is not attended with the least difficulty And therefore I go on to the second point viz. That in this state of things the Estates of the Kingdom ought to supply the vacancy of the Thron by setting up their Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Orange after England's example without variation And the Reason I gave for it was because that God from Heaven presents them to us and the highest necessity determines us to acquiesce in his good pleasure And that God presents them if there be any voice or language in his providences as certainly there is it amounts in our case to a manifest Declaration When after King Solomons death the Lord so ordered the matter in the Treaty betwixt Rehoboam and the People that by his imprudent Answer he provock'd the ten Tribes to Reject him the Lord by a Prophet commands Judah to sit still and desist from fighting for says he the thing is from me Can any Man then doubt that in the concurrence of the many signal providences more remarkable both for Number and Weight then can be instanced from all our Histories which at present surround us to shew us the way the Persons whom God thus designs ought to be Chosen and Embraced It was an Inspiration from God that moved his Highness and all the Protestant Princes in Germany to resent so cordially the Distress of the Protestant interest abroad and it's Danger here with us It was also another effect of the same Divine Influence that excited his Highness raising up the Righteous Man from the East and prevailed upon the Cautious and Warry Estates of the united Provinces to set about so great and incredible an undertaking wherein a Man may justly doubt whether the vastness of the expence the hazard of the Seas season and tempests or the Preparations and Forces of the Adversary were more discouraging But that God should have so happily conducted thorow all these difficulties turned almost as one Man the Hearts of all the People of Britain and caused all the feared opposition to melt away as Snow before the Sun so that his Highness was without Battel brought to London only with Joy Triumph This This is the Lord 's doing and it is marvellous in our eyes Nor are the succeeding passages of his work tho' not of so great a Lustre of less significancy and moment as to our present purpose That his Majesty left England once and again so obstinatly neglected and â—â—rgot Scotland totally made the French King that Enemy of God and Man his only refuge and set up all his remaining hopes on Tyrconnel and his Irish Papists that the meeting of the Estates in England did so readily and unanimously settle the Soveraignity upon their Highnesses And lastly that our Country-men going to London with such different Interests and Designs should yet have carried along with them so much of the Spirit and Sense of the Nation as to agree almost as one Man to address to his Highness to take on him the Government and call the present Convention All these I say laid together and recommending none other to us then the very next in blood to the King that hath forsaken us must after the vacancy of the Thron above demonstrate appear to every one that regards the work of the Lord and considers the operation of his Hands to be nothing less then so many Lines from Gods Soveraign Power and Wisdom concentring to point out their Highnesses as the only Persons that ought and can possess it I Grant for all that hath been said that providences of whatsoever kind and number are no Rule of Duty nor do I here pretend to adduce them as such but it being already cleared that thorow the Kings Desertion the Thron is vacant the Government dissolved and the Kingdom brought under the necessity of a new Establishment I can hardly believe that any will be found so Refractory as not to acknowledge that such leading and perswasive Providences are the best Designations of the Persons on whom we ought to fix Yet lest such there may be I shall farther consider the last part of the Argument and that is That even the highest necessity determines us to follow England's Example in this Affair without variation And this I think may easily be Illustrat as well from the Inconveniences and Mischiefs on the one hand if we divide as from the Advantages on the other if we joine intirely with them And for the Inconveniences the long and bloody Troubles and Calamities that this Kingdom suffered in its divided Estate from England are yet too fresh in mens Remembrance to suffer any to desire a relapse into it unless it may be in this only prospect that according to the great change hapned in our Circumstance some may thereby now hope for a speedy Conquest as in any terms more desireable than our best separat condition The Conjunction of the two Kingdoms under King JAMES the sixth was a Blessing so long lookt for and acceptable that when he applyed to it that saying Quos Deus conjunxit nemo separet he but spoke the true sense and wish of both Nations shall we then when things are so much altered to the worse be so unhappy as to aim at this unluckie separation specially when it is most certain and visible that the least apparent difference betwixt England and us at this time would be a great encouragement to Enemies discouragment to Friends particularly our distressed Brethren in Ireland And that if we do not directly call back the King whereof I am sure the inevitable Evils above represented do raise in every honest man an extreme horror We can take no other course distinct from that of England without laying our selves open to all their dangers with very small assurance of their