Constitution to have bin in all the Neighbouring Kingdoms in Europe which have bin raised according to the Gothic Model of Government upon the Ruins of the Roman Empire now let us look into Scotland and there we shall find this Institution as Ancient as any History or Record they have If we pass into France we shall find their Assembly of Estates or Great Council to have bin as Ancient as their first Kings and to have had as much Power as any where else in Europe Since they not only frequently Elected but also Deposed their Kings of the first Race and disposed of the Succession of the Crown as they thought fit If we look into Spain we shall find in the two greatest and most Considerable Kingdoms viz. Castile and Arragon the like Assemblies the Power of which was so great in the latter that they could even Depose the King himself if he Tyranniz'd over or Oppress 't them If we go more Northward we shall find in the Ancient Kingdoms of Denmark and Sweden and Norway that their Assembly of Estates or Dyets Elected their Kings and could likewise Depose them till those Kingdoms became Hereditary which was but of modern times I shall omit Poland because perhaps you may dispute whether it is a Kingdom or a Commonwealth But if we pass into Hungary which was Instituted by the Huns a Nation of Gothic Original we shall find not only the like Assembly of Estates as in the other Kingdoms but also that they had a Magistrate called the Palatine who was as it were the Conservator of the People's Liberties and who could Resist even the King himself if he invaded them and which is also very remarkable in all these Kingdoms except Denmark the Representatives of the Cities or Principal Towns which constituted the third Estate or Commons in those Kingdoms had always a place in those Great Councils So that to conclude it is almost impossible to conceive how these Kingdoms I have now mentioned could all agree to fall into the same sort of Government about the same time unless it had proceeded from the particular temper and Genius of the Germane and Gothick Nations from which they were derived Or who can believe that all these Nations and their Kings finding the like Conveniences from these Great Councils and Inconveniences by the want of them should all Conspire to set them up in each of these particular Kingdoms M. I will not deny but that the Institution of Great Councils or Assemblies of the Estates might be as Ancient as the Government it self in several of those Kingdoms you mention which were at first Elective but what is that to England where our Monarchy hath bin by Succession from the first Institution of it and not Elective as you suppose Nor do I much value the Authority of the Mirrour as to the Great Antiquity he Ascribes to this Assembly of Counts or Comites as Bracton calls them and in which by the way no Commons are mentioned And tho I grant the Iudicial Power of the House of Peers is very Ancient Yet that it wholy proceeded at first from the Indulgence of our Kings appears from hence that there was always a necessity of the King's Presence in Parliaments which is very well proved by Sir Robert Cotton in a Learned Treatise written on that Subject wherein he proves that in all Consultations of State and Decisions of private Plaints it is clear from all times the King was not only present to Advise but also to Determine And whensoever the King is present all Power of Iudging which is derived from his ceaseth the Votes of the Lords may serve for matter of Advice the Final Iudgment is only the Kings But indeed of late years Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth by reason of their Sex being not so fit for publick Assemblies have brought it out of use by which means it is come to pass that many things which were in former times acted by Kings themselves have of late bin left to the Iudgment of the Peers who in quality of Iudges Extraordinary are permitted for the Ease of the King and in his Absence to determine such matters as were Anciently brought before the King himself sitting in Person attended by his Great Council of Prelates and Peers And the Ordinances that are made there receive their Establishment either from the King's Presence in Parliament where his Chair of State is constantly placed or at least from his Confirmation of them who in all Courts and in all Causes is Supream Iudge All Judgments are by or under him and cannot be without much less against his Approbation The King only and none but He if He were able should judge all Causes saith Bracton so that nothing seems plainer to me than that the Iurisdiction which the House of Peers have hitherto exercised for the Hearing and Determining all Causes as well Civil as Criminal by way of Appeal not only between Subjects but also in all Accusations against the Lords themselves proceeds wholy from the Kings which may appear by an Ancient Precedent mentioned by Abbot Brampton in his History It is the Case between King Edw. the Confessor and Godwin Earl of Kent whom the King accused for the Death of his Brother Prince Alfred before the House of Peers and there you will find that after the Earl had put himself upon the Iudgment of the Kings Court the King thereupon said You Noble Lords Earls and Barons i. e. Thanes of the Land who are my Liege-Men now gathered here together and have heard my Appeal and Godwin's Answer I will that in this Appeal between us ye Decree Right Iudgment and do true Iustice And upon their Judgment that the Earl should make the King sufficient Satisfaction in Gold and Silver for the Death of his Brother the King being thereof informed and not willing to contradict it the Historian there sayeth He ratified all they had judged I could give you many other Precedents of latter Date were it not too tedious But this is sufficient to shew that what the Pâ—ers acted in this matter was by the King 's Sole Will and Permission I shall only conclude with one Precedent more in Case of some what alike Nature It is that of Hen. Spencer Bishop of Norwich 7 Rich. 2d who was accused foâ— joyning with the French The Bishop complained what was done against him did not pass by the Assent and Knowledge of the Peers whereupon it was said in Parliament that the Cognisance and Punishment of his Offence did of Câ—mmon Right and Ancient Custom of the Realm of England solely and wholy belong to our Lord the King and no other From all which I infer that the Iudicial Power exercised by the House of Peers is meerly derivative from and Subservient to the Supream Power resiâ—â—ing in the King From whence it also follows that if the Peers have no Power nor Honour but what proceeds from the Prince and that the Commons
make them the first breachers of it whereas you may find that it was the opinion of the whole Convocation for many years before ever those Divines or that Gentleman began to Preach or write upon this subject Nor were these the only men who maintained these Principles but Archbishop Usher and Bishop Sanderson whom I suppose you will not reckon among your flattering Court Bishops have as learnedly and fully asserted those Doctrines you so much condemn as any of that party you find fault with and have very well proved all resistance of the Supream Powers to be unlawful not only in absolute but limited Monarchies Of the Truth of which you may sufficiently satisfie your self if you will but take the Pains to read the Learned and Elaborate Treatises written by those good Bishops viz. The Lord Primate Usher's Power of the Prince and Obedience of the Subject and the Bishop of Lincoln's Preface before it as also the said Bishop's Treatise de Iura nouto written whilst he was Doctor of the Chair in Oxford F. I must beg your pardon Sir if I have never yet seen or heard of that Convocation Book you mention much less of the opinions therein contained since there is no mention made of their proceedings in any History or Record of those times either Ecclesiastical or Civil as I know of But this much I am certain of That these Determinations or Decrees you mention call them which you please never received the Royal Assent much less the confirmation of the King and Parliament one of which if not both is certainly requisite to make any opinion either in Doctrine or Discipline to be received by us Lay-men for the Doctrine of the Church of England otherwise the Canons made in 1640 would oblige us in Conscience tho' they stand at this day condemned by Act of Parliament so that however even according to your own Principles you cannot urge this Book as the Authoritative Doctrine of the Church of England unless their Determinations had received the Royal Assent which you your self do not affirm they had for you very well know that as in Civil Laws no Bill is any more than waste Parchment if once the King hath refused to give his Royal Assent to it so likewise in Spiritual or Ecclesiastical matters I think no Decrees or Determinations of Convocations are to be received as binding either in points of Faith or Manners by us Lay-men till they have received the confirmation of the King and the two Houses of Parliament or otherwise the consequence would be that if the King who hath the nomination of all the Bishopricks and Deaneries as also of most of the great Prebendaries in England of which the Convocation chiefly consists should nominate such men into those places which would agree with him to alter the present establisht Reformed Religion â—n Governmenâ— and to bring in Popery or Arbitrary Power the whole Kingdom would be obliged in Conscience to embrace it or at least to submit without any contraditioâ— to those Canons the King and Convocation should thus agree to make which of how fatal a consequence it might prove to the Reformed Religion in this Kingdom this Kings choice of Bishops and Deans such as he thought most fit for his turn would have taught â—s when it had been too late M. You very must mistake me Sir if you believe that I urge the Authority of this Book to you as containing any Ecclesiastical Canons which I grant must have the Royal Assent but whether that of the two Houses of Parliament I very much question since the King without the Parliament is Head of the Church and diverse Canons made under Queen Elizabeth and King Iames are good in Law at this day tho' they were never confirmed by Parliament But I only urge the Authority of this Book to you to let you see that these Doctrines are more Antient than the time you prescribe and also that the Major part of the Bishops and â—lergy of the Church of England held these Doctrines which you so much condemn long before those Court Bishops or Divines you mention medled with this controversie and I suppose we may as well quote such a Convocation Book as a Testimony of their sense upon these subjects as we do the French Helvetian or any other Protestant Churches Confessions of Faith drawn up and passed in Synod of their Divines tho' without any confirmation of the Civil Power F. If you urge this Convocation Book only as a Testimony and not Authority I shall not contend any further about it but then let me tell you that if the Canons or Decrees of a Convocation though never so much confirmed by King and Parliament do no further oblige in Conscience than as they are agreable to the Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures sure their determinations without any such Authority can only be look'd upon as the Opinions of so many particular private Men. And tho' I have a very great Reuerence for the Judgments of so many Learned Men yet granting those Doctrines you mention to be contained in this Book I think notwithstanding that we may justly examine them according to the Rules of Reason and express Testimonies of Scripture by either of which when I see you can convince me of the falshood of my Tenets I shall count my self happy to be beâ—â—er informed But as for those Treatises of Bishop Usâ—er and Bishop â—anderson which you now mentioned I must needs confess they are learnedly and elaborately writen and tho' I am against Rebellion as much as any man and do believe that subjects may too often be guilty of it yet am I not therefore convinced that it is absolutely unlawful in all cases whatsoever even in the most Absolute and Arbitrary sort of Civil Government for the People when violently and intolerably opprest to take up Arms and resist such unjust violence or to join with any Foraign Prince who will be so generous as to take upon him their deliverance So that though I freely acknowledge that those good Bishops you mention were very Pious and Learned men â—im â—hat I bear great reverence to their memories yet doth it not therefore follow that I must oâ—â— them to be Infallible or as great Polititians as they were Learned Divines or that they understood the Laws of England as well as they did the Scriptures or Fathers and perhaps there may be a great deal more said on their behalfe than can be for divers others who have since Wâ—â—een and Prâ—â— so much upon those subjects for if you please to consider the times of their writing those Treatises you will find them written about the beginning or middle of the late Civil Wars which they supposed to be begâ—n and carried on contrary to all Law and Justice under the pretenced Authority of the two Houses of Parliament against King Charles the First and therefore it is no wonder if they thought themselves obliged to Write very high for the Prerogatives
was even among the Romans look'd upon as a sufficient punishment But as for the Power of Parents over their Children I do not deny but that a Father may have the like power over his Children whilst they are part of his Family as over his Slaves or Servants in Case of such great and enormous Crimes as you have already mentioned but that this is not as a Father but Master of a Family your self have already granted in your Instances of Abraham and Judah tho if you will consider the last a little better you will find that Judah did not proceed thus against Thamar as her Father or Master but by some other Right For if you please to look upon the 11th Verse of that Chap. of Genesis from whence you cite this Example you will find that Thamar after the Death of Onan her Husband went with Judah's leave and dwelt in her own Father's House and she was then a Member of his Family and consequently according to your Hypothesis not under Judah's Power when she was thus got with Child by him and therefore not he but her own Father ought to have condemned her if this Judgment had belonged to him as to the Master of the Family And therefore some of the Rabbins suppose that when Judah gave this Judgment against Thamar he did not act either as a Father or Master of the Family for he was then under the Power of the Cananites who certainly had some Civil Government among them at that time and therefore they suppose that he acted thus as a Civil Judge appointed by the supreme Magistrate of that Nation But to defend the Instance I have given you of a Father of a Family losing his power of Life and Death upon his becoming a part or Member of another Family you your self have already yielded me as much as I can reasonably desire for the defence of my Assertion since you allow this power of Life and Death to Fathers not as such but as Lords and Masters over their Children as over their Slaves and if so I desire to know who can challenge this Power but the Master of the Family with whom he â—ives unless you can suppose two distinct Heads or Masters in the same House and then they will not be one Family but two under distinct Heads each of them still retaining their distinct Rights But you will say that this Boarder or Inmate is not a Servant or Slave to the Master with whom he lives and therefore hath not forfeited or given up his Right or Power of Life and Death over his own Children to him but it is no matter whether he did or not since by making himself a Member of the others Family he ceased to be Master of his own and concequently must lose all the Natural Rights or Prerogatives belonging to it of which I grant this of Life and Death to be the chief for if Families in the state of Nature are like so many distin Commonweatâ—â— independant upon each other it will likewise follow that the Heads of those Families must be in all things necessary for the Good and Preservation of the Family like so many distinct Civil Soveraigns and consequently must have a power of Life and Death and also of making Laws with Punishments annexed to them in all Cases where the good and peace of the Family require it If therefore in a Civil State or Monarchy and aâ—solute Prince come into the Dominions or Teritories of another it is acknowledg'd by all Writets on this Subject That such a Prince loses that power of Life and Death which he had before and cannot exercise it as long as he is in the other Princes Dominions So by the same Reason if the Masters of Families in the State of Nature are like so many Civil Soveraigns it will follow that they must cease to be such when they become members of anothers Family unless you will fall into the absurdity of supposing to absolute independant Heads or Masters in one and the same House which what a confusion it would bring I leave to your self to judge M. I shall not much dispute this Power of Life and Death with you as belonging to Masters of seperate Families But pray shew me how they can exercise this Power over the Lives of those that are under their Jurisdiction unless it were granted them by God by virtue of that Original Power given to Adam not only as a Father but Prince of his Posterity F I do not doubt but I shall give you a satisfactory Answer to this important Demand without supposing any extraordinary Divine Commission from God to Adam For as for your Instance of Abraham's making War Leagues or Covemants with other Princes it iâ— no more than what any Master of a seperatâ— Family may do for his own and their defence and what if you or I were Masters of a Family in the Inâ—ies where their is no Power above us we might do as well as Abraham and all this without any other Commission from God than the great Right of Nature Self-preservation and the Well performance of that trust which God hath put into our hands of defending and providing for our selves and our Families since if God hath ordained the End he hath likewise ordained all means necessary thereunto and therefore there is no such great Mystery in this as you suppose M. If there were no more in it than a meer Right of Self defence for which I grant Reâ—aliation or Revenge may be also necessary you would have a great dâ—â—l of Reason on your side But pray shew me how a Father or Master of a Family can Condâ—mn either his Wife Child or Servant to Death as a Punishment for any enormous Crime such as I have mentioned and you agreed to without such a Divine Commâ—ssion as I suppose Adam had Since I own Revenge or Reâ—allaâ—ion may â—e used by private men in the State of Nature by the Right of Self defence 〈…〉 grant may be exercised between equals But since all punishments properly taken are the Acts of Superiors towards their Inferiors I cannot conceive how any Father or Master of a Family can inflict so great a Punishment as Death upon any Member of it unless he derived this Power immediately from God by virtue of the Divine Charter committed by him to Adam and and from thence to be derived to all Masters of Families or civil Soveraigns who could never derive this Power from the Joynt Compacts or consent of Fathers of Masters of Families since no man could convey that to another which he had not himself And I have already I think with a great deal of Truth Asserted That no man hath power over his own Life to take it away when he pleases and therefore cannot have it over another man's much less can convey any such Right to others except it were granted at first by God in the manner I have supposed which I conceive may easily be made out
this point without better consideration but methinks you have not yet fully answered one of my main Arguments to prove the Power of Life and Death to proceed from God alone and therefore must have been conferred as first on Adam since no Man hath a Power over his own life as I said before and therefore cannot have it over that of others F. I thought I had already as good as answered this doughty objection when I had yielded to you that neither private Men nor Masters of Families have any Right to defend their own lives much less to take away those of others but as it is granted them by God in the Law of Nature in order to the procuring the great end of it viz. the happiness and propagation of Mankind which I own could not in this lapsed and depraved State of Nature we now are in long subsist without such a Power Yet I think I have already sufficiently proved that we have no need to recur to I know not what divine Charter granted by God to Adam or Noah and from them derived to all Civil Magistrates that ever have been or shall be in the World the consequence of which would be that no Sentence of Death could be justly given against any Man but in such Kingdoms or Common-wealths who own this Authority as conferred on them by God in Adam or Noah from which they must deride their Title to it Now I desire you would shew me how many Kingdoms or Common-wealths there are in the World who ever heard of much less owned this Divine Charter this fine notion yea scarce reaching farther than some few Divines and high Royalists of our own Island But be it as it will the Antecedent or first Proposition is not true that no Man in any case whatsoever hath power over his own life and therefore neither is your consequence for I suppose that for the same End for which the Civil Powers may take away another Man's life viz. in order to the greater good of Mankind of which my Religion or Countrey is a part I am likewise Master of my own and may lay it down or expose it when I think it can conduce to a greater good than my single life can amount to And therefore the Example of Codrus the Athenian King is highly celebrated by all ancient Authors and is not condemned by any Christian Writer that I know of for Exposing himself to certain death to gain his Citizens the Victory the loss of which would have been the ruin of the State And in the first Book of Maccabees Chap. 6.43 which thâ— it be not Canonical Scripture yet is allowed to be Read in our Churches as containing Examples of good manners you may Read that Eleazar the younger Brother of Iudas Maccabeus is there highly commended for his valour in killing the Elephant on which the supposed King Antiochus was mounted that he might thereby destroy him likewise tho he might be assured of his own death by the Elephants falling upon him And the zeal for the Christian Religion amongst the Primitive Christians was so great that we may read in Tertullian and divers Ecclesiastical Historians of whole Troops of Martyrs who tho unaccused yet offered up their lives at the Heathen Tribunals to a voluntary Martyrdom and farther Eusebius himself doth not condemn but rather commends some Primitive Christians that being like to be taken by their Heathen Persecutors cast themselves down head long from the top of their Houses esteeming as he their tells us a certain Death as an advantage because they thereby avoided the cruelty and malice of their Persecutors I could likewise give you if it were not two tedious several other Examples of Ancient Martyrs who have given up themselves to certain Death to save the Lives of some of their friends or else of Christian Bishops whom they lookt upon as more useful to the Church than themselves and which St. Paul himself does likewise suppose to be Lawful when he tells the Romans That the scarcely for a Righteous Man would one dye yet per adventure for a good Man somâ— would even dare to dye that is a Man highly beneficial to others And the same Apostle in the last Chapter of this Epistle returns thanks to Priscilla and Aquila not only on his own behalf but also for all the Churches of the Gentiles because they had for his Life laid down their own Necks that is hazarded their lives to save his and where ever they might have thus exposed them surely they might have lost them too And therefore I think I may with reason affirm that in most Cases where a Prince or Commonwealth may command a Man to expose his Life to certain destruction for the publick good of his Religion or Countrey he hath power likewise to do it of his own accord without any such command the Obligation proceeding not only from the orders of his Superiour but from that zeal and affection which by the Laws of God and Nature he ought to have for his Religion and Country even beyond the preservation of his own Life M. Well I confess that this that you have now said carries some colour of reason with it and is more than I had considered before But pray resolve me one difficulty more which still lies upon my mind By what Authority less than a Divine Commission from God himself revealed in Scripture do Supream Powers take upon them to make Lawâ— And that under no less penalty than Death it self against such offences as by the Laws of Nature do no ways deserve Death such as Theft Counterfiting the publick Coyn with divers other offences needless here to be reckoned up And if a Father as you will not allow him hath no Right over the Lives or Persons of his Wife and Children I cannot see how a Master of a separate Family can have any such Power more than his Wife or any other of the Family and the Scripture seems to countenance this Power of punishing for Murder to be in any that will take it upon them and therefore you see Cain said whoever meets me will slay me And God tells Noah whoever sheddeth Mans Blood by Man shall his Blood be shed without restraining it to any Man particularly who is to do it F. This Objection is easily answered if you please to consider what you your self did a good whâ—â—â— since urge to me that God endowed Adam with so much Authority as should enable him to govern his own Family and Children as long as he lived which I readily granted you and I only differed in the manner of its derivation you affirming it to proceed from a Divine Charter or Grant by Revelation conferred upon him by God and I maintaining that both he and every other Master of a separate Family derive it only from Gods Natural and not Revealed Law which if it be well proved such Masters of Families as also all Civil Powers whom I suppose to be endued
the sole Will of the first Princes in which the People had no hand for in the most Antient Monarchies there was a time when the People of all Countreys were Governed by the Sole Wills of their Princes which by degrees came to be so well known in several instances that inferior Magistrates needed not resort to them in those cases and the People being for a considerable time accustomed to such Usages they grew easie and Familiar to them and so were retained tho the Memory of those Princes who first introduced them was lost and after Kings finding it better to continue what was so received than to run the hazard and trouble of changing them were for their own ease and the good of their Subjects contented they should be still from Age to Age so continued Which custom may hold as well in Laws about Succession as other things And therefore we find that even in those Monarchies where the People have nothing to do in making Laws Women are excluded which could proceed at first from nothing else but the declared Will or Law of the first Monarchs So likewise the Original of the Salique Law is wholly ascribed to Pharamond the first French King and Mariana whom you lately cited tells us that Alphonso King of Arragon made a Law that where Heirs Male were wanting the Sons of a Daughter should be preferred before the Aunt which Law is wholly attributed to the King for he adds presently after Sic saepe ad Regum arbitrium jura regnandi commutantur F. Granting all this true that you have said you cannot but confess that the Laws of God and Nature have established nothing in this matter or else it could not be in the Power of Kings to make or alter Laws concerning the succession as your last Quotation intimates they may yet even in the most absolute Monarchies the Laws about the Succession of the Crown must wholly depend upon the Consent of the People who are to see them observed or else every Monarch might alter these Laws of Succession at his pleasure and the Great Turk or King of France now the Assembly of Estates is lost might leave the Crown to a Daughter if either of them pleased and disinherit the next Heir Male. But as for the Original of this â—alique Law in France you 'l find your self much mistaken if you suppose that that Law was made by the Sole Authority of Pharamond for the Antient French Histories tell us that the Body of Salique Laws which are now extant were made by the Common Consent of the whole Nation of the Francs who committed the drawing of them up to three Judges or Commissioners and which Laws Pharamond did only confirm and any one that will but consult those Histories may see that Kings were so far from having the Sole Legislative Power in their own hand that they were frequently Elected by the Estates nor is it truer that you suppose from Mariana that the Kings of Arragon had Power alone to make Laws it appears quite contrary from the Constitutions of that Kingdom where the King could do nothing of this kind without the Consent of the Estates and was not admitted to the Crown without taking an Oath to the Chief Justice in the name of the People that he would observe the Laws and Constitutions of the Kingdom otherwise that they would not be obliged to obey him But at once to let you see that about the Succession of the Sons or Descendants by Daughters the Cases are much more nice and intricate and that when such Cases happen in limited Monarchies where there is an Assembly of Estates they are the Sole Iudges of such differences may appear by two famous examples in modern History The first is in Scotland about four hundred years ago when after the Death of King Alexander III who died without Issue when two or three several competitors claim'd a Right to the Crown as descended from several Daughters of David Earl of Huntington great Uncle to the last King the Chief of which being Iohn Bayliol and Robert Bâ—uâ—â— the Estates of the Kingdom not being able to decide it they agreed to refer it to Edward I. King of England who adjudged the Crown to Bayliol yet did not this put an end to this great controversie for not long after Bayliol being deposed Bruce revived his Title and the States of Scotland declared him King whose Posterity enjoy it at this day A like Case happened in the last Age in Portugal after the Death of Henry surnamed the Cardinal without Issue when no less than four Eminent Competitors put in their Claim some claiming from the Daughters of Don Durate youngest Brother to the last King Henry But the King of Spain and other Princes as Sons to the Sisters of the said King Henry dying without Issue left ten Governours over the Kingdom to decide together with the Estates the Differences about the Succession who quarrelling among themselves as also with the Estates before it was decided Philip the second King of Spain raised an Army and soon conquered Portugal And yet we have seen in his Grand son's time that the Estates of Portugal declared this Title void and the Crown was settled in the Posterity of the Duke of Braganza who still enjoy it And how much even Kings themselves have attributed to the Authority of the Estates in this matter appears by the League made between Philip the Long King of France and David King of Scots wherein this condition was exprest That if there should happen any Difference about the Succession in either of these Realms he of the two Kings which remained alive should not suffer any to place himself on the Throne but him who should have the Judgment of the Estates on his side and then he should with all his Power oppose him who would after this contest the Crown To conclude I cannot see any means how if such Differences as these had arisen in the first Generation after Adam I say how they could ever have been decided without a Civil War or else leaving the Judgment thereof to the Heads or Fathers of Families that were then in being Which how much it would have differed from the Judgment or Declaration of the States of a Kingdom at this day I leave it to your self to judge M. I shall not trouble my self to determine how far Princes may tye up their own hands in this matter of the Succession and leave it to the States of the Kingdom to limit or determine of it but from the beginning it was not so and therefore give me leave to trace this Paternal Government a little farther For tho' I grant that when Iacob and his twelve Sons went into Egypt together with their Families they exercised a Supreme Patriarchal Jurisdiction which was intermitted because they were in Subjection to a stronger Prince Yet after the return of these Israelites out of Bondage God from a special
extended beyond this is accountable to him alone so that Princes are bound to treat their Subjects as their Children with Mercy and Lenity as far as they are capable of it and not as their Brutes And granting that Subjects and Servants or Slaves were at first all one yet I think even they ought to be treated only as Younger Children yet as Children still Nay even conquered People that are in some Countries treated as Slaves and but a little better than brutes have certainly a very good appeal to the Tribunal of God against their Princes who will undoubtedly right them in another World if they suffer patiently in this If it be the Character of a good Man that he is merciful to his Beast I doubt not but the very Brutes have a Right to be Governed with mercy and Justice and that God who is their Creator as well as ours will punish cruel men if they Tyrannize over them and much more if any man shall exercise Cruelty on another man who is of the same not only Nature but Blood Whereas all other Hypotheses leave the Prince at Liberty to make his Bargain with his Subjects as well as he can and if they be brought by force or fraud to an entire Submission at Discretion they may then be treated accordingly and must stand to their Compact be the terms never so unequal and then the Case of a Man and a Brute may differ very little and if the Subject may resist the Prince may take care to prevent it and the War may be just on both sides which is impossible I could likewise shew you many other Benefits that would accrew both to Princes and Subjects were this Hypothesis but once generally taught and believed by both of them F. I pray Sir spare the giving your self that trouble for I will not dispute how honestly this Hypothesis may be designed or what mighty Feaâ—s it might do were it once universally received But this neither you nor I can ever expect will come to pass because neither Princes nor People will ever believe it to be true For in the first place the People will never be convinced of it it being above a vulgar understanding that their Princes whom they are very well assured are not their Fathers nor yet right Heirs to Adam or Noah should notwithstanding lay claim to a Paternal Authority over them In the next place Princes can never believe that they are Fathers of their People for the same Reason I grant indeed that they may be very willing to believe one half of your Hypothesis that they are Absolute Lords and Masters over them and so would be willing upon that account to use their Subjects like Slaves but that they should look upon themselves as Fathers of their People and the Heirs or Assigns of Adam or Noah I think no Prince in Christendom can be so vain to believe So that whatever Power Adam or Noah or any other Father might be intrusted with by God because of that Natural Affection which they were supposed to bear toward their Children yet sure Princes at this day can lay no claim to it since none but true Fathers can be endued with this Paternal Affection And whereas you suppose that Princes ought to treat their Subjects nay even those that are conquered like Children and not like Slaves or Brutes This can have very little effect upon them who can as little believe it as the People for if Monarchical Power is not Paternal as I think I have clearly made out then there can lye no obligation upon Monarchs to treat their Subjects like Children and therefore Since the Despotical or Masterly Power only remains which is ordained Principally for the good and Benefit of the Master and not of the Servant or Slave Who can blame Princes if they exact the utmost of their due Prerogatives and so treat their Subjects like Slaves whenever it serves their humour or interest so to do nor are they any more to be blamed for thus exerting their Power than a Master of Negroes in the West-Indies is for making the best of the Service of those Slaves whom he hath bought with his Mony or are born in his House Whom tho I grant he is not to use like Brute Beasts for the Reasons you have given Yet doth it not therefore follow that he is obliged to use them like his Younger Children for then sure he could not have a Right to keep them for Slaves as long as they lived to let them enjoy nothing but a bare miserable Subsistance and there is very good reason for this for almost every Planter in Barbadoes knows very well the difference between the Relations of a Father a Master and a Prince and that the one is not the other and it is from your jumbling together these three different Relations of a Son a Slave and a Subject that hath led you into all these mistakes For tho' it should be granted that the right of a Master over his Slaves may be acquired by Conquest or assigned to or usurped by another yet certainly the Authority or Relation of a Father and the Monarchical or Civil Power of a Monarch can never be acquired by Conquest nor yet usurped without the Consent and Submission of the Children and Subjects And therefore to conclude I do not think your Hypothesis one jot the better by your founding it upon an Imaginary Paternal Power rather than upon Compact which I am sure can never be made upon so unequal termâ— as to render the Case of a Man and a Brute very little different since it would be to no purpose for any Subject to make a Bargain with their Monarch or Conqueror and yet to leave themselves in as bad or worse condition than they were in the State of Nature So that however convenient your Hypothesis may be either for Prince or People it signifies no more than the Popish Hypothesis of the Infallibility of the Pope and General Council which because they suppose necessary and is indeed very beneficial for the Church therefore God hath conferred it upon them But how false a way of reasoning this is hath been sufficiently demonstrated The Application of this Comparison is so obvious that I leave it to you to make M. I cannot but think for all you have yet said that God hath endued all Princes with a Paternal Authority and for this I have the Church of England on my side which in its Catechism in the Explanation of the Duties contained in the 5th Commandment Honour thy Father c. doth comprehend under that Head not only to Honour and Succour our Fathers and Mothers but also to Honour and Obey the King and all them that are put in Authority under him as if all Power were originally in the Father So that this Command gives him the Right to Govern and makes the Form of Government Monarchical And if Obedience to Parents be immediately due by a Natural Law and
it be any where exercised in Common-Wealths as you can do in Monarchies only I must needs tell you I am not at all of your Opinion that the Oppressions or abuses committed by the Magistrates in Common-Wealths are to be compared with the Tyrannies and Cruelties exercised by absolute Monarchs and their Subordinate Ministers For tho' I grant they often lay very severe Taxes and impositions upon their Subjects especially such as they have acquired by Conquest and so act like absolute Monarchs over them Yet are these oppressions not at all to be compared to those under Arbitrary Monarchies for tho' perhaps divers Common-Wealths may impose greater Taxes upon their Subjects than some Neighbouring Monarchs yet doth it not follow that their Government is more severe for all that since the People having an opportunity by free Trade Liberty of Conscience in such Common-Wealths to acquire a greater share of Riches are also thereby enabled to Contribute more to the maintenance of the Government by which they reap so great Benefits Thus we see a Citizen of Amsterdam is able to pay six times the Taxes of one of Antwerp and Therefore I dare for all that appeal to any Common Subject tho' a Papist of the United Provinces whether he had not rather live under the States of Holland than under the French King or to any Subject of the Common Wealths of Venice Genoa or Luca whether he doth not prefer his Condition as bad as it is to that of any of the Subjects of the Pope Duke of Florence or any other Italian Prince not to go over into Turkey and those other Eastern Monarchies where the Yoke of Slavery lyes yet more heavy upon the Subjects than in Europe And as for what you say in the comparing of those Illegal Arbitrary Proceedings that were exercised in England during the late Civil Wars and afterwards till the Kings coming in I must beg your pardon if besides the great Hyperbole in your expressions on that occasion which I am sure are very far from Truth I impute those Miscarriages not as the fault of this or that â—ort of Government but rather to a Powerful Faction Backt by a Standing Army which was more like a Tyranny or corrupt Oligarchy than any Settled Government Nor is what you say concerning Oliver's Government more true than the former for all men except his own Faction were not only afraid but really sensible of the loâ—s of their Liberties under his Tyrannical Usurpation Tho' indeed there was a very good reason why there should be fewer fears or Jealousies of it than in his late Majesties time when his Government began to grow uneasie through the Peoples fear of Popery and Arbitrary Government which the former People had no Jealousie of in Cromwel's time and as for the latter they had no occasion to fear that which was already happened But that you may not mistake me for a Common-Wealths Man I must so far agree with you that to condemn Monarchy as such were to repine at the Government of God himself so that I also grant that the fault lies not in the form of Government but in the Frail Nature of Men which can rarely administer that great Trust committed unto them as becomes what they take upon them to be God's Vicegerents upon Earth And I must own that I esteem Monarchy limited by known Laws as the best and most Equal Government in the World and under which both Prince and People may live most happily and easily if each of them will be but contented with their due share But I beg your pardon for this digression and to come to a conclusion I must freely tell you it is not a Straw matter what yours or Sr R. F's Principles are concerning the Fatherly Power of Princes for as long as there is no ground for it in Scripture or Nature you cannot expect that either Princes or People will ever believe you neither is it true that Princes as Fathers are bound to treat their Subjects in all things like their Children for then Princes ought to maintain their Subjects and not Subjects their Princes since it is the Apostles Rule That Children ought not to lay up for the Parents but the Parents for the Children And tho' you pretend not to plead for Tyranny or Arbitrary Government yet I cannot at all understand why if it were not for this end you should assert not long since in your answer to me that God thought fit to change Paternal Government into Hereditary Monarchy because of the excessive Wickedness of Mankind before the Flood proceeding from tho too great Lenity of those Patriarchal Princes in not punishing the disorders of their Subject Children which is a very bold assertion Since you know no more than I what that wickedness was in particular for which God drowned the World much less what was the occasion of it And therefore if God thought fit to change Paternal Power into Hereditary Monarchies which as I have proved do not at all proceed from Paternal Power it will also follow that the Government of your Patriarchs was not sufficient for the well-being and happiness of Mankind or else God would never have thought fit to have altered it for a more Cruel and severe way of Government But as for what you say concerning those Princes that place all their security in Guards and Armies too strong for the Subjects that they are uneasie and degenerate into Despotick Monarchies you might better have said Tyrannies and that they are unsafe both for Prince and People is very true and I altogether agree with you in it But those of your Principles have no reason to find fault with Princes for so doing for since they do but use their just Prerogative over their Slaves or Vassals it is but fit that they should be made to undergo that Yoke whether they will or no which they would not bear willingly and as long as Princes look upon themselves to be what they really are upon your Principles the Masters and not the Fathers of their People as they suppose the Goods and Estates of their Subjects to be wholly at their disposal So can they never command them as they please without the Assistance of Standing Armies nor have you any reason to complain of those Princes for keeping them too strong for the Subjects since upon your Principles be they Strong or Weak the Subjects are not to resist them but if Princes without your extraordinary fondness of using their People like Children would but always use them like Subjects with ordinary Justice and Moderation and not oppress them with excessive Taxes and unnecessary Penal Laws about Religion you would find there would be no need of Standing Armies to keep the People in awe who would themselves be the best defence not only against Domestick but Forreign Enemies and this I 'll assure you is a much better receipt against Rebellion than all your new Recipe's of Paternal Power in Monarchs which
their Subjects for any Breaches or Infringements of such Liberties and Immunities And this may serve against the Fancies of all those who think Princes have nothing but what the People have given them and likewise against such as Mr. Hobbs who maintain so much is conferred on them that they have a Right to leave no body else any thing to enjoy that they have a mind to take from them And this I take to be a much better Security for the Peoples Liberties to leave it to the Honour and Conscience of their Princes and that Fear they ought to have of the Divine Vengeance in case they oppress their Subjects contrary to Law than your heady and violent Methods of Resistance for the Oppression or Tyranny of Princes which would but give the common people a pretence of taking Arms and Rebelling against their Princes upon every slight provocation F. You have made a very plausible Discourse whether of your own or from the Author you quote is not much material for I doubt when it comes to be examined it will appear much more like a Romance than a true History And therefore granting at present your Principles to be true tho' they are not I desire you to shew me how you can make it out either from Sacred or Prophane History that any Limited Kingdom now in the World ever had its Original from those gracious Condescensions or Concessions of Princes as you here mention For by all that ever I can read or observe either from our own or Foreign History all the Liberties and Priviledges which Subjects enjoy at this day proceeded at first either from the Original Contracts Customs or Constitutions of those Kingdoms or Nations at the first Institution of their Government or else were forced from Princes by their Subjects who would no longer endure the severity of their Yoke or else were granted by some of them who believing they had worse Titles than their Competitors to the Crown were willing to engage the People to their side by granting them greater Priviledges than they before enjoyed And tho' I grant the Reflections you make upon the exercise of Arbitrary Power and the Miseries it brings both upon the Prince and People are very true Yet I am sure the practice of most Absolute Monarchs throughout the whole World hath run quite contrary to your suppositions For Princes are so far by what I ever read or observed from being willing to part with any of their Power that they have still endeavoured by degrees to enlarge it and render it more absolute than it was left them as you may observe in the Government of France Spain Denmark and Sweden in this last Age and what Encroachments were made in this Kingdom by the Prerogative upon the Peoples Liberties during the Reigns of our last Princes he is a stranger to the History of the Country that hath not read of if he do not remember them And how much higher they would have been carried if this strange and sudden Revolution had not put a stop to it I had rather you and I should understand in Idea than by Experience But if such grave Reflections as these of yours were able to work upon the first Monarchs I desire to know the reason why those of Turkey Persia Russia and the African Emperors of Morocco and of the Abissines who sure have been as wise as any you can name should not in so many Ages as they have Governed see these Inconveniences you mention and restrain their Exorbitant Power within some moderate Limits Nay to the contrary one of the most ambitious and aspiring Monarchs in Europe is making what haste he can to reduce his Kingdom into the same Model And what do you think would the Princes and Councellors of these Empires say to such a one as you or I who should offer to preach this strange Doctrine to them That they ought under pain of Damnation to use their Subjects as their Children and not as Slaves or meer Vassals I doubt they would make us pay dear for publishing such false Doctrine in their Dominions or at least would despise us for half-witted fellows without any true Notions in Politicks since they believe that the true Security and Glory of a King consists in vast Standing Armies Great Fleets and a power to take from their Subjects and Neighbours whatever they please thereby to enjoy their own pleasures and humours in all their hearts can desire and to extend their Empires per fas nefas as far as ever their Conquering Swords will give them leave And if you should tell them that their Subjects could not love them nor live happily nor contentedly under such a Government I suppose their Answer would be if they could speak Latine Oderint dum metuant or in the Language of their own Country that they would rather trust a Standing Army than the Affections of their People and that it is better to take from their Subjects what they have a mind to than to leave it to their good will what they will give them These are all the Antient and Modern Politicks that I can observe in most Absolute Monarchies or in those Kingdoms where Kings have taken upon them so to Govern their Subjects at this day But I defie you to shew me any one Kingdom in the World where the People owe all their Liberties and Priviledges meerly to the good will and favour of their Princes who granted them only out of those wise considerations you have now mentioned But as for the Expedient at the latter end of your Speech that these Priviledges and Condescensions when once granted by Kings to their Subjâ—cts and past into constant and standing Laws and also solemnly sworn to by Princes at their Coronation do not only bind those Princes that granted them but also their Successors under pain of Damnation I so far agree with you tho' I must beg your pardon if I cannot think this a sufficient Security for several Reasons I can give you at a more convenient time when I shall when you please more fully discuss this point M. I must freely tell you Sir I am not yet satisfied neither with the Instances you have brought nor yet with your replies to my answers and I think I can shew you as to this Kingdom that they are false in matter of Fact For if that the first and most ancient Kingdoms and Monarchies began by Conquest at first and that perhaps for the most part by Wars unjustly made as I may also Instance in England if this were a proper season for it so that indeed the greatest Liberty in the World if it be duely considered is for a People to live under a Paternal Monarchy It is the Magna Charta of this Kingdom all other shews or Pretexts of Liberty are but several degrees of Slavery and a Liberty only to destroy Liberty So that I think I may very well keep my first opinion that Paternal Government is the
