Natural reason IV. The Laws of all Nations V. The constitutions particularly of the Kingdome of England who above all other people most obsequiously and affectionately regard and reverence their Kings as in those maxims of their Law Rex non moritur Rex nulli facit injuriam c. VI. The Judgement of all Casuists VII Their Oaths of Fealty Supremacy and Allegiance repeated particularly at the admission of every Member into the House of Commons their Protestation their Covenant their Solemn League and Covenant and an hundred Declarations besides the Pulique Faith of the Kingdom of England solemnly given to the Commissioners of the Kingdom of Scotland upon their receiving his Majestie at New-Castle in all which they professed to the world that they would maintain and preserve with their lives and Estates the Kings Person Honor Rights and Royal Posterity II. Or shall we rest satisfied in the Sophistry of those Sectaries who out of Christs answer to the subtil question of the Herodians and Pharisees if it were lawfull to give tribute to Cesar answered ostendite mihi numisma cujus habet imaginem inferre that fide implicitâ the party now in England is to be acknowledged without any further enquiry or examination since our Saviours answer speaks nothing for their advantage But on the contrary his commanding Tribute to be given to Cesar whom the Jewes formerly acknowledged to be their King confirmeth and establisheth lawfull power and consequently condemneth sedition and rebellion else David should have submitted unto and acquiessed in the usurped power of Absolom who was possessed of all the land even unto Iordan and carried away all Israel after him and Solomon in the power of Adonijah Iehoiada in Athalia's and the Machabees in the power of Antiochus Epiphanes the grand enemy of the Iews yea the Estates of the United Provinces should have then obeyed the force of the Duke of Alva who by the emblem of his Statue formerly set up in Antwerp did signifie that he had invested himself with the absolute power It is well said by one of the Ancients Omnis potestas est à Deo sed acquisitio potestatis furto raepina incendio aut perduellione non est à Deo sed ab hominum affectibus Satanae malitiâ III. Or may we suffer our selves to be abused by the examples and presidents which the said Sectaries alledg of the Kings Edward the second and Richard the second who by reason of their incapacity were forced to resigne their Crowns the one to his son the other to his Competitor King Henry the fourth but neither of them to an inconsiderable small remainder of an house of Commons or the People Onely in a full Parliament both their resignations were confirmed and neither executed but were alway afterwards honorably entertained yea one Roger Mortimer which is worth the observing the chief Author and actor in deposing of Edward the second and Crowning his son Edward the third in his fathers place according to which President his Majesty Charls the second ought by these to have been Crowned was by a Parliament four years after together with his fellow-murtherers condemned as a Traytor and enemy to the King and Kingdome because he killed the said deposed King in Berkley Castle Besides the now prevailing Party by Solemn Protestations did publish and declare to all the world that they did not intend to follow those accursed Presidents although they should suffer never so much by the King and his Party Exact Collect. p. 69. IV. Should we not rather deeply apprehend and with fear look upon those exemplary punishments inflicted upon perjury and Covenant-breaking in Gods holy word as may be seen to omit others in the person of Saul who together with his posterity as also the whole Kingdome of Israel was so severely punished because he destroyed the Gibeonits against the Covenant made with Joshua above 200 years before notwithstanding they procured the same deceitfully As likewise in the History of England and other Kingdoms many pregnant examples to that purpose might be alleadged particularly that of William Thorpe Chief Justice of the Kings Bench in that Realm who for taking a bribe of 80 pounds Sterling was put to death and all his goods confiscated to the Kings use in regard that in so doing he violated the Oath of a Judge as the words run Quod Sacramentum Domini Regis quod erga populum habuit custodiendum fregit malitiose falso rebelliter Parl. 23. Edw. 3d. An Answer to their Memorials .. THe Memorials I pass over as monstrous and which by inevitable consequence not onely tend to cut off all Treaties and alliances betwixt the Kings Majesty and this State and all commerce with his loyal and faithfull Subjects but likewise in some cases to the not suffering of them to dwel or reside in these parts A demand which is against the band of common society amongst men the Soveraignty of the united Provinces and Liberty of the same which have ever been a Sanctuary for honest men and a receptacle of all Nations whatsoever In a word such quale victor victo dare non socius socium rogare solet The cruelty of Tiberius Nero Domitian and others hath for the most part been confined within the walls of Rome or the borders of Italy without persecuting their opposers in a strange land as an omnibus umbra locis adero Concerning the thirty six Articles of the Treaty The thirty six Articles evidently bend I. TO hinder his Majesties Just Right and Restitution to his hereditary Crown and Kingdom of England II. To involve the High and Mighty States Generall in a Labyrinth and great inconveniencies who at present have no enemy III. To encourage and strengthen the Kings irreconcilable enemies and Rebels as the 4 5 6 and 31 Articles doe import IV. Against the forementioned resolutions of the High and Mighty States in the year 1642 concerning the keeping a Neutrality betwixt his Majesties Father of blessed memory and his Parliament of England namely those of the 1 of November and 30 of December 1642 and the 6 of November 1648. V. Against a Declaration and Protestation of the Noble and Mighty States of Holland and West-Friesland dated the 6 of November 1649 to the same purpose VI. Against all former Treaties and Alliances betwixt his Majesties Royall Predecessors and this State As amongst others that of the 14 of February 1593 likewise consisting of 36 Articles betwixt King Henry the 7 of England his Heirs and Successors made in his name and by his Authority as the words of the said Treaty do bear and Philip Arch Duke of Austria and Duke of Burgundy which binde and obliege to this very day divers of the United Provinces and the chief Members and Towns thereof to assist the said King Henry the 7 and his Heirs which unquestionably pleadeth for my Master Charls the second he being the sixth from him in descent in linea recta and to afford them all favour and
