will slander himself and belie the Devil For observe he saith they use Fanatical Logick and Antichristian Logick The true Fanaticks being impatient of the restraints of Reason and to be confined to sober sense call Logick and Reasoning by that which they would seem most to hate Antichristian The true Antichristians and Papists being impatient of the light reproof and discovery of Reason call sound Reason Fanaticism But our Writer is so vengeancely angry with reasoning that with the same breath he calls Logick for the sake of reason Antichristian and Fanatical too and renders himself suspected of being an Antichristian Fanatick And yet any one may see that it is not the thing it self that he is thus angry with but the name of Logick that he thus exposeth for what it is he knows not he seems to think it comes by Inspiration and that there are two sorts of Logick one good but he is not acquainted for all that appears to us with the Spirit from whence that is derived and another bad which he says is inspired by the Spirit of Belial whereas most certainly there is no such Devil amongst all the Orders of the Apostate Angels Sons of Belial I have heard of indeed that did evil without profit without design for evils sake but these are such men as need no Tempter for they will be wicked without a Tempter according to the fatal propensions of their vitious Natures and are not to be managed by the Devil himself And to this sort of men doth our Pamphleteer seem somewhat to approach for that he is an unaccountable Transgressor No reason can be given of him why he should with so much seeming earnestness concern himself to perswade the People to abandon to an utter neglect those things that of all others are of most value to them their Religion Government Lives Liberties and Estates To perswade a whole Nation to lay violent hands upon themselves to cut their own Throats to burn themselves alive and their Houses and to destroy themselves their Wives and Children Bodies and Souls too for Conscience-sake That there can be a Subject not subject to Laws and that offences that cannot be rated because their mischiefs are infinite for that very reason must not be punished and he would have us reckon it a sin of the most heinous nature to punish the Offender with a diminution only in his power to do those evils which are most notoriously by him designed and will be effected by means of his own making and causing if he himself should relent and refuse to execute them If in this Age of License immodesty could entitle any man to be a son of Belial our Writer of Considerations might fairly pretend to it who is immodest for impudence sake which spends it self in waste and cannot effect any thing but the exposing it self In saying this I should think my self very severe but that he hath published his own shame and if I would it is not in my power to cover it But he hath not shewed the worst of himself yet he attempts further upon the Understanding of the People he will have us believe that we owe Allegiance to the Presumptive Heir that we have as many Kings as Princes of the Bloud and that a Son hath a right to his Fathers Estate before he is dead For the probable Successor can have no more right to the effect of the Oath of Allegiance than the eldest Son to receive the Profits of his Fathers Estate without his leave in his Fathers Life-time If this Gentleman's Father had had any Land he would have understood the difference between his right to the Land after his Father's Death and his hopes and possibility onely to have it during his Father's Life The word Heir is joyned with Successor in the Oath of Allegiance to signifie that it means Heirs in the proper sence which is such that succeed to the Inheritance and not such as are in expectancy or possibility of having the Inheritance who are improperly and equivocally so called And tho' the thing is so plain that every man as well as the Lawyers agree what is said yet my Lord Cook for saying the same is called by this Gentleman Silly and Ridiculous Fallacious and Impertinent The Lawyers tell me that it is a Rule in the Law Non est hoeres viventis that is No man can have an Heir while he lives and they likeways say of all the Reguloe Juris There is not one of greater extent and rule than this that it hath governed Ten thousand Cases near upon in the Common Law and they withal assure me that notwithstanding this man amongst other civil terms calls the Lord Cook Fallacious they firmly believe if a Fee had been offered to him of the value of his Estate which is about 200000 l. he would not have signed an Opinion with a Videtur to the contrary but he is resolved that all Mankind shall be mistaken and he will call their reasonings in this matter what he pleaseth New Machiavillian Logick a word that dishonestly he took up on purpose to expose the Bill to the Vulgar imagining in his profound Consideration that some of the Multitude will upon the hearing of Machiavillian fall thereupon into an unwitting dislike of the Bill Nay he will conclude an Heir Apparent to be an Heir because he could not be Heir Apparent unless he were an Heir when the word Apparent and the word Presumptive more especially joyned to Heir is a term of Abatement or Negative and distinguisheth him from being a real Heir and speaks him no Heir but onely one in a near possibility of being so But says he it is a manifest contradiction for one to be Heir Apparent and not to be Heir as it is to be a Learned man and no man Prius est esse quam esse tale I wish we had his Name that we may mark the most absurd reasonings by it for the everlasting Honour of this Pretender to Reasoning and Discourse We all know that the word Heir is a Name to design a Person under such a relation and respect and imports nothing of entity and we may use our own abstract Terms properly or improperly and without any correspondent reality to an equivocal sense But he adds Profaneness to his Levity and as if the Holy Scriptures were writ to so trifling a design as to be an Oracular Dictionary and Infallible Nomenclature he tells us how the word Heir is used in Scripture when the holy Writers formed their Language by the vulgar Idiomes amongst the People of the Jews and never intended to write Law-Cases much less to declare the Common Law of England or imagined that their stile should be produced to expound our Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy But now thou vain Considerer wilt thou hence conclude that the Duke of York is Heir and Successor That we now owe him Faith and Allegiance That he is already in the Throne and that this Bill though it
by Parliament ought not to direct the Right of the Crown of England Or that our said Severaign Lady the Queens Majesty that now is with and by the Authority of the Parliament of England is not able to make Laws and Statutes of sufficient Force and Validity to limit and bind the Crown of this Realm and the Discent Limitation Inheritance and Government thereof Or that this present Statute or any part thereof or any other Statute to be made by the Authority of the Parliament of England with the Royal Assent of our said Soveraign Lady the Queen for limiting of the Crown or any Statute for Recognizing the Right of the said Crown and Realm to be Iustly and Lawfully in the most Royal Person of our said Soveraign Lady the Queen is not are not or shall not or ought not to be for ever of good and sufficient Force and Validity to Binde Limit Restrain and Govern all Persons their Rights and Titles that in any wise may or might claim any Interest or Possibility in or to the Crown of England in Possession Remainder Inheritance Succession or otherwise howsoever And all other Persons whatsoever every such person so holding affirming or maintaining during the life of the Queens â—…elly shall be adjudged a High Traitor and sufâ—…r and forfeit as in Cases of High Treason is acâ—ustomed and every Person so holding affirming or maintaining after the Decease of our said Soveraign â—ady shall forfeit all his Goods and Chattels AN ANSWER TO A BOOK Published 1679. Intituled A LETTER FROM A GENTLEMAN of Quality In the COUNTRY to his Friend c. Relating to the Point of SUCCESSION to the CROWN c. BY several accidents the former sheets have stopt in the Press from a few days afteâ— the Great and Weighty Consideration were published and being now ready to comâ— forth we have a Gentleman of Quality as hâ— calls himself undertaking from Scripture Law History and Reason to shew how improbable 〈◊〉 not impossible it is to bar the next Heir in thâ— right Line from the Succession in a Letter to his â—onoured Friend A. B. And now after so long a time of consideration one should think the many men of great Parts â—nd Learning that are dependents on the Duke â—pirited with zeal and ambition should have offered all that they have to say against the Bill â—or excluding his Royal Highness And this â—eing as may be reasonably concluded the last endeavours of the