which is not subject too but resisteth the power shall receive damnation but whosoever with defensive arms resisteth the King is not subject to but doth resist the power Therehe which with defensive arms resisteth the King shall receive damnation The Major no man can deny the Minor is inviolable and the Conclusion is perfect and sound There be those indeed who do confidently averr and have written a book too that there were men before Adam but I could never see any Scripture but their own interpretations and meanings to warrant their averments And untill Mr. Pryn can produce Texts of Scripture to warrant and maintain his confident averment he must excuse me if I still hold St. Paules Doctrine Canonical and his averment meer Apocripha For suppose the King subverteth both Law and Religion yet doth not that take away his supreme power he is still a King and Gods ordinance Saul was a King though an impious sinner and there have been wicked Kings as well as wicked Subjects to do evil saith one is no power but impotency therefore if the King command me to murther my self my Father to destroy my Country or to do any other wicked act I will not do it but obey God not him because it is his corruption not any power he hath from whence his commandment proceedeth and therefore I am not obliged to obey him because I must be a Subject to his power not to his sins yet if he should run after me with a naked Sword to kill me my Father my Mother ruine my Country Laws and Religion Yet would not I with defensive arms lift up my hands against him to resist hurt and destroy him because he is still my King and hath still that supreme power which God placed in him although he doth not then execute it and therefore if I should with defensive Arms lift up my hands to resist hurt and destroy him I should with defensive Arms lift up my hands to resist hurt and destroy the Ordinance of God and so receive damnation for my reward Not to perform the Kings command is a resistance although we suffer death Therefore if it be the Kings power and not his wicked will which commandeth me to do an evil thing if I did not perform his evil commandment I should resist his power and so be lyable to damnation although I patiently and meekly suffered death But doubtlesse the Kings power cannot command me to do any evil but it must proceed from his sinfull will for God is not the Author of any unrighteousnesse and there is no power but what God is the Author of therefore according to venerable Bede the Apostle doth not say Non est cupiditas nisi a Deo est enim mala cupiditas quae non est a deo nocendi autem voluntas potest esse a suo quoque animo pravo That there is no concupiscence but what is of God for there is an evil concupiscence which is not from God and the evil will of sinning proceedeth from our own depraved mindes therefore if the King command me to do an evil thing I ought to obey God not his wicked will but rather than to lift up my hands against him though in my defence I ought cheerfully and meekly to suffer a thousand deaths for by dying unjustly here I shall live eternally in Heaven and since the Glory of a Christian is the Crosse by suffering and dying a Martyr I shall obtain everlasting Glory and by my thus doing well I shall get praise even of the Power which the Kings wicked will made use of to destroy me but defence against the power of a King is offence therefore if with defensive arms I should fight against him I should resist Gods Ordinance and so receive damnation for by Gods Ordinance the King hath the power over all and his Actions ought not to be questioned or resisted by any but the Almighty But for my part I hold clearly that when the King executeth Tyranny taketh away the Lives or Estates of his Subjects unjustly that he doth it not only by reason of his wicked will according to the precedent distinction but by force and virtue of his power which God hath given him and that this is the power which St. Paul commandeth us to be subject unto which if we resist we shall receive damnation and that for several reasons It is most certain that there is no power but of God the powers that be are ordained of God for by him were all things created that are in Heaven and that are in Earth visible and invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or Powers all things were created by him and for him Col. 1.16 Which expressions in the Abstract do expresse existents in the Concrete from whence it followeth that bad Kings have their power from God and are Gods Ordinance as well as good And it is manifest in Scripture that wicked Kings are often sent for the punishment of a Nation as in Hosea 13.11 I gave them a King in my wrath and took him away in mine anger And God commandeth us to pray for and be subject not only to the good but also to the bad Kings I exhort you that Prayers and Supplications and Thanksgiving be made for all men for Kings and such as are in Authority 1 Tim. 2.1 Thus Abraham prayed for King Abimeleck Gen. 20.17 And Jacob blessed the King of Aegypt Gen. 47.10 Yet the Kings of those times were Infidels and most notoriously wicked No man is ignorant that Nebuchadnezzar who destroyed Jerusalem was a great spoyler and oppressor yet the Lord tells us by Ezekiel that he had given unto him the Land of Aegypt for the good service he had done in laying it waste on his Commandement And Daniel said unto him thus Dan. 2.37 Thou O King art a King of Kings for the God of Heaven hath given thee a Kingdom Power and Strength and Glory and wheresoever the Children of men dwell the Beasts of the Field and the Fowls of Heaven hath he given into thy hand and hath made thee Ruler over them all Again to Belshazzar his Son Dan. 5.18 The most high God gave unto Nebuchadnezzar thy Father a Kingdom and Majesty and Glory and Honour and for the Majesty that he gave him all people Nations and Languages trembled and feared before him And again Jer. 27.6 I have made the Earth saith the Lord the Man and the Beast that are upon the ground by my great power and by my outstretched Arm and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me And now have I given all these Lands into the Hands of Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon my Servant and the Beasts of the Field have I given him also to serve him and all Nations shall serve him and his Son and his Sons Son untill the very time of his Land come And it shall come to passe that the Nation and Kingdom which will not serve the same Nebcchadnezzar
nomine paena est A sign thou crav'st that might confirm thee mine I by dehorting give a certain sign Approv'd a father by paternal fear Look on my looks and read my sorrows there O would thou could'st descend into my brest And apprehend my vexed Souls unrest And lastly all the wealthy world behold Of all that heav'n enrich which seas infold Or on the pregnant bosom'd earth remain Ask what thou wilt and no repulse sustain To this alone I give a forc'd consent No honour but a true-nam'd punishment Dost thou doubt my fatherly indulgence or that I will not own thee for my Son Remove that vain scruple from thy deceived minde My noursing fear of thee is an infallable sign and an inviolable assurance that thou art my legitimate Son and I am proved to be thy Father by my fatherly care over thee But if thy heart be so hard and thou so void of belief that thou wilt not believe me unless thou see my heart Reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side and make way for thy unbelieving eyes to discover and see those fatherly cares which stick so close to my troubled heart It is thy good which I only aim at And thy welfare is the only mark at which I level the shafts of my Counsel and wholesome admonishment Consiliis non curribus utere nostris Dumque potes solidis etiam nunc sedibus astas Dumque male optatos nondum premis inscius axes Quae tutus spectes sine me dare lumina terris While thou mayst refuse And not my Chariot but my counsel use Let me the world with usual influence chear And view that light which is unsafe to bear Make use of my advice and not of my Chariot and that in time too whilest thou standest on sure ground Lest at length thou art driven to a non putabam I had not thought the Sanctuary of fools and so become an Ideot by a too late confession For post est occasio calva an after game is never good Let not thy jealous heart surmise that these publick admonitions spring from any private ends or self interest of mine Behold my Kingdome and make choice of what rarity or delight it affordeth Ask whatsoever thine eye fancyeth or thy soul taketh pleasure in and thou shalt suffer no denyal The glorious structures the fertile fields the rich meadows and the fat pastures the fishes of the sea and the fowls of the air the fruits of the vineyards and the immense woods shall all call thee master Nay I will clip the wings of my Prerogative to feather thy nest withall Confiteor hoc solum tibi nate negarem I profess Son only the government of my Chariot would I keep from thee which I deny thee for no other reason than because it will be thy destruction If the horses thou drivest do not destroy thee Yet every Kingdome in the world will disapprove thy actions and account thy attempt fatal to them Therefore aswell for thy own safety as the security and pleasure of all Kingdoms desist from thy indiscreet resolution and let me still whose only right it is and therefore only can rule my Chariot Finge datos currus quid ages poterisve rotatis Obvius ire polis ne te citus auferat axis Forsitan lucos illic urbesque deorum Concipias animo delubraque ditia donis Esse per insidias iter est formasque ferarum Nec tibi Quadrupedes animosos ignibus illis Quos in pectore habent quos ore naribus efflant In promptu regere est vix me patiuntur ubiacres Incaluere animi cervixque repugnat habenis My Chariot had can thy frail strength ascend The obvious poles with their force contend No groves no Cities fraught with Gods expect No marble fanes with wealthy offerings deckt Through salvage shapes dangers lyes thy way Nor easy is't those fiery steeds to tame Who from their mouths and nostrills vomit flame They heated hardly of my rule admit But head-strong struggle with the hated Suppose thy request granted thee and thou got up into my Chariot what wouldst thou do Dost thou think it will carry thee to Heaven Or that thou shalt always reign secure there Dost thou imagine it an easy thing to rule or that the change of Government will bring no danger Let not thy purblind policy so abominably delude thee Labor est inhibere volantes scarce I even I who am their known and lawful Soveraign can hardly restrain the unbridled fierceness of the Quadrupedes But when they perceive they have not their right and wonted driver they will cast thee off and break thy neck with the down-fall They are apt to rebel against me but they will account rebellion and treason most just and lawfull against thee Ergo tu sapientius opta Nulla fides regni Therefore wish more discreetly for immortality is not to be found in a Kingdome This was the answer of Monarchical Phoebus to the temerarious request of his phanatick Son Phaeton Dictis tamen ille repugnat Propositumque premit flagratque cupidine currus In vain dehorted he his promise claim'd With glory of so great a charge inflam'd But so much stupidity had captivated the senses of this prodigal Son that he rejected his Fathers Counsel and flew from it as if every word had been a two-edged sword designed for his executioner Such is the misery of the reprobate and jealous Souls that if an Angel should come from Heaven or a man arise from the dead yet would not they be reclaimed from their wicked errors These sweet waters of admonition were all spilt upon the ground and could not quench the flagrant heat of Phaetons blind zeal for the Government of his Fathers Chariot Therefore when Royal Phoebus saw that his fatherly advice could take no impression nor by any means prevail but that his Son was willfully bent upon his own ruin that he had caught him by a stratagem into such a straight that he could not repel his madness by force Ne dubita dabitur Stygias juravimus undas Quodcunque que optares He delivereth up his Chariot unto him and such was his tender care and unparallelled goodness that at that very time notwithstanding the contumacy of his rebellious Son who should have obeyed his Father in respect of his duty aswell as for his own good did not All-seeing Phoebus leave giving of him Counsel But that his Son might prosper even in his disobedience Qualis amor patris O how great is the love of Parents He directed him what course he was best to take and how he should perform his usurped authority Si potes his saltem monitis parere parentis Parce puer stimulis fortius utere loris Sponte sua properant Let not thy Father still advise in vain Son spare the whip and strongly use the reign They of their own accord will run too fast T is hard to moderate a flying haste This
instructions so he that denyeth this truth ought with the oratory of the sword and not of the mouth to be perswaded into his due obedience For it is an uncontrolable Maxim that he doth not honour and serve God as he should who doth not honour and serve his King as he ought God will not own him to be his subject who will not be a subject to his Soveraign the Lords anointed Therefore since by the Law of God for nothing is more frequently commanded in the Scripture and our Kings are of like institution with those Kings in Scripture and ought to have the same honour and obedience by the Law of Nature by the Law of Nations by the Common and Statute Law of England we are commanded to honour our King Let no man be so much an Enemy to God to Religion to his Country to the Church to the Law and to his own soul as to Rebel against his Legal Soveraign For he that doth it transgresseth against the ten Commandements of the Law the new Commandement of the Gospel he committeth the seaven deadly sins the four crying sins the three most detestable sins to the soul of man viz. Prophaness Impudency and Sacrilege In a word he committeth all sins is the Embleme of the Devil and unless he repent he will have his Lot with Belzebub the great Rebel and Traytor against Heaven If punishment cannot compel them me thinks the beauty of Monarchy might allure men to love it Surely there is no generous spirit who doth not for the most renowned and famous Nations in the World have lived under Monarchical Government as the Scythians Ethiopians Indians Assyrians Medes Egyptians Bactrians Armenians Macedonians Jews and Romans first and last and at this day the French Spaniards Polonians Danes Muscovites Tartars Turks Abissines Moors Agiamesques Zagathinians Cathaians yea and the Salvage people lately discovered in the West-Indies as being guided thereto by the rules of nature and rip up Antiquity and search Histories both antient and modern and thou shalt never finde our Realm of England so much an Enemy to virtue as to hate Royal Government until these latter and worst of dayes wherein it is accounted a sin to be noble and vertuous Nay so much did our Nation love Kings in former times that we had seaven of them in England at one and the same time viz. 1. The King of Kent 2. Of the South-Saxons 3. Of the West-Saxons 4. Of the East-Saxons 5. Of Northumberland 6. Of Mercia 7. Of the East-Angels which ruled and shined like the seaven Stars each absolutely reigning in his Country not under the subjection of other until at length by the Law of Conquest one became Monarch over all ruling like the Sun and acknowledging none on Earth his Superior so much that it