it is evident that his meaning in the words before was that the Parliament by their conquering of the King in defence of their own pretended part of the Soveraignty did not gain that part which he lost nor consequently could as he saith assume the whole Soveraignty to themselves But they did assume the whole Soveraignty even that Parliament did assume it those Lords and Commons did assume the whole Soveraignty who as Mr. Baxter saith were the Best Governours in all the World and such as whom to resist or depose is forbidden to Subjects on pain of damnation And why so Mr. Baxter because saith he they had the Supremacy that is the whole Soveraignty But whom doth Mr. Baxter mean by those the best Governours in all the World and whom all the Subjects of England were forbidden to resist on pain of damnation because they had the Supreme power I mean saith he them whom you speaking to the Souldiers called the corrupt Majority or the 143. imprisoned and secluded Members who as the majority had you know what power and the remaining Members that now sit again as many of them as are living Whereby it plainly appears that he meant the two Houses or the majority of the two Houses of Parliament in 47. and consequently that they were those that had then the Supreme power and who because they had the Supreme power were on pain of damnation not to be resisted But how came they by that Supreme Power not by having conquered the King saith Mr. Baxter in that before quoted Thesis for that saith he did not give them a right to more of the Soveraignty than they had before which was saith he but a part of it neither was that to make any change of the Government in specie and consequently the Soveraignty was still according to his Hypothesis to be in a King Lords and Commons and therefore the two Houses of Parliament or Senate as he calls them in the aforesaid Thesis could not assume the whole Soveraignty where by could not he must mean they could not de jure by right assume it that is they had no right or just title to it And what are they that assume Soveraignty without any Right or just title to it some saith Mr. Baxter call them Tyrants but what doth he himself call them He saith they may be more fitly called and you must know he loves to speak properly and distinctly Invaders Intruders and Vsurpers but are the People bound to obey or not to resist Invaders Intruders and Vsurpers upon pain of damnation No saith Mr. Baxter when it is notorious they have no title to govern them the People are not bound to obey them Now what can be more notorious than that the two Houses had not the Soveraignty at least not the whole Soveraignty whilst the King was alive and whilst he was acknowledged and treated with by them as their King as he was at that very time Mr. Baxter saith they had the Supreme Power and consequently if they had it as indeed they had it de facto in fact they held it without any title or Right to it and therefore by Mr. Baxter's own confession they had it as Invaders and Vsurpers And if notwithstanding they were Invaders and Vsurpers they were the best Governours in all the World and not to be resisted on pain of damnation as Mr. Baxter tells us in one place then are the People bound to obey notorious Invaders and Vsurpers which in another place he saith they are not but yet he saith it with such limitations and exceptions as one may see he leaves a Latitude for any man to submit to any that are in the possession of the Supreme Power whether they have any right to all or any of it or no or though they be never so much Invaders or Vsurpers of it as all of them were that succeeded one another from the beginning of the War with the late King until the Restauration of our present Soveraign As first the two Houses governing arbitrarily and independently whilst the King lived 2dly The House of Commons alone after the Kings murder and Martyrdom assuming to themselves the title of a free State or Soveraign Common-wealth 3dly Cromvel the Father making himself Master of all and of servus servorum a servant of servants becoming Dominus Dominantium a Lord of Lords of whom Mr. Baxter saith in the same Preface That he did prudently piously and faithfully and to his immortal Honour exercise the Government 4thly Cromwel the Son to whom he saith he was bound to submit as set over him by God and to obey for conscience sake and to behave himself as a loyal Subject towards him because as he saith in the same place a full and free Parliament hath owned him Hereby acknowledging First That a full and free Parliament meaning the two Houses only may own or disown whom they will to be set over them by God and consequently whom in conscience they are bound to obey whether he have an Hereditary Right to it or no For Cromwel the Son could have no such Right from his Father neither doth Mr. Baxter pretend he had any such right 2dly That without Writs issuing from the King the People may meet and choose Knights and Burgesses to be their Representatives and that they that be so chosen make up a full and free House of Commons as likewise such as the Vsurper is pleased to call Lords though they be no Lords and have not so much as one Lord truly and properly so called amongst them do make