the fourth of this Edward was made more for this King's Satisfaction than the desires of the People and that from the sequel you 'll see they were not then clamoring for frequency of Parliaments when they were to pay for it too and have their Treasure exhausted with their Blood in frequent Wars He had drawn the Scots upon his back who in the War like their Old Parents the Picts were always ready to invade us at home when ever we attempted any thing abroad He had before him France in the Front to whom he was ready to give Battle And he perhaps presuming his Subjects might be loth to be convened for subsidies so often as such Exigencies must require might prudently get them to oblige him for such an Annual Convention which they must the better bear with when the result of their own Act and none of the stretch of his Prerogative 'T is true the 36. of his Reign is more expressive of the Reasons for which they should be called i. e. for the redressing of Mischiefs and Grievances but 't is evident that piece of popularity was more for the tickling their Hearts and then they might be soon brought to turn out their Purses and those he wanted then too tho in peace having begun to beautifie and enlarge his Castle of Windsor his best Delight as well as the place of his Birth And his soothed Subjects seconded it with such singular kindness that about that time such a three years subsidy was granted as they resolved should be no president for the * 36. Ed. 3. cap. 11. time to come and these Suggestions I submit to the light of any others Reason for the Politicks of that Old State can't be expected to be clear in History since even in Matters of Fact in many things 't is dark And such sort of Suggestions seem to sound and salve the Case much better than that forced Solution upon the very Letter of the Law their if need be or if there be Occasion For I am satisfied the Design of those Statutes was to determine their King tho' I doubt of their Force and that those Conditional Expressions must be Relative to their Antecedent Words more or oftner and so must be meant only of their being called inclusively more frequently within the Term. To leave now this learned Lunatick this distemper'd Body of Law and consider him under another Denomination that of a Divine and zealously discussing with a Rage unbecoming the calmness he professes as well as the Character of such a Profession the Damnable Doctrine as he would plainly prove it of the King 's Divine Right for he makes it the most * page 60 69 70 86 87 88 89. Mischievous Opinion the most Schismatical the Destroyer of every Man 's Right the Betrayer of the Government Monstrous Extravagant Papal Opinion Treacherous Impious Sacrilegious Destructive of Peace Pregnant with Wars produced our own Civil one and what is worse Plague and Famine and a Crucifying of Christ afresh A Black charge indeed for a poor Criminal that at first sight seems so White and Innocent He should have made it a Trojan Horse too for once for he has made the Belly of it big enough to hold an Army of Men or a Legion of Devils If this be the Judges manner of Trying his King 's Right he would have made a worse Chief Justice for deciding the Subjects I have heard of some Sycophants that have prov'd Wolves in Sheeps cloathing but here the Cautionary Text is turned inside out too and somewhat of the Lamb drest all in the grisly Garment of the Wolf And 't is like they had their Dogs ready to worry it too before they would discover the cheat I am sure if they won't allow this Doctrine to be Religious 't is so far from being Romish that it is utterly inconsistent with their Religion for the Doctrine of their Church attributes all the Divinity that it can to the Pope that presides in it makes him not only Infallible but supream over Kings and Princes and sure they may allow that those Romanists are as much concerned for the Popes Supremacy as Mr. Hunt for the Peoples for His Holiness has the help of Saint Peter to prove his Divine Right from his Succession to his Person and See tho he can't from His * His 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pet. 2. 13. Text. When whatever they would gather from that Apostle the Lawyers Popelings have nothing left to shew for theirs unless the very Charter and Grant of their King yet tho this Doctrine be as far from Rome as they think the Romanist from Heaven tho their Writers with Hunts own Brutish Rage have run it down tho it be so directly destructive of the Papal power still has this preposterous piece of paradox made it Popish and treated it almost in the same Language the †Fox Vol. 3. p. 515. zealous Prelate did their Romish Church and ‖ Vid. Dissenters sayings all the dangerous Dissenters do our own Wolves Thieves Enemies of Christ Brood of Antichrist Babylonish Beast Devilish Drab sink of Sodom Seat of Satan It is a pretty way of Confutation indeed in the very beginning of an Argument to beg the Question He takes it for granted from the Text of Saint Peter that Kings are but an Ordinance of man and then stoutly concludes that it is impossible that any that is of Man's appointment can ever be of God's Ordination to be presumptively baffled recommend me to such a Disputant And with that supposititious Triumph does as some think a Jesuit's Book de Jure Magistratuum enter the List full of Victory even before the Battle and this perverted Text in one of his Editions is turned into the Laurel and Lemma to Crown the forehead of that Impudent piece This is made the Goliah of those Philistins who not with their bulk alone but with the very Letter of the Bible and the Book of Life can defie the Living God for such a Construction upon Saint Peter by common sense can never be put for place this power of Ordaining Kings once in the Power of SVBJECTS and all the World can never hinder THEM from being too the SVPREAM POWER Was not this very Text actually turn'd up for the Supream Authority of the Parliament of England and was that too meant by St. Peter when in the very next Line he calls the King Supream Seditious Dolts do not make the Bible contradict it self tho your Books do does not this very Text take almost an expressive care to prevent even with providence such a silly construction and give a signal Signification where this Supremacy resides viz. in the King But to give these well read Rebels rope enough and let them stretch their Treasonable Positions as they ought their Necks I 'll plead for them and in that which can be their only Reply viz. That this Supremacy must be understood only to be in these Kings after they are