Foundation of all other and I have ever thought God's Love and Kindness to Mankind did never appear in any thing more except in Man's Redemption than in Creating only one Man and out of him only one Woman So that Adam was a kind of a Father to his Wife That Marital as well as all other Power might be founded in Paternal Iurisdiction That all Princes might look upon the meanest of their Subjects as their Children And all Subjects upon their Prince as their Common Father And upon each other as the Children of one Man that Mankind might not only be United in one common Nature but also be of one Blood of one Family and be habituated to the best of Governments from the very Infancy of the World Were this well considered as there could be no Tyrants so neither would there be any Traitors and Rebels But both Prince and People would strive to outdo each other in the offices of Love and Duty And now do you or any Man living read Sir R. F's Patriarcha or other works and see if either he or I have ascribed one Dram of Power to Princes which will not Naturally Spring from this Supream-Paternal Power So that upon the whole I think reason it self would conclude that this way of Solving the first Rise of Government is true and that it is the Duty of all who by the Blessing of God are under Paternal Monarchies to be very thankful for the favour and to do the utmost that in them lies to preserve and transmit that best form of Government to their Children after them And surely there is no Nation under Heaven hath more reason for this than the English who are under a Paternal Monarchy which has taken the best care that can be to secure them not only from oppression and wrong but from the very fear of it F. Since you lay the chief stress of your assertion upon the Original of most of the Kingdoms and Monarchies now in the World and of our own in particular I think I may safely joyn issue with you on both points and in the first place affirm that an unjust Conquest gives the Conquerour no right to the Subjects Obedience much less over their Lives or Estates and if our Norman William and his Successours had no more right to the Crown of England than meer conquest I doubt whether they might have been driven out after the same manner they came in But I believe you will find upon second thoughts that Unjust Conquests and Usurpations of Crowns be no firm Titles for Princes to relye on lest the Old English Proverb be turned upon you viz. That which is Sauce for a Goose is Sauce for a Gander but I Shall defer this discourse concerning Titles by Conquest and in particular that of our Kings to this Kingdom to some other time when I doubt not but to shew that it is not only false in matter of fact but also that it will not prove that for which it is brought And therefore what you say in your conclusion in exaltation of God's Love and Kindness to Mankind in Creating one Man and out of him only one Woman that Adam might be a kind of Father to his Wife is a very pretty and indeed singular Notion and you would do very well to move the Convocation next time it sits that this explanation may be added to the fifth Commandment that Women may be taught in the Catechism that Obedience to Husbands is due by the Precept of Honour thy Father and thy Mother And therefore I need give no other Answer to all the rest you have said however Specious the Hypothesis may seem as you have drest it up for Princes and People yet till you have proved that all Paternal Power is Monarchical and that all Monarchical Power is derived from Fatherhood it signifies nothing Nor can these Piae Fraudes do any more good in Politicks than Religion For as Superstition can never serve to advance the True Worship of God but by creating false Notions of the Divine Nature in Meâ—s Minds which doth not render it as it ought to be the Object of their Love and Reverence but Servile Fear So I suppose this asserting of such an unlimited Despotical Power in all Monarchs and such an entire Subjection as Sir R. F. and you your self exact from Subjects can produce nothing but a flavish Dread without that esteem and affection for their Prince's Person and Government which is so necessary for the quiet of Princes and which they may always have whilst they think themselves obliged in Conscience and Honour to protect their Lives and Fortunes from Slavery and Oppression according to the just and known Laws of the Kingdom and not to dispense with them in great and Essential Points without the Consent of those who have a hand in the making of them And all false Notions of this Supreme Power as derived from I know not what Fatherly but indeed Despotick Power are so far from settling in Peoples Minds a sober and rational Obedience to Government that they rather make them desperate and careless who is their Master since let what Change will come they can expect no better than to be Slaves Nor are Subjects put in a better condition by this Doctrine of Absolute Non Resistance since all Princes are not of so generous a Nature as not to Tyrannize and Insult the more over those whom they suppose will not or else dare not resist them and therefore I cannot see how such a submission can soften the hearts of the most Cruel Princes in the World as you suppose much less how Resistance in some cases can inrage the mildest Princes to their Peoples Ruine since all Resistance of such mild and merciful Princes I grant to be utterly unlawful nor do I hold Resistance ever to be practised but where the People are already ruined in their Liberties and Fortunes or are just at the brink of it and have no other means left but that to avoid it To conclude I so far agree with you that I think it is the Duty of all that are born under a Kingly Government Limited by Laws to be very thankful to God for the Favour and to do the utmost that in them lies to preserve and transmit this best Form of Government to their Children after them without maintaining such unintelligible Fictions as a Paternal Monarchy derived from Adam or Noah And tho' I own that some of our former Kings have taken the best care they could to secure this Nation from Popery and Arbitrary Power yet whether the Method of our three last Kings have been the readiest way to secure us from the fears of it I leave it to your own Conscience if you are a Protestant to judge But since you defie me to shew you out of Sir R. F's Patriarcha that he hath ascribed one Dram of Power to Princes which doth not naturally arise from a Supreme Paternal Power and that this is
tho' gathered together from the several Corners and remotest Regions in the World but that in the same Multitude considered by it self there is one Man amongst them that in Nature hath a Right to be the King of all the rest as being the next Heir to Adam and the other Subject unto him every Man by Nature is a King or a Subject So that I think no Kings in the World being able to deduce their Pedigree from Adam of whom there can be but one Right Heir they all or at least all but one are only Kings de Facto and not de Iure and Usurpers upon this Heir of Adam So that if God would but be pleased to reveal who this next Heir is all the Kings of the Earth were bound in Conscience to lay their Crowns at his Feet tho' he were but a Cobler or a Link-boy How ridiculous a Notion this is I leave it to any indifferent Man to Judge M. I hope this opinion is like to have no very ill effect unless any Prince by vertue of this Title of Adams Right Heir should pretend a Right to an Universal Monarchy and then I think it were but reasonable he should be put to make out his Title but seeing no body doth so to the best of my Knowledge it is but reasonable that all Princes should in the mean time enjoy what they are in lawful Possession of till this Heir of Noah hath made out his Title and then they may consider farther of it F. And it is very well that this Right Heir is not to be found for if he were all Princes would be Usurpers who did not immediately resign to him But this Doctrine is of more fatal consequence than you imagine For it doth not only concern Princes in respect of Adam's Right Heir only but also of any other Right Heirs to Princes who have lost their Right to a Crown never so many Ages ago For look into his Directions for Obedience in doubtful times and read this Passage By humane Positive Laws a Possession time out of Mind takes away or Bars a former Right to avoid a general Mischief of bringing all Right into a Disputation not decideable by proof and consequently to the overthrow of all Civil Government in Grants Gifts and Contracts between Man and Man but in Grants and Gifts that have their Original from God or Nature as the Power of a Father hath no Inferiour Power of Man can limit nor make any Law of Prescription against them Upon this ground is built that Nullum tempus occurrit Regi no time Barrs a King And a little before he gives us this reason of it For tho' by humane Laws a long Prescription may take away Right yet a Divine Right never dies nor can be lost or taken away By which Principle he renders the Titles of most if not all of the Princes of Europe at this day very weak and disputable whenever any other Person shall set up a Title against them M. But Sir R. F. hath found a very good Expedient for this for he tells us in the last cited Discourse that the Paternal Power cannot be lost tho' it may either be transferred or usurped and in his Anarchy of a limited Monarchy he thus more at large expresses it Many times by the Act either of an Usurper himself or of those that set him up the true Heir of a Crown is dispossessed God using the Ministry of the wickedest Man for the removing and setting up of Kings in such Cases the Subjects Obedience to the Fatherly Power must go along and wait upon Gods Providence who only hath right to give and take away Kingdoms and thereby to adopt Subjects into the Obedience of another Fatherly Power And Lastly in his Discourse of Obedience c. he more clearly fâ—â—tleth this Point in answer to an Objection there made that most Kings now in the World have no other Titles to their Crowns but Conquest or Usurpation he replieth That tho' all Kings were Usurpers yet still the first Usurper hath the best Tale being in Possession by the Permission of God and where an Usurper hath continued so long that the Knowledge of the Right Heir is lost by the Subjects in such case the Usurper in Possession is to be taken and reputed by such Subjects for the true Heir and is to be obey'd by them as their Father And I think you your self will not deny but that Kingdoms may be transferred from one Prince to another by Conquest or a long Usurpation and that when there is no other better Title extant the King in Possession or his Heirs may have a good Title by a long Possession tho' it began by Usurpation at first F. I have not now time to answer all that your Author hath as falsly as incoherently said concerning this Subject of Usurpation and I should be glad to hear you or any man else that will undertake to defend him make him consistent not only with reason but with himself in this Discourse you quote concerning Obedience to Government in doubtful times For to pass by his unintelligible Notion of supposing two supream Paternal Powers subsisting at once and each of them laying claim to the Obedience and Submission of the Subjects the former that of the Usurper Wâ—o being in Possession of the Crown by the permissive Will of God who hath thought fit to adopt the Subjects into a Fatherly Power and the latter that Paternal Right which he supposes still to remain in the expulsed Prince and his Heirs for ever By which means the Allegiance of the Subjects is so divided and perplext that they can never be able to tell when the Allegiance to the Right Heir is to take place before that of the Usurper M. But if you had been pleased better to observe this Discourse you would find that Sir R. F. hath very well obviated this Objection as appears by these Words The Right of Fatherly Government was ordained by God for the Preservation of Mankind if it be usurped the Usurper may be so far obeyed as may tend to the Preservation of the Subjects who may thereby be enabled to perform their Duty to the true and right Sovereign when time shall serve in such cases to obey an Usurper is properly to obey the first and Right Governour who must be presumed to desire the safety of his Subjects The Command of an Usurper is not to be obeyed in any thing tending to the Destruction of the Governour whose Being in the first place is to be looked after F. This is I confess a very pretty distinction to make the Usurper who governs whether the right Heir will or no yet to do it by his Consent and that the Subjects when they Act thus do but still obey their rightful Governour which supposition would be contradictory to what your Author hath already laid down of the Subjects being adopted into the Obedience of another â—atherly Power by the Usurpaâ—ion for if
subsist without it the People or such a considerable part of them may not in Case their Lives Liberties and Persons are unjustly assaulted and oppress 't by the Officers or standing Armies of the Prince or other Supream Powers for their own defence take up Arms to defend their Lives Liberties and Estates against such an armed force and violence Where by the way I desire you to take notice that I do here asolutely disclaim all Resistance of or Self defence against Civil Authority or the Officers Commissioned by it by any private single Person whether such Power be exerted according to Law or not or else abused in some cases to the hurt or destruction of such single Person only So that I suppose this Resistance to be lawful only in case of a general Destruction or intolerable oppression of the whole People or at least a very considerable part of them and those that are in the chiefest places of the Administration M. I confess the Doctrine of Resistance as you have put it seems at first somewhat plausible and to tend to the Common Good and preservation of the People or Civil Society But let me tell you I am of opinion that when ever it comes to be put in practice it proves like the other Speculations of Commonwealths-men more hurtful than beneficial to the Common Safety and Preservation of the People and consequently more destructive to the main ends of Government than conducive to the Good and Happiness of Mankind and last of all that such Resistance cannot well be maintained or executed without the deposing or absolute Destruction of the Prince or other Supream Magistrates whatever may be pretended to the contrary And indeed it is almost impossible to suppose that any Monarch or Supream Magistrates should ever unless they were stark mad purposely go about to kill or destroy their Subjects in the Multitude and Safety of whom consists his chief Strength and Riches And you may as well tell me that a Shepherd whilst he is in his right Wits should go about to kill or destroy his Flock as that a Monarch should wilfully intend to kill or destroy his People To conclude since the People must be in all Cases of Tyranny or Oppression their own Iudges and Executioners too there is no Rebellion so rank and wicked that this pretence of a Self-defence of Men's Lives Estates and Liberties may not justifie whereas indeed it is contrary to all Natural and Civil Justice for the injured party to be his own Judge and Executioner too For then the other side may pretend to the like Right and the Tryal must be referred to Force and Arms in which Contention if the People are overcome they are certainly reduced to a worse Condition than they were before But if the Prince or Supream Magistrates have the worst on 't the Civil Power then in being is absolutely ruined So that whether the People or Magistrate overcome the state of both of them is very deplorable besides divers other evil Consequences of this Doctrine which I shall defer till I hear what you can say to what I have now urged against your Opinion F. You have made a very plausible Speech in setting forth the dreadful Consequence of this Doctrine of Resistance in any Case whatsoever and I confess if what you lay down be true viz. that such Resistance always brings along with it greater Misery upon a People than what the utmost Violence and Oppression of Princes can produce then your Consequence would be also true that such Resistance is never to be practised upon any account whatsoever So on the other side if that be not true neither will your consequence signifie anything I suppose you will not deny but that there may be such a thing as a Tyrant and that that part of Mankind who live under him may be sensible of his Tyranny or else the Definition which King Iames I gives us of a Tyrant in a Speech which he made to the Parliament in 1603 would be altogether in vain But the words are so fit for this purpose that I will read them to you out of his Works I do acknowledge that the special and greatest point of difference that is between a Rightful King and an Usurping Tyrant is this That whereas the Proud and Ambitious Tyrant doth think his Kingdom and People are only ordained for the satisfaction of his desires and unreasonable Appetites the Righteous and Iust King doth by the contrary acknowledge himself to be ordained for the procuring of the Wealth and Prosperity of his People And so likewise in another Speech he made to the Parliament he hath this memorable passage That a King governing in a settled Kingdom leaves to be a King and degenerates into a Tyrant so soon as he ceases to rule according to the Law So that since it is plain that the People may judge when they have a Tyrant instead of a King to rule over them and that under such a Tyrant the Condition of the People may be very deplorable the Question still remains what is best for them to do in this Case Whether it be better for them or they be obliged by the Laws of Reason and Nature patiently to submit to it or else if they can either by their own force or the Assistance of a Forreign Prince to cast off the Yoke And I think I may still maintain that they may do it notwithstanding what you have yet urged to the contrary In the first place therefore tho' you count it an almost impossible thing to suppose that a Prince or Monarch would ever go about to murder or destroy his Subjects yet as incredible as it is I can give you several examples out of History both Ancient and Modern that some Tyrants have been so bruitish as not only to endeavour it but actually to put it in practice Of the first kind is that of Caligula whom Suetonius mentions to have wisht that all the People of Rome had but one Neck that he might cut it off at once The other is of Nero in the same Author as also in Tacitus who set the City of Rome on fire and consequently would have burnt all the People in it to please his humour and that he might sing his Ballad of the Destruction of Troy the more naturally whilst it burnt A third example I find related in Mocquet's Travels into the East-Indies of a certain King of Pegu about an hundred years ago who by the perswasion of some of his Diabolical Priests or Magicians took such an aversion to his Subjects that he was resolved to destroy them and therefore forbid them to sow their Lands for two or three Years by which means a great part of them died of Famine or were forced to devour each other And in such Cases as these I suppose the Laws of Nature and Reason will justifie Self-defence in the People and sure it had been Lawful for the People of Rome to have resisted
Caligula's Guards if he had gone about to put his wicked Wish into Execution or likewise to have resisted or put to death those Incendiaries they found firing the City tho' they might have had the Emperour Nero's Commission for it So likewise sure it would have been as lawful for the People of Pegu to have resisted those whom the Emperour might have sent to hinder them from Ploughing and Sowing their Lands And that I am not the only Man of this Opinion I desire you to consult what Barclay hath in his Treatise contra Monarchomachos which he writ against Buchanan de Iure Regni apud Scotos and the Author of Vindiciae contra Tyrannos where tho'he be a most Zealous assertor of the unlimited and irresistible Power of Princeâ— Yet in his third Book chap. 8. he speaketh to this effect the sense of whose words as near as I can I will give you in English Now if any one should say But must the People always yield their Throats to the Fury and Cruelty of Tyranty â— Must they patiently permit their Cities to be destroyed by Hunger Fâ—e or Sword and their Wives and Children to be exposed to the lust of a Tyrant and also themselves to be brought into the utmost dangers and Miseries of Life Must that be denyed to them which is the Right of all Animals by Nature that is that they may repel force with force and defend themselves from Injury To this it may easily be answered that Self-defence which is of Natural Right ought not to be denyed to the People And therefore if the King doth not only exert his hatred against some Single persons but also shall go about to destroy the body of the Common-Wealth of which he is Head that is shall exert his Hatred against the whole People or some considerable part of them by an horrid and intolerable Cruelty or Tyranny There is a Power in the People in this Case only of Defending it self but not of Invading the Prince or of Revenging the Injury given neither of departing from their due Reverence because of the Injury received in short it hath Right only of repelling a Present force but not of revenging a past injury for one of them indeed is from Nature that we should defend our lives and Persons from injury and therefore the People may be able to prevent an Evil before it be done but cannot revenge it upon the King after it is done Therefore the People hath this Right more than a Private Man that he hath no other Remedy left him but Patâ—ence Whereas the People if the Tyranny be intolerable may still resist tho' with Respect In all which this Author hath there said we may easily understand his meaning unless it be in this of resisting force with Respect and Reverence For I cannot understand how a Man may sight against his Prince with Reverence or give his Guard a Knock over the Paâ—e or a Cut in the Face with Respect to the Prince's Authority But the reason is plain why the people may act thus because when a Prince once Goeth about to destroy and make War upon his People he doth not act then as a Monarch but like a Cut-throat and Enemy to the Common-Wealth And no man can imagine a Will to destroy and to protect the people can at once subsist in the same Person M. But pray give me leave to interrupt you a little I grant indeed that by the Political Laws of any Government which are made to Secure the Rights of the Subjects in their Lives and Fortunes No Prince can or ought to take away his Subjects Lives or Esâ—ates contrary to Law Yet by the IMPERIAL LAWS in every Government and by the Laws of the Gospel which As I shall hereafter shew establish those Laws in all perfect Governments and particularly in the English all these Rights Legally belong to the civil Soveraign especially to be accountable to none but God to have the Sole Power and disposal of the Sword and to be free from all Coercive and Vindicative Power and from all Resistance by force It is by these Common Laws of Soveraignty that the Gospel requires Passive Obedience which is but another name for Non-Resistance these Laws are in eternal force against the Subjects in defence of the Soveraign be he Good or Evil Just or Unjust Christian or Pagan be he what he will no Subjectâ— or number of Subjects whatsoever can lift up his or their hands against the Soveraign and be Guiltless by these Laws Therefore for the Subjects to bear the Sword against their Soveraign or to defend themselves by force against him or his Forces is against the Common Laws of Soveraignty and by consequence Passive Obedience even unto Death becomes a duty in Soveraign Governments by vertue of those Laws and we are not to resist them upon any pretence whatsoever but therefore all Subjects are bound to Suffer Death wrongfully rather than to resist them upon any pretence or account whatsoever So that let Popish Writers though never so moderate say what they please concerning the Lawfulness of Resistance in some Cases Yet We of the Church of England have learned better things from the Scripture and the Examples of the Primitive Christians which we think our selves obliged most strictly to observe And therefore in relation to our own Government and the present State of Affairs I shall reduce all that I have to say against Resistance of the King or those commissioned by him into this Syllogisme Not to be resisted by the Subjects is an Inseparable Right of all Soveraign Power But the King is here the only Soveraign Power Ergo the King is upon no pretence whatsoever to be resisted by his Subjects So that not to quarrel any longer about words Non-resistance is the same thing with Passive Obedience and Submission and by consequence these are required by the IMPERIAL LAWS of the Government Therefore Whatsoever the Imperial Laws of the Government require of its Subjects if it be not contrary to God's Laws they are bound to perform it But Passive Obedience or Patient Suffering of Injuries from the Soveraign is not forbid by God's Laws And therefore Subjects are bound to perform it where it is required by the Imperial Laws F. I Shall forbear to say any thing as yet concerning what Doctrines the Scriptures teach or the Primitive Christians practised concerning this matter because I desire to discourse that Question apart from this of the Laws of Nature or Reason which We are now upon Therefore I must tell you that tho' this new Fingle-fangle Term of Imperial Law of Non-resistance may sound very prettily to their Ears who mind words more than sense Yet I must freely confess that I am altogether a Stranger to this Notion of Imperial Laws as also of the distinction you make between the Imperial and Political Laws of this Kingdom and if by Imperial Laws you mean those of the Roman Empire I never knew that
those Laws had any thing to do in England before but always supposed the Politick Laws of our Country to be the only measure of the King's Prerogative as also of the Subject's Obedience and Subjection Nor do your own Civil Laws by as much as I know of them make any difference between the Imperial and Political Laws of the Empire for by the one as well as the Other the Civilians understand such Laws or Ediâ—ts of the Emperours which with the Approbation of the Senate were made for the Peace and Well government of the Common-Wealth but I never yet heard of any Imperial Laws whereby the Emperour declared that he had a Right to plunder or murder all the Citizens of Rome or that they believed they were obliged to Suffer by your Imperial Laws without any Resistance I am sure the Senate and People did not believe that the Emperour had any such Authority when they declared Nero and Maximin for their intolerable Cruelty not only Enemies of the Common-Wealth but of Mankind But if by these Imperial Laws of Non-resistance you mean no more than what you laid down in your Syllogism That it is an inseparable Right or Prerogative of Soveraign Powers not to be resisted by their Subjects when you have proved this Proposition by the Laws of Nature and Reason I shall then believe it But as for your Conclusion it being founded upon these Premises it needs no Confutation for if the Imperial Laws of Government do not require your Passive Obedience then Subjects are not bound to perform it And to shew you the Falseness and absurdity of this Assertion that Whatsoever the Imperial Laws of any Government require of its Subjects if it be not contrary to God's Laws they are bound to perform it In stead of Passive Obedience or Patient Suffering of Injuries let us insert to give up to the Soveraign all our Civil Properties and Estates if demanded by him is not forbid by God's Laws and therefore Subjects are bound to perform it when ever it is required by the Imperial Laws For certainly the absolute disposal of the Estates of the Subjects is as unseparable a Prerogative of Soveraign Power as Irresistibility it self as I think I am able to prove if you think fit to dispute that Question But at present I shall only confine my self to confute the Major in your Syllogism In the first place therefore tho' I do grant what you lay down for a Ground to be true That it belongs to Soveraign Powers to be accountable to or punishable by none but God Yet I suppose Resistance of their Violence and Tyranny may very well be perform'd by the People without calling them to a Iudicial Account or erecting a Tribunal for that purpose Calling to an Account and Punishment are acts of Authority of Superiours over Inferiours But Resistance for self-defence is a Right of Nature and which no Man by entering into Civil Government ever parted withal but out of Consideration of a Greater Good to be obtained thereby viz. his own greater Security together with the Common Good of that Civil Society whereof he is a Member which when by the Prince's violence it is once like to be wholly lost his Natural Right of Self-defence for the Preservation of himself and Family again takes place Nor doth he then resist the Supreme Powers as such but as Murderers and Cut-throats who by going about to destroy the People have already loft all that Right they formerly had And of this opinion is that moderate Romish Author Barclay before cited Who in the 16 Chap. of the Book last quoted hath this Remarkable passage What then Can there no Cases happen in which it may be lawful for the People by their own Authority to rise up and resist a King governing Tyrannically His Answer to this Question is there are certainly none as long as he continues King for the Scriptures forbid it which say Honour the King and he who resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God Therefore the People can have no Power against him unless he committeth something by which he may cease to be King for then he himself abdicates his Kingship and becomes a private Man and by this means the People being made Free that Right returns to them which they had before the King was made But there are but few Facts of that Nature which can produce Such effects And I cannot when I think of it find more than two Cases in which a King doth ipso facto make himself no King and thereby depriveth himself of all Honour Regal Dignity and Power which also Winzerus takes notice of One of these is if he destroys his Kingdom and then gives us the Examples of Nero and Caligula as I have already done And next proceeds to this purpose that when any King designs and doth seriously endeavour to put this in practice he casts off all care and desire of Governing And therefore thereby loses his Empire over his Subjects as a Lord of a Servant loses his Dominion over him by giving up all Care and Government of him And of this Opinion likewise are Grotius and Pâ—ffendorf the two best and most learned Writers on this Subject Who do not think it inconsistent with the Rules of the Gospel for Subjects to resist the King if with a Hostile mind He seeks the Destruction of his People for says the former the Will of commanding and destroying cannot consist together And therefore he who professes himself an Enemy of the whole People does thereby abdicate the Kingdom but that can Scarce seem to happen in a King in his right Witts and who commands only one Kingdom But if he commands more Kingdoms it may so happen that he would destroy the People of one Nation to gratifie the other that he may there make Colonies of them And this I suppose Grotius spoke in relation to the King of Spain who they say had declared that if he overcame the Dutch then in Arms against him he would fell the People for Slaves into America and people the Country with Spaniards M. You very much mistake me if you think by Imperial I meant the Roman Laws but only the Common Laws of Soveraignty which tho' they destroy no Man's Natural or Civil Rights Yet both grant and confirm unto the Legal Soveraign in every Government the Essential Rights of Soveraignty of which I take Non-resistance not only for Wrath but Conscience lake to be one of the Chief And therefore it were much better to venture the utmost that a Tyrant can do towards his People by destroying them than to give the least inlet to Rebellion by Supposing the People may in any case whatsoever resist their Prince For granting the worst that may happen that a Prince once in 1000 years to be so wicked and Malicious as to go about to destroy his People yet he could scarce find means and hands enough to bring it about and admit he should destroy by
may by his Mercenary forces then that 30 or 40000 may defend themselves if they can For when once a Prince hath thus enter'd into a State of War with his People who can tell when or where it will end or can assure himself that he shall not be the next man that shall be dâ—stroyed and it is very pleasant that you allow the Prince this Power of murdering to avoid Civil War as if there could be no War begun unless there be fighting on both Sides Whereas Mr. Hobbs himself acknowledges the very assaulting or setting upon any Man to be entring into a State of War with him And sure I think to fall upon the People without Cause and Killing 30 or 40000 of them is entring into a State of War or else nothing is And therefore you mistake the question when you argue from the Indivisibility of the Supreme Power that it must not be resisted For the Question is not here whether it be divisible or not but whether it be not absolutely dissolved by thus entering into a State of War with the People whom all Civil Magistrates are supposed to protect when they assume the Government Nor doth this give any countenance to Male factors or other single Persons to rise in Arms and defend themselves against the supreme Powers when they have offended against the Laws or that they think themselves injured by the undile execution of them Since such abuses of Power cannot suddenly or upon every slight occasion disturb the Government And in the Case of Malefactors the Supream Power is still sure to have all the People on its side for their own Security and in case of some Murders or oppressions committed by such Supream Magistrates on the Lives or Estates of some Private Persons tho' I suppose that even such private Men have a Right in the state of Nature to defend their Lives and to recover by Force what by unjust Force is taken from them yet this Right must still give place to the Publick Place and Safety of the Common-Wealth whereof they are members which must not be disturbâ—d for the sake of a few and of this the People themselves are so sensible that it is almost as impossible for a few oppressed men to disturb the Government where the Body of the People do not think themselves concerned to it as for a Raâ—ing Mad-man or Heady Malecontent to overturn a well setled Staâ—e the People being as little aâ—t to follow the one as the other So on the other side when over the People are once convinced that their Governours instead of Protecting go about to destroy them it is as impossible for any Man to persuade them not to take up Arms and defend themselves against them if they are able to make Sufficient Resistances And therefore tho' I so far agree with you that some oppressions and violences may be practised in all Civil Governments whatsoever since such abuses will continue as long as Men are Men yet doth it not therefore follow that the Supream Powers must always be born withal and never resisted no not when they go about to destroy the whole Body of the People M. But pray tell me is it not a very mischievous and unjust thing that Subjects should be both Iudges and Parties too in their own Case Since they may pretend that the King goeth about to destroy them when really he does not design any such thing and would not this bring all things into Anarchy and Confusion I shewed you the fatal consequences of this at the Beginning but you have not yet thought fit to answer them F. I begg your pardon Sir I have been so taken up with answering the main Arguments that you have proposed against this Right of Resistance that I have not had time to consider this Objection which is but a Consequence thereof And therefore in the first place give me leave to ask you this Question Suppose you were Master of a separate Family in the Indies and a Neighbouring Prince or Cacich of the Indians should come to Kill you or to drive you out of your Plantation might you not defend your self because you are both Iudge and Party too in your own Case or suppose you should so far abuse this Power of self defence as to pretend this Neighbouring Prince was coming to assault you when he realy was nor and should therefore to prevent it set upon him first and Murder him and his Followers must your abuse of this Right which you have by the Law of Nature be a sufficient Argument that neither you nor any Man else in the State of Natioâ— should ever for the future exercise this Right no more will the abuse of either of these beâ— sufficient Argument against the Right of Self-defence against the supream Powers M. I grant indeed they are not in the State of Nature but it is much otherwise after People are entered into a Civil Society or Common-Wealth and that upon your own Principles For then they have given up all that Equality which you suppose between men in the State of Nature For supposing what you affirm should be true That Civil Government at first began from the whole Body or major part of the Peoples making over all their Right of Governing themselves to one Person or more upon Conditions of being Protected in their Lives and Estates they must likewise make over all their Right of Iudging for themselves what means are necessary for their Common Good and Preservation after which transferring of their Power they can never have any Right to meet again in a body either by themselves or their Representatives to Judge of these Breaches or the Transgressions of those Conditions which they at first Proposed and agreed upon with such Princes or Governours And when the People come once to multiply into a Nation it in absolutely Impossible for them ever to meet altogether again and give their Iudgment of the Good or Evil Consequence of the Monarchs actions or to come to any resolution upon them So that their opinion can never afterwards be known otherwise than by the Murmurs of particular Persons which none can certainly know neither unless they could speak with every Individual Person of that Kingdom which is impossible But if you will say this oppression needs not to be known by Words or Votes but actions viz. by the Peoples actual taking up Arm ' this must either be by the whole People altogether at once or at least the major part of them or else of some particular Bodies of Men much less than the whole or major part Now the whole or major part of a People of a Nation to rise and take up Arms all at once aâ— one Man is morally impossible And if any part less than this whole or Major part as suppose a whole Province or City every such party or Body of Men so rising must be guilty of Rebellion and disturbing the Publick Peace of the Common-Wealth as being
to defend their own Lives or a Property in any thing they can enjoy and if ever they could be supposed to have done so I think I may boldly affirm that such a Nation are not Subjects but Slaves and the Prince not a Monarch or Civil Governour but only a Lord of a Great Family or Master of a publick Work-house For I take the difference betwixt Subjects or Slaves and Princes and Masters of Families to consist in this that the Power of a Prince is chiefly ordained for the Good and Preservation of his Subjects tho' I grant his own may likewise be included in it as an Encouragement and Reward for his Labour yet not as the principal End of his Institution Whereas in a Family of Slaves they are chiefly ordained for his profit or Benefit that maintains them but their Happiness and Preservation is only accidental and as it may conduce to that The main End also of Civil Government is to institute and maintain a distinct Property in men's Estates and which the Prince or Common-wealth can have no Right to take away And therefore tho' I grant that in those Despotiâ—k Monarchies you mention the Monarchs do exercise an Absolute Arbitrary Power over the Lives Liberties and Estates of their Subjects Yet that this is by Divine Right or Institution I utterly deny or that it was always so in all of them from the beginning for most of those Empires you mention can no otherwise subsist than by a Constant maintaining vast standing Armies or Guards to keep their Subjects in Obedience Nor can any Governments be of Divine Institution which are exercised with a sole Respect to the personal Power and Grandeur of the Prince rather than the Good and Preservation of the People So that if you will but survey the accounts that Travellers give us of those Eastern Parts of the World you will find that there are no known setled Laws or Properties in those Countries except at the Arbitrary Will of the Monarch or his Viceroys and thus all those rich and fruitful Countries of Egypt and Asia which formerly flourished in all Arts Knowledge and Civility and abounded in Multitudes of People are now in most places reduced to meer Deserts and do not breed a Tenth part of that number of People as they did in former Ages Which proceeds from no other cause but the Cruelty and Injustice of the Government quite different from what it was in the time of the Roman Emperours who tho' I confess they were in some sence absolute too yet governed by and were obliged to observe Known Laws and the People had a settled Property in their Estates which the Prince had no Right to take away I shall not enquire how all these Monarchs came to be so Arbitrary at first and thus to abuse their Power But the Generality or Antiquity of this abuse can be no more a Plea for its Right than that because Idolatry was generally practised throughout the World within three or four hundred Years after the Flood till three or above four hundred Years after Christ therefore Idolatry was the True and Ancient Religion of the World Now tho' I will not condemn this sort of Government where the Subjects enjoy no setled Property in Lands or Goods as absolutely unlawful and directly contrary to the Laws of God or Nature Yet in those Kingdoms and Common-wealths where Civil or Hereditary Property is once introduced I think it is not Lawful nor indeed in the Power of the Prince or Common-wealth to destroy or take it away And therefore if the Roman Emperours should have endeavoured by any Laws or Edicts of their own making to have dâ—stroyed all Civil or Hereditary Property in Lands and Goods and to have reduced all the Estates of their Subjects into their own Possession I think they might have been Lawfully disobeyed and resisted by the People since they went about to destroy one great End of Civil Government viz. the Instituting and Maintaining of Civil Property To conclude I freely grant that in all Countries which are governed either by absolute Monarchies or Common-wealths the Soveraignty is so fully in one Person or Body of Men that it hath no other Bounds or Limits under God but it s own Will or Commands Provided they do not apparently tend to the absolute Ruine and Destruction of the People for that being inconsistent with the Notion or End of governing them they are and ever will be Iudges of it And therefore even amongst the Turks and Tartars themselves if they should once find their Prince go about wilâ—ully to destroy them or sell them for Slaves you would soon find notwithstanding this servile Subjection That they would quickly be rid of them as the Ianisaries have served their Emperours of late Years for far less faults M. I cannot deny but you have spoken reasonably enough on this Subject and perhaps if you had restrained this Power of Resistance only to such Cases where the Prince or Monarch makes open War upon his People or doth otherwise actually go about to destroy them it might have been a tolerable doctrine that they may lawfully resist the Forces he shall send against them but this is a Case that so seldom happens if ever at all that it can never be supposed and no Prince unless he were Mad can be guilty of it and therefore when ever he Acts thus I think he may not only be Lawfully resisted but tyed up for a Madman But this is seldom or never the Case between Monarchs and their People for most of the Rebellions and Insurrections that I have ever read of or observed in the World have not proceeded from any necessity that the People had to rise up in Arms and Rebel against their Supream Magistrates because their Lives or Estates were assaulted or in danger to be taken away but for the most part they arose either from the too Great Cruelty or severity of the Supream Power towards some particular Private Men who by themselves and their Friends and Relations have gone about to revenge those Injuries that they supposed had been done them And of this all Histories are to full that I need give no particular Instances of them all which abuses may be reduced to these Heads First when a Prince doth commonly himself violate the Chastities of the Wives or Daughters of the Subjects which tho' it hath been the ruine of divers Princes yet is he able to do this only to some few particular Persons and tho' if he should permit his Soldiers or Officers generally to do this without any Punishment yet even this can hardly if ever extend to all the Wives Daughters or Women in a whole Countrey And therefore both these Cases are to be born withal according to your own Principles since it doth not tend to the Slavery or Destruction of the People I mean as to their whole complexed Body A Second is when an absolute Prince or Monarch goeth about to alter the
established Religion of his Countrey and to introduce a different one by his own sole Authority whilst the Major part of the People continue of another Opinion In this Case I suppose you will not affirm that the Subjects have a Right to resist their Prince for so doing For then the Romans might justly have rebelled against Constantine when he shut up the Heathen Temples and forbad all publick Sacrifices to their Gods and thereby made the Christian Religion the established Profession of the Empire F. But pray Sir give me leave to interrupt you a little might not Constantine have a Right to do this because the Christian Religion is the only true one and that the Idolatry the Romans then practised was against the Law of Nature M. Whatever weight there may be in this answer yet you have no reason to put this Question now since you have already viz. at our first Conference asserted that an Erroneous Conscience gives men a Right to follow it during the time they are under this Ignorance of the Truth And therefore if the Roman Emperours had not a Right to do this by their own Authority without any resistance the Subjects whilst they believed the Worship of their God to be thereby destroyed might nay ought to have resisted the Emperour rather than to have suffered him to have altered the antient Religion of the Empire and to have brought in another which they look't upon as an upstart and it is very natural for Men to do so since nothing ought to be more dear to them than the Worship and honour of God F. I do not desire at present to Embark my self in this tedious and troublesome dispute about the Authority of the Supream Powers in matters of Religion and therefore I shall say no more to it at present but if your Assertion be true that an absolute Monarch may set up what Religion he pleases without being resisted by the Subjects whom I suppose to be of another perswasion it will then follow that if the French King or Emperour of Muscâ—vy should turn Mahometan and should set up that Superstition by force for the Publick and National Religion of the Countrey tho' with the Destruction of all that should oppose it none of their Subjects might resist them in so doing and if so I desire you to consider what you have gained to Religion by thus asserting such an unlimited Prerogative to all Monarchs But laying aside this Dispute till another time I pray go on to the rest of those Cases in which the People do take upon them to resist the Supream Powers M. I shall comply with your desires and therefore a Third Pretence of Subjects to rebel is when the Supream Powers shall think it necessary to levy upon their People more heavy and grievous Taxes and Impositions than the People are willing or it may be able to pay Now if your Principle be true that they may rise in Arms and resist the Supream Powers whenever they think themselves thus intolerably oppressed and if they shall be sole Iudges of this oppression then all the Rebellions that ever were made in England or elsewhere by reason of such excessive Tributes or Taxes whould be Lawful Which would be a perpetual Ground of Anarchy and Confusion For private Subjects not being admitted into the Privy Councils of Princes or States can never be supposed to understand whether the necessities of the Common-wealth may require them or not And indeed the People do so often repine and murmur at the Government when the Publick Necessities require to impose greater Taxes or Gabels than they think they can well bear that the Mobile of any great City or Province for Example who think themselves thus oppressed beyond what they are able or perhaps willing to bear may rise in Rebellion and throw off all Obedience to Civil Authority and they may have a very good Pretence for it according to your Principle because they may look upon themselves as a very considerable nay necessary part of the Common-wealth And thus the Common People of Kent might have justified their Rebellion in Richard the seconds time under Wat Tyler and Iack Straw and the People of Devonshire and Somerset-shire might likewise have justified their Insurrection in Henry the sevenths Reign under Flammock the Black smith And I could mention others of the like Nature but I forbear because you may say they were upon account of Religion And lastly this Principle might very well justifie the Insurrection of the People of Naples under Massaniello which besides the vast spoil it made upon the Goods and Palaces of the Nobility ended at last whatsoever they pretended at first to the contrary in delivering up themselves to the King of France who refusing to protect them they were soon reduced to their former Obedience to the King of Spain In short if the People should take upon them to Resist or Rebel whenever they thought themselves intolerably injured and oppressed in their Estates by immoderate Taxes there would be no End of such Rebellions especially considering the advantage which Wicked Crafty and Ambitious men would thereby take to excite the People to rise and depose their Lawful Governours and set up themselves in their Room upon Pretence of better Government and greater Liberty And how prone the Common People have been to receive such Impressions He is but meanly aâ—â—dâ—ed in Antient and Modern History who is not convinced of it F. To answer this Objection before you proceed farther my opinion in short is that tho' such Taxes may often prove an Universal Dammage and a great impoverishment to the Subjects yet if they are such as may be born with less trouble than can follow from a Civil War or the change of the Government there is no just or sufficient cause of Resistance of the Soveraign Magistrates commands or Edicts concerning them As for Example such great Taxes as the Subjects pay and perhaps may bear it well enough in Holland and other Countries since there may be a necessity for such Taxes and of this I grant the Supream Authority of the Nation can be the only Iudges And how far this may extend I cannot positively determine For suppose you should ask me if the Supream Powers should borrow all the Ready Money the Subjects had for the necessary uses of the State so that they would give them Leather or Brass Money instead of it to go at the same value for the necessary uses of Commerce yet if they did not take away their Property in their Lands Corn or Living Stock which are the necessary means of their Subsistance I do not think it were a sufficient Cause to take up Arms against their Governours for so doing beâ—ause the Subjects cannot tell but that the necessities of the State for their necessary defence against a Potent Forreign Enemy may require it And sure it is a much greater Evil to fall into a Civil War or to be subdued by Strangers than to
Men may have proceeded not from their own Right or Possession but from the Assignment of their Chief Captain or Leader Yet are not the Estates which such particular Men enjoy to be look't upon only as the meer Grace or Favour of such a Prince since most of those who followed him in this Conquest or Expedition did it not as Subjects but as Volunteers and without whose Assistance he could never have Conquered at all So that they have thereby acquired to themselves a certain Portion or Share in the Land so Conquered tho' for avoiding Dissentions and Quâ—rrels amongst them it was left to the Disposal of this New Prince as a publick Trustee to Distribute to each person what share he should have But in the other Case when Fathers or Masters of Families before Free and Possest of Hereditary Estates do submit themselves to the Command of one Man Voluntarily or by Election Those Estates do much less depend upon the Will or Favour of that Prince And therefore if such a Prince should without their consents go about to take away their Property in their Estates he might very Iustly be Resisted by them since a quiet enjoyment of these in Peace and Safety was one of the chief reasons that made them chuse him for their Prince and was certainly one of the Original Compacts of the Government And that in Absolute Monarchies where the Subjects were not Slaves they look't upon themselves to have such a settled Property in their Persons and Estates by Compact That Seneca boldly pronounced Errat siquis existimat sutum â—sse ibi Râ—gem ubi nihil à Regetutum est Securitas Securitate mutua paciscenda est And Mr. Hobbs himself as much a Friend as he was to the Arbitrary Power of Monarchs and an Enemy to the Natural Rights of Subjects yet is forced in his Leviathan to confess that the Riches Power and Honour of a Monarch arises only from the Riches Strength and Reputation of his Subjects for no King can be Rich nor Glorious nor Secure whose Subjects are â—â—â—her poor or contemptible Tho' how this Riches and Strength of Subjects can consist with that Absolute Power which he gives his Sovereign over the Persons and Estates of his Subjects I cannot understand since he will not allow of any Compacts or Conditions between him and them But that their Propriety may very well consist with the Power of the Prince Seneca shews us Iure Civili says he omniâ— Râ—gis sunt tamen illa quorum ad Regem pertinet universa possessio in singulos Dominos descripta sunt unaquaeque res habet possessorem suum Itaque dare Regi donum mancipium pecuniam possumus nec donare illi de suo dicimur Ad Reges enim Potestas omnium pertinet ad singulos Proprietas And the Earl of Clarendon in his Survey of the Leviathan makes this excellent remark upon this Passage of Seneca And that Prince who thinks his Power so Greâ—â— that his Subjâ—cts have nothing to give him will be very unhappy if he hath evern nâ—ed of their Hands or their Hearts So that notwithstanding this Universal Power or Supereminent Dominion of the Emperour over all things which Seneca there supposes yet if he should have gone about to have Invaded all Men's Properties and reduced all Men's Estates into the Publick Treasury I doubt not but he would soon have had not only his own Legions but the whole Empire about his Ears And tho' I have heard that the French King doth by his Exâ—roitant Taxes and Gabels raise more Mâ—ney out of the Kingdom of France and the Territories annexed to it than the Ottoman Emperour doth out of that vast Empire of which he hath the Sole Propriety of the Lands in himself Yet if the French King should indeavour by the Power of his Standing Army to take away all Men's Hereditary Properties in their Estates and make them all to be holden at Will I doubt not but he would not only be Opposed by his Subjects and perhaps ruined in the Attempt but also if he should Succeed in it would be so far from being the Richer or more Powerful that he would become the Poorer and Weaker when he had done Since no Man would take the Pains to build till or improve their Estates any more than they do in Turkey when they were not sure 〈◊〉 soon they might be turned out of them or at least could hold them no longer than for their Lives or a few years So prevalent a thing is this empty shadow and bare Name of Property that is now left in France being often charged with 〈◊〉 to above half the value of the Estates to encourage the People to beautifie cultivate and improve a Country abounding with all those Riches that Nature or Art can produce And to let you see I am not at all partial I think I may safely affirm the same of the Legislative Power in this Kingdom so that if it should happen which tho' highly improbable yet it is not impossible that the Lords and Commons Assembled in Parliament should so far abuse the Trust reposed in them as to give up all their Civil Properties in their Estates into the Kings Fâ—ands to be disposed of as he should think fit and that the King should thereupon go about to turn all the People out of their Estates I doubt not but they might in that case resist the King if he went to do it by force Notwithstanding this Act of Parliament and my reason it that a 〈◊〉 Hereditary Property in Estates being an Antient if not more than Parliament themselves in this Nation must consequently be a Fundamental Law of the Government and so cannot be altered by its Representatives For tho' it be true the People have given them a Power to dispose of what part of their Estates they should think 〈◊〉 yet did they not make it absolute to extend either to their Liberties I mean in respect of Slavery or their whole Properties in their Estates And if the King may be resisted if he invade them by his own Sole Authority the reason would be the same why he might be also resisted tho' back't by an Act of Parliament Since the taâ—â—ing away of Civil Property would prove as distâ—uctive to the Peopleâ— Liberties and Happiness in the one case as in the other and as great an abuse of the Trust reposed 〈◊〉 them that were designed to protect it M. I cannot except against your distinction between those Governments where a Property in Estates did precede the Institution of the Government it sell for there I grant that such a Property may be a Fundamental Law of the Government but in those Monarchies that have begun by Conquest under the Command of a King or absolute Prince over an Army of his own Subjects in that case upon the Conquest of a Kingdom or forreign Nation not only the Prey or Goods of the 〈◊〉 but also their Estates were
