A DEFENCE OF THE People of ENGLAND BY JOHN MILTON In ANSWER to Salmasius's Defence of the King Printed in the Year 1692. TO THE ENGLISH READER THE Author of this Book is sufficiently known and so is the Book it self both at Home and Abroad to the Curious and Inquisitive but never having been rendred into English many whose Veneration for the Author would induce them to read any thing of his and who could not máster it in the Language in which he wrote it were deprived of the pleasure of perusing it and of the Information they might justly expect from it To gratifie them it is that this Translation long since made is now published for the person who took the pains to Translate it did it partly for his own private entertainment and partly to gratifie one or two of his Friends without any design of makâ—… it publick and is since deceased And the Publisher thinks it necessary to advertise the Reader some few things concerning it As First That the Author does with a great Freedom of Language and Strength of Reason detect the Fallacy of all the Cobweb Arguments made use of by the Flatterers of Princes to prove their Power to be derived immediately from God and to be superior to that of the Law whether deduced from Scripture Reason or Authority Secondly That whereas some things are inserted that contain Personal Reflections upon the late King Charles the First and pains taken to justifie all the Proceedings of the Parliament from first to last which may sound harsh in some of our ears the Reader ought to consider the time when these things were written and the occasion of the Author ' s Undertaking this Defence which were such as put him under a necessity of Vindicating whatever his Masters had done The Translator has not gelt him nor was the Publisher willing to do it especially since the Book has for many years been so publick tho in another Language And the great Use which it yields for the most part ought not to be lost because some things are here and there interspersed which the â—…blisher could wish there had been no occasion for Thirdly That some Passages here and there may seem obscure because the Author presupposeth his Readers to have read Salmasius to some or other of whose Authorities and Reasons such Passages relate Fourthly That where Salmasius ' s words are inserted they are for the most part if not always in Italick Tho the Coherence of the Discourse would sufficiently disclose to one that reads with care when Salmasius speaks and when the Author Fifthly That if the Author may seem to lay aside even rules of Decency in treating his Adversary whom indeed he ridicules and exposes with a great deal of Smartness Freedom and Contempt it must be considered That the Author wrote on the behalf and in Defence of the Powers then in being and in answer to a privaâ—e person who had loaded them with all Reproaches imaginable and who could not possibly give worse language to the meanest the most contemptible and the most unworthy person upon earth than he does in his Defensio Regia to men that had then the Government of one of the most Potent Nations in Christendom Sixthly That the Translator has kept perhaps too close to his Copy and not taken that liberty which is allowed to a Translation especially in the angry and peevish parts of it But it 's hoped the Faithfulness of the Translation may in some measure recompence for that and it is very well known to those that knew him that he neither could nor did pretend to lash so well in English as the Author could in Latin Lastly That some of the Author's Sarcasmes depending upon the sound and ambiguity of Latin words do as they needs must lose their Beauty and Elegance in a Translation THE AUTHOR'S Preface ALTHO I fear lest if in defending the People of England I should be as copious in Words and empty of Matter as most Men think Salmasius has been in his Defence of the King I might seem to deserve justly to be accounted a verbose and silly Defender yet since no Man thinks himself obliged to make so much haste tho in the handling but of any ordinary Subject as not to premise some Introduction at least according as the weight of his Subject requires if I take the same course in handling well-nigh the greatest Subject that ever was without being too tedious in it I am in hopes of attaining two things which indeed I earnestly desire The one not to be at all wanting as far as in me lies to this most Noble Cause and most worthy to be recorded to all future Ages The other That I shall appear to have avoided my self that frivolousness of Matter and redundancy of Words which I find fault with in my Antagonist For I am about to discourse of Matters neither inconsiderable nor common but how a most Potent King after he had trampled upon the Laws of the Nation and given a shock to its Religion and was ruling at his own Will and Pleasure was at last subdu'd in the Field by his own Subjects who had undergone a long Slavery under him how afterwards he was cast into Prison and when he gave no ground either by Words or Actions to hope better things of him he was finally by the Supreme Council of the Kingdom condemned to dye and beheaded before the very Gates of the Palace I shall likewise relate which will much conduce to the easing mens minds of a great Superstition by what Right especially according to our Law this Judgment was given and all these Matters transacted and shall easily defend my Valiant and Worthy Countrymen and who have extremely well deserved of all Subjects and Nations in the World from the most wicked Calumities both of Domestick and Foreign Railers and especially from the Reproaches of this most vain and empty Sophister who sets up for a Captain and Ringleader to all the rest For what King 's Majesty sitting upon an Exalted Throne ever shone so brightly as that of the People of England then did when shaking off that old Superstition which had prevailed a long time they gave Judgment upon the King himself or rather upon an Enemy who had been their King caught as it were in a Net by his own Laws who alone of all Mortals challenged to himself impunity by a Divine Right and scrupled not to inflict the same punishment upon him himself being guilty which he would have inflicted upon any other But why do I mention these things as performed by the People which almost open their Voice themselves and testify the Presence of God throughout Who as often as it seems good to his Infinite Wisdom uses to throw down proud and unruly Kings exalting themselves above the Condition of Humane Nature and utterly to exâ—irpate them and all their Family By his manifest Impulse being set on work to recover our almost lost Liberty following
the Law of Nature to oppress their Subjects and go unpunished because as circumstances may fall out it may sometimes be a less mischief to bear with them than to remove them Remember what your self once wrote concerning Bishops against a Jesuit you were then of another opinion than you are now I have quoted your words formerly you there affirm that seditious Civil dissentions and discords of the Nobles and Common people against and amongst one another are much more tolerable and less mischievous than certain misery and destruction under the Government of a single person that plays the Tyrant And you said very true For you had not then run mad you had not then been bribed with Charles his Jacobusses You had not got the King's-Evil I should tell you perhaps if I did not know you that you might be ashamed thus to prevaricate But you can sooner burst than blush who have cast off all shame for a little profit Did you not remember that the Commonwealth of the people of Rome flourished and became glorious when they had banished their Kings Could you possibly forget that of the Low-Countries which after it had shook off the yoke of the King of Spain after long and tedious Wars but Crown'd with success obtained its Liberty and feeds such a pitiful Grammarian as your self with a Pension not that their youth might be so infatuated by your Sophistry as to chuse rather to return to their former Slavery than inherit the Glorious Liberty which their Ancestors purchased for them May those pernicious principles of yours be banished with your self into the most remote and barbarous corners of the World And last of all the Commonwealth of England might have afforded you an example in which Charles who had been their King after he had been taken captive in War and was found incurable was put to death But they have defaced and impoverished the Island with Civil broils and discords which under its Kings was happy and swam in Luxury Yea when it was almost buried in Luxury and Voluptuousness and the more inured thereto that it might be enthralled the more easily when its Laws were abolished and its Religion agreed to be sold they delivered it from Slavery You are like him that published Simplicius in the same Volume with Epictetus a very grave Stoick Who call an Island happy because it swims in Luxury I 'm sure no such Doctrine ever came out of Zeno's School But why should not you who would give Kings a power of doing what they list have liberty your self to broach what new Philosophy you please Now begin again to act your part There never was in any King's Reign so much blood spilt so many Families ruined All this is to be imputed to Charles not to us who first raised an Army of Irishmen against us who by his own Warrant Authorized the Irish Nation to conspire against the English who by their means slew Two hundred Thousand of his English Subjects in the Province of Uâ—… besides what Numbers were sâ—ain in other parts of that Kingdom who sollicited two Armies towards the destruction of the Parliament of England and the City of London and did many other actions of Hostility before the Parliament and people had Listed one Soldier for the preservation and defence of the Government What Principles what Law what Religion ever taught men rather to consult their ease to save their money their blood nay their lives themselves than to oppose an enemy with force for I make no difference betwixt a Foreign Enemy and another since both are equally dangerous and destructive to the good of the whole Nation The People of Israel saw very well that they could not possibly punish the Benjamites forSpanâ— Murthering the Levite's Wife without the loss of many Men's lives And did that induce them to sit still Was that accounted a sufficient Argument why they should abstain from War from a very Bloody Civil War Did they therefore suffer the Death of one poor Woman to be unrevenged Certainly if Nature teacheth us rather to endure the Government of a King though he be never so bad than to endanger the lives of a great many Men in the recovery of our Liberty it must teach us likewise not only to endure a Kingly Government which is the only one that you argue ought to be submitted to but an Aristocracy and a Democracy Nay and sometimes it will persuade us to submit to a Multitude of Highway-men and to Slaves that Mutiny Fulvius and Rupilius if your Principles had been received in their days must not have engaged in the Servile War as their Writers call it after the Praetorian Armies were Slain Crassus must not have Marched against Spartacus after the Rebels had destroyed one Roman Army and spoil'd their Tents Nor must â—â—mpâ—y have undertaken the Piratick War But the State of Rome must have pursued the dictates of Nature and must have submitted to their own Slaves or to the Pyrates rather than run the hazard of losing some Mens lives You do not prove at all that Nature has imprinted any such notion as this of yours on the minds of Men And yet you cannot forbear boding us ill luck and denouncing the Wrath of God against us which may Heaven divert and inflict it upon your self and all such Prognosticators as you who have punished as he deserved one that had the name of our King but was in Fact our implacable Enemy and we have made Atonement for the Death of so many of our Countreymen as our Civil Wars have occasion'd by shedding his Blood that was the Author and Cause of them Then you tell us that a Kingly Government appears to be more according to the Laws of Nature because more Nations both in our days and of old have submitted to that Form of Government than ever did to any other I answer If that be so it was neither the effect of any Dictate of the Law of Nature nor was it in Obedience to any Command from God God would not suffer his own People to be under a King he consented at last but unwillingly what Nature and right Reason dictates we are not to gather from the practice of most Nations but of the wisest and most prudent The Grecians the Romans the Italians and Carthagenians with many other have of their own accord out of choice preferr'd a Commonwealth to a Kingly Government and these Nations that I have named are better instances than all the rest Hence Sulpitius Severus says That the very Name of a King was always very odious among freeborn People But these things concern not our present purpose nor many other Impertinences that follow over and over again I 'll make haste to prove that by Examples which I have proved already by Reason viz. That it is very agreeable to the Law of Nature that Tyrants should be punished and that all Nations by the instinct of Nature have punished them which will expose your Impudence and
the first of which inconveniences would thwart with your Dictionary and the latter overthrow your Politicks To these I have given such an answer as shows That tho our own Safety and Liberty were the principal things I aimed the preservation of yet withal I had some consideration of salving your Dictionary and your Politicks Now say you I will prove by other arguments That a King cannot be judged by his own Subjects of which Arguments this shall be the greatest and most convincing That a King has no Peer in his Kingdom What can a King have no Peer in his Kingdom What then is the meaning of those Twelve Ancient Peers of the Kings of France Are they Fables and Trifles Are they called so in vain and in mock only Have a care how you affront those Principal men of that Kingdom Who if they are not the King's Peers as they are called I am afraid your Dictionary which is the only thing you are concerned for will be found more faulty in France than in England But go to let 's hear your demonstration that a King has no Peer in his own Kingdom Because say you the people of Rome when they had banish'd their King appointed not one but two Consuls and the reason was That if one of them should transgress the Laws his Collegue might be a check to him There could hardly have been devised any thing more silly How came it to pass then that but one of the Cousuls had the bundles of Rods carried before him and not both if two were appointed that each might have a Power over the other And what if both had conspired against the Commonwealth Would not the Case then be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 same that it would have been if one Con 〈◊〉 had been appointed without a Colleague 〈◊〉 we know very well that both Consuls and all 〈◊〉 Magistrates were bound to obey the Senate â—…ever the Senate and the People saw that the Interest of the Commonwealth so required We have a famous instance of that in the Decemviri who tho they were invested with the Power of Consuls and were the chief Magistrates yet the Authority of the Senate reduced them all tho they struggled to retain their Government Nay we read that some Consuls before they were out of office have been declared enemies and Arms been taken up against them for in those days no man looked upon him as a Consul who acted as an Enemy So War was waged against Antony tho a Consul by Authority of the Senate in which being worsted he would have been put to death but that Octavius affecting the Empire sided with him to subvert the Commonwealth Now whereas you say That it is a property peculiar to Kingly Majesty that the power resides in a single person that 's but a loose expression like the rest of what you say and is contradicted by your self a little after For the Hebrew Judges you say ruled as long as they lived and there was but one of them at a time The Scripture also calls them Kings and yet they more accountable to the great Councel Thus we see That an itch of Vain-glory in being thought to have said all that can be said makes you hardly say any thing but contradictions Then I ask what kind of Government that was in the Roman Empire when sometimes Two sometimes Three Emperors reign'd all at once Do you reckon them to have been Emperors that is Kings or was it an Aristocracy or a Triumvirate Or will you deny that the Roman Empire under Antoninus and Verus under Dioclesian and Maximian under Constantine and Licinius was still but one entire Empire If these Princes were not Kings your Three forms of Government will hardly hold if they were then it is not an essential Property of a Kingly Government to reside in a single person If one of these offend say you then may the other refer the matter to the Senate or the People where he may be accused and condemned And does not the Senate and the People then judg when the matter is so referred to them So that if you will give any credit to your self there needs not one Collegue to judg another Such a miserable Advocate as you if you were not so wretched a fellow as you are would deserve compassion you lye every way so open to blows that if one were minded for sports-sake to make a Pass at any part of you he could hardly miss let him aim where he would 'T is ridiculous say you to imagine That a King will ever appoint Judges to condemn himself But I can tell you of an Emperor that was no ridiculous person but an Excellent Prince and that was Trajan who when he delivered a Dagger to a certain Roman Magistrate as the custom was that being the badge of his Office frequently thus admonished him Take this Sword and use it for me if I do as I ought if otherwise against me for Miscarriages in the Supreme Magistrate are less excusable This Dion and Aurelius Victor say of him You see here that a worthy Emperor appointed one to judge himself tho he did not make him his equal Tiberius perhaps might have said as much out of Vanity and Hypocrisie but 't is almost a crime to imagine that so good and virtuous a Prince as Trajan did not really speak as he thought and according to what he apprehended right and just How much more reasonable was it that tho he were superior to the Senate in power and might if he would have refused to yield them any obedience yet he actually did obey them as by vertue of his office he ought to do and acknowledged 〈◊〉 Right in the Government to be superior to his 〈◊〉 For so Pliny tells us in his Panegyrick The Senate both desired and commanded you to be Consul a fourth time you may know by the Obedience you pay them that this is no word of Flattery but of Power And a little after This is the design you aim at to restore our lost Liberty And Trajan was not of that mind alone the Senate thought so too and were of opinion That their Authority was indeed Supreme For they that could Command their Emperor might Judge him So the Emperor Marcus Aurelius when Cassius Governor of Syria endeavoured to get the Empire from him referred himself either to the Senate or the people of Rome and declared himself ready to lay down the Government if they would have it so Now how should a man determine of the Right of Kings better and more truly than out of the very mouths of the best of Kings Indeed every good King accounts either the Senate or the People not only equal but superior to himself by the Law of Nature But a Tyrant being by nature inferior to all men every one that is stronger than he ought to be accounted not only his equal but superior For as heretofore nature taught men from Force and Violence to betake themselves to Laws so
King has taken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oath the Archbishop stepping to 〈◊〉 side of the Stage erected for that purpose asks the people four several times in these words Do you consent to have this man to be your King Just as if he spoke to them in the Roman Stile Vultis Jubetis hunc Regnare Is it your pleasure do you appoint this man to Reign Which would be needless if the Kingdom were by the Law hereditary But with Kings Usurpation passes very frequently for Law and Right You go about to ground Charles's Right to the Crown who was so often conquered himself upon the Right of Conquest William surnamed the Conqueror â—orsooth subdued us But they who are not strangers to our History know full well that the Strength of the English Nation was not so broken in that one Fight at Hastings but that they might easily have renewed the War But they chose rather to accept of a King than to be under a Conqueror and a Tyrant They swear therefore to William to be his Liege-men and he swears to them at the Altar to carry to them as a good King ought to do in all respects When he broke his word and the English betook themselves again to their Arms being diffident of his strength he renewed his Oath upon the Holy Evangelists to observe the Ancient Laws of England And therefore if after that he miserably oppressed the English as you say he did he did it not by Right of Conquest but by Right of Perjury Besides it is certain that many ages ago the Conquerors and Conquered coalesced into one and the same people So that that Right of Conquest if any such ever were must needs have been antiquated long ago His own words at his death which I give you out of a French Manuscript written at Cane put all out of doubt I appoint no man says he to inherit the Kingdom of England By which words both his pretended Right of Conquest and the Hereditary Right were disclaim'd at his death and buried together with him I see now that you have gotten a place at Court as I foretold you would you are made the King's Chief Treasurer and Steward of his Court-Craft And what follows you seem to write ex Officio as by virtue of your Office Magnificent Sir If any preceding Kings being thereunto compelled by Factions of Great Men or Seditions amongst the Common People have receded in some measure from their Right that cannot prejudice the Successor but that he is at liberty to resume it You say well if therefore at any time our Ancestors have through neglect lost any thing that was their Right why should that prejudice us their Posterity If they would promise for themselves to become Slaves they could make no such promise for us who shall always retain the same Right of delivering our selves out of Slavery that they had of enslaving themselves to any whomsoever You wonder how it comes to pass that a King of Great Britain must now-adays be looked upon as one of the Magistrates of the Kingdom only whereas in all other Kingly Governments in Christendom Kings are invested with a Free and Absolute Authority For the Scots I remit you to Buchanan For France your own Native Countrey to which you seem to be a stranger to Hottoman's Franco Gallia and Girardus a French Historian for the rest to other Authors of whom none that I know of were Independents Out of whom you might have learned a quite other lesson concerning the Right of Kings than what you teach Not being able to prove that a Tyrannical Power belongs to the Kings of England by Right of Conquest you try now to do it by Right of Perjury Kings profess themselves to Reign By the Grace of God What if they had professed themselves to be gods I believe if they had you might easily have been brought to become one of their Priests So the Archbishops of Canterbury pretended to Archbishop it by Divine Providence Are you such a fool as to deny the Pope's being a King in the Church that you may make the King greater than a Pope in the State But in the Statutes of the Realm the King is called our Lord. You are become of a sudden a wonderful Nomenclator of our Statutes But you know not that many are called Lords and Masters who are not really so You know not how unreasonable a thing it is to judge of Truth and Right by Titles of Honour not to say of Flattery Make the same Inference if you will from the Parliament's being called the King's Parliament for it is called the King's Bridle too or a Bridle to the King and therefore the King is no more Lord or Master of his Parliament than a Horse is of his Bridle But why not the King's Parliament since the King summons them I 'le tell you why because the Consuls used to indict a Meeting of the Senate yet were they not Lords over that Council When the King therefore summons or calls together a Parliament he does it by vertue and in discharge of that Office which he has received from the people that he may advise with them about the weighty affairs of the Kingdom not his own particular Affairs Or when at any time the Parliament debated of the King 's own Affairs if any could properly be called his own they were always the last things they did and it was in their choice when to debate of them and whether at all or no and depended not upon the King's Pleasure And they whom it concerns to know this know very well That Parliaments anciently whether summoned or not might by Law meet twice a Year But the Laws are called too The King's Laws These are flattering ascriptions a King of England can of himself make no Law For he was not constituted to make Laws but to see those Laws kept which the People made And you your self here confess That Parliaments Meet to make Laws Wherefore the Law is also called the Law of the Land and the Peoples Law Whence King Ethelstane in the Preface to his Laws speaking to all the People I have granted you every thing says he by your own Law And in the form of the Oath which the Kings of England used to take before they were made Kings The People stipulate with them thus Will you grant those Just Laws which the People shall chuse The King Answers I will And you are infinitely mistaken in saying That When there is no Parliament sitting the King Governs the whole state of the Kingdom to all intents and purposes by a Regal Power For he can determine nothing of any moment with respect to either Peace or War nor can he put any stop to the Proceedings of the Courts of Justice And the Judges therefore Swear That they will do nothing Judicially but according to Law tho the King by Word or Mâ—…te or Letters under his own Seal should command the contrary Hence it is that the King is often
themselves of the Ignoranceâ— and Infirmity of Humane Nature they have conveyed this Doctrine down to Posterity as the foundation of all Laws which likewise all our Lawyers admit That if any Law or Custom be contrary to the Law of God of Nature or of Reason â—â—ought to be looked upon as null and void Whence it follows that tho it were possible for you to discover any Statute or other publick Sanction which ascribed to the King a Tyrannical Power since that would be repugnant to the Will of God to Nature and to right Reason you may learn from that general and primary Law of ours which I have just now quoted that it will be null and void But you will never be able to find that any such Right of Kings has the least Foundation in our Law Since it is plain therefore that the Power of Judicature was originally in the People themselves and that the People never did by any Royal Law part with it to the King for the Kings of England neither use to judge any Man nor can by the Law do it otherwise than according to Laws settled and agreed to Fleta Book 1. Cap. 17. It follows that this Power remains yet whole and entire in the People themselves For that it was either never committed to the House of Peers or if it were that it may lawfully be taken from them again you your self will not deny But It is in the King's Power you say to make a Village into a Burrough and that into a City and consequently the King does in effect create those that constitute the Commons House of Parliament But I say that even Towns and Burroughs are more Ancient than Kings and that the People is the People tho they should live in the open Fields And now we are extreamly well pleased with your Anglicisms COUNTY COURT THE TURNE HUNDREDA you have quickly learnt to count your hundred Jacobusses in English Quis expedirit Salmasio suam HUNDREDAM Picamque docuit verba nostra conari Magister artis venter Jacobaei Centum exulantis viscera marsupii Regis Quod si dolâ—si spes refulserit nummi Ipse Antichristi modò qui Primatum Papae Minatus uno est dissipare sufflatu Cantabit ultrò Cardmalitium melos Who taught Salmasius that French chatt'ring Pye To aim at English and HUNDRED A cry The starving Rascal flusht with just a Hundred English Jacobusses HUNDRED A blunder'd An out-law'd King 's last stock A hundred more Would make him Pimp for th' Anchristian Whore And in Rome ' s praise employ his poyson'd Breath Who threatn'd once to stink the Pope to death The next thing you do is to trouble us with a long Discourse of the Earls and the Barons to show that the King made them all which we readily grant and for that reason they were most commonly at the King's beck and therefore we have done well to take care that for the future they shall not be Judges of a free People You affirm That the Power of calling Parliaments as often as he pleases and of dissolving them when he pleases has belonged to the King time out of mind Whether such a vile mercenary Foreigner as you who transcribe what some Fugitives dictate to you or the express Letter of our own Laws are more to be credited in this matter we shall enquire hereafter But say you there is another argument and an invincible one to prove the Power of the Kings of England Superior to that of the Parliament the King's Power is perpetual and of course whereby he administers the Government singly without the Parliament that of the Parliament is extraordinary or out of course and limited to particulars only nor can they Enact any thing so as to be binding in Law without the King Where does the great force of this argument lye in the words of course and perpetual Why many inferior Magistrates have an ordinary and perpetual power those whom we call Justices of Peace Have they therefore the Supreme Power and I have said already that the King's Power is committed to him to take care by interposing his Authority that nothing be done contrary to Law and that he may see to the due observation of our Laws not to top his own upon us and consequently that the King has no Power out of his Courts nay all the ordinary power is rather the proples who determine all Controversies themselves by Juries of Twelve Men. And hence it is that when a Malefactor is asked at his Arraignment How will you be tried he answers always according to Law and Custom by God and my Country not by God and the King or the King's Deputy But the authority of the Parliament which indeed and in truth is the Supreme power of the people committed to that Senate if it may be called Extraordinary it must be by reason of its Eminence and Superiority else it is known they are called Ordines and therefore cannot properly be said to be extra ordinem out of order and if not actually as they say yet vertually they have a perpetual power and authority over all Courts and ordinary Magistrates and that without the King And now it seems our barbarous terms grate upon your Critical ears forsooth whereas if I had leisure or that it were worth my while I could reckon up so many Barbarisms of yours in this one Book as if you were to be chastiz'd for them as you deserve all the School-boys Ferulers in Christendom would be broken upon you nor would you receive so many Pieces of Gold as that wretched Poet did of old but a great many more Boxes o' th' ear You say 'T is a Prodigy more monstrous than all the most absurd Opinions in the world put together that the Bedlams should make a distinction betwixt the King's Power and his Person I will not quote what every Author has said upon this subject but if by the words Personam Regis you mean what we call in English the Person of the King Chrysostome who was no Bedlam might have caught you that it is no absurd thing to make a distinction betwixt that and his power for that Father explains the Apostles command of being subject to the Higher Powers to be meant of the thing the Power it self and not of the Persons of the Magistrates And why may not I say that a King who acts any thing contrary to Law acts so far forth as a private person or a Tyrant and not in the capacity of a King invested with a Legal Authority If you do not know that there may be in one and the same man more Persons or Capacities than one and that those Capacities may in thought and conception be severed from the man himself you are altogether ignorant both of Latin and Common sense But this you say to absolve Kings from all sin and guilt and that you may make us believe that you are gotten into the Chair voâ—r self which you have pull'd the Pope
out of The King you say is supposed not capable of committing any crime because no punishment is consequential upon any crime of his Whoever therefore is not punisht offends not it is not the theft but the punishment that makes the thief Salmasius the Grammarian commits no Soloecisms now because he is from under the Ferular when you have overthrown the Pope let these for God's sake be the Canons of your Pontificate or at least your Indulgences whether you shall chuse to be called the High Priest St. â—yranny or of St. Slavery I pass by the Reproachful language which towards the latter end of the Chapter you give the State of the Commonwealth and the Church of England 't is common to such as you are you contemptible Varlet to rail at those things most that are most praise-worthy But that I may not seem to have asserted any thing rashly concerning the Right of the Kings of England or rather concerning the Peoples Right with respect to their Princes I will now alledg out of our ancient Histories a few things indeed of many but such as will make it evident that the English lately tried their King according to the setled Laws of the Realm and the Customs of their Ancestors After the Romans quitted this Island the Britains for about forty years were sui Juris and without any Kings at all Of whom those they first set up some they put to death And for that Gildas reprehends them not as you do for killing their Kings but for killing them uncondemned and to use his own words Non pro veri examinatione without inquiring into the matter of fact Vortigerne was for his Incestuous Marriage with his own Daughter condemn'd as Nennius informs us the most ancient of all our Historians next to Gildas by St. German and a General Council of the Britains and his Son Vortimer set up in his stead This came to pass not long after St. Augustine's death which is enough to discover how â—utilous you are to say as you have done that it was a Pope and Zachary by name who first held the lawfulness of judging Kings About the year of our Lord 600 Morcantius who then Reign'd in Wales was by Oudeceus Bishop of Landaff condemn'd to Exile for the Murther of his Uncle though he got the Sentence off by bestowing some Lands upon the Church Come we now to the Saxons whose Laws we have and therefore I shall quote none of their Presidents Remember that the Saxons were of a German Extract who neither invested their Kings with any absolute unlimited power and consulted in a Body of the more weighty affairs of Government whence we may perceive that in the time of our Saxon Ancestors Parliaments the name it self only excepted had the Supreme Authority The name they gave them was Councils of Wise-men and this in the Reign of Ethelbert of whom Bede says That he made Laws in imitation of the Roman Laws cum concilio sapientum by the advice or in a Council of his Wise-men So Edwyn King of Northumberland and Ina King of the VVest-Saxons having consulted with their VVise-men and the Elders of the people made new Laws Other Laws K. Alfred made by the advice in like manner of his Wise-men and he says himself That it was by the consent of them all that they were commanded to be observed From these and many other like places it is as clear as the Sun that chosen Men even from amongst the Common People were Members of the Supreme Councils unless we must believe that no Men are wise but the Nobility We have likewise a very Ancient Book called the Mirror of Justices in which we are told That the Saxons when they first subdued the Brittains and chose themselves Kings required an Oath of them to submit to the Judgment of the Law as much as any of their Subjects Cap. 1. Sect. 2. In the same place 't is said that it is but just that the King have his Peers in Parliament to take Cognizance of wrongs done by the King or the Queen and that there was a Law made in King Alored's time that Parliaments should be holden twice a year at London or oftner if need were Which Law when through neglect it grew into disuse was revived by two Statutes in King Edward the Third's time And in another ancient Manuscript called Modus tenendi Parliamenta we read thus If the King dissolve the Parliament before they have dispatcht the business for which the Council was summon'd he is guilty of Perjury and shall be reputed to have broken his Coronation Oath For how can he be said to grant those good Laws which the people chuse as he is sworn to do if he hinders the People from chusing them either by summoning Parliaments seldomer or by dissolving them sooner than the Publick Affairs require or admit And that Oath which the Kings of England take at their Coronation has always been looked upon by our Lawyers as a most sacred Law And what remedy can be found to obviate the great Dangers of the whole State which is the very end of summoning Parliaments if that Great and August Assembly may be dissolved at the pleasure many times of a silly head-strong King To absent himself from them is certainly less than to dissolve them and yet by our Laws as that Modus lays them down the King neither can nor ought to absent himself from his Parliament unless he be really indisposed in Health nor then neither till twelve of the Peers have been with him to inspect his Body and give the Parliament an account of his Indisposition Is this like the Carriage of Servants to a Master On the other hand the House of Commons without whom there can be no Parliament held tho summoned by the King may withdraw and having made a Secession expostulate with the King concerning Male-administration as the same Book has it But which is the greatest thing of all amongst the Laws of King Edward commonly called the Confessor there is one very excellent relating to the Kingly Office which Office if the King do not discharge as he ought Then says the Law He shall not retain so much as the Name of a King And lest these words should not be sufficiently understood the Example of Chilperic King of France is subjoyn'd whom the People for that Cause deposed And that by this Law a wicked King is liable to Punishment that Sword of King Edward called Curtana denotes to us which the Earl of Chester used to carry in the Solemn Procession at a Coronation A token says Mathew Paris that he has Authority by Law to punish the King if he will not do his Duty and the Sword is hardly ever made use of but in Capital Punishments This same Law together with other Laws of that good King Edward did William the Conqueror ratifie in the Fourth Year of his Reign and in a very full Council held at Verulam confirm'd it with a
