brought into the Conspiracy and was not Her present Majesty sworn into this Did they not declare the King seduced by Evil Councellors and impeached several of the Seducers Were not several of the Council now impeached and declared Seducers of the King Were not the Judges then impeacht and Jenkins clapt in the Tower Were not Articles drawn against Scroggs and some of the rest declared Arbitrary Were not the Spiritual Lords excluded from their Right in Temporals and did they not now again dispute the Bishop's Right Were not the Ecclesiastical Courts then to be Corrected and that now taken into Examination Was not Manwaring and Montague censured in the House Thompson and several of our Clergy now brought on their Knees Was there not a Councill of Six whom the good old King impeached for bringing in the Scots and have we not had Six of the Senators that have suffered or fled Justice for the same Conspiracy Was not the Militia aimed at now and taken away then Was not the House of Peers Voted useless and now Betrayers of the Liberty of the Subject Lastly did not the whole House take the Covenant at St. Margarets and the Major part to have subscribed an Association now and last of all Did not the Junto at Westminster pass an Act for the King's Tryal and sign a Warrant for his Execution and now a remnant of a disbanded House propose horrid Things that made even some of the Conspirators fly out upon which ensued a discovered Assassination of their Soveraign and was there no danger of a Parliament no sign of a Protestant Plot Only because the King did not leave Whitehall and go down to Hampton Court because there was no Essex in the Field as well as the Plot no King secured at Oxford as well as in the Isle of Wight that there was no High-Court erected at Westminster but only a better expedient found out at the Rye If these are Arguments to render an House of Commons unsuspected and a Plot of the Protestants unimaginable if because here are perfect Parallels of Proceedings as even as if drawn with a Compass Mathematical and which according to their proper Definition I could draw to infinity yet still there must be presumed a great Disparity between the Subversion of the Government that was actually compast and the Destruction of it now that was so lately intended If there be the least Difference between what led to the last setting up an Usurper an Arch-Rebel in the Throne and these late Machinations of Hell to retrieve the same Usurpation bating but the Providence that interposed against its Accomplishment Then will I own what this Villainous Author will have taken for granted That those that have the least Suspicion of Parliaments are the greatest Villains that a Plot of Protestants proved by Confession is still a Paradox and that my self deserve what he has merited a PILLORY The Pages that he spends in declaiming against trifling Wit supersedes all answer and Animadversion which himself has prevented in being Impertinently Witty upon the very thing he condemns The stress of his Ingenuity is even strained in the very declaiming against it And Settle has not so much answered Himself as Hunt here his own Harangue That Gentleman sate down a while for his second Thoughts but this preposterous Prigg sets himself in his own glass at the same time a Contradiction to his own Writings His Observations upon the perjuries of the Popish Priests is so severe that the absolute Argument of their Guilt is drawn from their very denyal their Superstition I abhor as much as the Treasons they dyed for but I pity their Obstinacy which till I am better satisfied I shall not condemn his inhumanity is hard which unless he had good Assurance by Christians must be blamed there is not a Criminal of our latter Conspiracy I will declare Guilty beyond his own Confession and then there is not one that dyed but whom I can well think Guilty His next Observation that is worth Ours Is that upon the Legislative Power and there he makes each of the two Houses to have as much of it as the King and that I deny with better Reason than he can assert that the two Houses are concurrent to make a Law I 'll willingly grant 't is my Interest 't is my Birth-Right But that which I look upon to be truly Legislative is the Sanction of the Law and that still lies in the breast of our Soveraign If Mr. Hunt that in many places is truly Pedantick will rub up his Priscian the Grammatical Etymology will make it but Legem ferre and then I believe his House of Commons will be most Legislative 't is their Duty their Privilege rather to bring and offer up all Bills fit for Laws and the King still I hope will have his Negative in passing them the Commons pray petition to have them past and that implies a consent Superiour to be required that can absolutely refuse the King can with out Parliament charge the Subject where 't is thought for their Benefit and allowed to dispence with a Statute that concerns his own resolv'd by all the Justices the King by himself might make Orders and Laws for the regulating Church Government in the Clergy and deprive them if they did not obey 22. Ed. 3. says the King makes the Laws by the Assent of the Lords and Commons and so in truth does every Act that is made and every clause in it Bracton says the Laws of England by the Kings Authority enjoyn a thing to be done or forbid the doing These are Arguments that our King sure has somewhat more than a bare Concurrence in the Legislative If not he must be co-ordinate and then we have three Kings which is what they would have and then as well may three hundred I love my Liberty better than our Author who has forfeited his yet I remember when too much freedom made us all Slaves The Extent of the Legislative Power is great but then I hope 't is no greater than the King shall be graciously pleased to grant it shall extend And then I hope it must be allowed that Equity and Justice must always determine the Royal Sanction too which cannot of it self make all things Equal and Just should it stamp a Le Roy vult at the same time upon Acts inconsistent and contradictory upon such as were against the Law of Nature and all Reason such would be de facto void 'T is hard to be imagined such Error and Ignorance in so wise an Assembly but what has but bare possibility in Argument must still be supposed but that it has actually been done will I prove possitively and not with some of their illogical Inferrences suggest that a thing must be so only from a bare possibility of Being Be it therefore enacted by the Kings most excellent Majesty and by the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament Assembled 't was then first those