most learned and best parted men of that Interest This Letter for that reason onely but not for any thing of moment that â—t offers deserves to be considered We will not follow him from Paragraph to Paragraph since the greatest part of it is vain and empty pedantick bombast and putid affectation I shall onely draw you up short Summaries of his several Reasons and give them all the advantages they can challenge and improve them by just and natural Inferences And that I think will be enough of confutation and a sufficient countercharm against his deceiving the People He first lays down for a Ground That the Succession to the Crown of England is inseparable annexed to Proximity and nextness of Bloud by the Laws of God and Nature And all Statute-Laws contrary to the Laws of God and Nature are ipso facto null and void That it is contrary to the Laws of God he proves by the Law of God given by Moses to the Jews in the 7th of Numbers that directs how the Succession of Lands should be amongst the Jews and whatsoever Statute-Laws are contrary to those Laws are null and void he saith The consequence of this Argument is this That the Laws given by God to the Jews are Laws to all Mankind That our common-Law and Statute-Law is against the Law of God and null and void because not agreeable to the Law of Moses That the eldest Son is not to take by Descent the whole inheritance but a double portion onely and that the Crown must be disposed of in Descents accordingly That not the first Son only and one Daughter but all the Daughters of a King if never so many must succeed together to the Crown That no Father can sell his Patrimony for that was the Jewish Law and established in that Chapter he quotes He proves it to be a Law of God further for that God saith to Cain of Abel That his desires shall be subject and thou shalt rule over him The consequence of this is that because Cain could not kill Abel notwithstaning he was to have the Primacy That Abel much more could not kill Cain his Elder Brother And further he proves that to be a Law of God because God maketh choice of the first-born to be Sanctified and Consecrated to himself And therefore it most certainly follows with this Gentlemen that he which is not the first-born must be so too I wish his Royal Highness the second born the Consecration of a Priest which the Text means notwithstanding the Text doth not allow it him so that he will not pretend to the Consecration of a King which is clearly out of the meaning of the Text. He says Consonant hereunto are the Suffrages of the Doctors of the Civil and Imperial Law The Consequence of this is first That he is not bound to be coherent to himself for he was before proving the Law of God to be That the Succession of the Crown is inseparably annxed to proximity of bloud and now he tells us of some Opinions of Fathers and Doctors that are consonant thereunto when they do not at all relate in their Opinions to what he had produced out of Moses his Law Secondly it follows that he is impertinently troublesome to his Reader by telling him of the Opinions of great names in this matter that the Eldest Son by ordinary right is to have his Fathers Estate in some Countries or that the Crown doth so ordinarily descend where the Succession is hereditary he should have spared them for another time when he shall say something that all mankind doth not agree in Thirdly That he is a man of little reading otherwise he would have been insufferably impertinent by 10000 quotations in this matter Fourthly That he is no Civilian for that in this place he calls the Soveraignity a Fee when all men agree that a Crown is of that fort of Inheritancs which they call Allodiums that are held 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This would have made a swinging Argument for his Jure Divino if he had thought of it but we will give it them gratis He tells us the Duke of York is in the same condition as the Eldest Son of the King Reigining though his Brother be King That the second Son of a King Regent when the first is dead living his Father is within the 25. of E. 3. that makes it Treason to compass the death of the King 's Eldest Son and that such Second Son is Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwal The
that purpose is as much belonging to them and incumbent upon them as upon the Protoplast The duty is so personal consisting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it cannot be transferred or permitted absolutely to any other person by the Parents nor can any man challenge a right to it or discharge the Father from it or require the same affection submission and reverence that is due from a Child to his Father To expect relative duties without Relation is most unnatural it is as impossible as incongruous We may as well love and hate rejoyce and grieve without the proper object and incitements of those passions The fundamental Rule of all morality is that of Epictetus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say by the State and Condition in which we stand the relations and respects under which we are considered our duties are determined measured and adjusted upon which see Simplicius his Excellent Discourse wherein many things are said agreeable to our purpose This moral Aphorism is as certain as any proposition in Euclid as the Doctrine of proportional Triangles and received as such by all the Masters of Moral Philosophy There is no other foundation of our duty to God or Man or towards our selves This Rule whatever it is must declare it Whatever is measured and allowed by this Rule is commonly called which is comprehensive of all that is honest just and fit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The application of this Rule is called by St. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which when a man observes he is perfectly moral A man may as well pay his debts by giving away his Money be grateful to his benefactor by being beneficent to strangers as perform that duty he owes his Father to any but he that is so It is as impossible to separate the shadow from the Substance as to make that subsist by it self which grows by resultance from the state and condition of the person or that without that state of the person from which it doth arise it should ever accrew 3ly Admitting Adam had a Soveraign Authority over all his descendents which must grow if there was any such thing from some positive institution and not from his paternity yet the natural Authority and Duty of Parents towards their Children continues entire together with Soveraign Power and is not at all abated by it and therefore cannot be the same No Soveraign Power can extort the Children from their Fathers Authority and Care This is a duty in Nature before Governments They cannot belong to the Government before they are filii praecepti and capable of the Conscience of a Law It is a duty in Parents to educate their Children and a right they have in consequence to govern them that cannot be taken from them It is the Parents duty to form their Consciences They are appointed by God the great Ministers of his Providence and Grace to the Children That they perform this Office he hath tyed them to it by the sweetest constraints and almost violences of Nature by an irresistable love and tyes of Endearment that cannot be broken This declares their Right of Authority over their Children against any interposings of Soveraign Authority to its prejudice let or hinderance Thomas Aquinas positively determines that it is not lawful for Christian Kings to baptize the Children of the Jews against the will of their Parents for that saith he it is against the course of natural justice 4ly Thereis no footsteps in the Records of the old world to verifie this Hypothesis That such Authority was so much as pretended to used or exercised by Adam but we find instances against it in the short History before the Flood Cain received no sentence from Adam his Prince and Soveraign Judge but from God himself or rather from his Shecinah or some visible Representation of his presence Thence he obtained some degree of impunity and his life protected No mention here at all of Adam his taking the Tribunal or Cains arraignment or of any pardon or indulgence granted by King Adam Lamech that had killed a man by mischance did not alledge his case at his Father Adams Court and the matter of extenuation of the Man-killing we hear of no pardon of Course to be allowed when the circumstances of fact had been first judicially considered How could a thing of such importance be omitted in the story of the old World though so short It was of more concernment than to know that Tubal Cain was the first Smith and Jubal the first man that made a Musical instrument to know the original nature and reason of Government Besides we find all the grand-Children of Noah becoming Princes of Countries and the Sons and grand-Sons of Esau alike Dukes and Princes that is at least absolute Fathers of their