most solemn Oath And by so doing he not only extinguish'd his Right of Conquest if he ever had any over us but subjected himself to be judged according to the Tenor of this very Law And his Son Henry swore to the observance of King Edward's Laws and of this amongst the rest and upon these only terms it was that he was chosen King whilst his Elder Brother Robert was alive The same Oath was taken by all succeeding Kings before they were Crowned Hence our Ancient and Famous Lawyer Bracton in his first Book Chap. 8. There is no King in the case says he where Will rules 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Law does not take place And in his Third Book Chap. 9. A King is a King so long as he Rules well he becomes a Tyrant when he oppresses the People committed to his Charge And in the same Chapter The King ought to use the Power of Law and Right as God's Minister and Vice-gerent the Power of wrong is the Devils and not Gods when the King turns aside to do Injustice he is the Minister of the Devil The very same words almost another Ancient Lawyer has who was the Author of the Book called Fleta both of them remembred that truly Royal Law of King Edward that Fundamental Maxim in our Law which I have formerly mentioned by which nothing is to be accounted a Law that is contrary to the Laws of God or of Reason no more than a Tyrant can be said to be a King or a Minister of the Devil a Minister of God Since therefore the Law is chiefly right Reason if we are bound to obey a King and a Minister of God by the very same Reason and the very same Law we ought to resist a Tyrant and a Minister of the Devil And because Controversies arise oftner about Names than Things the same Authors tell us that a King of England tho he have not lost the Name of a King yet is as liable to be judged and ought so to be as any of the Common People Bracton Book 1. Chap. 8. Fleta Book 1. Chap. 17. No Man ought to be greater than the King in the Administration of Justice but he himself ought to be as little as the least in receiving Justice si peccat if he offend Others read it si petat Since our Kings therefore are liable to be judged whether by the Name of Tyrants or of Kings it must not be difficult to assign their Legal Judges Nor will it be amiss to consult the same Authors upon that point Bracton Book 1. Chap. 16. Fleta Book 1. Chap. 17. The King has his Superiors in the Government The Law by which he is made King and his Court to wit the Earls and the Barons Comites Earls are as much as to say Companions and he that has a Companion has a Master and therefore if the King will be without a Bridle that is not govern by Law they ought to bridle him That the Commons are comprehended in the word Barons has been shown already nay and in the Books of our Ancient Laws they are frequently said to have been called Peers of Parliament and especially in the Modus tenendi c. There shall be chosen says that Book out of all the Peers of the Realm Five and twenty Persons of whom five shall be Knight five Citizens and five Burgâ—ssâ—s and two Knights of a County have a greater Vote in granting and rejecting than the greatest Earl in England And it is but reasonable they should for they Vote for a whole County c. the Earls for themselves only And who can but perceive that those Patent Earls whom you call Earls made by Writ since we have now none that hold their Earldoms by Tenure are very unfit Persons to try the King who conferr'd their Honours upon them Since therefore by our Law as appears by that old Book call'd The Mirror the King has his Peers who in Parliament have Cognizance of wrongs done by the King to any of his People and since it is notoriously known that the meanest Man in the Kingdom may even in inferior Courts have the benefit of the Law against the King himself in Case of any Injury or Wrong sustained how much more Consonant to Justice how much more necessary is it that in case the King oppress all his People there should be such as have Authority not only to restrain him and keep him within Bounds but to Judge and Punish him For that Government must needs be very ill and most ridiculously constituted in which remedy is provided in case of little Injuries done by the Prince to private Persons and no Remedy no Redress for greater no care taken for the safety of the whole no Provision made to the contrary but that the King may without any Law ruin all his Subjects when at the same time he cannot by Law so much as hurt any one of them And since I have shown that it is neither good manners nor expedient that the Lords should be the Kings Judges it follows that the Power of Judicature in that case does wholly and by very good Right belong to the Commons who are both Peers of the Realm and Barons and have the Power and Authority of all the People committed to them For since as we find it expresly in our written Law which I have already cited the Commons together with the King make a good Parliament without either Lords or Bishops because before either Lords or Bishops had a being Kings held Parliaments with their Commons only by the very same reason the Commons apart must have the Sovereign Power without the King and a Power of Judging the King himself because before there ever was a King they in the Name of the whole Body of the Nation held Councils and Parliaments had the Power of Judicature made Laws and made the Kings themselves not to Lord it over the People but to Administer their publick Affairs Whom if the King instead of so doing shall endeavour to injure and oppress our Law pronounces him from time forward not so much as to retain the Name of a King to be no such thing as a King and if he be no King what need we trouble our selves to find out Peers for him For being then by all good Men adjudged to be a Tyrant there are none but who are Peers good enough for him and proper enough to pronounce Sentence of Death upon him judicially These things being so I think I have sufficiently proved what I undertook by many Authorities and written Laws to wit that since the Commons have Authority by very good Right to try the King and since they have actually tried him and put him to Death for the mischief he had done both in Church and State and without all hope of amendment they have done nothing therein but what was just and regular for the Interest of the State in discharging of their Trust becoming their Dignity and according to the Laws of
the Land And I cannot upon this occasion but congratulate my self with the Honour of having had such Ancestors who founded this Government with no less prudence and in as much Liberty as the most worthy of the Ancient Romans or Grecians ever sounded any of theirs and they must needs if they have any knowledg of our Affairs rejoyce over their Posterity who when they were almost reduced to Slavery yet with so much Wisdom and Courage 〈◊〉 and asserted the State which they so wisely sounded upon so much Liberty from the unruly Government of a King CHAP. IX I Think by this time 't is sufficiently evident that Kings of England may be judged even by the Laws of England and that they have their proper Judges which was the thing to be proved What do you do farther for whereas you repeat many things that you have said before I do not intend to repeat the answers that I have given them 'T is an easie thing to demonstrate even from the nature of the things for which Parliaments are summon'd that the King is above the Parliament The Parliament you say is wont to be assembled upon weighty affairs such as wherein the safety of the Kingdom and of the people is concerned If therefore the King call Parliaments together not for his own concerns but those of the Nation nor to settle those neither but by their own consent at their own discretion what is he more than a Minister and as it were an agent for the people since without their Suffrages that are chosen by the people he cannot Eâ—… the least thing whatsoever either with relation to himself or any body else Which proves likewise that 't is the King's duty to call Parliaments whenever the people desire it since the peoples and not the King 's concerns are to be treated of that Assembly and to be ordered as they see cause For although the King's assent be required for fashion sake which in lesser matters that concerned the welfare of private persons only he might refuse and use that form the King will advise yet in those greater affairs that concern'd the publick safety and liberty of the people in general he had no Negative voice for it would have been against his Coronation Oath to deny his assent in such cases which was as binding to him as any Law could be and against the chief article of Magna Charta Cap. 29. We will not deny to any man nor will we delay to render to every man Right and Justice Shall it not be in the King's power to deny Justice and shall it be in his power to deny the Enacting of Just Laws Could he not deny Justice to any particular person and could he to all his people Could he not do it in inferior Courts and could he in the Supreme Court of all Or can any King be so arrogant as to pretend to know what 's just and profitable better than the whole body of the people Especially since he is created and chosen for this very end and purpose to do Justice to all as Braction says Lib. 3. Cap. 9. that is to do Justice according to such Laws as the people agree upon Hence is what we find in our Records 7 H 4. Rott Parl. num 59. The King has no Prerogative that derogates from Justice and Equity And formerly when Kings have refused to confirm Acts of Parliament to wit Magna Charta and some others our Ancestors have brought them to it by force of Arms. And yet our Lawyers never were of opinion that those Laws were less valid or less binding since the King was forced to assent to no more than what he ought in Justice to have assented to voluntarily and without constraint Whilest you go about to prove that Kings of other Nations have been as much under the power of their Senates or Counsels as our Kings were you do not argue us into Slavery but them into Liberty In which you do but that over again that you have from the very beginning of your Discourse and which some silly Leguleians now and then do to argue unawares against their own Clients But you say VVe confess that the King where-ever he be yet is supposed still to be present in his Parliament by vertue of his power insomuch that whatever is transacted there is supposed to be done by the King himself and then as if you had got some petty bribe or small morsel and tickled with the remembrance of your Purse of Gold We take say you what they give us and take a Halter then for I 'm sure you deserve it But we do not give it for granted which is the thing you thought would follow from thence That therefore that Court acts only by vertue of a Delegated Power from the King For when we say that the Regal Power be it what it will cannot be absent from the Parliament do we thereby acknowledg that Power to be Supreme does not the King's Authority seem rather to be transferred to the Parliament and as being the lesser of the two to be comprised in the greater Certainly if the Parliament may resâ—ind the King's Acts whether he will or no and revoke Priviledges granted by him to whomsoever they be granted If they may set bounds to his Prerogative as they see cause if they may regulate his yearly Revenue and the Expences of his Court his Retinue and generally all the concerns of his Houshold If they may remove his most intimate Friends and Counsellors and as it were pluck them out of his bosom and bring them to condign punishment Finally if any Subject may by Law appeal from the King to the Parliament all which things that they may lawfully be done and have been frequently practised both our Histories and Records and the most eminent of our Lawyers assure us I suppose no man in his right wits will deny the Authority of the Parliament to be superiour to that of the King For even in an Interregnum the Authority of the Parliament is in being and than which nothing is more common in our Histories they have often made a free Choice of a Successor without any regard to an Hereditary descent In short the Parliament is the Supreme Councel of the Nation constituted and appointed by a most free people and armed with ample power and authority for this end and purpose viz. to consult together upon the most weighty affairs of the Kingdom the King was created to put their Laws in execution Which thing after the Parliament themselves had declared in a publick Edict for such is the Justice of their Proceedings that of their own accord they have been willing to give an account of their actions to other Nations is it not prodigious that such a pitiful fellow as you are a man of no authority of no credit of no estate in the world a meer Burgundian 〈◊〉 should have the imprudence to accuse the Parliament of England asserting by a publick Instrument their
Will both of Senate and People gets as great a number as he can either of Enemies or profligate Subjects to side with him against the Senate and the People The Parliament therefore allowed the King as they did whatever he had besides the setting up of a Standard not to wage War against his own people but to defend them against such as the Parliament should declare Enemies to the State If he acted otherwise himself was to be accounted an Enemy since according to the very Law of St. Edward or according to a more sacred Law than that the Law of Nature it self he lost the name of a King and was no longer such Whence Cicero in his Philip. He forfeits his Command in the Army and Interest in the Government that employs them against the State Neither could the King compel those that held of him by Knight-Service to serve him in any other War than such as was made by consent of Parliament which is evident by many Statutes So for Customs and other Subsidies for the maintenance of the Navy the King could not exact them without an Act of Parliament as was resolved about twelve years ago by the ablest of our Lawyers when the King's Authority was at the height And long before them Fortescue an Eminent Lawyer and Chancellor to King Henry the 6th The King of England says he can neither alter the Laws nor exact Subsidies without the people's consent nor can any Testimonies be brought from Antiquity to prove the Kingdom of England to have been merely Regal The King says Bracton has a Jurisdiction over all his Subjects that is in his Courts of Justice where Justice is administred in the King's name indeed but according to our own Laws All are subject to the King that is every particular man is and so Bracton explains himself in the places that I have cited What follows is but turning the same stone over and over again at which sport I believe you are able to tire Sisiphus himself and is sufficiently answered by what has been said already For the rest if our Parliaments have sometimes complimented good Kings with submissive expressions tho neither favouring of Flattery nor Slavery those are not to be accounted due to Tyrants nor ought to prejudice the peoples Right good manners and civility do not infringe Liberty Whereas you cite out of Sir Edw. Coke and others That the Kingdom of England is an Absolute Kingdom that is said with respect to any Foreign Prince or the Emperor because as Cambden says It is not under the Patronage of the Emperor but both of them affirm that the Government of England resides not in the King alone but in a Body Politick Whence Fortescue in his Book de laud. leg Angl. cap. 9. The King of England says he governs his people not by a merely Regal but a Political power for the English are govern'd by Laws of their own making Foreign Authors were not ignorant of this Hence Philip de Comines a Grave Author in the Fifth Book of his Commentaries Of all the Kingdoms of the earth says he that I have any knowledge of there is none in my opinion where the Government is more moderate where the King has less power of hurting his people than in England Finally 'T is ridiculous say you for them to affirm that Kingdoms were ancienter than Kings which is as much as if they should say that there was Light before the Sun was created But with your good leave Sir we do not say that Kingdoms but that the people were before Kings In the mean time who can be more ridiculous than you who deny there was Light before the Sun had a being You pretend to a curiosity in other mens matters and have forgot the very first things that were taught you You wonder how they that have seen the King upon his Throne at a Session of Parliament sub aureo serico Coelo under a golden and silken Heaven under a Canopy of State should so much as make a question whether the Majesty resided in him or in the Parliament They are certainly hard of belief whom so lucid an Argument coming down from Heaven cannot convince Which Golden Heaven you like a Stoick have so devoutly and seriously gaz'd upon that you seem to have forgot what kind of Heaven Moses and Aristotle describe to us for you deny that there was any Light in Moses his Heaven before the Sun and in Aristotle's you make three temperate Zones How many Zones you observed in that Golden and Silken Heaven of the King 's I know not but I know you got one Zone a Purse well tempered with a Hundred Golden Stars by your Astronomy CHAP. X. SInce this whole Controversie whether concerning the Right of Kings in general or that of the King of England in particular is rendred difficult and intricate rather by the obstinacy of parties than by the nature of the thing it self I hope they that prefer Truth before the Interest of a Faction will be satisfied with what I have alledged out of the Law of God the Law of Nations and the Municipal Laws of my own Countrey That a King of England may be brought to Tryal and put to Death As for those whose minds are either blinded with Superstition or so dazeled with the Splendor and Grandure of a Court that Magnanimity and true Liberty do not appear so glorious to them as they are in themselves it will be in vain to contend with them either by Reason and Arguments or Examples But you Salmasius seem very absurd as in every other part of your Book so particularly in this who tho you â—ail perpetually at the Independents and revile them with all the terms of Reproach imaginable yet assert to the highest degree that can be the Independâ—ncy of the King whom you defend and will not allow him to owe his Soveraignty to the people but to his Descent And whereas in the beginning of your Book you complain'd that he was put to plead for his Life here yâ—u complain That he perish'd without being heard to spâ—… for himself But if you have a mind to look into the History of his Trial which is very faithfully publish'd in French it may be you 'l be of another opinion Whereas he had liberty given him for some day together to say what he could for himself he made use of it not to clear himself of the Crimes 〈◊〉 to his Charge but to disprove the Authority oâ— his Judges and the Judicature that he was called before And whenever a Criminal is either mute or says nothing to the purpose there is no Injustice in condemning him without hearing him if his Crimes are notorious and publickly known If you say that Charles dyed as he lived I agree with you If you say that he died piously holily and at ease you may remember that his Grandmother Mary Queen of Scots and infamous Woman dyed on a Scaffold with as much outward appearance of
and teach such a Doctor as you That the word Tyrant for all your concern is barely to have some understanding of words may be applied to one who is neither a Traytor nor a Murtherer But the Laws of England do not make it Treason in the King to stir up Sedition against himself or the people Nor do they say That the Parliament can be guilty of Treason by deposing a bad King nor that any Parliament ever was so tho they have often done it but our Laws plainly and clearly declare that a King may violate diminish nay and wholly lose his Royalty For that expression in the Law of St. Edward of losing the name of a King signifies neither more nor less than being deprived of the Kingly Office and Dignity which befel Chilperic King of France whose example for illustration-sake is taken notice of in the Law it self There is not a Lawyer amongst us that can deny but that the highest Treason may be committed against the Kingdom as well as against the King I appeal to Glanvile himself whom you cite If any man attempt to put the King to death or raise Sedition in the Realm it is High Treason So that attempt of some Papists to blow up the Parliament-House and the Lords and Commons there with Gunpowder was by King James himself and both Houses of Parliament declared to be High Treason not against the King only but against the Parliament and the whole Kingdom 'T would be to no purpose to quote more of our Statutes to prove so clear a Truth which yet I could easily do For the thing it self is ridiculous and absurd to imagine That High Treason may be committed against the King and not against the people for whose good nay and by whose leave as I may say the King is what he is So that you babble over so many Statutes of ours to no purpose you toil and wallow in our Ancient Law-Books to no purpose for the Laws themselves stand or fall by Authority of Parliament who always had power to confirm or repeal them and the Parliament is the sole Judge of what is Rebellion what High Treason Iaesa Majestas and what not Majesty never was vested to that degree in the Person of the King as not to be more conspicuous and more August in Parliament as I have often shown But who can endure to hear such a senseless Fellow such a French Mountebank as you declare what our Laws are And you English Fugitives so many Bishops Doctors Lawyers who pretend that all Learning and Ingenuous Literature is fled out of England with your selves was there not one of you that could defend the King's Cause and your own and that in good Latin too to be submitted to the judgment of other Nations but that this brain-sick beggarly Frenchman must be hired to undertake the Defence of a poor indigent King surrounded with so many Infant-Priests and Doctors This very thing I assure you will be a great imputation to you amongst Foreigners and you will be thought deservedly to have lost that Cause that you were so far from being able to defend by Force of Arms as that you cannot so much as write in behalf of it But now I come to you again good-man goose-cap who scribble so finely if at least you are come to your self again for I find you here towards the latter end of your Book in a deep sleep and dreaming of some voluntary Death or other that 's nothing to the purpose Then you deny that 't is possible for a King in his right wits to embroil his people in Seditions to betray his own Forces to be slaughtered by Enemies and raise Factions against himself All which things having been done by many Kings and particularly by Charles the late King of England you will no longer doubt I hope especially being addicted to Stoicism but that all Tyrants as well as profligate Villains are downright mad Hear what Horace says Whoever through a senseless Stupidity or any other cause whatsoever hath his Understanding so blinded as not to discern truth the Stoicks account of him as of a mad-man And such are whole Nations such are Kings and Princes such are all Man kind except those very few that are Wise So that if you would clear King Charles from the Imputation of acting like a Mad-man you must first vindicate his integrity and show that he never acted like an ill man But a King you say cannot commit Treason against his own Subjects and Vassals In the first place since we are as free as any People under Heaven we will not be impos'd upon by any Barbarous Custom of any other Nation whatsoever In the second place Suppose we had been the King's Vassals that Relation would not have obliged us to endure a Tyrant to Reign and Lord it over us All Subjection to Magistrates as our own Laws declare is circumscribed and confined within the bounds of Honesty and the Publick Good Read Leg. Hen. 1. Cap. 55. The Obligation betwixt a Lord and his Tenants is mutual and remains so long as the Lord protects his Tenant this all our Lawyers tells us but if the Lord be too severe and cruel to his Tenant and do him some heinous Injury The whole Relation betwixt them and whatever Obligation the Tenant is under by having done Homage to his Lord is utterly dissolv'd and extinguish'd These are the very words of Bracton and Fleta So that in some Case the Law it self warrants even a Slave or a Vassal to oppose his Lord and allows the Slave to kill him if he vanquish him in Battle If a City or a whole Nation may not lawfully take the Course with a Tyrant the Condition of Freemen will be worse than that of Slaves Then you go about to excuse King Charles's shedding of Innocent Blood partly by Murders committed by other Kings and partly by some Instances of Men put to Death by them lawfully For the matter of the Irish Massacre you refer the Reader to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and I refer you to Eiconoclastes The Town of Rochel being taken and the Towns-men betray'd assistance shown but not afforded them you will not have laid at Charlos's door nor have I any thing to say whether he was faulty in that business or not he did mischief enough at home we need not enquire into what Misdemeanors he was guilty of abroad But you in the mean time would make all the Protestant Churches that have at any time defended themselves by force of Arms against Princes who were profess'd Enemies of their Religion to have been guilty of Rebellion Let them consider how much it concerns them for the maintaining their Ecclesiastical Discipline and asserting their own Integrity not to pass by so great an Indignity offered them by a Person bred up by and amongst themselves That which troubles us most is that the English likewise were betray'd in that Expedition He who had design'd long ago to convert
the Government of England into a Tyranny thought he could not bring it to pass till the Flower and Strength of the Military Power of the Nation were cut off Another of his Crimes was the causing some words to be struck out of the usual Coronation-oath before he himself would take it Unworthy and abominable Action The Act was wicked in it self what shall be said of him that undertakes to justifie it For by the Eternal God what greater breach of Faith and Violation of all Laws can possibly be imagin'd What ought to been more sacred to him next to the Holy Sacraments themselves than that Oath Which of the two do you think the more flagitious Person him that offends against the Law or him that endeavours to make the Law equally guilty with himself Or rather him who subverts the Law it self that he may not seem to offend against it For thus that King violated that Oath which he ought most religiously to have sworn to but that he might not seem openly and publickly to violate it he craftily adulterated and corrupted it and least he himself should be accounted perjur'd he turn'd the very Oath into a Perjury What other could be expected then that his Reign would be full of Injustice Craft and Misfortune who began it with so detestable an Injury to his People And who durst pervert and adulterate that Law which he thought the only Obstacle that stood in his way and hindred him from perverting all the rest of the Laws But that Oath thus you justify him lays no other Obligation upon Kings then the Laws themselves do and Kings pretend that they will be bound and limited by Laws tho indeed they are altogether from under the Power of Laws Is it not prodigious that a Man should dare to express himself so sacrilegiously and so senselesly as to assert that am Oath sacredly sworn upon the Holy Evangelists mary be dispensed with and set aside as a little insignifi cant thing without any Cause whatsoever Charles himself refutes you you Prodigy of Impiety Who thinking that Oath no light matter chose rather by a Subterfuge to avoid the force of it or by a Fallacy to elude it than openly to violate it and would rather falsifie and corrupt the Oath then manifestly forswear himself after he had taken it But The King indeed swears to his People as the People do to him but the People swear Fidelity to the King not the King to them Pretty Invention Does not he that promises and binds himself by an Oath to do any thing to or for another oblige his Fidelity to them that require the Oath of him Of a truth every King swâ—ears Fidelity and Service and Obedience to the People with respect to the performance of whatever he promiseth upon Oath to do Then you run back to William the Conqueror who was forced more than once to swear to perform not what he himself would bâ—…t what the People and the great Men of the Realm requir'd of him If many Kings are Crown'd without the usual Solemnity and Reign without taking any Oath the same thing may be said of the People a great many of whom never took the Oath of Allegiance If the King by not taking an Oath be at Liberty the People are so too And that part of the People that has sworn swore not to the King only but to the Realm and the Laws by which the King came to his Crown and no otherwise to the King than whâ—…st he should act according to those Laws that the Common People that is the House of Commons should chuse quas Vulgus elegerit For it were folly to alter the Phrase of our Law and turn it into more genuine Latin This Clause Quas Vulgus elegerit Which the Commons shall abuse Charles before he was Crown'd procured to be razed out But say you without the King's assent the People can chuse no Laws and for this you cite two Statutes viz. Anno 37 H. 6. Cap. 15. and 13 Edw. 4. Cap. 8. but those two Statutes are so far from appearing in our Statute-books that in the years you mention neither of those Kings enacted any Laws at all Go now and complain That those Fugitives who pretended to furnish you with matter out of our Statutes imposed upon you in it and let other People in the mean time stand astonish'd at your Impudence and Vanity who are not asham'd to pretend to be throughly vers'd in such Books as it is so evident you have never look'd into nor so much as seen And that Clause in the Coronation-Oath which such a brazen-fac'd Brawler as you call fictitious The King's Friends you say your self acknowledge that it may possibly be extant in some Ancient Copies but that it grew into disuse because it had no convenient signification But for that very reason did our Ancestors insert it in the Oath that the Oath might have such a signification as would not be for a Tyrant's conveniency If it had really grown into disuse which yet is most false there was the greater need of reviving it but even that would have been to no purpose according to your Doctrine For that Custom of taking an Oath as Kings now-adays generally use it is no more you say then a bare Ceremony And yet the King when the Bishops were to be put down pretended that he could not do it by reason of that Oath And consequently that reverend and sacred Oath as it serves for the Kings turn or not must be solemn and binding or an empty Ceremony Which I earnestly entreat my Country-men to take notice of and to consider what manner of a King they are like to have if he ever 〈◊〉 back For it would never have entred into the thoughts of this Rascally-foreign Grammarian to write a Discourse of the Rights of the Crown of England unless both Charles Stuart now in Banishment and tainted with his Fathers Principles and those Prosâ—igate Tutors that he has along with him had induâ—uiously to suggested him what they would have writ They dictated to him That the whole Parliament were liable to be proceded against as Traitors because they declar'd without the Kings Assent all them to be Traitors who had taken up Arms against the Parliament of England and that the Parliaments were but the King's Vassals That the Oath which our Kings take at their Coronations is but a Ceremony And why not that a Vassal too So that no reverence of Laws no sacredness of an Oath will be sufficient to protect your Lives and Fortunes either from the Exorbitance of a furious or the Revenge of an exasperated Prince who has been so instructed from his Cradle as to think Laws Religion nay and Oaths themselves ought to be subject to his Will and Pleasure How much better is it and more becoming your selves if you desire Riches Liberty Peace and Empire to obtain them assuredly by your own Virtue Industry Prudence and Valour than to long after
a King But we do not bear with a Father if he be a Tyrant If a Father murder his Son himself must die for 't and why should not a King be subject to the same Law which certainly is a most just one Especially considering that a Father cannot by any possibility divest himself of that relation but a King easily may make himself neither King nor Father of his people If this action of ours be considered according to its quality as you call it I who am both an English man born and was an eye-witness of the Transactions of these times tell you who are both a Foreigner and an utter stranger to our Affairs That we have not put to death a good nor a just nor a merciful nor a devout nor a godly nor a peaceable King as you stile him but an Enemy that has been so to us almost ten years to an end nor one that was a Father but a Destroyer of his Country You confess that such things have been 〈◊〉 for your self have not the impudence to deny it but nâ—t by Protestants upon a Protestant King As if he deserv'd the name of a Protestant that in a Letter to the Pope could give him the title of Most Holy Father that was always more favourable to the Papists than to those of his own Profession And being such he is not the first of his own Family that has been put to death by Protestants Was not his Grand-mother deposed and banisht and at last beheaded by Protestants And were not her own Countrymen that were Protestants too well enough pleas'd with it Nay if I should say they were parties to it I should not lie But there being so few Protestant Kings it is no great wonder if it never happened that one of them has been put to death But that it is lawful to depose a Tyrant and to punish him according to his deserts Nay that this is the opinion of very eminent Divines and of such as have been most Instrumental in the late Reformation do you deny if you dare You confess that many Kings have come to an unnatural death Some by the Sword some poyson'd some strangled and some in a dungeon but for a King to be arraign'd in a Court of Judicature to be put to plead for his life to have Sentence of death pronounc'd against him and that Sentence exâ—cuted this you think a more lamentable Instance than all the rest and make it a prodigious piece of impiety Tell me thou superlative Fool Whether it be not more just more agreeable to the Rules of Humanity and the Laws of all Humane Societies to bring a Criminal be his Offence what it will before a Count of Justice to give him leave to speak for himself and if the Law condemn him then to put him to death as he has dâ—â—erv'd so as he may have time to repent or to recollect himself than presently as soon as ever he is taken to butâ—hâ—r him without more ado 〈◊〉 think there 's a Malâ—…r in the World that if he might have his choice would not chuse to be thus dealt withal and if this sort of proceeding against a private Person be accounted the fairer of the two why should it not be counted so against a Prince nay why should we not think that himself liked it better You would have had him kill'd privately and none to have seen it either that future Ages might have lost the advantage of so good an Example or that they that did this glorious Action might seem to have avoided the Light and to have acted contrary to Law and Justice You aggravate the matter by telling us that it was not done in an uproar or brought about by any Faction amongst Great Men or in the heat of a Rebellion either of the People or the Soldiers that there was no hatred no fear no ambition no blind precipitate rashness in the Case but that it was long consulted on and done with deliberation You did well in leaving off being an Advocate and turn Grammarian That from the Accidents and Circumstances of a thing which in themselves considered sway neither one way nor other argue in dispraise of it before you have proved the thing it self to be either good or bad See how open you lie If the Action you are discoursing of be commendable and praise-worthy they that did it deserve the greater Honour in that they were prepossessed with no Passions but did what they did for Virtue 's sake If there were great difficulty in the enterprise they did well in not going about it rashly but upon Advice and Consideration Thâ— for my own part when I call to mind with how unexpected an importunity and servency of Mind and with how unanimous a Consent the whole Army and a great part of the People from almost every County in the Kingdom cried out with one Voice for Justice against the King as being the sole Author of all their Calamities I cannot but think that these things were brought about by a Divine impulse Whatever the matter was whether we consider the Magistrates or the Body of the People no Men ever underâ—ook with more Courage and which our Adversaries themselves confess in a more 〈◊〉 temper of Mind so brave an Action an Action that might have become those famous Heroes of whom we read in former Ages an Action by which they â—â—nobled not only Laws and their Execution which seem for the future equally restor'd to high and low against one another but even Justice it self and to have rendred it after so signal a Judgment more illustrious and greater than in its own self We are now come to an end of the third page of the First Book and have not the bare Narrative he promis'd us yet He complains that our Principles arâ— â—hat a King whose Government is Burdensom and Odiâ—s may lawfully be deposed And by this Doâ—… says he if they had had a King a thousand times 〈◊〉 thann they had they would not have spared his Life Observe the Man's subtle way of arguing For I would willingly be inform'd what Consequence there 〈◊〉 in this unless he allows that a King's Government may be Burdersâ—m and Odieus who is a thousand 〈◊〉 better than our King was So that now he has brought things to this pass to make the King that he defends a thousand times worse than some whose Government notwithstanding is Burdensom and Oâ—… 〈◊〉 is it may be the most monstrous Tyrant that 〈◊〉 â—…d I wish ye Joy O ye Kings of 〈…〉 able a Defender Now the Narrative begins They put him to sâ—…ral sorts of Torments Give an inâ—… They remov'd him from Prison to Prison and so they might lawfully do for having been a Tyrant he became an open Enemy and was taken in War Often changing his Keepers Lest they themselves should change Sometimes they gave him hopes of Liberty nay and sometimes even of restoring him to his Crown upon Articles of Agreement It
