Liege People of England contrary to the Political Laws that is the Common and Statute-Laws which declare the Fundamental Propriety that the People of England have in their Lives Liberties and Estates those Forces may not be resisted for they who in their own Defence do resist them with Arms may be legally hanged for it in this World and without Repentance will be damned for it in that which is to come And yet this Author pag. 274. asserts That the Laws of all Governments allow every Man to defend his Life against an illegal Assassin and he that doth not so when he can dies not like a Martyr but a Fool. Now Forces thus employed are no other than illegal Assassins But it may be the Damnableness of resisting lies in resisting them with Arms No it is not that for our Author in the same place says Contra Sicarium quilibet homo est miles Any Man is a lawful Souldier against a Cut-Throat that is may use a Sword against him and not only a Switch Neither is it their being called the King's or Sovereign's Forces which makes them irresistible for p. 280 he allows that a Man may defend himself against an Assassin sent by the King's Order because says he the King's Law which is his most Authoritative Command allows us as I suppose that Benefit And therefore it remains that the Damnableness of resisting them lies in this that they are Forces and murther in Troops So that tho any Man is a lawful Souldier against a Cut-Throat yet no Man is a lawful Souldier against Cut-Throats and indeed this last Particular is the only Thing wherein our Author has not been pleased to answer himself Now in opposition to our Author I hold That if the Sovereign cannot authorize one single Person to do an Act of illegal Violence much less can he authorize Forces or great Numbers of Men to do such illegal Acts And that there is just the same Reason Law and Conscience a thousand times over to resist a thousand Murtherers that there is to resist one His Conclusions I confess are very terrible to Flesh and Blood but I take comfort when I look back upon the Principles from whence he infers them which are absurdly false and so far from supporting that Battery which he raises upon them that they fall with their own Weakness Rottenness and Incoherency His Principles are an unlimited boundless Soveraign Power two Tables of Laws which break one another some Preambles of Statutes which he stifles and will not suffer to speak out and a false Pretence of the Soveraign's Honour First He begins with the Notion of a Soveraign p. 200. by which all the World may see that he no more understands what an English Soveraign is than I know what Prester John is Does not every Body know that the very same Titles of Power and Office have a several Notion in several Countries As to compare great Things with small a Constable in England is conceived under another Notion than a Constable in France And so tho an Assyrian King were conceived under the Notion of Absoluteness whom he would he slew and whom he would he made alive whom he would he set up and whom he would he pulled down and his Will did all Yet this is quite contrary to the Notion of an English King as Bracton tells us Non est enim Rex ubi dominatur Voluntas non Lex Where Will governs and not the Law the Notion of a King is lost Nay the Laws of King Edward confirmed by William the Conqueror and sworn to be kept by all succeeding Kings in their Coronation-Oath have these Words Rex autem quia Vicarius summi Regis est ad hoc est constitutus ut regnum terrenum populum Domini regat ab injuriosis defendat c. Quod nisi fecerit nec nomen Regis in eo constabit verùm nomen Regis perdit These I hope are better Authorities in this Matter than Sam. Bochart our Author's French Oracle who like a Forreigner as he was fetch'd his Notions of our Government from the Motto of the King's Arms Dieu mon droit I need not trouble my self in examining our Author's Scheme of Soveraign Power or the Rights of the Soveraign which is full of Equivocation and Fallacy witness the last particular of it where he attributes to the Soveraign the whole Legislative Power Which methinks he might have left out as well as he has done another main Branch of the Soveraign Power which Writers of Government call Vniversale eminens Dominium or a Power of laying Taxes upon the Subject But therein our Author had Reason for if he had but mentioned that Right of Soveraignty every English-man who had ever read a Subsidy-Act or Money-Bill would immediatly have discovered the fraudulent Contrivance of that whole Discourse And because our Author writes as if he were better studied in the modern French Monarchy than in the ancient equal happy well-poised and never enough to be commended Constitution of this Kingdom as King Charles the First calls it I shall take this occasion to set down these few Words of that wise Prince concerning it There being three Kinds of Government amongst Men absolute Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy and all these having their particular Conveniencies and Inconveniencies the Experience and Wisdom of your Ancestors haâ—h so moulded this out of a mixture of thâ—se as to give to this Kingdom as far as humane Prudence can provide the Conveniencies of all three without the Inconveniencies of any one But we have some little People risen up amongst us who with a Dash of their Pen will new-mould the Government endeavouring as much as in them is to dissolve this excellent Frame and to change it into an absolute Monarchy The establish'd Constitution does not agree with the new Models they have seen abroad nor with the new Notions they have got by the end and therefore tho it be the Product of the long Experience of the deepest Insight and of the united Wisdom of a whole Nation yet it must give place to new Inventions and submit to be regulated by an Epistle of a French Author The two Houses of Parliament which have a joint Authority in making Laws as the King expresly says In this Kingdom the Laws are jointly made by a King by a House of Peers and by a House of Commons as also every Act that is made in the very enacting of it tells us shall by the new common Laws of Soveraignty only perform a Ministerial part of preparing Bills and Writings and finding a Form of Words for the Soveraign alone to enact And so likewise the Prerogatives of the King which are built upon the same Law of the Land upon which is built the Propriety and Liberty of the Subject and which is the most firm and stable Bottom in the World shall in this new and treacherous way be founded upon a floating
