the Kingdom of the West Saxons I have now instanced in but in almost all the other Kingdoms of the Heptarchy in which there are to be found many more Instances of the Deposition of their Kings thaâ— what were in the West Saxon Kingdom this waâ— then very just and necessary since these Kingdoms were all Elective and none of them Hereditary and that the general Meeting of the great Council of the Nation was always at set and constant Times and did not depend upon the Will and Pleasure of the King either to call or dissolve them as I have already proved and that this Power was no unusual thing I appeal to all the Antient Kingdoms of Europe founded after the same Model as ours and which I mentioned at our last Meeting so that nothing is more frequent in their Histories and Annals than the Deposing of their Kings for the above-mentioned Crimes of Tyranny or Misgovernments But that some of these Gothick Kingdoms as Denmark and Sweden whilst they continued Elective have exercised this Power even till of late is so notorious in matter of fact that it needs no proof since the Kings of those Kingdoms held their Crowns at this day by that Title and on those Conditions which the Nobility and People gave them after the Deposition of their Predecessors But tho this were so anciently also in England it does not therefore follow that it must be so now for since the Crown of this Kingdom became Hereditary and that the Calling and Dissolving of great Councils or Parliaments came to depend wholly upon the King's Will I must allow that the Case is quite altered and that the Two Houses of Parliament have now no power to depose the King for any Tyranny or Misgovernment whatsoever The first Parliament of King Charles the Second in the Act for attainting the Regicides have actually disclaimed all Coercive Power over the King and yet for all that the Nobility and People of England may still have a good and sufficient Right left them of defending their Lives Religion and Liberties against the King or those commissioned by him in case of a general and universal Breach and Invasion of the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom or Original Contract if you will call it so and not to lay down those Defensive Arms till their said just Rights and Liberties are again restored and sufficiently secured to them So that tho' I will not bring the Custom of the English Saxons as a precedent for the Parliament's Deposing of the King yet I think I may make use of it thus far that this Nation has ever exercised this necessary Right of defending their Liberties and Properties when invaded by the King or his Ministers either by colour of Law or open Force And that this hath been the constant practice from almost the Time of the Conquest down to later Ages I think I can make out from sufficient Authorities both from Histories and Records M. Tho' your Doctrine is not so bad as I expected yet it is still bad enough and I never knew this Right of Resistance carried home but that it always ended in Deposing and Murdering of the King at the last as we have seen in our own Times But let the constant practice have been as it will I am sure such Resistance hath been always condemned by our Ancient Common Law as well as Modern Statutes as I shall prove farther to you by and by and therefore pray give me leave to tell you that the never so constant practice of an unlawful thing can no more justifie the doing of it than that constant usage time out of mind for Thieves to Rob between London and St. Albans not that I fore-judge you or refuse to hear any Instances and Authorities from Histories or Records to make good your Assertion F. I thank you for your patience what therefore if I prove that such Resistance has been not only actually exercised by the Clergy Nobility and People in former Ages but that it hath been also allowed by our Kings and approved of by great Councils or Parliaments in those Times for lawful and the Actors in it wholly indemnified and saved harmless nay a power given them and that by the King himself to resist him and defend themselves in case he broke his Charters and Agreements made to and with his Nobility and People or else with some Forein Prince may appear from this remarkable Instance of King Henry II at the end of whose Reign Hoveden in his Annals gives us the Conditions of the Peace made in the last Year of this King between him and Philip King of France with the Consent of their Bishops Earls and Barons where among other Articles you will find this for one particularly relating to the Barons of England who were also to swear to the Peace in these Terms Et omnes Barones Angliae jurabunt quod si Rex Angliae noluerit has Conditiones tenere quod ipsi tenebunt cum Rege Franciae Comite Richardo cos adjâ—vabunt pro posse contra Regeâ— Angliae c. Whence we may without doubt conclude that the Resistance of Subjects in some cases against their Kings was then allowed of even by the King himself and thought not inconsistent with the Allegiance they bore him tho' it might suspend it for a time M. I confess this Instance would be of some weight were it not for the Critical Time when this Peace was made viz. when Richard Earl of 〈◊〉 the King 's Eldest Son had Rebelled against his Father and taken part with the King of France and had drawn over a great many of the Norman and Pictavian and English Barons to his Party which when King Henry perceived this very Author you have quoted here tells you Quod Rex Angliae in arcto positus Pacem fecit cum Rege Philippo that is was constrained to make Peace with him so that King Henry being in this streight the King of France and Earl Richard with the Barons of his Party forced King Henry to sign what Conditions they pleased for there it no such Clause so much as mentioned for the French Barons But make the most of it it is but a Temporary Relaxation of Allegiance from King Henry to his Barons and the King might surely thus release them if he pleased But it is plain they could not have acted thus without this Condition had been expresly inferred F. Well supposing King Henry to have been never so much constrained to the making of these Conditions and that it was his own Act that rendred it lawful it still proves as much as I urge it for viz. that neither the Kings of France or England then thought this Resistance absolutely unlawful for then the King 's own Act could never have dispensed with it But to shew you farther that the People of this Nation have ever maintained this Right of Resistance even with the allowance of our Kings themselves and for the doing
should be perswaded by some very ill men about him to play this or the like trick whenever he had a mind to favour one party more than another and so should hinder the execution of the Law whenever he pleased can you think the Nation would long endure this without any resistance Or suppose to make the Case more general the King should undertake to lay a Tax upon the whole Nation without consent of Parliament and fearing it should not be Levyed should resolve to do it by his Officers and Soldiers of his Standing Army and lest they should be resisted should march with them in person from one County throughout to another to see the Money raised Do you think the whole Nation out of pure deference to the King's Person were bound to permit him to do whatever he pleased and let the Soldiers take this Tax which they were certainly not obliged to Pay had he not been personally there M. Yes I am of that opinion that they ought for it were better to Pay it then that a Civil War should happen about it in which the King's Person as well as the Government may be destroyed F. I see you are of this opinion because you fancy that the whole Government consists in the King's Person alone which it does not but in the Legislative Power which is not in the King alone but in the King together with the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament Therefore you are mistaken in supposing that this Resistance must needs alter the Frame of the Government since it is undertaken to maintain the fundamental Constitution of it for if the King may take what Money he pleases from the People and make what Laws he will without the Parliament and without supposing it lawful to resist him if he does the Fundamental Constitution of this Kingdom will be but a Jest considering how light some Princes make of their most Solemn Declarations to their People nay their very Coronation Oaths now adays And it is a strange Paradox that one man may defend his Life and Property against the King's single Person in case he go about to Rob or Murder him and yet that a whole Nation should not have the like Right and that a Prince may not Rob or Murder men by himself yet may do it without any resistance in case he can raise an Army to back him M. Let what will happen I am for understanding this Oath and Declaration in the strict literal sense which you by your false glosses go about to destroy therefore to tell you plainly my mind I think neither one single Person nor yet the whole Nation can justifie resistance of the King's Person no tho' he should go about to Rob or Murder me it were better I were killed or lost all I had than that the Sacred Blood of my Prince should be shed by my hands Since the whole Parliament have on behalf of the People actually renounced all defensive Arms against the King by which I suppose they mean all defensive Arms against his Person nor have you as yet answered my two last Objections concerning that Renunciation of the Two Houses and the want of a competent Authority to raise the Arms of the whole Nation in case of that which you call a General Invasion of Mens Religion Liberties and Properties if ever any such thing should happen as it is not likely it ever will F. Your Principles and Mine are so diametrically opposite that it 's no wonder we may draw quite contrary Conclusions for whereas you suppose that Nations were made for Princes to Govern and dispose of at their Pleasure without any resistance on the Peoples side let them do what they will I suppose that Princes are made for the common good of their People and where their Happiness and Preservation do not interfere ought inviolably to be preserved but when through the Folly Negligence or Tyranny of Princes that which was ordained for their Protection proves their Ruin and Destruction I think the Preservation of the Princes Person ought to give place to the Publick Good and better that he than the whole Nation should perish which though it was the opinion of Calaphas in relation to our Saviour yet it is so well approved of that it is said by the Evangelist St. Iohn that he spake not that of himself but being High Priest that year he Prophecyed For there may be a Common Civil Government without a King but there can be no King without a People Of this Opinion our English Ancestors always were who though they often resisted and sometimes deposed their Kings yet they still maintained Kingly Government though with the change of the person And if it fail'd in the last Civil War it was because it was at last managed by a faction of men of quite different Principles both in Religion and Politicks and not by the Nobility and Gentry of the Nation whose interest it was and ever will be to maintain the ancient Government of a limited Monarchy without falling into a Common-wealth or giving up their just Rights and Liberties to an Arbitrary Power But to answer the rest of your objections which if what I have already layd down be Law and reason too may be easily done As to the first Objection The two Houses might very well renounce the power of making any War offensive or defensive against the King and yet leave the right of resistance for self defence and preservation to the whole nation in general since the former was necessary unless they would have asserted a right in themselves of sitting whether the King would or not and waging a War against him whenever they pleased after he had actually dissolved them which would be to set up two equal absolute powers at once in the Kingdom But that they did not renounce it for the whole Kingdom is plain for though by the Statute of the 12th of Charles the II. they disclaim all coercive power over the Kings person for themselves and the People either collectively or representatively yet do they neither there nor in any of these Acts for the Militia renounce all defensive Arms for the defence of their Religion Liberties and Properties There being a great deal of difference between such a defence and a coercive power over the King as I have already sufficiently proved nor indeed was it in the power of the Parliament to have done it if they would since they are but Trustees for the People to preserve their just right and had no power so really to give up their Religion Lives Liberties and Properties to the Kings mercy So that this renunciation of all defensive Arms on the behalf of the whole People had been absolutely void in it self And since it would have rendered the legal constitution of the Government of this Kingdom wholy precarious if notwithstanding the illegality of the Kings Commissions and their being void if granted to illegal purposes the King's presence shall render it
any Legal Power all which could never have happened had not that War been not only begun but continued to the very last by a Standing Army which could give what Laws they pleased even to those that pretended to command them So that why the Abuse of this Right once in a Thousand years should be made any just Argument against the ever using it at all I can see no reason in the World for it As to the rest of your Discourse against making any War about Religion that is also as fallacious for tho' I grant that true Religion is not to be propagated yet I think it may lawfully be defended by the Sword especially where it is the received Establish'd Religion of a Nation or else the defence of Religion against Infidels would be no Argument at all to fight against a Turkish or Popish Prince that unjustly invaded us For tho' it is true that Religion cannot be taken away from any Man without his consent yet a Man may be taken from his Religion and when the Professors are destroyed either by Martyrdom or violent Persecution as bad or worse than death what will become of the Church and Religion Establisht by Law when all the Persons that constitute that Church are driven away destroyed or made to renounce it And for this we need go no farther than over the Water to our next Neighbour It is likewise as fallacious what 〈◊〉 urge of the great Corruption of Manners by Civil Wars which if it be any Argument at all is so against all Standing Armies whatever whether raised by lawful or unlawful Powers And I think there was much more debauchery in the King 's late Camp at Hounslow-heath as also in all places where they quartered than was lately at York or Nottingham among those that took up Arms in defence of their Religion or Civil Liberties unjustly invaded by the King and his Ministers nor does it always happen that Armies raised for defence of Religion and Civil Liberty must prove debaucht since we may remember that the Parliament Army to its praise be it spoken was infinitely more sober and outwardly religious than the King 's but if you will say that this proceeded from their Principles as well as good Discipline I know no reason why Men who fight in defence of their Religion and Civil Liberties may not upon Church of England Principles as to Church-Government and Common-Prayer and also by a strict Discipline be as little debaucht as any Standing Armies the most lawful Monarch can maintain who if they lye idle as ours have done all this King's Reign till now of late are more likely to fall into all the wickedness that attend a loose Discipline and want of Imployment and consequently may also corrupt the Places where they Quarter by their ill example M. I shall not longer argue this point since I see it is to no purpose But you have not yet told me what these fundamental Rights and Liberties are that you suppose the People may take up Arms to defend nor yet what number of the Nation may thus judge for themselves and take up Arms when they please for it may so happen that the whole Nation may be divided as to their opinions concerning these things And the South part of England for example may think their Religion and Liberties in great danger and that it is very necessary to take up Arms for it when the North parts are not under those apprehensions but lye still as was lately seen in the riseings for the Prince of Orange F. As to the first of these queries I think I can easily give you satisfaction and such as you can have nothing material to reply to And as for the other though I do not say I can give you such an answer as will bear no exception or reply yet I doubt not but it will be that which may very well be defended and may serve to satisfie any indifferent and unprejudiced person And which if not allowed will draw much worse consequences along with it And therefore as for the just Rights and Liberties we contend for they are only such as are contained in Magna Charta and the Petition of Right and are no more than the immemorial Rights and Liberties of this Kingdom and that first In respect of the safety of mens lives and the liberties of their persons aly The security of their Estates and Civil Properties And 3ly The enjoyment of their Religion as it is established by the common consent of the whole Nation All which I will reduce to these plain Propositions 1. That no Freeman of England ought to be imprisoned or arrested contrary to Law without specifying the cause of his commitment in the warrant or mittimus whereby he is sent to prison And he ought not to be sent out of the body of the Country or Jurisdiction where the crime was supposed to be committed unless he be removed by due course of Law neither ought he by the Law of England to be detained in Prison without Trial only for a punishment but ought to be Tried the next Assizes or Goal-delivery or within some reasonable time to be allowed of by the Court. And this was Common-Law many Ages before the Act of Habeas Corpus made in the 31st of King Charles the Second which does but ascertain that Law concerning bailing men for all manner of Crimes in case no Prosecution come in against them much less can the King or any Court below the whole Parliament banish any man the Kingdom in any case unless by some known Law already made whereby he is bound to abjure it upon a lawful Trial by his Peers and conviction by his own Confession 2. Nor can the King nor any Courts of Justice condemn a man to loss of Life or Members without due Trial by his Peers and Legal Judgment given thereupon And for proof of this I need go no farther than Magna Charta and the Petition of Right which are both but declaratory of the Common-Law of England◠see therefore Magna Charta cap. 29. Whereby it is declared and enacted that no freeman may be taken and imprisoned or be disseised of his freehold or Liberties or his free customs or be Outlawed or exiled or in any manner destroyed but by the lawful Judgment of his Peers or by the Law of the land which is also farther confirmed and explained by these Statutes viz. the 37 38 42. of Edward III. and 17. of Richard the II. all which are summed up and more particularly declared against contrary to the fundamental Laws of the land in the Petition of Right exhibited to King Charles the I. in Parliament in the thirtieth of his Reign wherein the late imprisonment of the Kings Subjects without any cause shewed and the denial of Habeas Corpus are expresly resented as also putting Souldiers and Mariners to death by Martial Law in time of peace And the King's answer to this Petition is remarkable
out the President and Fellows of Magdalen Colledge by the late Ecclesiastical Commission as also the turning out of the Deputy Lieutenants and Justices of Peace and all other Magistrates out of Cities and Corporations the King has sufficiently redress'd them by restoring the first to their places and by putting all the rest into Commission again and turning out those that came in their rooms and all this before the Prince of Orange came over and I doubt not but his Majesty would have been content to have given the Nation any other reasonable satisfaction they could have desired in the next Parliament Which ought to have been patiently waited for untill his Majesty thought sit to call it without going about to right our selves by Force F. I confess you have made not only the most plausible defence you can of the Kings late actions but have also urg'd the utmost that can be said against those defensive Arms that have been lately taken up by those Lords Gentlemen and others who have associated themselves to stand by the Prince of Orange till our grievances were redrest by a free Parliament but if what you have said be strictly lookt into I doubt it will prove but a mere Subtersuge to hide the nakedness of the Cause you have undertaken In the first place therefore let me tell you that though I confess the King has not yet Dragoon'd us to Mass nor has made an actual War upon the Lives and Properties of the People of this Nation yet that he has not only invaded our Liberties but also endanger'd the Protestant Religion of the Church of England establish'd by Law you your self have not the confidence to deny only you will not suppose it to have been done by any Armed Force and therefore ought not to have been resisted by Force but to have waited for their redress by Parliament which is but an evasion for in the first place it is plain that the things complain'd against in the Prince of Oranges Declaration do most of them strike at the Fundamental Constitution both of the Church and State as I have sufficiently prov'd and shall do it more particularly hereafter when there is occasion all therefore that remaines to be prov'd is this that all these breaches and violations of our Religion and Civil Liberties tho' done under colour of Law yet were acted and maintain'd by Force and Secondly that all other hopes of remedy or redress unless by joyning with the Prince of Orange was wholy taken from us the first of these I prove thus It is notoriously known that for the King to maintain a standing army in time of peace has been always declar'd against in Parliament as contrary to Law and dangerous to the Religion civil rights and Liberties of this Nation now it is also as certain that the King has ever since the Duke of Mâ—nmouths coming over set up and maintain'd a standing Army in this Kingdom in which he has also put in as many Popish Officers and they as many Popish Souldiers contrary to the Laws of the Land as ever they could find besides the many Irish Papists that have been of late sent over for no other purpose than to be listed here whilst Protestant souldiers were turn'd out of several regiments to make room for them not to mention the listing of vast numbers of loose and prâ—â—ligate fellows and some of them pardon'd Highway men who provided they had their pay would not have â—luck to Rob or Murder any body they had been ordered as may be sufficiently prov'd not only by their common taking of free quarter but by their frequent taking it in the houses of Gentlemen and other private Persons in divers places of this Kingdom and that without any amends or redress as I know of tho' frequently complain'd of at Court all which being done by the Kings arbitrary Power without the least colour of Law and in contempt of the Militia the only legal Forces of this Kingdom what was this but plainly to declare that as the King had thought fit to Act so many arbitary things clean contrary to Law so he was likewise resolv'd to maintain 'em by force since it is plain that the King never dur'st undertake to do all these Illegal and arbitrary things we have now mention'd untill such time as his standing Army was raised and tho' it is true mens Lives Liberties or Estates cannot be taken away unless by some Force or other either Legal or Military yet as for those Civil rights and Priviledges which are the main Bulwarks and defences of the former they can only be invaded or taken from us by Illegal Judgments and Declarations which if supported by a visible Force beyond what the Nation in the Circumstances it was in was able to resist this is as much a taking them by Force as if there had been resistance made about them Thus if Souldiers come into my House and say that the King hath given them Orders to quarter there upon free cost I suppose you will not deny but this is a forceable taking of my goods nowithstanding I dare not because I cannot resist them the same I may say for a whole Nation when once opprest in their Civil Liberties and those oppressions are once back'd and defended by a standing Army contrary to Law But that this Army was raised cheifly to this intent I can give you a remarkeable instance from the mouth of the late cheif Justice Wright who sent for Officers and Soldiers to make the Scholars keep silence because they Hum'd at what the President and Fellows of Magdalen's had just before done against the authority of this pretended court so that to conclude from that very time that the King beagn to keep up an Army and to list Popish Officers and Souldiers tho' utterly disabled by Law to take Commissions or to bear Arms by vertue of his Dispensing Power and all this in Order to back and support his Arbitrary proceedings I look upon this Nation under such a force as that they might Lawfully remove it by Force when ever they could And that either by joyning with some Foreign Prince or else by their own Domestick Arms. But to come to the second point to be prov'd viz. That there was no other means but Force lest us to redress these mischiefs and to retrieve us out of that sad condition in which we lately were as also to hinder us from falling into worse I shall only suppose that which I think you will readily grant that there could be no other means to cure these evils but either by some sudden change in the Kings inclinations or else by a Free Parliament the former you must acknowledge was not possible as long as he continued of the Religion he is of and suffer'd himself to be manag'd by the Counsels of the Jesuits and French King and as for a Free Parliament what hopes could there be of that as long as the King had done all he could
to hinder Free Elections and due returns of Parliament Men by making either Popish or Fanatical Sheriffs and putting Mayors and other Officers of the like Principles into most of the Cities and Corporate Towns in England nor can I tell but that force would also have been used if they found they could not have compassed their designs without it in those places where Souldiers were Quarter'd since I am credibly inform'd that at the late intended Elections of Burgesses for Northampton and Brackly the Officers and Souldiers Quarter'd at those places declar'd that none of the Towns-men should be admitted to give Voices at the Election unless they would promise to Vote for those that the Court would set up and the like instances I beleive I might give you of other places had I time to enquire into it and as for the house of Peers pray consider how many of the Bishops and temporal Lords the King might have gain'd either by threats or fair promises to the Kings party or at least prevail'd upon to stand Neuters and not to oppose his designs and if these had fail'd it had been but calling up some Popish or high Tory or Fanatick Gentlemen to the House of Lords and to have sate their as Barons Peers pro tempore till this Jobb was done and I doubt not but there would have been enough found out of each sort for that purpose and that I do not speak without Book I have had it from persons of very good Intelligence that such a design was lately on foot and the Court party thought they had very good Authority for it since Mr. Pryn and Sr. Will. Dâ—dgdale pretended to show us several examples of this Kind as low as the Reign of King Henry the 4th and a great part of the design of your Dr. Bs. late Books seem to have been only to prove that the King might not only have Summon'd to Parliament what of the Commmons he pleased but what Lords too and have omitted the rest as I have already shown you at our two last meetings and sure if the King had such a prerogative two or three hundred years ago these Gentlemen would not have deny'd his Present Majesty the like Power Since they have in all their Writings and addresses declar'd him as absolute as any of his Predecessours But to make an end as for what you say of the Kings Redressing the Grievances of the Nation before the Prince of Orange came it is very true he did by the advice of some of the Bishops endeavour to put things into the same state they were in at his first coming to the Crown but I very much mistrust the sincerity of his Majesties intentions since it is plain he never offer'd to do it till the Prince of Orange was â—ust upon coming and that his Declaration had been spread about the Kingdom and then he did it so unwillingly that when the news came of part of the Princes Fleets being Shipwrack'd and that his design was quite put off the Bishop of Winchester who was then but newly gone down to restore the President and Fellows of Magdalen Colledge was immediately call'd back under pretence of being present as the Examination of the Birth of the Prince of Wales and did not return again to finish that business till such time as fresh News came that the Prince was certainly come notwithstanding his late disaster And which is also more remarkable His Majesty in none of His Declarations ever disowned his Dispensing Power or so much as put out Father Peters from the Council or Disbanded one Popish Officer or Souldier out of his Army which is another great Argument of the Sincerity of his intentions So that I think this was sufficient to convince any reasonable Man that there was no other means left us but Resistance and that by Force and a hearty Joyning with the Prince of Orange at his Landing Since this resistance was not made either in Opposition to the King or the Laws but for defence of both against a Standing Army kept up contrary to Law and headed by Officers the greatest part of which by not taking the Sacrament and Test according to the Act made for that purpose had render'd themselves wholy uncapable of holding those Commissions and consequently whilst in Arms were to be look'd upon as common Enemies to the Nation But as for his Majesties Gracious and mercifull disposition as I shall not make it my business personally to Reflect upon him so I must needs tell you the Execution of Mr. Cornish Mrs. Lisle Mrs. Gaunt for Treasons falsly alledg'd or else for such as Women could scarce be capable of knowing to be so were no great Evidences of such highly Merciful Inclinations M. I confess you have taken a great deal of pains not only to set forth the Late Miscarriages of the Government but also to prove that the Army which the King raised upon the Duke of Monmouth's Rebellion and which he hath since kept up to prevent either fresh Rebellions at home or Invasions from abroad has been meerly maintain'd to support all these Late breaches upon our Laws and Civil Liberties which you say were made upon them now this is very uncharitably done for as His Majesty was Forc'd to raise that Army at first because the Late Rebellion in the West was too powerfull to be quell'd by the ordinary Train'd Bands of the Kingdom whom he had too much reason to suspect by the running over of several of them to the Rebels not to be so Loyal as they ought to have been and if His Majesty had not had a small body of an Army on Foot the last Summer before the Prince of Orange came over he must upon his Landing have Yielded to his terms had they been never so unreasonable and though I will not defend the Listing of Popish or Irish Souldiers or the Granting Commissions to Popish Commanders yet it is very hard to prove this to be a making War upon the Nation unless you can suppose there may be War made without Fighting and as for those Violations of the Laws which you suppose were made only upon the presumption of this standing Army this is likewise very hard to affirm since how can you tell that the Judges and Ministers would not have given the same Opinions and advices concerning the Dispensing Power Chimney Money the Ecclesiastical Commission had there been no Army at all rais'd since they might for ought I know have presum'd that the People of this Nation had been sufficiently convinc'd of the truth of the Doctrines of Passive Obedience and Non-resistance as not to have needed a Standing Army to back what he had already done tho' contrary to Law but as for the latter part of your Dicourses say the People ought to have waited till the King had call'd a Parliament and then if they had betray'd their trust and given up our Religion and Liberties as you suppose they would have done it had been
their Judgments And as for what you say that the Prince ought first to have tryed whether the King and Parliament would give him that satisfaction he demanded This was very dangerous for him to hazard for supppose the King would never have permitted this affair to have been impartially inquired into by them or that the Parliament had been as it was very likely to be packt and made up of Papists Fanaticks and Time-servers who either would not or else durst not have examined this matter as they ought His Highness had been then to play an after-game the next year and what might have happened in the mean time God knows And therefore he had all the reason in the World whilst the French Kings Arms were imployed in Germany to demand satisfaction with the Sword in his hand This is what I have to say in justification of His Highnesses Arms which if they are just on his side I think I can as easily prove what has been done for his Assistance by the Nobility Gentry and Commons of this Nation to have been so too M. I shall not any longer dispute whether the Dutch and the Prince of Orange may not make some fair pretences for what they have done since making War for security by way of Prevention is no new thing in the World though I confess what you say in respect of the Prince of Wales had been a sufficient cause of War had there been any true grounds for that suspition but since there was no just cause given why his Highness should suspect his Birth not to be Genuine and that even in the present Convention it self there could be no proof made to the contrary I think it is now evident that it was a wicked and unjust Calumny upon his Majesty and the Queen since he himself in the last Paper he left behind him at his going away Appeals to all that know him nay even to the Prince of Orange himself that in their Consciences neither he nor they can believe him in the least capable of so unnatural a Villany nor of so little common Sence to be impos'd on in a thing of such a nature as that But as for those noble Men and Gentlemen who have declar'd for the Prince of Orange since his expedition I think that they are no way to be justified since granting them to have been satisfied that the Princes demands were lawful and reasonable yet sure they ought not to have taken up Arms on behalf of a Forreign Prince against their Natural Sovereign but if in their Consciences they had believed his quarrel to have been just the utmost they could have done had been to have stood Neuters without concerning themselves either with the one or the other party and then if the Prince had gain'd his point either by Arms or Treaty they might have enjoy'd the good effects of it without breaking in upon the Church of Englands Principles of Passive Obedience and Non-resistance and so many Acts of Parliament made but as for those Officers and Souldiers who so basely and perfidiously Deserted the King at Salisbury and ran over to the Princes Army with their Commissions in their pockets they cannot possibly be justified either by the Law of the Land or that of Nations since certainly they acted contrary to both F. Before I speak any thing concerning the business of the Prince of Wales give me leave to say something in Justification of those Noblemen and Gentlemen you so highly accuse and though we Discoursed something of this matter at our last meeting yet since you have again renewed the charge against them I cannot but again vindicate them in what they have done in the first place pray call to mind that it has sufficiently appear'd by the small Forces his Highness brought over with him that he never intended to Conquer this Kingdom or impose any thing upon it contrary to the known Laws and Customs thereof and therefore as appears by his Declaration his chief hopes of Success against so Numerous an Army made up of the flower of three Nations depended on that assurance he had of some Considerable Assistance from the Nobility and Gentry of Eng. and perhaps from some of the Officers of the Kings own Army and that this was lawful in both of them I thus prove you may remember I made out at our last meeting but one that when the Nation lay under any great intollerable Oppression by reason of the violation of their Just Rights and Liberties the Clergy Nobility and Gentry thereof did always look upon it as their Right and Duty to vindicate the same by a vigorous Resistance when no gentler means could suffice Secondly I have proved that it neither was nor could be the intent of those Oaths and Declarations made in the two first Parliamenâ—s of King Charles the Second to deliver up their Lives Liberties and Estates wholly to the Kings Mercy let him use them as he pleased and if they did not it must necessarily follow that upon the Kings Violation of their Religion Liberties and Properties they had still a Right left them to defend themselves from such Oppression and Tyranny Lastly I have also proved as the Convention also lately declared that the King by his exercising his Dispensing Power by Committing and Prosecuting the Six Bishops by setting up an Ecclesiastical Commission contrary to Law by Levying Mony by his Prerogative without or contrary to express Acts of Parliament and by Raising and keeping up a standing Army in time of Peace Commanded by Officers who had never taken the Test appointed by the Statutes for that purpose and consisting of so many Popish Souldiers who having never taken the Oathâ— of Supremacy and Allegiance were altogether uncapable of serving in his Majesties Army and by doing divers other things contrary to the known Laws Statutes and Freedom of this Realm too long now to particularize had broken the Fundamental Constitution of the Kingdom This being the Case I desire to know of you how it was possible for the Nation to have a firm and setled Redress of these Grievances without a Free Parliament Or how it was possible to obtain this Parliament the late taking away of Charters and Regulation of Corporations considered unless those Obstacles had been first removed And how could they be removed without some force proportionable to what the King had raised to hinder it I cannot tell And therefore it is a very vain Project of yours to suppose that those Noblemen and Gentlemen should have stood Neuters and not have declar'd themselves some way or other in this quarrel which is all one as to say they ought to sit still and see a Generous Prince ruin'd who had come in for their Redemption and to have then expected a remedy for all these illegal Violations and Oppressions when the King had kill'd or destroy'd the Prince of Orange and his Army or that the King would then have yielded to all the same Conditions that
