Words which he useth but doth not understand of what Import and value they are in this place for the Rights of Property are of positive and civil Appointment and Institution No man can have or is entitled to any thing but what and as the Law allots it to him They design what is Right what Wrong and what is Injury and Theft and the Law of God both in the Reason and Nature of man as well as by express Revelation forbids it Nec natura potest justum secernere iniquo Men make Governments and God Commands us to obey them yea God Commands us in our Nature to form our selves into Governments For that Mankind cannot tolerably subsist without them What is greatly convenient and promotes the happiness of men therefore seems to be Commanded and thereby a positive and affirmative Law of God in Nature is declared What is or would be greatly mischievous to mankind if generally permitted is therefore understood by us prohibited The Mischief declares the thing forbidden and is the indication of a Negative Precept or prohibitory Law The pleasure and satisfaction of mind that men take in being beneficent and agreeable to and deserving well of their own kind The remorses shame fear and regret that men necessarily suffer from the sense of their own actions when they are offensive unequal and unreasonable are the Sanctions of the Laws of Nature and are truly the Rewards and Punishments of God in Nature So that Anarchy which is the most intolerable state of Mankind a state of War and Violence unreasonable Passion and unbounded Appetite seems to be the most forbidden thing by God in Nature But Government because it makes men equal and reasonable just and peaceable kind and beneficent or finds them so encourageth them to be so and protects them in being so seems to be the most principal Institution and Appointment of God in Nature for that it is recommended to us by all that which conduces to our happiness And thus and for this reason are Kings and Governours said to have their Authority from God and therefore Government is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 13.2 Gods Ordinance But the forms of Governments the Persons of the Governours the Order of Succession their respective Powers and Ministries are of Mans appointment and agreeable hereunto Government is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Humane Creature 1 Peter 2.13 24. to which the Apostle enjoyns us to be Obedient for the Lords sake and in Conscience of our Duty to God Agreeable hereto is that Noble Tradition amongst the Jews of the seven Precepts given by God to the Sons of Noah that is to all Mankind for from him we all secondarily derive in which the great Titles of the Law of Nature are declared and to which all the Nations of the World were obliged one of which is De Judiciis The words of the Precept which is the Seventh are no more signifying that the Law of Nature or the Will of God in Nature doth command us to live in Politys and under Governments This Law was given or declared to all Mankind when they were in a State of Nature before Governments were constituted and by that Law of Nature obliged to form themselves into Societies to enter into mutual Obligations to stand to and abide the common measures of Law and to assist and submit to the Sentences and Decrees of common Judicatures These were the first Oaths of Allegiance that were taken in the world but when a single person was entrusted with the executive power of Laws they swore this Allegiance to him For in all regular Governments as it is in this of ours the King commands nothing but according to the Prescript and Formula's of Law And the whole business of Government as between those that are to be Governed is making Laws and executing them in a due Administration of Justice As Corollaries to what is said I shall add first That Mercenary Guards are very unnatural to Governments as they seem upon the foregoing Reasons to be instituted and appointed by God in Nature which receive conformation from the Tradition and Doctrine of the Jews the best instructed Nation in the world in the Mind of God for that the whole body and power of the Government or Polity are bound to see the Law and Results of their common Judicatures obey'd and are amply sufficient for that purpose So that the head of the Polity by the posse populi being most powerfully instructed to execute the Laws Mercenary Guards seem intended and designed by those that imploy them to execute matters illegal and extrajudicial or at best they make a very hard case upon the people that they must support a great charge and pay a great price for jealousies and fears Secondly That by the natural obligation of the ancient Oath of Allegiance every Member of the Polity is bound to resist and subdue all extrajudicial Forces riotous and routous Assemblies But the nature of Government and its true original hath been prejudiced by an unhappy mistake that hath long since invaded the World men that understand nothing but Words and Grammar-Divines that without contemplating Gods Attributes or the nature of man or the reasonableness of moral Precepts have undertaken to declare the sense of Scriptures and infer that the Soveraign Power is not of Humane Institution but of Divine Appointment because they find it there written that by him Kings Reign imagining that when the Scripture saith God commands or doth this that God commanded it by express Words or doth it by an immediate position of the thing done Whereas in Nature his Commands are nothing but the natural Light God hath bestowed upon Mankind Likewise God's doing a thing is only the course of natural and second Causes to which because God gives the Direction or Motion he doth both and is said to do all that is done Besides all the Precepts that God gives us that are agreeable to the Law of Nature must be understood as Nature and Reason doth direct Videtur Lex Dei idem dictans quod natura ita accipi quomodo ipsa natura accipiendum monstrat nisi addatur aliquid Expressius Grotius Comment fol. 121. The Laws of God that confirm the Laws of men innovate nothing but a new obligation to observe them but only as commanded and intended by those that made them All humane Constitutions and Governments must be subservient and obsequious to their own intentions Omnes res conditoe famulantur vitoe humanoe Every Form of Government is of our creation and not Gods and must comply with the safety of the People in all that it can without its own dissolution and was never intended unalterable or at least inflexible but was intended and made under reservations reasonable exceptions of unforeseen accidents and rare contingencies in humane Affairs And the Law of God that comes in confirmation and establishment of humane Institutions and Laws binds only according to their natures and
