Powers of the Common-Wealth not above them for so presently they should perish having no power absolute to defend them so as we see directly it must be one or other either Subordination or Supremacy entire That must needs be a strange Government where the Soveraignty is divided and lying in divers Powers when they differ the people distracted in their obedience not knowing where to obey to but made to follow the lusts appetites and injustice of either party as it gains power and not certain to retain it Therefore there is a Law amongst our Statute Laws of England H. 7.11 y. C. 1. That the subject shall be secured to fight for the King in being This meerly from this reason of avoiding the mischief the Subject is put to by a divided commanding Power this Law though a gross one and against truth many times because Usurpers did possess the Throne yet for this reason preferred and not yet destroyed though the Sword was too hard for it as for all things else It is to be observed that there is no Government without a mixture which makes Rights in the People God himself doth not govern the World otherwise so but that he gives the People Laws both for their direction and conviction for it is in some sense that the Law makes the offence and besides otherwise all must flow from the King as Water continually renewed out of its Fountain and the People not know whom to obey nor subordinates how to act so as mixture in the Government makes no Argument it being of necessity to all Governments And as for taking up Arms and fighting for their Rights Right and right of defending holds not against Government absolutely His next Object If a Prince engage either hired Strangers or Fugitives or home-bred Delinquents or others to rise up against the Senate or People either it is lawful to defend themselvs by Arms or not if not especially if they have a share in the Soveraignty then is his Power absolute and unlimited and neither Laws or any thing below are any security against his Will to the common safety Answ The Ages that follow shall be very little beholden to Mr. Baxter to let them know the true state of a business of the highest and most horrid importance that ever befell England far excelling in accursedness the intestine War betwixt the two Houses of York and Lancaster because it hath destroyed our Form of Government and all Title to Govern which is an unhappiness upon a People above all evill whatsoever Usurpation being a continued source of evil I admire he can be so little serious in it This of his seems no more then that the King raiseth wicked Forces to destroy the Parliament and a Question meerly Whether or no they should defend themselvs There is a great Narrative and Historical part belongs to this to set it forth But it was not my end but only so far as to answer his and no farther In the first place the Parliament made alliance with the Scots disbanded the English Army to work their end upon the King The King was taken in a Toyl of his own making calling a Parliament the Scottish Army being in England and now both Interests clasped him that he had no means left him to get out of it but to break thorow it by force which he despaired of They draw up a Remonstrance to the three Nations to shame the King to the People and make him odious not the accidents of Government but are put upon the King's score as if any Government could be without faults and as if we should have been so much happier under them under whom we have found the little finger heavier than the Loyns of Kings and their whippings Scorpions to the other's Rods an Instance taken from Scripture and often applyed but never truer than in this of our condition and suffering under them The Parliament once in ruine was inevitable upon the King never after was any wisdom or means useful to him preservation is not always in our own Power we have but the offer of it which neglected or omitted commonly the means turns to another Interest and cannot be regained The King did now too late strive by all manner of concessions and compliance yet nothing would divert destructin that did fix upon him like the poysoned Shirt prepared by Dejanira for Hercules which once on though he did strive to tear it from him yet to no purpose the venom and poyson and fiery quality of it did penetrate into great Hercules and consume him The truth is the King was dispossessed before he durst appear in opposition all his Forces by Sea and Land City of London Hull and Port-Towns engaged against him his own Ordnance and Arms to fight against him He had nothing but the Interest of a King and the pity of those few that did compassionate him the People generally poysoned to raise up any party for him and fighting was but his meer necessity for as he said himself he was sure to be the loser because he had nothing but his own to oppose to in his own Kingdom and his own People his Enemies Yet further no Concessions would serve and Concessions were his fault and misfortune too it comes to be the case of the King not to be trusted and so the dispute grew upon the Militia a word introduced commonly treated as if an ordinary thing no less in it self than the being of a King who should have the Power I may very well give it off here because the case came to be Whether King or no King This being somewhat of the active part I shall speak now to the speculative part of his Objection That if a Prince engage either hired Strangers or Fugitives or home-bred Delinquents or others to rise up against the Senate or People either it is lawful to defend themselves by Arms or not if not especially if they have a share in the Soveraignty then saith he is the King's Power absolute and unlimited and neither Laws or any thing below are any security against his Will to the common safety Now in Answer to this first it supposeth a Case that never can be as a King to raise Forces to destroy his People or any party of them it can never be the case that is for a King to War upon his People in condition of Subjection therefore it is ever the People's War resisting the King in his governing Power It may be a case that the Parliament will not dissolve but defend themselvs by force and this is a making War upon the King Now this being directly the Nature of a War betwixt King and Subjects all the pretences to a defence are taken off and the Question comes simply to be Whether for other respects about the Government any party out of the King may raise War This must of necessity be resolved in the Negative because it is not possible to fancy governing power with a power in the
to God's Glory and the worst of Man's Actions though all alike under the common Providence of God But a little further I desire his Patience to go along with me A King killed to day and the Regicide by his party becomes King in Fact and in Power to morrow then to morrow he obeys him with all Attributes of God's greatness Will Power Goodness and if him another on the next day then him too and so on still It is known that after it began in Nero how many Emperors came upon the stage of the World in a short space killing and dispatching the present gave being to the latter Now where will he define or place his Providence or bound Man's acting Certainly if at all in the first place for many reasons as the first loose or progression to Wickedness is the true cause of all the following and because there is a natural stay in the first which loosed the like is not found in the following The truth is it is a foolish thing to ty up Man's reason more in one thing than in another for if he argues things greater or higher to him he argues still but to his reason In the next he goes higher and like a Stone falling the nearer the Center the greater its force so he as he proceeds farther grows fiercer about the King 's being judged to death by his People and he extenuates the Fact by the formality of it I should wrong him not to give it him in his own words Object I must needs add that every wise man sees that the case it self much differs from the Papists If the Body of a Common-wealth or those that have part in the Legislative Power and so in the Supremacy should unwillingly be engaged in a War with the Prince and after many years blood and desolations judicially take away his life as guilty of all this Blood and not to be trusted any more with Government And all this do not as private men but as the remaining Soveraign Power and say they do it according to Laws undoubtedly this case doth very much differ from the Powder-Plot or Papists murdering of Kings and teaching that it is lawfull for a private hand to do it if he be but an Heretick or but deposed yea or excommunicated by the Pope Answ Mine thorow-out will give a larger consideration upon the whole But to his particulars as they pass from him First he saith have part in the Legislative Power and so in the Supremacy wherein he confounds them both together and makes it but one and the same To have part in the Legislative Power as to the altering of Laws or