assistance I know the boiling of our Scots blood upon a little stirring of the old Emulation industriously practised by Papists and such as affect them may readily throw up What are not we a free Kingdom and much more ancient than that of England Why should we then be tyed to their Measures specially to reject totally our King Who as to us in respect of the English is as it were of our Blood and Kindred But first after the recalling of the King which is indeed the Point that all the Promoters of this humour aim at there is no mids betwixt it and an absolute rejection that is not attended with most deterring Circumstances as hath been already declared Next what doth all this vain talk signify doth it add any thing to our strength for preventing or resisting the abovementioned Inconveniences which is the point that all Sober men ought mostly to heed or is it not rather just like unto the Thistles Elevation in King Joash his Parable which after it had compared it self to the Cedar was trode down by a wild Beast that passed by which infallibly would be our fate in attending to such empty Counsels Whereas on the other hand if we go along and hold with England in this Re-establishment we have God to be our Guide and Leader as hath been shewed and in the next place we may be assured that as we are already threatned by the same hazard and also rather more exposed to them then they so the holding the same course with them will always procure us ready and effectual assistance greatly animat all our Well-wishers specially our Brethren in Ireland and prove a happy Introduction to the long desired Union of both Kingdoms which last motive of a good and perpetual Union is of itself sufficient to all Considering men to preponderat all can be said on this head it being indeed the only thing wanting to compleat the happiness and security of both Kingdoms and that which seems reserved to the Prince of ORANGE as the man of God's right hand able to surmount and adjust all the difficulties of so great a Work and worthy to bear its Glory Thus you have my opinion and the Lord give all Concerned a true and right understanding If bare Infidelity or Difference in Religion were here adduced as causes to make void the King's Title and Authority the Westminster confession tho' well enough cautioned by the qualities of Just and Legal to exempt us from the late imposings might yet occasion some to scruple or if Malversations were the only ground these might as I have said make the enquiry more uneasie and the conclusion less unquestionable But when the King himself hath loos'd us by such a manifest and irreparable Desertion And God from Heaven points out to us so Desireable and Excellent a choice And Lastly when the most powerful necessity of the Preservation of all that can be dear to us oblidges us to imbrace it What can possibly demurr true Protestants and rational Men to agree to it Neither ought we to be alarmed at the Backwardness and Refractoriness of some whose ill consciences of their former oppressions and violences may desperatly drive them to a more avowed opposition Since beside that it must be in it self contemptible nothing can more effectually defeat it and all our other vain fears then our Resolute and Unanimous concluding and adhereing to such a Just Necessary and Happy Re-establishment Adieu
SALUS POPULI SUPREMA LEX OR The Free THOUGHTS of a Well-Wisher For a good SETTLEMENT IN A LETTER TO A FRIEND By Iames Stewart Printed in the Year 1689. SALUS POPULI SUPREMA LEX OR The Free Thoughts of a Well-wisher for a good Settlement c. Sir THe settling of our Government in this extraordinary meeting of the Estates is a matter of that importance that I cannot but wish I were as able to assist in it as I am perswaded it is the duty of every man to contribute his best endeavours And seing it is like to be the grand Question Whether we should call back the present King or at least in his absence resolve on such a Regency as may consist with the continuance of his Right or rather plainly declare the Thron to be vacant and supply it after Englands Example You shall have my Opinion as free from passion as from particular intrest which I think is as little as any mans can be I therefore humbly Conceive that the Estates may and ought to declare the Thron to be vacant and at the same time supply it by setting up the Prince and Princess of Orange after the example of England without variation And my reason is one and most evident and demonstrative viz. Because the Thron is de facto vacant as being deserted and that God from Heaven presents to us and the Highest Necessity determines us to embrace their Highnessess as the only Persons that can and ought possess it I know it was the method of England first to take notice of the King's malversations and thereupon and upon his deserting to find that he had Abdicat and thereby rendered the Thron Vacant But tho' all good Men must perpetually regrate the King 's Fatal Addiction to the Romish Religion and the Excesses it hath caused him to commit and that now undoubtedly is the season to provide against these and all other Errors in the Government Yet seing that some may be ready to affirm that by our late Laws we have too amply impowered by our complyance too manifestly encouraged him in these very courses to make these his Majesties charge and that it is more becoming the Respect due to Soveraign Majesty in all events and likewayes more easie to our old and National kindness to the ancient Race and Line to forbear such direct and extraordinary accusations leaving these