endure and pass by the personal Faults or Failings of Princes in consiâ—eration of that Protection and Security in their Lives and Fortunes which they do enjoy under them since it hath been found by experience with how great a Slaughter of People and how great a confusion and danger of the whole Common-Wealth Evil Princes have been resisted or turn'd out of their Thrones And therefore I grant the Private Injuries of Princes are to be past over in consideration of that great Charge they undergo and for those greater Benefits we receive from their Government but chiefly for the publick Peace of the Common Wealth or Civil Society And therefore I own it is very well said by that Master in Politicks Tacitus That the ill Humours or Dispositions of Kings are to be born withal and that often Mutations of Governments are of dangerous Consequence And he wisely introduces Ceriales speaking to this purpose to the Rebellious Treveri That they ought to bear with the Luxury and Avarice of Rulers as they do with immoderate showers and other unnatural Evils since there will be Vices whilst there are Men yet neither are these continual but are often recompensed by the Intervention of better But I will now particularize those Cases wherein I do absolutely disallow and disclaim all Resistance in Subjects against the Supream Powers 1. I deny all Resistance to Subjects against their Princes or Supream Magistrates in all such Actions or Prerogatives which are absolutely necessary to the Exercise of their Supream Power viz. of Protecting and Defending their People as also against those who are Commission'd by them for the Execution of such Powers 2. I Condemn all Rebellion against Princes or States meerly on the Score of Religion or because they are not of the Religion of their People or Subjects if there be no positive Law Extant Disabling or Forbidding Princes or other Magistrates of different Religions than that of their People from being admitted to the Throne or Government 3. I look upon it as Rebellion in the People Tumultuously to rise up in Arms to alter or reform the Religion of the Nation or Kingdom already established by Law without the Consent of the Legislators 4. I Disclaim all Resistance or Self-defence in Subjects upon the account that the free or publick Exercise of that Religion they profess is not allowed them by the Legislative Power of the Kingdom or Nation provided that such Supream Powers do not forbid or hinder the People professing such a different Religion to Sell or Transport their Estates and Persons into any other Country where they please 5. I Deny Resistance to Subjects against their Princes or Governours upon Pretence of any Personal Vices as because they are wicked Atheistiâ—al Cruel Lustful or Debauched provided they generally Protect their Subjects in their Lives Liberties and Properties 6. I Deny this Right of Resistance to any particular person less than the whâ—le Body or Major part of the People or at least such a considerable Portion of a Nation as are able when Assaulted or Oppressed in their Lives Liberties or Estates to constitute a distinct and entire Kingdom or Common-Wealth of themselves 7. I look upon it as Wicked and Rebellious for any private Subjects to Assassinate Murder or Imprison their Monarch or other Supream Governour since no private Person whatever ought to lay Violent Hands upon his Prince whose person ought to be Sacred and in no wise to be Violated unless he put off the Character of a Prince and Actually make War upon his People But if in this Case he happen to be Resisted and Perish in the Attempt he falls not as a Prince but as a Common Enemy by breaking the Original Compact with his People and entring into a State of War against them As a Father who unjustly makes War upon his Children may be as I have already proved at our first conference Resisted by them in the State of Nature But as for all other Grievances or Oppressions if they are of that Nature as may Ruine the whole Common-Wealth yet not suddenly but after some time and often Repeated I cannot allow such Grievances or Oppressions as a Sufficient Cause of Resistance For as on the one hand there is no Inconvenience so small but in process of time it may turn to the Ruine of the Common-Wealth if it be often Repeated and excessively Multiplieâ— so on the other side length of time produces so great Changes that the Nature of these Encroachments or Injuries are not sufficient to justifie Resistance and the Breach of that Peace and Unity in a Common Wealth which must necessarily follow by entering into a State of War To conclude I do not in any Case whatever allow of Resistance but only in these three necessary ones When the Lives Liberties or Estates of the whole People of the greatest part of them are either actually Invaded or else taken away and when they are Reduced into so bad a Condition that a State of War is to be preferred before such a Peace aâ—d when the End of Civil Government being no longer to be obtained by it the Common-Wealth may be look't upon as Dissolved M. Tho' you have been pretty long in treating of this Matter yet I did not think it Tedious since I confess you have given me honestly enough and so far I agree with you all those Cases wherein you say it is Uâ—lawful for Subjects to take up Arms or Resist the Supream Powers But I wonder you have not added one Case more which Diverse Authors that are high enough against Non-Resistance in other things do yet allow to be a sufficieâ—s Cause of taking up Arms and Resisting their Prince And that is when he Actually hath or goeth about to Alieâ—ate or make over his Dominion and Subjects to some Forreign Prince or State F. I am not ignorant of what you say but I thought it not worth speaking ot because in absolute Monarchies which we are now treating of if such Kingdoms are Patrimonial and that the Monarch hath such an absolute Dominion over his Subjects as neither to let them enjoy any Liberty in their Persons nor Properties in their Estates but at his Pleasure I cannot see any reason why such a Prince may not alienate his Dominion over such a Kingdom and People as well as any private-Man may his Property in his Estate Nor have the People any Cause to be concerned at it since they can then likewise be but Slaves and enjoy nothing but at their Princes Pleasure as they did before so that whether He or a Stranger govern them it is all one as to their Circumstances But yet under such Governments as are absolute where the People enjoy their personal Lib rites and Properties in their Estates the Case may be much otherwise since they may not be sure that the Foreign Prince to whom their own Monarch or other Supream Powers hath assigned them will maintain their Liberties and Properties as the former did And
therefore not being Slaves before they cannot be Alienated without their own Consents and consequently they may take up Arms and defend themselves if they are able â—nleâ—s the Prince or State to whom they are so Alienated will give them the like assurance to preserve their Lives Liberties and Properties as their former Governours did and therefore I do conceive the People of the Islands of Cyprus and Candy might very well have refused to become Subjects to the Grand Seignior in case the Venetians should have Sold or Alien'â— their Dominion over them before he had actually conquer'd them But in Limited or Hereditary Kingdoms which are so by their fundamental Constitution I suppose the Prince cannot upon any account whatsoever make over his Dominions to a Foreign Prince without the consent of his People and next Heir And therefore granting the Story to be true I doubt not but the People of this Kingdom might very well have opposed King Iohn if he had gone about to have subjected it to the Dominion of the Emperour of Morocco upon Condition that he would Assist him with an Army of Moors to subdue hâ—s Barons and Nobility then in Arms against him M. I confess it is not worth while to dispute about that which so seldom happens and is indeed almost impossible to be put in practice and therefore I shall not much oppose you in what you have said upon this Case yet that I may be as good as my word and give you my Judgment concerning what you have lately said I must freely tell you that as it may happen that a Prince or State may sometimes abuse their Power so as to take away the Liberties and Estates of all their Subjects as you have set forth and which I confess is a very great mischief yet upon second thoughts I think it were much better that this Inconvenience should be suffered rather than the work mischief of leaving Subjects to be the sole Iudges when their Liberties and Estates are invaded or like to be taken away nay every private Subject would be first Iudge of it or else the whole People could never come to pass their Iudgment upon it which would leave too great a latitude for â—urbulent and Rebellious Spirits to make disturbances in Kingdoms and Commonwealths especially if there be any small Grievances on the Subjects especially too 〈◊〉 they touch at those things they account their Hereditary Liberties and Properties these tho' never so small if the People are suffered to be their own Iudges as you make them to be in their own Case will soon be aggravated and blown up to intolerable Oppressions of and Invasions upon their Liberties and Properties when indeed they are not This is a pernitious Doctrine for it will be a perpetual Cause of Quarrels Civil Wars and Rebellions which would turn all Commonwealths tho never so well Constituted into Anarchy and Confusion So that as you have stated this Question you have broached a Principle highly destructive to all Civil Government for if All or Any of the People may Resist or Rebel call it what you please whenever they think themselves oppressed in their Liberties and â—sâ—ates this is for them only to be obedient when they think themselves well governed but stubborn and Rebellious when they believe they are not which would be to make all Government Precarious and Conditional and the People not only Parties but Iudges and Executioners too in their own Case how far these Conditions are observed on the Governours part and then the Regularity or Irregularity of the Administration will no longer be the Question but the Validity of the Power to Command And there wants no more to dissolve such a Government than for Dick or Tom and every Rascal of the Mobile to say This or That is destructive to the Peoples Liberties and Properties and therefore an insupportable grievance and oppression And if you will once allow any number of the People tho' never so many to Iudge This or That Law or Order of the Government not to be for their Good and that they may likewise Resist and Right themselves by Arms when ever they thus fancy they will quickly come to say that the Government it self is not for their good neither and upon this ground all the Rebellions â—aâ—sed by an Incensed and mistaken Multitude against the Government in all Ages may easily be justified and Waâ— Tyler and Massâ—anâ—llo shall be so far from being Rebels that they may pass in future Ages for Heroes and Noble Assertors of the Peoples Liberties and I hope you will believe I do not speak this out of any liking or Approbation of Tyranny or that I desire that Princes should stretch their Power to the utmost to Invade their Subjects Liberties or Estates but only to let you see how far your Principles may serve the Pretences of wicked Men to set whole Kingdoms together by the Ears whenever they find the People so far discontented with the Government as to believe their Malicious and wicked Insinuations of all which those long and cruel Civil Wars and Rebellions which for several Years tormented and almost ruined these three Kingdoms are too late and sad Examples F. I confess Sir you have made a very Pathetick speech and exerted I suppose the utmost Strength of your reason and Eloquence on this Subject for you have made the Consequences of this Principle viz. That the People may judge when their Liberties and Properties are invaded to seem very dreadful but after all it is no more than what you have urged in great part already and the main Strength of your Argument lyes here that if the People should take upon them but once to judge when they were notoriously injured or oppress 't and thereupon take Arms to right themselves they would soon make bold to put this Power into use and Practice when they had no occasion for it at all or at least not sufficient to make any open Insult But to shew you that there is no need of such an infallible Iudge as you suppose to be necessary in a Commonwealth any more than there is in the Church pray tell me Sir would it not have been very convenient if Christ had appointed an Infallible Iudge be it the Pope or General Counsel or both together â— to decide all Controversies in Religion and to whose Judgment all People ought to submit M. I cannot deny but it would have been a very ready way to end all Disputes about Religion but since God hath not thought fit to appoint any such Iudge it were very great Presumption in us to set up one to please our humour since such a one could have no Infallibility unless it were given him from above F. You Judge very well and doth it not therefore follow that since there is no such infallible Judge all Men ought to Iudge for themselves of the Truth of their Religion and also in the Christian Religion what Doctrines are agreeable
to the Word of God and what not and yet you see that from the ill use of this Liberty have sprung all the Different Sects and Heresies in the World Does it therefore follow that Men must not make use of this Liberty because they may abuse it So likewise must Subjects judge in no Case whatsoever when the Supream Power Tyrannizes over them beyond what they are able to bear and must they never resist or endeavour to cast off this insupportable Yoak because they may happen one time or other to be wanton and believe themselves oppress 't when indeed they are not M. I grant your Parallel would have some what in it were the Consequences of every Mans judging for himself in Matters of Religion as fatal to the Peace and Happiness of Mankind as your Doctrine of the Subjects judging when it is fit for them to resist the Supream Powers for I do not at all debar them from the Right of Iudging when they are oppress 't or ill used by them for that may very well consist with the Publick Peace but I utterly disallow all manner of Resistance by Force because it tends not only to dissolve all Civil Government but to disturb the Common Peace and safety of Mankind F. Notwithstanding your Distinction the Parallel with hold in both Cases for are not differences in Religion as fatal to the Peace and Unity of the Church as the Subjects judging when they are oppress 't and thereupon taking up defensive Arms can be to that of a Civil State And do not more Wars and Quarrels arise about Mens differences in Religion than from any other Cause you can Name So that if the Peace of the Church were a sufficient Cause for supposing a certain or Infallible Iudge in Religion there would be the same Reason to suppose it in Civil Matters too And therefore your Argument from the abuse of this Liberty of the Subjects judging when they may resist is of no more force in one Case than the other for I grant it may so happen in a Civil State as well as in an Ecclesiastical that the Subjects may rise up and resist their Civil as well as Spiritual Governours without any just Cause doth it therefore follow that God hath wholly delivered up Mankind to the domineering humours of Men in Power let them abuse it never so grosly And therefore we must not be wiser than God Almighty himself and when he hath not appointed any certain and Infallible Iudges either in Civil or Spiritual matters without any Contradiction or Resistance we ought not to suppose a necessity of such Judges meerly because of some Inconveniences which may perhaps often happen from the abuse of that Christian Liberty he hath given us For then I doubt you will find the Remedy would be much worse than the Disease as if to avoid Heresies we should set up the Pope for an Infallible Iudge So would it be likewise if to avoid Civil Wars and Rebellions we should set up the Supream Magistrate as Mr. Hobbs hath done for a certain and Irresistible Iudge of whatsoever Means are necessary for the People's Quiet and Preservation since I have already proved that an Insupportable Tyranny is not Civil Government and that the Supream Powers can no more alter the Nature of things but their own Laws or Edicts than they can ordain Poyson to be used in stead of wholesom Food by the People M. I confess what you have now said carries some weight with it and my own Carnal Reason doth very much incline me to your Opinion were it not for two things the one as I said is the Horrid Rebellions that have and may again arise in these Kingdoms from this Principle which hath made God so strictly forbid all Resistance of the Higher Powers upon any account whatsoever And therefore you are much mistaken when you assert that Resistance tho' for Self defence is one of the Liberties that God hath left us since certainly he would never so severely have forbidden it but that he not only knew how prone Men's Corrupt Natures were to Rebellion but also foresaw the fatal Consequence of it F. If God's Commands in Scripture be the greatest Argument you have against all Resistance whatever I doubt not but to shew you when We come to it that you as well as others are mistaken in that Strict Interpretation of those places of Scripture and as for the Evil Consequences you suppose may follow from this Doctrine I doubt not likewise but to convince you that much worse will follow from the Irresistible Tyranny of the Supream Powers than ever have happen'd from the Dreadfullest Rebellions And therefore I desire you to take Notice that what I have now said is not out of any design to Iustifie so Horrid a Crime as I grant Rebellion to be or to incite Subjects to be Guilty of it but only to hinder Civil Government from being destroyed and Mankind from being made Miserable For I have first Asserted that no Resistance whatever is to be made in Absolute Governments but in those Cases in which the main Ends of Civil Government are Visibly destroyed or so near it that there is no other means left but Resistance to prevent it And then when things are once brought to this Pass it is not the People that make this War but the Governours who by their Tyranny have brought the Common-Wealth into this Anarchy and Confusion you so mâ—ch Dread so that it is not the People but they that are the Aggressors And as for the ill use that may be made of this Doctrine to stir up the People to Rebellion when they have no just or sufficient Provocation to Reâ—â—st This will not prove of that Dangerous Consequence you imagine if you will but consider that I do not allow this Resistance in any Case but when the Violence or Oppression of the Governors is so Evident and Insupportable to all the People that groan under it that no indifferent Man in his Senses will be able to deny it for as long as there remains any Disputableness whether or no the People are sufficiently Opprest in their Liberties or Estates the Trust Reposed in the Supream Magistrates makes them the Sole Iudges of the Necessity of such Exorbitant Actions as being Intrusted by the People as Men supposed to be both Wise and Good and themselves Ignorant in Diverse Cases of the true means of their own Preservation and the Supream Powers remain the Sole Iudges as long as the Case is Doubtful or Uncertain But since you have already acknowledged that the People might Iudge if such a Case should happen whether the Prince or other Supream Magistrate makes Actual War upon them I would very fain know why the People cannot as plainly distinguish when he sends his Guards or Dragoons to take away their Lives and Liberties or to turn them out of their Estates And 〈◊〉 this be done and the Tyranny so evident and general and
them that by shooting they would also call in the Neighbouring Town who might be too strong for all their Fellow Thieves Now if you will but take these honest People of the next Town for such Neighbouring Princes or States who may Joyn in the Assistance of such an Opprest People this Simile will fully answer your Argument of those Neighbouring Princes that may take Part with an Oppressing Tyrant And as for the Consequence of such Assistance on the one side or the other that it may happen to bring them into a worse Condition than they were before viz. a Subjection to Foreigners as I have put the Case it can be no cause to detâ—r the People from Resisting for if they were as I suppose reduc'd to a Condition of slavery before and had lost all their Liberties and Properties how can we Imagine them in a worse Case than they are already And it is all one to such a People whether their own or a strange Prince did Tyrannize over and oppress them Nay were I to take my Choice I had much rather be Tyrannized over and opprest by a Foreigner than from my own Natural Prince since the former conâ—ing in by force and without any precedent Promise or Compact I lye wholly at his Mercy who hath no Obligation upon him I had much rather if I were to be â— slave be so to a Stranger than to my own Father if I were assured that both the one and the other would use me with like severity And to answer your Instance of your Irish King I think that Nation hath been so far from losing any thing by their Subjection to the English Government that they have gained far greater Priviledges and Liberties both for their Persons and Estates than ever they enjoyed under their own Princes So that they are rather the better than the worse by the Change And as for your other Example of Prince Lewis it is uncertain whether the Condition of the English Nation would have been either better or worse under a French King but thus much I am sure of that had King Iohn Proceeded in that Tyrannical Course against his Barons and the rest of his Subjects they could scarce have been in a worse Condition under the French nay the Moors themselves haâ— King Iohn actually surrendered his Crown to the Sarracâ—n Emperour as the Historians of those times relate he offered to do Nor can I be of your Opinion that iâ— had been much better for the Barons and Nobility of this Kingdom never to have stirred or resisted the King at all since if they had not they had never obtained the GREAT CHARTER of our Liberties from him and if they had not as Vigorously defended it when they had once got it I doubt not but the People of England had been long before this time in the same Condition at to their Liberties and Properties as some of our Neighbouring Nations all which is sufficient I think to prove that Resistance in desperate and unavoidable Cases is not attended with those mischiefs and Inconveniencies you suppose M. I shall not say much more in answer to your lost discourse since it would be to little purpose but only take Notice that Similes are not Arguments and therefore your Comparison between Thieves and Honest Men doth not hold as to Princes and Subjects since sure there is a great deal of difference between those that are to be Obeyed as the Ordinance of God and those who are Obliged in Conscience to be subject to them and Thieves who act directly contrary to Gods Will and Honest Men who having no obligation to them may justly resist them So that if that be false the rest of the Comparison will signifie nothing And as for what you say concerning MAGNA CHARTA I think it is not much for its credit to have been extorted by Force and afterwards defended by Rebellion tho' I will not go about to Impeach the Validity of it since so many of our Succeeding Kings have so solemnly and voluntarily confirmed it only pray take notice that it is wholly derived from the Grace and Bounty of our Monarchs and therefore we are not to resist tho' it may happen to be sometimes and in some Particular Cases broken and infringed by the King for some great Occasions or Necessities of which we are not competâ—â—t Iudges But to come to the rest of those evil Consequences that may attend your Doctrine of Resistance I think the Benefits would be much greater to the People by strictly adhering to those Doctrines of Absolute Subjection and Non-resistance than by propagating yours of Rebellion For if the former were constantly taught and inculcated as most beneficial for them and if they were once really persuaded of the Truth of it and would both constantly profess and practise it it would make all Princes much more Gentle and mild to their Subjects than otherwise at some times they are For now they are still fearful that they will take the first opportunity they can to take up Arms against them And upon the least Grievance or Mis-Government to resist their Authority for then Princes not needing to keep any such constant Guards and standing Armies might afford to lay much easier Taxes and impositions upon them for the maintenance and support of the Government than now they do and in short would have much fewer Temptations to Tyranny and Oppression could they be once assured of their Subjects absolute Obedience and Subjection Whereas when they are under those constant fears and suspitions of Insurrections and Rebellions against them upon the least occasion it is no wonder if they are tempted sometimes to abuse this Power for their own Security And therefore we read in our Histories that William the Conquerour never thought himself secure from the English whom he had newly Conquered till such time as he had turned most of the Nobility and Gentry out of their Offices and Estates lest they should have any Power left either in his Life time or after his Death to turn him or his Posterity out of the Throne as they did the Heir of the Danish King Cnute who with his Danes had before Conquered England as King William did afterwards with his Normans So that upon the whole matter it seems to me much more to conduce to the main design of Civil Government viz. The Happiness and Peace of Mankind in General that Princes and other Supream Magistrates should be suffered I will not say authorized by God sometimes to abuse their Power to the general oppression and enslaving of the People without any Resistanâ—e on their side expecting their dâ—liverance WHOLY from him who can bring it about in his good time and by such means as shall seem most meet to him than that Subjects should take upon them to be both Iudges and Executioners too in their own Case and thereby introduce not only all the Mischiefs of Civil War and all those cruel Revenges which the Wrath
about to make himself King of the Iews in Opposition to Caesar and therefore whilst they lay under this Mistake they were under as high an Obligation as an Erroneous Conscience could lay upon them of Seizing him and bringing him before the High-Priest and the Governour For if they had believed him to be the true Messiah and consequently the King of their Nation it had been impossible that they should ever have gone about to put him to Death Which likewise our Saviour himself acknowledges when Praying for them that Crucified him he said Father forgive them for they know not what they do I speak not this to excuse the Priests or Sanâ—edrim for condemning our Saviour to Death or for using all the Power they had with Pilate to have him executed Since I grant their Ignorance being in great part Wilful at least not Invincible they had no just excuse not to believe on him after so many Miracles he had wrought in the sight of all the World But only to prove that which I suppose you will not deny i. e. that Magistrates even whilst they Act unjustly are not to be resisted in the Execution of Publick Iustice no not to rescue an Innocent Man by force from the Hand of Iustice after he is Condemned Since the false or unjust Sentences of Iudges against particular Persons are to be taken for just in common Acceptation till they be Repealed according to that Maxime in your Civil Law Proetor dum iniquum decernit Ius dicit and therefore our Saviour coming to fulfil all Righteousness and to be the exact Patern of Divine and Moral Actions could not do less than rebuke St. Peter for making use of the Sword against a Lawful Authority but what is this to the Cases that I have put of the Resistance of whole Nations or Bodies of Men against an unjust force and destructive Violence upon their Persons and Estates by those who pretend to Act as the Supream Powers tho contrary to all Laws Natural and Divine and who have no Pretence to Act as they do but only their unjust and Arbitrary Wills back't by Power Aâ—d that there is a great difference in these two I will clearly shew you from your own Concession that no man wanteth Authority to defend his Life against him that hath no Authority to take it away and therefore I suppose St. Paul might only with the Help of those that were with Him not only have defended his Life against those whom we find in the 25 th of the Acts who were by Order of the High-Priest and Chief of the Iews to have lain â—n wait to kill Paul by the way but also against any that Festus the Governour himself should have sent for the same End Since He there decâ—ares That it is not the manner i. e. Law of the Romans to deliver any Man to dye before that he that is accused have the Accuâ—â—rs face to face and have License to Answer for himself concerning the Crime laid against him And therefore as Caesar could give Festus no Commission to Murder Men so neither did God bestow on the Emperour any Authority to commit murder or to Authorise others to do it and if a single Person might do this certainly much more a whole Nation Country or City may justifie such a Resistance where their Lives Liberties and Estates lye at Stake from the Violence or Tyranny of the Supream Powers and therefore I do not see but that I may very well grant the Instance you have put to be conclusive against this Resistance made by St. Peter on our Saviours behalf so that your Instance doth not reach the Case in hand that all Resistance of Supream Powers is unlawful And you your self have already granted as much as I can in Reason desire that no Man wants Authority to defend his Life against Him who hath no Authority to take it away So that unless Princes and their Inferiour Officers receive Authority from God to commit Murders every Man may defend himself against them when they go about to take away their Lives by Violence contrary to Law And therefore I see no Reason from any thing that you have hitherto said to believe that Christ did not allow this Distinction between the Person and Authority of the Prince to be good in some Cases or that tho' his Person should be sacred yet that his Ministers who Act not by his Regal Authority but his Personal and Tyrannical Will may be opposed nor can I find any Consequence from what you say that he is a Mock Prince whose Authority is confined to his own Person who can do nothing more than what he can do with his own Hands Since no Man in his Wits asserts any such thing for I grant that an Absolute Prince hath Power to make Laws and to Command them to be put in Execution which do not contradict the Laws of God and Nature and a Limited Prince hath likewise a Right to Command in all things that do not expresly contradict Gods Natural and reveal'd Laws and also those Positive Laws of his Country which he is not the sole maker of that do not contradict the former and if he can do this I think he is endued with an Authority sufficient to Answer all the Ends of Government without supposing that he must needs have an irresistible Power and without which he cannot Answer those Ends to Murder and Enslave whomsoever he will I grant indeed a Prince is not meerly a Natural but a Political Person but certainly his Personal Authority as King doth not reach as far as his Commission or that he who resists those who Act by his Commission may be said in all Cases to resist his Regal Authority Since at this rate the poor Protestants in Ireland at the beginning of the last Irish Rebellion had been in a very woful Condition if it had happened which was not impossible that King Charles the first should really have granted a Commission to Sir Phelim Onâ—al to destroy them which no man could then certainly tell but that he had since Sir Phelim publickly shewed such a Commission and still asserted the Truth of it till he came upon the Gallows but this is only by the by and in answer to what you have now said to this Matter So that there is no need of supposing what our Saviour thought one way or other in this matter Since he did not rebuke St. Peter for resisting the Inferiour Officers because they offered an unjust and illegal Violence but because he resisted those who acted by a true and Legal Commission from the High-Priest and Sanhedrim who supposed our Saviour to be a false Prophet M. If this Distinction of yours were true it would render the Example of Christ's suffering in obedience to the Supream Powers tho' unjustly yet without Resistance of no effect to us whereas I am firmly perswaded that Christ took such a mean and suffering a Person upon him
our Saviour were not sufficient of it self to make a Law but stood in need of the Confirmation and Additional Authority of his own Apostles but we might justly suspect our selves mistaken in the meaning of our Saviours Words or in the Intention and design of his Sufferings had none of his Apostles who were immediately instructed by himself and acquainted with the most sacred Mysteries of his Kingdom ever Preacht any such Doctrine as this of Subjection to Princes And therefore to give you the more abundant Assurance of this I shall plainly shew you that the Apostles taught the same Doctrine and imitated the Example of their great Master I shall begin with St. Paul who hath as fully declared himself in this matter as it is possible any Man can do by Words Let every Soul be subject unto the Higher Powers for there is no Power but of God the Powers that be are ordained of God Whosoever therefore resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves Damnation This is a very express Testimony against Resistance and therefore I shall consider it at large for there have been various Arts used to pervert every Word of it and to make this Text speak quite contrary to the Design and Intention of the Apostle in it And therefore I shall divide the Words into three general parts 1. The Doctrine the Apostle instructs them in Let every Soul be subject to the Higher Powers 2. The Reason whereby he proves and inforces this Doctrine For there is no Power but of God the Powers that he are ordained of God Whoever therefore resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God The Punishment of such Resistance and they that resist shall receive to themselves Damnation I shall begin with the Doctrine That every Soul must be Subject to the Higher Powers and here are three things to be explained 1. Who are contained under this general Expression of every Soul 2. Who are meant by the Higher Powers 3. What is meant by being Subject 1. Who are contained under this general Expression of every Soul which by an ordinary Hebraism signifies every Man For Man is a Compounded Creature of Body and Soul and either part of him is very often in Scripture put for the whole sometimes Flesh and sometimes Soul signifies the Man and when every Soul is oppos'd to the Higher Powers it must signifie all Men of what Rank or Condition soever they be who are not invested with this Higher Power And again says he The design of the Apostle as you shall hear more particularly by and by was to forbid all Resistance of Soveraign Princes and had he known of any Man or Number of Men who might Lawfully resist he ought not to have express't it in such general Terms as to forbid all without Exception And therefore I shall now a little more closely examine your main Argument or indeed Foundation of all that you have Urged for Resistance viz. That tho' it is unlawful for private or particular Men to resist the Supream Powers yet that it doth not extend unto the whole or Major part of a â—eople or Nation whenever they are outragiously oppress 't or assaulted by the Higher Powers beyond what they suppose they are able to bear whereas the Apostle here commands every Soul to be subject and therefore if the whole body of the People be subject to God they must also be subject to the Prince too because he acts by God's â—uthority and Commission were a Sovereign Prince the Peoples Creature that might be a good Maxim Rex majâ—r singulis sed minor universis That the King is greater than any particular Subject but less than All together but if he be God's Minister he is upon that account as much greater than all as God is And that the whole body of the People altogether as well as one by one are equally concerned in this Command of being subject to the higher Powers is evident from this Consideration that nothing less than this will secure the Peace and Tranquillity of humane Societies The resistance of single Persons is more dangerous to themselves than to the Prince but a powerful Combination of Rebâ—ls is formidable to the most puissant Monarchs The greater Number of Subjects rebell against their Prince the more do they distress his Government and threaten his Crown and Dignity and if his Person and Authority be sacred the greater the violence is which is offered to him the greater is the Crime Had the Apostle exhorted the Romans after this manner Let no private and single man be so foolish as to rebel against his Prince who will be too strong for him but â—f you can raise sufficient forces to oppose against him if you can all consent to depose and murder him this is a very innocent and justifiable nay an heroical Atchievement which becomes a Free-born People How would this have secured the Peace and quiet of the World How would this have agreed with what follows that Princes are advanced by God and that to resist our Prince is to resist the Ordinance of God and that such Men shall be severely punish't for it in this World or the next for can the Apostle be thought absolutely to condemn Resistance if he makes it only unlawful to resist when we want Power to conquer which yet is all that can be made of it if by every Soul the Apostle means only particular men not the united Force and Power of Subjects Nor can there be any reason assigned why the Apostle should lay so strict a Command on particular Christians to be subject to the higher Powers which doth not equally concern whole Nations For if it can ever be lawful for a whole Nation to resist a Prince it may in the same Circumstances be equally lawful for a particular man to do it if a Nation may conspire against a Prince who invades their Rights their Liberties or their Religion why may not any man by the same reason resist a Prince when his single Rights and Liberties are invaded It is not so safe and prudent indeed for a private man to resist as for great and powerful Numbers but this makes resistance only a matter of Discretion not of Conscience if it be lawful for the whole body of a Nation to resist in such Cases it must be equally lawful for a particular man to do it but he doth it at his own Peril when he hath only his own single force to oppose against his Prince So that our Apostle must forbid resistance in all men or none For single Persons do not use to resist or rebel or there is no great danger to the Publick if they do but the Authority of Princes and the Security of publick Government is only endangered by a Combination of Rebels when the whole Nation or any considerable part for Numbers Power and Interest take Arms against their Prince If
but resolves that his Lust shall be unconfined whereby he becomes insupportable to his People they may as well distinguish his Person from his Power as they do in the Case of Princes when they are either Fools or mad Men. M. But Pray consider the rest of the Consequences of my last Discourse and will not then the supposing a Power in the People of making this Distinction when they please and of Judging when the Prince's Government becomes intolerably Tyrannical make them to take upon them to judge it so when it is quite otherwise and so not scruple to Rebel or to Resist as you call it when ever they are in the mind to do it And we have the more reason to be afraid of this because from the Long Parliaments and their Adherents making use of this Distinction among other Specious Pretences were derived all the Miseries of our last Civil War And therefore tho' I own it is an easie thing to judge of the Madness and Folly of Princes as well as other men yet the Wickedness and Partiality of Human Nature consider'd it is a much harder Task to judge rightly what Actions of Princes are destructive to Civil Government and tender them as uncapable of it as the most Extravagant Actions of Foolish and Mad Princes can be pretended to make them so F. If the Instance of mad Men and Fools seem to displease you because it is very pat to the Subject in hand I think I may likewise remark that those Inconveniences you suppose of making the People Iudges in this Case is the Sole Objection I can find you have against what I have said for otherwise I do not see you have any thing to alledge against the fitness of the Parallel But I have already I believe made it pretty plain that Murdering Enslaving and Robbing of the People of their Properties are thing as easie to be Judged of as Folly or Madness and if a few Domesticks about the Prince shall be allowed to Iudge when their Monarch is mad or foolish enough to be resisted and shut up I cannot see any Reason why the whole Body of the People may not as well be able to Iudge when by his Tyranny and Oppression he hath dissolved the Government and entered into a State of War with them But to return now to the last part of your former Answer wherein you grant that this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth sometimes signifie not onely the Person but the Exercise of Authority but that it doth not signifie the Right or Lawful Use of it but Abuse too and for the Proof of this you alledge the Speech of Pilate to our Saviour I am very well satisfied that that Text will make nothing for your Purpose For tho' I grant that the Word in that place denotes Power or Authority yet doth it not there signifie the Abuse of it too For certainly Pilate would never have told our Saviour that he had a Power to abuse his Authority and to condemn him tho' innocent Neither would our Saviour have answered him that he had that Power from above And therefore I think I may very well maintain my Syllogism to be true notwithstanding your denying of the Minor Proposition For since you cannot affirm Tyranny to be the Ordinance of God yet that the Power or Authority of which this Tyranny is but an Abuse is of Divine Institution which is but a Fallacy if it be lookt into For tho' you may vulgarly speaking call all Tyranny an Abuse of Civil Power yet some Tyranny is more than that For it is not so properly an Abuse as a Corruption of it into quite another thing which God never Instituted and consequently therefore is not to be submitted to out of Conscience It is an old saying Corruptio optimi est pessima and you may as well tell me that Vinegar notwithstanding its Acidity continues Wine still as that Civil Government when it degenerates into the rankest Tyranny continues still Gods Ordinance and if this be the true Consequence you draw from your Argument it signifies little viz. that the Abuse of this Power doth not make void the Authority of the Law of God or Nature For I think I may maintain the clear contrary to what you assert viz. that the Obligation not to resist Supream Powers doth receive some Validity from the Iustice they execute and is weakened and at last annulled by their Intolerable Violence or Injustice Nor are your Instances of Saul or Pilate to the Question in hand I grant Saul was God's Anointed and could not have been Lawfully resisted by David notwithstanding his Murdering of Abimelech and the rest of the Priests And Pilate might have his Authority from above notwithstanding his Abuse of it Yet doth it not therefore follow that if either the one or the other had declared themselves Sworn Enemies to the whole Nation of the Iews and that instead of Governing and Protecting them they had gone about utterly to destroy them I think they had then ceased to be the Ordinance of God and their Divine Commission had been at an end To conclude as for the Reason you give why St. Paul might call the Roman Emperours by the Name of Powers I shall not deny it But whether by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Apostle means Persons or Powers is much at one for if he means the former he only urges Obedience to them as they are the means of the Happiness and Preservation of the People as appears by the Third and Fourth Verses of the Chapter you now quote where the main Reason St. Paul gives for our Obedience is That Rulers are not a Terror to God Works but to the Evil and that He viz. the Supream Power is a Minister to us for our Good and indeed it had been a very odd way of enforcing our Obedience for him to have said the quite contrary that this Power was to be Obeyed because he was a Terror to good Works and a Plague to all good Men and a Minister to us of all manner of mischief and misery This had been an excellent way of proving the Supream Powers to be the Ordinance of God M. Before I can give you a full Answer to what you have now said I must beg leave to look back to the beginning of your first Answer where you object that if by the higher Powers here mentioned the Persons and not the Authority of those in Power are to be understood then it would follow that Tyrants and Usurpers are likewise the Powers ordained of God which Objection I think may admit of an easie Answer First can there be no wise Reason given why God may advance a bad man or Tyrant to be a Prince If there may then it is no Reproach to the Divine Providence The Natural End of Human Societies is the Preservation of publick Peace and Order and this is in some measure attained even under the Government of Tyrants But God hath
ought to be done either by Sons or Servants in case the Government of their Father or Master grows so Cruel and Tyrannical as not to be endured is to run away and leave their Family And thus we read that Hagar upon the severe Usage of Sarah her Mistress fled from her nor was blamed by the Angel for so doing Nor is what you have now said to prove the Subjection of Servants and Slaves to be as absolute the one as the other at all convincing for I have long since proved that a Family and a Kingdom are very different things and that Oeconomical and Civil Power do not only differ in Specie but in Genere too For tho' I grant that Slavery might begin by Compact as well as by War yet Subjection to Civil Power could Regularly commence by Compact only and therefore since the Natural State of Mankind is that of Freedom from Slavery all Subjects are supposed to be in that State of Freedom and to have a Right both to their Liberties and Properties which if the Supream Powers go about forcibly to take away they then cease to be so since they take away the main End of their Institution I mean this of such a People who are properly Subjects and not Slaves For of those who own themselves to be Slaves to their Prince I told you already I would not take upon me to meddle Since I doubt whether such an Empire can be called a Civil Government or not So that for all that you have hitherto said I must still believe St. Peter did not direct this Precept to Subjects but to Servants under the Yoak that is to Slaves such as had no Property in any thing nor Power over their own Persons but might be sold and assigned with their Wives and Children to whom soever their master pleased which tho' not of Divine Institution Yet since it was so ordained by the Civil Laws of the Empire neither Iesus Christ nor yet his Apostles would make any Alteration in it Nor hath he thought fit to do so in any of those things which we enjoy as our Civil or Natural Rights by the Law of Nature or the Municipal Laws of our Country and therefore it is not true that there is as perfect a Subjection due to a Soveraign Prince as to a Master unless the People of that Nation have made themselves absolute Slaves to him instead of Subjects which could never be but by their own Consent It is true a Prince is more eminently the Minister of God and Acts by a more sacred and inviolable Authority than a Master Yet doth it not therefore follow that he acts as God's Minister or by this sacred or inviolable Authority when he destroys or enslaves the Subjects Nor can you say that God hath given him any Authority so to do And as for the Example of Christ's Suffering which you urge as a Reason of our absolute Subjection to Princes without any Resistance I have answered that already and therefore need say no more to it But do own that in that great Point of suffering for Religion when we are lawfully called thereunto we are to follow his Example yet doth it not prove that we are to suffer in all other Cases whatsoever concerning which he hath given us no express Precept or Command M. I have something more to say to you about this matter of Suffering for Religion but I shall defer it at present and shall only now consider the Evil Consequences of your Arguments for Resistance of the Supream Powers in any Case whatsoever the summ of which if I can well remember is to this Effect Shall a Prince be free from all Correction till God Almighty is pleased to chastise him Must I sit still and suffer my Throat to be cut my Estate ruined and not dare in any Case to defend my self till God is pleased to iâ—terpose and that in an Age in which Miracles are ceased God is for the most part pleased to respite the Punishment of Oppâ—essoâ—s till the next World and if I be ruined in this what comfort is it to me or mine that the Injury shall be punisht when I shall reap no Advantage by it And suppose the Subjects of such a Prince should succeed in their Rebellion and prevail against him they must then submit to another Prince of whom they have no more Assurance they shall be better treated and if they set up many they are all Men and subject to be corrupted by Power and Greatness And in an Anarchy every Man will become a Tyranâ— to his Neighbours so that this Doctrine of curbing and Resisting Princes is calculated for the Ruine of Mankind and tends to no bodies good but theirs who design thereby to gain a Power of doing to others what they pretend to fear And when all is done the Punishment of Princes who abuse their Power must be left to God Almighty who only can and will punish his own Ministers Now suppose all this were just as it is stated if the Injuries a Man suffer are insupportâ—ble under any Government he may Petition for relief and in all probability find it if not he may flie into another Country for succour if he cannot do that neither he will scarce be able to resist So that if it were never so justifiable it could be of no use to any such miserable man for no Prince tho' never so ill natur'd will attempt any such thing against any such number of Men as are in a capacity of revenging the Wrong done them when they will only out of hopes they will not because they ought not Nor will the Histories of all Ages put together afford one Instance of a Monarch that ever injured any Man at this rate whom he believed able if willing to revenge the Wrong but that he took care as far as he could to prevent it and either to take him out of the way or to put him out of a Possibility of a Retaliation So that all discontented fretful Rhetorick is of no use in any such Case But then on the contrary if every Ambitious and Factious Man might be left at Liberty to insinuate into the Rabble and the Great and little Vulgar that Princes are to be punished when they do amiss that they are bound to Act according to Laws and to their Oaths and if they do otherwise are presently to be treated as Tyrants and the Common Enemies of Mankind That it is Lawful for a Man to defend himself against the Injustice and Oppression of his Prince c. This can only serve to fill the World with Rebellions Wars and Confusions in which more thousands of Men and Estates must of Necessity be ruined and Wives ravished and Murdered in the space of a few Days than can be destroyed by the worst Tyrant that ever trod upon the Earth amongst his own Subjects in the space of many years or of his whole Life F. I perceive you think this place of
