Bishop of Lincoln Lord Keeper of the Great Seal in King James the First 's time assures us was so in his Answer to Dr. Cole Now to establish the Throne upon a Notorious Untruth is to establish it upon Mr. Milton's Vacuum where it must fall ten thousand thousand Fathom deep and know no end of falling The last Doctrine that we are to be subject to the Powers that Are or any thing that is Uppermost is at the first sight so wretched a Foundation of our Allegiance that I scorn to confute it For whereas a Rightful Title is as immoveable as the Pillars of the Earth on the other hand upon this Supposition that Obedience is only due to the Present prevailing Powers it is but shifting the Guards and in an Instant all the Peoples Allegiance bids their King Good-night Secondly All these Hypotheses besides their Vndermining the King's Throne as if he had no rightful Title to it have another Fault in them that they leave nothing of Liberty or Property in the Nation This Revolution had almost stunnied the Hierarchy and was so cross to their Pulpit-Doctrines of Passive Obedience Vnalterable Succession Indefeasibleness and Vnaccountableness of Princes and the rest of their Iargon That it was very much feared by some of their Disciples that they would not Comply nor Swear to this Government and so must leave their Places and that thereupon would be a Famine of the Word But there would be no miss of their Preaching to the World's End if it were such as is before us So long as People have a Bible they had better be without their false Glosses upon it Which the People of England have more reason to hate than King James had the Geneva Notes printed in Queen Elizabeth's Bibles for which Reason he forbad all Marginal Notes upon his Translation of the Bible In the Conference at Hampton-Court his Censure of those Notes is this That they were very Partial Vntrue Seditious and savouring too much of Dangerous and Traiterous Conceits As for Example Exod. 1. 19. where the Marginal Note alloweth Disobedience unto Kings c. But I think the Text allowed it before ver 17. But the Midwives feared God and did not as the King of Egypt commanded them but saved the Men-Chidren alive Was ever such an Exception taken against express Scripture And yet because of his Vnsensical Apothegm No Bishop no King repeated over and over again in that Conference and that Ecclesiasticus was a Bishop for which Reason the Puritans were against that piece of Apocrypha being read in Churches and such-like Clawing of the Clergy the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury said That undoubtedly his Majesty spake by the Special Assistance of God's Spirit So easy is it for those that call themselves the Church to make Men Inspired and Saints and Martyrs when they please Vpon the Prince of Orange's Invasion and all Honest Mens Rebellion as that Party do and must term it they could not for their Lives make both Ends meet and because they could not make their slavish Doctrine of Passive Obedience agree with the Revolution they have endeavoured to bring back the Revolution to them and to reinstate as just in the Condition we were in five Years ago It 's no matter for the Church of Rome's Infallibility Impenitency will serve their Turn as well and if they never repent they have never err'd Hereupon while I was a poor Prisoner and the Eldest of all those that lay upon a Publick Account in England tho I thought a Thanksgiving-Deliverance from Popery and Slavery would have reached me in the first place by Seniority but as I was saying while I was a Prisoner and before it pleased God that my Liberty fell into my Lap to which I was born and which I threw away with both Hands and with my Eyes Open for my Country's Service some Years before it was taken away from me was I sollicited to write upon the Desertion in Answer to King James's Claiming Letter at Rochester I challenge the piece of Prelacy who would have put me upon that Iob of under-journey VVork to Print the Letter which I wrote the next Morning upon that Occasion and to Answer it if he can In short I shewed that by the Law of England no Advantage could be taken of a King's withdrawing himself from the Government if it had been Voluntary as all the VVorld knows it was not without a Summons sent after him to Return again in forty Days and yet I guess the same Person had the confidence afterwards to write upon the Desertion and to found this Government upon it But I then in those early Days foresaw that their Design was to begin where the attoning Passive fag-end of the Lion and Vnicorn Sermon left off and that they intended to enslave the Nation over again with the only alteration of the Name of James into William Their Intent was that all things should run in the late Arbitrary Channel For which Reason the very mention of King James's Forfeiting his Remainder in the Crown by Vnqualifying himself for it before he had it and of his Abdicating the Crown when he had it by breaking the Fundamental Contract and by his Tyranny and Subversion of the Laws was Ratsbane to these Men and would have hurt their Passive Doctrine And therefore there was need of Slight of Hand to give a new Turn to the Peoples Delivering themselves and to call it King James's own Desertion Well then according to this Hypothesis of Desertion till a King runs away of his own accord which was not true in the last Instance nor ever will be to the end of the World the People of England have no Remedy against Oppression nor can ever be rid of a Tyrant which makes Ours and our Posterities Case worse than it was in K. James's Time For once in an hundred Years there may fall out some Vnhappy Occasion to Assert the English Liberties which never yet were so stinted as to lie at the Mercy of so Vnlikely a Case as a Prince's own Desertion We had better have been without our present happy Deliverance than have it upon those Terms for that would be selling a perpetual Estate of Inheritance for one Year's Purchase For though we have a good Prince at present yet there may arise such another Pharaoh as knew not Joseph But no doubt the Flattering Sir Politick foresaw that if one Prince might Forfeit for his Arbitrary Government another might and this would be no agreeable Court-Doctrine Yes verily it is even so For whoever acts King James's Part ought to have King James's Fate only I wish it him Earlier And I so far rely upon the Integrity and Sincerity of his Majesty's Publick Declaration that a Single Deliverance was the least part of his Care but his main End was to secure the Nation from Relapsing into the Miseries of Arbitrary Government any more So that if we should Relapse into the Miseries of Arbitrary Government which
