politick in which he may purchase to him and his heirs Kings of England or to him and his Successors Yet both bodies make but one indivisible body Plowden 213.233.242 li. 7.12 6. Justice The King can do no wrong Therefore cannot be a disseisor He is all Justice Veritas Justitia saith Bracton circa solium ejus They are the two Supporters that do uphold his Crown he is Medicus regni Pater patriae sponsus Regni qui per annulum is espoused to his Realm at his Coronation he is Gods Lieutenant and is not able to do an unjust thing 4 Ed. 4.25 5 Ed. 4.29 Potentia injuriae est impotentia naturae His Ministers may offend and therefore are to be punished if the Laws are violated but not he 7. Truth The King shall never be estopped Judgement finall in a writ of right shall not conclude him 18 E. 3.38 20 E. 3. Fitz. Droit 15. 8. Omniscience When the King licenceth expresly to aliente an Abbot c. which is in Mortmain he needs not make any Non obstante of the Statutes of Mortmain For it is apparent to be granted in Mortmain And the King is the head of the Law and therefore shall not be intended misconusant of the Law For Praesumitur Rex habere omnia jura in scrinio pectoris sui 1 Jnst 99. And therefore ought to have a Negative voice in Parliament For he is the fountain of justice from whence the Law floweth 8. The Opinion of the two Spencers in Ed. 2. Who held that the oath of allegiance was more by reason of the Kings Crown that is his politick capacity than by reason of his person Is a most detestable excreable damnable and damned invention 7 Rep. fo 11. Calvins case 9. High Treason can be committed against none but the King neither is any thing high Treason but what is declared so to be by the Statute 25 Ed. 3. c. 21. To leavy war against the King to compass or imagine his death or the death of his Queen or of his eldest Son to counterfeit his Money or his great Seal to imprison the King untill he agree to certain demands to leavy war to alter Religion or the Law to remove Counsellours by arms or the King from his Counsellours be they evil or good by arms to seize the Kings Forts Ports Magazine of war to depose the King or to adhere to any State within or without the Kingdome but the Kings Majesty is high Treason For which the Offendor should have judgement First to be drawn to the Gallows 2. There to be hanged by the neck and cut down alive 3. His Intralls to be taken out of his belly And he being alive to be burnt before him 4. That his head should be cut off 5. That his body should be cut in four parts and 6. That his head and his quarters should be put where the Lord the King pleaseth 10. Treason doth ever produce fatal destruction to the Offender either in body or soul sometimes in both and he never attains to his desired end 3 Par. Jnst pag. 36. Peruse over all Books Records and Histories and you shall finde a Principle in Law a Rule in Reason and a tryal in experience that Treason doth ever produce fatal and final destruction to the Offender and never attains to the desired end two incidents inseparable thereunto and therefore let all men abandon it as the Poysonons bait of the Devil and follow the precept in holy Scripture Serve God Honour the King and have no company with the seditions 11. That Kings have been deposed by their Subjects is no argument or ground that we may depose ours A facto ad jus non valet argumentum Because Children have murdered their own fathers is no warrant for us to murder ours Judas betrayed his Soveraign yet should not we follow his example unless we strive for his reward There was never King deposed but in tumultuous and mad times and by might not by right 12. The King is Principium caput finis Parliamenti the begining head and end of a Parliament The body makes not the head nor that which is posterior that which is prior Kings were before Parliaments There were not in England any formed bodyes called the two Houses of Parliament untill above 200. years after the Norman Conquest 13. The King of England is armed with diverse Counsels one whereof is called Commune consilium the Common counsel and that is the Court of Parliament and so it is legally called in writs and judicial proceedings Commune Consilium Regni Angliae Consilium non est praeceptum Consiliarii non sunt praeceptores It is not the office or duty of a Counseller to command and make precepts but only to advise 14. The King is the fountain of justice and the life of the Law The two Houses frame the body the King giveth the soul for without him it is but a dead carcase And Si componere magnis Parva mihi fas est If I may compare small things with great As in a bond though one find paper and another write it yet if the obligor do not seal and deliver it it is nugatory and no obligation So if the King assent not to an act of the two Houses it is void and no Statute It is the royal Scepter which gives it the force of a Law Witnesse the whole Academy of the Law perspicua vera noâ— sunt probanda It would be foolish to light the Sun with Candles 15. Originally The King did make new Laws and abrogate old without the assâ—nt of any known body oâ— assembly of his Subjects But afterwards by his gracious goodnesse perceiving that his people could best know their own soars and so consequently apply the most convenient remedy he vouchsafed so much to restrain his power that he would no make any Law concerning them without their assent For at the first Populus nullis legibus tenebatu sed arbitria regum pro legibus erant Which truth iâ— so clear that it shines almost in every History The oldest and best stile of an act of Parliament is Be it enacted by the Kings Majesty with the assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons c. which proves where the virtual power is 16. The Commons have no Authority but by the Writ of Summons That Writ gives them no power to make new Lawes but onely to do and consent to such things which shall happen to be ordained by Common Counsel there in Parliament which are the words of the writ and all their Jurisdiction At a Conference the Commons are alwayes uncovered and stand bare when the Lords sit with their hats on which shews that they are not Colleagues in Judgement with the Lords Every Member of the House of Commons takes the oath of allegiance and supremacy before his admission in the House and should keep it too 17. It is Lex consuetudo Parliamenti The Law and Custome of a Parliament
is never good which turneth again and the good Christian will suffer himself to be broken in a thousand pieces before he will turn again with resistance against his persecuting King for why He knoweth that though he suffer here on Earth yet God will glorifie him in Heaven though he be contemned by the King yet he shall be exalted by God and though he dye by the Kings unlawfull command yet his comfort is that his dead body shall arise by the eternal Decree of the Almighty and so the good will always receive praise of the Power Neither are the Rulers a terrour to him because he always aboundeth with good works Hor. Integer vitae scelerisque purus Non eget Mauri Jaculis nequè arcuâ— Nec Venenatis gravida sagitis Fusce Pharetra Who lives upright and pure of heart Oh Fuscus neither needs the Dart Nor Bow nor Quiver fraught with store Of Shafts envenom'd by the Moor. Innocence is the only buckler which protecteth a loyal Subject from the terrour of his Soveraign But Traytors who have rebelled against their king deserved death by the known Laws of the Land These men must preach up Mr. Prynnes Doctrine to cover their malice hold the truth in unrighteousnesse and when with offensive Arms contrary to all Law and Religion and against their allegiance and oaths they set upon the Kings sacred Majesty and with an innumerous multitude of unhallowed Rebels they fight against and strive to murther their dread Soveraign in the open Air They must have the impudence with Mr. Prynne to excuse themselves may think it a glorious Apology To averr confidently that it was never the meaning of St. Paul nor the Holy Ghost to inhibit Subjects to take up defensive Arms against Kings themselves And thus they invoke St. Paul himself and the Holy Ghost to patronize their wicked Treasons and unparallel'd Rebellions and belch out Blasphemy to defend their injustice and themselves from the justice of their injured Soveraign The Apostles did not only teach us with their Doctrine that resistance of the power was unlawful but also suffered themselves to be wickedly massacred and murthered before they would resist an unjust power Nay all the primitive Christians which Mr. Prynne confesseth although they were many in number and sufficiently able to defend themselves against their Persecutors by force and Arms yet did refuse to do it yielding themselves up to any tortures punishments deaths without the least resistance of the power either in word or deed Nay our Saviour himself acknowledged that Pilate had power given him from above to Crucifie him as you may read in St. Iohn 19.10 Then saith Pilate unto him Speakest thou not unto me knowest thou not that I have power to Crucifie thee and have power to release thee Jesus answered Thou couldest have no power at all against me except it were given thee from above Therefore he which delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin Yet Mr. Prynne with his confident averrment for he cannot bring one word of Scripture for what he saith goeth about to maintain the defensive Warr as he calls it of the Subjects against their Soveraign Lord the King lawfull both in point of Law and Conscience Tantumnè potest suadere malorum Religio Could his Religion do this His surely and only his for it is against the foundation of Christian Religion and Mr. Prynne must publish a new Gospel or else rectifie the Bible at the Presbyterian Oracle before his King-killing books will be Canonical He bringeth his arguments from the time that never was nor ever will be for saith he 2d pâ—rt of his Soveraign power of Parliaments fo 82 83. Kingdoms were before Kings ergo the King hath no absolute negative voyce c. I alwayes thought that Kings were before Kingdoms they being correlativa and doubtlesse if Fathers were before Sons and Masters before Servants then Mr. Prynne speaks nonsense but for his Apology you must understand that he means Countryes and people were before Kings but I think that is false too for the first man Adam was a King and Mr. Prynne cannot shew any time before England was governed by Kings And the word Kingdom in the Reports of our book cases and in Acts of Parliaments also is oftentimes taken for the King himself as you may read in Calvins case lib. 7.12 Therefore since by the Laws of the Land there can be no Parliament without the King that the word Kingdom is often used for the King himself who can deny the truth of the Title of Mr. Prynnes book which saith That the Parliament and Kingdom are the Soveraign power But latet anguis in herba Open the leaves of his book and you will see the mystery of iniquity clouted together If the King saith Mr. Prynne dye without heir then the people might make what lawes they should think fit Ergo the Members at this day have power without the King to make Lawes and are the most absolute supreme power and law-giver not the King If the Sky fall we may perhaps catch Larks but it doth not therefore follow that we may catch Larks presently Mr. Prynne knoweth that it is a Maxim in Law that the King never dyeth But admit the King should dye without heir and that then the people had power to make Lawes yet grosse it were to conclude that the members of the two Houses might so do because they are dissolved and are extinct when the King dyeth Therefore with more reason as a Royalist observes the King might argue thus All the lands in England are holden mediatly or immediately of the King and if the owners dye without heir by the lawes of the Realm their lands escheat to the Crown and so become at the Kings disposal But every man may dye without heir Ergo All the lands in England at this present are the proper inheritance of the King No Lawyer can deny Major or Minor yet the Conclusion thereupon is absurd The Court of Parliament saith Mr. Prynne hath power to avoid the Kings Charters c. made against law Ergo it hath the Soveraign power and is above the King and why not Ergo the Court of Chancery or any other of the Courts of Law at Westminster have the soveraign power and are above the King for they have power to nullifie and avoid the Kings Charters c. made against Law But I am sick of Mr. Prynnes impertinence and nonsense if any one be desirous to drink more of it I referre him to the Ocean his Book I will only give you a taste of the abuses which Mr. Prynne hath cast on Venerable Bracton and how Mr. Prynne endeavoureth to make Bracton speak Mr. Prynne's own sense against Bracton's own sense expresse words and meaning And since Mr. Prynne can make the Gospel and Holy Ghost speak what he pleaseth no wonder if he hath the Law-books at his beck Bracton saith as you have already heard That the King
else to do but to scrible Pamphlets Every one judging according to his capacity or affection And as Men so Books are pressed to war Ad prelum tanquam ad praelium But Nulla fides pietasve viris qui castra sequuntur there is as little credit as piety to be found in Swordmen and so their calumny will not prejudice me in any wise mans judgement The good of my Country and the settlement of our Distractions is the thing which I aim at let Momus carp while his Teeth ake which Settlement will never be untill Right overcomes Might and every one be established in his own again For what man hath been secure and immutable since the great and wicked change Sen. Quem felicem Cynthia vidit Vidit miserum abitura dies He that shone like the Sun in the Morning was clouded like Night in the Evening a Protector one hour and glad to be protected the next God oftentimes curseth with the same Sins which were committed against him Pharoah hardened his heart the first time for his Pleasure God hardened it the next for his Destruction We changed our Government once to please our wicked Wills God hath changed it oftner to purge our impious Sins But Jam satis terris nivis atque dirae Grandinis mifit pater rubenâ—e Dextera sacras jaculatus arces Terruit urbem Terruit gentes Enough of hail and cruel snow Hath Jove now showr'd on us below Enough with thundering Steeples down Frightned the Town Frightned the World O thou God of Order now hold thy punishing hand cement our Differences and unite the lines of our Discord in the true Centre Let Charls the 2 d. our Augustus and Caesars Successor revenge the bloody Murther of Caesar O most worthy Augustus our only lawfull Soveraign be thou a stay to our falling Kingdom Patiens vocari Caesaris ultor do thou hasten to be Caesars Revenger and then Serus in coelum redeas diuque Laetus intersis populo Quirini Neve te nostris vitiis iniquum Oâ—yor aura Tollat hic magnos potius triumphos Hic ames dici pater atque Prinâ—eps Neu sinas Medos equitare inultos Te duce Caesar Return to Heaven late we pray And long with us the Britains stay Nor let disdain of our offence Take thee from hence Love here victorious Triumphs rather Love here the name of Prince and father Nor let the Rebels scot-free ride Thou being our Guide Which is the continual Prayer of Your Graces most humble true faithfull and obedient Subject and most dutifull Servant usque ad aras Cimelgus Bonde ERRATA THe times are full of errors Parliaments themselves have erred therefore pardon the Errata of the Printer Some Letters nay some words are left out and wrong ones put in their room What then our Nobles nay our King himself hath been dis-throned and wrong ones The Shrubs their Servants have intruded and usurped their places The Rump ruled the whole Body the Feet got above the Shoulders And untill the Head fully enjoyeth its preheminence and Prerogative over the inferiour Members expect no Amendments either publick or private But since our Age hath more need of a Bit than Spurs adde bit to the end of the 21. line fo 6. line 9. fo 42. Munera l. 21. f. 47. of instead of for l. 22. fo 174. read Could such attempts In the Latin Verses read cujus and fonte in the two last lines THe Contents of this Book you may find fo 1. 20 28 40 54 65 73 86 106 119 132 192 204 210 219 267 361 376. And since the last in execution is the first in the intention I must request the Reader to begin with the last part of the Book and end with the first part in his reading And if he meet with any sharp and tart laguage let him remember the Persons whom it concerns whose Actions were more base than the most nipping and satyrical pen could rehearse For what villany so great as for Subjects to murther their gracious King Oh Heavens could the Godly do this Do this Yes root up our Laws and Religion destroy our Church and murder our Prophets with many thousands of their innocent Brethren and yet be accounted Saints too But from such Saints good Lord deliver us who took away the Kings and Bishops lands and then voted them Papistical and dangerous to the Church and Common-wealth It was Naboths Vineyard which made him a Blasphemour and Jack Presbyter would never have made a Covenant to extirpate Episcopacy as contrary to the power of Godliness had not the Bishops had Land and the Presbyter much Pride and more of the form than of the power of Godliness in him But Multa cadunt inter caliceÌ„ Supremaque labra the Independents stept between home and him got the honor of cutting off the Kings head and took to themselves the Revenues of both King and Bishop So that now Iohn could rellish a King and the Office of a Bishop I like his Appetite well but I pray God he do not spoyl the meat in the chewing it But renowned General Monk hath now cheared us with the hopes of a Free-Parliament which will put a period to our miseries that is they will bring in our exiled King without whom they will be but a Gallimaufrey of Confusion increasing not diminishing our Distractions for no Parliament without the King And no doubt but our famous General holds the Scripture Canonical and will never dissent from his Father Solomon who thus teaeheth and commandeth all of us My Son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them that are given to change for their calamity shall rise suddenly and who knoweth the ruine of them both Prov. 24.21 22. To the Author of the Royal Buckler or a Lecture to Traytors TO speak what ev'ry one desires and in a strain That suits with ev'ry Hearer is no pain No trouble to profess the bloody Creed Of Mahomet among the Turks no need To be afraid amidst ones friends but he That talks of Virtue before Villanie Who can be Christian among the Crew Of Sectaries and bid defiance to the Jew He that i' th worst of Times dares to be good Like Capel seals his Ligeance with his Blood Can strive against th' impetuous wind and wave And all their joynt-conspiracies outbrave In spite of Fortune resolutely stand To argue with a bloudy treacherous Land That Man 's a Man indeed can stoutly cry Hosanna when the Throng sayes Crucifie Sir such are you and such your Lines to whom Or to your shrine Posterity shall come Laden with Laurels and the little brood Of them whose hands were in their Prince's bloud Shall justifie thy Book and read therein Their own Misfortunes and their Father's Sin Shall read the Miracles of Providence And borrow matter for Romances thence Thus Sir your Pen shall to your self create A Monument beyond the Pageant state Of breathless Oliver or those Poor men That rul'd
ab eventu facta notanda putat The Authors Resolution and Reason to write The wickedness of the times Wherein men will have no King unless they may be Kings themselves nor no Bishops only because they are not Bishops Tyrants and Traytors reign by force Kings by the love of the people The definition of a Commonwealths-man with all his properties and the deceitfulness of a Parliament be it long or short Englands degeneration and the death of the Laws and Religion with an Incitation to solemnize the funeral NOw it is time to resolve the Quaere couchant in the Prologue Eloquar an sileam timor hoc pudor impedit illud Whether I should speak or be silent When I consider the perills of the times wherein no man can speak his own conscience without offending those who will give him blows for words Then Timor hoc But Jam tua res agitur paries cum proximus ardet when I see my neighbour his house on fire and my own next to it when all men are asleep in sin and none to awake them Then pudor impedit illud For Non mihi si centum linguae sint oraque Centum Omnia culparum percurrere nomina possum If I had a thousand tongues and so many mouths I could not vilify our iron age according to its deserts Me thinks as if souls according to Phythagoras his opinion descented from one man to another I see those ancient Tyrants or their black souls in worser images acting their bloudy parts upon the stage of the world and sounding out their hellish edicts Here is Caius Caesar Caligula with his detestable motto in his mouth Oderint dum metuant Let them hate me so they fear me He forced parents to be present at the execution of their own children and after he had well drunk and eaten took pleasure to cast his friends into the Sea from on high from a bridge which he built He wished that his people had but one neck that he might chop them off at a blow vox Carnifice quam Imperatore dignior A Speech fitter for an Hangman than an Emperour When a prisoner being fearfull of the cruel Torments with which the Emperour would murder him had taken poyson to prevent him What sayes he Antidotum adversus Caesarem Is there any Antidote against Caesar How many poor innocents being condemned to dreadful deaths by the Tyrants of our age have poysened themselves to prevent their undesetved punishments And when his Grand-mother Antonia seemed to give him some admonition Memento ait omnia mihi in omnes licere I would have you to know saith he That I can do any thing a true Character of a Tyrant for what will not hee do But doubtless the love of the people is the best guard for a King Magnum Satellitium Amor. And that which ones natural lawfull Soveraign would most look after For â—num est regi inexpugnabile munimentum amor Civium It is not fear and force nor Troops of Dragoons and Red-coats that are the surest holds for Governours but the benevolence hearts and love of their subjects Caesar dando sublevando ignoscendo gloriam adeptus est Rulers have no greater enemy than the fear and envy of the people For Quem metuunt oderunt Quem quisque odit periisse expedit Whom we fear we hate and whom we hate we study and desire his death But behold Aulus Vitellius Bonus odor hostis melior civis occisi An enemy slain hath a very good smell but a Cittizen far better O black abominable Tragical and Tyrannical speech And did not our age swarm with such horse-leaches we should never suck the blood one of another so as we do But that you may hate the very name of Tyrants and abhor their actions Hearken a little to Flavius Vespasianus and his Councel how impiously they consulted and first Vespasian Lucri bonus odor ex re qualibet It is gain which makes the smell so good for a slain Citizen or enemy No actions so hellish if it produce profit but that it is a virtue to attempt it and the reason is Omnis in ferro salus because all our hope and health is in the sword for whilest we have that in our hands what law or Religion dares oppose us no disputant like the sword Exeat aula qui volet esse pius virtus summa potestas non coeunt semper metuunt quem save pudebunt Let him depart from our Courts and Counsel who is so simple that he must neeâ— be pious Godliness is a great hinderance to oâ— profession and he is a Coward who is ashamed to act wickedly Sibi bonus aliis malus saith an other He is a fool who thinks that any one can lose so he gets Let us be good to our selves and all is well There be some simple innocents who cry Melius mori quam sibi vivere It is better to dye than to live only for our selves But if such be their Doctrine let them get for others for us if they please and starve themselves Let us carve for ourselves Proximus ipse mihi Charity begins at home and he is an Ass that carrieth a burden for another Others there be of the same stamp and both alike simple who say Dulce est pro patria mori It is sweet to dye for ones Country let such good natured fools tast of that sweetness and dye for their Country our lives are sweet and not so to be fooled away It is sweet for our Country to dye for us But Pestis reipublicae literae saith another of the Counsel we shall never carry on our affairs handsomely so long as we have so many Lawyers and Gospel men amongst us the highest step to our promotion will be to lay them on their backs and I think the nearest way to dispel the cloud of black Coats will be to throw down their Universites and take their tithes and lands away from then As for the Lawyers perhaps we may bribe them but if not I am sure they will rather turn than burn To what we cannot perswade them with our tongues we will compel them to with our swords For Law Learning and Religion are as so many plagues and poysons tâ— Commonwealth And Qui nescit dissimulare nescit imperare He that cannot dissemble shall be no Commonwealths-man for to tell you the truth Dissimulation cogging and lying is the foundation of our government and if the foundation be taken away every one knows the superstructure cannot stand Therefore to deal plainly with the world let us cover our worst actions with the best pretences and ravish the people with the pleasing and specious names of Liberty and Religion when we intend the extirpation of both Let us imitate Tereus who so neatly dissembled piety that when he acted most against it the people did Saint him Ipso sceleris molimine Tereus Creditur esse pius And doubtless he was no mean Cowmonwealths-man Let us hold a fair correspondence