in this acknowledging possession a sufficient ground for us to send as for themselves to receive our Ambassadors The acknowledgements given us likewise by the Ambassadors and Agents of Spain Portugal Venice Florence and Genoa do declare the same How then comes it to passe that the name of a King of Great Britain hath been so rife among the Provinces when they know the young Scot is so farre from having a Foot in the Noblest part of Britain England that he is in a manner outed too in Scotland What face too but that a Scot can face any thing had this Scot to deny our Embassadours the name of English Embassadours and dubbe himself with a Title including a Right to England where his Master is never like to take the Air again if he have his due unlesse it be upon a Scaffold But well may hee own the Title when some of the Dutch have been so forward to give it yea and under that name doe more then give him Audience in their great Assembly Though they have many Bodies of Supremacy in the Netherlands yet we can acknowledge but one Supream in England which is the Parliament who being seated with full Power in the Peoples Right can admit of no Competitor nor permit any other Nation to impose one upon them or dispute their Title but have reason to expect the same acknowledgements that ever have been given to all Supream Powers in possession according to the Custom of Nations which if any Nation shall deny or take occasion to prevaricate in this point they may in time understand that England established in this new Form stands fully possest not only by Right of Warre but also according to the Right of Nature and the ancient Laws and Customes of the Nation being eminently adorned with all the Rights and Priviledges of the People And that she may now have as great abilities as ever to assert her own Independency upon other Powers and make her self as considerable either in enmity or friendship as the proudest of her enemies CHAP. III. That Contracts and Alliances made betwixt States and Princes doe not relate singly and personally to themselves but are made Jure Populi in the behalf and for the benefit of the People VVHere as it hath been alledged by the Resident of the King of Scots that the ancient and successive Contracts and Friendships betwixt England and the Vnited Provinces were made between them and the successive Kings of England and not with England otherwise considered wherby he seems to affirm that the validity of such Contracts depends upon and expires with the persons of the Kings of England or with the Kingly Government excluding the interest of the People from being Principal in them therfore it cannot be inexpedient in that point to manifest the ignorance of this Scot with the absurdity of his Pretence which so highly reflects upon the Majesty and main Concernments of the People For without question it is to be understood that as all the acts of Government ought to tend so Governours themselves by what names on titles soever they be called are erected and intended only for the behalf and benefit of the people Even Kings themselves notwithstanding all their flourishes can arrogate nothing to their Persons or Families separate from the Peoples Interest For a King is no more but a Creature of the People by them created for their good He is their servant for which they give him a Salary or Revenue adorning him with splendid Titles of Majesty and with all the Immunities Priviledges and Prerogatives of Government which are no way inherent in his own Person or Family but Ornaments bestowed upon him as the Peoples Livery in reward of his service The truth of this very evidently appears in the Coronation-solemnities of Kings which all the world over are the same in substance and here in England the custome was thus First the agreement was made between the people and him that was to be entertained as their King he was made acquainted with the work and service of the Commonwealth which was to regulate himselfe and his Charge according to such Lawes that is such Rules and Direction as were or should be appointed by the people and for the true performance of this an Oath was given him Then the peoples consent being asked and had which in old time here was wont to be demanded thrice he was immediatly taken into the service and his Livery given him viz. The Royall Robes the Sword the Ring the Scepter and the Crown This hath been the manner of admission in England most solemnly performed in receiving all the Kings and Queens from the days of Edward the Confessor and long before So that you see the relation wherein a King stands to the Commonwealth or Kingdom is the same with that of a Servant to his Master onely here is the difference betwixt Kings and privat Servants That those publick honorary Servants having great honour confer'd upon them by the service are necessitated to maintain a large retinue and hold many in pension and imployment for which purpose they are allowed an extraordinary proportion of wages for their pains and expence in the performance of their duty with a surplusage of Subsidies or Supplies many times upon emergent occasions of necessity This will further appeare if we consider that Kings hold not the possession of a Kingdom by the same right as privat men doe their patrimonies But yet it is not meant as if Kings might not have possessions as other men have for that is