as a wilful Forfeiture or Abdication of the Government and it is from this first going away that I suppose that the Convention dates his Abdication since though it is true after his return to London he took upon him to make an Order in Council to stop the further pulling down and plundering Popish Chappels and Papists Houses yet was it sign'd by very few of the Council and almost only by those who had been in some Office or Place of Trust so that though he was then own'd by them yet since that Order did only serve to shew his Zeal for the Popish Party and was never obey'd or taken notice of by those to whom it was directed and that neither the Prince nor the City of London owned him afterwards since it had already delivered it self up to the Prince and had as well as the Peers invited him to repair to that City I cannot see that so slight an act as this Order of Council should be counted a return to or a re-establishment in the Throne since the King had not only lost the Crown by his wilful departure without calling a Parliament or giving the P. any satisfaction in the great business of the pretended Prince of Wales or the Nation by repairing up those desperate breaches he had made upon our Fundamental Laws but had also lost his Title to the Crown by being Conquer'd by the Prince in open War as I shall prove more at large another time so that if you please better to consider this Vote of the Convention you will find that these words had Abdicated the Government do not only refer to the last clause of his having withdrawn himself out of the Kingdom but to everyone of the foregoing Clauses viz. His having endeavour'd to subvert the Constitution of this Kingdom his breaking the Original Contract and his having violated the Fundamental Laws so that it is plain their notion of Abdication was not fixt only in the Kings Desertion or bare withdrawing himself out of the Kingdom but from his renouncing the Legal Title by which he held the Crown and setting himself up as a Despotick Soveraign and ruling by a mercenary Army and therefore all that you have said about the Kings quitting the Government with a design to return to it again as soon as with safety he might is altogether vain for as he went away because he would not Govern any longer as a King by Law so hath he yet given us no satisfaction that he would not return again to Govern otherwise or rather worse than he did before had he an opportunity so to do that is as the Letter I cited but now phrases iâ— to return and have his ends of us so that this being indeed the case I think I can very well justifie the last clause in this Vote that the Throne was thereby vacant M. Sir you have spoke a considerable time and I doubt more than I can distinctly remember to answer as I should therefore before you proceed to this last Clause of the Vacancy of the Throne the dispute about which I foresee may hold longer than upon any of the former pray give me leave to reply to what you have already said in Justification of all the other parts of this Vote in the first place I will not deny but that if the King had once got the power of making what Mayors Aldermen and other Officers in Corporations at his pleasure it would have gone a great way towards the making the Majority of the Parliament-men nay I likewise grant that by his dispensing Power he might have made what Papists or other person he pleased Sheriffs in any County who would have made such return of Knights of Shires as he should have thought fit yet I suppose this would not have been to the subversion of the Constitution of the Kingdom which I think I have proved to consist originally in the K. alone before any great Councils or Parliaments were instituted And as for those violations of the Fundamental Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom the Declaration instances in I think several of them may very well be justified by antient Presidents and ad judged cases in Law and therefore were so far from being violations that they are no more than the Kings exercising of his due Prerogative and though at our ninth meeting I had not time so well to consider these matters as also because I was not then prepared to defend the Kings Proceedings I shall therefore make bold to examine the most considerable of those Articles which the Late Declaration supposes did so highly tend to subvert the Protestant Religion and the Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom I shall begin with the first viz. His assuming and exercising a power of Dispensing with and Suspending of Laws and the Execution of Laws without consent of Parliament which Power let me tell you by the way was not asserted to Dispence with all Laws or Statutes whatsoever but only such as the Subject has no particular cause of action in and where the damage that may arise by it doth not concerns the publick safety of which the K. is sole Judge and not any particular mans interest I suppose you cannot but have read that learned and short account of the Authorities in Law upon which Judgment was given in Sir Edw. Hales his Case written by Sir Edward Herbert Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in vindication of himself wherein I think he proves beyond any possibility of a just answer that the dispensation granted to Sir Edward Hales to receive a commission and act as a Collonel of Foot was good notwithstanding his not having received the Sacrament and taken the Oaths and Test appointed by the Act of the Statute of the 25 of Charles II. where he first proves from my L. Cock's Authority that it belongs to the Kings Prerogative to Dispence with all Positive or Penal Laws the penalty thereof is only popular and given to the King and to shew you that my Lord Cook who was never counted any great friend to the Kings Prerogative was not single in this opinion he gives you also the authority of the year Book of Henry the VII where it was own'd by all the Judges That the King can Dispence with all things which are only Mala Prohibita and not Mala â—n se though expresly forbid by Act of Parliament for though says the Year Book before the Statute Coining of Money was Lawful but now it is not so yet the King can Dispence with it so that say I if he can dispence with that which is now made Treason by EÃ the III. he may certainly dispence with all other Penal Statutes of a less nature But because I grant there is some difference between Common Penal Laws which barely prohibit the doing of some things under a penalty and this Act in which there is also an express Clause of Non-obstante that all Licences or Dispensations contrary to this
Kings to obtain these publick liberties could ever entertain such a thought concerning them but to let you see that the Law concerning the Oaths and Tests are not only for the publick good of the Common Wealth and that the King is not the sole Judge when they may be dispenced with appears plainly by this that the Law for taking of the Oaths and Test has given every particular person a right to prosecute any one that hath acted contrary to it and the penalty of 500 l. is given wholly to the Prosecutor which shews plainly that the intent of the Law was to make it every mans particular care as well as benefit to see it observed M. Since it grows late I shall not further dispute this point with you of the Kings dispensing power though I had a great deal more to urge in defence of it for notwithstanding all you have said against it it is now counted so inherent a Prerogative and in many cases so necessary for the benefit of the Subject that the Convention it self after a great deal of dispute about it though they had condemn'd the King for assuming and exercising a power of dispensing with and suspending of Laws without consent of Parliament yet in this very Declaration when they assert their Antient Rights and Liberties they only declare That the pretended power of dispensing with Laws or the execution of Laws by Regal authority as it hath been assumed and exercised of late is Illegal which shews that they do not go so high as you who seem to be absolutely against any such thing F. You very much mistake me if you say so for though I maintain that antiently till about the middle of the Reign of King Henry the III. there were no dispensations at all either because they were not thought necessary or else that Penal Laws were not then multiplied to that degree they have been since yet since they have been now so long in use and do I grant often tend not only for the benefit of the King but also of the Subject I do no way 's condemn them provided they are restrain'd within those due limits prescribed by the lite Chief Justice Vaughan in the case above mentioned and when they do not tend to the common mischief and ruine of the Protestant Religion establishâ— by Law and the Rights and Liberties of the Subject nay I grant in times of necessity as in the coming over of the Duke of Monmouth for example the King might Justifie the granting Commissions to Popish Officers and therefore the Parliament did very well to offer the King to prepare an Act to indemnifie them from the penalties they had incurr'd by acting without taking the Test so that when the King utterly refused this reasonable proposition and chose to dissolve the Parliament rather than he would permit them in the least to question on this usurpt power what could be farther expected than that He was resolved to execute it whether the Parliament would or not as we afterwards sound he did But admitting he really had been indued with this Prerogative yet was it still under a trust not to abuse it so notoriously as he did by granting it to every Apostate Person Officer or Judge that required it and I doubt not but if he had govern'd a little longer but we might have found it granted to Bishops likewise as soon as he had thought fit to make them of his own Religion for tho' the King for example has an undoubted prerogative of pardoning Robbers and Highway-men yet if he should so far abuse his Prerogative as to pardon every Robber that was taken I leave it to you to consider whether such a Government could long subsist I shall not apply this case to these dispensations because they say comparisons are odious These things being apparent I think it would be very easie to vindicate that clause in the Declaration concerning the Bishops for if the Kings Declaration was unlawful as certainly it was not only by reason of the Dispensing Power we have been now disputing about but also for one main clause in it which I have yet but lightly touched which is this We do likewise declare it is our Royal Will and Pleasure that from henceforth the execution of all and all manner of Penal Laws in matters Ecclesiastical for not coming to Church or not Receiving the Sacrament or for any other Non-conformity to the Religion establisht or for or by reason of the Exercise of Religion in any manner whatsoever be immediately suspended and the farther execution of the said Penal Laws and every of them is hereby suspended So that by this Clause in the Declaration not only the Laws of our Reformation but all the Laws for the preservation of the Christian Religion in general were suspended and become of no force since every man might not only chuse whether he would come to Church or not but also all Priests and Ministers were hereby indemnified from either Praying or Preaching in the Churches as well as their Parishioners freed from Hearing them so that not only all the Laws of our Reformation were at once suspended but those of Christianity it self by these words or for or by reason of the exercise of Religion in any manner whatsoever nor is it confined to the Christian Religion but all other Religions even Mahometanism it self were thereby permitted But perhaps it may be urged that the execution of the Law is only hereby suspended and not the Law it self which is a meer evasion for what is the external obligation of any Law but it's execution in order to obedience which if it be once taken off there can only then remain the naked internal obligation in foro conscientiae and with how sew this is of any weight you understand so well I need not tell you So that by this Declaration â—he King took upon him to suspend above forty Statutes at once concerning our Religion and if he could do so I desire to know whether he might not the next week have suspended forty more even concerning our Civil Properties likewise and so might have proceeded till he had suspended all the Laws in the Statute Book nor are those Laws suspended for any limited time but during the Kihgs Pleasure and this not only a bare suspension for a time but in effect a down right abrogation of them for what is an abrogation of a Law but the taking away the force of these Statutes without any time limited And if this be not to usurp the Sole Legislative Power I know not what is and if this were once commonly put in practise Parliaments would signifie nothing and the Legislature would be wholly in the King this was so evident that it was granted by one of the Judges at the trial of these Bishops If therefore this were the truth of the case I cannot see wherein the Bishops that presented this Petition to His Majesty acted at all undutifully towards him as you
as we read Chancellor Fortescue did Prince Henry Son to Henry the VIth and I hope he will come over again to practise them in his own Country before he comes to be infected with the Arbitrary Principles of the French Government but as for those of not keeping Faith with Hereticks and a propagating his Religion by Persecution I doubt not but the King his Father will take care not to commit his Education to any of those who are infected with such Principles and I am the more inclin'd to believe it because it is very well known that his Majesty's tenderness and moderation in matters of Religion and not persecuting any body for the belief or bare profession of it as it was the greatest cause of his late Declaration of Indulgence so it was the main original of all his late Misfortunes nor can I see any reason why a King by being a Roman Catholick must necessarily be a Tyrant and a Persecutor since you cannot deny but that we have had many good and just Kings of that Religion and it is from those Princes that professed it that we derive our Magna Charta and most of the priviledges we now enjoy F. Though I would not be thought to affirm that the Romish Religion is every way worse than the Mahometan yet this much I may safely affirm that there is no Doctrine in all that Superstition so absurd and contrary to Sence and Reason as that of Transubstantiation held by the Church of Rome in which the far greatest part are certainly Idolators which can never be objectâ—d against the Turks and therefore though I will not deny but that a Man may be saved in the Communion of the Romish Church yet it is not for being a Papist but only as far as he practises Christ's Precepts and trusts in his Merits that he can ever obtain that favour from God But as for those evil Principles both in Religion and Civil Government which you cannot deny but are now commonly believed and practiced in France and which you hope King Iames will take care that the Prince his Son shall be bred to avoid I wish it may prove as you say but if you will consider the Men that are like to be his Tutors and Instructors in matters of Religion viz. his Fathers and Mothers Confessors the Jesuits and for Civil Government those Popish Lords and Gentlemen of notorious Arbitrary Principles and Practises who are gone over to King Iames you will have small reason to believe that there is ever a Fortescus now to be found among the English-men in France or who is likely to instill into him those true English Principles you mention And though I do not affirm that every Popish Prince must needs be a Persecutor yet since that wholly depends upon those Priests that have the management of their Consciences shew me a Prince in Europe who has a Jesuit for his Confessor and tell me if he hath not deserved that Character But though I am so much of your Opinion that King Iames ownes the greatest part of his Misfortunes to his Declaration for Liberty of Conscience yet was it not so much to the thing it self as to his Arbitrary manner of doing it by assuming a Dispensing Power contrary to Law and you may be very well assured by the little opposition which the late Acts met with for taking off the Penalties against Conventicles and not coming to Church in respect of all Dissenters except the Papists that King Iames might have as easily obtain'd a like Act to pass in respect of those also as to the free profession of their Religion and having Mass in their Houses which is more than the Papists will allow the Protestants in any Country in Europe And therefore I must beg your pardon if I still find great reason to doubt whether K. Iames his tenderness towards those that differ'd from him in matters of Religion and the Indulgence he gave them were purely out of consideration of tender Consciences and not rather thereby to destroy the Church of England Established by Law since the Dispute began between King Iames and his Parliament was not about Liberty of Conscience but those Offices and Commands which the King was resolved to bestow upon the Papists whether the Parliament would or not And certainly there is a great deal of difference between a Liberty for a Man to enjoy the free profession of his own Religion and the power and benefit of having all the chief Imployments of Honour and Profit in the Common-wealth But that the Indulgence of Popish Princes towards those that dissent from them in matters of Religion may not always proceed from pure Tenderness and Compassion appears from a Manuscript Treatise of F. Parsons that great Jesuit in Queen Elizabeth's time which I have been told was found in King Iames's Closet after his departure This if you can see it will shew you that the subtil Jesuite doth there direct his Popish Successor in order to the more quiet introducing the Romish-Catholick Religion to grant a general Toleration of all Religions out of a like design Thus did Iulian the Apostare long ago tolerate all the Sects and Heresies in the Christian Religion because he thereby hoped utterly to confound and destroy it But as to what you alledge concerning Magna Charta's being granted by Popish Princes and that there has been many good Kings of that persuasion As I will not deny either the one or the other so I desire you to remember with what struglling and great difficulties this Charter was at first obtain'd and afterwards preserved though it was no more than a Declaration of most of those Antient Rights and Liberties which the Nation had always enjoy'd And you may also remember that they were Popish Princes who more than once obtain'd the Pope's Dispensation to be discharged from those solemn Oaths they had taken to observe those Charters and though there hath been divers good Princes before the Reformation yet even the very best of them made the severest Laws against Protestants and were the most cruel in their Persecutions witness King Henry the IVth Henry the Vth and Queen Mary And indeed it is dangerous to rely upon the Faith of a Prince who looks upon it as a piece of Merit to destroy all Religions but his own and when he finds it cannot be done by Law will not stick to use any Arbitrary means to bring it about To conclude pray consider whether the strict observing or violation of Magna Charta and his Coronation Oath hath been the cause of King Iames's Abdication Pardon this long Discourse which your Vindication of the Opinion and Practises of Popish Princes hath drawn from me M. Pray Sir let us quit these invidious Subjects which can do no good since Princes must be own'd and submitted to let their Principles and Practice be never so Tyrannical and let us return again to the matter in hand I will therefore at present suppose
of Succession yet even that will not hold in respect of the present settlement thereof by the Convention upon the Prince and Princess of Orange for their two Lives since you cannot but know that no Parliament yet was ever so presumptuous as to take upon them to settle or limit the Succession of the Crown without the consent of the King or Queen then in being Whereas the present Settlement was first made by the Convention upon the making of the Prince and Princess King and Queen tho' I grant it was afterwards confirmed by another pretended Act whereby all Princes that are or shall be Roman Catholicks when the Crown shall descend unto them are debarred from their right of Succession This though I grant to be made after the Prince and Princess of Orange took upon them the Title of King and Queen yet since that Statute was not made in a Parliament call'd by the King's Writs but in a Convention who owe their Meeting wholly to the Prince of Orange's Letters it is not only void in respect of the subject matter but also in the manner of making it and therefore I cannot believe that the Throne was ever vacant And I have as little reason to be satisfied that the Prince and Princess could be lawfully placed therein or that all Roman Catholick Princes can ever be barred from their right of Succession when ever it may fall to them F. If this be all you have farther to object I think I can easily answer it for in the first place I have already told you that the Convention did not take upon them to create or make any new form of Succession to the Crown but only to declare that the Prince and Princess of Orange are Rightful and Lawful King and Queen of England for upon supposition of King Iames's Abdication of the Crown and that the Prince of Wales cannot be taken for the lawful Son of the King 'till he can be brought over and that his Legitimacy be duly proved it must 'till then certainly be their right and no others and as for King William's holding the Crown during his own Life I have already told you it was not done without the tacit consent of the Princess of Denmark her self though I doubt not but it may also very well be justified upon those suppositions of the forfeiture of the Crown by King Iames and the Conquest the Prince of Orange made over him which are sufficient in themselves to barr any legal claim of those that either are or may pretend to be right Heirs But as for the other part of your Objection whereby you would prove that Popish Princes cannot be excluded from the Succession because the Act was made not in a Parliament but a Convention this wholly proceeds from your want of Consideration that at the first institution of the Government and long after whilst the Kingdom continued Elective there was no difference between a Great Council or Convention and a Parliament for pray call to mind the four first Great Councils after your Conquest reckoning that for one wherein King William I. was Elected or declared King whether it was possible for those Councils to be summon'd in the Kings Name before any body had taken upon themselves the Title of King the like I may say in the case of King Iohn and Henry the III d and that this continued after the Succession was setled in the next Heir by Blood appears by that Great Council that was summon'd after the death of Henry the Third which Recognized or Ordain'd his Son Prince Edward to be his Successor So likewise the Parliament that deposed King Edward the Second sate both before and after his deposition and resignation and elected his Son Edward the Third to be King and appointed his Reign to begin from the time of their Election and not of his Fathers resignation of the Crown so also upon the deposition of King Richard the Second the same Parliament that deposed him placed Henry the Fourth in the Throne and though the Writs of Summons were in the name of King Richard and they were never re-summon'd or new Elected in the Reign of Henry the Fourth yet did they still continue to sit and made divers new Acts and repealed several old ones all which hold good to this day And that the Parliament are the only proper Judges of the right of Succession even without the King you your self must grant or else how could they declare in the Thirty Ninth of Henry the VI th that the claim which Richard Duke of York made to the Crown could no way be defeated and certainly if that unfortunate Prince King Henry the Sixth had had sufficient Power or Interest in that Parliament they might and would have adjudged the Duke of York's Claim to have been groundless and contrary to Law and then I believe it would scarce have ever been heard of again But to make it out beyond exception that a Convention may become a Lawful Parliament though never call'd by the King's Writs when the King's Authority and Presence come once to be added to and joined with it appears by the first Parliament of King Charles the Second which though Summon'd in the Name of the Keepers of the Liberties of England yet nevertheless continued to Sit and make several Acts which hold good to this day and I doubt not but they might have made the like limitations of the Crown in respect of Roman-Catholick Princes as the Convention have now done and that it would have held good at this day since it is so much for the security of our Religion Liberties and Properties that it should be so since we have found by a dear bought experience in the Reigns of the four last Kings of the Scotch Line that still as they began to favour the Popish Religion and Interest in this Kingdom so did the Protestant and true English Interest in respect of our Religion Liberties and Properties still decline 'till at last they were like to be totally ruin'd and extirpated for that restless and dangerous Faction very well know that there is no means possible for them to re-establish their Superstition among us by due and legal Methods but only by introducing Arbitrary Power taking away Parliaments or else making them wholly to depend upon the King's Will as we see was labour'd and almost effected in the Reigns of the two last Kings and therefore I cannot but believe that the present Parliament has not only acted wisely but also legally to enact that for the future no Prince who is actually a Roman Catholick shall succeed to the Crown though he be next heir by blood M. I must still tell you I am as little satisfied with your suppositions of the forfeiture of the Crown by King Iames and the Conquest to the Prince of Orange as I am with your instances out of History concerning the power of the Great Councils meeting and chusing a King by their own inherent
hinder the Kings Officers from Heading the People and putting the first Decree for their Destruction in Execution as otherwise they would have done had it not been for this last and for that great Power which they perceived Mordecai had at Court yet doth it not therefore follow that it was before that absolutely unlawful for the whole Iewish Nation to have defended their Lives against those Officers or others who would have gone about to destroy them and have totally extirpated their Nation So that I take this Decree not to confer any new Right in the People of the Iews to defend themselves but only to be a Confirmation of that Natural Right of self-defence which all Nations and every particular Member of Mankind have to preserve themselves And tho' I grant that Particular Persons are often obliged to give up this Right for the Publick Peace and safety of the Common-Wealth yet doth not thâ— Law extend to whole Nations or such Bodies of People without which the Common Wealth cannot well subsist And therefore I leave it to any unprejudiced person to judge whether it had not been better that the Iews should have thus resisted and saved their Lives tho' without this second Decree which only discouraged the Kings Officers and others from falling upon them than that all Gods Peculiar People should have lain at the Mercy of their Enemies to be destroyed according to the first Cruel Decree But farther to convince you that the Iews after the Captivity did not think it unlawful to make use of defensive Arms against cruel and persecuting Tyrants who went about to destroy their Religion and Nation it is apparent from the Famous Example of the Priest Mattathias with Iudas Maccabeus and the rest of his Sons who successively Headed the People of the Iews in that obstinate and Noble Resistance which they made against Antiochus Epiphanes tho' then their Soveraign who when he had Prophaned the Temple and would have forced the Iews to renounce their Circumcision and to have Sacrificed to Idols under Pain of Death they joyned together and resolved to defend themselves and to stand up for their Religion and Nation then ready to be destroyed And you find by the History as it is related in the Books of the Maccabees and Iosephus that God did Bless those Arms with Success which they had taken up in their own defence against a Prince infinitely more Powerful than themselves who with his Predecessors had been their Soveraigns for above 130 years And tho' Antiochus died long before the End of the War yet did they still prosecute it against his Successors Nor did they ever make Peace with them till Ionathan Brother of Iudas who had before recovered and purified the Temple was acknowledged High-Priest by Alexander the pretended Son of Epiphanes and that they had cast off that Yoak of Subjection which they were under to the Kings of Syria and had setled the Government of their Nation upon the Princes of the Asmonaean Race in gratitude of that deliverance they so justly owed to their Piety and Courage and which continued in this Family till the Conquest of Iudea by Pompey after 106 years free enjoyment of it So that it is plain the Iews before the Coming of Christ both Priests and People did not think it unlawful to defend their Lives and Religion in Case of great Extremity and that our Saviour Christ hath any where by his Gospel Retrenched whole Nations of that liberty lies upon you to prove But to conclude as for the Text you have cited out of the Proverbs that will do you as little service For tho' I grant it is true that no Man can say to an Absolute King or Monarch What dost thou i. e. Call him to Account as his Superiour Yet doth it not therefore follow that a whole People or Nation have no Power to defend themselves in any case whatsoever against his unjust Violence or Tyranny This not being the Act of a Superiour but an equal as I have already said nor any Political but a Natural Power M. I confess this is the Notablest Example of Resistance that you have brought yet but I think it may be easily answered if we suppose with Iosepbus and other Authors that tho' Alexander the great was certainly possest of Palestine by right of Conquest and the Submission of the High-Priest Iaddus unto him Yet his Chief Captains conspiring together made such a Scambling Division of the Empire among themselves as they could every one almost seeking how he might suppress the rest and attain the whole alone for himself so as thereupon the Iews were as free from the Macedonians as any other of their Bordering Neighbours none of the said Captains having any Lawful Interest or Title to Iudah But that which turned to the benefit of some others brought a great detriment for want of Ability unto them For one of the said Captains viz. Antiochus having gotten to himself a very great Kingdom in Syria and another viz. Ptolomy in Egypt the Iews dwelling betwixt them both were miserably on every side vexed by them sometimes the Egyptians by Oppression and force brought them under their Subjection and imposed great Tributes upon them and sometimes the Syrians growing mightier than the Egyptians did likewise very greatly afflict them especially in the Reign of Antiochus Epiphanes whose Invasion and Government was most Unjust and Tyrannical He shed Innocent Blood on every side of the Sanctuary spoiled the Temple erecting in it the Abomination of the Gentiles and caused it to be named the Temple of Jupiter Olympius Not to mention the Prophanation of the Law and unspeakable Cruelties exercised upon those who refused to offer Sacrifice unto Idols until Mattathias moved with the Monstrous Cruelty and Tyranny of the said Antiochus made open Resistance the Government of that Tyram being not then either generally received by Submission or setled by Continuance So that after the time of Alexander the Great the Iewish Nation was Governed by their own High-Priests and Sanhedrim and lived according to their own Laws in all matters both Civil and Ecclesiastical tho' more often I own with a Subordination to the Soveraignty of the Kings of Egypt till this Invasion of their Religion and liberties by Antiochus So that they had a Legal Right to the Free exercise of their Religion which could not without the Highest Violence and injustice be taken from them F. Notwithstanding what you have now said concerning this Action I doubt not but if you will consider Iosephus better as also the two Books of the Maccabees you will find thâ—t not only Antiochus Epiphanes but also Antiochus the Great and Seleucus Philopater were true and Lawful Monarchs of Coelo-Syria and consequently of Palestine And tho' I grant there had been Wars between Antiochus the Great and Ptolemy Philopater concerning the Dominion of that Country yet it is plain out of Iosephus's Antiquities Lib. 12. That Antiochus had re-conquer'd
Supream Power and his Ministers or Officers as Powers subordinate to him and acting by his Commission are to be submitted to and obeyed as much as himself And it had been in vain for St. Peter to have concluded this Exhortation with Fear God and Honour the King if he had allowed it Lawful in any Case to resist him since certainly no Man can Honour him whom he Resists and that this is a Doctrine everlastingly true appears by the time in which St. Peter and St. Paul wrote these Epistles which was either under the Reigns of Claudius or Nero and I suppose you will hardly meet with two worse Men or more cruel Tyrants in all the Catalogue of Emperours Since the former committed many wicked and Cruel things by his Freed-men and Officers and also banished the Iews and Christians together with them from Rome And the latter is so notorious for his Cruelty and Persecution of the Christians that his Name passes into a Proverb And yet these were the Higher Powers to whom the Apostles commanded them to be Subject From whence you may see your Errour in interpreting the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to signifie just and Lawful Authority whereas it plainly signifieth in this place the Men vested with this Authority howsoever Tyrannically they abuse it F. You have made a pretty long reply and I have heard it patiently because I confess that on this depends the whole Controversie between us and therefore I shall beg that you would hear me with the like Patience because what you have now said I grant to be of that weight as to require a large as well as a considerable Reply And therefore I shall make bold to consider the last part of your speech in the first place because I can soonest dispatch it As for your Argument that we ought to be Subject to the most Tyrannical Governours without any Resistance because Claudius or Nero whom you suppose to be cruel Tyrants then governed the Empire and persecuted the Christians In Answer to this I must tell you that if you please better to consider of it you will find it very doubtful whether St. Paul wrote this Epistle to the Romans during the Reigns of Claudius or Nero. The Learned Monsieur Capel in his Discourse which he hath written on purpose concerning the time of the writing of this Epistle proves this Epistle to the Romans to have been written during the latter End of the Reign of Claudius But those Learned Men who will have it written during the Reign of Nero do all agree that it was in the beginning of it within the first five years when the Administration of Affairs was under the Ministry of Seneca and Burrhus and when the Government of the Empire was most just and moderate and divers years before ever Nero burnt the City or persecuted the Christians and did so many extravagant Cruel and Tyrannical Actions as forced the Senate to declare him the Enemy of Mankind But as for Claudius he never persecuted the Christians at all as I know of M. I pray Sir give me leave to interrupt you a little Did not Claudius persecute the Christians when under the Notion of Iews he banished them from Rome as appears by Acts the eighteenth when Aquila and Priscilla were forced to quit Italy and come into Greece because of that Edict And yet it was this very Claudius to whom St. Peter if not St. Paul doth require all Men to be Subject without any Resistance F. I think this difficulty will easily be answered for in the first place tho' I grant that Claudius towards the latter End of his Reign banished the Iews from Rome yet did he not banish the Christians from thence as we know of any otherwise than as they were Iews by Nation and upon this account it was that Aquila being a Iew by Birth was forced to quit Rome with the rest but neither Suetonius nor any other Author tell us that he likewise banished the Christians tho' I know indeed there are some learned Men that would interpret this Passage in the former Author in his life of Claudius Iudaeos tumultuantes impulsante Cresto Româ expulit to be meant of the Christians being expelled Rome as instigated by Christ their Prophet to Sedition But tho' I own that our Saviour was sometimes called Chrestus by the Pagans by way of contempt yet that by this Chrestus here mentioned cannot be understood our Saviour Christ is very evident for it had been very improbable for Suetonius to have made Christ who was dead above thirty years before to have excited the Iews to Sedition And therefore the Lord Primate Usher in the second Volume of his Annals with much better Reason supposes that not our Saviour but some Seditious Iew called Crestus who headed this Sedition was the Cause of the Banishment of the Iews from Rome So that this was no more a Persecution for Religion than it would have been for the Parliament in King Charles the seconds Reign during the heat of the Popish Plot to have banished all the Papists out of England upon the Account of their former Rebellions and constant Machinations to overturn the Government and Religion establisht by Law but supposing this Edict to have banished the Christians as well as Iews it had signified nothing for it was no Persecution for Religion and besides being made in the last year of Claudius it was but a temporary Edict and we find the Iews to have lived quietly at Rome in the Reign of Nero as appears by the last Chapter of the Acts. But as for Claudius's Government it was so far from being an insupportable Tyranny that there was no Prince that did take more care to do impartial Iustice according to that small Capacity he was Master of than himself And tho' I yield that by his Proconsuls Presidents and Freemen there were many Oppressions and Cruelties committed in the Provinces yet it was only against some Private Men and did not extend to the destroying and enslaving the whole Body of the People who during his Reign generally enjoyed their Liberties and Properties with as great Freedom as under any of his Predecessors And as for Nero all Ecclesiastical Historians agree that if this Epistle of St. Paul was written in his Reign it was within the first five years of it which was in his Non-age under the Administration of Seneca and Burrhus during which time all the Historians agree that the Empire was never better governed and as for the wickedness and Violence that Nero committed afterwards when he persecuted the Christians murdered his Mother his Wife and most of his best and most intimate Friends and set the City on Fire St. Paul was so far from knowing any thing of them that sure he would not have urged it to the Romans as a Reason of their Subjection to him that Rulers are not a terrour to good Works but to the Evil or that he was a Minister to them that is to
13th of Charles the Second for the Militia never intended thereby to enable or leave it in the power of that King or his Successors to make this Kingdom an absolute Despotick Monarchy instead of a limited one as they must have done had they declared that the King and those Commissioned by him might do what they pleased with the Religion Lives Liberties and Estates of the People of this Nation and that it was Treason to resist in any case whatsoever sure they could not but remember that Commission of Sir Phelim Oneals in the year 41. whereby he pretended to be impowered to drive the English Protestants out of Ireland and to set up the Popish Religion in that Kingdom and restore the Irish to their Estates and sure divers of them could not be unmindful that this was to give away all right of Self-defence in case any future King should by his own innate Tyrannical Temper or the evil Counsel of wicked men be perswaded to use Force upon the persons of the Lords and Commons either whilst they were actually sitting or in their passage to the New Houses since by this Act or Oath if understood in your sense they must have barred themselves and the whole Nation of all right of Self-defence in any case whatsoever tho' of the greatest extremity and therefore I doubt not but the intent of this Parliament was to leave things as they found them and as it was absolutely unlawful for the People of this Nation to take up Arms against the King so it is also as unlawful in him or those Commissioned by him to make War upon the People or to disseize them by force of their Religion just Rights Liberties or Estates and if the King hath a right to defend himself and his Crown and Dignity against Rebellion so must the People of this Nation have a right likewise to defend themselves against Arbitrary Power in case of an Invasion of any of the Fundamental Rights above-mentioned or else all bounds between a Limited and Despotick Power will be quite taken away and the King may make himself as absolute as the King of France or great Turk whenever he pleases M. I will not dispute with you about bare matter of fact or that a prevailing Faction might not in turbulent times and during the Reigns of weak and ill advised Princes take upon them by force of Arms to remove Evil Counsellors and to put the Government of the Kingdom in what hands they pleased and then procure Acts of Parliament to indemnifie themselves for so doing yet I cannot allow that even such Acts could make it lawful to take up Arms against the King or those Commissioned by him upon any pretence whatsoever So that tho' I grant that the intent of this Parliament of King Charles the Second was not to make any new Law against Resistance or taking up Arms against the King yet was it their design so to explain the Ancient Statute of the 25th of Edward the Third that none should for the future doubt in the least that all taking up Arms or Resistance of the King or those Commissioned by him upon any pretence whatsoever was unlawful and treasonable and for this we need go no farther than the very words of these Declarations which the Parliaments of the 12th and 13th of Charles the Second have made concerning this matter as first in the Statute of the 12th of Car. 2. Cap. 30. for attainting the Regicides that two Houses of Parliament expresly declared That by the Fundamental Laws of this Kingdom neither the Peers of this Realm nor the Commons nor both together in Parliament nor the People collectively or representatively nor any other persons whatsoever ever had hath or ought to have any Coercive Power over the persons of the Kings of this Realm Whereby not only all the Traiterous Examples of the Depositions and Imprisonments of King Edward and Richard the Second are expresly condemned but also all taking Arms to force the King to redress our grievances whether he will or not And farther that all Arms whether offensive or defensive are expresly forbid Pray mind that Clause in the Preamble to these Acts of the Militia I now mentioned wherein that Parliament expresly renounces all taking up Arms as well defensive as offensive against the King and the words of the Oath it self are yet more strict that it is not lawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take up Arms against the King Now can any thing be plainer than that all defensive Arms tho' for our Religion Lives and Liberties or whatsoever else you please are expresly declared to be against the Fundamental Laws of this Kingdom But as for the dreadful consequences of this Law if never so strictly taken they are not so bad as you are pleased to fancy for as to your instance of Sir Phelim Oneal's pretended Commission from King Charles the First you may be very well satisfied that it was a notorious piece of forgery since besides that good King 's constant denial of any such Commission granted by him Sir Phelim when he came to suffer in Ireland for raising that horrid Rebellion did voluntarily at the Gallows acknowledge that he had forged it himself by putting the Seal of an old Patent which he had by him to that pretended Commission you now mention Nor indeed can it ever enter into my head that any King should grant a Commission to destroy or make War upon his People as long as they continue in their duty to him tho' of a different Religion from himself tho' perhaps he may think fit for some reasons to disarm them or deny them the publick Exercise of their Religion or render them uncapable of bearing any Offices of publick Trust in the Kingdom but if these should be lawful Causes of Resistance why the Papists should not be allowed it as well as the Protestants I can see no reason to the contrary As for your other Instance that the Parliament by renouncing all defensive Arms must be supposed likewise to give up all right of Self-defence in case the King or any Commissioned by him should use any violence to the persons of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament or in going thither this is so unlikely and remote a case that it hardly comes under the consideration of a bare possibility But however let the worst that can be happen I am very well satisfied that the Parliament was then so thoroughly convinced of the Mischiefs had befallen this Nation by this Republican Doctrine of Resistance having been the cause of the destruction of the best Constituted Church and Government in the World as also of the murder of one of the best Princes that ever Reigned that they were resolved rather to trust to the Coronation Oaths and innate goodness of our present and future Kings than to suppose any War could be lawfully made against them upon any account whatsoever which would have been expresly contrary not only to
