of the Supreme Authority in this Kingdom From these and other such easie Observations any impartial unprejudiced person will certainly conclude that our English Government according to its Essential Constitution is a mixture of Three Forms of Government for he observes a Monarchy in the King an Aristocracy in the Peers and a Democracy in the Commons all which share it that Part of the Sovereignty which consists in making Laws And though our Government be called a Monarchy because That Kind is predominant in the Constitution according to the known Rule That the Denomination is to be taken from the Excelling Part the King having not only a share in the Nomothetick Power but also the whole Executive Power committed to Him yet we cannot but conclude from the foregoing Observations That our Monarchy is not Absolute and Unlimited that the Law is the stated Rule and Measure of our Government and that the Law cannot be made altered or annulled by the sole Pleasure of the King but as it is the first determinate Rule by which the King is to Govern and the People to Obey so it is to be made or chang'd only by the Consent of Both in a Parliament I might confirm all this by transcribing out of Books several Testimonies which occur in the Declarations of Parliaments in the Writings of Judges and others Learned in the Law but as these would make a Letter too tedious so they are unnecessary to an unprejudic'd Considerer and by others would be suspected of partiality to the People of whom they are a part I shall therefore only add the Testimony of King Charles the I. who of all men had most reason to study understand and assert the Rights of the English Monarchy He freely declares in his Answer to the Nineteen Propositions p. 96. That there being Three Kinds of Government among Men. Absolute Monarchy Arislocracy and Democracy and all these having their particular Conveniences and Inconveniences the Experience and Wisdom of our Ancestors hath so moulded This out of a mixture of These as to give to this Kingdom as far as Human Prudence can provide the Conveniences of all Three without the Inconveniences of any One. He also in the same Answer affirms That in this Kingdom the Laws are jointly made by a King by a House of Peers and by a House of Commons He likewise affirms in his Declaration from Newmarket That the Law is the Measure of his Power And in another Declaration to the Ministers and Freeholders of the County of York he acknowledgeth That his Prerogatives are built upon the Law of the Land. From these and other such Passages which frequently occur in the Writings of the King who so earnestly disputed for the Rights of the Crown we may be abundantly convinc'd that the English Monarchy is not unmixt or unlimited and cannot therefore enough admire the lewd presumption of others who have dar'd to attempt a change in our English Government who prefer the extremes of Tyranny and Slavery to the just temperament of our English Constitution who have labour'd to tempt our Kings into an affectation of absolute and arbitrary Power and have miserably overlay'd the Consciences of their Fellow-subjects with a boundless unlimited dread of a boundless unlimited Power 3. There are also great mistakes about the measures of our Obedience and Submission which are necessary to be removed before our Consciences can make a free and impartial determination of the Case before us We have been told it often and with great earnestness that we are bound in Conscience to yield an active Obedience to the King in all cases not countermanded by God and to resist him in no case whatsoever If indeed the two foregoing Errors had stood the proof this would have follow'd by necessary consequence for if a Monarch be jure Divino he must be absolute and if he be so there is no case not excepted by God in which we must not obey him and none at all in which we may resist him but then we may make this advantage from the connexion which these Errors have one to another That if one of them be refuted the rest much necessarily fall with it and if according to the English Principles premis'd our Government be founded on the Constitutions of this Country and according to those Constitutions be mixt and limited then there may be some cases in which it may be lawful for us not to obey the King and not unlawful to resist him For tho it may be true that we are bound to obey actively whatever is commanded by the Legislative Power of the Kingdom and is not repugnant to any Law of God yet we cannot assert so much with respect to the King only because he having not the whole Legislative Power an Act of his private Will is destitute of that Authority which can derive an obligation upon Conscience altho therefore a King may require things not inconsistent with the Law of God yet if they are beyond that Authority which the Constitutions of England have assign'd to him his Subjects are not bound in conscience to obey those Commands and tho in some cases they may comply by a voluntary Concession yet they are oblig'd to condemn and