that seek our subversion as being the greater and nobler part of the Empire and better devoted to your person and Crowne then they are Neither is it distrust in our owne numbers forces or advantages that drawes these lowly loyall expressions from us nor is it any doubt in our cause for Christianity dies as much lift up the heart in a just war as it dies weaken the hands in unjust enterprises and the world shall see it is as far from transforming us into ashes as into woolves Prefer your sacred eares therefore we pray you from the suggesâ—ions of our enemies and the abusers who may render us in your thoughts either absolutely disloyall or hestially servile and doe usually traduce our Religion as being utterly inconsistent either with duty or magnanimity Let it bee a confutation to them at this present that we doe neither derogate in this case from your Majesties prerogative nor utterly renounce our owne interests and yet that we doe rather fore-judge our selves inasmuch as though we doe not disclaim yet we forbeare to claime a right of establishing true Religion and abolishing idolatry as also of bringing your seducers to condigne punishment And thus far wee condiscend in all humility for our blessed Religions sake that thâ—t may be liable to no aspersions as if it had any causality in this war and that you may receive in the better apprehension and relish of the profession from the humble comportment of the professors It is not in us to set an end to these broyles because we have no prevalence with you to gaine just satisfaction from you but it is in you without all impediment to quiet our party in regard that we fight not now for a well being but a meer being not that Paganisme may be subverted but that Christianity may subsist all our conditions are intirely in your owne hands and they speake no more but this let us have hopes to remaine safe and you shall have assurances to remain Caesar If his Grace of Armagh like not this Remonstrance let him frame an answer to it in so doing he shall appear a profounder Scholer a more judicious Statesman a more peaceable Patriot a more godly Preacher then his last Sermon upon the 13. Rom. did shew him I am sure there is no man that lives in these dayes can say I have fained an impossible case especially when He sees two Parliaments of two Protestant Kingdomes driven to petition for their lives to a Prince that does acknowledge the truth of the Protestant Religion and the priviledges of both Parliaments and the liberties of both Kingdomes and yet brings a third Popish Kingdome against them though traiterously besmear'd in the blood of thousands of Protestants and proclaimed against by the King himselfe as the most execrable monsters of men But perhaps our Primate will say that the Roman law of royalty did extend farther and that the people thereby did conferre to and upon the Emperour omne suum imperium potestatem and thereupon it was said Omnia poterat imperator and Quicquid Principi placebat Legis habebat vigorem I take these to be no parts of the royall Law but only severall glosses and interpretations of Jurists thereupon yet all these extend no farther then to a perpetuall dictature For the people could conferre no more on the Emperour then what it had in it selfe and no man will say that the people had any power to destroy it selfe and what end could the people have if that Law might bee said to bee the peoples act in inslaving themselves or giving away the propriety of themselves where the Princes pleasure is entertained for Law it is intended that that pleasure of the Prince shall bee naturall and prudentiall and that it shall be first regulated by Law if not in its formalities yet in its essentials Grotius tells us of the Campanians how they did resigne themselves and all that they possest in ditionem Romanorum and hee conceives that by this resignation they did make the Romans their proprietaries By the favour of Grotius I think there is stronger reason that no Nation yet ever did voluntarily or compulsorily embrace servitude or intend submission to it it is more agreeable to nature and sense to expound this word ditio in a mild sense and to suppose that the Campanians did intend to incorporate themselves with the Romans and to live under the same government or dition and no other and not only reason but the true story makes this good and evidence of fact the strongest of proofes puts it out of doubt that the Campanians were not at all differenced in freedome from the Citizens of Rome themselves In briefe we may rely upon these assertions First there is no certainty of any Nations that ever they so formally did resigne themselves in Terms as the Romans and Campanians did here scarce any story can parallell such particular grants of Soveraignty Secondly if these be expounded mildly and in favour of publick liberty as they ought they can create no prejudice at all to those Nations which enacted them or any other Thirdly if they be expounded in a tortious unnaturall sense they are to be damned and rejected by all people and they remain no way vigorous or obligatory in any country whatsoever If the Primate have now recourse to the practise of the Christians in the first ages and urge that because they used no arms but tears and prayers when they were oppressed wee ought to doe the like we answer First The Christians till Constantines time in probability were not equall in numbers and forces with the Pagans whatsoever Tertullian might conceive Secondly if they were they wanted other advantages of arms commands and other opportunities to free themselves Aug. Caesar by fourty Legions and the strength of Cittadels and other places of strength yoked and inthralled fourty times as many in number as those Legions and so did but purchase fear for fear making himself as formidable to the people as the people was to him Thirdly if they wanted no power nor advantage they might want policie to infranchise Religion perhaps they might be tainted with Tertullians opinion who thought it not onely unlawfull to resist tyranny but also to flie from it Fourthly History is clear that in Constantines dayes they did adhere to him being a Christian and fight against Licinius being a Pagan and their Enemie And in the reigne of Theodosius such Christians as lived in Persia and were there tyrannically and cruelly treated did incite the Romane Emperour to undertake their defence against their own naturall Lord Let this be sufficient for the Romane storie and for the phanning out of our way such advantages as the Primate and his fellow Royalists may seem there to lay hold of in expounding this text of the 13. of Rom. to our prejudice our method now hands us to our own Laws and Chronicles let us follow our Preacher thither If St. Paul teach us that the supreame power is not to be resisted by any persons meerly inferior and subordinate but leaves us no certain rule whereby to discern what that supreme power is in all Countreys our Preacher should do well to let us know what he utters out of his meer Text and what he utters out of his own imagination Barclay Grotius Arnisseus all our Royalists besides are so ingenious as to acknowledge that a Prince in an Aristocracy or compounded Democracie is not so irresistible as an absolute Monarch nay in Monarchy they do acknowledge degrees also What shall we think then of this Prelate who without proving Caesar an absolute Monarch or reducing England to the pattern of Rome or stepping at all out of his Text where neither Rome nor England is mentioned yet will out of his Text condemne both Rome and England and by consequence all other States to the remedilesse servitude of non-resistance The Emperour of Germany is now Caesars successor and not denyed to be the supreme Magistrate in that country in diverse respects yet the Electors and other Princes are in some respect supreame also in their severall territories and may use resistance against the Emperour in some cases Now if our Preacher may except Germany out of his Text why not England unlesse He will appeale to something beyond his Text and if England why not others and if hee except nor Germany nor England nor any nor will refer himselfe to any other authority but his Text which mentions no particulars let Him inlarge his Sermon and be a little more ingenious and vouchsafe us some account why He is induced thus to confound all formes of government and to recede from the judgement of all Polititians But soft what have we to doe with a meer Divine let the Monarchy of England speak for it selfe let Divinity and Law and Policy be admitted into this Junto for that which is to be the subject of this consultation is to be reckoned inter agenda and not inter credenda FINIS Eerata Pag. 3. l. 4. r. desire them p. 21. l. 30. r. Dramoctidas p. 37. l. 7. dele the p. 38. l. 3. r. commune jus vetet p. 42. l. 1. for death r. slavery