greater sin than that of killing a Master But further to clear the true notion of a Fathers Authority that it is duty and care not Empire and absolute will Let it be considered that God by his right of Creation hath an absolute plenary and direct dominion over us we are more his than we are our own or than any thing can be ours Yet when he was pleased of his gracious condescention to our capacity to quiet our fears of his power and to invite our love and assure our hope he did declare himself our Father thereby to assure us that he would not rule us pro imperio and according to his absolute right he had over us That stile he himself delights to use and gives us leave to call him our Father by which we all understand that he will not proceed with us according to his Right of absolute domination no not in the terms of strict Right and Political Justice But that he will consider our frame pity our infirmity correct us as his Children but not punish us with an exterminating Justice Amongst the Romans antiently no man was admitted a Judge in Criminal Causes but he that was a Father of Children that the severities of a Judge might be abated by the tenderness of a Father that he who had Children of his own might have the more pity to those of others so different is the Office of a Judge from the natural duty and tenderness of a Father It is the greatest violence that can be done to Nature to compel a Father to sit in Judgment upon his Son Next to that of obliging and compelling a man to execute himself to make it the Fathers duty to pronounce a capital Sentence upon the Son is the most unnatural thing in the World The Father and the Son in this consideration are conjunctae personae and when the Sin of the Father is visited upon the Son the Son is afflicted but the Father is punished and when the Son hath the Question the Father is taken to be confessed in tormentis silii But for a further instance to make it appear how incompetent the duty of a Magistrate is with the Nature of a Father I will observe that notwithstanding a Law was given to Adam and all his Sons to establish Judicatures according to the Tradition of the Jews as may be seen in Mr. Selden his Book de jure Gentium secundum Hebraeos which Law by the way had been supervacaneous if the Power of a Prince did belong to Adam in the right of his Paternity and a Government had been provided for them by their Birth Yet I say notwithstanding that there was such a Relaxation of Justice in the World before the Flood because it could be only administred by a Father or such who participated of the stock of love lodg'd in the common Father from whom his Children did derive their tenderness one to another as they themselves sprang from him That the World was grown so wicked within two ages as men then liv'd from the Creation that a Universal deluge was brought upon the World by the just Judgment of God for the outragious and insufferable Wickedness that had spread it self universally over mankind 8 persons only excepted The overflowing deluge of Wickedness that caus'd the deluge of waters can't be imputed to a more probable cause than to the indulgence and impunity that the observed and understood nearness of Kindred that all men stood then in to one another must naturally occasion This is a sad consequence of that natural Love in Parents towards their Children which was intended for the propagation and advancement of Mankind But since that now we are estranged one from another in remote and unknown degrees and that prejudice is over here is a Gentleman to destroy the World another wâ—… and to undo us by unreasonable and unâ—…d power which is alike apt to make 〈…〉 fit for another Universal destruction if it be not without more destroyed by it doth endeavour to turn the exercise of such power into a Right and to give it warranty from the Reason and way of our propagation and by this means to destroy us faster than we can be born and bred and impair the Generations of Mankind to render them extreamly miserable or wicked which is much worse extinguish the light of the World which is Love and Amity and destroy the encouragement and reason of almost all relative Morality What a Saturnine Father have we got to make a golden Age who ever would have thought that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most moving kindest most tender pleasing and beneficent instinct in Nature planted by God the Father of us all for the propagating educating and improving humane Nature should ever be made use of to found a right of Tyranny and Arbitrary domination the greatest destroyer and depraver of Mankind What Monster hath this last Age produced a Christian a Father seriously endeavouring to perswade all Mankind to offer up their Children to Moloch the Saturn of the Easterlings who was but the Devil of Tyranny as the name imports This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the true Origine and Fountain of Love and Amity and the social Virtues which render men humane from whence flows all the happiness of Mankind will by this Doctrine be corrupted and rendred unsincere and self-designing For when a Father performs an Act of Generation it seems now he designs to add a slave to his Retinue and when a Child is born there is another Item added to the Inventory of his Estate If this Fountain be corrupted there can be nothing sincerely kind after it in Humane Nature The Leviathan is out-done by this Gentleman and hath not performed half so renownedly in the great Work of depraving Humane Nature as our Patriarchal Knight will do if his Admirers can bring him into vogue and esteem For the Author of the Leviathan allowed something good in Humane Nature several equal propensions which he terms her Counsels and sometimes adventures to call the Laws of Nature But he concludes they are not practicable and they are only fools who govern themselves by them But this Gentlemen will not allow Nature to be good in her first institution and designment though in this I think they are near agreeable that Mr. Hobbs made the Pourtraicture of Humane Nature in an agreeableness to his own evil Ingeny and this Knight did set himself when he made this his draught of a Father he could have no other Original but himself or the Idea of the morose and sowr Dr. P. H. his admired friend but by his Character he had at least misfigured his understanding and made it his own Nature by liking it 2ly No more of authority belong'd to Adam over his Children than does to any of his Children over his for that this Authority proceeds from Nature and Nature is alike in all men The duty of their education and the Authority over them that is competent to
