no good Title The Person Vsurping Power at the first by subsequent consent may acquire a good Title Succession and the several ways of Succession Amission of Power by violence or voluntary consent or death Whether any can be made Soveraign by condition Whether Soveraign Power once acquired may be forfeited how and to whom the forfeiture may be made CHAP. VI. Of Power Ecclesiastical The Power is Spiritual not Civil Why it 's called the Power of the Keys as different from that of the Sword. Binding and loosing the same with shutting and opening and both belong chiefly to Legislation and Jurisdiction This Power is Supream and Independent in every particular Church constituted aright according to the Rules of the Gospel The Branches and several Acts of it as making of Canons the constitution of Officers Jurisdiction disposing of the Churches goods Of the extent and also the bounds of the Power Certain distinctions of Spiritual Government as Internal External Vniversal Particular Formal Material or Objective CHAP. VII Of acquiring or losing Ecclesiastical Power The just acquisition of this Power extraordinary in the highest measure as in Christ or in an inferiour degree as in the Apostles How ordinary Churches derive it from Christ by the Gospel-Charter in an ordinary way The Power of the Church and Church-Officers unequal The several ways of Vsurping and also of losing this Power CHAP. VIII Of the disposition of Power Civil from the several manners of which arise the several forms of Government General Observations premised The several ways of disposing Majesty or Supream Power in a State. Pure Forms Monarchies Despotical and Regal Pure Aristocracies and Democracies Mixt Governments when the Power is placed in the several States joyntly The Constitution of England Our Kings and their Title Peers Commons Parliaments and the limits of their Power The limits of the King 's personal Majesty Our late divisions and confusions Whether King or Parliament as separate could be justified by the fundamental constitution of England By what Rule the Controversie must be tried Whether Party at the first was more faithful to the English Protestant interest How the state of the Controversie altered The high and extraordinary actings of all Parties The good that God hath brought out of our Disorders and Confusions Whom God hath hitherto most punished What is to be done if we intend a Settlement of State and Church CHAP. IX Of the Disposition of Power Ecclesiastical and whether the Bishop of Rome be the first Subject of it under Christ. The many and great differences about the first subject of the Power of the Keys The Pope the Prince the Prelate the Presbyter the People challenge it as due unto them by a Divine Right Their several pretended Titles examined Whether that of the Bishop of Rome be good or valid His greatness state and pomp The opinions of some Authors concerning him The power he challengeth is Transcendent The reasons to prove his title taken from Politicks Ancient Writers the Scriptures The insufficiency of them though some may seem to prove the possession yet none make good the Title CHAP. X. Whether Civil Soveraigns have any right unto the power of the Keys Their power and advantage to assume and exercise this power Their power not spiritual but temporal The power of ordering Matters of Religion what it is and how it differs from the power of the Keyes Jus Religionis ordinandae rightly understood belongs to all higher Powers The Kings and Queens of England though acknowledged over all persons in all causes both Civil and Ecclesiastical supream Governours yet
them even but one from the Soveraign he is an imperfect Soveraign take away all he ceaseth to be a Soveraign Again the Subject of Majesty and of all the rights and parts thereof must be only one either Physically or Morally If you divide the Subject you destroy them For if in this Common-wealth we give part of these to the King part to the Peers part to the Commons we make it a Babel and destructive of it self For suppose the King have the Militia to himself he may command the Purse make void the Laws revoke Judgments reject Parliaments and none can hinder him because neither Peers nor Commons have any right to the Sword whereby to defend themselves Therefore little heed is to be given to that Book or bitter Invective entitled Elenchus motuum nuperorum which informs from the Lawyers if we may believe him that these Soveraign Rights were thus divided 6. From this that it 's Indivisible follows it that it 's incommunicable For to whomsoever they are communicated they cease to be Subjects and the Soveraign to be a compleat Soveraign and this Communication tends to the dissolution of the Government 7. It 's perpetual that is fixed in a certain subject to continue in the same according to the fundamental Laws of Constitution Therefore the Temporary or occasional power though very great of a Dictatour or Regent or Protectour who are but trusted with it for a time in extraordinary cases and upon occasion cannot be Majesty when there is an Interregnum or suspension of the Government by reason of Sedition Faction Rebellion Civil War or some other cause it 's good and expedient for the safety of a State to set up some extraordinary Governour or Governours trusted for a time with transcendent Power till the State disturbed and not capable of any Union be setled which done that Power doth cease and Majesty is fixed in his proper primary and constant subject that the Government may run in the old Channel except they intend to make an alteration of the Constitution section 15 There is another kind of personal Majesty inferiour to and different from the former We find it in some Princes of Europe as in the Emperour of Germany the Kings of Denmark Sweden Poland and England For our Kings had not only the title of Majesty but some power with the title For in the intervals of Parliament he was Soveraign alone and all and every one yea the greatest were his subjects He called and summoned Parliaments made all Officers by sea and land sent and received Ambassadours conferred all Honours the subjects sware Allegiance to him His Dignity was eminent his State great and so many advantages he had that if he should have used them all he might easily have undone his subjects and so have undone himself Yet he had not the power of the purse He was sworn to corroborate the just Laws and Customs which the people had chosen In the Parliament he made a third party yet so that neither in acts of Lawes or Judgement could he do any thing without the Peers and Commons and as Sir Roger Owen in his Manuscript observes together with them he was greater than himself Yet as Kings have sometimes curbed Parliaments so Parliaments have Kings and disposed of the Militia the Navy the Ports the chief Offices Nay they have sometimes judged Kings accusing them of acting against the fundamental Constitution and challenging such Power as tended to the dissolution of the same and have deposed them But of this particular something may be said hereafter these kinds of Soveraigns have so much power whether more or less as the Constitution gives them yet it will be a difficult thing to keep them within their bounds CHAP. V. Of the manner how Civil Power is acquired WHat the Nature of Power in general and Majesty Civil is hath been declared The next thing to be considered is the Subject who from it is denominated a Soveraign and we must enquire first how this Power is acquired 2. How disposed in a certain Subject As for the acquisition it 's certain Man as Man or as a Member of a Community cannot have it from himself but it must be communicated to him from God who being the Universal Soveraign is the Fountain and Original of it and derives some part of it unto Man and a greater measure unto Mortal Soveraigns than other Men. Yet he doth not this immediately but mediately for the most part It 's extrinsecal and comes aliunde not only unto Men but Angels A Paternal Power which is more Natural is acquired by Generation though sometimes by Adoption This Generation from divine Benediction is the seminary of all Societies which as Societies and Communities may be so disposed and compleat as virtually to contain in them a Power of a Common-wealth and by a general consent constitute an actual Soveraign The Soveraign before he was made such was not invested with Majesty but it was extrinsecal unto him And here that distinction between the Power it self the Designation of the Persons Governing and the Form of Government is worthy taking notice of The Designation of the Persons and the Form of Government is from God leaving Man at Liberty but not so the Power which is more from him than the other two Though the parties justly possessed of power may be thought to have the propriety of it yet they have not any for let it be never so firmly conveyed upon them by designation and submission yet they are but trusted with it Princes tell us they hold their Crowns and Kingdoms per Deum Gladium If they mean that they derive their power from God so as that they neither receive nor hold it from the Bishops of Rome or the Emperour or any other Mortals it may be true yet they have their power so from God that they are invested with it by Humane Designation And as for their Sword it may by a Conquest make way for a Government but it cannot constitute it The fundamental Charter of all Civil Majesty is the fifth Commandment taken in a large sence and understood by other Scriptures which speak more expresly and distinctly of Civil Government In this Commandment including much more by Analogy than is expressed we may observe that there is a power of Superiority and Excellency as in Fathers so in the Princes and Rulers of the World and that from God who made them Men Fathers Princes 2. That all Government should be Paternal Not that the first-born of the most ancient Family in every Tribe Kinred Nation should be a Soveraign for that we seldom find but that they should as Fathers love their Subjects and seek their Good and tender them as Fathers do their Children 3. That by virtue of Gods Command so soon as they are actually Governours Honour and Subjection are due unto them 4. That all Vicinities as far as they are able ought first to associate and then establish an
order of Government and observe it that their days may be long in the Land wherein God hath placed them and that it may go well with them section 2 But to return to the acquisition of Power the designation of Persons as it is from Man so it is from God who ruleth in the Kingdoms of the World and sets up one and puts down another so that this Power may be communicated from him and so acquired by Man that it may be taken away and lost again The Method of the Discourse following is this Majestas acquiritur juste modo extraordinario divina designatione ordinario inchoitur quae it continuatur succesione per electionem vel libera electionâ— vi armis indeterminatâ—m astrictam familiae ubi mares tantum jure quasi hereditario quast jure succedant foemina quoque jure quasi hereditario quast jure succedant injuste usurpata vel dolo malo pecuniae homicidio alio modo Amittitur modo ordinato naturaliter morte imperantis defectu successionis moraeliter voluntaria imperantis resignatione desertione violenta invasione vel ab intra extra inordinato injusta dissolatione mala administratione eujus summus gradâ—s Tyrannus 1. Acquiritur justo modo extraordinario ut divina designatione unctione Power may first be acquired and that several ways as justly or unjustly in an extraordinary or ordinary manner This extraordinary way and more immediate from God we find in Scripture For thus Moses Joshua many of the Judges Saul David Jeroboam Jehu were designed to their places of Government Some of those as Saul David Jehu were anointed by Gods appointment and the Scepter entailed upon David's Family in the Kingdom of Judah Yet two things are remarkable in the designation of Saul and David 1. That after the Divine Unction the People assemble and in a general Assembly by their Votes freely chose them and voluntarily submit and without Election they could not actually and effectually Reign This doth signify that there can be no orderly or lasting Government without consent tacit or express of the People For Men must be Governed as rational and free for such they are as Men. This was the manner of investing the Kings of England For at the Coronation amongst other things this is done The King being before them one doth ask the People Will you have this Man to be King or Reign over you This is more fully expressed in the Form of Coronation which at present I have not by me and doth signifie that they should have the voluntary consent of the People 2. That if we may believe Fortescue the Kings of England had not Regiam potestatem sed politicam a populo effluxam 3. That they did not derive that Power from the first Investiture as Hereditary but in another way The second thing to be noted is That those Kings thus designed of God were bound to govern according to the moral judicial ceremonial Laws of God. This implies that no Princes should govern by an arbitrary Power but according to Laws and them so wise so just as that they may be truly said to be rather the Laws of God than of Men. Acquiritur modo ordinario inchoative in constitutione per liberam electionem vim armorum ex causa justa section 3 God doth seldom use this extraordinary and more immediate designation for his usual way is by ordinary providence and that first in the beginning and Constitution of a Government the Foundation whereof may be laid in Peace or War. In Peace power is acquired by a free election of a Sovereign and singling out some person or persons to whom they will submit themselves Sometimes it is determined that all jointly should be Sovereign and every single person a subject This is the best most just and the wisest way and most agreeable to man as a rational Creature The parties whether one or more before their designation had no civil power at all but upon the designation when they are once agreed upon declared and submitted unto they must by divine institution of necessity have so much power as is necessary for the Government and general good of the People This Power which is now acquired is Majestas and is more from God than Man because it is a Power to do such things as God commands or such as are not contrary to his Will. In the first modelling of a State they may either compose one of their own invention or take example from some other Common-wealth and take the whole or some part and make it their own Thus the foundation of the Roman State was first laid by Romulus who in this work followed the Greeks in many things as Halicarnassaeus tells us Antiq. Rom. lib. 2. In this case whatsoever kind of State is constituted there must be some invested with Majesty personal which by the free Election and voluntary Submission of the parties who are free and have power to make this Election and Submission it is communicated and so acquired But if upon a Victory obtained by a just and necessary War a people is reduced under the power of the party conquering and they upon certain terms submit the power is acquired by the Sword and their voluntary Submission which they would not have made if they had not been Conquered And they who formerly were a free people and would have chosen another or continued under their own personal Sovereign if before the War they were under a form of Government do submit because neither they nor their Sovereign can protect them And if they be brought so low that they must either subject themselves or do worse or perish they willingly come under the protection of the Conqueror if he be willing to protect them and take them as his Subjects Majesty acquired in this manner for the most part is more despotical and absolute And that Princes are divested of Majesty and People of Liberty and fall under the power of Strangers it 's from the just Judgment of God punishing them for their Crimes And this is a most common title of most Sovereigns in the World. Yet it may be said that the inward motives of the Conquerors of the Earth are Ambition or Covetousness or Cruelty therefore this kind of Title is not good The answer is That in respect of any one or more of all these motives it 's unjust Yet if we consider this Title as given by God in making them Victorious and rewarding them for the execution of Justice which they seldom think upon and also the consent of the people and their submission When they can do no better it 's certainly just What strange Instincts from Heaven what Commands from God what suggestions from Angels or God's Messengers or Prophets Conquerors might have we know not Jehu was anointed and designed by God to cut off Ahab's Family and had a promise afterward Judah also and many Nations were perswaded and in
