will prove him perjured Again he says As these are Protestant Oaths they bind us the more emphatically to assist and defend the King against the Vsurpation of the Pope who pretends to a Power of deposing Kings and of excluding Hereditary Princes from the Succession Answ We are bound emphatically to renounce all Power of the Pope and therefore this among the rest but we are bound to assert many Instances of that Power to the King which we deny to the Pope of which I have proved the Power of excluding a Popish Prince to be one Which if the Pope himself exercises upon Protestant Princes where he but pretends to be Supream he is a Wretch if he complains or any Body for him that the like is done by them who really are Supream This in short is your plain and honest Arguing We are sworn to deny the Pope's usurped Power Ergo we are sworn to deny the King 's just and lawful Power which by the same Oath we are bound to maintain In the next Paragraph our Author protests to all the World that he has sworn Allegiance and Supremacy to Subjects or to the unalterable Succession or to I know not what for he is not very clear But as for all others who have taken no such rash and unlawful Oath they need no Absolution from it and consequently there had not been such a World of Popery in the Bill of Exclusion upon that Score And therefore I desire our Author not to trouble his Head about it and he may speak to the Great Man whom he quotes for that notable Observation to do so too If he himself has been so forward as to swear before-hand to a Subject he has done it in his own Wrong and he knows how by Repentance to disengage himself from a rash void and unlawful Oath for he ought to have sworn only to our Sovereign Lord the King that now is and to his Highness Heirs and lawful Successors Kings or Queens of this Realm of England and other his Dominions depending on the same I never in my Life read any thing of that kind with greater pleasure than his Conclusion of this second Argument to see a Man bewildred and confounded and lost in his own Sophistry I took notice in my Preface of an Abuse in Common Speech where Men that are only in possibility of being Heirs are called Heirs next Heirs c. in which absurd and dangerous Sence some weak Men have taken the Heirs and Successors mentioned in the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and thereupon were against a Bill of Exclusion I then proved it and therefore had the confidence to call it a deceitful Prejudice and must now add that it is a very silly Prejudice because every Bill Bond Release and almost any other Writing that passes in common Intercourse among Men wherein Heirs are mentioned is sufficient to correct it for where Men are concerned to speak properly Heirs are always understood to be those who actually inherit Now as in a Covenant I promise to pay A. B. and to his Heirs the yearly Rent of c. without promising one Farthing to his eldest Son or without being bound that his eldest Son shall be his Heir after his Death or without being obliged not to express a desire that A. B. would disinherit his eldest Son if he have given manifest proof that he will utterly ruine the Estate and Family So it is in these Oaths with this difference That it would be only the Absurdity and Inconvenience of paying my Rent twice over to take Heirs for possible Heirs in this lower and more familiar Instance of a Covenant whereas it would involve us in Treason to take Heirs in that Sence in the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy But this unconscionable Man will have them taken in both Sences in these Oaths Heirs and Successors in the very same place shall signify Subjects and not Subjects but Kings and Queens Heirs shall stand for those that actually inherit and not for them but for those that may and may not inherit and in case of Exclusion never shall And lawful Successors shall stand for such as lawfully succeed their Predecessors and in the self-same place shall stand for unlawful Successors a sort of Successors before their time In one word Heirs and lawful Successors in the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy must either signify Kings and Queens as the Oath of Allegiance at Common-Law expounds it self which the Lawyers call Benedicta expositio ex visceribus causae a blessed Exposition out of the Bowels of the Cause or else they must signify Subjects for it is contradictious and Transubstantiation-Non-sence to say they signify both If they signify Kings and Queens then we are no ways bound to any Person under that degree by those Oaths and they have been very unfairly as well as mischievously urged against a Bill of Exclusion If any Man say they signify Subjects then this grievous Inconvenience unavoidably follows That we have promised from henceforth that is from the Time we were sworn and so onwards to bear them Faith and true Allegiance which I suppose no Minister of London nor Minister of State in England will think fit to affirm III. And now comes his third Argument atttended with a marginal Superfaetation of little sucking Arguments such as Dei gratiâ Dieu Mon droit c. all equally concluding against a Bill of Exclusion The main Argument for which he quotes Cook upon Littleton of Tenures is this The Inheritance of our Lord the King is a direct Dominion of which none is the Author but God alone The King holds of none but God He has no superiour Lord as Cook explains himself in the same place the Crown is no Norman Fee Ergo the King cannot bind and limit the Succession I thought he could the sooner for that for what shall hinder him from disposing of his own for the Welfare and with the Consent of his Kingdom who have a greater Interest in their King than our Author is aware of From the aforesaid Principle he gives us to understand that the Wise and the Learned infer this Conclusion That it would be Vsurpation without a manifest Revelation from God to preclude any Person of the Royal Family from succeeding to the Crown The Learned may do much but I will go upon his Errand an hundred Miles an end who will shew any other Man how to infer that Conclusion from that Argument But for all that they shew themselves neither learned nor wise in calling for a manifest Revelation from God for a Bill of Exclusion because that may occasion others to demand a manifest Revelation for any Papist's Right to succeed in a Protestant Kingdom where by the Laws of that Kingdom if he be reconciled to the Church of Rome he has not a Right to live A manifest Revelation to shew why a Natural Fool or Mad-man who cannot help it may be put by the Succession as not
