their fear towards me is taught by the precepts of men therefore behold I will proceed to do a marvellous Work amongst this People even a marvellous work and a Wonder for the Wisdom of their Wisemen shall Perish and the Understanding of their Prudent shall be hid This Sir said I would have been a good Text to have Preacht upon before the Wittena Gemot or meeting of the Wisemen at S. Margarets in Westminster about the Year 1641. Oh! replyed Seignior Christiano it had been a Malignant Text and the Preacher would have been committed to the Custody of the Black Rod. For they were then scrambling for the Sovereignty to share it amongst themselves however they soon lost it by the same Principles by which they Usurpt it and whilst they kept it they made so ill use of it that had the Protestants in Queen Maries Reign been then alive they would have commended her as much as the Fanaticks have done Queen Elizabeth So dreadful was that Judgement when inflicted upon England which was anciently threatned to the Israelites for their rebellion against their Sovereign * Hos 3. 4. the Children of Israel shall abide many daies without a King and without a Prince c. Lord Sir said I if it was dangerous to preach then upon such a Subject before the Wise Men at Westminster 't is in vain to preach it now to some people for they very learned in the Law will tell you that they did not set up another King a Jeroboam to which that Text relates but that they more prudently transferr'd or at least fixt the Sovereign Power in a Parliament and therefore will say What signifies your old fashioned Divinity to the Learned in the Law Those Lawyers reply'd Seignior Christiano learnt their Seditious Principles in the State from Schismatical and Heretical ones in the Church And they that maintain that the Sovereignty of England is not in one single Person are as great Hereticks for Lawyers as the Archontici the Marcionites the Heracleonites the Colarbasians or Valentinians were for Divines and they were Hereticks who were condemn'd for holding several Beginnings Truly Sir said I I think here comes one of these antient sort of Gentlemen you talk of For we now overtook a Comical old Fellow in such a Garb as I never before had seen he had a great Ruff-band on which needed no imbroidery for it was made up of old Saxon Manuscripts and the Trimming to his Cloaths was old Parchment tassels tagg'd with Wax upon which was the Impression of King Arthurs Tooth and of the Fangs of all his Knights This is a pleasant Antiquarian said Seignior Christiano let 's brush the Cobwebs off him a little and make our selves merry with him We needed not to seek long for an opportunity for he immediately came up to us saying Gentlemen my Business in this World is to vindicate the honour of our English Parliaments from the Calumnies of those who say That the Commons of England were introduced and begun An. 49 H. 3. Therefore pray come along with me into yonder Castle and there I will shew you all the ancient and undeniable Records under the British Saxon and Norman Governments We willingly followed him until he brought us into a very large Room where there was Provender enough for the Rats and Mice of twenty Generations He had now pull'd his Hat off and made a low obeysance to an heap of musty Parchments when a bold Fellow came up and with a great deal of scorn kickt them all about the room You old fop said he look you here I have in this Cabinet of mine a sett of Antiquities worth a thousand loads of your mouldy Parliament Rolls Here is said he the Tongue of that Parrot that was first Speaker to the House of Commons in the Parliament of Birds and here are two of his Speeches Here is the Ancient Charter of the City Mouse which he forfeited for eating too far into an Holland Cheese Here is a Tobacco stopper made of Log the first King of the Froggs What do you talk of your Records and Parliament Rolls and House of Commons a fart for your House of Office We did certainly expect that the Antiquarian would have blead him alive to have made new Vellum of his skin for the affronts he put upon his old Parchments But what was extraordinary strange we could not discover that he was in the least angry with him at which we much wondred and therefore I examined those Parchments and found them to be the same which Mr. Petyt of the Inner Temple had made use of for Asserting the Ancient Rights of the Commons of England Printed in the Year Eighty And therefore said I to Seigntor Christiano the writing that Book at a Time when the just Priviledges of Parliament were not in the least call'd in Question but on the contrary when not only the Kings Prerogative but his life also was in Danger by a Conspiracy formed among several that were Members of that House was just as if one should have written of the Antiquity of the See of Rome and of the Grants of our English Kings to several Popes at that very Time when the Popish Plot was first discovered Why truly reply'd Seignior Christiano 't is pitty but that Mr. Petyt should have the same reward the next Parliament which that last Parliament would have bestowed upon such an Authour and that he may not want company some hope that the next Parliament will take the Ignoramus Jury into consideration it being a case according to Mr. Lambard his own Antiquarian not within the reach Archion f. 105. of any standing Law or Statute and in which the Parliament hath Jurisdiction But Sir said I I further remarque upon that Book that whilst he pretends to assert the rights of the Commons he hinders the main Ends of Parliaments What a noise does he make of Baronagium Generale placitum and Communitas Regni and several other denominations by which the Common Council or Parliaments were expressed But not with any design to the right ends for which they were called One great end according to his own Quotation out of †Preface f. 43. Knighton de Event Angl. is ut Inimici Regis Regni Intrinseci hostes extrinseci destruantur repellantur that the Domestick and foreign Enemies of the King and Kingdom may be destroyed and repelled And in order to this it is very requisite that the King should have those that are all Loyal Subjects in that Great Council that He should be supplied with moneys to defray the Publick Charges and therefore what signifies a great many of the Records he has quoted and that in particular of the 34 E. 1. unless he had design'd that the last Westminster and Oxford Parliament should have considered Onera Domino Regi incumbentia as that Parliament did by which dutiful Considerations of his Parliament King Edward I. became a Victorious Prince for he awed France