Rulers of the World. And he makes use of Angels Men Armies all Creatures to execute his righteous Judgments 6. Majesty hangs very loosely upon such as do possess it they have no strong hold of it It 's easily separable from man and man from it and it 's more easily lost than acquired and acquired many times more easily than kept Therefore it is that a Scepter is so easily turned to a spade and a spade unto a Scepter 7. Here is the proper place to examine 1. Whether Majesty can be conferred upon any person or persons upon condition 2. Whether once conferred and received it can be forfeited Not to be conditionally given and received not to be liable to forfeiture are not Jura Majestatis as Mr. Hobbs improperly calls them but if they any ways agree to Majesty as it will be hard to prove they do they are rather adjuncts than any thing else For the first Whether they be given upon condition or no cannot be well determined except we distinguish of this Power as given by God and as given by Man. 2. Between Majesty real and personal 3. Between personal of the first and of the second degree 4. Between the Sovereign materially and formally considered 1. God never gave any Power or Majesty Real or Personal but upon condition 1. That the receiver use it well 2. That he may take it away at will and pleasure 2. Real Majesty cannot by Man be given upon condition to a Community as free and such in proper sense 3. A Community may give personal Majesty upon condition and by the Laws of God cannot give it otherwise And the Condition is that they use it well and for the good of the people according to the eternal Laws of divine Wisdom and Justice for that very end for which God ordained all higher Powers and civil Government And no good Sovereign will desire it upon any other terms Hence the Oaths solemnly administred to the Sovereigns of the World which the people impose upon them not as Subjects but as members of a Free Community and this imposing referrs to the first Constitution and the fundamental Law of Government This is clear enough in the first institution of a King in England as the Myrrour tells us The Conqueror received the Crown upon the same terms And some good Lawyers inform us that before the King had taken his Oath to the people he could not require an Oath of Allegiance from them Therefore Sir Edward Coke must be warily understood when he makes the Coronation but a formality For though the setting of the Crown upon their Heads which is but a sign of Dignity and Honour be but a Ceremony yet the matter of his Oath is essential to the making of him King and if that being the substance of the fundamental Contract be not presupposed as first consented unto he cannot be a King. Bracton who advanceth our Kings as high as any antient Lawyer saith Ipse autem Rex non debet esse sub homine sed sub Deo Lege quia lex facit Regem Attribuat igitur Rex Legi quod lex attribuit ei videlicet dominationem potestatem Non enim est Rex ubi dominatur voluntas non lex l. 1. c. 8. And here he seems to understand not only the Law of constitution but administration That he means the latter is plain when he saith Non debet esse major eo in Regno suo in exhibitione juris He formerly asserted that Rex non habet param in Regno suo which is true in respect of every single person otherwise we know the King may be judged With this agrees that of the Myrrour That it was the great abusion of all to say the King was above the Laws to which he ought to be subject And we know who makes these Laws Arnisaeus who is so zealous for absolute Monarchs confesseth with the Philosopher that ubi leges dominantur the King cannot be absolute He observeth three kinds of Oaths which Princes take The 1. Is to maintain Religion The 2. To do their Duty The 3. Whereby they subject themselves to the Laws Such are the Oaths to be taken by the Kings of Poland Swethland Denmark and England whose Coronation-Oath includes all the three Yet this very man having no better Author than Holinshed is bold to affirm that our Kings were absolute hereditary Monarchs Bodin and Bisoldus seem to be of the same mind And if they be such then saith Arnisaeus they are Kings before they take their Oaths and hereditary too But who told him so How will he prove it We know for certain it 's otherwise and our Antiquaries in Law will say that he is very ignorant and yet very bold if not an impudent flatterer That Bodin with him and others should make the King of France absolute there may be some colour if we look upon their practice for they act very highly as absolute Princes Yet if Hottoman a better Lawyer and a far greater Antiquary than either Bodin or Arnisaeus be true the Kings of France are made Kings and receive their Crowns from the first investiture and that upon conditions Neither is there any Government which hath a rational and just constitution which may be known by ancient Records or unwritten constant Customs but will manifest that the Sovereigns thereof receive their Crowns and keep them upon certain conditions different from the written and natural Laws of God. And it 's remarkable that no Constitution can be good or allowable which is not agreeable to those Laws It 's true that if a people design one or more Persons to be their Sovereign and promise absolutely to acknowledge them by that designation and promise they are bound to grant him or them all the power whereby he or they may be absolute Sovereigns and if they will keep their promise they must not they cannot put any conditions upon him or them which may tend to the diminution of the Power already given And they may give it so as that he may as absolutely transmit it and derive it to his Posterity Yet if any shall do thus and set up such an absolute Sovereign that very Person or his Successor may be considered materially as such or such men or formally as such Sovereigns Materially considered especially as such as not yet invested they may be bound to such conditions as upon the non-performance of them they may forfeit But consider them as actually and absolutely invested there can be no such Obligation neither can any Conditions or Oaths be imposed upon them except they be willing to accept of them Yet if any people constitute such a Soveraignty it 's to be examined how justly and wisely they have done and whether they have not enslaved both themselves and their posterity and laid the foundation of their own misery and ruine And if this Constitution be neither just nor wise I cannot see how it should bind posterity And I
therefore termed Despoticum herile Imperium And such a Monarch seems to be that which by Aristotle is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There be Princes invested with Majesty who challenge the Legislative power unto themselves will by a Proclamation or Edict command the goods of their Subjects and imprison their persons at will and pleasure These though they be limited by the fundamental Constitution and their Oaths are in the exercise of their power as absolute as the former This kind of Government may do well where the Subjects are turbulent insolent and unruly or of a base and servile spirit or rude and savage But where the people are ingenuous tractable and of a better disposition it 's very unreasonable for it will either cause Rebellions and Seditions or much debase their spirits This kind of Monarchy is apt to degenerate into a Tyranny of one person Yet if this kind of Sovereign be wise just and vertuous the people may live happily under his protection Yet such a power and so unlimited is not fit to be trusted in the hands of every one And if it be hereditary woe to the people that live under it Yet this power may be trusted in the hands of one yet so as that it may be allayed limited and justly and wisely poised and the Sovereign as a King. The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Hebrew signifies a Governor in general 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek is a word of great latitude and so is Rex in Latin and also Sultan in the Arabick and Mauritanian Language Yet some are such imperious Dictators and Masters of words that the word King must needs signifie an absolute Monarch That it often signifies a Monarch and one that hath the title of Majesty there is no doubt But the bare word or title not distinctly inform us of the power or the manifold differences of Kings which must be known another way as by the constitution of those particular States where the chief and most eminent Governours have that title For there is a great difference and that in respect of power between the Kings of Spain and France and the Kings of Poland Swethland and Denmark Neither doth the King of England in this respect exactly agree with any of them But if the word cannot the definition surely of a King should determine his power Yet neither will the common usual definition do it For thus he is commonly defined A King is a Monarch who governeth free men justly according to the Laws to the good of the Common-wealth The Genus is that he is a Monarch And if such in strict senc◠as such he can have neither Superiour nor Peer in his Kingdom The specifical difference is taken from the Subject the rule the end of his Government For his proper act is Regere to govern The subjects of his Government are Freemen The Rule is just Laws The end the publick good Abstract the specifical difference and lay the word King and Monarch aside and it agrees to all Governours Civil whatsoever For Civil government being grounded upon the eternal moral Law Love thy Neighbour as thy self and more particularly upon the fifth Commandment no person or persons invested with Sovereign power can be defined any other way and neither their power nor the exercise thereof is good further than it agrees with this definition And the more their government swerves from this Rule the more of the Tyrant is in them and if the violation of it be more than their observation and that habitually too then they are really Tyrants in exercitio For denominatio fit a parte praedominante But I have wondred why Authors have made this the specifical difference of a King which certainly it cannot be Yet this definition leaves many things doubtful For it determines not what liberty is and whether it can be perfect without propriety Nor doth it tell us what these Laws are according to which he must govern whether the Laws of God only or the Laws also of men and if of men whether the Laws of constitution or administration if of administration whether they must be made by himself alone or by some others without him or with him For if the Laws be made by him alone he is an absolute Despotical Sovereign if by others either with him or without him he is not such For there may be a King at least in name above Law and a King by Law and such as cannot command or bind the meanest Subject nor judge him but according to Law. Such a King is not a pure Monarch which I now treat of Therefore a King that is a pure Monarch differs from a Despotical Sovereign in respect of his Subjects and the measure of his power and according to this definition in the exercise of it The Subjects of the one are free and have propriety of person and goods the Subjects of the other have neither The power of the one is more absolute and of larger extent or rather more intensive The exercise of the power of the one is bounded by just Laws the power of the other is not limitted or directed by Laws and so tends not so much to advance the weal of his Subjects as his own greatness and in this respect can be no lawful and good Governour if he act according to his absolute and arbitrary power which God never gave him And Despotical Sovereigns if wise and just will do as Trajan did that is act according to the Rule of Justice and of a limitted power though they be not bound by man to do so section 6 An absolute and pure Monarchy is a very dangerous form of Government and very inclinable and propense to Tyranny and such a Sovereign as is invested with such transcendent power degenerates and turns Tyrant Experience in all times and places makes this evident Monarchy indeed in some respects is the best Government Yet such is the imperfection and corruption of man that it proves not to be so If Monarchs were like God or Saints and Angels it might be better But in a succession whether elective or hereditary we find in tract of time few good many bad and very wicked In Israel the first King was not right the fourth too bad and after the Kingdom was divided into the Tribe of Israel and Judah in Judah we find few like David many very wicked in the Kingdom of Israel not one good Yet the Laws both Civil and Ecclesiastical were made to their hands and that by God himself Sovereign power is a weighty burthen and requires much strength and excellent abilities Moses himself cannot bear it alone he hath need of one hundred and Seventy Elders and the same endued with the spirit of government to be his assistants If a Sovereign be imprudent or weak of understanding not able to judge of good counsel or negligent or timorous or wilful or destitute of good Agents and Instruments for Administrations the Government begins to
