the Politician and for the Injury he did all along to the Right-Blood Providence seemed to bring upon his head his own and sent that sort of an Usurper too to the Grave with the fate of Tyrants not with a common dry Death but in his own Gore and he that had held the Scepter but with a pretended Right by this disastrous Death gave an opportnnity to a perfect Intruder that had none at all Henry the first who being in new Forrest when his Brother was killed did not stay long to consider the disaster or to get the Carcass Coacht home instead of Carted but rides to Winchester seizes the Treasure and that soon helpt him to put on the Crown The Purple Robes soon followed those Golden Regalia and the Power absolutely Usurpt will irresistibly force a Coronation Florence of Worst but tho Crown'd as he was a good Author say who liv'd and wrote then as great men then sent for Robert promised him his Right and as resolutely stood by him too and well they might when he had been debarred his Birth-right once before and besides the Right of Blood had refused his Assignation his early Pension and had compounded for his own Kingdom which he had so much Title to without the Composition But Mat. Paris tells us in the first Lines of this Kings Life that the Nobility Magnates Angliae ignorabant quid actum esset de Roberto duce Normannorum An. 1100. were utterly Ignorant what was become of this Robert Duke of Normandy but that when he sent privately to them in England Letters alledging his being first Born and that for that very Reason he declared the Right of the Kingdom belong'd to him assoon as they heard those Allegations of his unanswerable Right promised him their best advice and to lend him their Assistance which they did too and Robert came over forc't his Brother to a Composition for 3000 Marks yearly and at least made the Vsurper but a Tributary King and all the Argument out of this Reign that our Elector here fetches for his making Ibid. p. 46. Fidele Consilium pariter Auxilium promiserunt our English Monarch a King of Poland is this Usurpers courting the great Council to confirm it to his Son but so would a Cromwell the Parliament for the Succession of his Son Richard and sure such Creatures have need to anticipate all sorts of security for their Sons Succession that have gotten all their Right by Anticipation of anothers or absolute wrong but the parallel holds still between that antient Usurper and the more Modern I mentioned they both felt their Consciences prickt in their unjust obtaining of a Mat. Paris 1106. sentiens Conscientiam Cauteriatam Judicium Dei formidare c. Kingdom they both feared the Judgments of the Almighty both as unhappy in their designed Heirs one born to be Drowned the other to be a Fool and as their Fame stunk above Ground so did both their Bodies before they went under and Paris tells us the first committed Murder after he was Dead and poysoned his Doctor before they could get him down into the Dust tho he smartly observes this was the last Ultimus fuit ex illis quos Rex Henricus occidit An. 1136. among the many this good King Henry had destroyed The last remark I shall make on this Mans Reign is but what this malicious Historian has made very Remarkable and that is from an Author that he cites for saying that this Robert had discovered too much of the Cruelty of Disposition of his averseness to the English Nation and his proneness to revenge and this Character must be most Emphatically markt out that they might not miss of his meaning another Duke a Prince to whose Valour and Conduct the Wretch ows his Freedom from a Forreign Yoke and the Nation her safety and security and so far does his malice transport the Sot that he falsifies for it the very Latin he translates Perversus contrarius et Innaturalis He makes cruelty of Disposition and for Proneness to Vid. H. de Knyght C. 8. 2374. revenge not one Syllable in the whole Citation and then besides the words of the Author he cites are the same verbatim which this Henry the first used against his Brother when he makes a Speech to his Nobles to make him odious from whom this Author I believe borrowed it and 't is as meer revgene Vid Paris 1107. ful malice to the Duke of York as that against Robert the Duke It is here evident that this Gentlemans Principles and Perswasions are clearly Democratical and writ with a perfect design to please the People as plain as if the rabble beast the Monster Mobile were seen fawning upon this KEEPER of their LIBERTIES and you saw the Sycophant spitting in its mouth his Papers are the very Picture of this piece and the Representation of Rebellion with a Pen. The next that Mounts the Throne is STEPHEN and the little Right tho some Relation he had to the Crown to be sure won't be past by when this Author for the sake of his sinking Cause has caught at every Plank to hold up her Head in that desperate Condition and where he could not meet the least solid substantial Argument graspt at every empty Shadow And truly here he tells us that STEPHEN acknowledg'd his Election in the very Words of a Charter from the People and Pag. 4. so would any man that had no better Title and tho I shall condemn his Usurpation can allow of his Politicks in letting them know how much he was beholden to them and yet that People were strong enough to pull off his Crown too which his own hands rather Stow says he was repulsed by them of Dover shut out by them of Canterbury and unjustly took upon him the Crown of England had put on for as Bradshaw told the King The People of England had constituted them a Court when that unanswerable Martyr observed not half their Consents did concur or were askt so also in this Case many of the Nobility most of the Commonalty lookt upon it as a manifest Usurpation and those whose Concurrence he had were but an handful of his Friends and at his Coronation had but three Bishops few of the Nobility and not one Abbot and also as Historians observe those very Malembs Baker perjur'd Prelates and Lords came many of them to an ill-end or else to worse Calamities before their life was ended And the revengeful Cruelties of the Scot lookt somewhat like a Judgment for their Perjury when they spar'd neither the Gray-Hair for whom Reverence might plead nor the Tender-Infant for whom its Innocence but Butchered the one in their Beds the other on their Mothers Breasts the Barbarity of Mat. Paris in ultionem Imperatricis cui idem Rex Fidelitatem juraverat An. 1138. those avengers is as horribly describ'd in Mat. Paris But agen I cannot see why he was
â—rthurum Haeredem â—am legiâ—imum si â—ine haerede moreretur Paris in vit R. this Princes Care he took in appointing his Nephew Arthur to Succeed him tho he had a Brother of his own to whom he had shown a liberal largess of his Love when he began to Reign in bestowing on him no less than half a dozen Earldoms a good part of his Kingdom Certainly this Earl John was nearer to him in Blood and Affection and then what cou'd move him to this Testamentary Disposition but the more nearness of the other to the Kingdom and the Crown But in spight of all Adoption and Right JOHN as great an Usurper as any laid hold of the Scepter and held it too only as some of our Tenures in Law by primer occupancy he had his Brothers Army in the field and that was then enough to have made a King of a Cromwel an Hewson a Brewer or a Cobler Vid. Dan. p. 108. Baker Stow say Arthur actually did homage to France as King of England powerful Arms that silence any Law But still the Nobility were for maintaining the Right of Succession in Arthur and as they call'd it the usual Custom of Inheritance most of his Provinces in France stood firm to him and so did the King of it and had Fortune favor'd him upon whom for the most part it frowns the Justest pretender he had not been made a Prisoner to his Uncle to whom he was a King and been murder'd by him after the Siege of Mirabel But the Barons rebellious Insurrection soon aveng'd the Barbarous Butchery and but bloody consequences here too attended the Debar'd Right He is forsaken of all his People and the French Kings Son a perfect Forreigner invited in for a King and his end at the last as unnatural as the death he gave to his Nephew And here upon the Coronation of this intruding King John the factious Historian rehearses the Clause of Hubert the Bishop of Canterbury's Speech that declar'd the right to the Crown to consist only in the Election of the People but disingenuously omits the very reason of the self same Prelate who when he was pincht with the Interrogatory why he would preach up such pernicious Principles own'd it more a Design of Policy than the Sense of his Soul But to give him a perfect Vid. Paris Edit Lon. vita