up a full and free House of Lords 3dly That two such Houses do make up a full and free Parliament And such a Parliament was that with such a Summoner of it and such a Head to it as Cromwel the Son was which were the Powers that Mr. Baxter saith were last laid by and of which together with those that were laid by before he means laid by or deposed by the Souldiery to whom he addresseth his Preface to his Holy Commonwealth he hath so excessively high an opinion that he saith he should with great rejoycings give a thousand thanks to that Man that will acquaint him with one Nation in all the Earth that hath better Governours in Soveraign Power as to Wisdom and Holiness conjunct than those that have been resisted or deposed in England Where by those Powers he so much magnifies that were resisted and deposed here in England you may be sure he means not the King nor the Kingly Government though that was the only Soveraign Power that was resisted and deposed but for ought I see or he saith to the contrary he may and doth mean all others that successively usurped and exercis'd Soveraign Power both before and after the late Kings death till his Son 's coming in and consequently not only the two Houses of Parliament before the King's death but the One House
Microscope We are not to be judged by consequences No such consequence in the case An unlimited lawfull Monarchy in what sense Mr. B 's Governours some limited some unlimited If he means limited by men the consequence is avoided If he means limited by God The consequence falls upon himself All Governours limited by God de facto as well as de jure An expedient to help Mr. B. out of his own pit His Governours de facto unlimited what His self contradiction set home if he means limited by God If he mean limited by men his charge against the Bishop falls Mr. B 's Ingenuity in shuffling in one Proposition instead of another His design to make the Bishop odious His strange Logick His calumny cleared An address to the main Question The Aphorism in question This Aphorism the foundation of his Holy Common-wealth This Aphorism of his charged with falshood Three things premised Of Paternal Government * Vide His Apology for the Nonconformists Ministry p. 138. Adam the first Governour unlimited Cain the first Rebel Noah the first Monarch after the floud An account of Government after the confusion of languages Vnlimited Monarchy most ancient Political Monarchy as ours is better than Despotical Mr. B 's opinion of unlimited Governours false and dangerous Vnlimited Governours not Tyrants because unlimited Two sorts of Tyrants Cromwell in both senses a Tyrant Several unlimited Monarchs no Tyrants in either sense Mr. B 's meaning perhaps that all Governours ought de jure to be limited No obligation that all Government should be so limited by any law 1. Not by the positive law of God 2 Not by the law of nature 3. Not by the law of Nations The King never dies how to be understood The consequence driven home Conquerours in a just war unlimited Instances out of Scripture The like Case supposed betwixt our King and the Algerines Whether aconquered people may after submission free themselves by force Mr. B. saith I. The prophet Jeremy of another judgment 2 Chron. 3. 13. Jerem. 5. 2. Zedekiah 's casting off the yoke of the king of Babylon called Rebellion and punished as such Witnessed by the prophet Ezekiel Their deliverance at last from the Babylonish captivity was not by force of Arms. As neither was that from the Egyptian bondage The reason of this to give no countenance to rebellion What a Tyrant is in Mr. B 's notion A Governour 's being unlimited no hindrance to his Right A lawfull Governour 's being a Tyrant doth not forfeit his Right The Proposition to be proved Several arguments to prove it The 1. Argument The 2. Argument from Scripture Affirmatively Obedience to Nero himself strictly commanded And that when Christians under his actual persecution Why S. Peter and S. Paul made choice of to preach up obedience The 3. Argument from the practice of the Primitive Christians Whilst under Heathen and Tyrant Princes Their non-resistance not for want of power c. But cut of conscience to God The ten Tribes revolt from Rehoboam examined * 1 Kings 12. 24 Suppose what they did might be by special Commission The like cases of Abraham Of the Israelites Of Phineas Those cases applied No warrant hence for us to do the like The Revolt sinfull against the fifth Commandment The case betwixt a King and his Subjects the same as betwixt a father and his children Or betwixt a Master and his servants 1 Pet. a. 18. No such special commission for the Revolt as won supposed Jeroboam 's case stated 1 Kings 11. 31. His distrust and impatience How he made Israel to sin David 's case alike and his different behaviour * 1 Sam. 26. 8 9 c. The ground of Jeroboam 's pretence His artifice to discontent the people Absalom 's rebellion raised by the same artifice Psalm 78. 73. Jeroboam 's pretence inquired into No mention of a yoke in Solomon ' s. reign The great Tribute was a Levy of men And that not of the children of Israel People apt to grow weary of their happiness In what sense some men and works are called good The Revolt is called Rebellion 1 Kings 12. 