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A29209 The serpent salve, or, A remedie for the biting of an aspe wherein the observators grounds are discussed and plainly discovered to be unsound, seditious, not warranted by the laws of God, of nature, or of nations, and most repugnant to the known laws and customs of this realm : for the reducing of such of His Majesties well-meaning subjects into the right way who have been mis-led by that ignis fatuus. Bramhall, John, 1594-1663. 1643 (1643) Wing B4236; ESTC R12620 148,697 268

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People who elect them but from the King who creates them Fourthly you tell us that the Power of a King is to have powerfull Subjects and to be powerfull in his Subjects not to be powerfull over his Subjects Your reason halts because it wants a caeteris paribus several Kings may have severall advantages of greatnesse The truth is neither many powerfull Subjects without obedience nor forced obedience without powerfull and loving Subjects d●… make a great and glorious King But the concatenation of Superiours and Inferiours in the Adaman tine bonds of Love and Duty When Subjects are affected as Scillurus would have his Sonns for concord as Scipio had his Souldiers for obedience which they prised above their lifes being ready to throw them selves from a Tower into the Sea at their Generall●… command this is both to be great in Subjects and over them The greatest Victoryes the greate●… Monarchyes are indebted for themselves to this lowly beginning of obedience It is not to be a King of Kings nor a King of slaves nor a King of Devills you may remember to whom that was applied but to be the King of Hearts and Hands and Subjects of many rich loving and dutifull Subjects that makes a powerfull Prince As for the present puissance of France can you tell in what Kings Reigne it was greater since Charlemaine Neverthelesse admitting that the Peasants in France as you are pleased to call them suffer much yet nothing neare so much as they have done in seditious times when Civill Warr●… raged among them when their Kings had lesse power over them which is our case now God blesse us from Tvrany but more from Sedition If the Subjects of France be Peasants and the Subjects of Germany be Princes God send us Englishmen to keep a mean between both extremes which our Fore-Fathers found most expedient for all parties Observer But thus we see that Power is but secondary and derivative in Princes the Fountain and efficient cause is the People and from hence the inference is just the King though he be singulis Major yet is he universis Minor for if the People be the true efficient cause of Power it is a Rule in Nature quicquid efficit tale est magis tale And hence it appears that at the founding of authorities when the consent of Societies conveyes rule into such and such Hands it may ordaine what conditions and prefix what bounds it pleases and that no dissolution ought to be thereof but by the same power by which it had its Constitution Answer Thus we see your Premisses are weake and naught your argument proceeds from the staffe to the corner and your whole discourse is a Rope of Sand. First your ground-work that the People is the Fountain and efficient of Power totters and is not universally true Power in the abstract is not at all Power in the concrete is but sometimes from the People which is rather the application of power then Power itselfe Next your inference from hence which in this place you call just and a little after say that nothing is more known or assented unto that the King is singulis major but universis minor greater then any of his Subjects singly considered but lesse then the whole collected Body is neither just nor known nor assented unto unlesse in that Body you include His Majesty as a principall Member And yet if that should be granted you before it would doe you any good these universi or this whole Body must be reduced to the Major or greater part and this diffused and essentiall Body must be contracted to a representative Body unlesse we may believe your new Learning that the Essentiall and Representative Body are both one But waving all these advantages tell me Sir might you be perswaded to follow Licurgus his advise to try this Discipline at home before you offer it to the Commonwealth could you be contented that all your Servants together or the Major part of them had power to turne you out of your Mastership and place your Steward in your roome or your Children in like case depose you from your Fatherhood No I warrant you the case would soone be altered And when the greatest part of the sheep dislike their Sheepheard must be presently put up his Pipes and be packing Take heed what you doe for if the People be greater then the King it is no more a Monarchy but a Democracy Hitherto the Christian World hath believed that the King is post Deum secundus the next to God solo Deo minor onely lesse then God no Person no Body Politick between that he is Vicarius Dei Gods Vicegerent The Scriptures say that Kings reigne not over Persons but Nations that Kings were anointed over Israell not Israelites onely Saul is called the head of the Tribes of Israell Our Laws are plain we have all sworn that the Kings Highnesse is the onely Supreme head if Supreme then not subordinate if onely Supreme then not coordinate and Governour of this Realme His Highnesse is Supreame Governour that is in his Person in his Chamber as