fit to govern but a Papist who is more dangerous and destructive to a Protestant Kingdom than both of them and that by his own Fault too may not be prevented In a Word a manifest Revelation to shew how a publick Enemy as every Person who is reconciled to the Church of Rome is in the Eye of the Law can possibly be the Fountain of Justice and Mercy which is the true Notion of an English King. These things do stand more in need of a manifest Revelation to clear them up than a Bill of Exclusion does which is as manifestly lawful as that the King and Parliament have power to make a just and necessary Law. Besides where was the Wisdom of our Author or his Friends in demanding a Revelation from God for a necessary Alteration of the Succession when they themselves cannot pretend to one for the Establishment of it Since it is an undeniable Maxime both in Law and Reason that Things are dissolved as they be contracted and an Obligation only by Word of Mouth needs not Hand and Seal to discharge it For by these unreasonable Demands which are contrary to the known Laws of the Kingdom they put Men upon Enquiries nice and unprofitable As how and for what cause the Monarchy of England came to be Hereditary And whether a Popish Prince does not perfectly overthrow that excellent Constitution and disinherit himself This is laid down for a known and acknowledged Truth in the Reasons of the House of Commons 14 Elizab. against Mary Queen of Scots Queen Elizabeth was contented to disable the Queen of Scots as a Person unworthy of any Hope or Title Preheminence or Dignity within this her Land and the Law so to run that if any should enterprise to deliver her out of Prison after her Disablement either in her Majesty's Life or after the same to be convicted immediatly of High-Treason and her self assenting thereunto to be likewise adjudged as a Traytor in Law. This the Commons in their large Answer represent both as needless and as insufficient Whereas it is said that it standeth to very good purpose to proceed only in disabling of the Scotish Queen for any Claim or Title to the Crown we take it by your Majesty's favour that such an especial disabling of the Scotish Queen is in effect a special Confirmation of a Right that she should have had Quia privatio praesupponit habitum And further we do take it for a known Truth that by the Laws and Statutes of this Land now in force she is already disabled and therefore it is to small purpose rem actam agere And now I have done with our Author's Arguments as they are his for as they are Scotch or Newmarket Positions I have nothing to say to them Only it would be worth our Author's Pains and he may get the Addressing Part of the University to help him to reconcile this Scotch Act which makes such a brave shew in his Preface with the History of Succession in Scotland lest while he is so industrious to serve the Interest of a Popish Successor he be found overthrowing the Titles of all the Kings of Scotland for these three hundred Years not excepting his present Majesty's Title to that Kingdom no nor the Expectations of that very Person to whom he is so much devoted The History in short is this Robert Stuart the hundredth King of Scotland and first of the Family of the Stuarts had a Concubine named Elizabeth More the Daughter of Sir Adam More by whom he had three Sons and two Daughters and himself marrying Eufemia the Daughter of the Earl of Ross took care to marry Elizabeth More to one Giffard a Noble-Man in the County of Louthien By Eufemia he had Issue Walter and David Earls of Athol and Strathern and Eufemia who was afterwards married to James Duglass Son to the Earl of that Name The Queen Eufemia dying and Giffard the Husband of Elizabeth More dying much about the same time the King marries Elizabeth More his former Concubine and presently ennobles the Sons which he had by her creating John Earl of Carrike Robert Earl of Menteith and Alexander Earl of Bucquhane Nor was he content with doing so much for them but he also obtained from a Parliament at Scone that the Children which he had by Eufemia being past by these should come to the Crown in their Course No Man will offer to say that the Children of Elizabeth More were made inheritable by that After-Marriage for besides the apparent Insufficiency of it for that purpose what need was there then of obtaining an Act of Parliament to make them so and to set by the Children of Eufemia Now if no Law or Act of Parliament made or to be made can alter or divert the Right of Succession according to the known Degrees of Proximity in Blood what then becomes of the Scone Act But if an Act made at Scone can set aside three Persons at once with all their numerous Descendents for no Fault nor Forfeiture at all why might not an Act made at Westminster have done as much for one single Person alone especially when that Westminster Act would have been in some respects as favourable as an Act of Grace If our Author can tell why he shall be a greater Oracle to me than the great Apollo There is nothing betwixt this and the End of the Preface worth answering which has not already been answered unless it be that Passage where he withdraws his general Approbation of what I had written against Popery as rashly given because I seem to deny that the Church of Rome is a true Church of Christ I desire our Author to make but one Business of it and at the same time to withdraw his hearty Subscription to the Homilies which do more than seem to deny it especially in the second part of the Homily for Whit-Sunday for that whole Sermon is spent in shewing first what the true Church of Christ is and then in conferring the Church of Rome therewith to discern how well they agree together and lastly in concluding that because the Church of Rome is not the true Church of Christ and the Bishops of Rome and their Adherents are not in the Church therefore they have not the Holy-Ghost tho they have for a long time made a sore Challenge thereunto but by their Practices make it plain to all the World that they have the Spirit of the Devil It affirms and which is more proves That the Church of Rome is not a true Church nor has been these nine hundred Years and odd So that our Author must go a great way back to seek his true Church of England in his true Church of Rome I wonder in my Heart what those Gentlemen mean who pretend to be the only Sons of the Church of England and yet make nothing of blowing up whole Homilies at once and are continually disgracing all the Protestant Principles of our glorious
was limited and restrained by Law and Rules of Right as is largely set down in the Mirrour p. 8. Esâ—ierent de eux un Roy a reigner sur eux governer le People d'Dieu a maintainer defendre les persons les biens en quiet per les Rules d'droit al comencement ilz fieront le Roy jurer que il mainteindroit la sanct foy Christian ove tout son poyar sa people guideroit per droit sans regard a ascun person serroit abbeissant a suffre droit come autres de son people And p. 9. in case the King did Wrong to any of his People that he might not be Judg and Party too Convient per droit que le Roy ust Compaignions pur Oyer Terminer aux Parliaments trestouts les breves plaints de torts de le Roy de la Roigne de lour Infans de eux especialment de que torts leu ne poit aver autrement Common droit And for this purpose as well as to make Laws for the good Government of the People it was ordained in King Alfred's time for a perpetual Usage that a Parliament should meet twice a Year at London and oftner if need were as you have it p. 10. And you have a great many particular Laws which were made in those Parliaments p. 15. Amongst other things it was ordained that all Plaintiffs should have Writs of Remedy in the King's Court Aussi bien sur le Roy ou sur la Roigne come sur autre del people d' chestun injury forsque en vengeances d' vie d' membre ou pleint tient lieu sans brief And in the last place to avoid prolixity this Book speaking of the Abusions of the Common Law that is Practices which are Frauds to the Law and repugnant to Right pag. 282. hath these Words La primier la soveraigne abusion est que le Roy est oustre la ley ou