write upon that Subject and who define Absolute Monarchie to be a Power that is not limited or restricted by coactive Law Arnisaeus de essentia Majest cap. 3. num 4. By the 25. Act Parl. 15. Ia. 6. The Parliament does acknowledge that it cannot be deny'd but his Majesty is a free Prince of a Soveraign Power having as great Liberties and Prerogatives by the Laws of this Realm and Priziledge of his Crown and Diadem as any other King Prince or Potentat whatseever And by the 2. Act Parl. 18. Ia. 6. The Parliament consenting to his Majesties restoring of Bishops declare and acknowledge the absolutenesse of our Monarchy in these words The remeed whereof properly belongs to his Majesty whom the whole Estates of their bound n duty with most hearty and faithful affection humbly and truly acknowledge to be a soveraign Monarch absolute Prince Iudge and Governour over all Persons Estates and Causes both Spiritual and Temporal within his said Realm And by the first Act of that same Parliament The Estates and whole Body of this present Parliament acknowledge all with one voluntar humble faithful united heart mind and consent his Majesties soveraign Authority Princely Power Royal Prerogative and priviledge of his Crown over all Persons Estates and Causes whatsoever within his said Kingdom And because no Acts were ever made giving Prerogatives nor even declaring Prerogatives to have been due until some special controversie did require the same so that Possession and not positive Law was the true measure of the Prerogative therefore the Parliament doth in that same Act approve and perpetually confirm all the Royal Prerogatives as absolutely amply and freely in all respects and considerations as ever his Majesty or any of his Royal Predecessors possessed used and exercised the same and they promise that his Majesties Imperial Power which God has so enlarg'd shall never be in any sort impar'd prejudg'd or diminished but rather reverenc'd and augmented as far as possibly they can In the preface to our Books of Law call'd Regiam Majestatem it is acknowledg'd that the King has no Superiour except the Creator of Heaven and Earth who Governs all Forreign Lawyers also such as Lansius de Lege Regiae num 49. and others do number the King of Scotland amongst the absolute Monarchs My second Argument for proving our King to be an absolute Monarch shall be from my former position wherein I hope I have prov'd sufficiently that our Kings derive not their Right from the People for if the King derive not his Power from the People the Monarchy can never be limited by them and consequently it must be an absolute Monarchy for there could be nothing more unjust more unnatural and more insolent then that the People should pretend a Right to limit and restrict that Power which they never gave and the only reason why Buchannan and his Complices do assert our Monarchy to be a qualified and limited Monarchy being that the People when they first Elected our Kings did qualifie and restrict their Government This position being false as appears by the absolute Oath and original Constitution above set down which is lessened or qualified by no condition whatsoever therefore the conclusion drawn from it must be false likewise The third Argument shall be deduced from the Nature of Monarchy and in order thereto I lay down as an uncontroverted principle that every thing must be constructed to be perfect in its own Nature and no mixture is presum'd to be in any thing but he who alledges that the thing controverted is added against Nature must prove the same and therefore since Monarchy is that Government whereby a King is Supream the Monarch must be presum'd neither to be oblig'd to Govern by the advice of the Nobility for that were to confound Monarchy with Aristocracie nor by the advice of the People for that were to confound it with Democracie and consequently if Buchannan and others design to prove that our Kings are obliged to Govern by the advice either of the Nobility or People or are subject to be Chastised by them they must prove that our Kings at their first Creation were Elected upon these Conditions the very Essence and Beeing of Monarchy consisting in its having a Supream and absolute Power Arnisaeus c. 30. Vasquez l. 1. Contrav c. 47. Budaeus in l. princeps Zas ibid. ff de legibus pone enim says Arnisaeus populum in Regem habere aequalem potestatem neutrum pro summo venditari posse When we hear of a Monarch the first notion we have is that he is subject to none for to be a Subject and a Monarch are inconsistent but if we hear that his Nobility or People or both may Depose or punish him we necessarly conclude by the Light of Nature that they and not He are the supream Governours Thus we see that in allowing our King to be an absolute Monarch we have only allow'd him to be a Monarch and to have what naturally belongs to him and that by as necessary a consequence for as every Man is presumed to be reasonable because reason is the Essence of Man so is a King presum'd to be absolute except these limitations whereby the Monarchy is restricted could be prov'd by an expresse Contract 4 thly How is it imaginable but that if our Predecessors had Elected our Kings upon any such Conditions but they would have been very careful to have limited the Monarchy and this Contract had with these conditions been recorded whereas on the contrary we find that albeit great care was taken to record the Oath of Allegiance made to the King and to grave the same upon Marble Tables consign'd unto the custody of their Priests as sacred Oracles yet none of all our Historians make the least mention of any limitations in these Oaths or by any other Contract and to this day our Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance are clogged and lessened by no limitations If it be answered that these limitations do arise from the nature of the thing it self there being nothing more unreasonable and contrary to the nature of Government then that a Monarch who was design'd to be a Protector to his People should be allow'd to destroy them To this it is answered that Monarchy by its nature is absolute as has been prov'd and consequently these pretended limitations are against the nature of Monarchy and so arise not ex natura rei nor can there any thing be more extravagant than to assert that that which is contrare to the nature of Monarchy should arise from its nature and it might be with greater reason pretended that because the great design of men in Marriage is to get a Helper that therefore they may repudiat their Wives when they find them unsupportable and that the putting them away in such cases is consistent enough with the nature of their Oath though simple and absolute this cause of Divorce arising from the nature of Marriage it self This is after
Vowes to make Inquiry and what Vow or Oath could be useful if the giver were to be Iudge how far he were ty'd and if his conveniency were the measure of his Obligation But since I shall hereafter fully prove that these limitations are as dangerous to the Subjects as to the Prince and that ten thousand times moe Murders and other Insolencies have been committed in Civil Wars upon the false pretence of Liberty than ever was committed by the worst of Kings it must necessarily follow that those limitations ought not to be admitted after an absolute Oath for eviting inconveniencies which at the ballance appear to be of no weight 5. It cannot be denyed but our Kings have ever had the power of Peace and War the calling and disolving of Parliments and a negative Voice in them the remitting of Crimes and nomination of Judges and therefore it must be presumed that since the Law has not limited them in those things it has limited them in nothing for by involving us in War they may expose our Fortunes our Wives and Children to the greatest of dangers and it had been great folly to limit them in any thing after those great Prerogatives were allowed And though our Histories do bear That Peace and War were ordinarly determined by the advice and consent of the Nobility yet that does no more infer a necessity not to do otherwayes than the ordinary stile of all our Proclamations bearing to be with advice of our Privy Council infers a necessity upon the King to do nothing without their advice and how could the consent of the Nobility have been necessary in the former Ages since all their Right flowed from the King Himself and that neither they then nor the Parliament now had or have a Power equal with the King much less above Him as shall be fully proved in the first Conclusion that I am to draw from this Doctrine only to what I have said I must here add that it being proposed to our Predecessors at the swearing the Oath of Allegiance to King Fergus whether they would be govern'd by a King who should have absolute Power or by the Nobility or by a Multitude it was answered that lest they should have many Kings in place of one they abhorr'd to bestow the the Absolute Power either upon the Nobility or upon the Multitude 6. I cannot but exceedingly commend our Predecessors for making this reasonable choice of an absolute Monarchy for a Monarch that is subject to the impetuous caprices of the Multitude when giddie or to the incorrigible Factiousness of Nobility when interested is in effect no Government at all and though a mixt Monarchy may seem a plausible thing to Metaphisical Spirits and School-men yet to such as understand Government and the World it cannot but appear impracticable for if the People understand that it is in their Power to check their Monarch the desire of command is so bewitching a thing that probably they will be at it upon all occasions and so when the King commands one thing the Nobility will command another and it may be the People a third And as it implyes a contradiction that the same Persons should both command and obey so where find we those sober and mortified men who will obey when they may command Let us consider what dreadful extravagancies and cruelties appear'd at Rome betwixt the Tribunes of the People and the Senat one of six Kings had a Son who ravish'd a Woman and thereupon the Kings were expell'd but every year almost produced a Civil War wherein vast numbers of free Romans were murther'd and in the contest betwixt Sylla and Marius 90. Senators 15. Consuls 2600. Gentlemen and 100000. others were murther'd and after the whole Common-wealth was exhausted in the Wars betwixt Cesar and Pompey and in the immediat succeeding War betwixt Augustus Anthonie and Lepidus wherein every man lost either a Brother a Father or a Son Rome return'd again to its Monarchy and was never so happy as under Augustus The People of Naples complaining lately of their Taxes put themselves under the Command of Reforming Massaniello by whose extravagancies they suffer'd more in one Moneth than they had done under the Spainsh cruelty in an hundred years But our late Reformation in Brittain seems to have been permitted by God to let us see that mix'd Governments having power to Reform Kings are more insufferable than Tirrany for by it we saw that the multitude consists of Knaves and Fools and both these are the worst of Governors that the best of Kings will be thought wicked when Subjects are his Judges who resolve not to obey and that it is impossible to know what is right when every man is Judge of what is wrong The impracticableness likewise of this popular Supremacy will yet more convincingly appear if we consider that the People are to be Judges because of their natural freedom for then all men should have equal right to be Reformers and these can never meet nor consult together And if it be answered that the People may send their Representatives my Reply is that the greatest half of the Nation are neither Freeholders nor Burgesses and yet those only are call'd the Representatives of the people and what absurd Tricks and Cheats are us'd in choosing even those Representatives and it may be the resolution prevails by the Vote of the greatest Fool or Knave in the Meeting and if any one man remove by sickness or accident at the passing of a Vote or if any of the multitude be bryb'd or have prejudice though on a most unjust account that which would have been the interest of the Nation turns to be against it so infallible a Judge is the multitude And I have seen in popular Elections hundreds cry for a thing and thereafter ask what was the matter 7 ly If the the Proceres Regni or Nobility are to be the check upon our Kings and to be trusted with this coercive power of calling them to an account as Buchannan pretends then I desire to know who invested them with this power for it was never pretended that it is naturally inherent in them And if the people invested them I desire to know by what Act the people transferr'd this power upon them for they have no Law nor original Constitution for this as our Kings have for their Right and passing over the dangers may arise from their having this power because of the Factiousness Poverty Picques Humors or Ignorance that may be incident to them it seems to me strange why we the people should trust such to be our Checks over the King who are His own Creatures owing their Honours to Him and expecting dayly from Him Imployments and Estates and if they and the people differ who is to be Judges of those Controversies Nor can the Nobility and Commons assembled in Parliament have this coercive power for the Reasons which I shall hereafter offer and therefore none has it but the
who can only take it away because he gave it And if it be objected that this last branch of the Argument seems either to prove nothing or else to prove that there can be no Elective Monarchies To this it is answered that even in Elective Monarchies the Nomination proceeds only from the People but the Royal Power from God as we see in inferiour Magistracies such as Burrows Royal c. the People Elect and so the Nomination is from them but the power of Governing proceeds from the King and not from the Electors and therefore as the People who Elected the Magistrats in these Towns cannot Depose them by their own Authority so neither can the People Depose their King but the punishment of him belongs to God Almighty I confesse that if the People Choose a King with expresse Condition that they may punish him as the Lacedemonian Kings were punishable by those Magistrats call'd the Ephori the Kings are in that case accountable to the People but then they are not Monarchs having supream Power as our Kings have and who are therefore declar'd to hold their Power immediatly from God and not to be at all punishable by the People The 4 th Argument that I shall use for proving that our Kings derive not their power from the People shall be from the natural Origin of Monarchie and of ours in particular which I conceive to be that Right of Paternal Power which is stated in them for understanding whereof it is fit to know that God at first created only one Man that so his Children might be subject to him as all Children yet are to their Parents and therefore the Jesuitical and Fanatical Principles that every man is born Free and at Liberty to choose what form of Government he pleaseth was ever and is most false for every man is born a Subject to his own Parents who if they were not likewise subject to a Superiour Power might judge and punish them Capitally lead them out to War and do all other things that a King could do as we see the Patriarches did in their own Families And as long as it is known who is the Root of the Family or who represents it there is no place for Election and people Elect only when the memory of this is lost and such as overcome the Heads of Families in Batle succeed to them in their Paternal Right If it be answered that the Father may by nature pretend to a power over his Children or it may be an Elder Brother over his Cadets yet there is no tye in nature subjecting Collaterals as Uncles and their descendents to those descended from the Eldest Familie To this I reply that 1. This power over all the Family was justly given by nature to shun divisions for else every little Family should have erected it self in a distinct Government and the weakest had still been a Prey 2. We see that Abraham did lead out to War and in every thing Act as King not only over his own Children but all the Family and whole Nations are call'd the Children of Israel the Children of Edom c. 3. That must be concluded to be establish'd by natural instinct which all men in all Ages and Places allow and follow but so it is that all Nations in all Places and Times have ever allow'd the Eldest Son of the Eldest Family to govern all descended from the Stock without new Elections and the Author of the late famous Moral Essayes have admir'd this as one of the wisest Maxims that we have from Natural Instinct for if the wisest or strongest were to be choos'd there had still been many Rivals and so much Faction and Discord but it is still certain who is the Eldest Son and this precludes all Debate and prevents all Dissention For applying this to our Case it is fit to know that if we believe not our Historians then none else can prove that the People of Scotland did at first Elect a King that being contrarie to the acknowledgements of our own Statutes and all Buchannans Arguments for restricting Kings being founded upon the authority of our Historians who as he sayes assert that K. Fergus was first Elected King by the People if he be not able to prove that our Kings owe their Crowns to the Election of the People without any inherent or previous Right all his Arguments evanish to nothing but on the other hand if we consider exactly our Historians we will find that our Kings Reign over us by this Paternal Power and though I am not very fond of Fabulous Antiquities yet if Tradition or Histories can be believ'd in any thing they should at least be believ'd against Buchannan and those who make use of them to restrict the power of our Kings and by our Histories it is clear that Gathelus having led some Forces into Egypt he after several Victories setl'd in Portugal call'd from him Portus Gatheli from which an Collonie of that Race transported it self into Ireland and another into Scotland nor should this be accounted a Fable since Cornelius Tacitus in the Life of Agricola makes the Scots to be of Spanish and the Picts to be of German Extraction The Scottish Collonies finding themselves opprest by the Brittains and Picts they sent over into Ireland to Ferquhard and he sent them a considerable Supplie under the Command of Fergus his Son who having secur'd them against their Enemies all the Heads of the Tribes acknowledged him for their King and swore that they should never admit of any other Form of Government then Monarchie and that they should never obey any except Him and his Posterity which if they brake they wish'd that all the Plagues and Miseries that had formerly fallen on their Predecessors might again fall upon their Posterity as the punishment of that Perjury All which Religious Vows and Promises Seal'd by those dreadful Oaths voluntarly given were graven on Marble Tables and Consign'd for preservation into the custody of their Priests and these are Boetius own words Fol. 10. From which I observe 1. That as our Laws assert that our Kings derive their Power from God and not from the People so we ought not to believe the contrary upon the Faith of our Historians except they were very clear and unanimous in contradicting our Laws whereas it appears to me that our Laws agree with our Historie for Gathelus was not at all Elected by the People but was himself the Son of a King and did Conquer by his own Subjects and Servants and all those who are descended from his Collonies were by Law oblidg'd to obey the Eldest Son and Representative of that Royal Family And Ferquhard is acknowledg'd to have been his only Successor nor did ever any of the Scottish Tribes pretend to the Supremacie and our Histories bear that none of our Tribes would yield to another and the Fatal Marble Chair that came from Spain remaining with these who went to Ireland does evince that
the Birth-right remain'd with them and therefore when Fergus the Son of Ferquhard came over he brought over with him the Marble Chair which was the mark of Empire And Boetius immediatly upon his arrival calls him King and Fordon the most Ancient of our Historians lib. 1. cap. 36. calls him Fergusius Filius Ferardi aut Ferquhardi ex antiquarum Regium prosapia genitus qui ambitione Regnandi stimulatus magnam sibi Iuvenum copiam assimulavit Albionem continuo progressus est ibidem super eos Regem primum se constituit that is to say he made himself the first King therefore K. Iames. Basil. Doron pag. 201. asserts that K. Fergus made himself King and Lord as well of the whole Lands as of the whole Inhabitants 2. We read nothing at all of the consent of the People but of the Heads of the Tribes who had no Commission from the People each of them having by his Birth-right a Power to Command his own Tribe and consequently the Royal Power was not derived to Fergus from the People but had it's Original from this Birth-right that was both in them and Fergus and he succeded in the Right of those Chiefs to Command their respective Families and Boetius brings in King Fergus lib. 1. num 5. Speaking of himself as a pious Parent as one who owes to them what a Parent owes to his Children sunt pij Parentes in Liberos propensi debemus vobis quod proli genitores And the consent given by the Chief of the Clanns and the People did not give but declare the former Right as our consent now does in Acts concerning the Prerogative and as the Vote of the Inquest does in the Service of Heirs and thus at the Coronation of our Kings it is still said by our Historians that such a man was declared King communi suffragio acclamatione 3. This consent being only given in the Armie cannot be said to have been universally by the People nor do we read that the People did Commissionat the Armie or that the Armie consulted the People and in general it cannot be instanc'd that the People did in any Nation universally consent to Election nor is it possible all the People can meet And in Pole which is the only Elective Monarchie we know the Free-holders only consent and yet every privat Man and Woman have as great interest according to these pretended Laws of Nature as they have potior est conditio negantis Nor do we find that the Commons and mean People have any interest in the Elections of our Magistrats or Parliament Men so that Popular freedom by Birth and the interest of the People in Popular Elections are but meer Cheats invented to engage the Rabble in an aversion to the establish'd Government when factious and insolent Spirits who cannot submit themselves to Government design to cheat the Multitude by fair Pretences and to bribe them by Flatterie If it be pretended that it is not certain whether King Fergus was eldest So◠to Ferquhard nor is it probable that if he had been such he would have preferr'd an uncertain Conquest in Scotland to his secure Succession in Ireland To this it is answered that all our Histories bear that King Ferquhard sent his Son Fergus and when a Son is spoken of indefinitly in such Cases he is actually understood to be the Eldest 2. He brought with him the Marble Chair the mark of Empire which would not have been allow'd to a Cadet 3. It is said that having settled the affairs of Scotland he returned into Ireland to settle the differences there about the choosing of a new King which does import that he should have been King if he had not prefer'd Scotland to Ireland and the reason of this preference was because Ireland was then divided amongst many Kings and his Predecessors had but a very small share of it at that time and Scotland being a part of a greater Isle he probably found in this greater Isle a higher flight for his Hopes and more latitude for his Ambition But albeit the Kings of Scotland had been originally and at first elected by the People yet it does not at all follow necessarly as Buchannan Dolman and our other Republicans pretend that therefore they may reject them at their pleasure or which is all one when they imagine that the Kings Elected by them serve not the ends for which they were designed and that for these Reasons 1. It cannot be deny'd but that the People may consent to an Election of a Monarch without Limitatons for from the Principles of Nature we may learn that whatever is in ones power may be by them transfer'd upon another and therefore if the People be indew'd with a power of governing themselves they may certainly transfer this Power upon another and we see that all Christians and even our Republicans allow that men may sell themselves to be Slaves a custome not only mention'd but approv'd by God himself so far does consent reach beyond what is necessary for maintaining this Point 2. If this could not be then there could be no such thing as absolute Monarchies which is against the receiv'd Opinion of all Nations and against the Doctrine of all Authors who though they debate that this or that Monarchie in a particular Countrey is not Absolute yet it was never contraverted by any man alive but that the People might consent and in many places have consented to absolute Monarchies and by the famous Lex Regia amongst the Romans Populus ei in eum omne Imperium suum Potestatem transtulit instit de jur nat gent. civ § 6. Mention'd likewise by that Famous Lawyer Vlpian l. 1. ff de constitut Princ. 3. We see this consequence to be very false in many other cases and therefore it cannot be necessary here for we find that a man chooses a Wife yet it is not in his power to put her away Cardinals choose the Pope and Chapters the Bishop and yet they cannot depose them the Common Council choose Magistrats and yet they cannot lay them aside 4. This Reasoning is condemn'd as most fallacious by most learn'd and dis-interested Lawyers and therefore it cannot be infallible as is pretended vide Arnisaeum cap. 3. num 2. Haenon dis Pol. 9. num 44. Panorm ad cap. 4. de Cler. non residend Zasius ad l. non ambigitur num 3 ff de legibus Nor have any Lawyers differ'd from this common opinion of mankind except some very few who have differ'd from a Principle of Pique rather than of Judgement The next thing that I am to prove in this my first Proposition is that Our King is an Absolute Monarch and has the Supream Power within this his Kingdome and this I shall endeavour to prove First From our positive Law 2. By several Reasons deduc'd from our Fundamental Laws and Customs 3. From the very nature of Monarchy it self and the Opinion of Lawyers who