instructions so he that denyeth this truth ought with the oratory of the sword and not of the mouth to be perswaded into his due obedience For it is an uncontrolable Maxim that he doth not honour and serve God as he should who doth not honour and serve his King as he ought God will not own him to be his subject who will not be a subject to his Soveraign the Lords anointed Therefore since by the Law of God for nothing is more frequently commanded in the Scripture and our Kings are of like institution with those Kings in Scripture and ought to have the same honour and obedience by the Law of Nature by the Law of Nations by the Common and Statute Law of England we are commanded to honour our King Let no man be so much an Enemy to God to Religion to his Country to the Church to the Law and to his own soul as to Rebel against his Legal Soveraign For he that doth it transgresseth against the ten Commandements of the Law the new Commandement of the Gospel he committeth the seaven deadly sins the four crying sins the three most detestable sins to the soul of man viz. Prophaness Impudency and Sacrilege In a word he committeth all sins is the Embleme of the Devil and unless he repent he will have his Lot with Belzebub the great Rebel and Traytor against Heaven If punishment cannot compel them me thinks the beauty of Monarchy might allure men to love it Surely there is no generous spirit who doth not for the most renowned and famous Nations in the World have lived under Monarchical Government as the Scythians Ethiopians Indians Assyrians Medes Egyptians Bactrians Armenians Macedonians Jews and Romans first and last and at this day the French Spaniards Polonians Danes Muscovites Tartars Turks Abissines Moors Agiamesques Zagathinians Cathaians yea and the Salvage people lately discovered in the West-Indies as being guided thereto by the rules of nature and rip up Antiquity and search Histories both antient and modern and thou shalt never finde our Realm of England so much an Enemy to virtue as to hate Royal Government until these latter and worst of dayes wherein it is accounted a sin to be noble and vertuous Nay so much did our Nation love Kings in former times that we had seaven of them in England at one and the same time viz. 1. The King of Kent 2. Of the South-Saxons 3. Of the West-Saxons 4. Of the East-Saxons 5. Of Northumberland 6. Of Mercia 7. Of the East-Angels which ruled and shined like the seaven Stars each absolutely reigning in his Country not under the subjection of other until at length by the Law of Conquest one became Monarch over all ruling like the Sun and acknowledging none on Earth his Superior so much that it is amongst us a common adage viz. The King holdeth of none but of God But it seems God hath now granted away the Seigniory to the House of Commons and the King must hold of them But from hence ariseth a point in Law whether they are absolutely and legally seized of the Seigniory without attornment of the tenant In my simple opinion the Seigniory doth not pass before attornment but I leave it as a quaere to the House of Commons who are best able to resolve it because they have all the Law in their own hands Non nostrum inter vos tantas componere lites From what hath been said it is apparent that Adam was the first King on Earth and that Kingdoms have been ever since Adam haereditary for a family which was before Commonwealth is nothing else but a small Kingdom and a great Kingdom is nothing else but a great family for the Pater familias were petite Kings and had royal power and potestatem vitae necis even over their own Children as Abraham and others But when the family increased and the numerous off-pring of their first parent multiplied built Villages Towns and Cities and so became a great people so long as their first parent lived their love and duty towards him would not permit them unnaturally to strive with him for the superiority but to acknowledge and obey him as their Soveraign and lawfull King from whence they had their being And this is the reason that Kings are called Patres Patriae Fathers of their Country Sal. 1. Inde enim origo regum regiique regiminis petenda est Haec cum primo homine cum solo novo cepit quoniam primum parentem numerosus ex eo descendens natorum qui ex â—is nati sunt populus pro rege habuit observavit ut primum sui generis auctorem So much for Monarchy the best of all Governments No man can serve two Masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other ye cannot serve God and Mammon Math. 6.24 If any Anti-Royalist think himself wiser than our Saviour and that he can serve two Masters and love them both let him hate Monarchy and set up his two headed Master and let experience the mistris of fools correct him as it hath many already But since our age is given to nothing but vain imaginations there be some who do Imagine and will object that Adam was no King because he is not stiled so in Scripture I answer though this frivolous objection doth not deserve an answer that neither do you find Adam stiled in Scripture my Father or thy Father yet Adam was the Father of all flesh Si res apparet Cur de nomine certas He that hath the supreme power is a King But Adam had the supreme power Ergo Adam was a King Rex cometh from Regere to rule and Adam was sole Lord Ruler and King and so continued untill he died Adam was created by God the Monarch of the World before he had any subjects And by right of Nature it was due to Adam to govern his posterity even before his subjects were born So that though not in act yet in habit Adam was a king from his creation Neither could Eve nor her Children ever limit Adams power It was God that gave the power therefore no Mortals could ever diminish or increase it For Quid Jove majus habetur They must be above all that which is called godlinesse who go about to put asunder that which the Almighty hath joyned together This Paternal power continued Monarchical to the Floud and after the Floud to the Confusion of Babel at which time God scattered the people abroad from thence upon the face of the whole earth as you may read Gen. 10 11. Yet they went out by Colonies of whole families over which the prime Fathers had the Soveraignty and were kings deriving their Fatherly and Regal power from Noah whose Sons or Grand-children they were all And although I think there are but few Kings in the world who can prove their title to their Crown hereditary ever since Noahs
authority is originally and radically in the people from them by consent derived to Kings immediately mediately only from God that the donation or collation of the power is from the Community the approbation only from God and that Soveraignty and power in a King is by conveyance from the people by a trust devolved upon him and that it is Conditional fiduciary and proportioned according as it pleaseth the Community to entrust more or lesse and to be weighed out ounce by ounce and that the King may be opposed and resisted by violence force and arms and the people resume their power which we deny and shall prove by the law of God of Nations of Nature of the Common and Statute law of England that the Royal power and Soveraignty of Kings is primarily formally and immediatly from God and that the people through pretence of Liberty Privilege Law Religion or what Colour soever ought not to oppose imprison resist much lesse Murther their King though he be wicked and subvert Law and Religion much lesse when he is pious upholdeth and maintaineth both First I conceive that there is no man so impudently wicked as to deny that there is a God who created all things Heaven and Earth Angels and Men the power of Angels and the power of Men there is one power of Angels and another of Men so there is a difference of powers amongst men the power of a King inferior to no power on earth but only Gods the power of the Subjects inferior to the power of the King the power of a Father over his Children and the power of a Husband over his Wife and so every power limitted by God and as one Star doth excel another in brightnesse so one power doth excel another in dignity and glory There is nothing more plain and evidently asserted in the Scripture than that Kingly power is the most Sacred Divine and glorious of all powers immediately from God peculiarly owned by him as a power wherin his Nature and Majesty is most manifested and as I have already shewed hath a shadow of all Divine Excellencies Man was made Gen. 1.26 and God said let us make man in our Image But man had no power or dominion untill God further said And let them have dominion over so that it is from hence most clear that man had no power or Soveraignty untill God gave it him and the first man to whom God gave it was Adam a King the sole Monarch of the world Then let not our new Sectaries fondly wickedly conceit that royal authority is originally and radically from them that it is by their consent immediatly derived from them to Kings Since the Kingly power office was before they were born or had any power from whence such authority could be derived By me Kings raign saith God not only particular Kings as Kings of the Jews c. but all Kings Prov. 85.1 Qui succedit in locum succedit in jus Therefore whosoever claim unto themselves that power which is universally and perpetually peculiar unto the God of all power do Blaspheme and rob God of his honour and what lyes in them do make God no God and themselves the only Almighty But the people which challenge unto themselves the original power of earthly Dominion do challenge unto themselves that power which is universally and perpetually peculiar to the God of all power Therefore those people do blaspheme and rob God of his honour and what lyes in them do make God no God and themselves the only Almighty There is no power but of God The powers that be are ordained of God Rom. 13.1 5. Wherefore ye must needs be subject not only for wrath but also for conscience sake Doubtless our superintendants did never learn their Doctrine from this Text but they may aswell learn it from hence as from any other place in Scripture for I finde nothing in my Bible contrary to this but every text in Scripture doth harmoniously agree with this and unanimously resolve that Kings are of God they are Gods Children of the most high his Servants â—ir publick Ministers his Deputies his Vicegerenis his Lieutenants their Throne their Crown their Sword their Scepter their Judgements are Gods their Power Person and charge are of Divine extract and so their authority and person are both sacred and inviolable God removeth Kings and setteth up Kings Daniel 2.21 Thou settetst a Crown of pure Gold on his head Psal 21.3 I gave thee a King in mine anger and took him away in my wrath Hos 13.11 Which proveth that God not the people did institute Kings and that God not the people should take them away God hath spoken once yea twice have I heard this that power belongeth unto God Psal 62.11 By him were all things created that are in Heaven and that are in Earth visible and invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or Powers Col. 1.16 And now O Lord my God thou hast made thy servant King instead of David my Father 1 Kings 3.7 I have provided me a King saith God 1 Sam. 16.1 Whole heaps of Scipture might I gather to confirm that Kings are solely and immediatly dependent from God and independent from all others which truth the suffrages of the Holy Fathers which are but as so many Commentaries on the Scripture and therefore not so necessary here to be recited do affirm and maintain But some may ask me how Kings in these dayes can be said to be immediatly from God when somtimes they are elected Kings by the people sometimes they come to their Crowns by Conquest and sometimes hereditarily by succession and never by extraordinary manifestation and revelation from Heaven as did Moses Saul David To this I briefly answer That as Divines hold a thing is immediatly from God several wayes 1. When it is solely from God and presupposeth nothing ordinary or humane antecedent to the obtaining of it So was Moses made captain over Israel and so had Joshua his authority But Soveraignty now to our Kings is not so conveyed but some humane act is alwayes intervening 2. When the Donation and Collation of the power to such a person is immediatly from God though some act of man be antecedent as Mathias was an Apostle immediatly from Christ though first the Apostles put two a part and cast lots yet neither of these two acts jointly or severally did virtually or formally collate the Apostolical power upon him When an Atturney maketh livery of seisin according to his letter of Atturny the Feoffee is in by the Feoffor and not by the Atturny though his act was interposed Is is not the Feoffment of the Atturney but of the Feoffor and the Feoffee his Title is only from the Feoffor though he had not had it but by the means of the Atturny In the second sense Soveraignty is conferred on kings immediatly from God though some created act as Election Succession Conquest or any other
have the supreme power over the people is proved in Adam and testifyed by the Law of God the Law of Nations The Law of Nature The Law of Reason The Law of the Realm and by the Oathes of all English men aswel Parliament men as other Magistrates though since broken by our Saviour by the Apostles by all the Fathers of the Church and by all Christian People and Religion The glory of the Martyrs which have sacrificed their lives in this just cause shall live for ever and the Rebells shall go out with stink like the snuffe of a Candle The Majesty and power of the King described Good subjects commended and the punishment of Traytors with Korah Dathan and Abiram manifested The sad effects if the people should have the supreme power and proved by reason that no Government could stand nor any man whatsoever live if the people had power to question the King or other their Governors Two supreme powers cannot stand together Trayterous Tyrants alwayes pretend Liberty and Religion with which they blinde the ignorant people The Oath of Supremacy by whom taken and by whom broken with all Gods Commandments with it How the People of England deal with their King HAving satisfied all but those whose profit it is to believe the contrary who have no other grounds for their belief than other mens grounds and estates that Kings receive their power from God and not from the people and are independent from all but the Almighty I shall now shew 1. That they have the Supreme power over the people 2. That they are above the Law 3. That they are not to give account of their actions to the people but only to God and so conclude that there can be no just cause for the subjects either to take up armes against their Soveraign to call him to the bar to accuse him to condemn him or to kill or murther him First with the first That the first King was made in Paradice your have already heard and that there he received his dominion and power but from whom did he receive his power from God hath not God therefore greater power than the Kingâ— he hath From whence do the people derive their power from the King Hath not the King therefore more power than the people he hath Constituens Constituto potior The Constituent is better and higher in place and dignity than the Constituted But the power of God Constituted the power of Kings Ergo the power of God is greater than the power of Kings And quod efficit tale magis est tale that which maketh any such or such is in it self much more such or such But the King giveth power to the people Ergo the power of the King is higher than the power of the people The King is the only fountain from whence all the streams of authority flow to the people It is he that is the Magazine from whence they derive their power And Derivativa potestas non potest esse major primitiva a Derived power can not be greater than the primitive Therefore those men who place Soveraignty in the palace of the peoples breasts must needs be more knaves than fools for so great ignorance cannot roust in their pates who are so worldly wise But let them glosse the text with what false Commentaries they please make white black and black white and muster up dark clouds of jugling riddles to dazle the purblind sight of the Rascal rable of the people who think the Gown makes the Lawyer That that must needs be Law which the Judge saith esteem all things by their exterior apperances and only know how to be ignorant whose deceived foolishnesse is the Chariot on which our men of war ride triumphant from one degree of wickednesse to another Yet notwithstanding Legibus eversis rerum natura peribit the Law of nature shall perish and the Heavens and Earth shall passe away before Lex Terrae the Law of the Land shall deny this Oracle Omnis sub Rege ipse sub nullo nisi tantum sub Deo All men are under the King and the King is under none but God this is that Divine sentence quod nec Jovis ira nec ignes Nec poterit ferrum necedax abolere vetustas which neither angry Jove nor fiery Vulcan neither devouring age nor the bloudy sword a worse devourer than that shall ever expunge out of our Law-Books or explode out of the memory of every pious man This is that which many worthies have written with their blouds and sealed with their lives To this have many died Martyrs whose fame shall out-live the Sun and their memories be engraven upon the marble of everlasting monuments whilest others their opposers would be glad to have the stench of their ignominious names buried in the grave of oblivion where leaving them let us return to our King For nullum tempus occurrit Regi It is alwaies seasonable to do allegiance to the King whose power like the Ocean is boundlesse and his authority like the wind goeth where it listeth he only can proclaim war and he only can conclude peace he only can call Parliaments and dissolve them when he pleaseth he appointeth what Magistrates he pleaseth and turneth out whom he pleaseth all Laws Customs Privileges and Franchises are granted and confirmed to the people by him He raiseth men that are dead to life again for those that are condemned to die by the Judges are dead in Law but the Kings pardon reviveth them again He hath the sole power of ordering and disposing all the Castles Forts strong Holds Ports Havens and all other parts of the Militia He is the breath of our Nostrils the life head and authority of all that we do Supremam potestatem merum imperium apud nos habens having the Supreme power and meer empire over our bodies members lives and estates he doth whatsoever he pleaseth to be short he is our King And where the word of a King is there is power and who may say unto him what dost thou Eccle. 8.3 4. But so greedy is humane nature of dominion and covetous to rule that we have some amongst us who professe themselves to be born Kings they are Kings by birth nay greater than Kings are here For Par in parem non habet Dominium one King cannot command another King But these men use Kings as Children do birds in a string give him what Liberty and Authority they please clip his wings lest he should fly too high for them put pins in his eyes to make sport with him and clip off his head too to make known their authority But doubtless these men were never bred in Christs University Did they ever hear of him If they did it is the worse for them For they which know the will of God and do it not will fare never the better for their knowledge It is better to be an ignorant fool than a cunning knave Reddite quae sunt Caesaris
