is hardly credible If he have the people on his side and a pevailing Major party I thinke the Observator standing to his owne Principles will not deny that hee hath Soveraigne power with him and that it is unnaturall to thinke the Community should destroy it selfe But the Community hee will say is to be looked at in Parliament Well But good Sir may not the people withdraw the power of reprentation which they granted to the Parliament was their grant so absolute and so irrevocable that they dispossest themselves wholy of taking or exercising that power their owne proper persons Remember your principles about the conveying of Soveraigne power into the hands of Kings and if you can shew no better Cards for their power of representation then the Peoples revocable consent and I would faine know why it should be more revocable from Kings then men you will finde their tenure in it very tickle POSITION VII THat according to some Parliamente they may depose Kings OBSRVATOR T is denied that any King was deposed by a free Parliament fairely elected ANIMADVERSION VII I Like this note better then all the rest and am wholy of his minde That never any free Parliament fairely elected deposed any King and I hope whatsoever his principles seemes to insinuate they doe not beleeve they have power to doe it and pray that they may never attempt at least not to be able to depose the King or destroy Monarchy The Authors Protestation HAving finished these sudden Animadversions I doe protest in the presence of Almighty God with my life power and estate to maintaine and defend so farre as lawfvlly I may the true Reformed Protestant Religion His Maiesties Person Honour and Royall Estate The just Liberties of the Subject and the power and priviledges of Parliament so farre as I shall bee able to know or understand them and to doe all other things contained in the late Protestation And this I doe sincerely and from my heart beleeve my selfe to be under the guilt of Perjury if I faile in any one thing here protested And therefore shall never hold my selfe absolved by observing one if I violate it in any other part I shall ever defend his Majesties Person Honour and Royall Estate as my sole Soveraigne and the Parliament next under him in the highest capacity of Subjects as the Supreame Judicatory the great Counnell and Body Representative of this Kingdome And I pray that all those that doe cot joyne with me may either speedily be converted or confounded Faxit Deus FINJS ANIMADVERSIONS ANIMADVERTED Or a Reply to the late Animadversions upon those Notes which a late Observator published upon the seven Doctrines and Positions which the King by way of Recapitulation layes open so offensive THe Animadversor hath attackt the Observator just like a weak and degenerous enemy that durst not encounter his adversary in open field but lodgeth himself in some obscure and ignoble passage to attempt at least upon his Arriere-guard not being able to pierce into his main body The ingenious peruser of both I doubt not may discern that the Observator in the conclusion of his Treatise onely recapitulated seven Refults out of His Majesties papers in contradiction to his Antecedent disquisition and the Parliaments proceedings that so one might compend ously view the subject of his discourse and as it were by an Index find out the consutation of His Majesties positions by the fore-going Arguments of the book which the Animadversor very cautelously is pleased never to take notice of in the whole Discourse 1. In the first position the Animadversor grants the Observators Arguments for the declarative power of Parliament in respect of the safe residence of that power in the bosome of the Jutelary Assembly But with this restriction That he should have allowed he King his place in Parliament and not have named a Parliament without him But how could the Observator without affronting impudence speak otherwise seeing His Majestie in present is pleased actually to have his residence out of Parliament and will not allow himself a place in it but instead of concurrence with it seeks the remotest distances from it The better therefore to see how the King and Parliament are in parts we will first negatively and then positively open the present Controversie betwixt them which is the cause of their disjunction Which in the first place is not this which most men conceive That when His Majestie shall agree and the Parliament likewise agree for establishing some new Law or interpreting some old which may be for the particular commoditie of some conditions of men onely in the common-wealth Whether then the King ought to declare this or that to be Law exclusively of the Parliament or the Parliament do the same exclusively of the King But positively it is this When there is visibly a danger readie to confound the whole common-wealth and consequently all particular commodities and persons Whether the State if then convened may not lawfully of it self provide for its preservation especially if the King either see not the danger or seeing it will not provide for it in such manner as may give best securitie to Himself and Common-wealth When therefore such a Question shall justly arise betwixt King and Common-wealth which collectively is that we call a Parliament it being of publike interest of State and so De jure publico it cannot fall under the examination of any inferiour judicature with which those so known