't is now an unanswerable Confirmation that those who are so much for altering the discent of the Crown are as much for the deposing of him that wears it 't is now an attested Truth under their own hands and they must give themselves the Lye to confute it But whatever were the pardonable faults of this unhappy Prince tho our 4 El. 246. Bracton Lib. 1. Chap. 8. Law say A King can have none much less be punisht for it when he can do no wrong The greatest that Daniel condemns was his mighty favouring of his Daniel p. 184. Minions Gaveston and Spencer's in Opposition to his Barons and must it be criminal to a King to have a Friend But however in his History calls it the first Example of a deposed Prince no less dishonourable to the State than to him Stow calls the Bishop of Hereford that Stow p. 225. then was busied in the Resignation but a Mischievous Embassador and pray what was the Fate of those that were the first Leaders of the Rebellion and the most mutinous The mighty Duke of Lancaster was by his own Peers condemned to be Hang'd and Quartered and was only Beheaded and several Barons besides and afterward Mortimer the Queens own Minion and Favourite was impeached in Parliament of Edward the Third for making Dissention between the late King and Queen for murdering of his Sovereign and accordingly was drawn Hanged and Quartered for it with several of his Adherents But as Unanimous and as Clamorous as they seemed for his Deposition the Vid. Rot. Parliament 50. cited p. Dr. B. greatest Contenders for it as some of our Historians affirm lamented it with regret when it was done and Stow tells us that when the Queen understood Vid. Stow 224. her Son was Elected she seemed to be full of sorrow as it were almost out of her Wits and the Son lamented too and swore that against his Fathers Will he would never take the Crown And after all what succeeded this most unjust Deprivation and Imprisonment of a King but what still is its immediate subsequent the Barbarous Murder this was verified in the following fate of King Richard this was the unfortunate Consequence of our late confined Martyr Mattrevers Iron soon followed the firsts Imprisonment in Corfe and Berkley Gastle Exton's Poll-ax as quickly dispatcht the Second at Pomfret and the Block at White-Hall too soon attended the Confinements of the last Martyr in Carisbrook and Holmby confirming even with his last breath and verifying in his latest Blood this too fatal Aphorism that a Death soon follows the Deprivation of a King and that Vid. Eâ—kon Basil there is in his own words but a little distance between the Prisons and the Graves of Princes And now the next that enters this Theater Royal is Edward the Third a Son too forward to accept of a Crown before 't was his due But notwithstanding this Rebellious Instance he hath given not so formally chosen as to make the Kingdom Elective for their very chusing of his Son and that the Eldest insinuates that in spight of their obstinate dissobedience their resolute Rebellion they were still toucht with a sense of right and priviledge of Primogeniture and the small remainders of Majesty the bare Right they had left him awd them so far as to think it necessary to palliate their too open villanies with the formality of a Resignation neither would the Son accept it neither was he proclaimed or Crown'd till his Father had resigned and let the bold audacious force they used for it lie at their Door that vindicate it his resigning entitled his Son and he had a sort of Right in Civil Law besides Hereditary pro derelicto Here 't is pretty remarkable the fine sort of Observation he makes on the Bishop of Canterbury's Text vox Populi that it was the voice of the Almighty Brief History p. 6. too and impiously upbraids the sacred Dust of their own Martyred Lawd for placing a Divine Right in Kings when some of his Predecessors had so well lodged it in the People but did not the Impudence of his Brow almost exceed the villany of his Heart his Conscience as hard as his Fore-Head or both he could never thus inhumanely reflect on him whom they butchered too as barbarously and that with such a Reflection that flies in his own Face when the very Opposers of this pious Praelates Opinion verifyed afterwards his Prophetick fear and by the placing this Divine Right in the People sent assoon his sacred Majesty to follow the Praelate But can ever Wretches show more industrious Malice towards the Government when they shall close with the Doctrines of their worst of Enemies and which they would be thought so damnably to detest to do it an Injury cite you the Authority of the most Zealous Catholicks when it will make against the Monarchy yet baffle and burlesque the very Bible when it makes for it the malitious Miscreant knows the Clergy then were all bound by their Oaths besides their Opinions to be the Bigots of Rome He knows the Popes supremacy then would not admit of the Kings He knows the pleasing of the People was then the best Expedient for the promoting the Pope that from them came all the Penny 's that paid them for their Pater-nosters and that this beast of Babylon against which our Zealots pretend too as much Brutal rage then only trampled upon the Necks of Kings not only had Her stirrops held by them but rid upon the very backs of Princes and that only because the poor People were so Priest-ridden would he have had that Popish Prelate preach to them the Kings Supremacy told them he was not to be toucht because jure divino when themselves make it the Doctrin of their Church to dethrone them certainly such Sycophants dissemble when they cry up the Reformation that rely so much upon the Religion of those times before they were Reform'd The Bishop as he thinks having now Principes Regni habito Concilio apud Westm Pol. Virg. Lib. 5. pretty well asserted the Peoples supremacy by making them Divine he brings in as prettily Polidore Virgil proving them to be all Princes so that we have now but one Subject left and that 's the King but by his leave the Governments bark must be wrackt in a Rebellion and a storm before they can come to Reign like so many Trincaloes in the Tempest The Gentleman sure read Shakespear instead of Virgil and thinks our Isle enchanted too but to be serious in matters of Blood and Right and that when both Royal could any Person of sober sense be so simply sollicitous as from an Author forreign unknowing our Constitutions calling some of our Subjects Principes to suggest their Supremacy their Superiority we know as well as he what he means by it or what he must mean that they were some of the chief of the Realm and will that make them Rulers too the
