it is evident that his meaning in the words before was that the Parliament by their conquering of the King in defence of their own pretended part of the Soveraignty did not gain that part which he lost nor consequently could as he saith assume the whole Soveraignty to themselves But they did assume the whole Soveraignty even that Parliament did assume it those Lords and Commons did assume the whole Soveraignty who as Mr. Baxter saith were the Best Governours in all the World and such as whom to resist or depose is forbidden to Subjects on pain of damnation And why so Mr. Baxter because saith he they had the Supremacy that is the whole Soveraignty But whom doth Mr. Baxter mean by those the best Governours in all the World and whom all the Subjects of England were forbidden to resist on pain of damnation because they had the Supreme power I mean saith he them whom you speaking to the Souldiers called the corrupt Majority or the 143. imprisoned and secluded Members who as the majority had you know what power and the remaining Members that now sit again as many of them as are living Whereby it plainly appears that he meant the two Houses or the majority of the two Houses of Parliament in 47. and consequently that they were those that had then the Supreme power and who because they had the Supreme power were on pain of damnation not to be resisted But how came they by that Supreme Power not by having conquered the King saith Mr. Baxter in that before quoted Thesis for that saith he did not give them a right to more of the Soveraignty than they had before which was saith he but a part of it neither was that to make any change of the Government in specie and consequently the Soveraignty was still according to his Hypothesis to be in a King Lords and Commons and therefore the two Houses of Parliament or Senate as he calls them in the aforesaid Thesis could not assume the whole Soveraignty where by could not he must mean they could not de jure by right assume it that is they had no right or just title to it And what are they that assume Soveraignty without any Right or just title to it some saith Mr. Baxter call them Tyrants but what doth he himself call them He saith they may be more fitly called and you must know he loves to speak properly and distinctly Invaders Intruders and Vsurpers but are the People bound to obey or not to resist Invaders Intruders and Vsurpers upon pain of damnation No saith Mr. Baxter when it is notorious they have no title to govern them the People are not bound to obey them Now what can be more notorious than that the two Houses had not the Soveraignty at least not the whole Soveraignty whilst the King was alive and whilst he was acknowledged and treated with by them as their King as he was at that very time Mr. Baxter saith they had the Supreme Power and consequently if they had it as indeed they had it de facto in fact they held it without any title or Right to it and therefore by Mr. Baxter's own confession they had it as Invaders and Vsurpers And if notwithstanding they were Invaders and Vsurpers they were the best Governours in all the World and not to be resisted on pain of damnation as Mr. Baxter tells us in one place then are the People bound to obey notorious Invaders and Vsurpers which in another place he saith they are not but yet he saith it with such limitations and exceptions as one may see he leaves a Latitude for any man to submit to any that are in the possession of the Supreme Power whether they have any right to all or any of it or no or though they be never so much Invaders or Vsurpers of it as all of them were that succeeded one another from the beginning of the War with the late King until the Restauration of our present Soveraign As first the two Houses governing arbitrarily and independently whilst the King lived 2dly The House of Commons alone after the Kings murder and Martyrdom assuming to themselves the title of a free State or Soveraign Common-wealth 3dly Cromvel the Father making himself Master of all and of servus servorum a servant of servants becoming Dominus Dominantium a Lord of Lords of whom Mr. Baxter saith in the same Preface That he did prudently piously and faithfully and to his immortal Honour exercise the Government 4thly Cromwel the Son to whom he saith he was bound to submit as set over him by God and to obey for conscience sake and to behave himself as a loyal Subject towards him because as he saith in the same place a full and free Parliament hath owned him Hereby acknowledging First That a full and free Parliament meaning the two Houses only may own or disown whom they will to be set over them by God and consequently whom in conscience they are bound to obey whether he have an Hereditary Right to it or no For Cromwel the Son could have no such Right from his Father neither doth Mr. Baxter pretend he had any such right 2dly That without Writs issuing from the King the People may meet and choose Knights and Burgesses to be their Representatives and that they that be so chosen make up a full and free House of Commons as likewise such as the Vsurper is pleased to call Lords though they be no Lords and have not so much as one Lord truly and properly so called amongst them do make up a full and free House of Lords 3dly That two such Houses do make up a full and free Parliament And such a Parliament was that with such a Summoner of it and such a Head to it as Cromwel the Son was which were the Powers that Mr. Baxter saith were last laid by and of which together with those that were laid by before he means laid by or deposed by the Souldiery to whom he addresseth his Preface to his Holy Commonwealth he hath so excessively high an opinion that he saith he should with great rejoycings give a thousand thanks to that Man that will acquaint him with one Nation in all the Earth that hath better Governours in Soveraign Power as to Wisdom and Holiness conjunct than those that have been resisted or deposed in England Where by those Powers he so much magnifies that were resisted and deposed here in England you may be sure he means not the King nor the Kingly Government though that was the only Soveraign Power that was resisted and deposed but for ought I see or he saith to the contrary he may and doth mean all others that successively usurped and exercis'd Soveraign Power both before and after the late Kings death till his Son 's coming in and consequently not only the two Houses of Parliament before the King's death but the One House
Where is the security thereby provided for the Lives Liberties and Properties of Free-born English-men when an arbitrary Vote of the House of Commons if it be believed as Mr. Baxter saith it must be by the People and be put in execution as Mr. Baxter cannot deny but it may be because it hath been may take away any mans life how innocent soever without any farther process or a legal proof of any crime against him For who is there that can secure himself from such a Vote or that can be secured after he is devoted by such a Vote from being killed by the next man that meets him in the Streets for there be more Feltons saith Mr. Baxter than one neither will the hanging of one discourage all the rest from hazarding their lives upon the same account as long as they are possessed and actuated with the same principle viz. that it is not only lawful but a glorious and meritorious deed to kill any man that is an Enemy to the Publick and withal that he is obliged to believe that any or as many as the House of Commons shall declare to be so are so It was high time therefore for the King to give a stop to such proceedings by dissolving the late Parliament to prevent the proscribing of all that were about him and employed by him and perhaps the remonstrating against himself also as their Predecessors had done against his Father which Remonstrance made by the then House of Commons as it was intended and made use of at first by the Presbyterians to begin and carry on their Rebellion against the King and his Party so was it made use of at last also by the Independents for the destruction of the Kings Person the pretended male-administration of the Government which was the matter of the Remonstrance being that for which he was indicted and condemned and put to death by the Independents And yet that very Remonstrance it was that Mr. Baxter in the place before quoted saith the People were obliged to believe and consequently to act thereupon as afterwards they did and yet good man he was in the mean time far from being guilty of any hurt to the Kings Person or destruction of his Power But why was he or the rest of the People obliged to believe either that Remonstrance or his Declaration of the House of Commons were they infallible that they could not be deceived themselves or were they impeccable that they could not deceive others neither the one nor the other For Mr. Baxter himself tells us it is well known that Parliaments quà tales as such are not divine religious Protestant or just That sometimes the major part in either or both Houses may be the worst And therefore I should think not always to be believed in what they declare nor always to be complied with by the People whose Trustees they are in whatsoever they command or undertake For if They be such as Mr. Baxter saith They may be may They not betray their trust and act contrary to the Interest of those that trust them Yes saith Mr. Baxter they may and consequently may saith he forfeit their power as well as Kings nay in some cases saith Mr. Baxter We are all that is the whole Nation to take part with the King against the Parliament as First If they would depose the King unjustly or change the Government or Secondly If they notoriously betray their trust in fundamentals or in points that the Common good depends on as if ever any Parliament did That we are now speaking of did and did it most notoriously there saith he the Peoples duty is to forsake them and to cleave to the King against them But who shall be Judg whether they do so or no or if there be a division betwixt those between whom the Sovereignty is divided as Mr. Baxter supposeth it is betwixt King and Parliament here in England and the one usurps or is pretended to usurp upon the other What then why then saith Mr. Baxter it belongs to the People to judg whose cause is best and to resist the usurping party But the People as he tells us in another place cannot themselves judg for themselves and therefore saith he the Constitution of the Government having made the Parliament the Trustees of our Liberties hath made them our Eyes by which We must discern our dangers And therefore as he saith a little before in the same page We are obliged to believe them as the most competent Witnesses and Judges and the chosen Trustees of our Liberties So that if there be a difference betwixt the King and the House of Commons and the House of Commons would depose the King never so unjustly or change the Government never so notoriously or betray their trust never so perfidiously yet if the House of Commons themselves will not say they do so but declare the contrary the People are to believe them and to side with them against the King yea and against the House of Lords too if they joyn with the King which how it can consist with the Doctrine of Co-ordination or with his own aforesaid Assertion that in some cases the People are to cleave to the King against the Parliament he were best to consider In the mean time thanks be to God We have a better and a more certain Rule of right and wrong and to be guided in what We are to believe and do than an arbitrary Vote of the major part of the House of Commons and that is the known Law of the Land For verissimum illud saith Grotius ubi semel à jure recessum est incerta esse omnia when we are once out of the road and rule of the Law we know not whither We are a going nor what we are a doing If therefore the question be Whether the late War was made against the King or no it is not a Declaration of the House of Commons or of both Houses either pro or con that will decide the question but Ad legem ad legem it is the Law that must do it and the Law hath done it For when the Earl of Essex in Queen Elizabeths time at his Arraignment for Treason and Rebellion against the Queen because he took up Arms without her Commission pleaded that he did it for the Queen and not against her because his meaning was only to remove Cecill and Cobham and Raleigh and other evil Councellors that were about her and were hers and the States Enemies as well as his protesting then as Mr. Baxter does now that he meant not any the least hurt to the Queens Person or diminution of her Power upon which often reiterated protestation of the Earls especially that of his meaning no hurt to the Queens Person the Sages of the Law that were Assessors to the Lords that were his Judges being askt by the Lords what was the Judgment of the Law in that Case
the Truth of it or as to the Inference he makes from it we will therefore examine First whether the Hypothesis namely that the Legislative Power is divided betwixt the King and the Parliament be true or no. And 2dly supposing not granting it to be so whether he doth rightly infer from thence that therefore the War made by the Parliament against the King was a just War and no Rebellion First then as to the Hypothesis it self so far as it supposeth the Legislative Power to be a part and principal part of the Soveraignty I grant it to be true but as it supposeth the Legislative power to be partly in the King and partly in the Parliament so as that the Laws are made by the Parliament as well as by the King I affirm it to be false For proving of which Assertion of mine and consequently for disproving the contrary Assertion of Mr. Baxters We are first to agree what is meant by the word Parliament 2dly How that which is meant by the word Parliament comes to be a Parliament or whence it hath its being what it is and its meeting when it does meet and its continuance after they are met 3dly What they do or legally can do in order to Law-making whilst they sit First then as to what is meant by the word Parliament in this Hypothesis it cannot be the King Lords and Commons because the Legislative power which is supposed to be divided betwixt the King and the Parliament cannot be supposed to be divided betwixt the King and the King as it must be if it be divided betwixt the King and the Parliament as the Parliament signifies the King Lords and Commons and therefore by the word Parliament here must needs be meant the Lords and Commons only or the two Houses as they make up that Body whereof the King is the Head And in this sence the word Parliament is always taken when the King and Parliament are spoken of together as distinct from one another as when the King is said to call or prorogue or dissolve the Parliament or the Parliament to make Addresses or to grant Subsidies to the King And in this sence I think Mr. Baxter would be thought to understand the word Parliament when he saith the Legislative power is divided betwixt the King and Parliament that is betwixt the King and the two Houses of Parliament Though there be many passages in this Book of his Holy Common-Wealth where speaking of the Parliament he must needs mean the House of Commons exclusively to the House of Lords as when he tells us the Parliament is to be believed by the People because they are the Peoples Representatives and Trustees where by Parliament must needs be meant the House of Commons only they and not the House of Lords being the Representatives and the Trustees of the Commons And so again when he saith the King is obliged to pass such Laws quas Vulgus elegerit which the People or Commonalty shall make choice of he must needs mean that the King must needs pass such Laws as the House of Commons will have him to pass so that the whole Legislative power is to be in the House of Commons alone exclusively to the Lords as well as to the King and to the King as well as to the Lords the King being only to declare that to be Law which the House of Commons without the concurrence of the Lords had voted to be so and this we saw and felt it come to at last and that it may not come to it again for it seems to be furiously driving that way it concerns the Lords as well as the King to consider But I will not in this debate take advantage