voted Laws the Animadversor speaks of are to be found For that is furnisht onely with rules of particular not universall justice for the decision of particular differences betwixt this or that man for this or that thing Which rules being too narrow for so capacious a subject we must recurre to those that the originall Laws of Nature and Policy hold out to us which must needs be superior to the other The chiefest rule of that is Ne quovismodo periclitetur respublica That by all means publike safety be secured And every State must principally endeavour to hold fast and sure our publike sociable Incorporations one with another from publike distresses calamities and destructions which may arise from our selves or other forraign Kingdoms And whilest that is done according as Natures Laws and Policy prescribes in Universall justice then may well in the mean time proceed to make or revise Laws of Particular justice which is of particular things whereby we may commutatively encrease our fortunes and estates one by another or by forraign commerce But if those that sit at the head of the Commonwealth shall let loose the holm of it and so let it float at all hazards or else unadvisedly steere it directly towards rocks and shelves It self is bound by those original Laws which surely may be some means to save it self from a wrack And how the King is not invaded or wrong'd by having himself and his Kingdom preserved from imminent danger and how it is possible a King may
urged on one man confiding in his own singularity He might have known them to have been unanswerably refuted and kild before their birth But since he will have the Parliament so great practicians of Popish policy in respect of some infallibilitie which he saies and they never arrogated save onely a probability of lesse erring in that question betwixt his Majestie and themselves let me I say nakedly recite what the learned and yet unanswered Divine in this matter which the Animadversor so triumphs in hath urged against the Papists whom it most concerns so to leave the Reader to assume what shall seem most deducible to himself His words are these Chilling c. 2 p. 49. * He that would usurp an absolute tyranny and lordship over any people need not put himself to the trouble and difficulty of abrogating his Laws made to maintain the common liberty for he may frustrate their intent and compasse his design as well if he can get the power and authority to interpret them as he pleases and have his interpretations stand for laws I shall not need to recapitulate the condition of our Laws before the Parliament nor yet what interpretations they received Which interpretations were held so Authentique that they made the Law but a nose of wax to wring some times this way for Ship-money and for the lawfulnesse of it as to make the King likewise the sole Judge and redresser of all publike dangers sometimes another way for legall monopolies c. Let the world then judge who arrogate most infallibility or have more made use of Papists or Popish policy 3 The Observator saith that the Parliament deserted by the King in the whole Kingdoms distresse may relieve it and the King Here is asserted the publique Interest of State which can fall under no notion of any inferiour Court to examine But the Animadversor draws this consequence from thence That then every mans estate may be wrested from his propriety and possession Quà m urceus exit Here he doth most palpably discover the loosenesse of his Logick and cause and how little he holds to his premisses and state of the Controversie betwixt King and Parliament which I so oft noted before and shewed the case to be De jure publico and so politicall Commutative therefore and Distributive Justice being of inferior matters have their inferior Courts and the apparant letter of the Law to decide and power to actuate what is rightly decided But this controversie being De jure publico of a publike right it fals under the notion of another sort of Justice whereas particular proprieties and possessions fall under those two inferior sorts of Justice as hath been proved in the conclusion of the first Position which together with this shew the sandinesse and incoherence of the Animadversors consequence Here therefore we will onely note that even in a common distresse which is lesse then a publique without a Vote of Parliament or expecting any other dispensation of Right a particular propriety may be destroyed by a Community to preserve it self As when the Sea breaks in upon a County a bank may be made of and on this or that mans ground whether he please or no And when our Neighbour Vcalcyons house blazes frequently wee see some houses pluckt down where the fire actually broke not out lest it should consume the whole street And equitie before Poesie that in respect of the propinquitie of the danger we are supposed to be even in the danger it selfe and that the house so pluckt downe is not supposed so much to be dilapidated as burnt Tuns tua res agitur paries cum proximus ardet But I wonder by what Act or Declaration the Parliament hath denyed a compensation to the sufferer in that kinde as the Question now stands If all men did not know that the Parliament hath so provided for the indemnity of those at Hull perhaps the Animadversor might have gained the credit of some modestie in averring That the Parliament upholds publike good with private misery With the like grace also and