make a breathing space and a stop here or being like getting to some heighth of ground look about us certainly it shews that no Supremacy is pretended to but utterly disclaimed and all resolving determining or the last power in business of Government and no persons can come lower or assert more extreamly and exemplarly against themselves in any such point of Right So as we see plainly Governing Power is all with the King and the question comes to be only about propounding proposing discoursing upon those high points of Regal power in Government not being specially required to it which Kings think comes too near their skirts like David cutting off a lap of King Saul's Garment to shew only that he was in his power so Kings think the one cannot be done or assumed that is entering into or assuming out of self Authority to treat of the very essentialls about Government or the great weighty occasions that refer to it but like the cutting off of the lap of the Garment begets a power over the person and this was the very stone of difference in this Parliament so as we see to how neer a point it is reduced a little space or difference one would think betwixt proposing only without power of resolving and not proposing now there is nothing more satisfactory then the Kings own answer to them about this for no person could speak his business so well as himself and this very particular of the passage it is a School of Learning Now because I will not altogether write out of another nor be tedious I omit it It is no matter let it be amongst arcana imperii not to bring all into vulgar light else the reasons might be abstracted why Parliaments are not of themselves to assume to treat of the points proper to the King in Government I shall leave this and only excuse my self in it being far too high for me that I only do it in the defensive to regal Right which is higher and to the peoples right which does not consist in confusion of Government but in the certainty of it Having done with this high consideration I shall take notice of his dangerous inserted words of Majestas Realis the self same as condemned in the Spencers in Ed. 2. his time and likewise in the following Parliaments of that Age for the most destructive design against the persons and safety of Kings that ever was imagined A dividing of the Kings person and his end of Governing they would have the Majesty to consist in the end and so diviseable from the person and so the King might be deposed and destroyed and yet the Majesty whole What will not mans brain hatch when he is disposed to be wicked This was new forged brought out of the Mint again and begot the Notion of Treason against the Common-Wealth and served to make the King a Traytor I desire his patience to read Sir Edward Cook â—o 7. Rep. â—lv Case 7. Report Calvins Case there he will tell him that all Allegiance is tyed and refers to the person of the King that the whole consistency of Majesty and Kingship must be in a person in being not to hang in the Ayre as an accident without his subject all Relation all Attributes all Majesty are but rayes from that body dividedly from the King can be no consideration at all of Treason or Majesty this Serpenti e way of creeping betwixt the Kings person and his Authority was a device to destroy him Object When the Legislative Power and highest judicial Power is by the constitution of the Government divided between the Prince and the Senate and so the Soveraignty divided many will be ready to think with Grotius de jure belli Lib. 1.13 pag. 91. That the Prince invading the Senate's Right may justly be resisted and may lose his Right quod locum saith Grotius habere censeo etiam si dictum sit belli potestatem penes Regem fore id enim de bello externo intelligendum est cum alioqui quisquis imperii summi partem habeat non potest non jus habere eam partem tuendi quod ubi fit potest Rex etiam suam imperii partem belli jure amittere Answ These parties will still stumble at the same stone that is because of the Legislative power in some sort or manner or form of it in the Parliament therefore the Supremacy which does not follow for the Supremacy is the sole Governing Power and Government is a constant being the other but at times and by occasion so as no proportion at all is betwixt a constant governing Power and an occasional Power and when they are demanded but about their own Rights it being planted in Nature that where Right is there is a power of denying and a power of giving yielding and consenting and this is the Parliamentary power properly and per se all which arises out of the Rights and property of the People meerly Now these persons will not discern the difference betwixt the power of consenting which must needs be likewise a power of denying and active efficient power which is in Government it self and is alwayes constant and universal It has the properties as the Soul in the Animal cannot have parts in it and dividedness or to discontinue Now they introduce this their objection with a When when it is so that is the Soveraignty divided they should prove where it is so I think not in nature of two Soveraign Powers in one Government certainly this is no Government but distinct Governments