of this notion of a Parliament I mean as it is often taken by Mr. Baxter for the House of Commons only but I will consider it as it is taken for both Houses and that not only severally but as in conjunction with one another And as thus considered the next Inquiry is how they come to be so or whence they have their Parliamentary existence and continuance I mean their being and continuing to be two Houses of Parliament and consequently whence they have the power of doing what they do or legally can do whilst they are two Houses If the Lords Temporal say they are of the Lords House by their Birth-rights because they are Lords and the Lords Spiritual say they are of the House of Lords because they are Representatives of the Clergy or because they are Bishops I answer it is true indeed they are so or have a right to be so when there is a House of Lords because they are constituting parts or members of it but neither of them can be actually and existingly of the House of Lords before there is a House of Lords and there is not nor cannot be actually a House of Lords or any existence of such an House until the King summons both the Lords Temporal and the Lords Spiritual to come and meet together at such a time in such a place and when upon such a summons or by virtue of the King's command they do come and meet together at such a time in such a place appointed and then and not till then they are a House of Lords The like may be said as to the House of Commons For if the Knights and Burgesses shall say when they are met that they are the House of Commons because they are chosen by the People to be their Representatives 't is true they are so but who gave the People leave or power to choose them to be their Representatives or to be that Body which we call the House of Commons Was it not the King could the People have done it without the King's Authority inabling them to do it or could they refuse to do it when he commanded them to do it If not then though the choice of those that are to be of the House of Commons be from the People yet the Peoples power to choose them being from the King it is that which makes them after they are chosen to be the House of Commons when they meet together which must be when and where the King pleaseth So that after they be chosen by the People to be the House of Commons or to be the representative body of the People yet are they not the House of Commons nor the representative body of the People till they meet at the time and in the place by the King appointed at least so many of them as are agreed on to be sufficient to make them act as a House or in their representative capacity The like in proportion may be said of the House of Lords also So that both Houses of Parliament as such have no existence or being at all until the King gives it them by calling them together nor continuance in being any longer than he pleaseth to continue them For
as when he saith unto them Come they must come so when he saith unto them Go they must go according to the legal and established Constitution of our Government Which being so I wonder how the two Houses can be said to be co-ordinate with the King or how the Soveraignty can be said to be divided betwixt the King and the two Houses when neither of them are Houses till he makes them to be so nor continue to be Houses any longer than he will have them to do so Indeed if the two Houses of Parliament were Bodies that were always in being as the Senate of Rome was and as the Senates of Venice and Genoa now are or such as might assemble and meet together when and as often as they pleased and continue together as long as they pleased as the States of Holland may and do now and as Grotius tells us they might and did even then when they had Kings such he means as were called Kings but were no more Kings indeed than those of Sparta were as Grotius himself tells us in the same place if I say our two Houses of Parliament were such a Senate as were always in being or might be so when they pleased and continue so as long as they pleased there might perhaps be some pretence for their having some part in the Soveraignty But when they have no being at all till the King gives it them by calling them together and are reducible to what they were before that is to no being again whensoever he pleaseth to dismiss them I cannot imagine in what sence the two Houses of Parliament can be said either to be Co-ordinate with the King or to have any share in the Soveraignty or Kingly power I am sure that according to the established constitution of our Government as they have not yet so it is and always will be in the Kings power to prevent their Usurpation of any such power as long I mean as he keeps the power of calling and dismissing that is of making and unmaking them in his own hands and confequently of acting any thing in their Parliamentary capacity to the prejudice of the Crown or of the People I say to the prejudice of the Crown or of the People because what is really prejudicial to the Crown is really prejudicial to the People also howsoever or by whomsoever the People may be and are often made to believe otherwise and are not to be convinced of their error but by their feeling only CHAP. III. The Legislative power solely in the King How far the Parliament concerned in making Laws Dr. Sanderson 's judgment of it Mr. B. ascribes the whole Soveraignty to the Vsurpers upon the Kings loss of his Part against a Thests of his own BUT although it be the King's Summons of them or calling of them together that makes them to be the two Houses and consequently that inables them to act as the two Houses or in their Parliamentary capacity and although they cease to be two Houses or to have any power to act in a Parliamentary capacity when the King pleaseth to dismiss them yet because Mr. Baxter may say that as long as they are two Houses or as long as the King permits them to sit together in their Parliamentary capacity they have a Legislative power or right of making Laws together with the King for the whole Kingdom and consequently are partakers of the Soveraignty with the King also the making of Laws for the whole Nation being undoubtedly one of the Essentials of the Soveraignty or supreme power We are therefore in the 3d. place to inquire what the two Houses do or legally can do as to the making of our Laws and whether that be enough to entitle them to be properly called Legislators or if I may so speak Collegislators with the King All that ever I heard that either of the two Houses severally or both of them joyntly could legally do in order to Law-making is but the framing and proposing or offering unto the King such Bills or materials as they think fit to be made Laws by the King if he think them fit to be made Laws also Here is the two Houses Non-ultra hitherto they may go but no further And sure it is not the proposing of any thing to be made a Law that is the making of a Law or that can prove the Proposers to be the Law-makers especially if he to whom they propose it may choose whether he will make it a Law or no as there was never any doubt made but he might before the rebellious Parliament in the late Kings time broached the contrary together with many other Anti-monarchical Paradoxes to justifie their own Anti-monarchical and rebellious Practices against the known Laws Customs and Constitutions of this Kingdom of which this was one of the most essential that as the Houses had a liberty to pass and propose Bills to the King so the King might as he saw cause or thought fit make or not make them to be or not to be Laws by giving or not giving his Royal assent unto them For it is the Kings Fiat or the stamp of Royal Authority upon them that makes those Bills to become Laws obliging all the Kings Subjects to the obedience of them or for non-obedience to the Penalties appointed by them So that the Bills are but the materia ex quâ the matter out of which Laws may be made but the forma per quam the formalis ratio or intrinsecal and specifical form by which what were before Bills become Laws is the obliging power which the King by his Fiat breaths into them as God doth the Soul into the Body to make it a living and a rational Creature And therefore Mr. Baxter who being so Metaphysical a man as he is as he must needs know that it is forma or causa formalis the form or formal cause per quam res est quod est which makes every thing to be what it is must needs know too and if he have any ingenuity confess likewise that from whence and whence only the Laws have their obliging power which is formalis ratio Legis that which makes Law to be Law from thence and thence only those Laws must have their being also and consequently if it be the King's Fiat only that gives those Bills that are by the two Houses presented to him an obliging power over the whole Nation thereby making them of Bills to become Laws the King and none but the King must needs be the sole efficient or maker of those Laws For as Forma est causa per quam res est quod est so Efficiens est causa à quâ res est quod est As the Form is the cause by which the thing is what it is so the Efficient is the cause from which the thing is what it is by introducing that form which makes it to be what it is
Objection might be this That although the Parliament or the two Houses of Parliament cannot make any Laws without the Kings consent yet the King may make Laws without their consent in some cases namely when the publick safety is concerned that such a Law or such Laws should be made though one or both of the Houses will not consent to it In such a Case I say not according to mine own but Mr. Baxter's opinion such a Law or such Laws may be made by the King without nay against the consent of both Houses and à paritate rationis for the same cause and by the like reason Mony may be raised if without raising of Mony a Naval Force for example as may be sufficient for the preservation of the Kingdom from imminent dangers by a foreign Invasion cannot be had and then according to Mr. Baxter's Hypothesis what can be said against raising of Ship-money by the late King he being the Judge of the greatness and imminency of the danger and that it could not stay for a Parliamentary Supply there being no Parliament then sitting and the greatest Extraparliamentary Judicatory of the Nation having been advis'd with by the King and given him their opinions that he might legally do what he did certainly these things considered if Mr. Baxter's Aphorism be true the King 's raising or indeavouring to raise Ship-Mony without consent of Parliament was not so hainous a violation of the legal constitution which he was obliged or had obliged himself to govern by especially after it was by his consent condemned in Parliament as to be made as it is by Mr. Baxter one of the principal causes of his siding with the Parliament in Rebellion against the King For if the King were maximè dignus istâ contumeliâ indignus illequi faceret tamen if he did never so much deserve this affront yet it did not become Mr. Baxter to give it him not only because by the highest Judicature then in being it was declared to be legal but because according to Mr. Baxter's own judgment declared in this Aphorism the King might have done it supposing it necessary for the Preservation of the publick though it had not been legal But this shall not be my Answer to the aforesaid Objection I remember what I have said before upon another Occasion viz. that A mischief is better than an Inconvenience which I think is a maxime of our Law and the meaning of it is as I conceive that it is better to run the hazard of a very great Evil which possibly may but is very unlikely will befall us than for the avoiding or preventing of it to make use of such a Remedy as frequently may be and probably will be made use of when there is no such Occasion for it or need of it And so that which was used as a Remedy for the present may prove a Malady for the future in the Consequence of it And therefore for answer to the aforesaid objection I will not say that the King can make Laws to oblige the whole Nation without the consent of both Houses of Parliament though never so much for the publick good or never so necessary for the preservation of the whole Kingdom but this I will say that though such Laws cannot be made without their consent yet it is not they nor their consenting to them that makes them to be Laws For then either the Bills would be Laws assoon as they were passed by both Houses or the being passed by the two Houses must oblige the King to pass them also but neither of these is true according to the legal and fundamental constitution of our Government as appears not only by the constant Practice to the contrary but by the frequent and importunate Addresses made unto the late King by the two Houses of the rebellious Parliament to make their Ordinances to be Laws by his consent to them which certainly being so high as they were then they would never have done if they had thought that either their Ordinances were Laws or had the Obligatory power of Laws before the King gave it to them or that he might not if he would refuse to give it So that it being not only the Kings consent but his free arbitrary and voluntary consent that gives being to all Laws the Legislative Power properly so called must needs be in the King and in the King only The Legislative Power I say properly so called I mean the very making of that to be Law which is Law abstracting from whatsoever it is that goes before or that follows after it is made for certainly neither of them can be essential to the making of it and yet both of them may be very requisite for the making of the Laws to be such as may the more willingly be obeyed by the People Now by what goes before the making of Laws here with us I mean the considering debating and agreeing of both Houses what shall be proposed to the King by them to be by him made to be Laws and by what follows after the King by his Le Roy le veult hath made them Laws I mean the solemn Preface or Preamble to them whereby it is declared that there was a concurrence of the Lords and Commons to the making or enacting of them because the subject matter of them was prepared and agreed on by the Lords and Commons and then and not till then proposed to the King by them to be made Laws by him So that the subject matter of our Laws is and always must be from the two Houses or at least from their agreement and consenting to it And in this respect it is that they may be said to concur to the making of our Laws though they do not make them For it is as I said before not the Matter ex quâ res est out of which a thing is made which is prepared and proposed by the Houses but the Form per quam res est by which a thing is what it is which is wholly from the King that makes what the Houses propose to him to be made a Law to be a Law which although he may do or refuse to do as he pleaseth yet because he can make nothing to be Law but what by the Agreement of both Houses is propos'd to him to be made a Law by him and consequently though our Laws are not nor cannot be made by them yet they are not nor cannot be made without them neither therefore I say they do concur to the making of them though they do not make them They concur to the making of them because the Legislative matter or the matter whereof Laws are made and must be made is from them but they do not make them because the form whereby they are made to be what they are is not at all from them but solely and wholly from the King and consequently he is the sole efficient or