the very Apostles 2dly Our Author quotes two Authorities The one says A Bill of Exclusion if it should pass would change the Essence of the Monarchy and make the Crown Elective or as another ingenious but I am sure very scurrilous and irreverent Pen saith it would tend to make a Football of the Crown and turn an Hereditary Kingdom into Elective The same Answer will serve them both namely That an Act of disinheriting from the Crown does own and proclaim and prove the Kingdom to be Hereditary And further I would be glad to know in what part of the Globe that Elective Kingdom lies where the very Essence of it is this that the present Possessor of the Crown shall have Power in declaring or disabling his Successor II. His next Argument is from the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy wherein a Minister of London especially ought to have used no Sophistry because Oaths are sacred Things and ought not by false Glosses and Interpretations to be turn'd into Snares to entangle the Consciences of those who hereafter shall be desirous to secure the Protestant Religion and withal to involve three successive Houses of Commons in the Guilt of Perjury only for discharging their Consciences to God and their Country And because our Author after he has done thus stands upon his Justification and calls his Way of Arguing plain and honest and says he is not conscious of the least Sophistry in it I shall endeavour to make his Sophistry stare him in the face I shewed him before in my Preface by the most convincing Proof that could be produced that by the Heirs and Successors mentioned in these Oaths are meant Kings and Queens of this Realm of England And if the old Oath of Allegiance at Common-Law which I there quoted had not expresly said so yet Common-Sense would have taught us the very same For Allegiance sworn to a Subject must needs be Treason And therefore as I there argued it is a Falshood of very dangerous Consequence to say that any Person besides his Majesty hath now any Interest in those Oaths or can lay claim to any part of them Our Author had done well to have answered that Argument before he had fallen to new-vamping of old baffled Fallacies which I shall now examine By the Oath of Supremacy as he says true we are sworn to our Power to assist and defend all Jurisdictions Privileges Preheminencies and Authorities granted or belonging to the Kings Highness his Heirs and lawful Successors united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm Now one of these Jurisdictions granted or belonging to the King's Highness his Heirs and lawful Successors united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm is this That the King with and by the Authority of the Parliament of England is able to make Laws and Statutes of sufficient force and validity to limit and bind the Crown of this Realm and the Descent Limitation Inheritance and Government thereof And therefore I ask if they be not the perjured Persons who by asserting an unalterable Succession endeavour to destroy this Jurisdiction Privilege and Authority which they are sworn to maintain But our Author 's honest way of arguing is to have four Terms in a Syllogism As thus We are sworn to defend the Rights of Supremacy vested in the King Ergo we are bound to defend an unalterable Succession which is contrary to the Rights of this Supremacy Again we are sworn to defend all Privileges belonging to the King's Heirs and Successors that is Kings and Queens of England Ergo we are sworn to defend all the Privileges belonging to such as are neither Kings nor Queens but Subjects of England and if they be excluded never can be Kings or Queens of England And therefore to our Author's first Question I answer No Subject can possibly have undoubted transcendent and essential Rights Privileges and Preheminencies united to the Imperial Crown of England for if so then the Imperial Crown of England is united to his Rights which I would desire our Author to take heed of affirming for we can have but one Soveraign as there is but one Sun in the Firmament To his second Question I answer By lawful Successors is meant Kings and Queens of England which have not been always next Heirs by Proximity of Blood witness Henry 7. Q. Mary and Q. Elizabeth who could not be both Heirs in that manner to Edward the 6 th And further I say that the Oath of Supremacy only binds us to the King in being and not to the whole Royal Family otherwise we should have a great many Soveraigns at once and it is made in our Author's Phrase for the Behoof and Interest of the Crown and not for the Behoof of him who may never be concern'd in it In the next place we have these Words Some indeed have said with our Author that the Oath of Supremacy is a Protestant Oath and so could not be understood in a Sence destructive to the Protestant Religion which is a meer Shift and proves nothing because it proves too much Sir I think it was much more a Shift to find out a way to drive on the Popes Interest by an Oath which does most solemnly renounce him and under a pretence of unalterable Succession of which there is not the least shadow in this Oath but the direct contrary to abandon this Protestant Kingdom to the Hellish Tyranny of Rome which we are sworn to oppose and all Protestants will oppose even under a Popish Successor if any such can be in England and let Dr. Watson prove it if he can to be no less than resisting the Ordinance of God. But methinks it had been time enough to offer to prove that after the Pope's Power had been re-established by a Law and not to go about it now when it is Treason to endeavour to reconcile Men to the Church of Rome Thus much the Oath of Supremacy proves which is not nothing nor a Jot too much And further it proves that we are bound in order to the keeping out the Pope's Power which we have utterly renounced humbly to beg of his Majesty to foreclose a Popish Successor who will infallibly let it in I am sure this way of assisting and defending the Jurisdictions and Authorities of the Crown is in our Power and so is within the compass of our Oath and therefore we are treacherous to the Crown and false to our Oath as well as to God and to our Religion if we will not do so much for any of them as this comes to And I do seriously and earnestly recommend this Consideration to all that have taken the Oath of Supremacy and especially to the Clergy of England who have taken it several times over As for our Author 's saying That moderate Papists will take the Oath of Supremacy I shall only say this to it Let him shew me a Man that has taken this Oath and prove him to be a Papist and I