with a sure foot Though King David was a man after Gods own heart yet could he not please the people for Absolom his own Son made a conspiracy against him and forced him to flye for his life But mark the end of this Traytor though the earth did not open her mouth and swallow him up yet the very Trees took vengeance and caught him up by the head so that he hung between heaven and earth as unworthy to go to heaven or to live upon the earth 11 Sam. 18.9 Then how dare these Pulpit Hunters blaspheme God and prophane his Word and Sanctuary so much as to preach that Rebellion is obedience nay a necessary duty commanded of God and a great means to carry on the work of Salvation inciting the people to cry out for justice accounting all things injustice unless that they have their wicked ends So Absolom did steal the hearts of the people who had controversies telling them that there was no man deputed of the King to hear them 11 Sam. 15.4 And Absolom said moreover O that I were made judge in the Land that every man which hath any sute or cause might come unto me and I would do them Justice A true Lecture of a Traytor for you shall never find Traytors without Law and Justice on their sides to colour their actions The King hath not deputed a man say they to distribute Justice He is popishly given and would bring into the Kingdome the popish Religion He infringeth your Charters breaketh the Laws and destroyeth your Rights and Liberties But O that we were made Judges in the Land how equally and impartially would we give justice to all men we would not take away your Charters nor encroach upon your Liberties The preservation of the Law and Religion is the only cause for which we take up arms But when with their charms and sorcery they have intoxicated the people got the hilt of the sword into their own hands and a power to do what they list then down goeth both Law and Religion and the King too like Jonas must be thrown down from the stern of Government to appease the tempest of the multitude And then and not untill then like the head of a Snail or a Tortoise out of it's shell not seen before doth appear their own cause and indeed the only cause for which they took up arms which is their own private interest and the destruction of the whole Kingdome with their own bodies and souls hereafter Hor. Suis ipsa Roma viribus ruit And Englands own Sword destroyeth poor England But let Traytors pretend what they will yet this is a Principle whose original is the Bible confirmed by our Saviour and the Apostles by all the Fathers of the Church and by all Christian people by all reason and Religion That Kings have the Supreme power over their people and consequently the people no power to resist them either to save their Laws Religion or for what other pretence soever For Rex si supra populum optimatesve agnoscat proprie non est Rex He cannot be a King which hath not the supreme authority and Soveraignty Divisum imperium cum Jove Caesar habet It is God and the King to whom Soveraignty belongeth the people are their Vassals and not sharers in so high a dignity Our Saviour alone was both God and Man and it is a thing impossible for the people to be both king and Subject too at one time But why should I seek stars to light the noon day or press that with arguments to be true to them who with their oaths have confirmed it for a truth swearing I William Lenthal do utterly testify and declare in my conscience that the Kings Highness is the only Supreme Governour of this Realm and all other his Highness Dominions and Countries aswell in all spiritual or Ecclesiastical things or Causes as Temporal And that no forein Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate hath or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority Pre-eminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spâ—ritual within this Realm And therefore I do utterly renounce and forsake all forein Jurisdiction Powers Superiorities and Authorities and do promise that from henceforth I shall bear faith and true allegiance to the Kings Highnesse his heirs and lawfull Successors and to my power shall assist and defend all Jurisdictions Privileges Pre-eminences and authorities granted or belonging to the Kings Highnesse his heirs and Successors or united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of the Realm So help me God and by the Contents of this Book What greater exemplification confirmation or demonstration of the kings Soveraignty can there be than this Sacred Oath of Supremacy For this is the thing which the Lord hath commanded saith Moses Num. 30.1 2. If a man Vow a Vow unto the Lord or swear an Oath to binde his soul with a bond he shall not break his word he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth And is there any English-man so impudently wicked and prophane as presumptuously to break Gods Commandement break his own vows and impiously turn perjured Traytor vix ipse tantum vix adhuc credo malum scarce I even I who have seen it with my own eyes can yet hardly believe so great a villany can be perpetrated Haec facere Jason potuit Could the betrothed do this Heu pietas Heu prisca fides Alas the antient piety Alas the fidelity of old time Debuit ferro obvium Offerre pectus I would have dyed first Quid non mortalia pectora cogis Auri sacra fames What doth not gold more sacred to them than their oathes compel mortals to atchieve Vid. 1. Eli. cap. 1. That the Kings power is above the Law is demonstrated by reason and proved by authority In the beginning were no Laws but the Kings will and pleasure Adams absolute power The King can do no wrong It is better and more profitable that one King than many Tyrants do what they lift with us The King hath no Judge but God That place in learned Bracton which Bradshaw and others used as an authority to kill the King explained and their damnable opinion and false Commentary upon him confuted The King is bound to observe Gods Law yet absolute King That God not the people instituteth kings and that the House of Commons which is but the tail of the Parliament nor any whole Parliament can have power over the king or disinherit him HAving made it evidently manifest that the King hath the supreme power and Soveraignty over the people I will now ascend a step higher and make it as manifest that he hath the supreme power and Soveraignty over the Laws as well as over the people Quidvis facere id est regem esse saith Salustius To do what one will is to be a King Cui quod libet licet Qui legibus solutus est Qui leges dat non accipit proiude qui omnes judicat a nemine
non usu valet argumentum But they all unanimously resolve and report the contrary Reader I Would not have thee imagine as some men through malice or ignorance do most impudently assert that when we say The King is absolute and above the Law that thereby is intended that the King is freed from and hath power to act against Gods Laws when he pleaseth No this is but their false glosse and interpretation For non est potentia nisi ad bonum hability and power is not but to good There is no power but what is from God and therefore no mortal man can have a power to act against God To sin and break Gods commandements is impotency and weakness no power For the Angels which are established in glory do far excel men in power yet they cannot sin The Law of God is above the King and he is bound to God to keep it yet neverthelesse he is an absolute King over men because God hath given him the Supreme power over them and hath given no power to men to correct him if he transgresse But God only whose Law only he can transgresse can call the King to an account Hoc unum Rex potest facere quod non potest injuste agere the King only is able not to do unjustly is a rule in Commonlaw and the reason is because the people do not give Laws to the King but the King only giveth Laws to the people as all our Statutes and Perpetual experience hath taught us Therefore how can the King offend against the Laws of the people or be obnoxious to them when they never gave him any Laws to keep or transgresse and then how can the people punish him who never offended their Laws Therefore the King must needs be absolute over the people and only bound to God not to the people to keep those Laws which God not the people gave him and as God is above the Laws and may alter them at his pleasure which he gave and set over the king so is the King above and may alter at his pleasure those laws which at his pleasure he gave set over the people still observing that he is free from all Laws quo ad coactionem in respect of any coaction from the people but not quo ad obligationem in respect of obedience to God by his obligation Therfore well might Solomon counsel us to keep the Kings commandement saying Eccles 8.2 I counsel thee to keep the Kings Commandement and that in regard of the Oath of God Be not hasty to go out of his sight stand not in an evil thing for he doth whatsoever he pleaseth Where the word of a King is there is power and who may say unto him what dâ—st thou These words are the words of God which King Solomon did speak by infusion of the Spirit In which you may see that the King doth what he pleaseth And we are commanded not to stand in an evil thing that is according to Iunius and Tremel translation perturbatione rebellione quae tibi malum allatura esset ageret tecum arbitratu suo sive jure sive injuria We must not murmur and rebel against the King though he deal with us unjustly He may be just when we think he is unjust The Kings heart is in the hands of God the searcher of all hearts as the Rivers of Water not in the hands of the people Therefore God not the people can turn it whether soever he will Prov. 21.1 King David was filius Dei non populi The Son of God not of the People Psalm 89.26 It was God who made him higher than the Kings of the Earth verse 27. not the People He was neither chosen of the People nor exalted of the People For I have exalted one chosen out of the people saith God verse 19. The exaltation was Gods and the choice not of but out of the people For I have found David my Servant with my holy oil have I anointed him saith God verse 20 Kings are the Children of the most high not of the people Psalm 82. Therefore who can say unto the King what dost thou If the people of England have power to depose and make Kings Why are they usurpers who by the power of the people destroy the lawfull King as did Richard the third and by the consent of the people established himself in the Government They are Kings de facto but not de jure as all our Books agree For the people have not the Soveraignty but the King Surely the people of England thought so when by act of Parliament they ordained that none should be capable to sit in Parliament before they had Sworn it vide 1 Eliz. 1.5 Eliz. 1.1 Jac. 1. And I am sure that the breaking of the Oath can give the Parliament no new Authority It is declared by the Lords and Commons in full Parliament rot Par. 42 E. 3. nu 7. Lex consuetudo Parliamenti 4 Inst 14. upon demand made of them on the behalf of the King that they could not assent to any thing in Parliament that tended to the disherison of the King and his Crown whereunto they were Sworn And it is strange to think that the House of Commons which is but the tail of a Parliament should have that power which both Lords and Commons had not But since there can be no Parliament without the King 4 Inst 1 2.341.356 We may conclude that these men being Traytors Rebels and Tyrants will take upon them to do any thing Defensive War against the King is illegal or the Great question made by Rebels with honest men no question Whether the people for any cause though the King act most wickedly may take up arms against their Soveraign or any other way by force or craft call him in question for his actions Resolved and proved by the Law of God the Law of Nations the Law of Nature the Laws of the Realm by the rules of all Honesty Equity Conscience Religion and Piety by the Example and Doctrine of our Saviour Christ all the Prophets Apostles Fathers of the Church and all pious Saints and holy Martyrs That the peoplâ— can have no cause either for Religion or Laws or what thing soever to levy War against the King much lesse to murther him proved in Adam The manner of the Government of the King Gods Steward and Stewart when he cometh described The Bishops Lords Prayer and Common Prayer Book must then be restored with their excellencies now abused He will lay down his life before he will betray his trust and give his account to any but God as did our last great Stewart his Father The blessednesse of the people when the King shall come and rule over them declared his Majesty The Christians duty towards their King laid open and warranted by the Death and Sufferings of Christ and multitudes oâ— Christians The madnesse of the people in casting oâ— the Government of a gracious King and submitting
But these men with their practice most wickedly affirm it King Henry the 7 â— h and many Burgesses and Knights of the Counties being first attainted by Act of Parliament of high Treason against Richard the 3d. The question was in H. the 7 ths Parliament How this Act of Attainder should be reversed and made void It was resolved by all the Judges That those Knights and Burgesses which were attainted should not sit in the House when the Act of Attainder was to â—e reversed But when that Act was reversed then they might come again and sit in Parliament But as for the King it was unanimously agreed and resolved by all the said Judges that ipso facto when he took upon him to be King that he was a person able and discharged of the Attainder for said they the King hath power in himself to enable himself without a Parliament And an Act for the reversal of the Attainder is not at all necessary See 1 H. 7.4 Com. 238. Parliament B. 37. and 105. In which case you may see the power of a King of a King that was attainted of the greatest offence viz. High Treason Here likewise you may view the power of a Parliament of a Parliament who had asmuch right to dethrone their King as ever the long Parliament or any other had Here likewise you may hear the voyce of the Law of the Common law not since repealed by any subsequent Statute But as it was then so it ought to be now the Resolution of all the Judges in England That the King hath power to take pardon and ought not to crave pardon of the people for his offences The Crown once gained taketh away all defect is the Sentence of the Law and an Adage amongst all honest Lawyers If the people had the Supreme power why was not the Attainder of the King in this precedent case reversed by Act of Parliament as were the Attainders of the other Members If the King be but an Officer of trust deputed by the people and receiveth his power from them Why was not the King in this case freed from his offence by the people What would they entrust a person attainted of so great an offence as high Treason with the highest place in the Common-wealth And yet not permit others guilty and attainted of the same offence not so much as to fit and Act as Members of the Parliament without they were first purged of their offence It doth not stand with reason that the highest Offender should exercise the highest office And doubtless if the people had had power the Parliament would have cleared King H. the 7th from his crime before he should have Officiated his Office of Kingship But that Parliament well knew that the feet were not higher than the head and that the Inferiour Members could not impose Laws on the King their Soveraign They knew with Bracton that the King Parem non habet in Regno suo had not in his Kingdom any single man or the people his equal Therefore since it is the Law of the land Magna Charta 29. That no mâ—n shall be judged but by his Peers and being the King hath no Peer or Peers in his Dominions They resolved not to judge their King nor to commit so great a vanity as to reverse the Attainder For can a King be attainted or can the people who have no authority but what they have from him have authority to correct and revise their King O foolish imagination Horac Caelo tonantem credidimus Jovem Regnare praesens Divus habebitur Augustus adjectis Britaunis Imperio Jove governs Heaven with his Nod King Charles he is the earthly God Great Britain being his lawfull Inheritance Our King Augustus high and mighty Solus Princeps qui est Monarcha Imperator in Regno suo Davis Irish Rep. fo 60. Our only Prince who is both Monarch and Emperor in his kingdom hath only authority and the only right to govern the Britains who though long since have been accounted Rigidi hospitibus feri rigid and cruel to strangers yet that they should ever so much degenerate as to be rigid and cruel to their own natural King and kill their natural Soveraign is such a wonder and murther that never entred into the thoughts of former ages and will be a bugbear and scar-crow to all succeeding generations for by robbing their King of his Crown and Life they have robbed the Turk of his cruelty Judas of his treachery and all the Devils of their malicious wickedness For the Turks cruelty Judas his perfidious treachery and the Devils malicious villanies do all conjoyn to make up and center in an English Rebel one of those beasts who like the Enemies of King David Psal 102.8 Have sworn together against their King are mad upon him and revile him all the day long Yet that they may seem religious even when they commit Sacrilege they like the Devil when he tempted our Saviour taking him up into an exceeding high mountain and shewing him all the kingdoms in the world and the glory of them saying unto him All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me Mat. 4.9 will promise fairly and as if they were resolved diametrically to oppose St. Peters Doctrin who commands them 1 Pet. 2.16 Not to use liberty for a cloak of maliciousness they use the liberty of the people as a Wolf doth the Lambs skin to destroy poor Lambs as the only cloak and cover for all their malicious wicked prodigious and damnable actions For if you ask them for what cause did they murder the King Their answer is for the liberty of the people For what cause do they make themselves Governours and Lords and Masters over all that we have For the liberty of the people For what cause do they subvert the Laws expell and throw down the orderly and holy Clergie and all Religion with them For the liberty of the people For what cause do they enslave the whole Nation For the liberty of the people Nay these men are so well furnished with godly pretences and wicked intentions that even whilst they cut the peoples throats they make them believe they give them a blessing And as the man who swore that the Coat of the true owner was another mans only because he might have the use of it himself So these men have the impudence to swear though not without perjury that the Supreme power is in the people only because they might throw down our royal Government with all goodnesse with it and use that Supreme power themselves which they protest is in the people O delusive Mountebanks Was there ever such a jugling deceit acted by any Jugglers or Quacksalvers in the world Surely there was not And did not every one nay they themselves very well know the truth of what I have said I might easily make it clear and evident even to the blind with multitudes of Examples For
who was it that murthered the King Was it the people Every man knoweth that it was neither the people nor the Parliament But a Company of Jesuitical treacherous Rebels and damnable Usurpers Who flaming the people in the mouth with a tale that the supreme power was in the people made use of this power themselves against the wills of the people as an Engine to perform and bring to passe all their wicked and horrible designs But say they we are the peoples Representatives chosen by the people and so what we do they do Catch a Knave without a Knaves answer and he will give you leave to hang him I must confesse if this were true they might have somewhat the more colour though not the more honesty for what they do But this is as false as themselves For the people chose them to sit in Parliament and act according to the Kings Writ as part of the Kings Parliament according to the Laws of the Realm But since the Parliament is destroyed for what Parliament can there be without a King and House of Lords such a headlesse Monster was never seen untill of late Consequently their power which they derived from the people is gone also Neither are the Commons in Parliament the representative body of the whole Kingdom or people For they do not represent the King who is the head nor the Lords who are the nobler and higher part of the body of the Realm the Commons only represent the Inferior and lower sort of the people but if they did as they do not represent the whole body yet did not the people ever give them any power to cut off their Kings head For the Lords voted it unlawful all the honest Commons forsook the House and the people were all displeased except a few of their own hatching up and every one else murmured against it The Nobility mourned The Gentry were amazed The Common people wept and men women and Children did cry The Heavens cloathed themselves in black And the Sun hid his face The Lion King of Beasts died at the â—ight of his royal blood And the wild foules came wondering to see this execrable fact on the Scaffold And if the Thundering and Lightening of the Almighty be a true sign of Gods Angry Deity Then even from this we may conclude that these Regicides took too much upon them and very much provoked his wrath For Diespiter Igni coruseo nubila dividens Plerumque per purum tonantes Egit equos volucremque currum The Heavens roared with thunder which made the earth shake and the darts of fiery lightening threatened the ruines of both And who can think upon this worse than Gunpowder-Treason plot for then was but intended that which now is put in Execution viz. The murther of our gracious King and the subversion of all Laws and Religion with him and not justly expect all the Plagues of Aegypt and the punishment of Sodom and Gomorah to fall upon him and the whole people For Hor. Hoc fonte derivata clades In patriam populumque fluxit From the death of the King as from a fountain did flow the slaughter of the Nobility and people with the ruine of the Glory and freedom of the English Nation Tantae molis erat perversam condere gentem Such and so great villanies were perpetrated to raise this generation of Vipers Yet forsooth they will tell you that the supreme power and Soveraignty is in the people and that they act under them O grand Delusion Did the people turn out the long Parliament Did the people set up Oliver Protector Did the people turn out Dick his son Did the people foist up again the Rump of the long Parliamene Or did they hunt them out again Did the people sanctifie the Committee of Safety over them Or did they hunt in the Rump again Or have they made all the Revolutions and Choppings and Changings amongst us No neither the people nor their Representatives But the Devil his Representatives have been the cause of all our subversions For as the people have not so neither did the twentieth part of them ever challenge or claim the supreme power But have alwaies acknowledged the Soveraignty to be only in their King and only Soveraign only under God Reader take notice that in many places of this Book by the word Parliament is meant those Traytors the House of Commons who have unjustly usurped the name of Parliament For by the known Laws of the Land there can be no Parliament without the King Therefore let every one of the Regicides repent and pray to God to open his eyes and that the scales of blindnesse may fall from them that he may see his duty which is so evidently written in the Scripture and all other pious Writers which is to fear God and to honour his King which is acceptable in the sight of the Lord. And so I shut up my discourse with these verses which I would have the Reader get without book for his Edification Astra Deo nil majus habent nil Caesare terrae Sic Caesar terras ut Deus astra regit Imperium regis Caesar Deus astra gubernat Caesar honore suo dignus amore Deus Dignus amore Deus dignus quoque Caesar honore est Alter enim terras alter astra regit Cum Deus in coelis Caesar regâ—t omnia terris Censum Caesaribus Solvile vôta Deo A Tyrant without a Title set out in all his Colours and proved by the Laws both of God and man by the sentence of all honest and wise men by the vote of Antiquity and several Examples That it is most lawfull and glorious for any man either publique or private to fall upon Tyrants and kill them without Examination according to the usual forms of Judicature Where the consent of the people after Vsurpation makes an Vsurpers Title good and where not That the assent of the people cannot ratify any Government without him so long as their King liveth though banished but all their acting is Illegal How Tyrants pretend the safety of the people only for their own safe-guard and how they delude the people with specious names for their Magna Latrocinia their great villanies and robberies The Devil was a Rebel so are they and like Satan they have their power only by permission with an incitement to all men to execute them for these are not the Dignities we should obey LEt us now take our Swords in our hands and arme our selves to incounter with this Tyrant sine Titulo a Tyrant without a Title That bird of prey that beast of the game Orbis flagellum that scourge of the world that Devourer of Mankind Fulmen belli that Thunderbolt of war that Maule of the earth Poliâ—rcletes that destroyer of Cities that Hangman that Murtherer that great Robber whose might is his only right whose multitude of thieves makes him formidable builds himself up with honest mens blood feared by all men and fears
