into Anarchy and confusion it wheel'd about again to it's first form and yet even there the unsteady course of humane affairs permits it no longer to continue then till the unequal courage and vertues of the Successors make way for the incroachments of the Ambitious or the folly and madness of the giddy multitude to give it fresh rounds and turns So that if a man would examine things strictly he would find more reason to give to every of the Governments of the World rather the name of a fluctuating Oligarchy than that by which they are commonly called for upon exact scrutiny it would perhaps be found that even the most absolute Monarchs admit some He or She Privadoes or Copartners into the managment of their Scepters In the beginning the burden of a Crown was not so heavy nor the cares so many as to need Advisers or Supporters then Integrity was so great in Prince and People that his will was their undisputed law the emergent Dictates of his pleasure no written constitutions silenc'd all their controversies Populus nullis legibus tenebatur arbitria Principum pro legibus erant But after upon great increase and spreading of mankind the Princes found it necessary as Jethro Moses Father in law had done in the case of the Jews to distribute some part of their power but with dependence upon themselves among the Elders chief and wisest of their people and to consult with them at their pleasure in all the weighty Affairs of state Hence came the Egyptians Magi not Conjurers as is commonly received but Astronomers and Counsellors of State the best Judges of meum and tuum in a Country where those boundaries were often interrupted by the overflowings of Nilus to this likewise are owing the Eastern Monarchs Sophies Colledges of wise and disinteressed Philosophers and studying and employ'd in the good of their Countreys as well those of China Indostan or the great Mogul the Tartars and the Persiâ—ns as of others After whose Examâ—…s the Turks instituted their Divans practiced by the Emperours of Fez and Morocco and by all the rest of Africa The same reasons gave the Ethiopian Priests and the Druids of the Gauls and Brittians originally the same people their power and to the Jews their Sanhedrim to the Germans their Dyets and to the Romans their Senate to the Pope as a temporal Prince his Colledge of Cardinals to the Saxons our immediate Ancestors not to instance in more their Wittena Gemot or great Council since the Norman conquest alter'd in Name and other circumstances though not in the foundation to that of our present Parliaments In all which 't is very observable that the Priests the Flamens and Archflamens for such there were among the most barbarous who had their glimmerings of a future life always held the first form and were in the management even of State Affairs of greatest credit But to pass by the rest and come to our own in which we are most immediatly concern'd we shall find that upon the Roman Empires going to wrack and their Colonies with many of the Natives being hence drained to support it's tottering State there arose a contention between the Bâ—…tiains and the Picts for the dominion of this Island they were both originally the same people but the Picts contemning the vassalage and the Customs of the Romans to which the other had submitted fled into the extremest parts called Scotland from the Irish Inhabitants who were anciently known by no other Name and now returning with assistance were too hard for the Brittains Hereupon they were forced to intreat the help of the Saxons a Warlike people of Germany The motion being communicated by Hengist to whom it was first made they embraced it conditionally they might have the continuance of their own Laws and Custom and the conquer'd Country equall ydivided among the Adventurers for they undertook not the voyage so much with design of assistance to others as of advantage to themselves Hengist surmising this to the Leaders they soon assembled and drew together 9000 men besides Wowen and Children On the confines of the River Elbe as their Neighbours the Franks had done before on the Banks of Sala and as these did here so did they thre enact by mutual agreement the performance of those Artcles appointing that Hengist and his line should be their Leaders and their Kings reserving to themselves the power of choosing a new Monarch only upon the failure of his issue Accordingly they set sail and soon arriving in England had first the Isle of Thanet and after Kent â—…signed for their Province after many bickerings fresh supplies and inundations of their own People they at last not only drive out the Picts and Scots but even the Brittains forcing â—hem into the remote part of Wales and Cornwall the certain consequence of unnatural civil Wars and dissentions where the contending Parties ever become loosers making way for some stranger or third Person to snatch a way the prize Policy would have taught the Brittains that Leagues with an overpowerful State always prove destructive to the weaker and that they could not reasonably have expected from forreign assistance any other fate than that of the Lamb in the fable who calling for the Lyons aid against the Woâ—… had only the pleasure of seeing him first chased away and himself immediately after devoured or then that of the Mouse and the Frog who while striving with each other for the mastery gave the Kite an opportunity of sweeping away both Not to instance more remotely it was this that soon after upon the Saxon divisions encouraged the invasion of the Danes and gave England to the Normans and Ireland to the English And not long since while King and Parliament were disputing for the Supremacy Liberty and Prerogative made the way for others to destroy both and instead of an excellent well temper'd Government to set up an intolerable and most arbitary Tyranny I hope the sense of the unexpressible calamities under which the Nation then groan'd will teach us to avoid such miseries for the future another civil War being like without a miracle to enslave us to a Tyrant of another Nation which like the Devils entring in a second time wou'd make our latter condition seven fold worse than the former from which in all appearance nothing but Providence and a Spirit of moderation and concord can defend our Country The Saxons having at length gain'd the Victory pursued their resolutions even during the Heptarchy as far as the frequent and almost continued Wars would permit after the stronger had swallowed up the rest they centured into a single Monarchie and in the person of Alfred Collected into one body the substance of their Laws attempted before in part by K. Ina and yet to be met with in Lambert The execution of these by the after incursions of the Danes being interrupted they were at last methodiz'd by the Confessor by whose death the Normans possessed the Crown
of Nations forbid nay make it inconsistent with Society to hang a Man first and convict him after or to punish any one 〈◊〉 post facto My Lord Strafford's Case was never to be brought into president and if that were not sufficient the whole proceedings by Act of Parliament since his Majesties Restauration were condemn'd as illegal and contrary to all Morality And would not the D's Case have been just the same Do you but make it your own and you will be of that Opinion Whence I conclude that the Reasons on which the late House of Commons proceeded against the D. were insufficient because not only not warranted but contrary to the Laws in being as well as to those of Nature and all Societies under Heaven And now I come to your third Question what dangers the Nation may be under in case the Crown descends upon a Popish Successor or more particularly upon his R. H For answer to which we must consider that dangers to any Country are Forraign or Domestick Invasions from abroad or Encroachments a home Against the former every Kingdom is in danger be the Prince of any or no Religion and therefore the People are obliged to be always on their Guard Against the latter the hazard lies in the Princes neglect or breaking of the bounds of his Subjects Liberty Property and Religion and since the safety of all Princes depends upon the contrary why a Popish one should offer it more then another I cannot comprehend and more particularly why his R. H. should design it is not at all likely if we examine either the influence Popery can have over the Government or consider impartially the D's Character Government was first framed for the good of Mankind in this Life without any regard to another and depended upon a due and equal administration of justice in the Governour and Obedience in the governed