understanding to appear and come forth for the undeceiving and rectifying the Judgments of the most deceivable part of Mankind and with just ignominy and scorn to beat down the assumings and presumptions of such Pretenders and Smatterers in Letters especially in such a Weighty Matter as this when the poor people if mistaken must be mistaken to their Ruine and perish by the Deceit if deceived which I hope is scarce possible for very many to be by this frivolous Pretender and Offerer of Considerations which none but he that deserves our pity could think of but for that he dares to offer them publickly to the World and under the stile of Great and Weighty Considerations he most justly deserves our Indignation a private Scorn a publick Censure For that purpose we will now produce him HE begins his Considerations with a Consideration and Recommendation of himself and would fain prove his Honestly for he was with reason conscious that this undertaking would render him more than probably suspected He proves as well as any thing he undertakes and as well as it can be proved That he is an honest man This he would have the World believe because there is such a thing as sincerity in the World and for that there have been some men that have owned an afflictive Righteous Cause against self-interest and the displeasure of a prevailing Faction but we know the Cause that he Patronizes is the most unrighteous Cause that ever any man of Front espoused but that should not trouble us But that which afflicts us and is the heart-aking of all good men is That this Scribler with too much reason we know presumes that the Brave men whom he reviles for adhering to the only means of the saving of three Kingdoms with the Gross of the Nation are designed to be subdued by a party of men whose strength the King in his profound Knowledg and Wisdom best knows how to Calculate but certainly this Addresser imagines very great whatever he pretends and that he is well backed by force Otherwise he could not adventure publickly to despise the Interest of a House of Commons If this Considerer and his Fellow-Conspirators had not some secret reserves of Strength he would not advise the King as he doth to Adhere to and Govern with the House of Lords and his Privy-Council and to lop off the House of Commons from the Government as an unprofitable Branch In the next Paragraph he tells us The Chiefest Principle and Maxim of the true reformed Religion in this Kingdom is fully Epitomized in this excellent Precept Give to every one his due If there can be more nonsense spoken in so many words It is this Patriot must do it and you shall find him often performing what I have undertaken for him And sure after such demonstrations of his Honesty and proof of his Understanding you must take him for a True Patriot and a fit Addresser of GREAT and WEIGHTY Considerations In the next Paragraph he undertakes to commend and allow chide and disapprove our leading Men I believe he means of the House of Commons but we want his Name it 's fit he should discover himself before we can admit him to sit Judge of the Actions of the most excellent Persons of the late House of Commons I perswade my self he would blush however immodest he appears in his Address if he were drawn out and exposed to publick view under such a Character we might spare him the Pillory rotten Eggs and Turnep-tops which is due to infamous Libellers against Governours for he is a man of such fashion I believe that he would suffer too much of Shame and Confusion of Face if he were but known well enough to be pointed at after we have done with him In the fourth Paragraph he allows it is a glorious thing to establish the True Protestant Religion but he would not have it established upon Quick-sands neither would we because it is impossible it should be so established we would not have it depend upon loose accidents expos'd to Chance and Contingencies and expect it should be supported by rare events and morally impossible nor to be left at Six and Sevens a chance that is not upon the Die and hope that things should out of their Course and Nature unite and combine together for its support That which is Glorious is so because it is Excellent in it self and difficult to be atchieved and whatever is difficult is to be obtained by unusual and extraordinary means to deny or condemn the use of them when lawful is to deny us the end and is so far in truth from allowing it to be Glorious that he doth not allow it at all That it is made difficult to support the Protestant Religion we owe to the Popish Conspiracy and the design of this man is to make it impossible to that purpose he requires you to lay aside Humane Policy which is the same as true Prudence which is the onely Guide God hath given us and the onely Oracle he hath left us to consult in our Affairs and is never repugnant as he would have it but always conformable to the Laws of God and Nature lest we should be furnished with a Remedy against the designed mischiefs to us and our Religion To this commendable sort of Policy the design of the Bill will be made agreeable in the following Discourse That we may admit the absurd Doctrins of the Church of Rome we are required to abandon our Reason and that we may more easily again fall unto her we must if we will be ruled by the Considerer renounce our Prudence and those that will not must endure his slanderous Reproaches with which he goes on to revile the Promoters of the Bill of Exclusion whom he calls Hypocrites Factious Spirits of the Fanatical Leven that they make a Cloak of Religion to palliate black Designs fierce Zealots acting like the Rump-Parliament Guilty of Antichristian attempts repugnant to the Ordinance of God and to the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom a few turbulent Zealots assuming to themselves a Soveraign and despotical Power of Deposing the DVKE of YORK and says That they impudently affirm That this hath been the Ancient Custom of Parliaments to Depose Princes and dispose of Kingdoms whereas the Crown hath been always Haereditary and never depended upon the Suffrages of the Subject Since this bad man presumes to say so many bad words falsely of the Excellent Members of the late House of Commons reproches their Zeal for the publick Safety most Heroically exerted in the time of the greatest Need and most threatning Dangers calls their appearance for the support of the Protestant Religion established by Law Hypocrisie And the prosecuting the Discovery of the Hellish Plot and the best means of preventing the Plot from taking effect black Designs Since I say his Immodesty hath given him so much Licence I wonder he had no more Scurrilities especially since he is so impertinent as to call