whom they had preposed for their Head And well might they distrust the Councils of such a State that while they pretended the Reformation of Religion could chop off the Head of the most zealous Reformer and as Baker calls her Page 284. one of the first Countenancers of the Gospel make her Issue spurious that was like to and afterwards did prove the most Protestant Princess and all this but to please a Lididinous King that could make her suffer for his constant Crime Inconstancy when that too was so little prov'd and her Innocency so much whatever prospect these pretenders of Reformation Papists were then Martyr'd for opposing their Kings Supremacy Protestants the Mass a sort of Parliament persecution destroying both Witness the 6 Articles set forth in 31 of his Reign Burnets Abridgment pag. 157. Viz. The Protestant Queen gave to the Princes of the Empire that they should think of making the head of this dissembling Parliament that of their League too I am sure they must all of them as Oates did when he took the Mass the Sacrament for his Religion only pretend it and tho they made the World and Forreign Princes think well of their affections to Reform tho they had excluded the Pope still they and their King could remain Papist's and a Reverend Author that has had the thanks of the House says that a Parliament was Summon'd that was resolv'd to destroy her so that we see a Parliament could then contrive to make our Nation signifie so little abroad and that our present King without one signifies so much that he stands the sole Arbitrator of War and Peace and Europe only debar'd of the benefits of it by the very Faction that upbraids the Government with its being disesteem'd and this Noble Traveller not only taken the Liberty to Lye with Fame but given Fame it self the Lye After he has Thunder'd out his Anathema's Page 20. against the State in the Jargon I recited above of Evil Councellors Pensioner Parliament thorough pac'd Judges which still the most malitious Soul can't allow to be the true Reasons of our Maladies and Distempers But however the State Negromancer with his Rosacrucian the Doctor knew these terrible Names with the Populace are swallow'd like his Pills without chawing and which they understand no more than his Catharticks with which they are compos'd with that unhappy effect too that they can no more discern the bitter cheat when these Prepossessions are got into the Guts of the Brain then that of the drug when in those of the Belly but like Persons absolutely possess'd rave and rail only with the same words that are dictated by their Devil yet after all this and having Libel'd Courtiers that contrary to the true meaning of the Law as well in this Kings time as in that of the Late they have got Parliaments Dissolv'd Vid. p. 20 21. Plato Red. Proroug'd for the keeping of the Governments Life and Soul together after all these Seditious suggestions still he defines but Negatively that none of these are the Causes but the effects of some Primary Cause that disturbs it but I am afraid this Primary Cause to him is yet an occult one unless the Discovery of our late Plots has so far illuminated his Understanding as to disclose it or he consulted his Doctor for his Diagnosticks and got him to make a better Crisis and Judgment of the distemper of the State But for those Acts by which he thinks his Majesty is oblig'd to call a Parliament for the Triennial one I think runs with a Clause and a Proviso that it may be oftner call'd and within the Term if occasion be and pray who shall be Judg of that occasion the King who calls them or the People who would be call'd and what if it be Judg'd an occasion not to call them at all the Preservation of the Prerogative may as well exclude the force of this as some new Emergencies which themselves plead for upon a necessity and for the Common-wealth and Peoples Benefit and Advantage can Invalidate others but for that obligation and Law for the Parliaments sitting in the late Kings time that which he would truly have reinforc'd is their Page 21. being perpetual again and not to be dissolv'd but for that I think he need not perswade the Courtiers to Address or be so bold to Petition himself unless he would tell his Majesty they must again have the Militia they must fight once more against his Person for the sake of his Authority and sit taking of Covenants and Associations till they have taken off their King But after our English-man has been so tedious in his Impertinence so Fulsom in his Complement that the Venetian is forc't to condemn his troublesome Civility that is our Author begins to be asham'd of himself Why then we come to know that before this great Secret that occasions our Disquiet can be disclosed before we can come to know the Distemper that disturbs our own We must Discourse of Government in general and for the Original of it the Gentleman is resolv'd to doubt And why Because this Government must be Antecedent to such Authors as could give us an account of it and the matter of History as I suppose he must mean did occur long before they could get Historians to transmit it to Posterity as for particular Governments he is forc't to allow the Knowledg of their Originals to be possibly transmitted and truly that he might well in Civility consent to what in Modesty he could not contradict and Rome and Athens will be found what they were in their Primitive State so long as we can find Authors Plutarch Florus Paterculus c. that can tell us of a Romulus a Theseus for their Founder But when the Gentleman is so cruel to himself as to keep close to the Text that there is no Origen of Original Primitive Government known for in truth these last mention'd might be Modern and I believe that Rome and Athens were never heard of when Sodom and Gomorrah were burnt with Brimstone then he is forc't to give himself the Lye and the word of Truth it self God and the Bible and that he does in excepting Moses from the number of those that had the Help and Information of any Constitution Antecedent as the Founders of the foremention'd Monarchies that were Establisht so long after might well be supposed to have had for their Instruction and yet does that sacred Penman inspired by God himself almost Coaeval with the World give us a clear account of all Original Government from the time that there was a Man to Rule or a Beast to be governed and that too of an absolute Monarchical Empire So that all what the sublime Speculations of this refin'd Politician can cavil at is only that we can't give him an account what was done before Adam what truly was the Constitutions of their Government and whether the Prae-Adamites liv'd like our