any other thing wherein it is exercised implies a right in the People as to those things and in the Nature of it a Negative Right That is that it could not be done without their consents and this Negative Right gives them not a farther Right Object His next is and judicially take away his life Answ The King 's own words at that hard time with him when they sate over him as his Judges are most worthy as from himself to be remembred He told them how far his case was their King from being judged by them when as all judicature was derived from him to them And certainly this alone of the King 's carryes Argument enough in it against all judging or condemning of King's or Supreams for no Power can create a Power against it self and nothing in nature can go higher than its first Cause A Power derived out of the King cannot be understood to be against the King He goes on to criminate the King whether his sense or supposition I know not Object As guilty of all that Blood Answ The King's unhappiness was to be made guilty because he was not able to defend himself And so shall every Prince be that is overcome by his Subjects they must be guilty to be destroyed Tyrants Wickedness do but prepare a guilt for the cruelties they mean to act It was the Kings own saying That he had not one foot of Land in his own Kingdom but what his Army stood upon It was not possible to be a more necessitated War than the King 's for all the World knows it was destiny upon him never persons so obdurate as to take no conditions never could find any Medium betwixt destroying their Soveraign and their own desperateness And the King's Interest wholly defensive not only for himself but for his Kingdoms and that made him say upon his death which seals all truths that he dyed his Kingdom 's and his People's Martyr It were easy to go upon demonstrative proofs in this but it would involve the whole Cause which we are to take in its parts Object And not any more to be trusted with Government Answ This is the reason in the Eye of the Law which sees to the end in the first act that all attempts to bring a King under any Power of his People are the same as to destroy him And this was resolved in the Case of the Earl of Essex he would seize upon the Court Camden's Annals p. 547 548. take the Queen into his Power not otherwise harm her remove from her evil Counsellors but honour her Person Now this was all adjudged high Treason in every circumstance of it because all depriving of a Soveraign Prince of his Power is the same as to destroy him Essex himself said before his death that the Queen and he both could not live and others the most eminent of his party acknowledged that though it were not their design to destroy the Queen yet it would have been the necessity of their proceeding if they had prevailed so as the effects of Rebellion Mr. Baxteâ— makes his Arguments Before I put an end to these Papers I shall resume again his words No more to be trusted with Government to make inquiry into the Rights of Kings and their Original to find their first Cause and to judge of their extent and terminations But at present to his next Object And all this they do that is take away the King's life not as private men but the remaining Soveraign Power and say they do it according to Laws Answ Mr. Baxter's Objective words without any proving brings every thing to a question as this hath two very great falshoods and high presumptions in it The one a Soveraignty in the Parliament the other a lawfulness of killing the King For the first which is made the conveyance to the latter to erect so high a wickedness upon a Parliamentary Supremacy to make them an expedient to kill their King is no more true than that there were two Kings in England two Suns in the Firmament of Government two Centers in a Circle two Infinites or any Impossibility that can be imagined But I shall have occasion to treat the Argument of the King 's sole Soveraignty in divers passages onely at present to it the Parliament is but a borrowed light all derived out
the highest Judge of the safety or danger of the Re-publick and that it is Treason against the Common-wealth and as Politicians say against the Majestas realis to rise against them Answ Mr. Baxter hath of this in several places the Parliament's Supremacy it is his Goliath I shall answer generally to it at once Now the Arguments may be many I will make it but a Passage not a serious Debate and give but hints of truths that may be enlarged The first is that I am sure though I was not of that time that Kings were when Parliaments were not and then must be granted absolute the other not in being We cannot suppose here in England any time of Government without Kings and the Kings themselvs thought it best to convene the People to draw thereby aids of the Publick by publick consent and likewise to have all Counsels and all Grievances in common to be common in helps and means which is strongest and peradventure to ballance the Loâ—ds by this popular Power Whatsoever the ends were in it or the use to be made of it or accidents that grew out of it it shews it was a Creature mearly of the King's Will and creating and therefore cannot be intended but to act under him and to his help as the end of its Being So being called by the King in this sense they bear in them the Peoples Rights whatsoever was left in the People to be disposed of by their own consent Their Power therefore must hold proportion with that that is only in the quality of the People as to complain of Grievances and petition Redresses to give their private to the Publick and to consent to alter Fundamentals as there shall be cause all which are the natural Rights of the People and common consent is required to them Now this does not reach at all to Mr. Baxter's sense of sharing with the King in Supremacy and Power and right of governing nothing at all of it All Parliament rights have their station below governing it is by accident when they meddle with the Government as about the causes that require their help And all great and outward relations and inward may be Objects of this great Body of the People as their help is required but this with that caution as the King puts them on and takes them off So jealous a thing is Soveraignty it self And it is a nice distinction to make them Judges of the necessity and not to judge of the cause of the necessity and therefore involve themselvs sometimes in it too far and the retreats have been difficult No doubt this must needs be a strange great considerable Power in the consequence of it that which all the rest moves by and is the matter or means of the Government But this does not alter the Nature of it It is a most noble Constitution because it begets treatment betwixt Prince and People and there is a correspondency betwixt the giving of the one and the retribution of the other but when either make too much use of their Power it destroys the order and the inconvenience is so intolerable to the Nation as they are brought again to it and must correspond Now nothing preservs so much as when things keep to their Natures The good of Parliaments does consist within their own rights and not to enter into the King's for then it breaks the Parliament or the Parliament breaks the Government To return to the nature of the Objection of co-ordinate Power of Parliaments The Parliament is a Creation that comes out of the King's Will and Power nothing of Power to beget it self and therefore cannot be understood to serve to another end against that which was its cause and which it self had absolute Being without it Never to this day they have Power to their own Being but at the King's Will a meer Entity first in the King's Will before it can have any in them so as they are meerly Creatures having their Creation from another's Will and so to determine them after they are in being which shews the most absolute depending on another Power that possibly can be Hence rationally and consequently of this it must be that the end is of the Agent and Author and not to be their own end that did not nor could not move to their own Being so as meerly it follows A Parliament is the King's business because it flows out of his Will And some Acts have been made by consent of Kings for certainty of Parliaments but have not bound Kings for we see they have been discontinued many years together So certain it is that Regal Right cannot be restrained Now the King 's good and the People's are so necessarily conjoyned as it cannot be supposed they can serve the King but it must conserve the Kingdom and all the People And hence flows all publick considerations and conclusions the whole Interest of the Nation resolves it self into it and all the Powers submit to it because all parties are in it by convention or representation and the King can make lawful whatsoever they can consent to But without the King they are a meer inanimate Body and can act nothing they are as the Womb or Matrix the King is the generative Masculine part that gives