For he was not set upon in an illegal manner but apprehended by lawful Officers who had a Warrant from the Sanhedrin the supream Court of Judicature the Lords Spiritual and Temporal amongst the Jews and were aided by the Roman Guards for fear of a Rescue or as the Chief Priests and Elders exprest it lest there should be an uproar among the People and in opposition to this Authority St. Peter drew his Sword and wounded Malchus a Servant or Officer of the High-Priest's Mat. 26.51 Dr. Hammond there says He was the chief Officer or Foreman of them that had the Warrant to apprehend our Saviour So that if ever Sword was wrongfully drawn and in Opposition to lawful Authority St. Peter's was and therefore was deservedly charm'd into the Sheath again This being so we cannot admit one Syllable of our Author's Inferences I should now confute his Answers to my five Propositions but every ordinary Reader will be able from what I have already said to do it himself I quoted Bracton to prove that the Prerogative is bounded by Law and made no further use of his words but I should have been ashamed of such an Inference as our Author makes when from these words of his own citing Rex habet Superiorem Deum item Legem per quam factus est Rex item Curiam suam viz. Comites Barones He infers that there is no more Power allowed to the Law then there is to the Earls and Barons who can only morally oblige the King's Conscience when he is perswaded their Counsels are just What their Power is in Bracton I need not say for Bracton is an Author sufficiently known and what it is in the Mirror that very ancient Law-book need not be told the World but any Man may as well infer from this Passage that there is no more Power allowed to God than to the Earls and Barons which absurd Inference is enough to shew the Weakness and Folly of his In the next place he tells me that I have forgot the Service of the Church if I do not constantly thank God for the Example of the Thebaean Legion I do thank God for this that the Service of our Church is purged from such Fopperies and Legendary Stories or else I would never have declared my Assent and Consent to it But when I thank God for the marvellous Confirmation which the seven Sleepers have given us of the last Resurrection I shall then remember to do as much for the Example of the Thebaean Legion For tho I admitted it as a Case to be argued upon as I would any feigned Case of John-a-Nokes and John-a-Stiles and shewed that it was not our Case yet when it is obtruded as matter of Religion and Devotion I must take the boldness to call it a Fable And I have very good reason to believe it to be so when Eusebius the very Father Fox of the Primitive Church who lived in Maximian's Persecution and wrote many Years after has not one word of it nor any of the voluminous Fathers of the fourth Century but Eucherius who lived about a hundred and fourty Years after the thing is said to be done is the first Author who is quoted for it So that Maximian not only cut off this feigned Army of Martyrs but buried them under ground for 140 Years and then they rose up again as the Pied Pipers Children did in a far Country And our Author easily confirms me in the belief that it is a Romance when he here tells us that Eucherius made that brave resolute Speech to the Emperour for many a true word is said by mistake As for our Author's Performance I leave that to the Judgment of the World and so he might have done my Comparison of Popery and Paganism without endeavouring to slur what he cannot answer But tho I have forgiven him all his Abuses of me yet I cannot his reviling the Homilies when he calls what they say against Popery the old Elizabeth-way of railing And I hope all they that have subscribed the Homilies as godly and wholsom Doctrine and fit for these times will never endure them to be run down by pretended Church-of England-Men and Vipers in her Bosom both as unseasonable and ungodly as what is now out of fashion and as what according to them ought never to have been in And thus I have answered what I thought material in this Author and have consulted the Reader 's Ease as well as my own in passing over the rest of his Book of which I must needs say that I never saw so great a number of Falsifications in so small a Volume in my whole Life whereby I perceive that the design of these Men is not in the least the Service of Truth but their business is to impose upon the World to blind and inslave Men at once just as the Philistines did by Sampson they put out his Eyes and then made him grind in a Mill. And therefore the just Suspicions which I otherways have that this Author is a known Papist are not at all removed by his pretending to be of our Church for he that will write an hundred Untruths will certainly write one more AN ANSWER TO JOVIAN Answer to the Preface IT has been the extream Felicity of this Author to give such a pregnant Title to his Book as does alone in effect answer Julian For as we learn from the beginning of this Preface Jovian proves that the Empire was Elective secondly Jovian proves the Christians to have bin quiet and peaceable under Julian thirdly proves the Antiochians Zeal to have been Abusiveness and fourthly proves that Julian's Army in Persia were Christians But how if Jovian proves not any one of these Particulars but directly the contrary For first the Election of Jovian after Constantine's Family was extinct does by no means prove that that Family did not inherit the Empire but it proves the contrary if the Historians say that the Army elected Jovian and on the other side say that the Army and Senate proclaimed and recognized the Sons of Constantine to be the Emperors of the Romans but never talk of their electing them Neither does Procopius prove that Family not to be extinct in Julian For pretended Kindred and much more impudently pretended Kindred is not Kindred An House in Cilicia from which Procopius descended was not the Flavian House no more than a Man who lived all his Life in the quality of an Vnder-Writer or Clerk was a great Man and of the Blood or than a sorry Pen-and-Inkhorn-Fellow as Themistius describes him can be said to make a great Figure in the Times of Constantius and Julian I thought very innocently a Man might be allowed to say That the Line Male of the House of York ended in Richard the Third without telling the World a long impertinent Story of Simnel and Perkin Warbeck but now I see that upon such an occasion unless a Man writes the Memoirs of such Impostors
the very Apostles 2dly Our Author quotes two Authorities The one says A Bill of Exclusion if it should pass would change the Essence of the Monarchy and make the Crown Elective or as another ingenious but I am sure very scurrilous and irreverent Pen saith it would tend to make a Football of the Crown and turn an Hereditary Kingdom into Elective The same Answer will serve them both namely That an Act of disinheriting from the Crown does own and proclaim and prove the Kingdom to be Hereditary And further I would be glad to know in what part of the Globe that Elective Kingdom lies where the very Essence of it is this that the present Possessor of the Crown shall have Power in declaring or disabling his Successor II. His next Argument is from the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy wherein a Minister of London especially ought to have used no Sophistry because Oaths are sacred Things and ought not by false Glosses and Interpretations to be turn'd into Snares to entangle the Consciences of those who hereafter shall be desirous to secure the Protestant Religion and withal to involve three successive Houses of Commons in the Guilt of Perjury only for discharging their Consciences to God and their Country And because our Author after he has done thus stands upon his Justification and calls his Way of Arguing plain and honest and says he is not conscious of the least Sophistry in it I shall endeavour to make his Sophistry stare him in the face I shewed him before in my Preface by the most convincing Proof that could be produced that by the Heirs and Successors mentioned in these Oaths are meant Kings and Queens of this Realm of England And if the old Oath of Allegiance at Common-Law which I there quoted had not expresly said so yet Common-Sense would have taught us the very same For Allegiance sworn to a Subject must needs be Treason And therefore as I there argued it is a Falshood of very dangerous Consequence to say that any Person besides his Majesty hath now any Interest in those Oaths or can lay claim to any part of them Our Author had done well to have answered that Argument before he had fallen to new-vamping of old baffled Fallacies which I shall now examine By the Oath of Supremacy as he says true we are sworn to our Power to assist and defend all Jurisdictions Privileges Preheminencies and Authorities granted or belonging to the Kings Highness his Heirs and lawful Successors united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm Now one of these Jurisdictions granted or belonging to the King's Highness his Heirs and lawful Successors united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm is this That the King with and by the Authority of the Parliament of England is able to make Laws and Statutes of sufficient force and validity to limit and bind the Crown of this Realm and the Descent Limitation Inheritance and Government thereof And therefore I ask if they be not the perjured Persons who by asserting an unalterable Succession endeavour to destroy this Jurisdiction Privilege and Authority which they are sworn to maintain But our Author 's honest way of arguing is to have four Terms in a Syllogism As thus We are sworn to defend the Rights of Supremacy vested in the King Ergo we are bound to defend an unalterable Succession which is contrary to the Rights of this Supremacy Again we are sworn to defend all Privileges belonging to the King's Heirs and Successors that is Kings and Queens of England Ergo we are sworn to defend all the Privileges belonging to such as are neither Kings nor Queens but Subjects of England and if they be excluded never can be Kings or Queens of England And therefore to our Author's first Question I answer No Subject can possibly have undoubted transcendent and essential Rights Privileges and Preheminencies united to the Imperial Crown of England for if so then the Imperial Crown of England is united to his Rights which I would desire our Author to take heed of affirming for we can have but one Soveraign as there is but one Sun in the Firmament To his second Question I answer By lawful Successors is meant Kings and Queens of England which have not been always next Heirs by Proximity of Blood witness Henry 7. Q. Mary and Q. Elizabeth who could not be both Heirs in that manner to Edward the 6 th And further I say that the Oath of Supremacy only binds us to the King in being and not to the whole Royal Family otherwise we should have a great many Soveraigns at once and it is made in our Author's Phrase for the Behoof and Interest of the Crown and not for the Behoof of him who may never be concern'd in it In the next place we have these Words Some indeed have said with our Author that the Oath of Supremacy is a Protestant Oath and so could not be understood in a Sence destructive to the Protestant Religion which is a meer Shift and proves nothing because it proves too much Sir I think it was much more a Shift to find out a way to drive on the Popes Interest by an Oath which does most solemnly renounce him and under a pretence of unalterable Succession of which there is not the least shadow in this Oath but the direct contrary to abandon this Protestant Kingdom to the Hellish Tyranny of Rome which we are sworn to oppose and all Protestants will oppose even under a Popish Successor if any such can be in England and let Dr. Watson prove it if he can to be no less than resisting the Ordinance of God. But methinks it had been time enough to offer to prove that after the Pope's Power had been re-established by a Law and not to go about it now when it is Treason to endeavour to reconcile Men to the Church of Rome Thus much the Oath of Supremacy proves which is not nothing nor a Jot too much And further it proves that we are bound in order to the keeping out the Pope's Power which we have utterly renounced humbly to beg of his Majesty to foreclose a Popish Successor who will infallibly let it in I am sure this way of assisting and defending the Jurisdictions and Authorities of the Crown is in our Power and so is within the compass of our Oath and therefore we are treacherous to the Crown and false to our Oath as well as to God and to our Religion if we will not do so much for any of them as this comes to And I do seriously and earnestly recommend this Consideration to all that have taken the Oath of Supremacy and especially to the Clergy of England who have taken it several times over As for our Author 's saying That moderate Papists will take the Oath of Supremacy I shall only say this to it Let him shew me a Man that has taken this Oath and prove him to be a Papist and I