this Be it enacted by the King Lords and Commons for that is the General Stile of the Enactive part of most of the Statutes of those Times and this was most agreeable with their mighty Notion of his Majesties making but up one of the THREE that so they might the better conclude from the very Letter of their own Laws That the TWO States which the Law it self implyed now to be Co-ordinate must be mightier and have a Power over their King whom the same Laws confest to be but ONE and the Reason why the forms of their Bill and the draught of the Lawyers and the Lower-House might be past into Act without any Alteration or Amendments of this Clause was I believe from a want of Apprehension that there ever could be such designing Knaves as to put it in to that Intention or such Factious Fools as to have inferred from it the Commons Co-ordinacy For the Nobility and Loyal Gentry that 〈◊〉 commonly the more Honesty for having the less Law cannot be presumed so soon to comprehend what Construction can be drawn from the Letter of it by the laborious cavil of a Litigious Lawyer or a cunning Knave and therefore we find that those Acts are the least controverted that have the fewest Words and that among all the multiplicity of Expressions that at present is provided by themselves that have commonly the drawing of our Statutes themselves also still discover as many Objections against it to furnish them with an Argument for the Merits of any Cause and the Defence of the Right of their Clyent at the same time they are satisfied he is in the wrong And for those Enacting forms of our Statutes whatsoever Sense some may think these Suggestions of mine may want That some Seditious Persons got most of them to run in so low so popular a Stile in the latter end of King James and Charles the first 's time such as Enacted only by the Authority of the Parliament by the Kings Majesty Lords and Commons yet upon the Restauration of Charles the Second the Words With the consent of the Lords and Commons were again reviv'd and afterward they bring it into this old agen With the Advice and Assent of Lords Spiritual Temporal and Commons according to the form of Richard the 3d. and Queen Elizabeth that resolv'd them to be the THREE STATES and this runs on through all the Acts of his Reign and even in several of them the Commons humbly beseech the King that it may be so enacted I thought it necessary to bring home to our present tho most profligate time as much Acknowledgement as possible I could of my Kings Prerogative from the Laws of our Land and the very Statutes themselves because that some great Advocates for the power of the People some times pretend to plead for them too from Acts of Parliaments tho I think in this last lewd and Libellous Contest against the Crown that lasted for about five year in that Lustrum of Treason there was but one that was so laboriously Seditious so eminently popular as to endeavour to prove the Peoples Supremacy from Rolls and Records and Acts of State and for that recommend me to the good Author of the Right of the Commons Asserted tho I should rather approve of such an undertaking when endeavored to be done from the tracing the dark and obscure tracts of Antiquity and the Authority of a Selden than the single Assertion of a Sidney and the mere Maxims of some Modern Democraticks that have no other Foundation for their Establishments than the new Notions of their Rebellious Authors and that ipse dixit of such Seditious Dogmatists But I am satisfied too that this Gentleman who has laboured so much in vindicating the Commons Antiquity and their constituting an essential part of our Saxon Parliaments did design in it much more an Opposition of our Antient Monarchy and the Prerogative of the Crown than a mere clearing the dark foot-steps of our Old Chronicle and a real defence of Matter of Fact and the Truth And this is too clearly to be prov'd from the pestilent Pen-man's P-tyts own Papers that were publish'd at such a time when there was no great need of such an Asserting the Commons Right when themselves were more likely to have Usurp'd upon the Crown and as Mr. Sidney and his Associates would have it made themselves and the People Judges of their own wrong For to see such a task undertaken at a time when we are since satisfied such dangerous designs were a-foot looks only like a particular part of that general Plot and Conspiracy that has been since discovered and that all sorts of Pens were imployed as well as all Heads Hearts and Hands at work for the carrying on Mr. Sidney's OLD CAVSE as indeed all this Gentlemans Works tended to for which the Almighty was supposed so often to have declared and signaliz'd himself and illustrates only this That there was not any Person qualified for undermining of our Monarchy either from his Wit or Parts Boldness or Courage from his Virulency in Satyr or his Knowledge in History from his skill in any Science or Profession but what some or other of the most eminent was made Serviceable to this Faction and contributed his Talent to the carrying on the Design according to the gift and graces that they had in their several Abilities to promote it neither can this Gentleman think himself libell'd in this Accusation unless he would give his own works the Lye for who but him that had such a Design for the subverting our Monarchy would at a season when the Succession of our Crown was struck at in the Commons Vote a Succession that several Laws of our Land have declared to be Hereditary even by that of God who but one so Seditious would not only have encouraged such unwarrantable Proceedings which was the late Kings own Words for 't in such an Assertion of the Commons Right but in that too brought upon the Stage several Arguments from our History several Presidents of our Soveraign's being here Elected by their Subjects when they might as well too tell us That our present Soveraign was so chosen because the Question was put to the People upon his Coronation but yet this elective Kingdom of ours did this Laborious drudg of Sedition drive at too Does he not tell us William Rufus and several others were Elected that is Henry the First King Stephen King John tho I am satisfied that consent of the Clergy and People they so much rely upon was nothing more than the Convention of those Persons that appeared upon the solemn Coronation or at least the Proclaiming of the King Themselves are satisfied all our old Statutes clearly confirm'd the sole Legislative Power of the Prince and therefore they won't when they are objected to them allow them to be Statutes at all because made I suppose only by their King but so my Lord Coke
in their pretensions to a Crown to which they were not 〈◊〉 no great Inducement certainly for any one to bepersuaded to personate the Royal Heir to set up for a Lambert or a Perkin only for their misfortune and fate Lastly I shall conclude my remarks upon this Kings Reign with an Animadversion upon a Paragraph or two that conclude his piece very pertinent to this place since it relates to the times of which we treat and that is the resolution of the Judges upon the Case of this their King that the Descent of the Crown purged all his defects and attainder This their opinion he refutes as Frivolous Extrajudicial and here Impertinent but I hope to show this Point a most material one the Resolution to be a good Judgment and their reply much to the present purpose First sure it was a matter and that of a high Nature to know how he was qualify'd to sit in the House that was to preside in it as the head And tho he might in some sense be said to have won the Crown with Arms yet he knew it would wear much Better sit much Easier if setled and establish't according to Law and tho a Conquerer that has the Sword in his hand can soon capacitate himself to sway the Scepter yet he 'l soon find the most regular Proceedings tend most to the Establishment of his Reign this made Henry the Seventh who had a Triple Plea for the Crown and that one by discent from the Lancasters consult his Oracles of the Law how far an Attainder past in the Reign of the Yorks would still taint his Blood and make it less Inheritable Secondly their Resolution