means such as are not de facto limited by men or by humane Pacts and Constitutions and consequently of all such Sovereign and Supreme Governours it is that he affirms that they are Tyrants and that none of them have any right to their respective so unlimited Governments These things premised I demand first of Mr. Baxter what he thinks of Paternal Government or the Government of Fathers over their Children which was the first and most natural Government that ever was in the World and was antecedent to Propriety in Nature as well as in Time though Mr. Baxter doth Magisterially pro more suo According to his custom define Propriety to be in Nature antecedent to Dominion But to let that pass I demand I say whether Paternal Government was either de facto or de jure a limited Government by any humane antecedent Law Pact or Constitution If so I demand again by whom or betwixt whom was it made to be so There were no Men to make it to before Adam unless Mr. Baxter will allow of the dream of the Preadamites nor any besides Adam untill the World began to be peopled with his Children of all whom I presume Mr. Baxter will not deny their Father Adam to have been the lawfull Governour though he was not nor could not be limited by them nor by any antecedent Covenant or Constitution made betwixt them and him whence it follows that either all de facto unlimited Governours are not Tyrants and such as have no Right to their unlimited Governments or that Adam the Father of all Mankind and the first Governour that ever was in the World was a Tyrant and had no right to Govern his own Children as he did and his Childrens Children also or at least had a right to do so as long as he lived which was very near a thousand years So that if any during that time did not submit to his Government it was not because he was not a lawfull though an unlimited Governour but because whosoever disobeyed or resisted him were not onely unnatural Children but rebellious Subjects of whom Cain that killed Abel his Brother was the first and probably so were all descended from him a wicked and rebellious generation who for their rebellion against God and God's Vicegerent their Father Adam their Sovereign Lord and King were all swept away by that universal Inundation and Deluge wherein all mankind perished but Noah and his Family onely who were none of the cursed offspring of Cain but the Posterity of Seth whom God gave unto Adam instead of Abel whom Cain slew After the Deluge the first Monarch of the new World de jure was Noah and probably de facto too as long as he lived or at least as long as he and his Children and his Childrens Children lived together or near one another and were all one people and of one language as the Text tells us they were untill they set upon the building of Babel but assoon as there was a confusion of Tongues some speaking one language and some another then saith the Text they were scattered over the face of the Earth those that spake the same language and understood one another going together to the same place and planting themselves in the same Countrey which being then uninhabited was jure naturali By the right of nature primi occupantis His that took first possession and jure Divino positivo also By God's positive law God himself telling us that he hath given the earth to the children of men that is to be possessed inhabited and cultivated by them So that there were as many several Colonies which afterwards grew into as many several Nations as there were then several Languages and as many several Governours in chief over them who if they were not the Fathers and Heads of the several Colonies as probably enough they might be and then the Regiment might still be Paternal yet were without doubt such as for their eminent courage and vertue were submitted to by the rest of the same Language or took upon themselves to be first their Conductors to their several places of habitation and then to be their Kings or Supreme Governours after they came thither and became one People or Body-Politick So that upon this division and distribution of Mankind into several Countreys and Nations were those first Kings whom Justin speaksof when he tells us that Principio rerum Gentium Nationumque Imperium penes Reges erat That all Nations at first were governed by Kings arbitria Principum pro legibus erant And the Will of the Prince saith he was the Law of the People so that as Monarchy next to the Paternal was the most ancient of all Governments so Arbitrary or unlimited Monarchy was the most ancient of all Monarchies I say most ancient I do not say the best for I do willingly acknowledge a Political Monarchy such as ours is in England where the people are Governed by a King governing by Laws and by Laws made for them by the King with their own consent is incomparably a much better Government both for King and People than an absolute arbitrary and Despotical Monarchy is or can be as I did at large assert and maintain in the Sermon I preached at our present King's Coronation and afterwards printed by his Majestie 's special command which I add to shew that the King himself was of the same Judgment as to that Particular But yet for all that I am not afraid to affirm that Mr. Baxter's Political Aphorism I am now speaking of viz. That all unlimited Governours are Tyrants and have no right to their unlimited Governments is false in it self and the publishing of it as it is capitally criminal in a Subject of any unlimited Government so it is of dangerous consequence and seditious even in a limited or Political Government of any Species or kind whatsoever For there is no species or kind of Government whether it be Monarchical or Aristocratical or Democratical but it may be limited or unlimited and it may be more or less limited but none of them are therefore Tyrannical because they are unlimited For Tyrannus a Tyrant properly so called I mean as now the word signifies for at first it signified neither more nor less than a Monarch or One governing All is either Tyrannus usurpatione a Tyrant by Usurpation or Tyrannus exercitio a Tyrant in Administration that is such a one as doth either violently and injuriously usurp the Government which he hath no right to or though he hath a right to it doth wickedly and injuriously behave himself in the exercise of it And such in both respects was Cromwell if ever there were any notwithstanding Mr. Baxter's magnifying of him when time was and exhorting his Son to follow his example in Governing as he did which was as he saith to his immortal glory and yet was as arbitrarily and as
Bishop in another man's Diocese as Mr. Baxter and all Baxterians would be or because they were the old 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first Puritans or pretenders to extraordinary purity and strictness of life as Mr. Baxter and his followers now do whether I say it be upon any or all of these accounts I know not but this I know that Mr. Baxter as often as he mentions them speaks very favourably of them although they were as much as the Orthodox Christians themselves were for the Government of the Church by Bishops and by such Bishops as the Orthodox Bishops then were and as ours now are I mean Bishops of a different and Superiour Order to Presbyters and exercising Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and authority over them And therefore there must be some particular and special reason why Mr. Baxter is so kind to them In the mean time it is observable that as They were then so are They now the greatest pretenders to strictness and severity that then took and now take unto themselves a liberty which God never gave them nay which God by his Prophets and Christ by his Apostles hath forbidden them to take I mean the taking up of Arms by Subjects against their Sovereigns though but defensive onely CHAP. XIII Sovereigns highly accountable to God The doctrine of Non-resistance to the advantage of Subjects as well as of Kings Hobbists Papists and Sectaries censured Mr. B 's Aphorism justly excepted against and the Bishop vindicated from being a Defier and an Enemy to God and Man THe contrary doctrine whereunto which we maintain might have been suspected of flattery to Kings as Mr. Baxter calls it if it had not been St. Paul's as well as ours or if because we teach that Kings are not to be resisted by their Subjects it would follow therefore that we taught likewise that such Kings as govern otherwise than by God's Laws and their own they ought to do were not accountable to any or not punishable at all for so doing Whereas Mr. Baxter knows that we of the Church of England believe and teach that Kings the greatest of Kings are as much nay more accountable to God and punishable by God either here or hereafter for whatsoever they doe amiss than the meanest of their Subjects are to them or by them and so much the rather because they are not punishable but by God onely And therefore as it would not onely be absurd but ridiculous that because a man saith the Deputy Lieutenant or Viceroy of Ireland is not to be questioned or punished by any in Ireland for what he doth amiss there therefore he is not to be questioned or punished at all or that he whose Viceroy he is namely the King of England may not or will not punish him either there or when he comes home so it is equally absurd and ridiculous to conclude as Mr. Baxter does that Bishop Morley because he holds that Kings are not accountable to or punishable by their Subjects therefore he must needs encourage them to be Tyrants as if they were not or as if Bishop Morley thought and taught they were not answerable to God and punishable by God for their Tyranny either here or hereafter and that not onely for their oppression and ill usage of their Subjects but for the dishonour they have done unto God whose Viceroys and Representatives they are and therefore should be as he is not onely just and righteous but mercifull and benign and gracious to all their Subjects Thus we Believe and thus we Teach And withall we believe and teach also That Subjects who suffer wrongfully and yet patiently under oppressing Tyrannical and persecuting Princes as the Primitive Christians did and rejoyced when they did so shall be sure to be either the sooner delivered from sufferings here or to be finally so recompensed and rewarded hereafter that they shall find to their unspeakable and endless comfort and joy that it was good for them that they were so oppressed and afflicted Thus I say do we believe and thus do we teach both Kings and Subjects and if both Kings and Subjects did believe and doe as we teach them neither would Subjects have cause to complain of their Kings nor Kings to be jealous or afraid of their Subjects More to blame therefore are they whosoever they are that teach the contrary either in relation to Kings or Subjects Such in relation to Kings are the Habbists and other the like Atheistical flatterers of Kings who would make them believe they may doe what they list without doing any injury to their Subjects and without being answerable to God for it and that either because there is no God at all or that there is no other life after this And such in relation to Subjects are the Papists the Presbyterians Independents and the rest of the Sectaries who teach it to be lawfull for Subjects when they are grieved and oppressed by their Sovereigns to such a degree or which is all one when they think themselves to be so to take up Arms against them whereby they shew themselves to be much more such as Mr. Baxter would have Bishop Morley believed to be I mean Enemies to God to Kings and to Subjects and consequently to all Mankind than Bishop Morley is 1. For first are not they Enemies to God who teach men to rebell against God and is it not rebellion against God to rebell against the Viceroy of God who because he is God's Viceroy is accountable for what he doth well or ill to none but God And therefore in this case if any God may most Emphatically say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vengeance is mine I will repay it belongs to me and to none but me to call mine own Viceroys to an account and to punish them when and how I think fit and therefore for Subjects to take the sword in this case is to take it or rather to wrest it out of God's hand as well as the King 's and to use it against the King is to use it against God and therefore they that take it and use it if they do not perish by the King's sword I mean the sword of War or of Justice here by bodily death they shall undoubtedly except they repent before they go hence perish by the sword of God Bodies and Souls too in the life to come 2. Are they not Enemies to Kings who teach that Kings may be resisted and deposed by their Subjects for male-administration of their Governments whether real or but imaginary and pretended onely of which the Subjects themselves are to be the Judges and consequently the best of Princes as well as the worst are to reign but precariò Upon precarious terms or durante bene placito During the good pleasure of the people 3. Are not the Teachers of this doctrine Enemies to all Subjects as well as to all Kings first by making their Kings jealous and afraid of them
Pronunciarunt si quis attentaverit ita se firmare ut Rex resistere non potuerit Rebellionis tenetur c. They pronounced or declared that if any man should attempt to make himself so strong that the King should not be able to resist him he is guilty of Rebellion Item that the Law interpreteth that in every Rebellion there is a conspiracy against the Life and Crown of the King for a Rebell will never suffer the King to live or reign who may afterwards punish or revenge such his Treason or Rebellion Which Interpretation of the Law of England they confirmed First By the Imperial or Civil Law whereby to do any thing against the safety of the Prince is reputed to be Treason Secondly By the force of Reason because it cannot be but that he which hath once given Law to his King should never permit the King to recover his former authority or to live left at any time after he should revenge it Thirdly and lastly They confirmed it likewise by Examples drawn from our English Chronicles of Edward the II. and Richard the II. both which being once by force of Arms gotten by their Subjects into their Power were not long after Deposed and made away also I have repeated at large what was then said to be the Law of England by the authorised and sworn Expositors of the Laws I mean the Judges And from what was said by them then in that particular Case I observe First That Arms taken up or Forces raised by Subjects of what condition or upon what pretence soever without the Sovereigns leave or commission are in construction of Law taken up and raised against the Sovereign Secondly That such Forces so raised against whomsoever or to what end soever they are pretended to be employed are in construction of Law intended not only to take away the Kings Power but his Life also And Thirdly Because the Law presumes that those that have taken away his Power will not let him live for fear he may recover his Power and revenge himself of those that took it away from him I cannot chuse but think that the Presbyterian Party though they did not at first intend to take away the Kings life yet after they had taken away his Power and made him their Prisoner and used him so barbarously as they did whilst he was their Prisoner I cannot chuse but think I say that had not the Independents taken him out of their hands they would have taken away his life at last also though not by a formal publick judiciary Tryal as the Independents did but some way or other they would have done it For who can believe they would have suffered him to live or at least to live as a King whom They could not chuse but think they had provoked beyond a capacity of being Pardoned by him if ever he should be in a condition to be revenged of them And why should We think they would have stuck at making him away in the dark or in a Prison whom before they had so often indeavoured to kill in the open Field For it is to be supposed saith Mr. Baxter that those that fight would kill those they fight against and therefore it is to be supposed likewise say I that those that commissioned their Armies to fight against their King as the Presbyterian Parliament did the Earl of Essex did commission them likewise to kill the King if they could For I never heard that the King was excepted from being fought against and consequently from being kill'd in any of their Commissions or that so much as any private Instruction or Intimation was given to my Lord of Essex or to any of his Officers much less to all of them to spare the King such a one I mean as David gave to Joab and the Officers of his Army for the sparing of Absolom So that there was no more care taken by the Parliament for sparing of the King's life than for sparing the life of any of those whom their Armies were commissioned to sight against and kill and consequently they were commissioned to kill the King as well as any of the rest They were to fight withal And if so then not only those that commission'd those that fought against the King but those that stirred them up and encouraged them to fight against the King did stir them up and encourage them to kill the King also and if so how can the Presbyterian Clergy of those times especially the London and Parliament Preachers be excused from being intentionally guilty of the late King's death before he was actually murthered by the Independents But of all the rest how will Mr. Baxter excuse himself who tells us it is to be supposed that those that fight would kill those they fight against and consequently that those that encourage them to fight do encourage them to kill those whom they fight against and withal confesseth that he encouraged thousands to do that which the Law calls fighting against the King how will he I say excuse himself from being consequentially at least if not intentionally guilty of the late Kings Death How then can he with any ingenuity or sincerity say that he was never guilty of hurt to the Person or destruction of the Power of the King And yet he doth say so and that so confidently that he professeth likewise that if either this or that viz that if either he was guilty of hurt to the Person or destruction of the Power of the King can be proved against him he will never gain-say them that call him a most perfidious Rebell and tell him he is guilty of a far greater sin than Murther Whoredom Drunkenness and such like In the mean time he doth confess and is convinced it seems that a Rebel is a worse man and a greater sinner than a Drunkard or a Whoremonger or a Murtherer if he be indeed a Rebel though perhaps he doth not think so which is a severer sentence than I durst have pronounced upon many of those that were indeed Rebels but did not think themselves to be so but were misled by their spiritual guides who made them believe that to fight against the King was to fight for the King and that all the while they were doing God and the King good service which the greater diminution it was of their sin that were so deceived the greater aggravation it was of their guilt that did so deceive them And yet those that were the least sinners of these Rebels were according to Mr. Baxter's account greater sinners than Drunkards Whoremongers and Murtherers so that if he could as truly as he doth boldly and frequently charge most of the Episcopal Party with Drunkenness and Vncleanness and Profaneness yet seeing he cannot charge them with Rebellion against their Sovereign they will still be less evil how bad soever they are than the best of those of his
legally accountable for all their actions and by whom they were legally punishable even with death it self for their delinquencies whereas the Ephori were accountable to none nor punishable by any and therefore the Sovereign Power of the State was in them and consequently their Kings were Kings and no Kings that is Kings in name and title only but really and indeed no more than Subjects So that the Government of Lacedaemon was not Regal or Monarchical but Aristocratical and so Thucydides calls it For as speaking of the Athenians he calls them the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Multitude or Populace because their Government was Democratical so speaking of the Lacedaemonians he calls them the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Best sort of People or the Nobless because their Government was Aristocratical whereas if it had been truly Regal or their Kings had been truly and properly called Kings he should have called them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Royalists or Kings-men or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Subjects of Monarchs because their Government would then have been Monarchical For a Government to be Regal and to be Monarchical is all one there being no King properly so called but he is a Monarch that is one that governs all and is subject to none and consequentially accountable to none for any thing he doth in his own Kingdom And this is true of all Kings properly so called whether they be greater or less Successive or Elective and whether they be Despoticall or Politicall for both Successive and Elective Kings properly so called may be either Despoticall or Politicall for as the Successive Kings in the three first Monarchies were Successive and Despoticall and are so still in the East and South parts of the World and in both the Indies so those of the fourth and last Monarchy also I mean the Roman Emperors whether Successive or Elective were all of them Despoticall and so in Europe are the successive Emperors of Turky and Russia and Tartary at this day that is such as are not only Monarchs that is such as have the whole Sovereign Power solely in themselves as all Kings or Monarchs properly so called have also but have and exercise that Sovereignty or Sovereign Power without being bounded or limited by any Laws or Rules to govern by but as Lords over their Vassals absolutely and arbitrarily according to their own Will and Pleasures Whereas Politicall Kings and Princes whether Successive as the Kings of England and of France and of Spain or Elective as the Emperor of Germany and the King of Poland are obliged to govern according to the Political Constitutions and Laws of their several respective Seigniories and Dominions but not so as to forfeit their right to their Crowns or to be accountable to any judicatory or punishable by any Power here on Earth if they do not do so no though they be Kings but by Election only so they be elected to be Kings indeed and not in name and title only as the aforesaid Kings of Lacedaemon were and as the Dukes of Venice now are who are Subjects to the Senate there as the Kings of Lacedaemon were to the Ephori in Sparta though those were Successive and these Elective For it is not their succeeding or being elected or being called Kings that makes them to be Kings indeed but their being invested with Kingly Power that is to be over all and under none whether they be born or elected to be so or by what name or title soever they be called whether Kings Emperors Sophies Sultans or but Dukes only For the Duke of Florence is as much a Monarch in his own Dominions as any of the former are in theirs He therefore that is born or chosen to be such a King is not nor cannot after he is such a King be accountable or punishable for any thing he does how unjustly or how much against Law soever it may be but to God only and by God because all within his own Dominions are his Subjects and none without his own Kingdoms and Dominions though they be never so much greater or more powerful Kings than he have any thing to do with him and much less have They any authority over him which they must have that can justly pretend to punish any man how great a Delinquent soever he may be or what wrong soever he hath done against others or against themselves CHAP. IV. A Query resolved whether a King Elective may not be Deposed upon non-performance of conditions Our King proved from Mr. B 's own Principles to be a sole Sovereign BUT may not the People that chuse one to be their King upon such or such conditions upon his non-performance of such conditions Depose him or take away that Power over them they gave unto him I answer that if they chuse him to be their King indeed and not in name and title only then he did thereby become their King indeed that is their Monarch or Sovereign Lord over all of them and consequently they did all of them become his Subjects without any Power Civil or Military left in themselves but subordinate to him or derived from him and consequently such as could not lawfully in any case or upon any provocation be used against him The People having by such an Election parted with all the Power they formerly had without any reservation and much less power of resumption And this was well understood by Valerian the next Successor but one to Julian the Apostate who being chosen by the Army to be their Emperor and they crying out to him to name another to be Consors imperii a Partner in the Empire or one to govern with him he gave them this notable Answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was in your Power O my Soldiers said he to chuse me to reign over you but now you have chosen me that which you demand belongs not to you but to me and it becomes you as Subjects to be quiet or not to meddle with matters of Government and to me as your King and Emperor to consider what is fit to be done Again I answer that even in Elective Kingdoms he that is chosen by the People to be their King hath not his Kingly Power from them that chose him but from God which is in express terms not only granted but asserted by Mr. Baxter and he values himself upon it as being upon that account a better friend to Kings than as he saith some Episcopall men are and indeed if he were always and in all he saith consistent with himself he would not be so great an Enemy to Kings as in this and many other of his Aphorisms which I have collected out of his Book of a Holy Commonwealth he hath shewed himself to be For if it be not the People who chuse him to be their King that give him his Kingly Power but that he hath it