to others I rather choose and fix upon the medium of the Kings deserting as that which in our case is yet more palpable and clear then in that of England and abundantly conclusive of all I would inferr from it And that the King hath deserted the Thron and us is so apparent from that visible State of Anarchy under which we have Laboured these months by past That certainly all Considering men in place of making it a matter of doubt do rather Admire and Praise the good Providence of the Almighty who hath so graciously kept our peace and prevented these ruining Mischiefs to which such a Lawless condition Joyned to our former intestine Distempers and Divisions did exposeus Our Kings it 's true have of a long time resided in England Personally absent from us and some may say that his going to any other of his Dominions ought not to alter the case But the Desertion we speak of being not a simple non-residence and personal absence but a manifest abandoning leaving us far more negligently then he did England without all Cause Care or Concernment cannot be covered with this Pretence If upon that great and sudden pressure in England that moved him to take such surprising measures it had pleased his Majesty to give any account of them with what orders he might have thought necessary to his Privy-Council in this Kingdom something might be alledged to colour the Dereliction But when nothing of this Nature was done but the Government quite given up in our greatest exigence to the Conviction and Amazement of his own Privy Council and all his Officers who only encreased the common consternation by following their Master's example the thing is but too certain And therefore I shall only sum up its evidence with these two remarks First that the King 's leaving us as he did in his and our then circumstances is so unaccountable in all other reasonings that it seems plainly to say that it was his Majestie 's good mind toward us that we should follow England's fate whatever it should prove And next that there appears so much of the Divine Soveraignty over-ruling the King in the course he took in his departure that it cannot but intimat to all Serious Observers that thereby God thought good to prepare the way for the happy choice that he now presents If then the King hath deserted the Kingdom and its Government the Thron is necessarly vacant And if the Thron be vacant nothing can hinder to Declare it to be so unless Men do prefer Confusion and Ruin to order and Safety But because the Oaths of Allegiance and Test with other Engagements seem to many to be still binding I shall resume the matter more particularly in order to their Liberation and Relief And therefore must and do affirm from the most obvious evidence of things that the Desertion we ly under is not only total and absolute but withall so causless or rather pretenceless beyond the case of England without the least shaddow of constraint or reason that a more notable and clear breach of the Fundamental Contract whereon all Government as well as ours Subsists can hardly be imagined I cannot here digress to prove the Beeing and Nature of this fundamental contract All Men of Sense do easily apprehend that Government is a matter of Trust and not of property or absolute Dominion and that tho' the ordinance in it self as also that of Marriage be of God yet the establishing of it in this or that form and upon this or that Person and Familie is after the parallel of the same Example of mans free choice and agreement It being Impossible to Imagine how either the Hostility of conquest should terminat or the vain old World pretence of Paternal power the presumptive force of Prescription or the true and genuine vertue of a Surrender take place to introduce Government without the supposition of this mutual Consent and Contract either implyed or expressed And thus indeed it is and no other wayes that the Powers which in the first Sense and in the Abstract are by the Apostle Paul truely said to be of God are yet in the second Sence and in the Concret Justly called by the Apostle Peter the Ordinances of Man. We have too long been inured by Men of Corrupt Designs and practices to a certain false Cant that the King holds his Crown immediatly from God Almighty alone But now Blessed be God all Men not wilfully blind do see and the very Authors of this Language begin to confess that it is otherways and that Government is founded in
Consent and truely and only best bound by this Fundamental Contract Whereof the Essentials viz. That a King should rule and Protect and the People Obey and Submit in Righteousness for the Glory of God and the good of the Common-wealth need no Record more then the Necessary duties of Man and Wife in the Contract of Marriage as being in both cases inseperable from the very Beeing of the Ordinances And for the Naturals and Accidentals as Lawyers speak of this Contract of Government they may be seen and read in the perpetual consuetude and other Laws of the Kingdom and are all confirmed by the mutual Stipulations Promises and Oaths customary specially at Coronations betwixt King and People Our King then as all others being King by Contract acknowledged by his accepting of the Government and requiring of us the Oaths of Allegiance and other engagements which express our part of the contract and no less necessarly suppose his It is evident as the meridian light that if he either Renounce Abdicate or totaly Desert he wholly breaks his part dissolves the Contract and looses us from our part and all the promises Oaths and Tests by which we can be