the English of God's Providence is As God would have it Now when this is applied to Usurpation which is Robbery and Wrong in the Highest Degree and to the Conquest and Enslaving of a Free Nation which is the most outragious Oppression to say that these are by God's Providence is to say that Robbery is as God would have it and Oppression is as God would have it But this all the World knows is contrary to God's known and revealed Will and therefore as the Atheists deny God so these Men make him to deny Himself I hope I shall ever adore God's Providence whilst I live and do it with more Understanding when I am dead and therefore I shall be sorry to see the greatest Injustice in the World fathered upon it That Usurpation or Conquest or any other wicked Thing are by God's Providence I absolutely deny but that they are by Divine Permission and may use the Stile of Bishops that I allow Is it not enough to prostitute Pulpits to the mischievous Flattery of Passive Obedience which were made for publishing the Everlasting Gospel of Christ and nothing else but they must slander Providence too But the best of it is that these Interpreters of Providence who would fain have the bestowing of Crowns and Titles when it is the Peoples Gift and the reâ—â—â—â—â—ing of Westminster-Hall Law by their own iury Pulpit-Law and the direction of all Publick Affairs by handling a Text pick'd out of a private place in the Psalms are easily overthrown in the very Ground-work of their Iudicial Astrology For the Disposeal of all other things is attributed to God in Scripture as well as Promotion and if this Promotion be attained by wrongful and wicked Means such as Usurping Conquering and Enslaving a Nation plainly are it is Blasphemy to ascribe this ill-gotten Promotion to God For instance Prov. 16. 33. The Lot is cast into the Lap but the whole Disposing thereof is of the Lord. Now I say to apply this Text to a foul throw and cogging the Dice is Blasphemy and to say that God has disposed and transferred the hundred Pound Stake to this false Gamester and that now he has a Divine Right to it is repeated Blasphemy The Bible is a Miscellaneous Book where dishonest and time-serving Men may ever in their loose way find a Text for their purpose I could give so many Instances of this in the late Times as would be hateful and tedious But this I say that Eternal Righteousness Iustice and Truth Upright Honesty the Right of the Case and the Reason of the Thing must always govern the Sense of Scriptural Expressions For Iustice and Righteousness are the same in Heaven as they are upon Earth and if the Notion of it were not the same in both Places it were vain to tell us that God is Iust and Righteous for we could not tell what that means and more vain to bid us be like him in those Divine Perfections if we did not know them when we see them But if there were never a Passive-Obedience-Man left in England which I hope to see yet false Titles are of dangerous Consequence If we are a Conquered and Enslaved People as the Simoniacal Parson said by his bought Preferments we came Honestly by it for we paid the Penny for it The Hollanders have had Six hundred thousand Pounds for it besides great Sums which cannot yet be placed to Account Now I am of Opinion that these are dangerous Matters for the Dutch are Merchants We shall have Conquests and Titles bought and sold and trumpt upon us perhaps sooner perhaps 500 Years hence For not to mention Danegelt after the Restoration of the Saxons in Edward the Confessor and Harold and after the Succession of five Norman Kings in Richard the First 's Time Philip of France demanded the Sister of the King of Denmark with no other Dower than the Danish Right to England and the Assistance of a Fleet and an Army for one Year Which the Danes not complying with for fear of the Vandals on one hand and the English Courage on the other Philip at last took her with a Dower of 10000 Marks which was I believe the better Bargain But as the Historian says he therein designed a Bloody Business for the Realm of England Gervas Chron. p. 1244. Molitus est Regno Angliae cruentum negotium Knyghton p. 2406. If Philip had succeeded in this Bloody Business we have false Prophets now-adays that would have hallowed it and made a Divine Right of it in these following words And therefore it is that God though he has infinite ways yet commonly chuses to employ Men in this Service He either finds them at home that are not afraid of the Power as they ought to be or he brings them in from Foreign Countries that is these Danes and French Whistling for the Fly out of Egypt or the Bee out of the Land of Assyria In plain words stirring up a Pharaoh or a Nebuchadnezzar against them Now in obscure words here had been both Fly and Bee whistled in but for all these little Interpreters of Prophecies I am satisfied that our Ancestors would have Whistled them out The old Popish Clergy were Englishmen and were in at Magna Charta and the Lawyers can best tell Whether the Cathedrals they left behind them are not since Forfeited for not reading Magna Charta publickly to the People every Year as is enjoined by two Acts of Parliament for which reason they were each of them Intrusted with a Record of those English Rights I do not now speak of that Charter's being continually Preached down I love the Memory of the Abbot of St. Albans in William the Norman Duke's Time who not being satisfied with his Title when he was marching his Army towards that Place fell'd all the Trees cross the Road and laid Blocks in his way and harassed all his Army And when the Duke askt him why he did so he answered because he knew of no Business the Norman had there and if all Honest Englishmen had done the same he had never come so far as St. Albans to ask him that Question I admire the Presence of the Prior of Clerkenwell in the time of Hen. the 3d as I take it it is in History when in a Dispute about a Point of Right the King meant to overawe him by saying in King James's way to the Magdalen-College Men Am not I your King Yes says he while you govern according to Law but no longer I hate Popery but I love Relicks I know whom I have spoke to all this while in this tedious Address You are my Countrey and therefore I submit it wholly to Your great Wisdom and if you dislike any thing in it I wish it unsaid Only I will abide by this in which I can be positive that I intended it intirely for his Majesty's and my Countrey 's Service in Conjunction and he that talks of their having a Separate Interest ought