19. 2 Chron. 10 19. Two arguments to justifie the revolt 1 Kings 12. 24. 2 Chro. 11. 4. The Answer in general God's foretelling a thing to be done is not the cause of doing it The like case of Hazael c. The evil of sin from God onely by permission The evil of punishment is from God The case of Jehu and Jeroboam unlike 2 Kings 9. 6 7. The general rule to be followed unless there be a special dispensation To obey actively and passively what Papists and Presbyterians agree in the doctrine of resisting Kings The objection From the law of Nature From their inability to resist And that the precepts of not resisting were temporary The Answer That to think so is no less than blasphemy Christians because Christians to be the best of Subjects The Blasphemy made out Subjects obliged in Conscience A not able saying of Grotius The judgment of the Church of England in the case Where the Churches judgment to be found Her judgment subscribed to by all that are ordained Mr. Calamy 's frank subscription Why the judgment of our Church quoted What Mr. B 's meaning that Tyrants have no right to their governments It is not that they have no right to govern tyrannically Vid. his Tract of obedience to rulers and howfar resistance is unlawfull à pag 346. ad pag. 375. of his holy common-wealth Vid. ibidem à p. 375. ad p. 456. But that they have no right to govern at all Mr. Hobb 's opinion and Mr. Baxter 's alike exploded by the Bishop Lawfull Sovereigns not to be resisted According to the first institution of Kings by Samuel Samuel and St. Paul c. blasphemed as defiers of God and man Mr. B 's Jugling Some Instances of it Nero 's cruelties Pone Tigellinum tadi lucebis in illâ Quâ stantes ardent qui fixo gutture fumant Juven Satyr St. Paul under the same charge of Mr. B. with the Bishop The primitive Christians fools in Mr. B 's opinion Mr. B 's kindness to the Novatians â—â—â—ence and yet they for Bishops The Doctrine of non-resistance no flattery to Kings as Mr. B. calls it Kings accountable to God and punished by him Mr. B 's absurd conclusion set forth by a like instance Subjects advantage from wrongfull sufferings The Hobbists censured on the one hand The Papists and Sectaries on the other As Enemies to God Enemies to Kings And enemies to all subjects The Bishop's justification of his exception against Mr. B 's Aphorism And his Vindication of himself from being a defier c. and an enemy to God c. Rom. 13. for the unlawfulness of resisting rescued The Senate of Rome had part of the Sovereignty with Nero. H. C. p. 353. Mr. B 's exception against our Translation H. C. p. 352. Our Translation vindicated Mr. B. no great Critick in the Greek *
Bishop of Worcester and coming to me to know the cause of it I told him it was because he had Preached in my Diocese without asking my leave or having any licence from me for it and that now I could not give him such a Licence partly in regard of what he had asserted and maintained at the Conference in the Savoy but principally in regard of many of those Positions or as he calls them Aphorisms of his in his Book of the Holy-Commonwealth which were inconsistent with Kingly Government and this I told him in the presence of the then Dean of Worcester Dr. Warmestry and of Mr. Isaack Walton then my Steward which he taking no notice of in his Narrative of the cause why I continued his suspension and would not suffer him to Preach any more in my Diocese but making his friends at Kidderminster to believe it was only for what he had asserted at the Conference in the Savoy whereof he made a false relation also I thought it neither improper nor unnecessary to annex to that Letter of mine which I had written in answer to that Narrative of his that Collection of Aphorisms out of the aforesaid Book of his that the World might be judg whether the Author of such Maxims as those were fit to be a Preacher in such a Kingdom as this or no and this I say was the cause why I Printed them at first 2. The reason why I have reprinted those Aphorisms as well as that Letter with an Addition of some others to them and aggravations of them was to justifie my exceptions against them and to shew that I am not a Defier of Deity and humanity nor an Enemy to God to Kings and to all mankind as Mr. Baxter would have me thought to be because I do not think all unlimited Governours to be Tyrants because they are unlimited or that lawful and rightful Kings if they be Tyrants or govern tyrannically may therefore be lawfully resisted or deposed by their Subjects 3. And lastly if I have indeavoured to shew the falseness and dangerousness of this and other of his Aphorisms subservient to the same end it is not to make him but those Maxims of his odious not unto others only that may be hurt by them but to himself also that he may repent of them which if he have done and done it as he should do and as himself professed he would do if he were convinced there were cause for it I am sure he will not he cannot be offended with the aggravating the hainousness and dangerousness of any of those opinions or practises which he himself hates and detests more than any body else can if he have truly repented of them which if I should take for granted that he hath done