allowable and hath been known here in England as may be seen in the time of Henry the fourth who from the Title of Duke of Lancaster arriving to that of a King enjoyed still an inheritance in his own rights as Duke of Lancaster distinct from that of the Crown and fearing the return of Lex talionis upon himself and Family that as he had dispossessed others of the Kingdom so his heirs might in time be dispossessed again therefore out of a prudent forecast he so ordered the matter as to keep the Revenues of his Dutchie entire and setled them in such a way as might preserve them distinct from those of the Crown that in case any new Turn should happen his posterity might if they lost the Kingship know where to lay claim unto their ancient Patrimony So then we doe not deny but Kings may have possessions of their own as well as other men by inheritance or purchase but those which they hold in the right of the Kingdom or Kingship are none of their own The Patrimony of the Publick Exchequer is one thing that of the Prince another Henry the fourth held the Dutchy of Lancaster as he was Henry but the revenues of the Crown as he was the King or publick servant of the Kingdom not out of any peculiar propriety that he had in them Nor can it in reason be imagined that Kings should have any thing of Propriâ—ty in what
question when this Officer the King shall either for male-administration or treachery in his trust be put to death or banished with his whole family the Treaties Contracts and Alliances made in his name with any Forain State must needs continue in full force and power to all intents and purposes as long as the People and Community are in being whose Contracts they are To this accords that of Grotius likewise l. 2. c. 15. Si cum Rege contractum sit non statim personale erit censendum foedus i.e. If a League be made with a King it must not be presently looked upon as a personal League For as he saith in the same place after Pedius and Vlpian plerumque persona pacto inseritur non ut personable pactum fiat sedut demonstretur cum quo pactum est The person of the Prince is usually mentioned in the League not that the League should become personal but only to shew with whom it was made But it may be objected that the League with Holland extends not only to the King but to his Successors also 'T is true it doth hold as to the succession that is as long as the succession holds for Leagues must hold to the persons of Princes and their successors as all other Political Compacts between them do viz. with a tacit condition of holding their possessions If the King of Scots can with the peoples consent make good his succession in England then he may lay claim to the Treaties made betwixt England and Holland but in the mean time Hee and his Family being driven out for their Tyranny all the Right to those Contracts is to be exercised by another Succession and Form of Government that is established in the Right and by Authority of the people Nor can this Alteration of Government any whit alter the Case it being a right naturally inherent in all Nations to alter their respective Governments upon occasion into what form they please As long as the people remain the same specifical I do not mean the same individual people of England that they were when the right of Treaty was used and the Treaty with Holland made and ratified by the King in their behalf so long the effects of the Treaty or Treaties are in force to the same ends and purposes that they were at first intended Seneca saith by way of comparison Manet idem flumen aqua transmissa est the River remains the same though the water pass away and Aristotle 3. lib. Pol c. 2. traceth him in the same quaint way of allusion likening the People to a River which retains its old name and is said to be the same that it was long since though a continued succession of new waters doe flow in the Channel so the People that is now is the same in specie that it was an hundred or perhaps a thousand years since and is so called and reputed except it lose the name and estimate of a Nation by being captivated and caried away from their Countrey as the Jews were all in time from Jerusalem and the Holy Land or inslaved in their own Countrey by some Forain Power that holds them in Vassalage as the Olynthians were under Philip the Thebans under his son Alexander the Capuans under the Romans or as the old Britains were under the Saxons the Saxons under the Danes and afterwards under the Tyranny of the Norman Conquerour When their National Power and Authority is once extinct they no longer retain their former interest priviledge or dignity But none of these exceptions blessed be God can be verified upon the people of England who are seated pleno Jure in their own fortunate Island and established now in a greater measure of Honour Power and Freedom then ever we enjoyed for many hundred years before Foelices nimiùm bone si sua nôrint And therefore of necessity they must be accounted specifically the same Nation or people that they were when the Treaties were made and concluded betwixt England and the Netherlands though they be not the very same Individuall People and Government No matter saith Grotius l. 2. c. 9. how the Nation be governed whether by a King or by many or by the multitude For the people of Rome remained the same still in the various changes of Government under Kings Consuls and Emperours When the former is extinct a new form ever succeeds with power to govern act and transact in and for the behalfe of the people who being still the same not tied to Forms nor altered by Time over-look all Circumstances and lay hold upon the Substantials of their Interest and Government as they stand qualified and related both at home and abroad And truly it is very pleasant to observe in this particular how even Princes themselves acknowledge as much in their Practises towards each other in the changes of Government For the Duke of Burgoin having concluded amity with England in the person of Henry the 6. no sooner was Henry dispossessed and Edward the 4. invested but he immediatly