overjoyed as men are when they are free'd from the Gallies in which they had been Treated as Slaves And whereas these Republicans pretend that the King is but a Phisician this shews that they design to have no King for any man may lawfully change his Phisician and Buchannans laying so much weight on this Argument makes me suspect much his honesty for no man can have so mean an opinion of his Sense And his comparing the Monarch to a Tutor is very extravagant for no man is sworn to have such a mans Heirs for Tutors but though he were a Tutor no man can remove his Tutor at pleasure as they say the People may remove their King Nor is a Tutor to be laid aside but by an Action before a Superior Judge wherein he is to be proved to have Malversed and therefore since there is no Superior Judge except God and that the People are not his Superiors it clearly follows that the People cannot lay aside their King A Tutor has not an inherent Right of Property as a King hath to the Government of the Nation and to the Imperial Crown thereof only I joyne so far with Buchannan in these Rhetorical expressions that I really think the Multitude is alwayes so mad that they need a King to be their Physitian and of so weak a Judgement like Mi. nors that they need him for a Tutor and without his assistance and protection every hypocritical Bigot and ambitious Usurper would cheat them at his pleasure and make them not only a Prey but a Tool in their own Slavery Nor is there any force in that Argument the King was made for the People and not the People for the King and therefore the People are Nobler than the King and ought to be preferred to Him For to this it is answered that 1. The question here is not who is more preferable but who is the Superiour And though one good Christian be preferable to a thousand who are not so yet their Interest in the Common-wealth is not preferable the wiser part is still preferable to the greater part and yet the greater will over-rule the wiser A Shepherd is ordained for the Flock and yet it cannot be concluded that a Flock of Brutes is to be preferred to any Reasonable Creature 2. The Kings Interest and the Peoples are inseparable in the Construction of Law which presumes that what the King does He does for the People and there is none above the King that can Judge Him if He does otherwise 3. Whether the Kings Power be derived from God or from the People Yet if it be derived from God it is preferable because of Gods Ordinance Or if from the People it is preferable because they by Electing Him King have consented that it should be so and they having Trusted Him with the publick Interest the publick Interest is still preferable I know that Buchannan and others value themselves much upon the Instance of the Bruce and Baliol in which the people did Declare that they preferred the Bruce because the Baliol had enslaved the Kingdom to the English And it is generally urged that all Lawyers are clear that if a King Alienat His Kingdom His people may Disclaim Him But my answers are That if a King will Alienat His Kingdom the Subjects are free in that case not by their power to reassume their first Liberty but because the King will not continue King and they are free by His Deed but not by their own Right 2. Even in that case Lawyers do irritat and annul the Deed but dissolve not the Contraveeners Right And as to that particular Instance it is well known that King Robert the First or the Bruce as we call him was desirous that the Parliament should threaten to choose another if He submitted His Interest to the Popes Decision who pretended then to be the Supream Judge over all Kings And Iohn Major as many other Popish Writers were still enemies to the Supremacy of Kings upon that account But though the Bruce to please the people should have shunned to quarrel what they did in such a Juncture yet that could not wrong the Monarchy nor His Successors as shall be proved Having thus cleared that the Kings power is not derived from the people even though they had Elected Him and that He is an absolute King both by our Laws and the Nature of our Monarchy and that all this is most consistent with right Reason I come now to draw some Conclusions from these Principles The first Conclusion shall be that our Parliaments are not co-ordinat with our Kings in the Legislative Power but that the Legislative and Architectonick Power of making Laws as Lawyers term it does Solly reside in the King the Estates of Parliament only consenting which will furder appear by these Reasons 1. It cannot be denyed but we had Kings long ere we had Parliaments we never having had any Parliaments till King Kenneth the 3 ds time according to the Computation of the severest Re-publicans themselves for till then we Read only of the Proceres Regni or the Nobility or Chiefs of Clanes and Heads of Families who assembled upon all occasions to give the King advice and therefore our Parliaments cannot pretend that they were designed as a Co-ordinate power with the King whilst he did what was right much less to be his Judge when he did what was wrong 2. That our Kings made Laws of old without any consent and that these were acquiesced in by the people is clear not only from our Histories which do tell us that such Kings made such Laws without speaking any thing of either Nobility People or Parliament but even from our old Books of Statutes wherein there is no mention made of the consent of either the Nobility or Parliament The Laws at that time beginning simply The Kings Statutes as in all the Statutes of King William King Alexander 2 d. and in the Statutes of King Malcolm Canmore King David the first and King David the 2 d. where there is not so much as mention made of the Nobility or the Parliament in the very beginning of the Statutes and that at other times the Nobility were only called and that only the Nobility did sit is very clear from the Inscriptions of these Parliaments such as in the Parl. K. Alexander 2 d. which bears to have been made with the common consent of the Nobility cum communi consensu Comitum suorum without speaking of any other State Nor do I find a word of Burgesses till the Parliament of K. Robert the 3 d. in 1400. and even according to this late Constitution it is undenyable that the Parliament have not even an equal power with the King much less a power above him 3. How can that Judicature have a Co-ordinat power with the King when no man can sit in it but by a priviledge from the King but so it is that all that are Members of Parliament sit there by a
above him And the Acts of Parliament in the late Rebellion having run thus Our Soveraign Lord and the three Estates contrare to the Tenor of all the Laws that ever were made in Scotland The Parliament returning to their duty ordained that Style to be altered and to bear as formerly Our Soveraign Lord with Advice and Consent c. But lastly what advantage can the people have by placing their security in the Parliament since they are so lyable to Passions Errors and Extravagancies as well as Kings are and have if Buchannan be believed betrayed the interest of the Kingdom since K. Kenneth the seconds time now above 700. years and they are ordinarily led by some pragmatical Ring-leaders who have not that interest to preserve the Kingdom that Kings have and since the King may make so many Noble-men and Burghs Royal at pleasure by whose Votes he may still prevail What security can we have by giving them a power above the King or how can they have it From all which it may clearly appear that we have had Kings long ere we had Parliaments and that the Parliaments derive their power from the King and that at first our King only called the Heads of Families and his own Officers as his Council with whom he consulted without any necessity to call any others than he pleased there being no Law Article nor Capitulation obliging him from the beginning thereto And our Kings were so far from having Parliaments associated with them in their Empire that there is no mention at all of them or of any condition relating to them in the first Institution of our Kings above-related nor were there any Parliaments in beeing at that time But after the Feudal Law came to be in vigor then our Kings looking upon the whole Kingdom as their own in property King Malcolme Canmore did distribute all the Land of Scotland amongst his Subjects as his Liedge-men which is clear by the first Chapter of his Laws and according to the Feudal Law all the Vassals of our Kings compeared in their Head-Court and therein consulted what was fit for the Kingdom but thereafter the way of making War requiring Money and Property belonging to the Subject as Government did to the King it was necessary to have their consent for raising Money And from this did arise the inserting the advice and consent of the three Estates in our Acts of Parliament From this also it is very clear that their opinion is very unsolid and ill founded who think that Kings can do nothing without a special Act of Parliament even in matters of Government As for instance that he cannot restrain the licence of the Press or require his Subjects to take a Bond for securing the Peace for these and the like being things which relate immediatly to Government the King has as much right to regulate these as we have to regulate and dispose upon our Property Government being the King's Property 2. Though the Monarchy had been derived from the People yet how soon our Kings got the Monarchy they got every thing that was necessary for the Explication and Administration of it which as it is common sense and reason so it is founded upon that most wise and just Maxime in Law Quando aliquid conceditur omnia concessa videntur sine quibus concessum explicari nequit 3. I desire to know where there is yet a Law giving the King a Negative voice a power of erecting Incorporations or a power to grant Remissions for Crimes or Protections for Civil Debts and yet the people is far more concerned in these and the King 's having power to do these and a thousand other things doth rather oblige and warrand me to lay down a general rule that the Kings of Scotland can do every thing that relates to Government and is necessary for the administration thereof though there be no special Law or Act of Parliament for it if the same be not contrary to the Law of God Nature or Nations The second Conclusion that we draw from these former principles is that Princes cannot be punished by their own Subjects as Buchannan and our Republicans do assert which is most clear by the former Laws wherein it is declared that the King is a Soveraign and Absolute Prince and deriving his power from God Almighty That it is Treason to endeavour to depose or suspend the King Wherein our Law is founded on the nature of Monarchy for if He be Supream He cannot be judg'd for no man is judg'd but by his Superior and that which is Supream can have no Superior and on the Principles of the Law of Nature and Nations because saith the Law no man can be both the person who Judgeth and the person Judg'd and it is still the King who Judgeth since all other Judges do represent him and derive their power from him Ipse se prator cogere non potest quia triplici officio fungi nequit suspectum dicentis coacâ—â— cogentis L. Ille aâ—quo ff ad Trebell It is a principle in all Law that Jurisdiction and all other Mandats cease with the power that granted it and therefore as they acknowledge that a King cannot be cited till he have forfeited His just Right so how soon he has forfeited it all the power of the ordinary Judges in the Nation falls and becomes extinct and no other Judge can Judge Him because no other Judge can sit by vertue of any other Authority till it be known that he has forfeited his and that cannot be till the event of the Process and if the People be Judges yet they cannot assume the Government till the King has forfeited it And why also should they be Judges who have neither knowledge nor moderation who are acted by humor and delight in insolence And how shall they meet Or who shall call them Nor can the Parliament judge them because they derive their right from the King as shall be prov'd And though they were equal yet no equal can judge another par in parem non habet Imperium nemo sibi Imperare potest No man can command himself l. si de re sua ff derecept â—rbitr Nemo sibi legem imponere potest l. quid autem ff de donat inter virum uxorem and therefore the Civil Law which is ours by Adoption does positively assert that Princeps legibus solutus est the King is liable to no Law l. princeps ff de legibus For though He be lyable to the Directive Force of the Law that is to say He ought to be Governed by it as His Director Yet He is not lyable to the Co-ercive Force of the Law as all Lawyers that are indifferent do assert Hâ—rmenopol l. 1. tit 1. Sect. 48. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The King is not Subject to the Law because offending against them he is not punisht vid Granswinkell cap. 6. Arnis cap. 4. Francisc. a victoria Relect. 3. num 4. Ziegler de
Civil Wars betwixt Scilla and Marcus Caesar and Pompeij without considering what followed under the Trium viri Faelices Arabes Medique Eoaque tellus Qui sub perpetuis tenuerunt Regna Tyrannii 5. These who debate against Magistracy gratifie their own Vanity and Insolence but such devout men as Ambrose Augustine Vsher and others Debate against the Dictats of Interest as well as Passion which two nothing save Grace can overcome and there can be no surer mark of Conviction than to recide against these Lastly even Buchannan repented this horrid Doctrine Cambden 10. year of Queen Elizabeths Reign in 1567. But forasmuch as Buchannan being transported with partial affection and with Murrays bounty wrot in such sort that his said Books have been condemned of falsehood by the Estates of the Realm of Scotland to whose Credite more is to be Atributed and he himself sighing and sorrowing sundry times blam'd himself as I have heard before the King to whom he was School-master for that he had employ'd so virulent a Pen against that well deserving Queen and upon his Death-bed wished that he might live so long till by recalling the truth he might even with his Blood wipe away these Aspertions which he had by his bad Tongue falsly laid upon her but that as he said it would now be in vain when he might seem to dote for Age c. Idem Anno 1582. And not content with all this speaking of their surprizing the King they Compell'd the King against his Will to approve of this intercepting of him by his Letters to the Queen of England and to Decree an Assembly of the Estates Summoned by them to be just yet could they not enduce Buchannan to approve of this their Fact either by writting or perswasion by Message who now sorrowfully lamented that he had already undertaken the Cause of Factious people against their Princes and soon after Died c. THAT THE Lawful Successor Cannot be DEBARR'D From Succeeding to the CROWN Maintain'd against Dolman Buchannan and others BY Sir GEORGE MACKENZIE His Majesties Advocat EDINBVRGH Printed by the Heir of Andrew Anderson Printer to His most Sacred Majesty Anno DOM. 1684. King James In His Advice to Prince Henry Page 173. IF God give you not Succession Defraud never the nearest by Right whatsoever conceit ye have of the Person for Kingdoms are ever at Gods Disposition and in that Case we are but Liferenters it lying no more in the Kings than in the Peoples Hands to Dispossess the Righteous Heir Page 209. Ibid. FOr at the very moment of the Expyring of the King Reigning the nearest and Lawful Heir entereth in his place and so to refuse him or intrude another is not to hold out the Successor from coming in but to expel and put out their Righteous King and I trust at this time whole France acknowledgeth the Rebellion of the Leaguers who upon pretence of Heresie by force of Arms held so long out to the great Desolation of their whole Countrey their Native and Righteous King from possessing his own Crown and natural Kingdom ERRATA Page 5. delet at his Majority Page 33. for Richard 3d. Read 2d The Right of the Succession Defended THe fourth Conclusion to be cleared was that neither the People nor Parliaments of this Kingdom could seclude the lineall Successor or could raise to the throne any other of the same Royal line For clearing whereof I shall according to my former method first clear what is our positive Law in this case Secondly I shall shew that this our Law is founded upon excellent reason and lastly I shall answer the objections As to the first It is by the second Act of our last Parliament acknowledged That the Kings of this realme deriving their Royal power from God Almighty alone do lineally succeed therto according to the known degrees of proximitie in blood which cannot be interrupted suspended or diverted by any Act or Statut whatsoever and that none can attempt to alter or divert the said Succession without involving the subjects of this Kingdom in Perjury and Rebellion and without exposing them to all the fatal and dreadful consequences of a civil warr DO THEREFORE from a hearty and sincere sense of their duty Recognize acknowledge and declare that the right to the Imperial Crown of this realme is by the inherent right and the nature of Monarchy as well as by the fundamental and unalterable laws of this realme transmitted and devolved by a lineal Succession according to the proximity of blood And that upon the death of the King or Queen who actually reignes the Subjects of this Kingdom are bound by Law duty and alledgance to obey the nixt immediat and Lawful Heir either male or female upon whom the right and administration of the Government is immediatly devolved And that no difference in Religion nor no Law nor Act of Parliament made or to be made can alter or divert the right of Succession and lineal descent of the Crown to the nearest and Lawful Heirs according to the degrees foresaids nor can stop or hinder them in the full free and actuall administration of the Government according to the Laws of the Kingdom LIKE AS OUR SOVERAIGNE LORD with advice and consent of the saids Estates of Parliament Do declare it is high treason in any of the Subjects of this Kingdom by writing speaking or any other manner of way to endeavour the alteration suspension or diversion of the said right of Succession or the debarring the next Lawfull Successor from the immediat actual full and free administration of the Government conform to the Laws of the Kingdom And that all such attempts or designes shall inferre against them the paine of treason This being not only ane Act of Parliament declaring all such as shall endeavour to alter the Succession to be punishable as Traitors but containing in it a Decision of this Point by the Parliament as the Supream Judges of the nation and ane acknowledgement by them as the representatives of the people and nation There can be no place for questioning a point which they have plac'd beyond all contraversie especially seing it past so unanimously that there was not only no vote given but even no argument propon'd against it And the only doubt mov'd about it was whither any Act of Parliament or acknowledgement was necessary in a point which was in it self so uncontraverted And which all who were not desperat fanaticks did conclude to be so in this nation even after they had hear'd all the arguments that were us'd and the Pamphlets that were written against it in our neighbour-Kingdom But because so much noise has been made about this question and that blind bigotry leads some and humorous faction drawes others out of the common road I conceive it will be fit to remember my reader of these following reasons which will I hope clear that as this is our present positive Law so it is established upon the fundamental