of the name few know because they little understand the thing It 's not called so as many think because the Jura Majestatis are divided and given some to the Peers some to the people and some in some States to the Prince For this tends to confusion and doth not well suit with the Nature of Sovereign Power Therefore it 's the cause of many Quarrels and Dissentions But it 's called mixt because either three or at least two of the States are mixt together so as that the Sovereignty is jointly in them all and in the whole and of these there are two Sorts For some time there is no Prince in the Administration and then it 's in the Commons and the Peers not in Peers and in Commons severally but in both jointly Sometimes it 's in omnibus in Prince Peers Commons Yet these in the Administration may have their several parts and different manners of acting Therefore we must not judge of States according to the manner of Administration though the Administration will give great light and help us to understand the Constitution This kind of Government is called a Free State a popular State a Republick or the Republick and may be the best State of all others where Majestas is tota in toto yet there may be several kinds of this manner of Government which by the Philosopher as some think is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Polity Machiavel informs us That Experience of the Inconveniencies of pure States put men on work to find out this and for the most part it may be so If either of the two or any of the three States be predominant in the Administration the State is denominated from the prevailing part For where the Prince hath the Title of King and is predominant in the Exercise of the Power it 's called a Kingdom or Monarchy where the Peers it 's an Aristocraty where the Commons a Democraty and yet if it be a right mixture it can be none of these And in this particular many are deceived For where the whole Power is wholly in the whole there Populus that is King Peers and Commons are the proper subject of Majesty in the Constitution by and in which if any be predominant it cannot be a Free State. Such a Government the German Empire and the State of Venice seem to be Yet in this latter the great Council which some tell us consists of Peers is counted and judged to have the supream Power Yet if we may believe Machiavel the Families out of which they are chosen were at the first Constitution the whole People The Lacedaemonian State is thought by many to be mixt and some say the mixture was ex Democratia praedominante Aristocratia diminuta yet this is very improper and cannot be true The State of Rome seems in the time of the Kings to be a Monarchy After that an Aristocraty in the Senate and the Patricii But when Plebs did jubere Leges then it was a Democraty in the judgment of many Yet upon diligent search it will be found otherwise For though the King was the chief Pontiff and did call the Assemblies had the chief and sole command in War for they gave him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet Halicarnassaeus lets us know That this Form was taken from the Lacedaemonians where the Kings had not absolute Power they were not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but were limitted by their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or great Council and amongst the Romans by their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is their Senate They must not do what they will but what the Senate did determine Yet we shall often find this mixture very imperfect or very much altered in tract of time from what it was at first To say nothing of Platonick and Vtopian Commonwealths which are not practicable nor people capable of them the summ of all this Head is this That God hath given to Men in their several Communities a power to protect the Just and punish Offenders according to wise Laws and just Judgment and also a power to preserve themselves and justly maintain their own Right against all Enemies and Invaders Yet he hath left them at Liberty to dispose of it several ways and trust it in the hands of one or more who if they once take it upon them must exercise it and be just For he that ruleth over men must be just ruling in the fear of God 2 Sam. xxxiij 3 section 10 After 1. The generals premised 2. The several ways and manners of disposing Majesty in a certain subject handled I proceed to say something of the Constitution of the State of England which hath long been governed by Kings and Parliaments There was indeed a time even after the Saxons were setled in this Nation when there was no King but Forty Lords who at length chose a King which should have no Peer And there was a time when there were many Kings And after that we find one King and Parliaments and this before the Conquest For this model of ours began in the time of the Saxon Kings and was brought to perfection some say before some say in Edward the Confessor's time What the power of these Parliaments and of these Kings were is the great Question For that once known the Constitution will be evident There was a Power of Kings and also of Parliaments severally and a power of them jointly considered we find the real Majesty in the People and personal Majesty in King and Parliament jointly and a secondary personal Majesty sometimes greater sometimes less in the Kings in the intervals of Parliament But to observe a method and proceed more distinctly I will 1. Presuppose some things 2. I will say something of the Kings 3. Something of the Parliaments severally 4. Something of them both jointly 1. Therefore I will suppose the Government of England to have been by King and Parliament before the Conquest and to have continued so till our days And whosoever will not grant this must either be very ignorant or very partial 2. I will take for granted That there have been extraordinary cases wherein the Rules of the Constitution either have not or could not be observed 3. This is also true that sometimes when they might have been followed yet either the constitution of the Parliament or the carriage of the Kings was such as that they have violated the same 4. Wise and intelligent men will not deny but that in our days the Government was so altered and corrupted that the first constitution was hardly known and it was a difficult thing either to reform it or reduce it to the ancient form section 11 These things supposed in the second place I will examine 1. How the King acquires his power 2. What his power acquired is 3. How far it 's short of a plenary personal Majesty 1. The manner of acquiring this Power and Title is either by deriving it from the first investiture or
by inheritance or election For the first investiture I find none to insist upon it though the rule of investing if there be any should be sought in the fundamental Charter If the Crown be hereditary to the Kings and they have it as their own Fee they may dispose of it and of themselves appoint their Successor whom they please and King Henry 8. might without any Act of Parliament have designed by will which of his Children should succeed him And Queen Elizabeth might have nominated either the King of Scots or any other besides him for her Successor Some may demand what right she had to nominate or any other after her death to proclaim her Successor One answer to this demand may be That her wise Council did forsee that this was an effectual if not the only way to prevent greater mischiefs and effusion of blood which in all probability might have followed if this course had not been taken And in an extraordinary case some extraordinary thing tending to the publick good may lawfully be done Yet this is not to be made an ordinary rule and followed as an ordinary Example A third way of acquisition is by election and consent of the people Thus the first King as the Mirrour tells us in express words was elected So were the Saxon Kings till Edward the Confessor the last King of the Saxon Race So was William the second Henry the first Stephen John. The manner and form of the Coronation which contains in a few words much of the Constitution determines the Succession to be by Election Those words of Fortescue to the Prince Non habes potestatem regiam sed a populo effluxam imply so much The Conqueror himself who as a Bastard could not inherit the Crown confesseth that he possessed not the Crown Jure haereditario To this purpose the old book of Caen is alledged These things are above me and out of my element therefore to be judged of by the learned Antiquaries in Law. But suppose it be granted to be elective yet it 's elective in a certain line for such hath been the practice for a long time which is conceived to be more convenient Yet the Author of the due Rights of the Kingdom saith That if a King had such Children so qualified and so educated that they were above others in virtue wisdom and true worth or at least caeteris pares they were the most likely Candidates for the Crown section 12 But let the manner of acquiring this regal Power be either by and from the first investiture or by inheritance or by election the second point and the same of more importance is to know what this power once acquired and possessed is For the Roman Emperors acquired their power by election and yet it was absolute as is pretended and very great And here I do not intend to say any thing of his excellent Dignity his Scepter Sword Throne Crown Robe Titles the Honour due unto them for these are not so material as the Prerogatives of the King of England Prerogatives saith Sir Roger Owen are the Flowers which by time immemorial the Commons of this Realm have granted the Kings thereof If this be true he hath no Prerogatives but such as are granted him and that by the Commons of England But Judge Crook is no flatterer he speaks plainly and saith he knows no Prerogatives the King hath but this that he cannot do wrong This may be understood either as it agrees to all Sovereigns or as to the Kings of England in a more special manner It 's true that no Sovereign though absolute and Despotical can do wrong For Id quisque potest quod jure potest The meaning is they ought not to do wrong for to do wrong is contrary to the Laws of God whereby they hold their Crowns and also to the very end for which God instituted civil Government Yet there is a more special reason why the Kings of England can do no wrong because they are Kings by Law they cannot bind by their personal commands but by their Regal which are not Regal if not Legal Again he doth all things like an Infant in his minority by his Ministers of State to whom he can grant no Power or Commission to act but according to Law. Therefore if any wrong be done as much is it 's done by them and they not the King are chargeable with it and questionable for it Yet he hath power and great power and it 's not the less but rather the greater and more like unto Gods because it 's limitted by Law. He Summons Parliaments makes Officers conferrs Honours sends and receives Embassadors and gives them answer makes Leagues with other States and other things formerly mentioned when I spake of the second king of personal Majesty Yet if we may believe Bracton he hath all this from the Law. For Lex facit Regem and he is but trusted with the exercise of it for the protection of the people and the execution of the Laws in which respect it seems to follow that if the Law be above him they who make the Laws must needs be above him section 13 But in the third place though the King hath great power yet there is some power in the Kingdom which he hath not For he cannot abolish Parliaments he cannot refuse to call them either when the Laws or the ardua Regni require them he cannot exercise the Militia but according to the Laws neither can he make or repeal Laws without the Parliament he cannot command the Purse he cannot alienate the Crown or the Crown-Revenue nor dispose of the Crown as his own hereditary Fee divers other things there are above his power Yet the Kings of England have challenged and exercised far greater power than the Laws and Constitution gives them But that was matter of fact and cannot found a Right We read that King Richard the second was charged as with other things so with these two 1. That he said the Laws were in his head and his breast that is he had the Legislative power solely to himself 2. That he denied to approve the Laws made by the Parliament that is he challenged a negative Voice In both these Arnisaeus undertakes to maintain his cause as just and that he did but challenge his due Lib de authoritate principum in populum semper inviolabili Cap. 4. Yet all his whole answer is but petitio principii For presupposing the King of England to be an absolute Monarch which we know he is not he takes upon him to answer the whole charge which he might easily do if he take for granted that which he can never prove nor English Men especially Antiquaries in Law will never grant him that he wrote against Rebellion and Treason and maintained the just and lawful authority of Princes he did well but that he should write as a Pensioner to the King and so presumtuously judge of the Constitution of a Foreign
State whereof he was sufficiently ignorant we English Men cannot well brook So Bodin being informed by Dellus who I think was Sir Thomas Dale a prudent and experienced Statesman and far better acquainted with the Government of his own Country than he was that the Kings of England could not make or repeal a Law without but only by the Parliament he wondred and notwithstanding his Information he presumptuously determines the Kings of England to be absolute Monarchs So much he doated upon his imperfect notion of Majesty and absolute Power Mr. Cambden though a learned Antiquary yet not in the common Law speaks doubtfully in this point and doth not well though perhaps prudently express himself His words are Quod Rex habet supremam potestatem merum imperium apud nos Yet afterwards speaking of our Courts he gives to the Parliament the supreme and sacred power in making conferring repealing and interpreting the Laws and in all other things which concern the good of the State. If he meant that the King had it jointly with the two Houses it 's tolerable yet if so 1. His former expression was not good 2. Neither is that latter assertion of his when he saith the Parliament is summon'd ad arbitrium Regis when the King pleaseth section 14 But let 's go to the Parliament where we shall find the King again and when we come there we must consider 1. What it is 2. What power it hath 3. What power it hath not 1. To give a perfect definition of it is above my skill neither is it within the sphear of my profession ancient Parliament-men and especially learned Antiquaries in the common Law know it best Mr. Cambden gives a tolerable description of it It 's a Representative of all England invested with the highest power of Legislation and all other acts that concern the common good This is the substance of the matter though not given in his express terms And here I will not say any thing of their Election Incorporation manner of proceeding after it 's once constituted and begins as a formal Parliament to act Some have conceived it to be one of the most orderly Assemblies in the World which is an argument of the great wisdom of our Ancestors who first molded it and brought it to perfection yet it may be corrupted and ill constituted and then Corruptio optimi est pessima The Election in our times is not well ordered for if it were the very quintessence of the wisdom and virtues of all England might be extracted united and act in that Convention But men are ready through want of understanding to undo themselves by choosing insufficient and unworthy persons The first constitution certainly required a qualification in the persons to be Elected For we trust them much even with our Estates Liberty Lives and Religion for the outward profession It 's not fit to trust these in the hands of any sort of Men but such as shall be wise faithful just and sincerely affecting the publick good The Saxon name Wittena Gemote implies this for it signifies the meeting of wise men and is the abridgement of all the Folk-motes in England and of the wisdom of all England and now of all England Wales Scotland Ireland If they should be wise men wisdom includes all virtues If we consider this great body as distinct from the King it 's said to consist of two Houses which some call the upper and the lower This the Commons did not like did not acknowledge The two Houses or the House of Commons and the House of Peers may be tolerable and I do not know they ever excepted against the expressions Many ungrateful and unworthy persons to their own wrong and prejudice have much depressed the House of Commons and are not ashamed to say such is their ignorance that it is but of late standing Yet it 's the chief part and almost the whole Representative the Peers to them are but inconsiderable Whatsoever is concluded there doth most concern them and the heaviest burden lies on them And though