John Rowland for his Oliver he will find in the Life of Richard the Second a better Bishop making of a more Divine Speech and asserting the Right of Succession more strenuously than ever this designing Metropolitan was able to confute But that worthy Prelates Doctrine did no way countenance our Authors seditious Observations and so directly different from his Huberts Vid. Baker Trussel vita Rich. II. Bishop Carlisle's Speech Harangue that he might well pass it by without reading and which must certainly have baffl'd him into Blushes to have read Henry the Third a Prince too young to know his Right much less to be able himself to take Possession of it was presently upon his Fathers Death Crown'd King Certainly upon the Consideration of his Hereditary Right or the Testamentary Donation of his Father whom Paris says he appointed M. Paris vit Joha ad finem primogenitum suum regni constituens Haeredem his Heir as his First-born made the Kingdom swear Fidelity to him sent his Mandatory Letter under the Authority of his Great-Seal to the Sheriff's of the Counties to the Keepers of his Castles that they shou'd all be intent upon the Business and upon his death they show'd themselves as ready to perform it and what can the most factious Regnumque Angliae illi jurare fecit Literas cum sigillo suo munitas advice-comites castellanos direxit ut singuli essent intendentes idem M. P. princip vit Hen. 3. sic Defuncto Johanne convenerunt ut Henricum exaltarent Pen make more of this than an Acknowledgment of Hereditary Right especially when the same Author in the beginning of the young Kings Reign says they only came together to Exalt him to the Throne of his Father and not one word of their Suffrages or Election therefore what could not be proved from matter of Fact must be suggested with an Innuendo and because the good Earl Marshal in a perswasive Speech exhorted them to adhere to their lawful Sovereign it imply'd the Consent of the People requir'd if such an Assent shall make the Kingdom Elective 't will be hard to proveany Hereditary for all people that do not actually Rebel and Oppose must in that sense be said to Consent and Elect and when ever our Kings are Crown'd 't is so far with the Consent of the people that they do not interrupt the Coronation But can he prove in any of his pretended Elections much less here that ever in England they balloted for the Crown or drew Lots for the Kingdom that they had ever any certain number of Electors as in Germany or carried it by Majority of suffrages as in Poland ' tho I believe some of them would make no more of his Majesty than a Bourrough Representative or a County Knight and Scarce allow him the Freedom of a Pole But with what face can he urge it Stow says only he was Crown'd by Common consent p. 175. here when the whole drift of Pembrokes Oration was only to satisfy them the Succession belong'd to the Son and that the French Usurper Lewis would be the ruin of the Realm which Speech was so effectual too that several of the Principal of the Barons notwithstanding that open hatred to his Father in spight of Obligation of an Oath to Lewis they still thought their Loyalty and Allegiance more obliging and revolt from the French-man till all at last deserted of all he abjures his claim and the Kingdom together After he had been first routed by Land at Lincoln by Pembroke the Protector and his fresh supplys at Sea near Dover by Hubert the Governour And the bold Speech of that stout Vid Matt. Paris who told him that if his Master was dead he had left Sons and Daughters alive Souldiers to this powerful Prince when he demanded Dover on the Death of King John was a better Evidence what sense the people had of a Lawful Succession than he from the Marshals can evince that he succeeded by Election and against the Laws of Descent and all that he can pertinently draw from the Protectors Oration is that an Infant King did not speak for himself But if ought be a blot in his Succession 't is what this praejudiced Historian I am sure does not care to Hit and that is the weakness of his Fathers Title that forc't him to strenghten his Sons with a Donation And Elenor the Sister of his Cousen Arthur who had a Stronger right did not dye in five and twenty years after he Paris 1241. In clausurâ Diuturna Carceris sub arcta Custodiae
that was his least Relyance for as little 1. H. 4. 12. 52. Vid. Dr. B. p. 25. as he makes of his claim from Henry the Third it is apparent from some Rolls of Parliament that he challenged the Realm upon that account and the Lords were interrogated what they thought of that claim upon which without delay they consented he should Reign and as another Evidence of his Right to Rule shewed them the Seal of King Richard as a Signification of his Will that he should succeed him but that which for ought I see he lay his greatest weight upon was but what all Vsurpers must most relie on the Sword and he himself assures them just after the Sermon was ended at the time they consented to be his Subjects that he would take no advantage against any Man's Estate as coming in by Conquest and Conquest is one of the first claims he puts in at his Coronation and as Haward Haward p. 98. Baker p. 15 is relates it in his Life not the least mention of his being elected is there mingled with his Claim But neither did the success of a prosperous Wickedness Countenance this Usurpation for he was soon made sensible that a Crown seldom sits easie on that Head where it has so little Right to sit and indeed before it could be well setled his Lords conspired against him at Westminster set up Maudlin the Counterfeit send to the King of France for assistance Glendour stirrs up the Welsh to rebel the Nobility fell from him drew up the following Articles against himself viz. for having Articl'd himself against his Sovereign for having falsified his Oath in medling with the Kingdom and the Crown for taking Arms against his King Imprisoning Murdering Him that he unjustly kept the Crown from the Earl of March to whom of Right it belonged and vowed the Restoration of Him and His Destruction and our Author now shall know these too are Articles Vid. Baker 1â—1 as well deserving to be read and one thing more that deserves as much Observation that this his good Peoples Election was the prime Principal Cause of losing of Millions of Lives and an Notwithstanding all these claims Speed says he at his Death owned he had no Right to the Crown Speed Lib. 9. Chap. 14. Philip De. Comines which wrote then says to his Remembrance 80. of Blood Royal dy'd If they long for the draught of Slaughter and Blood that followed this their Election of the Line of Lancaster then look upon the lamentable List at the end of Trussel Ocean of Blood here entred that Line of Lancaster that had almost left the Nation Childless the Nobility and Gentry that escap'd the Sword were still by the prevailing Party chopt off or gibbited and in the space of about thirty year and somewhat upwards they dreined more Blood in England then e're was spent in the Conquest of France or would have been spilt had it been again attempted and that too never have been lost by their Henry the Sixth had it not been for an altered Succession and an injured Heir and the Bloody Consequences of a debarr'd Right And now at last he is forc't to allow an instance of a Prince that succeeded without the least shadow of Election and that in Henry the Fifth to whom himself owns they swore Allegiance without staying for his being declared we are obliged to him for this fair Concession but this Kindness is only because he finds it as clear as a Postulatum in the Mathematicks beyond his own Impudence to contradict but however he must malitiously observe that it was a thing strange and without President and why so because his Polidore tells him such an extraordinary Kindness was never shown to any King before 't is strange that his Italian should understand more of our own Government than all our own English Authors 't is no wonder sure if he that was a Stranger to our Affairs should Write as strangely of it and make our Mighty Monarchs of Britain no more then some petty Prince of his own Italy and as Elective as their Duke of Venice But this perverse Gentleman shall know it was not without President and that by several Instances And first Richard the First presently on his Fathers Death without staying for their suffrages seised on his Father's Treasure was girt with the Sword of the Dutchy of Normandy took fealty both of Clergy and Lay and exercised all the Authority that Sovereign power cou'd allow before he came to be recogniz'd by their Suffrages or to his Coronation Vide Daniel 2. Hoveden's Account that he gives of King John's