will prove him perjured Again he says As these are Protestant Oaths they bind us the more emphatically to assist and defend the King against the Vsurpation of the Pope who pretends to a Power of deposing Kings and of excluding Hereditary Princes from the Succession Answ We are bound emphatically to renounce all Power of the Pope and therefore this among the rest but we are bound to assert many Instances of that Power to the King which we deny to the Pope of which I have proved the Power of excluding a Popish Prince to be one Which if the Pope himself exercises upon Protestant Princes where he but pretends to be Supream he is a Wretch if he complains or any Body for him that the like is done by them who really are Supream This in short is your plain and honest Arguing We are sworn to deny the Pope's usurped Power Ergo we are sworn to deny the King 's just and lawful Power which by the same Oath we are bound to maintain In the next Paragraph our Author protests to all the World that he has sworn Allegiance and Supremacy to Subjects or to the unalterable Succession or to I know not what for he is not very clear But as for all others who have taken no such rash and unlawful Oath they need no Absolution from it and consequently there had not been such a World of Popery in the Bill of Exclusion upon that Score And therefore I desire our Author not to trouble his Head about it and he may speak to the Great Man whom he quotes for that notable Observation to do so too If he himself has been so forward as to swear before-hand to a Subject he has done it in his own Wrong and he knows how by Repentance to disengage himself from a rash void and unlawful Oath for he ought to have sworn only to our Sovereign Lord the King that now is and to his Highness Heirs and lawful Successors Kings or Queens of this Realm of England and other his Dominions depending on the same I never in my Life read any thing of that kind with greater pleasure than his Conclusion of this second Argument to see a Man bewildred and confounded and lost in his own Sophistry I took notice in my Preface of an Abuse in Common Speech where Men that are only in possibility of being Heirs are called Heirs next Heirs c. in which absurd and dangerous Sence some weak Men have taken the Heirs and Successors mentioned in the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and thereupon were against a Bill of Exclusion I then proved it and therefore had the confidence to call it a deceitful Prejudice and must now add that it is a very silly Prejudice because every Bill Bond Release and almost any other Writing that passes in common Intercourse among Men wherein Heirs are mentioned is sufficient to correct it for where Men are concerned to speak properly Heirs are always understood to be those who actually inherit Now as in a Covenant I promise to pay A. B. and to his Heirs the yearly Rent of c. without promising one Farthing to his eldest Son or without being bound that his eldest Son shall be his Heir after his Death or without being obliged not to express a desire that A. B. would disinherit his eldest Son if he have given manifest proof that he will utterly ruine the Estate and Family So it is in these Oaths with this difference That it would be only the Absurdity and Inconvenience of paying my Rent twice over to take Heirs for possible Heirs in this lower and more familiar Instance of a Covenant whereas it would involve us in Treason to take Heirs in that Sence in the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy But this unconscionable Man will have them taken in both Sences in these Oaths Heirs and Successors in the very same place shall signify Subjects and not Subjects but Kings and Queens Heirs shall stand for those that actually inherit and not for them but for those that may and may not inherit and in case of Exclusion never shall And lawful Successors shall stand for such as lawfully succeed their Predecessors and in the self-same place shall stand for unlawful Successors a sort of Successors before their time In one word Heirs and lawful Successors in the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy must either signify Kings and Queens as the Oath of Allegiance at Common-Law expounds it self which the Lawyers call Benedicta expositio ex visceribus causae a blessed Exposition out of the Bowels of the Cause or else they must signify Subjects for it is contradictious and Transubstantiation-Non-sence to say they signify both If they signify Kings and Queens then we are no ways bound to any Person under that degree by those Oaths and they have been very unfairly as well as mischievously urged against a Bill of Exclusion If any Man say they signify Subjects then this grievous Inconvenience unavoidably follows That we have promised from henceforth that is from the Time we were sworn and so onwards to bear them Faith and true Allegiance which I suppose no Minister of London nor Minister of State in England will think fit to affirm III. And now comes his third Argument atttended with a marginal Superfaetation of little sucking Arguments such as Dei gratiâ Dieu Mon droit c. all equally concluding against a Bill of Exclusion The main Argument for which he quotes Cook upon Littleton of Tenures is this The Inheritance of our Lord the King is a direct Dominion of which none is the Author but God alone The King holds of none but God He has no superiour Lord as Cook explains himself in the same place the Crown is no Norman Fee Ergo the King cannot bind and limit the Succession I thought he could the sooner for that for what shall hinder him from disposing of his own for the Welfare and with the Consent of his Kingdom who have a greater Interest in their King than our Author is aware of From the aforesaid Principle he gives us to understand that the Wise and the Learned infer this Conclusion That it would be Vsurpation without a manifest Revelation from God to preclude any Person of the Royal Family from succeeding to the Crown The Learned may do much but I will go upon his Errand an hundred Miles an end who will shew any other Man how to infer that Conclusion from that Argument But for all that they shew themselves neither learned nor wise in calling for a manifest Revelation from God for a Bill of Exclusion because that may occasion others to demand a manifest Revelation for any Papist's Right to succeed in a Protestant Kingdom where by the Laws of that Kingdom if he be reconciled to the Church of Rome he has not a Right to live A manifest Revelation to shew why a Natural Fool or Mad-man who cannot help it may be put by the Succession as not
fit to govern but a Papist who is more dangerous and destructive to a Protestant Kingdom than both of them and that by his own Fault too may not be prevented In a Word a manifest Revelation to shew how a publick Enemy as every Person who is reconciled to the Church of Rome is in the Eye of the Law can possibly be the Fountain of Justice and Mercy which is the true Notion of an English King. These things do stand more in need of a manifest Revelation to clear them up than a Bill of Exclusion does which is as manifestly lawful as that the King and Parliament have power to make a just and necessary Law. Besides where was the Wisdom of our Author or his Friends in demanding a Revelation from God for a necessary Alteration of the Succession when they themselves cannot pretend to one for the Establishment of it Since it is an undeniable Maxime both in Law and Reason that Things are dissolved as they be contracted and an Obligation only by Word of Mouth needs not Hand and Seal to discharge it For by these unreasonable Demands which are contrary to the known Laws of the Kingdom they put Men upon Enquiries nice and unprofitable As how and for what cause the Monarchy of England came to be Hereditary And whether a Popish Prince does not perfectly overthrow that excellent Constitution and disinherit himself This is laid down for a known and acknowledged Truth in the Reasons of the House of Commons 14 Elizab. against Mary Queen of Scots Queen Elizabeth was contented to disable the Queen of Scots as a Person unworthy of any Hope or Title Preheminence or Dignity within this her Land and the Law so to run that if any should enterprise to deliver her out of Prison after her Disablement either in her Majesty's Life or after the same to be convicted immediatly of High-Treason and her self assenting thereunto to be likewise adjudged as a Traytor in Law. This the Commons in their large Answer represent both as needless and as insufficient Whereas it is said that it standeth to very good purpose to proceed only in disabling of the Scotish Queen for any Claim or Title to the Crown we take it by your Majesty's favour that such an especial disabling of the Scotish Queen is in effect a special Confirmation of a Right that she should have had Quia privatio praesupponit habitum And further we do take it for a known Truth that by the Laws and Statutes of this Land now in force she is already disabled and therefore it is to small purpose rem actam agere And now I have done with our Author's Arguments as they are his for as they are Scotch or Newmarket Positions I have nothing to say to them Only it would be worth our Author's Pains and he may get the Addressing Part of the University to help him to reconcile this Scotch Act which makes such a brave shew in his Preface with the History of Succession in Scotland lest while he is so industrious to serve the Interest of a Popish Successor he be found overthrowing the Titles of all the Kings of Scotland for these three hundred Years not excepting his present Majesty's Title to that Kingdom no nor the Expectations of that very Person to whom he is so much devoted The History in short is this Robert Stuart the hundredth King of Scotland and first of the Family of the Stuarts had a Concubine named Elizabeth More the Daughter of Sir Adam More by whom he had three Sons and two Daughters and himself marrying Eufemia the Daughter of the Earl of Ross took care to marry Elizabeth More to one Giffard a Noble-Man in the County of Louthien By Eufemia he had Issue Walter and David Earls of Athol and Strathern and Eufemia who was afterwards married to James Duglass Son to the Earl of that Name The Queen Eufemia dying and Giffard the Husband of Elizabeth More dying much about the same time the King marries Elizabeth More his former Concubine and