by Commons some may understand only the Plebeian Rank yet there we find in that House men of as good Birth Estates and as eminent vertues as many of the Lords be What the House of Commons is may be more easily known but the nature of the House of Lords is somewhat hidden For in it we find Lords Spiritual as Abbots Bishops and these by Tenure we find in it also Lords Temporal as Dukes Marquesses Earls Viscounts Barons And all these under the name of Lords Peers Barons though Bárones Proceres Nobiles do sometimes signifie other persons For we read of the Barons of the Cinque-ports Barons of the Exchequer the eight Barons of Cheshire and the Barons of Burford in Shropshire We find Peers sometimes taken in another sence and to include the Commons And the truth is if the whole assembly be considered as one Representative they are all Peers and in all acts should be taken so to be These Peers become such three ways as I observed in my answer to Mr. Hobb's For they are aut Foedales aut rescriptitii aut diplomatici Barons by Tenure and ancient prescription since the time of William the Elder or by Writ or by Patent It is not for me to debate much less to determine the Controversies about these Lords as 1. Whether they be essential parts in a distinct House from the Commons of the Parliament or no seeing Acts and Ordinances and the same valid are said to be made without these Lords not any by the Lords without the Commons 2. What these Lords may do or for what end they are called For some say they sit there as Judges of the King together with the Commons For though the King in his Politick capacity cannot do wrong yet in his Personal he may This Horne and Bracton with other of the old Lawyers will tell us in whom we may read of the Torts and wrongs done by the King and of judging him as also the Queen and the Prince 3. Seeing by the Writ of Summons they are called to deliberate and consult Consilium impensuri not ad faciendum consentiendum as the Commons are whether they be there only as the King's Counsellors 4. Suppose them to be the King's Counsellors whether they be such without or with the Commons 5. Whether they have any share in the Legislative power or if they have whether in the same House or in a distinct House and Body with a negative to the Commons or not 6. When this transmitting of Bills to the House of Lords began which some say to be after the Barons Wars For it was not so from the beginning 7. Whether the Lords and not the Commons have power to administer an Oath We read in Sir H. Spelman's Glossary in the word Baro that no Barons were called to the Parliament but such as held of the King in Capite 2. That all
these were not called but the chief of them as Earls who possessed twenty Knights Fees and Barons which had to the value of thirteen Knights Fees and a third part of one 3. That because these were too many some of them were call'd to Parliament some omitted and only such as were called were counted Barons the rest not 4. This being taken ill the Barons caused King John adigere to covenant under the Broad Seal to summon severally by so many Writs the Arch-Bishops Abbots Earls and the greater Barons of the Kingdom 5. Yet Henry the Third so little regarded that compact that he called and kept a Parliament with an hundred and twenty Spiritual and only twenty five Temporal Lords though he had numbred two hundred and fifty Baronies in England 6. Edward the First omitted divers of those whom Henry the Third had summoned So that it will be a very difficult thing to rectifie or reduce unto the first institution this House as distinct from that of the Commons For it should be known 1. What kind of persons must constitute this other House 2. What their Priviledges be 3. What they must do which the House of Commons may not must not do section 15 By all this something of the nature of the Parliament may be known But then what is the power of this assembly either severally considered without the King or jointly with the King And that they may make Orders and Ordinances pro tempore will be granted and also which is far more if the King have no Negative voice the Legislative and Judicial power is in them and their ultimate Resolves and Dictates in all matters of Counsel must stand And if so then reason will conclude that if the King refuse to be personally or virtually present and to act with them they may do any thing for the good of the Kingdom without him which they may do jointly with him Yet because Laws and Judgment are ineffectual without execution therefore the King being trusted with the execution was required to give his consent that he might take care of the Execution For to that end was he trusted with the Sword of Justice and War that he might protect the people and see that Laws and Judgments be executed If we consider the Parliament as consisting of King Peers and Commons jointly it is the first subject of Personal Majesty and to it and it alone belongs all the Jura Majestatis personalis They have the power Legislative Judicial Executive to exercise it in the highest degree and may perform all acts of administration as distinct from the Constitution They are the highest assembly for Legislation the highest Counsel for advice the highest Court for Judicature section 16 This is the power of the Parliament which can do many and great things yet some things they cannot do for they are limitted not only by the Laws of God but also by the Laws of the Constitution Sir Roger Owen tells That the Parliament cannot do all things For 1. Many Acts are Voted for errors in matter of fact and for contrariety in words and sometimes they have idle and flattering proviso's 2. A Parliament hath not power to ordain that a Law shall not be abrogated for the space of twenty years for a latter Parliament may repeal their Acts. 3. That a Parliament cannot Enact that if there were no Heir to the Crown that the people should not be able to chuse a new King. 4. It cannot change the form of our Policy from a Monarchy to a Democraty 5. It cannot take away divers Prerogatives annexed to the Crown of England or that the King should not be able to dissolve the Parliament at will and pleasure yet in another place he tells us that he cannot dissolve the Parliament at will and pleasure and again he is not above the Parliament because he cannot be above himself and in Parliament he is Maxime Rex He further informs us that the common Law is the King's Inheritance and how the Parliament may wither away the Flowers of the Crown The true reason why the Parliament cannot do some of these things nor others not mentioned by him is because they have not real but personal Majesty They cannot alter the Government nor take away divers things belonging to the Crown because they did not give the Prerogatives of the Crown at the first the Commons of the Realm gave them as he confesseth The form of Government was first constituted by the Community of England not by the Parliament For the Community and people of England gave both King and Parliament their being and if they meddle with the Constitution to alter it they destroy themselves because they destroy that whereby they subsist The Community indeed may give a Parliament this power to take away the former Constitution and to frame and model another but then they cannot do this as a Parliament but as trusted by the people for such a business and work nay they may appoint another assembly of fewer or more to do such a work without them They may set up a Consilium sapientum which may determine what matters are fit to be proposed to the Parliament and in what order and also contrive a Juncto for all businesses which require expedition and secrecy which may act without them whether the Parliament it self can do such things or no may justly be doubted What may be done in extraordinary cases is one thing what may be done in an ordinary way another When he saith that the Parliament cannot change the form of Policy from a Monarchy he presupposeth our State of England to be a Monarchy yet if he distinguish not between the Constitution and the administration he may be guilty of an error For it 's not a Monarchy but only in respect of the Executive part in the Intervals of Parliaments Our Ancestors abhorred absolute and arbitrary Monarchs therefore before they did establish a King they made a bridle to keep him in and put it upon him This is plain from Bracton Fortescue the Coronation Oath and the Mirror section 17 From all this we may conjecture what the Constitution of England was It was no absolute Monarchy that 's plain enough Neither was it a State of pure disposition but mixt Neither were the Jura Majestatis divided some to the King some to the Lords some to the Commons it was of a far better mould The personal Majesty primary was in King Peers and Commons jointly in the whole assembly as one body this may appear several ways as 1. From this that it was a Representative of the whole Nation and as it was a general Representative of all England and no ways else was it invested with this personal Sovereignty It must represent the whole Community all the Members thereof of what rank or condition soever not only the Laity but the Clergy too these are words used in our Laws and good enough though disliked by
many The Clergy and Ministry of England were never represented by the Knights of the Counties before our times neither could the Parliament without the personal presence of some of themselves impose Subsidies much less Ecclesiastical Canons upon them They are as free English men as any other and by the Laws of the Land have their privileges and immunities distinct from those of other mens which are now taken from them and it 's an hard case that they may have none of their own faculty and capacity as their proper Representatives to maintain them and speak reason for them They are willing enough to part with any thing formerly they had if not agreeable to Scripture 2. To prove this mixture the King's Coronation Oath might be alledged for he swears to corroborate the just Laws and Customs quas vulgus elegerit where two words require some explication 1. Vulgus 2. Corroborare That we may know what they mean. Vulgus some think doth signifie the Commons and then the Lords as of a distinct House can have no share in the Legislation except as some tell us they were represented by the Knights of the Counties whom with the rest of the Free-Holders they did anciently elect and contribute to their Charges whilst they sat in Parliament Vulgus in Latin is the same that Folk in Saxon and now remains in English from whence Folk-mote the City or Shire-meeting as the Parliament is the great meeting of all the Counties in England In this place it must be the Representative of the whole Community of England in one body all the members of the Wittena Gemote as united and distinct from the King. The word Corroborare doth not signifie to give the essence to the Law as though it were not a Law before or not a Custom but it signifies to guard keep defend observe the just Laws and Customs in the administration and to see them executed according to judgment It may be the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek which doth not give the being to a Will and Testament for it must be a Will before it be confirmed and so made effectual Confirmation is extrinsecal and accidental not essential to the Will or Testament The reason why the Kings did swear to corroborate the just Laws and Customs made approved chosen by the people was because that upon the dissolution of the Parliament the sword remained in his hands for to see the Laws executed which were ineffectual would lie dead be in vain without execution These words explained the matter to be observed is that if by Laws and Customs we understand the rules of administration not only as including a binding force but also as to be made effectual then it follows by the tenour of that Oath that the Legislative power which is the foundation and rule of all acts of administration was in King Peers and Commons jointly this is a mixture and a free State. 3. This mixture will farther appear from the manner of enacting for that was the manner in our days Be it therefore enacted by the King 's most excellent Majesty by and with the assent and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons in this present Parliament Assembled and by authority of the same Neither is this new for the substance of it is ancient as Sir Edward Coke doth manifest in the cause of the Prince as Duke of Cornwall The Collection of the Statutes will manifest it for four hundred years For what if other terms were used yet they were in sense the same Neither did this begin in the Reign of Richard the Second or Henry the Third King Edward the Confessor's Modus tenendi Parliamentum will confirm the same to which my Lord Chief Justice Coke tells us the Conqueror bound himself Though Sir Roger Owen thinks this book but a Pamphlet yet my Lord Coke as good a Lawyer and Sir Henry Spelman as good an Antiquary as he were of another mind and thought better of it Nay it 's not only thus in making Laws but also in judgments which pass into an act And this kind of Judgment is the highest from which there lies no appeal This is the nature of the Constitution so far as my poor understanding is able to judge section 18 It remains I add something of our present condition since the times of our sad divisions After a long continued peace the light of the glorious Gospel many blessings and great deliverances from Heaven such was our unthankfulness so great the corruptions of Church and State that when God expected better fruits our sins were ripe for vengeance so that some fearful judgment if not the ruine of the three Nations did seem to approach or rather to be fatal and unavoidable And some of our Teachers and Watchmen seriously considering the eternal rules of providence and divine proceedings with the World in former times and knowing our present distempers did foresee this and gave us warning from those words of our Saviour Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish Luke 13.3 Yet no warning given either by our watchmen from the Scriptures or the judgments of God upon Germany and the neighbour Nations round about us whom from our own shores we might behold wallowing in their own blood would be taken And even then when there was no danger from any enemy without and we were secure as enjoying the sweetest and most happy peace that could be expected on earth God looked down from Heaven with indignation and as though he had sworn to be avenged on such a Nation and so ungrateful a people he sent a spirit of giddiness amongst us and set the Egyptians against the Egyptians and made us Executioners of his own Judgment upon our selves for from our selves our miseries did arise For after a first and second pacification between England and Scotland the long continued Parliament began to reform both Church and State but found the corruptions so generally diffused and deeply rooted in the whole body that there was a greater fear of ruin than hope of Reformation and this some of our wise Statists had formerly observed was likely to be the issue They acted vigorously at the first but as some wise men thought too hastily and too high and seemed somewhat to encline to an extreme In the mean time no man suspecting no man fearing it brake out that bloody barbarous massacre in Ireland wherein two hundred thousand English Protestants are said to be murthered in one month In this the actors were Irish Papists and the sufferers English Protestants This could not quench the fire of dissention in England which began to manifest it self in the Parliaments Militia opposed to the King's Array which proceeded to a bloody battel at or near Keinton which continued till the King's party was wholly subdued in England himself put to death his posterity dispossessed of the Crown Ireland reduced with the ruin of almost all the chief and ancient Families
