as dangerous Designs for at the end of one of their Harangues the beginning of which is only marked with R. M. and its Author may be loth to let any more Letters of his Name to be known you have these following Lines If at the same time we endeavour to secure our selves against Pag. 3. Popery we do not also do something to prevent Arbitrary Power it will be to little purpose I think nothing can prevent that better than frequent Parliaments and therefore I humbly move that a Bill for securing frequent Parliaments be taken into Consideration can any thing be more expressive than that the Bill so much clamour'd for was only the burden of the Song and that the Ballad it self must have been all to the Tune of 41. when Arbitrary Power never ceased its Cry till the Parliament was made Frequent its Frequency never sufficient till standing and pertual which proved too as dangerous as a standing Army ever restless till it had really raised one too and the Kings Head from his Shoulders and can these worst of Criminals make it a * Hunt in post pag. 92 93. Crime to make the Nation fearful of such Parliaments when there are such Speech-Makers in it I shall to such Accusers Faces defend them to be formidable not out of any Apprehension of fear for my self for whenever such a Seditious Senate their Commons become dangerous again to good Subjects the Safety of the Government must be but in as bad Condition But it might well terrify then even a Crown'd Head and frighten him from their Frequency when some of the most popular Members of that late Assembly have been since found in an actual Conspiracy for pulling the Crown from it when the mighty Three Russel Sidney Armstrong has made up a Triumvirate in Treason as well as part of that Parliament And been tryed Legally sentenc'd Justly and suffered publickly for Traytors Sir G. H. I do agree a Bill for Banishing Papists may do well But I hope if you Banish Ibid. page 3. the Men you 'll Banish some Women too consider how to prevent the Royal Family marrying Popish Women No man can doubt but the Protestant Interest has been much praejudiced by his Majesties marrying a Princess of that Religion Popish Instruments having sheltered themselves under her Protection The Country Gentleman wanted the Civilities of the Court being a declared Enemy to all Ladies but this shows plain their aims were beyond that of the Duke and that it was the Sense of some of the House the Queen was in the Plot as well as the Opinion and Asseveration of Oats his Oath against his exprest Testimony given before Sir E. H. Have we not ordered several good Bills to be brought in for the securing us against Arbitrary Power and shall we now lay aside all those and be content with the Exclusion Bill only which I think will be worth nothing unless you can get more and what some of those more are is explained Page 9. in the next Oration to it W. G. I do admire no body does take notice of the standing Army which if not reduced to such a Number as may be but convènient for Guards and limited as they may not be encreased All your Laws signify nothing the words of that Hellish Association only differ thus when they swear more modestly only to endeavour entirely to disband all such Mercenary Forces as are kept up in and about the City of LONDON These are some of the very Words as our Author relates them as they were spoken in his House of Commons I do them only that Justice that this Historian has done to their Honours or they to themselves so if these accounts are Authentick tho I remember when dangerous to Question even the Authority of an unlicensed piece of Sedition then we see that many of our late malecontents of the Commons as well as our Plato's Rebellious Barons were not like to be contented any more with our Kings granting them all the security themselves could ask for their Religion then these Imperious Lords were after all their Liberties were fortyfied with an extorted Charter and made as firm as Fate or their foresight could provide But that nothing would satisfy unless both lopt off the best Limb of their Prerogative and allowed them to have Parliaments without Intermission or at least frequent enough for an Usurpation of all the Power that is Regal for as the Doctor of Sedition observes upon the Kings being allowed to Call and Dissolve them That our Liberties and Rights signify just nothing So might Page 105. also this politick Pis-pot have remarked That when once it comes to the Power of the People to summon themselves or sit so long a Season till their own Order shall determine the Session that truly their Venetian Doeg would be a Prince to the Monarch of Great Britain and we should soon have less left of a King in England than such implacable Republicans have of Loyalty for I am sure we must in reason have better Ground to dread those dangers and utter Subversion of the State from their too much sitting that has been experienced than they for that panick fear of Tyranny from their being so often Dissolved which they never yet felt But to see the boldness of such Villains for encouraging an Insurrection The briskness of their Barons that rebeled for a Charter and frequent Parliaments was most providentially brought upon the Stage when they knew they had forfeited most of their own by their Faction and made their House of Commons from their obstinate proceedings not likely to be soon summoned when once Dissolved so that here was a plain downright Encouragement of a resolute Rebellion as Occasion should serve and Ietting the People know they must put on their Armour as well as the Barons and be as brisk upon Intermission of Parliaments How far this good Exhortation encouraged an Assassination of our Sovereign and the succeeding Plot may be gathered from their attempts to put it in Execution and for which both Author and Publisher Merit full as well the Fate of those that dyed for the practising those Principles that they the more primitive Traytors had instill'd In short to insist no longer on this black Topick of plain Treason With what Faith and Integrity with what Face and Countenance can he call that perfect Conspiracy of a parcel of Faithless Peers a Defence of the Government that for almost forty Years laid the Land all Page 107. in Blood and with their Witchcraft their sorceries of Rebellion that briskness as he calls it of putting on their Armour made it imitate an Aegypts Plague and Anticipate the very Judgments of the Almighty by purpling her Rivers with the Slain can the Defence of a Kingdom consist with its Destruction or those be said to stand up for their Country that invited an Invader and swore Allegiance to Lewis a Frenchman against him that was their
of that Metropolis for the right Line was such and so considerable together with that Princes own Courage and Conduct that he remained Conqueror in three several Battels and had been so in the fourth too the last I believe the Dane would have dared to offer had not that false Edric the Traytor to his Father acted o're the same Treason to the Son and revolted in the fight when the Forces of the Foe where on the point of flying The taking but half his Kingdom at that Duel and Accommodation in the Isle of Alnâ—y was more fatal than fortunate when still his trusty Citizens would have fought for the whole and spent their last blood for the right Line they had first espoused the parting with some of his right was quickly succeeded with the losing of all and his Life to the Bargain and our Kingdom of England might well be too weak to stand when divided against its self and by that Donation of Edmund made half the Danes So dangerous is it to Princes to forgo the least of their right which only introduces the loss of a greater share or to part with a piece of Praerogative for the patching up some popular divisions whose twisted Interest like Cords that are a twining if it catch but the Skirts of the Purple will soon wind away the whole robe the Observation is here verified upon our old Records and has been newly transcribed in Blood in our latter days and the Son of our Royal Martyr reads the best Politicks for the Prevention in that unfortunate Testimony of his Father and if Sovereignty be somewhat that is Divine a Subjects robbing of the Crown must be next to that of a Church and a sin that favours as much of sacriledge But to let you know in short the design of this Historian's Complement upon which we have dwelt too long the pretty Parenthesis was applyed to another purpose 't was publisht at a time when the City was Influencing an House of Commons that were for altering Succession and they as great an Influence with the City at a Banquet of Politicks after their Parliament Feast and His time to let them know the †Brief Hist p. 2. Approbation of that renowned City had then no little Influence on the Succession And besides in the very Stow mentions not one word of this Athelstan 's Illegitimacy and his own Author whom he cites for the falsehood relates it but as a Fable by which Daniel too was deceived same Page he had prepared for them the pretty President of the Saxons preferring a brave and deserving Bastard before Him that was the Legitimate Prince He means that Athelstan whom he resolves rather erroniously to suppose Illegitimate than Ingeniously to allow him as he truly was the Lawful Heir But Baker and others tell us the Truth tho' he will not and say this Athelstan was the Eldest and no way spurious But the telling of the Truth would have prevented this malicious Authors Factious insinuation of a lye which he forg'd only for an application of it to the times and that it might be made more remarkable he must mark it out in Emphatical Italicks only to save the crying Monmouth and York But the Card is turned there now and the Loyal Heart Trump instead of his Clubs and to be hoped they 'l ever make good the best part of the Observation which he never designed they should stand and fall with their Loyal Progenitors in the defence of the right Line and the Royal Blood In short upon the whole united and happy union of the Monarchy of the Saxons give me leave to observe this great Truth that from their first King Egbert Even in the Heptarchy it self if you consult How you 'll find the next of Blood still succeeded to this Ironside the last no less then 14 in number besides that Edward the first Edmunds Brother all successively Reign'd in Lineal discents of the immediate and next Heir of the Royal Blood and most of them too the Successions of the next immediate Brother to the preceding Prince no less than four several Brothers Sons to Ethelwolf the second sole Sovereign of the Saxons succeeding one another and then with what Face unless with one more lasting then I hope his corrupted History by being all Brass with what a Front but such an one could such a Libel and Imposture The True Protestant Legend to whom for ought I see a fabulous Monk might seem an Historian offer at such a part of our History for the dispossessing the very Brother of his King But as much as this raging Zealot in Sedition Clamours against Rome he runs for assistance to such Authors of that Religion as even some moderate Romanists condemn and those are the fam'd †Parsons Inglefield Allen. Triumvirate that clubb'd for the contriving to subvert the Succession the pernicious piece the Book of Sedition they publisht by the borrow'd name of Doleman All the shadow that he has of any thing of Election was that of the first Saxon King Egbert whom he would have no way related to Brissicus the last King of the West-Saxons but whom some more worthy * Vid. The gâ—eat point of Succession and Dr. B. cites the same out of Sim. Dunelm and Malmsb. Authors prove from Westminster's own words that he was the sole surviving branch of the Royal Stemm and that he was banisht into France and that only for fear of his Right But granting then what he is resolved to suppose still right Reason will confute his Impertinence even in complying in unreasonable Concession the Question here is of the Succession of our Establisht Monarchy and he brings us an Instance before the Monarchy was Establisht owns that the History of that Heptarchy was uncertain and yet very certainly determins the point of his Election and that we must take too upon an ipse dixit of this Dogmatical Historians for his being no way related he cites just no body and while for his near alliance you have the Authority of so many That other only broken Reed that in all these Reigns he has to rely on and that like Aegypts too is ready to run into his side so false so dangerous to trust too which is Edreds being crown'd in the Minority of his Nephews when all the Historians say it was only for their being Minors And the diligent Baker says he was not then made Protector only because that Authority was not then come into use but crowned as King with purpose to resign when the right Heir should come of age But lest his Modern Authority may be not sufficient with those that malign Flor. worst Westm Houden Malemsb and Stow says expresly he was look't on But as a Protector any thing that makes for the Monarchy let them consult even the most of the Antients and they all agree they were only set aside for their Nonage But this Royal Protectorate soon expired as if Providence
't is now an unanswerable Confirmation that those who are so much for altering the discent of the Crown are as much for the deposing of him that wears it 't is now an attested Truth under their own hands and they must give themselves the Lye to confute it But whatever were the pardonable faults of this unhappy Prince tho our 4 El. 246. Bracton Lib. 1. Chap. 8. Law say A King can have none much less be punisht for it when he can do no wrong The greatest that Daniel condemns was his mighty favouring of his Daniel p. 184. Minions Gaveston and Spencer's in Opposition to his Barons and must it be criminal to a King to have a Friend But however in his History calls it the first Example of a deposed Prince no less dishonourable to the State than to him Stow calls the Bishop of Hereford that Stow p. 225. then was busied in the Resignation but a Mischievous Embassador and pray what was the Fate of those that were the first Leaders of the Rebellion and the most mutinous The mighty Duke of Lancaster was by his own Peers condemned to be Hang'd and Quartered and was only Beheaded and several Barons besides and afterward Mortimer the Queens own Minion and Favourite was impeached in Parliament of Edward the Third for making Dissention between the late King and Queen for murdering of his Sovereign and accordingly was drawn Hanged and Quartered for it with several of his Adherents But as Unanimous and as Clamorous as they seemed for his Deposition the Vid. Rot. Parliament 50. cited p. Dr. B. greatest Contenders for it as some of our Historians affirm lamented it with regret when it was done and Stow tells us that when the Queen understood Vid. Stow 224. her Son was Elected she seemed to be full of sorrow as it were almost out of her Wits and the Son lamented too and swore that against his Fathers Will he would never take the Crown And after all what succeeded this most unjust Deprivation and Imprisonment of a King but what still is its immediate subsequent the Barbarous Murder this was verified in the following fate of King Richard this was the unfortunate Consequence of our late confined Martyr Mattrevers Iron soon followed the firsts Imprisonment in Corfe and Berkley Gastle Exton's Poll-ax as quickly dispatcht the Second at Pomfret and the Block at White-Hall too soon attended the Confinements of the last Martyr in Carisbrook and Holmby confirming even with his last breath and verifying in his latest Blood this too fatal Aphorism that a Death soon follows the Deprivation of a King and that Vid. Eâ—kon Basil there is in his own words but a little distance between the Prisons and the Graves of Princes And now the next that enters this Theater Royal is Edward the Third a Son too forward to accept of a Crown before 't was his due But notwithstanding this Rebellious Instance he hath given not so formally chosen as to make the Kingdom Elective for their very chusing of his Son and that the Eldest insinuates that in spight of their obstinate dissobedience their resolute Rebellion they were still toucht with a sense of right and priviledge of Primogeniture and the small remainders of Majesty the bare Right they had left him awd them so far as to think it necessary to palliate their too open villanies with the formality of a Resignation neither