with sufficient confidence doth he tell us That if there be a great distresse in the Kingdome it is caused by the Parliaments claiming that power which cannot consist with the Royall estate of his Majestie T is prodigious to all honest understandings That the neare engagements of warre with the Scotts twice meerly upon misunderstandings That the designe of strangling the Parliament as soone as it was borne for proofe of which the Parliament presumes to have had too much sufficiency That having the bloudiest and true Papisticall warre in Ireland raysed against our Nation and that against the Parliament especially in the walls of whose house they have already endangered the a breach Jam perlucente ruinâ That even now among our selves we see some who with more alacrity are ready to employ themselves against that sacred Assembly than against those unchristian Rebells and yet that all this should be too little to evince the Realitie as the Animadversor saith of a distressed Kingdome and who is yet more transcendent That all this should be caused by the Parliament which aymes at nothing but the extirpation of the Parliament root and branch and of which some part of it viz. the Scotch troubles had being long before the Parliament had any and then I pray how could it be the cause of it How the King is head and we the body and how the King cannot be insulted over by having his Kingdome and Selfe preserved from ruine is proved at large by the Observer beyond the capacitie of any his animadversions Whether the people may revoke all they actually have transacted to their King is a Question very impertinently inserted by the Animadversor in respect of any thing that the Observator hath in the Parliaments case which is such That when the King shall have endeavoured his utmost he will finde that he shall not be able to preserve the Kingdome in extremitie of distresse without the assistance of the Kingdome it selfe However this the Observator denies that the people could make such a conveyance of power to their Kings as might prove destructive of humanitie So that much of the Animadvertors Divinitie might have been husbanded for an aptor occasion Neverthelsse St Paul in the 13. of the Romans tells us not what power is the highest but that that power which is the highest ought to be obeyed Againe St Paul speaks first of a few particular disperst men and those againe in a primitive condition who had no means to provide for their preservation Moreover it s very observable that St Paul in the 3. verse speaks of a Ruler as our Law speaks of our King viz. That he is not a terror to good but to evill workes The Law likewise saith The King can doe no injustice The interpretation of the one must square with the other and that must be according to the distinction of Fact and Right For according to Fact St
Animadversions VPON THOSE NOTES Which the late OBSERVATOR hath published upon the seven Doctrines and Positions which the KING by way Recapitulation he saith layes open so Offensive London Printed in the yeare 1642. ANIMADVERSIONS VPON those Notes which the late Observator hath published upon the seven Doctrines and Positions which the King by way of Recapitulation hee saith lies open so offensive POSITION I. THat the Parliament has an absolute indisputable power of declaring Law so that all the right of the King and People depends upon their pleasure To this the Observator saith It has beene answered That this power must rest in them or in the King or in some inferior Court or els all suits will be endlesse and it cannot rest more safely then in Parliament ANIMADVERSION I. THe Observator hath contracted his Majesties words but hath kept the sense in more generall termes and seemes though but faintly to iustifie the Position by approving I know not whose answer That this Power can rest no where more safely then in Parliament He meanes the Parliament without the King If he had allowed the King his place in Parliament I now understanding man will easily subscribe That the King in Parliament or the Parliament with him have an absolute undisputable power both to make and declare Law and to end all Suites of what kind soever determinable by humane law within the Kingdome And here is the most safe resting of this Power and here it hath ever rested and not in the King alone who claimes not that Power but is willing to governe his subjects according to the known Lawes and much lesse in a any inferiour Court But that such an absolute undisputable Power of declaring Law as hath lately beene assumed by the Maior part of the present sitting Parliament shoud be resting in them is neither necessary for the ending of suites nor can be either for King or subject If they may declare that for a Law a fundamentall Law which never yet was Enacted or had any beeing and deny the plaine undoubted Lawes that have beene Enacted or frustrate them by some unheard of interpretation as if such interpretation had beene some mentall or rather Parliamentall reservation laid up within the Parliament walles to bee produced upon emergent occasions by their successors they will have so full an Arbitrary power that the right and safety of King and people must wholly depend upon their Votes Which power can never be safe either for King or People nor can they produce one president that may warrant such presidents That the second Position POSITION II. THat Parliaments are bound to no Presidents