I suppose however it fares with the Lords Kings have not often been found guilty in refusal of their assent to Bills of Subsidies Taxes Pole-money Tonnage poundage c. And that it hath been a perpetual Custome for Kings and Lords to assent to all that the Cōmons have proposed is boldly affirmed endeavouring to perswade your reader that not only de jure it ought to be so which sure at some conference or other the Commons for prevention of so many disputes and reasonings would have charged upon the Lords but that de facto it hath been so when all that know any thing of the Custome of this Nation very well know the contrary that the Lords have given their assent or dissent to Bills sent from the Commons according as they have judged it most expedient and often sent them back with amendments according as in their sense they have judged them most meet to pass as Lawes and that Kings instead of yielding assent to Bills sent from Lords and Commons have often times onely returned a Le Roy avisera which sometimes as I have heard from singular Patriots hath turned to the great happiness of the Nation And as you pretend to have cleared the meaning of the Oath of Allegiance which was made in our own age by the consent as you say of all ages so you go about a further explanation of it by the third Article of the Covenant which is not opposite to the Oath of Allegiance and this obligeth you say to the preservation of the Kings Person and Anthority conditionally and with a limitation onely namely in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Libertyes of the Kingdom Which Comment of yours upon that Article of the Covenant turning In into If to make a condition of it and changing the whole current of the words from our selves to the Kings so that they should be meant of the Kings preservation of Liberty and Religion and not our own when all before and after mentioned is our work and not his is such so forced and strained that it will abide the censure of no indifferent and unbiassed reader and is fully enough contradicted in those words which immediatly follow which you prudently conceale That the world may bear witness with our Consciences of our loyalty and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish his Majesties just power and greatness It was as is well known frequently charged upon the Parliament that what ever their intendments were for Religion and the publick Liberties yet they had an evil eye on his Majesty not brooking his power and greatness which was as frequently disavowed as a scandal not sufferable and in the Covenant for this very end this solemn appeal was inserted in which we have first an acknowledgment that his Majesty stood vested with just power and greatness and so no such forfeiture made as before you mention And secondly a serious protestation made that we have no intention to diminish it but as we resolve to preserve Religion and Liberty so we oblige our selves to loyalty to the Kings person and Authority and from all thoughts or intentions to diminish his power and greatness which is the true and clear meaning of it Upon mention of the Lawes and Liberties of the Kingdom you say The King either refractorily casting them off or seeming to yield unto them in such a way that no trust could be given him that he would keep what he yielded unto the Parliament did actually lay him aside and voted that no more addresses should be made unto him Where you seem unresolved whether it were guilt in his Majesty or jealousie in the Houses that occasioned those Votes Whether the King did actually deserve them or whether there was onely jealousie that he would render himself worthy of them The suspected Wife Numb 5. might not be cast off till her guilt was proved though some are pleased to put Kings and Wives both in one condition to be cast off meerly ad placitum the one by the husband the other by the people which as to Kings you seem not to judge unreasonable Then followes in your Letter from which time forward he was no more an object of your Oath of Allegiance but to be looked upon as a private man Yes sure when the Parliament had againe voted addresses to him ejus est tollere cujus est ponere If the Parliament have a legistative they have also legistranslative or repealing power if Votes can set free then Votes can reoblige you go on and say to an indifferent eye it namely the Engagement may be thought so far from being opposite to the true sence of either that it may be rather a confirmation of the ground for which both the Oath of Allegiance and third Article of the National Covenant was then binding for confirmation of which you say this or that outward form of Government is wholly accidental no wayes essential to any Nation in the world and therefore is alterable in respect of forms as is most expedient for their exigent necessities but to be governed by Lawes and to have the use of the true Religion and of the National freedom is absolutely necessary and essential to the being of a Common-wealth passing by that State Paradox that to have the use of the true Religion and of the National freedom is absolutely necessary and essential to the being of a Common-wealth so there neither is nor ever was any Common-wealth out of Cristendome nor many in it a few only having that happiness This takes wholly for granted that all our Oaths have respected barely the esse of the Nation or that which you say was called the Kingdom when all that reade them must confess that they had immediat respect to the bene esse in their present constitution and external administration we swear not barely to the remote end which is the intrinsecal good as you speak of the Nation but to the meanes which in the judgement of those which you sometimes call the reason of the Nation had a direct tendency to it namely the continuance of Monarchy in the present line any change attempted by men necessarily in humane reason tending to the Nations danger if not ruin and destruction Consult I pray you casuists when the oath in the express letter looks at the means which appears to lead to an end whether it be enough for the party sworn to intend alone the end in contradiction to the means which was the matter of the Oath If I come to a Garrison and be there questioned whether I come from the enemies quarters yea or no May I deny upon Oath that I came from thence when indeed I did satisfying my self with this that I will not betray the Garrison where I am the question whence I came being onely accidental the safety of the Garrison is the thing the Oath onely intended and to this in such an Oath I answer Inquire whether this be not perjury