restored to his own and sit Judge amongst us It was King Charles the first who granted that the burthen of excise should not be laid on the shoulders of his Subjects but the Rebels with their intollerable and monstrous Excises new found impositions and other unspeakable grievances have beggered the Subjects and undone the whole Kingdome both in their Estates and Reputation To be short whatsoever they voted unlawfull for the King to do they have done that and ten thousand times worse so that though we want not bodies to feel the miseries which they have brought upon us yet we want tongues to expresse the wofulnesse of our Condition and the incomparable wickedness of these Traytors And what greater pretence have they had for their actions than to say that the King was not the Supreme Governour over his Subjects A contradiction in it self but we will proceed further to manifest their error Sir Thomas Smith in his common-wealth of England saith cap. 9. By old and antient Histories that I have read I do not understand that our Nation hath used any other general Authority in this Realm neither Aristocratical nor Democratical out only the royal Kingly Majesty who held of God to himself by his Sword his People Crown acknowledging no Prince on Earth his Superiour and so it is kept holden at this day which truth is sufficiently warranted in our Law-Books The state of our Kingdome saith Sir Edward Cook li. 4. Ep. ad lectorem is Monarchical from the beginning by right of inheritance hath been successive which is the most absolute and perfect form of Government excluding Interregnum and with it infinite inconveniences the Maxim of the common Law being Regem Angliae nunquam mori That the King of England never dyeth then doubtlesse the Rebels could not by Law mortifie both the natural and politique capacity of the King And in Calvins case li. 7. The weightiest case that ever was argued in any Court than which case according to my Lord Cokes observation never any case was adjudged with greater concordance and lesse variety of opinions and that which never fell out in any doubtfull case no one opinion in all our books is against that judgment In this case it was resolved amongst other things Fo. 4. c. 1. That the People of England c. were the Subjects of the King viz. their Soveraign liege Lord King James 2. That Ligeance or obedience of the Subject to the Soveraign is due by the Law of Nature 3. That this Law of Nature is part of the Laws of England 4. That the Law of Nature was before any judicial or municipal Law in the world 5. That the Law of Nature is immutable and cannot be changed From which resolutions we may conclude that the Subjects of the King of England unlesse they like God Almighty could alter the Law of Nature They could not alter their obedience and subjection to their Soveraign Lord King Charles For if by the Law of Nature obedience from them was due to the natural body as I shall further prove of King Charles and if the Law of Nature is immutable as most certainly it is Bracton lib. 1 ca. 5. D. Stu. ca. 5. 6. then could not they have any cause whatsoever as altering their Religion banishing or killing of them a sufficient ground for them to take up arms against him and put him to death For by this they go about to change the Law of Nature which is impossible for mortals to do But say some by the Law of Nature we may defend our selves and therefore leavy war against the King for our own defence I answer that by the Law of Nature we are bound to defend our selves yet must we use no unlawfull means for our defence for the Subjects to levy war against their Soveraign is forbidden both by the Laws of God and Nature Therefore vain and foolish is that excuse as well as all others which the Rebels make use of to defend their Rebellion Ligeance is a true and faithfull obedience of the Subject due to his Soveraign It is an obligation upon all Subjects to take part with their Liege Lord against all men living to aid and assist him with their bodies and minds with their advice and power not toft li up their arms against him nor to support in any way those who oppose him This ligeance and obedience is an incident inseparable to every Subject of England and in our Law-books and many Acts of Parliament as in 34 H. 8. cap. 1. 35 H. 8. cap. 3 c. The King is called the liege Lord of his Subjects and the people his liege subjects Every Subject of England taketh the Oath of ligeance which is only due unto the King yet doth not the ligeance of the Subject to the King begin at the taking of this Oath at the Leet For as it was resolved in Calvins Case so soon as the Subject is born he oweth by birth-right ligeance and obedience to his Soveraign Lord the King Because ligeance faith and obedience of the Subject to the Soveraign was by the Law of Nature written with the Finger of God in the Heart of Man before any municipal or judicial Laws were made 1. For that Moses was the first Reporter or writer of Law in the World yet government and subjection was long before Moses 2. For that it had been in vain to have prescribed laws to any but to such as ought obedience faith and ligeance before in respect whereof they were bound to obey and observe them Frustra enim feruntur leges nisi subditis obedientibus You may read likewise in Calvins Case That the King of England hath his title to the Crown by inherent birth-right by descent from the blood royal from God Nature and the Law and therefore not by way of trust from the two Houses of Parliament or from the People Neither is his Coronation any part of his Title but only an ornament and solemniation of the royal descent For it was then resolved that the title of King James was by dessent and that by Queen Elizabeths death the Crown and Kingdom of England descended to his Majesty and he was fully and absolutely thereby King without any essential ceremony or act to be done Ex post facto So in the first year of the same Kings reign before his Majesties Coronation Watson and Clarke seminary Priests and others were of opinion that his Majesty was no compleat and absolute King before his Coronation but that Coronation did adde perfection to the descent and therefore observe saith my Lord Cook their damnable and damned consequent that they by strength and power might before his Coronation take him and his royal Issue into their possession keep him prisoner in the Tower remove such Counsellors and great Officers as pleased them and constitute others in their places c. and that these and others of like nature could not be treason against
which is not subject too but resisteth the power shall receive damnation but whosoever with defensive arms resisteth the King is not subject to but doth resist the power Therehe which with defensive arms resisteth the King shall receive damnation The Major no man can deny the Minor is inviolable and the Conclusion is perfect and sound There be those indeed who do confidently averr and have written a book too that there were men before Adam but I could never see any Scripture but their own interpretations and meanings to warrant their averments And untill Mr. Pryn can produce Texts of Scripture to warrant and maintain his confident averment he must excuse me if I still hold St. Paules Doctrine Canonical and his averment meer Apocripha For suppose the King subverteth both Law and Religion yet doth not that take away his supreme power he is still a King and Gods ordinance Saul was a King though an impious sinner and there have been wicked Kings as well as wicked Subjects to do evil saith one is no power but impotency therefore if the King command me to murther my self my Father to destroy my Country or to do any other wicked act I will not do it but obey God not him because it is his corruption not any power he hath from whence his commandment proceedeth and therefore I am not obliged to obey him because I must be a Subject to his power not to his sins yet if he should run after me with a naked Sword to kill me my Father my Mother ruine my Country Laws and Religion Yet would not I with defensive arms lift up my hands against him to resist hurt and destroy him because he is still my King and hath still that supreme power which God placed in him although he doth not then execute it and therefore if I should with defensive Arms lift up my hands to resist hurt and destroy him I should with defensive Arms lift up my hands to resist hurt and destroy the Ordinance of God and so receive damnation for my reward Not to perform the Kings command is a resistance although we suffer death Therefore if it be the Kings power and not his wicked will which commandeth me to do an evil thing if I did not perform his evil commandment I should resist his power and so be lyable to damnation although I patiently and meekly suffered death But doubtlesse the Kings power cannot command me to do any evil but it must proceed from his sinfull will for God is not the Author of any unrighteousnesse and there is no power but what God is the Author of therefore according to venerable Bede the Apostle doth not say Non est cupiditas nisi a Deo est enim mala cupiditas quae non est a deo nocendi autem voluntas potest esse a suo quoque animo pravo That there is no concupiscence but what is of God for there is an evil concupiscence which is not from God and the evil will of sinning proceedeth from our own depraved mindes therefore if the King command me to do an evil thing I ought to obey God not his wicked will but rather than to lift up my hands against him though in my defence I ought cheerfully and meekly to suffer a thousand deaths for by dying unjustly here I shall live eternally in Heaven and since the Glory of a Christian is the Crosse by suffering and dying a Martyr I shall obtain everlasting Glory and by my thus doing well I shall get praise even of the Power which the Kings wicked will made use of to destroy me but defence against the power of a King is offence therefore if with defensive arms I should fight against him I should resist Gods Ordinance and so receive damnation for by Gods Ordinance the King hath the power over all and his Actions ought not to be questioned or resisted by any but the Almighty But for my part I hold clearly that when the King executeth Tyranny taketh away the Lives or Estates of his Subjects unjustly that he doth it not only by reason of his wicked will according to the precedent distinction but by force and virtue of his power which God hath given him and that this is the power which St. Paul commandeth us to be subject unto which if we resist we shall receive damnation and that for several reasons It is most certain that there is no power but of God the powers that be are ordained of God for by him were all things created that are in Heaven and that are in Earth visible and invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or Powers all things were created by him and for him Col. 1.16 Which expressions in the Abstract do expresse existents in the Concrete from whence it followeth that bad Kings have their power from God and are Gods Ordinance as well as good And it is manifest in Scripture that wicked Kings are often sent for the punishment of a Nation as in Hosea 13.11 I gave them a King in my wrath and took him away in mine anger And God commandeth us to pray for and be subject not only to the good but also to the bad Kings I exhort you that Prayers and Supplications and Thanksgiving be made for all men for Kings and such as are in Authority 1 Tim. 2.1 Thus Abraham prayed for King Abimeleck Gen. 20.17 And Jacob blessed the King of Aegypt Gen. 47.10 Yet the Kings of those times were Infidels and most notoriously wicked No man is ignorant that Nebuchadnezzar who destroyed Jerusalem was a great spoyler and oppressor yet the Lord tells us by Ezekiel that he had given unto him the Land of Aegypt for the good service he had done in laying it waste on his Commandement And Daniel said unto him thus Dan. 2.37 Thou O King art a King of Kings for the God of Heaven hath given thee a Kingdom Power and Strength and Glory and wheresoever the Children of men dwell the Beasts of the Field and the Fowls of Heaven hath he given into thy hand and hath made thee Ruler over them all Again to Belshazzar his Son Dan. 5.18 The most high God gave unto Nebuchadnezzar thy Father a Kingdom and Majesty and Glory and Honour and for the Majesty that he gave him all people Nations and Languages trembled and feared before him And again Jer. 27.6 I have made the Earth saith the Lord the Man and the Beast that are upon the ground by my great power and by my outstretched Arm and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me And now have I given all these Lands into the Hands of Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon my Servant and the Beasts of the Field have I given him also to serve him and all Nations shall serve him and his Son and his Sons Son untill the very time of his Land come And it shall come to passe that the Nation and Kingdom which will not serve the same Nebcchadnezzar
own stipendaries and cast out of the pack as an unprofitable Member He incouraged the Souldiers to fight against the King dedicated his Volumes to their chief Commanders loaded them with high Commendations and incomparable praises and made them believe that they could do God no better service than to go on vigorously in their Rebellion So that it may be truly said that his paper pellets did more harm than the roaring Guns or cutting Swords He laboured night and day to glorifie and vindicate the Parliament in their wicked proceedings at home and as his books will manifest he spared many hours from his natural rest to promote the unnatural Warrs abroad Yet now nec invideo he prosecuteth them with reproaches as much as he did then with praises himself being become hatefull to them all verifying the Proverb of Solomon cap. 24.24 He that saith unto the wicked thou art righteous him shall the people curse Nations shall abhorre him Therefore I once more advise him as a friend to write a book of Retractations The Lord be merciful unto us the men of our times would make one believe that there never was a King in the World Nay they would seem to make the Kings so highly esteemed of by God all the Prophets and Apostles in Scripture but meer white walls the empty shadows of the people and the Bible but a bundle of Fables as if God never took no more notice of a King than of an ordinary Porter How Judas sirnamed the Long Parliament betrayed and murthered Charles the first The best of all Kings and contrary to all Law and Religion and the common interest of the people Banish Charles the 2d our only lawful King and Governour The mystery of their iniquity laid open and that they are the greatest and most wicked Tyrants that ever dwelt upon the face of the Earth and the Child which is unborn will rue the day of their untimely birth Of what persons a Parliament consisteth No Parliament without the King The Original institution of Parliaments and that the House of Commons which now make themselves Kings over King and people were but as of yesterday have no legal power but what is derived from the King and never were intrusted with any power from the people much lesse with the Soveraignty which they now Tyrannically usurpe The Kings Soveraignty over Parliament and people copiously proved King Charles his Title to the Crown of England To him only belongeth the Militia the power of chusing Judges Privy Counsellors and other great Officers c. He is head in Ecclesiastical causes and our sole Legislator Our Ancestors alwayes found and accounted Monarchy to be the best of Governments and most profitable for us yet these 40 or 50. Tyrants contrary to all Antiquity and common sense and feeling sit and vote Monarchy dangerous and burthensome That all persons put to death since the murther of Charles the Martyr by the power of our new States-men have been murthered and their Judges Murtherers and so it will continue until they receive their power and authority from Charles the 2d and that we shall never enjoy peace or plenty until our King be restored to his Kingdoms which a pack of Tyrants and Traytors not the People keep from him How the Law abhorreth to offer violence to the King and how these Rebels transgresse all Laws both of God and Man to uphold themselves in their unparallel'd Villanies A History which commandeth the serious contemplation of our age and worthy of the observation of all the people in the World and of all future Generations not that they might imitate but detest and loath these Perfidious and Rebellious transactions Perlege deinde scies HAving sufficiently prov'd out of our Law books that by the Common Law of the Realm the King hath the Soveraign power over Parliament and People and ought not to be questioned for his actions by any of his Subjects taken either distributively or collectively in one intire body because he hath no Superiour on Earth but God Almighty Let us now take a brief view of the Statutes and Acts of Parliament which have from Age to Age confirmed what I have said as an undoubted inviolable and indisputable truth And since there are those amongst us who talk much of a power in the Parliament as they call the two Houses which they pretend to be above and Superiour to the King Let us examine what this high and mighty Creature is whence and when it had its original what is its true natural and legal power and of what persons it doth consist The Kings high Court of Parliament consisteth of the Kings Majesty sitting there as in his Royal politick capacity and of the three Estates of the Realm viz. 1 Of the Lords spiritual Arch-Bishops and Bishops being in number 24 who sit there by succession in respect of their Counties or Baronies parcell of their Bishopricks which they hold also in their politick capacity 2. The Lords temporal Dukes Marquesses Earls Viscounts and Barons who sit there by reason of their Dignities which they hold by descent or creation being in number 106. And every one of these when the King vouchsafeth to hold a Parliament hath a Writ of Summons The third Estate is the Commons of the Realm which are divided into three parts viz. into Knights of Shires or Counties Citizens out of Cities and Burgesses out of Borroughs All which the King commandeth his Sheriffs to cause to come to his Parliament being respectively Elected by the Shires or Counties Cities and Burroughs and in number 493. It is called Parliament because every Member of the Court should sincerely and discreetly Parler la ment for the general good of the Common-wealth This Court of Parliament is the most high and absolute the supremest and most antient in the Realm it Maketh Enlargeth Diminisheth Abrogateth Repealeth and Reviveth Laws Statutes Acts and Ordinances concerning matters Ecclesiastical Capital Criminal Common Civil Martial Maritine c. to be short so transcendent is the power and jurisdiction of the Parliament as it cannot be confined either for Causes or Persons within any bounds Of this Court it is truly said Si antiquitatem spectes est vetustissima si dignitatem est honoratissima si jurisdictionem est capacissima Yet notwithstanding this Almighty power as I may say of the Parliament do but cut off the Kings head or any ways take away the King and it is nothing Then a petty Court of Pypowders hath more power and jurisdiction than that The King is the Soul of the Parliament and without him it is but Putre Cadaver a stinking Carcasse for as my Lord Coke observeth of this Court the King is Caput principium et finis And it is a baser and more odious part then the Rump of a Parliament which wanteth all these and as in a natural body when all the Sinews being joyned in the head do joyn their forces together for the strengthening of the body