presently ennobles the Sons which he had by her creating John Earl of Carrike Robert Earl of Menteith and Alexander Earl of Bucquhane Nor was he content with doing so much for them but he also obtained from a Parliament at Scone that the Children which he had by Eufemia being past by these should come to the Crown in their Course No Man will offer to say that the Children of Elizabeth More were made inheritable by that After-Marriage for besides the apparent Insufficiency of it for that purpose what need was there then of obtaining an Act of Parliament to make them so and to set by the Children of Eufemia Now if no Law or Act of Parliament made or to be made can alter or divert the Right of Succession according to the known Degrees of Proximity in Blood what then becomes of the Scone Act But if an Act made at Scone can set aside three Persons at once with all their numerous Descendents for no Fault nor Forfeiture at all why might not an Act made at Westminster have done as much for one single Person alone especially when that Westminster Act would have been in some respects as favourable as an Act of Grace If our Author can tell why he shall be a greater Oracle to me than the great Apollo There is nothing betwixt this and the End of the Preface worth answering which has not already been answered unless it be that Passage where he withdraws his general Approbation of what I had written against Popery as rashly given because I seem to deny that the Church of Rome is a true Church of Christ I desire our Author to make but one Business of it and at the same time to withdraw his hearty Subscription to the Homilies which do more than seem to deny it especially in the second part of the Homily for Whit-Sunday for that whole Sermon is spent in shewing first what the true Church of Christ is and then in conferring the Church of Rome therewith to discern how well they agree together and lastly in concluding that because the Church of Rome is not the true Church of Christ and the Bishops of Rome and their Adherents are not in the Church therefore they have not the Holy-Ghost tho they have for a long time made a sore Challenge thereunto but by their Practices make it plain to all the World that they have the Spirit of the Devil It affirms and which is more proves That the Church of Rome is not a true Church nor has been these nine hundred Years and odd So that our Author must go a great way back to seek his true Church of England in his true Church of Rome I wonder in my Heart what those Gentlemen mean who pretend to be the only Sons of the Church of England and yet make nothing of blowing up whole Homilies at once and are continually disgracing all the Protestant Principles of our glorious
Notion of Soveraignty which is a Notion indeed any farther than it is supported by the Law of the Land. And therefore if any Man would know for certain what the King's Prerogatives are he must not take his Information from Notions of Sovereignty which are as various as the Faces of the Moon but from the Law of the Land where he shall find them granted or belonging united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm Amongst which this is not the least That the King can do no Wrong The King is God's Lieutenant and is not able to do an unjust Thing These are the Words of the Law says Judg Jenkins Consequently he cannot overthrow the Laws nor is he able to authorize any Forces to destroy his Liege Subjects for this would be the highest Wrong and Injustice And therefore Forces so employed act of their own Heads and upon their own wicked Heads let their own Mischief fall And yet our Author is pleased to call such Wretches so employed the Soveraign's Forces and his Armies p. 203 221 against which we must not upon pain of Damnation defend our selves I appeal to all the Lawyers of England whether the Law will own any Number of Men to be authorized by the King in outraging and destroying his Liege People or whether it be not a great Aggravation of their Crime to pretend a Commission from the King to warrant such illegal and destructive Violence But this Author who is resolved to be an Advocate for Bloodshed and Oppression will shelter an Association of Murtherers under his common Laws of Soveraignty and if they ravage and destroy in the King's Name which doubles the Crime will make that their Protection And lastly which is the great Cheat that runs through this whole Discourse to make them irresistible he shrouds and covers them under the Name of the Soveraign For it is plain that in his Answer to my five Propositions p. 204 205. and generally throughout the following Chapters by Sovereign he means such Forces of the Soveraign for he bears me witness p. 221. that I acknowledged even a Popish Soveraign to be inviolable as to his own Person I know that deceiving Men for their Good has heretofore been excused as a pious Fraud but I am sure that such foul Practice as this to ensnare Mens Consciences and to cheat them out of their Lives is an impious Fraud and as such I leave it with the Author of it and pass to the Second Thing His Distinction of Imperial and Political Laws Common Law we know and Statute-Law we know but who are ye I confess I have heretofore seen something not unlike that Distinction in Aesop where there was a Political Law or Compact fairly made betwixt the Lion the Fox and the Ass but while the Ass was proceeding by the Measures of that Law of a sudden the Imperial Lion-Law broke loose and tore him in pieces It concerns us therefore to examine upon what Foundation this dangerous Distinction is built and if it prove to be false and groundless the good People of England have little to thank this Gentleman for Pag. 210. we have these Words Thus the Learned Chancellor Fortescue grants the King of England to have Regal or Imperial Power altho it be under the Restraint and Regulation of the Power Political as to the Exercise thereof That Distinction in the last Clause is false as I shall shew anon From that perverted Passage of Chancellor Fortescue where he speaks of Regal and Politick Dominion I doubt not but our Author or some Body for him framed his new Distinction of Imperial and Political Laws and contrived them into two contradictious Tables by one of which the Subjects Rights and Properties are secured and established and are all overthrown by the other The Lord Chancellor Fortescue is the first English Lawyer that used the Terms of Regal and Politick Government which he owns to have borrowed from Thomas Aquinas in his Book de Regimine Principum dedicated to the King of Cyprus by which Phrase that old Schoolman exprest a mixed and limited Monarchy For any Man that pleases to read those Books will see that Aquinas understands by Regal Government an absolute Monarchy and by Politick Government such Governments as the Common-wealths of Rome and Athens and by Regal and Politick a King ruling by a Senate and prescribed Rules of Law. And that Chancellor Fortescue in his Dialogue with the Prince of Wales makes no other use of the Phrase than Thomas Aquinas did will sufficiently appear by setting down his Discourse at large wherein I desire the Reader 's Patience because I intend it as a Specimen of this Answerer's Faithfulness in quoting his Authors In which Discourse that great Lawyer sometimes calls this Government Regal and Politick sometimes a Politick Kingdom but what he means by it is best exprest in his own Words Chap. 9. You stand in doubt most worthy Prince whether it be better for you to give your Mind to the Study of the Laws of England or of the Civil Laws because they throughout the whole World are advanced in Glory and Renown above all other Humane Laws Let not this Scruple of Mind trouble you most noble Prince for the King of England cannot alter nor change the Laws of his Realm at his pleasure For why he governeth his People by Power not only Royal but also Politick If his Power over them were Royal only then he might change the Laws of his Realm and charge his Subjects with Tallage and other Burdens without their consent and such is the Dominion which the Civil Laws purport when they say The Prince's Pleasure hath the Force of a Law. But from this much differeth the Power of a King whose Government over his People is Politick For he can neither change the Laws without the consent of his Subjects nor yet charge them with strange Impositions against their Wills. Wherefore his People do frankly and freely enjoy their own Goods being ruled by such Laws as they themselves desire neither are they pilled by their own King or by any Body else Like Pleasure also and Freedom have the Subjects of a King ruling by Power Royal only so long as he falleth not into Tyranny Of such a King speaketh Aristotle in the 3 d Book of his Politicks saying That it is better for a City to be governed by a good King than by a good Law. But forasmuch as a King is not ever such a Man therefore St. Thomas in the Book which he wrote to the King of Cyprus of the Governance of Princes wisheth the State of a Realm to be such that it may not be in the King's Power at pleasure to oppress his People with Tyranny which Thing is accomplished only when the Power Royal is restrained by a Politick Law. Rejoyce therefore most worthy Prince and be glad that the Law of the Realm wherein you are to succeed is such for it shall exhibit and minister to
you and your People no small Security and Comfort With such Laws as saith St. Thomas should all Mankind have been governed if in Paradise they had not transgressed God's Commandment With such Laws also was the Synagogue ruled while it was under God only as King who adopted the same to him for a peculiar Kingdom but at the last when at their request they had a Man-King set over them they were then under Royal Laws only brought very low Chap. 10. Then the Prince thus said How cometh it to pass good Chancellor that one King may govern his People by Power Royal only and that another King can have no such Power Seeing both these Kings are in Dignity equal I cannot chuse but much muse and marvel why in Power they should thus differ Of which Difference in Authority over their Subjects the Chancellor in the next Chapter promises to shew the Reason which is grounded upon the different Originals of those Kingdoms And accordingly chap. 12. he shews that an Absolute Monarchy is founded in the forced Consent of a subdued and inslaved People and chap. 13. That a Kingdom of Politick Governance is founded in the voluntary Consent of the Community And after he has illustrated the first Institution of a Politick Kingdom by shewing how it resembles the Formation of a natural Body he thus proceeds in the 13 th Chapter Now you understand most noble Prince the Form of Institution of a Kingdom Politick whereby you may measure the Power which the King thereof may exercise over the Law and Subjects of the same For such a King is made and ordained for the Defence of the Law of his Subjects and of their Bodies and Goods whereunto he receiveth Power of his People so that he cannot govern his People by any other Power Wherefore to satisfy your Request in that you desire to be certified how it cometh to pass that in the Power of Kings there is so great diversity Surely in mine Opinion the diversity of the Institutions or first Ordinances of those Dignities which I have now declared is the only Cause of this foresaid Difference as of the Premises by the Discourse of Reason you may easily gather For thus the Kingdom of England out of Brute's Retinue of the Trojans which he brought out of the Coasts of Italy and Greece first grew to a Politick and Regal Dominion Thus also Scotland which sometime was subject to England as a Dukedom thereof was advanced to a Politick and Royal Kingdom Many other Kingdoms also had