well as in his Court The ancient Courts of England were no other then the Kings very Chamber and moveable with him from place to place whence they have their name of Courts Supreme Governour of this Realme collectively and not onely of particular and individuall Subjects In all causes and over all Persons then in Parliament and out of Parliament Parliaments doe not alwayes sit many Causes are heard many Persons questioned many Oaths of Allegiance administred between Parliament and Parliament The same Oath binds us to defend him against all conspiracies and attempts whatsoever which shall be made against his Person or Crown to defend him much more therefore not to offend him against all Conspiracies and Attempts whatsoever that Oath which binds us to defend him against all attempts whatsoever presupposeth that no attempt against him can be justified by Law whether these attempts be against his Person or his Crown It will not serve the turn to distinguish between his Person and his Office for both the Person and the Office are included in the Oath Let every Subject lay his hand upon his heart and compare his Actions with this Oath in the fear of God When the great representative Body of Parliament are assembled they are yet but his great Councell not Commanders He calls them he dissolves them they doe not choose so much as a Speaker without his approbation and when he is chosen he prayes His Majesty to interpose his Authority and command them to proceed to a second choise plane propter modestiam sed nunquid contra veritatem The Speakers first request is for the Liberties and Priviledges of the House His Majesty is the fountain from which they flow When they even both Houses do speak to him it is not by way of mandate but humble Petition as thus most humbly beseech your most excellent Majesty your faithfull and
obedient Subjects the Lords spirituall and temporall and Commons in Parliament assembled or thus We Your Majesties loving faithfull and obedient Subjects representing the three Estates of Your Realme of England c. except we should overmuch forget our Duties to Your Highnesse c. do most humbly beseech c. Here the three Estates of the Kingdom assembled in Parliament doe acknowledge their subjection and their duty do beseech Her Majesty Where by the way I desire to know of the Observer whether that of the three Estates were a Fundamentall Constitution of this Kingdom and who were the three Estates at this time and whether a third Estate have not been since excluded Howsoever we see they doe but rogore legem pray a Law the King enacts it and as he wills or takes time to advise so their Acts are binding or not binding They challenge no dispensative Power above the Law he doth In a word He is the Head not onely of the Hand or of the Foot but of the whole Body These things are so evident that all our Laws must be burned before this truth can be doubted of But to stop the Observers mouth for ever take an Authentick Testimony in the very case point blanck By divers old Authentick Histories and Chronicles it is manifestly declared that this Realme of England is an Empire and so hath been accepted in the World governed by one Supreme Head and King having the Dignity and royall Estate of the Imperiall Crown of the same unto whom a Body Politick compact of all sorts and degrees of people divided into terms and by names of Spiritualty and Temporalty being bounden and owen next to God a naturall and humble obedience he being instituted and furnished by the goodnesse and sufferance of Almighty God with plenary whole and entire Power Preeminence Authority c. Now Sir observe first that not onely individuall Persons but the whole compacted Body Politicke of the Kingdome are not onely lesse then His Majesty but doe owe unto him a naturall and humble obedience how farr is this from that Majesty which you ascribe to the representative Body Secondly that the Spiritualty were ever an essentiall part of this Body Politick Thirdly that His Majesties Power is plenary Fourthly that he derives it not from inferiour compacts but from the goodnesse of God It is true were His Majesty as the Prince of Orange is or you would have him to be not a true Possessor of Soveraigne Power but a Keeper onely as the Roman Dictator or an arbitrary Proctor for the People your rule had some more shew of reason but against such evident light of truth to ground a contrary assertion derogatory to His Majesty upon the private authority of Bracton and Fle●… no Authentick Authors were a strange degree of weaknesse or wilfulnesse especially if we consider first upon what a trifling silly Homonomie it is grounded quia comites dicuntur quasi socii Reqis et qui habent socium habent Magistrum If he had called them the Kings Attendents or subordinate Governours of some certain Province or County as the Sheriffe Vice Comes was their Deputy there had been something reall in it Secondly if we consider that this assertion is as contrary to the Observers own grounds as it is to truth for what they Bracton and Fleta doe appropriate to the House of Lords curiae Comitum Baronum he attributes to the collective Body of the whole Kingdom or at the least to both Houses of Parliament that is farr from the Observers meaning and nothing to the purpose This Catachresticall and extravigant expression with the amphibologicall ground of it is either confuted or expounded by the Authors themselves as saying the King hath no Peere therefore no Companion that he is