since yet if he had not done it before those Aphorisms of his which I excepted against were first Printed it was neither uncharitably nor impertinently no nor unnecessarily done of me neither to let the World know upon what false grounds and by what fallacious and seditious Maxims and Principles Mr. Baxter had undertaken to justifie the late horrid Rebellion and to justifie himself and those Thousands whom as he confesseth he had perswaded to do as He did viz. to Rebell and Fight against the King which he was so far from having repented of when I first Printed those Aphorisms that he tells the World in Print not above a year or two before that he durst not repent of it nor forbear the doing of the same if it were to be done again in the same state of things Neither did the World or I hear any thing from him to the contrary till many years after and whether what he published then or hath published since be a sufficient proof that He is not still of the same mind he was when he published those Aphorisms may well be doubted In the mean time those Aphorisms of his being of so dangerous consequence to the publick and having upon that account been the main cause why I would not suffer the Author of them to Preach in my Diocese until he had as publickly recanted as he had asserted them I thought my self obliged to publish them when I did publish them first to let the World see I had reason to do what I did to Mr. Baxter when I did it how well soever he might behave himself afterwards And as this was the reason why I Printed them at first so the reason why I have Reprinted them now was partly to justifie my former exceptions against them and the dangerous consequences of them and partly to vindicate my self from being a Defier of Deity and Humanity and an Enemy to God to Kings and to all mankind for excepting against but one of them only as Mr. Baxter saith I am and partly likewise to show that there is still just cause to doubt that Mr. Baxter may still be of the same judgment as to the holding of the same Seditious and Rebellious Principles as He did formerly notwithstanding any thing He hath written as yet to the contrary The two former would have been reason enough for my Reprinting of those Aphorisms though it were never so certain or so evident that Mr. Baxter had really and sincerely recanted them all The third I add ex abundanti over and above and wish with all my heart there were no cause to doubt but that he had really and sincerely recanted them all or at least those that are most dangerous and prejudicial to the safety peace and welfare of our own King and Kingdom which I am afraid he hath not done either by what he hath said in that Paper which he would have taken for a Recantation of some of those Aphorisms in his Holy Commonwealth or by the professions he hath made of his Loyalty in the second Part of his Plea for the Non-Conformists And first As to the Paper which he calls a Recantation We are to observe the time when it was Printed which was in the year 70 just 10 years after the Kings coming home How long may we think it would have been if the King had not come home at all or if Richard the Son could have held by force what Oliver his Father whom Mr. Baxter magnifies so much had gotten for him by murthering of his Master And truly if this Recantation had been the effect of a true and hearty repentance I cannot imagine what should be the cause of its coming forth no sooner unless he was so long before he was convinced that he had done amiss in writing what he had written or in doing what he had done during the time of the Rebellion so that his heart indured as long a Siege as that of Troy before it would give him leave to make any acknowledgment at all that he had writ or done any thing to be recanted or repented But what if the King should have suspended his Pardon as long as Mr. Baxter did his Confession What might have
evil and sinfull disposition and none of them from God but by his permission onely and as the bare permission so the bare foretelling of a thing to be done is no way the cause of the doing of it and consequently can neither justify nor excuse the doing of it if it be evil in itself or done with an ill intention or any otherwise in all respects than it ought to be done The foretelling therefore of Jeroboam by Ahijah the Prophet that he should be King and reign over the ten Tribes of Israel can no more excuse him for the way he took to make himself King nor the ten Tribes for assisting him in it than Elisha the Prophet foretelling Hazael that he should be King of Syria did justifie or excuse him for murthering Benhadad his Master that he might be king in his stead or than God's foretelling the crucifying of Christ did justifie or excuse either the malice of the Jews in accusing or Pilate's injustice in condemning of our Saviour As to the other place before objected where God by the Prophet Shemaiah saith the thing was from him I answer that the thing namely the Rebellion of Jeroboam and the ten Tribes may be considered as it was malum culpoe An evil of sin or as it was malum poenoe An evil of punishment that is as it was an evil of sin in those that were the actours in it and so it was not from God but permissivè