necessary consequence of your sense of this Oath So that upon the whole matter and considering the late Scene of Affairs I darst leave it to the Judgment of any indifferent Foreiner tho' a Papist which was most likely before the unexpected coming of the Prince of Orange into this Kingdom that the People should rise up in Arms and expel the King from his Throne or that he should by vertue of the pretended sense of this Oath backt by your Doctrine of Passive Obedience have enslaved this Nation and set up what Government and Religion he pleased M. I must confess you have given a very cunning and specious gloss upon the words of this Oath and Declaration of the Parliament of King Charles the Second but whether it is legal or not I very much doubt since I never heard of it before and I could have wisht that if they designed not to lay a snare upon Mens Consciences in this great point that they would have been more clear in expressing all those Cases wherein it might be lawful for us to resist the King or those Commissioned by him as also who should judge when the King's Commissions are so illegal and violent as to require Resistance for if every private Subject may judge of the legality or illegality of the King 's Military Commissions and can raise a Party strong enough to make opposition against those that are Commissioned by them in the Execution of the King's Orders a discontented Party of this Nation may soon find a pretence to raise another Rebellion and Civil War as dreadful as the former and notwithstanding your great care and concern for the King's person which you grant to be sacred and inviolable could it long continue so for if the King himself appeared at the Head of his Men to command and encourage them in their duty it would be much worse as long as the matter they took up Arms for should be by them accounted a violation of the Laws Thus we may remember that tho' the Parliament of 41. did pretend to take up Arms for defence of the King's person and only to take away Evil Councellors yet did they for all that order their Generals and Officers to fight aâ— much when the King was personally present as at any other place or time so that His Majesties person had not God thought fit to order it otherwise might have been as well destroyed in the Battles of Edg-hill or Naseby as his great Grand-father King Iames the Third of Scotland was in that Battle against his Rebellious Subjects headed by his own Son So that according to your interpretation instead of mending the matter this Parliament of King Charles the Second had only left it far worse than they found it For whereas the Long Parliament made themselves the sole Judges and Redressers of the King's Violations of the Peoples Rights Now according to your interpretation of this Oath and Declaration of the Parliament of King Charleâ—'s the Second every private Man may not only judge of the King's Violation of the Law by his Military Commissions but also make Resistance against them when-ever they think themselves able so to do and then notwithstanding that Parliament utter renouncing all Arms whether offensive or defensive to be raised by themselves against the King they would have still left a power in any part of the People strong enough to make this Resistance which they had renounced for themselves who are their Lawful Representatives Thus for example supposing the last Civil War had begun upon the account of raising of Ship Money which whether it was lawful I will not now dispute it was sufficient that all the Judges except two gave their Opinions for it and if any County in England strong enough to make an Insurrection had rose in Arms upon the Levying of this Tax as it has several times happened even about Taxes granted in Parliament this Tax tho' small yet being lookt upon against Law must have engaged the whole Nations in a Civil War and also endangered His Majesties person in case he had appeared in the Field with those Men he had raised to subdue that Rebellion so that I am still satisfied that it is far better to suffer a mischief than an inconvenience that is it is better to trust to the King's Conscience and Discretion what Commissions to grant tho' sometimes perhaps they may chance to be illegal than to leave it in the power of the people to rise in Rebellion when-ever they think such Commissions to violate their supposed or pretended Liberties and Properties F. I see you will not argue against the Resistance of the King's person in case he should go about to Ravish Rob or Murder his people But now you raise another difficulty who shall judge and consequently make this Resistance against the King's Commissions when executed by illegal persons to illegal and violent ends for if the people may judge for themselves of the illegality of such Commissions a Rebellion may be raised and His Majesties person endangered notwithstanding all the provision the Parliament have made against it But before I answer this Argument of yours pray give me leave to ask you one or two Questions Do you think the King 's Late Declaration for the Dispensing Power and the Commissions granted thereupon to be according to Law or not M. I must confess I think they are unlawful yet it does not follow that they may be therefore resisted F. I do not ask you that now but only tell me whether you think the Bishops are obliged in Conscience to disperse that Declaration or the Clergy to read it in their Churches and whether those have done well who have refused to read it M. I must tell you I am so good a Protestant and so true an Englishman that I cannot allow the King that power and therefore I must grant that the Bishops did nobly and like true Christian Bishops to refuse to disperse it and where it was dispersed the Inferiour Clergy have done very well not to read it F. Well then notwithstanding all the dreadful Mischiefs proceeding from private Subjects juding of the legality or illegality of the King's Declarations and Commissions or Commands yet they may it seems not only judge whether they are lawful or not but a disobedience to them may not only be lawfully exercised but is very commendable Now what is this disobedience to these Commands but a Moral or Civil Resistance of the King's Power in this matter and why may not such a Judgment he made by the People in as plain a case and also Resistance follow thereupon against such violent illegal Commissions suppose to raise Money without Act of Parliament or to Dragoon Men to go to Mass since the violence is more evident and apparent in this case upon Mens persons than in the other upon the bare Consciences of the Bishops and Clergy for the force being more immediate and pressing upon their Persons and Estates
King ought to yield the like Dominion and Power to the Law as the Law had given him before or else how could Bracton call the Law in the place I have already cited the Kings Superiour And if the Kings Title to the Crown were not by Law How came it to pass that the Stewards for Example had a better Tittle to the Crown of Scotland than the Bayliols but only that the Laws of Scotland that is the Consent of the States of that Kingdom made them so for otherwise any man that looks upon the Pedegree of both those Families will see that Bayliol according to our rules of Descent was the nearer of Blood to the last King David than Bruce and was so ajudged upon a solemn hearing by our King Edward 1. ih Parliament And as for William whom you call the Conquerour under whom all our present King 's do claim at this day he could have no just Right or Title to the Crown of England by Conquest but by the Election or Submission of the People declared by them at his Coronation And therefore that Law by which he was made King must be precedent or at least concurrent with his being so and upon whatever terms or Conditions he then accepted it his Successours are bound both by the Laws of God and Man to observe them And therefore whatever you have built upon or would infer from these Principles is of no force And If the King be the Sole Soveraign Power that makes the Laws repeals them and dispenses with them when he pleases I would be glad to know upon what grounds so many of the Bishops and Clergy refused to read the King's Declaration of Indulgence Since certainly if he alone made the Laws he also could dispense with them But I shall say no more of these Points now because they are not directly to the matter in hand M. As for what you say concerning the King 's not being the sole Supreme Legislative Power I confess you and I have discoursed long upon that point and if I were thoroughly satisfied of it I could much easier assent to what you have said as also if you could prove to me that the King received his Power from the People and not from God the matter would be yet plainer for then it would evidently appear that the People might have reserved to themselves such a Right of Resistance as you now maintain but that they never could have such a power in England from the Constitution of this Monarchy I need go no farther than your own Instance of William the Conqueror who owed all his Right to this Kingdom to the power of the Sword and not to any Hereditary Right much less Election or Confirmation of the People as I think Doctor Brady has proved beyond dispute in his Learned Answer to Argumentum Antinor manleum so that since we owe all the Rights and Liberties we enjoy to the gracious Concessions of our Kings of this Norman Race we ought not in reason or gratitude to resist them if they should sometimes encroach upon what we take to be part of those Liberties so granted no not if the King who derives an Indefeasible Right to the Crown from the Title of the first Conqueror should go about to take away all those Liberties nay our very Religion and Property too from us But I have not time to pursue this Argument further now and therefore shall leave it to another opportunity F. As for what you have now said concerning William the First 's having no Right to the Crown of this Kingdom but what he owed to his Sword is false in matter of fact it being more than that Prince himself ever asserted or pretended to and in the next place as for your Dr's proving him an Absolute Conqueror over the English Nations supposing he had done it which yet I positively deny yet will not this serve to do the business for which the Doctor urges it viz. to set up an Arbitrary Irresistible Power in that King and all his Successours but may be urged against him to a quite contrary purpose as I shall shew you more at large whenever you please to discourse farther upon that Subject And as for all those things we call Legal our Rights and Priviledges which you say were wholly granted us by the Charters of his Successours I have already proved that to be false in matter of fact at our fifth Meeting where I shewed you that the English Nation had the same Liberties as to their Persons and Properties in their Estates before your pretended Conquest as they enjoyed afterwards and that Magna Charta was but the recital and confirmation of our Ancient English Laws as Mat. Paris affirms in the place I here formerly cited but admitting these Liberties and Priviledges you mention had been owing to the favour and bounty of former Kings yet can I see no Rebellion or ingratitude the People of this Nation are guilty of if they keep and defend them now they have them but would rather betray a servile base spirit if we part with them For since it is a Maxim in Law concerning all Grants as well from the Crown as private persons that they ought so to enure ut Res magis valeat quem pereat i. e. that the Parties to whom the Grant is is made may not lose the benefit of it when ever the Grantor pleases Therefore it is also a rule in such Grants that they are still to be interpreted in favour of the Grantee against the Grantor and also that the Grantee shall not be left without some means or remedy of keeping and defending his right against the Grantor whenever he goes about to take it away nor do I know any exception there is for the Kings Grants more than those of private Subjects since both Bracton and Flita tell us non debet esse Rege major in Exhibitione Iuris minimus autem esse debet in judicio suscipiendo si pecatur which I take to be the true reading of that place and not peccat parcat or petat as divers copies have it That is as the King is the greatest in distributing of right or Law to his Subjects so ought he to be no more than the least of them in submiting to right judgment if he be Petitioned to and that it be required of him either of which senses this word will well bear but if he absolutely refuses to do this but will take away their Rights and Liberties by force and will deny them the benefit of the Laws what other remedy is there left them but a general resistance since otherwise the King may alter the Government and take away all our Legal Rights and Liberties whenever he pleases M. I confess this dispute concerning the Resistance of those commissioned by the King and the Kings being the Sole Legislator and Original of all the Civil Liberties and Priviledges we now enjoy hath carryed us from the main points in this
place as to the dispensing Power which the King has lately assumed to himself in matters of Religion and thereby putting into Offices and Commands persons uncapable by Law of bearing them without taking the Test as I shall not now dispute the Legality or Illegality of the Kings Declaration concerning it so as to that part of it that concerns Liberty of Conscience or dispensing with the Papists and Dissenters to meet in Assemblies for their Religious Worship notwithstanding all the Acts made against Mass and Conventicles it was no more than what King Charles the IId had done before with the Advice of his Privy-Council in which if it had been Rebellion to have opposed him sure it is the same crime in the Reign of his Brother 2. As for the Commission for causes Ecclesiastical F. Since I foresee your discourse upon this Subject is like to be long and to consist of many more heads than I doubt my memory will serve to bear away pray give me leave to answer all your instances one after another as you propose them First then as to the late Declaration concerning the Dispensing Power it was so far from being done by Law or so much as the Colour of it that besides its being against divers express Acts of Parliament which tye up the Kings hands from dispensing with the Act against publick Mass and Conventicles as also that disable all Persons whatever to act in any publick Imployments till they have taken the Test appointed by the said Act in which all non obstances are expresly barred But this Declaration was never so much as shewn to the Privy Council till it was ready to be published and then indeed the King caused it to be read in Council declaring that he would have it issued forth tho' without ever Putting it to the Vote or so much as asking the consents of the Privy Councellours there present though I grant the Title of it sets forth that it was done by his Majesty in Council to impose upon the Nation that stale cheat whereby this King as well as the last would have had us believe that their Declarations had been issued by the consent of the Council when God knows there was no such thing And as for any judgment or opinion of the Judges to support it and make it pass by colour of Law it was never as I can hear of so much as propos'd to them in their judicial capacities though perhaps it might be propos'd to the Lord Chancellor and some of the Judges who were of the Cabal which is nothing to the purpose all that I ever heard to have been brought judicially before them was the Case of Sir Edward Hales taking a Commission for a Collonel of a Regiment after he had openly declared himself a Papist in which great point though I grant the Major part of the Judges gave their opinion for the dispensing Power yet was it only in the case of Military commissions as several of them afterwards declared and not of all sorts of Imployments as well Civil as Military much less for Popish heads of Colledges Parsons and Bishops to hold their Livings Headships and Bishopricks if they pleased to turn to the Romish Religion or that the King should please to bestow them upon Popish Priests it would have been as legal in the one case as in the other Since as for Popish Heads of Colledges and Parsons we have had too many instances of it and if we had none for Bishops we must thank either the constancy of most or the timorousness of some of them if they have not openly declared for the Romish Religion and yet might have kept their Bishopricks notwithstanding but I do not at all doubt but that such a general dispensation for professed Papists to take and hold all sorts of Offices and places of Trust not only Military but Ecclesiastical and Civil would have in a little time brought all Offices and Imployments into their hands Nor is this dispensing power in matters of Religion the sole thing aimed at by this Declaration as appears by the very words and whole purport of it which is not confined to matters of Religion only but claims an unlimited power of dispensing with all sorts of Statutes in all cases whatever none excepted and if so pray tell me what Magna Charta or the Statute de Tallagio non concidendo or any other Law will signifie whenever the King pleases to dispense with them either as to raising Money or taking away mens Lives or Liberties or Estates contrary to Law nay the Papists already give out and that in Print that all Laws for taking away Religious Orders and Suppressures of Monasteries are against Magna Charta by which holy Church that is the Popish Religion then in being is to injoy all her ancient Rights and Liberties and the Abbots and Priors do thereby as well as the Bishops and Lay Lords reserve to themselves all their Ancient Rights and free Customs now whether this unbounded Prerogative would not quickly have destroyed not only the Ecclesiastical but Civil constitution of this Kingdom as they now stand establisht by Law and would have soon introduced both Popery and Arbitrary Government on this Nation I leave it to your self or any indifferent person to consider And though I do not say that the bare giving of Papists or Protestant Dissenters a Liberty of Religious Meetings or Assemblies for Mass or Preaching is an infringment of the free exercise of our Religion establisht by Law yet pray take one thing along with you which is a matter of great moment both to the Dissenters and to our selves that if the King can thus by his Prerogative give both Papists and Fanaticks a Liberty to meet publickly contrary to Law let the latter look to it for he may by the same Prerogative whenever he pleases dispense only with the Papists and keep the Laws still on foot against the Dissenters nay he may by the same unbounded Prerogative dispense with all the Laws for the publick exercise of our Religion and under pretence of dispensing with them only in some particular cases shut up our Church Doors one after another beginning with the Cathedrals and so proceeding by degrees to Parish Churches and though I grant King Charles the IId did assume a power of dispensing with all Statutes concerning Religious Meetings contrary to Law yet the Nation had not then any sufficient reason to rise in Arms against this Declaration since it did not extend the Kings Prerogative beyond those Acts concerning Religious Worship and farther the Nation was not out of all hopes of having it redressed by the next Parliament and so was not in that desperate condition in which it was lately before the Prince of Oranges coming over And you may remember that the Late King upon the joint Address of the Lords and Commons against that Declaration was forced to call it in and cancel it which certainly ought to have been better considered
Court took upon it to Judge of Matrimonial Causes about Alimony and concerning â—lmoniacal contracts and all other misdemeanours both of Clergy and Layety against Religion and good Manners which were the same things the late high Commission Court took upon them to determine and if they did not meddle with Popish or Non-conformist Meetings it was because their hands were so tied up by the Late Declaration of Indulgence that they had no power to meddle either with Papists or Dissenters M. I shall make no farther reply appresent to what you now say till I come to answer once for all therefore I shall go on to the next things excepted against in the Princes Declaration viz. the erecting of publick Chappels for Mass the protecting of Priests and the making a Jesuit a Privy Councellor all which tho' I confess they are against the express Letter of divers Statutes yet since all these things depend upon the Kings dispensing power set forth in His Majesties late Declaration which as I will not assert so I will not positively deny since the said Declaration of Indulgence and all proceedings thereupon have issued out and executed under colour of Law viz. of the Kings Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction without any force or violence upon the Conscience Religion or Properties of the Kings Protestant Subjects whom the King in his said Declaration solemnly promises to protect in the free possession and enjoyment of their Religion establisht by Law and I cannot see how a liberty granted to Popish Priests to say Mass or the putting in a Jesuite into the Privy Council or making Popish Judges or putting a Papist into the Ecclesiastical Commission can be lookt upon as any Invasion of the Protestant Religion the free and publick profession of which we have God be thanked as quietly injoyed as we did in the Reign of this King or in that of his Brother F. Since you cannot directly justifie the Kings setting up publick Mass Houses in London and in most other parts of the Kingdom and his so publick protecting and countenancing Papists and Jesuits even to the making a Jesuit a Privy-Councellor tho' they are all in judgment of Law alike publick Enemies and Traytors to the King and Kingdom and that all these as you cannot deny are contrary to the express words and intent of all Statutes against Priests and Popish Assemblies so you endeavour to palliate it under the Kings dispensing power which you suppose to have had a colour of Law at least to support it but tho' the giving Liberty to Popish Assemblies and the Conventicles of the Dissenters was no direct hindrance of the free exeâ—ercise of the Protestant Religion establisht by Law yet I must utterly deny that the King has any such prerogative as to dispense with those Laws and by his sole Authority to declare those that the Law calls Enemies and Traytors to be good Subjects and you may as well tell me that the King has not only a prerogative power to pardon High-way-men but may also protect them and put them into his Guards with a Commission to rob whom they pleased as to give Papists Power to bear Arms or to protect and imploy declared Traytors as Popish Priests and Jesuites are by Law as the King had done not the like I may say for putting in Popish Judges and Justices of Peace viz. that it was all done by force of the Kings Personal Orders without his Legal Authority which is that alone we can take cognizance of or render any Obedience to and tho' 't is true I do not deny the King a Power of making whom he pleases Judges yet this prerogative is still to be exercised according to Law and therefore if the King should make an illiterate man a Judge who could neither Write nor Read the Writ or Patent would be void in its self the same I may say of a Popish Judge the Law making no difference as I know of between a natural and a legal disability but however the turning out honest and able Judges because they would not give up our Religion and Liberties to the Kings Arbitrary Will is certainly a much greater breach of the Trust committed to him by his Coronation Oath wherein he swore he would maintain the Laws of the Land and mix Equity with Mercy in all his Judgements now where is the Equity or Justice of this that whereas the Judges anciently held their places quam diu se bene gesserint they should now by a notorious encroachment of the prerogative not only be made durante beneplacito but that the King should stretch this prerogative so unreasonably as to examine the Judges before hand whether they would agree to the dispensing power and to turn out those that refused to comply meerly because they would not serve his Arbitrary designs and then to put in the meanest and most mercenary Lawyers at the Bar nay some who never come thither at all into their places for no other merit or good qualities but because they would serve a turn is so notorious a breach of his Oath that it could not fail in a little time to destroy all our Common as well as our Statute Laws since these were all lately lodged in their Breasts and resolved into their Arbitrary determinations which yet as all the World knows were wholy managed by the influence and commands of the Court and this I say again was as notorious an abuse of the Kings prerogative as if he had put in High-way-men into his Guards with Commissions in their Pockets to rob whom they pleased since these Gentlemen in Scarlet have taken the same Liberty under colour of Law to raise Taxes upon the Subjects against the express letter of an act of Parliament as may be seen in their late determination concerning Chimney Money making Cottages built for the use of the poor and houses of persons exempted from payment liable to Chymney Money contrary to the express words of that Statute M. I cannot deny but the things you now mention have been great abuses of Prerogative but whether so great as to require resistance I must still disagree with you therefore I shall now proceed to the next particular complain'd of viz. the examining of the Lords Lieutenants Deputy Lieutenants Sheriffs and Justices of Peace to know whether they would concur with the King in the repeal of the Test and Penal Laws and turning all such out of Commission as refused to comply with the Kings desires in this matter now tho' I will not say it was well or prudently done yet it was no more than what I think the King by his Prerogative might Justifie the doing of since he may by Law give a quietus est to what Judges he pleases and put in or out of Commissions whether Civil or Military what persons he thinks fit and as for the persons so examined they might have chosen whether they would have given any positive answers to the questions put to them by the Lord Chancellor
open to him was too timorous then to have put in any Magistrates into Corporations but such as were for the Protestant Religion as it stands by Law establisht and such however angry they might be with those they call'd Whigs in respect of their opposing the Dukes succession to the Crown yet I believe most of them would never have given up the freedom of Elections of Parliament men or have done any thing to bring in Popery among us so that as long as things remained in this State there were some hopes still lest of a redress of our grievances whenever a Parliament had met and that the Nation was grown more cool and had come to it self again after those heats which had risen in the late Parliaments about the succession and other things whereas now the case was far otherwise in this Kings Reign wherein we found not only our Religion but the fundamental Rights and Priviledges of the Nation struck at by the Kings dispensing power and the Arbitrary proceedings of the Judges and not only the freedom of Elections of Knights of Shires but of Cittizens and Burgesses endeavour'd to be taken from us either by threatning the Electors or else by open force as I shall prove by and by when I shall have occasion to speak farther upon that head so that unless a great part of the Nation had declared for the Prince of Orange he had been repuls'd with shame and ruine and our Chains tyed faster upon us than ever they were before M. I shall forbear replying further to what you have now said till I come to conclude but in the mean time I cannot omit another material grievance set down in the Princes Declaration viz. the turning out and disarming the English Protestant Magistrates Officers and Souldiers in Ireland and putting of Irish Papists in their Rooms as also the late Declaration of Indulgence in Scotland but as I will not defend the Justice or Prudence of those Councils so I think none of them could give any sufficient cause for the people of this Kingdom to rise in Arms for sure it is enough if not too much for them to concern themselves with the grievances and miscarriages of their own Country without taking upon them to take up Arms to reform those of their Neighbours since they are not only ignorant of the Laws and Constitutions of those Kingdoms but may also mistake the true reasons and grounds on which those alterations were made F. I see you can as little defend what has been illegally acted in Scotland as in Ireland only you would sain put me off by telling me that the people of this Nation have nothing to do to take notice of what is done in other Kingdoms and you may as well tell me that a man ought not to take any warning as to defend himself against Thieves though he see 's another man robb'd by them before his Eyes or that the Protestants of England should not take warning by the sad example of those in France from ever suffering a Popish King from having the same power here as the French King has in France for fear of the like fatal effects since I never found Papists give Protestants the least forbearance or shew them any mercy longer than whilst it was not in their Power to hurt them But to come to the matter in hand we cannot but concern our selves with what has been so lately done in Scotland and Ireland for the introducing of Popery and Arbitrary Government in those Kingdoms since the latter is notoriously known to be govern'd by the same Laws as England and it is as much against the Laws of that Kingdom as it is of ours for the Irish Papists to be put in Arms and the Protestant Militia disarmed and for Popish Judges and Justices of Peace to be put in Commission as hath been practised under the Government of the Lord Tyrconnel and if English Protestants in Ireland cannot enjoy their Estates and Liberties without being turned out of them by the Papists how could we in England expect better treatment whenever they shall think themselves strong enough and as for Scotland tho' it be not wholy governed by the same Laws as England yet the fundamental constitution of the Government is the same in both Kingdoms and the King can no more make abrogate or dispense with Laws in Scotland without the Parliament than he can here and therefore for the King not only to issue out such a Declaration of Indulgence and suspension of all the Penal Laws in Scotland against Papists but also therein to declare that he expected an obedience to all his commands without reserve whether legal or not was so bold a stroke that we could not but expect the like in England tho' his Majesty thought it not fit at present to discover his Mind so plainly to us M. I shall not any longer dispute these points with you but own that the abuses you mention were indeed of great concern both to the Protestant Religion and our Civil Liberties yet however besides the Laws of the Land which I still suppose do expresly forbid all resistance of the King upon any account whatsoever I think there ought to have been no such thing done by any Subject of this Nation even upon your own principles which seem not to allow of such resistance but in case of an actual and violent assault upon mens Religion Lives and Properties and that by open force of Armes now I desire you to shew me whom it is that the King has ever yet Dragoon'd or persecuted till they would become of his Religion or whose Life his Majesty hath taken away even of the most notorious Traytors but by due Trial and course of Law nay he has pardon'd divers several after they were condemn'd meerly because he was inform'd they were not really guilty of the Crimes whereof they stood Condemn'd and as for mens civil properties I defie you to shew me any persons Estate that has been taken from him without due course of Law or any Taxes that have been Assessed upon the Nation but what have been granted by Parliament or else raised by the opinion of the Judges by whom if his Majesty hath been misinform'd they only ought to answer for it in the next Parliament who are the only proper Judges of their Miscarriages without having any course to Force which the Laws of this Kingdom so much abhor and therefore make the worst of it you can all these Greivances already mentioned were no more than some breaches upon the outward Splendour of our Church Religion or some of our civil liberties whilst the main Essential parts of both continu'd untouch'd since God be thanked we have hitherto enjoy'd the Free publick profession of our Religion together with our lives Liberties and Estates in perfect peace and undisturb'd by any outward Force or Violence from the King or any Commission'd by him and as for those Grievances you mention viz. The turning
the Prince had demanded This would have been not to have been parralel'd any where but in a Romance But as for those Officers and Souldiers who you say Deserted the King and went over to the Prince from Salisbury though I grant they make a great noise yet were they not a Thousand Men Soldiers Officers and all as I am Credibly inform'd which was but a small number in comparison with the Kings whole Army and yet these may very well be defended upon the same principles with the former for if the Violations of our Liberties were so great and dangerous as I have now set forth those Gentlemen were certainly oblig'd to prefer the common Good and Preservation of their Religion and Liberties before any private interests or Obligations whatsoever though it were to the King himself therefore it was more his than their fault if they Diserted him and as for their going away whilst they were his Souldiers and with their Commissions in their pockets I suppose you cannot expect that the King should have ever given them leave to have quitted his Service or have accepted of their Commissions if they would have surrender'd them unless at the same time he had clapt them up in prison for offering of it and if then they were perswaded that it was theiâ— Duty so to do it is but a Punctilio of Honour whether they went away with their Commissions in their pockets or had left them behind them since their going off was a Surrender of their Commissions and a sufficient Declaration â—â—at they could not with a safe Conscience serve the King any longer in this quarrel and you see that the going off of these few had such a fatal effect that it cast such a panick Terrour upon the King and the whole Popish Faction about him as to make him run away to London without striking a stroke But that the Prince of D. with the Dukes of Grafton and Ormond Lord Churchill were convinced of the danger this Kingdom was in both in respect of their Religion and Liberties appears by their leaving the King and going over to the Prince where they could never expect to be put into higher places of Honour or Trust than what they enjoyed already under the King and therefore that expression of the Lord Churchill's in his Letter to the King is very remarkable That he could no longer joyn with self-interested men who had framed designs against His Majesties true Interest and the Protestant Religion to give a pretence to Conquest to bring them to Effect And one would be very much inclin'd to believe so considering the great number of Irish Papists which have been brought over and listed here though with the turning out and disbanding of a great many English Officers and Souldiers out of several Companies But to come to the business of the Prince of Wales which you say was a meer calumny and an unjust suspition on the Princess side though I will not affirm any thing positively in so nice a matter since the Convention has not thought fit to meddle with it I shall only say this much that if there have been any jealousies and suspitions raised about it the King may thank those of his own Religion who were intrusted with the management of the Queens Lying-Inn For in the first place it looked very suspicious to us Protestants who do not put much faith in the Miracles of the Romish Church that immediately after the presenting of the Golden Angel to the Lady of Loretto and the Kings Pilgrimage to St. Winifreds Well the Queen after several years intermission should again be with Child and when she was so should have two different Reckonings Which though it may be forgiven Young Women of their first Children yet those who have born so many Children as Her Majesty are commonly more experienced in these matters M. What is all this to the purpose Was it not proved by many credible Witnesses and those of the Protestant Religion before the Privy-Council that they were not only present in the Room when the Queen was Delivered but that they had seen Milk upon Her Linnen before Her Delivery and that they had also felt Her Belly immediately before it and found that Her Majesty was Big with Child and ready to be Delivered And the Midwife Swears that she actually Delivered Her So that since every person is to be presum'd to be the true Son of those Parents that own him for theirs So nothing but a direct proof to the contray and that by undenyable Evividence ought to make any Man believe otherwise much more in the concern of the Heir apparent to the Crown and therefore I know not what you would have to been done which has not been observed in this nice matter F. And Sir let me tell you because it was so nice a matter and concerned no less than the Succession of Three Kingdoms therefore the whole Nation as well as the Prince and Princess of Orange were to be fully satisfied of the reality of the Princes Birth since they were all suffiâ—iently sensible that there wanted nothing but a Male Heir to entail Popery on us and our Posterity And therefore there ought to have been present such Persons as had no dependance upon the Court and who ought to have been deligated by the Prince and Princess of Orange since the Princess of Denmark could not be there in Person but instead of this the only two Ladies who as I am informed were trusted by the Princess to be present at the Queens Labour were never sent for till she was brought to Bed and the Child Drest And as for the rest of the Witnesses they were either Lords or other Persons who only Swear they stood in the Room at a distance and heard the Queen cry out and immmediately after the Child cry sometime before they saw it And as for the Ladies the greatest part of them Swore no further than the Lords So that notwithstanding all that they have Sworn in this matter there might have been a trick put upon them and they never the wiser Since you may Read in Siderfin's Reports of a Woman who pretended to have been delivered of a Child by a Mid-wife within the Bed and yet many years after this was proved to be a suposititious Birth by the Deposition of the Mid-wife and the poor Woman who was the real Mother of the Child and others that had been of the Conspiracy And what has been done once may be done again 'T is true the King himself with one or two Ladies Deposed something further as to Milk and the feeling of the Child immediately before the Birth but his Majesty if it be an Imposture is too deeply concerned in it to be admitted as a competent Witness And as for the rest of the Ladies they are likewise being as the Queens Servants and having an immediate dependance upon her to be excepted against and under too much awe to speak the whole Truth
