Escapes in Government may happen even in the most perfect it is resented as if the Nation had received a Box on the Ear. If it be as they say the Glory of a Tree-State to Exalt the Scandal of Tyranny to Embase our Spirits doubtless the Establish'd Form is our Only Commonwealth for all that we got by the Change of it was but the learning quietly to take the Bastinade Nay and at the very worst that can be imagin'd it is much more Easie were it Lawful for us to dispute our Rights with a single Pâ—ince and his Trembling Agents then as it was our Case formerly with a Knot of Sovereigns that are backt with the Sword WE are now again able to distinguish which we could never do under their Free-Estate for all the fair Promises they made us the Legislative and the Ministerial Authority For tho' both of them are Inherent in the King yet are not both of them his own Peculiar and Personal Act. We know that the House of Commons has not the Power of a Court-Leet to give an Oath nor of a Justice of the Peace to make a Mittimus And this Distinction doubtless is the most Vital part of Freedom and far more considerable to poor Subjects then all these mens pretended Rotations as on the contrary the absolute Jumbling and Confounding of them is an Accomplishment of Servitude for which all Republiques I fear and our late one more especially have more to Answer then any Limited Sovereign can have And certain it is that as our Prince in his Personal Capacity makes no Laws so neither does he by himself Execute or Interpret any No Judge takes notice of his single Command to justifie any Trespass no not so much as the breaking of a Hedg his Power is Circumscribed by his Justice he is equally with the meanest of his Subjects concern'd in that Honest Maxim We may do just so much and no more then we have Right to do And it is tolerably enough said He can do no wrong because if it be wrong he does it not it is void in the Act and punishable in his Agent His Officers as they are alike lyable so perhaps they are more Obnoxious to Indictments and Suits then any other by how much their Trespass seems to be of a Higher Nature and gives greater Alarm His Private Will cannot Countermand his Publique His Privy Seal still Buckles to his Great Seal as being in a sense the Nations as much as His His Order Supercedes no Process and His Displeasure threatens no man with an hours Imprisonment after the Return of HabeasCorpus An Under-Sheriff is more Terrible a Constable more Sawcy a Bailiff more Troublesom then He And yet by his Gentle Authority by this Scabbard of Prerogative as some in derision have lewdly Term'd it which if it Would Could Scarce Oppress an Orphan Tumults are Curb'd Faction Moderated Usurpation Forestall'd Intervals prevented Perpetuities Obviated Equity Administer'd Clemency Exalted and the People made Happy to a degree even of Satiety and Wantonness TO Conclude this Point What shall I add more The Act enjoyning the Keepers of the Great Seal under Pain of High Treason to Summon a Triennial Parliament of Course by Virtue of the Act without Further Warrant The Act forbidding the Privy-Councell to intermeddle with Meum Tuum the Law abolishing the Star-Chamber High-Commission c. Branding all Past and Bridling all Future Enormities The Statutes limiting the Kings Claims and relieving his Tenants from Exaction of Forfeitures Beside many other principal Immunities wherewith by the Especial Favour of God and the Bounty of our Princes we are Blessed far beyond any of our Neighbours Above all our Assurance by the Goodness and Clemency of our present Dread Sovereign readily to obtain such further Addition and Perfection of Liberty and Security if any such there can be as may consist with Modesty and Liberty it self to ask Does not all this Proclaim aloud that we are the Mirrour of Governments Envy of Monarchies and Shame of Common-wealths who cannot but blush to see themselves so Eclipsed and Silenc'd in all their Pretences to Freedom And does it not more than justifie my Assertion that with all the Ornaments of the Noblest Kingdom we have likewise all the Enjoyments of a Free-Estate § 6. AFTER all these solid Blessings and Advantages which we Reap from the most Excellent of Governments and of Princes the bare Fruition of the Tithe whereof would be sufficient to transport the Best to pass of our Neighbour Nations into all the Cordial and Passionate Expressions of Joy and Gratitude imaginable After all these Comforts I say a Body would think there should scarce be found one single Murmuring and Disaffected Person in the whole Kingdom And yet so hard is our Fate our Hearts infensible and so Ingenious are we in starting Fears and Jealousies that a great part of us deprive our selves of the Enjoyment of all our present Felicities through a too Eager and Pensive Solicitation for Futurities Nay so miserably Hood-wink'd is our Reason that our Carefulness to avoid miscarryinâ— upon a Scilla hurries us Violently into the other Extreme of splitting upon a Charybdis Popery and Tyranny we cry are breaking in upon us like a Deluge the Presumptive Heir is of the Red-Letter Stamp and therefore another Sect of our Pseudo-protestants apprehending the Danger and the Impracticableness of a Commonwealth-Government here amongst us do hope to mend the matter mightily by propounding the setting up of a Single Person