is amongst us a common adage viz. The King holdeth of none but of God But it seems God hath now granted away the Seigniory to the House of Commons and the King must hold of them But from hence ariseth a point in Law whether they are absolutely and legally seized of the Seigniory without attornment of the tenant In my simple opinion the Seigniory doth not pass before attornment but I leave it as a quaere to the House of Commons who are best able to resolve it because they have all the Law in their own hands Non nostrum inter vos tantas componere lites From what hath been said it is apparent that Adam was the first King on Earth and that Kingdoms have been ever since Adam haereditary for a family which was before Commonwealth is nothing else but a small Kingdom and a great Kingdom is nothing else but a great family for the Pater familias were petite Kings and had royal power and potestatem vitae necis even over their own Children as Abraham and others But when the family increased and the numerous off-pring of their first parent multiplied built Villages Towns and Cities and so became a great people so long as their first parent lived their love and duty towards him would not permit them unnaturally to strive with him for the superiority but to acknowledge and obey him as their Soveraign and lawfull King from whence they had their being And this is the reason that Kings are called Patres Patriae Fathers of their Country Sal. 1. Inde enim origo regum regiique regiminis petenda est Haec cum primo homine cum solo novo cepit quoniam primum parentem numerosus ex eo descendens natorum qui ex â—is nati sunt populus pro rege habuit observavit ut primum sui generis auctorem So much for Monarchy the best of all Governments No man can serve two Masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other ye cannot serve God and Mammon Math. 6.24 If any Anti-Royalist think himself wiser than our Saviour and that he can serve two Masters and love them both let him hate Monarchy and set up his two headed Master and let experience the mistris of fools correct him as it hath many already But since our age is given to nothing but vain imaginations there be some who do Imagine and will object that Adam was no King because he is not stiled so in Scripture I answer though this frivolous objection doth not deserve an answer that neither do you find Adam stiled in Scripture my Father or thy Father yet Adam was the Father of all flesh Si res apparet Cur de nomine certas He that hath the supreme power is a King But Adam had the supreme power Ergo Adam was a King Rex cometh from Regere to rule and Adam was sole Lord Ruler and King and so continued untill he died Adam was created by God the Monarch of the World before he had any subjects And by right of Nature it was due to Adam to govern his posterity even before his subjects were born So that though not in act yet in habit Adam was a king from his creation Neither could Eve nor her Children ever limit Adams power It was God that gave the power therefore no Mortals could ever diminish or increase it For Quid Jove majus habetur They must be above all that which is called godlinesse who go about to put asunder that which the Almighty hath joyned together This Paternal power continued Monarchical to the Floud and after the Floud to the Confusion of Babel at which time God scattered the people abroad from thence upon the face of the whole earth as you may read Gen. 10 11. Yet they went out by Colonies of whole families over which the prime Fathers had the Soveraignty and were kings deriving their Fatherly and Regal power from Noah whose Sons or Grand-children they were all And although I think there are but few Kings in the world who can prove their title to their Crown hereditary ever since Noahs
own again which these most unjustly keep from him We cannot serve God and Mammon both at one time Good and evil cannot stand both together If the King come in and rule these men must fall If we serve the King as we ought we cannot serve these at all If God re-establisheth his Anointed Lucifer must call down his Children wickednesse must be abolished when righteousnesse takes place therefore the Gaolers of the Liberty of England must down when Charles the Second our only lawfull Soveraign is restored to his Crown and Kingdome Which they very well know therefore they would fain keep as long as they can their Empire which cost them their Souls and Reputation But let us return to our King When the Conquerour came in He got by right of Conquest all the Land of the Realm into his own hands the whole Kingdom was his direct and proper inheritance in demeasn so that no man can at this day make any greater title than from the Conquest to any Lands in England for the King being owner and sole Lord of the whole Land and the People therein did as he lawfully might dispose of the Land and people according to his will and pleasure he gave out of his hands what Lands he pleased to what persons he pleased and reserved what tenures and services he pleased So that in the Law of England we have not properly Allodium that is any Subjects Land that is not holden We all hold our Lands mediately or immediately of the Crown neither have we any right to our Lands any longer than we are faithfull and loyal to the King who first gave us them upon that condition for by the Laws of the Realm if we take up arms against the King imagine his death or commit any other offence which is high Treason we forfeit our estates to the King so that they return from whence they were first derived the greatest and highest title or property which a Subject hath to his Lands is Quod talisseisitus fuit in dominico suo ut de feodo Now though this word Feodum doth as Littleton teacheth legally signify inheritance and so Feodum Simplex signifieth a lawfull or pure inheritance yet it is apparently manifest that Feodum is a derived right and doth import with it a trust to be performed which trust broken forfeiteth the Estate to the King who only hath as Camden observeth Directum imperium cujus nullus est Author nisi Deus For all the Lands within this Realm were originally derived from the Crown and therefore the King is Soveraign Lord or Lord Paramount either mediate or immediate of all and every parcel of Land within the Realm 18 E. 3.35.44 E. 3.5 48 E 3.9.8 H. 7.12 Therefore though in other places he which findeth a piece of Land that no other possesseth or hath title unto entreth into it gaineth a property by his entry yet in England property to Land cannot be gained any such way for the Subject can have no property but what was first by the Kings grant therefore those Lands are still appropriated to the Crown which the King did not give away to his Subjects as if Land be left by the Sea this Land belongeth to the King and not to him that hath the Lands next adjoyning or to any other but the King Caelum Caeli Domino terram autem dedit filiis hominum All the whole Heavens are the Lords the Earth hath he given to the Children of men for which he only reserved their service as an acknowledgement of his bounteous liberality so the whole Kingdom is the Kings but the Land therein he hath given to his Children the people for which he only reserved their allegiance and service as a remembrance and recognition of his Royal bounty in which reservation the King as my Lord Bacon writeth had four institutions exceeding politick and suitable to the State of a Conquerour First Seeing his people to be part Normans and part Saxons the Normans he brought with him the Saxons he found here he bent himself to conjoyn them by Mariages in Amity and for that purpose ordains that if those of his Nobles Knights and Gentlemen to whom he gave great rewards of lands should dye leaving their Heir within Age a Male within 21 and a Female within 14 years and unmaryed then the King should have the bestowing of such Heirs in Mariage in such a Family and to such persons as he should think meet which interest of Mariage went still imployed and doth at this day in every Tenure called Knights service The Second was to the end that his people should be still conserved in Warlik exercises and able for his defence when therefore he gave any good portion of Lands that might make the party of Abilities or strength he withall reserved this service That that party and his Heirs having such lands should keep a Horse of service continually and serve upon him himself when the King went to Warrs or else having impediment to excuse his own person should find another to serve in his place which service of Horse and Man is a part of that Tenure called Knights service at this day But if the Tenant himself be an Infant the King is to hold this land himself untill he come to full Age finding him Meat Drink Apparel and other necessaries and finding a Horse and a Man with the overplus to serve in the Warrs as the Tenant himself should do if he were at full Age. But if this Inheritance descend upon a Woman that cannot serve by her Sex then the King is not to have the Lands she being 14. years of Age because she is then able to have an Husband that may do the service in person The Third institution that upon every gift of Land the King reserved a Vow and an Oath to bind the party to his Faith and Loyalty that Vow was called Homage the Oath of Fealty Homage is to be done kneeling holding his hands between the knees of the Lord saying in the French tongue I become your Man of Life and Limb and of earthly honour Fealty is to take an Oath upon a Book that he will be a faithful Tenant to the King and do his service and pay his Rents according to his Tenure The Fourth institution was that for Recognizance of the Kings bounty by every Heir succeeding his Ancestor in those Knight service lands the King should have Prâ—mer seisin of the lands which is one years profit of the lands and untill this be paid the King is to have possession of the land and then to restore it to the Heir which continueth at this day in use and is the very cause of suing livery and that as well where the Heir hath been in ward as otherwise Many other Tenures with services did the Conquerour institute as Grand Serjeanty Petit Serjeanty Tenure in Burgage Soccage Escuage c. which being holden of the King are called Tenures in capite which
of his hands and take it into their own But this was not all the Sea was dryed up and the fields were scorcht the Harvests were burnt and the Mountains perished with heat the Moon was amazed and the Clouds shone like Comets Parva tamen queror magnae pereunt cum maenibâ— urbes Cumque suis totas populis incendia gentes In cinerem vertunt But this was nothing Cities with their Towrs Realms with their people funeral fire Devours All the Kingdoms in the world did shake And all the Kings doubted of their regal title They feared that themselves should be destroyed and their Crowns with their lives pulled to the ground And doubtless had not Divine providence stopped this wild-fire more Kingdoms than were had been demolished For this fire did intend to make Kings and the common people all in one condition neither was the King to have any praerogative above his subjects but all had like to have been consumed in one and the same sire Great Cities with their walls and whole Nations with their people were turned into Ashes Circumspice utrinque Fumat uterque polus quos si violaverit ignis Atria vestra ruent Behold the Poles above At either end do fume And should they burn Thy habitation would to ruine turn O Almighty this usurpation would have taken away thy power For the Kings which thou did'st set to rule over the people had well nigh been all consumed And thy anointed which thou hast prohibited any thing to touch were by this unwieldy and unlawfull Government almost destroyed The flames begun to lick the Heavens and both Poles did take fire so that all things were hastening into their antient Chaos Alma tamen tellus ut erat circundata ponto Inter aquas pelagi contractosque undique fontes Qui se condiderant in opacae viscera matris Sustulit omniferos collo tenus arida vultus Opposuitque manum fronti magnoque tremore Omnia concutiens paulum subsedit infra Quam solet esse fuit sacraque ita voce profatur Si plaoet hoc meruique quid O tua fulmina cessant Summe Deum liceat periturae viribus ignis Igne perire tuo clademque autore levare Yet foodfull Tellus with the Ocean bound Amidst the Seas and Fountains now unfound Self hid within the womb where they were bred Neck-high advanceth her all-bearing head Her parched fore-head shadow'd with her hand And shaking shook what ever on her stand Wherewith a little shrunk into her brest Her sacred tongue her sorrows thus exprest If such thy will and I deserve the same Thou chief of Gods Why sleeps thy vengefull flame Be 't by thy fire If I in fire must fry The Author lessens the Calamity At length Our Mother Earth being a fellow sufferer in this hot persecution lifteth up her parched head out of the waters gathered together for her defence and holding her hands as a Fan before her face Thus powreth forth her dolefull grief O God of Gods If this be thy pleasure and my deserts Why sleep thy thunderbolts If I must perish by fire Let thy fire be my Executioner And so credit my death Thee O Jove being the Author Dixerat haec tellus neque enim tolerare vaporem Vlterius potuit nec dicere plura suumque Retulit os in se This said her voyce her parched tongue forsooke No longer could she smothering vapours brooke But down into herself with drew her head Near to th' infernal Caverns of the dead When shee had done prayers she shrunk in her venerable head for heat would not permit her to use Complements Which Oration no sooner came to Great Jupiters ear but he presently sends relief At Pater omnipotens superos testatus ipsum Qui dederat Currus Consiliumque vocat tenuit mora nulla vocatos The Almighty calleth a Parliament Summons â—n both Lords and Commons to the Counsel For â—lthough none can deny but that the Omnipotent hath an absolute power without the consent of â—he Inferiour Gods his subjects both to abrogate â—ld and institute new Laws yet such is his Royal indulgence that he will do neither without their consent Yet search the Catalogue of Antiquity and you will never finde a President that his Lords or Commons did ever dispute his authority much less assume his power and pluck the Regal Diadem from off their Soveraigns head It is his goodness which makes them capable of a Consent his Statutes are binding without it But to return Jupiter determins the death of Phaeton and dasheth him out of the Chariot with a violent thunderbolt and re-establisheth Royal Phoebus in his Throne Intonat dextra libratum fulmen ab aure Misit in aurigam pariterque animaque rotisque Exuit saevis compescuit ignibus ignes Et Phaeton rutilos flamma populante capillos Volvitur in praeceps He thunders and with hands that cannot erre Hurls lightning at the audatious Charioter Him strook he from his seat breath from his brest Both at one blow and flames with flames supprest And soul-less Phaeton with blazing hair Shot headlong through a long descent of air Now have you seen both the ascention of Phaetoâ— into the Chariot and his descention out of it Mâ— prayers shall be that I may never rise so high tâ— fall so low But the greatest Tyants in the world have oftentimes the greatest pompe of the world at their funeral to compleat their earthly happiness Therefore Reader take his Epitaph and consider whether it is not better to live a faithfull subject then dye a bold adventurous Traytor Hic situs est Phaeton Currus auriga paterni Quem si non tenuit magnis tamen excidit ausis Here lies Phaeton who though he could not guide His Fathers steeds in high attempts he dyed The Entrance of the AUTHOR who complaining of the times wherein the good are ejected and the wicked kill and take possession sheweth that those who unjustly against law are driven out of their own Country are not banished But that those who are unjust acting against right and deserve banishment by law are banisht though they continue upon their native soil With an Antidote out of venerable Petrack for all aswell Kings as other men who are illegally expelled from their Country THus ended Phaeton and consequently the History with him from whose ruins I will take my Exordium And Exemplo monstrante viam imitating my Mother Earth in her persecution shalâ— first lift up my head and hands to the God oâ— Gods and begin with a short Ejaculation though in King Davids words yet the same in effect with hers Summe Deum liceat periturae viribus ignis Igne perire tuc clademque autore levare Be 't by thy fire if I in fire must fry The Author lessens the calamity Let me fall into the hands of the Lord for very great are his mercies but let me not fall into the hands of man O happy David O happy Prayer O happy Success