own Families and ruling over such as were their slaves and dependants And the 12 Sons of Jacob are all called Patriarchs When Nimrod plaid the Tyrant we find nothing said for his justification upon any Patriarchal right But if we consult the Traditions of the Jews they will inform us of another original of Government and that is this They say that God gave several Precepts to Adam and his Sons and Noah and his Sons and one amongst the rest that they should erect Governments which his Sons could not have performed without Rebellion against their King-Father if Adam had been so as Sir Robert Filmer first dreamt Also besides that of making Governments there was a Precept given them of honouring their Parents Selden de jure Naturae secundum Hebraeos fol. 792. And therefore the Precept of honouring Parents is a distinct duty from that of obedience to Governments By this Precept they had Authority in general to establish Governments amongst themselves in the specification of which they were left to their own liberty and discretion and therefore were not obliged to any single form of Government It must be understood that the Precept which required the Sons of Adam and Noah to establish Governments required also every mans Submission to their Orders Laws and Decrees when established Lastly We will consider of the instances he gives of the Exercise of Soveraign Power by Fathers of Families which are as impertinent to his purpose as his Doctrine is groundless and precarious But they are these Abraham's War and Judahs Judgment upon Thamar As to the first of Abraham's making War We say we cannot allow that making War doth argue any Soveraign Authority It is sufficient that he who makes it is under none to make a vindicative War lawful For an injured Person may in the State of Nature vindicate wrongs by an Authority derived from God and Nature to a just satisfaction Because there is no competent Judicature to appeal to for right and redress But see how unhappy the Gentleman is This very instance of his production is clearly against him For if Soveraign Power had been Patriarchal Abraham had been guilty of Treason in making War without a Commission
from Melchizedech the King of Salem who as the Learned men conjecture was Shem his Patriarch and Chief and known by him for such But because Abraham the best man perhaps in any Age did not take a Commission from Melchizedech his Patrialchal chief and yet he was blessed by Melchizedech when here turned from the War We may conclude that neither Melchizedech nor Abraham knew of any such Patriarchal Soveraignty And also from this great Example it appears that it is lawful for him that is not a Soveraign if he be not under any to make War I will not enter into a discourse whence and how is derived the Authority of making War and capital Sentences for the same reason must warrant both which hath puzled some great Divines Dr. Hammond that great man was at a loss in this enquiry and thinks that nothing but a Divine Authority can warrant them which hath put them upon strange extravagant Hypotheses of Government and sent this Knights brains a Wool-gathering But this may satisfie any man of sence That whatever is necessary for the general happiness of Mankind and for preserving peace in the World and protecting the innocent and dis-inabling the mighty oppressors is more commendable to be done than the killing a man in his own defence is simply lawful As to his second instance of Judah his Sentence pronounced upon his Daughter-in-Law Thamar which the Knight would have an exercise of Patriarchal Soveraign Authority we say how could Judah do this by a Patriarchal Power when Jacob his Father was then alive and for all that appears Judah his Son was not extrafamiliated Besides which is very unlucky Thamar was then none of his Family or of the Subjects of his Domestick Empire for his Son her Husband being dead she was free from the Law of her Husband and ceased to be a Subject of his Paternal Kingdom But Mr. Selden under the Authority of some Rabbins which he cites in his excellent Book before mentioned fol. 807. saith That Judah might have the Office of a Prince or Magistrate in a district in that Country and by that Authority might judg her according to the Laws of that Country But what the Law was and the Nature and Reason of her Offence by which it became Capital is not understood as he tells us in the place before-cited I shall not trouble the Reader with unfolding the matter But why doth he trouble himself to make Kings Fathers of their Countries Some cannot be so and some have no mind to be so and yet they ought to be Kings And some that have not been Kings have been so and so styled as the great M. Tully for defeating the Catiline-Conspiracy was by decree of the Senate called Pater Patriae Those are with reason truly called Patres Patriae which either relieve their Country from miserable pressures which is the civil death of a Nation and for this reason our King hath the honour of being called Pater Patriae and we hope that he will wear that honourable Title upon a second deliverance of us from a most deplorable condition Or else such are called Patres Patriae who bring the Nation to an exalted state of happiness so much beyond their old state of things that they seem to give the Nation a new civil Life Being and Birth For his etymological argument from the notation of the Word it is too putid to be insisted upon though not more ridiculous than his Hypothesis But for that the reduction of our duty to our King to the fifth Commandment may seem to give some advantage to this Hypothesis with Fathers who know no bounds of their power over their Children It must be obsered that the Decalogue is not a compleat Rule of Morality The Decalogue comprised the Principal Laws of that Common-wealth which God their Law-giver by a most Solemn Act of his Legislation did more awfully oblige them to observe God that time was their King Rebellion was as Idolatry and the sin of Witchcraft and the Defection of one of their Cities to Idolatry was punished as a revolt and Rebellion Deut. 13. v. 15. He had provided for his Honour and Worship and their Allegiance in the first Table and did design by the fifth Commandment to lay the Foundation of all positive morality by providing for a Reciprocation of kindnesses by enjoyning the gratitude and fitting returns of Children to their Parents and by putting Children under obligations to be taught and instructed by their Parents But our duty to Governors is more duly referred to all the other Commandments because Government secures the observation of those Laws to us by which we enjoy our selves and ours freed from the Volations of Lust Appetite Fraud and Violence We do not honour our King by relief in his fortune which is commanded to be done by our Parents in the precept of honouring them our subsidies and Aids are not to that purpose but contributions to the charges of the Government they are the just price of our immunity and protection from fraud and violence for which cause pay we tribute But whatsoever he be that hath more respect for this Knights Works than I have may find him more gently treated by a very worthy Gentleman in a very candid and judicious Book called Patriarcha non Monarcha But what is the meaning of these flattering Books they cannot but be nauseous to His Majesty who is a very wise Prince and knows how sensless such Books are and besides they make the People afraid and the Nation unquiet from the apprehensions they give that the Government will be changed Notwithstanding the King hath given such solemn assurance to the Nation by his late Declaration That we shall have frequent Parliaments and that he will govern by Law They would have had a better market for the Divinity they bestow upon Princes with Alexander after he had lost his Vertue and with those vile Emperours whose Names are Regum opprobria for such the flatterers of ancient times Deifyed those who had ceas'd to be men they made Gods and when they had left nothing about them that was tolerable they magnified their power which was already most intolerable If the Kings hereafter would but read the History of Kings under that conclusion that a wise observer of Humane Events made after a long observation and experience and would make Experiments of the truth of it in their own reading Kings would be glorious and the Nations they govern happy and full of peace They would find therein so many effectual Documents to fear God and regard men and govern them righteously It is this Si Vitam spectes hominum si denique Mores Artem vim fraudem cunct a putes agere Si propius spectes fortuna est arbitra Rerùm Nescis quid dicis sed tamen esse putas At penit us si introspicias ultima primis Connectas solus rector in orbe Deus Alciat People can be no happier than Government