sides and esteeming all men indiscreet who publickly own their King and therby incurr the displeasure of these domineering Tyrants But for my part I had rather be a Servant to God and my King than a Master amongst the unrighteous I am a Member of the body of the Common-wealth and therefore cannot see my head the King cut off without crying Lord have mercy upon us It is the duty of all his Subjects both with pens and hands to help their King out of the mire into which these Rebels have cast him not only the law of God but the law of the land injoyneth us thereto And I cannot see our Laws and Religion rooted up without groans and sighs It is no time to be silent when the fabrick wherein our whole treasure and happines consisteth is set on fire Neither can silence or innocence protect one from the unjust violence of these Wolves Sleeping or waking we are alwayes their prey Some of us they murther for our Estates some for their pleasure but all according to their wicked wills not law Therefore God knows whether I may be the next who must come to their pot Howsoever I had rather be taken doing God my King and my Country service than in a drowsie Lethargy I commit my Soul and Body to the protection of the Almighty who dorh not let a sparrow fall to the ground without his divine providence therefore will not let me fall into the power of their lust without his permission The King fell and why should not I The Lords will be done who when he hath corrected his Children will burn the rod. They can destroy only my Body him only will I fear who can destroy both Body and Soul Give Cerberus a sop cryes some men and speak fairly to the Monster now in power But it is but to go into Hell Therefore I will neither flatter nor dissemble with them Not to speak of the Modesty of the House of Commons in former Ages scarce adventuring to doe what they might for fear they should arrogate too much As in 21 Ed. 3. When their advice was required concerning the prosecution of a Warr with France They answered That their humble desire of the King was that he would be advised therein by the Lords being of more experience than themselves in such affairs The like president of their Modesty may you find in the 6 R. 2. and in the 3 E. 3. They disclaimed to have Cognisance of such matters as the Guarding of the Seas and Marches of the Kingdom We may conclude that unlesse it be the property of the Servant to command and the Master to obey or of the Souldiers to march before their Captain that the King hath the supreme power and is the sole Legislator not the House of Commons For the King representeth God the Commons only the ignoble People As for both Houses joyntly together they are no Court at all therefore can have no thoughts of having the Legislative power And as the two Houses have no power but what the King bestoweth on them so neither have they any title of honour and dignity but by the Kings gift For as all the lands in England and all power and authority is derived from the Crown So by the laws of England all the degrees of Nobilitie and Honour are derived from the King the Fountain of Honour and Majesty it self 4. Inst 363. What then have the two Houses joyntly or the House of Commons singly the Soveraign power because they have none but what the King giveth them Have they the Majesty because they have no honour or dignity but by the Kings gift Surely this is all the reason The King made the Lords not the Lords the King a Peasant to day may be a Lord to morrow if the King pleaseth and is the Pesant therefore the Kings master surely no it is the King who createth Barons and so maketh them capable to sit in the House of Peers but they are made but Peers not Kings nay they are but Peers of the Realm not of the King They are under not above the King For sunt alii Potentes sub Rege qui dicuntur Barones hoc est robur belli saith Bracton l. 1. c. 8. Though they are Potentes yet they are sub rege As for the House of Commons they are so far from being our keepers or the masters of our King and kingdom that there is not a Noble man amongst them They receive their being from the breath of the Kings Writ and having their being in a collective body they are but the Lower House whose name importeth subjection But if the Commons when they sit in the House have the Soveraign power where was it before their Sessions and where is it when they are dissolved What doth it hang in the Clouds and drop on them when they sit and dissolve like the Snow with the VVinter when the King dissolveth them Soveraignty is permanent and always continueth waking The House of Commons are and they are not according to the Kings pleasure he assembles and dissolves them at his will And what doth the Soveraign power sleep or die during their interregnum one would think it belonged to the King because he never dieth O ridiculous Commons I am weary of their absurdity in claiming the Soveraignty But as once it was demanded of an Oraaor speaking very much in the commendation of Hercules Quis vituperavit So it may be demanded of me treating of the Kings Soveraignty who hath brought arguments against it Truly for my part I never saw any reasonable argument against it many cavils but no reasons Evasions are the best proofs used by the Anti-Royalists And when they shift a Question with forein matter or a forein meaning They think they have not only made a good answer but also proved the point in question to be on their side As when our Books say Every man in the kingdom is under the King but the King is under none but God They answer the meaning of the book is That every single man in the kingdom is under the King but not the whole people collectively for they are above the King Just as if the Book should say every man in the world is under the Heavens but the Heavens are under none but God And they should answer to evade it The meaning of the Book is That every single man is under the Heavens but not the whole body of the people for they are above the Heavens O miserable invention such absurdities are most of their Arguments Therefore we may conclude that since Club-Law set them above reason it must be Club-Law which must pull them down Let the Sword argue them out of the Kings possessions which they have gotten by Rebellion and it will be easie then to convince them that Rebellion against the King is unlawful Had the King had no Revenues he had still injoyed his Crown It is the profit which maketh King-killing honest
but it was fifty or sixty rotten tainted Members of the lower House small in number but great in transgression So may the Tayl nay a piece of the Tayl destroy the whole body and reign sole Lord Paramount Oh what multitudes of impieties can the wicked accomplish in an instant Seneca Nullum ad nocendum tempus angustum est malis In no longer space than betwixt the Father and the Son did these Horse-Leaches subvert our fundamental Government destroy King and Kingdom Parliament and People and all our Laws and Religion so that the question is not whether the Parliament be above the King but whether a little company of great Traytors and Usurpers the Dregs and Lees of all Tyranny be above both King and Parliament For the Parliament as you see by the joyfull recognition made to King James c. enacted and most humbly acknowledged the King to be above both Parliament and People and the Crown to be hereditary to the King and his Royal Progeny but these men and only these who by violence make themselves above both King and Parliament defending their persons from the Justice of the Law with Armed Red-Coats and the greatness of their villanies These are they who deny it though the Laws of the Realm and all Histories and all Kingdoms teach them otherwise God calleth himself a King in several places of the Scripture to note and signifie his Soveraignity which surely he would not do was the King the Peoples vassal or under Officer as the Bedlam franticks of our age feign Thou art my King O God saith David Command delâ—verance for Jacob. The King and the Power to command are Individua He is a Clout no King which cannot command And who should be under his command What The People taken particularly and distributively as single men and not collectively as the whole Kingdom according to the fanatick opinion of our Lunaticks Why is he not then called King of single men If he be King of a Kingdom then all the People jointly or severally in his Kingdom are under his command and if under his command then he only hath power to give them Laws be they in one collective body as in Parliament at the Kings house or simple bodies at their private dwellings Le Roy fait les leix avec le Consent du Seigneurs et Communs et non pas les Seigneuns et Communs avec le consent du Roy is the voice of the Common Law The King makes Laws in Parliament with the consent of the Lords and Commons and not the Lords and Commons with the consent of the King Virg. 7 Eneid Hoc Priami gestamen erat cum jura vocatis More daret Populis And 5 Eneid Gaudet regno Trojanus Arestes Indicitque forum patribus dat jura vocatis The Lords and Commons have power only to propound and advise it is only the Kings Le roy le veult which makes the Law their propositions and advice signifie nothing if the King saith Le Roy se avisera They have not power to grant him any subsidies untill the King saith Le Roy remercieses loyaulx et ainsi le veult Therefore much less the Soveraignity It would be strange if the assembling of the Subjects together should make them Masters over the King who gave them power to assemble and hath power to turn them home again when he pleaseth Legum ac edictorum probatio aut publicatio quae in curia vel Senatu fieri solet non arguit imperii majestatem in Senatu vel curia inesse saith Bodin de Rep. li. 1. ca. 8. The publishing and approbation of Laws and Edicts which is made ordinarily in the Court of Parliament proves not the Majesty of the State to be in the said Court or Parliament It is the Kings Scepter which giveth force to the Law and we have no Law but what is his Will The King surely would never call his Subjects to bind him with Laws against his will much lesse to take his Dominion from him and make himself a Vassal and Officer to his two Houses or either of them who were not capable themselves of any Office without his Gift and Licence The Kings of England have called many Parliaments yet the Government hath alwayes continued Monarchical and the King not under but above the people inferior only to God even Forein Polititians will tell you so Let famous Bodin who tanketh our Kings amongst the absolute Monarchs speak for all lib. 1. cap. 8. Habere quidem Ordines Anglorum authoritatem quandam jura vero Majestatis imperji summam in unius Principis arbitrio versari The States saith he of England have a kind of authority but all the rights of Soveraignty and command in chief are at the will and pleasure of the Prince alone Learned Cambden in his Britannia fo 163. teacheth us As touching the division of our Common wealth it consisteth of a King or Monarch Noblemen or Gentry Citizens freeborn whow we call Yeomen and Artisans or Handicrafts-men The King whom our Ancestors the English Saxons called Coning and Gining in which name is implyed a signification both of power and skill and we name contractly King hath Soveraign power and absolute command among us neither holdeth he his Empire in Vassalage nor receiveth his investure or enstalling of another ne yet acknowledgeth any superiour but God alone Now if Reason and the Judgement of our Ancestors would satisfie our frenzy upstarts what greater authority would they have But that they are troubled with so many visions and false revelations of their own I would commend to them a true vision in the Reign of Edward the Confessor viz. One being very inquisitive and musing what should become of the Crown and Kingdom after King Edwards death the blood Royal being almost extinguished he had a strange vision and heard a voyce which forbade him to be inquisitive of such matters resounding in his ears The Kingdom of England belongeth to God himself who will provide it a King at his pleasure But now forsooth it belongeth to the people and they will provide it a King at their pleasure It is the people now which make the King if so why ever had we any Kingdoms why were they not called Peopledoms The Kings of England with them of France Jerusalem Naples and afterwards Scotland were antiently the only anointed Kings of Christendom And as the Kings in Scripture as Asia Jehoshaphat Hezechiah c. so the Kings of England have alwayes had the supremacy in Ecclesiastical causes Reges sacro oleo uncti sunt capaces spiritualis jurisdictionis 33 Ed. 3. Rex est persona mixta cum Sacerdote habet ecclesiasticam et spiritualem jurisdictionem 10 H. 7.18 And although Kings ought not to be Ministers of the Chutch so as to dispense the word and Sacraments For No man taketh this honour unto himself but he that is called of God as was Aaron Hebrews 5.4 Yet since they
for an Almes and by and by knock their Benefactor on the head and make themselves Masters of what they before entreated for And indeed the most part of their Villanies did commence with Petitions for in driving on their wicked designs they alwayes got the Rascal rable of the People to heap in Petitions for what they themselves set them upon as if these Godly Villains did nothing but what they were driven to through commiseration of the people when God knows they did nothing but what was for the satisfaction of their own wicked Lusts and Ambition For when the Souldiers and other baser sort of the people cryed out for Justice and Privilege of the Parliament Even then was the Injustice of these Rebels most promoted and the Parliament did not then only lose its privileges but its very life and being Thus Barbers may cut off the Head when they pretend to trim the Hair and so may Physicians destroy and kill the Body when they pretend to apply Medicines For as now it appeareth even to the blind their pious pretences were but a Colour for their wicked intentions to destroy both King and Parliament and root up all our Laws and Religion when they seemed to act most to preserve them Now since the power of Warr only belongeth unto the King it must of necessity follow that the King hath power to levy Taxes and impose Subsidies on his people to maintain the Warr otherwise it would be in vain to think of waging Warr for all Souldiers must have Vectigalia Food Apparel and Arms and where should the King have this but in his own Kingdom To be short it is a duty laid upon the Consciences of all Subjects to supply their King with all necessaries both in time of Warr and Peace And a thing commanded both by our Saviour and his Apostles Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesars And 13 Rom. Render therefore to all their due Tribute to whom Tribute is due Custom to whom Custom Fear to whom Fear Honour to whom Honour But our Antipodes subverting all Scripture render to no man their dues and that they may act contrary to the very words and meaning of every Text They do not render Tribute Custom Fear and Honour to the King to whom it is only due but forsooth to themselves to whom it is not due So may the Servant murther his Master and take all his Revenues and Honour as due only to himself He which argueth that the King hath not right to chuse his Privy Counsellors Great Officers and Judges c. will likewise say that the Master hath not right to chuse his Servants it being the practice of all Kingdoms as well as of England and due to him by the Law of Nature Thou shalt provide out of the People able Men saith Jethro to Moses when the 70. grand Senators of Israel the Great Sanhedrim of the Jews were to be chosen By which you see the great Officers c. are to be chosen out of and not by the people but by the King So Pharoah not the people made Joseph Ruler over all the Land of Aegypt and Nebuchadnezzar and not his people made Daniel Ruler over the whole Province of Babylon And since our Lawyers are so forward to take Commissions and be made Judges by every power which getteth uppermost be it right or wrong Let me tell them that it is an undoubted truth that every person who hath been since the murther of Charls the Martyr or shall hereafter without the authority of Charls the second be condemned and executed for any Crime whether guilty or not guilty in the Kings Bench or at the Assizes or elsewhere is murthered and all the Judgments acts and proceedings of those nominal Judges or Commissioners are void as things done Coram non judice So that it consequently followeth that these lawless Judges are principals in every murther so committed Vengeance only belongeth unto God Deu. 32.35 The King is the Minister of God a Reuenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil Therfore whosoever prosecuteth in the Kings Courts against the life of any man as in an Appeal c. or sueth for recompence for any wrong done unto him he doth not take vengeance but God who executeth his wrath by his Minister the King But if any private man or the whole people take upon them to make themselves their own Carvers taking what recompence they think fit either against the King or any of their fellow Subjects in this case they make themselves their own Revengers and rob God of his rights for vengeance belongeth to him not to them Therefore if any man though in a way of publick Justice take upon him to condemn and execute any man without authority and power from the King he is a Murtherer and malicious Revenger upon whom the vengeance of God whom he endeavoureth to cheat and rob will fall Oh then admire and bewail the Infandous Murthers and Murtherers of our age wherein the good are destroyed for performing their duty towards God and their King and the wicked flowrish only because they are sinfull for whosoever will not be a Rebel must not be a Common-wealths-man amongst these new Republicans Yet forsooth they have such a form of Godlinesse amongst them that whosoever doth not approve of their wickednesse but speaketh of their actions according to their deserts they call such men the ungodly and flatter themselves saying the Saints of all ages have been spoken evil of by the wicked holy David nay our Saviour and his Disciples were reviled by the Reprobate therfore no wonder if the Malignant Cavaleers do reproach and vilifie our piousness and brotherly love and charity one towards the other So Belzebub may call them impious who do not account him the only good Angell How these men would be esteemed most Religious even when they commit Sacrilege and seem righteous even in the very act of wickednesse They murther many and take away the Estates of all Royalists yet if the Royalists whom they have thus spoyled tell them according to Gods Commandments that they ought not to be swift to shed blood nor covet their neighbours goods these Saints presently tell them that they have not the Spirit of Godliness in them but that they are the abusers of Gods word and his Children as if Gods Spirit gave them authority to act wickedly and that none but they were the children of God who had got their wealth by murther rapine and sacrilege O Monstrous If you call their ill gotten Government Tyranny or Usurpation they number you amongst those filthy Dreamers who speak evil of Dignities and will noâ— submit to lawfull authority Yet these Antipodes could revile their Soveraign the King with multitudes of scurrilous Pamplets cut off his head and banish his Royal Progeny taking away their Lands and the Estates of thousands more yet they would make one believe that they never spoke evil of Dignities nor ever resisted lawfull
authority O pious Rebels So far are our Laws of England from allowing Subjects to take up arms against the King or to condemn execute him that it is high treason for any one or all of his Subjects but to imagine the Kings death which the wisdom and Religion of our Realm hath from age to age so much hated and abhorred that an offender therin by the Laws of the Land shall be hanged and cut down alive his bowels shall be cut off and burned in his sight his head shall be severed from his body his quarters shall be divided asunder and disposed at the Kings pleasure and made food for the birds of the air or the beasts of the Field and his wife and children shall be thrust out of his house and livings his seed and blood shall be corrupted his Lands and goods shall be confiscated and as by the Statute of 29 H. 6.1 It is ordained of the Traytor John Cade hee shall be called a false Traytor for ever But the Traytors against Charls the Martyr have prevented this punishment most due to them by the greatnesse of their villanies Yet though they are got out of the reach of Justice and trample our Laws and King under their feet let them remember that God is above Earth and will give them their reward if not in this world yet in the world to come The aforesaid Statute of 25 Ed. 3. as you may read in Pulton de pace Regis Regni fo 108. doth confirm it to be high treason for any person to compasse or imagine the death of our Soveraign Lord the King the Queen c. by which words it doth approve what a great regard and reverend respect the Common Law hath alwayes had to the person of the King which it hath endeavoured religiously and carefully to preserve as a thing consecrated by Almighty God and by him ordained to be the head health and wealth of the Kingdom and therefore it hath ingrafted a deep and settled fear in the hearts of all sorts of Subjects to offer violence or force unto it under the pain of High Treason insomuch as if he that â—s Non Compos Mentis do kill or attempt to kill the King it shall be adjudged in him High Treason though if he do commit petit Treason homicide or larceny it shall not be imputed unto him as Felony for that he knew not what he did neither had he malice prepensed not a felonious intent And this law doth not only restrain all persons from laying violent hands upon the person of the King but also by prevention it doth inhibit them so much as to compasse or imagine or to devise or think in their hearts to cut off by violent or untimely death the life of the King Queen c. for the only compassing or imagination without bringing it to effect is High Treason because that compassing and imagination doth proceed from false and traiterous hearts and out of cruel bloudy and murdering minds Thus you see with what reverence our Lawes do adore his sacred Majesty our King detesting nothing more than the violence or dammage offered to him yet forsooth the Rebels affirm they killed the King by the Common Law and why by the Common Law what because the Commons made it surely that is all the reason for there is no law under the Heavens which warranteth Subjects to kill their King but all lawes both humane and divine command the contrary Many are the publick oaths as you may read in Mr. Prynne's Concordia discors protestations leagues covenants which all English Subjects especially Judges Justices Sheriffs Mayors Ministers Lawyers Graduates Members of the House of Commons and all publick officers whatsoever by the Lawes and Statutes of the land have formerly taken to their lawful hereditary Kings their heirs and successors to bind their souls and consciences to bear constant faith allegiance obedience and dutiful subjection to them and to defend their Persons Crowns and just royal Prerogatives with their lives members and fortunes against all attempts conspiracies and innovations whatsoever But since all those sacred oaths have been trayterously violated and broken by the Rebels against Charles the Martyr I will only present you with the effect of the Oath of Allegiance which every one is to take when he is of the age of twelve years and this oath was instituted in the time of King Calvin's Case fo 7. Co. Lit. fo 68.172 You shall swear that from this day forward you shall be true and faithful to our Soverain Lord King Charles and his heirs and truth and faith shall bear of life and member and terrene honour and you shall neither know nor hear of any ill or dammage intended unto him that you shall not defend So help you Almighty God The substance and effect of this oath as it is resolved and proved in Calvin's case is due to the King by the law of Nature and is called Ligeantia naturalis being an incident inseparable to every Subject for so soon as he is born he oweth by birth-right ligeance and obedience to his Soveraign and therefore the King is called in his Statutes our natural liege Lord and his people natural liege Subjects But Ligeantia legalis is so called because the Municipal Laws of this Realm have prescribed the order and form of it None can deny but that obedience is due from the Son to the Father by the Law of Nature yet may the Municipal Laws of the Realm prescribe formality and order to it not diminishing the substance So likewise may they to the Allegiance due by nature to the King Thus have you seen how the English Trayterous Rebells contrary to all the Laws of God the Law of Nature the Law of Nations the Laws of our Realm and against the foundation of Christian Religion have by an unheard of example most wickedly murthered as a common Thief and vile vassal of the people condemned their gracious King whose name from the very beginning of the world hath ever been esteemed amongst all Nations great and holy whom the Prophets and Apostles nay our Saviour himself and all the Primitive Christians both with their lives death examples and Doctrine have taught and commanded us to reverence and pray for and to be subject to not violently to resist him though he violently persecute us whom God himself in his old and new Testament hath declared to be constituted by him and reign by him not by the People and particularly whom our fore-Fathers of this Realm of England have always accounted sacred and ever found by experience Kingly Government to be most glorious and profitable for them yet these forty or fifty Tyrannical Rebels contrary even to common sense and feeling upholding themselves by Force and Arms Treason and Usurpation do sit and Vote Kingship dangerous and burthensom to the good people of this Common-wealth when in the mean time out Merchants turn Bankrupts our Tradesmen break Food groweth