subdued Wales and brought Scotland into subjection of whose King and Nobility he received Homage But a King it seems may be made Glorious at a cheaper rate than Victorious and our Antiquarian forgot in his Quotation that honest old Rule Incivile est particulam aliquam Legis sumere non perspect a tota Lege For he should as well have had respect to the end of their meeting as to the particular Persons that were there had he written as became a Loyal Subject and an honest man at that time and I do not at all question but he who seems so tender of wounding the Peerage would be the first were it in his power that would turn the Bishops out of the House of Lords although for the blood of him he cannot in all his reading bring the Burgesses into the House of Commons but must stumble over Archbishops and Bishops by the way I suppose reply'd Seignior Chr. He Dedicated that Book to the late Earl of Essex for the same reason that the last Edition of Gods Revenge against Murder is Dedicated to the late Earl of Shastsbury At this both the Antiquarian and He that kickt about his Parchments join'd together and came up to us with a great deal of Fury and had not I by chance catcht hold of his venerable Ruff and threatned to demolish that reverend relick we had not parted without a fray but he thus receiving some damage at the first onset they compounded the matter and so we parted pretty quietly No sooner were we got from them But you see said Seignior Chr. they both agree against any one that defends the Government and in the main design of changing this Ancient Monarchy into a Commonwealth For they who vilifie Parliaments if they do it not out of a rash and inconsiderate humour do it with an ill design to make the King suspected by his People and so at last would have no King and they who give to Parliaments that power that does not belong to them give them power to destroy themselves and so would have no Parliaments a true notion of a Commonwealth destroys the very being both of King and Parliament for he that diminisheth or taketh away the Prerogative of the King takes away the very Power of Parliament even when He pretends to give them the Kings Prerogative So they that fought for King and Parliament in the late Wars fought against them both as appear'd in the conclusion and England can never be a Commonwealth again until their be no King and then there will ipso facto be no Parliament As soon as we were out of the Castle we saw a world of people coming towards the Gates so that I fancied that we were formally Besieged but it seems they only came thither for Intelligence as their Custom was once or twice a week Upon which we fell in among them and found people of all Qualities and Conditions but most of the commonsort and a great many Women I do not know But methoughts I found my self strangely uneasie among them for they differed very much from men of Debonair and civil conversation they had such a dreaming way of talking such leering and suspicious looks that I never saw so much ill Nature together in a crowd all the daies of my life and almost fancied that they had a particular smell with them Seignior Christiano who saw me in a musing quandary taking me aside if there was said he but a small strinkling of Laplanders and Canibals among them they would be the compleatest Body of Commonwealths-men under the Sun However that they may not want some Foreigners to illustrate them they have a few Calvinistical and busie Walloons prickt in among them Have they not a few Rattoons and Baboons too said I Truly they have as much reason to be altering and changing the Government as any Walloon of them all Is it not an horrid shame and scandal that they who are naturaliz'd by the favour of the Prince and have here gain'd good Estates under the Protection of his Laws should grow insolent and mutinous and join with Rebels to ruin him and his Government You know the monstrous gratitude of a Factious Fanatick or you know nothing said Seignior Chr. how many men whose dulness his Majesty has covered with a Title of Honour and a Gold Chain have in requital acted as if they design'd the old Game of binding Kings in Chains ' T is nothing certainly but the Spirit of ingratitude pride ambition covetousness or revenge that makes so many Commonwealths-men in the Kingdom of England I could give you the exact Characters of these men their particular rules of Education and their behaviour in their several Imployments but they will not singly stand the shock of a reprimand and I have no time at present to do it therefore I will in general advise them all We being now got up a little hill and they all before us Men Women and Children said he Tag Rag and Bobtail since the good old Cause is in so bad a condition that you can never expect to turn this Kingdom into a Common-wealth whilst ye live and think that without one you can never die in peace Let me advise you all to make a step to a certain place at the Head of the River Nilus where Sir John Mandevil in his Travels tells us the People themselves have none but that like Flounders they wear their eyes and mouths in their Breasts these would be fit Companions for you Commonwealths-men for those who will have no King or no Bishops are properly called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men without heads truly solks Niceph. l. 18. c. 45. ' t is not sit ye should stay here for ye have made your selves such monsters of men as the world never knew You that stickle so for a Commonwealth have taken such wicked courses to procure one as are condemned by the Laws of all the Common-wealths that ever were since the World began the Gallant Romans under Consuls and Tribunes scorn'd to make use of treachery breach of Faith secret Assassinations against their most dangerous and formidable Enemies in Time of War or at least they were forbid in the Civil Law but you have added the invention of Blunderbuzzing against your own Gracious and good Prince in Times of Peace Perjury of which you have been so scandalously Guilty was a crime so detestable to all Nations * Sanderson de Jur. oblig Prael 7. that a learned Casuist tells us Perjurium autem vel ipsis etiam Ethnicis inter gravissima illa Crimina est habitum quae credebantur Deorum Immortalium Iram non in Reos tantum sed in Posteros ipsorum imo in universas Gentes accersere Perjury even by the very Heathens was reckon'd among those highest crimes which were thought to stir up the anger of the Immortal Gods not only against those that were Guilty of it themselves but also against their Posterity ay and against
