THE OBSERVATOR DEFENDED IN A modest Reply to the late Animadversions upon those Notes the Observator published upon the seven Doctrines and Positions which the King by way of Recapitulation layes open so offensive THe Animadversor hath attacht the Observator just like a weak and degenerous enemie 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 only recapitulated seven Results out of His Majesties papers in contradiction to his Antecedent disquisition the Parliaments proceedings that so one might compendiously view the subject of his discourse and as it were by an Index find out the confutation 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 the 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 himselfe a place in it but in stead 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 doe 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 therfore 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 Lawes the Animadversor speakes of are to be found For that is furnisht only 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 needes be superiour to the other The chiefest rule of that is Ne quovis modo 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 Lawes and policy prescribes in Vniversall justice they may well in the mean time proceed to make or revile Lawes 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 fit at the head of the common-wealth shall let loose the helm of it and so let it float at all hazards or else unadvisedly steere it directly towards rockes and shelves it selfe is bound by those originall Lawes which surely may be some meanes to save it self from a wrack And how the King is not invaded or wronged by having himselfe and his Kingdome preserved from imminent danger and how it is possible a King may ruine his Kingdom follow in its just place In the meane time from these premisses we prove that the Parliaments method is most excellent For in the first place it endevours to secure the being of the cōmon-wealth now floating at hazard And afterwards to apply its self to quicken particular Laws for our wel-being Now therfore the fundamentall Law which the Animadversor so hotly cals for the Parliament 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 wals 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 knowne 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. Posit 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 t is 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 Lawes which as is proved in the first Position and further shall be in this cannot in his case stand in equitie nor act beyond their power and that contrary to the Legislative intent viz. to be a violation of some more soveraigne good introduceable or some extreme and generall evil avoidable which evil 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 doe no more for us For the Parliaments case and controversie which the Animadversor still forgets to be of preserving the whole Kingdome and so De jure publico is of so transcendent a nature de facto it may not and de jure it ought not to be restrained by pettie and mortified Statutes or Lawes in acting so much good for us But how should Presidents as the Animadverso saith be best warrants or how should they be in the like degree limiting or binding that Oaths are Consider the consequence Such or such a Parliament did not or durst not doe 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 difficulty or to avoid a greater evill 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 coherents to Presidents But both have better rules if they will not deceive 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 circummstances yet it is that only 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 Equitie 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 Kingdome 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 prodnced rather an excuse than 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 Kingdome than this present is be not more disloyall to them than 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 pariently 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 eate so deep into the letter of our lawes and all our possessions and to make new purchases for us of all our estates if now being assembled they cannot discerne what and where those lawes are to be found by the luster and power of which they they should act all this for us We have blessings plentifully in store for his Majesty but desire he would not reduce the ultimate resolution and reserch of the Law our blessing to be in his own bosome more than in that of the Parliament lest when God in his anger shall deprive us of so great a blessing as is his life and government that dye 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 urged on one man confiding in his own singularity He might have knowne them to have been unanswerably refuted and kild before their birth But since he will have the Parliament so great practitioners of Popish policy in respect of some infallibilitie which he saies and they never arrogated save onely a probabilitie of lesse erring in that question betwixt his Majesty 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 deduceable to himself His words are these He that would usnrp 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 interpretarions stand for Laws I shall not need to recapitulate the condition of our Lawes before the Parliament nor yet what interpretations they received Which interpretation were held so Authentique that they made the Law but a nose of waxe to wring sometimes this way for Ship money and for the lawfulnesse of it as to make the King likewise the sole Iudge and redresser of all publike dangers sometimes another way for legall monopolies c. Let the world then iudge who arrogate most infallibilitie or have more made use of Papists or Popish policy 3. The Observator saith that the Parliament deserted by the King in the whole Kingdomes distresse may relieve it and the King Here is asserted the publike Interest of State which can fall under no notion of any inferior 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 Iure publico and so politicall Commutative therefore and Distributive Iustice being of inferior matters have their inferiour Courts and the apparant letter of the Law to decide and power to actuate what is rightly decided But this Controversie being De iure publico of a publike right it fals under
the notion of another sort of Iustice whereas particular proprieties and possessions fall under those two inferiour sorts of Iustice as hath beene 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 Vcalygons house blazes frequently we see some houses pluckt down where the fire actually broke not out lest it should consume the whole street And 't was equitie before Poesie that in reof the propinquitie of the danger we are supposed to be even in the danger it spect self and that the house so pluckt down is not supposed so much to be dilapidated as burnt Tum tuares agitur paries cum proximus ardet But I wonder by what Act or Declaration the Parliament hath denyed a compensation to the sufferer in that kind 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 modesty 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 Parliament claiming that power which cannot consist with the Royall estate of his Maiesty 'T is prodigious to all honest understandings that the near engagements of warre the Scots twice meerly upon misunderstanding That the design of strangling the Parliament as soon as born for proof of which the Parliament presumes to have had too much sufficiency having the bloudiest and true Papisticall war in Ireland raysed against our Nation and that against the Parliament especially in the walls of whose house they haac already endangered a breach J am perlucente ruina That even now among our selves we see some who with more alacrity are ready to imploy themselves against that sacred Assembly than against those unchristian Rebels and yet that all this should be too little to evince the Realitie as the Animadvertor saith of a distressed kingdome and who is yet more transcendent That all this should be caused by the Parliament which aimes at nothing but the extirpation of the Parliament root and branch and of which some part of it viz. the Scots 