are Divine there are Obligations also upon the Father and Master to the Son and Servant Such a Paternal absolute Divine Right it is that the Kings of England have claimed and exercised over their Subjects as that in all times Lâ—x cucurrit the Laws have generally run in course for preservation of all the Rights and Liberties of the People as well as those of the Crown Now you see the Fox unâ—ased the word Divine Right of Monarchy is no such Bugbear as we are told here in Print And doubtless the Lords and the Commons of England all people both great and small will well consider that as this kind of Discourse was haled into the Lords House upon no occasion to serve some ends so it was most improperly timed to bring it forth in the Reign of such a King whose tenderness towards the Laws and Liberties of the people hath been most remarkable in all his Actions And if any thing that hath a Face of Power or Force extraordinary or unusual in the times of his Predecessors hath appeared about him 't is no more than what these Fifteen years past hath been continued and never found fault with by his then Lordâ—hip but judged absolutely necessary for his Guard and Defence against his now Lordships new Friends of Presbytery the Irreconcileable Enemies not only of this but any King because the very Constitutioâ— and Natural Temper of that Faction renders them incompatible with the Nature of his Crown and Dignity Yet none shall more kiss him and in kissing none more diminish him Nor can there be imagined greater Enemies to all the rest of his people not only because their design is spurred on with a Religious Zeal of Domination over their Fellow-subjects but because also their Machinations being restless and perpetual to grasp the Power they necessitate the King for defending his own Station and his other peoples to become the more heavy in his demands of Supply to sustain the Government against such Domestick Adversaries And if ever the Excellent Form of it happen to be spoiled which God forbid we must owe it to that sort of Men who have always made it their business to create Parties and tell Noses in both Houses and start such Hares as can never be run down so that there might be neither time nor room to handle or make an end of the important Affairs of the Kingdom and what is this but to destroy the Exercise Use and publick End of Parliaments in England But the Print hath not done yet Shirley's Cause hath drawn hither also the whole Business of France and Holland We owe it saith the two last years Peace by that it means the Peace we have with the Dutch to the two Houses differing from the sence and opinion of White-Hall And it saith his Lordship said 't is a thing to be prayed for that there may be no general Peace made with France and that he himself would advise against it Quantum mutatus ab illo See how consistent his Lordship is with himself Even as he was wont to be Time was when he was an Adviser at White-Hall and he could be of their sence then and took pains also to bring the Houses to it As for example When it was the sence of White-Hall that a War ought to be made with the Dutch as glad as his Lordship now is of the Peace with them he was at first as high as any Man against them as appears by his Speech when he was Lord Chancellor at the opening of the Session of Parliament 5 Febr. 1672. wherein he said all he could to Inflame the Houses against the Dutch he reckon'd up their Personal Indignities to the King by Pictures and Medals and other Publick Affronts from the States themselves their Breach of Treaties â—oth in the Surinam and the East-India Business their Height of Insolence in denying the Honour and Right of the Flag and disputing the Kings Title to it in all the Courts of Christendom and that they made great Offers to the French King if He would stand by Them against Us but the Most Christian King too well remembred how dangerous a Neighbour they were to all Crowned Heads That they were the Common Enemies to all Monarchies especially to Ours And thereupon as angry as he is now at our Kings fair carriage with the French he then concluded it was well done to joyn Interests with the French King And he told the House then also That at any rate Carthago est Delenda the Hollanders were not onely to be brought down but destroy'd And further to engage the Parliament to liberal Supplies against them he told the Houses thus 'T is your War the King took his Measures from You and they were Just and Right Ones And if after this You suffâ—r them to get up let this be remembred The States of Holland are England's eternal Enemy both by Interest and Inclination You see his Lordships Opinion then was that the Parliament ought to bow to the Scene of Whitehall but in a little time after the Scene was altered for no sooner went his Lordship out of Office but his Business was to bow the Houses as much the other way and with the same eagerness for a Peace with the Dutch against the Sence of Whitehall Quo te teneam nodo mutantem Protea And in like manner he hath laboured to put the People out of humour with Whitehall and set them against our being any way concerned with the French telling the Lords in this Print what a mighty dangerous Neighbour that