constitution of our Government upon our old Laws upon the Laws of God of Nature of Nations and particularly of the Civil Law As to the fundamental constitution of our Government I did formerly remark that our Historians tell us that the Scots did swear alledgeance to FERGUS who was the first of our Kings and to his Heirs And that they should never obey any other but his Royal Race Which Oath does in Law and reason bind them to obey the lineal Successor according to the proximity of Blood For ane indefinite obligation to obey the blood Royal must be interpreted according to the proximity in Blood except the swearers had reserv'd to themselves a power to choose any of the Royal Familie whom they pleas'd which is so true that in Law ane obligation granted to any man does in the construction of Law accresce to his Heirs though they be not exprest Qui sibi providet haeredibus providet And Boethius tells us that after King FERGUS'S death the Scots finding their new Kingdom infested with warrs under the powerful influence of Picts Romans and Britans they refus'd notwithstanding to preferre the next of the Royal Race who was of perfect age and a man of great merit to the Son of King FERGUS though ane infant which certainly in reason they would have done if they had not been ty'd to the lineal Successor But lest the Kingdom should be prejudg'd during the minority they enacted that for the future the next of the Blood Royal should alwayes in the minority of our Kings administrat as Kings till the true Heir were of perfect age But this does not prove as Buchannan pretends that the people had power to advance to the Throne any of the Royal Race whom they judg'd most fit for common sense may tell us that was not to choose a King but a Vice-Roy or a Regent For though to give him the more authority and so to enable him the more to curb factions and oppose enimies he was called King yet he was but Rex fidei Commissarius being oblidg'd to restore it to the true Heir at his majority and so Governed only in his Vice and consequently was only his Vice-roy But because the Uncles and next Heirs being once admitted to this fidei Commissarie tittle were unwilling to restore the Crown to their Nephews and sometimes murder'd them and oftetimes rais'd factions against them Therefore the People abhorring these impieties and weary of the distractions and divisions which they occasion'd beg'd from King KENNETH the second that these following Laws might be made 1. That upon the Kings death the next Heir of whatsoever age should succeed 2. The Grand-childe either by Son or Daughter should be preferr'd 3. That till the King arriv'd at 14 years of age some Wise-man should be choos'd to Govern after which the King should enter to the free administration and according to this constitution some fit Person has still been choos'd Regent in the Kings minority without respect to the proximity of Blood and our Kings have been oftentimes Crown'd in the Cradle In conformity also to these principles all the acknowledgements made to our Kings run still in favours of the King and his Heirs As in the first Act Parl. 18. JAMES VI. and the II III IV. Acts Parl. 1. CHARLES II. And by our Oath of Alledgeance we are bound to bear faithful and true alledgeance to his Majesty his Heirs and Lawful Successors which word LAWFUL is insert to cutt off the pretexts of such as should not succeed by Law and the insolent arbitrarieness of such as being but subjects themselves think they may choose their King viz. Act 1. Parl. 21. JAMES 6. That this right of Succession according to the proximity of blood is founded on the Law of God is clear by Num. Chap. 27. v. 9. and 10. If a man hath no Son or Daughter his inheritance shall descend upon his Brother by Num. 36. Where God himself decides in favours of the Daughters of Zelophehad telling us it was a just thing they should have the inheritance of their father And ordaines that if there were no Daughters the estate should go to the Brothers Saint Paul likewayes concluds Rom. 8. If Sons then Heirs looking upon that as a necessary consequence which if it do not necessarly hold or can be any way disappointed all his divine reasoning in that Chapter falls to nothing And thus Ahaziah 2 Chron. 22. v. 1. was made King though the youngest in his Fathers stead because sayes the text ,the Arabians had slain all the eldest which clearly shews that by the Law of God he could not have succeeded if the eldest had been alive We hear likewayes in Scripture ,God oft telling By me Kings reigne And when he gives a Kingdom to any as to Abraham David c. He gives it to them and their posterity That this right of Succession flowes from the Law of nature is clear because that is accounted to flow from the Law of nature which every man finds grafted in his own heart and which is obey'd without any other Law and for which men neither seek nor can give another distinct reason all which hold in this case for who doubts when he heares of ane hereditary Monarchy but that the next in blood must Succeed and for which we need no positive Law nor does any man enquire for a further reason being satisfied therein by the principles of his own heart And from this ground it is that though a remoter Kinsman did possess as Heir he could by no length of time prescribe a valide right since no man as Lawyers conclude can prescribe a right against the Law of nature and that this principle is founded thereupon is confest l cùm ratio naturalis ff de bonis damnat cùm ratio naturalis quasi lex quaedam tacita liberis parentum haereditatem adjecerit veluti ad debitam successionem eos vocando propter quod suorum haeredum nomen eis indultum est adeo ut ne a parentibus quidem ab eâ successione amoveri possint Et § emancipati Institut de haered quae ab intest Praetor naturalem aequitatem sequutus iis etiám bonorum possessionem contra 12 tabularum leges contra jus civile permittit Which text shewes likewayes that this right of nature was stronger than the Laws of the 12 Tables though these were the most ancient and chief Statutes of Rome Which principle is very clear likewayes from the Parable Math. 21. Where the Husband-men who can be presum'd to understand nothing but the Law of nature are brought in saying this is the Heir let us kill him and seaze on his inheritance Nor does this hold only in the Succession of Children or the direct line but in the collateral Succession of Brothers and others L. hac parte ff unde cognati Hac parte proconsul Naturali aequitate motus omnibus cognatis permittit bonorum possessionem quos sanguinis ratio
Vocat ad haereditatem Vid. l. 1. ff de grad l. 1. § hoc autem ff de bonor possess And these who are now Brothers to the present King have been Sones to the former and therefore whatever has been said for Sones is also verified in Brothers As for instance though his Royal Highness be only Brother to King CHARLES the II. yet he is Son to King CHARLES I. and therefore as Saint Paul sayes if a Son then ane Heir except he be secluded by the existence and Succession of ane elder Brother That this gradual Succession is founded on the Law of nations is as clear by the Laws of the 12 Tables and the Praetorian Law of Rome And if we consider the Monarchy either old or new we will find that wherever the Monarchy was not elective the degrees of succession were there exactly observed And Bodinus de Republ. lib. 6 Cap. 5. asserts that Ordo non tantum naturae divinae sed etiam omnium ubique gentium hoc postulat From all which Pope Innocent in c. grand de supplend neglig praelati concludes In regnis haereditariis caveri non potest ne filius aut frater succedat And since it is expresly determined that the right of blood can be taken away by no positive Law or Statute L. Iura Sanguinis ff de Reg. jur L. 4. ff de suis legitim and that the power of making a Testament can be taken away by no Law L. ita legatum ff de conditionibus I cannot see how the right of Succession can be taken away by a Statute for that is the same with the right of Blood and is more strongly founded upon the Law of nature than the power of making Testaments Since then this right is founded upon the Law of God of nature and of nations it does clearly follow that no Parliament can alter the same by their municipal Statutes as our Act of Parliament has justly observed For clearing whereof it is fit to consider that in all powers and jurisdictions which are subordinat to one another the Inferiour should obey but not alter the power to which it is subordinat and what it does contrary thereto is null and void And thus if the judges of England should publish edicts contrare to Acts of Parliament or if a Justice of Peace should ranverse a decree of the judges of West-minster these their endeavours would be void and ineffectual But so it is that by the same principle but in ane infinitly more transcendent way all Kings and Parliaments are subordinat to the Laws of God the Laws of Nature and the Laws of Nations And therefore no Act of Parliament can be binding to overturn what these have established This as to the Law of God is clear not only from the general dictats of Religion but 28 Hen. 8. cap. 7. the Parliament uses these words For no man can dispence with Gods Laws which we also affirme and think And as to the Laws of nature they must be acknowledged to be immutable from the principles of reason And the Law it self confesses that naturalia quaedam jura quae apud omnes gentes peraequè observantur divina quadam providentia constituta semper firma atque immutabilia permanent § sed naturalia Institut de Iur. Natural § singulorum de rer divis And when the Law declares that a Supream Prince is free from the obligation of Laws Solutus legibus which is the highest power that a Parliament can pretend to or arrive at Yet Lawyers still acknowledge that this does not exeem these Supream powers from being lyable to the Laws of God nature and nations Accurs in l. Princeps ff de Leg. Clementina pasturalis de rejudicatâ Bart. in l. ut vim de justitiâ jure Voet. de Statutis Sect. 5. Cap. 1. nor can the Law of nations be overturned by private Statutes or any Supream power And thus all Statuts to the prejudice of Ambassadours who are secured by the Law of nations are confess'd by all to be null and the highest power whatsoever cannot take off the necessity of denuncing watr before a warr can be Lawful And Lawyers observe verie well that these who would oppose the common dictats of mankind should be look't upon as enemies to all mankind My second argument shall be that the King Parliament can have no more power in Parliament than any absolute Monarch has in his own Kingdom for they are when joyn'd but in place of the Supream power sitting in judgement and therefore they cannot in Law do what any other Supream and absolute Monarch cannot do For all the power of Parliaments consists only in their consent but we must not think that our Parliaments have ane unlimited power de jure so as that they may forfeit or kill without a cause or decerne against the Subjects without citing or hearing them or that they can alienat any part of de Kingdom or Subject the wholl Kingdom to France or any other Forraigne Prince all which deeds would be null in themselves and would not hinder the partie injur'd from a due redress For if our Parliaments had such power we would be the greatest slaves and live under the most arbitrary Government imaginable But so it is that no Monarch whosoever can take from any man what is due to him by the Law of God nature and nations For being himself inferiour to these he cannot overturne their statuts Thus a Prince cannot even ex plenitudine potestatis legitimat a Bastard in prejudice of former children though they have only but a hope of Succession l. 4. sequen de natal restituend and for the same reason it is declared in the same Law that he cannot restore a free'd man restituere libertum natalibus in prejudice of his Patron who was to succeed though that succession was but by a municipal Law For clearing which question It is fit to know that the solid lawyers who treat jus publicum as ARNISAEUS and others do distinguish betwixt such Kingdoms as were at first conferr'd by the People and wherein the Kings succeed by contract and in these the Laws made by King and People can exclude or bind the Successor And yet even here they confess that this proceeds not because the Predecessor can bind the Successor but because the People renew the paction with the succeeding King But where the Successor is to succeed ex jure regni in hereditary Monarchies there they assert positively that the Predecessor cannot prejudge the Successors right of Succession Which they prove by two arguments First that the Predecessor has no more power nor right than the Successor for the same right that the present King has to the possession the next in Blood has to the Succession And all our Laws run in favours of the King and his Heirs and no man can tye his equal or give him the Law par in parem non habet dominium The second is that it were
as I have formerly more fully prov'de And if this principle prevail'd as to the differences in the Theory of Religion it would in the next step be urg'd as to the practice of Religion and we would change our Kings because we thought them not pious as well as Protestant And did not our Sectarians refine so far as to think dominion founded on grace and this opinion seems to my self more solide than the other for certainly an impious Protestant is a worse Governour and less Gods Vicegerent and image than a devout Papist And amongst Protestants every Secte will reject a King because he is not of their opinion And thus our Covenanters by the Act of the West-kirk Anno 1650. declar'd they would disown our present Monarch if he did not own the Covenant And though a King were Protestant yet still this pretext that he design'd to introduce Popery would raise his People against him if differences in Religion could Lawfully Arme subjects against their King or did empower them to debar his Successor And when this cheat prevail'd against devout King Charles the I the Martyr of that Orthodox Faith to which he was said to be enemie what a madness is it to allow this fatall error which was able to ruine us in the last age and went so near to destroy us in this This is indeed to allow that arbitrariness against our Kings which we would not allow in them to us The second Objection is that in England the Parliament has frequently devolv'd the Crown and Government upon such as were not otherwayes to have succeeded as in the instances of Edward the II. and Richard the III the first of whom was most unjustly depos'd for making use of Gavestoun and the Spencers which shewes how extravagant the People ar in their humours rather than how just their power is for besides that we do not read that these Counsellors were unsufferable there is no good Christian that can say that a King can be depos'd for using ill Counsellors And as to Richard the III. his case is so fully examined and all the Articles brought both against him and Edward the II. so fully answered by the learn'd Arnisaeus a Protestant Lawyer and who had no other interest in that debate than a love to Truth and Law in that treatise Quod nullâ ex causâ subditis fas sit contra legitimum principem arma sumere that we Protestants should be asham'd to bring again to the field such instances upon which Arnisaeus in answer to the 14. Article against Richard the II viz. that he refus'd to allow the Lawes made in Parliament does very well remark that this was in effect to consent to their being King and to transferre upon them the Royal power and this will be the event of all such undertakings The instances of Henry the IV. and Henry the VII are of no more weight than the other two since these were likewayes only Kings de facto till King Henry the VII by his marriage with the Lady Elizabeth eldest Daughter to King Edward the IV. did by her transmit a just title to his Successor therefore it was not strange that either of these should allow the Parliament to interpose when they behov'd to owe to them the possession of the Throne But yet Henry the VII himself as the Lord Bacon relates in his Historie shunn'd to have the Parliament declare his title to be just being content with these ambiguous words viz. that the inheritance of the Crown should rest remain and abide in the King c. And upon this accompt it was that the same King caus'd make a Law that such as should serve the King for the time being in his warrs could not be attainted or impeach'd in their persons or Estates As to Henry the VIII his procuring an Act whereby the Parliament declares that in case he had no issue by the Lady Iean Seymour he might dispose of the Crown to whatsoever person he should in his own discretion think fit It is answered that by a former Statute in the 25 year of his Reigne he by Act of Parliament setles the Crown upon the Heirs male of his own body and for lack of such issue to Lady Elizabeth and for lack of such issue also to the next Heirs of the King who should for ever succeed according to the right of Succession of the Crown of England which shewes that the Succession to the Crown of England is establish't by the Law of Nature and the Fundamental Laws of England upon the Heirs of Blood according to the proximity of degrees so that though that King did afterwards prevaile with the Parliament to declare this Elizabeth a Bastard as he did also his Daughter Mary by another Act and resolve to setle the Crown upon Henry Fitz Roy Duke of Richmond yet these Acts teach us how dangerous it is to leave Parliaments to the impression of Kings in the case of naming a Successor as it is to expose Kings to the arbitrariness of Parliaments But such care had God of his own Laws that Mary succeeded notwithstanding She was Papist and Elizabeth succeeded her though she was declar'd Bastard the Rights of Blood prevailing over the formalities of divorce and the dispensations of Popes as the strength of Nature does often prevaile over poisons And God remov'd the Duke of Richmond by death to prevent the unjust competition and so little notice was taken of this and the subsequent Act Anno 1535 that the Heirs of Blood succeeded without repealing of that Act as ane Act in it self invalide from the beginning for only such Acts are past by without being repeal'd And Blackwood pag. 45. observes very well that so conscious were the Makers of these Acts of the illegality thereof and of their being contrarie to the immutable Laws of God Nature and Nations that none durst produce that Kings Testament wherein he did nominat a Successor conform to the power granted by these Acts that how soon they were freed by his death from the violent oppressions that had forced them to alter a Successor three several times and at last to swear implicitly to whomever he should nominat a preparative which this age would not well bear though they cite it they proclamed first Queen Mary their Queen though a Papist and thereafter Queen Elizabeth whom themselves had formerly declared a Bastard And as in all these Acts there is nothing declaring the Parliaments to have power to name a Successor but only giving a power to the King for preventing mischiefs that might arise upon the dubiousness of the Succession to nominat a Successor two of the legal Successors having been declar'd Bastards upon some niceties not of nature but of the Popes Bulls for divorcing their Mothers so this instance can only prove that the King may nominat a Successor and that the Parliament may consent not to quarrell it which is all that they do but does not at all prove
that the Fanaticks who think that every throw of the Dice is influenc'd by a special Providence will not allow that God does by a special Providence take care who shall be his Representative who shall be the Pastor of his Flock and nursing Father of his Church let us therefore trust his Care more than our own and hope to obtain more from him by Christian Submission Humility and Obedience than we can by Caballing Rebelling and Sacrilegious-Murdering or Excluding the true Successor FINIS What follows is immediatly to be subjony'd to the Testimony of Calvin Page 90. I Know that to this it may be answered That the same Calvin does qualifie his own words which I have cited with this following Caution Si qui sunt saith he populares Magistratus ad moderandam Regum libidinem constituti quales olim erant qui Lacedemoniis regibus oppositi erant ephori quâ etiam fortè potestate ut nunc res habent fuguntur in singulis regnis tres ordines quum primarios conventus peragunt adeo illos ferocienti Regum licentiae pro officio intercedere non veto ut si Regibus impotenter grassantibus humili plebeculae insultantibus conniveant eorum dissimulationem nefariâ perfidiâ non carere affirmam quia populi libertatem cujus se tutores Dei ordinatione positos nôrunt fraudulenter produnt To which my reply is That these words must be so constructed as that they may not be incosistent with his former clear and Orthodox Doctrine of not resisting Supream Powers the former being his positive Doctrine and this but a supervenient Caution and they do very well consist for though Calvin be very clear that Kings cannot be resisted yet he thinks that this is only to be mean'd of those Kings who have no Superiors to check them by Law as the Kings of the Lacedemonians had who by the fundamental Constitution of their Monarchy might have been call'd to an accompt by the Ephori and so in effect were only Titular Kings Or of such Monarchs as had only a co-ordinate Power with the States of their own Kingdom and even in these Cases he does not positively assert that these Monarchs may be resisted but does only doubt whether if there be any such Superior or co-ordinate Magistrate representing the People they may not restrain the Rage and Licentiousness of their Kings But that Caution does not at all concern the Ius Regni apud Scotos because this cannot be said of the Kings of Great Britain since the States of Parliament are only call'd by the King and derive their Authority from him and the Legislative Power is solely in the King the States of Parliament being only Consenters he and not they can only make Peace and War and grant Remissions and against him and not them Treason only is committed and the Law Books of both Nations do affirm that the King is Supream and consequently even according to Calvin's Doctrine neither his People nor any of their Representatives can justly oppose and much less punish him I know that Grotius is by the Republicans and the Fanaticks oft-times cited to defend this their Doctrine of opposing Princes but though his Testimony might be justly rejected as being himself born under a Commonwealth yet he is most impudently cited for he lib. 1. cap. 4. does positively lay down as a general and undoubted Rule that Summum imperium tenentibus resisti non potest Those who have the Supream Power cannot lawfully be resisted whilch Rule he founds upon the Principles of Reason the Authority of Scripture and the Practice of the Primitive Church and though he limits the same thereafter by some exceptions yet it will easily appear that these exceptions extend not at all to our Case For the first relates only to such Kings as have receiv'd their Power with express condition that they may be try'd by other Magistrats The second to such as have voluntarily resign'd their Empire as Charles the 5 th did and so the one may be oppos'd because they were only Titular Kings and the other because they left off to be Kings and consequently we are concerned in neither of these Cases The third limitation is only in the Case where he who was truly a King has alienated his Kingdom to Strangers In which Case Grotius does contend that Subjects may refuse to obey because he ceaseth to be their King But as this is not our Case so even in that Case Grotius is very clear that if this alienation be made by an Hereditary Monarch the alienation is null as being done in prejudice of the lawful Successor but he does not at all assert that the Monarch may be thereupon depos'd by his People The fourth relates only to such Kings as from a hatred to their Countrey design its Destruction and utter Ruine but as he confesseth himself Id vix accidere potest in Rege mentis compote and consequently can take only place in a mad Man in which Case all Laws allow the Kingdom to be rul'd by Governours and Administrators in the King's Name if the Madness be Natural and a total depravation of Sense But if by Madness be mean'd a moral Madness and design to ruine the Kingdom and the Subjects as was and is most impiously pretended against King CHARLES the first and King CHARLES the 2 d the best and most reasonable of Kings then Opposition in such Cases is not at all warranted by Grotius who speaks only of a Physical and Natural Madness for else every thing that displeaseth the People should be call'd Madness and so the exception should not limit but overturn the general rule and should arm all Subjects to rebel against their Princes and make them the Soveraign Judges in all Cases Which is inconsistent with Grotius's own Doctrine and is excellently refuted by his own Reasons The fifth relates only to Kings who by the fundamental Laws of the Kingdom are ty'd to such and such Conditions so as that if they fall in them they may be oppos'd The sixth relates only to Kingdoms where the Power is equally devided betwixt the King and the Senate The seventh is incase the King was at first invested by the People with express reservation to them to resist in such and such Cases and so is almost the same with the fifth and all these three differ little from the first And with Grotius good leave they err also in this that they are not properly exceptions from his own rule for the rule being only that Supream Powers cannot be resisted these Powers are not Supream and they needed not be caution'd by an exception since they did not fall under the rule But neither of these Cases extend to us since our King is by the Acts of Parliament fomerly cited declared to be Supream over all Persons and in all Causes nor made our Predecessors any such express reservations at the first erection of the Monarchy and consequently by Grotius own positive