make their Reigns worse than War and Plague and Famine to boot The Panick fear of a change of the Government that this Doctrine occasioned and the Divisions it made among us was the principal cause of the late War It is not without reason that together with these new principles revived since the Discovery of the Popish Plot we have a perpetual din and noise of Forty one Then that fatal War began which proceeded to the destruction of the Prince and ruin of the Church and State The remembrance of it is the principal matter that stuffs our weekly Pamphlets and it is brought into common discourse and grown so trival that it is mentioned and heard without abhorrence and regret And what Service this can be to His Majesty I do not understand much better it were that the memory of it were utterly extinct and abolished for ever except onely in the Anniversary of that great Prince that so fell Then I say and then onely is it fit to be remembred when we are on our Knees to God Almighty and in his presence affecting our selves with sorrow and remorse deprecating the like Judgments and bewailing the National Sins that occasioned those For notwithstanding the Glories of that Great Prince his unhappy death and the admired Devotions of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The story of the Calamities of his people all his three Kingdoms involved in War during his Reign and the remembrance of them will be with some Men not very Loyal a stain and diminution to the Glories of the Royal Family In Princes their Calamities are reckoned amongst the abatements of their Honor and meer misfortunes are disgraces and have the same influence upon the minds of the common people as real faults and male administrations How then can this tend to the peace of the Nation or the Honor of the King what satisfaction is it to have our almost-healed wounds thus perpetually rub'd and kept green Quis sua vulnera victus commemorare velit Why should any of our Nation insult over the miseries of his own and neighbour Kingdoms when he must be the most barbarous villain and have devested himself of all humanity that is not deeply empassioned at the remembrance of them If a Thuanus or a Philip de Comines were to pass a Judgment of the condition of our late times upon the consideration of our late Tragedies and the Preludium's to it in the Reigns of King James and the late King it would be formed and pronounced in these words of Tully upon another occasion Mihi quidem si proprium verum nomen vestri mali quoeratur fatalis quoedam calamitas incidisse videtur improvidas hominum mentes occupavisse ut nemo mirari debeat humana consilia divina necessitate esse superata But this is not all Nec Dum finitur Orestes We are affrighted by the weekly Pamphlets with the expectation of another Parliamentary War and this is the true reason of the mention of the late War that we may forgo our Parliaments for fear of another So it is written in our publick Prints which are published under permission as if Parliaments are designed to be rendered hateful and to be feared as Plagues Famines or Inundations of the Sea But who is to begin who designs this War the Pamphleteers or those that set them on work best know We had never heard of any such thing if the Mercenary writers of the Popish Faction had not told us of it as they do weekly and hitherto we cannot find any Colour for this affrightful Lye they are impudent so to talk of it as if they believed it and have brought some as weak men as they are false Knaves to a belief of it But to do them no wrong those may best know what is to come to pass who have the power of contriving and designing Qui pavet vanos metus veros fatetur The vilest Traitors cannot contrive a greater prejudice to the King and his Family than by advancing such a dismal thing into credit and belief for fears though but upon imaginary and false grounds produce real effects as well as they are in themselves really afflictive and that almost equally if of continuance to the evils feared Do these men speak like true Loyalists that are mentioning perpetually the Calamitous War in the time of our Kings Father and fright us with another now ensuing after those Universal Solemn and hearty Joys of the whole Nation for his Restauration after so many Millions of Money most dutifully issued out of the affections of his people from time to time at His Majesties Royal pleasure and nothing complain'd of but that they have not opportunities of issuing ten times more to the service of His Majesties Glory Nay they speak of this ensuing War as if the Royal Standard was already displayed and the Rebels had made their Musters which must certainly affect the Royal Family with the greatest danger If there were twenty Trajans derived from one stock that had Reigned in an uninterrupted Succession Two immediate Successours that should have their Reigns successively attended with civil Wars were enough to efface their own and the glories and merits of such Ancestors But base Caitiffs you can no more truly believe the last Parliaments designed upon his Majesties Crown and Dignity to make War and change the Government than you can believe that every Mothers Child of them before they came up to the last Parliaments set his House on fire and burnt his Wife and Children But these impudent Forgeries against the House of Commons are contrived to make the people afraid of Parliaments that this new model of Government in process of time when we have an enterprising Successor may take place for the service of the Popish Religion For upon the strength of Dr. B s performance who hath with great labour found out which is hard for any man acquainted with our English History to be ignorant of that our Parliaments were not always such as now constituted This blessed change of our Government will never be atchieved The Nation will never be perswaded by any thing that he hath found out in his diligent research that the House of Commons is an overgrown Wen an unnatural Accrescency to the Government and fit to be cut off if that which is offered in the Argument to consideration be duly weighed Neither can the most insolent Paradox of Sir Robert Filmers Patriarcha contribute much to this purpose But for that I have in my Argument too forwardly despised it considering that many have conceived a favourable opinion of it that it may be able to deceive but a very few for the time to come for the sake of such Gentlemen who have not chosen their side are glad of the least Colour or dream of a Shadow a single opinion of any body it matters not whom to relieve their modesty in their notorious defections from Truth Justice and the Government I shall here consider his
Hypothesis especially for that it was Re-printed and is magnified by the Factors for the Popish Plot. And first I will draw it out shortly in all its strength and make it more argumentative than he hath left it for he hath left his willing Readers to find out the Argument and to make the Conclusion Adam saith he was the Father of Mankind that to him as Father belonged an Absolute dominion over all his descendents that all Men being so born are born under subjection to such an Authority This Authority so reserved upon us by God and the condition of our birth and the manner of coming into the World is to be submitted to in the person of the present King who by becoming King is for that reason vested with this Absolute Authority This power and the duty of our subjection to it results from our being Born and coming into the World after the manner of men This power of Kings is grounded by him meerly upon this natural resultance and not from any positive and express Revelation from God for such neither we nor he yet ever heard of We will now then consider what there is of weight in this fictitious Reason of Government in which the World is so lately illuminated by this Speculator what force there is in it to unravel all Models of Government that are framed in the World to confound Kingdoms and Nations and to give Warranty to the bringing upon us all the miseries that are designed by the Papists for us which we are to be prepared to suffer with most conscientiuos patience from the comforts and supports of this insolent and vain pretence I appeal to the Reader of him whether in thus stating his Doctrine I have not made it more Argumentative and concluding to his purpose than he left it I will take this method of remonstrating the futility of his Hypothesis By considering what a Father is and what his Duty towards and Power over his Children in which it will be found that nothing of Empire belongs to him as Father that no more belonged to Adam over his Children than did to any of his Children over their own That the Authority of Parents over their Children continues together with Soveraign power and is not at all abated by it and that it cannot be the same because it continues entire with it That there is no footsteps in the Records of the Old Testament to verifie his Hypothesis that we could not have wanted some Declarations about it from God if true it being a matter so necessary for us to know That no