that all preceding defects were purg'd in the discent was a Judgment both equitable and reasonable for 't was sure but equal that an Heir to whom an Inheritance and that ofa Crown was allowed to discend should be qualify'd to take too for if he was a King no Bill of Attainder could touch him that was past too when he was none And if he was no King all the concurrence of the Lords and Commons cou'd never have made him an Act for his being so there being no Royal Authority to pass it into Law and nothing by the very constitution of our Government can be made a Law without so that such a resolution certainly was highly reasonable and unavoidable that that should purge its own defects which no power had perfection anough to purge wou'd he have a King pass an Act with his two Houses for the reversal of his own Attainder or the two Houses reverse the Attainder of their King If the first the allowing him to pass such an Act supersedes the end for which it should be past and makes him de Facto capable whom they would capacitate if he allows the Latter then he must an Interregnum too extinguish that Monarchy for a while of which the very Maxim says the Monarch can't dye and place that Supream power in the People which all our Fundamental Laws have put in the King Thirdly this Resolution is very pertinent to the present purpose to which 't is commonly now apply'd and that is the Bill of Exclusion But his passion and prejudice would not permit him to Examin the little difference there is between them For certainly that ability that can discharge any attainder is as efficacious for the voiding and nulling any Bill that shall hinder the descent for a Bill of Exclusion would have been but a Bill or an Act of the House for disabling the next Heir And an Attainder can do the same and is as much the Houses Act and to distinguish that in an Exclusion the Discent it self is prevented by a Law makes just no difference for whoever is Attainted has his Discent prevented by a Law too and that antecedently also before the Descent can come to purge him so that they only differ in this formal sort of Insignificancy In an Exclusion the Discents prevention would be the sole Subject of the Bill in an Attainder it is by Consequence and Common Law prevented and so the disability being but the same in both the defects by the same means may and must be purged The president the Judges cite to justify this their Opinion is not only applicable to their Case for which 't was cited but much more so to the very project of Exclusion which I 'll prove too from this Sophisters own reasoning It is the Case of Henry the Sixth who by Act of Parliament was Disabl'd to hold the Crown which was as particular an Act for the depriving him of his presum'd right as this their Excluding Bill would have been of an unquestionable one Town one of the Justices that debated and argued this point vouch't this H. 6. Case as an Attainder but was Corrected by the rest and told that he was not attainted but Disabled to hold the Crown but even that that was void assoon as he came again to wear it and seem to conclude that then à fortiori that an Attaindere would be purg'd away by the Descent and sure if this was then Law and that even for the Line of Lancaster who had Defects of Title to be purg'd besides of tainted blood 'T is strange to me why a York now and such an one too in whom both those so long disputed Titles Terminate and Concenter should be Disabl'd for ever by that Expedient which was resolv'd unable to prevent the Succession so long agon For Argument that an Attainder hinders the Crowns Discent has this presumptious Interpreter of the Law brought the most impertinent piece of Application that the defect of sense could suggest and so has as little reason as Truth to tell us that this Judges Resolution on Attainder is not to the present purpose pertinent for that a discent is insufficient to purge attainted Blood he cites the Sense of the King of France and the Learned advice that was given him to send his Son Lewis Because King John's Blood was corrupted but he might as well have told us because John is said to make over his Kingdom to the Moor we are all now Subjects to the King of Morocco the true reason of the French mans sending of his Son is what will at any time incapacitate the Crowns Discent and that is the Rebellion of the Subjects and yet those very Barons that Rebell'd never insisted on his corruption of Blood never made it so much as a Plea for their Rebellious Insurrection nay themselves thought him so far from being disabl'd by it that they prefer'd him even to the very right Blood which was incorrupted in his Nephew Arthur but allowing it then Law this resolution that such Corruption is purg'd was made long since and must now be as Legal tho the Contrary before had been never so much Law so that here he has only taken the pains to be impertinent and that too for the telling of a Lye But as his Villanous
I hope if you Banish the Men you 'll Banish some Women too consider how to prevent the Royal Family marrying Popish Women No man can doubt but the Protestant Interest has been much praejudiced by his Majesties marrying a Princess of that Religion Popish Instruments having 〈◊〉 themselves under her Protection The Country Gentleman wanted the Civilities of the Court being a declared Enemy to all Ladies but this shows plain their aims were beyond that of the Duke and that it was the Sense of some of the House the Queen was in the Plot as well as the Opinion and Asseveration of Oats his Oath against his exprest Testimony given before Sir E. H. Have we not ordered several good Bills to be brought in for the securing us against Arbitrary Power and shall we now lay aside all those and be content with the Exclusion Bill only which I think will be worth nothing unless you can get more and what some of those more are is explain ed in the next Oration to it W. G. I do admire no body does take notice of 〈◊〉 standing Army which if not 〈…〉 such a Number as may be but convenient for Guards and limited as they may not be encreased All your Laws signify nothing the words of that Hellish Association only differ thus when they swear more modestly only to endeavour entirely to disband all such Mercenary Forces as are kept up in and about the City of LONDON These are some of the very Words as our Author relates them as they were spoken in his House of Commons I do them only that Justice that this Historian has done to their Honours or they to themselves so if these accounts are Authentick tho I remember when dangerous to Question even the Authority of an unlicensed piece of Sedition then 〈◊〉 see that many of our late malecontents of the Commons as ' well as our Plato's Rebellious Barons were not like to be contented any more with our Kings granting them all the security themselves could ask for their Religion then these Imperious Lords were after all their Liberties were fortyfied with an extorted Charter and made as firm as Fate 〈◊〉 their foresight could provide But that nothing would satisfy unless both lopt off the best Limb of their Prerogative and allowed them to have Parliaments without Intermission or at least frequent enough for an Usurpation of all the Power that is Regal for as the Doctor of Sedition observes upon the Kings being allowed to Call and Dissolve them That our Liberties and Rights signify just nothing So might 〈◊〉 this politick