This was long observed in the World before Religion entered especially Christianity which all allow neither did nor could alter the Laws of the City or Common-wealth Evangelium non abolet politias is every where an allowed Maxim drawn from our Saviour's own Words Friend who made me a Ruler or judge among you The Law is open and by that the controversies between you and your Brother are to be decided He came not to disturb but to enlarge and confirm the peace of the City and his Laws considered a-part are as consistent with those of a Kingdom as the by-Laws of any Corporation within a greater State He declared his Kingdom was not of this World and therefore could not design to alter the grounds of Government and Obedience which are one and the same in all Countries whether Christian or Pagan founded upon self-interest and preservation and continued by mutual Relation of Love and Duty Protection and Obedience things that truly considered can never be altered by the super-induction or change of any new or old Religion If then Christianity make no alteration 't is impossible the sub-divisions or particular Sects should So that whatever Opinion either King or Subject be in point of Religion Popish or Protestant Lutheran or Calvinist Presbyterian or Episcopal the ends of Government peace and quiet Liberty and Property may be secured and enjoy'd and the end of Religion too eternal Salvation this depending on moral Duties and Conformity to the Laws of the Land our Saviour having threatned Damnation to those who resist the higher Powers the greatest of punishments being appointed both by the Jewish and Christian Law to Rebellion called by the first the Sin of Witchraft and in the last a fighting against God himself Now all Laws that concern our temporal estate being made in the times of Popery I cannot find why they should be changed by a Popish Monarch nor how without a change or violation the Subjects can suffer As for the Laws that established the Protestant and abolished the Popish Religion they cannot be otherwise altered but by an equal power with that from whence they had their Being King and Parliament who agreeing can by a change no more prejudice the publick in order to Heaven than they did before that being only accidental and extrinsecal to the Substance of Religion by which alone and not by Forms or Ceremonies Men are to be saved every Country making differences in such things according to the several interest of States or humours of the people as in England the Common-wealth is tempered by the King 's holding the Ballance between the power of Lords and Commons and that upon the taking away of either the Government must be destroyed so the Religion of England or indeed of any Kingdom where there are several Sects seem only to be preserved by fixing a Ballance which taken away must be the ruine of the whole and therefore undeniable policy will tell us that the Episcopal legal Government is no otherwise to be preserved but by equally indulging the Non-Conformists and the Papists for to suppress both is now impracticable and to suppresse one alone will be found impolitick A Truth grounded upon the present State of Europe where while England kept the Ballance between France and Spain the universal Monarchy was a Dream or groundlesse Fancie but that being removed 't is impossible if two or three Martial and prudent Princes happen successively to govern France but that before imaginary Empire will really fall to the Lot of that Nation unlesse all the other States joyn against it and give our Country the power it enjoyed when Spain was an equal Match in the Contention For my own part I see nothing to be dreaded in case of a Popish Successor because he alone cannot alter the Laws nor the Religion nor can he the execution since that is out of his and in the hands of such as are not only sworn to it but upon failure lyable to great Penalties and Forfeiture not only to the Prince who possibly might but to the Informer who cannot be supposed to remit his proportion And considering that the Laws in being have entrusted the executive power of the Militia by Sea and Land and of distributive Justice in Courts and all Offices of Trust as well in the Country as about the Princes Person and the power of making and altering Laws in the Hands of Men of Anti-popish Principles I cannot apprehend why we should conceive any danger from a Princes enjoying to himself any Heterodox Opinion whatever For to think he would impose them upon his Subjects is to conclude him not only imprudent but distracted since it would be to create himself disturbance without the least prospect of advantage for what does he get or loose by their being of this or that Perswasion His Good his Wealth his Glory his Honour and Security consists in their conformity to the established Government and for their future Happinesse he cannot as a Prince be solitcious 't is out of his Province and now out of Fashion for Kings to be Priests and
Ambition 'T is notoriously evident That no men were more violent for the general Indulgence nay for Popery in 167â— not to mention their before breaking the Triple League and entring into an Alliance with France than those who now are accounted the only Lovers of an English Interest and the Protestant Religion A Restitution of the Great Seal or a Treasurers White Staff a Diamond-hilted Sword or being a Publick Minister might perswade the same Persons to act again as arbitrariously as before set up France and run down Holland with a delenda est Carthago Good God! how strange it is that men who changed with every Wind as that of their own Private not their Countries Interest blew or some younger Spirits influenced by their Precepts Examples in hopes to make new or retrive crack'd Fortunes should ride and hurry the Nation to so much Heat and Passion as endangers our utter ruine and destruction either from Intestine Divisions or Forreign Invasions Consider this in time before you are bemir'd and bewitch'd by any Will o' th' Wisp who now leads you astray and will certainly leave you in the lurch when he has gain'd the Point he drives at Judge of future by former Actions and remember if we must have any That the old is better than any new Master Oh but say some If we have a Popish Successor he will be the worst of Tyrants being oblig'd says the Author of the Few Words among many to extirpate his Protestant Subjects under the pain of Excommunication Damnation that by vertue of the Council of Lateran An Assertion very groundless whether you consider at large the Princes Interest with which such a Practice is incompatible his being a King depending upon his Subjects and a powerful one upon their Multitude Strength and Riches or if you consider the Influence Christianity it self has upon the Civil Magistrate or the particular Obligations of this pretended Decree Concerning which you are to know that this Council is not esteem'd General nor the Decrees of this wholly rejected by Canus and Bellarmine nor of any Council esteem'd infallible or obligatory in point of Discipline where they are not receiv'd and corroborated by the Temporal Prince who has the power of rejecting all or what part he thinks fit of such Decrees as appears not only in this but in that of Trent which is not universally received either in France or Germany Besides these few that own this Council say it was never design'd against Sovereign Independent Princes nor was it ever practised out of Italy So that why it should be dreaded in England cannot be found reasonable since at this day in France Germany and other Countries where the main Body of the People is Popish Protestants are permitted their Freedoms and their Fortunes A sufficient Argument that Popish Princes fear no such Sentence from Pope or Council In some places of Germany the people are governed successively by Popish Protestant Princes Lutherans by Calvinists further asunder than Church of England and Papist without inconvenience or disturbance taking their turns morning and afternoon in the publick Churches and notwithstanding the differences in Speculative matters nor possible to be avoided live together as they ought in the Union of Charity the only bond of perfection and Badge of true Christianity So that Papists may be good Kings and good Subjects as they are de facto and have been and therefore may be again And to shew how little particular Opinions can alter the Duties of Allegiance and Subjection let it be remembred That in the King of France his Descent upon Holland and in the time of his whole War with that State he could never get a Popish Spy But here I am not ignorant the Persecutions of Queen