and doth virtually renounce the Government may not be left out of the Succession This is the true state of the Question and the Question thus stated gives its own solution And who except those of the Conspiracy do not so state it and allow it As to his Question Whence the Parliament derives their Power let him know that the Parliament derive their Power and Authority from the same Original the King derives His The King hath not His Power from them nor they theirs from the King They both derive their Authority from the Consent of the People in the first Constitution of the Government either tacit or express or by their express or tacit Consent in the insensible and little or great and more remarkable alterations that the Government hath suffered in the course of Time The King can make the Parliaments Power no greater than it is nor they His. Though true it is he may put an unlimited Trust reposed in Him into Stated Laws and Govern by Counsels established into Laws which is not to alter or lessen His Power but to make it more Safe and Wise and impeccable in the exercise of it He may ascertain the indefinitness of his Power that it may not be abus'd And that King doth best provide for a happy and wise Administration of his Government who leaves the fewest things to fortuitous resolves who reduceth his Prerogative to the measures of Common Right and makes the Kingdom secure and safe by leaving the Succession less Capacity and Scope to do mischief It is mostly incumbent upon his Sacred Majesty to secure the Government committed to his Care and keep it upright and steady upon its own Basis and to preserve all things in a due and Legal Course To watch to prevent all machinations against it and such as would destroy and subvert it and by his executive power of the Laws obtain to us the ends of Government that we may live quiet and peaceable Lives in all Godliness and Honesty For the sake of this High Trust and the Dignity of this Office his Person is most Sacred and Inviolable The King and his great Council providing for the establishment and security of the Government in their proceedings are not tyed up to forms of Judicial proceedings but are to act upon such inducements and in such methods whereby the Wisest men govern their affairs in which they are at perfect Liberty and not under the restraint of Laws They cannot do unjustly whatever methods or means they use that are prudentially and morally necessary to this End This power can be no more wanting in Governments than we can be without Government That which establisheth the one which is the Law of God declared in the Make and Frame of Humane Nature affirms and allows the other By the Authority of this Law of God so declared and promulgated as I have told you do Kings Reign and Senators or Princes Decree Justice By virtue of this Law and in Obedience to it is this Bill fram'd against which this Considerer declaims like a speaking Brute From this Law of God the said Bill when it passeth into a Law will have its Approbation Sanction and Establishment But against this Bill with his accustomed Truth Candor and Modesty he doth object That if such an Authority shall belong to the Parliament as to disable one successor upon such inducements as are sufficiently known a Parliament some time or other may be corrupted by a King and by mercenariness comply with him to sell the Succession of the Crown to a Foreigner We all well enough know that this Bill is designed to keep out the Tyranny of France or at least the French Tyranny But for this I leave the King to reckon with him and the Pensioners of the late long Parliament The Gentleman continues to add the story of Ahab contriving to possess himself of Naboth's Vineyard by causing him to be falsly accused of Blaspheming God and the King by which if true by the Jewish Laws Ahab had been Justly entitled to it as a Royal Escheat But if he had not been as stupid as a Block he had not mentioned this story which is a president and an adjudg'd case against himself who but a Line before had so vilely Blasphemed so great a King a far greater King than Ahab though the Parliament divide some Authority with the King in the Government But what were the Constitutions of the Jewish Monarchy this Writer of Considerations I am sure knows no more than his Foot-boy But let him know that the Romish Religion is a Blaspheming God and to bring the Kings Life in danger is worse than to Blaspheme him See what wise Work this Considerer makes when forsooth he would argue That the Duke of York cannot be shut out of the Succession no more than Ahab could take Naboth's Vineyard from him The man of Weighty Considerations tells us in the next Paragraph That God was Incensed against Esau for selling his Birth-right and therefore the Duke must not lose his contrary to his Will and all Justice by a prevailing Faction of his Inferiours Who ever told him That God was Incensed against Esau for selling his Birth-right Did not God purpose the Birth-right to Jacob before the Brothers were born and before they had done Good or Evil Could God be angry with him for agreeing and executing his own Purpose and Decree Did not Isaac and Rebekah both know and understand the Oracle and in Obedience to it Jacob was effectively Blessed by his Father Isaac's confirming the Blessing first gotten by surprize and by the Solemnity of that Blessing his Father Isaac transferred the right of the Promise made to Abraham to be fulfilled in the Line of Jacob Indeed the place he quotes in Heb. 12.17 is this Let no Whoremonger or Prophane Person be amongst you like Esau that would prefer a Sensual pleasure before the great things that were promised by our Lord to them that obey him Wherein the mention of Esau's Story is only to illustrate and set off what they fell short of the Grace of God and the designs of his Holy Institution Indeed if he could prove to us that his Royal Highness being the younger Brother had any such thing transmitted to him in his Generation as the Jews called the Segulah by which they mean some peculiarity which did appropriate the Right of the Promises made to Abraham which Jacob had and Esau wanted they say If he had any Divine mark upon him besides the Contingency of his Birth that design'd him mark'd him for a King besides Roman Zeal there would be some Consequence in his Discourse and this would be the best Argument that he hath yet us'd though the King would be little beholden to him for it But where God doth not interpose by express Revelation Humane Affairs Concerns and Interests of all sorts must be Governed and Ruled by the Laws Orders and Decrees of the respective Governments I would not have been
