cite Tertullian with whom I will conclude he in his Apologetick against the Gentiles c. 30. tells us thus Inde est Imperator unde homo antequam Imperator inde potestas illi unde spiritus Thence has the Emperor his power whence his spirit And that is by God only who infused into him his Soul by creating it You see that God in the Divinity of these five Fathers is the immediate Author and Creator of Soveraignty in Kings and Princes who in preheminence are next to God above all their authority subordinate to coâ—ordinate with none I fear if these Holy Fathers were living now adays they would be traduced as Court Parasites or Pensioners But after all this our Considerator or you for him may object that if the Soveraign Power of Princes be thus wholly from God how is it said in Scripture that some of the Kings were made by the People and so received their Regal Power from them and by their Election It is said of Saul that All the people went to Gilgal and there made him king before the Lord. Of David The men of Judah anointed David king of Judah the elders of Israel anointed David king over Israel 1 Sam 11.15 2 Sam. 5. It is answered Zadock the Priest and Nathan the Prophet anointed Solomon King and the Lord also anointed him otherwise he had not been the Lord 's Anointed but the anointed of Zadock and Nathan The Lord anointed Solomon as the Master of the Substance and gave unto him Regal Power Zadock and Nathan anointed Solomon as Master of the Ceremony and declared God had given him this power For outward Unction doth not confer upon Kings their Authority but it is a sign only of Soveraignty because if we pour Oil into the same Vessel with any other Liquor it will be alway uppermost The Elders then of Judah and Israel anointing David King did manifest him to be their King but did not give unto him the Right unto his Kingdom this was only from the Lords appointing In like manner Saul first anointed by the Lord to be Captain over his Inheritance 1 Sam. 19. upon the Petition of the People was set a King over them by the Lord and chosen immediately by God to be a King he only gave Saul Kingly Power and not the People and therefore when it is said That the people made Saul king it must be understood that they only did put Saul into the possession of the Kingdom to reign over them But our Author may object further and say thus admit the power of Princes be not from the People yet it is often derived unto them from their Progenitors by succession or obtained by their own Conquest how then is it only and immediately from God I return this Answer that Succession and lawful Conquest are Titles whereby Princes receive their Authority they are not the original and immediate Fountain of this Authority Heat moisture cold driness and our temper arising from them whilst we are fashioned in our Mothers womb are preparatives whereby our Bodies are made Receptacles for our Souls but the Creator of our Soul is God so Princes have just claim unto their Soveraign Power by the Titles of Succession and Conquest but the prime Author of their Power is God In brief though the Designation or Deputation of the person be by election succession conquest c. yet the Royal Power and Soveraignty is from God primarily formally and immediately as Matthias was designed by the Apostles setting of him apart and the falling of the Lot upon him but the Apostolical Power was immediately and solely from Christ So a Woman by her choice and consent designeth her Husband but the Marital Power and Dominion is only from God So hat you clearly see that an humane Act may design the person of a King but yâ—t the power is conferred by God alone Having answered the objections that may be started by our Author and clearly evidenced from Scripture and the Suffrages of ancient Fathers That there is no supreme or Royal Power but from God alone and consequently he is sole Donor and Soveraignty relates to him as to its immediate Author come to prove in the third place by several reasons that the Collation or Donation of Soveraign Power cannot be from the Community That God then is the Author of all Government and Soveraign Power shall be manifested by these Arguments following 1. The same that is Author of all Creatures in their Being and Existence must be Author of their Subsistence and preservation in that Being and Existence It is an infallible Maxim in the Schools in Nature in Scripture He that giveth Being is the same that preserveth Being Creation is begun Conservation and Conservation is a continued Creation we assume things made existent by Creation cannot subsist and have continuance but by order and Government from whence it will naturally follow God must be the Author of this Order and Government and consequently hath not left it arbitrary to man as the Hobbeans vainly fancy by composition and consent to do it The authority of S. Austin shall be produced to strengthen this Argument Generale pactum est