Vicarius Dei Gods Vicegerent that he is not sub homina under Man And if the words have any graine of truth in them they must be undestood not of an Authorative but onely of a Consultive Power to advise him or at the most approbative to give their assent to Laws propounded he having limited himselfe to make no Laws without them So we may say a Mans promise is his Master as if a man should say that the Judges in the House of Peers who have no Votes but are meere assistents yet in determining controversies in point of Law are in some sort superiour to the Lords not in Power which they have none but in skill and respect of that dependence which the Lords may have upon their Judgement and integrity Neither will your logicall Axiom quicquid efficit ●…ale est magis tale helpe you any thing at all for first your quicquid efficit must be quando efficit If a cause have sufficient vigour and efficacy at such time as ●…he effect is produced it is not necessary that it should ●…eteine it for ever after or that the People should re●…ein that power which they have divested themselves of by election of another To take your case at the ●…est they have put the staffe out of their own hands and cannot without Rebellion and sinne against God ●…doe what they have done Secondly for your magic tale there is a caution in this Canon that the same quality must be both in the cause and in the effect which yet is not alwayes not in this very case it must be in causes totall essentiall and univocall such as this is not The Sun is the cause of heat yet it is not hot it selfe Sol homo generant hominem viventem yet the Sun lives not If two Litigants consent to license a third Person to name another for Arbitrator between them he may elect a Judge not be a Judge Yet I shall not deny you any truth when and where the antecedent consent of free societies not preingaged doth instrumentally conferr and convey or rather applie power and authority into the hands of one or more they may limit it to what terme they please by what covenants they please to what conditions they please at such time as they make their election yet Covenants and Conditions differ much which you seem to confound breach of Covenant will not forfeit a Lease much lesse an Empire I have seen many Covenants between Kings and their People sometimes of Debt and many times of Grace but I doe not remember that ever I read any Conditions but with some old elective Kings of Arragon if they were Kings long since antiquated and one onely King of Polonia You adde and truely that there ought to be no dissolution of Soveraignty but by the same power by which it had its Constitution wherein God had his share at least but this will not serve your turn if you dare speak out plainly tell us when a King is constituted by right of Conquest and long Succession yea or by the election of a free people without any condition of forfeiture or power of revocation reserved as the Capuans gave themselves to the
This is rather an exception against the Law it selfe then the King So the Observer and his pewfellowes deal with Laws and Law-makers if they make for them suscipiunt ut Aquilas they admire them as Eagles if they make against them despici●…nt ut graculos they despise them as Dawes the Fundamentall Constitutions of the Kingdome must be streight exploded the Law is become a Formallity Are you in earnest Sir that this is destructive to Parliaments you might have said more truely the productive cause of all Parliaments that ever were in England or of any Assembly that had an Analogy with Parliaments I tooke you only for a Reformer of some abuses newly crept in but it is plain you intend to be another Licurgus to alter the whole frame of Government Truely Sir you beginne very high and jumpe over the backs of a great many Generations at once Doubtlesse you are either very wise or have a great opinion of your owne Wisdome But to the point It is confessed that sometimes some evills doe flow from inconsiderate trust but many more from needlesse Jealousy incommoda non solvunt Regulam Inconveniences doe not abrogate a Law Restraint commonly makes p●…ssion more violent When you have done what you can there must be a trust either reposed in one or many and better in one then many Doe but looke home a little without trust a Man knows not his owne Father without trust a man knowes not his own Children Some trust there must be and who fitter to be trusted then he that hath the Supremacy of power unlesse you will make two Supremes You confesse that Parliaments ought to be used as Phisick not as constant Diet. And the Law hath ●…ow set down a faire terme for the continuance of an ordinary Parliament unlesse you would be continually in a course of Phisick The second exception is His Majesty declares that the Parliament hath no universall power to advise in all things but in quibusdam arduis according to the Writ and cites the president of Wentworth a Member of the House of Commons committed by Queen Elizabeth the Parliament sitting for proposing to advise Her in a matter She thought they had nothing to doe with The Observer magnifies Queen Elizabeth for Her Goodnesse and Clemency but withall he addes But we must not be presidented in apparent violation of Law by Queen Elizabeth A grave Historiographer tells us of a close and dangerous kind of Enemies tacitum inimicorum genus such as make a mans praises an introduction to their venemous invectives as if it were not malice but pure love of truth