Pis-pot have remarked That when once it comes to the Power of the People to summon themselves or sit so long a Season till their own Order shall determine the Session that truly their Venetian Doeg would be a Prince to the Monarch of Great Britain and we should soon have less left of a King in England than such implacable Republicans have of Loyalty for I am sure we must in reason have better Ground to dread those dangers and utter Subversion of the State from their too much sitting that has been experienced than they for that panick fear of Tyranny from their 〈◊〉 so often Dissolved which they never yet felt But to see the boldness of such Villains for encouraging an Insurrection The briskness of their Barons that rebelled for a Charter and frequent Parliaments was most providentially brought upon the Stage when they knew they had forfeited most of their own by their Faction and made their House of Commons from their obstinate proceedings not likely to be soon summoned when once Dissolved so that here was a plain downright Encouragement of a resolute Rebellion as Occasion should serve and letting the People know they must put on their Armour as well as the Barons and be as brisk upon Intermission of Parliaments How far this good Exhortation encouraged an Assassination of our Sovereign and the succeeding Plot may be gathered from their attempts to put it in Execution and for which both Author and Publisher Merit full as well the Fate of those that dyed for the practising those Principles that they the more primitive Traytors had instill'd In short to insist no longer on this black Topick of plain Treason With what Faith and 〈◊〉 with what Face and Countenance can he call that perfect Conspiracy of a parcel of Faithless Peers a Defence of the Government that for almost forty Years laid the Land all in Blood and with their Witchcraft their sorceries of Rebellion that briskness as he calls it of putting on their Armour made it imitate an AEgypts Plague and Anticipate the very Judgments of the Almighty by purpling her Rivers with the Slain can the Defence of a Kingdom consist with its Destruction or those be said to stand up for their Country that invited an Invader and swore Allegiance to Lewis a Frenchman against him that was their Liege Lord I am sure this was making over their Faith to a Foreigner and many may think it as much to bee condemned as that of their King his Crown to a Saracen especially when that by some Historians is doubted but their falsehood's confirmed by all Then was our England like to have been truly France which they now but so vainly Fear In the next place he is pleased to grant the Militia to be in his Majesty's Power But 't is only until such a sort of Rebels have strength enough to take it out for he tells us the Militia being given but for an Execution of the Law if it be mis-imployed by him to subvert it 't is a Violation of the Trust and making that power unlawful in the Execution And that which shall violate this Trust has he reduced to three of the most Villanous Instances that the most Excrable Rebel could invent or the most bloody Miscreant concelve the Murder of three Kings by their Barbarous and Rebellious Subjects And in all three their strength and Militia were first taken away and then their Lives first he tels us Edward the second forfeited his Executive Power of the Militia In misapplying his revenue to Courtiers and Sycophants Richard the Second for 〈◊〉 Worthless People to the greatest places And Charles the First in the Case of Ship Money can now the most virulent Democraticks hug such a piece without Horrour at its Inhumanity or the vilest of the Faction preserve it from the Flames can those popular Parliamentarians and the most mutinous of all our murmering Members of whom my self have known some that could Countenance this very Book can they here defend iusinuated Treason when Stanley dyed for a more Innocent Innuendo but if Faction has forc't from their Souls the poor remains of Reason will Humane Nature permit such precedents to prevail that terminated in the miserable Murder of as many Monarchs 'T is remarkable and 't is what I remember these very Papers were Publish'd near about one of their late Sessions
no particular Members questionable for what was done by the Body I consess the good excluded Members and the bubbl'd Presbyterian Senate would not allow it for a Parliamentaty Process and why because themselves did not sit in it and truly upon that unexpected and most blessed Revolution might hugg themselves and shrink up in a silent Joy that they were kept out And I cannot but smile to see two or three sit upon the Bench and upbraiding the Prisoner for pulling them out of the Parliament and making themselves none Persons whom Policy had only placed there when the poor Prince was forc't to compound with a party for a Crown forc'd to prefer those that had dethroned his Father before only the better to settle himself in it and to compass more easily the punishment of those that murdered him after Persons and a great one too that I could name that have serv'd him as ungratefully since and been as deservedly rejected Persons that had his late Majesty's Arms been but as Victorious as his Cause was good had been as much liable to the Laws and their Crimes as Capital for fighting him in the Field with an Ordinance of the House as those that brought him to the Scaffold and Butchered him on the Block from the time that their Tumults forc'd him to fly from their Houses they were no more a Parliament than those were afterward that pulled them out and it lookt a little loathsome to see some sit a simpering and saying all Acts must be past by the King who themselves once had helpt to pass many without and they could no more justify themselves had it been but their turn to be brought to Justice by their Memberships political Referrences to the two Houses then the Criminal at the Bar by his Relation to the Rump I have their own Authority for it their very Houses Act that they declared designed and actually made their King a Prisoner For they told the persidious Scot that his denying their Propositions and what were those but Expedients to destroy Him had debar'd him of his Liberty and that they verifyed too when they had got their poor purchase at Holdenby in a usage of their Prince with a restraint that would have been Cruelty to a Peasant and which even his very Murderers enlarged when their Joyce took him from his Jaylers And I am sure t is provided that to Imprison him till He assent to Proposals shall be High-Treason by particular Act as well as to Murder him is made so by the 25. And whatever the Mildness of Mr. Hunt the Moderator of Rebellion would have this Mystery of Iniquity would not have it so much as remembered it was these his own darling Daemagogues whom he defends and adores and that even for Restorers who stript him in his politick Capacity anticipated his Murder and then left his naked Person to be persued by the Wolves that worried it they had turned their House into a Shambles and that of Slaughter and were the Butchers the less Bloody that only bound Him and left to their Boys the cutting of his Throat yet this Barbarity must be defended this extenuated by them and the help of their Hunts and such Advocates the guilt not to devolve to each individual Member because an Act of an Aggregated House But base Caitiff's to use even the very