says he societatis humanae obedire Regibus suis Lib. 3. Confess c. 8. It is a natural a general an universal compact covent of humane society to obey their Kings In this Father's Dialect Generale pactum is the Dictate of Nature the Law and Ordinance of God Almighty if it be so as indeed it is I would beg the favour that our Author will shew as much for Aristocracy or Democracy as here is for Monarchy in case he does he shall be my Apollo for ever 2. If this Soveraignty be natively inherent in the thing called the Multitude it must be proper to every individual of the Community is it be so and must be so according to the Tenet of the Sectarist which is inforced by that other as groundless and false State Maxim which they hold That every one is born a Free man in the Forest then will follow of necessity that the Generation and Posterity of those who have first contracted with their elected King are not bound to that Covent but upon their native Right and Liberty may start aside appoint another King and that without breach of Covent or any just Title in the King of their Fathers to force or reduce them to his obedience an excellent way devised to preserve King and Kingdom in peace and safety 3. It is absurd to say and maintain in true Philosophy that the Community is the first Seat and Subject in which Soveraignty is immediately fixed How can it be said so seeing in them it was never found never actuated never exercised Vanae est potentia quae nunquam reducitr in Actum 4. This Tenet of our Author presupposeth that all men coming into the world are by the Right and Privilege of nature originally born equal independent one from another without disparity or difference
A LETTER TO A FRIEND Shewing From SCRIPTURE Fathers AND REASON HOW FALSE That State-Maxim is Royal Authority is Originally and Radically in the People Nullus nascitur liber ab Imperio LONDON Printed in the Year 1679. A LETTER TO A FRIEND SHEWING From Scripture Fathers and Reason how false that State-Maxim is Royal Authority is Originally and Radically in the People SIR I Have received the several Pamphlets you were pleased to send me on the subject of the Succession I have read them over and over and I am now very well satisfied in my own reason that The Descent of the Crown cannot via juris be impeached in the Right Line by any Act whatsoever And indeed there is nothing more prevalent with me against the exclusion of the Rightful Heir than the Principle that must be made use of for the effecting of that Enterprise I have been ever told that all those Statutes that were enacted in the Reigns of H. 4. H. 5. H. 6. R. 3. H. 7. and H. 8. for the settlement of the Crown must presuppose that Royal Authority is Originally and Radically in the People and from them by consent derived to the King On this same Principle must our next Parliament then proceed in case their resolution be to alter the Cuorse of Right Succession or else what makes one of your Pamphleteers a person I am confident either of the Jesuitical or Puritanical Faction to assert that the power the King hath is derived from the consent of the People in the first Constitution of the Government I will give you his very words As to the Question whence the Parliament derives the power let him know that the Parliament derive their Power and Authority from the same original the King derives his the King hath not his Power from them nor they from the King they both derive their Authority from the consent of the People in the first Constitution of the Government either tacit or express or by their express or tacit consent in the insensible and little or great or more remarkable Alterations that the Government hath suffered in the course of time c. Out of these same words you and I may clearly infer that our Author is an Assertor amongst other things of this one Doctrine That all Power is originally radically and formally inherent in the community and from thence is derived to the King and Parliament The Author must be a very bold Britton that dare write and publish such pernicious Antimonarchical Stuff Methinks those Quarters on Ludgate should teach him more modesty Well if a Gate be not his Fate 't is probable he may at last for his Crows Quill meet with the Burial of an Ass Had I been one of his Cabal I should have advised him instead of the Statute of 13. Eliz. to have placed the Act of 13. Car. 2. Regis c. 1. that is now in force and long I pray God it may be so to deter such as he for the future from Treasonable and Seditious Practises proceeding either from Printing Writing Preaching or malicious and advised Speaking Having given you a short Animadversion on the Author and his Doctrine I think my self obliged for the Vindication of Truth and the Monarchy of England to say somewhat which may be pertinent towards the destroying of our Authors Leviathan I mean the Original Soveraign Power of Mr. Multitude and for the effecting of this I shall