Monarch I believe he would have been too much afraid of the King of France ever to have made use of his Forces to have setled Popery and Arbitrary Government and without his assistance I suppose you will grant it never could have been done since he plainly found that a Protestant Army would never have joined with him to act in such pernitious designs but however let the worst have happened that could be I think it had been much better for the Nation to have endured it with Patience than to have done that which was Evil though for the procuring of the greatest seeming Good tho' for the advantage of our Religion and civil Liberties and therefore it had been better for us in this extremity to have trusted God than Men since he always promises to protect those that relye upon him and strictly perform his Will and admit the worst that could have happened God would either have removed those afflictions from us in due time or have given us Patience to have born them since I suppose you will not deny that God oftentimes brings Persecutions and Afflictions upon a Sinful Church and Nation either for a punishment for their Sins or else to give an occasion for those that are truly Pious and Sincere to shew their Courage and Constancy in Suffering for the Truth and by withstanding not by force but Passive Obedience all the Kings Illegal and Arbitrary Commands if he should after his re-establishment in the Throne have again renewed his former courses these are the only remedies which we of the Church of England as obedient Subjects to the King and his Laws must think could have been Lawfully taken in this case F. I do not deny but what you say is in the main very pious and honest were the case as you have put it but the greatest part of your discourse depends wholly upon those old principles and prejudices of the unlawfulness of all resistance of the Supream Powers and that the King is the only Supream Power in this Kingdom both which propositions I have sufficiently confuted at our third fourth and fifth meetings and also at our last save one in which I gave you a true account of the Legal sense of those Oaths and Statutes of King Charles II. concerning Resistance as was also given by the best Lawyers and most considering Men of the then House of Lords and Commons so that if the means we have used are lawful both by the Laws of God and Man I think we are not bound to bring Afflictions upon our selves but to avoid them all we can especially when they come evidently attended with the utter loss and ruine of what ought to be most dear to us our Religion Civil Liberties and Properties and that not only for our selves but our Posterity who perhaps would never have regained them when they were once lost of which the French Nation is an evident example before our Eyes who by not opposing the Arbitrary Power of their Kings in due time have fallen into a Government almost as Despotick as that of Turky for when once the common good of the Subjects ceases to be the main end of the Governours the Government then ceasing to be Gods Ordinance degenerates into Tyranny which I think may be always Lawfully opposed by a free-born People who at first agreed to be Governed not as Slaves but Subjects But as for the first part of your Speech it needs not any long answer it first supposes the King might have been again restored upon terms now since it is plain these Terms must have been imposed upon him against his Will and as necessary Conditions of his Restoration I would be glad to know who it was should undertake to impose them upon him and to see them kept when they had been made whether the Prince of Orange or the Parliament if the former I grant indeed he might have made such Conditions with the King that the Church of England as well as the whole Nation should for the future enjoy their Just Rights and Liberties but then the Prince must either have trusted wholy to the Kings Honour or else he must have had some strong places put into his Hands for a Security that the King would not again make the same Violations upon our Laws Religion and Liberties as he had done before if the former I suppose you will not deny but that the King might if he had pleased have broken them all again as soon as ever the Princes back had been turned and that he had been once engaged in a War with France which could not have been long avoided considering the necessity there is at this juncture of time for the States of Holland and Consequently the Prince as their General to engage with the Emperor and King of Spain to drive the French out of the Empire and to hinder him from making himself Universal Monarch of Europe which it is plain is the thing he now drives at But if the Prince should have kept any strong places here as cautionary Towns for the Kings performance of the Terms agreed upon this must have been done either by English or Forreign Forces if by the former this would have been looked upon as inconsistent with their Duty and Allegiance to the King if he should have commanded them to be delivered up into his Hands since you tell us the King has the sole Command of the Militia and consequently of all Garrisons man'd by his Subjects within his Dominions But if the Forces that should have held these places had been Dutch-men or other Forreigners it would never have been endured either by the King or the Nation that Forreigners should possess the strong Holds and Keys of the Kingdom and the King might soon have wrought by some jealousies and suspitions which he would not have failed to have raised that the Nation it self should have joyned with him to drive them out and then the King might have done what he pleased without Controul but if you will place this power into the whole People or Nation or else their Representatives the Parliament of holding the King to these Terms agreed upon this could not have been done without their constant Siting and a power of Resisting him in case he infring'd them and then either they must have given up all their Liberties to the Kings Will or else farewell to the Darling Doctrines of Passive Obedience and Non-resistance so that take it which way you will all imposing of Terms upon the King either by the Prince of Orange or the Nation would in a short time have become either Unpracticable or Insignificant Nor is your other Supposition any whit truer that the King would never have made use of the Forces of France to subdue and keep under the people of England for fear he should not be able to get the French out again Ti 's true this would be a very good Argument to a Prince who were no Bigot and was not resolved
Crown of France as ever they have been in former Times if ever our Kings should go about to revive their ancient pretentions to France or Normandy or make War upon some other Quarrel and thefore I think it will be more far the Interest of France to leave us our Laws Liberties and Priviledges as we now enjoy them nay to make an express Capitulation for them and when he has done to foment those Jealousies and Disputes that are still like to arise between the King and Us about them thereby to hinder us from joining against him then by rendring the King Absolute to take them quite away and put the sole power of the Purse as well as of the Sword wholly into his Hands To Conclude you do also very much misrepresent the matter in supposing that though the King cannot now be restor'd without falling into a new Civil War yet that does it not therefore follow that such a War is not to be desir'd for the Publick Good of the Nation since we shall thereby not only restore the Crown to its right Owner and the Succession of it to the lawfull Heir but also shall restore Episcopacy in Scotland and prevent the Church of England from falling into a dangerous Schism by depriving the Arch Bishop of Canterbury and as many other of the Bishops who are so Honest as not to take the new Oath for standing out against it by the Temporal Power of a pretended Parliament without the Judgment of a Lawfull Convocation who are the only proper and legal Judges You likewise as much mistake in supposing that this War can no ways be finisht but by so great a Concussion as shall so much weaken the Kingdom as to render it expos'd to the Invasionâ— of Foreign Enemies in which you may be very much deceived for who can tell but the hearts of this Nation may come to be so inclin'd to receive their lawful King and his right Heir and may be so weary of the present Usurpation as upon his first appearance in England with an Army sufficient to defend those who shall come into him so many of his Subjects will take this advantage as will be more than enough to restore him with as little Blood-shed as when he was driven out and then I think no indifferent Man but will acknowledge that such a War would prove for the best since it will not only setle the Government upon in ancient Foundation of a lineal Succession but will also extinguish those fatal causes of War not only from among our selves but also from Foreign Princes as long as the King and the Prince of Wales and his lawful Heirs shall continue in being which I hope will be much longer then those upon whom your Convention has setled the Crown either in Present or Reversion F. I doubt not but to show you that all you have now said is either built upon false Principles or else deduced by very uncertain Consequences for in the first place though you doubt my Principle that the People of this Nation are not bound to restore King Iames to the Throne if it cannot be done without the evident Destruction both of our Religion and Civil Liberties which certainly is true granting it to be never so much our duty to restore him when with safety we may for if the obligation of all Moral Duties whatsoever is only to be judged of according as they more or less conduce to the Happiness or Destruction of the common good of Mankind whereof this particular Nation makes a part it will necessarily follow that this Duty of restoring King Iames is not to be practised if it cannot be brought about without the Destruction of our Religion and Civil Liberties since it is only for the maintenance of those that even Kings themselves were first ordain'd in this Nation and it is evident that this Kingdom may be sufficiently Happy and subsist in the State it is now in though neither King Iames nor your Prince of Wales be ever restor'd to Reign over us So that then all the Difficulty that remains is That since his Restoration being not otherwise to be brought about without the assistance of great numbers of French or Irish Forces whether it be not only so small a hazard as you make it but twenty to one that his coming in upon these Terms will produce those dreadfull Effects which I say will certainly happen from it and though I grant that future things especially in the Revolutions of Government are not capable of Demonstration as Mathematical Propositions yet if all the circumstances of Time and the Temper and Disposition of the King himself and those who are to join with Him in bringing Him in again be considered it shall appear that Morally speaking nothing less then the evident Destruction of our Religion and Civil Liberties will follow I think I may still positively affirm that we are not oblig'd to restore Him till this Temper of Mind be alter'd and that he can be restor'd without these Fatal Consequences I now mention and if these cautions are not observ'd I deny that God hath any way promis'd to protect either our Religion or Civil Liberties or that he is bound to provide us a way to escape as you suppose if to perform this suppos'd Duty of Allegience thus unseasonably we slight the onely means God has ordained for our Preservation But as for the patience under those Sufferings that may then happen that is a very sorry reason to embrace them since God may give us that Grace if he pleases as the only Comfort we can have left us when by our own Folly and mistaken Notions of Duty we have brought all those Evils upon our selves I shall therefore now proceed to show you that these Evils I speak of must necessarily happen to us in Case King Iames be restor'd by the French or Irish Papists In the first place therefore it is very falsly suppos'd that this Alteration can be brought about without an entire Subduing or Conquest not only of their present Majesty's but the whole Nation is apparent since none but the Papists and some few of the Clergy Nobility and Gentry desire his Restoration and who if they were put altogether will not I believe amount to the hundredth Man who would be either willing or capable to come in to his Assistance with Men or Money and therefore it is a vain Supposition to believe as you do that this new Revolution can be brought about without any more Dificulty or Blood-shed then the last as long as the present King and Queen continue to Govern us according to the Declaration they subscrib'd upon their acceptance of the Crown and the Coronation Oath they have since taken which I hope they will always do since nothing but following King Iames's Example as well as to Religion as Civil Liberties can ever make this Nation willing to receive Him or your Prince of Wales with so little difficulty as you are
pleased to imagine Since therefore the Business must be wholly done by force I shall in the next place consider all those Suppositions you have laid down as well in respect of the French as Irish who are the only Hands that I see likely at present to do this Work First as to what you say that the King would be too wise then to bring over along with him so great numbers of the French and Irish Nations as shall be able to make an entire Conquest of this Kingdom least thereby both he and his Crown may lie wholly at their Mercy when the Business is done you have hereby granted as much as I desire For if their Majesties are never like to be without an Army in England of at least Fifteen or Twenty Thousand Men as long as this War lasts and that the Militia of this Nation which are almost totally against King Iames's Interest and do amount altogether to above a Hundred Thousand Men I think you your self will grant that King Iames cannot attempt coming over hither with an Army of less then 30 or 4000 Veteran Soldiers of the French and Irish Nations though you should reckon the Papists and others who should come into his Assistance at 20000 more who if they should be altogether able to beat not only King William's standing Army but the Militia of the Kingdom to Boot I desire to know what shall hinder them from making as perfect a Conquest of this Nation as ever Cromwell's Army did either of England or Scotland And consequently of seting up what Religion or Government they please in this Kingdom which that it will not be that which is now exercis'd either in Church or State I think any unprejudiced Man will easily grant me But your next Suppositions are altogether as Precarious that it is not either the Design or Interest of the French King to make an entire Conquest of this Kingdom for himself nor yet to make King Iames an absolute Monarch here one of these I must needs believe will happen for though perhaps that King may at present stand so much upon his Glory as not Seize the Kingdom of a Kinsman and an Allie wholly to his own use and benefit yet it is most likely that he will retain French Garrisons in all or most of the strong places of England not only for the security of the Charges he will have been at to place King Iames in the Throne but also as a tye upon us that we shall never endeavour to drive him out again let him use us as he pleases so that tho' I grant he may not make an absolute Conquest of us now yet it may be in his or his Sons power to do it hereafter if ever King Iames his Son shall go about to shake of that Yoke when once the present Obligation is forgot or the near Relation between the two Kings shall be farther remov'd nor is what you say less Precarious that it will not be for King Lewis's Interest to destroy our Liberties and make King Iames an absolute Monarch because the Kingdom will be then weaker and more divided-then it is now by those Jealousies and Disputes we shall then maintain with the King about our Civil Rights which is indeed so far true if he Governs when he returns in the same Arbitrary manner as he did before but if he Govern according to Law which no wise Man can expect there needs be no more Divisions among us then was for a great while after King Charles the Seconds coming in but that the French King should fear if he once made the King of England an absolute Monarch and put the whole power of the Purses as well as Swords of his Subjects in his Hands he might then become so formidable as to be an equal Match to France it self and to be able to demand either the whole Kingdom or any part of it is yet more pleasant since France is now in comparison with England not only in respect of Men but also the Revenues belonging to the King as Ten to One and I think I may very well maintain that if England should once come to be Govern'd as France is it would be so far from growing Richer or more Powerful thereby that from the Intestine Grieviances and Discontents that such a violent course of Government would cause in the minds of the People of all Sorts and Conditions by those excessive Taxes and Oppressions that would follow from such an Arbitrary Government the Kingdom would quickly diminish and decay as well in People as Trade and Riches and so consequently in power too which is but the product of both these notwithstanding whatsoever the fair appearance of an outwardly Magnificent Court and a great standing Army may produce in the minds of those that do not truly consider or understand the true Grandure and Safety of the Prince and Happiness of the People But granting all this to be as you suppose pray tell me what shall become of our Religion and Civil Liberties not only 〈◊〉 respect of the French King but of King Iames himself 〈…〉 believe that either of them will cease to be instigated by the Jesuits their Confessors to destroy the Northern Heresie as they term our Religion as well in England as it has been in France No the poor Vaudois in Savoy have been too recent an Example that the King of France would carry the Persecution to the same degree here as he did there and that King Iames being wholly in his Power will not be able to withstand his Commands besides the constant Solicitation of his Confessors of the 〈◊〉 Order and Principles of those of the French King to which Holy Fathers the Protestant Religion in France and Savoy do chiefly owe its Destruction To Conclude let us suppose that King Iames shall now prevail in this War by the help of the Irish Army now rais'd by the Earle of Tirconnel can we â—â—pect better Quarter if the King prevails by their Arms and Assistance then if they were intirely French For having once Conquer'd this Nation it will not be in the King's Power to Govern them so easily as you expect but being inveâ—â—â—te Enemies to the English they will not only possess what Estates they please of the English Nobility and Gentry in Ireland but in England too which will be declar'd forfeited by their Owners opposing of King Iames and then I will leave it to your self to Judge in what a Condition we shall be in both as to our Religion and Civil Liberties when the King shall come to be manag'd by Men who are declar'd Enemies to both neither will it be in the power of those few moderate men either of the Popish or Protestanâ— Religion who take King Iame's part to hinder it since the other Party will by means of the Priests and Jesuites and the interest of France run down all sober Councils and they will be but looked upon but as Trimmers at best that oppose
P. 3. Anarchy of mixt or limited Monarchy F. A. M M. 4. Preface to the Observations on Aristotle F. P. O. 5. Directions for Obedience to Governours D. O. G. 2. Mr. Bohun's Preface to Sir Robert Filmer's Patriarcha B. P. P. His Conclusion to the same B. C. P. 3. Patriarcha non Monarcha P. N. M. 4. Grotius de Iure Belli Pacis G. I. B. 5. Pufendorf de Iure Naturae Gentium P. I. N. 6. Two Treatises of Government T. T. G. 7. Rushworth's Historical Collections R. H. C. 8. Bishop Sanderson's preface to the power of the Prince c. B. S. P. P. Adertisement I Desire always to be understood that when I make use of the word People I do not mean the vulgar or mixt multitude but in the state of Nature the whole Body of Free-men and women especially the Fathers and Masters of Families and in a Civil State all degrees of men as well the Nobility and Clergy as the Common People THE First Dialogue BETWEEN Mr. FREEMAN a Gentleman AND Mr. MEANWELL a Civil Lawyer Supposed to be immediately upon the late KING IAMES's first Departure F. GOOD Morrow Sir what at your Study thus early this Morning M. That is no wonder if you were acquainted with my Hours But pray Sir may I not likewise ask you what extraordinary occasion brings you out of your Lodgings so much sooner than your ordinary time F. Why Sir I 'll tell you Being awake very early this Morning and not able to sleep for thinking on the great Change that might happen let either the King or Prince get the better and hearing some odd Rumours last Night of the King's Intentions to go away I was resolved to get up and go to the Coffee-house to hear what News where I had scarcâ— satâ— down before a Gentleman comes in from Whitehall and brings us a certain account that the King withdrew himself this Morning between three and four of the Clock no Body knows whither tho' most believe he is gone after the Queen into France which I thought would be so surpriâ—ing I will not say welcome to you that being so near your Lodgings I thought it would be worth while to step up and tell you of it and take your Thoughts of this great and I hope happy Change which so great a Revolution is likely to produce in this Nation M. I thank you Sir for your kindness tho' it is not half an Hour ago that one I employ in some Business relating to a Client of mine came hither and gave me the same account that you do tho' it was no great surprize to me for ever since Sunday that the King sent the Queen and Prince away I believ'd that he gave the Game for lost F. I must confess I was of another Mind and thought that when he had secured the Queen and Child he would have had one Brush with the Prince before he could have got to London and if he had the worst of iâ— he could have but gone away at last But to leap away on this Manner and to loose Three Kingdoms without ever striking one stroke it is not I confess sutable to that high Character his Admirer have always had of his Courage and Conduct M. Alas Good King what would you have him do Or whom could he relye on When some of his near Relations and divers of those whom he had raised almost from nothing had deserted him How could he then trust an Army of Mercenaries who being most of them but the Dregs of the People would it is likely rather have delivered him up to the Prince than have ventured their Lives for him F. What you have said concerning his Majesties Relations and Confidents deserting him makes rather against than for the King's Cause since it cannot be supposed they would have left a Prince to whom they were so much obliged to joyn themselves with his Enemy from whom they had no reason to expect greater Advantages than they had already unless they had been satisfied in their Conscienceâ— that the Protestant Religion Establisht in these Nations and also our Civil Rights and Liberties were in imminent danger of being utterly lost and destroyed and tho' I grant that some of the King's Officers and Souldiers went over to the Prince yet considering how few they were that did so not being as I am credibly informed above seven or eight hundred Men at the most and what great numbers of Men he had left with him he might methings have turned out those Officers he suspected and put others in their Rooms who would have Engaged to Live and Die with him and if this would â—ot have done he might have sent those Regiments he most suspected back to London And then reckoning the Scotch and Irish Forces that came lately over besides the Papists he had in his Army and those who having more Courage than Conscience could never expect to Fight for a Prince who would pay them better I am confident if this had been done he migh after the going over of those few Troups have made up as good if not a better Army than the Princes and so need not have scampored last Week from Salisbury in that haste he did whilst the Enemy was near fifty Miles off But as it is I am very well satisfied with all that hath happen'd in this great Revolution and convinced of the Truth of that old saying Ques perdora vult Iupiter demantat priâ—â— M. So far I go along with you that God doth often make use of the Wickedness and Treachery of Men to bring his great Designs about But whether God hath ordained this great Revolution as you call it for a Deliverance or Punishment to this Nation I am yet in doubt for if you please to consider how much those two Causes have contributed to this turn of Affairs I suppose if you argue according to my Principles we must own that tho' this Change hath happened by Gods permissive Providence as all things else tho' never so ill yet whether he doth approve of â—ll that hath been done to procure it I much doubt since if divers of our Nobility with some of our Clergy had not quitted their Doctrines of Passive Obedience and Non Resistance so long owned by the Church of England this Revoluion could not have happened at all or at least not so suddenly as it did So that indeed I must confess I am not only grieved at his Majesties hard Fortune but also stand amazed and cannot but reflect with wonder on the strange Vicissitude of Worldly Affairs to see a Great King who but last Week commanded a Powerful Army of more than Forty Thousand Men forced out of his Throne and made to fly his Kingdom by a Prince that did not bring half that Number into the Field And who can sufficiently Bewail the King's Misfortunes who hath been at once betrayed by the ill Advice of his Counsellors the Treachery of his Friends and tho
Cowardice of his Souldiers F. Methinks Sir there is no such great cause of wonder much less of concern in all this For who can much admire that a Prince should be thus used who had not only provok'd a Powerful Enemy to invade him from Abroad but by industriously labouring to introduce Popery and Arbitrary Government at Home had lost the Hearts of almost all except his Popish Subjects insomuch that many of his own Souldiers were so terrified with the Thoughts of being discarded like the Protestant Army in Ireland to make room for Irish and French Papists that they had very little Courage to Fight when they saw Casheering was the best Reward they could expect if they proved Victorious And who can much pity a Prince who would rather loose the Affections of his People than displease a few Priests and Jesuites So that if he suffers he may thank himself it not being Religion but Superstition which brought this Misfortune upon him Since the King having got a Prince of Wales and as it is highly suspected joined himself in a strict League with France for the Extirpation of Hereticks it laid an absolute necessity upon the Prince of Orange to come over that by the Assistance of the States of Holland he might not only relieve us but vindicate his own and her Royal Highness his Princessâ—s Right to the Succession and secure his Countrey from a dangerous and powerful invasion which it was threatned with both by Sea and Land whenever the Kings of France and England should be at leisure to joyn their Forces to make War upon them which you know all Europe hath expected for above these two Years last past M. These things were somewhat if they could be proved but indeed to deal freely with you I look upon this League and the Story of the Suppositious Birth of the Prince of Wales as meer Calumnies cast out of Wicked and Crafty Men to render the King more odious to his People F. Nay Sir you don't hear me positively affirm either the one or the other since I grant they are not yet made out but whatsoever will consider all the Circumstances of the Birth of this Child cannot but be strongly inclined to believe it an Imposture notwithstanding all the Depositions that are taken to the contrary And as for the French League you may be sure if there be any such thing it is kept very private and yet I must tell you there are very high and violent Presumptions to believe it true or else why should the King of France in a late Memorial to the Pope complain that his Holiness by Opposing his Interest in Europe had hindered him in those great Designs he had for the Extirpation of Heresie by which he must surely intend England or Holland Protestantism being sufficiently expelled out of his own Countrey already And he could not do it in either of the other without the Consent and Assistance of his Brother the King of England Or to what purpose should the King of England joyn with France to ruin Holland and his own Son in Law into the Bargain but to make a War meerly for Religion since neither the Dutch nor the Prince their Stadt-holder gave him till now any just Provocation M. Well however these are but bare suspitions and presumptions at most and not proofs and therefore in a doubtful matter as this is if we ought to judge favourably of the Actions of others much more of Princes whose Councils and Actions tho' private yet are still exposed to the Censure and Calumnies of their Enemies and therefore I hope you will not blame me if I freely confess that I am deeply concerned to see an innocent and Misled King forced to seek his Bread in a Forreign Land and the more since many of the Nobility Gentry and Common People have contributed so much to it by taking up Arms against him and that so great a part of his own Army and Officers should contrary to their Allegiance and Trust reposed in them run over to the Enemy Nay that some of our Bishops and Clergy-men should contrary to the so often acknowledged Doctrines of Passiveâ— Obedience and Non-Resistance not only Countenance but be likewise active in such desperate undertakings and this in-direct opposition to the known Laws of God and this Kingdom which must needs make our Church a Scorn to our Enemies the Papists and a Shame and Reproach to all Protestant Churches abroad and render the people of England odious to all the Crowned Heads in Europe F. Well Sir I see you are very warm and I hope more than the cause deserves You may Judge as favourably of the King's Proceedings and as hardly of the Actions of the Nobility Gentry Clergy and People in this matter as you please But yet I think I can make it as clear as the Day that they have done nothing by joining in Arms with he Prince of Orange but what is justifiable by the Principles of Self preservation the Fundamental Constitutions of the Government and a just Zoal for their Religion and Civil Liberties as they stand secured by our Laws unless you would give the King a Power of making up Papists and Slaves whenever he pleased But as for your Doctrine of an Absolute Obedience without Reserve and the Divine Right of Monarchy and Succession you need not be much concerned whether the Papists laugh at you or no since there are very few of them if any who are such Fools themselves as to believe such futilous Opinions But indeed they have more reason to laugh at you whilst you maintain than when you quit them since as they have only rendered you a fit Object of their Scorn so they would have made you but a more casâ—â— Sacrifice to their Malice For what can Thieves desire more than that those they design to Rob should think it unlawful to resist them And what could the Papists have wisht for more than that our Hands being fotterred by this Doctrine of an indefinite Passive-Obedience our Lives Religion and Liberties should lye at their Mercy Which how long we should have enjoyed whenever they thought themselves â—â—rong enough to take them away the late cruel Persecutions and Extirpations of the Protestants in France Savey Hungary and other places have proved but too fatal Examples and therefore no wonder let your high-flown Church-men write or preach what they please if the Body of the Nobility Gentry and People of England could never be perswaded to swallow Doctrines so fatal to their Religion and destructive to their Civil Rights and Liberties both as Mon and Christians And as for the Antiquity of these Doctrines I think they are so far from being the Antient Tenets of the Church of England that they are neither to be found in its Chatechism Thirty Nine Articles or Book of Homilies taken in their true Sense and Meaning thô indeed there is something that may tend that way in some of the late Church-Canons about
make them the first breachers of it whereas you may find that it was the opinion of the whole Convocation for many years before ever those Divines or that Gentleman began to Preach or write upon this subject Nor were these the only men who maintained these Principles but Archbishop Usher and Bishop Sanderson whom I suppose you will not reckon among your flattering Court Bishops have as learnedly and fully asserted those Doctrines you so much condemn as any of that party you find fault with and have very well proved all resistance of the Supream Powers to be unlawful not only in absolute but limited Monarchies Of the Truth of which you may sufficiently satisfie your self if you will but take the Pains to read the Learned and Elaborate Treatises written by those good Bishops viz. The Lord Primate Usher's Power of the Prince and Obedience of the Subject and the Bishop of Lincoln's Preface before it as also the said Bishop's Treatise de Iura nouto written whilst he was Doctor of the Chair in Oxford F. I must beg your pardon Sir if I have never yet seen or heard of that Convocation Book you mention much less of the opinions therein contained since there is no mention made of their proceedings in any History or Record of those times either Ecclesiastical or Civil as I know of But this much I am certain of That these Determinations or Decrees you mention call them which you please never received the Royal Assent much less the confirmation of the King and Parliament one of which if not both is certainly requisite to make any opinion either in Doctrine or Discipline to be received by us Lay-men for the Doctrine of the Church of England otherwise the Canons made in 1640 would oblige us in Conscience tho' they stand at this day condemned by Act of Parliament so that however even according to your own Principles you cannot urge this Book as the Authoritative Doctrine of the Church of England unless their Determinations had received the Royal Assent which you your self do not affirm they had for you very well know that as in Civil Laws no Bill is any more than waste Parchment if once the King hath refused to give his Royal Assent to it so likewise in Spiritual or Ecclesiastical matters I think no Decrees or Determinations of Convocations are to be received as binding either in points of Faith or Manners by us Lay-men till they have received the confirmation of the King and the two Houses of Parliament or otherwise the consequence would be that if the King who hath the nomination of all the Bishopricks and Deaneries as also of most of the great Prebendaries in England of which the Convocation chiefly consists should nominate such men into those places which would agree with him to alter the present establisht Reformed Religion â—n Governmenâ— and to bring in Popery or Arbitrary Power the whole Kingdom would be obliged in Conscience to embrace it or at least to submit without any contraditioâ— to those Canons the King and Convocation should thus agree to make which of how fatal a consequence it might prove to the Reformed Religion in this Kingdom this Kings choice of Bishops and Deans such as he thought most fit for his turn would have taught â—s when it had been too late M. You very must mistake me Sir if you believe that I urge the Authority of this Book to you as containing any Ecclesiastical Canons which I grant must have the Royal Assent but whether that of the two Houses of Parliament I very much question since the King without the Parliament is Head of the Church and diverse Canons made under Queen Elizabeth and King Iames are good in Law at this day tho' they were never confirmed by Parliament But I only urge the Authority of this Book to you to let you see that these Doctrines are more Antient than the time you prescribe and also that the Major part of the Bishops and â—lergy of the Church of England held these Doctrines which you so much condemn long before those Court Bishops or Divines you mention medled with this controversie and I suppose we may as well quote such a Convocation Book as a Testimony of their sense upon these subjects as we do the French Helvetian or any other Protestant Churches Confessions of Faith drawn up and passed in Synod of their Divines tho' without any confirmation of the Civil Power F. If you urge this Convocation Book only as a Testimony and not Authority I shall not contend any further about it but then let me tell you that if the Canons or Decrees of a Convocation though never so much confirmed by King and Parliament do no further oblige in Conscience than as they are agreable to the Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures sure their determinations without any such Authority can only be look'd upon as the Opinions of so many particular private Men. And tho' I have a very great Reuerence for the Judgments of so many Learned Men yet granting those Doctrines you mention to be contained in this Book I think notwithstanding that we may justly examine them according to the Rules of Reason and express Testimonies of Scripture by either of which when I see you can convince me of the falshood of my Tenets I shall count my self happy to be beâ—â—er informed But as for those Treatises of Bishop Usâ—er and Bishop â—anderson which you now mentioned I must needs confess they are learnedly and elaborately writen and tho' I am against Rebellion as much as any man and do believe that subjects may too often be guilty of it yet am I not therefore convinced that it is absolutely unlawful in all cases whatsoever even in the most Absolute and Arbitrary sort of Civil Government for the People when violently and intolerably opprest to take up Arms and resist such unjust violence or to join with any Foraign Prince who will be so generous as to take upon him their deliverance So that though I freely acknowledge that those good Bishops you mention were very Pious and Learned men â—im â—hat I bear great reverence to their memories yet doth it not therefore follow that I must oâ—â— them to be Infallible or as great Polititians as they were Learned Divines or that they understood the Laws of England as well as they did the Scriptures or Fathers and perhaps there may be a great deal more said on their behalfe than can be for divers others who have since Wâ—â—een and Prâ—â— so much upon those subjects for if you please to consider the times of their writing those Treatises you will find them written about the beginning or middle of the late Civil Wars which they supposed to be begâ—n and carried on contrary to all Law and Justice under the pretenced Authority of the two Houses of Parliament against King Charles the First and therefore it is no wonder if they thought themselves obliged to Write very high for the Prerogatives
and Rights of Princes and the absolute obedience of Subjects when they saw even the Kings just and lawful Prerogatives in danger to be taken from him by force And altho' they may perhaps stretch several of these points too far yet this may be very excuseable since it is a hard matter to Write so exactly against any error as not to fall into the contrary Extream which nevertheless may sometimes prove useful enough As those who would set a stick straight are forced to bend it to the other side and so these Doctrines which might then be seasonable whilst the People carried on their animosities against the King farther than in Justice they ought have not now the same reason and cogency when this King hath so manifestly endeavoured to pull up the very foundations both of our Religion and Government So that I am perswaded could those good Bishops have lived by the course of Nature to our times and have seen the ill and fatal use hath been made of those Doctrines by those in Power they would either absolutely have renounc'd them or at least have been very cautious how they publish't such doubtful opinions to the World M. I must beg your pardon Sir if I am not of your Opinion for I look upon the absolute subjection of the subjects to the higher or supream Powers to be a thing of such constant and eternal Obligation that no change of times or circumstances can ever dispense with us in or discharge us from it and I am so far from believing that those good Bishops would ever have recanted their opinions in this particular that had thâ—y lived until this time I think they could not without the imputation of time servers have forborn publickly to declare and maintain them for sure we must not deny or lay aside true Principles because of some inconveniences or hardships that may thereby happen to our Religion Persons or Civil Liberties since that were the ready way to give a Licence to the rankest Rebellion and the highest disobedience to the Supream Powers for so the Primitive Christians might have claimed a right to Rebel against the Heathen Emperors pretending they were not bound to submit themselves unto them because they persecuted Gods Church and put the Christians to death for no other reason than that they were such Whereas we may plainly see St. Peter and St. Paul teach us another lesson and command absolute subjection without reserve to the higher Powers which were then the Tyrannical persecuting Emperours and that the Primitive Christians who immediately followed the Apostles understood them in this sense and altho' they had sufficient strength yet thought it unlawful to resist those â—eathen Emperor 's under which they liv'd I refer you to that vast Treasure of Quotations out of the Fathers and Antient Church Historians collected with such Learning and Industry by the Lord Primate Usher in the second Treatise F. It is not my intention Sir at present to fall into a severe examination of so many Texts of Scripture and Quotations of Fathers and other Authors as are made use of by those Learned Men you lately mentioned which require more consideration than our short time will now afford therefore the best method I can propose to you for the true stating and understanding this Noble Controversie were first to look into the Natural state of Mankind after the Fall of Adam and enquire First If God has appointed any kind of Government by Divine Institution before another Secondly If he has not how far Civil power may be lookt upon as from God and in what sense as deriv'd from the people Thirdly Whether Resistance by the Subjects in some Cases be incompatible and absolutely destructive to all Civil Government whatsoever Fourthly Whether such Resistance be absolutely contrary to the Doctrine of Christ contain'd in the Scriptures and that of the Primitive Church pursuant thereunto Fifthly Whether such Resistance be contrary to the Constitution of this Government and the express Laws of the Land Sixthly Whether what has been done by the Prince of Orange and those of the Nobility Gentry c. in pursuance of these Principles has been done according to the Law of Nature the Scriptures and Ancient Constitutions of this Kingdom which material Points if we can once suttle and discover where the Truth lyes it will prove the clearest Comment and best Interpretation of all those places of Scripture and Quotations of Fathers and other Authors which are Cited by Divines or other Writers for the Doctrines of the Divine Institution of Monarchy and the Absolute Subjection of Subjects without any Resistance For when we have once discovered what the Law of Nature or right Reason dictates I think we may rest satisfy'd that that is the true Sense of the Scripture God not having given us any Precept or Command in Moral or Practical things that can be contrary to the Law of Nature or Reason or incompatible with the happiness and welfare of Mankind in this Life as the Reveal'd Will of God does chiefly regard that which is to come M. I do very well approve of your Proposal and therefore pray give me first your Opinion on those Heads that I may see how far I may agree with you and wherein I must differ from you for I do assure you my Intention is not to argue with you meerly for disputes sake but that we may correct the Errors of each others understanding and discover if it be possible where the Truth lyes therefore pray Sir begin first with the Natural state of Mankind but remember to do it like a Christian and one that believes that we are all deriv'd from one first Parents and that we did not at first spring up out of the Earth like Mushrooms or as the Men whom Ovid â—eigns to have been produc'd of the Dragons Teeth Cadmus is feigned to have sown who as soon as they sprung out of the Earth immediately fell a Fighting and Killing each other F. I thank you Sir for your honest and kind advice and shall therefore in the first place suppose that the necessity as well as being of all Civil Government proceeded from the Fall of Adam since if that had not been we had still liv'd as the Poets fancy Men did under the Golden Age without any need of Kings or Common-wealths to make Laws against Oppression Theft Adultery Murder and those other Injuries which Men are now too apt in this lapsed corrupt state to commit against each other much less would there have been any need of Judges or Executioners either to sentence or punish Offenders for if Man had continued as free from Sin as he was in Paradise there could have been no need of a Supream Coercive Power since every Man would have perform'd his Duty towards God and his Neighbour without any punishment or constraint So that all the Authority that can be suppos'd could have been then necessary for the Good and Happiness of Mankind would