very Reign And though this should be Scare-Crow-Doctrine to the Passive-Obedience-Men yet it is the Tenor of all Antiquity It is the Doctrine of the Mirror in very many places It is the Doctrine of the Sevententh Chapter of King Edward the Confessor's Laws It is the Sense of King Alfred's Stile Dei gratia benevolentia West-Saxonicae Gentis That he was King by the Favour of God and the Good-Will of the English Nation It is the Doctrine of the great Lawyers since the Norman Times as particularly Bracton Rex autem habet Superiorem Deum Item Legem per quam factus est Rex Item Curiam suam videlicet Comites Barones qui Comites dicuntur quasi Socii Regis qui habet Socium habet Magistrum ideo si Rex fuerit sine fraeno i. e. sine Lege debent ei fraenum ponere nisi ipsimet fuerint cum Rege sine fraeno tunc clamabunt subditi dicent Domine Ihesu Christe in chamo fraeno maxillas eorum constringe ad quos Dominus vocabo super eos gentem robustam longinquam ignotam cujus linguam ignorabunt quae destruet eos evellet radices eorum de terra a talibus judicabuntur quia subditos noluerunt juste judicare in fine ligatis Manibus Pedibus eorum mittet eos in caminum ignis tenebras exteriores ubi erit fletus stridor dentium Bracton Lib. 2. cap. 16. Sect. 3. The King hath three Superiors God and the Law by which he is made King and his Court namely the Earls and Barons because they are called Comites as being the Companions of the King and he that hath a Companion hath a Master and therefore if the King shall be unbridled that is Lawless they ought to bridle him unless they themselves with their King shall be unbridled and lawless too and then the Subject shall cry out and say Lord Jesus Christ hold in their Jaws with Bit and Bridle to whom the Lord shall say I will bring in upon them a Robustious and Foreign and unknown Nation whose Language they shall not understand Which Nation shall destroy them and shall pluck up the Roots of them from the Earth and by such they themselves shall be judged because they would not justly judg the English Subjects And in conclusion being bound Hand and Foot the Lord shall throw them into a Furnace of Fire and outer Darkness where there shall be weeping and gnashing of Teeth So that if the Parliament of England neglect to do their Duty in this Case in not restraining their King from Lawless and Arbitrary Courses They do it at their utmost Peril for they are threatned with Destruction for it in this World and will dearly answer it in the next I have here quoted a knocking Sentence of a Lord Chief Justice of England in the Time of Henry the Third four hundred and fifty Years ago whose Authority hath been so far valued by both Sides as to be strove for The Prerogative-Men quote such Sayings as these Rex non habet Parem in Regno suo quia Par in Parem non habet Imperium Nemo de Factis ejus praesumat disputare multo magis contra Factum ejus ire And in the very Context of the former large Quotation Item nec factum Regis nec Chartam potest quis judicare ita quod factum Domini Regis irritetur Now these and the like Sayings which are often to be met with in Bracton are to be understood concerning the ordinary Administration of Justice and not to limit the Transcendent Power of Parliaments which he has so fully display'd in this place and his Rule in other places where there is a new Case or any thing too weighty for the Judges is this Respectuetur ad Magnam Curiam which is the Key of Bracton's whole Book This Doctrine is agreeable to Fortescue who says That the People are the Fountain of Power in that Expression Rex à Populo Potestatem Effluxam habet And in another place he says That an Arbitrary Power to oppress the Subjects could not proceed from the People themselves and yet if it had not been from themselves such a King as the King of England could have had no manner of Power at all over them For the truth of it is it is a Contradiction to deny that all Civil Power is Originally in the People For what is Civil Power in English but the City's Power and derived from the Community And this either limited or enlarged as they please The Intention of the People as Fortescue tells us is the Heart-Blood of the Government and is the Primum Vividum in the Body Politick as the Heart is in the Body Natural And it is impossible to be otherwise The Nation must make their King for I am sure the King cannot make the Nation And as Sir William Temple very well observes The Basis of Governmen◠is the People though the King be at the Top of it and to found the Government upon a King is to invert the Pyramid and set it upon the Pinacle where it will never stand This Doctrine is agreeable to the Original Contract which is in the Mirror of Iustice fol. 8. upon the Election of the First English Monarch which Contract is still continued in the Coronation Oath and the Oath of Allegiance Which Oath of Allegiance doth depend upon the King's taking the Coronation Oath first which was ever practised till the Reign of Henry the Fifth to whom Homage and Allegiance was sworn before he was Crown'd which was a singular Courtesy and done on presumption of the Goodness of his future Reign I might speak of the Curtana Sword the Power of the Lord High Steward and other great Officers of the Kingdom and draw all the Lines of the Government to this Center But I have been heretofore forc'd to destroy all the Reading of my whole Life with my own hands and have not since had Health enough to retrieve it and now a late Calamity hath fallen upon me that I can do nothing Only I must answer one Objection and that is That our Ancient Statute is not practicable for the King having the Prerogative of Calling and Dissolving Parliaments will never assemble them nor suffer them to sit for such a purpose But such an Objection as this betrays great Ignorance of the Constitution of English Parliaments We will allow that the King hath a Prerogative of Calling Parliaments but he hath no Prerogative of Not Calling them For not to mention our Right of having Stationary Parliaments not only Annual but Anniversary which sat down constantly at the Calends of May as appears by the Laws of William the First It is plain likewise that they were not dissolvable at Pleasure but that even as low as Henry the Fourth's Time Proclamation used to be made to know whether there were any Petitions that were to be answer'd in Parliament The first Abusion of
Law as the Mirror tells us is for the King to be above Law to which he ought to be subject as is contained in his Oath And the second Abusion of the Law next to this First and Soveraign Abusion is for Parliaments to be a la Volunt d' Roy at the King's Pleasure One of the Ancientest Remains that we have concerning the English Parliaments is in the Mirror where he says in King Alfred's Time it was made for a perpetual Law that the Counties of England should assemble themselves twice a Year in Temps d' Paix in Time of Peace at London pour Parliamenter to hold Parliament Now I conceive that these words in Time of Peace do let us into the Reason why this perpetual Law hath been broken and how it comes to pass that Parliaments could not be punctual either as to Time or Place for we had many Wars and Invasions after that Time and the Danes had the Possession of London and consequently it was impossible for them to meet there or indeed to keep their Times of meeting any where else whereupon there was a Necessity for the King to assemble them when and where they could meet in safety from whence arose the Prerogative as I believe of Calling Parliaments which if a Prince uses Honestly is rather a trouble to him than any thing else If any Person shall vouchsafe to give an Answer to any thing I have here said I desire him to do it fairly by setting his