Animadversions VPON THOSE NOTES Which the late OBSERVATOR hath published upon the seven Doctrines and Positions which the KING by way Recapitulation he saith layes open so Offensive London Printed in the yeare 1642. ANIMADVERSIONS VPON those Notes which the late Observator hath published upon the seven Doctrines and Positions which the King by way of Recapitulation hee saith lies open so offensive POSITION I. THat the Parliament has an absolute indisputable power of declaring Law so that all the right of the King and People depends upon their pleasure To this the Observator saith It has beene answered That this power must rest in them or in the King or in some inferior Court or els all suits will be endlesse and it cannot rest more safely then in Parliament ANIMADVERSION I. THe Observator hath contracted his Majesties words but hath kept the sense in more generall termes and seemes though but faintly to iustifie the Position by approving I know not whose answer That this Power can rest no where more safely then in Parliament He meanes the Parliament without the King If he had allowed the King his place in Parliament I now understanding man will easily subscribe That the King in Parliament or the Parliament with him have an absolute undisputable power both to make and declare Law and to end all Suites of what kind soever determinable by humane law within the Kingdome And here is the most safe resting of this Power and here it hath ever rested and not in the King alone who claimes not that Power but is willing to governe his subjects according to the known Lawes and much lesse in a any inferiour Court But that such an absolute undisputable Power of declaring Law as hath lately beene assumed by the Maior part of the present sitting Parliament shoud be resting in them is neither necessary for the ending of suites nor can be either for King or subject If they may declare that for a Law a fundamentall Law which never yet was Enacted or had any beeing and deny the plaine undoubted Lawes that have beene Enacted or frustrate them by some unheard of interpretation as if such interpretation had beene some mentall or rather Parliamentall reservation laid up within the Parliament walles to bee produced upon emergent occasions by their successors they will have so full an Arbitrary power that the right and safety of King and people must wholly depend upon their Votes Which power can never be safe either for King or People nor can they produce one president that may warrant such presidents That the second Position POSITION II. THat Parliaments are bound to no Presidents OBSERV Statutes are not binding to them why should then Presidents Yet there is no obligation stronger then the Honour and Iustice of a Parliament ANIMADVERSION II. IF Statuts be not binding to them there is no reason that presidents should be And he saith true Statutes are not binding to them that is de facto they are not for they in some things goe directly against them but de iure they are that is they ought to be binding to them till they be repealed by the same power they were made that is by Bill orderly passed both Houses and ratyfied by his Maiesties Royall assent And unlesse they can shew better reason then their bare Assertion Presidents as they are the best warrant so they are and ought to be the limits and buonds of their proceedings He might haue said as truly That Oathes are not binding to them and therefore neither Statutes nor Presidents But the Observator tels us Pag 44. That the Oathes of Supremacy and Allegance are not endangered by making the Kingdom and not the King the proper subiect of power And he yeelds reason for it For saith he he that ascribes more to the whole Vniversality then to the King yet ascribes to the King a true Supremacy of Power and Honour above all particulars I wonder what he meanes by a true Supremacy of Power and Honour above all perticulars Surely he meanes nothing but priority of place and height of Title for he is allowed little power over some particulars namely over the Members of either house and whom else they please to exempt as they did Serjeant Major Skippon for his power and commands But this distinction helpes them The Members of either House are sharers in that Supremacie which is in the Vniversality and above his and by the power of that Supremacie they can exempt whom they please from the power of this inferiour pardon the phrase absurdities cannot bee exprest without a Soclecisme Supremacie Uery good But in good sober sadnesse doth the Observator thinke this distinction was thought on by the Framers and enjoyners of that Oath or that the Members of the House at their entring the House did take their Oath to the King as to the Supreame over all with exeption of themselves or reservation of an higher Supremacy to themselves when they should be entred It is hardly credible Nor doe all that desire to tender all due honour to the Parliament beleeve that they are so the Vniversality or the Kingdome as the Observator presumes They are trusted by the Vniversality and Kingdome and we pray that they may discharge that trust not knowing but that a multitude of men subiect every one of them to errour may faile in their Judgement and being not exempted from the Common condition of the sinfull Sonnes of Adam may possibly not rightly discharge the trust committed to them as well as the King who is blasted with foule failings and errours judgement Me thinkes men that so much detest Popery should not borrow the grounds of their reasoning from them and I shall as soone beleeve the Counsell of Trent telling us that thy are the Universall Church and therefore cannot possibly erre as that the Parliament is the Vniversall unerring and unpervertibly just body of the Kingdome And surely the Spirit of declaring must needs reside in a strangely large measure in them who have power thus to declare not onely Law but Oathes too a greater then which the Popes flatterers never gave him and hardly ever any Pope assumed so great Quote constringam mutantem Protea nodo How shall these men be bound to doe right who so easily unty the knots of these sacred bookes of Law and Oathes why yes There is a bond that will doe it The obligation of the Justice and honour of a Parliament But can any man be sure that they whom neither Law Custome and Presidents of their Ancestors nor Oathes can binde will bee alwaies held in by the obligation of Justice and Honour Is it not possible that they may in time finde a power in themselves of declaring that obligation voide as well as have done the other The same obligation of Justice and Honour is as strong upon Kings and hath ever beene held more powerfull and obstructiue in them then in any state mannaged by a community and yet they