meddle with except when you make Soloecisms is Grammar still VVhosoever therefore he be though from among the Drâ—gs of that common People that you are so keen upon for as for those men of Eminency amongst us whose great Actions evidenced to all men their Nobility and Vertue and Conduct I won't disgrace them so much as to compare you to them or them to you but whosoever I say among the Drâ—gs of that common People has but suck'd in this Principle That he was not born for his Prince but for God and his Countrey he deserves the reputation of a Learned and an Honest and a VVise man more and is of greater use in the world than your self For such a one is Learned without Letters you have Letters but no Learning That understand so many Languages turn over so many Volumes and yet are but a sheep when all is done CHAP. II. THE Argument that Salmasius toward the conclusion of his First Chapter urg'd as 〈◊〉 ble to wit that it was really so because all men unanimously agreed in it That very Argument than which as he appli'd it there is nothing more false I that am now about to discourse of the Right of Kings may turn upon himself with a great deal of truth For whereas he defines a King if that may be said to be defin'd which he makes infinite to be a Person in whom the Supream Power of the Kingdom resides who is answerable to God alone who may do whatsoever pleaseth him who is bound by no Law I will undertake to demonstrate not by mine but by his own Reasons and Authorities that there never was a Nation or People of any account for to ransack all the unciviliz'd Parts of the World were to no purpose that ever allow'd this to be their King 's Right or put such exorbitant Power into his hand as that he should not be bound by any Law that be might do what he would that he should judge all but be judged of 〈◊〉 Nor caâ—… my self that there ever was any one Person besides Salmasius of so slavish a Spirit as to assert the outragious Enormities of Tyrants to be the â—eights of Kings Those amongst us that were the greatest Royalists always abhorr'd this fordid Opinion and Salmasius himself as appears by some other Writings of his before he was brib'd was quite of another mind Insomuch that what he here gives out does not look like the Dictates of a free Subject under a free Government much less in so famous a Common-wealth as that of Holland and the most eminent University there but seems to have been penn'd by some despicable slave that lay rotting in a Prison or a Dungeon If whatever a King has a mind to do the Right of Kings will bear him out in which was a Lesson that the bloody Tyrant Antoninus Caracalla though his Step-mother Julia preach'd it to him and endeavour'd to iâ—ure him to the practice of it by making him commit incest with her self yet could hardly suck in Then there neither is nor ever was that King that deserv'd the name of a Tyrant They may safely violate all the Laws of God and Man their very being Kings keeps them innocent What Crime was ever any of them guilty of they did but make use of their own Right upon their own Vassals No King can commit such horrible Cruelties and Outrages as will not be within this Right of Kings So that there 's no Pretence left for any Complaints or Expostulations with any of them And dare you assert That this Right of Kings as you call it is grounded upon the Law of Nations or rather upon that of Nature you Brute Beast for you deserve not the name of a Man that are so cruel and unjust towards all those of your own kind that endeavour as much as in you lies so to bear down and villify the whole Race of Mankind that were made after the Image of God as to assert and maintain that those cruel and unmerciful Taskmasters that through the superstitious whimsies 〈◊〉 sloth or treachery of some persons get into the Chair are provided and appointed by nature her self that mild and gentle Mother of us all to be the Governours of those Nations they enslave By which Pestilent Doctrine of yours having rendred them more fierce and untractable you not only enable them to make havock of and trample under foot their miserable subjects but endeavour to arm them for that very purpose with the Law of Nature the Right of Kings and the very Constitutions of Government than which nothing can be more impious or ridiculous By my consent as Dionysius formerly of a Tyrant became a School-master so you of a Grammarian should become a Tyrant not that you may have that Regal License of doing other people harm but a fair opportunity of perishing miserably your self That as Tiberius complain'd when he had confin'd himself to the Island Capreae you may be reduced into such a condition as to be sensible that you perish daily But let us look a little more narrowly into this right of Kings that you talk of This was the sense of the Eastern and of the VVestern part of the world I shall not answer you with what Aristotle and Cicero who are both as credible Authors as any we have tell us viz. That the people of Asia easily submit to slavery but the Syrians and the Jews are even born to it from the womb I confess there are but few and those men of great wisdom and courage that are either desirous of Liberty or capable of using it The greatest part of the world chuse to live under Masters but yet they would have them just ones As for such as are unjust and tyrannical neither was God ever so much an enemy to Mankind as to enjoyn a necessity of submitting to them nor was there ever any people so destitute of all sense and sunk into such a depth of despair and to impose so cruel a Law upon themselves and their posterity First you produce the words of King Solomon in his Ecclesiastes And we are as willing to appeal to the Scripture as you As for Solomon's authority we 'l consider that hereafter when perhaps we shall be better able to understand it First let us hear God himself speak Deut. 17. 14. VVhen thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee and shalt say I will set a King over me like as the Nations that are round about me Which passage I could wish all men would seriously consider for hence it appears by the testimony of God himself First that all Nations are at liberty to erect what form of Government they will amongst themselves and to change it when and into what they will This God affirms in express terms concerning the Hebrew Nation and it does not appear but that other Nations are as to this respect in the same condition Another remark that this place yields us is That a
Commonwealth is a more perfect form of Goverment thâ—n a Monarchy and more suitable to the condition of Mankind and in the opinion of God himself better for his own people for himself appointed it And could hardly be prevail'd withal a great while after and at their own importunate desire to let 'em change it into a Monarchy But to make it appear that he gave 'em their choice to be Govern'd by a single person or by more so they were justly Govern'd in case they should in time to come resolve upon a King he prescribes Laws for this King of theirs to observe whereby he was forbidden to multiply to himself Horses and Wives or to heap up Riches whence he might easily infer that no power was put into his hands over others but according to Law since even those actions of his life which related only to himself were under a Law He was commanded therefore to transcribe with his own hand all the Precepts of the Law and having writ 'em out to observe and keep 'em that his mind might not be lifted up above his Brethren 'T is evident from hence that as well the Prince as the people was bound by the Law of Moses To this purpose Josephus writes a proper and an able Interpreter of the Laws of his own Country who was admirably well vers'd in the Jewish Policy and infinitely preferable to a thousand obscure ignorant Rabbins He has it thus in the Fourth Book of his Antiquities 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. An Aristocracy is the best form of Government wherefore do not you endeavour to settle any other 't is enough for you that God presides over ye But if you will have a King let him guide himself by the Law of God rather than by his own wisdom and lay a restraint upon him if he offer at more power than the state of your affairs will allow of Thus he expresseth himself upon this place in Deuteronomy Another Jewish Author Philo Judaus who was Josephus his Contemporary a very studious man in the Law of Moses upon which he wrote a large Commentary when in his Book concerning the Creation of the King he interprets this Chapter of Deuteronomy he sets a King loose from the Law no otherwise than as an enemy may be said to be so They says he that to the prejudice and destruction of the people acquire great power to themselves deserve not the name of Kings but that of Enemies For their actions are the same with those of an irreconcilable enemy Nay they that under a pretence of Government are injurious are worse than open enemies We may fence our selves against the latter but the malice of the former is so much the more Pestilent because it is not always easie to be discovered But when is is discover'd why should they not be dealt with as enemies The same Author in his second Book Allegoriar Legis A King says he and a Tyrant are Contraries And a little after A King ought not only to command but obey All this is very true you 'l say a King ought to observe the Laws as well as any other man But what if he will not What Law is there to punish him I answer the same Law that there is to punish other men for I find no exceptions there is no express Law to punish the Priests or any other inferior Magistrates who all of 'em if this opinion of the exemption of Kings from the Penalties of the Law would hold may by the same reason claim impunity what guilt soever they contract because there is no positive Law for their punishment and yet I suppose none of them ever challeng'd such a Prerogative nor would it ever be allow'd 'em if they should Hitherto we have learn'd from the very Text of God's own Law that a King ought to obey the Laws and not lift himself up above his Brethre Let us now consider whether Solomon preacht up any other Doctrine Ch. 8 v. 2. I counsel thee to keep the King's commandment and that in regard of the oath of God Be not hasty to go out of his sight stand not in an evil thing for he doth whatsoever pleaseth him VVhere the word of a King is there is power and who may say unto him what dost thou It is well enough known that here the Preacher directs not his Precepts to the Sanhedrim or to a Parliament but to private persons and such he commands to keep the King's commandment and that in regard of the oath of God But as they swear Allegiance to Kings do not Kings likewise swear to obey and maintain the Laws of God and those of their own Country So the Reubenites and Gadites promise obedience to Jeshua Josh 1. 17. According as we harkned unto Moses in all things so will we harken unto thee only the Lord thy God be with thee as he was with Moses Here 's an express condition Hear the Preacher else Chap. 9. v. 17. The words of wise men are heard in quiet more than the cry of him that ruleth among fools The next caution that Solâ—mon gives us is Be not hasty to go out of his sight stand not in an evil thing for he doth whatsoever pleaseth him That is he does what he will to Malefactors whom the Law authorizeth him to punish and against whom he may proceed with mercy or severity as he sees occasion Here 's nothing like Tyranny Nothing that a good man needs be afraid of Where the word of a King is there is power and who may say to him VVhat dost thou And yet we read of one that not only said to a King VVhat dost thou but told him Thou hast done foolishly But Samuel you may say was an Extraordinary Person I answer you with your own words which follow in the 49th Page of your Book VVhat was there extraordinary say you in Saul or in David And so say I what was there in Samuel extraordinary He was a Prophet you 'l say so are they that now follow his example for they act according to the will of God either his reveal'd or his secret will which your self grant in your 50th Page The Preacher therefore in this place prudently adviseth private persous not to contend with Princes for it is even dangerous to contend with any man that 's either rich or powerful But what then must therefore the Nobility of a Nation and all the inferior Magistrates and the whole body of the people not dare to mutter when a King raves and acts like a mad-man Must they not oppose a foolish wicked outragious Tyrant that perhaps seeks the destruction of all good men Must they not endeavour to prevent his turning all Divine and Humane things upside down must they suffer him to massacre his People burn their Cities and commit such Outrages upon them daily and finally to have perfect liberty to do what he list without controul O de Cappadocis eques catastis Thou slavish Knight
of Cappadocia Whom all free People if you can have the confidence hereafter to set your foot within a free Countrey ought to cast out from amongst them and send to some remote parts of the World as a Prodigy of dire portent or to condemn to some perpetual drudgery as one devoted to slavery solemnly obliging themselves if they ever let you go to undergo a worse slavery under some cruelâ— silly Tyrant No man living can either devise himself or borrow from any other Expressions so full of Cruelty and Contempt as may not justly be apply'd to you But go on VVhen the Israelites asked a King of God they said they would set up a King that should have the same Rule and Dominion over them that the Kings of their neighbour Countries exercis'd over their Subjects But the Kings of the East we know had an unlimited Power as Virgil testifies Regem non sic Aegyptus ingens Lydia nec Populi Parthorum Medus Hydaspes Observant No Eastern Nation ever did adore The Majesty of Soveraign Princes more First What is that to us what sort of Kings the Israelites desired especially since God was angry with them not only for desiring such a King as other Nations had and not such a King as his own Law describes but barely for desiring a King Nor is it credible that they should desire an unjust King and one that should be out of the reach of all Laws who could not bear the Government of Samuel's Sons though under the power of Laws but from their Covetousness sought refuge in a King And lastly The Verse that you quote out of Virgil does not prove that the Kings of the East had an absolute unlimited Power for those Bees that he there speaks of and who reverence their Kings he says more than the Egyptians or Medes do theirs by the Authority of the same Poet magnis agitant sub legibus aevum Live under certain Fundamental Laws They do not live under a King then that 's tyed to no Law But now I 'le let you see how little reason you have to think I bear you an ill will Most people think you are a Knave but I 'le make it appear that you have only put on a Knaves Vizor for the present In your Introduction to your Discourse of the Pope's Supremacy you say that some Divines in the Council of Trent made use of the Government that is said to be amongst Bees to prove the Pope's Supremacy This fancy you borrow from them and urge it here with the same malice that they did there Now that very same answer that you gave them whilst you were an honest man now that you are become a Knave you shall give your self and pull off with your own hand that Vizor you 've now put on The Bees say you are a State and so natural Philosophers call them they have a King but a harmless one he is a Leader or Captain rather than a King he never beats nor pulls nor kills his subject Bees No wonder they are so observant of him then But in good Faith you had but ill luck to meddle with these Bees for though they are Bees of Trent they show you to be a Drone Aristotle a most exact writer of Politicks affirms that the Asiatique Monarchy which yet himself calls Barbarous was according to Law Politic. 3. And whereas he reckons up five several sorts of Monarchies four of those five he makes Governments according to Laws and with the consent of the People and yet he calls them Tyrannical forms of Government because they lodg so much power in one man's hand But the Kingdom of the Lacedaemonians he says is most properly a Kingdom because there all power is not in the King The fifth sort of Monarchy which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is where the King is all in all and to which he refers that that you call the right of Kings which is a Liberty to do what they list he neither tells us when nor where any such form of Government ever obtain'd Nor seems he to have mention'd it for any other purpose than to show how unjust absurd and tyrâ—nnical a Government it is You say that when Samuel would deter the people from chusing a King he propounded to them this right of Kings But whence had Samuel it Had he it from the written Law of God That can't be We have observ'd already that the Scriptures afford us a quite other Scheme of Soveraignty Had Samuel it then immediately from God himself by Revelation That 's not likely neither for God dislikes it discommends it â—…ds fault with it So that Samuel does not expound to the People any right of Kings appointed by God â—ut a corrupt and deprived mâ—nner of Governing â—…en 〈◊〉 by the Pride â—nd Ambition of Princes He tells not the people what their Kings ought to do but what they would do He told them the manner of their King as before he told us of the manner of the Priests the Sons of Eli for he useth the same word in both places which you in the 33d Page of your Book by an Hebrew Soloecism too call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That manner of theirs was Wicked and Odious and Tyranical It was no right but great wrong The Fathers have commented upon this place too I 'le instance in one that may stand for a great many and that 's Sulpitius Severus a contemporary and intimate Friend of St. Jerom and in St. Augustin's opinion a man of great Wisdom and Learning He tells us in his sacred History that Samuel in that place acquaints the people with the imperious Rule of Kings and how thâ—y use to Lord it over their Subjects Certainly it cannot be the right of Kings to domineer and be imperious But according to Salust that lawful Power and Authority that Kings were entrusted with for the Preservation of the publick Liberty and the good of the Common-wealth quickly degenerated into Pride and Tyranny And this is the sense of all Orthodox Divines and of all Lawyers upon that place of Samuel And you might have learn't from Sichardus that most of the Rabbins too were of the same mind at least not any one of them ever asserted that the absolute inherent right of Kings is there discoursed of Your self in your 5th Chapter Page 106. complain that not only Clemens Alexandrinus but all other Expositors mistake themselves upon this Text And you I 'le warrant ye are the only man that have had the good luck to hit the mark Now what a piece of folly and impudence is this in you to maintain in opposition to all Orthodox Expositors that those very actions which God so much condemns are the right of Kings And to pretend Law for them Though your self confess that that right is very often exercis'd in committing Outrages being injurious contumelious and the like Was any man ever to that degree sui juris so much his own Master as
that he might lawfully prey upon mankind bear down all that stood in his way and turn all things up-side down Did the Romans ever maintain as you say they did That any man might do these things suo Jure by vertue of some inherent right in himself Salust indeed makes C. Memmius a Tribune of the people in an invective Speech of his against the pride of the Nobility and their escaping unpunish'd howsoever they misbehaved themselves to use these words viz. to do whatever one has a mind to without fear of Punishment is to be a King This Saying you catch'd hold off thinking it would make for your purpose but consider it a little better and you 'll find your self deceiv'd Does he in that place assert the right of Kings Or does he not blame the common-people and chide them for their sloth in suffering their Nobility to Lord it over them as if they were out of the reach of all Law and in submitting again to that Kingly Tyranny which together with their Kings themselves their Ancestors had lawfully and justly rejected and banish'd from amongst them If you had consulted Tully you would have understood both Salust and Samuel better In his Oration pro C. Rabirio There is none of us ignorant says he of the manner of Kings These are their Lordly dictates Mind what I say and do accordingly Many passages to this purpose he quotes out of Poets and calls them not the right but the custom or the manner of Kings and he says We ought to read and consider them not only for curiosity sake but that we may learn to beware of 'em and avoid ' em You perceive how miserably you 're come off with Salust who though he be as much an enemy to Tyranny as any other Author whatsoever you thought would have Patroniz'd this Tyrannical right that you are establishing Take my word for 't the right of Kings seems to be tottering and even to further its own ruin by relying upon such weak props for its support and by endeavouring to maintain it self by such Examples and Authorities as would hasten its down-fall if it were further off than it is The extremity of right or law you say is the height of injury Summum jus summa injuria this saying is verified most properly in Kings who when they go to the utmost of their right fall into those courses in which Samuel makes the Right of Kings to consist And 't is a miserable Right which when you have said all you can for you can no otherwise defend than by confessing that it is the greatest injury that may be The extremity of Right or Law is said to be when a man ties himself up to Niceties dwells upon Letters and Syllables and in the mean time neglects the intent and equity of the Law or when a written Law is cunningly and maliciously interpreted this Cicero makes to have been the rise of that common saying But since 't is certain that all right flows from the fountain of Justice so that nothing can possibly be any man's right that is not just 't is a most wicked thing in you to affirm that for a King to be unjust rapacious tyrannical and as ill as the worst of 'em ever were is according to the right of Kings and to tell us that a Holy Prophet would have persuaded the people to such a senseless thing For whether written or unwritten whether extreme or remiss what Right can any Man have to be injurious Which lest you should confess to be true of other Men but not of Kings I have one Man's Authority to oppose you with who I think was a King himself and professeth that that Right of Kings that you speak of is odious both to God and himself It is in the 94th Psalm Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee that frameth mischief by a law Be not therefore so injurious to God as to ascribe this Doctrine to him viz. that all manner of wicked and flagitious Actions are but the Right of Kings since himself tells us that he abhors all fellowship with wicked Princes for this very reason Because under pretence of Soveraignty they create Misery and Vexation to their Subjects Neither bring up a false Accusation against a Prophet of God for by making him to teach us in this place what the Right of Kings is you do not produce the right Samuel but such another empty Shadow as was raised by the Witch of Endor Tho for my own part I verily believe that that infernal Samuel would not have been so great a Lyar but that he would have confess'd that what you call the Right of Kings is Tyranny We read indeed of Impieties countenanced by Law Jus datum sceleri you your self confess that they are bad Kings that have made use of this boundless License of theirs to do every thing Now this Right that you have introduc'd for the Destruction of Mankind not proceeding from God as I have prov'd it does not must needs come from the Devil and that it does really so will appear more clearly hereafter By vertue of this Liberty say you Princes may if they will And for this you pretend to have Cicero's Authority I 'm always willing to mention your Authorities for it generally happens that the very Authors you quote them out of give you an Answer themselves Hear else what Cicero says in his 4th Phillippicke What cause of War can be more just and warrantable than to avoid Slavery For tho a People may have the good fortune to live under a Gentle Master yet they are in a miserable Condition whose Prince may Tyrannize over them if he will May that is can has Power enough so to do If he meant it of his Right he would contradict himself and make that an unjust Cause of War which himself had affirm'd with the same Breath to be a most just one It is not therefore the Right of all Kings that you describe but the Injuriousness and Force and Violence of some Then you tell us what private men may do A private Man say you may Lie may be Ungrateful and so may Kings but what then May they therefore Plunder Murder Ravish without controul 'T is equally prejudicial and destructive to the Common-wealth whether it be their own Prince or a Robber or a Foreign Enemy that Spoils Massacres and Enslaves them And questionless being both alike Enemies of Humane Society the one as well as the other may lawfully be oppos'd and punish'd and their own Prince the rather because he tho raised to that Dignity by the Honours that his People have conferr'd upon him and being bound by his Oath to defend the Publick Safety betrays it notwithstanding all At last you grant That Moses prescribes Laws according to which the King that the People of Israel should chuse ought to Govern tho different from this Right that Samuel proposeth which words contain a double Contradiction to what you
have said before For whereâ—s you had affirm'd That a King was bound by no Law here you confess he is And you set up two contrary Rights one described by Moses and another by Samuel which is absurd But says the Prophet you shall be Servants to your King Tho I should grant that the Israelites were really so it would not presently follow that it was the Right of their Kings to have them so but that by the Usurpation and Injustice of most of them they were reduc'd to that Condition For the Prophet had foretold them that that importunate Petition of theirs would bring a Punishment from God upon them not because it would be their King 's Right so to harrass them but because they themselves had deserved it should be so If Kings are out of the reach of the Law so as that they may do what they list they are more absolute than any Masters and their Subjects in a more despicable Condition than the worst of Slaves The Law of God provided some Redress for them tho of another Nation if their Masters were Cruel and Unreasonable towards them And can we imagine that the whole Body of the People of a free Nation tho oppress'd and tyranniz'd over and prey'd upon should be left remediless That they had no Law to protect them no Sancturay to betake themselves to Can we think that they were delivered from the Bondage that they were under to the Egyptian Kings to be reduced into a worse to one of their own Brethren All which being neither agreeable to the Law of God nor to common Sense nothing can be more evident than that the Prophet declares to the People the Manner and not the Right of Kings nor the Manner of all Kings but of most Then you come to the Rabbins and quote two of them but you have as bad luck with them here as you had before For it is plain that that other Chapter that Rabbi Joses speaks of and which contains he says the Right of Kings is that in Deuteronomy and not in Samuel For Rabbi Judas says very truly and against you that that Discourse of Samuel's was intended only to frighten the People 'T is a most pernicious Doctrine to maintain that to be any ones Right which in its self is flat Injustice unless you have a mind to speak by contraries And that Samuel intended to affrighten them appears by the 18th Verse And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you and I will not hear you in that day saith the Lord. That was to be their Punishment for their Obstinacy in persisting to desire a King against the Mind and Will of God and yet they are not forbidden here either to pray against him or to endeavour to rid themselves of him For if they might lawfully pray to God against him without doubt they might use all lawful means for their own Deliverance For what Man living when he finds himself in any Calamity betakes himself to God so as to neglect his own Duty in order to a Redress and rely upon his lazy Prayers only But be it how it will what is all this to the Right of Kings or of the English People Who neither asked a King against the Will of God nor had one appointed us by God but by the Right that all Nations have to appoint their own Governors appointed a King over us by Laws of our own neither in Obedience to nor against any Command of God And this being the Case for ought I see we have done well in deposing our King and are to be commended for it since the Israelites sinned in asking one And this the Event has made appear for we when we had a King prayed to God against him and he heard us and delivered us But the Jews who not being under a Kingly Government desired a King he suffered to live in Slavery under one till at last after their return from the Babylonish Captivity they betook themselves to their former Government again Then you come to give us a display of your Talmudical Learning but you have as ill success with that as you have had with all the rest For whilst you are endeavouring to prove that Kings are not liable to any Temporal Judicature you quote an Authority out of the Treatise of the Sanhedrim That the King neither is judged of others nor does himself judge any Which is against the Peoples own Petition in Samuel for they desired a King that might judge them You labour in vain to salve this by telling us that it is to be understood of those Kings that reigned after the Babylonish Captivity For then what say ye to Maimonides He makes this difference betwixt the Kings of Israel and those of Juda that the Kings of the Posterity of David judge and are judged but the Kings of Israel do neither You contradict and quarrel with your self or your Rabbins and still do my work for me This say you is not to be understood of the Kings of Israel in their first Institution for in the 17th Verse 't is said You shall be his Servants that is he shall use ye to it not that he shall have any Right to make you so Or if you understand it of their Kings Right 't is but a Judgment of God upon them for asking a King the effects of which they were sensible of under most of their Kings tho not perhaps under all But you need no Antagonists you are such a perpetual Adversary to your self For you tell us now a Story as if you were arguing on my side how that first Aristobulus and after him Jâ—naeus Sirnamed Alexander did not receive that Kingly right that they pretended to from the Sanhedrim that great Treasury and Oracle of the Laws of that Nation but usurped it by degrees against the Will of the Senate For whose sake you say that Childish Fable of the principal Men of that Assembly being struck dead by the Angel Gabriel was first invented And thus you confess that this magnificent Prerogative upon which you seem mainly to rely viz. That Kings are not to be judged by any upon Earth was grounded upon this worse than an old Wives Tale that is upon a Rabbinical Fable But that the Hebrew Kings were liable to be call'd in Question for their Actions and to be punished with stripes if they were found faulty Sichardus shows at large out of the Writings of the Rabbins to which Author you are indebted for all that you make use of of that sort of Learning and yet you have the Impudence to be thwarting with him Nay we read in the Scripture that Saul thought himself bound by a Decree of his own making and in Obedience thereunto that he cast Lots with his Son Jonathan which of them two should die Uzzias likewise when he was thrust out of the Temple by the Priests as a Leper submitted as every private Person in
such a Case ought to do and ceas'd to be a King Suppose he should have refused to go out of the Temple and lay down the Government and live alone and had resolved to assert that Kingly Right of not being subject to any Law do you think the Priests and the People of the Jews would have suffered the Temple to be â—…d the Laws violated and live themselves in danger of the Infection It seems there are Laws against a 〈◊〉 King but none against a Tyrant Can any Man possibly be â—o mad and foolish as to fancy that the Laws should â—o far provide for the Peoples Health as tho some noisome Distemper should seize upon the King himself yet to prevent the Infection 's reaching them and make no Provision for the Security of their Lives and Estates and the very being of the whole State against the Tyranny of a cruel unjust Prince which is incomparably the greater mischief of the two But say you there can be no president shown of any one King that has been arâ—aigned in a Court of Justice and 〈…〉 to dye Sichardus answers that well enough â—is all one says he as if one should argue on this manner The Emperor of Germany never was 〈◊〉 to appear before one of the Prince-Electors therefore if the Prince Elector Palatine should Impeach 〈…〉 he were not bound to plead to it tho it appears by the Golden Bull that Charles the 〈◊〉 subjected himself and his Successors to that cognizance and Jurisdiction But no wonder if Kings were indulged in their Ambition and their Exorbitances passed by when the 〈…〉 corrupt and depraved that even private 〈◊〉 if they had either Money or Interest might 〈◊〉 the Law the guilty 〈…〉 of never so high 〈…〉 That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that you speak of that 〈…〉 upon any other and acâ—… Earth which you say is pecuâ—… of Sovereign Princes Aristotle 〈…〉 Book of his 〈◊〉 Câ— 10. calls a most Tyrannical Form of Government and not in the least to be endured by a 〈◊〉 People And that Kings are not liable to be questioned for their Actions you prove by the 〈◊〉 of a very Worthy Author that Barbaâ—… Tyrant Mark 〈◊〉 one of those that subverted 〈◊〉 Commonwealth of Râ—me And yet he himself when he undertook an Expedition against the 〈◊〉 summon'd Herod before him to answer to a Chaâ—ge of Murder and would have punished him 〈◊〉 that Herod brib'd him So that Anthony's â—…ing this Prerogative Royal and your Defence of King Charles come both out of one and the same Spring And 't is very reasonable say you that it should be so for Kings derive their Authority from God alone What Kings are those I pray that do so For I deny that there ever were any such Kings in the World that derived their Authority from God alone Saul the first King of Israel had never reign'd but that the People desired a King even against the Will of God and tho he was proclaimed King once at Mizpah yet after that he lived a private Life and look'd to his Fathers Cattel till he was created so the second time by the People at Gilgal And what think ye of David Tho he had been anointed once by God was he not anointed the second time in Hebron by the Tribe of Judah and after that by all the People of Israel and that after a mutual Covenant betwixt him and them 2 Sam. 5. 1 Chron. 11. Now a Covenant lays an Obligation upon Kings and restrains them within Bounds Solomon you say succeeded him in the throne of the Lord and was acceptable to all men 1 Chron. 29. So that 't is something to be well-pleasing in the Eyes of the People Jehoiadah the Priest made Joash King but first he made him and the People enter into a Covenant to one another 2 Kings 11. I confess that these Kings and all that reign'd of David's Posterity were appointed to the Kingdom both by God and the People but of all other Kings of what Country soever I affirm that they are made so by the People only nor can you make it appear that they are appointed by God any otherwise than as all other things great and small are said to be appointed by him because nothing comes to pass without his Providence So that I allow the Throne of David was in a peculiar manner call'd The throne of the Lord whereas the Thrones of other Princes are no otherwise God's than all other things in the World are his which if you would you might have learnt out of the same Chapter Ver. 11 12. Thine O Lord is the greatness c. for all that is in the Heaven and in the Earth is thine Both riches and honour come of thee and thou reignest over all And this is so often repeated not to puff up Kings but to put them in mind tho they think themselves Gods that yet there is a God above them to whom they owe whatever they are and have And thus we easily understand what the Poets and the Essenes among the Jews mean when they tell us That 't is by God that Kings reign and that they are of Jupiter for so all of us are of God we are all his Off-spring So that this universal Right of Almighty God's and the Interest that he has in Princes and their Thrones and all that belongs to them does not at all derogate from the Peoples Right but that notwithstanding all this all other Kings not particularly and by name appointed by God owe their Soveraignty to the People only and consequently are accountable to them for the management of it The truth of which Doctrine tho the Common People are apt to flatter their Kings yet they themselves acknowledge whether good ones as Sarpedon in Homer is described to have been or bad ones as those Tyrants in Hâ—race 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Glaucus in Lycia we 're ador'd like Gods What makes 'twixt us and others so great odds He resolves the Question himself Because says he we excel others in Heroical Virtues Let us fight manfully then says he lest our Country-men tax us with Sloth and Cowardize In which words he intimates to us both that Kings derive their Grandeur from the People and that for their Conduct and Behaviour in War they are accountable to them Bad Kings indeed tho to cast some Terror into Peoples minds and beget a Reverence of themselves they declare to the World that God only is the Author of Kingly Government in their Hearts and Minds they reverence no other Deity but that of Fortune according to that passage in Horace Te Dacus asper te profugi Schythae Regumque matres barbarorum Purpurei metuunt Tyranni Injurioso ne pede proruas Stantem columnam neu populus frequens Ad arma cessantes ad arma Concitet imperiumque frangat All barb'rous People and their Princes too All Purple Tyrants honour you The very wandring Scythians do Support the Pillar