claims were made that we know of to any such authority in the earliest times when the Right was unprejudiced and must have been best understood and could not have been forgotten as now it is utterly Besides that it was never used The first Histories Recorded in the Bible make every Child of the common Ancestor alike independent and absolute and so it would for ever have continued And to this day we should have been in the state of Nature and not United in any Government and so no King yet in the world notwithstanding the Paternal Authority That his Instances of exercising Soveraign power by the Fathers of Families are not concluding and to his purpose That admitting Adam had while he lived been Universal Monarch yet if there be no other reason and Foundation of Monarchy in the World but this of Sir Robert Filmer Adams right Heir not being known and if he were might perhaps be an Ideot or Lunatick some Cobler or Botcher under a Stall or mean Person unfit to govern we can have no rightful King in the World for certain it is that there is nothing in the World so personal as Relations and the duties and Rights that do result from them For they are neither assignable to nor can be exercised or exacted by and between any persons but the Relatives themselves So that this power of Sir R. F. hath no foundation of reason in the nature of things was in Fact never exercised and is now utterly fallen to the ground and all Government with it A more puzled vain sensless and unlearned Paradox was never yet offer'd to the world nor a thing more mischievous ever received For first the absolute Power of a Prince over his Subjects is not at all connatural to the dutiful Care of a Father over his Children It was the good pleasure of God that this part of the immense world should be planted with men endowed with a Capacity to admire his Power Wisdom and Goodness and therefore to render him praise and worship He design'd that we should be happy in our own enjoyments and promote the happiness of each other which is not to be performed but by a mind serene beneficent and loving He provided that the disseminations of Love should run parallel and be under alike necessity with the propagation of our kind For the planting Love in our Nature he instituted Marriage for Procreation that we might owe our Being to the state of the greatest and most agreeable friendship and tenderest affection That for many years we should be educated by a pure single and undesigning love of our Parents and the friendship of that conjugal State should be maintained by and principally exercised in their common care of their Issue Every Act of Love of either of the Parents to the Child being the best instance of love to the other of them an endearment of a reciprocal love and a provocation to the like love and care of the Child And for this love the Children naturally pay a return of an affectionate honour to their Parents and by that honour which we so naturally render our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Earthly gods we are initiated trained up and instructed devoutly to worship our heavenly Father God did likewise ordain and so it was that all Mankind should derive from one stock be made of one blood and every Man every Mans Brother of the same Family and cognation By this it was provided by the Father of us all that we should be born into the World under the tenderest care for our preservation and improvement of our Nature be powerfully enclined to love and beneficence whereby we may be pleased with our selves and at Peace and Amity with our whole kind and disposed to celebrate the infinite Wisdom and Goodness of our almighty Creator with most affectionate Praises That the Generations of Mankind might certainly proceed God planted in our Natures powerful and irresistible instincts to procreation which the Jews call a Precept tho after this no Precept seem'd necessary for encrease and multiply they make a Command But we follow our own propensions and have no conscience of obedience to a Law when we observe and follow them which are so strong pleasurable and entertaining that if God had not planted a restraint of Modesty in our Natures and a sense of decency we should over-do the business and degrade our selves
from the dignity of our Natures Thus far the Parents are fulfilling Gods appointments and gratifying their own Natures What from all this can give them a right over their Child All men coming into the world this way are no less free than if they had been form'd in Lucretius his Bottles and drop't out of his imaginary matrixes and we were all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aborigines In this they are onely executing the appointment of God are but his Instruments to bring us into this World and are all along rewarded and entertained and caressed by the order of Nature Adam ow'd this duty to God his Father and so ordered it was that he ow'd it to himself and to his own natural propensions pleasures and satisfactions to propagate The several succeeding generations of men as soon as they are men have as much Right to the enjoyment of themselves to the freedom of their own Will and to live by their own measures as Adam himself had Our Parents do not give us life but hand it to us from the Fountain of being the Universal Father of all things Vitai Lampada tradunt And this is allowed acknowledged by all Mankind for assoon as Children can Govern themselves we declare them free that they are sui juris they are extra familiated and become themselves Fathers and acquire to themselves The Jews who had a Kabala of the truest and most antient Theology and Morality best understood their own Laws and were furnished with the knowledg of what Power and Authority Fathers had over their Children whether by nature or by vertue of the fifth Commandment did take their Sons to be ipso jure Emancipated and suoe potestatis as soon as they were pubertatis plenoe The time of which they reckoned at the farthest when they were 13 years 3 months and one day old And therefore whereas it was one of the Laws of Moses Deut. 21. v. 18 19 20 21. That the stubborn and Rebellious Son at the Complaint and prosecution of the Father and Mother was to be judg'd to be ston'd to death They say a Son was not under this Law until he was 13 years and one day old for until that time he was not Filius proecepti not bound to any Laws As not until that time presum'd of competent discretion consideration or conscience to make him a Transgressor or Breaker of a Law But three Months after they reckoned him compleatly adult upon a general Presumption when and sooner if he were sooner adult he was free from the Power of his Father and could not incur the mentioned Law which condemns the rebellious and stubborn Son to be stoned to death Maimonides Tract Memarim But the Father who struck the Son after he was adult the Jews tell us incurred Excommunication for that he offended therein against the Law Levit. 19.14 Thou shalt not put a Stumbling-block before the Blind By which Precept they understand all things indecent and dishonest to be forbidden By which it doth appear that the Jews did not take their Children to be longer under the authority of their Fathers than until they commenced in the soonest account Men. Besides that Law of Deut. Chap. 21. seems to be onely a permission of an unnatural kind of severity to the offended Parents at whose suit onely the punishment of that Law could be inflicted such a sort of permission and liberty it was as was indulg'd to them in the matter of Divorce But that which hath imposed upon this Gentleman I believe is for that while they are to be educated Parents exercise an Authority over their Children which a sower Father may imagine to be Power This I believe gave the Gentleman his mistake because he saith a Child and a Slave doth not differ which is a shrewd indication that he was something too masterly over his Children But all equal parents know and understand that the Education of their Children is duty and care and it may not improperly be called a Sort of Generation-Work For I pray let it be considered That the foetus is not perfected assoon as it is extruded the Matrix no not until it be able to perform unassisted all the Actions of its proper life That the life of a man is a life of Reason That he cannot do the Acts of a man until he hath it in the exercise of it He is not a perfect foetus so as to be neglected by his parents as soon as he can feed himself the man after this may miscarry and after this if exposed by his parents and not continued under their care be abortivated Education is a kind of Incubation Our faculties are to be formed and drawn out into use as well as our body to be organized before we can be denominated men While this is accomplishing the parents are but executing the natural instinct of propagating their like until they have made them men they are not begotten in their own likeness They therefore with an easie propension