coming to the Crown which as some Writers say is the best extant says they swore Fealty to him when he was out of England without mentioning any thing of preceding Election and he had his better Title his Brothers Army then in the field by which he cou'd have made himself soon their King had they not been so ready to receive him 3. Upon the Death of Henry the 3d. the States Assembled at the New-Temple and proclaimed his Son Edward King when they knew not whether he was living or dead swear Daniel Fealty to him and cause a New-Seal to be made Here sure are some presidents of Allegiance before their Election unless he 'll make Declaring or Proclaiming to be so and then in Gods Name in that sense let them as he contends for be Elected for I think all will allow they are proclaim'd But suppose on the death of a Predecessor there was no convention of any of the Nobility Vid 4 part In Stit. 46. and Jenkins Lex Terrae p. 7. or Commonalty for Parliaments they then can have no Existence when the Breath is gone that gave them Being as all other Communitys are de facto dissolv'd If I say there were none met to Declare or Proclaim his Successor must the common Maxim be contradicted and the King dye too for want of their Popular Breath to give him Life or do our Laws admit that this interval between his Predecessors expiration and the proclaiming or crowning his Successor shall be call'd an Interregnum they know the Constitutions of our Government admit no more of this than an Exclusion They know that immediately by Descent King James was declar'd to be completely and absolutely King and that by all the Judges 1 Jacobi Watson Clark Vid also Calvins Case Cokes Rept part 7. of the Kingdom I know the Kings Successor is always immediately proclaim'd upon his death and that perhaps is more for the proceedings of judicial Processes and that Writs may presently run in his name But were such a Proclamation obstructed I am satisfi'd he commenc'd an absolute King upon the very Minute of his Predecessors Expiration and if the Law Maxim won't allow an Haeres viventis there can be no Heir at all if he begin not to be so presently upon his Predecessors Death and for an Evidence of Fact as
wrong but here those several alterations were all caus'd to be made for the securing of a Lineal â—egitimate and lawful Successor to the Throne for as a Reverend Author says the King Lamented that he should leave Bishp Godwins Histo H. 8. p. 37. the Kingdom to a Woman whose Birth was â—estionable and he willing to settle the Kingdom on his LAWFUL Issue and for this reason he got the 25th to pass against his Daughter Mary And the very Preamble of the Act tells us that it was for the Surety of Title and Succession and Lawful Inheritance Three years are scarce past till the 28 of his Reign repeals almost all that the 25 had Enacted their Protestant Queen Elizabeth made as well as the Popish Mary plain Bastard and tho our prejudic'd Author may make the same Vid. Pulton Stat. matter right and wrong as he stands affected he must think this his powerfuâ— Parliament dealt a little hard with thâ— latter whose Mother was never divorc't but from her Life and she paâ— off for a spurious Off-Spring only upoâ— the pretended suggestions of Anne Boleyn unknown impediments confess 't sine to Canterbury But whatever they were the Canons of the Church tho born bâ—fore Marriage and since after the verâ— Laws of the Land did make her Legitâ—mate But however this greater piece ofâ— justice to this good Protestant Queeâ— which they 'l say now proceeds from the Kings putting the Parlament In 's 31 as incontinency was made impediment in the first Anns Case they declared the suant of concupiscence an Impediment in the 2ds and only upon his sending some of his Lords to the lower house the Lady Cleves was unlawful too Vid Stow p. 581. Baker 288. Stat. 35. H. 8. upon too much Power wâ— palliated all along with the pretence of providing a Legitimâ—â—â— Lawful Successor and so the cleâ—â— Reverse and Contradiction of thâ— proceedings of our late Patrioâ— to whose Privileges those sort presidents were apply'd for those Parliamentary In the 33 the Parliament petition'd to him whom they knew it would please for the Attainder of Kat. Howard his 5th Queen Powers seculded but Bastards to make room for Heirs Lawful and Legitimate with us an Issue truly Legitimate should have been EXCLUDED for the setting up of a SPURIOUS ONE But then at last comes the 35th of his Reign and that like a Gunpowder Plot in the Cellars blows up all the former foundations of the whole House both the two former Stat. for Disabling Illegitimating are null voy'd repeal'd the LADY MARY Sister Elizabeth in those seven years suffered my Lord Bacons transmutation of Bodys and were turned all into new matter and what was Spurious Illegitimate and in Capable with the single Charm of be it enacted was become truly Lawful Lineal Heir of the Crown and Capacitated to succeed in an HEREDITARY DISCENT and so far from Invading the Prerogative so full of giving were the bountiful Parliaments of those times that they Impower their too Powerful Prince to dispose of his Crown by Letters Pattents or an Arbitrary Testamentary disposition an Oblation I think his present Majesty might esteem too great to be accepted who knows his Successor to be the Crown 's Heir scarce his own much less the PARLIAMENTS Edward the Sixth upon his Fathers death succeeded an Heir Lineal Legal and Testamentary yet the first thing this Author observes upon him is the greatest falsehood viz. That he took upon him a power what surely no King ever had to dispose of his Crown by Will When in the very Preceeding president his own Father by his Will manifested he had the Power and left it him by his last But his he 'll say was a Power given him by Parliament But that is not so plain neither both from the Preamble and the purport of both the dissonant Acts of 28 and 35. for the designs of both were only for the settling the Succession and then upon supposition of the failure of Issue from those upon whom it was setled they fairly leave it to his last Will or his Letters Pattents but supposing this Liberty had not been allow'd can he imagin that a King that had got them to alter the succession at his pleasure in his Life time would not upon the failure of the Limited Heirs have dispos'd of it by Will at his death but that none but this Edward of our Kings took this power upon him is utterly false from these several instances First the very first King of his name in the Saxon succession left it so to his Son to succeed And Athelstan Malmsbury Lib. 2. c. 6. fol. 27. Jussu patris in Testamento Athelstonus in Regen acclamatâ—â— est whom above this Gentleman recommended to the City of London for a Mon. and Illegitimate against the sense and silence of all Historians was declar'd King by the Command and last Will of his Father Edward the elder in the Reign of the Danes Canutus did the same bequeath'd Norway to Swain his eldest and England to his youngest Son and for the Norman Succession the very first King and who had the most right to do so from the Sword left to Rufus the right but of an Heir Testamentary tho followed by his Son Henry the first And Richard that had less reason so to do for his Daughter Maud by the Law of the Land would have been his Heir without the Legacy and so would to the latter his Nephew Arthur and tho both were by Rebellion rejected yet still sure their right remain'd But for this Edward the 6th disposing it by Will it was not only against the Customary Discent of the Realm in a right blood but of an Express Entail in several Acts of Parliaments I am so far of this Authors opinion that I believe it was no way warrantable but never the sooner for his Parliaments settlement had it not been at last upon the right Heirs for tho those Princes of ours heretofore took upon them to leave Successors by Will they still nominated those that by Blood were to succeed without such a Nomination so that the bequest was more matter of Form then Adoption only to let the Subjects know whom they look't upon to have the right of Succession rather than to superadd any thing of more right and that 's the reason or ought to be that we properly call the next in Blood the Kings Successor but the Crowns Heir 'T is a little prodigious Paradox to me that it must be such a receiv'd Maxim that a Parliament can do no wrong and that in plain Terms they tell us it can do any thing mollifying it only with an Exception that they can't make a Man a Woman yet that they bid pretty fair for too in these Presidents of Harry the 8th when they made Bastard Females of those that were Legitimate and then Legitimis'd again the same Bastards and 't is as mighty a Miracle to men unprejudic'd that our Parliament Patriots