either of a Crack'd Title or of a New Line upon the death of his present Majesty without Legitimate Issue Whom God preserve THERE is no man shall be more willing than my self to grant that the Popish Religion if it may deserve the Name is little better than a Compound of meer Secular Interest Tyranny Hypocâ—â—sie Homicide and Delusion and that the very principles of the Jesuits do inspirit and egg them on to the inflicting of all manner of Outragious Violences upon the Persons of those that enjoy a greater Light and Purity of the Gospel then themselves But yet I must averr on the other hand that since through the peculiar Mercy and Providence of God and the Indefatigable Industry and Vigilance of Authority all their Machinations have hitherto been defeated and their Conspiracies both against our Church and State rendred Abortive it will become us both as Men and Christians to temper our Passions and to rest satisfied with the singular Care and Concern that the Government vouchsafes continually to express both for our present and future safety and preservation in all Respects Full well know that nothing is of greater Concernment then the Security of that Religion which by the Bloud of so many blessed and Glorious Martyrs has by Gods immediate blessing been so firmly Establish'd amongst us But then we are to take special heed that we lend not too easie an Ear to such as cry up Religion design Faction that cry out Zeal
all Elections to Parliament or otherwise that the whole Countreys Commonly follow their respective Factions and the Commonalty in their Votes are menag'd by Them as a Horse by his Rider So that as the Agrarian or Interest of Land is principally in these Two Ranks So is the Consequence thereof Dominion and Command which emboldens them to such a Height of Spirit natural to our Nobility and Gentry that they are too apt to undervalue Persons of Inferiour Quality Burgesses and Mechaniques with whom to Inter-marry by our Old Law it was a Disparagement for a Ward and this Spirit of Generosity cannot be supprest so riveted is it in their Natures but by the Eradication of their Persons or at least their Qualities to which strange effect I have heard some Grandees vent a Sense AND indeed the establishing of a Free Estate so call'd were otherwise Desperate and Impracticable and therefore it was the Course that the prevailing Mechaniques among the Swisses were forc'd to take How else shall we be levell'd to a Parity which is of the very Essence of a Commonwealth For as Titles and Honours are incident to Kingship so also are Equality in Place Degree and Birth to Democracy unless where in case of Office for the Time only they are entitled to a Precedency Reduced you must be Sir to the Condition of the Vulgar Commoners already are you in Title which yet is but a Fallacy of the Name and deludes our Statists for indeed you are so only Representatively being rather the Tribunes and Leaders of the Peoples strength and the Governours of their purse then purely Commons Neither yet will the bare obtaining of such a Parity be sufficient to do your Friends Business unless there be a Supreme Power establish'd in some Body Corporate Compacted and Permanent such as is That of London where the Grandure of That City but that it is never to be debauch'd into such a Degree of Disloyalty and Fanaticism might possibly erect it Self into a Free-State could it once overcome all opposite Interests and by that great Magazine of Treasure and Men there embody'd give Law to the whole People scatter'd as they are in a large Continent Having First reduc'd some meet Cities Forts and Castles which being Garrison'd from the Head-Colony would aw the Countreys and mould them into a Vassalage competent to make up a Free-Estate But then our Nobility and Gentry would neither have the Honour of the Name nor Benefit of the Thing 'T will be instiled the Commonwealth of London not of England And our Pay must be as They Impose and our Liberty as They vouchsafe it only in This it will be the less agreeable that we must be Subject to our Inferiours NOR is This Discourse to be look't upon as meer Drollery for from This Embrio have issued those Commonwealths which are so fam'd in Notions as those of Rome Carthage Athens Lacedaemon Corinth Thebes c. Great Cities of That Name which having subdu'd their adjacent Territories denominated the Dominion wherein only those of the Freedom Citizens and Denizens had Vote or Power the Nobles and Gentlemen being purely Tributary to the Chief City unless they transplanted themselves renounc'd their Cities and so by degrees advanc'd into the Honour of a Burgess as we now do exercise our Junior Issue And little different are at this day the celebrated Commonwealths of Venice the United Provinces the Swisses not to instance in those Petty States of Genoua Ragusa Geneva c. all of them mostly denominated from those Principal Cities which give the Law to the adjacent Provinces Those indeed of the Hollanders and Switzers tho' they derive not so directly their Title from One City yet are they in Substance of the same Composure being only an United Body of Corporated Cities combin'd in One for Mutual Defence against Invaders but of an equal Power to impose upon the Adjacent Territories scituate under the aw of each respective City or Town-Garrison It falls not within my Memory