Scripture will not carry you through and therefore you would fain confute my Arguments by ridiculing them But in answer to the Expedients you have now proposed I think I may make this return 1. As for petitioning when a Government grows insupportable suppose then the Prince declares he will not be petitioned in this matter but as the French King lately did when the Protestants would have petition'd him against the Violation of the Edict of Nantes delights to see men ruined or suppose he lays any Man by the heels that shall offer never so humbly to Petition him either in his own or the People's behalf as King Iames lately served the Bishops then this Expedient can signifie nothing As for the next flying into another Country for Succour that is a very sorry comfort that a Man must be forced to go and beg his Bread in a strange Land and whatever this may be a Duty for Private or Single Persons yet it cannot extend to a whole Nation since if all the People should go away the Common-wealth or Civil Society would be dissolved and farther perhaps as now in France and in all Tyrannical Governments it is commonly practiced the Prince should forbid his Subjects to go out of his Kingdom upon Pain of Death or being sent to the Galleys then I think this expedient would signifie nothing neither But now if nothing else will do you say Resistance can be of no use fo such miserable People because a Prince will not dare to attempt any such thing against such a number of Men as are in a Capacity of revenging the Wrongs done them where they will only out of hopes that they will not because they ought not to do it I grant indeed that never any Tyrant when he went about thus to oppress his People designed they should be in a Capacity to revenge the wrong he did them when they would And therefore such Tyrants take very great Care by Guards and Standing Armies to prevent it But yet I can shew you a Prince who very lately received such encouragement by the Writing and Preaching of our high Clergy that he seemed resolved to bring in Popery and Arbitrary Government upon us chiefly out of Hopes that the People would not because as he thought they ought not to resist And tho' I also grant that few Monarchs injure particular Men so much but that if they believe them able to revenge the Wrong they took care as far as they could to prevent it Yet this signifies nothing if once a whole Nation come to be opprest and disgusted against the Government For if such a Prince or Common-wealth have not the Assistance of some other Power either his own standing Army or his Neighbours his Authority would soon be at an End Thus we read of the Massacre and expulsion of the French out of Sicily it was done in the twinkling of an Eye and before those in Power had the least Suspition of it So likewise in the late Revolt of the Portugueses from the King of Spain his Government was at an End in little more than a days time and that Nation will tell you that they look upon the Benefit of being governed by a Prince of their own and enjoying their own Laws as very well worth that Expence of Blood and Treasure they were at to obtain it To conclude I do not speak this to encourage the Rabble or Great and Little Vulgar as you call them to take Arms and punish Princes every time they do amiss Nor have I at all asserted that Princes may be punished by their Subjects unless you can prove to me that every one who resists the Violence of another is his Lord and Master Neither do I maintain that tho' Princes are bound to act according to Laws and to their Oaths yet if they do otherwise they are presently to be treated as Tyrants and the Common Enemies of Mankind or that it is Lawful for every Private Man to defend himself against the Injustice and Oppression of his Prince I grant such Doctrine would serve to fill the World with Rebellions Wars and Confusions and may produce all those dreadful Consequences you have here set forth But on the other side under such a Tyranny as where the whole People or the Major part of them shall happen to be assaulted enslaved and oppressed to that Degree that no Man can tell when he is safe I say in such Cases a Tyrant may destroy more thousands of Men ravish more Women and ruine more Families and Estates than it is likely to be done by the Highest Resistance the People can make against him Since they are Mad if ever they make this Resistance unless they are also morally sure either by their own Strength or the Assistance of their Neighbours of succeeding in the attempt Nor do the Consequences of such Resistance but rarely fall out in the manner you suppose For it seldom happens but that the New Prince to whom the People submit themselves will being warned by the Example of his Predecessor take Care to govern with greater Mercy and Moderation and it is much more unlikely that if they chuse or set up many Representatives out of their own Body that they will be easily corrupted by Power and Greatness thus to oppress the People And lastly it is much less probable that the People can continue long in an Anarchy without any Government at all So that to conclude this Doctrine of resisting of Princes or other Supream Powers in Cases of Extremity is so far from tending to the Ruine of Mankind that I cannot see how they can be safe without it and tho' the Punishment of Princes who abuse their Power may be left to God Almighty yet I am confident the resisting of those who tho' they have the Power of the Sword in their Hand yet act as none of Gods Ministers is neither contrary to the Laws of God nor Nature M. I perceive you want Testimonies out of Scripture to justifie your Doctrine of Resistance and therefore you are when pressed by these forced to flie to your old Refuge of Self-defence by the Law of Nature in which tho' I have been forced to follow you and quit the Method I proposed to my self yet I would have you to know it is not for want of more Texts of Scripture and therefore I must still farther inforce the true sense of that place of the first of St. Peter Submit your selves to every ordinance of Man for the Lords sake whether it be to the King as Supream or unto Governours as to them that are sent by him for the Punishment of Evil doers and for the praise of them that do well For this is the very same doctrine which St. Paul taught the Romans Let every Soul be Subject to the Higher Powers For the same Word is used in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore to submit and to be subject is the
Emperours took a Liberty of doing many unjust and Tyrannical Actions Yet I have no where that I know of affirmed that Princes ought to be Resisted only for being Evil or Wicked or that all the evil Actions and Mis-government of Princes or their Subordinate Ministers ought to be Resisted by the People but I have all along asserted the contrary for I own that no human Government can be so exact and perfect but it may be Guilty of great Miscarriages Good Men may suffer and bad men may flourish under a vertuous Prince much more under those that are themselves wicked and unjust and there are many Degrees of evil Government and Tyranny some of which may consist well enough with the common Safety of the People which was the Condition of most of the Subjects of the Roman Empire under the Reigns of Claudius and Nero. Since they did then enjoy the Protection of the Common-wealth and all the Civil Rights of the Subjects and therefore you very much mistake me in supposing that I maintain we are only bound to be subject to those Supream Powers who rule well or who punish Wickedness and reward Vertue Since I grant this was scarce ever performed exactly even under the most Regular Governments yet there is a great deal of difference between bearing with the common Infirmities of all Governments and such intolerable Violences that dissolve the Government it self as by making War upon the People and invading their Civil Liberty and Property As for Example no Man doubts but the King may pardon a Robber or a Murderer but if instead of hanging he should pardon all Thieves and Murderers that should rob or murder in a year or two together and should likewise list them in his Guards to kill and rob whom they pleased provided he had a share of the Boâ—â—â—y I would very fain know of you or any other reasonable man whether the People were bound to bear it and whether they might not Resist them tho' they had the King's Commission for so doing To conclude when the Apostle here says that Rulers are not a Terrour to good Works but to the Evil and that they are for the punishment of Evil-doers and for the praise of them that do well the Apostles only mean in general the great Advantages of Civil Government for the Suppression of Wickedness and Encouragement of Vertue which is the true End and the hâ—st improvement of Human Power But this also is in great measure obtain'd under Evil and to some degree Tyrannical Princes and therefore this Argument for Subjection is good even under a Tyrant Publick Iustice was administred under the Government of Nero and good Men were then commonly rewarded and bad men punished And tho Iustice be not so equally and so universally administred under a bad Prince as under a good one tho' such a Tyrant may oppress many of his Subjects and be the occasion of divers Calamities yet whilâ— the main ends of Civil Government are maintained it lays a great Restraint upon the unruly Lusts and Passions of Men and gives great security to the Iust and Innocent And therefore good Men are concerned to promote the Peace and security of Civil Government tho' the Prince be in some degree a Tyrant for there is more security to be had under such a Tyrant than in a Civil War In ordinary cases it is very possible for private good Men to live easily and tolerably under a very bad Prince and tho' it should be their Lot to suffer yet since the Peace and Quiet of human Societies is in it self so great a Blessing and the publick Good may be better consulted by the Preservation of Government than by Resistance it becomes every good Man rather to suffer patiently under such a Tyrant than to shake and unsettle Civil Government and disturb the natural Course of Justice by Sedition and Tumults Yet all this is to be understood of such Degrees of Tyranny or evil Government as may consist with the main Ends of a Civil Society or Common-wealth and as far as the publick Good of the People may be better consulted and preserved by the Preservation than Resistance of it I grant it to be every Man's Duty patiently to suffer many Injuries and Abuses rather than to make any publick Disturbance So on the other side when the main Ends of Civil Government viz. the Common Preservation of the Peoples Liberties and Properties are actually or about to be destroyed I think every honest man that is careful of his own and his Posterities well-being and Happiness may nay ought if no other Remedy can be had to make Resistance not for the Destruction but Preservation of Civil Government which I already look upon as good as dissolved before such Resistance can be Lawful M. I must confess your Doctrine as you have explained it is not so bad as I supposed at the first hearing but if People may never Resist till things come to such a State as that by a general Invasion of Mens Lives Liberties and Properties the Civil Government be in a manner destroyed as you suppose the People may stay long enough before ever they shall be in a Condition to make this Resistance For in all the small Observations that I have made out of History I never could find the People generally reduced to so sad a Case as this you have put most of the Rebellions and Alterations of Government that I have read of having begun from a few Tyrannical Actions committed upon the Persons or Estates of some Great and Powerful Men who being beloved by the People were able to stir them up to revenge their particular Injuries Thus one single Act of Lust in the younger Tarquins ravishing Lucretia gave occasion to Brutus and her Husband Colatine to take Arms against Tarquin and by expelling him and his Family to set up a Common-wealth And therefore since this Case of such as an extream intolerable Tyranny as you mention can never or at least very rarely happen I think I may still maintain what I first affirmed that it is much better to put this mischief to the venture and suffer all the Inconveniences that may happen from it than by allowing the People to be their own Iudges when the Government proves insupportable to give them a Right of Iudging and Resisting whenever they shall pretend that it is so which they may make use of not to secure their own Liberties and Estates but to gratifie their own Humours or else the Ambition or Revenge of great and factious men So that unless there is some Power that is irresistible from whence there lies no Appeal it is impossible for any Government to subsist And tho' it is not necessary that this Power should be always in the hands of one Man yet if God hath placed it in the hands of a Prince there it must be irresistible too however he uses it For if once it be made lawful to resist the
Supream Power where ever it is placed you dissolve human Societies or at least expose them to perpetual Disorders and Convulsions Factious and Ambitious Men will still find Pretences to resist good Princes as well as bad and no Government can be any longer secure than whilst ill-designing men want power to resist Now then to pass a true Judgment on this whole Matter we must not only consider what present Inconveniences we may suffer from the irresistible Power of the worst Tyrant but also what an irreparable Mischief it is for ever to unsettle the Foundations of Government We must consider whether Civil Government be the greater Blessing to Mankind or a Tyrant the greater Curse whether it be more desirable to endure the Insolence and Injustice of the greatest Tyrant when the Power falls into such a hand or for ever to be deprived of the Security of Government and the Blessings of Peace and Order And therefore there is great Reason why God should so severely forbid the Resistance of all Princes tho' the Cruellest Tyrants you can imagine and why we should quietly and contentedly submit to this Divine Appointment because the Resistance of the Supream Powers were it once allowed by God would weaken the Authority of all Human Governments and expose them to the Rage and Frenzy of Ambitious and discontented States Men or wild Enthusiasts And this I think is a sufficient Answer to this Pretence that the Apostle limits our Subjection to Princes to the regular Exercise of their Authority F. I see we are ev'n come where we set out to the necessity of an Irresistible Power and the mischief that must follow if the People ever Iudge for themselves which indeed is but the same Argument in Politicks which the Church of Rome makes use of for the necessity of an Infallible Iudge in spirituals because otherwise if the People should judge for themselves in matters of Religion there would nothing follow but Anarchy and Confusion in the Church and that there would be as many Religions as there are Men And so you likewise urge that if the People may ever once come to Iudge when they are assaulted enslaved or opprest and should have a Right of making Resistance nothing but Anarchy and Confusion must follow in the Common wealth And truly I think the Argument is as good for the one as the other and as I hope we may be always good Orthodox Christians without such an infallible Iudge in matters of Faith so I think we may be Loyal Subjects to our Prince without investing him with an Irresistible Power of doing with us what ever he hath a mind to But since you have only repeated what you have said at our last meeting when we first began to debate this Question so I must beg you pardon if I refresh your Memory and again repeat my Answers In the first place I deny that it must follow that if once it be made Lawful to resist the Supream Power where ever placed this must dissolve Civil Societies or expose them to perpetual Disorder because forsooth some Factious and ambitious Men will find Pretences to Resist good Princes as well as bad For first I have all along supposed the Civil Society as good as dissolved before such Resistance is Lawful And therefore the Convulsions or Disorders of a Civil War can scarce be worse than such a State and until the People are under this Condition I grant factious and ambitious Men may make Pretences to Resist good Princes as well as bad and may find some followers as wicked as themselves to take the◠part Yet this Infection seldom or never seizeth upon a whole Nation who hath always Power and Affection enough for the Supream Powers to joyn with them to Suppress such Rebels I grant we ought always to consider whether Civil Government be the greater Blessing to Mankind or a Tyrant the greater Chrs◠But I do never suppose such Resistance to be Lawful but when the Power falls into such hands that tho' they may call themselves a Civil Government yet the People are almost as totally deprived of all that Security and those Blessings of Peace and order which they may justly expect from it as if they were in a State of War And therefore as you suppose that God Almighty forbids the Resistance of the most cruel Tyrants because this Resistance were it once allowed by giving the People a Power of Iudging would weaken the Authority of Human Governments and expose them to the Rage and Frenzy of Ambitious and discontented States-Men or Wild Enthusiasts And this you think a sufficient Answer So on the other side if this Resistance be in no case lawful tho' in never so great Extremities and that the People must not judge when they are so cruelly used as that it is no longer to be endured not only the Persons of Princes are Sacred and irresistible but also all those Instruments of Tyranny whom they may hire and employ to that purpose by which means all Government whatsoever will not only be Absolute but Arbitrary and without any sufficient Obligations to other Mercy Justice and the Common Good than what the Tyrannical Will or Humour of one or more men shall please to allow So that the Lives Liberties and Estates of a free People or Nation shall be in as bad or a worse Condition than if they were Slaves if all means of defending themselves by their own Resistance or joyning with those that would assist them be wholly denyed them And whether God can ever be the Author of such an Institution I appeal to your own Reason to judge when you are in a more sedate and equal Temper M. I see 't is in vain to argue this Matter any longer with you And therefore I must tell you that I cannot but look upon these Doctrines of Passive Obedience and Non-resistance as true Christian Doctrines since the Antient Fathers of the Church and Primitive Christians did always both believe and practise them and in imitation of whom our own Church of England which I think of any in the World comes nearest to the Primitive doth likewise maintain it in her 39 Articles Canons and Homilies whereas you can shew me no Express Text of Scripture nor Testimonies of the Fathers nor Examples of the Primitive Christians to justifie this Resistance which when ever you can do I shall be of your Opinion and if you doubt the Truth of what I say I have here by me the Lord Primate Usher's Book of the Power of the Prince and Obedience of the Subject which you may if you please take home with you and consult at your Leisure in which I doubt not but you will meet with full Satisfaction in this matter F. I have already proved at our last meeting that Resistance for self-defence against those who have the Power of the Sword is a Right of Nature conferred by God on all Mankind and unless you can shew me 〈…〉 place of
the mentioning of them since I grant that about the End of the Fourth Century when these things happen'd not only the common People but also the Clergy began to grow very corrupt in their Manners And therefore I cannot much value any Precedents that you can bring in that time to justifie Resistance in Christians unless you could have shewn me any before the time of Constantine which I am sure you are not able to do much less any Authority from any of the Primitive Fathers which justifieth Resistance of the Supream Powers upon any account whatsoever F. 'T is a very hard matter to satisfie you by Quotations for before the time of Constantine it is evident the Christians were not only weak dispersed and disarmed but had also the Laws of the Empire against them And I have already granted That Self-defence against Persecution upon account of Religion was unlawful but when in the time of Constantine's Son and Successor the People having the Law on their side stood upon their defence against those that would have taken away their Lives as in the Examples I have brought of the Inhabitants of Paphlagonia then the Instances come too late and the Age is grown so corrupt that they are no longer Primitive Christians than they observe your Doctrines But as for express Precepts or Testimonies out of the Scriptures and Fathers to justifie Resistance I think it is very needless to bring any for the great Mr. Hooker shews us very well that it is the intent of the Scripture to deliver us all the Credenda and Agenda necessary to Salvation but in other Matters within the compass of our Reason it is enough if we have evident Reason for them Scripturâ non contradicente and if the Scripture doth not forbid such Resistance for Self-defence as I hope I have now proved to be Lawful I do not value whether there be any Express Authority to be quoted out of the Fathers for it or not For whatever the Scripture leaves free I think the Fathers have no Power to forbid M. I see it is to no purpose to argue longer with you from Primitive Examples or Testimonies And therefore I come now to the last thing I proposed which is to shew you that the Doctrine of our Church of England as it is contained in the 39 Articles Canons and Book of Homilies is as expresly for passive Obedience and against All Resistance of the Supream Powâ—rs as the Primitive Church it self And therefore I shall begin with the Infancy of the Reformation under Henry the VIII For there I begin the Restoration of Religion to its Purity in this Kingdom F. I pray Sir give me leave to interrupt you for I must tell you I will not be concluded by any thing that the King or Church in those times did publish concerning matters of Faith or Practice since unless it were in that one Political rather than Religioâ—s Article concerning the Pope's Supremacy the Church in all other Speculative and Practical Doctrines was as much infected with Popâ—ry as it was before And therefore if you will have me to be converted by your Authorities I pray begin with the Purer Times of Edward the VI. and Queen Elizabeth M. I shall comply with your desires since you will have it so And therefore I shall begin with the 39 Articles of the Church of England where in the 37 Article as they were past under Queen Elizabeth Anno 1562 you may find it runs thus The Queen's Majesty hath the Chief Power in this Realm of England and other her Dominions unto whom the Chief Government of all the Estates of this Realm whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil in all Causes doth appertain and is not nor ought to be subject to any foreign Iurisdiction It is true this Doctrine is not limited to the particular Case of Subjects taking up Arms but it seems to me by two necessary Consequences to be deduced from it First Because if the Pope who pretended by a Divine Right had no Power over Kings much less have the People any such Power who pretend to an Inferiour Right that of Compact Secondly Because the Article makes no distinction but excludes all other Power as well as that of the Pope And in truth the Plea is the same on either side the Pope says as long as the Prince Governs according to the Laws of God and the Church of which He is the Interpreter so long the Censures of the Church do not reach him and say the People as long as the Prince governs according to the Laws of the Land and of the meaning of those Laws they themselves will be the Interpreters so long are they bound to be obedient but as soon as the King doth any thing that may contradict the Pope then he is deservedly say the Romanists excommunicated deposed and murdered and when he usurâ—s upon the Peoples Liberties then he ought to be deposed by the People The Arguments on either side are the same and for the most part the Authorities F. I must confess this is the first time that ever I knew any Man go about to prove Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance out of the 39 Articles and indeed I should have thought you might have deduced any thing else from these Articles as well as that But let us see how what I have saiâ— in this Discourse can come within the Contents of this Article which only says that the King or Queen of England is Supream Governour over all Persons as also in all Causes whether Ecclesiastical or Civil and is not subject to any foreign Iurisdiction from whence you raise this Argument that if the Pope who claims by a Divine Right hath no Power over our Kings much less have the People who can pretend to no such Right as he does but only that by Compact Now pray tell me whether this be conclusive I assert that the People have by the Law of God and Nature a Right to defend themselves against the Supream Powers in case they are violently Assaulted in their Lives Liberties or Estates Now I would very fain have you prove to me how Resistance for Self-defence doth subjâ—ct a Prince to any Iurisdiction either Foreign or Domestick and whether the People can have no Right to Resist such Violence unless they have also an Authoritative Power over them M. It is not worth while to dispute this any longer with you to so little purpose And therefore I shall come to the Canons of the Church and in particular those of the year 1640 which I look upon as a full Explanation of the Belief of our Church in this Point where you may see in the first Canon these two plain Propositions among others First That the most Sacred Order of Kings is of Divine Right being the Ordinance of God himself founded in the Prime Laws of Nature and clearly Established by express Texts both of the Old and New Testaments Secondly For Subjects to bear
should go about to introduce Popery and Arbitrary Government among us by Force and that whosoever went about to assert the Lawfulness of such Resistance was sure to meet if not with Punishment at least with loss of Preferment and Disgrace when the Doctrine of Passive Obedience ran so High both in the Press and Pulpits it was no wonder if any of our Church who consulted their own Safety durst stem so violent a Current and yet even in these times the Learned Dr. Falconeâ— in his Treatise of Christian Loyalty Chap. 5. Sect. 2. doth tho' cautiously allow Resistance in such great Cases as of a Prince's Alienating his Kingdom or of destroying his People in an hostile manner to be Lawful if ever it should happen But out of a needless fear lest this Doctrine of Resistance may be made use of as a Pretence for Rebellion will not allow it can scarce seem possible ever to happen in a King Compoâ— moâ—tâ— towards his whole Dominions But I think I have already proved the possibility of it and why they may not do the same in an absolute Empiâ—e where the Prince would make them Slaves and Beggars by invading their Liberties and Properties I can see no Reason but think I have given very good ones for it But as for the other Person you mention who did openly in Print oppose this Doctrine of Resistance whether He or his Opponent had the better in this Dispute I leave to the indifferent Readers who I believe will acknowledge that the Author of that Treatise did not so much forfeit his Reputation by asserting a Right of Defence where the Religion and Liberty are Established by Law and became a part of the Civill Constitution as his Opponent did by introducing an Arbitrary Imperial Power in this Nation unknown to our Laws whereby a few Mâ—râ—â—narâ— Red Coats either of thâ— or a Foreign Nation should have by the King's Commission an irresistible Power over the Lives Liberties and Estates of all Protestants But since he went about to make us all Slaves by his Imperial Law I do not 〈◊〉 all envy him so generous a Performance And yet for all that I had much rather have that man's Reputation whom he appyled tho with all his Suffering than the Gentlemans tho' attended with all his Learning and Preferments But as for what you say in 〈◊〉 of the Doctrine of Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance in all Cases whatsoever it signifies little since it is grounded upon a wrong Supposition for you still take that for granted which is the Question yet to be proved that because the Primitive Christians were against Râ—sistance in case of Persecution therefore this must needs extend to whole Nations aâ—d Common weâ—lths in all States and Conditions whatsoever which whether you have well proved or not I leave it to your own Conscience to judge for my own part I cannot say you have convinced me with what you have said on this Subject So that if these Doctrines as you have put them are neither good in themselves nor necessary to be bâ—lieved nor practised in all Cases I doubt God may justly ask those who either practise or impose them on others Who hath required these things at your hands And as for those Divines of Foreign Churches who you say have writ for these Doctrines as well as ours as I know not who they are nor in what manner they have defended them so do I not much value their Opinion since there are many more altogether as Learned and Pious as they who have held the Contrary Nor are all Divines who maintain Passive Obedience and Non-resistance of your side who write which I also allow that for particular Private Subjects to Râ—sist Princes in Revenge of private Injuries and Rebel against the Supream Powers for not being of their own Religion or to take upon them to call Princes to an Account or pass Iudgment upon them or punish them for their Actions is altogether wicked and unlawful Yeâ— doth it not therefore follow that they have maintained all Resistance to be unlawful in any Case whatsoever tho' perhaps if you were to make use of their Authority you would produce them of your own side To conclude I own my self for Non-resistance in that limited Sense I have now given as far as it extends to particular private Men Yet that this Rule doth not extend to the whole Civil Society or People And therefore altho' in my own private Capacity I ought to submit to and suffer the greatest Injustice rather than Resist and disturb Government yet when the Main Foundations thereof are once begun to be pulled up As I am an English Man I think I am more obliged by all Ties both Sacred and Civil to defend and maintain the Government or Constitution of which I am a Member than I am to obey the King 's personal Commands and that being the Primary Obligation ought to be discharged in the first place M. I shall no longer compare whether the Divines that write for or those that write against Resistance are the wiser or more Learned since you your self it seems at last are feign to own a limited Non-resistance which you will have extend to private Persons but not to the whole Civil Society or People But I think I may venture still to maintain that the Supream Power where ever it is placed must be Irresistible and that a whole Civil Society or People who are not invested with part of the Soveraignty can have no more Right to Resist than single Persons For to say that whole Societies have a Power to Resist and that particular private Persons as Members thereof have it also is such a Diminution of Supream Power as can never be consistent with it for all Inferiours whether Private Persons or whole Societies can have no Power but what is derived from the Supream and therefore if they have a Right to Resist even that must be derived from the Supream Power and so that Power must destroy it self But as for what you alledge in your Iustification that Resistance may be Lawful to avoid Subversion of the Government To this I may reply that if Subjects be no longer in Subjection to the Supream Powers the Government is hereby destroyed for what more manifest Subversion can there be than this That Subjects are now no longer in Subjâ—ction nor Governours can be no longer able to Govern So that this Argument tends only to prove that Subjects may Subvert the Government one way rather than suffer the Soveraign Power to do it another So that upon the whole matter if the Government mâ—st be Subverted you would have no body have the doing of it but your selves F. However false your Premises are and however weak the Proofs that you have brought for them yet I see you are resolved to stick close to your Conclusion i. e. That all Supream Powers are absolutely Irresistible In which Dispute whether you or I have been in the wrong I
his Inferiors because an Inferior Power can never limit a Superiour And since all our Laws as well as the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy we take to the King do own him to be the Sole Supream Governour of this Realm I cannot understand how this Limitation can consist with the King's Supremacy for if he be thus limited and restrained how is he Supream and if Restrained by some Law is not the Power of that Law and of them that made that Law above his own Supream Power And if by the Direction of such Law only he must Govern where is his Supream Power So that when the Law must Rule and Govern the Monarch as a Superior and not the Monarch the Law he hath at best but a Gubernative and Exâ—cutive Power Lastly if this Power of the Prince were Limited at the Original Constitution there must be a Power appointed in some Council or Senate call it a Parliament or Assembly of the States or by what Name you please whose business it must be to see them exactly kept and performed Now these Men must either have a Power barely of Advising the Monarch and perswading him to observe these Fundamental Limitations or else they must also have a Power of Forcing or Compelling him if he will not hearken to their Advice and Remonstrances if they have no more than the former Power that you say signifies nothing since the King may refute to hearken to them if he pleases and may do what he will notwithstanding but if they have also a Coercive Power over him and may Resist or punish him for his Transgressions he will then cease to be a Monarch Since he cannot be so who is accountable to any Power either Equal or Superior to himself And this our late Parliaments have bin well aware of when they Renounced all Coercive Power over the Person of the King and any Right of making War either Offensive or Defensive against him So that besides the History of matter of Fact which I can further give you to prove our Kings to have bin at first Absolute Monarchs I think the very Hypothesis of a mixt or limited Monarchy labours under such insuperable Difficulties and Absurdities that I cannot conceive how those Limitations by which we find the King's Prerogative now Restrained could ever proceed from any Higher Cause than the free Grants and Concessions of the Kings Predecessors confirmed by his own Coronation-Oath Which though I acknowledge he is bound to observe and that if he breaks it he commits a great Sin against God Yet it is only He that must punish him for so doing since the Oath is not made to the People but to God alone F. Notwithstanding what you have now said I hope I am able to shew you that all your Arguments against a Mixt or Limited Monarchy are more subtile than true For as to your first Argument from the word Monarch I grant indeed that strictly speaking the Word Monarch and Monarchy signifie a single Ruler and the Government of one alone Yet in Common Acceptation or according to the Laws and Constitutions of several other Kingdoms besides England as in the Empire in Denmark and Sweden the Emperor and those Kings have bin called Monarchs and those Kingdoms Monarchies though by the Original Constitution of those Governments those Princes have not bin invested with a pure Imperial Authority such as that of the Roman Emperors of Old Yet since they had the Executive and Gubernative part of the Government committed to them and that they were lookt upon as the Heads of those Kingdoms and that the Government did therein partake more of Monarchy than of any other Form those Princes have bin always reputed and that justly Monarchs notwithstanding there was a very great mixture of Aristocracy in the Empire and in Denmark and both of Aristocracy and Democracy in Sweden The like may be said of England France and those Kingdoms in Spain that were instituted by the Goths and Vandals the Francs and Saxons after the Ancient Gothic Model of Government And though I grant this sort of mixt Monarchy is not to be Reduced to any of the three distinct Kinds of Government layd down by Aristotle yet are they not for all that to be Condemned but rather the more approved of since by this mixture they were capable of diverse Benefits and free from several Mischiefs which are incident to any of those Forms of Monarchy Aristocracy or Democracy when exercised purely and without any such mixture And that this as to England it self is no Invention of the Common-Wealth-Men as you call them you may read King Charles the 1st's Answer to the 19 Propositions sent him by the Parliament for the words are Remarkable This Kingdom says he is mixt of Monarchical Aristocratical and Democratical Government and that so wisely that we have all the Conveniences and none of the Inconveniences of any of those Forms taken single Nor doth this at all Derogate from the Nature of the Monarchy nor make any Division between the necessary Functions of Soveraign Power For I have already granted that the executive or gubernative part is wholy in him as also the Power of making War and Peace and as for the Legislative as long as the King hath a Negative Vote in all Laws that pass and that they cannot be made without his Royal Sanction the Legislative Power is not divided as I have already proved But as for your other Argument against a Prince's being limited by the Original Constitution of Government tho as I yield it is more Subtile so it is also more Sophistical and fallacious than the former For your Dilemma by which you would prove the Absurdity of that Nation will not do because a Prince at the Institution of the Government may be limited by those who are neither Superior nor Inferior to himself but only equal in the State of Nature as I suppose the People to be with a King before he was made so by them And that Equals may thus limit each other you your self will not I suppose deny in the Case of Princes who are Equals in the State of Nature As Queen Mary for Example made such conditions with King Philip of Spain before she Marryed him that if he offered to meddle with the Government of this Kingdom without her Consent it would be Lawful for her to part herself from him and to send him home into his own Kingdom and might she not with a Safe Conscience have done so upon the Breach of the Conditions on his side Apply this to the People in the State of Nature and the person they are about to make King before the Politick Marriage of a Coronation or Admission to the Crown and see if they do not exactly agree or whether the People can be blam'd if they repudiate their Politick Husband for Invading that part of the Government which they had reserved to themselves Nor doth this argue any more Superiority in the People
nor a Iurisdiction it is by this very Body acknowledged to be wholy derived from him Nor have you yet answered this Argument nor I believe can you do it F. As for your History which you promise to give me of the absolute Power of our first Saxon and Norman Kings I desire you to defer the speaking of it till another time it being now late Yet I do not doubt but to prove that what I assert concerning the limited Power of our Kings even by the Original Constitution of the Government is no Romance but true History Nor are the Reasons that you have now urged to the contrary prevalent enough with me to alter my Opinion for I think I am able to prove somewhat more than I but now Asserted viz. that the Wittena Gâ—mote or Great Council met constantly once a year or oftner when need was under the Saxon Kings without any Summons from them as when we come to the particular History of this matter I shall shew you more at large And also that for the first Hundred Years after the Coming in of the Normans the Great Council or Parliament used to meet of Course at the King's Court at two or three of the Great Feasts of the Year without any other notice by Writ or Summons The first mention we find of such Writs being in King Iohn's Magna Charta But that when these Assemblies became less frequent by reason of the King ' Discontinuing of them and because of the case the Nobility and People found in being Discharged from so constant and chargeable an Attendance they came to be so discontinued at last that as you your self confess there were fain to be Express Laws made for their more frequent Meetings and though the Power of Summoning them was I confess left wholy in the King and that he did very often Dispense with the Calling them according to the intent of those Statutes Yet doth not this prove any Legal Prerogative in him so to do but that it was a High Breach of Trust and also of his Coronation Oath when he thus omitted to call them Since our Kings were formerly Sworn to keep and observe those Laws quas vulgus elegerit which the People either have or should chuse construe it which way you will though I own in French it is in the Preterit auera èleu should have chosen And as it is an Old Maxim à Facto ad Ius non valet consequentia So it is no true way of proof to argue from an illegal Exercise or abuse of Power to a Legal Right or Prerogative And though the Parliament might not always actually question or find fault with their Kings for thus neglecting to call them because perhaps the Publick Sustained no present Damage from it and that they thereby escaped the giving the King those Taxes and Aids which he usually demanded of them at such times Yet when the long Forbearance of Omissions of Parliaments became a general Grievance by reason of those Encroachments that the King and Great Men often made upon the People's Liberties in those Intervals and that the King lookt upon it as a Piece of his Prerogative to abuse this Trust as far as He pleased I grant then and not till then there was need of a Law that there should be a Parliament every Year and that in Case of any failure of Summons on the Kings part the People might proceed to Election without it which was not so properly a New Law as the Restoration of the Old Constitution since Anciently the People met the King at these Great Councils at such Set times of the Year as I shall prove when we come to the History of matter of Fact which I am not at all affraid to be judged by and then also I shall shew you that though the King is now Principium Caput Finis Parliamenti that is the Parliament properly so called yet that the Great Council or Assembly of the Estates had from the first Institution of the Government a Power of Assembling themselves in cases of necessity such as are Doubtful or Disputed Titles to the Crown or the absence of the Successor and then they have often met by their own inherent Authority and have either Setled the Succession of the Crown as they thought good or else have Recognized an Hereditary Right in the Absence of the Heir as when King Edw. 1st was absent being in his return from the Holy Land Or else to Depose the King's Iusticiar as in the Case of William Longchamp Bishop of Ely who was left Chief Iusticiar by King Richard 1st when he went into the Holy Land And though I own that some High-Spirited and yet Well-beloved Princes might take upon them a Power of Rebuking the House of Commons when they meddled with Business they did 〈◊〉 like Yet this Submission proceeded from the Great Râ—verence they had for their Persons and confidence they placed in their Government Since we find that only these Princes that were Wise and Successful in their Government and so became the Darlings of their People Such as Queen Elizabeth and King Edward 3d. for as for Henry 8th I remember no Instance of it who durst venture to Act thus As for the desire of Freedom of Speech it is but a Compliment for how can the Grievances of the Kingdom be Redressed without speaking freely of them And if one Great End of Parliament was to Redress these Grievances it were altogether in vain for them to Attempt any thing in this Kind if the King could Brow-beat them from it when ever he pleased But Bract on doth not only tell us Rex habet Superiorem Legem Curiam suam Baronum c. in the Place I have already Cited but the Old Book called the Mirrour of Iustices also teaches us the same Lesson in his 2d â—ection where speaking of the King's Power he tells us that though the King can have no Peer in the Land yet nevertheless if by his own Wrong he offends against any of his People none of those that judge for him can be both Iudge and Party It is therefore agreeable to Right that the King should have Companions to Hear and Determine in Parliaments all Writs and Complaints concerning the Wrongs of the King Queen and their Children and of them especially of whose Wrongs they could not otherwise have Common Right These Companions are therefore called Counts after the Latin Comites c. Not can I think that any King would have Erected a Court to have Redressed the Wrongs done by himself or his Family whether he would or not But as for your main Argument from the words of the Statutes of King Edw. 6. and Queen Eliz. That all Authority and Iurisdiction as well Spiritual as Temporal is derived from the King I do own it true that is if meant of all Derivative Authority such as that of all inferior Counts as well Civil as Ecclesiastical For I suppose you your self
from that 7th Edward the First I think that can by no means do the business for which you design it for in the first place this is only Declaration of the Bishops Lords and Commons of the Land that it belongs to the King to defend i. e. forbid all force of Arms but mark Sir what force sure it is only meant of such Force as belongs to the King's Prerogative to forbid viz. force of Arms against the Publick Peace and such as he might punish according to the Laws and Usages of the Realm and therefore the Statute expresly declares that as Subjects they are hereunto bound Aid him their Soveraign Lord the King at all times when need shall be but does this Act any where say that he hath an Irresistible Power to disturb this Peace by his own private Illegal Commissions or that any men are bound to assist him in it or because for example he hath Authority to punish all men according to Law that shall come to Parliaments with force of Arms that therefore he hath an unlimited power of raising what Forces he would and in prisoning or destroying the whole Parliament if he pleased and that no bodâ— might resist him if he had gone about so to do The like may be said if the 〈◊〉 should notoriously and insupportably by force invade all the Civil Liberâ—â—â—â— and Properties of his Subjects by Levying Taxes and taking away theâ—r Estates by down-right Force contrary to Law now can any body in his senses believe that the Act of 25th of Ed. 3. was made to prevent all Resistance of suâ—h Tyrannical Violence and that the Resistance of those Forces whether forreign or domestick that might be sent by the King 's private Commissioners to murder or enslave us is making War against his Person or that it comes within any of the Cases expressed in that Statute and therefore cannot fall within the compass of Sir Edw. Coke's Comment upon this Staâ—ute all the offences therein specified being Treasâ—ns at Common Law before that Statute was made nor is the Reformation there mentioned to be understood of a just and necessary Defence of our Lives Liberties Religion and Properties as setled and established by the Laws of the Land to be looked upon as making War against a weak or seduced King but is rather in defence of him and the Government by opposing Tyranny which will certainly bring both him and us to Ruine at last so the Reformation he there mentions is only to be be understood of such Insurrections and Rebellions as have been made under the meer pretence of Religion or obtaining greater Liberties for the common sort of People than they had by the Law of the Land such as were the Rebellions of Wat Tyler in King Richard the Second and Mortimers in Hâ—â—ry the 6th Reigns not to mention the other Rebellions raised by the Papists in the times of King Henry the Eighth Edward the Sixth and Queen Elizabeth's Reigns all which being begun by Seditious or Superstitious men were certainly rank Rebellions and so are and ought to be esteem'd by all good Subjects M. I grant these pretences seem very fair and specious yet notwithstanding this your pretended right or a necessity of Resistance of the King or those commissioned by him in case of Tyranny has been still looked upon as Rebellion in all Ages and the Actors dealt with accordingly where ever they were taken F. I do not deny but as long as Arbitrary and Tyrannical Princes could get the better of it and keep the Power in their own hands they still Executed for Traytors whosoever opposed or resisted their wicked and unjust Actions tho' they were never so near Relations to them thus both Edward and Richard the Second put their Uncles the Dukes of Lancaster and Gloucester to death meerly because they joyned with the rest of the Nobility and People to prevent their designs So that it is not the Execution of the Man but the Cause that makes the Traytor since Princes are seldom without a sufficient number of Judges and Jury-men to condemn whomsoever they please to fall upon But that the Clergy Nobility and People of England have always asserted this right of Self-defence in case their Liberties and Properties were uniustly invaded by the Tyrannical or Arbitrary Practices of the King or those about him I think I can prove by giving you the History of it in so many Kings since your Conquest as will render it indisputable if you please to give me now the hearing or else to defer it till the next time we meet M. I confess I was so weary of sitting up so long at our last Conversation that I made a Resolution not to do so any more and therefore since it grows late let us leave off now and I promise to meet you here again within a night or two and then I will hear how well you can vindicate your right of Resistance from Law or History but if you have no better proofs for it than the Rebellion of the Barons in King Iohn and Henry the Third's Reigns you will scarce make me your Convet since Impunity does never sanctifie a wicked action or render it the more lawful and you have already given it me for an Axiom that a facto ad Ius non valet consequentia F. I accept of your Appointment with thanks but pray do not forâ—judge my Arguments till you hear them and as for the Axiom I allow it for good provided I may urge it in my turn but in the mean time I shall wish you good night M. And I the same to you FINIS Bibliotheca Politica OR A DISCOURSE By WAY of DIALOGUE Upon these Questions Whether by the ancient Laws and Constitutions of this Kingdom as well as by the Statutes of the 13th and 14th of King Charles the II. all Resistance of the King or of those commissioned by him are expresly forbid upon any pretence whatsoever And also Whether all those who assisted his present Majesty King William either before or after his coming over are guilty of the breach of this Law Collected out of the most Approved Authors both Antient and Modern Dialogue the Ninth LONDON Printed for R. Baldwin in Warwick-Lane near the Oxford Arms where also may be had the First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth Seventh and Eighth Dialogues 1693. Authours chiefly made use of in this Dialogue and how denoted in the Margin Dr. Sherlocks case of Resistance S. C. R. Mr. Iohnsons Reflections upon it I. R. S. Dr. Hick's answer to Iulian Intituled Iovian H. I. I desire the Reader to remember that whenever I make use of the word People in this or the following Discourse I mean thereby the whole diffusive body of the Nation consisting of the Clergy Nobility and Commons The PREFACE TO THE READER I Must beg your pardon if I have exceeded my intended design in the Preface to the first of these Dialogues of reducing what I had to say on the