JULIAN'S ARTS TO Undermine and Extirpate CHRISTIANITY The present Impression of this Book was made in the Year 1683 and has ever since lain Buried under the Ruines of all those English Rights which it endeavoured to Defend But by the Auspicious and Happy Arrival of the Prince of Orange both They and It have obtained a Resurrection JVLIAN's ARTS To Undermine and Extirpate CHRISTIANITY TOGETHER With ANSWERS to Constantius the APOSTATE and Jovian By SAMUEL JOHNSON Licensed and Entered according to Order LONDON Printed by J. D. for the Author and are to be sold by Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown and Jonathan Robinson at the Golden-Lion in St. Paul's Church-yard MDCLXXXIX TO THE Ever Glorious MEMORY OF WILLIAM Lord Russel The Author having written this Book in his Lordships Service does most Humbly Offer and Dedicate it The PREFACE BEfore the Reader engages in the perusal of this Book I shall entreat him to take this following Account of what he shall find in it Having given as large an Account in my former Book concerning Julian's Vsage of the Christians and their Behaviour towards him as might satisfy any reasonable Man I have since found it necessary to add some new Matter of Fact upon that Subject both to confirm the old and to free it if it be possible from Wrangling and Dispute And that I might not deliver this fresh Matter in a way of loose and incoherent Quotations which would have been tedious I took a Hint from Gothofredus his Julianus to put it into a Discourse which will at once give an Account of Julian's Devices to worm the Christians out of their Religion and likewise shew how well studied the Papists are in those Arts. My Answerers have been so many that I cannot number them on the sudden and I think it has been Drudgery enough for one Man to read them over but yet because two of them especially have been applauded as the Champions of the Cause I thought my self concerned to give them an Answer not in the least to vindicate my self from their Reflections which I value not tho it were stupidity not at all to resent them but to do what Service I could to Truth and to the Rights of my Native Country for either of which if God will have it so I hope I shall not be unwilling to lay down my Life The Author of Constantius in the late shamming way has set up a Mock-Apostate to give a Diversion and take off the Force of what has been said concerning Julian but I hope it will prove to be with the like Success as the Mock-Plots have had which have always confirmed Men in the Belief of the true one He has likewise abused a great deal of Scripture to expose the Freemen of England and their established Religion to Violence Oppression and Extirpation and if I have rescued those Texts which he has so employed from such mischievous Applications for the future I shall think my Pains well spent The Author of Jovian by coming last has had the Advantage of summing up the Evidence which he has done so faithfully that he has not omitted Heraclitus's Charge against me That I raise an Induction from one Particular which he backs with as true an Observation of his own That I call the few Months of Julian 's Reign an Age p. 139. I say this to shew the Compleatness of this Author's Performance and that in his Answer we read the Substance of all the rest and not to rob him of the Honour of having added many Things of his own as particularly the History of broken Succession in the Empire which may be a true one for ought I know for it is of so small Concernment in this Controversy that I never examined it his Outlandish Notion of a Soveraign which is such a Deceit to a common Reader as a Scale of Dutch Miles would be in a Map of Middlesex and his Distinction of Imperial and Political Laws which is the Master-Piece in his Book This Distinction I am apt to think is his last Refuge and therefore I shall first shew how this Author was driven to it and 2dly How false and groundless it is and 3dly What are the immediate Consequences of it 1. In my former Book I laid down this undeniable Truth That we are bound not to part with our Lives but to defend them unless when the Laws of God or of our Country require us to lay them down Now it is not Death by the Law of God but our Duty to be Protestants and by the Law of the Land it is so far from being Death that on the other hand it is Death to forsake the Protestant Religion and to turn Papist And therefore in case Protestants should be persecuted under a Popish Successor I ask'd by what Law they must die That Question would admit no direct Answer for no Man can say that we ought to die for being Protestants either by the Law of God or the Law of the Land And therefore the Author of Jovian being resolved to cut a Knot which he could not untie has found out the most wretched Expedient of a Distinction that ever was For first he splits and divides one and the same Law of the Land into Imperial and Political and then says that by the Imperial or Prerogative Law we ought to submit to be murthered 2. Now in the second Place there never was a more horrid Slander cast upon the Prerogative than this is For whereas the Law of England says That the King's Prerogative stretcheth not to the doing of any Wrong this Author has found a way to stretch and extend it to the Subversion of all the Laws and to the Destruction of all his Liege Subjects By the Law of England the King is inviolable and by the same Law he can do no Wrong and there is all the Reason in the World that he who is above the doing of any Injury should be placed out of the reach of any manner of Resistance But tho the King can do no Wrong and therefore we can suffer none from him yet to make way for Passive Obedience our Author will have a sort of Subjects call'd the Sovereign's Forces to be irresistible too tho in the most outragious Acts of Destructive Violence That 's too plain a Juggle for as the King can do no Wrong so he can authorize no single Person much less Numbers of Men to do any Wrong Or to borrow the Words of a great Lawyer The King cannot do Injury for if he command to do a Man Wrong the Command is void alter fit Autor and the Actor becomes the Wrong-doer Now whether Men by authorizing themselves to do Mischief and to commit Capital Crimes are thereby entitled to an uncontroulable Imperial Power to the Rights of Sovereignty and to the Prerogative of being irresistible I leave all the World to judg 3. In the last place I shall shew the immediate Consequences of this new