an intire Parliament I mean the Act of Vniformity wherein the Parliament doth not only declare its own sense and judgment concerning the Kings sole Supremacy but prescribes an Oath to be taken by all that are to be admitted to teach the People what they are to think of the King I mean all that are to be admitted into holy Orders whereby they are injoyned to testifie and declare in their Conscience that the King is the only Supreme Governour of this Realm and I hope Mr. Baxter hath more reverence for Parliaments than to say or think that the Parliament did injoyn men to swear that which they did not themselves believe to be true especially those of the House of Commons who I think do all of them take the Oath of Supremacy And yet this so clear so evident and so irrefragable a proof of the Parliaments acknowledgment of the Kings sole Supremacy Mr. Baxter is pleas'd to slight as if it signified nothing calling it a sandy foundation for though he be pinched to the quick with this Argument yet he makes as if he felt it not and perceiving there was no help for him in Logick or Metaphysicks he makes use of a figure in Rhetorick which is either not to take notice of what they cannot answer or if they cannot chuse but take notice of it to slight or scoff at it as if it were not worth the answering or taking notice of And yet that he may not seem absque omni ratione insanire to have no pretence or show of reason for his slighting or rejecting of it he tells us that this Oath was made in relation to Papists only and was injoyned to be taken for the discovery of those that were suspected to be so Surely if we look to the first enacting of that Oath and the primary or original cause of it it was not for the distinguishing of Papists from Protestants for they were Papists in Henry the VIII's time and as great Persecutors of the Protestants as any were in those times that compiled and consented to the enacting and enjoyning of that Oath but it was to distinguish Papists from Papists Papists that would from Papists that would not acknowledg the Kings Supremacy And for the same end and purpose the same Oath was renewed in Queen ELIZABETHS time in the beginning of her Reign for the distinguishing of loyal from disloyal Papists as appears by the reasons she gave why She did not impose that Oath upon any of the Barons or House of Lords though many of them were then Papists because she did not as she said make any doubt of their loyalty but she caused it to be administred to the Popish Prelates and other Ecclesiasticks who had almost all of them plerisque omnibus saith Cambden taken it in her Father's time but refusing it then were deprived of their spiritual promotions for so doing lest they might teach the People to do so also and perhaps do more than so that is from denying her Supremacy in Spirituals to proceed to the denying of it in Temporals also which we see they are now come to not by their Popish but Presbyterian Teachers For preventing whereof and for obviating the scandalous interpretations that were made of it as that thereby she the Queen arrogated a Power unto her self sacrâ in Ecclesiâ celebrandi of performing divine Offices in the Church Illa edito scripto saith Cambden she published a Declaration wherein she affirms se nihil aliud arrogare quà m quod ad coronam Angliae jam olim jure spectavit that she arrogated nothing to her self but what anciently belonged of right to the Crown of England Scilicet se sub Deo summam supremam gubernationem potestatem in omnes Regni Anglici Ordines sive illi sunt Ecclesiastici sive Laici habere quodque nulla extranea potestas ullam in eos jurisdictionem vel authoritatem habeat aut habere debeat Namely that she under God had the supreme Government and Power over all orders of men in England whether Ecclesiasticks or Laicks and withal that no foreign Power had or ought to have any Jurisdiction or Authority over any of them From which Declaration published by that pious and prudent Prince it is observable First That the aforesaid Oath of Supremacy was intended by Her as well for the asserting of her own Supremacy over all Orders of men in her own Kingdom in all their capacities as it was for the disclaiming and renouncing any foreign Jurisdiction that was or could be pretended or claimed over all or any of her Subjects in any capacity whatsoever Secondly From this Declaration of Hers it is farther to be observed that she will have her own Sovereignty and Supremacy in omnes Ordines Regni over all Orders and Estates of men here at home to be asserted and sworn to before they shall swear to disclaim and renounce all foreign Authority and Jurisdiction And with very good reason because it would have done her and will do her Successors very little or rather no good at all for their Subjects to renounce all Sovereignty from abroad as long as they are taught or suffered to be taught that there are any other Sovereign or any other invested with any part of the Sovereignty here at home but their Kings only Lastly From the aforesaid Declaration we may observe also that the Queen by the Injunction of the Oath of Supremacy professeth to claim nothing to be acknowledged or sworn to but what de jure and jam olim what anciently and of right did belong to the Crown of England and consequently that the Supremacy or Sovereignty over all Estates or Orders of men in England was from all Antiquity that is as I conceive from the beginning of Monarchy or ever since there were Kings in England and that not ex dono Populi by gift of the People or compact with the People but jure by right and by what Right not jure Electionis but Hereditatis not by right of Election but of Succession and jure Coronae by right of the Crown as being inseparably annexed to the Crown or rather inherent in the Crown there being none as I have already proved that can properly be called a King or Crowned Head whether by Succession or Election but he must be the supreme and sole Sovereign over all in his own Kingdom Which as to our Kings here in England as it was acknowledged by those Parliaments that enacted the Oath of Supremacy before the War so is it by the Act of Vniformity since the War or since the Kings return and consequently since the Crowns restauration to those Prerogatives that are of right belonging to it of which the Supremacy or Sovereignty over all in the Kingdom inclusively as well as in relation to all without the Kingdom exclusively is the chiefest For if there be any either within or without the Kingdom either superior over
but hence it will not follow that he was bound to do so nay thence it will follow that neither he nor any of his Predecessors were bound to do so for then they that were the boldest in their demands that ever met and sate in Parliament would have claimed it as of right and not Petition'd for it as they did at least if they had vouchsafed to have Petition'd for it they would have called their Petition a Petition of Right which they did not So that by very Petitioning the King to grant those things which they proposed as agreed on by both Houses they acknowledged that the King was not bound by any Law Custom or Precedent from his Predecessors to consent to what both Houses had agreed on and consequently that there was no such Co-ordination betwixt the King Lords and Commons by the fundamental Constitution of this Kingdom as by the aforesaid Aâ—â—hor was pretended to be And therefo 〈…〉 in his answer to the Petition of the 〈…〉 the 19 Propositions which they pretend humbly to desire but indeed peremptorily press him to grant tells them That to say he is obliged to pass all Laws that shall be offered unto him by both Houses howsoever his own Judgment and Conscience shall be unsatisfied wiih them is to broach a new Doctrine a point of Policy as proper for their present business as destructive to all rights of Parliaments adding that it was out of a strange shamelesness that they would forget for sure there being so many Lawyers among them some of them could not chuse but remember it a Clause in a Law still in force made in the second year of King Henry the V. wherein both Houses of Parliament acknowledg that it is of the Kings Regality to grant or deny such of their Petitions as pleaseth himself And if it were so and acknowledged by both Houses of Parliament to be so in Henry the V's time I would fain know in what Kings Reign or by what Kings consent that Act or the aforesaid Clause in that Act which was in force so lately comes to be repeal'd or whether any Law or Act of Parliament can be either made or repealed without the Kings consent CHAP. XIII An Ordinance of both Houses no Law and consequently no legal Authority for the late War against the King The Militia or the Power of the Sword acknowledged by the two Houses themselves to be in the King A Sermon of Arch-Bishop Ushers in the Isle of Wight Preached to the same Purpose NOT a Law perhaps may Mr. Baxter say properly so called but an Ordinance of both Houses may and that without the Kings consent to it nay notwithstanding the Kings declaring and protesting against it oblige all the People of England to do or not to do what the two Houses will have them as much as any Law consented to by the King ever did or can do nay and may repeal any Law made by the King by the advice and with the consent of both Houses any Law or Custom to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding But per quam Regulam by what Rule Mr. Baxter By what Law of God or man can this be done Why by an Ordinance of both Houses which is equivalent at least to an Act of Parliament properly so called and so it had need to be Mr. Baxter and more too to warrant the doing of such things such horrible mischiefs and Villanies as have been done against God by Sacriledg against the King by Rebellion and by Subjects against their fellow Subjects by plundering and imprisoning and murdering one another of which side soever they were for all will be put to the account of them that had no authority I mean no legal and just Authority to warrant them to do what they did And therefore Mr. Baxter you were best be very sure that the two Houses had Authority to make such a War as they did not only without Commission from the King but against the King and to engage you and by you to engage so many thousands as you say they did in it You were best I say be very sure of it for it is not your head or your neck only which you say you are willing to hazard upon that account but your soul it self and the Everlasting Woe or Welfare of it that lies at stake for it Be not deceiv'd God is not to be mocked It is not the Confederacy of the two Houses it is not the Covenanting of the two Nations that can justifie either their commanding or their being obeyed in any thing which God hath forbidden or not allowed them to command or to be obeyed in by some known Law of his own or of the Land neither of which I am sure can be produced by them Moreover it is not the redressing of Grievances had they been as many or more and as great or greater than the House of Commons in their virulent and malicious Remonstrance to the People represented them to be nor the Reformation of Religion though there had been much more need of it than there was no nor the truly intending as well as pretending never so good or never so necessary an End for the publick Good either spiritual or temporal of the whole Nation that can justifie the Means they made use of if they had not Authority to make use of them I mean in their taking of the Sword out of the Kings hands where the Law of God and of the Land had placed it and taking it into their own notwithstanding Gods and mans Law to the contrary For the proof of the first part of which Assertion of mine I appeal to Mr. Baxter himself for amongst his many false and impious and pernicious Aphorisms he hath this true one that it is not lawful for a Nation to fight for the preservation of their Religion or their worldly goods and liberties without just authority and licence Whereunto he adds by way of exposition and illustration of his meaning That it is but a delusory course of some in these times that write many Volumes to prove that Subjects may not bear Arms against their Princes for Religion as if those that were against them did think that Religion only as the end yea or Life or Liberty would justifie Rebellion or that the Efficient Authorizing Cause were not necessary as well as the Final Where bearing Arms against Princes is warrantable quoad fundamentum as to the ground of it this will warrant it quoad finem as to the end of it A good End must have a good Ground Again for proof of the latter part of my Assertion namely that the Sword or the Power of making War was by Law in the Kings hand and not in theirs I appeal to the Acknowledgment of the two Houses themselves who after they had setled the Militia before the War was actually begun yet knowing and being conscious to themselves that they had done it illegally
And therefore when our Law saith the King can do no wrong the meaning is not as I conceive that the King cannot do that or command that to be done which is really a wrong or injury to any or perhaps to many or all of his Subjects as David did when he numbred the People for which sin 70. Thousand of them were swept away by the Plague in three days But the meaning of that Maxime in our Law I say as I humbly conceive is that if the King should do or cause to be done never so great a wrong yet he is not legally accountable or questionable or punishable for it by any power on Earth and much less by any of his own Subjects Whereunto another Maxime of our Law seems to be a Witness which tells us that the Crown takes away all defects or that he who is King is not chargeable with or answerable for whatsoever he hath done amiss And hereunto the Law of God bears witness also For in this sence it was that King David confessing those two great sins of Adultery and Murder unto God saith Against Thee Only have I sinned not as if he thought he had not sinned very highly and heinously too against Bathsheba and Vriah by defiling the one and murdering the other but because he was not accountable to or punishable by any but God for it Any other Man of the Nation that had committed either of those Crimes must by God's own Judicial Law have been put to death for it without mercy How came it to pass then that David who was notoriously guilty of both those capital Crimes was never called to account for either or both of them The reason is plain because there was none that had Authority to call him to an account for it not any other King for all Kings properly so called are equal as to the right of non-subordination to one another and Par in parem non habet Imperium a Peer or equal hath no right of Authority over his equal or Peer and much less Inferior in Superiorem an Inferiour over his Superiour for such are Subjects of all Qualities and in all Capacities in relation to their Soveraigns But did David then escape unpunished No for God who is only their Superiour and therefore the only Judge of Kings did question and arraign and judge and condemn and punish him for it though not by shedding his blood for the blood that he had shed yet by shedding the blood of his darling Son Absolom which was more grievous than the shedding of his own blood would have been to him as appears by his so often and so passionately wishing he had dyed for him Be wise therefore O ye Kings and be learned O ye Judges Ye that are Supreme Judges here on Earth and think not because you cannot be punished by Men therefore you shall not be punished at all if you deserve to be so for Reges in ipsos Imperium est Jovis the Almighty God's rule and authority is over Kings themselves could a Heathen man say The exemption of Kings from being punished by Men doth make them the more obnoxious to be punished by God either here or hereafter and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is a fearful and terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God But of the punishment which Kings are to expect from God I have spoken before as likewise why Kings who are Monarchs or Kings indeed cannot be question'd or called to account for any thing they have done or may be supposed to have done amiss because they have no Superiour That which I am now doing is to prove our King to be a Monarch because he hath no Superiour nor is ever a whit the less a Monarch because according to the legal Establishment or constitution of our Kingdom our Kings cannot make Laws for their Subjects without the consent of their Representatives that is without their Subjects own consents in Parliament For I demand how comes it to pass that they cannot Is it not because they did at first out of their meer grace and favour to their Subjects give away the Power they had formerly of doing otherwise William the Conqueror from whom our Kings ever since derive their Right and Title to the Crown could and did make Laws for the People without asking or having their antecedent consent to them It is true the Conqueror himself when he was crowned King took an Oath to govern justly and afterwards he took an Oath to observe the Antient Laws of the Realm established by his Noble Predecessors the Kings of England and especially those of Edward the Confessor as Daniel tells us but it is true too as the same Historian tells us He brought in the Customes of Normandy so that the main stream of our Common Law with the practice thereof saith the same Author flowed out of Normandy notwithstanding all Objections that can be made to the contrary And it was the Son of this Conqueror Henry the First who because saith the same Author he would not wrest any thing by an Imperial Power from the Subjects took a course to obtain their free consents to serve his occasions in their General Assemblies of the three Estates of the Land which he first convoked at Salisbury in the Fifteenth Year of his Reign which had from his time the name of Parliaments according to the manner of Normandy And in all probability as this was the beginning of our Kings not raising of Money so was it likewise of their not making of Laws but with the consent of the Representatives of their People in Parliament But whether it began then or sooner or later I am sure it must be the Kings granting of it that made it to be what it is I mean the legal way of proceeding in order to the making of Laws by our Kings for the Government of their People A most excellent way indeed but such a one as whosoever may have been the deviser or advisers of it it could never have been established as it is but by the King 's voluntary and arbitrary consent to it I say his arbitrary as well as his voluntary consent to it because it was in his power whosoever the King was that granted it first not to have granted it if he would CHAP. IX Mr. B. 's whimsey of an antecedent Compact between the King and People Their consent to the making of Laws when ever brought in a thing of Grant not of Contract Their double Capacity as Mr. B. fansies and states it FOR to think there was any Government here in England before that of Kings or that the People when they were under no Government at all did or could unanimously consent to be governed by one whom they should choose to be their King upon such or such conditions and with such or such limitations reserving to themselves such or such
better order were taken for the Exclusion of unworthy persons from Electing or being Elected members of Parliament that so says he being out of danger of impious Parliaments chosen by an impious Majority of the People we should then build all the Fabrick of our Government on a Rock which else will have a foundation of Sand And then a multitude of errors would thus be corrected at once and more done for our happiness than a thousand of the new Fantastical devices will accomplish Euge well said again Mr. Baxter No man can more heartily say Amen than I can to this wish of yours that none were to choose or to be chosen Parliament-men but those that were worthy to choose and to be chosen nor no man can more fully concur with you in this Opinion than I do That such a Parliament so chosen would be more effectual for the Establishment of our Government upon a Rocky or impregnable foundation as likewise for the correcting of such errors and miscarriages as by reason of the ill management of the best Government are or possibly may be in it and consequently for the making of us more happy than any new Fantastically devised model of Government can do In all this I say I agree with Mr. Baxter But in the Notion of who are worthy or unworthy to choose or to be chosen I am afraid we shall differ very much for perhaps Mr. Baxter and those of his Party may think those that are Dissenters from the Government of the Church are the only worthy men to choose and to be chosen Members of the Parliament I am sure by that stir and stickling they have made in the late Elections for Knights and Burgesses in all Counties and Corporations it appears they think so Whereas I am of opinion that none but such as are conformable in point of Judgment and well inclin'd in point of Affection to the present Government both in Church and State as to the species or kind of either that is as the one is Monarchical and the other Episcopal is fit to choose or to be chosen a Parliament-man and consequently that none of those that are not well affected to the present Government are fit to choose or to be chosen though they pretend never so much to be the Godly party nay though they were indeed as good and Godly men as they say they are and would have others believe them to be For though as Moses wish'd that all the Lords people were Prophets and yet did not think them to be so so I wish that all good and Godly men were wise and prudent men also but I cannot believe they are so nor consequently that they are sufficiently qualified either to be Statesmen themselves or to discern who are fit to be Statesmen And unskilful though well meaning Workmen may be marring whilst they think they are mending and pluck down more in a day than wiser men can build up again in a year And therefore the Fabrick of our present Government being so good a one as that Mr. Baxter himself by prefering it before any new Fantastical mode or model that can be devised or obtruded upon us doth as good as confess there cannot be a better certainly the main care that is to be taken by the wisdom of the State is to prevent the alteration or change of it And consequently the main Qualification to be required in those that choose and are to be chosen to be States-men is their being obliged to maintain and uphold the present Government as it is by Law established I still mean as to the species or kind of it and then as wise and good men may find work enough without medling with removing or moving of Foundations to mend the faults that are and to prevent those that may be in the superstructure So those that are not so wise as they should be nor so good as they would seem to be and those are the men most likely to be medling will not be able to do any great harm so long as the foundations themselves are secured from being undermined or overthrown by them CHAP. X. The excluding some Persons from choosing or being chosen into Parliament no injury The Test reinforced upon this account that if the Successor consent to it it cannot but hold good IF it be objected that the making of such a Law would be the excluding of many of the Freemen and Free-holders of the People from one of the greatest of the priviledges of their Birthright namely the choosing and being chosen Members of Parliament I Answer that if the security of the Government and the Peace and Welfare of the Kingdom require it and the Majority of the Peoples representatives without which it cannot be done consent to it it is no more than in many other cases is done already Secondly I answer that in this very case All the Papists who if they be not a great number I wonder why we should be so much afraid of them all the Papists I say who are all of them Free-men and as Freemen have a right to choose and be chosen into the House of Commons and some of them by Birth to be Peers of the Realm yet are all of them excluded from both Houses and so are all Out-law'd and Excommunicated persons and such are or should be all the Sectaries that will not come unto our Churches Thirdly Did not both Houses of Parliament make it one of the conditions of Peace with the late King that none that had serv'd him against them should be capable of sitting in either of the Houses for Twenty one years to come And why might not the King with much more reason have demanded the exclusion of all those that had fought for the Parliament against Him from the same priviledge Or why may not those that will not oblige themselves by Oath to maintain the Government legally established by King Lords and Commons be much more reasonably and much more justly and equitably excluded from having any thing to do in the Government or in the making of our Laws than those that would not take the Oath of Abjuration and of being faithful to the Government as it was illegally set up without King and Lords were excluded not only from choosing or being chosen into Parliaments but from having any protection or benefit of the Laws by the upstart Free-state as they call'd themselves but were indeed no better than Rebels and Robbers It is not therefore to be doubted but that such a Law as is made in Scotland may by the same Authority respectively be made in England and in Ireland also Neither is it to be doubted but that such a Law if it were made would be the best security that can be given against the bringing in of Popery or Arbitrary Government especially if the rightful Successor will not oppose but promote the making of such a Law here as I do verily
