have the King and the two Houses of Parliament to be Co-ordinates and that any of the two is to over-rule the third and consequently the two Houses of Parliament to over-rule the King if They agree and He will not this was HERL's way one of the Prolocutors of the Westminster Assembly called together by the two Houses in the Rebellious Parliament But Master BAXTER will have the Soveraignty divided betwixt the King and the two Houses or betwixt the King and the Parliament and will have it to be lawful for either of the Parties to defend its own Right by force if it be incroached upon by the other and that the People are to take part with the Party encroached upon against the Party encroaching but with this difference that They are always to believe what the Parliament declares against the King to be true because they are their Trustees not only to defend their Rights but to inform their Judgments whether they be wronged or no and because they are their Trustees not only as they are Subjects now but as they were originally or at first Contractors before they were Subjects and did then by bargain reserve unto themselves certain Priviledges and Immunities to be exempted for ever from the Kings Jurisdiction which if their Trustees whom they are to believe declare to be violated they may lawfully take Arms against the King to maintain or recover those Rights of theirs and to defend that part of the Soveraignty which the Parliament have in the Government Now putting all these things together and supposing a corrupt Majority of Parliament-men in both Houses as Mr. Baxter confesseth there may be and we know there hath been and therefore may be so again who can secure the King though he reign never so much according to Law from being always in danger of a Rebellion or the Kingdom from being always in danger of a Civil War which being the worst of Evils that can happen to any Body Politick they that sit at the helm ought above all things else to take especial care to prevent the broaching any such Principles as tend to the stirring up of the People to Sedition and Rebellion by making them believe that in some cases it is not only lawful but their duty to take up Arms against the King and that they shall do God and the King too good service in so doing Such are those Principles of Mr. Baxter before rehearsed published and owned by him in many of his Books especially in that of the Holy Common-Wealth and amongst the rest especially two of which he seems to be the Original Parent or very first Author as namely first That the Peoâ—le of England are represented by their Trustees in Parliament not only as Subjects to the King but as Contractors with the King before he was their King and before they were his Subjects for which he brings no other proof but that he takes it for undeniable And 2dly That the Soveraignty here with us is not in the King alone as the Oath of Supremacy saith it is but that it is divided betwixt the King and the two Houses of Parliament and for proof of this the only reason he gives is That the Legislative Power which is essential to Soveraignty is in them as well as in the King and the late King himself confessed it to be so Whether it be so or no I have already considered and examined at large and I hope have proved that the King and the King alone is the efficient cause or maker of our Laws whatsoever the two Houses may antecedently do towards the making of them CHAP. XIII The late King 's owning that the Laws are made jointly by King Lords and Commons how to be understood NEither do I think what Mr. Baxter saith the late King confesseth in his answer from York to the Parliaments XIX Propositions namely That in this Kingdom the Laws are joyntly made by a King by an House of Peers and by an House of Commons chosen by the People doth being rightly understood contradict what I have said of the making of our Laws by the King only For although to say the same thing is made solely by one and joyntly by more than one seems to be a contradiction yet if by making the same thing be meant the making of it not in the same but several sences it is no contradiction to say it is made by one and no more in one sence and yet that it is made jointly by more in another sence For example according to an instance before given It may truly be said that Christ alone shall judge the World and yet it may truly be said that the XII Apostles for so saith Christ himself and all the rest of the Saints for so saith St. Paul shall judge the World together with him because the judging of the World by Christ is meant in one sense and the judging of the World by the Saints in another For it is Christ and Christ alone or Christ and none but Christ shall judge the World as a Judge properly so called that is authoritativè or by his own inherent power and Authority But the Saints are said to judge the World approbativè by assenting to and approving of the judgment given by Christ as just and righteous so that in propriety of speech they are not to be called Judges but Assessors and Assenters only In like manner as to the making of our Laws it may be truly said that the King alone is the maker of them because it is by the King and by the King alone that they are made to be Laws which were before no Laws and yet it may truly though not so properly be said too that they are made by the King and the two Houses of Parliament because they do consent to the Kings making of them to be Laws and not only so but also because they do not only consent to the making and publishing of them after they are made Laws by the King but they must consent to have them made Laws by the King before the King can make them to be Laws And yet for all that it is the King and the King alone who by his LE ROT LE VEVLT or his FIAT doth make them to be Laws In which operative and efficacious words neither of the Houses concur with him and yet it is by those words only or alone that what was before but a Bill that is an Embryo or at most but materia disposita matter fit to be made a Law of is informed and enlivened with that obliging power and authority both directive and coactive which makes it to be a Law So that all the two Houses can be said to do towards the making of a Law is to give it a posse fieri a capacity to be made a Law but it is the King and the King only that gives it its factum esse its being made so and yet because the
immediately from God I wonder by what right or authority they can pretend to take that from him which not they but God hath given to him Surely they will not say they may do it whether God will or no and of Gods Will that they should do so or may do so They can have no declaration or signification but either from some plain positive standing Rule in Scripture or from special extraordinary and immediate Revelation such as Abraham had for the sacrificing his Son Isaac or as Jehu had for the destroying the House of Ahab But as to this latter as I hope Mr. Baxter is not yet Fanatick enough to pretend so I am sure he can find no such declaration or signification of Gods Will for the former I mean in the Scriptures either of the Old or New Testament as They were always and universally understood by the first and best Christians It is true indeed that in the Scripture God hath commanded Kings or Sovereign Princes to govern according to his and their own Laws too that are conformable unto his and threatned them if they do not and punished them when they have not But where or in what place of the Old or New Testament hath God appointed or permitted all or any of the People to do so I mean to punish their Kings by Deposing them or by taking any part of the Kingly Power he had given them away from them Surely God did not only foresee but foretell that many of the Kings of his own People the Jews would be some of them Idolaters and some of them Murtherers and Adulterers and some of them Tyrants and great oppressers of their Subjects as appears by Samuels Speech unto them at the Election of Saul their first King but he doth not give them or any order of Men among them there or any where else any either commission or permission authoritatively to enquire into their Kings Actions or to call them to an account for them And therefore the Kings of Juda and Israel were Kings indeed and so are those Kings whether Despoticall or Politicall whether Successive or Elective which have no ordinary standing legal Power or Judicatory above them whereunto they are Subject and accountable as the Lacedaemonian Kings were unto the Ephori and therefore were no Kings indeed but in name and in title only But there is no such legal ordinary standing Power or Judicatory here in England above our King for Rex in regno suo non habet superiorem imò nec parem the King in his own Kingdom hath none above him no nor equal to him is a Maxim of our Law and therefore our King must needs be a Sovereign and a sole Sovereign according to Mr. Baxters own Principles and Concessions For this is one of Mr. Baxters own Principles that every Commonwealth or Body Politick must have a Sovereign the form of a Commonwealth saith he being the relation of Sovereign and Subjects to each other as likewise this is another of his Aphorisms or Principles that the Sovereign of one Common-wealth must be one and but one and by but one he must needs mean but one Person or but one Caetus or Company of men and consequently in which soever of them it is it must be solely and wholly so that to be Sovereign and not to be sole Sovereign seems to be a contradiction in adjecto From whence I argue that if there must be a Sovereign or Supreme Power in every State or Body Politick and that be the Sovereign or Supreme Power which by the Legal Constitution hath no Superior Power above it then the Regal is the Sovereign or Supreme Power in England because according to the Legal Constitution of this Kingdom there is no Power Superior to it or Predominant over it but all other Powers are derived from it and Subordinate and Subject and Subservient to it Again if the Sovereign of one Commonwealth State or Kingdom must be One and but One only then if the King of England be a Sovereign as having no Superior he must needs be he must be a sole Sovereign also Neither do I see how either of these Conclusions can with any colour of reason be denyed but by assigning some Power in some Person or Persons which by the Legal and Fundamental Constitution of this Kingdom is above the King or at least equal to him But as it is a Maxim of our Law as I said before that Rex in regno suo non habet superiorem the King in his own Kingdom hath none above him so it is a Maxim too that he hath not parem neither none equal to him so that according to our Law as there is none to judg him because he hath no Superior so there is no Way of trying him because he hath no Peers those whom We call Peers being his Subjects though They are Pares or Peers in relation to one another CHAP. V. The English Monarchy asserted against Mr. B. who would have the Kingdom of England to be a mixt Commonwealth My Lord Chief Justice Cook 's judgment on the point THIS one would think were enough to prove the King of England not only to be our Sovereign but our sole Sovereign and consequently the Kingdom of England to be properly and indeed as it hath always been accounted both at home and abroad a Monarchy or a Government in chief by one and by one only No saith Mr. Baxter it hath not always been accounted to be so For it hath been a Controversie saith he having spoken before of Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy to which of these forms our English Commonwealth was and is to be reckon'd and the uncertainty of this saith he was one cause of our Wars Whereunto I answer that I never heard nor I verily believe ever any body else did hear of any such Controversie here in England at least as to the Civil Government As to the Ecclesiastical Government indeed of the Church there hath been a Controversie betwixt us and the Church of Rome whether the King or the Pope be the Governor in chief of it as likewise betwixt us and the Presbyterians whether the King or a National Synod ought to have the Supreme managery of it But as to the Civil Government of the State there was never any question made for ought I ever heard by any of the otherwise Dissenting Parties but that it was Monarchicall and that the King was the sole Sovereign of it and in it before that Rebellious Parliament set up for a share in the Sovereignty which they did not at first neither but did in all their Addresses to him acknowledg him to be their Sovereign and that not as they were particular Persons only but as they were the representative Body of all the Commons of England neither did the House of Peers ever make the least doubt of doing so also nor of taking the Oath of Allegiance as to their
under the People and then the Sovereignty is wholly in the People and none of it in the King what Power or Authority soever is delegated unto him by the People especially if it be delegated sub conditione paenâ conditionally and upon penalty of forfeiture or any other punishment or else the Populus that is all or the whole body of the People doth subesse Regi is under the King and then the Sovereignty is wholly in the King what priviledges or immunities soever he may grant to all or any of his Subjects or however he may oblige himself by promise or oath to govern them according to the Laws of his own or Predecessors making So that the Sovereignty must either be Wholly in the People and then he that is called a King is indeed no King or it must be Wholly in the King and then the People have nothing to do with it or with any part of it Sovereignty being such a thing in the Body Politick as the Soul is in the Body Natural For as the Soul animates or enlivens the whole Body Natural not by being some of it or some part of it in one member and some part of it in another but by being as the Philosopher saith it is tota in toto tota in quâlibet parie by being all of it in all and in every one of the members according to their several capacities of receiving the several influences and operations of it in order to the preservation of the whole Body Natural so Sovereignty or the supreme Power wheresoever or in whomsoever it is it is that which animates and enlivens and actuates the whole Body Politick but not by being it self divided but by dividing and deriving its influences into all and every part of the whole Body Politick as the Sun doth its light by the dispersing of its beams or heat into and over the whole World and all the several parts of it though it self in the mean time remains wholly and entirely in its own Orb. CHAP. IX Grotius his Case hath no place in the English Monarchy where the King is sole Sovereign The Parliament never declared otherwise as Mr. B. saith they did but owned him ever to be so in their Addresses Sovereignty intitles to Majesty BUT supposing though not granting there may be and hath been somewhere or other such a division of the Sovereignty betwixt King and People as Grotius supposeth yet it is certain there is none such here in England for if ENGLAND be a Monarchy then saith Mr. Baxter himself the whole Sovereignty must be but in One only and if but in one I hope by that One he means the King and not the Pope though some of his Parasites will have him to be the Monarch of the whole Christian World in general and though he lays claim to the Monarchy of England in particular as held in Fee of him ever since King John surrendred the Sovereignty thereof to his Holiness But Mr. Baxter I am sure is not so much a Papist though in some especially of their Political opinions he doth symbolize with them as to acknowledg the Pope to be his Sovereign for then neither he nor his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those that are like-minded could be as they fain would be every one a Pope in his own Parish neither do I think he is yet so far gone in Fanaticism as that by the King whom he grants to be the sole Sovereign in a Monarchy he meaneth no other King but King Jesus as the fifth Monarchy-men do here in England and the Presbyterian Whigs do in Scotland No I do willingly absolve Mr. Baxter from being guilty of either of these extravagant absurdities but that which I charge Mr. Baxter with is this that he denies England to be a Monarchy and consequently that the whole Sovereignty thereof is in the King though he himself hath sworn it is so when he took the Oath of Supremacy as I am sure he did or ought to have done when he was Episcopally Ordained as he saith he was but it seems he hath better studied the point since or is more enlightned than he was then Or perhaps the Parliament had not then or he had not heard they had declared this Government of ours to be no Monarchy but a mixed Government because the Sovereignty was not in the King alone but in the King and Parliament that is partly in the King and partly in themselves But when and what these Parliaments were or how and when and to whom they made such a Declaration he doth not vouchsafe to tell us which is an uncivil neglect of his Readers if he can and an impudent slandering of the King and both Houses of Parliament if he cannot I say of the King and both Houses of Parliament because it is the King and both Houses that constitutea Parliament the King as the Head and the two Houses as the representative Body of the People and he may as well and as properly call that Corpus integrum or a compleat Body that hath no Head as call either or both of the Houses a Parliament without the King Now I would fain learn of Mr. Baxter when any Parliament properly so called that is the King Lords and Commons did ever declare this Kingdom to be no Monarchy or that the Sovereignty or supreme Power was not wholly in the King Nay taking the two Houses without the King or a Commissioner for the King to be a Parliament as after the King left them or rather after they had driven the King away from them they falsly pretended themselves to be taking I say the Parliament in this notion for the two Houses only without the King did ever the two Houses declare the Government of England according to the legal constitution of it to be no Monarchy or that the Sovereignty or supreme Power was not in the King I confess I never heard they did so I mean by any conjunct Declaration or by any concurring Vote of both Houses no nor so much as by the single Vote of the House of Commons which being but one and the lower of the two Houses and who are always uncovered at their Conferences with the Lords are very often by Mr. Baxter called the Parliament because as he saith they are the Representatives or Trustees of the People of England whereas indeed they are the Representatives and Trustees not of the People but of the Commons of England only unless he will say that the Nobility and Clergy or at least the Lords Spiritual and Temporal are none of the People of England for surely they are not represented by the House of Commons And therefore if Mr. Baxter were to speak of it in Latin I think he would not I am sure he should not call it by the name of Domus Populi the House of the People but Domus Plebis the House of the Commonalty or as I think
the Lawyers call it by the name of Domus Communium the House of Commons I am sure Livy who knew how to call things in Latin by their proper names as well as any man does now tells us that in a contest betwixt a Consul and a Tribune the Tribune bearing himself high upon the account of his Office the Consul said Scias te non Populi sed Plebis Romanae Magistratum esse You must know Sir that you are an Officer not of the People but of the Commonalty of Rome And yet this may be said in excuse of Mr. Baxter's mistake when he calls them the Representatives of the People that he saith no more of them than the House of Commons which he means said of it self for to the four first that Preached before them of whom I my self was one they gave each of them a piece of Plate with this Inscription Donum Populi Anglicani the Gift of the People of England by order of the House no doubt ingraven on it which perhaps they meant not to be Grammatically but Prophetically understood that is to be understood of them not as they were then but what they meant to be before they left sitting and as we saw they were after they had put down the Lords as well as the King and made themselves the High and Mighty States of England and Ireland and instead of Representatives and Trustees made themselves Lords and Masters of those that trusted them until He whom they had trusted with their Forces made himself Lord and Master of them also the People in the mean time the Free-born People of England having been made or rather having made themselves as arrant Slaves and Vassals as ever any People were unto them both But to return to what I was speaking of I do not find I say that any Parliament properly so called that is the King Lords and Commons or that both or either of the two Houses joyntly or severally did ever declare or vote the Kingdom of England to be no Monarchy or that the King of England was not the Sovereign and sole Sovereign of and in this and all other his Kingdoms and Dominions On the contrary I find that in all the Addresses made to the King as well by both Houses jointly as by either of them severally from the beginning of the War to the end of it they always acknowledged the King to be their Sovereign and themselves even in their publick and Parliamentary capacity to be his Subjects And if in their Parliamentary notion and capacity they were his Subjects I wonder in what notion or capacity they can be said to be Partners or partakers with him in the Sovereignty Besides he that will have either or both of the Houses to have a part of the Sovereignty must allow them a Title to Majesty also For Majesty and Sovereignty are Termini Convertibiles convertible terms as the Houses themselves confess when they treat the King sometimes with the title of Sovereign and sometimes with the title of Majesty as signifying by both these Words but one and the same thing namely the Supremacy of Power in the King Now I would fain know of Mr. Baxter whether if he were to Petition the House of Lords or the House of Commons or both of them he would address it to their Majesty the House of Lords or to their Majesty the House of Commons or to their Majesty the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament if he did I believe he would be laught at for his folly by them and perhaps punisht for his presumption by the King And yet if the Sovereignty be divided betwixt Them and the King as he saith it is I see no reason why the title of Majesty may not be given to Them as well as to the King or at least partly to them and partly to him though but proportionably to the division of the Sovereignty betwixt them of which if the Kings part be greater than that of the House of Lords and that of the House of Lords be greater than that of the House of Commons which I am afraid Mr. Baxter will hardly allow then if Majesty be the proper attribute of Sovereignty and Excellent a proper Epithet to Majesty then according to Mr. Baxter's distinctness of notion and expression the style of the House of Commons should be Their Excellent Majesty and the style of the House of Lords Their More Excellent Majesty as well as the Kings style is His Most Excellent Majesty and then there may be Treason against the House of Lords or against the House of Commons as well as against the King if laesa Majestas the offending or injuring of Majesty be Treason nay then we have three Sovereigns and not one only for whosoever hath any share in the Sovereignty is a Sovereign and then I wonder why we do not take an Oath of Allegiance to the two Houses as well as to the King nay I wonder much more why they of both Houses do all of them take an Oath of Allegiance to the King and cannot sit in either House till they do so Surely one Sovereign doth not owe Allegiance to another no not the least of Sovereigns to the greatest for as all Sovereigns the greatest as well as the least are equally under God so the least as well as the greatest are equally under none but God at least quatenùs so far forth as they are Sovereigns or in those things and places where and when they have a right to Sovereignty or to any part thereof CHAP. X. The King declared by an Act of Parliament injoyning the Oath of Supremacy to be the only Supreme Governour Mr. B 's sorry evasion of this Oath and Queen Elizabeths Declaration concerning it BUT what need is there of making such Collections or Inferences from the Addresses made to the King from either or both Houses of Parliament with their full subscriptions thereunto to prove that they acknowledg the King to be their Sovereign their fole Sovereign and themselves to be his Subjects his humble and loyal Subjects even in their Parliamentary capacity for in that capacity it was that they addressed themselves to him What need is there I say of insisting upon such more remote though very pregnant and concluding proofs when several Parliaments properly so called that is Parliaments consisting of the head the King and all the integral members that is of the Lords Spiritual as well as Temporal together with the House of Commons have in positive and express words and that not by a Vote Order or Ordinance but by an Act declared the King not only to be the Supreme but the only Supreme Governour of this Realm and of all other his Highnesses Dominions and Countries and that as well in all Spiritual or Ecclesiastical things and causes as temporal These I say are the very words of an Act of Parliament properly so called that is of a full and free of a compleat and
an intire Parliament I mean the Act of Vniformity wherein the Parliament doth not only declare its own sense and judgment concerning the Kings sole Supremacy but prescribes an Oath to be taken by all that are to be admitted to teach the People what they are to think of the King I mean all that are to be admitted into holy Orders whereby they are injoyned to testifie and declare in their Conscience that the King is the only Supreme Governour of this Realm and I hope Mr. Baxter hath more reverence for Parliaments than to say or think that the Parliament did injoyn men to swear that which they did not themselves believe to be true especially those of the House of Commons who I think do all of them take the Oath of Supremacy And yet this so clear so evident and so irrefragable a proof of the Parliaments acknowledgment of the Kings sole Supremacy Mr. Baxter is pleas'd to slight as if it signified nothing calling it a sandy foundation for though he be pinched to the quick with this Argument yet he makes as if he felt it not and perceiving there was no help for him in Logick or Metaphysicks he makes use of a figure in Rhetorick which is either not to take notice of what they cannot answer or if they cannot chuse but take notice of it to slight or scoff at it as if it were not worth the answering or taking notice of And yet that he may not seem absque omni ratione insanire to have no pretence or show of reason for his slighting or rejecting of it he tells us that this Oath was made in relation to Papists only and was injoyned to be taken for the discovery of those that were suspected to be so Surely if we look to the first enacting of that Oath and the primary or original cause of it it was not for the distinguishing of Papists from Protestants for they were Papists in Henry the VIII's time and as great Persecutors of the Protestants as any were in those times that compiled and consented to the enacting and enjoyning of that Oath but it was to distinguish Papists from Papists Papists that would from Papists that would not acknowledg the Kings Supremacy And for the same end and purpose the same Oath was renewed in Queen ELIZABETHS time in the beginning of her Reign for the distinguishing of loyal from disloyal Papists as appears by the reasons she gave why She did not impose that Oath upon any of the Barons or House of Lords though many of them were then Papists because she did not as she said make any doubt of their loyalty but she caused it to be administred to the Popish Prelates and other Ecclesiasticks who had almost all of them plerisque omnibus saith Cambden taken it in her Father's time but refusing it then were deprived of their spiritual promotions for so doing lest they might teach the People to do so also and perhaps do more than so that is from denying her Supremacy in Spirituals to proceed to the denying of it in Temporals also which we see they are now come to not by their Popish but Presbyterian Teachers For preventing whereof and for obviating the scandalous interpretations that were made of it as that thereby she the Queen arrogated a Power unto her self sacrâ in Ecclesiâ celebrandi of performing divine Offices in the Church Illa edito scripto saith Cambden she published a Declaration wherein she affirms se nihil aliud arrogare quà m quod ad coronam Angliae jam olim jure spectavit that she arrogated nothing to her self but what anciently belonged of right to the Crown of England Scilicet se sub Deo summam supremam gubernationem potestatem in omnes Regni Anglici Ordines sive illi sunt Ecclesiastici sive Laici habere quodque nulla extranea potestas ullam in eos jurisdictionem vel authoritatem habeat aut habere debeat Namely that she under God had the supreme Government and Power over all orders of men in England whether Ecclesiasticks or Laicks and withal that no foreign Power had or ought to have any Jurisdiction or Authority over any of them From which Declaration published by that pious and prudent Prince it is observable First That the aforesaid Oath of Supremacy was intended by Her as well for the asserting of her own Supremacy over all Orders of men in her own Kingdom in all their capacities as it was for the disclaiming and renouncing any foreign Jurisdiction that was or could be pretended or claimed over all or any of her Subjects in any capacity whatsoever Secondly From this Declaration of Hers it is farther to be observed that she will have her own Sovereignty and Supremacy in omnes Ordines Regni over all Orders and Estates of men here at home to be asserted and sworn to before they shall swear to disclaim and renounce all foreign Authority and Jurisdiction And with very good reason because it would have done her and will do her Successors very little or rather no good at all for their Subjects to renounce all Sovereignty from abroad as long as they are taught or suffered to be taught that there are any other Sovereign or any other invested with any part of the Sovereignty here at home but their Kings only Lastly From the aforesaid Declaration we may observe also that the Queen by the Injunction of the Oath of Supremacy professeth to claim nothing to be acknowledged or sworn to but what de jure and jam olim what anciently and of right did belong to the Crown of England and consequently that the Supremacy or Sovereignty over all Estates or Orders of men in England was from all Antiquity that is as I conceive from the beginning of Monarchy or ever since there were Kings in England and that not ex dono Populi by gift of the People or compact with the People but jure by right and by what Right not jure Electionis but Hereditatis not by right of Election but of Succession and jure Coronae by right of the Crown as being inseparably annexed to the Crown or rather inherent in the Crown there being none as I have already proved that can properly be called a King or Crowned Head whether by Succession or Election but he must be the supreme and sole Sovereign over all in his own Kingdom Which as to our Kings here in England as it was acknowledged by those Parliaments that enacted the Oath of Supremacy before the War so is it by the Act of Vniformity since the War or since the Kings return and consequently since the Crowns restauration to those Prerogatives that are of right belonging to it of which the Supremacy or Sovereignty over all in the Kingdom inclusively as well as in relation to all without the Kingdom exclusively is the chiefest For if there be any either within or without the Kingdom either superior over