would the Son accept it neither was he proclaimed or Crown'd till his Father had resigned and let the bold audacious force they used for it lie at their Door that vindicate it his resigning entitled his Son and he had a sort of Right in Civil Law besides Hereditary pro derelicto Here 't is pretty remarkable the fine sort of Observation he makes on the Bishop of Canterbury's Text vox Populi that it was the voice of the Almighty Brief History p. 6. too and impiously upbraids the sacred Dust of their own Martyred Lawd for placing a Divine Right in Kings when some of his Predecessors had so well lodged it in the People but did not the Impudence of his Brow almost exceed the villany of his Heart his Conscience as hard as his Fore-Head or both he could never thus inhumanely reflect on him whom they butchered too as barbarously and that with such a Reflection that flies in his own Face when the very Opposers of this pious Praelates Opinion verifyed afterwards his Prophetick fear and by the placing this Divine Right in the People sent assoon his sacred Majesty to follow the Praelate But can ever Wretches show more industrious Malice towards the Government when they shall close with the Doctrines of their worst of Enemies and which they would be thought so damnably to detest to do it an Injury cite you the Authority of the most Zealous Catholicks when it will make against the Monarchy yet baffle and burlesque the very Bible when it makes for it the malitious Miscreant knows the Clergy then were all bound by their Oaths besides their Opinions to be the Bigots of Rome He knows the Popes supremacy then would not admit of the Kings He knows the pleasing of the People was then the best Expedient for the promoting the Pope that from them came all the Penny 's that paid them for their Pater-nosters and that this beast of Babylon against which our Zealots pretend too as much Brutal rage then only trampled upon the Necks of Kings not only had Her stirrops held by them but rid upon the very backs of Princes and that only because the poor People were so Priest-ridden would he have had that Popish Prelate preach to them the Kings Supremacy told them he was not to be toucht because jure divino when themselves make it the Doctrin of their Church to dethrone them certainly such Sycophants dissemble when they cry up the Reformation that rely so much upon the Religion of those times before they were Reform'd The Bishop as he thinks having now Principes Regni habito Concilio apud Westm Pol. Virg. Lib. 5. pretty well asserted the Peoples supremacy by making them Divine he brings in as prettily Polidore Virgil proving them to be all Princes so that we have now but one Subject left and that 's the King but by his leave the Governments bark must be wrackt in a Rebellion and a storm before they can come to Reign like so many Trincaloes in the Tempest The Gentleman sure read Shakespear instead of Virgil and thinks our Isle enchanted too but to be serious in matters of Blood and Right and that when both Royal could any Person of sober sense be so simply sollicitous as from an Author forreign unknowing our Constitutions calling some of our Subjects Principes to suggest their Supremacy their Superiority we know as well as he what he means by it or what he must mean that they were some of the chief of the Realm and will that make them Rulers too the
whom they had preposed for their Head And well might they distrust the Councils of such a State that while they pretended the Reformation of Religion could chop off the Head of the most zealous Reformer and as Baker calls her Page 284. one of the first Countenancers of the Gospel make her Issue spurious that was like to and afterwards did prove the most Protestant Princess and all this but to please a Lididinous King that could make her suffer for his constant Crime Inconstancy when that too was so little prov'd and her Innocency so much whatever prospect these pretenders of Reformation Papists were then Martyr'd for opposing their Kings Supremacy Protestants the Mass a sort of Parliament persecution destroying both Witness the 6 Articles set forth in 31 of his Reign Burnets Abridgment pag. 157. Viz. The Protestant Queen gave to the Princes of the Empire that they should think of making the head of this dissembling Parliament that of their League too I am sure they must all of them as Oates did when he took the Mass the Sacrament for his Religion only pretend it and tho they made the World and Forreign Princes think well of their affections to Reform tho they had excluded the Pope still they and their King could remain Papist's and a Reverend Author that has had the thanks of the House says that a Parliament was Summon'd that was resolv'd to destroy her so that we see a Parliament could then contrive to make our Nation signifie so little abroad and that our present King without one signifies so much that he stands the sole Arbitrator of War and Peace and Europe only debar'd of the benefits of it by the very Faction that upbraids the Government with its being disesteem'd and this Noble Traveller not only taken the Liberty to Lye with Fame but given Fame it self the Lye After he has Thunder'd out his Anathema's Page 20. against the State in the Jargon I recited above of Evil Councellors Pensioner Parliament thorough pac'd Judges which still the most malitious Soul can't allow to be the true Reasons of our Maladies and Distempers But however the State Negromancer with his Rosacrucian the Doctor knew these terrible Names with the Populace are swallow'd like his Pills without chawing and which they understand no more than his Catharticks with which they are compos'd with that unhappy effect too that they can no more discern the bitter cheat when these Prepossessions are got into the Guts of the Brain then that of the drug when in those of the Belly but like Persons absolutely possess'd rave and rail only with the same words that are dictated by their Devil yet after all this and having Libel'd Courtiers that contrary to the true meaning of the Law as well in this Kings time as in that of the Late they have got Parliaments Dissolv'd Vid. p. 20 21. Plato Red. Proroug'd for the keeping of the Governments Life and Soul together after all these Seditious suggestions still he defines but Negatively that none of these are the Causes but the effects of some Primary Cause that disturbs it but I am afraid this Primary Cause to him is yet an occult one unless the Discovery of our late Plots has so far illuminated his Understanding as to disclose it or he consulted his Doctor for his Diagnosticks and got him to make a better Crisis and Judgment of the distemper of the State But for those Acts by which he thinks his Majesty is oblig'd to call a Parliament for the Triennial one I think runs with a Clause and a Proviso that it may be oftner call'd and within the Term if occasion be and pray who shall be Judg of that occasion the King who calls them or the People who would be call'd and what if it be Judg'd an occasion not to call them at all the Preservation of the Prerogative may as well exclude the force of this as some new Emergencies which themselves plead for upon a necessity and for the Common-wealth and Peoples Benefit and Advantage can Invalidate others but for that obligation and Law for the Parliaments sitting in the late Kings time that which he would truly have reinforc'd is their Page 21. being perpetual again and not to be dissolv'd but for that I think he need not perswade the Courtiers to Address or be so bold to Petition himself unless he would tell his Majesty they must again have the Militia they must fight once more against his Person for the sake of his Authority and sit taking of Covenants and Associations till they have taken off their King But after our English-man has been so tedious in his Impertinence so Fulsom in his Complement that the Venetian is forc't to condemn his troublesome Civility that is our Author begins to be asham'd of himself Why then we come to know that before this great Secret that occasions our Disquiet can be disclosed before we can come to know the Distemper that disturbs our own We must Discourse of Government in general and for the Original of it the Gentleman is resolv'd to doubt And why Because this Government must be Antecedent to such Authors as could give us an account of it and the matter of History as I suppose he must mean did occur long before they could get Historians to transmit it to Posterity as for particular Governments he is forc't to allow the Knowledg of their Originals to be possibly transmitted and truly that he might well in Civility consent to what in Modesty he could not contradict and Rome and Athens will be found what they were in their Primitive State so long as we can find Authors Plutarch Florus Paterculus c. that can tell us of a Romulus a Theseus for their Founder But when the Gentleman is so cruel to himself as to keep close to the Text that there is no Origen of Original Primitive Government known for in truth these last mention'd might be Modern and I believe that Rome and Athens were never heard of when Sodom and Gomorrah were burnt with Brimstone then he is forc't to give himself the Lye and the word of Truth it self God and the Bible and that he does in excepting Moses from the number of those that had the Help and Information of any Constitution Antecedent as the Founders of the foremention'd Monarchies that were Establisht so long after might well be supposed to have had for their Instruction and yet does that sacred Penman inspired by God himself almost Coaeval with the World give us a clear account of all Original Government from the time that there was a Man to Rule or a Beast to be governed and that too of an absolute Monarchical Empire So that all what the sublime Speculations of this refin'd Politician can cavil at is only that we can't give him an account what was done before Adam what truly was the Constitutions of their Government and whether the Prae-Adamites liv'd like our
how vainly he presumes upon his parts and Invention that he is a double Plagiary not only borrow'd this pernicious project against the present Privy Council from these proposals of our Seditious Senate in England but his very Quarantia of Venice was set up long before he could for an Author by those Zealots that were so resolutely resolv'd to Rebel in Scotland and he shall see those Daemagogues too those Devils of Sedition look't upon it even then as a praeparatory project and the best Expedient for their Invading of the Kingdom and the Crown Their Edenburgh their Metroprolis as well as ours here was then the Seat of Sedition Anno 1638. so truly great that it's Faction and Villany was Commensurate even with it's very Walls And those too when Casually fallen were not suffer'd to be built as if they would have let the World known by praediction their Ominous Treason was to extend further 't was here that the Sycophants at the same time they pretended so much for their Kings preservation that they protested against the pious Prince's Proclamation only for the dispersing of that dangerous Rabble that seem'd to denounce with an Omen what too fatally follow'd his Death and Destruction his Majesties sincerity to them and their Religion was repeated in it often with assurances but what was as Sincerely promis'd from a King by these Monsters of the People was as Rebelliously Ridicul'd with scorn and derision and that the Government might be satisfy'd with a sure report of their Sedition they made those Heralds that Vid. Sir Will. Dugdale's short view 45. p. 48 49 50. proclaim'd their Princes pleasure to witness how much it displeas'd his Rebel Subjects and in defiance to their very Faces read their own Protestation Big thus with Rebellion and Labouring with their teeming Treason at last they are fairly deliver'd of the same Rebel Brat this Republican would adop't for his own a QVARANTIA they Covenant and agree and 't was time to Vnite for a Justification of those Villanies which nought but a Combination could defend for erecting four principal Tables and 't was time too to set up their own Councils when they had so Seditiously resisted their Kings To pursue the Contempt of this Proclamation which by his Majesties Council and Command was publish't for a further Violation of the Regal Authority they set up this truly Popular the first of their four Councels to consist of their Nobility the second of the Gentry the third of their Burgesses and the fourth of their Ministry and the Decrees of these their principal and general Tables as they call'd them as if as Universally to be receiv'd as Moses his Two of Stone what they did and was approv'd of by the Baker 406. General one the Choice Flow'r of all the Four was to be forc't as the Peoples Law but far I am sure from the Fundamental one of the Land from this their Rebellious assuming of the Soveraignty in their pretended Councils as they call'd them too but in truth a Convention of Conspirators proceeded presently the Renewing of their Negative Confession their Band their Covenant impos'd on all sorts of People with artifice force and Blood it self And can a Test now establish't by Authority and Law be look't upon an Imposition even by those that impos'd Oaths Vnlawful and Rebel'd against both it being by them expressly declar'd in two several Acts that all Leagues of Subjects amongst 10. Jac. 6. Act 12. Parl. 9. Regn. Mariae Act 75. themselves without their Princes Privity to be Sedition and their Authors and Abetters to be punish't as movers of such And what did this Venetian Government terminate in in Scotland but a plain Confederacy to confound all and tho the Civil and Courteous contriver of our Ruin and Subversion minces the matter with making his Majesty to Exercise his four Magnalia with the consent of these four Councils 't would puzzle his Politicks to tell me the distinction between them and those principal Tables of the Scot what should confine them from Confederating against their King instead of Consulting for him Plato p. 240. what would signifie his Majesties having a president among those of his own placeing when every one of them would be their own Masters and out of his power to displace what should hinder those from protesting with their old Rebellious Assembly in Scotland against all their Kings desires intentions and Inclinations for the publick good while they presume their own Maxims the wisest and their measures the best and to tell us that these are to give Account and to be answerable to such a Parliament who chuses them is to say a Sidney is the best Judge of the Misdemeanor of a Nevil most qualifi'd to answer his Quaere whether this project be not a better Expedient than the Justitia of Arrogan or the Spartan Ephori or to Plato 242. tell us one that has suffer'd for Treason to a Monarchy is the fittest to Try him that would betray it to a Common-wealth The second Proposition in the Parallel is that Affairs of State be managed by the Parliament or by such Councils as they shall appoint The true Spirit the Life the Soul of Sedition that informes and animates the whole Body of the Faction speakes here the Dictates of this Daemon this Devil of a Republick that has possest the Nation for this five years with greater Phrensy then e're he did before the Restoration when by the very Finger of God he was first cast out and would now return too with more worse than himself only because he finds it swept and garnisht For I desie the most diligent Perusers of the most pernicious Libels that were Printed in 1642. the most Pestilent time when Treason was Epidemick and spread as the Plague it self more than once did and that in their Mighty Babylon their Metropolis too I challenge even those to shew me so much Penn'd even then to persuade the setting up a Republick as has so lately been Published in this very piece His Majesty upon the presenting these Vid. Kings Answer to the 19. propositions their Proposals I have parralleld told them they designed him for a Duke of Venice and that they only dared to do when they had bid him defyance to his Face and made him fly for refuge to his Friends when they had a fund for Rebellion in the City A General and an Army in the Field but here we have a single Republican declaring expressly for the good Government of the Venetian Arraigning of our Monarchy condemning of our Courts reforming of our Councils only to set up their Republick for the framing their Decemviral the constituting their Quarantia the making every Member of Parliament but a Noble Man of Venice Rex est principium caput Finis Parl. Vid. Modus tenend Parl. 4. Inst fol. 3. and his Mighty Prince that presides in it by Law as a Principal Head but