with the King As likewise for another and in my humble opinion a very weighty and important reason namely to prevent the Kings not being able to govern by Parliament though he be never so willing and desirous to do so as when there is a difference betwixt the two Houses concerning priviledge there the order is that whatsoever business they are about of what concernment or importance soever it must cease and nothing must be done until the difference concerning Priviledge be decided which being no other way to be decided but by one of the Houses yielding to the other for neither the King nor the Judges are admitted to umpire betwixt them if after Conference upon conference they finally adhere on both sides as they did in the case of Dr. Sherleys appealing to the House of Lords from a Decree in Chancery wherein one of the House of Commons was concern'd there is no more to be done that Sessions though Hannibal were ad portas knocking at the City-gates though the business they were about before were of never so publick or never so necessary a concernment as indeed that which we were about then was namely the passing of an Act for securing the Government both in Church and State by taking such a Test as the aforesaid Test that was lately enacted to be taken in Scotland and which would undoubtedly have past in the Lords House at that time if some that desired an alteration in both had not thrown that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that stone of offence betwixt the two Houses which as it was done to hinder what we were a doing then so that or the like may be done at any time by either of the Houses to make any Parliament useless and fruitless though there be never so present or so great need of it and though the King and the People do never so much desire the contrary unless there be some means devised and consented to by both Parties to adjust the difference betwixt them as there is betwixt all other differing Parties but these only or unless the Priviledges of each of the Houses be so particularly enumerated and cleerly stated by the consent of both of them that there may not be any difference betwixt them upon this account for the future If I have been too bold in saying what I have said in relation to either of the two Houses of Parliament I humbly beg pardon of them both for Si peccavi peccavi honestâ mente if I have offended in it I have done it out of an honest meaning I am sure I did not intend to lessen the dignity or power or priviledges of either of them Good luck have they with their Honour but all that I said upon this Subject hath been to vindicate the Kings Soveraignty over all His Subjects of all denominations and in all capacities whatsoever which I am sure may well enough consist with whatsoever Power or Priviledge can by the legal constitution of this Kingdom be claim'd by either or both Houses of Parliament CHAP. XII The Kings making our Laws no disparagement to the Parliament The several ways of justifying the taking up Arms against the King The danger of Mr. B. 's Principles that way WHereunto if it be objected that by making the King sole Law-giver or the sole Law-maker I seem to take away the greatest of all the Priviledges the two Houses have and which it most concerns all the People of England they should have I answer it were true indeed that I did so if by saying the King is the sole Law-giver or the sole maker of our Laws I meant he could make what Law he pleas'd but when I say withal that although whatsoever is Law is made by the King to be Law yet he cannot make any Law or any thing to be Law without the consent of both Houses to it or to his making of it by giving to Caesar what is Caesar's by giving to the King what belongs to the King I take away nothing from either of the Houses that belongs unto them or what is requisite for them to have for the securing of themselves and the People from Arbitrary Government for which end it is abundantly sufficient that the dissent of either of the Houses can hinder the making of any Law though the consent of both of them cannot make a Law for that would destroy the Monarchy not by dividing the Soveraignty betwixt the King and the two Houses which is really impossible but by vesting the Soveraignty wholly in the two Houses and consequently by taking it wholly from the King whereas the power to hinder the making of Laws without their consent being vested in the Houses and the power of making Laws with their consent being vested in the King the Soveraignty and Majesty that is due to a Monarch is reserv'd to the Prince and as great power and Authority as Subjects are capable of is communicated to the two Houses and their Liberty and Property which is due to them is secured to all the People which blessed frame and temper of our English Government is such as no wiser can be devised nor no better can be desired and such as no Nation but ours under Heaven is or can be unless it be situated as ours is so happy as to enjoy and therefore such a one as if it were well understood and seriously considered by us it would make us first to be truly and heartily thankful to God for it Secondly to live obediently quietly and contentedly under it and consequently not only to be content but desirous that such a Law as I before spake of should be made to prevent the alteration or change of it into any other form or frame of Government whatsoever And in the mean time not to give ear or credit to any of those seditious Preachers or Pamphleteers who do what they can to disaffect the People to this excellent Government as it is by Law established and only to this end that as they have once already so they may now again make such an alteration in this Government as to turn the Monarchy into a State and Episcopacy into Presbytery which because they think it cannot be done now but as it was done then namely by a Rebellion therefore as they did always so they do still maintain that it is lawful for Subjects in some cases to take up Arms against their Soveraign though some of them take one way to prove it lawful and some another for some will have a middle kind of power betwixt the King and People to be Vmpires or Arbitrators between them whose Arbitrement if the King will not submit to they may by force compel him with the assistance of the People and the People are bound to assist them in so doing this is CALVIN's way whereunto he adds that fortassè Ordines Regni in Angliâ that perhaps the Parliament in England are this middle sort of Magistrates Others will
King cannot by his Fiat give it its factum esse till it be agreed on by the two Houses and because the two Houses by their agreeing on it do give it its fieri posse or make it ready and fit to be made a Law therefore it may truly though not properly be said to be made jointly by the King Lords and Commons because though it be not made by the Lords and Commons but by the King only yet it cannot be made without them neither that is without their doing something antecedently without their doing whereof the King cannot make Laws And this was that and all that which the late King meant when he said that the Laws of this Kingdom were made jointly by the King Lords and Commons that is according to the old Parliamentary stile by the King with the consent of the Lords and Commons or if you will by the King but not without the consent of the Lords and Commons But I hope Mr. Baxter who would be thought the Master of propriety and distinctness of speaking will not affirm that a thing can properly be said to be done by him or them without whose consent it cannot be done For I think it is one of the main matters wherein he differs or dissents from our Church that a Priest or Minister of the Word and Sacraments cannot be ordain'd without consent of the People will he therefore deny that it is the Bishop with his Presbyters that ordains him or will he say that he is jointly ordained by the Bishop and the People Certainly none but they that lay hands upon him have any thing to do in the Act of Ordination So that it doth not follow that because a Law cannot be made without the precedent consent of both Houses of Parliament that therefore they have any thing to do properly speaking in the making of it Again supposing Mr. Baxter is of the opinion of the Protestant Churches abroad that there can be no marriage without consent of Parents and supposing that opinion to be true yet I suppose neither Mr. Baxter nor any of the Ministers of those Churches will say that it is the consent of Parents that makes the Marriage though it cannot be a Marriage without it Many other Instances of the like nature might be given but this is enough to prove the thing we have in hand namely that though in some sence it may be said that our Laws are made by the King and Parliament or by the King Lords and Commons because they cannot be made by the King without the consent of the Lords and Commons yet properly speaking it is the King alone who by his LE ROY LE VEVLT makes them to be Laws in which Law-making Act of his neither of the Houses do joyn or are joyned with him and therefore the Laws so made cannot properly be said to be made by the King and them joyntly And yet because they cannot be made by the King without their antecedent consent to them and proposing of them they may truly be said to concur To the making though not In the making of them And this and no more but this was undoubtedly the late Kings meaning when he said the Laws were made here in England by the King Lords and Commons or upon their proposing such and such Bills being first agreed upon by them to be made Laws by him CHAP. XIV The making of Laws in the Roman State applied to Vs Mr. B. 's division of the Soveraignty rectified The King 's Negative voice asserted and the Enemies of Monarchy detected THus when the Soveraignty was in the People of Rome the Senate did concur to the making of Laws for the Common-wealth but did not make them they concur'd to the making of them by consulting and debating what was fit to be made a Law by the People as having no power to make it a Law themselves the making of Laws being an Act of Soveraignty and the Soveraignty being then not in the Senate but in the People and therefore the Senate did not so much as pretend to the making of Laws but only to the proposing of Laws to be made by a higher power namely that of the People as appears by the formal and solemn stile relating to the making of Laws in those times which was this Senatus rog at Populus jubet the Senate requesteth or proposeth namely such or such a thing to be made a Law but the People commands or enjoyns it that is the People maketh what was proposed by the Senate for a Law to be a Law And as this was the stile in relation to making of Laws in a Democracy when and where the Soveraignty was in the People so à paritate rationis upon the like reason and account in a Monarchy where the Soveraignty is in One the stile ought to be Populus rog at Rex jubet the People requests and the King grants And so indeed it was as I observed before according to the ancient stile used in our Parliaments here in England in divers Acts and Statutes wherein the King is said to give or grant sometimes at the special request and sometimes at the humble Petition of the Commons Neither doth the Alteration of the Stile at the Request to with the consent argue an alteration in the species of the Government for the King is still the sole Lawmaker or Lawgiver as much as he was before and consequently as much a Monarch though less Despotical and more Political in the managery and execution of his Kingly Power having by his Predecessors and his own voluntary and gracious condescension obliged himself not to exercise his Legislative power or to make any Laws without the consent of those that are to be governed by them which though it do not make him cease to be a Monarch or to have the Soveraignty or supreme power wholly and solely in himself yet it makes him cease to be an absolute arbitrary and despotical and to become a legal regulated and Political Monarch or a King that is to govern his People by Laws Laws indeed of his own making but not without their consent to them I mean without their consent by their Representatives in Parliament together with the consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal which all of them jointly are the Representatives of the three Estates or of that whole Body Politick whereof the King is the Head And as it is he that governs the whole Body so it is he that makes the Laws to govern the whole Body which because they are not made by the King without the consent of the three Estates representing that Body therefore Mr. Baxter thinks they are made by the three Estates as well as by the King and therefore that the Soveraignty is divided betwixt the King and them and consequently that this is no Monarchy but a mix'd Government which is the same mistake that Grotius as I said before
inconsistent History and Experience have taught us the inconvenience of the one and the other No fear of either's Return A just commendation of our Church-Government What duty we owe to such a Constitution * Rom. c. 16. v. 17. A mark to be set upon Dividers The Character of Separatists Ep. Jude v. 16. V. 19. They are sensual * 1 Cor. 3. 4. What Spirit it is guides them The ill Consequence if that Spirit be not restrained The late example of the Scots recommended Their Test. Vid. the Acts and Laws made in Scotland when the Duke of York was the Kings Commissioner there An. 1681. The Heir of the Crown being a Presbyterian c. all one case as his being a Papist Just Reflections upon the Presbyterian Covenant General Monks conduct prais'd The Sectaries will not indure Vs nor one another They and the Papists much alike as to cruelty Their Principles much what the same And practices too upon occasion The Tryers a kind of Inquisition An Instance from the Anabaptists The like may be judg'd of the other Sects The danger if the Heir of the Crown be of any other Religion alike as if he be a Papist What Means to be used to prevent this danger The Exclusion of the right Heir against the practice of all Nations And consequently against the Law of Nature Jacob 's three eldest Sons forfeited their Birth-right Gen c. 49. v. 3 4. Two Cases of disherison The Right of Inheritance according to Gods positive Law The like in succession of Kingdoms 1 Kings c. 2. v. 22. A donijah his Case and why Solomon preferr'd to the Throne 1 Kings c. 1. v. 6. Ibid. Granting that the Judicial Law obligeth none but Jews The Exclusion of the right Heir is contrary to the Law of the Land No such Law now in being Nor can be made without the Kings consent Nor were it made would be just in the present Case The dangerous consequence of such a Law Such a Law if made and executed would not be effectual against future Heirs Arbitrary Government may be brought in by other ways as well as by Popery A brief commendation of the Church of England and the Civil Government The Scotch Test proposed to keep out Popery and Arbitrary Government Which upon the supposition of such a Law cannot be brought in Neither by force Nor by fair means An Objection from what Queen Mary did The Case much different then from what it is now Prebytery more likely to alter the Government than Popery Such a Test will be an assurance of no change to be An Objection that a Popish Successor will be absolv'd from his Oath The thing the same if a Presbyterian The full ground of that Assurance of no Change to be in the Government Mr. B. 's own commendation of our Government Vid. H. Com. p. 207. What he means by the Government of this Common-wealth Vid. H Com. from 89. to the 104 page His wish for better order in Election of Parliament-men H. Com. W. Page 27. 208. Wherein the Bishop agrees with him Whom Mr B. perhaps thinks worhty to choose or be chosen Whom the Bishop thinks such The main qualification of a Parliament-man An Objection against the Test. A threefold Answer A reinforcement of the Test * Which if consented to by the Successor no reason to believe but it will be kept A Recital of some of Mr. B 's Principles by which he justifies the late Rebellion and by which upon the like occasion Rebellion is incouraged for the time to come The Parliament how the Peoples Representatives and Trustees in Mr. B. 's sense The Peoples Rights and Priviledges H. Com. W. p 471. The Priviledge of Parliament An Instance of an unhappy difference betwixt the two Houses concerning Priviledge In what sense the King sole Law-giver The blessed frame of English government A caution against seditious Preachers and Scriblers Several ways to prove it lawful to take up Arms against the King Calvin 's way Herl 's way Mr. Baxter 's way Vpon such Principles the King in continual danger of Rebellion Some of Mr. B. 's Principles peculiarly such What the late King meant by saying The Laws are jointly made by King Lords and Commons How Christ alone will judge the World and yet the Saints shall judge it too How the Laws made by the King alone and yet jointly by the King Lords and Commons Some Instances ad hominem to convince Mr. B of this meaning Vid. M B 's second Def. of meer Nonconf p. 127. A brief Rebearsal of our Law-making How Laws made in the Roman Common-wealth How in our Monarchy The ancient stile of our Laws Our King not an absolute but a legal Monarch The three Estates Whence Mr. B. 's errour of dividing the Soveraignty The Soveraignty how in its streams divided and in its acts limited The King 's Negative voice necessary to preserve Monarchy Who Enemies to Monarchy A Caveat to Soveraigns The Conclusion of this and the three foregoing Sections Mr. B 's insincerity of dealing The true account of the Bishop's advising him to read thâ—se 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 s. Mr. B 's fallacious intent in giving the account as he does Mr. Hooker 's judgment of Kingly power whether he be King by choice Vid Hooker 's Eccl. Pol. lib. 8. p. 456. Or by Conquest Vid. Hooker 's Eccl. Pol. lib. 8. p 454. This of Conquest our case at first Vid. Hooker p. 454. Our Kings since have restrained themselves What it is that Mr. B. doth not approve Mr Hooker 's judgment of the descent of the Crown More than Mr. B. approves pag. 184. Of the King's Supremacy Over all persons This again more than Mr. B. approves Of the King's Supremacy as to things Eccles. Pol. p. 457. lib. 8. Lib. 8. p. 469. Of his Negative voice p. 471. Of his making of Laws p. 472. This against Mr. B. And therefore not approved by him Bishop Bilson in an errour about resistance The ground of his errour The censure of it A Remark upon our late Rebellion Religion true or false inspirits men alike Not safe nor lawfull for one Prince to assist another's Rebel-Subjects How we are to help those who are persecuted for Religion Mr. B 's design in this reflexion defeated Whom he means by Vs He disowns himself to be a Presbyterian And takes it for an affront to be thought so Why called their Antesignanus Mr. B. an Apologist for all the Nonconformists What his Nonconformist Ministers are What he means by bringing them under Independents and Presbyterians like Caesar and Pompey Vnder whom they are brought viz. the King How Mr. B. and his party brought in the King An account of Ministers silenced by the Bishop Intruders as well as Non-conforming Ministers put out The silencing of the Nonconformists a just and equitable punishment Mr. B 's own case the same as he makes Abiathar 's to be The silencing of them prudent and necessary also by way of caution No thanks to
all others besides themselves are to be excluded from Governing or chusing of Governours And amongst the ungodly that are to be thus excluded he reckons all those that will not hearken to their Pastours he means the Presbyterian Classis or that are despisers of the Lord's-Day that is all such as are not Sabbatarians or will not keep the Lord's day after the Jewish manner which they prescribe and which is condemned for Judaism by all even of the Presbyterian perswasion in the world but those of England and Scotland onely XV. If a People that by Oath and Duty are obliged to a Sovereign shall sinfully dispossess him and contrary to their Covenants chuse and Covenant with another they may be obliged by their latter Covenant notwithstanding their former and particular subjects that consented not in the breaking of their former Covenants may yet be obliged by occasion of their latter choice to the person whom they chuse Thes. 181. XVI If a Nation injuriously deprive themselves of a worthy Prince the hurt will be their own and they punish themselves but if it be necessarily to their welfare it is no injury to him But a King that by war will seek reparations from the body of the people doth put himself into an hostile State and tells them actually that he looks to his own good more than theirs and bids them take him for their Enemy and so defend themselves if they can Pag. 424. XVII Though a Nation wrong their King and so quoad Meritum causoe they are on the worser side yet may he not lawfully war against the publick good on that account nor any help him in such a war because propter fiuem he hath the worser cause Thes. 352. And yet as he tells us pag 476. we were to believe the Parliaments Declarations and professions which they made that the war which they raised was not against the King either in respect of his Authority or of his Person but onely against Delinquent Subjects and yet they actually fought against the King in person and we are to believe saith Mr. Baxter pag. 422. that men would kill them whom they fight against Mr. Baxter's Doctrine concerning the Government of England in particular HE denies the Government of England to be Monarchical in these words I. The real Sovereignty here amongst us was in King Lords and Commons Pag. 72. II. As to them that argue from the Oath of Supremacy and the title given the King I refer them saith Mr. Baxter to Mr. Lawson's answer to Hobbs's Politicks where he sheweth that the Title is often given to the single Person for the honour of the Commonwealth and his encouragement because he hath an eminent interest but will not prove the whole Sovereignty to be in him and the Oath excludeth all others from without not those whose interest is implied as conjunct with his The eminent dignity and interest of the King above others allowed the name of a Monarchy or Kingdom to the Commonwealth though indeed the Sovereignty was mixed in the hands of the Lords and Commons Pag. 88. III. He calls it a false supposition 1. That the Sovereign power was onely in the King and so that it was an absolute Monarchy 2 That the Parliament had but onely the proposing of Laws and that they were Enacted onely by the King's Authority upon their request 3. That the power of Arms and of War and Peace was in the King alone And therefore saith he those that argue from these false suppositions conclude that the Parliament being Subjects may not take up Arms without him and that it is Rebellion to resist him and most of this they gather from the Oath of Supremacy and from the Parliaments calling of themselves his Subjects but their grounds saith he are sandy and their superstructure false Pag. 459 460. And therefore Mr. Baxter tells us that though the Parliament are Subjects in one capacity yet have they their part in the Sovereignty also in their higher capacity Ibid. And upon this false and traitorous supposition he endeavours to justifie the late Rebellion and his own more than ordinary activeness in it For IV. Where the Sovereignty saith he is distributed into several hands as the King 's and Parliaments and the King invades the others part they may lawfully defend their own by war and the Subject lawfully assist them yea though the power of the Militia be expresly given to the King unless it be also exprest that it shall not be in the other Thes. 363. The conclusion saith he needs no proof because Sovereignty as such hath the power of Arms and of the Laws themselves The Law that saith the King shall have the Militia supposeth it to be against Enemies and not against the Commonwealth nor them that have part of the Sovereignty with him To resist him here is not to resist power but usurpation and private will in such a case the Parliament is no more to be resisted than he Ibid. V. If the King raise War against such a Parliament upon their Declaration of the dangers of the Common-wealth the people are to take it as raised against the Commonwealth Thes. 358. And in that case saith he the King may not onely be resisted but ceaseth to be a King and entreth into a state of War with the people Thes. 368. VI. Again if a Prince that hath not the whole Sovereignty be conquered by a Senate that hath the other part and that in a just defensive War that Senate cannot assume the whole Sovereignty but supposeth that government in specie to remain and therefore another King must be chosen if the former be incapable Thes. 374. as he tells us he is by ceasing to be King in the immediately precedent Thes. VII And yet in the Preface to this Book he tells us that the King withdrawing so he calls the murthering of one King and the casting off of another the Lords and Commons ruled alone was not this to change the species of the Government Which in the immediate words before he had affirmed to be in King Lords and Commons which constitution saith he we were sworn and sworn and sworn again to be faithfull to and to defend And yet speaking of that Parliament which contrary to their Oaths changed this Government by ruling alone and taking upon them the Supremacy he tells us that they were the best Governours in all the world and such as it is forbidden to Subjects to depose upon pain of damnation What then was he that deposed them one would think Mr. Baxter should have called him a Traitour but he calls him in the same Preface the Lord Protector adding That he did prudently piously faithfully and to his immortal honour exercise the Government which he left to his Son to whom as Mr. Baxter saith pag. 484. he is bound to submit as set over us by God and to obey for conscience sake and to behave himself as a Loyal Subject towards him