magne Sacerdos But do not bluster so mighty Presbyter Is this the humble the meek the mortified and daily dying Mr. Baxter Tantoene animis Coelestibus irae Have heavenly minds such boisterous passions And why not may some Friend of his say can a man be too zealous for God or too angry with any that defies God or that denies his Sovereignty over all his Creatures and consequently over all humane Powers or Governours Was not Moses the meekest man alive and yet was not he angry very angry so angry that he brake the Tables of stone wherein the Law was written by God's own hand because the People had by their Idolatry broken the Law written by God's own hand in the Tables of their hearts The like may be said of Phineas of David and of St. Paul who was so angry that he wished that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The disturbers and overturners of the Church in those times were cut off which by the way is as bad if not worse than silencing Why then should Master Baxter be blamed if he thinks no words bad enough for those that are the defiers of Deity and Humanity and the Enemies to God to Kings and to all Mankind True but who or where are they that are so they are those saith Mr. Baxter in one place that deny all humane Powers to be limited by God But who are they that deny all humane Powers to be limited by God they are saith Mr. Baxter in another place Such as deny all Governours whether limited or unlimited to be Subjects themselves and under the Sovereignty and laws of God But who are they or who is he that denies either this or the former of those two Propositions Bishop Morley for one saith Mr. Baxter in the aforesaid late Book of his and therefore he is a defier of Deity and Humanity and so are others too for the same reasons as he tells us in his Paper of Recantation but they it seems must be nameless Well but how doth he know that Bishop Morley doth or ever did deny either That all humane Powers are limited by God or that all Governours are subject to God Did he ever hear me say so himself or can he produce any Witness that is fide dignus That may be believed who told him so I am sure I never thought so and therefore I am sure I never said so But because he grounds my being a defier of Deity and Humanity upon this supposition and upon this supposition onely That I deny all Humane Powers to be limited by God or That all Humane Governours are Subject unto God And because there be many that will believe whatsoever he saith because he saith it Be it known to Mr. Baxter and all Baxterians in the World that I Bishop Morley do in my own name and I am confident may doe it in the name of all the Episcopal Party that is of the whole Church of England truly so called not onely confess and acknowledge but declare and aver and avow first That all Humane Powers and not Humane onely but Terrestrial Celestial and Infernal Powers also are subject to God and limited by God that is by the Power the Will and Wisedom of God so that none of them can doe more or less or otherwise than he wills or permits them to doe and that he restrains overrules and orders whatsoever they doe as he pleaseth in order to his own most wise and just ends Secondly I do acknowledge and declare also that all humane Powers or Governours the Supreme as well as the Subordinate and the Vnlimited I mean the unlimited by humane Pacts and constitutions as well as the Limited are all of them limited by God and that not by his Power onely but by his Laws also either as they are written by him in Mens hearts or revealed by him in his Word and that as all the Heathen World Kings as well as Subjects were limited by the former so all the Christian World Kings and States as well as Subiects are limited by the latter and by the former also so as to be thereby obliged though not necessitated to observe the Dictates and to doe nothing contrary to either of those Laws and if they doe not accordingly that they are answerable to God and punishable by God for it as he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 King of Kings and Lord of Lords as much or more than any of the meanest of their Subjects This is and always was my Creed as to this parcular and therefore instead of defying Deity and Humanity I defy Mr. Baxter and all the Baxterians in the World to prove that I ever did dicto vel scripto By saying or writing directly or indirectly in terminis vel in sensu oequipollenti In downright terms or equivalent meaning formally or consequentially deny all or any humane Powers or Governours either de jure As to matter of right or de facto As to matter of fact to be limited by God or that I did ever accuse Mr. Baxter or any body else for affirming it And therefore I do now accuse him for having falsely accused me of such a Crime as is no less as he himself saith than the defying of Deity and Humanity which is a very high degree not of Profaneness onely but of Atheism and Blasphemy also and therefore highly criminal and highly punishable even here in this world in them that are guilty of it and per legem talionis By that law which requires like for like in those also that accuse any man of it and cannot prove it especially in one Church man accusing another and more especially according to the ancient Canons of the Church in a Presbyter accusing a Bishop of so high a Crime as this is But Mr. Baxter it seems will joyn Issue with me upon this point and will prove that though I did not in terminis defy Deity and Humanity by denying in terminis all humane Power to be limited by God Yet I am nevertheless a defier of Deity and Humanity because I do consequentially deny all humane Powers to be limited by God And that I do consequentially deny all humane Powers to be limited by God he proves or thinks he proves or rather indeed would have others think he proves it for I am confident he himself believes it no more than I do because I deny this Aphorism of his That all unlimited Governours are Tyrants and have no right to their unlimited Governments so that the proof of my being a defier of God because I deny all humane Powers to be limited by God depends upon the truth of this Syllogism He that denies all unlimited Governours to be Tyrants and such as have no right to their unlimited Governments doth consequentially or by necessary consequence deny all humane Powers to be limited by God But Bishop Morley doth deny the former Ergo he doth deny the latter also Well
that a free People or a People that were sui juris At their own disposal and under no Government at all if there were ever such a people in the World might not voluntarily and lawfully submit themselves to the Government of one or more Governours without any antecedent Pact or Covenant to limit him or them in his or their Government and for proof of this he must produce some universal binding Law to the contrary which untill he can doe I do and must still affirm that unlimited Governours supposing them to be no Usurpers and that they do not reign tyrannically as certainly there be some that do not are not all of them Tyrants because they are unlimited or such as have no right to their Governments upon that account onely and consequently that this Aphorism of Mr. Baxter's which affirms the contrary is false and would be Treason and justly punishable as Treason if it were affirmed by a Subject of a Despotical Prince or Sovereign such as all Kings at first were and such as all Kings in the East and West Indies and in Africk and some in Europe as the Turk and Muscovite and French King are at this day Whereunto may be added the unlimited Right and Title which Conquerours have over those they have conquered I mean such Conquerours as by a just War are become Lords and Masters of the lives and fortunes of those they have subdued whether they be Rebels or Enemies and therefore as they may justly save the lives of as many or as few as they please so and much more so may they justly govern those whose lives they have saved as they think fit and most for their own advantage as the Israelites did the Gibeonites making them Hewers of Wood and drawers of Water that is by employing them in all manner of drudgery and servile works And thus and worse than thus David did to the Ammonites even to all the people of the cities of Ammon saith the Text which he had conquered putting them under sawes and harrows of iron and making them pass through the Brick-kilns because they had violated the jus Gentium or the law of Nations by the barbarous usage of his Ambassadours whom out of kindness he had sent unto them And yet which is observable the Ammonites were none of those Nations which God had devoted to destruction and commanded the Israelites to make war upon but it was a War the Ammonites had justly drawn upon themselves with the sad and severe effects of it And what if our King having been so long and so continuedly and so outragiously injured and provoked by the Algerines robbing and pillaging of his Ships and inslaving and murthering of his Subjects should make War upon them and by God's blessing vanquish and subdue them making himself Master of all they have both of strength and wealth both by Sea and Land and of that den of Thieves it self I mean the City of Argiers might he not if he would justly destroy them all or if he thought it better for himself or more for his own Interest sell them all for slaves or use them all as slaves to tugg at the Oar all their life long in their own Galleys or to dig in Mines and Quarries or to mend high ways or to put them to any other toilsome or sordid labour and to have nothing for it but brown Bisket and water for their food and for their clothing any thing that will but cover their nakedness and all this while to be beaten as often and as much as their Task-masters shall think fit to inflict it This would be very hard usage you will say but no harder than that wherewith they have used others nor no harder than a Conquerour may most justly inflict on such inhumane Monsters and such profest Enemies of all mankind as they are Howsoever I hope Mr. Baxter will not deny such a Conquerour to be an unlimited Governour of those whom he hath so conquered and yet to have a just right and Title to his unlimited Government as every Master hath likewise over his slaves whether they be born in his house or bought with his money without capitulating with them before-hand how he shall govern them or how they will be governed by him But may not a People though conquered in a just War and deservedly made and used as slaves and Vassals by the Conquerour doe what they can to free themselves from that slavery and servitude Mr. Baxter thinks they may as appears by what he saith Page 193 of his Holy-Commonwealth where he tells us that Dominatio that is in his sense any unlimited Government is penal to the Subjects and they may escape it if they can yea though they have submitted themselves to such a servitude and consequently à fortiori By stronger reason they may doe what they can to free themselves from it if they be forced by a Conquerour to submit to it But this was not the judgment or doctrine of the Prophet Jeremy for Nebuchadnezzar had no right or title but that of Conquest to that unlimited power he exercised over the Jews by making what Viceroys he pleased to govern them and by imposing and exacting what tribute he pleased from them and by forcing their King his Vassal to take an Oath of Allegeance to him which is called the Oath of God and for the breaking whereof Zedechiah whom Nebuchadnezzar after he had deposed Jehoiachim made his Viceroy under him seeking to free himself and the people from that bondage or unlimited power which the King of Babylon exercised over them is by God himself declared to be a Rebel and his endeavouring to cast off that unlimited yoke is called Rebellion and Rebellion it could not be unless it had been a rising up against a rightfull Sovereign and therefore as God called it a Rebellion so he punish'd it as a Rebellion by giving up Jerusalem and Zedechiah himself into the hands of him against whom he had rebelled who after he had slain his Children before his eyes he presently caused them to be put out that the slaughter of his Children might be the last thing he should ever see and then carried him captive unto Babylon and kept him in a dungeon till he died he caused likewise the walls of Jerusalem to be broken down and the House of God it self that glorious fabrick that wonder of the World to be destroyed and all the Nobility Clergy Gentry and Artificers of the Nation to be carried away captive also together with all the wealth and whatsoever was worth the carrying away leaving nothing but some of the poorer sort of labouring People to dress and till the ground and to keep it from being overrun with wild beasts So that all the Jews got by this and their former Rebellion against the King of Assyria was but the making of their yoke harder to be born and heavier than it was before as
and positive command from God for the doing of it and as he had God's command to doe it so he had God's approbation of it and reward for it after it was done for the Lord said unto Jehu saith the Text 2 Kings 11. 30. Because thou hast done well in executing that which is right in mine eyes and hast done to the house of Ahab according to all that was in mine heart thy children of the fourth generation shall sit upon the throne of Israel But Jeroboam had neither God's command to doe what he did before he did it nor God's approbation for doing what he did after he had done it neither were Solomon or Rehoboam usurpers as Athaliah and Ahab and Jehoram were To conclude as the Examples even of the best mens actions recorded in Scripture do not make what they did to be lawfull any farther than as they were agreeable to the general rule of all mens actions the Moral Law of God or as they had a special a certain and a positive Dispensation from God the Lawgiver himself to doe something upon some occasions otherwise than by the general Rule they were obliged to doe and Exceptio in non except is firmat regulam An exception to a Rule strengthens the Rule in things not excepted So the doing of that which was justifiably done then by virtue or warrant of such a Dispensation is not justifiably to be imitated by any man or number of men now when no such Warrant no such Dispensation from the Lawgiver himself in so certain so immediate and so miraculous a manner as it was then is to be expected whatsoever our mad Enthusiasticks may pretend to the contrary CHAP. X. A Recapitulation of the two former Arguments from the word of God and Primitive practice against both Papists and Presbyterians BY what hath been said already partly from plain Precepts of Scripture commanding all Christians to obey and forbidding them to resist their lawfull Sovereigns though never so unlimited in the Constitution or never so Tyrannical in the exercise of their Government for who ever was or could be more so in both respects than NERO was in whose reign those Precepts were given and partly from the Practice and profession of all Christians agreeable to those Precepts in the Primitive and purest times together with the Answer to such Objections as have been or may be made from some few misinterpreted and misapplied examples out of Scripture to the contrary though by what hath been said upon these heads it hath I say been sufficiently proved that Kings or Soveraign Princes and Governours do not lose their Right to govern their Subjects though they be Vnlimited or Tyrants and govern otherwise than by God's or their own Laws they ought or are obliged to govern and consequently that their Subjects do not upon that account cease to be Subjects so as to be disobliged from obeying even such Sovereigns from obeying them I say either actively or passively that is by obeying them in all their lawfull Commands willingly and chearfully and by suffering for not obeying them in their unlawfull Commands meekly and patiently and never in any case or upon any provocation to resist rebell or take up either offensive or defensive Arms against them there being nothing to warrant the one more than the other in the word of God or in the practice and judgment of the first and best of Christians which one would think should be enough to convince all that are Christians now of the unlawfulness of it And yet of all Christians those that seem to be most opposite to one another in all things else I mean the Papists and the Presbyterians with other of our Sectaries agree in this one thing I mean in the lawfulness of Subjects taking up Arms against their Sovereigns though the former to wit the Papists like the old Pharisees hold nothing to be lawfull for which they have not a Tradition from their forefathers and the latter to wit the Presbyterians and their Complices like the old Scribes hold nothing to be lawfull for which they have not express Scripture And yet as both Scribes and Pharisees agreed in thinking it lawfull to oppose and fight against the Lord Christ so both Papists and Presbyterians and other Sectaries agree in holding it to be lawfull to oppose and fight against the Christs of the Lord I