Notion of Soveraignty which is a Notion indeed any farther than it is supported by the Law of the Land. And therefore if any Man would know for certain what the King's Prerogatives are he must not take his Information from Notions of Sovereignty which are as various as the Faces of the Moon but from the Law of the Land where he shall find them granted or belonging united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm Amongst which this is not the least That the King can do no Wrong The King is God's Lieutenant and is not able to do an unjust Thing These are the Words of the Law says Judg Jenkins Consequently he cannot overthrow the Laws nor is he able to authorize any Forces to destroy his Liege Subjects for this would be the highest Wrong and Injustice And therefore Forces so employed act of their own Heads and upon their own wicked Heads let their own Mischief fall And yet our Author is pleased to call such Wretches so employed the Soveraign's Forces and his Armies p. 203 221 against which we must not upon pain of Damnation defend our selves I appeal to all the Lawyers of England whether the Law will own any Number of Men to be authorized by the King in outraging and destroying his Liege People or whether it be not a great Aggravation of their Crime to pretend a Commission from the King to warrant such illegal and destructive Violence But this Author who is resolved to be an Advocate for Bloodshed and Oppression will shelter an Association of Murtherers under his common Laws of Soveraignty and if they ravage and destroy in the King's Name which doubles the Crime will make that their Protection And lastly which is the great Cheat that runs through this whole Discourse to make them irresistible he shrouds and covers them under the Name of the Soveraign For it is plain that in his Answer to my five Propositions p. 204 205. and generally throughout the following Chapters by Sovereign he means such Forces of the Soveraign for he bears me witness p. 221. that I acknowledged even a Popish Soveraign to be inviolable as to his own Person I know that deceiving Men for their Good has heretofore been excused as a pious Fraud but I am sure that such foul Practice as this to ensnare Mens Consciences and to cheat them out of their Lives is an impious Fraud and as such I leave it with the Author of it and pass to the Second Thing His Distinction of Imperial and Political Laws Common Law we know and Statute-Law we know but who are ye I confess I have heretofore seen something not unlike that Distinction in Aesop where there was a Political Law or Compact fairly made betwixt the Lion the Fox and the Ass but while the Ass was proceeding by the Measures of that Law of a sudden the Imperial Lion-Law broke loose and tore him in pieces It concerns us therefore to examine upon what Foundation this dangerous Distinction is built and if it prove to be false and groundless the good People of England have little to thank this Gentleman for Pag. 210. we have these Words Thus the Learned Chancellor Fortescue grants the King of England to have Regal or Imperial Power altho it be under the Restraint and Regulation of the Power Political as to the Exercise thereof That Distinction in the last Clause is false as I shall shew anon From that perverted Passage of Chancellor Fortescue where he speaks of Regal and Politick Dominion I doubt not but our Author or some Body for him framed his new Distinction of Imperial and Political Laws and contrived them into two contradictious Tables by one of which the Subjects Rights and Properties are secured and established and are all overthrown by the other The Lord Chancellor Fortescue is the first English Lawyer that used the Terms of Regal and Politick Government which he owns to have borrowed from Thomas Aquinas in his Book de Regimine Principum dedicated to the King of Cyprus by which Phrase that old Schoolman exprest a mixed and limited Monarchy For any Man that pleases to read those Books will see that Aquinas understands by Regal Government an absolute Monarchy and by Politick Government such Governments as the Common-wealths of Rome and Athens and by Regal and Politick a King ruling by a Senate and prescribed Rules of Law. And that Chancellor Fortescue in his Dialogue with the Prince of Wales makes no other use of the Phrase than Thomas Aquinas did will sufficiently appear by setting down his Discourse at large wherein I desire the Reader 's Patience because I intend it as a Specimen of this Answerer's Faithfulness in quoting his Authors In which Discourse that great Lawyer sometimes calls this Government Regal and Politick sometimes a Politick Kingdom but what he means by it is best exprest in his own Words Chap. 9. You stand in doubt most worthy Prince whether it be better for you to give your Mind to the Study of the Laws of England or of the Civil Laws because they throughout the whole World are advanced in Glory and Renown above all other Humane Laws Let not this Scruple of Mind trouble you most noble Prince for the King of England cannot alter nor change the Laws of his Realm at his pleasure For why he governeth his People by Power not only Royal but also Politick If his Power over them were Royal only then he might change the Laws of his Realm and charge his Subjects with Tallage and other Burdens without their consent and such is the Dominion which the Civil Laws purport when they say The Prince's Pleasure hath the Force of a Law. But from this much differeth the Power of a King whose Government over his People is Politick For he can neither change the Laws without the consent of his Subjects nor yet charge them with strange Impositions against their Wills. Wherefore his People do frankly and freely enjoy their own Goods being ruled by such Laws as they themselves desire neither are they pilled by their own King or by any Body else Like Pleasure also and Freedom have the Subjects of a King ruling by Power Royal only so long as he falleth not into Tyranny Of such a King speaketh Aristotle in the 3 d Book of his Politicks saying That it is better for a City to be governed by a good King than by a good Law. But forasmuch as a King is not ever such a Man therefore St. Thomas in the Book which he wrote to the King of Cyprus of the Governance of Princes wisheth the State of a Realm to be such that it may not be in the King's Power at pleasure to oppress his People with Tyranny which Thing is accomplished only when the Power Royal is restrained by a Politick Law. Rejoyce therefore most worthy Prince and be glad that the Law of the Realm wherein you are to succeed is such for it shall exhibit and minister to