dare not trust his Majestie though so obliged The Observatour then must pardon me if I desire they may rather bee held in and hold themselves so to be by the old obligations of Law Presidents and Oathes rather then that the Kings liege-people should bee put wholy to conside to that single oblation of the Justice and Honour of a Parliament POSITION III. THat they are Parliaments and may Iudge of publike necessity without the King and dispose of any thing OBSERVATOVR They may not desert the King but being deserted by the King when the Kingdome is in destresse they may judge of that distresse and relieve it and are to be accounted by Vertue of representation as the whole body of the State ANIMADVERSION III. HIs Majesty sets downe this Position in more words but these are much to the same purpose and upon these the inference which his Majesty makes followes undeniably That then the life and liberty of the Subject and all good Lawes made for the security of them may be disposed of and repealed by the Major part of both Houses at any time present and by any wayes and meanes procured so to bee And his Majesty shall have no power to protect them They see nothing that see not the misery which may follow upon such a vast transcendency of arbitrary power if it were invested in the Parliament which I dare boldly say was never claimed by any Parliament though in conjunction with the head of it the King Every the meanest Subject hath such a right and propriety in his goods that without law they cannot be taken from him though to be imployed for the publike good And though the safety of the people be the highest law and that doe many times give a power above other lawes and against them to the supreme magistracy in a state to dispose of private mens estates yet the unchangable rule of Justice must have place even in that highest law and that requires a compensation to be made to those whose states or goods are so disposed of and never gives power to uphold the publike good with private injury Nor can it be imagined that a State upheld by such helpes should not be able to make a just compensation to those by whom it was upheld But let us heare our Observatour They may not saith hee desert the King Gramercy for that I am glad to heare they have yet any obligation upon them to tie them to the King Yet I know not well what hee meanes by deserting the King if he meane it in that sense which he doth the Kings deserting of them which out of question is his not assenting to whatsoever they shall thinke fit Then in reason they should not by their disallowing all his Proposals have driven him to dissent from their and so to have disserted them Well But being deserted by the King when the Kingdome is in distresse they may judge of that distresse and relieve it All their power then is upon supposition of the Kings deserting them So that if it appeare that his Majesty hath not deserted them as many good men believe he hath not in the redresse of any reall grieveance then they have no such power And however they claime this power onely when the Kingdome is in distresse but how if the Kingdome be not in distresse or at least that distresse be onely or principally caused by their claiming of that power which cannot consist with the Honour and Royall Estate of his Majesty which all men by their late Protestation are bound to defend If it be so that we may easily discerne how farre they may stretch this power which they claime onely in order to distresse and that they may make as much use of it as the Pope doth of his power in temporalls In ordine ad spiritualia He claimes no more though some have said he hath right to more and the Parliament will need no more to do as much as hee takes upon him to do with Christian Princes and States But they must have a right to their power in this case of distresse whence have they that why they have it as the whole body of the State and that they are and must be so accompted by vertue of representation very good But let us consider his words a litle more There is no understanding man but must and will acknowledge unlesse hee wilfully derogate from them that the Parliament represents the body of the State for those ends for which they convene as an Ambassadour doth the Prince that sends him in the mannage of that businesse for which he is sent But this is not an absolute representation to all intents and purposes besides whom doe they represent The body saith hee of the State Bee it so but it is onely the body without the head And if they were not by representation onely but really the whole body of the people if it were possible they should convene together they are all but an assembly of Subiects of men to be governed not to rule to be commanded not to command their Head and Soveraigne and then there can bee no vertue of representation that can advance them to the power which the Observatour ascribes to them when such power was never in the whole body which is represented No never such power in the whole body I know the Observatours stomack will rise here Did not the Peoples consent at first make Kings and conveigh power into their hands Truly Sir not solely but grant it what then Marry he saith then it is a principle in nature Quicquid efficit tale est magis tale In English If the People make a King they are more King themselves or if they give power they have more power and may resume and exercise that power when they please Excellent learning and well applyed I believe he learned this piece from Suarez the Iesuite But the Observatour may know that that rule admits many limitations and surely it holds onely In causis totalibus which the People are not in the constitution of Kings But suppose their consent did at first give power to Kings when their consent is given for them and their Successours to a King and his Heires can the succeeding People cut off the entaile and retract the consent their Ancestors have given By what right with what justice I know not but the People may contract for them and their Successours in the conveighance of Soveraigne power if ever they had it in their hands to give as any man may in the conveighance of his lands or goods and that such conveighance may be as binding to Successours in the one as in the other and then I am sure they cannot have power at all times and in all succeeding ages to resume what they have so given Our Kings right so farre as it is derived from the People is of this kind And if hee had no other grounds for his claime of Soveraignty as it is most certaine that he