that may save in all thy cities and thy judges of whom thou saidest give me a king and princes I gave thâ—â— a king in mine anger and took him 〈…〉 my wrath And Gidem that warlike Judg that was greater than a King I will not rule over you says he 〈…〉 shall my son rule over you the Lord shall rule over you Judges Chap the 8th Intimating thereby that it is not fit for a man but for God only to exercise Dominion over men And hence Josephus in his Book against Aâ—… an Egyptian Grammarian and a â—oulmouth'd fellow like you calls the Commonwealth of the Hebrews a Theocracy because the principality was in God only In Isaiah Chap. 26. v. 13. The people in their repentance complain that it had been mischievous to them that other Lords besides God himself had had Dominion over them All which places prove clearly that God gave the Israelites a King in his anger but now who can forbear laughing at the use you make of Abimelech's story Of whom it is said when he was kill'd partly by a woman that hurl'd a piece of a Mill-stone upon him and partly by his own Armour-Bearer that God rendred the wickedness of Abimelech This History say you proves strongly that God only is the Judge and Avenger of Kings Yea if this Argument holds he is the only Judge and Punisher of Tyrants Villanous Rascals and Bastards whoever can get into the Saddle whether by right or by wrong has thereby obtain'd a Soveraign Kingly right over the people is out of all danger of punishment all inferior Magistrates must lay down their Arms at his feet the people must not dare to mutter But what if some great notorious robber had perished in War as Abimelech did would any man infer from thence That God only is the Judge and Punisher of High-way men Or what if Abimelech had been condemn'd by the Law and died by an Executioner's hand would not God then have rendred his wickedness You never read that the Judges of the Children of Israel were ever proceeded against according to Law And yet you confess That where the Government is an Aristocracy the Prince if there be any may and ought to be call'd in question if he break the Laws This in your 47th Page And why may not a Tyrant as well be proceeded against in a Kingly Government Why because God rendred the wickedness of Abimelech So did the Women and so did his own Armour-bearer over both which he pretended to a right of Soveraignty And what if the Magistrates had rendred his wickedness Do not they bear the Sword for that very purpose for the punishment of Malefactors Having done with his powerful argument from the History of Abimelech's death he bâ—takes himself as his custom is to Slanders and Calumnies nothing but dirt and filth comes from him but for those things that he promis'd to make appear he hath not prov'd any one of them either from the Scriptures or from the Writings of the Rabbins He alledges no reason why Kings should be above all Laws and they only of all mortal men exempt from punishment if they deserve it He falls foul upon those very Authors and Authorities that he makes use of and by his own Discourse demonstrates the truth of the opinion that he argues against And perceiving that he is like to do but little good with his arguments he endeavours to bring an odium upon us by loading us with slanderous accusations as having put to death the most Vertuous innocent Prince that ever reign'd VVas King Solomon says he better than King Charles the First I confess some have ventur'd to compare his Father King James with Solomon nay to make King James the better Gentleman of the 〈◊〉 Solomon was David's Son David had been Sauâ—… â—…n but king James was the Son of the End of Darly who as â—uchanan tells us because Dâ—… the Musitian get into the Queen's Bed-Chamber at an unseasonable time kill'd him a little after he could not get to him then because he had Bolted the Door on the inside So that King James being the Son of an Earâ— was the better Gentleman and was frequently called a second Solomon though it is not very certain that himself was not the Son of David the Musitian too But how could it ever come into your head to make a comparison betwixt King Câ—ries and Solomon For that very King Charles whom you praise thus to the sky that very man's obâ—…acy and covetousness and cruelty his hard usage of all good and honest men the Wars that he rais'd the Spoilings and Plunderings and Conflagrations that he occasioned and the death of innumerable of his Subjects that he was the cause of does his Son Charles at this very time whilest I 'm a writing confess and bewail in the Stool of Repentance in Scotland and renounces there that Kingly right that you assert but since you delight in Parallels let 's compare King Charles and King Solomon together a little Solomon began his reign with the death of his Brother who had justly deserved it King Charles began his with his Father's Funeral I do not say with his Murder and yet all the marks and tokens of Poyson that may be appeared in his dead body but the suspition lighted upon the Duke of Buckingham only whom the 〈◊〉 notwithstanding cleared to the Parliament though he had killed the King and his Father and not only soâ— but he dissolved the Parliament lest the matter should be enquired into Solomon oppressed the people with heavy Taxes but he spent that â—…upon the Temple of God and in raising other publick Buildings King Charles spent his in Extravag 〈◊〉 Solomon was enticed to Idolatry by many Wives This man by one Solomon though he were seduced himself we read not that he seduced others but King Charles seduced and enticed others not only by large and ample rewards to corrupt the Church but by his Edicts and Ecclesiastical Constitutions he compelled them to set up Altars which all Protestants abhor and to bow down to Crucifixes painted over them on the Wall But yet for all this Solomon was not condemned to die Nor does it follow because he was not that therefore he ought not to have been Perhaps there were many Circumstances that made it then not expedient But not long after the people both by words and actions made appear what they took to be their right when Ten Tribes of Twelve revolted from his Son and if he had not saved himself by flight it is very likely they would have stoned him notwithstanding his Threats and big swelling words CHAP. III. HAving proved sufficiently that the Kings of the Jews were subject to the same Laws that the people were That there are no exceptions made in Scripture That 't is a most false assertion grounded upon no reason nor warranted by any Authority to say That Kings may do what they list with Impunity That God has exempted them
the nature of the thing it self So that whether you make the world of your mind or no your Doctrine must needs be mischievous and destructive and such as cannot but be abhorred of all Princes For if you should work men into a perswasion that the Right of Kings is without all bounds they would no longer be subject to a Kingly Government if you miss of your aim yet you make men weary of Kings by telling them that they assume such a power to themselves as of right belonging to them But if Princes will allow of those Principles that I assert if they will suffer themselves and their own power to be circumscribed by Laws instead of an uncertain weak and violent Government full of cares and fears they will reign peaceably quietly and securely If they slight this counsel of mine though wholsome in its self because of the meanness of the Author they shall know that it is not my counsel only but what was anciently advised by one of the wisest of Kings For Lycurgus King of Lacedemon when he observed that his own Relations that were Princes of Argos and Messana by endeavouring to introduce an Arbitrary Government had ruin'd themselves and their people he that he might benefit his Countrey and secure the Succession to his own Family could think upon no better expedient than to communicate his Power to the Senate and taking the great men of the Realm into part of the Government with himself and by this means the Crown continued in his Family for many ages But whether it was Lycurgus or as some learned men are of opinion Theopompus that introduced that mixt form of Government among the Lacedemonians somewhat more than a hundred years after Lycurgus his time of whom it is recorded That he used to boast that by advancing the Power of the Senate above that of the Prince he had setled the Kingdom upon a sure Foundation and was like to leave it in a lasting and durable condition to his Posterity which of them soever it was I say he has left a good Example to Modern Princes and was as creditable a Councellor as his Counsel was safe For that all men should submit to any one man so as to acknowledge a Power in him superior to all humane Laws neither did any Law ever Enact nor indeed was it possible that any such Law should ever be for that cannot be said to be a Law that strikes at the root of all Laws and takes them quite away It being apparent that your Positions are inconsistent with the nature of all Laws being such as render them no Laws at all You endeavour notwithstanding in this Fourth Chapter to make good by Examples what you have not yet been able to do by any Reasons that you have alledged as yet Let 's consider whether your Examples help your Cause for they many times make things plain which the Laws are either altogether silent in or do but hint at We 'll begin first with the Jews whom we suppose to have known most of the mind of God and then according to your own method we 'll come to the times of Christianity And first for those times in which the Israelites being subject to Kings who or howsoever they were did their utmost to cast that flavish yoke from off their necks Eglon the King of Moab had made a Conquest of them the Seat of his Empire was at Jericho he was no contemner of the True God when his Name was mentioned he rose from his Seat The Israelites had served him Eighteen Years they sent a present to him not as to an Enemy but to their own Prince notwithstanding which outward Veneration and Profession of Subjection they kill him by a wile as an Enemy to their Countrey You 'l say perhaps that Ehud who did that action had a Warrant from God for so doing He had so 't is like and what greater Argument of its being a warrantable and praise-worthy action God useth not to put men upon things that are unjust treacherous and cruel but upon such things as are virtuous and laudable But we read no where that there was any positive Command from Heaven in the case The Israelites called upon God So did we And God stirred up a Saviour for them so he did for us Eglon of a Neighbouring Prince became a Prince of the Jews of an Enemy to them he became their King Our Gentleman of an English King became an Enemy to the English Nation so that he ceas'd to be a King Those Capacities are inconsistent No man can be a Member of a State and an Enemy to it at the same time Antony was never lookt upon by the Romans as a Consul nor Nero as an Emperor after the Senate had voted them both Enemies This Cicero tells us in his Fourth Philippick If Antony be a Consul says he Brutus is an Enemy but if Brutus be a Saviour and Preserver of the Commonwealth Antony is an Enemy none but robbers count him a Consul By the same reason say I who but Enemies to their Countrey look upon a Tyrant as a King So that Eglon's being a Foreigner and King Charles a Prince of our own will make no difference in the case both being Enemies and both Tyrants they are in the same circumstances If Ehud kill'd him justly we have done so too in putting our King to Death Sampson that Renowned Champion of the Hebrews tho his Countrey-men blam'd him for it Dost thou not know say they that the Philistines have dominion over us yet against those Philistines under whose Dominion he was he himself undertook a War in his own person without any other help and whether he acted in pursuance of a Command from Heaven or was prompted by his own Valour only or whatever inducement soever he had he did not put to death one but many that tyranized over his Countrey having first called upon God by Prayer and implored his Assistance So that Sampson counted it no act of Impiety but quite contrary to kill those that enslaved his Countrey ' tho they had dominion over himself too and tho the greater part of his Countrey-men submitted to their Tyranny But yet David who was both a King and a Prophet would not take away Saul's life because he was God's Anointed Does it follow that because David refused to do a thing therefore we are obliged not to do that very thing David was a private person and would not kill the King is that a president for a Parliament for a whole Nation David would not revenge his own quarrel by putting his Enemy to death by stealth does it follow that therefore the Magistrates must not punish a Malefactor according to Law He would not kill a King must not an Assembly of the States therefore punish a Tyrant He scrupled the killing of God's Anointed must the People therefore scruple to condemn their own Anointed Especially one that after having so long professed Hostility against his own
tents O Israel now look to thine own house David When the King sent Adoram to them they stoned him with Stones and perhaps they would not have stuck to have serv'd the King himself so but he made haste and got out of the way The next News is of a great Army rais'd by Rehoboam to reduce the Israelites to their Allegiance God forbids him to proceed Go not up says he to war against your brethren the children of Israel for this thing is of me Now consider heretofore the People had desired a King God was displeased with them for it but yet permitted them to make a King according to that Right that all Nations have to appoint their own Governors Now the People reject Rehoboam from ruling them and this God not only suffers them to do but forbids Rehoboam to make War against them for it and stops him in his undertaking and teaches him withal that those that had Revolted from him were not Rebels in so doing but that he ought to look upon them as Brethren Now recollect your self You say that all Kings are of God and that therefore the People ought not to resist them be they never such Tyrants I answer you The Convention of the People their Votes their Acts are likewise of God and that by the Testimony of God himself in this place and consequently according to your Argument by the Authority of God himself Princes ought not to resist the People For as certain as it is that Kings are of God and whatever Argument you may draw from thence to enforce a Subjection and Obedience to them So certain is it that free Assemblies of the Body of the People are of God and that naturally affords the same Argument for their Right of restraining Princes from going beyond their Bounds and rejecting them if there be occasion nor is their so doing a justifiable Cause of War any more than the People of Israel's rejecting Rehoboam was You ask why the People did not revolt from Solomon Who but you would ask such an impertinent Question You see they did revolt from a Tyrant and were neither punished nor blam'd for it It is true Solomon fell into some Vices but he was not therefore a Tyrant he made amends for his Vices by many excellent Virtues that he was famous for by many Benefits which accrued to the Nation of the Jews by his Government But admit that he had been a Tyrant Many times the Circumstances of a Nation are such that the People will not and many times such that they cannot depose a Tyrant You see they did it when it was in their Power But say you Jeroboam's Act was ever had in Detestation 't was looked upon as an unjust revolt from a lawful Prince he and his Succssors were accounted Rebels I confess we find his Revolt from the true Worship of God often found fault with but I no where find him blam'd for revolting from Rehoboam and his Successors are frequently spoken of as wicked Princes but not as Rebels Acting contrary to Law and Right say you cannot introduce or establish a Right I pray what becomes then of your Right of Kings Thus do you perpetually bastle your self You say Adulteries Murders Thefts are daily committed with impunity Are you not aware that here you give an Answer to your own Question how it comes to pass that Tyrants do so often escape unpunished You say Those Kings were Rebels and yet the Prophets do no where disswade the People from their Allegiance And why do you ye Rascally false Prophet endeavour to persuade the People of England not to yield Obedience to their present Magistrates tho in your Opinion they are Rebels This English Faction of Robbers say you alledge for themselves that by some immediate Voice from Heaven they were put upon their bloody Enterprize It is notoriously evident that you were distracted when you wrote these Lines for as you have put the words together they are neither Latin nor Sense And that the English pretend to any such warrant as a Justification of their Actions is one of those many Lies and Fictions that your Book is full of But I proceed to urge you with Examples Libna a great City revolted from Jorom because he had forsaken God 't was the King therefore that was guilty not the City nor is the City blam'd for it He that considers the reason that 's given why that City rejected his Government must conclude that the Holy Ghost rather approves of what they did then condemns them for it These kind of revolts are no presidents say you But why were you then so vain as to promise in the beginning of this Chapter that you would arguâ— from Examples whereas all the Examples that you alledg are mere Negatives which prove nothing and when we urge Examples that are solid and positive you say they are no Presidents Who would endure such a way of Arguing You challenged us at Presidents we produced them and what do you do You hang back and get out of the way I proceed Jebu at the Command of a Prophet slew a King nay he ordered the Death of Ahaziah his own Liege Prince If God would not have Tyrants put to Death by their own Subjects if it were a wicked thing so to do a thing of a bad Example why did God himself command it If he commanded it it was a lawful commendable and a praise-worthy Action It was not therefore lawful to kill a Tyrant because God commanded it but God commanded it because antecedently to his Command it was a justifiable and a lawful Action Again Jehoiada the High Priest did not scruple to depose Athaliah and kill her tho she had been seven years in actual Possession of the Crown But say you she took upon her the Government when she had no Right to it And did not you say your self but a while ago That Tiberius assumed the Soveraignty when it belonged not at all to him And yet you then affirm'd that according to our Saviour's Doctrine we ought to yield Obedience to such Tyrants as he was 'twere a most ridiculous thing to imagine that a Prince who gets in by Usurpation may lawfully be deposed but one that Rules tyrannically may not But say you Athaliah could not possibly Reign according to the Law of the Jewish Kingdom Thou shalt set over thee a King says God Almighty he does not say Thou shalt set over thee a Queen If this Argument have any weight I may as well say The Command of God was that the People should set over themselves a King not a Tyrant So that I 'm even with you Amazias was a Slothful Idolatrous Prince and was put to Death not by a few Conspirators but rather it should seem by the the Nobility and by the Body of the People For he fled from Jerusalem had none to stand by him and they pursued him to Lachish They took Counsel against him says the History because he had
Partner in the Soveraign Power because he molested the Eastern Christians by which act of his he declared thus much at least That one Magistrate might punish another for he for his Subjects take punished â—icinius who to all intents was as abso 〈◊〉 in the Empire as himself and did not leave the vengeance to God alone Licinius might have done the same to Constantine if there had been the like occasion So then if the matter be not wholly reserved to Gods own Tribunal but that men have something to do in the case why did not the Parliament of England stand in the same relation to King Charles that Constantine did to Licinius The Soldiers made Constantine what he was But our Laws have made our Parliaments equal nay superior to our Kings The Inhabitants of Constantinople resisted Constantius an Arrian Emperour by force of Arms as long as they were able they opposed Hermogenes whom he had sent with a Military power to depose Paul an Orthodox Bishop the house whither he had betaken himself for security they fired about his ears and at last killed him right out Constans threatned to make War upon his Brother Constantius unless he would restore Paul and Athanasius to their Bishopricks You see those holy Fathers when their Bishopricks were in danger were not ashamed to stir up their Prince's own Brother to make War upon him Not long after the Christian Soldiers who then made whom they would Emperors put to death Constans the Son of Constantinus because he behaved himself dissolutely and proudly in the Government and Translated the Empire to Magnentius Nay those very persons that saluted Julian by the name of Emperour against Constantius his will who was actually in possession of the Empire for Julian was not then an Apostate but a vertuous and valiant person are they not amongst the number of those Primitive Christians whose Example you propose to us for our imitation which action of theirs when Constantius by his Letters to the people very sharply and earnestly forbad which Letters were openly read to them they all cried out unanimously That themselves had but done what the Provincial Magistrates the Army and the Authority of the Commonwealth had decreed The same persons declared War against Constantius and contributed as much as in them lay to deprive him both of his Government and his Life How did the Inhabitants of Antioch behave themselves who were none of the worst sort of Christians I 'le warrant you they prayed for Julian after he became an Apostate whom they used to rail at in his own presence and scoffing at his long Beard bid him make Ropes of it Upon the news of whose death they gave publick Thanksgivings made Feasts and gave other publick Demonstrations of Joy do you think they used when he was alive to pray for the continuance of his life and health Nay is it not reported that a Christian Soldier in his own Army was the Author of his Death Sozomen a Writer of the Ecclesiastical History does not deny it but commends him that did it if the fact were so For it is no wonder says he that some of his own Soldiers might think within himself that not only the Greeks but all Mankind hitherto had agreed that it was a commendable action to kill a Tyrant and that they deserve all mens praise who are willing to die themselves to procure the liberty of all others so that that Soldier ought not rashly to be condemned who in the cause of God and of Religion was so zealous and valiant These are the words of Sozomen a good and Religious man of that age by which we may easily apprehend what the general opinion of pious men in those days was upon this point Ambrose himself being commanded by the Emperour Valentinian the Younger to depart from Milan refused to obey him but defended himself and the Palace by force of Arms against the Emperour's Officers and took upon him contrary to his own Doctrine to resist the higher powers There was a great sedition raised at Constantinople against the Emperour Areadius more than once by reason of Chrysostom's Exile Hitherto I have shewn how the Primitive Christians behaved themselves towards Tyrants how not only the Christian Soldiers and the people but the Fathers of the Church themselves have both made War upon them and opposed them with force and all this before St. Austin's time for you your self are pleased to go down no lower and therefore I make no mention of Valentinian the Son of Placidia who was slain by Maximus a Senator for committing Adultery with his Wife nor do I mention Avitus the Emperour whom because he disbanded the Soldiers and betook himself wholly to a luxurious life the Roman Senate immediately deposed because these things came to pass some years after St. Austin's death But all this I give you Suppose I had not mentioned the practice of the Primitive Christians suppose they never had stirred in opposition to Tyrants suppose they had accounted it unlawful so do I will make it appear that they were not such persons as that we ought to â—ely upon their Authority or can safely follow their Example Long before Constantine's time the generality of Christians had lost much of the Primitive Sanctity and integity both of their Doctrine and Manners Afterwards when he had vastly enriched the Church they began to fall in love with Honour and Civil Power and then the Christian Religion went to wrack First Luxury and Sloth and then a great drove of Herches and Immoralities broke loose among them and these begot Envy Hatred and Discord which abounded every where At last they that were linked together into one Brotherhood by that holy band of Religion were as much at variance and strife amongst themselves as the most bitter Enemies in the world could be No reverence for no consideration of their duty was left amongst them the Soldiers and Commanders of the Army as oft as they pleased themselves created new Emperors and sometimes killed good ones as well as bad I need not mention such as Verannio Alaximus Eugenius whom the Soldiers all on a sudden advanced and made them Emperors nor Gratian an excellent Prince nor Valentinian the younger who was none of the worst and yet were put to death by them It is true these things were acted by the Soldiers and Soldiers in the field but those Soldiers were Christians and lived in that Age which you call Evangelical and whose example you propose to us for our imitation Now you shall hear how the Clergy managed themselves Pastors and Bishops and sometimes those very Fathers whom we admire and extol to so high a degree every one of whom was a Leader of their several Flocks those very men I say fought for their Bishopricks as Tyrants did for their Soveraignty sometimes throughout the City sometimes in the very Churches sometimes at the Altar Clergy-men and Lay-men fought promiscuously they slew one another and great
pains as to show that you confute your self and destroy your own Positions I 'll begin with that first Position which you lay down as a Fundamental and that shall be the Groundwork of my ensuing Discourse The Law of Nature say you is a Principle imprinted on all mens minds to regard the good of all mankind considering men as united together in Societies But this innate Principle cannot procure that common good unless as there are people that must be governed so that very Principle ascertain who shall govern them To wit lest the stronger oppress the weaker and those persons who for their mutual Safety and Protection have united themselves together should be disunited and divided by Injury and Violence and reduced to a bestial savage life again This I suppose is what you mean Out of the number of those that united into one body you say there must needs have been same chosen who excelled the rest in Wisdom and Valour that they either by force or by persuasion might restrain those that were refractory and keep them within due bounds sometimes it would so fall out that one single Person whose Conduct and Valour was extraordinary might be able to do this and sometimes more assisted one another with their Advice and Counsel But since it is impossible that any one manshould order all things himself there was a necessity of his consulting with others and taking some into part of the Government with himself So that whether a single person reign or whether the Supreme Power reside in the body of the People since it is impossible that all should administer the affairs of the Common-wealth or that one man should do all the Government does always lye upon the shoulders of many And afterwards you say Both Forms of Government whether by many or a few or by a single person are equally according to the Law of Nature for both proceed from the same Principle of Nature viz. That it is impossible for any single person so to govern alone as not to admit others into a share of the Government with himself Tho I might have taken all this out of the Third Book of Aristotle's Politicks I chose rather to transcribe it out of your own Book for you stole it from him as Prometheus did Fire from Jupiter to the ruin of Monarchy and overthrow of your self and your own opinion For enquire as diligently as you can for your life into the Law of Nature as you have described it you will not find the least footstep in it of Kingly Power as you explain it The Law of Nature say you in ordering who should govern others respected the universal good of all mankind It did not then regard the private good of any particular person not of a Prince so that the King is for the People and consequently the People superior to him which being allowed it is impossible that Princes should have any right to oppress or enslave the people that the inferior should have right to tyrannize over the superior So that since Kings cannot pretend to any right to do mischief the right of the people must be acknowledged according to the Law of Nature to be superior to that of Princes so that by the same right that before King hip was known men united their Strength and Counsels for their mutual Safety and Defence by the same right that for the preservation of all mens Liberty Peace and Safety they appointed one or more to govern the rest by the same right they may depose those very persons whom for their Valour or Wisdom they advanced to the Government or any others that rule disorderly if they find them by reason of their slothfulness folly or impiety unfit for Government since Nature does not regard the good of one or of a few but of all in general For what sort of persons were they whom you suppose to have been chosen You say they were such as excelled in Courage and Conduct to wit such as by Nature seemed fittest for Government who by reason of their excellent Wisdom and Valour were enabled to undertake so great a Charge The consequence of this I take to be That right of Succession is not by the Law of Nature that no man by the Law of Nature has right to be King unless he excel all others in Wisdom and Courage that all such as Reign and want these qualifications are advanced to the Government by Force or Faction have no right by the Law of Nature to be what they are but ought rather to be Slaves than Princes For Nature appoints that Wise men should govern Fools not that Wicked men should rule over Good men Fools over wise men And consequently they that take the Government out of such mens hands act according to the Law of Nature To what end Nature directs Wise men should bear the Rule you shall hear in your own words viz. That by Force or by Persuasion they may keep such as are unruly within due bounds But how should he keep others within the bounds of their duty that neglects or is ignorant of or wilfully acts contrary to his own Alledg now if you can any dictate of Nature by which we are enjoyned to neglect the Wise Institutions of the Law of Nature and have no regard to them in Civil and Publick Concerns when we see what great and admirable things Nature her self effects in things that are inanimate and void of sense rather than lose her end Produce any Rule of Nature or Natural Justice by which inferior Criminals ought to be punished but Kings and Princes to go unpunished and not only so but tho guilty of the greatest Crimes imaginable be had in Reverence and almost adored You agree That all Forms of Government whether by many or a few or by a single person are equally agreeable to the Law of Nature So that the person of a King is not by the Law of Nature more sacred than a Senate of Nobles or Magistrates chosen from amongst the common people who you grant may be punished and ought to be if they offend and consequently Kings ought to be so too who are appointed to rule for the very same end and purpose that other Magistrates are For say you Nature does not allow any single person to bear rule so entirely as not to have Partners in the Government It does not therefore allow of a Monarch it does not allow one single person to rule so as that all others should be in a slavish subjection to his Commands only You that give Princes such Partners in the Government as in whom to use your own words the Government always resides do at the same time make others Colleagues with them and equal to them nay and consequently you settle a power in those Colleagues of punishing and of deposing them So that while you your self go about not to extol a Kingly Government but to establish it by the Law of Nature you destroy it no greater
as that with the same breath that you commend the Obedience and Submissiveness of those Nations of your own accord you make mention of Sardanapalus'r being deprived of his Crown by Arbaces Neither was it he alone that accomplished that Enterprise for he had the assistance of the Priests who of all others were best versed in the Law and of the people and it was wholly upon this account that he deposed him because he abused his authority and power not by giving himself over to cruelty but to luxury and effeminacy Run over the Histories of Herodotus Ctâ—sias Diodorus and you will find things quite contrary to what you assert here you will find that those Kingdoms were destroyed for the most part by subjects and not by foreigners that the Assyrians were brought down by the Medes who then were their subjects and the Medes by the Persians who at that time were like wise subject to them Your self confess that Cyrus rebell'd and that at the same time in divers parts of the Empire little upstart Governments were formed by those that shook off the Medes But does this agree with what you said before does this prove the obedience of the Medes and Persians to their Princes and that Jus Regium which you had asserted to have been universally received amongst those Nations What Potion can cure this brainsâ—… frenzy of yours You say It appears by Herodotus how absolute the Persian Kings were Cambyses being desirous to marry his Sister consulted with the Judges who were the Interpreters of the Laws to whose Judgment all difficult matters were to be referred What answer had he from them They told him They knew no Law which permitted a Brother to marry his Sister but another Law they knew that the Kings of Persia might do what they listed Now to this I answer if the Kings of Persia were really so absolute what need was there of any other to interpret the Laws besides the King himself Those superfluous unnecessary Judges would have had their abode and residence in any other place rather than in the Palace where they were altogether useless Agâ—in if those Kings might do what ever they would it is not credible that so ambitious a Prince as Cambyses was should be so ignorant of that grand Prerogative as to consult with the Judges whether what he desired were according to Law What was the matter then either they designed to humour the King as you say they did or they were afraid to cross his inclination which is the account that Herodotus gives of it and so told him of such a Law as they knew would please him and in plain terms made a fool of him which is no new thing with Judges and Lawyers now a days But say you Artabanus a Persian told Themistocles that there was no better Law in Persia than that by which it was Enacted That Kings were to be honoured and adored An excellent Law that was without doubt which commanded subjects to adore their Princes but the Primitive Fathers have long ago damned it and Artabanus was a proper person to commend such a Law who was the very man that a little while after slew Xerxes with his own hand You quote Regicides to assert Royalty I am afraid you have some design upon Kings In the next place you quote the Poet Claudian to prove how obedient the Persians were But I appeal to their Histories and Annals which are full of the Revolts of the Persians the Medes the Bactrians and Babylonians and give us frequent instances of the Murders of their Princes The next person whose authority you cite is Otanes the Persian who likewise killed Smerdis then King of Persia to whom out of the hatred which he bore to a Kingly Government he reckons up the impieties and injurious actions of Kings their violation of all Laws their putting men to death without a legal conviction their rapes and adulteries and all this you will have called the right of Kings and slander Samuel again as a teacher of such Doctrine You quote Homer who says that Kings derive their authority from Jupiter to which I have already given an answer For King Philip of Macedon whose asserting the right of Kings you make use of I 'le believe Charles his description of it as soon as his Then you quote some Sentences out of a fragment of Diogenes a Pythagorean but you do not tell us what sort of a King he speaks of Observe therefore how he begins that Discourse for whatever follows must be understood to have relation to it Let him be King says he that of all others is most just and so he is that acts most according to Law for no man can be King that is not just and without Laws there can be no Justice This is directly opposite to that Regal right of yours And Ecphantas whom you likewise quote is of the same opinion Whosoever takes upon him to be a King ought to be naturally most pure and clear from all imputation And a little after Him says he we call a King that governs well and he only is properly so So that such a King as you speak of according to the Philosophy of the Pythagoreans is no King at all Hear now what Plato says in his eighth Epistle Let Kings says he be liable to be called to account for what they do Let the Laws controul not only the people but Kings themselves if they do any thing not warranted by Law I 'le mention what Aristotle says in the Third Book of his Politicks It is neither for the Publick Good nor is it just says he where all men are by nature alike and equal that any one should be Lord and Master over all the rest neither where there are no Laws nor is it for the Publick Good or Just that one man should be a Law to the rest nor is it so where there are Laws nor that any one tho a good man thould be Lord over other good mâ—n nor a bad man over bad men And in the Fifth Book says he That King whom the people refuse to be govern'd by is no longer a King but a Tyrant Hear what Xenophon says in Hiero People are so far from revenging the Deaths of Tyrants that they confer great Honour upon him that Kills one and erect Statues in their Temples to the Honour of Tyrannicides Of this I can produce an 〈◊〉 witness Marcus Tullius in his Oration pro Milone The Grecians says he ascribe Divine Worship to such as kill Tyrants What things of this nature have 〈◊〉 my self seen at Athens and in other Cities of Greece How many Religious Observances have been inâ—…ted in honour of such men How many Hymns They are consecrated to Immortality and Adoration and their Memory endeavoured to be perpetuated And â—…ly Polybius an Historian of great Authority and Gravity in the Sixth Book of his 〈◊〉 says thus When Princes began to in 〈◊〉 their own Lusts and sensual Appetites then â—…doms