registred with the title of a great Hunter but whether he had that addition given him for enlarging the confines of his Dominion or for acquiring a more unbounded Prerogative or for exercising his power more insolently is not declared Besides it is left utterly uncertain whether Nimrod laid his foundation upon force or consent whether he did by his tongue or his sword drive and hunt men out of Woods and wilde Recesses into Towns and Cities for that force by which he did prevail can hardly be supposed to be it self wholly forced It is left also as dubious to conjecture how far consent was left by Nature for if order and right of succession did give the rule according to primogeniture then all mankinde must have been subjected to one Crown whereas if Primogeniture were wholly neglected and every father or brother left independent in his own family to associate or not at his pleasure then Rule would have been crumbled into Atomes To avoid therefore surmises and the dark Labyrinths of our primative-Records before the Flood and immediately following let us fall lower upon the Story of Abraham Moses David and such as succeeded them The people of God at severall times were under either several forms or several degrees of power and jurisdiction That Soveraignty which Abraham and the Patriarchs had was not the same as that which Moses and the Judges had neither had Moses and the Judges the same as Saul and the Kings nor yet had Saul and the Kings the same as Cyrus and the Persian Emperours It is disputed much by some Whether the Patriarchs and Judges before Sauls days had Regal-power or no Some say Their power was Regal others say It was but Aristocraticall and others more judiciously in my opinion say It was mixt of both One says That after the Flood till Nimrods usurpation men lived under the Empire of single Commanders who neverthelesse did not govern as Kings but as Fathers Now since this is but the patern which all Kings ought to follow therefore what other meaning can this bear but that Governours in those days having small Territories did claim but moderate Prerogatives though they were as solely supreme in the State as Fathers are in the Families As for Moses and the Judges also it is truely said They were no other then Gods Vice-Roys in regard they did go forth to Battel by immediate Commission and transact many other great affairs by direction from Gods own mouth Neverthelesse this alters the case little or nothing as to the latitude of their Prerogatives this rather added than took honour grandour or jurisdiction from them this left them as sole a Sovereignty and as unbounded over the people as other Princes have who are Gods ordinary Vice-gerents It must needs be therefore That that case and freedom which the people then found under Gods immediate Substitutes was not procured by any further Right or law or from any other indifferent composition of Government which they had belowe from other Monarchies but from a Regulation above because it was impossible for their chief lord to oppresse or do injustice or to direct his thought to particular ends contrary to theirs This shews how impious and stupid a Frenzie that was in the Israelites which made them weary of Gods Headship for indeed they did not so properly create to themselves a new Government as a new Governour We cannot think that Saul being invested with Style and State of an ordinary King and discharged of such an immediate extraordinary dependence upon God as Samuel acknowledged had thereby any new Right granted him to do wrong or be oppressive to his Subjects his Diadem did not absolve him from the true end of Diadems nor did his meer Instalment so much against Gods will and advertisement cancell the Law of God which forbids Kings to amasse treasure into their private Coffers or to encrease their Cavalries or to provide extraordinary Magazines of Arms and Munition or to lift up their hearts above their brethren much more to employ their Treasure Horses or Arms against their Subjects Barclay and our Royallists offer apparant violence to Scripture when they will make God to call the usuall rapine and insolence of Kings Jus Regis whereas indeed the word in the Original signifieth nothing but Mos Regis as is plain to all that will look into the same Howsoever let the Prerogative of the Jewish Kings be taken in its utmost extent and take the restraint of Gods Morall Law not to be of any Politicall efficacie yet we shall still perceive that the very composition of that Monarchy was not without qualifications of mixture and other Limitations The Crown it was setled upon Judah and more particularly upon the House of David yet the Peoples election was not thereby wholly drowned for still before every Coronation they might assemble to give their Votes and were not necessitated to choose any individuall person in the House of David It appears also by the Story of Rehoboam that the people might capitulate for just Munities and require some Obligation for assurance of the same and in case that was not granted it was esteemed and properly it might bâ— said That the King did reject the people and deny protection not that the People did reject the King and deny subjection Next there was a great Colledge and Councell of Elders called The Sanhedrin consisting of 71 Princes who had the hearing and determining of all weighty and intricate Suits unto whom the last appeal lay from inferiour Courts and the King without tyranny could not interrupt or impeach the proceedings of this Sanhedrin If Saul will charge David with Treason and without all legall Processe take Arms against him untried and uncondemned David may leavie Forces of Voluntiers against the followers of Saul and stand upon his justification cum moderamine inculpatae tutelae Wicked Ahab stood in so much awe of such kinde of trialls in the corrupted State of Israel that when he coveted Naboths Vineyard he durst not attempt to wrest it away by force nor did he obtrude upon the Court what Sentence he pleased he was driven to hire perjured villains and so by fraud to procure an erroneous judgement It is worthy of notice also that these 71 Elders or Princes of the Tribes who had the supremacie of judgement were not eligible by the King and so the more obnoxious to his Commands but did inherite this dignity and for that cause were extirpated by Herod as the main obstacle to his Tyrannie Besides though the children of Israel had abandoned God for their chief Ruler yet God out of his unspeakable grace did not utterly cast them out of his protection but oftentimes did extraordinarily interpose by his Prophets as he had done by Princes before for relief of his Inheritance In behalf of Vriah Nathan was sent with a vindicative-Message to bridle Davids cruelty In behalf of the whole Nation groning under Solomons ponderous hand another menacing Prophet was
dispatched to represse his impotent pride And in the behalf of the ten Tribes recoyling from the same pressures under his son Rehoboam a third Prophet was sent to put a hook into his nostrils Lastly though the Jewish Kings by having the Militia put into their hands more arbitrarily then the Judges had before obtained greater opportunity and not right of oppressing their subjects Yet that Militia did not consist of strangers or mercenaries or such Souldiers as had no other profession or right in the State nor were there constant Armies and Garisons kept in pay like those of the Romane Praetorians or Turkish Janizaries And hence it is that if Saul in a brutish unnaturall fury will attempt against the life of his son Jonathan or seek to compasse any other thing subversive to the State he cannot finde instruments barbarous enough amongst all his Sword-men for his black purposes but he shall presently meet with opposition and forcible resistance Thus far then we finde in the world no prints or footsteps of Tyrannie or of absolute Royalty nay nor of Royalty it self till the peoples cursed ingratitude and folly introduced it We must go beyond God and Natures Workmanship and impressions before we can discover any thing but Parentall Majestie or gentle Aristocracie or compounded or mixed Monarchie Since therefore it so fared with Gods people in point of liberty and safety out of Gods unspeakable favour under Patriarks Judges and Kings Now let us enquire how it fared with them under those forraigne Emperours by whom they were subjugated and made tributary Judea being seated neere the centre of the World became obnoxious to all the great viâ—ssitudes of change which happened to the foure vast over-ruling Monarchies The Babylonian or Assyrian first and the Persian next from the East spread victorious armes almost over all Asia After from the West successively both the Grecian and Roman made irruptions and in all these generall periods of Empire the State of the Jewes had its sense and share of the calamitie As for the two first Monarchies there is little in particular recorded and left to posteritie in Writing concerning their true formes and compositions as there can no Lawes be produced by which the Subjects had resigned all right of liberty and safety so neither can there be any produced by which they had precisely compounded for the same Some instances only we find mentioned that the lawes of the Medes and Persians were unalterable by the Prince and by this it seemes that the prime ensigne of Majestie which consists in making and abrogating of Lawes was not residing in the Emperour alone without the great Councell of his Sages For if the King could not alter Law at his own pleasure there was some other extrinsecall power circumscribed that pleasure and that power must be no other then the same which made Law for the true legislative power it selfe can never put fetters or manicles upon it selfe howsoever Aristotle fancies to himselfe a kind of Monarchie which he calls Lordly and this he placeth betwixt Royaltie and Tyrannie making it more unbounded than that of Kings but not so violent as that of Tyrants And this Dominicall rule he ascribes to the Barbarians rather than unto the Grecians and amongst Barbarians rather to those of Asia than to the Europeans Asia it seemes being more rich and fertile bred a people more esseminate