and how it can refer to one people governed requires the inquisition for when they stand upon terms of difference then the Government presently is in the state of War and none to reconcile it being equal divided Powers Rights may lye so but Governing Power cannot lye so the distance is the same as betwixt two Forreign States or Princes who may reconcile and accommodate their reciprocal good so long as they can accord upon it as well as these several distinct Powers in one body and in this either party upon the difference betakes himself to his defensive and then the Government ceases to be so as it is not at all consistent with the nature of Government but of Governments in respect the one of the other All Governments are either Monarchial Governments or mixed Governments now in Monarchical Government first it supposes absoluteness of Supremacy in the Monarch or Prince and then it cannot suppose it likewise in any other for then the Government should be a Monster of two heads and besides so cannot act the Powers in counterpoise being equal and so it is no Power but a Power of destroying it self as equal contraries when they meet are destructive to the matter that is the subject of them Peradventure some instances may be found of some that have been called Kings and have been but head Members of Common-wealths and such their safety and being is to act subordinately to the
King and Parliament and all their Vows and Protestations but as so many charms only to destroy the King because by other means they could not delude the people and now he confesses it concludes and consents to the reason of it that an exasperated King is never to be trusted again with his power over those that subdued him by this he destroyes his Covenant his Cause and the whole onely that served then and this now To drive this further because Mr. Baxter declares himself so in it as he can have no retreat out of it First fight their King subdue him be Victorious upon him make him Captive then kill him according to the Kings own sense and saying when he was in that condition That there were but few steps betwixt the Prisons and the Graves of Princes Now Mr. Baxter makes it his very Argument for the death of the King and so involves his whole Cause and Party in it has destroyed all difference and distinction and makes the death of the King natural and consequential to the first of warring upon him We see here how naturally falshoods betray themselves out of their own Arguments I shall not pass by the insolency and impropriety of his saying Conquered the King If Mr. Baxter were skilled in the Laws of England which is out of his Element he would know that there can be no such thing as a Conquest of Subjects over their King it is desertion or Treason not Conquest If he consult but nature it will tell him that that which is the proper strength existency and being of any thing cannot be said to conquer it no more then any thing can be said to conquer it self the being ceases to be if the essentiall do but divide from it Cook 3. Inst p. 12. Nay the voice and reason of our Laws would never call them Enemies but Traytors Enemies implyes a kind of equalls He sayes Object It was the Judgment of the Parliament upon the division Answ Upon their division their dividing from the King their Judgment was nothing but as private persons or wicked enemies all Subordination depends so upon its first Cause as dividing from that the beeing ceases to be In the next you shall observe Mr. Baxter over-rule Scripture to his own sense as he hath dealt in Politicks Object And that those that did resist the Higher Powers set over them by God are guilty of the damnation of resisters Answ This of Higher Powers here in Mr. Baxters meaning is of those that raised the War against the King that they were the Higher Powers not to be resisted Now I have not met with a greater violation of Scripture then this to make it a meer contrary to its self and destructive to the end it serves to not only indirectly but oppositely This Scripture proceeds from the Spirit of God directly for preservation of Kings and Mr. Baxter applyes it to the Kings destroyers makeing them the meer object of it in the act of destroying the King I have driven it thus home to fix it upon observation what a strange degree of falsifying and abusing Scripture in it and the horridness of the example and consequence of falsifying grounds and rules by which truths should be measured and creating false conceptions which are seeds of all wicked actions Now to clear out this more fully and directly past exception there is not one word or syllable in Scripture Doctrinally of any Power or Authorities since God Governed by his Prophets but still generally the intendment is of Kings and no other Form of Government owned in Scripture or ever intended that being only natural all Power consisting in unity of Power and evermore the Powers are intended as part of the Kings Power for there is no fraction in Government supposing it a Government so as all Power is ever but the Power of the chief Power So many signalls upon Kings and Guards for their fence and safety because if the head fail all the parts and dependency of the people must needs