were turned into so many Tyrannies and the Subjects began to conspire the Death of their Governors neither were they the profligate sort sort that were the Authors of those Designs but the most Generous and Magnanimous I could quote many 〈◊〉 like passage but I shall instance in no more 〈…〉 Philosophers you appeal to the Poets and 〈…〉 willing to follow you thither Aeschylus 〈…〉 to inform us That the Power of the Kings of 〈…〉 as not to be liable to the censure of any 〈…〉 questioned before any Human Judicature â—…gedy that is called The Suppliants calls 〈…〉 Argives a Governor not obnoxious to th◠〈…〉 any Tribunal But you must know for 〈…〉 you say the more you discover your rashness and want of judgment you must know I say that one is not to regard what the Poet says but what person in the Play speaks and what that person says for different persons are introduced sometimes good sometimes bad sometimes wise men sometimes fools and such words are put into their mouths as it is most proper for them to speak not such as the Poet would speak if he were to speak in his own person The Fifty Daughters of Danaus being banished out of Egypt became Suppliants to the King of the Argives they begg'd of him that he would protect them from the Egyptians who pursued them with a Fleet of Ships The King told them he could not undertake their Protection till he had imparted the matter to the people For says he if I should make a promise to you I should not be able to perform it unless I consult with them first The Women being Strangers and Suppliants and fearing the uncertain suffrages of the people tell him That the Power of all the people resides in him alone that he judges all others but is not judged himself by any He answers I have told you already That I cannot do this thing that you desire of me without the peoples consent nay and tho I could I would not At last he refers the matter to the people I will assemble the people says he and persuade them to protect you The people met and resolved to engage in their quarrel insomuch that Danaus their Father bids his Daughters be of good cheer for the people of the Countrey in a Popular Convention had voted their Safeguard and Defence If I had not related the whole thing how rashly would this impertinent Ignoramus have determined concerning the Right of Kings among the Grecians out of the mouths of a few Women that were Strangers and Suppliants tho the King himself and the History be quite contrary The same thing appears by the story of Orestes in Euripides who after his Father's Death was himself King of the Argives and yet was called in question by the people for the death of his Mother and made to plead for his Life and by the major suffrage was condemned to dye The same Poet in his Play called The Suppliants declares That at Athens the Kingly Power was subject to the Laws where Theseus then King of that City is made to say these words This is a free City it is not governed by one man the people reigns here And his Son Demophoon who was King after him in another Tragedy of the same Poet called Hâ—raclidae I do not exercise a Tyrannical power over them as if they were Barbarians I am upon other terms with them but if I do them Justice they will do me the like Sophocles in his Oedipus shows That anciently in Thebes the Kings were not absolute neither Hence says Tiresias to Oedipus I am not your Slave And Creon to the same King I have some Right in this City says he as well as you And in another Tragedy of the same Poet called Antigone Aemon tells the King That the City of Thebes is not govern'd by a single person All men know that the Kings of Lacedemon have been arraigned and sometimes put to death judicially These instances are sufficient to evince what Power the Kings in Greece had Let us consider now the Romans You betake your self to that passage of C. Memmius in Salust of Kings having a liberty to do what they list and go unpunished to which I have given an answer already Salust himself says in express words That the Ancient Government of Rome was by their Laws tho the Name and Form of it was Regal which form of Government when it grew into a Tyranny you know they put down and changed Cicero in his Oration against Piso Shall I says he account him a Consul who would not allow the Senate to have any Authority in the Common-wealth Shall I take notice of any man as Consul if at the same there be no such thing as a Senate when of old the City of Rome acknowledged not their Kings if they acted without or in opposition to the Senate Do you hear the very Kings themselves at Rome signified nothing without the Senate But say you Romulus governed as he listed and for that you quote Tacitus No wonder The Government was not then established by Law they were a confus'd multitude of strangers more like than a State and all mankind lived without Laws before Governments were setled But when Romulus was dead tho all the people were desirous of a King not having yet experienced the sweetness of Liberty yet as Livy informs us The Soveraign Power resided in the People so that they parted not with more Right than they retained The same Author tells us That that same Power was afterwards extorted from them by their Emperours Servius Tullius at first reigned by fraud and as it were a Deputy to Tarquinius Priscus but afterward he referred it to the people Whether they would have him reign or no At last says Tacitus he became the Author of such Laws as the Kings were obliged to obey Do you think he would have done such an injury to himself and his Posterity if he had been of opinion that the Right of Kings had been above all Laws Their last King Tarquinius Superbus was the first that put an end to that custom of consulting the Senate concerning all Publick Affairs for which very thing and other enormities of his the people deposed him and banished him and his Family These things I have out of Livy and Cicero than whom you will hardly produce any better Expositors of the Right of Kings among the Romans As for the Dictatorship that was but Temporary and was never made use of but in great extremities and was not to continue longer than six months But that thing which you call the Right of the Roman Emperors was no Right but a plain downright Force and was gained by War only But Tacitus say you that lived under the Government of a single person writes thus The Gods have committed the Sovereign Power in human Affairs to Princes only and have left to Subjects the honour of being obedient But you tell us not where Tacitus has these
at all Now you say That you will discourse by and by of the difference betwixt some Kings and others in point of Powâ—r some having had more some less You say You will prove that Kings cannot be judged nor câ—ndemn'd by their own Subjects by a most solid Argument but you do it by a very silly one and 't is this You say There was no other difference than that betwixt the Judges and the Kings of the Jews and yet the reason why the Jews required to have Kings over them was because they were weary of their Judges and hated their Government Do you think that because they might Judge and Condemn their Judges if they misbehaved themselves in the Government they therefore hated and were weary of them and would be under Kings whom they should have no Power to restrain and keep within Bounds tho they should break through all Laws Who but you ever argued so childishly So that they desired a King for some other reason than that they might have a Master over them whose Power should be superior to that of the Law which reason what it was it is not to our present purpose to make a Conjecture Whatever it was both God and his Prophets tells us it was no piece of prudence in the People to desire a King And now you fall foul upon your Rabbins and are very angry with them for saying That a King might be judged and condemned to undergo Stripes out of whose Writings you said before you had proved that the Kings of the Jews could not be judged Wherein you confess that you told a lye when you said you had proved any such thing out of their Writings Nay you come at last to forget the Subject you were upon of writing in the King's Defence and raise little impertinent Controversies about Solomon's Stales and how may Stalls he had for his Horses Then of a Jocky you become a Ballad-singer again or rather as I said before a raving distracted Cuckoo You complain That in these latter Ages Discipline has been more remiss and the Rule less observed and kept up to to wit because one Tyrant is not permitted without a â—heck from the Law to let loose the Roms of all Discipline and corrupt all Mens manners This Doctrine you say the Brownists introduced amongst those of the â—eform'd Religion so that Luther Calvin Zumâ—lius Bucer and all the most Celebrated Orthodox Divines are Brownists in your Opinion The English have the less reason to take your Reproaches ill because they hear you belching out the same Slanders against the most eminent Doctors of the Church and in effect against the whole Reformed Church it self CHAP. VI. AFter having discours'd upon the Law of God and of Nature and handled both so untowardly that you have got nothing by the bargain but a deserved reproach of Ignorance and Knavery I cannot apprehend what you can have farther to alledg in defence of your Royal Cause but meer trifles I for my part hope I have given satisfaction already to all good and learned men and shall have done this Noble cause Right should I break off here yet lest I should seem to any to decline your variety of arguing and ingenuity rather than your immoderate impertinence and tittle-tattle I 'le follow you where ever you have a mind to go but with such brevity as shall make it appear that after having perform'd whatever the necessary defence of the Cause required if not what the dignity of it merited I now do but comply with some mens expectation if not their curiosity Now say you I shall alledg other and greater arguments What greater arguments than what the Law of God and Nature afforded Help Lucina The mountain Salmasius is in labour It is not for nothing that he has got a she-husband Mortals expect some extraordinary birth If he that is and is called a King might be accused before any other power that power must of necessity be greater than that of the King and if so then must that power be indeed the Kingly power and ought to have the name of it For a Kingly power is thus defined to wit the Supreme power in the State residing in a single person and which has no superior O ridiculous birth a Mouse crept out of the Mountain Help Grammarians one of your number is in danger of perishing The Law of God and of Nature are safe but Salmasius his Dictionary is undone What if I should answer you thus That words ought to give place to things that we having taken away Kingly Government it self do not think our selves concerned about its name and definition let others look to that who are in love with Kings We are contented with the enjoyment of our Liberty such an answer would be good enough for you But to let you see that I deal fairly with you throughout I will answer you not only from my own but from the opinion of very wise and good men who have thought that the name and power of a King are very consistent with a power in the people and the Law superior to that of the King himself In the first place Lycurgus a man very eminent for his wisdom designing as Plato says to secure a Kingly Government as well as it was possible could find no better expedient to preserve it than by making the power of the Senate and of the Ephori that is the power of the people superior to it Theseus in Euripedes King of Athens was of the same opinion for he to his great honour restored the people to their liberty and advanced the power of the people above that of the King and yet left the Regal Power in that City to his Posterity Whence Euripedes in his Play called the Suppliants introduceh him speaking on this manner I have advanced the people themselves into the Throne having freed the City from Slavery and admitted the people to a share in the Government by giving them an equal right of Suffrage And in another place to the Herald of Thebes In the first place says he you begin your Speech Friend with a thing that is not true in stiling me a Monarch for this City is not governed by a single person but is a free State the people reigns here These were his words when at the same time he was both called and really was King there The Divine Plato likewise in his Eight Epistle Lycurgus says he introduced the power of the Senate and of the Ephori a thing very preservative of Kingly Government which by this means hath honourably flourished for so many ages because the Law in effect was made King Now the Law cannot be King unless there be some who if there should be occasion may put the Law in execution against the King A Kingly Government so bounded and limited he himself commends to the Sicilians Let the people enjoy their Liberty under a Kingly Government let the King himself be accountable let the Law take place
even against Kings themselves if they act contrary to Law Aristotle likewise in the third Book of his Politicks Of all Kingdoms says he that are govern'd by Laws that of the Lacedemonians seems to be most truly and properly so And he says all forms of Kingly Governments are according to setled and establisht Laws but one which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Absolute Monarchy which he does not mention ever to have obtain'd in any Nation So that Aristotle thought such a Kingdom as that of the Lacedemonians was to be and deserve the name of a Kingdom more properly than any other and consequently that a King tho subordinate to his own people was nevertheless actually a King properly so called Now since so many and so great Authors assert that a Kingly Government both in name and thing may very well subsist even where the people tho they do not ordinarily exercise the Suâ—… Power yet have it actually residing in them and exercise it upon occasion Be not you of so mean a soul as to fear the down-fall of Grammer and the 〈◊〉 of the signification of words to that deâ—… as to betray the Liberty of Mankind and the State rather than your Glossary should not hold water And know for the future that words must be conformable to things not things to words By this means you 'l have more wit and not run on in infinitum which now you 're afraid of It was to no purpose then for Seneca you say to describe those three forms of Government as he has done Let Seneca do a thing to no purpose so we enjoy our Liberty And if I mistake us not we are other sort of men than to be enslav'd by Seneca's flowers And yet Seneca though he says that the Soveraign Power in a Kingly Government resides in a single person says withal that the power is the people's and by them committed to the King for the welfare of the whole not for their ruin and destruction and that the people has not given him a propriety in it but the use of it Kings at this rate you say do not reign by God but by the people As if God did not so over-rule the people that they set up such Kings as it pleases God Since Justinian himself openly acknowledgeth that the Roman Emperours derived their Authority from that Royal Law whereby the people granted to them and vested in them all their own power and authority But how oft shall we repeat these things over and over again Then you take upon you to intermeddle with the Constitution of our Government in which you are no ways concerned who are both a stranger and a foreigner but it shows your sawciness and want of good manners Come then let us hear your Soloecisms like a busie Coxcomb as you are You tell us but 't is in false Latin that what those Desperadoes say is only to deceive the people You Rascal was it for this that you a Renegado Grammarian were so forward to intermeddle with the affairs of our Government that you might introduce your Soloecisms and Barbarisms amongst us But say how have we deceiv'd the people The form of Government which they have set up is not Popular but Military This is what that herd of Fugitives and Vagabonds hired you to write So that I shall not trouble my self to answer you who bleat what you know nothing of but I 'le answer them that hired you Who excluded the Lords from Parliament was it the people Yea it was the people and in so doing they threw an intollerable yoke of Slavery from off their necks Those very Soldiers who you say did it were not foreigners but our own Country-men and a great part of the people and they did it with the consent and at the desire of almost all the rest of the people and not without the authority of the Parliament neither Was it the people that cut off part of the House of Commons forcing some away c. Yes I say it was the people For whatever the better and sounder part of the Senate did in which the true power of the people resided why may not the people be said to have done it What if the greater part of the Senate should chuse to be slaves or to expose the Government to sale ought not the lesser number to interpose and endeavour to retain their Liberty if it be in their power But the Officers of the Army and their Soldiers did it And we are beholden to those Officers for not being wanting to the State but repelling the Tumultary violence of the Citizens and Mechanicks of London who like that Rabble that appear'd for Clodius had but a little before beset the very Parliament House Do you therefore call the right of the Parliament to whom it properly and originally belongs to take care of the Liberty of the people both in Peace and War a Military power But 't is no wonder that those Traytors that have dictated these passages to you should talk at that rate so that profligate faction of Anthony and his adherents used to call the Senate of Rome when they armed themselves against the enemies of their Country The Camp of Pompey And now I 'm glad to understand that they of your party envy Cromwell that most valiant General of our Army his undertaking that Expedition in Ireland so acceptable to Almighty God surrounded with a joyful crowd of his Friends and prosecuted with the well-wishes of the people and the prayers of all good men For I question not but at the news of his many Victories there they are by this time bursten with spleen I pass by many of your impertinencies concerning the Roman Soldiers What follows is most notoriously false The power of the people say you ceases where there is a King By what Law or Right is that Since it is known that almost all Kings of what Nations soever received their Authority from the people upon certain conditions which if the King do not perform I wish you would inform us why that Power which was but a Trust should not return to the people as well from a King as from a Consul or any other Magistrate For when you tell us that 't is necessary for the Publick Safety you do but trifle with us for the safety of the Publick is equally concerned whether it be from a King or from a Senate or from a Triumvirate that the power wherewith they were entrusted revert to the people upon their abuse of it and yet you your self grant that it may so revert from all sorts of Magistrates a King only excepted Certainly if no people in their right wits ever committed the Government either to a King or other Magistrates for any other purpose than for the common good of them all there can be no reason why to prevent the utter ruin of them all they may not as well take it back again from a King as from other Governors nay
wherever the Laws are set at naught the same dictate of nature must necessarily prompt us to betake our selves to Force again To be of this opinion says Cicero pro Sestio is a sign of Wisdom to put it in practice argues Courage and Resolution to do both is the effect of Vertue in its perfection Let this stand then as a setled Maxim of the Law of Nature never to be shaken by any Artifices of Flatterers That the Senate or the people are superior to Kings be they good or bad Which is but what you your self do in effect confess when you tell us That the Authority of Kings was derived from the people For that power which they transferred to Princes doth yet naturally or as I may say virtually reside in themselves notwithstanding for so natural causes that produce any effect by a certain eminency of operation do always retain more of their own vertue and energy than they impart nor do they by communicating to others exhaust themselves You see the closer we keep to Nature the more evidently does the peoples power appear to be above that of the Prince And this is likewise certain That the people do not freely and of choice settle the Government in their King absolutely so as to give him a Propriety in it nor by Nature can do so but only for the Publick Safety and Liberty which when the King ceaseth to take care of then the people in effect have given him nothing at all For Nature says the people gave it him to a particular end and purpose which end if neither Nature nor the People can attain the peoples Gift becomes no more valid than any other void Covenant or Agreement These Reasons prove very fully That the People are Superior to the King and so your greatest and most 〈◊〉 Argument That a King cannot be judged by his 〈◊〉 because he has no Peer in his Kingdom nor any Superior falls to the ground For you take that for granted which we by no means allow In a popular State say you the Magistrates being appointed by the people may likewise be punished for their Crimes by the people In an Aâ—…cracy the Senators may be punished by their Collegues But 't is a 〈◊〉 thing to proceed criminally against a King in his own Kingdom and make him plead for his life What can you conclude from hence but that they who set up Kings over them are the most miserable and most silly people in the world But I paay what 's the reason why the people may not punish a King that becomes a Malefactor as well as they may popular Magistrates and Senators in an Aristocracy Do you think that all they that live under a Kingly Government were so strangely in love with Slavery as when they might be free to chuse Vassalage and to put themselves all and entirely under the dominion of one man who often happens to be an ill man and often a fool so as whatever cause might be to leave themselves no 〈◊〉 in no relief from the Laws nor the dictates of Nature against the Tyranny of a most outragious Master when such a one happens Why do they then tender conditions to their Kings when they first enter upon their Government and prescribe Laws for them to govern by Do they do this to be trampled upon the more and be the more laughed to scorn Can it â—e imagined that a whole people would ever so 〈◊〉 themselves depart from their own interest to that degree be so wanting to themselves as to place all their hopes in one man and he very often the most vain person of them all To what end do they require an Oath of their Kings Not to act any 〈◊〉 contrary to Law We must suppose them to do this that poor creatures they may learn to their â—…rrow That Kings only may commit Perjury with impunity This is what your own wicked Conclusions hold forth If a King that is elected promise any thing to his people upon Oath which if he would not have swâ—rn to perhaps they would not have chose him yet if he refuse to perform that promise he falls not under the peoples censure Nay tho he swear to his Subjects at his Election That he will administer Justice to them according to the Laws of the Kingdom and that if he do not they shall be discharged of their Allegiance and himself ipso facto cease to be their King yet if he break this oath 't is God and not man that must require it of him I have transcribed these lines not for their Elegance for they are barbarously expressed nor because I think there needs any answer to them for they answer themselves they explode and damn themselves by their notorious falshood and loathsomness but I did it to recommend you to Kings for your great Merits that among so many places as there are at Court they may put you into some Preferment or Office that may be fit for you some are Princes Secretaries some their Cup-bearers some Masters of the Revels I think you had best be Master of the Perjuries to some of them You sha'nt be Master of the Ceremonies you are too much a Clown for that but their Treachery and Perfidiousness shall be under your care But that men may see that you are both a Fool and a Knave to the highest degree let us consider these last assertions of yours a little more narrowly A King say you tho he swear to his Subjects at his Election that he will govern according to Law and that if he do not they shall be discharged of their Allegiance and he himself ipso facto cease to be their King yet can he not be deposed or punished by them Why not a King I pray as well as popular Magistrates Because in a popular State the People do not transfer all their Power to the Magistrates And do they in the Case that you have put vest it all in the King when they place him in the Government upon those terms expresly to hold it no longer than he useth it well So that it is evident that a King sworn to observe the Laws if he transgress them may be punished and deposed as well as popular Magistrates So that you can make no more use of that invincible Argument of the Peoples tranferring all their Right and Power into the Prince you your self have battered it down with your own Engines Hear now another most powerful and invincible Argument of his why Subjects cannot judge their Kings because he is bound by no Law being himself the sole Lawgiver Which having been proved already to be most false this great reason comes to nothing as well as the former But the reason why Princes have but seldom been proceeded against for personal and private Crimes as Whoredom and Adultery and the like is not because they could not justly be punished even for such but lest the People should receive more prejudice through disturbances that
might be occasioned by the King's Death and the change of Affairs than they would be profited by the punishment of one Man or two But when they begin to be universally injurious and insufferable it has always been the Opinion of all Nations that then being Tyrants it is lawful to put them to Death any how condemn'd or uncondemn'd Hence Cicero in his Second Phillippick says thus of those that kill'd Caesar They were the first that ran through with their Swords not a Man who affected to be King but who was actually setled in the Government which as it was a worthy and godlike Action so it 's set before us for our imitation How unlike are you to him Murder Adultery Injuries are not regal and publick but private and personal Crimes Well said Parasite you have obliged all Pimps and Prosâ—igates in Courts by this Expression How ingeniously do you act both the Parasite and the Pimp with the same breath A King that is an Adulterer or a Murderer may yet govern well and consequently ought not to be put to Death because together with his Life he must lose his Kingdom and it was never yet allowed by God's Laws or Man's that for one and the same Crime a Man was to be punished twice Infamous foul-mouth Wretch By the same reason the Magistrates in a popular State or in an Aristocracy ought never to be put to Death for fear of double Punishment no Judge no Senator must dye for they must lose their Magistracy too as well as their Lives As you have endeavoured to take all Power out of the Peoples hands and vest it in the King so you would all Majesty too A delegated translatitious Majesty we allow but that Majesty does chiefly and primarily reside in him you can no more prove than you can that Power and Authority does A King you say cannot commit Treason against his People but a People may against their King And yet a King is what he is for the People only not the People for him Hence I infer that the whole Body of the People or the greater part of them must needs have greater Power than the King This you deny and begin to cast up accounts He is of greater Power than any one than any two than any 〈◊〉 than any ten than any hundred than any thousand than any ten thousand be it so He is of more Power than half the People I will not deny that neither Add now half of the other half will be not have more Power than all thâ—se Not at all Go on why do you take away the Board Do you not understand Progression in Arithmetick He begins to reckon after another manner Has not the King and the Nobility together more Power No Mr Changeling I deny that too If by the Nobility whom you stile Optimates you mean the Peers only for it may happen that amongst the whole number of them there may not be one Man deserving that Appellation for it often falls out that there are better and wiser Men than they amongst the Commons whom in Conjunction with the greater or the better part of the People I should not scruple to call by the Name of and take them for all the People But if the King is not Superior in Power to all the People together he is then a King but of single Persons he is not the King of the whole Body of the People You say well no more he is unless they are content he should be so Now balance your accounts and you will find that by miscasting you have lost your Principal The English say that the Right of Majesty originally and principally resides in the People which Principle would introduce a Confusion of all States What of an Aristocracy and Democracy But let that pass What if it would overthrow a Gynaecocracy too i. e. a Government of one or more Women under which State or Form of Government they say you are in danger of being beaten at home would not the English do you a kindness in that you sheepish Fellow you But there 's no hope of that For 't is most justly so ordered since you would subject all Mankind to Tyranny abroad that you your self should live in a scandalous most unmanlike Slavery at home We must tell you you say what we mean by the word People There are a great many other things which you stand more in need of being told For of things that more immediately concern you you seem altogether ignorant and never to have learnt any thing but Words and Letters nor to be capable of any thing else But this you think you know that by the word People we mean the Common People only exclusive of the Nobility because we have put down the House of Lords And yet that very thing shows that under the word People we comprehend all our Natives of what Order and Degree soever in that we have setled one Supreme Senate only in which the Nobility also as a part of the People not in their own Right as they did before but Representing those Burroughs or Counties for which they may be chose may give their Votes Then you inveigh against the Common People as being Blind and Brutish Ignorant of the Art of Governing you say there 's nothing more Empty more Vain more Inconstant more Uncertain than they All which is very true of your self and it 's true likewise of the Rabble but not of the middle sort amongst whom the most prudent Men and most skilful in Affairs are generally found others are most commonly diverted either by Luxury and Plenty or by Want and Poverty from Virtue and the Study of Laws and Government There are many ways you say by which Kings come to the Crown so as not to he beholden to the People at all for it and especially those that inherit a Kingdom But those Nations most certainly be Slaves and born to Slavery that acknowledge any one to be their Lord and Master so absolutely as that they are his inheritance and come to him by descent without any Consent of their own they deserve not the Appellation of Subjects nor of Freemen nor can they be justly reputed such nor are they to be accounted as a Civil Society but must be looked on as the Possessions and Estate of their Lord and his Family For I see no difference as to the Right of Ownership betwixt them and Slaves and Beasts Secondly They that come to the Crown by Conquest cannot acknowledge themselves to have receiv'd from the People the Power they usurp We are not now discoursing of a Conqueror but of a Conquered King what a Conqueror may lawfully do we 'll discourse elsewhere do you keep to your Subject But whereas you ascribe to Kings that Ancient Right that Masters of Families have over their Housholds and take an example from thence of their absolute Power I have shown already over and over that there is no likeness at all betwixt them And
Government Sir Thomas Smith a Country-man of ours in Edward the Sixth's days a good Lawyer and a Statesman one whom you your self will not call a Parricide in the beginning of a Book which he wrote of the Common-wealth of England asserts the same thing and not of our Government only but of almost all others in the world and that out of Aristotle and he says it is not possible that any Government should otherwise subsist But as if you thought it a crime to say any thing and not unsay it again you repeat your former thread-bare Contradictions You say There neither is nor ever was any Nation that did not understand by the very name of a King a person whose authority is inferior to God alone and who is accountable to no other And yet a little after you confess that the name of a King was formerly given to such Powers and Magistrates as had not a full and absolute right of themselves but had a dependance upon the people as the Suffetes among the Carthaginians the Hebrew Judges the Kings of the Lacedemonians and of Arragon Are you not very consistent with your self Then you reckon up five several sorts of Monarchies out of Aristotle in one of which only that Right obtain'd which you say is common to all Kings Concerning which I have said already more than once that neither doth Aristotle give an instance of any such Monarchy nor was there ever any such in being the other four he clearly demonstrates that they were bounded by Establisht Laws and the King's Power subject to those Laws The first of which four was that of the Lacedemonians which in his opinion did of all others best deserve the name of a Kingdom The second was such as obtain'd among Barbarians which was lasting because regulated by Laws and because the people willingly submitted to it whereas by the same Author's opinion in his third Book what King so ever retains the Soveraignty against the people's will is no longer to be accounted a King but a downright Tyrant all which is true likewise of his third sort of Kings which he calls Aesymnete who were chosen by the people and most commonly for a certain time only and for some particular purposes such as the Roman Dictators were The fourth sort he makes of such as reigned in the Heroical days upon whom for their extraordinary merits the people of their own accord conferr'd the Government but yet bounded by Laws nor could these retain the Soveraignty against the will of the people nor do these four sorts of Kingly Governments differ he says from Tyranny in any thing else but only in that these Governments are with the good liking of the people and That against their will The fifth sort of Kingly Government which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or absolute Monarchy in which the Supreme Power resides in the King's person which you pretend to be the right of all Kings is utterly condemn'd by the Philosopher as neither for the good of Mankind nor consonant to Justice or Nature unless some people should be content to live under such a Government and withal confer it upon such as excel all others in vertue These things any man may read in the third Book of his Politicks But you I believe that once in your life you might appear witty and florid pleased your self with making a comparison betwixt these five sorts of Kingly Government and the five Zones of the World betwixt the two extremes of Kingly power there are three more temperate Species interposed as there lie three Zones betwixt the Torrid and the Frigid Pretty Rogue what ingenious comparisons he always makes us May you be for ever banished whither you your self condemn an absolute Kingdom to be to wit to the frigid Zone which when you are there will be doubly cold to what it was before In the mean while we shall expect that new fashioned sphere which you describe from you our modern Archimedes in which there shall be two extreme Zones one Torrid and the other Frigid and three temperate ones lying betwixt The Kings of the Lacedaemonians you say might lawfully be Imprisoned but it was not lawful to put them to Death Why not Because the Ministers of Justice and some Foreign Soldiers being surprised at the Novelty of the thing thought it not lawful to lead Agis to his Execution though condem'd to die And the people of Lacedemon were displeased at his death not because condemn'd to die though a King but because he was a good man and popular and had been circumvented by a faction of the great ones Says Plutarch Agis was the first King that was put to death by the Ephori in which words he does not pretend to tell us what lawfully might be done but what actually was done For to imagin that such as may lawfully accuse a King and imprison him may not also lawfully put him to death is a childish conceit At last you betake your self to give an account of the Right of English Kings There never was you say but one King in England This you say because you had said before that unless a King be sole in the Government we cannot be a King Which if it be true some of them who I had thought had been Kings of England were not really so for to omit many of our Saxon Kings who had 〈◊〉 their Sons or their Brothers Partners with them in the Government it is known that King Henry the Second of the Norman Race reign'd together with his Son Let them show say you a President of any Kingdom under the Government of a single person who has not an absolute power though in some Kingdoms more remiss in others more intense Do you show any Power that 's absolute and yet remiss you Ass is not that power that 's absolute the Supreme Power of all How can it then be both supreme and remiss Whatsoever Kings you shall acknowledg to be invested with a remiss or a less power those I will easily make appear to have no absolute power and consequently to be inferior to a People free by nature who is both its own Law given and can make the Regal Power more or less intense or remiss that is greater or less Whether the whole Island of Britain was anciently Governed by Kings or no is uncertain It 's most likely that the form of their Government changed according to the Exigencies of the times Whence Tacitus says The Britains anciently were under Kings now the great man amongst them divide them into Parties and Factions When the Romans left them they were about forty years without Kings they were not always therefore under a Kingly Government as you say they were but when they were so that the Kingdom was Hereditary I positively deny which that it was not is evident both from the Series of their Kings and their way of Creating them for the consent of the people is asked in express words When the