him or equal to him or partaker in any part of the Sovereignty with him he cannot be said to be the only supreme Governour of this Realm and of all other his Dominions and Countries as by the Act of Vniformity those of the Kings Subjects that are to teach all the rest of their fellow Subjects are obliged not only to say but swear he is nor is it so much as to be imagined that the King Lords and Commons would have obliged any to take such an Oath if they themselves had not believed the whole subject matter of it to be true CHAP. XI The Oath of Supremacy further explained The Kings being declared the sole supreme Governor cuts off all pretence at home as well as foreign claim I say the whole subject matter of it for there be evidently two several distinct parts of that Oath both of which every one of them that takes it is equally obliged to swear unto of which the first is Assertory and the second Promissory In the former he that swears asserts the Kings Sovereignty affirmatively affirming him to have the sole supreme power over all Persons in all Causes within his Realms and Dominions and then negatively by denying any foreign Power or any without his Dominions to have any Jurisdiction over any of his Subjects or to have any thing to do within his Dominions And it is in regard of the latter of these two clauses only that this Oath can be said to be enacted and imposed for the discovery and conviction of Papists and that not of all Papists neither but such Papists only as believe the Pope to have the supreme Power over all Christians in Spirituals at least if not in Temporals whose Subjects soever they may be in Temporals But as to the former of these two Clauses in the Assertory part of this Oath which affirms the King to be sole Sovereign or that he is the Only supreme Governour in this Realm it seems principally if not wholly to be intended to assert the Government of this Kingdom to be Monarchical and to make it be acknowledged to be so For by swearing that the King is the only supreme Governour of this Realm c. they do virtually and by necessary consequence swear also that all other Governours within the Realm as they do severally and joyntly derive their Power of governing from him so they are joyntly as well as severally subordinate unto him and therefore none of them either severally or joyntly co-ordinate with him Because if any of them or all of them in any capacity were so or believed by the Parliament to be so the Parliament by enjoyning men to swear the King is the only supreme Governour of this Realm must needs be chargeable with enjoyning Perjury or which is worse with compelling others to swear that to be truth which they themselves do not believe to be so which cannot be avoided but by concluding that the Injunction of the Oath of Supremacy by Parliament is a Declaration of Parliament that this Kingdom is a Monarchy properly so called because the Sovereignty or supreme Power is in one Person only namely in the King and if in him only then in him wholly also And that this was the Parliaments meaning in prescribing and enjoyning that Oath of Supremacy may farther and if it be possible more undeniably and demonstratively be made to appear it is very observable that in the Rubrick prefixed before the Administration of that Oath which Rubrick is a part of the Act of Parliament as well as the Oath it self it is said the Bishop shall cause The Oath of the Kings Supremacy And against the Power and Authority of all Foreign Potentates c. to be administred c. It is observable I say that in the aforesaid Rubrick there is a clear and a very notable distinction made betwixt the two first Clauses of the Assertory part of the Oath namely betwixt the Clause affirming the King to be the only supreme Governor of this Realm and the Clause denying any foreign Prince Person Prelate or Potentate to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm The distinction I say by the Rubrick made betwixt the two Clauses is very notable for it is the first of them only that is called by the Rubrick the Oath of the Kings Supremacy whereas the latter is said to be against the Power and Authority of all Foreign Potentates and therefore is more properly to be called an Abjuration than an Oath And yet it is this Abjuration only that Mr. Baxter will have to be meant by the Oath of Supremacy whereas this abjuration is not the Oath of Supremacy it self but a Deduction only from the Oath of Supremacy For because the King is the only supreme Governour of this Realm therefore neither Pope nor any other foreign Prince Prelate or Potentate can claim or pretend to any Supremacy or part of Supremacy here in this Kingdom So that he that can truly swear the one may safely per modum sequelae by way of consequence swear the other also But though the truth of the former doth necessarily infer the truth of the latter yet the truth of the latter doth not necessarily infer the truth of the former For though it be never so true and never so undoubtedly acknowledged to be so that no Foreigner or none without the Realm of what quality or denomination soever doth or can justly pretend to the supreme or any part of the supreme Power either Civil or Ecclesiastical here in England yet supposing the supreme Power to be divided as Grotius supposeth it may be in some Kingdoms and Mr. Baxter saith it is here in this Kingdom it will not follow I confess that the King is or that the Parliament that made this Act and enjoyned this Oath to be taken did thereby acknowledg the King to be the only supreme Governour of this Realm But the Parliament by injoyning the Oath to be taken and those that take it not only abjurare to abjure or for swear all foreign jurisdiction but jurare to swear positively and plainly That the King is the only supreme Governour of this Realm over all Persons in all Cases and Capacities do evidently declare that They themselves believe and acknowledg the King to be so and consequently whatsoever division there may be of the supreme Power in other Kingdoms yet in this there is none For the first the most immediate and most natural deduction from this Proposition viz. The King is the only supreme Governour of this Realm is the excluding all others in this Realm from having any thing to do with the supreme Government of it And therefore the swearing to this Proposition alone is called by the Rubrick the taking of the Oath of the Kings Supremacy the following abjuration of all foreign Authorities being but a deduction and that not a primary but
a secondary deduction from it And therefore 't is a vain and senceless shift of Mr. Baxter's for the avoiding of the dint of this Argument which doth jugulum causae ferire cut the very throat of his cause to say as he doth that the end of imposing and taking of this Oath was only for the excluding of all pretence to the Supremacy or to any part of the Supremacy here from abroad and not for the acknowledging the Kings sole Supremacy here at home Whereas it is indeed the Kings sole Supremacy here at home that is as it is called by the Rubrick the Oath of the Kings Supremacy and not the excluding of all foreign claim or pretence to it which to speak properly as Mr. Baxter saith he loves to do is as I said before an abjuration rather than an Oath or at most but the negative and consequent part of the Oath the affirmative and antecedent part thereof being the assertion of the whole supreme Power in the Government of this Kingdom to be in the King and King only and consequently exclusive of any pretence to it or to any participation of it by any either at home or abroad especially by any at home But why then will Mr. Baxter perhaps say was there not annexed to the positive part of this Oath an abjuration or express disowning the supreme Power or any part of the supreme Power to be in any here at home besides the King as well as there is an abjuration or an express disowning of it to be in any abroad I answer because there was no need at all of it First because he that hath sworn the Supremacy or supreme Power to be in the King only hath eo ipso in that very thing or by so swearing forsworn the being of it or any part of it in any other besides the King If it be replyed that upon this account there needed not have been any abjuration or disowning of any foreign Authority annexed to the other part of it neither I answer Secondly That although really there was no need of an express or explicit disowning or renouncing of the one more than the other because the swearing to the positive part of the Oath is implicitly and virtually a disowning or renouncing of them both yet because there had been antiently and was then and was like to be still a claim to the Supremacy here in England at least in matters Spiritual and Ecclesiastical by some that were abroad I mean by the Pope for himself and his Successors therefore the Parliament thought it meet and prudent and in some respects necessary to add or annex to the Assertion of the Kings sole Supremacy here at home an express and explicit Renuntiation of all the Right that was or could be pretended to it from abroad but did not think it to be at all necessary to add or annex the like express or explicit renuntiation of any such Power to be in any here at home because there was none then here at home so impudent as openly and avowedly to pretend to it or to any part of it For here are no Ephori no Overseers or Guardians of the State as there were in Lacedaemon nor no such Senate as there is in Venice nor no such High and Mighty States as there are in Holland For we have but One high and mighty and he is so high and mighty that there is none but the Almighty that is above him and all others in his own Dominions how much higher and mightier they may seem to be in relation to one another are equally below him and subject to him CHAP. XII From the two Houses Petitioning the King and his being free to grant or deny is proved that there is no Co-ordination beside the inconsistence of it with the Government I know there was in the beginning of the late Rebellious times a Discourse written and published to make the foolish part of the World believe for with wise and considering men I am sure it could have no weight that the two Houses of Parliament were Co-ordinate with the King and consequently not Subordinate to the King in relation to the making and repealing of Laws and the determining of all things of publick concernment for the Government of the Kingdom and consequently that according to the nature of Co-ordinates where all three could not or would not or did not agree the two that did agree were to over-rule the third that did not An excellent project or expedient as the deviser of it thought to make a Triumvirate of a Monarchy or a Republick of a Kingdom but he did not consider that it was liable to one little inconvenience namely that it was utterly and absolutely unpracticable being altogether inconsistent with the fundamental Constitution of our Government which is not to have the two Houses of Parliament always in being as the Senate of Rome was and the Senate of Venice is or to assemble and meet when and where they will and to continue as long together as they will as Grotius tells us the Ordines or States of Holland of right did even whilst They had a King But our Parliaments here in England are so far from having always an actual setled and constant being that they have no being at all but what the King gives them by his Writ of Summons neither can they assemble or meet but when he calls them nor either depart sooner or continue longer together than he will have them neither while they do by his leave and command continue together have they any Power to make any new Law or to repeal any old Law but only to pray propose or advise the making of the one or the repealing of the other by the King And this being so as undeniably it is so by the legal and fundamental Constitution of the Government I wonder when and by what Authority it came to be alter'd For supposing but not granting that a Parliament truly so called may make such a change in the fundamental Constitution of the Government as to make an Aristocracy or a Democracy of a Monarchy by the Monarchs own consent to it which I for my part think they cannot the Monarch himself in an Hereditary Monarchy being but a Trustee for his Successors but supposing I say such a change could be made by a Parliament properly so called I demand when and by what Parliament such a Change was made and whether the King did ever consent to it if not we are still where we were whatsoever Power a legal or compleat Parliament may be said or imagined to have and consequently there is not as yet at least any such Co-ordination of King Lords and Commons as the Author of the aforesaid discourse pretended there is It is true indeed that the two Houses of Parliament in the year 42 did Petition the King that he would be pleased to grant such things as they proposed unto him
relation to the Church and such are his Anti-monarchical Aphorisms in relation to the State which will be Thorns in the sides of both Church and State to trouble and molest them if they be not Engines to undermine or overthrow them as long as there be Baxterians in the World as there will be no doubt long after Mr. Baxter is dead and though he himself before he dies do truly and heartily as I do truly and heartily wish he may if he have not done it yet repent of having been the Author of some and Abetter of all of them As for his Anti-episcopal Aphorisms and all other his Heterodoxies relating to the established Government Discipline of the Church they have been so thoroughly canvassed and so thoroughly confuted by so many much more learned Pens than mine that as I have said already in my Preface so I say again I mean not to meddle with any of them But as for his Anti-monarchical Aphorisms because he saith I am a defier of Deity and Humanity for taking exceptions against them and for my justifying the rights of Kings against the grounds he lays for justifying the resisting of Kings by their Subjects and particularly of the late horrid Rebellion of the worst of Subjects against the best of Kings the most groundless in its causes and the most unchristian and the most inhumane in its effects that ever was in this or perhaps in any other Kingdom I thought my self concerned to enlarge my self in saying of what I have said to justifie my exceptions against those Aphorisms some of which I have before printed and now reprinted and could have printed many more and some of them as bad as the worst of those and as destructive of the established Government in all Bodies Politick especially to that of this in our Kingdom which is and hath been always taken for a Kingdom properly so called that is for a Monarchy or for such a State or Body Politick wherein the Soveraignty or Supremacy of power is in One only Mr. Baxter in order to justifying of the late Rebellion tells us it is no Monarchy because the Soveraignty is not in one only namely not in the King alone but divided betwixt the King and the two Houses of Parliament which he endeavours to prove First by the Testimony of both Parties principally concerned in it namely the Parliaments affirming and the King 's owning and acknowledging of it And 2dly by Reason or by Arguments drawn from the Constitution and Practice of the Government it self As to the King 's own Acknowledgment that there is such a division of the Soveraignty betwixt Him and the Lords and Commons I shall speak of it hereafter And as to the Parliaments affirming of it which he only saith they do and have done without naming any time when or what Parliaments they were that did so I have answered at large already and that not only negatively by denying that any Parliament properly so called that is consisting of King Lords and Commons did ever affirm or can in reason be supposed ever to have affirmed any such thing but positively also that all Parliaments even those that are improperly so called I mean the Body without the Head or as the two Houses only are called the Parliament even in this notion I say the Parliament hath always in all Addresses that have been made to the King by either of the Houses severally or by both Houses joyntly acknowledged the King to be their Soveraign and themselves to be his humble and loyal Subjects and that when they Address themselves to Him not as so many several single Persons or every one in his Personal capacity but as in their representative or Parliamentary capacity as they were one or both of the two Houses and how they be Soveraigns and Subjects or partly Soveraigns and partly Subjects in one and the same notion or under one and the same capacity is too subtil and airy a speculation for me to comprehend But that which I did then and do now principally insist upon for proof of the Parliaments acknowledgments of the King's Soveraignty or that the Soveraignty here in this Kingdom is in the King alone and not in the King Lords and Commons joyntly as Mr. Baxter would have it is the Oath of Supremacy whereby in as positive and as plain words as can be devised several Parliaments properly so called have declared and caused it to be sworn that the King is the only Supreme Governor of this Realm and of all other his Highnesses Dominions and Countries as well in all Spiritual and Ecclesiastical things and causes as Temporal Which I repeat again because which I did not observe before the Parliament by enjoyning Men to swear that the King is the only Supreme Governour in Spirituals as well as Temporals seems to suppose or to take it for granted that there were none that pretended to be the Kings Subjects but would willingly and readily acknowledg the King to be the only Supreme Governour in Temporals and consequently that there is no division of the Soveraignty betwixt the King and the Parliament or betwixt the King Lords and Commons For it is the Soveraignty in Temporals only that Mr. Baxter would have to be so divided for as to the Soveraignty in Ecclesiastical things or causes I believe if Mr. Baxter would tell us what lies at the bottom of his heart we should find that he thinks neither King nor Parliament have any thing to do with it and consequently that there can be no division of that betwixt them But of this we shall have occasion to speak more hereafter Now therefore having postponed the consideration of what Mr. Baxter infers for proof of his pretended Division of the Soveraignty betwixt the King and Parliament from the Kings own concessions I proceed to the examination of the Reasons he gives to prove this Kingdom to be no Monarchy or that the Soveraignty thereof is not in one only Which reasons of his are all of them reducible to this one of the Legislative power or the power of making and repealing Laws for the whole Nation which as he saith is not only a part but a principal part of the Soveraignty and therefore if this be not in the King alone but divided between the King and Parliament as Mr. Baxter saith it is the Soveraignty cannot be in the King alone but must be divided betwixt the King and Parliament CHAP. II. What is meant by the word Parliament The two Houses being called together and dismissed at the Kings pleasure are not co-ordinate or sharers with him in the Soveraignty NOW this being the summ and substance of all Mr. Baxter hath said to prove the War made by the Parliament against the King was a just War and no Rebellion and whereon he so confidently relies that he is ready he saith to offer his Head to Justice if it can be solidly confuted either as to
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
I mean the House of Commons presently after the Kings death yea and both the Cromwels also of which the former was resisted though not deposed and the latter was both resisted and deposed together with the several mock-Parliaments in both their times and the last mock-Parliament of all which by the admirable conduct and courage of that ever to be renowned and ever to be remembred Souldier and Servant of God the King and his Country I mean General MONK was shatter'd in pieces never to be sodred or re-united in order to restoring of the Soveraign Power to its only true and right owner the King For as for all or for any of the rest of those Soveraign Powers as Mr. Baxter calls them and which he magnifies so much they were as far from having any right to Soveraign Power as they were from being the best Governours in all the World as Mr. Baxter most falsly and I had almost said most impudently saith they were For let him name that which he thinks to have been the best of those Governments or Governours betwixt the assuming and usurping of the Soveraign Power by the two Houses of the long Parliament and the present King 's coming home And I will undertake as old as I am if God spare me life and health to demonstrate that they were not only as arrant Traytors and Rebels as ever were in the World but that in the managery and exercise of their usurped Power they carried themselves as hypocritically and blasphemously towards God in the use of his Name and his Ordinances as insolently insultingly and barbarously towards their King not only in their buying and selling and imprisoning of Him but even in their Addresses to him and treating with Him and withal as arbitrarily as despotically as injuriously and every way as tyrannically towards their Fellow-Subjects in taking away their Goods their Liberties and their Lives not only without but against Law as ever any Governours did whether justly or unjustly so called either in this or any other Nation But when I say this I would not be understood to mean what I say of all that sate in both or either of the two Houses of Parliament that made War against the King for I do verily believe there were many and I know there were some both of the Lords and Commons that after the King was driven away stayed and sate in both Houses and did what they could to hinder the rebellious and outragious proceedings of the factious Party which was predominant in the one House as well as in the other But the Tyde was too strong and those good Men too few to stemm the current or to prevent the overflowing of it as it did over all the banks and boundaries of Obedience to the Laws as well as of Allegiance to the King And therefore as Mr. Baxter when he tells us the two Houses of Parliament were the best Governours in all the World he tells us too that by the two Houses he means the Majority of the two Houses so when I say they were Vsurpers and Traytors and Rebels and as ill Governours or Managers of their usurped power as ever were before them in this or in any other Kingdom I mean the Majority of those two Houses only Which it was not my purpose to say so much of as I have said at present but my just indignation at Mr. Baxter's extravagant magnifying such men as they were hath carried me out of the way I was in which was to prove that neither those nor any other two Houses of Parliament can properly and truly be said to share with the King in the Soveraignty or Supreme Power upon the account of theirs as well as the Kings Legislative Power in making Laws for the whole Kingdom which as I have already proved is the Kings Act only by making Bills to be Laws by his FIAT or Assent to them thereby giving them that enlivening and obliging power which they had not before and which makes them to be Laws and this being solely the King's Act without any Act of either or both of the Houses in conjunction with it it is the King alone that makes the Law or that makes that to be a Law which was not a Law before how fit soever it might be to be made a Law whereof the King is the only final Judge also from whom there lies no appeal to either or both the Houses so that whatsoever Preparatory Act or Acts of either or both Houses may be necessary in order to the making of Laws antecedently to the King's Fiat yet it is the King's Fiat only that makes them to be Laws especially it being at his choice whether he will make them to be Laws or not after the two Houses have done what legally they can do towards it CHAP. V. Vpon Mr. Baxter 's grounds the KING may make Laws in some Cases without the consent of the two Houses Ship-mony justified upon the same grounds It is the King's Assent that makes Laws The Parliaments concurrence wherein it lies IF it be objected that as the two Houses cannot make a Law without the Kings Assent so neither can the King make a Law without the Consent of the two Houses and that therefore the two Houses as well as the King are the Law-makers For answer hereunto I will not say as Mr. Baxter seems to say when he puts the Question whether if the People will not consent to that which is necessary for their own Preservation the Soveraign may not do it against their wills and answers he may do it though he be not an absolute but a limited Soveraign and limited by Covenant that is as he expresseth himself in other places by an antecedent compact with the People when they chose or admitted him to be their Soveraign and consequently that even such a Soveraign notwithstanding such a compact as for instance that he will not nor shall not make any Law without the Nobilities and Peoples consent may of himself and without their consents make such a Law as is necessary for their Preservation or that he judgeth to be so for in this case he is and of necessity must be the only Judge whether it be necessary for their Preservation or no and therefore if he judge it to be so he may according to Mr. Baxter's opinion not withstanding any compact or Constitution to the contrary make such a Law not only without but against their consents as Mr. Baxter words it because saith he that Soveraign is God's Officer for the ends of Government and therefore cannot lawfully be restrained by the People from preserving them because the People have no power above God and because it is still to be supposed that the People desire their own Preservation and therefore mistakingly resist the means which else they would consent to This is one of Mr. Baxter's Political Aphorisms which if it be true my Answer to the aforesaid
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
themselves as Mr. Baxter calls it as either they are more venerable for Antiquity or considerable for Plurality the King and none but the King must be acknowledged to be the Enacter or the maker of them And truly one would think that those Laws that are most ancient and consequently nearest in time to the first Institution of Parliaments though they were not the most in number were most to be credited for speaking most properly of who they were that made them then and consequently who it is that makes them now Unless Mr. Baxter will say it was the King and King alone indeed that made the Laws in Parliament then but it is the King Lords and Commons or the King and Parliament that makes them now and consequently that the King is not so much a King now as He was then and that the constitution of the Kingdom it self is changed from Monarchical to Aristocratical But then I must ask him by whom and when this great change was made Was it by him that brought in this new stile of Be it enacted by the King Lords and Commons c. That was Hen. the VIII who was not a Man likely to give away any of his Authority or to part with any part of his Soveraignty to his own Subjects who rescued it from the Popes incroachments And yet perhaps even He meaning to make use of the Parliament for the countenancing whatever he had a mind to do though never so extravagant in it self though never so offensive to Foreign Princes his Allies or never so injurious to his own Children because he thought it would be serviceable to his own ends after he had forced the two Houses to consent to what he listed to enact to joyn them with himself in the enacting of it as well as by assenting to it to make it so much the more plausible or at least so much the less grievous unto the People Otherwise it is most certain that never any King of England after the making of Magna Charta reigned so despotically and arbitrarily as he did or whom the two Houses of Parliament stood so much in awe of as they did of Him as appears by his making them consent to the doing and undoing to the enacting and repealing of whatsoever he would have to be done or undone to be enacted or repealed And therefore it is not to be imagined that such a King as he was did mean by changing of the stile to lessen the Legislative Power it self which was in his Predecessors by admitting those whom he used as he did the two Houses of Parliament to a participation of any the least degree of Soveraignty And as he never meant to do so so they the two Houses of Parliament did not then or ever since for ought I ever heard understand that to be the meaning of the Alteration from Be it enacted by the King with the consent of the Lords and Commons to Be it enacted by the King Lords and Commons to signifie that either the Kings power as to the making of Laws was less or the Parliaments greater than it was before this alteration of stile For if it had been understood either by the King or Parliament to signifie any such thing as the King especially such a King as Hen. VIII was would never have suffered the alteration of the former to the latter So the two Houses who are jealous enough of their Power and Priviledges would never have suffered the alteration of the latter to the former again as it was altered by King Edward Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth King Henry's three immediate Successors and as it is altered by our present King in the Act of Vniformity For as the alteration of the former to the latter could not have been made without the Kings so the alteration of the latter to the former could not have been made without the consent of the two Houses neither And therefore I verily believe that if any thing at all was meant by the alteration of the former stile to the latter it was only ad faciendum Populum to gain the People that the People might more willingly receive and submit to the Laws when they were made especially such of them as might seem to pinch them in their Purses when they were said to be enacted by the Lords and Commons or by the Lords and their Representatives and consequently by themselves as well as by the King for Volentibus non fit injuria where there is consent there is no injury And yet again lest by this alteration of stile and misinterpretation of it the Kings Prerogative of being the sole Soveraign and consequently the sole Law giver might be thought to be diminished by being communicated to either or both Houses of Parliament therefore the first most ancient and withal the longest continued stile of Be it enacted by our Soveraign Lord the King by the advice and with the consent of the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled was presently after the first alteration of it resumed by the three next succeeding Princes as it hath been also now of late by our present Soveraign and by all of them with the consent of the Lords and Commons thereunto CHAP. VII The Laws enacted by the Authority of Parliament in what sense Why called Acts of Parliament They provide the Matter of the Laws the King gives the Form BUT withal will Mr. Baxter perhaps say with this Addition and by the Authority of the same that is by the Authority of the Parliament so that according to this former stile our Laws are said to be made and enacted by the Authority of the Parliament and consequently by the Authority of the two Houses of Lords and Commons as well as by the Kings For answer whereunto I might say in the first place that it was not till after 200. Years from the first Parliament that we read of in our Book of Statutes namely not until the Raign of Henry the VI. who owed his Title such as it was to the Parliament and to the Parliament as it signifies the two Houses only without the King for by the Authority of such a Parliament it was that is of a Body without a Head that Henry Bullingbrook was made King Richard the Second's surrender being neither voluntary nor lawful if it had been voluntary as was acknowledged by the two Houses themselves when Richard Duke of York claimed the Crown as the right Heir to it thereby acknowledging likewise that although they had de facto yet they could not de jure exclude the right Heir Howsoever their Authority being the only Title which the then present King had and held the Crown by as having not the courage either of his Grandfather or his Father to claim it by Conquest and hold it by force as they did He was willing to acknowledge he held it by Authority of Parliament as the word Parliament is taken for the two