Nation it self shewed afterward against that Apostolical Order he told the People plainly they must Murder all the Bishops And in his canting Phraseology * Vid. Leighton's Sions Plea Printed 1636. Smite them under the fifth Rib. 'T is true the Government of Church and State stood yet so strong upon its Basis tho shaken with an undermining Plot that it dared to punish such an Execrable Villain with the Pillory and sentenced he was in the Star-Chamber to be stigmatised cropt and slit and tho the Parliament had not openly declared themselves against this good Government of the Church yet they had shown such Symptoms of their Disaffection to it that this Impudent Libeller could presume to make them his Patrons and present them with his Plea And I ha'n't found in all their Journal any Order for so much as the censuring him for such a piece of Presumption To exclude the Bishops from Voting in their Assembly the Confederates of Scotland drew up a Libel against them one in the Literal Sense full of Scandal and Reproaches But the denying them there their Rights in Parliament was soon seconded with the Robbing them of all too they had in the Church whom they had excluded they soon Excommunicated and then abolisht utterly the sacred Order so did also within two years after the good Parliament of England begin with the Prelacy too Pennington with his packt Petition of Prentices presented to them their Abhorrence of that Hierarchy the cunning and counterfeit Commons that House of Hypocrisie seemed a little dissatisfyed with an Alteration of the Church Government it self that is they did not care to pluck it up presently Root and Branch but fell upon another Argument somewhat more plausible tho to the Zealots less pleasing but what in truth was but Introductory to the same thing they more deliberately designed that they might proceed somewhat like Senators soberly to Sedition and that was about the Synod and Convocation Canons and Constitutions Ecclesiastical which they soon resolved to be against the Fundamental Laws of the Land But these Lay-Members were only mighty loth the Clergy should here have their Representatives as well as the Laick they must otherwise have seen that such a Resolution would upbraid them to their Faces with a Lye for this their Court of Convocation was as much founded upon Law and more too perhaps than even that of the Commons themselves who with their inconsistent Votes with Contradiction it self condemned it Exclude the Clergy and the very Foundations of your House must fall Did not former times allow you Representatives that every one might have an Hand in the Composition of that which he had an Obligation to obey Banish the Bishops your Assembly and tell me by what Proxies the Church shall be represented and what shall tye her to the Observation of those Laws to whose Constitution she gives no consent For a Thousand Years before they had a being there were such * Beda tells us Augustine the Monk called one of the Britain Bishops An. Dom. 686. King Ina's a Convocation of Cletgy An. Dom. 727. of the Saxons Synods Assembled never called but by the King 's Writ and they have no other Authority for their own Sitting and might as well have Voted that their own Assembly as indeed it was afterward was ‖ The very Words of their Vote against the Cannons Vid. Journal against the Fundamental Laws of the Realm Prerogative of the King Property of the Subject Right of Parliament and did tend to Faction and Sedition And tho those Canons and Constitutions were streightned and limited in Henry the †Register F. N. B. 4. Inst p. 322. c. 71. Eight's Time and it was provided that none for the future that had not the Royal Assent should be put in Execution yet such Reverence and Respect had the Parliament of those Times which I think was made up of a better sort of Reformers than what past their suffrages for the setting aside this Synod that not withstanding that Limitation they put in an express Proviso * Vid. 25. H. 8. for their Antiquity See Bracton l. 3. f. 123. Hol 303. 6 H. 3. Rot. p. 18. Ed. 3. that such Canons as were made before that Act so long as they did not contradict Law should be still in force after and this was at a time too when they were so far from being the Bigots of Rome that they were reforming from Her and acknowledged their Kings Supremacy even in ‖ 26 H. 8. c. 8. several of those Convocations tho whatever Religion they were of Common Reason cannot make it a Crime the countenancing of the Churches Right but these Violators of her Priviledges soon discovered their Design upon her Patrimony too for in the same Session and that soon after they that thus set aside the Churches Synod sent up an Impeachment of Treason against its Metropolitan and that by the Hands of a mighty famous Member whom his Majesty could have made appear and within a year after did demand as a greater Criminal too one who if I mistake not liv'd so long and so lately to prosecute the Bishops once more in their †His Discourse of Peerage London 1679. which Hunt himself could oppose Peerage as well as Persons But having gone so far what they had scribbl'd down before with their Libels they soon damn'd with a Vote And in the same Year past that Bill that their Spiritual Lordships should have no suffrages in the Senate of Lords And when they were come to this once to deprive them of their prescrib'd Privileges and their Legal Rights to send twelve of them to the Tower only because they would not tamely forego the very Church's Birth-right but entered a * they sent Glyn upon the resentment the Lords had taken against it too to accuse them of no less than High-treason for which they were committed for four months Vid. Bak p. 515. An. 1641. Protestation only against the betraying of their Trust you might think their Order it self tho never so Primitive never so much Apostolical was not like to be long liv'd for in the very next Year tho it was the good Kings giving one when Star-Chamber was abolisht the High-Commission put down Ship-Money relinquisht with six or seven several Acts besides for disclaiming Priviledges still his Seditious Subjects 1642. According ly done in the next year Ordinance 12 of June Vid. Scob. Col. p. 42. had so little Sense of his Goodness that even in that very season of Grace a †Bill was brought in for Abolishing this sacred Order Root and Branch 't is true 't was then husht up in the House the provident Patriots understood how to time it better they had not yet come to covenanting and concluded with the Kirk but as soon as they had framed their Holy League ‖ Mildmay's Oath taken 15. of June 43. Scob. Col. page 42. in Imitation of the Scots solemn one which they
pretend to so much Candor and Sincerity that had so little Shadow for such a Pretention His Falshoods look'd as if he designed and thought he could have imposed upon the Government and his God and in spight of Providence to have secured himself from the Justice of that which was established and at the same time made sure of the favor of those that were for undermining it The one was to be blinded with his being Author of the Bishop's Right The other imposed upon with his Penning the Postscript But however he deceives himself the Almighty will still make good his own Word That he won't be mock'd He has denounced express Judgment against a double Heart and the Nation now deserv'd Justice To such a Sycophant With what Face can such a Rumper tell us in the tayl of his Postscript that no Passion or prejudice perverts him against the State of the Kingdom when all know that it 's being thus established not only lost him a place in the Law but disappointed him of being an Irish Judge and thus the virulency of his Pen betrays the truth of His Passion which he would Apologize against with a lye and that it can rise as high as any Furies for as deep a resentment of an esteemed Injury when the Government all the while was far from doing him any wrong But if it should meet with him now I dare swear would do him Right And this is altogether Reasonable the World should know that the best of our Rebellious Male-contents tho' they strive to palliate their Passions and Prejudices against their Governors with a show of being impartial and indifferent that 't is but a meer shadow to could the Fire that Glows within while truly still implacable impatient and impossible to be govern'd and that those that pretend but with Moderation to discommend many things in our Monarchy have nothing in them but the meer Malice and Spirit of Republicans And this will appear from his very first Paragraph that provokes my Pen He lets us know that the Church of England is like to fall into that of Rome * by the unpresidented folly of some of her Sons Fall by a Divine Fate as pag. 8. 9. he makes his Holyness to say for her folly That is as he must mean by Consequence for maintaining a Divine Right For to this purpose says he Sir Robert Filmer's Books were reprinted and others for the same And truly I am so far of this Gentleman's Opinion that the good man the Pope may very likely call it a very foolish thing and laugh at the Doctrine of any Kings Divinity that endeavors to set himself above all Kings so that unkind even to himself and his Friends the Dissenters he unawares ties them up together with the Tenents of the most turbulent Jesuits of the Romish Religion and endeavors with the self same Arguments and Objections to set up the popular Supremacy that those Politicians do the Papal But first only let me beg a postulate or two from him that pretends to be a Christian which an Infidel or Heathen won't deny much less then one that has the Bible for an asserting its belief viz. 1. That power in general without appropriating it to any particular Government is somewhat that is Divine not barely as it is exercised by some Humane Beings below but as it is communicated to such from their God above that is all so and hath it as one of his Attributes any of which is Infinite and adaequate to the Divinity it self 2. That this power is actually communicated to some Being here below for their better Government and Subsistence no Humane Beings but such as desire to live like Beasts can well deny 3. That this part of God's Attribute so communicated to Man from his * Gen. 1. Verse 18. own Mouth Dominion imparted cannot cease to be Divine notwithstanding such a Communication though to a Creature Humane all that understand the least part of Divinity will assert and without any supernatural Illumination even from this natural simile of the Sun's Light can easily comprehend which tho' it dart its rays through almost an Infinite Darkness yet wheresoever they are extended still remain Light neither is his own by the Kindness of such a Communication the less So that taking it for granted which must be that a power of Government is communicated to us here below by the God that Governs this and all above and this so communicated remains still Divine where-ever it is lodged the Question is reduced only to this Whether it appertains to a Multitude as many or a Sovereign Sole whether with their St. †1 Pet. 2. 13. Peter 't is seated in the Ordinance of Man or the Powers with * Rom. C. 13. 2. St. Paul are ordained of God That this Divine Power and Right is ‖ 'T is probable the consent of the people at our Coronations began first to be used when our Kings came to the Crown by bad Titles as K. Steph. H. 4. R. 3d. and so superfluous when a Successor has one so good the People can be only concern'd in their own Usurpers they put up a good Author tells us Heylin's History Edw. 6. that he was declared their King by the Bishop without the form of asking consent Vide also Mills of Cant. his Catalogue of Honour from thence Heylin has it in Kings he has superseded my Labour to prove by letting us know 't is the Opinion of most of our Orthodox Divines and their Sentiments are sufficient to determine the point especially in Matters to be prov'd from the Bible whose best Explanation one would think must be found amongst those whose Profession it is to expound unless you would imagine the Bishops the better Readers upon the Statute Hunt and his Casuists the most Conversant among the Critiques That this power Divine is plac'd in the People I 'll shew is the Opinion both of some violent Jesuits and the most virulent Phanaticks and their Seditious conspiring in the same sense the most powerful persuasive with me that their Sentiments are Erroneous their Positions a Lye Bellarmine * Bellarmine de Laicis l. 3. C. 6. tells us God has made all Men by Nature equal and therefore the Power is given to the People †Buch. de Jure Regni p. 11. Buchanan tells us That they have the Power and from them their Kings derive their Right ‖ Doleman l. 1. C. 3. Parsons proves Kings have been Lawfully chastised by their Subjects * Knox Hist 372. 343. Knox says Princes for just Causes may lawfully be deposed or bridled by the Nobility * Suarez defen Fid. Cath. l. 3. C. 3. Suarez shows the Power of Deposing a King to be in the Pope or the Common-wealth ‖ Calvin's preface to Instit 2d Edit And Calvin seems for the suppressing the rage of unruly Kings as well as the Ephori did those of Lacaedaemon â€
the Word Country that was I believe as well as he antecedent to the King but must it be inferred because the Land was once without Kings therefore now no Kings must govern the Land For the Conclusion is as absurd to say That therefore the People have the Legislative and their Prince no Negative they do not consider the result of such rash Inferences which return upon themselves more stronger in the rebound and that even upon their tenderest places which they can hardly suffer to be touched Kings and Lords did a long time meet in Parliament before Commons in that Convention were so much as thought of and therefore must none now be convened The Papists proudly tell us their Religion was long before Luther and must we not now profess our Protestant Religion Another of the same Nature and as much Nonsense is * Ibid. this They infer from the possibility of the King 's dying without Heir and the Government returning to the People who then would be the Sole Legislators That therefore they must have much now of the present Legislative and be at least Co-ordinate that have a possibility of being Supream The Supposition sounds somewhat like the Song of the Children When all the Land is Paper c. Tho it spoils another good Proverb That no Man dyes without an Heir but the silly Souls do not consider that by the same Solecism and Supposititious Reason not a Subject has a Right to a Foot of His Land For the Law says All that is in England belongs to the King as ‖ 12. H. 7. 