this point without better consideration but methinks you have not yet fully answered one of my main Arguments to prove the Power of Life and Death to proceed from God alone and therefore must have been conferred as first on Adam since no Man hath a Power over his own life as I said before and therefore cannot have it over that of others F. I thought I had already as good as answered this doughty objection when I had yielded to you that neither private Men nor Masters of Families have any Right to defend their own lives much less to take away those of others but as it is granted them by God in the Law of Nature in order to the procuring the great end of it viz. the happiness and propagation of Mankind which I own could not in this lapsed and depraved State of Nature we now are in long subsist without such a Power Yet I think I have already sufficiently proved that we have no need to recur to I know not what divine Charter granted by God to Adam or Noah and from them derived to all Civil Magistrates that ever have been or shall be in the World the consequence of which would be that no Sentence of Death could be justly given against any Man but in such Kingdoms or Common-wealths who own this Authority as conferred on them by God in Adam or Noah from which they must deride their Title to it Now I desire you would shew me how many Kingdoms or Common-wealths there are in the World who ever heard of much less owned this Divine Charter this fine notion yea scarce reaching farther than some few Divines and high Royalists of our own Island But be it as it will the Antecedent or first Proposition is not true that no Man in any case whatsoever hath power over his own life and therefore neither is your consequence for I suppose that for the same End for which the Civil Powers may take away another Man's life viz. in order to the greater good of Mankind of which my Religion or Countrey is a part I am likewise Master of my own and may lay it down or expose it when I think it can conduce to a greater good than my single life can amount to And therefore the Example of Codrus the Athenian King is highly celebrated by all ancient Authors and is not condemned by any Christian Writer that I know of for Exposing himself to certain death to gain his Citizens the Victory the loss of which would have been the ruin of the State And in the first Book of Maccabees Chap. 6.43 which thâ— it be not Canonical Scripture yet is allowed to be Read in our Churches as containing Examples of good manners you may Read that Eleazar the younger Brother of Iudas Maccabeus is there highly commended for his valour in killing the Elephant on which the supposed King Antiochus was mounted that he might thereby destroy him likewise tho he might be assured of his own death by the Elephants falling upon him And the zeal for the Christian Religion amongst the Primitive Christians was so great that we may read in Tertullian and divers Ecclesiastical Historians of whole Troops of Martyrs who tho unaccused yet offered up their lives at the Heathen Tribunals to a voluntary Martyrdom and farther Eusebius himself doth not condemn but rather commends some Primitive Christians that being like to be taken by their Heathen Persecutors cast themselves down head long from the top of their Houses esteeming as he their tells us a certain Death as an advantage because they thereby avoided the cruelty and malice of their Persecutors I could likewise give you if it were not two tedious several other Examples of Ancient Martyrs who have given up themselves to certain Death to save the Lives of some of their friends or else of Christian Bishops whom they lookt upon as more useful to the Church than themselves and which St. Paul himself does likewise suppose to be Lawful when he tells the Romans That the scarcely for a Righteous Man would one dye yet per adventure for a good Man somâ— would even dare to dye that is a Man highly beneficial to others And the same Apostle in the last Chapter of this Epistle returns thanks to Priscilla and Aquila not only on his own behalf but also for all the Churches of the Gentiles because they had for his Life laid down their own Necks that is hazarded their lives to save his and where ever they might have thus exposed them surely they might have lost them too And therefore I think I may with reason affirm that in most Cases where a Prince or Commonwealth may command a Man to expose his Life to certain destruction for the publick good of his Religion or Countrey he hath power likewise to do it of his own accord without any such command the Obligation proceeding not only from the orders of his Superiour but from that zeal and affection which by the Laws of God and Nature he ought to have for his Religion and Country even beyond the preservation of his own Life M. Well I confess that this that you have now said carries some colour of reason with it and is more than I had considered before But pray resolve me one difficulty more which still lies upon my mind By what Authority less than a Divine Commission from God himself revealed in Scripture do Supream Powers take upon them to make Lawâ— And that under no less penalty than Death it self against such offences as by the Laws of Nature do no ways deserve Death such as Theft Counterfiting the publick Coyn with divers other offences needless here to be reckoned up And if a Father as you will not allow him hath no Right over the Lives or Persons of his Wife and Children I cannot see how a Master of a separate Family can have any such Power more than his Wife or any other of the Family and the Scripture seems to countenance this Power of punishing for Murder to be in any that will take it upon them and therefore you see Cain said whoever meets me will slay me And God tells Noah whoever sheddeth Mans Blood by Man shall his Blood be shed without restraining it to any Man particularly who is to do it F. This Objection is easily answered if you please to consider what you your self did a good whâ—â—â— since urge to me that God endowed Adam with so much Authority as should enable him to govern his own Family and Children as long as he lived which I readily granted you and I only differed in the manner of its derivation you affirming it to proceed from a Divine Charter or Grant by Revelation conferred upon him by God and I maintaining that both he and every other Master of a separate Family derive it only from Gods Natural and not Revealed Law which if it be well proved such Masters of Families as also all Civil Powers whom I suppose to be endued
established Religion of his Countrey and to introduce a different one by his own sole Authority whilst the Major part of the People continue of another Opinion In this Case I suppose you will not affirm that the Subjects have a Right to resist their Prince for so doing For then the Romans might justly have rebelled against Constantine when he shut up the Heathen Temples and forbad all publick Sacrifices to their Gods and thereby made the Christian Religion the established Profession of the Empire F. But pray Sir give me leave to interrupt you a little might not Constantine have a Right to do this because the Christian Religion is the only true one and that the Idolatry the Romans then practised was against the Law of Nature M. Whatever weight there may be in this answer yet you have no reason to put this Question now since you have already viz. at our first Conference asserted that an Erroneous Conscience gives men a Right to follow it during the time they are under this Ignorance of the Truth And therefore if the Roman Emperours had not a Right to do this by their own Authority without any resistance the Subjects whilst they believed the Worship of their God to be thereby destroyed might nay ought to have resisted the Emperour rather than to have suffered him to have altered the antient Religion of the Empire and to have brought in another which they look't upon as an upstart and it is very natural for Men to do so since nothing ought to be more dear to them than the Worship and honour of God F. I do not desire at present to Embark my self in this tedious and troublesome dispute about the Authority of the Supream Powers in matters of Religion and therefore I shall say no more to it at present but if your Assertion be true that an absolute Monarch may set up what Religion he pleases without being resisted by the Subjects whom I suppose to be of another perswasion it will then follow that if the French King or Emperour of Muscâ—vy should turn Mahometan and should set up that Superstition by force for the Publick and National Religion of the Countrey tho' with the Destruction of all that should oppose it none of their Subjects might resist them in so doing and if so I desire you to consider what you have gained to Religion by thus asserting such an unlimited Prerogative to all Monarchs But laying aside this Dispute till another time I pray go on to the rest of those Cases in which the People do take upon them to resist the Supream Powers M. I shall comply with your desires and therefore a Third Pretence of Subjects to rebel is when the Supream Powers shall think it necessary to levy upon their People more heavy and grievous Taxes and Impositions than the People are willing or it may be able to pay Now if your Principle be true that they may rise in Arms and resist the Supream Powers whenever they think themselves thus intolerably oppressed and if they shall be sole Iudges of this oppression then all the Rebellions that ever were made in England or elsewhere by reason of such excessive Tributes or Taxes whould be Lawful Which would be a perpetual Ground of Anarchy and Confusion For private Subjects not being admitted into the Privy Councils of Princes or States can never be supposed to understand whether the necessities of the Common-wealth may require them or not And indeed the People do so often repine and murmur at the Government when the Publick Necessities require to impose greater Taxes or Gabels than they think they can well bear that the Mobile of any great City or Province for Example who think themselves thus oppressed beyond what they are able or perhaps willing to bear may rise in Rebellion and throw off all Obedience to Civil Authority and they may have a very good Pretence for it according to your Principle because they may look upon themselves as a very considerable nay necessary part of the Common-wealth And thus the Common People of Kent might have justified their Rebellion in Richard the seconds time under Wat Tyler and Iack Straw and the People of Devonshire and Somerset-shire might likewise have justified their Insurrection in Henry the sevenths Reign under Flammock the Black smith And I could mention others of the like Nature but I forbear because you may say they were upon account of Religion And lastly this Principle might very well justifie the Insurrection of the People of Naples under Massaniello which besides the vast spoil it made upon the Goods and Palaces of the Nobility ended at last whatsoever they pretended at first to the contrary in delivering up themselves to the King of France who refusing to protect them they were soon reduced to their former Obedience to the King of Spain In short if the People should take upon them to Resist or Rebel whenever they thought themselves intolerably injured and oppressed in their Estates by immoderate Taxes there would be no End of such Rebellions especially considering the advantage which Wicked Crafty and Ambitious men would thereby take to excite the People to rise and depose their Lawful Governours and set up themselves in their Room upon Pretence of better Government and greater Liberty And how prone the Common People have been to receive such Impressions He is but meanly aâ—â—dâ—ed in Antient and Modern History who is not convinced of it F. To answer this Objection before you proceed farther my opinion in short is that tho' such Taxes may often prove an Universal Dammage and a great impoverishment to the Subjects yet if they are such as may be born with less trouble than can follow from a Civil War or the change of the Government there is no just or sufficient cause of Resistance of the Soveraign Magistrates commands or Edicts concerning them As for Example such great Taxes as the Subjects pay and perhaps may bear it well enough in Holland and other Countries since there may be a necessity for such Taxes and of this I grant the Supream Authority of the Nation can be the only Iudges And how far this may extend I cannot positively determine For suppose you should ask me if the Supream Powers should borrow all the Ready Money the Subjects had for the necessary uses of the State so that they would give them Leather or Brass Money instead of it to go at the same value for the necessary uses of Commerce yet if they did not take away their Property in their Lands Corn or Living Stock which are the necessary means of their Subsistance I do not think it were a sufficient Cause to take up Arms against their Governours for so doing beâ—ause the Subjects cannot tell but that the necessities of the State for their necessary defence against a Potent Forreign Enemy may require it And sure it is a much greater Evil to fall into a Civil War or to be subdued by Strangers than to
insupportable that it is past all question I grant that the People ought to have Patience and rather suffer many Oppressions and Hardships than put themselves into a State of War So that I think it is Morally impossible that the People can be mistaken in 〈◊〉 evident a Case Nor I believe can you scarce shew me one Example either out of Antient or Modern History of any whole Nation or People or the Major part of them that did ever rise in Arms to cast off either a Foreign or Domestick Yoke which pressed too hard upon them but when they had the most unavoidable and justest causes so to do And I believe I can shew you Ten Examples out of Histories if the Question were to be decided by them for one you can shew me to the Contrary 'T is true some private Men may sometimes make Disturbances or Rebellions but it is commonly to their own Iust Ruine and Perdition for till the Mischief be grown General and the Violence of the Rulers become Evident and their Attempts to Destroy or make Slaves of them are most sensible to all or the greatest part of the People they are commonly more a great deal disposed to Suffer than to Right themselves by Resistance well knowing the Mischiefs of War and how Destructive it will prove not only to their Lives but to the Welfare of their Families and Posterities as well as Private Concerns So that the Example of some particular Injustice Oppression nay or Absolute Ruine of here and there an Unfortunate person moves them not But if once they find their Lives Liberties and Estates Universally Assaulted and about to be taken away who is to be blamed for it The Magistrate or the People for the former might have avoided it if they had pleased either by not urging them to that Extremity at all or at least Redressing those Grievances and Oppressions before they became so General and Insupportable as not to be any longer endured So that tho' I grant the Ambition or Turbulency of private Men have sometimes caused great Disorders in Common-Wealths and Factions have been fatal to States and Kingdoms Yet whether this Mischief hath oftner begun from the People's Wantonness and desire to cast off the Lawful Authority of their Rulers or from the Rulers Insolence and Endeavours to get and Exercise a Tyrannical Arbitrary Power over their People that is whether Oppression or Disobedience gave the first Rise to the Disorder I leave it as I said to Impartial History to Determine But this I am sure of whoever either Ruler or Subject goes about by force to Invade the Rights of either Prince or People and lays a Foundation for overturning the Original Constitution and Frame of any Civil Government he is Guilty of the greatest Crime I think a Man is capable of being to Answer for all those Mischiefs Bloudshed Rapine and Desolations which the breaking to pieces of Governments does bring on a Country And he who doth it is justly to be esteemed a Common Enemy and is to be treated accordingly But as for the Instances you give of Waâ— Tyler and Massianello I grant indeed it may so happen that a Great part of the Common People or Rabble may sometimes upon sudden or false Apprehensions occasioned by some Real Grievances or Oppressions such as are great Taxes or Gabels imposed by the State take up Arms and Rebell against the Supream Powers Yet these Examples do not reach the Question in Hand these Insurections or Rebellions you mention being of a much less number than the whole People or the Major part of them and in which I still include the Nobility and Gentry and other Land-holders as the most considerable part And so those Insurrections were in no wise Iustifiable especially in such a Government as ours where no Man can be Taxed but by his own Consent included in his Representatives whereas all these Rebellions were chiefly if not altogether made by the meaner sort or Scum of the People of one or a few Countries whom I can never allow to make Disturbances since they having very little to lose ought in all Civil Governments whatsoever to be directed and Governed by those in whom the Ballance of the Government in Lands and other Riches doth reside and on whom they chiefly depend for their Protection and Subsistance and consequently ought to make no Alterations in the State without their consent and Approbation But as for your other Instance of the Wars raised in these Three Kingdoms against King Charles the First upon the Pretence of our Religion Liberties and Properties being Invaded it is not proper to be Treated of in this place Since we are now Discoursing of the Power of Princes and the Right of Subjects under Absolute and not limited Monarchies And I grant that some Resistance may be Rebellion under Absolute Monarchies which would not be so under limited ones Yet I do still suppose that it may be Lawful under such limited Monarchy for the People to take up Arms and make Resistance in defence of those Iust Liberties and Priviledges which they Lawfully enjoy either by the Original Constitution of the Government or by Acts of Grace or Concession of the Prince but this requires a more large and accurate Discourse which at another time I am ready to give you Therefore granting at present that those Wars were down Right Rebellion against the King and also that they were made under Pretence of the Principle I now assert yet doth it not at all overthrow the Iustice of that Cause which I now maintain since as I have already more than once intimated the abuse that may be sometimes made of a Natural Right by some Wicked Factious or Hypocritical Men ought not in the least to prejuâ—ice the Exercise of that Right to all the rest of Mankind who may lye under a Real Necessity of making use of it To conclude if the People may nevâ—r be trusted to Iudge when their Liberties and Properties are actually Invaded because they may happen one time or other to be mistaken and so enter into a State of War without cause to the Destruction of Mankind this Argument would serve as well against all Princes and Common-Wealths who being in the State of Nature with each other should never make War for any Cause or Provocation how great soever because being Iudges and Executioners too in their own Case they may more easily happen to be mistaken I suppose you your self will grant that one or a few Men are more apt to be in an Error than 100000 and I have already proved that where the People have never wholly given up their Liberties and Properties unto the Absolute Will of the Supream Powers they are as to that still in a State of Nature and do reserve to themselves a Right of Iudging when they are Violently and Insupportably invaded and Consequently of vindicating themselves from that Oppression And therefore granting what you have said to be true that
of an Incensed Prince may justly inflict upon such Rebels in this Life but also the Wrath of God and those Punishments that he hath denounced in the Holy Scriptures in the Life to come against such Rebellious Subjects as dare resist the Supream Powers ordained by God F. Before I answer the main part of your last discourse give me leave first to justifie my Simile for tho' I grant Similes are no Arguments yet they often serve to expose the absurdity of several things which either the â—alse colours of Eloquence or the too great Authority of learned men might otherwise have hid from our Eyes and therefore if the Supream Powers have no Authority from the Revealed Will of God or the Law of Nature nor by the Municipal Laws of any Countrey to invade their Subjects Lives Liberties or Estates they may be so far compared to Thieves and Robbers when they do nor are such violent Actions of theirs to be submitted to as the Ordinance of God And I suppose you will not deny but that a Prince or State that does thus Acts as directly contrary to Gods Will as Thieves themselves and consequently all honest men or Subjects having so far no obligation to suffer or obey may justly Resist them So that if this be true all the rest of the Comparison currit quatuor pedibus But as for your reflections upon MAGNA CHARTA it is you your self not I that asserted it to have been extorted by force and dâ—fended by Rebellion for it is very well known to those who are at all Conveâ—sant in our English Histories and Laws that there was nothing granted in that CHARTER which was not the Birth-right of the Clergy Nobility and People long before the Conquest and were comprised under the Title of King Edwards Laws and which were after confirmed by William the first as also more expresly by the Grants of his Son Henry the first and King Stephen as appears by their Charters still to be seen And therefore these fundamental Rights and Priviledges were not extorted by force from King Iohn as you suppose The War commencing between him and his Barons was not because he would not grant them fresh Priviledges which they had not before but because he had not kept nor observed the Fundamental Laws of the Land and those Rights and Priviledges which before belonged to the Clergy Nobility and People as well by the Common Law of the Land as the Grants of former Kings And therefore if King Iohn by his apparent breach of them forced the Nobility and People to defend them it was no Rebellion for so doing nor was it ever declared to be so by any Law now extant But to come to the main force of your Argument I confess it were an admirable expedient not only against Rebellion but also the Tyranny of Princes to PREACH that they should not oppress their People nor yet that the People should rebel against them but the preaching of these Doctrines or getting as many as you can to believe them will no more make Princes leave keeping standing Armies or laying great Taxes upon their People than Constant Preaching against Robbery or Murder will take away the necessary use of Gallows out of the Nation Since we know very well that as long as the Corruption of humane Nature continues so long must likewise all Powerful Remedies against it And therefore your Instance of William the Conqueror will signifie very little for I believe had all those learned Divines who have of late so much Written and Preached for Passive Obedience and Non-resistance been then alive and had exerted the utmost of their Reason and Eloquence to prove them necessary nay farther I do not believe tho' all the People of England should have given it under their hands that they would not have Resisted or Rebelled against King William that yet he would have trusted them the more for all that or have kept one Soldier the less for it nor have remitted one Denier of those great Taxes he imposed for he was too cunning and Politick a Prince not to understand humane Nature which cannot willingly endure great and intolerable Slavery and Oppression without Resistance if men are able and therefore he very well knew that after the forcible taking away of so many of the English Nobilities Estates there was no way but force to keep them in Obedience And as Princes can never be satisfied that their Subjects have been throughly paced in these difficult Doctrines so they can never be secure that they will not play the Iades and Kick and fling their Riders when they spur them too severely and press too hard upon them And therefore I doubt such Princes whose Government is severe will always find it necessary to Ride this Beast as you call it the People with strong Curbs and Cavessons But besides all this there is likewise another infirmity in the Nature of Mankind and of which Princes may as well be Guilty as other men that they are more apt to oppress and insult over those whose Principles or Natural Tempers may be against all Resistance and for this I appeal to your Example of the Primitive Christians who were not one jot the better used by the Roman Emperours tho' they expresly disclaimed all Resistance of those Emperours for Persecution in matters of Religion and tho' some neighbouring Princes are thought to have their Subjects in more perfect Subjection and that either their Religion or Natural Tempers makes them less apt to resist the Violence and Oppression of their Monarchs than the English or other Nations Yet I desire you to enquire whether Taxes and all other oppressions do not Reign as much under those Governments however sensible the Princes may be of their Subjects Loyalty and Obedience Therefore to conclude I shall freely leave it to your Judgment or that of any indifferent Person which is most agreeable to the main Ends of Civil Government viz the Common good of Mankind and the Happiness and Safety of each particular Kingdom or Commonwealth that the Violence and Tyranny of Princes should be sometimes Resisted than that the People under the Pretence of this irresistible Power should be liable to be made beggars and Slaves whenever any Prince or State had a Mind to it And I appeal to your own Conscience if the supposed belief of the Passive Obedience of some of our Church was not one of the greatest encouragements which the King and the Iesuited Fâ—ction had to bring in the Popish Religion under the Colour of the dispensing Power Ecclesiastical Commissioners and force of a standing Army from which Unavoidable mischiefs nothing under God but this wonderful Revolution could have rescued us And therefore I think it becomes any honest man to thank God for it and join with his Highness the Prince of Oriâ—â—ge as the only means now miracles are ceased which God hath been plâ—ased to ordain by the course of his Providence for our Deliverance M. I
they had brought with them out of the Land of Egypt and had sold the People or their Children for slaves to the Neighbouring Nations to inrich himself and his Family do you believe that the Children of Israel had been Obliged to have Obeyed such a Leader and not have resisted him and his party if there had been occasion So likewise if Ioshua instead of Leading Gods People into the Holy Land had taken upon him notwithstanding Gods Commands to have carried them again into Egypt can you think they had been bound to Obey him and might not Lawfully have resisted him if he had gone about by the assistance of his Accomplices to force them to it For I doubt not but if these Substitutes had acted contrary to that Commission God had given them they were no longer to be look'd upon as Gods Vicegerents no more than the now Lieutenant of Ireland the Lord Tyrconnel ought to be Obeyed and not resisted if he should go about by Vertue of that Commission which the King hath conferred upon him and by the help of the Rebellious Irish in that Kingdom to murder all the Protestants and set up for himself So likewise all this strict Obedience and submission that was to be paid to the Sentence of the High-Priest or Iudge was only in Relation to God himself whose Sentence it was and who always Revealed his Will either to the Iudge by particular Inspiration or to the High-Priest by the Ephod or Urim and Thummim And therefore we read in Iudges that Deborah tho' a Woman yet being a Prophetess inspir'd by God judged Israel Now suppose that this Iudge or High-Priest neglecting like Balaam the Divine Inspiration and the Dictates of that Sacred Oracle had instead of a Righteous Iudgment given a Sentence in a Cause that had come before them whereby Idolatry or breach of some great Point of the Law of Moses had been established do you think that God ever intended that this Sentence should have been Obeyed under Pain of Death And therefore you may find in the 2d Book of Maccabees that when Iason and Menelaus had by Bribery obtained the High-Priesthood tho' it was then the Chief Authority under the Kings of Syria both in Ecclesiastical and Civil matters yet when they went about to undermine the Iewish Religion and seduce the People to Idolatry they are not at all look'd upon as High-Priests but are there called Ungodly Wretches doing nothing worthy of the High-Priesthood but having the fury of a Cruel Tyrant and of a Savage Beast and were so far from being at all Obeyed by the Iews that Iason Menelaus and Alcimus who were successively High-Priests in the room of Onias were as far as the People were able opposed by them till at last Iudas Maccabeus taking Arms against Alcimus the High-Priest restored by force the true Worship of God So that you see that the Obedience was not pay'd to the Person of the High-Priests only as such by vertue of this Precept in Deuteronomy but only as far as they observed the Law of Moses and gave sentence or Judgment in all matters according to it And therefore it is no good Argument of yours because the People were bound to obey their sentence in doubtful cases therefore they had an absolute irresistible Power to give what Iudgments they pleased and that the People were obliged to observe them under pain of Death and being Guilty of Rebellion For that had been to have given the High-Priests and Iudges a Power to have altered the true Worship of God when ever they pleased and to have introduced Idolatry in the Room of it So that I think none of these places will prove any more but that God and his Lieutenants were to be Obeyed and that it was Rebellion to resist them under the Iewish Government as long as they did not force the People to Idolatry which I do not at all deny M. Tho you labour to wave these examples and Precepts which I have now cited and will not take them for convincing yet let me tell you your exceptions against them only tend to prove that Idolatrous Kings might be resisted under the Iewish Law which is directly contrary to the Sacred History as I shall prove very clearly to you by these following Testimonies I shall make use of yet I think it is much more plain that when the Iews would have a King their Kings were to be invested with a Supream and irresistible Power for when they desired a King of Samuel they did not desire a meer nominal and titular King but a King to Iudg them and go in and out before them and fight their Battles that is a King who had the Supream and Soveraign Authority a King who should have all that Power of Government excepting the peculiar Acts of the Priestly Office which either their High-Priest or their Iudge had before And therefore when Samuel tells them what shall be the manner of their King tho what he says doth necessarily suppose the translation of the Soveraign and Irresistible Power to the Person of their King yet it doth not suppose that their King had any new Power given him more than what was â—â—â—â—cised formerly by the Priest and Iudges He doth not deter them frâ—â— chusing a King because a King should have greater Power and â—e more uncontroulable and Irresistible than their other Rulers were for Samuel himself had before as Soveraign and Irresistible a Power as any King being the Supream Iudge of Israel whose sentence no Man could disobey or contradict but he incurred the penalty of Death according to the Mosaâ—cal Law But the reason why he distuades them from chusing a King was because the external Pomp and Magnificence of Kings was like to be very Chargeable and oppressive to them He 〈◊〉 your Sons and 〈◊〉 them for himself for his Chariots and to be his House Men and some shall ran before his Chariots And he will appoint him Captains over Thousands and Captains over Fifties and will set them to ear his Ground and to reap his Harvest And thus in several Particulars he shews them what burdens and exactions they will bring upon themselves by setting up a King which they were then free from and if any Prince should be excessive in such â—â—â—actions yet they had no way to help themselves they must not resist nor rebel against him nor expect that whatever inconvenience they might find in Kingly Government God would relieve and deliver them from it when once they had chosen a King Ye shall cry out in that day because of your King that you have chosen you and the Lord will not hear you in that day That is God will not alter the Government for you again how much soever you may complain of it This I say is a plain Proof that their Kings were to be invested with that Soveraign Power which must not be resisted tho' they oppress their Subjects
Mr. Lambard I Ina by or with Gods Gift King of the West-Saxons with the Advice or Council of Cenred my Father and Heddes my Bishop and Ercenwold my Bishop and with my Aldermen and Eldest Wites or Wisemen of my Kingdom do command c. Then in the first Chapter the King speaks in the first person plural We Bid or Command that all our People shall after hold fast or observe these Laws and Dooms From this Preface you may observe I. That Kings are the Gift of God and that Gods Gift signified the same with Dei Gratia they are not the Creature of the People 2. That Princes or the better Government of their People in the Setling of Laws in Church and State did then Consult Deliberate and Advise with their Bishops Noblemen and eminently Wise Men of their Kingdoms whom for their Wisdom they Honour'd with publick Imployments in their Dominions 3. That after such Consultation Deliberation and Advice to the Soveraign Establisheth and makes the Laws The next Instance I shall make use of is out of the same Author in the Laws of King Alfred where in the Conclusion of his Laws about Religion and Prefatory to the Secular Laws He saith I Alfred King have gathered these Sanctions together and caused them to be written and then Recites that those that he liked not with the Council of his Wits he had Rejected and those he liked he had or commanded to be holden And we may observe that the King here speaks in the Single Person that He himself Collected or Chose aad also Rejected what Laws he pleased The next material illustration where the Legislative Power then Resided may be found in the Laws of King Edward the Elder where after the Charge given to the Judges the first Law begins I will and so in others in the fourth it is thus expressed Edward the King with his Wits that were at Exeter strictly enquiâ—ing by what means it might be better provided for Peace and Tranquility c. In the 2d and 3d. Chap. it is We also Declare Pronounce or Sentence And in the 7th and I will In which Laws we have none mentioned with the King but his Wits and his Commanding Willing or Pronouncing in the Imperative Mood is observable The next Laws I find are those of King Athelstan which begin thus I Athelstan King with the Advice of Walfelm my High Bishop and other my Bishops Commanded or bid all my Rieves i. e. Praefects of what degrees soever to pay Tythes c. And this He commanded his Bishops his Aldermen and Praepositi who were the Judges in the Country Courts to do the same In these Laws We cwaedon is used which I suppose is something more than Somner understands by his â—uide a Saying Speech or Sentence and properly is we will But the absoluteness of the King appears most in the 26th Chap. wherein it is expressed Tâ—at if any of the Graeves i. e. Iudges do not perform these Commands or be more Remiss in the Execution of those he hath enjoyned He shall be punished for his Excess of Contumacy according to the Fines there set down King Edmund is the next of our Kings whose Laws are Transferr'd to us and the Proem tells us that King Edmund Assembled a Great Synod or Council to London on the Holy Easter-Tide and the Persons Summoned are Stiled Godskind and Worldskind i. e. Clergy and Laicks After the first six Chapters of Laws in the Proem to the 2d part of them the King Signifies to all Men Old and Young That he had asks Advice in the Assembly of his Wites both Ecclesiasticks and Laicks and in the Laws it is often said Thonne cwaedon These we pronounce or appoint and sometimes the single person is used and in other places us betweonan Heolâ—an it is holden betwixt us Here we find the Great Council Summoned by the King and the Constituent Parts of it to be the Clergy and Laiâ—y yet still we find the Legislative Power in the King alone So likewise in the Title to King Edgars Ecclesiastical Laws it is thus The Laws which King Edgar in a frequent Assembly or Council of the Servants of God hath ordained whereby you may see that the Enacting Part Relates wholy to himself The same King Edgar in his Charter to Glastonbury Abby concludes it thus â—aâ—e privilegij paginam Rex Edgarus XII Regni sui sacro scripto apud Londoâ—iam communi Concilio optimatum suorum confirmavit So that though it appears this was in the Presence of a Great Council Yet the Granting and Enacting part proceeded wholy from himself The Preface to the Laws of King Canutus by Sir Henry Spelman runs thus These are the Worldly Constitutions that I will with my Wites advice that Men hold all over England In most of the Chapters it is said We Teach We Bid or Command We forbid and in the Conclusion it is in the single Person of the King Now I command all and bid every Man in God's Name And the Preface to the Latin Version of them saith Haec sunt Instituta Cnude Regis Anglorum Dacorum Norwegarum vene rando Saplentum Concilio ejus ad Laudem Gloriam Dei suam Regalitatem c. Of this Canutus William of Malmsbury saith that He commanded to be observed for ever all the Laws of Ancient Kings especially those made by King Ethelred his Predecessor under the Penalty of the Kings Fine to the observing of which He saith in his time it was Sworn under the Name of King Edwards Laws not that He had appointed them but had observed them So that I think upon the whole matter nothing is more plain than that our English Saxons and Danish Kings did not only call Councils and preside in them but that the Legislative Power was lodged solely in themselves F. I perceive the Authority of our Ancient Lawyers is a little too hard for you to answer with your usual Distinctions and therefore you seemingly deny their Authority though in effect you grant it as I shall shew you by and by But as for your Quotation out of the Year-Book which you think sufficient to Counterballance all the Authorities I have brought I think I may much better question the Judgment of those that gave that Opinion since I can shew you that you your self cannot allow it in all points for Law For in the first place it is not there said that it was so judged by all the Lords and Judges who were appointed to hear the Cause there mentioned but only Fuit dit que le Roy c. By which it seems to have bin the private opinion only of some one or more of the Lords and Judges there present For it is not said fuit adjuge And if you will have it to have bin the Opinion of them all pray read what follows after Fuit dit quen temps le Roy Henry devant le Roy fuit implede comme Seroit