thus their first beginning not only of Regal but also of Politick Government Wherefore Diodorus Siculus in his second Book of ancient History thus writeth of the Egyptians The Egyptian Kings lived at first not after the licentious manner of other Rulers whose Will and Pleasure is instead of Law but as it had been private Persons they were bound by the Law neither did they think much at it being persuaded that by obeying the Laws they should be happy For by such Rulers as followed their own Lusts they thought many Things were done whereby they should incur divers Harms and Perils And in his fourth Book thus he writeth The Ethiopian King as soon as he is created he ordereth his Life according to the Laws and doth all things after the Manner and Custom of his Country assigning neither Reward nor Punishment to any Man other than the Law made by his Predecessors appointeth He reporteth much the same of the King of Saba in Arabia Faelix and of certain other Kings which in old Time reigned happily Chap. 14. To whom the Prince thus answered You have good Chancellor with the clear Light of your Declaration dispelled the Clouds wherewith my Mind was darkned so that I do most evidently see that no Nation did ever of their own voluntary Mind incorporate themselves into a Kingdom for any other Intent but only to the end that they might enjoy their Lives and Fortunes which they were afraid of losing with greater Security than before And of this Intent should such a Nation be utterly defrauded if then their King might spoil them of their Goods which before was lawful for no Man to do And yet should such a People be much more injured if they should afterwards be governed by foreign and strange Laws yea and such as they peradventure deadly hated and abhorred And most of all if by those Laws their Substance should be diminished for the Safeguard whereof as also for the Security of their Persons they of their own accord submitted themselves to the Governance of a King. No such Power for certain could proceed from the People themselves and yet unless it had been from the People themselves such a King could have had no Power at all over them Now on the other side I perceive it to stand much otherwise with a Kingdom which is incorporate by the King 's sole Power and Authority because such a Nation is subject to him upon no other Terms but that this Nation which was made his Kingdom by his Will and Pleasure should obey and be governed by his Laws which are nothing else but the same Will and Pleasure Neither have I yet good Chancellor forgotten that which in your Treatise of the Nature of the Law of Nature you have learnedly proved that the Power of these two Kings is equal while the Power of the one whereby he is at liberty to deal wrongfully is not by such Liberty augmented as to have Power to decay and die is not Power but because of the Privations which are added to it is rather to be called Impotency and Want of Power because as Boetius saith Power is not but to Good. So that to be able to do Evil which the King who rules Regally is more at liberty to do than the King that has a Politick Dominion over his People is rather a Diminution than an Increase of his Power For the Holy Spirits which are now established in Glory and cannot sin do in Power far excell and pass us who have a delight and pleasure to run headlong into all kind of Wickedness It is plain to any attentive Reader that throughout this long Discourse Fortescue speaks but of two sorts of Kingdoms an absolute Monarchy and a limited Monarchy the latter of which he sometimes calls a Politick Government and sometimes he calls the very same Regal and Politick to distinguish it more expresly from an Aristocracy or Democracy But I will prove this beyond contradiction by some other Passages in Fortescue where he tells us that some of the former Kings of England would fain have changed the Laws of England for the Civil Law and did all they could to shake off this Politick Yoke of the Law of England that they also might rule or rather rage over their Subjects in Regal wise only and for this end endeavoured with might and main to cast away their Politick Government This is what our Author would have and
very agreeable to his Hypothesis for then the Regal or Imperial Power had been discharged of the Politick Clog and had governed all alone and the Notions of Sovereignty and Passive Obedience had been as clear as the Sun. But then in some other unlucky places the same Fortescue speaking of the self-same Thing says That those former Kings of England would have parted with their Law Politick and Regal too and would fain have changed them both for the Civil Law. It seems they were as weary of the one as of the other which could not possibly be help'd because they were all one And now I appeal to all the World whether here be any Foundation for a Table of Imperial Laws which can at pleasure destroy the Lives Liberties and Properties of the Subject And whether on the other side according to Fortescue the Safety and Security of the People be not the supream Law of a Regal and Politick Kingdom But because our Author is mighty troublesom with his Imperial Laws and Imperial Power and boundless Power and such like Terms of his own coining which is a Presumption at least that what he writes is not Law but his own Dreams which no Terms of English Law can express I shall tell him from these Passages of Fortescue That the greatest Power the King of England has is this that he can do no Wrong that he cannot authorize any Man or Number of Men to destroy his Subjects contrary to Law consequently that all such illegal destructive Acts tho attempted in his Name are inauthoritative and do neither bind any Man's Conscience nor tie any Man's Hands from using those Remedies which the Laws of God and Nature as well as the Common and Statute-Laws of the Land do allow to be used against all evil-disposed Persons I shall tell him likewise from these following Authorities and many more which might be produced that his Assertion of an absolute unbounded Power in the King which is limited only in the Exercise of it is perniciously false For the Law gives the King his Power and Dominion says Bracton We hold only what the Law holds saith Judg Jenkins The King's Prerogative and the Subjects Liberty are determined and bounded and admeasured by a written Law what they are We do not hold the King to have any more Power neither doth his Majesty claim any other but what the Law gives him Accordingly King Charles the First acknowledges that his Prerogatives are built upon the Law of the Land which in another place he declares are the justest Rule and Measure for them I shall add but one remarkable Passage more out of the King's Answer to both Houses concerning the Militia Feb. 28. 1641. And his Majesty is willing to grant every of them such Commissions as he hath done this Parliament to some Lords Lieutenants by your Advice but if that Power be not thought enough but that more shall be thought fit to be granted to these Persons named than by the Law is in the Crown it self his Majesty holds it reasonable that the same be by some Law first vested in him with Power to transfer it to these Persons which He will willingly do Now this is Demonstration if the Law be the Measure of the King's Power then he has no Power beyond the Bounds of the Law and whatsoever is pretended in the King's Name beyond those Bounds is void and carries no manner of Authority with it Whereas to say the King's Power is absolute and boundless is to say the Government is absolute and arbitrary and requires absolute and unlimited Subjection For it is Nonsence to say that boundless Power can be limited in the Exercise of it for boundless Power which has in it the whole Legislative Power can at pleasure make a Law to take away that Limitation and he that is limited only by his own pleasure is not limited at all And again that is not Power which cannot be exercised and therefore a Fountain full of boundless Power which cannot be brought into Act is a Fountain full of inauthoritative Authority or full of Emptifulness So much for our Author's Fountain Pipes and Channels We have his other Illustration of a boundless limited Power in these Words To be confined in the Exercise doth not destroy the Being nor diminish the Perfection of Sovereign Power for then the Power of God himself could not be Sovereign because there are certain immutable Rules of Truth and Justice within which it is necessarily limited and confined I answer As God exercises no Power which is inconsistent with Truth and Justice so he has no such Power in him in the Root or Being for it is all Imperfection and Weakness And that he neither exercises nor has any such Power is not to be imputed to any intrinsecal Limitation or Confinement but to the infinite and illimited Perfection of his Nature And if such a miscalled Power or Possibility of doing wickedly be found in the Creature it is because he is a Creature it proceeds from Finiteness and Defect And to shew our Author how much more Light there is in a few plain Words than in his Similitudes and Illustrations I say It is self-evident that a Man has no more Power in any kind than he can exercise A Man has no more natural Power than he can naturally exercise he has no more moral Power than he can morally exercise he has no more Civil or Legal Power than he can legally exercise For to say he has more Power than he can exercise is to say he can do more than he can do And therefore an Ocean of our Author 's boundless lawful Power of doing what cannot lawfully be done will not fill an Egg-shell and is such a New-nothing as even Children will despise Before I pass from this Distinction of Imperial and Political Laws I must say somewhat to a Heap of Authorities which we have p. 208 209. to prove that the Realm of England is an Empire that the Crown of it is an Imperial Crown and that one of the Saxon Kings stiled himself Basileus Imperator Dominus Well what of all that The Realm of England is an Empire has an Imperial Crown and is as independent upon any Foreign Realm as the Empire of Turkie therefore the Freemen of England are as very Slaves as any are in Turky and under Imperial or Bowstring Law. If that be your Consequence I will give you your whole Life's time to make it good But Edgar stiled himself Basileus Imperator Dominus And Carolus Rex signifies a great deal more than all those three Titles did I am ashamed to see Rolls of Parliament quoted for such poor Trifles for it is plain by all the Remains which we have of the Saxon Times by History by the Saxon Laws by King Alfred's Will in Asser Menevensis and by the Mirrour that the Saxon Kings were far from being absolute Emperors having no other Power than what