Lawyers own Language your selves know that a politick Body may be guilty of a most political Treason and tho the Laws tell us it has no Life or Soul and so can't suffer yet it s constituent Members may lose both be Hang'd and Damn'd in their proper Persons and that for committing it too against such another political Constitution It would otherwise be a fine Plea for Corporators that have been many times Defendants in the Case when their King has been Plaintiff And against whose more dangerous Sedition there was lately made special Provision by a particular Oath Lastly to conclude the Confutation of this sad silly sort of Sophistry this Seditious Nonsense 't is shrowdly to be suspected that from the same sort of Sophisters fallacious Inferences was first insinuated that prejudicial Opinion I call it so because it looks like a Doctrine of some concerned party That Societies were not punishable in the next World for the Villanies they had committed in this That is the Members were not to suffer there for what they had acted in Relation to such a BODY here this Religious Absurdity has been publisht by some Seditious Pens from the Press I wish I could say not imposed upon Loyal ones too both from that and the Pulpit for Errors especially when coloured with the bait of Interest tho first hatcht by the Brooders of all bad Principles till well examined may delude the very best I know it may be returned with some seeming Reason that Crimes committed here as a Member of a body politick can't well in Justice be laid to the Charge of any particular Person hereafter for upon the dissolution of the natural one the Relation to such a Community â—â—asing the Guilt and Crime contracted should dye too But the Judge of Heaven has declared he won't be mockt tho they thought those of the Land might How contentedly would some of the Regicides have given up the Ghost could they have pleaded to the Almighty their Innocence of the Royal Blood from the shedding it in Parliament But tho National Sins may require reasonably the sufferings of a Nation and no more than what for this very Sin our own has since suffered therefore to suggest the single Individual the singular Sinner shall escape with Impunity hereafter because not punisht here or that because several of them suffered here for that Martyrs Blood and the Treasons of an Vniversal Body seem'd to be punisht in as general Conflagration that therefore the Criminals have superseded their sufferings in Hell and may now dare Heaven for my part seems an Opinion as ridiculous as the Popish Purgatory and their being saved by a fantastick Fire T is almost an Irreligious excuse for all manner of Crimes and Immoralities the Constitutions Circumstances of Men being so various that I dare avow scarce any Villany but may be committed by Communities or the Politick Relation of the private Person to some publick Society In short such Law and such Divinity would make the worst of 〈◊〉 that is incorporated ones fear Hell no more than they would the Hangman and baffle the Devil as well as the Gibbet And I may well here so warmly condemn these sort of damnable Doctrines when they were so hotly maintained by the rankest of our Rebels and Republicans and this very Daemon this Devil of Sedition can only countenance his Rebellious Positions with the making use of His Majesties Authority for the Ratification of his Proposals that is the Destruction of his own Person For 't is a great Truth I wish I could not say an experimented
matter and Evidence enough to make him a Monarch and the Government of Rome Monarchical which surely Contradicts his extravagant Assertion That it was a Democracy unless he can reconcile the Contradiction of Sole Soveraignty with the Government of a numerous Senate Another of his pretty Paradoxes is that all Empire is founded in Dominion and Property and that must be understood too of a Propriety in Lands so that where a Prince has not a foot of Land he can't have twelve Inches of Power a Position that would confine some Princes Authorities in the Dimension of a Span notwithstanding Kings are said to have such long Arms but pray let this positive Politician tell me How it comes to pass that the Property of an owners Land is so inconsistent with the Prerogative of a Prince over those very Lands that he owns or why those that have the greatest Interest in this his property must presently have the greatest Portion too of Power and Property in the Government that is only to contract his Absurdity why the Peasant that has two Acres of Land and the Prince that has but one should not presently be prefer'd to be the Prince and the Prince Condescend to be the Peasant The Question might be soon answer'd with another Quere Why this King cannot be as well Born an Heir to the Crown as his Countryman to the Cottage tho the latter commonly has Land about it when perhaps a Crown may have none For certainly according to his Position a King must have but an Insignificant Power that has not a Foot of Crown-lands and then to have it to any purpose to extend his Empire over all his Subjects the Hereditary Lands of the Crown must by his own Rule necessarily make up more Acres then all the Kingdom besides and as he observes that within this 200 years the Estates of our greatest Nobility by the Luxury of their Prodigal Ancestors being got into the hands of Mechanicks or meaner Gentry by his own Platonick Dogma these Plebeians must have the Power and Authority of our Nobles that is a Rich Commoner must presently run up into the House of Lords and a Lord perhaps less wealthy descen'd into their lower-House for they must allow their Lyes more power in our House of Peers they being a Court of Judicature which the other can't 〈◊〉 too The Disorders Confusions and Revolutions of Government 〈◊〉 would ensue from the placing this Empire and Power only in Dominion and Property which according to his own extravagant Position I think may be better render'd Demesn would be altogether as Great as those absur'd Consequences of this Foolish Maxim are truly ridiculous for we must necessarily have new Governours as often as a new Demesn could be acquir'd for meaner Persons must have greater share too in Publick Administration's assoon as they grow mightier in possessions But besides this simple suggestion as full of Folly as it is carries in it's self as much Faction too it is but another Invention of setting our Parliament again above our King and the making him according to their old Latin Aphorism Greater than a single Representative and less than all the Body Collective for he thinks it may be possible the King may have a greater portion of Land than any single Subject but I am sure it can never be that he should have more than all but this Sir Polilick 〈◊〉 has wander'd so much in the wide World that his Wits are a straggling too so full of Forreign Governments that he has forgot the 〈◊〉 of his own Is it not a receiv'd Maxim in our Law that there is no Lands in England but what is held mediately or immediately from the King that are in the hands of Subjects does not himself know we have nothing of an Allodium here as some Contend they have in Normandy and France tho they too are by some of our best Civilians contradicted and as great many Eminent Lawyers of their own tell us that the Feudatory Laws do obtain and are in force through all the Provinces of France too so that their Lands are there held also