and disposed to luxurie and so by consequence more ignoble and prone to servilitie Hereupon the Asiaticks were ever extreamly despicable in the eyes of more magnanimous Nations especially the Greeks for adoring and postrating themselves with so much devotion before their Princes Plutarch speaking of divers unmanly slavish Customs amongst the Persians refers that Empire to the kinde of such as are absolute and equall to tyrannicall Plato calls it Despoticall and Aristotle says It was then very neer approaching to tyrannicall Institution We may well then imagine That God in bringing such a yoke upon the necks of his chosen Inheritance did it for their chastisement and out of his indignation not for their advantage and out of his wonted loving kindnesse As for the Grecian Empire we know Alexander becoming instated with successe and tainted with the luxury of Persia soon began to degenerate from the moderation of his own native Countrey and those Politicall Rudiments which his Tutour Aristotle had seasoned him withall and we read how exceeding fatall it proved he and his Empire both perhaps had been longer liv'd if he had not rendred himself odious first to Callisthenes by his insolence and to all other men afterwards for his cruelty to Callisthenes This justly administers here an occasion to us to insist a little upon great Monarchies in that Notion onely as they are great Alexander King of Persia had no more right added to be insolent than had Alexander King of Macedonia but greatnesse of Dominion did alter him for the worse and since it doth so usually other Princes we cannot but take notice how this comes to passe For either the largenesse of Dominion doth require a proportionable Prerogative and so enable Princes to do greater mischief and after by accident becomes a temptation and provocation to abuse that ability or else we must not confesse that there is any difference in this respect betwixt a large and narrow Dominion Now that there is a great difference is so clear that I will not undertake any proof of it The Scripture ever speaking of the great Monarchies of the world pensils them under the lineaments of Lions Bears Eagles c. armed for rapine with Iron-teeth Brazen-talons and sharp horns c. and the wofull experience of all Ages seconds Scripture therein testifying them to be monstrous excessives in Nature and the perpetuall plagues of mankinde Yet let not me be taxed to condemn all excessive Monarchies as utterly unlawfull for though I doubt much whether ever any one of them were at first justly purchased or after by any one man rightly administred without Tyranny yet I conceive neither of these things totally impossible and so I will passe no judgement thereupon Howsoever Nature seems to have chalked out the just dimensions of a compleat Monarchie by Mountains Seas or other lines Spain Italy France c. seems to be cut out as proportionable Paterns and few Nations have ever prospered when their pride had transported them beyond their native Barricado's Hannibal after seventeen yeers War waged with the Romanes for the Mastery of the world at last sought a Composition in humble terms from Scipio and â—lamed that dangerous fond competition which had either engaged the Carthaginians beyond the Coasts of Affrica or the Romanes beyond the Coasts of Italy But alas it is ill successe that opens the eyes of Hannibal Hanno was before held his bitter enemy and disaffected to his Countreys prosperity for seeking an honourable Peace with the Romanes and preventing the mischiefs of an over-swelling Empire Yet by the way note in the mean
to the will of an absolute Lord neither doth he declare the contrary Now since he thus Preaches at this time we must needs condemn him either of great Hypocricy or of great folly for if he did intend that the whole people and Senate of Rome had no Title to assemble nor right to defend themselves and therefore that the Parliament of England had no more Title then the Romans we say he did manifestly offer violence to his Text if he did not intend so yet since he was no more carefull at such a time and before such an assembly to interpret himself for the avoyding of dangerous misprisions we say he had not such circumspection as he ought Fourthly when he speaks of the occasions of taking up Armes and using resistance against powers he seemes to allow of no degrees at all if Religion be to be subverted if the ruine of the Prince himself or of his whole kingdome be attempted if the attemptors proceed ad infinitum yet in all cases for ought he distinguishes resistance is alike unlawfull and altogether as damnable as if the mischiefe were not publikely considerable This tenet seemes to us horrid unnaturall and against the light of all mens reason for hereby it is plainely averred that either government was erected for subversive ends or else that generall subversion may conduce to salutiferous ends In cases of obedience a difference of command is to be observed all commands are not alike binding and Potestative but in case of resistance all acts of the Prince are taken to be equally authoritative If Saul command Doeg to kill the Priests of the Lord Doeg may receive that as a void command but if Doeg do wickedly draw his sword upon the Priests this violence proceeds from so unquestionable a warrant that it may not be repulsed with violence Our adversaries sometimes when we dispute rationally will acknowledge our grounds to be very plausible this is very Dr. Fern himselfe but say they Scripture is clearely against all limits of Monarchy and scripture is to be adhered to rather then reason Neverthelesse when wee submit our selves to the ballance of the Sanctuary and when they see the letter and immediate sence thereof does not come home to our particular differences then they are faine to retreat to reason But their greatest subterfuge is to lurke between scripture and reason and to remain in a kind of transcient posture as that they may be confined neither to the one nor to the other nor yet to both If our controversies were in credendis or about things that did exceed the compasse of humane understanding scripture might justly be opposed to policy but when wee are treating of worldly affaires wee ought to bee very tender how we seek to reconcile that to Gods law which we cannot reconcile to mans equity or how we make God the author of that constitution which man reaps inconvenience from But for the present on both sides we are agreed to adresse our selves to the Roman story Rome for the space of two hundred and forty yeares was subject to Kings and some say those Kings were absolute others say with Halycarnasseus Populum Rom principio formam Reipub habuisse mixtam ex potestate Regia optimatum dominatum fuisse constitutum ultimo verum Regum Tarquinio regnum in Tirannidem vertere capiente optimatum dominatum fuisse constitutum Questionlesse written lawes were wanting at first as they are and ever were to all new foundations and in this respect the Kings might be said to be more loose from restraints but this amounts to nothing for as the Kings by defect of lawes were lesse obliged to the people so the people by the same defect were lesse obliged to Kings and forasmuch as the people where they were more contracted and so might more easily correspond hold intelligence consult together as in all infant small States they might were better able to oppresse the King then the King was to oppresse them the meer want of written lawes was no more prejudiciall to the people then to the King great moderation therefore was used towards the people by all the Kings only Romulus was too harsh to the Nobility and so fell by their hands and Tarquin grew intollerably insolent towards all and so occasioned the expulsion of himselfe together with the extirpation of Kingly government The word Tyrannus had been made odious all over Greece long before and now the word Rex is asmuch abominated and abjured amongst the Romans so insufferable in all ages were the cruelties and excesses of lawlesse Monarchy After Kings thus driven out all the rights of Majesty were devolved in equity to the whole people of Rome distinguisht then into Patritians and Plebeians but the Patritians affecting an Aristocraticall form and seeking totally to exclude the Plebeians from communion in government they imbroyled the whole State in continuall warres and contestations for many ages together and not being able to support their own weaker and lesser side lost all by degrees and brought upon themselves the worst inconveniences of corrupted Democracie For the Plebeians having long remained contemptible under the indurance of many indignities by force at first obtained the defence of Tribunes and after so increased the same power that at last Censors Consuls Dictators all the chief Magistrates of Rome became subject to their check and sway And whereas those assemblies managed by the Senate which were called Curiata Comitia or Centuriata had the predominance hitherto now the Tributa Comitia managed only by the Plebeians draw all power of chusing Magistrates and passing lawes to themselves Quintius therefore blaming the Tribunes for not resting satisfied with what they had already gained from the Senate makes this sad complaint You desired Tribunes sayes he we granted them you would have a Decemvirate created we permitted it You grew weary of those ten Commissioners we deposed them Your anger was not so pacified against their persons though most Noble and Honourable we pursued them with death or banishment You would againe create new Tribunes they were created You would have the Consulship communicated to your party as a free gift it was conferred upon you though wee knew that gift was very unequall to our Order You would have the Tribune power inlarged you would have an appeal lye from the Senate to you you would have your Plebeian acts binding to the Senate under pretence of dividing power with you we have indured and doe yet indure that all our right and share be usurped It was alleadged also that even the Kings themselves had never attempted to violate the Majesty of that supreame Order and that the whole Common wealth of Rome did consist of something else besides the meer Comminalty but all will not prevaile that which was due being once denied more then is due must be now restored by way of expiation Aristocracy standing in competition with Democracy can say no more for it selfe nor perhaps so much then