dissolve And here I shall take up again his words no more to be trusted with Government A Speech of great scorn and contempt upon Kings to make them the people's Servants and at their dispose to turn off when they will and to destroy and deriving no higher then out of the Peoples trust their beeing still but a depending beeing nothing being higher in nature then its first Cause and upon this basis they plant their Engine for pulling down debasing Kings and casting them into their Graves It is good therefore to see the relation that Kings have For so much as we see immediate of God in it which is not ordinarily in the things of the World but limited to the chosen people and when he appeared by his Prophets then most manifestly the Kings or at least the first Kings which shews the nature of it and right of it in all was from God leaving out the people at all in it to have any share in it All this legible in Saul David Solomon and in the removes of Kings by Gods special denunciation and sending by his Prophets The people the Executioners in some cases and circumstances so as there is no footstep or mark from God of the Peoples title over Kings or their making them or giveing them their power This in God special and appearing proves in all shews the nature of it for that which we see was done and of God and freely done and at first when no accident had been so as it was a meer promulgation out of nature and proper to the nature of it must needs be held certain to it and most reasonable to conceive of it Corresponding to these are the Texts Rom. 13.1 There is no Power but of God the Powers that be are ordained of God this referring to Kings for the words are after For Princes are not to be feared for good works but for evill and he is the Minister of God Power as Power is properly of God who is the Power â— Chr. 1.9 11. Thou hast made me a King over a People That thou mayest Judg the People over whom I have made thee King â— Sam. 16. â—er 1. I have provided me a King still pointing out his End and his Author The Texts are many more and clear it beyond all doubt or objection of man that Kings as Kings are Gods Creatures and derive not lower then from God himself as immediate to him Now because this was of the Jews a peculiar people to God we will see what evidence the Scripture yields in case of Heathen Kings Nebuchadnezzar an Heathen and Idolater was owned by God as his Servant Jer. 25.9 Nebuchadnezzar my servant Isa 45.1 And thus said the Lord to Cyrus his annointed Which is the highest emblem of Soveraignty annointing attributed to Cyrus as King that is that he had it vertually as King Ezr. 1.2 And Cyrus King of Persia The Lord God of Heaven hath
as madness it self yet I think that God would take it ill that we should mock him to set up a King to Govern and then to reserve a Power to destroy him against his Word and meaning for the very power of Governing invests him with all these rights of protection vertually all these Attributes fall to him by his actual governing It is a principle in nature that Supremacy attracts all right to it and all perfection to be King and not perfect is impossible And this I will say at last of the King himself which I think his very enemies and destroyers cannot deny that never any Prince fell by his people that had fewer faults and more vertues Now at last my exception to Mr. Baxter is that he personates the Protestants so as to destroy them and their Religion There is no other way of keeping the guilt and imputation of that horrid accursed act from the Religion but by a total condemnation of it We say and justly that it was an act that transcends all that ever was worse and more infernal and execrable then any thing else the Pope or man can do Now Mr. Baxter out of his particular makes it the Protestant interest that it be not so evil as the wickedness under the Religion of Papists and so puts it upon the Protestants account of whatsoever nature it be and makes it their interest to extenuate the evil of it which is a meer involving them and their cause into it and the most unjust in the World for Is a Religion to answer for what wickedness men do in it I mean being of it or professing it But thus he loves to hale all Interests after him to follow his sense Let him himself be in love with it extenuate it find Jesuitical abstracted quintessential notions to dissolve all Allegiance upon Terms let him take it to himself and not make it more general then his own party Having done with this sad subject we will see him in his next whither he will lead us Object It is a grievous Case that the Senate or Body of a Nation should think themselvs necessitated to defend themselvs and the Church and State against their Prince or any that act by his Commands it will strongly tempt them to think that the end is to be preferred before the means and it ceaseth to be a means which is against or destructive to the end Answ The poor unfortunate King that could never by any possible compliance and means begg off his own and his Kingdoms ruine of them was wont to tell them when they used the great Argument of necessity for all violent actions that they were necessities of their own making Because their ends were exorbitant