as to take upon them a power to depose and powr out the sacred blood of their lawfull Soveraign Yet is there no such power in rerum natura It is the off-pring of the Devil The cloak Sanctuary and refuge of Treason Rebellion and Tyranny to blinde the people taking advantage of their ignorance and lead them hood-winckt into everlasting destruction unless the God of mercy prevent not With this new upstart Doctrine have our Apochryphal Dogmatists in England led the rascal rabble of the people about like a Dog in a string buzzing in their ears that the Monarchy of England is composed of three kinds of Commonwealths and that the Parliament hath the form of an Aristocracy the three estates of a Democracy and the King to represent the state of a Monarchy which is an opinion not only false absurd fond foolish and impossible but also worthy of the most severe punishment For it is high treason to make the Subject equal with the King in authority and power or to joyn them as Companions in the Soveraignty For the power of a Soveraign Prince is nothing diminished by his Parliament but rather much more thereby manifested The Majesty of a Prince consists in the obedience of his Subjects and where is the obedience of the Subjects more manifested then in his Parliament where the Lords and Commons the Nobility and Comminalty and all his Subjects from the highest Cedar to the lowest Shrub with bended knees and bare heads do cast down themselves at his feet and do homage and reverence unto his Majesty Humbly offering unto him their requests which he at his pleasure receiveth or admiteth So that it plainly appeareth that if the Parliament be not extravagant and leap over the bounds limited by the laws of God and our Realm of England the majesty and authority of our Soveraign is not decreased by the assembly of Parliament but rather augmented and increased For the Peers cannot assume Aristocracy nor the Commons Democracy without violation of their Oaths with which they are tyed in obedience to their Soveraign as well as with the Laws Indeed our Prince doth distribute places of command Magistracy and preferments to all his Subjects indifferently and so the Government is in a manner tempered with Democracy But yet notwithstanding the State doth continue a pure and simple Monarchy because all authority floweth and is derived from the King and the Soveraignty doth still continue in him as the fountain from whence those streams of power run and the Parliament is so far from sharing in this Soveraignty that the whole current of our acts of Parliament acknowledge the King to be the only Soveraign stiling him Our Soveraign Lord the King And the Parliament 25 H. 8. saith This your Graces Realm recognizing no superior under God but your Grace c. And the Parliament 16 Rich. 2.5 affirmeth the Crown of England to have been so free at all times that it hath been in no earthly subjection but immediately to God in all things touching the Regality of the said Crown and to none other And without doubt these Parliaments and many others had as much might and right though not so much Knavery as our Anabaptists and Puritans and other Sectaries have now who pretend that the Government originally proceedeth and habitually resideth in the people but is cumulatively and communicatively derived from them unto the King and therefore the people not denuding themselves of their first interest but still retaining the same in the collective body that is to say in themselves suppletive if the King in their Judgement be defective in the administration or neglect the performance of his duty may question their King for his misgovernment dethrone him if they see cause and resuming the Collated power into their own hands again may transfer it to any other whom they please These men would make themselves extraordinary wise or else our Ancestors extraordinary fools for surely if there had been such a power residing in the people as these men blab of it would have been preached up before these new-lights ever saw the light some busie-head like themselves would have awakened it and not let it sleep so long But it is impossible and a meer foppery to think that such a power should be for suppose that the people had at first Elected their Governour and gave him Soveraignty over them could they with justice and equity dethrone him again Surely no. For sive electione sive postulatione vel successione vel belli jure princeps fiat Principi tamen facto Divinitus potestas adest Let the King be made by election lot succession or conquest yet being he is a King he hath Divine power And therefore they have no power to take away that which God hath given The Conceit of a mixed Monarchy that the supreme power may be equally distributed into two or three sorts of Governours is meerly vain and frivolous because the supreme power being but one must be placed in one sort of Governors either only in Monarchy or only in Aristocracy or only in Democracy Our Parliaments of England never until now claimed either Aristocracy or Democracy Therefore as hitherto it hath been granted so the Government must of necessity still be Monarchical And the gracious Concessions of our Soveraign not to make Laws without a Parliament do not make the Parliament sharer or his equal in the Soveraignty because as I shewed before the Parliament hath no power but what is derived from the King His limitation of his Prerogative doth no way diminish his Supremacy God himself who is most absolute may notwithstanding limit himself and his power as he doth when he promises and sweareth that he will not fail David and that the unrepentant Rebels should never enter into his rest so a man that yieldeth himself to be bound hath his strength restrained but not lessened neither is any of it transferred to them who bound him So our Soveraign doth limit his power in some points of his administration and yet this limitation neither transferreth any power of Soveraignty unto the Parliament nor denyeth the Monarchy to be absolute nor admitteth of any resistance against him Monarchy is either Lordly or Royal. Adam proved to be the first King and made by God in Paradise not by the people All Kings are made by God The Son hath more right and it is more pleasing to God for him to murther his Father the Wife her Husband and the Servant his Master than it is for the people to kill their King Though in truth he be wicked The Kings institution and authority declared by Divine and Humane Writers The Horrible Labyrinth of sins which Regicides plunge into with their guilt The most famous Nations in the World have and do live under Monarchy Englands glory and love to Kings in times past and her Apostacy in times present Pater familias were petite Kings and how little Kingdoms grew great Kingdoms The Kings power is
into an act of joyning with them to take the Regal Diadem from off their pious Soveraigns head place it on their own fanatick Coxcombs and so become our good Lords Masters of all that we have for never was king illegally dethroned but a hundred Tyrants came in his room Regem quidem apparet eos sustulisse sed nec minus manifestum est Regnum sibi retinuisse dum quod sub uno erat in plures diviserunt triginta ac septem socios tyrannidis adscivere qui imperium secum tenerent gravique intollerando servitio cives suos premerent nam sub specie libertatis tyrannidem saevissimam velle eos exercere vel caecis clarum est saith Sal. But caveat emptor let them take heed they do not purchase their vain glory at too dear a rate their counterfeit dissembling may find a real Hell Nec est diuturna possâ—ssio in quam gladio inducimur this world will not last alwaies Let them assure themselves the people did never give nor ought for to take the power of their King Non tribuamus dandi Regni potestatem nisi Deo vero Let us not attribute the power of disposing of kingdoms to any but to the true God saith St. Austin de Civit. Dei li. 5. c. 21. Nemo enim ante infelicissimam hanc nostram tempestatem non fassus est Principem populo dominari Principi vero Deum For no man before these most unhappy times of ours did ever deny but that the King ought to govern the people and the King to be governed by none but God saith Barclay Had I not known that our Regicides have voted the Lords prayer as well as kings useless for uno absurdo dato mille sequuntur over Shooes over Boots I should have wondred with what face they could conclude their Prayers to the Almighty saying For thine is the kingdom the power and the glory for ever Amen yet claim the same power to themselves for if theirs be the kingdom the power and the glory if they have power to make and unmake kings when they please then what or where is Gods power Surely if their Doctrine be true then our Saviours is false and he did ill to teach us to pray and command us to say Thine is the kingdom the power and the glory for ever and ever But let God he true and every man a Lyar. Our Saviour is the Truth and the Light and if these men had been inlightned by our Saviours doctrin the darkness of these errors would never have so damnably blinded them who make God a Parenthâ—sis thinking themselves perfect and compleat without him and profess that the king whose â—oodness like their wickedness is incomparable is but a Brat of their own begetting and that they like God may take him away as occasion shall serve These Antimonians who pick out places of Scripture only to destroy Scripture that they may be Canonical in all things and do nothing without the Bible say that the people make the King and that they are so taught out of Gods word For 1 Sam. 11.15 All the people went to Gilgal and there they made Saul King before the Lord in Gilgal which say they is an invincible proof that the people made Saul their King and not God and so consequently all Kings are made by the people but if these men will tie themselves up so strictly to the letter of the Scripture because it makes for their purpose as they suppose that they will not hearken to the true meaning and interpretation let their own weapons kill them for 1 Sam. 12.1 Samuel said unto all Israel Behold I have harkned unto your voice in all that ye said unto me and have made a King over you This verse saith that Samuel made the King which is the very next verse to theirs which saith that the people made the King so that litterally one of these verses must needs speak falsly for if the people made the King then Samuel did not but if Samuel made the king then the people did not so that this Dilemma must needs confute our new Doctors But let Scripture interpret Scripture and the interpretation will tell you that God only made the king For though the people say We will set a king over us Deuter. 17.14 Yet they must in any wise set him king over them whom the Lord their God shall chuse The Lord must who only can give their king Soveraign power he must make and give the king The people have only power to receive and set him over them 1 Sam. 10.1 Samuel took a vyal of Oil and poured it on his head But the Lord anointed him King he is the Lords anointed not Samuels For why Is it not because the Lord hath anointed thee to be Captain over his Inheritance Saith Samuel Paul may plant and Apollo may water but God only giveth the encrease God is Master of the Substance and only giveth regal power Samuel c. and the people are but masters of the Ceremony and the Coronation of Kings is only a Declaration to the people that God hath given them a King Outward Vnctions and Solemnities used at coronations are but only Ceremonies which confer no power to the King For it was his from the Lord. 1 Ki. 2.15 The Elders of Judah and Israel chose David to be their King and anointed him over them 2 Sam. 5.3 But they did not give him power or right unto his kingdom For saith God 1 Sam. 16.3 I will shew thee what thou shalt do and thou shalt anoint unto me him whom I name unto thee The people make the King not by giving him Soveraign power for that feather doth not grow in their wing but by receiving him and approving that which God hath done For the Lord the King of all the Earth ruleth in the Kingdom of Men and giveth it to whomsoever he will Psal 4.7 Dan. 4.25 Old Horace more a Divine than most of these new Sectaries the incendiaries of all mischief could teach them this truth Regum timendorum in proprios greges Reges in ipsos imperium êst Jovis Clari Gigantaeo triumpho Cuncta supercilio moventis Fear'd Kings command on their own ground The King commanding Kings is Jove Whose arm the Gyants did confound Whose awfull brow doth all things move Which Sentence lest it should seem too light and savour too much of Poetical assentation Let our Antichristians for those who by their practise though not which their mouths deny Christs Doctrine deserve no better name hearken unto the Words of our Saviour if they will vouchsafe to debase themselves so much and behold what Doctrine he preached to Pilate which is the more remarkable because it was his last John 19.11 Iesus answered Thou couldest have no power at all against me except it were given thee from above For Cujus jussu homines nascuntur illius jussu reges constituuntur He who made men made Kings That Kings