urged on one man confiding in his own singularity He might have known them to have been unanswerably refuted and kild before their birth But since he will have the Parliament so great practicians of Popish policy in respect of some infallibilitie which he saies and they never arrogated save onely a probability of lesse erring in that question betwixt his Majestie and themselves let me I say nakedly recite what the learned and yet unanswered Divine in this matter which the Animadversor so triumphs in hath urged against the Papists whom it most concerns so to leave the Reader to assume what shall seem most deducible to himself His words are these Chilling c. 2 p. 49. * He that would usurp an absolute tyranny and lordship over any people need not put himself to the trouble and difficulty of abrogating his Laws made to maintain the common liberty for he may frustrate their intent and compasse his design as well if he can get the power and authority to interpret them as he pleases and have his interpretations stand for laws I shall not need to recapitulate the condition of our Laws before the Parliament nor yet what interpretations they received Which interpretations were held so Authentique that they made the Law but a nose of wax to wring some times this way for Ship-money and for the lawfulnesse of it as to make the King likewise the sole Judge and redresser of all publike dangers sometimes another way for legall monopolies c. Let the world then judge who arrogate most infallibility or have more made use of Papists or Popish policy 3 The Observator saith that the Parliament deserted by the King in the whole Kingdoms distresse may relieve it and the King Here is asserted the publique Interest of State which can fall under no notion of any inferiour Court to examine But the Animadversor draws this consequence from thence That then every mans estate may be wrested from his propriety and possession Quà m urceus exit Here he doth most palpably discover the loosenesse of his Logick and cause and how little he holds to his premisses and state of the Controversie betwixt King and Parliament which I so oft noted before and shewed the case to be De jure publico and so politicall Commutative therefore and Distributive Justice being of inferior matters have their inferior Courts and the apparant letter of the Law to decide and power to actuate what is rightly decided But this controversie being De jure publico of a publike right it fals under the notion of another sort of Justice whereas particular proprieties and possessions fall under those two inferior sorts of Justice as hath been proved in the conclusion of the first Position which together with this shew the sandinesse and incoherence of the Animadversors consequence Here therefore we will onely note that even in a common distresse which is lesse then a publique without a Vote of Parliament or expecting any other dispensation of Right a particular propriety may be destroyed by a Community to preserve it self As when the Sea breaks in upon a County a bank may be made of and on this or that mans ground whether he please or no And when our Neighbour Vcalcyons house blazes frequently wee see some houses pluckt down where the fire actually broke not out lest it should consume the whole street And equitie before Poesie that in respect of the propinquitie of the danger we are supposed to be even in the danger it selfe and that the house so pluckt downe is not supposed so much to be dilapidated as burnt Tuns tua res agitur paries cum proximus ardet But I wonder by what Act or Declaration the Parliament hath denyed a compensation to the sufferer in that kinde as the Question now stands If all men did not know that the Parliament hath so provided for the indemnity of those at Hull perhaps the Animadversor might have gained the credit of some modestie in averring That the Parliament upholds publike good with private misery With the like grace also and with sufficient confidence doth he tell us That if there be a great distresse in the Kingdome it is caused by the Parliaments claiming that power which cannot consist with the Royall estate of his Majestie T is prodigious to all honest understandings That the neare engagements of warre with the Scotts twice meerly upon misunderstandings That the designe of strangling the Parliament as soone as it was borne for proofe of which the Parliament presumes to have had too much sufficiency That having the bloudiest and true Papisticall warre in Ireland raysed against our Nation and that against the Parliament especially in the walls of whose house they have already endangered the a breach Jam perlucente ruinâ That even now among our selves we see some who with more alacrity are ready to employ themselves against that sacred Assembly than against those unchristian Rebells and yet that all this should be too little to evince the Realitie as the Animadversor saith of a distressed Kingdome and who is yet more transcendent That all this should be caused by the Parliament which aymes at nothing but the extirpation of the Parliament root and branch and of which some part of it viz. the Scotch troubles had being long before the Parliament had any and then I pray how could it be the cause of it How the King is head and we the body and how the King cannot be insulted over by having his Kingdome and Selfe preserved from ruine is proved at large by the Observer beyond the capacitie of any his animadversions Whether the people may revoke all they actually have transacted to their King is a Question very impertinently inserted by the Animadversor in respect of any thing that the Observator hath in the Parliaments case which is such That when the King shall have endeavoured his utmost he will finde that he shall not be able to preserve the Kingdome in extremitie of distresse without the assistance of the Kingdome it selfe However this the Observator denies that the people could make such a conveyance of power to their Kings as might prove destructive of humanitie So that much of the Animadvertors Divinitie might have been husbanded for an aptor occasion Neverthelsse St Paul in the 13. of the Romans tells us not what power is the highest but that that power which is the highest ought to be obeyed Againe St Paul speaks first of a few particular disperst men and those againe in a primitive condition who had no means to provide for their preservation Moreover it s very observable that St Paul in the 3. verse speaks of a Ruler as our Law speaks of our King viz. That he is not a terror to good but to evill workes The Law likewise saith The King can doe no injustice The interpretation of the one must square with the other and that must be according to the distinction of Fact and Right For according to Fact St