20. Coke 1. Inst p. 1. Lord which if the owners dye without Heirs must escheat to the Crown and sure 't is as possible for any Subject to dye without Heirs as his Soveraign when the †25. Ed. 3. Treason to destroy the Heir of the Crown Law has taken special Care for them and then 't is but turning their possibility of a Right into an actual one and they will be the most obliging Subjects to the Crown that bring such Arguments against it Another of * Pryn his Treatise ibid. Pryn's pretty Paradoxes is the very same with ‖ Postscript pag. 51. Hunt's impudent Assertion I may with Modesty call it so since himself says he dares to be so bold to assert it It is that our Kings anciently always consented to Bills offered for the publick good and the Postscript that never any Bill was lost or wanted the Royal Assent promoted by the GENERAL DESIRES of the People That Bills have been rejected they 'll find upon Record and in the Journals of almost every Session and whatever is presented in Parliament must be supposed the Desires of the People who Sit themselves there in Representative but the mistaken Gentleman meant it of the Bill of Exclusion to be the Peoples General Desire but that at last he finds a Lye too and that the Generality have for the most part protested against it in Addresses declaring more the Sense of a People than a prevailing Party in an House of Commons when the best part of the Nation too the Lords did not concur But did not in * Vid. Camb. vit Eliz. 106. Edocta fuit quantum emineat a successore designato periculum Queen Elizabeth's Time and that even so lately the Parliament and even every Individual in the Nation desire her to declare her Successor I am sure with greater Sollicitation and a more general Unanimity than they could be said to desire that Exclusion of the present King's did not the two Houses offer her four subsidy Bills upon that very Consideration and she as resolutely reject both And could the refusing to shew even a Kindness to her next Successor upon the importunity of all her People with Money in their Hands be less resented And shall the King for declaring only against a Bill that was never tendered him for declining to concur in this deepest Injury to his own BROTHER and Heir and to pleasure those only that denyed to part with a Penny be reproached and condemned so much more Did not the Parliament tender to King James three several subsidies to break of the Match with Spain and the Treaty of the Palatinate and he refuse tho tempted with what is seldom the Subjects Bait Money How many Bills of Rebellion did the Mutinous Members and that in the Name of all the People prefer in their Propositions to our Martyred Soveraign to which the poor Prince prefer'd the most Ignominious Death rather than condescend with his Veult or Avisera * Hunt's Phraseology pag. 94. Base Caitiff forgive but your own Billings-Gate should these neither have wanted the Royal Assent because offered in the name of all the People of England and as the general Desire of the Subject if that Suggestion must have extorted his Assent then mighty Miscreant he must have past an Act for his own Tryal Sign'd a Warrant for his Murder for in that name he was Arraign'd †Vide Bradsh K. Tryal in that name he was Sentenc'd and in that he dyed Poor prejudic'd Soul whose discontent and Transport makes his own Maxims undermine the very Cause he would defend Is then this general desire of the People such an absolute infallible Determination of Matters of Religion and Descent of the Crown the very only points he labours for that if their Desires be but promoted put up in a Parliamentary way by Bill or Petition it must presently oblige the Royal Assent Be it so base Creatures your own Arguments as basely betray your own Religion your own Arguments well help truly to subvert that which you seek to Establish with such a furious but false Zeal for ought I know the Protestant Religion had been so setled in its Infancy in its first efforts of Reformation in the Reign of him that was the first Defender of our Faith that it could never have been so often interrupted with a succeeding Persecution had but Henry the Eighth refused the Bill of the * 31 H. 8. Six Articles prest upon him by both Houses this was Judged a just and necessary Bill from Hunt's General desire of the People but had it not been better had it not saved the Blood perhaps of all the mighty Book of Martyrs had the sturdy Prince rejected this as he did many other general Desires It was this Royal Assent alone which would to God it had been wanting and this Sycophant would have wish'd so too did he really love the Reliligion he so falsely labors for It was the Le Roy vult the result of the Peoples importunity that then establish'd that Religion by a Law which had it been but then neglected that which our Zealots make such fearful clamor at standing upon its last Legs had quite languish'd dropt into the Grave and been buryed in the Ruins and Rubbish of its own Religious Houses they demolish'd For in the latter end of his Reign so enraged did he seem
against some Persons of that Perswasion that he acted as if he would have executed their very Religion * Vid. Burnet's Abr. hanging up some Carthusians even in their Habits and immured nine Monks in their own Monastery where they dyed This was it that so settled what they call Superstitious Worship that it survived the short liv'd Reign of the pious Edward and in Spight of all his providential care for it's exterpation run only like the Guaronne that Miracle of a River in one of their Climates of Popery if their Histories of their Country be not Legends too only through a little Province in silent darkness underground but rose again and that with greater rage in the next Region This good Kings Laws about Religion would never have been so soon repealed the Commons House never have been so forward as the * Barnet's Abridgm Cl 3. 229. Divine Doctor whom themselves have thankt for it does make them for the sending up a Bill for the punishing all such as would not return to the Sacraments after the old Service Had the Six Articles been but past by instead of being past into an Act they would have had no such Service to return to they would have been Strangers to Rome and it's Religion and tho they were repealed in Edward the Sixth's time his Fathers ratifying them made them take such root that his short Reign could never Eradicate that left so many Catholicks in the Kingdom that Commendone the Popes Legate might well come over to reconcile her Highness's Crown to his Holyness's See And here had not the Queen if such a thing could have been expected from a Sister of that Church so Zealous done much better had she refused the Bills of both Houses brought her for introducing the Pope's power and Supremacy your selves Seditious Souls reproach this Royal Assent with Reflections so scurrilous upon her Memory that the worst of Monarchs could never Merit and then only give but Loyal Ones leave to think that your Excluding Bill tho never so much the General Desires might have been as much cursed by posterity when it had entailed upon it Misery and Blood the common Consequences of a debar'd Right To come now after this Ecclesiastical point of the Church to that Civil one of the State that other thing this Lawyer Labors for the Descent of the Crown Shall the Peoples general Desires in this too terminate the Will of the Prince why then that Monster of Mankind as well as Monarchs did mighty well too to pass that Murdering * 1 Rich. 3. Bill presented by both Houses of Parliament to make good his own Title to the Crown by the Butchering of those Babes in the Tower for no less could be expected when it was once taken up by the Tyrant than their Destruction for the Maintaining it so that this Peoples Desires dispatch'd them in the Senate before ever they were strangled by Tyrril in the Tower Had it not been a much greater Honor to the Prince to have refused such a Barbarous Bill than turned Usurper and a Butcher for it's acceptance Had it not left a less Blot in our English Chronicle as well as upon the Nation less Blood ‖ 28. H. c. 7. Rast 4. Did not both Houses exhibite a Bill even for the making Elizabeth the best of their Queens a Bastard And does Mr. Hunt say this desire of the People too did mighty well to prevail as it always ought upon the King Did not that Royal Assent so blacken his Person and brought the Nations repute so low that the very Protestant Princes left him out of their League whom they had designed for its Head and look'd upon our England as a lump of Inconsistancy whom such Vnanimous Leaguers could not Trust And was it not in his Reign That a Zealous * This was the Opinion of Sir Thomas Moor too and the Brief History might have cited this too as he does another Opinion of this prevaricating Papist for his purpose Papist said It was the Parliaments Power to make a King or deprive him a fortiori then a Popish Principle to destroy or exclude his Successor But as bold as this Gentleman thinks himself when he dares to say Never any †Vid. Brief History p. 18. Burnets Abrig p. 313. King denyed to pass those Bills which the People pitcht upon to present 'T is none of his own Politick asseveration tho it be but a piece of Sedition It is no more than what a Seditious Senate ‖ Page 50. Vid. Declaration of Lords and Commons about the Kings Coronation Oath Parl. 41. told their King long agon A Senate that sate brooding on the pure Elements of Treason and of which Pryn himself was a principal Member A Senate that sowed so much Sedition in one age that all the Succeeding will hardly eradicate A Senate that sate drawing out the Scheams and Platforms of a Common-wealth A Senate that assumed to themselves indeed the Legislative the Nomothetical Disposition of the Law but they proved such a Confounded sort of Architects in the State that they drew a perfect plan a confus'd Ichonography for Rebels to build upon their Babel Those told us in plain Terms what * Hunt and Pryn. these more cautious Coxcombs insinuate with a silly Circumlocution That the King is bound by His Coronation Oath to grant them all those Bills their Parliament shall prefer And that they gather from their contradictory conclusion that bandy'd Banter they have Box'd about in both Reigns for almost these two Ages the ‖ Concedas justas legis esse tenendas c. Quas Vulgus elegerit Rot. Parl. H. 4. VVLGVS ELEGERIT I am sorry to find these Seditious Souls not only to want Sense but Grammar Lilly would have told them more of the Law and his Constrctuion and Concord made a better Resolution than their Coke upon the Case But as the People when they have got the Power will soon decide on their side the Supremacy so these Times did here assoon turn the Tenses and transfer the past Laws into the Future and 't is no wonder that those that did the Statutes of their Prince could dare to break the Head of a Priscian Is not the perfect Tense much more agreeable to Sense and Reason here than the Future The question is Whether it shall be meant of those Laws the People shall Chuse or have Chosen I won't object here Our Kings being absolute and compleat Monarchs without so much as taking such an Oath without so much as being * Coke 7. 106. 11. Calvin 's Case Watson Clarks 1. Jac. Coâ—e 7. fol. 30. Crowned which is the Time it is to be taken tho of that the Law has in several Cases satisfied the most Seditious and so resolved their silly Suggestion The resolution I shall give is the Strength of Reason and that must at least be as Strong as the Law Let it be but once allow'd That their
on whom it was Entailed before and with his 35th reinstated them both again and that both in Birth and Tail And lastly that of Queen Mary's Entail was by a biggoted House of Commons that brought in that very Popery they now so much and so vainly fear and were like to have Entailed their Religion and Laws to the Vassalage of Rome as well as the Crown to the Heirs of Spain And is this thy Loyalty Seditious Sycophant this thy Religion to bring us presidents for Rebellion from Acts of Parliament and the Statutes of Apostates for the Establishing Popery The ‖ 13. Eliz. 13. of Elizabeth is such an one too as none but a †Hunt's Postscript page 51. Defier of Sense could have design'd for Application It is apparent that it was a Design to Secure the Crown to Her the Right Heir and that tho by an Indirect means An Act which she doubted her self whether with all her Parliament she could pass but was assured all her Subjects would like it when it was done upon a double Design to Secure her Title against the Pope and the Pretensions of the Queen of Scots * Cambd. vit Eliz. Cambden the best Account of her Life makes it a Trick of Leicester's ‖ Besides had he Consulted other Books before he writ his own by what appears by Keeble Stat. that very Act is expir'd of no Force and so he has made himself a Knave in Fact as well as Fool in Application but let them Lye for it for once and raze the Sacred Truth of History and Record which the Law makes Felony even in their own sense it was enacted for securing a Lineal Descent to those that they thought the Right Heir But theirs would have been a Disinheriting of one they knew to be so It is Prodigiously strange to me that those that contend so much for this Parliamentary Power over the Succession of the Crown that this Judge Advocate for the Parliament * Postscript p. 71 72. Hunt himself that tells us plainly 't is not establisht by any Divine Right but is governed according to the presumed Will of the People that these Sycophants do not consider they do the greatest Disservice to that Honorable Assembly put the greatest abuse upon that Ancient and truly venerable Constitution they give the Lye to several Acts of Parliament made in the best of times and make those Legislators the worst of Villains or the greatest Fools or in his own phraseology Wicked Impious Sacrilegious for have not they in several Reigns by Special Act recognized even a Divine Right as well as an Hereditary In the first of ‖ 1. Ed. 4. Rot. p. n. 9 10 c. Edward did they not declare that their Soveraigns Title to the Crown was by Gods Law and the Law of Nature Did they not even to a Tyrant a Murderer one fit only to be the Peoples Creature whom no Nature or God did design for the Throne Did they not resolve his Right to be both by God and Nature ‖ Exact Abridg. fol. 713. Rot. R. 3. Tell me was it thought so Divine so natural so Sacred THEN even in the worst of Men and must it be impious Sacriligious in the best of Princes Did not their best of * 1. Elz. c. 3. Queens receive her Crown with a Recognition of it's Descent to be by the Laws of God And lastly look upon that of King †1. Jac. c. 1. James where with unspeakable Joy they acknowledge he Reign'd by the Laws of God And as * Posts p. 87. new as he calls the Doctrine for five hundred year agon both by Divines and Lawyers it was allowed of and maintained ‖ Gervasius Doroberbensis Coll. 133. 30. Gervase the Monk tells us it is manifest the Kings of England are obliged to none but GOD and †Bracton l. 4. c. 24. Sect. 5. Bracton that lived and wrote in the same Reign of Henry tells us their King was then only under God and will neither Law nor Gospel History Ancient and Modern Rolls Acts and Acknowledgements of Parliaments themselves satisfy them that they have nothing to do with the * Dr. Burnet tells us H. 8. declared upon a dispute about Ecclesiastical Immunity very warmly that by the Ordinance of God he was King Hist Reform l. 1. pt 1. fol. 17. Either the Dr. lyes or Harry the 8th or this Doctrine is not so new but 200. year old SUCCESSION Never could any Person that had not Proclaimed open War with Reason and broke all Truce with Sense suggest as he does that the difference between the Descent of the Crown and that of a Private Estate are Reasons for altering the Succession which is one of the best Arguments for it's being Vnalterable Does not the Law provide that but one Daughter shall succeed to the Crown and that for the Preservation of the Monarchy which must be but of one and no Co-partners of a Kingdom And so also the Son of a Second Venter to prevent the want of Succession shall be admitted to the Throne when he shall be Excluded an Estate His fancy of the Royal Families being Extinct and that then the Majesty of the People commences was long since the pretty conceit of Will. Pryn too In which they tell us as Pryn's Parl. right c. I 've told them before just as much as an old Aphorism When the Sky falls and spoil another good Proverb that No man dyes without an Heir But suppose what can be may be Would not all this mighty Constitution of Parliament be gone too when there was no Successor of a King to Summon it His * Postscr pag. 73. Majesty of the People might set up another Policy of Government they think if it pleased But would not their Majesty of the People find it more agreeable to Divine Institution to agree upon the same Government in another person in an Extremity for would it not be more agreable even to their own Interest to prefer that under which they had enjoyed so long such an Experienced Happiness since the Almighty does not Reveal himself as he did of old to Moses and the Prophets and bid them arise and Anoint him a King over his Israel But as Mr. Hunt's private Estates tho I know not with what equity a mere Fiction in Law robs a man of so much Realty are frequently recovered with fine at Common Law against the Right Heirs he won't pretend therefore sure a Parliament shall a Kingdom and a Crown against a Royal Successor His own Reason for it is the best Refutation for I say too the Crown is ‖ Postscr l. p. 72. Governed by other Rules than a private Estate and the Romans who were Governed by those Civil Sanctions that have since the whole World tho by those they had a Dominion over their Issues Heirs and Estates yet those will not grant even to Kings the power of Disenheriting their own