deny it positively because the Nation should know he could answer Filmer The whole we can't animadvert on because thought perhaps too dangerous to be publisht but what was taken at the Bar and delivered on the Scaffold was too much the Truth of a Republican too much Treason to be divulged and what can never be too much discountenanced and refuted And here you have the chain of a parcel of rebellious Libellers linkt in an orderly Combination for the shackling of us into Slavery and the binding our Kings and Nobles again with Fetters and Iron I shall begin with the first factious Fellow in the Front and that 's the Historian CHAP. I. Historical Remarks on the brief History of Succession I Don't Design here a particular answer to each Paragraph of his Historical Discourse which probably has been as much falsify'd as any thing the contrary of which could be verify'd on Record and perhaps cramb'd with as many lyes as ever could be Corrected with truth it would be a presumption and impertinence to pretend The Worthy Dr. Bradys to answer that which has been already done by some unanswerable Pens the Knowledg of whose Persons and Worth would deter me from such an And the Learned Author of the Great Point of Succession undertaking as well as the satisfaction of their Papers supersedes it mine shall be but a few sober remarks subsequent to their solid Confutation And truly in the first place all Historians agree that our English History was uncertain before the coming of the Romans and without doubt we had reason to want the Tradition of it when needs we must when we had nothing of Learning or Knowledg to deliver it down unless we would imagin the silly simple Souls could have left us their own Skins for a Chronicle and transmitted the painted Constitution of their Government in the Colours and Hieroglyphicks of their Bodys But since that Author owns and that from the good Authority he quotes that the Nature of it was uncertain but that they Strabo Tacitus Caes Com. were subject to many Princes and States which last Expression I fancy was his own to make it favour more of a Republick which I am confident they were then as Ignorant of as we truly now of Tyranny and Oppression which I gather partly from the Constitutions of all Nations at this time truly Barbarous Since both the East and West of the uncivilized World confirms the warrantable Hypothesis the most probable Conjecture which is all at this present governed by its petty Monarchs and puny Princes tho' some greater Empires too than any of ours in Europe no small Argument for the Divine Right of Monarchy by its being so generally embraced only by the light of Nature whose Creation was whose Subsistence is the sole Care of Divinity it self And besides Dr. Heylin tells us that at the entrance of the Romans the Isle was divided into several Nations governed by its several Kings and particular Princes The Druids as may be gathered out of Caesars Commentaries had in those Ignorant days all the Learning and the Law But too little alass to let us know whether their Princes were absolute So also Caesar Bell. Gall. Lib. 6. Monarchs or limited Hereditary or Elective though 't is to be suspected they were both unconfined in their power as well as succeeded by their blood those poor Embryo's of Knowledg the very primitive Priests of Barbarous Heathens that in their highest felicity were no happier than the first asserters of the Gospel under Misery and Persecution their reverend Hermitages but the Woods the Dens and Caves of the Earth were far sure from disputing the right of Sovereignty when only capacitated to obey far from transmitting to us the frame of their Monarchy unless they had known the Egyptian learning of writing on the Barks of Trees and made their Libraries of the Groves in which they dwelt The Princes and Monarchs of their Times were wont to frequent those pious places for Worship and Adoration and had a Veneration too without doubt for those reverend Bards that sacrificed but were far I believe from subjecting their Regal Authority to that Divinely Pagan tho' then the sacred Jurisdiction tho' 't is reported that upon Caesar's invading them the very power of Life and Death and the Punishment for all manner of offences was in their sacred Breast and such as would not stand to their award were forbidden their Sacrifices which Interdiction then was the same I believe in effect with the modern power of our Church to Excommunicate but besides another reason and the best too why we have nothing delivered from those sacred Oracles of Religion and Law why the History of those times is still uncertain and was never transmitted is because they were expressly forbidden to transfer any thing to Posterity or to commit it to Books and Letters tho somewhat of that sort of Communicating must be supposed by that Inhibition to have been Imparted to them from the Egyptians Greeks Romans those Eastern Climes through which Learning and Letters had their first Progress But whether their Ignorance or such a prohibition were the Causes why nothing descends to us of the Government of our old Britains 't is granted by all and by this Author himself that it was Monarchical that Kings Reigned here ab origine if not Jure-divino Though I look on their Antiquity no small Argument of their Divine Right and for the probability of their Haereditary Succession which I insinuated above can I confess since we are so much in the dark be only guessed by the light of Reason and that I shall make to warrant the Conclusion from the present Practise and Constitution of all barbarous Nations where the next of blood still mounts the Throne unless interrupted by Rebellion and that 's but the best Argument of our Author for the Power of his Parliaments and if only for this certain Reason we have more Authority to conclude it was then Haereditary then he only from the uncertainty of the Story has to conclude it otherwise In the next place I see no reason why his Sentiments should determine other Peoples thoughts and why we should not think that the following Heptarchy of the Saxons tho they had their seven Kings yet still might agree in one rule of Succession nay tho their Laws were so different too as he would insinuate which is not absolutely necessary to suspect neither for they being all one Nation and then but just called from their home by our British King Vortiger for his assistance may probably be supposed to have retained for the Main the general Rules and Laws of their own Countrey tho when divided into those seven Kingdoms they might also make a sort of private by-Laws according to the different Emergences of particular affairs that occurred in their several Governments Can he prove that the Succession of the Saxons in their own Countrey was not Hereditary when they inhabited
