Scots â—roclamation for the stopping disabling and 〈…〉 spensing with such and such Laws as are 〈…〉 ere referred unto and for the granting 〈…〉 e toleration with the other liberties immuâ—â—ties and Rights there mentioned is more 〈…〉 an sufficient to set the point we are disâ—oursing beyond all possibility of rational â—ontrol As 't is one and the same Kind â—f Authority that is claimed over the Laws â—nd Subjects of both Kingdoms tho for some â—ertain reasons it be more modestly desigâ—ed and expressed in the Declaration for a â—iberty in England than it is in the Proclamaâ—ion for a Toleration in Scotland so the utmost that the Czar of Mosco the great Moâ—ull or the Turkish Sultan ever challenged over their respective Dominions amounts only to an Absolute Power which the King both owns the Exertion of and makes it the fountain of all the Royal Acts exercised in the forementioned Papers And as the improving this challenged Absolute Power into an obligation upon the Subjects to obey his Majesty without reserve is a paraphrase upon Despotical Dominion and an advancing it to 〈◊〉 pitch above what any of the ancient or modern Tyrants ever dream't of and beyond what the most servile part of Mankind was ever acquainted with till the present French King gave an instance of it in making his â—eer will and pleasure to be the ground and argument upon which his Reformed Subjects were to renounce their Religion and to turn Roman Catholicks so it is worth considering whether His Maj. who glories to imitate that forraign Monarch may not in a little time make the like application of this Absolute power which his Subjects are bound to obey without Reserve and whether in that case they who have Addressed to thank him for his Declaration and thereby justified the Claim of this Absolute power being that upon which the Declaration is superstructed and from which it emergeth can avoid paying the Obedience that is demanded as a Duty in the Subject inseparably annexed thereunto That which more confirms us that the English Declaration and the Scotts Proclamation are not only designed for the obtaining from the Subjects an acknowledgment of an Absolute power vested in the King but that no less than the Usurpation and exercise of such a power can warrant and support them are the many Laws and Rights which a jurisdiction is challenged over and exerted in reference unto in the Papers stiled by the forementioned Names All confess a Royal prerogative setled on the Crown and appertaining to the Royal Office nor can the Supream Magistrature be executed and discharged to the advantage and Safety of the Community without a power affixed unto it of superceding the Execution of some Laws at certain junctures nor without having an Authority over the Rights of particular men in some incident cases but then the received Customes of the respective Nations and the universal good preservation and safety of the People in general are the measures by which this prerogative in the Crown is to be regulated and beyond which to apply or exert it is an Usurpation and Tyranny in the Ruler All the Power belonging to the Kings and Queens of England and Scotland ariseth from an agreement and concession of the People wherein it is stipulated what Rights Liberties and Priviledges they Reserved unto themselves and what Authority and Jurisdiction they delegated and made over unto the Soveraign in order to his being in a condition to protect and defend them and that they may the better live in Peace Freedom and Safety which are the Ends for which they have chosen Kings to be over them and for the compassing whereof they originally submitted unto and pitched upon such a Form of Civil Administration Nor are the Opinions of particular men of what Rank or Order soever they be to be admitted as an exposition of the extent of this Prerogative seeing they thro their dependencies upon the King and their obnoxiousness to be influenced by selfish and personal Ends may enlarge it beyond what is for the benefit of the Community but the immemorial course of Administration with the sense of the whole Society signified by their Representatives in Parliament upon emerging occasions are to be taken for the sense paraphrase and declaration of the Limits of this Royal and prerogative Power and for any to determine the bounds of it from the Testimonies of Mercinary Lawyers or Sycophant Clergy-men in cases wherein the Parliament have by their Votes and Resolutions setled its boundaries is a crime that deserves the severest animadversion and which it is to be hop'd a true English Parliament will not let pass unpunished Now a Power arising from Royal prerogative to suspend and disable a great number of Laws at once and they of such a nature and tendency as the great security of the people consists in their being maintained and which the whole Community represented in Parliaments have often disallowed and made void Princes medling with so as to interrupt their execution and course is so far from being a Right inherent in the Crown that the very pretending unto it is a changing of the Government and an overthrowing of the Constitution Fortescue say's that Rex Angliae populum Gubernat non merâ potestate Regiâ sed politicâ quia populus iis legibus gubernatur quas ipse fert the King of England doth not so properly Govern by a power that is Regal at by a power that is pâ—litical in that he is bound to Rule by the Lawsâ— which the