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
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
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
mischief or wickedness that will advance their glory and promote their interests When also we consider that he proceeded in these courses with so obstinate a resolution that when his Peers indeavoured to raclaim him by advice they only thereby lost his favour and all their Preferments and when some of his Bishops petitioned him in the humblest manner they were answered only with fury and imprisonment When lastly we consider how far he had advanc'd in this way that we already began to despair and our Enemies to triumph and if our Glorious Deliverer had not timely intervened we might have been in a few months past all hopes of Recovery We may surely upon these considerations be allowed to conclude That England could not be in more danger or any Prince lie under juster exceptions or a people be more disoblig'd from their Allegiance There are some who say that if the League with France the Imposture of a young Prince the Murder of the Earl of Essex c. were clearly proved they should not be able to contain themselves from renouncing all Allegiance to him But though these may perchance be proved in due time yet if they never are there is certainly enough and too much besides to satisfie any reasonable Man. 2. If James the Second deserted the Kingdom without any necessity but what he induced on himself and if he made no provision for the administration of the Government in his absence but by taking away the publick Seals and cancelling the Writs of Parliament design'd to obstruct all regular proceedings and if also he hath put himself into the hands of the French King the greatest Enemy of our Religion and Country without whom he cannot return to us and with whom he cannot return without apparent ruine to his Kingdom he doth thereby cease de facto to be our King and we become discharged from all further Allegiance to him I suppose few would haesitate in granting such a conclusion if the Late King had by a writing under his hand and Seal solemnly abdicated the Government but I know not what mighty force there is in a form of Words for renouncing the Government that it may not be as effectually performed by a proper and notorious fact or that a King may not as well renounce his Crown by doing it as by saying it and it is the thing it self and not the way of expressing it which is the ground on which the relation between a King and his Subjects is dissolved and therefore if a King doth actually desert his People his Government and their Obedience must thereupon actually cease You would perchance easily allow the argument if the King had withdrawn deliberately and of choice but it is said that he was rather hurried out of his Kingdom by force and fear It will be therefore necessary to relate to you the History of that transaction which according to the truest account that I can meet with is this When the King went hence the first time the Prince and his Armie were at a great distance and a Treatie between them was pretended but he left the City before his Commissioners could return with an Answer to his Demands and it is certain that the Treaty was but a delusive Pretence and that his Departure was resolv'd on some Days before for he himself declar'd to a Person of Credit that the Queen had obtained from him a Solemn Oath upon the Sacrament on the Sunday that if the went away for France on Monday he would not fail to follow her on Tuesday Which he accordingly attempted and we are very well assur'd that tho his Subjects used some Force to hinder his Flight yet they used none to compel him to it When he left this City the second time he receiv'd a Message from the Prince which desir'd him to withdraw some few Miles from London lest the Army coming thither and Whitehall being throng'd with Papists some Disorders might thence arise not consistent with the Publick Peace or the Kings Safety but we are sure that it was altogether of his own Choice that he went first to Rochester and thence out of the Kingdom If you reply that the late King being deserted by his Subjects and exposed naked to the Prince's Power was brought under a necessity of flying I must answer that that Necessity was not absolute but conditional For the Prince to whom he lately allowed the Character of being always Just to his Word had assur'd him in his Declaration that if he would suffer the Grievances of his People to be redress'd in a Free Parliament his Army should peaceably depart And not a few of his Nobles and others did earnestly beseech him to comply with those Terms and solemnly assure him that in such a Compliance they would faithfully adhere to him If therefore the late King would have return'd to the English Government he need not have left the Kingdom but if he chose rather to depose and banish himself than acknowledg and correct the Errors of his Government or let fall those glorious Projects of advancing Popery and an Arbitrary Power in England we have no Reason to think such a wilful Necessity which he imposed upon himself a sufficient Excuse for deserting his Kingdom but rather to conclude that if he would rather leave us than leave off to oppress us we are happily releas'd from our Allegiance and Oppression together Yet if we should impute his Flight rather to the weakness of his Fear than to the obstinacy of his Resolution I do not see how the same Conclusion can be avoided For if he leave off to administer the Government himself and rather hinder than promote its Administration by others the course of the Government is thereby stop'd and either this Nation must disband into Confusion or we are necessitated to seek out and imploy some other Expedient If you think that he might in short time overcome his Fears and return to his People and Government even this Hope is fatally precluded by his making himself a Royal Prisoner to the French King from whom he can expect only to be used and managed as will most contribute to the Designs and Interests of that Haughty Monarch insomuch that we cannot conceive his Return possible without the Consent and Conduct of Him whom he hath made his Patron and without the dreadful attendance of a French Army and the dismal Consequence of utter Ruine to our Church and Nation And surely that Prince who can forsake his People and abandon them out of his Care and make it impossible to return except as an Enemy to vanquish and destroy them may very well be thought to cease de facto to be a King and his Subjects to owe any Allegiance to him 3. It the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons of England assembled in the late Convention have upon mature Deliberation resolved and declared that James the 2d hath abdicated the Government and vacated the Throne we may be satisfactorily