and do yet condemn them both in Words and Writings as guilty of most horrible Treason and Rebellion which others will undertake to prove the censurers themselves deeply guilty of Wise and learned Men no whit inferior to them do certainly know that as they could not maintain their cause by dint of Sword so neither can they make it good by dint of Argument One of their learned Casuists delivers this as a positive truth That to disobey a lawful Sovereign is such an act as that no circumstances can make it lawful no not the Glory of God nor the saving of many Souls nor preventing the Ruine of a Nation This is high Divers who read this in his Books conceive that in this he toucheth the Cause and Controversie between King and Parliament I cannot charge him with any such thing But let his Application be what it will I will consider his Proposition in it self and will suppose it to be grounded upon that divine Maxime We must not do evil that good may come For that which God hath made sin nothing can make lawful But then the Question is What he means by Sovereign what by disobedience to a lawful Sovereign If he mean by Sovereign one invested with supream Power and an absolute Monarch it 's clear enough the Kings of England were not such For 1. They had no Legislative Power which is the greatest without this Parliament 2. That his personal Commands bound no Man for he could command nothing but according to the just Laws and Customs quas vulgus elegerat 3. The late King himself in his Answer to the Nineteen Propositions confessed That the Parliament had a share in the Legislative Power It 's true they had the Title of Sovereign and Majesty but in another sence than many take it As for the second Term Disobedience it might be twofold 1. In respect of absolute Sovereigns 2. In respect of the Kings of England In respect of the former a lawful Sovereign may command unlawful things and contrary to the Laws of God and in this case their Commands may nay must be disobeyed 1. If they command things lawful in themselves yet they may command them so as to be unlawful A man is bound to love Father and Mother by the Law of God and to do so is not only lawful but necessary Yet if this love come in competition with the love of Christ it 's plainly unlawful Therefore I will be so charitable as to think he understood the proposition of disobedience to lawful Commands of lawful Sovereigns otherwise he saith nothing but his proposition is false 2. In respect of the Kings of England their Commands are personal or legal His legal Commands if agreeable to the Laws of God ought to be obeyed and his Subjects are bound to submit unto his legal Power for other Power as King he hath none But as for his personal Commands they bind no Subject as a Subject and if they be contrary to the Law in obeying them we may be guilty of Disobedience to the Law nay of Disobedience to the King as King nay guilty of Treason against the Kingdom and the Kings Crown and Dignity And methinks such learned Men should not be ignorant of these things section 20 As for the Parliament it was charged with taking upon them the Militia seising upon the Navy securing the Ports making of a new Broad Seal creating of Officers abolishing of Episcopacy and Liturgy established by Law by which they lost many of their Subjects calling in the Scots proposing a Covenant to the people upon high terms and many other things and all these without the King nay contrary to the King's Command who had so graciously condescended unto them in granting many things unto them prejudicial as he thought to his Prerogatives and the ancient Rights of his Predecessours especially the Acts of continuance and of the Triennial Parliament 1. For the Militia it was alledged The King promised it and the Lawyers and learned Counsel informed them That if the King in such a time should neglect it they might take it and exercise it themselves without him and it 's reported that the very same parties who had given this Advise to the Parliament after they were come unto the King did counsel him to set on foot the Commission of Array in opposition to the Parliament's Militia 2. For seizing the Navy Ports and creating of Officers in a Declaration of the Lords and Commons upon the Treaty at Oxford is shewed the necessity of doing so and the antiquity of that practice for they instance in many Parliaments which have done the like and more too It was no new thing And though his Majesty affirmed these things were his by Law yet it was not his but by way of trust for the defence not the destruction of the Kingdom 3. For the Broad Seal there was a necessity of making a new one seeing that the former was surreptitiously against Law and Right carried and conveyed away Neither had the King as separate and divided from the Parliament any right unto it 4. The abolishing of Episcopacy and Liturgy is conceived might be justly charged upon the Scots who when the King and so many great Ones had deserted the Parliament would not firmly adhere unto them but upon such terms Otherwise the reformation of Bishops and Book of Common-prayer was far more for the Protestant interest than Presbytery which was rather inconsistent with it 5. The calling of the Scots was said to be done in extremity and grounded upon the National League according to which they were bound of themselves to have assisted the Parliament as some thought and judged 6. The Covenant is said to be more from the Scot than the English and what the design of the first Contrivers in it might be was known to few who took it It proved to be of bad consequence whether in respect of the nature of the Covenant or some other cause may be doubted for the Parliament of Scotland thought it a sufficient ground for Duke Hambleton to invade England and the English House of Commons judged them Rebels and Traitors who should joyn with him or assist Such is the frailty inconstancy and pravity of men 7. As for the high demands of the Parliament it 's alledged No King ever did such things or gave occasion to make such demands and he did but grant that which was reasonable and necessary for the time and less than former Laws required so that except as separated from the Parliament he was an absolute Monarch his denial of their demands was not consistent with the Constitution of the Kingdom section 21 But after that the Royal party was totally subdued there falls out a subdivision amongst the Anti-Royalists For they who could agree against a third Party could not agree amongst themselves For they began to play Scotch and English first and then the Presbyterian who much though not in all things inclined to the
God was nothing but jus ad recte agendum a right to do right in matters of Religion If they did otherwise they abused their power they lost it not And if an Heathen Prince or State should become Christian they acquire no new Right but are further engaged to exercise their power in abolishing Idolatry and establishing the true Worship of the true God. This may be signified by the Titles of Nursing-Fathers of the Church Defenders of the Faith Most Christian Most Catholick King. All which as they signified their Right so they also pointed at their Duty which was to protect the true Church and maintain the True Christian Catholick Faith. 4. Though Regal and Sacerdotal power were always distinct and different in themselves yet they were often disposed and united in one Person Thus Melchisedeck was both King and Priest Thus Romulus was Prince and the chief Pontiffe For he is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Halicar Antiqu. Rom. lib. 2. The succeeding Kings took the same place After the Regal power was abolished it was an high Office. When Rome became Imperial the Emperours took the Title of Supream Pontiffe and some of them after they became Christian retained it Yet still as the Powers so the Acts were distinct For Melchisedeck as King ruled his People in Righteousness and Peace as Priest officiated received Tithes and blessed Abraham As they were sometimes united so they were divided For God entailed the Sacerdotal power upon the house of Aaron and afterwards the Regal power upon the family of David Neither did Christ or his Apostles think it fit to make the Ministers Magistrates or the Magistrates Ministers Yet in this Union or Division you must know that this Sacerdotal and Ministerial power was not this Civil power of Religion which always belonged to the Civil Governours even then when these two powers were divided 5. If Civil powers stablish Religion and that by Law call Synods order them ratifie their Canons divest spiritual and Ecclesiastical persons of their temporal priviledges or restore them yet they do all this by their civil power by which they cannot excommunicate absolve suspend much less officiate and preach and administer Sacraments In this respect if the civil power make a civil Law against Idolatry Blasphemy Heresie or other scandal they may by the same power justly punish the offenders by the sword and the Church censure them by the power of the Keyes 6. This jus Religionis ordinandae this power of ordering matters of Religion is not the power of the Church but of the State not of the Keyes but of the sword The Church hath nothing to do with the sword nor the State with the Keyes Christ did not say tell the State and whatsoever ye bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven c. Neither did he say of the Church that she beareth not the sword in vain Therefore he must needs be very ignorant or very partial that shall conceive that the State is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the power of the Keyes section 3 These things premised give occasion to consider how the Oath of Supremacy is to be understood especially in these words wherein the Kings or Queens of England were acknowledged over all persons in causes as well Ecclesiastical as Civil all supream head and because that word Head was so offensive it was changed into Governour For the clearing hereof it 's to be observed 1. That by these words it was intended to exclude all foreign Power both Civil and Ecclesiastical especially that which the Bishops of Rome did challenge and also exercise within the Dominions of the Crown of England 2. That the Kings and Queens of Enland had no power supream in making Laws and passing judgements without the Parliament Therefore by supream Governour was meant supream Administratour for the execution of the Laws in the intervals of Parliament In this respect the Canons and injunctions made by the Clergy though confirmed by royal assent without the Parliament have been judged of no force 3. That by Ecclesiastical causes are meant such causes as are materially Ecclesiastical yet properly civil as before For matters of Religion in respect of the outward profession and practice and the Parties professing and practising are subject to the civil power For by the outward part the State may be disturbed put in danger of Gods judgements and the persons are punishable by the sword even for those crimes Yet neither can the sword reach the soul nor rectifie the conscience except per accidens That by Ecclesiastical is not meant spiritual in proper sense is clear because the Kings of England never took upon them to excommunicate or absolve neither had those Chancellours that were only Civilians and not Divines power to perform such acts Yet they received their power from the Bishops and it was counted Ecclesiastical 4. In respect of these Titles those Courts which were called Spiritual and Ecclesiastical derived their power from the Crown And the Bishops did correct and punish disquiet disobedient criminous persons within their Diocess according to such authority as they had by Gods word and as to them was committed by the authority of this Realm These are the words of the Book of Ordination in the consecration of Bishops The words seem to imply that they had a mixt or at least a twofold power one by the word as trusted with the power of the Keyes the other from the Magistrate or Crown and that was civil Such a mixt power they had indeed in the high Commission Yet though this may be implyed yet it may be they understood that their power by the word of God and from the Crown were the same The act of restoring the ancient jurisdiction to the Crown 1 Eliz. 1. doth make this further evident For it 's an act of restoring the ancient jurisdiction in Ecclesiasticals especially to the Crown for that 's the Title Where it must be observed that the power was such as the Parliament did give 2. That they did not give it anew but restore it 3. They could not had no power to give it if it belonged to the Crown by the Constitution but to declare it to be due upon which Declaration the Queen might resume that which the Pope had usurped and exercised 4. It 's remarkable that not the Queen but the Parliament by that act did restore it as the act of the Oath of supremacy was made by a Parliament which by that act could not give the King any power at all which was not formerly due In respect of Testaments temporal jurisdiction Dignities Priviledges Titles as due unto the Church by humane Constitution and donation all Ecclesiastical causes concerning these were determinable by a civil power How tithes are a lay-fee or divine right hath been declared formerly Hence it doth appear that the Oath of Supremacy was not so easily understood as it was easily taken by many and the Oxford Convocation I believe but that they