OBSERV Statutes are not binding to them why should then Presidents Yet there is no obligation stronger then the Honour and Iustice of a Parliament ANIMADVERSION II. IF Statuts be not binding to them there is no reason that presidents should be And he saith true Statutes are not binding to them that is de facto they are not for they in some things goe directly against them but de iure they are that is they ought to be binding to them till they be repealed by the same power they were made that is by Bill orderly passed both Houses and ratyfied by his Maiesties Royall assent And unlesse they can shew better reason then their bare Assertion Presidents as they are the best warrant so they are and ought to be the limits and buonds of their proceedings He might haue said as truly That Oathes are not binding to them and therefore neither Statutes nor Presidents But the Observator tels us Pag 44. That the Oathes of Supremacy and Allegance are not endangered by making the Kingdom and not the King the proper subiect of power And he yeelds reason for it For saith he he that ascribes more to the whole Vniversality then to the King yet ascribes to the King a true Supremacy of Power and Honour above all particulars I wonder what he meanes by a true Supremacy of Power and Honour above all perticulars Surely he meanes nothing but priority of place and height of Title for he is allowed little power over some particulars namely over the Members of either house and whom else they please to exempt as they did Serjeant Major Skippon for his power and commands But this distinction helpes them The Members of either House are sharers in that Supremacie which is in the Vniversality and above his and by the power of that Supremacie they can exempt whom they please from the power of this inferiour pardon the phrase absurdities cannot bee exprest without a Soclecisme Supremacie Uery good But in good sober sadnesse doth the Observator thinke this distinction was thought on by the Framers and enjoyners of that Oath or that the Members of the House at their entring the House did take their Oath to the King as to the Supreame over all with exeption of themselves or reservation of an higher Supremacy to themselves when they should be entred It is hardly credible Nor doe all that desire to tender all due honour to the Parliament beleeve that they are so the Vniversality or the Kingdome as the Observator presumes They are trusted by the Vniversality and Kingdome and we pray that they may discharge that trust not knowing but that a multitude of men subiect every one of them to errour may faile in their Judgement and being not exempted from the Common condition of the sinfull Sonnes of Adam may possibly not rightly discharge the trust committed to them as well as the King who is blasted with foule failings and errours judgement Me thinkes men that so much detest Popery should not borrow the grounds of their reasoning from them and I shall as soone beleeve the Counsell of Trent telling us that thy are the Universall Church and therefore cannot possibly erre as that the Parliament is the Vniversall unerring and unpervertibly just body of the Kingdome And surely the Spirit of declaring must needs reside in a strangely large measure in them who have power thus to declare not onely Law but Oathes too a greater then which the Popes flatterers never gave him and hardly ever any Pope assumed so great Quote constringam mutantem Protea nodo How shall these men be bound to doe right who so easily unty the knots of these sacred bookes of Law and Oathes why yes There is a bond that will doe it The obligation of the Justice and honour of a Parliament But can any man be sure that they whom neither Law Custome and Presidents of their Ancestors nor Oathes can binde will bee alwaies held in by the obligation of Justice and Honour Is it not possible that they may in time finde a power in themselves of declaring that obligation voide as well as have done the other The same obligation of Justice and Honour is as strong upon Kings and hath ever beene held more powerfull and obstructiue in them then in any state mannaged by a community and yet they
ruine his Kingdom follow in its just place In the mean time from these premisses we prove that the Parliaments method is most excellent For in the first place it endeavours to secure the being of the Common-wealth now floating at hazard And afterwards to apply its self to quicken particular Laws for our well-being Now therefore the fundamentall Law which the Animadversor so hotly cals for and the Parliaments squares by is not such a one as some say was never known before it was broken Nor as he saies lies mentally or parliamentally in the walls of the Parliament House to be produced upon any emergent occasion But is such a one as is coucht radically in Nature it self and so becomes the very pin of law and society and is written and enacted irrepealably in her Magna Charta which we are not beholden to any sublunary power for but belongs to us as we are living and sociable creatures And no known act of particular Justice or right to this or that petty thing can clash with this but must in equitie vail to it as to its superintendent For what can those particular Acts of Law which are to encrease our private and domestick profit advantage us when it 's doubtfull in so great dangers whether we may enjoy our lives at all or no. It is therefore notoriously