THE VISIONS OF Government WHEREIN The Antimonarchical Principles and Practices of all Fanatical Commonwealths-men and Jesuitical Politicians are discovered confuted and exposed By EDWARD PETTIT M. A. and Author of the Visions of Purgatory and Thorough Reformations Morosophi Moriones pessimi LONDON Printed by B. W. for Edward Vize at the Sign of the Bishop's Head over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhill M DC LXXXIV TO THE High Potent and Noble PRINCE JAMES Duke Marquess and Earl of ORMOND in ENGLAND and IRELAND Earl of Ossery and Brecknock Viscount Thurles Baron of Arclo and Lanthony Lord Licutenant General and General Governour of His Majesties Kingdom of Ireland Lord of the Regalities and Liberties of the County of Tipperary Lord Chancellour of the famous Vniversities of Oxford and Dublin Lord High Steward of His Majesties Houshold One of His Majesties most Honourable Privy Council in England Scotland and Ireland and Knight of the Most Noble Order of the GARTER May it it please Your Grace I Humbly presume to take this opportunity of congratulating the late Deliverance of your Grace's Noble Son his Excellency the Earl of Arran under whose Care and Conduct the flourishing Kingdom of Ireland injoyces both Peace and Plenty at this day and I hope Your Grace will be pleas'd to accept of these honest labours of my Pen in defence of that Monarchy which you have so long assisted with your Counsels so often vindicated with Your Sword My Lord There never was a wiser Government never a more Gracious Sovereign never a more faithful Subject than Your self All your Princely Vertues will make Your Grace an Illustrious Pattern to the Ages to come who cannot be parallel'd by any that are past He that compar'd Your Grace to Barzillai did it because among all David's Worthies there was none that for Greatness Fidelity and long Experience might compare with You and yet You as far exceed his recorded Merits as the Irish Seas do the little River of Jordan May the ever-living God make Your Grace as far excel him in length of daies by adding to Your Illustrious Life those which in his Divine Wisdom he has been pleas'd to take from Your Right Honourable Father and from Your Noble Son the late Earl of Ossery and thus make up to us our loss here upon Earth and Yours with a late but glorious Immortality with them in Heaven This is the hearty Prayer of all that Fear God and Honour the King and in particular of Your Grace's most humble and obedient Servant EDWARD PETTIT THE CONTENTS VISION I. THe Introduction The Ghost of S. Jerom a Native of Hungary after a relation of the present State of that Kingdom condemns their Rebellion from the Doctrine and practice of the Christians of his time The Grand Confederacy against Christian Religion and Government discovered in a Dialogue betwixt the Ghosts of the late Vizier Cuperlee a General of the Jesuits and the Earl of Shaftsbury The reason why the Fanaticks of England lament the defeat of the Turks A parallel in some new Remarques betwixt them Whether was the more Unchristian to wish the success of the Turkish Arms before Vienna or of the Moors before Tangier The impious and foolish conceit of preventing Arbitrary Government under the Protection of the Grand Seignior p. 1 VISION II. THe miserable state of the Christians under the Turks the happy condition of the people of England Good Government the reason of it The Malecontens described and exposed The Argument that converted and confirmed a Jew in the Christian Faith He confutes and condemns the Fanaticks for their Rebellious Murmurings and Practices He proves Monarchy to be of Divine Institution and the best of Governments The Monarchy of England the best in the World The design of Hobbs's Leviathan and of Nevil's Plato Redivivus they are both in the extremes and both exploded The Ghosts of Hobbs Machiavel and some other modern Politicians quarrel about Preheminence Lucifer not able to decide the Controversie referrs it to Bradshaw He determines for Richard Baxter upon the account of that Maxim that Dominion is founded in Grace The Folly of it discovered in his Book intituled A Holy Commonwealth and the Villany of it in the Practices of the late Commonwealth of England p. 45 VISION III. THe monstrous Loyalty of the Fanaticks Their several Ridiculous Policies the growth and design of the late Hellish Conspiracy The two fundamental Principles of the Good Old Cause First That All Civil Authority is deriv'd Originally from the People The extreme villany and folly of this Proposition throughly examined and by a Civiliz'd Cannibal condemn'd The Second That Birthright and Proximity of Blood give no Title to Rule or Government and that It is lawful to preclude the next Heir from his Right of Succession to the Crown The great impiety and folly of this Proposition fully discovered and condemned by an Indian of New England The Authors and Abetters of them both exposed The great Wisdom and Goodness of our present Gracious Sovereign in securing to this Monarchy the right and lineal descent of the Crown p. 147 VISION IV. THe wicked Policy of raising a mean or evil opinion of the Sovereign in the minds of the Subjects The trivial and unreasonable occasions of such an opinion a pleasant instance thereof in the Case of the Salique Law it is condemned by an Hermaphrodite Better that the Sovereignty should be in one Woman than in five hundred men The Sovereignty of England in a single Person The Heresie of the Whiggish Lawyers Those that 〈◊〉 of the Antiquity of Parliamentes and those that vilifie them are Commonwealths men and enemies both of King and Parliament The Characters of several Commonwealths-men good advice to them A Panegyrick upon the King the Duke the Royal Family and all the True-hearted Nobility Gentry Clergy and Commonalty of this Realm an hearty Prayer for them p. 217 Books Printed for and are to be sold by Edward Vize at the Bishop's Head over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhill A Discourse of Prayer Wherein this great Duty is stated so as to oppose some Principles and Practices of Papists and Fanaticks as they are contrary to the Publick Forms of the Church of England established by her Ecclesiastical Canons and confirmed by Acts of Parliament A Discourse concerning the Tryal of Spirits Wherein Inquity is made into Mens Pretences to Inspiration for publishing Doctrines in the Name of God beyond the Rules of the Sacred Scriptures In opposition to some Principles and Practices of Papists and Fanaticks as they contradict the Doctrines of the Church of England defined in her Articles of Religion established by her Ecclesiastical Canons and confirmed by Acts of Parliament A Spittle Sermon Preach'd In Saint Brides Parish Church on Wednesday in Easter Week being the Second Day of April 1684. Before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor the Court of Aldermen and the Sheriffs of the now Protestant and Loyal City of London These three