Name to it as I have done for I hate to have my Books Answer'd as they lately were in a Midnight Vizor-Masque FINIS A Catalogue of Books written by the Reverend Mr. Samuel Johnson JVlian the Apostate Being a short Account of his Life the Sense of the Primitive Christians about his Succession and their Behaviour towards him Together with a Comparison of Popery and Paganism Iulian's Arts to undermine and extirpate Christianity Together with Answers to Constantius the Apostate and Iovian Remarks upon Dr. Sharlock's Book intituled The Case of Resistance of the Supream Power stated and resolved according to the Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures Reflections on the History of Passive Obedience A second five Year Struggle against Popery and Tyranny being a Collection of Papers published by the Reverend Mr. Samuel Iohnson during his last Imprisonment of five Years and ten Days Wherein are contained these following Tracts 1. A Sermon preached at Guildhall-Chappel 2. The Church of England as by Law established c. 3. Godly and wholesom Doctrine and necessary for these Times 4. A short Disswasive from Popery and from Countenancing and Encouraging Papists 5. A Parcel of wry Reasons wrong Inferences but right Observation 6. An Oration of Mr. Iohn Hales 7. Several Reasons for the establishing of a standing Army and the dissolving the Militia 8. Four Chapters 1. Of Magistracy 2. Of Prerogative by Divine Right 3. Of Obedience 4. Of Laws 9. The Grounds and Reasons of the Laws against Popery 10. An Humble and Hearty Address to all the English Protestants in King Iames's Army 11. The Opinion that Resistance may be used in case our Religion and Rights should be invaded 12. The Trial and Examination of the New Test of the Church of England's Loyalty 13. Reflections upon the Instance of the Ch. of England's Loyalty 14. The absolute Impossibility of Transubstantiation demonstrated 15. Bp Ridley's Letter to Bp Hooper with some Observations on it 16. A Letter from a Freeholder to the rest of the Freeholders of England 17. Religion founded upon a Rock 18. The True Mother-Church Jov. p. 202. P. 24. Jov. p. 242. P. 200. P. 23. Jov. p. 248. P. 249. Barlow p. 46 47. Additional Declaration Oct. 24. Dr. Fitz-Williams's Thanksgiving Sermon for the Murder of my Lord Russel c. â—â— 26. Rom. 13. 3. Esay 7. 17.
I will never suppose in his time Himself being Iudg we shall then want a new Revolution as much as we did his But there are some Men so secure now Popery is gone though in great part it is where it was and that for such a wise Reason as never was in the World because our Allies are Papists whereas all the Papists here are French Papists and entirely in that Interest but because Popery is gone they have no Apprehensions of Slavery Whereas Slavery is Popery Mahometanism Paganism Atheism or any thing that the Prince pleases For a Slave is a Dog that must leap over a Stick and leap back again at his Master's bidding Desertion was Discussed whereby the Cause was puzzled and then there was need of a new Contrivance and so Conquest was started and it was asserted in the Pastoral Letter that the King had a Right to the Crown by Conquest and that it was a great Condescension to receive it at the Hands of the People This raised two Bishops more to pitch upon Conquest as the stronger Hypothesis of the two the one of which answered poor Ashton's Speech and the other has given us but one Third of his Sermon which has been about two Years in modelling I called him poor Ashton because I heartily pitied his Death For he acted in Pursuance of those Principles which his Answerer to my Knowledg has publickly Preach'd above these twenty Years and which were Church-of England-Doctrine or else they had none during that time I knew their Doctrine was false and the Men false and that they would never be Martyrs for it But they have an excellent hand at Martyr-making and when they have brought Men to the Gallows they leave them in the lurch after the same manner as they report the Devil does a VVitch But then they need not write against them The Answerer's Argument is That we ought to swear Allegiance to the Conqueror for so they do in the new French Conquests and the Right of War here is the same as it is abroad VVe thank him for his Love as much as if we did but we will never submit to be in the Condition of Mons and Namur till we are taken by Storm And if by his saying that the Right of VVar Here is the same as Abroad he means that we are the New Dutch Conquests as the words are capable of no other meaning I will never trouble my Head with that Matter for whenever Foreigners pretend to be Lord-Danes here in England I will leave that Controversy to our Wives who can best decide it Behold thrice Honourable and thrice Sage Representatives of your Country what is become of your English Rights You are by this Doctrine a Subdued Nation and a Foreign Conquest and then I am sure that all the boasted English Liberties amount to no more than this that our Thoughts are free and your Post-letters Frank. Another Conquering Bishop that heretofore helped to Spoil the Prince of Orange's First Declaration and to put a full stop to his Expedition by the proffered Advice which the Bishops gave King James to Palliate our Grievances and to have cheated the Nation the most effectually that could be has lately done as much for the Second Declaration and has endeavoured to render it the Falsest Paper in the World With your leave and patience I will make out my Story When the Prince of Orange had made his Preparations aud our Court was sensible of it there was Means made to draw several Noblemen to Court to make their Complement to King James which was to make a Shew to the World by the help of the Gazette that the most disobliged Peers were wholly in King James's Interest Accordingly the Bishops who hade made themselves Popular by refusing the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience and by beginning to quote Law when it came to excusing themselves from digging their own Graves were likewise sent for to Court When the Summoned Bishops came to the King Septemb. 