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
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
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
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
natural when a party acts in a joynt wickedness and cruelty and after grow into difference the less able party will ever dislike what the other go thorow with to act and pretend to a greater Justice and Moderation when it is acted by others and out of their Power but more of this in the following Object It is known that before they were put out and imprisoned by the Army the Commons voted the King's Concessions in the Treaty to be so far satisfactory as that they would have proceeded on them towards a full agreement See Mr. Prin's large Speech in the house to that end And if they had not suddenly been secluded and imprisoned they had agreed with the King Answ This was when they had no other Interest left them but that of the King 's which they had laid by and trampled upon perpetually till now they must lose all unless they held by that How endless and insatiate were they in exercising their own greatness upon the King's weakness the People perpetually defrauded of the Accommodation by them thirsted after Never any thing satisfactory though they had all and playing with this their own fortune and most delectable greatness too long at length as all new excessive things are incident to change the accidents by him mentioned fell in amongst themselves and they were voting conclusions with the King just the instant before they brake Some secluded some made Prisoners some to avoid worse fled out of the Land It is the mis-fortune and condition of Tyrants to be subject to their own Power and Slaves to it An Army especially that servs but to Subjects against their Soveraign will though humble and obedient at first as all such things are grow insolent as to equals treat conditions and have other Interests It is like a hand-Wolf that though he will be played with for a time yet his Keepers and Masters are Subject to be torn in pieces by him upon the change of his humour Such was this their Army a hand-Wolf too long played with till it grew to know its own strength and to consider that all Rights were alike against the King and amongst the People And then for the Nature of the Agreement with the King It was that for some time he should have been without his Power and all agreements with a King that vest him not in his Power are nothing at all in consideration to a King for a future restoring or for security against the present Power they are things that cannot be and any intervening time would have raised new accidents from so great an impending cause the greatest in the World beyond and above all conditions and not being can have no assurance of future being I call to mind a Passage in a Book called A Plea for Parliaments supposed to be written by Sir Walter Rawley that it was moved in Parliament in Queen Maryes time that if she should dy leaving Issue King Philip the Father and now Matrimonial King should hold the Kingdom till the Issue came of Age to govern and strong bonds should be given for the Surrender And a certain Lord none of the wisest saith the story who had sate silent during the whole Debate at last boulted out this Question Who should sue those bonds against the King They were all presently surprized and so it fell not a word more of it As much as to say An absolute Power in possession is above all Condition Object One thing I shall call him back to that is saying That Multitudes who are now firm and loyall to the present Power supposing it to be set over us by God and therefore would abhor the like practices against them do yet detest that Fact that intervened and made way to it Answ I would desire to be satisfied how Mr. Baxter can reconcile his Divinity This Power set over us by God therefore not to act against it The King's Power either not in his sense set over us by God or else why did he act against it If he say to reform it then why not this Are all things so satisfactory to him in this as needs no Reformation The other Power of the King 's peradventure in his sense was not set over us by God But how this is I would desire him to distinguish and when and where he would make a stop to man's acting I should be very glad that the World were satisfied with it that Supream Power should be unquestionable I would trust God and Man and humane casual events with my share out of it because I see pretended Reformations never countervail the mischief of Rebellions But in the mean time I desire him to distinguish betwixt these two Interests why he is indulgent to this now and so much an Actor and Engineer imploying his Divinity Learning and Passion against the old Let me still hold him to this his own ground Set over us by God Whether he means of God's general Providence as the great Governour of the World and so assigning Governours subordinate or else that he means it in special to this out of his fancy or favour to it I would have him distinguish and I am prepared for him with a further inquiry But in the mean time because I know not my future opportunities I shall further trouble him I suppose he will not otherwise call or account it Set over us by God then as all other wicked things come to pass as this did through the blood and death of the King which intervening cause he denotes detestable Now what obligation extraordinary and which the former Government did not this throws upon man is my Inquiry Where shall man's Wisdom act or rest This done by man and why may not man undo his own Work Is there a Fate upon him in one Action more than in another if Reason doth nor state a difference Is his Divinity otherwise intelligible to him than by his Reason Does he act freely in some things and not in all Are some things of God and not all things If he will say the being of Kings and Supream Governours should oblige an unquestionable Obedience let him answer then for destroying the former Is a less Attribute due to a rightful King than to his Destroyer His intended Reformation by a War intended no less than destroying his Power to resist Besides it will be very hard for him even in his own sense to determine betwixt a true King driven or kept out and a King in Fact and by Usurpation and King-killing which should draw to it the Right and Obligation of Conscience and likewise hard for him to resolve when the new is so settled the other in being though out of possessing as to make Obedience entire Therefore surely it were best God were left out who in these our miserable times hath been made a Stale and a Colour for all the cruelties men have committed Certainly Divinity in understanding the Will of God admits of some distinction betwixt things done