as him that suffers and the stealing away the shoulder from this common burthen hath been that that hath most encouraged Persecuting Spirits in all times rendred the load more heavy on the backs of some and continued it longer upon all You see how excellent the Commands of God are and that in keeping of them there is great reward even safety and security here but lest there should be any that mind neither the Lord nor his Commands I will add for our farther encouragement That the Fundamental Law of the Land will bear us out in our oebdience to the Fundamental Law of the Gospel And if we are defended in our Duty both by Law and Gospel surely Persecuting Spirits will have enough to do to break through both and may at the end peradventure see That no attempts against Gods People shall prosper And truly it is our happiness that the Providence of God hath cast our lot to live in a Land where the Fundamental Laws thereof run right with and just to the Fundamental Laws of our Religion and that in standing faithful to the one we stand faithful and are justified by the other also so that none can object against us that they are incoherent or we so in our standing for them For I beseech you Friends consider We hold by one common Tenure all the Humane Interest that we have and the only Security we have for the holding thereof is the Fundamental Law If this Secucurity be violated upon any one our Lives Liberties and Properties are Invaded by that violation as well as his to whom the violation is done For he had the same Fence to secure his Freedom as we and that fence being broken we have no more security than him Our keeping up therefore this Fundamental Law as the Fence or Bank against the Sea is the alone and only way to preserve the whole or otherwise through the Breach thereof my Right though seeming more remote will be destroyed as well as his that lyeth next it and I cannot keep up this Fence but by defending the right of him that is violated as my own and my defending his Right as my own is my Loving my Neighbour as my self And as it was good for us that we had such forefathees as laid for as such foundations of Liberty as cannot be shaken or removed for if they could experience tells that long ago we might have been made instead of free-born English men as slaves in Turkey So it were good we would value prize and be so tenacious of these Fundamentals that have preserved our Lives Liberties and Properties to us as we may deliver them entire to our Posterities as that which is their only Security of their Earthly All. For This is the strong man armed that keepeth not only the house and goods but the good man himself and all he hath from spoiling For our Fundamental Laws are not only Laws themselves but the Rule and Standard of all future Laws and that which is the Judge of Laws in order to the securing our Liberties and Freedoms or else where were our Foundation For if an Act of Parliament could pull it up it had never lain to this day That this is clear you may see in the Case of Dudley and Empson For Dudley and Empson had an Act of Parliament to justifie their proceedings yet could not that Act of Parliament justifie either them or it self for that being made as this Act against Conventicles directly against our Fundamental Laws and our English Rights by impowring Dudly and Empson as this Act doth the Justices of Peace to Examine and determine English-men without Legal Process and Judgment of their Peers which is one of our great Fundamentals they not only Condemned Dudley and Empson but the Act it self as Illegal and good Reason for how otherwise could Dudley and Empson ere have been hanged since they had a Law of King Lords and Commons to defend them unless the Law it self pardon the manner of speaking had been Illegal And how could a Law of King Lords and Commons be Illegal if there were not a Measure and Standard of the very Laws themselves that made and judged it so and what Standard could that be could so judge it but our Fundamentals against which it was made But that I may not seem to beg so Great a Question upon which no less than all we have as English-men depends I will give you one clear Proof which may very well serve for many for it is the acknowledgment of King Lords and People upon the very point I am upon and in that very sence I urge it that you may see that this is no Novelty but was the declared Opinion of all England for above four hundred years ago which at that time as the Lord Cooke and others was but in affirmance of our then most Antient Fundamental Laws and it is the Anathema administred in the great Hall at Westminster at the Restoring and Confirmation of Magna Charta the third of May in the Year of our Lord 1253 King Lords and People being present consenting to it The words are these We Excommunicate Accurse and from the Benefit of Holy Church Sequester all that secretly or openly by Déed Wordor Counsel do make Statutes pray mark or observe Them being made or that bring in Customs or that kéep Them being brought in against the said Liberties of MAGNA CHARTA the Writers Lawmakers observe I beseech you Councellors and the Executors of them and all those that shall presume to Iudge against them These are not dark nor mysterious terms that will admit of divers Constructions but plain sound Words not subject to mistakes or doubtings By which you see what I affirmed First that our Fundamentalls are the Standard and Touchstone of all Laws Secondly That the Legislative Power it self is tied up under a dreadful Curse from making any Statute or Law against them Thirdly If they should adventure to do it the People are obliged by the same Curse to disobey the Laws they make and to give obedience to Magna Charta as if that Law had never been made And what were this but to oblige the People to an impossibility Nay to destroy themselves if any Law could be made by any whomsoever to Null it Hereby you may see the Value our Ancestors put upon our English Liberty how jealous they were of it That for fear we should be deprived of the true enjoyment thereof they would not trust their very Parliaments no not under so solemn an Obligation with the keeping of them any further forth than if they kept them not it should be lawful for the People to disobey their Laws and rather choose to make every individual person thus the Judge of his Liberty than to lodge it in the absolute power of any to dispoyl them of it Knowing that that Liberty could but bring upon their Posterity little tumults and confusions for a season but the other would imbondage enslave and