manner Quando statues Regem super te c. when you shall think fit to set or erect a King over you you shall chuse that man whom I shall designe And the same word statuere is divers times elsewhere used in Scripture so that though God did never interpose in any other Nation so eminently about the making of Kings as in Judea yet even there he did commend the person the people did chuse or if he did chuse the people did statuere viz. give force and sanction to the same It remains now that we try what there is of God and what of man in the limitations or mixtures of authority T is a true and old maxime in Law Qui jus suum alienat potest id jus pactis imminuere And hereupon Grotius takes a good difference betwixt imperium and imperii habendi modum and as for the manner or qualification of rule that he accounts so meerly humane that if the King seek to alter it he may be as he acknowledges opposed by the people nay he proceeds further and cites Barclayes authority who was the violentest assertor of absolute Monarchy that ever wrote to prove that Kings may have but a part in the supremacy of power and where they have but such a partiall mixt interest they may not onely be resisted but also deposed for forfeiture in case they invade the other interest The same Author also affirms That States may condition with Kings to have a power of resisting and that the same is a good condition though the Royalty be limited by no other If this be so surely the founding or new erecting of authorities at first and the circumscribing the same after by consent is so farre from being Gods sole immediate act that it is as far as any act can be mans proper and intire act for except we allow that God has left it indifferent to man to form government as he thinks most for his behoof we must needs condemne all forms except one as unlawfull and if we grant indifference t is all one as if we left it to second causes But soft to call Kings saies one loud Royalist derivatives of the people it is to disgrace them and to make them the basest extracts of the basest of rationall creatures the Community If we fix an underived Majestie in the community as in it first seat and receptacle where there is not one of a thousand an intelligent knowing man this is if not blasphemy certainly high treason against God and the King This is Oxford Divinitie God reproves Kings for his anointed peoples sake these reproach the people for Kings sakes These are the miserable Heralds of this unnaturall warre having mouthes as black as their hands are crimson but let the man fall to his Arguments A world of reasons saies he may be brought from Scripture to prove that Kings are independent from all and solely dependent from God But for brevities sake take these 1 To whom can it be more proper to give the rule over men then to him who is the onely King truly and properly of the whole world Answer To none more proper there shall be no quarrell in this provided you will no more except Kings then Subjects from this generall subjection 2 God is the immediate Author of all rule and power amongst all his creatures above or below why then should we seclude him from being the immediate Author of government and empire amongst men Answer We seclude him not We onely question whether he be so the immediate Author of our constitutions as he is of primitive order or whether or no he so extraordinarily intervene in the erecting of Governors or limiting of governments as to strangle second causes and invalidate humane acts 3 Man in his innocence received dominion over the creatures immediately from God and shall we deny that the most noble and excellent government over men it from God or say it is by humane constitution Answer God did not create so vast a distance betwixt man and man as betwixt man and other irrationall creatures and therefore there was not at first the same reason of subjection amongst the one as the other Yet we except nothing against order or a milde subjection amongst men we onely say that such servility as our Adversaries would novv fain patronize in Gods name vvas never introduced by God Nature or any good men 4 They who exercise the judgement of God must needs have their power to judge from God but Kings by themselves and their Deputies exercise their judgement from God Ergo Answer The Prince of Orange or the Duke of Venice may as well plead thus as the King of Spaine or the Emperour of Germany Besides according to this rule Quod quis per alium facit facit per se the State may as truly say it exercises judgement by the King as the King may that he exercises judgement by his inferior Courts Lastly if this be pressed upon supposition that the King is Judge next under God without any dependence from the State it begs the question if it be pressed only to prove that the King ought to be so independent 't is vain and frivolous 5. Kings are the Ministers of God not only as to their Judiciary but as to their Executory power ergo their charge is immediately from God They are called Gods Angells c. So in the Church Preachers are the Embassadors of God and this makes their function immediately divine Answ. The judiciary and executory power flowes from the same source this shall breed no dispute and as for all the glorious attributes of Majesty and irradiations of sanctity and divinity which the scripture frequently applies to Kings First We must know they are not only appropriated to Kings as they are absolute and solely supreame but to all chiefe governours also though bounded by lawes and restrained by coordinate partners Secondly They are many times affixt to Kings not quatenus Kings but quatenus religious and just Kings these sacred expressions applyed to Ahas or Jeroboam doe not sound so tunably as when they point at David or Josiah Thirdly The people and flock of God sometimes communicate in termes of the like nature not only Priests and Prophets were annointed as well as Kings but the whole nation of the Jewes was called holy and dignified with that which the ceremony of unction shadowed only Priests were not Kings nor Kings Priests but the children of God are both Kings and Priests the scripture expresly calls them a royall Priesthood Fourthly That sanctity that divine grandour which is thus shed from above upon Princes for the peoples sake in the judgement of wisemen does not so properly terminate it self in the means as in the end 6. If the grace inabling Kings for their imployment be only from God then consequently the imployment it selfe ergo Answer if God by inspiration did inable all Kings extraordinarily and none other but Kings this were of some force and yet
this proves not that Kings are more or lesse inspired by God as they are more or lesse limited by man Howsoever wee know by woefull experience that the Major part of Kings are so farre from being the best Judges the profoundest Statesmen the most expert soldiers that when they so value themselves they prove commonly most wilfull and fatall to themselves and others and that they ever govern best when they most relye upon the abilities of other good Counsellors and Ministers 7. Where Soveraigne power is as in Kings there is authority and Majesty and a ray of divine glory but this cannot be found in the people they cannot be the subject of it either jointly or severally considered not singly for all by nature are equall and if not singly not jointly for all have but the contribution of so many individuals Answ. What ridiculous things are these if Majesty and authority accompany supremacy of power then it is residing at Geneva aswell as at Constantinople or else we must take it for granted that there is no supremacy of power but in Monarchies All men will explode this but suppose the Crowne escheated in a Monarchy will you say because all have but the contribution of so many individuals therefore there is no more vertue in the consent of all then there is in the vote of one must the wheeles of government never move againe except some miraculous ordinance from heaven come to turne and actuate them must such a fond dreame as this confound us in an eternall night of Anarchy and forbid us to wind up our weights again how poore a fallacy is this you cannot subject me nor I you nor one hundred of us one hundred of other men but by consent it follows therefore that all of us joyntly consenting cannot subject ourselvs to such a law such a Prince such a condition 8. Potestas vitae necis is only his who only gives life ergo Kings which only have this can only derive this from God Answ. This destroyes all government but Monarchicall this denies all Aristocraticall or Democraticall States to bee capable of doing justice