was limited and restrained by Law and Rules of Right as is largely set down in the Mirrour p. 8. Esâ—ierent de eux un Roy a reigner sur eux governer le People d'Dieu a maintainer defendre les persons les biens en quiet per les Rules d'droit al comencement ilz fieront le Roy jurer que il mainteindroit la sanct foy Christian ove tout son poyar sa people guideroit per droit sans regard a ascun person serroit abbeissant a suffre droit come autres de son people And p. 9. in case the King did Wrong to any of his People that he might not be Judg and Party too Convient per droit que le Roy ust Compaignions pur Oyer Terminer aux Parliaments trestouts les breves plaints de torts de le Roy de la Roigne de lour Infans de eux especialment de que torts leu ne poit aver autrement Common droit And for this purpose as well as to make Laws for the good Government of the People it was ordained in King Alfred's time for a perpetual Usage that a Parliament should meet twice a Year at London and oftner if need were as you have it p. 10. And you have a great many particular Laws which were made in those Parliaments p. 15. Amongst other things it was ordained that all Plaintiffs should have Writs of Remedy in the King's Court Aussi bien sur le Roy ou sur la Roigne come sur autre del people d' chestun injury forsque en vengeances d' vie d' membre ou pleint tient lieu sans brief And in the last place to avoid prolixity this Book speaking of the Abusions of the Common Law that is Practices which are Frauds to the Law and repugnant to Right pag. 282. hath these Words La primier la soveraigne abusion est que le Roy est oustre la ley ou il duist ceste subject sicome est contenus in son serement 2 Abusion est que ou les Parlaments se duissent faire pur le salvation des Almes de Trespassors ceo a Londres deux foits per An la ne se font ils ore forsque rarement a la volunt le Roy pur aides cuilets de tresore c. Vide Abusion 153 p. 308. I hope this pure old French of which Chancellor Fortescue says the modern is but a Corruption will inform our Author what Power a Saxon King had and what Basileus Imperator Dominus signified I come now to the next Head to examine some Preambles of Statutes which he either quotes to no purpose or else mangles them in the same manner as Scripture was once quoted to our Saviour and for the self-same end namely to teach Men to tempt God and Danger at once His first Collection of Preambles pag. 212 213 consists of Declarations that the Crown and Realm of England is not in subjection to the Pope which make nothing at all to our Author's purpose but very much against it if he did not stifle them with Et caetera's and long Strokes for the Truth of which I refer the Reader to those Statutes and shall only set down 25 H. 8. cap. 21. for I am not at leisure either to transcribe the Statute-Book or to winnow all our Author's Chaffe He says pag. 212. The Parliament directing their Declaration to the King enacted and declared That this your Graces Realm recognizing no Superiour under God but only your Grace hath been and is free from Subjection c. Now the following Words are these To any Man's Laws but such as have been devised made and ordained within this Realm for the Wealth of the same or to such other as by Sufferance of your Grace and your Progenitors the People of this your Realm have taken at their free Liberty by their own Consent to be used amongst them and have bound themselves by long Use and Custom to the Observance of the same not as to the Observance of the Laws of any Foreign Prince Potentate or Prelate but as to the Custom and ancient Laws of this Realm originally establish'd as Laws of the same by the said Sufferance Consents and Custom and none otherwise It standeth therefore with natural Equity and good Reason that all and every such Laws Humane made within this Realm or induced into this Realm by the said Sufferance Consents and Custom your Royal Majesty and your Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons representing the whole State of your Realm in this your most High Court of Parliament have full Power and Authority not only to dispence but also to authorize some elect Person or Persons to dispence with those and all other Humane Laws of this your Realm and with every one of them as the quality of the Persons or Matter shall require and also the said Laws and every of them to abrogate adnull amplify or diminish Now our Author it is possible may find out of these Words an unalterable humane Law of Succession or that the King has the whole Legislative Power or that there are Imperial Laws ordained within this Realm which are not for the Wealth of the same but may destroy the Political Laws at every turn And so may any Body else make the same Discoveries who is resolved before-hand to do it His other Collection is p. 218 219. not one of which concerns the present Question no not that wherein he triumphs and slavishly braggs That the very Doctrine of the Bow-string is declared by Act of Parliament 'T were better the Doctrine of the Bowstring were about his Neck tho his Name were Legion I see that if the whole Nation were enslaved we have some of the Brood of Cham amongst us who would rejoice at it and make themselves as merry with it as Nero was at the Flames of Rome and would dance after his Harp. But such impotent Malice and poor-spirited Insolence is below an English-Man's Indignation and therefore I shall calmly desire our Author to look over again that Declaration 13 Car. 2. cap. 6. and to tell me in which Clause Word or Syllable of it he finds the Doctrine of the Bow-string declared For my part I have read it very often over and cannot see any more in it than this That it is unlawful for both or either of the Houses of Parliament to raise or levy any War offensive or defensive against the King which was always Treason for any Subjects to do But was ever a legal Defence against unauthorized illegal Violence of Subjects called by the Name of levying War against the King Shew me That in any authentick Book of Common-Law in any Statute or in any Resolution of all the Judges in England and I will be as passive as any Man. Before I go any further I must not forget a Passage which does more nearly concern me p. 221 222. wherein I am taxed
has Reason to take this Concession kindly for I do assure him that I will not make him such another again nor bate him one Syllable in my whole Book besides Lastly as for the Vncanonicalness and Eccentricity as our Author calls it of Gregory's Intentions in this Passage let both the Gregories and the Church of Nazianzum who thought it a great part of the old Man's Praises look to 't I am no ways concern'd In the same Chapter p. 122. he finds a Plot against the Chaplains and the Government in rendring 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chaplain It is always rendred Aedituus in Latine which Gouldman says is the Prelate of the Temple or Church the Parson Now as from Aedes comes Aedituus so from Chappel comes Chaplain and that was the very Reason of my chusing that Word which I did the rather because Julian's Temple of Fortune was but a Chappel and stood within the Palace There is likewise in the same Chapter p. 124. somewhat that is like the Letter from Legorn from on board the Van-Herring but that being a mysterious sort of Writing is out of my way and therefore I shall say nothing at all to it Our Author 's frequent Inconsistencies and Contradictions would fill a Book The Roman Empire he says was Elective and yet p. 9. in the fundamental Constitution of it it was decreed by the Senate to Julius Caesar and the Sons of his Body P. 222. He calls this an Atheistical Principle That all Power is radically in the People And yet it seems it was otherwise at Sparta for p. 240 he tells us The Kings of Sparta had only the Exercise of the Sovereign Power but not the Sovereign Power it self that was radically and originally in the People And so in the same Page The Magistrates in Switzerland derive their Power from the People Now I thought that what was really Atheism in one Country would never prove to be good Divinity in another but must be Atheism every where But because our Author is pleased to call this an Atheistical as well as an Illegal Principle in England I shall here set down the Words of Mr. Hooker as great a Man perhaps as ever England bred whose Book has been deservedly recommended by several Kings and admired by all Men and who does not use to be charged with broaching Atheistical and Illegal Principles Eccles Pol. lib. 1. cap. 10. All Publick Regiment of what kind soever seemeth evidently to have risen from deliberate Advice Consultation and Composition between Men. And after a large Discourse to that purpose he has these Words That which we spake before concerning the Power of Government must here be applied to the Power of making Laws whereby to govern which Power God hath over all and by the Natural Law whereunto he hath made all Subject the lawful Power of making Laws to command whole Politick Societies of Men belongeth so properly unto the same entire Societies that for any Prince or Potentate of what kind soever upon Earth to exercise the same of himself and not either by express Commission immediately and personally received from God or else by Authority derived at first from their Consent upon whose Persons they impose Laws it is no better than meer Tyranny It is wonderful to see what a Dust he raises about the Pursuivant p. 276 277 c. which yet may be all layed by one Word and by only saying That Brownlow's Reports were writ for those that understood the Word Homicide which amongst other things is Chance-medley or Se Defendendo as well as Man-Slaughter And in this very Case Simpson's Case which you have over again in Coke's 4 th part Inst of Eccles Courts p. 333. with more exactness of Circumstances my Lord Chief-Justice Coke says expresly it was Se defendendo in Simpson And yet how many Reflections does our Author load me with upon occasion of that ignorant Mistake just as he has done in many other places of his Book But it would be hard indeed if one Man's Honesty and Integrity were to be all forfeited by another Man's Ignorance There is I confess in that large abusive Discourse one material Question which he puts to me in these Words Will he make the Law the compleat and adequate Rule to walk by Which I should answer my self but I will get Bishop Hall to do it better for me in these Words What then if the Thief after his Robbery done ceasing any further Danger of Violence shall betake himself to his Heels and run away with my Money In such a Case if the Sum be so considerable as that it much imports my Estate however our Municipal Laws may censure it with which of old even a killing Se defendendo was no less than Felony of Death my Conscience should not strike me if I pursue him with all my Might and in hot Chase so strike him as that by this means I disable him from a further Escape for the recovery of my own and if hereupon his Death shall follow however I should pass with Men God and my own Heart would acquit me Sir you see the Bishop is so far of your Mind that he does not think the Law a compleat and adequate Rule to walk by for he would have exceeded and transgress'd the Law in defence of his own Right nay he would not have thought himself hindred by his Clerical Character but with his own Episcopal Hand whether the Law had given him leave or no would have slain a Thief running away with his Purse And yet Simpson must make a narrow Escape by Repentance and his Neck-Verse from Hell and the Gallows for strugling to rescue himself from a Man-catcher who was running away with his Person Our Author's Law and Casuistical Divinity are so well match'd that it is pity they should ever be parted of both which I shall take my leave at present because I intended a little Book and not a Folio FINIS ERRATA PAg. 17. l. 4. Apastacy r. Apostacy P. 20. l. 23. Cruely r. Cruelty P. 29. l. 7. Admontions r. Admonitions P. 41. l. 26. delibrate r. deliberate P. 71· l. 1. Religions r. Religious P. 118. l. 1. Constantine's r. Constantius's P. 205. l. 7. after Psal 71.11 insert 83.17 Psal 71.1 P. 199. l. 6. dele a. P. 208. l. 8. such a multitude of r. a multitude of such 〈◊〉 of Law Book 2. chap. 1. p. 85. Ephemeris Parl. p. 146. Vide Concil Lat. sub Innocent 3. cap. 3. Manebat antequà m vinum inveniretur omnibus inconcussa libertas nemo sciebat a consorte naturae suae obsequia servitutis exigere Non esset hodie servitus si ebrietas non fuisset Gratian. dist 35. sect 14. This was written upon occasion of delivering up Charters Amm. Marcel l. 22. Saepeque dictitabat Audite me quem Alemanni et Franci audierunt Amm. l. 22. p. 244. Sozom. lib. 5. cap. 4. Julian Epist 52. August Ep. 48 166. Julian Ep. 10. Sozom. lib.