plainly set down 1. The Position I undertake to make good 2. The Proofs of it drawn from Scripture Fathers and Reason My Position then is this That God is the immediate Author of Soveraignty in the King and that he is no Creature of the Peoples making Scripture Fathers and Reason speak it clearly that Soveraign Power refers to God as to its immediate Author and Donor but that it is underivedly primarily and natively in the community from thence transferred to Kings Ne 〈◊〉 quidem Lucidianum not one Syllable I begin first with Holy Scripture out of which I shall produce several Texts to prove that the King and his Power are originally and immediately from God dependent from him alone and independent from all others By me Kings reign Prov. 8.15 The power that are are ordained of God Rom. 13.2 I have said ye are Gods Psal 82.8 All power is given from above Joh. 19. God hath spoken it once twice have I heard it all power belongeth unto the Lord Psal 62.11 When thou shalt say I will set a King over me like as all the Nations about me thou shalt in any wise set him King over thee whom the Lord thy God shall chuse And to descend to Particulars doth not God by the mouth of his Prophet Nathan tell David 2 Sam. 12. 1 King 2. I anointed thee King over Israel Doth not Solomon acknowledge that the Lord hath established him and set him on the throne of his Father David Was it not the saying of the Prophet Abijah in the person of God unto Jeroboam I will give the kingdom unto thee 1 King 11. Neither the Kingdom only and the power of Princes but all things else proper unto them are after a peculiar manner Gods Their Crown Psal 21. Their Anointing Psal 89. Their Scepter 2 Chron. 9. And Throne are Gods and their persons adorned with all these are so Divine and Sacred that they themselves are the Angels of God and Sons of the most high 2 Sam. 14. Psal 82. These Texts being sufficient to prove my Position from Scripture I come to the Suffrages of the Fathers and they assert that the constituting and making of Kings is reserved as a privileged case a proper Prerogative for God himself I begin with Tertullian writing ad Scapulam and he saith That a Christian is enemy to none much less to King and Emperor whom he knoweth to be of God's Constitution and so is necessarily bound to love reverence and honour him to whom with his Empire he wisheth all safety for when that perisheth it is like the world will he at an end we honour the Emperor therefore so much as we are allowed by God's Law and as much as is expedient for him as the man who is next to God himself Clemens Romanus Constit l. 7. c. 17. says Fear or Honour the King knowing that he is ordained or constituted by the Lord. Irenaus thus lib. 5. cont Har. By whose appointment they are born men by his appointment they are made Princes Saint Hierome's mind is this in his Comment on the second of Daniel That Kings and Kingdoms have their constitution change and destitution by the sole Royal Pleasure of God S. Austin vindicates the making of Kings absolutely to God by a reason unanswerable Quia solus verus Deus est Because he alone is the true God His meaning is you may as well deny him to be the only true God as robbing him of this Prerogative of making Kings Lib. 4. de Civit. dei c. 33. I will once more
one from another This is contradictory to the Word of God which teacheth that God did fix Government in Adam before the Woman was made The most Learned men do assert it on that Text in the first Chapter of Genesis verse 26. or Children begotten by him Is not every one that cometh into the world begotten of a Father Is he not thus by the Law of God and Nature to submit and subject himself in reverence and obedience to his Father Is he not then so far from having original power inherent in himself that he hath not his own original being in the capacity of nature but from his Father How then can he be freed from subjection to his Father and if his Father be subject to another is he not by the same Law subject to his Fathers Superior who can make this subordination void except he will ranverse the Ordinance of God and nature where then is the veracity of this fallacious Maxim which hath worked so much mischief in our Kingdom Every man is born a Freeman in the Forest Are they not subordinate subject to their pre-existent Father and to his Superiour too if he have any Is not the Female Sex by the ordinance of God and nature inferiour and subordinate to the Male Doth not nature teach that the Wife by the Law of nature is subject to the Husband it did so in my great Grandfathers days whether it does so now or not let our Author give you an answer for I suppose him to be a married man or Widower with Children seeing he is so careful of posterity 5. If all power be originally in the People then it will by consequence follow that the lawful authority of a Father over his Children and a Husband over his Wife are derived from the Children and