life and production and actuates and forms their conceptions And the difference not rightly conceived begets the mistake confounding their Power with that of ordinary standing Courts which act by the King's Power invested in them which he cannot with-draw or deny to and this of Parliaments which is extraordinary and by the King's consent And then too their work is about the generality not to do with the ordinary proceedings of Law proper to other Courts but only the abuse of them The Author of the History of Independency affirms pag. 35. History of Independency 35. that the judicial Power of the House of Lords is by the King 's special Authority his Argument upon it is The King makes them Admiministrators and interpreters of his Laws but he never trusts any but himself with the Power of pardoning and dispensing with the rigour of the Law in Criminal cases And though the Lord Keeper is Speaker of the Lord's House of course yet he is no Member of the Lord's House virtute Officii The Judges are not Members but Assistants only so that no man in the House of Peers as he is simply a Peer is trusted by the King either by dispensation of Law or Equity When a Peer of Parliament or any man else is tryed before the Lords in Parliament criminally he cannot be tried by his Peers only because in acts of Judicature there must be a Judge Superior who must have his Inferiors ministerial to him Therefore in the Trial of the Earl of Strafford as in all other Trials upon Life and Death in the Lord's House the King grants his Commission to a Lord High Steward to sit as Judge and the rest of the Lords are but in
the nature of Jurors so that it is the King's Commission that authorizeth and distinguisheth them When a Writ of Error issueth out of the Chancery to the House of Peerâ— they derive their Authority meerly from that Writ For the three Reasons aforesaid the House of Peers is no Court of Judicature at all without the King 's special Authority granted to them either by his Writ or his Commission As for the House of Commons they never pretended to any Power of Judicature and have not so much Authority as to administer an Oath Thus far his But the Argument is not at all pertinent as to the House of Lords whom they have expelled and all Form of Parliament or Callings but in the People their ground is onely upon a House of Commons as the People's Representatives Nevertheless we take the whole and give truly the Nature of a Parliament for the perfectest way of rejecting Falshood is by delineating the true Form It is not imaginable for a King to govern without the assistance and assent of the Peers for Government cannot stand alone for as they are ever a party where any King is the Question is only of the Commons Prin's plea for Lords pag. 182. which is an Adjunct and therefore the Searchers into Antiquity take upon them to antedate them and derive them but as an Accident to the Government in England But to take it in the whole it being a truly poised Government and mixed Interest hath left so great a share in the People as servs to treat their King 's with and be at all times able to gain conditions And God forbid any Power should deny to the People's good it can be no end of Government and therefore he is not single or alone but hath common consent in the great Interests of the Nation changing or making Laws or making impositions He must have common consent to this and this draws all the rest to it since hardly any thing can move but by these two Interests and this is the ballance of the Government to make it hang equal betwixt Prince and People And the evils and mischief that sometimes redounds is from the abuse of it not from the Nature of it being the best composition of Government in the World and the People freer under it than in any Common-wealth Government which they call free Government the Reason is a Secret till looked into Physically that is this best of all to be seen in our late long odious Parliament there all the People's Liberties were swallowed up the People uncreatured as it were no defensive all in the Parliament when as in the King and Parliament the People have a direct party and a defensive as there shall be cause against any deprivation of their Rights There are some Signals of Kingly absolute Right which need but naming as the King 's Adviseray to Bills which he will not pass which was ever effectual as to a total condemnation So as here was no Power out of the King all reduced to him in his last Power of denying and likewise of pardoning And this needs not plead any right for it but right of Nature in reason of Government else without such a Power the King might be reduced to nothing And a King never falls or loseth his Power but he is lost in himself too He does not retain Kingly Government but on condition to perish with it And therefore all Laws are styled of Grace and petitioned for because the People till they are passed the Royal assent have but a Right in Reason to them not in Law only from the Supream Law of Salus Populi which is the comprehensive of all Laws The common mistake is because the King cannot do such and such things without the Parliament Ergo The Parliament governs the King Now as to this Many may be said to govern me so as to restrain me that I cannot go beyond my own Power and yet this no active governing Power over another this is the easiest thing to conception that can come into imagination Is there not where any Right is which we call property a power of denying And this is all the absolute Parliamentary power considered dividedly from the King and this vast inconsequence containing all the means almost to be King unless the King would break throw it which is the hardest task any King can go about yet nothing of the Nature of governing power no agency or efficiency in it by it self but only a meer Negative Because I am engaged in this consideration I will resort back to the state of the Question of a Parliament to be the highest Judge of the safety or danger of the Republick The Answer is direct that the King is the sole Judge of the safety or danger of the Re-publick as King he is only trusted and there cannot be two such judging powers for then there can be no determination when they stand in competition Therefore all the Powers in the Kingdom act subordinately to the King and not against or athwart the King's Power for that were for a Being to destroy it self The distinction lies in this that they have nothing to do with the King's Power but the People's Rights which they dispose of by the King's consent and not absolutely at all out of themselvs In this they may oppose the King's desire that is they have a Negative Power not to be compelled or the People to be put out of possession without them But where the disagreement is they are to acquiesce and so nothing comes of it and the King fails of his end this is the height of their power Their Bills which they are free to make contain in them Grievances to be reformed which implies complaint and consent whatsoever the King cannot do by his quality singly as King he doth by consent of the People and that is the Character of a Parliament the People for it directly represents the Universality the People and hath directly and truly no power but what is nationally and naturally the People's so as look upon that you find this and no difference at all in it hence consenting and denying giving aiding being natural properties of Rights are left to them as the People in them And this though great as to all the means of governing it doth not come near it so vast a difference is betwixt being free in mine own and having Power over anothers as no reason needs to be given of it Nevertheless the King as the common Interest is not to be supposed deficient of the Publick means that were unnatural therefore as to Government it self all means are lawful nor any thing so concerning to the People as to keep the temperament for when they destroy that they lose the means to their own good I might leave it here in its causes but I shall say something by way of President Queen Elizabeth the greatest Courter of her People and yet the best Governour would lose nothing of her