and such as the Laws would not bear they must proportion the means which drew on the necessities Now to his preferring the end before the means a principle he is fallen upon and the most dangerous one of the World for by this he may decline all Truth and Justice to go the next way over to his ends and yet a very strong one that the end is that for which the means is there is no use or consideration of the means but to the end By this ground he hath laid flat all Honesty Truth Goodness whatsoever for it may be it doth not suit to the end And hence it was that their ends being Reformation as they call our Deformation and Destruction it could not be done by a lesse means I do but mind him of this his party having made so much use of it The truth is if men would ty themselvs to the Justice of the means they could never attain to unjust ends Object It is essentiall to governing Power to be for common good Answ No doubt but it is as appears by their destroying the Government and we never had any good since But without taking this advantage I will give him a further Answer from the nature of Government and every other thing we call good that is good in the generality not exact good in every action of it Object It is no Authority which is used against common good Answ Then there is no Authority in the World for there is no Authority or Magistracy but at some time or other is used against it He multiplies forward still Object It would tempt them also to think that God never gave Power to any against himself or above his Laws or against the end of Government Answ He should prove here that God gave them a Right of destroying both the King and the Government for that is the Case For he confesseth the War raised by themselvs against delinquent Subjects But to answer to this as he intends it God doth some times give evil Governours and doth he not likewise give them Power God himself fore-spake in Saul and then concluded the People in these words then that is when they were oppressed by their King 1 Sam. 8.18 Grotius de jure Belli 81. shall they cry out that is to say seek help of God Quia scilicet humana remedia nulla extarent Grotius exposition of it call to God for help that is there was no means of resistance to be used on their part His next Object A Senate or the Body of a Nation will be apt to think themselvs fit to discern when the Publick safety is dangerously assaulted and will hardly be brought to trust any one to be the finall Judge of their necessity as thinking such a publick necessity proves it self and needs no Judge but sense and reason to discern it Answ Suppose there had been no Parliament this Argument would have served for the Body of the People to rise up and take away the King's Power as not fit to judge of the necessity or to be trusted with the Publick safety It was the King's Act to call a Parliament and 't was his and our ruine that he put himself upon it Having hitherto kept equal pace with him in these his severall distinct heads give me leave in general to censure of them that is that in them he hath sown the seeds of all the Rebellions in the World Let them be taken as truths abstractedly without their alloy or composition as so the very Elements would destroy us no Government can stand Do we not as often as we err in any thing employ the means against the end and shall we as often fall out with our selvs These abstracted Considerations cannot consist with the being of Man which is not certain in any thing but subject to error and as often as ever a King errs so often by his Argument the means is against the end and loseth the essence of a governing Power So as by Mr. Baxter's Learning there can never want matter for Rebellion In the next he raiseth his Parliament as an out-work to affront and batter Monarchy in these words Object And if they also think that the fundamentall Constitution of the Government doth make the Senate
given me the Kingdomes of the Earth And Daniel most full the Pattent of the King as extensive to all Creatures and Powers under him Dan. 1. ver 37 38. The God of Heaven hath given thee a Kingdom Power and Strength and Glory and in all places where the Children of men dwell the Beasts of the field and the Fowls of the Heaven has he given into thy hand and hath made thee Ruler over them all An Illustration of Gods dominion over all Creatures and acting by Kings his immediate Vice-gerents to the end of the 5th chapter of Daniel being nothing else then Gods clayming his Title over Kings as derivative from God and accountable to him Now all this is from the great end in nature that Kings being to rule the people which is Gods proper Office and Attribute all Power and all Dominion and all Providence being his they represent God and are his Image and Effigies in Ruling and Governing and this makes their dependance to be meerly of God and not accountable to any Power under God The nature of it is shewed in that of Saul as being the first King to the Jews and being the institutive of it comprehends the nature of it The person was meerly of Gods choice not left to the people nor any power left in them much less over the King In that day shall they cry unto the Lord sayes the Text That is 1 