mean Kings though as neither of those had then so neither of these have now any Warrant either from Scripture or Tradition that is either from the written Word of God or from the practice of their primitive Predecessours to plead for it CHAP. XI An Objection from the Law of Nature and that those Precepts were temporary and the Primitive Christians were too weak to resist answered The Church of England 's judgment upon the case BUt perhaps it may be said though it cannot be said rationally by any that hold either of the aforesaid Principles that though there be nothing to be alledged either from Scripture or Tradition that is either from the written word of God or from the practice of the Primitive Christians to justifie the taking up either of offensive or defensive Arms by Subjects against their Sovereigns yet it may be lawfull by the Law of Nature which is the unwritten word of God or rather word of God written in mens hearts And this Law of Nature say they is as truly the Law of God as that which is written in Scripture and therefore whatsoever is justifiable by the Law of Nature may be and is lawfull though there be no express Warrant for it either from Scripture or from the practice of the Best of men in former times because it being known by all men to be lawfull by the Law of Nature it needed not to be declared to be so by Scripture nor attested to be so by any Mens Practice or Example Neither will it follòw say they that what was lawfully done at one time must necessarily be done at all times or that it should not be lawfull for Christians to doe that now which it was not expedient for the Primitive Christians to doe then because being so comparatively few and fable as they were then their taking up of Arms against their persecuting and oppressing Princes would rather have increased than lessened their sufferings And what if it were upon that account and upon that account onely for so some of these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Despisers of Government and Blasphemers of Sovereign Princes have dared to argue that Christ and his Apostles did give those Precepts in Scripture of not resisting even the worst of Princes and consequently that they were to oblige those to whom they were given no longer than untill they were strong enough to resist without fear or danger of being the worse for it To this I answer first that to have such a thought of Christ or his Apostles who wrote what they writ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
some Kings violently and wrongfully would doe and which if any of their Kings should doe as he foresaw many of them would doe all that they were to doe to help themselves was onely to cry unto God to help them and consequently that though Kings govern never so unjustly or never so contrary to God's Laws or their own as some of the Kings of Judah as well as those of Israel did yet they must not forcibly be resisted by their subjects but all that Subjects in that case can or ought to doe is to cry unto God Preces lachrymoe Prayers and tears being the onely arms the Primitive Christians did use or thought lawfull for Christians to use against such Princes And now let Mr. Baxter lay his hand upon his heart and consider who it is that in one place he calls a defier of Deity and Humanity and in another place an Enemy to God to Kings and to all mankind It is not Bishop Morley at least it is not Bishop Morley onely but Samuel the Prophet and St. Paul the Apostle and St. Peter too or rather the Holy Ghost himself that spake by them so that what was intended by Mr. Baxter as a reproach to Bishop Morley is become Blasphemy against God himself whose truth it is for the maintaining whereof Bishop Morley is so heinously reproached And therefore as St. Peter said to Ananias when Ananias thought he had lyed to St. Peter onely Thou hast not lyed unto men but unto God so might I say unto Mr. Baxter that he hath not reproached me or not me onely but the Holy Ghost himself in calling that doctrine a defiance of Deity and Humanity and an Enmity to God to Kings and to all mankind which was by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost taught by Samuel the Prophet in the Old Testament and by St. Paul and St. Peter in the New But is it possible will some say that Mr. Baxter being so sober and discreet and so meek a man as he is thought to be should publish in Print so very severe a censure against Bishop Morley or any man else that is called a Christian because and onely because he maintains that and nothing but that which was taught by Christ and his Apostles and was believed and practised by the next and best of their Disciples I answer that Mr. Baxter hath censured Bishop Morley as a defier of Deity and Humanity and as an Enemy to God to Kings and to all mankind is evident from the places before quoted out of his printed Papers and that he hath no other but the aforesaid cause for it is evident likewise from what I have now said to disprove that Calumny but the way he takes to induce his Readers to believe it is worth the observation it being the very same artificial jugling trick which I have observed him to make use of more than once before I mean his putting a false Proposition of his own instead or in the place of a true one of mine and then inferring from the false one what he knew could not be inferred from the true one he chargeth me with what he infers from it Thus by misreporting what was affirmed by us and denied by him at the Savoy-Conference he thence infers that I was grossly mistaken in the report I had made of what he said at that Conference And thus again because I had excepted against that Aphorism of his as false which affirms all unlimited Governours to be Tyrants and to have no right to their unlimited Governments He makes me say that all humane Powers are not limited by God and then infers that I am a defier of Deity and Humanity And so here likewise because I say that lawfull Sovereigns are not to be resisted by their Subjects though they be Tyrants or though they do govern otherwise than by God's or their own Laws they ought to govern he would make his Readers to believe that I justify Tyranny it self and that Kings may lawfully doe what they list to their Subjects and take away what they list from them their Lands their Houses their Wives their Children and their Lives also and all this because I say they are not to be resisted if they doe so by their Subjects And doth not St. Paul say so too when he chargeth the Christians upon pain of damnation not to resist Nero who did all these outrages and more and worse also for he caused them to be impaled with stakes thrust into their bodies up to their throats and then besmearing them all over with combustible matter set them on fire to burn like Flamboe's to give light to Passengers as they went along by night in the streets of Rome And dares Mr. Baxter say that St. Paul because he forbad his Christian Subjects to resist this monster did therefore approve all the horrible cruelties and outrageous crimes that he was guilty of or that he did thereby encourage all or any other Kings to doe as he did and consequently was an Enemy to God to Kings and to all Mankind I think he dares not and yet if this Inference of his be good against me it must from the same Premisses be good against St. Paul also for the same Premisses will always infer the same Conclusion and therefore St. Paul is or Bishop Morley is not upon this account what Mr. Baxter saith he is an Enemy to God to Kings and to all Mankind But what is Mr. Baxter then in the mean time certainly either not so good a Logician or so good a Christian as he would be thought to be I am sure he is not such a Christian as those of the Primitive times were who neither wanted courage nor force to defend themselves against the strongest as well as the cruellest of their persecuting Princes and consequently in Mr. Baxter's opinion were no better than fools or madmen to suffer so tamely and so patiently as they did not onely the loss of all they had but death it self and death with the most exquisite torments under their Pagan persecuting Princes and under some Christian heretical Princes also rather than they would transgress those Precepts of St. Paul by so much as offering to defend themselves against their Sovereigns whether Pagans or Hereticks or against those that were commissioned or impowered by them And this doctrine of the unlawfulness for Subjects to defend themselves by force against the most cruel of their most persecuting Princes was universally believed and practised for diverse hundreds of years after Christ without any one instance to the contrary but once onely and then that was when an Heretical Arian Emperour was resisted by his Heretical Novatian Subjects for whom I mean the Novatian Hereticks Mr. Baxter seems to have a very great kindness but whether upon this account I mean because they were the first Christian Subjects that ever resisted their Sovereign or because the first founder of them made himself a
Bishop in another man's Diocese as Mr. Baxter and all Baxterians would be or because they were the old 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first Puritans or pretenders to extraordinary purity and strictness of life as Mr. Baxter and his followers now do whether I say it be upon any or all of these accounts I know not but this I know that Mr. Baxter as often as he mentions them speaks very favourably of them although they were as much as the Orthodox Christians themselves were for the Government of the Church by Bishops and by such Bishops as the Orthodox Bishops then were and as ours now are I mean Bishops of a different and Superiour Order to Presbyters and exercising Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and authority over them And therefore there must be some particular and special reason why Mr. Baxter is so kind to them In the mean time it is observable that as They were then so are They now the greatest pretenders to strictness and severity that then took and now take unto themselves a liberty which God never gave them nay which God by his Prophets and Christ by his Apostles hath forbidden them to take I mean the taking up of Arms by Subjects against their Sovereigns though but defensive onely CHAP. XIII Sovereigns highly accountable to God The doctrine of Non-resistance to the advantage of Subjects as well as of Kings Hobbists Papists and Sectaries censured Mr. B 's Aphorism justly excepted against and the Bishop vindicated from being a Defier and an Enemy to God and Man THe contrary doctrine whereunto which we maintain might have been suspected of flattery to Kings as Mr. Baxter calls it if it had not been St. Paul's as well as ours or if because we teach that Kings are not to be resisted by their Subjects it would follow therefore that we taught likewise that such Kings as govern otherwise than by God's Laws and their own they ought to do were not accountable to any or not punishable at all for so doing Whereas Mr. Baxter knows that we of the Church of England believe and teach that Kings the greatest of Kings are as much nay more accountable to God and punishable by God either here or hereafter for whatsoever they doe amiss than the meanest of their Subjects are to them or by them and so much the rather because they are not punishable but by God onely And therefore as it would not onely be absurd but ridiculous that because a man saith the Deputy Lieutenant or Viceroy of Ireland is not to be questioned or punished by any in Ireland for what he doth amiss there therefore he is not to be questioned or punished at all or that he whose Viceroy he is namely the King of England may not or will not punish him either there or when he comes home so it is equally absurd and ridiculous to conclude as Mr. Baxter does that Bishop Morley because he holds that Kings are not accountable to or punishable by their Subjects therefore he must needs encourage them to be Tyrants as if they were not or as if Bishop Morley thought and taught they were not answerable to God and punishable by God for their Tyranny either here or hereafter and that not onely for their oppression and ill usage of their Subjects but for the dishonour they have done unto God whose Viceroys and Representatives they are and therefore should be as he is not onely just and righteous but mercifull and benign and gracious to all their Subjects Thus we Believe and thus we Teach And withall we believe and teach also That Subjects who suffer wrongfully and yet patiently under oppressing Tyrannical and persecuting Princes as the Primitive Christians did and rejoyced when they did so shall be sure to be either the sooner delivered from sufferings here or to be finally so recompensed and rewarded hereafter that they shall find to their unspeakable and endless comfort and joy that it was good for them that they were so oppressed and afflicted Thus I say do we believe and thus do we teach both Kings and Subjects and if both Kings and Subjects did believe and doe as we teach them neither would Subjects have cause to complain of their Kings nor Kings to be jealous or afraid of their Subjects More to blame therefore are they whosoever they are that teach the contrary either in relation to Kings or Subjects Such in relation to Kings are the Habbists and other the like Atheistical flatterers of Kings who would make them believe they may doe what they list without doing any injury to their Subjects and without being answerable to God for it and that either because there is no God at all or that there is no other life after this And such in relation to Subjects are the Papists the Presbyterians Independents and the rest of the Sectaries who teach it to be lawfull for Subjects when they are grieved and oppressed by their Sovereigns to such a degree or which is all one when they think themselves to be so to take up Arms against them whereby they shew themselves to be much more such as Mr. Baxter would have Bishop Morley believed to be I mean Enemies to God to Kings and to Subjects and consequently to all Mankind than Bishop Morley is 1. For first are not they Enemies to God who teach men to rebell against God and is it not rebellion against God to rebell against the Viceroy of God who because he is God's Viceroy is accountable for what he doth well or ill to none but God And therefore in this case if any God may most Emphatically say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vengeance is mine I will repay it belongs to me and to none but me to call mine own Viceroys to an account and to punish them when and how I think fit and therefore for Subjects to take the sword in this case is to take it or rather to wrest it out of God's hand as well as the King 's and to use it against the King is to use it against God and therefore they that take it and use it if they do not perish by the King's sword I mean the sword of War or of Justice here by bodily death they shall undoubtedly except they repent before they go hence perish by the sword of God Bodies and Souls too in the life to come 2. Are they not Enemies to Kings who teach that Kings may be resisted and deposed by their Subjects for male-administration of their Governments whether real or but imaginary and pretended onely of which the Subjects themselves are to be the Judges and consequently the best of Princes as well as the worst are to reign but precariò Upon precarious terms or durante bene placito During the good pleasure of the people 3. Are not the Teachers of this doctrine Enemies to all Subjects as well as to all Kings first by making their Kings jealous and afraid of them