people themselves chuse and Enact Anâ— both Bracton and Fleta tell us that Rex Angliae habet superiores viz. legem per quam factus est Rex ac Comites Barones qui debent â—i fraenum ponere the King of England hath for Superiors both the Law by whi 〈…〉 he is constituted King and which is the measur 〈…〉 of his Governing Power and the Parliament whicâ— is to restrain him if he do amiss And thereupon we have not only that other saying of Bracton that nihil aliud potest Rex nisi id solum quod jure potest the King can do nothing but whaâ— he can do by law but we have that famous passage in our Parlament Rolls non est ulla Regis prerogativa quae ex justitiâ aequitate quicquam derogat that there is no prerogative belongs to the King by which he can decline from acting according to Law and justice So careful were our Ancestors both in England and Scotland to preserve their Laws from being invaded and superceded by their Kings that they have not only by divers Parliamentary Votes and Resolutions and by several St 〈…〉 tutes declared all dispensations by the King from Laws and enjoined Oaths to be null and void and not admittable by the Iudges or other Executors of Law and Justice but they have often impeached arraigned and condemned those to one penalty or another that have been found to have counselled and advised
forefeiture of their lives to justice And as the imposing an Oath not warranted by Law is a high Act of Absolute Power and in the King an altering of the Constitution so if we look into the Oath it self we shall find this Absolute Power strangly manifested and displayed in all the parts and branches of it and the people required to swear themselves his Majesties most obedient Slaves and Vassalls By one Paragraph of it they are required to swear that it is unlawful for Subjects on any pretence or for any Cause whatsoever to rise in Arms against him or any Commissioned by him and that they shall never resist his power or Authority which as it may be intended for a foundation and means of keeping men quiet when he shall break in upon their Estates and overthrow their Religion so it may be designed as an encouragement to his Catholick Subjects to set upon the cutting Protestants throats when by this Oath their hands are tied up from hindring them It is but for the Papists to come Authorised with his Majesties Commission which will not be denied them for so meritorious a work and then there is no help nor remedy but we must stretch out our necks and open our breasts to their consecrated swords and sanctified daggers Nay if the King should transfer the Succession to the Crown from the Rightful Heir to some zealous Romanist or Alienat and dispose his Kingdoms in way of donation and gift to the Pope or to the Society of the Iesuites and for the better securing them in the possessioâ— hereafter should invest and place them iâ— the enjoyment of them while he lives thâ— Scotts are bound in the virtue of this Oatâ— tamely to look on and calmly to acquiescâ— in it Or should his Physitians advise him to 〈◊〉 nightly variety of Matron's and Maids as thâ— best remedy against his malignant and venemous heats all of that Kingdom are bounâ— to surrender their Wives and daughters to him with a du'tiful silence and a profound veneration And if by this Oath he can securâ— himself from the opposition of his dissenting Subjects in case thro recovery of their Reason a fit of ancient zeal should surprise them he is otherway's secured of an Asiatick tameness in his prelatical people by a principlâ— which they have lately imbib'd but neitheâ— learned from their Bibles nor the Statutes oâ— the Land. For the Clergy upon thinking that the wind would alway's blow out of one quarter and being resolved to make that a duty by their learning which their interest at that season made convenient have preached up the Doctrine of passive Obedience to such a boundless height that they have done what in them lyes to give up themselves and all that had the weakness to believe them fettered and bound for sacrifices to popish rage and Despotical Tyranny But for my self and I hope the like of many others I thank God I am not tainted with that slavish and adulatory doctrine as having alway's thought that the first duty of every member of a Body politick is to the Community for whose safety and good Governours are instituted and that it is only to Rulers as they are found to answer the main ends they are appointed for and to Act by the legal Rules that are Chalcks out unto them Whether it be from my dulness or that my understanding is of a perverser make than other mens I cannot tell but I could never yet be otherway's minded than that the Rules of the Constitution and the Laws of the Republick or Kingdom are to be the measures both of the Soveraigns Commands and of the Subjects obedience and that as we are not to invade what by concessions and stipulations belongs unto the Ruler so we may not only lawfully but we ought to defend what is reserved to our selves if it be invaded and broken in upon And as without such a Right in the Subjects all legal Governments and mixt Monarchies were but emptie names and ridiculous things so wheresoever the Constitution of a Nation is such there the Prince who strives to subvert the Laws of the Society is the Traitor and Rebel and not the people who endeavour to preserve and defend them There is yet another branch of the foresaid Oath that is of a much