were of a much later Date then both the Being and Priviledges of both Houses had but one and the Self-same Original viz. nothing else but the meer Grace or Favour of our Kings I have only added this the better to enforce my former Argument And therefore I desire you would now answer them both together F. I am very glad your last Argument doth not prove so formidable as you suppose for to remove that out of the way I must tell you that you now very much mistake the Question which is not only concerning the Iudicial power of the Peers alone but the Legislative Power of the House of Peers and Commons taken together which is the Subject of our present Dispute And therefore if I should grant you that the Iudicial Power of the Peers is derived wholy from the King Yet would it not at all â—mpaiâ— the Legislative Power of either of the Houses which no Historian or Law-book that I know of that is of any Credit or Antiquity ascribes to the King's Favour as you suppose Nor is it true that the House of Peers can give no Iudgment either Civil or Criminal without the King's Consent or Approbation which is never so much as askt let the Cause be what it will nor is his Presence at such Judgments at all 〈◊〉 but indeed you confound the King's Council in Parliament where I have shewed you already he sat and dispatched divers Causes in a Room or Chambeâ— distinct from that of the Peers with the House of Lords But to come to your main Argument that our Parliament must owe its Original to the King because each of the Estates of which it consists doth so This I hope will prove as weak when throughly considered For first of all I could shew you that those Councils could not owe their Original to the K. since the Saxon Kings rather owed their Original to them by whom they were most commonly Elected as I could shew you out of our Ancient Historians if it were now a proper time for it But as for our Bishops and Abbots c. which anciently made so great a figure in our Saxon Great Councils which I can shew you were then both Civil and Ecâ—lâ—siasticâ—l Assemblies I have already proved out of Tacitus that among the Ancient Germans a part of whom our Ancient English Saxons were their Priests who were their Clergy had a Considerable Authority in their Common Councils And can any body believe that a sort of People so Powerful and Subâ—ile as the Priests then were would lose their Power after they came over into England And we find in Bede that Edwin King of Northumberland consulted with a Council of his Great Mâ—n and Priests concerning his embracing the Christian Râ—ligiâ—n and when it was generally received can any body think that the Christian Bishâ—ps and Clergy would not expect to Succeed in the same Station which the Heathen Priests before held in their Councils And that they enjoyed this Power very early appears from hence that the same Ethelbert could not endow the Church and Monastery of Canterbury Sine Assensu Magnatum Principum tam Cleri quam Populi But indeed you are as much mistaken in the manner of the Ancient Elections of Bishops and Abbots in England For tho I own that at the time of the Conquest and somewhat before there might be no such Elections of them as the Ancient Canons required Yet that this was not so at the first you may see in Bede's Ecclesiastical History and other Historians where it is often mentioned that Bishops were chosen according to the Canons by the Archbishops and Bishops of the Province and Abbots by their Convent Nor was the Kings investing of them per annulum Bacculum then lookt upon as any Derogation to their Canonical Election that being no more than either a Ceremony of investing them with their Temporalities or a token of the King's Confirmation of the Election And that this was so appears by King Edgars Charter to the Abby of Glastenbury wherein he retains to himself and his Heirs jus tribuendi fratri Electo baculum pastoralem But that which so much Scandalized both Ingulf and Malmsbury was a Custom then in use as also long before the Conquest of confirming the Bishop Elect in a full Synod or Parliament And to this Custom Ingulf refers when he tells us A multis annis retroactis nulla eras Electio Prelatorum merè Libera Canonica Sed omnes Dignitates tam Episcoporum quam Abbatum Regis Curia pro suâ— complacentia conferebat Where by Curia Regis you must not understand the King's Court in the Sense it is commonly taken but for the Great Council or Mikel Synod as it was then called and which dispatched Ecclesiastical as well as Civil Affairs in the same Sense as Curia Regis is used by Brompton in the Case of King Edw. and Earl Godwin which you but now cited And in which Sense it is always used by Ingulph when he speaks of the Great Councils under the two Williams I will not be very tedious on this Subject and shall therefore give you but one Authority on this Head and it is that of Walslan who was made Bishop of Worcester in the time of Edw. the Confessor and that as Mat. Paris tells us Vnanimi consensu tam Clâ—ri quam totius Plebis Rege ut quem vellent sibi eligerent praesulem annuente in Episcopum ejusdem loci eligitur And then he goes on thus Nam licet fratrum non deesset electio Yet that there concurred to it Plebis petitio Voluntas Episcoporum Gratia Procerum Regis Authoritas All which amounts to no more than that he was Elected Chosen and Confirmed by the King and all the Three Estates For here is the Petition of the Commons joyned with the Good-will of the Lords and both backt by the Kings Authority Yet that all this did not hinder him from being invested per Baculum Annulum as the Custom then was may appear by the Speech this Bishop Wulstan made at the Tomb of Edward the Confessor whither he went to resign his Pastoral Staff after his being deprived of his Bishoprick by Arch-Bishop Lanfrank and the Synod And the Conclusion of this Speech is remarkable Tibi Scil. Edwardo Baculum resigno qui dâ—disti Curam â—orum dimitto quos mihi commendasti A like Example I could give you of the Election of this Arch-Bishop Lanfrank himself in the Kings Curia or Great Council not long after the Entrance of K. William but for this I refer you to Eadmerus But admitting that the King alone had in those days conferred all Bishopricks does it therefore follow that his Nomination of Bishops in the Pursuance of that Trust which the Kingdom reposed in him did likewise make them to derive all the Right they had to sit in the Great Council from the King 's Sole Authority you might indeed with as much Reason urge
are the Bishops the Nobility and Civitatum delegati the Deputies or Commissioners of Towns and Cities For Sweden it comes near the Government and forms of Danemark and hath the same Estates and degrees of People as amongst the Danes that is to say Proceres Nobiles the greater and the less Nobility Episcopi Ecclesiastici the Bishops and inferiour Clergy Civitates Vniversitates the Cities and Towns Corporate for so I think he means by Vniversitates as Tâ—uanus mustereth them To which we may also add tho here omitted by this Author the Delegates of the Rusticks or Husbandmen who make a fourth Estate in the Assembly of Estates of this Kingdom And in this Realm the Bishops and Clergy enjoy the place and priviledges of the third Estate notwithstanding the Alteration of Religion to this very day the Bishops in their own Persons and a certain number of the Clergy out of every Sochen a Division like our Rural Deanries in the name of the rest having a necessary Vote in all their Parliaments And this Swedish great Council is the more remarkable because it comes very near our Constitution in England in which I proved the Inferior Clergy and the Commons not excepting the meanest Freeholders anciently had their Representatives So that it had been the strangest thing that could have been observed in all the Political Constitutioâ—s on this side of Europe if that of England tho descended from the same Gothick Original and founded according to the same model should have had no Representatives for the Commons or Plebians in their great Councils or Parliaments The Dr. here concludes with Scotland and England the former of which since you agree to have had from all times Citizens and Burgesses in their great Councils or Parliaments I need not repeat what is there since it is no more than what you your self have granted and as for England he owns as appears by the Passages I have already cited out of this Chapter that the Clergy Nobility and People were called to a Parliament held under Henry the ad at Clerkâ—nwell M I will not deny but there were Representatives of the Cities and great Towns in the great Councils or Assembly of Estates of all those Kingdoms you have now mention'd out of Dr. Heylins Treatise yet whether they were there from the very first Institution of those Governments is much to be doubted But since I have not now leasure to inquire into the Original of all these Kingdoms nor at what time each State began to come to these great Councils give me leave in the mean time to remark that all these Kingdoms except Sweden came nearer to that Constitution which we suppose to have been anciently in England and Scotland and also other Kingdoms where feudatory Tenures were observed and consequently none but the Chief Lords or Barons by Knights Service and that held of the King so that all those Foreign Councils or Dyeâ—s c. at first were all the same as consisting of Emperours or Kings with their Earls and Barons Bishops and great Officers as is evident from all the old German and French Authors and since Cities sent Deputies in Germany and Italy they were only from Imperial Cities the like I believe would be found in France and those other Kingdoms you have now mentioned but you cannot shew me unless in Sweden any Representatives elected by the Common People or Rusticks distinct from the Nobility and Gentry like our Knights of Shires in England So that I still doubt whether all the Representatives of the great Lords and other Nobility that appeared in the Councils of these Kingdoms were not all Tenants in Capite and no other F. That this is a meer surmise of yours I think I can easily prove for in the first place as for the Bishops Abbots and Clergy who still made the first Estates in all these Kingdoms nothing is more certain than that they never any of them held of the King by Knights Service and therefore could not 〈◊〉 in their great Councils by that Tenure that Institution being for ought as I know peculiar to England and introduced by your Conqueror as you your self acknowledge and as for the Temporal Nobility you will find that in France not onely those Noblemen that held of the King by Military Service but those who held in libero Alodio without any such Service at all had places either by themselves or their Deputies in the Assembly of the Estates so likewise for the Cities and Towns that sent Deputies to it I believe you will not find that any of them held of the King in Capite and to come to Germany you are likewise as much mistaken in fancying that all the Imperial Cities were Subject immediately to the Emperor before they became so for Hamburgh and Lubec were Subject to their own Princes the former to the Duke of Holstein and Sleswic and the latter to Earls of its own till at last they either purchased their Liberties they enioy from their Princes or else cast them off and were after received into the Body of the Diet by the Bulls or Charters of several Emperors and so likewise Brunswick was always a fâ—â—e City till it was united to the Empire by its own Consent I could shew you the like of several other Cities now called Imperial who held anciently not of the Emperour but either of their own Earls or Bishops tho I grant it was the Charters of the Emperor with the Consent of the Dyet that gave them a place in those Assemblies and tho it is true that in all the rest of these Kingdoms the meer Rusticks or Paisants have no Representatives in their great Councils yet this makes no Alteration in the Case if you please to consider it for the Nobility and Gentry are the only true and proper owners of the Lands of those Kingdoms all the Rusticks or Paisants being meer Vassals and in France almost Slaves to their Nobility and Gentry who as I have already said had all alike Votes in their Assembly of Estates as well those who held of the King in Chief by Knights Service as those that did not whereas it was always far otherwise in England where the meanest Freeholder was always as free as to his Person and Estate as the greatest Lord of whom he held and hence it is that we have had from all Times those of the degree of Yeomen so peculiar to England as Fortiscut in his Treatise de Laudibus Legum Angliae takes notice who if they lived on their own Lands had no more dependance on the Noblemen and Gentlemen than they have now and therefore it was but Reason that these should have their Representatives in Parliament as well as the Inhabitants of the Cities and Burroughs who had most of them a far less share in the Riches and real Estates of the Kingdom Secondly Pray take notice that in the rest of the Kingdoms of Europe except
from that 7th Edward the First I think that can by no means do the business for which you design it for in the first place this is only Declaration of the Bishops Lords and Commons of the Land that it belongs to the King to defend i. e. forbid all force of Arms but mark Sir what force sure it is only meant of such Force as belongs to the King's Prerogative to forbid viz. force of Arms against the Publick Peace and such as he might punish according to the Laws and Usages of the Realm and therefore the Statute expresly declares that as Subjects they are hereunto bound Aid him their Soveraign Lord the King at all times when need shall be but does this Act any where say that he hath an Irresistible Power to disturb this Peace by his own private Illegal Commissions or that any men are bound to assist him in it or because for example he hath Authority to punish all men according to Law that shall come to Parliaments with force of Arms that therefore he hath an unlimited power of raising what Forces he would and in prisoning or destroying the whole Parliament if he pleased and that no bodâ— might resist him if he had gone about so to do The like may be said if the 〈◊〉 should notoriously and insupportably by force invade all the Civil Liberâ—â—â—â— and Properties of his Subjects by Levying Taxes and taking away theâ—r Estates by down-right Force contrary to Law now can any body in his senses believe that the Act of 25th of Ed. 3. was made to prevent all Resistance of suâ—h Tyrannical Violence and that the Resistance of those Forces whether forreign or domestick that might be sent by the King 's private Commissioners to murder or enslave us is making War against his Person or that it comes within any of the Cases expressed in that Statute and therefore cannot fall within the compass of Sir Edw. Coke's Comment upon this Staâ—ute all the offences therein specified being Treasâ—ns at Common Law before that Statute was made nor is the Reformation there mentioned to be understood of a just and necessary Defence of our Lives Liberties Religion and Properties as setled and established by the Laws of the Land to be looked upon as making War against a weak or seduced King but is rather in defence of him and the Government by opposing Tyranny which will certainly bring both him and us to Ruine at last so the Reformation he there mentions is only to be be understood of such Insurrections and Rebellions as have been made under the meer pretence of Religion or obtaining greater Liberties for the common sort of People than they had by the Law of the Land such as were the Rebellions of Wat Tyler in King Richard the Second and Mortimers in Hâ—â—ry the 6th Reigns not to mention the other Rebellions raised by the Papists in the times of King Henry the Eighth Edward the Sixth and Queen Elizabeth's Reigns all which being begun by Seditious or Superstitious men were certainly rank Rebellions and so are and ought to be esteem'd by all good Subjects M. I grant these pretences seem very fair and specious yet notwithstanding this your pretended right or a necessity of Resistance of the King or those commissioned by him in case of Tyranny has been still looked upon as Rebellion in all Ages and the Actors dealt with accordingly where ever they were taken F. I do not deny but as long as Arbitrary and Tyrannical Princes could get the better of it and keep the Power in their own hands they still Executed for Traytors whosoever opposed or resisted their wicked and unjust Actions tho' they were never so near Relations to them thus both Edward and Richard the Second put their Uncles the Dukes of Lancaster and Gloucester to death meerly because they joyned with the rest of the Nobility and People to prevent their designs So that it is not the Execution of the Man but the Cause that makes the Traytor since Princes are seldom without a sufficient number of Judges and Jury-men to condemn whomsoever they please to fall upon But that the Clergy Nobility and People of England have always asserted this right of Self-defence in case their Liberties and Properties were uniustly invaded by the Tyrannical or Arbitrary Practices of the King or those about him I think I can prove by giving you the History of it in so many Kings since your Conquest as will render it indisputable if you please to give me now the hearing or else to defer it till the next time we meet M. I confess I was so weary of sitting up so long at our last Conversation that I made a Resolution not to do so any more and therefore since it grows late let us leave off now and I promise to meet you here again within a night or two and then I will hear how well you can vindicate your right of Resistance from Law or History but if you have no better proofs for it than the Rebellion of the Barons in King Iohn and Henry the Third's Reigns you will scarce make me your Convet since Impunity does never sanctifie a wicked action or render it the more lawful and you have already given it me for an Axiom that a facto ad Ius non valet consequentia F. I accept of your Appointment with thanks but pray do not forâ—judge my Arguments till you hear them and as for the Axiom I allow it for good provided I may urge it in my turn but in the mean time I shall wish you good night M. And I the same to you FINIS Bibliotheca Politica OR A DISCOURSE By WAY of DIALOGUE Upon these Questions Whether by the ancient Laws and Constitutions of this Kingdom as well as by the Statutes of the 13th and 14th of King Charles the II. all Resistance of the King or of those commissioned by him are expresly forbid upon any pretence whatsoever And also Whether all those who assisted his present Majesty King William either before or after his coming over are guilty of the breach of this Law Collected out of the most Approved Authors both Antient and Modern Dialogue the Ninth LONDON Printed for R. Baldwin in Warwick-Lane near the Oxford Arms where also may be had the First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth Seventh and Eighth Dialogues 1693. Authours chiefly made use of in this Dialogue and how denoted in the Margin Dr. Sherlocks case of Resistance S. C. R. Mr. Iohnsons Reflections upon it I. R. S. Dr. Hick's answer to Iulian Intituled Iovian H. I. I desire the Reader to remember that whenever I make use of the word People in this or the following Discourse I mean thereby the whole diffusive body of the Nation consisting of the Clergy Nobility and Commons The PREFACE TO THE READER I Must beg your pardon if I have exceeded my intended design in the Preface to the first of these Dialogues of reducing what I had to say on the
disobeying of the Parliament out of his hands much less will I justifie the Murder of this King or of any others above-mentioned as being no necessary consequences of that Resistance I only allow for lawful viz. that of the whole or major part of the Nation nor were Edw. the Second or Richard the Second put to death by any Act or Order of Parliament but were murdered In Prison and the Murderers of Edward the Second were afterwards attainted by Act of Parliament and Executed as they deserved But as for the Murder of King Charles the First it is not to be taken into this account it being not done by the Authority of the Lords and Commons in Parliament but by a Factious Rump or Fag-End of the House of Commons who fate by the power of the Army after far the major part of the Members who were for the King were shut out of doors and the Lords Voted useless and dangerous M. I confess you have made as good an Apology for these Actions as the matter will bear but that neither of the Two Houses can at this day have any Coercive Power over the King or to call him to an account for any thing he has done appears by the express Declaration of both Houses in the Statute of the 12th of Charles the Second as also in those but now cited in which they utterly disclaim all making War whether offensive or defensive against His Majesty much less can he be subject to any other Coercive or Vindictive Power or ought any ways to be resisted by private persons therefore supposing I should grant as I do not that the Parliaments had formerly a power of Deposing of their Kings or that the Clergy Nobility and People had formerly a right of taking up Arms against the King in case of notorious Tyranny and Misgovernment yet is all such Resistance expresly renounced and declared unlawful by the Oath and Declarations now cited so that tho' in the dark Times of Popery such Resistance might be counted lawful not only by Laity but also by the Bishops and Clergy who ought to have taught the people better Doctrine yet I think it had been much better for the Nation to have endur'd the worst that could have happen'd from the Tyranny of Kings than to have transgrest the Rules of the Gospel and the constant Doctrine of the Primitive Church by Resistance and Rebellion against the Supreme Power of the Nation F. I shall not now maintain that the Two Houses of Parliament have any Authority at this day to Depose the King or maintain a War against him upon any account yet that they have still a power to judge of the King's Actions whether consonant to Law or not and whether he has not broke the Fundamental Constitutions of the Kingdom is no where given up as I know of But that Resistance in some cases is not contrary to the Doctrine of the Gospel I have already proved and that it was not directly contrary to the Laws of the Land before these Statutes you do partly grant But since the main strength of your Cause lies in this Oath appointed by these Acts of Parliament therefore if I can give a satisfactory Account of the true meaning and sense of these Acts to be otherwise than you suppose I hope you will grant that Resistance may still be lawfully made by the whole body of the people in the Cases I have now put against any persons who under colour and pretence of the King's Commission should violently assault their persons in the free exercise of their Religion as it is by Law Established or should go about to Invadeâ— their Just Liberties and Properties which the Fundamental Laws of England have conferr'd upon every Free-born Subject of it And in order to the clearer proof of this I shall make use of this Method I shall first explain the Terms of this Declaration and then I shall proceed to shew you that in a legal sense all Defensive Arms or Resistance of the King's Person in some cases or of those Commissioned by him is not forbidden nor intended to be forbid by these Statutes and Declarations First then By taking Arms against the King is certainly meant no more than making War against the King according to the Statute of the 25th of Edward the Third which declares making War against the King to be Treason and this is unlawful upon any pretence whatsoever Secondly The Clause by his Authority against his Person is only to be understood of the King 's Legal Authority and by his Person is meant his Natural and Politick Person when acting together for the same ends as I shall shew you by and by So that both these Statutes are but declaratory of the Ancient Common Law of England against taking up Arms and making War against the King and do not introduce any new Law concerning this matter so that whatever was Treason by the Statute of the 25th of Edward the Third is Treason by these Statutes and no more viz. all taking up Arms or actual making War against the King in order to kill depose or imprison him c. as Sir Edward Coke shews us in his third Institut in his Notes upon this Statute yet notwithstanding after this Statute of the 25th of Edward the third the Clergy Nobility and People of England assembled in Parliament did suppose it still lawful to take up Arms against those illegally Commissioned by the King in case of notorious Misgovernment and breach of the Fundamental Laws of the Nation as appears by that general Resistance made by reason of the evil Government of the Duke of Ireland and those concerned with him in the 11th of Richard the Second which as I have already proved was allowed for lawful by Act of Parliament and consequently by the King 's own consent without which it could never have been so declared The like I may say for that Resistance which was made in King Henry the Sixth's Reign by Richard Duke of York and the Earls and Barons of his Party agaist the Evil Government of the Queen and the Duke of Sommerset who governed all Affairs in an Arbitrary and yet unsuccessful manner by reason of the easiness and weakness of King Henry But tho' this Resistance was also approved of in the next Parliament of the 33d Year of this King yet I shall not so much insist upon it because I know you will alledge that this was made by the lawful Heir of the Crown against an Usurper since the Crown was not long after adjudged to be his right tho' King Henry was allowed to wear it during his life yet however it shews the Opinion of the Clergy Nobility and People of England at that time concerning the lawfulness of such Resistance before this Declaration of the Estates of the Kingdom concerning the Legality of the Duke of York's Title was made in the Parliament above-mentioned Thirdly That the Parliament by these Statutes of the
since by the subsequent words in this Oath it is restrained to the taking Arms by his Authority against his Person or those Commissioned by him which shews that nothing here is intended to be forbidden but taking up offensive Arms upon popular pretences without and against the Authority of the Law which is further explained in another Test by the Authority of both Houses of Parliament Thirdly 'T is observable this is but a Test upon some that were to come into Offices and can by no means make any change in the Ancient Law which cannot be changed by Implication nor does this amount to so much the first part of this Oath requiring only that the party admitted into Office shall so declare and believe and tho' the second Clause call it a Traiterous Position yet this is restrained only to these two particulars That Arms may not be taken up by the King's Authority against his Person or those Commissioned by him which can have reference to nothing but that distinction taken up in the late Times of Civil War when the Parliament pretended to take Arms and grant Commissions in the Name of King and Parliament by vertue of that Authority which they supposed he left with them at Westminster so that this Clause can by no means exclude any Arms made use of for Legal defence according to Law Fourthly and lastly Tho' the words against those Commissioned by him may seem to extend the matter further and is mistaken by some as if â—t required at least Passive Obedience to all Commissions of the King tho' never so illegal yet there is not the least colour for it since nothing is a Commission but the King 's Legal Command or Authority pursuant to some Law and for putting the same in Execution which is the Legal definition of a Commission and when this Test was first brought in to the second Parliament of King Charles the 2d and that the word Legal was offered to be added to the Bill upon a long Debate it was only left out because it was declared by all the Lawyers in the House even by Sir Hen. Finch then the King's Sollicitor and agreed to by the whole House that it was clearly implied and could bear no other construction but that all Illegal Commissions were Null and void and in no Legal sense could be called Commissions so that taking up Arms in the defence of the Law and pursuant thereunto cannot in any wise be called a taking Arms against the King's Person or those Commissioned by him and farther that by the words in pursuance of such Military Commissions are meant such as are warranted by that Act such as the King may issue by his Royal Authority which is bounded by Law and consequently cannot grant any Commissions but what are according to Law so that if these Commissions are granted to persons utterly disabled by Law to take them as all are that will not take the Test appointed by the Act of the 25th of K. Charles the Second intituled An Act to prevent the dangers that may arise from Popish Recusants as also all Commissions to do any Illegal violent action are absolutely void and consequently may be resisted or else our Magna Charta with all the other Laws that establish Liberty and Property as also our very Religion it self Established by Law may be either undermined by the King 's new Dispensing Power or else subverted by open force and every Commission Officer in a Red Coat will be as sacred and irresistible as the King himself But to conclude That the Instances I have given that the King's Commission may be abused to the destruction of the Nation nay of the whole Parliament are not so unlikely and remote as you imagine Pray let me put you in 〈◊〉 that as for that pretended Commission to Sir Phelim Oneal tho' it is true it did prove afterwards to be forged yet was it not known to be so till long after and therefore having all the signs of a true Commission under the King 's great Seal the poor Protestants in Ireland were to have had their Throats cut according to this Oath before ever they could be satisfied whether it were true or not But that a Popish King persecuting and destroying his Protestant Subjects only for matters of Religion is not so improbable a thing as you would have it the French King 's late Dragooning Imprisoning and sending to the Gallies all that refused to renounce Heresie as they call it and subscribe to the Articles of the Romish Religion has given us but too sad and recent an example and how you can assure me that the King acting upon these very Principles and being governed by like Confessors will never do the same things I should be glad to receive some better satisfaction than his bare word to the contrary Nor yet is my other Instance of its being left according to your Doctrine in the King's power to make a violent assault upon the persons both of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament whenever he pleased without any Resistance whatsoever so remote and improbable as you are pleased to make it since you may find it still upon Record among the Articles exhibited in Parliament against Robert de Vere Duke of Ireland Robert Tresilian Chief Justice and Sir Nicholas Brembur in the Parliament of the 11th of Richard the Second which I have already mentioned the 15th Article of which was That they by their false Council had caused the King to command the said Nicholas being then Mayor of London suddenly to rise with a great power to kill and put to death the said Lords viz. Thomas Duke of Gloucester and the other Lords there named and the Commons viz. of the Parliament of the 10th of this King who were not of their Party and Conspiracy for the doing of which wickedness the said grand Traitors above-said were parties and presents to the destruction of the King and his Realm So that if this Treason had not been discovered and that no private persons might then resist those Commissioned by the King it would have been Treason according to your principles for the said Lords and Commons to have resisted those that were thus sent to assault them and take away their Lives and what hath once happened 't is not impossible but it may happen again And we may remember how about little more than 30 years since that the K. of Denmark shut up the Senators and Nobility of the great Council of that Kingdom in Coppenhagen and threatned them with Death or Imprisonment if they refused to give up all their Liberties and from an Elective King make him and his Successors absolute hereditary Monarchs as they are at this day by means of the Bishops and Clergy of that Kingdom who then basely gave up and betrayed the Liberty of their Countrey and what they have now got by it they best know therefore this is a thing to be considered as a
there is no other means left but to resist it if they are able M. I can give you very good reasons to satisfie you why tho' I grant private Subjects may judge of the Legality or Illegality of the King's Commissions and also refuse to obey His Illegal Commands and also that all publick Officers ought to take care at their peril how they act by or execute such Illegal Commissions yet that it does not therefore follow that such illegal Commissions or Orders though executed upon the whole body of the People may be resisted by them for all limitation of the Royal Power being only voluntary and proceeding from the meer grace and favour of our Kings they are not compellable by force or resistable if they should impose their own Proclamations or Edicts upon us instead of Laws For tho' I grant that the King hath no Just or Legal Authority to act against Law and that if he knowingly put any Subject to death contrary to Law he is a Murderer and no Prince can have any such Prerogative as to commit open downright murders either in his own person or by those who act by Commission from him but what follows from hence That they may resist or oppose them if they do This I absolutely deny because God and the Law have Commanded us not to resist and I see no inconsistency between those two Propositions That a King hath no Authority to act against Law and yet that neither He nor those commissioned by Him though acting against Law may be resisted Both the Law of God and the Laws of our Countrey suppose these two to be very consistent For notwithstanding the possibility that Princes may thus abuse their Power and transgress the Laws whereby they ought to govern yet they also command Subjects in no case to resist and it is not sufficient to justifie Resistance if Princes do what they have no just Authority to do unless we have also a just Authority to resist he who exceeds the just bounds of this Authory is lyable to be called to an account for it but he is accountable only to those who have a Superior Authority to call him to an account No Power whatsoever is accountable to an Inferior for this is a contradiction to the very Notion of Power and destructive of all Order and Civil Government Inferior Magistrates are on all hands acknowledged to be lyable to give an account of the abuse of their Power but to whom must they give an account Not to their Inferiors not to the People whom they are to Govern but to Superior Magistrates or to the Soveraign Prince who Governs all Thus the Soveraign Prince may exceed his Authority and is accountable for it to a Superior Power But because he hath no Superior Power on Earth he cannot be resisted by his own Subjects but must be reserved to the Judgment of God who alone is the King of Kings F. In the first place I deny and I have sufficiently proved the contrary that all Limitation of Royal Power proceeded at first from the meer grace and favour of our Kings since the Crown of England has been from its first Institution Limitted by Laws and the People have likewise always enjoyed a property in their Lives Liberties and Estates by the same Laws Tho' I grant you and I are thus far agreed That the King hath no Just and and Legal Authority to act against Law and that if he put any man to Death or take away his Estate contrary to it it is Murder and Robbery And likewise that the Subjects may be capable of Judging concerning such illegal Commands but you will not allow that if such a Limitted Monarch should send his Mercenary Forces to take away our Estates or to Dragoon us till we will own our selves of his Religion that those Instruments of his Tyranny may be resisted or that I have brought any reason for it Whereas if you had but attended better to my discourse at our 3d and 4th Meetings you might have remembred that I plainly enough proved to you that God hath not given Princes nor those Commissioned by them any Authority to Murder or enslave their Subjects and your self then granted That every Man hath power to defend his Life against him who hath no Authority to take it away which holds more strongly in our Constitution where if the King give a Man a Commission to act contrary to the Law of the Land it is altogether void and the People may as well justifie their Resistance of those Officers or Souldiers who should come to Dragoon or persecute them for professing the Religion Established by Law as if he had sent them downright to cut their Throats and this being their Right by the Laws of God and Nature whether God hath taken away this Right by any express Precept in the holy Scripture I also examined at those Meetings but whether any Municipal Law of the Land hath restrained us from it I have also now considered and proved it contrary to the true intent and meaning of these Acts concerning the Militia And therefore to say that it is not sufficient to justifie Resistance if Princes do or command what they have no Legal Authority for unless we can also shew an Authority to resist is a mistake if by Authority you mean an express Civil Law for it because such Resistance in absolute Monarchies is justifiable by that which is Prior to all Civil Laws the Right of Self-defence or Preservation And so likewise in Limited Kingdoms there is the same necessity of Defensive Arms upon a general Breach or Violation of any Fundamental Constitution of the Government since it cannot be kept or maintained without such Resistance be allowed So that if the King hath no Authority to act contrary to Law he cannot sure delegate that to others which he had not in himself and consequently such Commissions to Persecute or Murder Men contrary to Law being in themselves void the persons that Execute them being no Officers may be justly resisted and the Resistance of such an Illegal Act doth not at all derogate from his Soveraignty as King since as I told you before that is limited only to the performance of Legal Acts and extends not to Illegal Orders or Commands and as for the rest of the Reasons you give against this Resistance viz. because he who exceeds the just bounds of his Authority is liable to be called to an account for it only by those who have a Superiour Authority to do it Whereas no Power whatsoever is accountable to an Inferiour You do but impose upon me and your self the same Fallacy which you have so often made use of in making being accountable all one with irresistible which are vastly different and therefore your Conclusion is as false that because the Soveraign Prince may exceed his Authority and is only accountable for it to God that therefore he cannot be resisted by his own Subjects for he may