given me the Kingdomes of the Earth And Daniel most full the Pattent of the King as extensive to all Creatures and Powers under him Dan. 1. ver 37 38. The God of Heaven hath given thee a Kingdom Power and Strength and Glory and in all places where the Children of men dwell the Beasts of the field and the Fowls of the Heaven has he given into thy hand and hath made thee Ruler over them all An Illustration of Gods dominion over all Creatures and acting by Kings his immediate Vice-gerents to the end of the 5th chapter of Daniel being nothing else then Gods clayming his Title over Kings as derivative from God and accountable to him Now all this is from the great end in nature that Kings being to rule the people which is Gods proper Office and Attribute all Power and all Dominion and all Providence being his they represent God and are his Image and Effigies in Ruling and Governing and this makes their dependance to be meerly of God and not accountable to any Power under God The nature of it is shewed in that of Saul as being the first King to the Jews and being the institutive of it comprehends the nature of it The person was meerly of Gods choice not left to the people nor any power left in them much less over the King In that day shall they cry unto the Lord sayes the Text That is 1 Sam. 8.18 no power to be against the Kings Power but an appeal only to an higher Power that is to God himself his Author and Founder they might complain of him that was set over them but had not any Authority of their own over him And this makes it in its nature to be the greatest trust in the World because there is no remedy against it contrary to Mr. Baxter's sense abusing the Term making Trust subject The reason of this absolute subjection of the People to Government lyes in the nature of it that no medium can be found betwixt power of Governing and liberty in the people as not Governed to be subject only to the good of Government is no Government at all or to be subject at all therefore of meer force from its nature it leaves nothing in the wills of the people so as no such mean or half being of it can be by any constitution provision or Policy whatsoever when it comes to Govern all those things though part of the Government yet come under the governing Power Now for the Originals of Ruling Powers ordinarily amongst men as to the persons ruling in such a Line and Succession we shall find it to be still from a first Power before it came to Governing Power the one introductive of the other for Power is its matter and nature for we see all Government is Power and the Power will govern Therefore equivocally the terms and names are used sometimes calling it the Government and sometimes the Power so as it is the same and signifies the same thing inseperables in nature Government and Power no remove can be in it for where the Power is there the Government will go along with it Hence it is that there is never any discontinuance in governing Power over the people In the most confused tumultuous War and distraction that ever was yet there is power still somewhere or other that contains the peoples liberty and subjects them so as there is not one moment or minute of time in the World where society and community of man is that there is any vacuum of Power to be over them and although powers devest one another yet the Series of governing Power is still continued and in all such removes of the Powers yet the Power never falls but is kept alwayes up and is in some still and is as inseperable from the People as the matter and the Form which never are asunder For that which we call Power out of the People it is not the people but a Power acting upon the People and in such a circumstance of it if it become too powerful for the Government then it becomes the Government it self Now having shewed thus the nature of it it destroyes all those imaginary Theaters that they would erect and build popular liberty upon and popular right over Kings They would fancy governing Power to be of the wills of the people and the people the Author so impossible an assertion as I only leave it upon what I have stated and how contradictory it is to nature in all consideration of it so as still the people is but the subject matter of Government never the Author of it nor does Government ever come below the people in the cause of it but must derive out of its own cause which is power to be above the people and so in all end and acting of it All this is still to explode that Monstrous conceit of the peoples instituting the Government or more Monstrous consequence of it the people as the first cause of it to dispose of it and destroy it It is observable in Government that Laws and Liberties come afterward to the people after power of the Government it self In the Norman Conquest all lay flatted some time under it till afterward as the Reporters of those times tell us that the party of the Conqueror or their Posterity did revive the English Liberties first the Conqueror's absolute will served them to expel and dispossess the Natives and after they were glad of establishments in Government to assure their own condition and what they had gained So as hereby we see Governments the farther they go on from their beginnings the more they take in of composition to their first single Nature so as still the Originals of Government are most absolute Hence it is manifest that Power is their Fountain and first cause as such is their Natures and the People's Freedom still is under Government and when Government is most confused then is their Freedom least so as still Power is over them and are alwayes subject to it let the Form of it be what it will To consider it in common Reason and Understanding the King took his Being from the People's Trust in Mr. Baxter's sense therfore the People are to dispose of him This were for the People not to be governed for then the Right were in the People and the King betrayed to govern under another Authority to make it accomptable Therefore this supposeth a Monster in nature and it would evermore make Government destructive to it self for then it doth not govern for where the end and ultimate of Power is there the Government is I shall insert something that is legal in this pertinent to the Case of the King of England how he comes to be King Sir Edward Coke that was a man popular enough in his third part of his Institutes pag. 7. saith That there is no such thing of the Kingly Being in England as an Inter-Regnum nor any Act confers to the making
deceived and abused to serve to others ends Object That they openly professed to manage their War for King and Parliament not against his Person and Authority but against Delinquents that were fled from Justice and against evil Councellers Answ Mr. Baxter would make their War just That it was professed and engaged to be managed for King and Parliament Certainly they did no more in this then all Subjects ever did that made War against their King that is to disstinguish the King's interest from the cause of the War A less pretension cannot be for a Rebellion Rebellion in the nature of it is so much a Monster as it seeks the best cover and never has the face to pretend against the King The fallaciousnesse of this he himself evinced in his following by saying or at least concluding That a subdued King is never fit again to rule over the People that subdued him We need no other evidence now then the things themselves so as we are to argue à posteriori from the ends and issues back to their causes that is that all War taken up by Subjects upon any pretence whatsoever or by whatsoever caution or limitation evermore in the nature of it intends the destroying of King and Kingdom Object That the two Nations of England and Scotland did in the midst of the Wars swear in the Solemn League and Covenant to be true to the King Answ Still this was but the same thing to strengthen the confederacy when at any time there should be a fainting or scrupling by the People a new engagement or profession to publick ends and to common preservation whereof the King was the Head would give new life to it And this was all the use that ever was made of that Covenant It never served the King at all but to beat him down and destroy him And all bringing the people into a body by Covenant is unlawful because Government meerly consists in having no contracts of the people acting of themselves And likewise the Covenant was not absolute as a Kings preservation should be but had a loose in it that made it nothing It was with a so far as consists with Religion Laws and Liberties The King's life and his Rights were not absolutely covenanted O God forbid there should not be an exception as to Religion Laws and Liberties and this a destroying power would be interpreter of So as this Covenant was like Nebuchadnezzar's Image the upper parts of Gold and Silver the lower parts of Iron and baser stuff but the truth is when men Covenant things contradictory as to fight against the King and to be true to him they cannot be expected to perform better for truth is of that Nature that though men abuse it ever so much yet it is unalterable Effects are certain to their causes and own their true Parents Object The Committees Commanders Ministers and People thorowout the Land professed openly to go only upon such tearms as managing but a defensive War against the King's miscariages but an offensive against delinquent Subjects Answ There is no such thing in Nature as a defensive War against a King by Subjects as I shall more clearly demonstrate in due place But in this Mr. Baxter grants as far as is possible to make it defensive necessary and of meer necessity on the King's part It was offensive against delinquent Subjects as much as to say it was a War on the Parliaments part to the destruction of the King's Subjects and the