Law of in their Opinions if he please and if it be so in his opinion also So that the King is finally the only and sole Judge whether what is agreed on and propos'd by them as fit to be made a Law be fit to be made a Law or no and if he thinks it fit to be so it is he and none but he that by his Le veult makes it Law So that to conclude this Point the thing proposed whether by King or either of the Houses is the Matter or material cause ex quâ or out of which the Law is made the Efficient or the causa à qua whereby or by whom the matter of the Law is made to be a Law is the King and the King only the Formal cause or the cause per quam res est quod est by which a thing is that thing which it is or that whereby it actually becomes and is effectually made to be a Law is the Kings declaration of his Assent or Will to make it a Law by those Nomothetical or Legislative words pronounced by himself or in his Name Le Roy le veult the Final cause or the cause propter quam Res est for which or for the sake whereof a thing is is Bonum Publicum the Publick good So that the consent of the two Houses to what is proposed to be made a Law is but that which we call Causa sine quâ non a Cause without which a thing is not to be which indeed is a condition rather than a cause but such a condition as is so necessary for disposing of the matter to receive the form that the efficient cannot introduce the form without it though he be not necessitated to introduce the form by it that is it is such a condition as without which the King cannot make what is so conditioned to be a Law though it do not necessitate him to make that to be a Law which is so conditioned so that as I said before it is but Causa sine quâ non only which is indeed no cause at all And this I think enough to prove the Legislative power to be in the King and in the King only and consequently that the Soveraignty upon this account is not divided betwixt the King and the two Houses either equally or unequally or that they have any part of it or share in it And yet upon this Supposition and upon this supposition only Mr. Baxter concludes first that the Kingdom of England is no Monarchy And Secondly that the Parliament's defending of their own part of the Soveraignty against the Kings Invasion of it was a just War and no Rebellion By the first of which Conclusions he seems to think that there is no Monarchy but where the Government is Despotical and Arbitrary ubi Arbitria Principum as Justin saith pro Legibus sunt where the Will of the Soveraign is the Law of the Subject And such indeed were the first especially the Eastern Monarchies of the World and yet not altogether so neither as appears from the 7th compared with the 15th Verse of the 6th Chapter of the Prophecy of Daniel for as in the former of those Verses we find there was a consultation by a Senate or Parliament of all the Presidents Governours Counsellors and Captains of the Kingdom of Persia for the making of a Decree or Law by the King which he did by his signing of it so in the latter of those Verses we find also that it was a standing Law of or amongst the Medes and Persians that no Decree or Statute made by the King with the advice of an Assembly of the chief Men of his Kingdom could be changed or repealed without the consent as I presume they meant of those that advised the King to make it So that there were or might be some fundamental unchangable Laws or Rules even in the most absolute and most despotical Monarchies for such was the Persian if ever there were any and yet you see there was a Law by which the King himself was obliged And probably the like was in the former or first Monarchy that of the Chaldeans or Assyrians also For as Darius here so Nebuchadnezzar there called all his Princes and great Men when he made a Decree that all that would not fall down and worship the Image he had set up should be cast into the fiery Furnace Dan. 3. 12 c. CHAP. VIII The English Monarchy asserted The King under no Judicatory Accountable to God alone That Laws are not to be made without the Peoples consent in Parliament was from the favour of the Kings THE Truth is that it is not the Governing by Law or without Law that makes the Government to be Monarchical but the governing of One over all whether his way of Governing be Arbitrary Despotical or Legal and Political Ours indeed is Legal and Political but for all that it is Monarchical because it is but One that governs us all He governs indeed and is obliged and hath obliged himself by his Coronation Oath to govern by Law but it was not his Coronation Oath that made him King for all our Kings are as much Kings before they take the Oath as they are after the taking of it Neither is it their governing by Law that gives them their Right nor their not governing by Law that can take away their Right they have unto their Crowns for then there must be some Judicatory above them to judge betwixt them and their People whether they have forfeited their Right or no and if they have to take the forfeiture of it And if there be such a Judicatory it is indeed no Monarchy though it may be called a Kingdom as that of Sparta was as I have proved at large already Mr. Baxter therefore if he will prove this Kingdom of ours to be no Monarchy he must prove there is some such standing Judicatory here amongst us as the Ephori were in Sparta If he saith the Parliament is such a Judicatory He must prove it to be a Court or Judicatory always in being as that of the Ephori was and as the Senate of Venice is and not such a one as must not meet but when the King calls them and must be gone when he bids them and such a Judicatory is our Parliament according to the Legal Constitution of this Kingdom And how such a King as ours can be liable or obnoxious to such a Judicatory as this which he may make or unmake as he pleaseth so as to be question'd or tried or judged or condemned by it as the Spartan Kings might be and were by the Ephori and as the Dukes of Venice may be and have been by their Senate let Mr. Baxter tell us if he can For my part I cannot imagine the Practicability of it I mean the practicability of it de jure as to right in any Case or upon any Provocation whatsoever
his Successours but not to exclude some that are at home namely the Parliament from having a part of it So that in respect I mean in respect of the extent of the King's Supremacy over all Persons in all capacities Mr. Baxter might find more in Mr. Hooker than he could approve of viz. the King's Supremacy over all Persons in his Kingdom and consequently his being the onely Supreme Governour being utterly inconsistent with the division of the Sovereignty betwixt the King and Parliament which is Mr. Baxter's fundamental Principle upon which he grounds his defence of the late Rebellion and lays a foundation of the like Rebellions from Generation to Generation for the future Again as Mr. Baxter might find more in Mr. Hooker than he could approve for the extent of the King's Supremacy in regard of the Persons over whom so might he likewise in regard of the Things whereunto it is extended concerning which in the general Mr. Hooker saith Our Kings when they are to take possession of the Crown have it pointed out before their Eyes even by the very solemnities and rites of their Inaugurations to what affairs their supreme Power and Authority reacheth crowned saith he we see they are inthroniz'd and anointed The Crown is a sign of their military Dominion the Throne of sedentary or judicial the Oil of religious or sacred power So that according to Mr. Hooker the jus gladii the Power of the Sword or the right of making War as likewise of making Laws both Civil and Ecclesiastical belongs to the King's Supremacy And to both those ends as he tells us afterwards it is one of our King's Prerogatives to call and dissolve all solemn Assemblies about our publick affairs either in Church or State so that there can be no such voluntary Associations of Churches as Mr. Baxter would have nor no such Associations of the People without the King's leave as others would have no nor no making of Laws neither either in Parliament for the State or in Convocation for the Church when they are called and met together but by the King and that not onely because no Law of any kind can be made without the Royal Assent by reason of the King 's Negative without which saith Mr. Hooker the King were King but in name onely but because it is the Royal Assent that makes it to be a Law For though as the same Mr. Hooker observes Wisedom is requisite for the devising and discussing of Laws he means the Wisedom of the Lords and Commons in Parliament for the devising and discussing of Laws for the State and the Wisedom of the Representatives of the Clergy in the Convocation for the devising and discussing of Laws for the Church yet it is not that Wisedom saith he that makes them to be Laws but that which establisheth them and maketh them to be Laws is Power even the Power of Dominion the chiefty whereof saith he amongst us resteth in the Person of the King Whereunto he adds Is there any Law of Christ's which forbiddeth Kings and Rulers of the Earth to have such sovereign and supreme Power in making of Laws either Civil or Ecclesiastical Which question being virtually a negative Proposition implies that there is no Law of God to prohibit any King to doe what our King doeth that is as he positively and clearly affirms to make Laws for his own Subjects by that supreme Power that resteth in his own Person and consequently is not divided betwixt him and the Parliament no not in the making of Laws which is the onely instance given by Mr. Baxter to prove the Sovereignty or supreme Power in this Kingdom not to be in the King alone or in the King onely which as I said before is the Foundation on which he superstructs the building of his Babel or the Justification of the late Confusion and Rebellion And therefore he had reason to say he found more in Hooker than he did approve because to approve all he found in Hooker touching the supreme Power either of all Kings in general or of our own Kings in particular had been to condemn himself who is much more for the restraining and resisting of Kings by their Subjects than Mr. Hooker who as I said before hath not a word of resisting nor of restraining them neither any otherwise than as they have restrained themselves by Laws of their own making So that Mr. Hooker may still retain that honourable title which learned Men have given him of judicious Hooker whatsoever voluminous Mr. Baxter hath said upon this or any other occasion to take it away from him CHAP. III. Bishop Bilson though in an errour yet saith not so much for the resisting of Kings as Mr. B. doth The Case stated of Subjects rebelling upon the account of Religion and of other Princes assisting them AS for Bishop BILSON whom Mr. Baxter saith I advised him to reade I confess I cannot say He hath nothing for the resisting of Kings by their Subjects in any of his Books but this I can say that he hath nothing to that purpose in that Book of his which I advised Mr. Baxter to reade no nor in any of his Books hath he so much for resisting of Kings as Mr. Baxter himself in his Book of the Holy Commonwealth And therefore I wonder he should say he found more in BILSON for the resisting and restraining of Kings than he could approve Bishop Bilson was one of my Predecessours in the Bishoprick of Winchester and much more before me in Learning than he was in Time but Bernardus non vidit omnia and the learnedst and best of Men are but Men and therefore may err and good men very good men may be the apter to fall into some kind of errours both speculatively and practically by indulging too much even to their good affections And therefore I believe it was his Zeal for the true Religion and his compassion to those that were persecuted for it that made this Learned and Good Man say so much as he doth which is more than I wish he had in excuse of taking up of Arms by the French Dutch and Scotch Protestants in defence of themselves and their Religion against their several respective Princes And I think we ought to believe that it was for the same reason and not for reason of State onely that Queen Elizabeth did at the same time assist with Men Money and Arms all the aforesaid Subjects against their aforesaid Sovereigns But yet for all that I do not think that either the Queen did well in doing what she did or that the Bishop did well in writing what he writ in defence of them because I do not think they themselves I mean the subjects of those Princes did well in making that resistance which they did contrary to the Precepts of the Gospel and to the Practice of the Primitive Christians And I remember that upon this consideration during
add one more That he might be allowed whensoever he saw cause for it or had need of it to substitute one Proposition instead of another a false one instead of a true one or a true one instead of a false one and then to infer what he pleased from it for so as he hath done often in other places so he hath done once in this scrap of a Recantation also making me to say that there were some lawful Governors unlimited by God and thence inferring that I was a defier of Deity and Humanity when what I said was that of lawful Governors some were unlimited by men but of this I have said enough before and as I think I have said enough now touching the insufficiency of this recantation to prove that Mr. Baxter is really and seriously otherwise minded in point of judgment than he was when he published these Aphorisms which I have now Reprinted Neither can the contrary hereunto be concluded from any or all of those glorious or rather vain-glorious professions of Loyalty he makes in behalf of himself and of his own Party in the fourth Chapter of the second Part of his Non-Conformists Plea for Peace which can signifie nothing unless he and they do renounce those disloyal and seditious Principles which in his Book of the Holy Commonwealth he makes use of to justifie the War made by the two Houses of Parliament against the late King as first That this Kingdom of England is not a Monarchy and consequently that the Sovereignty is not wholly in the King Secondly That the Sovereignty is divided betwixt the King and the two Houses of Parliament Thirdly that the two Houses of Parliament may lawfully take Arms and make War with the King in defence of their own part of the Sovereignty and of the trust reposed in them by the People and that the People may and ought to assist them when they do so Fourthly That the People are represented in Parliament not only as Subjects for so he confesseth their Representatives are only to complain and supplicate for them but as Contractors before they were Subjects with him that was to be their King before he was King for the reservation of such or such rights franchises and priviledges to be for ever exempted from the Kings and his Successors jurisdiction for the preservation of which if they were invaded or indeavour'd to be taken away by the King or any of his Successors the Parliament not only as Representatives but Trustees also for the People might by force if they could not do it otherwise resist and restrain the King from so doing Finally there be many other cases specified by Mr. Baxter in that Book of the Holy Commonwealth wherein Kings may as he saith be lawfully resisted by their Subjects whence he concludes the War made by the Parliament against the late King to have been purum piumque Duellum a just and a lawful War and consequently such a War as may be made at any time hereafter upon the same Premisses or by vertue of the same Principles and therefore he tells us in plain terms not only that he did not but that he durst not repent of having been engaged in it himself nor for having engaged so many thousands as he confesseth he did in it not then perhaps but hath he not repented of it since Videtur quòd non because not having yet renounced any of those Principles or Premises from whence he infers the Conclusion he is still to be supposed to hold the conclusion he infers from them nay and that he will hold it still and do as he did then upon the like occasion for so he tells us himself in the place before quoted where he saith that as he durst not repent of what he had done in the aforesaid War so he could not forbear the doing of the same if it were to do again in the same state of things 'T is true indeed he tells us in the same place that if he were convinced he had sinned in what he had done he would as willingly make a publick Recantation as he would eat and drink when he is hungry or thirsty But neither he nor any of the Non-Conformists that ever I heard of hath as yet made any such a publick Recantation and therefore we may rationally and charitably enough too conclude that they are still of the same Judgment they were then and consequently that their Practice will be the same it was then when the like opportunity invites them to it which though I hope it will never be yet we are not sure but it may be and therefore ought not to be too confident and secure that no such thing will be For mine own part I must confess as I always have been so I am still of this opinion that ever since the Reformation there have been and are two Plots carrying on sometimes more openly and sometimes more secretly the one by those that call themselves the only true Catholicks the other by those that call themselves the only true Protestants and both of them against the Government as it is established by Law both in Church and State And as there always hath been so there ever will be Plotting by both these Parties until both of them be utterly disabled and suppressed for as for making Peace with either of them I take it by reason of the perverseness of the one and peevishness of the other and the pride of both to be a thing not to be hoped for I am sure the way proposed by Mr. Baxter in his Book called The true and only way of Concord of all Christian Churches will never do it which Book of his though as I said in my Preface I did not intend to answer as being abundantly and superabundantly confuted before it was written yet because in his Address of it to the Bishop of Ely and me he seems desirous to know what we think of it in reference to the end proposed by it I will tell him plainly and in a few words what is my opinion of it viz. that it is so far from being what he saith it is The true and only way of Concord in all Churches that I verily believe that if all the Churches in the World were actually in as perfect Peace and Concord both in themselves and with one another as ever they were or ever can be humanly speaking here in this World that which he calls the true and only way of Concord if it were or could be admitted would in a very short time introduce such and so many unavoidable and irreconcileable differences and dissentions both speculative and practical as well in matter of belief as in manner of worship that there would be no such thing to be seen as order or unity or peace in all the Churches of any one Province or Kingdom and much less in all the Churches of the Christian World This National Church of ours therefore being
Vid. a vindication of the Primitive Church in answer to Mr. B 's Church History A remark in general upon those who censure our Translation The danger and vanity of such bold censures Some examples of Mr. B 's thus doing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a city with him stands for a Market town Because he would have no Bishop of more than one congregation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not properly rendred he saith to resist To resist is more than not to obey Vid. Holy Common-wealth p. 37. p 377. So to resist God is more than not to obey him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to resist are both Military Terms Our Translatours of St. Paul 's judgment as Mr. B. is not What meant by Resisting Resistance impious and irreligious Irrational also as inconsistent with the being of a Body Politick The necessity of a Supreme power in all Bodies Politick That Supreme power unquestionable The reason of this grounded upon Nature Grotius his testimony Monarchy God's government Mr. B 's just and loyal opinion of the Sovereigns power Vid. Holy Com. p. 72. Spoiled by his following Aphorisms H. C. p. 73. H. C. p. 87. Aph. 79. H. C. p. 87. 88. H. C. p. 74. Vpon these suppositions Mr. B. justifies the late Rebellion And by consequence the King's murther The Independents as justifiable as the Presbyterians Those Assertions of Mr. B 's taken to task Resistance inconsistent with the well-being of Bodies Politick As being an occasion of Civil War the worst of evils No small matter in Mr. B 's opinion that will excuse resisting Grotius puts a case but contradicts himself and the Primitive Christians in his answer to it De jure belli pacis lib. 1. c. 4 p. 104. A passage of his before cited concerning the Primitive Christians compared with this He himself in effect disallows his own Answer De jure Belli ac pacis p. 112. Some instances of his wherein Resistance may seem lawfull examined Thâ—se Instances of his are of Kings and nâ— Kings The third Instance The fourth Instance Those Instances but seeming Exceptions The Law of non-resisting the foundation and preservative of humane society Other reasons for non-resistance Resistance unlawfull even in Grotius his Case An Instance from the Holy League in France The Catholick Religion the pretence there The like Instance from our late Rebellion in England The Protestant Religion the pretence here Other pretences made use of for the late Rebellion The doctrine of Non-resistance recommended The Bishops grounds to prove the late War unlawful Mr. B's contrary grounds to justifie it His confidence of these grounds H. C. p. 489 490. The first of them confidered H. C. 476. ad sinem istius pagine The Parliaments Declaration Ibid. Mr. B. personally ingaged in the War The Parliaments design in that Declaration * 2 Chron. 18. v. 30. Mr. B's own confession in the case H. C. p. 422. H. C. p. 471. By Parliament Mr. B. means the House of Commons The ground of Felton's Murthering the D. of Buckingham a Vote of the House of Commons The dangerous consequence of such Votes No man safe in such cases The Remonstrance of the House of Commons made use of for the destruction of the Kings Person Hol. C. p. 489 Parliaments not infallible nor impeccable by Mr. B's own confession Holy Com-w pag. 437 438. And in some cases to be deferred by the People Ibid. Holy Com-w pag. 439. Mr. B's inconsistence in the resolution of such cases The Law a sure Rule * In Prolegom de jure Belli Pacis The E. of Essex his case in Q. Elizabeths time The Judges Opinion in that case * Cambd. Eliz. ad Ann. 1601. A threefold confirmation of that their opinion Three Observations drawn from thence The Presbyterians would have done what the Independents did had they been let alone Holy Com. p. 422. The Kings Person excepted in none of their Commissions The Presbyterian Clergy taxed as to the late Kings Death Fid. Evangil Armatum Mr. B. particularly charged Hol. Com. p. 489 490. Notwithstanding his confidence Ibid. Rebellion as Mr. B. owns a greater sin than Murther Whordom Drunkenness c. Some were Rebels who did not think themselves so The Schismatical Clergy under a just reproof The King's Power destroyed in the late War The Presbyterian Party who destroyed his Power by Mr. B 's own confession Rebels Nor consequently can they be absolv'd from the guilt of the King's murther The late War then was made against the King And that though the Parliament declared it was not H. Com. p. 419. Mr. B. proved to believe so himself Another Topick of Mr. B 's that the late War was not Rebellion Because the King he saith is not sole Sovereign Mr. B 's bold offer Vid. Praef. to Holy C. prope finem What Mr. B 's meaning is in denying the King to be the highest Power in the time of our divisions The King's Power taken from him his Authority remained good The Act which the King past for the Parliaments sitting Gave them no more Power than they had before The worst Act that blessed King ever did Mr. B grounds his denyal of the Kings Sovereignty upon the constitution of the Government His definition of a Kingdom H. C. p. 85. The Lacedaemonian Kings only titular The Government there Aristocratical All Kings indeed unaccountable to the Reople Even Political Kings who are obliged to govern by Law And though Kings by Election only All such Kings accountable to God only The Question The Answer 1 Reason The People upon their choice part with all the Power they had Valerian 's Reply in the like case Vid. Zozom lib. 6. cap. 6. 2 Reason A King so chosen hath hic Kingly Power immediately from God and not from the People as Mr. B. grants Nothing in Scripture for People to controul their Kings The state of the Jewish Kings Our King according to Mr. B 's own Principles a sole Sovereign Holy Com. p. 61. Ibid. p. 62. The King hath no Superior to judg him nor Peers to try him Mr. B. starts a Controversie which form of Government the English is H. C. p. 87. This Controversie never heard of till the late times The Rebell-Parliament modest at first The secret design of some from the first to change the Government Mr. B. makes the Kingdom of England a mixt Common-wealth H. C. p. 87. My Lord Cook 's judgment in the Case In the Preface to his fourth Book of Reports His judgment to be preferr'd before foreign Lawyers and Divines Calvin the Patriarch of the Presbyterians What properly Calvinism Calvin condemns Resistance of Kings by private men but obliges some sort of Magistrates to it His wariness in expressing himself The three Estates have no such Power as he supposeth Perhaps a salvo for a Lye Calvin himself doubts whether there be any such Magistrates as he speaketh of No such Magistrates by God's Ordinance The inconvenience and mischief of