renues the same League with England in the person of Edward Afterwards Edward hapning to be driven out it was so brought about by Burgoin that the Truce formerly concluded betwixt him and King Edward should in all things bee ratified and confirmed the King's name onely changed to Henry At length Edward made shift to recover all again and then Henry was once more dethroned which was no sooner done but Burgoin sent again a solemn Embassage to renue the Treaty and establish a firm League with England in the person of Edward It is to be observed likewise that during all these Changes Ambassadors went to and fro and all Forain Contracts and Alliances were kept entire without the least question on either side which may serve to inform us of these two particulars That in National quarrels about Title to Government Princes use not to dispute who is in the right or wrong but apply themselves without farther scruple to the parties in possession And secondly that however the Governours of a Countrey may be changed yet all the points of Alliance and Contract being centred in the right and benefit of the people continue unchangeable and entire under every alteration It were endless to reckon up all the examples that might be derived from the practises of States and Princes to confirm this particular we might shew you how the matter of Government being in dispute betwixt Queen Mary and her son James or rather his Guardians though Mary were dethroned and her Sons Guardians got the better yet the amity betwixt us and Scotland continued firm notwithstanding the deposition of the person of Mary But because the Scottish Resident seems to grant that Leagues may hold entire in State-Ruptures though a particular Prince be laid aside but not so if the frame of Government be altered therefore he may be pleased to consider that in the various revolutions of the Florentin Government when the whole frame was changed
yet most of their old Alliances and Contracts were renued still and retained in full force and vigour as well with the States and Princes of Italy as those of other Nations And as for the Hollanders though of late they boggled with us in the main yet they would gladly have renued so much of the old Treaties with the people of England as might have served their own turns not have ingaged them too far the reason why they kept off seems not to have been from any strength of Argument used by this Statizing Pretender but they had a stronger Argument of their own whose Premises and Conclusion lay a long time in Scotland from whence every Post they expected a resolution I shall close all with the testimony of that Learned Spanish Doctor Don Augustin de Hierro Atturney General of the Councel Royal in Spain c. produced by him in his late Charge against the Murtherers of Master Ashcam where insisting upon the point of Friendship betwixt England and Spain he proceeds thus That England saith he should be our Friend in statu quo nunc and that Peace should bee continued with her proceeds from right For Peace is not only made with the King but with the Kingdom also and though the first expires the last remains For put case that Peace be concluded with a Country without including the King either bâ— carelesness or some other accident yet the Peace stands good For so the Polish Magistrates answered the Emperour Ferdinand the second Faltando el Ray se conservan con el Reyno i. e. the King failing yet Peace is to be conserved with the kingdom So Bodin holds and urgeth a pregnant example to this purpose lib. de repub cap. 4. fol. 63. where he alledgeth the Answer which the Ambassadors of France made to Edw. the 4. King of England desiring aid from France against some rising subjects of his that had driven him out of possession and this desire he pressed by vertue of the League between them Which Answer was that the King of France could not help him in regard the confederations betwixt France and England were made betwixt the Kings and Kingdoms so that though King Edward was dispossessed therof yet the league amity remained stil with the kingd with the King Regnant Just so the Peace 'twixt the Kings and Kingdoms of Spain and England though Charles Stuart the King be wanting yet it may be kept intire with the Kingdom And his Majesty himself insinuates so much unto us continuing still his Ambassador in England For when a Peace is established 'twixt Kings and Kingdomes People Persons and Vassals though the King fail and the Kingdom receive a differing Form of Government yet the Peace holds good still because it aimed principally at the people and persons of both Nations and upon these terms the Peace was renued 'twixt Spain and England in the year 1630. as the French Mercury relates it The Result of all then out of the foregoing reasons testimonies and examples will be undeniably this that Contracts made betwixt States and Princes doe not relate singly and personally to themselves but are made Jure Populi in the behalf and for the good of the Community Though Governors and their Families may fail yet their Treaties are as eternal as the peoples interest which is their moving cause and their ultimate end And therefore as to our particular it must undeniably follow that those former Treaties made betwixt our Kings and the Vnited Provinces belong to us now of right if we please to claim or renue them having been ratified at first in respect only to the people of England No King can lay any claim of this nature but as he is an Officer of the people For that relation being once extinct there remains no Foundation for any future pretences CHAP. IV. THE two former Chapters being as the two Hinges whereupon hangs the main of the Controversie and having therein vindicated the principal points of the peoples interest in England our design in the next place is briefly to refute all the petty falshoods and insinuations which lie scattered here and there in the pretended Answer of our Scottish Pretender That which occurs in the first place is this where hee tells the States of the Vnited Provinces that the Predecessors of the present