still of some superiour Lords and he knows that our greatest Estate here in Fee is not properly free but held mediately or immediately of the King or Donor to whom it may revert and 't is our King alone as our Laws still acknowlege that has his Demesn his Dominion free and holds ofnone but God and our Lord Cook tells us whom this Gentleman may Credit as having in some things been no great Friend to the Monarchy as well as himself yet that Eminent Oracle tells us that no Subject here has a direct Dominion properly but only a profitable one not much better perhaps than the Civilians usufructuaries and what becomes now of this Gentlemans the peoples Power Empire founded in Dominion and Demesne must the King have the less Power over his Tenants only because they hold the more and can't he have a right of Soveraignty over the Persons and Estates of his Subjects without Injuring them or their property or must his Subjects according to this unheard of Paradox as this their Property grows greater encroach the further upon his Power and Praerogative none but our Elect Saints must shortly set up for our Governours and I know this Factious States-man can't but favour his Friends Anabaptists and Quakers his absurrd Politicks here Extraordinarily suit with some of their mad extravagant Principles he lets them know Empire is founded in Dominion and they thank him kind Souls and tell him Dominion is founded in Grace Two or Three whole Leaves the Copious Author has alotted for the service of the Church and Glergy and there we find the Devil of a Re-publick has so possest the Politician that he openly declares against God and Religion and his Atheistical Paracelsus that confirms his Brother Brown's Aphorism to be none of his Vulgar Error that 't is thought their Profession to be so I mean the Doctor in his Dialogue interrogates his Matchiavel what he thinks of our Clergy why truly 't is answer'd He could wish that there never had been any the Christian Religion would have done much better without He presumes much it seems upon his own Divinity but if that be no sounder then his Politicks either of them is enough to send him to the Devil and on he goes in a tedious railing against the Frauds and Rogueries of our Church when t was Romish all impertinently apply'd to the present that is now so much reform'd But would not the most refractory Jew take this Snarling Cur for a Mungrel Christian that libels that only Church that maintains the Gospel in it's greatest purity and as a wise Prince well observ'd the most reform'd in the whole Christian World And 't is 〈◊〉 wonder now that such irreligious Impostors who have so little veneration for the Church should broach such pernicious Doctrines against our
their Politick presumptions in a piece of Treason for Gospel and as infallible as a Creed and that because their Associated Excluders in a Scheam of Rebellion tell us Queen Mary proved the Wisest Laws insignificant to keep out Popery therefore it must be concluded it connot now be kept out This Gentleman knows that I believe chopt up so much Logick with his Commons at the University if Educated there where commonly better principles use to be Instill'd that it is a most false Inference from a Particular to conclude absolutely and Vniversal and when besides Henry the 8th's Reforming Edwards the 6th short Reign had hardly settled the Reformation there being more Romanists then in the Kingdom than such as had truly Reformed it was never truly begun or throughly perfected till Queen Elizabeth's Reign which might be easily observed from the Parliaments so soon declaring for Popery in Queen Mary's first entrance upon the Throne yet however he might observe tho the Suffolk Men set her up as undoubted Heir to the Crown which as the Bishop of Hereford in the History of her Reign says was then so prevalent with our Englishmen that no pretence of Religion was a sufficient Suggestion for opposing such a Right Yet they soon deserted her when they saw her bent for introducing a new one and such a defection might have endangered her establishment had not the generality of the Nation been then of her perswasion But what Maxims of State should now move another Prince of that Religion to endeavour it's establishment when All the Kingdom 's so bent against it when the Protestant has been rooted here for above this hundred year we have a King whom God preserve that has promis'd and may live yet many to defend it They must imaginesuch a Successor seduced against his Interest his Councils besotted to set him upon such Measures now as must certainly disturb the Quiet of his Government tho the Faction cannot Overturn it so that this great point will come to this Whether having more contingencies than one of having such a Religion introduced as first the great Casualty there was of his not coming to the Crown which might have been prevented by a Natural death without their Expedients at the Rye their unhuman and unnatural Barbarities and then imagining such an Actual Succession that Improbability of making such a sudden Alteration in Religion only for his own Disquiet and without any Probability of Establishment in his Reign which according to the Course of Nature must betoo short tho I shall still pray for any of the Lines longest Life and the little continuance it can expect should it be introduced when all that are to succeed him are profest Protestants These being such Casualties as upon good Conjecture and Probability may interpose the question is Whether in prudence or Policy we ought to have Involv'd our State in certain danger only to prevent a contingent one I could never get any one yet to prove that to be matter of Expediency for the good of the Publick That such an Exclusion would have been certainly dangerous our Annals too sadly Testifie and any one need but to turn back to my Remarks upon our History and he 'll find it Chronicled in Blood And that any danger of our Religion is but merely Contingent must be allow'd by all that think it not Predestinated to be changed And what now have these good Subjects done to be thus reviled by the bad Why they have declared in their Addresses to Assert that Right which in their Oaths they have Sworn to defend And a Pious Divine that has dispensed with them Libels them for not being Perjur'd for company His distinction of the Religion being Establisht by Law is far from creating any difference for the question is here what is the Doctine of the Gospel and it can't be imagin'd any sort of Christians upon the Privilege of any Political Establishment are enabled to dispense with the precepts oftheir Religion and confute their Bibles with the Statute Book Saint Paul's sufferings are so far from discountenancing such a Doctrine that they are alone the best the clearest Confirmation of it he was beaten suffer'd Imprisonment and all for the sake of his Saviour he told them after his durance to whom they had done it and the greatest Sticklers for Passive Obedience will allow Mr. I. to plead his Magna Charta if he won't with the Barons beat it into the Head of his Soveraign with Club Law or knock out the Brains of an Imprisoned King for it with a Battle-axe his Breath can plead his defence without Resisting unto Blood Paul could have pleaded his privilege of being a Roman and uncondemned sure as available before his Sufferings had he not thought it is duty to suffer and he may read in the same