all others besides themselves are to be excluded from Governing or chusing of Governours And amongst the ungodly that are to be thus excluded he reckons all those that will not hearken to their Pastours he means the Presbyterian Classis or that are despisers of the Lord's-Day that is all such as are not Sabbatarians or will not keep the Lord's day after the Jewish manner which they prescribe and which is condemned for Judaism by all even of the Presbyterian perswasion in the world but those of England and Scotland onely XV. If a People that by Oath and Duty are obliged to a Sovereign shall sinfully dispossess him and contrary to their Covenants chuse and Covenant with another they may be obliged by their latter Covenant notwithstanding their former and particular subjects that consented not in the breaking of their former Covenants may yet be obliged by occasion of their latter choice to the person whom they chuse Thes. 181. XVI If a Nation injuriously deprive themselves of a worthy Prince the hurt will be their own and they punish themselves but if it be necessarily to their welfare it is no injury to him But a King that by war will seek reparations from the body of the people doth put himself into an hostile State and tells them actually that he looks to his own good more than theirs and bids them take him for their Enemy and so defend themselves if they can Pag. 424. XVII Though a Nation wrong their King and so quoad Meritum causoe they are on the worser side yet may he not lawfully war against the publick good on that account nor any help him in such a war because propter fiuem he hath the worser cause Thes. 352. And yet as he tells us pag 476. we were to believe the Parliaments Declarations and professions which they made that the war which they raised was not against the King either in respect of his Authority or of his Person but onely against Delinquent Subjects and yet they actually fought against the King in person and we are to believe saith Mr. Baxter pag. 422. that men would kill them whom they fight against Mr. Baxter's Doctrine concerning the Government of England in particular HE denies the Government of England to be Monarchical in these words I. The real Sovereignty here amongst us was in King Lords and Commons Pag. 72. II. As to them that argue from the Oath of Supremacy and the title given the King I refer them saith Mr. Baxter to Mr. Lawson's answer to Hobbs's Politicks where he sheweth that the Title is often given to the single Person for the honour of the Commonwealth and his encouragement because he hath an eminent interest but will not prove the whole Sovereignty to be in him and the Oath excludeth all others from without not those whose interest is implied as conjunct with his The eminent dignity and interest of the King above others allowed the name of a Monarchy or Kingdom to the Commonwealth though indeed the Sovereignty was mixed in the hands of the Lords and Commons Pag. 88. III. He calls it a false supposition 1. That the Sovereign power was onely in the King and so that it was an absolute Monarchy 2 That the Parliament had but onely the proposing of Laws and that they were Enacted onely by the King's Authority upon their request 3. That the power of Arms and of War and Peace was in the King alone And therefore saith he those that argue from these false suppositions conclude that the Parliament being Subjects may not take up Arms without him and that it is Rebellion to resist him and most of this they gather from the Oath of Supremacy and from the Parliaments calling of themselves his Subjects but their grounds saith he are sandy and their superstructure false Pag. 459 460. And therefore Mr. Baxter tells us that though the Parliament are Subjects in one capacity yet have they their part in the Sovereignty also in their higher capacity Ibid. And upon this false and traitorous supposition he endeavours to justifie the late Rebellion and his own more than ordinary activeness in it For IV. Where the Sovereignty saith he is distributed into several hands as the King 's and Parliaments and the King invades the others part they may lawfully defend their own by war and the Subject lawfully assist them yea though the power of the Militia be expresly given to the King unless it be also exprest that it shall not be in the other Thes. 363. The conclusion saith he needs no proof because Sovereignty as such hath the power of Arms and of the Laws themselves The Law that saith the King shall have the Militia supposeth it to be against Enemies and not against the Commonwealth nor them that have part of the Sovereignty with him To resist him here is not to resist power but usurpation and private will in such a case the Parliament is no more to be resisted than he Ibid. V. If the King raise War against such a Parliament upon their Declaration of the dangers of the Common-wealth the people are to take it as raised against the Commonwealth Thes. 358. And in that case saith he the King may not onely be resisted but ceaseth to be a King and entreth into a state of War with the people Thes. 368. VI. Again if a Prince that hath not the whole Sovereignty be conquered by a Senate that hath the other part and that in a just defensive War that Senate cannot assume the whole Sovereignty but supposeth that government in specie to remain and therefore another King must be chosen if the former be incapable Thes. 374. as he tells us he is by ceasing to be King in the immediately precedent Thes. VII And yet in the Preface to this Book he tells us that the King withdrawing so he calls the murthering of one King and the casting off of another the Lords and Commons ruled alone was not this to change the species of the Government Which in the immediate words before he had affirmed to be in King Lords and Commons which constitution saith he we were sworn and sworn and sworn again to be faithfull to and to defend And yet speaking of that Parliament which contrary to their Oaths changed this Government by ruling alone and taking upon them the Supremacy he tells us that they were the best Governours in all the world and such as it is forbidden to Subjects to depose upon pain of damnation What then was he that deposed them one would think Mr. Baxter should have called him a Traitour but he calls him in the same Preface the Lord Protector adding That he did prudently piously faithfully and to his immortal honour exercise the Government which he left to his Son to whom as Mr. Baxter saith pag. 484. he is bound to submit as set over us by God and to obey for conscience sake and to behave himself as a Loyal Subject towards him
notice of whom he means by that One which it was easy for any that had read my Collection of some of his Aphorisms to guess at but this is certain that whomsoever he means by that One he saith of him in express terms that he is a defier of Deity and Humanity Now that he means me by that One though it be not clearly and plainly exprest in that Paper yet it is more than intimated in Mr. Baxter's Answer to a Letter of Dr. Hinckley's wherein he doth repeat what the Doctor had said touching those Aphorisms of his which I had collected and printed so as though neither of them name me yet it cannot be doubted but both of them mean me the rather because Mr. Baxter doth there and in that place of his Letter set down the very words of the first of those Aphorisms I have collected from denial of which Aphorism or rather from the denial of another Proposition substituted by him in the place or instead of that Aphorism he doth in the aforesaid Paper infer and conclude that One he speaks of to be a defier of Deity and Humanity But to put it out of question that I am the man he means by that One in the aforesaid Paper and whom he there makes to be a defier of Deity and Humanity There is a late I will not say the last Book of his for he may have writ two or three since for ought I know wherein he saith He wonders that Bishop Morley there you have whom he means in words at length and not in figures or figurative intimations onely did put the denial of this amongst the accused passages of his Political Aphorisms where saith he I expressly speak of God's limitation But what or of what was that denial of Mr. Baxter which he wonders the Bishop puts among the accused passages of his Aphorisms Why It was saith he my denial that there was any such thing in the World as a lawfull unlimited Monarchy or humane Power expressly speaking of limitation by God But where doth Bishop Morley accuse Mr. Baxter for denying there is any lawfull Monarchy or humane Power unlimited by God He doth it saith Mr. Baxter among the Passages of my accused Aphorisms But why doth not he name the passage where or the particular Aphorism wherein I do accuse him for his denying the aforesaid Proposition or for his denying there is any lawfull Monarchy or any other humane Power unlimited or not limited by God I will tell you why he doth not because indeed he cannot there being no such Aphorism nor any such Passage in any of those Aphorisms of his which I question him for or accuse him of There is indeed an Aphorism of his viz. the first of those which I have collected and exposed wherein he saith That of Governours some are limited and some are unlimited and those which are de facto unlimited are Tyrants and have no right to their unlimited Governments And the reason why I put this Aphorism of his into the catalogue of those which I except against is his affirming that such Governours I presume he means all such Governours as are de facto unlimited are Tyrants and have no right to their unlimited Governments It is I say his affirming of this and not his denying the lawfulness of a Monarchy or any other power or species of Government that is not limited by God that I question him for or accuse him of For if he thinks the affirming of that and the denying of this to be all one he is very much mistaken but the truth is that he is not at all mistaken as to this particular he knows well enough that it is not all one to affirm the one and deny the other for if he had thought it had been so why did he not specifie the Aphorism it self which I except against in terminis as it is set down in my Collection and as he sets it down himself in his aforesaid Letter to Dr. Hinckley It had been much more fairly and ingenuously done of him if he had done so and much more pertinently too as to the business in hand there being no question betwixt him and me in relation to the truth or falshood of the aforesaid Aphorism whether all lawfull Monarchies or humane Powers are limited by God or no but whether all such Governours as are de facto unlimited not by God but by Men are Tyrants and such as have no Right to their unlimited Governments The former I never did nor no man that is not a downright professed Atheist can deny to be true The latter I affirm to be false and not false and erroneous onely but dangerous and seditious also and I doubt not but by God's assistance to prove it to be so In the mean time let no man think it was the not discerning or not animadverting the difference betwixt what Mr. Baxter affirms in his Aphorism and what he denies in his Paraphrase of it that makes him substitute the one for the other Non sic notus Vlysses The cunning man is better known than so No he doth it artificially and designingly that he might the more probably and plausibly infer from the one what he knew he could not with any colour of consequence infer from the other and thereby to vent the overflowing of his Gall against me in revenge of my publishing of those Aphorisms of his whereby he seems to be so much galled And hence it is that as in the aforesaid recanting or rather canting Paper of his instead of my denying all unlimited Governours to be Tyrants and to have no right to their unlimited Governments which he affirms in his Aphorism he saith I deny all humane Powers to be limited by God and thence infers that I am a defier of Deity and Humanity So here again in that aforesaid late printed Book of his instead of my denial of what he affirms in the aforesaid Aphorism he saith that I accuse him for denying that there is any lawfull Monarchy or humane Power unlimited by God and then infers That he who asserteth the contrary as he implies I do is 1. saith he an Enemy to God because he denies God to be the universal Sovereign which is Atheism 2. He is an Enemy to Kings because he renders them odious to Mankind by drawing such a picture or description of them as to say a King is absolutely unlimited in his power and therefore may deny or blaspheme God and may destroy City and Kingdom and kill all the innocent People when he pleaseth 3. He is an Enemy to all Mankind who would bring them all into such a slavery to such a Monster By which large and indeed monstrous Paraphrase of his not upon what I do indeed assert but upon what he would have his Readers believe I do assert he explains what he means when he said I was a defier of Deity and Humanity Sed ne soevi
God nor from the fundamental Contracts of the Commonwealth he must mean where there are such fundamental contracts nor from any of his own publick promises nor to make Laws against God's Laws or the common good whereunto if he had added though he be free from being questioned or quarrelled with for it by his Subjects hitherto I could have been content to have gone with him in his Politicks but no farther for as to what he adds in his next and some other of his following Aphorisms as 1. That the same natural Person may be both Sovereign and Subject and that as Sovereign he may pardon others and as Subject he may be punished himself 2. That Sovereignty is divisible so that some part of it may be in the King and some part in others of the same Body Politick or as in his own words A mixt Commonwealth is that in which the other two or all three forms of a Commonwealth viz. Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy are so conjunct that the Supremacy is divided among them sometimes equally and sometimes unequally 3. That it may be called a Monarchy where one hath not the sole Sovereignty and that England is such a Monarchy 4. That the Existence of the natural Person or Persons of Sovereigns or of such as have the Sovereignty is not necessary to the existence of a Commonwealth but the natural existence of Subjects is necessary So that there may be Subjects that are Subjects to no-body and consequently Subjects that are no Subjects or a Body without a Head which is really no body at all either in a natural or political capacity These and the like Assertions of Mr. Baxter I take not onely to be falsities but self contradictions and yet upon some of these absurd suppositions if not upon all of them he endeavours to justifie the late horrid Rebellion or as he calls it the late War against the King And upon the same grounds he may and consequentially dath horresâ—o referens I tremble at the thought of it the cutting off his head also For if he were not a Monarch but in name onely as Mr. Baxter saith he was not and therefore had but a part in the Sovereignty as Mr. Baxter saith he had not And if he that hath but a part of the Sovereignty be a Subject as well as a Sovereign as Mr. Baxter saith he is and as a Subject may be punished as Mr. Baxter saith he may why might not the Democratical Independents justifie what they did to him afterwards as well as the Aristocratical Presbyterians could justifie what they did to him before I mean their making War against him and their buying selling and imprisoning of him and taking away all that he had from him but his life onely and that in all probability they would have done also if he had not been taken away from them as he was by the Independents who had been their Servants untill then but then began to think of making themselves their Masters by getting the King's Person out of their power into their own but still proceeding upon the same Presbyterian Principles from the first to the last I mean upon the aforesaid Assertions of Mr. Baxter which are all of them inconsistent with the very being or essential Constitution of any Body Politick whatsoever For first there can be no Body Politick without some to govern as well as others to be governed and of those that govern ne detur processus ad infinitum That we may not run upon an endless errand one or more that are Sovereign or Supreme And therefore the Existence of the natural Person or Persons of Sovereigns or him or them that have the Sovereignty is as necessary to the Existence of a Commonwealth or any Body Politick as the natural existence of Subjects is Otherwise there might be Subjects which were Subjects to no-body and consequently no Subjects at all which is as absurd as to say there may be the Existence of a Body without the Existence of the Head of that Body which was one of Mr. Baxter's aforesaid Assertions Again in all Bodies Politick He or they that have the Sovereign Power are above all the rest of the body whereof they are Sovereigns and therefore cannot be Subject to any or all of them and if so then the same natural Person cannot be both a Sovereign and a Subject too which was another of Mr. Baxter's aforesaid Assertions Again if he that is a Sovereign cannot be a Subject as it is a contradiction in adjecto to say he can be then he cannot be questionable or punishable for any thing he does as Mr. Baxter saith he may be Again Sovereignty is a thing which is in its own nature indivisible so that in whomsoever it is it is Wholly and in whomsoever it is not wholly it is not at all and consequently cannot be divided either equally or unequally as Mr. Baxter likewise saith it may be Finally that it may be called a Monarchy where One hath not the sole Sovereignty is true because that which is not a Monarchy may be called a Monarchy but that it may truly be so called is false as it is false likewise that the Kingdom of England is such a Monarchy as Mr. Baxter in the last of his aforesaid Assertions saith it is But of the two last of these Particulars I shall have occasion to speak more at large when we come to examine whether the Body Politick of England be such a mixt Body Politick as Mr. Baxter saith it is and whether the Sovereignty thereof be not in the King alone but so divided as he affirms it to be betwixt the King and the Parliament upon which Supposition onely he justifies or presumes to justifie the late Rebellion to have been a just war against the late King Whereby it plainly appears that even in Mr. Baxter's own opinion where the Sovereignty is not divided but wholly in one and the same person as it is not onely in all Despotical but in all Kingdoms properly so called whether Despotical or Political or wholly in one and the same Coetus or Assembly whether Aristocratical or Democratical it ought not it cannot be resisted without shattering in pieces the very essential constituting parts of the Common-wealth by dividing the members from the head which is all that I am concerned to prove at present namely that Subjects resisting their Sovereign is inconsistent with the very being of a Body Politick of what Species or denomination soever it is CHAP. XVI Resistance inconsistent with peoples well being as proving the occasion of Civil War A case put by Grotius and several Instances proposed by him which seem to allow Resistance examined and cleared AGain suppose it were not Inconsistent with the Being yet if it be inconsistent with the Well-being of the Body Politick or Common-wealth for Subjects to resist or rise up in Arms against their Sovereign that is enough to prove
without the destruction of very many innocent persons I cannot understand except we can imagine the Sovereign will have no Subjects to fight for him which Christ supposeth all Kings of this world have on that there will be fighting without killing or that none or very few of those that are innocent of either party will be kill'd which in a Civil War which of all other Wars is commonly the most bloudy and most cruel is not to be imagined And consequently if Kings are not to be resisted by their Subjects but in such a case as this they are never to be resisted at all because there can never be such a Case so that Grotius his main Axiome Summam potestatem tenentibus resisti jure non posse That those who have the Supreme Power cannot lawfully he resisted is still safe and without exception Neither is the truth of it impeached by any of those several Instances which he I mean Grotius subjoyns and which seem saith he to be Exceptions to this Rule but indeed are not 1. For as to the first of those Instances it speaks of such Kings as were never Kings at all but in name onely as the Kings of Lacedoemon were 2. The second speaks of those that had been Kings but ceased to be so by their own voluntary resignations as Diocletian did and some of our Saxon Kings did also and retir'd into Monasteries 3. The third speaks of such Kings as would alienate their Kingdoms unto Strangers whom the Subjects may refuse to obey without resisting their own Sovereigns and are bound to doe so not onely in regard of the natural Allegiance all Subjects owe to their natural Sovereign and to him onely as long as he lives or as long as he continues to be their Sovereign but in regard that after his death or after he voluntarily ceaseth to be their King they owe the same Allegiance to his legal Successour in all Hereditary Kingdoms And therefore saith Grotius the act or attempt of such an Alienation is null in it self and consequently is not at all obligatory to the Subject 4. The fourth speaks of such Kings as Verè hostili animo in totius Populi exitium feruntur that is Such Kings as would if they could destroy all their Subjects and endeavour to doe so Sed vix videtur saith Grotius id accidere posse in Rege mentis compote But this saith he is hard to be imagined of any King that is mentis compos that is in his wits or that is not stark mad and if he be stark mad or not mentis compos not in his right mind then his case is the same with that of Kings that are Minors or Infants and his Kingly Power is to be administred in his name by such as by the Laws or Customes of his Kingdom are to have the custody or care of him while he continues in that condition who are no more to be resisted by the Subject than the King himself was before he was in that condition 5. The fifth instance is of such Kings as In ipsâ delatione imperii In the very making of them Kings are made Kings upon this express condition That if they doe this or that so or so Subditi omni obedientioe vinculo solvuntur The Subjects are discharged from all obligation of obedience to them for then saith Grotius he that was King became a private person again But I say such a one was never a King at all properly so called because in the very Act whereby he was made or rather called a King he was indeed made a Subject to them whomsoever they were that had power to question whether he had done this or no and to un-king him if he had nay if he had not if they should think he had or say he had though they thought or knew he had not 6. The sixth Instance is when the King hath but a part of the Supreme Power and the Senate and the People have another part of it But then say I as I said before the King is no King properly so called I mean is no Sovereign but a piece of Sovereign if there can be such a thing and it is the Sovereign He or They that have the Sovereignty or the whole Sovereign power that I say are in no case to be resisted by their Subjects 7. The seventh and last is the same in sense with the fifth though it differ in words or in the manner of expression both of them speaking of one as King who is indeed no King that is no Sovereign as no man or number of men in any Society of men can be said to be that have others in the same Society equal with them and much less superiour to them as they must be to whom they are obnoxious and accountable for their ill managery of their Government and who have authority to deprive them of it and depose them from it And of none but such Kings as these that is such as are not Kings indeed but in name onely are all the aforefaid Instances wherein Grotius seems to grant it to be lawfull for Subjects to resist their Kings to be understood but two onely and those are the third and the fourth in the former of which there is nothing either said or meant of the Subjects resisting of their Sovereign but onely of their not obeying him if he would have them become Subjects to a stranger which they cannot doe if they would without becoming injurious not onely to him but also to his Successours as I said before And there is a great difference betwixt resisting and not obeying of Sovereigns by their Subjects though Mr. Baxter will needs have not obeying to be resisting in its primary and most proper signification As to the other of these two Instances which may be meant of Kings properly so called I mean such Kings as are indeed Sovereigns namely the fourth wherein upon supposition there were such a a King as would doe and did what he could to ruine his own Kingdom and to destroy all his own Subjects Grotius grants indeed that in such a case Rex abdicat Regnum or the King renounces his Kingdom or doth ipso facto declare he will be no longer their King because voluntas imperandi voluntas perdendi non possunt simul consistere Because a Will to reign and a Will to have none to reign over are inconsistent with one another But withall he tells us it is hardly credible he might have said utterly incredible there should be such a King unless he were mad and if he be mad there be other ways as I said before to hinder him from doing himself or his People so horrible a mischief without their taking up of Arms or rebelling against him So that I do not see how it can be rationally concluded out of any of the aforesaid Instances that it is lawfull to resist him or them that have the Sovereign Power
the Primitive Christians but to the Dictates of right Reason also I thought there would have been no need of saying any more to prove the late War here in England to be Unlawful because I took it for granted that it was a War made against the King and that our King was our only Sovereign and that those that made the War were but Subjects meer Subjects and no more than Subjects But Mr. Baxter tells us First That the late War was not made against the King Secondly That the King was not our Sovereign at least not our sole Sovereign And Thirdly That those that made the War were not meer Subjects but had their share in the Sovereignty and that in the chiefest part of the Sovereignty namely the Legislative power as well as the King had And upon these grounds he builds his Babel of confusion and of the solidity of these grounds he is so very confident that he saith he will confess himself to have been a Rebel nay a most perfidious Rebei and that he will offer his Head to Justice as a Rebel if these grounds of his can be solidly confuted Let us try therefore whether they be so impregnable as he presumes they are or no. I for my part am so far from thinking them to be so that they seem to me to have no solidity at all in any of them We will begin with the first viz. that the late War here in England was not a War against the King and therefore could not be a Rebellion The Consequence I confess to be good But how doth he prove the Antecedent why he proves the Antecedent namely that the War was not against the King because the Parliament declared it was not against the King but only against his evil Counsellors and his Delinquent Subjects that misled him and were his Enemies as well as the Commonwealths And it was upon this account saith Mr. Baxter that I served the Parliament nor do I know saith he that I ever fought against the King unless every one of the Kings Soldiers was a King or some one of them at least From which saying of his I observe by the way that Mr. Baxter himself in obedience to the Parliament did himself personally fight against the Kings Soldiers but not against the King unless some one of those Soldiers he fought against was the King as if no body can be said to fight against the King but one that hath a personal Combat or Duel with the King And perhaps the Parliament not thinking it time yet to speak out did hope to make the People believe that they made War against Delinquent Subjects only and not against the King because they did not as the King of Syria did command their General and his Officers to fight with neither small nor great but only with the King It is true the Parliament did not so but it is true too that they did not except the King from being fought with neither nor consequently from being kill'd For as Mr. Baxter saith it is to be suppos'd those that fight would kill those with whom they fight and then what might have become of the King if Mr. Baxter had hapned to encounter him when he was a fighting with other of his Soldiers But to let this pass as spoken of occasionally only Mr. Baxter tells us that he and those that engaged with him in the late War were obliged to believe the Parliaments Declaration that it was not a War against the King because the Parliament were not only the most competent Witnesses and Judges but the chosen Trustees of the Peoples Liberties But whom or what doth Mr. Baxter mean by such Parliaments as the People are obliged to believe surely not the King Lords and Commons which is the true notion of a Parliament no nor the Lords and Commons who both of them together are but the Body of a Parliament without a Head For the reason which he gives why they the People are obliged to believe them is because they are their chosen Trustees but so are the House of Commons only and not the Lords So that whatsoever the House of Commons declare or remonstrate unto the People is to be believed to be true and just and legal and the People to act accordingly and some there will always be that will do so For Example the House of Commons in the late Kings time Voted the Duke of Buckingham this Dukes Father to be an Enemy to the publick and therefore Felton thought himself obliged to kill him and did so and for no other reason but that only For being presently apprehended and ask't why he did it Look said he betwixt the Crown and Lining of my Hat and you shall find the reason why I thought my self bound in conscience to God and in duty to my King and Country to do it And there as he told them they should they found a Paper sticht to the inside of the Lining with the aforesaid Vote of the House of Commons written upon it And this was told me by a very credible Witness Sir Tho. Alisbury then one of the Masters of Requests but formerly Secretary for the Admiralty to the aforesaid Duke who was by when he was Murder'd and heard the aforesaid Examination of Felton and his justifying of what he had done upon that account of the aforesaid Vote of the House of Commons which was taken out of his Hat and seen and read by the aforesaid Sir Tho. Alisbury I have repeated the Story of this matter of fact the rather because there have been of late divers such Votes passed in the House of Commons against several Persons of eminent Quality and Dignity who were all of them to be supposed to be innocent until they were proved to be guilty and yet before any such proof made or any proceeding against them per legem terrae or according to the Law of the Land as some of them were so all of the like quality that is all the Nobility may be condemned by a Major party of a House of Commons as Enemies to the Commonwealth or of King and Kingdom and according to Mr. Baxter's Doctrine must by the People be believed to be so and consequently they that are so Voted how many how great and how innocent soever they are they are to be exposed to have their throats cut by any Fanatical Zealot or which is worse to be torn in pieces by the inraged Rabble as the two Dewitts were lately in Holland and as Dr. Lamb was in London in the Reign of King James For it is but giving of the Word in such a season and down goes that Voted or rather that Devoted Person and is knock'd on the head before he can open his mouth to speak for himself when perhaps he is not the Man they took him for neither What is become in the mean time of Magna Charta