or proceeding against delinquents what can be more erroneous or pernitious the power of life and death in a legall sence is committed to man by God and not to Kings only For if the Crowne of England were escheated the community even before a new restauration of government during the inter-regnum might joyne in putting to death murderers and capitall offenders and perhaps this it was which Cain stood in feare of Nay it may be thought ex officio humani generis they ought to prosecute all the common disturbers of mankind And if this without some orderly tribunall were not lawfull or possible to bee done yet what right or power is there wanting in the people to erect such a Tribunall Grotius tells us that as man is the generall subject of the visâ—ve facu'ty though the eye of man be its particular seat so the whole body politick is the generall subject of authority though it bee more intimately contracted sometimes into such a Chaire such a Bench such an Assembly and if it be so after government setled it is much more so before 9. The actions of Kings aswell of mercy as justice are owned by God and therefore when God blesses a people hee sends good Kings when he scourges them he sends evil Kings Answer If God be said to send evill Kings and to harden them for our punishment in the same manner as he sends good Kings c. we must acknowledge the hand of God in these things but not as over-ruling secondary causes when the lot is cast into the lap the event is from the Lord but it does not alwayes so fall out from the immediate sole causality of God so as the second cause is forced thereby or interrupted in its ordinary operation Wherefore if the immediate hand of God does not violent such hidden contingent effects sure it is more gentle to more rationall and free causes and where the effect is evill we must not make it too causall 10. God is stiled a King and represented on a Throne therefore let us not make him a derivative of the people also Answer Demand what security you please for this and we will give it 11. Kings Priests Prophets were anointed but no fourth thing and since Priests and Prophets are sacred by immediate constitution why not Kings Answer Wee have instanced in a fourth thing upon which the unction of God hath been powred if not visibly yet spiritually if not in the externall ceremony yet in the internall efficacy We do not deny also but Kings are sacred by immediate constitution as well as Priests but we deny that Kings only or absolute Kings only excluding other conditionate Princes and Rulers are thus sacred and as for Priests they are not so properly a power as a function neither doe I perfectly understand how farre they disclaime all humane dependence in their functions nor is the dispute thereof any way pertinent in this case 12. Disobedience to Princes is taken as disobedience to God and therefore God sayes to Moses and Aaron they murmure not against you but me Answ. Cursed for ever bee that doctrine that countenances disobedience to Magistrates much more such disobedience against such Magistrates in such things as that was which God so severely chastised in the Israelites our dispute at this present is not about obedience but the measure of obedience for if the Kings will be the sole rule thereof wee cannot disobey God in obeying the King but this we know is false and if any other rule be either in the law of God or man to that we will conforme in our actions and to that we ought to be confin'd in our disputes 13. The last result is Priests and Kings have their offices if not personall designations immediately and solely from Gods donation and both as to their persons and functions being lawfully invested with sacred power are inviolable Answ. We need not doubt but this great ostentatious undertaker and this wide gaping promissor was some Cathedralist within orders he does so shuffle Priests and Princes together He will needs have Princes as inviolable as Priests but hee could wish much rather I believe that Priests were as unpunishable as Princes He doth admit Princes to have their offices as immediately from God as Priests but then his intent is that Priests shall claime a power too as independent as Princes Caecus fert Claudum c. If Kings will bee but as willing to carry Bishops as they are to guide Kings 't is no great matter whether any body else have legs to walk or eyes to see But what if we grant Ministers to have persons as inviolable as Magistrates and Magistrates offices as sacred as Ministers what doth this prove against limited Monarchy how doth this devest the people of God of all right and liberty Thus we see he that answers one argument answers
say if the peoples power be not totally involved then they remain still as well superior to the Parliament as to the King And if it be then why not inferior to the King as well as to the Parliament As for degrees there is nothing more known and assented to by all all men must take notice that Prerogatives of Princes differ almost in all Countreys and since this difference flows from different commissions which Princes do not rightly grant to themselves it cannot but issue from the people and from an act of the people which is graduall in it self For the other objection we say t is not rightly supposed that the people and the Parliament are severall in this case for the Parliament is indeed nothing else but the very people it self artificially congregated or reduced by an orderly election and representation into such a Senate or proportionable body T is true in my understanding the Parliament differs many wayes from the rude bulk of the universality but in power in honour in majestie in commission it ought not at all to be divided or accounted different as to any legall purpose And thus it is not with the King the King does not represent the people but onely in such and such cases viz. in pleas of a common nature betwixt Subject and Subject Wherein he can have no particular ends and at such or such times viz. when there is not a more full and neer representation by the Parliament And hereupon the supreme reason or Judicature of this State from whence no appeal lies is placed in that representative convention which either can have no interests different from the people represented or at least very few and those not considerable but I shall have occasion to be more large hereafter upon this and therefore I now supersede 2 I come now to the finall cause of government The Scripture is very pregnant and satisfying that the proper end of government was the good of the governed and that the people was subjected to dominion for their happinesse and tranquillity and not that the Prince was elevated for his pomp or magnificence As for the Prince the Law of God is most expresse in that he is not to make his advancement any ground of lifting up his heart above his brethren he is injoyned to that comportment which suits with a brother not a Lord and to be so farre from lifting up his hand insultingly as not to be inflated in his thoughts vain gloriously And for the people they are called Gods flock and the sheep of his pasture and therefore it is said in the 78. Psalme that God chose David to feed his people Our adversaries therefore though they seldome speak of the people but under the notion of the ruder multitude and seldome name the multitude but with termes of derision yet they will not wholly disavow this and therefore they would fain divide with us and have a co-ordination of ends in the businesse They will acknowledge that power was ordained ut nobis bene sit according to Jeremy and ut tranquillam quietam vitam degamus oum omni pietate sanctitate atque etiam extrema honestate according to Timothy and {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} according to St. Paul and pro bono publico according to Aristotle and all sound Phylosophy But still they say This end is not the sole end the power and honour of the Governor is an end co-ordinate withall or at least not meerly subordinate This we can by no means admit though by the word Governor be intended the best regulated Governor that can be much lesse if an arbitrary governor or one that abuses his power be here understood For though government be a necessary medium for the preservation of man considered in a lapsed condition yet this or that form of government is not alwayes so much as a medium arbitrary jurisdiction is so farre sometimes from being a blessing that it is a very pest to the people of God And if it arrive not at the efficacy of a true medium how can we imagine it an end in any respect whatsoever Neverthelesse if there were not fraud in Royalists when they speak of the power and honour of Princes generally if they did not under those termes comprehend that arrogant tumor or grandour of mind which is incompatible with brotherly demeanour and so is precisely forbidden by God we should not so curiously distinguish at this present betwixt a mean and a sole or meer mean But now it behoves us to be very strict and therefore to use the words of Cicero upon this Eo referenda sunt omnia iis qui praesunt aliis ut ei qui erunt eorum in imperio sint quam beatissimi This seems a hard saying to our Royalists must Princes do nothing at all but in order to publick good and are they bound to promote such as live under their command to all possible good ut sint quam beatissimi This goes very farre this makes the power honour of supreme Rulers so meerly subservient and subordinate to the publick good that to compasse that at any time nay or to adde any scruple of