Romulus ordein'd an 100 Senators which grew to 300 in Fortescues time there were just so many in our House of Commons Fortescue C. 18. fol. 40. Coke 4 Inst C. 1. And had we therefore then no King their number is greater now and must therefore our Monarch be less themselves can do so that should it be allow'd what is contrary to some of the very Express Words of our formention'd Historians that Romulus was not an absolute Prince yet still here is still matter and Evidence enough to make him a Monarch and the Government of Rome Monarchical which surely Contradicts his extravagant Assertion That it was a Democracy unless he can reconcile the Contradiction of Sole Soveraignty with the Government of a numerous Senate Another of his pretty Paradoxes is that all Empire is founded in Dominion and Property and that must be understood too of a Propriety in Lands so that where a Prince has not a foot of Land he can't have twelve Inches of Power a Position that would confine some Princes Authorities in the Dimension of a Span notwithstanding Kings are said to have such long Arms but pray let this positive Politician tell me How it comes to pass that the Property of an owners Land is so inconsistent with the Prerogative of a Prince over those very Lands that he owns or why those that have the greatest Interest in this his property must presently have the greatest Portion too of Power and Property in the Government that is only to contract his Absurdity why the Peasant that has two Acres of Land and the Prince that has but one should not presently be prefer'd to be the Prince and the Prince Condescend to be the Peasant The Question might be soon answer'd with another Quere Why this King cannot be as well Born an Heir to the Crown as his Countryman to the Cottage tho the latter commonly has Land about it when perhaps a Crown may have none For certainly according to his Position a King must have but an Insignificant Power that has not a Foot of Crown-lands and then to have it to any purpose to extend his Empire over all his Subjects the Hereditary Lands of the Crown must by his own Rule necessarily make up more Acres then all the Kingdom besides and as he observes that within this 200 years the Estates of our greatest Nobility by the Luxury Page 37. of their Prodigal Ancestors being got into the hands of Mechanicks or meaner Gentry by his own Platonick Dogma these Plebeians must have the Power and Aurity of our Nobles that is a Rich Commoner must presently run up into the House of Lords and a Lord perhaps less wealthy descen'd into their lower-House for they must allow their Lyes more power in our House of Peers they being a Court of Judicature which the other can't pretend too The Disorders Confusions and Revolutions of Government thâ—t would ensue from the placing this Empire and Power only in Dominion and Property which according to his own extravagant Position I think may be better render'd Demesn would be altogether as Great as those absur'd Consequences of this Foolish Maxim are truly ridiculous for we must necessarily have new Governours as often as a new Demesn All Lands are mediately or immediately held of the King as Soveraign Lord. Eliz. 498. Ass 1 18. could be acquir'd for meaner Persons must have greater share too in Publick Administration's assoon as they grow mightier in possessions But besides this simple suggestion as full of Folly as it is carries in it's self as much Faction too it is but another Invention of setting our Parliament again above our King and the making him according to their old Latin Aphorism Greater than a single Representative and less than all the Body Major singulis minor Universis Collective for he thinks it may be possible the King may have a greater portion of Land than any single Subject but I am sure it can never be that he should have more than all but this Sir Politick Ramble has wander'd so much in the wide World that his Wits are a straggling too so full of Forreign Governments that he has forgot the Constitutions of his own Is it not a receiv'd Maxim in our Law that there is no Lands in England but what is held mediately Vid. Eliz. 498. Ass 1. 18. or immediately from the King that are in the hands of Subjects does not himself know we have nothing of an Allodium here as some Contend they have in Normandy and France tho they too are by some of our best Civilians Duck. de Authoritate Lib. 1. c. 6 contradicted and as great many Eminent Lawyers of their own tell us that the Feudatory Laws do obtain and are in force through all the Provinces of France too so that their Lands are there held also still of some superiour Lords and he knows that our greatest Estate here in Fee is not properly free but held mediately or immediately of the King or Donor to whom it may revert and 't is our King alone as our Laws still acknowlege that has his Demesn his Dominion free and holds of none but God and our Lord Cook tells us whom this Gentleman may Credit as having in Vid. Cook 1. Inst C. 1. Predium Domini Regis est dominium directum cujus nullus Author est nisi Deus some things been no great Friend to the Monarchy as well as himself yet that Eminent Oracle tells us that no Subject here has a direct Dominion properly but only a profitable one not much better perhaps than the Civilians usufructuaries and what becomes now of this Gentlemans the peoples Power Empire founded in Dominion and Demesne must the King have the less Power over his Tenants only because they hold the more and can't he have a right of Soveraignty over the Persons and Estates of his Subjects without Injuring them or their property or must his Subjects according to this unheard of Paradox as this their Property grows greater encroach the further upon his Power and Praerogative none but our Elect Saints must shortly set up for our Governours and I know this Factious States-man can't but favour his Friends Anabaptists and Quakers his absurrd Politicks here Extraordinarily suit with some of their mad extravagant Principles he lets them know Empire is founded in Dominion and they thank him kind Souls and tell him Dominion is founded in Grace Two or Three whole Leaves the Copious Page 98 99 100. Author has alotted for the service of the Church and Clergy and there we find the Devil of a Re-publick has so possest the Politician that he openly declares against God and Religion and his Atheistical Paracelsus that confirms his Brother Brown's Aphorism to be none of his Vulgar Error that 't is thought their Profession to be so I mean the Doctor in his Dialogue interrogates his Matchiavel what he thinks of our Clergy why truly 't is answer'd