Book of those that went away Rejoycing that they were counted Worthy of it for his Name A man may be born to a great deal of Right when 't is none of his Birth-right to Rebel and that against the very Monarchy it self His case of the Pursivant is as much to the Purpose as if he had pitch't upon the First in the Report there was an Arrest of a Body by such an Officer to bring him to appear before them that constituted them an High Commission Court And as often it happens in Execution of the Law many times there is Opposition made sometimes Maiming is the Result many times Murder here it hap'ned that the Officer's Assistant was kill'd and the Law that makes it but Manslaughter in a Common Fray in an Execution of an Office makes it Murder and that must depend upon the Authority of that Court from whence such Officer receives his Writ Warrant or Commission 't is adjudg'd in the Case that they might have cited to Appearance and upon Contumacy to have proceeded to Excommunication and then have arrested upon their Writ of Capias but that they could not Arrest him outright upon a Surmise That a Man may resist an Authority that is not Lawful any man will allow for it is the same as if he resisted none at all however if Murder be the Consequence of such a Resistance all his Expositors upon the sixth Commandment will hardly help him to distinguish it into Man-slaughter And tho my Lord Hales whose Memory will still be pious for his equal destributions of Justice was a great Latitudinarian in allowing too much scope for premeditated Malice yet the Decalogue will make that Murder for which the Law will allow him the Benefit of his Clergy and did in Harry the Eight's time without distinction to all sort of shedding of Blood and then the Book that he talks of was dedicated to Cromwel would have been Authoriz'd by the Law which in some sort it self then made all Killing no Murder neither in an equitable sense was this Homicide excused from being a Murderer because he resisted unto
so necessary to be past by the same Reason that we use Remedies against the Plague that was only a Resistance of the present Authority in an Altering the Discent of the Crown which their own Laws Declare unalterable and that only by providing against Contingencies that might never have happen'd which is a sign that they aim'd only at the Succession it self more than any danger that they fear'd from it because the Successor might be supposed at the worst possible and perhaps willing to preserve to them their Religion which they so vainly fear to lose as well as he has since ratified it with his Royal word and at the present is the Defender of our Faith too as a King as well as he had often promis'd before he was so and Mr. Julian might have spared his Plaguy Metaphor of his Pitch and Tarbox till he felt more fumes of an infected Air and some better symptons of the Plague for while their is nothing but Cypher to that Disease in the Weekly-Bill the people would take this Doctor for a Mad-man should he run about the Streets with his Antipestilentials his Fires and his Fumes But yet in this his own Case had our Author oblig'd himself but upon a great penalty not to use his preparation of Pitch and Tar to prevent the distemper I fancy he would run the risk of an Infection rather then have than forfeited the Condition And I should think an Oath taken to be true to the Crowns Heir should oblige as much prevail upon his Soul as well not to use such means and methods as would make him forsworn tho it were for the prevention of an ascertain'd danger And I cannot see how such a Bill that dissolv'd the very band of our Allegiance could be call'd any thing less then an Act of Parliament for a Statutable Perjury for none but a Johnson or a Jesuit will allow that the same Lawful Authority that impos'd an Oath to be taken can command its violation after it is took and that sticks so much at present with some of our moderate Covenanters that they cannot think themselves by special Act of their Lawful King absolved from an Oath of Rebellion administer'd by none but Rebels and Usurpers And tho this Gentlemans Oracle of the Law was pleas'd to call them but Protestant Oaths I might as well tell them they are Christian ones too if they believe the Testament to which they swear And as this Gentleman agrees with and perhaps has borrow'd from this old Disciplinarian several of his Doctrines so has also Brutus's Vindiciae handled the same Question which he has propos'd in this form whether it be Lawful to resist a Prince that Violates the Laws of God and lays waste his Holy Church But from that Excellent Author our Julian might not only have prov'd the Doctrine of Resistance to be the practice of the Primitive Christians but that it was much Older and Commanded by God himself to the Jews and as the former Author his Predecessor can only from the Text tell us of the Kings of Israel being oblig'd to propagate the true Religion such as David Solomon Asa Johosaph Hezekiah Josiah c. All Foreign to the Question so does this Brutus tell us an idle tale and the Fancy of his own Brain that therefore the People of Israel fell with Saul because they would not oppose him when he violated the Laws of God that the People suffer'd Famine for their not opposing his persidiousness to the Gibeonites that they were punish'd with the Plague because they did not resist David's numbring of the People and that the People suffer'd for Manasses poluting of the Temple because they did not oppose it But where stilldo any of these prove that the People did resist their Kings or were commanded so to do 't is but an Irreligious Presumption to think the Almighty should punish his chosen only because they did not Rebel against his Anointed when that Rebellion even by the same sacred Text is declared worse than Witchcraft and that primitive one of Corah and his Accomplices was so remarkably punish'd But I know these Authors will tell us That Eliah destroyed the Priests of Baal notwithstanding that Ahab their King countenanced their Idolatry That Jehoida the Priest set Joas on the Throne and not only rebelled against his Mother Athalia but destroyed her to restore the Worship she had abolish'd But in both these Instances they may do well to consider 1. That what was done here was by the express Direction of the true Spirit of God in his Prophets to which when our inspired Enthusiasts our Oracles only of Rebellion can prove their right as well as they but pretend it they shall be better qualified to Judge their King when he offends against the Laws of his God And does not the Text tell us upon these very Occasions always That the Word of God came to his Servants 2. Athalia here whom the People resisted deposed and slew had no Title to the Crown but what she waded through in the Blood of all the seed Royal Religion was not there the rise of the Rebellion but the right of the Crown 's Heir which was in the young King Joas whom they set on the Throne of his Father Ahaziah and for which Heavens had preserved him notwithstanding the 〈◊〉 and Design there was to destroy him 3. If Religion were the Occasion of such Insurrection as it really was not yet the Worship then introduced was altogether Pagan which by the express Command of God they were bound to extirpate And whatever our Apostate fansies in his Comparison of Paganism and Popery my Charity will oblige me as a Christian not to look upon the