e poi patienza Patience to the loss of our heads and patience after that Since the case is thus with us his other Subjects have little encouragement to build plant or sow any more than what will protect them from the immediate Injuries of Hunger and Cold or to provide for the next Generation who are so miserable in their own But pray Sir said he to me what is the reason that the people of England are so very Rich so very Happy as they seem to be They really are so replyed I if they knew their own happiness The people of England by the Providence of God and the Goodness of their Princes from the Times that were before your Empire had a Name or Being have enjoy'd many great Priviledges under the Name of Property and what may seem strange to you the Prerogative of the King is the very Property or Liberty of the Subject a Mysterie as unknown to you in our State as the Articles of the Christian Faith in our Church 'T is hard indeed I believe said he many of your own people do'nt understand it I wish they did said I for our Government is so divinely temper'd that the Honour of the King consists in the Happiness of his People and the Happiness of the People in the Honour of the King He by his good and wholsome Laws protects and encourages them and they all ought to honour and defend him By his Laws those Lands have those delightful limits and boundaries which you see and instead of Thorns and Briars are rich in what is good for food and pleasant to the taste By his Laws the Lusts Ambition and Covetousness of men are kept under every one being confin'd to his proper Business and Station to the encrease of Vertue Honour and Justice Hence 't is that you see the waters burden'd with the Fruits and Products of other Nations and the Land with our own Hence 't is that all Arts and Sciences flourish and even from our improv'd Arts of War for our defence you learn how to invade the effects of our peace Look but into that famous City of London and see how vastly the condition of mankind is altered from what you find it in Constantinople here you will see the Markets crowded with fatted Sheep and Oxen there with lean Slaves whose only hopes depend upon the being bought by a good Master here our greatest trouble is to get a good Servant and if they were but all good Subjects there is not a better King in the World Not good Subjects cry'd He then 't is too good a Land for so bad a People but methinks they seem to have little either of Business or Trouble for they walk to and fro as they please pray Sir let me be so happy as to partake with them of their great freedom At this we went down into the Walks and on a sudden fell upon two Persons that were talking together very earnestly we were unwilling to interrupt them yet kept at such a distance as to overhear them for they talk't very loud one of them saying well well I confess I have pretty well feathered my Nest but let the Kings affairs go how they will I will e'en secure my self I will e'en lie and Lowng as they call it let others stickle that have a great deal to get and little to lose for my part I am for Cokesing of Mammon I 'll not hazard my Fortunes truly not I. Indeed said the other things are carried very strangely at Court I wonder what becomes of all the money I think they did well to vote that no body should lend him any upon any Branch of his Revenue Of whom do they speak said the Turk Of the King said I And who made that Vote the Parliament said I And what is that replyed He The Great Council of the Nation into which some Seditious persons crept in of late years and promoted such a Vote And who are these persons that talk at this rate said He Why said I they have both of them very good Offices under the King how many Aspers a day have they said He again Aspers said I do you talk of Aspers they have at the rate of 4. or 5000. pieces of Eight of Yearly Revenues besides what they get by the bye At this the Turk fell into such a rage that he had like to have run over me and looking sternly upon them Ye ungrateful Dogs quoth He do Ye eat your Masters Bread to vomit it up in his face again were ye in the Grand Seigniors Dominions he would scorn to defile the meanest Slave he has by being your Executioner but would cram ye both into a hole until ye either devoured one another for Hunger or that those Mouths that spoke those words eat up those Hands that used to feed them And then turning to me Are these said he the fruits of Virtue Honour and Justice you lately talkt of You talkt Sir said I of Patience too lately pray have a little now I could rather said he indure to have my head cut off than my ears on to hear what such ungrateful men say But perhaps those other two Gentlemen that walk yonder are of a better mind they too are hot in discourse let us hear them As soon as we came near them What Justice Tom cry'd one of them can we expect from those Tory Lawyers now they are got upon the Bench the very name of Whigg is enough to cast a man in any Suit or Trial that comes before them That is an hard case said the Turk to me And what will become of the Protestant Religion Jack said the other for Dr. Oates tells us That most of the Bishops are Popishly inclin'd and you know Popery is Image-worship mere Idolatry Poor men said the Turk I protest I pity them But hark you Tom said he again pray lend me 50. l. for a Fortnight I vow Jack reply'd the other thou art a merry fellow but thou hast such slippery tricks with thee you know how you serv'd Mr. L. N. t'other day who was your good friend and besides if Fortune frown'd upon you or your Friends were unkind to you that you could not pay Your Debts t' were another case but you have got a trick of Borrowing Money when you have a great deal by you either for the sake of the use of it or with a design never to repay it However I have a Bottle of Wine or two and a Wench at your service but a pox on the pulling down these Conventicles a man cannot get a wholsom Wench half so conveniently now as formerly Prithee Tom don't stand fooling said he let me have so much Money I 'll be faithful to you At this the other began to Curse and Swear at such a desperate rate that the Turk jumpt as if he had been frighted out of his wits and rolling his eyes to and fro and looking upwards Are we said he poor Turks so careful of defiling that