il duist ceste subject sicome est contenus in son serement 2 Abusion est que ou les Parlaments se duissent faire pur le salvation des Almes de Trespassors ceo a Londres deux foits per An la ne se font ils ore forsque rarement a la volunt le Roy pur aides cuilets de tresore c. Vide Abusion 153 p. 308. I hope this pure old French of which Chancellor Fortescue says the modern is but a Corruption will inform our Author what Power a Saxon King had and what Basileus Imperator Dominus signified I come now to the next Head to examine some Preambles of Statutes which he either quotes to no purpose or else mangles them in the same manner as Scripture was once quoted to our Saviour and for the self-same end namely to teach Men to tempt God and Danger at once His first Collection of Preambles pag. 212 213 consists of Declarations that the Crown and Realm of England is not in subjection to the Pope which make nothing at all to our Author's purpose but very much against it if he did not stifle them with Et caetera's and long Strokes for the Truth of which I refer the Reader to those Statutes and shall only set down 25 H. 8. cap. 21. for I am not at leisure either to transcribe the Statute-Book or to winnow all our Author's Chaffe He says pag. 212. The Parliament directing their Declaration to the King enacted and declared That this your Graces Realm recognizing no Superiour under God but only your Grace hath been and is free from Subjection c. Now the following Words are these To any Man's Laws but such as have been devised made and ordained within this Realm for the Wealth of the same or to such other as by Sufferance of your Grace and your Progenitors the People of this your Realm have taken at their free Liberty by their own Consent to be used amongst them and have bound themselves by long Use and Custom to the Observance of the same not as to the Observance of the Laws of any Foreign Prince Potentate or Prelate but as to the Custom and ancient Laws of this Realm originally establish'd as Laws of the same by the said Sufferance Consents and Custom and none otherwise It standeth therefore with natural Equity and good Reason that all and every such Laws Humane made within this Realm or induced into this Realm by the said Sufferance Consents and Custom your Royal Majesty and your Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons representing the whole State of your Realm in this your most High Court of Parliament have full Power and Authority not only to dispence but also to authorize some elect Person or Persons to dispence with those and all other Humane Laws of this your Realm and with every one of them as the quality of the Persons or Matter shall require and also the said Laws and every of them to abrogate adnull amplify or diminish Now our Author it is possible may find out of these Words an unalterable humane Law of Succession or that the King has the whole Legislative Power or that there are Imperial Laws ordained within this Realm which are not for the Wealth of the same but may destroy the Political Laws at every turn And so may any Body else make the same Discoveries who is resolved before-hand to do it His other Collection is p. 218 219. not one of which concerns the present Question no not that wherein he triumphs and slavishly braggs That the very Doctrine of the Bow-string is declared by Act of Parliament 'T were better the Doctrine of the Bowstring were about his Neck tho his Name were Legion I see that if the whole Nation were enslaved we have some of the Brood of Cham amongst us who would rejoice at it and make themselves as merry with it as Nero was at the Flames of Rome and would dance after his Harp. But such impotent Malice and poor-spirited Insolence is below an English-Man's Indignation and therefore I shall calmly desire our Author to look over again that Declaration 13 Car. 2. cap. 6. and to tell me in which Clause Word or Syllable of it he finds the Doctrine of the Bow-string declared For my part I have read it very often over and cannot see any more in it than this That it is unlawful for both or either of the Houses of Parliament to raise or levy any War offensive or defensive against the King which was always Treason for any Subjects to do But was ever a legal Defence against unauthorized illegal Violence of Subjects called by the Name of levying War against the King Shew me That in any authentick Book of Common-Law in any Statute or in any Resolution of all the Judges in England and I will be as passive as any Man. Before I go any further I must not forget a Passage which does more nearly concern me p. 221 222. wherein I am taxed
for going contrary to my Declaration and Acknowledgment ordered by the Act of Uniformity Wherein I have abhorred that Traitorous Position of taking Arms by the King's Authority against his Person or those that are commissionated by him Upon which he adds It was apparently the Design of the Three Estates in this Act to secure the Nation of such Ministers as would preach up the Doctrine of Non-resistance without distinction But if it were they are very much disappointed for our Author himself who is as good at Indistinction and Confusion in other Matters as any Man does not preach the Doctrine of Non-resistance without distinction but handles it with the Subtilty of a Schoolman For he grants p. 280 that one who is sent by the King's Order to assassinate or destroy his Subjects is not commissionated by the King for he may be resisted by the King's Law which is his most authoritative Command But great Numbers or Forces so employed may not be resisted So that his Doctrine is this That if twenty Men come one by one with the King's Order to do an illegal and destructive Act they are not commissionated and may be resisted but if the same Number come together Rank and File with the same Order and upon the same Errand then they are commissionated and may not be resisted Is this preaching up the Doctrine of Non-resistance without distinction Or rather is it not making a silly Distinction without a difference Again in the same place he has Distinction upon Distinction in these Words The Doctrine of Passive Obedience allows a Man to resist or use the Sword to defend his Life when the Laws from which I except all Laws destructive of the King's Crown and Regality authorize him so to do This is preaching up and preaching down the same Doctrine in the same Breath upon a wicked Supposition that the Laws of the Land which protect the Subject are destructive of the King's Crown and Regality Now on the other hand all faithful Ministers of the Church of England preach Obedience to the Laws and Non-resistance of those who are commissionated by the King without distinction and without deceiving the People to their Destruction and telling them those are commissionated by the King whom the Law declares are not commissionated nor can be commissionated as no Man can be to destroy lawful Subjects Such illegal Commissions are declared by Magna Charta to be null and void and so we ought to account them as you may see by the following Words And for this our Gift and Grant of these Liberties and of others contained in our Charter of Liberties of our Forrest the Archbishops Bishops Abbots Priors Earls Barons Knights Freeholders and other our Subjects have given unto us the fifteenth part of all their Moveables And we have