there I have used The answer shews the objectors mistake and whence it proceeds concerning the National Custom and compare them with what you offer to be considered here although I see my self not guilty of the mistake wherewith you charge me but can discern the grounds of your mistaking the drift and sense of my words to have been somwhat of the Printers fault somewhat of your own inadvertency of my meaning yet my words seem to myself somewhat more full then they needed to have been for the end for which I uttered them For my end was only to shew that the received Custome and liberty whereby the Commons are wont to propose the making of laws and the Lords and King are desired to give their assent thereunto did arise at first and was since continued upon the just and natural foundation of all laws in a free Nation which is the reason of the Body thereof in Parliament which I say hath the sole right to propose and chuse the laws by which the Nation is to be ruled This drift of mine you do not observe and the fault of the Printer hath helped your mistake for in the last Impression which I conjecture you have made use of the particle where is put in stead of whence which was in the first intimating the dependance of the custome of the Commons of this Nation upon the law of nature mentioned immediatly before Now because I intended to point at as much of this right and liberty of nature as I did find extant in the practise of our Parliament and withall had a mind briefly to intimate the most material differences of Rights which were in each of the members of Parliament with reference to the whole Body according to the fore-named law of nature therefore I perceive my expressions did run out under the generall terme of a National Custome aswel upon that which by right might be practised or rather by the nature of this constitution of government is proper to be practised as upon that which de facto was in use amongst us I am not ignorant that the laws have had their rise sometimes from the one How the Laws do rise from the commons and how from the King and Lords defferently sometimes from the other house but when I said that it was as I supposed a perpetual custome in this Nation for the Commons at all times to aske and propose the making of laws I had an eye to the Coronation-oath wherein the King is obliged to swear that he shal maintain the laws quas vulgus elegerit which doth suppose to my understanding no less then what I express viz. that the right of asking and proposing of laws to be made doth originally reside in the people with a tacite obligation in the King to consent thereunto As antient then as the Coronation-oath is so long I suppose the Commons do lay claime to this right of chusing laws for themselves and although all this be granted yet it doth not follow that the King and Lords might not also propose any thing at all for the making of laws unto the Commons For to assert this right to belong originally and primarily to these doth not wholly exclude the other from it nor do my expressions import much more then a direct assertion of the right of the Commons which is in practise which being raised and derived from the law of nature might be inferred to be de jure primarily practised by them and truly though you seeme to deny it yet I have been told very credibly and circumstantially that the Commons since the sitting of this Parliament have more then once upon special immergencys declared at Conferences to the Lords that this was their right as they were the representatives of the Nation and Trustees for common safety It is also granted that the Lords or King have by a received custome freely given or refused their assent to Bills offered as they have seen cause this sheweth that they sate not in Parliament as meere servants unconcerned in the maine but as joynt-Councellors for the main in the things wherein their service was to be made use of towards the State a man may be in his Principal relation a servant to another and yet in such a degree of honour as not to be obliged to do any thing by meere command without his owne free consent and so I conceive Kings and Lords to be in a free Nation they may for themselves if they think not fit to act surcease but they cannot pretend to a negative voice so as to make it unlawful for those that have a right to order their own affairs to act without them they are then to be counted Servi Honorarii non Mancipia legum and because they may be considered justly as members of the State who have a considerable State to venture in it therefore they cannot be in equity deprived of a consultative vote in the making of laws except by some faults they make themselves incapable thereof although the power of chusing making them doth not primarily belong unto them but to the Commons alone and to these a right and prerogative to see them kept and executed for herewith the Representees intrust them That which you observe concerning the oath of allegiance that it was made in our age is no ways inconsistent with my assertion that by the consent of all ages the oath of allegiance ought to be understood as I explain it In what sense the Oath of alleagance hath been in all ages for if you observe the strain of my discourse you will see that I speake of the meaning of the oath as it is in the law of nature and Nations that is as in all ages such Oaths have been used for all promises of Fealty and of free subjection unto Kings and liege Lords in all people and Nations governed rationally by laws are in my apprehension of the same kind with our oath of allegiance and therefore this particular oath made in our age upon a special emergency ought to be understood no otherwise then that same oath hath been always taken at all other times The Comment which you say I make upon the third article of the Covenant is your mistake of my construction of the Covenant Concerning the sence of the third article of the Covenant whether the promise to preserve the King be conditional yea or no. and not my mistake of the meaning thereof for I change not the In into If as you say I do for look upon my words again and you shall see that I aleadge the expression as it is in the text of the Covenant but yet I say that the In of the Covenant doth contain a limitation of the defence and preservation promised to the King and his Authority for if we promise to defend him and his Authority onely in the defence and preservation of Religion and Liberties then we are neither bound unto him absolutely nor