it was not made against the King but against his evil Councellors and other his Delinquent Subjects only CHAP. III. Another ground of Mr. B's justifying the late War that according to our constitution the King is not sole Sovereign disproved The Act for the Rebel-Parliaments sitting censured All Kings properly so called not accountable to the People but to God only AND this doth farther appear by the little confidence he himself seems to have in this Topick For supposing as he had all the reason in the World to suppose that the aforesaid Declaration of the Parliament as he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 abusively and falsly calls it would signifie nothing with considering and understanding men as to the justifying of the late War from being a down-right Rebellion as indeed it was he seems to quit this as an indefensible Out-work and retires to that which he thinks to be a much stronger Hold and which if he can maintain he thinks that though he should grant the late War to have been made against the King yet it was not could not be a Rebellion because it was not made by Subjects against their Sovereign For the King of England saith he according to the constitution of our Government is not our sole Sovereign but there be others that be partners with him in the Sovereignty it self and of this he is so very confident that he saith in positive and express terms that if any man can prove that the King was the highest power in the time of those Divisions He will offer his head to justice for a Rebel Which saying of his seems to require some animadversion upon it as not being an absolute denyal of the Kings Sovereignty or of the Kings being the highest Power but of his being Sovereign or highest Power during those times of division only which seems to imply that he was even in Mr. Baxters opinion the Sovereign or highest Power before those times of division And if this be his meaning as it must be if there be any meaning at all in those words then it is not from the Constitution of the Government as Mr. Baxter saith it is that the King I mean our King of England is not the Sovereign or the highest Power always and in all times and to all intents and purposes but it was from the Alteration of the essential Constitution of our Government and from the iniquity of those Times and Persons that made that alteration that the King did not nor could not then exercise those Acts of Sovereignty or Supreme Power which was as legally invested and as inseparably inherent in him even then as ever it was before For though the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Power might and was yet the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Authority was not nor could not be taken from him but by taking away his Life also Unless Mr. Baxter will say and there seems to be some such secret intimation in that saying of his I last quoted that the King himself gave away his Sovereignty or that he made his two Houses of Parliament partakers with him in it when he passed an Act for their sitting until They themselves should be willing or content to be dissolv'd I confess this was a very great alteration in the very fundamental constitution of the Government and I confess the King passed such an Act the very great streights he was then in together with the minatory importunity of the two Houses backt by the insolent and tumultuous behaviour of the Multitude necessitating him as it were to do that which never any of his Predecessors did before him and I hope never any of his Successors will do after him I mean to pass such an Act as that was Although that Act gave neither of the Houses singly nor both of them jointly any whit or jot of more Power but only of sitting longer than what They or their Predecessors had before or their Successors now have And I hope Mr. Baxter will not say that is a Power to repeal Acts to make Ordinances of equal validity and obligation with Acts without the Royal Assent to them to raise Armies and Monies to maintain them upon their fellow-subjects and against their fellow-subjects and against the King himself also Did the Act that gave them a Power to sit until they thought fit to be dissolved give them Power to do all or any of these things before specified and many other as bold as bad and as illegal as any of those were or because they had leave to sit as long as they listed had they leave to do what they listed also No no it was their ingrateful and ungracious abuse of the Kings too gracious favour to them that was the cause of all those evils that afterwards upon that occasion befel Him and the whole Royal Family and all his Loyal Subjects And therefore of all the Acts that ever that good King did I take the passing of the aforesaid Act for the sitting of the two Houses not during his but their own pleasures to be the worst not only in point of prudence and policy as most prejudicial to the Crown and Government in general but in point of Right and Justice also to all and every one of the rest of his Subjects I mean as many of them as were capable of chusing and of being chosen Parliament-men who were all of them by the passing of this Act excluded from having what was due to them in either of those capacities and consequently from the Rights and Priviledges of Free-born Englishmen as long as those Parliament-Men that were then in being should please to sit and that might be ar was as We saw afterwards as long as they lived or at least as long as they could I mean till the Army which they raised made them to rise whether they would or no and yet there want not some that say they are still in being But to return from this digression because it is not upon this particular occasional alteration of the Government that Mr. Baxter doth openly and professedly ground his denyal of the Kings Sovereignty here in England but upon the fundamental and essential constitution of the Government it self and consequently he denies England to be a Kingdom and our King to be a King properly so called For he himself defines a Kingdom to be such a Common-wealth or body Politick as hath but one Person only for its Sovereign So that according to this definition all Kingdoms that are Kingdoms indeed are Monarchies and all Kings that are Kings indeed or Kings properly so called are Monarchs I say Kings properly so called because some have been called Kings who were really no Kings as the Kings of Sparta or Lacedaemon were who were but Generals of their Armies only the Sovereign Power of the State being in those that were called the Ephori or Overseers to whom those they called their Kings were
legally accountable for all their actions and by whom they were legally punishable even with death it self for their delinquencies whereas the Ephori were accountable to none nor punishable by any and therefore the Sovereign Power of the State was in them and consequently their Kings were Kings and no Kings that is Kings in name and title only but really and indeed no more than Subjects So that the Government of Lacedaemon was not Regal or Monarchical but Aristocratical and so Thucydides calls it For as speaking of the Athenians he calls them the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Multitude or Populace because their Government was Democratical so speaking of the Lacedaemonians he calls them the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Best sort of People or the Nobless because their Government was Aristocratical whereas if it had been truly Regal or their Kings had been truly and properly called Kings he should have called them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Royalists or Kings-men or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Subjects of Monarchs because their Government would then have been Monarchical For a Government to be Regal and to be Monarchical is all one there being no King properly so called but he is a Monarch that is one that governs all and is subject to none and consequentially accountable to none for any thing he doth in his own Kingdom And this is true of all Kings properly so called whether they be greater or less Successive or Elective and whether they be Despoticall or Politicall for both Successive and Elective Kings properly so called may be either Despoticall or Politicall for as the Successive Kings in the three first Monarchies were Successive and Despoticall and are so still in the East and South parts of the World and in both the Indies so those of the fourth and last Monarchy also I mean the Roman Emperors whether Successive or Elective were all of them Despoticall and so in Europe are the successive Emperors of Turky and Russia and Tartary at this day that is such as are not only Monarchs that is such as have the whole Sovereign Power solely in themselves as all Kings or Monarchs properly so called have also but have and exercise that Sovereignty or Sovereign Power without being bounded or limited by any Laws or Rules to govern by but as Lords over their Vassals absolutely and arbitrarily according to their own Will and Pleasures Whereas Politicall Kings and Princes whether Successive as the Kings of England and of France and of Spain or Elective as the Emperor of Germany and the King of Poland are obliged to govern according to the Political Constitutions and Laws of their several respective Seigniories and Dominions but not so as to forfeit their right to their Crowns or to be accountable to any judicatory or punishable by any Power here on Earth if they do not do so no though they be Kings but by Election only so they be elected to be Kings indeed and not in name and title only as the aforesaid Kings of Lacedaemon were and as the Dukes of Venice now are who are Subjects to the Senate there as the Kings of Lacedaemon were to the Ephori in Sparta though those were Successive and these Elective For it is not their succeeding or being elected or being called Kings that makes them to be Kings indeed but their being invested with Kingly Power that is to be over all and under none whether they be born or elected to be so or by what name or title soever they be called whether Kings Emperors Sophies Sultans or but Dukes only For the Duke of Florence is as much a Monarch in his own Dominions as any of the former are in theirs He therefore that is born or chosen to be such a King is not nor cannot after he is such a King be accountable or punishable for any thing he does how unjustly or how much against Law soever it may be but to God only and by God because all within his own Dominions are his Subjects and none without his own Kingdoms and Dominions though they be never so much greater or more powerful Kings than he have any thing to do with him and much less have They any authority over him which they must have that can justly pretend to punish any man how great a Delinquent soever he may be or what wrong soever he hath done against others or against themselves CHAP. IV. A Query resolved whether a King Elective may not be Deposed upon non-performance of conditions Our King proved from Mr. B 's own Principles to be a sole Sovereign BUT may not the People that chuse one to be their King upon such or such conditions upon his non-performance of such conditions Depose him or take away that Power over them they gave unto him I answer that if they chuse him to be their King indeed and not in name and title only then he did thereby become their King indeed that is their Monarch or Sovereign Lord over all of them and consequently they did all of them become his Subjects without any Power Civil or Military left in themselves but subordinate to him or derived from him and consequently such as could not lawfully in any case or upon any provocation be used against him The People having by such an Election parted with all the Power they formerly had without any reservation and much less power of resumption And this was well understood by Valerian the next Successor but one to Julian the Apostate who being chosen by the Army to be their Emperor and they crying out to him to name another to be Consors imperii a Partner in the Empire or one to govern with him he gave them this notable Answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was in your Power O my Soldiers said he to chuse me to reign over you but now you have chosen me that which you demand belongs not to you but to me and it becomes you as Subjects to be quiet or not to meddle with matters of Government and to me as your King and Emperor to consider what is fit to be done Again I answer that even in Elective Kingdoms he that is chosen by the People to be their King hath not his Kingly Power from them that chose him but from God which is in express terms not only granted but asserted by Mr. Baxter and he values himself upon it as being upon that account a better friend to Kings than as he saith some Episcopall men are and indeed if he were always and in all he saith consistent with himself he would not be so great an Enemy to Kings as in this and many other of his Aphorisms which I have collected out of his Book of a Holy Commonwealth he hath shewed himself to be For if it be not the People who chuse him to be their King that give him his Kingly Power but that he hath it
Sovereign So that there being then no controversie of the Kings Sovereignty over the whole Nation whether diffusively or representatively considered nor consequently whether this Kingdom were a Monarchy properly so called or no this Controversie I say there being then no such controversie in being could not be one of the causes of the War as Mr. Baxter saith it was I am sure it was none of the causes then pretended And yet I am apt enough to think that the contrivers and promoters of the War that were then leading-men in the House of Commons and some of them in the House of Lords also did from the very beginning design and intend a real change and alteration of the Government it self though They openly pretended but a reformation of abuses that were in it only I mean they did intend to turn the Monarchy into an Aristocracy and to make a Duke of Venice of the King as appears by the 19 Propositions which when they thought themselves strong enough to own they made to him But this They concealed for a long time from the main Body of their Party for fear it might alienate most or many of them that had any thing of Loyalty or Conscience from them Or if they did communicate this arcanum this secret of their grand design to any it was only to those whom they were sure of as desiring such a change of the Government as themselves did and whose help they were to make use of for the bringing of it about I mean the popular Presbyterian and other Schismatical Preachers and perhaps Mr. Baxter was one of them Otherwise I should wonder how he comes to say as he doth the Parliaments have affirmed it namely the Kingdom of England to be a mix'd Commonwealth For sure by Parliament he meant Parliament-men for Parliaments say nothing but by Votes or Orders of the respective Houses and I verily believe there never was any such Vote pass'd in either of them if there were he should have done well to have named those Parliaments or at least some one of those Parliaments that had affirmed the Kingdom or as he calls it the Commonwealth of England not to be Monarchical but a mixed Government which no doubt he would have done if he could being so desirous as he seems to be to have it so But I can tell him of one who was Speaker of the House of Commons and as Learned a one in the Laws and Legal Constitutions of this Realm likewise as knowing what were the Powers and Priviledges of both Houses of Parliament as ever was before or since Him in the Chair and that was my Lord Cook who saith and saith it positively as a known and undoubted truth That this Kingdom of ours is a Monarchy and Monarchy successive by inherent Birth-right adding that of all others it is the most absolute and perfect Form of Governments excluding Interregnums and with it infinite inconveniences And now what say you Mr. Baxter Do you not think this Oracle of our Law for so I think he is esteemed by those of his Profession do you not think I say that he understood the Legal and Fundamental Constitution of this Kingdom as well as you do or any of those foreign Lawyers or Divines whose judgments perhaps you may rely on and be misled by I name Divines as well as Lawyers because some of the Protestant as well as Popish Divines have done what they can to lessen the Power of Kings the latter to make them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to make them accountable and subject to the Pope and the former to make them accountable and subject to the People to their own Subjects which is as dangerous and much more dishonourable than the other CHAP. VI. Calvin answered who though he allows not private Persons to resist yet requires it of some Magistrates whom he supposes the Guardians of the Peoples Liberty No such Magistrates as he supposeth nor doth he say there are and if there were they would be extremely inconvenient to the publick This Opinion taxed by Grotius who yet himself supposing the Sovereignty shared betwixt the King and People in some case allows resistance AND yet this so dangerous and so dishonourable a subjection of Kings to their own Subjects doth Mr. Calvin the Patriarch of the Presbyterians approve of I call him the Patriarch of the Presbyterians because he was the first that after 1500 years Government of the Church by Bishops invented and set up a Government of the Church by a Parity of Presbyters without Bishops and this and this only can properly and truly be called Calvinism whatsoever he holds besides even the most rigid of his Tenets having been held by some of the Schoolmen and some of the Fathers also But this Calvin I say though otherwise a very Learned and as our judicious Hooker saith of him incomparably the wisest man that ever the French Church did enjoy since the hour it did enjoy him though he doth not allow of the resisting of Kings even the worst and most tyrannical of Kings by such of their Subjects as are but private men and consequently not by the generality of the People yet Si qui nunc sunt saith he populares Magistratus ad moderandam Regum libidinem constituti quales olim erant qui Lacedomoniis Regibus oppositi erant Ephori quâ etiam fortè potestate ut nunc res habent funguntur in singulis Regnis tres Ordines quum primarios conventus peragunt adeò illos serocienti Regum licentiae pro officio intercedere non veto ut si Regibus impotenter grassantibus humili Plebeculae insultantibus conniveant corum dissimulationem nefariâ perfidiâ non carere affirmem quia Populi libertatem cujus se Tutores Dei ordinatione positos nôrunt fraudulenter produnt I have put down this passage of Calvins in his own words which for the English Readers sake may be thus translated If there be now saith he any such popular Magistrates constituted I presume he meant legally constituted or appointed by Law for the moderating or restraining the lust or unbridled appetites of Kings such as were of old time the Ephori to the Lacedaemonian Kings and which Power also as things now are perhaps the three Orders or Estates have in several Kingdoms when they meet in Parliament I am so far from forbidding them saith he to interpose their Authority for restraining the raging licentiousness of Kings that if they do but connive at them when they impotently domineer and insult upon the poor Commonalty I do affirm that connivence of theirs is a nefarious persidiousness because they do fraudulently betray the Peoples Liberty whereof they know they are made the Guardians by Gods appointment In which passage of Mr. Calvins wherewith he concludes his Book of Institutions I observe that he speaks not with that confidence and clearness as he useth
to speak with in declaring his judgment upon other occasions nor as he doth in the Paragraph preceding this in which he doth positively and resolutely condemn the resistance of Kings by their Subjects in any case or upon any provocation whatsoever and for this he brings undeniable arguments and proofs out of Scripture and answers clearly and solidly all objections to the contrary But when he comes with his deprivatis hominibus loquor that is I speak of private men to tell us that by Subjects that are not to resist their Kings he means private Men only what he gave with one hand he takes away with the other by not only permitting and allowing but by obliging and injoyning some that are Magistrates to restrain their Kings from oppressing or insulting as he calls it over their People and to bind their Kings as it were to the good behaviour which how it can be done if Kings have no mind to be so bound but by force he doth not tell us and how it can be done by force without the assistance of private men he doth not tell us neither nor consequently without making private Subjects to resist their King which as he told us before was utterly unlawful in any Case whatsoever So that he seems as to this point to speak very doubtfully and warily For first he doth not say there are now any such Magistrates that are to be Umpires as it were betwixt Kings and their Subjects with Power to curb and restrain Kings from governing of their People otherwise than they ought to do such as saith he were the Ephori in relation to the Lacedemonian Kings but he saith si qui nuno sunt if there be any such Magistrates now as the Ephori were then and as fortè saith he perhaps he doth not say certé for certain or absque dubio without doubt the Conventions of the three Estates are in those Kingdoms wherein are such Conventions meaning I presume the Kingdoms of England and France and others if there be any other of the like Constitution so that if such a Convention or Assembly of the three Estates have no such Power as the Ephori had as Calvin doth not positively affirm they have but that fortè or perhaps they may have and consequently that forté and perhaps they may not have neither then hath Calvin this to say for himself that if such Conventions or Assemblies have no such Power as most certainly they have not nor ever had where Kings were Kings indeed and not in name only as the Spartan Kings were he hath this I say to say for himself that what he positively affirms afterwards that such Magistrates or such Assemblies may and ought to do for the restraining and curbing of Kings was only upon supposition that they were legally invested with the same Power over their respective Kings as the Ephori were legally invested with over the Kings of Lacedaemon which if it be not true as he that saith but perhaps it is doth thereby grant that perhaps it is not neither then is not he chargeable with that which follows namely with this Opinion or Doctrine that such popular Magistrates as he calls them or such representative Assemblies of the People might and ought to do what the Ephori did And thus these two little Adverbs Fortè and Ferè Perhaps and Almost do as the Proverb saith save many a Lye and are of great use to insinuate that unto others as true which we are not sure of our selves as also for the bringing men off from being answerable for what they so warily and doubtfully affirm if they be questioned for it and undeniably convinced of the falshood of it And truly that Calvin himself did doubt whether there were any such Magistrates in any of those Kingdoms he seems to speak of that had such Power and Authority in relation to their Kings as the Ephori had in relation to the Kings of Lacedaemon I make no doubt at all and that not only in regard of his Fortè perhaps which I have already spoke of but also because he gives us not so much as one Instance of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that there are any such Magistrates nor one argument for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of it that there should be any such either from Reason or from Authority either Divine or Humane that is from either any Example or Precept of Gods Law or of any Humane Constitution in any Kingdom though by saying as he doth that those Populares Magistratus are the Tutores the Guardians or Defenders of the Peoples Liberty against the violence of Kings Dei Ordinatione by the Ordinance of God he seemeth to think that they are by Gods own appointment which is very strange it should be so now and was never so in the Kingdom of his own framing for his own People for whom he professeth he had a greater kindness than for any other Nation and therefore no doubt would have made such a provision for their security from being oppressed by their Kings whom he foresaw would be such oppressors as many of them proved to be But we see he did not And therefore if there be any where such Magistratus Populares or Tutelares Populi Guardians of the People to protect the People against their Kings I conclude that it is not an Ordinance of God but an Invention of man and such an invention as is likely to embroil States and Kingdoms in a Civil War which is the worst of Evils rather than to preserve the publick peace and quiet by keeping fair quarter or a good correspondence betwixt King and People For quis custodiet ipsos Custodes Who shall take care of the Keepers of our Liberties themselves For who shall secure either King or People from these securers of the People from the King May not they be as cruel as covetous as voluptuous as self-seeking and every way as careless of the publick good as the worst of Kings Nay are they not more likely to be so all of them having a divided Interest of their own from that of the Publick and each of them from that of one another Whereas the Kings Interest if he be a King indeed and not a titular King only is one and the same with the Publick both in regard of himself and of his Posterity also if his Kingdom be Hereditary and consequently if he do that which is best for himself he must needs do that which is best for his People also so that supposing him to be Wise for himself there will be no danger of his doing any thing wittingly and willingly that will indanger the Peace and Prosperity of his People because that which will endanger theirs will endanger his own also But supposing the King for the present as bad as bad may be yet he may mend or if he do not he is mortal and his successor may be better or if not yet at
nor admonitions could prevail with Philip to reduce him to a better mind that is to make him to be content with the same Power which his Predecessors as Graves had under the States then saith he Foederatorum Populorum Ordines the States of the United Provinces Pronunciarunt Philippum ob violatas Imperii leges ipso jure Principatu excidisse did pronounce or declare that Philip for violating the Laws of the Government had legally forfeited his Right to the Principality or Graveship which he formerly had under the respective States of those Provinces So that all that can be gathered out of this passage or indeed out of this whole Book of Grotius is but this that he who invades the Sovereign Power whereunto he hath no Right may not only be resisted by those that have the Sovereign Power but may forfeit the Right which he had before to any Office or Authority under them Which though perhaps it may be enough to excuse the Vnited Provinces from being Rebels against the King of Spain and to justifie the War they made against him as likewise for their taking away the Hereditary Lands which he held of them and under them it being indeed as much and all that can be said to that purpose yet by Grotius his favour it is not enough to justifie what he saith in that before quoted place in his Book de jure Belli Pacis which was the occasion of this digression namely that either there may be such a division of the Sovereignty betwixt the King and Senate or betwixt the King and the States of his Kingdom as he there asserts or that the States that are under the King may not only defend their part of the Power they derive from the King against the King but that the King may forfeit his part of the Sovereignty to Them by his invading of Theirs For first in this Narrative of his for the justifying of the War made by the States of the Vnited Provinces against the King of Spain there is not a word of any division of the Sovereignty of any of those Provinces betwixt him and the States but the Sovereignty or supreme Power is asserted to have always been and always is de jure by right in the States Secondly That by the Sovereignty or supreme Power he meant the whole Sovereignty or whole supreme Power and not a part or the chief part of it only it is evident because he saith it was always the same that it was when he writ that Tract which was when Grave Maurice was their General in whose Fathers time when the Confederate States began to make War against the Spaniards Grotius tells us that ex eo tempore summa Ordinum Potestas quam postremorum Principum licentia non parum obscuraverat luci reddita palà m effulsit from that time forward saith he the supreme Power or Sovereignty of the States which by Licence taken by the later of their Princes he means the Burgundians and the Spaniards had been much obscured he doth not say wholly extinguished being restored to its former lustre did openly shine forth especially after the Spaniard had treated with them as Sovereign and free Estates and acknowledged them to be so and that he claimed no right to them or authority over them which though de facto he did de jure according to Grotius he ought not to have done before because though he was King of Spain he was no more King of those Provinces than their Duces or first Generals were who though they were then called Kings yet nihil manifestius est saith Grotius quà m Reges illos fuisse vel Laconicos nomine solo reverâ ipsâ nihil nisi optimatium primos There is nothing more manifest saith he than that those Kings were just such Kings as those of the Lacedaemonians that is Kings in name only but really and indeed no more than the chief of the Optimates or the Nobility as he that was called Princeps Senatûs was in Rome whilst it was an Aristocracy or as the Duke of Venice or the Prince of Orange now is So that if a People who in chusing of a King whom they may chuse whether They will chuse or no reserve to themselves but a part of the Sovereignty may justly resist their King if he invade that part which they have reserved to themselves and in case they prove too hard for him take away that part of the Sovereignty from him which they had before given him as Grotius supposeth they may then à fortiori with much more reason those that reserve the whole Sovereignty to themselves as Grotius tells us the States did may justly do what they can to maintain it or to recover it from any that shall attempt to take it from them especially from any one that is employed by them and under them how great soever his employment may be or by what name or title soever they be dignified or distinguished from the rest of their ordinary Subjects And this saith Grotius was the case betwixt the States of the Vnited Provinces and the King of Spain as he stood related to those Provinces when they first took up Arms against him to regain what was their own before when it was usurped by him and when afterwards to secure it for the future they took away from him that to which before he had by inheritance a just right and title to I mean the Prerogative of being their Grave or their chief Magistrate though not their Sovereign And consequently the Premisses quorum penes sit Authorem fides let our Author answer for that being supposed to be true that War of the Hollanders against the Spaniard upon that account could be no Rebellion Be it so Non equidem invideo nec repugno I for my part am not sorry for it nor do I gain-say it but rather I am glad there is so much to be said for any of the reformed Religion to justifie their taking up Arms and I wish there were as much to be said for the Protestants in France and for all other both Lutherans and Calvinists in all other places namely that the Reformation in Religion had been made in every one of the several Countries and Cities by those that had the Sovereignty as Grotius saith it was in the Vnited Provinces and as we are sure it was in England and where we are sure the Sovereignty is all of it in the King as it is in all Kings that are Kings indeed and not in title or name only as all those Kings are saith Grotius qui subsunt Populo who are under the People From which one saying of Grotius I think we may conclude that there neither is nor can be any division of the Sovereignty betwixt the King and the People as he supposeth there may be for in all Kingdoms whatsoever whether properly or improperly so called the King doth either subesse populo is