28. the Arch-Bishop being then not well there passed nothing but Acknowledgements of Duty and Loyalty on their Side and gracious Promises of Favour and Protection from their King This surprized these overweening Persons who thought they had been sent for to advise the King in these difficult Affairs Hereupon they repaired to the Arch-Bishop who waited upon the King Sept. 30. with a proffer of their Advice which he was ready to accept and had it three days after in eleven Articles which have been several times printed and boasted of As soon as ever I saw them I plainly perceived that they were all of them deceitful and Mountebank Remedies and being urged for my Opinion of them I gave my Thoughts very freely concerning them and the rather because they were said to be very much applauded abroad I said that I was sure the King would comply with them but not all at once but he would make his Concessions so as to garnish the Gazette with them twice a week and to amuse the People with a Succession of Favours as if there were to be no end of them That these Grievances being thus Redressed there would be no need of the Prince of Orange's Expedition to take care of that which was already done to his hand and he might even stay on the other Side where he was That these Concessions would stand till the King had recovered his Fright and then all things would return into the old Channel for by this Advice he would put nothing out of his reach and by fresh Quo-Warranto's he would fetch back the Charters in a few Terms and every thing else in a less time But if he should make any shew of being reconciled to the Protestant Religion which was the last part of their Mischievous Advice it would very much impose upon the Nation though it might make for the Interest of the Advisers For the Advice was selfish I plainly saw and all over Church and tbe Ecclesiastical Commission Dispensations the two Magdalen Colleges Iesuits Schools the four Apostolick Vicars which carried the Grist from their Mill and not filling the Vacant Sees particularly that of York was the burden of their Complaint Whereupon I could not forbear saying That if the Inn-keepers of England had been Bishops and all the Bishops Inn-keepers for several Years past then they would have thought a Standing Army a Grievance which was not so much as mention'd in this Advice and which would at any time retrieve all the former Concessions I said therefore I was afraid they did not mean Honestly but intended to forestal our expected Deliverance and to intercept the Prince's Voyage but if they meant in favour of the Prince's coming their proffered Politicks would nor qualifie them to be States-men But I much more questioned their Honesty than their Understanding and therefore was sorry to see so Generous a Design as the Prince's was to be Unblest by Bishops and puzzled by a little Priest-Craft The thing was taken
right at the Hague But the first Declaration being thus spoiled it gave the Prince the trouble of an Additional Declaration partly to expose and lay open the Fraud of these pretended Remedies and partly to meet with a dangerous Suggestion which was then started of his intending a Conquest His excellent Words concerning the last are these We are confident that no Persons can have such hard Thoughts of us as to imagine that we have any other Design in this Undertaking than to procure a Settlement of the Religion and of the Liberties and Properties of the Subjects upon so sure a Foundation that there may be no danger of the Nations Relapsing into the like Miseries at any time hereafter And as the Forces we have brought along with us are utterly disproportioned to that wicked Design of Conquering the Nation if we were capable of intending it So the great Numbers of the Principal Nobility and Gentry that are Men of eminent Quality and Estates and Persons of known Integrity and Zeal both for the Religion and Government of England many of them being also distinguished by their Constant Fidelity to the Crown who do both accompany Us in this Expedition and have earnestly sollicited Us to it will cover Us from all such Malicious Insinuations For it is not to be imagined that either those that have Invited Us or those that are already come to Assist us can join in a Wicked Attempt of Couquest to make void their own Lawful Titles to their Honours Estates and Interests Conquering and Enslaving the Nation which are equivalent Words and both put together in this Declaration was so wicked a Design that his Majesty was not capable of Intending it and disclaims it with Abhorrence How then come his Priests to tell him and the whole Nation besides that this is God's way of disposing Kingdoms and that in this Divine way he came by his Kingdom and holds it by that Tenure Is not this as I said spoiling the Second Declaration But I will presently joyn Issue with this Conquering Bishop for I have not been afraid of a Conqueror these eighteen Years For so long since I used to walk by the New-Exchange Gate where stood an overgrown Porter with his Gown and Staff which gave him a Semblance of Authority whose Business it was to regulate the Coachmen before the Entrance and would make nothing of lifting a Coachman off his Box and beating him and throwing him into his Box again I have several times look'd up at this tall Mastering Fellow and put the Case Suppose this Conqueror should take me up under his Arm like a Gizzard and run away with me am I his Subject No thought I I am my own Man and not his And having thus invaded me if I could not otherwise rescue my self from him I would smite him under the fifth Rib. From that time I have had a clear Idea of Conquest and no Conquerour in the World with all his Power can have any more Right to me than that Fellow Yea says the Bishop but though the Porter had no clear Right to you by being Soveraign of the Exchange Gate and Conquering you yet he had you in Possession And therefore according to the common Saying which is most true in this case He had Eleven Points of the Law Now I say give me but the One Point of Right and I will dispute the Eleven Points of Possession with any Man whatsoever and do no more mind them than all the variable Points of a Divinity-Compass But did ever any Man in a Pulpit talk in behalf of the Eleven Points of Law and maintain Wrong against Right Why does he not quote another common Saying which is most true in the same Case That Right and Wrong is nothing but Weak and Strong Such Men by God's Iudgment are left us in the World to unteach us the difference of Good and Evil. But the Man is quite out of his Story and must begin again For Conquest even in his Notion is justling a Man out of his Seat and sitting down in his Place and this is done in an instant as one Nail drives out another But this is quite contrary to the Matter of Fact in relation to our two Kings For King William was not King upon King James's first Flight nor upon his second Flight nor during the long Vacancy which was no fault of mine that it was not shortned nor till such time as Our People made him King And we have an Act of Parliament in this Reign which declares the Realm of England to have been Soveraign during that time by ordering all Indictments from the time of King James's withdrawing till the 13th of Febr. to run in their Name And he that was not King till the 13th of Febr. could not have been so then if his English Friends had not made him so By the Doctrine of an Usurper set up by God you have nothing left you For a Kingdom of God's giving is Nebuchadnezzar's Kingdom Dan. 5. 