IVS REGIVM Or the Just and Solid FOUNDATIONS OF MONARCHY In General and more especially of the MONARCHY of SCOTLAND Maintain'd against Buchannan Naphthali Dolman Milton c. BY Sir GEORGE MACKENZIE His Majesties Advocat 1 Sam. 10.26 27. 26. And there went with Saul a band of men whose hearts God had touched 27. But the Children of Belial said how shall this man save us and they despis'd him and brought him no presents but he held his peace EDINBVRGH Printed by the Heir of Andrew Anderson Printer to His most Sacred Majesty Anno DOM. 1684. The Design BVchannans Book De Iure Regni being lately Translated and many Copies dispers'd His Majesties Advocat in Duty to the King and Compassion to the People who are thus like to be poison'd has Written this Answer which was necessary notwithstanding of the Learn'd Answers made by Barclay and Blackwood since beside that theirs are in Latin and so not useful to the people it is conceiv'd they understood not fully our Law nor was our Law so clear then as now Many Arguments have been invented since their time by Dolman Milton Nephthaly c. And Experience has open'd our Eyes much since their time Blackwoods Arguments are Calculated for the Romish Church and Barclay has mistaken essential Points Theirs run upon History and Philology This upon our Law the Laws of Nations Reason and Conveniency And I am afraid it will be said that there are too many new thoughts in mine ERRATA Page 90. For Pliny Read Tacitus TO THE UNIVERSITIE OF OXFORD THe King my Master and His Royal Brother being by their natural goodness inclin'd to Pardon all Crimes except Flattery and by their Modesty to think all that Flattery which can be justly said of them I could not in prudence Dedicat this Book to Them since the first Part of it concerns the Right of the Monarchy and the second the Right of the Successor And therefore since to Support a Crown is the next Honour to the Bearing it this Dedication was due to you who have both in the last Rebellion and this Factious Age maintain'd the Royal Interest so learn'dly and generously Your late Decisions against the Fanaticks have almost made my Reasonings useless for your Authority will weigh as much as any privat mans Arguments And what should have more credit amongst men than an illustrious Company of Learn'd and pious Divines deciding for their Duty and Conscience against their Interest and Vanity Men who wish for no Crown save in Heaven and desire no power save over their own Lusts and Passions To the Episcopal Church God hath fulfilled that promise of making Kings their Nursing Fathers The true Heirs and best Scholars of the Primitive Church happier than it in this that they can practise its vertues without its necessities and need not Poverty to make them humble nor Armies to make them Loyal And who in it are so happy as you who can be submissive without being Slaves Firm without being Opiniatre Zealous without being Cruel and Pious without being Bigot To whom I cannot wish greater blessings than that your Fame may grow as great as your Loyalty That your Vniversitie may continue prosperous till an other grow more Learn'd and that all honest men may be as ready to serve you as Your sincere Welwisher and humble Servant Geo. Mackenzie THE Just Right OF MONARCHY In General but more especially of the KINGS of SCOTLAND asserted against Buchannan and others LVCIFER might in Reason have contented himself with that share of Knowledge Glory and Power which was bestowed upon him by his Almighty and Bountiful Soveraign And Adam should have rested satisfied with the Glory of having been made after the Image of God and with the being his Lieutenant in this lower World But there are such strong Charms in Ambition and Vanitie that the one resolved to hazard all that he possessed as being second rather than not try if he could be the first and the other desiring to improve his present share forefeited those Excellencies which he enjoyed How jealous then should frail and fallen man be in debates with those whom the Almighty has appointed to be his Vicegerents amongst them and to whom he has said Ye are Gods And how hard is it for us to Conquer that Vice which the one could not resist though he was all Light and the other though he was all Innocence What Nations under Heaven were so happie as we under the Reign of King Charles the First Secure against all Invasion from abroad by the situation of our Countrey and from all Oppression at home by its Laws and the gracious Concessions of our excellent Monarchs But more especially in that Age by the innat Vertues of that King who was severe to none but to himself and whose Prerogatives no Laws could bound so much as His own Goodness did And yet wearie with the burden of our own prosperity we lusted after new improvements of Liberty and Property And after we had emptied our own Veins and Purses in fighting for these all we gained was to be Slaves and Beggars And having kill'd for Religion a King who had more of it than all who fought against him we split our own Church into a thousand pieces and from its murthered Body did arise those Sectarians like so many Worms and Insects But yet God Almighty desiring to try us once more and make us for ever inexcusable did not only deliver us from that Slavery that we had drawn upon our selves but because we were all Crimes he gave us a King who was all Clemencie and who deserves to have been Elected if he had not been born our King And yet after that he had also condescended to all our new Extravagancies and that by His Conduct all Sciences flourish and Trade is so increased that Riches are become a Plague We are now troubled with Jealousies because we can be troubled with nothing else And murmuring against the gentlest and best of Kings we are tormented daily with Apparitions Visions Plots Pamphlets and Libels But under whom can we expect to be free from Arbitrary Government when we were and are afraid of it under King Charles the First and King Charles the Second And what King or Government can be secure from those who Conspire the death of this most merciful Prince and of this so ancient and so well moulded Government Amongst the other wicked Instruments in these Rebellions I must confess that our Countrey-men Buchannan one of the chief Ornaments and Reproaches of his native Countrey the Authors of Lex Rex Naphtali and Ius Populi Vindicatum have been Ring-leaders who have endeavoured extreamly to poison this Nation by perswading the People 1. That our Monarchs derive their Rights from them 2. That therefore since they derive their Right from the People they are accountable to them for for their Administration and consequently they may be suspended or deposed by them 3. That the People may Reform without them
and may rise in Arms against them if the Monarch hinder them to Reform 4. That the People or their Representatives may seclude the Lineal Successor and raise to the Throne any of the Royal Family who doth best deserve the Royal Dignity These being all matters of Right the plain and easie way which I resolve to take for refuting them so as the learned and unlearned may be equally convinced shall be first by giving a true account of what is our present positive Law 2. By demonstrating that as our present positive Law is inconsistent with these Principles so these our positive Laws are excellently well founded upon the very nature of Monarchy and that those Principles are inconsistent with all Monarchy And the third Class of my Arguments shall be from the Principles of common Reason Equity and Government abstracting both from the positiveness of our Law and the nature of our Monarchy And in the last place I shall answer the Arguments of those Authors As to the first I conceive that a Treatise De Iure Regni apud Scotos should have clear'd to us what was the power of Monarchs by Law and particularly what was the positive Law of Scotland as to this point for if these points be clear by our positive Law there is no further place for debate since it is absolutely necessary for Mankind especially in matters of Government that they at last acquiesce in something that is fix'd and certain and therefore it is very well observed by Lawyers and States-men that before Laws be made men ought to reason but after they are made they ought to obey which makes me admire how Buchannan and the other Authors that I have named should have adventur'd upon a Debate in Law not being themselves Lawyers and should have written Books upon that Subject without citing one Law Civil or Municipal pro or con Nor is their Veracity more to be esteemed than their Learning for it 's undenyable that Buchannan wrot this Book De Iure Regni to perswade Scotland to raise his Patron though a Bastard to the Crown and the Authors of Lex Rex Ius Populi Vindicatum and others were known to have written those Libels from picque against the Government because they justly suffered under it I know that to this it may be answered That these Statutes are but late and were not extant in Buchanans time and consequently Buchanan cannot be Redargu'd by them 2. That these Statutes have been obtain'd from Parliaments by the too great influence of their Monarchs and the too great Pusillanimity of Parliaments who could not resign the Rights and Priviledges of the People since they have no Warrand from them for that effect To the first of which I answer that my Task is not to form an Accusation against Buchanan but against his Principles and to demonstrat that these Principles are not our Law but are inconsistent with it and it is ridiculous to think that any such Laws should have been made before these Treasonable Principles were once hatched and maintained for Errors must appear before they be condemned and by the same Argument it may be as well urged that Arius Nestorius c. were not Hereticks because those Acts of General Councils which condemned their Heresies were not extant when they first defended those opinions and that our King had not the power of making Peace and War till the Year 1661 But 2 dly For clearing this Point it is fit to know that our Parliaments never give Prerogatives to our Kings but only declare what have been their Prerogatives and particularly in these Statutes that I shall Cite the Parliament doth not Confer any New Right upon the King but only acknowledge what was Originally his Right and Prerogative from the beginning and therefore the Parliament being the only Judges who could decide whether Buchannans Principles were solid and what was Ius Regni apud Scctor These Statutes having decided those points contraverted by him there can be hereafter no place for Debate and particularly as to Buchannan his Book De jure Regni apud Scotos it is expresly condemn'd as Slanderous and containing several offensive Matters by the 134 Act Parl. 8. Ia. 6. in Anno 1584. which was the first Parliament that ever sat after his Book was printed To the 2 d I answer that it being controverted what is the Kings Power there can be no stronger Decision of that Controversie in Favours of the King than the acknowledgment of all Parties Interested and it is strange and unsufferable to hear such as appeal to Parliaments cry out against their Power their Justice and Decisions and why should we oppress our Kings and raise Civil Wars whereby we endanger so much our selves to procure powers to Parliaments if Parliaments be such ridiculous things as we cannot trust when they are empowered by us and if there be any force in this answer of Buchannans there can be none in any of our Laws for that strikes at the Root of all our Laws and as I have produced a Tract of reiterated Laws for many Years so where were there ever such free unlimited Parliaments in any Nation as these whose Laws I have Cited 2 dly Whatever might be said if a positive Contract betwixt the King and People were produced clearing what were the just Limits of the Monarchy and bounding it by clear Articles mutually agreed upon yet it is very absurd and extravagant to think that when the Debate is what is the King of Scotlands just Power and Right and from whom he Derives it that the Laws and repeated Acknowledgements of the whole Representatives of the People assembled in the Supream Court of the Nation having no open force upon it but enacted at several times in many several Parliaments under the gentlest peaceablest and wisest Kings that ever they had should not be better believed than the Testimonies of three or four byass'd and disoblig'd Pedants who understood neither our Laws nor Statutes and who can bring no clear fundamental Law nor produce no Contract nor Paction restricting the King or bounding his Government 3 dly That which adds a great deal of Authority to this Debate and these Statutes is that as this is clear by our positive Law so it is necessarly inferred from the nature of our Monarchy and is very advantagious for the Subjects of this Kingdom which I shall clear in the second and third Arguments that I shall bring against these Treasonable Principles nor can they be seconded by any solid Reason as I shall make appear in answering the Arguments of those Authors I know that Nephthaly the Author of Ius populi and our late Fanatical Pamphlets alleadge that our Parliaments since 1661 are null and unlawful because many who have Right to sit as Members or to Elect Members were secluded by the Declaration or Test But my answer is First That these were excluded by Acts of Parliament which were past in Parliaments prior to their exclusion
and so they were excluded by Law and no man can be said to be illegally excluded from his Seat in Parliament who is excluded by a clear Statute 2 dly If this were not a good answer then the Papists might pretend that they are unjustly excluded because they will not take the Oath of Supremacy and because they are Papists and how can the Fanaticks pretend to make this objection since they by the same way excluded the Kings Loyal Subjects in the Year 1647. and 1649. c. Or how would these Authors have rail'd at any Malignant for using this Argument against them which they use now most impudently against us with far less justice for their Parliaments were unjust upon other Heads as being inconsistent with the fundamental Laws of the Kingdom and so their acts of exclusion were null in themselves 3 dly All the Statutes made since 1661. are necessary consequences of former Laws and so are rather renewed than new Laws 4 ly If this were allow'd there could be no end of controversie for all who are excluded would still alleadge that they were unjustly excluded and consequently there could be no submission to Authority and so no Society nor Peace The last answer that our Dissenters make when they are driven from all their other grounds is that they though the lesser are yet the sounder part of the Nation but this shift does not only overturn Monarchy but establishes Anarchy and though they were once settl'd in their beloved Commonwealth this would be sufficient to overturn it also for every little number of Dissenters nay and even the meanest Dissenter himself might pretend to be this sounder part of the Common-wealth but God Almighty foreseeing that pride or ignorance would suggest to frail Mankind this principle so inconsistent with all that Order and Government whereby he was to preserve the World he did therefore in his great Wisdom convince men by the Light of their own Reason that in matters of common concern which were to be determined by Debate the greater number should determine the lesser and such as drive beyond this Principle shall never find any certain Point at which they may rest and by the same Reason the Law has pronunc'd it safer to rest in what is decided though it be unjust than to cast loose the authority of Decisions upon which the peace and quiet of the Common-wealth does depend who would be so humble and just as to confess that his Adversary has the juster side Or who would obey if this were allow'd And what Idea of Government or Society could a man form to himself allowing once this principle It is also very observable that those who pretend to be the sounder part and deny obedience upon that account are still the most insolent and irregular of all the Society the greatest admirers of themselves and the greatest enemies to peace and so the unfitest to be Judges of what is the sounder part though they were not themselves parties But what pretence is there for that Plea in this case where the foundations of our Monarchy have been unanimously acknowledg'd by many different Parliaments in many different Ages chosen at first from the Dictats of Reason and confirm'd after we had in many Rebellions found how dangerous all those popular pretences are and in which we agree with the Statsmen Lawers and Divines of all the well Govern'd Nations under Heaven who are born under an hereditary Monarchy as it is confess'd we are To return then to the first of those Points I lay down as my first position that our Monarchs derive not their Right from the People but are absolute Monarchs deriving their Royal Authority immediatly from God Almighty and this I shall endeavour to prove first from our positive Law By the 2. Act Par. 1. Ch. 2 d. in which it is declar'd That His Majesty His Heirs and Successors have for ever by vertue of that Royol Power which they hold from God Almighty over this Kingdom the sole choice and appointment of Officers of State Counsellors and Judges But because this Act did only assert that our Kings did hold their Royal Power from God but did not exclude the people from being sharers in bestowing this Donative therefore by the 5 th Act of that same Parliament they acknowledge the Obligation lying on them in Conscience Honour and Gratitude to own and assert the Royal Prerogatives of the Imperial Crown of this Kingdom which the Kings Majesty holds from God Almighty alone and therefore they acknowledge that the Kings Majesty only by vertue of His Royal Prerogative can make Peace and War and Treaties with forraign Princes Because this last Statute did only assert that the King did hold His Imperial Crown from God alone but did not decide from whom our Kings did only derive their Power therefore by the 2 d· Act Par. 3 d Ch. 2 d. It is declar'd that the Estates of Parliament considering that the Kings of this Realm Deriving their Power from God Almighty alone they do succeed Lineally thereto c. Which Statutes do in this agree with our old Law for in the first Chapter of Reg. Magist. vers 3. These Words are That both in Peace and War our Glorious King may so Govern this Kingdom committed to Him by God Almighty in which He has no Superiour but God Almighty alone which Books are acknowledg'd to be our Law and are called the Kings Laws by the 54 th Act Par. 3 d Iam. 1. and the 115. Act Par. 14. Iam. 3. These our Laws both Ancient and Modern can neither be thought to be extorted by force nor enacted by flattery since in this we follow the Scripture the Primitive Church and their Councils the Civil Law and its Commentators and the wisest Heathens both Philosophers and Poets As to the Scripture God tells us That by him Kings Reign and that he hath anointed them Kings and that the King is the Minister of God David tells us That God will give strength to his King and deliverance to his King and to his Anointed Daniel sayes to Nebuchadnezar The God of Heaven hath given thee a Kingdom And to Cyrus God gave to Nebuchadnezar thy Father a Kingdom and for the Majesty that he gave him all Nations trembled As to the Fathers Augustin de Civit. Dei l. 5. c. 21. Let us not attribute unto any other the power of giving Kingdoms and Empyrs but to the true God Basil in Psal. 32. The Lord setteth up Kings and removeth them Tertul apol contra gentes Let Kings know that from God only they have their Empyre and in whose power only they are And Ireneus having prov'd this point fully ends thus l. 5. c. 24. By whose Command they are born men by his likewise they are ordain'd Kings This is also acknowledg'd by the Councils of Toledo 6. c. 14 of Paris 6. c. 5. vid Council aquis gran 3. c. 1. Amongst our late Divines Marca the famous Arch-bishop of Paris
Concord sacerd imperij l. 2. c. 2. n 2. asserts That the Royal Power is not only bestowed by God but that it is immediatly bestow'd by God upon Kings and Refutes Bellarm. â—de laico c. 6. maintaining That the Iesuits Doctrine in this lessens Authority and raises Factions and contradicts both the Design and Word of God Duvalius de suprem potest Rom. Pontif. p. 1. q. 2. Asserts that Kings derive their Rights by the Laws of God and Nature non ab ipsa Republica hominibus and in all this the Fanaticks and Republicans agree with the Jesuits against Monarchy In the Civil Law this is expresly asserted Cod. de vet Cod. enucleand Deo auctore nostrum gubernante imperium quod nobis a coelesti majestate traditum est Nov. 6. in init Nov. 133. in proem in Nov. 80.85 86. Iustinian acknowledges his Obligation to care for his People because he received the Charge of them from God and certainly Subjects are happier if their Kings acknowledge this as a duty to God than if they only think it a Charge confer'd on them by their People and that they are therefore answerable to them That the Doctors and Commentators are of this opinion is too clear to need Citations vid. Arnis cap. de Essentia Majest Granswinkel de jur Maj. cap. 1. 2. As to the Heathens Hesiod in Theog verse 96. sayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Kings are from God Homer sayes their Honour is from God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Iliad 1. verse 197. Themistcus asserts that the Regal Power came from God Orat. 5. with whom agrees Dion Chrisostom Orat. 1. diotog apud Stob. serm c. Plat. in polit c. But above all Aristotle in polit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Plutarch Ages Cleom. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If to these Statutes and Citations it be answered that God Almighty may indeed be the principal and chief Author of Monarchy and that Monarchs may derive their Power from him as from the Supream Beeing that directs all more immediat Causes and yet the People may be the immediat Electors of Monarchs and so Kings may derive immediatly from them their Power and thus these Statutes are not inconsistent with the principle laid down by Buchanan and others whereby they assert that Kings in general and particularly the Kings of Scotland derive their Power immediatly from the People To this my answers are that first if we consider the proprietie of the Words there can be nothing more inconsistent than that Kings should derive their Power from God Almightie alone and yet that they should derive it from the People for the Word Alone is of all other words the most exclusive 2 dly The design of the Parliament in that acknowledgement was to condemn after a long Rebellion the unhappie Principles which had kindled it and amongst which one of the chief was that our Kings derived their Power from the People and therefore they might qualifie or resume what they at first gave or might oppose all Streaches in the Power they had given and might even punish or depose the King when he transgressed none of which Principles could have been sufficiently condemned by acknowledging that though God was the chief Author yet the People were the immediat Electors 3 dly There needed no Act of Parliament be made for acknowledging God to be the chief Author and first Fountain of every Power for that was never contraverted amongst Christians 4 thly That foolish glosse cannot at all consist with the Inferences deduced from that Principle in the former Statutes for in the 2. Act Par. 1. Char. 2. It is inferr'd from His Majesties holding His Royal Power from God alone that therefore he hath the sole choice of his own Officers of State Privy Counsellers and Judges And in the 5. Act it is inferr'd from the same Principle that because he derives his Power from God alone that therefore it is Treason to rise in Arms without his Consent upon any pretext whatsoever And in the 2. Act Par. 3. Char. 2. It is concluded that because our Kings derive their Power from God Almighty alone therefore it is Treason in the People to interrupt or divert their Succession upon any Difference in Religion or other pretext whatsoever whereas all this had been false and inept Reasoning if the design of the Parliament had not been to acknowledge that our Kings derived not their Power from the People for though they derived their Power from God as the supream Beeing only and not as the immediat bestower and if the People were the immediat bestowers of that Power then the People might still have pretended that they who gave the Power might have risen in their own Defence when they saw the same abused and might have diverted the Succession when it descended upon a person who was an enemy to their Interest but how false this glosse is will appear more fully from the following Arguments and it is absolutely inconsistent with St. Augustins opinion formerly cited wherein he forbids to attribute the giving of Kingdoms to any other but to God My second Argument for proving that Kings derive their Power from God alone and not from the People shall be from the principles of Reason For First The Almighties design being to manifest his Glory in Creating a World so vast and regular as this is and his goodnesse in Governing it and that Men might live peaceably in it having both Reason and Time to Serve him it was consequential that he should have reserved to himself the immediat dependence of the supream Power to preclude the extravagant and restlesse multitude from those frequent Revolutions which they would make and Desolations which they would occasion if they thought that the supream Power depended on them and that they were not bound to obey them for Conscience sake so that those expressions in Scripture were very useful in this to curb our Insolencies and to fix our restlesnesse and it seems that Kings are in Scripture said to be gods to the end it might be clear that they were not made by Men· 2 dly God Almighty being King of Kings it was just that as inferiour Magistrats derived their Power from the King so Kings should derive their Power from God who is their King and this seems to be clear from that analogy which runs in a Dependence and Chain through the whole Creation 3 dly As this is most suitable to the principles of Reason so it is most consonant the analogy of Law by which it is declar'd that no Man is master of his own Life or Limbs nemo est Dominus membrorum suorum and therefore as no Man can lawfully take away his own Life so neither can he transfer the power of disposing upon it to any other Man and consequently this Power is not derived to Kings and Princes by privat Men but is bestowed upon them by God Almighty who is the sole Arbiter of Life and Death and