and a natural care do apply themselves to offer things to their observation to furnish their Memories to try their judgments in little Essays to render them discoursive to draw out their faculties into use until by little and little they arrive at discretion and a power to form true judgments of what belongs to them and to govern themselves in such Affairs and businesses that are to employ them But while this is a doing they are under a Government of love and care by the Arts of Discipline to be trained up to perfection Several freakishnesses and caprices are to be cured and the strength and luxuriancies of several natural Appetites are to be abated and restrained and they are to be held to attention and observation and made patient of instruction Correction is to be administred to these purposes and by these measures But this duty of Correction doth not participate any thing of the Nature of Civil Government It hath nothing of the Nature of punishment exemplarity or vindicative Justice It is not for the gratifying of the Parents displeasure to secure him against wrong or injury to deter others but to amend improve and better the Child and always terminated to and directed to that end and by those measures it is tenderly and affectionately administred It will not be impertinent to observe that our Common Law had no opinion of any Soveraign Authority in a Father And also that the Statute of 25 E. 3. which declares petty Treasons as well as high Treasons doth not declare the Sons killing the Father to be Treason tho Treason it is for a Servant to kill his Master In which we have the Authority of our Parliament and of the constant opinion of our Judges That the nature and relation of a Father and a Son doth not favour any thing of Government or of a servile or Political subjection For that they have not made Parricide Treason though it is the most unnatural and most detestable Crime and a far
greater sin than that of killing a Master But further to clear the true notion of a Fathers Authority that it is duty and care not Empire and absolute will Let it be considered that God by his right of Creation hath an absolute plenary and direct dominion over us we are more his than we are our own or than any thing can be ours Yet when he was pleased of his gracious condescention to our capacity to quiet our fears of his power and to invite our love and assure our hope he did declare himself our Father thereby to assure us that he would not rule us pro imperio and according to his absolute right he had over us That stile he himself delights to use and gives us leave to call him our Father by which we all understand that he will not proceed with us according to his Right of absolute domination no not in the terms of strict Right and Political Justice But that he will consider our frame pity our infirmity correct us as his Children but not punish us with an exterminating Justice Amongst the Romans antiently no man was admitted a Judge in Criminal Causes but he that was a Father of Children that the severities of a Judge might be abated by the tenderness of a Father that he who had Children of his own might have the more pity to those of others so different is the Office of a Judge from the natural duty and tenderness of a Father It is the greatest violence that can be done to Nature to compel a Father to sit in Judgment upon his Son Next to that of obliging and compelling a man to execute himself to make it the Fathers duty to pronounce a capital Sentence upon the Son is the most unnatural thing in the World The Father and the Son in this consideration are conjunctae personae and when the Sin of the Father is visited upon the Son the Son is afflicted but the Father is punished and when the Son hath the Question the Father is taken to be confessed in tormentis silii But for a further instance to make it appear how incompetent the duty of a Magistrate is with the Nature of a Father I will observe that notwithstanding a Law was given to Adam and all his Sons to establish Judicatures according to the Tradition of the Jews as may be seen in Mr. Selden his Book de jure Gentium secundum Hebraeos which Law by the way had been supervacaneous if the Power of a Prince did belong to Adam in the right of his Paternity and a Government had been provided for them by their Birth Yet I say notwithstanding that there was such a Relaxation of Justice in the World before the Flood because it could be only administred by a Father or such who participated of the stock of love lodg'd in the common Father from whom his Children did derive their tenderness one to another as they themselves sprang from him That the World was grown so wicked within two ages as men then liv'd from the Creation that a Universal deluge was brought upon the World by the just Judgment of God for the outragious and insufferable Wickedness that had spread it self universally over mankind 8 persons only excepted The overflowing deluge of Wickedness that caus'd the deluge of waters can't be imputed to a more probable cause than to the indulgence and impunity that the observed and understood nearness of Kindred that all men stood then in to one another must naturally occasion This is a sad consequence of that natural Love in Parents towards their Children which was intended for the propagation and advancement of Mankind But since that now we are estranged one from another in remote and unknown degrees and that prejudice is over here is a Gentleman to destroy the World another wâ—… and to undo us by unreasonable and unâ—…d power which is alike apt to make 〈…〉 fit for another Universal destruction if it be not without more destroyed by it doth endeavour to turn the exercise of such power into a Right and to give it warranty from the Reason and way of our propagation and by this means to destroy us faster than we can be born and bred and impair the Generations of Mankind to render them extreamly miserable or wicked which is much worse extinguish the light of the World which is Love and Amity and destroy the encouragement and reason of almost all relative Morality What a Saturnine Father have we got to make a golden Age who ever would have thought that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most moving kindest most tender pleasing and beneficent instinct in Nature planted by God the Father of us all for the propagating educating and improving humane Nature should ever be made use of to found a right of Tyranny and Arbitrary domination the greatest destroyer and depraver of Mankind What Monster hath this last Age produced a Christian a Father seriously endeavouring to perswade all Mankind to offer up their Children to Moloch the Saturn of the Easterlings who was but the Devil of Tyranny as the name imports This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the true Origine and Fountain of Love and Amity and the social Virtues which render men humane from whence flows all the happiness of Mankind will by this Doctrine be corrupted and rendred unsincere and self-designing For when a Father performs an Act of Generation it seems now he designs to add a slave to his Retinue and when a Child is born there is another Item added to the Inventory of his Estate If this Fountain be corrupted there can be nothing sincerely kind after it in Humane Nature The Leviathan is out-done by this Gentleman and hath not performed half so renownedly in the great Work of depraving Humane Nature as our Patriarchal Knight will do if his Admirers can bring him into vogue and esteem For the Author of the Leviathan allowed something good in Humane Nature several equal propensions which he terms her Counsels and sometimes adventures to call the Laws of Nature But he concludes they are not practicable and they are only fools who govern themselves by them But this Gentlemen will not allow Nature to be good in her first institution and designment though in this I think they are near agreeable that Mr. Hobbs made the Pourtraicture of Humane Nature in an agreeableness to his own evil Ingeny and this Knight did set himself when he made this his draught of a Father he could have no other Original but himself or the Idea of the morose and sowr Dr. P. H. his admired friend but by his Character he had at least misfigured his understanding and made it his own Nature by liking it 2ly No more of authority belong'd to Adam over his Children than does to any of his Children over his for that this Authority proceeds from Nature and Nature is alike in all men The duty of their education and the Authority over them that is competent to