or by his permission onely or as it was an evil of punishment justly inflicted upon the house of David for the sin of Solomon not the sin which Jeroboam and the ten Tribes did falsely for ought appears in Scripture to the contrary lay unto his charge namely the oppressing of his Subjects but for his Idolatry for his forsaking of his God which as Ahijah told Jeroboam was the sin that God charged him withall and for which God did not command or give Jeroboam a Commission or leave to rebell against Rehoboam the Son of Solomon but onely suffered him to doe so for God as St. James tells us as he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he is not to be tempted himself with evil so he doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tempt no man to evil but as it follows in the same place every one is tempted by his own lust and so was Jeroboam for it was not his zeal for God but his own ambition that made him doe what he did to get the Kingdom as appears by what he did after he had gotten it for the keeping of it for it was the same lust the same ambition that tempted him first to make Israel to sin by joyning with him in rebellion against his and their King that tempted him afterwards to make Israel to sin by joyning with him in Rebellion against his and their God by setting up the Calves at Dan and Bethel to be worshipped by them Neither was the one of these actions of Jeroboam more or less from God than the other for as they were both of them morally evil or sinfull in themselves and intentionally and designedly evil in the doers of them so neither of them were from God because God is not nor cannot be the authour or accessary of any such evil but as they were evils of punishment the former an evil of punishment to the House of David for Solomon's Idolatry and the latter an evil of punishment to the house of Israel for the ten Tribes joyning in Rebellion with Jeroboam against their lawfull Sovereign so they were both of them from God as all evils of punishment are whether inflicted immediately by God himself as Plagues Famines Droughts Inundations generally are and as the drowning of the whole World by Noah's floud and the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire rain'd down from heaven particularly were or whether they be executed by some men upon others whether justly or unjustly whether with or against God's command whether by good men or bad nay whether they be executed by Men or by Devils as those evils inflicted upon Job were they are still from God either as punishments and effects of his vindicativejustice to his Enemies or as chastisements and effects of his fatherly care and kindness to his Children so that whatsoever the evil be in it self and how sinfully soever it may be contrived and executed by men yet it may be most justly made use of by the Divine Wisedom either for the punishment of his Enemies or for the bettering of his servants And thus and no otherwise than thus may Jeroboam's and the ten Tribes rebellion or rather the rending off the ten tribes of Israel from the house of David by that Rebellion be said to be from God and God's forbidding Judah to fight with Israel upon that account doth not argue his approbation of what had been wickedly done by those of Israel but his own resolution to confirm and continue the punishment which he himself had justly inflicted upon those of Judah who no doubt were the followers of Solomon in his sin of Idolatry and rebellion against God as those of Israel were in being followers of Jeroboam in their rebellion against the house of David I have insisted the longer upon this particular because it seems to be the onely Instance that can with any colour of reason be alledged from Scripture to justifie the rebellion of Subjects against their lawfull Sovereign For that which was done by Jehoiada against Athaliah was done for the lawfull King against a most wicked Vsurper and that which was done by Jehu against Jehoram was done by a special and particular command of God such a one as Abraham had for the sacrificing of his Son and as the Israelites had for spoiling the Egyptians and as Elijah had for killing the Priests of Baal as plainly appears from the second book of Chronicles Chap. 22. 7. where it is said That the Lord anointed Jehu the son of Nimshi to cut off the house of Ahab whereas Jeroboam was not anointed at all and David though he was anointed yet it was not to make him presently and actually King but onely a designing him to be King after the death of Saul who continued to be the Lord 's anointed and David's lawfull Sovereign as long as he lived and was at several times and upon several occasions acknowledged by David himself to be so though Saul had forsaken God and was forsaken of God long before But Jehu when he was anointed was actually made King for the Prophet who was sent to anoint him when he poured the Oylon his head saith the Text said unto him Thus saith the Lord God of Israel I have anointed thee King over the People of the Lord even over Israel and thou shalt smite the house of Ahab thy master that I may avenge the bloud of my servants the prophets c. And so what Jehu did against the house of Ahab he had a special Warrant and an express