Mary will be urged though impertinently for besides that the odds was then on the Papists side yet in her Six years Reign as Speed and Baker tell us there were but 277 put to death and of these above 200 profligate Persons all dying by the Law then and several Ages before in being De Haretico comburendo by which several suffer'd in Queen Elizabeth's and King Jame's days for Arianism since abrogated So that as the case now stands in England none can suffer as Hereticks till some new Law be first made and that you know must be by Force or Parliament The first is shewn impossible and the latter improbable Yet if such an Act passd it must be esteem'd consonant to the desires of the whole Nation So that the Martyrs of Queen Mary's days can no more be accounted such than those who have suffer'd since the Popish Plot both being punish'd justly according to the Laws in being These last are reckoned 170 in the space of eighteen Mouths of which 147 starved and died in Prison and 23. executed to every of whom Pardon and Reward was offer'd would they but confess themselves guilty and make a Discovery besides five since condemned and many more fled starving and begging in other Countries And here I confess my amazement and wonder that so many Lay-men and Clergy-men Learned and Illiterate should all continue obstinate in the denial of this damnable and hellish Popish Plot when the Conspirators own'd that cruel one of the Gunpowder Treason Nor can the Objection be less trivial of the hazard to the Kings Sacred Life while a Papist is to succeed since a Clement or a Raviliac is not more easily found among them than a Poltrot or an Andelot among the Hugonots or Presbyterians But it is no greater disparagement to have single Instances of Wickedness in a Soceity than to the Apostles that there was a Judas in the number 'T is much more easie for Papists to give than to receive upon this account a Rowland for an Oliver They can not only return the number of Assassins but in stead of a few private ones shew them many publick Executioners of Kings and Princes and in stead of particular Asserters of the King-killing and Deposing Doctrines as Mariana and La Forest who yet do it but Problematically and are with their Books censured and condemned by the Eight Universities of France and the General of the Jesuits Order and the whole Body of the Catholicks and expresly forbidden by the universally receiv'd Council of Constance Sess 5. I wish there could not be found whole Shoals of the Reformed that avow those Antichristian Principles not only abroad but in England and Scotland Baxter yet alive has never recanted the Tenets of his Common-wealth not his owning in his Saints Rest his not finding upon the strictest examination to have done amiss in fomenting the late Rebellion I need not menti Outlandish Names of Calvin Beza Paraeus c. nor those of Scotland Knox Bu chann c. a Page would not contain all Miltons Englist Tutors and Scolars in this particular whose Religion is Treason and Rebellion and whose Devotion is all Cheat and Hypocrisie and who are ineed so much the
which of the two he is most indebted and render him matchless in the present and rarely exceeded by any in former Ages He is not only of innate Courage fearless and intrepid as a Lion but a Commander of great Experience both at Land and Sea preferring the last more for his Countries safety and honour than his own ease or pleasure In all things temperate and sober in his Actions between Man and Man nicely just in his Word and Promises strictly faithful and religiously punctual sincere in his Friendships and Professions a kind Brother and a dutiful Subject an obliging Husband and an excellent Master a great lover of Business sedulous and diligent and indefatigable in Labours affable and easy of access patient in hearing and dispatching the meanest of quick Apprehension and sound Judgement and tho in this traduc'd by Envy Malice and Design yet I defy the worst of his Enemies to instance wherein he ever spake impertinently on any Subject He is what the French call un bonest homme too comprehensive to be English'd by one Word signifying A Person composed of all the good Qualities that make Men truly valuable He was born to retrieve the sinking Glory of the English Nation a Truth once readily acknowledged by all and would be so at this day if the contrary were not imposed by the cunning of the Ambitious under the disguise and pretence of Zeal for Religion in which whatever his private Opinions are he desires not a liberty he would not grant He is not of a narrow persecuting Spirit so much in love with his own as to despise the Opinions of all others He would have every Man enjoy the right of Nature Liberty of Conscience without disturbance of the publick peace In a Word he is brave and generous liberal but not profuse resolute but not stubborn great but not proud humble but not abject in all his Actions he shews himself a Gentleman but in none forgets that he is a Prince He is not an Angel but a Man and therefore not free from some Passions and human Fraitlties but in the World there cannot be found a Prince with fewer He needs not boast the Statues of his Ancestors he has a stock of fame and vertue of his own large enough to make him great He is doubly related to the Title of his Grand Father Henry the 4th by Birth and by his Sufferings Without flattery he may be accounted the most illustrious of modern Hero's and very little if at all out-done by Caesar or by Alexander by Hannibal or by Scipio The English Scots and Irish have been Witnesses of this Truth to their Honour and Renown The French the Spaniards and Flemmings and the Dutch the German Sweed and Dane have seen and felt his Actions to their cost to thir Envy And what has this great Min done to have felt his Vertues and his Lawrels wither'd and forgot Is it for exposing his person like a common Sea man for the Glory of the English Nation or is the change of the peoples Affections owing to the alteration of his Opinions about the Modes and Circumstances of Religion for in reality 't is no more Oh! no it proceeds from the subtilty of some Fellow-Subjects who under pretence of Love for the publick and Zeal for Religion design for themselves a Tyranny and therefore endeavour by all the arts of Malice to remove out of the way of their Ambition this great Person the only Obstacle imposing upon the World that all themselves aim at are intended by the D. when nothing is further from his thoughts than a purpose of governing England otherwise than by the establish'd Laws A Lye may for a while sully and eclipse the brightest Innocence but at length it must break through those Clouds with a greater increase of Lustre and of Glory 'T is good Machiavilian policy calumniare fortiter aliquid adherebit Throw Dirt enough some of it will stick There was a time when only Vice was safe and honourable and nothing fatal but to be brave and vertuous and the best Citizens were therefore proscribed and why should it be wondred that in England as well as in Rome or Athens no Aristides should be banished for being too good Now considering that Laws may bind a King which to deny is folly and madness and that there are already enough more may be added to prevent a Popish Successors mischieving Protestant Subjects if there were no Laws to this purpose yet prudence and right reason would continue to us the enjoyment of Liberty Property and Religion let never so bigotted a Papist ascend the Throne much less is any alteration to be apprehended from the Duke who besides all those Obligations does further secure us by his innate Goodness and temper 't is no wonder his Majesty should so often forbid the intermedling with Succession since he could not but conclude from so unreasonable a procedure something else might be designed besides the security of the protestant Religion under the sairest Tufts of Grass we know Snakes are likeliest to be hid For first there was no cause to conclude the D. should certainly out-live his Royal Brother or if he did that he would or could alter the Government nor secondly that he should always continue of his present Opinion in Religion since he that once changed might do so again upon the alteration of his temper never at a stand or the same in any person or upon his fuller consideration of the Controversie But if in this he should remain unalterable and chance to out-live him his consenting to such an Act would never prevent great Effusion of Bloud civil War and unaccountable Miseries and Calamities for let Men Fancie what they please the D. would still have no small party in England all or most of Scotland and Ireland would be entirely for him he is accounted by both a Prince of their Bloud and by their Laws who no more than those of England allow their Kings mortal to be their Soveraign upon the Death of his predecessor without the Formalities of Proclamation or Coronation and who knows not that the united force of these two Kingdoms with the power within the third would counter ballance all the rest of the Might of England Besides Scotland and Ireland being distinct Kingdoms and governed by Laws of their own Parliaments no Act made by that of England can be binding in any instance much less in excluding their Sovereign Now over and above those advantages all the popish Princes of Europe and they if united are too strong for the Protestant would be on his side if Religion have that power some Men apprehend But if it have not yet France would account it their interest to reinstate the D. in his possessions for then they two joining to which nothing else could invite the King of England all rubs in the way of the Universal Monarchy would be certainly removed And what would the Consequence of this be but a