18 19. Whom he would he slew and whom he would he kept alive and whom he would he set up and whom he would he put down So that it is the Worldâ—s End with any or all of you whenever the Court sends for your Lives Liberties or Estates Such an Usurper is a God upon Earth which it is easie for some sort of Men to make For so Calyban made Stephano his God and offered to lick his Foot but it was for what he could get by him And therefore it was Trinculo's Opinion and it is also mine That if his God were asleep he would rob his Bottle Who shall set Bounds to a Divine Authority He himself that has it from God cannot part with an Inch of it much less can that Herd which they call the People either limit or dispute it His part is to Command and theirs to Obey without Reserve Humane Laws are Sacrilegious waste Paper where there is a God amongst them and a Nation is wholly at Discretion No say they he is Accountable to God What is that to us We may be destroyed or laid in gore Blood for all that I not the French King accountable to God And yet what Reparation is that to the many millions of Souls which he has destroyed or what Remedy against the Destruction of as many more I hate that Phrase for the English Law has provided better than to make their King only Accountable to God there 's always Mischief in that Saying I know a Kingdom where an Arbitrary King had exercised his People with intolerable Oppressions for above twelve Years together by his own Confession and after that engaged them in a bloody War and after some respite but before their Wounds were well healed though he were a Prisoner himself he caused a new War to break loose upon them and was wholly secure because he insisted mightily upon it that he was Accountable only to God Whereupon though with a Regret of a great part of
AN ARGUMENT PROVING That the Abrogation of King Iames by the People of England from the Regal Throne and the Promotion of the Prince of Orange one of the Royal Family to the Throne of the Kingdom in his stead was according to the Constitution of the English Government and Prescribed by it In Opposition to all the false and treacherous Hypotheses of Usurpation Conquest Desertion and of taking the Powers that Are upon Content By SAMVEL IOHNSON Nec Deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus Inciderit Horat. LONDON Printed for the Author 1692. TO THE COMMONS of ENGLAND in Parliament Assembled THE favourable Acceptance which my Bounden Services to my Country as I ever accounted them though they were always difficult and upon the Forlorn have heretofore found in your Honourable House hath caused me to bring you this small Offering In former Days an Appeal to the Parliament was a removal of the Cause from White-Hall but it is our peculiar Happiness in this Reign that we live under a Prince who had no other Business here but to restore the Constitution which as his Declaration speaks was wholly overturned in the former Reigns and who lay under a happy Necessisty of assisting the People to assert their Rights before he could secure His own Right and Remainder in the Crown This Subversion and Overturning of the best Frame of Government in the World was very artificially managed and began at your House which has been run down as an Innovation and no Essential Part of Parliament a Mushroom sprung up in the 49th of H. 3. and founded in Rebellion as if You had no deeper Root in the Government than Corn has upon the House top This scurvy Pedigree of the Commons in Parliament drawn up by Dr. Brady was so well liked by the Loyal Clergy and particularly he was so applauded by Jovian that Mr. Petyt found the Tide so strong against him as not to venture on a Reply though to my knowledg he was furnished with a very good one But that is not so material when you began as what you are and of the two it is better to be an Upstart Authority than a silly Cypher and thus you have been represented to all the degrees of Insignificancy Your Precarious Being was told you by a wonderful Statesman who did not spare to inform you That as the King had Created the House of Commons by his Power so he would Preserve it by his Goodness but then come some of the Clergy and say what little Creatures both you and the House of Lords are Dr. Hicks lodges in the King the whole Legislative or the Power that makes any form of Words a Law He says The Sovereign Power may indeed be limited as to the Exercise of this Legislative Power which may be confined to Bills and Writings prepared by others but still it is the Soveraign Authority who gives Life and Soul to the dead Letter of them Now this is so contrary to the Constitution as nothing can be more For not only King Charles the First acknowledged that the Laws were jointly made by the King Lords and Commons though the Houses insisted upon more but also in every Act of Parliament that is made it is expresly said in the Enacting part that it is made by the Authority of them all whereas by this Doctrine the two Houses have only a Ministerial Office of preparing a Form of Words and furnishing Bills and Writings as the King's Printers use to do you with Pen Ink and Paper And in short the King alone makes Laws and the two Houses only find Stuff Now if this sort of Paradox had been advanced concerning the Parish-Chest of Barking where the Parson has one Key and each of the Church-wardens one they could soon have Mathematically shewn him that his Key had but one Third of the Chest-opening-Power and such a Mistake would only have made a Iest But in a Case of more Consequence than all the Land in the Nation if it were now to be sold is worth such false Positions are very Dangerous For if the Legislative were once contracted in one single Hand it were as absurd to say it could be limited in the Exercise of it as it is to say that your House has not Power over your own Orders to recal and alter them as you think fit What shall hinder the whole Legislative At this rate the Saying of which my Lord Lauderdale has had the Honour would have been true that he hoped to see the King's Edicts to be Laws and above the Laws for all New Laws are always too hard for the old ones And the Arbitrary Proclamation to forbid the Nation to Petition for a Parliament had been a Law if the whole Legislative Authority was in it for the L. C. I. North found it very easy to supply the place of both Houses in drawing up the Form of Words However this is very civil Usage to what you have had from other Hands for in this way you have still left you the Honour of being Clerks and of drawing up a Form of Words But Dr. Womack in his Short Way to a lasting Settlement printed by Robert Clavel the chief Design of which was to out the two Houses from having any share or Authoritative Hand as he calls it in making the Laws and was shortly after made a Bishop for the Service has this very insolent Expression The Houses you say have a hand in the Legislation So hath the Beggar in my Almes As soon as I saw this Odious Comparison I knew it was falsly applied for even the Coronation-Oath acknowledges that the Laws of England are of the Folks choosing and it is certain that Beggars are no Choosers But I humbly beseech both Houses upon this Occasion to have a special care how they suffer this sort of Men to have