Governours in England were very inconsiderable in those days when the Treaties were made and that they had neither part nor participation in any of the favours and friendship afforded to the Netherlands This he saith by all circumstances may strongly be presumed A very strong presumption indeed it must needs be till he can name those Circumstances The Parliaments of England which were the Predecessours of our present Governours were not so considerable indeed as now they are and will be we shall easily grant because their glory and freedom was eclypsed by those unbounded Prerogatives which Kings and their House of Peers did usurp unto themselves over the Commons who naturally really and properly were to be esteemed the Parliament because they only sate and represented the people in their rights whereas the Lords sate only in their own rights or rather by vertue of that pretended right which Kings forgetting whose servants they are and for what end they were made had arrogated unto themselves in and over the people This was the reason why the Commons of England became more inconsiderable then by right they ought to have been Yet take them in their most inconsiderable state or in the lowest ebb of their Fortunes and we never see them so low but we find them admitted as partners in enacting of Laws and reputed as principal in granting Subsidies and other Supplies for the necessities and support of the Crown insomuch that no Aid-monies could be required of the people but by the Commons consent In Queen Elizabeth's time they were brought low enough as appears by her strange proceeding against Wentworth that was one of their Members which perhaps had not been so tamely taken from a Prince that had less influence upon their affections yet as low as they were the ancient Treaties betwixt Elizabeth and those Provinces were not made and renued nor were the favours and supplies both of men and money afforded unto that State but in the behalf of the Community out of the Purses of the Commons in whose name and right they were granted so that we leave the world to judge how nearly those Treaties did concern the the Commons and whether they being the undeniable Predecessors of the present Governours in England did not both partake and participate yea and were the Principall Party concerned in those tokens of favour and friendship which were then sont unto the Low-Country Provinces But to fright them from our friendship he tells them a strange Tale How big we are grown with monstrous mysteries of enlarging our Trade and Power 'T is more then probable that England in this new form will improve
English have don Among the Barbarians and Savages it is confest indeed that their Kings wil be bound to no Laws though oft-times they fare accordingly For how many have there been even in our times of Turkish other Heathen Emperours Kings made away But among Christians no King or Prince was ever heard of but he must swear to maintain the Laws If any Prince prove perjured and break them so soon as the breach is made the people are freed from their obedience The supply both of men and money which the Queen sent for our reliefe came from the people themselves and out of the peoples purse the people did consent unto it and grant it Vntrue therefore it is which the Answerer affirmes that the said succour and assistance was sent without the co-operation or consent of the people of England If the people of England had any Monarch at this instant to whom they had given up the power of Treating then our addresses of Treaty should be made to him but there being no such thing and we not able to subsist without the friendship of England therefore we must treat with England as it is now governed And truly the late Summers proceedings and attempt in this Countrey when our own Freedom ran greatest hazard may well awake us to circumspection and cause us to rejoyce that England is no Monarchy now but a Free State of the same constitution with ours and to wish that thus it may continue For all the dependants and kindred of the young Prince of Orange maintain still we ought must are bound both by the merits of the House of Nassau and for our own subsistence sake to take the young Prince again for our Head Generall and Governor And were the King of Scotland master of England he would maintain it as strongly as any and seek to force the child upon us As for the favours and assistances that King James and Charles afforded us they doe not merit naming we had more hurt then good by them And King Charles never kept touch with us as is well known If in those times the people or Parliament had been in Government as now they are they would have better managed the Revenews of England which Kings waste or play away to procure our effectuall liberty such as now both England and we enjoy but not after the method that Leicester intended The Answerer saith that the prevailing party make not up the hundreth part of the people of England Why truly then the Ninety-nine Royalists that suffer one Parliamenteer to domineer it over them must be very notable Cowards I am sure there were seven or eight Royalists at the hague made a shift to dispatch one Dorislaus and at Madrid onely five or six did murther Ascham but an hundred to be overcome and kept under by one how is it possible This Tale hath for these many years been pin'd to our sleeves yet still the Parliamenteers get the better and keep the better Englands greatest Power the flower of the Parliaments Forces is now in Scotland I marvell the ninety-nine to one are so tame and quiet still in England as nowhere to shew themselves The comparison of England with a ship doth hold as good a proportion as the ninety-nine to one The English people and Nation is and abides the same it was the individuals decay the species remains A Ship and a People fit as well as a Cat and a Duck but I conceive the Answerer means the Trees whereof the ship is built for they do propagate and multiply according to their kind like men and that is more sutable to the opinion of some soothing Court-Parasites such as our