they were rejected the usages of their own Countrey and the effects of their Princes will in their stead imposed upon the people who Stomaching their being thus enslaved after long grumblings and often calling to be ruled by the Laws of holy Edward they had by firs the restoration of them in great measure especially in the first Harry's days the better to secure his Usurpation But that not continuing at length a Rebellion broke forth produced the confirmation of them in the great Charter or Magna Charta which in the main as the best Lawyers will tel you is nothing else but the repetition or examplification of their old Ordinances and ever since have been the foundation of all our Statutes According to these the people were to be Governed Liberty and Property secured against the incroachments of invaders and Justice to be distributed in the several Shares or Shires of England as in Germany where Tacitus tells us Jura per pagos reddebant For to make their conditions most easie the controversies were to be determined in their own Voisinage by the Hundreder or Lord of the Mannor from whom they might appeal to the Comes or Lord of the Countie who with the assistance of several Aldermanni or Hundreders pronounced sentence Upon this Custom is founded our Judges of Assizes and the several Justices of the Peace their Assessors From this Countie Court the last final Appeal was to the Great Council after the Conquest called by the name of Parliament and composed of the great Lords Spiritual and Temporal assembled in the presence of the King when and where he was pleased to summon them To this general meeting came from all the parts of the Kingdom as manie as were aggrieved either by themselves or their Attorneys or Lawyers And hence it is that we so often find it mentioned not only in Spelman but in Hoveden Malmsbury Marthew Paris and the rest of the Monkish Writers that to this Curia Magna did resort the Princes Lords and Chief men and Causidici ab omni parte Regni From whence arose the mistake in after Ages as if those Lawyers who were only the Attournies and Pleaders of their Clients Causes made any part of the great Council unto which the Commons whatsoever Mr. Bacon Petit or any former Writers can say of their Jurisdiction were not admitted till the latter end of Henrie 3. raign when he observing the difficulties under which his Father had long struggled wisely allow'd them such a constitution and particular Priviledges of their own as might serve to Counterballance the Power of the Lords grown so exorbitant that without due poising and equal Liberation no otherwise to be done It must of necessity endanger the overthrow of the Monarchie and the disturbance of the whole Nation He is therefore to be accounted the first Author of our present Parliamentary usages and after his prescript they to this day receive their Summons and their beeing and yet if we narrowly look into the matter we shall finde they are more altered in Fashion than in substance notwithstanding their often gaining both upon the Crown and the Lords by the Kings first allowance of their management of the purse-string of the Kingdom for the Lords House alone was made and still continues the Court of Judicature the ultimate decider of Appeals where according to their first institution no original Cause was to take place to the house of Commons he has left the first motions of Grants Aids or Subsidies who represent the People now as the Lawyers did before and cannot in Propriety of speech as well as of Justice be called by other name nor allowed greater Power than of Attorneys The write sayes plainly The Lords are to advise and deliberate with the King upon certain weighty affairs of state the Commons to consent do what in such cases the King shal thereupon enact whence it clearly follows that their Power depends wholly upon the Princes pleasure and reaches ex instituto no further than to the matters by him propounded and therefore could not intermeddle with any thing else without his Permission The Commons then were called together to represent the peoples grievances to pray and receive redress as the King with the advice of the Lords should ordain and to signifie so much to the several places for which they serve Printing not being then found out and promulgation being of absolute necessitie to the obligation of all positive constitution To this Council the people flock'd as their business or their humour led them in confus'd multitudes representing by petition their grievances the Lords appointing a Select number of their own first to consider whither they were fit to be propounded to the rest the ground of our present Committees The Commons attending bare-headed for the Resolutions consented to them as do Plaintiffs and Defendants to the Judges decisions in the Courts of Westminster-Hall Hen. 3. as was said before to lessen the power of the Lords and bring a confused Assembly to a Regular meeting ordained everie Shire City and Burrough to send two Knights and two Burgesses as Attorneys for the others yet till sometime after they had no constant Speaker nor those priviledges of which length of time and concessions of Kings have given them possession But as neither nor both Houses have any original Right or Power but as all Creatures do upon the Almighty so their Lives depend upon the Breath of the Princes Nostrils and with his Call or Command come into or go out of the World so has the King on the other side condescended and promised That he will not without their Consents and Approbations repeal old nor make any new Statutes but more particularly in thirty three Parliaments he has confirmed the Foundation of all Magna Charta the boundaries of their Libertie and his Prerogative and in three declar'd it so much unalterable that any Act of Parliament or Judgement made or given contrary to it shall be and is hereby made ipso facto null and void And that with good reason for this being the Summary of all ancient Laws and Customs and the exact Rule and Measure of Right and Wrong as well between the King and his Subjects as between one another made or confirmed anew by the unanimous consent of every individual Person of full years at the first coming into the Kingdom and submitting to the Government of Hengist and his Successors and conformable to the Laws of Nature of Nations Quod tibi non vis fieri alteri non feceris ought without dispute to remain sacred and inviolable and to be imprinted in the minds of all free-born Subjects and carried about with them in their understandings as the Phylacteries of old in the Garments of the Jews By all which 't is plain that as the Kings Image and Inscription makes the Coin so his Approbation or Fiat makes the Laws current and consequently the supreme Legislative Power is solely vested in him