restored to his own and sit Judge amongst us It was King Charles the first who granted that the burthen of excise should not be laid on the shoulders of his Subjects but the Rebels with their intollerable and monstrous Excises new found impositions and other unspeakable grievances have beggered the Subjects and undone the whole Kingdome both in their Estates and Reputation To be short whatsoever they voted unlawfull for the King to do they have done that and ten thousand times worse so that though we want not bodies to feel the miseries which they have brought upon us yet we want tongues to expresse the wofulnesse of our Condition and the incomparable wickedness of these Traytors And what greater pretence have they had for their actions than to say that the King was not the Supreme Governour over his Subjects A contradiction in it self but we will proceed further to manifest their error Sir Thomas Smith in his common-wealth of England saith cap. 9. By old and antient Histories that I have read I do not understand that our Nation hath used any other general Authority in this Realm neither Aristocratical nor Democratical out only the royal Kingly Majesty who held of God to himself by his Sword his People Crown acknowledging no Prince on Earth his Superiour and so it is kept holden at this day which truth is sufficiently warranted in our Law-Books The state of our Kingdome saith Sir Edward Cook li. 4. Ep. ad lectorem is Monarchical from the beginning by right of inheritance hath been successive which is the most absolute and perfect form of Government excluding Interregnum and with it infinite inconveniences the Maxim of the common Law being Regem Angliae nunquam mori That the King of England never dyeth then doubtlesse the Rebels could not by Law mortifie both the natural and politique capacity of the King And in Calvins case li. 7. The weightiest case that ever was argued in any Court than which case according to my Lord Cokes observation never any case was adjudged with greater concordance and lesse variety of opinions and that which never fell out in any doubtfull case no one opinion in all our books is against that judgment In this case it was resolved amongst other things Fo. 4. c. 1. That the People of England c. were the Subjects of the King viz. their Soveraign liege Lord King James 2. That Ligeance or obedience of the Subject to the Soveraign is due by the Law of Nature 3. That this Law of Nature is part of the Laws of England 4. That the Law of Nature was before any judicial or municipal Law in the world 5. That the Law of Nature is immutable and cannot be changed From which resolutions we may conclude that the Subjects of the King of England unlesse they like God Almighty could alter the Law of Nature They could not alter their obedience and subjection to their Soveraign Lord King Charles For if by the Law of Nature obedience from them was due to the natural body as I shall further prove of King Charles and if the Law of Nature is immutable as most certainly it is Bracton lib. 1 ca. 5. D. Stu. ca. 5. 6. then could not they have any cause whatsoever as altering their Religion banishing or killing of them a sufficient ground for them to take up arms against him and put him to death For by this they go about to change the Law of Nature which is impossible for mortals to do But say some by the Law of Nature we may defend our selves and therefore leavy war against the King for our own defence I answer that by the Law of Nature we are bound to defend our selves yet must we use no unlawfull means for our defence for the Subjects to levy war against their Soveraign is forbidden both by the Laws of God and Nature Therefore vain and foolish is that excuse as well as all others which the Rebels make use of to defend their Rebellion Ligeance is a true and faithfull obedience of the Subject due to his Soveraign It is an obligation upon all Subjects to take part with their Liege Lord against all men living to aid and assist him with their bodies and minds with their advice and power not toft li up their arms against him nor to support in any way those who oppose him This ligeance and obedience is an incident inseparable to every Subject of England and in our Law-books and many Acts of Parliament as in 34 H. 8. cap. 1. 35 H. 8. cap. 3 c. The King is called the liege Lord of his Subjects and the people his liege subjects Every Subject of England taketh the Oath of ligeance which is only due unto the King yet doth not the ligeance of the Subject to the King begin at the taking of this Oath at the Leet For as it was resolved in Calvins Case so soon as the Subject is born he oweth by birth-right ligeance and obedience to his Soveraign Lord the King Because ligeance faith and obedience of the Subject to the Soveraign was by the Law of Nature written with the Finger of God in the Heart of Man before any municipal or judicial Laws were made 1. For that Moses was the first Reporter or writer of Law in the World yet government and subjection was long before Moses 2. For that it had been in vain to have prescribed laws to any but to such as ought obedience faith and ligeance before in respect whereof they were bound to obey and observe them Frustra enim feruntur leges nisi subditis obedientibus You may read likewise in Calvins Case That the King of England hath his title to the Crown by inherent birth-right by descent from the blood royal from God Nature and the Law and therefore not by way of trust from the two Houses of Parliament or from the People Neither is his Coronation any part of his Title but only an ornament and solemniation of the royal descent For it was then resolved that the title of King James was by dessent and that by Queen Elizabeths death the Crown and Kingdom of England descended to his Majesty and he was fully and absolutely thereby King without any essential ceremony or act to be done Ex post facto So in the first year of the same Kings reign before his Majesties Coronation Watson and Clarke seminary Priests and others were of opinion that his Majesty was no compleat and absolute King before his Coronation but that Coronation did adde perfection to the descent and therefore observe saith my Lord Cook their damnable and damned consequent that they by strength and power might before his Coronation take him and his royal Issue into their possession keep him prisoner in the Tower remove such Counsellors and great Officers as pleased them and constitute others in their places c. and that these and others of like nature could not be treason against
non debet nec multo fortiùs superiorem and a little after in the same Chapter Exercere Rex debet potestatem juris sicùt dei vicarius in terra et minister quia ea potestas solius Dei est The King doth excell all his Subjects in power He hath no Equal much lesse a Superiour because his power is from God only he is Gods Vicar Therefore not the Peoples And again li. 1. ca. 8. Item in temporalibus sunt Imperatores Reges et Principes in hiis quae pertinent ad regnum et sub eis Duces Comites Barones magnates sive Vavasores et Milites et etiam liberi et villani et diversae Potestates sub rege constitutae And a little after sunt etiam sub Rege liberi homines et servi ejus Potestati Subjecti Et omnis quidem sub eo et ipse sub nullo nisi tantum sub Deo Parem autem non habet in regno suo quia sic amitteret praeceptum cum par in partem non habeat imperium Item nec multo fortius superiorem nec potentiorem habere debet quia sic esset inferior sibi subjectis et inferiores pares esse non possunt potentioribus ipse autem Rex non debet esse sub Homine sed sub Deo et sub Lege quia Lex facit Regem Dukes Earls Baronets Knights the Worthies of the Land Free-Men and Villains all are under the King and the King under none but God He hath no Peer in his Realm because then he would lose his command for amongst Equals there can be no Empire therefore much lesse hath he any Superiour or more powerfull than himself because then he would be inferiour to his Subjects and Inferiours as the Subjects are cannot be equal with the more powerfull as the King is But the King ought not to be under man but under God and the Law because the Law makes him King But what if the King should swerve from the Rules of the Law destroy his Subjects and their Estates without a cause May the Subjects take up arms against their Soveraign and compell him by force to do that which they cannot perswade him to by fair meams No saith Bracton li. 1. ca. 8. Si autem ab eo petatur cum breve non currat contra ipsum locus erit supplicationi quòd factum suum corrigat et emendet quod quidem si non fecerit satis sufficit ei ad paenam quod dominum expectet ultorem Nemo quidem de factis suis praesumat disputare multo fortius contra factum suum-venire No Enditement of high Treason c. lieth against the King our only remedy is to Petition his sacred Majesty but if he will not hearken to our just and reasonrble requests satis sufficit Nay his punishment is more than enough for he must render an account one day to him who judgeth righteously who will give us all a hearing the Beggar as well as the King But let not men in the mean time presume to question the deeds of the King much lesse Rebel against him and undoe by force what the King shall do though not according to right And that you may know that Bracton fully meant that the Subjects ought not to rise against the King though he acted unjustly He repeats his mind in other places li. 5. Tract 3. de defaltis cap. 3.3 where he puts the case that if the King should do injury and will not suffer the Law but his will to take place Quo casu cum dominus Rex super hoc fuerit interpellatus in eadem perstiterit voluntate quod velit tenentem esse defensum injuria cum teneatur justitiam totis viribus defensare ex tunc erit injuria ipsius domini Regis nec poterit ei necessitatem aliquis imponere quòd iâ—laâ— corrigat et emendet nisi velit cum superiorem non habeat nisi deum et satis erit illi pro paena quòd deum expectat ultorem If the King who is bound to administer justice to his utmost power being Petitioned will not recall and amend the wrong he did he injures his Subjects but no body can force him to do right because he hath the Supreme power he hath no Superiour but God and it is punishment enough for him to expect that God to whom vengeance only belongeth will take vengeance on him To every point which I have cited out of Bracton doth Fleta unanimously agree What man then so impudently wicked What hand so wilfully audacious what pen can there be so repugnant and contradictory to all truth as to affirm and publish to the world that Bracton writeth and is so to be understood viz. That the people have the Soverainty over the King and may call him in question for his actions so punish him for his offences O Traytor to the King and Sycophant of Bracton Mr. Willian Prynne of Lincolns-Inne is the man who with his Hand and Pen I cannot say Heart hath promulged this false Doctrine to the World in his Book called The Soveraign Power of Parliaments and Kingdoms Wherein according to Mr. Sandersons expression in his History of King Charls the 1st fo 117. Prynne pretends to overthrow all Scripture proofs against killing Kings and Princes For my part I bear not the least grudge or animosity to the mans person But his book is such a rapsody of nonsense a bundle of Rebellion and Treason a Pamplet so Seditious Pernicious Sophistical Jesuitical Trayterous and Scurrulous that I want Mr. Prynnes Epithites to give his own book its deserved Odium Wherein as Mr. Fuller in his Church History lib. 11. fol. 152. well observeth he delighteth more to be numerous with many than ponderous with select quotations which maketh his Books to swell with the losse of tentimes of the Reader sometimes of the Printer and his pen generally querulous hath more of the Plantiff than of the Defendant therein I mention Mr. Prynne and his book here only to put him in mind of the wrong which he hath done both to our Soveraign the King and the whole Kingdom He being the greatest if not the only Champion who rook upon him to vindicate and applaud those treacherous damnable and rebellious proceedings and unchristian inhumane and unnatural Warr against the King of that Monster called the Long Parliament whom now he laboureth as much to vilifye as he did then to promote O Trayterous Offspring which killeth his Mother only because she will not give him suck If he repent why doth he not write a book of retractations If he looketh upon his book intituled The lawfulnesse of the Parliaments necessary defensive War both in point of Law and Conscience I am sure he will have cause enough to repent of his writing if he hath any Law or Conscience in him And he hath no way better to redeem his credit than by a publique Confession God may pardon him and the King may pardon him if
there is Ultimum Potentiae so in the politick body when the King and the Lords Spititual and temporal Knights Citizens and Burgesses are all by the Kings command assembled and joyned together under the head the King in consultation for the Common good of the whole Realm there is Ultimum Sapientiae But it was never known in any age that the Members without the head had either power or wisdom and it would be prodigious if our age should produce such a Monster No man can tell the contrary but that our Realm of England hath been Governed by Kings ever since the Creation of the World clear it is by all Historians that ever since we heard of any Government in England it hath been a Royal State and although our Governours have been often changed yet our Government was never turned out of the regal road it is as easy to pull the Sun out of the Firmament and make the Stars to rule the day as it is to abolish Monarchy and establish Aristocracy or Democracy in our Kingdom For that which is bred in the bone will never out of the flesh As Monarchy is the most divine and most natural kind of Government so it is most natural to and esteemed most divine by all true born English men For such is the Courage and so great is the Loftiness of English Spirits that they disdain to be ruled by any but by his sacred Majesty our Soveraign Lord the King For as it was long before King William the Conquerour so did our Government continue still without interruption a Royal Monarchy until the chief Priests and the Scribes and the Elders as they call them of the People to wit Presbiterians Independents Anabaptists Jesuits c. assembled together and consulted that they might take Charles the first whose undeserved sufferings have made him immortal on Earth as well as in Heaven by subtilty and kill him But they said let us not kill him suddenly and openly lest there be an uproar among the people night time is the only day for wickedness The Gunpowder Treason was hatched in darknesse and these Godly Villains thought that the best way to catch their prey was to beat on the dark side of the hedge They cut the Throat of Religion when they seemed to lay a plaister and they murthered their Soveraign when they swore they intended nothing but to make him a Glorious King Then entred Satan into Judas surnamed the House of Commons being one of the two Houses of Parliament And these Judasses went their way and communed with the chief Priests and Captains how they might betray him unto them And they were glad and covenanted to give them mony who then promised and sought opportunity to betray him unto them in the absence of the multitude And since the innocent Birds are oftentimes easier catcht with silent and gentle snares than roaring Guns at first these Judasses thought to betray their Master with kisses courting his Majesty with high-flying Complements of Obedience and that they might make him believe them to be what indeed they were not they made many Oathes Protestations Vows and Covenants that they were his Graces most dutyful Subjects and desired to live no longer than to do his Majesty service But it seems they did but play the Fox speak fair only to get their prey for by these sophistical insinuations they charmed his Majesty and wrested from him divers marks of his Soveraignty they were intrusted with the Navy obteined a Triennial Parliament were acquitted of Ship-mony and other impositions and at length made themselves perpetual for his Majesty passed an Act not to Dissolve them without their consent So that they now wanted nothing but his Majesties life which to obtain they procured by their wickedness the Earl of Strafford's head to be cut off and many other Nobles which stood in their way which props being removed they thought they might with more ease pull down the Soveraignty of the King that these Negroes might make themselves compleat Devils they got the head of the Earl of Strafford others cutoff for committing Treason against the King whose head they afterwards intended to cut off for committing treason against them O incomparable villany What they made a capital offence in others they esteemed more than a Cardinal virtue in themselves It was High Treason in others to think to do the King any harm but it was a high piece of Godlinesse in them to cut off his head The Earl of Strafford must dye as a Traitour because they said he intended to levy warre against the Kings will But these Saints raised Armies to fight against his Majesties own person Levied warre against the King and Kingdome murthered the King and destroyed the whole Realm Yet forsooth they must be canonized as the only true servants of Jesus Christ and all those who speak against them they kill and massacre as if they had committed Treason and Blasphemy against the Almighty Nay the great offence against the Holy Ghost they esteem more pardonable than the least against them And as it now plainly appeareth to the world all their oaths vowes and protestations of obedience to the King and performing of their duty towards him were but preparations for their great wickednesse of murthering the King For as the Gunner when he laboureth to kill the innocent bird walketh gently and treadeth softly holding down his gun as if it was the least of his thoughts to shoot when he mindeth nothing more or as the greedy Huntsman stealeth upon the Hare or Deer looking another way untill he is gotten close by and then letteth out his bloudy hounds to take and kill his prey So these Vipers more wise than Serpents only to do mischief did steal upon the King and undermined him by cutting off his Nobles whom they knew would be true and trusty servants to him and then when they thought they had him within their reach They let fly their doggs the bloudy souldiers for this Judas the House of Commons then having received a band of men and officers from the chief Priests and Pharisees John 18.3 who first set them on work came forth with a great multitude with swords and staves Matth. 