King is Supream in himself and accountable to none save God Almighty alone But more of this will be found in the Sequel of this Discourse upon other occasions 8 ly Whatever proves Monarchy to be an excellent Government does by the same Reason prove absolute Monarchy to be the best Government for if Monarchy be to be commended because it prevents Divisions then a limited Monarchy which allows the people a share is not to be commended because it occasions them if Monarchy be commended because there is more expedition secresie and other excellent Qualities to be found in it then absolute Monarchy is to be commended above a limited one because a limited Monarch must impart his secrets to the people and must delay the noblest designs until malitious and factious Spirits be either gain'd or overcome And the same anallogy of Reason will hold in reflecting upon all other advantages of Monarchy the Examination whereof I dare trust to every mans own breast 9 ly It was fit for the People that their Kings should be above Law because the severity of Law will not comply with that useful tho illegal Justice which is requisit in special cases for since summum jus is summa injuria and since impossibile est sola innocentia vivere we may well conclude that absolute Monarchy is necessary to protect the guilty innocent by Remissions to break Laws justly in a Court of Chancery and to crook them uprightly in our Courts by an officium nobile For strict and rigid Law is a greater Tyrant than absolute Monarchy I know that some pretend that the 25. Act 15. Par. Ia. 6. declaring the King to be an absolute Prince is only to be interpreted in opposition to the Popes Authority he being so far absolute only as not to be Subject to the Pope who pretended then a Jurisdiction over all Kings But the answers to this are clear First This Statute is made to declare the Kings of Scotland to have Right by their Inherent Prerogative to their exacting Customs for all Merchandice because they are absolute Monarchs which Argument had been ridiculous if this absoluteness had only been in opposition to the Pope nor is there any mention of the Pope in all this Statute and what interest hath the Pope in our Customs 2 dly When the Kings power is by our Statutes rais'd above the Pope it is done by declaring him Supream and not by declaring him absolute 3 dly All Lawyers and States-men divide Monarchies in absolute and limited Monarchies and the word Absolute is still taken in opposition to limited as is clear by Arnisaeus Bodin c. And whereas it is pretended that these words in this Statute acknowledging the King to be absolute are only exprest transiently and enunciatively but are not Decisive and Statutory It is answered that our Parliaments never give our Kings Prerogatives but only acknowledge what our Kings have by an Inherent and Independent Right and these words in this Statute are of all others in our Laws exprest with most of Energy for they are usher'd with It cannot be deny'd but His Majesty has as great Liberties and Prerogatives as any Monarch whatsoever and this acknowledgment is made the Foundation of His Right to exact Customs And in true Reasoning nothing is made the proposition of an Argument but that which is most uncontrovertable I foresee that our Fanaticks and Republicans will be ready to mis-represent absolute Monarchy as Tyrany But a Tyrant is he who has no Right to Govern and so he may be oppos'd as the common Enemy of all the Society And it is ridiculous to pretend with Hobs That we are oblig'd to obey whoever is once in possession for that were to invite men to Torment us and to justifie Crimes by success Nor can it be from this deduc'd that since it is lawful to oppose any who are in Possession that it is therefore lawful to oppose our Monarchy because they have as Algernon Sidney pretends· Vsurpt over us a power inconsistent with our natural Liberty And owe their Right to that Prescription which the greatest Tyrants may maintain by force and to that consent which they may procure by Violence or Flattery For to this I answer That our Monarchs have their power establisht by Birth-right by Consent by Prescription and by Law which are all the wayes whereby any Right can be legally Establisht But it is a gross mistake in Buchannan and others to conclude a lawful King punishable as a Tyrant because he becomes vitious For though God may punish him as such yet his People cannot that were to raise the Servant above the Master and to occasion a thousand Disorders to redress one and when King Iames acknowledges that a good King thinks Himself made for his People and not His People for Him That is only said with reference to the Kings duty to God but not with Relation to the Peoples Duty to their King And when Trajan delivering the Sword to the Proconsul said Pro me si mereor in me Grotius observes justly That this was spoke as a Philosopher and not to subject himself to the others jurisdiction And so Buchannan did most traiterously advise the Printing this on our Coin Nor do's this Title of absolute Monarch empower him to dispose upon our Estates For it is fit to know that Government is the Kings and Property is the Subjects Birth-right Monarchy is a Government and so can include no more than what is necessary for Government And though the Turk or Mogul arrogat to themselves the total Property of their Subjects in this they are Tyrants and not Kings And when our Statute above-mentioned says That our Kings have as much power as they this is only to be understood of what Right they have by the Nature of Monarchy Rex nomen est jurisdictionis non dominij say the Lawyers For the Law having said that all things were the Emperours l bene a Zenone § Sed scimus C. de Quadr Praescript The Emperor asked the famous Lawyer Bulgarus in what sense all was his who is mightily prais'd for having answer'd Omnia Rex possidet imperio singuli dominio Accurs in praem ff in Verb Sanctioni For what is once ours cannot be taken away without our consent And therefore by the 5. Act 1. Par. Ch. 2. It is declared lawful for the King to make Garisons His Majesty entertaining them on His own expence And by the Act 3. Par. 3. Ch 2. It is declared that the people shall not be subject to free Quarter c. And yet right reason teacheth us that all the Land of Scotland having been once the Kings for the Law saith that the King is Safitus ratione Coronae in all the Lands of Scotland His Majesty is therefore presumed Proprietar of all and every thing belongs to him if some other cannot instruct a right which is the sense of that Law Nemo terram nisi authoritate Regiâ possideto And of King Malcolm
Canmor's Law that Rex distribuit totam Terram Scotiae hominibus suis. And it therefore clearly follows that the King has Dominium directum a right of Superiority as all Superiors have and that the people on whom he has bestowed these Lands are oblig'd to concur in the expence with him for the defence of it For as if he had retain'd the Property he would have been able with the Fruits and Rents to have defended it So it is not agreeable to sense or reason that they to whom he has granted it should not be oblig'd to defend it especially seing all the Rights made by the King are in Law presum'd meer Donations For it cannot be deny'd but that all Lands were originally granted by the King and so must have originally belong'd to himself for no person can give what is not his own and our Law acknowledgeth that all Lands belong to the King except where the present Heretor can instruct a Right flowing from our King and that he is the Fountain of Property as well as of Justice 2. In Law all who are ingag'd in a Society as to any thing that is the subject of the Society should contribute to its preservation and therefore the King having the Dominium directum and the Vassal Dominium ut ile it follows that the Vassals of the Kingdom should contribute towards its preservation and the King may expect justly an equal Contribution towards the defraying the necessary expence and thence it was that by our old Law all Heretors were obliged to furnish some unum Militem unum Sagittarium or Equitem Some a Bow-man some a Souldier some a Horse-man But thereafter the King having changed these Holdings because all betwixt 60. and 16. were obliged to come to the Field with 40. days Provision which was all that was then necessary it follows that now that way of making War being altered the Subjects should contribute towards the way that is necessary for defending the Kingdom 3. The King by His Forces protects our Persons and by His Navies protects our Commerce by His Ambassadors manages all our publick Affairs and by His Officers and Judges administrates Justice to us And so it is just that all this should be done on our expences and that we should defray the publick expences of the Government and so much the rather because by a special Statute with us it is declared that the King may impose what He pleases on all that is Imported or may discharge us to export any thing without which we could not live and what ever he gets from us he distributes amongst us without applying one shilling of it to his own private use The King or whoever has the management of the Government have in the opinion of Lawyers Dominium eminens a Paramount and transcendent Right over even private Estates in case of necessity when the common Interest cannot be otherwise maintained and this Grotius though no violent friend of Monarchy doth assert ve ry positively and clearly and it cannot be denied that a King may take any mans Lands and build a Garrison upon it paying for it and that in case of a Siege the King may order whole Suburbs to be burnt down for the security of the Town And whence is this power save from that Paramount and Supereminent Right that the King has over all private Estates for the good of the whole So. ciety and Kingdom Nor can it be denyed that the King may in time of War Quarter freely and it is in his power to declare War when or where he pleases Nor do the former Statutes oppose this for they exclude not necessity that has no Law and is it self that Law which gave David right to eat the Shew-bread and the Christian Emperours right to sell the Goods of the Church for maintaining their Armies with consent of the Primitive Fathers and this is so necessarily inherent in all administration that the very Master of a Ship has power to throw over the Goods of Passengers and Merchants in a storm for the preservation of the Ship And they are not enemies to the King but to themselves who would deny the King this power The third Class of Arguments that I am to use against these principles shall be from Reason and Experience in Fortification and Corroboration of our positive Law and the nature of our Monarchy for since humane Reason it self is lyable to so many Errors and since men when they differ are so wedded to their own Sentiments that few are so wise as to see their own mistakes or so ingenuous as to confess them when they see them Therefore prudence and necessity has obliged men to end all Debates by making Laws and it is very great vanity and Insolence in any private men to ballance their own private Sense against the publick Laws that is to say the Authoritative Sentiments and the legal Sense of the Nation If we were then to Establish a new Monarchy were it not prudent and reasonable for us to consider what were the first Motives which induced our Predecessors to a Monarchy and Boethius and Lesly both tell us that least they might be distracted by obeying too many it was therefore fit to submit to one if then this Reason was of force at first to make us submit to a Monarchy it should still prevail with us to obey that Monarchy and not gape idlely after every new Model Ne multos Reges sibi viderentur creare summam rerum aut optimatibus aut ipsi multitudini permittere aspernabantur sayes Boethius fol 6. Here the advantages of being Governed by Aristocracie or Democracie were expresly considered and rejected so that we have our Predecessors choice founded on their way of Reasoning added to the Authority of our Law and after we their Successors had seen the mischiefs arising from the pretences of Liberty and Property with all the advantages that seeming Devotion could add to these Our Representatives after two thousand years experience and after a fresh Idaea of a long civil War wherein these Arguments and Reasons adduced by Buchannan were fortified and seconded by thousands of Debates They did by many passionate Confessions and positive Laws acknowledge that the present Constitution of our Monarchy is most excellent Act 1. Par 1. ch 2 d. That inevitable prejudices and miseries do accompany the invading the Royal Prerogative Act 4. That all the troubles and miseries they had suffered had sprung from these Invasions Act 11. That all the bondage they had groaned under was occasioned by these Distractions Act 2. Par. Sess 2. Ch. 2. So that we have here also a Series of Parliaments attesting the reasonableness of the Constitution of our Monarchy and His Majesties Prerogatives 2. We must not conclude any thing unreasonable or unfit because there are some inconveniencies in it for all humane Constitutions have their own defects But I dare say the principles of my Adversaries have moe than mine for common-wealths are
not only subject to erre because they have their passions as well as King but they are subject to moe passions for 1. These who Govern in Common-wealthes and Aristocrasies have Rivals whom they fear and against whom upon that account they bear Revenge which Kings want 2 They are not so much concerned in these they Govern as Kings the one considering the Common Interest as a Tennent does Lands of which he takes his present advantage though he should destroy it the other caring for it as a Proprietar does for his own Ground the one Jading it as a Man does a hired Horse the other using it as a Man does his own 3. The people are ordinarly Governed by these who are the worst of men for these ordinarly can flatter and cheat most and can best use the Hypocrites Vizorn Whereas the best Men ordinarly are abstemious modest and love a private Life and were there ever such Villains as Governed us in the last Age And in this too can we deny but our pretenders to Liberty and Property are the Cheats of the Nation Who to be in Employment hate such as are in it or are such as are discontented for being put out of it or are Bankrupts who resolve to make up their broken Fortunes by it 4. Even good Men when they are raised to Govern grow Insolent of which Princes are not capable for they are still the same 5. Kings and Princes know they will be Charged with what they do but the multitude knows that the publick in general and not any one Man will be blamed and so every private Man thinks himself secure whilst he shifts it over on another or else lessens it by dividing it amongst many 6. They are very subject to Factions most Men scorning to obey their fellow Subjects and when they are in Factions who knows whom to obey and those Factions will again subdivide in new ones and so in infinitum and when either prevails they spare none because their opposits are Enemies But Kings pity even Rebels remembring that they are their own And I dare say that moe were Murthered and Ruined in one year of the last Reforming Age than suffered by the great Turk the Mogul and the King of France in twenty years And more severity was exercised in one year by these Reformers than by all this Race of our Kings these 600. years 7. If it be said that Kings have ill Ministers so have Common-wealths and we observ'd in Scotland that after we had taken from our King the Prerogative of chusing Judges and Counsellours our Parliament did the next year choose the greatest Block-heads and Idiots in all the Nation whom the Ring-leaders advanced to the end they might Govern all themselves to which Cheat Kings cannot be lyable it being their Interest to have able Ministers And whereas Kings have no Interest to prefer one to another yet in popular Governments every one endeavours to prefer his own Relations 8. In difficult Cases haste and expedition requires that one should be trusted and even the Romans behoved in great dangers to imploy a Dictator who was accountable to no man for any thing he did 9. There can be no Secrecy in popular Governments as in Monarchy and what many must know all may 10. Enemies may alwayes get some in popular Governments to side with them and upon specious pretexts to retard all good Designs and when popular men are Debating for shadows the occasion slips away irrecoverably 11. Either Common-wealths imploy no extraordinary persons being ever jealous or if any man become such by great Actions or long Experience he is presently ruined And it is observable in this Age that the great Zobieskie durst never undertake any great thing since he became King of Pole And if we consider the severity of Venice against their Nobles and their Executing Men without citing or hearing them and that upon meer jealousies We must confess that there is less Liberty there than under the worst of Monarchies nor was ever any people so miserable as Rome during their Republick having been ruined in every age with civil Wars and having had no great man who died not miserably after many false and popular Accusations and did not de Witt find little of that Justice which he magnified in Republicks But whatever may be said against the inconveniencies arising from the passions humours and insolencies of the Populace in Common-wealths yet much more may be said against the allowing that Prerogative to them under a Monarchy for that were to Distract for ever the Government betwixt two contradictory Supream Powers and make the People miserable in not knowing whom to obey when they differ and to make Government which should defend against a Civil War become the cause of it for how can it be in reason expected but that if the People know they can controle the King ambitious and discontented Ring-lerders or ignorant and bigote Multitudes will be alwayes endeavouring to use this their Prerogative since it seems alwayes glorious and oft times advantagious to oppose Kings whereas on the other hand Kings cannot but be alwayes jealous of and fear popular Invasions and both these Powers shall like Neighbouring Princes be alwayes endeavouring to gain advantages upon one another and in these Contests shall be spent all the time and pains that should be bestowed in resisting the Common Enemy which cannot but very much lessen the Love which Princes ought to have for their People and the Respect which People ought to have for their Prince and how can it be imagined but that in this case the People shall alwayes groan under greater misfortunes then these which they felt betwixt the Bruce and the Baliol the King and Queen Pretended Factions in the Minority of K. Iames 6. and the Houses of Lancaster and York because the one can never end being inherent in the nature of the Government whereas the other are but accidental and temporary All which cannot but appear very probable as well as dreadful to those who consider the late Rebellion wherein the People pretending that the King had violated their Liberties they murder'd and pillag'd all such as were not of their Opinion and after they had ruin'd their Prince the People divided and fought one against another the greater part pretending they ought to be obeyed because of their numbers and the lesser pretending that they were the sounder part and had the better Cause and it is impossible in such a case to find a Judge of Controversies Which is another unanswerable Argument against the Peoples Supremacy by which all they can gain is an endless Liberty of ruining one another without hope of Redress Nor can Parliaments remedy this for we have seen opposite Parliaments Sitting at the same time Forfeiting one another whilst the astonished Multitude stood at a Gaze not knowing whom to obey and praying that God would Re-establish our lawful Monarchy with which when it was Miraculously Restored they were so
special priviledge from the King and there is nothing considered to capacitate them to sit but the Force and Energie of that Priviledge without respect either to what Land they possess or what number of People they represent And thus the Nobility and Bishops sit there by vertue of the Kings Creation and the King may Creat a hundreth Noblemen that morning that the Parliament is to sit though none of all the hundreth have not one foot of Land in Scotland and though the Barons must have some Land else they cannot Represent any Shire yet though a Gentleman had 5000. pounds Sterling a year he could not sit there except he be the Kings immediate Vassal and holds his Lands of His Majesty in capite So that he sits not by vertue of his Land but as Capacitated by the King And though these who Represent the Burrows Royal are Commissionated by the people of their Burghs yet the people who sent them are not considered in that Commission but the power only which the King gives them to send For though a Town had a hundreth thousand Inhabitants and another only twenty Inhabitants yet these 100000 could not be Re-presented in Parliament except the King had Erected their Town in a Burgh Royal From which I evince two things 1. That the Parliament is the Kings Council in which he may call any He pleases and not as the peoples Representatives only since there are great multitudes in the Nation Represented by none there For tho they Represent their Constituents in Parliament yet the power of sending Representatives is derived from the King Originally and flowes not from any proper Right inherent in those whose Representatives they are 2. That Judicature cannot have a Co-ordinat power with the King which He needs not Call except He pleases and which He can Dissolve when He pleases and in which when they are Met He has a Negative Voice which can stop all their Proposals and Designs For if they were Co-ordinat with the King then par in parem non habet imperium and it is against common Sense to think that these two can be equal when the power of the one flows from the other By which is likewise clear that the great principle laid down by Buchannan viz. That the King is Singulis Major universis Minor greater than any one but less than the collective Body of the Parliament taken together is absolutely false because he has a Negative Voice over that collective Body and as they cannot Meet without him so he can Dissolve them when he pleases and I confesse it seems to me unintelligible how they can be greater than the King by vertue of a power which they Derive from the King 4. The Parliament is called by the Kings Council as is clear from the Inscriptions of all our old Parliaments Thus the Statutes of Alexander the 2. begin Alexander By the Grace of God King of Scots did by the Common Council of his Earls Decree c. The Statutes of K. Robert bear to be by the Common Council of his Prelats c. The first Statute of King Robert 2. Bears that none who is Elected to be of the Kings Council shall bring another to it who is not Elected The 8 and 13. Parliaments of K. Ia. 1. And the 2 3 4 and 7. of K. Ia. 2. Bear for Inscriptions The Parliament or general Council of such Kings And the 1. Act of that 8. Parliament K. Ia. 1. Bears Quo Die Dominus Rex deliberatione consensu totius Concilij c. And it is against Sense to think that any mans Counsel can have Authority over him for as we say Counsel is no Command 5. The Parliament was but the Kings Baron Court as is very clear to any man who will read the old Registers of Parliament in which he will see that the Parliament was Fenc'd and the Suits were called and Absents Unlawed as in other Baron Courts whereof many publick Records are extant and I shall only set down that of the 8. Parliament Ia. 1. The words of which Inscription are In Parliamento octavo vel Concilio generali Illustrissimi Principis Iacobi Dei gratia Regis Scotiaetento apud Perth inchoato tificato approbato tanquam sufficienter debite praemunito per tres Regni Status duodecimo die mensis Julij Anno Domini millesimo quadringentesimo vicesimo octavo cum continuatione dierum temporum summoniâ—is vocatis debito modo more solito Episcopis Abbatibus prioribus Comitibus Baronibus omnibus libere tenentibus qui tenent in capite de dicto Domino nostro Rege de quolibet burgo regni certis burgensibus comparentibus omnibus illis qui debuerunt voluerunt potuerunt interesse quibusdam vero absentibus quorum quidam fuerunt legitime excusati aliis per contumaciam se absentantibus quorum nomina patent in rotulis sectarum quorum quilibet adjudicatus fuit in amerciamento decem librarum ob ejus contumaciam And that the King was Judge what Barons should come to the Parliament is most clear by the 75. Act Par. 14. Ia. 2. whereby it is declared no Free-holder under the sum of 20. pounds shall come except he be specially called by the King either by his Officer or by Writ and tho afterwards the King allowed two Barons of every Shire to be sent to Represent all the Barons for saving Expences yet even after that Concession it is declared by the 78. Act Par. 6. Ia. 4. That no Free-holder be compelled to come but gif our Soveraign Lord Writ specially for them It being thus clear that the Parliament is the Kings Baron Court it seems a wonder to me how it could have entered into the heart of any sober man to think that any mans Baron Court but much lesse the Kings Baron Court should have power and jurisdiction over him and that it should be lawful to them as Buchannan and these other Authors assert to punish him or lay him aside all which assertions are equally impious and illegal 6. When the King resolves to lessen any way his own Power this is not done by the Authority of the three Estates as certainly it would be if they had the power to lessen his Authority but the King does the same from his own proper Motive as when the King binds up his own Hands from granting Remissions in cases of fore-thought Fellony Ia. 4. Par. 6. Act 63. And when an Act was to be made discharging the Lords of the Session to admit of privat Writings from the King to stop the procedure of Justice this is not Enacted by the three Estates but only by the King and is founded upon the Kings own Promise Act 92. Par. 6. Ia. 6. And in all Acts of Parliament the King only Statutes as Legislator and the Parliament only Advise and Consent which shews that they are not Co-ordinat with the King as is asserted by Buchannan and others much lesse