King is grown to be But the good People of England ought withal to consider That King did not in a Nights time grow up to this Magnitude He was but little less at the time of his Lordships Greatness yet all was well enough as long as his Lordship was great too for then there was no clamour of his about it either in or out of Parliament therefore mistake not his present Peek and Indignation at the Court for a zeal towards the Publick So I have done with that Speech to the Lords Printed with the Name and Title of my Lord of Shaftsbury and now ye Men of Shaftsbury what do ye think of him Have ye not reason to be proud of so able a Speech-Maker He 's a brave Man indeed that can blow up a Parliament with a Breath and a Kingdom into a Flame but what wise Men are they that do not yet understand him And what a Knave is he that thinks I mean the Earl of Shaftsbury to be the Man Now though I have done with the Speech yet I cannot have done with the rest of the Print for I see Printed in the end of it another Business in the Name of my good Lord Shaftsbury It is Intituled The Protestation with Reasons of several Lords for the Dissolution of this Parliament Entred in the Lords Journal Novemb. 22. 1675. the day the Parliament was Prorogued So that it seems his Lordship
Readers of his printed Speech apprehend but that he means and would seem to fear all this in England to what purpose else can so wise a Lord be thought to make so serious and eager a Protestation against it or to what purpose else was it so carefully made publick in print but that it was the ready way to get the World to understand it so and that seems the sole drift of the zeal of these impertinent excursions But yet he goes on 3. That â—e cannot find that the Jesuites or Popish Clergy ever owned Monarchy to be of Divine Right but onely some Episâ—opal clergy of our Britiâ—h Isles Then the Episcopal Clergy are it seems the better Subjects in a Monarchy As for the two sorts of Jesuites the Popiâ—h One and the Presbyterian the former will not allow it to the Monarch because he would leave a gap open for the Popes Claim over Him the latter also is of the same mind because he would subject Him to his Presbytery There needs no reasoning to evince these things seeing there are few men in our age who have not seen the truth in facto so that 't is the clear interest of the Crown That if it will have a Church National to Govern by it must be Protestant-Episcopal otherwise its self cannot be secure from the Invasions and Insolencies of the Pope on the one side or of the Many-headed Presbyter on the other 4. That to say this Family are our Kings and this particular Frame of Government is our Lawful Constitution and obligeth us is owing onely to the particular Laws of our Countrey Well urged in print my Lord here is a fair Gap laid open for another Family and another sort of Government And Why The reason is plain because 't is possible we may have other laws Let but the Game go on the Men of Shaftsbury if they get it will soon shew us that the Laws also may be changed and then what may become of the Frame of Government And what may become of the Family if it shall not give way to the alteration of the old Laws and Government He that makes a Crown to have no other Foundation but particular Laws ought first in a Monarchy to shew me whence those particular Laws could come but from the Crown and him that first wore it Law and popular Consent came in afterward not to constitute but to confirm and corroborate it on his head I find after long Observation and Experience of these matters 't is among all our State-Hereticks and Spurious Politicians an Errour in Fundamento which leads them to dispute with Crowned Heads and that boldness prepares them to rebel that they will needs suppose in the Original of Monarchy a Priority of Laws to make it such As to Fact the Histories of Nations in general do consute that vain Hypothesis upon which all their Arguments are built and do shew that for the most part Laws about Monarchy came in after its Institution to second it by the peoples Confirmative Consent Not that this gave it any Authority but their Assent to the Laws about it was onely a Signal of their submission and obedience to it And as it was thus in the beginning of Monarchies so as to the Reason of the Point it holds much the more strongly against them in Monarchies already Constituted for there no Law can be supposed Prior to the Monarch because they all slow from him and cannot have being without him Therefore that Mans Allegiance stands upon very slippery and uncertain Terms who concludes the King and his Family and their Rights as meer Creatures of some particular Laws of the Countrey and prints this Doctrine to the whole Kingdom to beget in them mean thoughts of that Royal Right to the Crown Imperial of this Realm which is naturally inherent in his very Bloud and Person and Family and cannot in a true English Political Sence be otherwise consider'd So that if ever his Lordships Notion be started again among the Peers 't is like it may in that House meet with an Animadversion much more severe than mine 5. Nevertheless the Print goes on very roundly in the Name of his Lordship and saith Page 11. If