weight unto the same it is bound wholly to postpone or deny it self Vt gubernatori cursus secundus medico salus imperatori victoria sic moderatori reipub. beata civium vita proposita est So in another place sayes the same Author and this we may suppose he learn'd not onely out of the discourses of Aristotle and Plato as he was a Phylosopher but out of his State practise as he was a noble Senator and Magistrate in Rome We read of multitudes of heathens both Greeks and Romanes who had great commands yet lived and died very poore either by negâ—â—â—â—ting their own particular affairs or by spending their own means upon the publick And therefore as Salvian saies of some of them to our shame Illi pauperes Magistratus opulentam rempub. habeâ—ant nuuc autem dives potestas pauperem facit esse rempub. Adrian the Emperour did often say both to the people and in the Senate of Rome Ita serempub gesturum ut sciret populi rem esse non suam and for this cause some Princes have deserted their thrones others have bitterly complained against the perpetuall miseries of Soveraignty as being sufficiently informed that to execute the imperiall office duly was nothing else but to dye to themselves and to live only to other men This does absolutely destroy that opinion which places the good of Kings in any rivalty with the good of States For if Antonius Pius could truly say Postquam ad imperium transcivimus etiam quae prius habuimus perdidimus how farre distant are they from truth which makes Kings gainers and subjects loosers by their inthronization M. Anton. Phil. having by law the sole intire disposition of the publick Treasure yet upon his expedition into Scythia would not make use of the same without the Senates
consent but professed openly Eam pecuniam caeteraque omnia esse Senatus Populisque Rom. nos enim usque adeo nihil habemus proprium ut etiam vestras habitemus aedes How diametrically opposite is this to that which our State-Theologues doe now buzze into the Kings eares They instead of giving the subjects a just and compleat propriety in the King resigne the subject and all that he possesses to the meer discretion of the King instead of restraining Princes where the lawes let them loose they let loose Princes where the law restraines them But our Royalists will say this is to make the condition of a King miserable and more abject then a private mans condition For answer to this I must a little anatomize the State of a Prince For a Prince is either wise and truly understands the end of his promotion or not if he be not wise then he is like a sottish prisoner loaden and bound with golden fetters and yet is not so much perplexed with the weight as inammor'd with the price of them Then does he enter upon Empire as if he went only ad auâ—eam messem as Stratocles and Dramoclidas had use to make their boasting in merriment but these vain thoughts serve onely to expose him to the traines of Flatterers and Court-Harpyes till having impoverisht thousands to inrich some few and gained the disaffection of good men to be abused by villaines he never reads his errour till it comes presented to his eye in the black characters of ruine The same wholesome advertisement commonly which first encounters him as that hand-writing did which appear'd to Belshazzar in his drunken revells lets him understand withall that all repentance will be too late If the Prince be wise then does he sit amongst all his sumptuous dishes like Damocles owing his life perpetually to the strength of one horse haire and knowing that nothing else saves his head from the swords point then must his Diadem seem to him as contemptible or combersome as Seleucus his did who confidently affirmed that no man would stoop to take it from the ground to whom it was so perfectly knowne as it was to him And it was no wild but a very considerate interpellation of some other sad Prince who being to put on the Crowne upon his owne head amongst all the triumphant attendants of that solemnity could not but break out into this passion O thou deceitfull ornament farre more honourable then happy what man would stretch forth his hand to take thee out of the dust if he did first look into the hollow of thy circle and seriously behold the throngs of dangers and miseries that are there lodged Secondly A Prince is either good and applies himselfe to compasse the end of his inauguration or not if hee bee not good then does he under the Majesticall robes of a God act the execrable part of a Devill then does he imploy all those meanes and helps which were committed to him for saving purposes to the destruction of Gods people and to the heaping up of such vengeance to himselfe as scarce any private man hath ability to merit How happy had it bin for Tiberius for Nero and for a hundred more if they had wanted the fatall baites of royalty to deprave them or the great advantages of power to satisfie them in deeds of lust and cruelty Neroes beginning his quinquenium shewes us what his disposition was as a meer man but the latter part of his tragicall raign shewes us what the common frailty of man is being overcharged with unbounded seigniory Amongst other things which made Caius appeare a monster and not a man Suetonius in the first place reckons up his ayry titles of pious most great and most good c. his impiety made him so audacious as to prophane these sacred stiles and these sacred stiles made his impiety the more black and detestable If the Prince be good then as Sencca saies Omnium domos unius Principis vigilia desendit omnium otium illius labor omnium delitias illius industria omnium vacationem illius occupatio And in the same Chapter hee further addes Ex quo se Caesar orbiterrarum dedicavit sibi eripuit siderum modo quae irrequieta semper cursus suos explicant nunquam illi licet nec subsistere nec quicquam suum facere 'T is true of private men as Cicero rightly observes ut quisque maximè ad suum commodum refert quecunque agit ita minimè est vir bonus But this is much more true of publick persons whom God and man have by more speciall obligations confined to publick affaires only and for that purpose raised above their own former narrow orbe O that our Courtiers at Oxford would admit of such politicks and blush to publish any directly contrary then would these raging storms be soon allayed But alas amongst us when the great Counsell desires that the Kings children may not be disposed of in marriage without publick privity and consent all our peace and religion being nearly concerned therein it is answered with confidence that private men are more free then so So when the election or nomination of Judges Commanders and Counsellors of State is requested 't is answered that this is to mancipate the Crowne and to subject the King to more exactnesse in high important affaires then common persons are in their lower interests Till Machiavells dayes such answers never durst approach the light but now Princes have learnt a new lesson now they are not to look upon the people as Gods inheritance or as the efficient and finall causes of Empire but as wretches created for servility as mutinous vassalls whose safety liberty and prosperity is by all meanes to be opposed and abhorred as that which of all things in the world is the most irreconcileably adverse to Monarchy Salust a heathen complaines of his times that instead of the ancient Roman vertues they did entertain luxury and covetousnesse publice egestatem privatim opulentiam That which he complained of as the symptome of a declining State we Christians cry up as a rare arcanum imperii to make the Court rich and keep the countrey poor as in France is held the most subtile art of establishing a Prince Trajan a Pagan was an enemy to his owne safety further then it could stand with the safety of the State as Pliny writes and would not indure that any thing should be wisht for to befall him but what might bee expedient for the publick Nay hee appeal'd to the Gods to change their favour towards him if ever hee changed his affection to the Common-wealth Yet Clergy men now in holy orders advise Princes not only to preferre themselves before the people but even to propose the peoples poverty as the best mean to their wealth and the peoples imbroyling the nearest passage to their safety Cicero out of Plato gives Princes these precepts so to provide for the peoples commodity as in all their actions to