JULIAN'S ARTS TO Undermine and Extirpate CHRISTIANITY The present Impression of this Book was made in the Year 1683 and has ever since lain Buried under the Ruines of all those English Rights which it endeavoured to Defend But by the Auspicious and Happy Arrival of the Prince of Orange both They and It have obtained a Resurrection JVLIAN's ARTS To Undermine and Extirpate CHRISTIANITY TOGETHER With ANSWERS to Constantius the APOSTATE and Jovian By SAMUEL JOHNSON Licensed and Entered according to Order LONDON Printed by J. D. for the Author and are to be sold by Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown and Jonathan Robinson at the Golden-Lion in St. Paul's Church-yard MDCLXXXIX TO THE Ever Glorious MEMORY OF WILLIAM Lord Russel The Author having written this Book in his Lordships Service does most Humbly Offer and Dedicate it The PREFACE BEfore the Reader engages in the perusal of this Book I shall entreat him to take this following Account of what he shall find in it Having given as large an Account in my former Book concerning Julian's Vsage of the Christians and their Behaviour towards him as might satisfy any reasonable Man I have since found it necessary to add some new Matter of Fact upon that Subject both to confirm the old and to free it if it be possible from Wrangling and Dispute And that I might not deliver this fresh Matter in a way of loose and incoherent Quotations which would have been tedious I took a Hint from Gothofredus his Julianus to put it into a Discourse which will at once give an Account of Julian's Devices to worm the Christians out of their Religion and likewise shew how well studied the Papists are in those Arts. My Answerers have been so many that I cannot number them on the sudden and I think it has been Drudgery enough for one Man to read them over but yet because two of them especially have been applauded as the Champions of the Cause I thought my self concerned to give them an Answer not in the least to vindicate my self from their Reflections which I value not tho it were stupidity not at all to resent them but to do what Service I could to Truth and to the Rights of my Native Country for either of which if God will have it so I hope I shall not be unwilling to lay down my Life The Author of Constantius in the late shamming way has set up a Mock-Apostate to give a Diversion and take off the Force of what has been said concerning Julian but I hope it will prove to be with the like Success as the Mock-Plots have had which have always confirmed Men in the Belief of the true one He has likewise abused a great deal of Scripture to expose the Freemen of England and their established Religion to Violence Oppression and Extirpation and if I have rescued those Texts which he has so employed from such mischievous Applications for the future I shall think my Pains well spent The Author of Jovian by coming last has had the Advantage of summing up the Evidence which he has done so faithfully that he has not omitted Heraclitus's Charge against me That I raise an Induction from one Particular which he backs with as true an Observation of his own That I call the few Months of Julian 's Reign an Age p. 139. I say this to shew the Compleatness of this Author's Performance and that in his Answer we read the Substance of all the rest and not to rob him of the Honour of having added many Things of his own as particularly the History of broken Succession in the Empire which may be a true one for ought I know for it is of so small Concernment in this Controversy that I never examined it his Outlandish Notion of a Soveraign which is such a Deceit to a common Reader as a Scale of Dutch Miles would be in a Map of Middlesex and his Distinction of Imperial and Political Laws which is the Master-Piece in his Book This Distinction I am apt to think is his last Refuge and therefore I shall first shew how this Author was driven to it and 2dly How false and groundless it is and 3dly What are the immediate Consequences of it 1. In my former Book I laid down this undeniable Truth That we are bound not to part with our Lives but to defend them unless when the Laws of God or of our Country require us to lay them down Now it is not Death by the Law of God but our Duty to be Protestants and by the Law of the Land it is so far from being Death that on the other hand it is Death to forsake the Protestant Religion and to turn Papist And therefore in case Protestants should be persecuted under a Popish Successor I ask'd by what Law they must die That Question would admit no direct Answer for no Man can say that we ought to die for being Protestants either by the Law of God or the Law of the Land And therefore the Author of Jovian being resolved to cut a Knot which he could not untie has found out the most wretched Expedient of a Distinction that ever was For first he splits and divides one and the same Law of the Land into Imperial and Political and then says that by the Imperial or Prerogative Law we ought to submit to be murthered 2. Now in the second Place there never was a more horrid Slander cast upon the Prerogative than this is For whereas the Law of England says That the King's Prerogative stretcheth not to the doing of any Wrong this Author has found a way to stretch and extend it to the Subversion of all the Laws and to the Destruction of all his Liege Subjects By the Law of England the King is inviolable and by the same Law he can do no Wrong and there is all the Reason in the World that he who is above the doing of any Injury should be placed out of the reach of any manner of Resistance But tho the King can do no Wrong and therefore we can suffer none from him yet to make way for Passive Obedience our Author will have a sort of Subjects call'd the Sovereign's Forces to be irresistible too tho in the most outragious Acts of Destructive Violence That 's too plain a Juggle for as the King can do no Wrong so he can authorize no single Person much less Numbers of Men to do any Wrong Or to borrow the Words of a great Lawyer The King cannot do Injury for if he command to do a Man Wrong the Command is void alter fit Autor and the Actor becomes the Wrong-doer Now whether Men by authorizing themselves to do Mischief and to commit Capital Crimes are thereby entitled to an uncontroulable Imperial Power to the Rights of Sovereignty and to the Prerogative of being irresistible I leave all the World to judg 3. In the last place I shall shew the immediate Consequences of this new
had been utterly unlawful and an horrid Sin to assist Subjects in the Violation of their Duty and Allegiance and to turn at least a whole Years Revenue of all the spiritual Promotions in England into Swords to be employed in resisting the Ordinance of God. Those Men must needs have a great mind to partake of that Damnation wherewith St. Paul threatens this Sin who were willing to purchase it at so dear a rate By which it appears that this modish Passive Doctrine of submitting for Conscience sake to illegal Violence and all sorts of lawless Oppression is all Madness and Innovation and a thing wholly unknown to the Compilers of the Homilies who dream'd as little of it as they did of the late unnatural destructive War which it produc'd And hereby likewise the Reader will be enabled to judg between me and my Adversaries who is truer to the Doctrine of the Church of England They or I and who are really guilty of Apostacy from it they that retain the Primitive Sense of the first Reformers or they that follow the upstart and new-fangled Opinions of a few mischievous and designing Innovators 3. The last thing to be answered are the Religious Pretences which are fetch'd from Scripture for the support of this Passive Doctrine Before I come to examine the particular Texts which this Author has alledged I shall say somewhat in general concerning the great Impertinency of interessing Scripture in this Controversy for this reason because Christ meddles not with the Secular Government of this World as Dr. Hammond infers from the Scripture it self 1 Cor. 7.22 and our Author in his Preface allows that Inference Or as Luther expresses it because The Gospel doth not bar nor abolish any Politick Laws which Position he always held and Bishop Bilson did believe that it could not be refuted the Truth whereof I shall prove both by direct Argument and by parallel Instances 1. The Scripture does not meddle with the Secular Government of this World so as to alter it for to alter Government is to overthrow the just Compacts and Agreements which have been made amongst Men to which they have mutually bound themselves by Coronation-Oaths and Oaths of Allegiance whereby the duties of Governours and Subjects are become the moral Duties of Honesty Justice and righteous dealing which no Man will say it is the work of the Gospel to destroy or abolish 2. If Scripture has made any alteration in the Secular Government of the World then that alteration is Jure Divino and all Governments which are not reformed according to it are unlawful which if it be said concerning our own Constitution is Treason and if it be said of all other Governments in Christendom is very ill manners for none of them pretend much less can be proved to agree exactly with any such Pattern given in the Mount. In the second place therefore Christianity has given no new measures of Rule and Government nor of Obedience and Subjection but on the other hand has forbidden Men to remove the old Land-marks by confirming and re-inforcing the known Duties of Morality in this Case as it has done in like Cases It has charged Masters to be just to their Servants and Servants to be obedient to their Masters whereby it has created no new Right on either side For Masters were always bound to allow their Servants that which is just and equal and Servants to yield Obedience but in what measures or proportions we must not expect to find in Scripture for that is left to be determined by former particular Contracts or by the Laws and Customs of every Country For even those Precepts of absolute Obedience for Servants to obey their Masters in all things and to please them well in all things do not alter any of those measures of Obedience which the Parties themselves shall agree upon or the usage of every Country does prescribe For an English Servant is not bound to obey his Master in all lawful things if they be inconvenient and no part of his Bargain It is lawful for a Servant to obey his covetous Master and to please him well in taking but one half of his Wages in full of all but I presume he may do better to disobey and displease him too in that matter and to insist upon having his whole Due It is certainly lawful according to Mr. Long for an English Servant to obey passively nay suffering tho wrongfully is his calling and yet if he refuse to serve in Chains and to be used like a Gally-Slave and so disobey and displease in that matter it is no breach of his Christianity for St. Paul himself could not abide to be smitten contrary to Law tho it were at the command of the High-Priest Acts 23.3 He presently indeed recalled his reviling Language but he did not correct his sharp Resentment of that Injury If some Men could find such Texts as these for Subjects what Iron Yokes and what heavy Burdens would they not presently lay upon them and yet they would no more bind English Subjects than these Texts which were directed to Roman Slaves are the duty of English Servants I might instance in several other Relative Duties in the same manner if it were needful Accordingly such Precepts as this Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesars do not alter or destroy the Laws of our Country but plainly refer us to them for we know not who is Caesar nor who Caesar is but by the Law of the Land. And the things of Caesar or what belongs to him are not whatsoever he may demand for then when we are bid to render all Men their Dues we are as much bound to satisfy their Demands let them be what they will and never so unjust and unreasonable And as for that new Device in Jovian of learning our Allegiance or legal Duty from the Notion of a Soveraign it is a sort of conjuring for I may as well know the just Sum of Money which one Man owes to another meerly from the Notion of a Creditor Having said this in general I shall now particularly examine those Texts of Scripture which this Author alledges he begins with Rom. 13.1 2. Let every Soul be subject to the higher Powers 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 From which Text Epiphanius proves that the many Magistates under one King are ordained of God and thence our Author infers That the Power of under-Officers since it is the Ordinance of God ought no more to be resisted than the King 's Adding this further Though this may seem harsh in an English-man's Ears who will acknowledg perhaps that the King can do no Injury and is above the Censure of the Law yet he knows his Officers are accountable for any illegal Act and the very Command of the