withstand such proceedings if they increase so far as to threaten a fatal subversion of the Government But how can we defend our selves against any exorbitant Acts of the King 's private Will if disarm'd and fetter'd by the Doctrines of passive Obedience and Nonresistance what may not a King do and a People suffer if no defence may be us'd I do not here forget to consider what submission God hath requir'd to that Supreme Authority which he hath instituted or what honour and reverence we are to pay to those Governors who sustain and administer it nor how impatient men ordinarily are of the yoak of Government and how apt to inlarge their liberty into licentiousness nor how pernicious disorder and confusion must needs be to any Society and therefore I use the utmost Caution I can to steer aright amidst the Rocks on the one hand and the Sands on the other that I may not make shipwrack of a good Conscience I therefore premise and sincerely acknowledg as I have learn'd from St. Paul that Every soul must be subject to the Supreme Authority which God hath instituted and that if he resist he is worthy of condemnation and according to S. Jude that we must not despise dominions or speak evil of dignities and that those untameable Spirits which are impatient of Government are like wild Beasts made to be destroyed I have also learn'd from S. Peter to submit to every ordinance of men for the Lord's sake whether to the King as supreme or to Governors sent by him so as not to disobey or resist them in the use of that Authority which the Constitutions of the Kingdom have assigned to them I have from the same Apostle learned farther to be subject with all fear not
transgressing a Divine Institution This being a matter of great importance and of common continual concernment to mankind we may reasonably expect that if God hath made any such Law it is somewhere promulg'd to the World with sufficient evidence and certainty but tho many have been for some years most sollicitously seeking after it yet they are not agreed among themselves in the discovery nor can direct us where we may certainly meet with it I know but of two sort of Laws which God hath given to mankind Either Moral impress'd on the human Nature or Positive reveal'd in the Holy Scriptures but the jus divinum in dispute is a stranger to both God hath indeed by both instituted Government or Civil Authority for the welfare and security of men in their Civil Societies He hath also commanded that Superiors govern justly and mercifully and that Inferiors honour them with duty and submission But I no where find that God hath commanded all Nations or ours in particular to be under that form of Government which in contradistinction to other forms is called Monarchy or under some particular Person or Family in contradistinction to all others The Law of Nature doth indeed erect a Monarchy in Families over those who are naturally descended from him that is to Govern but there being not the same natural reason in our Civil Societies there is not the same Law of Nature to prescribe the same Government And if some plead a likeness or analogie between them That can serve only for a rhetorical illustration but not for any Logical proof such as the present case requires From the Holy Scriptures we learn that God did once institute a Monarchy for the people of Israel and appointed particularly that David should be their King and also intail'd the Crown upon his Posterity but as God had particular Reasons for that institution respecting the Messiah so we have no Reason to think that God intended by that institution to oblige any other Nation but the Jews only In the New Testament we find Civil Government suppos'd and the moral Duties to be discharg'd both by superiors and inferiors describ'd and inforc'd beyond what they are in any other institutions but we no where find Christ and his Apostles prescribing the particular form of Civil Government or preferring Monarchy or condemning an Aristocratic or Democratic state and much less determining the particular persons or families on whom the Regal Dignity shall descend Some indeed have inferr'd from St. Paul's assertions Rom. 13.1 that the particular forms of Government and the particular persons which administer it are by a Divine Institution but however they countenance this mistake from our English translation which says There is no power but of God the powers that are are ordained of God yet the Text is incapable of such a sense if we read and render it exactly according to the Original St. Paul's words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in an exact Translation would run thus There is no Authority if not of God and the Authorities which are of God's Institution are ordered under God. The plain Doctrine of which Text can be only this That no man can have an Authority over other men who are his Fellow-creatures except it be derived to him from God who is the Lord of all and that whatever Power is derived to any Superiors over Inferiors it must be subordinated to God from