more unreasonable strain than the former which is that they shall to the utmost of their Power assist defend and maintain him in â—he exercise of this Absolute Power and Authority which being tack't to our Obeying without reserve make us the greatest Slaves that either are or ever were in the universe Our Kings were heretofore bound to Govern according to law and so is his present Majesty if a Coronation Oath and faith to Hereticks were not weaker than Sampson's cords proved to be but instead of that here is a new Oath imposed upon the Subjects by which they are bound to protect and defend the King in his Ruling Arbitrarily It had been more than enough to have required only a calm submitting to the exercise of Absolute Power but to be injoined to swear to assist and defend his Majesty and Successors in all things wherein they shall exert it is a plain destroying of all natural as well as Civil Liberty and a robbing us of that freedom that belongs unto us both as we are men and as we are born under a free and legal Government For by this we become bound to dragg our Brethren to the Stake to cutt their Throats plunder their Houses embrew our hands in the Blood of our Wives and Children if his Majesty please to make these the Instances wherein he will exert his Absolute Power and require us to assist him in the exercise of it As it was necessary to Cancell all other Oaths and Tests as being directly inconsistent with this so the requiring the Scotts to swear this Oath is the highest reveng he could take for their Solemn league and Covenant and for all other Oaths that lust after Arbitrariness and Popish Bigottry will pronounce to have been injurious to the Crown But no words are sufficient to express the mischiefs wrapt up in that new Oath or to declare the abhorrency that all who value the Rights and liberties of mankind ought to entertain for it nor to proclaim the villany of those who shall by Addresses give thanks for the Proclamation There may a fourth thing be added whereby it will appear that his Majesties assuming Absolute Power stands recorded in Capital Letters in his Declaration for liberty of Conscience For not being contented to omit the requiring the Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy and the Test Oaths to be taken nor being satisfied to suspend for a season the enjoining any to be demanded to take them he tells us that it is his Royal will and pleasure that the foresaid Oaths shall not at any time hereafter be required to be taken which is a full and direct Repealing of the Laws in which they are Enacted It
Kings to an usurpation of Power over the Laws and to a violation of established and enacted Rules It would draw this Discourse to a length beyond what is intended should I mention the several Laws against Papists as well as against Dissenters that are suspended stopt disabled and dispensed with in the two fore-mentioned Royal Papers and it would be an extending it much more should I make the several Reflections that the matter is capable of and which a person of a very ordinary understanding cannot be greatly to seek for I shall therefore only take notice of two â—r three Efforts which occur there of this â—oyal prerogative and Absolute power which â—s they are very bold and ample exertions â—f them for the first time so should the â—ext exercises of them be proportionable 〈…〉 ere will be nothing left us of the Protestant â—eligion or of English Liberties and we must â—e contented to be Papists and Slaves or else 〈◊〉 stand adjudged to Tyburn and Smithfield One is the suspending the Laws which en 〈…〉 in the Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy â—nd the prohibiting that these Oaths be at any 〈…〉 me hereafter required to be taken by which â—â—ngle Exercise of Royal prerogative and Absolute â—ower the two Kingdoms are not only aâ—ain subjected to a forraign Iurisdiction the miseries whereof they groaned under for several Ages but as the King is hereby deprived of the greatest security he had from â—is Subjects both to himself and the Government â—o the Crown is robb'd of one of its chiefest â—ewels namely an Authority over all the Subâ—ects which was thought so essential to Soveâ—aignty Royal Dignity that it was annexed to the Imperial Crown of England adjudged inherent in the Monarch before the Reformed Religion came to be received established And it concerns their Royal Highnesses of Orange to whom the Right of succeeding to the Crownâ— of Great Brittain unquestionably belongs to consider whether his Majesty may not by the same Authority whereby he alienates and gives away so considerable and inherent a Branch of the Royal Iurisdiction transferr the Succession it self and dispose the Inheritance of the Crown to whom he pleaseth Nor will they about him who thrust the last King out of the Throne to make room for his present Majesty much scruple to put a Protestant Successor by it if they can find another Papist as Bigotted as this to advance unto it However were they on the Throne to morrow here is both a Forraign Iurisdiction brought in and set up to Rivall and controll theirs and they are deprived of all means of being secured of the Loyalty and Fealty of a great number of their Subjects Nor will His Majesties certain knowledg and long experience whereof he boasts in the Scots Proclamation that the Catholicks as it is their principle to be good Christians so it is to be dutiful Subjects be enough