his people So sayes the Authour of Plato Redivivus said I but he does not think so Believe me in the Ballotting Vrns are buried all the Liberties of the common people of Venice they are there so far from chusing a Soveraign that they cannot chuse a Gentleman and never by any art merit or industry become one But the meanest Subjects of England have one advantage which no Democracy in the World much less the Aristocracy of Venice ever afforded That by their vertues they sometimes arrive from the lowest condition to an higher Sphere of Splendor Honour and Riches than any Commonwealth upon Earth affords I know some have argued for a Commonwealth from the great successes and long continuance of that Government but they who look into the Original of it will find better reasons from the place and Situation from the occasions of its being inhabited why it should fall into that Model than why any others especially the Monarchy of England should condescend and conform to it But the Authour of Plato Redivivus would have it so or else He loses his longing I wonder in this hatching Age that no Politick Fop ever yet stood up and demanded or propos'd that the Kings of England should be acknowledged by the same odd and fantastical Ceremonies with which the Arch-Duke of Austria is confirm'd in his Dukedom of Carinthia For there is nothing so ridiculous nothing so dangerous as our Modern Hereticks and Politicians do not now-adaies assert Therefore Sir let me as a Friend advise you to keep your Politicks to yourself You may frame and model in your Study as long as you please without breaking your shins but if you put them either in writing or practice you will indanger the breaking your Neck And suppose you escape that you may chance to meet with those if you have one Grain of honour or sense lest you that will break either your brains or your heart But if your head be so full of Politicks e'en petition Jupiter to pluck thee up an Island somewhere in the Atlantick Ocean as He is seign'd to have done Delos for the Birth of Apollo there thou maist be delivered of thy Politick Conceptions for I do not know any part of the Earth that hath long peep'd over the surface of the Waters that will be plagued with them I say e'en petition Jove for such a restless Varlet as thou art art not fit to pray to the God of the Christians whose Vicegerent thou hast debas'd and whose Ministers thou hast vilified What Religion you are of I cannot tell but by your recommending to us the Dmocratical Government of old Rome I am apt to believe that you would bring us under the Jesuitical Discipline of the new This was the advice of Parsons the Jesuit alias Doleman and of his Confederates in his High Court of Memorials for Reformation of England at Sevil in Spain Anno 1590. as Watson a Secular Priest relates in his Quodlibets p. 94 95. And of Tho. Campanella an Italian Friar who in his Book de Monarchia Hispanica c. 25. p. 204. informs the King of Spain That nothing will so much conduce to weaken the English as dissention and discord sown among them First by Instigating the swaying men in the Parliament House Vt Angliam in Formam Reipublicae reducant in Imitationem Hollandorum To reduce England into a form of a Commonwealth in Imitation of the Hollanders But they value not what sort of Commonwealth whether Dutch or Venetian they model us to so that at last they may but obtain their Ends of ruining our present establisht Government For my part Sir I wonder that any English man of common sense should be cajol'd to admire the Politicks of every whiffling Rascal who under the name of a true Protestant is managing the most malicious Designs of our inveterate Enemies the Jesuits I wonder that any man of the least reason and experience should not dread the desperate Hazzards that inseparably attend every change and revolution in Government the Restitution indeed of this Monarchy after the late Civil Wars was the greatest wonder that I meet with in all History since Dominion was founded on Earth considering that it was done without Violence or Bloodshed but it never was nor ever will be chang'd without numberless Deaths and Calamities and suppose it should be done what would the People of England get by being in the same Condition they were in twenty five Years ago Or which the common people of Holland are in at this day who pay Customs for Foggs and Damps and are Tax'd for Quartane Agues and who have nothing cheap among them but Heresie and Schism I confess you have a great deal of reason to admire the Fundamental Immunities and Priviledges of the Venetians because very rare in a Christian Commonwealth for they may whore and be clapt according to Law and go to the Conventicles of Venus without any great danger of persecution for Righteousness sake But how in the mean Time is this Liberty of the people consistent with the Purity of the Gospel for which you so strenuously stickle and make a noise Oh pray pardon me I forgot that you are a Politician a Politician that is for obliging mankind with vertues a-la-mode and Morality and Divinity of the newest fashion you Politicians hate the old dull phlegmatick grey-beard Apostolical Rules you are for spick and span new Riddles and Paradoxes and therefore Sir to oblige you I will tell you a piece of news What is that said he I am heartily sorry Sir said I for the great loss you particularly had four thousand years ago What an hard case was it that the Records of Sodom and Gomorrha should be so unluckily burnt Without doubt you would have gathered things of great Moment from them and might have gratified a great many of your true Protestant Friends with surprising relations of the great Liberties and Priviledges of those people of which we have a small hint by the memorable clutter they made about Lots door Gen. 19. vers 4. And such a rabble of Catamites would most properly have raised the Ghost of Plato from the dead who was so notorious a Sodomite when alive You are a railing prating Boy reply'd he who values your Judgment that have nothing of solid Learning or substantial Politicks in you You are a paltry quibbling insignificant Black Coat Before I could answer him Hobbs took courage and fell in with him pellmell calling me Pedantical Academick His Vniversity-Learning said he has quite spoil'd him and for want of my reasonings and conclusions he is no better than a dull pragmatical Ideot But yonder is a grave serious and Ancient learned man I will be judg'd by him Ay! and so will I too replyed Nevil For He is one of our Friends an Holy man and a good Commonwealths man a great Enemy to Tyranny Ay to Popery too said Hobbs I followed them and at some distance I espied Mr. Richard Baxter walking