the Ascendant who treat them in this manner because we have a very harsh English Proverb concerning Beggars In the Year of Jovian 83. wherein these Doctrines were published and rung all over the Nation some of the Honourable Beggars that were for a Bill of Exclusion of the Duke of York in his First Desertion and were for keeping him out when he was out after their Lives had been long hunted by these Men fell into their Nets Which Bill had given us this happy Reign several Years sooner and had saved the Lives of more than an Hundred thousand Men whose Blood lies at their Door but it was then their Hour and the Power of Darkness Let that Year be blotted out of Chronology These Doctrines I conceive are Destructive to the Nation because they undermine the Power and Authority of Parliaments who represent the Nation and are the Conservers of our Liberties if we had any but those are all taken away by another of their new-adopted Church-Doctrines of Passive-Obedience which I therefore look upon as the worst of them because it lays waste all your Laws after you have made
the Crown And if he has not what has he to do with it For my part I will never pay Allegiance to him as an Vsurper he ought rather to be told daily by his Chaplains that are of that mind that he ought to make Restitution It is not Lawful for thee to have thy Father Iame's Crown or else they are no St. John Baptists A Revelation sent on purpose from Heaven cannot oblige us to be Subjects to an Vsurper under that Notion because it is a Notion of Wrong and God himself cannot make Wrong to be Right And then shall any Wretch bid us in his Name to Swear to be Faithful to acknowledged Wrong and to be False to acknowledged and unextinguished Right In short an Vsurped Crown is a Stol'n Crown it is Blood 's Crown It is true indeed that God can give Kingdoms to whomsoever he will I know it He can make them a New World on purpose for them or take the Forfeiture of the Old and dispose of his own Creation as he pleases But then it must appear to his Will and he must send a New Revelation into the World along with such a highly Favoured Prince to every Man that is to be his Subject For I am not bound to do what God would have me do till I can certainly know that he would have me do it Promulgation is of the Essence of a Law And this Extraordinary Revelation ought to be as clear and as distinct as Abraham's was for the Sacrificing his Son for it is as contrary to all the settled Rules of Right to dethrone a rightful King as it is to destroy an only Son And yet that Command was only intended for a trial of Abraham's Obedience neither would God suffer it that there should be a Precedent of an Humane Sacrifice in the World though at his Own bidding Is it not enough for an Vsurper to wrong a Prince of his Crown but this must be Hallowed by false Prophets and said to be done in God's Name And this proved by no better Argument than Mahomet's Miracle of Success and Settlement If therefore a pretended Prophet tells me that I am to own an Vsurper as God's Choice and by Divine Right and therefore he is no Vsurper I must needs Answer that the Title is far fetch 't and comes a great way and therefore I must desire to see some proof in point and shall always call for Miracles for what is said to come from Heaven And if I had but one half of the Sense which God has given me I should never be satisfied with the Mahomet an Miracle of Success and Settlement That Impostor's Come-off when he was callâ—d upon for Miracles was this That God had sent Moses his first Prophet with Miracles when the belief of them was worn out and the Iews were degenerated he sent Iesus the Son of Mary with more Miracles which did good for a time but his Followers likewise degenerated and altered their Books And then he sent Mahomet his last Prophet not with Miracles which had failed and miscarried twice before but with the Mouth of the Sword You ask for a Miracle says he Did not we Sack the City Tauris the other day and put them all to the Sword There 's a Miracle for you I confess I have loved a Good Cause in my time better than my Life but never a crumb the better for Success But on the other hand the want of Success has made it the dearer to me Success is the new Weathercock upon the Banqueting-house at White-hall for when the Popish Priests saw the Wind Westerly then it was Deus pro nobis but when at last it stood Easterly to bring over the Prince of Orange then it was Deus contra nos And so God is made to be of all Sides at that rate What if this Settlement should be Vnsetled which God of his Mercy defends as I am bold to say it cannot stand upon King James's Rubbish no more than a new Pile of Building upon the Heaps which lay in the Stone Gallery Well what then Why then in that supposed Case though the Wind be against us will I venture a weather-beaten Life for his Majesty's Service but not an Hair of my Head if I can help it for several Ministers he has In short Vsurpation is of the Devil and at the rate that any Man alive shall prove by the Old standing Revelation we have that an Vsurper is a King by Divine Right will I prove that the French and Irish Massacres were by Divine Right and that every one of those three hundred and fifty thousand Souls which fell therein were well killed and that it was all the Lordâ—s doing For there is as plain and as legible Scripture 1 Sam. 2. 6. The Lord killeth and maketh alive to entitle Him to that bloody Business as there is to make him the Setter up of Divine Vsurpers Conquest is likewise another wicked False Title to unsettle the Throne This the Prince of Orange disclaimed with detestation in his Additional Declaration as the Horridest Calumny that could be invented against him and so Unnatural a thing for an English man to join in as if it had been to be Felo de se. If this Pretension had been set up when the Prince of Orange came he had never marched forty Miles in England though he had come five times stronger than he did And that which would infallibly have Barr'd him out of England then can never settle him in it now no not though it were preach't from the Clouds as it only is from the Pulpit which they have rendred by such means very insignificant For what is Conquest Why truly it is a Publick Enemy got within us It is the King of France not at Tingmouth but at White-Hall A Conqueror is one whom no after Treaties nor Consent can ever make a King for he must have the Consent of Slaves and Minors who have nothing to give who cannot make a Will though it were their last who cannot be Parties to a Contract for that is everlastingly impossible unless Men be sui Juris and their own Men at the same time In a word Conquest may perhaps extend to lawful Plunder and to Goods and Chattels which I never took the People of a Free Nation to be But if such a Prize-Office-Divinity must needs be set up that always supposes the Right of Reprizals Desertion is manifestly False for King James must needs go he was as much driven from England as Nebuchadnezzar was driven to Grass and he Claimed as he Fled by the Rochester Letter And as for the Wonderful Mystery of dropping the Great Seal in the Thames if it was done purposely there was a very Wise Reason for it For if it had fallen into other hands the Broad-Seal of England might have been immediately employed in Proclamations and otherwise against himself As Queen Elizabeth made use of Queen Mary's Great Seal for a good while which the