had already sworn could have found as many reasons against it as against the Covenant especially if it had been new as the Covenant was Many wise men at the first did scruple it and some suffered death for refusal Amongst the rest Sir Thomas Moor a learned and a very prudent man could not digest it and though he might have an high conceit of the Papal Supremacy yet that might not be the only reason of his refusal but this because he knew the Crown had no Ecclesiastical power properly so called Though this was not thought to be the true but only the pretended cause of his death For in his Vtopia he seems to dislike the Indisputable Prerogative which was a Noli me tangere and to touch it so roughly as he did might cost dear as it did Yet I have taken the Oath of Supremacy in that sense as our Divines did understand it and I was and am willing to give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's section 4 That which hath been said in this point in brief is this That though the Civil Powers have a right to order matters of Religion in respect of the outward part and so far as the Sword may reach it according to Divine Law yet they have no power of the Keys which Christ committed to the Church For if we consider all the power exercised in matter of Religion by David Solomon and the pious Kings of Judah by the Christian Emperours and Princes by the Kings of France and England it was but civil Neither is the power of our Parliaments any other For though they make Acts concerning the publick Doctrine and Discipline yet these are but civil They are not Representatives of the Church but of the State whether the Convocation was an essential part of the Parliament or a full representative of the Church I will not here debate I find some great Lawyers which deny both And if their denial be true then England had no general Representative of the Church in latter times As for Erastians and such as do give all Ecclesiastical power of Discipline to the State and deny all power to the Ministers but that of dispensing Word and Sacraments it 's plain they never understood the state of the Question and though a Minister as a Minister have no power but that of Word and Sacraments yet from thence it will not follow that the Church hath not a power spiritual distinct from that of the State in matters of Religion CHAP. XI Whether Episcopacy be the primary subject of the Power of the Keys section 1 THE Prelate presumes that the power of the Keys is his and he thinks his title very good and so good that though he could not prove the institution yet prescription will bear him out For he hath had possession for a long time and Universality and Antiquity seem to favour him very much Yet I hope his title may be examined and if upon examination it prove good he hath no cause to be offended except with this that I of all others should meddle with it But before any thing can be said to purpose we must first know the nature and institution of a Bishop which is the subject of the Question Secondly Put the Reader in mind that the Question is not in this place whether a Bishop be an Officer of the Church either by some special or some general Divine Precept but whether he be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the primary subject of the power of the Keys For he may be an Officer and yet no such subject Concerning a Bishop the subject of the Question two things are worthy our consideration 1. What he is 2. How instituted at the first The Definition and Institution seem rather to belong unto the second part of Ecclesiastical Politicks where I shall entreat of Ecclesiastical Officers and the constitution of them Yet I will here say something of both in order to the Question though I be the briefer afterward section 2 What a Bishop is may be difficult to know except we do distinguish before we do define For we find several sorts of Bishops in the Church Christian. There is a Primitive a Prelatical or Hierarchical and an English Bishop distinct and different in some things from both the former for whom I reserve a place in the end of this Chapter The Primitive Bishop is twofold 1. A Presbyter 2. A President or Superintendent 1. A Presbyter in the New Testament is a Bishop For the Elders of Ephesus were made by the Holy Ghost Bishops or Superintendents over God's flock Acts 20.28 And the qualification of a Bishop 1 Tim. 3.1 2 3 c. is the qualification of an Elder Tit. 1.5 6 7 c. For whatsoever some of late have said to the contrary yet Presbyter and Bishop were only two different words signifying the same Officer And this is confessed by divers of the Ancients who tell us that the word Bishop was appropriated to one who was more than a Presbyter in after-times 2. A Bishop signified one that was above a Presbyter in some respects as a Moderatour of a Classis or President of a Synod But such a Presbyter might be only pro tempore for the time of the Session and after the Assembly dissolved he might return to be a bare Presbyter again For to be a Moderatour or President was no constant place The word in this sense we find seldom used if at all 2. A President was a kind of Superintendent with a care and inspection not only over the people but the Presbyters too within a certain precinct and this was a constant place and the party called a Bishop and by Ambrose and Austine with divers others called primus Presbyterorum and these were such as had no power but with the Presbytery joyntly and that without a negative voice And the Presbytery might be a Representative not only of the Presbyters strictly taken but of the people too For we may read in Cyprian and other Authours that these Bishops in more weighty matters of publick concernment did nothing without the counsel and consent not only of the Presbyters but the people This I call a primitive Bishop not only because he is ancient but also because the place or office is agreeable to the rules of Reason of Government and the general Rules of the Apostles concerning Order Decency Edification There is also an Hierarchical Bishop who may be only a Bishop or an Archbishop and Metropolitan or a Patriarch and these challenge the power of Ordination and Jurisdiction and in Jurisdiction include and engross the power of making Canons This kind of Episcopacy is ancient as the former This last Bishop is he upon whom Spalatensis and many others do fix and though they grant that he should do nothing without the Counsel of the Presbytery yet they give him full power without the Presbytery which they joyn with him only for advice The English Bishop is in
commended or reproved and charged with divers sins and threatned with such punishments as must fall upon all After all these proofs from Scripture recourse is had to Antiquity and Universality as sufficient grounds of a prescription which is a good kind of title But 1. In divine things especially such as are of ordinary and universal obligation Antiquity and Universality without a Divine Institution will not serve the turn 2. The Hierarchy prescribes as much and as high as Episcopacy invested with power of Ordination and Jurisdiction as proper to it self yet it s confessed to be only of humane institution 3. What is it how is it defined What Divine Institution can be made evident of that which they say is so universal and ancient 4. Who are the witnesses by whose testimony this Antiquity and Universality is proved They are besides some of later times but few and all within the Roman Empire many of them Bishops themselves and some of them bitter Enemies one against another They are not one of an hundred amongst the Bishops not one of a thousand amongst others Yet the Church in the Apostles times was enlarged to the ends of the Earth And as then so now there were in every Century thousands that did never write or if they did they wrote not of Episcopacy and many of them might be as great Schollars as those whose books are extant 5. There was a special reason why there might be Bishops and the same Hierarchical in the principal parts of the Roman Teritory as shall be touched hereafter 6. Suppose these Bishops to have the power of Ordination and Jurisdiction yea the whole power of the Keyes which includes the Legislative in making Canons can any man prove that they had it always in all places and if so that they had it severally in their several precincts and not joyntly with their fellow Bishops as Representatives in Counsels and also with Presbyters and others too It s well enough known that other besides Bishops had their suffrage in Synods Arles President of the Council of Basil proves stoutly that Presbyters have their Votes and without them he could not have carried the cause against Panormitan and his faction section 8 After the primitive and the Hierarchical Episcopacy comes in the English which hath something singular He that will understand the nature of it more fully must read Dr. Zouch Dr. Mucket Dr. Cosens the Civilian his Tables with him who calls himself Didoclavius upon him By all whom we may understand 1. It was not the primitive Episcopacy 2. It was clearly Hierarchical for we had Bishops and two Arch-Bishops of York and Canterbury the one the Metropolitan of England the other of all England The Bishops took their Oath of obedience to the Arch-Bishops as appeareth by the book of ordination They did arrogate the power of ordination to themselves though Presbyters did in the ordination impose hands with them and some of them confessed they had it only with the Presbyter joyntly Yet we know how that by others is eluded 3. Not to say any thing of their Titles Dignity Revenue Baronies annexed to their Sea their place in the house of the Peers in Parliament and their priviledges they had cast off in effect not only the people but Presbytery For though the Presbytery had their Clerks both in the Convocation of York and also at London if the Parliament sat there yet they took upon them in the end to nominate these Clerks and deprive the Ministers of their right of Election As for the Deanes and Chapters which should have been eminent Persons and chosen by the Presbytery in every Diocess to represent them they were degenerate from their original Institution and the Bishops who should have done nothing but joyntly with them did all things without them They in effect though unjustly engrossed the whole power of Administration 4. Yet this is observable that 1. They could make no Canons but joyntly in one Assembly 2. That joyntly amongst themselves without the Presbytery they had not this power 3. That no Canons were valid without the Royal Assent 4. Neither by the Constitution was the Royal Assent sufficient without the Parliament 5. That they derived much of their Ecclesiastical power from the Crown For by the Oath of Supremacy is declared that the King of England is over all persons even in Ecclesiastical causes Supream Governour In which respect all their secular Power Revenue Dignity and also their nomination and confirmation with their investiture is from him He calls Synods confirms their Canons grants Commissions to exercise Jurisdiction purely Ecclesiastical In the first year of King Edward the sixth by a Statute they were bound to use the Kings name not their own even in their Citations and as before they must correct and punish offenders according to such Authority as they had by the Word of God and as to them should be committed by the ordinance of this Realm So that if the Popish Bishops derive their power from the Pope and the English from the King neither of them could be jure divino And by this the title of most Bishops in Europe is meerly humane and that in two respects 1. Because its Hierarchial 2. Derived either from an higher Ecclesiastical or an higher secular power section 9 Thus far I have enquired though briefly and according to my poor ability into the definition and institution of a Bishop the subject of the Question which is this Whether a Bishop or Bishops be the primary subject of the Keyes The meaning whereof is 1. Whether they be the primary and adequate sole subject of the whole power of the Keyes whereof the principal though not all the branches are making Canons and receiving last appeals without any provocation from them For they may be subjects and not primary they may be subjects of some part and not of the whole power 2. Whether they be such subjects of this power in foro exteriori For in foro interiori the Presbyters have as much as they 3. Whether they be such subjects of such power in foro exteriori quatenus Episcopi reduplicative 4. Whether as such they be such a subject by Divine Institution For solution hereof it s to be considered 1. That except there be an Universal consent and the same clearly grounded upon Scripture both what a Bishop is and 2. That made evident that his Title is of Divine Institution the affirmative cannot be proved 2. That though a Bishop could be clearly proved to have the power of Ordination and Jurisdiction yet it will not follow from thence that he is the primary subject of that power For the negative many things may be said 1. Neither the papal nor the English Bishop so far as the one derives his power from the Pope and the other from the Crown can be the primary subject of this power the secondary they may be 2. For such as derive not their power from
those thus Associated may have Communion in Divine Things and Actions and their Pastors with their Flocks before any form of Discipline be introduced or setled and these Believers may by Word and Sacraments receive Heavenly Comfort and attain Eternal Life without such Discipline and before it can be established amongst them and so I hope it is at this time in this Nation with many a faithful servant of God who by the benefit of a good Ministry with God's Blessing upon their Labours are truely converted and continue and go on in a state of Salvation as happily as many who are under a form of Government And here it is to be observed 1. That though the Apostles were extraordinary Officers infallibly directed by the Holy Ghost which Christ gave them yet ordinary Ministers lawfully called and succeeding them if they preach their Doctrine truly have a promise to convert and save the Souls of sinful Men. 2. That the Work of these ordinary Ministers is not only to feed the Flock of Christ already gathered but to convert and gather Sinners unto Christ and this not by the Rod of Discipline but the Word of God which is the Power of God unto Salvation 3. This gaining Souls to Christ is not the gathering of Churches out of Churches and Christians out of Christians to make a party of their own under pretence of a purer Reformation but it 's a far more excellent Work and of another kind tending directly to an higher end 4. After a Minister becomes a Pastour of a Flock and hath relation unto them as his Flock and they to him as his People he must needs have some Power over them and they must be subject unto him and obey him in the Lord and he hath power to remit Sins to shut and open and what he doth in this kind according to his Commission will be made good in Heaven Yet these Acts of his are not Acts of External Discipline but of his Ministerial Office as he is a Servant to Jesus Christ. This I speak not against Discipline which if agreeable to the word of God is a great Blessing but against all such who under pretence of this or that form of Church-Government disturb the Church and discomfort and discourage many a precious Saint of God. The end of this is to manifest that these places of Scripture Mat. 16.19 John 20.22 23. are no grounds whereon to build Church-Government section 5 Because former places are not so pertinent I proceed in the next place to the Words of Institution of Church-discipline you may read them Mat. 18.17 18. De exteriori foro ibi agitur Exterioris fori jurisdictio illo nec alio loco fundata est That 's the only place for the Institution and no other saith Dr. Andrews in that most learned and exact piece far above his other Works To understand this place we must observe 1. The Parties subject to this Tribunal 2. The Causes proper to that Court. 3. In what manner and order Causes are brought in and prepared for Judgment 4. The Judge 5. The Acts of Judgment upon Evidence of the Cause 6. The Ratification of these Acts and so of the Power 7. How this Ratification is obtained and the Judgment made effectual 1. The party subject to this Tribunal is a Brother If thy Brother offend thee verse 15. This may be explained from 1 Cor. 5.11 But now I have written unto you not to keep company if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator or covetous or an idolater c. There are covetous Persons and Idolaters of the World verse 10. and Fornicators and Idolaters which are called Brethren The former are without the latter within the Church The former are subject to the Judgment of God but not of the Church the latter are subject to the Judgment of the Church Do not thou judge them that are within So that the Subjects in this Common-wealth are Brethren Disciples such as profess their Faith in Christ. 2. The Causes are Spiritual and Ecclesiastical and must be considered under that Notion For it 's a Trespass an Offence committed by a Brother as a Brother against a Brother as a Brother whether it be a wrong against a Brother or a sin whereby a Brother is offended grieved displeased For if a Brother be a Fornicator or Idolater c. he must tell the Church and not the State he must be made as an Heathen or Publican if he will not hear the Church this is no Sentence of the State or Civil Judge it 's made good in Heaven so is not the Judgment of the Civil Magistrate It must be the Judgment of a Brother as a Brother within the Church which the Church as a Church must judge and in the name of Christ not of the Civil Soveraign and the Party offending must be delivered up to Satan not to the Sword. Yet one and the same Crime may make a person obnoxious both to the temporal Sword of the Magistrate and the spiritual Censure of the Church and may be justly punishable and punished by both though some of our English Lawyers have delivered the contrary who might ground their Opinion upon Ecclesiastical Supremacy of the King For tho' the Laws of England might determine so yet the Laws of God and Christ do not 3. The manner and order of proceeding is 1. Privately to admonish and if that take effect to proceed no further 2. If upon this the party will not reform he must be charged and convinced before two or three Witnesses and if he shall persist impenitent then he must be convented before the Ecclesiastical Tribunal upon Information and Accusation and the same once made good and evident the Cause is ripe prepared for Judgment section 6 The Judge in the fourth place is the Church Tell the Church where we must know what this Church is The word in the Greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and we find it used in the Old Testament about seventy times by the Septuagint who so often turn the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by that name Upon perusal of the places we shall find that it signifies Assemblies and of many kinds as good bad holy prophane greater less festival civil military Ecclesiastical and Religious occasional standing orderly confused ordinary extraordinary It 's observable that very seldome some say but once as Psal. 26.5 it signifies a wicked and prophane Society Sometimes not often it 's a Military body But most of all by far a few Texts excepted it notes an holy and religious Convention or Assembly For sometimes it 's a National Polity of Israel under a sacred Notion and very often a religious Assembly for Prayer Fasting Dedications renewing their Covenant with God Praises Thanksgivings and such like Acts of Worship so that the word seems to be appropriate unto Religious Assemblies and though it signifie other Societies yet these most frequently and principally And this is confirmed from the