King must be unconcern'd in it sit by and be idle with-draw all protection and become immediately out of possession For such is the Nature and being of a King when an armed power is acting and the King sedentary and not resisting In a Kingdom a War cannot be against any party and not against the King for it deprives the King of his governing power Consider but what the Nature of a War taken up by the People is for his Senate signifies nothing he shall find the whole is but King and People First when it once becomes powerful it gains from its very unlawfulnesse a liberty to be governed by none for in unlawful actions they are all equals No obligation can arise but where there is a primary justice to fix it to and we see in this every thing that prevails never disputes right and the reason is because the whole is unlawful And I present this to Mr. Baxter's reason as it is visible to his observation to shew him that such a kind of War can be wicked but cannot find a Justice to govern it and his first of rebelling with caution and condition was a meer fiction His next is a Narrative only Object In that it was known that the Army was quite altered not only by a new modelling but by an intestine Jesuitical corrupting of multitudes of Souldiers before this odious Fact could be done And it was known that the corrupted part of the Army though the fewer did so excel the rest in Industry and Activity that thereby they hindred their Opposition And it is known that the Jesuited party that afterwards so many of them turned Levellers did draw unto them the Anabaptists Libertines and other Sects upon a Conjunction of Interests and by many sly pretences especially tying all together by the predicated Liberty for all Religions And yet after this the World knows they were fain before they could accomplish it to master the City of London to master the Parliament to imprison and cast out the Members and to retain but a few that were partly of their mind and partly seduced or over-awed by them to joyn with them in the work Answ It is incident alwayes that when a King's Power is dissolved all Wickedness and all manner of Factions and Divisions do grow up in the place of it for want of that Power to retain them and their own guilt still driving them on and being all equals in wickedness these are so natural Causes as I wonder any one can dispute them They ly all in the first Cause of taking away the King's Power all the rest results out of it And they themselvs had proceeded so far as to all Deprivations of the King and all manner of Imputations and Proscriptions as guilty of all the evill of the War setling him in the condition of a Traytor being King kept him in custody after they had bought him of the Scots and not enduring him to terms till the last when it was too late I grant his party would not have had the King bin killed A poor reserve when he is made incapable of any other condition If the People did but know what it were to subdue their King and deprive him of his Power they would never dispute terms of disposing him It is the same thing as killing it stays but the acting And this servs to all he says of this kind And let me insert this though I consent wholly to his Narrative that it is very ordinary and
of the King the Fountain in opposition to the King it is but an opacous Body the light withdrawn from it Grotius states the case Grotius de jure Villi 54. inventi sunt nostro seculo whether Subordinates may act against the Supream Power that is whether any sort of Magistracy under a King have any quality or consideration in them as dividing from the King and he resolves it in the Negative He reasons it thus that these publick Persons are but private in respect of the chief and all the faculty of governing in them is so subjected to the chief Power as whatsoever they act against the Will of that is defective of the faculty and is but of the Nature of a private Act. I shall give it off here because hereafter I shall demonstrate the impossibility of two Soveraignties or Supremacies in one Government and reduce Parliamentary Rights to their due Qualification Now then take away this the other falls this the Theatre Mr. Baxter erects for judging the King and Scaffold for beheading him The truth is the Laws are all silent about this Question Whether a Parliament may commit Tteason so as if we shall not take them in their general understanding we have no law in this Case It is a thing not to be doubted that the Law never had it in imagination that there was any exception to the committing of Treason so as no such thing mentioned in Laws nor ever entred into the mind of any Commentator who write at large and many times their own conceipts yet it never came into the conceipt of any Person to except a Parliament for committing Treason It is many times in Nature the strongest Law that which is not mentioned because the case never imagined to be and therefore not provided for So as if Mr. Baxter will not take all the Laws that are generall without exception to include all Persons then is the King without Law as against a Parliament All the sense of the Laws respect the King without any consideration of Persons no sense or intendment of that but only the end to which it is directed and therefore it is called Crimen laesae Majestatis which shews where the end is in the King's Preservation but the means never differenced in respect of any It were in vain to enumerate the Laws and to aggravate them all dread and all saving being to the life of the Government the King This differencing is out of all Laws never thought of it had its Law and Execution at once as Treasons are never owned till they are acted But let the Reader consider upon the Statute 25 Edw. 3. which is the Declarative of Treasons whether there is discernable any differencing in it or exceptions of Persons or Callings or of qualities or any imagination of this Proposition till now that wickedness strives to defend it self I shall take occasion here to speak to former actings of Parliaments upon Kings deposing them and consequently killing them because the Nature of man is to think any thing that hath bin done may be done and so never finds end of wickedness but to make it infinite Any extraordinary or transcendent acting upon Government though never so unlawful and violent yet if it become powerful it commonly creates something to others to derive from it as those Persons whom Mr. Baxter would vindicate long before they divided declared That in case they should act to the highest Presidents they should not fail in duty or trust having their eye and aim upon the deposing of Kings Ed. 2. Rich. 2. And the last Actors that compleated the Tragedy conclude power of Parliaments from former destroying Kings and setting up others I shall produce it only into some considerations by Epitome only leaving the large Subject of it to the Histories how those Princes came to be declined and lose their Power The first Edw. 2. his condition was to be Prisoner to his own Queen and his Son a Prince of fourteen years of Age and the implacable hatred of the Queen and her party was such as the King must be destroyed no competition being to them both The whole Power was with them they call a Parliament which acted meerly as they prescribed The King deposed by Act of Parliament submitted and resigned in hope of life which he could not have The other as unhappy Richard II. Prisoner to the Usurper Henry of Lancaster his Cousin-Germane The Fate of subdued Kings by Traytors is ever to run into the same Center Traytors leave nothing undone of the last Act of destroying Now the actings being thus what are the considerations upon it First these Persons and the Parliament were the first that ever acted so in England and so must derive the Justice and Authority of it out of themselvs and nothing from whatsoever had been done before Next there was no such thing as King or Parliament in the Nature of it As well Jack Cade or Wat Tyler if they had compleated their Rebellion might have convened any party out of the People calling it a Parliament set himself up King for one Subject hath as much Right to be King as any other Next such a Parliament as it was it was the Subject of an Army the Army of the Usurper by which he had got Possession and destroyed the King's Power so as in effect condemning deposing was the Act of the Army absolutely for so it must be done by such a party called a Parliament and for the purpose and so are all our Mock-shews to set up any wickedness own Authority but act servilly and are meer imposture Next the Act horrid Treason as was imaginable or possible to be in Nature Now the Question comes to be Whether doing wickedly can create a lawfulness If so all sins and villanies by the perpetrating them lose their Natures to be evils and become lawful A conceipt nothing that comes into imagination can be more monstrous There must be a first lawfulness in every Act else the doing it is a Wickedness and still that wickedness perpetuated and multiplied in the after-acting it Next this condemned by the first Parliament that was upon the change of the Power for so long as the Power continued it stood for good as all Wickedness does But the Parliament under the rightful King damns it as traiterous detestable to be driven out of the World never to rise up again pulling down God's Judgments upon the Land Civil War and all the Plagues of it I shall conclude this that Wickedness can be no President Now having gone along with him upon his particulars which he only asserts not proves my next is to take notice and mind him that he is very near losing his cause which I fear he will do anon for he is arguing to a lawfulness in their putting the King to death and it is his business to keep himself out of it and likewise the Parliament's Cause and War and the Religion Protestant and Presbyterian