Professors of the same God and Saviour like to so many Turks and Mahometans unless they can prove to me from the Text that by the Worshipping of Baal is only meant the Catholick Faith and to believe in Christ is to be an Infidel In the fourth place they do not consider that even their own Arguments make all such Applications to all ourpresent Kings altogether impertinent For these Republicans that maintain these Doctrins tell us too that the Kings of Israel were always to be regulated by the seventy Elders as those of Lacedaemon by their Ephori that to these seventy the high Priest did always preside as Judg of the most difficult Affairs so that Arguments and Presidents brought from such Topicks where they make the Kings to be govern'd by their Subjects can't be applyed to Monarchs that are Modern and more absolute tho this their very Assertion that makes against their own Application is no less than a great Lye For we find both the Kings of Israel and Judah from the Chronicles the very Records of those times to be Princes altogether absolute and to have executed too that unlimited Jurisdiction I have related these few passages out of the fore mentioned Authors to let this
1648. 49. 51. Mercur Pollt n. 64. 65. Vid. Lex Terrae An. Reg. 17 John Vid Dr. B. Introduct p. 72. 105. c. p. 149. The King calls Parl. per advisam entum Concilii Vid. Bract. Parl. 4. Inst. p. 4. and shall they suppress those by whose advice they are call'd Bracton l. 4. Cap. 24. §. 5. ibid. Plat. prop. 〈◊〉 Edw. 1. 〈◊〉 Ed. 2. 〈◊〉 Ed. 2. Vid. dugd Baker 5. H. 4. 1. Jac. Edw. 3d. Exilium Hugon Edw. 2. 1 Edward 3d. C. 2. * Vide Jenkins's Lix Terrae first Edit p. 5. †Vid. Parl. Declarations 41. p. 4. ‖ And Proceeding of L. 〈◊〉 in the Old-Bayly In three several Places in Plowden they are made inseparable p. 234. 242. 213. Corps politick include le Corps natural Son Corps politick natural sont indivisible Ceux Deux Corps Sont as encorporate une Person * Ed. 2. in whose time 't was first started Vid Lex Terrae Rich. 2. because by misdemeanours he had made himself uncapable Vide Trussel * Charles the 1st the Parliament declares because the King had not granted the Propositions i. e. deposed himself he could not Exercise the Duties of his place Answer of the Com. to the Scots Com. p. 20. and the Scots expound their preserving the Kings Person in the Covenant but as it related to the Kingdom i. e. in English if they please they may destroy him * Vid. Cook 4. Inst. C. 2. †25. Ed. 3. * Vid. Tryal of the Regicides page 50. * Vid. Ibid pag. 52. †This was pleaded too by Carew p. 76. Treasonable words sworn against Scot. spoken in Parliament he pleads Priviledges of the House for speaking Treason tho 't is expressly declared not pleadable no not so much as for the breach of the Peace 17. Ed. 4. Rot. Parliament N. 39. Tryal of the Regicides pag. 52 * Answer of the Commons to the Scots Com. that the King had 〈◊〉 the executing the Duties of his Place and therefore could not be left to go where he pleased Anno. 1646. Imprint Lond. p. 20. * Parliam Roll. Num. 〈◊〉 Lex Consuetudo Parl. 25. Ed. 3. El. 1 Jac. ‖ H. post sc. p. 89. †Ibid p. 〈◊〉 * Salmasius has the same sort of simile page 353. defensio 〈◊〉 * Hunt page 94. †21. Ed. 4. 13 14. and noted Catâ—â—â—'s Case ‖ Act for Regulating Corporations where they particularly swear they abhor the Trayterous Proposition of raising Arms by His Majesties Authority against His Person * 1. H. 4. ‖ 2 H. 5. Cap. 6. †32. H. 6. 13. 〈◊〉 334. * 22. Ed. 4. ‖ 1 Edw. 5. fol. 2. * So also in Syracuse ‖ Vid Mercur polit June 17. 1652. * Rosin Ant. Rom. L. 7. C. 9. †Consulum immoderata 〈◊〉 omnes metus Legum 〈◊〉 Liv. Lib. 2. * He can't so much as be a disscisor 4. El. 2. 4.6 The King has no Pcer in the Land and so cannot be Judged 3. Ed. 3. 19. * Vid. Exact Abridgment fol. 713. †Vid. 〈◊〉 717. * 1. R. C. 15. * H. 7. H. 8. ‖ 12. H. 7. 20. 7. H. 7. 14. * Vld. 4. Inst. Baker page 248. †H. 8. * 1 Car 3. ‖ 25. H. 8. C. 21. †Plato ‖ 5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 11. †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 117. * pag. 237. * 1. Mar. c. 2. ‖ 1 El. c. 1. †Jac. c. 1. ‖ K. 〈◊〉 his Collect. 〈◊〉 1. part 〈◊〉 728. †Vid. wil. Prynns 〈◊〉 right to elect privy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ‖ Vid. his Memento to Juncto for the †2d his Parliaments Soveraigns Power For the * 3d. his Lords Bishops none of the Lords Bishops or the Buckle of the Canonical Girdle turned behind * Vid. Answer of our English 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the Scots Commissioners The Scots reply from their Camp at Newark The Members to the Army The Armies Answer to the Members The Scots Remonst to the Army The Armies reply An. From 41. to 48. Pamphlets or waste Papers 125. * Act for Regulating Corporations †Vid. Plat. Parl. of Commons begun with H. 3. within 400 y. Kings in Caesars time 1000 y. since ‖ Deliberaturi de arduis 4 Inst. 2. p. * Plato ‖ Cook 5. fol. 62. 9. Ed. 4. Cook 8. f. 145. ‖ 3 El. Dyer 187. Cook 4 Inst. c. 7. p. 73. * Ibid. p. 74. †32. H. 6. 13. ‖ Plowden 334. * Pollid Virg. †4 Inst. 6. 8. ibid. * Mirror c. 1. §. 12. Fleta l. 12. c. 1. Glanvil l. 12. c. 1. and all the most ancient Lawyers speak of it Plato ‖ Prvn's Parl. right to elect great Officers and Judges * An. Reg. H. 3. 22. Dom. 1230. Vid. Baker p. 84 85 86. Vid. Stow. ‖ Vid. Davila pag. 482. ‖ 5 Aug. 1653. Vid. Scob. Coll. * Plat. Red. †Vid. Exact Relation of the Parl. Dissolved Decemb 53. Plat. p. 130. * Vid. Exact Relation of the Proceedings of the Parl. 〈◊〉 Vid. Decemb. 12. 53. ‖ Et pur ceo que nous ne 〈◊〉 in nostre propre Person Oyer Terminer c. Vide 〈◊〉 f. 〈◊〉 Vid. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * Vid. Bishops Right and Discousre of Peerage 81. ‖ Vid. 〈◊〉 Libel on the 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 in England * Vid. Leighton's Sions Plea 〈◊〉 ed 1636. * Beda tells us Augustine the Monk called one of the Britain Bishops An. Dom. 686. King 〈◊〉 a Convocation of Cletgy An. Dom. 727. of the Saxons ‖ The very Words of their Vote against the Cannons Vid. Journal †Register F. N. B. 4. Inst. p. 322. c. 71. * Vid. 25. H. 8. for their Antiquity see Bractonl 3. f. 123. Hol. 303. 6. H. 3. Rot p. 18. Ed. 3. ‖ 26. H. 8. c. 1. †Hls Discourse of Peerage London 1679. whom Hunt himself could oppose 1641. ‖ Mildmay's Oath taken 15. of Junt 43. Scob. Col. page 42. * L. 〈◊〉 Letter ‖ 〈◊〉 of Peerage 16. 89. p. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hollis †Plat. pag. 237. the 5. Proposition * 35. of 〈◊〉 petition'd to be 〈◊〉 too in the late Rebellion and actually was 〈◊〉 Act for relief of peaceable 〈◊〉 against the Rigor of former Stat. 27. sept 16 57. ‖ Lord F. Speech to the Com. 1641. upon Commitment of the London Petition †L. Digby's Speech to the Com. upon the same Vid. Lord Newark's Speech yet Assembly of Divines declared it against the Acts of all reformed Churches ‖ Vid. Eusch. Lib. 4. c. 5. 6. who tells us Constant 〈◊〉 In his Expedition against the 〈◊〉 had his Bishops about him to consult in a Council of War and is their judging now in Capitals a Crime I am sure that other was a more Bloody Business ‖ An. Dom. 686. Cook 4. Inst. C. 74. pag. 322. * Leg. A. thelst C. 11. Episcopo jure pertiner omnem 〈◊〉 promovere Del seculi omne Legis scitum Burgi mensuram Spelm. p. 402. ‖ Plat. p. 101. Kings Writ of Summons runs cum Prelatis colloquium habere * Vid. 1. Inst. p. 110 ‖