whom it was derived And as the Apostle doth infer from the former Assertion That Every soul should be subject to and not resist this Authority even for Conscience-sake because derived from God so he infers from the latter That the Superior who useth this Authority must administer it as the Minister of God for the good of men in protecting Virtue and discouraging Vice because his Authority is subordinated to God the Supreme and Absolute Lord of all Mankind And that the Apostle doth speak of Authority according to its general nature and institution and not the particular persons by whom or forms in which it was then exercis'd is evident from the excellent properties and ends of this Authority which he enumerates which do belong indeed to that Authority which God hath instituted but cannot certainly be ascribed to the Government of Nero the present and the worst of Emperors And to make this more plain and unquestionable it may be observ'd that as Saint Paul speaking of Authority in the general calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Ordinance of God so Saint Peter speaking of the persons by whom this Authority is administred calls them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Ornance of man 1 Pet. 2.13 14. whether it be the King as supreme or inferior Magistrates commission'd by him After all I am ready to acknowledg that the Law of God doth secure Princes yea and the meanest of their Subjects in the quiet possession of those Rights which they have justly acquir'd but the Rights themselves are not founded on a Divine but Humane Constitution for tho the Law of God doth prohibit us to defraud a private person of any part of his just possessions yet we do not think that any Law of God did antecedently entitle him to such a possession or doth necessarily intail it on his Family but that his Right is grounded on the Laws and Constitutions of the Country in which he lives So tho Kings have the Law of God to maintain and protect them in the use of that Authority to which they have a just Right yet that Right is not to be measured by any Law of God but the Constitutions of the Realm and may be acquired or alienated without committing any sin against God as they who assert a Jus Divinum would pretend 2. Another false principle to be dismissed is a wide mistake of the Nature of that Government under which we live which asserts the English Monarchy to be absolute and unlimited at least that in its Original and Essential Constitution it is so and cannot be otherwise We cannot but reflect on the ill design or ill conduct of some who in their Discourses on this Subject have transcribed out of their common places all the great things which any Princes have asserted to themselves or have been ascrib'd to them by ambitions flatterers or have been acquir'd by them in overreaching Compacts or by a violent force and have without any restriction or exception applied them to the Monarch of our Island as if there could be but one sort of Government in the world or that ours did eminently include all the Prerogatives that can be conceiv'd in speculation or can be found to be ascrib'd to any King or Emperor in any Part or Age of the World. Upon this Principle they have exalted the English Monarch into as Absolute and Arbitrary a Sovereign as any Emperour of Rome or Constantineple they make his Will the sole spring of our Government from which it is originally deriv'd and into which it must be
ultimately resolved they allow to an English Parliament no more power than to give some inauthoritative Advice which the King may use or neglect as he thinks fit They think a Coronation Oath whatever it may be with respect to God yet with respect to the People is only a customary Ceremony or insignificant Formality They suppose all legal limitations of the Government to be but the King 's arbitrary and temporary Condescentions which he may retract without doing any Injury to the People and in a word that all our Laws are entirely dependent on His Pleasure for their Being Continuance and Influence but his Will is in all Cases unaccountable and irresistible Such Maxims as these quite alter the Frame of our English Government raise up our King into a Tyrant and depress his Subjects into Slaves and serve only to render the King odious and his People miserable and therefore as no wise Man can forbear wishing that they may not be true so upon enquiry we shall find that they have been advanced either by the Fondness of some who frame Schemes of Government in their own imagination or by the Ignorance of others who are deceiv'd with the sound of the aequivocal Name of King or by the Craft of those who make a Trade of advancing the Prerogative in order to their own Advancement Indeed if the preceding Principle had proved true That Monarchy is a Divine Institution it would be necessary for us to grant that no other Form of Government could be mix'd with it or That be restrained by any Limitations because it cannot be lawful for Man to adulterate or infringe the Ordinance of God But