hath such a consent once granted were sufficient to binde the People that it cannot ever be lawfull for them by a major part of them comming in with their Nolumus hunc regnare super nos to deprive him of that right But surely they would never make so absolute a grant of their power to Princes as to devest themselves of it Good Sir shew me that proviso in their grant But it seemes to you unnaturall they should I doe not wonder it should seeme so to you who make it agreeable to the Clearest beames of humane reason and the strongest inclinations of nature and by consequence as you would perswade the world justifiable For every private man to defend himselfe by force if assaulted though by the force of Magistrate or his owne Father and though hee bee not without all confidence by flight c. I wish whilest you have such recourse to nature you would not forget Christianity which teaches subjection and obedience and gives no liberty either to privat men or the maior part of the communalty of resistance but saith they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation And if the Observator be a Gentleman he should tender how he hath recourse to nature in point of right least he give occasion to some Wat Tyler's Chaplaine to preach againe upon that text When Adam dolue and Eve span Who was then a Gentleman He may find a goodly Sermon upon the text set downe by Iohn Stow in Richard the second and such Doctrine delivered upon it the use of which would shake his title to his inheritance and the name of Gentleman POSITION IV. That no Member of the Parliament ought to be troubled for Treason c. without leave OBSERVATOVR This is intended of suspitions onely and when leave may seasonably bee had And when competent accusers appeare not in the impeachment ANMADVERSION IV. HIs Majesty hath said so much of this and so little of it hath beene answered or indeed is answerable that I shall not need to say muach Onely I observe the modesty of this Observatour that he doth not absolutely say they are not to be troubled for those crimes but not upon suspition onely c. I know not what he may call suspitions but I beleeve the best evidences may easily be held for bare suspitions if they may not have liberty to speake out and that they cannot have unlesse the accuser be first in safe custody and brought to triall where they may legally be produced And I beleeve few wise men will thinke it reasonable that the grounds of suspition of Treason should encessarily be opened before triall POSITION V. THat the Soveraigne Power resides in both Houses of Parliament The King having no negative Voyce OBSERVATOVR This power is not claimed as ordinary nor to any purpose but to save the Kingdome from ruine and in case where the Kingdome is so seduced as that he prefers dangerous men and persecutes his loyall Subjects ANIMADVERSION V. HIs Majesty infers upon this Position That himselfe must be Subject to their Commands This sounds but harshly in the eares of loyall Subjects That any posture wherein they can be put can raise Subjects to a capacity of Soveraignty and reduce their Soveraigne to become their Subject But he comforts us here and tels us this power is not claimed as ordinary nor to any purpose c. This is but poore comfort it is not but it may be in good time if they please He doth not say they shall not hereafter or cannot claime it as ordinary and to other purposes then that he names So that there may be other causes that may make them claime this power as well as this But indeed they need no more if it be in their power to declare that to be the case of the King and Kingdome when they please But they will never doe it but where there is a just cause for it and the truth leades them to it Truely I beleeve honourably of the Iustine and Wisedome of Parliaments but I do beleeve that they are not either infallible or that they cannot possibly doe amisse And the Observatour must bring better arguments and I feare he cannot bring so good to make me beleeve otherwise then ever yet were brought for the infallibility of a generall Councell But I have said enough for the present of the residence of Soveraign power in the Parliament and the ground of their claime to it by the vertue of representation in my third Animadversion J shall here onely give the Reader a briefe glosse upon the language here used by the Observatour To save the Kingdome from ruine that is from Monrachy or being goverued by the King The King is seduced that is he is perswaded by his owne understanding and other evill Counsellours not to part with Soveraignty nor to become a Subject to his Subjects He prefers dangerous men that is such as would have him still to be their King prosecutes his loyall Subjects that is such as would rule him and the people at their pleasure POSITION VI. THat the levying of forces against the personall commands of the King though accompanied with his presence is not levying of warre against the King but warre against his authority not Person is warre against the King OBSERVATOVR If this were not so The Parliament seeing a seduced King ruinating himselfe and the Kingdome could not save both but stand and looke on ANIMADVERSION VI. I Thought this Position so strangly Paradoxall and so apparently contrary to reason and common sense that no man would have appeared in defence of it Yet this Observator never blushes nor blinkes at it but affirmes it stoutly But for all that I shall beleeve very slowly That the Kings person can at any time bee without his Authority Or that they may destroy the Kings Person to preserve the King My Faith is not strong enough to beleeve these sublime points and mysteries of State I shall subscribe thus farre That warre against the Kings Authority though in the absence of his Person is warre against the King But that the King and his person should be in two places will never I feare downe with me But however I le see his reason What 's that Why else the Parliament seeing a seduced King running himselfe and his Kingdome could not save both but must stand and looke on Surely this reason is full of waight and ready to burst it is big with probability I supose the Reader understands his language heere by my former glosse But if wee should take the words as they sound the reason would seeme as strange as that which is brought to confirme The King running himselfe and his Kingdome a mad King or an Ideot hee meanes and then 't was fit the Parliament appointed him a gardian Ruining himselfe and his Kingdome Is it possible That the King should ruine himselfe and his Kingdome What The King alone Is he alone able to doe it without the people It