but hence it will not follow that he was bound to do so nay thence it will follow that neither he nor any of his Predecessors were bound to do so for then they that were the boldest in their demands that ever met and sate in Parliament would have claimed it as of right and not Petition'd for it as they did at least if they had vouchsafed to have Petition'd for it they would have called their Petition a Petition of Right which they did not So that by very Petitioning the King to grant those things which they proposed as agreed on by both Houses they acknowledged that the King was not bound by any Law Custom or Precedent from his Predecessors to consent to what both Houses had agreed on and consequently that there was no such Co-ordination betwixt the King Lords and Commons by the fundamental Constitution of this Kingdom as by the aforesaid Aâ—â—hor was pretended to be And therefo 〈…〉 in his answer to the Petition of the 〈…〉 the 19 Propositions which they pretend humbly to desire but indeed peremptorily press him to grant tells them That to say he is obliged to pass all Laws that shall be offered unto him by both Houses howsoever his own Judgment and Conscience shall be unsatisfied wiih them is to broach a new Doctrine a point of Policy as proper for their present business as destructive to all rights of Parliaments adding that it was out of a strange shamelesness that they would forget for sure there being so many Lawyers among them some of them could not chuse but remember it a Clause in a Law still in force made in the second year of King Henry the V. wherein both Houses of Parliament acknowledg that it is of the Kings Regality to grant or deny such of their Petitions as pleaseth himself And if it were so and acknowledged by both Houses of Parliament to be so in Henry the V's time I would fain know in what Kings Reign or by what Kings consent that Act or the aforesaid Clause in that Act which was in force so lately comes to be repeal'd or whether any Law or Act of Parliament can be either made or repealed without the Kings consent CHAP. XIII An Ordinance of both Houses no Law and consequently no legal Authority for the late War against the King The Militia or the Power of the Sword acknowledged by the two Houses themselves to be in the King A Sermon of Arch-Bishop Ushers in the Isle of Wight Preached to the same Purpose NOT a Law perhaps may Mr. Baxter say properly so called but an Ordinance of both Houses may and that without the Kings consent to it nay notwithstanding the Kings declaring and protesting against it oblige all the People of England to do or not to do what the two Houses will have them as much as any Law consented to by the King ever did or can do nay and may repeal any Law made by the King by the advice and with the consent of both Houses any Law or Custom to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding But per quam Regulam by what Rule Mr. Baxter By what Law of God or man can this be done Why by an Ordinance of both Houses which is equivalent at least to an Act of Parliament properly so called and so it had need to be Mr. Baxter and more too to warrant the doing of such things such horrible mischiefs and Villanies as have been done against God by Sacriledg against the King by Rebellion and by Subjects against their fellow Subjects by plundering and imprisoning and murdering one another of which side soever they were for all will be put to the account of them that had no authority I mean no legal and just Authority to warrant them to do what they did And therefore Mr. Baxter you were best be very sure that the two Houses had Authority to make such a War as they did not only without Commission from the King but against the King and to engage you and by you to engage so many thousands as you say they did in it You were best I say be very sure of it for it is not your head or your neck only which you say you are willing to hazard upon that account but your soul it self and the Everlasting Woe or Welfare of it that lies at stake for it Be not deceiv'd God is not to be mocked It is not the Confederacy of the two Houses it is not the Covenanting of the two Nations that can justifie either their commanding or their being obeyed in any thing which God hath forbidden or not allowed them to command or to be obeyed in by some known Law of his own or of the Land neither of which I am sure can be produced by them Moreover it is not the redressing of Grievances had they been as many or more and as great or greater than the House of Commons in their virulent and malicious Remonstrance to the People represented them to be nor the Reformation of Religion though there had been much more need of it than there was no nor the truly intending as well as pretending never so good or never so necessary an End for the publick Good either spiritual or temporal of the whole Nation that can justifie the Means they made use of if they had not Authority to make use of them I mean in their taking of the Sword out of the Kings hands where the Law of God and of the Land had placed it and taking it into their own notwithstanding Gods and mans Law to the contrary For the proof of the first part of which Assertion of mine I appeal to Mr. Baxter himself for amongst his many false and impious and pernicious Aphorisms he hath this true one that it is not lawful for a Nation to fight for the preservation of their Religion or their worldly goods and liberties without just authority and licence Whereunto he adds by way of exposition and illustration of his meaning That it is but a delusory course of some in these times that write many Volumes to prove that Subjects may not bear Arms against their Princes for Religion as if those that were against them did think that Religion only as the end yea or Life or Liberty would justifie Rebellion or that the Efficient Authorizing Cause were not necessary as well as the Final Where bearing Arms against Princes is warrantable quoad fundamentum as to the ground of it this will warrant it quoad finem as to the end of it A good End must have a good Ground Again for proof of the latter part of my Assertion namely that the Sword or the Power of making War was by Law in the Kings hand and not in theirs I appeal to the Acknowledgment of the two Houses themselves who after they had setled the Militia before the War was actually begun yet knowing and being conscious to themselves that they had done it illegally
If therefore the Law hath its obliging power which is its form or that which makes it to be Law from the King and the King only the King and the King only must needs be the efficient and sole efficient cause of Law and consequently the whole Legislative power must needs be in him only unless Mr. Baxter can prove that the two Houses of Parliament can of themselves and by their own Authority only make their Bills to be Laws or at least that they joyn with the King in making them to be so For if it be the Kings own arbitrary consent only which makes that to be a Law which was no Law before he consented to it then must it needs be confessed that the King is the sole efficient of all Law and consequently the only Law-giver in his own Kingdom according to the determination of the very learned judicious and truly pious and conscientious Casuist Doctor Sanderson Bishop of Lincoln who in his Lecture de Legum humanarum causâ efficiente speaking of our King hath these very weighty and remarkable words Cùm illa sola censenda sit cujusque rei causa efficiens principalis sufficiens quae per se immediatè producit in materiam praeparatam introducit eam formam quae illi rei dat nomen esse etsi ad productionem istius effectûs alia etiam concurrere oporteat vel antecedere potiùs ad praevias dispositiones quò materia ad recipiendam formam ab agente intentam aptior reddatur omninò constat quotcunque demùm ea sint quae ad legem recte constituendam antecedenter requiruntur voluntatem tamen principis ex cujus unius arbitratu jussione omnes Legum Rogationes aut ratae habentur aut irritae esse solam adaequatam publicarum Legum efficientem causam Seeing saith he that is to be held the principal efficient and sufficient cause of every thing which of it self and immediately produceth and introduceth into the matter prepared for it that form which giveth name and being to that thing though for the producing of that effect other things also must concur or rather precede as previous dispositions to make the matter fitter to receive the form intended by the Agent to be introduced into it it is certain for all that how many soever the things are that are antecedently requisite for the constituting of the Law the Will of the Prince on whose alone arbitrary consent or dissent the ratifying or rejecting of such Laws as are tendred unto him doth depend is the sole and adequate efficient cause of all publick Laws This I say was the judgment of that very learned pious and very judicious Casuist Dr. Sanderson concerning the only proper adequate subject of the Legislative power here in England who was Professor of Casuistical Divinity in the University of Oxford as long as the Rebellious Parliament would suffer him to be so and who would in all probability if he might have been suffered to have continued some few years longer have left us a truer and more exact and compleat body of Casuistical Divinity than any the World hath been so happy as to see yet and in which the World hath more need to be truly and thoroughly instructed in order to peace here and happiness hereafter than in any other part either of Polemical or Dogmatical Divinity the Essentials of the Creed excepted only But that very reason it was for which the Vsurpers of the Regal power in those times would not suffer so vigorously an Opposer and so strongly and clearly a Convincer of that Trayterous and Tyrannical Vsurpation of theirs to be a publick Professor and Standard of that truth which they were concern'd the People should be kept ignorant of or made to believe the contrary as they were by such Preachers as they who could not endure sound Doctrine heaped up unto themselves after their own Lusts and by such Casuists and Writers of Political Aphorisms as Mr. Baxter was whose business it was to make the People believe the Vsurpation of an Arbitrary power and Tyranny to be an Holy Common-wealth for such was the Government here which Mr. Baxter in his Preface to that Book of his calls the best Government in all the World affirming those that were then the Governours namely the two Houses of Parliament without the King not only to have a part of the Supremacy or Soveraignty but to have all the Supremacy or whole Soveraignty and therefore such as whom to resist or depose is forbidden saith he to Subjects upon pain of damnation They are his own words in the before-cited place which one would think were hardly to be reconciled with what he affirms in the place we are now examining viz. That the Supremacy or Soveraignty is divided betwixt the King and them and consequently that they have not the Supremacy but a part of it only But for answer to this Objection perhaps he will say as indeed in effect he doth say that although before the War betwixt the King and them they had but a part of the Soveraignty only yet the King having by force endeavour'd to take their part from them and being overcome by them he had lost his own part which jure belli by right of War did accrue to them and so they became the Possessors of the whole Soveraignty though the King was then living But he had ceased to be King saith Mr. Baxter because he had entred into a state of War with his People and consequently by Mr. Baxter's Logick had lost his part of the Soveraignty But who was to have his part of the Soveraignty supposing him to be justly deprived of it Those that had the other part of it by whom he was conquered No saith Mr. Baxter for if saith he a Prince that hath not the whole Soveraignty be conquered by a Senate that hath the other part and that in a just defensive War that Senate cannot assume the whole Soveraignty but supposeth that Government in specie to remain and therefore another King must be chosen if the former be incapable CHAP. IV. Mr. B. 's high strain in commending those for the best Governors in all the World whom yet he owns to be Intruders and Vsurpers His compliance with Richard remarkt His high commendation tax'd and challenged The Recapitulation WHat he means by the last words of this Thesis viz. Another King must be chosen if the former be incapable I know not unless he means that the former King though he had lost his part in the Soveraignty and ceased to be King by being conquered by the Parliament in a just War yet he might be capable of being King again if the Parliament thought fit to choose him which having used him as they had done Mr. Baxter no doubt wished as heartily as he thought it likely they would do But whatsoever Mr. Baxter meant by these last words of this Thesis
And therefore when our Law saith the King can do no wrong the meaning is not as I conceive that the King cannot do that or command that to be done which is really a wrong or injury to any or perhaps to many or all of his Subjects as David did when he numbred the People for which sin 70. Thousand of them were swept away by the Plague in three days But the meaning of that Maxime in our Law I say as I humbly conceive is that if the King should do or cause to be done never so great a wrong yet he is not legally accountable or questionable or punishable for it by any power on Earth and much less by any of his own Subjects Whereunto another Maxime of our Law seems to be a Witness which tells us that the Crown takes away all defects or that he who is King is not chargeable with or answerable for whatsoever he hath done amiss And hereunto the Law of God bears witness also For in this sence it was that King David confessing those two great sins of Adultery and Murder unto God saith Against Thee Only have I sinned not as if he thought he had not sinned very highly and heinously too against Bathsheba and Vriah by defiling the one and murdering the other but because he was not accountable to or punishable by any but God for it Any other Man of the Nation that had committed either of those Crimes must by God's own Judicial Law have been put to death for it without mercy How came it to pass then that David who was notoriously guilty of both those capital Crimes was never called to account for either or both of them The reason is plain because there was none that had Authority to call him to an account for it not any other King for all Kings properly so called are equal as to the right of non-subordination to one another and Par in parem non habet Imperium a Peer or equal hath no right of Authority over his equal or Peer and much less Inferior in Superiorem an Inferiour over his Superiour for such are Subjects of all Qualities and in all Capacities in relation to their Soveraigns But did David then escape unpunished No for God who is only their Superiour and therefore the only Judge of Kings did question and arraign and judge and condemn and punish him for it though not by shedding his blood for the blood that he had shed yet by shedding the blood of his darling Son Absolom which was more grievous than the shedding of his own blood would have been to him as appears by his so often and so passionately wishing he had dyed for him Be wise therefore O ye Kings and be learned O ye Judges Ye that are Supreme Judges here on Earth and think not because you cannot be punished by Men therefore you shall not be punished at all if you deserve to be so for Reges in ipsos Imperium est Jovis the Almighty God's rule and authority is over Kings themselves could a Heathen man say The exemption of Kings from being punished by Men doth make them the more obnoxious to be punished by God either here or hereafter and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is a fearful and terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God But of the punishment which Kings are to expect from God I have spoken before as likewise why Kings who are Monarchs or Kings indeed cannot be question'd or called to account for any thing they have done or may be supposed to have done amiss because they have no Superiour That which I am now doing is to prove our King to be a Monarch because he hath no Superiour nor is ever a whit the less a Monarch because according to the legal Establishment or constitution of our Kingdom our Kings cannot make Laws for their Subjects without the consent of their Representatives that is without their Subjects own consents in Parliament For I demand how comes it to pass that they cannot Is it not because they did at first out of their meer grace and favour to their Subjects give away the Power they had formerly of doing otherwise William the Conqueror from whom our Kings ever since derive their Right and Title to the Crown could and did make Laws for the People without asking or having their antecedent consent to them It is true the Conqueror himself when he was crowned King took an Oath to govern justly and afterwards he took an Oath to observe the Antient Laws of the Realm established by his Noble Predecessors the Kings of England and especially those of Edward the Confessor as Daniel tells us but it is true too as the same Historian tells us He brought in the Customes of Normandy so that the main stream of our Common Law with the practice thereof saith the same Author flowed out of Normandy notwithstanding all Objections that can be made to the contrary And it was the Son of this Conqueror Henry the First who because saith the same Author he would not wrest any thing by an Imperial Power from the Subjects took a course to obtain their free consents to serve his occasions in their General Assemblies of the three Estates of the Land which he first convoked at Salisbury in the Fifteenth Year of his Reign which had from his time the name of Parliaments according to the manner of Normandy And in all probability as this was the beginning of our Kings not raising of Money so was it likewise of their not making of Laws but with the consent of the Representatives of their People in Parliament But whether it began then or sooner or later I am sure it must be the Kings granting of it that made it to be what it is I mean the legal way of proceeding in order to the making of Laws by our Kings for the Government of their People A most excellent way indeed but such a one as whosoever may have been the deviser or advisers of it it could never have been established as it is but by the King 's voluntary and arbitrary consent to it I say his arbitrary as well as his voluntary consent to it because it was in his power whosoever the King was that granted it first not to have granted it if he would CHAP. IX Mr. B. 's whimsey of an antecedent Compact between the King and People Their consent to the making of Laws when ever brought in a thing of Grant not of Contract Their double Capacity as Mr. B. fansies and states it FOR to think there was any Government here in England before that of Kings or that the People when they were under no Government at all did or could unanimously consent to be governed by one whom they should choose to be their King upon such or such conditions and with such or such limitations reserving to themselves such or such
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
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
of their own will and pleasure or by such Laws as they made with or by the advice of such as they thought fit to advise with which were never any of the common People or any Representatives for them until after the Norman Conquest And then indeed the Despotical began to be a Political Monarchy by Henry the first 's constituting of such a Parliament as we now have and by his Successors granting and confirming the Great Charter and by all of their obliging themselves successively to continue to the People the Priviledges granted unto them by that Charter and to govern by such Laws as have been made by their Predecessors or shall be made by themselves with the consent of the Peoples Representatives in Parliament By these Grants I say and concessions and condescensions of our former Kings and by the confirmation of them by their Successors c. the Monarchy which was at first Despotical is become Political being changed from an absolute and arbitrary to a regulated and Legal Government yet so as it is still a Monarchy that is it is still the Government of one over all and one who is accountable to none under God which are the only essentials requisite to the constituting of Monarchy the Governing Arbitrarily or Legally with or without Laws being but Accidentals to it only CHAP. II. The English Government a Monarchy however managed The excellency of our Constitution set forth NO more is the subordinate Managery of it in such a manner as may seem to have something of Aristocracy or Democracy mingled with it which saith Grotius was the cause of Polybius his Error Qui ad mixtum genus reipub refert Romanam rempub quae illo tempore si non actiones ipsas sed jus agendi respicimus merè fuit popularis Who will have the Roman Common-wealth to have been a mixt form of Government when it was meerly popular or Democratical because he looked at the managery of it only and not at the Authority whereby it was managed not considering that both the Authority of the Senate quam ad Optimatum regimen refert which Polybius refers to an Aristocratical and that of the Consuls also which he refers to a Regal or Kingly kind of Government subdita erat Populo were at that time equally subject unto the People and consequently notwithstanding this shew of mixture in the managery of that Government the Government it self was not a mixt Government in relation to the Soveraignty of it or to the fountain of Power in it which gives not only the formal denomination but the Essential specification to all Political Governments whatsoever Grotius therefore what he saith of the error of Polybius in judging the Roman to have been a mixed Commonwealth when it was not will have it be understood of all those Writers of Politicks who upon the same grounds are mistaken as Polybius was For idem de aliorum Politica scribentium sententiis saith Grotius dictum volo qui magis externam speciem quotidianam administrationem quà m jus ipsum summi Imperii spect are congruens ducunt suo instituto What I said of Polybius saith he I would have to be understood of other Writers of Politicks who think the looking at the outward and ordinary administration of Affairs rather than at the right it self of the Supreme Power to be more agreeable and conducing to their end in writing that is to the derogating from the Supreme Power of Monarchy either by imbasing it with the mixture of some less noble species of Government with it or to weaken and enfeeble it by dividing of it For what other can be the meaning of these words of Grotius than this either as they are in the Text or in relation to the context And if this be his meaning what could he have said more pertinently to prove the Government here in England to be a mere Monarchy and consequently the Soveraignty to be wholly in one person not withstanding any thing Mr. Baxter hath said or any man else can say to the contrary And that it is not now as it was at first an absolute arbitrary and Despotical but a regulated legal and Political Monarchy we owe to the meer grace and favour of our Kings and I wish that as it was gratia gratis data a grace freely given on their parts so it may be gratia gratos faciens a grace that may make us grateful on our parts also And certainly it would be so if the Subjects of England did but know or would but consider in how much more happy a condition they are or may be if they will and would be if it were not for their seditious Preachers than any other Subjects in the World are or ever were I had almost said or indeed can be under what Government soever if they be not situated as we are Because no Government upon the Continent can be safe from being suddenly invaded and over-run by its confining Neighbours if he or they that have the Supreme Power be not enabled to raise such Forces and Mony to pay them without staying for the advice or consent of his or their Subjects as may be sufficient to defend them from their Enemies and which being raised may be made use of for the oppressing of their Subjects Whereas we being Islanders intrenched and surrounded by the Ocean and consequently not being in danger of being suddenly surprized and over-run by any from abroad our Kings have obliged themselves to raise no Mony without which no formidable Forces can be raised and maintained by any Taxes or Impositions upon their Subjects without their own consent in Parliament thereby securing both the liberty of their Persons and Property of their Goods unto them and that they shall never be put to any charge but for the necessary defence of themselves and for their own safety and welfare as well as for the Honour of the King and their Country This together with many other Priviledges which the Subjects of this Kingdom have above all other Subjects in the World that I know or ever heard of made me presume when I was One of the four first that was appointed to preach to the House of Commons of the Long Parliament in the late King's time to tell them and to endeavour to prove unto them that the Constitutions both of Church and State as they were here by Law established abstracting from the ill managery which might be in either through the faults or frailties of some particular men were both of them the best in their kind that were in the Christian World that of the State for the reasons before specified and that of the Church because it was the only Church now extant that professed and maintain'd both the Apostolick Doctrine and Apostolical Government All other Christian Churches in the World East West North and South failing either in the one or in the other or both of them and