the Kingdom of the West Saxons I have now instanced in but in almost all the other Kingdoms of the Heptarchy in which there are to be found many more Instances of the Deposition of their Kings thaâ— what were in the West Saxon Kingdom this waâ— then very just and necessary since these Kingdoms were all Elective and none of them Hereditary and that the general Meeting of the great Council of the Nation was always at set and constant Times and did not depend upon the Will and Pleasure of the King either to call or dissolve them as I have already proved and that this Power was no unusual thing I appeal to all the Antient Kingdoms of Europe founded after the same Model as ours and which I mentioned at our last Meeting so that nothing is more frequent in their Histories and Annals than the Deposing of their Kings for the above-mentioned Crimes of Tyranny or Misgovernments But that some of these Gothick Kingdoms as Denmark and Sweden whilst they continued Elective have exercised this Power even till of late is so notorious in matter of fact that it needs no proof since the Kings of those Kingdoms held their Crowns at this day by that Title and on those Conditions which the Nobility and People gave them after the Deposition of their Predecessors But tho this were so anciently also in England it does not therefore follow that it must be so now for since the Crown of this Kingdom became Hereditary and that the Calling and Dissolving of great Councils or Parliaments came to depend wholly upon the King's Will I must allow that the Case is quite altered and that the Two Houses of Parliament have now no power to depose the King for any Tyranny or Misgovernment whatsoever The first Parliament of King Charles the Second in the Act for attainting the Regicides have actually disclaimed all Coercive Power over the King and yet for all that the Nobility and People of England may still have a good and sufficient Right left them of defending their Lives Religion and Liberties against the King or those commissioned by him in case of a general and universal Breach and Invasion of the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom or Original Contract if you will call it so and not to lay down those Defensive Arms till their said just Rights and Liberties are again restored and sufficiently secured to them So that tho' I will not bring the Custom of the English Saxons as a precedent for the Parliament's Deposing of the King yet I think I may make use of it thus far that this Nation has ever exercised this necessary Right of defending their Liberties and Properties when invaded by the King or his Ministers either by colour of Law or open Force And that this hath been the constant practice from almost the Time of the Conquest down to later Ages I think I can make out from sufficient Authorities both from Histories and Records M. Tho' your Doctrine is not so bad as I expected yet it is still bad enough and I never knew this Right of Resistance carried home but that it always ended in Deposing and Murdering of the King at the last as we have seen in our own Times But let the constant practice have been as it will I am sure such Resistance hath been always condemned by our Ancient Common Law as well as Modern Statutes as I shall prove farther to you by and by and therefore pray give me leave to tell you that the never so constant practice of an unlawful thing can no more justifie the doing of it than that constant usage time out of mind for Thieves to Rob between London and St. Albans not that I fore-judge you or refuse to hear any Instances and Authorities from Histories or Records to make good your Assertion F. I thank you for your patience what therefore if I prove that such Resistance has been not only actually exercised by the Clergy Nobility and People in former Ages but that it hath been also allowed by our Kings and approved of by great Councils or Parliaments in those Times for lawful and the Actors in it wholly indemnified and saved harmless nay a power given them and that by the King himself to resist him and defend themselves in case he broke his Charters and Agreements made to and with his Nobility and People or else with some Forein Prince may appear from this remarkable Instance of King Henry II at the end of whose Reign Hoveden in his Annals gives us the Conditions of the Peace made in the last Year of this King between him and Philip King of France with the Consent of their Bishops Earls and Barons where among other Articles you will find this for one particularly relating to the Barons of England who were also to swear to the Peace in these Terms Et omnes Barones Angliae jurabunt quod si Rex Angliae noluerit has Conditiones tenere quod ipsi tenebunt cum Rege Franciae Comite Richardo cos adjâ—vabunt pro posse contra Regeâ— Angliae c. Whence we may without doubt conclude that the Resistance of Subjects in some cases against their Kings was then allowed of even by the King himself and thought not inconsistent with the Allegiance they bore him tho' it might suspend it for a time M. I confess this Instance would be of some weight were it not for the Critical Time when this Peace was made viz. when Richard Earl of 〈◊〉 the King 's Eldest Son had Rebelled against his Father and taken part with the King of France and had drawn over a great many of the Norman and Pictavian and English Barons to his Party which when King Henry perceived this very Author you have quoted here tells you Quod Rex Angliae in arcto positus Pacem fecit cum Rege Philippo that is was constrained to make Peace with him so that King Henry being in this streight the King of France and Earl Richard with the Barons of his Party forced King Henry to sign what Conditions they pleased for there it no such Clause so much as mentioned for the French Barons But make the most of it it is but a Temporary Relaxation of Allegiance from King Henry to his Barons and the King might surely thus release them if he pleased But it is plain they could not have acted thus without this Condition had been expresly inferred F. Well supposing King Henry to have been never so much constrained to the making of these Conditions and that it was his own Act that rendred it lawful it still proves as much as I urge it for viz. that neither the Kings of France or England then thought this Resistance absolutely unlawful for then the King 's own Act could never have dispensed with it But to shew you farther that the People of this Nation have ever maintained this Right of Resistance even with the allowance of our Kings themselves and for the doing
there is no other means left but to resist it if they are able M. I can give you very good reasons to satisfie you why tho' I grant private Subjects may judge of the Legality or Illegality of the King's Commissions and also refuse to obey His Illegal Commands and also that all publick Officers ought to take care at their peril how they act by or execute such Illegal Commissions yet that it does not therefore follow that such illegal Commissions or Orders though executed upon the whole body of the People may be resisted by them for all limitation of the Royal Power being only voluntary and proceeding from the meer grace and favour of our Kings they are not compellable by force or resistable if they should impose their own Proclamations or Edicts upon us instead of Laws For tho' I grant that the King hath no Just or Legal Authority to act against Law and that if he knowingly put any Subject to death contrary to Law he is a Murderer and no Prince can have any such Prerogative as to commit open downright murders either in his own person or by those who act by Commission from him but what follows from hence That they may resist or oppose them if they do This I absolutely deny because God and the Law have Commanded us not to resist and I see no inconsistency between those two Propositions That a King hath no Authority to act against Law and yet that neither He nor those commissioned by Him though acting against Law may be resisted Both the Law of God and the Laws of our Countrey suppose these two to be very consistent For notwithstanding the possibility that Princes may thus abuse their Power and transgress the Laws whereby they ought to govern yet they also command Subjects in no case to resist and it is not sufficient to justifie Resistance if Princes do what they have no just Authority to do unless we have also a just Authority to resist he who exceeds the just bounds of this Authory is lyable to be called to an account for it but he is accountable only to those who have a Superior Authority to call him to an account No Power whatsoever is accountable to an Inferior for this is a contradiction to the very Notion of Power and destructive of all Order and Civil Government Inferior Magistrates are on all hands acknowledged to be lyable to give an account of the abuse of their Power but to whom must they give an account Not to their Inferiors not to the People whom they are to Govern but to Superior Magistrates or to the Soveraign Prince who Governs all Thus the Soveraign Prince may exceed his Authority and is accountable for it to a Superior Power But because he hath no Superior Power on Earth he cannot be resisted by his own Subjects but must be reserved to the Judgment of God who alone is the King of Kings F. In the first place I deny and I have sufficiently proved the contrary that all Limitation of Royal Power proceeded at first from the meer grace and favour of our Kings since the Crown of England has been from its first Institution Limitted by Laws and the People have likewise always enjoyed a property in their Lives Liberties and Estates by the same Laws Tho' I grant you and I are thus far agreed That the King hath no Just and and Legal Authority to act against Law and that if he put any man to Death or take away his Estate contrary to it it is Murder and Robbery And likewise that the Subjects may be capable of Judging concerning such illegal Commands but you will not allow that if such a Limitted Monarch should send his Mercenary Forces to take away our Estates or to Dragoon us till we will own our selves of his Religion that those Instruments of his Tyranny may be resisted or that I have brought any reason for it Whereas if you had but attended better to my discourse at our 3d and 4th Meetings you might have remembred that I plainly enough proved to you that God hath not given Princes nor those Commissioned by them any Authority to Murder or enslave their Subjects and your self then granted That every Man hath power to defend his Life against him who hath no Authority to take it away which holds more strongly in our Constitution where if the King give a Man a Commission to act contrary to the Law of the Land it is altogether void and the People may as well justifie their Resistance of those Officers or Souldiers who should come to Dragoon or persecute them for professing the Religion Established by Law as if he had sent them downright to cut their Throats and this being their Right by the Laws of God and Nature whether God hath taken away this Right by any express Precept in the holy Scripture I also examined at those Meetings but whether any Municipal Law of the Land hath restrained us from it I have also now considered and proved it contrary to the true intent and meaning of these Acts concerning the Militia And therefore to say that it is not sufficient to justifie Resistance if Princes do or command what they have no Legal Authority for unless we can also shew an Authority to resist is a mistake if by Authority you mean an express Civil Law for it because such Resistance in absolute Monarchies is justifiable by that which is Prior to all Civil Laws the Right of Self-defence or Preservation And so likewise in Limited Kingdoms there is the same necessity of Defensive Arms upon a general Breach or Violation of any Fundamental Constitution of the Government since it cannot be kept or maintained without such Resistance be allowed So that if the King hath no Authority to act contrary to Law he cannot sure delegate that to others which he had not in himself and consequently such Commissions to Persecute or Murder Men contrary to Law being in themselves void the persons that Execute them being no Officers may be justly resisted and the Resistance of such an Illegal Act doth not at all derogate from his Soveraignty as King since as I told you before that is limited only to the performance of Legal Acts and extends not to Illegal Orders or Commands and as for the rest of the Reasons you give against this Resistance viz. because he who exceeds the just bounds of his Authority is liable to be called to an account for it only by those who have a Superiour Authority to do it Whereas no Power whatsoever is accountable to an Inferiour You do but impose upon me and your self the same Fallacy which you have so often made use of in making being accountable all one with irresistible which are vastly different and therefore your Conclusion is as false that because the Soveraign Prince may exceed his Authority and is only accountable for it to God that therefore he cannot be resisted by his own Subjects for he may
should be perswaded by some very ill men about him to play this or the like trick whenever he had a mind to favour one party more than another and so should hinder the execution of the Law whenever he pleased can you think the Nation would long endure this without any resistance Or suppose to make the Case more general the King should undertake to lay a Tax upon the whole Nation without consent of Parliament and fearing it should not be Levyed should resolve to do it by his Officers and Soldiers of his Standing Army and lest they should be resisted should march with them in person from one County throughout to another to see the Money raised Do you think the whole Nation out of pure deference to the King's Person were bound to permit him to do whatever he pleased and let the Soldiers take this Tax which they were certainly not obliged to Pay had he not been personally there M. Yes I am of that opinion that they ought for it were better to Pay it then that a Civil War should happen about it in which the King's Person as well as the Government may be destroyed F. I see you are of this opinion because you fancy that the whole Government consists in the King's Person alone which it does not but in the Legislative Power which is not in the King alone but in the King together with the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament Therefore you are mistaken in supposing that this Resistance must needs alter the Frame of the Government since it is undertaken to maintain the fundamental Constitution of it for if the King may take what Money he pleases from the People and make what Laws he will without the Parliament and without supposing it lawful to resist him if he does the Fundamental Constitution of this Kingdom will be but a Jest considering how light some Princes make of their most Solemn Declarations to their People nay their very Coronation Oaths now adays And it is a strange Paradox that one man may defend his Life and Property against the King's single Person in case he go about to Rob or Murder him and yet that a whole Nation should not have the like Right and that a Prince may not Rob or Murder men by himself yet may do it without any resistance in case he can raise an Army to back him M. Let what will happen I am for understanding this Oath and Declaration in the strict literal sense which you by your false glosses go about to destroy therefore to tell you plainly my mind I think neither one single Person nor yet the whole Nation can justifie resistance of the King's Person no tho' he should go about to Rob or Murder me it were better I were killed or lost all I had than that the Sacred Blood of my Prince should be shed by my hands Since the whole Parliament have on behalf of the People actually renounced all defensive Arms against the King by which I suppose they mean all defensive Arms against his Person nor have you as yet answered my two last Objections concerning that Renunciation of the Two Houses and the want of a competent Authority to raise the Arms of the whole Nation in case of that which you call a General Invasion of Mens Religion Liberties and Properties if ever any such thing should happen as it is not likely it ever will F. Your Principles and Mine are so diametrically opposite that it 's no wonder we may draw quite contrary Conclusions for whereas you suppose that Nations were made for Princes to Govern and dispose of at their Pleasure without any resistance on the Peoples side let them do what they will I suppose that Princes are made for the common good of their People and where their Happiness and Preservation do not interfere ought inviolably to be preserved but when through the Folly Negligence or Tyranny of Princes that which was ordained for their Protection proves their Ruin and Destruction I think the Preservation of the Princes Person ought to give place to the Publick Good and better that he than the whole Nation should perish which though it was the opinion of Calaphas in relation to our Saviour yet it is so well approved of that it is said by the Evangelist St. Iohn that he spake not that of himself but being High Priest that year he Prophecyed For there may be a Common Civil Government without a King but there can be no King without a People Of this Opinion our English Ancestors always were who though they often resisted and sometimes deposed their Kings yet they still maintained Kingly Government though with the change of the person And if it fail'd in the last Civil War it was because it was at last managed by a faction of men of quite different Principles both in Religion and Politicks and not by the Nobility and Gentry of the Nation whose interest it was and ever will be to maintain the ancient Government of a limited Monarchy without falling into a Common-wealth or giving up their just Rights and Liberties to an Arbitrary Power But to answer the rest of your objections which if what I have already layd down be Law and reason too may be easily done As to the first Objection The two Houses might very well renounce the power of making any War offensive or defensive against the King and yet leave the right of resistance for self defence and preservation to the whole nation in general since the former was necessary unless they would have asserted a right in themselves of sitting whether the King would or not and waging a War against him whenever they pleased after he had actually dissolved them which would be to set up two equal absolute powers at once in the Kingdom But that they did not renounce it for the whole Kingdom is plain for though by the Statute of the 12th of Charles the II. they disclaim all coercive power over the Kings person for themselves and the People either collectively or representatively yet do they neither there nor in any of these Acts for the Militia renounce all defensive Arms for the defence of their Religion Liberties and Properties There being a great deal of difference between such a defence and a coercive power over the King as I have already sufficiently proved nor indeed was it in the power of the Parliament to have done it if they would since they are but Trustees for the People to preserve their just right and had no power so really to give up their Religion Lives Liberties and Properties to the Kings mercy So that this renunciation of all defensive Arms on the behalf of the whole People had been absolutely void in it self And since it would have rendered the legal constitution of the Government of this Kingdom wholy precarious if notwithstanding the illegality of the Kings Commissions and their being void if granted to illegal purposes the King's presence shall render it
them Life is the only state of Happiness in this World and without which nothing can be enjoyed It is therefore better for you to be made Slaves than to venture a Battel for in the Fight God knows how many of you may be destroyed whereas if you quietly submit we promise to hurt none of you we will only carry you away and sell you for Slaves and sure Slavery is better than Death for even Slaves enjoy a great many Comforts of life tho' with some hardships and you may be redeemed again or make your escape but life once lost can never be recovered The same Argument a Tyrant may use for the exercise of his Arbitrary Power over mens lives that he will not nay cannot destroy the whole Nation but only use them as Butchers 〈◊〉 their Sheep cull out the fattest and let the poor ones live thrive and grow fat till they are likewise ready for the Knife This perhaps may be a proper life for those Beasts that cannot live without Man's protection but what man of any courage or sense would be willing to live under a Government where his Poverty was to be his only Protection who would not venture his life in one brisk Battel rather than live in such a vile and slavish Condition and who would not rather argue thus It is great odds if among so many Thousands I am the person ordained for Death or if I am I may perhaps purchase Victory for my Countrymen and Liberty for my Posterity but let the worst happen I venture my life for the publick good and it is better once to die than always to live in fear But if the Calculation of the number of mens lives that may be lost in the recovery or maintaining any right whatever should be the only rule to render War either reasonable or lawful I doubt whether most of the Wars Princes make for small Territories or Punctilio's of Honour as lowering the Flag for example nay even for the recovery of their Crowns when unjustly detained or taken from them can upon your principle ever justifie either Princes in Conscience to make such Wars or oblige Subjects in prudence according to your Rule of the publick good to fight in such quarrels since none of them but often cost more Lives to defend or regain them if lost than the things are worth that the Princes of the World usually make War about against each other But if you tell me that men are bound by the Law of God and of their Country to assist their Prince in any Wars he shall Command them without inquiring into the Consequences of it and let what will happen as to the loss of mens Lives Estates or Liberties that we are likewise to obey and submit to lawful Princes because let them tyrannize enslave or destroy us never so much yet God has put us into their hands and we are safe in God's hands whilst we are in theirs This is all a meer fallacy for what is this to your main Argument from the destruction of Mankind for if so many men are to lose their lives in the War what difference is it as to them whether the War be made by a lawful or unlawful Power it is still upon this Principle unlawful to be made and consequently unlawful to be fought for and if you once grant that Princes may tyrannize without resistance kill or enslave any of their Subjects what difference is it as to the people that are to suffer it whether he be a lawful Prince or a Tyrant or Usurper that does it for as for being delivered by God into the hands of a lawful Prince to be dealt withal as he shall think good it is all meer Jargon pray prove to me if you can that whil'st a Prince thus tyrannizes oppresses and enslaves his people that God ever thus deliver'd the people into his hand for that design or that whil'st he does so he acts as God's Minister This I have urged you to prove at our 4th meeting but since you could not do it I take the case for desperate But to answer your Comparisons of the Sun and Sea to which you compare lawful Princes that turn Tyrants they are as easily retorted upon you if the rays of the Sun are too hot we may resist them and put on thicker Cloaths or set up shelters to defend our selves from them the like we may say of his malignant Influences or Effects upon mens Bodies could there be any means found out as easily to avoid them So likewise for the Sea suppose the breaking in of it upon any Country to be sent by God for their Sins you will not say it is unlawful for the people to make Banks or Dikes or use any other natural means to keep it out or to drain it away and the case is the same as to Tyranny for if resistance be as natural a means against it as these I have mentioned are against the too violent heat of the Sun or breaking in of the Sea I cannot see why we may not as lawfully exercise it But since we are â—alking of Waters this puts me in mind of the place you have now cited out of Proverbs That the heart of the King is in the hand of the Lord which without doubt is a great truth but then you should have added what immediately follows as the Rivers of Waters he turneth it whithersoever he will now how does God turn Rivers of waters it is not by any super-natural means but either by a strong VVind or else by the hands of Men. So likewise that Solomon's Comparison of God's turning the Hearts of Kings like Waters is but an allusion to the Custom of those Eastern Countries that as a Gardiner draws the streams of water through the trenches he cuts into what part of the Garden he thinks good so doth God turn the Hearts of Princes to act or do quite contrary to their first intentions nay to what they have actually done before but how is this performed it is only as he makes use of the Gardiner to turn the streams of Water it is wholy by Humane means such as Advice of good and wise Counsellors and a prudent Consideration upon it to which also may be added the Resistance of their Subjects when after all Remonstrances and Intreaties to the contrary Princes still go on outragiously to oppress them when they see they will no longer bear it and find themselves engaged in a troublesom War with them they then see their Errour and send to their Subjects and offer them terms of Peace Thus divers of our Kings hearts were turned when they saw the Nation would all as one Man resist their tyrannical Arbitrary Proceedings they came to Terms with them and granted them Magna Charta and other good Laws for the security of their just Rights and Liberties But as for what you say of our being safe in the hands of Tyrants as being in God's hands I grant we are
and Lord Lieutenants and if they had refused to answer positively to those questions proposed to them I know no other penalty they had been liable to more than being put out of Commission which sure is no punishment but rather an ease and tho' I do not defend those evil Ministers that put the King upon this Method of distrusting and disobliging his best Protestant Subjects I mean those of the Church of England by putting them out and putting in either Papists or Fanaticks in their steads yet all that own themselves of that Communion ought to have been of more loyal Principles than to have taken up Arms as some of them have done upon pretence of standing by the Prince of Oranges Declaration against these abuses F. I see though you cannot directly justifie the examining of the Lords Lieutenants and Deputy Lieutenants and Justices of the Peace about taking away the Penal Laws and Test and turning those out of Commission that refus'd yet you strive to mitigate it as far as you can by making it part of the Kings Prerogative to put in and out what Judges Justices and other Officers he pleases well granting this to be so yet sure you cannot deny but that the clositing of Judges and all other Officers you have now mention'd and putting those out of Commission that refus'd to comply with the Kings Will and that for no other reason was sure a strange abuse of that Prerogative and the excuse you make that the persons examin'd had a liberty to refuse whether they would give any positive answer or not is yet more trivial since it is very well known that as well those who gave doubtful answers or refused to make any answer at all were as much turned out as they who positively denied to comply with the Kings demands so that no answer was looked upon as satisfactory but such as seemed to give up all freedom of Elections and Votes in Parliament none being to be chosen by the Kings directions but such as would engage before hand to repeal the Test and Penal Laws and I think you will not deny but that the King by thus examining all these Magistrates and Officers you now mention and by turning those out that refused to comply did all he could to hinder the free Election of Members to serve in Parliament and the freedom of giving their Votes when they came thither and the King might as well another time have declar'd that he would have no Members chosen but such as would agree to take away the Statute de Tallagio non concidendo or any branch of Magna Chartâ— which he should think fit to have repeal'd and as this strikes at the very fundamental constitution of the Government viz the free Election of Parliament men so it was inserted among the Articles against Richard the II. that he had caus'd the Sheriffs to return whom he pleas'd for Knights of Shires as I have already shewed you But what say you to the Kings late calling in almost all the Charters of Cities Towns and Corporations in England and putting in Popish or Fanatick Officers and Magistrates into the rooms of those that were turn'd out only to influence Elections and to procure what persons he desired to be return'd for Parliament men is not this a grand breach of the fundamental constitution of the Kingdom thus to take away the legal Rights and Priviledges of these Corporations for no other cause than to procure the King such Parliament men as he had a mind to M. I beg your pardon I forgot to mention this sooner and though I will not take upon me absolutely to defend the Legality of it much less the design for which it was done since I grant that it was in order to destroy or at least to humble the Church of England yet since iâ— was done by colour of Law and Judgment of the Court of Kings Bench and no more than what has been formerly done in the Reign of King Charles I cannot see how the Noblemen and Gentlemen lately in Arms could defend their rising upon that ground unless they would also at the same time justifie the lawfulness of the Plot and Rebellion intended in the same Reign and in which so many of the Whig Nobility and Gentry were deeply engaged F. To answer what you have said in vindication of this great violation of one of the fundamental Rights and Liberties of the Kingdom I must in the first place tell you that as I shall not now examine into the matter of Law whether a Corporation can forfeit it's Charter for misdemeanours or not much less shall I concern my self whether it were done by or without colour of Law or the Judgment of the Court of Kings Bench since it is notoriously known that none of the Judges were permitted to sit there nor any new ones put in but such as would blindly agree to all the Court would have done and therefore I value nor any thing they did nor think it one â—ot the more legal for their Judgments nor is it any excuse that the same thing was done in King Charles Reign and therefore might as well be done now without any rising against it for though I must tell you I look upon the taking away of the Charters from the City of London and the other Cities and Corporations of the Kingdom one of the most arbitrary and illegal acts of that Kings Reign yet there were several reasons which made it unlawful for the Nation to rise then yet it might not be so now as in the first place because most of those Charters were either willingly surrender'd by the members of those Corporations or else were declared forfeited by due trial and Judgment of Law whereas it was much otherwise in this Kings Time when notwithstanding that all the Cities and Towns Corporate in England had but a few years before taken out new Charters to their great trouble and expence they were now summon'd anew to surrender these again for no other reason but because it was the Kings pleasure it should be so for who can imagine that all the Corporations of England could have forfeited their Charters in so short a time as three or four years and they were plainly told that the King must and would have them and that it was to no purpose to stand out and therefore it was no wonder if all the Cities and Corporations of England were forced to submit patiently to this violation since they found by experience the Judges were ready to give Judgment against them right or wrong And besides this I have already laid it down as a Maxime that no resistance whatever is to be made till matters become desperate and all other means are become absolutely ineffectual which I think they were not as long as King Charles lived who besides the inconstancy of his humour which seldome persisted long either in well or evil doing especially if the ill consequences of it were well laid
then time enough and not till then for the Nation to have call'd in the Prince of Orange and His Dutc-hmen to their Deliverance so that till this Parliament had been try'd you could not say that matters were altogether desperate F. I see you do all you can to prove that the Kings Raising an Army wherein he had Listed so many Popish Officers and Souldiers and which were like to be daily increas'd upon us was no making War upon the Nation because they had not yet actually robb'd or murder'd People and you may with as much reason tell me that a Thief upon the High-way do's not use any Violence upon the party he robbs if he should only clap a cok'd Pistol to his breast without asking him to deliver his Money Now I suppose you will not deny but that the Passinger would quickly understand the meaning of that sign and wo'd soon deliver his Purse for fear of loosing his life apply this to the Chimney Money that has been rais'd upon the poor part of the Nation and the taking away the Charters from the Corporations merely through the Terrour of this standing Army and see if the Similitude do's not exactly fit and for what you say concerning the presuming upon the Doctrine of Passive Obedience and so might have done the same Arbitrary things whether he had raised an Army or not tho' I am very glad you confess that those Doctrines encouraged the Kings Arbitrary proceedings yet I must Beg your Pardon if I cannot beleive the rest whatever thoughts the King might have of the Major part of the Clergy Nobility and Gentry Yet certainly he had no such good Opinion of the Ordinary People who compos'd the Militia and indeed are the Hands of the Kingdom since you confess the King did not look upon them as sufficiently Loyal and therefore was forc'd to maintain a Standing Army for fear of them So that it seems the Nation was not yet thorough pac'd in your Doctrines of Passive Obedience and Non-resistance as you would have had them but that even this Standing Army when it was to Fight against the Religion and Liberties of their own Country it was not to be trusted the King himself was convinc'd of when he so lately ran away from them at Salisbury and because some of them deserted him he feared the rest wo'd not Fight in so unjust a Quarrell But as for the rest of Tour Speech that the People sho'd have â—arried till matters had become altogether desperate and that a Parliament had actually given us our Religion Civil Liberties and Properties to the Kings Arbitrary will that had been indeed intalling Slavery upon us by a Law and would have made good the Proverb of shuâ—â—ing the Stable Door after the Horse is Stolen and puts me in mind of a Story I have heard of a Gentleman whose House being beset by Thieves who were actually breaking in at a Window and that he was about to shoot at them his over scrupulous Chaplain who I suppose had nicely study'd your Doctrine of Nonresistance desired his Patron to forbear because the Thieves had not as yet sufficiently declar'd their wicked intentions by assaulting or robbing any Body in the House But I suppose the Gentleman was not such a Fool as to take his Chaplains advice and a great part of the Nation was too sensible of the dangers they saw hang over their Heads than to follow your Opinion M. I see you are very free in your Comparisons in making the Kings Late Army little better then Thieves and then what Opinion you have of the King himself who headed 'em I leave it to your self to consider but since Similitudes are no Arguments I shall not trouble my self to argue this point any longer with you since I see it is to little purpose but yet let your right of Resistance be what it will in desperate cases yet I am sure that diverse Lords and Gentlemen of your Opinion can no way justify their renouncing all Allegiance to his Majesty by adhering to a Foreign Prince and by their Late advising the same Prince to call a Free Parliament without taking any notice of the King or making any more Addresses to him about it than if he had never been their Anointed Soveraign and indeed it was a burning shame as well as a crying Sin for the Nobility Gentry and People in and about this great and populous City to let their King be hurryed away Prisoner by a handful of Dutch-men though his Majesty hath had since the good Fortune to escape out of their hands when he saw there was no other means to fail him F. In answer to what you have now said I must freely tell you that if the resistance that hath been made against the Army Commission'd by the King was Lawfull so has all that has been done in pursuance of that resistance been alike Lawfull and necessary and therefore what if I tell you that the King by breaking the Fundamental Constitution of the Kingdom and by twice going away without ever offering to repair those breaches and give the Nation any sufficient satisfaction for the same has not only put himself in a state of War against the People but has also thereby ceas'd to be King or if you will have it more plainly has lost and forfeited his right to the Crown M. This is rare Commonwealth Doctrine and of the same batch with that of Bradshaws and Cooks Speeches against King Charles the First but I thank God I have learn'd Loyaler Principles and do firmly believe that a King of England cannot for any Tyrrany or breach of Laws whatsoever forfeit his Crown or Royal Dignity as you suppose But since this is a new Doctrine I shall not be unwilling to hear what you have to say upon this Subject another time since it is now too late to pursue this Argument any further F. Before I make any reply to what you have now said I desire not to be misunderstood as if I call all the Kings Late Army Thieves or himself the Captain of them since in Similes it is sufficient if they agree in some common propertie without being the same things to which they are compar'd tho this much I may safely say that those that take Free Quarter without consent of the owners in time of Peace and those who support 'em in it are no better than Thieves but since you desire to hear my reasons for this opinion I have now given you I desire that we may have another meeting to debate this weighty question and then I will likewise hear whatever you have to say against it but I must tell you by the way that you are very much out in making my opinion of the same batch with that of the Regicides for it appears plainly by the Printed Tryal of the King that they acknowledged him for King of England at the same time when they read his Indictment to him whereas I affirm the contrary and
M. OH Are you come at last I have looked for you these two Nights and now began to fear you were not well or else had distrusted your cause and declined another Conference F. I beg your Pardon for disappointing you which yet I had not done had noâ— some Business hindred me but however to let you see I do not decline another Conference with you upon this Subject pray let us go on where we left off and tell me freely your sense of my Notion of the Kings forfeiture or Abdication of the Government by his violation of the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom and refusal to repair those Breaches when he might have done it M. In answer to your demand I will deal freely with you and must tell you that I have perused all Writers that have Writ any thing considerable concerning the Laws of Government or of Nations and cannot find in any of them any thing to countenance your Notion of forfeiture or Abdication of an absolute Sovereign Prince aâ— I must still take ours to be notwithstanding all you yet said to the contrary unless what you have cited at our third meeting out of Barclays third Book contra Monarches where he allows the Subjects to resist their Prince in case he go about to destroy the Body of the People or Common wealth whereof he is the Head To which I may also add another Case which you have omitted viz. if the Prince make over his Kingdom to another without the Consent of his People And I confess that both Grotius and Pufendorf agree with Barclay in this Notion Because they look upon both these Cases as their plain downright Renunciations of their Civil Authority over those whom they were obliged to Govern But indeed the first of these Cases is so improbable nay almost impossible to happen that were it not for the over-great niceness of these Writers it need not to have been so much as mentioned since none but a Mad-man can ever go about to destroy his whole People and therefore as a Man out of his Wits such a Prince may be Resisted and lockt up if ever it should so fall out as you your self have confessed it hath very rarely for a Nation to be so unhappy as to have such a Prince but as for the Second viz. the making over their Supream Power to a Foreign Prince that likewise so very rarely happens That it is scarce worth the while to make any dispute about it But in all other Cases they held the Supream Power of every Nation to be absolutely Irresistible in any case whatsoever and if irresistible then certainly uncapable of forfeiting their Right to govern by any pretended or real Violation of the Liberties and Priviledges of the People And Bodin in his first Book de Republica tho' he grant that absolute Princes are obliged in Conscience to keep and maintain all such Priviledges which have been granted to the People by either themselves or Predecessors which are for the good of the Common-wealth yet since the Prince is sole Judge whether these Priviledges are consistent with his Supream Right to Govern and Protect his People he may therefore have occasion sometimes not only to Detract from them or dispense with them in some Cases but may wholy break and lay them aside by turning Tyrant Yet nevertheless in all these Cases People are still bound not to resist them And that he looked upon the King of England as such an Absolute Monarch as well as others he there mentions pray read me the place I now Cited where after he has allowed Resistance to be lawful against those Princes who were not properly Monarchs as enjoying but a share of the Supream Power and among which he reckons the German Emperor and the Kings of Denmark Sweden and Poland But then when he comes to speak of Real and Absolute Monarchies his Sense is quite different as you may see by these words Quod si Monarchia quaedam est summâ unius potestate constituta qualis est Francorum Hispanorum Anglorum Scotorum c. I shall slip all the rest because not to our purpose ubi Reges sine controversia jura omnia Majestatis habent per se nec singulis civibus nec universis fas est summi Principis vitam famam Fortunas in discrimen vocare seu vi feu Iudice constituto id fiat etiamsi omnium scelerum ac Flagitiorum quae in Tyrannis convenire antea diximus turpitudine infamis esset where you may observe that Force or Resistance by which such an absolute Princes Life or Regal Power here called Fortunas are as much forbid as calling him in question by appointing Judges to sit upon him And he there gives us a very good reason for it because all Subjects of what degree soever cannot pretend to any Coercive Power over the Person of a Sovereign Prince F. We have discoursed enough concerning the Resistance of Absolute Monarchs at our third and fourth meeting and therefore I desire we may not fall into that Subject which can produce nothing but needless Repetitions and I have already proved at our 5th Conversation that the King is not an Absolute Despotick Monarch but is limited and tied up by the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom from making of Laws or raising Taxes without the consent of his People in Parliament and that our Government is mixed and made up of Monarchy with an allay of Aristocracy and Democracy in the constitution the former in the House of Lords the latter in the House of Commons as K. Charles the First himself confesses in his Answer to the Parliaments 19 Propositions and I have farther inforced this from divers Authorities out of our Anâ—ient as well as Modern Lawyers viz. Glanvill Bracton Fortescue and Sir Edward Coke So that since we have such clear proof for our Constitution from our own Histories and Authors nay from the King himself besides the whole purporâ— and style of the very Laws and Statutes of the Kingdom I do not value the Authority of Bodin a Foreigner whose business it is to set up the Authority of the French King to the highest pitch he could and therefore being sensible that antiently the Government of France and England were much the same he could not with any face make his own an Absolute Despotick Monarchy unless he had made ours so too But this is not the only Errour he has been guilty of in our History and Constitution as I can shew you when there is occasion But Arnisaeus who as well as Bodin is so much for Absolute Monarchs yet does in his Treatise of Government called his confess that a Tyrant in an Hereditary Monarchy who violates all the Laws of Justice and Equity to the endangering the Ruine of the Common-wealth doth ixcidere Iure haereditario fall from or forfeit his Hereditary Right But pray make it out by some convincing proofs either from History or Law that our Kings are
such Absolute Monarchs as you would make them that by the fundamental Constitution of the Government they cannot be resisted nor can fall from their Regal Power let them carry themselves never so Tyrannically for I do not see you have been yet able to do it by any Arguments you have hitherto made use of M. I have already at our 5th as well as at our last Meeting given you divers Arguments and Authorities whereby I proved the Kings of this Realm to be compleat and absolute Monarchs especially that place from Bracton where he thus speaks of the King that every one is under him and that himself is under none but God that he has no Peer in his Kingdom because so he would lose his Power since an Equal has no command over an Equal much more has he any Superiour because then he would be inferiour to his Subjects and Inferiours cannot be equal with their Superiours which sufficiently destroys that Notion of yours that Subjects can be in any case equal with their Princes so as to judge and resist their actions which is also farther inforced by another passage just aforegoing de Chartis vero Regiis factis Regum non debent nec possunt Iusticiarii nec privatae personae disputare nec etiam si in illis dubitatio ulla oriatur possunt eam interpretari in dubiis obscuris vel si aliqua dictio duos continâ—at intellectus Domini Regis erit expectanda Interpretatio voluptas cum ejus sit interpretari cujus est concedere from which we may conclude that the King's actions were above all censure and dispute much more forcible opposition of his Subjects And I defie you to shew me any passage in Bracton Fleta or even your beloved Author Fortescue that in the least countenances your Doctrine of Resistance much less your Opinion of the King's forfeiture of his Crown and Royal Dignity for Tyranny or the highest Violation of Laws but rather the contrary in all those passages that I have either observed my self or found quoted out of them by others For tho' I grant both Bracton and Fleta call the King if he prove a Tyrant or one that governs contrary to Law not God's but the Devil's Minister yet for all that they no where maintain that then he ought or may be resisted by his Subjects or that they are discharged of their Allegiance towards him For Bracton tells us in the same place that if the King do any man wrong or injury Locus erit supplicationi quod factum suum corrigat emendet quod quidem si non fecerit satis sufficit ei ad paenam quod Dominum expeâ—tet ultorem nemo quidem de factis suis praesumeâ— disputare multo fortius contra factum suum venire The same he says likewise word for word in another place of any other King or Prince who has no superiour Lord against whom there is no Remedy by Assize or Legal Trial as against an Equal but only place left the injured Subject for Petition And Bracton gives us a very good Reason for it in this maxime omnis qúidem sub eo ipse sub nullo nisi tantum sub Deo So that tho' I grant this Moral Obligation which the King hath to observe the Laws is farther increased by his Coronation-Oath as Bracton observes in his third Book de Actionibus But then as in the Oath of Allegiance the People swear nothing to the King but what they are bound to observe unsworn so the King in his Coronation-Oath promises nothing to the People but what in Justice and Equity he is bound to perform whether he swear or not for ad hoc saith the same Author of the King electus creatus est ut Iudicium faciat universis c. and separare debet Rex cum sit Dei vicarius Ius ab Injuria c. But then if he will pervert this great end for which God made him King if he will not act as it becomes God's Vicar if he will obstruct or pervert the Laws and govern never so Tyrannically yet still there is left no Remedy to his Subjects by the Law but Moral Perswasion for the Laws Imperial of this Realm have declared him to be a free unconditioned and independent Sovereign exempted from all coaction and outward force much more from any forfeiture of this Crown or Regal Authority F. I hope I shall be able to return you a satisfactory Answer to the Authorities you have now brought for as for Reasons I see none in the first place as to what you say concerning Barclays and all other Writers agreeing that in these two Cases you mention the People may resist their Prince because he does as good as renounce the Government of them and abdicate the Crown he wore Pray observe that they also allow the People to judge for themselves when the King thus goes about to destroy them to make over his Crown to a Foreign Prince Now I desire you to shew me why the People in a limitted or mixt Kingdom as ours is cannot as well judge when the King has broke the Fundamental Laws of the Government whereby it is distinguished from an Absolute Despotick Monarchy and hath either actually set up or is going about to bring in Tyranny or Arbitrary Power since according to the Rules I have laid down at our last Meeting the matters to be judged of may be as plain and evident not only to a single person but to a whole Nation All that you have to say against this is only an Hypothesis you have laid down without any just grounds that the King is a Sovereign Prince who holds his Crown without any Condition whatever and therefore free from all forfeiture of his Crown or Regal Authority which is the Point to be prov'd Now if I have already made out as I suppose I have that the King of England is not an Absolute Monarch as not having the two main parts of it viz. the power of raising Money and making Laws in his own disposal without the consent of his People and these so reserved by his own Concessions or that of his Predecessors from the very beginning of Kingly Government in this Island and if I have also proved at our last Meeting that if we have such Fundamental Rights we have also some means left us to keep and preserve them inviolable and that this means is only a forcible defensive Resistance in case they are forcibly invaded by any of the King's Officers or Souldiers nay by his own Personal Power in case he shall be so ill advised as to joyn himself with such Instruments of Tyranny it will then also follow that such a Resistance is really a suspension of their Allegiance to the King for the time it lasts and till they can see whether there be any hopes lest of a Reconciliation with Him and that he will amend his Errours and Misgovernment and if so and
have made use of to wit Rex habet Superiorem Legem Curiam suam viz. Comites Barones c. who ought if he transgress the Law to put a Bridle upon him yet by this as I have already proved neither Bracton nor Fleta could mean any co-active â—orce but only a Moral restraint upon the King by Petitions Remonstrances or denial of aids till he would be Reform'd by fair means but that it does not go farther appears by the parrallel Bracton there makes between our Saviour Christ and the Virgin Mary who being both free from the Law of Moses yet voluntarily chose to be obedient to it which sufficiently proves that those Authors never designed that the Parliament should oblige the King by force or whether He would or no to amend his faults since that was as you your self must acknowledge against their very institution since both their meeâ—ing and their dissolution wholly depend upon the Kings Will. F. I confess you have made a long and elaborate speech in answer to my notion that a King may forfeit his Crown that is by his own act cease to be King but I shall be able to give you a satisfactory answer to all this if you please to take it In the first place therefore I cannot but observe that all your Discourse depends upon two Principles alike false first that no absolute Monarch can by his own act forfeit or lose his right to the Government without a formal resignation of the Crown or secondly that the Kings of England have ever been such absolute Monarchs which if they are both great mistakes all that you have said on this head falls of it self Now that a King tho' an absolute Monarch may do such an act as shall make a forfeiture of his Crown without any solemn resignation of it you your self are forced to allow in the two cases you have put viz. that of such a Monarchs becoming an Enemy to his People and going about to destroy them and that of his making over his Kingdom to another without the Peoples consent now if the diffusive body of the People in an absolute Government can judge of these two cases whenever they happen without appealing to any General Council or Assembly of the whole Nation I desire to know why it may not be as easie and lawful for the People to judge without a Parliament when the fundamental Laws of the constitution are generally and wilfully broken and violated and that violation persisted in by the King for the introduction of Tyranny and an Arbitrary Government since the Rules I have laid down to know it are but a few and easie to be known and judged of by the most common capacities Now that a Superiour or Governour may lose all that power and authority he once had and that without any act of the party governed may appear by those great and natural relations of a Husband and a Master in the former of which if a Husband in the state of nature use his Wife so cruelly that she can no longer live or co-habit with him without danger of her Life I doubt not but she may quit him and may also when she is out of his Power Marry her self again to another Man that will use her better so in the other relation of a Master if such a one in the state of Nature have a Slave and will not allow him sufficient Cloaths Victuals or will beat him or use him so cruelly for no just cause that he cannot enjoy the ordinary comforts of Life no man will deny but that such a slave may lawfully run away from such a Master and â—s at liberty either to live of himself or to chuse another Master if he think good and this instance is much more strong in an hired Servant who is to serve his Master for such and such Wages or to do such and such Work and no other if in this case the Master refuse to pay him his Wages or put him to do other work than what was agreed upon between them or instead of an hired Servant will make him his absolute Slave in these cases no man can doubt but by this unjust treatment of the Master the Servant is discharged of his Service and may go whether he pleases and of these actions I have already proved at our first meeting the party injured be they Wife or Servant must be the only Judges in the state of Nature where there is no Civil Power over them or else if the Husband or Master shall Judge for himself the Wife or Servant is never like to get any Redress apply this to the case of a limited or conditional King and his Subjects and see if it be not absolutely the same upon the total breach of the Original constitution of the Government and whether the Bond of Allegiance is not then as absolutely dissolved by the sole act of the Prince without any authoritative power in the Subjects as it is in the case of such a Wife or Servant by the sole Act of the Husband or Master without any Superior Authority in such Wife or Servant to quit them and so to discharge themselves of their Wedlock or Service Therefore as to your accusation that my notion is worse than that of the Rump Parliament that put the King to death I deny it for they supposed that there was no way of being rid of a Tyrannical King but by making the People and consequently the Parliament as their Representatives his Superiours or Judges to call him to an account and Judge and Punish him for his Tyranny this I abhor as much as your self for I grant that a King cannot be properly the Supream and at the same time own another Power above him to Punish or call him to an Account for his Miscarriages but this Power that I insist on is not as I have all along told you a power of punishment but a right of resistance for self-defence in the first place and of Judging and Declaring the King to have forfeited his Crown or Right to Govern if he persist in his Tyranny without any amendment or satisfaction given to the People Nor is this Doctrine of the Peoples thus Judging for themselves so dangerous as that of the Rumpers as you suppose who put this right of Judging when the King had thus forfeited his Power in the Parliament of which they thought themselves the only lawful or necessary Members but indeed it was not so for they still supposed him to be their lawful King and yet at the same pretended to Arraign him as you may see by the Title of the Charge or Indictment they drew up against him all which I grant to be altogether unjust and illegal but it is not more but rather less dangerous to put this power of Judging when the King has thus dissolved the Government and forfeited his Crown upon such notorious and wilful breaches of the Fundamental Laws in the whole or diffusive body