who may therefore allow or reject at pleasure whatever Ordinances his Houses judge advisable The contrary would be a Solecism in Government giving to the King the Title only and leaving to his Subjects the Power of Kingship This making the Governed the Governours and therefore implying in it self a manifest Contradiction needs I hope no further Confutation Now in order to answer your first Question you must remember that Magna Charta provides That no Freeman shall be disseized of his Free-hold put out of his Inheritance or forejudged of Life or Limb but by Legal Process the Laws of the Land and Judgement of his Peers and by another Branch That the Kings Rights and Priviledges shall be preserved untouch'd One of the chiefest and upon which all the rest depend as on a Corner-stone is the Hereditarinesse of the Monarchy so that no attainder by Parliament or otherwise should hinder the Descent of the Crown upon the next of Blood the Laws supposing the King never dies which he must do if the Empire were Elective and to the observation of these Laws on pain of Damnation the present and former Kings have all been sworn So that the King having no power to act contrary to his Oath at Coronation and the Laws in being and the two Houses having none at all but what is derived from him 't is plain the next Heir cannot be put by the Succession without great impiety and violation of Justice And this has been declared so in all preceeding Parliaments not aw'd by Usurpers as well as by the practice of our Ancestors And that which most confirms it is That never any yet claimed the Crown in Parliament but under the pretence of Lineal Descent which was never allowed when false but when there was not a power in the true Owner equal to the Invader's Nor does the King alone in this particular lie under the obligation of Oaths The Lords and Commons have not only bound themselves by act of Parliament 1 Jac. cap. 1. to defend the true and lawful Heirs of the King acknowledged the undoubted Successors with their Lives and Fortunes to the Worlds end but do also swear as often as they meet or take the Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy to defend all the Priviledges Rights and Preheminences of the Crown under which none can doubt but Descent in the Right Line is included against all Pretenders whatsoever whether Forraign or Domestick But because there are a sort of Men who from the foregoing Considerations being conscious they cannot maintain the Power of Parliament in this particular have recourse to the Law of Nature I will give you a Scheme of that even in their own Sence and Theorems The Law of Nature is co extended with the Power of Nature there is therefore nothing naturally unlawful and every man whether he be wise or whether he be a fool is sui juris Every thing endeavours to conserve it self within the State of Nature and to be sui juris i. e. to do what he will to repel all Force to live ex ingenio suo i. e. to be an enemie to every man but himself if he contradicts his Will Men are lyable to several Passions i. e. have several Appetites by which naturally they are engaged against one another and by the Law of Nature they inforce i. e. they contend equally jure naturae which I English by the Law of Power One man is stronger than another by force and so compels him who before was sui juris to be alterius juri when he hath him bound disarmed or takes away all his Power of offending or holds him in fear or obliges him by benefit or expectation of benefit by which last means he subjects both his Body and his Mind as long as his Fear or Hope lasts but no longer By the former he subjects his Body only which is the safer way Again One man may be stronger than another by Wit and so are men subjected to be alterius juris by Opinion Religion or Superstition Errour and Deceit Two then are stronger than one and therefore the more consenting have the greater right of Nature against the fewer dissenting may urge and compel and deprive them of their Natural Right and in brief treat them as enemies And because no man can secure himself against a whole World of single men who have every one the same Right against me that I alone have against every one and much less against a number joyned together 't is therefore necessary for me who else can have no security to enjoy what I have nor probability to acquire many of the Desirables of Life to associate my self and depart from so much of my natural Right as prudence and reason oblige me to do which is pacto vivere i. e. jus civitatis the Law Right or Power of the Commonwealth So that I have henceforth no more Right to the Law of Nature than is allowed me or not forbidden I say not forbidden because what is not forbidden I retain And this is the Foundation of Laws and though a Law be Positive yet the Virtue of it is Negative and as much as to say You shall not use your Liberty of Nature in this particular By which 't is very evident that after men have entred into Society those things that before were lawful cease to be so any longer Right and Wrong Just and Unjust depending on the Concessions Covenants and Agreements of the Persons thus combining into one Bodie And therefore nothing is more unreasonable and fallacious than to assert That the Power and original Right of Nature for the forming or altering any Government still continues and may at pleasure be resumed by the major part or their Representatives whereas that Power is restrained and can never more be made use of without every single Persons consent in the whole Community or â—…osning the Bonds of Society and re-instating them in the condition of War and Misery Madness and Folly The ground of the mistake must be Inadvertencie or Inconsideration in not regarding That promises once made can never be broken no not by the greatest number without the free consent of every individual party concerned This Power of restraining the Right of Nature is Empire If in one it is Monarchie if in some it is Aristocracie if in the common Counsels of the People it is Democracie all these Governments are lawful where they are Governments Now to disturb or ruine any of them is Rebellion and returning to the state of Nature and utterly unlawful which yet any man or companie of men may do by the original Law of Nature i. e. by might and Power but at his or their peril under the impeachment of Folly of not obtaining his or their End of losing the benefite of Society and of being â—…ated as Enemies Now because men are not guided or governed by Reason always no man or companie of men are to be trusted to their own discretion and the
conduct of their own Reason for every mans Reason is Reason to himself but the Reason of the Communitie is the Reason of State not the Reason of the man And therefore the Supreme is always entrusted with this Reason and in the Exercise of it ought to be secured by a transcendent Power to give Check to the pretentions of the Enemies of Society This must be done two ways I. By assuring a strength competent against any Attempts of retrieving their original Right of Nature 2. By an equal Administration of Justice and good Government for Res nolunt male administrari The end of Government is That men may live together unanimously in the equal use of Civil Laws The end of Religion is to be happy in the next World and therefore ought not to interfere with Civil Laws or those by which the good this Life is regulated But because the Motives to Obedience to those Laws do very much depend upon the Rewards and Expectations of a Future State they are therefore necessarily conjoyned so that whatever Religion is established by Law becomes Law and ought not in prudence to be chang'd and disturb'd Whoever hath a private Religion or Opinion seing it is not more in our power to have mentem sanam than corpus sanum yet if the man be not mad or injurious he may and ought to enjoy it freely without punishment provided he do not violate the peace of the City If he do 't is nor Sincerity but Hypocrisie and seeing there may be bona mens in malo articulo all liberty ought to be afforded that can reasonably modestly be claimed by any of those who pretend a tender Conscience Now if you consider throwly these Positions you will find not onely the Reasons of entring into Society but the Causes of its Continuance and Decay fully asserted The Rules of Government are as demonstrable as any Mathematical Problems and where the Supreme is wise there can be no Rebellion or not dangerous and wherever there is the Government is infirm and foolish In order then to your Question you must observe That Power is an equivocal Word and is sometime taken for the Right and Force of Nature sometimes for the Right and Force of Laws In the first sense 't is called vis or potestas in the latter jus or dominium The first sort of Power men in society have renounced and cannot use without returning to the State of War where every man has as equal Right or Power over another as another has over him The second sort of Power is that which the Laws of the Society warrant and by which 't is said Illud tantum possumus quod de jure possumus Now if we consider the Power of Parliaments bounded by Laws in the letter sense 't is plain they can have none to bar the Duke from Succession because the Laws Common and Statute leave them no such Power and in Nature and Reason after entring into Society they can exercise no more than is left them by