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 Page 116. 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 conceive 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 Ibid. Sycopkants Richard the Second for preferring 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 insinuated Treason when Stanley Stanley's Case H. 7. 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 wherein they were nibbling again at the Milittia and could so merciless a Miscreant be put in the pocket of a Member of Parliament much less then into his Heart and drop from his unadvised Lips can those that come to give their consent for the making Laws be thus Ignorant of those that are already made has not the Military power for above this 500 years been absolutely in the Crown and almost by their Parliament it self declared so in every Reign was it ever taken out but when they took away the Life of their King too was ever his Head protected from Violence when this the Guard of his Crown was gone or can any Hand long sway the Scepter when it wants the Protection of the Sword 1st Edward 3d. Chap 3. The King 1 Edward 3. 1 C. 3. willeth that no man be charged to Arm himself otherwise than he was wont in the time of his Progenitors Kings of England In H. 7. declared by Stat. All 2 Hen. 7. Subjects of the Realm bound to assist the King in his Wars Queen Mary 4. 5. Mary and all her Progenitors acknowledged to have the Power to appoint Commissioners This Commission was in force Rot par 5. H. 4. n. 24. repealed by this 4. and 5. of P. M. but this repealing Stat. is again repealed Jacob. 1. and so of force in this King now as well as when they deny'd it to his Father 2. Ed. 6. 2. C. 2d Cook 2. Inst 30. Car. 2. C. 6. to Muster her Subjects and array as many as they shall think fit The Subjects holding by Serjeantry heretofore all along to serve their Sovereigns in War in the Realm and a particular Act obliging them to go within or without with their King He and only He has the ordering of all the Forts and Holds Ports and Havens of the Kingdom confirmed to this very King and Cook tells us no Subject can build any Fortress Desensible Cook Litt. p. 5. And since some of our late Members of the lower House were so tickled with this Authors soothing them with the Kings Executive Power of War forfeitable I 'll tell them of an Act expressly made in some Sense against their Assuming it and for another Reason too because some mutinous Heads would argue to my Knowledge for their Members comming armed to the Parliament at Oxford and which was actually done too by Colledge and his Crew It was made in Edward the First 's time 7. Ed. 1. and expressly declares that in all Parliaments Treatises and other Assemblies every Man should come without Force and Armour and of this the King acquainted the Justices of the Bench and moreover that the Parliament at Westminster had declared that to us belonged straightly to defend Force of Armour and all other Force against our Peace at all times when it shall please us and the Judges were ordered to get it read in the Court and enroll'd And now can it with common Reason or Sense be suggested that the letting Favourites have some of the Treasures of the Kingdom or Courtiers as he calls it the Revenue or the preferring of such Persons as they shall think Worthless and Wicked which with such Villains as himself are commonly the most deserving that this shall be a sufficient violating as he terms it of a Kings Trust to the forfeiture of his Power of putting the Laws in Execution with which the common consent of almost all the Laws and all Ages have invested their King as an absolute Inherent singular Right of the Crown Certainly such an Opinion is as extravagant as Treasonable and could enter into the Head of nothing but a Madman the Heart of none but a Traytor Next we meet with another Assertion as false as Hell and then its clear contrary nothing but the God of Heaven is more True He tells us after having hardly allowed His Majesty a Negative Voice at least as such an Insignificant one as not to be made use of That Plat. Pag. 124. 't is certain nothing but denials of Parliamentary requests produced the Baron's Wars and our last dismal Combustions when I 'll demonstrate to him as plain as a Proposition in Euclid that nothing but their too gracious and unhappy Concessions to their perfidious and ungrateful Subjects made those mighty Monarchs miscarry read but any of our Histories tho pen'd by the most prejudiced and those that ware at best but moderately Popular of our first Civil Wars The Barons Daniel that speaks most commonly as much as the Peoples Daniel 53. H. 3d. Case will bear tells us his thoughts of those unhappy Dissentions that neither side got but Misery and Vexation We see that notwithstanding as often as their Charter and Liberties were confirm'd notwithstanding all the Concessions of those two yielding Monarchs still more was demanded The Charter in Henry K. John Henry 3. the
Gamesters at the Pen exercised themselves like those in the Olympicks each had his Portion in the Quinquatria and his prevaling part allotted him in their first Feast of Faction The first was their bold Author of the brief History of Succession and the first I dare swear that under a Government beyond dispute for 600 years Hereditary dared to controvert the Succession of its Heir and truly 't was a prudent sort of Expedient in their Politicks to raze the Foundations of Monarchy before they would offer to build up a Republick The prime Introducers of the Bill of Exclusion were bound in prudence to get Pens to justify their Proceedings in Parliament which otherwise might not have been so well relisht by the People by being barely Parliamentary as well as it is since evident they set a work some of their Chaplains to eradicate the very Notions of Passive Obedience till Rebellion took so deep a root in some of the Patrons that it anticipated worse sufferings then what they feared and from the vain dread of dying Smithfield Martyrs made them truly suffer for Plot for Treason in Lincolns-Inn-Fields The second prize they play'd was for a Common-wealth which was naturally the next blow when they had so fairly struck at the Monarchy and then rises up the Ghost of old Plato an Image or Appearance as much unlike the Divines as the Spectrum of old Hector was like himself when soiled with Dust and Dirt the living original was the sublimed Essence of exalted Love it self and this copy of this degenerate Ghost the dull extract of deadly malice the true Devil of a Republick the English of it was they knew they had formerly usurpt upon our Crown and brought it to the Common-wealth of England They had made it an Ilium of Fire and Confusion tho' to their dire thoughts a pleasant sort of an Interregnum they still take that Epoche of their Slavery for the date of their Deliverance and then it was no way preposterous for the retrieving of a sad Platonick year to raise up a Plato redivivus Their third Combatant of their Cause and who in his own rank will fall under my reflexion is a Creature of another Complexion and that Hunt in his Postscript upon whom I shall observe all what is pertinent to this purpose whose cunning Insinuations have all the palliated Knavery of the Ballad of the Cloak and with the pretty defence of its Praelates Libels the whole Church it self and this very peice as naturally succeeded the preceding for when the state was to be turned into a Protestant Republick 't was time to make the Clergy Papists when the Common Prayer was to be abolisht 't was time to vilify those that were ordained to read it when the sign of the Cross was become as offensive as a Crucifix 't was time to traduce those that waited on the Altar and to plead slily for a Directory tho' penned in blood when all our Litany was run down into red-Letters and a Mass-book After all this lest the Devil of delusion should have been unsuccessful against the Doctrine of the Gospel lest some might still honour their King for the fear of God and Christians be obliged by the blood of a Crucifyed Saviour and the badg of their Profession the Cross a devout Incendiary a Divine Rebel Apostatizes from his Faith only to give the better Character of an Apostate and fairly suffers himself to renounce his Christianity only to confute the Doctrine of sufferance This damnable position of Resistance did most naturally follow those Principles of Rebellion they had publisht before when they had proved that their Interest did most infallibly oblige them to Rebel and that they had certainly the Devil on their side they knew they should soon be secure of Peoples