Wife and the Children and Wife in some Cases may resume their power derived from them and their native Liberty If our Author will aver so he is to be cudgelled not to be answered The sixth and last Argument God only hath the power of Man's life No Man is Dominus vitae saae Whoso taketh away the Life of Man in God's Justice and Ordinance his life is to be taken away again This principally and properly belongeth to God but God hath given this to some Deputies This power is not given to every one This were to destroy mankind and make God the God of Disorder and Confusion Some man it is then by distinction and excellency who is God's Deputy and then this can be none else but he in whom is Soveraign Power and this power is from none else but from God Almighty and if this power over life be from God why not all Soveraign Power seeing it is Homogeneous and as Jurists say In indivisibili posita A thing indivisible in its nature cannot be distracted put away nor impaired as a Crown take any part from it it is no more a crown To conclude with the very words of the most famous Earl of Clarendon This sole proposition that men cannot dispose of their own lives hath always been held as a manifest and undeniable argument that Soveraigns never had nor can have their Power from the People My Reasons being thus presented to you I will answer some Arguments that our Author I know is furnished with to prove that God is not the immediate Donor the Author the Efficient the Constituent of Kings and their Soveraign Power And his Arguments which indeed you will find to be meer Parologisms Sophisms or captious Reasonings are such as these 1. His first Argument may be framed thus neither the Law of God or Nature determine that Monarchy is the Government or Aristocracy the Government or Democracy the Government or why one more than more and some few more than many should have the supremacy ergo the Donation of the Power the Collation of Supremacy is by derivation from the People to the Governor or Governors To this Argument I answer thus It is an Inconsequence because although I should grant all the Antecedent and that the specification of the Government the people designing if ever any people were so really to be free of Government because it is imaginable let us grant it as real either one to have the Soveraignty over them as in Monarchy or some few of the better sort as in Aristocracy or many as in Democracy it will not follow ergo Soveraignty in one few or many is by derivation and donation from them because their act in this is only to apoint one person or more or many persons to be Governor or Governors for the Government the Collation of the power followeth upon this designation and deputation of the person or persons from the immediate Donation and Ordination of God As when such and such men are designed to Holy Orders and Functions the designation of the person and persons is the work and Act of the Church but the collation of the power is the proper peculiar and immediate work and act of God as all knowing and sound Divines do willingly acknowledge To reason therefore from the power which designeth and deputeth a person or persons for the charge to the power of collating or giving the power it self is a Sophistical Caption which the Schools call Figura Dictionis where there is a proposing in the Antecedent in one kind and concluding in the consequent in another and different kind 2. His second Argument may be this that which is of that condition and temper that it may be enlarged or straitned that which actually and experimentally is found various and different it cannot be such by any constitution of nature or Institution of God but Monarchichal Power is such ergo The Major of his Syllogism must be some way better qualified otherwise it will conculde nothing or too much which is the equivalent in the Rules of right Reasoning to that to conclude nothing In the same manner I will reason every man hath not a little measure of Knowledge Reason or Discourse but some are more some are less knowing Men some more some less rational ergo knowledge reason c. are not natural to man The consequence halts like Loyala because to reason Ab actu exercito ad actum signatum or contrariwise will not always hold or to reason a potentia secunda ad primam vel e contra from the difference in the exercise to conclude a difference or disparity in the first capacity is inconsequent To be rational in the first capacity and natural power is essential to all men and equal in all but in the use the exercise of the Rational Faculty there is a vast disparity because of a great latitude in different actual ability nature admits a great variety in the use and exercise of her natural powers that all are not a like fitted and enabled for the second Acts. In the first capacity nature is so just so equal so indulgent to all that the native first Radical Power