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 capacity 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 Animadsor 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 find that he shall not be able to preserve the Kingdome in extremitie of distresse without the assistance of the Kingdome it self 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 Divinity might have been husbanded for an apter occasion Neverthelesse St Paul in the 13. of the Romanes tells us not what power is the highest but that that power which is the highest ought to be obeyed Againe as St Paul speaks first of a few particular disperst men and those again in a primitive condition who had no means to provide for their preservation Moreover it is very observable that Sn Paul in the 3. verse speaks of a Ruler as our Law speaks of our King viz. That he is not a terrour to good but to evill works 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 Pauls Ruler may be a terror to good and a cherishing to evill works but by Right he ought not to be so Our Law saith Our King rather ought noi 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 self 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 book to learn to keep the Law and doe according to it lest his heart be lifted up above his Brethren And Ezek. 46. 18. The Prince may not take of the peoples inheritance by oppression and thrust them out of it but shall be content with his own possession lest other men be scattered from their possessions Wherein then hath the Parliament denyed the King that due which St Paul allows 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 keep the Parliament even with St Paul What else doth it hazard it self for but for refusing to favour the King in an uncircumscribed power of doing ill Which facultie he vindicates to himself irrestrainably And that by virtue 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 S. Paul hath not nor could anywhere repeale the lawes of nature so that if the Parliament in its case hath neither declined them nor our own Originall Contracts nor the present interest of State nor S. Paul Then I hope it hath kept it self consonantly to Law and Religion Out of all this with what followes in the sixth Position wee may easily answer to the Anymadversors Objection of Resistance For out of those premises it appeares That in the King there are two things onely first His Person Secondly His Office Authoritie or as St. Paul cals it his Power for his Person we hold it alwayes inviolable For his Power or Office because St. Paul saith it respects us onely for good it s 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 clearelier answer That because the will lies under an indifferencie of commanding the ill as well as the good we may lawfully embrace that part and power onely of his good as St. Paul saith which indeede is the very essence of his power and makes him a King and we may reiect the other which makes him a bloody 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 wee are able all other blood-suckers who are forward to execute on us his ruining commands because in such a case he contracts his owne ruine as well as ours and is supposed to be in a distemper and in stead of a wholsome 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 noâ— But of this in the sixth Position And for this hath beene asserted I know I quote our owne Gracious Prince who hath beene pleased thus to indoctrinate us in his severall Protestations of ventring his owne life to preserve us in the fruition of our due liberties of Subiects which we are sure we cannot enioy 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 Maiesties secret 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 iust liberties of Subiects we will presume that his Maiestie abhorrs the thought of chaining us to such a slavery for his owne part both in Fact and Right though alas he cannot promise us that all his Successors shall doe the like Wherefore the Animadversor doth plainely abuse his Maiestie in this Argument and doth desperately corrupt his present cause Thus wee see what evils wee may thrust from us and how we are bound to preserve the Kings power or office together with his person as much as our owne 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 in stead of opposing the worst of those evills which by 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 beene observed that as it is impossible in a manner for a whole Kingdome to flie so surely cannot that be required of it This case 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 bee troubled for Treason upon suspition only especially I say in such a case whereof not only the whole House but the whole Kingdome knows it selfe to be alike culpable And that the accused were in safe custody is not to be doubted of by the Animadversor if the ingagement of a whole Kingdome can give security which is sufficient enough for five men for ought the Animadversor 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 Kingdome 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 only will I adde That there is no need to create an Infallibility in the Parliament to discerne matters of Fact within every mans cognizance but to afford it only a probability of lesse erring or being lesse deceived rather than a particular Individuall And that its common interest joyned with its indirectnesse and integrity of which the extraordinary exact choosing of the Members at the beginning it is an extraordinary proofe may bee a forcible Improbability 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 waies advantagious Because in such cases we participate all of us of the like conveniences This Position the Animadversor is pleased to conclude with a Riddle That the ruines 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 Laws 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 razesing 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 then ever it was since Or more coherently to the Animadversors own words Can there be no abuses or Cobwebs in Church or Common-wealth but they must needs be spun out of the bowels of Monarchy so that the reforming sweeping away of the one must needs be the sweeping away of the other For our owne partâ— we will not make them so much Son and Father although the Animadversor bee pleased to doe his Majesty this good service What then the too too true ruine of the Kingdome is conceived to be is set down in the third Position And what Connexion there is in making Monarchy the same with that let the refinedst 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 discoursed by the Observator beyond any force of reason which the Animadversor hath used to enforce the contrary His Majesty acknowledged much of this to the Scots whose preparations were in all respects like ours and which his Majesty found to be Non tam contra quam praeter authoritatem Regis after hee had prest the Animadversors arguments as warmly as now he doth against other of his good Subjects though yet suffering under the great calamity of his Royall displeasure But to say little of that which is so notorious to us all of this Kingdome Let us look over to France and there we may see those who were as much Protestants as we that levyed armes against their Kings commands accompanied with his presence and yet our King never thought them the worse Christiâ—ns 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 own the present Declarations of the Rochelers who with execrations of us say upon the event of their war that the Duke of Buckinghams design 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 seen him But according to the Animadversor It is impossible a King should ruine his Kingdome because he shall alwaies have the Major part with him But modern 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 neck that so he might chop them off at a blow Seeing then such a King may ruine his Kingdome by lamentable distresses and 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 authority of the King unlesse we can apprehend a Kings authority without a Kingdome which is the object it extends to and acts in and which wee have proved he may destroy and without which the Animadversor must needs reduce such a King to a barer Title then he said our Parliament would reduce our King to FINIS Chilâ— c. 2. pâ—â—