Purses when they had mastered their Consciences and made a party of God and Religion This made them back the Lawyers Arguments with that of the Divine out comes this Johnson upon Hunt or Hunt upon Julian sworn Associates for the perverting of Divinity and Law both designed without doubt for the best and highest Preferment in their new Government of Church and State the one must have been our Metropolitan the other after so many disappointments Chief Justice and truly two such Instruments of Hell would have been only fit to preside in such a State that would have look't like the damn'd full of Confusion full of Contention full only of Johnson's primitive Rebellion the Devils They only past for two pieces tho in truth but one new Dialogue between the Doctor and Student both agreed in their Divinity and Law superviz'd each others Sedition and corrected Treason for the Press lest their Quotations for Authentick Religious and Statutable Rebellion should fail them from the Bible or the Year-books The Gospel that once abrogated the Law by these Jews is made to Confirm it and the new-Testament to warrant that Rebellion which the Old had damned for worse then Witchcraft both these Incendiaries the very Counterparts of two late Regicides that lived lov'd were Sentenced and hanged together The Judg has condescended to second Cook the Sollicitor and in his squinting Reflections almost demanded Judgment on his King The spiritual Advocate makes up an Hugh Peters the second and tells us Vid. Tryal Regicid p. 30. nearly in the old Villains own Words not in the passive We have not yet resisted unto Blood But if this Gentleman would be tryed by the Word of God as his Predecessor in his Tryal desired to be he would find the Bible the best Confutation of his Book The fifth and last of these prime Senators in our designed Republick was the mighty Sidney whose seditious Pen was the last too that would have acted its Tragick part on this Bloody Stage which lay ready behind the Curtains waiting only for the success of the Plot but they happened to be drawn and he forc't to enter before his time by its being blasted and unsuccessful his final Determinations had prepared to Crown all with the described happiness of a Republick and the experienced Holiness of a Commonwealth for fear lest after the Butchering of the best of Kings they should improvidently set up but for a resemblance of sole Sovereignty tho in the spurious issue of a precarious Monarchy and the arbitrary Management of an Illigitimate Prince He would have had no shadow of a Monarch to succeed our Matchless Charles not as the Athenians suffered that Government to dye with their Codrus because his goodness was unimitable He had prepared the draught of Hell and true Roman hatred for its Extirpation and made a Tarquin a Tyrant and a meer Monster of a pure Miracle of Mercy The whole Scheam of his Rebellious Principles which he still denyed with his last Breath and still owned with the same with all the Impudence of Jesuits and their Equivocations too he would not own it absolutely lest he should acknowledg the Justice of the Nation he would not
Confessor Edmunds Son only being past by because his very being was unknown and so they can only be blamed for not seeking for the right Heir among the supposed Dead Yet when this Edward had found him out he designed both him Vid. Baker Vid. Stow says they did him wrong and always it occasion'd civil War and his Son Atheling for successive Monarchs whose very name imported Hereditary and next of kin as much as our Prince of Wales while the second Harold but usurpt upon him against the sense of the Clergy who even then lookt upon it as a Violation of the Right of the Heir and also of their Holy Rites and tho Harald suggested that Edward had appointed him to be Crown'd Historians say that it was only to make him during the Minority of this Edgar a Regent and not an absolute King and Mat. Paris speaking of Edgar Atheling in the very first Leafe of his History in these very words says that to him belonged the Right to the Kingdom of England and if Birth could then give a Right I don't see how then or now any Power can defraud a Prince justly of his Birth-right And now we 'l begin our Remarks on the Norman Line upon which the very first words of Baker are these There were six Dukes of Normandy in France in a direct Line succeeding from Father to Son and yet this Inquisitive Monarch-maker lays his mighty stress his weighty Consideration on the single Suggestion of Duke William's being a reputative Bastard be it so have we not here the Majority of six to one that succeeded Lineally Legitimately and is not these then like all the rest of their Objections against the Government rather industrious Cavil then real Argument or allowing it still is it not most impertinently applyed to his present purpose to tell us that William the Conqueror was himself Illegitimate and yet succeeded his Father in the Dutchy of Normandy And therefore must we have another Natural and Illegitimate Duke to wear the Crown of England or was the Suggestion only made because they had such a Duke in Readiness that had already run the Popular Gantlet of Ambition and been sooth'd into the Prospect of a Scepter with the false Tongues of Flatterers and Sycophants or else was the Nomination of the Normans to supersede the Fundamental Laws of our Nation And our England a Dependent a Tributary to that Crown before the Conquest these Paradoxes must be reconciled by Miracle before such a ridiculous Instance can pass for Reason or Common Sense or vindicate the false suggester from Folly and Impertinence But even here too his very Assertion fails him and this Pretender to Truth both abuses his Reader with false Application and telling a Lye For this Duke William tho' a Bastard Born was not illegitimated so as to be barred the Crown and incapacitated for Inheritance for it appears as Baker says by many Examples that Bastardy was then no Bar to Succession and by the Canon and the Law of the Church that then obtain'd the Children born before Wedlock were de facto truly legitimated if he afterward espoused his Concubine and this his Factious Assistant Hunt himself allows when the Vid. Postscript p. 53. 55. Wretch endeavoured to Bastardize the Progenitors of his Sovereign and this many Writers say was the very Case of our Duke William whose Father took his Mother Arlotte to Wife afterward The Donation to William Rufus was again clearly Testimentary which might be allowed sure to a Conqueror whose will only gave what his Sword had gotten but however as I observed above in the Westminster and Malembsbury Stow. p. 124. Legatory Disposition of Canutus the Dane where he gave his conquered Kingdom to his Youngest and Norway his Paternal Right to Swayn his Eldest to whom 't was most due so here this Third Conqueror Daniel says he obtained it according to his Fathers will pag. 44. of Old Britain observ'd the same sort of Bequest and left Normandy his Fathers Inheritance and his own to Robert to whom it appertain'd in Reason and Right both these Instances no small Demonstration shewing how the Precedency of Blood even in those days obtained and with those too whom our Factious Innovator would have not to value it for their giving to any Son besides their Eldest what was theirs by Arms is no more than what we our selves do now by Laws and tho the Fewds now obtain and Entailments yet still what 's our own by purchase is unconfined and not ty'd to descend by Primogeniture but at an arbitrary Disposition of the Lord and Purchaser and which is commonly disposed of too by the Father to some of the Younger Sons and a Conqueror that purchases all by Blood and Wounds must needs be allowed as much Liberty as the Miser that obtains it by his Wealth or a Land Pedler that buyes his purchase for a Penny But tho this might be a warrantable Donation yet you may observe as if the donor had not been in it altogether Just so it never at all prospered with the Donee the very Gift it self like Pandora's Box was most fatal to those that received it a Vice like Virtue is oft a Punishment to it self as that other a reward the not suffering the Crown to descend by entail entailed what was worse a War and both Brothers assault the Testamentary Usurper at once as looking upon it notwithstanding the specious pretext of a Will but a plain wrong and where this prejudiced Historian makes this Rufus to rely on the consent of the Nobles for the Confirmation of his Fathers Will 't is evident he only called them together that by Largesses and Corruptions fair Words and Promises he might win them from assisting his Brother Robert whose Right he feared notwithstanding the advantage he had by his Fathers Will might make the Game that he had to play more than even or give Robert the better by their deserting this Rufus And that notwithstanding all his Artifices they did and Odo Bishop of Bayeux leads the dance and notwithstanding says Paris that he was their Mat. Paris An. 1088. last Edition London crown'd King their sworn King and they must be perjur'd for it they raised a War against their King William and set up Robert the First-Born for their King all declaring the Right belonged to him and this the Opinion of several of the Nobility Lords Spiritual and Temporal Persons alway I fancy qualified to recognise a Right if Religious or Lay-Judges could decide it and so well assured were they of the goodness of the Cause that they Veruntamen postea Nobiles fere omnes c. conspired for it rebelled and were banisht for it success not always attending a good Title no more than it can Justify a bad And at the last the most unfortunate end of this Testamentary Prince may serve somewhat at least to discourage the Religious from invading of a Right tho it may not