seeing the Jus Divinum doth not appear we have reason to suppose that our English Government is built on the Topical Constitutions of this Countrey and may differ from the Government of other Countreys as much as our Tempers Interests and Circumstances do For if the Supreme Governor of the VVorld hath not thought fit to prescribe One Form of Government to be every-where observed he hath permitted to every Nation a Liberty of framing to themselves such a Constitution as may be most useful and agreeable and as it is inconceivable that all Nations should conspire in the same Platform of Governments so it is most unreasonable to seek in Judea Italy or France for the Measures or Properties of the English Government which was made and is therefore to be found only at Home and should be describ'd rather from its own Laws and Constitutions than any fine Notions we can conceive of what it might or should be And if we contemplate the Government it self we may easily discover what its essential Forms and Properties are for surely a Government that hath been publickly transacted through so many Ages and hath made so great a Figure in the world cannot remain an imperceptible Secret or an unintelligible Mystery and I cannot forbear suspecting those who disguise it with so many Uncertainties and Obscurities that they design to mislead us into a mistake of that which they will not allow us to understand A little skill in our English History will suffice to inform us That the Saxons and English from whom this Nation is chiefly descended did first introduce the Form of our English Government and that it was the same they had been inur'd to in Germany where as Tacitus observes Regibus nec infinita aut libera potestas Kings had not an Absolute or Unlimited Power Tacit. de morib Germ. Sect. 3 5. And from the ancient Records of those early Times we are assur'd That the Consent of the People in a Convention or Parliament did always concur to the making of Laws and also their Consent in a Jury of Peers was always admitted in the Execution of Them VVhence the People of England have been always acknowledged to be Free-men And tho we read that the Saxons were subdued by the Danes yet we find not that their Government was changed but that after a short Interruption the Government and Country returned entirely into the Hands of the Saxons The Duke of Normandy whom we call the Conqueror was such only with respect to Harold who usurp'd the Crown but not with respect to the Kingdom which he claimed as Successor to King Edward to whom he was related by whom he was adopted and from whom he had received a solemn Promise of the next Reversion and accordingly we find that tho be made some external Changes in the Government yet he made no essential Alteration in the Form of it and the same kind of Government hath been transmitted by succeeding Kings to the present Age with some accidental Improvements as our Ancestors grew wiser by Experience or the Necessities and interests of the Nation did require Now inasmuch as our English Government was at first transplanted out of another Countrey and hath been ripened into a Perfection by several degrees through a long tract of Time it would be very fanciful to suppose one solemn time when the Original Compact between the King and People was first made or to ask after a Book in which it is in a certain Form recorded that Compact being nothing else than a tacit Agreement between the King and Subjects to observe such common Usages and Practices as by an immemorial Prescription are become the Common-Law of our Government And to understand these so far as our present Case requires there it no necessity that should read over all the Records in the Tower or all the Volumes of our English History there being several ancient Forms and Customs among us which fall under easie Observation that are sufficient to inform us of the Nature of our English Government For when at a Coronation we see a King presented to the People and their Consent solemnly asked and given what can we reasonably inser from thence but that anciently Kings were advanced to their Thrones by the Consent and Agreement of the People When we hear the King solemnly Promise and Swear to maintain to the People their Rights and Liberties to conserve the Laws and cause them to be observed must we not conclude from thence that there are Rights and Liberties reserved to the People that the Will of the King is limited by the Law of the Realm and that he is bound by His Oath to conserve the Laws as we are by Ours to observe them When we are taught to call the King our Leige-Sovereign and our selves his Leige-Subjects do not those Terms import that he is bound to protect Us in All our Rights as we are bound to obey Him in All his Laws When we read in the Preamble of every Statute That it is enacted not only by the Authority of the King 's most Excellent Majesty but also by the Authority of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and of the Commons assembled in Parliamen is it not very evident from hence that the Parliament hath a share in the Legislative Power which is an eminent Branch