you and your People no small Security and Comfort With such Laws as saith St. Thomas should all Mankind have been governed if in Paradise they had not transgressed God's Commandment With such Laws also was the Synagogue ruled while it was under God only as King who adopted the same to him for a peculiar Kingdom but at the last when at their request they had a Man-King set over them they were then under Royal Laws only brought very low Chap. 10. Then the Prince thus said How cometh it to pass good Chancellor that one King may govern his People by Power Royal only and that another King can have no such Power Seeing both these Kings are in Dignity equal I cannot chuse but much muse and marvel why in Power they should thus differ Of which Difference in Authority over their Subjects the Chancellor in the next Chapter promises to shew the Reason which is grounded upon the different Originals of those Kingdoms And accordingly chap. 12. he shews that an Absolute Monarchy is founded in the forced Consent of a subdued and inslaved People and chap. 13. That a Kingdom of Politick Governance is founded in the voluntary Consent of the Community And after he has illustrated the first Institution of a Politick Kingdom by shewing how it resembles the Formation of a natural Body he thus proceeds in the 13 th Chapter Now you understand most noble Prince the Form of Institution of a Kingdom Politick whereby you may measure the Power which the King thereof may exercise over the Law and Subjects of the same For such a King is made and ordained for the Defence of the Law of his Subjects and of their Bodies and Goods whereunto he receiveth Power of his People so that he cannot govern his People by any other Power Wherefore to satisfy your Request in that you desire to be certified how it cometh to pass that in the Power of Kings there is so great diversity Surely in mine Opinion the diversity of the Institutions or first Ordinances of those Dignities which I have now declared is the only Cause of this foresaid Difference as of the Premises by the Discourse of Reason you may easily gather For thus the Kingdom of England out of Brute's Retinue of the Trojans which he brought out of the Coasts of Italy and Greece first grew to a Politick and Regal Dominion Thus also Scotland which sometime was subject to England as a Dukedom thereof was advanced to a Politick and Royal Kingdom Many other Kingdoms also had thus their first beginning not only of Regal but also of Politick Government Wherefore Diodorus Siculus in his second Book of ancient History thus writeth of the Egyptians The Egyptian Kings lived at first not after the licentious manner of other Rulers whose Will and Pleasure is instead of Law but as it had been private Persons they were bound by the Law neither did they think much at it being persuaded that by obeying the Laws they should be happy For by such Rulers as followed their own Lusts they thought many Things were done whereby they should incur divers Harms and Perils And in his fourth Book thus he writeth The Ethiopian King as soon as he is created he ordereth his Life according to the Laws and doth all things after the Manner and Custom of his Country assigning neither Reward nor Punishment to any Man other than the Law made by his Predecessors appointeth He reporteth much the same of the King of Saba in Arabia Faelix and of certain other Kings which in old Time reigned happily Chap. 14. To whom the Prince thus answered You have good Chancellor with the clear Light of your Declaration dispelled the Clouds wherewith my Mind was darkned so that I do most evidently see that no Nation did ever of their own voluntary Mind incorporate themselves into a Kingdom for any other Intent but only to the end that they might enjoy their Lives and Fortunes which they were afraid of losing with greater Security than before And of this Intent should such a Nation be utterly defrauded if then their King might spoil them of their Goods which before was lawful for no Man to do And yet should such a People be much more injured if they should afterwards be governed by foreign and strange Laws yea and such as they peradventure deadly hated and abhorred And most of all if by those Laws their Substance should be diminished for the Safeguard whereof as also for the Security of their Persons they of their own accord submitted themselves to the Governance of a King. No such Power for certain could proceed from the People themselves and yet unless it had been from the People themselves such a King could have had no Power at all over them Now on the other side I perceive it to stand much otherwise with a Kingdom which is incorporate by the King 's sole Power and Authority because such a Nation is subject to him upon no other Terms but that this Nation which was made his Kingdom by his Will and Pleasure should obey and be governed by his Laws which are nothing else but the same Will and Pleasure Neither have I yet good Chancellor forgotten that which in your Treatise of the Nature of the Law of Nature you have learnedly proved that the Power of these two Kings is equal while the Power of the one whereby he is at liberty to deal wrongfully is not by such Liberty augmented as to have Power to decay and die is not Power but because of the Privations which are added to it is rather to be called Impotency and Want of Power because as Boetius saith Power is not but to Good. So that to be able to do Evil which the King who rules Regally is more at liberty to do than the King that has a Politick Dominion over his People is rather a Diminution than an Increase of his Power For the Holy Spirits which are now established in Glory and cannot sin do in Power far excell and pass us who have a delight and pleasure to run headlong into all kind of Wickedness It is plain to any attentive Reader that throughout this long Discourse Fortescue speaks but of two sorts of Kingdoms an absolute Monarchy and a limited Monarchy the latter of which he sometimes calls a Politick Government and sometimes he calls the very same Regal and Politick to distinguish it more expresly from an Aristocracy or Democracy But I will prove this beyond contradiction by some other Passages in Fortescue where he tells us that some of the former Kings of England would fain have changed the Laws of England for the Civil Law and did all they could to shake off this Politick Yoke of the Law of England that they also might rule or rather rage over their Subjects in Regal wise only and for this end endeavoured with might and main to cast away their Politick Government This is what our Author would have and