pretexts of rising in Arms against the lawful Monarch but our unhappy Countrey-men having by a long and open Rebellion oppos'd the most devout and most just of all Kings upon the false pretexts of Liberty and Religion the Parliament of this Kingdom from a full Conviction of the Villanies of these times and to prevent such dangerous Cheats for the future they did by the 5. Act Par. 1. Char. 2. Declare it to be Treason for any number of his Majesties Subjects to rise in Arms upon any pretext whatsoever and to shew that all such Glosses as were us'd by Buchannan were absurd and did not evacuat the first Laws though general the Parliament did by the 4. Act of that 1. Parliament declare that any Explanation or Glosse that during the late Troubles hath been put upon these Acts as that they are not to be extended against any Leagues Councils Conventions Assemblies or Meetings made holden or kep't by the Subjects for Preservation of the Kings Majesty the Religion Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom or for the publick Good either of Kirk or Kingdom are false and Disloyal and contrare to the true and genuine meaning of these Acts. Which Statute is a clear decision against Buchannan finding that the Statutes that were prior to his time and all other such general Statutes made in favours of the King did formerly strike against his Principles and Distinctions As also to preclude all avenues to Rebellion by teaching defending or encouraging others to Rebel upon these pretexts as the former Act declared that actual rising in Arms was Rebellion So by the 2. Act Sess. 2. Par. 2. Charles 2. It is declared Treason for any Subject to maintain these positions viz. That it is lawful for Subjects upon pretence of Reformation or any other pretence whatsoever to enter into Leagues or Covenants or to take up Arms against the King or any Commissionated by him 2. All the Arguments formerly adduc'd against the power of the Subject to punish his Person do fully prove likewise that they have no power to rise in Arms against him For either the collective Body of the Subjects are Superior to him and if so they may not only rise up in Arms against him but they may punish him but if the King be Superior to them as has been formerly prov'd then it cannot be lawful for Subjects to rise up in Arms against him no more than it is to punish his Person Nor can I see how all such as declare for a Defensive War are not to be concluded guilty of designing to Murther the King for if the King come in Person to defend his own Right as certainly he will and must can it be thought they will shoot at none least they kill him and if they shoot how can they secure his Sacred Person and if they kill him in the Field are they less guilty of his Murther than these Russians who lately design'd it Or doth it lessen the guilt that these design'd to kill him alone privately whereas our moderate men will in face of the Sun and with display'd Banners against God and him kill with him all such as being perswaded that they are obliged before God to assist him expose their lives for their duty 3. That dangerous though specious Principle of defensive Arms is inconsistent with that order of Nature which God has established and which is absolutely necessar amongst all other humane Relations and by the same Analogy by which we allow Subjects to rise against their Prince we may much more allow Children to rise against their Parents Servants against their Masters Souldiers against their Officers and the Rabble against their Magistrates for the King does eminently comprehend all these relations in his Soveraignty as inferiour Branches of that Paramount and Monarchical power And what a glorious state should mankind be left in if Anarchy were thus Established and every man should be invested with power to be his own Judge Or dares any reasonable man assert that this is fit to be allowed in the present condition of Mankind for since the generality of men can scarce be contained in their Duty by the severest Laws that can be made what can be expected from them when they are loosed from all Law and are encouraged to transgress against it If the multitude could prove that they were infallible and that no oppression could be expected from them some thing might be said why we might ballance them with authority But since both Reason and dolefull experience teach us that generally the multitude consists of Knaves and Fools who alter not to the better by Conspiring together nor become juster for being led by such ambitious and discontented Spirits as ordinarly lead on Rebellions It is safer to obey those of the two fallible Governours whom God hath set over us and whom the Law tyes us to obey and to whom also we are bound by the Oath of Allegiance especially seing thus we may probably expect that they will be more careful of us as being their own than meer Strangers who use us only for their own Ends. And at the worst in the King we can have but an ill Master whereas in allowing Subjects to usurp we may fight to get our selves hundreds of Tyrants and these two fighting against one another so that we shall not even know which of these Devils to obey The Arguments that can be adduc'd to justifie this Principle of Defensive Arms are almost answered in the former Article viz. That there is a mutual Obligation betwixt King and people so that when He breaks the one they are free from the other and that all Government is Establisht for the advantage of the People and thus these few Arguments peculiar to this Point remain now only to be here solv'd 1. That self-defence is by the Law of Nature allow'd to all and even to Brutes why then should men who may lose more who deserve better and can use self-defense more innocently be debar'd from it 2. We see in Scripture that the people deserted and oppos'd their Kings for Religion 3. This has been allow'd with us in the instance of King Iames the third against whom his Subjects rose in Rebellion for Mis-governing and oppressing His people and this opposition was first justified by God in the success he gave to their Arms and thereafter by a special and express Act in the ensuing Parliament which stands yet unrepeal'd To which I shortly answer that as to the first of self-defense in Brutes we must still remember that God having design'd Government to bridle the Extravagancies of restless Mankind he has appointed Magistrates to be his Vicegerents and Representatives and has entrusted them with his power and so opposition to them is unlawful because it is not lawful against him and because if it were allow'd all would pretend to it and so there should be no Order nor Government And that this may be the better observ'd God has endowed man with
Principles fitted for these ends of Order and Society amongst which one is That the publick Safety of the whole is to be preferr'd to the Safety of any one man or of any number of private men who are not to be considered as the publick because that is the publick Interest which is the Representative of the Nation and that this Principle may be the better obey'd he has commanded men to suffer injuries rather than occasion Disorders and has promised to reward Patience and Submission for his sake with eternal Life a Nobler Prize than we here can contend for This being then Premis'd It is answered that though Brutes may defend themselves because Order and the common good of Societies are not there concern'd yet there is no reason to extend this to Men whose self-defense against Authority occasions more mischief than it can bring advantage and if this Argument hold it would prove that every man who is unjustly Condemn'd or at least thinks so may kill the King or His Judge Servants might bind their Masters and the people of any private Town might pull down their Judge from the Bench when they thought he opprest them And as these must submit because they expect Reparation from a higher Tribunal So God has promised Reparation to those who suffer for his sake and the greatness and sureness of this Reward makes this no uncomfortable Doctrine and this Submission is as necessary and rather more for mens preservation than Resistance and is a kind of self-defence since opposition to Authority would bring a certain ruine and confusion in which moe would perish than opposition by private self defence would preserve Upon which Christian Principles also Ames a Protestant and Calvinist Divine has resolv'd that In bonis temporalibus tenetur quisque personam publicam siâ—i ipsi praeferre bonum enim totius pluris faciendum est quam bonum alicujus partis Cas conscient l. 5. cap. 7. Thes· 14. and Lex Rex confesses p. 335. That a private man should rather suffer the King to kill him than that he should kill the King because he is not to prefer the Life of a private man to the Life of a publick man And whereas it may be pretended that though this opposition should not be trusted to any private man yet Parliaments and the Collective Body should and may be trusted with it But to this I have answered formerly that all Convocations without Authority from the King and all rising against him are indefinitely declared unlawful and justly for whoever wants Authority is but in a private capacity none having a publick capacity save the Magistrates And if they be allow'd to rise because their quarrel is just it must be as just to allow a lesser number if they have the same Justice in their pretexts and we have frequently seen that the same persons who magnified the multitude for their numbers did shortly thereafter divide from them pretending that they were the Sanior pars or juster Party 4. This position is against the very Nature not only of Monarchy but of all Governmments For who will obey when they may resist And who can be Judges whether the pretences upon which Arms are taken be lawful or not And therefore since it is unlawful for Subjects to take up even Defensive Arms until it be found that the King against whom these defensive Arms are taken up be a Tyrant and an Oppressor It clearly follows that these Subjects must first have a power to judge and find that the King has erred which is to declare the People to be Judges of their King and we may be soon convinced that this Principle is against the Nature of all Government if we consider that if it were lawful for Subjects with us to rise against the King it should be lawful for these in a Common-wealth or Aristocracy to rise against their Governors since these may erre as well as Kings do and if this were allowed all Nations should alwayes have one Rebellion rising out of the Ashes of another for only they who prevail'd should be satisfi'd and all the rest would certainly conclude that they might more justly oppose these Usurpers one or moe then the first did oppose their lawful Prince and thus Government which is design'd for the security of the State should run in a Circle fixt upon no certain Basis and determined by no sure Measures 5. This Principle is dangerous for the Subjects as well as for the King and other Governors for if Kings be perswaded that Subjects think this opposition lawful then they will be still jealous of them and will be necessitated on all occasions to secure against such oppositions and so this Doctrine tends more to make our King a Tyrant than to make us free And if the difference betwixt King and People should draw both to Arms where can we find a Judge to whom both Parties will submit So that to allow this power in the People to debate is to allow a difference that can never end and so what innocent man shall be able to know whom he may securely follow And the best issue that could be expected from these debates would be that the one half of the Nation should ruine the other So comfortable and just is this rebellious Doctrine 6. If we consult either our own experience or History we will find that these pretexts of Liberty and Religion have alwayes been used by those who loved neither and that they have been ordinarily used against the best of Kings and so prove to be meer Cheats upon their parts who use them and absolute Villanies if we consider against whom they are used and it cannot be otherwayes for the worst of men are alwayes readiest to take Arms and the best of Kings are most inclined to suffer insolence to grow up by degrees to Rebellion And as few or none ever took up Arms against their King in whom even the dullest did not see other motives than a love to liberty and Religion so when they who did take up Arms upon these pretexts did succeed in their attempts they became themselves greater grievances to the people than these lawful Powers against whom they pretended to protect them and when others rose against them upon the same pretexts they did in the severest manner declare that to be Rebellion in others which they contended to be lawful in themselves 7. So dangerous is this Principle that it has been alwayâ—s us'd as a Tool to promote contrary designs and to serve the worst of men in all the opposite sides And thus we see that the Bigot Papists have by it overturn'd Thrones and disinherited and murdered Kings In which the most impious of their Doctors have been admir'd and follow'd by the rigid Phanaticks who did notwithstanding teach that all Papists were to be extirpated and unquiet Spirits in the establish'd Republicks of Rome Venice and Florence have by this Principle endeavour'd to overturn and disquiet as much
their own Common-wealths as our Republicans have impiously endeavour'd to destroy Just Monarchy thereby to settle an usurping Common-wealth 8. The only pretext that can justifie the rising up in Arms being that it is lawful to all Creatures to defend themselves the pretext must be dangerous since its limits are uncertain For how can Defensive Arms be distinguished from Offensive Arms Or whoever begun at the one who did not proceed to the other Or what Subject did ever think himself secure after he had drawn his Sword against his King without endeavouring to cut off by it that King against whom he had drawn it The hope of Absolute Power is too sweet and the fear of punishment too great to be bounded and march'd by the best of Men And how can we expect this moderation from these who at first wanted patience to bear the lawful Yoke of Government but because examples convince as much as reason let us remember how when this Nation was very happy in the Year 1638. under the Government of a most Pious and Just Prince born in our own Kingdom we rais'd an Army and with it Invaded His Kingdom of England upon the pretext that He was govern'd by wicked Counsellors and design'd to introduce Popery and this was justified as a Defensive War by a long tract of General Assemblies and Parliaments and if this be a Defensive War that is justifiable what King can be secure Or wherein shall we seek security against Civil Wars Or what can be more ridiculous than to pretend the invading Kingdoms Murthering such as are Commissionated by the King after that Invasion entering into Leagues and Covenants against him both at home and abroad the robbing him of his Navies and Militia and denying him the power to choose his own Counsellors and Judges are meerly Defensive but God Almighty to teach us how dangerous these Defensive Arms are and how impossible it is to regulat Lawless violence how gentle and easie soever the first beginnings are suffered our War which was so much justified for being meerly Defensive to end in the absolute overthrow of the Monarchy and the taking away the life of the best of Kings and it is very remarkable that such as have begun with the Doctrine of giving only Passive Obedience in all things as in refusing to pay just Taxes to concur in securing Rebels c. have from that stept up to Defensive Arms and from that to the Power of Reforming by the Sword and from that to the Power of Dethroning and Murthering Kings by Parliaments and Judicatures and from that to the Murthering and Assassinating all who differ'd from them without any other pretext or formality whatsoever so hard a thing it is to stop when we begin once to fall from our duty and so easie a thing it is to perswade such as have allowed themselves in the first degrees of guilt to proceed to the highest extravagancies of Villanie Oh! What a blindness there is in Error And how palpably doth God desert them who desert their duty suffering them after they have done what they should have abhorred to proceed to do what they first abhorred really To these I must recommend the History of Hazael who when the Prophet foretold him 2 King 8.12 13. That he should slay their young men with the sword dash their children and rip up their women with child answered him Am I a dog that I should do such things and yet he really did what he had so execrated The moderation likewayes of these modest pretenders to Self-defence and Defensive Arms will appear by the bloody Doctrine of their great Rabbies Buchannan not only allows but invites Subjects to Murder their King And Lex Rex Pag. 313. tells us that it is a sin against Gods Command to be Passively subject to an unjust Sentence and that it is an Act of Grace and Virtue to resist the Magistrate violently when he does him wrong and after that horrid Civil War was ended the Author of Naphtali doth justifie it pag. 16 and 17. in these words Combinations for assistance in violent opposition of the Magistrates when the ends of Government are perverted which must be referr'd to the discretion of them who minds Insurrection are necessary by the Law of Nature of Charity and in order to Gods Glory and for violation of this duty of delivering the oppressed from Magistrates Judgement comes upon People From which he proceeds Pag. 18 and 19. to assert that Not only the power of self-defence but vindicative and reforming power is in any part of the People against the whole and against all Magistrates and if they use it not Judgment comes on supposing their capacity probable to bear them forth and they shall be punish'd for their connivance and not acting in way of vindication of Crimes and reforming abuses Before I enter upon these Arguments which the Scripture furnishes us with against these rebellious Principles I must crave leave to say that Defensive Arms seem to me very clearly inconsistent with that Mortification Submission and Patience which is recommended by our Blessed Saviour in all the strain of the New Testament and how will these people give their Coat to a Stranger or hold up their other Cheek to him when they will rise even in Rebellion against their Native Prince 2. As the taking up of Arms is inconsistent with the temper requir'd in a Christian so it seems a very unsuitable mean for effectuating the end for which it is design'd since Religion being a Conviction of what we owe to God how can that be commanded which should be perswaded And how can Arms become Arguments Or how can External Force influence immaterial Substances such as are the Souls of Men. And we may as well think to awake a mans Conscience by Drums or to perswade his Judgment by Musquets and therefore the Apostle speaks only of Spiritual Arms in this our Spiritual Warfare The Sword of the Spirit and the helmet of salvation c. But good God how could the extravagancy of forcing the Magistrate by Arms in Defense of Religion enter into Mens Heads when it is unlawful even for the Magistrate himself to force Religion by Arms. And as Subjects should not be by the King forced to Religion so if they use Force against the King the pretext of Religion tho specious should not defend them And therefore when the sons of Zebedee desired fire from heaven upon these who oppos'd even our Saviour he told them that they knew not what spirit they were of 3. It seems very derogatory to the power of Almighty God that He should need humane assistance and it is a lessening of the great esteem that we ought to have for the energy force and reasonablenesse of the Christian Religion that it needs to be forc'd upon men by Arms as if it were not able to force its own way This Mahomet needed for his Cheats but our blessed Saviour needs not for his Divine Precepts