only to the good and gentle but also to the froward so that if a King in the administration of his Government should be too sparnig in his Rewards and over severe in his Justice if too hard to be pleas'd and as hard to be propitiated I must be contented if he injure me in my private interests I must rather submit than oppose a private to a publick good or if the publick Affairs of the Kingdom sustain any detriment or mischief from his Male-administration yet if it be such as will consist with the being of the Government and the Safety of the People it should rather be born patiently than redressed by a violent opposition I acknowledge also that in all cases not certain and notorious the Subject ought to presume the Right to be rather on his Prince's side than on his own and never to think any oppressions intolerable till they are evidently such or to call for a violent redress till they appear otherwise irremediable I must acknowledge also that I can see no Right the Subject hath from the Law of God or Man to use any other resistance against a King than what is defensive or to proceed judicially against him or to inflict any punishment on his Person for any defaults of Government because there can be no Authority in our Kingdom superior to that with which the King is invested Yet after all these concessions it must be confess'd that the Regal Power being in its Constitution limited and in its Exercise liable to be abus'd there may such cases happen wherein a defensive resistance may be not only lawful but a necessary Duty And if we may not lie for God much less may we do it in flattery to any Man and if Subjects may not be defrauded of their Estates no more should they be of their Liberties to prevent their abuse of them Wherefore to speak out plainly and honestly in a case wherein Conscience is so much concern'd I must add that we are not bound in Conscience to yield Passive Obedience to the King any farther than that Regal Authority extends which the Constitutions of this Kingdom have invested him with and that those Constitutions do not impower him to treat his Subjects according to his own private Will but according to the publick rule of the Law and by consequence whatever grievance is without or contrary to Law the Subject is not bound in Conscience to bear it with respect to the King who had no authority to impose it though he may be sometimes with respect to the publick Peace and if Officers be appointed by the King to oppress his Subjects contrary to Law their Commissions being illegal must be without authority and therefore the Subject is not bound in Conscience to submit to them but may resist their injust assaults if he cannot otherwise evade them and do not disturb the Publick Peace by the defence of his private Interests And if we may suppose a case so sad as that a King through ill counsel or some strong temptation should be changed from a Father into the Enemy of his Country and should with an immoveable obstinacy ingage himself in such illegal designs as plainly and inevitably tend to the Subversion of the Government and the Destruction of the People his Subjects in such unhappy circumstances will be excusable before God if they use so much defensive resistance as he hath made necessary for preserving the Government and themselves For if in Nature a People is presupposed to Government and Rulers are intended by God for the welfare of a People and not a People for the pleasure of their Rulers it will be most reasonable to infer that when the End and the Means become inconsistent the End should be preferr'd and those Means prevented or rejected which would destroy the End they should promote But these things are so easily anticipated by the common sense and reason of mankind that there needs no long discourse about them and they are indeed too irksom to an ingenuous mind to dwell long upon them and though our extraordinary case at present hath made it necessary to say so much yet I hope a like case will never happen again to give occasion to Subjects to consider so minutely the limits of the Regal Power and of their own submission 2. Having now rescued our Consciences from the prejudices of the foregoing Errors we may be capable of making an impartial judgment of the case propounded Whether we can with a good Conscience transfer our Allegiance from the late to the present King Allegiance in its primary general sense signifies being obliged or bound in its political sense it imports that kind of relation which refers a Subject to his Prince and by consequence it connotes the duties which result from that relation And taking the word in its fullest latitude there will arise these two difficulties to be distinctly resolved 1. Whether our Consciences are discharged from Allegiance to the late King 2. Whether we can with a good Conscience transfer our Allegiance to the present King though not the immediate Heir of the Crown 1. In resolving the former enquiry it