Selected quad for the lemma: prince_n
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A52586
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An ansvver to a passage in Mr. Baxter's book, intituled, A key for Catholicks, beginning pag. 321, concerning the King's being put to death by John Nanfan, Esq.
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Nanfan, John.
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1660
(1660)
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Wing N148; ESTC R3575
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45,130
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57
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was customary with the Jews to pray for the King which being practicall in Gods Worship was more then Precept Against thee thee only have I sinned Psal 51.4 That is None to judg the Kings sin but God He might be evil but the offence was only to God The offence respected the Judg of it which is God only Curse not the King no not in thy thought Eccl. 10. ver 20. This not thinking is a restraint of all evill since all evill is a first thinking evill so as this is an universal prohibition My Son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with the seditious for their destruction shall rise suddenly Prov. 24. ver 21. This proves the natural dependency of it The fear of the King on the fear of God then it goes to the reason of it fear the King not to rebel against him I will conclude it with that of David cautionary to his own Soul Who can lay his hand on the Lords Annointed and be guiltless 1 Sam. 26. ver 9. A full definitive sentence in the Case that no violence can be offered to a Kings person And that this was general to all Kings see the consent of all Scriptures Let every Soul be subject to the Higher Powers for there is no Power but of God and the Powers that be are ordained of God and whosoever resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist receive to themselves damnation Rom. 13. Now that all these Powers doth properly intend a King the words following are For Princes are not to be feared for good works but for evill And then after in the singular number He is the Minister of God and he beareth not the Sword for nought Now this Text as it makes subjection absolute so it takes away all parity of Powers it intends one Supream And Powers in the nature of it is but one Power for all subordinate Powers flow out of it and refer to it 1 Tim. 2. Exhort therefore that first of all Supplications Prayers intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men for Kings and all that are in Authority that we may live a peaceable life in all Godlinesse and honesty for that is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour This present Emperour was a Tyrant Claudius Nero which stops all objection from the Kings mis-using his Authority it looks to the good of Government in general and to the evil in general of resisting to Government 1 Pet. 2.13 Submit your selves to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake whether unto Kings as Supream or unto Governors as unto them that are sent of him Here all Government is included in the King sent of him that is out of him and acts by him And submission to Government here is made essential to Godliness 1 Pet. 2.17 Fear God Honour the King Making them connaturals and that the fear of God cannot consist with dishonouring the King the word Honour includes all subjection in it Having taken forth these Scriptures thus clearly and considered all the united force of them for preservation of Kings and for all Allegiance and fidelity to them I reason thus as to Mr. Baxter and his Case that the very force of Scripture and Word of God will not permit any such thing to be as a lawfulness of killing or judging a King or that possibly Law or Authority amongst men should be repugnant to the voice of God being general and universal for obedience to Kings and not to offer violence to them To acknowledg as he needs must that the Scripture commands such things of Kings But we have a Parliament a thing made out of the people that may lawfully condemn and execute the King This is a meer contradiction to God himself no pretence of man can dissolve the universal Will of God declared without exception for a King he is and no distinction can frustrate the will and command of God for so it should be subject to a lye if it should come under man And then to consider that truths stated in Moral duties never lose their natures but are ever the same And now I am loath yet to part with these Scriptures till I have made a full claim to the sense of them howsoever Mr. Baxter deal with them afterwards Let every Soul be subject c. which is to the King which I have proved and the Text shews it Is it not exclusive of any power to be against the King Every Soul the word hath a strange emphasis in it every Soul that is bringing it to a singularity and nearest distinction of man by his Soul which is most himself and wherein he acts his subjection and so precisely and individually every containing all Then to fear the Lord and the King that is both as one the condition of the one implying the other Then forbidding to joyn with seditious or such as are given to Change which directly points out Rebellion And then the case of very Tyrants commanding supplications to God for them shewing directly the nature of Supream Governours to be born by the people whatsoever their condition be And then setting forth all Government of subordinates to be but the Kings Government virtually in him nothing of themselves perse And then Curse not the King admit not an evil thought of him pray for him still so many steps to his preservation keeping all harm or hurt far off him must needs intend the greatest of not destroying him Then to call them Gods an exemption from all humane Tribunalls above the condition of mankind subject to God onely as Supream Governours cannot in nature be other and then generally submission to them for the Lords sake that is to say Gods Service included in it Now if out of all this we cannot make a construction that Kings ought not to be destroyed by the People or by any sort or calling of them under any Form Guise or pretence whatsoever then nothing can be conclusive to man If after all this there be any thing for Mr. Baxter to pretend to and not utterly give up his cause he must make the King of England to be such a thing as not to be within the intendment of these Scriptures Not a King not a Supream Governour not so qualified or to be so obeyed or acknowledged a thing meerly nominal and conditional under some other Supremacy and subject to a forfeiture of himself That this was so at his beginning and admitting that time and succession hath given him no other right since that all this proves it self so to be That the Parliamentary was the onely Primary right and only natural and National and Kings their Servants and Trustees and accomptable And that the Government so began when no King was and his being still under a condition and the condition no less then to be subject to a lawful destroying Power If all this were which is as far from truth