Davenant in his twelfth determin'd Question sayes Induant quam velint isti Magistratuum Reformatores c. Let those Reformers of Magistrates mask under what vizor they please Religion may be their Plea but Rebellion is their Practice And this is so true of Mr. Baxter that as far as I can perceive he will confirm it with his last breath But the Mask he has on will appear to be that of the Fool as well as of the Knave for whatever he in one place denyes he most strictly and rigidly maintains in another and there is not a more ridiculous Book of Polity in the world He confesses indeed that he did not design an Accurate Tract of Politicks not a discovery of an Utopia or City of the Sun And indeed I am apt to believe him for it rather dropt from the concavities of the Midsummer Moon Had he spent his Itch of Scribling in writing his Wifes Life the History of Stew'd Prunes or the Pedigree of his Gib-Cat he had done much better than to have defiled so much good Paper with the indigested Excrements of his Brain upon such a subject For Mr. Baxter did not either honestly or seriously enough consider that his whole Pile of Politicks stands tottering upon a false and rotten foundation For he holds that the Soveraignty of England is in the three Estates viz. King Lords and Commons that the King has but a Co-ordinate Power and may be over-ruled by the other two This is the fundamental Maxim of all his Politicks without which he never could have pretended to the framing his Theocratical Government as he calls it or have made such a Bustle for his peculiar godly Friends and Associates but if this were true which is utterly false why may it not as well happen that the King and Lords should over-rule and consequently exciude the Commons And then what thanks is that House bound to give such a notable Aphorismmonger The Counsellors in that August Assembly are of three sorts by the Fundamental Laws of this Kingdom Some are by Birth as the Barons some Lambards Archion p. 118. by Succession as Bishops and some by Election as Knights and Burgesses and these be all for the time the Kings Council Did ever any King call a Council to depose him But suppose according to Mr. Baxter they might or should do so who should then hinder the two that are by Birth and Succession from over-ruling and excluding the third that are by Election But the Bishops it seems must troop out after the King for fear Mr. Baxter should stumble upon such an horrid piece of non-sense as the making two Estates become three by the taking away of one No less ridiculous is Mr. Baxter in this deposing humour of his for he does like the Abbess who chid the Nun for Fornication when she her self had the Monks Breeches on her head instead of her Veil at the same time He pronounces very terribly Thes 327. That it is a most impious thing for Popes to pretend to disoblige Christians from their Oaths and Fidelity to their Sovereigns and to encourage their Subjects to rebel and murder them But as if it were a most pious thing in a Jack Presbyter he breathes nothing but perfidious Covenants Engagements Associations Seditions and murdering Treasons for several Pages together immediately after Like a Fool as he is to his own Good Old Cause he confesses pag. 461. that God has no where in Scripture told us whether England should be governed by one or two or an hundred but that where the King is Supreme it is the will of God that the people should obey him A strange things that the Politick Saint should want Scripture upon so material an account who is used to squander it away so plentifully upon every trivial occasion Well! since Scripture as he sayes cannot nothing more or better can declare the King of England to be Supreme unaccountable to none but God than the fundamental Laws of this Ancient and Just Monarchy But because Mr. Baxter who would never be govern'd has little or no knowledge of the Laws he sends his Reader in p. 458. to Bacon and Prynn who were as great Hereticks for Lawyers as he is for a Divine I wish that Mr. Baxter who has deserv'd to lose his Tongue as much as Prynn did his Ears would take example by him and lay things seriously and impartially to his heart that by better Aphorisms of Humility and Obedience he would grow so good a Politician indeed as at last to cheat the Devil For 't is a strange thing that a man who has taken so much pains for the salvation of other mens souls should so carelesly run on tick for the damnation of his own If it be true that the King is Supream and that they who resist him as Mr. Baxter has done shall receive damnation to themselves and as Mr. Prynn himself Prynn's Repub. or spurious Good Old Cause sayes they shall But I fear he will never be of so good a mind For like a Knave as he is by his Politicks in this Book and by his Schism and Separation to this day he practises those very Rules which in the beginning of this Book he discovers and declares to be the Jesuits Directions for preserving Popery and changing Religion in this Nation I do not wonder that the late Colonel Sidney who was so great a Crony of Father Oliva ' s the General of the Jesuits at Rome for several years together should borrow part of his Speech he left behind him out of Baxter ' s Holy Commonwealth for sayes he pag. 377. No Man or Family hath originally more right to govern a Nation than the rest till Providence and Consent allow it them Few Princes will plead a Successive Right of Primogeniture from Noah And this without doubt was the Original of that politick strain in Colonel Sidney ' s Speech as the directions of the Jesuits are of Mr. Baxter's Politicks and practices For sayes he himself the summ of Campanella ' s Counsel for promoting the Spanish Interests in England was in Queen Elizabeths daies 1. Above all to breed dissentions and discords among our selves To exasperate the minds of the Bishops against King James by perswading them that he was in heart a Papist and would bring in Popery To make the Kingdom Elective And lastly To perswade the chief Parliament men to turn England into the form of a Common-wealth Pray Sir said I do but hear what Mr. Baxter sayes for himself at the latter end of his Book p. 489. If any one saies he can prove that I was guilty of hurt to the Person or destruction of the Power of the King or of changing the Fundamental Constitutions of the Commonwealth c. I will never gainsay him if he calls me a most perfidious Rebel and tell me that I am guilty of far greater sin than Murder Whoredome Drunkenness or such like or if they can solidly confute my Grounds