of this necessity as certainly he is in the intervals of Parliament it can never be supposed that the first Prince or his Successors that first parted with these Priviledges to the People ever intended to be so straitly tied to them as that in no case whatever tho' never so pressing they should not depart from them much less that he should forfeit his Crown if he should wholly break them nay should persist so to do and resolve to turn this limited into an absolute despotick Monarchy since the observation of these Laws being but concessions of his own or his Predecessors can never be looked upon as conditions of his holding the Crown nor of the Subjects Allegiance to it there being as you your self confess no such clause exprest in either part neither in the Kings Coronation Oath nor yet in their Allegiance to him as you your self cannot but acknowledge and tho' it is true the King swears at his Coronation to keep and maintain the Laws yet Grotius tells us Lib. 1. cap. 3. that an Empire does not cease to be Absolute altho' he who is to rule promise some things to God or to his Subjects even such which may appertain to the manner of the Empire and that not only concerning the observation of the natural or divine Law but of certain Rules to which without a promise he were not obliged So that in all Promises of this kind the manner of the obligation is not reciprocal or of the same sort on both sides as for example it is only moral in respect of the King and it is lefâ— wholly to God to judge between the King and his Subjects and to punish him when he breaks his part but to the King as God's Lieutenant on Earth it belongs not only to judge of his Subjects breach of their Oath and Contract but also to punish them for so doing and compel them to the performance of it and of this Judgment are all the Modern Civilians as for Bodin I have given you his opinion in the chapter I last cited concerning this matter and he as well as Grotius is clearly of opinion that Absolute Monarchs such as he reckons the King of England to be are not to be called in question or destroyed let their breach of Laws and Tyranny be never so notorious much less can they forfeit their Royal Dignity for such male-administration and tho' Grotius is of opinion that in cases of great and evident danger of Life Subjects may have a right of resistance against absolute Princes and those commissioned by them what is this to the case in hand viz. a resistance against an Absolute Monarch for violation of those Priviledges and Liberties that were granted by himself or his Ancestors and without which Subjects may very well live and subsist as we see they do under the most Absolute Despotick Monarchies where they enjoy no such thing tho' perhaps they do not live so well and freely as we do nay Pufendorf the Author you so much make use of in his seventh Book will not allow Subjects to take up Arms or resist Absolute Princes nor for too great cruelty in punishment nor for imposing too immoderate Taxes since the presumption of Justice and necessity for the doing of these things is always on the Princes side nay if his Promises are not kept or priviledges formerly granted are taken away if the Prince be Absolute and will pretend any fault necessity or remarkable benefit thereby to the common-wealth he shall be deemed to have acted by a right of which the faculty of judging is wholly wanting to the Subjects since all Priviledges have this exception unless the welfare or necessity of the Common weal forbid them to be observed F. Since your last Discourse consists of two parts matter of Fact and matter of right deducible from that fact I shall speak to each of them in order first as to the matter of Fact it is a great mistake in you and Dr. Brady to maintain that K. William I. was really a Conqueror and by his Sword without any other Title obtain'd such an entire Victory over K. Harold and the whole English Nation as gave him an Hereditary Right for himself and his Heirs to the Absolute Allegiance of the whole English Nation without any reserve or conditions whatever so that all our Ancient Liberties and Priviledges being thereby lost and forfeited this Nation can claim nothing of that kind but from the grants and concessions of that King or his Successors every one of which Propositions contain so many notorious mistakes in matter of Fact for in the first place King William never claim'd the Crown by Conquest but by the adoption and Testament of King Edward the Confessor and I desie you to shew me any Ancient Law or Charter either of his own or any of his immediate descendants wherein he is stiled Conqueror 't is true in his Charter to the Abby of Westminster he says in one that by the Edge of the Sword he obtain'd the Kingdom by the Conquest of Harold and his accomplices yet does not found his Right in that Victory alone but on the donation of King Edward his Cozen the words are remarkable in ore gladii adeptus sum Regnum Anglorum devicto Haraldo Rege cum suis complicibus qui mihi Regnum divinâ providentiâ destinatum beneficio concessionis Domini Cognati mei gloriosi Regis Edwardi concessum conati sunt auferre And this donation he calls an Hereditary Right in divers other Charters as particularly in one also recorded by inspeximinus beginning thus In nomine Patris Filii spiritus sancti Amâ—n Ego Willielâ—us Rex Anglorum haereditatio Iure factus So likewise his Son K. Henry I. in his Charter to the Abbot of Ely creating him a Bishop calls himself the Son of William the Great not the Conqueror Qui Edwardo Regi Haereditario jure successit in Regnum And in vertue of this Donation he was after his Victory against Harold by publick and full consent of the whole Nation or People of England as also of the Normans he brought with him Elected and Crowned King and at his Coronation took the same Oath at the High-Altar at Westminster which his Predecessors the Saxon Kings had taken before him with this one Clause farther which was very necessary to be done at that time viz. quod aquo Iure Anglos Francos tractaâ—t so that let his Title by Conquest have been what it would it was either by a just right of War to recover his due or by none at all if the former he could only succeed to such Rights as K. Edward the Confessor before exercised and enjoyed since he came hither only to take the Crown that was so bequeathed to him and to hold it under that Title but if he had no Title at all but his Sword he then could obtain no just right to the Crown of England either for himself or
his Successors but if they will only insist upon their Title by the Sword without any preceeding or subsequent right they may be as lawfully turned out again by the Sword since it is own'd by all Writers on this Subject that a Conqueror in an unjust War can obtain no right over a free People So much for the matter of Fact I come in the next place to point of Right in Law I grant indeed that a simple Oath or Pact between an Absolute Monarch and his Subjects to do or perform such or such a thing or to let them enjoy such and such Priviledges does not immediately give the People a Power to compel such a Monarch and his Successors by Force of Arms to the strict observance of them in case of a violation on his part but our case is very different from this for here a Foreign Prince recovers a former Right to the Kingdom and that by Force and is invested with the Crown in Vertue of that Right by which he claimed it and is also sworn to maintain the Ancient Government and Laws according to which the whole Legislative Power was not in the King alone but jointly in the King and the great Council of the Nation without whose grant or consent he ought not to have laid any Taxe upon the Nation as I shall prove if there be occasion Now all our Ancient Rights being granted and acknowledged by him and a constant common Council of the Kingdom appointed to meet to see them observed as it did many times in this King's Reign as also in those of his Successors they were not bare Priviledges conferred of favour and which might be observed or broken at the Will of the Prince that granted them but a Form or Rule of Government by Laws to be made and agreed upon in a standing Council appointed not only to make them but also to see them observed as appears by that passage so often cited wherein the King is expresly said to have a Superiour viz. the Law and the Court of Barons who were to put a Bridle upon the King in case of his governing without Law and this farther appears by the great Charters of Henry I. K. Stephen and K. Iohn c. In the first of which it is declar'd that the Nation having been oppressed by unjust i. e. illegal exactions he therefore forbids all Common Money or Taxes not taken through all Cities or Counties in the time of K. Edward and also confirms the Laws of his Father whereby his Barons and Tenants in Capite should be free from all Taillage or Taxes and he also thereby restored to them the Laws of K. Edward with those emendations which his Father had made by the Common Council of his Barons Now the great Charter of K. Iohn was but an Addition or rather Explanation of this Charter of K. Henry I. which was at first demanded by the Barons to be again confirmed by this King at the instigation of Stephen Langton Archbishop of Canterbury as Mat. Paris shews us at large Now since neither K. William the I. nor his Successors ever changed the fundamental constitution of the Government as to the Legislative part of it as hath been already proved and that those breaches that had been made upon it by taking Taillage or Taxes without the consent of the great Council are all hereby expresly forbid these are certainly more than such meer Priviledges which the King himself is the only keeper of and can dispense with at his Pleasure but are indeed such Fundamentals as concern the very cosâ—iâ—uent form or Rule of Government which as I have also proved was mixt not limited in that very institution and tho' the learned Pufendoâ—f agreeâ— with you in the case of compacts between an Absolute Monarch and his Subjects yet as to the point in hand he is wholly of my mind as you may see by this passage in his Academick Dissertations in his Discourse de Interreguis where arguing against Mr. Hobs who will not allow of any compacts between an Absolute Prince and his Subjects he has this passage which I shall here read to you in English That tho' in Pacts in which submission is wanting certain and defined performances may be set forth to be observed on either side from an intrinsick impulse of Conscience when either of these refuse to perform them nothing but War or the compulsion of a Superior Lord common to both of them remains yet in pacts by which one Party is made subject to the other it belongs to the latter to define what ought to be performed by him as also a power over the other compelling him to the performance whether he will or not which power does not belong reciprocally to the other party against the former hence the party commanding cannot be questioned for a breach of compact unless he either wilfully abdicaâ—e all care of the common wealth or put on an hostile mind towards his Subjects or manifestly or deceitfully in latin dolo malo depart from the rule of governing on whose observance as upon a condition the subjects Allegiance depends which is easily to be avoided by any Ruler if he will consider that not the highest of Mortals are free from the Laws of humane chance so that let the power of your Conqueror have bene never so great or Absolute it is plain he not only renounced it himself but several of his Successors have done the same for themselves and their heirs therefore make the most of it they must still claim by â—ertuâ— of the contract to maintain the constitution as they found it or else resolve all their right into meer force and then vim vi pellere licitum est M. It is no wonder that you and I differ in our conclusions since we also differ so much in the premises and in the very matter of fact concerning King William the Conquerors coming to the Crown you saying he came to it partly by the Sword but founded on a donation of Edward the Confessor and partly by the consent and election of the People of England yet you your self cannot deny but force or conquest had a great share in the business and indeed was all the right he had for as for that donation of K. Edward it is either forged or else K. William could claim nothing by it since England was then either an Hereditary Kingdom or elective and take it which way you will this donation of the Confessors cou'd signifie nothing either to the prejudice of the People that were to Elect or the next Heirs who were to succeed after K. Edward's decease neither could he claim as Heir to him by blood for the relation between him and K. Edward was by his Mother Emma Sister to Richard the second Duke of Normandy this William's Uncle so that the Conqueror was no way descended from the Blood Royal of England Therefore his true quarrel with Harold Let his pretence be what it will was
this War had been made in their own names it had been but a just Return for what had been done to them before by the Late King who made actual War upon them without ever giving them the least notice or demanding satisfaction for any wrongs or damages receiv'd and this was the more justifiable because his present Majesty when Duke of York was looked upon to have a very great hand in those Councils which begun that unhappy War in which he himself serv'd as Admiral But as to the Prince of Orange there is much more to be said in his justification for in the first place tho' in some respects he was a Subject by living under and enjoying divers Lands and Territories and Commands within the Dominions of the United Provinces yet as he is Prince of Orange he is a free independent Prince and as such has a right of making War and Peace and if so all that is to be further enquired into is whether the Prince had any just cause of making War upon the King or â—ot therefore to answer your first Objection against the Prince's making War upon an Uncle and a Father-in-law without first demanding satisfaction and then denouncing War if he could not obtain it I confess this were a good Objection if you could once prove to me that the Prince could have been sure to have had granted him whatever he could in reason demand both in respect of the Church of England the security of the Protestant Religion the Rights and Liberties of the Subjects of England and his own particular concerns in respect of the Prince of Wales but whoever will impartially consider the Terms that the Prince and King were upon just before his coming over will find that he was not obliged to give the King notice of his intentions by first demanding satisfaction and then denouncing War if it had been denyed since the King might then have joyned his own with the French Fleet and sent for French Forces into England and then all that the Prince could have done in behalf of himself and the Nation had been altogether in vain And then though I grant that such satisfaction ought to be demanded in most cases yet will it not hold in this where if the Prince had sooner discovered his designs the King might have easily prevented them And how near this was to have been put in Execution may appear by this That Succours were actually offered by the French King and if they were refused by ours it was partly because it was too late for the French Fleet to be then put out and partly out of a Politick consideration that besides the losing of the Hearts of his English Subjects it might give the French such a footing here that they would not be easily gotten out again But indeed it seems as if the old formal way of making War was quite out of fashion since Charles the Second made War against the Dutch and the King of France so lately against Spain the Elector Palatine and the Emperor without any Observation of those formalities But if we consider the Grounds and Causes of this War as they are set forth in the Princes late Declaration they may be reduced to these three Heads First The Restoration of the Church of England with the Bishops and Colledges to their just Priviledges Secondly The securing of the Rights and Liberties of the Subject from the Dispensing Power and those other Incroachments that had been made upon them by the partial Judgments of Popish Ignorant or Corrupt Judges And Lastly The Enquiry into the Birth of the Prince of Wales In all which the Prince was so reasonable as to refer the decision of these differences to the Judgment of a Free Parliament Now as for the first of these That the Prince as a Neighbour and of the same Religion with us might justly secure the interest of the Protestant Religion here and also redeem the Clergy from the persecution they lay under is very evident Since it has always been held lawful for Princes to take the part and espouse the interest of those of the same Religion with themselves though Subjects to another Prince Thus Eusibius makes it a good cause of War by the Emperor Constantine against Licinius because he persecuted the Christians living under his Dominions So likewise of later Ages Queen Elizabeth assisted the Dutch Protestants of the united Provinces and those of France against the Persecutions and Oppressions they suffered from their own Princes As to the French Protestants King Charles the I. sent a Fleet and an Army to their Assistance in 1627. But as to the next Head the Oppressions we lay under in respect of our Civil Liberties the Prince had as great or rather greater right to vindicate these than the former For Bodin and Barclay though they suppose it unlawful for Subjects to take up Arms against their Prince though never so highly Opprest yet they count it not only lawful but Generous and Heroick for a Neighbouring Prince to rescue injur'd and opprest Subjects from the Tyranny of their Kings So that if the King had by his Dispensing Power his Levying of Taxes without Law and taking away the freedom of Elections for Parliament men almost totally dissolved the Government and brought it to the condition of an absolute Monarchy it was high time for the Prince to put a stop to those Encroachments both in respect of his own particular interest and also of the States whose General and Stadâ—holder he is Of the former since if this Kingdom should once become of the Popish Religion by the means of a standing Army and those other methods that have been taken to make it so granting the Prince of Wales to be truly born of the Queen yet should he happen to die the Popish faction here in England would in all likelihood debar the Prince and Princess of Orange from their lawful Succession to the Crown or at least would never admit them but upon conditions of establishing of Popery and Arbitrary Government in England the former of which is as contrary to their consciences as the latter is to their principles and inclinations So on the other side if the Prince of Wales be not the Queens true Son he had certainly a much greater interest as the presumptive Heir of the Crown to demand satisfaction in that great point which so nearly concerned their right of Succession For then certainly they might justly demand satisfaction especially when they desired no more but to have this business left to the inspection of the Estates of the Kingdom as the only proper Judges of the same For as to the Privy Council who by the Kings command though without any president had taken upon them to hear and determine this matter their Highnesses certainly had no reason to be satisfied with it since besides the incompetency of the Judges the King himself appeared too partial and interested in the affair for them to set down by
commanding a Centry to be drawn off from his usual Post he could never have gone away without being discovered and if he would have gone away at Noon Day I know not who unless the Rabble would have hinder'd him so that I think it is evident that this was the civilest and mildest usage that a vanquisht Prince could expect from him that had so much the better of him and in whose power he now was and I doubt more than the King would have allowed the Prince had it been his Fortune to have got him as much in his power nay the King was so far from being confin'd that it is plain he had the liberty given him to go whither he pleased nor were these Guards plac'd so much about him for his confinement as to secure him from the insults of the Rabble who otherwise there as well as they did at Feversham might have expressed too violent a resentment against his Person M. I cannot deny but you have given a very-fair and as far as I know a true account of this transaction and have told me some things which I never heard before but however I cannot depart from my first opinion that it was neither honestly nor wisely done of those who took upon them to advise the Prince to push things to extremities in this conjuncture and therefore I impute it chiefly to those English who supposing they had by taking Arms and joyning themselves to the Princes party provoked the King beyond all possibility of Pardon were resolved to do their utmost to put it out of the Kings Power ever to call him to an account for it and tho' perhaps his first sending away the Queen and Prince and then going away himself in the middle of a Treaty with the Prince and thereby leaving his Affairs in such confusion may seem to deserve blame yet certainly his Majesty is to be excused in a great measure for what he then did for as he tells the Earl of Feversham in his Letter to him to Disband the Army That things being come to that extremity that he was forced to send away the Queen and the Prince his Son that they might not fall into the Enemies hands and was also constrained to do the same thing himself and follow them since the Troops of his Army were not to be relyed on that it was not adviseable for him to Fight the Prince of Orange in the Head of them for it was but reasonable that Princes as well as other men should provide for their own security as well as they can But yet I can never believe that his Majesty's first going away was any Abdication of the Government much less a forfeiture of his Crown or Royal Dignity any more than the second for in the first place it could be no forfeiture according to your own Principles because he had already Dissolved the Ecclesiastical Court and restor'd the Cities and Corporations to their former Charters and Freedom in Elections of Parliament-Men and putting again in Commission all Lords Lieutenants and Justices of the Peace who had been before turned out and if he could not give an intire redress to all our grievances by a free Parliament it was only because he durst not stay to hold it since he thought he could have no security for his Person the whole Nation being in a manner poisoned and prepossessed against him by those malicious Artifices of a French League and a suppositious Prince and that his Majesty had so many unfortunate disappointments and so surprizing and unparallell'd accidents part of his Army deserting him and the rest too apparently unserviceable when there were such terrible disorders in the Kingdom and all places were either flaming or about to take fire So likewise could it not be properly any wilful desertion or Abdication of the Government since he was forced to quit it like the master of a Ship who when the Vessel is like to sink is forced to leave her and escape in a Cock-boat and that his Majesty did not act thus without an intention to return and again to vindicate his right when opportunity served appears likewise in that passage in the above mentioned Letter wherein he desires both the Officers and Souldiers of his Army then to be disbanded To continue their Fidelity to him and to keep themselves from Associations and such pernicious things from whence it plainly appears he went not away without a prospect of returning to his Throne when Time should serve and if he left no orders at all for the Government of the Kingdom in his absence nor named any Commissioners or Lieutenants to represent him it was because he thought it to no purpose since besides that he could find no body who durst undertake so difficult an employment so they that had taken it would have found no body who would obey them the generality of the People and also of the Kings Army being more inclinable to the Prince of Orange than to himself Yet however you see upon his return to Town the King was so well persuaded of the Prince of Oranges kind intentions towards himself and the Nation that I verily believe that his Majesty would have yielded to any thing that could in reason have been desired of him and upon this ground I suppose he writ so kindly to the Prince and invited him to come to St. Iames's with what Troops he should think fit for his security therefore I must needs tell you again I think it was a great oversight of the Prince of Orange thus to let slip this opportunity by refusing all terms of accommodation with the King his Father and by clapping up my Lord Feversham then seizing the Kings Person and sending him out of Town to let all the World see he was resolved to treat no more with him and this being the true state of the case it is not your saying that he had forfeited his Crown by going away and consulting his own safety that will convince any unprejudiced man for as to your notion of a forfeiture that they were not then entred into the Thoughts of the Peers and others of the Privy Council appears by the Order they made for sending the Lords Feversham Alesbury â—armouth and Middleton most humbly to intreat the King to return to White-hall so that he was received very joyfully and with great Acclamations of the Common People as he passed through the City and when he came to White-hall he called a Council where he made an Order to stop the demolishing and plundering of Houses by the Rabble so that he was not only receiv'd but also acted as a King after his return to Town This being the true state of the case I shall not dispute the point whether his Majesty and the Prince were in a state of War or Peace after his return to Town or what the Prince might have done as an Enemy and a stranger to the Kings Person but what might be expected from him as
a generous Prince a Nephew and a Son-in-law and one who was bound in Conscience and Honour to consult the lasting Peace and Happiness of the Nation more than his own private interest or the ambition of wearing a Crown F. You have made the utmost defence that I suppose can be brought for the King 's first going away yet if it be better consider'd I doubt it will not serve the turn I see you are forc'd to lay the whole fault of the Kings departure in the midst of the Treaty with the Prince and his refusing to call a Parliament according to his own Promise and Proclamation upon his want of security for himself the Queen and Prince if he had stay'd by reason of the want of fidelity in his Army the general prejudice of the Nation against him and the great firmness and resolution there was in the Princes Army to adhere to him Now I shall shew you that every one of these were but pretences and that the real cause of his departure was because he fear'd to leave the inquiry into the Birth of the Prince of Wales and the free examination and redress of our grievances and those violations he had committed upon the fundamental constitution of the Government to the impartial judgment of a free Parliament For in the first place as to want of fidelity in his Army that can be no just excuse for his deserting and disbanding them as he did without any pay since he himself in his said Letter to the Earl of Feversham expresly owns that there were a great many brave men both Officers and Souldiers among them and therefore if he was satisfied of this he ought to have first sent for all his Officers both Collonels and Captains and have examin'd them how far they would stand by him in the Defence of his Person and Cause against the Prince of Orange and he might have also order'd those Officers to have examin'd every Regiment Troop and Company in his whole Army how far they would engage in his defence and if he had proceeded thus at Salisbury before he fled away in that confusion to London I have been credibly inform'd by divers Officers of that Army that the King might have found above Twenty Thousand men that would have stood by him to the last man in his Quarrel against the Prince and therefore I impute his going away as he did from Salisbury to some strange pannick fear that God had cast upon him and all the Popish Faction about him since he has been known not to want sufficient courage upon other occasions but though he had omitted it there yet he certainly ought to have tryed this last experiment after he came to London rather than have quitted the Kingdom so dishonourably as he then did and thereby giving the P. of Orange's Friends an opportunity of seizing or getting delivered into their power all the Garisons and strong places in England besides Portsmouth in those three or four days time that he was not heard of besides great part of the Army that was not disbanded had in that time gone in to the Prince in hopes of their pay and future preferment now that the King might with safety have resided with his Army somewhere about London he himself grants in his Proposals to the Prince to this effect That in the mean time till all matters were adjusted concerning the freedom of Elections and a security of their sitting the respective Armies may be retained within such Limits and at such distance from London as may prevent all apprehensions that the Parliament may be in any kind disturbed which Proposals being made not long after the Kings arrival at London we may reasonably suppose that he was then well enough satisfied with the fidelity of the greatest part at least of his own Army to him and if he were not he might have been better satisfied if he pleased but as for the next difficulty the Nations being poisoned and prepossessed against him admit it were so as long as he had a sufficient Army about him as I suppose he might have had he need not have feared any thing the People could do but indeed this was a needless fear for before the Parliament could sit it was not the Peoples Interest to hinder it or to fall upon the King or his Army when matters were in a fair way of accommodation so after the Parliament sate there would have been less cause of fear since the reverence of that Court would have kept them in awe but as to the firmness and resolution of the Princes Army the fear of that was also as needless as long as the Kings Army continued as firm to him and if the Princes Army had been the first Agressors I doubt not but the People would have taken part with the King against them but after all it was certainly and you must grant it so much more safe and honourable for the King to have treated with the Prince and held a Parliament with an Army about him than to have yielded the same things as you suppose him willing to have done after his return to Town when his Army was disbanded and London had received the Prince and had joined with him and when almost all the strong places of England were in the Princes power so that upon the whole matter it evidently appears that the King chose to trust his own Person together with that of the Queen and Prince to a Foreign Monarch rather than he would relye upon the justice or fidelity of his own Nation You say in the next place that nothing the King has done in all these exorbitances he committed that can in any wise amount to a Forfeiture or Abdication of the Government not to the former because the King redress'd all our Grievances before he went away 't is true I grant he redressed some of them by putting divers things in the same State they were before yet for all this the greatest still remained unredressed viz. the Raising of Mony contrary to Law and the Dispensing Power both which as I have already shewed you at our last meeting he never Disclaimed neither took any sufficient course by Calling a Parliament to prevent its being exercised for the future besides his going away without giving the Prince and Nation any further Satisfaction about the Birth of the Prince of Wales all which not being done I must still affirm that this wrought a forfeiture of the Crown or an Abdication of it at least by his refusal to Hold and Govern it according to the Fundamental Laws thereof for he that destroys the Law or Conditions by which he holds an Estate does Tacitly Renounce his Title to it As I shewed you in the Case of Tenant for Life altering in Fee So that this being considered as also that the City of London and the whole Nation had Surrendred themselves to the Prince of Orange and that even the Arch-Bishops of Canterbury and York
together with the Bishops of Winchester and Ely with divers other Earls Bishops and Lords then in Town had sent an Address to the Prince immediately upon the Kings departure and sent three Lords and one Bishop with it desiring his Highness to come speedily to London and to take the Government upon him and having before declar'd that they would with their utmost endeavours Assist his Highness for the obtaining of a Free Parliament so that the Prince had no reason upon the Kings return to Surrender that Power which the Nation as far as it was able to do without a Parliament had put into his Hands and that to a King whom he had very little reason to believe would use it any better than he had done before But I see you wilfully decline entring into the Merits of the Cause and arguing the main point in the Controversy viz. whether the King was in a State of War or Peace with the Prince upon his return for if he were still in a State of War the Prince might certainly very well justifie his clapping up the Earl of Feversham his Late Majesties General for offering to come within the Limits of the Princes Quarters without his leave especially since he was still answerable for doing his endeavour to Disband an Army a great part of which consisted of Papists and Forreigners with their Arms in their hands whereby they might have robb'd and spoyl'd the Countries or at least have kept those Arms to renew the War again with the first Opportunity so that certainly it could not be so slight a thing as a bare Invitation to St. Iames's whither the Prince could have gone without his leave being now Master of the City which could so far efâ—ace all the Princes just Resentments and make him so far confide in the Kings Word as to come to London whilst he remained there with his Guards and all those Papists and Tories in and about London ready to take his part and Rallie again into a new Army upon the first Signal But as for any Proposals of Peace or Accommodation which you say the Lord Feversham brought with him I neither know nor have heard of any such thing 't is true the King says in the said Paper he left behind him that he had writ to the Prince of Orange by the Lord Feversham and also mentions some Instructions he had given him but what they were he does not tell us but sure they were not Propositions of Peace since it is to be supposed that the King would not have sent any thing of that Consequence without first acquainting the Privy Council with it before it was sent But since we hear of nothing concerning them we may very well suppose there was no such thing or if there were his Highness was the fittest judge whether they were reasonable or not and if the King had any desire to propose any Just or Reasonable Terms whereupon he might have hoped to have been restored again to his Royal Dignity he had a very â—air Opportunity for it when a great Council of the Nobility were met at St. Iames's in Order to Sign an Association to stand by the Prince in the Calling of a Free Parliament for the King might then if he had pleased have made his Proposals by such of the Lords and Bishops as he could most confide in and have Conjured all the Peers there Assembled to have interceeded with the Prince of Orange to renew their Treaty with the King which had been before unhappily broken off and then if either the Peers had refused to do this or the Prince had refused to hear them the King might then I grant have had sufficient reason to declare to all the World that he was not fairly dealt with but for him again to go away only upon pretence that his Person was under restraint when really it was not plainly shew'd that he had no real design of making an amicable end of those differences or really desir'd to be restored to his Throne by the general consent of the Nation but either hoped for it from those Civil Dissentions he expected we should fall into upon his departure or else to the Arms of France and this being the Case I think nothing is plainer than that the King both by his first and second departure hath obstinately refused all those means whereby the Nation might have been setled with a due consideration of his Person and Authority whilst he lived and of the Prince when his Legitimacy shall be sufficiently proved and made out before a Free Parliament So that since I have already proved that the King had before the Princes Arrival committed so many Violations upon the whole Constitution of the Government and that these Violations if wilfully and obstinately persisted in do at last produce an absolute loss and forfeiture of the Crown it self I think the late King has done all that could be required to make it so But I have forgot to answer one Objection you made viz. that the Peers and Bishops when they invited the King to return to White-Hall had no Notion of this forfeiture nor the people of London who you say received him with great Joy and Acclamations and that therefore it is wholly a new invention To this I Answer that if the Lords you mention did send this message to the King it might be because they were surprised with his unexpected return and had not well considered all the Circumstances of the Case and thereby did more then they could well justifie having before declaed they would stand by his Highness in procuring a Free Parliament which must certainly be without the King since he was then gone away and they had also invited him to come to London as well as the City and how that could consist with their inviting the King thither without the Princes consent I do not well understand but it seems they quickly altered their Sentiments as appears by their presently after Subscribing a paper in the nature of an Association to stand by the Prince without taking any notice at all of the King and the very day of the Kings departure they met to consider upon the Princes Speech he had a day or two before made to them desiring them to advise on the best means how to pursue the ends of his Declaration in Calling a Free Parliament and within two days after they presented the Prince with their Advice to call a Convention on the 22th of Ianuary which was also the next day agreed to by one hundred and sixty Persons who had served as Knights Citizens and Burgesses in any of the last Parliaments in the time of King Charles the Second without taking any notice at all of the King for though it is true he was then gone away when the Commons and City two or three days after made their Addresses to the Prince Yet when the Peers met both the first and second time on the 21st and 22d of December he was
Monarch I believe he would have been too much afraid of the King of France ever to have made use of his Forces to have setled Popery and Arbitrary Government and without his assistance I suppose you will grant it never could have been done since he plainly found that a Protestant Army would never have joined with him to act in such pernitious designs but however let the worst have happened that could be I think it had been much better for the Nation to have endured it with Patience than to have done that which was Evil though for the procuring of the greatest seeming Good tho' for the advantage of our Religion and civil Liberties and therefore it had been better for us in this extremity to have trusted God than Men since he always promises to protect those that relye upon him and strictly perform his Will and admit the worst that could have happened God would either have removed those afflictions from us in due time or have given us Patience to have born them since I suppose you will not deny that God oftentimes brings Persecutions and Afflictions upon a Sinful Church and Nation either for a punishment for their Sins or else to give an occasion for those that are truly Pious and Sincere to shew their Courage and Constancy in Suffering for the Truth and by withstanding not by force but Passive Obedience all the Kings Illegal and Arbitrary Commands if he should after his re-establishment in the Throne have again renewed his former courses these are the only remedies which we of the Church of England as obedient Subjects to the King and his Laws must think could have been Lawfully taken in this case F. I do not deny but what you say is in the main very pious and honest were the case as you have put it but the greatest part of your discourse depends wholly upon those old principles and prejudices of the unlawfulness of all resistance of the Supream Powers and that the King is the only Supream Power in this Kingdom both which propositions I have sufficiently confuted at our third fourth and fifth meetings and also at our last save one in which I gave you a true account of the Legal sense of those Oaths and Statutes of King Charles II. concerning Resistance as was also given by the best Lawyers and most considering Men of the then House of Lords and Commons so that if the means we have used are lawful both by the Laws of God and Man I think we are not bound to bring Afflictions upon our selves but to avoid them all we can especially when they come evidently attended with the utter loss and ruine of what ought to be most dear to us our Religion Civil Liberties and Properties and that not only for our selves but our Posterity who perhaps would never have regained them when they were once lost of which the French Nation is an evident example before our Eyes who by not opposing the Arbitrary Power of their Kings in due time have fallen into a Government almost as Despotick as that of Turky for when once the common good of the Subjects ceases to be the main end of the Governours the Government then ceasing to be Gods Ordinance degenerates into Tyranny which I think may be always Lawfully opposed by a free-born People who at first agreed to be Governed not as Slaves but Subjects But as for the first part of your Speech it needs not any long answer it first supposes the King might have been again restored upon terms now since it is plain these Terms must have been imposed upon him against his Will and as necessary Conditions of his Restoration I would be glad to know who it was should undertake to impose them upon him and to see them kept when they had been made whether the Prince of Orange or the Parliament if the former I grant indeed he might have made such Conditions with the King that the Church of England as well as the whole Nation should for the future enjoy their Just Rights and Liberties but then the Prince must either have trusted wholy to the Kings Honour or else he must have had some strong places put into his Hands for a Security that the King would not again make the same Violations upon our Laws Religion and Liberties as he had done before if the former I suppose you will not deny but that the King might if he had pleased have broken them all again as soon as ever the Princes back had been turned and that he had been once engaged in a War with France which could not have been long avoided considering the necessity there is at this juncture of time for the States of Holland and Consequently the Prince as their General to engage with the Emperor and King of Spain to drive the French out of the Empire and to hinder him from making himself Universal Monarch of Europe which it is plain is the thing he now drives at But if the Prince should have kept any strong places here as cautionary Towns for the Kings performance of the Terms agreed upon this must have been done either by English or Forreign Forces if by the former this would have been looked upon as inconsistent with their Duty and Allegiance to the King if he should have commanded them to be delivered up into his Hands since you tell us the King has the sole Command of the Militia and consequently of all Garrisons man'd by his Subjects within his Dominions But if the Forces that should have held these places had been Dutch-men or other Forreigners it would never have been endured either by the King or the Nation that Forreigners should possess the strong Holds and Keys of the Kingdom and the King might soon have wrought by some jealousies and suspitions which he would not have failed to have raised that the Nation it self should have joyned with him to drive them out and then the King might have done what he pleased without Controul but if you will place this power into the whole People or Nation or else their Representatives the Parliament of holding the King to these Terms agreed upon this could not have been done without their constant Siting and a power of Resisting him in case he infring'd them and then either they must have given up all their Liberties to the Kings Will or else farewell to the Darling Doctrines of Passive Obedience and Non-resistance so that take it which way you will all imposing of Terms upon the King either by the Prince of Orange or the Nation would in a short time have become either Unpracticable or Insignificant Nor is your other Supposition any whit truer that the King would never have made use of the Forces of France to subdue and keep under the people of England for fear he should not be able to get the French out again Ti 's true this would be a very good Argument to a Prince who were no Bigot and was not resolved
which his Majesty should have chosen one for to supply each Bishoprick c. as they became vacant And therefore for my own part I was so far from believing all agreements with the King to be unpracticable that there was no body rejoyced more than I when upon his Majesty's first return to London he so far Complied with the Desires of the whole Nation as to issue out his Proclamation for a Free Parliament and that he sent down his Commissioners to Treat with the Prince and I had then great hopes of an Accommodation but when instead of this the King had burnt the Writs for the Election of Parliament Men and had sent away the Queen and Prince together with the Great Seal that no more Writs might be issued and that before ever the Commissioners could return to London or before any Answer to the Princes Proposals was given by the King he had withdrawn himself and done all he could to get away into a Foreign Kingdom it was then and not till then that I saw all hopes of Agreement absolutely desperate and though you put a great stress upon the Kings last return to Town which you suppose was with a Design to agree with the Prince in every thing that could be in Reason demanded I can see no cause for your drawing such a Consequence from it for if he did not look upon himself as safe here before his Army was Disbanded he could not think himself more so when it was either wholly Dissolved or else was gone over to the Prince and therefore I have much greater reason to believe that his return again to Town was only to comply with the present necessity and to wait for a fitter opportunity to get away there being never a Vessel then ready to Transport him especially if that be true which I have heard that the King declared to a Person of Credit That the Queen had obtained from him a Solemn Oath on the Sacrament on the Sunday that if she went for France on Monday he would not fail to follow her on Tuesday and if this were so though he was disappointed in his intended passage yet still was he under the same obligation to the Queen nor do I see any Transaction of his with the Prince of Orange or with these of the Church of England that can perswade me to believe otherwise sinâ—e his long Consultation with the French Envoy and the Priests and Jesuits could only tend to the taking new measures for his Departure or else how he might Imbroil us further while he stayed by some faint hopes of new Treaties and Agreements But as for the other part of your Answer whereby you would confute my Notion of the lawfulness of Resistance for the defence and preservation of our Religion Established by Law as also of our Liberties and Properties I hope I shall let you see that it is not I but your self who are mistaken in this matter For 1st All Writers on this Subject and even Dr. Sanderson himself in his Lectures of the Obligation of Conscience do acknowledge that all Civil Government is principally ordained for the good and preservation of the People and that the good of the Governours is only to be considered secondarily and in order to that which if so I pray tell me whether the good and preservation of the people ought not to be considered in the first place since the end for which a thing is ordain'd is always more worthy than the means by which it is procured and therefore I shall freely grant that as long as the safety and interest of the Supream Power and that of the People are all one and can any ways consist together and that they make the happiness and preservation of the People to be the main end of their Government I so far agree with you that the good or preservation of the Prince or Supream Powers cannot nay ought not to be separated from that of the People but when they once set up a separate interest quite different from that of the People as all Princes do who turning Tyrants go about to inslave them they then cease to be the true heads of that Political Body the Common Wealth and thereupon the Community or People become free and at liberty either to oppose or remove these Artificial heads and to set up new ones in their rooms so that since similies are not Arguments your comparison between a Natural and Political Body hath only served to impose upon your Judgment in this matter and therefore I affirm that a Natural and Political Body do wholly differ in this matter for in a Natural Body the real good of the head cannot be separated from that of the Body nor the good of the Body from that of the Head nor yet can the Body alone Judge of the proper means of it's own preservation nor when it is hurt or assaulted but by the head which is the principle of sense and motion but in a Political Body it is quite otherwise for first the Supream Powers of a Common-wealth which you suppose to be Head of this Political Body do often pursue and set up an interest quite different from nay contrary to that of the Body or People and that not only to their prejudice but also sometimes to their destruction and that when they do this the Politcal Body or the People will in evident and apparent cases Judge for themselves let this Political Head say or declare what it will against it and will when they are thus destroyed opprest and inslav'd by those that they have submitted to as their Political Heads and in such cases of extremity endeavour to free themselves from the severity of their Yoke M. Notwithstanding what you have now said I am not yet convinced that the King had no real design to redress our grievances and to make a final agreement with the Prince for though I do not deny but his Majesty did converse with some Priests and others of his own persuasion as also with the French Envoy after his coming to Town yet might this be for no ill intent and he did also converse with divers reverend Bishops and Lords of our own Religion to whom he still expressed a great desire of making an end of all differences between himself the Prince and the whole Nation and this I suppose is the true reason why the Arch-bishop of Canterbury though it is true he signed the first and second Addresses to the Prince upon his Majesty's first wth-drawing himself yet has been ever since so sensible of that mistake he then committed that he has never appeared or acted in any meeting of the Peers nor yet in the Convention and that his Majesty even at Rochester did not lay aside all thoughts of Agreement and making up all breaches between himself and his People I could give you another demonstration which is not commonly known and which I had from a particular Friend viz. that the King