the Agreements of the Society In the first sense 't is true they have power to do what they please as two is stronger then one But then it must be remembred that the using that Power loosens the bond of the Commonwealth the whole having no more Right over Peter and Paul while they break not the Laws of the Country than Peter and Paul had over all the rest If it were not so there would be no Right nor Wrong in the World neither subsequent nor antecedent to Humane Constitutions Virtue and Viec would be but empty Names Scar-crows for the Fools and the Weak For every thing would be lawful that a man had force or strength enough to justifie A Principle destructive of Government and Society of Peace and Happinesse Everle Thief and Murderer Robber and Traytor if successful being honest persons guilty of no Mischiefs Thus indeed Vice becomes Virtue Prosperum scelus virtus vocatur This therefore not being to be allowed among men much lesse Christians the Parliament cannot justifie a Power of putting by the next Heir by the Constitutions of the Kingdom nor by those of nature which allows not the major part to have recourse to natural Force or Liberty without leaving all the rest of the Members to their choice of entring either into none or a new Form or continuing under the old And those that assert the Parliament may do what they please know not what they say if they deny others the same freedom and if they do 't is bidding all men Draw try who has the strongest Arm and the longest Sword making Might or Power the onely Rule of Justice and Measure of Humane Actions But this so dangerous mistake is grounded upon not considering that what was lawful before I became a Member of the Society ceases to be so after When a Bargain is once concluded between one man and a thousand the thousand cannot without injustice break the Agreement nor without folly expect the single man will not take the first opportunity to be reveng'd and obliege them to their first Contract And whether he prove successful or no it will occasion such Mischiefs Calamities that they will too late repent their Follies and find no other comfort than the sad one which this scrap of Latin affords Supplicium stultorum stultitia But further if you rightly examine things you will find that the Lords onely act for themselves and that the Commons of England do no otherwise represent the People than as Attorneys who therefore are presum'd limited to the first Constitutions and Fundamentals that is the Common Law or Magna Charta whose Bounds if they exceed they forfeit the Patent or Commission by which they act This is agreeable to Reason and the practice of Former Ages when the Commons being ask'd their Consents to new Matters went home and consulted their Principles and according to their directions gave in their Answers as you may find at large in the Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores and as in the present as well as ancient usage in the Dyets of Germany and States of Holland And thus it was in the Senate of Rome who though they had the Supreme power as a Parliament in England yet in the making of any new Law there was a Rogatio Legis an exposing of it in Tables to the view of all for a certain limited time wherein if the meanest shewed Arguments why it should it was wholly laid aside And so dangerous a thing have Innovations in this sort been accounted by the Ancients that among the Locrenses and other Commonwealths of Greece new Laws were propounded with Ropes about the proposers Necks submitting themselves to the loss of their Lives if the proposition were not approved by every single person And in Poland no King can be elected without the consent of every individual Elector And indeed in so material an Instance as the designation of a Supreme Governour upon whom depends thâ— Fates of
Thousands no majority Parties or Factions ought to prevail The same care have our Ancestors taken in the case of Jurors concluding it necessary for despoiling a man of his Life or Fortune to have the matter of Fact so plain and conspicuous that it should not be possible for any to doubt or long dispute it And upon this reasonable Supposition it is that they are not allowed either meat or drink or that eleven agreeing while One dissents should make a Verdict And can the publick Concern of the Nation of putting by the next of Blood from his Right to the Crown be of less moment Consider this in time lest hereafter by a dear bought repentance you confesse your fatal Errour Besides the Commons do not represent one sixth of the Nation their Electors being onely such freeholders as are worth 40 s. a year or upwards together with the Freemen of Incorporated places these are far short of the Body of the people and for them to fetter the rest who have none or less Estates is to make themselves Lords and Tyrants and to the others not Servants but Slaves and Villains a power unreasonable and therefore not to be allowed by the Clergy who as such have no hand in the Election and are a considerable part of the People nor by the Husband men and Labourers and many others who without Freedom inhabite Corporations who bearing their proportion of the publick charge are equally intituled to the protection of the Laws Free-born-Subjects and therefore unask'd cannot be presumed to consent to any alteration of Government either in the Form or Person by making an Hereditary Monarchy Elective Such a Power once acknowledged may after at pleasure change it into Aristocracy or Democracy Nor in my opinion is it a mean Argument against the Commons being the Representation of the whole People That of 512. Forty should be enough to oblige the Consent of all the others That London should send but four when an old Burrough with a Shepherd and a Dog does half as many and That Cornwal which in the Number of Shires is but the two and fiftieth part makes above an eleventh and yet London the sixth part of the Kingdom but the 128. part of the whole Representative Whoever weighs this Inequality must find out a new signification of Words if he calls the Parliament the Representative of all the Commons of England Let it be remembred how easie it is to make a second Rump by Cunning and Address Threats and Tumults to make the House so thin that forty agreeing shall be still the major Party and then see how far the Nation must conclude themselves bound by their Actings One may well conclude all that Voted against the Act and all or most that were absent will fight for his Title against whom it was made as well as all or most of those that hold not themselves represented and what can be the issue of this but a renewal of the Yorkist and Lancastrian Quarrel in which was spilt the blood of 20000 besides that of several Kings and Princes and Nobles without number And yet it appears in Story That the Right Heir was never kept out beyond the second Descent nor that ever any Usurper Though Armed with Power claimed the Crown but by pretending to be of the Right Line nor did the Parliament ever consent out when aw'd by Fear and a vast Army As for the Act 13. Eliz. the best Lawyers will tell you 't is now out of doors made in defence of a possessor without Title against the rightful Heir at that time excluded for Reasons as obvious as tedious here to be mentioned but after joyfully received and solemniz'd in Parliament 1 Jac. and Obedience promised to him and his Heirs for ever so that now in the opinions of many that Statute ought no more to be urged than that which made Oliver Protector and excluded his present Majesty and his Line To allow the Parliament so Despotick a Power is to submit at present and make our selves obnoxious to unaccountable miseries hereafter What shall hinder a Parliament who at pleasure makes every thing lawful or unlawful as they are aw'd by a strong hand or left at libertie by a weak to do any thing though never so extravagant to sell the Kingdom to the French or any rich enough to make the purchase I confesse I think it a hard proposition and that which makes the Government of a single man though Tyrannical more tolerable than this of so many That the major part of 700. as they may be ordered of less than 100. who as Commons have no inderivative Power are only called to advise and deliberate with the Prince as Counsellors should make that lawful that could not be done so without their Consents and me a Rebel for resisting though I have the greatest part of the Nation on my side and my Actions warranted by all those that are called Fundamental and held sacred and inviolable by Englishmen as our Bibles are by all Protestants He that remembers England has been given by a King to the Pope and