Claws the Doctor the Dr. our English man and he the Doctor and Venetian one of them must be somewhat of the Ass among them and then 't is Demonstrable they have a great share in it all and because the great Galen of the Times is so bold with his Catharticks as to set up for his Purging of the Court of Chancery tho I Page 129. am no Practiser in it yet I shall take the pains to defend it against the Doctor in its due place and since the Mountebank for the Body Natural is here all along made an Empirick for the Diseases of the POLITICK and from his Colledg brought to the Coffee-House to talk only of the Marasmus of State I 'll give him my sence tho no States-man of this whole Work in his own Phraseology The Piece seems to me like a sort of Preparation among the Doctors a meer Amalgama the Chymical Operator understands it better than many a Politician the Marasmus 't is a Composition of meer Quick-silver and Lead tho this Political Spagyrist perhaps will call it Saturn and Mercury here this Author with the help of the Fire of his hot Brain has incorporated his volatile thoughts and his dull ones together gay Compliments and Air Faction and Hell in a lump And tho this homely Physician won't allow himself to have been abroad tho the courteous Venetian contended for his breeding in Padua Page 81. yet the frequency of Murders here too would make a Body mistrust it and however their Human Bodys escape such Principles I am sure have Poyson'd some of their Souls and thus I have plac'd my Pleasant Observation upon their Ridiculous Stuff together that I might only reflect hereafter on what they would have thought serious and I shall worth a Reflection without the Mixture of Mirth Their mingl'd Foppery must otherwise provoke a little Laughter as well as their Principles of Sedition incense and I cannot Trim my Passions so well as to keep them in a pure Medley of Mirth and Anger If any affected to the Cause or disaffected thinks his Introduction deserv's a more serious Reply let him take the pains to give it a more solid Elaborate Confutation In the Second day they wisely agreed not to play the Fool and 't is well they slept upon 't for the sake of their Senses and the first Observation of the Venetian is as long as his Noble gown down to the very heels of two Pages but for brevity you shall have it in as many words Why that our English Nation signifies so Plat. Red. Page 16. little abroad yet makes such a great sight at home our Author having been so much Conversant with Dons and French can't forbear falling to his Formality agen and after a soft sort of Compliment to the Courteous Stranger and the Government thus Thunders out his Negative Reason Evil Counsellors Pensioner Parliament Thorough pac'd Judges Flattering Ibid p. 20 Divines designing Papists French Councils So I have seen at another sort of Cabal where such Disputants use to assemble for Edification and Doctrine not Dialogue and Dispute the Jack-Pudding of their Pulpit has seem'd to whisper his God Almighty in the Ear as a common Zany does his Mountebank for Instruction and then raves out to the list'ning and Attentive Rabble his Choledochons Phlegmagogons Balms of Gilead Conscience Salve Curse ye Meroz Sword of Gideon and for this Enthusiasm too those Harleqins of their Assemblies the Burlesques of the Bible shall Blaspheme with the very Book and vouch the Almighties coming to them in a still voice and sometimes in a rushing wind and the Devil of Sedition shall be countenanced with the word of God I should hardly pardon my self the Liberty of fullying the sacred Text with so much as the repetition of such a Simile did not I know the Zealots themselves had vouch't it for a Iustification of their sudden Raptures and Inspiration and for this Preacher of the Politicks tho I never saw him in his Geer and Gestures I am sure he makes just such another Figure in his Speech on a sudden 't is all Aposeiopesis soft and fair and assoon all in Exclamation and Ecphone and these heats and lucid Interval's of raving run through his whole Work But first for his Forreigner with his Observation is it a Mathematical Postulate that our Nation is so despicable with our Neighbour's that it must be granted assoon as ask't or has he rather beg'd the Question or can the Noble Student from his Geometry measure the fame and reputation of the Kingdoms of the Earth but whatever his skill be in the Doctrine of Triangles I am sure he is much out here in his Measures and whatever reputation England has at Venice or a compleat Monarchy with a mixt Republick I am sure with better Governments it has as much esteem and when ever it loses any it must proceed from the Scandals and Infectious breath of such Authors and Seditious Vipers that wound the Reputation as well as the Bowels of their Dam. But that matter of Fact may contradict what Malice does but suggest near the very same Time this most Impudent About 80. or 81. Observation was made did they propose to our present Prince the League of Guaranty and desire HIS entrance before that of the Empire But I can tell him what once brought a Scandal indeed upon the Nation made it a reproach to it's Neighbours in a thing of the like Nature not to mention the Murder of their King for that supersedes all hopes of regaining it's former Esteem for did not the Proceedings of that Rebel Parliament make us a by-word to the Heathen and a Scandal even to the revolted Holland did not the very Turks bless themselves at the Villany and the Dutch since in Derision cut off the Tails of their Currs to let us know we made less of a Kings head than a Dogs Neck But this we mean to apply related to it's reputation upon a League too this was a Scandal also brought upon it by a Parliament this was the effect of unjustly altering the Succession And this was in the Time of Henry the 8 when the Princes of the Empire would have made him Head of the Protestant League but upon hearing of his Extravagant Parliamentary Proceedings of their repudiating what Wives he pleas'd and allowing a more cruel Divorce of a Pious Protestant Queen from her Life as well as his Bed and severing her Head from her Shoulders as well as the Crown when they saw the Senate of England so Inconsistent with themselves as to Legitimate Bastards and then make Bastards of those they thought Legitimate Then began our Nations Reputation to be low with our Neighbours Then began our Parliament's to be look't upon as insignificant and the Supream Power of our great Assembly to Forreign Councils seem inconsistent and their mighty Credit so mean that they could not be trusted and thereupon all the Leaguer's unanimously rejected Henry