26.47 48. to take and kill their Soveraign Now they that betrayed him gave the souldiers a sign saying Whomsoever we have sworn to be the only supreme Governour in all causes and over all persons That same is he hold him fast In that same time said the King to the Multitude Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me I sate daily with you in the Parliament House making many good lawes and ye laid no hold on me But all this was done that their wickednesse might be fulfilled John 18.12 Then the band and the Captain and the Officers of these Jews took the King and led him away to their Council and contrary to all legal proceedings and
the due course of Law smote the Shepherd and so the sheep of the Protestant flock were all scattered abroad Bradshaw indeed that Pontius Pilate pressed the King very earnestly and by subtil and crafty inventions thought to have wrought upon the King to have submitted to their summa injuria their Arbitrary High Court of Injustice and pleaded So that his Example might have been urged as an irrefragable precedent against the lives and liberties of the whole Kingdome and that after ages might cite King Charles his case as an authority to kill Kings But the King foreseeing their delusive and abominable intentions rather than he would betray the lives and liberty of his free born subjects to the Arbitrary Lusts of these Tyrants told them of the great wickednesse they were about and shewed to his people how these Traitours endeavoured to inslave the whole Realm and so patiently suffered himself to be murdered dying a most true Martyr both for our Lawes and Religion but for plea he said nothing So Bradshaw more wicked than Pilate for instead of washing his hands he impudently bathed them in his Masters innocent blood gave the sentence of their wicked wills against him and delivered him over to the blood-thirsty to be crucified who spit upon him threw Tobacco pipes at him mocked him cryed out Away with him away with him Crucifie him Crucifie him cut off his Head with their wicked Engines and then cast lots for his Garments and Estate giving each Souldier a part But instead of writing over his head This is Charles the King of the Jews his true Title or rather the King of the Devils they writ over his head Exit Tyrannus Regum ultimus anno libertatis Angliae restitutae primo although in truth the best of Kings then went out and the greatest Tyranny under the Heavens then entred into our England comming far short of the Jews in all that is good but exceeding them in all wickednesse treachery perfidiousness and villany Now all this impious Council sought false witnesse against the King to put him to death but found none Therefore that they might do nothing without wickedness but proceed in all their Actions contrary almost to the very colour of Justice and make themselves the greatest and most illegal Tyrants that ever the world heard of they made themselves both Judges Jury Witness Party and Accuser in their own quarrel against the King For whereas by the Laws of the Land our gracious King alwayes made the Judges of the Land Arbitrators between his Subjects and himself in all cases from the lowest offence and trespass to the highest offence Crimen laesae Majestatis High Treason This Amalekite the House of Commons made part of themselves the Judges of the King who had committed the greatest Treason against the King and by the Laws of the Land deserved rather to hang at Tyburn than sit in the Chair of Justice likewise they made the Souldiers his Judges who professed themselves to be the Kings inveterate Enemies by their Remonstrances and Speeches and that they desired nothing more than his Blood and Life fought against him with their Guns and Swords Yet forsooth of this Hotchpotch of Traytors was their high Court of Justice made up Most of them being Collonels of the Army and other Souldiers who fought against him abroad and others Parliament men who conspired his ruine at home By the Laws of the Land it is a just exception to any Jury man who is to try the basest or poorest Felon and a legal challenge for which he must be withdrawn That he is a professed Enemy and Prosecutor who seeks his life and therefore no lawful nor indifferent tryer of him for it yet these bloody Butchers who professed themselves to be the Kings greatest Enemies and Prosecutors seeking after nothing so eagerly as the Kings life were both the Judges and Jury-men too to try the King Perjured O. Cromwell who then intended and afterwards effected to have the supreme power over these three Kingdoms was one of the Tryers to judge whether the King or himself with the rest of his brethren in iniquity deserved death and whether the King and his Royal Progeny ought not to be distroyed and Oliver and his stinking stock take possession O unparraleld lump of impiousness Aliquis non debet esse Judex in propria causà It is a Maxim in Law that no man ought to be Judge in his own cause Yet these villains made themselves the only Judge whether they committed Treason against the King or the King against them Nemo tenetur prodere seipsum No man is bound to accuse himself and it would have been a wonder indeed if these Rebels should have spoke the truth and said that they had committed high Treason against the King Therefore for fear the Law should punish them according to their deserts they thought good to prevent that mischief punish the King as they pleased according to their lusts And that they might make themselves the greatest Tyrants and the people the basest Slaves in the world they took upon them the Governing power which by Law only belongeth to the King 2. The Legislative power which likewise belongeth to the King with the concurrence of the upper and Lower House And 3. The Judicative power which belongeth to the Judges who are known Expositors and Dispencers of Law and Justice in all Causes brought before them So that these Trayterous Tyrants by their boundless and arbitrary wills put us to death when they please for what cause they please and take away our Estates when they see occasion And yet they have the impudence to tell us and many the sottishness to believe that the Parliament having the Supreme power doth all these villanies by Law O Abominable How these Tyrants mock the people with the name of a Parliament the Parliament consisteth of the King the head and about 600 of his Subjects and there were not above 50 or 60 of the Parliament who caused the King to be murthered and ruined his people yet these Schismaticks call themselves a Parliament and so having nothing good but their name Tyrannize over us They may as well say that the parings of the nailes of the toes are the whole man and have the power of all the other members as say that they are the Parliament or have any lawfull power they being nothing but the dregs and lees of the inferiour House from whom we must never expect any thing pleasing to any honest mans palate If the Parliament had power to depose the King yet what power can these few Gaol-Birds have who are scarce the tenth part of the Parliament and no Representatives of the People but only of their own Devilish ambitions By what authority do these Ignes fatui abolish Kingship and the House of Lords as dangedangerous and useless which all our Ancestors have found most profitable and glorious for our Kingdom These Currs have several times been kicked out of
the House by the martial violence of the Souldiers their Masters whose Journy-Men they are yet no sooner do they find the door open but in they slip again like Dogs into the Buttery where they sit and eat the fat of the Land and the fruits of our labours for which they now and then shite us an Act of Parliament whereby they destroy our fundamental Laws and Liberties and invent new high Treasons against them such as our Law-Books nor Statutes never told us of by which they maintain themselves in their Robbery and the people in their Slavery As for the oath of Supremary Vows Protestations and Covenants which they made in the presence of God with hands lift up to heaven for vengeance if they did not perform them and all other oathes of Homage Fealty and Allegiance which the People took to be true and faithfull to the King These they discharge themselves and the People of by an Act of Parliament as if these Caterpillers could discharge debts due to the Almighty But to make God amends they passed another Act that the People should swear to be true and faithfull unto them To go about to number their villanies deceits treacheries perjuries and other their wicked Actions were to go about to number the sands of the Sea or the fraudulent devices of Belzebub their Master they being the Genus generalissimum of all Treason Rebellion Murther Blasphemy Hypocrisie Lying Swearing and For-swearing abounding in Wâ—oredom Drunkenness Leachery Treachery Covetousnesse Pride Ambition and all other detestable vices They are a pack of rotten putrefied Members glued together in the stinking body of sin And if I should give you a Character of each Simple wherewith this Compound is contracted it would fright you out of your wits for I speak really I think they are the very Quintessence of all the Devils in Hell And although this beast cannot well agree which horn or legge shall go foremost they being somwhat troubled in dividing the spoil and their usurped authorities which is caused by their pride and covetousness and although they differ in Ceremonies and Ciâ—cumstances yet they make it one of their Fudamentals upon which themselves and all their proceedings are builded to murther Charles the second as they did Charles the first when they can lay their unhallowed Claws upon him and although they hate and bark and snarle at one another like dogs yet in the great work of their Salvation like Pilate and Herod they all agree to be Traytor and Rebels against their King And so long as these Mastives Lord it over us we must never expect peace but alwayes live like dogs fighting and biting for what we have We must with them account vice vertue and vertue vice we must hold their words more canonical than Gods word and say that is law which they say is law though it be neither law truth nor reason Unlawfull wars set them up and we shall alwayes have wars and rumours of wars amongst us untill they are pulled down To be short we must resolve to forsake God and serve the Devil if we intend to keep any thing safe so long as this Phalaris the Tail of the House of Commons domineereth over us For the Children of this world being in their Generation wiser than the Children of Light Luke 16.8 These Worldlings are so wise and subtil to do mischief that when they commit the most deadly sin They make it passe to the world as the best service done to God and when they themselves make plots to murther honest Royalists then they get some of their hirelings to discover it and swear that the Royalists invented the plot against them and presently forsooth they vote and command that their three Kingdomes give God thanks for their great deliverance ascribing that which was done by their own providence to the Providence of the Almighty Nay they have their Lillies and other lying Astrologers whom they consult with before they commit any great wickednesse and make them publish to the world that the Heavens ruled and voted what these Beagles please to perform It is as natural for their Judges to judge unjustly if it be for the profit or pleasure of their Masters at Westminster as it is for them to live For how many innocent Gentlemen have they condemned to death for doing their duty in defending the King from unjust violence which we are all bound to do by the law of God Nature and of the Realm They have their Balaam Prophets and Priests too almost in every parish and pulpit which they make the Organs to sound forth their own praises so that the ignorant country multitudes who scarce know that there is a God but that they heard their Minister tell them so thinking that he doth God the best service and credit who hath the finest ribbond on his hat or that weareth the best cloaths on his back at Church these Momusses believe that the Saints at Westminster are the only supreme power on Earth and that no men in the world for some of them think that the sea side is the end of the world are to be compared to them either for wisdome learning or honesty and the only reason of their thoughts is Ipse dixit their Minister said so but last Sunday And this was the chiefest reason wherefore the countrey Peasants flocked in so fast to the Armies of those Neroes at Westminster raised against the King who alwayes made the ignorance of the people their greatest Champion And lest we should see the superiority of the King above and over the Knaves and other Cards they abolish and prohibit Card-playing as a great sin in their Commonwealth Why did they not give the superiority to the Knaves How these godly Villains stumble at strawes and leap over blocks They prohibit innocent recreations on the Sabbath day purposely because they would have the people esteem them zealous in Religion and stricter observers of Gods Commandments than the King But in truth they serv'd God only to serve themselves In nomine Domini incipit omne malum acting all their wickednesse in the name of the Lord. For when they have got a good name amongst the people they think under that shadow to act any wickednesse and yet to the world seem saints Murther their King too and yet be accounted good Christians nay Reformers of the Christian Religion O Religious Impostors To these Quacksalvers belongeth two Speakers alias dictos Lyars viz. the private Speaker Lenthall now called by the common souldiers the Father of their Country Can you blame the little Thieves if they applaud the great Thief and the publick Speaker Needham the one rough hammereth lyes at the forge the House of Commons the other fashioneth them in his Mercurius Politicus Thus they fill our eares with as many lies as their breasts be yet forsooth none must dare not to believe what they publish by authority Now the Presbyterian Judasses when they saw that the King