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
the Queen is evident for when she was inform'd that this was by some pretended she caused a Paper to be printed called An Admonition to simple Men deceived by the Malicious in which she declares That she would have all her loving Subjects understand that nothing was is or shall be meant or intended by the same Oath to have any other Duty Allegiance or Bond required by the same Oath than was acknowledg'd to be due to Hen. 8. and Ed. 6. and that her Majesty neither doth nor ever will challenge any other Authority than what was challeng'd and lately used by the said Noble King of Famous Memory which is and was of ancient Times due to the Imperial Crown of this Realm that is under God to have the Sovereignty and Rule over all manner of Persons born within these Realms Dominions and Countries of what Estate either Ecclesiastical or Temporal soever they be so as no other Foreign Power shall or ought to have any Superiority over them And to render this Exposition of the Queen more Authentick we find it confirm'd by an Act of Parliament 5 Eliz. wherein is this Proviso Provided also That the Oath expressed in the said Act made in the said First Year shall be taken and expounded in such Form as is set forth in an Admonition annexed to the Queen's Majesties Injunctions published in the First Year of her Majesties Reign That is to say to confess and acknowledg in her Majesty her Heirs and Successors none other Authority than that was challenged and lately used by the Noble King Hen. 8. and Edw. 6. as in the said Admonition more plainly may appear I think we may be abundantly satisfied from so express a Testimony both of the Queen and Parliament that the Oath of Supremacy hath asserted no new Power to the Crown nor deriv'd any new Allegiance on the Subject but hath only ingaged him to pay that Fealty which an Englishman did always owe to his Prince and if that be all it doth no way contradict the Positions above asserted 2. The Oath of Allegiance appointed by an Act. 3. Jacob. 1. doth manifestly appear in the Body of the Act and of the Oath it self to be intended not for making any new kind or degree of Allegiance but only for asserting the old Allegiance of an Englishman against the novel Doctrines and Pradices of the Pope or Court of Rome which pretended to a power of Excommunicating and Deposing Kings and of releasing Subjects from their Allegiance and of bestowing this Kingdome on some other Prince ac the Popes pleasure And that this Oath was intended only to assert our Allegiance in opposition to such Popish pretences is evident from hence that the Oath was at first appointed and for some years was requir'd only of known or suspeted Papists And an Act of Parliament following 7o. Jac. I. declares concerning this Oath that it is limited and prescribed tending only to the Declaration of such Duty as every true and well assected Subject not only by bond of Allegiance but also by the Commandment of Almighty God ought to bear to the King his Heirs and Successors We find also that King James doth professedly assert and defend no more in his Apology for this Oath and in the Act of Parliament just before cited that Apology is approv'd and commended And it being in that very Act requir'd that this Oath should be Administred not only to Papists but also to all others his Majesties Subjects we cannot conceive that our Legislators understood or intended it in any other than that limited and prescribed sense they had before acknowledged From hence therefore we may infer that this Oath doth secure the King against all Popish pretensions but not against the English constitutions and that the Allegiance we have sworn is no more than was antecedently necessary from those constotutions and by consequence that if according to those Constitutions a King may be removed from the Govemment and his people be released from their Allegiance so they may be still notwithstanding any thing express'd or intended in the Form of this Oath But now if some among us which I fear is the case of many do mistake the matter of this Oath and think they have Sworn to another kind or higher degree of Allegiance than our Legislators intended they cannot but thereby inthral their Consciences with great perplexities and can no other way find Ease than by stating the Obligation of their Oath according to the intention of those Superiours who impos'd it and this may relieve them for I suppose that tho' a Man may thro' mistake suppose his Obligation to be greater than it is yet that a promissory Oath doth really oblige him no farther than the party by whom the form or his Oath was prescribed and he to whom it was made may be reasonably suppos'd to intend and require Thus for instance if a Man thinks he hath sworn Allegeance to the person of him that is King so as to be bound to him whether he Administer the English Government or set up another quite contrary to it or that it obligeth him to obey the Acts of a Kings private Will tho' without and contrary to Law or that his Allegiance is not termi nable but by death altho' the person to whom he Swore may long before cease de jure or de facto to be King and to mention only one case more which I observe to be somewhat common if any thinks he hath sworn such an Allegiance to the Kings Heirs and lawful Successors as obligeth him in Conscience to find out who is the next immediate Heir to assist him in acquiring the Crown and to pay subjection to him and to no other altho' the great Council or the whole Legislative power of the Nation should see reasonto determine otherwise In these and other such Cases it is plain that our Consciences are intangled not with the real Obligations which are upon them but with our mistakes about them that we conceit an Allegiance which our Ancestors never knew and our English Constitutions do not require or allow 3. The Declaration we have subscribed according to the Act in 14 C. 2. is in these Words That it is not lawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King and that I do abhor that traiterous position of taking Arms by his Authority against his Person or against those that are Commission'd by him Which Declaration may be consider'd in the present case either as it expresseth our own judgment or as it expresseth the judgment of our Legislators who requir'd it As it is our Declaration it can only import that when we subscrib'd it our judgment was really such as we then thought this form of words did properly express but we did not hereby declare that we should never change that judgment if convinc'd by sufficent Arguments and therefore cannot be bound in Conscience never to think or act contrary to that Declaration But an