New Testament where it s used a hundred and eleven times at least and in all these places signifies an Assembly or Society Religious except in Acts 19.32 39 41. where it signifies both a tumultuous and also an orderly Assembly or Society or Convention as a civil Court of Judgment which signification is here applied by our Saviour to a Spiritual Judicatory for Spiritual Causes Though this be a special signification yet it signifies the number and Society of Believers and Disciples who profess their Faith in Christ exhibited and this is this Church-Christian and the People of God. Yet it signifies this People under several Notions as sometimes the Church of the Jews sometimes of the Gentiles sometimes the Universal Church sometimes particular Churches sometimes the Militant Church either as visible or mystical sometimes the Church Triumphant sometimes a Church before any form of Government be introduced sometimes under a form of Government so it 's taken and supposed by our Saviour here Grotius his Conceit that our Saviour in these words alludes to the manner of several Sects Professions as of Pharisees Sadduces Essenes who had their Rules of Discipline and their Assemblies and Convention for the practice of them may be probable Yet without any such Allusion the place is plain enough from the context and other Scriptures Erastus upon the place is intollerable and most wofully wrests it so doth Bishop Bilson in his Church-Government and is point-blank contrary to D. Andrews who in his Tortura Torti doth most accurately examine interpret and apply the words and most effectually from thence confute Bellarmine One may truly say of that Book as he himself said of Austin's Treatise De Civitate Dei it was opus palmarum For Civil Common Canon-Law Politicks History School Learning the Doctrine of the Casuists Divinity and other Arts whereof he makes use it is one of the most learned and accurate of any put forth in our times By his Exposition of this Text he utterly overthrows the immediate Jus Divinum of Episcopacy in matters of Discipline and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction He plainly and expresly makes the whole Church the primary subject of the Power of the Keys in foro exteriori Therefore suppose the Bishops were Officers by a Divine Right as he endeavours to prove tho' weakly in his Letters to Du Moulin yet at best they can be but the Churches Delegates for the exercise of that Power And it is observable that divers of our Champions when they oppose Bellarmine's Monarchical Government of the Church peremptorily affirm the Power of the Keyes to be in the whole Church as the most effectual way to confute him yet when they wrote against the Presbyterian and the Antiprelatical party they change their Tone and Tune But to return unto the words of Institution 1. The word Church here signifies an Assembly 2. This Assembly is an Assembly for Religion 3. The Religion is Christian. 4. This Assembly is under a form of External Government 5. This Government presupposeth a Community and Laws and Officers Ecclesiastical These presupposed it 's a juridical Assembly or a Court. 6. Because Courts are Inferiour Superiour and Supream it signifies all especially Supream 7. It determines no kind of Government but that of a free State as shall more appear hereafter 8. Christ doth not say Dic Regi tell the Prince or State nor Dic Petro tell Peter or the Pope as though the Government should be Monarchical either Civil or Ecclesiastical nor Dic Presbytero tell the Elders nor Dic Apostolis Episcopis aut Archiopiscopis that the Government should be purely Aristocratical nor Dic Plebi that the Government should be purely Democratical nor Dic Synodo tell the Council general or particular But it saith tell the Church wherein there may be Bishops Presbyters some Eminent Persons neither Bishops nor Presbyters There may be Synods and all these either as Officers or Representatives of the Church and we may tell these and these may judge yet they hear and judge by a power derived and delegated from the Church and the Church by them as by her Instruments doth exercise her Power As the body sees by her eye and hears by the ear so it is in this particular but so that the similitude doth not run on four feet nor must be stretched too far This being the genuine Sense favours no Faction yet admits any kind of Order which observed may reach the main end For this we must know and take special notice of that Christ will never stand upon Formalities but requires the thing which he commands to be done in an orderly way Yet it 's necessary and his Institution doth tend unto it to reserve the chief Power in the whole Body otherwise if any party as Bishops or Presbyters or any other part of the Church be trusted with the power alone to themselves they will so engross it as that there will be no means nor ordinary jurisdiction to reform them Of this we have plain Experience in the Bishops of Rome who being trusted at first with too much Power did at length arrogate as their own and no ways derived from the Church and so refused to be judged For if the Church once make any party the primary subject of this power then they cannot use it to reduce them Therefore as it is a point of Wisdom in any State to reserve the chief power in the whole Community and single out the best and wisest to exercise it so as if the Trustees do abuse their power they may remove them or reform them so it should be done in the Church If any begin to challenge either the whole or the Supream power as Officers many of these nay the greater part of them may be unworthy or corrupted and then the Church is brought to straits and must needs suffer Some tell us that the King of England by the first Constitution was only the Supream and Universal Magistrate of the Kingdom trusted with a sufficient power to govern and administer the State according to the Laws and his chief work was to see the Laws executed Yet in tract of time they did challenge the power to themselves as their own and refused to be judged Yet in this Institution if Peter if Paul tho' Apostles do offend much more if Patriarchs Metropolitans Bishops Presbyters do trespass we must tell not Peter not Paul not an Apostle not a Bishop not any other but the Church No wit of Men or Angels could have imagined a better way nor given a better expression to settle that which is good and just and prevent all parties and factions and yet leave a sufficient latitude for several orderly ways to attain the chief end section 7 The Judge being known the Judicial Acts of this Judge must be enquired into in the fifth place and these are two the first is binding the second loosing For all Judgment passed upon any person is either against him and that is binding
on the other hand we must not be too scrupulous and pretend Conscience and yet make our Fancy or some humane Constitutions our Rule and adhere unto them as though they were Divine Institutions For some whilst they refuse either to submit or act under a power in their conceit usurped they become guilty of more hainous Sin and when they presume they are faithful to some personal Majesty they prove unfaithful to Real and their own dear Country preferring the Interest of some Person or Family or persons before the good of the whole body of the people to whom they owe more than to any other And whosoever will not be faithful unto his own Country cannot be faithful to any form of Government or personal Governours Yet whosoever will handle this point accurately must first define what Usurpation in general is 2. How many kinds and differences of Usurpation there be and 3. What the particular Usurpation is against which he argues and 4. State the particular Case with all the Circumstances section 5 The continuance and dissolution of a Legal Power is also to be observed As for real Majesty it always continues whilest the Community remains a Community and subjection to this is due till it be destroyed Subjection to personal Majesty in a Representative cannot in just things be denied till a latter Representative make their power void The personal Majesty of a King with us requires subjection whilst he lives and governeth according to Law but upon his Death or upon Tyranny likewise or acting to the dissolution of the Fundamental Constitution he ceaseth to be a Soveraign and the Obligation as to him ceaseth A Parliament turning into a Faction acting above their Sphere wronging King or People cannot justly require nor rationally expect for Subjection And though private persons cannot yet the people by a latter and well ordered Parliament may both judge them and call the Exorbitant Members to account When a personal Soveraign cannot protect his Subjects because their Lives Persons and Estates are in the power of another he cannot rationally require subjection but for the time at least he should be willing to free them from Allegiance and to let them make the best terms they can for themselves But voluntary Revolt or Rebellion cannot free them from this Obligation to their lawful Soveraign In a word so many ways as Majesty and Soveraignty may be lost so many ways this Obligation may be dissolved Yet in all these Dissolutions Subjects must remember that their Obligation to God and their Country doth continue when not only Personal Soveraigns but also the Forms of Government are altered There are just Causes and Reasons of the Dissolution of this Obligation and there are also unjust pretences and grounds of denying Subjection If any one of an innovating humour or desire of alteration or discontent with their present Governours or conceits of false Titles or an intention to advance some of their own party or a belief that any forraign Prince or Priest can absolve them from their Allegiance or that their Soveraigns are wicked or do not administer justly or are Tyrants when they are not or in any such like case shall seek to cast off the Yoke and think themselves free they must needs be guilty and cannot be excused Those are the greatest Offenders who are Enemies to Government it self under pretence of liberty or impunity in their Crimes vailed under the notion of self-preservation or a reformation of some things amiss section 6 The Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy could alter nothing in the Constitution and both did presuppose our Allegiance due to England according to the fundamental Laws and could neither take it away nor add any thing unto it The Parliament by them might declare what was the Duty of every Subject The occasion of them both are well known the end was to exclude all forraign Power in matter of Religion and civil Right in both which the Pope had usurped formerly and might do so for future times especially seeing many Subjects did incline so much unto the Sea of Rome They seemed to bind the Subjects taking them not only to the present Kings or Queens but their Heirs and Successors For the King might have Heirs and Successors and he might have no Heirs and yet have Successors For Queen Elizabeth had no Heir or Heirs but a Successor she had Yet because the Crown is not entailed by common Law and the fundamental Rule as some tell us therefore none is a Successor till he be designed and actually invested and acknowledged and till then the Oaths were not administred to be taken by any particular subject The Oath taken to the former Prince if once removed by Death or some other way though it expressed Heirs and Successors was not thought sufficient it must be taken anew unto the present Successor by Name Yet if the Crown had been entailed or the King 's proper Fee by Inheritance this seems to be needless One reason of these words inserted seems to be this that seeing Succession and Election was usually in a Line it was intended by them to exclude Pretenders and all Power of the Pope or any other to dispose of the Crown when the former Possessor was removed or deceased yet they did not so tye us to be faithful unto the Power of England to be exercised by King Peers and Commons as that it were unlawful to be true and faithful unto the Community of England though under another form The Obligation to our Country was far higher and fidelity to it was due by the Laws of God and Nature so that we must seek the good thereof though the Government was altered Fidelity unto the Community is first due Fidelity to it under some form of Government was the second Fidelity unto it as under that form by King Peers and Commons was the third Fidelity unto the person of the King is the last and presupposeth the former whosoever understands and takes them otherwise perverts the true meaning and makes them unlawful The Protestation and Covenant were made in a time of danger and distraction and did include or presuppose the former Obligations yet the Protestation superadded something concerning the Protestant Doctrine of the Church of England to be maintain'd and the Covenant something of Discipline as to be performed and both extended to the preservation of the peace and union of the three Kingdoms Neither of them did allow any unlawful means to compass these ends Neither of them could take away our Obligation to our Country and destroy our English Primary Interest but it remains entire and since all the alterations made afterwards we are as much as ever bound to seek and promote the same and whosoever will refuse to do so upon pretence of these Oathes the Protestation and the Covenant he is Traytor to the common good of the Nation For as there is a positive so there is a negative Infidelity For though such did not use