very agreeable to his Hypothesis for then the Regal or Imperial Power had been discharged of the Politick Clog and had governed all alone and the Notions of Sovereignty and Passive Obedience had been as clear as the Sun. But then in some other unlucky places the same Fortescue speaking of the self-same Thing says That those former Kings of England would have parted with their Law Politick and Regal too and would fain have changed them both for the Civil Law. It seems they were as weary of the one as of the other which could not possibly be help'd because they were all one And now I appeal to all the World whether here be any Foundation for a Table of Imperial Laws which can at pleasure destroy the Lives Liberties and Properties of the Subject And whether on the other side according to Fortescue the Safety and Security of the People be not the supream Law of a Regal and Politick Kingdom But because our Author is mighty troublesom with his Imperial Laws and Imperial Power and boundless Power and such like Terms of his own coining which is a Presumption at least that what he writes is not Law but his own Dreams which no Terms of English Law can express I shall tell him from these Passages of Fortescue That the greatest Power the King of England has is this that he can do no Wrong that he cannot authorize any Man or Number of Men to destroy his Subjects contrary to Law consequently that all such illegal destructive Acts tho attempted in his Name are inauthoritative and do neither bind any Man's Conscience nor tie any Man's Hands from using those Remedies which the Laws of God and Nature as well as the Common and Statute-Laws of the Land do allow to be used against all evil-disposed Persons I shall tell him likewise from these following Authorities and many more which might be produced that his Assertion of an absolute unbounded Power in the King which is limited only in the Exercise of it is perniciously false For the Law gives the King his Power and Dominion says Bracton We hold only what the Law holds saith Judg Jenkins The King's Prerogative and the Subjects Liberty are determined and bounded and admeasured by a written Law what they are We do not hold the King to have any more Power neither doth his Majesty claim any other but what the Law gives him Accordingly King Charles the First acknowledges that his Prerogatives are built upon the Law of the Land which in another place he declares are the justest Rule and Measure for them I shall add but one remarkable Passage more out of the King's Answer to both Houses concerning the Militia Feb. 28. 1641. And his Majesty is willing to grant every of them such Commissions as he hath done this Parliament to some Lords Lieutenants by your Advice but if that Power be not thought enough but that more shall be thought fit to be granted to these Persons named than by the Law is in the Crown it self his Majesty holds it reasonable that the same be by some Law first vested in him with Power to transfer it to these Persons which He will willingly do Now this is Demonstration if the Law be the Measure of the King's Power then he has no Power beyond the Bounds of the Law and whatsoever is pretended in the King's Name beyond those Bounds is void and carries no manner of Authority with it Whereas to say the King's Power is absolute and boundless is to say the Government is absolute and arbitrary and requires absolute and unlimited Subjection For it is Nonsence to say that boundless Power can be limited in the Exercise of it for boundless Power which has in it the whole Legislative Power can at pleasure make a Law to take away that Limitation and he that is limited only by his own pleasure is not limited at all And again that is not Power which cannot be exercised and therefore a Fountain full of boundless Power which cannot be brought into Act is a Fountain full of inauthoritative Authority or full of Emptifulness So much for our Author's Fountain Pipes and Channels We have his other Illustration of a boundless limited Power in these Words To be confined in the Exercise doth not destroy the Being nor diminish the Perfection of Sovereign Power for then the Power of God himself could not be Sovereign because there are certain immutable Rules of Truth and Justice within which it is necessarily limited and confined I answer As God exercises no Power which is inconsistent with Truth and Justice so he has no such Power in him in the Root or Being for it is all Imperfection and Weakness And that he neither exercises nor has any such Power is not to be imputed to any intrinsecal Limitation or Confinement but to the infinite and illimited Perfection of his Nature And if such a miscalled Power or Possibility of doing wickedly be found in the Creature it is because he is a Creature it proceeds from Finiteness and Defect And to shew our Author how much more Light there is in a few plain Words than in his Similitudes and Illustrations I say It is self-evident that a Man has no more Power in any kind than he can exercise A Man has no more natural Power than he can naturally exercise he has no more moral Power than he can morally exercise he has no more Civil or Legal Power than he can legally exercise For to say he has more Power than he can exercise is to say he can do more than he can do And therefore an Ocean of our Author 's boundless lawful Power of doing what cannot lawfully be done will not fill an Egg-shell and is such a New-nothing as even Children will despise Before I pass from this Distinction of Imperial and Political Laws I must say somewhat to a Heap of Authorities which we have p. 208 209. to prove that the Realm of England is an Empire that the Crown of it is an Imperial Crown and that one of the Saxon Kings stiled himself Basileus Imperator Dominus Well what of all that The Realm of England is an Empire has an Imperial Crown and is as independent upon any Foreign Realm as the Empire of Turkie therefore the Freemen of England are as very Slaves as any are in Turky and under Imperial or Bowstring Law. If that be your Consequence I will give you your whole Life's time to make it good But Edgar stiled himself Basileus Imperator Dominus And Carolus Rex signifies a great deal more than all those three Titles did I am ashamed to see Rolls of Parliament quoted for such poor Trifles for it is plain by all the Remains which we have of the Saxon Times by History by the Saxon Laws by King Alfred's Will in Asser Menevensis and by the Mirrour that the Saxon Kings were far from being absolute Emperors having no other Power than what