is hardly credible If he have the people on his side and a pevailing Major party I thinke the Observator standing to his owne Principles will not deny that hee hath Soveraigne power with him and that it is unnaturall to thinke the Community should destroy it selfe But the Community hee will say is to be looked at in Parliament Well But good Sir may not the people withdraw the power of reprentation which they granted to the Parliament was their grant so absolute and so irrevocable that they dispossest themselves wholy of taking or exercising that power their owne proper persons Remember your principles about the conveying of Soveraigne power into the hands of Kings and if you can shew no better Cards for their power of representation then the Peoples revocable consent and I would faine know why it should be more revocable from Kings then men you will finde their tenure in it very tickle POSITION VII THat according to some Parliamente they may depose Kings OBSRVATOR T is denied that any King was deposed by a free Parliament fairely elected ANIMADVERSION VII I Like this note better then all the rest and am wholy of his minde That never any free Parliament fairely elected deposed any King and I hope whatsoever his principles seemes to insinuate they doe not beleeve they have power to doe it and pray that they may never attempt at least not to be able to depose the King or destroy Monarchy The Authors Protestation HAving finished these sudden Animadversions I doe protest in the presence of Almighty God with my life power and estate to maintaine and defend so farre as lawfvlly I may the true Reformed Protestant Religion His Maiesties Person Honour and Royall Estate The just Liberties of the Subject and the power and priviledges of Parliament so farre as I shall bee able to know or understand them and to doe all other things contained in the late Protestation And this I doe sincerely and from my heart beleeve my selfe to be under the guilt of Perjury if I faile in any one thing here protested And therefore shall never hold my selfe absolved by observing one if I violate it in any other part I shall ever defend his Majesties Person Honour and Royall Estate as my sole Soveraigne and the Parliament next under him in the highest capacity of Subjects as the Supreame Judicatory the great Counnell and Body Representative of this Kingdome And I pray that all those that doe cot joyne with me may either speedily be converted or confounded Faxit Deus FINJS ANIMADVERSIONS ANIMADVERTED Or a Reply to the late Animadversions upon those Notes which a late Observator published upon the seven Doctrines and Positions which the King by way of Recapitulation layes open so offensive THe Animadversor hath attackt the Observator just like a weak and degenerous enemy that durst not encounter his adversary in open field but lodgeth himself in some obscure and ignoble passage to attempt at least upon his Arriere-guard not being able to pierce into his main body The ingenious peruser of both I doubt not may discern that the Observator in the conclusion of his Treatise onely recapitulated seven Refults out of His Majesties papers in contradiction to his Antecedent disquisition and the Parliaments proceedings that so one might compend ously view the subject of his discourse and as it were by an Index find out the consutation of His Majesties positions by the fore-going Arguments of the book which the Animadversor very cautelously is pleased never to take notice of in the whole Discourse 1. In the first position the Animadversor grants the Observators Arguments for the declarative power of Parliament in respect of the safe residence of that power in the bosome of the Jutelary Assembly But with this restriction That he should have allowed he King his place in Parliament and not have named a Parliament without him But how could the Observator without affronting impudence speak otherwise seeing His Majestie in present is pleased actually to have his residence out of Parliament and will not allow himself a place in it but instead of concurrence with it seeks the remotest distances from it The better therefore to see how the King and Parliament are in parts we will first negatively and then positively open the present Controversie betwixt them which is the cause of their disjunction Which in the first place is not this which most men conceive That when His Majestie shall agree and the Parliament likewise agree for establishing some new Law or interpreting some old which may be for the particular commoditie of some conditions of men onely in the common-wealth Whether then the King ought to declare this or that to be Law exclusively of the Parliament or the Parliament do the same exclusively of the King But positively it is this When there is visibly a danger readie to confound the whole common-wealth and consequently all particular commodities and persons Whether the State if then convened may not lawfully of it self provide for its preservation especially if the King either see not the danger or seeing it will not provide for it in such manner as may give best securitie to Himself and Common-wealth When therefore such a Question shall justly arise betwixt King and Common-wealth which collectively is that we call a Parliament it being of publike interest of State and so De jure publico it cannot fall under the examination of any inferiour judicature with which those so known voted Laws the Animadversor speaks of are to be found For that is furnisht onely with rules of particular not universall justice for the decision of particular differences betwixt this or that man for this or that thing Which rules