was customary with the Jews to pray for the King which being practicall in Gods Worship was more then Precept Against thee thee only have I sinned Psal 51.4 That is None to judg the Kings sin but God He might be evil but the offence was only to God The offence respected the Judg of it which is God only Curse not the King no not in thy thought Eccl. 10. ver 20. This not thinking is a restraint of all evill since all evill is a first thinking evill so as this is an universal prohibition My Son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with the seditious for their destruction shall rise suddenly Prov. 24. ver 21. This proves the natural dependency of it The fear of the King on the fear of God then it goes to the reason of it fear the King not to rebel against him I will conclude it with that of David cautionary to his own Soul Who can lay his hand on the Lords Annointed and be guiltless 1 Sam. 26. ver 9. A full definitive sentence in the Case that no violence can be offered to a Kings person And that this was general to all Kings see the consent of all Scriptures Let every Soul be subject to the Higher Powers for there is no Power but of God and the Powers that be are ordained of God and whosoever resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist receive to themselves damnation Rom. 13. Now that all these Powers doth properly intend a King the words following are For Princes are not to be feared for good works but for evill And then after in the singular number He is the Minister of God and he beareth not the Sword for nought Now this Text as it makes subjection absolute so it takes away all parity of Powers it intends one Supream And Powers in the nature of it is but one Power for all subordinate Powers flow out of it and refer to it 1 Tim. 2. Exhort therefore that first of all Supplications Prayers intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men for Kings and all that are in Authority that we may live a peaceable life in all Godlinesse and honesty for that is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour This present Emperour was a Tyrant Claudius Nero which stops all objection from the Kings mis-using his Authority it looks to the good of Government in general and to the evil in general of resisting to Government 1 Pet. 2.13 Submit your selves to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake whether unto Kings as Supream or unto Governors as unto them that are sent of him Here all Government is included in the King sent of him that is out of him and acts by him And submission to Government here is made essential to Godliness 1 Pet. 2.17 Fear God Honour the King Making them connaturals and that the fear of God cannot consist with dishonouring the King the word Honour includes all subjection in it Having taken forth these Scriptures thus clearly and considered all the united force of them for preservation of Kings and for all Allegiance and fidelity to them I reason thus as to Mr. Baxter and his Case that the very force of Scripture and Word of God will not permit any such thing to be as a lawfulness of killing or judging a King or that possibly Law or Authority amongst men should be repugnant to the voice of God being general and universal for obedience to Kings and not to offer violence to them To acknowledg as he needs must that the Scripture commands such things of Kings But we have a Parliament a thing made out of the people that may lawfully condemn and execute the King This is a meer contradiction to God himself no pretence of man can dissolve the universal Will of God declared without exception for a King he is and no distinction can frustrate the will and command of God for so it should be subject to a lye if it should come under man And then to consider that truths stated in Moral duties never lose their natures but are ever the same And now I am loath yet to part with these Scriptures till I have made a full claim to the sense of them howsoever Mr. Baxter deal with them afterwards Let every Soul be subject c. which is to the King which I have proved and the Text shews it Is it not exclusive of any power to be against the King Every Soul the word hath a strange emphasis in it every Soul that is bringing it to a singularity and nearest distinction of man by his Soul which is most himself and wherein he acts his subjection and so precisely and individually every containing all Then to fear the Lord and the King that is both as one the condition of the one implying the other Then forbidding to joyn with seditious or such as are given to Change which directly points out Rebellion And then the case of very Tyrants commanding supplications to God for them shewing directly the nature of Supream Governours to be born by the people whatsoever their condition be And then setting forth all Government of subordinates to be but the Kings Government virtually in him nothing of themselves perse And then Curse not the King admit not an evil thought of him pray for him still so many steps to his preservation keeping all harm or hurt far off him must needs intend the greatest of not destroying him Then to call them Gods an exemption from all humane Tribunalls above the condition of mankind subject to God onely as Supream Governours cannot in nature be other and then generally submission to them for the Lords sake that is to say Gods Service included in it Now if out of all this we cannot make a construction that Kings ought not to be destroyed by the People or by any sort or calling of them under any Form Guise or pretence whatsoever then nothing can be conclusive to man If after all this there be any thing for Mr. Baxter to pretend to and not utterly give up his cause he must make the King of England to be such a thing as not to be within the intendment of these Scriptures Not a King not a Supream Governour not so qualified or to be so obeyed or acknowledged a thing meerly nominal and conditional under some other Supremacy and subject to a forfeiture of himself That this was so at his beginning and admitting that time and succession hath given him no other right since that all this proves it self so to be That the Parliamentary was the onely Primary right and only natural and National and Kings their Servants and Trustees and accomptable And that the Government so began when no King was and his being still under a condition and the condition no less then to be subject to a lawful destroying Power If all this were which is as far from truth
Prerogative she did every thing with her Parliament as with Subjects they knew their own business and she would keep them to it and abundantly the better for their obedience for every thing is good or evil as it is governed Not a Fast or Humiliation day or Preaching His Plea for the Lords p. 409. as learned Mr. Prin hath given the recital of it that they could set up for themselves but she would check it and bring them to Humiliation for it So dangerous a wise Prince sees it popular liberty but to begin to creep out They had essayes upon her about Marriage she would not admit the pressure upon her nor suffer them to be Judg in it Then after that of her Successor that went nearer to her Camden's An aâ—s Elizb a pinching thought and in this the repulse of them was harder because apparently did depend upon it the safety or danger of the Kingdoms after her yet in this she was resolved 't was too precious to her to part with it to them kept it to the last hour of her life when she could live no longer then she declared a Successor imprisoned their Members that promoted it laid absolute peremptory command upon the House against it Pryn's Plea for the Lords p. 410 411. at other times imprisoned their Members and would usually tell them when they exceeded that it was in Her to give them being and to dissolve their being and to assent and dissent to any thing done in Parliament This from the best and wisest of Princes well knowing that it is not possible for a Prince to be just to the People without true obedience from the people King James his time by some Passages then in the Parliaments will shew us the difference betwixt Regal