because as he saith in the same place a full and free Parliament had owned him thereby implying That a maimed and a manacled House of Commons without King and Lords and notwithstanding the violent expulsion of the secluded Members were a full and free Parliament and consequently that if such a Parliament should have taken Arms against the King he must have sided with them Yea though they had been never so much in fault and though they had been the beginners of the War for he tells us in plain and express terms VIII That if he had known the Parliament had been the beginners of the War and in most fault yet the ruine of the Trustees and Representatives and so of all the security of the Nation being a punishment greater than any faults of theirs against the King could deserve from him their faults could not disoblige him meaning himself from defending the Commonwealth Pag. 480. And that he might doe this lawfully and with a good Conscience he seems to be so confident that in his Preface he makes as it were a challenge saying that if any man can prove that the King was the highest power in the time of those Divisions and that he had power to make that war which he made he will offer his head to Justice as a Rebel As if in those times of Division the King had lost or forfeited his Sovereignty and the Parliament had not onely a part but the whole Sovereignty in themselves IX Finally Mr. Baxter tells us Pag. 486. That having often searched into his heart whether he did lawfully engage into the War or not and whether he did lawfully encourage so many thousands to it he tells us I say that the issue of all his search was but this That he cannot yet see that he was mistaken in the main cause nor dares he repent of it nor forbear doing the same if it were to doe again in the same state of things He tells us indeed in the same place that if he could be convinc'd he had sinned in this matter he would as gladly make a publick recantation as he would eat or drink which seeing he hath not yet done it is evident he is still of the same mind and consequently would upon the same occasion doe the same things viz. fight and encourage as many thousands as he could to fight against the King for any thing that calls it self or which he is pleased to call a full and free Parliament as likewise that he would own and submit to any Vsurper of the Sovereignty as set up by God although he came to it by the murther of his Master and by trampling upon the Parliament Lastly That he would hinder as much as possibly he could the restoring of the rightfull Heir unto the Crown And now whether a man of this Judgment and of these affections ought to be permitted to Preach or no Let any but himself judge THE Bishop of Winchester's VINDICATION Of Himself from divers False Scandalous and Injurious Reflexions made upon him by Mr. RICHARD BAXTER in several of his Writings As likewise A Vindication of the Rights and Sovereignty of all Kings properly so called and particularly of the King of England's being sole Soveraign over all persons in all capacities within his own Realms and Dominions from What Mr. Baxter to justifie the Rebellion against our late King of ever blessed Memory hath in many of his False Factious and Seditious Aphorisms asserted to the contrary Together with A Proposal of a more Legal and more effectual Expedient for the keeping Popery and Arbitrary Government for ever out of England than the passing of an Act to exclude the right Heir from Succession to the Crown either now or hereafter is will be or can be LONDON Printed for Joanna Brome 1683. SECTION I. Mr. BAXTER'S Assertion at the Savoy undeniably proved upon him and consequently his Charge against the Bishop of many mistakes in his Letter in matter of fact and of his Gross mistaking charge viz. Concerning the judgment of the Nonconformists of things sinfull by Accident cleared The Bishop of Winchester's Vindication of himself from divers false scandalous and injurious Reflexions made upon him by Mr. Richard Baxter in several of his Writings CHAP. I. Mr. Baxter 's Charge against the Bishop gathered out of several Writings of his and set down in his own words MAster Baxter in his Preface to his Book called by him The true and onely way of Concord of all Christian Churches reflecting upon a Letter of mine Written and Printed near 20 years before saith There are so many Mistakes in matter of fact in it that although he had made an Answer to it yet he cast it aside for Peace sake believing that the opening of the aforesaid so many mistakes would not easily be born the rather because as he says in the words immediately foregoing he knew he had greatly incurr'd both our displeasures already to wit the Bishop of Ely's and mine for what he had said and done against our Way and that as to my particular the aforesaid Letter of mine was a proof of it Again in the same Preface to the same Book he saith You meaning the Bishop of Ely and Me to whom he addresseth that Preface have above all men I know effectually helped to bring us meaning himself and the rest of his Party under These are Mr. Baxter's complements when he speaks to me and therefore I am not to expect more Civility from him when he speaks of me as he doth in divers of his Books which I have seen and perhaps in many more of them which I have not seen for I hope all men are not bound to reade all Mr. Baxter writes But in those I have seen when he speaks of me it is neither Honoris nor Charitatis gratiâ but to reproach me either directly and in express terms or covertly and by the bye as when in his Preface to the second part of his Plea for Nonconformists he saith It was Bishop Morley 's gross mistaking charge that made him write one whole Tract or Treatise namely That of things sinfull per Accidens or by accident Again in the former part of the aforesaid Plea for Nonconformists he saith Bishop Morley advised him to reade Bilson and Hooker in whom saith he I found more than he approv'd for resisting and restraining of Kings Again in another of his printed Papers I mean that Paper which he would have taken for a Recantation of some of those Political Aphorisms I had laid to his charge though he do not name me yet he points directly at me as if I had accused him for asserting That all humane powers are limited by God which to deny as he there insinuates I do and elsewhere plainly tells me I do is to defy Deity and Humanity and consequently makes me a defyer of them both Lastly with the same ingenuity and candour he aims at me more obscurely and more obliquely indeed
were some other reasons besides what are alledged by him that made him forbear the Printing of it for whereas he saith It was for peace or for peace sake that he laid it aside or forbore printing it because having already that is before my publishing of the aforesaid Letter greatly incurr'd the Bishop of Ely 's displeasure and mine by what he had said and done against our Way he believed the opening of so many mistakes in matter of fact as were in that Letter would not easily be born and for that reason he laid aside that Answer of his to that Letter of mine I cannot believe that this was the onely or indeed any reason at all of his so doing I mean it was neither his love of peace in general nor his fear of giving me any farther provocation in particular that made him suppress that pretended Answer For first if he were of so peaceable a disposition or so great a lover of Peace as he would seem to be he would not have spent so much of his time in writing so many Volumes to keep up and increase Schism and Separation in the Church together with Faction and Sedition in the State as he hath done Which might be made to appear yet farther from the manner as well as the matter of his writing which is so Magisterial and with that contempt undervaluing and vilifying of those he writes against or that write against him and sometimes with such exasperating and provoking language as very ill becomes him that pretends to be a Peace maker And perhaps in such a style was that Answer of his written if he writ any answer at all to the aforesaid Letter of mine and then perhaps too some wiser Friend of his might advise him to forbear printing of it at least at that time namely at the King 's first coming in against one that came in a little before him and was sent by him and had been all the while the King was abroad in Exile with him and for him and had newly received some more than ordinary marks of his Majestie 's favour from him These or the like considerations to these being suggested to him might peradventure at that time prevail with him rather wholly to suppress or at least to defer the printing of that Answer of his if there were any such answer than thereby so unseasonably to provoke me more whose displeasure he saith he had greatly incurr'd by what he had said and done against the Bishop of Ely 's way and mine as if the Bishop of Ely and I had a Way of our own wherein no body walked but our selves I would therefore fain know what he calls the Bishop of Ely's way and mine and for his speaking and acting against which he had so greatly incurr'd that Bishop's and my displeasure Is it a new or a newly found out Way or a way of our own devising as Mr. Baxter's way is of his a way that never any walked in before nor none but himself doth walk in yet nor will I believe ever walk in hereafter For it is neither Episcopal nor Presbyterian nor wholly Independent nor any of any other denomination either ancient or modern that I ever heard of but partly of all and partly of none of them But Ours I mean the Way which the Bishop of Ely and I do walk in is no By-path not a Way of Sufferance or Toleration onely such as Mr. Baxter and all the Nonconformists plead for but the Good old way the King 's the Church of England's way nay the Catholick Churches High-way the Way wherein all the Primitive Fathers Saints and Martyrs and all the Orthodox Christians in all Ages untill the last before this of ours have gone before us I mean the Government of the Church by Bishops teaching all and nothing else but what was taught by Christ and his Apostles in point of Doctrine and commanding nothing which God has forbidden nor forbidding any thing which God has commanded in the outward Administration of God's publick Worship and Service but making use of that liberty and power that God hath left to his Church in order to Decency and Uniformity and Edification and consequently in order to that Unity and Concord which Mr. Baxter doth so much pretend to desire and plead for This and no other but this is the Way of the Church of England and this and no other but this is the Way which the Bishop of Ely and I do walk in and would have all men else that are born within the pale of our Church to walk in also And therefore as we cannot chuse but be sorry for those that are led or kept out of this way both for their own and the Churches sake so we cannot chuse but be displeased too with those that not onely refuse to walk in it themselves but endeavour and doe what they can to draw others from it and to keep those that are gone out of it from returning again into it by making and preaching and printing Pleas and Apologies for Nonconformists which can have no other end consequentially at least if not intentionally but to confirm them in their Non-conformity And surely he that would not forbear to doe this and to doe it over and over again being so prejudicial and destructive to the peace of the Church and State as We have experimentally found it to be He I say that would not forbear to doe this for the publick peace sake nor for fear of offending the King and the Parliament the makers of those Laws against those things and persons he so loudly and so boldly pleads for did not in all probability for peace sake and much less for fear of displeasing Bishop Morley forbear to publish what he had written in answer to that Letter of the Bishop's which would have been much less provoking by specifying though not proving some of those many mistakes he now chargeth him with without naming any of them and consequently as much as in him lies imposing upon his Readers especially such as are ill-affected to Bishops an implicit belief that there are indeed many very many mistakes in the Bishop's Letter and perhaps gross ones too and such as Mr. Baxter could have named and proved also but being a man of so peaceable so patient and so meek a disposition as he is he did for peace sake and because he would not provoke the Bishop to be more displeased with him than he was already forbear to doe so Credat Judoeus non Ego Believe it who list for me as he faith And therefore he must give me leave to think upon better considerations that he never writ any Answer at all to my Letter So that all the Reply I need to make to this general unattested and unproved Charge of Mr. Baxter is to oppose my bare Negative to his bare Affirmative for Affirmantis est probare He who affirms a thing ought to prove it which
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As they were moved or inspired by the holy Ghost and for all ages and times as well as for those wherein they were written is worse than with David's fool to say in his heart that there is no God For to Blaspheme God is worse than to deny him and how can a Man or the Devil himself blaspheme God more than to make men believe that he who is Truth it self is a Lyar or at least a deceiver one that hath sent his Ambassadours the Apostles nay his Son himself into the World with Credentials under his broad Seal I mean the doing of Miracles in his name to assure the World and the Princes of the World that those that were Christians were because they were Christians to be the best of Subjects such as how ill soever they were used or how much soever they were oppressed nay how cruelly soever they were persecuted by their Princes yet were indispensably obliged by their Religion never to rebell or so much as to attempt to defend themselves by force against even such Princes and consequently that the Princes and Potentates of the world whatsoever Religion themselves were of needed not to fear nor consequently ought not in reason to persecute any of their Christian Subjects who were obliged by their Christianity it self because they were Christians to be the best of Subjects and to continue to be so how numerous or how powerfull soever they might grow to be or how heavy or hard the yoke might be which they groaned under which being published and made known to the world to be the will of God as it was by St. Peter his Apostle or Ambassadour to the Jews and by St. Paul his Apostle or Ambassadour to the Gentiles for any that comes after them whether it be a Bellarmine a Buchanan or a Baxter to endeavour to make it to be believed that God and his Ambassadours St. Paul's and St. Peter's meaning was to oblige Christians to be such Subjects to such Sovereigns so long and no longer than they were too weak to resist them but assoon as they were able that they were then left at liberty with God's good leave not onely to revolt from them but to revenge the wrongs they had suffered under them for any men now I say to make it or endeavour to make it to be believed that this was Christ's or his Apostles meaning what is it but to make it to be believed that Christ was indeed such a one as the High Priest falsely told Pilate he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A deceiver and that his Apostles were Legati ad mentiendum missi Ambassadours sent on purpose by him to deceive those they were sent to as perhaps some Ambassadours may be sent from one earthly Prince to another But to say that Christ hath done so or that he had or could have any need to doe so is in a very high degree to Blaspheme Christ himself as well as his Apostles and to make whatsoever they taught besides to be suspected of insincerity and consequently the whole Christian Religion to be but a design or contrivance for worldly ends onely as it is indeed by the Papists made to be and by all such Protestants also as make Religion a Cloak for any kind of licentiousness in general and especially for the lawfulness of the Rebellion of Subjects against their Sovereigns as all they do that would have those Apostolical Precepts against resisting of Princes by their Subjects to be but Temporary and to be obliging not in point of Conscience but in point of Prudence and for fear of punishment onely which is in terminis directly to contradict the Apostle or rather the Holy Ghost speaking in or by the Apostle who tells us in express terms that there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a necessity for Subjects to be Subjects and consequently by no means nor upon any provocation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to resist or rebell against their Sovereigns and that not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Text for wrath onely not for fear of punishment onely but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for Conscience sake and especially for Conscience or for fear of offending God more than for fear of offending man and therefore if at all for fear of punishment it must be more for fear of that punishment which the Text calls damnation and which God will inflict hereafter upon those that rebell against his Viceroys and consequently against himself than for fear of any punishment that can be inflicted upon them by Men here I will conclude this Topick with that saying of Grotius in the fourth Chapter of his first book de jure Belli Pacis and in the seventh Section of that Chapter viz Certè Christianis Veteribus qui recentes ab Apostolorum Apostolicorum Virorum disciplina eorum Proecepta intelligebant meliùs perfectiùs implebant summam ab iis injuriam fieri puto qui quo minùs ipsi se defenderent in certissimo mortis periculo vires putant illis non animum defuisse Certainly there cannot I think be a greater injury done to the first Christians who coming newly from the Discipline of the Apostles and Apostolick men did better understand and more perfectly practise their Precepts than there is done by them that think the reason why they did not defend themselves when they were sure to die if they did not was not because they would not have done so if they could but because they wanted strength to doe so Which saying of Grotius I desire the Reader to take special notice of the rather because Grotius himself in the very same Section seems to make it lawfull for Christian Subjects to resist the Supreme Magistate in several cases and some of them such wherein the Primitive Christians did not think it lawfull for them to doe so as Grotius himself in his aforesaid saying tells us and because it is upon the authority of Grotius and what Grotius saith to justifie the resisting of Sovereigns by their Subjects that Mr. Baxter doth especially ground his justification of the Rebellion against our late Sovereign Therefore whether those sayings of Grotius be true or no in themselves or whether if they be true they be pertinently and rationally applyed by Mr. Baxter for his and his Parties doing what they did in the late War against the King or no we shall examine hereafter In the mean time to the Doctrine of the Scriptures and the practice of the Primitive Christians we will subjoyn the Judgment of our own Church the Church of England as of that which of all Churches now extant in the World is both for her Doctrine Government and publick form of Worship the most Apostolical whatsoever the Papists or any other Hereticks or the Presbyterians or any other Schismaticks and Sectaries do or can say to the contrary But what the Judgment of the Church of England is as to this or any other
and therefore more inclined or perhaps necessitated to weaken and impoverish and keep them under as Pharaoh did the Israelites by laying heavy burthens upon them and oppressing them more than otherwise they would have reason or perhaps a will to doe that they may not be able to rise up against them when such Demagogues as our Schismatical Preachers are have a mind to stir them up to doe so Who secondly doe what they can to rob Subjects of that inestimable reward which God hath promised to all such as suffer wrongfully and yet patiently or as St. Peter phraseth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it becomes Christians and not onely so but thirdly do engage them instead of suffering less wrongfully to hazard the suffering of more rightfully from their Princes if they do not prevail in their Rebellion and to a certainty of suffering infinitely much more from God whether they prevail or not if they die in or after their rebellion without repentance And now I think I have sufficiently justified the reasonableness of my exception to that Aphorism of Mr. Baxter's which he saith he wonders Bishop Morley did except against by having proved it to be false in both the particulars that are asserted in it As first That all unlimited Governours are Tyrants and 2dly That no unlimited Governour or Tyrant hath a right unto his Government and consequently that the Subjects of Vnlimited or Tyrannical Governours are not obliged to obey them but may resist them at least for defending of themselves against them both which particulars having proved to be false I hope I have sufficiently vindicated my self also from that horrible calumny of being a defier of Deity and Humanity and an Enemy to God to Kings and to all mankind as Mr. Baxter out of his abundant Zeal and little charity saith I am and would make his unwary Readers believe me to be not from any thing I say my self but from what he is pleased to say for me and then as if I had said it my self to infer from it the calumny which he before intended but could not tell how to doe it otherwise to fix upon me Of which disingenuous and insincere artifice of his as I said before we have seen several Instances already and shall see more hereafter CHAP. XIV That Scripture Rom. 13. for the unlawfulness of resisting asserted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly rendred to Resist and implies more than simply Not to obey Our Translation Vindicated against Mr. B. and others who censure it and vary from it as he often doth ANd yet before we proceed any farther we are to take notice of and remove a shrewd Remora or obstruction out of the way which Mr. Baxter hath laid to take away from us the authority of one of the principal places of Scripture whereon we ground our doctrine of the Vnlawfulness of resisting of Sovereigns by their Subjects in any case or upon any provocation whatsoever and that is the 13 Chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans and in that Chapter especially upon the 2d Verse whereof the words in Greek are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which by our last and by our most authentical Translation are rendred in English thus Whosoever resisteth the power viz. the Sovereign Power or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the higher power as it is called in the verse before resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation And it is against our Translation of some words or rather of one of the words in this Verse that Mr. Baxter makes this objection not against the word power nor as Sovereign power is meant by it though contrary to St. Paul's meaning and the truth of the Roman History he will have the Sovereign Power there meant not to be in the Emperour alone but in him and the Roman Senate also as he faith it is in the King and Parliament here in England and one as truly as the other neither doth he except against the translation of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the word damnation though it always doth not signifie so severe a judgment but he tells us that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not properly translated by the word resisting And why so because saith he There is a Resistance contrary to Subjection and that is forbidden and there is a Resistance not contrary to Subjection and that is not forbidden Might he not as well have said there is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to resist contrary to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be subject and there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to resist not contrary to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be subject And therefore St. Paul did not speak properly when he opposed the one unto the other and yet St. Paul tells the Corinthians who were Grecians that he spoke more languages than they all and no doubt understood the propriety of them as well as they did Howsoever we are sure that St. Paul understood God's meaning and how to express it so as he would have it to be understood neither is it to be doubted but that a commissioned Company of so many learned men as were employed in the last and most accurate Translation of our English Bible did very well understand St. Paul's meaning as he expressed it in Greek and knew how to render it as properly in English as any one private man ought in modesty to think he can or could have done especially if he be no greater a Critick in the Greek language than Mr. Baxter appears to be by the several Instances a learned man gives of his many gross mistakes of the meaning of several Greek words quoted by him in his Church History which I would not have observed but that I find Mr. Baxter so full and fond of his mendings of the magnificat I mean his frequent and needless finding fault with our Churches Translation And truly I could wish that even such as are more skilfull in the Original Languages in which the Scriptures were written than Mr. Baxter seems to be would forbear in their popular Sermons and in their English Treatises to censure so boldly as some of them do such and such places of Scripture as they have or take occasion to speak of as either not truly or not properly translated in our Bibles when there is no necessity for their so doing and when they may thereby give occasion to their unlearned Auditours or Readers to doubt of any other and perhaps of all other places of Scripture as well as of those by them quoted and censured viz. Whether they be truly or properly translated or no which may bring them at length to question and doubt of the truth of the whole written word of God and whither that may bring them God knows perhaps to Quakerism or some other kind of Fanaticism or perhaps to downright Atheism And therefore I say I