become Zealots He is a Prince that can deliberate and consider and will conclude that it is better for him to betake himself to a Monastery now before he hath filled the Land with Blood and Slaughter and all the mischiefs that the hellish Plot designs upon us than to take Sanctuary in one hereafter loaded with the melancholy considerations of a lost design and intolerable guilt if he himself should chance to survive and not perish ingloriously in the enterprize never to be gathered to his Fathers and shut out of the Sepulchres of Kings He is a great lover of his Brother as he ought in gratitude to be who lets him live and in his good opinion too after he had departed from his Allegiance and become a Member of another Hostile Polity and Regimen and after in consequence thereof the King's Life is brought in conspicuous danger Besides that it was natural and necessary that attempts upon the Life of the King should ensue upon his publick declaration of himself to be a Papist And we cannot without thinking too meanly of him think him without a foresight thereof there remains therefore no way for him to avoid the guilt of his Brother's Murder we tremble at the probability of it than by renouncing the Crown The King cannot in probability die before him except he falls to the Interest of that Religion which his Highness doth profess So that the Duke will relinquish nothing by the consenting to the Bill but the hopes to succeed upon his Brother's Murder but he would not the one so virtuous we will think him to obtain the other Admit him to be King he must be a King without Subjects for he must be a Slave to one part of the people to destroy the other these may not be the other will not be his Subjects To be an open Enemy is more Princely than to submit to the sordid methods of Falshood and Treachery than to betray us and deceive us in the confidence we justly should have in him if he should succeed to the Crown by a legal appointment He hath already departed from the Government which is Treason in a common person but we will give it in him an honester name and call him onely an Enemy to our State and Religion and his departure to be an overt declaration of Hostility let him therefore be consistent with himself purchase the Government by Conquest by the assistance of the Arms of France his Popish Adherents and home-bred Traitors But let him not assume the Crown by Title and Succession under obligations to govern by Law and to preserve us in our Religion which is our Legal Right and more precious to us than any thing else the Law entitles us unto Let him not add falshood to his mistaken and cruel zeal and do all the mischiefs the Plot designs while he pretends to Govern Let him openly assault us Miscreants subdue us Infidels that already stand Cursed and Excommunicated whom he hath Warrant enough from his Religion to destroy with an utter destruction He is an excellent Son of King Charles the First of blessed Memory who died a Martyr for the Government of Church and State and lost his Life as well as his Government when he could not preserve it any longer by his Sword And do you think that James his Son who carries the Royal Name of his Grandfather though the first of England yet the Sixth of that Name in Scotland will suffer the Government to be altered and to be a King and no King It is more just for him to chuse an Exclusion from the Succession than to suffer the Government to be changed we must therefore suppose him to be willing rather to consent to the Bill and renounce the Succession conformably to the recent example of his never-to-be-forgotten Father than to consent to or be bound by any Act of Parliament that shall alter the Government They are not his Friends nor agreeable to him that would spoil the Government more valuable in his esteem as well as his Father's than a personal Reign That would make him a King in mockery That conspire against the Government it self which he will not he ought not to sustain and endure as long as there is any Iron and Steel in the hands or Blood in the Veins of Loyal Roman Catholicks He is an equal Prince and will not take it so much to Heart that he sees the People of his Nativity not stupid Sots but that they can be sensible of the dangers that he urgeth them with and provide apt remedies against the evils which threaten us But if these Reasons will not obtain his express Consent to that Law for his Exclusion they will be allowed Inducements sufficient enough to pass it and conclude his Assent for the nature of a Law is to be first reasonable and to make those willing that should be consenting to it as reasonable and fit but are not and to render them obedient and submitted For this is one of the greatest benefits of Government that they that cannot or will not chuse what is best for themselves the Laws will chuse for them with regard to the Publick Good For the better clearing the matter of the Constitutions of this Realm in relation to the Succession I thought it necessary to add the substance of an Act of Parliament yet in force made 13 Elizabethae 13 Elizebthae Cap. 1. An Act whereby certain Offences are made Treason FOrasmuch as it is of some doubted whether the Laws and Statutes of this Realm remaining at this present in force are vallable and sufficient enough for the surety and preservation of the Queens most Royal Person in whom consisteth all the happiness and comfort of the whole State and Subjects of the Realm Which thing all Faithful Loving and Dutiful Subjects ought and will with all careful study and zeal cnosider foresee and provide for By the neglecting and passing over whereof with winking Eyes thâ—…e might happen to grow the subversion and ruine of the quiet and most Happy State and present Government of this Realm which God defend Therefore c. to Declare c. during her Maiesties life that the Right of the Crown was in any other Person should be Treason And such Person that should during her Maiesties Life Vsurp the Crown or the Royal Stile Title or Dignity of the Crown or Realm of England c. they and every of them so offending shall be utterly disabled during their natural Lives onely to have or enjoy the Crown or Realm of England or the Style Title or Dignity thereof at any time in Succession Inheritance or otherwise after the Decease of our said Sovereign Lady the Queen as if such Person were dead any Law Custom Pretence or matter whatsoever to the contrary notwithstanding After which these words follow And be it further Enacted That if any Person shall in any wise hold and affirm or maintain That the Common Laws of this Realm not altered
people or who after he had got into the Throne obtained the submissions of the People The same reason admits an Alien born though he be estranged from us by his Birth Est in Juvencis est in equis patrum vertus Though what I have said in this matter is so obvious that no considering man can escape these thoughts yet I cannot think it impertinent to add it here to clear what I have laid down in the precedent Sheets as an undoubted truth and evident in it self That the Succession to the Crown is the peoples Right But there is nothing I perceive to be allowed clear and evident when we live in an Age wherein Fools and most ignorant persons will undertake by the Liberty of the Press to print and publish to the world their crude thoughts and with great assurance offer their uncouth Opinions with astonishing presumption Besides to the reasonableness of this Doctrine it is agreeable to the Illustrious Grotius De Jure Belli Pacis Lib. 2. cap. 7. And nothing follows from his collected Law-cases about the different Rules of Succession of the Crown from private Fees but that he is a very young Lawyer or an old senseless Jobber of Law-Cases But I hope that all men that read him will with resentment think themselves used with scorn when they see what frivolous Fellows attempt upon them to deceive them and will be fully convinced that the Bill is reasonable just and fit since they have nothing better to object against it The last endeavour of the Epistoler is to remove the Authority of Parliaments and the Act made in the Thirteenth of Queen Elizabeth The words of which are printed at the close of the Papers against the man of Great and Weighty Considerations Our case is not in its reasons unparallel to those that introduced that Law and occasioned the making of that Declaration but whatever was the particular Reason the Declaration of that Parliament in that Act is general and therefore it is an Authority not to be impeached to prove that there is such a power to alter the Succession of the Crown for great Ends and weighty Reasons and just Causes Besides that such a power is lodged in the Parliament is clearly proved by us from the nature of Government in the foregoing Sheets As also that such a power will not be abused by using it in this Bill of Exclusion of which I hope no body upon the reading of them will retain any longer any manner of doubt But I cannot before I have done but take notice of his little Artifice in that he doth suggest that by the Act of Parliament of the Thirteenth of Queen Elizabeth cap 1. the Title of the Family of Stuarts is excluded when it is evident by the words of the Act that the Disability there enacted is only personal And his story of Monsieur the Duke of Anjou designing then to marry the Queen is a