and therefore more inclined or perhaps necessitated to weaken and impoverish and keep them under as Pharaoh did the Israelites by laying heavy burthens upon them and oppressing them more than otherwise they would have reason or perhaps a will to doe that they may not be able to rise up against them when such Demagogues as our Schismatical Preachers are have a mind to stir them up to doe so Who secondly doe what they can to rob Subjects of that inestimable reward which God hath promised to all such as suffer wrongfully and yet patiently or as St. Peter phraseth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it becomes Christians and not onely so but thirdly do engage them instead of suffering less wrongfully to hazard the suffering of more rightfully from their Princes if they do not prevail in their Rebellion and to a certainty of suffering infinitely much more from God whether they prevail or not if they die in or after their rebellion without repentance And now I think I have sufficiently justified the reasonableness of my exception to that Aphorism of Mr. Baxter's which he saith he wonders Bishop Morley did except against by having proved it to be false in both the particulars that are asserted in it As first That all unlimited Governours are Tyrants and 2dly That no unlimited Governour or Tyrant hath a right unto his Government and consequently that the Subjects of Vnlimited or Tyrannical Governours are not obliged to obey them but may resist them at least for defending of themselves against them both which particulars having proved to be false I hope I have sufficiently vindicated my self also from that horrible calumny of being a defier of Deity and Humanity and an Enemy to God to Kings and to all mankind as Mr. Baxter out of his abundant Zeal and little charity saith I am and would make his unwary Readers believe me to be not from any thing I say my self but from what he is pleased to say for me and then as if I had said it my self to infer from it the calumny which he before intended but could not tell how to doe it otherwise to fix upon me Of which disingenuous and insincere artifice of his as I said before we have seen several Instances already and shall see more hereafter CHAP. XIV That Scripture Rom. 13. for the unlawfulness of resisting asserted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly rendred to Resist and implies more than simply Not to obey Our Translation Vindicated against Mr. B. and others who censure it and vary from it as he often doth ANd yet before we proceed any farther we are to take notice of and remove a shrewd Remora or obstruction out of the way which Mr. Baxter hath laid to take away from us the authority of one of the principal places of Scripture whereon we ground our doctrine of the Vnlawfulness of resisting of Sovereigns by their Subjects in any case or upon any provocation whatsoever and that is the 13 Chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans and in that Chapter especially upon the 2d Verse whereof the words in Greek are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which by our last and by our most authentical Translation are rendred in English thus Whosoever resisteth the power viz. the Sovereign Power or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the higher power as it is called in the verse before resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation And it is against our Translation of some words or rather of one of the words in this Verse that Mr. Baxter makes this objection not against the word power nor as Sovereign power is meant by it though contrary to St. Paul's meaning and the truth of the Roman History he will have the Sovereign Power there meant not to be in the Emperour alone but in him and the Roman Senate also as he faith it is in the King and Parliament here in England and one as truly as the other neither doth he except against the translation of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the word damnation though it always doth not signifie so severe a judgment but he tells us that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not properly translated by the word resisting And why so because saith he There is a Resistance contrary to Subjection and that is forbidden and there is a Resistance not contrary to Subjection and that is not forbidden Might he not as well have said there is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to resist contrary to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be subject and there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to resist not contrary to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be subject And therefore St. Paul did not speak properly when he opposed the one unto the other and yet St. Paul tells the Corinthians who were Grecians that he spoke more languages than they all and no doubt understood the propriety of them as well as they did Howsoever we are sure that St. Paul understood God's meaning and how to express it so as he would have it to be understood neither is it to be doubted but that a commissioned Company of so many learned men as were employed in the last and most accurate Translation of our English Bible did very well understand St. Paul's meaning as he expressed it in Greek and knew how to render it as properly in English as any one private man ought in modesty to think he can or could have done especially if he be no greater a Critick in the Greek language than Mr. Baxter appears to be by the several Instances a learned man gives of his many gross mistakes of the meaning of several Greek words quoted by him in his Church History which I would not have observed but that I find Mr. Baxter so full and fond of his mendings of the magnificat I mean his frequent and needless finding fault with our Churches Translation And truly I could wish that even such as are more skilfull in the Original Languages in which the Scriptures were written than Mr. Baxter seems to be would forbear in their popular Sermons and in their English Treatises to censure so boldly as some of them do such and such places of Scripture as they have or take occasion to speak of as either not truly or not properly translated in our Bibles when there is no necessity for their so doing and when they may thereby give occasion to their unlearned Auditours or Readers to doubt of any other and perhaps of all other places of Scripture as well as of those by them quoted and censured viz. Whether they be truly or properly translated or no which may bring them at length to question and doubt of the truth of the whole written word of God and whither that may bring them God knows perhaps to Quakerism or some other kind of Fanaticism or perhaps to downright Atheism And therefore I say I
their Preachers to joyn with a factious ambitious and discontented Party of the Nobility Gentry and Commons in a Rebellion against our late Sovereign Lord of ever blessed memory upon as false and groundless a pretence as that was against the King of France For as there the People were made to believe by their Popish Preachers that their Religion was in danger and that their King was an Hugonott or Presbyterian though as I said before he indeed was as he prosessed himself to be a very zealous and rigid Papist and had given more than proof enough that he was so Even so our People here were by their Presbyterian and other their Schismatical Preachers made to believe that the Protestant Religion here was in very great danger and that Popery was very likely to be brought in because the King was a Papist or Popishly affected at least whereas it was evident to all the world both by his Profession and his Practice that he was as truly a zealous and devout Protestant as any the best of his Protestant Subjects and moreover as resolute a defender of the Protestant Faith as it is setled and established by Law in the Church of England against both Papists and Schismaticks as any King could or ought to be I might add as knowingly so too as ever any King was but his Father onely And yet thousands of his Subjects were made to believe that he was a Papist in his heart and upon that account were perswaded and engaged to fight against him nay many of them were made to believe that the Protestant Religion it self as it was established by Law was but disguised Popery and that the Common Prayer Book was but the Popish Missal or Mass Book translated into English and that the Bishops with all the Episcopal Clergy were an Antichristian Hierarchy and were or would be all of them Vassals to the Pope as soon as they had an opportunity safely to profess themselves to be so Now if the People could be made to believe as we see they were that such a King as He was and such a Church as Ours is were Popish or Popishly affected against all Evidence both of reason and of sense to the contrary what is there that they cannot be made to believe and consequently what security can there be for Kings from their Subjects either for their Power or their Persons or for Subjects from their fellow Subjects or for preserving of the publick Peace for a moment onely If there be any one I say any one case of any kind in any degree wherein Subjects may be allowed without scruple of Conscience to take up Arms against their Sovereign that one as I said before shall always be pretended and believed to be the Case as often as the contrivers and trumpeters of Sedition and Rebellion will have it to be so though there be no ground or reason at all for it as it is evident there was not in either of the aforesaid Instances or Examples I know there were other pretences besides that of Religion to justifie the Rebellion against the late King as his breach of Trust his violation of Laws his bringing or endeavouring to bring in Arbitrary Government and as Mr. Baxter would have it to be believed though Grotius thinks it incredible that any King in his wits should do so his professing himself an Enemy to the whole body of the People by making War against them all as if he meant to be a King without Subjects and finally whatsoever was thought to be most likely to make either his Person or his Government or both to be feared and hated by the whole Nation though really and truly there was no more ground for any of them than there was for his purpose of bringing in Popery which though the Grandees of the Faction knew well enough yet they knew too that it would serve their turn as well as if it were true if the People could be made to believe it was so and withall that they might lawfully nay that they were bound in conscience with their Lives and Fortunes to defend themselves their Wives and Children from being made slaves for that 's the style it must run in by the King or his Evil Counsellours who ought to be brought to condign punishment by force if it cannot be done by Law against which the People were made to believe the King did protect those Evil Counsellours of his And by this means was that Good that Godly that Gracious that Just and every way Vertuous King of ours brought first to be rebell'd against and at last to be murthered by his own Subjects in his capital City and before his own Palace gates And thus may the best Prince that ever was will be or can be in the World be exposed traduced and ruined and the best Government in the World be brought to confusion and dissolution and all the Subjects for fear of an imaginary slavery be made Slaves indeed to those whom they helped to make them so there being no way to secure any Prince State or People from being always obnoxious to these fatal mischiefs but the maintaining of this Axiom or Maxim of true Policy as Sacred and inviolable viz. That Sovereigns are not forcibly to be resisted by their Subjects in any case or upon any provocation whatsoever And that this Maxim may be kept Sacred and inviolable as being the Palladium the Preservative of the publick peace and of the very being as well as of the well-being of Humane Society it ought to be the special care of him or them that have the Supreme Power to forbid under very severe penalty the printing preaching or any way infusing or insinuating into the ears or hearts of the People any Doctrine to the contrary as being not onely false and erroneous but dangerous and Seditious also so seditious and so dangerous that if the Sovereign have not power to secure himself from the Pulpit and the Press or if he do not make use of that power I am afraid that it is not his Scepter nor his Sword that will be able to secure him from his People or his People from themselves I mean from cutting the throats of one another The End of the Second Section SECTION III. The late War in England against the King proved to have been a Rebellion whatever Mr. Baxter plead or argue in defence or justification of it CHAP. I. The late War proved to have been made against the King and consequently to be Rebellion The Parliaments Declaration discuss'd together with the danger of Arbitrary Votes The Judges opinion in the Earl of Essex his Case in Queen Elizabeths time The Presbyterian Clergy charged with the Rebellion AND thus having as I conceive sufficiently proved it to be unlawful for Subjects to rise up in Arms against their Sovereign in any case or upon any provocation whatsoever as being not only contrary to the Precepts of the Gospel and the Practice of
Party if They were Rebels as I think They have acknowledged themselves to be by suing for and taking out their Pardons for their Rebellion Neither can the Bishops and the Episcopal Clergy be so answerable to God and the World for the dissoluteness debauchery and Profaneness of those of their Party were it as general and as great as Mr. Baxter would have it believed to be as the Schismatical Clergy are for the Rebellion against the King their Sacrilege against God and for the plundering and murthering of their fellow Subjects by those of their Party because none of them can say with any colour of truth or credibility that any of our Clergy did ever incourage any of our Party to be dissolute or debauch'd or profane or blasphemous or Atheistical in any kind or in any degree much less did We commend them for being so or pray to God to make them so or thank God because they were so but We can say and say it truly that the Schismatical Clergy were not only Rebels and the greatest of Rebels themselves but did what they could by preaching and praying and fasting and thanksgiving to make the whole Nation as they did all that were their Proselytes to be Rebels if at least the fighting of Subjects against their Sovereign be Rebellion or if those that are guilty of hurt to the Person of the King or destruction of his Power be Rebels as Mr. Baxter saith they are CHAP. II. The Destruction of the King's Power by the Presbyterians as afterwards of his Person by the Independents c. proves the late War to have been made against the King and consequently to have been Rebellion whatever the Parliament declared to the contrary NOW that all those that fought and that commissioned and encouraged others to fight in the late War were guilty of the Destruction of the King's Power is so undeniably evident and apparent that it needs no proof Unless Mr. Baxter will say that the King never had any Power at all for I am sure they brought him to that pass by that War that he had no power at all at last witness his condition at Holmby where he was so far from having the Power of a King that he had not the Liberty of a Subject neither as to the liberty of his Person or of his Conscience For they would not allow him one of his own Chaplains to assist him in the service of God And to this diminution or rather annihilation of power was that good King brought by those who were all of them commissioned by the Presbyterian Parliament and many thousands of them encouraged by Mr. Baxter himself as Mr. Baxter himself confesseth so that if those that were guilty of the destruction of the King's Power were Rebels as Mr. Baxter saith he will not gainsay but they were then Mr. Baxter and those of the Presbyterian Party were all of them Rebels For it was whilst that Party was in power and it was by that power of theirs that the King's Power was destroyed and he left utterly unable to defend himself against the Independents Anabaptists and other Fanaticks who after his Power was destroyed by the Presbyterians destroyed his Person also And therefore supposing but not granting that neither Mr. Baxter nor any other of the Presbyterian Party had intended any hurt to the King's Person yet that will not absolve them from being guilty of the hurt that was done unto his Person or of the King's murther no more than those Thieves who as Salmasius saith having robbed and disarmed a man and left him bound hand and foot to be devoured of wild Beasts because they do not actually hurt or kill him themselves can be said not to be guilty of his death if afterward by a Lion or a Bear or a Wolf he be destroyed and devoured And thus much for proof that the late War was made against the King notwithstanding the Parliament as