them to declare for the Kings Heirs and Successors and the Protestant Religion might still be maintained under any perswasion of their Prince unless the Nation was obliged to believe their Politick presumptions in a piece * Their Association of Treason for Gospel and as infallible as a Creed and that because their Associated Excluders in a Scheam of Rebellion tell us Queen Mary proved the Wisest Laws insignificant to keep out Popery therefore it must be concluded it connot now be kept out This Gentleman knows that I believe chopt up so much Logick with his Commons at the University if Educated there where commonly better principles use to be Instill'd that it is a most false Inference from a Particular to conclude absolutely and Vniversal and when besides Henry the 8th's Reforming Edwards the 6th's short Reign had hardly settled the Reformation there being more Romanists then in the Kingdom than such as had truly Reformed it was never truly begun or througly perfected till Queen Elizabeth's Reign which might be easily observed from the Parliaments so soon declaring for that Religion in Queen Mary's first entrance upon the Throne yet however he might observe tho the Suffolk Men set her up as undoubted Heir to the Crown which as the Bishop of * Godwin in Vita Mariae Hereford in the History of her Reign says was then so prevalent with our Englishmen that no pretence of Religion was a sufficient Suggestion for opposing such a Right Yet the breach of her promise to them tho no failure of hers could dispense with their Fidelity when they saw her bent for introducing a new one caus'd such a defection as might have endanger'd her establishment had not the Heyl. Reform p. 32 generality of the Nation been then of her persuasion But what Maxims of State should now move another Prince of that Religion to endeavor it's Establishment when all the Kingdom 's so bent against it when the Protestant has been rooted here 'T is remarkable that tho Men of the two different persuâ—sions plotted took Arms for the sake of these so much contested Religions both were still detected defeated viz. the Papist of Norfolk Devonshire under Ket Arrundel in the 3d. of Ed. 6. Carâ—'s The Protestants in the West Wiat in Kent in the 1 of Q. M. The Papist in K. J. the 1st the Prot. agen in this of K. J. the 2d demonstrations of Providence it self that no colour of Religion when both the Christian too shall ever bless a rebellion against the Royal Blood but that God who will be fear'd will have the KING honor'd for above this hundred years when now above all there is a Kings word that was always firm for the defence of that Church that has asserted his Monarchy So that being secur'd both upon Reason and such Assurance the most Seditious Soul must sit down satisfy'd So that this great point will come to this little whether having had more contingencies than now of having such a Religion introduc'd as first the great Gasualty there was of his not coming to the Crown which might have been prevented by a Natural death without their Expedients at the Rye their unhuman and unnatural Barbarities and then imagining what has since happened such an Actual Succession that Improbability of making such a sudden Alteration in Religion only for his own disquiet and without any probability of Establishment in his Reign which according to the course of Nature must be too short tho I shall still pray for any of the Lines longest Life the little continuance it can expect should it be introduced when all that are probably to succeed him are profest Protestants These being such casulaties as upon good Conjecture and Probability may interpose the question is Whether in prudence or Policy we ought to have Involv'd our State in certain danger only to prevent a contingent one I could never get any one yet to prove that to be matter of Expediency for the good of the Publick That such an Exclusion would have been certainly dangerous our Annals too sadly Testifie and any one need but to turn back to my Remarks upon our History and he 'll find it Chronicled in Blood And that any danger of our Religion is but merely Contingent must be allow'd by all that think it not Predestinated to be changed And what now have these good Subjects done to be thus reviled by the bad Why they have declared in their Addresses to Assert that Right which in their Oaths they have Sworn to defend And a Pious Divine that has dispensed with them Libels them for not being Perjur'd for company His * p. 7. distinction of the Religion being Establisht by Law is far from creating any difference for the question is here what is the Doctine of the Gospel and it can't be imagin'd any sort of Christians upon the Privilege of any Political Establishment are enabled to dispense with the precepts of their Religion and confute their Bibles with the Statute Book Saint Paul's sufferings are so far from discountenancing such a Doctrine that they are alone the best the clearest Confirmation of it he was beaten suffer'd Imprisonment and all for the sake of his Saviour he told them after his durance to whom they had done it and the greatest Sticklers for Passive Obedience will allow Mr. I. to plead his Magna Charta if he won't with the Barons beat it into the Head of his Soveraign with Club Law or knock out the Brains of an Imprisoned * So they murder'd at Pomfret Rich 2d King for it with a ‖ Vid. Baker p. 155. Stow says it was with a kind of death never heard of here p. 225. tho Walsingham would have it with Pining Battle-axe his Breath can plead his defence without Resisting unto Blood Paul could have pleaded his privilege of being a Roman and uncondemned sure as available before his Sufferings had he not thought it is duty to suffer and he may read in the same Book of those that went away Rejoycing that they were counted Worthy of it for his Name A man may be born to a great deal of Right when 't is none of his Birth-right to Rebel and that against the very Monarchy it self His case of the * p. 9. Pursivant is as much to the Purpose as if he had pitch't upon the First in the Report there was an Arrest of a Body by such an Officer to bring him to appear before them that constituted them an ‖ Erected 1. Eliz. p. Letters Pattents High Commission Court And as often it happens in Execution of the Law many times there is Opposition made sometimes Maiming is the Result many times Murder here it hap'ned that the †One Johnson Simpson's Case at the Assizes of Northampton Officer's Assistant was kill'd and the Law that makes it but Manslaughter in a Common Fray in an Execution of an Office makes it Murder and
that must depend upon the Authority of that Court from whence such Officer receives his Writ Warrant or Commission 't is * Coke R. 12. pt p. 49. Vid. also the same Case 4. Inst Cap. 74. p. 333. But as quick as Mr. Johnson jumbles up the the business the Judâ—es defer'd their Judgment till the next Assize and then perhaps the emulation there is and always was between the two Courts made their Lordships at â—ast a little Partial Brownlows 2d pt p. 15. Humptons Case 42. Eliz. adjudg'd in the Case that they might have cited to Appearance and upon Contumacy to have proceeded to Excommunication and then have arrested upon their Writ of Capias but that they could not Arrest him outright upon a Surmise That a Man may resist an Authority that is not Lawful any man will allow for it is the same as if he resisted none at all however if Murder be the Consequence of such a Resistance all his Expositors upon the sixth Commandment will hardly help him to distinguish it into Man-slaughter And tho my Lord * Vid. Pleas of the Crown Hales Hales whose Memory will still be pious for his equal destributions of Justice was a great Latitudinarian in allowing too much scope for premeditated Malice yet the Decalogue will make that Murder for which the Law will allow him the Benefit of his Clergy and did in Harry the Eight's time without distinction to all sort of shedding of Blood and then the Book that he talks of was dedicated to Cromwel would have been Authoriz'd by the Law which in some sort it self then made all Killing no Murder neither in an equitable sense was this Homicide excused from being a Murderer because he resisted unto blood before the jurisdiction of the * Besides 't is observable the Judges at that time had a particular pique to the power of that Court which they thought invaded theirs and might be very ready to give Judgment against them in Criminal Matters as well as Plague y'm with their Prohibitions in Civil and as they were then great Foes so my Lord Coke in his discourse upon the Court is but little their Friend Court was Resolved and to him in a Moral sense 't was as much Guilt as if that Authority had been Absolutely Legal and tho he tells us he does not descend to false Arrests yet I thank him for his Condescension 't is to such a matter as is no way distinguishable from it for an Arrest without Authority is equivalent to a false and is as much Tortius and Force as what is done upon a Forged Warrant The Cases reported by those two Lawyers he cites one of them but a Protonothary that other our great Oracle in my Conscience were never designed for proofs against Passive Obedience By their Resistance here of the Law was never understood that which was forbidden in the Gospel besides it was but the Resolution of the Judges against the * So much were the people possest against the Power of that Court in King Charles the First 's time that 2000. Brownists broke into St. Pauls where It was sitting beat down all the Benches and Bawling No Bishops No Commission Vid. Dugd. view Power of that Court which to be sure they did not care to favour and those two Authorities he has cited none of the best in Matters of Allegiance and Loyalty that part of Coke is looked upon not very favourable to the Government and Brownlow first Printed when there was none But his Triumphant Distinction between his Religion Established by Law and that which has no Law for it's Establishment is not only far from creating a Difference here as I have shown before because the precepts of the Gospel which must be more immutable sure than a Persian decree are still the same and are now the Question but the Offering here of such a distinction is in Truth as impertinently applyed as it is really none at all for whenever he can imagin here which God will avert any Sufferance for the sake of his Religion it must be according to the Law of the Land or else he 'll never be brought to suffer I 'll secure his Carkass for a Farthing and be bound to supply it with my own for the stake if ever his be tyed to it without reviving of the Writ de Comburendo All the Martyrdoms in * In Q. Mâ—râ— Reign first the Parliament supplicated the Pope for pardon and promise a Return to Popery Vid both Baker and Barnet Queen Mary's Reign were but so many Executions of the Law and that Writ de Haeretico he 'll find in Fitz Herbert as well as a Common Capias so that himself must first without Charity which won't sure then begin at home Give his Body to be burnt with his Imply'd suffrage in an House of Commons for I believe He is not likely to be a Bishop before fire and faggot can come upon him to singe his Hair or touch his Garment for the sake of his Religion and how likely we are ever to meet with such a Parliament to Sacrifice themselves again to the Flames himself best knows who I believe does not fear it so that here his Foundation of Law Establishment has nothing to support it and then all his Privileges of Saint Paul his own Magna Charta his Case of Commissions all fall to the Ground and his very supposition of his Religion being Establisht by Law and at the same time against all Law to suffer for it is more contradictory than his Horns or Addresses for it can't be supposed but that the Power that punishes him for an Heretick will have Repealed all those old Laws that would have protected him for being such and enacted new ones to make him suffer for his Perseverance and 't is always remarkable and a great Truth that the laying down one single false Position can never be defended but with as many Lyes And this forces him to maintain the Christians suffer'd contrary to Law in the time of Julian Certainly he knows but little of Justinian and the Codes however his Hunt help't him to so much of our Cases out of Cook The Constitutions of the Jmperial Law were but the Decrees of their Emperors as well as the Corpus the Collection of one of them all the civil Law that governed then is called * Pacius In Instit Prolegom p 1. Caesaria Imperatoria because their Caesars their Emperors where the Authors of it and how can he plead for them their Charters that had nothing else to trust to but the Will and Edict of their Prince The Testamentary Donation of Edward the Sixth he brings for an Argument for Excluding the Right Heir which makes but very little for his own and as much for the cause he contends against not so Insignificant neither as he suggests only because they could not well avoid an Act of Succession in Harry the Eight's time for whether that Act had been
depended upon their permission And how it could otherwise well be no man can well imagin when their standing Armies were continually in the Field and a new Monarch commonly created with a Shout and Salutation of a Legion so uncertain was their Succession that they seldom had so much as Certainty for their Lives Look upon the List which I have leisurably examined and you 'll find from Caesar that was stab'd in the Senate to their Apostate Julian whom they would have a Christian assassinate in Persia I am sure half if not more were Murdered or destroy'd by some prevalent Faction or a mutinous Army and most of the Purples they wore were dy'd in their own Blood Julian's * Vid. Juliâ—â— the Apostâ—â—â— Caesars are just as well apply'd here to the Succession of our Prince of Wales as the Postscript has the Confirmation Post p. 47. of the Prince of Wales to prove the Legislative of the House of Commons On the other side our own Monarchy for fifteen hundred years Hereditary and that to be proved from all Chronicle and History have the same sort of Pens and whom this Author vindicates too with his * Brief History of Succession own endeavoured to make merely Elective I can't resolve this Spirit of Contradiction into any thing less than an absolute Conspiracy among themselves for the Vindicating rather Pagans and Infidels the Government of Rome or Constantinople before the Constitution of our Church or the Establisht Monarchy Upon the Publishing this pernicious piece and its falling into my hands I remember tho not much read in the History of the Church or the works of a Socrates or a Sozomen that I had casually lighted in one of them heretofore upon the passage of Jovian's this Apostat 's immediate Successor being saluted Emperor where the pious Prince told them he would never Reign over Pagans upon which they Reply'd they were all Christians and as such had submitted and not opposed the Government of a Julian because their Lawful Emperor a President so directly contradictory to those he brings that it was a sufficient Prepossession to me against the profest Sincerity of the piece Paganism is as much obliged to this Apostate Church-man as the Christian Religion has receiv'd from him the greatest disservice he represents to us in several places his Pagan Emperor even with the Meekness Page 37. of a Moses and with such a command of Spirit and Temperament of mind as if he would have him rather Worshipt as a Saint than Curst for a Persecutor he makes him to take Reviling patiently as if he 'd let us know he also could imitate his Christ who reviled not again with such mollifying expressions in several places to the very reproaches of the meanest as if he would recommend the admiring of him for an Hero which makes me remember his dying Words I met with once in Ammianus Marcellinus so full of Magnanimity and all the highest Expressions of a Moral Vertue that of an Expiring Pagan he seem'd to me the most like a dying Christian But on the other side those Pious Souls those Glorious Martyrs fam'd for their Primitive Meekness and Moderation that in the midst of Tortures have accounted it worthy to suffer for the sake of their Saviour blest their Persecutors in Groans in imperfect sounds and unarticulated accents of Agony and Anguish that tir'd the Invention of their Tormentors as well as baffl'd their Tortures and with exalted Affection of Spirit Triumph'd in the midst of Flames These has he fairly represented for the most Malicious Seditious and Rebellious Brood of Christians that ever breath'd under any Government altogether Pagan What good the Protestant Religion can receive from such a Representation of the Primitive Christians must