the Doctrine of the Divine Right of Monarchy be true then our Mâ—gna Charta is of no use our Laws are but Rules during the Kings Pleasure Monarchy if of Divine Right cannot be bounded or limited by Humane Laws nay what 's more cannot bind it self All our Claims of Right the Rights of the Peers House and of the Commons House and of all People must give way to the Interest and will and pleasure of the Crown and the best Men must Vote to deliver up all we have not onely when Reason of State and the separate Interest of the Crown require it but when 't is known the will and pleasure of the King would have it so For that must be to a Man of that Principle the only Rule and Measure of Right and Justice Excellent State-Logick this and were it my Aim to pervert the people I would thus chop Allegiance into a thousand Niceties as the School-men do Divinity for making such like Inferences to intoxicate the peoples minds for the Scripture makes Witchcraft near of kin to Rebellion they seldom part company and the Vilany intended by such Arguments is usually masqued and hid in ambiguous phrases What ado is here made with the word Divine Right It may be remembred the same was made use of to purpose by the Presbyterians to inflame people into the former Rebellion We would fain forget all their past Intrigues but it seems there is fresh use of them or else these thinâ—s had not been thus boldly conjured up again into the House of Peers a place too sacred for such discourses In all Debates about the high Points of Polity every Expression ought not only to be season'd by the Speaker cum grano Salis but to be understood so also by the Hearers If among Men of honest and fair intentions towards the King it be said the King holds his Monarchy by a Divine Right none but a Mad-man or a Man of design a Man whose Business 't is to catch at words and cramp them with Commentaries to his own purpose a Man that can blow up Molâ—hills to Mountains who carries a Microsâ—ope in his Pocket upon occasâ—on to see all in great who when he plâ—ases strains at Gâ—ats in State while he is out of Government but can swallow Camels when he is in it none but such a Man would presently conclude that such a Divine Right was meant as excludes all bounding or limitation by Humane Laws such a One as leaves no Obligation from the Prince to the People A Father hath a Divine Right to Rule his Son and a Master his Servant else the Scripture had never made Divine Injunctions investing them with Rights of absolute Power over them and yet the same Scripture also signifies that notwithstanding those Rights
and Liberty of Parliaments to Inspect the Actions and Behaviour of the great Officers of Trust and call them to account if faulty it being confessed a good advantage and security to the King and Kingdom and necessary to be continued but my purpose here is onely to note when and how the Abuse of that Parliamentary Power and by what Faction it was first made so extravagant that no sooner could a Favourite or Minister of State be warm in his Office or in the Kings Favour and had resolved to look strictly to a maintaining the Rights and Constitution of Government in Church and State but immediately they fell upon the Back of him and gave out the word for his Displacing or his Destruction No doubt but the best of Men in great place will have Errours and Faults being more then other Men distracted with many Businesses and exposed to many Temptations as the Earl of Strafford said at his Tryal but that they should by Popular Breath and Faction be blown up to the degree of high Crime or Treason when they have perhaps in the Judgment of Men moderate and wise onely served the King with the best of their â—kill this is both uncharitable and cruel or the effect of Faction or Envy and it is this onely that I redargue for it is in a factious time the great Interest of the Crown to see to it and to nip this Grand Abuse whenever it shall be practised always taking due measure between a just or conscionable and a factious prosecution Else these Inconveniences will follow As 't is in the Nature of Man to be well-conâ—eited of himself otherwise most Men would even hang themselves so generally a secret Envy arises in him at the preferment of another because he thinks he deserves better than he and the King presently gets his ill-will for passing him by This Man then meets with many other of his own sence and humour and so by rubbing each others Sores till they smart they resolve presently that the Preferree is a Common Enemy and as such to fall upon him And so the Issue at last shall be this when the course of Accusation grows customary that the King shall never be free of his own Choice nor secure of his Ministers when he hath chosen them Moreover â—hen to be preferr'd shall be to be exposed and shot at by all the Darts of Envy and Danger what Man of Wisdom or Fortune will be willing to accept of Preferment or be true and tight to the Kings Concern and Interest in the Government if he do accept it Or will he not rather be tempted through fear of that Accusatory Faction to serve the Regal Interest but by halves or perhaps to betray his Masters Government in Church and State as sâ—me did in the time of the