offer'd to the Turk and that a bold resolute Prince has humbled Parliaments as much as ever a weak and gentle has exalted them ought not to think it impossible but that the Parliament may one time or other be wrought to sell or inslave the Peoples Libertie For a worthy Author has it Nothing but a Parliament can destroy a Parliament and we know there have been that deserved no other Titles than of Indoctum Insanum Parliamentum I should not wonder that men resolved rather to quit their Country than yield it to an Arbitrary power or any pretence whatsoever with the bold Romans Farewell applied to this Kingdom Vale venalis civitas mox peritura si emptorem inveneris I need not put you in mind of Pensioners or tell you a mercenary parliament is an acry Notion What has been may be again I reverence a well-constituted Parliament as much as any man and look upon it as an excellent preservative of Justice and Liberty yet I am not so fond of the Name as to make it an Idol 't is not at all improbable but that it may be so managed as to become the Instrument of the peoples Slavery and the Princes Tyranny and therefore I hold it no more lawful to ascribe Omnipotencie or Infallibilitie in all Determinations to a Parliament than to a Pope or Council the one is not more circumscribed and bound up by Scripture and Apostolick Traditions than is the other by the Fundamental Laws of the Land such there are in every Country as Magna Charta is in this by Nature and by Reason All which tell us That no single man in Community is to be put by his Right or Property by any subsequent Law against his own Consent and that if he be he is at liberty to regain it any how by force or by violence without the least imputation of Wrong
or Injustice As for your second Question you will find its Answer easily deducible from what has been said already For allowing that the Parliament have power which yet without every individual persons Consent they cannot have either by Nature or their own Constitutions to alter the Succession yet no motives can be sufficient to induce men in their senses to such an Act but plain transgressions and violations of the Laws in being nothing else being a Crime or penal The Apostle tells us If there had been no Law there would have been no sin and that though sin was in the world before yet till after the Law it neither was nor could be imputed i. e. Yesterday I killed my neighbour but that was not unlawful consequently not punishable because the Act against it was but this day enjoyned and every man is left to the use of his natural power in such instances as the Laws do not restrain This is so plain a truth in all Countries where Men are not govern'd like Beasts that 't is not onely folly but madness to assert the contrary The Abettors are not to be convinc'd by Arguments and Reasons but by Hellebore and Bedlam Now there being no Laws in being that enjoyn the Heir of the Crown of England to believe as the Church of England his departure from that to any other Church can be no Argument for his Disinherison But the other part his giving life and birth to the plot is of another consideration and if true deserved not only his being put by the Crown but his Life And therfore I conceive if that had been evident he had not escap'd so easily nor indeed could he without the imputation of great partiality and injustice upon the House of Commons No mean Argument of the Duk 's Innocence to any considering person For if they proceeded so far upon an Illogical Consequence or unreasonable Proposition to wit That his going over to the Church of Rome must have given birth and life to the Hellish Plot what would they not have done farther if they could have prov'd that he was indeed the Author which he must have been of necessity if he gave birth and life to it Now lest the World should take every thing done by any Factious number to be the Act of all the Commons much less of the Parliament and so defame the Justice and Integrity of the English Nation and lest the people should believe whatever they assert as Oraculous as the Vulgar do of things in Print 't is necessary to examine this matter very narrowly and enquire how they came by this Discovery or why if it were real they inflicted no severer a punishment than an Act that the best Lawyers tell us would have been of no force had it pass'd even the Royal Assent which I cannot think it ever would because contrary to the King's Oath at Coronation his Promise Resolution declar'd even in that very Parliament where many doubt its passing the third time among the Commons and none dispute but that the Lords would have rejected it upon the first reading The grand Discoverer Dr. Oats has not accus'd his R. H. but one the contrary in publick and private acquitted him from any guilt or knowledge as beside his printed Narrative and Depositions in Parliament may be made out by Persons of unquestionable Honour Could then a Vote make matters of Fact Truth or Fals-hood That depends upon natural and eternal Causes and Connexions of unalterable Principles Surely no nor would any man in his Sense have given the more credit though it had pass'd 500000 Votes instead of 500. If twenty Colledges of Virtuoso's or Greshamites should conspire to vote the old Philosopher in the right who every where asserted Snow was black yet could they not persuade one Plowman to disbelieve his Senses and subscribe to so ridiculous an Opinion And as to Capt. Bedlow and upon these two the whole Hinge of the Plot does turn for the rest came in but in subsidiam probationis he pretended at first to know no more than the inhumane Murder of Sir Edmondbury Godsrey and yet however he became more knowing after he never accus'd his R. H. which he wold certainly have done had he found one probable Circumstance even upon his Death he acquitted him Yet to say Truth his accusation wold have been of less credit for his having been so mistaken in his main Discovery as to be contradicted by Prance the reason I suppose why no Narrative in Capt. Bedlow's Name was ever publish'd Read Mr. Oates his Depositions and you will find the D. was to run the same fate of his Brother whose sacred Life God long preserve if he would not approve of all their Villanies and after his Majesties Murder accept the Crown as Feudatory from the Pope And without dispute the villanous Contrivers of the Plot would have spared neither which is plain by Mr. Oates his asserting upon Oath in the Name of the Jesuits that no good was ever to be expected from the Race of the Stewarts with other Reflections on the R. Family with submission not fit to have been published And further that they had resolved notwithstanding his Love to their Religion not to trust him with a Secret his great affection for his Brother would perswade him to reveal It is then impossible he could give Birth and Life to a Plot to which he never was privy as for Colman's Letters in my Lord Danby's Words the best evidence we yet have of the Plot they were not writ by the D's allowance or consent nor do they speak of introducing Popery otherwise than by gaining an Indulgence and that by a Parliament Besides 't is notoriously known he was offered his Pardon and large Rewards if he would confesse the Plot. And 't is senseless to imagine none can but an unthinking Crowd that he would not speak a Truth to save his Life at least not damn his Soul by dying with 〈◊〉 in his Mouth after which nor previous to it there could be no Absolution but to the last notwithstanding the repeated offers of Pardon and Reward he protested his Ignorance and Innocency Oh but say some how then could the Commons proceed as they did Why perhaps the publisher of that designed Bill abuses them but if he did not they do who conclude the Major part consented to it Those that did may be supposed hurryed on by misguided Zeal passion or prejudice imposed upon by Suggestions as agreable to the King's pleasure to banish him for ever by Law who in Obedience went into a voluntary exile for a season If this be not I confesse I am at a losse for the Reason But of this they were soon convinc'd by his Majesty's Speech to the contrary Besides it had been but equal to have given his R. H. liberty to make his Defence to condemn a Man unheard is no where practised where there is the least shadow of Government The Laws of God and