Where is the security thereby provided for the Lives Liberties and Properties of Free-born English-men when an arbitrary Vote of the House of Commons if it be believed as Mr. Baxter saith it must be by the People and be put in execution as Mr. Baxter cannot deny but it may be because it hath been may take away any mans life how innocent soever without any farther process or a legal proof of any crime against him For who is there that can secure himself from such a Vote or that can be secured after he is devoted by such a Vote from being killed by the next man that meets him in the Streets for there be more Feltons saith Mr. Baxter than one neither will the hanging of one discourage all the rest from hazarding their lives upon the same account as long as they are possessed and actuated with the same principle viz. that it is not only lawful but a glorious and meritorious deed to kill any man that is an Enemy to the Publick and withal that he is obliged to believe that any or as many as the House of Commons shall declare to be so are so It was high time therefore for the King to give a stop to such proceedings by dissolving the late Parliament to prevent the proscribing of all that were about him and employed by him and perhaps the remonstrating against himself also as their Predecessors had done against his Father which Remonstrance made by the then House of Commons as it was intended and made use of at first by the Presbyterians to begin and carry on their Rebellion against the King and his Party so was it made use of at last also by the Independents for the destruction of the Kings Person the pretended male-administration of the Government which was the matter of the Remonstrance being that for which he was indicted and condemned and put to death by the Independents And yet that very Remonstrance it was that Mr. Baxter in the place before quoted saith the People were obliged to believe and consequently to act thereupon as afterwards they did and yet good man he was in the mean time far from being guilty of any hurt to the Kings Person or destruction of his Power But why was he or the rest of the People obliged to believe either that Remonstrance or his Declaration of the House of Commons were they infallible that they could not be deceived themselves or were they impeccable that they could not deceive others neither the one nor the other For Mr. Baxter himself tells us it is well known that Parliaments quà tales as such are not divine religious Protestant or just That sometimes the major part in either or both Houses may be the worst And therefore I should think not always to be believed in what they declare nor always to be complied with by the People whose Trustees they are in whatsoever they command or undertake For if They be such as Mr. Baxter saith They may be may They not betray their trust and act contrary to the Interest of those that trust them Yes saith Mr. Baxter they may and consequently may saith he forfeit their power as well as Kings nay in some cases saith Mr. Baxter We are all that is the whole Nation to take part with the King against the Parliament as First If they would depose the King unjustly or change the Government or Secondly If they notoriously betray their trust in fundamentals or in points that the Common good depends on as if ever any Parliament did That we are now speaking of did and did it most notoriously there saith he the Peoples duty is to forsake them and to cleave to the King against them But who shall be Judg whether they do so or no or if there be a division betwixt those between whom the Sovereignty is divided as Mr. Baxter supposeth it is betwixt King and Parliament here in England and the one usurps or is pretended to usurp upon the other What then why then saith Mr. Baxter it belongs to the People to judg whose cause is best and to resist the usurping party But the People as he tells us in another place cannot themselves judg for themselves and therefore saith he the Constitution of the Government having made the Parliament the Trustees of our Liberties hath made them our Eyes by which We must discern our dangers And therefore as he saith a little before in the same page We are obliged to believe them as the most competent Witnesses and Judges and the chosen Trustees of our Liberties So that if there be a difference betwixt the King and the House of Commons and the House of Commons would depose the King never so unjustly or change the Government never so notoriously or betray their trust never so perfidiously yet if the House of Commons themselves will not say they do so but declare the contrary the People are to believe them and to side with them against the King yea and against the House of Lords too if they joyn with the King which how it can consist with the Doctrine of Co-ordination or with his own aforesaid Assertion that in some cases the People are to cleave to the King against the Parliament he were best to consider In the mean time thanks be to God We have a better and a more certain Rule of right and wrong and to be guided in what We are to believe and do than an arbitrary Vote of the major part of the House of Commons and that is the known Law of the Land For verissimum illud saith Grotius ubi semel à jure recessum est incerta esse omnia when we are once out of the road and rule of the Law we know not whither We are a going nor what we are a doing If therefore the question be Whether the late War was made against the King or no it is not a Declaration of the House of Commons or of both Houses either pro or con that will decide the question but Ad legem ad legem it is the Law that must do it and the Law hath done it For when the Earl of Essex in Queen Elizabeths time at his Arraignment for Treason and Rebellion against the Queen because he took up Arms without her Commission pleaded that he did it for the Queen and not against her because his meaning was only to remove Cecill and Cobham and Raleigh and other evil Councellors that were about her and were hers and the States Enemies as well as his protesting then as Mr. Baxter does now that he meant not any the least hurt to the Queens Person or diminution of her Power upon which often reiterated protestation of the Earls especially that of his meaning no hurt to the Queens Person the Sages of the Law that were Assessors to the Lords that were his Judges being askt by the Lords what was the Judgment of the Law in that Case
it was not made against the King but against his evil Councellors and other his Delinquent Subjects only CHAP. III. Another ground of Mr. B's justifying the late War that according to our constitution the King is not sole Sovereign disproved The Act for the Rebel-Parliaments sitting censured All Kings properly so called not accountable to the People but to God only AND this doth farther appear by the little confidence he himself seems to have in this Topick For supposing as he had all the reason in the World to suppose that the aforesaid Declaration of the Parliament as he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 abusively and falsly calls it would signifie nothing with considering and understanding men as to the justifying of the late War from being a down-right Rebellion as indeed it was he seems to quit this as an indefensible Out-work and retires to that which he thinks to be a much stronger Hold and which if he can maintain he thinks that though he should grant the late War to have been made against the King yet it was not could not be a Rebellion because it was not made by Subjects against their Sovereign For the King of England saith he according to the constitution of our Government is not our sole Sovereign but there be others that be partners with him in the Sovereignty it self and of this he is so very confident that he saith in positive and express terms that if any man can prove that the King was the highest power in the time of those Divisions He will offer his head to justice for a Rebel Which saying of his seems to require some animadversion upon it as not being an absolute denyal of the Kings Sovereignty or of the Kings being the highest Power but of his being Sovereign or highest Power during those times of division only which seems to imply that he was even in Mr. Baxters opinion the Sovereign or highest Power before those times of division And if this be his meaning as it must be if there be any meaning at all in those words then it is not from the Constitution of the Government as Mr. Baxter saith it is that the King I mean our King of England is not the Sovereign or the highest Power always and in all times and to all intents and purposes but it was from the Alteration of the essential Constitution of our Government and from the iniquity of those Times and Persons that made that alteration that the King did not nor could not then exercise those Acts of Sovereignty or Supreme Power which was as legally invested and as inseparably inherent in him even then as ever it was before For though the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Power might and was yet the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Authority was not nor could not be taken from him but by taking away his Life also Unless Mr. Baxter will say and there seems to be some such secret intimation in that saying of his I last quoted that the King himself gave away his Sovereignty or that he made his two Houses of Parliament partakers with him in it when he passed an Act for their sitting until They themselves should be willing or content to be dissolv'd I confess this was a very great alteration in the very fundamental constitution of the Government and I confess the King passed such an Act the very great streights he was then in together with the minatory importunity of the two Houses backt by the insolent and tumultuous behaviour of the Multitude necessitating him as it were to do that which never any of his Predecessors did before him and I hope never any of his Successors will do after him I mean to pass such an Act as that was Although that Act gave neither of the Houses singly nor both of them jointly any whit or jot of more Power but only of sitting longer than what They or their Predecessors had before or their Successors now have And I hope Mr. Baxter will not say that is a Power to repeal Acts to make Ordinances of equal validity and obligation with Acts without the Royal Assent to them to raise Armies and Monies to maintain them upon their fellow-subjects and against their fellow-subjects and against the King himself also Did the Act that gave them a Power to sit until they thought fit to be dissolved give them Power to do all or any of these things before specified and many other as bold as bad and as illegal as any of those were or because they had leave to sit as long as they listed had they leave to do what they listed also No no it was their ingrateful and ungracious abuse of the Kings too gracious favour to them that was the cause of all those evils that afterwards upon that occasion befel Him and the whole Royal Family and all his Loyal Subjects And therefore of all the Acts that ever that good King did I take the passing of the aforesaid Act for the sitting of the two Houses not during his but their own pleasures to be the worst not only in point of prudence and policy as most prejudicial to the Crown and Government in general but in point of Right and Justice also to all and every one of the rest of his Subjects I mean as many of them as were capable of chusing and of being chosen Parliament-men who were all of them by the passing of this Act excluded from having what was due to them in either of those capacities and consequently from the Rights and Priviledges of Free-born Englishmen as long as those Parliament-Men that were then in being should please to sit and that might be ar was as We saw afterwards as long as they lived or at least as long as they could I mean till the Army which they raised made them to rise whether they would or no and yet there want not some that say they are still in being But to return from this digression because it is not upon this particular occasional alteration of the Government that Mr. Baxter doth openly and professedly ground his denyal of the Kings Sovereignty here in England but upon the fundamental and essential constitution of the Government it self and consequently he denies England to be a Kingdom and our King to be a King properly so called For he himself defines a Kingdom to be such a Common-wealth or body Politick as hath but one Person only for its Sovereign So that according to this definition all Kingdoms that are Kingdoms indeed are Monarchies and all Kings that are Kings indeed or Kings properly so called are Monarchs I say Kings properly so called because some have been called Kings who were really no Kings as the Kings of Sparta or Lacedaemon were who were but Generals of their Armies only the Sovereign Power of the State being in those that were called the Ephori or Overseers to whom those they called their Kings were
immediately from God I wonder by what right or authority they can pretend to take that from him which not they but God hath given to him Surely they will not say they may do it whether God will or no and of Gods Will that they should do so or may do so They can have no declaration or signification but either from some plain positive standing Rule in Scripture or from special extraordinary and immediate Revelation such as Abraham had for the sacrificing his Son Isaac or as Jehu had for the destroying the House of Ahab But as to this latter as I hope Mr. Baxter is not yet Fanatick enough to pretend so I am sure he can find no such declaration or signification of Gods Will for the former I mean in the Scriptures either of the Old or New Testament as They were always and universally understood by the first and best Christians It is true indeed that in the Scripture God hath commanded Kings or Sovereign Princes to govern according to his and their own Laws too that are conformable unto his and threatned them if they do not and punished them when they have not But where or in what place of the Old or New Testament hath God appointed or permitted all or any of the People to do so I mean to punish their Kings by Deposing them or by taking any part of the Kingly Power he had given them away from them Surely God did not only foresee but foretell that many of the Kings of his own People the Jews would be some of them Idolaters and some of them Murtherers and Adulterers and some of them Tyrants and great oppressers of their Subjects as appears by Samuels Speech unto them at the Election of Saul their first King but he doth not give them or any order of Men among them there or any where else any either commission or permission authoritatively to enquire into their Kings Actions or to call them to an account for them And therefore the Kings of Juda and Israel were Kings indeed and so are those Kings whether Despoticall or Politicall whether Successive or Elective which have no ordinary standing legal Power or Judicatory above them whereunto they are Subject and accountable as the Lacedaemonian Kings were unto the Ephori and therefore were no Kings indeed but in name and in title only But there is no such legal ordinary standing Power or Judicatory here in England above our King for Rex in regno suo non habet superiorem imò nec parem the King in his own Kingdom hath none above him no nor equal to him is a Maxim of our Law and therefore our King must needs be a Sovereign and a sole Sovereign according to Mr. Baxters own Principles and Concessions For this is one of Mr. Baxters own Principles that every Commonwealth or Body Politick must have a Sovereign the form of a Commonwealth saith he being the relation of Sovereign and Subjects to each other as likewise this is another of his Aphorisms or Principles that the Sovereign of one Common-wealth must be one and but one and by but one he must needs mean but one Person or but one Caetus or Company of men and consequently in which soever of them it is it must be solely and wholly so that to be Sovereign and not to be sole Sovereign seems to be a contradiction in adjecto From whence I argue that if there must be a Sovereign or Supreme Power in every State or Body Politick and that be the Sovereign or Supreme Power which by the Legal Constitution hath no Superior Power above it then the Regal is the Sovereign or Supreme Power in England because according to the Legal Constitution of this Kingdom there is no Power Superior to it or Predominant over it but all other Powers are derived from it and Subordinate and Subject and Subservient to it Again if the Sovereign of one Commonwealth State or Kingdom must be One and but One only then if the King of England be a Sovereign as having no Superior he must needs be he must be a sole Sovereign also Neither do I see how either of these Conclusions can with any colour of reason be denyed but by assigning some Power in some Person or Persons which by the Legal and Fundamental Constitution of this Kingdom is above the King or at least equal to him But as it is a Maxim of our Law as I said before that Rex in regno suo non habet superiorem the King in his own Kingdom hath none above him so it is a Maxim too that he hath not parem neither none equal to him so that according to our Law as there is none to judg him because he hath no Superior so there is no Way of trying him because he hath no Peers those whom We call Peers being his Subjects though They are Pares or Peers in relation to one another CHAP. V. The English Monarchy asserted against Mr. B. who would have the Kingdom of England to be a mixt Commonwealth My Lord Chief Justice Cook 's judgment on the point THIS one would think were enough to prove the King of England not only to be our Sovereign but our sole Sovereign and consequently the Kingdom of England to be properly and indeed as it hath always been accounted both at home and abroad a Monarchy or a Government in chief by one and by one only No saith Mr. Baxter it hath not always been accounted to be so For it hath been a Controversie saith he having spoken before of Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy to which of these forms our English Commonwealth was and is to be reckon'd and the uncertainty of this saith he was one cause of our Wars Whereunto I answer that I never heard nor I verily believe ever any body else did hear of any such Controversie here in England at least as to the Civil Government As to the Ecclesiastical Government indeed of the Church there hath been a Controversie betwixt us and the Church of Rome whether the King or the Pope be the Governor in chief of it as likewise betwixt us and the Presbyterians whether the King or a National Synod ought to have the Supreme managery of it But as to the Civil Government of the State there was never any question made for ought I ever heard by any of the otherwise Dissenting Parties but that it was Monarchicall and that the King was the sole Sovereign of it and in it before that Rebellious Parliament set up for a share in the Sovereignty which they did not at first neither but did in all their Addresses to him acknowledg him to be their Sovereign and that not as they were particular Persons only but as they were the representative Body of all the Commons of England neither did the House of Peers ever make the least doubt of doing so also nor of taking the Oath of Allegiance as to their
of the Saxon Kings here in England the Island was divided into seven several Governments but every one of the seven was a Monarchy and had a Sovereign of its own independent upon any of the other so that there was then no more a division of Sovereignty than there was afterwards when Edgar became Monarch of the whole Island or than there is now by the addition of the Kingdom of Scotland and Ireland to it I know the Roman Emperors did sometimes assumere sibi socios in imperio take to themselves partners or companions in the Empire but then the Sovereignty was either wholly and jointly in both of them as it was in the two Consuls after the expulsion of the Kings or as it is in the whole Venetian Senate at this day or else he whom the Emperor assum'd as his companion in the Empire was thereby designed only to be his Successor as the King of the Romans is now in Germany but continued a Subject and subordinate to him that assumed or adopted him as long as he lived So that in this case there was no division of the Sovereignty it self no more than in the former And much less can there be said to be a division of the Sovereignty per partes potentiales by its potential parts as Grotius saith they are called when a People that is sui juris Regem eligens quosdam actus scilicet potentiae sibi servet alios autem Regi deferat that is when a free People in chusing themselves a King reserve some Acts of Power to themselves as well as they give others to their King neque tamen id fit quotiescunque Rex promissis quibusdamque obligatur but I would not have this saith he to be understood to be the case when Kings are obliged or oblige themselves by certain promises only mark that Mr. Baxter sed tunc id fieri intelligendum est si quid Populus adhuc liber futuro Regi imperet per modum manentis Praecepti aut si quid sit additum Regem cogi aut puniri posse But this saith he that is this division of Sovereignty per partes potentiales by its potential parts or acts of Power is to be understood when the People being as yet free enjoyn their King that shall be and that by a standing Law or Precept which they will have always to be continued in force to do or not to do this or that or if any thing be added to imply that the King may be or is to be compelled or punished if he do otherwise Then or in this Case Grotius seems to think there is a division of the Sovereignty it self betwixt the King so conditionally elected and the People so magisterially electing him And upon this not only false but pace tanti viri dixerim let me speak it by favour and with leave of so great a man as he was in my opinion absurd supposition he adds that in this case the People may not only defend by force their own part of the Sovereignty if the King invade it but jure belli by right of War take away his part also if they overcome him in the Contest Which perhaps may be true upon the supposition of such a division of the Sovereign Power or rather to say the truth upon supposition of such a conditional Election made by the People of such a Magistrate as shall have the title of King and be entrusted with the managery of some part of the publick affairs either of War or Peace but so as to be accountable to the People or to some judicatory appointed by the People whether he hath kept or exceeded the bounds and limits of his delegated Power and Authority or no and if he have to be liable not only to the forfeiture of it but to be punished for it also And what is this but to be such a King as those of Sparta were who as Grotius himself tells us were not Kings indeed but in name and title only because indeed as he tells us also they were subject to the People or to the Judicatory of the Ephori appointed by the People by whom si peccarent Reges illi in leges ac Rempublicam non tantum vi repelli poterant sed si opus sit puniri morte quod Pausaniae Lacedemoniorum Regi contigit and therefore saith he those Kings and consequently say I all such Kings as those if they offended against the Laws or against the Commonwealth they might not only be resisted by force but if need were punished by death as Pausanias one of their Kings was And this he affirms to be the case of omnium Principum qui sub Populo sunt of all Princes who are under the People and if they be under the People they cannot be over the People too but the People must needs be over and above or superior unto them And then how can Grotius rationally or consistingly with himself say there is a division of the Sovereignty or of the supreme Power betwixt such a People and such Kings as these are He might as well have said that the Sovereignty is divided betwixt the King and the General of his Army by Land or the Admiral of his Fleet by Sea or the Vice-Roy of any of his Provinces for as the King reserves the whole Sovereignty or supreme Power unto himself how great soever the Title or Power is which he delegates unto others so in the aforesaid case put by Grotius the People retained the whole Sovereignty unto themselves notwithstanding any Power or Title they are pleased to give to him whom they chuse to be their King And this Grotius knew well enough as appears by the inconsistency of what he saith in this place with what he saith in others and especially by the inconsistency of his supposing that to be actually divided which he had formerly affirmed to be per se indivisum or in its own nature indivisible I mean Sovereignty or the supreme Power in every Body Politick of what kind or denomination soever whether it be in personâ in a single Person or in Caetu in a Company or Assembly of men for it cannot be partly in the one and partly in the other nor ever was no not in the Roman State it self which had many Changes Indeed but never any Division of the Sovereignty betwixt the governing and the governed party in any one of them For as when the Kings governed the Sovereignty was all of it in them and none of it either in the Senate or in the People so was it afterwards 〈…〉 Consuls and after that in the Consulls and the Senate then for a short time in the Decemviri and in none besides them and often when they were in very great danger and extremity the Sovereignty was wholly in one man only whom though they did not call a King yet never any King was more or perhaps so much a Sovereign as he was or
under the People and then the Sovereignty is wholly in the People and none of it in the King what Power or Authority soever is delegated unto him by the People especially if it be delegated sub conditione paenâ conditionally and upon penalty of forfeiture or any other punishment or else the Populus that is all or the whole body of the People doth subesse Regi is under the King and then the Sovereignty is wholly in the King what priviledges or immunities soever he may grant to all or any of his Subjects or however he may oblige himself by promise or oath to govern them according to the Laws of his own or Predecessors making So that the Sovereignty must either be Wholly in the People and then he that is called a King is indeed no King or it must be Wholly in the King and then the People have nothing to do with it or with any part of it Sovereignty being such a thing in the Body Politick as the Soul is in the Body Natural For as the Soul animates or enlivens the whole Body Natural not by being some of it or some part of it in one member and some part of it in another but by being as the Philosopher saith it is tota in toto tota in quâlibet parie by being all of it in all and in every one of the members according to their several capacities of receiving the several influences and operations of it in order to the preservation of the whole Body Natural so Sovereignty or the supreme Power wheresoever or in whomsoever it is it is that which animates and enlivens and actuates the whole Body Politick but not by being it self divided but by dividing and deriving its influences into all and every part of the whole Body Politick as the Sun doth its light by the dispersing of its beams or heat into and over the whole World and all the several parts of it though it self in the mean time remains wholly and entirely in its own Orb. CHAP. IX Grotius his Case hath no place in the English Monarchy where the King is sole Sovereign The Parliament never declared otherwise as Mr. B. saith they did but owned him ever to be so in their Addresses Sovereignty intitles to Majesty BUT supposing though not granting there may be and hath been somewhere or other such a division of the Sovereignty betwixt King and People as Grotius supposeth yet it is certain there is none such here in England for if ENGLAND be a Monarchy then saith Mr. Baxter himself the whole Sovereignty must be but in One only and if but in one I hope by that One he means the King and not the Pope though some of his Parasites will have him to be the Monarch of the whole Christian World in general and though he lays claim to the Monarchy of England in particular as held in Fee of him ever since King John surrendred the Sovereignty thereof to his Holiness But Mr. Baxter I am sure is not so much a Papist though in some especially of their Political opinions he doth symbolize with them as to acknowledg the Pope to be his Sovereign for then neither he nor his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those that are like-minded could be as they fain would be every one a Pope in his own Parish neither do I think he is yet so far gone in Fanaticism as that by the King whom he grants to be the sole Sovereign in a Monarchy he meaneth no other King but King Jesus as the fifth Monarchy-men do here in England and the Presbyterian Whigs do in Scotland No I do willingly absolve Mr. Baxter from being guilty of either of these extravagant absurdities but that which I charge Mr. Baxter with is this that he denies England to be a Monarchy and consequently that the whole Sovereignty thereof is in the King though he himself hath sworn it is so when he took the Oath of Supremacy as I am sure he did or ought to have done when he was Episcopally Ordained as he saith he was but it seems he hath better studied the point since or is more enlightned than he was then Or perhaps the Parliament had not then or he had not heard they had declared this Government of ours to be no Monarchy but a mixed Government because the Sovereignty was not in the King alone but in the King and Parliament that is partly in the King and partly in themselves But when and what these Parliaments were or how and when and to whom they made such a Declaration he doth not vouchsafe to tell us which is an uncivil neglect of his Readers if he can and an impudent slandering of the King and both Houses of Parliament if he cannot I say of the King and both Houses of Parliament because it is the King and both Houses that constitutea Parliament the King as the Head and the two Houses as the representative Body of the People and he may as well and as properly call that Corpus integrum or a compleat Body that hath no Head as call either or both of the Houses a Parliament without the King Now I would fain learn of Mr. Baxter when any Parliament properly so called that is the King Lords and Commons did ever declare this Kingdom to be no Monarchy or that the Sovereignty or supreme Power was not wholly in the King Nay taking the two Houses without the King or a Commissioner for the King to be a Parliament as after the King left them or rather after they had driven the King away from them they falsly pretended themselves to be taking I say the Parliament in this notion for the two Houses only without the King did ever the two Houses declare the Government of England according to the legal constitution of it to be no Monarchy or that the Sovereignty or supreme Power was not in the King I confess I never heard they did so I mean by any conjunct Declaration or by any concurring Vote of both Houses no nor so much as by the single Vote of the House of Commons which being but one and the lower of the two Houses and who are always uncovered at their Conferences with the Lords are very often by Mr. Baxter called the Parliament because as he saith they are the Representatives or Trustees of the People of England whereas indeed they are the Representatives and Trustees not of the People but of the Commons of England only unless he will say that the Nobility and Clergy or at least the Lords Spiritual and Temporal are none of the People of England for surely they are not represented by the House of Commons And therefore if Mr. Baxter were to speak of it in Latin I think he would not I am sure he should not call it by the name of Domus Populi the House of the People but Domus Plebis the House of the Commonalty or as I think