have relation to the same and utterly to forget their private advantage and in the next place to extend their care to the whole body of the Common-wealth and every part of it Our Divines on the contrary think they cannot speak more like themselves then by inverting this order making the Kings profit the sole scope of his aimes and actions and the peoples either secondary thereunto or which is worse inconsistent therewithall and so farre are they from taking any consideration of the whole body that if the major part bee not condemned to slavery and poverty they conceive the weale of the whole is exposed to great hazard It is to be noted also that we Christians are not only degenerated in our politicks and become more unnaturall then Gentiles but even we also amongst Christians which have been born under regular governments doe more preposterously let loose the raines of Soveraignty then those Gentiles which knew no such regulations Seneca under the Roman Empire sayes Non licet tibi quicquam tuâ— arbitrio facere His reason is magna fortuna magna servitus In England this would now be treason if not blasphemy against God and the King we must bee so far from saying that our King though hee pretend not to an absolute prerogative is a servant that we must not say he is universis minor wee must bee so farre from denying him an arbitrary power in any thing that we must allow him an arbitrary dissent even in those things which the States of Kingdomes after mature debate propose to him Maximus the Emperour in his oration to his souldiers uses this expression Neque enim unius tantum hominis possessiâ— principatur est sed communis totius Ro populi siquidem in illâ— urbe sita est imperij fortuna nobis autem dispensatatio tantum atque administratio principatus una vobiscum demandata est Who dares now avow at Court that the whole nation of England hath a true interest and possession of this Crowne and that there is nothing therein committed to the King but the office and charge to dispense and manage the same together with the people for the peoples best advantage That which was true at Rome when there was neither religion nor perfection of policy to bridle Tyranny is now false dangerous trayterous in England amongst the most civill and knowing Christians that ever were what can be now spoken more odious in the Court of England then this undeniable truth that the King is a servant to the State and though far greater and superiour then all particulars yet to the whole collectively taken a meer officer or Minister The objections of our adversaries against this truth are especially these two First They say the end is not more honourable and valuable then the means And Secondly it cannot be so in this case because they say it is contradictory in sense and a thing impossible in nature to be both a servant and a Lord to the same State As to the first objection whereas the example of our Saviour is produced to prove that some instruments may be of more dignity then those ends for which they are ordained we answer our Saviour though hee did by his blood purchase our redemption yet was in the nature of a free and voluntary agent he was not design'd to so great a work of humiliation by any other cause then his owne eternall choice and therefore since hee receives no ordination or designation from those whom hee came to redeem nor had no necessary impulsion from the work it selfe of redemption but was meerly moved thereunto by his owne intire {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} wee say he was not our mean or instrument but his owne and whereas the example of the Angells is next alleadged we answer also that their Ministery performed unto men is rather a thing expedient then necessary and it is not their sole or chiefe Ministery neither doe they perform the same as necessarily drawne thereunto by any motive from man as being the immediate end of their Ministery but their service is injoyned immediately by God and so God not man is the true scope of their attendance Lastly whereas it is prest that the Advocate is ordained for the Client the Physitian for the Patient c. yet it is frequently seen that the Advocate is better then his Client the Physitian then his Patient c. We answer every particular Advocate or Physitian is not to be compared with every particular Client or Patient but it is true in generall that the skill and art of the Advocate and Physitian is directed in nature not so much for the benefit of him which possesses it as of him which is served by it and therefore Aristotle in the 2. Phys. cap. 1. affirmes truly that the Physitian cures himselfe by accident as the Pilot wafts himselfe by event it being impossible that he should waft others if hee were absent In all arts that which is principally intended is the common benefit of all and because the Artist himselfe is one part of the whole body consequently some part of the benefit redounds to him So after the same manner hee that sits at the helme of a State amongst others steers the same for his own ends but according to Plato and and Cicero both his maine aime his supreame law ought to bee salus populi it is a fit title for Princes to be called {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and wee know in a Philosophicall understanding the shepheard though by kind farre more excellent then his charge yet in quantum a shepheard considered meerly in that notion with respect to his charge is subordinate and bound to expose himselfe for his sheep It is our Saviours saying and it was crowned with our Saviours practise Bonus Pastor ponit vitam pro ovibus Besides Advocates Physitians c. as they voluntarily choose their owne professions perhaps intend their own private profit in the first place the publick in the second such is the perversenesse of humane nature but as the State designes or authorizes them that intends publick ends in the first place I passe now to the second objection which maintaines Lord and Servant to be incompatible our Tenet is that Kings may have supreame Majesty as to all individuall subjects yet acknowledge themselves subject to the whole State and to that supreame Majesty which flowes perpetually from that fountaine In briefe according to the old received maxime the greatest Monarchs in the eye of Law policy and nature may be singulis majores universis minores they may obtaine a limited Empire or sub regno graviore regnum Our adversaries though they cannot disprove yet they much disrelish this doctrine they cannot say it is impossible for all Democracies Aristocracies mixt and limited Monarchies make it visibly true nor can they say it is incommodious for there are more mixt and limited States then absolute and those which are mixt and limited
Zedekiah being bound by oath to the Babylonian Conquerour to remain a true vassal and being forbidden to make defection by an expresse from heaven and undertaking the same at an unseasonable time by improbable means commits the sin of Rebellion But we see one of the Successours of Alexander acting the bloody part of a Tyrant in Judea is not onely resisted by Judas Maccabeus but quite expelled And we see that right which the sword of a stranger had acquired was more honourably rescinded by the sword of a native Neither doth God not seem onely to countenance that revolt in the Jews but to reward also the principall agent therein by transferring the Diadem from the Grecian Race to him and his posterity The Story of Eglon also may serve for an instance of the same truth And who can now look upon all those goodly Provinces and Kingdoms which the grand Seigniors Scepter hath for so many Ages converted into Theatres of Slavery Beggery Barbarism and Desolalation and yet hold that they are no ways redeemable from that Scepter Who can say that all those wofull Nations or rather the starved Skeletons of Nations if opportunity were offered might not by consent abjure their feral sanguinary Oppressour and choose to themselves severall Protectours out of their own native Territories But the strength of Custom and Prescription is still by some magnified and in the worst of Empires made the Ordinance of God and as valid as any other divine Right or Title I have seen a whole Volume written to that purpose yet the answer thereof may lye in my opinion in a very narrow room for if custome may make that necessary which was indifferent yet it cannot make that just which was unjust if it may change the Mode or externall forme of some things it cannot change the Nature or internall forme of all things For example if the Grecian Line have raigned in Persia for so many generations prescription may have vigour enough to confirme that raigne but if the Macedonians have raigned tyrannicaly to the dis-inheriting and despoiling the Persians of their due freedome meere usage can give no ratification at all to this Tyrannicall raigne But soft of this enough I descend now to the Roman story and to the times of Christs Nativity and such as are successive thereunto Hitherto our inquisition hath met with no sufficient rule precedent or authority for arbitrary power neither Nature nor History from the Creation to the Redemption afford us any vestigia of it Wheresoever God had a Church whosoever were the Governours of it whether Patriarks Judges Kings Emperours we have made a strict survey and as yet discover no Empire so uncircumscribed and absolved from Laws as our Adversaries contend for and as for those Nations which were meerely Pagan their Chronicles are very uncertaine and scarce worth turning over I know our Royalists will now challenge us to prove by what particular Lawes Liberty was secured and the hands of Princes bound up in all ages but we must reply that this is more than reason or equity will require at our hands if they will maintaine That the part is better than the whole if they will maintaine That the effect is more potent then the efficient if they will maintaine That the meanes is more valuable than the end their proofes ought to be Positive and full against us we are on the Defensive part onely and do convince if we are not convinced T is not sufficient for them to say Such a Nation was slavishly treated de facto they must prove that there was cleer Law for that Treatance nay they must produce such a cleer Law as extends to all Nations T is not sufficient for them to say Such a Nation submitted themselves to Monarchy without any precise conditions made for liberty and much lesse without any such now remaining extant upon record They must prove there was cleer Law for abjuring liberty and that the force of the same is universall and agreeable to that of God and Nature but the main shelf-Anchor of our Adversaries is that of the Apostle in his 13. Chap. to the Romans there all resistance to the higher power is forbidden and pronounced all damnable And t is all one they say to be irresistable and to be absolute Now I beleeve all that is in the book of God and Nature to be expressed for the right of Princes is there compendiously infolded Since then this was written in the infancy of the Gospell and during the Raigne of Caesar and was directed to the Romans not without particular respect as Doctor Fern conceives that the government which was supereminent or supream at Rome We will take it into more speciall consideration The Primate of Ireland in his Sermon upon this Text preached at Oxford March 3. 