otherwise but in order to these so then our meaning is to be bound first to defend these for themselves and then him and his Authority are included therein But now if it should fall out that be by his own default should not be found in these if hee should put himself out of the sphere of that protecteion which we oblige ourselves to maintain towards Religion and Liberty and if he will not be lookt upon as sub ordinate thereunto but regarded by us meerly for himself is not then his share of safety due to him this way but refused by him as thus offered lest to him as from our acts of protection because the intention of defending and preserving him and his just Authority is taken up and concluded onely as within the bounds of that endeavour which is to be put forth for the maintaining of Religion and liberty which is so far from being a forced and corstrained sense of the words that the more strictly you cleave to the letter thereof the lesse respect is to be had unto him alone for himself and without due regard to Religion and liberty I do not say as you misconsture me that the words of the Covenant are to be meant of the Kings preservation of Religion liberty but I understand them of our preservation thereof and I grant that with it we are bound to intend his preservation also yet always so as to intend him and his interest within that of religion and liberty and not without it or separate from it and by itself nor did I leave out the words immediately following that the world may bear wituess with our Consciences of our loyalty and that we have no thoughts to diminish his Majesties just power and greatness upon any such design as you immagine at all for they do take nothing from the sense of a limited protection which I urge but rather confirme the same by declaring that to include all the respect which we owe to him within our preservation of Religion and Liberty is the conscionable tenure of our true loyalty and that we profess before all the world that we acknowledge it not due to him upon any other termes and that in so doing we foment no purpose to diminish any thing of his just power and greatness because it cannot be imagined that ever any power or greatnes was legally intended to be given him or justly possessed by him which is not consistent with the true Religion and the Liberties of the Nations Whereupon my inference concerning him which I perceive you misinterpret as if I offered it as the meaning of the words of the Covenant doth follow that if he would not concur with the Representatives towards the maintaining of their Religion and Liberties he put himself out of the protection which in order thereunto was intended towards him Here by the way observe a fault in the printing of the Considerations for whereas it is said none but his subjects are bound to defend his person it should be none of his Subjects are bound c. I say then upon the whole matter with you that the things charged against the Parliament wherein they were accused to have an evil eye against the King were falsly and injuriously charged upon it and justly disavowed by the Protestations which the Parliament put forth because it was not possible for the Parliament to look any better way upon the King then through the prospect of Religion and Liberty and if he did vanish out of their sight whiles they did heartily seek him within that prospect it must not be imputed to the Parliaments eye but unto his own carriage and motions which made him invisible to them there where they were bound to seek him and he bound to be found Touching the causes why the King was laid aside you say that I seem unresolved whether it was guilt in his Majesty or jealousie in the Houses that occasioned the Votes of Non-addresses You say well that I seem unresolved Concerning the Votes of Nonaddresses whether they came from guilt in the King or jealousie in the Houses because I was resolved not to seem a resolver of that business For I think it contrary to the Rule of my place and Calling to make my self a Judge of the matter between them The Reasons why a private man ought not to judge definitively of the proceedings of his Superiours in their places you will do well in matters of this nature to follow as you see I do And if all our Brethren would do so they would free their spirits from great Snares and find a readier way to do their duty without murmuring then now they can light upon But touching the parallel which you make between the King and Parliament and a man jealous of his Wife out of Numb 5. methinks the Text will not yield the conclusion which you seem to infer from it Deut. 24.1 Mat. 19.3 for it is clear that Moses permitted the Jews to give their Wives a Bill of divorce for slight occasions of dislike taken up against them although they were altogether guiltless therefore the intent of the Law of jealousie in Numb 5. seems not to be for ordering of the way of her dismission for a Bill of Divorce did order that way but only to quiet the spirit of jealousie in the Husband by bringing the matter between him and his Wife to some issue by Gods determination of the matter of doubt I know not why you say that I seem to judge it not unreasonable that the people may cast off their Kings ad placitum It is altogether against my judgment for except there be a breach of the fundamental trust I know no placitum to be allowable for there ought to be no more a divorce between the King and his People for every slight cause then between a Man and his Wife and I think you intend not to make the bond stronger between a King and his People then God hath made it between a Wife and her Husband If then you will assert that there ought to be no divorce between them without a breach of the fundamental Relation which may be called State-Adultery I shall not contradict you but if you will go beyond the judgment of discretion peremptorily to define where and what the first breach of trust was I am not allowed to follow you yet without any determinate judicature to look discreetly upon these matters and to contemplate what may be rationally said unto them I shall not blame you for it viz. to consider whether the King made not a fundamental breach from the Parliament when he intended to dissolve it by a Declaration wherein he condemned them if I am not mistaken to be Traitors and Rebels and whether when he called another Parliament at Oxford he did not actually as it were marry himself to another Wife Concerning the Votes of Non-addresses you say they were recalled and the King was made thereby an Object of the