downright Treason to resist them And if this be so the last difficulty will be easily answered viz. By what Authority or Commission the People may make this general resistance To this I say That in the first place all Commissions granted to persons uncapable by Law to take them or for illegal purposes are to be supposed to be issued contrary to the Kings will and knowledge and therefore are to be look'd upon as void in Law and consequently the Persons not to be commissioned at all and so may be resisted by the Kings legal Officers all over England as I have already proved but if once the King should Countenance and Abett such Robbers by his own personal presence this resistance may then be made and justified by the whole nation not by the King's Authority against his Person but by another higher and precedent right viz. The Right of Self-defence and the Common-safety of the whole Nation which the People must have reserved to themselves at the first Institution of the Government or else all Monarchies would be alike and there would be no difference at all between absolute and limited Kingdoms M. I shall not trouble my self about other Kingdoms but this much I firmly believe that our Kings are absolute Monarchs notwithstanding they have limited themselves by Law to the manner of their administration of these grand essentials of Government the making of Laws and raising of money so that since the supremacy of the Government is still in themselves as Gods Vicegerents here on Earth and not as the Peoples Deputies I cannot but still understand this Oath in the strict litteral sence in which I am confident this Parliament meant it and therefore since they have expresly declared the Law to be so I will not be wiser than the Law especially since it is most agreeable to the Scriptures and the known doctrine of the Church of England that the Kings Person is not only unaccountable but irresistable too upon any pretence whatsoever and I think I am able to shew you that it is much better for this Nation or any other of a like constitution to suffer the worst that may happen from the ill Government nay Tyranny of our Kings than to involve themselves in blood and confusion by Rebellion and Civil Wars as often as the People shall judge though never so falsly that their fundamental Rights and Priviledges are forceably invaded by the King F. I think I have very expresly proved at our 5th meeting and that from undoubted Testimonies from our ancient Histories and Writers of the Laws of England as also from the whole constant Tenour of the Statute Law of this Nation that the Kings of England are not limited by their own concessions in the manner of the Administration of their Soveraign Power but from the first constitution of the Government and if the King be not the sole supreme Legislative power I care not what some Divines have writ to the contrary and since it is a Law question the supreme Authority alone ought to decide it And therefore it is no matter in this case what the Scriptures say nor yet the Church of England the former hath not and the latter cannot determine what is the Legal constitution of the Government in this Nation and where the supreme power resides and therefore suppose it to have been the intent of this Parliament never so much to bar all resistance of the Kings Person in any case whatsoever yet I am sure it was not in their power to do things absolutely inconsistent and contradictory in themselves as they must have done had they made the Persons of all Officers however commissioned by the King absolutely irresistible and much more if they had induced the Kings Presence with an absolute power for them to commit the most violent and illegal action and yet have supposed they had thereby altered nothing in the constitution of the Government though they had rendred it instead of a Limitted an Absolute Despotick Monarchy which as I am not yet convinced it was in their will so neither was it in their powers to grant if they would And therefore as I do not desire to be wiser than the Law so I cannot allow this to be any Law at all in the sense you would put upon it so that make the most of it this was but the unwary declaration of a Parliament of very young Men not long after the King 's coming in who thorough the great Abhorrence they had of the late Civil War raised by the Parliament under colour of the King's Authority were drawn in before they were aware to be a little too free in their Expressions not considering the consequences that might follow But when this sond Fit was over and that a standing Army had been raised in England under pretence of the Dutch War and that the King had by his Declaration of Indulgence made some approaches to an Arbitrary Power and in order thereunto would in that very Parliament in 1675. have imposed this very Oath or Test not only upon those who were to take it before but upon all Peers and Parliament Men before ever they sate in the Two Houses as also upon all Officers in Church and State to the very Justices of Peace so that the Disguise being now seen thorough it made divers of the Peers even those of greatest Loyalty and Wisdom stiffly to oppose the laying this Test upon all the Clergy Nobility and Gentry of the whole Nation as it was then the design of the Bishops and Court-Party to have done Which vigorous Opposition tho' in the smaller number yet met with such good success that the Bishops and Lords of the contrary Opinion could not then carry it and the Eyes of the whole Nation were afterwards so much opened that the King durst never offer this Test any more to either of the Two Houses So that if you will but consider this matter of Fact how this Test was first obtain'd and how afterwards when it was thought to be intended to set up Arbitrary Power was also as vigorously opposed by them and their being sensible that the Parliament had gone too far already in doing what they had done I think none can take this Oath in your sense except those Clergymen who will allow none to be of their Church but those who are for this Passive Obedience according to their prejudicate Notions of Loyalty or else some few mercenary Lawyers who in hopes of Preferment which they can never otherwise obtain would interpret this Oath in such a sense as should make us all Papists and Slaves too whenever the King has a mind to it Now which of these extreams are worst that the people should judge for themselves tho' perhaps erroneously when the King or those acting by his illegal Commissions shall violently assault them in their Religion Lives Liberties and Estates that thereupon they make Resistance with one consent when they find themselves brought to this
by his Majesty and those of the Popish â—unto that advised him to issue out the late Declaration so expresly contrary to Law and the sense of both Houses of Parliament and which gave the Archbishop of Canterbury and the rest of his Brethren a sufficient ground of petitioning against it and this was so evident that a Jury in which the greatest part were high Prerogative Men could not upon a fair trial but acquit them M. I shall not further dispute this point since you have dwelt so long upon it though I must still tell you I do not look upon this as a sufficient cause for the Nations taking up arms for a reason I shall shew you by and by and therefore I shall now proceed to the next head complain'd of in the Princes late Declaration viz. the late Commission for erecting a new Court for Causes Ecclesiastical but as I will not enter upon the question of the Legality of it so on the other side it was also done by colour of Law and the King as supream head of the Church was told by his Ministers that he had power to erect what new Court Ecclesiastical he pleased provided it was not of the same kind with the High Commission Court which had been abrogated by the Stat. of the 17th of King Charles the I. as likewise particularly excepted in the Proviso in the Stat. of the XIIth of King Charles the II. for restoring Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction to the Bishops Courts so that admitting that Court was not legal yet the Persons who advised the King to erect it and the Commissioners who sate in it were only answerable for it in the next Parliament and though the Bishop of London was suspended and the President and Fellows of Magdalen Colledge were unjustly expelled by this Court yet sure none of these miscarriages could give the Subjects of this Kingdom any just pretences to take up Arms to redress them being done as I said before by colour of Law without any force or violence and was also submitted to by the Parties against which these Decrees were given and was at the most but a matter of particular concern and reacht no farther than the said Bishop and Colledge and did not touch the Religion and Civil Liberties of the whole Kingdom and consequently was not of that general importance as to be any just cause of the whole Kingdoms taking Arms much less for the Kings Officers and Souldiers to run over to the Prince of Orange as they lately have done F. To answer what you have now said concerning the Ecclesiastical Commission that I must also tell you was issued forth without so much as any colour of Law for it and though the late Chancellor and some of the worst and most Mercenary Judges countenanced it by appearing for and acting in it yet it is very well known that it was never proposed to all the Judges to be argued in the Exchequer Chamber as it ought to have been before a thing of that great importance to the whole Nation had pass'd the Seals as to what you say that the Kings Ministers told him it was according to Law and that they alone ought to answer for it in the next Parliament and that no publick disturbance ought to have been made about it because the things that that pretended Court did were but of a particular concern and only reacht the Bishop of London and one single Colledge that is but a fallacy which you put upon your self for sure if you had better consider'd of it you would find that what these Commissioners have already done is of a little more publick concernment than you are aware of for pray tell me why by the same Law by which the Bishop of London was suspended for his refusal to silence Dr. Sharp all the Bishops in England might not have been suspended one after another by that pretended Court if they had refused to obey or execute any Letters or Orders from the King tho' never so illegal or unreasonable since what command could be more illegal than the King 's positive order to the Bishop to suspend a Clergyman from his Diocess without first hearing him or giving him leave to answer for himself So likewise for the case of Magdalen Colledge by the same Law by which these Ecclesiastical Commissioners took upon them to turn out the President and Fellows for disobeying the Kings Mandamus by the same Law the King might put upon any other Colledge in either University Popish Heads and Popish Fellows till instead of Nurseries for the education of our youth in the Protestant Religion they may become as absolute Popish Seminaries as the Colledges of Doway or St. Omers and though I grant that the persons concerned in these unjust Decrees might have patiently submitted to them without any protestations against the jurisdiction of that pretended Court since they might for some prudential reasons have thought fit to submit to them without making any such protestation and yet for all that not allow their Authority but indeed the matter of fact was far otherwise for when a part of these Commissioners sate at Magdalen Colledge to expel the said President and Fellows from their places contrary to Law and the express Statutes of the Colledge they did all severally protest against their whole proceedings and appealed to the Kings Courts at Westminster And it is a plain proof how willingly Dr. H. the President of this Colledge submitted to this Sentence by his locking the Doors of his Lodgings and leaving the Commissioners to break them open before they could get in and put in his pretended Successour by force But as to what you say that the King was told he might as supream Head of the Church set up what new Court he pleased for the execution of his Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction it is certainly a great mistake for I utterly deny that the King has power to erect any new Courts either Ecclesiastical or Civil unless by Authority of Parliament the Kings power to make a Vicar general being only confirmed by the Statute of King Henry the Eighth as was also the Authority of the high Commission by the Statute of the first of Queen Elizabeth and if either of those high spirited Princes hadâ— believed themselves to have been invested with such an unbounded Prerogative they would certainly have exercised it without being beholding to the Parliament but indeed it is but a subterfuge to alledge that this Court was not of the same Nature with that of the high Commission because it did not take upon it to â—â—ne or commit Men to Prison nor to administer the Oath ex Officio to those that were convened before them since it is not the different name or some small difference in the manner of the judicial proceedings but the Causes or Matters that a Court pretends to take Cognizance of that can make it a Court of a quite different nature now it is notoriously known that this late Ecclesiastical
that he will give his People any sufficient Testimony of his amendment and sincerity by giving up such evil Ministers to punishment that put him upon such desperate courses I do then readily grant that the People ought to lay down their Arms and be again reconciled to their King and submit themselves to him as before according to that Clause in King Iohn's Magna Charta I have already cited wherein there is a Power left for the Barons in case of any Breach of it to take Arms and constrain the King by taking of his Castles Lands and Possessions to amend those transgressions and when all was thus amended the Charter says Tunc cum fuerit emendatum then and not before interdent nobis sicut prius fecerunt they shall be subject to us as they were before but what followed upon this the King not only refused to observe this Charter but procured the Pope's Dispensation to be absolved from the Oath he had taken to observe it and also did all he could to bring in Foreigners into this Kingdom to support his Tyranny and raised what Forces he could of his own Subjects to that end whereupon the Barons at last were forced to renounce all Allegiance to him and to declare he had forfeited all Right to the Crown by his Tyranny and Perjury towards his People as Mat. Paris and other Authors shew us at large Now what the Barons did in the case of King Iohn may be also done by the People of this Kingdom in all succeeding Times or otherwise the King will be in a better condition after he has done the worst he can by force of Arms against the People than he was before for if as I have already proved he may be resisted till he give the Kingdom satisfaction that he will surcease from such Tyrannical courses and that such Resistance is really a Suspension of Allegiance for the time it lasts it will likewise follow that if the King will still persist in these wicked courses he must at last forfeit his Crown and discharge his Subjects of all Allegiance to him or else he would be in a better condition by his wilful persisting in his Tyranny than he could by quitting it and reconciling himself to his People For whereas by this Method the best he can expect is to return to the exercise of the same Limited Power â—e before enjoyed If he push things to the utmost extremity he may perhaps get the better of his People and then he may set up for an Absolute King by Conquest or if he fail in that and be beaten or taken Prisoner by them he can still lose nothing since by your Principles he still continues an Absolute Sovereign Prince as he was before and must be immediately put in the same state and ability of destroying the Government and enslaving the Nation but your Civil as well as our Common Law has a very good Maxim Nemo ex proprio Delicto beneficium câ—piat no man may take advantage of his own wrong and therefore such a Prince ought certainly to lose and not to get by his own Illegal and Tyrannical Actions and therefore I grant that the King is not tyed to observe any new things that he was not before he was Crowned bound to do only there is the higher obligation of an Oath added thereunto so if the King be a Limited Prince whose Authority depends upon the right exercise of it and that he can claim no Allegiance of his Subjects but upon that condition if such a Prince wilfully breaks all those conditions and aâ—solutely refuses to amend he must at last forfeit his Crown and lose all Allegiance from his Subjects or else all their Resistance would signifie just nothing and they would after all be in a much worse condition than they were before Now if this be so all your Quotations out of Bracton and Fleta will signifie nothing for as Pufendorf very well observes a Supreme Power may reside in a Limited King in respect of all his particular Subjects yet they may have a right to disobey him in those things to which his Power does not extend for says he it does not follow that because I am not bound to obey him in all things therefore I must be his Equal or Superiour or because I cannot in any wise command him therefore he may enjoyn me what he pleases for Supreme and Absolute are by no means one and the same for the former denotes the absence of a Superiour or an Equal in the same order but the latter a faculty of exercising all the Rights of Government according to his own Judgment and Will and therefore this Author in the next Chapter says very rationally concerning resisting of Tyrants in extreme cases that their scruple is nothing who will not admit any Liberty of resisting the most cruel Tyranny of Rulers because there cannot be supposed any lawful Call of Subjects taking Arms against the Supreme Power since no Jurisdiction can belong to any Subject toward such a Power as if says he that Self-defence were an Effect of Jurisdiction or that there is required any peculiar Call or Precept for Men in case of extream necessity to defend themselves and to repulse any unjust force from taking away their Lives or Estates any more than there is for those who are like to starve to allay their hunger by eating tho' it may be the Meal they eat is not their own but another Man's so far he and if this be lawful even in Absolute Monarchies in case of defence of Life the same I say may be exercised in Limited Kingdoms when the King goes about by force to take away the Religion Lives Estates or Liberties of the People contrary to Law since they both act upon the same Principle that a King by destroying the Fundamental Laws and Conditions by which he is to Govern renounces the Government and indeed so far dissolves it that he ceases to be King And tho' I grant Bracton and Fleta and other old Lawyers have noâ— in express words taught this Doctrine yet they do it in effect since the former tells us Non est Rex ubi dominatur voluntas non Lex that is he is not a King when his own Will and not the Law governs And in another place Rex est dum bene Regit Tyrannus dum Populum sibi creditum violentâ oppriâ—it dominationâ— and in the very same place as you have also observed he tells us exercere debet Rex potestatem Iuris ut Vicarius Minister Dei potestas autem injuriae Diaboli est non Dei cum declinat ad injuriam Rex Diaboli Minister est Now if what Bracton says be true then the King when he does injury is the Devil's Minister and not God's I cannot see how he can then act as God's Lieutenant or why it is not as lawful to resist the Devil's Minister as the Devil himself And as to what you alledge out
of the People rather than in the Parliament or great Council of the Nation for as to your assertion that the whole People are more fallible and consequently more dangerous Judges in such a Case than the great Council I deny it since all the matters of fact must be so evident and notorious to the senses and feeling of the greater part of the People that there can be no doubt or denial of it by any reasonable and indifferent Judges and the greatest part of the People are willing to live in Peace without making any disturbance or alteration in the Government if it may be avoided whereas in any great Assembly or Council there are many and those of the most eloquent and leading Men who commonly carry the rest which way they please who are governed by faction ambition or self-interest and upon all or some of these c. may be desirous to raise Civil Wars or to declare the King to have done things that require resistance or to have forfeited his Crown when indeed he has not and for this the very Long Parliament you mention is an evident example since you cannot but grant that if the differences between the King and that Parliament had been left to the Judgment of the whole People there had never been any Civil War at all nor had the King ever been beheaded since it is notoriously known that before the Parliament stirr'd up the People to War by seizing of the Militia they were not at all inclined to it It being a restless and factious ambitious party of men on both sides who brought on the last Civil War Not but that I defer much to the Judgment of a free and unbyast Parliament who may confirm and declare what the diffusive body of the People have already justly done to be right and lawful which may be as great a satisfaction to private Mens Consciences in Civil Disputes as a general Council is in Spiritual Controversies about matters of Religion wherein tho' such a Council cannot make new Articles of Faith yet we Protestants hold that it may declare what were anciently believed but if the People have a right of Judging during the intervals of Parliament when the King has notoriously broke the Fundamental Constitution and so may make resistance accordingly as I have already proved they have since otherwise the King may absolutely refuse ever to call any Parliament at all or at least may not let them sit till all grievances are redressed so that I cannot see why they may not also Judge when the King has so wholly broke his Original Contract and so obstinately persisted in it as to create a forfeiture of his Crown since the one is not harder to judge of than the other nor is your parallel between our opinion and that of the Jesuites at all true unless you could also prove that I had put the same authority in the People to depose their Kings by a right conferred on them by God as the Jesuites do in the Pope by such a pretended Power as Superiour to that of all the Monarchs in the World but there is nothing like it in my hypothesis Since I do neither allow the People to Judge or Depose the King much less to put him to Death tho' a Tyrant but only to Judge and declare when he has made such notorious breaches on the fundamental Constitution as do necessarily imply a forfeiture or rather an implicite Abdication of his Royal Power and whereby he deposes himself But to come to the second Point to prove that our Kings were never absolute Monarchs or had the sole and absolute authority over the People of this Kingdom and if so that there was somewhat still reserved by the People at the first institution of the Government and which the King by the original contract when he or his Ancestors took the Crown must be still supposed as bound to maintain now that there must have been such a thing as an Original Contract however light you are pleas'd to make of it I thus make out you may remember that at our fifth meeting I proved that at the first institution of Kingly Government in this Nation it was not by right of Inheritance but Election 2. That this Election was made either by the whole body of the People in Person or by their lawful Representatives in the great Councils or Mycel Synods of the English Saxons 3. That this great Council did then reserve to themselves these material parts of Government First A right of Meeting or Assembling at stated times of the year and that without any previous summons from the King 2. A right of proposing or at least oâ— assending to all Laws that should be made in all future times 3. A right of granting general Aids or Taxes for the People and that without their consent no Taxes could be imposed 4. And as subsequent to all these a right of agreeing to all Wars and Treaties of Peace â—o be made with Foreign Nations but the first and last of these tho' I could prove to have been constantly observed during the Saxon Government and long after yet since the People have parted with their right to their Kings in these matters I shall not now insist upon them only that this People have still a right to Parliaments once in three years at least and oftner if necessity require These then being the Original Constitutions of the Kingdom the King must have either entred into a compact with the People for the maintenance and observation of these fundamental rights or else it must have been left to his discretion whether he would suffer the People to enjoy them or not if the latter had been true then I grant they had made him an Absolute Monarch and had left it wholly at his discretion whether they should enjoy these fundamental Rights and Priviledges or not but it appears plainly to the contrary that they did not for I shall prove if need be that the Succession to the Crown was at first Elective and not Hereditary now in all Elective Kingdoms of the Gothick Model it is very well known that their Kings were so far from being absolute that the Assembly of Estates or great Councils of those Kingdoms reserved to themselves a power of Deposing their Kings for Tyranny and Mis government as I have already proved was frequently done not only in England but in all the neighbouring Kingdoms without any imputation of Rebellion and I have also given you a quotation out of the ancient mirrour of Justices which tells us that upon the Election of the first King of this whole Island The Princes that chose him then caused him to swear that he would maintain the Holy Christian Faith with all his power should Rule his People justly without regard to any person and should be obedient to suffer Right or Justice as well as others his Subjects And now that upon a failure to perform these things a forfeiture of the
general that he shall reverence the Church of God that is that Profession of Christianity or Way which he and the great Council of the Nation shall upon the most mature Judgment and Deliberation think to be so so that all that can be deduced from this clause is that the King shall reverence the Church that is maintain the profession of Religion which shall be established by Law and shall make no alteration therein without the general consent of the whole Nation in their great Councils or Synods consisting as well of Ecclesiastical as Secular Members and so likewise he shall defend it from all injurious Persons that would invade the Rights of the Church and its Clergy contrary to Law and shall root out all evil doers that is all debaucht and wicked Professors of Christianity for so malesicos properly signifies and not Hereticks as you would render it who are not Evil doers but false Believers or if it should be interpreted for Hereticks it is not those that then might be looked upon as such but what the present Church shall so determine or else we must own the former Church to have been infallible in all her determinations So that I can see no reason upon the whole matter why this Law should now become void or unprofitable by reason of any alterations in Religion or of those men that were then to exercise the functions of it as long as all the necessary and material parts of both are preserved as they are to this day for otherwise this Law would have tyed up the King and Nation from making any Reformation in Religion tho' never so much for the better or tho' the National Church had never so much required it which I suppose no true Protestant will affirm But as for those passages out of Bracton and Fleta which I have brought to confirm and support our sense of this Law and which you labour to avoid by putting too general and loose an interpretation upon them whereby you would make them only to signifie that the King is to maintain right Judgment and Justice between Man and Man without which his Royal Dignity cannot hold or subsist but that he is not obliged upon any penalty to observe the same things in respect of himself or his own Officers or Ministers this is all one as if a Shepherd who had a Flock of Sheep committed to his charge by the owner having first fleeced and then killed and destroyed them and converted the Wooll and Carkasses to his own private use should then tell the owner that he was indeed to defend the Flock from Thieves Wolves and Foxes but that it was no part of his bargain to keep them safe untoucht from himself or his Servants or so much as his own Dogs but that the sense of Bracton and Flâ—ta is quite otherwise sufficiently appears by these places I have now cited and if those will not do pray consider these that I shall nere add for Bracton also in the same chapter tells us ad hoc creatus est Rex electus ut Iustitiam faciat universis and he also there recites the ancient Coronation Oath in these words Debit enim Rex in Coronatione sua nomine Iesu Christi haec tria promittere Populo sibi subdito Imprimis se esse praecipturum pro virious opem impensurum ut omni Populo Christiano vera pax omni suo tempore observetur 2. Vt rapacitates omnes iniquitates interdicat 3. Vt in omnibus Iudiciis equitatem praecipiat misericordiam ut indulgeat ei suam misericordiam Clemens Deus Now how can a King observe this Oath that spoils the people of their Goods and raises Taxes contrary to Law or how can he continue King who violates all the ends of his Creation from all which it appears that by this Justice and Judgment must be meant not only the Kings own observing Justice towards his People not only by not commanding but also hindering his inferiour Ministers and Officers from spoiling and oppressing them and that no prerogative can justifie him in the doing otherwise is as evident from another place in Bracton where he tells us that Regia potestas Iuris est nâ—n Injuriae nihil aliud potest Rex nisi quod jure potest But Fleta is somewhat larger on this head tho' to the same effect when speaking of the Kings Power or Prerogative he says thus licet omnes potentia praecellat cor tamen ipsius in manu Dei esse debet ne potentia sua manâ—aâ— infranata fraenum imponat temperantiae lora moderantiae ne trahetur ad injuriam quia nihil aliud hoc estâ—in terra nisi quod de Iure potest nec obstat quod dicitur quod Principi placet Legis habet potestatim quia sequitur cum lege Regia quae de ejus Imperio lata est non quiâ—quid de voluntate Regis tanto pere praesumptum est sed quod Magnatum suorum consilio Rege authoritatem praestante habita super hoc deliberatione tractatu recte fuerit deâ—initum which not only shews that our ancient English Lawyers in this agreed with the Civil Law and gave the same account of the original of the Royal Power as that Law does viz. that it was conferred by the People of Rome on the Roman Emperour by the Lex Regia mentioned in the old Civilians I have formerly cited and also shews that our ancient Lawyers supposed that by a like Law among us the Royal Authority was originally derived from the consent of the People of England without whose advice and assent included in that of their Representatives here called consitium Magnatum consilium being taken for consent in this place as I have proved it often signify'd no Law can ever be made now if the King will not be ruled by this bridle of moderation this Author as well as Bracton tell us that the King then hath his Superiours the Law and his Court of Barons who were as Masters to put this Bridle upon him But admit he will run away with this Bridle between his Teeth all this had signified nothing if there be no other remedy left us besides bare supplication or remonstrances to the King of his duty and he might have dissolved the Parliament before ever it could have any time to do either the one or the other To conclude if the King was at first elected and created for this end that he may do Justice to all men and that this Justice does not only concern his maintaining Justice between his Subjects one towards another but also in respect of himself his Children and Subordinate Officers and Ministers that act by his Commission appears by what follows in Bracton after the Kings Coronation Oath Potestas scil Regis itaque Iuris est non injuriae cum ipse sit Author Iuris non debet inde injuriarum nasci occasio etiam qui ex officio
to introduce his Religion by all the ways and means he could but how near the French Forces were to be brought over into this Kingdom the last Summer is very well known to those who were then in France and saw them upon the Sea Coast ready to Imbark nor was their coming over put off by any other motives than that two of the Cabinet-Council represented to the King that it would be the only means to make the whole Nation rise up against him and joyn with the Prince of Orange as soon as he Landed which I suppose was the only reason that hindred it for that the French King offered to send them is very certain Yet it does not follow for all that but the King might take an opportunity of doing it another time and bringing them over in their own Ships if ours would not do the business And though I will not affirm that there is any private League with France for the Extirpation of the Protestant Religion yet this much I think may be sufficiently made out that long ago the King was wholly in the power and interest of France as appears by Coleman's Letters whilst he was his Secretary when Duke of York The first passage is to Sir William Throgmorton Feb. 1. 1673 4. You well know that when the Duke comes to be Master of our Affairs the King of France will have reason to promise himself all things that he can desire The next is to Father La Chaise the French Kings Confessor in these words That his Royal Highness was Convinced that his interest and the King of France's were the same and whether the Duke by his Accession to the Crown has shewed any alteration in his Inclinations to France either in respect of Religion or Interest I appeal to the World Nor is your next Supposition less out of the way that the King could have made use of no Forces but French to settle Popery and Arbitrary Government here as if He had not Scotch and Irish Papists enough in his Dominions for this occasion and as for Arbitrary Government we have found to our grief that there are too many Mercenary Souldiers in the Kings Army who fought only for pay and would have Assisted the King to have Raised Money without the Parliament nay to pull the very Parliament out of Doors if he had bid them and if some of them were Discontented when the Prince came over I do not so much impute it to their Honest Principles as fear lest they themselves should be Cashierd and Scotch and Irish to be listed in their rooms so that upon the whole matter considering the temper the King was in ever since his last coming to Town and that as soon as he Arrived the Priests and Jesuits flocked about him as thick as ever that they and the French Envoy were his chief if not his only Cabinet Councellors I cannot see unless he had taken new measures how we could have been secure or could have relied on any thing he could have farther promised nay swore to perform since no Oath could be more Sacred than that at his Coronation when he Swore to maintain the Church that is the Doctrine of the Church of England and the Laws of the Kingdom if that be a true account of the form of it which we have in print M. At this rate of Arguing I know not what to say to you since this Argument amounts to no more than this that the King could upon no account be trusted and therefore was not any more to be Treated with if this were so to what purpose did the Prince of Orange declare that he came not to Conquer the Kingdom but only to procure a Free and Legal Parliament which could not be called without the Kings Consent and owning his Authority neither could they have done the least Act for the Amendment of our Grievances without his Majesties Consent or to what purpose did the Prince enter into a Treaty with the Kings Commissioners at Hungerford if his Royal Word and Promises were not to be believed But if his Majesty could ever be trusted I see no reason why he could not have been so as well since his last coming to Town as before since he came voluntarily and as I have great reason to believe with Real Intentions to grant and perform what ever the Nation could reasonably expect for the Redress of their Grievances and would have given any reasonable Security of his performance for the future without Devesting himself of his Royal Power of making Laws and Protecting his Subjects But as for the former part of your Speech whereby you would prove it lawful to Resist the King because you say it conduced to the Common good and Interest of the Nation both as to the Protestant Religion and Civil Liberties this is no more than the Old Common-wealths Maxim in other words which I grant is so far true as when the safety and preservation of the King or other Supream Powers of a Common-Wealth who according to your own principles are the Representatives of the people and consequently part of it are likewise comprehended and maintained as they ought to be in their due power and authority for Bishop Sanderson in his Learned Lectures hath very well proved that those cannot be separated from each other without destroying the Civil Government which is all the Security we have for our Civil Properties and Liberties and we see in those few days in which his Majesties Person was withdrawn when that there was no Civil Government exercised that there was greater infringment of them both by plundering and destroying of Houses and spoiling of Parks and Forests in three or four days time by the violence and fury of the Mob than have been committed by the most Arbitrary Kings from the Conquest to this day F. You very much mistake me if you think I maintain that there was never any time after the Princes Landing that the King might not have been Treated withal and likewise trusted with the Administration of the Government but then it must have been upon such Terms as should have secured us for the future from his Acting the like or worse things over again as in the first place he should have renounced his Dispensing Power and that of Levying Chimny mony upon small Cottages and Ovens directly contrary to Law Next he should have Disbanded his standing Army and kept up no Forces in time of Peace besides the necessary Guardâ— of his Person the Number of which should have been agreed upon by Parliament which should also have Sâ—te once every year or two years at least and lastly that in respect of the Church as long as he or his Successors continued of the Roman Catholick Religion the Nomination of all Bishops Arch-Bishops Deans with other Ecclesiastical preferments which are not in the immediate Disposal of the Lord Chancellor should have been in the Arch-Bishops and Bishops of each Province they choosing two out of
since according to your doctrine the bare endeavouring it would be nothing and after he had once brought it to pass it would be then too late to retrieve it But that the King did really endeavour thus to subvert the fundamental constitution appears not only by his closeting and threatning Members to turn them out of their places if they would not submit to his Will in taking off the Penal Laws about Religion whereby all freedom of Voting would have been quite taken away But when the King saw this would not do he then fell a new modelling of Corporations and by bringing Quo Warranto's against their Charters to get it into his own power to nominate or approve of all Mayors Aldermen and Common Council men who in those Corporations having the sole Elections of Parliament men he would thereby have had the naming of them also in his power your next exception is against their declaring him to have broke the Original Contract between the King and the People for that you are not yet persuaded there was any such thing because we cannot shew it you in any Common Law or Statute Book written in express words as for the Statute Law I grant that there is no such express Contract to be found in any Statute yet doth it not therefore follow that there is no such Contract by the Antient Common Law of the Kingdom Now that our Fundamental Laws are not all to be found in writing is no wonder since it is a maxime of our Common Law that it was not a Law because it was Written but it was Written because it was a Law for it was a Law when it was only in the Breast and Heads of the King and People of this Nation without any writing at all and you your self must grant that if the Hereditary Succession to the Crown be a Fundamental Constitution it is notwithstanding no where to be found in Writings as I know of but the contrary asserted by divers Acts of Parliament but that there is such a thing as an Original Contract I shall prove from such a necessary consequence as I think cannot be denied for as that Statute of King Iames. I. sets forth which I have now cited and your self have already acknowledged there are such things as Fundamental Laws that is Laws that are as antient as the constitution of the Government there must have been also an implicit Fundamental Covenant or Contract on the Kings part that he would maintain them without any violation and this is that we mean by an Original Contract and if it were not so it had been the most foolish and unreasonable thing in the World to require every King to swear before he was Crown'd that he would maintain the Rights of the Church and the Antient Laws and Customs of the Kingdom and that this was Antiently looked upon as a renewal of this Original Contract appears by all our antient Historians who till the Reign of King Ed. I. never give the next Heir the Title of King but of Duke of Normandy till he was actually Crown'd and had taken his Coronation Oath and for this I desire you would consult all our antient Histoâ—ians since your Conquest beginning with Inguâ—â— and Eadmerus ending with Thom. Walsingham But as for your exception against his violating of the Fundamental Laws is yet more trivial for you cannot deny that there are such things and if so surely a King may violate them if he pleases and therefore your excuse for the Kings breach of them because they are not to be found together in any one place but are to be pick'd up here and there from Magna Charta and other Statutes makes nothing against the validity or the possibility of his knowing them for as before they were reduced to Writing by those Statutes which only declare and confirm the Antient Common Laws and Liberties of England they existed as I said but now in the Heads and Hearts of the King and People so when divers Kings of England by their Tyrannical and Illegal practices had made divers violations of these Fundamental Rights and Priviledges there then grew a necessity of new granting and confirming those Liberties and consequently of reducing them into Writing which there was not before and that is the true reason why Magna Charta and other Statutes made in the time of Henry the III. Ed. the I. and divers others of their Successors were made either for their explanation or ratification according as occasion requir'd and as several Princes had more or less violated these fundamental Laws of the Government for before they had so done there was no need of the Parliaments making or declaring any law about it But if the King would have but read and considered the Articles exhibited in Parliament against Edward and Richard the II. he might easily have seen the Laws altogether that will make a Prince to be declared by his Subjects to have forfeited his Crown But that King Iames had before his desertion endeavour'd to extirpate the Protestant Religion the Laws and Liberties of the Nation appears by those several Articles the Convention has given us in their late Declaration which they presented to King William upon their declaring him and his Princess K. and Queen of England to which I shall refer you since it is commonly to be had you know it consists in the recital of divers things the violation of which has been always counted in all Kings Reigns a breach of the Original Contract I come now to the last Clause save one you except against viz. That having withdrawn himself out of the Kingdom hath Abdicated the Government Now your main argument against it is that the Kings desertion of the Government being only for fear of his life or of being depos'd from his Royal Dignity could not by his going away be said to Abdicate or renounce the Crown since he went away with an intention to return and repossess it as soon as with safety he might to which before I make any answer I must freely own that were this the case as you have put it I think there would be no great dispute in it since I grant that a King who is thus forc'd to fly for fear of his life ought not to have any such injustice put upon him but if you please better to consider it the case was quite otherwise for I have already proved that when King Iames I. went away he had then an Army about him was free and in his own Pallace and was at that time in actual Treaty with the Prince nor had London nor any considerable strong place in England then surrender'd it self to the Prince so that if there was any necessity for his departure but what he had brought upon himself by his refusing to call a Parliament burning the Writs and sending away the Queen and Child together with the main instrument of Government the Great Seal of England this must certainly be looked upon