that there ever was or at This Day is a Free-Estate in the whole World that 's manag'd by the Gentry Inhabiting at large or by any People not combin'd within the Jurisdiction of their Walls except the Grisons who are a scatter'd People of a mean Quality having long since disown'd their Gentry and are without Walled Towns or Garrison 'T is a small Territory possibly of extent to an Inland Country upon Emergences the whole People at a set day meet in the Open Ayre where the Major Vote as with you Knights of the Shire cryes up the Magistrates and Determines Warre Their Confusions makes them easie for Conquest were their Country worth it and not secur'd by the United Cantons NOW to apply the Premisses can your Friend or any other Man of the same Stamp imagine that our Nobility and Gentry as now in Power will ever be induc'd to admit a Parity will level their Degree and Domination to a Proportion with their Copy-holders Nay will renounce the wearing of a Sword and learn to make one Will submit to become Tributary to the Neighbour-Colony If this can be brought about then perhaps and not till then may we again hope to aspire from our present Glorious State of King-ship to a Free-state in Clown-ship or at least from the Free-giving of Subsidies to the Majesty of a Scepter to the Forced-payment of Excise to the High and Mighty Burgher such as was that High and Mighty Butcher who not many years ago was commissioned by the Swisses as one of the Chiefs to be God-Father to the French Kings Son As Plato phansi'd his Community and Sir Thomas Moor his Utopia so are these people bigg with hopes of a Relation thereby to reassume their Idoliz'd Model of a Commonwealth out of the scatter'd Gentry in the nature of a House of Commons But if nothing but New Experiments will serve their Turn I could wish they would find other Subjects to try Conclusions upon than the Estates Lives nay the very Souls of Christians You well remember I 'me sure Sir that we once ran the Loss of Those and the Hazzard of These upon the hopes of a Chimaera in the Brains of some The word Liberty deluded us into Patience and Patience from 1648. to 1660. brought forth not less Payments but more Servitude And let them not hope to bring Countenance to their Cause by alledging as they did before that they could never be permitted to foster up their Babe to full perfection for that they will ever be opposed by all Wise and Loyal men who having once experimented the Evils of such a State will be as vigilant and industrious to keep it from getting footing among us again as those that are otherwise can be to bring it on Beside that you cannot have forgot Sir that from 1648 to 1653. they had it from the Nurse and had they stuck to their Pretences might probably in five years time have set it upon its Feet but they found the sweet
by great Experience our Kings having rarely obstructed any Bill which they might safely grant but on the otherside pass'd many High Acts of mere Grace circumscribing their Prerogative and clipping its Wings nay better had it been for us if they had not pierc'd its very Bowels THIS is that Triple-Cord that could never yet be broken tho' it has been Cut asunder This is our Gold seven times Refin'd for every Bill being Thrice Read Debated and Agreed in Either House is at last brought to the King for his Royal Assent which is the Mint of our Laws a Tryal so exact that surely no Dross can escape it since all Interests must thereto concur as truly it is but fit they should in the Establishment of That which must Bind all This is that Temperament which purges our Humours and at once indues us with Health Vigour and Beauty no Vote is Precipitated no Act Huddled up as by sad Events you saw they formerly us'd to be when the Power was engross'd by One of the Estates purg'd and moulded to the Interests of a Faction a Consequence but Natural to such Premises Nothing was There weigh'd but as in a Balance consisting of one Scale our Laws were Mandrakes of a Nights Growth and our Times as Fickle as the Weather of the Multitude THE King indeed has the Power of making War but then he has not the Means so that it signifies little more then a Liberty to Fly if he can get Wings or to go Beyond Sea provided he can waft himself over without Shipping He has a Sword but Himself alone can never draw it and the Train'd-Bands in whom he has the sole Right are a Weapon which he decently wears 't is true but the Nation only may in Effect be said to have the Use and Benefit of it He chuses his Ministers as who doth not his Servants but then they pass through such a Test as none but the soundest Integrity can abide He can hinder the stroke of Justice with his Pardon tho' still the Jaws not being muzzled it will Bite terribly but then on the Other side the Power of Relieving his Wants rests in the Commons to Balance his Will and induce him to a Correspondence with Parliaments THAT his Person should be Sacred is most Needful to avoid Circulation of Accounts Reasonable since it carries with it the Consent of Nations Just that he become not the meer Butt of Faction and Malice and be in a worse Condition then the Basest of Vassals Honourable that the Nakedness of Government be not daily Uncover'd Wise in the Constitution that so we may not at once both Trust and Provoke by forcing him to shift for his Own Indempnity no danger to