against some Persons of that Perswasion that he acted as if he would have executed their very Religion * Vid. Burnet's Abr. hanging up some Carthusians even in their Habits and immured nine Monks in their own Monastery where they dyed This was it that so settled what they call Superstitious Worship that it survived the short liv'd Reign of the pious Edward and in Spight of all his providential care for it's exterpation run only like the Guaronne that Miracle of a River in one of their Climates of Popery if their Histories of their Country be not Legends too only through a little Province in silent darkness underground but rose again and that with greater rage in the next Region This good Kings Laws about Religion would never have been so soon repealed the Commons House never have been so forward as the * Barnet's Abridgm Cl 3. 229. Divine Doctor whom themselves have thankt for it does make them for the sending up a Bill for the punishing all such as would not return to the Sacraments after the old Service Had the Six Articles been but past by instead of being past into an Act they would have had no such Service to return to they would have been Strangers to Rome and it's Religion and tho they were repealed in Edward the Sixth's time his Fathers ratifying them made them take such root that his short Reign could never Eradicate that left so many Catholicks in the Kingdom that Commendone the Popes Legate might well come over to reconcile her Highness's Crown to his Holyness's See And here had not the Queen if such a thing could have been expected from a Sister of that Church so Zealous done much better had she refused the Bills of both Houses brought her for introducing the Pope's power and Supremacy your selves Seditious Souls reproach this Royal Assent with Reflections so scurrilous upon her Memory that the worst of Monarchs could never Merit and then only give but Loyal Ones leave to think that your Excluding Bill tho never so much the General Desires might have been as much cursed by posterity when it had entailed upon it Misery and Blood the common Consequences of a debar'd Right To come now after this Ecclesiastical point of the Church to that Civil one of the State that other thing this Lawyer Labors for the Descent of the Crown Shall the Peoples general Desires in this too terminate the Will of the Prince why then that Monster of Mankind as well as Monarchs did mighty well too to pass that Murdering * 1 Rich. 3. Bill presented by both Houses of Parliament to make good his own Title to the Crown by the Butchering of those Babes in the Tower for no less could be expected when it was once taken up by the Tyrant than their Destruction for the Maintaining it so that this Peoples Desires dispatch'd them in the Senate before ever they were strangled by Tyrril in the Tower Had it not been a much greater Honor to the Prince to have refused such a Barbarous Bill than turned Usurper and a Butcher for it's acceptance Had it not left a less Blot in our English Chronicle as well as upon the Nation less Blood ‖ 28. H. c. 7. Rast 4. Did not both Houses exhibite a Bill even for the making Elizabeth the best of their Queens a Bastard And does Mr. Hunt say this desire of the People too did mighty well to prevail as it always ought upon the King Did not that Royal Assent so blacken his Person and brought the Nations repute so low that the very Protestant Princes left him out of their League whom they had designed for its Head and look'd upon our England as a lump of Inconsistancy whom such Vnanimous Leaguers could not Trust And was it not in his Reign That a Zealous * This was the Opinion of Sir Thomas Moor too and the Brief History might have cited this too as he does another Opinion of this prevaricating Papist for his purpose Papist said It was the Parliaments Power to make a King or deprive him a fortiori then a Popish Principle to destroy or exclude his Successor But as bold as this Gentleman thinks himself when he dares to say Never any †Vid. Brief History p. 18. Burnets Abrig p. 313. King denyed to pass those Bills which the People pitcht upon to present 'T is none of his own Politick asseveration tho it be but a piece of Sedition It is no more than what a Seditious Senate ‖ Page 50. Vid. Declaration of Lords and Commons about the Kings Coronation Oath Parl. 41. told their King long agon A Senate that sate brooding on the pure Elements of Treason and of which Pryn himself was a principal Member A Senate that sowed so much Sedition in one age that all the Succeeding will hardly eradicate A Senate that sate drawing out the Scheams and Platforms of a Common-wealth A Senate that assumed to themselves indeed the Legislative the Nomothetical Disposition of the Law but they proved such a Confounded sort of Architects in the State that they drew a perfect plan a confus'd Ichonography for Rebels to build upon their Babel Those told us in plain Terms what * Hunt and Pryn. these more cautious Coxcombs insinuate with a silly Circumlocution That the King is bound by His Coronation Oath to grant them all those Bills their Parliament shall prefer And that they gather from their contradictory conclusion that bandy'd Banter they have Box'd about in both Reigns for almost these two Ages the ‖ Concedas justas legis esse tenendas c. Quas Vulgus elegerit Rot. Parl. H. 4. VVLGVS ELEGERIT I am sorry to find these Seditious Souls not only to want Sense but Grammar Lilly would have told them more of the Law and his Constrctuion and Concord made a better Resolution than their Coke upon the Case But as the People when they have got the Power will soon decide on their side the Supremacy so these Times did here assoon turn the Tenses and transfer the past Laws into the Future and 't is no wonder that those that did the Statutes of their Prince could dare to break the Head of a Priscian Is not the perfect Tense much more agreeable to Sense and Reason here than the Future The question is Whether it shall be meant of those Laws the People shall Chuse or have Chosen I won't object here Our Kings being absolute and compleat Monarchs without so much as taking such an Oath without so much as being * Coke 7. 106. 11. Calvin 's Case Watson Clarks 1. Jac. Coâ—e 7. fol. 30. Crowned which is the Time it is to be taken tho of that the Law has in several Cases satisfied the most Seditious and so resolved their silly Suggestion The resolution I shall give is the Strength of Reason and that must at least be as Strong as the Law Let it be but once allow'd That their