was a stranger who told them That he should make bold for that little he had to say with some ends and scraps of what they had all written so that they should teach the people by Proxy and He would do it in disguise He had now fixt himself in the Chair and after three or four lamentable sighs and groans My Brethren said he never was Popery in this world so near breaking in upon us never was the Nation so much in danger of Tyranny and Arbitrary Government and can ye indure Tyranny and Persecution Can you who are Free-born Subjects indure to be bound in Chains To be burnt in Flames To be mangled and cut in pieces Can ye indure to have your Eye-balls hang down like ropes of Onions And to have your Gutts dangle about your Shanks like Knee-strings To be torn asunder by Trees and Wild Horses And which is worst of all can ye avoid it if Popery Hellish Damnable Diabolical Devilish Infernal Idolatrous Cruel Perfidious silly sneaking Popery comes in And can ye avoid Popery coming in if ye have a Popish King And can ye avoid a Popish King if ye have a Popish Successor And can ye hinder a Popish Successor unless by a Bill of Exclusion ye drive him out like a midnight Thief and a Robber Oh my Brethren when ye have such fundamental Priviledges when Parliaments have such uncontrollable Power will ye be such Turkish Bowstringish slavish fools to indure it Do ye not know that all Power is Originally in the People In the People I say I suppose ye are acquainted with Them Do ye not know That all Monarchies are de jure Elective That the disposal and descent of the Crown depends wholly upon your pleasure and that You have an unlimited Power to determine this or that Government That Succession to Government by nearness of blood is by no Law of Nature or Divine that an Heir Apparent before his Coronation and Admission by the Realm hath the same and no more Interest to the Kingdom than the King of the Romans or Caesar hath to the German Empire And consequently that Birthright and Proximity of Blood give no Title to Rule or Government and that it is Lawful to preclude the next Heir from his Right of Succession to the Crown The People seem'd strangely tickled and pleas'd with these Cokesing Doctrines But Seignior Christiano was so extremely incens'd that he had much ado to refrain himself but with a contemptible smile I desire Sir said he according to the priviledges of this place that you and I before we part may freely and seriously debate these Points of Doctrine which you have so Dogmatically taught the People for I must tell you that they are so far from being either true or good that they are the very belchings of the Father of Lies and more destructive of Mankind than the most Pestilential foists that were ever squeez'd from the Bottomless Pit These your Propositions like the chains of Darkness are linkt together to bind and fetter both Kings and People The Original say you of Civil Power is in the People and that drags on this consequence that as they first conferr'd so that they may afterwards transfer the Power to whom they please Now this is contrary to all Law Natural and Divine For as I have prov'd that Moses receiv'd not any of his Power from the People so neither did Joshua that was his Successor for Numb 27. v. 18. we find that God did in particular order Moses to take Joshua the Son of Nun to lay his hands upon him at the 20. Vers to put some of his honour upon him that all the Congregation of Israel might be obedient This was that Joshua whom the People were so far from chusing to be their Chief Magistrate that Numb 14. v. 10. They bad stone him with stones even for that very obedience for which God afterwards conferr'd that Honour upon him If therefore neither the Original of Power nor yet the Succession of it was in those Ancient People because Israelites so much less is it in the People of England not only because Christians but also because under an immemorial Hereditary Monarchy This reply'd he is not a like case 't is an inconclusive way of arguing from the Jewish Theocracy In this said I it is not for though the occasion was extraordinary yet it shews that God did vindicate his own Ordinance of Government in an extraordinary manner too and as the Moral Law was only that Law written on Tables which was first ingraven in the Heart so the Duties of Obedience and the Original of Authority were naturally the same among the Clans of Barbarous People that they were in the Tribes and the Original of both was Patriarchical derived from and accountable to none but God so that although I grant that many Examples in the Jewish Theocracy cannot be for our Imitation because Typical yet those things which happened unto them upon the account of their Rebellions murmurings and disobedience * 1 Cor. 10. 11. hapned unto them for Ensamples and are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come that we should not murmure as some of them also murmured and were destroyed of the destroyer But Sir reply'd the Jesuit to come home to our last Proposition let us come to those times wherein the Theocratical Government had an end in being setled in the Tribe of Judah and Family of David What think you of the case of Adonijah He was Solomon's own natural and Elder Brother yet upon bare suspicion he put him to death by a Messenger without any form of Law and succeeded his Father David in his Kingdom You should first have said He succeeded his Father then put his Brother to Death reply'd Seignior Christiano But what is this to the People It is enough to show said he That Birthright and Proximity of Blood give no Title to Rule or Government It gives no Authority to the scope and design of your Proposition reply'd Seignior Christiano Shew me such an Instance as this That Nathan the Prophet that very Nathan who by command from God in a miraculous manner discovered to David his secret Murder of * 1 King 1. 13. Vriah and his Adultery with Bathsheba should advise that Bathsheba to go to David and put him in mind of the Oath he sware unto her that her Son Solomon should reign after him Show me such an Instance now and I will conclude it to be as extraordinary as any thing under the Jewish Theocracy But there is so much to be said upon that account that nothing but a Jesuitical Commentator would urge it for a Rule and Example to an Hereditary Monarchy in this Age of the World However Sir you have given me an opportunity of taking off one Objection you pious Politicians sometimes make against the Government of wicked Kings You say That evil Kings ought to be Depos'd and that evil Princes ought to