is as much to say as Tenures de persona Regis because the head is the principal part of the body and the King is the head of the body of the Commonwealth Which Tenures brought many profits and commodities to the Crown which would be too tedious here to particularize and are a clear testimony of the Kings Soveraignty For no man can alien those lands which he holdeth in Capite without the Kings Licence if they doe the King is to have a fine for the contempt and may seise the land and retain it untill the fine be paid By example and in imitation of the King For Regis ad exemplum totus componitur orbis Did the Nobles and Gentry of this Nation to whom the King had given large portions of land grant out parcells of their land to their Servants and under-Tenants reserving such services and appointing such like Tenures as the King did to them as Homage Fealty c. whereof you may read plentifully in Littletons Tenures But their Tenants in doing Homage and Fealty to them did alwayes except the Faith which they did owe unto the King As in their making Homage appeareth viz. I become your man from this day forward of Life and Limb and of earthly worship and unto you shall be true and faithful and bear you faith for the Tenements I claim to hold of you saving the Faith that I owe unto our Soveraign Lord the King Though they Swore to become the men of and be true and faithfull to their Lords yet not so but that they still were the men of and ever would be true and faithful to the King their Soveraign who was Lord over their Lords and over the whole Realm Omnis homo debet fidem Domino suo de vita membris suis terreno honore observatione consilii sui per honestum utile salva fide Deo Terrae Principi Lib. Rub. cap. 55. We can oblige our selves to no men so deeply as to take away our allegiance and fidelity towards the King We must be for God and the King in all things all our actings and undertakings should tend to their Glory which would prove our greatest good and comfort Homagium Ligeum is only due unto the King the Law prohibiteth us to do Homage to any without making mention of this Homage due unto the Lord our King therefore we must not be opposite to or armed against him but both our lives and members must be ready for his defence because he is Soveraign Lord over all Co. Lit. 65. As the Conquerour did make all his Subjects Feudaries to him so likewise did he change our Lawes and Customes at his pleasure and brought in his own Country fashions which is the Common use of Conquerours He caused all Lawes to be written in his language and made what Lawes he thought meet Quod Principi placuerit legis habet vigorem whatsoever the King willed was the only law His fiat was as binding as an Act of Parliament and what he voted no man no not the whole Kingdome had power to dispute There was no question then made but that the King ought to have the Militia neither did any one think of much lesse deny him a Negative voice The Commons then thought it an high honour to look upon the Kings Majesty a farre off To sit and rule their families at home was all the Jurisdiction which they had or claimed They had not power to condemn one of their servants to death much lesse their Soveraign Lord the King from whom they then and we now have our being The King had not then made them so much as the Lower House nor ever did admit them to his Counsel The Lords their Masters were only deemed worâ—hy of this dignity for why Tractent fabrilâ—a fabri Let the Shepheard keep his sheep and the Hogheard keep his hogs and not meddle with the tuning of musical Instruments Though the Plow-man can drive and guide his horses well yet he would make an ill Pilot to steer a ship The Blacksmith may have skill to make a horse-shooe but he would rather marre than make a watch The Commons may make good Subjects but experience teacheth us they will rather destroy both King and Kingdome than reform or rectifie either Therefore the Kings of England did never admit the Commoners into their Counsels much lesse intrust them with the Legislative poâ—er For it is a Meridian truth that as before so from the Conquest until a great part of the Reign of Henry the third in whose dayes as some hold the writ for election of Knights was first framed the Barons and Prelâ—tes only made the Parliament or Common Council of the Realm whom the King convoked by his Royal Summons when he pleased Neither did the Council so convened consist of any certain number but of what number and of what persons the King vouchsafed Nay clear it is by the Lawes made in the Reign of Edward the first which was above two hundred yeares after the conquest that there was no certain persons or formed body whose consent was requisite to joyn with the King in making an act of Parliament but when the King conceived it fit to make a Law he called such persons as he thought most proper to be consulted with Indeed at the Coronation of Henry the first all the People of England were called by the King and Laws were then made but it was per Commune Concilium Baronum And that King and his Successours did not usually call the Commons but made Laws with the advice of which of their Subjects they pleased and as Sir Walter Rawleigh and others write the Commons with their Magna Charta had but bastard births being begotten by Usurpers and fostered by Rebellion for King Henry the first did but usurp the Kingdom and therefore to secure himself the better against Robert his eldest brother he Courted the Commons and granted them that Great Charter with Charta de foresta which King John confirmed upon the same grounds for he was also an Usurper Arthur Duke of Brittain being the undoubted heir of the Crown so the House of Commons and these Great Charters had their original from such that were Kings de facto not de jure But it maters not which of the Kings first instituted the House of Commons certain it is that long after the Conquerour its name was not so much as heard of in England but as it is apparent one of his Successours did form them and grant not to make Laws without their consent and by a Statute made 7 H. 4. the Writ of Summons now used was formed and by an other Act made 1 H. 5. direction is given who shall be chosen that is to say For Knights of the Shires Persons resiant in the County and for Cities and Boroughs Citizens and Burgesses dwelling there and Free-men of the same Cities and Boroughs and no other So that now by the
but it was fifty or sixty rotten tainted Members of the lower House small in number but great in transgression So may the Tayl nay a piece of the Tayl destroy the whole body and reign sole Lord Paramount Oh what multitudes of impieties can the wicked accomplish in an instant Seneca Nullum ad nocendum tempus angustum est malis In no longer space than betwixt the Father and the Son did these Horse-Leaches subvert our fundamental Government destroy King and Kingdom Parliament and People and all our Laws and Religion so that the question is not whether the Parliament be above the King but whether a little company of great Traytors and Usurpers the Dregs and Lees of all Tyranny be above both King and Parliament For the Parliament as you see by the joyfull recognition made to King James c. enacted and most humbly acknowledged the King to be above both Parliament and People and the Crown to be hereditary to the King and his Royal Progeny but these men and only these who by violence make themselves above both King and Parliament defending their persons from the Justice of the Law with Armed Red-Coats and the greatness of their villanies These are they who deny it though the Laws of the Realm and all Histories and all Kingdoms teach them otherwise God calleth himself a King in several places of the Scripture to note and signifie his Soveraignity which surely he would not do was the King the Peoples vassal or under Officer as the Bedlam franticks of our age feign Thou art my King O God saith David Command delâ—verance for Jacob. The King and the Power to command are Individua He is a Clout no King which cannot command And who should be under his command What The People taken particularly and distributively as single men and not collectively as the whole Kingdom according to the fanatick opinion of our Lunaticks Why is he not then called King of single men If he be King of a Kingdom then all the People jointly or severally in his Kingdom are under his command and if under his command then he only hath power to give them Laws be they in one collective body as in Parliament at the Kings house or simple bodies at their private dwellings Le Roy fait les leix avec le Consent du Seigneurs et Communs et non pas les Seigneuns et Communs avec le consent du Roy is the voice of the Common Law The King makes Laws in Parliament with the consent of the Lords and Commons and not the Lords and Commons with the consent of the King Virg. 7 Eneid Hoc Priami gestamen erat cum jura vocatis More daret Populis And 5 Eneid Gaudet regno Trojanus Arestes Indicitque forum patribus dat jura vocatis The Lords and Commons have power only to propound and advise it is only the Kings Le roy le veult which makes the Law their propositions and advice signifie nothing if the King saith Le Roy se avisera They have not power to grant him any subsidies untill the King saith Le Roy remercieses loyaulx et ainsi le veult Therefore much less the Soveraignity It would be strange if the assembling of the Subjects together should make them Masters over the King who gave them power to assemble and hath power to turn them home again when he pleaseth Legum ac edictorum probatio aut publicatio quae in curia vel Senatu fieri solet non arguit imperii majestatem in Senatu vel curia inesse saith Bodin de Rep. li. 1. ca. 8. The publishing and approbation of Laws and Edicts which is made ordinarily in the Court of Parliament proves not the Majesty of the State to be in the said Court or Parliament It is the Kings Scepter which giveth force to the Law and we have no Law but what is his Will The King surely would never call his Subjects to bind him with Laws against his will much lesse to take his Dominion from him and make himself a Vassal and Officer to his two Houses or either of them who were not capable themselves of any Office without his Gift and Licence The Kings of England have called many Parliaments yet the Government hath alwayes continued Monarchical and the King not under but above the people inferior only to God even Forein Polititians will tell you so Let famous Bodin who tanketh our Kings amongst the absolute Monarchs speak for all lib. 1. cap. 8. Habere quidem Ordines Anglorum authoritatem quandam jura vero Majestatis imperji summam in unius Principis arbitrio versari The States saith he of England have a kind of authority but all the rights of Soveraignty and command in chief are at the will and pleasure of the Prince alone Learned Cambden in his Britannia fo 163. teacheth us As touching the division of our Common wealth it consisteth of a King or Monarch Noblemen or Gentry Citizens freeborn whow we call Yeomen and Artisans or Handicrafts-men The King whom our Ancestors the English Saxons called Coning and Gining in which name is implyed a signification both of power and skill and we name contractly King hath Soveraign power and absolute command among us neither holdeth he his Empire in Vassalage nor receiveth his investure or enstalling of another ne yet acknowledgeth any superiour but God alone Now if Reason and the Judgement of our Ancestors would satisfie our frenzy upstarts what greater authority would they have But that they are troubled with so many visions and false revelations of their own I would commend to them a true vision in the Reign of Edward the Confessor viz. One being very inquisitive and musing what should become of the Crown and Kingdom after King Edwards death the blood Royal being almost extinguished he had a strange vision and heard a voyce which forbade him to be inquisitive of such matters resounding in his ears The Kingdom of England belongeth to God himself who will provide it a King at his pleasure But now forsooth it belongeth to the people and they will provide it a King at their pleasure It is the people now which make the King if so why ever had we any Kingdoms why were they not called Peopledoms The Kings of England with them of France Jerusalem Naples and afterwards Scotland were antiently the only anointed Kings of Christendom And as the Kings in Scripture as Asia Jehoshaphat Hezechiah c. so the Kings of England have alwayes had the supremacy in Ecclesiastical causes Reges sacro oleo uncti sunt capaces spiritualis jurisdictionis 33 Ed. 3. Rex est persona mixta cum Sacerdote habet ecclesiasticam et spiritualem jurisdictionem 10 H. 7.18 And although Kings ought not to be Ministers of the Chutch so as to dispense the word and Sacraments For No man taketh this honour unto himself but he that is called of God as was Aaron Hebrews 5.4 Yet since they