that even forced them to speak so much such an one is a good Man but c. So Queen Elizabeth was a good Queen but in this particular she played the Tyrant To violate Laws to violate them apparently therefore wilfully to have no respect to the House of Commons whereof Wentworth was a Member was no signe of Grace and Clemency Certainly Queen Elizabeth a wise and mercifull Princesse one that so much courted Her People would not have done it but that She thought She had just grounds or if She might erre in her judgement yet She had as wise a Councell as any Prince in Europe and a businesse of this consequence could not be done without their advice who doubtlesse were some of them Members of the same House or if both She and they should be mistaken yet why were the House of Commons themselves silent whilest such a known Privilege was apparently invaded why did they not at least in an humble Petition represent this apparent violation of their Libertyes that it might remaine as a memoriall to plead for them to Posterity that they were not the betrayers of the Rights of Parliaments She that was so gracious as he Observer acknowledgeth and whose goodnesse was so perfect and undissembled could not choose but take it well and thanke them for it Neither will it suffice to say She gained upon them by Courtesy such an apparent violation so prejudiciall to the Highest Court of the Kingdome passed over in deep silence shews as litle Courtesy on the one side as Discretion on the other In brief as I cannot conceive that these words in quibusdam arduis are so restrictive that the House may consult of nothing but what shall be proposed or was intended at the time of the Summons so on the other side I doe not see how either the Commission or Prescription doe give them such an universall Cognizance or Jurisdiction Queen Elizabeth declared Herselfe oftner then once in this point in Her first Parliament when in reason She should be most tender to the Speaker and the Body of the House of Commons out of their Loves humbly moving Her to Marriage She answered that She tooke it well because it was without limitation of Place or Person if it had been otherwise She must needs have misliked it and thought it a great presumption for those to take upon them to bind and limit whose duties were to obey The third exception is the King saith they must meerely counsell and not command a strange charge if you marke it For it is impossible that the same trust should be irrevocably committed to the King and His Heires for ever and yet that very trust and a power above that trust be committed to others The Observer answers first little to the purpose that though there cannot be two Supremes yet the King is universis minor lesse th●n the collective Body of His Subjects as we see in all conditionate Princes such as the Prince of Orenge c. His Maxime that the King is singulis Major univerversis Minor except the King himselfe be included in the universi hath been shaken in pieces before The Law is plain The Kings Most Royall Majesty of meer droit very Right is very Head King Lord and Ruler of this Realm And doth he now intend to include the King of England in his c. among condionate Princes Take heed Sir this will prove a worse c. then that in the late Canons Secondly he answers that though the Kings power be irrevocable yet it is not universall the people have reserved something to themselves out of Parliament and something in Parliament It were to be wished that he would distinctly set down the particular reservations a deceitfull Man walkes in Generallityes Still the Observer dreams of Elective Kingdoms where the people have made choise either of a Person or a Family To us it is nothing they that give nothing can reserve nothing Trusted and yet reserved How the Observer joynes Gryphins and Horses together if trusted how reserved if reserved how trusted but how doth the Observer prove either his trust or reservation nay it is a tacite trust in good time so he proves his intention by a Company of dumbe witnesses In conclusion his proofe is that it is a part of the Law of Nature A trimme Law of Nature indeed which
bird with a stone and no stone on a Tree and no Tree In this Riddle there may be something in Nature which seems to be intermedious to salve the contradiction in shew but in their case no manner of Difference to make the same thing just and unjust but Self-love and Partiality Was it Treason in the Northern Rebells to make an Insurrection and is it now become P●…ty I delight not in Domesticall Examples let us rather cast our eyes beyond Sea and see where ever Protestants were accused for Rebellion but where either Anabaptisme or this Discipline did take place and yet none of them I except onely Anabaptists were halfe so criminous as ours They had sundry pleas which we cannot make for our selves As first that they did not rise up against their lawful Prince but onely against a Protector to whom they did owe no Allegiance but an honorable Acknowledgement but our Laws binds us not onely to owe Allegiance but to swear it Or secondly that they did not rise up against the Person of their Prince but against some enraged Minister of his reserving still their Obedience to their Soveraigne inviolate but we have not onely resisted but invaded the Kings Person There were more great shot made at the very place where the King was at Edge-hill then the same proportion of Ground throughout the Field the ●…ery li●… Cu●…esy was offered to the