will be necessary to premise that our Allegiance to James the Second was not to his Person absolutely but respectlively as he sustain'd the Character of King and therefore as we ow'd no Allegiance to him before he was King so neither can we owe him any now if he cease to be so and I think it too plain to need any proof that it is possible that a person may cease to be King though he still survive and that a relation ceaseth when one of its Terms is lost If therefore it appears That James the Second doth cease to be our King though he be still alive our Allegiance to him will be sufficiently discharged and that he doth cease to be our King may I suppose be evinc'd from the following Considerations 1. If James the Second did with an immoveable obstinacy ingage himself in such illegal and pernicious designs as were notoriously subversive of the Government and destructive of the People he did thereby cease de jure to be our King and our Allegiance to him is by consequence discharg'd The Title of King includes both an Office to be discharg'd and an Estate to be injoy'd but the latter is an appendant to the former when therefore he ceaseth to govern and protect his People according to the Laws of this Kingdom his Right must so far cease to that Power Dignity or Revenue which were assigned to him for that end except we can imagine some things to have a moral power of subsisting when the reason of them is gone And as the Office of the King is directed by the publick rule of the Law so the right which any person can have to the Regal Estate must be founded on the Constitutions of the Realm and these Constitutions must either invest him with an absolute Right irrespective to his Office and then
confirm'd from their Authority and Judgment that he ceaseth to be our King and we to be his Subjects That they have fully and expresly asserted so much I need not prove and their Testimony is so proper and anthentick in die present case that we may with good Reason suffer our selves to be concluded by it For the matter of the Enquiry consists of several ancient Laws and customary Usages of this Kingdom of which the two Houses are the most competent Judges and they representing the whole Nation and being by our Choice commission'd to consider and determine this Case for us we cannot with any Modesty or Equity reject their Determination If also we consider that in all Cases of a like Nature the Nobles and People of England by their Representatives have usually and finally determin'd them and that upon the late King 's withdrawing the chief Power of the Nation could reside no where rather than in the two Houses it seems according to our English Constitutions to be the Duty of private Men to submit to such a publick Judgment And indeed if such a solemn Assembly of the three Estates of the Kingdom after a long and serious Consultation upon the Case shall not be thought sufficient to determine it I wonder who can or may do it For as particular Persons are less capable of making so exact a Judgment so if every one should undertake to decide it we must be reduc'd thereby into a helpless state of utter Confusion Secondly The other Difficulty in the present Case to be consider'd is Whether we may lawfully transfer our Allegiance to the present King he being not the next immediate Heir I may here presuppose that our present King is acknowledged by the World to be so eminently indued with all Royal Virtues and Abilities and to have obliged the Gratitude of this Nation with so glorious and happy a Deliverance that every wise and good Man among us cannot but be ready to address an hearty Allegiance to him if it can appear lawful for him to do so and where the Heart is so well inclined it will not be difficult to convince the Judgment if we consider these few Particulars 1. That according to our English Constitutions it is not necessary that the next immediate Heir should succeed For if we review in History the ancient Vsages and Practices of our Country which are the Common Law of our Government we shall find that tho the Crown hath been usually appropriated to the Royal Family and in that Latitude is said to be Hereditary yet it hath very frequently passed over the next Heir to some other Branch of the Family which was thought more capable of promoting the publick Ends of the Government in its present Circumstances And we find no publick Censure ever passed upon such a King or his Authority and Government in the least disabled thereby And to make this matter unquestionably evident to any Man who is not far gone in the Conceit that the Inheritance or Succession of the Crown is Jure divine I add that the Kings of England have been allow'd by die whole Legislative Power of this Nation to dispose of the Crown by their Nomination which as it may suppose that they would not give it out of the Royal Family so it must suppose that it was not necessary it should descend to the immediate Heir for he being determined by Nature could receive no Advantage from such a Nomination Thus particularly it was