be in pleading prescription to a warrantable Rebellion and what Obligation Christianity it self has to such a Protestant is the making her much worse than the Wildest Paganism Had he consider'd how unreasonable it was only from the selected Instances of some Turbulent Spirits how Irreligious and Vncharitable it is from a few furious provok'd Persons to have cast such an industrious blemish and blot upon the Practices of all the Primitive Christians of those Times certainly he would have found it much unbecoming his Profession more his Religion Why does he not conclude from thence too that in those days we never had any Martyrs or that all Fox's mighty Martyrology is nothing but a mere Romance for he 'll find Her Majesty the persecuting Mary in many places as severely handled Why does he not tell us in her time Wyat Crofts and Rudston REBELL'D And then conclude we had no Cranmer †22. Aug. 1554. Latimer and Ridly that suffer'd Why does he not tell us of the Protestant Tumults of her time that there were those then could throw Stones and Daggers at a Bonner or a Bourn and not a word of the more Meeker men a Bradford ‖ Vid Burnets Abridgment 2d pt 3. l. or a Rogers that bid them be Patient and appeased them for his Maiden Virgin that Reviled Julian he could tell us too that of one Crofts a Maid that Mutter'd out as much Sedition against Queen * Baker p 329. Mary from the Wall and let him but deal as disingenuously in Conclusions here too the Reform'd Protestant will be as little Obliged to him as the Primitive Christian In short if Julian abounded with such a Spirit of Meekness as he in many places makes him to demonstrate where then was this Terrible Persecution with which he makes such a dismaldin If they were really Persecuted and Opprest how came they to be so powerful as to make such a signal resistance If his Old man in * Jul. p. 39. Berea was only rebuk'd by him for raging so hotly against his King and his Religion and only bid by his Prince in so much mildness as Friend forbear railing if at the Reproaches of the Antiochians he only declared against seeing them any more if as in his ridiculous Instance of old Father Gregory's kicking of his King he pag. 35. was so terrify'd and awd what is become of the Tyranâ— and all the Bloody Persecution that attended him to the Throne And if as in another place he has prov'd there was much the greater part that remain'd Christian where was this General Apostacy to the Pagan In my poor Apprehension the several Examples he has cited did in some sense tho beyond his design as much oblige his Adversaries cause and the late Case of Succession as some of the Loyal hearts that labour'd so much in its defence for they most of them prove that notwithstanding the perswasion of their Pagan Prince the Christian Religion flourisht as much as ever and he never Punisht any Person but for reviling him for his Apostacy to his Face and that they might have enjoy'd their own opinions quietly had they not so much molested and opposed his And must the Christian
them they are Christian ones too if they believe the Testament to which they swear And as this Gentleman agrees with and perhaps has borrow'd from this old Disciplinarian several of his Doctrines so has also Brutus's An Liceat resistere Prinicipegem Dei violanti Ecclesiam vastanti â— Juni Brut. quaest 2d Vindiciae handled the same Question which he has propos'd in this form whether it be Lawful to resist a Prince that Violates the Laws of God and lays waste his Holy Church But from that Excellent Author our Julian might not only have prov'd the Doctrine of Resistance to be the practice of the Primitive Christians but that it was much Older and Commanded by God himself to the Jews and as the former ‖ De jure Magis trattuum Author his Predecessor can only from the Text tell us of the Kings of Israel being oblig'd to propagate the true Religion such as David Solomon Asa Johosaph Hezekiah Josiah c. All Foreign to the Question so does this Brutus tell us an idle tale and the Fancy of his own Brain that therefore the People of Israel fell with * 1. Sam. 31. Saul because they would not oppose him when he violated the Laws of God that the People suffer'd Famine for their not opposing his perfidiousness to the †2. Sam. c. 2. Gibeonites that they were punish'd with the Plague because they did not resist ‖ Sam. c. ult David's numbring of the People and that the People suffer'd for †2. Chro. c. 21. 2. Chron. c. 33. Manasses poluting of the Temple because they did not oppose it But where still do any of these prove that the People did resist their Kings or were commanded so to do 't is but an Irreligious Presumption to think the Almighty should punish his chosen only because they did not Rebel against his Anointed when that Rebellion even by the same sacred Text is declared worse than Witchcraft and that primitive one of Corah and his Accomplices was so remarkably punish'd But I know these Authors will tell us That Eliah destroyed the Priests of Baal notwithstanding that Ahab their King countenanced their Idolatry That Jehoida the Priest set Joas on the Throne and not only rebelled against his Mother Athalia but destroyed her to restore the Worship she had abolish'd But in both these Instances they may do well to consider 1. That what was done here was by the express Direction of the true Spirit of God in his Prophets to which when our inspired Enthusiasts our Oracles only of Rebellion can prove their right as well as they but pretend it they shall be better qualified to Judge their King when he offends against the Laws of his God And does not the Text tell us upon these very Occasions always That the Word of God came to his Servants 2. Athalia here whom the People resisted deposed and slew had no Title to the Crown but what she waded through in the Blood of all the seed Royal Religion was not there the rise of the Rebellion but the right of the Crown 's Heir which was in the young King Joas whom they set on the Throne of his Father Ahaziah and for which Heavens had preserved him notwithstanding the Plot and Design there was to destroy him 3. If Religion were the Occasion of such Insurrection as it really was not yet the Worship then introduced was altogether Pagan which by the express Command of God they were bound to extirpate And whatever our Apostate fansies in his Comparison of Paganism and Popery my Charity will oblige me as a Christian not to look upon the Professors of the same God and Saviour like to so many Turks and Mahometans unless they can prove to me from the Text that by the Worshipping of Baal is only meant the Catholick Faith and to believe in Christ is to be an Infidel In the fourth place they do not consider that even their own Arguments make all such Applications to all our present Kings altogether impertinent For these * Junius Brutus quest 2. p. 37. Republicans that maintain these Doctrins tell us too that the Kings of Israel were always to be regulated by the seventy Elders as those of Lacedaemon by their Ephori that to these seventy the high Priest did always preside as Judg of the most difficult Affairs so that Arguments and Presidents brought from such Topicks where they make the Kings to be govern'd by their Subjects can't be applyed to Monarchs that are Modern and more absolute tho this their very Assertion that makes against their own Application is no less than a great Lye For we find both the Kings of Israel and Judah from the Chronicles the very Records of those times to be Princes altogether absolute and to have executed too that unlimited Jurisdiction I have related these few passages out of the fore mentioned Authors to let this unanswerable Julian see as I promised in the preceding Section that this his Case had been Controverted long before he could Read or Write and defended only by such Pens as have Publish'd themselves and their Principles both infamous to posterity such as have endeavoured to prove and promote Rebellion not only from the practice of the Primitive Christians but the Privileges of the * Haec scriptura nobis definiet quod populo Judaico Râ—uit imo quod in junctum suit nemo negabit quin idem populo Christiano c. Junius Brutas quaest 2. Jews the words of the Book of Life and the very precepts of the Living God His Comparison of Popery and PAGANISM might be as well returned with a Parallel of Johnson and the Jesuit for in many principles of Sedition they agree and he takes in some Sense a little pains to prove his Kindness to the Pagan that has thus traduced the Religion of the Christian And we see that some sort of Modern Protestants could not only side with the Turk in his Arms but almost in his Infidelity The Religion of the Romanists I shall for ever dislike yet still I would retain more Charity for the professors of the same God and Saviour than for an Heathen that is ignorant of both It was falsely inferr'd from a Person at Fishers Conference That the Church of Rome was the more Secum and Eligible for allowing no Salvation out of theirs whereas ours did out of our own a choice both Irrational and Vnbecoming a Christian who from the Charitableness only of our own might have thought it more eligible and safe But our avenging Priest here has pay'd them off with their own Spirit of POPERY and for their Damning of HERETICKS has sent them all to the DEVIL CHAP. V. Remarks upon Mr. Sidney 's Papers COULD the Principles and Positions of such implacable Republicans be Buried with their Authors or cut off with the venemous heads in which the Vipers are both hatcht and harbour'd our subsequent Observations would be superseded with
Monarchy it self they quarrel at the very Bible for mentioning so much as a King or Prince and they would make the version Libel the Original when it makes a Melchisideck the King of Salem or Hamor the Hivite Prince of the Country they would have their INDEX too and expunge a whole Chapter of Genesis Gen. 14. for talking of ten Kings besides Abraham and make all the Old Testament an entire Apocripha that does but mention a Monarch And for this ‖ Plato Redivivus page 23. Plato tells us plainly that Moses made them all Commonwealths and that afterward over those they call'd Kings the Sanhedrim and Congregation of the People did preside tho the Text tells us Moses was King in Jesurun Numb 16. and so the King it seems made it a Common-wealth These Rebels to the Majesty of their King are as refractory to what the Divine Majesty has approved they damn the very History of the Creation and the Original composure and Constitution of Nature because it once made a Monarch in a single Man and has puzl'd them to find out any more of Adams Common wealth but among his Beasts they Curse the Dispensations of Providence for preserving a Monarchical Government throughout the Universe and has left them nothing but two or three Rebellious States they condemn the deluge for not destroying Noah too but left so much of Regal Authority to remain in the Ark this makes them when they are perplext with the pesterings of some Loyal Positions to put us upon deducing our Kings Pedigree from Adam Hunt post or as Mr. Sidney says from the Eldest Son of Noah the Foolishness and unreasonableness Paper at Exec. of their Postulates the ridiculousness of those demands I cannot better answer to my Satisfaction or theirs then by sending them to St. John's Coll. in Oxford I 'll promise them there if they 'll be but pleased there they shall see even the most everlasting Line drawn down from the Garden of Eden to White-Hall from the first Adam to their present Soveraign K. James and if they don't like the Heraldry let them dispute it with the Painter I cannot tell how to gratify the Impertinence of their demands but with as pleasant a message But if a Man can be serious among such Buffoons I must tell them 't is one thing to say that Noah and Adam Rul'd by a Right Paternal and another that every Monarch must have the same Paternal Right from Adam and Noah 'T is one thing to say that God approv'd of Princes to Govern and another that he appointed to every Prince the same Right of Government the form of Regal Government I hope from the Royal Authority of the Patriarchs may be Justified to be of Divine Institution tho the Succession of the whole series of Succeeding Soveraigns be not resolv'd all into the same Title I can tell them of not only an absurdity but a plainlye would be the Consequence of such a position for then there must have been no Battels Fought after the Flood no Berosâ—s Priest of Belus talks of ten Kings of Caldea before the Flood Ten Kings in one Chapter of the Testament none of that long Catalogue of Egyptian Princes and in truth at present but one Vniversal Monarch in the World tho that some Learned and Laborious Heads do too industriously sometimes attempt to deduce from Scripture by the Almighty to have been once design'd and Babel for the seat of such an Empire For it would be a great piece of Paradox indeed and a greater of Impertinence to persuade such Seditious Authors there was ever any thing of an Vniversal Empire design'd that won't allow there was ever a particular one Establish'd That tell us no general revolts of a Nation can be call'd Rebellion and then I am sure they must maintain that there is no particular Tryal page 26. Supremacy from which the generality of the Subjects can be said to Rebel but Mr. Sidney borrow'd this pretty Position too from that pernicious piece that was publish'd about the Rights of Magistrates for that tells us too * De Jure Magistratuum sic Dani Christiernum c. sic Succi Sigismundum But this Author extends it too to absolute Hereditary Kingdoms as well as Mr. Sidney Sic Scoti Reginam abdicarunt perpetuo carcere damnarunt rectius audeo dicere eoâ— facturos fuisse si meritas paenas in eam exercuissent D. Jure Mag. p. 47. That the Danes imprisoning their King Christien to his dying day the Swedes rejecting their Sigismund for his persisting in the Romish Religion were no Rebels I confess their Monarchys admitting so much mixture of Democracy may make the people there to have a greater power in publick Administrations but certainly cannot well extend to impower them to subvert the very publick Weal it self which must be said to consist in the supream head of it the King and tho they will seperate his Person from that publick political Consideration and say they may maintain the Monarchy tho they depose such a particular King this will not mend the matter for those that have a power to reject ONE Prince are as much empowr'd to refuse to Elect another and then the result of it must be this that our Republicans will admit no more of a particular Empire then a Vniversal In short those that had but the least Inclinations to be Loyal and did but Love and like an Establisht Monarchy that were not resolutely resolv'd to Rebel against the Light of Nature as well as the Resolution of the Laws would soon see and be satisfy'd of the Solid Reasonableness the Innocent Truth of these three several Propositions I have so lately Labour'd in First that Primogeniture obtain'd by the Institution of the Almighty and his continued Approbation in the Bible both in Paternal discent and Regal ones and that the Laws and Practise of Nations have confirm'd it in both since and that home to our Doors Secondly that Paternal Right and Power by the same Authority of the Almighty has been prefer'd by the Laws of Nature Maintain'd and by the Civil Sanctions of all Nations Confirm'd Thirdly that Monarchy or Kingly Government is so far of a Divine Institution as it has receiv'd from God By me Kings Rule himself an ∥ Express approbation as it has been Intimated to us from the Worlds Creation and its first Regulated Establishment as it is Constantly Visible from all the Phaenomenons of Vnalterable Nature and as it has been Continually transmitted to posterity by the special Appearances of providence for its preservation And Last of all let me but only subjoyn the Excellency of this truly ancient venerable and divine Form of Government a Monarchy and then the many Mischiefs that attend the popular one a Democracy and then let the most prejudic'd and partial person judge not only which of the two has been always reputed most Eligible but which of them he himself would