Kings Father when they saw him forced to leave Strafford to make a Friend of that Faction For thus Men will be too apt to do when they cannot be sure of their Masters So that if Kings once quit their Constancy in this particular nothing brings greater hazard to their own Interest of Government and their Persons nor greater diminution to the Kingly Dignity and Power in the opinion of other Princes while his Ministers and himself shall remain liable to be baited at every turn of humour by so busie and impetuous a Faction as if himself were not wise enough to chuse or as if we had none but Knaves in the Kingdom to be chosen Finally 'T is and ought ever to be an Arcanum kept as the Jewels are in the Royal Cabinet to preserve all places which are nigh the Throne so sacred as not to be easily invaded for that draws a Reverence to the Throne it self which should be religiously fenced about not only as the Sacrary of Royalty but as the Sanctuary also of other Princes for such are his great Men and high Officers of State in their places They are as the Lyons about the Throne of Solomon to beget a dread and sence of Majesty in all that approach to it and those are not Beasts for Sacrifice nor to be offer'd up as such nor to be pull'd down without very great cause of Justice require it because the frequency of pulling down the Fence hardens Men and renders them by custom so hardy as to make bold with the Throne it self This licentious Abuse of criminating the Kings Ministers hath by the same Faction which first began it been carried of late times to such a height that were a Man before reputed never so honest yet no sooner doth the King make him one of his great Officers but that if he sticks close to his Masters Interest of Government he presently becomes a publick Enemy and as such they brand him and teaze him and seek to tire out his Majesty with Importunities and Addresses to be rid of him This sort of Behaviour was the reason which made his Majesties Grandfather and Father not so frequent in calling Parliaments and the Protesting Lords may do well to consider how little reason their Son His present Majesty is like to have to become fond of New Parliaments till he can have some good ground to believe that they will return to the like temper and moderation as they had in old time when those ancient Laws and Statutes for frequent calling them were made or until the people see their errour at Elections in suffering Men of that implacable Faction which first poyson'd the fair stream of Parliamentary Duty still to creep into the House to shelter themselves in acting their mischievous Designs under the Covert of Priviledge of Parliament and publick good So I have done with their Lordships First Reason in the Protestation and proceed to the Second which is this Secondly It seems not reasonable that any particular number of men should for many years ingross so great a trust of the People as to be their Representatives in the House of Commons and as good men as these Members of the Counties and Corporporations be so long excluded This kind of reasoning I never expected from the mouths of such Noble Lords Nay then methinks I see John Lilburn putting on Robes and uttering his old Oracles of State What! Is there no Smith to be found in Israel to whet Arguments for their Lordships that they are fain to go down to him and his Philistines the Levellers for thus they argued nigh Thirty years ago against the then House of Commons and good my Lords remember that the same Argument being but a very little altered served also at that time against the House of Peers Be informed my noble Lords you whose names I find in a Catalogue Printed at the end of this Protestation for ye cannot I suppose remember because when I read your Names I perceive that none of you were then Sitters in the Lords House except one whose name I forbear as I do the names of all the rest beside my good Lord of Shaftsbury who in
the Citizens here as appeared by the Industrious Spreading Copies of it in all the Coffee-houses and the effect which it and his other Practises since had and which lately inspired Mr. Jenks with the wisdom of a Statesman to instruct His Majesty and move the matter at Guildhall in Common-Council to be managed in the old Presbyterian way of Petitioning a sort of Saucy Humility much used by that Tribe in the beginning of their Rebellion These things should not be remember'd but that they themselves are pleased to revive them and give us cause to judge that they hope one day to have a Pull for it in a New Parliament with the Bishops and then with His Majesty In order to which MEPHISTOPHILES hath one Expedient more upon the Anvile and that is to use all manner of Tricks that may be by LONG SPEECHES and LONG DEBATES among the Lords and the STARTING of CONTROVERSIES about Priviledge betwixt their Lordships and the Commons to FRUSTRATE Dispatches of the King and Kingdome 's Business and so Necessitate the Present Parliament to become Unserviceable that he may obtain a Plausible Pretence to draw in the People to cry out for a New One as the onely Cure of all our Maladies But how improbable a thing that is if not impossible you shall find evidently proved before the end of