Mr. Baxter calls it declared to the contrary and consequently was a Rebellion properly so called as likewise for proof that those that were engaged or did engage others in that War whatsoever their intentions were or might be they were all of them guilty of the destruction of the King's Power and consequently perfidious Rebels and worse than Whoremongers Drunkards and Murtherers in Mr. Baxter's own judgment notwithstanding his Protestation to the contrary We have done skirmishing with Mr. Baxter's fordorn-hope and a forlorn-hope it was indeed if he did hope he could induce any to believe not only against their reason but against their sence also that which verily I believe he doth not believe himself namely that the late War was not made against the King I am sure he did not at least he was not bound to believe it as he saith he was because his and the Peoples Trustees for their Liberties that is the House of Commons had declared it was not unless he will say that the House of Commons is such a body of men as is either infallible or impeccable so that whatsoever they or the major part of them declare must needs be so as they declare it to be and that the People are bound to believe it to be so because they have no other way to inform themselves but by their Trustees and because these are such Trustees as they are sure will not cannot betray the trust reposed in them and yet Mr. Baxter himself saith as I noted before that the Major part of both Houses may be the worst and such as the People are bound to take part with the King against them How then can he with any ingenuity or hope to be believed say that he and the People were bound to believe that the late War was not made against the King because one or both Houses of Parliament had declared it was not And yet this is the only Argument he brings for the proof of it But truth will out sometimes before a Man is aware and though he takes never so much care to suppress it For whereas in the place before quoted Mr. Baxter though he confesseth he fought against the Kings Soldiers yet he affirms he fought not against the King thereby implying that he thought it unlawful to fight against the King though not against those commissioned by him yet in another place he saith it is no resisting of Power but of Injustice to fight against the King and his Soldiers for the common good thereby implying that to fight against the Kings Soldiers or his Army is to fight against the King or that it is as lawful to fight against the one as against the other and consequently it is evident that notwithstanding the Parliaments Declaration to the contrary Mr. Baxter himself did believe the late War to be made against the King and must therefore have been at least in this particular an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one self-condemn'd in pretending he did and was bound to believe
maker of them And yet because he cannot make them but of such materials as are by the two Houses prepared and proposed unto him therefore they are said in the common and modern stile to be enacted not by the King only but by the King Lords and Commons that is by the King and the two Houses also to the end that the People who are to be governed by them may as I said before the more willingly submit to them when they know that although they are called the Kings Laws as being made by him yet the materials whereof they were made were first devised debated digested and agreed on and then suggested to the King not only by the Lords but by the House of Commons also that is by their own Representatives and Trustees and consequently in effect by their own selves when they know this I say they must needs be the more willing to submit to them CHAP. VI. The Preface of our Laws doth not prove the Legislative Power to be in the Parliament The Old stile of enacting Laws why changed by Henry the VIII and why since resumed AND this and no more than this is the meaning of the modern form of prefacing our Laws and Statutes which we call Acts of Parliament when they are said to be enacted by the King Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament and by the Authority of the same which I call the modern stile because antiently it was otherwise And therefore Mr. Baxter laying so much stress as he doth upon this form of words to prove the Legislative Power and consequently a principal branch of the Soveraignty to be partly in the Parliament meaning the two Houses of Parliament doth well and wisely to say that he will not run to Records for he knows if he know any thing in that kind that this was not the stile that was anciently used in Prefacing the Acts or Statutes made by our Kings in Parliament Ab initio non fuit sic from the beginning it was not so For from the first of our Parliaments recorded by Poulton which was in the 9th of Hen. III. to the 15th of Hen. VIII this stile of Be it enacted by the King Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons in this present Parliament assembled was never used but during all that long Interval of Eleven Kings Raigns and the very many several Parliaments held by them the making ordaining and passing of Laws was in the Kings name only sometime with this addition by or with the Advice and consent of his Bishops Earls Barons c. without naming the Commons and sometimes by the advice of His Bishops Earls Barons c. at the request of the Commonalty or at the special request of the Commons and sometimes with consent of the Commons as well as of the Lords But still and always the making or enacting of the Laws is said to be by the King alone sometimes in these words We of Our meer free will have given and granted which is the stile of Magna Charta or the great Charter it self sometimes in these The King willeth and commandeth and sometimes in these It is by the King made provided and ordained This I say was the stile all along which was used in passing of Laws or Acts of Parliament until the 15th of Hen. VIII for about 300. years And then indeed it began to be changed from Be it Enacted by the King with the advice and consent of the Lords and Commons to Be it enacted by the King Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons but not constantly For in the very next King's time his very first Act of Parliament Cap. 1. runs in the old stile viz. Be it enacted by the Kings Highness with the assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and of the Commons And again in the same Parliament Cap. 4. it is said that at the humble Petition and suit of the Lords and Commons in that Parliament assembled the King did declare ordain and enact by the Assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and of the Commons c. In the same old stile likewise runs the first Act of Queen Mary viz. Be it ordained and enacted by the Queen our Soveraign Lady with the consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and of the Commons c. The like we find in the Raign of Queen Elizabeth as may be seen in the Act of Vniformity made by Her and prefixed in our Common-Prayer-Book to another Act of the same kind made by our present King For in that of Queen Elizabeth the stile is Be it enacted by the Queens Highness with the consent of the Lords and Commons in this Parliament assembled c. And in that of our present King it is Be it enacted by the Kings most Excellent Majesty by the advice and with the consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and of the Commons in this Parliament assembled c. So that the first of the two Proofs Mr. Baxter alledgeth for the Legislative power in the Parliament as well as in the King and consequently their participating with him in the Soveraignty is not so convincingly conclusive from the stile used in the Preface to Acts of Parliament as he would have it thought to be but that it may without immodesty be contradicted though he tells us it cannot because saith he the Laws expresly speak their Authority when they say Be it enacted by the King Lords and Commons in Parliament and by the Authority of the same It is not saith he upon their Petition or Proposal only but by them or by their Authority But did the Laws anciently speak thus at all or do all of them speak thus in all our modern and later Acts I think I have given him Instances of both sorts to the contrary and such and so many Instances as must carry the Question if it be to be decided by the speaking of the Laws either in regard of their Antiquity or Plurality For as I said before all Laws made before Hen. VIII speak and speak expresly the King and none but the King to be the maker of them as may appear by the Instances before given and of many more that might have been given even as many more as there were Acts of Parliament during the Reigns of so many Kings for 300. years during which time I cannot find so much as one single instance of any Law which is said to be enacted by King Lords and Commons but by the King with the advice and consent of the Lords and Commons when most is ascribed to them I mean to the Commons for sometimes it is upon the request and sometimes upon the humble Petition of the Commons and with the advice and consent of the Lords that the Law is said to be enacted by the King So that if as I said before the question of who are the Law-makers be to be decided by the speaking of the Laws
as appears by what I have already said not only of Paternal but of Regal Government and that not only under the first Kings quorum Arbitria pro Legibus erant whose wills and pleasures past for Laws but under all Kings that have ever since and do now govern arbitrarily and despotically as many do in all parts of the World none of which can be imagined to have made any such contract with their People or their People with them as Mr. Baxter speaks of The like may be said of Conquerors and the People subdued by them If Mr. Baxter replies that it is of such a People as are free and sui Juris at their own disposal only that he speaks when he saith that there is no such People that do absolutely subject themselves unto their Soveraign without reserving any Rights or Liberties to themselves I say this is false also whether he mean that no such People can do so or that no such People have done so For first if a Man that is free may make himself a Servant to whomsoever he will and such a Servant as shall be wholly at the disposing of his Master without reserving any thing of Liberty or Propriety unto himself as we see it was ordinary for Men to do not only among the Gentiles but among the Jews themselves insomuch that some of them chose to continue Bondmen when by the Jubilee they might have been made free And why may not any number of Men whether they be a City or a Nation being free and sui Juris or at their own disposing give themselves up if they will and think it to be best for them to be arbitrarily governed by some other more powerful State or Prince without any antecedent compact condition or reservation 2dly That any free People may do so it is evident because some free People have done so for example the People of Campania a Province of Italy being then a free State subjected themselves to the People of Rome in this form of words Populum Campanum Vrbemque Capuam Agros Delubra Deûm Divina Humanaque omnia in vestram Patres Conscripti ditionem dedimus We surrender and give up into your power Lords of the Senate the whole People of Campania and the City Capua our Lands the Temples of our Gods in a word all whatever concerns either Church or State God or Man Et quid obstat saith Grotius what hinders why any other People may not subject themselves and all that they have to any one powerful Man or Prince in the same manner Certainly saith he there were many Nations that did so and lived very happily under such a Government so that if Mr. Baxter thinks that there never was any Government submitted unto by any free People but upon an antecedent contract and a reserve of some Liberties and Priviledges to themselves to be always exempted from the Jurisdiction of Him or them to whom they became Subjects He is much mistaken But if by Government he means the Government of this Nation of ours in particular when he saith he takes it for undeniable that it was constituted by Contract and that in the Contract the People have not absolutely subjected themselves unto the Soveraign without reserving any Rights and Liberties unto themselves exempted from the Princes power for the securing of which the Parliament are their Trustees If this be his meaning I say I demand of Him first when was this Nation of ours a free People and when was it under any Government but that of Kings surely never since that of the Romans who governed them as a Province arbitrarily and despotically by their Lieutenants whom they sent hither and so did their British Saxon and Danish Princes for the most part for ought appears in any of our Historians to the contrary or if some of them governed by Laws as Ina Alfred and some others of the Saxon Kings and Canutus the Dane did yet the Laws whereby they governed were all of them made by themselves after they were Kings and not by way of compact with their Subjects No more were the Laws of Edward the Confessor himself which were the Subject matter of Magna Charta or the great Charter containing all the Rights Immunities and Liberties of the People but not as bargained for by them before their admitting of any of their Kings to be Kings but indulged unto them and conferr'd upon them by the Donation and Concession of their Kings who partly of their own accord and partly by the Advice of the Lords and Bishops of their Council did make those Laws in favour of the People not only without being aforehand obliged by Compact or Contract with the People to do so but without so much as advising with them or any Representatives of theirs when they did so there being no such Parliaments and consequently no such Representatives of the People as there are now until the Raign as I said before of Henry the First after the Conquest for He was the first of our Kings say our Chronicles that instituted the form now in use of the High Court of Parliament for before his time only certain of the Nobility and Prelates of the Realm were called to consultation about the most important affairs of the State but he caused the Commons also to be Represented by Knights and Burgesses of their own choosing and made that Court saith the Historian to consist of three parts the Nobility the Clergy and the Common People representing the whole Body of the Realm So that before this there were no Representatives of the Peoplé of their own choosing to be their Trustees for the securing to them their pretended reserved Rights and Exemptions by an antecedent contract or compact made betwixt them and him that was to govern them whilst they were yet free and before he was their Governour and therefore this supposition of such a compact or contract betwixt the King before He was King and the People before they were his Subjects here in this Kingdom which Mr. Baxter saith he takes for undeniable is undeniably a meer fiction of his own Imagination and Invention and consequently whatsoever is by him grounded upon this supposition is not only fallacious but altogether false and fictitious also CHAP. XI Mr. B. 's Justification of the late Rebellion from this Compact c. The King's Coronation-Oath doth not prove any such Compact c. nor can it be proved by any authentick Record The state of affairs during the Vsurpation BUT true and undeniably indeed true it is that the People of England have now and have had long for many Generations even from Henry the First 's time such Priviledges Liberties and Immunities as are contained and specified in Magna Charta and such Representatives in Parliament for the asserting of those Priviledges and to see that no Laws should be made for them without their consent to them but that they