Book he begins to rout it entirely when he comes up with the Body to the Battle and the Rear there he tells us plainly the Sweetness the profitableness of a Common-wealth that only 't is not to be set up during these Circumstances that is Plato page 221. p. 234. p. 236. Making Leagues absolutely in the King 19. Ed. 4. 239. 249. 252. 't is too soon to Rebel yet and he has found out better expedients the King has too much Power the Presidents of John and Henry the Third are trumpt up again for being Compell'd to give it away the Murder of Edward and Richard the Second at least the Deposition of which that is an absolute Consequence is two or three times again Recommended for Instruction and now he tells the Parliament plainly what Branches of the Praerogative they must insist upon Power of making War and Peace Treaties and Allyances which the Kings wicked Ministers have made Destructive to the Interest of our English Nation You have here the best of Kings in effect tho apply'd to the Courtiers of which I think he must be the Chief resembl'd to the very Rebel that Vsurpt upon his Crown as if it were design'd by him as well as a Cromwel that had no right to maintain himself in the Throne but the Power of the Sword to Crave aid from FRANCE Plat. 239. to keep Vnder his People of ENGLAND The Militia must be granted them because out of Parliament or Session it being in his hand they cannot raise the County Bands nor those of the City to Guard themselves that some trusty Members whom if the King pleases may take care of his Houshold that a Parliament meet of Course at a certain Day at Plat. p. 249. the usual place without Writ or Summons and that because Peers depend so much upon the will of their Prince for Creation they should never be made but by Act of Parliament I appeal to the most Plat. 252. moderate mild Soul Living whether any single Line of all this absolute Treason has not of late almost since the Publication of this Damnable piece been endeavour'd to be put in Execution was not the Haereditary Discent struck at in the Duke was not the Militia offer'd at in some of their Votes Frequency of Parliaments which would have been as good as without intermission Clamour'd for in some of their Speeches the Nomination of some of the Officers of Power by the People And lastly was it not agreed to meet without Writ and Summons when the Major part of Members were to be conven'd after Dissolution and can any still say that an alteration of the Government was never design'd by those that were then so busily concern'd and when some of the most popular and Active have been since Actually Convicted for the Compassing all this by the Blood of their King which they dispair'd of obtaining from his Le Roy vult But 't is to be hop'd that the God of Heaven who has brought to Light the Darkness even of Hell has so much illuminated Peoples understanding as well as Eyes that the next Assembly that shall constitute this Politick Body truly Honourable adsolutely Necessary in it's Constitution will be such as will transcend what has been one of their best Presidents An healing one and that of those wounds such Daemons and Doctors have scarifi'd instead of clos'd and with a merited Vote Condemn such Devils to their own Element the Fire that have so Seditiously set three Kingdoms in a Flame But tho this refin'd Statesman this polisht piece of the most accomplisht Treason may perhaps value himself upon the Product and Invention of his own Villany proud of the being reputed a witty Republican whose greatest Glory here is to be at the best but an Ingenious Rebel yet his very Reputation tho it be but in his Roguery must sink too When you consider what I shall soon satisfy any sober Person in any Soul that has but so much Sense as to distinguish an Author from a Plagiary a Man of Honesty from a Thief that even the very Notions and Principles he Prints for the establishing this Government were formerly Publisht and proposed by the very Villains that actually subverted it not one Expedient in all his Politicks but what was by sad Experience the very Propositions of declar'd Traytors The Blessed Wit would rob the Records of an old Rebellion and that only to put in for an Inventor of a new the worst of Felons and in Forreign parts punisht as the greatest that Steals his Fellow from the Gibbet His Book has not only borrowed all from Harrington I 'll allow it him with all my Heart and that Oceanae by what follows you may find A Parallel between the Propositions sent the late King by the Rebel Parliament and the Rebellious Proposals of our Plato Redivivus PARLIAMENT'S PLATO'S 1. That all the Kings Privy Council great Officers and Ministers of State may be put out excepting such as the Parliament shall approve and to assign them an Oath 1. His Majesties Power to nominate and appoint as he pleases all the Officers of the Kingdom one of the Powers in the Crown that hinder the Execution of the Laws Plat. p. 239. why may we not begin by removing all his Majesties present Council by Parliament Page 232. 2. That all Affairs of State be managed by the Parliament except such Matters as are by them transferred to their Privy Council 2. That his Majesty exercise the Four great Magnalia of Government with the consent of Four several Councils appointed for that end the Councils to be named in Parliament Page 240 241. 3. That all great Officers of the Kingdom be chosen by Parliaments and their Approbation 3. That the Election of the great Officers be by those Councils and those Councils to be chosen by the Parliament p. 258 259. 4. If any place fall void in the Interval of Parliament the Major part of this Council to chuse one to be confirmed at the next Session of Parliament 4. Preserving to themselves the Approbation of the great Officers as Chancellor Judges Generals of the Army p. ibid. 5. To reform Church Government as the Parliament shall advise to concur with the People in depriving the Bishops of their Votes 5. That the Clergy quatenus such had and will have a share in the Sovereignty and Inferiour Courts in their own Power called Ecclesiastical this is and will ever be a Solaecism in Government p. 178. 6. Marriages and Allyances to be concluded in Parliament 6. The Kings absolute Power of making War and Peace Treatises and Allyances one of the Powers in the Crown that hinder our Happiness and Settlemene p. 327. 7. To settle the Militia as the Parliament have ordered it 7. The Kings disposing and ordering the Militia one of the Powers in the Crown that hinders our Happiness p. 239. 8. All Forts and Castles to be in the disposal of the Parliament 8. The King
against whose more dangerous Sedition there was lately made special Provision by a particular ‖ Act for Regulating Corporations where they particularly swear they abhor the Trayterous Proposition of raising Arms by His Majesties Authority against His Person 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 ceasing 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 Rebels 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 one that the granting them these Regalia would not only be an Act to bereave him of his Crown and Dignity but would pass his very Person into the Donative a yielding up of his last Breath the making himself his own Executioner as well as a Betrayer of his Trust This Project is only the pernicious Principle improved the late Rebels falsely assumed His Authority for the Fighting against His Person but the prevailing upon him for these Destructive Grants would make Him truly Fight against Himself In all the Reigns of the three following Henries their Soveraign's Supremacy was still asserted and that over Parliaments too tho one of them was but an Usurper on the Crown and then I am sure as great an one upon their Privileges and tho themselves had placed the First in the Throne themselves also acknowledged * 1 H. 4. the Regality of the Crown of England to be Subject to none but God To the ‖ 2 H. 5. Cap. 6. Second they acknowledged that to Him only belonged the Management of Foreign Affairs with Foreign Princes To the †32. H. 6. 13. Plowden 334. Third that he could constitute County Palatines and grant any Regal Rights per Letters Patents And these were Matters and Affairs themselves then declared they could not pretend to tho this Gentleman would now have them or their Counsel manage all In Edward the Fourth and the Fifth's time 't was always received Law then made and should I hope hold still that State Affairs were to be manag'd by the Prince for it was then allowed for * 22. Ed. 4. Law That if all the Common People of England should break a League by agreement with any Foreign Nation it shall still be reputed firm and unviolated if without his consent And in his very ‖ 1 Edw. 5. fol. 2. Sons that Succeeded resolved by all the Judges and Serjeants that he was the only Person in the Kingdom that could do no wrong which sufficiently declares him above all them that could and then who so fit for all absolute Power in all publick Administrations than whom the very Law presumes always to do Right and whom Reason tells us must be most impartially concerned for the publick good having no dependance upon any Superiors from whom an Apprehension of Fear or hopes of Favour might prevail upon to degenerate into that servile and sordid Complyance to prefer his own private Interest before the publick good Whatever Presumption the Law had of it then I am sure they have a Prince that justifies the Supposition now and then the most ungrateful Paradox and against Sense it self for our Seditious Souls to suggest and insinuate his Real Intentions for their Good to be nothing but Design and Plot upon them for Ill. An ORDER of Council with such Sycophants is turned into a trick of Court And their Kings Proclamations are obeyed only because they cannot conveniently resist as if the whole Board was packt only to please a designing Prince But base Villains your selves know that his aims have ever been for the publick Peace and Prosperity even at the same time your dangerous disorders have made it almost inconsistant with his own safety and security You see your Soveraign Sit and Act in a Sphere and that only He where Favour cannot charm or Fear frown into Compliance And who can be supposed then besides him less prejudic'd or more concerned for your good Would you have your Gentlemen of the Shop and Yard take their Measures of the State too We have experimented already that those made the very Government a Trade also and by those your very Properties and Lives too would be bought and sold we too lately saw some Symptoms of that state