granted to them on the other part that neither we nor our Heirs shall procure or do any thing whereby the Liberties in this Charter contained shall be infringed or broken And if any thing be procured by any Person contrary to the Premises it shall be had of no force or effect So that what St. Paul says of an Idol may be fitly applied to a Commission contrary to Law For we know that an illegal Commission is nothing in the World. And accordingly we find in Acts of Grace that Men who act upon such Commissions do stand in as much need of Pardon as other Men and had the Benefit of the Act of Oblivion in the first place as you may see by the Particulars which are there pardoned First all and all manner of Treasons Misprisions of Treason Murthers Felonies Offences Crimes Contempts and Misdemeanours counselled commanded acted or done since the first of January in the Year of our Lord 1637 by any Person or Persons before the 24 th of June 1660 other than the Persons hereafter by Name excepted in such manner as they are hereafter excepted by virtue or colour of any Command Power Authority Commission or Warrant or Instructions from his late Majesty King Charles or his Majesty that now is or from any other Person or Persons deriving or pretending to derive Authority mediately or immediately of or from both Houses or either House of Parliament or of or from any Convention or Assembly called or reputed or taking on the Name of a Parliament c. be pardoned released indempnified discharged and put in utter Oblivion His fourth and last Principle upon which he builds his false Passive Obedience is a false Pretence of the Sovereign's Honour concerning which he says p. 279. The Laws are more tender of our Sovereign's Honour as he is God's Minister than of his Subjects Lives As if the King's Honour and his good Subjects Lives could ever stand in such a dangerous Competition that one of them must of necessity destroy the other and as if the Laws of England had provided that the Lives of the People of England should be sacrificed to the King's Honour Has our Author been abroad to fetch home pour ma Gloire and to render it into this English He might have had sounder and safer Notions at home out of Judg Jenkins whom he often quotes to no purpose Pag. 134. we have these Words The Gentleman says We do not swear meaning in the Oath of Supremacy that the King is above all Law nor above the Safety of his People Neither do we so swear says Judg Jenkins but his Majesty and we will swear to the contrary and have sworn and have made good and will by God's Grace make good our Oath to the World that the KING is not above the Law nor above the Safety of his People The Law and the Safety of the People are his Safety his Honour and his Strength And accordingly it has been always declared in Parliament to be the Honour and Glory of the Kings of England that they were Kings of Freemen and not of Slaves whereby they have been enabled to do greater Things and to make a larger Figure in the World than Princes of five times their Territories But this Author has pick'd up quite contrary Notions and thinks it a Dishonour to the King if the generous People which he governs be not Slaves to every Parcel of Criminals who against the King's Crown and Dignity shall wickedly destroy them in his Name I have now done with every Thing that looks like an Argument in this Discourse of Passive Obedience for as for the following Chapter there is nothing new in it he only chews the Cud upon his Notions of Sovereignty and rings Changes upon his Imperial and Political Laws And then in the 12 th Chapter after he has bound us hand and foot and prepared us for the Popish Knife he has the Face to tell us That notwithstanding this Doctrine of Non-resistance or Passive Obedience we shall be secure enough of our Lives Properties and Religion under a Popish Successor For after he has given us the Security of God's Care
his Father's stead in Jerusalem Jehoahaz was the younger Brother and yet the People of the Land excluded his elder Brother to make him King. And tho he were the younger Brother by about two Years the Scripture approves the Title and Birth-right which the People of the Land gave him for it allows and records him to be the First-born 1 Chron. 3.15 And the Sons of Josiah were the First-born Johanan the second Jehojakim c. This Johanan is the same with Jehoahaz as all Commentators are agreed such variety of Names being very usual in Scripture for the same Person 2dly That the Government of the Succession in the Roman Empire was in the hands of the Emperor which is the reason that Gregory blames Constantius alone and neither Souldiery nor Senate for Julian's succeeding to the Crown And 3dly That in all Hereditary Kingdoms the Succession has been variously ordered and disposed upon occasion and that justly by those who had the Government of it And therefore Chlorus might do as was most fit to give his Empire to his eldest Son alone and yet Constantine do as well to divide his larger Empire amongst his three Sons Both which ways of inheriting according to the Fathers were still by Divine Right We have a plain Instance of this likewise in the Articles of Philip and Mary's Marriage in the united Kingdoms of those two Princes I shall add by way of Supererrogation that the Empire after Jovian's untimely and sudden Death went on again in a way of Hereditary Succession first in Valentinian's and afterwards in Theodosius's Family Gratian and Valentinian the younger succeeded Valentinian as his lawful Heirs So Symmachus Praefect of Rome expresses it Eum Religionis statum petimus qui divo parenti vestro culminis servavit Imperium qui fortunato Principi legitimos suffecit Haeredes One of them was Emperor when he was a Child but it was all one for that For as St. Ambrose says by Theodosius's young Sons Arcadius and Honorius who likewise succeeded their Father Nec moveat aetas Imperatoris perfecta aetas No-body is to mind their Age for an Emperor is always at Age. The Descent of the Imperial Crown took away all Defects And St. Ambrose exhorts the People and Army to pay the same Duty to these Minors as they would to Theodosius himself or rather more and tells them what Sacrilege it would be to violate their Rights Plus debetis defuncto quà m debuistis viventi Etenim si in liberis privatorum non sine gravi scelere minorum jura temerantur quanto magis in filiis Imperatoris In a word if the Empire were not Hereditary in that period of it which my Discourse led me to speak of and for a long time after the Christians as well as Heathens have not only imposed upon the World but which is far worse have mocked God in their Prayers Firmicus prays the great Sun and Stars together with the most High God to make the Government of Constantine and his Sons perpetual and grant says he that they may reign over our Posterity and the Posterity of our Posterity in a continued Series of infinite Ages Sozomen prays that God would transmit Theodosius's Kingdom to his Children's Children To which Prince Cyrill Archbishop of Alexandria says The Queen glorious in having Children by you gives hope of Perpetuity to the Empire Now from any one of these Expressions it is plain that the Empire was not Elective For every one knows that the present King's Children in an Elective Kingdom are farthest off from succeeding Whoever succeeds they