Bilson as also his helping effectually together with the Bishop of Ely to bring Mr. B. and his party under and lastly his causing Mr. Jones to be put out of the Duke's Service CHAP. I. The Reason why the Bishop advised Mr. B. to reade Hooker and Bilson and Mr. B 's fraud in giving the account laid open THe rest of those things he chargeth me withall being of much less importance I shall consider with much more brevity both for the Reader 's sake and my own And I will begin with that which indeed would be of no importance at all and consequently not worth the taking notice of but that there is something of art and fraud concealed in it which ought to be detected to manifest Mr. Baxter's constant disingenuous and insincere dealing with those he writes against either by making them say what they did not and then concluding what he lists from it or by hudling things together that were said upon several occasions and to several ends and purposes as if they had been said upon one and the same occasion and to one and the same end and purpose Of the former of those jugling Arts of his I have given divers Instances already I shall now give one of the latter also For whereas he saith I advised him to reade BILSON and HOOKER it is very true I did so but whereas he adds that he found in them more than he approved for resisting and restraining Kings he would have it to be understood that I advised him to reade both those Authours upon one and the same Subject namely concerning the resisting and restraining of Kings which he knows to be false For I did not advise him to reade either the one or the other of those Authours or any Authour else upon that Argument there being nothing at that time either in Debate or Discourse betwixt him and me but of the Service and Ceremonies of our Church and of the Government of the visible Catholick Church in all Ages and in all places And as touching the former I advised him to reade Hooker's Ecclesiastical Policy so touching the latter Bishop Bilson but what Book of Bishop Bilson's Not that of Christian Subjection as he would make his Readers to believe it was but his Book of the perpetual Government of Christ's Church in defence of Episcopacy So that in saying I advised him to reade Hooker and Bilson and adding that he found more in them than he approved for resisting and restraining of Kings it is evident that he did fallaciously intend to make his Readers believe First That I advised him to reade both those Authours for his better information in one and the same thing whereas that for which I advised him to reade Mr. Hooker was the justification of the Rites and Ceremonies and outward form of worship in our Church and that for which I advised him to reade Bishop Bilson was to convince him that the Church of Christ had been always governed as ours is by Bishops Secondly By what he saith he would have it be lieved also that the thing for which I advised him to reade the aforesaid Authours was to inform him what he was to believe concerning the lawfulness or unlawfulness of Princes being resisted by their Subjects whereas in that Book of Bishop Bilson's which I advised him to reade there is nothing at all of that Argument nor in Mr. Hooker neither Thirdly He would make his Readers to believe also that I approve of what both or either of those Two Authours hold to the prejudice of Princes but he himself doth not and consequently that he is a better friend to Princes than either they or I am For if I advised him to reade Hooker and Bilson as he affirms and I confess I did and to reade them as Authours whose opinion touching the resisting of Kings by their Subjects I approved of as he insinuates but He did not he must needs imply not onely that Hooker and Bilson were but that I am more for the lawfulness of Kings being resisted and restrained by their Subjects than he is Whereas if he had intended to have dealt fairly and ingenuously either with me or his Readers he should have told them not onely that I advised him to reade Hooker and Bilson but what Books of theirs I advised him to reade and to what end and purpose I advised him to reade them which was as I said before to reade Mr. Hooker for the justifying of the Service and Ceremonies of our Church and Bishop Bilson for the justifying of the Government of our Church by Bishops and neither of them to that end and purpose which he would have his Readers believe I did viz. touching the lawfulness of the restraining and resisting of Kings by their Subjects for which he saith there was more in them than he could approve of and yet no more than I must needs be thought to approve because I recommended the reading of them to him and consequently that I as I said before was more for restraining and resisting of Kings by their Subjects than he was so that by concealing what Books of those Authours they were which I advised him to reade and upon what Subject and to what end I advised him to reade them and which is worse by substituting another Subject matter instead of that which I advised him to reade them for wholly foreign to it his fraudulent dealing with his Readers as well as with me is so apparent that it cannot be denied and so foul that it cannot be excused But supposing it had been true that I had advised him to reade both those Authours upon the same Argument and that Argument had been concerning the restraining and resisting of Kings yet I see no reason why he should say that he found more in them for the restraining and resisting of Kings than He did approve CHAP. II. Mr. Hooker saith more in favour of Kingly Power and of our King in particular than Mr. B. can approve FOr first as for Mr. Hooker supposing the three last Books of his Ecclesiastical Policy to be set forth without any alteration or Interpolation as he left them which many suspect they were not but supposing I say they were all of them set forth as he left them yet there is nothing to be found in any one of them or in any of his former Books for the lawfulness of resisting of Kings by their Subjects in any case or upon any provocation whatsoever but on the contrary in the Eighth or last of those three Books of his Ecclesiastical Policy wherein ex instituto On set purpose he treats of the Power of Kings in the managery both of Civil and Ecclesiastical Affairs though he supposeth most Kings to have been originally chosen by the People as a Man is chosen by a Woman to be her Husband yet as the Power of a Husband is not from the Woman that chuseth him but from God so the Kingly Power is
AND now I am come at last to the consideration of the last of those injurious Reflexions which in the beginning of this Book I observed to have been made upon me by Mr. Baxter and for the confutation of which I principally intended all that I have written though many other things which I thought not of at first occasionally falling in have made that which I meant should be but a small Tract to swell into a large Volume but now I am in and have gone so far I must go through with it The Reflexion therefore which I am now to speak of is in Mr. Baxter's Answer to Dr. Stillingfleet's Sermon towards the end of it the words are these I must say that when some Prelates made it their great business to silence shame and ruine us and drive us far enough from persons of power undertaking to preserve the Protestant Religion better without us than with us and after all cry out themselves that we are in danger of Popery by their own Pupils and Disciples whose instruction they undertook men will have leave to think of this awake and to judge of Causes by Effects These I say are the words of that Reflexion which I complain of as intentionally aimed at me though obliquely and by circumlocution onely especially in the latter part of it For as for the former part of that saying of his where he speaks of some Prelates that made it their great business to silence shame and ruine them that is him and the rest of the Dissenters though I doubt not but he means me for one of those Prelates and one of the chief of them because he tells me and the Bishop of Ely in plain terms that we two of all he knows have effectually helped to bring them under yet I do not take my self to be peculiarly concern'd in this whether it be truly or falsly averr'd by him and therefore though I could tell him and tell him truly and prove it too that I never made it any of my business to shame or ruine him or any of the Dissenters or to silence any more of them than by Law I was not onely allowed but obliged to silence though I could say this I say and more too to prove that I never did any the least injury to any of them but have shewed kindness to some that had dealt hardly with me namely to Mr. Langley of Pembroke College who having gotten into my Canonry of Christ's Church in Oxford never allowed me one penny out of it during above 12 years I was abroad nor after I came home made me any recompence yet thinking I was one would doe good for evil he had the confidence to write to me and to intreat me to befriend him for the renewing of a Lease he held of Magdalen College as being their Visitor I did it for him Though I say I could make proof of this yet I will not insist upon it that which I except against is a false and injurious reflexion upon me particularly being contained in the words that follow viz. driving us that is him and those of his Party far enough from Persons of power undertaking to preserve the Protestant Religion better without us than with us and after cry out themselves that we are in danger of Popery by their own Pupils and Disciples whose instruction they undertook themselves and then concludes men will have leave to think of this awake and to judge of causes by effects This I say is the Reflexion I complain of as false and injurious and as being my self more particularly aimed at in it than any other of the Prelates he before spake of For though here as well as there he makes use of the plural number as if he meant what he saith of more than one yet that which he saith of them he knew would be understood by those by whom he would have it to be understood to be meant of me or if not of me onely yet of me principally and especially because he and others perhaps of his Party had heard from Mr. JONES and others from them that I had caused the said Mr. Jones to be put out of the Duke of York's service having been before a Chaplain to his Royal Highnesses Family to his Family I say for he was never any of the four that were properly and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of eminence called the Duke's Chaplains but onely one of the two who were daily to efficiate in the Duke's Chapel to the Houshold whether He or the Dutchess were there or no so that Mr. Jones was not so great a man either in place of attendance or in grace and favour with either of their Highnesses that either his stay could hinder or his remove could further any design that I or any man else might have had upon the Duke or Dutchess in order to the seducing or perverting both or either of them in matter of Religion And yet this Mr. Jones was the man and I verily believe the onely man Mr. Baxter thought of though he speaks in the plural number here also as if we the Prelates had driven them that is all or many of them far enough from persons of Power Now I would fain know of Mr. Baxter what one man of their Party was ever driven away by any of the Prelates from any person of Power or was ever said to be so but this Mr. Jones onely who was never thought to be one of their Party whilst he was in the Duke's service I am sure he profess'd the contrary and if he had not I am sure he could not have been admitted into the Duke's service as no man else could either into the Duke's or into any other persons of power the Law not made by the Prelates but by the King in Parliament I mean the Act of Vniformity having made all of that Party as long as they were of that Party uncapable of being Chaplains or Schoolmasters in Noblemens or in any great mens Houses and therefore there was no need of the Prelates driving them farther from persons of power than the Law had driven them already Neither was it for his being one of them though perhaps he was one of them in his heart that Mr. Jones was put out of the Duke's service but for behaving himself otherwise than he ought to have done in it but how that was I forbear to say because he is dead onely I must say that I was neither Judge nor Witness nor Plaintiff nor Defendant nor any way a party in the case no nor knew not any thing of the matter it self or of the cause of it untill after it was done as Dr. Killigrew then Clerk of the Closet to the Duke and Dr. Turner then and now one of the Duke's Chaplains will I doubt not be ready to testify if it were tanti worth the while to call them to it But first that it was this Mr. Jones
other Persons imployed in Writing or Agenting The Lyon King at Arms Heraulds Pursevants and Messengers at Arms all Collectours Sub-collectours and Farmourers of His Majesties Customs and Excise all Magistrats Deans of Gild Counsellers and Clerks of Burghs Royall and Regality all Deacons of Trades and Deacon-Conveeners in the said Burghs all Masters and Doctors in Universities Colledges or Schools all Chaiplains in Families Pedagogues to Children and all Officers and Souldiers in Armies Forts or Militia and all other Persons in publick Trust or Office within this Kingdom Who shall publickly swear and subscribe the said Oath as follows viz. The Arch-Bishops Chief Commander of the Forces and Officers of the Crown and State and Counsellers before the Secret Council All the Lords of Session and all Members of the Colledge of Justice and others depending upon them before the Session The Lords of Justiciary and those depending upon that Court in the Justice Court The Lords and other Members of Exchequer before the Exchequer All Bishops before the Arch-Bishops All the inferior Clergy Commissars Masters and Doctors of Universities and Schools Chaiplains and Pedagogues before the Bishops of the respective Diocesses Sheriffs Stewards Bailies of Royalty and Regality and those depending on these Jurisdictions before these respective Courts And Provests Bailies and others of the Burgh before the Town Councill All Collectors and Farmourers of the King's Customs and Excise before the Exchequer The Commissioners of the Borders before the Privy Council All Justices of Peace before their Conveener And the Officers of the Mint before the General of the Mint And the Officers of the Forces before the Commander in Chief and common Souldiers before their respective Officers The Lyon before the Privy Council and Heraulds Pursevants and Messengers at Arms before the Lyon And His Majesty with consent foresaid STATUTS and ORDAINS that all those who presently possess or enjoy any of the foresaids Offices publick Trusts or Imployments shall take and subscribe the following Oath in one of the foresaids Offices in manner before prescribed betwixt and the first of January next which is to be recorded in the Registers of the respective Courts and Extracts thereof under the Clerks hands to be reported to His Majesties Privy Council betwixt and the first of March next One thousand six hundred eighty two and thereafter in any other Courts whereof they are Judges or Members the first time they shall sit or exerce in any of these respective Courts AND ORDAINS that all who shall hereafter be promoted to or imployed in any of the foresaids Offices Trusts or Imployments shall at their entry into and before their exercing thereof take and subscribe the said Oath in manner foresaid to be recorded in the Registers of the respective Courts and reported to His Majesties Privy Council within the space of forty dayes after their taking the same And if any shall presume to exercise any of the saids Offices or Imployments or any publick Office or Trust within this Kingdom the King 's lawful Brothers and Sons only excepted until they take the Oath foresaid and subscribe it to be recorded in the Registers of the respective Courts They shall be declared incapable of all publick Trust thereafter and be further punished with the loss of their Moveables and Liferent-Escheat the one half whereof to be given to the Informer and the other half to belong to His Majesty And His Majesty with Advice foresaid recommends to His Privy Council to see this Act put to due and vigorous Execution Follows the Tenour of the OATH to be taken by all Persons in Publick Trust. I A. B. Solemnly swear in presence of the Eternal God whom I invocat as Judge and Witness of my sincere intention of this my Oath That I own and sincerely profess the true Protestant Religion contained in the Confession of Faith recorded in the first Parliament of King James the Sixth and that I believe the same to be founded