dear Trade dyeth thousands of Families are ready to starve Millions of men are ruined and undone the whole Realm groaneth under the burthen of excessive Taxes and Wars and rumors of Wars continually plague our Kingdom which hath lost its glory both abroad and at home and become a meer laughing-stock to all Nations and all this misery ariseth from the Tyranny of these Rebels who unjustly banish our lawfull haereditary King Charls the second and take possession of his three Kingdoms making themselves absolute Tyrannical Kings over us and so I believe they intend to make their Heirs for being accustomed to lye they declare in their Declarations that the People shall be governed by their Representatives in Parliament Yet their actions contradicting their words they will not suffer the People to chuse their Representatives or come into the House but they tell us that they will chuse men of fit qualities So one Thief chuseth another Similis simili gaudet We may be sure never to have an honest man amongst them if they have the chusing So that we may conclude that unlesse we arise and destroy these self-seekiâ—g self-created Tyrants and restore our gracious King to his Crown both we and our heirs shall be Slaves to the worlds end for no legal Government can be established without the King I have sufficiently proved that it is unlawfull for Subjects to rebel against evil Kings How much more then is it unlawfull to rebel against a pious and mercifull Soveraign which addeth to the bulk of the sins of our English Rebels For the whole world knoweth that Charls the Martyr whom they so trayterously murthered was the best of Kings and meekest of men He was Charls le bon Charls le grand good in his greatnesse and great in his goodnesse Some have said that a good King cannot be a good Christian but it is proved manifestly false in him for to the admiration of the whole Earth he was the best of Christians and no less to be admired as a good King So that his misfortune in his Government did not proceed from his deficiency in the art of Governing but from the excesse of the Rebels sins who transcended all Traytors since the creation of the world in sin and treachery as far as Hell is distant from the Earth Wherefore we may most truly say that he was murthered only because he was good For every Kingdom divided against it self is brought to desolation if Satan also be divided against himself how shall his Kingdom stand Therfore if the King had been evil these evil Traytors would never have cast him out but seeing he was a pious and Religious King and so an evil Member to their evil Common-wealth They all united their hearts and hands to cut him off and lay to his charge all the Treasons Murthers Rapines Burnings Spoils Desolations Damage and Mischief to this Nation which they themselves committed So Thieves and Murtherers may spoil burn and make desolate all places and Massacre and kill many Noble and trusty Servants to the end they might take their Master and kill him and then having taken him lay all to his charge and execute him as the only Author of all those villanies which they themselves acted and occasioned O heavens Could the Almighty suffer this Why not The Lord made all things for himself yea even the wicked for the day of evil Pro. 16.4 As for our rising Sun Charls the second though hitherto obscured by the foggy mists of Treason and Rebellion in his own Kingdoms yet do the rayes of his sacred Majesty shine throughout the world beside and his renown ecchoeth in every part of the Earth to the admiration of forein Kingdoms and to the envy hatred of the Rebels in his own Yet cannot their malice but marvel at the virtues and patience of their King whom they so much wrong And it grieves them to see that royal progeny whose ruine they so greedily hunt after flourish with such glorious splendour amongst the Kings and Princes of the Earth growing in favour both with God and Man Whilst they odious to all but themselves by their Tyranny and Rebellion incurr the displeasure both of Heaven and Earth and become a Ridiculous Rump The object of the scorn and derision both of Old and Young Rich and Poor And had not these infatuated Rebels brasen faces to deny what their own Conscience telleth them is true They would presently declare that the only way to settle our distractions and restore our Nation to its pristin happinesse and glory were to call in the King and re-establish him in his own which they unjustly pocket from him For so long as there is one of the race of the Stewarts which God long preserve and any forein King or People remain alive we must never look for peace or plenty but as publick Thieves alwayes live in a posture of Warr and ever expect forein Nations to come in and swallow us up Who account it as indeed it is the greatest piece of Justice under the Sun to revenge with our bloods and utter destruction the bloody Murther of Charls the first and the unnatural Banishment of Charls the second our only lawful Soveraign Therefore let all English Spirits who have not washed their hands in the Innocent blood of Charls the Martyr joyn their prayers to God and their Forces to one another and lance this Ulcer and cut off this proud flesh whose growth destroyeth our King Laws and Religion Behold the Duke of York wiâ—l be your leader whose very name striketh terror to the greatest men of Warr and our Rebels tremble to think of his Martial atchievements It is he who will be our Champion to hunt out these treacherous Foxes who Rebel against his King and Brother and then make our Nation dreadful to the Pope and other forein Invaders Therefore let us not dream like Goats whilst we have this Lyon to be our Captain but follow him and destroy these Wolves who make us their continual prey keeping us in Slavery under a false pretence of Liberty and let us obey our King and Father Charls the second who will blesse us with the blessings of Jacob and weed out of our Church and State those Jesuits and Popish Blasphemors who now under the colour of a free State are working and contriving the ruine both of our Laws and Religion And then we shall prosper into a Kingdom Ezekiel 86.13 and once more be a glorious people under so glorious a King which God Almighty speedily grant for the glory of his Holy Name and for the welfare and happinesse of all Christian people Every one knoweth that in 1648. after the long tempest of a horrid VVarr and Rebellion raised by the Refractory and Treacherous House of Commons under a pretence of removing evil Counsellours from the King but in truth only to promote their own private Interests and factious designs The Currish Army who had for a long
time hunted the distressed King and his Royal party pretending to be set on only by their Master Rebels the Commons but it seems they had a game to play of their own which on the sixth of December 1648. they begun to shew And therefore when the Trayterous Commons had obtained what they could ask or desire of their Soveraign then their Prisoner at the Isle of Wight being such Concessions which never any King before him granted nor Subjects ever demanded So that shame compelled them to vote them satisfactory Then the bloody Souldiers thinking themselves lost if the King and Parliament should find a peace went up to the House of Commons and by force kept out and imprisoned those who voted the Kings Concessions satisfactory which the militant Saints pleased to call purging of the House so that body is purged which hath poyson left in it and nutriment taken out of it by the purge yet this purge would not do the Lords must be turned out too and only 40. or fifty packt Members of the House of Commons who had sworn to be as very if not worse Knaves than the wicked Souldiers would have them to be were only left in the House who presently took upon them what power their own lusts could desire or the over-ruling Sword help them to Murthered the King and the chiefest of the Royal Party and yet to colour their Tyranny caâ—led themselves a Parliament by which name blowing up King Lords Spiritual and Temporal and all our Lawes and Religion with them they still Domineer and Rule over us yet not so but that the Army Rule them as the Wind doth a weather-cock turning them which way and how they please sometimes up and sometimes down and no doubt but that shortly they will be cast down for altogether for the wicked shall not last but vanish as a shadow Blessed art thou O Lord when thy King is the Son of Nobles Eccles 10.17 But alas Servants have ruled over us and there is none that doth deliver us out of their hands Lamen 5.8 The Crown is fallen from our head Wo unto us that we have sinned Verse 16. For now they shall say we have no King because we feared not the Lord What then should a King do unto us Hosea 10.3 ENGLANDS CONFUSION OR A True Relation of the topsy turvy Governments in mutable England since the Reign of Charls the Martyr The Tyranny of the Rump further manifested And that we shall never have any setled State untill Charls the second whose right it is injoy the Crown Though frantick Fortune in a merriment hath set the Heels above the Head and gave the Scepter unto the Shrubs who being proud of their new got honour have jarred one against the other during the Interregnum Yet Charls the second shall put a period to this Tragedy and settle our vexed Government which hath changed oftner in twelve years than all the Governments in the whole world besides Oh the heavy Judgment when Subjects take upon them to correct their King AS a distracted Ship whose Pilate the rageâ—ng violence of a tempestuous storm hath cast down headlong from the stern staggereth too and fro amongst the unquiet waves of the rough Ocean somtimes clashing against the proud surly Rocks and somtimes reeling up and down the smoother waters now threatening present Shipwrack and Destruction by â—nd by promising â— seeming safety and secure arrival yet never setled fast nor absolutely tending to the quiet and desired Haven So the vexed Government of frantick England ever since the furious madnesse of a few turbulent Spirits beheaded our King and Kingdom threw down Charls the Martyr our only lawfull Governour from the stern of Government and took it into their unskilfull and unlawfull hands it hath been tossed up and down somtimes falling amongst the lawless Souldiers as a Lamb amongst Wolves or as a glass upon stones and somtimes happening amongst Tyrants calling themselves a Parliament who are so much worse than the Souldiers by how much wickednesse covered with a colour of Justice is worse and more dangerous than naked villanies Yet in all our Revolutions although many gaps have been laid open that way hath not the Government steered its course directly to Charls the second it s only proper right and quiet Haven to which until it come we must never expect to have the Ship of our Common-wealth so secure but that Tempests and Storms will still molest and trouble if not totally ruine it Though it stand so fast one day that it seemeth impossible for humane strength to remove it yet the next day it moultereth away to nothing I vouch every mans experience to warrant this truth And were not our blind Sodomites intoxicated with Senselesse as well as Lawlesse Counsels They would never gape after preferment nor hope for continuance in their imaginary Commonwealth where the greatest one hour is made least the next and they themselves swallow up each the other never having rest or peace no not in their own House And can this divided Monster which is the cause of all our divisions cloze up our divisions and settle our Nation in peace and happinesse 'T is madnesse to think it So fire may quench fire and the Devil who was the first Author of wickedness put an end to all wickedness Examine the condition of the times since the Reign of Charls the first and you may see what times we shall have until the Reign of Charls the second Tyranny and Usurpation Beggery and Slavery Warrs and Murthers Subversion of our Laws and Religions changing the Riders but we must alwayes be the Asses Hunger and Famine Guns and Swords Drums and Trumpets Robberies and Thieveries Fornication and Adultery Brick without Straw Taxes although no bread These must be the voices which will alwayes sound in our Ears untill we cast off this old man of Sin viz. The Long called Parliament and submit as we ought to Charls the second our only lawfull King VVe may read of many Kings who have been suddainly killed by the rash violence of an indiscreet multitude who in the heat of Blood do that which they repent of all their life after mad Fury being the only cause of their unjust Actings But to commit sin with reason and piety to kill their King with discretion formally and solemnly is such a premeditated Murther that the Sun never saw until these Sons of perdition brought it to light For a long time before the fact they machinated and plotted the Kings death and contrived how they might with the best colour and shew of Justice effect it At length as if their Votes were more authentique than all Srcipture they passed amongst others this Vote Die Jovis Jan. 4. 1648. viz. That the People under God were the original of all just power This was the foundation upon which the superstructure of all their murthers and villanies which they call just Judgments were built which granted it consequently followeth that all
the power which they then and now exercise over these three Kingdoms is unjust and Tyrannical because not derived from the People There are no Representatives amongst them for Scotland nor Ireland nor the greatest part of England neither did they ever receive any power at all from the People of either England Scotland or Ireland and now all the People publiquely declare against them as the greatest Usurpers and Tyrants in the world yet contrary to all the Peoples wills they sit and Rule and will admit of no Member of the Peoples chusing to come amongst them unless they first qualifie and fit him for their own purpose therefore it plainly appeareth that this Vote that the People had the supreme power under God was but a meer juggle to gull the people and to bring their wicked designs to passe So that as A whip for the Horse or a bridle for the Asse have the People made of this quondam Parliament a rod for their fools-backs Pro. 26.3 The King being murthered by these Tyrants and all our Laws and Religion totally subverted a time wherin every one did what was right in his own eys Oliver Cromwel who for his excellency in wickedness and villanies was made General of the long called Parliaments unjust Forces the twentieth of April 1653. entred the House attended with some of the chief Commanders of his Army and delivering his reasons to them in a Speech why he came to put a period to their siting as judging it a thing much conducing to the publick wellfare of the Nation dissolved them And why might not he turn out them by force who by force had already turned out the King Lords and all the Commons besides themselves Surely if he had taken and hanged them all it would have been a glorious Act pleasing to God and the whole people and a Cordial to heal the miseries of our long-distressed Nation But his ambition was to make himself Great not to give relief and take away the Tyranny therfore he summoned a certain select number of his own creatures to appear at Westminster on the fourth of July next which he called a Parliament and none could deny but that they had the Soveraign power because Cromwel said so yet not so but that he made them resign up their power to him and make him the Lord protect us Lord Protector not a King because a King might do nothing but by Law but the Protector did nothing but according to his will and pleasure yet in this were we happy that in his reign one Tyrant Lorded it over us but in the long Parliaments many It is worth the observation that notwithstanding a Parliament had newly abrogated the very name and being of a King as dangerous and burthensom to the Common-wealth yet a Parliament summoned by Cromwel in July 1656. to meet on the 17 of September Petitioned and made many humble addresses to Cromwel that he would take Kingship upon him and be anointed King which old Nolls mouth watered at yet because some things did not fall out according to his expectation he declined it and refused to be what he eagerly though not openly persued Cromwel likewise created a House of Lords which was called the other House but the high aspiring thoughts of this turbulent Scorpion were at length blown down and extinguished by a high and mighty wondrous and unparalleld wind which out raunted Old Nol and whirried his black Soul down ad inferos So that after this storm we had a Calm and as the Sheep are at quiet ease when the bloody Woolf forsakes them so the People did rejoice and solace their hearts when this Tyrant made his Exit yet no sooner were we rid of this crafty Knave the Father but we were troubled with a simple Fool his Son Richard his eldest Son was proclamed by the new Courtiers and Army-Officers Lord Protector of England Scotland and Ireland and so tumble down Dick thought to have risen and Reigned in his Fathers room But a Fools bolt is soon shot Richard was quickly up quickly down No sooner had he called a Parliament but the Souldiers who feared that his Parliament should be honest and disband them as the only instruments to execute all Villanies went to the Mushroom Protector and by dnresse made him dissolve the Parliament and divest himself of all his Power and Authority And in this respect it is better to be a Knave than a Fool For crafty Noll kept the rude Souldiers in due obedience But simple Dick let them be his Masters whereas he might easily have made them and the whole people have been his Servants to this day When Richard was dismounted the Souldiers could not well tell where to hang the Government to secure them in their Rebellion and Roguery At last they pitcht upon the old rotten Rump viz. the fagg end of a worn-out perjured Parliament who had formerly dissolved themselves witnesse the Entry in their own Journal Book April 20.1653 although they pretend to be interrupted by Cromwells force So these Knaves the worst of Tyrants cemented together again like a Snakes tail and for colour called themselves the Revivers of the Good Old Cause and were as busie as if they had had another King and 3. Kingdoms to destroy So these infamous wicked Traytors returned to their wickedness as a Dog to his vomit to the great grief and grievance of all sorts of People in the Land who groaned and murmâ—red as if they were entering into a far worse than Egyptian bondage and Slavery under these task-masters To say that the people not they had the Soveraign power was now high Treason although they themselves had voted so formerly and to talk of a Free Parliament the antient birthright of the people as they themselves likewise formerly affirmed was now made a greater offence than Crimen lae sae Majestatis These Custodes filled all the Prisons in the Kingdom with those persons who desited a Free Parliament and in that respect they may be called The Keepers of our Liberty as Gaolers do Thieves in Chains or as the Cage doth Birds in grates For they keep us so much from our Free Liberty to do well that they will not so much as give us leave to speak or think well But there is no peace with the wicked when these Tyrants had beaten down Sir George Booth and other Assertors of a Free Parliament and made themselves as secure as Force and Violence could make them One Lambert a Chip of the old Block newly made General of their Forces displaced the Rump and with his Souldiers inhibited their usuped sitting which made the whole people not only rejoyce inwardly but break out in open laughter for joy But nullum commodum sine incommodo there is no pleasure without a displeasure No sooner did the Rump leave riding of us but up gets the Committee of Safety into the Saddle who made account that they were so absolutely our Masters as