the ruine of the King and his Government and look upon them as Hellish and Damnable Truly Sir said I it is a very wicked Age wherein men arrive to that height of disobedience that the lives of Princes should lie at the mercy of every discontented Russian and that their unquestionable Rights should depend upon the Wills and Fancies of every scribling crackt-brain Politician But these are the Ascarides the very excrementitious Vermin of the Body Politick and deserve no other Answer than what a Louse or a Flea receives for biting a man however because to the Infamy of Vermin they have added the Venome subtlety and malice of Serpents I think it not amiss to pluck them out of their holes and expose and show them But oh have a care you don't abuse an ingenious man and a good Scholar cryeth the meek hearted Well! there is no great fear of it For I think a Serpent is never a whit the more amiable for his poisonous gay speckles and I do declare that if a person that is incorrigibly seditious should at last write a Treasonable Book for the which by the Law he deserves to be hang'd and for the which he must be hang'd let him be never so good a Scholar I think that all the mercy he could expect in this world should be to have the many Seditious Volumes he has read hang'd at his heels to dispatch him the sooner But if these Politicians and Casuists escape hanging they do the more admire and applaud themselves not considering all the while the great wickedness a man commits that writes an ill Book by which he may be said to sin after he is dead nor the great mischiefs they do the living by poisoning the minds of the unwary people and disordering and disturbing the Affairs and Councils of Princes Surely said Seignior Christiano no Prince in the World ever had a greater trial of his patience wisdom and goodness than our present Gracious Sovereign has had about this Bill of Exclusion Nothing more inhumane could be propos'd than that He to satisfie their unjust Complaints should offer so unseasonable so unreasonable an injury to his Royal and only Brother whom the loss of his other Brother and Sisters the sufferings of his Father and his own merits had so much indeared him contrary to the Laws of natural Justice and Honesty and to the Fundamental Laws of this Hereditary Monarchy And although at the very first thought and suspicion of such thing his Majesty at the very first rejected it as we may gather from his speech on Saturday Novemb. 9th which was soon after a debate arose in the House of Commons for an Adress to be presented that his Royal Highness should withdraw himself from his Majesties Person and Counsels Yet we presume that in his Royal and serious Meditations He considered the Righteous Judgments of God in all Ages that have fallen upon them who thought themselves either the Richer or Safer in the Possessions of injur d Princes that therefore it would be an injury even to that person that should next succeed upon his removal That He considered the Fatal consequences of his Fathers compliance in the Case of the Earl of Strafford But that this was of much greater Consequence we presume that in his wisdom He foresaw the malicious designs of a restless Faction who indeavour'd to wound him through the sides of his dearest Brother That he foresaw the many dismal Calamities that would unavoidably fall upon the People and that of his goodness he was resolv'd to prevent them under which his Royal wisdom and goodness we now injoy all the comforts of this life and the best opportunities of obtaining a better For which this present Age is bound to love and honour him and for which those to come will certainly magnifie and extol him and suppose God should so order it in his Providence whose will must be done that none of his Loyns shall sit upon his Throne Yet we and all good Subjects do hope and pray that after a long and prosperous Reign here on Earth He that is the King of kings will infinitely recompense him with an immortal Crown of Glory in Heaven THE Fourth VISION OF GOVERNMENT The CONTENTS The wicked Policy of raising a mean or evil opinion of the Sovereign in the minds of the Subjects The trivial and unreasonable occasions of such an opinion a pleasant instance thereof in the Case of the Salique Law it is condemned by an Hermaphrodite Better that the Sovereignty should be in one Woman than in five hundred men The Sovereignty of England in a single Person The Heresie of the Whiggish Lawyers Those that write of the Antiquity of Parliaments and those that vilifie them are Commonwealths men and enemies both of King and Parliament The Characters of several Commonwealths-men good advice to them A Panegyrick upon the King the Duke the Royal Family and all the True-hearted Nobility Gentry Clergy and Commonalty of this Realm an hearty Prayer for them THe Garden Gate that was set open gave us a very pleasant Prospect into the most solitary and shady Walks fit for Owls and Politicians to hatch in at a small distance from us we observ'd a very Diminutive Non-con taking the fresco after the labour of the day and pulling his Handkerchief out of his pocket he drew out with it a Scroll of Paper which fell to the ground without his notice Seignior Christiano following softly took it up and as soon as I came to him Here are his Notes said he smiling without doubt here is a great deal of stickling stuff in them let us for Diversion peruse them We found a great deal of their war like Divinity such as raised the late Rebellion But in the midst of all the bundle we found a ticket rolled up very hard and at first opening thought it had been a blank but it prov'd to be the most virulent and lewd Libel against the King in a few lines that ever I read in my life Here said Seignior Christiano here 's the Peace and Purity of the Gospel wrapt up together the Devil certainly wrote them when he stunk of Brimstone don't put them in your pocket they will set your Breeches on fire I do assure you said I I have heard the Cub of a London Tub Preacher when he was a Schole Boy repeat these very Verses when I am sure you might as soon have perswaded him to be circumcis'd as to have said three lines of the Litany So early do these Wolves instruct their whelps to bark so early are they Catechiz'd in the Doctrine of Slander and Reproach That one would think they hold it to be Mans chief End to despise Dominion and speak evil of Dignities And so diligently do they afterwards practise it that it seems to be not only one of the Liberal Sciences of Fanaticism but you would conclude that they maintain Throwing of Stink Pots to be necessary to Salvation It is a wicked