the Lawyers call it by the name of Domus Communium the House of Commons I am sure Livy who knew how to call things in Latin by their proper names as well as any man does now tells us that in a contest betwixt a Consul and a Tribune the Tribune bearing himself high upon the account of his Office the Consul said Scias te non Populi sed Plebis Romanae Magistratum esse You must know Sir that you are an Officer not of the People but of the Commonalty of Rome And yet this may be said in excuse of Mr. Baxter's mistake when he calls them the Representatives of the People that he saith no more of them than the House of Commons which he means said of it self for to the four first that Preached before them of whom I my self was one they gave each of them a piece of Plate with this Inscription Donum Populi Anglicani the Gift of the People of England by order of the House no doubt ingraven on it which perhaps they meant not to be Grammatically but Prophetically understood that is to be understood of them not as they were then but what they meant to be before they left sitting and as we saw they were after they had put down the Lords as well as the King and made themselves the High and Mighty States of England and Ireland and instead of Representatives and Trustees made themselves Lords and Masters of those that trusted them until He whom they had trusted with their Forces made himself Lord and Master of them also the People in the mean time the Free-born People of England having been made or rather having made themselves as arrant Slaves and Vassals as ever any People were unto them both But to return to what I was speaking of I do not find I say that any Parliament properly so called that is the King Lords and Commons or that both or either of the two Houses joyntly or severally did ever declare or vote the Kingdom of England to be no Monarchy or that the King of England was not the Sovereign and sole Sovereign of and in this and all other his Kingdoms and Dominions On the contrary I find that in all the Addresses made to the King as well by both Houses jointly as by either of them severally from the beginning of the War to the end of it they always acknowledged the King to be their Sovereign and themselves even in their publick and Parliamentary capacity to be his Subjects And if in their Parliamentary notion and capacity they were his Subjects I wonder in what notion or capacity they can be said to be Partners or partakers with him in the Sovereignty Besides he that will have either or both of the Houses to have a part of the Sovereignty must allow them a Title to Majesty also For Majesty and Sovereignty are Termini Convertibiles convertible terms as the Houses themselves confess when they treat the King sometimes with the title of Sovereign and sometimes with the title of Majesty as signifying by both these Words but one and the same thing namely the Supremacy of Power in the King Now I would fain know of Mr. Baxter whether if he were to Petition the House of Lords or the House of Commons or both of them he would address it to their Majesty the House of Lords or to their Majesty the House of Commons or to their Majesty the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament if he did I believe he would be laught at for his folly by them and perhaps punisht for his presumption by the King And yet if the Sovereignty be divided betwixt Them and the King as he saith it is I see no reason why the title of Majesty may not be given to Them as well as to the King or at least partly to them and partly to him though but proportionably to the division of the Sovereignty betwixt them of which if the Kings part be greater than that of the House of Lords and that of the House of Lords be greater than that of the House of Commons which I am afraid Mr. Baxter will hardly allow then if Majesty be the proper attribute of Sovereignty and Excellent a proper Epithet to Majesty then according to Mr. Baxter's distinctness of notion and expression the style of the House of Commons should be Their Excellent Majesty and the style of the House of Lords Their More Excellent Majesty as well as the Kings style is His Most Excellent Majesty and then there may be Treason against the House of Lords or against the House of Commons as well as against the King if laesa Majestas the offending or injuring of Majesty be Treason nay then we have three Sovereigns and not one only for whosoever hath any share in the Sovereignty is a Sovereign and then I wonder why we do not take an Oath of Allegiance to the two Houses as well as to the King nay I wonder much more why they of both Houses do all of them take an Oath of Allegiance to the King and cannot sit in either House till they do so Surely one Sovereign doth not owe Allegiance to another no not the least of Sovereigns to the greatest for as all Sovereigns the greatest as well as the least are equally under God so the least as well as the greatest are equally under none but God at least quatenùs so far forth as they are Sovereigns or in those things and places where and when they have a right to Sovereignty or to any part thereof CHAP. X. The King declared by an Act of Parliament injoyning the Oath of Supremacy to be the only Supreme Governour Mr. B 's sorry evasion of this Oath and Queen Elizabeths Declaration concerning it BUT what need is there of making such Collections or Inferences from the Addresses made to the King from either or both Houses of Parliament with their full subscriptions thereunto to prove that they acknowledg the King to be their Sovereign their fole Sovereign and themselves to be his Subjects his humble and loyal Subjects even in their Parliamentary capacity for in that capacity it was that they addressed themselves to him What need is there I say of insisting upon such more remote though very pregnant and concluding proofs when several Parliaments properly so called that is Parliaments consisting of the head the King and all the integral members that is of the Lords Spiritual as well as Temporal together with the House of Commons have in positive and express words and that not by a Vote Order or Ordinance but by an Act declared the King not only to be the Supreme but the only Supreme Governour of this Realm and of all other his Highnesses Dominions and Countries and that as well in all Spiritual or Ecclesiastical things and causes as temporal These I say are the very words of an Act of Parliament properly so called that is of a full and free of a compleat and
a secondary deduction from it And therefore 't is a vain and senceless shift of Mr. Baxter's for the avoiding of the dint of this Argument which doth jugulum causae ferire cut the very throat of his cause to say as he doth that the end of imposing and taking of this Oath was only for the excluding of all pretence to the Supremacy or to any part of the Supremacy here from abroad and not for the acknowledging the Kings sole Supremacy here at home Whereas it is indeed the Kings sole Supremacy here at home that is as it is called by the Rubrick the Oath of the Kings Supremacy and not the excluding of all foreign claim or pretence to it which to speak properly as Mr. Baxter saith he loves to do is as I said before an abjuration rather than an Oath or at most but the negative and consequent part of the Oath the affirmative and antecedent part thereof being the assertion of the whole supreme Power in the Government of this Kingdom to be in the King and King only and consequently exclusive of any pretence to it or to any participation of it by any either at home or abroad especially by any at home But why then will Mr. Baxter perhaps say was there not annexed to the positive part of this Oath an abjuration or express disowning the supreme Power or any part of the supreme Power to be in any here at home besides the King as well as there is an abjuration or an express disowning of it to be in any abroad I answer because there was no need at all of it First because he that hath sworn the Supremacy or supreme Power to be in the King only hath eo ipso in that very thing or by so swearing forsworn the being of it or any part of it in any other besides the King If it be replyed that upon this account there needed not have been any abjuration or disowning of any foreign Authority annexed to the other part of it neither I answer Secondly That although really there was no need of an express or explicit disowning or renouncing of the one more than the other because the swearing to the positive part of the Oath is implicitly and virtually a disowning or renouncing of them both yet because there had been antiently and was then and was like to be still a claim to the Supremacy here in England at least in matters Spiritual and Ecclesiastical by some that were abroad I mean by the Pope for himself and his Successors therefore the Parliament thought it meet and prudent and in some respects necessary to add or annex to the Assertion of the Kings sole Supremacy here at home an express and explicit Renuntiation of all the Right that was or could be pretended to it from abroad but did not think it to be at all necessary to add or annex the like express or explicit renuntiation of any such Power to be in any here at home because there was none then here at home so impudent as openly and avowedly to pretend to it or to any part of it For here are no Ephori no Overseers or Guardians of the State as there were in Lacedaemon nor no such Senate as there is in Venice nor no such High and Mighty States as there are in Holland For we have but One high and mighty and he is so high and mighty that there is none but the Almighty that is above him and all others in his own Dominions how much higher and mightier they may seem to be in relation to one another are equally below him and subject to him CHAP. XII From the two Houses Petitioning the King and his being free to grant or deny is proved that there is no Co-ordination beside the inconsistence of it with the Government I know there was in the beginning of the late Rebellious times a Discourse written and published to make the foolish part of the World believe for with wise and considering men I am sure it could have no weight that the two Houses of Parliament were Co-ordinate with the King and consequently not Subordinate to the King in relation to the making and repealing of Laws and the determining of all things of publick concernment for the Government of the Kingdom and consequently that according to the nature of Co-ordinates where all three could not or would not or did not agree the two that did agree were to over-rule the third that did not An excellent project or expedient as the deviser of it thought to make a Triumvirate of a Monarchy or a Republick of a Kingdom but he did not consider that it was liable to one little inconvenience namely that it was utterly and absolutely unpracticable being altogether inconsistent with the fundamental Constitution of our Government which is not to have the two Houses of Parliament always in being as the Senate of Rome was and the Senate of Venice is or to assemble and meet when and where they will and to continue as long together as they will as Grotius tells us the Ordines or States of Holland of right did even whilst They had a King But our Parliaments here in England are so far from having always an actual setled and constant being that they have no being at all but what the King gives them by his Writ of Summons neither can they assemble or meet but when he calls them nor either depart sooner or continue longer together than he will have them neither while they do by his leave and command continue together have they any Power to make any new Law or to repeal any old Law but only to pray propose or advise the making of the one or the repealing of the other by the King And this being so as undeniably it is so by the legal and fundamental Constitution of the Government I wonder when and by what Authority it came to be alter'd For supposing but not granting that a Parliament truly so called may make such a change in the fundamental Constitution of the Government as to make an Aristocracy or a Democracy of a Monarchy by the Monarchs own consent to it which I for my part think they cannot the Monarch himself in an Hereditary Monarchy being but a Trustee for his Successors but supposing I say such a change could be made by a Parliament properly so called I demand when and by what Parliament such a Change was made and whether the King did ever consent to it if not we are still where we were whatsoever Power a legal or compleat Parliament may be said or imagined to have and consequently there is not as yet at least any such Co-ordination of King Lords and Commons as the Author of the aforesaid discourse pretended there is It is true indeed that the two Houses of Parliament in the year 42 did Petition the King that he would be pleased to grant such things as they proposed unto him
themselves as Mr. Baxter calls it as either they are more venerable for Antiquity or considerable for Plurality the King and none but the King must be acknowledged to be the Enacter or the maker of them And truly one would think that those Laws that are most ancient and consequently nearest in time to the first Institution of Parliaments though they were not the most in number were most to be credited for speaking most properly of who they were that made them then and consequently who it is that makes them now Unless Mr. Baxter will say it was the King and King alone indeed that made the Laws in Parliament then but it is the King Lords and Commons or the King and Parliament that makes them now and consequently that the King is not so much a King now as He was then and that the constitution of the Kingdom it self is changed from Monarchical to Aristocratical But then I must ask him by whom and when this great change was made Was it by him that brought in this new stile of Be it enacted by the King Lords and Commons c. That was Hen. the VIII who was not a Man likely to give away any of his Authority or to part with any part of his Soveraignty to his own Subjects who rescued it from the Popes incroachments And yet perhaps even He meaning to make use of the Parliament for the countenancing whatever he had a mind to do though never so extravagant in it self though never so offensive to Foreign Princes his Allies or never so injurious to his own Children because he thought it would be serviceable to his own ends after he had forced the two Houses to consent to what he listed to enact to joyn them with himself in the enacting of it as well as by assenting to it to make it so much the more plausible or at least so much the less grievous unto the People Otherwise it is most certain that never any King of England after the making of Magna Charta reigned so despotically and arbitrarily as he did or whom the two Houses of Parliament stood so much in awe of as they did of Him as appears by his making them consent to the doing and undoing to the enacting and repealing of whatsoever he would have to be done or undone to be enacted or repealed And therefore it is not to be imagined that such a King as he was did mean by changing of the stile to lessen the Legislative Power it self which was in his Predecessors by admitting those whom he used as he did the two Houses of Parliament to a participation of any the least degree of Soveraignty And as he never meant to do so so they the two Houses of Parliament did not then or ever since for ought I ever heard understand that to be the meaning of the Alteration from Be it enacted by the King with the consent of the Lords and Commons to Be it enacted by the King Lords and Commons to signifie that either the Kings power as to the making of Laws was less or the Parliaments greater than it was before this alteration of stile For if it had been understood either by the King or Parliament to signifie any such thing as the King especially such a King as Hen. VIII was would never have suffered the alteration of the former to the latter So the two Houses who are jealous enough of their Power and Priviledges would never have suffered the alteration of the latter to the former again as it was altered by King Edward Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth King Henry's three immediate Successors and as it is altered by our present King in the Act of Vniformity For as the alteration of the former to the latter could not have been made without the Kings so the alteration of the latter to the former could not have been made without the consent of the two Houses neither And therefore I verily believe that if any thing at all was meant by the alteration of the former stile to the latter it was only ad faciendum Populum to gain the People that the People might more willingly receive and submit to the Laws when they were made especially such of them as might seem to pinch them in their Purses when they were said to be enacted by the Lords and Commons or by the Lords and their Representatives and consequently by themselves as well as by the King for Volentibus non fit injuria where there is consent there is no injury And yet again lest by this alteration of stile and misinterpretation of it the Kings Prerogative of being the sole Soveraign and consequently the sole Law giver might be thought to be diminished by being communicated to either or both Houses of Parliament therefore the first most ancient and withal the longest continued stile of Be it enacted by our Soveraign Lord the King by the advice and with the consent of the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled was presently after the first alteration of it resumed by the three next succeeding Princes as it hath been also now of late by our present Soveraign and by all of them with the consent of the Lords and Commons thereunto CHAP. VII The Laws enacted by the Authority of Parliament in what sense Why called Acts of Parliament They provide the Matter of the Laws the King gives the Form BUT withal will Mr. Baxter perhaps say with this Addition and by the Authority of the same that is by the Authority of the Parliament so that according to this former stile our Laws are said to be made and enacted by the Authority of the Parliament and consequently by the Authority of the two Houses of Lords and Commons as well as by the Kings For answer whereunto I might say in the first place that it was not till after 200. Years from the first Parliament that we read of in our Book of Statutes namely not until the Raign of Henry the VI. who owed his Title such as it was to the Parliament and to the Parliament as it signifies the two Houses only without the King for by the Authority of such a Parliament it was that is of a Body without a Head that Henry Bullingbrook was made King Richard the Second's surrender being neither voluntary nor lawful if it had been voluntary as was acknowledged by the two Houses themselves when Richard Duke of York claimed the Crown as the right Heir to it thereby acknowledging likewise that although they had de facto yet they could not de jure exclude the right Heir Howsoever their Authority being the only Title which the then present King had and held the Crown by as having not the courage either of his Grandfather or his Father to claim it by Conquest and hold it by force as they did He was willing to acknowledge he held it by Authority of Parliament as the word Parliament is taken for the two
Law of in their Opinions if he please and if it be so in his opinion also So that the King is finally the only and sole Judge whether what is agreed on and propos'd by them as fit to be made a Law be fit to be made a Law or no and if he thinks it fit to be so it is he and none but he that by his Le veult makes it Law So that to conclude this Point the thing proposed whether by King or either of the Houses is the Matter or material cause ex quâ or out of which the Law is made the Efficient or the causa à qua whereby or by whom the matter of the Law is made to be a Law is the King and the King only the Formal cause or the cause per quam res est quod est by which a thing is that thing which it is or that whereby it actually becomes and is effectually made to be a Law is the Kings declaration of his Assent or Will to make it a Law by those Nomothetical or Legislative words pronounced by himself or in his Name Le Roy le veult the Final cause or the cause propter quam Res est for which or for the sake whereof a thing is is Bonum Publicum the Publick good So that the consent of the two Houses to what is proposed to be made a Law is but that which we call Causa sine quâ non a Cause without which a thing is not to be which indeed is a condition rather than a cause but such a condition as is so necessary for disposing of the matter to receive the form that the efficient cannot introduce the form without it though he be not necessitated to introduce the form by it that is it is such a condition as without which the King cannot make what is so conditioned to be a Law though it do not necessitate him to make that to be a Law which is so conditioned so that as I said before it is but Causa sine quâ non only which is indeed no cause at all And this I think enough to prove the Legislative power to be in the King and in the King only and consequently that the Soveraignty upon this account is not divided betwixt the King and the two Houses either equally or unequally or that they have any part of it or share in it And yet upon this Supposition and upon this supposition only Mr. Baxter concludes first that the Kingdom of England is no Monarchy And Secondly that the Parliament's defending of their own part of the Soveraignty against the Kings Invasion of it was a just War and no Rebellion By the first of which Conclusions he seems to think that there is no Monarchy but where the Government is Despotical and Arbitrary ubi Arbitria Principum as Justin saith pro Legibus sunt where the Will of the Soveraign is the Law of the Subject And such indeed were the first especially the Eastern Monarchies of the World and yet not altogether so neither as appears from the 7th compared with the 15th Verse of the 6th Chapter of the Prophecy of Daniel for as in the former of those Verses we find there was a consultation by a Senate or Parliament of all the Presidents Governours Counsellors and Captains of the Kingdom of Persia for the making of a Decree or Law by the King which he did by his signing of it so in the latter of those Verses we find also that it was a standing Law of or amongst the Medes and Persians that no Decree or Statute made by the King with the advice of an Assembly of the chief Men of his Kingdom could be changed or repealed without the consent as I presume they meant of those that advised the King to make it So that there were or might be some fundamental unchangable Laws or Rules even in the most absolute and most despotical Monarchies for such was the Persian if ever there were any and yet you see there was a Law by which the King himself was obliged And probably the like was in the former or first Monarchy that of the Chaldeans or Assyrians also For as Darius here so Nebuchadnezzar there called all his Princes and great Men when he made a Decree that all that would not fall down and worship the Image he had set up should be cast into the fiery Furnace Dan. 3. 12 c. CHAP. VIII The English Monarchy asserted The King under no Judicatory Accountable to God alone That Laws are not to be made without the Peoples consent in Parliament was from the favour of the Kings THE Truth is that it is not the Governing by Law or without Law that makes the Government to be Monarchical but the governing of One over all whether his way of Governing be Arbitrary Despotical or Legal and Political Ours indeed is Legal and Political but for all that it is Monarchical because it is but One that governs us all He governs indeed and is obliged and hath obliged himself by his Coronation Oath to govern by Law but it was not his Coronation Oath that made him King for all our Kings are as much Kings before they take the Oath as they are after the taking of it Neither is it their governing by Law that gives them their Right nor their not governing by Law that can take away their Right they have unto their Crowns for then there must be some Judicatory above them to judge betwixt them and their People whether they have forfeited their Right or no and if they have to take the forfeiture of it And if there be such a Judicatory it is indeed no Monarchy though it may be called a Kingdom as that of Sparta was as I have proved at large already Mr. Baxter therefore if he will prove this Kingdom of ours to be no Monarchy he must prove there is some such standing Judicatory here amongst us as the Ephori were in Sparta If he saith the Parliament is such a Judicatory He must prove it to be a Court or Judicatory always in being as that of the Ephori was and as the Senate of Venice is and not such a one as must not meet but when the King calls them and must be gone when he bids them and such a Judicatory is our Parliament according to the Legal Constitution of this Kingdom And how such a King as ours can be liable or obnoxious to such a Judicatory as this which he may make or unmake as he pleaseth so as to be question'd or tried or judged or condemned by it as the Spartan Kings might be and were by the Ephori and as the Dukes of Venice may be and have been by their Senate let Mr. Baxter tell us if he can For my part I cannot imagine the Practicability of it I mean the practicability of it de jure as to right in any Case or upon any Provocation whatsoever