on and agreeable to the Written Word of God And I promise and swear that I shall adhere thereto during all the dayes of my lifetime and shall endeavour to educat my Children therein and shall never consent to any change or alteration contrary thereto And that I disown and renounce all such Principles Doctrines or Practises whether Popish or Phanatical which are contrary unto and inconsistent with the said Protestant Religion and Confession of Faith And for testification of my Obedience to my most Gracious Soveraign CHARLES the Second I do affirm and swear by this my solemn Oath That the King's Majesty is the only Supreme Governour of this Realm over all Persons and in all Causes as well Ecclesiastical as Civil And that no forraign Prince Person Pope Prelate State or Potentat hath or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power Superioritie Preheminencie or Authoritie Ecclesiastical or Civil within this Realm And therefore I do utterly renounce and forsake all Forraign Jurisdictions Powers Superiorities and Authorities And do promise that from henceforth I shall bear Faith and true Allegiance to the King's Majesty His Heirs and Lawful Successours And to my Power shall assist and defend all Rights Jurisdictions Prerogatives Priviledges Prehemineneies and Authorities belonging to the King's Majesty His Heirs and Lawful Successours And I farther affirm and swear by this my solemn Oath That I Judge it unlawful for Subjects upon pretence of Reformation or any other pretence whatsoever To enter into Covenants or Leagues or to convocat conveen or assemble in any Councils Conventions or Assemblies to treat consult or determine in any matter of State Civil or Ecclesiastick without His Majestie 's special command or express licence had thereto or to take up arms against the King or those commissionated by Him And that I shall never so rise in Arms or enter into such Covenant or Assemblies And that there lies no Obligation on me from the National Covenant or the Solemn League and Covenant so commonly called or any other manner of way whatsoever to endeavour any change or alteration in the Government either in Church or State as it is now established by the Laws of this Kingdom And I promise and swear that I shall with my utmost power defend assist and maintain His Majestie 's Jurisdiction foresaid against all deadly And I shall never decline His Majestie 's Power and Jurisdictions As I shall answer to God And finally I affirm and swear that this my solemn Oath is given in the plain genuine sense and meaning of the words without any equivocation mental reservation or any manner of evasion whatsoever And that I shall not accept or use any dispensation from any Creature whatsoever So help me God FINIS THere are several Treatises of the same Right Reverend Author written upon several occasions concerning the Church of Rome and most of the Doctrines in Controversie betwixt us Printed for Joanna Brome * April 3. 1683. He might have referr'd them to himself pag. 460. where he gives the same
inconsistent History and Experience have taught us the inconvenience of the one and the other No fear of either's Return A just commendation of our Church-Government What duty we owe to such a Constitution * Rom. c. 16. v. 17. A mark to be set upon Dividers The Character of Separatists Ep. Jude v. 16. V. 19. They are sensual * 1 Cor. 3. 4. What Spirit it is guides them The ill Consequence if that Spirit be not restrained The late example of the Scots recommended Their Test. Vid. the Acts and Laws made in Scotland when the Duke of York was the Kings Commissioner there An. 1681. The Heir of the Crown being a Presbyterian c. all one case as his being a Papist Just Reflections upon the Presbyterian Covenant General Monks conduct prais'd The Sectaries will not indure Vs nor one another They and the Papists much alike as to cruelty Their Principles much what the same And practices too upon occasion The Tryers a kind of Inquisition An Instance from the Anabaptists The like may be judg'd of the other Sects The danger if the Heir of the Crown be of any other Religion alike as if he be a Papist What Means to be used to prevent this danger The Exclusion of the right Heir against the practice of all Nations And consequently against the Law of Nature Jacob 's three eldest Sons forfeited their Birth-right Gen c. 49. v. 3 4. Two Cases of disherison The Right of Inheritance according to Gods positive Law The like in succession of Kingdoms 1 Kings c. 2. v. 22. A donijah his Case and why Solomon preferr'd to the Throne 1 Kings c. 1. v. 6. Ibid. Granting that the Judicial Law obligeth none but Jews The Exclusion of the right Heir is contrary to the Law of the Land No such Law now in being Nor can be made without the Kings consent Nor were it made would be just in the present Case The dangerous consequence of such a Law Such a Law if made and executed would not be effectual against future Heirs Arbitrary Government may be brought in by other ways as well as by Popery A brief commendation of the Church of England and the Civil Government The Scotch Test proposed to keep out Popery and Arbitrary Government Which upon the supposition of such a Law cannot be brought in Neither by force Nor by fair means An Objection from what Queen Mary did The Case much different then from what it is now Prebytery more likely to alter the Government than Popery Such a Test will be an assurance of no change to be An Objection that a Popish Successor will be absolv'd from his Oath The thing the same if a Presbyterian The full ground of that Assurance of no Change to be in the Government Mr. B. 's own commendation of our Government Vid. H. Com. p. 207. What he means by the Government of this Common-wealth Vid. H Com. from 89. to the 104 page His wish for better order in Election of Parliament-men H. Com. W. Page 27. 208. Wherein the Bishop agrees with him Whom Mr B. perhaps thinks worhty to choose or be chosen Whom the Bishop thinks such The main qualification of a Parliament-man An Objection against the Test. A threefold Answer A reinforcement of the Test * Which if consented to by the Successor no reason to believe but it will be kept A Recital of some of Mr. B 's Principles by which he justifies the late Rebellion and by which upon the like occasion Rebellion is incouraged for the time to come The Parliament how the Peoples Representatives and Trustees in Mr. B. 's sense The Peoples Rights and Priviledges H. Com. W. p 471. The Priviledge of Parliament An Instance of an unhappy difference betwixt the two Houses concerning Priviledge In what sense the King sole Law-giver The blessed frame of English government A caution against seditious Preachers and Scriblers Several ways to prove it lawful to take up Arms against the King Calvin 's way Herl 's way Mr. Baxter 's way Vpon such Principles the King in continual danger of Rebellion Some of Mr. B. 's Principles peculiarly such What the late King meant by saying The Laws are jointly made by King Lords and Commons How Christ alone will judge the World and yet the Saints shall judge it too How the Laws made by the King alone and yet jointly by the King Lords and Commons Some Instances ad hominem to convince Mr. B of this meaning Vid. M B 's second Def. of meer Nonconf p. 127. A brief Rebearsal of our Law-making How Laws made in the Roman Common-wealth How in our Monarchy The ancient stile of our Laws Our King not an absolute but a legal Monarch The three Estates Whence Mr. B. 's errour of dividing the Soveraignty The Soveraignty how in its streams divided and in its acts limited The King 's Negative voice necessary to preserve Monarchy Who Enemies to Monarchy A Caveat to Soveraigns The Conclusion of this and the three foregoing Sections Mr. B 's insincerity of dealing The true account of the Bishop's advising him to read thâ—se 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 s. Mr. B 's fallacious intent in giving the account as he does Mr. Hooker 's judgment of Kingly power whether he be King by choice Vid Hooker 's Eccl. Pol. lib. 8. p. 456. Or by Conquest Vid. Hooker 's Eccl. Pol. lib. 8. p 454. This of Conquest our case at first Vid. Hooker p. 454. Our Kings since have restrained themselves What it is that Mr. B. doth not approve Mr Hooker 's judgment of the descent of the Crown More than Mr. B. approves pag. 184. Of the King's Supremacy Over all persons This again more than Mr. B. approves Of the King's Supremacy as to things Eccles. Pol. p. 457. lib. 8. Lib. 8. p. 469. Of his Negative voice p. 471. Of his making of Laws p. 472. This against Mr. B. And therefore not approved by him Bishop Bilson in an errour about resistance The ground of his errour The censure of it A Remark upon our late Rebellion Religion true or false inspirits men alike Not safe nor lawfull for one Prince to assist another's Rebel-Subjects How we are to help those who are persecuted for Religion Mr. B 's design in this reflexion defeated Whom he means by Vs He disowns himself to be a Presbyterian And takes it for an affront to be thought so Why called their Antesignanus Mr. B. an Apologist for all the Nonconformists What his Nonconformist Ministers are What he means by bringing them under Independents and Presbyterians like Caesar and Pompey Vnder whom they are brought viz. the King How Mr. B. and his party brought in the King An account of Ministers silenced by the Bishop Intruders as well as Non-conforming Ministers put out The silencing of the Nonconformists a just and equitable punishment Mr. B 's own case the same as he makes Abiathar 's to be The silencing of them prudent and necessary also by way of caution No thanks to
Rights Liberties and Priviledges as it should not be in the King's power to take from them and which it should be lawful for them to defend by force if he attempted to do so and all this by vertue of an Original antecedent compact or contract with their King when they chose him to be so This I say is but a Political whimsey of Mr. Baxter's who thinks he sees Visions when he doth but dream Dreams For although those that are under one kind of Government may change it for another whether lawfully or unlawfully for a better or for a worse I now dispute not yet for a Multitude that are under no Government at all which is Mr. Hobbs his Hypothesis as well as Mr. Baxter's to meet all together at one and the same time and in one and the same place and then and there all and every one of them to agree upon one kind of Government and upon the choice of the same individual Person or Persons to govern them I think it considering the variety and contrariety that there is in several Mens Intellectuals and Affections to be the next degree to impossible for to say the Major part did conclude the Minor is to suppose a Government before there was a Government there being nothing in Nature supposing all Men to be originally and equally free why any one Man should be deprived of his natural freedom without his own consent by never so great a plurality of others that are otherwise minded The beginning therefore of all Dominion and Government next to that of the Paternal was no doubt the subduing of the weaker by the stronger who governed those whom they had subdued arbitrarily and despotically as the Romans Saxons Danes and Normans successively did the Inhabitants of this Island when they master'd them at first though afterwards they governed them by Laws but by Laws imposed upon them and not antecedently consented to or proposed by them When this way of proceeding was first brought in is not expresly set down for ought I can find in any of our Historians I am sure it was not so ab initio from the beginning as appears by the contrary practice during the Government of this Island by all the aforesaid Nations before the Conquest nor by the Normans after the Conquest until the Raign of the aforesaid Henry the First if it were so then for that is not expresly as to the making of Laws recorded neither But because it is expresly recorded that it was that King who did first call together such an Assembly as was then first and hath been ever since called a Parliament I mean an Assembly consisting of all the three Estates and not of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal only as was the Custom in former times and because his End in constituting and calling together such an Assembly was to let the People see that he would not take away their Money from them as his Predecessors had done when and how and to what degree they pleased but would be content with what the People themselves should by Representatives of their own choosing willingly and freely of their own accord think fit to give him believing that the Money so given would be as much and perhaps more but certainly much more easily raised and less grudgingly paid than what might by force against their wills be extorted from them This I say being one of the Ends why that wise and prudent Prince did first constitute such an Assembly for the more easie and plausible pretence of raising of Money by the consent of those that are to pay it it is more than probable that another of his Ends was to make the People more willing to submit and to be obedient to the Laws when they were made by making such a Constitution as required the Peoples consent to the making of them before they were made which Constitution hath been continued ever since But that it was at first by Grant from the King after he was actually King and not by any antecedent Compact betwixt the People before they were Subjects and Him whom they chose or meant to choose for their King before he was King is evident from the unanimous consent and testimony of all our Historians who never make mention of any other form of Government here in this Island but that of Kings and of Kings succeeding immediately one to another without any Interval or Interposition of any other form of Government wherein the People were at liberty to choose what Government and what Governours and upon what conditions they pleased But as the Governours of this Nation were always Kings so the People were always Subjects and never spoken of in any other capacity but of Subjects which I note and desire the Reader to take special notice of to convince him of the vanity and falshood of Mr. Baxter's distinction between the two several Capacities wherein as he saith the People are represented by the Parliament For first saith he the Parliament representeth the People as Free and 2dly as Subjects As the Parliament representeth the People as Subjects so saith he they can do nothing but humbly manifest their grievances and Petition for Relief but as the Parliament representeth the People as free so they are to secure the People's Rights and Liberties as their Trustees But what are those Rights and Liberties that the Parliament as they are the Trustees for the People are to secure to them and to maintain for them Why such saith he as when they were Free and before they were Subjects they reserved to themselves by an antecedent Compact or Covenant upon a conditional performance whereof they were content to become Subjects For I take it for undeniable saith Mr. Baxter that the Government is constituted by Contract and that in the Contract the People have not absolutely subjected themselves to the Soveraign without reserving any Rights and Liberties to themselves but that some Rights are reserved by them and exempted from the Princes power and therefore that the Parliament are their Trustees for the securing of those exempted Rights and so represent the People as Free so far as that Exemption signifies CHAP. X. Mr. B. 's Compact and Reservation of Rights canvassed The Peoples Rights by Donation of the Kings They had no Representatives till Henry the First THIS Mr. Baxter saith he takes for undeniable but I say and have already proved that in saying so he is very much mistaken whether by Government he means all Government in general or the Government of this Kingdom of ours in particular For first as to Government in general it is not true that it hath always been grounded upon an antecedent compact or contract or that the People have not sometimes subjected themselves absolutely to their Soveraigns without reserving to themselves any Rights Liberties or Priviledges for the contrary hereof is so certain and so evident that nothing can be more