their free will and pleasure So that the peoples Representatives must represent these Traytors in all their wickednesse otherwise they shall be no free-Statesmen for they account that Government most for the liberty of the people wherein themselves may have liberty still to continue in their Treason Rebellion and that they call slavery and oppression of the people which would suppresse their wicked and infandous Tyranny All the reason which they can give against Monarchy is because say they many of the people would lose their interests in their new purchased estates and we should be turned out of our possessions and perhaps lose our lives too A good argument indeed if maintained by the Logick of the sword So thieves and murtherers may argue against the Sessions because then perhaps they should lose their stollen goods and be hanged for their murthers and robberies O abominable that English men should degenerate into such impious impudence for this is the truth of their case might they but still have the Kings and Bishops lands which they have gotten by their horrible Treason and Rebellion and be sure to live secure from the punishment which the Law of the Land would inflict upon them they would easily confesse if the Devil have not made them contradictors of all manner of truth that Monarchy is the best of all Governments especially for the English Nation where as one may say it grew by nature until these destroyers of the Lawes of God Nature and the Realm rooted it up and endeavoured to plant their fancied Commonwealth in its room which will grow there when plums grow in the sky or when rocks grow in the air not before as you may see by the small root it hath taken ever since the reign of Charles the Martyr Dig and delve they may yet they will never set it in so fast but that if the right heir do not which God grant he soon may the wind and ambition of some one of their own sect and faction will quickly blow it down as did Oliver the wicked c. As Monarchy is the best sort of all govetnments so the Monarchy of England is the best of all Monarchies and hath in it the perfection and all that is good either in Aristocracy Democracy or Free-State For every one knoweth that Charles the Martyr though a King yet alwayes made himself a subject to his lawes accounting his prerogative safer being locked up in the custody of the law than in the absolutenesse of his own will And what lawes of any Nation in the world did ever maintain the liberty and freedome of the people more than the Kings Lawes of England I may most truly answer none more nor so much for what greater freedome can the people wish for than not to have any lawes imposed on them than what they please and desire The Kings of England never make any law but what the people consent to the Lords and Commons have a Negative voice as well as the King Although the inferiour Members receive all their authority from the head yet cannot the head act without their consent and privity so neither â—oth the King impose any lawes on his subjects without their concurrence and approbation The House of Lords resembleth Aristocracy and the House of Commons Democracy or a free State yet the King like the Sun which doth not diminish its own light by giving light to others continueth stil a royal Monarch and without any Solecism in State I may truly say that the House of Lords did excel Aristocracy and the House of Commons Democracy in preserving the Peoples rights and wel-fare because the necessity of their joyning votes each with the other and both of them with the King in making of a Law did inhibit either of them from having an unlimited arbitrary power which either of them without the other would have and so enslave the People as the House of Commons now do according to their lusts having destroyed their Master the King and the House of Lords their Moderators Whilest the King Lords and Commons like the three Graces joined hand in hand in passing votes approved by this triple touchstone then were our Laws like Gold seven times refined which made our Nation most glorious abroad and to overflow with peace and plenty at home we were then feared not derided by all forein Kings and Princes Religion not Faction then reigned in our hearts and our industry was then to preserve not to destroy Gods Sanctuary But now since the hand hath said to the eye I have no need of thee and the feet to the head I have no need of you the whole body of our Kingdom hath groaned and every Member therof as with a Consumption is wasted and grieved The Crown is fallen from our head and we are become a reproach and hissing amongst all Nations Oh therfore to redeem our credit and long lost happiness Let us all unanimously agree to be loyal Subjects to Charls our King and let all his loyal Subjects pray for and earnestly desire his safe arrival into our England that we may once more eat the Manna of our old Laws and Religion with the sweetnesse wherof we surfeited in the reign of Charls the Martyr Then shall we beat our Swords into plow-shares and our Spears into pruning hookes faction shall not rise up against faction neither shall we learn war any more For if we be willing and obedient we shall eat the good of the Land Isa 1 19. Hor. Concines laetosque dies urbis Publicum ludum super impetrato Fortis Augusti reditu forumque litibus orbum Tum meae si quid loquor audiendum Vocis accedet bona pars O Sol Pulcher O laudande canam recepto Cáesare falix Tuque dum procedis Io triumphe Non semel dicemus Io triumphe Civitas omnis dabimusque divis Thura benâ—s Then shall we sing the publick plays For his return and holy days For our Prayers heard and Law 's restor'd From Rebels Sword Then I if I may then be heard Happy in my regained Lord Will joyn ' i th' close and O! I le say O Sun-shine day The City leading wee 'l all sing Io triumph and agin Io triumph at each turning Incense burning Thus when we have received our gracious Soveraign from his long unnatural banishment what then can the Lord do more for us that he hath not done Wherefore when he looketh that we should bring forth good grapes let us take heed that we do not bring forth wild grapes let us fear God and honour the King and meddle not with them that are given to change as God hath commanded us for if we refuse and rebel we shall be devoured with the Sword for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it and so our last rebellion will be worse for us then the first General Monk hath amply repaired his honour which he lost by pulling down the City Gates and Perculisses and
in stead of proving a Keeper to the Trayterous Keepers he hath approved himself a glorious Dâ—â—ender of our Liberties for which Trophies of honour shall be erected to his eternal renown neither will our King spare heaping of rewards upon his so memorable merits at his return to his own house which the General hath swept for him and turned out them who made it aden of thieves On Tuesday the 21. day of February 1659. a day which deserveth more solemnization than Gunpowder Treason day for then we were delivered from those who only intended to destroy King and Parliament but now we are delivered from those who actually did destroy both King and Parliament and so consequently the whole Kingdome General Monk our famous Patron conducted the secluded Members to the House of Commons where according to their former agreement with the General they voted themselves in a short time to be dissolved and a free Parliament to be elected Now I hope no man will presume to conceive the General so insipid as to think there can be a free Parliament without the King and House of Lords No it is ridiculous to think so for a free Parliament without the King would be but like salt which hath lost his favour thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be troden under foot of men Mat. 5.13 It would be but a Rump fatned and grow bigger For we are all sick of the Kings Evil therefore nothing but the touch of his Sacred Majesties hands can cure us And I may with confidence and truth affirm that every one of that infinite number of people which so much rejoyced at the destruction of the Rump and at the voice of a free Parliament would mourn and cry at their sitting if they do not bring with them the good tidings of restoring their King the hopes whereof only made them rejoyce And indeed they would have more cause to bewail a free Parliaments sitting without the King than the sitting of the Rump for this we may be sure of that the King will come in either by fair means or by soul if by soul that is by war then the war will be greater with a free Parliament and so consequently more grievous to the people than with the Rump because a free Parliament will have greater force and power to levy a war than the Rump and so the combustible matter being more the flame will be the higher But it is Atheism to think that a free Parliament will withstand the King therefore I will not taint my Paper with such detestable words I let fall a blot of ink upon Mr. Prynne's Soverain Power of Parliaments and Kingdomes a Book which I am sure deserves a greater blurre But Mr. Prynne hath since repaired his credit and got the applause of the people by writing for the King and against the Rump and other sectaries Therefore to give him his deserts there is no man in the Nation hath so much merited as himself in pulling down the many Tyrannies over us since the murther of Charles the Martyr He hath been our Champion whose pen hath fought against the scriblings and actings of the Traytors and Rebels for which I shall ever love and honour him and without doubt our Gracious King will sufficiently reward him if he continueth constant in his loyalty which God grant he may And although the Presbyterian held the head of Charles the Martyr to the block by his hair whilst the Independent cut it off yet now I hope the many evils which we have sustained by that royal fall for which he shewed the first play will teach the rigid Presbyter moderation and make him confesse notwithstanding his violent Covenant against that Apostolical constitution of Bishops that Episcopacy is the best form of Church Government and the only way to extirpate and keep down those infinite number of s31y'sects and factions which have taken root and budded since Episcopacy was rooted up and blasted No Bishop No King was the Symbole of our Solomon King James who I think was as wise and as much a Christian as any of our Lay-Elders therefore in vain do the Presbytery think of enjoying Monarchy unlesse they first resolve to lay aside all their schismatical Tenets and stick to Episcopacy For as the same King sayes A Scottish Presbitery and Monarchy agree as God and the Devil Our Soveraign Charls the Martyr in his sacred writings hath so clearly approved and vindicated Episcopacy from the false aspersions of the Presbiterian faction and also laid open the absurdities of Presbitery so fully that it would be arrogance in me to say any thing after him and not only ignorance but impudence in any man to look upon his writings and still remain a Presbiterian Therefore O Heavenly Father asswage the pride and open the Eyes of these rigid Zelots that in seeing they may see and in hearing they may hear and understand and not professe themselves wiser than our Saviour that great Bishop and his Apostles which were Bishops and appointed successive Bishops as you may read in the Epistles of St Paul to Timothy and Titus c. And the Government of Bishops hath been the universal and constant practice of the Church so that as Charls the Martyr writeth ever since the first age for 1500 years not one example can be produced of any setled Church wherein were many Ministers and Congregations which had not some Bishop above them under whose Jurisdiction and Government they were Therefore let not the aspiring currish Presbiterian who would pull down a Bishop in every Diocesse but set up a Pope in every Parish no longer spet venom against the Reverend Bishops And truly I think their grounds are so slender against Episcopacy that if the King would but make them Bishops they would then be as violent for Episcopacy as they are now against it Therefore rest content Presbiter for though not thy deserts yet State Policy may in time make thee a Bishop The Antipodes indeed viz. the Long called Parliament who acted all things contrary to all Law and Religion voted that Bishops should never more vote as Peers in Parliament But why was it not because the Religious Bishops should not withstand their Irreligious and Blasphemous proceedings in Murthering the King Destroying the Church and all our Laws and Religion with them Surely no man can deny but that was the only reason Que enim est respublica ubi Ecclesiastici primum non habeant locum in Comitiis publicis de salute Reipub Deliberationibus For which is that Commonwealth where the Ecclesiastical persons had not the first place in all meetings and publique consultations about the Welfare of the Commonwealth Surely none but the Utopian Commonwealth of these Rebels For it is the practice of all Nations nay the Rebels themselves who voted it unlawful for Bishops and other grave Prelates of the Church to meddle the least in Civil Affairs could approve it in their new
Astraea Redeunt Saturnia regna progenies caelo Demittitur alto Bishops the Coâ—on prâ—â—ier Booke â—ewarded Sectaries reiected SALMASIUS HIS BUCKLER OR A Royal Apology FOR King CHARLES the MARTYR Dedicated to CHARLES the Second King of Great Brittain Salus Populi Salus Regis LONDON Printed for H.B. and are to be sold in Westminster-hall and at the Royal Exchange 1662. The Epistle to the Reader THere have been so many Wolves in sheeps-cloathing and so many Innocents by the reviling tongues of their Enemies robbing them of their good names as well as of their good estates made Malignants in this our worse than iron age that I know not what Epithite to give thee If thou art an Honest man Rara avis in terris I invoke thee to be my Patron If thou art not Noli me tangere But since St. Austin once perhaps as zealous a Reprobate as thy self was converted by looking on the Bible by chance I will not prohibit thee from eating of this fruit Though I believe to think that thy view of my Book will work the like conversion on thee is to have a better opinion of thee and the Book than both will deserve For though an Angel should come from heaven or a man arise from the dead yet could he not perswade our hot-headed Zealots but that they did God good service even when they rebell against his own Ordinance transgress his Commandements murther their Father the KING and pollute their once flourishing Mother the CHURCH Before this prodigious off-spring like Vipers destroyed the Mother by their birth The Jews indeed murthered the Lord of life because they did not know him and therefore thought it was pleasing to God But wo be to them who did not only with Ham see their Fathers nakedness and reproach him but commit Paricide see his heart naked and call the multitude to laugh at it En quo discordia Cives produxit miseros O the miserable effects of seditious men Who shall now cure the Kings evil Or who shall cure the evil of the People O purblind City how long will you enslave yourselves to ravenous woolves who by their often changing of their feigned Governments do but change the thief and still your Store-houses must be the Magazine to furnish them with plunder You must never look to enjoy your lives estates or Gods blessing with the fruition of your Wives and Children before your lawfull King and Soveraign CHARLS the II. unjustly banished by Rebells be restored to his Crown and Kingdom For what Comfort can any honest or conscientious man take in any thing so long as he seeth his own native Prince like King David driven from his own natural inheritance by the unjust force of a multitude of Traytors both to God and their King Who Judas-like acknowledging his Master with a kiss so they swore with their mouthes that King CHARLS the I. was their only lawfull King and Soveraign and had the Supreme power over them all and then delivered him to the Sword-men who came out with Clubbs and Staves against their Soveraign as against a Thief and as the Jews did the Lord our Saviour whom they did not acknowledge to be their King otherwise they would not have done it These men murthered their dread Soveraign whom they all acknowledged and vowed to be their only King Excelling the Jewes only in wickednesse Therefore since by the Laws of the Land there can be no Parliament without the King what difference is there between a Protector and one of their Parliaments but only number For their Protectors are but the head thieves and their Parliaments but a headless multitude of thieves For so long as the Royal Progenie of CHARLS the I. which God long preserve remain alive all other our Governours besides them will be but Rebells Traytors and Tyrants let them call themselves a Free State or by what names they please continue until the worlds end Therfore rouze up Citizens and take courage How long will you be the common Hackney to be ridden by every one that will stride you How long shall your Sanctuary be made a Stable and Den for Thieves Shall your Streets blush with the blood of Prophets and with the blood of your Citâ—zens and will not you change your colour where is the reverend Doctor Hewyt that Glory of your City that Glory of all Christians that Glory of the whole World whose fame shall out-live the Sun and his renown shine longer and brighter than the Moon or the lesser Stars Caesar the Usurper was wont to say Si violandum est jus regnandi causa esse violandum That if it is lawfull to forswear one self for any Cause the Cause of gaining a Kingdom is the most lawfull But there are those amongst us who have turned the Supposition into a Proposition and confidently by their practice affirm that it is lawfull to forswear one self for any thing and most sacred to be forsworn if by the perjury a Kingdom may be gained But I will not touch the Soars which lye raw before every mans eyes only this will I say which every one knoweth to be true that no Kingdom in the World was so happy both for peace and plenty law and religion and all other good things as our Kingdom of England was whilest due obedience was lawfully paid to our Soveraign Lord the King but now the King being murthered and all goodness with him no Nation under the Sun is more miserable and so it will continue untill King Charles the second be restored to his Crown The Sword of Gods word ought only to fight for Religion the Iron sword of Rebels did never establish Christian Religion nor ever will set up Christs Kingdom especially if it be unsheathed against Kings by their Subjects And to satisfie all Objections whatsoever against my writing I answer Si natura negat facit indignatio versum It was not to shew my self to the world for as in Tempests so in our daies he is best who is seen least abroad But it was to shew and prefer the Truth which hath been laid asleep by the Charmes of our Sins For to this end was I born and for this cause came I into the world that I should bear witnes to the truth every one that is of the Truth will hear the voice of the truth when I saw the many revolutions turnings of men like Weathercocks being presented almost every day with new strange and various shapes and forms of Government it caused me more diligently to search after the true reason of our changings which I found to be our Sins and the absence of our King also which was the best kind of Government which I found to be Monarchy and that all trayterous Tyrants sine titulo might most lawfully be killed by any privat hand but Kings only by God Truth often getteth hatred and it is the doom of serious books to be hooted at by those who have nothing
and dy'd and rul'd and stunk agen Rebellion for a little moment shines But seldom with a brave applause declines 'T is only Truth and Loyalty can give Restoratives to make a Dead man live T. F. REPENTANCE FOR THE MURTHER OF Charles the Martyr AND The Restauration of Charles the II. is the only Balm to cure Englands Distractions 'T Is true our Nostrils lost their Breath What then ' Cause we sinn'd once shall 's ne're be good agen We murther'd Charles for which Infernal Kings With worse than Aegypt's Plagues have scourg'd our sins The Martyrs Goodnesse Angels cann't rehearse The Rebels baseness Devils cann't expresse Who in their Lower House have acted more Than Belzebub in Hell or th' Earth before And did not Charles the Son yet shine I 'de say That God of Nature and the World decay But God is God and Satan's Fraud we see Charles is our King and Rebels Rebels be Then since we ken a Traytor from a Saint Let 's be for God our King and Bel recant Hee 'l dry our Eyes and cure those Wounds which we Receiv'd i'â—h ' dark groping for Liberty For Liberty which kept us all in Fetters Slaves to the Rump and to the Rumps Abetters Who Freedom and Religion up cry'd When Freedom and Religion they destroy'd Who killed us with Plaisters and brought Hell For Paradice So Eve by th' Serpent fell Then if the death o' th' King caus'd all our woe The life o' th' King had sav'd us all men know Behold him in his Son whose splendid light Shall heal the darknesse of his Fathers night 'T is madnesse to use Candles in the day What need a Parl'ament when Charles le Roy Stands at the door and to us fain would bring Freedom and Laws instead of Rape and Sin The glory of a King is to command But Subjects shame to sit when he doth stand God save the King C. B. Never forget Reader That the Presbyters in their Almighty scotified nullified Solemn League and Covenant with their hands lifted up to the Most high God do swear That they will preserve and defend the Kings Majesty his Person and Authority And that they have no thoughts or intentions to diminish his Majesties just Power and Greatnesse Yet they do also there swear that they will extirpate Episcopacy although so to do is contrary to the Kings Will Laws Command Safety Greatnesse and Authority As if his Majesty had no just Power but what their Faction vouchsafed and pleased to think fit On the late MIRACVLOVS REVOLVTIONS IN ENGLAND c. THree Kingdoms like one Ship a long time lay Black tempest-proof upon a troubled Sea Bandy'd from wave to wave from rock to sand A prey to Pyrats from a forein Land Expos'd to all the injuries of Fate All the Reproaches of a Bedlam-State The brave Sayles torn the Main-mast cut in sunder Destruction from above and ruine under Once the base rout of Saylors try'd to steer The giddy Vessel but thence could appear Nothing but mad Confusion Then came One He sate at Helm and his Dominion Frightned the blustring Billows for a while And made their Fury counterfeit a smile Then for a time the Bottom seem'd to play I' th' wonted Chanel and the beaten way Yet floated still The Rabble snatch't again It's mannagement but all alas in vain No Anchor fixt no wished shâ—ar appears No Haven after these distracted years But when the lawfull Pilot shall direct Our wav'ring Course and Heav'n shall Him protect The Storms shall laugh the Windes rejoyce thereat And then our Ark shall find an Ararat T. F. THE HISTORY of PHAETON Being only a Flourish or Praeludium to the sulsequent more solid discourse Wherein implicitly the temerarious appetite of Subjects to their dread Soveraigns Crown is refuted and condemned The gracious Concessions unparalleled goodness and fatherly indulgence of our late King to his over-bold Subjects manifested and the sad effects of usurpation laid open with the Traytors Epitaph Phoebus representing the King and Phaeton the hare-brained people Eloquar an Sileam timor hoc pudor impedit illud Shall I speak or hold my Peace How shall we sing the Lords song in a strange Land And how shall I hold that which is not to be found WHen rash Phaeton being mounted on the soaring wings of arrogance and presumption attempted the Kingly Government of his royal Fathers Chariot fit for none but such powerful and well-instructed Monarch as himâ—lf For Ovid. lib. 2. Non est tua tuta voluntas Magna petis Phaeton quae non viribus istis Munera conveniunt nec tam puerilibus annis Sors tua mortalis non est mortale quod optas Plus etiam quam quod superis contingere fas est Nescius affectas placeat sibi quisque licebit Non tamen ignifero quisquam consistere in axe Me valet excepto Vusti quoque Rector Olympi Qui fera terribili jaculatur fulmina dextra Non agit hos curros Et quid Jove majus habetur Thy wish is naught What 's so desir'd by thee Can neither with thy strength nor youth agree Too great intentions set thy thoughts on fire Thou mortal dost no mortal thing desire Through ignorance affecting more than they Dare undertake who in Olympus sway Though each himself approve except me none Is able to supply my burning Throne Not that dread Thunderer who rules above Can drive these wheels and who more great than Jove Thou seekest after that which humane power neither can nor ought for to atchieve Thou art ignorant of my power and too much presuming on thine own I am no Officer of trust deputed by the common rout but hold my jurisdiction from above It is not for Mortals to aspire and foolishly to covet such sacred things There iâ— none but I capable of this dignity It is I that aâ— the anointed and crowned King by caelestial decree and therefore am not to be dethroned by terrestial innovation At tu funesti ne sim tibi muneris auctor Nate cave dum resque sinit tua corrige vota Then lest my bounty which would save should kill Beware and whilest thou maist reform thy will Be wise my Son in time and lest thou prove a felo de se banish from thy thoughts this desperate and fond appetite of thine to take my princely reigns of Government into thine unadvised hands Non honor est paenam Phaeton pro munere poscis It is not honour but disgrace and thy utter ruin which thou so greedily huntest after Scilicet ut nostro genitum te sanguine credas Pignora certa petis do pignora certa timendo Et patrio pater esse metu probor aspice vultus Ecce meos utinamque oculos in pectore posses Inserere patrias intus deprendere curas Denique quicquid habet dives circumspiee mundus Deque tot ac tantis caeli terraeque marisque Posce bonis aliquid nullam patiere repulsam Deprecor hoc unum quod vero