Right and Parliamentary Right Parliament 5 James Dr. Rawley's result from Sir Francis Bacon p. 38 39. the Earl of Salisburyes words to a Committee of the House That matter of War or Peace was Arcanum Imperii and must be kept within the vail nevertheless that sometimes Parliaments have been made acquainted with matter of War and Peace in a generality but it was upon one of these two motives when the King and Councel conceived that either it was material to have some declaration of the zeal and affection of the people or else when the King needed to demand monies and aids for the charge of the War The Earl of Northampton at the same time another of the Council of State that both by Philosophy and Civil Law Ordinatio belli et pacis est absoluti Imperii He further reasoned That the composition of the House of Common was meerly Democratical and intended to have a private and local Wisedome as to the places that sent them and not fit to examine secrets of State which depend upon variety of circumstances and although there be divers Gentlemen in the mixture of the House that are of good capacity and insight in matters of State yet that was the accident of the person not the intention of the place and things are to be taken in the institution not in the practice The Parliament of the 18th of King James was a Parliament of contest and dispute and held out long by an able King and a severe People It was an effectual Parliament as to the granting of Subsidies and reforming abuses yet in the end thrown off The evills that it had to work upon were the evils of Peace and making danger of Religion a Monster and looking at it through the glass of their own Passions would dictate extreams to the King about it and the Spanish match formidable and the Kings unkindnesses from Parliaments had put him upon petty helps as livelihoods Monopolies about those bred no breach but was matter served them to work upon and wholly put to them and the persons offenders in it exposed and the King himself a chief actor to suppress it And to pull down the Chancellor Bacon for Bribery was their work yet at last it had not a legal end of a Parliament but dissolved by Proclamation and Crimination The King enforced to this for this King never acted to publick offence by his Passion but meerly his necessity Therefore I shall resort back and take some remarks and passages of the proceedings along with me to find where the stone of it was After the matter of the punishments were over the great and high considerations as for diversion of the Match with Spain and declaring war against that King for the Palatinate and new devised pressures upon Papists and pressing executions of Laws upon them so as they involve all the Kings Interest into their hands under the notion that it was the Kingdomes Interest The King hearing of this and it beating thorow his sides betakes himself to high resolution and to prevent the prejudice of receiving it formally from them writes thus to the Speaker These are to command You to make known in Our Name unto the House that none therein shall presume henceforth to meddle with any thing concerning Our Government or deep matters of State and namely not to deal with Our dearest Son's Match with the Daughter of Spain and also not to meddle with any mans particulars which have their due motion in Our ordinary Courts of Justice And whereas we hear they have sent a Messenger to Sir Edwin Sandis to know the reasons of his late restraint You shall in Our Name resolve them That it was not for any misdemeanor of his in Parliament But to put them out of doubt of any question of that nature that may arise among them hereafter You shall resolve them in Our Name That we think Our selves very free and able to punish any mans misdemeanors in Parliament as well during their Sitting as after Their Answer by way of Petition to the King first Palliating over and with the manner and inducements to go upon such things they have these words In the discourse whereof we did not assume to our selves any power to determine of any part thereof nor intrude upon the Sacred bounds of your Royall Authority to whom and to whom only we acknowledg it doth belong to Resolve of Peace and War and of the Marriage of the most Noble Prince your Son but as your most loyal and humble Subjects and Servants representing the whole Commons of your Kingdome who have a large interest in the happy and prosperous Estate of your Majesty and your Royal Posterity and of the flourishing Estate of Our Church and Common-wealth did resolve out of our cares and fears truly and plainly to demonstrate these things to your Majesty which we were not assured could otherwise come so safely and clearly to your knowledg and that being done to lay the same down at your Majesties feet without expectation of any other answer of your Majesty touching these higher points then what at your good pleasure and in your own time should be held fit Now if we do but
People or any party out of the King to resist his power for then he should govern no longer than the governed party were disposed to obey and so no Government at all nor is it possible in the reason of Government to put a power upon the governing Power and yet that to govern So as no Argument can be made for resisting because it is against Government it self But saith Mr. Baxter Then what assurance of Laws all at the King 's Will. Now the precise consideration upon this is that the very Nature of the Government and the King's Interest in it binds him to the good of it The Law saith Nulli magis tueri Rempublicam creditum est quà m Regi no person so believed to intend the good of the Common-Wealth as the King his sole Interest makes it so all others as Subject◠have private Interests in them and so have private respects which commonly consists not with the publick the King is the only publick Person of the Kingdom who hath no reason or consideration of his being but as King without that or beyond that nothing his whole being placed in it the publick is his private and this very reason in Nature of Government making the Government the same with the King is the full absolute cause of the certainty and good of it and is as much as is for any thing in Nature or any Being in the World since nothing can be more assured than Self-Interest for the good of it And therefore Kingly Government is the most certain Government because there can be no end out of it all contained in it the good of the Government is the King 's good without any difference Whereas in all other Forms of Government the Persons that govern have particular ends as private persons and this is truly the Nature of it never any reason can be for the abuse of Government by a King It may be abuse upon the King's Government but never out of any just end of it So as it is the foulest mistake that can be to suppose a King's Interest divided from the People's and that he must be held in chains for the People's good and certainty of Government when as the People directly lose all their good if the King want freedom of Will and Power to act The People's consistency is meerly in the King's power without that it were nothing presently the Government grows seditious and factious and moving in parts when the Regal Power cannot retain it And hence it is that those Persons that pretend for Liberty and Power over Kings are cause of Murders and Massacres of the People Nevertheless if it be objected that there are evils and abuses under a King's Government yet not so considerable especially here with us in England where hardly can be any great grievance the form of the Government being so equal as to make War for them Government hath many hard things come into it and extream difficulties and the evils of it are out of the People themselves stubbornly acting against the King and repugning to the means of Government and of Persons doing wickedly and great Ones oppressing and having their ends by wicked means Nor is it possible almost in any Government to have it so that the ordinary People can be able to find Remedy against the Oppressions of great Ones such as are wicked and turn even the Government it self into the means of it and the King is the party most extreamly wronged in it for all reflects upon the King and yet it cannot be helped but in degrees as things are subject to their accidents and so far only the good of Government goes and never to an absoluteness Now the manner is that where the universality meets in Parliament all is represented and they complain and supply the King's wants and this is the great means to redress And if some hard condition in the Government cannot be got mended at present yet extreams do never long endure but return to the nature of the Government they cannot hold out so as we see all excesses in Government are causes still of falling back and reverting to its right temper and commonly causes of pulling away something of the former with it as ever all violating of the grand Charters and Liberties are cause of binding