being too narrow for so capacious a subject we must recurre to those that the originall Laws of Nature and Policy hold out to us which must needs be superior to the other The chiefest rule of that is Ne quovismodo periclitetur respublica That by all means publike safety be secured And every State must principally endeavour to hold fast and sure our publike sociable Incorporations one with another from publike distresses calamities and destructions which may arise from our selves or other forraign Kingdoms And whilest that is done according as Natures Laws and Policy prescribes in Universall justice then may well in the mean time proceed to make or revise Laws of Particular justice which is of particular things whereby we may commutatively encrease our fortunes and estates one by another or by forraign commerce But if those that sit at the head of the Commonwealth shall let loose the holm of it and so let it float at all hazards or else unadvisedly steere it directly towards rocks and shelves It self is bound by those original Laws which surely may be some means to save it self from a wrack And how the King is not invaded or wrong'd by having himself and his Kingdom preserved from imminent danger and how it is possible a King may
ruine his Kingdom follow in its just place In the mean time from these premisses we prove that the Parliaments method is most excellent For in the first place it endeavours to secure the being of the Common-wealth now floating at hazard And afterwards to apply its self to quicken particular Laws for our well-being Now therefore the fundamentall Law which the Animadversor so hotly cals for and the Parliaments squares by is not such a one as some say was never known before it was broken Nor as he saies lies mentally or parliamentally in the walls of the Parliament House to be produced upon any emergent occasion But is such a one as is coucht radically in Nature it self and so becomes the very pin of law and society and is written and enacted irrepealably in her Magna Charta which we are not beholden to any sublunary power for but belongs to us as we are living and sociable creatures And no known act of particular Justice or right to this or that petty thing can clash with this but must in equitie vail to it as to its superintendent For what can those particular Acts of Law which are to encrease our private and domestick profit advantage us when it 's doubtfull in so great dangers whether we may enjoy our lives at all or no. It is therefore notoriously calumnious and inconsequent which the Animadversor from hence affirms That the Parliament affects an arbitrary power or the particular rights in ordinary course of Justice as also the safety of King and people must at all times totally depend on their Votes exclusively of the King Which in the following Position comes to be more fully disproved Which power we confesse with him can never be safe either for King or people nor is Presidentable 2. Positi Parliaments are not bound to presidents saith the Observator because not to Statutes viz. Absolutely For the cause both of the one and the other is not permanent And it 's true therefore which the Animadversor saith that they are durable till they be repealed which had been to good purpose had he ever denied it For he rightly attributes no more power to Statutes then to other particular Laws which as is proved in the first Position and further shall be in this cannot in his case stand in equity nor act beyond their power and that contrary to the Legislative intent viz. to be a violation of some more soveraign good introduceable or some extreme and generall evil avoidable which evill otherwise might swallow not onely Statutes but all other sanctions what ever And thus in respect of the effect they may be said in some sort to Repeal themselves For really in such a case they become mortified and can do no more for us For the Parliaments case and controversie which the Animadversor still forgets to be of preserving the whole Kingdom and so De jure publico is of so transcendent a nature That de facto it may not and de jure it ought not to be restrained by pettie and mortified Statutes or Laws in acting so much good for us But how should Presidents as the Animadversor saith be best warrants or how should they be in the like degree limiting or binding that Oaths are I beseech ye consider the consequence Such or such a Parliament did not or durst not do this or that therefore may no Parliament do it Some Parliaments not comparable to the Worthies of this have omitted some good out of supinenesse some out of difficulty to avoid a greater evil which might be valuable with the good desired some perhaps hath done ill which the integritie and worth of this abhors to think of so that neither King nor Parliament have reason to plead so strongly for coherence to Presidents But both have better rules if they will not decline them which are To direct all by the interest of State which is never accusable of Injustice And by Equitie which we may call a generall Law And though it be variable according to the subject matter and circumstances yet it is that onely which will not let summum jus be summa injuria which is the supremest right that can be done us And it remains to be wisht that the Animadversor would have shown us in this main businesse wherein the Parliament hath gone crosse either to publike interest of State or Equity To say as the Animadversor doth that this single and extraordinary case excludes the King from Supremacy even above particulars and divests him to the naked priority onely of Place and Title is that which blasts it self unlesse the Animadversor be able to prove the Kings exercise of his former power totally intercepted and the more now then in other Parliaments of the like circumstances or that he is ruin'd by having his Kingdom preserved But Serjeant Major Skippon who is a particular was not permitted to obey the Kings summons of him therefore the King saith the Animadversor is denied a power even above particulars But we answer that his case reports to that of the Parliaments and must stand or fall with the equity of that In the mean time he is so imployed that he could not have been in any more redounding to His Majesties solid happinesse which rightly understood would have produced rather an excuse then an accusation For the Parliaments discharging of their trust which the Animadversor fears so much It is so notorious to all uncorrupted