Consequence whereof is that he very impertinent or else the Duke of York is now Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwal and that he is within the Statute of 25 Ed. 3. This Argument of his he leaves to be further illustrated and pursued by the Church-men and Civilians But lest they should fail this Epistoler for I now am well assured that this question and cause is to be managed by the Sword by Massacres and the French Plot and not by Writing I have adventured and will proceed to illustrate his Arguments and pursue them into their Consequences leave the Epistoler of Quality to be pursued with laughter for he deserves no worse if it be true that he professeth that he is a Protestant and Lover of the Government Now he will he saith as best sorting with his profession and with a discourse of the nature drive proofs from the Authority of the Common and Statute-Law of England From whence it follows That the Common-Law and Statute-Laws of England are proper to be consulted with for declaring the Laws of God and the Laws of Nature which they never yet pretended to do And Secondly it follows from thence that this Epistoler no more understands the Common and Statute-Laws of England and what places they are to have in the Conduct of our manners and guidance of our Consciences than he doth as appears by what he hath said before what is the Law of God or Nature He lays it down as most evident That all the humane Acts and Powers in the World cannot hinder the Discent of the Crown upon the next Heir of the Blood because though they may hinder the Possession and Enjoyment of it This is a Dowry which the great King of Kings hath reserved to his own immidiate Donation and hath placed above the reach of a mortal Arm and mankind can no more hinder or intercept it than it can the Influences of the Stars or the Heavens upon the Sublunary world or beat down the Moon The Consequence of this is that the man is Lunatick and of insane memory and hath forgot and denies what in the same breath he affirms Eor he agrees humane Power may hinder the possession and enjoyment and yet it is no more possible to hinder the Descent than to stop the Influences of Heaven and to pull down the Moon Secondly It follows that that which is done is impossibe to be done Thirdly that there is no Right at all by Descent nor can be any Descent of the Crown for that it is reserved as he says to Gods immediate Donation And we never yet heard of any immediate Gift or Donation thereof from God And if the Duke will stay until that be done we most solemnly declare we will accept him for our King and he shall be a King to intents and purposes as he terms it we will be kinder and juster to him than his Freinds of the same perswasion with the Epistoler who will give him the Name and Style and would Abridge him as they pretend of the Power and Authority of a King He says further That when the Duke is King that the Legiance and Fidelity of the Subject is due to him by the immutable Law of Nature from whence it clearly follows that he must stay until that time come That when he is a Loyal and Foyal King we are to be Loyal and Foyal Liege-men and Subjects For Calvin's Case which he cites by the general Opinions of all considerable Lawyers is Apocryphal where it makes Allegiance absolute and more extensive than the Legal Power of Kings But here he subjoyns such loathsom Pedantry that I cannot but remark it He subjoyns to his mention of Calvin's Case that Aristotle Nature's Amanuensis as he calls him agrees with that Case in that he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Seneca's Natura commenta est Regem But for my promise sake I will make no further Observations upon him than by bare repeating of it to expose it That the King and his Successors are Kings by Nature he proves For that the Statute Laws do frequently stile the King our Natural Liege-Lord And for further proof tells us that in Indictments it is set forth that the Treason is commited contra debitum Fidei Ligeantiae quod naturaliter de jure impendere debet And the King in Indictments is sometimes styled Natural Lord. Whence it follows that we are born under Allegiance that no man that is born under any form of Government can deny Faith unto it though he never expresly swore Allegiance That the King of France is not our Natural Lord neither doth the Oath of Allegiance bind us to that Form of Government if introduced because the King was born to no such Kingship Nor is our King a Natural Lord to any Forreigners that come hither and the Form of the Indictment against Forreigners as the Lawyers know must be in another Form And further it followes That in all changes of Government the word natural is to be adjoyned to Allegiance in all Indictments of Treason committed against the Government in its several changes that it may suffer And this all the Lawyers with one voice pronounce He sums up all that he hath said before thus No humane Power can hinder the Descent of the Crown upon the Right Heir the Descent makes the King Allegiance is due to the King by the Law of Nature The Law of Nature cannot be abrogated by humane Power That common-Common-Law is more worthy than statute-Statute-Law and the Law of Nature more worthy than both But upon better consideration of the whole matter it follows with better Consequence That Nature hath made no Laws about Property nor about Governments otherwise all Laws of Right and Property and all Governments would have been the same for what she makes are Universal as the Nature of man Besides that if he knew where she became a Legislatrix or if this Gentleman could direct us to a veiw of her Pandects we ought to acoord all our Laws to them Secondly That Common-Law is not to be preferred before Statute-Law For the Judges who declare the Common-Law are not wiser than Parliaments and the Common-Law appears so bad a Rule that it requires oftentimes amendment Thirdly It follows that no Legislation is Lawful for that which is to be preferred is best and that which is best is to be a Law for ever Fourthly That no Allegiance is due to any Prince but whom the Law appoints and as the Law appoints That he that is not King to him no Allegiance is due That humane Power is competent enough to alter as well as make any humane Constitution That which by humane Authority was made and made also descendible for all Crowns are not descendible can be altered by the same Authority in its Discent The greater part of this ensuing Discourse is the remembrance of the Tragedies that have been acted upon the English Nation by our Kings For we have not only suffered