shall not for fear they should alter the Constitution of the Kingdom and make it Hereditary It is indeed otherwise in the Empire of Germany but there is a peculiar Reason for it None but the House of Austria which has so large Hereditary Dominions and Countries and so scituate as to be a Bulwark against the Turk being capable of defending and preserving that Empire After all to shew how much our Author is mistaken in thinking the Stress of my Argument lies upon this Assertion That the Empire was Hereditary in Julian's time which nevertheless I desire him to confute if he can in fourscore Pages more I do assure him that the Conclusions which are drawn from his own Premises will serve my Turn as well Our Author says pag. 51. That the Caesarship only made a Man Candidate and Expectant of the Empire or as he expresses himself afterwards it was a Recommendation to the Augustus-ship Tho by the way Candidate or Expectant is not the English of Spartianus's Latine which he there quotes for designed or appointed Heirs of the Imperial Majesty are more than Candidates and Eumenius who understood the Roman Empire and Language better than any modern Man opposes those two Words to one another Sacrum illud palatium non Candidatus Imperii sed designatus intrasti However to take the Character of a Caesar at the very lowest he was recommended to the Empire and stood fairest for it And because the Empire had generally gone that way he might plead Custom tho not a strict Right and at the least was next to the Chair Nevertheless the Christians were for setting aside one that had these Pretensions to the Empire of the Roman World meerly because he was not of their Religion they would not have a Heathen to reign over them Now I did not go to ask their Opinion concerning the 13 th of Elizabeth and half a dozen Acts of Parliament more or whether our King and Parliament have not equal power to exclude a Popish Successor as Constantius had to degrade a Pagan Caesar Of which I never doubted nor dare our Author deny it But my Enquiry was Whether Paganism was a sufficient Bar to hinder a Man from an Empire and whether it unqualified him from reigning over Christians And their Answer was as I have faithfully reported it that it was a great Sin in those who could prevent such a Person 's coming to the Crown if they did not do it And whether an Act of Parliament cannot govern the Norman Entail we will never ask the Fathers To conclude if my Comparison of Popery and Paganism hold true which this Author has been pleased to grace and fortify with his Approbation then the Case of Conscience is thus resolved by the Fathers That it is not only just to prevent a Popish Successor but that it is a very great Sin in those who can legally prevent him unless they do it Again If Julian's Title were not a Right of Inheritance but lay in the Choice of the Legions then Julian was already lawful Emperor while he was in France as well as Gordianus Philip Decius p. 37. and others in other places of our Author And yet Julian durst not then own himself a Pagan tho he had been so for ten Years but as Ammianus confesses went to Church a long time after to curry Favour with the
Christians and to avoid Impediments It seems he was afraid even then that the Christians would put a Spoke in his Cart and was so apprehensive of meeting with some dangerous Rubs from them that he slavishly dissembled his Religion The next thing in the Preface worth observing is our Author 's taking offence at my general way of speaking concerning the Behavior of the Christians under Julian that I say they and their when only particular Persons are mentioned I answer Where I have made a general Inference from the Behaviour of particular Persons either those Persons were Fathers themselves who by common Construction are Representatives and deliver to us the Sence of the Church or else the Thing which is done by them is commended and applauded by the Fathers which is the same thing as if they had done it themselves But a great part of the Instances which I give are the general and publick Acts of great Numbers in the Church a Congregation a City or the like not to mention what was done by the whole Church And therefore these Instances ought not to be levell'd with those which our Author produces in Queen Mary's Days of Things which were done but not owned and which as we use to say No-Body did For our Author might have had the Reward of Twenty Marks and Thanks if he could have inform'd who it was that hang'd up the Cat. And as for Wyat's Rebellion it was upon account of the Spanish Match and Religion was only pretended as our Author 's own Quotation from Mr. Bradford does acknowledg I shall overlook the rest till I come to his Discourse about the Bill of Exclusion where in the first place we meet with a subtil Defence for the Addressers For it was not the Popish Successor as Popish but the Succession which they promised to maintain I like the Distinction very well only our Author applies it by the halves for I wonder he does not say that they made this Promise too not as Protestants but as Addressers But it seems the Suffolk-Protestants did thus maintain the Succession of Queen Mary They did so but the Case was very different for then there was no possibility of a Bill of Exclusion Q. Mary by virtue of an Act of Parliament was actually Queen and yet they gave her no assistance but upon her Promise to maintain the established Protestant Religion Which Promise was so well and truly performed that we may well be excused from trusting any Popish Prince as those poor Men did who afterwards had the Opportunity of seeing their Error from the Vantage-Ground of a Pillory and by the Fire-Light in Smithfield As for Archbishop Cranmer's disclaiming and recanting his being concern'd in setting up King Edward's Will against an Act of Parliament it manifestly makes for me and shews what authority Cranmer ascribed to an Act of Parliament which gave Queen Mary all her Title after he himself had been the greatest Instrument of rendring her Illegitimate by causing her Mother's Marriage to be declared null and void from the beginning Tho I might well have taken no notice of it because our Author is pleased to do the same by Bishop Ridley's Sermon at Paul's-Cross where he put by the appointed Preacher only to have an Opportunity of telling the People what Reason they had to put by Queen Mary Would that brave Martyr have been against a Bill of Exclusion who was so zealous for Exclusion without a Bill Presently after we have Objections thick and threefold against the Bishops Reasons in Q Elizabeth's time recorded by Sir Sim. D'Ewes He will not allow the Bishops by any means to be the Authors of them that so he may take the greater Liberty in vilifying and speaking his pleasure of them Just as p. 236. he dissembles his Knowledg of a Book to be my Lord Hollis's which to my knowledg he knew to be his as well as I only that he might the more safely persist in calling it Impious and Treasonable And because he appeals to me whether I think the Bishops of the Church of England could pen such a Popish or Presbyterian Piece I answer 1. That I do verily believe they did pen that Piece and further that there were few others in those Days who were able to pen so learned a Piece And 2. I will join issue with him when he pleases that it is neither a Popish