being of it self in indivisibili is equal in all no less in the least knowing man than in him such is our Author who in sharpness of wit approacheth nearest to Angelical and Noetical Spirits I could give you Instances as well in Moral and Divine things as in natural but for the sake of Brevity I will pretermit them The Result of what I have said is this That seeing in things natural c. this accidental and supervenient variety in their exercise destroyeth not the true Essence and inseparable essentials of things themselves but naturally they are uniform and equally the same so in the different Monarchies of the world the disparity and difference of the exercising of Monarchical Power which is accidental maketh them not specifically and essentially different and diverse But before I leave this Argument I must entreat you to consider that I maintain not I plead not at this time for a Dispotical Soveraignty an absolute Power such as the great Turk this day exercises over his Subjects I maintain only such Royal Paternal Soveraignty as we and our Ancestors have lived long and happily under This as it hath its Royal Prerogatives inherent naturally in the Crown and inseparably from it so it trencheth not upon the liberty of the person or the propriety of the Goods of the Subjects but in and by the lawful and just acts of Jurisdiction In a word this Government of ours is finely described by the Royal Pen of King Charles the glorious Martyr writing to the Prince of Wales The next main â—hing says he on which your prosperity will depend and move is that of Civil Justice wherein the settled Laws of these Kingdoms to which you are rightly Heir are the most excellent rules you can govern by which by an admirable temperament give very much to Subjects In dustry Liberty and Happiness and yet reserve enough to the Majesty and Prerogative of any King who owns his People as Subjects not as Slaves whose subjection as it preserves their Property Peace and Safety so it will never diminish your Rights nor their ingenuous Liberties which consist in the enjoyment of the fruits of their Industry and the benefit of those Laws to which themselves have consented Thus Sir I have endeavoured so far as I am able to vindicate Truth and his Majesties Soveraign Power against all Papal and Democratical Practises by demonstrating to you from Scripture Fathers and Reason That God is the immediate Author of Soveraignty in the King and that he is no Creature of the Peoples Making 'T is high time to put a period to my Letter I crave your pardon for its length but before I do so I will being well assured by reading our Authors Animadversions throughout he has bestrid this Ass the Multitude ever since Forty One I will I say present to your view a Catalogue of the Trappings that this Beast is adorned withal and they are these That Royal Authority is original in the Community from them by consent derived to Kings immediately mediately only from God God is no more the Author of Regal than of Aristocratical or Democratical Power of supreme than of subordinate Command Dominion which is usurped and not just while it remains Dominion and till it be legally again divested refers to God as to its Author and Donor as much as that which is Hereditary Soveraignty and Power in a King is by conveyance from the People by a Trust devolved upon him and that it is conditionate fiduciary and propertioned according as it pleaseth the Community to entrust more or less Royal Power in a King is not simply supreme but in some cases there is a Co-ordinate Power or Collateral nay that in some cases the King is subordinate to the Community In some cases the King may be resisted and opposed by violence force and Arms at least in a defensive way Soveraignty is derived to the King from the People by communication so that they may resume it in some cases A private man may make away his personal liberty and enslave himself to another ergo a People or Multitude may do the like and invest a King with Soveraignty Neither Scripture nor nature determine the specification of Government nor do they intimate why this man more than another or be than a third or these more than those should have the power of Government Every Society of Mankind is a perfect Republick and consequently the community may supply and rectifie the defects and errors of Soveraignty If there were not such a power and superintendency in the people to supply God hath left Man remediless The Right of Dominion is founded in Grace Rex est major singulis minor universis Quod efficit tale est magis tale That which maketh any thing such or such is in it self much more such or such our Author and his Brethren will be ready to assume but the People make the King give him all the Power and Majesty he hath ergo the People are above the King c. Quisque nascitur liber Every man is born a Freeman in the Forest Pray God we do not instead of a Forest come again into a Wood. These Principles are the right way to effect it FINIS