Answerer proves himselfe that subjects are no otherwise then trees others compare them to beasts as if a Prince were so much better then the subjects as another man is better then a beast that is to say The beasts are beasts to men but the subjects are their Princes beasts A beastly opinion The entercourses of Commerce saith the Answerer are common to all Nations Why then the King of Scotland doth very ill in stopping and molesting the free and common commerce of all Nations from the Sillies Iersie Ireland Dunkerk c. to so great prejudice of the Seamen that the dammage in this kinde can no longer be endured The English have the same aim with us for clearing of the sea I cannot tell what he means by his Gargazens Trade Navigation is the life of this State Religion and Trade doe not destroy one another as it seems he would inferre and how doth he talk of Religion He himselfe is professedly against the Episcopall way which all the Royalists and the Princesse Royall and the Queen of Bohemia are still addicted to and holds with the Presbyterians with whom our own people for matter of Excommunication and Discipline do not agree He saith farther Violent Governments are not lasting By that rule no Monarchicall Government should be lasting for their Sword onely doth support them He saith England is subject to great alterations yea more than any Countrey under the Sun He means under Kingly Government But by and by he sowes jealousies by saying that England continuing a Commonwealth it is like to increase mightily in Trade and Navigation and that the increase of Trade in England will make ours to decay in Holland These assertions do mightily thwart one another First he says There is 100 Royalists to one Parliamentier then England is extreamly subjects to changes and alterations within the space of 11 or 20 days it hath been lost and won and then presently after he saith England continuing a Republique will make our Trade decay Ergò his minde and fear prompts him that the English Republique may well endure somewhat more then 11 or 20 days These Passages of his contradicting each other are an Argument of a short memory or that he goes about to abuse us with flim flam tales For how doth it appear that our Trade shall be spoiled by the English They send and offer us reall assistance and protection against the manifold depredations we suffer by others If both these Republicks were well united yet the number of Monarchies round about them will finde work enough for both to maintain their Negotiations jointly How much less then is England alone like to get all the Trade to themselves The English may be strugling a good while yet before a secure setling they will not want enemies at home and abroad to make attempts upon them as the Answerer himself confesseth The Prognostick of October 16 which he speaks of is an insinuation of the same nature with those Victories successes and advantages which he daily forged and printed here last Summer which by the Blow at Dunbar evaporated all immediately Those that tell us of Almanacks and Prognosticks shew they have but few and slender Reasons left them to produce I could reply to him out of Spinrock's Gospell Religion saith he was wont to
way and those that are un-armed resolve another then there can be no Government at all but all will be left at random to a continued succession of discontents contests and confusions which must needs end in the ruine of the unarmed party Wherefore it is a Rule with them That the ancient Majesty of a Kingdom or Commonweal continues no longer if it be changed either by a greater Power or by consent of the People where you see Force and Power are put in equall ballance with popular consent in relation to Government And as if it were the best pedigree of Supremacy they define the Supream Authority to be that which holds claim from God and the Sword and therefore is as it were the Authour of its own Original without dependance on any other so that say that every Commonwealth be it never so small which acknowledges no Superiour but God and the Sword hath a right of Majesty or Political Supremacy So saith Besoldus de Juribus Majest cap. 1. Arnisaeus de Majest cap. 1. and Cammonus de Majest Disput 1. Thes 70.75 c. with many others Seeing therefore that an uncontrolable Power of the sword in plenary possession of any Nation instates him or them whos Sword it is w th all the rights of Majesty much more then may they be claimed by the Parliament of England to whom God hath given a commanding Sword which they lawfully hold in the behalf and by consent of the people And therefore questionless no State or Prince where he seeth such an established Power can in reason question those rights or pretend ground not to own the Power as in all other rights so more especially in the right of Ambassy which is one of the fairest Flowers in the Garland of Majesty For as it hath been observed by the Oracle of our Laws 4. Instit c. 26. they and none but they who enjoy the rights of Majesty or Supremacy have a right of Ambassy It must be from a Soveraign to a Soveraign Power and Authority Thus far now our Assertion stands unquestionable therefore for illustration it must needs be much more clear if we consider that the benefit of Ambassy hath been often allowed even to such as were not solely Supream nor in the plenary possession of any Nation Thus in a Nation divided by Civil War where the Supream Power is in Controversie both the Parties are allowed an equal right of Ambassy by Hugo Grotius l. 2. c. 18. Thus in a popular division at Syracusa the one Party within the City sent an Ambassage to the other Party without under the command of Andronodorus The like was done by Caius Manlius one of Catiline's Fellows to Q. Martins and by Brutus and Cassius to Lepidus and Antony Livius l. 14. Salust Catil who give them that were sent the name of Legats which were the same that we now call Agents and Ambassadors Also according to this Rule during the late Contest here betwixt King and Parliament it was that the Hollander made no scruple to entertain Agents equally