calumnious and inconsequent which the Animadversor from hence affirms That the Parliament affects an arbitrary power or the particular rights in ordinary course of Justice as also the safety of King and people must at all times totally depend on their Votes exclusively of the King Which in the following Position comes to be more fully disproved Which power we confesse with him can never be safe either for King or people nor is Presidentable 2. Positi Parliaments are not bound to presidents saith the Observator because not to Statutes viz. Absolutely For the cause both of the one and the other is not permanent And it 's true therefore which the Animadversor saith that they are durable till they be repealed which had been to good purpose had he ever denied it For he rightly attributes no more power to Statutes then to other particular Laws which as is proved in the first Position and further shall be in this cannot in his case stand in equity nor act beyond their power and that contrary to the Legislative intent viz. to be a violation of some more soveraign good introduceable or some extreme and generall evil avoidable which evill otherwise might swallow not onely Statutes but all other sanctions what ever And thus in respect of the effect they may be said in some sort to Repeal themselves For really in such a case they become mortified and can do no more for us For the Parliaments case and controversie which the Animadversor still forgets to be of preserving the whole Kingdom and so De jure publico is of so transcendent a nature That de facto it may not and de jure it ought not to be restrained by pettie and mortified Statutes or Laws in acting so much good for us But how should Presidents as the Animadversor saith be best warrants or how should they be in the like degree limiting or binding that Oaths are I beseech ye consider the consequence Such or such a Parliament did not or durst not do this or that therefore may no Parliament do it Some Parliaments not comparable to the Worthies of this have omitted some good out of supinenesse some out of difficulty to avoid a greater evil which might be valuable with the good desired some perhaps hath done ill which the integritie and worth of this abhors to think of so that neither King nor Parliament have reason to plead so strongly for coherence to Presidents But both have better rules if they will not decline them which are To direct all by the interest of State which is never accusable of Injustice And by Equitie which we may call a generall Law And though it be variable according to the subject matter and circumstances yet it is that onely which will not let summum jus be summa injuria which is the supremest right that can be done us And it remains to be wisht that the Animadversor would have shown us in this main businesse wherein the Parliament hath gone crosse either to publike interest of State or Equity To say as the Animadversor doth that this single and extraordinary case excludes the King from Supremacy even above particulars and divests him to the naked priority onely of Place and Title is that which blasts it self unlesse the Animadversor be able to prove the Kings exercise of his former power totally intercepted and the more now then in other Parliaments of the like circumstances or that he is ruin'd by having his Kingdom preserved But Serjeant Major Skippon who is a particular was not permitted to obey the Kings summons of him therefore the King saith the Animadversor is denied a power even above particulars But we answer that his case reports to that of the Parliaments and must stand or fall with the equity of that In the mean time he is so imployed that he could not have been in any more redounding to His Majesties solid happinesse which rightly understood would have produced rather an excuse then an accusation For the Parliaments discharging of their trust which the Animadversor fears so much It is so notorious to all uncorrupted and unbiast judgements that we have reason to pray that those who so advisedly elected them in a time of lesse danger to the Kingdom then this present is be not more disloyall to them then they are to their chusers What they have actually effected with the Kings concurrence the Animadversor I hope will not except against and what they desire further to effect wherein they so humbly and patiently have attended his Majesties concurrence is onely for the happier continuation of that other to us and is to be reputed good or ill in order to that Where then is the evill for which the Parliament must be so scourged by all sort of hands why did we engage them so studiously to wipe off that Rust which began to eat so deep into the letter of our laws and all our possessions and to make new purchases for us of all our estates if now being assembled they cannot discern what and where those laws are to be found by the luster and power of which they should act all this for us We have blessings plentifully in store for his Majestie but desire he would not reduce the ultimate resolution and reserch of Law our blessing to be in his own bosome more then in that of the Parliaments lest when God in his anger shall deprive us of so great a blessing as is his life and government that die with him I shall not multiply on the Animadversors Arguments Of the possibility of the Parliaments erring and not rightly discharging their trusts all which might be more powerfully