Prince but were they the worst of Men that officiated in Publick Administration under their King such Republicans have the least reason to find fault when always in their Usurpations the greatest Fools aswel as Knaves have been commonly preferr'd What more Illiterate Blockheads did ever blemish a Bench than some of those that sate upon it in our Rebellion and for that consult the Tryal of Lilburn they Arraigned where you 'l find a clamorous Souldier silence and baffle them with his Books and invert the Latin Aphorism in a litteral sense by making the Gown yield to the Sword And for their Villany let Bradshaw alone And for that only be the best of Presidents The very Beggars and Bankrupts of the Times that bawl'd most for Property when they had hardly any to a penny or a pin were set up to dispose of the peoples Fortunes and Estates Princes as they are above all Men so generally make those their Ministers that excel others in Desert or Vertue because their persons are to be represented by them And they may aswel imagine a King would croud his Courts with Clowns to shew his Magnificence as fill his Judicatories with Fools or Knaves to distribute his Justice 'T is * Qui aliquod munus gerere debent virtutis habita ratione eliguntur Maecenas Orat. pro Monarch enough for an Oceana an Oliver or a Common-wealth to set up such ridiculous Officers Brutes beneath the Ass in the Apologue that will not so much as be reverenced for the Image they bear but even the best of Common Men whenthey are rais'd to some supreme Government prove like Beggars on Horse-back unable to hold the Reins or riding off their necks the wisest in their own ordinary administrations prove but foolish Phaetons when they are got into the Chariot set all in combustion and confusion The not being born to Govern or educated under the Administrations of a state makes them either meanly submissive in the midst of their Grandeur or insolently proud of their Office which renders them as ridiculously Great whereas Princes from an Hereditary VERTUE that consists alway in a MEAN or their nobler Education that instructs them in the Mode preserves them too from running into the sordid absurdities of such Extremes Many of such like preferable Conveniences might be reckoned up that make a Commonwealth less Eligible but for Confirmation of it it is better to have recourse to matter of Fact When did their Rome ever flourish more than under the Government of their Kings by that it was * Vid. Tacit l. 1. p. 1. Lucius Florus p. 1. Founded by that it was most Victorious and with that it alway fell Romulus himself first gave them their Religion and their †Lact. de fals rel l. 1. c. 22. God as well as the Government and with the assistance of his Numa brought them to observe some Ceremonies which the Trojans had taught them under whom did their City Triumph more both in fame riches tranquility and ease than under the Empire of Augustus And one would think that when the Controversie upon his coming to the Crown was then in Debate it should have been decided by the two famous Wits of their time in their Dialogue Maecenas and Agrippa It was submitted to their determinations and we see what was the result A MONARCHY Vid. Orat. Maecenat pro Monarch And that prâ—ferency of this most excellent Institution themselves most evidenced when upon all Exigencies and Difficulties they were forc'd to have recourse to a Dictator whom all Writers agree to have differ'd only from a King in the found of his Name and the duration of his Office the very Definition ‖ Dictator quoniam dictis ejus totus parebat populus Rom. Antiq. p. 170. of his Name implying that all were bound to obey his Edicts he had his Magister Equitum an Officer in effect the same with the Praefectus Vrbis which under their King was his Mayor And after that rash Rebellion of theirs against Royal Government after so many Revolutions of Tribunes Triumvirs Quaestors Aedils Praefects Praetors and Consuls were never at rest or quiet 'till they were setled again in their Caesars Themselves know best what the Sedition of Sylla and Marius cost them how many lives of Consuls and Senators besides the blood of the Commons Let them consult Plutarch and see the bloody Scene of Butchery and Murder Pray tell me mighty Murmurers in which was your Rome most bless'd or suffer'd least with the bloody War between Caesar and Pompey or the settlement of it in Julius himself Did it not bleed and languish as much with the Civil Wars of Augustus Antony and Lepidus as it flourish'd when reduc'd to the only Government of Octavius And would it not have been much better had those succeeding Emperors been all Hereditary when we find that for the most the Multitude and Soldiers were the makers and setters up of the bad and the destroyers and murderers of the best 'T is too Otho Vitellius Heliogab they set up Alexand Aurelianus Probus they murder d. much to tell you the story of our own Chronicles as well as their Annals how happy our Land was for a long time in a Lineal Descent of Hereditary Kings how miserably curst in the Commonwealth of England what blood it cost to establish it what Misery and Confusion it brought us when unhappily establish'd And as an Argument that the Romans flourish'd most under those Emperors see with what Veneration their Imperial Sanctions speak of their power they make it * Sacrilegii instar est c. C. 1. 23. 5. Sacriledg to disobey it they made the very memory of those that committed Treason against them to be rooted out the very ‖ Quisque vel cogitavit C. 9. 8. 5. Thought of it they punish'd with as much severity as the Commission all his Children Servants and whole Family were punish'd though unknowing of the Crime They punish'd those with the same severity that Conspired against any Minister of State because relating to the Imperial Body and that if they did but think of destroying them and even those that were found but the movers of †Ibid. Sedition were Gibbeted or Condemned to their Beasts And as Dig. 48. 19 38. those Laws made all the Sanctions of all Princes Sacred and Divine so do our * 33. Ed. 3 10. H. 7. 16. own declare the King capable of all Spiritual Jurisdiction in being Anointed with Sacred Oyl by which they give him all power in Ecclesiasticals too to render his Person the more Venerable and call the †Coke Litt. Sect. 1. fol. 1. B. The Possessions of the King are call'd Sacra Par trimonia Lands of the 1 Inst King like the Patrimony of the Church Sacred Prince and Priest were of old terms Synonimous and signified the same thing The Jews and Egyptians had no Kings but what exercised the Offices for a long
time of the Priesthood too with which they then alone made the Monarchy mixt and of this even * Justin l. 16. 36. Justin can tell us in one of his Books And for making their Monarchy more Divine did Romulus and Numa the Founder of their Religion as well as of Rome Officiate in it sometimes too So much did the Fathers of old prefer Monarchy to a Popular Government that Sir Walter Rawleigh Praestat regem Tyrannum habere quam nullum p. 182. tells us of the saying of St. Chrysostom that recommended even a Tyrant before no King at all and that is seconded with a Sentence of Tacitus who tells us If the Prince be never so Tacit. Lib. 1. Praestat sub malo principe esse quam nullo wicked yet still better than none And for that of a Commonwealth it was as bravely said by Agesilaus to a Citizen of Sparta discoursing about Government That such a one as a common Cobler would disdain in his House and Family was very unfit to Govern a Kingdom In short all the Presidents that Mr. Sidney has given us of the Romans driving out their Tarquins of the French rejecting the Race of Pharamond of the Revolt of the Low-Countries from Spain of the Scots killing James the Third and Deposing Queen Mary are all absolute Rebellions were ever Recorded so in History and will be Condemned for such by all Ages He should have mention'd for once too the murder of our Martyr'd Sovereign for to be sure he had the same sense of that upon which he was to have sate But if any thing can recommend their Commonwealth it must be only this That it cannot be so soon dispatch'd it being a Monster with many Heads to which Nero's Wish would not be so cruel That it had but one neck to be cut off at a blow The clamour this Republican made against Monarchs in general was whatever he suggests appli'd to our own in particular when he tells in the very same Page of the Page 23. Power of the People of England and though he exclaims and all others do against this Arbitrary Power of Kings 't is certain themselves would make the People as Arbitrary The Question is not whether there shall be an Arbitrary Power but the Dispute is who shall have it there never was nor ever can be a People govern'd without a Power of making Laws and that Power so long as consonant to reason must be Arbitrary for to make Laws by Laws is Nonsense These Republicans by confession would fix it in many and the Multitude in Aristocracy 't is fix'd in a few and therefore in a Monarchy must be setl'd in ONE CHAP. VI. Remarks upon their Plots and Conspiracies AND now that they may not think I have foully Libell'd them in a Misrepresentation of the dangerous Principles of their Republicans I 'll be so fair as to prove upon them too the natural product of their own Notions and that is the Plots of the same Villains assoon as they have been pleas'd to set up for Rebels And these will appear from Chronicle and History the Records of Time and the best Tryers of Truth these will not be falsified with Reflection but be founded upon matter of Fact And of these this will fall in our way as the first About the Year 1559 there was promoted in France a Plot and Conspiracy against their King and that founded upon the same pretext so many of ours have been of late in England that is Religion but truly fomented by what has been always the spring the very fountain of Blood and Rebellion discontent and disgust toward the Government For upon the death of Henry the Second and the Succession of Francis his eldest Son to the Throne the Princes of the House of Bourbon thinking themselves neglected and despised thrust out of Office and Employment at Court and finding the Family of the Guises still prefer'd whom they always as mortally hated resolved to revenge themselves upon the Crown that is to turn Rebels Of these Vendosme and Conde were the principal Engagers and drew in the two Castillions the * Gasper de Collign Mr. D' Andelot Admiral and his Brother who for the removal of the Duke De Montmorency their relation from that Court to which he had prefer'd them were as full also of resentment against the Crown as those that came to engage them with an invitation to invade it and after all their several seditious Assemblies after all the many Meetings they had made after all the Treasonable Consultations they had held no design was look'd upon by them more likely to prove effectual than the making themselves Head of the Hugenots And so hot were they upon this Project the pursuit of another kind of Holy War that among our modern Crusadoes has been nothing else but a Religious Rebellion that notwithstanding the coldness of the King of Navarr they drew in most of the Protesting part of France to be truly Rebels for the sake of their Seducers while they made them believe they had only engag'd themselves to fight for the Religion of those they had so wickedly seduc'd And so conducing then were the principles of a Republick to a Rebellious Plot that one †Alias Godfry de la Bar. Renaudie that was forc'd to turn Renegado to his Country for Misdemeanors committed in it and fled to Geneva as a Sanctuary for Sedition after he had lurk'd there like a concealed Criminal abroad upon his Return sets up for an open Rebellion at Home after he had layn so long in the lake the sink of Democracy you may be sure was well instructed how to resist a Monarch He soon blows the coals that could easily keep up the Blood of the warm Princes that was already set so well a boyling Him they pitch upon as the fittest tool to work out their design and in my conscience coming from that Common-wealth the Statsemen judged not amiss when they took him for an able Artist With his help and their own it went so far that Moneys Men and Amunition was provided and a Petition drawn for a Toleration of Religion though indeed but a Treacherous veil to cover their Intended Treason which was to seize upon the Young King upon his denyal of what they knew he would not grant surprize the Queen that still opposed them and put the Guises to the Sword whom she favoured But the Court being advised of the Conspiracy had retired to the Castle of Amboise and so far did they prosecute their Plot that their Petitioners were admitted into it though their Arm'd Accomplices that were without were compelled to fight for their Lives which Renaudie with the rest of the Ring-leaders of them lost and the Rabble to save theirs was forc'd to fly * To renew another about the end of this unhappy War were publisht those Treasonable Tracts De jure Magist Brutus his Vindiciae With another as pernicious a piece
have wisht a Fellow that had the Misfortune which he call'd Happiness to carry War and Confusion wherever he went We had several Protestants of our own Nation fled from a real Persecution of ou◠Zealous Queen to * Vid. Troubles at Frankfort Edit Ann. Dom. 1642. Frankfort a Town in Germany and there lived quietly with submission toward the Supream Magistrate till this Geneva Gentleman no sooner arrived but he sets all i◠Combustiom is accused of High Treason toward the Emperor for comparing him in Print ‖ Sanderson's History of King James p. 15. in some of Mr. Sidney's Similitudes to a Tarquin Nero Caligula for which he was forc'd to fly the Town and Post away to what could only bear with as well as breed such Vermin the Lake or their Commonwealth of Italy About the Year 1558 the Queen Regent of Scotland when the Reformation was but in the beginning as a special Act of Favour for so it must be call'd because then not only contrary to her own Religion but the Law of the Land allow'd the Congregators which were Conventiclers then too as well as now because the general Worship establisht was not theirs the Bible in their own Language But they no way contented with an Act of Grace from the Crown and Instigated by this Incendiary this Scandal of the Reformation Knox that had taught them they might Demand with their Swords what was deny'd them by Law fell a reviling her even for such a signal favour and when she sent for some of the more furious of the Faction they came all attended with a multitude of Favourites and Force that for her Preservation she was compell'd to Command them to depart And the best of Governors might well fear the worst from such an audacious Assembly but this was so much the more offensive to them only because they were Commanded to offend her less that they throng'd into her Privy Chamber threatned her with their Arms till she was constrained to pleasure them against Law And as they then menac'd a Force so they afterward made it good with as much violence for away they went pulling down Monasteries and * St. Andrew's Scone Sterling Edenburg c. Spotswood pag. 123 124. Churches and seconding their Sedition with what could only succeed it Sacrilege that is from Traytors to their Soveraign to be Rebels to their God And this by that Sanctified Beast that invited them to debase themselves to Brutes to be divested of Humanity was call'd a Purging of the Temple as if our Saviour Christ had countenanced an Extirpation of the Religion of some Christians But though the Queen at last granted them the free and publick exercise of their Religion though at last she only begg'd the private use of her own that was by such Seditious Subjects thought a boon too great to be begg'd by their Soveraign they Protest against it Preach against it Print against it and Assault her House of Worship break the Wax Candles with the Windows of her Chappel force their Queen Regent to fly to Dunbar and then as fairly Depos'd her for being fled though at the same time they profest against her Deposition And if we 'll believe a Loyal and Learned * Sanderson p. 31. Author they proceeded so far in their petulant piece of Reformation that they Religiously Reform'd the very Petticoats of the Queen and the Ladies of the Court which they look'd upon as too fine for the plainness or simplicity of the Kirk How near our present Pretenders that have taken Arms for the Protestant Religion will tread in the steps of their Reforming Predecessors must be Collected from the Precedents they give us of their being but Implacable Republicans especially when we have nothing now to be Reform'd unless what they deny'd to the Grandmother of