from both the Parties Nor hath this Priviledge been allowed those only who in National sidings have had some tolerable pretence to a formal Authority but hath been indulged also to meer Out-Laws such as the Montaneers in the Alps the Assassins of old the Pickeroons in France the Banditi in Italy the Tories in Ireland and the Mosse-Troopers in the Marches between England and Scotland Q. Curtius lib. 7. tels us of twenty thousand such Fellows that were got into a Body to make Head against Alexander the Great and it came to a Fight in which Alexander himself being wounded in the Forlorn it came to a Parley Itaque postero die miserunt Legatos ad Regem Whereupon the next day they sent Ambassadors to the King who received them with all Ceremony and caused them to sit in his presence This were the more to be admired but that we find Cesar himself lib. 3. bell civ giving the like honour to those Fugitives that lurked in the Straits and Passes of the Pyrenaean Mountains and affirming it lawful Yet questionless these instances are not to bee drawn into custom but may be imitated and approved only upon the like occasional accidents and emergents of necessity How ever in regard some have openly in Print indeavoured to abridge us in England of our right and interest in this particular it is requisit we should draw the Lines of Ambassy in its utmost Extent and Latitude that our Inferences and Inductions may arise the more easie For if they who upon the occasion of a National Rupture can at the most lay claim to no more but the name of a Party have been and are admitted into a participation of this right by States and Princes and if so bee that an irregular number of Out-Laws and Renegade's formed into a formidable Body have been received likewise into the same Priviledge by the greatest Monarchs then à minori ad majus the Argument must needs hold good as to those in England who are actually and justly invested with the Supream Power and setled in the Noblest form If scattered Recollections of Fugitives Male-Contents and frighted Remnants have assumed this honour to themselves much more may this Noble Nation of England who though she grew old crooked and deformed under the pressures and oppressions of successive Tyrants yet having shaken them off baffled them beyond recovery and setled her self in the condition of a Soveraign Free State seems now to renue her Age again like the Eagle under the sweet Influences of Liberty She is now her self in full possession of her own therefore let the world know in this case she understands that Possession is more then eleven points of the Law For why was it that the late King of England as one observes having sworn a League with the King of Spain expresly also as he was King of Portugal did notwithstanding receive divers Ambassadors from the new King of Portugal yet was not judged either in England or Spain to have broken his former Oath and League Why was it I say but only to shew that Contracts and Oaths made betwixt Political persons are made in a Political sense viz. with a tacit condition of holding their Possessions These being gon their Publick Relations and Concernments immediatly expire How came it to passe that the Spaniard being driven out of the Vnited Provinces and they by him declared Rebels that yet they assuming to themselves a right of Ambassy had their Ambassadors so readily received by Henry of France and Elizabeth of England but that both those Princes well understood the lawfulness of the action and that they had Jure Gentium a right so to send the Spaniard being dispossessed there It was the same reason too that moved the Hollander to entertain Agents and Ambassadors from this State before the death of the Tyrant for that part which we then possessed and since his death for the whole now in possession
Christ and the tenor fo his Gospel which teacheth us to gather Believers into Congregations by the power of the Word and not force men promiscuously into a pretended Church-relation by the power of the sword or commands and constitutions of any worldly Power This together with a prudent Toleration of different opinions is the present state of Religion in England so that whosoever takes a view of the practises of both Nations will easily grant a conformity of profession betwixt us and our neighbours of the Vnited Provinces He alledges farther It would be more safe and profitable for the States that England should continue a Monarchy than become a Republick for that the increase of England in a free State would be the decrease of the other See here O ye people of England what a Confession here is out of the mouth of the Common Enemy of the possibility of that increase both in wealth and honour which our Nation may expect in the settled Form of a Free State or Commonwealth And if so then by consequence it follows that all this stir for a Royal Family and Monarchy is not out of any respect to the increase of the publick weal but only to satisfie the ambition of a single Tyrant and his Followers And rather than not be so satisfied he here by the mouth of his Orator Mac-Donnel offers up the future interest and glory of England as a prey unto the Dutch in hope to allure them unto his party for the restoring of him into a Tyranny so that you see clearly it is a thirst of Dominion and Revenge not the people's benefit that transports him in all his undertakings It is here acknowledged by himself that his own restitution will be a means to keep England from growing richer and greater the fear whereof he useth as an argument to provoke the jealousie and emulation of Holland The inference therefore is natural and easie out of his own mouth that the interest of himself and family is inconsistent with the increase and interest of the English Nation In the next place he indeavors to darken the glory of God in our many wondrous successes saying they are no good argument to justifie a cause because the Turk hath had as great successes as any But what ever this Babler saith we cannot be so ignorant of the good hand of God upon us as to let those glorious works