as appears by what I have already said not only of Paternal but of Regal Government and that not only under the first Kings quorum Arbitria pro Legibus erant whose wills and pleasures past for Laws but under all Kings that have ever since and do now govern arbitrarily and despotically as many do in all parts of the World none of which can be imagined to have made any such contract with their People or their People with them as Mr. Baxter speaks of The like may be said of Conquerors and the People subdued by them If Mr. Baxter replies that it is of such a People as are free and sui Juris at their own disposal only that he speaks when he saith that there is no such People that do absolutely subject themselves unto their Soveraign without reserving any Rights or Liberties to themselves I say this is false also whether he mean that no such People can do so or that no such People have done so For first if a Man that is free may make himself a Servant to whomsoever he will and such a Servant as shall be wholly at the disposing of his Master without reserving any thing of Liberty or Propriety unto himself as we see it was ordinary for Men to do not only among the Gentiles but among the Jews themselves insomuch that some of them chose to continue Bondmen when by the Jubilee they might have been made free And why may not any number of Men whether they be a City or a Nation being free and sui Juris or at their own disposing give themselves up if they will and think it to be best for them to be arbitrarily governed by some other more powerful State or Prince without any antecedent compact condition or reservation 2dly That any free People may do so it is evident because some free People have done so for example the People of Campania a Province of Italy being then a free State subjected themselves to the People of Rome in this form of words Populum Campanum Vrbemque Capuam Agros Delubra Deûm Divina Humanaque omnia in vestram Patres Conscripti ditionem dedimus We surrender and give up into your power Lords of the Senate the whole People of Campania and the City Capua our Lands the Temples of our Gods in a word all whatever concerns either Church or State God or Man Et quid obstat saith Grotius what hinders why any other People may not subject themselves and all that they have to any one powerful Man or Prince in the same manner Certainly saith he there were many Nations that did so and lived very happily under such a Government so that if Mr. Baxter thinks that there never was any Government submitted unto by any free People but upon an antecedent contract and a reserve of some Liberties and Priviledges to themselves to be always exempted from the Jurisdiction of Him or them to whom they became Subjects He is much mistaken But if by Government he means the Government of this Nation of ours in particular when he saith he takes it for undeniable that it was constituted by Contract and that in the Contract the People have not absolutely subjected themselves unto the Soveraign without reserving any Rights and Liberties unto themselves exempted from the Princes power for the securing of which the Parliament are their Trustees If this be his meaning I say I demand of Him first when was this Nation of ours a free People and when was it under any Government but that of Kings surely never since that of the Romans who governed them as a Province arbitrarily and despotically by their Lieutenants whom they sent hither and so did their British Saxon and Danish Princes for the most part for ought appears in any of our Historians to the contrary or if some of them governed by Laws as Ina Alfred and some others of the Saxon Kings and Canutus the Dane did yet the Laws whereby they governed were all of them made by themselves after they were Kings and not by way of compact with their Subjects No more were the Laws of Edward the Confessor himself which were the Subject matter of Magna Charta or the great Charter containing all the Rights Immunities and Liberties of the People but not as bargained for by them before their admitting of any of their Kings to be Kings but indulged unto them and conferr'd upon them by the Donation and Concession of their Kings who partly of their own accord and partly by the Advice of the Lords and Bishops of their Council did make those Laws in favour of the People not only without being aforehand obliged by Compact or Contract with the People to do so but without so much as advising with them or any Representatives of theirs when they did so there being no such Parliaments and consequently no such Representatives of the People as there are now until the Raign as I said before of Henry the First after the Conquest for He was the first of our Kings say our Chronicles that instituted the form now in use of the High Court of Parliament for before his time only certain of the Nobility and Prelates of the Realm were called to consultation about the most important affairs of the State but he caused the Commons also to be Represented by Knights and Burgesses of their own choosing and made that Court saith the Historian to consist of three parts the Nobility the Clergy and the Common People representing the whole Body of the Realm So that before this there were no Representatives of the Peoplé of their own choosing to be their Trustees for the securing to them their pretended reserved Rights and Exemptions by an antecedent contract or compact made betwixt them and him that was to govern them whilst they were yet free and before he was their Governour and therefore this supposition of such a compact or contract betwixt the King before He was King and the People before they were his Subjects here in this Kingdom which Mr. Baxter saith he takes for undeniable is undeniably a meer fiction of his own Imagination and Invention and consequently whatsoever is by him grounded upon this supposition is not only fallacious but altogether false and fictitious also CHAP. XI Mr. B. 's Justification of the late Rebellion from this Compact c. The King's Coronation-Oath doth not prove any such Compact c. nor can it be proved by any authentick Record The state of affairs during the Vsurpation BUT true and undeniably indeed true it is that the People of England have now and have had long for many Generations even from Henry the First 's time such Priviledges Liberties and Immunities as are contained and specified in Magna Charta and such Representatives in Parliament for the asserting of those Priviledges and to see that no Laws should be made for them without their consent to them but that they
have or ever had them by an antecedent compact with the King before they were his Subjects is that which I affirm to be false and consequently that Mr. Baxter's distinction of the Peoples being represented in Parliament in a double capacity namely either as they are now that is as they are Subjects or as they were as first that is as they were before they were Subjects is frivolous and fictitious for they never were nor are now represented in Parliament any otherwise than as Subjects only And as such Mr. Baxter confesseth that neither they nor their Representatives can do more than complain if they be grieved and humbly Petition the King that they may be relieved But as their Representatives in Parliament are the Peoples Trustees they do represent them saith Mr. Baxter not as Subjects but as they were before they were Subjects when as Freemen they did contract for the reservation of such Priviledges and Immunities unto themselves which the King was not to violate or take away from them or if he did attempt to do so those Representatives of theirs as Trustees were to do what they could even by force if they could not by fair means to maintain and preserve or to vindicate and recover those aforesaid reserved Priviledges and Immunities and that the People were obliged to assist them against the King in so doing And upon this undeniable supposition as he calls it he endeavours to justifie the late Rebellion insomuch that he saith he thought he should have been a Traytor to the Parliament if he had not taken part with them This supposition therefore being of so very great importance as that upon the truth or falsity thereof the justification or condemnation of the late War and consequently of the Bodies and Souls of all those that were engaged in it doth by Mr. Baxter's own confession wholly depend he ought to have been very sure that it had been indeed undeniably true in point of Fact and that it could by undeniable Records be demonstrably evidenced to be so For it is not his taking it to be undeniable as he saith he doth can prove it is so or will make it believed to be so neither are the Oaths of Kings nor the Charters and Laws in which they have expressed their consent to govern according to those Charters and Laws together with the antient Customs of the Nation that can prove there was either at first or at any time since any such compact or contract as Mr. Baxter supposeth to have been betwixt the People before they were Subjects and the King before he was King and that there were such reserves of such and such Rights and Priviledges antecedently conditioned for by one of the Parties and consented to by the other upon penalty of forfeiture of the Crown upon breaking of the Covenant to such or such a degree and that the Parliament were to be the Peoples Trustees for the securing of the performance of the antecedent Covenant or Contract and might make War with the King for the breach of it and that the People were obliged to assist them in it All which Particulars Mr. Baxter supposeth to be the subject matter of his supposed antecedent Compact or Contract betwixt the Kings of England and their People and thinks he hath proved it because our Kings swear at their Coronation that they will govern according to the Laws already made by the Kings their Predecessors and that shall be made afterwards by themselves in Parliament But first as I have observed already Are not our Kings Kings before the taking of the Oath Was not out present King so de jure by right many years before he came home and was he not so de facto in fact as well as de jure by possession as well as by title two years before he was crowned after he came home and consequently before his taking of the Oath 2dly Is there any thing in the Oath obliging him to the keeping of it upon penalty of forfeiture of his Regal Power and Dignity or for the discharging of his Subjects from their Allegiance to him if he do not keep it 3dly Is there any mention or Intimation in that Oath of the Parliaments or any other Trustees for the People to judge betwixt them and the King whether he keeps the contract or no and to question and punish him if he do not as the Ephori might do and did punish the Kings of Sparta because indeed they were no Kings but in name only and no more than so would our Kings be neither if there were any such antecedent contract as Mr. Baxter supposeth there is or if the Parliament were such Trustees for the People as he supposeth them to be But it is not his supposing will serve the turn for the proof either of the one or of the other but he must produce authentick and undeniable Records to verifie and evidence the truth and certainty of both For example he must in the first place produce some such authentick undeniable Record wherein it is averred that at such a time the People being then free did stipulate and contract with him whom they meant to choose to be their King saying as he supposeth them to say We choose You and your Family successively to rule us on these and no other terms Accept these terms or We accept not you Upon which Terms consented to by him and so being chosen by them he obligeth Himself saith Mr. Baxter and all his Successors that will rule that is if they will not be deposed to rule upon that foundation And upon some such formal contract as this it is that he takes it for undeniable that the Government of this Kingdom of ours was at first constituted which if he could make it appear by any authentick Record as I am sure he cannot yet that would be but one half of the work he hath to do For supposing but not granting that once upon a time no Man knows when there was such a contract betwixt the People whilst they were free and their King that was to be that they should have such or such Rights Priviledges and Immunities reserved to them and that the King upon breach of his part of the Covenant should forfeit his Right to them supposing I say but not granting all this to be true yet if he cannot produce some other as Authentick a Record to prove that the Parliament were by that antecedent supposed compact or contract agreed upon by both Parties to be Trustees and such Trustees for the reserved Rights and Liberties of the People as might in case they were to such or such a degree violated by the King or his Ministers legally do what the late Parliament did namely make Laws without the King and make War against the King or those that were commissioned by the King he shall never be able to excuse them from being in the highest degree guilty of
deny them to be of right due unto them as appears by the late Kings answer to the Petition of Right but due unto them not by capitulations and contracts with them before they were Subjects but either by Donations or by Concessions of our Kings to them when they were and as they were their Subjects Neither is it denied but that the People now have and of right ought to have Representatives in Parliament of their own choosing But that this was not nor could not be always so and that it was by the Kings meer Grace and favour when it first began to be so appears by what I have already observed concerning the first Parliament properly so called here in England instituted by Henry the first and as Daniel one of the most judicious of our English Historians tells us after the manner of Normandy But that ever since it hath bin so I deny not neither namely that the People have had have and ought to have such Representatives in Parliament of their own choosing but to represent them not as they were no body knows when as Freemen before they had Kings or were under any Government at all but as they are now and have been ever since and were long before there were Parliaments I mean as Subjects and consequently such as Mr. Baxter confesseth have no other lawful way of redressing their Grievances if they have any though never so great or so many but their Representatives complaining and petitioning the King for the relief of them and that either by desiring him to put the Laws in execution already made in favour of them as they did in the late Kings time by the Petition of Right or to Enact if need be new Laws for explanation and confirmation of the old ones or to punish those by whom the Legal Rights and Priviledges of the People have been Violated All this I grant the Peoples Representatives in Parliament may and if there be cause for it ought to do and that not as they are the Peoples Representatives only but their Trustees also nay and more than this namely not to promote or give their consent to the making of any such Laws as may be prejudicial to the publick though they may seem to gratify or may seem to be serviceable to the People nor to hinder the passing of such Acts as are really for the Peoples good though perhaps to the Major that is the most unwise and least judicious part of the People themselves they may seem to be otherwise And therefore their Representatives and Trustees as they are to consent or dissent so are they to judge for them what is or what is not to be consented to by them in behalf of them They are not always the best Husbands for the People that are most sparing of their Purses especially when the refusing to part with some may hazard the loss of all Neither is every thing that is got from the King a gain to the Subjects for the King's power may be too little to protect as well as too great to oppress them and according to the present conjuncture the former is much more to be feared than the latter And therefore the best service that can be done for the People by their Representatives in Parliament is to keep the Balance even betwixt the Prerogatives of the Soveraign and the Priviledges of the Subject by not indeavouring to intrench upon the one or to enhance the other but always and above all things to remember that as they are themselves Subjects so they are Representatives of Subjects and Trustees for Subjects as they are Subjects and therefore are not to treat the King as if they were Coordinate or Copartners with him in the Soveraignty but as it becomes Subjects and the Representatives of Subjects and such as have the honour of being there in that capacity and have the liberty of promoting or hindring the Laws that are to be made for those they represent from the meer Grace and Favour and Goodness of the King and his Predecessors and therefore the King is not by them nor by those they represent to be esteemed to be less a King or less their King or less their Soveraign than he was before no more than a Father is less a Father or hath less the Authority of a Father the kinder and more indulgent he is unto his Children or a Husband hath less of the Authority of a Husband the kinder or more indulgent he is to his Wife And therefore it is well and prudently observed by Grotius first Non desinere summum esse imperium etiamsi is qui imperaturus est promittat aliqua subditis aut Deo etiam talia quae ad Imperii rationem pertineant Soveraignty or Soveraign power doth not cease to be Soveraignty or Soveraign power though the Soveraign do restrain himself either by promise to his Subjects or by Oath to God even in such things as are essential to the Government And therefore Secondly he observes likewise that Multùm falluntur qui existimant cùm Reges Acta quaedam sua nolunt rata esse nisi à senatu aut alio coetu aliquo probentur partitionem fieri potestatis They are very much deceived saith he that think that because there be some Acts that Kings will not have to be ratifyed unless they are approved or consented to by a Senate or some such assembly that therefore there is a partition of the Soveraignty Mark that Mr. Baxter and tell me whether any thing can be more apparently contradictory to your Main Principle of the Soveraignty's being divided betwixt our Kings and their Parliaments and to the main and only reason you give for it namely that our Kings do not or if you will cannot make Laws for the People without their Parliaments or without the Peoples Representatives in Parliament consent to them For the only reason why they cannot is because they have obliged themselves by promise to their People and by Oath to God at their Coronation that they will not For ab initio non fuit sic from the beginning of our English Monarchy it was not so as I have at large shewed and as I have proved likewise that this and all other Priviledges of the People had their beginning from the bounty and goodness of our Kings to their People when they were their Subjects and not from any bargain or contract of the People before they were Subjects with any of their Kings as Mr. Baxter fondly as well as falsly imagins without any proof or offer of proof out of any of our Historians or Records for it Whereas the truth is that all our Kings except the Brittish of whom we know nothing of certainty I mean all our Kings of the Saxon Danish and Norman Races coming in by Conquest were not only Monarchs but Despotical Monarchs that is such as governed arbitrarily without any Laws at all but that
of their own will and pleasure or by such Laws as they made with or by the advice of such as they thought fit to advise with which were never any of the common People or any Representatives for them until after the Norman Conquest And then indeed the Despotical began to be a Political Monarchy by Henry the first 's constituting of such a Parliament as we now have and by his Successors granting and confirming the Great Charter and by all of their obliging themselves successively to continue to the People the Priviledges granted unto them by that Charter and to govern by such Laws as have been made by their Predecessors or shall be made by themselves with the consent of the Peoples Representatives in Parliament By these Grants I say and concessions and condescensions of our former Kings and by the confirmation of them by their Successors c. the Monarchy which was at first Despotical is become Political being changed from an absolute and arbitrary to a regulated and Legal Government yet so as it is still a Monarchy that is it is still the Government of one over all and one who is accountable to none under God which are the only essentials requisite to the constituting of Monarchy the Governing Arbitrarily or Legally with or without Laws being but Accidentals to it only CHAP. II. The English Government a Monarchy however managed The excellency of our Constitution set forth NO more is the subordinate Managery of it in such a manner as may seem to have something of Aristocracy or Democracy mingled with it which saith Grotius was the cause of Polybius his Error Qui ad mixtum genus reipub refert Romanam rempub quae illo tempore si non actiones ipsas sed jus agendi respicimus merè fuit popularis Who will have the Roman Common-wealth to have been a mixt form of Government when it was meerly popular or Democratical because he looked at the managery of it only and not at the Authority whereby it was managed not considering that both the Authority of the Senate quam ad Optimatum regimen refert which Polybius refers to an Aristocratical and that of the Consuls also which he refers to a Regal or Kingly kind of Government subdita erat Populo were at that time equally subject unto the People and consequently notwithstanding this shew of mixture in the managery of that Government the Government it self was not a mixt Government in relation to the Soveraignty of it or to the fountain of Power in it which gives not only the formal denomination but the Essential specification to all Political Governments whatsoever Grotius therefore what he saith of the error of Polybius in judging the Roman to have been a mixed Commonwealth when it was not will have it be understood of all those Writers of Politicks who upon the same grounds are mistaken as Polybius was For idem de aliorum Politica scribentium sententiis saith Grotius dictum volo qui magis externam speciem quotidianam administrationem quà m jus ipsum summi Imperii spect are congruens ducunt suo instituto What I said of Polybius saith he I would have to be understood of other Writers of Politicks who think the looking at the outward and ordinary administration of Affairs rather than at the right it self of the Supreme Power to be more agreeable and conducing to their end in writing that is to the derogating from the Supreme Power of Monarchy either by imbasing it with the mixture of some less noble species of Government with it or to weaken and enfeeble it by dividing of it For what other can be the meaning of these words of Grotius than this either as they are in the Text or in relation to the context And if this be his meaning what could he have said more pertinently to prove the Government here in England to be a mere Monarchy and consequently the Soveraignty to be wholly in one person not withstanding any thing Mr. Baxter hath said or any man else can say to the contrary And that it is not now as it was at first an absolute arbitrary and Despotical but a regulated legal and Political Monarchy we owe to the meer grace and favour of our Kings and I wish that as it was gratia gratis data a grace freely given on their parts so it may be gratia gratos faciens a grace that may make us grateful on our parts also And certainly it would be so if the Subjects of England did but know or would but consider in how much more happy a condition they are or may be if they will and would be if it were not for their seditious Preachers than any other Subjects in the World are or ever were I had almost said or indeed can be under what Government soever if they be not situated as we are Because no Government upon the Continent can be safe from being suddenly invaded and over-run by its confining Neighbours if he or they that have the Supreme Power be not enabled to raise such Forces and Mony to pay them without staying for the advice or consent of his or their Subjects as may be sufficient to defend them from their Enemies and which being raised may be made use of for the oppressing of their Subjects Whereas we being Islanders intrenched and surrounded by the Ocean and consequently not being in danger of being suddenly surprized and over-run by any from abroad our Kings have obliged themselves to raise no Mony without which no formidable Forces can be raised and maintained by any Taxes or Impositions upon their Subjects without their own consent in Parliament thereby securing both the liberty of their Persons and Property of their Goods unto them and that they shall never be put to any charge but for the necessary defence of themselves and for their own safety and welfare as well as for the Honour of the King and their Country This together with many other Priviledges which the Subjects of this Kingdom have above all other Subjects in the World that I know or ever heard of made me presume when I was One of the four first that was appointed to preach to the House of Commons of the Long Parliament in the late King's time to tell them and to endeavour to prove unto them that the Constitutions both of Church and State as they were here by Law established abstracting from the ill managery which might be in either through the faults or frailties of some particular men were both of them the best in their kind that were in the Christian World that of the State for the reasons before specified and that of the Church because it was the only Church now extant that professed and maintain'd both the Apostolick Doctrine and Apostolical Government All other Christian Churches in the World East West North and South failing either in the one or in the other or both of them and