submissions which is the sum of the Apostles Doctrine in this matter The Christian Religion instituted no form of Governments but enjoyns us to be obedient to those we have not onely by express command in the case but by its general Rules of a most refined improved and extensive morality But though I said the Scriptures have not prescribed or directed any universal Form of Governments yet the Scripture hath declared the falshood of this new Hypothesis of Kingly Government to be Jure Divino or by Divine Right For St. Peter 1 Peter 2.13 and 14 stiles Kings as well as the Governours under him the ordinance of man which cannot have any other sence but that men make them and give them their powers By St. Paul the power of Governments indeed is called Gods Ordinance Romans 13.2 but that is for this reason because in general God approves of Governments as necessary to the well-being of Mankind for the improvement of humane nature for the punishing of Vice encouragement and security of Virtue without them it being impossible to live honestly and in peace And he hath made them the under-Ministers of his providence and care over Mankind and expects of them that they should promote his true Honour and worship in the world which will be always accompanied with the exercise of all civil virtues These two different places must be so understood that they may be both true and by no other interpretation can they be reconciled and made consistent It is impossible that any thing can be of mans appointment which is of Gods Ordination there can be no such thing as a Co-legislative power of Men with their Maker Government therefore is from God as he hath made Governments necessary in the general order of things but the specification thereof is from men The best definition that can be made of Government is in the words of both the Apostles put together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and such Governments which men make God approves and requires our obedience to them upon all those reasons which make Governments necessary The natural and easie consequence and result of these Scriptures is this which I desire those Gentlemen to observe That whatsoever is not lawfully established by men no Law of God not the Christian Law doth oblige us to obey The Christian Religion doth equally condemn in the reason of its Institutions Usurpation and Contumacy Where the Apostle admonish us that if we be free we should not become Servants he hath by virtue of that Admonition made it commendable not to suffer the encroachments of Power over us Most certainly therefore as the Christian Religion doth not prejudice the Soveraign Rights of Princes such as they are in the several Forms and Models of Monarchical Governments non eripit terrestria qui regna dat coelestia as Sedulius so doth it not enlarge them when by the Gospel God made us free from his own positive Laws to the Jews sure he did not intend thereby de Jure to render us Slaves to the Arbitrary pleasure of men No man intends by any thing in the Scripture that all Mankind is obliged to any one Form of Government and therefore all men are left to their own It hath not therefore altered the terms of Government and Obedience that every Nation hath established for themselves but hath confirmed and strictly obliged the observance of them To Obedience to Government we are obliged by as many ties as there are Christian Virtues and he must disown his Christianity that departs from his due Allegiance And since our Saviour is declared King of Kings and Lord of Lords all Christian Kings are to govern in imitation of his mercy and goodness and in subserviency to the interest of his Religion and Kingdom Regum timendorum in proprios greges Reges in ipsos imperium est Jovis cuncta supercilio moventis Whence then is this absolute Authority of Kings if it come neither from God nor man Give me leave now to inform you that these opinions render you all Traytors guilty of Treason of State perduellionis rei obnoxious to be punished as Traitors by an Authority lodg'd in Parliament in the Constitution of the Government You your selves must needs condemn your selves to have forfeited all your own who hold such Principles that tend to destroy every mans Right by resolving all things into the absolute pleasure of a Monarch in which you mostly disserve the King and are contrary to his Majesties late Declaration The men of these Principles the less of the Government they are intrusted with the better for the less they have to give up and betray I confess if I could believe that this Doctrine was become Orthodox among them and the prevailing opinion of the Clergie I should conclude us to be the most unhappy people under the Sun This is an Hypothesis indeed that will bring on new Heavens and a new Earth but such wherein no Peace or Righteousness can ever dwell But I deem all such as are Defenders and Promoters of it do deserve a civil Excommunication more smarting than their Ecclesiastical and to be condemned to live upon and onely feed themselves with their thin and crude Speculations To be excluded from any share of that Government that they professedly in their Principles betray To be punished as seditious persons and most mischievous Schismaticks far more intolerable in this matter than the scrupulous Brotherhood for their boglings at an indifferent and insignificant Ceremony For that to the ruine of our Religion and destruction of the publick Peace they divide from that Polity to which by drawing here their first breath they made Faith and to which the condition of their birth doth oblige them they falsifie that which Arrian in his Epictetus calls the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 than which nothing is more sacred and inviolable By creating themselves a new Allegiance and obtruding it upon their fellow-Citizens and Members of the same Kingdom they set up a Kingdom within a Kingdom more dangerous and mischievous than the Papal Imperium in Imperio which certainly will be introduced if this Modern and monstrously-extravagant opinion can prevail by a general Credence It is criminal and no less dangerous to the being of any Polity to restrain the Legislative Authority and to entertain Principles that disable it to provide remedy against the greatest mischiefs that can happen to any Community No Government can support it self without an unlimited power in providing for the happiness of the people No Civil establishment but is controulable and alterable to the publick weal. Whatever is not of divine Institution ought to yield and submit to this power and Authority The Succession to the Crown is of a civil nature not established by any Divine Right Several Kingdoms have several Laws of Succession some are Elective others Hereditary under several Limitations All humane Constitutions are made cum sensu humanae imbecillitatis under reasonable exceptions of unforeseen accidents and emergencies