make a breathing space and a stop here or being like getting to some heighth of ground look about us certainly it shews that no Supremacy is pretended to but utterly disclaimed and all resolving determining or the last power in business of Government and no persons can come lower or assert more extreamly and exemplarly against themselves in any such point of Right So as we see plainly Governing Power is all with the King and the question comes to be only about propounding proposing discoursing upon those high points of Regal power in Government not being specially required to it which Kings think comes too near their skirts like David cutting off a lap of King Saul's Garment to shew only that he was in his power so Kings think the one cannot be done or assumed that is entering into or assuming out of self Authority to treat of the very essentialls about Government or the great weighty occasions that refer to it but like the cutting off of the lap of the Garment begets a power over the person and this was the very stone of difference in this Parliament so as we see to how neer a point it is reduced a little space or difference one would think betwixt proposing only without power of resolving and not proposing now there is nothing more satisfactory then the Kings own answer to them about this for no person could speak his business so well as himself and this very particular of the passage it is a School of Learning Now because I will not altogether write out of another nor be tedious I omit it It is no matter let it be amongst arcana imperii not to bring all into vulgar light else the reasons might be abstracted why Parliaments are not of themselves to assume to treat of the points proper to the King in Government I shall leave this and only excuse my self in it being far too high for me that I only do it in the defensive to regal Right which is higher and to the peoples right which does not consist in confusion of Government but in the certainty of it Having done with this high consideration I shall take notice of his dangerous inserted words of Majestas Realis the self same as condemned in the Spencers in Ed. 2. his time and likewise in the following Parliaments of that Age for the most destructive design against the persons and safety of Kings that ever was imagined A dividing of the Kings person and his end of Governing they would have the Majesty to consist in the end and so diviseable from the person and so the King might be deposed and destroyed and yet the Majesty whole What will not mans brain hatch when he is disposed to be wicked This was new forged brought out of the Mint again and begot the Notion of Treason against the Common-Wealth and served to make the King a Traytor I desire his patience to read Sir Edward Cook â—o 7. Rep. â—lv Case 7. Report Calvins Case there he will tell him that all Allegiance is tyed and refers to the person of the King that the whole consistency of Majesty and Kingship must be in a person in being not to hang in the Ayre as an accident without his subject all Relation all Attributes all Majesty are but rayes from that body dividedly from the King can be no consideration at all of Treason or Majesty this Serpenti e way of creeping betwixt the Kings person and his Authority was a device to destroy him Object When the Legislative Power and highest judicial Power is by the constitution of the Government divided between the Prince and the Senate and so the Soveraignty divided many will be ready to think with Grotius de jure belli Lib. 1.13 pag. 91. That the Prince invading the Senate's Right may justly be resisted and may lose his Right quod locum saith Grotius habere censeo etiam si dictum sit belli potestatem penes Regem fore id enim de bello externo intelligendum est cum alioqui quisquis imperii summi partem habeat non potest non jus habere eam partem tuendi quod ubi fit potest Rex etiam suam imperii partem belli jure amittere Answ These parties will still stumble at the same stone that is because of the Legislative power in some sort or manner or form of it in the Parliament therefore the Supremacy which does not follow for the Supremacy is the sole Governing Power and Government is a constant being the other but at times and by occasion so as no proportion at all is betwixt a constant governing Power and an occasional Power and when they are demanded but about their own Rights it being planted in Nature that where Right is there is a power of denying and a power of giving yielding and consenting and this is the Parliamentary power properly and per se all which arises out of the Rights and property of the People meerly Now these persons will not discern the difference betwixt the power of consenting which must needs be likewise a power of denying and active efficient power which is in Government it self and is alwayes constant and universal It has the properties as the Soul in the Animal cannot have parts in it and dividedness or to discontinue Now they introduce this their objection with a When when it is so that is the Soveraignty divided they should prove where it is so I think not in nature of two Soveraign Powers in one Government certainly this is no Government but distinct Governments and how it can refer to one people governed requires the inquisition for when they stand upon terms of difference then the Government presently is in the state of War and none to reconcile it being equal divided Powers Rights may lye so but Governing Power cannot lye so the distance is the same as betwixt two Forreign States or Princes who may reconcile and accommodate their reciprocal good so long as they can accord upon it as well as these several distinct Powers in one body and in this either party upon the difference betakes himself to his defensive and then the Government ceases to be so as it is not at all consistent with the nature of Government but of Governments in respect the one of the other All Governments are either Monarchial Governments or mixed Governments now in Monarchical Government first it supposes absoluteness of Supremacy in the Monarch or Prince and then it cannot suppose it likewise in any other for then the Government should be a Monster of two heads and besides so cannot act the Powers in counterpoise being equal and so it is no Power but a Power of destroying it self as equal contraries when they meet are destructive to the matter that is the subject of them Peradventure some instances may be found of some that have been called Kings and have been but head Members of Common-wealths and such their safety and being is to act subordinately to the