not from the People that chuse such or such a Man to be their King but from God onely so that as the Woman cannot take away the power of a Husband from her Husband after he is her Husband so the People cannot take away the Kingly power from their King after he is their King And therefore he concludes That in case the Kingly or supreme Power should be made use of to the publick detriment he sees not how the Body meaning the whole Body politick by any just means should be able to help it self without the consent of him that hath the supreme Power What could he have said more convincingly for the Declaration of his own Opinion concerning the unlawfulness of the Peoples using Force against their King though he make use of his Kingly Power to the detriment of the publick or of the People in general And though he be such a King as he supposeth to have originally derived his Title from the free choice of the People or from the choice of a free People much less if he come in by Conquest For some multitudes saith Mr. Hooker are brought into Subjection by force Divine Providence it self so disposing for it is God that giveth Victory in the day of Battel and unto whom Dominion is in this sort derived the same they enjoy according to the Law of Nations which Law authorizeth Conquerours to reign as absolute Lords over them whom they vanquish Now this way that is by Conquest was their Dominion or Kingly Power over this Nation of ours originally derived to our present Race of Kings But may they therefore now reign absolutely and at their own Will and Pleasure as their first Predecessours who came in by Conquest did or might have done No Mr. Hooker doth not say so nor I neither but he saith and so say I too That by means of after agreement or rather by after condescensions concessions and grants of Kings it comes to pass in Kingdoms that they whose ancient Predecessours were by violence and force made Subject do by little and little grow into the sweet of Kingly Government that is a Government of Kings governing by Laws in a free and voluntary manner condescended unto And thus this Kingdom of ours of Despotical became Political by our Kings limiting and restraining themselves by Laws of their own and their Predecessours making and much more by restraining themselves from making any Laws at all but such as the Lords and Commons in Parliament should consent to And this is all the restraint that Mr. Hooker acknowledgeth our Kings to be Subject to and is this more than Mr. Baxter doth or can approve of This doth not hinder the Government to be truly Monarchical which Mr. Baxter saith it is not nor the Supremacy to be wholly in one Person both as to Ecclesiastical and secular affairs as Mr. Hooker saith it is and Mr. Baxter saith it is not So that it was not Mr. Hooker's restraining but his extending or rather acknowledging and defending the extent of the Power of all Kings in general and of the Kings of England in particular that Mr. Baxter doth not nor cannot consistingly with himself approve of We will instance in what he saith of our own King onely according as he himself desireth to be understood when he tells us that what he speaks of Kings shall be in respect of the slate and nature of this Kingdom And first he tells us That this is an hereditary Kingdom and that in hereditary Kingdoms Birth giveth right to Sovereign Dominion and that the Death of the Predecessour putteth the Successour by bloud in Seisin He adds That if it should so happen that a man without right of bloud be elected and put into possession with all the usual Ceremonies and Solemnities all such new Elections and investings are utterly void the Inheritour by bloud may dispossess him as an Vsurper the contrary opinion whereunto he saith is an unnatural conceit and an insolent position set abroach by seeds-men of Rebellion onely to animate unquiet Spirits and to feed them with possibility of aspiring to Thrones if they can win the Hearts of the People What say you Mr. Baxter is not this more in favour of such Kings as ours is than you approve I am sure it is more than you did approve when as you tell us in your Holy-Common-Wealth you were bound to submit to the present Government as set over us by God and to obey for Conscience sake and to behave your self as a loyal Subject towards them But what was that present Government It must be one or other of those Governments betwixt the late King's Murther and his Son's Restauration which in Mr. Hooker's judgment were all of them Vsurpations and consequently all that voluntarily adhered and submitted to them Rebels and Traitours because they did as much as in them lay to exclude and keep out the right Heir from the Crown in an hereditary Kingdom So that I do not wonder if Mr. Baxter found more in Mr. Hooker than he could approve as to this particular but it was not for his too much restraining the Power of the King over his People but for his restraining the Power of the People over their King by setting up what Governours and what Government they please contrary to the fundamental Institution of the Kingdom Again as Mr. Baxter might find more in Mr. Hooker than he could approve or had approved for limiting the descent of the supreme Power here with us to the next in bloud or the right Heir without exception so in regard of the supreme Power itself as it is vested in our King he might find more in Mr. Hooker than he did approve not for the restraint but extent of it and that in regard both of persons and of things And first of Persons For Mr. Hooker speaking of our King's Supremacy saith that thereby it is intended and meant to exclude partly foreign Powers and partly the Power which belongeth in several unto others contained as parts in that politick Body over which the King hath Supremacy in and by which words all Persons as well within as without the Kingdom are excluded from having any part in the Sovereignty or supreme Power here in England None without the Kingdom having any thing to doe with it and All within the Kingdom being subject to it And this is the true interpretation of the Oath of Supremacy whereby as I have proved before the King is acknowledged to be the onely supreme Governour in as well as of this Kingdom and by consequence exclusively not onely in relation to any that do pretend from abroad but also from any that may pretend at home to have any part in or of the Supremacy with him Whereas Mr. Baxter will have the Oath of Supremacy to be understood as intending onely to exclude foreign Pretenders to any Supremacy here namely the Pope and
to justifie himself and those of his Nonconforming Brethren for preaching as they do though the Law have forbidden them to do so but the Popish Priests may pretend to also for their justification in the Execution of their Priestly Office in Conventicles of their own persuasion or for the gaining of Proselytes to their own Religion I. As first for example may not a Romish Priest say and say it truly as Mr. Baxter doth That he holds the sacred Office of the Ministry or Priesthood consisteth in an obligation to doe the work and an Authority to warrant him therein and that both these are essential to the Office as likewise That Kings and other Magistrates are not by Ordination to give this Office nor by Degradation to take it away But what then May not the King forbid a Popish Priest to exercise his Priestly Function here in England and punish him if he do though he cannot degrade him or make him to be no Priest And if this may be done to a Popish Priest without degrading him why may it not be done by the same Authority to a dissenting or Nonconforming Minister without degrading him also Yea and without taking away any thing that is essential to his Office For it is not the obligation to doe but to be qualified and willing to doe the work of a Minister that is essential to his Office neither doth his Ordination give him Authority to doe the work of a Minister any otherwise or any longer than he doeth it as it ought to be done So that this Argument drawn from the Obligation of a Minister to doe the work of a Minister after he is ordained if it prove any thing it proves either more or less than Mr. Baxter would have it namely that either Popish Priests may and ought to exercise their Priestly Office here in England though by Law they are forbidden or else that the Nonconforming Ministers may not nor ought not to exercise their Ministerial Office being forbidden to doe so by the same Authority and especially for the same Reasons also namely for being Disturbers of the publick Peace and holding such Principles as are destructive to Monarchy the one teaching the Division of the Sovereignty betwixt the King and another Foreign Prince that is betwixt the King and the Pope and the other teaching the Division of the Sovereignty betwixt the King and the Parliament that is betwixt the King and his Subjects II. Neither is Mr. Baxter's second Argument for the Nonconforming Ministers being obliged to exercise their Ministry though they are by Law forbidden to doe it so peculiar to them but that if it had any force in it any man that hath been ordained and thereby been consecrated and devoted to the Ministerial Function may lay claim to it and make use of it though he have done or may doe never so much hurt by the exercise of it because he will be guilty of Sacrilege saith Mr. Baxter if he do not and of the highest degree of Sacrilege that can be it being much more sacrilegious saith he to alienate consecrated Persons than consecrated Things from the Service of God And for proof thereof he tells us That our Canons enquire after all such as alienate themselves from the Ministry to which they were ordained and turn to other Callings adding We dislike not that Canon but we wish our observance of it might be thought but a pardonable fault As if this Canon which forbids men to quit their Ministerial Calling and to betake themselves to any other Lay Profession did oblige all those that are Ministers or have been ordained to be Ministers to continue in the exercise of their Ministerial Function though by lawfull Authority and for never so just cause they are forbidden to doe so because forsooth he will be guilty of Sacrilege if he do not so that he that is once ordained and thereby consecrated to serve God in the Ministry though he be never so heretical or schismatical or fanatical in point of Opinion or never so factious or seditious or rebellious or lewd or debauched in point of Practice he must not be forbidden to doe the work he was ordained to doe or if he be forbidden he must not forbear to doe it notwithstanding because it will be the highest degree of Sacrilege except Apostasie it self if he do So that this Argument proves nothing neither or as much for the worst as it doth for the best that ever were ordained III. The like may be said of Mr. Baxter's third Argument also which is a deduction from several Texts of Scripture obliging those that have taken upon them the Ministry of the Gospel to be diligent and faithfull and constant in the preaching of it All which places must be understood with this exception unless they be lawfully and by their lawfull Superiours forbidden to doe it Otherwise there will a Floodgate be opened for the bringing in all manner of Heresies and Schisms into the Church and of Faction and Sedition and Rebellion into the State as we have found by our own experience it hath done lately into our own Church and State and will doe so again if such Arguments as these can prevail with us to repeal our Laws and to grant a Licence or rather a licentiousness of Preaching to Men so principled and so affected as Mr. Baxter himself and those he pleads for have shewed themselves to be and will not yet give us any security that they will not preach and doe hereafter as they have done formerly IV. But his fourth main Reason as he calls it why those he pleads for must preach though they be forbidden is a main one indeed if it were a true one namely That they should sin against the Law of Nature it self nay even the great radical Law of Nature so far as to be guilty of the murthering of mens Souls if they did not preach though they be forbidden by what Authority or for what cause soever for so he must mean or else he saith nothing to the purpose and if he means so he condemns the King and Parliament for forbidding so many hundreds or thousands as Mr. Baxter saith are silenced because they will not conform and consequently for doing what they can to make so many hundreds and thousands to sin against the radical Law of Nature and to be guilty of murthering God knows how many Mens Souls But Kings and Parliaments Mr. Baxter may say are but Men and Men that may err in commanding what God hath forbidden and in forbidding what God hath commanded as they do saith he in this particular and are not therefore to be obeyed as the Apostles did not and professed they would not obey the High Priest and the Sanhedrim when they did forbid them to preach any more in the name of Christ the like saith he the Primitive and Orthodox Christians did though the Pagan and Arian Emperours forbad them to doe so
add one more That he might be allowed whensoever he saw cause for it or had need of it to substitute one Proposition instead of another a false one instead of a true one or a true one instead of a false one and then to infer what he pleased from it for so as he hath done often in other places so he hath done once in this scrap of a Recantation also making me to say that there were some lawful Governors unlimited by God and thence inferring that I was a defier of Deity and Humanity when what I said was that of lawful Governors some were unlimited by men but of this I have said enough before and as I think I have said enough now touching the insufficiency of this recantation to prove that Mr. Baxter is really and seriously otherwise minded in point of judgment than he was when he published these Aphorisms which I have now Reprinted Neither can the contrary hereunto be concluded from any or all of those glorious or rather vain-glorious professions of Loyalty he makes in behalf of himself and of his own Party in the fourth Chapter of the second Part of his Non-Conformists Plea for Peace which can signifie nothing unless he and they do renounce those disloyal and seditious Principles which in his Book of the Holy Commonwealth he makes use of to justifie the War made by the two Houses of Parliament against the late King as first That this Kingdom of England is not a Monarchy and consequently that the Sovereignty is not wholly in the King Secondly That the Sovereignty is divided betwixt the King and the two Houses of Parliament Thirdly that the two Houses of Parliament may lawfully take Arms and make War with the King in defence of their own part of the Sovereignty and of the trust reposed in them by the People and that the People may and ought to assist them when they do so Fourthly That the People are represented in Parliament not only as Subjects for so he confesseth their Representatives are only to complain and supplicate for them but as Contractors before they were Subjects with him that was to be their King before he was King for the reservation of such or such rights franchises and priviledges to be for ever exempted from the Kings and his Successors jurisdiction for the preservation of which if they were invaded or indeavour'd to be taken away by the King or any of his Successors the Parliament not only as Representatives but Trustees also for the People might by force if they could not do it otherwise resist and restrain the King from so doing Finally there be many other cases specified by Mr. Baxter in that Book of the Holy Commonwealth wherein Kings may as he saith be lawfully resisted by their Subjects whence he concludes the War made by the Parliament against the late King to have been purum piumque Duellum a just and a lawful War and consequently such a War as may be made at any time hereafter upon the same Premisses or by vertue of the same Principles and therefore he tells us in plain terms not only that he did not but that he durst not repent of having been engaged in it himself nor for having engaged so many thousands as he confesseth he did in it not then perhaps but hath he not repented of it since Videtur quòd non because not having yet renounced any of those Principles or Premises from whence he infers the Conclusion he is still to be supposed to hold the conclusion he infers from them nay and that he will hold it still and do as he did then upon the like occasion for so he tells us himself in the place before quoted where he saith that as he durst not repent of what he had done in the aforesaid War so he could not forbear the doing of the same if it were to do again in the same state of things 'T is true indeed he tells us in the same place that if he were convinced he had sinned in what he had done he would as willingly make a publick Recantation as he would eat and drink when he is hungry or thirsty But neither he nor any of the Non-Conformists that ever I heard of hath as yet made any such a publick Recantation and therefore we may rationally and charitably enough too conclude that they are still of the same Judgment they were then and consequently that their Practice will be the same it was then when the like opportunity invites them to it which though I hope it will never be yet we are not sure but it may be and therefore ought not to be too confident and secure that no such thing will be For mine own part I must confess as I always have been so I am still of this opinion that ever since the Reformation there have been and are two Plots carrying on sometimes more openly and sometimes more secretly the one by those that call themselves the only true Catholicks the other by those that call themselves the only true Protestants and both of them against the Government as it is established by Law both in Church and State And as there always hath been so there ever will be Plotting by both these Parties until both of them be utterly disabled and suppressed for as for making Peace with either of them I take it by reason of the perverseness of the one and peevishness of the other and the pride of both to be a thing not to be hoped for I am sure the way proposed by Mr. Baxter in his Book called The true and only way of Concord of all Christian Churches will never do it which Book of his though as I said in my Preface I did not intend to answer as being abundantly and superabundantly confuted before it was written yet because in his Address of it to the Bishop of Ely and me he seems desirous to know what we think of it in reference to the end proposed by it I will tell him plainly and in a few words what is my opinion of it viz. that it is so far from being what he saith it is The true and only way of Concord in all Churches that I verily believe that if all the Churches in the World were actually in as perfect Peace and Concord both in themselves and with one another as ever they were or ever can be humanly speaking here in this World that which he calls the true and only way of Concord if it were or could be admitted would in a very short time introduce such and so many unavoidable and irreconcileable differences and dissentions both speculative and practical as well in matter of belief as in manner of worship that there would be no such thing to be seen as order or unity or peace in all the Churches of any one Province or Kingdom and much less in all the Churches of the Christian World This National Church of ours therefore being
such Magistrates if there were any such This opinion of Calvin and his Followers taxed by Grotius Heb 12. 15. His reason for it Nam Magistratus illi inferiorum quidem ratione habità sunt publicae personae at superiores si considerentur privati sunt Grotius de jure Belli Pacis l. 1. cap. 4. sect 6. Another passage of Grotius wherein he allows resistance of Kings Si Rex habeat partem summi Imperii partem alteram populus aut senatus Regi in partem non suam involanti vi justè opponi poterit quia catenus imperium non habet quod locum habere censeo etlamsi dictum sit belli potestatem penes Regem fore id enim de Bello externo intelligendum est cùm alioqui quisquis Imperii summi partem habeat non possit non habere eam partem tuendi potestatem quod ubl fit potest Rex suam Imperii partem belli jure amittere Grot. Ibid. This passage the ground of Mr. B's justifying the late War No such Case possible as Grotius supposeth Sovereignty indivisible The division of the Roman Empire no division of Sovereignty Our English Heptarchy such Partners in the Empire upon what account The Case when a King is conditionally elected A King thus Elected a King in title only No division of the Sovereignty in this Case as being wholly in the People Grotius inconsistent with himself An account of the changes in the Roman States in none of which ever any Division of the Sovereignty The changes of Government in that State but three properly speaking The Sovereignty not divided all the while The Senate not Co-partners in it with the Emperor as Mr. B. would have it Grotius his design in his supposed Division of the Sovereignty to justifie the Netherlands war against the King of Spain A Book of his wherein he states the Case He lodges the Sovereignty all along in the States and makes K. Philip an Vsurper os it Lib. de Antiquitate Reipub Baravicae cap. 7. page 49. This however it may perhaps justifie his Countrymen doth not reach the Case in hand This further made out The whole Sovereignty he saith was always in the States De Antiquitate Relpub Batav p. 52. Ib. p. 49. Their Kings but Titular The States according to Grotius in their war with the King of Spain did but recover what was their own before upon these grounds if true that War no Rebellion The Sovereignty of necessity either wholly in the People or wholly in the King Sovereignty or the supreme Power is that in the Body Politick which the Soul is in the natural Body No such division of the Sovereignty in England If England a Monarchy as it is the King sole Sovereign Both which Mr. B. denies though sworn by him at his Ordination The Parliaments pretended Declaration about it inquired after No such Declaration to be heard of from any Parliament The House of Commons which with Mr. B. goes for the Parliament how Representatives of the People Of Representatives at last they made themselves Lords and Masters In their Addresses they always acknowledged the King their Sovereign If the two Houses either or both have a share in the Sovereignty they would have a title to Majesty also The King declared to be the only Supreme Governour by an Act of Parliament To wit by the Act of Vniformity H. C. 460. Mr. B. slights what he cannot answer Ibid. The Oath of Supremacy not made against Papists only as he saith The use Q. Elizabeth made of that Oath She justified her self in it by a publick Declaration Camd. Eliz. p. 39 40. Three things observed from that Declaration of Hers. The Supremacy the chief Prerogative of the Crown Two parts in the Oath of Supremacy the one Assertory the other Promissory In the Assertory part two Clauses one Affirmative the other Negative The later Clause discovers Papists The former Clause asserts the Monarchy What intended by swearing the King to be the only supreme Governour The distinction which the Rubrick makes betwixt those two Clauses Vid. The form and manner of making of Deacons The first Clause is called the Oath The second is rather an Abjuration The former Clause infers the later the later not the former The Kings being the only supreme Governor excludes all pretence to the Supremacy from any other as well at home as abroad Why not an express abjuration of the Supremacies being in any at home beside the King as of its being in any abroad The 1 Reason The 2 Reason There is a claim to the Supremacy from abroad no such pretence at home A Pamphlet in the late times taxed which makes the two Houses Co-ordinate with the King The project of Co-ordination utterly inconsistent with our Government The constitution the same now as ever The two Houses Petitioning the King a proof that there is no Co-ordination The King free to grant or deny as he pleaseth An Ordinance of both Houses with Mr. B. equivalent to an Act of Parliament No legal Authority for the late War against the King Nor can any pretence justifie it Mr. B. himself appealed to Holy Com. w. p. 441. The two Houses themselves acknowledged the power of the Sword to be in the King Some Remarks upon that acknowledgment The invalidity of their Ordinances made out The King asserts the Militia Vid. the Kings Answer from York to the 19 Propositions A remarkable passage in a Sermon of Arch-Bishop Usher at the Treaty in the Isle of Wight Sir Phil. Warwick a witness to that passage An objection against its credibility answered The Parliaments own acknowledgment further made out Tâ—e mischievousness of some of Mr. B. 's writings Heresie and Schism propagated by Books though the Authors themselves repent their errors An Instance of Brown the Father of the Brownists Mr. Baxter the Founder of the Baxterian Sect. His Anti-episcopal Aphorisms past by His Anti-monarchical Aphorisms justly excepted against The Soveraignty he saith divided betwixt King and Parliament and his Reasons to prove it Of his first Proof The Parliament hath always acknowledg'd the King their Soveraign The Oath of Supremacy proves it His second Proof from the Legislative power The Legislative power solely in the King By Parliament is meant not King Lords Commons but Lords and Commons that is the two Houses Mr. B. by Parliament often understands the House of Commons and in effect lodges the whole Legislative power in them How the two Houses come to be a Parliament The Lords summoned by the King The Commons chosen by the People with the King's leave The King gives the Parliament its being and continuance as he pleaseth The two Houses therefore not co-ordinate nor sharers in the Soveraignty with the King Vid. Grotium de Antiquitate Reipub. Batavicae What hurts the Crown hurts the People The Legislative power a branch of Soveraignty How far the two Houses concerned in that They only propose Bills The Royal Assent makes