the House by the martial violence of the Souldiers their Masters whose Journy-Men they are yet no sooner do they find the door open but in they slip again like Dogs into the Buttery where they sit and eat the fat of the Land and the fruits of our labours for which they now and then shite us an Act of Parliament whereby they destroy our fundamental Laws and Liberties and invent new high Treasons against them such as our Law-Books nor Statutes never told us of by which they maintain themselves in their Robbery and the people in their Slavery As for the oath of Supremary Vows Protestations and Covenants which they made in the presence of God with hands lift up to heaven for vengeance if they did not perform them and all other oathes of Homage Fealty and Allegiance which the People took to be true and faithfull to the King These they discharge themselves and the People of by an Act of Parliament as if these Caterpillers could discharge debts due to the Almighty But to make God amends they passed another Act that the People should swear to be true and faithfull unto them To go about to number their villanies deceits treacheries perjuries and other their wicked Actions were to go about to number the sands of the Sea or the fraudulent devices of Belzebub their Master they being the Genus generalissimum of all Treason Rebellion Murther Blasphemy Hypocrisie Lying Swearing and For-swearing abounding in Wâ—oredom Drunkenness Leachery Treachery Covetousnesse Pride Ambition and all other detestable vices They are a pack of rotten putrefied Members glued together in the stinking body of sin And if I should give you a Character of each Simple wherewith this Compound is contracted it would fright you out of your wits for I speak really I think they are the very Quintessence of all the Devils in Hell And although this beast cannot well agree which horn or legge shall go foremost they being somwhat troubled in dividing the spoil and their usurped authorities which is caused by their pride and covetousness and although they differ in Ceremonies and Ciâ—cumstances yet they make it one of their Fudamentals upon which themselves and all their proceedings are builded to murther Charles the second as they did Charles the first when they can lay their unhallowed Claws upon him and although they hate and bark and snarle at one another like dogs yet in the great work of their Salvation like Pilate and Herod they all agree to be Traytor and Rebels against their King And so long as these Mastives Lord it over us we must never expect peace but alwayes live like dogs fighting and biting for what we have We must with them account vice vertue and vertue vice we must hold their words more canonical than Gods word and say that is law which they say is law though it be neither law truth nor reason Unlawfull wars set them up and we shall alwayes have wars and rumours of wars amongst us untill they are pulled down To be short we must resolve to forsake God and serve the Devil if we intend to keep any thing safe so long as this Phalaris the Tail of the House of Commons domineereth over us For the Children of this world being in their Generation wiser than the Children of Light Luke 16.8 These Worldlings are so wise and subtil to do mischief that when they commit the most deadly sin They make it passe to the world as the best service done to God and when they themselves make plots to murther honest Royalists then they get some of their hirelings to discover it and swear that the Royalists invented the plot against them and presently forsooth they vote and command that their three Kingdomes give God thanks for their great deliverance ascribing that which was done by their own providence to the Providence of the Almighty Nay they have their Lillies and other lying Astrologers whom they consult with before they commit any great wickednesse and make them publish to the world that the Heavens ruled and voted what these Beagles please to perform It is as natural for their Judges to judge unjustly if it be for the profit or pleasure of their Masters at Westminster as it is for them to live For how many innocent Gentlemen have they condemned to death for doing their duty in defending the King from unjust violence which we are all bound to do by the law of God Nature and of the Realm They have their Balaam Prophets and Priests too almost in every parish and pulpit which they make the Organs to sound forth their own praises so that the ignorant country multitudes who scarce know that there is a God but that they heard their Minister tell them so thinking that he doth God the best service and credit who hath the finest ribbond on his hat or that weareth the best cloaths on his back at Church these Momusses believe that the Saints at Westminster are the only supreme power on Earth and that no men in the world for some of them think that the sea side is the end of the world are to be compared to them either for wisdome learning or honesty and the only reason of their thoughts is Ipse dixit their Minister said so but last Sunday And this was the chiefest reason wherefore the countrey Peasants flocked in so fast to the Armies of those Neroes at Westminster raised against the King who alwayes made the ignorance of the people their greatest Champion And lest we should see the superiority of the King above and over the Knaves and other Cards they abolish and prohibit Card-playing as a great sin in their Commonwealth Why did they not give the superiority to the Knaves How these godly Villains stumble at strawes and leap over blocks They prohibit innocent recreations on the Sabbath day purposely because they would have the people esteem them zealous in Religion and stricter observers of Gods Commandments than the King But in truth they serv'd God only to serve themselves In nomine Domini incipit omne malum acting all their wickednesse in the name of the Lord. For when they have got a good name amongst the people they think under that shadow to act any wickednesse and yet to the world seem saints Murther their King too and yet be accounted good Christians nay Reformers of the Christian Religion O Religious Impostors To these Quacksalvers belongeth two Speakers alias dictos Lyars viz. the private Speaker Lenthall now called by the common souldiers the Father of their Country Can you blame the little Thieves if they applaud the great Thief and the publick Speaker Needham the one rough hammereth lyes at the forge the House of Commons the other fashioneth them in his Mercurius Politicus Thus they fill our eares with as many lies as their breasts be yet forsooth none must dare not to believe what they publish by authority Now the Presbyterian Judasses when they saw that the King
was condemned repented themselves saying We have sinned in that we have betrayed Innocent blood and were all of them ready to hang themselves But it was not out of any love or allegiance they did bear to the King but because they could not have those ends upon the King which they intended They would have had the King buckled to their bent and it grieved them to see the Independents c. out-knave them foâ— the greatest part of the religion of these factions consists in their animosities one against the other not only the Presbyterians but also the Independents Anabaptists c. are both almost and altogether such as the proud Pharisees were Therefore their greatest care and study is to domineer and master it one over the other which makes the prevalent faction alwayes outragious and that which sinketh alwayes envious So that the Presbyterian being at this time undermost he would fain insinuate himself into the favour of the honest Royalist and because he hath not force to be so much Knave as he would be therefore he is compelled to be honest against his will and would have his injured King to rule over him again But get thee behind me Dagon what hast thou to do with peace Didst thou not in thy youthfull age revile thy Innocent King with thy mouth and persecute him with thy bloudy hand and wouldst thou now in thy old age serve him Thy service is Hypocrisie and thy words but the vapours of a deceitfull head Let the Presbyterians rigid actions judge the rigid Presbyterians Having related of what persons the Parliament doth consist viz. of the King above all and the three Estates sharing no more with the King in the Soveraignity than the body doth with the head and how King Charles the first was most traiterously murthered by those who have the impudence to call themselves a Parliament though in truth they are nothing else but a den of Tyrannical Traytors and Rebels I will further proceed to explicate the Soveraignity of the King and the legal power of the three Estates with their first institution and creation Sapiens omnia agit cum consilio saith Solomon a wise man doth nothing without counsel Pro. 13.16 Therefore the King of England Ex mero motu et speciali gratia out of his meer good-will and special favour hath vouchsafed his Subjects that honour as to make them his Counsellours not only concerning Ardua Regni but also arcana imperii even in his most privie affairs wherefore As my Lord Cook observeth the King is armed with diverse Councills one whereof is called Commune Concilium and that is the Court of Parliament and another is called Magnum Concilium this is somtimes applyed to the upper House of Parliament and somtimes out of Parliament time to the Peers of the Realm Lords of Parliament who are called Magnum Concilium Regis Thirdly as every man knoweth the King hath a privie Council for matters of State The fourth Council of the King are his Judgâ—s of the Law for Law matters as appeareth in our Law-Books This word Parliament was never used in England untiâ—l the time of William the Conquerour who first brought it in with him For as King David called a Parliament when he intended to build an house for the name of the Lord 1 Chro. 28. and assembled all the Princes of Israel the Princes of the Tribes and the Captains of the Companies that ministred unto the King by course and the Captains over the thousands and Captaines over the hundreds and the Stewards over all the substance and possession of the King and of his Sons with the Officers and with the mighty men and with all the valiant men unto Jerusalem And when they were assembled the King himself shewed the cause of calling that Parliament for then David the King stood up upon his feet and said Hear me my Brethren and my People as for me I had in my heart to build and House of rest for the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord and for the footstool of our God and had made ready for the building c. Whereupon all the people offered their Gold and Silver willingly towards the work which made the People and David their King rejoice exceedingly with great joy as you may there read So the Kings of England from the beginning in all extraordinary cases when they intended to make new Laws or abolish old have always convoked an assembly of their Subjects what persons and of what number they thought fit Not because they could not do what they pleased without their Subjects consent but because their Subjects best knowing what shooes would fit their own feet might as they often did by Petitions humbly supplicate his Majesty to grant what they shewed him was most convenient and necessary for them by their requests which he refused or granted at his pleasure Which Councils and Conventions they called Witenage Mote Conventus sapientium Michael Smoth Michael Gemote c. that is to say the great Court or meeting of the King To which the King convened only the Nobles and Bishops The Rustick Commons were not then admitted into the presence of the King And doubtlesse they had then small hopes and lesse thoughts that they should ever take the Regal Diadem from off their Soveraigns head and become Lords Paramount ruling both King and People by no other Law than Hoc volo sic Jubeo stat pro ratione voluntas by their own lusts and unstable except to do mischief wills But I have seen servants upon Horses and Princes walking as Servants upon the Earth saith Solomon And pray who hath not seen as much as Solomon of this For behold Tinkers Taylors Spicket and Fosset makers and those who were Servants even to the basest of the people having murthered their Soveraign Lord the King doe take possession of his sacred Patrinomy and now sit Lords over all ruling and domineering in his Palace at Westminster Feign that the people did intrust the King with his Royal Office yet why should it escheat to these Hypocrites why not to the people And if his Office with the Lands which he held Jure Coronae yet by what Law do they seise upon those Lands which he held in his natural Capacity and those Lands which he purchased For if a man forfeit an Office he only forfeiteth those Lands which belonged to the Office But if all his Lands escheat by what Law do they detain and keep the Queens Dower from her By what Law did I say By that Law whereby they subdue all things to themselves to wit their own wicked Appetites Ambition and Covetousnesse which is all the Law they can shew for any of their Actions to which we must be Slaves so long as they command over us Pro. 30.21 For three things saith Solomon the earth is disquieted and for four which it cannot bear For a Servant when he reigneth and a Fool when he is filled with meat For and
or Precinct to be holden there only and remove the Courts at Westminster to what place he pleaseth and adjourn the Terms as he sees cause this is book-Law 6. H. 7.9.6 Eli. Dier 226. But I pray what Law set up the new slaughter-house in England viz. the high Court of Justice Doubtlesse it was not the Kings Law and if not his Law it was no Law for England never heard of any other but the Kings Laws You have already heard that the King was before Parliaments that the King first instituted Parliaments not Parliaments the King that the House of Commons is but as it were of yesterday and that both Houses are nothing else but what the King made them Let us now see what the King did make them with what power this Idol the House of Commons is invested since they have nothing else to shew for what they are than the Kings Writ that being their Basis and only legal authority Take a view of the Writ The King to the Vicount or Sheriff Greeting WHereas by the advice and assent of our Counsell for certain arduous and urgent affairs concerning us the State and defence of our Kingdom of England and the Anglican Church We have ordained a certain Parliament of ours to be held at our City _____ the _____ day of _____ next ensuing and there to have conference and to treat with the Prelats Great-Men and Peers of our said Kingdom We command and strictly enjoyn you that making Proclamation at the next County Court after the receit of this our Writ to be holden the day and place aforesaid you cause two Knights girt with Swords the most fit and discreet of the County aforesaid and of every City of that County two Citizens of every Borough two Burgesses of the discreeter and most sufficient to be freely and indifferently chosen by them who shall be present at such Proclamation according to the Tenor of the Statute in that case made and provided and the names of the said Knights Cittizens and Burgesses so chosen to be inserted in certain Indentures to be then made between you and those that shall be present at such Election whether the parties so elected be present or absent and shall makâ— them to come at the said day and place so that the said Knights for themselves and for the County aforesaid and the Citizens and the Burgesses for themselves and the Cominalty of the said Cities and Burroughs may have severally from them full and sufficient power to do and to consent to those things which then by the favour of God shall there happen to be ordained by the Common Counsel of our said Kingdom concerning the businesse aforesaid So that the businesse may not by any means remain undone for want of such power or by reason of the improvident election of the aforesaid Knights Citizens and Burgesses But we will not in any case that you or any other Sheriff of our said Kingdome shall be eâ—ected And at the day and place aforesaid the said Election being made in a full County Court you shall certifie without delay to us in our Chancery under your Seal and the Seals of them which shall be present at that Election sending back unto us the other part of the Indenture aforesaid affiled to these presents together with the Writ Witnesse our self at Westminster This Writ is the foundation of the Parliament upon which the whole fabrick of their power and proceedings is grounded It is that which setteth up a Parliament Man and is the only Commission which distinguisheth him from another man for without that every man in the Kingdom hath equal right and authority to sit and vote in Parliament Now by Law no man ought to exceed his Commission Therefore if the Lords or Commons act beyond the bounds of their power limited in this Writ their only Commission they are transgressors and incur the punishment of Malefactors The Writ telleth you that both Houses are but as it were the production of the Privy Council for though the King ordaineth the Parliament yet it is by the advice and assent of his Council why then may not the Kings privy Council being prius tempore lay claim to the Soveraignty as well as his Common Council surely both have like right The Lords are only enabled by their call tâ— Conferr and Treat and that not without but with the King It is their Counsel to advise not their power to authorize which the King requireth For why had not the King ordained a certain Parliament to be and there to â—ave Conference and to treat with them they â—ad not come to give him Counsel and as they â—annot come but when the King commands them â—o neither can they chuse but come when the King â—oth command except the King excuse them â—nd being come they are but as Judge Jenkinsâ—ith â—ith Consiliarii non Praeceptores Counsellors â—or Commanders for to Counsel is not to Comâ—and They are only to advise not to controul â—r compel the King The Parliament is ordained â—y the â—ing as appeareth by the Writ only for â—ertain arduous and urgent affairs 1. Touching â—he King 2. The State of the Kingdom â— The defence of the Kingdom 4. The â—tate of the Church And 5. The â—efence of the same Church Though it â—e arduous yet not urgent occasion to destroy â—ingship To condemn the King to death and â—unishment is not touching the King but a Maleâ—ctor To kill the King is to destroy the kingdom â—ot to defend it and his death is the death of â—e Church and Religion O how have the Long â—arliament swarved from the true ends for â—hich Parliaments were ordained Indeed the Lords not as the upper House of â—arliament but as a distinct Court of the Kings Baâ—ns have power to reform erroneous judgeâ—ents given in the Kings Bench But there is first Petition of Right made to the King and his anâ—wer to it viz. Fiat Justitia The Court of Parliament is only the House of Lords where the King sitteth and they are his common-Counsel it belongs to them to receive all Petitions to advise his Majesty with their Counsel and to consent to what Laws the King shall make by their advice Not to speak of the qualities of the persons of the House of Commons being most of them to wit Citizens and Burgesses Tradesmen brought up in their Shops not in any University or Academy of Law and Learning and as fit to Govern and make Laws God wot as Cows are to dance The rest of them being Knights of Shires chosen commonly rather for their Mony than their Wit having greater wealth than head-pieces I pass from their education to the authority which the King vouchsafed to bestow upon them which is only what is contained in the Writ viz. facere consentire to do consent but to what Not unto such things which they shall ordain but unto such things which are ordained by the King and