nor Presbyterian Piece but worthy of the zealous Prelates of that Age and agreeable to the Doctrine of the Homilies to which all the Clergy of England have subscribed which is more than can be said of Dr. Hickes's Peculium Dei. First There is no ground in the World to suspect but these Arguments were part of the Reasons presented to the Queen in Parliament because the Title says they were and it is manifest that they are all in the same strain and of a piece and further Sir Simonds says that then which was above fifty Years ago there were written Copies of them remaining in many hands at which time it was very easy if they had been forged to have discovered it 2dly This Paper of Reasons ought not to be called Anonymous for in the Body of it the Bishops are named as the Authors of it whereby the certain Authors of a Book are better known than by a Title or Inscription 3dly There is nothing in those Reasons but what was fit for Bishops in Parliament to urge I say in Parliament where there was full Authority to have enacted all their Conclusions but had been very improper to urge to a Judg at an Assizes which very different Cases I am afraid the Peculium doth not distinguish In short those Reasons are foully misrepresented by this Author and rendred as only fit to proceed from a Scotizing Presbyterian Suppose now I should do the same by Jovian and with more Justice say it was a Book written by the Priests in Newgate as not believing that a Book which manifestly carries on Coleman's Design and is made up of the very Doctrine of his Declaration for dissolving the Parliament could come from a Minister of London This would not be well taken therefore our Author must pardon me if it raises my Indignation to have a Bench of as Reverend Bishops as ever were in the World treated in the same manner And I do again renew my Promise that if he will please to print the Reasons of that Parliament at large as I desired the Reader to peruse them at large and add a Confutation of the Bishops Arguments it shall not want an Answer Is it a Popish Piece because it was for having a Law to put an Idolater to Death Why then our Homilies are Popish too for commending the Christian Iconoclast Emperors who punished Image-worshippers and Image-maintainers with Death Or a Presbyterian Piece Truly that is very notably guessed What because it talks of Godly Bishops where it says We see not how we can be accounted Godly Bishops or faithful Subjects if in
common Peril we should not cry and give warning A Scotizing Presbyterian would as soon have talkt of black Swans Well but according to our Author from excluding the next Heir to the Crown out of the World there is no Consequence at all to excluding him from the Crown I thought there had but this it is not to be skilled in Jewish Learning For he says a rebellious First-born amongst the Jews might be put to Death but not disinherited This is the prettiest Argument in the Book if it were true but it is like the rest and notoriously false For his own Selden whom he quotes for such a Saying as Pax est bona in the 24 th Chap. of the very same Book shews him several ways how the First-born or only Son or any Son might be disinherited and defeated of his Succession I see every Body has not a Petavius to direct him However a Man that could but read the English Translation of the Bible might know that a Jewish Father had power to disinherit because Deut. 21.15 that Power is restrained in one particular Case Grotius upon the place gives the reason of that Restraint says he The Father might for just cause transfer the Right of the First-born to a younger Brother but the Law took away that Liberty from a Man who had two Wives together where there was danger it might be done upon light and trifling Occasions And truly the Case of an Hebrew Heir had been very hard if it had been Neck or nothing if he might by the Law have been put to Death for that for which he might not be disinherited Tho by the way the Rabbins say That Law of putting a Son to Death was never practised no more than that of Retaliation an Eye for an Eye and a Tooth for a Tooth He falsely and invidiously says I challenge the House of Lords the three Estates of Scotland c. to give but one Reason to prove a Bill of Exclusion to be unlawful I did not look so high nor think of those great Persons but of those whom I have often conversed with and who according to the Character I there gave of them have furiously reproached three successive Houses of Commons upon account of that Bill And I am afraid I shall have occasion to call upon them for their Reasons even after this Author's performance I always meant those Men who have misled too many and too great Persons into a Belief that a Bill of Exclusion is against both Law and Conscience that it is such Injustice as ought not to be done to save the World from perishing And after they have asserted this and laid it down for Gospel are not able to say one wise Word in defence of it and till they do I am sure all the World will give me leave to follow them with this reasonable Demand I. His first Argument is That an Act of Exclusion is void because it tends to the Disherison of the Crown This is so far from being true that an Act of Parliament which should deny the King and Parliament a Power of governing the Succession would be a proper Act of Disherison of the Crown because it would destroy one of the greatest Prerogatives of the Crown and devest the King of such a Power as is part of his Crown and which alone in many Cases can secure the whole to him According to what Serjeant Manwood affirm'd in Parliament 13 Eliz. That as for the Authority of Parliament in determining of the Crown it could not in reasonable Construction be otherwise for whosoever should deny that Authority did deny the Queen to be Queen and the Realm to be a Realm The truth of it is it tears up the very Foundations of our Government For as Bishop Bilson has exprest it The Foundation of all the Laws of our Country is this That what the Prince and most Part of her Barons and Burgesses shall confirm that shall stand for Good. But to come to the Point this unalterable Norman Entail whence is it It was certainly made with hands tho all the Roman Emperors had not the Art of making one Now I assert That the King in his Parliament when ever he pleases to call one has all the Power upon Earth and full as much as ever was upon English Ground and consequently can govern this Norman Entail as shall be most for the Preservation of his Majesty's Sacred Person from Popish Plots and of this Protestant Realm from the Hellish Power of Rome And to deny this were to disherit and disable the Crown and as Mr. Mounson in the 13 th of Eliz. expresses it were an horrible Saying As an Appendix to this first Argument first he asks a shrewd Question If the Acts of Hen. VIII about Succession were valid by what Authority was the House of Suffolk excluded and King James admitted to the Crown contrary to many Statutes against him If our Author will shew me but one of those many Statutes whereby King James stood excluded I will yield him the Cause In the mean time I wonder a Man should offer to make Acts of Parliament no more than waste Paper when he knows nothing of them and to talk of the House of Suffolk's Exclusion when it was never included nor ever had any Title or Pretensions to the