Queen at ●…urlington to welcome her into England Or thirdly their Princes did go abo●…t to force their Consciences withot Law or against Law and by an Arbitrary Power set up an Inquisition among them but good King Charles is so far●… from this that for the ●…ase of his Subjects he hath taken away an High-Commission established by Statute and is still ready to condiscend to any thing that can be reasonably proposed for the ease of tender Consciences What is it then Hath His Majesty been a hard Master No. Heare a Witnesse that will not violate his Conscience to doe Hi●… Majestie service I see many h●…re the most ●…toriously obliged indeed as much as Serv●…s can be to a Master in this good Cause h●…ve ●…stered those vulgar Considerations and had the Courage to despise him that is the King to His Face A good Panegyricke and His Majesty may live to requite them as Ca●…us did 〈◊〉 the Traytor when his Sonne had slain 〈◊〉 Ironside and he saluted the King with A●… Rex solus his Reward was a Good Gibbet Ego te bodie ob ●…nti Obsequii meritum cunctis Regni 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These Seditious and Schismaticall Principl●… were not the ●…esults of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and uningaged Judgemen●… but rather the excuse of criminous or the 〈◊〉 o●… ne●…ssitated Persons whe●… 〈◊〉 produceth new Opinions and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 followeth the Dictates of the Will there is small hope of T●… When Men o●… Belial Factious Persons had shaken off 〈◊〉 yoake of a just Government being neither Pretenders themselves in point of Right nor capable of Soveraignity by reason of their ob●…curity that they might retaine that i●… part which they could not graspe in the whole they broached these desperate Devises of the Omnipotency of the People whe●… others o●… the same Men either having expelled Bishops to gaine their Revenues upon pretence of Superstition or living under a Soveraigne of another Communion could not have Bishop●… of their own and yet did find the necessity of Discipline then they fancyed the new form of Presbiteries in imitation of the Jewish Synedriums throughout their Synagogues though that be most uncertaine and all Men know this for certain that the Synagogues were but humane Institutions Acts 15. 21. not from the Law but from old Time Which new form of Discipline was so adapted and accomodated to the Politicke State of the Citty of Genevah that as it was there established it cannot possibly ●…it any other place except it have fower Syndicks a greater a lesser Councell Then as all Sects are modest in their beginnings they desired their Neighbour Churches onely to certifie that their Discipline was not repugnant to the word of God yet now they would obtrude it on the world as the Eternall Gospell So our new upstart Independents which run gadding about the World like Lapwings with their shels upon their Heads having been kept under the hatches here in old England performing their divine Offices in Holes and Corners and having no Assemblyes but such as did of their own accord associate themselves to them now deny the name of true Churches to all Societies but such blind Conventicles And shall we make their excuses to be our grounds shall we that live in the most temperate part of the temperate Zone injoy a Government as temperate as the Climate it selfe we who cannot complain either of too much Sun or too little Sun where the Beames of Soveraignty are neither too perpendicular to scorch us nor yet so oblique but that they may warm us shall we goe about in a madding humour to dissolve a frame of Government which made our fore-Fathers happy at home and famous abroad shall we whose Church was the Envy and Admiration of Christendome neither too garish nor too sluttish excelling some as far in Purity as it did others in Decency now learn Religion out of Tubbs as if the little toes could see further then the eyes If they have an extraordinary calling where are their Miracles menda●…ia video miracula non video we heare there lyes not see their wonders Saint Paul became all things to all Men but that was compatiendo non mentiendo as St. Augustine saith Shall we without need put our life 's into the hands of crackbrain'd unskilfull Empericks which have taught us already to our losse that a new Phisitian must have a new Church-yard rather mutemus clipeos let us leafe them old England and content our selves with new England It will be better to live in hollow Trees among Savages and Wild Beasts then here to be chopping and changing our Religion every new Moon Be not deceived as if these men did desire no more then onely the rectifying of some former Obliquities and Irregularities we are now told in plain English that it is to subdue the pride of Kings Monarchy it selfe is the onely Object worthy of these men Wrath. May not one here exclaime as the great Turk did to his Councell when the Templers and Hospitaliers advised him by letter how Fredericke the Christian Emperour might be taken Ecce fidelitas Christianorum behold the Loyalty of our great Reformers But what is this pride of Kings If we will believe one of their Authors in his application of the Story of Cleomedes his Daughter to the Domestick Custome of the Spartan Kings pater hos●…es manus non habet it is a one piece of their pride to have a man to pull off their shooes and yet they say the Author had one to brush his Cloathes Now they stick not to let us know why they