these Animadversions LETTER 4. AS the Bishops design to have the Government of the Church sworn to as unalterable so in requital to the Crown they declare the Government absolute and arbitrary and allow Monarchy as well as Episcopacy to be Jure Divino and not to be bounded by Humane Laws ANIMADVERSION MOre Sacks to the Mill upon the Bishops Load them till ye sink 'em That it seems must be first done then down with Monarchy that follows of course as we well and wofully remember 'T is done then like a Workman to tell the World that Episcopacy is alterable that the People may not in any sence own it to be of Divine Right and so it will be easily concluded that Monarchy also is alterable because his Believers cannot believe it to be Jure Divino 'T is a great Crime indeed Sirs in the Bishops that they stand thus in the way of this Alterability and that they maintain Kings to have any Divinity about ' em We have had of late many fine Points publickly Printed and exposed to the Debates of the Multitude such as this Whether Kings be made of Clouts or no but What deserves the Man that starts such Hares as these which no man can run down but he must run the ready Road to Rebellion and Alteration of Government which its impossible to prevent unless we hold up the Veneration that is due to the Head and Members of this Monarchy But had I any thoughts of Rebelling or were I a Cashier'd or Broken Statesman not likely in fair weather to lift aside my Rivals and get in again with the Monarch my Master I would had I so little in me of a Christian or a good Subject take all the course I could to gather Clouds about him and create a Storm that I might force him to come to me for shelter or take me to himself again to help him to weather it Had I long'd and long done any thing for the place of Treasurer and unluckily mist the Bag and by all the good Qualities of Judas pretended as high merit to it as any man or to the Seale or to any Grand Office of State that such a Gnat of Ambition as I durst venture to swallow had I been bobb'd out of All I would even fall to Courting the People after the same manner and Preach up the Mortality of Kings till I and my Myrmidons could fright him out of his Divinity and replace me and scare him our of the remembrance also of all my Jugglery into a new Oblivion to secure me Then would I remove and laugh at all my Opposites and the Citizens too and leave them at last to contemplate my wisdom and their own folly All this Sirs with the help of one of your Shaftsbury Consciences I could easily do And if this could not be done then would I march on further and follow the dictates of Nature for Self-preservation and sticking close to the Multitude drive them on to do any thing that might hamper the King and shackle the Monarchy or if need require transform it into the hands of Conservators or else in case that cannot be precipitate my self and it to the very bottom of Democracy rather than not be revenged on my Sovereign Master for favouring and preferring my fellow-fellow-servants and competitors before me The Poet saith We are Princes all if we prevail And gallant Villains if we fail Would not any Man then think it well done of the Bishops to plead for the Divinity of Kingly Government and of the Episâ—opal which is a part of the Kingly when there are some in the World that design to handle them without all Humanity and would had they opportunity by a commonruine both of King and Bishops too late convince this Nation that by all means there ought to be a joint Interest of mutual preservation maintained betwixt them and that the Monarchy cannot in reason be supposed maintainable without it If this be so as I shall sufficiently manifest anon when I come to consider the late clamour against the TEST then 't is high time for all Men that have sworn Allegiance to apprehend that the Government of Church and State ought to be sworn to as so Divine as not to be alterable till they can tell us a way how to lay aside the Right of Episcopacy at this time in England without ruining the Monarchy If so be then I have a purpose to make good my Allegiance to the King how can I scruple to swear not to alter the Church which is a principal part of his Kingly Government By the one Oath I have sworn to him in both his Capacities Personal and Politick which are never to be separated why then should I deny an Oath obliging me not to alter the Kingly Polity of the Church which is as much the Kings Government though stiled Ecclesitstical as the other part is which we term Purely Civil Consider then ye Men of Shaftsbury the Obligation to both parts of the Government is equal by vertue of your Oath of Allegiance and if his Majesty and the Bishops and many Noble Peers have thought of passing a New Oath they did no more but what is very necessary in the midst of all the present Underminings of this Monarchy on its Episcopal quarter that is they thought it wisdom to fortifie that part with Mens swearing to it expresly and plainly by a new Oath which is no more than what was implicitely contained before in their old Oath of Allegiance and which is not to be found fault with more than the old by any but such persons as either hold it not lawful or have no