was limited and restrained by Law and Rules of Right as is largely set down in the Mirrour p. 8. Esâ—ierent de eux un Roy a reigner sur eux governer le People d'Dieu a maintainer defendre les persons les biens en quiet per les Rules d'droit al comencement ilz fieront le Roy jurer que il mainteindroit la sanct foy Christian ove tout son poyar sa people guideroit per droit sans regard a ascun person serroit abbeissant a suffre droit come autres de son people And p. 9. in case the King did Wrong to any of his People that he might not be Judg and Party too Convient per droit que le Roy ust Compaignions pur Oyer Terminer aux Parliaments trestouts les breves plaints de torts de le Roy de la Roigne de lour Infans de eux especialment de que torts leu ne poit aver autrement Common droit And for this purpose as well as to make Laws for the good Government of the People it was ordained in King Alfred's time for a perpetual Usage that a Parliament should meet twice a Year at London and oftner if need were as you have it p. 10. And you have a great many particular Laws which were made in those Parliaments p. 15. Amongst other things it was ordained that all Plaintiffs should have Writs of Remedy in the King's Court Aussi bien sur le Roy ou sur la Roigne come sur autre del people d' chestun injury forsque en vengeances d' vie d' membre ou pleint tient lieu sans brief And in the last place to avoid prolixity this Book speaking of the Abusions of the Common Law that is Practices which are Frauds to the Law and repugnant to Right pag. 282. hath these Words La primier la soveraigne abusion est que le Roy est oustre la ley ou il duist ceste subject sicome est contenus in son serement 2 Abusion est que ou les Parlaments se duissent faire pur le salvation des Almes de Trespassors ceo a Londres deux foits per An la ne se font ils ore forsque rarement a la volunt le Roy pur aides cuilets de tresore c. Vide Abusion 153 p. 308. I hope this pure old French of which Chancellor Fortescue says the modern is but a Corruption will inform our Author what Power a Saxon King had and what Basileus Imperator Dominus signified I come now to the next Head to examine some Preambles of Statutes which he either quotes to no purpose or else mangles them in the same manner as Scripture was once quoted to our Saviour and for the self-same end namely to teach Men to tempt God and Danger at once His first Collection of Preambles pag. 212 213 consists of Declarations that the Crown and Realm of England is not in subjection to the Pope which make nothing at all to our Author's purpose but very much against it if he did not stifle them with Et caetera's and long Strokes for the Truth of which I refer the Reader to those Statutes and shall only set down 25 H. 8. cap. 21. for I am not at leisure either to transcribe the Statute-Book or to winnow all our Author's Chaffe He says pag. 212. The Parliament directing their Declaration to the King enacted and declared That this your Graces Realm recognizing no Superiour under God but only your Grace hath been and is free from Subjection c. Now the following Words are these To any Man's Laws but such as have been devised made and ordained within this Realm for the Wealth of the same or to such other as by Sufferance of your Grace and your Progenitors the People of this your Realm have taken at their free Liberty by their own Consent to be used amongst them and have bound themselves by long Use and Custom to the Observance of the same not as to the Observance of the Laws of any Foreign Prince Potentate or Prelate but as to the Custom and ancient Laws of this Realm originally establish'd as Laws of the same by the said Sufferance Consents and Custom and none otherwise It standeth therefore with natural Equity and good Reason that all and every such Laws Humane made within this Realm or induced into this Realm by the said Sufferance Consents and Custom your Royal Majesty and your Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons representing the whole State of your Realm in this your most High Court of Parliament have full Power and Authority not only to dispence but also to authorize some elect Person or Persons to dispence with those and all other Humane Laws of this your Realm and with every one of them as the quality of the Persons or Matter shall require and also the said Laws and every of them to abrogate adnull amplify or diminish Now our Author it is possible may find out of these Words an unalterable humane Law of Succession or that the King has the whole Legislative Power or that there are Imperial Laws ordained within this Realm which are not for the Wealth of the same but may destroy the Political Laws at every turn And so may any Body else make the same Discoveries who is resolved before-hand to do it His other Collection is p. 218 219. not one of which concerns the present Question no not that wherein he triumphs and slavishly braggs That the very Doctrine of the Bow-string is declared by Act of Parliament 'T were better the Doctrine of the Bowstring were about his Neck tho his Name were Legion I see that if the whole Nation were enslaved we have some of the Brood of Cham amongst us who would rejoice at it and make themselves as merry with it as Nero was at the Flames of Rome and would dance after his Harp. But such impotent Malice and poor-spirited Insolence is below an English-Man's Indignation and therefore I shall calmly desire our Author to look over again that Declaration 13 Car. 2. cap. 6. and to tell me in which Clause Word or Syllable of it he finds the Doctrine of the Bow-string declared For my part I have read it very often over and cannot see any more in it than this That it is unlawful for both or either of the Houses of Parliament to raise or levy any War offensive or defensive against the King which was always Treason for any Subjects to do But was ever a legal Defence against unauthorized illegal Violence of Subjects called by the Name of levying War against the King Shew me That in any authentick Book of Common-Law in any Statute or in any Resolution of all the Judges in England and I will be as passive as any Man. Before I go any further I must not forget a Passage which does more nearly concern me p. 221 222. wherein I am taxed