1643. delivers it for a sure doctrine and there is scarce any other divinity known now there That no Subject may upon any occasion take Armes or use violence against the Supream power no not in defence of Religion Now this doth much scandalize us for divers Reasons For first when he speaks of the supream power he doth not define that which he meanes it to be he takes no notice how supremacy of power may vest in one man as to one purpose in another as to another how it may vest in the people as to some affaires in the Prince as to others The body is not so the Subject of the seeing faculty as the eye is yet it cannot be denyed to be so in some sense The Prince of Orange is supreame in Military commands especially in reference to all individuall persons but he is not so in all other expedients nor in matters of the Militia neither if you compare him with the whole State Grotius affirmes supream power to be such Cujus actus alterius juri non subsunt ita ut alterius voluntati humanae arbitrio irriti possent reddi If then Caesar was that supreame power at Rome which the Primate intended he ought to have portrayed him according to this definition he ought to have Armed him with power beyond all the Lawes and Rights of Rome such as could not or ought not to be frustrated by any other right or power of the Senate and people of Rome in any case whatsoever Secondly when he speaks of the supreame Power he doth not at all discriminate the person of the Soveraigne Prince from the persons of those which are imployed onely as instruments under the Soveraigne Prince Now we conceive if there had been true candor and ingenuity in this learned Prelate he would have shewed a little learning in this which we hold to be exceedingly necessary to be distinguished and he knows we insist much upon Thirdly when he speaks of Subjects he doth not take notice of any difference amongst them neither in freedomes and immunities he doth not declare the Roman Subjects and the English or the English and the Venetian to be a like obnoxious
warre abroad or some other designe might lawfully be done any opposition of particular Laws or formalities notwithstanding But if the Dictator himself did walk excentrically or contrary to this end he was not exempted from resistance during his terme of command nor from giving an account after the expiration of the same The last thing inquirable into is the date or commencement of this Royall Law and this also is not agreed upon of all sides Arnissaeus will needs referre the time of this Law to Augustus his reigne but his reason is exceeding weak Aliàs enim saies he injusti possessores fuissent tam Augustus quam Tiberius caeteri regnatricis domus sucsessores nec leges ferre novas jure potuissent I shall not stand to answer this I shall rather herein follow Bodin for that he was not onely a grave Statesman but a learned Lawyer also Now in his judgement and if we may credit his reading this royall Law was first passed in Vespasians dayes and he gives some proofs and quotes Authorities for confirmation of the same Besides others he cites Suetonius censuring thus of Caligula Paerum abfuit quin diadema sumeret aec speciem Prinoipatus in regnum converteret Also of Tiberius he censures thus Faedissima servitute Remp. oppressit He cals his reigne meer tyranny and oppression Bodin therefore having defined Princely government to be either a State of Optimacy or Populacy wherein some one has preeminence above all other particular persons and is called Princeps that is Primus He concludes that the Common-wealth of Rome from Augustus and his immediate successors Vsque ad Flavium Vespasianum Principatus dicebatur and he closes all with this that from the battell of Actium the State of Rome was neither popular nor Aristocraticall nor regall but mixt of all By all this we see that our great Irish Prelate when he sends us for St. Pauls meaning to the Romane Empire before Vespasians dayes there to find out what soveraigne power is irresistible He sends us not to regall power more then to Aristocraticall or Democraticall I will therefore put the case stronger against my self and make it my quaere what irresistibility is due to Domitian after his Fathers and Brothers death And here first I may except against the Royall Law it self passed in Vespasians time as not being the compleat voluntary lawfull act both of Patritians and Plebeians For besides that the Senate had been now long over-awed and corrupted many wayes by the acts of the Court we know the Tributa Comitia are also totally depraved and evirtuated by being called out of the field into the palace insomuch that all liberty of choice and suffrage is lost to that great convention and it is now turned into a ridiculous solemnity Wherefore when Nero was to be deposed and all his barbarous acts of inhumanity to be accounted for no plebiscitum could bee obtained an act of the Senate only was past to declare him an enemy of mankind But I shall not insist upon this I shall grant the royall law to be a good law and enacted in a full assembly of both the States yet still I shall maintaine that the law-makers did not passe any thing to Vespatian or his successors but only in order to the publick good and safety nor did they grant away their owne original right and power in themselves by granting a fiduciary use and administration of that right and power to the Emperors The whole body of the law will furnish testimonies to this purpose that the Emperour is not proprietary of his subjects or hath any interest at all in them to his own use meerely Give me leave to frame a case upon supposition Conceive that the major part of the Patritiaens and Plebeians all over the Roman Empire are converted to the faith of Christ conceive that Domitian whose claime is by the law past to his Father hates Christianity and being incited by his South-saying Priests his Concubines and parasiticall Libertines to eradicate true Religion and inrich himselfe by the great spoyle of the professors thereof sets up such an idol and makes such an edict for the generall adoration thereof as the Persian Monarch once did Conceive that the Christians both Senators and Plebeians petition for their lives but are rejected and seeing a number of Assasins armed ready to rush upon them betake themselves to their defence and rely upon forcible resistance Conceive further that they first acquaint Domitian with their resolutions and thus publish the justice thereof May it please your sacred imperiall Majesty the peaceable and gentle principles of our pure Religion teach us rather to suffer moderate wrongs from private hands then to offer the least injurious violence to Princes Neverthelesse since after all our vain supplications wee see our selves remorsely designed to a generall massacre for not obeying you against God and since you expect that we should tamely surrender not only out estates and such other rights as are in our arbitrary disposition but our lives also and the Gospell it selfe of neither whereof wee are masters at discretion for asmuch also as we being the major part of the State and virtually that whole Community from which you derive your Commission and for whose behoefe alone you are bound to pursue that Commission and not to decline from the maine intendment of it and whereas further wee have not so totally devested our selves by intrusting you with power but that we are to give some account to God and the law if wee oppose not generall subversion wher wee may especially we being now farther intituled to defence by the extraordinary law of generall necessity of the benefit of which iron law particular men are not wholly abridged we are compelled hereby to protest and remonstrate to all the world that we take now up these one just arms only for defence to secure our Lives Liberties and Religion against the bloody emissaries which indeed from your undue warrant can derive no authority and not to bridle any just authority of yours or to attempt any thing against that idolatrous devotion which hath been hitherto established by law And because we impute it to the wretched falsities and artifices of calumniators that your Majesty is incensed against us and our Religion and misinformed of our intentions wee crave leave farther to declare that we though we are free-men and not slaves and have some share in Empire it selfe and are not meer subjects will yet continue in the same obedience as our Ancestors payd you for peace sake if we may not be driven to extreamities And as for our Religion it is no other then a holy blessed law revealed from heaven prescribed for the good of all immortall rationall creatures more beneficiall to Princes then Paeganisme and such as without diminution of power you may submit to and cast down your Crowne before In the like manner also it will concern your imperiall office rather to protect us then those