allow'd to Henry the Eighth and he according to the Statute in that behalf setled the Crown on his Son Edward and the Remainder on his Daughters Mary and Elizabeth both which could not be Heir And we find it also enacted in the 13th of Eliz. that whoever should maintain in her Time that she and her Parliament might not limit the Descent of the Crown should incur the Guilt of High-Treason and after her Life the Forfeiture of his Goods From which Authentick Testimonies we cannot conclude less than that it is not necessary that the neat immediate Heir should always succeed 2. Let us consider that our Allegiance being removed from the late King it must be referr'd to some other Person and we can think of none for whose sake we may justly deny it to the present King. The pretended Prince of Wales lying under such a general and vehement suspicion of being an Impostor and being at present under the Conduct and disposal of the King of France we see in him more Reasons to dissuade than invite our Allegiance Our present Queen who is the next immediate Heir is not pretermitted and tho she hath a Consort in the Royal Dignity yet he is such as was by Marriage become out with her and who was admitted to the Partnership not without her Advice and Consent And the King himself being a Branch of the Royal Family not far removed in the Succession and who by the late glorious Enterprize hath retrieved the Right of both the Royal Sisters and secured the Government it self from Subversion it cannot but seem very indecent and unjust to overlook him in our Allegiance If lastly we consider that the Protestant Interest in Christendom and the Civil Interests of our own Nation and of some of our best Neighbours are at present in most imminent and extraordinary Danger which in Human Probability is not to be avoided but by the Prowess and Conduct of this Illustrious Prince whom God hath by a Special Providence raised up among us we cannot but conclude that the Series of Providence and the Necessity of Affairs have determin'd our Allegiance to His Majesty and that they seem to be unreasonably nice who can sacrifice such great Interests to an empty Formality 3. The great Council of the Nation having actually invested our King with the Royal Dignity he hath thereby a Right to our Allegiance and according to the Laws of this Realm we become punishable in refusing it and are indemnified in performing it altho his antecedent Title to the Crown may not be such as to exclude all Exception So great to Article of State as this can be fit to be decided only by the Wisdom of the Nation in the most Solemn Assembly and when so decided ought to be submitted to by all private Persons or all Settlement must be an impracticable thing and if our Laws should not be executed according to such an authentick Determination the Government seems to be at a stop beyond all hopes of reviving into Motion I wish that they who pretend or perplex their Consciences about such Affairs would consider seriously whether they are proper or capable Judges of such Matters and whether their Consciences may not be better conducted by the Resolution of such as are whether they behave themselves as becomes private Persons who oppose their Sentiments â—o the publick Judgment or whether any Government can subsist if such a Presumption be not restrained For my own part I am verily persuaded that in
all Civil Cases decided by their proper Judges my Conscience ought to acquiesce and if I may be thereby misled into any Error it will be without Guilt before God. And I am also inform'd that by a Statute made 11 Hen. 7. we are legally indemnified in paying our Allegiance to the King in being it we continue faithful therein however infirm his Title may afterwards appear and therefore I cannot see what Danger can affright us from our Allegiance or with what Safety we can refuse it Thirdly I have now given you my Resolution of the chief Difficulties in the Case propounded and the Reasons on which it is built and I can think of nothing more requisite to your Satisfaction except to shew how this Resolution doth consist with all the Obligations which may affect a good Conscience in the present Case which are I suppose chiefly these three viz. the Prescriptions of that Holy Religion we profess the Solemn Oaths we have taken or the Declaration we have subscribed and the avowed Principles and Doctrines of this Church in whose Communion we live 1. As to the first The Rule of our Religion being the Holy Scriptures nothing can be inconsistent with one which is not repugnant to the other and according to the best of my Understanding the principles I have proceeded upon do not disagree with any Sacred Text rightly interpreted The first King of Israel we meet with in the Old Testament is Saul who was advanc'd to the Throne as well by God's Institution as the Peoples Election and who was according to the Peoples desire an absolute Monarch like the other Kings in those Eastern Countries But this thanks be to God is not our Case who live under a mixt Government