Sam. 8.18 no power to be against the Kings Power but an appeal only to an higher Power that is to God himself his Author and Founder they might complain of him that was set over them but had not any Authority of their own over him And this makes it in its nature to be the greatest trust in the World because there is no remedy against it contrary to Mr. Baxter's sense abusing the Term making Trust subject The reason of this absolute subjection of the People to Government lyes in the nature of it that no medium can be found betwixt power of Governing and liberty in the people as not Governed to be subject only to the good of Government is no Government at all or to be subject at all therefore of meer force from its nature it leaves nothing in the wills of the people so as no such mean or half being of it can be by any constitution provision or Policy whatsoever when it comes to Govern all those things though part of the Government yet come under the governing Power Now for the Originals of Ruling Powers ordinarily amongst men as to the persons ruling in such a Line and Succession we shall find it to be still from a first Power before it came to Governing Power the one introductive of the other for Power is its matter and nature for we see all Government is Power and the Power will govern Therefore equivocally the terms and names are used sometimes calling it the Government and sometimes the Power so as it is the same and signifies the same thing inseperables in nature Government and Power no remove can be in it for where the Power is there the Government will go along with it Hence it is that there is never any discontinuance in governing Power over the people In the most confused tumultuous War and distraction that ever was yet there is power still somewhere or other that contains the peoples liberty and subjects them so as there is not one moment or minute of time in the World where society and community of man is that there is any vacuum of Power to be over them and although powers devest one another yet the Series of governing Power is still continued and in all such removes of the Powers yet the Power never falls but is kept alwayes up and is in some still and is as inseperable from the People as the matter and the Form which never are asunder For that which we call Power out of the People it is not the people but a Power acting upon the People and in such a circumstance of it if it become too powerful for the Government then it becomes the Government it self Now having shewed thus the nature of it it destroyes all those imaginary Theaters that they would erect and build popular liberty upon and popular right over Kings They would fancy governing Power to be of the wills of the people and the people the Author so impossible an assertion as I only leave it upon what I have stated and how contradictory it is to nature in all consideration of it so as still the people is but the subject matter of Government never the Author of it nor does Government ever come below the people in the cause of it but must derive out of its own cause which is power to be above the people and so in all end and acting of it All this is still to explode that Monstrous conceit of the peoples instituting the Government or more Monstrous consequence of it the people as the first cause of it to dispose of it and destroy it It is observable in Government that Laws and Liberties come afterward to the people after power of the Government it self In the Norman Conquest all lay flatted some time under it till afterward as the Reporters of those times tell us that the party of the Conqueror or their Posterity did revive the English Liberties first the Conqueror's absolute will served them to expel and dispossess the Natives and after they were glad of establishments in Government to assure their own condition and what they had gained So as hereby we see Governments the farther they go on from their beginnings the more they take in of composition to their first single Nature so as still the Originals of Government are most absolute Hence it is manifest that Power is their Fountain and first cause as such is their Natures and the People's Freedom still is under Government and when Government is most confused then is their Freedom least so as still Power is over them and are alwayes subject to it let the Form of it be what it will To consider it in common Reason and Understanding the King took his Being from the People's Trust in Mr. Baxter's sense therfore the People are to dispose of him This were for the People not to be governed for then the Right were in the People and the King betrayed to govern under another Authority to make it accomptable Therefore this supposeth a Monster in nature and it would evermore make Government destructive to it self for then it doth not govern for where the end and ultimate of Power is there the Government is I shall insert something that is legal in this pertinent to the Case of the King of England how he comes to be King Sir Edward Coke that was a man popular enough in his third part of his Institutes pag. 7. saith That there is no such thing of the Kingly Being in England as an Inter-Regnum nor any Act confers to the making