and Laws design to make them though they do not always answer the good designments of the Government To what purpose then are these new Hypotheses fram'd and published Kings are exempted by their Office and the sacredness of their persons from all fears but the fears of Nature and these can never be discharged Those who do ill will fear ill eternally though their power were made little less than omnipotent for the frame of Humane Nature hath made it necessary to be so Besides God hath made one thing against another There is a divine Nemesis interwoven in the nature of things And God will always govern the World Omne sub regno duriore regnum The great Mogol at his Inauguration swears That his People shall be at peace at home and victorious abroad afflicted neither with Plague nor Famine but enjoy Health and Plenty all his days This seems extraordinary Pompous and Arrogant but it means no more than this that he will govern them so vertuously that Gods Providence shall be always propitious to his People and is no more in plain English than what our Church offers up in her publick Prayers for the King viz. That he may govern us in Wealth Peace and Godliness that he may live long and so govern us ought to be every honest mans Prayers But after all these vain Hypotheses contrived for making Kings Absolute it will be more easie for Kings to make their Reigns unquiet and turn their Kingdoms into Fields of blood But lastly to revive the ancient Zeal of the true Members of the Church of England against Popery To rectify the mistakes of some Gentlemen of the Clergy about the Dissenters And of our late Parliaments and their proceedings in reference to them Let it be considered how unreasonable their apprehensions are of any danger to the Church of England from the desires of the House of Commons of some indulgence or toleration in favour of the Dissenters at this time especially when the Protestant Religion is so shrewdly beset she hath reason now sure to take all such for her Friends that are heartily Enemies to Popery though not so skilful as they should be to ward off its assaults Since the Papists presume to call them Fanaticks though exactly conformable to the Church of England that will not assist to bring on the Popish Plot by dis-believing it and put us in fear of the Fanaticks by taking all the courses imaginable to provoke and exasperate them and to increase their discontents which they maliciously heighten and by falshood and forgeries misrepresent To graft thereupon a Pretence of a Protestant Plot for a pretext to extirpate Protestantism and introduce Popery which they impudently pretend to be of a more firm Allegiance to the Government than the Reformed Religion I pray let it be considered that that which is tolerated is put under disgrace even for that it is tolerated and that which tolerates even for that it tolerates hath the governing Authority and in so much as it indulgeth it obligeth to modesty and reason and if that indulgence should be abused it may and will be retracted It was never intended by the House of Commons that the Church of England should be altered or modelled to an agreeableness to any form or sect of the Separation or prescrib'd to by any of the Dissenters or that she should be made subject to any of their rules or opinions or her Liturgy laid aside for Directories or which is worse undervalued to the prophane way of extemporizing For as generally used and exercised it deserves no milder a stile That the Church should always govern by her own Wisdom in her own Province and in those things that appertain to her can never be deny'd her No man hath reason to say though he hath great cause to dislike the Separation and to have a bad opinion of the Dissenters that he had rather submit to Popery than to any form of the Separation for he need do neither except he pleaseth No man that thus expresseth himself but will be suspected to seek an occasion and pretence to become a Papist and to make a defection from the Church of England But if these Gentlemen have such a displeasure against Schism and Separation which certainly is the worst disease any Church can labour under and at this time threatens the destruction as well of the Protestant Religion it self as it doth to the Professors of all denominations let this sharpen their Zeal against Popery which by its unhallowed arts hath occasioned and exasperated our Schism and put them upon the use of all means to reconcile if possible the Schism that the Papists have already made and by all means endeavour to continue and take away if possible the occasion of it for the time to come And thus defeat the Arts of the Priests and Jesuits for supplanting our Church It is a most deplorable thing that our Church should be kept rent and divided in danger of being lost between Rituality and Scrupulosity Though the Scruples of the Nonconformists which I always thought and do still think groundless and unreasonable have often moved me into some passion against them yet upon consideration I think this their Scrupulosity may be of God and that some men are by him framed to it That he hath provided it as a bar and obstacle in the Natures and Complexions of some devout men against any Innovations whatsoever that dangerous ones may not steal upon the Church for the better maintaining the simplicity and purity of the Christian Religion and Worship But in saying this I have said nothing that is apt to give them a conceit of themselves but rather to humble them For the best men are not govern'd by their Temper and Constitution but correct them by their Reason and determine themselves by a clear and him Judgement What affrightment all this while either to Church or State from this weak and pityable Scrupulosity Where lyes the Treason or Sacriledge nay or so much as contumacy against our Ecclesiastical Governours which is so much upbraided to them The Christian Religion may be prejudiced by addition to as well as substraction from her rule The Church of Rome by her additions hath almost evacuated the Christian Faith Besides there may be a fineness in the outward mode of Religious Worship in it self very justifiable which may be not congenial to men of a course make The Worship of God will always favour of the manners of the people men of dull capacity can scarce admit of any Ceremonies without danger of falling into superstition or hardly escape being vext with endless and incurable scruples about them until for ease of their minds they throw them off But the wisdom of the best Law-makers hath considered in giving Laws what the people would bear and not what is best to be enjoyned and many things have been tolerated by them which they did not approve Ne majoribus malis detur occasio aut etiam