them to declare for the Kings Heirs and Successors and the Protestant Religion might still be maintained under any perswasion of their Prince unless the Nation was obliged to believe their Politick presumptions in a piece * Their Association of Treason for Gospel and as infallible as a Creed and that because their Associated Excluders in a Scheam of Rebellion tell us Queen Mary proved the Wisest Laws insignificant to keep out Popery therefore it must be concluded it connot now be kept out This Gentleman knows that I believe chopt up so much Logick with his Commons at the University if Educated there where commonly better principles use to be Instill'd that it is a most false Inference from a Particular to conclude absolutely and Vniversal and when besides Henry the 8th's Reforming Edwards the 6th's short Reign had hardly settled the Reformation there being more Romanists then in the Kingdom than such as had truly Reformed it was never truly begun or througly perfected till Queen Elizabeth's Reign which might be easily observed from the Parliaments so soon declaring for that Religion in Queen Mary's first entrance upon the Throne yet however he might observe tho the Suffolk Men set her up as undoubted Heir to the Crown which as the Bishop of * Godwin in Vita Mariae Hereford in the History of her Reign says was then so prevalent with our Englishmen that no pretence of Religion was a sufficient Suggestion for opposing such a Right Yet the breach of her promise to them tho no failure of hers could dispense with their Fidelity when they saw her bent for introducing a new one caus'd such a defection as might have endanger'd her establishment had not the Heyl. Reform p. 32 generality of the Nation been then of her persuasion But what Maxims of State should now move another Prince of that Religion to endeavor it's Establishment when all the Kingdom 's so bent against it when the Protestant has been rooted here 'T is remarkable that tho Men of the two different persuâ—sions plotted took Arms for the sake of these so much contested Religions both were still detected defeated viz. the Papist of Norfolk Devonshire under Ket Arrundel in the 3d. of Ed. 6. Carâ—'s The Protestants in the West Wiat in Kent in the 1 of Q. M. The Papist in K. J. the 1st the Prot. agen in this of K. J. the 2d demonstrations of Providence it self that no colour of Religion when both the Christian too shall ever bless a rebellion against the Royal Blood but that God who will be fear'd will have the KING honor'd for above this hundred years when now above all there is a Kings word that was always firm for the defence of that Church that has asserted his Monarchy So that being secur'd both upon Reason and such Assurance the most Seditious Soul must sit down satisfy'd So that this great point will come to this little whether having had more contingencies than now of having such a Religion introduc'd as first the great Gasualty there was of his not coming to the Crown which might have been prevented by a Natural death without their Expedients at the Rye their unhuman and unnatural Barbarities and then imagining what has since happened such an Actual Succession that Improbability of making such a sudden Alteration in Religion only for his own disquiet and without any probability of Establishment in his Reign which according to the course of Nature must be too short tho I shall still pray for any of the Lines longest Life the little continuance it can expect should it be introduced when all that are probably to succeed him are profest Protestants These being such casulaties as upon good Conjecture and Probability may interpose the question is Whether in prudence or Policy we ought to have Involv'd our State in certain danger only to prevent a contingent one I could never get any one yet to prove that to be matter of Expediency for the good of the Publick That such an Exclusion would have been certainly dangerous our Annals too sadly Testifie and any one need but to turn back to my Remarks upon our History and he 'll find it Chronicled in Blood And that any danger of our Religion is but merely Contingent must be allow'd by all that think it not Predestinated to be changed And what now have these good Subjects done to be thus reviled by the bad Why they have declared in their Addresses to Assert that Right which in their Oaths they have Sworn to defend And a Pious Divine that has dispensed with them Libels them for not being Perjur'd for company His * p. 7. distinction of the Religion being Establisht by Law is far from creating any difference for the question is here what is the Doctine of the Gospel and it can't be imagin'd any sort of Christians upon the Privilege of any Political Establishment are enabled to dispense with the precepts of their Religion and confute their Bibles with the Statute Book Saint Paul's sufferings are so far from discountenancing such a Doctrine that they are alone the best the clearest Confirmation of it he was beaten suffer'd Imprisonment and all for the sake of his Saviour he told them after his durance to whom they had done it and the greatest Sticklers for Passive Obedience will allow Mr. I. to plead his Magna Charta if he won't with the Barons beat it into the Head of his Soveraign with Club Law or knock out the Brains of an Imprisoned * So they murder'd at Pomfret Rich 2d King for it with a ‖ Vid. Baker p. 155. Stow says it was with a kind of death never heard of here p. 225. tho Walsingham would have it with Pining Battle-axe his Breath can plead his defence without Resisting unto Blood Paul could have pleaded his privilege of being a Roman and uncondemned sure as available before his Sufferings had he not thought it is duty to suffer and he may read in the same Book of those that went away Rejoycing that they were counted Worthy of it for his Name A man may be born to a great deal of Right when 't is none of his Birth-right to Rebel and that against the very Monarchy it self His case of the * p. 9. Pursivant is as much to the Purpose as if he had pitch't upon the First in the Report there was an Arrest of a Body by such an Officer to bring him to appear before them that constituted them an ‖ Erected 1. Eliz. p. Letters Pattents High Commission Court And as often it happens in Execution of the Law many times there is Opposition made sometimes Maiming is the Result many times Murder here it hap'ned that the †One Johnson Simpson's Case at the Assizes of Northampton Officer's Assistant was kill'd and the Law that makes it but Manslaughter in a Common Fray in an Execution of an Office makes it Murder and