Crown and above all to be so very absurd as to quote the Recognition of the High-Court of Parliament 1 Jac. cap. 1. where King James's Succession is owned for lawful when at the same time he is invalidating all Acts of Parliament which limit and determine of the Succession For as the same Mr. Mounson argues It were horrible to say that the Parliament hath not Authority to determine of the Crown for then would ensue not only the annihilating of the Statute 35 Hen. 8. but that the Statute made in the first Year of her Majesty's Reign of Recognition should be laid void a Matter containing a greater Consequent than is convenient to be uttered So that if our Author disables Acts of Parliament which limit and bind the Descent of the Crown he likewise disables that Act of Recognition Our Author's Partner Mr. Long has urged this Act of Recognition 1 Jacobi more strongly than any one Argument in his Book besides for because it was made since the 13 th of Elizabeth he opposeth it to that and gives it all the Power of a last Will. To which I shall only say thus much That the very same Recognition to a tittle might have been made to King James tho Mary Queen of Scots had been still living and had only stood excluded by Act of Parliament For as Mr. Long may see by the Act before the Common-Prayer-Book 14 Carol. 2. the Law can make great Numbers of Men as if they were dead and naturally dead before their Time yea tho many of them had a Jus divinum to preach as being Episcopally ordained and were descended in a right Line from
the very Apostles 2dly Our Author quotes two Authorities The one says A Bill of Exclusion if it should pass would change the Essence of the Monarchy and make the Crown Elective or as another ingenious but I am sure very scurrilous and irreverent Pen saith it would tend to make a Football of the Crown and turn an Hereditary Kingdom into Elective The same Answer will serve them both namely That an Act of disinheriting from the Crown does own and proclaim and prove the Kingdom to be Hereditary And further I would be glad to know in what part of the Globe that Elective Kingdom lies where the very Essence of it is this that the present Possessor of the Crown shall have Power in declaring or disabling his Successor II. His next Argument is from the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy wherein a Minister of London especially ought to have used no Sophistry because Oaths are sacred Things and ought not by false Glosses and Interpretations to be turn'd into Snares to entangle the Consciences of those who hereafter shall be desirous to secure the Protestant Religion and withal to involve three successive Houses of Commons in the Guilt of Perjury only for discharging their Consciences to God and their Country And because our Author after he has done thus stands upon his Justification and calls his Way of Arguing plain and honest and says he is not conscious of the least Sophistry in it I shall endeavour to make his Sophistry stare him in the face I shewed him before in my Preface by the most convincing Proof that could be produced that by the Heirs and Successors mentioned in these Oaths are meant Kings and Queens of this Realm of England And if the old Oath of Allegiance at Common-Law which I there quoted had not expresly said so yet Common-Sense would have taught us the very same For Allegiance sworn to a Subject must needs be Treason And therefore as I there argued it is a Falshood of very dangerous Consequence to say that any Person besides his Majesty hath now any Interest in those Oaths or can lay claim to any part of them Our Author had done well to have answered that Argument before he had fallen to new-vamping of old baffled Fallacies which I shall now examine By the Oath of Supremacy as he says true we are sworn to our Power to assist and defend all Jurisdictions Privileges Preheminencies and Authorities granted or belonging to the Kings Highness his Heirs and lawful Successors united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm Now one of these Jurisdictions granted or belonging to the King's Highness his Heirs and lawful Successors united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm is this That the King with and by the Authority of the Parliament of England is able to make Laws and Statutes of sufficient force and validity to limit and bind the Crown of this Realm and the Descent Limitation Inheritance and Government thereof And therefore I ask if they be not the perjured Persons who by asserting an unalterable Succession endeavour to destroy this Jurisdiction Privilege and Authority which they are sworn to maintain But our Author 's honest way of arguing is to have four Terms in a Syllogism As thus We are sworn to defend the Rights of Supremacy vested in the King Ergo we are bound to defend an unalterable Succession which is contrary to the Rights of this Supremacy Again we are sworn to defend all Privileges belonging to the King's Heirs and Successors that is Kings and Queens of England Ergo we are sworn to defend all the Privileges belonging to such as are neither Kings nor Queens but Subjects of England and if they be excluded never can be Kings or Queens of England And therefore to our Author's first Question I answer No Subject can possibly have undoubted transcendent and essential Rights Privileges and Preheminencies united to the Imperial Crown of England for if so then the Imperial Crown of England is united to his Rights which I would desire our Author to take heed of affirming for we can have but one Soveraign as there is but one Sun in the Firmament To his second Question I answer By lawful Successors is meant Kings and Queens of England which have not been always next Heirs by Proximity of Blood witness Henry 7. Q. Mary and Q. Elizabeth who could not be both Heirs in that manner to Edward the 6 th And further I say that the Oath of Supremacy only binds us to the King in being and not to the whole Royal Family otherwise we should have a great many Soveraigns at once and it is made in our Author's Phrase for the Behoof and Interest of the Crown and not for the Behoof of him who may never be concern'd in it In the next place we have these Words Some indeed have said with our Author that the Oath of Supremacy is a Protestant Oath and so could not be understood in a Sence destructive to the Protestant Religion which is a meer Shift and proves nothing because it proves too much Sir I think it was much more a Shift to find out a way to drive on the Popes Interest by an Oath which does most solemnly renounce him and under a pretence of unalterable Succession of which there is not the least shadow in this Oath but the direct contrary to abandon this Protestant Kingdom to the Hellish Tyranny of Rome which we are sworn to oppose and all Protestants will oppose even under a Popish Successor if any such can be in England and let Dr. Watson prove it if he can to be no less than resisting the Ordinance of God. But methinks it had been time enough to offer to prove that after the Pope's Power had been re-established by a Law and not to go about it now when it is Treason to endeavour to reconcile Men to the Church of Rome Thus much the Oath of Supremacy proves which is not nothing nor a Jot too much And further it proves that we are bound in order to the keeping out the Pope's Power which we have utterly renounced humbly to beg of his Majesty to foreclose a Popish Successor who will infallibly let it in I am sure this way of assisting and defending the Jurisdictions and Authorities of the Crown is in our Power and so is within the compass of our Oath and therefore we are treacherous to the Crown and false to our Oath as well as to God and to our Religion if we will not do so much for any of them as this comes to And I do seriously and earnestly recommend this Consideration to all that have taken the Oath of Supremacy and especially to the Clergy of England who have taken it several times over As for our Author 's saying That moderate Papists will take the Oath of Supremacy I shall only say this to it Let him shew me a Man that has taken this Oath and prove him to be a Papist and I