proceeding upon evident notoriety to exclude one that designs the subverting of it and the destruction of those that are to be governed and protected and hath incurr'd a severer Doom I well hope there are very few in this Nation so ill instructed that doth not think it in the Power of the People to depose a Prince who really undertakes to alienate his Kingdom or to give it up into the hands of another Soveraign Power Or that really acts the Destruction or the Universal Calamity of his People The Learned and Judicious Mr. Falkner than whom there is no person of this Age with the Church of England in greater esteem Who truly merits the high esteem of all men for his excellent Candour and Learning In his Book called Christian Loyalty cannot deny the right to be so upon those cases really happening but is not willing to suppose such Cases can ever happen in Fact He tells us If any such strange Case as is proposed should really happen in the World it would have its great difficulties Grotius he tells us thinks that in this utmost extremity the use of such defence as a last refuge ultimo necessitatis proesidio is not to be condemned provided the care of the common Good be preserved And if this be true saith he it must be upon this Ground that such attempts of ruining do ipso facto include a disclaiming the Governing these persons as Subjects and conseqently of being their Prince and King and then notwithstanding his Proposition saith he would remain True viz. That it is not lawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King All that Mr. Falkner offers in this matter out of his commendable Care and Zeal to Peace and Government is to argue the Cases in Fact impossible and that such suppositions may be the undue imputations of Factious persons against their Soveraign He thinks that Princes may have a Consideration of the Account they must give in the other World of their Government here That they have a regard to their Honour and Esteem and a Respect to their Safety To the quiet and serenity of their own minds and will avoid the Diroe Vltrices and the Tortures of mind that attend Cruelty and the Actors of great mischief and by such Considerations as these be contain'd in their Duty But do these Arguments of his that should reasonably and ordinarily do secure us against the Oppressions of Potentates give us in this juncture any Security are these Considerations Disswasives or Incitements to a Popish Prince to act our Fears and give reality to the Suppositions To any under the Principles and Counsels that guide such a Prince already entred upon the Design and his party obnoxious these Considerations would urge him to proceed and make our Calamity certain These Arguments of his applyed to such a state of things is like a Protestatio contra factum and like the Sophistical Arguments of the Stoicks who would undertake to prove a thing acknowledged and existent and present to be impossible How wild then and transported must this Patriot seem who will undertake to argue the Bill guilty of the highest Iniquity and Injustice Arraign the greatest and Best part of the Nation adjure them to answer it at his Tribunal challenge us for so his Expostulations and Enquiries of us doth import with intentions to over-reach Providence and that we despair of the justness of our Cause or the goodness of God And he tells us That God doth not want our Wickedness to fulfil his Holy Will We answer How far the Providence of God will assist us in this undertaking we know not it is not new in the world for the most Righteous Causes to be unprosperous we are only to do our Duty and leave the Issue and Event thereof to his All-Wise Providence But we know and are most assured of the Justness of the undertaking and we have a good hope in the goodness of God that he will succeed it for that herein we are doing nothing that is evil but fulfilling his Holy and Good Will I mean not that we are certain to obtain what we desire and pursue But it is the will of God concerning us who hath left us in the hands of our own Counsel and hath not told us That he will save us by a Miracle that we should be Loyal to our Soveraign zealously love that excellent Religion and that excellent Government that his Gracious Providence hath established amongst us by Law And also that we desire and endeavour by Law to disable in the understanding of the representative of the Nation a profest Enemy both to our Religion and Government from getting into the Throne that he be not by that advantage of Power enabled to effect his purpose But we are resolved we that will not call that Design Evil tho' it do not succeed nor think that we are not doing the Holy Will of God tho' we should be unprosperous therein and without success If there was an Oracle to Consult we would not know what the Success should be lest our Virtue should lose its Glory No brave man but would despise all Auguries when he is to contend for his Country and things more precious to him than his Life Sortilegis egeant dubij This false Patriot takes Sanctuary in his Revolt from publick Interest and he thinks he is swimming to Shore with his Plank before a Wreck and will fly the Danger before it approaches but we will do our Duty weather the Storm secure of the event for the goodness of the Cause makes us hopeful and we will Triumph in our Integrity tho' disappointed Of any other Will of God save what is his Will for us to do as Citizens Souldiers or Martyrs we are not so sollicitous to know The Noble Roman when advised by his Friend Labienus to Consult the Oracle of Jupiter Ammon as to the event of the War in which he was then engaged Thus answered him Quid Quaeri Labiene Jubes an liber in armis Occubuisse velim potius quam Regna videre An noceat vis ulla bono fortunaque perdat Opposita virtute minus Laudandaque velle Sit satis Et nunquam successu crescit Honestum Scimus haec nobis non altius inseret Ammon I do but right to my Country-men to bear my publick Testimony that their generous and godly Resolutions are agreeable to this Noble Roman But that done I will calmly tell him That we are in a Legal method allowed by the Government contending for its preservation by the Bill of Exclusion and that most certainly he can have no right against a Law for such it will be when that Bill hath the Royal Assent to any thing that he shall forfeit thereby And whether such a Law is not most righteous let God Angels and Men Judge And here it will not be amiss to admonish this Patriot That no man hath a Right to any thing from God and Nature to use his