which may oftentimes tend to quite other purposes than what we suppose As for the next Clause by breaking the Original Contract I have heard that divers of the Lords and Bishops who were for the King against this new Invention of an Abdication put the other side very hard to it to make out this Original Contract and desired them to shew in what part either of our Common or Statute Law it was to be found for they knew no such Maxim in the Common Law nor no such Clause in any Statute Aucient or Modern And though I confess you have undertaken to prove to me that there is such a thing yet it has been only by Far-fetch't Consequences and from the Old Form of Government among the Saxons of above 600 years standing which iâ— there were any such thing it is now become so Antiquated and out of Date that neither the King himself nor yet our Lords Bishops or Judges except some few Lawyers of your Kidney ever before now thought of any such thing I pass by the next Clause by the Advice of Jesuits c because I cannot say by whose Advice those things which you call Breaches of the Fundamental Laws were acted but as for the next wherein the Violation of these Fundamental Laws is lay'd to his Charge I confess you have given me a prety large Catalogue of these Fundamentals at our 9th meeting which yet you cannot say are to be found together in any one Law but are to be picked up here and there out of Magna Charta and divers other old Statutes but since the King and Parliament have declar'd in the first year of King Iames I that there are such things as Fundamental Laws and Priviledges I will not deny there are none yet certainly any Breach of them by the King was never intended to Create a Forfeiture of the Crown for if it had I think there would have been but few Kings or Queens of England which would not have forfeited who for some one or more of these Breaches committed in their Reigns by the Advice of their Judges and Councellors as these were lately by the King For I suppose you cannot expect that Princes should see any otherwise in matters of Government than by other Mens Eyes nor hear but by other Peoples Ears And therefore if the wilful Breach of these Fundamentals must cause a Forfeiture or Abdication of Government call it which you please methinks it had been reasonable for the Parliament to have given a list of these Fundamentals in some one Law that the King might have been sure to have avoided the Transgressing of them and fear of losing both his Royal Dignity and his penalty ought also to have been declared But the next Clause deserves more particular consideration viz. and having withdrawn himself out of the Kingdom hath Abdicated the Government now I must confess it is the first time that ever the Kings going away for fear of losing both his Royal Dignity and his Life and that with a declar'd design and intention to return again to the exercise of the Government when ever he might do it with safety should be judged a wilful Dessertion or Abdication I am sure there is nothing in our Common or Statute Laws that can at all warrant this Notion for Common Law is nothing but Ancient usage and immemorial Custom Now Custom supposes presidents and parallel Cases But it 's granted of all Hands that the Crown of England was never judged to be Abdicated by the withdrawing of the Prince before now And therefore it follows by undeniable consequence that this Opinion can have no Foundation in the Common Law because there is not so much as one ruled Case to prove it by But if we come to those presidents we have in our English History I shall give you such of them as I can remember we read in the Reign of Edward the 2d that when he fled from the Forces of his Wife and Son who had seized the Kingdom by Force the King being deserted by his Souldiers and Followers indeavoured to get into the Isle of Lundy for safety but not being able to make it was driven back and taken in Disguise at the Abby of Neath in Wales as the King was lately at Feversham now it is certain that King Edward went away without appointing any Governour of the Realm in his absence and if this Notion of an Abdication had been then taken for Law the Parliament needed not to have been put their to Shifts to find out so many other matters for which to depose him The next is the like case of King Edward the 4th who when the Earl of Warwick had Raised a great Army against him on a suddain and forced him to fly with a few followers to the Duke of Burgundy his Brother in Law though Henry the 6th was again put into the Throne yet was it not objected against King Edward that he had lost his Title to it or that it was become vacant by his Deserting it and if these two are not parallel Cases and do not reach the matter in hand I desire you to shew me wherein they differ from the present Case of the King But I am come now to the last clause of all that the Throne is thereby become vacant which seeming only to refer to the clause of Abdication I think I have said enough already against that Notion Therefore we will admit at present for Discourse sake that the King had really Abdicated the Government by Deserting the Kingdom and thereby wholly lost his Regal Power Now according to the Fundamental Laws and Customs of this Realm which is you know an Hereditary Monarchy the eldest Son or other next Heir either Male or Female immediately Succeeds the King his Father or other Predecessor and that without any inter-regnum at all so that the Reign of the Successor immediately begins from the very moment the Last King or Queen Deceases this being the setled Law I cannot see any one step the Convention has made in their whole proceeding that can be justified by the Fundamental Laws of the Land or the Laws of Equity and Justice for Equity has no quirks in it nor ever lies at a catch Reason is always just and generous it never makes mens misfortunes an accusation nor judges in favour of violence for indeed what can be more unrighteous though in the Case of a private person than that any one should suffer yet worse for being injured and be barred his rights for the injuries of others If a man should forfeit his House to those who set it on Fire only because he quitted it without giving some formal directions to the Servants or be obliged to lose his Estate for endeavouring to preserve his life I believe it would be thought a strange piece of Justice in any Law whatever and if this be proved illegal the Title of your Present King and Queen being wholly founded upon the validity
since according to your doctrine the bare endeavouring it would be nothing and after he had once brought it to pass it would be then too late to retrieve it But that the King did really endeavour thus to subvert the fundamental constitution appears not only by his closeting and threatning Members to turn them out of their places if they would not submit to his Will in taking off the Penal Laws about Religion whereby all freedom of Voting would have been quite taken away But when the King saw this would not do he then fell a new modelling of Corporations and by bringing Quo Warranto's against their Charters to get it into his own power to nominate or approve of all Mayors Aldermen and Common Council men who in those Corporations having the sole Elections of Parliament men he would thereby have had the naming of them also in his power your next exception is against their declaring him to have broke the Original Contract between the King and the People for that you are not yet persuaded there was any such thing because we cannot shew it you in any Common Law or Statute Book written in express words as for the Statute Law I grant that there is no such express Contract to be found in any Statute yet doth it not therefore follow that there is no such Contract by the Antient Common Law of the Kingdom Now that our Fundamental Laws are not all to be found in writing is no wonder since it is a maxime of our Common Law that it was not a Law because it was Written but it was Written because it was a Law for it was a Law when it was only in the Breast and Heads of the King and People of this Nation without any writing at all and you your self must grant that if the Hereditary Succession to the Crown be a Fundamental Constitution it is notwithstanding no where to be found in Writings as I know of but the contrary asserted by divers Acts of Parliament but that there is such a thing as an Original Contract I shall prove from such a necessary consequence as I think cannot be denied for as that Statute of King Iames. I. sets forth which I have now cited and your self have already acknowledged there are such things as Fundamental Laws that is Laws that are as antient as the constitution of the Government there must have been also an implicit Fundamental Covenant or Contract on the Kings part that he would maintain them without any violation and this is that we mean by an Original Contract and if it were not so it had been the most foolish and unreasonable thing in the World to require every King to swear before he was Crown'd that he would maintain the Rights of the Church and the Antient Laws and Customs of the Kingdom and that this was Antiently looked upon as a renewal of this Original Contract appears by all our antient Historians who till the Reign of King Ed. I. never give the next Heir the Title of King but of Duke of Normandy till he was actually Crown'd and had taken his Coronation Oath and for this I desire you would consult all our antient Histoâ—ians since your Conquest beginning with Inguâ—â— and Eadmerus ending with Thom. Walsingham But as for your exception against his violating of the Fundamental Laws is yet more trivial for you cannot deny that there are such things and if so surely a King may violate them if he pleases and therefore your excuse for the Kings breach of them because they are not to be found together in any one place but are to be pick'd up here and there from Magna Charta and other Statutes makes nothing against the validity or the possibility of his knowing them for as before they were reduced to Writing by those Statutes which only declare and confirm the Antient Common Laws and Liberties of England they existed as I said but now in the Heads and Hearts of the King and People so when divers Kings of England by their Tyrannical and Illegal practices had made divers violations of these Fundamental Rights and Priviledges there then grew a necessity of new granting and confirming those Liberties and consequently of reducing them into Writing which there was not before and that is the true reason why Magna Charta and other Statutes made in the time of Henry the III. Ed. the I. and divers others of their Successors were made either for their explanation or ratification according as occasion requir'd and as several Princes had more or less violated these fundamental Laws of the Government for before they had so done there was no need of the Parliaments making or declaring any law about it But if the King would have but read and considered the Articles exhibited in Parliament against Edward and Richard the II. he might easily have seen the Laws altogether that will make a Prince to be declared by his Subjects to have forfeited his Crown But that King Iames had before his desertion endeavour'd to extirpate the Protestant Religion the Laws and Liberties of the Nation appears by those several Articles the Convention has given us in their late Declaration which they presented to King William upon their declaring him and his Princess K. and Queen of England to which I shall refer you since it is commonly to be had you know it consists in the recital of divers things the violation of which has been always counted in all Kings Reigns a breach of the Original Contract I come now to the last Clause save one you except against viz. That having withdrawn himself out of the Kingdom hath Abdicated the Government Now your main argument against it is that the Kings desertion of the Government being only for fear of his life or of being depos'd from his Royal Dignity could not by his going away be said to Abdicate or renounce the Crown since he went away with an intention to return and repossess it as soon as with safety he might to which before I make any answer I must freely own that were this the case as you have put it I think there would be no great dispute in it since I grant that a King who is thus forc'd to fly for fear of his life ought not to have any such injustice put upon him but if you please better to consider it the case was quite otherwise for I have already proved that when King Iames I. went away he had then an Army about him was free and in his own Pallace and was at that time in actual Treaty with the Prince nor had London nor any considerable strong place in England then surrender'd it self to the Prince so that if there was any necessity for his departure but what he had brought upon himself by his refusing to call a Parliament burning the Writs and sending away the Queen and Child together with the main instrument of Government the Great Seal of England this must certainly be looked upon
those Affairs But not to be partial to one Opinion I have faithfully recited all those Authorities and Arguments made use of by the Author of the Treatise Intituled The Hereditary Succession discuss'd as also by the Learned Dr. Brady in his exact History of the Succession of the Crown wherein those Authors endeavour to prove that the Crown of England is and hath always been Hereditary from the very beginning of our Monarchy notwithstanding the many and various Breaches that have been made upon it which Authorities and Arguments whether they prove the Matter in debate I shall leave to your better Iudgment but hope those Gentlemen will not take it ill if I cannot let all they write pass for clear Demonstration and therefore have taken upon me to cite all those Arguments and Authorities that either have been or as far as I know of may be made use of by those of the contrary Opinion in the performance of which if I have not dealt candidly with both Parties in fairly representing the utmost that they had to say I shall be obliged if any Friend to Truth will shew me my failings But tho it is true I have not gone higher in this History than the coming in of K. William I. yet I hope I may be excused looking farther back for these Reasons First because an Examination of the Succession before that time would not only be tedious by swelling this Discourse to an unreasonable Bulk but would also be superfluous since the Gentleman whom I suppose Freeman here Argues against makes K. William I. to have been an absolute Conqueror and to have altered all the former Laws in the Saxon Times and if so sure then those concerning the Succession of the Crown And I desire them to shew me any Reason if he and his Descendants held the Kingdom as Absolute Monarchs by Conquest why they might not bequeath or make it over as is justifiable in Patrimonial Kingdoms to which of their Sons Kindred or Relations they should think fit and if so what will then become of this Fundamental Right of a Lineal Hereditary Succession And besides all this it is needless upon another Account since I have already proved in the Tenth Dialogue from no less Authority than K. Alfred's Will that before the Conquest the Crown was partly Testamentary and partly Elective sometimes wholly Elective as in K. Edward the Confessor and whoever doubts of this I shall only desire them to read impartially Dr. Brady's above-mentioned History of the Succession and then I shall leave it to them to consider whether he does not grant in effect what he takes upon him to Confute viz. That there was no Lineal Descent of the Crown known or setled in those Times but what was Alterable by the Testament of those Kings But since the rest of this Discourse besides the enquiry into bare Matter of Fact is chiefly the applying those Precedents I have here made use of to the Case of their present Majesties I hope neither they nor any that wish well to their Government will resent it if I have not gone in the common Road of former Writers in supposing the Titular Prince of Wales to be an Impostor without any other proof than those bare Suspitions that have been publish'd in the Printed Pamphlets yet since however they may incline a Man to doubt they cannot make a Child Illegitimate whom his Father and Mother have hitherto bred up and owned for theirs and therefore I have rather chosen to suppose him at present to be the Lawful Son of King James and Queen Mary and yet that what the late Convention have done in passing him by without taking any notice of his Title was all that they could or were obliged to do his present Circumstances considered But if it be here made out that King William and Queen Mary are Lawful and Rightful King and Queen of this Realm no Man can doubt whether Allegiance may be sworn too them or not and perhaps there was no need of writing any thing farther yet since I find a great many of the Clergy as well as Laity of this Nation could not go higher than their swearing Allegiance to them as King and Queen de facto and that even this has been violently opposed by the sâ—iff Asserters of K. James's Right I have thought fit to add in the next Discourse which I promise shall be the last on this Subject all that hath been said Pro and 〈◊〉 upon that Question and to make it of the same Bulk with the rest I have for the satisfaction of those of the Church of England as well as Royal Interest endeavour'd to shew the great difference between this late Revolution and that fatal Civil War that ended with the Deposition and Murder of King Charles the First These two Questions together with an Index to all the Dialogues being dispatch'd as I hope they will be shortly shall be the last I shall trouble the World with upon these Subjects since I know nothing more that can be well added to what I shall there set down THE Twelfth Dialogue BETWEEN Mr. MEANWELL a Civilian AND Mr. FREEMAN a Gentleman M. I Am glad Sir you are come for I was wishing for you pray sit down and let us begin where we left off you may remember you promised me when we last parted that the next time I saw you you would make out to me from undeniable proofs and precedents from our Antient Histories and Laws that the present Convention had done nothing in Voting the Throne vacant and then placing the Prince and Princess of Orange therein but what may be justified by the Fundamental Laws and Constitutions of the Kingdom for I must still believe till I am better instructed that there can be no Inter Regnum in England but that it hath been from the first Institution of the Government an Hereditary Monarchy where the next Heir by Right of Blood unless in some manifest Usurpations has always succeeded to the last Predecessor as also our best Lawyers with one consent maintain in their Books of Reports and the Learned Finch in his description of the Common Law lays it down as an undoubted Maxim That the King never dies and therefore it seems altogether new and unheard of before for the Convention thus to declare the Throne vacant for admitting that King Iames had never so justly Forfeited or Abdicated the Kingdom term it which you please yet certainly there could be no Vacancy of the Throne since the next Heir by Blood ought immediately to have been declared King or Queen and so placed therein whereas we heard in the Countrey that there was almost ten days time before the Lords and Commons could agree whether the Crown should be declar'd vacant or not and when it was so declar'd it took up almost a weeks time more before they could agree who should be placed therein whereas it was a difficulty only of their own making for sure the Prince of
Man hath in an Estate which is his Right let him be what he will or let him mannage it how he will Whereas in the Right to a Kingdom I take it to be a true Maxim That the Representatives of a Nation as the Convention was ought to have more regard to the happiness and safety of the whole People or Common-wealth than to the Dignity or Authority of any particular Person whosoever or howsoever nearly related to the Crown when it is evident that the advancement of such a Person to the Throne will prove destructive to our Religion Civil Liberties and Properties Now give me leave to apply what I have said to the Point now in question Let us therefore at the present suppose that your Prince of Wales is true and lawful Son to King Iames and Queen Mary and let me also farther suppose that in his late passage over Sea he was taken by the Pyrates of Argiers or Tunis and by them been carried to one of those places and been bred up in the Mahometan Religion and after he had been Circumcised and fully grounded in that abominable Superstition the Grand Seignior together with the Kings of Argier and Tunis should send this Nation word that if they would not admit him quietly for their King and allow him all those Priests he should bring with him a free exercise of their Religion in England they would then make War upon this Nation with all the Forces they could raise I ask you what we ought to do in this case whether we should receive him for our King or keep him out M. I must confess it is a nice Question and since it is a thing that never did yet nor I hope will ever come to pass I think I may freely Answer you That supposing this Prince could be proved to be the very same who was carried away so many years ago we ought notwithstanding his false Belief to receive him especially if he would solemnly Swear only to worship God in private after his own way and that he would Swear not to violate our Religion or invade our Liberties and Properties and this being done I think we ought then to admit him for our lawful Sovereign since as you your self have already acknowledged at our third Meeting the Supreme Powers are not to be resisted because they are of a different Religion from that of the People or Nation they Govern F. Very well But let me tell you In this you are much more kind to Mahometan and Heretical Princes than the Church of Rome who have decreed That no Prince ought to be received as right Heir to a Crown who is a Pagan Turk or Heretick and upon this ground it was that the States of France during the time of the League by the Pope's Decree refus'd to own Henry King of Navarre for their Sovereign and also that the Papists of the Nuntio Party in Ireland during the late Rebellion refused to own the late Duke of Ormond for Lord Lieutenant of that Kingdom because the King was a Protestant But pray answer me a Question or two further Suppose this Prince refus'd to promise these or such things or else if he did promise and Swear them pray tell me how could we be assured that according to the Principles of that Religion he had been bred under and those Arbitrary Notions he had learned concerning the Absolute Power of Kings in Barbary and which he would believe due to himself as being as Absolute a Monarch as any of them I say how such a Prince ever could be trusted Since if he had the whole Power of the Militia in his hands he might bring in what number of Turkish or Moorish Guards he should think fit who might easily set up that Religion and Government too in this Nation since according to your Principles of Passive Obedience and Non-resistance no Man ought to lift up so much as a Finger against him though he went about to make us all Turks and Slaves M. Well supposing all this as long as it is his Right he ought to have it let the consequence be what it will F. You have said enough I desire no more but I hope every true Protestant and English man will be of another mind if ever such a case should happen but indeed it appears very strange to me that a natural Disability such as Ideocy or Lunacy should be esteem'd sufficient in all Kingdoms to debarr the next Heir from the Government and yet that a Moral or a Religious Disability should not have the same effect and though I grant that a King ought not to be Rebelled against or resisted meerly because he is of a different Religion from that of his Subjects for I was never for resisting King Iames meerly upon that score yet it is another thing when a Prince is not actually possessed of the Throne but is to be admitted to it upon such Conditions as may appear safe for the Religion and Civil constitution of a Kingdom In this case if a Prince be certainly infected with such pernicious Principles either in relation to Religion or Civil Government it is much otherwise as for Example That no Faith is to be kept with Hereticks That his own Religion is to be propagated by Arms Blood or Persecution That no Government can be safe for the Prince or in which he can appear Great or Glorious but as an absolute Monarch let such a Prince be either a Christian or a Mahometan I think it would be a certain ruine to a Kingdom to be obliged to receive such a Prince when they were morally sure that he would not only subvert their Religion but destroy the very professors of it and not only those but alter the Civil constitution too by turning it from a limited Kingdom into an absolute despotick Tyranny To conclude I shall only desire you to consider into what a Country your Prince of Wales is carry'd and what Instructors he is like to have and what Principles he will receive from them and then pray tell me if he continues there till he is a Man what difference there will be between this young Prince bred up in such a Religion and such Principles and the same if he had been carried away by Pyrates to Argier as I at first suppos'd M. This is a very invidious Comparison for though I do not approve of the Roman-Catholick Religion yet sure there is a great deal of difference between that which professes all the Articles of our Creed and in which we of our Church own Salvation may be obtained and the Mahometan Superstition which denies that fundamental Article of our Creed viz. That Jesus Christ is the Son of God and as for Civil or Political Principles I hope the King his Father will take care to have him instructed by some of those English Noblemen or Gentlemen who are now with him in the Customs and Constitutions of the English Government and wherein it differs from the French
the Prince of Wales to have been either dead or justly laid aside now make it out to me how you can justifie the placing the Prince and Princess of Orange in the Throne when the Crown is really her right after the Prince of Wales and not her Husbands as also the putting the Government solely into his hands since this can no ways agree with the Act of Recognition to King Iames the First which you your self cannot deny but ought to be observed when it may be done without any apparent hazard or prejudice to the Protestant Religion and the Constitution of our Government which I think might have been as well if not better secured by letting it have gone in the right Line that by placing the Crown upon the Head of a Prince who though it is true is of the Blood-Royal by his Mother yet being a Foreigner is a meer Stranger to our Government and Laws and has been bred up in Calvinistical Principles and upon that score is not like to have any good intentions towards the Government and Ceremonies of the Church of England as appears by his late agreeing to abolish Episcopacy in Scotland upon his accepting that Crown from the Presbyterian Convention F. If these be all the objections you have to make against placing King William and Queen Mary in the Throne I hope they will not be of any great moment to your self or any other considerate man for if that upon the Abdication of King Iames and the impossibity of determining your Prince of Wales's Title if it be one a Regency was impracticable and unsafe for the Nation at this conjuncture of time when we want a King to hold a Parliament as well to raise Money to defend us against the Power of France as also to make new Laws for the ease and reformation of the Kingdom all which a Regents acting without Royal Authority could never do by the constitution of this Kingdom so that if there was now a necessity of placing some body in the Throne for the Common Good and Safety of the whole Common-Wealth I think you your self cannot but acknowledge that the Princess of Orange had an Hereditary right to the Crown and if her Highness had the Prince her Husband also ought to Govern the Kingdom in her Right during her life and those who deny King Henry the VIIth to be Lawful King before his Marriage with the Princess Elizabeth will yet grant he was so in her Right after his Marriage and this has not been only the Custom in England but also in other Kingdoms of Europe as I can give you several Instances For upon this ground it was that Ferdinand King of Arragon by Marrying with Isabella Queen of Castile Governed that Kingdom during his Life so also Anthony Duke of Bourbon marrying with Iane Queen of Navarre did in her Right administer the Government of that part of it which was left unconquer'd by the Spaniards and here at home Philip Prince of Spain by his Marriage with Queen Mary had certainly in her Right Govern'd this Kingdom and had enjoyed something more than the bare Title of King had he not by the Articles of Marriage confirm'd by Act of Parliament been expresly debar'd from it M. Admit all this to be true yet this was only the enjoyment of a bare Matrimonial Crown and held no longer than during the Lives or Marriage with those Queens you mention But pray tell me how can the Convention according to the antient constitution of this Kingdom justifie the settlement of the Crown not only on King William during the Queens Life But for his own Life also to the prejudice not only of his own Issue if ever he have any by the Princess but also of the Princess of Denmark and her Heirs F. I doubt not but to shew you that this may be easily justified by the constitution of the Kingdom and former Precedents of what hath been done in the like cases First as to the Constitution I have already proved that upon the deposition of a King which is all one with a Forfeiture of the Crown the Great Council or Parliament hath taken upon them to Elect or Admit either the next Heir by Blood or some Prince tho' more remote of the Royal Family to the Crown thus King Henry the IVth upon the Deposition or Resignation of King Richard the Ild. was placed in the Throne by the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury after the two Houses had Voted and consented he should Reign over them though I grant that by right of Blood Edmund Earl of March ought to have succeeded to it but he being then a Child was passed by unmention'd Duke Henry being then powerful and having deliver'd the Kingdom from the Tyranny and Evil Government of Richard the â—Id I shall pass by Richard the IIId because I own his Government to have begun by Unsurpation and to have been established by the Murther of his Nephews But as for Henry the VIIth I have already shew'd you that the Parliament before his Marriage with the Princess Elizabeth setled the Crown upon him and the Heirs of his Body by vertue of which he held it all his Reign whereas there is no such thing done in the present case of King William since he hath only the Crown setled upon him during his own Life with the remainder after his decease without Issue by the Queen to her and not his Right Heirs and as for such Children as he may have by her it is agreeable to reason that he should hold the Crown by that which we call the Courtesie of England during his Life and not from a King to become a Subject to his own Children in case he should desire to live here after her Majesties decease which I hope God will prevent M. I confess you have drest up a pretty plausible Title for King William but yet all that you have said amounts to no more than this that because other Kings have been Usurpers he may be so too for as to all the instances you have brought they have been only from depositions or manifest usurpations both which our Laws have condemned as absolutely unlawful as I have shew'd you hath been declar'd by two Acts of Parliament against the Title of Henry the IVth and his Descendents but since you will not insist upon the right of Richard the IIId I pass to that Act of Henry the VIIth which as I told you before so I must repeat it again that it was done upon his supposed Right by Blood as Heir to the House of Lancaster and upon that pretence he claimed the Crown as his Right in his Speech to the first Parliament he called besides the Princess Elizabeth the Queen de Iure made no claim to the Crown and so did tacitly resign it which seemed to make him de Iure as well as de Facto King and if it were done otherwise I look upon that whole Act as void in it self because made by him
the Nation from his Oppression though the Prince was pleas'd to accept it upon those terms expressed in the late Declaration of the Convention and upon his free promise to preserve preserve our Religion Laws and Liberties which he has since also confirm'd by his Coronation Oath But as to what you say that the Prince made the Kings Army desert him and wrought the People into hatred of his Person by lying Stories and mean Arts is altogether untrue since I know of no Reports he made of the King or his Government but what are in his first Declaration and that is certainly true in every part of it and as has been justified by the express Declaration of the Convention in every particular except that concerning the Prince of Wales which I confess is left still undecided because as I have already proved it is impossible to give any certain judgement in it unless the Witnesses as well as the Infant himself could be brought over hither nor doth the Prince in his said Declaration say any more concerning that business than that there are violent suspicions that the pretended Prince of Wales was not Born of the Queen but for the report of the Secret League with France for the extirpation of the Protestant Religion as there is no such thing in his Highnesses Declaration so the spreading of it cannot be laid to his charge since he never gave it out as I know of yet there are certainly great presumptions and too much cause of suspicion that it may be so as I proved at our last Meeting But though you will not allow the Prince the Title of our Deliverer yet I am sure the greatest part both of the Clergy and Laity of the Church of England were once of Opinion that King Iames's violations both upon our Religion and Laws were so great that nothing could preserve the Kingdom from a total Subversion in its Establisht Religion and Civil Constitution but his Highnesses coming over and most of the Bishops were of that Opinion who now the Government is setled refused to take the Oath of Allegiance to their present Majesties But to answer what you say that the manner of Henry the IV ths and Henry the VII ths coming to the Crown doth not at all agree with this Case of King William because they claimed by right of blood which you say King William cannot do that is not so in respect of the Queen who has certainly a right to succeed her Father by right of blood in case the Prince off Wales be not the true Son of the Queen and untill he can be proved so we must at present look upon him as if he were not so at all so that the Convention hath done no more in setling the Crown upon the King during his Life than what the Great Council of the Kingdom have frequently done before upon other vacancies of the Throne as I have proved from the Examples of William Rufus and Henry the First King Stephen King Iohn and Henry the Third And it is very hard to suppose the whole Nation to have been guilty of Perjury and Treason upâ—n their Swearing to and Fighting for those Princes after they were so Solemnlâ— Elected Crowned and Invested with the Royal Power But as for Edward III. his first and best Title was from the election of the Great Council of the Kingdom who I doubt not but if they had found him unworthy of the Royal Dignity by reason of folly or madness or Tyrannical Principles would have set him aside and have made his youngâ—â— Brother King a Protector to govern in the King's Name with Royal Power having never been known in England till the Reign of Henry the VI th but as for Henry the IV th notwithstanding his claim by right of Blood I have already proved that the Paâ—liament by their placing him in the Throne did not at all allow it nor is any such Right recited in the Act of the 7 th of Henry the IV th which by the Crown is entail'd upon that King and his four successive Sons And though it is true Henry the Seventh also claim'd the Crown by right of Inheritance in his Speech in Parliament yet they were so far from allowing it that they do not so much as mention it in that Act of Setlement which as I have recited they made of it upon that and the Heirs of his Body And therefore I think I may still maintain that the Convention hath done nothing in the present Setlement of the Crown but what hath been formerly done upon every vacancy of the Throne either by deposition or resignation of the King or Abdication or Forfeiture of the Crown as in the case of King Iames in which the Convention have done no more than exercised that Power which has always been suppos'd to reside in the great Council of the Kingdom of setling the Crown upon such a Prince of the Blood-Royal as they shall think best to deserve it Thus much I have said to preserve the Antient Right of the Great Council of the Nation But to put all this out of dispute I have been credibly inform'd that the Princess of Denmark her self did by some of her Servants in both Houses as well of the Lords as Commons declare upon a great Debate that arose about securing her Highnesses Right to the Crown immediately after her Sister the Queen that her Highness had desired them to assure the Convention that she was willing to acquiesce in whatever they should determine concerning the Succession of the Crown since it might tend to the present setlement and safety of the Nation which I think is a better Cession of her Right to his present Majesty than any you can prove that the Empress Mawd made to her Son Henry the Second or than the Countess of Richmond ever made to her Son Henry the Seventh M. You have often talked of this forfeiture and extravagant Power of your Convention by whom you suppose they are not obliged to place the Crown upon the head of the next Heir by Blood which I shall prove to be a vain Notion for if there be an absolute forfeiture of the Crown the Government would have been absolutely Dissolved for since there is no Legal Government without a King if the Throne were really vacant and that the People might place whom they pleas'd in it yet the Convention can have no Power to do it as their Representatives since upon your suppos'd dissolution of the Original Contract between the King and the People there was an end of all Conventions and Parliaments too And therefore if a King could have been chosen at all it ought to have been by the Votes of the whole body of the Clergy Nobility and Commons in their own single Persons and not by any Council or Convention to represent them since the Laws for restraining the Election of Parliament-men only to Freeholders are upon this suppos'd Dissolution of the Government altogether void and
of Succession yet even that will not hold in respect of the present settlement thereof by the Convention upon the Prince and Princess of Orange for their two Lives since you cannot but know that no Parliament yet was ever so presumptuous as to take upon them to settle or limit the Succession of the Crown without the consent of the King or Queen then in being Whereas the present Settlement was first made by the Convention upon the making of the Prince and Princess King and Queen tho' I grant it was afterwards confirmed by another pretended Act whereby all Princes that are or shall be Roman Catholicks when the Crown shall descend unto them are debarred from their right of Succession This though I grant to be made after the Prince and Princess of Orange took upon them the Title of King and Queen yet since that Statute was not made in a Parliament call'd by the King's Writs but in a Convention who owe their Meeting wholly to the Prince of Orange's Letters it is not only void in respect of the subject matter but also in the manner of making it and therefore I cannot believe that the Throne was ever vacant And I have as little reason to be satisfied that the Prince and Princess could be lawfully placed therein or that all Roman Catholick Princes can ever be barred from their right of Succession when ever it may fall to them F. If this be all you have farther to object I think I can easily answer it for in the first place I have already told you that the Convention did not take upon them to create or make any new form of Succession to the Crown but only to declare that the Prince and Princess of Orange are Rightful and Lawful King and Queen of England for upon supposition of King Iames's Abdication of the Crown and that the Prince of Wales cannot be taken for the lawful Son of the King 'till he can be brought over and that his Legitimacy be duly proved it must 'till then certainly be their right and no others and as for King William's holding the Crown during his own Life I have already told you it was not done without the tacit consent of the Princess of Denmark her self though I doubt not but it may also very well be justified upon those suppositions of the forfeiture of the Crown by King Iames and the Conquest the Prince of Orange made over him which are sufficient in themselves to barr any legal claim of those that either are or may pretend to be right Heirs But as for the other part of your Objection whereby you would prove that Popish Princes cannot be excluded from the Succession because the Act was made not in a Parliament but a Convention this wholly proceeds from your want of Consideration that at the first institution of the Government and long after whilst the Kingdom continued Elective there was no difference between a Great Council or Convention and a Parliament for pray call to mind the four first Great Councils after your Conquest reckoning that for one wherein King William I. was Elected or declared King whether it was possible for those Councils to be summon'd in the Kings Name before any body had taken upon themselves the Title of King the like I may say in the case of King Iohn and Henry the III d and that this continued after the Succession was setled in the next Heir by Blood appears by that Great Council that was summon'd after the death of Henry the Third which Recognized or Ordain'd his Son Prince Edward to be his Successor So likewise the Parliament that deposed King Edward the Second sate both before and after his deposition and resignation and elected his Son Edward the Third to be King and appointed his Reign to begin from the time of their Election and not of his Fathers resignation of the Crown so also upon the deposition of King Richard the Second the same Parliament that deposed him placed Henry the Fourth in the Throne and though the Writs of Summons were in the name of King Richard and they were never re-summon'd or new Elected in the Reign of Henry the Fourth yet did they still continue to sit and made divers new Acts and repealed several old ones all which hold good to this day And that the Parliament are the only proper Judges of the right of Succession even without the King you your self must grant or else how could they declare in the Thirty Ninth of Henry the VI th that the claim which Richard Duke of York made to the Crown could no way be defeated and certainly if that unfortunate Prince King Henry the Sixth had had sufficient Power or Interest in that Parliament they might and would have adjudged the Duke of York's Claim to have been groundless and contrary to Law and then I believe it would scarce have ever been heard of again But to make it out beyond exception that a Convention may become a Lawful Parliament though never call'd by the King's Writs when the King's Authority and Presence come once to be added to and joined with it appears by the first Parliament of King Charles the Second which though Summon'd in the Name of the Keepers of the Liberties of England yet nevertheless continued to Sit and make several Acts which hold good to this day and I doubt not but they might have made the like limitations of the Crown in respect of Roman-Catholick Princes as the Convention have now done and that it would have held good at this day since it is so much for the security of our Religion Liberties and Properties that it should be so since we have found by a dear bought experience in the Reigns of the four last Kings of the Scotch Line that still as they began to favour the Popish Religion and Interest in this Kingdom so did the Protestant and true English Interest in respect of our Religion Liberties and Properties still decline 'till at last they were like to be totally ruin'd and extirpated for that restless and dangerous Faction very well know that there is no means possible for them to re-establish their Superstition among us by due and legal Methods but only by introducing Arbitrary Power taking away Parliaments or else making them wholly to depend upon the King's Will as we see was labour'd and almost effected in the Reigns of the two last Kings and therefore I cannot but believe that the present Parliament has not only acted wisely but also legally to enact that for the future no Prince who is actually a Roman Catholick shall succeed to the Crown though he be next heir by blood M. I must still tell you I am as little satisfied with your suppositions of the forfeiture of the Crown by King Iames and the Conquest to the Prince of Orange as I am with your instances out of History concerning the power of the Great Councils meeting and chusing a King by their own inherent
Act that it is Declaratory of the former Laws of England made in King Henry the VII th and VIII ths and other Kings Reigns whereby the Succession of the Crown had been frequently entail'd upon those who were not the next Heirs by Blood and tho' the Queen be only mentioned in it yet it certainly as much concerns her Successors as all future Parliaments as the Oath of Allegiance in which the Queen is only mentioned does all future Kings and Queens And it is not only made Treason during her Life but also there is a loss of Goods and Chattels to be inflicted on all those who shall maintain after her decease that the Queen and Parliament had not Power to Limit the Succession And if the Parliament in her Reign could do this I desire to know whence it is that the present Parliament may not have the like Power As to what you alledge concerning the Judgment against the two Spencers being revers'd in â—1 th of Richard II. because done whilst Edward II. was still alive I desire you would take notice that this Parliament of Richard the Second was wholly made and pact by King Richard after the Banishment of the Dukes of Lancaster and Norfolk and that as well the Lords as Commons were in such fear of the Arbitrary Power he then exercised that they past whatever he would And in this Parliament it was that the Proceedings against the Chief Justice Tresilian and his fellow Judges who had been Condemned and Executed by Judgment in Parliament in the 11 th of this King were reverst And no prove the Illegality of this Parliament you need but consult the Statute-Book in 1 st of Henry the IV th where you will find one of the first Statutes after his coming to the Crown is to repeal all Acts and Proceedings made in that last Parliament of Richard the II d. M. I doubt this will not do the business for we maintain that Henry the IV th also his Son and Grand-Son were Usurpers and consequently all the Acts made in their Reigns were null and void F. I will grant you for once that Henry the IV th was an Usurper and that Edward the III d. was so also during his Fathers Life-time but then it doth not follow that all the Laws and Statutes made during those Times were null and void since you must needs know the contrary for even in that Parliament of the 21 th of Richard the II d. though 't is true that Judgment against the Spencers was revers'd for the Reason you have given yet did that Repeal extend to no other Statutes but that tho' made in the same Parliament of Edward the III d. whilst his Father was yet living But they are all of them held for good at this day as are also all the Statutes of the three Henry's whom you suppose to be Usurpers which have not been repealed by any subsequent Statutes as I can assure you those of the first of Henry the IV th are not and therefore are good Laws at this day So that nothing can be a plainer proof than this that let the King's Title to the Crown have been it would yet Allegiance was due to them as long as they continued in the Throne Therefore to conclude let me tell you I think it behoves you if you mean to keep that Office you hold under the Government to take the Oath of Allegiance to their present Majesties since you owe your Protection to their Government which certainly deserves a Temporary Allegiance as long as you enjoy the benefit of it And indeed the Oath it self is so loosly worded that methinks any Man may take it without any scruple since it doth no ways declare that the present King and Queen have an Hereditary Right to the Crown but only the Person swears to bear true Allegiance to their Majesties King William and Queen Mary which I think even Strangers and Denizens are bound to take as long as they continue in the Kingdom M. I am sorry you should think me after so long an acquaintance capable of doing any thing against my Conscience for any Worldly advantage whatsoever and therefore I must freely tell you that as for the Imployment I hold I will rather part with it if it were never so great than do any thing against my Conscience and that reputation I have hitherto maintained in the World of being an Honest Man And therefore I cannot take the Oath as a meer Denizen that owes Protection to the present Government Not only because this Oath is inconsistent with that I have already taken but also there is much more required of those that owe a Natural Allegiance to their rightful King than can be required of Strangers till they become Naturaliz'd by Act of Parliament And therefore it is that when any War breaks out between Neighbouring Princes all such Denizens who do not become absolute Subjects of this Kingdom by Naturalization if they will act like Honest Men must look upon themselves as oblig'd either to quit the Kingdom in case a War be declar'd against their natural Prince or at least are oblig'd not to act any thing to his prejudice though they may still inhabit and Traffick here which is a quite different Case from those who are not only born the King's Subjects but have also taken the Oath of Allegiance to him And therefore I can by no means think it Lawful to take this New Oath to King William and Queen Mary though it were required in no higher a sense than as King and Queen de facto since it can no ways consist with that Oath which I have already taken to King Iames and his right Heirs as I shall prove to you another time since it is now very late from the true sense and meaning of those words I will be Faithful and bear true Allegiance c. which can only be sworn to such Kings and Queens who besides a bare Possession have also a Legal and Hereditary Right to the Crown F. I shall be very glad to hear you farther upon this Question for if that can be made out I fear too many of the Clergy as well as Laity by mistaking the true Sense of this Oath have been Forsworn But pray tell me when I shall wait on you and hear what you have further to say upon this Important Subject M. Pray let me see you two or three days hence and then I shall be at leisure in the mean time am your humble Servant F. And I am yours FINIS Bibliothera Politica OR A DISCOURSE By WAY of DIALOGUE On these following Questions I. Whether an Oath of Allegiance may be taken to a King or Queen de facto or for the time being II. What is the Obligation of such an Oath whether to an actual defence of their Title against all Persons whatsoever or else to a bare submission to their Power III. Whether the Bishops who refused to take the Oath of Allegiance
Seventh which we are now disputing about was made expresly to secure and indemnitie all those who should attend upon the King for the time being and do him true and faithful service of Allegiance c. And therefore it lies upon you still to prove that this Statute is either expired or else void in it self otherwise besides the constant practice of former times we have here an express Act of Parliament declaring it every Mans duty to pay Allegiance to the King for the time being and then certainly he is as much oblig'd to Swear it too M. I doubt not but I shall prove to you that this Statute expired with Henry the Seventh from a Clause in the Act it self for if you please to read immediately after those words you have now cited that all those who do the King for the time being true and lawful Allegiance c. it follows thus shall be secured from all manner of forfeitures and molestations relating to their Persons or Estates but mark provided always that no person or persons shall take any benefit or advantage by this Act which shall hereafter decline from his or their said Allegiance now we know a proviso is an exception or restraint upon the latitude and comprehensiveness of the Law and that all Statutes are perfectly null so far as the proviso reaches Having premised this I shall endeavour to prove that this Act was design'd only for the security of that Reign in which it was made and cannot be stretched any farther To make this appear let us now suppose a competition between the King de jure and Henry the Seventh that is one de facto and that the Subject engages for the latter in this case if the King de facto prevail there is no need of the assistance of this Statute for we cannot imagine any Prince could be so impolitick as to punish those who have ventur'd their All to maintain him in his Government this besides the ingratitude of the action would proclaim the injustice of his Cause and would serve only to ruine his interest F. Notwithstanding this objection you have now made I doubt not but this Clause will bear a very fair and legal interpretation and that not in respect of the Allegiance that might be due to the King de facto but to the King de jure since if it were not for the indemnity provided by this Statute the King de facto would have been oblig'd to have punished them for opposing their lawful Prince M. This is easily answer'd for pray do Kings de facto always perform that which the Law requires if so they never would have been Kings de facto since they could not make themselves Masters of the Sovereign power without dispossessing those who are supposed the right owners of it Secondly the possessour would not so much as seem oblig'd to punish his adherents upon a competition except he own'd himself to be no more than an unjust Usurper but we have neither example nor reason to expect such singular concessions as these for no Usurper will own himself in the wrong so long as he intends to enjoy the advantages of his injustice upon supposition therefore that the Victory had fallen on the side of a King de facto the Act would be wholly superfluous F. But why may we not also suppose that this Clause was inserted not only to secure those who had assisted the King de facto against your King de jure but also to debar all those who had fallen from their Allegiance to the King de facto from receiving any benefit by this Act if ever they should plead it in their own justification after the King de jure had prevail'd and was again setled in the Throne M. You may take it in this sence if you please but if you do it will not at all mend the matter for tho' those that stood by the King de facto will have great occasion for an Act of Indemnity yet this Act will be as helpless to them now as it was needless before for either they must submit to the King de jure or not if they do not submit it 's easie to imagine the Consequences how a Victorious and irresistible Prince will treat the obstinate and rebellious opposers of his just Title if they do submit as of necessity they must then they can claim no manner of priviledge and indemnity from this Act for they cannot come into the Party of the King de jure without deserting that de facto i. e. without declining their Allegiance to him who was King when this Statute was made by declining which Allegiance the proviso expresly excludes them from all manner of benefit or advantage by this Act. In this condition the Law would have left the de facto Party if the Sovereignty had been disputed between Henry the Seventh and the House of York and that the Prince de jure of the House of York had been successful from whence it 's undeniably plain that neither the design nor words of this Statute can be drawn to such a monstrous construction as to enact bare possession to be a good Title and make Might and Right the same thing The only design of this Parliament was to continue the Crown to Henry the Seventh during his life which both by the body and proviso of the Act was effectually done as in them lay for divers reasons that might then prevail with the two Houses to consent to a temporary alteration of the Succession to the Crown such as these that though Henry the Seventh had no just Title in his own right yet in the right of his Wife he had which he did no way disavow by this Act and you must also remember that at this time Henry the VIIth had several Children by his Queen viz. Prince Arthur Henry c. So that now the contending Families of Yorke and Lancaster being thus hapily united there was no reason to sear that a security though an unusual one to the present possessor could be prejudicial to the right Line especially since the force of that Act was confined to the Reign of that Prince as has been already proved F. You may fancy if you please that you have prov'd this Act to be expired but I think if you better consider of it you will find your self mistaken for though I may very well suppose that the King and Parliament to deter men from falling from their Allegiance to the King for the time being might insert this Clause upon a supposition that the next King whoever he was whether by right of blood or only de facto would out of a generous aversion to Traytors and Deserters hinder them by vertue of this Clause from enjoying any benefit by this Act yet I shall not longer insist upon 't whether it be insignificant or not and therefore will at present grant it to be so but what then Will a void Clause vitiate or render expir'd