and a Monarchy limited by the fundamental Constitutions of this Realm And yet I cannot but observe how David who is usually prescribed as an eminent Pattern of Loyalty thought it lawful to raise a band of Souldiers for a defensive Resistance against the unjust Persecutions of Saul tho an absolute Prince and surely we may conclude a minori ad majus that such a defensive Resistance cannot be less lawful when apparently necessary to preserve a whole People from imminent Ruine I remember our Lord's determination that his Kingdom is not of this World and as I think We rightly infer from thence that there is no secular Force belonging to his Kingdom for inlarging it's Borders or securing its Intereslts so I can see nothing in these words to hinder but that when any of the Kingdoms of this World is become the Kingdom of Christ by incorporating his Religion among its civil Constitutions then we may use any Expedients for the defence of our Religion which we might use in defending any other Privilodges of our Civil Establishment Our Lord hath taught us to render unto Cesar the things that are Cesar 's and his Apostle that we must render to all Men their Dues Tribute to whom Tribute is due Custom to whom Custom Fear to whom Fear and Honour to whom Honour but they have lest us to the Constitutions of our Country to determine what the things of Cesar are what Custom and Tribute is due and when to be paid I have already had occasion to consider the Doctrine of St. Paul and St. Peter concerning our duty of Submission to the Supreme Authority and to those who administer it And upon the general review of the whole he seems to me to do the part of a good Christian as well as of a good Englishman who hath on his Mind an awful regard for the Supreme Authority which is op divine Institution who will not refuse an Active Obedience to the Laws of our Legislators if consistent with the Laws of God who can readily submit to the King and to those that are commission'd by him in the Execution of those Laws who pays the highest Civil Honour to the King as the Supreme Magistrate of the Kingdom who makes the most candid and honourable Constructions he can of all his Princes Actions who can quietly submit to any acts of Government tho they seem very unjust and grievous to his private Interestes and who never thinks a defensive Resistance lawful but when apparently necessary to save a Kingdom from utter Ruin. He that can do all this is a good Proficient in his Religion for he will find it not very easy to Flesh and Blood to go so far But they who are not content with any Notion of Religion which will not expose to ruin the Kingdom that embraceth it do but traduces our holy Religion and expose it to the Contempt and Hatred of the World. 2. Let us next consider how the Resolution I have given will consist with the Oaths we have taken and the Declaration we have Subscribed You will here give me leave to premise that the Forms we have sworn or subscrib'd are not to be taken carelesly according to the meer sound of words but are to be understood according to the Sense which they plainly express and which appears to be intended by our Superiors in impasing them And if we consider our Oaths and Declaration according to this Rule we shall discover that they have brought upon us no new degree of Allegiance or Subjection which was not always due according to the ancient Fundamental Constitutions of this Kingdom that we have hereby lost none of our English Rights and Liberties nor the King inlarg'd his Prerogative beyond what it always was and ought to be and therefore if according to the ancient Constitutions of this Kingdom the Government is mixt and the Monarchy limited so it continues If the Freemen of England were before these Oaths bound to no Active or Passive Obedience beyond what the Law of the Land prescribes they arc bound to no more since and if it was formerly lawful for the People of England in an extreme necessity to remove a King whose Government was became inconsistent with the Publick-Weal and to set up another by whom the publick Interest may be secur'd it is as lawful still notwithstanding these Oaths we have taken or the Declaration we have subscribed And to evince this more satisfactorily let us descend to Particulars 1. The Oath of Supremacy prescribed 1 Eliz. doth plainly appear from the Preamble and Body of the Act and from all the parts of the Oath it self to be intended only for asserting to the Queen a Supremacy over Ecclesiastical Persons and in Ecclesiastical Causes in opposition to the pretentions of the Pope and Court of Rome When therefore it speaks of bearing Faith and true Allegiance to the Queen and her Heirs and lawful Sucessors it is in oppolition to all Foreign Jurisdictions Powers Superiorities and Authorities and when it speaks of our assisting and defending her Jurisdiction Preheminencies and Authorities it is only of such as have been granted or belonging or united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm And that no new Power was hereby given to