out of them that seem to be possessed with him which is above all things to be wished and prayed for or those that are so possest be kept from infecting others by teaching and printing with that intolerable licence as they do and have done for so many years together we are not to expect to be long without another Civil War and whether the effects of that will not be as bad or worse than the former no man can tell I am sure we are not always to expect miracles I mean such a miraculous deliverance as we have once had from so many several sorts of arbitrary and Tyrannical Governments as that War brought us to or rather as we our selves brought our selves to by that Rebellion and as such a rebellion as that was may and nothing but such a rebellion as that was can probably and humanely speaking bring us to again CHAP. IV. An Expedient proposed to secure the Government both in Church and State viz. some such Law as the Scotch Test. The Heir of the Crown 's being a Papist or a Presbyterian c. comes much to the same pass FOR the preventing whereof why should not we follow the example of the Scots in that which is good as well as we did follow their example in that which was evil We took such a Covenant as they did in order to the making and helping us to make such a War against our King and theirs as they did and for the alteration of the Government and Religion established by Law in both Kingdoms And why should not we make such a Law as they have now made for the preservation of their Government and Religion as it is now by Law established amongst them why should not we I say make such a Law for the maintenance and preservation of the Government and Religion established by Law amongst Vs also I mean such a Law whereby all Men are disabled and made uncapable of any Office or Place of Power and Trust either Military or Civil or Ecclesiastical as likewise of being chosen themselves or of choosing others to be Members of Parliament as will not take such a Test and Oath as they have taken in Scotland that is never to give their consent to the Alteration either of the Religion or of the Government either in Church or State as it is there by Law established Such a Law as this and no worldly means but such a Law as this will secure us and our Posterity from all that we fear or pretend to be afraid of especially from Arbitrary Government and Popery and from Presbytery too For the Heir of the Crown may be a Presbyterian or an Independent or an Antinomian or an Anabaptist or a Socinian and may be every whit as great a Zealot and as much a Bigot in any of those perswasions as any Papist can be in his and consequently be as zealous and industrious to promote bring in and set up his Religion for the Only or at least for the Predominant Religion of the State as any Papist can be to bring in Popery and consequently to suppress all of any other perswasion but his own and that perhaps with as bloody a persecution as ever any Papist did when he hath as much power to do it Of this One of the Sects hath given us proof more than enough already I mean the Presbyterians who for the setting up of their Dagon instead of the Ark of God and for the abolishing of Monarchy in the State as well as Episcopacy in the Church entred into that Antichristian League and Covenant with the Scots whereby both Nations were ingaged in a bloody War with and against one another of which the execrable effects as no Act of Oblivion can ever make to be forgotten so can they never be remembred without horror nor indeed should be remembred without detestation of the procatarctical or promoting causes of it of which the most principal and most energetical was that Presbyterian Solemn League and Covenant for the setting up that Idol of theirs the Presbyterian Government for which they were so peremptorily and pertinaciously zealous and ambitious that in all their Treaties with the late King one of the conditions of Peace always was the abolishing of Episcopacy and setting up Presbytery instead of it without consenting whereunto and without taking of the Covenant as the Scotch Presbyterians did refuse the late King so the English Presbyterians would if they might have had their will have refused the present King to reign over them as might be made appear by the Consultation had amongst the Grandees of that Party to that purpose till they found it would be in vain to stand upon such terms the Noble and never to be forgotten General the late Duke of Albemarle being resolved to bring in the King as a King without condition and therefore as well for that as for his whole most prudent as well as loyal and couragious Conduct in that great affair I think that which was said of Fabius Maximus may be as properly and truly verified of him Vnus homo nobis cunct ando restituit rem That is One Man by his wary conduct hath restored our State and welfare And I wish it were engraven in Golden Letters upon his Tomb ad sempiternam rei memoriam for an everlasting Memorial But to return unto what I was speaking of what I have said already is enough to prove that a Presbyterian Heir of the Crown would do what he could to bring in and set up the Presbyterian Government which can no more consist with Monarchy in the State than it can with Episcopacy in the Church and make us all Presbyterians as well as a Poâ—ish Heir would to bring in Popery and to make us all Papists And that they would not suffer any that would not conform to them and comply with them is evident not only by what they did against us that were as they call'd us Cavaliers and Malignants but against their own Brethren in Iniquity the Independents and all the rest of the Sectaries their Fellow-Rebels against the King and Companions in Arms against Us all of whom they would have suppressed as well as they did Us if it had been in their power to do so as appears by their Books Sermons and Addresses to that which they call'd a Parliament against them And what the Presbyterians did against us and would have done against the Independents by the Parliament the Independents did against them by the Army And so no doubt would any other of the Schismatical Parties have done against all the rest that were not of their perswasion if they had got the power into their hands But none of them may some of their Friends say would have been so cruel as the Papists who hold it not only lawful but meritorious to put Hereticks that is all that are not Papists to death Did not the Presbyterians and Independents and the
Principle common to them all and what can that be but the Law of Nature and what is the Law of Nature but the Law of God himself written in mens hearts And therefore it was according to this Law before there was any positive Law of God or Man in the case that Jacob in blessing of his Children before his death did acknowledge Reuben's right of Primogeniture by saying that his was the excellency of dignity and the excellency of power because he was his first-born if he had not forfeited it by defiling his Father's Bed and consequently by committing Incest as well as Adultery crimes punishable by death even in those days as appears by Judah's condemning his Daughter-in-Law Thamar to be burnt supposing her to have been an Adulteress And it was for a crime punishable by death also that Simeon and Levi the two next eldest Sons of Jacob lost the priviledge of their Birth-right also namely for being guilty of the horrible murder of the Inhabitants of the whole City of Shechem And thus the dignity of Excellency and the dignity of Power came to be the Inheritance of Judah Jacob's fourth Son because the three Elder Brothers had forfeited their Right thereunto by being guilty of such Crimes as were punishable by death which guilt of theirs being given by their Father Jacob as a reason why or cause for which they were disinherited from thence we may infer first that naturally or according to the Law of Nature the Eldest and consequently the next in bloud hath a right to inherit before those that are younger or those that are farther off And 2dly That they are not to be excluded from that right of theirs but for some very great crime or unless God who disposeth of all things as he pleaseth do prefer the younger before the elder as he did Jacob before Esau Ephraim before Manasses and David the youngest before all his elder Brethren though Isaac and Joseph and Samuel himself seem to wonder why he did so it being contrary to the dictates of Nature and the general practice of all Mankind and contrary to the general Positive Law of God himself also concerning the descent of Inheritances from Father to Son and if he have no Son to his Daughters and if he have no Daughters to his nearest Kinsman of his Family as is set down at large Numb 27. from Verse the 8th to the 12th compared with Deuteronomy the 21. v. 16. where it is said that if a Man have a younger Son by a Wife that he loves better than he loved her by whom he had his eldest Son he shall not make the Son of his beloved Wife the first-born that is his Heir before the Son of the Wife whom he hated who is indeed the first-born or indeed his eldest and therefore indeed and in right his Heir which right it seems by the Text his Father could not deprive him of or take from him unless he were so rebellious and incorrigible as that he was to be stoned by the People and put to death for it as may be gathered from the Verses immediately following in the aforesaid Chapter So that it seems it was not by the Positive Law of God in the power of the Father to deprive his eldest Son of his Birth right for any thing less than would deprive him of his Life neither was a younger Son to be preferr'd before the eldest as to the Prerogatives of Birth-right because he was a better Man or a better Son because the Prerogative of Birth-right was not founded in Grace but in Nature and therefore though Cain was graceless and impious and Abel a righteous and religious Person yet God tells Cain that he was to rule over Abel which he could have no right or title to but because he was his elder Brother and so was profane Esau to rule over Jacob upon that Account only if he had not sold him his Birth-right and with it his Right and Title to Lordship over him And as this was the way of succeeding in the Government of Families so was it in the Government of Kingdoms also generally amongst the Gentiles as they were led by the light and instinct of Nature only and particularly amongst the Jews by the Positive Law of God as appears by the Catalogue and Genealogy of the Kings of Juda where the eldest of the Sons did always succeed his Father in the Kingdom without interruption unless God himself who is King of Kings was pleased to interpose as he did in the succession of David to Saul and of Solomon to David which were both of them Acts of God's Prerogative and not according to the ordinary course of Law amongst the Jews as appears by Solomon's answer to his Mother Batshebah when she spake to him to let his Brother Adonijah have Abishag the Shunamite to Wife Ask for him said he the Kingdom also for he is mine elder Brother which is a plain confession of Solomon himself that according to the ordinary course of Law then in force Adonijah should have succeeded David in the Kingdom had not David who was a Prophet as well as a King known God's mind to the contrary And indeed God had made known his mind unto David concerning Solomon by Nathan the Prophet when assoon as he was born he called his name Jedidiah that is beloved of the Lord thereby making David to understand that he was design'd to succeed him in the Throne Whereunto may be added that perhaps Adonijah was confederate with Absolom whose Brother he was by the same Mother in his rebellion against David and consequently had forfeited what was due to him by his Birth-right being guilty of what he deserved to be put to death for though by reason of his Fathers fondness of him he was not put to death for it But whether this or God's Intimation of his pleasure to David by Nathan the Prophet were the reason that Solomon the younger Brother was preferred before Adonijah the eldest to succeed David in the Kingdom it is evident by Solomon's aforesaid answer to his Mother and by the constant course of succession in that Kingdom that there as well as in all other Nations the eldest Son or nearest in bloud was legally to succeed in Thrones as well as in Families and do so still and are of right to do so in all Hereditary Kingdoms from which right grounded upon the Law of Nature attested by the general practice of all Mankind in all places and in all ages and ratified by God's positive Law to his own People I see not how any man can be excluded without some kind of Violation of the Law of Nature or without some kind of unbecoming Reflection upon the Positive Law of God it self as if God had not made as good and as wise a Law to obviate all inconveniences for his own People as any People could make for themselves CHAP. VI. Such Exclusion
of having any thing to do in the Government as it now is and of doing any thing towards the alteration of it by repealing or giving their votes for repealing any of those Laws that are in force against Popery or for the making of any new Laws in favour of it being as I said before excluded from sitting in either of the Houses without the consent of the major part of which Houses the King himself though he be the sole Law-giver or sole maker of our Laws properly speaking as I have proved at large already can neither make nor repeal Laws but is according to the legal constitution of this Kingdom oblig'd and has obliged himself neither to make any New Laws nor to repeal any Old ones nor to Govern any otherways than by such Laws as are in force and have been or shall be so made that is with the consent of both Houses of Parliament either by himself or by His Predecessors So that there wants nothing to perpetuate our happiness under the best Government that ever any People did or can live under but to be assured that never any change as to the species and essentials of it shall be made in it And such an assurance as far as any thing in this world can be assured the making of such an Act here for the taking of such a Test as is already made and taken in Scotland will give us of what Perswasion soever in point of Religion or of what Inclination soever in point of Government the Successor to the Crown at any time may chance to be especially after he hath taken the Coronation Oath to Govern no otherwise than by Laws made and to be made by Act of Parliament CHAP. IX The Coronation-Oath alike dispensable whether the Successor be a Papist or a Presbyterian Mr. B. 's judgment of our Government and his wish for better order in choice of Parliament-men with the Bishops judgment what ought to be their main Qualification IF it be objected that if the Successor be a Papist there is no Oath he can take but he may be and will be by the Pope easily and willingly absolved from the Sin in taking it and from the Obligation to keep it I answer first that the same Objection will be as valid against a Presbyterian as against a Popish Successor for that the Classis as well as the Conclave can dispense with the obligation of Oaths we have seen and felt too For what was the imposing of the Solemn League and Covenant but a discharging of those that took it by those that perswaded them to take it from being any longer obliged by the Oāths of Allegiance and Supremacy which they had formerly taken But Secondly my answer is that I do not ground the Assurance of the continuance of our present Government either in Church or State either wholly or chiefly upon the Successors keeping of his Coronation Oath of what perswasion soever he is or may be but upon the a version which 99. parts at least of an 100. of the whole Nation have from Popery and Arbitrary Government and upon the Laws already in force against both and upon the supposition of such a new Law to be made here as there is in Scotland for the preserving and securing of the old ones viz. That no man be capacitated to choose or be chosen to be a Parliament-man before He hath taken that or such another Oath as that which by the aforesaid Act of Parliament in Scotland is prescribed and enjoyned to be taken Which Oath why those that fear the bringing in of Popery and Arbitrary Government should not be very willing to take I can see no reason unless they would bring in something else as destructive to the present Government as Popery it self and then I see no reason neither why they should not be excluded from choosing and being chosen members of Parliament as well as the Papists are For why should any that are Enemies to the Government one way or other be put in a capacity either to undermine the foundation or to weaken the props and the Pillars of it or to make any substantial alteration in it considering as Mr. Baxter himself confesseth That for ought he sees the Government of this Commonwealth I presume he takes the word Commonwealth not as a specifical but a generical Notion as it signifies any body Politick is already ballanced with as much prudence caution and equality as the curiousest of the models that self conceited men would obtrude with so much ostentation And that by Government of this Common-wealth he means the Government of this Kingdom not as it was governed by a State before the Usurpation of Cromwel the Father or by the Army and Rump-Parliament after the deposing of Cromwel the Son but as it was to be Govern'd according to the Legal constitution by King Lords and Commons that is by a King Governing by Laws made with the consent of the Lords and Commons in Parliament I take this I say to be Mr. Baxter's meaning by that which he calls the Government of this Common-wealth because in other places he seems not only to dislike but abhor the Government of a Common-wealth in a specifical Notion that is as it signifies a Democratical or popular Government for no fewer than 20. several reasons at the end of which he saith I conclude therefore that this Ignorant impious mutable cruel violent rout shall never have my consent for the Soveraignty and in another place as I have already observed he saith that although the two Houses of Parliament as having he thinks a part of the Soveraignty may lawfully in defence of that part of theirs make War against the King or those commissioned by the King yet though in that contest they get the victory they do not thereby gain the whole Soveraignty to themselves nor cannot alter the former constitution but must have the same or some other King in his stead whereby it plainly appears that by the aforesaid Government of this Common-wealth as he cannot mean a Democratical or popular so he cannot mean an Aristocratical or a Parliamentary Government without a King And therefore if he will sibi constare hold to what he saith and not contradict Himself as he does in many other things by that Government of this Common-wealth which he saith is already ballanced with so much prudence and caution he must needs mean this political regulated Monarchy of ours which we now enjoy and consequently that it ought not to be chang'd for any other form frame or model of Government which the curiosity of self conceited men saith Mr. Baxter he might have said or the Ambition of Proud or the greediness of Covetous or the malice of Discontented or the Bigotry of Hereticks or the peevishness of Schismaticks may endeavour to obtrude upon us instead of it For preventing whereof I could wish as he doth in the same place that some
with the King As likewise for another and in my humble opinion a very weighty and important reason namely to prevent the Kings not being able to govern by Parliament though he be never so willing and desirous to do so as when there is a difference betwixt the two Houses concerning priviledge there the order is that whatsoever business they are about of what concernment or importance soever it must cease and nothing must be done until the difference concerning Priviledge be decided which being no other way to be decided but by one of the Houses yielding to the other for neither the King nor the Judges are admitted to umpire betwixt them if after Conference upon conference they finally adhere on both sides as they did in the case of Dr. Sherleys appealing to the House of Lords from a Decree in Chancery wherein one of the House of Commons was concern'd there is no more to be done that Sessions though Hannibal were ad portas knocking at the City-gates though the business they were about before were of never so publick or never so necessary a concernment as indeed that which we were about then was namely the passing of an Act for securing the Government both in Church and State by taking such a Test as the aforesaid Test that was lately enacted to be taken in Scotland and which would undoubtedly have past in the Lords House at that time if some that desired an alteration in both had not thrown that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that stone of offence betwixt the two Houses which as it was done to hinder what we were a doing then so that or the like may be done at any time by either of the Houses to make any Parliament useless and fruitless though there be never so present or so great need of it and though the King and the People do never so much desire the contrary unless there be some means devised and consented to by both Parties to adjust the difference betwixt them as there is betwixt all other differing Parties but these only or unless the Priviledges of each of the Houses be so particularly enumerated and cleerly stated by the consent of both of them that there may not be any difference betwixt them upon this account for the future If I have been too bold in saying what I have said in relation to either of the two Houses of Parliament I humbly beg pardon of them both for Si peccavi peccavi honestâ mente if I have offended in it I have done it out of an honest meaning I am sure I did not intend to lessen the dignity or power or priviledges of either of them Good luck have they with their Honour but all that I said upon this Subject hath been to vindicate the Kings Soveraignty over all His Subjects of all denominations and in all capacities whatsoever which I am sure may well enough consist with whatsoever Power or Priviledge can by the legal constitution of this Kingdom be claim'd by either or both Houses of Parliament CHAP. XII The Kings making our Laws no disparagement to the Parliament The several ways of justifying the taking up Arms against the King The danger of Mr. B. 's Principles that way WHereunto if it be objected that by making the King sole Law-giver or the sole Law-maker I seem to take away the greatest of all the Priviledges the two Houses have and which it most concerns all the People of England they should have I answer it were true indeed that I did so if by saying the King is the sole Law-giver or the sole maker of our Laws I meant he could make what Law he pleas'd but when I say withal that although whatsoever is Law is made by the King to be Law yet he cannot make any Law or any thing to be Law without the consent of both Houses to it or to his making of it by giving to Caesar what is Caesar's by giving to the King what belongs to the King I take away nothing from either of the Houses that belongs unto them or what is requisite for them to have for the securing of themselves and the People from Arbitrary Government for which end it is abundantly sufficient that the dissent of either of the Houses can hinder the making of any Law though the consent of both of them cannot make a Law for that would destroy the Monarchy not by dividing the Soveraignty betwixt the King and the two Houses which is really impossible but by vesting the Soveraignty wholly in the two Houses and consequently by taking it wholly from the King whereas the power to hinder the making of Laws without their consent being vested in the Houses and the power of making Laws with their consent being vested in the King the Soveraignty and Majesty that is due to a Monarch is reserv'd to the Prince and as great power and Authority as Subjects are capable of is communicated to the two Houses and their Liberty and Property which is due to them is secured to all the People which blessed frame and temper of our English Government is such as no wiser can be devised nor no better can be desired and such as no Nation but ours under Heaven is or can be unless it be situated as ours is so happy as to enjoy and therefore such a one as if it were well understood and seriously considered by us it would make us first to be truly and heartily thankful to God for it Secondly to live obediently quietly and contentedly under it and consequently not only to be content but desirous that such a Law as I before spake of should be made to prevent the alteration or change of it into any other form or frame of Government whatsoever And in the mean time not to give ear or credit to any of those seditious Preachers or Pamphleteers who do what they can to disaffect the People to this excellent Government as it is by Law established and only to this end that as they have once already so they may now again make such an alteration in this Government as to turn the Monarchy into a State and Episcopacy into Presbytery which because they think it cannot be done now but as it was done then namely by a Rebellion therefore as they did always so they do still maintain that it is lawful for Subjects in some cases to take up Arms against their Soveraign though some of them take one way to prove it lawful and some another for some will have a middle kind of power betwixt the King and People to be Vmpires or Arbitrators between them whose Arbitrement if the King will not submit to they may by force compel him with the assistance of the People and the People are bound to assist them in so doing this is CALVIN's way whereunto he adds that fortassè Ordines Regni in Angliâ that perhaps the Parliament in England are this middle sort of Magistrates Others will
King cannot by his Fiat give it its factum esse till it be agreed on by the two Houses and because the two Houses by their agreeing on it do give it its fieri posse or make it ready and fit to be made a Law therefore it may truly though not properly be said to be made jointly by the King Lords and Commons because though it be not made by the Lords and Commons but by the King only yet it cannot be made without them neither that is without their doing something antecedently without their doing whereof the King cannot make Laws And this was that and all that which the late King meant when he said that the Laws of this Kingdom were made jointly by the King Lords and Commons that is according to the old Parliamentary stile by the King with the consent of the Lords and Commons or if you will by the King but not without the consent of the Lords and Commons But I hope Mr. Baxter who would be thought the Master of propriety and distinctness of speaking will not affirm that a thing can properly be said to be done by him or them without whose consent it cannot be done For I think it is one of the main matters wherein he differs or dissents from our Church that a Priest or Minister of the Word and Sacraments cannot be ordain'd without consent of the People will he therefore deny that it is the Bishop with his Presbyters that ordains him or will he say that he is jointly ordained by the Bishop and the People Certainly none but they that lay hands upon him have any thing to do in the Act of Ordination So that it doth not follow that because a Law cannot be made without the precedent consent of both Houses of Parliament that therefore they have any thing to do properly speaking in the making of it Again supposing Mr. Baxter is of the opinion of the Protestant Churches abroad that there can be no marriage without consent of Parents and supposing that opinion to be true yet I suppose neither Mr. Baxter nor any of the Ministers of those Churches will say that it is the consent of Parents that makes the Marriage though it cannot be a Marriage without it Many other Instances of the like nature might be given but this is enough to prove the thing we have in hand namely that though in some sence it may be said that our Laws are made by the King and Parliament or by the King Lords and Commons because they cannot be made by the King without the consent of the Lords and Commons yet properly speaking it is the King alone who by his LE ROY LE VEVLT makes them to be Laws in which Law-making Act of his neither of the Houses do joyn or are joyned with him and therefore the Laws so made cannot properly be said to be made by the King and them joyntly And yet because they cannot be made by the King without their antecedent consent to them and proposing of them they may truly be said to concur To the making though not In the making of them And this and no more but this was undoubtedly the late Kings meaning when he said the Laws were made here in England by the King Lords and Commons or upon their proposing such and such Bills being first agreed upon by them to be made Laws by him CHAP. XIV The making of Laws in the Roman State applied to Vs Mr. B. 's division of the Soveraignty rectified The King 's Negative voice asserted and the Enemies of Monarchy detected THus when the Soveraignty was in the People of Rome the Senate did concur to the making of Laws for the Common-wealth but did not make them they concur'd to the making of them by consulting and debating what was fit to be made a Law by the People as having no power to make it a Law themselves the making of Laws being an Act of Soveraignty and the Soveraignty being then not in the Senate but in the People and therefore the Senate did not so much as pretend to the making of Laws but only to the proposing of Laws to be made by a higher power namely that of the People as appears by the formal and solemn stile relating to the making of Laws in those times which was this Senatus rog at Populus jubet the Senate requesteth or proposeth namely such or such a thing to be made a Law but the People commands or enjoyns it that is the People maketh what was proposed by the Senate for a Law to be a Law And as this was the stile in relation to making of Laws in a Democracy when and where the Soveraignty was in the People so à paritate rationis upon the like reason and account in a Monarchy where the Soveraignty is in One the stile ought to be Populus rog at Rex jubet the People requests and the King grants And so indeed it was as I observed before according to the ancient stile used in our Parliaments here in England in divers Acts and Statutes wherein the King is said to give or grant sometimes at the special request and sometimes at the humble Petition of the Commons Neither doth the Alteration of the Stile at the Request to with the consent argue an alteration in the species of the Government for the King is still the sole Lawmaker or Lawgiver as much as he was before and consequently as much a Monarch though less Despotical and more Political in the managery and execution of his Kingly Power having by his Predecessors and his own voluntary and gracious condescension obliged himself not to exercise his Legislative power or to make any Laws without the consent of those that are to be governed by them which though it do not make him cease to be a Monarch or to have the Soveraignty or supreme power wholly and solely in himself yet it makes him cease to be an absolute arbitrary and despotical and to become a legal regulated and Political Monarch or a King that is to govern his People by Laws Laws indeed of his own making but not without their consent to them I mean without their consent by their Representatives in Parliament together with the consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal which all of them jointly are the Representatives of the three Estates or of that whole Body Politick whereof the King is the Head And as it is he that governs the whole Body so it is he that makes the Laws to govern the whole Body which because they are not made by the King without the consent of the three Estates representing that Body therefore Mr. Baxter thinks they are made by the three Estates as well as by the King and therefore that the Soveraignty is divided betwixt the King and them and consequently that this is no Monarchy but a mix'd Government which is the same mistake that Grotius as I said before