rather to be made an Example than a Secretary But I humbly take my leave You Represent the Body of the Brave English Nation you have my Prayers and long since had my Heart AN ARGUMENT PROVING That the Abrogation of King Iames by the People of England from the Regal Throne and the Promotion of the Prince of Orange one of the Royal Family to the Throne of the Kingdom in his stead was according to the Constitution of the English Government and Prescribed by it THE Argument IN this ensuing Argument which will be very short I have but these two Points to clear The one of Fact The other of Right First That the People of England did actually Abrogate or Dethrone King James the Second for Misgovernment and promoted the Prince of Orange in his stead Secondly That this Proceeding of theirs was according to the English Constitution and prescribed by it First This Matter of Fact being so fresh in our Memory needs not to be so industriously proved The Act 1 o William and Mary declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and settling the Succession of the Crown recites the very Instrument of Conveyance of the Crown to the Prince and Princess which begins in these words Whereas the late King James the Second by the Assistance of divers Evil Counsellors Iudges and Ministers imployed by him did endeavour to Subvert and Extirpate the Protestant Religion and the Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom which is there made out by an enumeration of sundry Particulars And not long after there are these words And whereas the late King James the Second having Abdicated the Government and the Throne being thereby Vacant the two Houses of Parliament do thereupon invest the Prince and Princess of Orange with the Crown King Iames endeavoured to subvert the Government as they favourably word it or rather he had long before wholly subverted and overthrown the Government as the Prince of Orange's Declaration speaks which this very Act has annex'd and made parcel of the Crown and expresses to be the only Means of Redressing that Mischief There is but one doubtful Word in all that I have recited which some People make a hard Word and that is King Iames's Abdicating the Government which no Man would stumble at who had read Tully in his third Philippick who says thus concerning Mark Anthony that for his offering a Crown to Caesar Eo die non modo Consulatu sed etiam Libertate se Abdicavit esset enim ipsi certè statim serviendum si Caesar ab eo Regni insigne accipere voluisset At that time he not only Abdicated his Consulship but his Liberty for if Caesar would have accepted the Crown Mark Anthony must presently have turned Slave Now Mark Anthony by this Action did not expresly renounce his Consulship or Liberty or run away from both of them but he did that which was inconsistent with them both HE FORFEITED THEM BOTH which is the true import of that Phrase The second thing is the Point of Right That this Proceeding of the People of England was agreeable to the English Constitution and prescribed by it To make this out I need only recite the Declaration of the Lords and Commons 10 th Rich. 2. in their Message to the King then at Eltham Knyghton pag. 2683. Domine Rex SET unum aliud de nuncio nostro superest Nobis ex parte Populi vestri Vobis intimare Habent enim ex antiquo Statuto de facto non longe retroactis temporibus experienter quod dolendum est habito Si Rex maligno consilio quocunque vel inepta contumacia aut contemptu seu proterva voluntate singulari aut quovis modo irregulari se alienaverit à Populo suo nec voluerit per Jura Regni Statuta laudabiles Ordinationes cum salubri Consilio Dominorum Procerum Regni gubernari regulari set capitose in suis insanis Consiliis propriam voluntatem suam singularem proterve exercere Ex tunc licitum est eis cum Communi assensu consensu Populi Regni ipsum Regem de regali Solio abrogare ET PROPINQUIOREM ALIQUEM DE STIRPE REGIA LOC◠EJUS IN REGNI SOLIO SUBLIMARE Our Lord the King BUT there is moreover one part of our Message still left to acquaint you withall in the Name of your People They have it by ancient Statute and by a late doleful Instance that in case the King shall alienate himself from his People by any bad Advice whatsoever or foolish Contumacy or Contempt or Self-will or any other irregular Way and will not be govern'd and ruled by the Laws Statutes and laudable Ordinances of the Realm with the wholesom Advice of the Lords and Peers of the Realm but in a Head-strong way will exercise his own Self-will From thence-forward it is lawful for them with the common Assent and Consent of the People of the Realm to Depose the King from the Regal Throne and to promote some K insman of his of the Royal Family to the Throne of the Kingdom in his stead Here the Parliament laid down the Law before the King and gave him fair Warning thirteen Years before they thought of putting it in Execution for this was in the Tenth of his Reign and he reigned three and twenty Years And as for the Statute they quote it must needs be a very ancient Statute because the Deposing of Edw. 2. who was his Great-Grandfather in comparison of that is represented but as of Yesterday This Declaration of the Lords and Commons the King could not gain-say and they gained their Point upon him by it to bring him to Parliament And it is not to be believed that the Parliament of England would affirm they had such an Ancient Statute when they had not It remains therefore to consider how we come by this Record seeing it is not upon the Rolls in the Tower but 't is no strange thing it should not be there because it is the four and twentieth Article in the Charge against Richard the Second afterwards in the three and twentieth Year of his Reign Et praeterea Rotulos Recordorum Statum gubernationem Regni sui tangentium praedictus Rex deleri abradi fecit in magnum praejudicium Populi exhaeredationem Coronae Regni praedicti ut verisimiliter creditur in favorem sustentationem sui mali Regiminis And besides the said King caused the Rolls of the Records touching the State and Government of his Realm to be defac'd and razed to the great prejudice of his People and disherison of the Crown of the said Realm and as is credibly thought in favour and support of his Male-Administration The only means left us in such a Case where the Records of the Tower fail us is to have recourse to the undoubted History of that Age which was written upon the Spot Such is Knyghton's Authority whose History was both written and finished and closed up in that