said in our Law to be an Infant and to possess his Rights and Dignities as a Child or a Ward does his See the Mirror cap. 4. Sect. 22. And hence is that common saying amongst us That the King can do no wrong Which you like a Raseal interpret thus Whatever the King does is no Injury because be is not â—…ble to be punished for it By this very Comment if there were nothing else the wonderful Impudence and Villany of this fellow discovers it self sufficiantly It belongs to the Hâ—ad you say to command and 〈◊〉 to the Members The King is the Head of the Parliament You would not trifle thus if you had any guts in your brains You are mistaken again but there 's no end of your mistakes in not distinguishing the King's Counsellors from the States of the Realm For neither ought he to make choice of all of them nor of any of these which the râ—st do not approve of but for electing any Member of the House of Commons he never so much as pretended to it Whom the people appointed to that Service they were severally chosen by the Votes of all the people in their respective Cities Towns and Counties I speak now of things universally known and therefore I am the shorter But you say 'T is â—alâ—e that the Parliament was instituted by the people as the Worshippers of Saint Independency assert Now I see why you took so much pains in endeavourâ—â—g to subvert the Paâ—â—cy you carry another Pope in your belly as we say For what else should you be in labour of the Wiâ—e of a Woman a He-Wolf impregnated by a She-Wolf but either a Monster or some new sort of Pâ—…cy You now make He-Saints and She-Saints at your pleasure as if you were a true genuine Pope You absolve Kings of all their sins and as if you had utterly vanquish'd and subdu'd your Antagonist the Pope you adorn your self with his spoils But because you have not yet profligated the Pope quite till the Second and Third and perhaps the Fourth and Fifth Part of your Book of his Supremacy come out which Book will nauseate a great many Readers to death sooner than you 'll get the better of the Pope by it let it suffice you in the mean time 〈◊〉 you to become some Antipope or other There 's another She-Saint besides that Independency that you deâ—ide which you have Canonized in good earnest and that is the Tyranny of Kings You shall therefore by my consent be the High Priest of Tyranny and that you may have all the Pope's Titles you shall be a Servant of the Servants not of God but of the Court. For that Curse pronounced upon Canaan seems to stick as close to you as your Shirt You call the People a Beast What are you then your self For neither can that Sacred Confistory nor your Lordship of St. Lou exempt you its Master from being one of the People nay of the Common People nor can make you other than what you really are a most loathsome Beast Indeed the Writings of the Prophets shadow out to us the Monarchy and Dominion of Great Kings by the Name and under the Resemblance of a Great Beast You say That there is no mention of Parliaments held under our Kings that reigned before William the Conqueror It is not worth while to Jangle about a French word The thing was always in being and you your self allow that in the Saxon times Concilia Sapientum Wittena-gemots are mentioned And there are wise Men among the Body of the People as well as amongst the Nobility But in the Statute of Merton made in the twentieth year of King Henry the 3d the Earls and Barons are only named Thus you are always imposed upon by words who yet have spent your whole Life in nothing else but words for we know very well that in that age not only the Guardians of the Cinque-Ports and Magistrates of Cities but even Tradesmen are sometimes called Barons and without doubt they might much more reasonably call every Member of Parliament tho never so much a Commoner by the Name of a Baron For that in the fifty second Year of the same King's Reign the Commoners as well as the Lords were summoned the Statute of Marlbridge and most other Statutes declare in express words which Commoners King Edward the Third in the Preface to the Statute-Staple calls Magnates Comitatum The Great Men of the Counties as you very learnedly quote it for me those to wit That came out of the several Counties and served for them which number of Men constituted the House of Commons and neither were Lords nor could be Besides a Book more Ancient than those Statutes called Modus habendi Parliamenta i. e. The manner of holding Parliaments tells us That the King and the Commons may hold a Parliament and enact Laws tho the Lords the Bishops are absent but that with the Lords and the Bishops in the Absence of the Commons no Parliament can be held And there 's a reason given for it viz. because Kings held Parliaments and Councils with their People before any Lords or Bishops were made besides the Lords serve for themselves only the Commons each for the County City or Burrough that sent them And that therefore the Commons in Parliament represent the whole Body of the Nation in which respect they are more worthy and every way preferable to the House of Peers But the power of Judicature you say never was invested in the House of Commons Nor was the King ever possessed of it Remember tho that originally all Power proceeded and yet does proceed from the People Which Marcus Tullius excellently well shows in his Oration De lege Agraria Of the Agrarian Law As all Powers Authorities and publick Administrations ought to be derived from the whole Body of the People so those of them ought in an especial manner so to be derived which are ordained and appointed for the Common Benefit and Interest of all to which Impolyments every particular Person may both give his Vote for the chusing such Persons as he thinks will take most care of the Publick and withal by voting and making Interest for them lay such Obligations upon them as may entitle them to their Friendship and good Offices in time to come Here you see the true rise and original of Parliaments and that it was much ancienter than the Saxon Chronicles Whilst we may dwell in such a light of Truth and Wisdom as Cicero's Age afforded you labour in vain to blind us with the darkness of obseurer times By the saying whereof I would not be understood to derogate in the least from the Authority and Prudenâ—e of our Ancestors who most certainly went further in the enacting of good Laws than either the Ages they lived in or their own Learning or Education seem to have been capable of and tho sometimes they made Laws that were none of the best yet as being conscious to
own and their Countries Right of a detestable and â—â—rrid Imposture Your Country may be aâ—…amed you Rascall to have brought forth a little inconsiderable fellow of such profligate impudence But perhaps you have somewhat to tell us that may be for our good Go on we 'l hear you VVhat Laws say you can a Parliament Enact in which the Bishops are 〈◊〉 present Did you then ye madman expell the Order of Bishops out of the Church to introduce them into the State O wicked wretch who ought to be delivered over to Satan whom the Church ought to forbid her Communion as being a Hypocrite and an Atheist and no Civil Society of men to acknowledg as a member being a publick enemy and a Plague-sore to the common liberty of Mankind who where the Gospel fails you endeavour to prove out of Aristetle Halicarnassaeus and then from some Popish Authorities of the most corrupt ages that the King of England is the head of the Church of England to the end that you may as far as in you lies bring in the Bishops again his Intimates and Table-Companions grown so of late to rob and Tyrannize in the Church of God whom God himself hath deposed and degraded whose very Order you had heretofore asserted in Print that it ought to be rooted out of the world as destructive of and pernicious to the Christian Religion What Apostate did ever so shamefully and wickedly desert as this man has done I do not say his own which indeed never was any but the Christian Doctrine which he had formerly asserted The Bishops being put down who under the King and by his permission held Plea of Ecclesiastical Causes upon whom say you will that Jurisdiction devolve O Villain have some regard at least to your own Conscience Remember before it be too late if at least this admonition of mine come not too late remember that this mocking the Holy Spirit of God is an inexpiable crime and will not be left unpunisht Stop at last and set bounds to your fury lest the wrath of God lay hold upon you suddenly for endeavouring to deliver the flock of God his Anointed ones that are not to be touched to Enemies and cruel Tyrants to be crusht and trampled on again from whom himself by a high and stretched out arm had so lately delivered them and from whom you your self maintained that they ought to be delivered I know not whether for any good of theirs or in order to the hardning of your own heart and to further your own damnation If the Bishops have no right to Lord it over the Church certainly much less have Kings whatever the Laws of men may be to the contrary For they that know any thing of the Gospel know thus much that the Government of the Church is altogether Divine and Spiritual and no Civil Constitution Whereas you say That in Secular Affairs the Kings of England have always had the Sovereign Power Our Laws do abundantly declare that to be false Our Courts of Justice are erected and suppressed not by the King's Authority but that of the Parliament and yet in any of them the meanest Subject might go to Law with the Ring nor is it a rare thing for the Judges to give Judgment against him which if the King should endeavour to obstruct by any Prohibition Mandate or Letters the Judges were bound by Law and by their Oaths not to obey him but to reject such Inhibitions as null and void in Law the King could not imprison any man or seize his Estate as forfeited he could not punish any man not summoned to appear in Court where not the King but the ordinary Judges gave Sentence which they frequently did as I have said against the King Hence our Bractan lib. 3. cap. 9. The Regal Power says he is according to Law he has no power to do any wrong nor can the King do any thing but what the Law warrants Those Lawyers that you have consulted men that have lately fled their Countrey may tell you another tale and acquaint you with some Statutes not very Ancient neither but made in King Edward 4th's King Henry 6th's and King Edward 6th's days but they did not consider That what power soever those Statutes gave the King was conferred upon him by Authority of Parliament so that he was beholding to them for it and the same power that conferr'd it might at pleasure resume it How comes it to pass that so acute a disputant as you should suffer your self to be imposed upon to that degree as to make use of that very Argument to prove the King's Power to be Absolute and Supreme than which nothing proves more clearly That it is subordinate to that of the Parliament Our Records of the greatest Authority with us declare That our Kings owe all their Power not to any Right of Inheritance of Conquest or Succession but to the people So in the Parliament Rolls of King Hen. 4. numb 108. we read That the Kingly Office and Power was granted by the Commons to King Henry the 4th and before him to his Predecessor King Richard the 2d just as Kings use to grant Commissioners places and Lieutenantships to their Deputies by Edicts and Patents Thus the House of Commons ordered expresly to be entred upon record That they had granted to King Richard to use the same good Liberty that the Kings of England before him had used Which because that King abused to the subversion of the Laws and contrary to his Oath at his Coronation the same persons that granted him that power took it back again and deposed him The same men as appears by the same Record declared in open Parliament That having confidence in the Prudence and Moderation of King Henry the 4th they will and enact That he enjoy the same Royal Authority that his Ancestors enjoyed Which if it had been any other than in the nature of a Trust as this was either those Houses of Parliament were foolish and vain to give what was none of their own or those Kings that were willing to receive as from them what was already theirs were too injurious both to themselves and their Posterity neither of which is likely A third part of the Regal Power say you is conversant about the Mâ—litia this the Kings of England have used to order and govern without Fellow or Competitor This is as false as all the rest that you have taken upon the credit of Fugitives For in the first place both our own Histories and those of Foreigners that have been any whit exact in the relation of our Affairs declare That the making of Peace and War always did belong to the Parliament And the Laws of St. Edward which our Kings were bound to swear that they would maintain make this appear beyond all exception in the Chapter De Heretochus viz. That there were certain Officers appointed in every Province and County throughout the Kingdom that were called Heretochs in Latin
Dâ—…s Commanders of Armies that were to command the Forces of the several Counties not for the Honour of the Crown only but for the good of the Realm And they were chosen `by the General Council and in the several Counties at publick Assemblies of the Inhabitants as Sheriffs ought to be chosen Whence it is evident That the Foâ—… of the Kingdom and the Commanders of those Forces were anciently and ought to be still not at the King's Command but at the people's and that this most reasonable and just Law obtained in this Kingdom of ours no less than heretofore it did in the Commonwealth of the Romans Concerning which it will not be amiss to hear what Cicera says Philip. 〈◊〉 All the â—egions all the Forces of the Commonwealth wheresoever they are are the people of Rome's nor are those â—egions that deserted the Consul Antonins said to have been Antonin's but the Commonwealths â—egions This very Law of St. Edward together with the rest did William the Conqueror at the desire and instance of the people confirm by Oath and added over and above cap. 56. That all Cities Boroughs Castles should be so watched every night as the Sheriffs the Aldermen and other Magistrates should think meet for the safety of the Kingdom And in the 6th Law Castles Boroughs and Cities were first built for the Defence of the people and therefore ought to be maintained free and entire by all ways and means What then Shall Towns and Places of Strength in times of Peace be guarded against Thieves and Robbers by common Councils of the several Places and shall they not be defended in dangerous times of War against both Domestick and Foreign Hostility by the common Council of the whole Nation If this be not granted there can be no Freedom no Integrity no Reason in the guarding of them nor shall we obtain any of those ends for which the Law it self tells us that Towns and Fortresses were at first founded Indeed our Ancestors were willing to put any thing into the King's power rather than their Arms and the Garisons of their Towns conceiving that to be neither better nor worse than betraying their Liberty to the Fury and Exorbitancy of their Princes Of which there are so very many instances in our Histories and those so generally known that it would be superfluous to mention any of them here But the King owes protection to his Subjects and how can be protect them unless he have Men and Arms at Command But say I he had all this for the good of the Kingdom as has been said not for the destruction of his people and the ruin of the Kingdom Which in King Henry the 3d's time one Leonard a Learned man in those days in an Assembly of Bishops told Rustandus the Pope's Nuncio and the King's Procurator in these words All Churches are the Pope's as all Temporal things are said to be the King 's for Defence and Protection not his in Propriety and Ownership as we say they are his to Deâ—end not to Destroy The aforementioned Law of St. Edward is to the same purpose and what does this import more than a Trust Does this look like Absolute Power Such a kind of Power a Commander of an Army always has that is a Delegated Power and yet both at home and abroad he is never the less able to defend the people that chuse him Our Parliaments would anciently have contended with our Kings about their Liberty and the Laws of St. Edward to very little purpose and ' â—would have been an unequal match betwixt the Kings and them if they had been of opinion that that the Power of the Sword belonged to him alone for how unjust Laws soever their Kings would have imposed upon them their Charter tho never so great would have been a weak Defence against Force But say you What would the Parliament be the better for the Militia since without the King's Assent they cannot raise the least Earthing from the people towards the maintaining it Take you no thought for that For in the first place you go upon a false supposition That Parliaments cannot impose Taxes without the King's Assent upon the people that send them and whose concerns they undertake In the next place you that are so officious an enquirer into other mens matters cannot but have heard That the people of their own accord by bringing in their Plate to be melted down raised a great Sum of Money towards the carrying on of this War against the King Then you mention the largeness of our King's Revenue You mention over and over again Five Hundred and Forty Thousands That these of our Kings that have been eminent for their Bounty and Liberality have used to give Large Boons out of their own Partimony This you were glad to hear 't was by this Charm that those Traytors to their Countrey allured you as Bâ—… the Prophet was enticed of old to curse the people of God and exclaim against the Judicial Dispensations of his Providence You Fool what was that unjust and violent King the better for such abundance of Wealth What are you the better for it Who have been no partaker of any part of it that I can hear of how great hopes soever you may have conceiv'd of being vastly enriched by it but only of a Hundred pieces of Gold in a Purse wrought with beads Take that reward of thine Iniquity Balaam which thou hast loved and enjoy it You go on to play the Fool The setting up of a Standard is a Prerogative that belongs to the King only How so Why because Virgil tells us in his Aeneis That Turnus set up a Standard on the top of the Tower at Laurentum for an Ensign of War And do not you know Grammarian that every General of an Army does the same thing But says Aristotle The King must always be provided of a Military Power that he may be able to defend the Laws and therefore the King must be stronger than the whole body of the people This man makes Consequences just as Oâ—nus does Ropes in Hell which are of no use but to be eaten by Asses For a number of Soldiers given to the King by the people is one thing and the sole power of the Militia is quite another thing the latter Aristotle does not allow that Kings ought to be masters of and that in this very place which you have quoted He ought says he to have so many armed men about him as to make him stronger than any one man than many men got together but he must not be stronger than all the people Polit. lib. 3. cap. 4. Else instead of protecting them it would be in his power to subject both People and Laws to himself For this is the difference betwixt a King and a Tyrant A King by consent of the Senate and People has about him so many Armed men as to enable him to resist Enemies and suppress Seditions A Tyrant against the
in overlooking or secluding the rest be they of the Nobility or the common people nay though profiting by experience they should refuse to be governed any longer either by a King or a 〈◊〉 of Lords But in railing at that Supreme Council as you call it and at the Chair man thére you make your self very Ridiculous for that Council is not the Supreme Council as you dream it is but appointed by Authority of Parliament for a certain time only and consisting of â—orty Persons for the most part Members of Parliament any one of whom may be President if the rest Vote him into the Chair And there is nothing more common than for our Parliaments to appoint Committees of their own Members who when so appointed have Power to meet where they please and hold a kind of a little Parliament amongst themselves And the most weighty Affairs are often referred to them for Expedition and Secresie the care of the Navy the Army the Treasury in short all things whatsoever relating either to War or Peace Whether this be called a Council or any thing else the thing is ancient though the name may be new and it is such an Institution as no Government can be duly administred without it As for our putting the King to death and changing the Government forbear your bawling don't spit your Venom till going along with you through every Chapter I show whether you will or no by what Law by what Right and Justice all that was done But if you insist to know by what Right by what Law by that Law I tell you which God and Nature have enacted viz. that whatever things are for the Universal Good of the Whole State are for that reason lawful and just So wise Men of old used to answer such as you You find fault with us for Repealing Laws that had obtained for so many years but you do not tell as whether those Laws were good or bad nor if you did should we heed what you said for you buisy Puppy what have you to do with our Laws I wish our Magistrates had â—…ed more than they have both Laws and â—â—wyers if they had they would have consulted the Interest of the Christian Religion and that of the People better then they have done It frets you That Hob-goblins Sons of the Earth scarce Gentlemen at home scarce known to their own Countrymen should presume to do such things But you ought to have remembred what not only the Scriptures but Horace would have taught you viz. Valet ima summis Mutare insignem attenuat Deus Obscura promens c. The Power that did create can change the Scene Of things make mean of great and great of mean The brightest Glory can Eclipse with Night And place the most obscure in dazling Light But take this into the Bargain some of those who you say are scarce Gentlemen are not at all inferiour in birth to any of your party others whose Ancestors were not Noble have taken a course to attain to true Nobility by their own Industry and Vertue and are not inferior to men of the Noblest Descent and had rather be 〈◊〉 â—â—ns of the Earth provided to be their own Earth their own Native Country and â—ct like Men at home then being destitute of House or Land to relieve the necessities of Nature in a Foreign Country by selling of Smoke as thou dost an inconsiderable Fellow and a Jâ—ck-straw and who depâ—ndest upon the good will of thy Masters for a poor Stâ—pend for whom it were better to forgo thy travelling and return to thy own Kindred and Country-men if thou hadst not this one piece of Cunning to babble out some silly Prelections and Fooleries at so good a rate amongst Foreigners You find fault with our Magistrates for admitting such a Common-shore of all sorts of Sects Why should they not It belongs to the Church to cast them out of the Communion of the faithful not to the Magistrate to Banish them the Country provided they do not offend against the Civil Laws of the State Men at first united into Civil Societies that they might live safely and enjoy their Liberty without being wrong'd or opprest that they might live Religiously and according to the Doctrine of Christianity they united themselves into Churches Civil Societies have Laws and Churches have a Discipline peculiar to themselves and far differing from each other And this has been the occasion of so many Wars in Christendom to wit because the Civil Magistrate and the Church confounded their Jurisdictions And therefore we do not admit of the Popish Sect so as to tolerate Papists at all for we do not look upon that as a Religion but rather as an Hierarchical Tyranny under a â—loak of Religion cloath'd with the Spoils of the Civil Power which it has usurp'd to it self contrary to our Saviour's own Doctrine As for the Independents we never had any such amongst us as you describe they that we call Independents are only such as hold that no Classes or Synods have a Superiority over any particular Church and that therefore they ought all to be pluckt up by the roots as Branches or rather as the very Trunk of Hierarchy it self which is your own opinion too And from hence it was that the name of Independents prevailed amongst the Vulgar The rest of your Preface is taken up in endeavouring not only to stir up the hatred of all Kings and Monarchs against us but to perswade them to make a General War upon us Mithridates of old though in a different cause endeavoured to stir up all Princes to make War upon the Romans by laying to their charge almost just the same things that you do to ours viz. that the Romans aim'd at nothing but the Subversion of all Kingdoms that they had no regard to any thing whether Sacred or Civil that from their very first rise they never enjoy'd any thing but what they had acquir'd by force that they were Robbers and the greatest Enemies in the world to Monarchy Thus Mithridates exprest himself in a Letter to Arsaces King of the Parthians But how came you whose business it it is to make silly Speeches from your Desk to have the Confidence to imagine that by your persuasions to take up Arms and sounding an Alarm as it were you should be able so much as to influence a King amongst Boys at play especially with so shrill a Voice and unsavoury Breath that I believe if you were to have been the Trumpeter not so much as Homer's Mice would have waged War against the Frogs So little do we fear you Slug you any War or Danger from Foreign Princes through your silly Rhetorick who accuse us to them just as if you were at play That we toss Kings heads like Balls play at Bowls with Crowns and regard Scepters no more then if they were Fool 's Staves with heads on But you in the mean time you silly Logerhead deserve to have
of the Roman State Left all Men be involv'd in one Mans fate Continue us in Wealth and Peace Let Wars and Tumults ever cease So that if 't is by God that Kings now adays Reign 't is by God too that the People assert their own Liberty since all things are of him and by him I 'm sure the Scripture bears witness to both that by him Kings reign and that by him they are cast down from their Thrones And yet experience teacheth us that both these things are brought about by the People oftner than by God Be this Right of Kings therefore what it will the Right of the People is as much of God as it And when ever any People without some visible Designation of God himself appoint a King over them they have the same Right to put him down that they had to set him up at first And certainly 't is a more God like Action to depose a Tyrant than to set up one And there appears much more of God in the People when they depose an unjust Prince than in a King that oppressâ—th an Innocent People Nay the People have a Warrant from God to judge wicked Princes for God has conferrd this very honour upon those that are dear to him that celebrating the praises of Christ their own King they shall bind in Chains the Kings of the Nations under which Appellation all Tyrants under the Gospel are included and execute the Jidgments written upon them that challenge to themselves an Exemption from all written Laws Psalm 149. So that there 's but little reason left for that wicked and follish Opinion that Kings who commonly are the worst of Men should be so high in Gods acâ—â—unt as that he should have put the World under 〈◊〉 to be at their 〈◊〉 and be govern'd according to their humour and that for their sakes alone he shâ—uld have reduced all Mankind whom he made 〈◊〉 his own Image into the same condition with 〈◊〉 After all this rather than say nothing you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a countenancer of Tyranny but 〈…〉 better have let him alone I can't say 〈…〉 aâ—â—irm'd that Princes are accountable 〈…〉 God 's Tribunal But Xiphilene indeed out of whom you quote those words of M. Aurelius mentions a certain Government which he calls an Autarchy of which he makes God the only Judge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But that this word Autarchy and Monarchy 〈◊〉 Synonymous I cannot â—â—sily perswade my self to believe And the more I read what goes before the 〈◊〉 I find my self inclinable to think so And certainly whoever considers the Context will not easily apprehend what coherence this sentence has with it and must needs wonder how it comes so abruptly into the Text especially since Marcus Aurelius that Mirrour of Princes carried himself towards the people as Capitolinus tells us just as if Rome had been a Common-wealth still And we all know that when it was so the Supreme Power was in the People The same Emperour honoured the memory of Thraseas and Hâ—lvidius and Cato and Dio and Brutus who all were Tyrant-slayers or affected the reputation of being thought so In the first Book that he writes of his own Life he says that he propos'd to himself a form of Government under which all men might equally enjoy the benefit of the Law and Right and Justice be equally administred to all And in his fourth Book he says The Law is Master and not he He acknowledged the right of the Senate and the people and their Interest in all things We are so far says he from having any thing of our own that we live in your Houses These things Xiphiline relates of him So little did he arrogate ought to himself by vertue of his Soveraign Right When he died he recommended his Son to the Romans for his Successor if they should think he deserv'd it So far was he from pretending to a Commission from Heaven to exercise that absolute and imaginary right of Soveraignty that Autarchy that you tell us of All the Laâ—â—n and Greâ—k Bâ—…s are full of Authorities of this nature But we have heard none of 'em yet So are the Jewish Authors And yet you say The Jews in many things allow'd but too little to their Princes Nay you 'l find that both the Grâ—â—ks and the Latins allow'd much less to Tyrants And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Jews allow'd them would appear if that Book that Samuel wrote of the manner of the Kingdom were extant which Book the Hebrew Doctors tell us their Kings â—…re in pieces and burnt that they might be more at liberty to Tyrannize over the people without controul or fâ—â—r of punishment Now look about ye again and catch hold of somewhat or other In the last place you come to wrest David's words in the 17th Psalm 〈◊〉 my sentence come forth from thy 〈◊〉 Therefore says Barnachmoni God only can judge the King And yet it 's most likely that David 〈◊〉 this Psalm when he was persecuted by Sâ—… at which time though himself were Anointed he did not decline being judged even by Jonathan Notwithstanding if there be â—…ity in me stay me thy self 1 Sam 20. At least in this Psalm he does no more than what any person in the world would do upon the like occasion being falsely accus'd by men he 〈…〉 the judgment of God himself Let thine 〈…〉 that is right thâ—â— hast prâ—vâ—d and â—… What relation has this to a Temâ—… Câ—rtainly they do no good office to 〈…〉 Kings that thus discover the weakness of its 〈…〉 Then you come with that thread-bare 〈…〉 which of all others is most in vogue with our 〈◊〉 Against thee thee only have I sinned Psal 51. 〈◊〉 As if David in the midst of his Repentance when ovâ—â—whelm'd with sorrow and almost 〈…〉 hâ— was humbly imploring God's 〈◊〉 had 〈…〉 right of his when his heart was so low that he thought he deserv'd not the right of a slave And can we think that he despis'd all the people of God his own Brethren to that degree as to believe that he might murder 'em plunder 'em and commit Adultery with their wives and yet not sin against them all this while So holy a man could never be guilty of such insufferable pride nor have so little knowledg either of himself or of his duty to his Neighbour So without doubt when he says Against thee only he means against thee chiefly have I sinned c. But whatever he meant the words of a Psalm are too full of Poetry and this Psalm too full of Passion to afford us any exact definitions of Right and Justice nor is it proper to argue any thing of that nature from ' â—m But David was never question'd for this nor made to plead for his life before the Sanâ—edrim What then How should they know that any such thing had been which was done so privately that perhaps for some years after not above one or two were privy to it as such secrets there
from all humane Jurisdiction and reserved them to his own Tribunal only Let us now consider whether the Gospel preach up any such Doctrine and enjoyn that blind obedience which the Law was so far from doing that it commanded the contrary let us consider whether or no the Gospel that Heavenly Promulgation as it were of Christian Liberty reduce us to a condition of Slavery to Kings and Tyrants from whose imâ—… rule even the old Law that Mistress of Slavery 〈…〉 the people of God when it obtained Your â—…ent you take from the person of Christ himself But alas who does not know that he put 〈◊〉 into the condition not of a private person only but even of a servant that we might be made free Nor is this to be understood of some internal spiritual liberty only how inconsistent else would that Song of his Mothers be with the design of his coming into the world He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their heart he hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble and meek How ill suited to their occasion would these expressions be if the coming of Christ rather established and strengthened a Tyrannical Government and made a blind subjection the duty of all Christians Himself having been born and lived and died under a Tyrannical Government has thereby purchased Liberty for us As he gives us his Grace to submit patiently to a condition of Slavery if there be a necessity of it so if by any honest ways and means we can rid our selves and obtain our Liberty he is so far from restraining us that he encourageth us so to do Hence it is that St. Paul not only of an Evangelical but a Civil Liberty says thus 1 Cor. 7. 21. Art thou called being a servant care not for it but if thou maist be made free use it rather you are bought with a price be not ye servants of men So that you are very impertinent in endeavouring to argue us into Slavery by the example of our Saviour who by submitting to such a condition himself has confirmed even our Civil Liberties He took upon him indeed in our stead the form of a servant but he always retained his purpose of being a deliverer and thence it was that he taught us a quite other notion of the right of Kings than this that you endeavour to make good You I say that preach up not Kingship but Tyranny and that in a Commonwealth by enjoyning not a necessary only but a Religious subjection to whatever Tyrant gets into the Chair whether he come to it by Succession or by Conquest or chance or any how And now He turn your own weapons against you and oppose you as 〈◊〉 to do with your own Authorities When the Collectors of the Tribute-money came to Christ for Tribute in Galilee he asked Peter Mat. 17. Of whom the Kings of the earth took custom or tribute of their own â—…dren or of strangers Peter saith unto him Of strangers 〈◊〉 saith unto him then are the children free notwithstanding lest we should offend them c give unto them for thee and for me Expositors differ upon this place whom â—â—is Tribute was paid to some say it was 〈◊〉 to the Priests for the use of the Sanctuary others that it was paid to the Emperour I am of opinion that it was the Revenue of the Sanctuary but paid to Herad who perverted the Institution of it and took it to himself Josephus mentions divers sorts of Tribute which he and his Sons exacted all which Aâ—…ppa afterwards remitted And this very Tribute though small in it self yet being accompanied with many more was a heavy burden the Jews even the poorest of them in the time of their Commonwealth paid a 〈◊〉 so that it was some considerable oppression that our Saviour spoke of and from hence he took occasion to Tax Herod's Injustice under whose Government and within whose Jurisdiction he then was in that whereas the Kings of the Earth who aâ—…ct usually the Title of Fathers of their Country do not use to oppress their own Children that is their own natural born Subjects with heavy and unreasonable Exactions but lay such burdens upon strangers and conquer'd enemies he quite contrary opprâ—ssed not strangers but his own people But let what will be here meant by Children either natural born Subjects or the Children of God and those the Elect only or Christians in general as St. Augustine understands the place this is certain that if Peter was a child and therefore free then by consequence we are so too by our Saviour's own Testimony either as Englishmen or as Christans and that consequently it is not the right of Kings to exact heavy Tributes from their own Countrymen and those freeborn Subjects Christ himself professeth that he paid not this Tribute as a thing that was due but that he might not bring trouble upon himself by offending those that demanded it The work that he came into this World to do was quite of another Nature But if our Saviour deny that it is the Right of Kings to burden their Free-born Subjects with grievous Exactions he would certainly muchless allow it to be their Right to Spoil Massacre and Torture their own Country-men and those Christians too He discoursed after such a manner of the Right of Kings that those that he spoke to suspected his Principles as laying too great a restraint upon Sovereignty and not allowing the License that Tyrants assume to themselves to be the Rights of Kings It was not for nothing that the Pharisees put such Questions to him tempting him and that at the same time they told him that he regarded not the Person of any Man nor was it for nothing that he was angry when such Questions were proposed to him Matth. 22. If one should endeavour to ensuare you with little Questions and catch at your Answers to ground an Accusation against you upon your own Principles concerning the Right of Kings and all this under a Monarchy would you be angry with him You 'd have but very little reason 'T is evident That our Saviours Principles concerning Government were not agreeable to the Hamour of Princes His Answer too implies as much by which he rather turn'd them away than instructed them He asked for the Tribute-money Whose Image and Superscription is it says he They tell him it was Caesar's Give then to Caesar says he the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's And how comes it to pass that the People should not have given to them the things that are theirs Render to all men their dues says St. Paul Rom. 13. So that Caesar must not ingross all to himself Our Liberty is not Caesar's 't is a Blessing we have received from God himself 't is what we are born to to lay this down at Caesar's feet which we derive not from him which we are not beholden to him for were an unworthy Action and