for an Almes and by and by knock their Benefactor on the head and make themselves Masters of what they before entreated for And indeed the most part of their Villanies did commence with Petitions for in driving on their wicked designs they alwayes got the Rascal rable of the People to heap in Petitions for what they themselves set them upon as if these Godly Villains did nothing but what they were driven to through commiseration of the people when God knows they did nothing but what was for the satisfaction of their own wicked Lusts and Ambition For when the Souldiers and other baser sort of the people cryed out for Justice and Privilege of the Parliament Even then was the Injustice of these Rebels most promoted and the Parliament did not then only lose its privileges but its very life and being Thus Barbers may cut off the Head when they pretend to trim the Hair and so may Physicians destroy and kill the Body when they pretend to apply Medicines For as now it appeareth even to the blind their pious pretences were but a Colour for their wicked intentions to destroy both King and Parliament and root up all our Laws and Religion when they seemed to act most to preserve them Now since the power of Warr only belongeth unto the King it must of necessity follow that the King hath power to levy Taxes and impose Subsidies on his people to maintain the Warr otherwise it would be in vain to think of waging Warr for all Souldiers must have Vectigalia Food Apparel and Arms and where should the King have this but in his own Kingdom To be short it is a duty laid upon the Consciences of all Subjects to supply their King with all necessaries both in time of Warr and Peace And a thing commanded both by our Saviour and his Apostles Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesars And 13 Rom. Render therefore to all their due Tribute to whom Tribute is due Custom to whom Custom Fear to whom Fear Honour to whom Honour But our Antipodes subverting all Scripture render to no man their dues and that they may act contrary to the very words and meaning of every Text They do not render Tribute Custom Fear and Honour to the King to whom it is only due but forsooth to themselves to whom it is not due So may the Servant murther his Master and take all his Revenues and Honour as due only to himself He which argueth that the King hath not right to chuse his Privy Counsellors Great Officers and Judges c. will likewise say that the Master hath not right to chuse his Servants it being the practice of all Kingdoms as well as of England and due to him by the Law of Nature Thou shalt provide out of the People able Men saith Jethro to Moses when the 70. grand Senators of Israel the Great Sanhedrim of the Jews were to be chosen By which you see the great Officers c. are to be chosen out of and not by the people but by the King So Pharoah not the people made Joseph Ruler over all the Land of Aegypt and Nebuchadnezzar and not his people made Daniel Ruler over the whole Province of Babylon And since our Lawyers are so forward to take Commissions and be made Judges by every power which getteth uppermost be it right or wrong Let me tell them that it is an undoubted truth that every person who hath been since the murther of Charls the Martyr or shall hereafter without the authority of Charls the second be condemned and executed for any Crime whether guilty or not guilty in the Kings Bench or at the Assizes or elsewhere is murthered and all the Judgments acts and proceedings of those nominal Judges or Commissioners are void as things done Coram non judice So that it consequently followeth that these lawless Judges are principals in every murther so committed Vengeance only belongeth unto God Deu. 32.35 The King is the Minister of God a Reuenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil Therfore whosoever prosecuteth in the Kings Courts against the life of any man as in an Appeal c. or sueth for recompence for any wrong done unto him he doth not take vengeance but God who executeth his wrath by his Minister the King But if any private man or the whole people take upon them to make themselves their own Carvers taking what recompence they think fit either against the King or any of their fellow Subjects in this case they make themselves their own Revengers and rob God of his rights for vengeance belongeth to him not to them Therefore if any man though in a way of publick Justice take upon him to condemn and execute any man without authority and power from the King he is a Murtherer and malicious Revenger upon whom the vengeance of God whom he endeavoureth to cheat and rob will fall Oh then admire and bewail the Infandous Murthers and Murtherers of our age wherein the good are destroyed for performing their duty towards God and their King and the wicked flowrish only because they are sinfull for whosoever will not be a Rebel must not be a Common-wealths-man amongst these new Republicans Yet forsooth they have such a form of Godlinesse amongst them that whosoever doth not approve of their wickednesse but speaketh of their actions according to their deserts they call such men the ungodly and flatter themselves saying the Saints of all ages have been spoken evil of by the wicked holy David nay our Saviour and his Disciples were reviled by the Reprobate therfore no wonder if the Malignant Cavaleers do reproach and vilifie our piousness and brotherly love and charity one towards the other So Belzebub may call them impious who do not account him the only good Angell How these men would be esteemed most Religious even when they commit Sacrilege and seem righteous even in the very act of wickednesse They murther many and take away the Estates of all Royalists yet if the Royalists whom they have thus spoyled tell them according to Gods Commandments that they ought not to be swift to shed blood nor covet their neighbours goods these Saints presently tell them that they have not the Spirit of Godliness in them but that they are the abusers of Gods word and his Children as if Gods Spirit gave them authority to act wickedly and that none but they were the children of God who had got their wealth by murther rapine and sacrilege O Monstrous If you call their ill gotten Government Tyranny or Usurpation they number you amongst those filthy Dreamers who speak evil of Dignities and will noâ— submit to lawfull authority Yet these Antipodes could revile their Soveraign the King with multitudes of scurrilous Pamplets cut off his head and banish his Royal Progeny taking away their Lands and the Estates of thousands more yet they would make one believe that they never spoke evil of Dignities nor ever resisted lawfull
dear Trade dyeth thousands of Families are ready to starve Millions of men are ruined and undone the whole Realm groaneth under the burthen of excessive Taxes and Wars and rumors of Wars continually plague our Kingdom which hath lost its glory both abroad and at home and become a meer laughing-stock to all Nations and all this misery ariseth from the Tyranny of these Rebels who unjustly banish our lawfull haereditary King Charls the second and take possession of his three Kingdoms making themselves absolute Tyrannical Kings over us and so I believe they intend to make their Heirs for being accustomed to lye they declare in their Declarations that the People shall be governed by their Representatives in Parliament Yet their actions contradicting their words they will not suffer the People to chuse their Representatives or come into the House but they tell us that they will chuse men of fit qualities So one Thief chuseth another Similis simili gaudet We may be sure never to have an honest man amongst them if they have the chusing So that we may conclude that unlesse we arise and destroy these self-seekiâ—g self-created Tyrants and restore our gracious King to his Crown both we and our heirs shall be Slaves to the worlds end for no legal Government can be established without the King I have sufficiently proved that it is unlawfull for Subjects to rebel against evil Kings How much more then is it unlawfull to rebel against a pious and mercifull Soveraign which addeth to the bulk of the sins of our English Rebels For the whole world knoweth that Charls the Martyr whom they so trayterously murthered was the best of Kings and meekest of men He was Charls le bon Charls le grand good in his greatnesse and great in his goodnesse Some have said that a good King cannot be a good Christian but it is proved manifestly false in him for to the admiration of the whole Earth he was the best of Christians and no less to be admired as a good King So that his misfortune in his Government did not proceed from his deficiency in the art of Governing but from the excesse of the Rebels sins who transcended all Traytors since the creation of the world in sin and treachery as far as Hell is distant from the Earth Wherefore we may most truly say that he was murthered only because he was good For every Kingdom divided against it self is brought to desolation if Satan also be divided against himself how shall his Kingdom stand Therfore if the King had been evil these evil Traytors would never have cast him out but seeing he was a pious and Religious King and so an evil Member to their evil Common-wealth They all united their hearts and hands to cut him off and lay to his charge all the Treasons Murthers Rapines Burnings Spoils Desolations Damage and Mischief to this Nation which they themselves committed So Thieves and Murtherers may spoil burn and make desolate all places and Massacre and kill many Noble and trusty Servants to the end they might take their Master and kill him and then having taken him lay all to his charge and execute him as the only Author of all those villanies which they themselves acted and occasioned O heavens Could the Almighty suffer this Why not The Lord made all things for himself yea even the wicked for the day of evil Pro. 16.4 As for our rising Sun Charls the second though hitherto obscured by the foggy mists of Treason and Rebellion in his own Kingdoms yet do the rayes of his sacred Majesty shine throughout the world beside and his renown ecchoeth in every part of the Earth to the admiration of forein Kingdoms and to the envy hatred of the Rebels in his own Yet cannot their malice but marvel at the virtues and patience of their King whom they so much wrong And it grieves them to see that royal progeny whose ruine they so greedily hunt after flourish with such glorious splendour amongst the Kings and Princes of the Earth growing in favour both with God and Man Whilst they odious to all but themselves by their Tyranny and Rebellion incurr the displeasure both of Heaven and Earth and become a Ridiculous Rump The object of the scorn and derision both of Old and Young Rich and Poor And had not these infatuated Rebels brasen faces to deny what their own Conscience telleth them is true They would presently declare that the only way to settle our distractions and restore our Nation to its pristin happinesse and glory were to call in the King and re-establish him in his own which they unjustly pocket from him For so long as there is one of the race of the Stewarts which God long preserve and any forein King or People remain alive we must never look for peace or plenty but as publick Thieves alwayes live in a posture of Warr and ever expect forein Nations to come in and swallow us up Who account it as indeed it is the greatest piece of Justice under the Sun to revenge with our bloods and utter destruction the bloody Murther of Charls the first and the unnatural Banishment of Charls the second our only lawful Soveraign Therefore let all English Spirits who have not washed their hands in the Innocent blood of Charls the Martyr joyn their prayers to God and their Forces to one another and lance this Ulcer and cut off this proud flesh whose growth destroyeth our King Laws and Religion Behold the Duke of York wiâ—l be your leader whose very name striketh terror to the greatest men of Warr and our Rebels tremble to think of his Martial atchievements It is he who will be our Champion to hunt out these treacherous Foxes who Rebel against his King and Brother and then make our Nation dreadful to the Pope and other forein Invaders Therefore let us not dream like Goats whilst we have this Lyon to be our Captain but follow him and destroy these Wolves who make us their continual prey keeping us in Slavery under a false pretence of Liberty and let us obey our King and Father Charls the second who will blesse us with the blessings of Jacob and weed out of our Church and State those Jesuits and Popish Blasphemors who now under the colour of a free State are working and contriving the ruine both of our Laws and Religion And then we shall prosper into a Kingdom Ezekiel 86.13 and once more be a glorious people under so glorious a King which God Almighty speedily grant for the glory of his Holy Name and for the welfare and happinesse of all Christian people Every one knoweth that in 1648. after the long tempest of a horrid VVarr and Rebellion raised by the Refractory and Treacherous House of Commons under a pretence of removing evil Counsellours from the King but in truth only to promote their own private Interests and factious designs The Currish Army who had for a long
the power which they then and now exercise over these three Kingdoms is unjust and Tyrannical because not derived from the People There are no Representatives amongst them for Scotland nor Ireland nor the greatest part of England neither did they ever receive any power at all from the People of either England Scotland or Ireland and now all the People publiquely declare against them as the greatest Usurpers and Tyrants in the world yet contrary to all the Peoples wills they sit and Rule and will admit of no Member of the Peoples chusing to come amongst them unless they first qualifie and fit him for their own purpose therefore it plainly appeareth that this Vote that the People had the supreme power under God was but a meer juggle to gull the people and to bring their wicked designs to passe So that as A whip for the Horse or a bridle for the Asse have the People made of this quondam Parliament a rod for their fools-backs Pro. 26.3 The King being murthered by these Tyrants and all our Laws and Religion totally subverted a time wherin every one did what was right in his own eys Oliver Cromwel who for his excellency in wickedness and villanies was made General of the long called Parliaments unjust Forces the twentieth of April 1653. entred the House attended with some of the chief Commanders of his Army and delivering his reasons to them in a Speech why he came to put a period to their siting as judging it a thing much conducing to the publick wellfare of the Nation dissolved them And why might not he turn out them by force who by force had already turned out the King Lords and all the Commons besides themselves Surely if he had taken and hanged them all it would have been a glorious Act pleasing to God and the whole people and a Cordial to heal the miseries of our long-distressed Nation But his ambition was to make himself Great not to give relief and take away the Tyranny therfore he summoned a certain select number of his own creatures to appear at Westminster on the fourth of July next which he called a Parliament and none could deny but that they had the Soveraign power because Cromwel said so yet not so but that he made them resign up their power to him and make him the Lord protect us Lord Protector not a King because a King might do nothing but by Law but the Protector did nothing but according to his will and pleasure yet in this were we happy that in his reign one Tyrant Lorded it over us but in the long Parliaments many It is worth the observation that notwithstanding a Parliament had newly abrogated the very name and being of a King as dangerous and burthensom to the Common-wealth yet a Parliament summoned by Cromwel in July 1656. to meet on the 17 of September Petitioned and made many humble addresses to Cromwel that he would take Kingship upon him and be anointed King which old Nolls mouth watered at yet because some things did not fall out according to his expectation he declined it and refused to be what he eagerly though not openly persued Cromwel likewise created a House of Lords which was called the other House but the high aspiring thoughts of this turbulent Scorpion were at length blown down and extinguished by a high and mighty wondrous and unparalleld wind which out raunted Old Nol and whirried his black Soul down ad inferos So that after this storm we had a Calm and as the Sheep are at quiet ease when the bloody Woolf forsakes them so the People did rejoice and solace their hearts when this Tyrant made his Exit yet no sooner were we rid of this crafty Knave the Father but we were troubled with a simple Fool his Son Richard his eldest Son was proclamed by the new Courtiers and Army-Officers Lord Protector of England Scotland and Ireland and so tumble down Dick thought to have risen and Reigned in his Fathers room But a Fools bolt is soon shot Richard was quickly up quickly down No sooner had he called a Parliament but the Souldiers who feared that his Parliament should be honest and disband them as the only instruments to execute all Villanies went to the Mushroom Protector and by dnresse made him dissolve the Parliament and divest himself of all his Power and Authority And in this respect it is better to be a Knave than a Fool For crafty Noll kept the rude Souldiers in due obedience But simple Dick let them be his Masters whereas he might easily have made them and the whole people have been his Servants to this day When Richard was dismounted the Souldiers could not well tell where to hang the Government to secure them in their Rebellion and Roguery At last they pitcht upon the old rotten Rump viz. the fagg end of a worn-out perjured Parliament who had formerly dissolved themselves witnesse the Entry in their own Journal Book April 20.1653 although they pretend to be interrupted by Cromwells force So these Knaves the worst of Tyrants cemented together again like a Snakes tail and for colour called themselves the Revivers of the Good Old Cause and were as busie as if they had had another King and 3. Kingdoms to destroy So these infamous wicked Traytors returned to their wickedness as a Dog to his vomit to the great grief and grievance of all sorts of People in the Land who groaned and murmâ—red as if they were entering into a far worse than Egyptian bondage and Slavery under these task-masters To say that the people not they had the Soveraign power was now high Treason although they themselves had voted so formerly and to talk of a Free Parliament the antient birthright of the people as they themselves likewise formerly affirmed was now made a greater offence than Crimen lae sae Majestatis These Custodes filled all the Prisons in the Kingdom with those persons who desited a Free Parliament and in that respect they may be called The Keepers of our Liberty as Gaolers do Thieves in Chains or as the Cage doth Birds in grates For they keep us so much from our Free Liberty to do well that they will not so much as give us leave to speak or think well But there is no peace with the wicked when these Tyrants had beaten down Sir George Booth and other Assertors of a Free Parliament and made themselves as secure as Force and Violence could make them One Lambert a Chip of the old Block newly made General of their Forces displaced the Rump and with his Souldiers inhibited their usuped sitting which made the whole people not only rejoyce inwardly but break out in open laughter for joy But nullum commodum sine incommodo there is no pleasure without a displeasure No sooner did the Rump leave riding of us but up gets the Committee of Safety into the Saddle who made account that they were so absolutely our Masters as