the Publique seeming so Extreme as the Outlawry of a Prince no Task by daily Experience so difficult as the Arraigning of any Power whether Regal or Popular and if we make Golden Bridges for Flying Enemies much more should we afford them to Relenting Sovereigns Upon which account in our Neighbour Kingdom of France even Princes of the Bloud are not subjected to Capital Punishments Finally very Safe it is in the Consequence for should a King be never so wicked and Tyrannical yet being by the Danger threatning his Corrupt Ministers stript of Agents his Personal Impunity might signifie something to Himself perhaps but nothing to the People A Revenue he has for the support of his State and Family Ample for the Ordinary Protection of his People Sufficient but for any considerable Undertaking Defective and for Publique Oppression so Inconsiderable that when Prerogative was most Rampant our Greatest Princes and some doubtless we have had the most Renowned Warriours of their Age would never prudently aspire to make themselves Absolute The Royal Revenue is proportioned to the Maintenance of Courts not Camps and Fleets In fine it is very Competent for Ordinary Disbursements and as for Extraordinary he resorts to Parliaments the Wiser He and the Happier We Now there is nothing more Demonstrative then that upon Examination we may find the present Government to be compared with all the other Models of the Late Times a mighty Ease to the Publique Charge we allow'd the Tyrant Cromwell no less then a constant Revenue of 1900000 l. to support him in his Usurpation and yet That Sum beside all his other intolerable Squeezings at the years end clear'd not the Account by far Under the Rump a great deal more was yearly Collected out of the Bowels of the People to maintain the Army and yet we could never be at quiet neither but were perpetually embroyl'd in Wars either Abroad or at Home by our active Spirits some to feed their Ambition others their Purses And such a Spirit we read of working in all Free-States Ancient and Modern What shall we say now of the Expences of the Late King if examin'd by This Standard whose Revenue in Lands Perquisites and Customs exceeded not 700000 l. a year and yet by the good management of that most Thristy and Temperate Prince that petite Annuity furnish'd a glorious Court a Noble Equipage for the Honour of the Nation and paid off a considerable Fleet which never was much improved afterwards by all our vast Payments when we were so unfortunate as to fall into Other hands Nay and our present Charge is rather a Sport then a Burthen compared with Their Monthly Tax TRUE it is that while we live with Men we shall be subject to That which is the Effect of their Nature Sin nor is it possible to reap the more General Fruit of the best Establish'd Policy unless we submit to some possible Inconveniences But yet I defie your Friend and all other Projectors of Commonwealths to contrive greater Freedom for their Citizens then is provided by Magna Charta and The Petition of Right or shew that it is not much easier to Violate then to Mend them for Thereby our Lives Liberties and Estates are under Monarchy secur'd and establish'd I think as well as any thing on this side Heaven can be It is no Soloecism to say that the Subject has his Prerogative as well as the King and sure I am he is in as good condition to maintain it the Dependance being less on his side Beside that no Prince ever attempted any Violation thereof but that at Long Run he suffer'd in that point of his Prerogative that let in the Opportunity Hence it is that the Rights of the People have grown stronger and stronger against the Prince and sometimes have hurried his Person to be a Sacrifice always his Instruments whereof few in our History can we read that contriving against the Law have died in peace If possibly One Prince as King Harry by his High Spirit swept all before him yet his Infant Successor is forc'd to make amends for his Fathers Violations So that Liberty we see is no less Sacred then Majesty Noli me tangere being its Motto likewise And in case of any the least Infringement as
for the Lord of Hosts when they intend Self-Interest to keep up a party an Affected way or to be the Ipse dixit of a County Religion has not at all prosper'd by undue practices to advance it 'T is Meekness Patience Humility and those Graces of the Spirit that Convince and Convert when Rigidness Censuring and the Sword Exasperate and Harden Has not Gods power or truth Evidence to secure it self Let but the Gospel have Free passage and it will make its own stay For all true Protestants do unanimously disown the Promotion of it by the Sword as totally Unchristian and bequeath it to the Pope and the Turk Was not now the maintenance of our Fundamental Laws the pretence of our late Quarrel Found we not the Spirit of the Nation rouz'd up upon the sound of the Trumpet Popery was it not decry'd and Religion Protestant Religion judg'd to be in danger Were we not call'd out to the Battle upon the account of Zeal with Curse ye Meroz And yet under our Free Estate as they call'd it our Religion so much of it especially as could any way be term'd Protestant turn'd into Wantonness and our Divisions became so great that we durst not exasperate by advancing that Idol of the Presbyters Discipline nor indeed could we if we durst for the