to subvert the Government and the Religion of the Nation I perfectly agree with the Writer of The growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government But I wish the Gentleman had nam'd as he easily might the Conspirators If you will believe against all Truth and Reason the before mentioned Answerer to the Declaration they are center'd in his R. H. and He alone has been the Author of the Ministers miscarriages or the Chances of ill Fortune that have hapned since the Kings Restauration One might have though Popery alone had been Crime enough to render him odious without loading him with the Burden of others Must they make him not onely presumptive Heir but presumptive Criminal But I confesse he that so much defames and so irreverently treats the King may with lesse hazard belie his Brother The end is visible That what Justice cannot popular Fury and the Rabble should take away the Beeing of that much injur'd Prince Hence it is he is said to have been the Author of the Fire of London His never to be forgotten pains and Diligence to suppress those Flames are ill requited He was then known to be a zealous Protestant and could he joyn with the Papists who are now call'd the Authors in a mean so destructive of Religion And if that were the Design what hinders its being effected If the Papists must be acquitted surely the Duke ought in that the Phanatick Plotters executed in April before confess'd at Tyburn they had so contriv'd that fatal Scene that it could not miscarry And indeed the Event verified their Prediction to aday as to the Fire though not to the rest of their intended Tragedie When Nero set Rome on fire he commanded Christianos ad Leones an ill President for Christian Commonwealths No man can make himself innocent by throwing his Crimes upon others But thus it fares with his R. H. as well in this as in many more Instances He is said to be the Author of the Popish Plots though not only Oates and Bedloe the last confirming it at his Death have acquitted him but likewise my Lord Danby tells you in his Printed Case The King was so far from believing it that it had never been brought upon the Stage but for the D's Importunity This alone if there were not many more is a sufficient Argument of his Innocence and abhorrence of the Fact and yet now forsooth he must have revealed it after the King had given him the intimation that the Conspirators might convey away their Papers If so I pray why were Colman's or any others found But it will appear on examination that Beddingfield no sooner receiv'd the Packet of which how Doctor Tongue could inform the Earl of Danby then in Oxfordshire 27 mils beyond Windsor so as to be with the King on that account within few hours after is a Riddle than he brought it to the Duke telling him there was mischief design'd to his R. H. in particular or to himself or the Papists in general for that the inclosed Letters were forged and one of them from Dr. Fogorthy to whose Person as well as Name he was till then a perfect Stranger This Packet the D. gave to the R. that very day about the last of August who looking on one of the Letters said he had â—…en the hand before Some eight days after Sir Edmundbury Godfrey sent by Coleman the whole Discovery with which the second time the D. acquainted his Majesty who yet spoke not to the D. of the matter The rest of that Libel is as false as these two Particulars which therefore for brevity I passe over no man in his Wits being able to think it needs any other Confutation than the Fire But before I conclude give me leave to tell you That the D. has not exposed his Person on all occasions for the honour of the English Nation but whereever he appeared carried Victory along with him which in his absence was not found In the first war he beat the Dutch in the second he got the better but in both the change of Admirals alter'd our Success And whatever false steps our Ministers have made whose Bastards are not to be laid at his doors he is no otherwise accountable for them then you or I who had no power to resist Every one knows who have been the publick and lose Managers of Affairs and these can witness the D. could never be reckon'd in their number He had no hand in dividing the Fleet in the first War nor in halling it up at Chatham before a Peace concluded He was not privy to the Advice of breaking the Triple League nor making an Alliance with France which he no sooner heard than he oppos'd foretelling with Cassandra's Fate the Issue He influenc'd not a War with Holland nor setting upon their Smyrna-Fleet before a Breach declared Delenda est Carthago was not his Sentence nor his Act the Shutting up the Exchequer nor was he the Author of Injunctions against the Bankers nor of usurping the Commons Right of filling their own Vacancies nor consequently of the other Part or Link of this Chain and Contrivance the Project of Indulgence though to give him his due he was for pursuing steddily Resolutions when once taken the contrary would be a lessning our power and a making us ridiculous at home and abroad Afterwards when these Measures were broken and new ones embraced he was for pursuing the Interest of England in defence of the Spanish Netherlands and did as verily believe and was as much impos'd upon as the most credulous in England that a War against France was then really purposed when desired by both Houses in 1678 7. His preparations to hazard his Person in that Expedition are notorious Evidences of this Truth Yet such is his misfortune that after all his Endeavours for the good of his Country he is reputed a Lover of the French Interest though none be more hated by that Crown an undenied proof of the maliâ—… of the Imputation whose unwearied diligence has been formerly employ'd and may now be well suspected to foment and keep up divisions between the King and his Subjects the only way to prevent our opposing his long designed Dominion An Observation that alone ought to invite us to an Union and a mutual Confidence and to study in the Spirit of Moderation the healing of our Breaches remembring That no Reason of State can be useful to the Publick or justifie any Actions contrary to the Laws both of God and Nations That it is a shame and a reproach upon us abroad and an Inconvenience at home to have a Plot kept so long on foot wherein all who should be found guilty upon unquestionable Evidence might have been made long since Exemplary A speedy and impartial proceeding in this Case without heat or passion or consideration of Parties or of Interest will remove all our Jealousies and Fears settle us upon the immovable Rocks of Truth and Honour and acquit and vindicate to the World That an English Parliament is not influenc'd by men whose Ambition leads them to study their own private more than the Publick Good That they serve their King and Country for Glory and for Conscience not for Gain or Preferment That they design nothing but the preservation of their Rights Libertis and Religion by the Methods of peace and prudence which without doubt may be for ever secured by the Laws already in force or other new Additions notwithstanding a Popish Soveraign The Kings of England have bound and may again limite their Power with their own Consent in Parliament But if this Truth be denied because of that Maxim in our Laws The King can do no wrong it cannot That their Ministers and Officers who must be and are accountable for all and punishable for Illegal Actions may be so confin'd as may make our Fears unreasonable of any Encroachments or Innovations let never so many Popish Princes much lesse any one succeed Whoever suggests the contrary is imposed upon by Ignorance Interest or the Malice of crafty and designing Achithophels who prefer their particular Advantage to Religion and Liberty no other way really to be endangered but by debarring the D. his Right of Succession which once past into an Act will in case he survive most certainly-bring upon the Three Kingdoms Horrour and Confusion Desolation and Misery and all the sad Effects of a Civil War Evils so far from your Temper and Inclination that I need not caution you against so much madnesse and Folly as inevitably attends the not regarding the Wisemans Advice My son fâ—ar God and Honour the King and meddle not with those that are given to change What I have written I have written in obedience to your Commands the love of Truth and zeal for the Publick being as you know neither Courtier nor Pensioner never was or like to be addicted to Popery not obliged by King nor Duke in any particular Grace or Favor but being wholly Independent and having something to lose and sensible no others can suffer by War and Rebellion I have used the same freedom without as I hope you will within doors for preventing those Calamities which seem to do more than threaten the Nation from which nothing but Gods Providence in the Wisdom and Moderation Courage and Prudence of our King and Parliament can defend this unhappie and distracted Kingdom FINIS