addition of new arguments I hope you will not think me tedious if I am also necessitated to repeat the same things again and put you in mind of what I hayh already prov'd which when I have done I doubt not but this argument of yours will signifie very little Your first mistake therefore is that King Henry the VIIth being an Usurper had no power to alter the course of Hereditary Succession setled by the Statute of the first of Edward the IVth whereby he was declar'd lawful King in answer to which I must put you in mind that this was the first time that ever this Point was so setled before and that not till after a long War and that by subduing all those that held with the House of Lancaster he had made such a perfect Conquest of all that oppos'd him that there was no Lords or Commons in this Parliament but what were intirely of his Party yet we see that when Henry the VIth got the upper hand again and his party revers'd this Statute of Edward the IVth and declar'd the Crown to belong to Henry the VIth and his Heirs which Act was to revers'd again by the next Parliament in the eleventh of Edward the IVth when he again recover'd the Crown by another Battle against Henry the VIth so evident it is that whoever is once seated in the Throne and is recognized by Act of Parliament tho' of his own summoning all his Acts till they are repeal'd do hold good though he were declar'd an Usurper and himself attainted by Act of Parliament and therefore admitting that Henry the VIIth was an Usurper at the time when this Act we now discourse of was made yet would it not render this Act void as you suppose since it was never yet repeal'd by any subsequent Statute But indeed Henry the VIIth was no Usurper at the time when this Statute was made for you your self have already granted that he had a good Title in right of his Wife which he never renounc'd or disavow'd and therefore we may very well suppose that she though Queen de jure gave her tacit consent to this Act in the person of her Husband and if so I cannot see any reason why it should not stand good not only against her self and her own Children 〈◊〉 also against all others who should claim under her Title but if you say she could not do this in prejudice of her own right Heirs because the Crown had been already declar'd by Act of Parliament to be Hereditary and not to be acquir'd by Usurpation this is to beg the question and to suppose an Hereditary descent to have been the fundamental Law and constant practice of the Succession of the Crown before that time whereas I have already prov'd that till the Reign of Edward the First the Crown was partly Hereditary and partly Elective and ever since that time though it has been still claim'd as Hereditary yet has it been always believed to be the right of the Parliament to declare who was Lawful King and that whosoever was so declar'd and recogniz'd has been always looked upon in the eye of the Law as the only Rightful and Legal King to whom the Allegiance of the Subjects was due and whose Statutes are obligatory at this day This being so as it cannot be deny'd your Argument from the Act of recognition to King Iames the First may be easily answer'd though I should grant at present for discourse sake that their now Majesties King William and Queen Mary are only King and Queen de facto for if all the Statutes of these three Kings of the House of Lancaster and of Richard the Third nay even those Statutes by which themselves were declar'd to be lawful Kings and the Crown setled upon them and their issue have at all times held good till they were lawfully repeal'd I desire you would shew me any sufficient reason why the late Act of Recognition of their present Majesties Title and for the settlement of the Crown upon their right Heirs of the Protestant Religion should not have the like force and effect in respect of our Allegiance to them as it had been to all other Kings de facto who have hitherto sate upon the Throne though perhaps it may derogate from the intent of that Statute of Recognition of King Iames the First nor does it make any difference though we suppose that this Act was made by a King by descent and that we now discourse of only by a King and Queen de facto and a Parliament call'd or own'd by them since the Law allows no difference as to their Legislative Power between Acts made by a King de facto and one de jure And therefore though I grant that those conclusions you draw from this Statute are true that there is no inter-regnum or vacancy of the Throne And Secondly that the assent of the King is that which gives the life being and vigour to the Laws yet as for your first conclusion that there can be no vacancy of the Throne it is only to be understood that ordinarily and according to the common course of Succession there can be none and yet extraordinarily there may as you your self must grant since upon the death of Queen Elizabeth there might have happen'd a contest between King Iames and the then Earl of Hartford as Heir to Mary the French Queen second Sister to King Henry the VIIIth upon whose Heirs the Crown was setled by Henry the VIIIth's Will as I have already mention'd at our last Meeting and if it had been a doubt whether this Will had been rightly made or not could have been no otherwise decided but by War or else the solemn Judgement and recognition of Parliament of that Title they had judged to be best and he who had been so declared would certainly have been lawful King and all the Nation had been oblig'd to swear Alleglance to him Apply this to the present case admitting King Iames to have truly Abdicated the Throne and see whether it be not exactly the same supposing for once your Prince of Walts to have been indeed the Son of the late King and Queen and though it is true he is not yet declar'd an Impostor yet is he neither acknowledged as their right Heir for the Reasons I have already given But as for your next conclusion that it is the assent of the lawful King that gives force and vigour to a Law from whence you would infer that the late Act of Recognition and Settlement is void because not made by those who were lawful King and Queen at the time of the making this Act this is also to beg the question for though it is true the Act of Recognition to King Iames declares this Act could not be compleat without his Majesties Royal Assent yet it is not there said that no other King but he who claims by descent as King Iames did could pass an Act that should be good
was the only right Heir this is to beg the question since if he had not been so it would have been all one as you your self confess As for the rest of your Arguments which you draw from the different means which our Law allows for Princes succeeding to the Crown which you call a mungrel hodge podge course of Succession and that it derogates from the Dignity of a true Hereditary Monarchy to which I shall only say if now our Law has established it so no private Man ought to judge otherwise for nemo debet esse sapientior legibus is a maxime as old as true but indeed though our Laws do establish a legal right in the present Possessor of the Crown when once Crown'd and Recogniz'd by Parliament since they will not allow the Parliament to judge of or examine the Kings Title or by what means he attain'd the Throne yet this does not to alter the ordinary hereditary course of Succession for the Law still looks upon the Crown as Hereditary and the change of the Person or Royal Family does not make the Crown cease to be so and therefore whoever has possession of the Crown has an Hereditary Crown and as such may leave it to his Heirs as long as they can keep it as is plain from the example of the three Henries who succeeded each other and who had not only Allegiance sworn to them but they who acted contrary thereunto were judged and executed as Traytors so that the Law did all it could to maintain the Crown in the right line of Succession and if any Kings have gain'd it by Usurpation though the Parliament have own'd the Authority of such an Usurper yet have they not thereby approv'd the action and you your self must acknowledge a great difference between these two since you have more than once acknowledged that an Usurper or King in possession has a good Title to a Crown in case all the right Heirs are extinct or by their not claiming it for any long time are suppos'd to have made a â—acit cession of their right since it is not so much to the Person as to the Authority which we grant to be from God that we pay our obedience But let us also for once suppose that there may be a legal Title to a Crown without a right to exercise the Authority belonging to it and a legal right to wear the Crown and exercise the Authority belonging to it without an antecedent legal Right to the Crown it self this is no such absurdity as you suppose if you please to consider that allow'd distinction between jus ad rem and jus in re with the reason of it for t is an approved distinction in Law that one may have a right to a thing and another a right in it the one is a right of a legal claim the other of a legal possession and that this may and must be in all Civil Governments and meer legal Rights appears from the different Laws and Customs on which such different rights are founded This I have hinted before but must now explain it more particularly in all Civil Societies there must be particular Laws to determine personal and particular Rights and whatever is due to any Man by such Laws is his legal Right But yet we know these Laws can determine no controversie without a living Judge for if every Man were to judge for himself every Man will make the Law to be on his side and then we had as good have no Laws at all and therefore the Fundamental Laws of all Societies which is superior to all particular Laws is this That the last and final Judgment of Authority shall be taken for Law and that shall be every Man 's right as to all the Effects of Law which is thus adjudged him whoever calmly considers these things will find that it is impossible it should be otherwise without overturning all Civil Governments And this I have proved to you from the Example of a right owner of an Estate when outed of his Possession by a Verdict of a Jury and an unjust Judgment in one of the King's Courts that no Man ought to restore him by force to his Possession till he has again reverst that unjust Judgment given against him M. Though I grant this is true in the Case of private Persons and their Inheritances yet is it not so as to Princes who hold their Crowns by a Title superior to the ordinary Municipal Laws and therefore are not only Kings by Law but by Divine Right and a Fundamental Constitution of the Government and so cannot have their Title adjudged by Parliament as you suppose for our best Divines have unanimously concluded out of Scripture that all lawful Kings and their Royal Power is from God by Divine right and is not from the People no not in Elective Kingdoms such as Poland for Example for even there the conferring of the Royal Authority is from God and not from any Law made by the People and neither they nor their Representatives have any thing to do to judge of it for I would gladly know who made that Law which made the King certainly the King did not make it for that Law which made the King must of necessity precede and be before the King who had his Royal Power and Kingly Office from that Law F. I see you are very hard put to it since you are again forc'd to flie back to your old Covert of a Divine Right in Kings which is not to be deriv'd from any Law made by the consent of the People and if this be true I desire you would show me how Kings can at this day owe their Crownâ— immediately to God and not to the Law since God does no longer confer Kingdoms by any express Designation of the Person but by the ordinary course of his Providence and then pray tell me why all Princes whatsoever when they are once seated in the Throne let them come by it which way they will must not derive their power alike from God and consequently Kings by an unjust Conquest or Usurpation are as much from God as those who ascend the Throne by the Consent or Election of the People for if the Peoples consent do no more then design the Person but that it is God alone which gives him his Authority then which way soever he obtains this power of the Sword which is the onely sign of God's conferring this Authority it will be also the Ordinance of God and consequently their present Majesties being once seated in the Throne are upon these principles as much to be obey'd as the Ordinance of God as King Iames or any other Hereditary Monarch whatever But if you do not like this Doctrine and tell me of a legal Successive right which King Iames and his right Heirs have to the Crown according to the Fundamental Constitution of the Nation this is plainly to own the King to be so by the Law of the
very letter of this Law but also because I have now said all private Persons ought to submit their Judgements in this matter to that of their Representatives who if they have judged falsely are 〈◊〉 bear the blame but yet their Judgement for all that is to be held for good 'till it be reversed in the same way in which it was given since if after such a recognition every private person should still be free to pay his Allegiance to him whom he suppos'd King de jure it would certainly follow that the Civil Society or Common-wealth must of necessity fall into Civil Wars which is against the nature of Civil Societies and inconsistent with the duty of self-preservation which obligeth men not to expose their Lives and Fortunes but to obtain a greater good than both those which can only be the publick good of the Community and not the single interest of any one person or Family and though I grant it is a great sin in those who are instrumental in raising Rebellion and who are thereby guilty of a very enormous Crime yet that which made it so was not barely the injury they committed against the Prince to whom if alone consider'd the breach of an Oath in withdrawing their Allegiance could be no greater a Sin than the breach of an Oath to another person but indeed the fatal mischief and irreparable dammage they did the Common-wealth is that which aggravates the Sin and if a new commotion to restore the King de jure would in all probability prove yet more destructive and a Nation by being so much weakned by a former Civil War be less able to bear a new Civil War which may happen so far to the weakning of it as to expose it to the Invasion and Conquest of a foreign Nation who may be Enemies both to our Religion and Civil Constitution in such a case I cannot think it our duty to restore a Prince by force though never so unjustly driven from his Throne And therefore if I had been then a man tho' I should have been as much for bringing home King Charles as any body ought to be yet I should have been only for it in the way in which it was brought about and should never have desir'd it if it could not have been done but by an Army of French or Irish Papists and the like I say now as to King Iames as long as he is joyn'd with the Interest of France and is already gone into Ireland on purpose to renew the War by the Arms and Assistance of those whose Fathers as well as several of themselves did all they could to destroy not only the Royal Power but also the English Religion and Government in that Nation And therefore I must freely tell you that if even Rebels have put it out of their power to make reparation for all the wrongs they may have done by Rebelling against their Lawful Prince because he in possession is too powerful to be driven out again without a violent Civil War and a general concussion of the whole Common-Wealth This reparation to the injur'd Prince being not to be made without a greater evil than that they endeavour'd avoid it ought to be omitted till it may be done with more safety to the Nation or else not at all I say if there be no other way to make reparation to their injur'd King but by engaging the Nation in fresh Civil Wars they ought not to attempt it by such unlawful and destructive means M. I confess the Discourse you have now made carries the greatest appearance of truth of any thing you have yet said since it is drawn from the publick Good of the Nation which I grant to be comprehended under the common good of Mankind and you have done well to own it to be Rebelion to deprive a lawful Prince and his Heirs of the Crown yet that it is unlawful to restore them again to it if we think it cannot be brought about without a general Subversion of our Religion and Civil Liberties may be a question I grant indeed if we could be absolutely certain of this there would be some colour for this Argument but since future things are not capable of Demonstration if the restoring our lawfull Prince be a Duty incumbent upon every good Subject we ought to endeavour it though with some Danger and Hazard of what ever is dear to us for God will either protect us both in our Religion and Civil Liberties for thus honestly performing our Duties according as we are bound by our Allegiance or if he has call'd us to suffer for the Truth he will either find us Patience to bear it or else provide us a way to escape this I speak in Relation to the French and Irish whose Conquest and Malice you are so much afraid of in case the King should happen to be restor'd by their assistance but indeed I think this a needless fear since I suppose the King will be too wise to bring over so many of either Nation as shall be able to make an entire Conquest of this Kingdom least thereby both he and his Crown may lie wholly at their Mercy when the Business is done nor do I think it either in the power of the French or Irish to perform these dangerous things not of the former because as I now said I suppose the King will never bring over more of them along with him than what may serve to make a stand against the Prince of Orange's Forces till his Good and Loyal Subjects can come in and join with them to his Assistance and as for the Irish they are also the King's Subjects and though Ignorant they are very inveterate against the Protestant Religion and the English Nation and Interest yet they may be so govern'd and over-rul'd by the King as not to be able to do us any considerable Damage But as to the King of France I do really believe he is far from intending to make an entire Conquest of this Kingdom for himself much less desiring to make the King as Absolute a Monarch here as himself is in France for us to the form◠he has too much consideration of his own Glory and Reputation in the World to seize upon the Kingdom of a near Kinsman and Allie of his own Religion and who had been driven from his Throne chiefly for being too much in his Interest and besides all this he may very well fear that if he went about any such thing as an entire Conquest of this Nation all Parties may join against him as a common Enemy and drive him out again as the English Barons did Prince Lewis in the time of King Henry the III d. nor can it be the French King's Interest to make our King Absolute here for then having the Persons and Purses of his Subjects wholly in his own Power King Lewis might justly fear that either this King or his Successors may prove as dangerous Enemies to the
and is by the law of Nature oblig'd to Honour Obey Assist and Support So also is he born a Member of the body Politick and by consequence a Subject to the Sovereign of it and accordingly by the same eternal Law is bound to pay all faithful Service and Obedience to him when he in a capacity to perform them But your next Mistake is yet worse when you confound that common Obligation of a Foreigner or meer Denison to be true and faithful to the Common Wealth wherein he lives with this Natural Allegiance of every English Subject for though I grant the taking the Oath of Allegiance does not inforce any new Obligation upon him that takes it more than he was subject to before yet for all that I think you will not deny but that there is a great deal of difference between that common Obedience or Submission which such a Foreigner pays to the King and his Laws in a Country where he Sojourns and that more perfect Allegiance arising either by Birth or from such a strangers being naturalized and by taking the Oath of Allegiance becoming as true and perfect a Subject as a natural English Man and hence it is that in all Wars declar'd between Neighbouring Princes whatever Subjects of theirs shall presume to stay and reside in each others Dominions after once they are recall'd home may be justly Executed as Traytors when ever they shall be taken and therefore though I grant that every Person now living in England and of ripe Age is oblig'd to obey your King and Queen de facto in all ordinary and lawful things which tend to the publick Benefit and Defence of the Civil Society or Common-weal and which being for the benefit of the King de jure and his leige People it is to be morally suppos'd they have his Tacit consent for what they do as long as it tends only to this end yet does it not therefore follow that the bare protection of this usurpt Government and the enjoyment of the common priviledges of a Subject should give such a King de facto or Government a right of exacting an Oath of Allegiance to them since I have already prov'd from the true signification of being true and faithful as also from the legal signification of the word Allegiance that no true Subject can lawfully take it without renouncing his Allegiance to his natural Prince since not only a bare Neutrality or Obedience in not transgressing the Laws is thereby required of them but also an Active Obedience and Duty in performing the King de Facto's commands and the deâ—ending him when ever there is occasion in his ill-gotten power But since the only difficulty is how a strict observation of this Oath can consist with the quiet and happiness of the Subjects when ever a new Oath of Allegiance comes to be impos'd by the King de facto since the Subjects may be all ruin'd that do not take it if it be once offer'd to them This difficulty might be easily remov'd if the whole Nation would â—lick firmly to the Duty required by their former Oath of Allegiance and resolve never to take a new one for then the numbers of the refusers would be so great as that they would be more than could be made to suffer for their refusing it I speak of such Subjects as are in our case and who are not forced by a Prince who either has the Right or Power of a Conqueror to compel them by force and therefore your instances of the Subjects of the King of Spain or of the Duke of Holstein who were conquer'd or else as good as conquer'd by the power of France and Denmark whereas we are only over-aw'd by an inconsiderable number of Dutch and Germans and might set our selves free if we would give but a vigorous Effort towards it For that King William is a Conqueror over the whole Nation I think you dare not affirm And without he were so he could challenge no right to our Allegiance as such and therefore I must still believe that the Oath of Allegiance I have taken to King Iames and his Heirs is perpetual unless you could show me that their Right is determin'd which you have not done by any thing you have yet said and therefore I cannot be of your Opinion that the bare protection of an usurpt Power can justifie our Swearing Allegiance to it either in Law or Conscience for then all Men had been oblig'd to pay as firm an Allegiance to the Rump Parliament and also to Oliver Cromwell as to King William and Queen Mary since both the former protected the People as much in their Religion Civil Liberties and Properties as the latter I fear will ever do And that the bare protection of a Government does not give it no absolute right to the Allegiance of all those that enjoy their protection I think may be sufficiently prov'd from the instance of a Frenchman or any other Foreigner who though by his living here and enjoying the common protection of the Government I grant he is oblig'd to be obedient to its Laws and is not to Act or Conspire against it yet this does not discharge him from his natural Allegiance which he still owes to his former Prince so as to do any thing which may prejudice that Allegience he owes to him either by Conspiring or Fighting against him And this was solemnly declard to be Law by the Judges of the Kings-Bench in the case of Dr. Story in the 13 th Year of Queen Elizabeth He being a violent Papist fled over into Flanders to the Duke of Alva and there conspiring with him to invade this Kingdom and being afterwards taken and brought over Prisoner was Tryed as a Subject of England though he refused to plead as such because he said he had Sworn Allegiance to the King of Spain notwithstanding which Plea he was Executed as a Traytor as you will find at large in my Lord Chief Justice Dyers's Reports which Judgment is also confirm'd by the Lord Chief Justice Coke in Calvins's Case where he expresly Asserts That a Person born under the Dominion of the King of England owes him perpetual Faith and Allegiance and this by vertue of the Law of Nature because Iura naturalia sunt immutabilia from whence will also appear the falsity of your Conclusion that Oaths of Allegience extend no further then to the King in Possession or to that Government to which we do at present owe our common Protection and therefore that our Law has a much higher consideration of this inherent Allegiâ—nce that belongs to a King de Iure as to his particular Person and his Heirs so that it cannot be indifferently paid to any body else who can by seizing of the Government force us to owe our Protection to them Which appears by what my Lord Coke hath also laid down to have been agreed by all the Judges upon this Oath of Allegiance in Calvins's Case as I
the lawfulness of the Powers to whom it is taken And I must acknowledge that you therein act with much more Sincerity and Honour then divers of your Party who tho they have been and are of your Opinion as to the Justice of King Iames's Title yet think they may take this Oath well enough in that looser and more qualified Sence you grant they put upon it and therefore to answer in the first place what you have said against the imposing any more explicite or stricter Oath of Allegiance then what is already appointed though I think I can very well answer all the Arguments you have now brought against it Yet to let you see I am a fair Adversary I will shew you how far I agree with you and wherein I must differ from you In the first place therefore let me tell you That you very much mistake me if you believe that by this new Oath I propose I'do design an express Abjuration of King Iames or the Prince of Wales in Case that King should ever happen to recover the Throne and call a Parliament who shall again Recognize him for lawful King and the Prince for the Right and Undoubted Heir of the Crown I am too sensible of the frequent Alterations that have happened in this Nation even to desire or propose any such thing since a Man may as well abjure the having a Feavour or the Small Pox. Change of Government and consequently our submission to it when ever it happens being no more in our power to prevent then the having those Diseases all therefore that I intend by a stricter and more explicate Oath of Allegiance is only for Men who shall undertake any imployments of Trust and Consequence either Spiritual Civil or Military in the Common-wealth since I grant the Oath as it is now worded may be sufficient for all ordinary Subjects from whom a passive Submission and true Obedience is a sufficient performance of their Duty but as for all others that either now have or expect to enjoy Places of Trust I could wish a stricter Oath asserting their present Majesties to be lawful and rightful King and Queen of this Kingdom and that the Taker will defend them in the present Possession of it to the utmost of their Power against all Persons whatsoever King Iames and the Prince of Wales not excepted and this I must think necessary not only from that Low and qualified Sence of this Oath which I gave at the beginning of this Nights Conversation and in which Sence you cannot deny but that many if not the greater part of those who still hold such imployments have lately taken it and as long as they do so how they can ever think themselves obliged to defend their Majesties against King Iames nay or any French or Popish Forces that shall act by his Commission I cannot understand for since they now look upon the present King and Queen to have no other right to the Crown than what their bare Power and present Possession of it gives them no wonder if such Men take the first opportunity to Revolt and joyn with King Iames as soon as ever he Lands with an Army or appears upon our Coasts with any Fleet formidable enough to oppose ours and must also if they are true to their Principles in the mean time do all they can to protect and indemnifie those who being of tender Consciences cannot stretch it as far as themselves and who under-hand do Act as far as they dare for King Iames's Interest and though it is true you have very solidly proved not only as a Civilian but like a Lawyer that the word Allegiance inserted in this Oath does of its own Nature imply not only that the King or Queen to whom it is taken ought to be rightly and lawfully so but that more than a bare Neutrality viz. a reall and vigorous defence of them and their right against all their Enemies is required and implyed by it and that is one great Reason why you say you cannot take it Now though I confess the Reason you have given are very weighty and convincing yet since the words are in themselves too general and doubtfull for every Person that takes or holds such Offices or Imployments of Trust to understand it in that Sence I could be glad there were another more plain and explicite Oath to be administred to those who expect to keep or hold such Imployments Since the present Government cannot well be safe without it as long as such Persons are imployed who can take the Oath with a Mental Reservation of serving King Iames as soon they safely may by vertue of that former Oath of Allegiance they have taken to him This being the Case I shall now answer all the Objections you have brought against it which indeed are rather framed to keep those Men in places that they may serve your designs when ever they are able than to do any service to tender Consciences First then I think I may maintain that such an Oath will notwithstanding what you have now said have contrary effects than what you are pleased to allow for in the first place it will gain the present Government more new Friends amongst these Neuters who steer their Allegiance to it only from its present Settlement and the hopes of its Continuance when they find that none can be imployed in places of publick Trust who will not take an Oath to acknowledge their present Majesties to be Lawfull and Rightfull King and Queen and who will also Swear to Defend their just Right which will for the most part put Placeâ— of Trust into their Hands who will think themselves oblig'd faithfully to perform what they have Sworn Secondly it will also fix the old Friends of this Government faster to it when they see none but themselves or those who will really come into the Government upon their Principles admitted to such Places of profit and trust and whoever will take this Oath are to be presumed to take it willingly and wittingly and understanding what they do since the words will be of themselves so plain and evident that they will admit none of those loose and doubtfull Sences in which so many have taken the present Oath of Allegiance but your main Objection against this is that a new Oath will not discover secret Enemies to the Government because that most of the same Persons that have taken the former Oath will take any other that can be requir'd of them which I suppose is not so since you your self do grant that such an Oath would be a snare to a great many who if it were not for that would serve this Government faithfully enough that is to say as long as there is no necessity of shewing their Good-will to King Iames or have no opportunity given of returning to their former Allegiance to him with safety to themselves and you your self cannot deny but according to their Principles they must needs perform it when
p. 539.540 King how far Gods Lieutenant D. 9. p. 663. W. His Authority is different from his Personal Will and Commands Ib. p. 645. to 648. His Person how far Sacred and Inviolable Ibid. p. 638.651 to 657. Kings Commission how far and in what cases resistible notwithstanding the Declarations of of the two first Parliaments of King Charles the Second Ib. p. 636. to 655. W. He hath any Authority to act against Law Ib. p. 644 to 649. Kings Commissions how far good in Law Ib. p. 640. Kings since the Conquest W. endued with the sole Legislative Power D. 5. p. 338 to 345. D. 9. p. 650 651. hath no Peer or Equal in the Kingdom D. 5. p. 354. His presence W. it will authorize all illegal actions so as to render them irresistible D. 9. p. 653 654. His Officers in what case resistible Ib. The Kings being irresistible how far different from being unaccountable D. 9. p. 644 645. Kings of England W. absolute and unaccountable or W. limited by Law D. 10. p. 693 to 698. Most High in their State-Royal when they appear in their Great Councils or Parliament D. 9. p. 643. The first Eight Kings after the Conquest never were so stiled till after their Coronations D. 12. p. 840. to 858.895 King though he have no Peer yet he had anciently Comites or Companions D. 5. p. 364 365. W. He can at this day abdicate or forfeit his Crown by the wilful violation of our fundamental Laws D. 10. p. 694 to 709. D. 11. p. 832 833. Kingly Power the end of its Institution in this Kingdom D. 5. p. 349. King de facto or for the time being W. within the Statute of the 25th of Edward the Third and whether Allegiance be due to him by the Statute of the Eleventh of Henry the Seventh D. 13. p. 905. to 940. What constitutes a legal King in England D. 12. p. 889 890. Kingdoms of Judah and Israel W. when given by Gods appointment it gave the issue of that King a like Divine Right to succeed D. 2. p. 99 100. Kingdoms Patrimonial and Hereditary their difference Ib. 84 85. Knights of Shires frequently stiled Magnates and Grantz in Ancient Records D. 6. p. 424. vid. Append. W. They were anciently chosen out of the Tenants in Capite and none others p. 425. Knights Citizens and Burgesses W. the first Writs of Summons of them that can be found is the 49th of Henry the Third D. 7. p. 519. W. This was the first time that they were summoned Ibid. p. 525 to 530. W. They were summoned no more till the Eighteenth of Edward the First Ibid. p. 522. to the end D. 8. p. 559. to 563. p. 571 to 576. L Lancaster W. that Families pretended Title to the Crown claim'd by Inheritance D. 12. p. 861 862. Laws how far they oblige Princes according to Sir R. F's Principles D. 2. p. 120 121. Laws Imperial of all Goâ—vernments W. they require a Passive Obedience or Non-Resistance in all cases whatsoever D. 3. p. 149.154 Law of Nations W. it differs from the Law of Nature D. 1. p. 26 to 31. Laws of English Saxon Councils the Titles to most of them D. 5. p. 314. to 319. Laws of Normandy W. the same in most things with those of England D. 10. p. 752.753 Laws fundamental of the Kingdom W. there are any such things and where to be found D. 9. p. 666. to 669. D. 10. p. 704. D. 11. p. 810. to 814. Law of Edward the Confessour concerning the Kings ceasing to be so if he prove a Tyrant and W. it be genuine or not D. 10. p. 705. to 712. Private League with France what Reasons there are for and against its reality D. 11. p. 800. to 802. Liberi Homines and Liberi Tenentes mentioned in Ancient Statutes and Records who they were anciently D. 6. p. 419.426 to 431. W. They were only Tenants in Capite or chose by Military service to them D. 7. p. 449. to 453.514 M Magna Charta W. obtained by Rebellion D. 3. p. 186. Magnates W. the Commons were not sometimes comprehended under that Title D. 6. p. 372.396 397. Queen Mary W. she had any Title save by the Statute of Henry the Eighth D. 12. p. 872. Our present Queen Mary W. she hath a right to succeed upon her Fathers abdication Ib. p. 853. 884. Maud the Empress why she never stiled her self Queen of England notwithstanding fealty had been sworn to her D. 12. p. 846. Several Maxims in the Civil Law considered and explained D. 1. p. 17 18 21.30 The ancient Members of the German Diets or Great Councils D. 6. p. 375. The Milites mentioned in ancient Statutes and Records who they were D. 6. p. 431 432. W. They were only Tenants in Capite or any other Tenants by Military or Socage service D. 7. p. 481.489 490. Mischiefs that may befall a People from their resistance of the Supream Power considered D. 3. p. 184. to 189. Monarchy W. of Divine Right from any Precepts or Examples in the Old or New Testament D. 2. p. 130 131. Or from Adams Patriarchical Power D. 1. p. 19. to 26. Monarchies or Commonwealths which are most Tyrannical D. 2. p. 110.111 Mixt Monarchy W. it be a Contradiction D. 5. p. 345. to 348. Sim. Montfort W. he first called the Knights Citizens and Burgesses to Parliament in the 49th of Henry the Third D. 8. p. 596.597 Moses and Joshua W. Monarchs over the Children of Israel and Successors to the Patriarchical Power D. 2. p. 92. to 100. Multitudo Cleri Populi the signification of those words in our ancient Histories D. 8. p. 569. to 571. N W. A whole Nation may resist the Supream Power in some Cases of extremity but not particular Persons D. 3. p. 146. to 150.161 162. D. 4. p. 236. to 239.272 to 275. Negative voice W. the two Houses of Parliament have it not in some Cases as well as the King D. 5. p. 341. Noah W. he was sole Proprietor of the Earth or else was Tenant in common with his own Children D. 1. p. 74 75. W. His Grandsons were all alike Princes over their several Families Ib. p. 75. to 81. W. from Noahs Seven Precepts may be deduced the Law of Nature D. 1. p. 36 37. Nobilis Nobilitas the several significations of those Titles D. 6. p. 374 388.410 W. Meer Commoners were not often comprehended under the Title of Nobiles Ib. 396 397. Non Obstantes the Clause when first inserted in our Kings Charters D. 11. p. 820. Non Resistance W. the Doctrine tend to make Princes better or else more Tyrannical to their Subjects D. 2. p. 116 117. Normandy W. its Dukes were absolute or limited Princes D. 10. p. 727. O Oath of the King at his Coronation how far obliged according to Sir F's Principles D. 2. p. 122.123 It s ancient form according to the Mirour D. 5.364 W. The taking the Coronation Oath renders the Crown forfeitable if it
of an Incensed Prince may justly inflict upon such Rebels in this Life but also the Wrath of God and those Punishments that he hath denounced in the Holy Scriptures in the Life to come against such Rebellious Subjects as dare resist the Supream Powers ordained by God F. Before I answer the main part of your last discourse give me leave first to justifie my Simile for tho' I grant Similes are no Arguments yet they often serve to expose the absurdity of several things which either the â—alse colours of Eloquence or the too great Authority of learned men might otherwise have hid from our Eyes and therefore if the Supream Powers have no Authority from the Revealed Will of God or the Law of Nature nor by the Municipal Laws of any Countrey to invade their Subjects Lives Liberties or Estates they may be so far compared to Thieves and Robbers when they do nor are such violent Actions of theirs to be submitted to as the Ordinance of God And I suppose you will not deny but that a Prince or State that does thus Acts as directly contrary to Gods Will as Thieves themselves and consequently all honest men or Subjects having so far no obligation to suffer or obey may justly Resist them So that if this be true all the rest of the Comparison currit quatuor pedibus But as for your reflections upon MAGNA CHARTA it is you your self not I that asserted it to have been extorted by force and dâ—fended by Rebellion for it is very well known to those who are at all Conveâ—sant in our English Histories and Laws that there was nothing granted in that CHARTER which was not the Birth-right of the Clergy Nobility and People long before the Conquest and were comprised under the Title of King Edwards Laws and which were after confirmed by William the first as also more expresly by the Grants of his Son Henry the first and King Stephen as appears by their Charters still to be seen And therefore these fundamental Rights and Priviledges were not extorted by force from King Iohn as you suppose The War commencing between him and his Barons was not because he would not grant them fresh Priviledges which they had not before but because he had not kept nor observed the Fundamental Laws of the Land and those Rights and Priviledges which before belonged to the Clergy Nobility and People as well by the Common Law of the Land as the Grants of former Kings And therefore if King Iohn by his apparent breach of them forced the Nobility and People to defend them it was no Rebellion for so doing nor was it ever declared to be so by any Law now extant But to come to the main force of your Argument I confess it were an admirable expedient not only against Rebellion but also the Tyranny of Princes to PREACH that they should not oppress their People nor yet that the People should rebel against them but the preaching of these Doctrines or getting as many as you can to believe them will no more make Princes leave keeping standing Armies or laying great Taxes upon their People than Constant Preaching against Robbery or Murder will take away the necessary use of Gallows out of the Nation Since we know very well that as long as the Corruption of humane Nature continues so long must likewise all Powerful Remedies against it And therefore your Instance of William the Conqueror will signifie very little for I believe had all those learned Divines who have of late so much Written and Preached for Passive Obedience and Non-resistance been then alive and had exerted the utmost of their Reason and Eloquence to prove them necessary nay farther I do not believe tho' all the People of England should have given it under their hands that they would not have Resisted or Rebelled against King William that yet he would have trusted them the more for all that or have kept one Soldier the less for it nor have remitted one Denier of those great Taxes he imposed for he was too cunning and Politick a Prince not to understand humane Nature which cannot willingly endure great and intolerable Slavery and Oppression without Resistance if men are able and therefore he very well knew that after the forcible taking away of so many of the English Nobilities Estates there was no way but force to keep them in Obedience And as Princes can never be satisfied that their Subjects have been throughly paced in these difficult Doctrines so they can never be secure that they will not play the Iades and Kick and fling their Riders when they spur them too severely and press too hard upon them And therefore I doubt such Princes whose Government is severe will always find it necessary to Ride this Beast as you call it the People with strong Curbs and Cavessons But besides all this there is likewise another infirmity in the Nature of Mankind and of which Princes may as well be Guilty as other men that they are more apt to oppress and insult over those whose Principles or Natural Tempers may be against all Resistance and for this I appeal to your Example of the Primitive Christians who were not one jot the better used by the Roman Emperours tho' they expresly disclaimed all Resistance of those Emperours for Persecution in matters of Religion and tho' some neighbouring Princes are thought to have their Subjects in more perfect Subjection and that either their Religion or Natural Tempers makes them less apt to resist the Violence and Oppression of their Monarchs than the English or other Nations Yet I desire you to enquire whether Taxes and all other oppressions do not Reign as much under those Governments however sensible the Princes may be of their Subjects Loyalty and Obedience Therefore to conclude I shall freely leave it to your Judgment or that of any indifferent Person which is most agreeable to the main Ends of Civil Government viz the Common good of Mankind and the Happiness and Safety of each particular Kingdom or Commonwealth that the Violence and Tyranny of Princes should be sometimes Resisted than that the People under the Pretence of this irresistible Power should be liable to be made beggars and Slaves whenever any Prince or State had a Mind to it And I appeal to your own Conscience if the supposed belief of the Passive Obedience of some of our Church was not one of the greatest encouragements which the King and the Iesuited Fâ—ction had to bring in the Popish Religion under the Colour of the dispensing Power Ecclesiastical Commissioners and force of a standing Army from which Unavoidable mischiefs nothing under God but this wonderful Revolution could have rescued us And therefore I think it becomes any honest man to thank God for it and join with his Highness the Prince of Oriâ—â—ge as the only means now miracles are ceased which God hath been plâ—ased to ordain by the course of his Providence for our Deliverance M. I
suo alios prohibere necesse habet id ipsum in propria persona committere non debet So that it is as plain that if he either command or permit these willful injuries generally or all over his Kingdom he fails to defend it according to K. Edward's Laws and if he thus fail to defend it he thereupon loses or forfeits his very Title or Office of a King since he cannot keep or hold his Crown or Royal Dignity for without Justice it cannot subsist and this by the original contract since upon whatever Terms the first King of this Race took the Crown upon the same Terms all his Posterity who succeed either by election or right of blood by vertue of that first compact are to hold it under the like penalty of a forfeiture in case of a wilful neglect or violation of his duty M. I confess you have made a specious proof of this original contract you so much talk of and more than ever I thought could have been said for it but let it be what it will it is certain in the first place that whatever coâ—ercive Power the two Houses of Parliament might pretend to when Bracton wrote they have solemnly renounced it in two successive Parliaments in the Reign of K. Charles the II. therefore I shall not insist any longer upon old antiquated Laws or original contracts which are not directly expressed but consequentially deduced at best but I must now tell you that let the first institution of this Government have been what it will in the Saxon times and what original contract soever you may please to fancy between them and their Subjects yet this was all gone and out of doors by that absolute Conquest which K. William I. made of this Kingdom for himself and his heirs who do not at all claim under the Title of our English Kings For since their Ancestor had no just Title to the Crown but by the Sword and that he gain'd this Kingdom by the Conquest of K. Harold and the People of England who had elected him and fought for him as also by the subsequent recognition of this right by all the People of England in their Oaths of Allegiance so often repeated to himself and his Successors have thereby acknowledged it to be as absolute a Monarchy by conquest as ever was instituted by any Prince in the World and tho' I grant that several of the Conquerours have been graciously pleased to grant divers Priviledges to the People of this Nation and some of them perhaps the same they enjoyed in the Saxon time yet can they not enjoy it by vertue of that Original Contract you suppose to have been made between the first King of that Saxon Race and the People of England for as I said but now K. William had no right by any Title from K. Edward the Confessor but wholly by his Sword as I shall prove by and by But however these concessions ought not at all to derogate from the absoluteness of the Power or the indefensibleness of our Kings Title for since these limitations of absolute or imperial Power did not proceed from any other Original than the free voluntary concessions of our Kingâ— not from any compacts with their People they do not at all derogate from the uncontroulable and unancountable Soveraignty thereof so that we may very well distinguish between the Being and Essence of Imperial or Soveraign Power and the exercise or emanation thereof as to the Being and Essence of it it is in as full perfection in the Limited as in the Arbitrary Sovereign tho' the Law confines and limits him in the exercise thereof but 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 but God is nevertheless a perfect Imperial Sovereign over the Universe tho' the exercise of his Government over his Creatures be limited by the eternal Laws of Truth and Equity it is true that this limitation of Almighty God is intriasical and proceeds from the perfection of his Righteous and Holy Nature but yet it shews that the most perfect and absolute imperial Powe may without a contradiction be confined within bounds and limited in the actual exercise thereof and that such limitation of Absolute Imperial Power proceeding wholly from it self doth only qualifie and temper but not destroy the essence of it and therefore Cooke in Cawdrey's Case saith that by the Ancient Laws of this Realm England is an Absolute Empire and Monarchy and that the King is furnisht with plenary and entire Power Prerogative and Jurisdiction and is Supream Governour over all Persons within this Realm Therefore whoever will consider the Original of this limitation of Sovereign Power to have proceeded wholly ab intrinsico from the voluntary Grants of our first Monarchs after the conquest and will also distinguish the Essence from the exercise of Sovereign Power will find there is no contradiction between the fulness of Sovereign Power in the Root or Essence of it and a legal limitation of the use and exercise thereof and from hence it comes to pass that the King of England tho' he be thus limited in the use and exercise of his Power yet he is still as much the Fountain of all Power and Jurisdiction within his Dominions as if he were Arbitrary he hath none to share with him in the Sovereignty but all Power and Authority is derived from him like light from the Sun in him alone it is radically and originally placed he hath no sharers or co-partners with him in the Sovereignty none co-ordinate with him in the Government no Equal no Superiour but only God to whom alone he is Subject Hence saith Bracton omnis quidem sub to ipse sub nullo sed tantum sub Deo non est inferior sibi subjectis non parem habet in regno suo and afterwards ipsâ— autem Rex non debet esse sub homine sed sub Deo Therefore I grant the King is obliged by his Coronation Oath to keep to these limitations which both he and his Predecessors have sworn to yet if he any ways faâ—l in the performance of iâ— this failure cannot give his People any manner of right to take up Arms against him and to resist him in any such case much less can it cause a forfeiture of his Royal Power since being at first the sole Sovereign Power he did not by putting this limitation thereunto intend to part with any share of it to the great Council of the Kingdom or Parliament but only to take them into a part of the care and trouble of the Government and to limit his Prerogative Power from passing any Laws or raising any Money without their assent unless in cases of great necessity and then if he is still judge