most active of our Statists if they had any Religion at all 't was that of the Sectary which they own'd as the main Supporter of their Model whose Interest it was to give Licentiousness to all As for Laws those which we ador'd for Excellency and Antiquity they were by them of necessity alter'd in our Freedoms of Person and Estate wherein true Liberty is principally concern'd For when the House of Commons or rather the Rump of it engross'd the Soveraign Power they both Imposed Taxes and Levy'd them by vertue of a trifling Ordinance which could never be done before but by an Act of Parliament solemnly and regularly pass'd by the King and the Three Estates And having of Tribunes of the people as it were and their Bulwark against High Payments and Impressures demanded by the King advanc'd themselves into the degree of Princes they took upon them to assess and impress us at pleasure and we might complain as long as we would of the Reiterated Burthen but there was no remedy but Patience because no Appeal left us themselves being both Parties and Judges I COULD heartily wish there were at present no more reason to be apprehensive of Popery coming amongst us then there was in those days But yet let his Royal Highness's Perswasion be what it will this I'm sure of that Dr. Oates has deposed upon Oath that the Jesuits were so far from saying or acting Indifferently as to his Person that in their Hellish Plot they had mark'd him out also for Slaughter with his most Royal most Protestant Brother Now the late Marquess of Argyle was wont to lay it down as a Principle in Policy That it was the Character of a wise man not to let the World know what Religion he was of But for my own part I cannot in Charity but hope the best of a Person till I shall be convinc'd of the contrary by more certain and positive Arguments then any that I have yet been able to meet with that has been so Lectur'd and Tutor'd by our late Glorious Martyr as well as by Experience into a Veneration for and a Perseverance in that Pure Reformed Religion the Principles of which he suck'd in with his very Milk and in Defence of which his ever Blessed Father laid down his most precious Life upon a Scaffold You may read his words thus I do require you addressing to his present Majesty as your Father and your King that you never suffer your Heart to receive the least Check against or Dis-affection from the True Religion establish'd in the Church of England I tell you I have try'd it and after much Search and many Disputes have concluded it to be the best in the World not only in the Community as Christian but also in the special Notion as Reformed keeping the middle way between the Pomp of Superstitious Tyranny and the Meanness of Phantastick Anarchy c. To this sence spake he when he had no more to speak Nay and so zealous this way was our English Solomon the Duke's Grandfather King James that rather then any of his Progeny should ever come to be tainted with the Errors and Idolatries of the Church of Rome he made it his Prayer to Almighty God that they might be taken out of the World first AS to the apprehensions of Tyranny I hope by what I have already deliver'd in the Body of this Discourse it is evident that there is less ground to fear it then many people might before imagine for that it is next to an Impossibility to introduce it And upon probable grounds I perswade my self that should the Duke ever have the occasion offer'd yet would he be wiser then to make tryal of the Experiment knowing so well as he must needs do that should the English Liberties be violated in the example but of any one single Person the whole Nation would take it self to be concern'd upon that account apprehend it self ready for the Fetters and thereby what with Fear what with Hate such a Storm would be rais'd as might shake the surest Foundations of the Government and so very much has Majesty already felt by the Fury of the People that it will be chary doubtless of giving occasion to encounter it again BUT 't is farther Objected it seems that there is a Vindictive and Implacable Spirit in the Case Now this is most manifest indeed that there have been Provocations to the height but shall we therefore continue to provoke because we have begun 'T is a Rule you know that he that does wrong never forgives but he that has wrong may The Interest of Revenge is passionate but the Interest of Profit arises from a Passion that prevails more and he is very weak that anteposes Rumour and vain Passion when it stands in Competition with his Safety To speak home Interest rules the whole World and Princes as others design more the security of their own Greatness then a petty Revenge that may hazard it But for this search we the Experiences of past Ages Henry the Great of France was so far from punishing any of the holy League that labour'd by all means possible to keep him from his Right and to murther him that on the contrary he imploy'd those very Persons that were his main Opposites in his Armies in his Offices and in his Councels And what shall we say of King James who sent Messages made Vows menac'd Revenge and all to prevent that fatal Stroke from falling upon his Mother the Queen of Scots under Queen Eliz. but to no effect Observe the Issue now Shortly Q. Eliz. dies and those very Lords that acted personally in the Mothers Death were the most