as some say at the King's command and that without Law and Authority of Parliament were confessed by many and exclaimed against generally and divers charged the Bishops as guilty of Usurpation And how could they be less when they imposed the reading of the Book of Sports and Recreations on the Lord's Day and punished divers Ministers refusing to read it and which was not tolerable the Rule of their Proceedings in the Exercise of their Power were Canons never allowed by Parliament besides the business of Altars and bowing towards them which had no colour of Law. Many began to set up Images in their Churches and innovate in Doctrine In consideration of all these things a Reformation if it might be had was thought necessary not only for the perfection of the first but also for to cut off the late introduced Corruptions and prevent the like for the future An opportunity seemed to be put into the hands of a Parliament with an Assembly of Divines for Advice to do this A Reformation they promise begin to act in the way and the expectation was great But instead of perfecting the former Reformation they cause a new Confession of Faith and new Catechisms to be made instead of the former Litany and Set-form of Worship a new Directory is composed and allowed for Discipline the Episcopal Power is abolished and the former Government dissolved the Presbyterian way and that very near to that of Scotland is agreed upon So that whatsoever was formerly determined by Law is null and void In the end all that was done in Doctrine Worship and Discipline in a time of War without and against the mind of the King did vanish was rejected by many and received by few and such an Indulgence under pretence of favouring tender Consciences was granted that every one seemed to be left at liberty Hence sprang so many Separations and Divisions that England since she became Christian never saw the like There were Divisions in Doctrine so many as could not be numbred and men were in their judgments not only different but contrary And the former Errours pretended to be great were few in number far less noxious in quality to these latter which were very many and some of them blasphemous and abominable All the old damned Heresies seemed to be revived and raked out of Hell and the more vain and blasphemous the Opinion was it was by some the more admired For Worship instead of some Ceremonies or Superstitions at the worst all kind of Abominations brake out of the bottomless Pit. Some professed high Attainments and Dispensations to the contempt of Sabbaths Sacraments and Scripture it self Some turned Ranters as though the old abominable Gnosticks had been conjured up from Hell. Some become Seekers till they lost all Religion Some were Quakers and most rude uncivil inhumane Wretches deadly Enemies of the Ministery and most violent Opposers of the Truth and some no ways ill affected but otherwise well disposed people seemed to be suddenly bewitched as the Galatians were and could give no Reason nor Scripture for the Separation and Alterations To be Anabaptists seemed to be no Offence in comparison of the former For Discipline some adhered to the Prelatical Form and refused Communion with the Presbyterian Party who with the Scottish Kirk thought their way to be the pattern in the Mount. The Congregational was of another mind and stood at as far a distance from them on one hand as the rigid Prelatical Party did on another Yet in all this God preserved an Orthodox Party who retained the substance of the Protestant Religion with moderation and these are they whom God will bless and make victorious in the end For all these came to pass and were ordered by Divine Providence to discover the Frailty of all the Wickedness of some the Hypocrisie of others to mainifest the Approved to confirm the Sincere and let men know what a blessing Order and Government in Church and State must needs be Here are many Separations some passive but many active As for the Quakers Seekers Above-Ordinance-Men Ranters their Separation under pretence of greater Purity is abominable The Antipedobaptists and the Catabaptists cannot justify themselves and in the end it will appear The Dissenting Bretheren and Congregational Party after they began to gather Churches with the rigid Prelatists and Presbyterians cannot be excused They who actually concurred to procure a Liberty and Indulgence especially the Zealots in that work who had a design to promote their own way have much to answer for and their account will be heavy And surely they are no ways innocent who took away the former Laws and Government before they had a better and in their own power effectually to establish them And whosoever departed from the former legal Doctrine Worship and Discipline in any thing wherein it was agreeable to the Word of God must needs be worthy of blame as also those who took an ill course to introduce that which was better They who will not Communicate with others or refuse to admit unto Communion with themselves in all parts of Worship such as are Orthodox and not changeable with Scandal are Offenders and cannot be free from Schism in some degree The Usurpations of the Bishops and the Innovations made by them and their Party together with their Negligence and Remisness in the more material parts of Discipline gave no little cause of Divisions and Separations To be hasty high rigid in Reformation is a cause of many and great Mischiefs This Church of England upon the first Reformation within a few Years brought forth to God even under that imperfect Reformation many precious Saints and glorious Martyrs And after the Persecution how did she multiply and yield as many able and godly Ministers and gracious Servants of God as any Church in the World of that compass And all those good Children were begotten nursed and encreased whilst under one supreme independent national Judicatory And though the first Reformation was imperfect and the Church in some things corrupted and many Members of the same without sufficient cause persecuted by some of the ungodly and unworthy Bishops yet for any of the Subjects and Members to separate from her without some weighty cause must needs be a sin A Reformation might have been made without pulling down the whole Frame and opening a way to the ensuing Divisions Imperfection is no sufficient cause to separate from that Church wherein any person receives his Christian being or continuance or growth of that being neither is every kind of Corruption No Church but hath some defects but hath some corruptions and no man should depart from any Christian Society further than that Society is departed from God. To depart and divide upon conceits of greater purity and perfection or out of a spirit of Innovation or in any thing which is approved of God and not contrary to his Word cannot be lawful Let every one therefore reflect upon the former Divisions and
and the parts the Soveraign and the Subject According to this method though mine ability be not much I have spoken of a Community both Civil and Ecclesiastical and of a Common-wealth 1. Civil then 2. Ecclesiastical In both the first part is the Soveraign where I enquire 1. Into his power civil and then into the spiritual power of the Keys in the Church 2. I proceed to declare how the Civil Soveraign acquires or loseth his power and how the Church derives her power or is deprived of it 3. The next thing is the several ways of disposing the power civil in a certain subject whence arise the several forms of Government civil and the disposal of the power of the Keys the primary subject whereof is not the Pope or Prince or Prelate or Presbyter or People as distinct from Presbyters but the whole particular Church which hath it in the manner of a free State. Here something is said of the extent of the Church After all this comes in pars subdita both Civil and Ecclesiastical where I speak of the nature of subjection and of the distinction division and education of the Subjects both of the State and Church All this is done with some special reference both to the State and Church of England desiring Peace and Reformation If any require a reason why I do not handle Ecclesiastical Government and Civil distinctly by themselves without this mixture the reasons are especially two 1. That it might be known that the general Rules of Government are the same both in Church and State for both have the same common principles which by the light of Reason Observation and Experience may be easily known but especially by the Scriptures from which an intelligent Reader may easily collect them Therefore it 's in vain to write of Church-Government without the knowledge of the Rules of Government in general and the same orderly digested The ignorance of these is the cause why so many write at random of Discipline and neither satisfie others nor bring the Controversies concerning the same unto an issue 2. By this joynt handling of them the difference between Church and State Civil and Ecclesiastical Government the power of the Sword and Keys is more clearly as being laid together apparent For this is the nature of Dissentanies Quod juxta posita clarius elucescunt This is against Erastus and such as cannot distinguish between the power of ordering Religion for the external part which belongs unto the civil Soveraigns of all States and the power of the Keys which is proper to the Church as a Church Yet if these two Reasons will not satisfie and some Reader may desire and wish they had been handled dictinctly he may read them as dictinct and several even in this Book I my self had some debate within my self what way I should handle them yet upon these reasons I resolved to do as I have done section 12 A Common-wealth once constituted is not immortal but is subject to corruptions conversion and subversion The Authors of Politicks following the Philosopher make these accidents the last part of their Political Systems and some speak of them more briefly some at large and declare the causes and prescribe the Remedies both for prevention and recovery Corruption is from the bad constitution or male-administration and both Soveraign and Subject may be and many times are guilty The conversion and woful changes and also the subversion and ruine is from God as the supream Governour and just Judge of Mankind who punisheth not only single and private Persons and Families but whole Nations and Common-wealths Of these things the Scripture humane Stories and our own experience do fully inform us But of them if it may be useful I shall speak more particularly and fully in the second Book the subject whereof in general is Administration in particular Laws and Canons Officers of the State and of the Church and Jurisdiction both Civil and Ecclesiastical The reasons why I desire to publish this first and severally from the latter part are partly because though the first draught of that latter part was finished above half a Year ago yet I intend to enlarge upon the particulars partly because I desire to know what entertainment this first part may meet withal for if it be good I shall be the more encouraged to go forward but chiefly because the most material Heads and Controversies are handled in this which is far more difficult The latter will be more easie yet profitable and useful especially if some of greater ability would undertake it The God of Truth and Peace give us Humility Patience Charity and the Knowledge of his Truth that holding the Truth in Love we may grow up unto him in all things which is the Head even Christ to whom be Honour Glory and Thanks for ever Amen FINIS * vid. Comin de bell Neap. lib. 5. Scope of the Work. Means to prevent Errors Sect. 1. The reason of differences in Church-Affairs What a Common-wealth in general is Foundation of the Work. Constitution Community in general De C. D. lib. 19. Cap. 21. Cap. 22. What Community Civil is Original of community Members of a Community Ecclesiast Community A good ground of Childrens right to Baptisme What hinders Reformation A Community formed is a Commonwealth De C. D. Lib. 19. cap. 13. Neighbour a notion of Society Majesty in the People really c. Real Majesty greater than Personal The mistake of Junius Brutus Buchanon Heno A Parliament cannot alter a form of Government A happy Community Majesty Personal Acts of Personal Majesty 1. Without Within Soveraigns must order Matters of Religion Civil matters Properties of Majesty Fundamental Charter of Civil Majesty Power how got Justly got extraordinary How Kings must govern Ordinarily By Election Best Government By Conquest Vsurpation Subjects may defend their Rights What destroys Personal Majesty Bracton Kings duty Binds not posterity Majesty when forfeited When Subjection ceases a Isa. 22.2 Vers. 21. b Rev. 1.18 1 Cor. 3.7 d Mat. 16.29 e Joh. 20.22 23. f 1 Cor. 5.12 g Ibid. h Ibid. 13. 11 Quaest. in vesperiis Dib 4. dist 8. Quaest. 2. What a King is What the King cannot do Parliament best Assembly Parliament Members qualified Wittena Gemote What the House of Commons is The End of calling the House of Lords What Barons called to Parliament Power of Parliament without the King. Why Kings Consent required First subject of Personal Majesty What the Parliament cannot do Who gave Crown Prerogatives and Parliament-being Kings of England no absolute Monarchs Cause of England 's Miseries What observable in our sad Divisions How to judge of our Divisions What charged on the King. Disobedience to King unlawful Parliament accused acquitted The cause changed Treaty at the Isle of Wight The 〈◊〉 works 〈◊〉 God among us Sect. 22. What may be the best way of settlement Qualification of Parliament members What to be looked into by a Parliament first * Non assumit Rex vel jus clavium vel censurae sed quae exterioris politiae Tort. Torti pag. 318. Rex qua Rex habet primatum Ecclesiasticum objective qua Christianus effective qua Rex actu primo qua Christianus secundo Mason de Minist Angl. l. 3. pag. 312. Primitive Bishop His Power Hierarchical B. B. His Power Hierarch Jure Humano * De Repub Eccles. lib. 2. c. 3. sect 7 8 9. Sect. 7. * Act. 8.14 * Ludovicus Arabelensis Lewis Arch-Bishop of Arles President in the Council of Basil. English Bishops What Dean and Chapters were English Bishops not Jure Divino * Lib. 3. c. 3 4. Tit. de praescript adversus haereticos Job 37.12 Prov. c. 12.5 * Gal. 1.1 * De. polit Ecclesiastica l. 3. c. 7. p. 26. * Tort Tor. p. 41. * Vignierus de excommunicatine venatorum The Church the Subject of the Keyes As in the Fundamental Office of Christ. Church-government what Who guilty of Schism Who Schismaticks Parish no Congregation Christian What Church the primary subject of the Keys The supposed end of the Congregational notion The subject of the whole Treatise * Isa. 49.23 Chap. 60.16 22. * Chap. 55.34 * 1 Cor. 11.34 * In his Book of the Church c. 8. p. 63. Best means to reform and unite a Church Divided What 's the chief interest of a Nation as Christian. Soveraign real Personal Measure of subjection rightly bounded The rational part of a people the heir of real Majesty The Sacrament what Education What makes a Church-Member Who a Visible Saint Division Subordination of that Church when Subordination of Bishops prudential Episcopal Hierarchy not of Divine Authority Bishops over Presbyters uncertain The Pope the Man of Sin c. Prelacy the occasion of Hierarchy and that of Papacy England under no foreign Primate What a Bishop was at first No Divine Testimony for Bishops Bishops of good use not of necessity A special Work of the Levite