and therefore when Peter offered to fight for him our Saviour check't him commanding him to put up his Sword and to perswade him the more effectually he assures him that all these who take the Sword shall perish by it and that his Kingdom was not of this World and so he needed no such worldly help but if he pleas'd to call for legions of Angels his Omnipotent Father would send them and sure Angels are fitter and abler Instruments to carry on such a work of Reformation than Rebellious Regiments of Horse and Dragoons Which Divine Argument serves also to refute the Atheistical Doctrine of Buchannan and Owen who would perswade us that our Saviour did only recommend to his Disciples to flee from one City to another when they were persecuted Because they then wanted power to resist For tho they did want yet our Saviour could have by legions of Angels defeated all the Powers upon Earth And Tertullian in his Apology for the Christians insists on their patient suffering under Persecution tho their number were sufficient to have resisted 4. Our blessed Saviour foreseeing that Mans Corruption would in spight of Christianity prompt him to resist he therefore did command by the Apostle Paul Rom. 13. v. 1 and 2. Let every Soul be Subject to the higher Power for there is no power but of God the powers that be are ordained of God whosoever therefore resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation In which Text it is very remarkable that the Apostle urges this Christian duty of submission as being a mark of mans immediat dependance upon God and as that which when contemned brings eternal damnation And whereas it is pretended that this Text commands only submission to Magistrats whilst they Act Piously and Vertuously because only in so far they are Gods Vicegerents but discharges not resistence to their impious commands It is answered that the Text has no such limitation and we must have so much respect to the Scripture as to think that if God Almighty had design'd to allow such an opposition he would have warranted it in as clear Terms as he commanded the submission and the reason why this submission is commanded is not because the power is rightly us'd but because the power is ordained of God And we see that St. Paul himself did think that the power should be reverenc'd even when abus'd for when the high Priest was Injuring him he acknowledged that he was obliged not to speak evil of the Rulers of his People Acts 23.2 And if this place of Scripture and the submission therein commanded were so to be limited we behoved likewise so to limit the 5. Commandment and not to honour our Parents except when they are Pious nor to obey them if they vex or trouble us and St. Paul having written this Epistle to those who were then living under that monstruous Emperour Caius did clearly design that the Christian Religion was to be admired for commanding Subjects not only to obey good Princes but even submitting peaceably to Tyrants And suitable to this Doctrine are these Texts Heb. ch 12. v 9. We had Fathers of our flesh who corrected and chastened us after their own pleasure and we gave them reverence and lest we might think that Text rather a Narration than a Command it is told us Peter 2. v. 18. Servants be subject to your Masters with all fear not only to the good and gentle but also to the froward for this is thanks-worthy if a man for conscience toward God do endure grief And v. 20. If when ye do well and suffer for it ye take it patiently this is acceptable to God for even hereunto were ye called Our blessed Saviours practice did likewise agree most admirably with his Precepts and Doctrine formerly insisted on for though no man ever was or can be so much injur'd as his blessed self nor could ever any defensive Arms have been so just as in his quarrel yet he would not suffer a Sword to be drawn in it and to discourage all Christians from using Arms he told these who were offering to defend even himself with Arms that whosoever should draw the Sword should perish by it and it seems that God Almighty permitted Peter to draw his Sword at that time meerly that we might upon that occasion be for ever deterr'd from defensive Arms by this our Saviours Divine example and reasoning The last Argument I shall adduce shall be from that most Christian Topick us'd by St. Paul Rom. 3.8 We should not do ill that good may come of it And therefore since disobedience to Magistrats but much more to Rebel against them is discharg'd both by the Laws of God and Men This disobedience and opposition cannot be justifi'd by pretending that it is design'd for Reforming the Nation And if it be answer'd that this opposition is not in it self ill because the design justifies it It is to this reply'd that if this answer be sufficient then the former excellent Rule is of no use For when a Servant steals his Masters Money to give to the Poor or a Son cuts his Fathers Throat ecause he is vitious or when Iacques Clement Stabed Henry the 3. and Ravilleck Henry the 4. they might have alleadg'd the same in their own defence Nor know we a surer proof that any thing is impious or unlawful then when the Laws of our Nation have discharg'd it as a great Crime they being against and contrare to no positive Law of God but rather suitable to the same and own'd as such by Christian Synods and Divines and there being no necessity to inforce this going out of the Road. All which holds in this case nor can it be imagin'd how Reforming by Arms can be thought necessary since God both can without a Miracle Turn the hearts of Kings in whose hands they are as Rivers of Waters And can send devout Men to influence Kingdoms And should not we rather suffer patiently as the Primitive Christians did that his Divine Majesty may be by our patience prevail'd upon to Reform us now as he did of old our Predecessors from Paganism by our own Kings in a Regular way than upon every notion of Bigot and Factious Ring-leaders overturn all Government and order Rent all Unity and involve our native Countrey in Blood and Confusion And whilst we are fighting for the Throne of Religion lose the true efficacy of Piety and Devotion for what use can there be of Patience Humility Faith and Hope If we will presently repair our selves submit to no Magistracy that differs from us and believe that Religion cannot subsist except by us The Fathers also of the Primitive Church have inculcated so much this Doctrine every where both by their Doctrine and Practice and both these are so fully known that I shall remit this point to these Learn'd Men who have fully handled it Only I must remember that excellent passage
of St. Ambrose who being commanded to deliver up his Church to the Arians sayes Volens nunquam deferâm coactus repugnare non novi dolere potero flere potero gemâ—re potero adversus arma milites Gothos Lachrymae meâ— mea arma sunt talia enim sunt munimenta sacerdotis aliter nec debeo nec possum resistere Which Prayers and Tears are likewise call'd the only Arms of the Church by the great Nazianz in his first Oration against Iulian and by St. Bernard in his 221. Epistle But more of this is to be found Tom. 2. Concil Galliae pag. 533. Where it is fully prov'd that all Subjects ought humbly and faithfully to obey the Regal Power as being ordained by none but God with whom the wise Heathens agree for Marcellus Tacit. lib. 4. hist. pray'd for good Princes but obey'd bad ones and Plinij in his Panegirick to Trojan confesses that the gods had bestow'd on the Emperor the sole disposal of all things leaving nothing to Subjects save the honour of obedience But because these of that perswasion will believe better Calvin than the Fathers I have taken pains to consider in him these few passages cap. 20. lib 4. Institut § 27. Assumptum in Regiam Majâ—statem violare nefas est nunquam nobis seditiosae istae cogitationes in mentem veniant tractandum esse pro meritis Regem § 29. Personam sustinent voluntale Domini cui inviolabile in Majestatem ipso impressit insculpsit § 31. Privatis hominibus nullum aliud quam parendi patiendi datum est mandatum And all this Chapter doth so learnedly and judicially impugn this Doctrine that it is a wonder why Calvinists should differ from Calvin The Examples adduced by our Republicans of the revolt of Libra 2 Chron. 1.21 And from Ieroboam because he had forsaken the Lord God of his Fathers and of the Ten Tribes from Rehoboam because of Rehoboam his oppression 1 King 12. prove not all the lawfulness of the Subjects defection from their Kings because these defections are only narrated but not allowâ—d in Scripture and are recorded rather as instances of Gods vengeance upon the wickedness of these Princes than as examples justified in these Revolters and to be follow'd by such as read the Sacred History In which when Examples are propos'd by the Spirit of God for our imitation they are still honour'd with the Divine approbation And I hope my Readers will still remember that I design not by this Treatise to encourage Princes to wickedness by Impunity but only to discourage Subjects from daring to be the punishers The great esteem which the great Bishop Vsher has justly even among Republicans and Phanaticks for Learning and Devotion has prevail'd with me to set down two Objections used by him with his pious Answers thereto The first is Suppose say they the King or Civil Magistrate should command us to Worship the Devil would you wish us here to lay down our Heads upon the Block and not to repel the violence of such a Miscreant to the outmost of our power And if not what would become of Gods Church and his Religion To which the Holy Man Answers That even when the Worship of the Devil was commanded by the cruel Edicts of persecuting Emperours the Christians never took up Arms against them but used fervent Prayers as their only refuge And St. Peter animats them to this patient suffering 1 Pet. 4.12 13. Beloved think it not strange concerning the fiery trial but rejoice in as much as ye are partakers of Christs sufferings But let none of you suffer as a murtherer or a thief or as an evil-doer or as a busie body in other mens matters By which last words if I durst add to so great an Author as B. Vsher the Apostle seems expresly to me to have obviated the dreadful Doctrine of rising in Arms upon the pretext of Religion and the killing such as differ from them which if the Christians did allow they behov'd to pass for Murtherers and to discharge them to meddle in matters of Government upon this pretext because then they behov'd to suffer justly as busie bodies And here B. Vsher does most appositly cite St. Augustine in Psal. 149. The World rag'd the Lion lifted himself up against the Lamb but the Lamb was full stronger than the Lion The Lion was overcome by shewing cruelty the Lamb did overcome by suffering And St. Ierome Epist. 62. By shedding of blood and by suffering rather then doing injuries was the Church of Christ at first founded it grew by Persecutions and was crowned by Martyrdoms The second Objection is If mens hands be thus ty'd no mans estate can be secure nay the whole frame of the Common-wealth would be in danger to be subverted and utterly ruin'd To which he answers that the ground of this Objection is exceeding faulty and inconsistent with the Rules of Humanity and Divinity of Humanity because this would impower privat persons to Judge and so should confound all Order and invite all men to oppose Authority and make Subjects Accusers Judges and Executioners too and that in their own Cause against their own Soveraign and against Divinity because it is contrary to the Scriptures and Fathers who command Submission Humility and Patience Rex est si nocentem punit cede justitiae si innocentem cede fortunae Seneca de Iura lib. 2. cap. 30. If the King punish thee when thou art guilty submit to Justice If when thou art innocent submit to Fortune And if a Heathen could be induced by his vertue to submit to blind Fortune how much more ought a Christian to be prevail'd upon by Devotion to submit to the All-seeing Providence of the most wise God who maketh all things to work joyntly for good to them that love him And as St. Augustine piously adviseth Princes are to be suffered by their People that in the exercise of their patience temporal things may be born and external hop'd for The instance of King Iames the Third being punished by his Subjects is so far from being an Argument able to justifie Subjects rising in Arms against their King that this part of our History should for ever convince all honest men of the dangers that attend Defensive Arms For this excellent Prince was so far from being one of these Tyrants against whom Defensive Arms are only confest to be just that few Princes were more meek and careful of his Subjects But because he imploy'd such as himself had rais'd finding that the Nobility had too often been insolent Servants to their Prince and severe Task-masters to the People the Nobility thinking more upon this imaginary neglect than their own duty did from Combinations proceed to Arms and rejecting all conditions of peace they were at last curs'd with a Victory in which this Gentle Prince was murthered whilst he sought to save his Sacred life in a deserted Miln By which we may see that these Defensive Arms so much hallowed in
our late Debates are but the Militia of Pride Vanity and Ambition and that if they be allow'd the best of Princes will ever fall by them And as to the Act 14. Par. 4. Ia. 4. Whereby it is pretended that the opposing and even the killing K. Ia. the 3. in Battle is justified and which Act was never repelled It is answered First That this Statute was made by the same Rebels who had opposed their lawful Prince and so was rather a continuing of their Rebellion than a justification of it 2. That abominable Statute proceeds on the Precept of K. Ia. the 3. calling in the English and designing to enslave the Kingdom to Forraigners which was not prov'd as it ought to have been though the pretext had been legal as it was neither legal nor true in the least circumstance and the Noblemen and Barons are Condemn'd without being Cited or heard though the Act be not a Statute but a Verdict so unjust are all Rebels who are forc'd to maintain one Crime by another 3. In the new Collection of our Statutes made by K Ken. and Authoriz'd in many subsequent Parliaments The Dreadful and Treasonable Act is not insert which was the best way to Rescind it because it was though a reproach to the Nation to have any formal Law made to Rescind the Statute which behov'd to preserve its memory in annulling its Authority 4. Many Statutes since that time are made declaring the rising in Arms against the King and his Authority upon any pretext whatsoever to be Treason and expresly Rescinding all Acts and Statutes to the contrary as Rebellious and Treasonable and there needed no more Positive Statutes to Rescind that Rebellious and Treasonable Combination rather than Law As to the 44. Act 6. Par. Ia. 2. From which its urged that because that Act declares it Treason to Assault Castles and Places where the Kings Person shall happen to be without the Consent of the three Estates And that it is therefore lawful to Assault the same with the Consent of the three Estates and consequently to rise in Arms with the Consent of the three Estates is no Treason It is answered that it being but too ordinary in the Minority of our Kings to have great Factions amongst the Nobility which shews also the danger of placeing the Supream Power in the Proceres Regni one of the Factions ordinarly either having made the young King Prisoner or using to Assault the Castle where he was really preserved It was therefore most wisely declared by this Statute That to lay hands upon the Kings Person violently what age the Ring be of young or auld or to Assailzy Castles or Places where the Kings person shall happen to be without the Consent of the three Estates shall be punished as Treason That is to say that so great respect was to be had to his sacred Person that no violence was to be offered to the Place where he was untill the same was allowed by the three Estates But in all the former Laws as well as those made in our age it is still declared Treason to Rebel against the Kings Person or to refuse to assist him without adding except the same be done by the three Estates which shews that there 's nothing design'd in this Act in favours of their Authority and that this King was Minor the time of this Act and that he had great Troubles in his Youth is very clear from the short characters given of our Kings by Skeen in the end of our Acts of Parliament It will I hope easily appear by the ballance of these Arguments that at least the Municipal Laws of our Nation which punish defensive Arms as Treason should be obey'd by our Countrey-men since as I have oft inculcated the Laws of any Nation should still be obey'd except where they are inconsistent with the Word of God and the most that the most violent Republicans alive can say upon this Subject is that the case may be debated by probable Arguments and that neither of the Positions want their inconveniencies so that in this as in all other Debates the Law of each Nation is the best Judge to decide such Controversies and therefore such as maintain these Principles after so many positive and reiterated Laws are obliged for preserving the Peace of humane Society and the Order which God has establisht to remove from places where they cannot obey for they will alwayes find some place where the Government will please them and better they be disquieted than the Government of the whole World should be disturb'd but if they will stay and oppose the Government it must be excus'd to Execute those who would destroy it Having thus glanc'd only at Answers to these Objections because I think the Objections rather shining than strong I shall sum up this Debate with these Reflections First Buchannan and our Republican Authors Debate all these Grounds as if we were yet to Form the Government under which we were to live whereas we live under and are sworn to a Monarchy fixt by Law and Consent time out of mind and the Levellers may as well urge that no Nobleman should be Dignifi'd nor no Gentleman Enrich'd above a man of good sense and Tennents may argue that it is not reasonable that they bearing Gods Image as well as the Master should toile to feed their Lusts thus Reason may be distorted and we call that Reason and Providence which pleases us best 2. Most of their Citations and Authorities are the Sentiments of these Greeks and Romans who liv'd under Common-wealths and so magnifi'd their Countrey in opposition to Usurpers whereas our King is the Father of our Countrey and whatever they said of their Countrey we should say of him and therefore these Citations concerns us no more than the Law of England binds Scotsmen they praise their own Children and Servants for their Faithfulness and Obedience to them and yet they rail at us for being Faithful to our great Master and chief Parent under God 3. Most of the Authors cited and admir'd by them are Heathens particularly Stoicks who equal'd themselves not only to Kings but to their own Gods and against whose selfishness and pride all Christians have justly exclaim'd and so they are not competent Judges nor sure Guides to Christians in the exercise of those purely Christian Vertues of Humility Submission Self-denyal Patience Faith and Relyance upon God 4. They ballance not all the Conveniencies and Inconveniencies of either Government but magnifie the one and conceal the other and thus it is true that Kings may be Tyrants but so may and usually are the Leaders of the Rabble Cromwel was such and Shaftsbury had been such he was such in his Nature and had been such in his Government and the Distractions of a Civil War which ordinarly attend Competitions amongst Republicans Destroy moe than the Lusts of any one Tyrrant can do which made Lucan conclude after a sad review of the continued
unjust and unequitable that the Predecessor should robbe his Successor nulla ergo sayes Arnisaeus Cap. 7. Num. 5. clausula Successori jus auferri potest modò succedat ille ex jure regni And Hottoman lib. 2. de Regno Galliae asserts that in France which is a very absolute Monarchy Ea quae jure Regio primogenito competunt ne Testamento quidem patris adimi possunt And thus when the King of France design'd to break the Salique Law of Succession as in the Reigne of CHARLES the V. It was found impracticable by the three Estates and when Pyrrhus was to preferre his youngest Son to the Crown the Epirots following the Law of Nations and their own refus'd him Paus. lib. 1. In the year 1649. Also Amurat the grand Seignior having left the Turkish Empire to Han the Tartarian passing by his Brother Ibrahim the wholl Officers of that State did unanimously Cancel that Testament and restore Ibrahim the true Heir tho a silly foole Which shewes the opinion not only of Lawyers but of whole nations and Parliaments Tho vander Graaff an Hollander confesses that it is not Lawfull to choose any of his Sons to succeed him in which the general quiet of the Kingdom is much concerned And therefore tho the next Heir were wiser braver and more generally beloved Yet the more immediat must be received as choos'd by God whither good or bad and as honored with his Character And if Kings could have inverted their Succession and choos'd their own Successor Saint Lewis had preferr'd his own third Son to Lewis his eldest and Alfonsus King of Leon in Spaine had preferr'd his Daughters to Ferdinand his eldest Son And Edward the VI. of England had preferr'd and did actually preferre the Lady Iean Gray to his Sisters Mary and Elizabeth And if Successions especially of such great importance had not been fixed by immutable Laws of God and nature the various and unconstant inclinations of the present Governours especially when shaken by the importunity of Step-mothers and Mothers or clouded by the jealousie of flatterers or favourits had made the Nations whom they Governed very unhappy and therefore God did very justly and wisely setle this Succession that both King and People might know that it is by him that Kings Reigne and Kingdoms are secur'd in Peace against faction and it were strange that this should not hold in Kings since even amongst subjects the Honour and Nobility that is bestow'd upon a Man and his Heirs does so necessarly descend upon those Heirs that the Father or Predicessor cannot seclude the next Successor or derogat from his right either by renuncing resigning following base or meane Trades or any other For say those Lawyers since he derives this right from his old Progenitors and owes it not to his Father his Fathers deed should not prejudge him therein Fab. Cod. 9. Tit. 28. Def. 1. Warnee Consil. 20. Num. 7. And as yet the Estates of Parliament in both Nations have no legislative power otherwayes than by assenting to what the King does so that if the King cannot himself make a Successor neither can they by consenting and all that their consent could imply wold only be that they and their Successors should not oppose his nomination because of their consent But that can never amount to a power of transferring the Monarchy from one branch to another which would require that the Transferrers or bestowers had the Supream power Originally in themselves nemo enim plus juris in alium transferre potest quà m ipse in se habet And if the States of Parliament had this power Originally in themselves to bestow why might they not reserve it to themselves And so perpetuate the Government in their own hands And this mov'd judge Ienkins in his treatise concerning the liberty and freedom of the subject pag. 25. To say that no King can be Named or in any time made in this Kingdom by the People A Parliament never made a King for there were Kings before there were Parliaments and Parliaments are summoned by the Kings writtes Fourthly A King cannot in Law alienat his Crown as is undenyable in the opinion of all Lawyers and if he do that deed is voyd and null nor could he in Law consent to an Act of Parliament declaring that he should be the last King And if such consents and Acts had been sufficient to bind Successors many silly Kings in several parts of Europe had long since been prevail'd upon to alter their Monarchy from Haereditarie to Elective or to turn it in a Common-wealth and therefore by the same reason they cannot consent to exclude the true Successor For if they may exclude one they may exclude all 5. In all Societies and Governments but especially where there is any association of powers as in our Parliaments there are certain fundamentals which like the Noble parts in the Body are absolutly necessar for its preservation for without these there would be no Ballance or certainty And thus with us if the King and each of the Estates of Parliament had not distinct and known limits sett by the gracious concessions of our Monarchs each of them would be ready to invade one anothers Priviledges And thus I conceive that if the Parliament should consent to alienate the half of the Kingdom or to subject the whole to a Stranger as in King Iohns case in England and the Baliols in Scotland it has been found by the respective Parliaments of both Kingdoms that that Statute would not oblidge the Successor Or if the House of commons in England or the Burrowes of Scotland should consent to any Act excluding their Estate and respresentatives from the Parliament doubtlesse that Statute excluding them would not prejudge their Successors because that Act was contrare to one of the fundamental Laws of the Nation And the late Acts of Parliaments excluding Bishops were reprobated by the ensuing Parliaments as such and therefore by the same rule any Statute made excluding the legal Successor would be null and voyd as contrare to one of the great Fundamental Rights of the Nation And what can be call'd more a Fundamental Right than the Succession of our Monarchy Since our Monarchy in this Isle has ever been acknowledg'd to be hereditary And that this acknowledgment is the great Basis whereupon most of all the positions of our Law run and are established such as that the King never dyes since the very moment in which the last King dyes the next Successor in Blood is Legally King and that without any expresse recognizance from the People and all that oppose him are Rebells His Commissions are valide He may call Parliaments dispose the Lands pertaining to the Crown all men are lyable to do him homage and hold their Rights of him and his Heirs And generally this principle runs through all the veins of our Law It is that which gives life and Authority to our Statutes but receives none from them which are