our present Soveraign that their King himself shall not be indulg'd to exercise by himself the Religion he professes at the same time he Protests to defend all his Subjects in the establish'd Profession of theirs The Actions of the late Rebel Scot of the last Age they say squinted like their Argyle that headed them working one way when they profest to design another and they might have had as much reason to distrust the Promises of his late Declaration the Sincerity of his Son that succeeded him even in a Rebellion In the Year 1565 when the Queen of Scots was married to Henry Stewart Lord Darnly The Rebel-Lords instigated from the Preachings and Principles of this Knox the Ferguson of his Age who rail'd at the Government and reflected upon the King be took themselves to Arms and brake into open Rebellion Lord Darnly upon this Match being proclaim'd King marcht against the Rebels who fled into England and though through Intercession this Rebellious Business was Reconcil'd yet within two Years after the King was barbarously Butcher'd and Dispatcht but by whom because their Historians do not agree in it can be only best determined by Conjecture and must probably lye at their Doors that could Rebel against their Sovereign in an open War and then sure as likely to set upon Him in a secret Assassination especially when their Principles instructed them in both and their Preachers had made the Murder of their King an Oblation to their God And besides when they rebell'd also against Bothwell the Queens second Husband too as well as the first whom they forc'd to fly into Denmark seiz'd on the forsaken Queen secur'd her in an * Isle of Lochlevin Island compell'd her to resign her Crown and if we 'll credit an Authentick * Sanders History of K. James pag. 52. Historian were not so well satisfied with her Resignation of her Sovereignty but that they consulted too to deprive her of her Life and very likely to have prevented her loving Cousin Elizabeth in England Upon the same Principles the same Seditious Daemocraticks proceeded against her Son and Successor that was afterward our own Sovereign K. James then a young Prince about 12 Years old whom they †Vid. Spotwoods Hist p. 323 324. seiz'd at Ruthen carried in Triumph and Constraint to Edenburgh from which he was forc'd to contrive an Escape which he made by the Means of Collonel Stewart a Captain of his Guards but shortly afterward * An. 1503. incited by the Seditious Insinuations of their Geneva Principles brought them home fresh hot and reeking with Blood and Rebellion by one Melvill that had come from thence but a few years before to supply not only Knox's stock of treasonable Positions but to succeed him in his Place of an implacable Incendiary his Predecessor expiring a Year or two before he came over by this Factious Fellow 's and his Associates Seducements did I say shortly after the Earl of Gowry conspire against the King and break out into an open Rebellion which he deservedly suffered for with the loss of his Head Then is this succeeded by Bothwells Rebellion who had contriv'd
to seize the King at Halyrood-House but unsuccessful forc'd to fly and returning better assisted the second time effected what only he design'd at first But the King escaping to Sterling Bothwell is pronounced a Rebel by the States but yet is so well be friended by these Disturbers of all Kingly Government that they gave him the very Moneys they had collected for their beloved Brethren in the Republick of Geneva by which with other Assistances they enabled him to fight his King in the Field Then is that succeeded with a second of the Gowry's the Son of him that rebell'd before where they contriv'd to get the King to dine in their House at Perth seduc'd him up into some higher Chamber and there left him to the mercy of an Executioner from which his Cry and the timely Assistance of his Servants only rescued Him These were the Confusions Distractions and even Subversions of some States that were occasion'd by the restlesness of Implacable Republicans Emissaries of Geneva throughout France Flanders Scotland and Germany You shall see now in the next place what disturbances they have created us here in our own Isle what Plots and Conspiracies their Principles have promoted in England as if in that expostulatory †Que regio in terris c. Virg. Aeneid Verse of Virgil there was no Region upon Earth but what must be fill'd with their diffusive and elaborate Sedition Queen Elizabeth was no sooner setl'd in her Throne but they as seditiously endeavour'd to subvert it They libell'd her Person set their Zealots tumultuously to meet in the Night invading Churches defacing Monuments and so full at last of the Rebellious Insolencies of that Italian Republick to which they commonly repair'd to receive Instruction that her Majesty thought fit to hang up Hacket with a half dozen more of them as dangerous Subjects to her Sovereign Crown and Dignity †In a Speech to her Parliament dissolv'd An. 1585 and of her Reign 27 She declared them dangerous to Kingly Rule vid. Holingshed Stow. When King James who succeeded her came to our Crown did these Malecontents that had molested him so much in Scotland disturb his Government here too as much Melvil that Northern Incendiary was as busie with his Accomplices here too to set Fire to Church and State and for that purpose publish'd several Libels against both for which being then at London he was sent to the Tower And so far had those darling Daemagogues insinuated themselves that the Hydra of a Popular Faction began to shew its fearful Faces in the very first Parliament of his Reign though * 1 Jacob. 1. in that they had so fully formerly recogniz'd his Right For in some of those several Sessions of which that consisted one of the Seditious Senators had the Confidence to affirm in the open Assembly †Fowlis Hist pag. 65. That the giving the King Moneys might empower him to the cutting the Members Throats an Insolency that some of our Modern Mutineers upon the same Occasions have * Vid. Printed Votes H. Com. That the giving the King Money c. as seditiously express'd King James Dissolv'd that Parliament call'd another and that as Refractory as the former which instead of answering the Kings Request draw up their own in a Remonstrance †Vid. even Rushworth Coll. p. 40. c. 16. E. second it with a Protestation for Priviledges representation of Religion and Popery intermedling with his Match of Spain and several Affairs of State so that he was forc'd to dissolve that Politick Body too and soon after suffer'd a Dissolution of his own Natural one dying under the Infirmities of Old Age and leaving behind him an old Monarchy rather weakned with Innovations of Republicans with the worst of Legacies to his Son and Successor A discontented People an Empty Purse with a Costly War into which he was not so much engag'd as betray'd And now we are arriv'd to what all the Stirs and Tumults of our Seditious Souls our discontented Daemocraticks in the Reign of King James did aim at and design the Destruction of the Monarchy which they could not accomplish till this of King Charles in that they never left till they laid such a Plot that at last laid all the Land in Blood and made an whole Kingdom an Akeldama For that they first quarrell'd at the Formality of his Coronation because in the Sacred Part of it the Prayer for giving him Peter 's Key was first added This some silly Sots suggested to savour of Popery tho' it struck purposely at the very Popes Supremacy it self For that they begun to Tax their King for taking his Tonnage without an Act and yet refus'd to pass one that he might take it by Law unless he would accept of it in Derogation of his Royal Prerogative for Years or precariously during the Pleasure of the Two Houses when most of his Ancestors enjoy'd it for life Turner and Coke led up the dance to Sedition and reflect upon their King in their Speeches The Commons command his Secretary Office and Signet to be searcht and might as well have rifled his Cabinets too They clamour against his favouring of Seminary Priests tho' he had sent home the very Domesticks of the Queen and that even to a disgust to France and a rupture with that Crown They upbraid him for dissolving Parliaments tho' grown so insolent as to keep out the Black-Rod when he came to call them to be Dissolv'd tho' their King notwithstanding the provocations assembled another assoon and that tho' he had the fresh President of the then King of France That had laid aside his for a less presumption Thus they call'd all his Miseries and Misfortunes Misgovernments and Faults when themselves had made him both faulty and unfortunate They accuse him for favouring the Irish Rebellion tho' the first disorders in Dublin were by his diligence so vigorously supprest their Goods confiscated their Lands seiz'd their Persons imprisoned and such severities shew'd them by his Commissioners there that two Priests hang'd themselves to prevent what they call'd a Persecution The Scot Mutinies upon the King 's restoring the Lands to the Church of which but in the minority of his Father it had been robb'd assail the Ministers in the Church in the very administration of the Sacrament because according to the Service-Book Protest against their King's Proclamations set up their four Tables at Edenburgh that is their own Councils in opposition to their King 's Hamilton had promised them as Commissioner to convene an Assembly they come and call a Parliament by themselves which tho' dissolv'd they protest shall sit still then desperate in a Sedition break out into open War Invite Commanders from abroad seize Castles at home agree to Articles of Pacification and then break all with as much Perjury Lowden their Commissioner sent to propose Peace At the same time treats with the French Ambassadour for War bring their Army into
Northumberland and Durham and prey upon those Counties they had promised to protect while the Parliament at London will not give their King leave or the Citizens lend a penny for opposing those that came to pull him out of his Throne At the Treaty of Rippon they quarrel with their King for calling them Rebels that had invaded his Realm the Commissioners of the Scots conspire with the English who then fall upon Impeaching his Privy Counsellers and the unfortunate Strafford suffers first because so ready to Impeach some of them and they make that Treason in a Subject against the King which was heard known and commanded by the Soveraign Then follows Lawd a Loyal Learned Prelate and that only for defending his Church from Faction and Folly As they posted the Straffordians and repair'd in Tumults to their King for the Head of that Minister of State so Pennington with his pack of Aprentices petition'd against the Bishops and the Pillars of the Church Then Starchamber must down High Commission be abolisht Forest bounds limited yet all too little to please when the Irish Rebellion followed to which the Scots had led the Dance no Moneys to be levied in England for suppressing it till the King had disclaim'd his power of Pressing Soulders and so disarm'd himself that is he was not to fight for his defence till they had disabl'd him for Victory They quarrel with him because he would not divide among them the Lands of the Irish before they were quell'd and subdued at the same time they had quite incapacitated him to Conquer and Subdue them Then Acts must be past for Annual Triennial and at last perpetual Parliaments And whereas the Law says The King never Dies they made themselves all Dictators more Immortal They were summon'd in November and by the time that they had sate to May they had made of a Mighty Monarch a meer precarious Prince And in August following supposing he had sufficiently oblig'd the most Seditious Subjects which I think he might Imagine when he had made himself no King he sets out for Scotland to satisfie them as much there while the Senate of Sedition that he left to sit behind him resolv'd it self into a sort of Committee of Conspiracy and that of almost the whole House made a Cabal among themselves to to cast off the Monarchy which the Knaves foresaw could not be done but by the Sword and therefore cunningly agreed to second one another for the putting the Kingdom into a posture of Defence against those dangers abroad which they themseves should think fit to feign and fancy at home To carry on their Plot against the Bishops they put in all probability that lewd Leighton upon writing of his Plea which was Bring out those Enemies and slay them before him to smite those Hazaels under the fifth Rib For which in the Starchamber he was Fin'd and Imprison'd but for his Sufferings and the Dedication of his Book to the Commons they Vote him Ten thousand pound Upon the Kings return from his Northern Expedition which was to procure Peace only with a shew of War they having had a competent time for Combination and Plot were arriv'd to that exalted Impudence that notwithstanding he was received with Acclamations from all the common People of the Kingdom the People whom they were bound to represent the welcome from his Parliament was to present him with Remonstrances and Petitions which against his very express order they Printed and Publisht of such sort of Grievances that sufficiently declared they were griev'd at nothing more than his being their King They put upon his Account the thirty thousand pounds they had pay'd the Scots for Invading England that is they gave them the Moneys for Fighting of their King and then would have had the King paid his own Subjects for having against him so bravely Fought They should for once too have made him responsible and his Majesty their Debtor for the two hundred thousand pounds they paid the same Fellows at Newark to be gone whom with their thirty thousand pounds they had invited in before They should have made the King pay for his own purchase and answerable for the Price the Parliament had set upon his Head This seem'd such an unconscionable sort of Impudence that their hearts must needs have been Brass and seer'd as well as their Foreheads in offering it An Impudence that none but such an Assembly were capable of Impudence the Diana of these Beasts of Ephesus the Goddess of all such designing Democraticks * Aude aliquid brevibus Gyaris carcere dignum si vis esse aliquid Juvenal Satyr that to be somewhat in the true sense of the Satyrist must defie a Dungeon These their Petitions they seconded with Tumult and Insurection sent the Justices of Peace to the Tower only for endeavouring to suppress these Forerunners of a Civil War when they had taken the Liberty to Impeach some of the King 's best Subjects for Traytors yet deny'd their Soveraign to demand their Members that had committed High Treason About the twenty eighth of January 1641 they humbly desire the Soveraignty and their Petition that BEGUN Most Gracious Soveraign ENDED only in this Make us your Lords for they 1st demand the Tower of London 2ly All other Forts 3ly The Militia and they should have put in the Crown too The stupid Sots had not the sense to consider or else the resolv'd blindness that they would not see that those that have the power of the Army must be no longer Subjects but the Supream power The King you may be sure was not very willing to make himself none and might well deny the deposing of himself tho' he after consented even to this for a time but what he would not grant with an Act they seiz'd with an Ordinance and though they took the Militia which was none of theirs by Force and Arms yet Voted against their King's Commission of Array that was settled upon him by Law they force him to fly to the Field and then Vote it a Deserting the Parliament they necessitate him to set up his Standard at Nottingham and then call it a Levying War they Impeach nine Lords for following their King and yet had so much nonsense as to call them Delinquents which the * Vid. Com. Lit. 1 Inst p. 26. B. For adherency to the Kings Enemy without the Realm the Delinquent to be attainted of High Treason Law says none are but what adhere to his Enemies they send out their General fight their King and after various events of War force him to fly to the perjur'd Scot to whom they had paid an hundred thousand pounds to come in and were glad to give two to get out and for that they got the King into the bargain An Act of the Scot that was compounded of all the sublimated Vices that the Register of Sins or Catalogue of Villanies can afford feigned Religion forc'd Hypocrisie Falshood Folly