The Englishman OR A Letter from a Universal Friend perswading all Sober Protestants to hearty and sincere Love of one another And a Unanimous Claim of their Antient and Undoubted Rights according to the Law of the Land as the best means of their safety With some Observations upon the late Act against Conventicles Gen. 13. 8. And Abraham said unto Lot Let there be no strife I pray thee between me and thee for we are Brethren Rom. 8. 13. If God be for us Who can be against us 1 King 21. 3. The Lord forbid it me that I should give the inheritance of my Fathers unto thee Ld. Cook The Law of England is our Inheritance yea the Inheritance of Inheritances without which we have no Inheritance Vauhan The Laws of England were never the Dictates of any Conquerors Sword or the Placita or good will and pleasure of any King of this Nation or to speak impartially and fréely the Results of any Parliament that ever sat in this Land Printed in the year 1670. The Englishman OR A Letter from a Universal Friend perswading all sober Protestants to hearty and sincere Love of one another c. Dearly beloved Brethren IF neither the holy Scripture nor humane History the Reason of the thing it self nor the general Observation of all Ages had shewn us the evil of Discord and Division yet our own Experience had been enough to evince us and future generations of the inevitable mischief destruction and ruine that attends it under the sad and lamentable consequences whereof we lye groaning at this day For the ending of which evil at present and preventing the like for the future it were good we would cast our thoughts upon some common medium wherein we all might center And the beter to prepare us for some such general Proposal It is necessary that we first consider What are and have been the Causes of our sore Devisions And my Friends the Rise Seeds Causes Growth and Encrease thereof seemeth at least in my understanding to have its Original and Continuance from some irregular and undue apprehensions in Religious mattors Not that Religion in its own nature hath any Principle of Discord or Division in it no not at all but quite the contrary being full of Peace Love Joy Gentleness Forbearance and the like and to say truth is the only thing that qualifies and fits us for Communion with Men as well as with God But because of our propensity to erre in our Understandings or Practice or both This sweet lovely innocent thing of Religion is through mistake made nocent to our selves and others and this mistake dearest friends is begotten and improved by nothing more than by our departing from those Fundamentals of Religion God himself hath laid and laying others formed by our own Imaginations in the room and stead thereof For our Lord Jesus ranks all Religion under these two heads of Loving the Lord our God with all our heart with all our soul with all our strength and with all our mind and our Neighbour as our selves And hath assured us that in these two Commandments all Religion is contained and upon them hangs all both the Law and Prophets The first doth mostly respect our inward Man or Conscience The latter our outward Man or Conversation but both together our whole Man our inward and outward our Soul and Body Many mind the first only which makes them less Humane than they ought and many respect the last alone which makes them better Men than Christians but few yea very few do reckon themselves equally obliged to both and according to that Obligation give obedience to both walking in all integrity and uprightness towards God and all men This Partial Obedience to these two great Fundamentals and Commands of God is the in-let to all the Divisions and Miseries which befall us for each Profession confines and restrains his Religion very much if not wholly within the Pale of his own Perswasion and too much thinks what he gives to any other is rather his Charity than his Duty whereas you see there is one part of true Religion ought to be as extensive as the World it self For if we take our Lords definition of our Neighbour our Neighbour is not to be understood by the vicinity of our Habitation nor by our relation as Church-members whether of our own or any other Perswasion for the Neighbour we are obliged both by the Law and Gospel to love as our selves stands not related to us as we are Christians but as we are Men as he admitably illustrates in the instance of the man journeying from Jerusalem to Jericho that fell among Theeves where the poor Samaritam proves the Neighbour and exhibits the duty thereof when both the Priest and Levite had denied it So that a Stranger in our Lords sence may be our Neighbour when he that lives next us either by Habitation or Profession may not And a poor virtuous Heathen for so the Samaritans were judged by the Jews may more exactly perform this part of Religion than the very Teachers and Guides themselves of a bare formal Profession But where there is more than bare form even the seeming power of Godliness how much is the Omission of this part of Religion to be lamented and how unfit are we to serve the whole Creation by it that yet know not to extend it to him that dwels next us The way therefore to return to Union and as a consequence to happiness is to return to our duty which is the way to both For if the neglecting this grand fundamental was and is the Cause of our Divisions the returning to it will be the healing of them again for if it be one part of our Religion to love Men as Men though they have no Profession on them surely we grievously go beside our duty if we do not love our fellow Professors as such though of different perswasions from us or go to restrain this universal Love to the narrow limits of our own particular Churches and think there is no duty of Love and service from us to any but such as are of the same shape stature and complexion in their spiritual understandings with our selves the evil of which hath so rent us Protestants tore us from one another and so wounded and weakned us that except we speedily return to a sincere and hearty affection of each other there is too much reason to fear we may become an easie prey to those that have an equal enmity to us all Many Expedients I know have been proposed and practised to accomplish this Christian Union as the Meeting Praying and Exercising of differing Perswasions together that so they might ferment and grow up into a mutual Love and Understanding of one another which is very good but cannot reach the end of that duty hear spoken of for though it may reconcile the differences of those perswasions which are nearest alike one to another yet it can go no further But