a degrading of our very Nature If one should consider attentively the Countenance of a Man and enquire after whose Image so noble a Creature were framed would not any one that heard him presently make answer That he was made after the Image of God himself Being therefore peculiarly God 's own and consequently things that are to be given to him we are intirely free by Nature and cannot without the greatest Sacrilege imaginable be reduced into a Condition of Slavery to any Man especially to a wicked unjust cruel Tyrant Our Saviour does not take upon him to determine what things are God's and what Caesar's he leaves that as he found it If the piece of Money which they shewed him was the same that was paid to God as in Vespatian's time it was then our Saviour is so far from having put an end to the Controversy that he has but entangl'd it and made it more perplext than it was before for 't is impossible the same thing should be given both to God and to Caesar But you say he intimates to them what things were Caesar's to wit that piece 〈◊〉 Money because it bore the Emperor's Stamp and what of all that How does this advantage your Cause You get not the Emperor or to your self a Penny by this Conclusion Either Christ allowed no-nothing at all to be Caesar's but that piece of Money that he then had in his hand and thereby asserted the Peoples Interest in every thing else or else if as you would have us understand him he affirms all Money that has the Emperor's stamp upon it to be the Emperor 's own He contradicts himself and gives the Magistrate a property in every Man's Estate when as he himself paid his Tribute-money with a Protestation that it was more than what either Peter or himself was bound to do The ground you rely on is very weak for Money bears the Prince's Image not as a token of its being his but of its being good Metal and that none may presume to Counterfeit it If the writing Princes Names or setting their Stamps upon a thing vest the property of it in them 't were a good ready way for them to invade all Property Or rather if whatever Subjects have be absolutely at their Prince's disposal which is your Assertion that piece of Money was not Caesar's because his Image was stampt on it but because of Right it belonged to him before 't was coyn'd So that nothing can be more manifest than that our Saviour in this place never intended to teach our Duty to Magistrates he would have spoke more plainly if he had but to reprehend the Malice and Wickedness of the hypocritical Pharisees When they told him that Herod laid wait to kill him did he return an humble submissive Answer Go tell that Fox says he c. intimating that Kings have no other Right to destroy their Subjects than Foxes have to devour the things they prey upon Say you He suffered Death under a Tyrant How could he possibly under any other But from hence you conclude that he asserted it to be the Right of Kings to commit Murder and act Injustice You 'd make an excellent Moralist But our Saviour tho he became a Servant not to make us so but that we might be free yet carried he himself so with Relation to the Magistracy as not to ascribe any more to them then their due Now let us come at last to enquire what his Doctrine was upon this Subject The Sons of Zâ—bedee were ambitious of Honour and Power in the Kingdom of Christ which they persuaded themselves he would shortly set up in the World he reproves them so as withal to let all Christians know what Form of Civil Government he desires they should settle amongst themselves Ye know says he that the Princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them and they that are great exercise authority upon them but it shall not be so among you but whosover will be great among you let him be your Minister and whosoever will be chief among you let him be your servant Unless you 'd been distracted you could never have imagined that this place makes for you and yet you urge it and think it furnishes you with an Argument to prove that our Kings are absolute Lords and Masters over us and ours May it be our fortune to have to do with such Enemies in War as will fall blind-fold and naked into our Camp instead of their own as you constantly do who alledge that for your self that of all things in the World makes most against you The Israelites asked God for a King such a King as other Nations round about them had God dissuaded them by many Arguments which our Saviour here gives us an Epitomy of You know that the Princes of the Gentiles exercise Dominion over them But yet because the Israelites persisted in their desire of a King God gave them one tho in his Wrath. Our Saviour lest Christians should desire a King such a one at least as might Rule as he says the Princes of the Gentiles did prevents them with an Injunction to the contrary but it shall not be so among you What can be said plainer than this That stately imperious Sway and Dominion that Kings use to exercise shall not be amongst you what specious Titles soever they may assume to themselves as that of Benefactors or the like But he that will be great amongst you and who is greater than the Prince let him be your Servant So that the Lawyer whoever he be that you are so smart upon was not so much out of the way but had our Saviour's own Authority to back him when he said that Christian Princes were indeed no other than the Peoples Servants 't is very certain that all good Magistrates are so Insomuch that Christians either must have no King at all or if they have that King must be the People's Servant Absolute Lordship and Christianity are inconsistent Moses himself by whose Ministry that seviler Oeconomy of the old Law was instituted did not exercise an Arbitrary Haughty Power and Authority but bore the burden of the People and carried them in his Bosom as a Nursing Father does a sucking Child Numb 11. and what is that of a Nursing Father but a Ministerial Imployment Plato would not have the Magistrates called Lords but Servants and Helpers of the People nor the People Servants but Maintainers of their Magistrates because they give Meat Drink and Wages to their Kings themselves Aristotle calls the Magistrates Keepers and Ministers of the Laws Plato Ministers and servants The Apostle calls them Ministers of God but they are Ministers and Servants of the People and of the Laws nevertheless for all that the Laws and the Magistrates were both created for the good of the People And yet this is it that you call the Opinion of the Fanatick-Mastiffs in England I should not have thought the People of England were Mastiff dogs
the same principle and notion of Government has obtained all along in Civiliz'd Nations Pindar as he is cited by Herodotus calls the Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 King over all Orpheus in his Hymns calls it the King both of Gods and Men. And he gives the reason why it is so Because says he 't is that that sits at the helm of all humane affairs Plato in his Book de Legibus calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that that ought to have the greatest sway in the Common-wealth In his Epistles he commends that Form of Government in which the Law is made Lord and Master and no scope given to any Man to tyrannize over the Laws Aristotle is of the same Opinion in his Politicks and so is Cicero in his Book De Legibus That the Laws ought to Govern the Magistrates as they do the people The Law therefore having always been accounted the highest Power on Earth by the judgment of the most Learned and wise men that ever were and by the Constitutions of the best ordered States and it being very certain that the Doctrine of the Gospel is neither contrary to reason nor the Law of Nations that man is truly and properly subject to the higher Powers that obeys the Law and the Magistrates so far as they govern according to Law So that St. Paul does not only command the people but Princes themselves to be in subjection who are not above the Laws but bound by them For there is no power but of God that is no form no lawful Constitution of any Government The most ancient Laws that are known to us were formerly ascribed to God as their Author For the Law says Cicero in his Philipp is no other than a rule of well grounded reason derived from God himself enjoyning whatever is just and right and forbidding the contrary So that the institution of Magistracy is Jure Divino and the end of it is that Mankind might live under certain Laws and be govern'd by them but what particular form of Government each Nation would live under and what Persons should be entrusted with the Magistracy without doubt was left to the choice of each Nation Hence St. Peter calls Kings and Deputies Humane Ordinances And Hâ—sea in the 8th Chapter of his Prophesy They have set up Kings but not by me they have made Princes and I knew it not For in the Commonwealth of the Hebrews where upon matters of great and weighty Importance they could have access to God himself and consult with him they could not chuse a King themselves by Law but were to refer the matter to him Other Nations have received no such Command Sometimes the very Form of Government if it be amiss or at lest those Persons that have the Power in their hands are not of God but of Men or of the Devil Luke 4. All this power will I give unto thee for it is delivered unto me and I give it to whom I will Hence the Devil is called the Prince of this World and in the 12th of the Revelations the Dragon gave to the Beast his Power and his Throne and great Authority So that we must not understand St. Paul as if he spoke of all sorts of Magistrates in general but of lawful Magistrates and so they are described in what follows We must also understand him of the Powers themselves not of those Men always in whose hands they are lodged St. Chrysostome speaks very well and clearly upon this occasion What says he is every Prince then appointed by God to be so I say no such thing says he St. Paul speaks not of the Person of the Magistrate but of the Magistracy it self He does not say there is no Prince but who is of God He says there is no Power but of God Thus far St. Chrysostome for what Powers are are ordained of God So that St. Paul speaks only of a lawful Magistracy For what is Evil and amiss cannot be said to be ordain'd because 't is disorderly order and disorder cannot consist together in the same Subject The Apostle says The Powers that be and you interpret his words as if he had said The Powers that now be that you may prove that the Romans ought in Conscience to obey Nero who you take for granted was then Emperor I 'm very well content you should read the words so and draw that Conclusion from them The Consequence will be that English Men ought to yield Obedience to the present Government as 't is now establisht according to a new Model because you must needs acknowledge that it is the present Government and ordain'd of God as much at least as Nero's was And lest you should object that Nero came to the Empire by a Lawful Succession it 's apparent from the Roman History that both he and Tiberius got into the Chair by the Tricks and Artifices of their Mothers and had no right at all to the Succession So that you are inconsistent with your self and retract from your own Principles in affirming that the Romans owed Subjection to the Government that then was and yet denying that Englishmen owe Subjection to the Government that now is But 't is no wonder to hear you contradict your self There are no two things in the World more directly opposite and contrary to one another than you are to your self But what will become of you poor Wretch You have quite â—â—done the young King with your Witicisms and ruin'd his Fortunes utterly for according to your own Doctrine you must needs confess that this present Government in England is ordain'd of God and that all Englishmen are bound in Conscience to submit to it â—ake notice all ye Criticks and Texâ—…ries Do not you presume to meddie with this Text. Thus Salmasius corrects that Passage in the Epistle to the Romans He has made a discovery that the Words ought not to be read The Powers that are but The Powers that now are And all this to prove that all Men owed Subjection and Obedience to Nero the Tyrant whom he supp sed to have been then Emperor This Epistle which you say was writ in Nero's time was writ in his Predecessor's time who was an honest well-meaning Man And this Learned Men evince by undeniable Arguments But besides the five first years of Nero's Reign were without Exception So that this thread-bare Argument which so many Men have at their Tongue 's end and have been deceived by to wit that Tyrants are to be obeyed because St. Paul injoyns a Subjection to Nero is evident to have been but a cunning Invention of some ignorant Parson He that resists the Powers to wit a lawful Power resists the Ordnance of God Kings themselves come under the Penalty of this Law when they resist the Senate and act contrary to the Laws But do they resist the Ordinance of God that resist an unlawful Power or a Person that goes about to overthrow and destroy a lawful one No Man living
in his right wits can maintain such an Assertion The words immediately after make it as clear as the Sun that the Apostle speaks only of a lawful Power for he gives us in them a Definition of Magistrates and thereby explains to us who are the Persons thus authoriz'd and upon what account we are to yield Obedience lest we should be apt to mistake and ground extravagant Notions upon his Discourse The Magistrates says he are not a Terror to good Works but to evil Wilt thou then not be afraid of the Power Do that which is good and thou shalt have praise of the same For he is the Minister of God to thee for good He beareth not the Sword in vain for he is the Minister of God a Revenger to execute Wrath upon him that doth Evil. What honest Man would not willingly submit to such a Magistracy as is here described And that not only to avoid Wâ—ath and for fear of Punishment but for Conscience sake Without Magistrates and some Form or other of Civil Government no Commonwealth no Humane Society can subsist there were no-living in the World But whatever Power enables a Man or whatsoever Magistrate takes upon him to act contrary to what St. Paul makes the Duty of those that are in Authority neither is that Power nor that Magistrate ordain'd of God And consequently to such a Magistracy no Subjection is commanded nor is any due nor are the People forbidden to resist such Authority for in so doing they do not resist the Power nor the Magistracy as they are here excellently well described but they resist a Robber a Tyrant an Enemy who if he may notwithstanding in some sense be called a Magistrate upon this account only because he has Power in his hands which perhaps God may have invested him with for our punishment by the same reason the Devil may be called a Magistrate This is most certain that there can be but one true Definition of one and the same thing So that if St. Paul in this place define what a Magistrate is which he certainly does and that accurately well He cannot possibly define a Tyrant the most contrary thing imaginable in the same words Hence I infer that he commands us to submit to such Magistrates only as he himself defines and describes and not to Tyrants which are quite other things For this Cause you pay Tribute also He gives a Reason together with a Command Hence St. Chrysostome Why do we pay Tribute to Princes says he Do we not thereby reward them for the care they take of our Safety We should not have paid them any Tribute if we had not been convinc'd That it was good for us to live under a Government So that I must here repeat what I have said already That since Subjection is not absolutely enjoined but upon a particular Reason that reason must be the rule of our Subjection where that reason holds we are Rebels if we submit not where it holds not we are Cowards and Slaves if we do But say you the English are far from being Freemen for they are wicked and flagitious I will not reckon up here the Vices of the French tho they live under a Kingly Government neither will I excuse my own Countrey-men too far but this I may safely say Whatever Vices they have they have learnt them under a Kingly Government as the Israelites learnt a great deal of Wickedness in Egypt And as they when they were brought into the Wilderness and lived under the immediate Government of God himself could hardly reform just so 't is with us But there are good hopes of many amongst us that I may not here celebrate those men amongst us that are eminent for their Piety and Virtue and Love of the Truth of which sort I persuade my self we have as great a number as where you think there are most such But they have laid a heavy yoke upon the English Nation What if they have upon those of them that endeavoured to lay a heavy yoke upon all the rest Upon those that have deserved to be put under the hatches As for the rest I question not but they are very well content to be at the Expence of maintaining their own Liberty the Publick Treasury being exhausted by the Civil Wars Now he betakes himself to the Fabulous Rabbins again He asserts frequently that Kings are bound by no Laws and yet he proves That a cording to the sense of the Rabbins a King may be guilty of Treason by suffering an Invasion upon the Rights of his Crown So Kings are bound by Laws and they are not bound by them they may be Criminals and yet they may not be so This man contradicts himself so perpetually that Contradiction and he seem to be of kiâ— to one another You say that God himself put many Kingdoms under the yoke of Nebuchadnezzâ—r King of Babylon I confess he did so for a time Jer 27. 7 but do you make appear if you can that he put the English Nation into a condition of Slavery to Charles Stuart for a minute I confess he suffered them to be enslaved by him for some time but I never yet heard that himself appointed it so to be Or if you will have it so that God shall be said to put a Nation under Slavery when a Tyrant prevails why may he not as well be said to deliver them from his Tyranny when the People prevail and get the upper hand Shall his Tyranny be said to be of God and not our Liberty There is no evil in the City that the Lord hath not done Amos 3. So that Famine Pestilence Sedition War all of them are of God and is it therefore unlawful for a People afflicted with any of these Plagues to endeavour to get rid of them Certainly they would do their utmost tho they know them to be sent by God unless himself miraculously from Heaven should command the contrary And why may they not by the same reason rid themselves of a Tyrant if they are stonger than he Why should we suppose his weakness to be appointed by God for the ruin and destruction of the Commonwealth rather than the Power and Strength of all the People for the good of the State 〈◊〉 be it from all Commonwealths from all Societies of free-born men to maintain not only such pernicious but such stupid and senseless Principles Principles that subvert all Civil Society that to gratitie a few Tyrants level all Mankind with Brutes and by setting Princes out of the reach of humane Laws give them an equal power over both I pass by those foolish Dilemma's that you now make which that you might take occasion to propose you feign some or other to assert that that superlative power of Princes is derived from the people though for my own part I do not at all doubt but that all the power that any Magistrates have is so Hence Cicero in his Orat. pro Flacco Our wise
and holy Ancestors says he appointed those things to obtain for Laws that the people Enacted And hence it is that Lucius Crassus an Excellent Roman Orator and at that time President of the Senate when in a Controversie betwixt them and the common people he asserted their rights I beseech you says he suffer not us to live in subjejection to any but your selves to the entire body of whom we can and ought to submit For though the Roman Senate Govern'd the people the people themselves had appointed them to be their Governours and had put that power into their hands We read the term of Majesty more frequently applied to the people of Rome than to their Kings Tully in Orat. pro Plancio It is the condition of all free people says he and especially of this people the Lord of all Nations by their Votes to give or take away to or from any as themselves see cause ' â—is the duty of the Magistrates patiently to submit to what the body of the people Enact Those that are not ambitious of Honour have the less obligation upon them to Court the people those that affect Preferment must not be weary of entreating them Should I scruple to call a King the servant of his people when I hear the Roman Senate that reign'd over so many Kings profess themselves to be but the peoples servants You 'l object perhaps and say that all this is very true in a popular State but the case was altered afterwards when the Regal Law transferred all the people's right into Augustus and his Successors But what think you then of Tiberius whom your self confess to have been a very great Tyrant as he certainly was Suetonius says of him that when he was once called Lord or Master though after the Enacting of that Lex Regia he desired the person that gave him that appellation to forbear abusing him How does this sound in your ears a Tyrant thinks one of his Subjects abuses him in calling him Lord. The same Emperour in one of his Speeches to the Senate I have said says he frequently heretofore and now I say it again that a good Prince whom you have invested with so great power as I am entrusted with ought to serve the Senate and the body of the people and sometimes even particular persons nor do I repent of having said so I confess that you have been good and just and indulgent Masters to me and that you are yet so You may say that he dissembled in all this as he was a great Proficient in the art of Hypocrisie but that 's all one No man endeavours to appear otherwise than he ought to be Hence Tâ—â—itus tells us that it was the custom in Rome for the Emperours in the Circus to worship the people and that both Nero and other Emperours practised it Claudian in his Panegyrick upon Honorius mentions the same custom By which sort of Adoration what could possibly be meant but that the Emperours of Rome even after the Enacting of the Lex Râ—gia confessed the whole body of the people to be their Superiors But I find as I suspected at first and so I told ye that you have spent more time and pains in turning over Glossaries and Criticising upon Texts and propagating such like Laborious trifles than in reading sound Authors so as to improve your knowledg by them For had you been never so little versed in the Writings of Learned men in former ages you would not have accounted an opinion new and the product of some Enthusiastick heads which has been asserted and maintained by the greatest Philosophers and most famous Politicians in the world You endeavour to expose one Martin who you tell us was a Taylor and one William a Tanner but if they are such as you describe them I think they and you may very well go together though they themselves would be able to instruct you and unfold those mysterious Riddles that you propose as Whether or no they that in a Monarchy would have the King but a servant to the Common-wealth will say the same thing of the whole body of the people in a popular State And whether all the people serve in a Democracy or only some part or other serve the rest And when they have been an Oedipus to you by my consent you shall be a Sphinx to them in good earnest and throw your self headlong from some precipâ—ce or other and break your neck for else I 'm afraid you 'l never have done with your Riddles and Fooleries You ask Whether or no when St. Paul names Kings he meant the people I confess St. Paul commands us to pray for Kings but he had commanded us to pray for the people before vers 1. But there are some for all that both among Kings and common people that we are forbidden to pray for and if a man must not so much as be prayed for may he not be punished What should hinder But when Paul wrote this Epistle he that reigned was the most profligate person in the world That 's false For Lodovicus Capellus makes it evident that this Epistle likewise was writ in Claudius his time When St. Paul has occasion to speak of Nero he calls him not a King but a Lion that is a wild savage beast from whose Jaws he is glad he was delivered 2 Tim. 4. So that it is for Kings not for beasts that we are to pray that under them we may live a quiet and a peaceable life in all godliness and honesty Kings and their Interest are not the things here intended to be advanced and secured 't is the publick peace Godliness and honesty whose establishment we are commanded to endeavour after and to pray for But is there any people in the world that would not chuse rather to live an honest and a careful life though never free from War and troubles in the defence of themselves and their Families whether against Tyrants or Enemies for I make no difference than under the power of a Tyrant or an enemy to spin out a life equally troublesome accompanied with Slavery and Ignominy that the latter is the more desirable of the two I 'le prove by a Testimony of your own not because I think your authority worth quoting but that all men may observe how double-tongu'd you are and how Mercenary your Pen is Who would not rather say you bear with those dissentions that through the emulation of great men often happen in an Aristocratical Government than live under the Tyrannical Government of one where nothing but certain misery and ruin is to be look'd for The people of Rome prefer'd their Commonwealth though never so much shatter'd with Civil broils before the intollerable yoke of their Emperours When a people to avoid sedition submits to a Monarchy and finds by experience that that is the worse evil of the two they often desire to return to their former Government again These are your own words and more you have
people had wash'd off that anointing of his whether Sacred or Civil with the Blood of his own Subjects I confess that those Kings whom God by his Prophets anointed to be Kings or appointed to some special service as he did Cyrus Isa 44. may not improperly be called the Lord 's Anointed but all other Princes according to the several ways of their coming to the Government are the People 's Anointed or the Army's or many times the Anointed of their own Faction only But taking it for granted That all Kings are God's Anointed you can never prove That therefore they are above all Laws and not to be called in question what Villanies soever they commit What if David laid a charge upon himself and other private persons not to stretch forth their hands against the Lord 's Anointed Does not God himself command Princes not so much as to touch his anointed Which were no other than his people Psal 105. He preferred that Anointing wherewith his People were Anointed before that of Kings if any such thing were Would any man offer to infer from this place of the Psalmist That Believers are not to be called in question tho they offend against the Laws because God commands Princes not to touch his Anointed King Solomon was about to put to death Abiathar the Priest tho he were God's Anointed too and did not spare him because of his Anointing but because he had been his Father's Friend If that Sacred and Civil Anointing wherewith the High-Priest of the Jews was anointed whereby he was not only constituted High-Priest but a Temporal Magistrate in many cases did not exempt him from the Penalty of the Laws how comes a Civil Anointing only to exempt a Tyrant But you say Saul was a Tyrant and worthy of death What then It does not follow that because he deserved it that David in the circumstances he was then under had power to put him to death without the People's Authority or the command of the Magistracy But was Saul a Tyrant I wish you would say so indeed you do so though you had said before in your Second Book page 32. That he was no Tyrant but a good King and chosen of God Why should false Accusers and Men guilty of Forgery be branded and you escape without the like ignominious Mark For they practice their Villanies with less Treachery and Deceit than you write and Treat of matters of the greatest moment Saul was a good King when it serv'd your turn to have him so and now he 's a Tyrant because it suits with your present purpose But 't is no wonder that you make a Tyrant of a good King for your Principles look as if they were invented for no other design than to make all good Kings so But yet David tho he would not put to Death his Father-in-Law for Causes and Reasons that we have nothing to do withal yet in his own Defence he raised an Army took and possessed Cities that belong'd to Saul and would have defended Kâ—ilah against the King's Forces had he not understood that the Citizens would be false to him Suppose Saul had besieged the Town and himself had been the first that had scal'd the Walls do you think David would presently have thrown down his Arms and have betray'd all those that assisted him to his anointed Enemy I believe not What reason have we to think David would have stuck to do what we have done who when his Occasions and Circumstances so required proffered his Assistance to the Philistines who were then the professed Enemies of his Country and did that against Saul which I am sure we should never have done against our Tyrant I 'm weary of mentioning your Lies and asham'd of them You say t is a Maxim of the English That Enemies are rather to be spared than Friends and that therefore we conceived we ought not to spare our King's Life because he had been our Friend You impudent Lyar what Mortal ever heard this Whimsy before you invented it But we 'll excuse it You could not bring in that thread-bare Flourish of our being more fierce than our own Mastiffs which now comes in the fifth time and will as oft again before we come to the end of your Book without some such Introduction We are not so much more fierce than our own Mastiffs as you are more hungry than any Dog whasoever who return so greedily to what you have vomitted up so often Then you tell us That David commanded the Amalekite to be put to Death who pretended to haveÌ„ killed Saul But that Instance neither in respect of the Fact nor the Person has any Affinity with what we are discoursing of I do not well understand what cause David had to be so severe up-upon that Man for pretending to have hastned the King's Death and in effect but to have put him out of his pain when he was dying unless it were to take away from the Israelites all Suspicion of his own having been instrumental in it whom they might look upon as one that had revolted to the Philistines and was part of their Army Just such another Action as this of David's do all Men blame in Domitian who put to Death Epaphroditus because he had helped Nero to kill himself After all this as another instance of your Impudence you call him not only the anointed of the Lord but the Lord 's Christ who a little before you had said was a Tyrant and acted by the impulse of some Evil Spirit Such mean thoughts you have of that Reverend Name that you are not asham'd to give it to a Tyrant whom you your self confess to have been possessed with the Devil Now I come to that President from which every Man that is not blind must needs infer the Right of the People to be Superior to that of Kings When Solomon was dead the People Assembled themselves at Sichem to make Rehoboam King Thither himself went as one that stood for the place that he might not seem to claim the Succession as his Inheritance the same Right over a freeborn People that every Man has over his Fathers Sheep and Oxen. The People propose Conditions upon which they were willing to admit him to the Government He desires three days time to advise he consults with the old Men they tell him no such thing as that he had an absolute Right to succeed but persuade him to comply with the People and speak them fair it being in their Power whether he should Reign or not Then he adviseth with the young Men that were brought up-with him they as if Salmasius's Phrensy had taken them thunder this Right of Kings into his Ears persuade him to threaten the People with Whips and Scorpions And he answered the People as they advised him When all Israel saw that the King hearkned not to them then they openly protest the Right of the People and their own Liberty What portion have we in David To thy
forsaken God And we do not find that Azarias his Son prosecuted those that had cut off his Father You quote a great many frivolous passages out of the Rabbins to prove that the Kings of the Jews were Superior to the Sanhedrim You do not consider Zedekia's own words Jerem. 38. The King is not he that can do any thing against you So that this was the Princes own stile Thus he confessed himself Inferior to the great Council of the Realm Perhaps say you he meant that he durst not deny them any thing for fear of Sedition But what does your perhaps signify whose most positive asserting any thing is not worth a Louse For nothing in Nature can be more Fickle and Inconstant than you are How oft have you appear'd in this Discourse inconsistent with your self unsaying with one Breath what you had said with another Here again you make Comparisons betwixt King Charles and some of the good Kings of Judah You speak contemptibly of David as if he were not worthy to come in Competition with him Consider David say you an Adulterer a Murderer King Charles was guilty of no such Crimes Solomon his Son who was accounted wise c. Who can with Patience hear this filthy rascally Fool speak so irreverently of Persons eminent both in Greatness and Piety Dare you compare King David with King Charles a most Religious King and Prophet with a Superstitious Prince and who was but a Novice in the Christian Religion a most prudent wise Prince with a weak one a Valiant Prince with a Cowardly one finally a most just Prince with a most unjust one Have you the impudence to commend his Chastity and Sobriety who is known to have committed all manner of Leudness in company with his Confident the Duke of Buckingham It were to no purpose to enquire into the private Actions of his Life who publickly at Plays would Embrace and Kiss the Ladies lasciviously and handle Virgins and Matrons Breasts not to mention the rest I advise you therefore you Counterfeit Plutarch to abstain from such like Parallels lest I be forced to publish those things concerning King Charles which I am willing to conceal Hitherto we have entertain'd our selves with what the People of the Jews have acted or attempted against Tyrants and by what Right they did it in those times when God himself did immediately as it were by his Voice from Heaven govern their Commonwealth The Ages that succeeded do not afford us any Authority as from themselves but confirm us in our Opinion by their imitating the Actions of their Fore-fathers For after the Babylonish Captivity when God did not give any new command concerning the Crown tho the Royal Line was not extinct we find the People returning to the old Mosaical Form of Government again They were one while Tributaries to Antiochus King of Syria yet when he injoyn'd them things that were contrary to the Law of God they resisted him and his Deputies under the Conduct of their Priests the Maccabees and by force regain'd their former Liberty After that whoever was accounted most worthy of it had the Principality conferr'd upon him Till at last Hircanus the Son of Simon the Brother of Judah the Maccabee having spoiled David's Sepulchre entertain'd foreign Soldiers and began to Invest the Priesthood with a kind of Regal Power After whose time his Son Aristobulus was the first that assum'd the Crown he was a Tyrant indeed and yet the People stirred not against him which is no great Wonder for he reigned but one year And he himself being overtaken with a grievous Disease and repenting of his own Cruelty and Wickedness desired nothing more than to dye and had his wish His Brother Alexander succeeded him and against him you say the People raised no Insurrection tho he were a Tyrant too And this lie might have gone down with us if Josepbus's History had not been extant We should then have had no memory of those times but what your Josippus would afford us out of whom you transcribe a few senseless and useless Apothegms of the Pharisees The History is thus Alexander Administred the Publick Affairs ill both in War and Peace and tho he kept in pay great numbers of Pisidians and Cilicians yet could he not protect himself from the Rage of the People but whilest he was Sacrificing they fell upon him and had almost smother'd him with Boughs of Palm-trees and Citron-trees afterward the whole Nation made War upon him six years during which time when many thousands of the Jews had been slain and he himself being at length desirous of Peace demanded of them what they would have him do to satisfy them they told him nothing could do that but his Blood nay that they should hardly pardon him after his Death This History you perâ—… was not for your purpose and so you put it 〈◊〉 with a few â—harisaical Sentences when it had been much better either to have let it quite alone 〈◊〉 to have given a true Relation of it but you trust to â—ies more than to the Truth of your Cause Even 〈◊〉 eight hundred Pharisees whom he commanded to be crucisied were of their number that had taken up Arms against him And they with the rest of the People had solemnly protested That if they could subdue the Kings Forces and get his Person into their Power they would put him to Death After the Death of Alexander his Wife Alexandra took the Government upon her as Athalia had formerly done not according to Law for you have confessed that the Laws of the Jews admitted not a Female to wear the Crown but she got it partly by force for she maintain'd an Army of Foreigners and partly by favour for she had brought over the Pharisees to her Interest which sort of Men were of the greaten Authority with the People Them she had made her own by putting the Power into their hands and retaining to her self only the Name 〈◊〉 as the Scotch Presbyterians lately allowed Chaâ—… the Name of King but upon Condition that 〈◊〉 would let them be King in effect After the 〈◊〉 of Alexandra Hyrcanus and Aristobulus her Sons contended for the Sovereignty Aristobulus was 〈◊〉 industrious and having a greater Party forced his Elder Brother out of the Kingdom A while after when Pompey passed through Syria in his return from the Mithridatick War the Jews supposing they had now an opportunity of regaining their Liberty by referring their Cause to him dispatcht an Embassy to him in their own Names they renounce both the Brothers complain that they had enslaved them Pompey deposed Aristobulus leaves the Priesthood and such a Principality as the Laws allowed to Hyrcanus the Elder From that time forward he was called High Priest and Ethnarcha After these times in the Reign of Archelaus the Son of Herod the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fifty Ambassadors to Augustus Caesar accused 〈◊〉 that was dead and Archelaus his Son that then Reigned they deposed him as