the undenyable marks and Characters of a Fundamental Right in all Nations But that this right of lineal Succession is one of the Fundamental and unalterable Laws of the Kingdom of Scotland is clear by the Commission granted by the Parliament for the union in Anno 1604. In which these words are his Majesty vouchsafeing to assure them of his sincere disposition and clear meaning no way by the foresaid Union to prejudge or hurt the Fundamental Laws ancient Priviledges Offices and Liberties of this Kingdom whereby not only the Princely Authority of his most Royal descent hath been these many ages maintain'd but also his Peoples securities of their Lands and Livings Rights Liberties Offices and dignities preserv'd Whilks if they should be innovated such confusion should ensue as it could no more be a free Monarchy 6. There would many great inconveniencies arise both to King and People by the Parliaments having this power For weak Kings might by their own simplicity and Gentle Kings by the rebellion of their Subjects be induced to consent to such Acts in which their Subjects would be tempted to cheat in the one case and rebell in the other Many Kings likewise might be wrought upon by the importunity of their Wives or Concubins or by the misrepresentations of Favourits to disinherit the true Successor and he likewise to prevent this arbitrarienesse would be oblidg'd to enter in a faction for his own support from his very infancy This would likewise animate all of the Blood Royal to compete for the Throne and in order thereto they would be easily induc'd to make factions in the Parliament and to hate one another whereas the true Successor would be ingadg'd to hate them all and to endeavour the ruine of such as he thought more popular than himself Nor would the people be in better case since they behov'd to expect upon all these accompts constant civil warres and animosities and by being unsure whom to follow might be in great hazard by following him who had no Right And their rights bearing to hold of the King and his Heirs it would be dubious to the vassals who should be their superiour as well as who should be their King It is also in reason to be expected that Scotland will ever owne the legal descent and thus we should under different Kings of the same Race be involv'd in new and constant civil warrs France shall have a constant door open'd by allyances with Scotland to disquiet the peace of the whole Isle and England shab loose all the endeavours it used to unite this Isle within it self Another great absurdity and inconveniency which would follow upon the exclusion of the lineal Successor would be that if he had a Son that Son behoov'd certainly to succeed and therefore after the next Lawful Heir were brought from abroad to Reigne he behov'd to return upon the Birth of this Son and if he dyed he would be again call'd home and would be sent back by the Birth of another Son which would occasion such affronts uncertainties divisions factions temptations that I am sure no good nor wise man could admit of such a project I find also that as the debarring the Righteous Heir is in reason the fruitful seed of all civil warr and misery for who can Imagine that the Righteous Heir will depart from his Right or that wise men will endanger their lives and fortunes in opposition to it so experience has demonstrated how dangerous and bloody this injustice has prov'd Let us remember amongst many Domestick examples the miseries that ensu'd upon the exclusion of Mordredus the Son of Lothus the destruction of the Picts for having secluded Alpinus the Righteous Heir the warrs during the reigne of William the Conquerour these betwixt King Stevin and Henry the II betwixt the Houses of Lancaster and York betwixt the Bruce and the Baliol the murther of Arthur Duke of Britanny true Heir of the Crown of England with many other forreigne Histories which tell us of the dreadfull michiefs arising from Pelops preferring his youngest Son to the Kingdom of Micene from Aedipus commanding that Polinices his youngest Son should reigne alternatly with the eldest from Parisatis the Queen of Persia's preferring her youngest Son Cyrus to her eldest Artaxerxes from Aristodemus admitting his two Sons Proclus and Euristhenes to an Equall share in the Lacedemonian Throne The like observations are to be made in the Succession of Ptolemaeus Lagus and Ptolemaeus Phisco In the Sons of Severus in the Succession of Sinesandus who kill'd his Brother Suintilla Righteours Heir of Spaine And that of Francis and Fortia Duke of Millan with thousands of others In all which either the usurpers or the Kingdom that obey'd them perish'd utterly To prevent which differences and mischiefs the Hungarians would not admitte Almus the younger Brother in exclusion of the elder Colomanus though a silly deform'd creature albeit Almus was preferr'd by Ladislaus the Kings elder Brother to both Nor would France acquiesce in St. Lewis his preferring CHARLES his 3 Son to Lewis the eldest And the English refus'd to obey Lady Iean Gray in prejudice of Queen Marie though a Papist and persecuter Tali constanti veneratione nos Angli legitimos Reges prosequimur c. sayes an English Historian 7. If Parliaments had such powers as this then our Monarchy would not be hereditary but elective the very essence of ane hereditary Monarchy consisting in the right of Succession according to the contingency of blood Whereas if the Parliament can preferre the next save one they may preferre the last of all the line for the next save one is no more next than the last is next And the same reason by which they can choose a Successor which can only be that they have a power above him should likewayes in my opinion justifie their deposing of Kings And since the Successor has as good Right to succeed as the present King has to Govern for that Right of blood which makes him first makes the other next and all these Statuts which acknowledge the present Kings Prerogatives acknowlege that they belong to him and his Heirs It followes clearly that if the Parliament can preclude the one they may exclude the other And we saw even in the last age that such reasons as are now urged to incapacitat the children of our last Monarch from the hope of Succession viz. Popery and arbitrary Government did embolden men to Dethrone and Murder the Father himself who was actual King 8. That such Acts of Parliament altering the Succession are ineffectual and null Is clear from this that though such an Act of Parliament were made it could not debarre the true Successor because by the Laws of all Nations and particularly of these Kingdoms the Right of Succession purges all defects and removes all impediments which can prejudge him who is to Succeed And as Craig one of our learn'd lawyers has very well express'd it Tanta est
that where the Right of Nature is clear the Parliament may invert the same And strangers who considered more the dictats of Law than of Passion did in that age conclude that no Statute could be valide when made contrare to the fundamental Law of the Kingdom Arnisaeus Cap. 7. Num. 11. Henricus VIII Angliae Rex Eduardum filium primò deinde Mariam denique Elizabetham suos haeredes fecerat verùm non aliter ea omnia valent quà m si cum jure Regni conveniant Vid. Curt. Tract Feud Par. 4. Num. 129. There seems greater difficulty to arise from the 13 Elizabeth c. 2. by which it is enacted that if any persone shall affirme that the Parliament of England has not full power to bind and Governe the Crown in point of Succession and descent that such a persone during the Queens life shall be guilty of high treason But to this Act it is answered that this Act does not debarre the next legal and natural Successor And these words That the Parliament has power to bind and Govern the Succession must be as all other general expressions in Statutes interpreted and restricted by other uncontraverted Laws and so the sense must be that the Parliament are Judge where there are differences betwixt Competitors in nice and contravertable points which cannot be otherwise decided and both this and the former Acts made in Henry the VI. time are not general Laws but temporarie Acts and personal Priviledges and so cannot overturn the known current of Law Quod verò contrà rationem juris receptum est non est producendum ad consequentias And in all these instances it is remarkable that the restriction was made upon the desire of the Soveraigne and not of the Subject And if we look upon this Act as made to secure against Mary Queen of Scotland and to let her know that it was to no purpose for her to designe any thing against the Right or Person of Queen Elizabeth as being declar'd a Bastard by Act of Parliament in England since her other right as next undoubted Heir by Blood to the Crown might be altered or Govern'd we must acknowledge it to be only one of these Statutes which the Law sayes are made ad terrorem ex terrore only Nor was there ever use made of it by Queen Elizabeth nor her Parliaments so fully were they convinc'd that this pretended power was so unjust as that it could not be justified by an Act of Parliament being contrair to the Laws of God of Nature of Nations and of the Fundamental Laws of both Kingdoms But this Law being made to exclude Queen Mary and the Scotish line as is clear by that clause wherein it is declared that every Person or Persones of what degree or Nation soever they be shall during the Queens life declare or publish that they have Right to the Crown of England during the Queens life shall be disinabled to enjoy the Crown in Succession inheritance or otherwayes after the Queens death It therefore followes that it was never valide For if it had King Iames might have thereby been excluded by that person who should have succeded next to the Scotish race For it 's undeniable that Queen Marie did during Queen Elizabeths life pretend Right to the Crown upon the account that Queen Elizabeth was declared Bastard And therefore the calling in of King Iames after this Act and the acknowledging his title does clearly evince that the Parliament of England knew that they had no power to make any such Act. The words of which acknowledgement of King Iames's Right I have thought fit to set down as it is in the statute it self 1. Ia. Cap. 1. That the Crown of England did descend upon King Iames by inherent Birthright as being lineally justly and Lawfully next and sole Heir of the Blood Royal. And to this recognition they do submit themselves and posterities for ever untill the last drop of their Blood be spilt And further doth beseech his Majesty to accept of the same recognition as the first Fruits of their Loyalty and Faith to his Majesty and to his Royal progeny and posterity for ever It may be also objected that by the 8 Act. Parl. 1. Ia. 6. It is provided in Scotland that all Kings and Princes that shall happen to reigne and bear Rule over that Kingdom shall at the time of their Coronation make their faithfull promise by Oath in presence of eternal God that they shall mantaine the true Religion of Iesus Christ the preaching of the Holy Word and due and Right Administration of the Sacraments now received and preach'd within this Kingdom from which two conclusions may be inferr'd 1. That by that Act the Successor to the Crown may be restricted 2. That the Successor to the Crown must be a Protestant that being the Religion which was Professed and established the time of this Act. To which it is answered that this Act relates only to the Crowning of the King and not to the Succession Nor is a coronation absolutly necessar Coronatio enim magis est ad ostentationem quà m ad necessitatem Nec ideo Rex est quia coronatur sed coronatur quia Rex est Oldard consil 90. num 7. Balbus lib. de coronat pag 40. Nor do we read that any Kings were Crown'd in Scripture except Ioas. And Clovis King of France was the first who was Crown'd in Europe Nor are any Kings of Spaine Crown'd till this day Neither is ane Coronation Oath requisit Sisenandus being the first who in the 4. Tolletan Councel gave such an Oath amongst the Christians as Trajan was the first amongst the heathen Emperours And we having had no Coronation Oath till the Reigne of King Gregorie which was in Anno 879 he having found the Kingdom free from all Restrictions could not have limited his Successor or at least could not have debarr'd him by an Oath Nullam enim poterat legem dictare posteris cum par in parem non habeat imperium as our Blackwood observes pag. 13. 2. There is no clause irritant in this Act debarring the Successor or declaring the Succession null in case his Successor gave not this Oath 3. The Lawfull Successor though he were of a different Religion from his People as God forbid he should be may easily swear that he shall mantaine the Laws presently standing And any Parliament may legally secure the Successor from overturning their Religion or Laws though they cannot debarre him And though the Successor did not swear to mantaine the Laws Yet are they in litle danger by his Succession since all Acts of Parliament stand in force till they be repeal'd by subsequent Parliaments And the King cannot repeale an Act without the consent of Parliament But to put this beyond all debate the 2. Act of this current Parliament is opponed whereby it is declared that the Right and administration of the Government is immediatly devolv'd upon the nixt Lawfull Heir after
Doctrine cannot be resisted And so far is Grotius an enemy to such Fanatical Resistance upon the pretence of Liberty and Religion that num 6. he calls the Authors of these Opinions Time Servers only And Gronovius a violent Republican and Fanatick taxes him extreamly for it in his Observations upon that fourth Chapter whose Arguments adduc'd against Grotius I shall answer amongst the other Objections Gronovius's first Argument why it should be lawful to resist the Supream Magistrate in defence of Religion is because if it be not lawful for Subjects to Arm themselves for Religion against their Prince it should not be lawful for their Prince by the same rule to defend himself against Turks and Infidels who would endeavour to force him to comply with their Impieties But to this it is answered That Resistance to Superiors is expressly discharg'd by the Laws of God and Nature as said is but this cannot be extended to Cases where there is no Subjection nor Allegiance and it may be as well argu'd that because one private man may beat another who offers to strike him that therefore a Child may beat his Parent or a Servant his Master or that because I may violently resist a private man who offers to take away my Goods unjustly that therefore I may oppose the Sentence of the Magistrat because I forsooth do not think the same just His second shift is That our Saviour commanded only absolute submission without resistance in the Infancy of the Church when he himself was miraculosly to assist his own Servants but this Submission was to end with the Miracles to which it related As to which my answer is 1. That all the Commands in Scripture may be so eluded nor is there any Duty more frequently and fully inculcated than this is and that too in the same Chapters amongst other Duties which are to last for ever such as submission to Parents and Masters and this is founded upon plain reason and conveniency and not upon Miracles 2. This was receiv'd and acknowledg'd by the Pagans as has been fully prov'd though it cannot be pretended that they rely'd upon any such miraculous assistance 3. It cannot be deny'd but the Fathers of the Primitive Church did recommend and justifie themselves in their Apologies to the Heathen Emperors for bearing patiently when they were able not only to have resisted but to have overthrown their Persecuters as is clear by the Citations out of Tertullian Cyprian Lactantius Augustine and others to be seen in Grotius De Iure Belli lib. 1. cap. 4. num 7. And it had been great impudence as well as sin in them to have boasted of a recent matter of Fact which was not true nor could there be a greater injury done to the Primitive Christians as Grotius observes than to ascribe that to their Weakness which they consider'd as an effect of Duty and why should the Heathen Emperors have suffered those to multiply who obey'd only because Disobedience was not safe for they might have certainly concluded that by the same Principle that they obeyed only because they were weak they would disobey how soon they were able 4. If the first Christians in general had obeyed only because they were not able to resist then any private Christian had resisted when he was able or would have fled or conceal'd himself whereas it it acknowledg'd in the other Answer press'd by Gronovius himself that they sought for Martyrdom and so these two Answers are inconsistent and the Thebean Lègion and others did submit themselves voluntarly to Martyrdom with their Arms in their hands and when they were able to have overthrown the Emperor And lastly If this Doctrine were allow'd no Society could subsist for when Dissenters grew strong the lawful Magistrat behov'd to perish whereas Jesus Christ did contrive the Christian Religion so as that all Governours should reasonably wish their Subjects to be Christians and so as no Christian should attempt to overthrow the order and establishment of Civil Government and that they should not be drawn away from the practice of Christian Devotion by the carnal desires of being great and strong in the World nor have any hopes in the Arm of Flesh to the lessening of their immediate dependence upon him His third shift is That his Doctrine of Submission and of dying for the Christian Religion without making Resistance was only the Practice but not the Command of the Primitive Church and proceeded from their immoderat affectation of the Crown of Martyrdom as Milntoun also pretends But since the express Command of Scripture is founded upon such clear Reason and since as Grotius well observes the Practice of the Primitive Christians who liv'd so near the Age wherein these Scriptures were pen'd is the best Interpreter of the Scripture it is horrid Impiety to make those blessed Martyrs pass for vain Hypocrites and distracted Self-murderers and it becomes us with holy reverence to imitate those whom the Christian Church has ever admir'd The fourth shift is That the Protestant Churches have been reform'd by such Insurrections as these contrary to the Royal Authority But this is fully answered by the learned Henry More in his Divine Dialogues and by Du Moulin in his Philanax Anglicus where likewise are to be found the many Testimonies of Protestant Churches and Protestant Divines condemning positively the taking up of Arms against the Soveraign Power even for the defence of Religion and the very Presbyterian Confession of Faith at Westminster is so positive as to this point that the Presbyterians themselves can never answer it The sum of which answer is That the King of Spain coming by Marriage in place of the Duke of Burgundy the said King of Spain could pretend to no more power than they had nor could the House of Burgundy pretend to any more power by marrying the Heirs of the Counts of the several Provinces than these Counts had over their Provinces and therefore since none of these were Soveraigns over their Provinces the Provinces might have resisted the King of Spain when he oppress'd them and consequently that Resistance cannot defend such as resist Supream Powers upon pretence of Religion Grotius de Antiq. Reipub. Baâ—av cap. 7. The opposition made by the Protestants in France was not occasion'd by Religion but upon a Quarrel betwixt the Princes of the Blood and the House of Guise in the Minority of Francis the 2 d and is defended most excellently by King Iames himself not to have been Rebellion in his Defence of the Right of Kings pag. 14. The Opposition made by the Princes of Germany to the Emperor was founded upon the inherent Right in the Princes by the golden Charter of the Empire And Luther himself declar'd that Magistratui non erat resistendum and has written a Book to that purpose nor would he engage in the Confederacy for Defensive Arms at Smalcald until the Lawyers declared that that Resistance was lawful by the Laws of the Empire Vide Slydan
Hist. lib. 8. anno 1531. The War that arose in Switzerland was not occasion'd by Religion for the Reformation was once establish'd with the con-consent of the Magistrat And the Eruption that was made by other Cantons upon the Reform'd Cantons eleven years after that Establishment Vide Slydan anno 1522. Nor was it Calvin who banish'd the Prince and Bishop of Geneva for he fled eight Months before upon the detecting of a Conspiracy by which that Bishop was to deliver over the Liberties of that City to the Duke of Savoy and for which his Secretary was hang'd Vide Turretin Annal. Reformationis anno 1529. And albeit those who Reform'd in Scotland in the Reign of Queen Mary pretended Authority from the King yet they were certainly Rebels and are condem'd by Rivet a famous Protestant Divine who also inveighs bitterly against this Principle Castiga Not. in Epist. ad Balsac cap. 13. num 14. sub finem From all which I observe First That all the Protestant Divines by making Apollogies for such of their Profession as have risen in Arms against Supream Powers must be thereby concluded to be asham'd of the Principle 2. Immediatly upon the quieting those Rebellions all the Protetestant Churches have in their Confessions of Faith declared their abhorrence of that Principle which being the product of Conviction and Experience joyn'd with Duty must be the most judicious and sincere Testimony of all others 3. All these Rebellions have been occasion'd by a mistake in point of Law and not in point of Religion for the Divines as I have related have been abused by the Lawyers And therefore since in the Isle of Britain the Laws of both Kingdoms have declared the Rising in Arms against the King to be Treason albeit for the defence of Religion it necessarily follows that this must be unlawful in point of Conscience in this Kingdom 4. Though good things may be occasion'd by a Rebellion yet that does not justifie a Rebellion for though Ieroboam was allow'd by God to rise against Rehoboam yet God Almighty himself calls his revolt Rebellion 1 Kings 12.19 and 2 Chron. 10.19 and it is observable that after this Revolt there was but one good King amongst all the rebellious Kings of Israel whereas amongst the Kings of Iudah who were lawful Kings there was but one or two who were any ways impious so far does God bless a lawful Succession Some also use as a shift against this Orthodox Doctrine that the reason why the Primitive Christians did not oppose their Emperors in the defence of the Christian Religion was because they had not been secured at that time in the Exercise of their Religion by the Laws of the Empire and therefore the practice of those Christians can be no Argument why we may not now rise to defend the Orthodox Religion since it is now established by Law But this Objection is fully answered by that great great Antiquary Samuel Petit. Diatriba de Iur. Principum edictis Ecclesiae quaesito where he clearly proves that they were actually secured by the Edicts of the Emperors in the days of the Emperor Tiberius and downward and yet they would not rise in Arms though they were persecuted under these same Emperors because the Word of God and the Christian Religion did command Obedience under Persecution and discharged Resistance and taking up of Arms. Add to Page 73. I have also seen in Fordon's History lib. 14. pag. 73. a Charter granted by King David to the Bishops with the consent of Robert his Nephew and his Sons giving power to the Bishops to dispone in Testament upon their own Moveables which before that time did by a corrupt custom fall to the King in which Charter the Witnesses are Robertus Senescallus Comes de Strathern Nepos noster Ioannes Senescallus Comes de Carrict filius suus primogenitus haeres Thomas Comes de Mar Georgius de Dunbar Comes de March Gulielmus Comes de Dowglass so that here is not only the attestation of the Father before he was King naming Iohn Earl of Carrick thereafter King Robert the 2 d. his eldest Son and Heir but the attestation of the Grand-Uncle King David who could be no ways byassed in the Affair and here he is ranked before the three eldest Earls in the Nation who were then the three first Subjects therein and it is against all Sense to think that the whole Bishops would have sought the consent of the said Iohn as Apparent Heir of the Crown if he had not been Apparent Heir I find also that Fordon calls him when he is crown'd King Primogenitus Roberti secundi nor was there the least opposition made to his Coronation nor to the Coronation of Annabella Drummond his Queen a Daughter of the House of Stob hall now Pearth though both the Sons of the second Marriage were then alive I find also that Boetius himself acknowledges that the Earl of Marches Son George being pursu'd for having married clandestinly one of the Daughters of Elizabeth Muir his defence was that he married her when she was the Daughter of a private Subject and before King Robert was King whereas if she had been only a Bastard-Daughter it could have been no Crime to have married her