and unbiast judgements that we have reason to pray that those who so advisedly elected them in a time of lesse danger to the Kingdom then this present is be not more disloyall to them then they are to their chusers What they have actually effected with the Kings concurrence the Animadversor I hope will not except against and what they desire further to effect wherein they so humbly and patiently have attended his Majesties concurrence is onely for the happier continuation of that other to us and is to be reputed good or ill in order to that Where then is the evill for which the Parliament must be so scourged by all sort of hands why did we engage them so studiously to wipe off that Rust which began to eat so deep into the letter of our laws and all our possessions and to make new purchases for us of all our estates if now being assembled they cannot discern what and where those laws are to be found by the luster and power of which they should act all this for us We have blessings plentifully in store for his Majestie but desire he would not reduce the ultimate resolution and reserch of Law our blessing to be in his own bosome more then in that of the Parliaments lest when God in his anger shall deprive us of so great a blessing as is his life and government that die with him I shall not multiply on the Animadversors Arguments Of the possibility of the Parliaments erring and not rightly discharging their trusts all which might be more powerfully
Pauls Ruler may be a torror to good and a cherishing to evill workes but by Right he ought not to be so Our Law sayth Our King rather ought not in Right than that de Facto he cannot doe injustice For we know there have been both unjust Kings and ill Rulers But least there should be such Scripture it selfe as well as our Parliament doth endeavour to binde them from exercising ill As Deut. 17. ver 18 19 20. The King shall have a booke to learne to keepe the Law and to doe according to it least his heart be lifted up above his brethren And Ezech. 46.18 The Prince may not take of the peoples inheritance by oppression and thrust them out of it but shal be content with his own possession least other men be scattered from their possessions Wherein then hath the Parliament denyed the King that due which St Paul allowes his Ruler Who he saith as is very observable through the whole Chapter that he may be a Minister to us onely for good And to keepe the Parliament even with St Paul What else doth it hazard it selfe for but for refusing to favour the King in an uncircumscribed power of doing ill Which facultie he vindicates to himselfe irrestrainably And that by vertue of some Right and enlargement of Law and Religion even to doe all manner of ill if so be he shall ever be pleased so to doe Moreover St Paul hath not nor could any where repeale the lawes of nature so that if the Parliament in its case hath neither declin'd them nor our own Originall Contracts nor the present interest of State nor St Paul Then I hope it hath kept it selfe consonantly to Law and Religion Out of all this with what followes in the sixth Position wee may easily answer to the Animadversors Objection of Resistance For out of those premisses it appeares That in the King there are two things onely First His Person Secondly His office authoritie or as St Paul calls it his Power For his person we hold it alwayes inviolable For his power or office because St Paul sayth it respects us onely for good us very reasonable that we apply our selves in obedience to that for our owne sakes as well as for his But the Court Parasites they are not content with this distribution but adde to the person and power or office of a Prince that which they call The will or pleasure of a Prince or rather they marry the power or office of a Prince to his Will And so by that subtill conjunction they proving them all one Quia omnis potestas est voluntatis then they aske us the Question Whether we are not equally bound to obey the one in all latitudes as well as the other As if we had contracted for the evill as well as the good and that as it should seem best to the Prince we contracted with But to that we clearlier answer That because the will lies under an indifferency of commanding the ill as well as the good we may lawfully embrace that part and power onely of his will which is to good as St Paul saith which indeed is the very essence of his power and makes him a King and we may reject the other which makes him a bloudy Tyrant Yet not so as to violate his person in any case no more than David would King Saul but preservatively to thrust as farre from us as we are able all other bloud-suckers who are forward to execute on us his ruining commands because in such a case he contracts his own ruine as well as ours and is supposed to be in a distemper and in stead of a wholesome potion to call for poyson which I thinke no good or honest Physitian would obey but rather resist those that would obey him Wherefore in these considerations it is not here as the Animadversor saith of the Parliament Nolumus hunc regnare super nos but Nolumus hos destruere nos But of this in the sixth Position And for this hath been asserted I know I quote our owne Gracious Prince who hath been pleased thus to indoctrinate us in his severall Protestations of venturing his own life to preserve us in the fruition of our due liberties of Subjects which we are sure we cannot enjoy from him if by that Protestation he intended to force upon us a duty and allegiance of embracing all those tormentors whom he should send to us at any time on any occasion lawfull or not lawfull to spoyle us either of our lives or subsistance If so be so much evill should possibly hereafter enter into his Majesties sacred thoughts and will Of which therefore seeing there is never a knowne Law of the Land and that it hath no analogie with the true Protestant Religion and our own just liberties of Subjects we will presume that his Majestie abhorres the thought of chaining us to such a slavery for his own part both in Fact Right though alas he cannot promise us that all his Successors shall do the like Wherefore the Animadversor doth plainly abuse his Majestie in this Argument doth desperately corrupt his present cause Thus we see what evils we may thrust from us and how we are bound to preserve the Kings power or office together with his person as much as our own But the Animadversor together with his Tribe preach another kinde of doctrine