very agreeable to his Hypothesis for then the Regal or Imperial Power had been discharged of the Politick Clog and had governed all alone and the Notions of Sovereignty and Passive Obedience had been as clear as the Sun. But then in some other unlucky places the same Fortescue speaking of the self-same Thing says That those former Kings of England would have parted with their Law Politick and Regal too and would fain have changed them both for the Civil Law. It seems they were as weary of the one as of the other which could not possibly be help'd because they were all one And now I appeal to all the World whether here be any Foundation for a Table of Imperial Laws which can at pleasure destroy the Lives Liberties and Properties of the Subject And whether on the other side according to Fortescue the Safety and Security of the People be not the supream Law of a Regal and Politick Kingdom But because our Author is mighty troublesom with his Imperial Laws and Imperial Power and boundless Power and such like Terms of his own coining which is a Presumption at least that what he writes is not Law but his own Dreams which no Terms of English Law can express I shall tell him from these Passages of Fortescue That the greatest Power the King of England has is this that he can do no Wrong that he cannot authorize any Man or Number of Men to destroy his Subjects contrary to Law consequently that all such illegal destructive Acts tho attempted in his Name are inauthoritative and do neither bind any Man's Conscience nor tie any Man's Hands from using those Remedies which the Laws of God and Nature as well as the Common and Statute-Laws of the Land do allow to be used against all evil-disposed Persons I shall tell him likewise from these following Authorities and many more which might be produced that his Assertion of an absolute unbounded Power in the King which is limited only in the Exercise of it is perniciously false For the Law gives the King his Power and Dominion says Bracton We hold only what the Law holds saith Judg Jenkins The King's Prerogative and the Subjects Liberty are determined and bounded and admeasured by a written Law what they are We do not hold the King to have any more Power neither doth his Majesty claim any other but what the Law gives him Accordingly King Charles the First acknowledges that his Prerogatives are built upon the Law of the Land which in another place he declares are the justest Rule and Measure for them I shall add but one remarkable Passage more out of the King's Answer to both Houses concerning the Militia Feb. 28. 1641. And his Majesty is willing to grant every of them such Commissions as he hath done this Parliament to some Lords Lieutenants by your Advice but if that Power be not thought enough but that more shall be thought fit to be granted to these Persons named than by the Law is in the Crown it self his Majesty holds it reasonable that the same be by some Law first vested in him with Power to transfer it to these Persons which He will willingly do Now this is Demonstration if the Law be the Measure of the King's Power then he has no Power beyond the Bounds of the Law and whatsoever is pretended in the King's Name beyond those Bounds is void and carries no manner of Authority with it Whereas to say the King's Power is absolute and boundless is to say the Government is absolute and arbitrary and requires absolute and unlimited Subjection For it is Nonsence to say that boundless Power can be limited in the Exercise of it for boundless Power which has in it the whole Legislative Power can at pleasure make a Law to take away that Limitation and he that is limited only by his own pleasure is not limited at all And again that is not Power which cannot be exercised and therefore a Fountain full of boundless Power which cannot be brought into Act is a Fountain full of inauthoritative Authority or full of Emptifulness So much for our Author's Fountain Pipes and Channels We have his other Illustration of a boundless limited Power in these Words To be confined in the Exercise doth not destroy the Being nor diminish the Perfection of Sovereign Power for then the Power of God himself could not be Sovereign because there are certain immutable Rules of Truth and Justice within which it is necessarily limited and confined I answer As God exercises no Power which is inconsistent with Truth and Justice so he has no such Power in him in the Root or Being for it is all Imperfection and Weakness And that he neither exercises nor has any such Power is not to be imputed to any intrinsecal Limitation or Confinement but to the infinite and illimited Perfection of his Nature And if such a miscalled Power or Possibility of doing wickedly be found in the Creature it is because he is a Creature it proceeds from Finiteness and Defect And to shew our Author how much more Light there is in a few plain Words than in his Similitudes and Illustrations I say It is self-evident that a Man has no more Power in any kind than he can exercise A Man has no more natural Power than he can naturally exercise he has no more moral Power than he can morally exercise he has no more Civil or Legal Power than he can legally exercise For to say he has more Power than he can exercise is to say he can do more than he can do And therefore an Ocean of our Author 's boundless lawful Power of doing what cannot lawfully be done will not fill an Egg-shell and is such a New-nothing as even Children will despise Before I pass from this Distinction of Imperial and Political Laws I must say somewhat to a Heap of Authorities which we have p. 208 209. to prove that the Realm of England is an Empire that the Crown of it is an Imperial Crown and that one of the Saxon Kings stiled himself Basileus Imperator Dominus Well what of all that The Realm of England is an Empire has an Imperial Crown and is as independent upon any Foreign Realm as the Empire of Turkie therefore the Freemen of England are as very Slaves as any are in Turky and under Imperial or Bowstring Law. If that be your Consequence I will give you your whole Life's time to make it good But Edgar stiled himself Basileus Imperator Dominus And Carolus Rex signifies a great deal more than all those three Titles did I am ashamed to see Rolls of Parliament quoted for such poor Trifles for it is plain by all the Remains which we have of the Saxon Times by History by the Saxon Laws by King Alfred's Will in Asser Menevensis and by the Mirrour that the Saxon Kings were far from being absolute Emperors having no other Power than what