false and malicious insinuation to hurt the memory of that excellent Princess And consequently that King James and his Race had and have notwithstanding the validity of that Act a good Title to the Crown And that the validity of that Act may be maintained without derogation and injury to his Majesties sacred Title whom God long preserve A short Historical Collection touching the SUCCESSION of the CROWN WHether the History of the Succession of the Crown will allow so good and clear an Hereditary Right Jure humano as we have yielded in the precedent discourse the Reader will best judge by the short Historical Collection touching the Succession hereto subjoyned In the Heptarchy there was no fit Hereditary Right one King tripping up the heels of another as he had power till one got all After that Alfred Bastard-son to Oswin Adelstane Bastard-son of Edward the Elder Edmund Surnamed the Martyr Bastard-son to King Edgar Harold Surnamed Harefoot Bastard-son to Canute wore the Imperial Crown of England But a Law was made under the Saxon Monarchy De Oodinatione Regum directing the Election of Kings and prohibiting Bastards to be chosen Edward the Confessor was no King Jure Haereditario but the right was most indisputable at first in Edward Son of Edmond Ironside Father to Edgar Etheling his Nephew during his life and after his decease in that Edgar who was Nephew also to the Confessor William the First called the Conquerour was a Bastard and had no right but from his Sword and the Peoples Suhmissions and their Electing him William Rufus was elected against the right of his Elder Brother Robert then living Henry the First was made King favenle Clero Populo his Brother Robert still living whose Eyes were after put out at Cardiss-Castle in Wales King Stephen was elected a Clero Populo and confirmed by the Pope and Maud Daughter of Henry the First excluded Henry the Second came in by consent yet he had no Hereditary right for his Mother Maud the Empress Daughter and Heir to Henry the First was then living King John had an elder Brother Jeoffery Earl of Brittany who had Issue Arthur and Elianor which ought to have succeeded before him but he Arthur his Eldest Brother's Son living was elected a Clero Populo and being divorced from his Wife by his new Queen had Henry the Third Henry the Third was confirmed and setled in the Kingdom by the general Election of the people Elianor Daughter to Jeoffery the elder Brother still living Roger Mortimer Earl of March Son of Edmund by Philippa Daughter and Heir of Lionel Duke Clarence a younger Son of Edward the Third was in the Parliament 9 R. 2. declared Heir Apparent of the Crown which could not be but by force of an Act of Parliament Henry the Fourth came to the Crown by way of Election and in his time viz. in the eighth year of his Reign was the first Act of Parliament made for Entailing the Crown with Remainders By vertue of which his Son Henry the Fifth became King and after him Henry the Sixth In Henry the Sixth his time Richard Duke of York claimed the Crown and an Act of Parliament was made 39 H. 6. that Henry the Sixth should enjoy the Crown for his life and the said Duke and his Heirs after him After which King Henry raises an Army by the assistance of the Queen and Prince and at Wakefield in Battle kills the Duke for which 1 Edw. 4. they were all by Act of Parliament attainted of Treason and one principal reason thereof was for that the Duke being declared Heir to the Crown after Henry by Act of Parliament they had kill'd him which Act of Attainder was 1 H. 7. repealed and the Blood of the King Queen and Prince restored in terms of disgrace and detestation of so barbarous an Attainder Rot. Palr Anno 1 H. 7. Edward the Fourth succeeds upon the death of H. 6. by vertue of an Act of Parliament made in the time of H. 6. for entailing the Crown as Son
and Heir to the Duke of York Edward the Fifth succeeded by vertue of the same Act of Entail Richard the Third having got the Crown he was confirmed King by Act of Parliament which likewise Entail'd the Crown which was done upon two reasons pretended First for that by reason of a precontract of Edward the Fourth Edward the Fifth his eldest Son and all his other Children were declared Bastards Secondly for that the Son of the Duke of Clarence second Brother to Edward the Fourth had no right because the Duke was attainted of Treason by a Parliament of Edward the Fourth The Act of Parliament for Bastardizing the Children of Edward the Fourth was in force until repealed in the time of Henry the Seventh after his Marriage with Elizabeth the Daughter of Edward the Fourth Henry the Seventh comes in by no legal Title First because Edw. 4th his Daughter was then living Secondly his own Mother was then living In his first Parliament the Crown was Entail'd upon him and the Heirs of his body And observable it is that after the death of Elizabeth his Queen Daughter and Heir to Ed. 4th there is no notice taken of any right which was pretended to by Hen. 8. during his Fathir's life as being Son and Heir of his Mother who had the legal Right to the Crown by an ordinary right of Succession Henry the Eighth Succeeded who did as all his Laws speak derive his Title to the Crown by the Fathers side and not by the Mothers In his Reign the Crown was Entail'd thrice by Act of Parliament Confirm'd by the general Oaths both of the Spiritualty and the Lasty and it was made High Treason to refuse such Oaths and several Attainders were in his time by particular Acts of parliament of several persons who opposed such limitations of the Crown and the authority of the Laws that made them But the great Law of the three was made in the 35th year of his Reign Cap. 1. whereby power was given him to give and dispose by his Letters Patents or by Will the Imperial Crown of the Realm to remain and come after his death for want of lawful Heirs of Prince Edward the Lady Mary and the Lady Elizabeth to such person or persons in remainder or reversion as should please his Highness In which Act there was a Clause that made it high Treason to speak or write against that Act or to go about to annul or repeal it Besides there is another Proviso in that Act That if the Lady Mary should not keep such conditions which the King should declare by his Letters Patents or last Will the Imperial Crown should come to the Lady Elizabeth And if the Lady Elizabeth should not observe the same then the Crown was to go to such person as the King by his Letters Patents or last Will should limit and appoint By virtue of which limitation in the Act of Parliament afore-mentioned Edward the Sixth succeeded to the Crown and after him Queen Mary in whose Reign in an Act of Parliament for Conformation of the Articles of Marriage between her and Philip of Spain the Crown was again Entail'd but she dying without Issue the Lady Elizabeth became Queen who had been declared a Bastard as well as her Sister Mary in the life of their Father and therefore succeeded to the Crown by force of the Entail made in the 35 H. 8. Cap. 1. Pursuant to these Presidents in fact in the 13. year of the Reign of Q. Eliz. an Act of Parliament was made declaratory of the power of Parliament in the limitation of the Succession which made it highly penal to deny the Authority of an Act of Parliament for the limitation of the Crown Several persons in her time were proceeded against upon that Act and had the Judgement of Traytor and as Traitors executed for being contrary to that Law This Queen dying King James succeeded who was as the Statute of Recognition made in Parliament the first year of his Reign declares lineally rightfully descended of the most excellent Lady Margaret eldest Daughter of the most renowned Henry the 7th and the high and Noble Princess Queen Elizabeth his Wife eldest Daughter of King Edward the 4th the said Lady Margaret being eldest Sister of King Henry the 8th Father of the High and mighty Princes of famous memory Elizabeth late Queen of England It is further observable that upon the Marriage of Queen Mary to King Philip of Spain both the Crowns of Emgland and Spain were entailed whereby it was provided that of the several Children to be begotten upon the Queen one was to have the Crown of England another Spain another the Low Countries The Articles of Marriage to this purpose were confirmed by Act of Parliament and the Pope's Bull. And by that Act of Parliament for confirming the Articles of Marriage Philip was created King and did exercise Soveraign Authority and particularly in making Laws together with the Queen the Stile of the Soveraign Assent to Bills in Parliament in their time being Le Roy la Roigne les veulent And likewise for that it was agreed by the States of both Kingdomes and the Low Countries it is therefore probable that it was the Universal opinion of the great men of that Age That Kings and Soveraign Princes by and with the consent of their States had a power to alter and bind the Succession of the Crown FINIS