for their Royal Highnesses to rely upon their Religion obliging them to the contrary towards Princes whom the Church of Rome hath adjudged to be Hereticks A second Instance wherein this pretended Royal Prerogative is exercised paramount to all Laws and which nothing but a claim of Absolute Power in his Majesty can support and an acknowledgment of it by the Subjâ—stâ— make them approve the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience and the Proclamation for Toleration is the stopping disabling and suspending the Statutes whereby the Tests were enacted and thereby letting the Papists in to all Benefices Offices and Places of Trust whether Civil Military or Ecclesiastick I do not speak of Suspending the Execution of those Laws whereby the being Priests or taking Orders in the Church of Rome or the being Reconciled to that Church or the Papists meeting to celebrate Mass were in one degree or another made punishable tho the Kings dispensing with them by a challenged claim in the Crown be altogether illegal for as diverss of these Laws were never approved by many Protestants so nothing would have justified the making of them but the many Treasons and Conspiracies that they were from time to time found guilty of against the State. And as the Papists of all men have the least cause to complain of the injustice rigour and severity of them considering the many Laws more cruel and sanguinary that are in Force in most Popish Countries against Protestants and these enacted and executed meerly for their Opinions and Practices in the matters of God without their being chargeable with crimes and offences against the Civil Government under which they live so were it necessary from principles of Religion and Policy to relieve the Roman Catholicks from the forementioned Laws yet it ought not to be done but by the Legislative Authority of the Kingdoms and â—or the King to assume a power of doing it in the vertue of a pretended prerogative is both a high Usurpation over the Laws and a Violation of of his Coronation Oath Nor is it any commendation either of the humanity of the Papists or of the meekness and Truth of their Religion that while they elsewhere treat those who differ from them in Faith and Worship with that Barbarity they should so clamorously inveigh against the severities which in some Reformed States they are liable unto and which their Treasons gave the rise and provocation unto at first and have been at all times the motives to the infliction of But they alone would have the allowance to be cruel wherein they act consonantly to their own Tenets and I wish that some provision might be made for the future for the security of our Religion and our safety in the profession of it without the doing any thing that may unbecome the merciful principles of Christianity or be unsutable to the meek and generous temper of the English Nation and that the property of being Sanguinary may be left to the Church of Rome as its peculiar Priviledg and Glory and as a more distinguisting Character than all the other Marks which she pretends unto That which I am speaking of is the suspending the Execution of those Laws by which the Government was secured of the Fidelity of its Subjecte and by which they in whom it could not confide were meerly shut out from places of power and trust and were made liable to very small damages themselves and only hindred from getting into a condition of doing mischief to us All Governments have a Right to use means for their own preservation provided they be not such as are inconsistent with the Ends of Government and repugnant to the will and pleasure of the Supream Soveraign of mankind and it is in the power of every Legislative Assembly to declare who of the Community shall be capable or incapable of publick Imploys and of possessing Offices upon which the Peace Welfare and Security of the whole Politick Body does depend Without this n 〈…〉 Government could subsist nor the People b 〈…〉 in safety under it but the Constitution woul 〈…〉 be
and performed the duty that became them in going to wait upon her that She greatly commended their having â—o accession to the betraying of the Protestant Religion by their returning home to take the benefit of the Toleration What an indelible Reproach will it be to a Company of men that pretend to be set for the defence of the Gospel and who stile themselves Ministers of Iesus Christ to be found betraying Religion thro justifying the Suspension of so many Laws whereby it was established and supported and whereby the Kingdoms were Fenced about and guarded against Popery while these two Noble Princes to the neglect of their own Interest in His Majesties Favour and to the provoking him to do them all the prejudice he can in their Right of Succession to the Imperial Crowns of Great Brittain do signify their open dislike of that Act of the King and that not only upon the account of its illegality and Arbitrariness but by reason of its tendency to supplant and undermine the Reformed Religion And they are strangely blind that do not see how it powerfully operates and conduceth to the effecting of this and that in more way's and method's than are easie to be recounted For thereby our divisions are not only kept up at a time when the united Councels and strength of all Protestants is too little against the craft and power of Rome but they who have Addressed to thank the King for his Royal Papers