observeth to have been the error of Polybius in judging the Roman to have been a mixed Government and the Soveraignty or supreme power thereof to have been divided betwixt the Consuls the Senate the People when saith Grotius the Government was indeed meerly popular or Democratical And the cause of this mistake in Polybius saith Grotius was his respiciens ad actiones ipsas non ad jus agendi his looking at the things that were done not at the authority whereby they were done whereas if he had consider'd that what was done either by the Consuls or by the Senate was done by an authority derived from the People signified nothing if it were not ratified by the People he would have been convinc'd that the Soveraignty or supreme power was wholly in the People consequently that it was a meer Democracy and not a mixed Government In like manner Mr. Baxter looking only at the things that are done by the 3. Estates in Parliament as to their concurrence to the making of Laws subordinate managery of other parts of the Government not considering by whose Authority they do what they do and that all that they do signifies nothing unless it be ratified by the King erroneously at least if not fallaciously concludes the Soveraignty or supreme power it self to be divided betwixt the King and the 3. Estates or betwixt the King the 2. Houses of Parliament whereas their very Parliamentary being consequently the power of their Parliamentary acting is derived from the Supremacy of power inseparably and indivisibly and incommunicably inherent in the King But although the Soveraignty it self or original fountain of all power in a Monarchy be indivisibly incommunicably in the person of the King yet the streams that issue or flow from that fountain may be and are and of necessity must be divided communicated so as may be most serviceable for the several uses the whole body Politick or the whole body of the Kingdom may have of it And as this Supreme or Soveraign Power though it be always indivisibly inherent in the King as the fountain of it may have its several streams divided communicated so in the exercise of its several Acts operations it may be in all Political Kingdoms it is limited determined in some more in some less but in none more nor so much for the good of the Subject without prejudice to the Soveraignty Majesty of the King than in this of ours where the People by their Representatives are not only admitted to propose what they would have to be made Laws but where no Law can be made but what they propose or consent to though they do not make it though it be in the Kings power to refuse the making of it because the Laws we have already are sufficient to secure all their Rights unto the People as long as they are in force in force they will be until the People themselves do consent to the repealing of them For the King as he can make no new Law so he can repeal no old Law without the consent of the Representatives of the People who most certainly will never give their consent for repealing of Magna Charta or the Petition of Right or any other Law now in force for the securing any of their just Rights and Privileges So that the Kings Negative is not nor cannot be prejudicial to the Interest of the People but it is absolutely necessary for the preservation of Monarchy For if the King could not refuse to make what the 2. Houses propose to be Laws the Soveraignty would be wholly in them not at all in him Nay he would be so far from having the Soveraignty of a King that he would not have the liberty of the meanest of his Subjects that sits in the House of Commons in giving his I or No according to the dictate of his own Reason and Conscience which as it is every private mans right by nature as he is a reasonable Creature so it is the Kings right by Nature and Prerogative too as he is a King it being impossible to be a King without it And therefore those that say the King is bound to pass all those Laws quas Vulgus elegerit which the People or Commonalty shall make choice of or that he is but one of the three Co-ordinates therefore may be overvoted by the other two or that he hath but a part of the Soveraignty and therefore cannot over-rule those that have their parts in the Soveraignty as well as he or that he may not prorogue or dissolve Parliaments when he thinks fit to do so All these are Enemies not only to the well-being but to the very being of Monarchy and that not of absolute or despotical Monarchy only but of Political or Paternal Monarchy also And therefore though they cajole and flatter the People never so much they are the greatest Enemies they have and as such the People ought to look upon them would do so if they were not like Beasts without understanding nay worse than Beasts without sence and memory of what they have so often and so lately suffered by listning to the same Songs of the same Sirens or sweet Singers that have so often deceived them But if the People cannot or will not understand the things that belong unto their peace yet Be wise O ye Kings and be learned O ye Judges of the Earth be wise for the Peoples sake be wise for your own sakes also For if you do not prevent the raising raging of those waves the Pilot as well as the Passengers will be swallowed up by them And there is no way to prevent the raising of those Waves nor the raging of them when they are raised but by rebuking the Winds that raised them for if it were not for those boysterous Winds that puff them up there would be no such swelling Waves as we see there are In the mean time I hope I have said nothing for the justifying of my self from being a Defier of Deity and Humanity and from being an Enemy to God to Kings and to all Mankind as Mr. Baxter saith I am because I maintain it to be Vnlawful for Subjects to resist their Soveraigns in any cause or upon any provocation whatsoever and for the confutation of Mr. Baxter's erroneous and seditious Aphorisms or Principles to the contrary I hope I say I have said nothing in order to either of these ends that will give any just offence to such as are judicious and impartial Friends to Truth and do really wish and desire the continuance of the Peace and welfare of their Country and then for such as are contrary minded I care not what they think or say of me The End of the Fifth Section SECTION VI. The rest of Mr. Baxter's Reflexions called to account as concerning the Bishop's advising him to reade Hooker and
not from the People that chuse such or such a Man to be their King but from God onely so that as the Woman cannot take away the power of a Husband from her Husband after he is her Husband so the People cannot take away the Kingly power from their King after he is their King And therefore he concludes That in case the Kingly or supreme Power should be made use of to the publick detriment he sees not how the Body meaning the whole Body politick by any just means should be able to help it self without the consent of him that hath the supreme Power What could he have said more convincingly for the Declaration of his own Opinion concerning the unlawfulness of the Peoples using Force against their King though he make use of his Kingly Power to the detriment of the publick or of the People in general And though he be such a King as he supposeth to have originally derived his Title from the free choice of the People or from the choice of a free People much less if he come in by Conquest For some multitudes saith Mr. Hooker are brought into Subjection by force Divine Providence it self so disposing for it is God that giveth Victory in the day of Battel and unto whom Dominion is in this sort derived the same they enjoy according to the Law of Nations which Law authorizeth Conquerours to reign as absolute Lords over them whom they vanquish Now this way that is by Conquest was their Dominion or Kingly Power over this Nation of ours originally derived to our present Race of Kings But may they therefore now reign absolutely and at their own Will and Pleasure as their first Predecessours who came in by Conquest did or might have done No Mr. Hooker doth not say so nor I neither but he saith and so say I too That by means of after agreement or rather by after condescensions concessions and grants of Kings it comes to pass in Kingdoms that they whose ancient Predecessours were by violence and force made Subject do by little and little grow into the sweet of Kingly Government that is a Government of Kings governing by Laws in a free and voluntary manner condescended unto And thus this Kingdom of ours of Despotical became Political by our Kings limiting and restraining themselves by Laws of their own and their Predecessours making and much more by restraining themselves from making any Laws at all but such as the Lords and Commons in Parliament should consent to And this is all the restraint that Mr. Hooker acknowledgeth our Kings to be Subject to and is this more than Mr. Baxter doth or can approve of This doth not hinder the Government to be truly Monarchical which Mr. Baxter saith it is not nor the Supremacy to be wholly in one Person both as to Ecclesiastical and secular affairs as Mr. Hooker saith it is and Mr. Baxter saith it is not So that it was not Mr. Hooker's restraining but his extending or rather acknowledging and defending the extent of the Power of all Kings in general and of the Kings of England in particular that Mr. Baxter doth not nor cannot consistingly with himself approve of We will instance in what he saith of our own King onely according as he himself desireth to be understood when he tells us that what he speaks of Kings shall be in respect of the slate and nature of this Kingdom And first he tells us That this is an hereditary Kingdom and that in hereditary Kingdoms Birth giveth right to Sovereign Dominion and that the Death of the Predecessour putteth the Successour by bloud in Seisin He adds That if it should so happen that a man without right of bloud be elected and put into possession with all the usual Ceremonies and Solemnities all such new Elections and investings are utterly void the Inheritour by bloud may dispossess him as an Vsurper the contrary opinion whereunto he saith is an unnatural conceit and an insolent position set abroach by seeds-men of Rebellion onely to animate unquiet Spirits and to feed them with possibility of aspiring to Thrones if they can win the Hearts of the People What say you Mr. Baxter is not this more in favour of such Kings as ours is than you approve I am sure it is more than you did approve when as you tell us in your Holy-Common-Wealth you were bound to submit to the present Government as set over us by God and to obey for Conscience sake and to behave your self as a loyal Subject towards them But what was that present Government It must be one or other of those Governments betwixt the late King's Murther and his Son's Restauration which in Mr. Hooker's judgment were all of them Vsurpations and consequently all that voluntarily adhered and submitted to them Rebels and Traitours because they did as much as in them lay to exclude and keep out the right Heir from the Crown in an hereditary Kingdom So that I do not wonder if Mr. Baxter found more in Mr. Hooker than he could approve as to this particular but it was not for his too much restraining the Power of the King over his People but for his restraining the Power of the People over their King by setting up what Governours and what Government they please contrary to the fundamental Institution of the Kingdom Again as Mr. Baxter might find more in Mr. Hooker than he could approve or had approved for limiting the descent of the supreme Power here with us to the next in bloud or the right Heir without exception so in regard of the supreme Power itself as it is vested in our King he might find more in Mr. Hooker than he did approve not for the restraint but extent of it and that in regard both of persons and of things And first of Persons For Mr. Hooker speaking of our King's Supremacy saith that thereby it is intended and meant to exclude partly foreign Powers and partly the Power which belongeth in several unto others contained as parts in that politick Body over which the King hath Supremacy in and by which words all Persons as well within as without the Kingdom are excluded from having any part in the Sovereignty or supreme Power here in England None without the Kingdom having any thing to doe with it and All within the Kingdom being subject to it And this is the true interpretation of the Oath of Supremacy whereby as I have proved before the King is acknowledged to be the onely supreme Governour in as well as of this Kingdom and by consequence exclusively not onely in relation to any that do pretend from abroad but also from any that may pretend at home to have any part in or of the Supremacy with him Whereas Mr. Baxter will have the Oath of Supremacy to be understood as intending onely to exclude foreign Pretenders to any Supremacy here namely the Pope and
Bishop of Worcester and coming to me to know the cause of it I told him it was because he had Preached in my Diocese without asking my leave or having any licence from me for it and that now I could not give him such a Licence partly in regard of what he had asserted and maintained at the Conference in the Savoy but principally in regard of many of those Positions or as he calls them Aphorisms of his in his Book of the Holy-Commonwealth which were inconsistent with Kingly Government and this I told him in the presence of the then Dean of Worcester Dr. Warmestry and of Mr. Isaack Walton then my Steward which he taking no notice of in his Narrative of the cause why I continued his suspension and would not suffer him to Preach any more in my Diocese but making his friends at Kidderminster to believe it was only for what he had asserted at the Conference in the Savoy whereof he made a false relation also I thought it neither improper nor unnecessary to annex to that Letter of mine which I had written in answer to that Narrative of his that Collection of Aphorisms out of the aforesaid Book of his that the World might be judg whether the Author of such Maxims as those were fit to be a Preacher in such a Kingdom as this or no and this I say was the cause why I Printed them at first 2. The reason why I have reprinted those Aphorisms as well as that Letter with an Addition of some others to them and aggravations of them was to justifie my exceptions against them and to shew that I am not a Defier of Deity and humanity nor an Enemy to God to Kings and to all mankind as Mr. Baxter would have me thought to be because I do not think all unlimited Governours to be Tyrants because they are unlimited or that lawful and rightful Kings if they be Tyrants or govern tyrannically may therefore be lawfully resisted or deposed by their Subjects 3. And lastly if I have indeavoured to shew the falseness and dangerousness of this and other of his Aphorisms subservient to the same end it is not to make him but those Maxims of his odious not unto others only that may be hurt by them but to himself also that he may repent of them which if he have done and done it as he should do and as himself professed he would do if he were convinced there were cause for it I am sure he will not he cannot be offended with the aggravating the hainousness and dangerousness of any of those opinions or practises which he himself hates and detests more than any body else can if he have truly repented of them which if I should take for granted that he hath done since yet if he had not done it before those Aphorisms of his which I excepted against were first Printed it was neither uncharitably nor impertinently no nor unnecessarily done of me neither to let the World know upon what false grounds and by what fallacious and seditious Maxims and Principles Mr. Baxter had undertaken to justifie the late horrid Rebellion and to justifie himself and those Thousands whom as he confesseth he had perswaded to do as He did viz. to Rebell and Fight against the King which he was so far from having repented of when I first Printed those Aphorisms that he tells the World in Print not above a year or two before that he durst not repent of it nor forbear the doing of the same if it were to be done again in the same state of things Neither did the World or I hear any thing from him to the contrary till many years after and whether what he published then or hath published since be a sufficient proof that He is not still of the same mind he was when he published those Aphorisms may well be doubted In the mean time those Aphorisms of his being of so dangerous consequence to the publick and having upon that account been the main cause why I would not suffer the Author of them to Preach in my Diocese until he had as publickly recanted as he had asserted them I thought my self obliged to publish them when I did publish them first to let the World see I had reason to do what I did to Mr. Baxter when I did it how well soever he might behave himself afterwards And as this was the reason why I Printed them at first so the reason why I have Reprinted them now was partly to justifie my former exceptions against them and the dangerous consequences of them and partly to vindicate my self from being a Defier of Deity and Humanity and an Enemy to God to Kings and to all mankind for excepting against but one of them only as Mr. Baxter saith I am and partly likewise to show that there is still just cause to doubt that Mr. Baxter may still be of the same judgment as to the holding of the same Seditious and Rebellious Principles as He did formerly notwithstanding any thing He hath written as yet to the contrary The two former would have been reason enough for my Reprinting of those Aphorisms though it were never so certain or so evident that Mr. Baxter had really and sincerely recanted them all The third I add ex abundanti over and above and wish with all my heart there were no cause to doubt but that he had really and sincerely recanted them all or at least those that are most dangerous and prejudicial to the safety peace and welfare of our own King and Kingdom which I am afraid he hath not done either by what he hath said in that Paper which he would have taken for a Recantation of some of those Aphorisms in his Holy Commonwealth or by the professions he hath made of his Loyalty in the second Part of his Plea for the Non-Conformists And first As to the Paper which he calls a Recantation We are to observe the time when it was Printed which was in the year 70 just 10 years after the Kings coming home How long may we think it would have been if the King had not come home at all or if Richard the Son could have held by force what Oliver his Father whom Mr. Baxter magnifies so much had gotten for him by murthering of his Master And truly if this Recantation had been the effect of a true and hearty repentance I cannot imagine what should be the cause of its coming forth no sooner unless he was so long before he was convinced that he had done amiss in writing what he had written or in doing what he had done during the time of the Rebellion so that his heart indured as long a Siege as that of Troy before it would give him leave to make any acknowledgment at all that he had writ or done any thing to be recanted or repented But what if the King should have suspended his Pardon as long as Mr. Baxter did his Confession What might have
acquitted ANd first it was very just and very equitable also in relation to what was passed I mean if they had been enjoyned silence for the future by way of punishment onely for the mischief they had done by Preaching formerly which was such as I cannot think of without horrour nor they should not think of without a thankfull acknowledging it for a very great Mercy and Favour from God and the King that they had onely the Liberty and opportunity of doing more mischief taken away from them when their Lives might most justly have been taken away for the mischief they had done before For it is upon this account that Mr. Br. himself justifies Solomon's deposing Abiathar the High-Priest who was the next person in dignity to the King himself amongst the Jews because he might have taken away his Life saith Mr. Baxter as well as the Priesthood for his siding with Adonijah in his Rebellion And might not our King upon the same account have taken away Mr. Baxter's own Life and the Lives of all the rest of the Non-conforming Ministers as Mr. Baxter calls them namely for siding with the Rebellious Parliament and not onely for siding with it themselves but for stirring up all the People to side with it also against his Father and himself And ought they not then to acknowledge the taking away of but their Livings which they had never any legal right to and their liberty to preach which they had so horribly abused ought they not I say to acknowledge it to have been at least a just if not a very favourable punishment for their former offences and equitable too as well as just and favourable it being but the doing that unto them justly and legally which they had most unjustly and illegally done before to all the Conformable Clergy by thrusting them out and intruding themselves into their places Again as the depriving and silencing of the Nonconformists considered as a punishment for what they had done before was not onely just and equitable but favourable also So considered as a Caution against what they might doe for the future it was not onely prudent and expedient but as things then stood absolutely necessary for the securing of the publick Peace both in Church and State and consequently the safety and welfare both of Prince and People For We had reason to believe it was neither a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it was neither a remorse for what they had done nor a change of Mind either in their judgments or affections in order to what they would doe that made any of the Nonconformist Parties give way to the King 's coming home as he did but onely their disability to hinder it partly by reason of the irreconcileable differences among themselves and partly because the Army was no longer in their Power but especially because the over ruling Wisedom of the divine Providence would have it to be so And therefore as we were not to thank them for that blessed change that was made so much against their Wills both in the Church and State so were we not to trust them neither with having any thing to doe either in the one or in the other especially in the Church without giving some assurance beforehand that they would not preach and act as they had done formerly And the Assurance which by the King and his great Council was thought fit to be given by them was first a renouncing of the Covenant and secondly to declare their Assent and Consent to whatsoever by the Act of Vniformity is required of them either of which if they refused to doe they did as good as tell us in plain terms what we were to expect from them namely that they thought themselves bound by their Covenant to pursue the ends of it whensoever there should be an opportunity for it and in the mean time by their praying and preaching to disaffect the People as much as they could to that way of publick Worship which they themselves refused to comply with and submit to And can any man think it was safe for us or consistent with the publick Peace either in Church or State to suffer such men to continue in their stations or to be permitted to harangue the People as they were wont to do They themselves when they were in Power though it was by Vsurpation onely thought it not onely lawfull and prudent but necessary also for the upholding of their illegal and usurped Authority to deprive and silence all our Clergy that would not take their Covenant and submit to their Directory And is it not as lawfull and prudent and necessary too for Us in order to the securing of the legal both Civil and Ecclesiastical Government to deprive and silence those that will not renounce that Covenant whereby they are obliged to ruine both or that will not join with us in the publick Worship of God as it is prescribed in the Book of Common-Prayer Certainly if it were prudent and necessary for Them in their Circumstances then to doe the one it must needs be as prudent and necessary for Vs in our circumstances now to doe the other even themselves being Judges to say nothing of the unlawfulness of what they did unto Us as being unjust in itself and having nothing to warrant it but an usurped Power and the lawfulness of what we do unto them as being just in it self and being authorized and commanded to be done by that Power which We are legally obliged to obey I know Mr. Baxter and others of the Dissenting Party use often to alledge and mainly to insist upon what the King promised them at BREDA and made them hope should be done for them when he came home But they know or ought to know that those promises whatsoever they were as they were meant by the King so they were to be understood by them to be obliging so far forth onely as they should be approved and consented to by his great Council the Two Houses of Parliament without whose Advice Approbation and Consent they knew the King could repeal no old Law that was in force against them nor make any new Law in favour of them Either of which the two Houses were so far from advising him to doe that the House of Commons gave him unanswerable reasons lately reprinted why nothing of that kind could be done without hazarding a relapse both of Church and State into as bad or perhaps a worse condition than that which it was newly come out of For the preventing whereof it was the House of Commons the Representatives of the People and not the Convocation the Representatives of the Church that upon mature deliberation devised and drew up that Bill which being assented to by the Lords they presented to the King to be made a Law as it was by the King's Fiat to oblige and be imposed upon all that are or pretend to
be of the Clergy before they be permitted to preach unto the People or to have the Education of Youth here in this Kingdom and this is the Law called the Act of Vniformity After the making of which Law by the Advice and with the Consent of both Houses of Parliament it is to no purpose to alledge or insist upon any former Promise made by the King and made by him but conditionally onely that is if he were or should be so advised by his Parliament and not otherwise And indeed for them or any Agents of theirs to desire any thing of the King before he came home as to the repealing of any old Law or the making of any new Law without or against such Advice or Consent of Parliament or any otherwise than conditionally if the Parliament would consent to it was a high breach of the highest Privilege of both Houses of Parliament in those that did desire it then or do now complain it was not done when they knew it could not be done by the King alone and saw the Parliament would not consent to it and therefore I say still to insist upon any such promise made by the King must needs be a very great Affront to both Houses of Parliament unless they be of Mr. Baxter's opinion who as I have before observed notwithstanding his magnifying the Power of Parliaments by dividing the Sovereignty betwixt the King and them affirms that in some cases the King may make a Law not onely without but against the consent of the People if it be for their good because it is to be supposed saith he they would have consented unto it if they had known it to be so which how far it may intrench on the Power of Parliaments I leave it to them to consider I am sure I dare not be so bold with them CHAP. VII The Act of Vniformity why made Some other probable Reasons for Nonconformity and not Conscience altogether as Mr. Baxter saith it is BUt to return to what we have in hand the King having by advice and with the consent of both Houses of Parliament first passed an Act of Oblivion to quiet mens Minds for what was passed to prevent our falling again into as bad or perhaps a worse condition for the future if ill principled and ill affected Preachers were permitted to blow the trumpet of Sedition and Rebellion as they had done formerly His Majesty did by the Advice and with the Consent of the said both Houses of Parliament enact the aforesaid Act of Vniformity thereby providing that none should be admitted or permitted to preach to the People or to teach their Children that would not subscribe and conform to what was required to be subscribed and conformed unto by that Act. Which was no more than they have already consented to by their Representatives in Parliament and consequently to the Penalties for refusing to conform to it also which was neither loss of Life nor Limb nor Liberty nor any part of their Goods but onely their forbearing to preach untill they were better informed and could bring themselves to comply both in Judgment and Practice with what their Duty and Obedience to the Law required of them as some of the learnedst and generally thought to be as conscientious as any of them namely Bp. Reynolds and Dr. Connant did as perhaps many other learned and conscientious men did also But they were not one of an hundred will Mr. Baxter say in comparison of those that did not nor could not conform True I confess as to those that did not but whether all that did not could not is a thing with Mr. Baxter's good leave may be doubted whatsoever he hath said to the contrary as when he saith that to think any that do not conform would not conform if they could with a good Conscience is to think them all to be Fools or mad Men for preferring Poverty before Plenty Want before Wealth Contempt before Honour and Respect and Imprisonment before Liberty which no man in his Wits either would or ought to do if he might chuse whether he would so or no without sin And therefore Mr. Baxter thinks we must needs grant it is nothing but fear of sinning against God that makes the Nonconformists not that they will not but that they dare not conform to what the Laws of the Land as well as of the Church require of them As if all the Nonconforming Ministers that were put out of the Livings they were in or that by reason of their Inconformity are uncapable of any Preferment in the Church are therefore all of them men of Conscience and that whatsoever they ought to doe and will not or will doe and ought not it is for Conscience or for Conscience sake onely or for fear of sinning against God if they did what they doe not or did not what they doe that is if either they did conform when they are commanded or did not preach when they are forbidden But is there or can there be no other cause of their not doing what they should doe and their doing what they should not doe but Conscience onely May it not be peevishness in some and perverseness in others May it not be Pride and Ambition in the Leaders and Ignorance and Obstinacy in those that are led by them I remember that when Bishop Brownrig who is one of the few Bishops that Mr. Baxter vouchsafes to speak well of and I went together to the Treaty with the late King at the Isle of Wight he being one of the Three Divines named by the Parliament and I one of the Three named by the King though very unworthy I confess to be so when that learned Bishop I say and I went together in his Coach towards the Isle of Wight I remember not now upon what occasion it was but I remember very well that I ask'd his Lordship whether he knew Mr. Calamy and he answered me he did and had known him from his first coming to Cambridge Pray my Lord said I was he always a Nonconformist No said he far from it in his practice as well as in his judgment even untill the beginning of these times How came he then said I to be so suddenly and so strangely changed from what he was Why said the Bishop he saw the Tide was turning and having a good opinion of his own parts he thought if he was one of the foremost in coming in he might be one of the foremost if not the foremost of all the Leaders of the whole Party as you see said he he is adding that the hope to be head of a Faction was a powerfull Temptation And why might not the same Temptation prevail with many others that thought as well of themselves as Mr. Calamy did and consequently might have the same hopes that he had But why then may it be said did not the same men when the Tide turned again at