from whence they know how to raise better uses for their ends than the King can doe any And that is That instead of opposing the worst of those evills which a Kings bare pleasure may be that we should suffer by the hands of other persons that we should I say simply betake our selves to flight leaving all that we have in this world but our lives to the Kings disposall and to be transferred to those whom he shall thinke better worthy of them than our selves But in the Parliaments case it hath been observed that as it is impossible in a manner for a whole Kingdome to flie so surely cannot that be required of it This ease is not as Davids a particular mans was who being in the right yet in danger fled indeed but it was from one place to stand better on his guard in another 4 No Member of Parliament ought to be troubled for Treason upon suspition onely especially I say in such a case whereof not onely the whole House but the whole Kingdome knowes it selfe to be a like culpable And that the accused were in safe custody is not to be doubted of by the Animadversor if the engagement of a whole Kingdome can give securitie which is sufficient enough for five men for ought the Amimadversor hath to the contrary 5. Because the Parliament to save a whole Kingdome once from ruine hath used some power which is communicable to a whole Kingdom in such an extraordinary case Therefore it may saith the Animadversor usurpe it in ordinary cases because it may declare the danger what it will at pleasure
and it is not infallible As this consequence of the Animadversor is the same with that of the third Position so may the answer of that be applyed to this to which I shall refer the Reader This onely will I adde That there is no need to create an Infallibilitie in the Parliament to discerne matters of Fact within every mans cognizance but to afford it onely a probabilitie of lesse erring or being lesse deceived rather than a particular Individuall And that it 's common interest joyned with its indirectnesse and integritie of which the extraordinary exact choosing of the Members at the beginning it is an extraordinary proofe may be a forcible Improbabilitie of its ever usurping such a power in ordinary cases which as it cannot be serviceable any way to us because ordinary cases have their most convenient courses certainly regulated so can it not be but extreamly dangerous to themselves alone and no wayes advantageous Because in such cases we participate all of us of the like conveniences This Position the Animadversor is pleased to conclude with a Ridle That the ruine which the Parliament intends to save the Kingdome from is to save it from Monarchy Risum teneatis amici Are we so overgrowne with that government which our Lawes are lockt and cabenetted in in such manner that the wounding of the one is the bleeding of the other Or is it true which the Bishops have so long pulpited at Court that the raising of their power must be the Ecclipse of the other although we know and all the world with us That Monarchy was of a more extended latitude and absolutenesse before Christianity was profest by any Monarch than ever it was since Or more coherently to the Animadversors owne words Can there be no abuses or Cobwebs in Church or Common-wealth but they must needs be spun out of the bowells of Monarchy so that the reforming and sweeping away of the one must needs be the sweeping away of the other For our own parts we will not make them so much Sonne and Father although the Animadversor be pleased to doe his Majestie this good service What then the too too true ruine of the Kingdome is conceived to be is set downe in the third Position And what Connexion there is in making Monarchy the same with that let the refined'st and the rudest Logick collect 6.7 Whether levying of Forces against the personall Commands of the King though accompanied with his presence be to war against the King is largely discourst by the Observator beyond any force of reason which the Animadversor hath used to enforce the contrary His Majestie acknowledged much of this to the Scotts whose preparations were in all respects like ours and which his Majestie found to be Non tam contra quam praeter authoritatem Regis after he had prest the Animadversors arguments as warmely as now he doth against other of his good Subjects though yet suffering under the great calamitie of his Royall displeasure But to say little of that which is so notorious to us all of this Kingdome Let us looke over to France and there we may see those who were as much Protestants as we that levied armes against their Kings commands accompanied with his presence and yet our King never thought them the worse Christians or Subjects for that and therefore made himselfe a partizan with them in their very cause so clearely was the piety and lawfulnesse of such an act at that time reconciled to his Majesties conscience and understanding All which the Animadversor must needs confesse unlesse he will owne the present Declarations of the Rochelers who with execrations of us say upon the event of their warre that the Duke of Buckingham's designe was to destroy and eate them up and that they had preserved their liberties and Religion from any adulterate mixture of Popery had they never seene him But according to the Animadversor It is impossible a King should ruine his Kingdome because he shall alwayes have the Major part with him But moderne miseries shew us the contrary witnesse the neare depopulated Principalities of Germany But to answer the Argument with like reason I say that after a King shall have destroyed the Minor part of his Kingdome with his Major why may he not then by some differences in the Major part be a cause even to bring that to destruction too But without supposing such a Fate why may he not Nero-like for pleasure sake desire that all the heads of the Major part stood but upon one necke that so he might chop them off at a blow Seing then such a King may ruine his Kingdom by lamentable distresses depopulations and if a Parliament hath the power to hinder it it doth that which it is bound to doe and which is neither against the person or genuine authoritie of the King unlesse we can apprehend a Kings authoritie without a Kingdome which is the object it extends to and acts in and which we have proved he may destroy and with out which the Animadversor must needs reduce such a King to a barer Title than he said our Parliament would reduce our King to FINIS