of Providence whereby he hath pleaded the Cause of this Parliament and Commonwealth pass under the common title of Fortune de la guerre The Lord having caried on this marvellous work for time and place with a concurrence of such remarkable circumstances that the very enemies have at length acknowledged it to be digitus Dei as did D. Hamilton before his death and others who saw the stretched out arm of God in the late defeat at Worcester We justifie not our cause by successes but only behold them as the effects of Gods mercy and goodness owning us in a just ingagement against the enemies of himself and people The Turks design was to propagate Tyranny in Christendom ours to pul it down His only to increase his own Dominion ours to exalt the Dominion of Jesus Christ What he did was by main strength multitudes and help of human policy What we have done hath been by a despised remnant inconsiderable both for knowledg number against all the wise and mighty men of this generation who to their power wisdom have had so many great advantages from time to time that the decision of every success in our behalf hath been so manifestly written with the finger of God that all must confess it could be no other hand but his that did it witness the great advantage the Enemy had of us at Naisby the miraculous sally at Dublin with the many glorious defeats that followed in Ireland the great deliverances wrought in 1648 when by a small army divided into two handfuls we with one part quieted South-Wales and vanquisht Hamiltons galiant army and with the other part suppressed the many numerous Insurrections in Kent Essex c. Witness also that glorious deliverance beyond all reason given last year at Dunbar when by a poor handful of sick men wearied out with watchings hunger and incessant marches in tedious weather at length impounded within a narrow neck of Land surrounded by the sea they did notwithstanding in the strength of God defeat the numerous Scottish Army it being accommodated with all necessaries and advantages and one of the best accomplisht armies that ever appeared in Scotland Add to-these omitting many other the late memorable defeat at Worcester attended with a series of many other wondrous successes and it is so much the more observable in regard of that miraculous power of God upon the heasts of the people fastning them to the Government in a most notable time of trial to the shameful confutation of this shameless Resident who had the impudence to affirm that not the hundreth part or as he saith a little after not the thousandth part of the people but do cordially adhere to the Royal Interest and passionatly groan to be delivered from the prevailing party in England as he is pleased to call the Parliament whereas all the time of the Scot's King being among us which was about 28 days courting and wooding the people with all manner of insinuations intreaties and pretences he was not owned by any considerable number of his old friends or his new-reconciled Enemies of the Presbyterian party From all which particulars what ever other men may deem we cannot but see the hand of God reached out unto us for the upholding of this Government in a peculiar manner contrary to all the expectations and reasonings os worldly wisdom Since the drying up of the red sea with the wonders that were wrought in Aegypt and in the Wilderness never have there been more glorious appearances of Gods presence than among his people in England And therefore none but a profane heart will presume so much to detract from the glory of these dispensations as to rank them among the ordinary passages of a permissive or Turkish Providence The last that we shall take notice of is one of the principall arguments that he useth to hold the Dutch to his young Master's party hinting unto them by way of insinuation that no Nation is so subject to change as England that the Earl of Warwick in 11 days Edw. 4. in 20 and Hen. 7. in 1 day successively subdued the English Nation T is true England hath received many a sudden change but never such a change as now Heretofore the poor people toiled themselvs in shifting one Tyrant out of the saddle to set up another but now they have driven out not only the Tyrant but Tyranny it self and cashiered not only a single King but all Kings for ever It is an easie matter for particulars to supplant one another in Government because the interest stands deposited in a single hand but when the whole frame of Government is altered from what it was and the interest of State lies diffused in the hands of the people it is almost impossible to alter it again without such a tract of time as may produce new dispositions and opportunities for the effecting a new alteration Besides it is very rarely observed in the whole course of History that ever Kingly Government was suddenly restored in any Country after it had been once cashiered by the people As for Robert Bruce his recovery of all Scotland 300 years ago out of the hands of the English you know it could not be effected as long as Edw. 1. lived but advantages being taken the infirmities debaucheries and civil broils of Edw. 2. the Scots made a shift to shake off the yoak wherein they were more beholding to that Prince's vanity than the valour and vertue of their own Nation And whereas he calls Sterlin the unconquered and fatall Bulwark of Scotland and tells us that there they stopt the current of the Roman Victories yet their own Historian Buchanan confesseth that both Edw. 1. and 2. were possest of Sterlin by force of arms and both their and our Historians will be able to relate in time to come how that the Commonwealth of England hath done more than Rome and made another Conquest not only of Sterlin but far beyond it which I dare be bold to second with this Omen That as Scotland's happiness will be promoted by a subjection to England so now it is the design of God for the better carrying on of his great work and the good of that people to bring them into an universal submission to the Laws and Government of the English Nation Nec sit Terris Vltima Thule FINIS