Actually done it were de Facto void besides if the Subject was freed in that Case it would be the result of the Soveraigns Act. they must suppose him at the same time as simple as themselves that suggest it and could they give us but a single Instance or force upon us any President all they would get by it is this That as their supposition was without sense so their Application would be nothing to the purpose for such a matter of Fact of their Kings would make him de Facto none at all I know they can tell us of one of our ‖ That alienation of King John was suppos'd to have been an Act of State and it has been adjudg'd particularly by particular Parliaments That even a Statute for that purpose made would be of no force It was resolv'd so â—n Scotland too own that lies under that Imputation of making over his to the Moor And of others that in the time of the Popes Supremacy resign'd themselves with submission to the Holy See for the first the most Authentick Historians not so much as mention it and were it truly matter of Fact that King had really no thing to resign for the Republicans of those times were the good Barons that Rebel'd and had seated themselves in a sort of Aristocracy before in short if it were solemnly done it would look like the Act of a Lunatick if not at all as is much more likely their Historians Labour in a lye and for the other we never had a Soveraign that Submitted the Power of his Temporal Government of the state to the Pope's See but only as it related to the Spiritual Administration of the Affairs of the Church and the Religion of the Times These sort of Suppositions have so much Nonsense in them especially when apply'd to Human Creatures and more then when to Monarchs that have commonly from Birth and Education more Sense than common Mortals that there is not so much as a Natural Brute but will use what he can manage as his own with all imaginable Care and Discretion How tender and fond are the most stupid Animals how do they most affectionately express that paternal Love for the Preservation of their little Young how abundantly do they Evidence that Natural * Posts C. p. 113. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with which Mr. Hunt gives us such a deal of impertinent disturbance and why cannot the King of a Country whom the Civil and Imperial Sanctions represent as the ‖ Princeps Pater patriae est D. 1. 4. 1. Atrocius est Patriae parentem quam suum occi dere Cicero in Philip 2d Father of it too be supposed to retain as much a paternal Care for its Conservation we do not find even in that their Free-State of Nature or that Common-wealth of Wars the Republick of unruly Beasts where there is the least Relation or resemblance tho perhaps they have power and opportunity that they delight to devour and destroy and much less do they covet the ruin of that from which they can reap somewhat of Advantage by its Preservation why then should we fancy Human beings and the best of Mankind Monarchs themselves whom th' Almighty has made * I 've said yee are Gods Psalms Gods too to be guilty of so much Madness and Inhumanity Where do we find the worst of Fools designedly to destroy their Patrimony though many times through Ignorance they may waste them and that tho there were no Laws to terrifie them from turning Bankrupts or punishing them for Beggers when they have embezell'd their Substance Away then Malicious Miscreants with such sordid Insinuation such silly Suggestions against your own Soveraigns which your selves no more believe them likely to be guilty of than that they would set Fiâ—e to all their Palaces and Sacrifice themselves and Successors in the Flames But to Return to our Argument they 'll tell us perhaps What signify the Sanctions of the Imperial Laws and the Constitutions of an Absolute Empire to a Common-wealth or a Council of three States that are Co-ordinate or at most but a Monarchy Limded and mixt and where whatever power the Supream Magistrate has must have been first Confer'd upon him by the People where the Parliaments have a great part of the Legislative and their Soveraign in some sense but a Precarious Prerogative what signifies the Authority of a Britton or a Bracton whose very works by this time are superannuated who wrote perhaps when we had no Parliaments at all at least ∥ none such as now * Hunt allows that himself posts p. 95. Constituted I won't insist upon in answer to all this to show the Excellency of the Civil Institutions that obtain o're all Nations that are but Civiliz'd I wont prove to them because already done That we don't Consist of three States Co-ordinate in the Legislative or that our Monarchy is Absolute and not mixt as I shortly may But yet I 'll observe to them here †Postquam populus Romanus Lege Regiâ in principem omne suum Imperium potestatem solum Contulit ex illâ non sub diti sed etiam Magistratus ipsi subâ—iciuntur Zouch Elem. p. 101. That the Romans themselves tho by what they call'd their Royal Law they look't upon the power of the Prince to be conferr'd upon them by the people yet after it was once so transferr'd they apprehended all their right of Judging and Punishing was past too And for their vilifying these Antient Authors and Sages of Law who did they Favour these Demagoges would be with them of great Authority and as mightyly searcht into and sifted Should I grant them they were utterly obsolete and fit only for Hat-cases and Close-stools that they both writ before the Commons came in play for their further satisfaction I 'll cite the same from latter Laws not two hundred years old and that our selves will say was since their Burgesses began And therefore to please if possible these Implacable Republicans I 'll demonstrate what I 've undertaken to defend from the several Modern Declarations of our Law For in * Edward the 3d. Edward the Third's it was resolv'd that the King could not be Judged And why because he has no Peer in his Land and 't is provided by the very first Sanctions of our Establisht Laws by the great ‖ Magn. Chart. cap. 29. No Freeman will we Imprison or Condemn but by Lawful Judgment of his Peers Per parium juorum Legale Judicium And my Lord Coke tells us they are to be understood of Peers of the Realm only when a Peer is to be try'd Comment upon the very words 2. Inst which he more fully explains in 's Comment on the 14. Chap. of Char. where he says pares is by his Peers or Equals for as the Nobles are understood by that word to be all equal so are all the Commons too ib. p. 29. Where note the form of this very Charter