much as in them lay and petition'd the Emperor that the People of the Jews might be govern'd without a King Caesar was moved at their entreaty and did not appoint a King over them but a Governour whom they called an Ethnarch When that Governor had presided ten years over Judea the People sent Ambassadors again to Rome and accused him of Tyranny Caesar heard them graciously sent for the Governour condemn'd him to perpetual Exile and banished him to Vienna Answer me now That People that accused their own Princes that desir'd their Condemnation that desir'd their Punishment would not they themselves rather if it had been in their Power and that they might have had their choice would not they I say rather have put them to Death themselves You do not deny but that the People and the Nobles often took up Arms against the Roman Deputies when by their Avarice or their Cruelty their Government was burdensome and oppressive But you give a ridiculous reason for this as all the rest of yours are You say They were not yet accustomed to the Yoak very like they were not under Alexander Herod and his Son But say you they would not raise War against Caius Caesar nor Petronius I confess they did not and they did very prudently in abstaining for they were not able Will you hear their own words upon that occasion We will not make War say they because we cannot That thing which they themselves acknowledge they refrain'd from for want of Ability you false Hypocrite pretend they abstain'd from out of Religion Then with a great deal of toil you do just nothing at all for you endeavour to prove out of the Fathers tho you had done it as superficially before that Kings are to be prayed for That good Kings are to be pray'd for no Man denies nay and bad ones too as long as there are any hopes of them so we ought to pray for Highway-men and for our Enemies But how Not that they may Plunder Spoil and Murder us but that they may repent We pray both for Thieves and Enemies and yet whoever dreamt but that it was lawful to put the Laws in execution against one and to fight against the other I value not the Egyptian Liturgy that you quote but the Priest that you mention who prayed that Commodus might succeed his Father in the Empire did not pray for any thing in my opinion but Imprecated all the mischiefs imaginable to the Roman State You say that we have broken our faith which we engaged more than once in solemn Assemblies to preserve the Authority and Majesty of the King But because hereafter you are more large upon that subject I shall pass it by in this place and talk with you when you come to it again You return then to the Fathers concerning whom take this in short Whatever they say which is not warranted by the Authority of the Scriptures or by good reason shall be of no more regard with me than if any other ordinary man had said it The first that you quote is Tertullian who is no Orthodox Writer notorious for many errors whose authority if he were of your opinion would stand you in no stead But what says he he condemns Tumults and Rebellions So do we But in saying so we do not mean to destroy all the peoples Rights and Priviledges all the Authority of Senates the Power of all Magistrates the King only excepted The Fathers declaâ—m against Seditions rashly raised by the giddy heat of the multitude they speak not of the inferior Magistrates of Senates of Parliaments encouraging the people to a lawful opposing of a Tyrant Hence Ambrose whom you quote Not to resist says he but to weep and to â—igh these are the Bulwarks of the Priesthood what one is there of our little number who dares say to the Emperor I do not like your Laws This is not allowed the Priests and shall Lay-men pretend to it 'T is evident of what sort of persons he speaks viz. of the Priests and such of the people as are private men 〈◊〉 of the Magistrates You see by how weak and pre 〈◊〉 a reason he lighted a Torch as it were to the distentions that were afterwards to arise betwixt the Lâ—ity and the Clergy concerning even Civil i.e. Temporal Laws But because you think you press hardest upon us with the Examples of the Primitive Christians who though they were harassed as much as a people could be yet you say they never took up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Emperour I will make it appear in the first place that for the most part they could 〈◊〉 â—…ondly that whenever they could they did And thirdly that whether they did or did not they 〈◊〉 such a sort of people as that their example deâ—… 〈◊〉 to have little sway with us First therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 can be ignorant of this that when the Com 〈◊〉 of Rome expired the whole and Soverignâ— power in the Empire was setled in the Empe 〈◊〉 that all the Soldier were under his Pay in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if the whole Body of the Senate the E 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and all the common people had endea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a change they might have made way for a 〈◊〉 of themselves but could not in any 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then lost Liberty for the Empire would 〈◊〉 have 〈◊〉 though they might per 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so lucky as to have kill'd the Emperour This being 〈◊〉 what could the Christians do 't is true there were a great many of them but they were dispersed they were generally persons of mean quality and but of small interest in the world How many of them would one Legion have been able to keep in awe Could so inconsiderable a body of men as they were in those days ever expect to accomplish an Enterprize that many famous Generals and whole Armies of tried Soldiers had lost their lives in attempting when about three hundred years after our Saviour's Nativity which was near upon twenty years before the Reign of Constantine the Great when Diâ—clesian was Emperour there was but one Christian Legion in the whole Roman Empire which Legion for no other reason than because it consisted of Christians was slain by the â—est of the Army at a Town in France called Octodurum The Christians say you conspir'd not with Cassius with Albinus with Niger and does Tertullian think they merited by not being willing to lose their lives in the quarrels of Inndels 'T is evident therefore that the Christians could not free themselves from the yoke of the Roman Emperours and it could be no ways advantagious to their interest to conspire with Infidels as long as Heathen Emperors reign'd But that afterwards the Christians made War upon Tyrants and defended themselves by force of Arms when there was occasion and many times revenged upon Tyrants their Enormities I am now about to make appear In the first place Constantite being a Christian made War upon Lacinius and cut him oâ—â— who was his
slaughters were made on both sides You may remember Damasus and Vrsicinus who were Contemporaries with Ambrose It would be too long to relate the Tumultuary Insurrections of the Inhabitants of Constantinople Antiach and Alexandria especially those under the Conduct and Management of Cyrillus whom you extol as a Preacher up of Obedience when the Monks in that fight within the City had almost slain Orestes Theodosius's Deputy Now who can sufficiently wonder at your Impudence or Carelessness and Neglect Till St. Austin's time say you and lower down than the age that he lived in there is not any mention extant in History of any private person of any Commander or of any number of Conspirators that have put their Prince to death or taken up Arms against him I have named to you out of known and approved Histories both private persons and Magistrates that with their own hands have slain not only bad but very good Princes Whole Armies of Christians many Bishops amongst them that have fought against their own Emperors You produce some of the Fathers that with a great flourish of words persuade or boast of Obedience to Princes And I on the other side produce both those same Fathers and others besides them that by their actions have declined Obedience to their Princes even in lawful things have defended themselves with a Military Force against them others that have opposed forcibly and wounded their Deputies others that being Competitors for Bishopricks have maintained Civil Wars against one another As if it were lawful for Christians to wage War with Christians for a Bishoprick and Citizens with Citizens but unlawful to fight against a Tyrant in defence of our Liberty of our Wives and Children and of our Lives themselves Who would own such Fathers as these You produce St. Austin who you say asserts that the Power of a Master over his Servants and a Prince over his Subjects is one and the same thing But I answer If St. Austin assert any such thing he asserts what neither our Saviour nor any of his Apostles ever asserted tho for the confirmation of that assertion than which nothing can be more false he pretends to rely wholly upon their Authority The three or four last Pages of this Fourth Chapter are stuffed with meer Lies or things carelessly and loosely put together that are little to the purpose And that every one that reads them will discover by what has been said already For what concerns the Pope against whom you declaim so loudly I am content you should bawl at him till you are hoarse But whereas you endeavour to persuade the ignorant That all that called themselves Christians yielded an entire obedience to Princes whether good or bad till the Papal Power grew to that height that it was acknowledged superior to that of the Civil Magistrate and till he took upon him to absolve Subjects from their Allegiance I have sufficiently proved by many Examples before and since the age that St. Augustin lived in that nothing can be more false Neither does that seem to have much more truth in it which you say in the last place viz. That Pope Zachary absolved the French-men from their Oath of Allegiance to their King For Francis Hottoman who was both a French-man and a Lawyer and a very Learned man in the 13th Chapter of his Francogallia denies that either Chilperic was deposed or the Kingdom translated to Pepin by the Pope's Authority and he proves out of very Ancient Chronicles of that Nation That the whole affair was transacted in the great Council of the Kingdom according to the Original Censtitution of that Government Which being once done the French Histories and Pope Zachary himself deny that there was any necessity of absolving his Subjects from their Allegiance For not only Hottoman but Guicciard a very eminent Historian of that Nation informs us That the Ancient Records of the Kingdom of France testifie That the Subjects of that Nation upon the first institution of Kingship amongst them reserved a power to themselves both of Chusing their Princes and of Deposing them again if they thought fit And that the Oath of Allegiance which they took was upon this express condition to wit That the King should likewise perform what at his Coronation he swore to do So that if Kings by mis-governing the people committed to their charge first broke their own Oath to their Subjects there needs no Pope to dispense with the people's Oaths the Kings themselves by their own perfidiousness having absolved their Subjects And finally Pope Zachary himself in a Letter of his to the French which you your self quote renounces and ascribes to the people that Authority which you say he assumes to himself For if a Prince be accountable to the People being beholden to them for his Royalty if the people since they make Kings have the same Right to depose them as the very words of that Pope are it is not likely that the French men would by any Oath depart in the least from that Ancient Right or ever tye up their own hands so as not to have the same Right that their Ancestors always had to depose bad Princes as well as to honour and obey good ones nor is it likely that they thought themselves obliged to yield that Obedience to Tyrants which they swore to yield only to good Princes A people obliged to Obedience by such an Oath is discharged of that obligation when a Lawful Prince becomes a Tyrant or gives himself over to Sloth and Veluptuousness the rule of Justice the very Law of Nature dispenseth with such a people's Allegiance So that even by the Pope's own opinion the people were under no obligation to yield Obedience to Chilperic and consequently had no need of a Dispensation CHAP. V. THO I am of opinion Salmasius and always was That the Law of God does exactly agree with the Law of Nature so that having shown what the Law of God is with respect to Princes and what the practice has been of the people of God both Jews and Christians I have at the same time and by the same Discourse made to appear what is most agreeable to the Law of Nature yet because you pretend to confute us most powerfully by the Law of Nature I will be content to admit that to be necessary which before I had thought would be superfluous that in this Chapter I may demonstrate That nothing is more suitable to the Law of Nature than that Punishment be inflicted upon Tyrants Which if I do not evince I will then agree with you that likewise by the Law of God they are exempt I do not purpose to frame a long Discourse of Nature in general and the original of Civil Societies that Argument has been largely handled by many Learned men both Greek and Latin but I shall endeavour to be as short as may be and my design is not so much to confute you my self who would willingly have spared this
misfortune could befall Soveraign Princes than to have such an Advocate as you are Poor unhappy wretch what blindness of mind has seiz'd you that you should unwittingly take so much pains to discover your Knavery and folly and make it visible to the world which before you conceal'd in some measure and disguis'd that you should be so industrious to heap disgrace and ignominy upon your self What offence does Heaven punish you for in making you appear in publick and undertake the defence of a desperate Cause with so much impudence and childishness and instead of defending it to betray it by your ignorance What enemy of yours would desire to see you in a more forlorn despicable condition than you are who have no refuge left from the depth of misery but in your own imprudence and want of sense since by your unskilful and silly defence you have rendred Tyrants the more odious and detestable by ascribing to them an unbounded liberty of doing mischief with Impunity and consequently have created them more enemies than they had before But I return to your Contradictions When you had resolved with your self to be so wicked as to endeavour to find out a foundation for Tyranny in the Law of Nature you saw a necessity of extolling a Monarchy above other sorts of Government which you cannot go about to do without doing as you use to do that is contradicting your self For having said but a little before That all forms of Government whether by more or fewer or by a single person are equally according to the Law of Nature now you tell us that of all thâ—se sorts of Government That of a single person is most natural Nay though you had said in express terms but lately That the Law of Nature does not allow that any Government should reside entirely in one man Now upbraid whom you will with the putting of Tyrants to death since you your self by your own folly have â—ut the Throats of all Monarchs nay even of Monarchy it self But it is not to the purpose for us here to dispute which form of Government is best by one single person or by many I confess many eminent and famous men have extolled a Monarchy but it has always been upon this supposition that the Prince were a very excellent person and one that of all others deserved best to reign without which Supposition no form of Government can be so prone to Tyranny as Monarchy is And whereas you resemble a Monarchy to the Government of the World by one Divine Being I pray answer me Whether you think that any other can deserve to be invested with a power here on earth that shall resemble his power that Governs the World than such a person as doth infinitely excel all other men and both for Wisdom and Goodness in some measure resemble the Deity and such a person in my opinion none can be but the Son of God himself And whereas you make a Kingdom to be a kind of a Family and make a comparison betwixt a Prince and a Master of a Family observe how lame the Parallel is For a Master of a Family begot part of his Houshold at least he feeds all those that are of his house and upon that account deserves to have the Government but the reason holds not in the case of a Prince nay 't is quite contrary In the next place you propose to us for our imitation the example of inferiour Creatures especially of Birds and amongst them of Bees which according to your skill in Natural Philosophy are a sort of Birds too The Bees have a King over them The Bees of Trent you mean do'nt you remember all other Bees you your self confess to be â—…wealths But leave off playing the fool with Bees they 〈◊〉 to the Muses and hate and you see confute â—…etle as you are The Quails are under a Captain Lay 〈◊〉 snares for your own Bitterns you are not Fowler good enough to catch us Now you begin to be personally concerned Galius Gallinaceus a Cock say you has both Cocks and Hens under him How can that be since you your self that are Gallus and but too much Gallinaceus by report cannot Govern your own single Hen but let her Govern you So that if a Gallinaceus Bee a King over many Hens you that are a slave to one must own your self not to be so good as a Gallinaceus but some Sterâ—orarius Gallus Dunghill-Cock or other For matter of Books there is no body publishes huger Dunghills than you and you disturb all people with your shitten Cock-crow that 's the only property in which you resemble a true Cock I 'le throw you a great many Barley-corns if in ransacking this Dunghill Book of yours you can show me but one Jewel but why should I promise you Barley that never pâ—â—kt at corn as that honest plain Cock that we read of in Aesop but at Gold as that Roguey Cock in Plautus though with a different event for you found a hundred Jacobusses and he was struck dead with Euclio's Club which you deserve more than he did But let us go on That same natural reason that designs the good and safely of all mankind requires that whoever is once promoted to the Sâ—…ignty be preserved in the possession of it Whoever question'd this as long as his preservation is consistent with the safety of all the rest But is it not obvious to all men that nothing can be more contrary to natural reason than that any one man should be preserved and defended to the utter ruin and destruction of all others But yet you say it is better to keep and defend a bad Prince nay one of the worst that ever was than to change him for another because his ill Government cannot do the Commonwealth so much harm as the disturbances will occasion which must of necessity be raised before the people can get rid of him But what is this to the right of Kings by the Law of Nature If nature teacheth me rather to suffer my self to be robbed by High-way men rather if I should be taken captive by such to purchase my Liberty with all my Estate than to fight with them for my life can you infer from thâ—… that they have a natural right to rob and spoil me Nature teacheth men to give way sometimes to the violence and outrages of Tyrants the necessity of affairs sometimes enforceth a Toleration with their enormities what foundation can you find in this forced patience of a Nation in this compulsory submission to build a right upon for Princes to Tyrannize by the Law of Nature that right which Nature has given the people for their own preservation can you affirm that she has invested Tyrants with for the people's ruin and destruction Nature teacheth us of two evils to chuse the least and to bear with oppression as long as there is a necessity of so doing and will you infer from hence that Tyrants have some right by
words for you were conscious to your self that you imposed upon your Readers in quoting them which I presently smelt out tho I could not find the place of a sudden For that Expression is not Tacitus's own who is an approved Writer and of all others the 〈◊〉 Enemy to Tyrants but Tacitus relates that â—…us a Gentleman of Rome being accused for a Capital Crime amongst other things that he said to save his life flattered Tiberius on this manner it is in the Sixth Book of his Annals The Gods have entrusted you with the ultimate Judgment in all things they have left us the honour of obedience And you cite this passage as if Tacitus had said it himself you 〈◊〉 together whatever seems to make for your Opinion either out of oftentation or out of weakness you would leave out nothing that you could find in a Baker's or a Barber's Shop â—ay you would be glad of any thing that looked like an Argument from the Hang-man himself If you would have read Tacitus himself and not have transcribed some loose Quotations out of him by other Authors he would have taught you whence that Imperial Right had its Original After the Conquest of Asia says he the whole state of our Affairs was turned upside down nothing of the ancient integrity of our Forefathers was left amongst us all men shook off that former equality which had been observed and began to have a reverence for the Mandates of Princes This you might have learned out of the Third Book of his Annals whence you have all your Regal Right When that ancient equality was laid aside and instead thereof Ambition and Violence took place Tyrannical Forms of Government started up and fixed themselves in many Countries This same thing you might have learned out of Dio if your natural Levity and Unsetledness of Judgment would have suffered you to apprehend any thing that 's solid He tells us in his Fifty third Book of his History out of which book you have made some quotation already That Octavius Caesar partly by Force and partly by Fraud brought things to that pass that the Emperors of Rome became no longer fettered by Laws For he tho he promised to the people in publick that he would lay down the Government and obey the Laws and become subject to others yet under pretence of making War in several Provinces of the Empire still retained the Legions and so by degrees invaded the Government which he pretended he would forgo This was not regularly getting from under the Law but breaking forcibly through all Laws as Spartacus the Gladiator might have done and then assuming to himself the style of Prince or Emperor as if God or the Law of Nature had put all men and all Laws into subjection under him Would yoâ— enquire a little further into the Original of the Right of the Roman Emperors Mircus Antonius whom Caesar when by taking up Arms against the Commonwealth he had got all the Power into his hands had made Consul when a Solemnity called the Luperelia was celebrated at Rome as had been contrived before-hand that he should set a Crown upon Caesar's head though the people sighed and lamented at the sight and caused it to be entred upon record That Mirous Antonius at the Lupercalia made Caesar King at the Instance of the people Of which action Cicero in his second Philippick Was Lucius Tarquinius therefore expelled says he Spurius Cassius Sp. Milius and Marcus Manilius put to death that after many ages Marcus Antonius should make a King in Rome contrary to Law But you deserve to be tortured and loaded with everlasting disgrace much more than Mark Antony tho I would not have you proud because he and your self are put together for I do not think so despicable a Wretch as you fit to be compared with him in any thing but Impiety you that in those horrible Lupercalia of yours set not a Crown upon one Tyrant's head but upon all and such a Crown as you would have limited by no Laws nor liable to any Indeed if we must believe the Oracles of the Emperors themselves for so some Christian Emperors as Theodosius and Valens have called their Edicts â—od lib. 1. tit 14. the Authority of the Emperors depends upon that of the Law So that the Majesty of the Person that reigns even by the Judgment or call it the Oracle of the Emperors themselves must submit to the Laws on whose Authority it depends Hence Pliny tells Trajan in his Panegyrick when the Power of the Emperors was grown to its height A Principality and an Absolute Sovereignty are quite different things Trajan puts down whatever looks like a Ringdom he rules like a Prince that there may be no room for a Magisterial Power And afterwards Whatever I have said of other Princes I said that I might show how our Prince reforms and corrects the Manners of Princes which by long custom have been corrupted and depraved Are not you ashamed to call that the Right of Kings that Pliny calls the corrupt and depraved Customs of Princes But let this suffice to have been said in short of the Right of Kings as it was taken at Rome How they dealt with their Tyrants whether Kings or Emperors is generally known They expelled Tarquin But say you How did they expel him Did they proceed against him judicially No such matter When he would have come into the City they shut the gates against him Ridiculous Fool What could they do but shut the gates when he was hastning to them with part of the Army And what great difference will there be whether they banished him or put him to death so they punished him one way or other The best men of that age kill'd Caesar the Tyrant in the very Senate Which action of theirs Marcus Tullius who was himself a very excellent man and publickly call'd the Father of his Countrey both elsewhere and particularly in his second Philippick extols wonderfully I 'll repeat some of his words All good Men kill'd Caesar as far as in them lay Some Men could not advise in it others wanted Courage to act in it others wanted an Opportunity all had a good will to it And afterwards What greater and more glorious Action ye holy gods ever was performed not in this City only but in any other Country what Action more worthy to be recommended to everlasting memory I am not unwilling to be included within the number of those that advised it as within the Trojan Horse The passage of Seneca may relate both to the Romans and the Grecians There cannot be a greater nor more acceptable Sacrifice offered up to Jupiter than a wicked Prince For if you consider Hercules whose words these are They shew what the Opinion was of the principal Men amongst the Grecians in that Age If the Poet who flourished under Nero and the most worthy Persons in Plays generally express the Poet 's own Sense then this passage shows us
his own Court What you mean by the Members of the Court I would gladly know You enumerate the Calamities that the Romans underwent by changing their Kingdom into a Commowealth In which I have already shown how grosly you give your self the lye What was it you said when you wrote against the Jesuit You demonstrated That in an Aristocracy or a popular State there câ—uld but he Seditiâ—â—s and Tumults whereas under a Tyrant nothing was to be lâ—ked for but certain Ruin and Destruction And dare you now say you vain corrupt Mortal That thâ—se Seditions were Punishments inflicted upon them fâ—r Banâ—shing their Kings to wit because King Charles gave you a hundred Jacobussâ—s afterward Therefore the Romans shall be punished for Banishing their Kings But they that kill'd Julius Caesar did not prosper afterwards I confess if I would have had any Tyrant spared it should have been him For altho he introduced a Monarchical Government into a 〈◊〉 State by force of Arms yet perhaps himself deserved a Kingdom best and yet I conceive that none of those that killed him can be said to have been punished for so doing any more than Caius Anthonius 〈…〉 's Colleague for destroying Cataline who when he was afterward condemn'd for other Crimes says Cicero in his Oration Pro Flacco Cataline's Sepulchâ—… was adâ—rn'd with Flowers For they that fa voured Cataline then rejoyced They gave out then that what Cataline did was just to encrease the Peoples hatred against those that had cut him off These are Artifices which wicked Men make use of to deter the best of Men from punishing Tyrants and slagitious Persons I might as easily say the quite contrary and instance in them that have killed Tyrants and prospered afterwards if any certain inference might be drawn in such â—…ases from the Events of things You object further That the English did not put their Hereditary King to Death in like manner as Tyrants use to be slain but as Robbers and Traytors are executed In the first place I do not nor can any wise Man understand what a Crowns being Hereditary should contribute to a King's Crimes being unpunishable What you ascribe to the Barbarous Cruelty of the English proceeded rather for their Clemency and Moderation and as such deserves Commendation who tho the beinâ— a Tyrant is a Crime that comprehends all sorts of Enormities such as Robberies Treasons and Rebellions against the whole Nation yet were contented to inflict no greater punishment upon him for being so than they used of course to do upon any Common Highway-man or ordinary Traytor You hope some such Men as Harmodius and Thrasibulus will rise up amongst us and make Expiation for the King's Death by shedding thâ—ir Blood that were the Authors of it But you will run â—…d with despair and be detested by all good Men and put an end to that wretched Life of yours by hâ—nging your self before you see Men like Hâ—…dius avenging the Blood of a Tyrant upon such 〈◊〉 hâ—ve done no other than what they did themselves That you will come to such an end is most proâ—â—ble nor can any other be expected of so great a Rogue but the other thing is an utter impossibility You mention thirty Tyrants that rebelled in Callienus's time And what if it fall out that one Tyrant happens to oppose another must therefore all they that resist Tyrants be accounted such themselves You cannot persuade Men into such a belief you Slave of a Knight nor your Author Trebellius Pollio the most inconsiderable of all Historians that have writ If any of the Emperors were declared Enemies by the Senate you say it was done by Faction but could not have been by Law You put us in mind what it was that made Emperours at first It was Faction and Violence and to speak plainer it was the Madness of Anthony that made Generals at first Rebel against the Senate and the People of Rome there was no Law no Right for their so doing Galba you say was punished for his Insurection against Nero. Tell us likewise how â—â—spasian was punished for taking up Arms against Vitellius There was as much difference you say betwixt Charles and Nero as betwixt those English â—…chers and the Roman Senators of thâ—â— Age. Desâ—icâ—ble Villain by whom it is Scandalous to be commended and a Praise to be Evil spoken of But a few Periods before discoursing of this very thing you said That the Roman Senate under the Emperors was in effect but an Assembly of Slaves in Robes And here you say That very Senate was an Assembly of Kings which if it be allowed then are Kings according to your own Opinion but Slaves with Robes on Kings are blessed that have such a Fellow as you to write in their praise than whom no Man is more a Rascal no Beast more void of Sense unless this one thing may be said to be peculiar to you that none ever brayed so learnedly You make the Parliament of England more like to Nero than to the Roman Senate This itch of yours of making silly Similitudes enforces me to rectify you whether I will or no And I will let you see how like King Charles was to Nero. Nero you say commanded his own Mother to be run through with a Sword But Charles murdered both his Prince and his Father and that by Poyson For to omit other evidences he that would not suffer a Duke that was accused for it to come to his Tryal must needs have been guilty of it himself Nero slew many thousands of Christians but Charles slew many more There were those says Suetonius that praised Nero after he was dead that long'd to have had him again That hung Garlands of Flowers upon his Sepulchre and gave out that they would never prosper that had been his Enemies And some there are transported with the like Phrensy that wish for King Charles again and extol him to the highest degree imaginable of whom you a Knight of the Halter are a Ringleader The English Soldiers more Savage than their own Mastiffs erectâ—d a new and unheard-of Court of Justice Observe this ingenious Symbol or adage of Salmasius which he has now repeated six times over More Savage than their own Mastiffs Take notice Orators and School-Masters pluck if you are wise this Elegant Flower which Salmasius is so very fond of Commit this Flourish of a Man that is so much a Master of words to your Desks for safe Custody lest it be lost Has your rage made you forget words to that degree that like a Cuckcow you must needs say the same thing over and over again What strange thing has befallen you The Poet tells us That Spleen and Rage turn'd Hecuba into a Dog and it has turn'd you the Lord of St. Lupus into a Cuckow Now you come out with fresh Contradictions You had said before page 113. That Princes were not bound by any Laws neither Câ—ercive nor Directory that they were bound by no Law
and it may with far greater ease be taken from one than from many And to invest any mortal creature with a power over themselves on any other terms than upon Trust were extreme madness nor is it credible that any people since the Creation of the world who had freedom of will were ever so miserably silly as either to depart with the power for ever and to all purposes or to revoke it from those whom they had entrusted with it but upon most urgent and weighty reasons If dissentions if Civil Wars are occasioned thereby there cannot any Right accrue from thence to the King to retain that power by force of arms which the people challenge from him as their own Whence it follows that what you say and we do not deny That Governors are not lightly to be changed is true with respect to the peoples Prudence not the King 's Right but that therefore they ought never to be changed upon no occasion whatsoever that does not follow by no means nor have you hitherto alledged any thing nor made appear any Right of Kings to the contrary but that all the people concurring they may lawfully be deposed when unfit for Government provided it may be done as it has been often done in your own Countrey of France without any Tumults or Civil Wars Since therefore the Safety of the People and not that of a Tyrant is the Supreme Law and consequently ought to be alledged on the peoples behalf against a Tyrant and not for him against them you that go about to pervert so sacred and so glorious a Law with your fallacies and juglings you who would have this Supreme Law and which of all others is most beneficial to mankind to serve only for the Impunity of Tyrants let me fell you since you call us Englishmen so often Inspired and Enthusiasts and Prophets let me I say be so far a Prophet as to tell you That the Vengeance of God and man hangs over your head for so horrid a Crime altho your subjecting all mankind to Tyranny as far as in you lies which in effect is no better than condemning them to be devoured by wild beasts is in it self part of its own Vengeance and whithersoever you flye and wheresoever you wander will first or last pursue you with its Furies and overtake you and cause you to rave worse than you do now I come now to your second Argument which is not unlike the first If the people may resume their Liberty there would be no difference you say betwixt a Popular State and a Kingdom but that in a Kingdom one man rules and in a Popular State many And what if that were true would the State have any prejudice by it But you your self tell us of other differences that would be notwithstanding to wit of Time and Succession for in popular States the Magistrates are generally chosen yearly whereas Kings if they behave themselves well are perpetual and in most Kingdoms there is a Succession in the same Family But let them differ from one another or not differ I regard not those petty things In this they agree That when the Publick Good requires it the people may without doing injury to any resume that power for the Publick Saftety which they committed to another for that end and purpose But by the Royal Law by the Romans so called which is mentioned in the Institutes the people of Rome granted all their Power and Authority to the Prince They did so by compulsion the Emperor being willing to ratifie their Tyranny by the Authority of a Law but of this we have spoken before and their own Lawyers commenting upon this place in the Institutes confess as much So that we make no question but the people may revoke what they were forced to grant and granted against their wills But most rational it is to suppose that the people of Rome transferred no other power to the Prince than they had before granted to their own Magistrates and that was a power to govern according to Law and a revocable not an absurd tyrannical power Hence it was that the Emperors assumed the Consular Dignity and that of the Tribunes of the people but after Julius Caesar not one of them pretended to the Dictatorship In the Circus Maximus they used to adore the people as I have said already out of Tacitus and Claudian But as heretofore many private persons have sold themselves into slavery so a whole Nation may Thou Gaol-bird of a Knight thou day-spirit thou everlasting scandal to thy Native-Countrey The most despicable Slaves in the world ought to abhor and spit upon such a Factor for Slavery such a publick Pander as thou art Certainly if people had so enslaved themselves to Kings then might Kings turn them over to other Masters or fell them for money and yet we know that Kings cannot so much as alienate the Demesnes of the Crown And shall he that has but the Crown and the Revenues that belong to it as an Usufructuary and those given him by the people can he be said to have as it were purchased the people and made them his Propriety Tho you were bored through both ears and went bare-foot you would not be so vile and despicable so much more contemptible than all Slaves as the broaching such a scandalous Doctrine as this makes you But go on and punish your self for your Rogueries as now you do tho against your will You frame a long Discourse of the Law of War which is nothing to the purpose in this place For neither did Charles conquer us and for his Ancestors if it were never so much granted that they did yet have they often renounced their Title as Conquerors And certain it is That we were never so conquered but that as we swore Allegiance to them so they swore to maintain our Laws and govern by them Which Laws when Charles had notoriously violated taken in what capacity you will as one who had formerly been a Conqueror or was now a perjured King we subdued him by force he himself having begun with us first And according to your own opinion Whatever is acquired by War becomes his property that acquired it So that how full soever you are of words how impertinent soever a babler whatever you prate how great a noise soever you make what Quotations soever out of the Rabbins tho you make your self never so hoarse to the end of this Chapter assure your self That nothing of it makes for the King he being now conquered but all for us who by God's assistance are Conquerors CHAP. VII TO avoid two very great inconveniences and considering your own weight very weighty ones indeed you denied in the foregoing Chapter That the Peoples Power was superior to that of the King for if that should be granted Kings must provide themselves of some other name because the people would indeed be King and some divisions in your System of Politicks would be confounded