them up and taking greater advantage of the King A King can never affect to govern ill but they may affect to have Power for Power is not simply good or evil but in the use of it and to have treasure and the People in Parliament not complying Kings are inforced to break out into extraordinaries and it cannot be helped for it is not to be supposed a failer of the means of Government all must dy and perish before it King James in the Parliament the 18th of his Reign tells them that in ten years he had not made use of them and had he not bin all peace he could not have lived so When the War began the contest was about nothing but that they would not trust the King and were resolved to bring him below them being an inexorable party and cruelty growing out of Religion is of all other the greatest Cruelty But the Laws and Rights were just the same as in all times formerly no alteration as to the great Interest of Regal right and the People's Rights which shews it is not alterable that which no time had wrought upon and all accidents had in all those ages and times come into it of so durable matter is the Government as no fear ever can be in it as to necessitate Arms of the People to vindicate it The People themselvs are the only destroyers of it Nevertheless though a King may seem all Power yet naturally and necessarily all Government involvs it self into the consent of the People and all Power comes out of them so as we are to see where the Interest of it lyes not meerly in the King's Will who is tied to more necessities than any other so foolish it is to think that though they have the Power of governing they have not the natural restraints and necessities of Government upon them We are at last to consider the infinite mischsef of a Civil War and the strange danger the People run into the greatest and most devouring Gulf that is in nature a body destroying its self and ripping out its own Bowels for it is all-acted within the body it self and the People know not whether they shall ever return to their Government again but live under perpetual Usurpation and Rebellion which utterly destroys a People to fall and live under the King's destroyers for Usurpation is all wickedness and all misery and all force and cannot be amended so long as it stands in resistance so as if possible the People's Interest is to get out of it and come under their Government And it is so far a King of England's cause that hath no military Power in governing as he will never inforce the
King and Parliament and all their Vows and Protestations but as so many charms only to destroy the King because by other means they could not delude the people and now he confesses it concludes and consents to the reason of it that an exasperated King is never to be trusted again with his power over those that subdued him by this he destroyes his Covenant his Cause and the whole onely that served then and this now To drive this further because Mr. Baxter declares himself so in it as he can have no retreat out of it First fight their King subdue him be Victorious upon him make him Captive then kill him according to the Kings own sense and saying when he was in that condition That there were but few steps betwixt the Prisons and the Graves of Princes Now Mr. Baxter makes it his very Argument for the death of the King and so involves his whole Cause and Party in it has destroyed all difference and distinction and makes the death of the King natural and consequential to the first of warring upon him We see here how naturally falshoods betray themselves out of their own Arguments I shall not pass by the insolency and impropriety of his saying Conquered the King If Mr. Baxter were skilled in the Laws of England which is out of his Element he would know that there can be no such thing as a Conquest of Subjects over their King it is desertion or Treason not Conquest If he consult but nature it will tell him that that which is the proper strength existency and being of any thing cannot be said to conquer it no more then any thing can be said to conquer it self the being ceases to be if the essentiall do but divide from it Cook 3. Inst p. 12. Nay the voice and reason of our Laws would never call them Enemies but Traytors Enemies implyes a kind of equalls He sayes Object It was the Judgment of the Parliament upon the division Answ Upon their division their dividing from the King their Judgment was nothing but as private persons or wicked enemies all Subordination depends so upon its first Cause as dividing from that the beeing ceases to be In the next you shall observe Mr. Baxter over-rule Scripture to his own sense as he hath dealt in Politicks Object And that those that did resist the Higher Powers set over them by God are guilty of the damnation of resisters Answ This of Higher Powers here in Mr. Baxters meaning is of those that raised the War against the King that they were the Higher Powers not to be resisted Now I have not met with a greater violation of Scripture then this to make it a meer contrary to its self and destructive to the end it serves to not only indirectly but oppositely This Scripture proceeds from the Spirit of God directly for preservation of Kings and Mr. Baxter applyes it to the Kings destroyers makeing them the meer object of it in the act of destroying the King I have driven it thus home to fix it upon observation what a strange degree of falsifying and abusing Scripture in it and the horridness of the example and consequence of falsifying grounds and rules by which truths should be measured and creating false conceptions which are seeds of all wicked actions Now to clear out this more fully and directly past exception there is not one word or syllable in Scripture Doctrinally of any Power or Authorities since God Governed by his Prophets but still generally the intendment is of Kings and no other Form of Government owned in Scripture or ever intended that being only natural all Power consisting in unity of Power and evermore the Powers are intended as part of the Kings Power for there is no fraction in Government supposing it a Government so as all Power is ever but the Power of the chief Power So many signalls upon Kings and Guards for their fence and safety because if the head fail all the parts and dependency of the people must needs dissolve And here I shall take up again his words no more to be trusted with Government A Speech of great scorn and contempt upon Kings to make them the people's Servants and at their dispose to turn off when they will and to destroy and deriving no higher then out of the Peoples trust their beeing still but a depending beeing nothing being higher in nature then its first Cause and upon this basis they plant their Engine for pulling down debasing Kings and casting them into their Graves It is good therefore to see the relation that Kings have For so much as we see immediate of God in it which is not ordinarily in the things of the World but limited to the chosen people and when he appeared by his Prophets then most manifestly the Kings or at least the first Kings which shews the nature of it and right of it in all was from God leaving out the people at all in it to have any share in it All this legible in Saul David Solomon and in the removes of Kings by Gods special denunciation and sending by his Prophets The people the Executioners in some cases and circumstances so as there is no footstep or mark from God of the Peoples title over Kings or their making them or giveing them their power This in God special and appearing proves in all shews the nature of it for that which we see was done and of God and freely done and at first when no accident had been so as it was a meer promulgation out of nature and proper to the nature of it must needs be held certain to it and most reasonable to conceive of it Corresponding to these are the Texts Rom. 13.1 There is no Power but of God the Powers that be are ordained of God this referring to Kings for the words are after For Princes are not to be feared for good works but for evill and he is the Minister of God Power as Power is properly of God who is the Power â— Chr. 1.9 11. Thou hast made me a King over a People That thou mayest Judg the People over whom I have made thee King â— Sam. 16. â—er 1. I have provided me a King still pointing out his End and his Author The Texts are many more and clear it beyond all doubt or objection of man that Kings as Kings are Gods Creatures and derive not lower then from God himself as immediate to him Now because this was of the Jews a peculiar people to God we will see what evidence the Scripture yields in case of Heathen Kings Nebuchadnezzar an Heathen and Idolater was owned by God as his Servant Jer. 25.9 Nebuchadnezzar my servant Isa 45.1 And thus said the Lord to Cyrus his annointed Which is the highest emblem of Soveraignty annointing attributed to Cyrus as King that is that he had it vertually as King Ezr. 1.2 And Cyrus King of Persia The Lord God of Heaven hath