Prince cannot secure them from being impeach'd by the People granting this to be very true yet I shall still assert that the Inferiour Magistrate though in the Execution of an illegal Act is not to be repelled by Force To this I answer I grant that Inferiour Magistrates rightly constituted and duly executing their Office are the Ordinance of God for Government would be an impracticable thing without them but as you shall see anon the Text it self carries this Limitation in the Bowels of it for it excludes both the Usurpation of an Office and the illegal and malicious Exercise of it If our Translators in this place had rendred the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Authorities instead of Powers as they were forced to do 1 Pet. 3.22 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Authority that is a just and lawful Power as they have rendred it in other places and as it constantly signifies they had effectually prevented the false Application of this Text. But now it is easy to shelter illegal Commissions unauthoritative Acts and all manner of unlawful and outragious Violence under the word Power for these are Might tho they be not Right However I shall make short work with this Imposture for if these things before-named be really contained in this Text under the word Power and by virtue of this Text are forbidden to be resisted why then let us put them into the Text which is the surest way of trying the Sence of any Scripture and let us see how they will become the place And then it runs thus There is no illegal destructive Commission nor outragious Violence of Inferiour Officers but of God. The Rapines Burglaries Assassinations Massacres which are commited by Inferiour Officers are ordained of God Whosoever therefore withstands these resists the Ordinance of God. What blasphemous stuff is this which Men dare to affix upon a Text of Scripture which is no other than the Voice of God approving all lawful Government and confirming from Heaven those moral Duties of Subjection Obedience and Non-resistance which were always due to lawful Authority but you plainly see are not due to illegal Violence for that is clearly shut out of the Text the Text it self will by no means admit it but spues it out In the same manner you may likewise try whether usurped Power or those that intrude into the Government and get into Office by wicked and undue means be the Ordinance of God. In the next place our Author quotes St. Peter in these words Let 's hear St. Peter 's Opinion in the Case 1 Pet. 2.13 14 15. Submit your selves unto every Ordinance of Man for the Lord's sake whether to the King as Supream or unto Governours as unto them that are sent by him for this is the Will of God c. From this 't is plain that we ought to submit to Inferiour Officers for the Lord's sake as well as Supream this subordinate Power being from God tho not immediately I shall hot trouble my self as our Author does about the Question whether the true rendring of this place be submit to every humane Creature meaning Divine Creature or submit to every Ordinance of Man as our Translation has it which he says is an improper Translation and has given occasion to a dangerous Error for let the lawful Government be of what Extraction it will every Subject must submit to it for the Lord's sake The present Question which wants St. Peter's Resolution is Whether we are bound to submit to the illegal Violence of under-Officers which I suppose will prove to be in the Negative For St. Peter plainly limits our Submission to such Governours as are in Subordination to the King and are sent by him and come on this Errand which it was not over honest in our Author to conceal for the Punishment of Evil-doers and for the Praise of them that do well Whereas it is evident that the illegal Violence of Inferiour Governours crosses the very end of their Institution besides they are not in any such Act sent by the King but come of their own Head and which is more they do this in Contradiction to the King 's declared Will and Pleasure which is his Law and against his Crown and Dignity as an Indictment does fully set forth such Offences For I must remember our Author of his Acknowledgment a little before that the King's Officers an accountable for any illegal Act and the very Command of the Prince cannot secure them from being impeach'd by the People Now if they may be prosecuted and hang'd by the People as any other private Malefactor but by the way is that submitting to them for the Lord's sake why may not a just and necessary Defence be made against them as against any other Evil-doers For that very reason says our Author in his Preface because it is a Sin to resist any Evil-doer for our Saviour has commanded us not to resist Evil Evil not signifying a thing but a Person Mat. 5.39 and thence he infers that we ought not to damn our selves to prevent the Violence of a Murderer though offered to our selves I am much confirmed in the truth which I maintain when I see that no Man can fairly oppose it without falling into the very dregs of Quakerism and into those pernicious Principles which surrender the quiet and peaceable part of Mankind to the Discretion of a few mischievous and blood-thirsty Men and in effect put a Sword into their Hands to slay us If this be Gospel gaudeant Latrones 't is good Tydings not to the true Man but to the Thief to the Cyclops to the Canibal to the hungry Irish Woolf and to the Mauritanian Lyon but to all others it is a very hard Saying But to shew that this Argument may be otherwise answered than with a shrug it is plain 1. That this Precept of our Saviour requires great Limitation for else among other things a Christian Magistrate himself might not resist an Evil-doer 2. That it carries a Limitation sufficient for my present purpose along with it For all the Instances in which our Saviour forbids Resistance are matters of a light nature as Dr. Hammond expresses it And the bearing of such tolerable Evils and Inconveniencies is no peculiar Duty of Christianity for any wise moral Man would rather take a flap on the Face patiently than turn such a ridiculous Battery into a Fray and Bloodshed and rather receive two slight Injuries one after another then revenge the first For I shall here take occasion to inform our Author that Revenge never was a natural Right as he affirms p. 57. but a Sin against the Light of Nature and that the necessary Preservation of a Man's Life or Livelihood or the Moderation of a just and unblameable Defence do mightily differ from Revenge And as our Author wholly wrests our Saviour's Doctrine so in the next place he wilfully mis-represents his Case as every Man knows who has read the four Gospels
his Father's stead in Jerusalem Jehoahaz was the younger Brother and yet the People of the Land excluded his elder Brother to make him King. And tho he were the younger Brother by about two Years the Scripture approves the Title and Birth-right which the People of the Land gave him for it allows and records him to be the First-born 1 Chron. 3.15 And the Sons of Josiah were the First-born Johanan the second Jehojakim c. This Johanan is the same with Jehoahaz as all Commentators are agreed such variety of Names being very usual in Scripture for the same Person 2dly That the Government of the Succession in the Roman Empire was in the hands of the Emperor which is the reason that Gregory blames Constantius alone and neither Souldiery nor Senate for Julian's succeeding to the Crown And 3dly That in all Hereditary Kingdoms the Succession has been variously ordered and disposed upon occasion and that justly by those who had the Government of it And therefore Chlorus might do as was most fit to give his Empire to his eldest Son alone and yet Constantine do as well to divide his larger Empire amongst his three Sons Both which ways of inheriting according to the Fathers were still by Divine Right We have a plain Instance of this likewise in the Articles of Philip and Mary's Marriage in the united Kingdoms of those two Princes I shall add by way of Supererrogation that the Empire after Jovian's untimely and sudden Death went on again in a way of Hereditary Succession first in Valentinian's and afterwards in Theodosius's Family Gratian and Valentinian the younger succeeded Valentinian as his lawful Heirs So Symmachus Praefect of Rome expresses it Eum Religionis statum petimus qui divo parenti vestro culminis servavit Imperium qui fortunato Principi legitimos suffecit Haeredes One of them was Emperor when he was a Child but it was all one for that For as St. Ambrose says by Theodosius's young Sons Arcadius and Honorius who likewise succeeded their Father Nec moveat aetas Imperatoris perfecta aetas No-body is to mind their Age for an Emperor is always at Age. The Descent of the Imperial Crown took away all Defects And St. Ambrose exhorts the People and Army to pay the same Duty to these Minors as they would to Theodosius himself or rather more and tells them what Sacrilege it would be to violate their Rights Plus debetis defuncto quà m debuistis viventi Etenim si in liberis privatorum non sine gravi scelere minorum jura temerantur quanto magis in filiis Imperatoris In a word if the Empire were not Hereditary in that period of it which my Discourse led me to speak of and for a long time after the Christians as well as Heathens have not only imposed upon the World but which is far worse have mocked God in their Prayers Firmicus prays the great Sun and Stars together with the most High God to make the Government of Constantine and his Sons perpetual and grant says he that they may reign over our Posterity and the Posterity of our Posterity in a continued Series of infinite Ages Sozomen prays that God would transmit Theodosius's Kingdom to his Children's Children To which Prince Cyrill Archbishop of Alexandria says The Queen glorious in having Children by you gives hope of Perpetuity to the Empire Now from any one of these Expressions it is plain that the Empire was not Elective For every one knows that the present King's Children in an Elective Kingdom are farthest off from succeeding Whoever succeeds they shall not for fear they should alter the Constitution of the Kingdom and make it Hereditary It is indeed otherwise in the Empire of Germany but there is a peculiar Reason for it None but the House of Austria which has so large Hereditary Dominions and Countries and so scituate as to be a Bulwark against the Turk being capable of defending and preserving that Empire After all to shew how much our Author is mistaken in thinking the Stress of my Argument lies upon this Assertion That the Empire was Hereditary in Julian's time which nevertheless I desire him to confute if he can in fourscore Pages more I do assure him that the Conclusions which are drawn from his own Premises will serve my Turn as well Our Author says pag. 51. That the Caesarship only made a Man Candidate and Expectant of the Empire or as he expresses himself afterwards it was a Recommendation to the Augustus-ship Tho by the way Candidate or Expectant is not the English of Spartianus's Latine which he there quotes for designed or appointed Heirs of the Imperial Majesty are more than Candidates and Eumenius who understood the Roman Empire and Language better than any modern Man opposes those two Words to one another Sacrum illud palatium non Candidatus Imperii sed designatus intrasti However to take the Character of a Caesar at the very lowest he was recommended to the Empire and stood fairest for it And because the Empire had generally gone that way he might plead Custom tho not a strict Right and at the least was next to the Chair Nevertheless the Christians were for setting aside one that had these Pretensions to the Empire of the Roman World meerly because he was not of their Religion they would not have a Heathen to reign over them Now I did not go to ask their Opinion concerning the 13 th of Elizabeth and half a dozen Acts of Parliament more or whether our King and Parliament have not equal power to exclude a Popish Successor as Constantius had to degrade a Pagan Caesar Of which I never doubted nor dare our Author deny it But my Enquiry was Whether Paganism was a sufficient Bar to hinder a Man from an Empire and whether it unqualified him from reigning over Christians And their Answer was as I have faithfully reported it that it was a great Sin in those who could prevent such a Person 's coming to the Crown if they did not do it And whether an Act of Parliament cannot govern the Norman Entail we will never ask the Fathers To conclude if my Comparison of Popery and Paganism hold true which this Author has been pleased to grace and fortify with his Approbation then the Case of Conscience is thus resolved by the Fathers That it is not only just to prevent a Popish Successor but that it is a very great Sin in those who can legally prevent him unless they do it Again If Julian's Title were not a Right of Inheritance but lay in the Choice of the Legions then Julian was already lawful Emperor while he was in France as well as Gordianus Philip Decius p. 37. and others in other places of our Author And yet Julian durst not then own himself a Pagan tho he had been so for ten Years but as Ammianus confesses went to Church a long time after to curry Favour with the