thereto bound The compact of Marriage is certainly the most Divine and binding known amongst men and here God is said to joine and in such a manner that neither of the Parties tho most free Contracters and both consenting may separate without his warrand Yet if one of the Parties specially the unbelieving depart the Apostle pronounces distinctly from the Nature of the Contract and Gods mind in its institution let him depart the other partie is not in Bondage in such a case either to his conjugal promise or to any other Supervenient Oath that may have interveened But is as free from the Law of the Departer or Deserter as if he were naturally Dead If then it be so in the business of Marriage can any Man hesitat but it must be much more so in the case of Government the tye whereof in the acknowlegment of all falls many degrees short of the formers obligation But so it is that the King hath deserted causelesly totally and absolutely as hath been declared and therefore in all Law Reason and Revelation the Thron is vacant and we are loosed from his Law and all other supposable engagements But you may say in the Apostles words to the same purpose But God hath called us to peace and therefore we ought neither to be hasty nor peremptory but seing we know his Majesties departure was not his free choice and that after this little Secession rather then Desertion he purposes to return as he hath signified by his letters we ought to wait for him and not so lightly throw off our Allegiance to which we are by Nature and Religion so strictly bound I answer that what ever was the manner of the Kings departure from England yet as to us it was a free choice which hapening in such a juncture and exposing us so dangerously to all the miseries of a Dissolution is really Irreparable specially seing that by the same default of his res non est integra But the Kingdom being oblidged by the most binding Law to wit Salus Populi Suprema Lex esto and the most cogent necessity of self preservation to fly and betake it self to his Highness Heavens-sent Protection it is impossible for us to retreat from it without a most ungrate perfidie toward the Prince and Damnable folly toward our selves in rendring the whole Kingdom obnoxious to a greater Forfeiture than can be secured against by any offered Pardon and Indemnity in our present circumstances Admitting then that his Majestie purposes to return yet I say he must excuse us since his offer is too late But more especially because as all good Men hear and understand with regrate he makes the offer by his Letters in such a manner as promises nothing save a threatning Invasion of perfidious and cruel French and Irish Papists to destroy our Religion and make Britain a field of Blood and an utter Desolation Wherefore I must conclude by way of Retortion that seing both God and the King have loos'd us from our Allegiance by his Majesties Desertion as hath been proved and God as you say doth also call us unto peace we should undoubtedly shew our selves the most nottorious contemners of this sweet and Heavenly call if after so great a deliverance we should again bring back the King with such a sevenfold worse attendance and thereby unavoidably render our Last Estate infinitly worse then our First But you may still urge why so peremptory and severe you resisted and opposed King CHARLES the first with Arms and yet even in the hottest of the Warr when you entered into a League and Covenant for its more effectual prosecution you reserved his Majesties Soveraignity and just Rights Why then should the Kings simple departure be now accounted worse to inferr a Dissolution and justify a Rejection than what was reckoned in his Father to be a Hostile Invasion It 's answered not to touch upon any invidious comparison of their Persons nor yet upon his Majesties woful defection from the true Protestant Religion whereby he hath too visibly brought on himself the curse that his Grand-father did in this case leave and entail on his posterity I say the Kings Desertion doth inferr a Dissolution and warrand a Rejection albeit his Fathers supposed Invasion was not carried that length Because our warrs with the Father were but an incident unhappy quarrel amongst our selves as well as with our King wherein as it could not be said that he had Deserted the Kingdom or yet hostilly invaded it by a Foraigne Force so we had all reason to reserve his Soveraignity and just Rights in the probable prospect of a good Composure and Peace Whereas our present Kings Desertion is not only Causeless Total and Absolute leaving the Thron vacant to the evidence of every Mans sense beyond all control or excuse of reason in the same manner as if he had been removed by Death but in the just construction of Law it imports such a voluntary Dereliction as frees us from our former Allegiance and layes on us an Indispensible Obligation of providing for a new Establishment Si Rex enim Imperium abdicavit aut manifeste habet pro. Derelicto says Grotius in eum post id tempus omnia licent quae in Privatum Having thus cleared the Nature and Import of the Kings Desertion and that the Thron being de Facto Derelinquished we are in the same manner loosed from the Law and Oaths of our Allegiance as if he were Naturally dead and his Race extinguished specially when we cannot now think of his Return had his Reign been ten times more justifieable without the Horrour of all the fatal consequences of Blood Confusion and Desolation it is evident that for the Estates to declare the thing as it is and to proceed to a new and necessary settlement