at most but gently touch'd on The very Suggestion flies in their Faces and upbraids the Faction with the same proceeâ—ings against one another for this famous Political Mercurial Scribler lets us understand that a Merc. Politicus Num. 59. July 24. 1651. The Presbyterians pretended Principle of Conscience is no competent Plea in his behalf for then this Plea and Pretence might serve to Justifie the late Tyrant and all his Cavalry it might Justifie Ravillac for Murthering Henry the Fourth Faux Catesby and the rest for the Powder-Plot not a Pritst or Jesuite but hath the same Pretension nor shall there be any Traytors in all Ages hereafter Away with this Clergy Pretence not to be named once among Christians but exploded as the very Pest of Civil Society And I pray mark only the Godly Preacher to the Parliament a Sermon Preach'd to the Parliament November 5. 1651. I have desir'd in my Prayers to GOD for the opening of Mens Eyes to see that the same Spirit of CONSCIENCE which lay in the polluted Bed of PAPACY meets them in the prophaned Bed of PRESBYTERY that The highest Godlinesses and the highest Wickednesses are those that are most Spiritual that The Fornications and Sorceries of this Whore are then greatest when most Mysterious that She is able to bewitch those that have attained to a great degree of Spirituality To this purpose I have represented the same Spirit which dwells in PAPACY when it enters into the purer Forms of PRESBYTERY as fuller of Mystery so fuller of Despight and Danger so far the good Man for Conscience Plea And now if you please to tell you their sense of the TRIMMER and MODERATE Men of their Times a Merc. Politicus Num. 63. August 21. 1651. No sort of Men can be more dangerous than those Phlegmatick Souls of the MODERATE MIDDLE Temper who whilst they pretend to be of a Party are not able to concoct those reasons of State that are absolutely necessary for its Preservation Men of this Humour may do well in a Civil War where the differing Interest may be reduc'd to agree in one third but when they are statâ—d in as vast a contrariety as God and Belial Light and Darkness Liberty and Slavery then those Men are like Sand without Lime neither good in the Foundation nor sit for the building of a Republick such Interests are best preserv'd when like Mathematical Points in the Extremity of Latitude they are placed at the remotest distance admitting no intermedial mixture of Affections with any things Persons or Pretences that may have but the least Collateral Relation to the opposite Party And then for their MERCY to the Dissenters of those Times and the matter of VNION b Merc. Politiâ—us Num 59. But perhaps the sparing of the Traytor may he a means to reconcile those of his own Opinion and bring them to an UNION with the Common-wealth Why Let them in the first place take shame to themselves by an Acknowledgment of their Offences Let their Repentance be as loudly and openly profes'd in the Pulpit as their former Follies and then afterwards 't is possible there may be an UNION but an UNION carried on upon any other terms speaks only some Clerical Design under a specious outside And a Case's Sermon before the Court-Martial London 1644. Case Discoursing about MERCY to those that had Fought for their King whom he makes all Unpardonable Murtherers nay tho' they had not kill'd a Man for says he Though God forgive Sin against himself yet he commands his Deputies not to pardon Trespass against the Publick State as in the case of Murther for even PREPAR'D and PROJECTED Murther God makes uncapable of Civil Mercy for here the Delinquent has kill'd as much as in his power to kill it was his purpose he hath killed though the Patient be not kill'd and the Design and Intention should Hang him God deliver us from the Mercy of such Casuists the Government and Rule of such unreasonable Men that whilst they exclaim against Idols commit Sacriledg while they condemn others for want of Moderation in their Censures and Animadversions Satyrize and Libel even one another most Immoderately These are the hardships in which they think they are most griev'd and yet those the very points in which they have shewn themselves the most rigorous and opprest better Subjects than themselves with a greater grievance This is my sense of their Writings and for the opinion of others about my own and as little solicitous I am satisfy'd of my own Integrity and wish I could be as well assur'd of theirs the Defending of the Right of the Crown I am sure was †Statuimus quod omnes homines Reg ni nostri sint Fratres conjurati ad Monarchiam nostram pro viribus suis defendendam Lex Guiliel Conq. Lamb. 59. p. 171. Law of old and now no more new thing than to what I am * Vid. Oath of Allegiance Sworn and their laborious Drudgery to detract from the Prerogative is perhaps but a Learned Expedient for being more Elaborately PERJUR'D As I ever Lov'd that Royal Line which I always look'd upon to be unalterable and which none now but Rebels or Repablicans will endeavour to Interrupt so I shall ever as much Revere this NAME and FAMILY of STEWART in which the truly Lineal Descent of our Crown was as intirely united and preserv'd a Name that will be Sacred to Posterity and which I wish might be perpetuated for ever to it too until it leave us in England as long a Series of Successors as those that are to be number'd in the Catalogue of Scotland and 't is with regret if we are restrain'd to reckon of it but two Royal Pairs of JAMES and CHARLES A Name that none but a Monster of Mankind would have made a Merc. Politicus Number 62 79. odious and accurs'd which maugre their own Rebellions has made our Islands Blest And lastly a Name which even Rebels might Revere for so long and lasting a Succession in Scotland and lament that in both Kingdoms now there is but one left And for that Impostor which some poor Souls as silly as seditious would feign have put upon us and set up Consider but the sad success two such Presidents and just as pretty Projects met with in the Reign of Henry the Seventh Consider how unsuccesful this present Attempt prov'd which terminated in the ruin of all its Undertakers Consider but the Folly as well as the Wickedness of such an undertaking which could it have met with success must have been but by the Blood of the present Age and an entailment of it to Posterity too dear a purchase only to make us the Scorn and Derision of the Word Traytors to our King and Rebels to our God What I 've done has been in satisfaction to my self without design of Applause my Duty to my Sovereign without insisting on desert my Resentment against Rebels without fearing of their force for then I desire to fall when so good a Government cannot stand my Misfortune from them would have been the best of Fate and my very Foes the most Friendly and Obliging I have scarce Breath'd under a Vsurpt Government yet and should hardly have been brought to begin now to be subject to an Vsurpation If in these Essays I have done the least Service to my Sovereign Lord or his Liege Subjects I shall look upon it as having answer'd the Ends of my little Studies both towards God as well as Man for there is seldom a good Subject that makes a bad Christian and I have always observ'd the greatest Atheists among the Rebellious If whatever sincerity I pretend they 'll upbraid me still for that itch of Writing I 'll as sincerely protest to them they have cur'd me of the scab and thank them too for being my Physicians without a Fee They themselves have superseded all future Animadversions of my Pen by being able to make no farther progress in their VILLANY I truly profess never more to refute their bad PRINCIPLES till they can find out worse and as heartily promise never again to be their Plague till they can Invent a more Hellish PLOT FINIS