common Peril we should not cry and give warning A Scotizing Presbyterian would as soon have talkt of black Swans Well but according to our Author from excluding the next Heir to the Crown out of the World there is no Consequence at all to excluding him from the Crown I thought there had but this it is not to be skilled in Jewish Learning For he says a rebellious First-born amongst the Jews might be put to Death but not disinherited This is the prettiest Argument in the Book if it were true but it is like the rest and notoriously false For his own Selden whom he quotes for such a Saying as Pax est bona in the 24 th Chap. of the very same Book shews him several ways how the First-born or only Son or any Son might be disinherited and defeated of his Succession I see every Body has not a Petavius to direct him However a Man that could but read the English Translation of the Bible might know that a Jewish Father had power to disinherit because Deut. 21.15 that Power is restrained in one particular Case Grotius upon the place gives the reason of that Restraint says he The Father might for just cause transfer the Right of the First-born to a younger Brother but the Law took away that Liberty from a Man who had two Wives together where there was danger it might be done upon light and trifling Occasions And truly the Case of an Hebrew Heir had been very hard if it had been Neck or nothing if he might by the Law have been put to Death for that for which he might not be disinherited Tho by the way the Rabbins say That Law of putting a Son to Death was never practised no more than that of Retaliation an Eye for an Eye and a Tooth for a Tooth He falsely and invidiously says I challenge the House of Lords the three Estates of Scotland c. to give but one Reason to prove a Bill of Exclusion to be unlawful I did not look so high nor think of those great Persons but of those whom I have often conversed with and who according to the Character I there gave of them have furiously reproached three successive Houses of Commons upon account of that Bill And I am afraid I shall have occasion to call upon them for their Reasons even after this Author's performance I always meant those Men who have misled too many and too great Persons into a Belief that a Bill of Exclusion is against both Law and Conscience that it is such Injustice as ought not to be done to save the World from perishing And after they have asserted this and laid it down for Gospel are not able to say one wise Word in defence of it and till they do I am sure all the World will give me leave to follow them with this reasonable Demand I. His first Argument is That an Act of Exclusion is void because it tends to the Disherison of the Crown This is so far from being true that an Act of Parliament which should deny the King and Parliament a Power of governing the Succession would be a proper Act of Disherison of the Crown because it would destroy one of the greatest Prerogatives of the Crown and devest the King of such a Power as is part of his Crown and which alone in many Cases can secure the whole to him According to what Serjeant Manwood affirm'd in Parliament 13 Eliz. That as for the Authority of Parliament in determining of the Crown it could not in reasonable Construction be otherwise for whosoever should deny that Authority did deny the Queen to be Queen and the Realm to be a Realm The truth of it is it tears up the very Foundations of our Government For as Bishop Bilson has exprest it The Foundation of all the Laws of our Country is this That what the Prince and most Part of her Barons and Burgesses shall confirm that shall stand for Good. But to come to the Point this unalterable Norman Entail whence is it It was certainly made with hands tho all the Roman Emperors had not the Art of making one Now I assert That the King in his Parliament when ever he pleases to call one has all the Power upon Earth and full as much as ever was upon English Ground and consequently can govern this Norman Entail as shall be most for the Preservation of his Majesty's Sacred Person from Popish Plots and of this Protestant Realm from the Hellish Power of Rome And to deny this were to disherit and disable the Crown and as Mr. Mounson in the 13 th of Eliz. expresses it were an horrible Saying As an Appendix to this first Argument first he asks a shrewd Question If the Acts of Hen. VIII about Succession were valid by what Authority was the House of Suffolk excluded and King James admitted to the Crown contrary to many Statutes against him If our Author will shew me but one of those many Statutes whereby King James stood excluded I will yield him the Cause In the mean time I wonder a Man should offer to make Acts of Parliament no more than waste Paper when he knows nothing of them and to talk of the House of Suffolk's Exclusion when it was never included nor ever had any Title or Pretensions to the Crown and above all to be so very absurd as to quote the Recognition of the High-Court of Parliament 1 Jac. cap. 1. where King James's Succession is owned for lawful when at the same time he is invalidating all Acts of Parliament which limit and determine of the Succession For as the same Mr. Mounson argues It were horrible to say that the Parliament hath not Authority to determine of the Crown for then would ensue not only the annihilating of the Statute 35 Hen. 8. but that the Statute made in the first Year of her Majesty's Reign of Recognition should be laid void a Matter containing a greater Consequent than is convenient to be uttered So that if our Author disables Acts of Parliament which limit and bind the Descent of the Crown he likewise disables that Act of Recognition Our Author's Partner Mr. Long has urged this Act of Recognition 1 Jacobi more strongly than any one Argument in his Book besides for because it was made since the 13 th of Elizabeth he opposeth it to that and gives it all the Power of a last Will. To which I shall only say thus much That the very same Recognition to a tittle might have been made to King James tho Mary Queen of Scots had been still living and had only stood excluded by Act of Parliament For as Mr. Long may see by the Act before the Common-Prayer-Book 14 Carol. 2. the Law can make great Numbers of Men as if they were dead and naturally dead before their Time yea tho many of them had a Jus divinum to preach as being Episcopally ordained and were descended in a right Line from
Liege People of England contrary to the Political Laws that is the Common and Statute-Laws which declare the Fundamental Propriety that the People of England have in their Lives Liberties and Estates those Forces may not be resisted for they who in their own Defence do resist them with Arms may be legally hanged for it in this World and without Repentance will be damned for it in that which is to come And yet this Author pag. 274. asserts That the Laws of all Governments allow every Man to defend his Life against an illegal Assassin and he that doth not so when he can dies not like a Martyr but a Fool. Now Forces thus employed are no other than illegal Assassins But it may be the Damnableness of resisting lies in resisting them with Arms No it is not that for our Author in the same place says Contra Sicarium quilibet homo est miles Any Man is a lawful Souldier against a Cut-Throat that is may use a Sword against him and not only a Switch Neither is it their being called the King's or Sovereign's Forces which makes them irresistible for p. 280 he allows that a Man may defend himself against an Assassin sent by the King's Order because says he the King's Law which is his most Authoritative Command allows us as I suppose that Benefit And therefore it remains that the Damnableness of resisting them lies in this that they are Forces and murther in Troops So that tho any Man is a lawful Souldier against a Cut-Throat yet no Man is a lawful Souldier against Cut-Throats and indeed this last Particular is the only Thing wherein our Author has not been pleased to answer himself Now in opposition to our Author I hold That if the Sovereign cannot authorize one single Person to do an Act of illegal Violence much less can he authorize Forces or great Numbers of Men to do such illegal Acts And that there is just the same Reason Law and Conscience a thousand times over to resist a thousand Murtherers that there is to resist one His Conclusions I confess are very terrible to Flesh and Blood but I take comfort when I look back upon the Principles from whence he infers them which are absurdly false and so far from supporting that Battery which he raises upon them that they fall with their own Weakness Rottenness and Incoherency His Principles are an unlimited boundless Soveraign Power two Tables of Laws which break one another some Preambles of Statutes which he stifles and will not suffer to speak out and a false Pretence of the Soveraign's Honour First He begins with the Notion of a Soveraign p. 200. by which all the World may see that he no more understands what an English Soveraign is than I know what Prester John is Does not every Body know that the very same Titles of Power and Office have a several Notion in several Countries As to compare great Things with small a Constable in England is conceived under another Notion than a Constable in France And so tho an Assyrian King were conceived under the Notion of Absoluteness whom he would he slew and whom he would he made alive whom he would he set up and whom he would he pulled down and his Will did all Yet this is quite contrary to the Notion of an English King as Bracton tells us Non est enim Rex ubi dominatur Voluntas non Lex Where Will governs and not the Law the Notion of a King is lost Nay the Laws of King Edward confirmed by William the Conqueror and sworn to be kept by all succeeding Kings in their Coronation-Oath have these Words Rex autem quia Vicarius summi Regis est ad hoc est constitutus ut regnum terrenum populum Domini regat ab injuriosis defendat c. Quod nisi fecerit nec nomen Regis in eo constabit verùm nomen Regis perdit These I hope are better Authorities in this Matter than Sam. Bochart our Author's French Oracle who like a Forreigner as he was fetch'd his Notions of our Government from the Motto of the King's Arms Dieu mon droit I need not trouble my self in examining our Author's Scheme of Soveraign Power or the Rights of the Soveraign which is full of Equivocation and Fallacy witness the last particular of it where he attributes to the Soveraign the whole Legislative Power Which methinks he might have left out as well as he has done another main Branch of the Soveraign Power which Writers of Government call Vniversale eminens Dominium or a Power of laying Taxes upon the Subject But therein our Author had Reason for if he had but mentioned that Right of Soveraignty every English-man who had ever read a Subsidy-Act or Money-Bill would immediatly have discovered the fraudulent Contrivance of that whole Discourse And because our Author writes as if he were better studied in the modern French Monarchy than in the ancient equal happy well-poised and never enough to be commended Constitution of this Kingdom as King Charles the First calls it I shall take this occasion to set down these few Words of that wise Prince concerning it There being three Kinds of Government amongst Men absolute Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy and all these having their particular Conveniencies and Inconveniencies the Experience and Wisdom of your Ancestors haâ—h so moulded this out of a mixture of thâ—se as to give to this Kingdom as far as humane Prudence can provide the Conveniencies of all three without the Inconveniencies of any one But we have some little People risen up amongst us who with a Dash of their Pen will new-mould the Government endeavouring as much as in them is to dissolve this excellent Frame and to change it into an absolute Monarchy The establish'd Constitution does not agree with the new Models they have seen abroad nor with the new Notions they have got by the end and therefore tho it be the Product of the long Experience of the deepest Insight and of the united Wisdom of a whole Nation yet it must give place to new Inventions and submit to be regulated by an Epistle of a French Author The two Houses of Parliament which have a joint Authority in making Laws as the King expresly says In this Kingdom the Laws are jointly made by a King by a House of Peers and by a House of Commons as also every Act that is made in the very enacting of it tells us shall by the new common Laws of Soveraignty only perform a Ministerial part of preparing Bills and Writings and finding a Form of Words for the Soveraign alone to enact And so likewise the Prerogatives of the King which are built upon the same Law of the Land upon which is built the Propriety and Liberty of the Subject and which is the most firm and stable Bottom in the World shall in this new and treacherous way be founded upon a floating