are become a listed and enrolled Faction to abet and stand by the King in all that naturally follows to be done for the maintaining his Declaration and justifying of the usurped Authority from which it issues 'T is matter of a melancholy consideration and turns little to the credit of Dissenters that when they of the Church of England who had with so great indiscretion promoted things to that pass which an easie improvement of would produce what hath since ensued are thro being at last enlightned in the designes of the Court come so far to recover their witts as that they can no longer do the service they were wont and which was still expected from them there should be a new Tribe of men muster'd up to stand in their room and who by their vows and Promises made to the King in their Addresses have undertaken to perform what others have the Conscience and Honesty as well as the Wisdom to refuse and decline Nor are the Divisions among Protestants only hereby upheld and maintained but our Animosities and rancours are both continued and enflamed For while they of the Established way are provoked and exasperated to see all the legal Foundations both of the Protestant Religion and their Church subverted the Addressing-Dissenters are emboldned to revenge themselves upon the National Clergy in Terms of the utmost opprobry virulence and reproach for their accession to the sufferings which they had endured Surely it would have been not only more generous but much more Christian and becoming good as well as wise men to have made no other Retaliations but those of forgiveness and pardon for the injuries they had met with and to have offered all the assistances they could give to their conformable Brethren for the stemming and withstanding the deluge of Popery and Tyranny that is impetuously breaking in upon the Kingdoms And as this would have united all Protestants in bonds of forbearance and love not to be dissolved thro petty differences about Discipline Forms of Worship and a few Rites and Ceremonies so it would in the sense and judgment of all men have given them a more triumphant victory over those that had been their imprudent and peevish Enemies than if they were to enjoy the spoiles of the conformable Clergy by being put into possession of their Cures and Benefices The Relation I have stood in to the Dissenting party and the Kindness I retain for them above all other make me heartily bewail their losing the happiest opportunity that was ever put into their hands not only of improving the compassion which their calamities had raised for them in the hearts of the generality into friendship and kindness but of acquiring such a merit upon the Nation that the utmost favoures which a true English Protestant Parliament could hereafter have shewed them would have been accounted but slender as wel as just Recompences Nor can I forbear to say that I had rather have seen the Furnace of afflictions made hotter for them tho it should have been my own lot to be thrown into the most scorching flames than to have beheld them guilty of those excesses of folly towards themselves and of treachery to Religion and the Laws of their Countrey which their present ease and a shorâ— opportunity afforded them of acquiring gain have hurried and transported so many of them into It plainly appears with what aspect upon our Religion the Declaration for liberty of Conscience was emitted if we do but observe the advantages the Papists have already reapt by it How is the whole nation thereupon not only overflow'd with swarms of Loâ—â—sts and all places filled with Priests and Iesuites but the whole executive Power of the Government and all preferments of honor interest and profit are put into Roman Catholick hands So that we are not only exposed to the unwearied and restless importunities of Seducers but through the advancement of Papists to all Offices Civil and Military if not Ecclesiastick the covetous become brib'd the timorous threatned and the prophane are baited with temptations sutable to their lusts and they that stand resolved to continue honest are laid open not only to the bold affronts of Priests and Fryers the insolencies of petulant Popish Justices the chicaneries and oppressions of the Arbitrary Commission Court but to the rage of his Majesty and the danger of being attaqu'd by his Armed Squadrons To which may be added that by the same Prerogative and Absolute Power that his Majesty hath suspended the Laws made for the Protection of our Religion he may disable and dispense with all the Laws by which it is set up and established And as it will not be more illegal and Arbitrary to make void the Laws for Protestancy than to have suspended those against Popery so I do not see how the Adressers that have approved the one can disallow or condemn the other For the King having obtained an acknowledgment of his Absolute Power and of his Royal prerogative paramount to Laws on his exercising it in one Instance it now depends meerly upon his own will for any thing these Thanks-giving Gentlemen have to say against it whether he may not exert it in another wherein they are not likely to find so much of their ease and gain There is a third Inducement to the Emitting those Royal Papers which tho at the first â—iew it may seem wholly to regard Forraigâ—ers yet it ultimately terminates in the subâ—ersion of our Religion at home and in the Kings putting himself into a condition of