be chased away as a vision of the night The eye also which saw him shall see him no more neither shall his place any more behold him because he hath oppressed and hath forsaken the poor because he hath violently taken away an house which he builded not Job 20. ENGLANDS REDEMPTION OR The Peoples rejoicing for their great deliverance from the Tyranny of the long called Parliament and their growing hopes for the restauration of Charls the second whose absence hath been the cause of all our miseries whose presence will be the cause of all our happinesse The prosperity of Rebels and Traytors is but momentary As Monarchy is the best of all Governments so the Monarchy of England is the best of all Monarchies Therfore God save King Charls the second and grant that the proud Presbyterians do not strive to make themselves Kings over him as they did over his Father by straining from him Antimonarchical Concessions and by Covenanting to extirpate his Bishops c. that they might set up themselves which was the primary cause of our late unnatural and inhumane wars Mr. Prynne commended Episcopacy is the best form of Church Government The Votes of the Clergy in Parliament The Arrogance of the Presbyterian faction who stand upon their Terms with Princes and make Kings bend unto them as unto the Pope OH the inscrutable judgments of God! Oh the wonderful mercy of the Almighty Oh â—he Justice of our Jehovah No sooner had I written these last words of the momentary prosperity of the wicked out immediately the same hour news was brought me that General Monck and the City were agreeed and resolved to declare for a free Parliament and decline the Rump Obstupui stetteruntque comae vox faucibus haesit I was strucken with amazement joy made me tremble and the goodnesse of the news would scarce permit me to believe it when I considered the crying sins of our Nation which deserved showers of vengeance not such sprinklings of mercy then all such conceipts seemed to me as vain and empty delusions but when I considered the infinite mercy of the Almighty then why might not God spare our Nineveh and send joyfull tydings into our discorsolate City Surely his mercies are greater than our great Sins Therefore to resolve this doubt I went up into the City where instead of Tears as formerly I had like to have been drowned with the Streams of joy and rejoycing The Bell rung merrily the Streets were paved with mirth and every house resounded with joyful acclamations I had do need then to ask whether the newâ— I heard in my Chamber were true or no both Men Women and Children Old and Young Rich and Poor all sung forth the destruction oâ— the Long called Parliament the whole City was as it were on fire with Bonfires for joy And now those who formerly threatned the firing of the City were burnt at every door for all the people cryed out let us Burn the Rump let us roast the Rump A suddain change History cannot tell us of its parallel No lesse than thirty eight Bonfires were made between Pleet-Conduit and Temple-Barre To be short there was scarce so much as one Alley in the whole City wherein there were not many Bonfires so that so great and general joyfulnesse never entred into the Walls of the City since it was built neither will again untill Charls the second be restored to his Crown The hopes whereof only caused the fervency of those joyes The Pulpits on the morrow being Sunday and all the Churches ecchoed forth Praises and Thanks to God and private devotion was not wanting neither was this joy confined only within the walls of the City but being a publique mischief was removed a publique rejoycing overspread the whole Kingdom and all the people with one heart and voyce shouted clapped hands and poured out joyful thanks for this great deliverance So the wearyed Hare is delighted and cheereth her self when she hath shook off the bloody Hounds and so a Flock of Sheep are at rest and ease when the Ravenous Wolves have newly left them Oh therefore let our distracted England be a warnin-gpiece to all Nations that they never attempt to Try and Judge their King for what cause soever And let all Traytors and Tyrants in the World learn by the example of our English Rebels that their Prosperity and Dominion though it seemeth never so perpetual is but momentary and as the wind which no man seeth For who so much applauded and look'd upon as the Long Parliament when they first took upon then to correct and question the King and who now so Ridiculous and Scorned They were them admired by the People as the Patrons Vindicators Redeemers and Keepers of their Liberty Nay I may most truly say that the people did worship and adore them more than they did God But now although they were as wicked then and did as much destroy our Laws and Liberties as they do now they are become a by-word the Scorn and Derision both of Men Women and Children and hooted at by every one as the greatest and most shameful laughing-stock in the World Who then can think upon our late most graciour King Charls the Martyr without Tears in his Eyes and contrition in his heart who can remember his patient Suffrings without Amazement and mourning who can look upon his Prophetical and Incomparable Book without Admiration and Weeping Rejoycings especially upon that Text in the 26 Chapter of his book viz. Vulgar complyance with any illegal and extravagant wayes like violent motions in nature soon grows weary of it self and ends in a refractory sullennesse Peoples rebounds are oft in their faces who first put them upon those violent strokes This needs no Commentary for every one knoweth with what zeal the Rabel of the people did at first stick to the Trayterous House of Commons in their Grand Rebellion and how they are now weary of them and with refractory sullennesse rise up against them and are ready to fly in their Faces who first taught them to Rebel and fight against their King Nay the Apprentices of London whom formerly these Rebels made instrumental to carry on their wicked designs against the King are now most vehement against them For why a noysome House is most obnoxious to the nearest Neigbours and the stinking House of Commons that sentina malorum doth most annoy this neighbouring City It is the nature of foxes to prey furthest from their holes but these unnatural foxes in sheeps clothing make all their prey both at home and abroad All is fish which comes to their net And that these Rebels may still have freedom to persevere in their villanies they cry up a free-State as the best of all Governments yet mark the nature of the beast a free-State say they is most beneficial for the people yet not so free but that they may and will qualifie and engage the persons chosen by the people according to
in stead of proving a Keeper to the Trayterous Keepers he hath approved himself a glorious Dâ—â—ender of our Liberties for which Trophies of honour shall be erected to his eternal renown neither will our King spare heaping of rewards upon his so memorable merits at his return to his own house which the General hath swept for him and turned out them who made it aden of thieves On Tuesday the 21. day of February 1659. a day which deserveth more solemnization than Gunpowder Treason day for then we were delivered from those who only intended to destroy King and Parliament but now we are delivered from those who actually did destroy both King and Parliament and so consequently the whole Kingdome General Monk our famous Patron conducted the secluded Members to the House of Commons where according to their former agreement with the General they voted themselves in a short time to be dissolved and a free Parliament to be elected Now I hope no man will presume to conceive the General so insipid as to think there can be a free Parliament without the King and House of Lords No it is ridiculous to think so for a free Parliament without the King would be but like salt which hath lost his favour thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be troden under foot of men Mat. 5.13 It would be but a Rump fatned and grow bigger For we are all sick of the Kings Evil therefore nothing but the touch of his Sacred Majesties hands can cure us And I may with confidence and truth affirm that every one of that infinite number of people which so much rejoyced at the destruction of the Rump and at the voice of a free Parliament would mourn and cry at their sitting if they do not bring with them the good tidings of restoring their King the hopes whereof only made them rejoyce And indeed they would have more cause to bewail a free Parliaments sitting without the King than the sitting of the Rump for this we may be sure of that the King will come in either by fair means or by soul if by soul that is by war then the war will be greater with a free Parliament and so consequently more grievous to the people than with the Rump because a free Parliament will have greater force and power to levy a war than the Rump and so the combustible matter being more the flame will be the higher But it is Atheism to think that a free Parliament will withstand the King therefore I will not taint my Paper with such detestable words I let fall a blot of ink upon Mr. Prynne's Soverain Power of Parliaments and Kingdomes a Book which I am sure deserves a greater blurre But Mr. Prynne hath since repaired his credit and got the applause of the people by writing for the King and against the Rump and other sectaries Therefore to give him his deserts there is no man in the Nation hath so much merited as himself in pulling down the many Tyrannies over us since the murther of Charles the Martyr He hath been our Champion whose pen hath fought against the scriblings and actings of the Traytors and Rebels for which I shall ever love and honour him and without doubt our Gracious King will sufficiently reward him if he continueth constant in his loyalty which God grant he may And although the Presbyterian held the head of Charles the Martyr to the block by his hair whilst the Independent cut it off yet now I hope the many evils which we have sustained by that royal fall for which he shewed the first play will teach the rigid Presbyter moderation and make him confesse notwithstanding his violent Covenant against that Apostolical constitution of Bishops that Episcopacy is the best form of Church Government and the only way to extirpate and keep down those infinite number of s31y'sects and factions which have taken root and budded since Episcopacy was rooted up and blasted No Bishop No King was the Symbole of our Solomon King James who I think was as wise and as much a Christian as any of our Lay-Elders therefore in vain do the Presbytery think of enjoying Monarchy unlesse they first resolve to lay aside all their schismatical Tenets and stick to Episcopacy For as the same King sayes A Scottish Presbitery and Monarchy agree as God and the Devil Our Soveraign Charls the Martyr in his sacred writings hath so clearly approved and vindicated Episcopacy from the false aspersions of the Presbiterian faction and also laid open the absurdities of Presbitery so fully that it would be arrogance in me to say any thing after him and not only ignorance but impudence in any man to look upon his writings and still remain a Presbiterian Therefore O Heavenly Father asswage the pride and open the Eyes of these rigid Zelots that in seeing they may see and in hearing they may hear and understand and not professe themselves wiser than our Saviour that great Bishop and his Apostles which were Bishops and appointed successive Bishops as you may read in the Epistles of St Paul to Timothy and Titus c. And the Government of Bishops hath been the universal and constant practice of the Church so that as Charls the Martyr writeth ever since the first age for 1500 years not one example can be produced of any setled Church wherein were many Ministers and Congregations which had not some Bishop above them under whose Jurisdiction and Government they were Therefore let not the aspiring currish Presbiterian who would pull down a Bishop in every Diocesse but set up a Pope in every Parish no longer spet venom against the Reverend Bishops And truly I think their grounds are so slender against Episcopacy that if the King would but make them Bishops they would then be as violent for Episcopacy as they are now against it Therefore rest content Presbiter for though not thy deserts yet State Policy may in time make thee a Bishop The Antipodes indeed viz. the Long called Parliament who acted all things contrary to all Law and Religion voted that Bishops should never more vote as Peers in Parliament But why was it not because the Religious Bishops should not withstand their Irreligious and Blasphemous proceedings in Murthering the King Destroying the Church and all our Laws and Religion with them Surely no man can deny but that was the only reason Que enim est respublica ubi Ecclesiastici primum non habeant locum in Comitiis publicis de salute Reipub Deliberationibus For which is that Commonwealth where the Ecclesiastical persons had not the first place in all meetings and publique consultations about the Welfare of the Commonwealth Surely none but the Utopian Commonwealth of these Rebels For it is the practice of all Nations nay the Rebels themselves who voted it unlawful for Bishops and other grave Prelates of the Church to meddle the least in Civil Affairs could approve it in their new