for going contrary to my Declaration and Acknowledgment ordered by the Act of Uniformity Wherein I have abhorred that Traitorous Position of taking Arms by the King's Authority against his Person or those that are commissionated by him Upon which he adds It was apparently the Design of the Three Estates in this Act to secure the Nation of such Ministers as would preach up the Doctrine of Non-resistance without distinction But if it were they are very much disappointed for our Author himself who is as good at Indistinction and Confusion in other Matters as any Man does not preach the Doctrine of Non-resistance without distinction but handles it with the Subtilty of a Schoolman For he grants p. 280 that one who is sent by the King's Order to assassinate or destroy his Subjects is not commissionated by the King for he may be resisted by the King's Law which is his most authoritative Command But great Numbers or Forces so employed may not be resisted So that his Doctrine is this That if twenty Men come one by one with the King's Order to do an illegal and destructive Act they are not commissionated and may be resisted but if the same Number come together Rank and File with the same Order and upon the same Errand then they are commissionated and may not be resisted Is this preaching up the Doctrine of Non-resistance without distinction Or rather is it not making a silly Distinction without a difference Again in the same place he has Distinction upon Distinction in these Words The Doctrine of Passive Obedience allows a Man to resist or use the Sword to defend his Life when the Laws from which I except all Laws destructive of the King's Crown and Regality authorize him so to do This is preaching up and preaching down the same Doctrine in the same Breath upon a wicked Supposition that the Laws of the Land which protect the Subject are destructive of the King's Crown and Regality Now on the other hand all faithful Ministers of the Church of England preach Obedience to the Laws and Non-resistance of those who are commissionated by the King without distinction and without deceiving the People to their Destruction and telling them those are commissionated by the King whom the Law declares are not commissionated nor can be commissionated as no Man can be to destroy lawful Subjects Such illegal Commissions are declared by Magna Charta to be null and void and so we ought to account them as you may see by the following Words And for this our Gift and Grant of these Liberties and of others contained in our Charter of Liberties of our Forrest the Archbishops Bishops Abbots Priors Earls Barons Knights Freeholders and other our Subjects have given unto us the fifteenth part of all their Moveables And we have granted to them on the other part that neither we nor our Heirs shall procure or do any thing whereby the Liberties in this Charter contained shall be infringed or broken And if any thing be procured by any Person contrary to the Premises it shall be had of no force or effect So that what St. Paul says of an Idol may be fitly applied to a Commission contrary to Law For we know that an illegal Commission is nothing in the World. And accordingly we find in Acts of Grace that Men who act upon such Commissions do stand in as much need of Pardon as other Men and had the Benefit of the Act of Oblivion in the first place as you may see by the Particulars which are there pardoned First all and all manner of Treasons Misprisions of Treason Murthers Felonies Offences Crimes Contempts and Misdemeanours counselled commanded acted or done since the first of January in the Year of our Lord 1637 by any Person or Persons before the 24 th of June 1660 other than the Persons hereafter by Name excepted in such manner as they are hereafter excepted by virtue or colour of any Command Power Authority Commission or Warrant or Instructions from his late Majesty King Charles or his Majesty that now is or from any other Person or Persons deriving or pretending to derive Authority mediately or immediately of or from both Houses or either House of Parliament or of or from any Convention or Assembly called or reputed or taking on the Name of a Parliament c. be pardoned released indempnified discharged and put in utter Oblivion His fourth and last Principle upon which he builds his false Passive Obedience is a false Pretence of the Sovereign's Honour concerning which he says p. 279. The Laws are more tender of our Sovereign's Honour as he is God's Minister than of his Subjects Lives As if the King's Honour and his good Subjects Lives could ever stand in such a dangerous Competition that one of them must of necessity destroy the other and as if the Laws of England had provided that the Lives of the People of England should be sacrificed to the King's Honour Has our Author been abroad to fetch home pour ma Gloire and to render it into this English He might have had sounder and safer Notions at home out of Judg Jenkins whom he often quotes to no purpose Pag. 134. we have these Words The Gentleman says We do not swear meaning in the Oath of Supremacy that the King is above all Law nor above the Safety of his People Neither do we so swear says Judg Jenkins but his Majesty and we will swear to the contrary and have sworn and have made good and will by God's Grace make good our Oath to the World that the KING is not above the Law nor above the Safety of his People The Law and the Safety of the People are his Safety his Honour and his Strength And accordingly it has been always declared in Parliament to be the Honour and Glory of the Kings of England that they were Kings of Freemen and not of Slaves whereby they have been enabled to do greater Things and to make a larger Figure in the World than Princes of five times their Territories But this Author has pick'd up quite contrary Notions and thinks it a Dishonour to the King if the generous People which he governs be not Slaves to every Parcel of Criminals who against the King's Crown and Dignity shall wickedly destroy them in his Name I have now done with every Thing that looks like an Argument in this Discourse of Passive Obedience for as for the following Chapter there is nothing new in it he only chews the Cud upon his Notions of Sovereignty and rings Changes upon his Imperial and Political Laws And then in the 12 th Chapter after he has bound us hand and foot and prepared us for the Popish Knife he has the Face to tell us That notwithstanding this Doctrine of Non-resistance or Passive Obedience we shall be secure enough of our Lives Properties and Religion under a Popish Successor For after he has given us the Security of God's Care