destroy them for ever Keep we therefore to them as to the Common Safety and let them that run upon us by virtue of any Law made in in prejudice of them consider with themselves though as Empson and Dudley they may flatter for a time our Fundamental Laws will be too strong for them at last For it would nonplus any person to bring an Instance of any man out of War especially that ever brake our Fundamental Laws but that first or last it brake his Neck for the breach he made upon them On the contrary we read nothing more frequent in our English Annals than the cutting off Offenders for but endeavouring to subvert them and how could that be in all Ages unless we have some Fundamental Laws That it it is the highest Treason in any to so much as but endeavour to subvert and how soon would those Foundations be destroyed were it in the power of any to subvert them and what need would there be of such dilligence in allogenerations to preserve them from Subversion if the Publick Weal and Liberty of the whole were not concerned in them Where by the way you may observe how excellently the English Law words the Charge of High Treason in this Case in putting it in these Tearms Endeavouring to Subvert them For there is no such thing in Nature as the Real Subversion of them For our Fundamentals were not made by our Representatives but by the People themselves and our Representatives themselves limited by them which it were good that Parliaments as well as People would observe and be faithful to For no Derivative Power can Null what their Primetive Power hath Establish And as if our Forefathers thought they could never take too much care to deliver these Laws safely down to their Successors That although all persons concerned in the executive part of the Law are sosemnly and strictly sworn to its due Observance and all persons that shall make any Laws contrary to our Fundamental Laws or any that shall yeeld Obedience or Observe them being made heavily Cursed yet as if they thought they could never too sufficiently Secure them to us do further appoint and order That the Charter be delivered to every Sheriffe of England to be Read four times in the Year before the People in the full County And likewise to all Cathedrals there to remain to be Read to the People twice every Year So that if we have any regard to our own Safety or the Security and Happiness of Posterity we ought to have the same tender care and esteem thereof as they had The Law of England abhorreth nothing more than the Selling Denying or Delaying of Justice and Right and as much as possible removes all lyableness to any of these not leaving any thing of Life Liberty or Property to the Brests of Judge or Justices but all to be determined by the Judgment of our Peers or Equals against whom in all Cases there are Legal Exceptions and if wronged there lyeth an Attaint and whatever Practice or Practices though never so often or of long continuance may have made Encroachments and Violations hereupon and so are called Presidents and urged for Law We say with the Lord Chief Justice Bramston We are not to stand upon Presidents but upon the Fundamental Laws and though Presidents look the one way or the other they are to be brought back unto the Laws For that is the Standard to try whether they be right or counterfeit and all such being weighed in the Ballance of our Fundamental Laws will be found too Light Nor is their Objection against Fundamentals that urge its Nullity from the Disuse thereof of any more Reason than if I should plead the payment of a Bond from the forbearance of my Creditor We must look therefore to the Fundamental Laws of the Land as to the Inheritance our Fathers left us without which all our other Inheritances are nothing worth The Magistrates therefore ought to look not so much whether they act Regularly according to the late Act against Conventicles as whether the Act it self be Regular and according to the Fundamental Laws one of which expresly saith We cannot be Disseised of our Liberties Properties or any otherwise injured or destroyed but by the Lawful Iudgement of our Peers Wherefore let all Mayors Justices Constables Overseers Churchwardens and all other Officers that shall pull or hale away any part of our Liberties Goods or Properties by virtue of this Act that hath no virtue in it know not by way of threat but admonition that though we are willing to forgive them as Christians yet as English-men we cannot forgive them Nor will it be admitted for any Plea that they should have been fined themselves for the very Fines themselves in this Act are as irregular as the Act it self And to say truth all Laws that have need of such Fines and Muâ—cts annexed unto them do carry in their very Front a suspition they are false and differing from our Fundamentals For good Laws and such as agree with our Foundations carry such Self-evidence and Conviction of the Publick utility of the whole that they need not the Spur of any Penalty to quicken the Execution of them Now to conclude It doth behove us to lay aside our little Differences and agree in some common Medium what can be found more effectually leading to this end than that of our Natural and Fundamental Rights contained in Magna Charta and other Monuments and Records of our Liberties wherein every person hath an equal Interest the one as the other So that though we cannot accord in all things as Christians yet we may agree as men and our agreement as Men will be a fair Step towards our accord as Christians For he sees but little that sees not that our breach of Humanity is one great cause of the breach of Christianity amongst us And as an incentive hereto permit me to add That if I have my Liberty as an English-man I will give any one leave to take away my Liberty as a Christian if he can because it is an utter impossiblity For if I have the Freedom of my Person to go where I will and do what I will so it be not against the Publick Peace nor to the Injury of others which is the Liberty of an Englishman I can hear and joyn in Worship with whom and where and when I will The enjoyment therefore of our English Rights is the broadest best and safest way to secure our Christian Rights whereas if we are deprived of those we cannot enjoy the freedom of these Since therefore we have so blessed a Medium as will secure the Interest of our inward as well as our outward man of our Christian as well as our English Rights and that to every one as well as to our selves and thereby making us truly capable of fulfilling the great and glorious Law of God of loving our Neighbours as our selves Let us be found my