suppose For being by the King's Order in Council commanded to distribute this Declaration to their inferior Clergy which they knew in it self to be unlawful their distribution of it would not only have been looked upon as the owning of an unlawful thing but would also have drawn the Inferior Clergy into the same Snare who if it were unlawful ought not to have published to their Parishioners a Licence to act directly contrary to Law and therefore the Bishops were not only under an Obligation of that dreadful Charge and Imprecation express'd in the Statute of Uniformity in the first of Q. Elizabeth if they did not endeavour the utmost execution thereof through all their Diocesses and Charges but being also pressed upon to distribute it contrary to their Consciences what could they do less in order to excuse themselves from this unlawful Command than privately to tell the K. the reason of their disobedience and also humbly to petition him not farther to insist upon it either in respect of themselves or their Inferior Clergy and you know that it was allow'd by your Civil-Law for any Judge or Prator rescribere Principi if he were by him commanded to act contrary to any former Law or Edict of the Emperor M. I will not deny that but yet methinks the Bishops in this case would have acted more respectively and discreetly if they had forbore petitioning and though they had refused to obey the Kings Declaration yet needed they not to have declar'd against it till the Parliament met when I grant they might have freely and safely done it or else if they would have petitioned at all it should have been in more dutiful and respectful terms than by telling the King that his Declaration was Illegal and that they could not in Prudence Honour or Conscience so far make themselves parties to it as to distribute it and it was this alone which was looked upon as seditious and for which his Majesty thought fit to have them Indicted in the Kings Bench as a matter of high Misdemeanour F. I confess you have said in short the sum of what was urged against them by the Kings Council at their trial but all this was very well answered by one of the Judges themselves first That it would have been too late to have stayed for a Parliament because the Declaration was to have been distributed by such a time neither could they have acquiesâ—d under it and submitted for that would have been to run into contempt of the Kings Command unless they had also shewn the reasons why they could not obey him and since this could be done no other way than by Address or Petition what other reasons could they give but that they thought it had been more than once declar'd Illegal in Parliament and therefore that they could not in Prudence Honour and Conscience obey it not in prudence because they were liable to answer it in Parliament if they did not in Honour because it is unworthy the Character of Bishops and Peers to act any thing that may make them look like flatterers or time servers not in conscience because of the Imprecation they lay under by the Act of Queen Elizabeth as also because no man can with a safe conscience give his approbation to that which is contrary to Law And therefore I must needs tell you that it was very severely and unjustly done in the King to give up this Petition which was deliver'd him with all the privacy imaginable to the Privy Council in order to have the Bishops prosecuted for it but which made a great deal more noise and heart-burning against his Government to commit them Prisoners to the Tower and then to bring them to their Tryal and prosecute them with the utmost rigour where tho they escaped punishment yet was it no thanks to the Prosecutors but to the Directions of the Judges two of whom for their Honour differ'd from the late Lord Chief-Justice and his Popish Companion as also to the honesty of the Jury who found them not guilty M. I cannot deny but you have given a pretty fair Account of this matter and I cannot but own that it was one of the worst advis'd things that happen'd under the King's Government but I cannot impute this to His Majesty's innate disposition which was wont to act with greater temper and moderation towards those who differ'd from him in Judgment and therefore must impute it wholly to the wicked Instigations of Father Peters and the other Popish Ministers But as for divers other Articles mention'd in the Conventions Declaration Such as the issuing out and causing to be executed a Commission under the Great Seal for erecting a Court called The Court of Commission for Ecclesiastical Affairs and levying Money for and to the use of the Crown by pretence of Prerogative for other time and in other manner than the same was granted by Parliament with all the rest of the Articles in that Declaration relating to civil Affairs Since they are to be looked upon as the sole Acts of the Judges and not of the King they and not he ought to suffer for thâ— illegality of them since as you your self have own'd the King in his judicial capacity can do no wrong that power being wholly committed to his Judges and therefore it was very hardly nay unjustly done to lay this to his charge which he is not to answer for so that if any thing have been done amiss in this kind they and not he are to answer for it and not to run such things up to a Forfeiture or an Abdication as you and your Covention have done F. I need not say much more to this Objection because I have in great part answer'd it already and prov'd that most of the things found fault withal were the King 's own Acts as well as those of his Ministers and Judges for as to the Commission for Ecclesiastical Affairs which is directly contrary to the Statute of King Charles the I. which took away the Court of High Commission as also to a clause inserted in the Act of the 13 th of Charles the II. Wherein the Act for taking away that Court is not only confirm'd but also the erecting any other like Court by commission is expresly forbid This being the case the fault of the issuing out of this Commission cannot be laid upon the Judges who though some of them acted in it yet was it never formally brought before them to determine whether it was illegal or not and no man can imagine that unless the King had a passionate desire for this power that he might thereby be able to suspend deprive and turn out whom he pleas'd of the Bishops and inferior Clergy with the Heads and Fellows of Colledges whom he should find irreconcilâ—able Enemies to his Religion or obstinate in refusing to obey his illegal commands as too plainly appear'd by the suspension of the Bishop of London the turning out of the
President and Fellows of Magdalen Colledge and that Prosecution that was lately order'd against all those Bishops and inferior Clergy who had refused to distribute or read the King's Declaration though I confess there was a stop put to this upon re-calling this Commission Immediately before the Princes Arrival So likewise for the other Article of levying Money contrary to Law that was also without any opinion of the Judges at all demaâ—ded about it for the illegal collection of Chimny Money by making Cottages and Ovens pay that were exempted by the Acts concerning it and also the illegal levying of Excise by making Small-Beer pay the Duties of Strong were all of them acted and done by particular directions from the Treasury or by the private abuse of the Farmers of the Excise without any opinion of the Judges and of these Orders his Majesty could not chuse but be the Author or approver at least since 't is very well known he constantly satâ— there when any great Business was to bâ— transacted and the Lord Treasurer or Commissioners of the Treasury would certainly never have presum'd to have issued out their Orders in a Case of so great moment if they had not been very well satisfied that it was his Majesty's express Will and Pleasure to have iâ— so And I my self have now by me a Copy of the then Lord Treasurers Directions to the Officers appointed for the levying of Chimney-money commanding them to levy it upon all Cottages and Ovens whatsoever which was done accordingly with the utmost rigour which though it was a very great oppression yet since it chiefly concern'd the poor and ordinary sort of people who had not purses to go to law with the King or else such Gentlemen and others who though they were forced to pay for their poor Tenants yet did they not think it worth their while to bring iâ— before the Barons of the Exchequer where as things then went they could not expect to find much Justice I shall not insist upon the King 's taking the additional Customs contrary to the Act of Parliament by which they were granted to the late King Charles only for life and though in his last Sickness there was a Contract for the new farming of them by vertue of which I grant the King might have justified the taking of them till the end of the Farm yet since that Contract never passed the Seals during the King's life-time it was certainly against Law for the King to take them before they were re-granted by Act of Parliament I say I shall not insist upon this since the Parliament were so easy as to pass it by without declaring it to have been illegal only it sufficiently shows that from the very beginning of the King's Reign he was resolv'd to govern arbitrarily and to levy Money upon the Subject whether the Law gave him any Authority to do it or not But as to what you say concerning the Judges being wholly in fault for all the unjust and illegal Proceedings exercis'd in their Courts and that the King was wholly faultless I should be of your mind had I not seen that all those Judges who would not agree to the dispensing power and other illegal Judgments I could name were turn'd out and others either Papists or of less consciences than Papists were put in their places which were not conferr'd for any longer time than durante bene placito and therefore no wonder if such men were absolute slaves to the King's will and pleasure M. I had much more to say in defence of the King 's raising and keeping up a standing Army and his disarming Protestants in and after the Duke of Monmouth's Rebellion which are laid to his charge as endeavours to destroy the Rights and Liberties of this Kingdom But since it grows late I shall only now take notice of something which I forgot to insist upon concerning your Notion of the King 's obdicating the Crown by a wilful breach of the Laws which is quite different from the sense in which this Word is taken in Roman Authors as also in our Civil-Laws For when Cicero uses the Expression Itaque tutela me abdicare togito Brison tells us his meaning was se nolle esse tutorem But Pompenius in his Book De orig Iuris gives us the true sense of this Phrase Abdicare se Magistratu est ante tempuâ— Magistratum deponere which plainly shows the Romans had no notion of a Tacit or imply'd abdication of a charge or Majestracy without a man's express consent and therefore if the Kings bare desertion of the Kingdom was not an Abdication of the Throne as you your self are forced to grant I cannot imagine how the King's violation of the Laws or endeavouring to subvert the Government both which you lay to his charge can properly be call'd an Abdication of it so that indeed the King hath not abdicated the Government but your Convention hath abdicated him And tho we often read in our Civil-law That a Father might abdicare filium yet I never read or can you show me any Example that a Son might abdicate a Father or Subjects their Prince F. You discourse upon a wrong ground for I never affirmed That Subjects had any authority to abdicate or depose their Prince nor hath the Convention assum'd any such power to themselves what they have done in this affair hath not been authoritative or as taking â—pon them to call the King to an account for his actions or to depose him for his misgovernment but only declarative to pronounce and declare as the Representatives of the whole Nation that by endeavouring to extirpate the Protestant Religion and to subvert the Fundamental Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom he had wilfully I do not say willingly Abdicated the Government that is renounced to Govern this Kingdom any longer as a lawful King which I take to be a tacit or imply'd Abdication of it as I have already proved and to shew you farther that even Tully himself allows in our sense of an imply'd Abdication in his third Philippicks when he says thus concerning Mark Anthony that for his offering a Crown to Caesar Eoâ—die-non modo Consulatu sed etiam libertate se abâ—itavit c. where you see Mark Anthony is said to have Abdioned the Consulshâ—p without any express Renunciation of it for Caesar might have continued him in it after he had been declar'd Emperor M. I grant your Authority to be good yet even in this sense this Abdication of the Consulship could only take its effect from Anthony's owâ— Will for offering a Crown to Caesar if he did not expresly yet he effectually renounced his Consulship for had Caesar accepted in he could no longer have been the Consul of a Popular State but must thenceforth have acted by authority from Caesar or not at all but then this would not have agreed with your Noâ—on of a Forfeiture which always supposes a crime and a depriving the party
Man hath in an Estate which is his Right let him be what he will or let him mannage it how he will Whereas in the Right to a Kingdom I take it to be a true Maxim That the Representatives of a Nation as the Convention was ought to have more regard to the happiness and safety of the whole People or Common-wealth than to the Dignity or Authority of any particular Person whosoever or howsoever nearly related to the Crown when it is evident that the advancement of such a Person to the Throne will prove destructive to our Religion Civil Liberties and Properties Now give me leave to apply what I have said to the Point now in question Let us therefore at the present suppose that your Prince of Wales is true and lawful Son to King Iames and Queen Mary and let me also farther suppose that in his late passage over Sea he was taken by the Pyrates of Argiers or Tunis and by them been carried to one of those places and been bred up in the Mahometan Religion and after he had been Circumcised and fully grounded in that abominable Superstition the Grand Seignior together with the Kings of Argier and Tunis should send this Nation word that if they would not admit him quietly for their King and allow him all those Priests he should bring with him a free exercise of their Religion in England they would then make War upon this Nation with all the Forces they could raise I ask you what we ought to do in this case whether we should receive him for our King or keep him out M. I must confess it is a nice Question and since it is a thing that never did yet nor I hope will ever come to pass I think I may freely Answer you That supposing this Prince could be proved to be the very same who was carried away so many years ago we ought notwithstanding his false Belief to receive him especially if he would solemnly Swear only to worship God in private after his own way and that he would Swear not to violate our Religion or invade our Liberties and Properties and this being done I think we ought then to admit him for our lawful Sovereign since as you your self have already acknowledged at our third Meeting the Supreme Powers are not to be resisted because they are of a different Religion from that of the People or Nation they Govern F. Very well But let me tell you In this you are much more kind to Mahometan and Heretical Princes than the Church of Rome who have decreed That no Prince ought to be received as right Heir to a Crown who is a Pagan Turk or Heretick and upon this ground it was that the States of France during the time of the League by the Pope's Decree refus'd to own Henry King of Navarre for their Sovereign and also that the Papists of the Nuntio Party in Ireland during the late Rebellion refused to own the late Duke of Ormond for Lord Lieutenant of that Kingdom because the King was a Protestant But pray answer me a Question or two further Suppose this Prince refus'd to promise these or such things or else if he did promise and Swear them pray tell me how could we be assured that according to the Principles of that Religion he had been bred under and those Arbitrary Notions he had learned concerning the Absolute Power of Kings in Barbary and which he would believe due to himself as being as Absolute a Monarch as any of them I say how such a Prince ever could be trusted Since if he had the whole Power of the Militia in his hands he might bring in what number of Turkish or Moorish Guards he should think fit who might easily set up that Religion and Government too in this Nation since according to your Principles of Passive Obedience and Non-resistance no Man ought to lift up so much as a Finger against him though he went about to make us all Turks and Slaves M. Well supposing all this as long as it is his Right he ought to have it let the consequence be what it will F. You have said enough I desire no more but I hope every true Protestant and English man will be of another mind if ever such a case should happen but indeed it appears very strange to me that a natural Disability such as Ideocy or Lunacy should be esteem'd sufficient in all Kingdoms to debarr the next Heir from the Government and yet that a Moral or a Religious Disability should not have the same effect and though I grant that a King ought not to be Rebelled against or resisted meerly because he is of a different Religion from that of his Subjects for I was never for resisting King Iames meerly upon that score yet it is another thing when a Prince is not actually possessed of the Throne but is to be admitted to it upon such Conditions as may appear safe for the Religion and Civil constitution of a Kingdom In this case if a Prince be certainly infected with such pernicious Principles either in relation to Religion or Civil Government it is much otherwise as for Example That no Faith is to be kept with Hereticks That his own Religion is to be propagated by Arms Blood or Persecution That no Government can be safe for the Prince or in which he can appear Great or Glorious but as an absolute Monarch let such a Prince be either a Christian or a Mahometan I think it would be a certain ruine to a Kingdom to be obliged to receive such a Prince when they were morally sure that he would not only subvert their Religion but destroy the very professors of it and not only those but alter the Civil constitution too by turning it from a limited Kingdom into an absolute despotick Tyranny To conclude I shall only desire you to consider into what a Country your Prince of Wales is carry'd and what Instructors he is like to have and what Principles he will receive from them and then pray tell me if he continues there till he is a Man what difference there will be between this young Prince bred up in such a Religion and such Principles and the same if he had been carried away by Pyrates to Argier as I at first suppos'd M. This is a very invidious Comparison for though I do not approve of the Roman-Catholick Religion yet sure there is a great deal of difference between that which professes all the Articles of our Creed and in which we of our Church own Salvation may be obtained and the Mahometan Superstition which denies that fundamental Article of our Creed viz. That Jesus Christ is the Son of God and as for Civil or Political Principles I hope the King his Father will take care to have him instructed by some of those English Noblemen or Gentlemen who are now with him in the Customs and Constitutions of the English Government and wherein it differs from the French
the Prince of Wales to have been either dead or justly laid aside now make it out to me how you can justifie the placing the Prince and Princess of Orange in the Throne when the Crown is really her right after the Prince of Wales and not her Husbands as also the putting the Government solely into his hands since this can no ways agree with the Act of Recognition to King Iames the First which you your self cannot deny but ought to be observed when it may be done without any apparent hazard or prejudice to the Protestant Religion and the Constitution of our Government which I think might have been as well if not better secured by letting it have gone in the right Line that by placing the Crown upon the Head of a Prince who though it is true is of the Blood-Royal by his Mother yet being a Foreigner is a meer Stranger to our Government and Laws and has been bred up in Calvinistical Principles and upon that score is not like to have any good intentions towards the Government and Ceremonies of the Church of England as appears by his late agreeing to abolish Episcopacy in Scotland upon his accepting that Crown from the Presbyterian Convention F. If these be all the objections you have to make against placing King William and Queen Mary in the Throne I hope they will not be of any great moment to your self or any other considerate man for if that upon the Abdication of King Iames and the impossibity of determining your Prince of Wales's Title if it be one a Regency was impracticable and unsafe for the Nation at this conjuncture of time when we want a King to hold a Parliament as well to raise Money to defend us against the Power of France as also to make new Laws for the ease and reformation of the Kingdom all which a Regents acting without Royal Authority could never do by the constitution of this Kingdom so that if there was now a necessity of placing some body in the Throne for the Common Good and Safety of the whole Common-Wealth I think you your self cannot but acknowledge that the Princess of Orange had an Hereditary right to the Crown and if her Highness had the Prince her Husband also ought to Govern the Kingdom in her Right during her life and those who deny King Henry the VIIth to be Lawful King before his Marriage with the Princess Elizabeth will yet grant he was so in her Right after his Marriage and this has not been only the Custom in England but also in other Kingdoms of Europe as I can give you several Instances For upon this ground it was that Ferdinand King of Arragon by Marrying with Isabella Queen of Castile Governed that Kingdom during his Life so also Anthony Duke of Bourbon marrying with Iane Queen of Navarre did in her Right administer the Government of that part of it which was left unconquer'd by the Spaniards and here at home Philip Prince of Spain by his Marriage with Queen Mary had certainly in her Right Govern'd this Kingdom and had enjoyed something more than the bare Title of King had he not by the Articles of Marriage confirm'd by Act of Parliament been expresly debar'd from it M. Admit all this to be true yet this was only the enjoyment of a bare Matrimonial Crown and held no longer than during the Lives or Marriage with those Queens you mention But pray tell me how can the Convention according to the antient constitution of this Kingdom justifie the settlement of the Crown not only on King William during the Queens Life But for his own Life also to the prejudice not only of his own Issue if ever he have any by the Princess but also of the Princess of Denmark and her Heirs F. I doubt not but to shew you that this may be easily justified by the constitution of the Kingdom and former Precedents of what hath been done in the like cases First as to the Constitution I have already proved that upon the deposition of a King which is all one with a Forfeiture of the Crown the Great Council or Parliament hath taken upon them to Elect or Admit either the next Heir by Blood or some Prince tho' more remote of the Royal Family to the Crown thus King Henry the IVth upon the Deposition or Resignation of King Richard the Ild. was placed in the Throne by the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury after the two Houses had Voted and consented he should Reign over them though I grant that by right of Blood Edmund Earl of March ought to have succeeded to it but he being then a Child was passed by unmention'd Duke Henry being then powerful and having deliver'd the Kingdom from the Tyranny and Evil Government of Richard the â—Id I shall pass by Richard the IIId because I own his Government to have begun by Unsurpation and to have been established by the Murther of his Nephews But as for Henry the VIIth I have already shew'd you that the Parliament before his Marriage with the Princess Elizabeth setled the Crown upon him and the Heirs of his Body by vertue of which he held it all his Reign whereas there is no such thing done in the present case of King William since he hath only the Crown setled upon him during his own Life with the remainder after his decease without Issue by the Queen to her and not his Right Heirs and as for such Children as he may have by her it is agreeable to reason that he should hold the Crown by that which we call the Courtesie of England during his Life and not from a King to become a Subject to his own Children in case he should desire to live here after her Majesties decease which I hope God will prevent M. I confess you have drest up a pretty plausible Title for King William but yet all that you have said amounts to no more than this that because other Kings have been Usurpers he may be so too for as to all the instances you have brought they have been only from depositions or manifest usurpations both which our Laws have condemned as absolutely unlawful as I have shew'd you hath been declar'd by two Acts of Parliament against the Title of Henry the IVth and his Descendents but since you will not insist upon the right of Richard the IIId I pass to that Act of Henry the VIIth which as I told you before so I must repeat it again that it was done upon his supposed Right by Blood as Heir to the House of Lancaster and upon that pretence he claimed the Crown as his Right in his Speech to the first Parliament he called besides the Princess Elizabeth the Queen de Iure made no claim to the Crown and so did tacitly resign it which seemed to make him de Iure as well as de Facto King and if it were done otherwise I look upon that whole Act as void in it self because made by him
before his Marriage with that Princess and whilest he was and Usurper upon her Right so that certainly it is no argument that since Parliaments have acted illegally therefore your Convention may do so too for it is a known Maxime in our Civil Law a facto ad Ius non valet consequentia therefore whatever they have done toward creating a good Title to King William in respect of the Queen his Wife and his Issue by her yet this doth no way excuse the wrong done to the Princess of Denmark and her Issue in case they survive your King F. 'T is very wonderful to me to see how ingenious some Men are in finding faults with the present settlement of things though never so much for the best if not done exactly according to suit with their Humour or Hypothesis when indeed there can no fault be justly found with it for you agree that if the Queen hath a Right King William hath so also during his Life and whether the Princess of Denmark and her issue may survive the King is yet uncertain but if either she or they should happen to survive his Majesty yet since she hath made no claim or protestation in the Convention against the Kings holding the Crown after the Decease of the Queen I cannot see why this should not pass for a tacit Resignation oâ—â—er Right as well as in the case of the Princess Elizabeth you but now mentioned But admit his present Majesty according to the late received rules of Succession hath not a Title by Descent yet according to those principles I have already laid down he certainly has not only a Right to the Crown from that inherent power which I suppose doth still remain in the Eslates of the Kingdom as Representatives of the whole Nation to bestow the Crown on every Abdication or Forfeiture thereof on such Prince of the Blood Royal as they shall think best to deserve it and upon this account I conceive there is none of the Blood that can stand in competition with his Present Majesty for Prudence Valour Moderation and all other Royal Vertues and therefore it is not at all to be wonder'd at if the Convention hath in this case exercised that Original Power which the People reserved to it self at the first institution of Kingly Government in this Island especially if we consider his present Majesty not only as a Conquerour over King Iames but as our Deliverer from his Oppression and that Arbitrary Government that we were so lately under and which was like to be much worse had his reign continued a little longer Therefore I cannot but here take occasion to vindicate his Present Majesty from those exceptions you have made against his Country and Civil as well as Religious Principles First As to his Country 't is true he is a Foreigner yet that can he no exception against his admission to the Throne since it was none against his great Grand-father King Iames and I doubt not but his Majesty may understand as much of the English Constitution and Government as his said Grand father did when he first came to the Crown But as for his principles in Religion I cannot see any reason to suspect him more inclinable to the Church Government of Holland then that of England since he was bred up under a Mother who was always firm to the Religion and Discipline of our Church and ever since he was Married to the Princess he hath always shew'd a very great respect to its Liturgy and Ceremonies by his so constant frequenting his Princesses Chappel so that besides his Majesties Interest to maintain Episcopacy as most agreeable to the Monarchy and Antient Constitution of this Kingdom it is likewise if he were able not in his power to destroy the Church of England since the main body of the Clergy Nobility and Gentry of this Nation is to zealous for its preservation that if he had any such inclinations it would not be easie for him to effect it and he is too wise a Prince to let others persuade him so visibly against his own interest and having so late an example before his Eyes that it was King Iames's ruine to attempt it As for what you say of Scotland 't is true Presbitery is for the present set up there but it is uncharitable to impute this to the Kings inclinations for it is notorious that of them which call themselves Episcopal in that Kingdom a very great number did either out of prejudice to the Princes Cause or in contempt of his Power refuse to be chosen Members of the Convention or else after they were chosen did so far adhere to King Iames's interest as to desert it as did my Lord Dundee and many others and by that means gave the Presbyterian Party an advantage to carry all things as they pleas'd and this Party finding the King not well settled here and the Irish in Ireland in Arms against him took hold of that opportunity to put the abolishing of Episcopacy into the very instrument of Government and to press it upon him at a time when an unavoidable necessity and the obstinacy of too many of the Episcopal Party forced him to consent to it wherefore this no way shews his Majesties inclinations to set up Presbytery even in Scotland much less doth it prove he would set it up here where the Circumstances are quite different for here the main body of the People hate that Government and will be so far from desiring it that they will never endure it so that as to this your fears of King William are as vain as your hopes of King Iames. I shall conclude with a few words in answer to your reply against those examples wherein I have shewn you that the Crown hath always been under such a disposition as the two Mouses of Parliament should appoint to which you have nothing else to object but that their admission of Henry the IV th to the Crown was condemned as unlawful by two Acts of Parliament which I have already answer'd by showing you that those Acts were obtain'd by Richard Duke of York and Edward the IV th his Son by actual Rebellion and by as great a force upon King Henry the VI th as ever was used against King Richard the II d by Henry the IV th and as for the Statute of the first of Henry the VII th you have found out a very easie way of answering it by affirming that it was done whilst he was an Usurper and before his Marriage or that he had any right to be King But by this way of arguing no Act he ever passed would be good since It is certain he did never take upon him to Govern in right of his Queen as all those that have writ his Life do acknowledge and therefore if the Parliament would then settle the Crown upon him and his right Heirs without any respect to his Queen or her Issue or Sisters in case she should die
the Nation from his Oppression though the Prince was pleas'd to accept it upon those terms expressed in the late Declaration of the Convention and upon his free promise to preserve preserve our Religion Laws and Liberties which he has since also confirm'd by his Coronation Oath But as to what you say that the Prince made the Kings Army desert him and wrought the People into hatred of his Person by lying Stories and mean Arts is altogether untrue since I know of no Reports he made of the King or his Government but what are in his first Declaration and that is certainly true in every part of it and as has been justified by the express Declaration of the Convention in every particular except that concerning the Prince of Wales which I confess is left still undecided because as I have already proved it is impossible to give any certain judgement in it unless the Witnesses as well as the Infant himself could be brought over hither nor doth the Prince in his said Declaration say any more concerning that business than that there are violent suspicions that the pretended Prince of Wales was not Born of the Queen but for the report of the Secret League with France for the extirpation of the Protestant Religion as there is no such thing in his Highnesses Declaration so the spreading of it cannot be laid to his charge since he never gave it out as I know of yet there are certainly great presumptions and too much cause of suspicion that it may be so as I proved at our last Meeting But though you will not allow the Prince the Title of our Deliverer yet I am sure the greatest part both of the Clergy and Laity of the Church of England were once of Opinion that King Iames's violations both upon our Religion and Laws were so great that nothing could preserve the Kingdom from a total Subversion in its Establisht Religion and Civil Constitution but his Highnesses coming over and most of the Bishops were of that Opinion who now the Government is setled refused to take the Oath of Allegiance to their present Majesties But to answer what you say that the manner of Henry the IV ths and Henry the VII ths coming to the Crown doth not at all agree with this Case of King William because they claimed by right of blood which you say King William cannot do that is not so in respect of the Queen who has certainly a right to succeed her Father by right of blood in case the Prince off Wales be not the true Son of the Queen and untill he can be proved so we must at present look upon him as if he were not so at all so that the Convention hath done no more in setling the Crown upon the King during his Life than what the Great Council of the Kingdom have frequently done before upon other vacancies of the Throne as I have proved from the Examples of William Rufus and Henry the First King Stephen King Iohn and Henry the Third And it is very hard to suppose the whole Nation to have been guilty of Perjury and Treason upâ—n their Swearing to and Fighting for those Princes after they were so Solemnlâ— Elected Crowned and Invested with the Royal Power But as for Edward III. his first and best Title was from the election of the Great Council of the Kingdom who I doubt not but if they had found him unworthy of the Royal Dignity by reason of folly or madness or Tyrannical Principles would have set him aside and have made his youngâ—â— Brother King a Protector to govern in the King's Name with Royal Power having never been known in England till the Reign of Henry the VI th but as for Henry the IV th notwithstanding his claim by right of Blood I have already proved that the Paâ—liament by their placing him in the Throne did not at all allow it nor is any such Right recited in the Act of the 7 th of Henry the IV th which by the Crown is entail'd upon that King and his four successive Sons And though it is true Henry the Seventh also claim'd the Crown by right of Inheritance in his Speech in Parliament yet they were so far from allowing it that they do not so much as mention it in that Act of Setlement which as I have recited they made of it upon that and the Heirs of his Body And therefore I think I may still maintain that the Convention hath done nothing in the present Setlement of the Crown but what hath been formerly done upon every vacancy of the Throne either by deposition or resignation of the King or Abdication or Forfeiture of the Crown as in the case of King Iames in which the Convention have done no more than exercised that Power which has always been suppos'd to reside in the great Council of the Kingdom of setling the Crown upon such a Prince of the Blood-Royal as they shall think best to deserve it Thus much I have said to preserve the Antient Right of the Great Council of the Nation But to put all this out of dispute I have been credibly inform'd that the Princess of Denmark her self did by some of her Servants in both Houses as well of the Lords as Commons declare upon a great Debate that arose about securing her Highnesses Right to the Crown immediately after her Sister the Queen that her Highness had desired them to assure the Convention that she was willing to acquiesce in whatever they should determine concerning the Succession of the Crown since it might tend to the present setlement and safety of the Nation which I think is a better Cession of her Right to his present Majesty than any you can prove that the Empress Mawd made to her Son Henry the Second or than the Countess of Richmond ever made to her Son Henry the Seventh M. You have often talked of this forfeiture and extravagant Power of your Convention by whom you suppose they are not obliged to place the Crown upon the head of the next Heir by Blood which I shall prove to be a vain Notion for if there be an absolute forfeiture of the Crown the Government would have been absolutely Dissolved for since there is no Legal Government without a King if the Throne were really vacant and that the People might place whom they pleas'd in it yet the Convention can have no Power to do it as their Representatives since upon your suppos'd dissolution of the Original Contract between the King and the People there was an end of all Conventions and Parliaments too And therefore if a King could have been chosen at all it ought to have been by the Votes of the whole body of the Clergy Nobility and Commons in their own single Persons and not by any Council or Convention to represent them since the Laws for restraining the Election of Parliament-men only to Freeholders are upon this suppos'd Dissolution of the Government altogether void and
one thing more to add in relation to somewhat I promised at the end of the Preface to the last Dialogue concerning the late Revolutions being different from the last Civil War and Murther of King Charles the First which though I have finish'd and thought to have inserted into this Discouese yet since it proves rather too long without it and that the Bookseller urges for its speedy Publication I have thought fit to omit it since also the greatest part of it relates to matter of fact which is variously stated by those who write the History of those times yet I shall make bold to give you the heads of those inquiries I have made and shall leave you to satisfie your self in these Points following first if after King Charles the first had not only passed all Bills for redressing those Grievances the Nation lay under at the beginning of the Parliament in 1640. but had also passed the Bill to make it not to be Prorogued or Dissolved without their own consents I say whether there were then any such violations of our Religion and fundamental Laws which should require the Parliament and Nations puting themselves in a posture of defence against the King's Arbitrary Power Secondly whether the fears and jealousies of Popery and Arbitrary Government which notwithstanding all that the King had done still troubled many Mens minds were a sufficient ground for the two Houses to demand the putâ—ing the whole Militia of the Kingdom out of his own Power into such hands as they should nominate and appoint Thirdly whether upon his refusal of their Adresses for the Militia their going about to take it out of his hands by force and particularly their shutting him out of Hull was not an actual making War upon the King when he was as yet unâ—armed and had given out no Commissions to raise Men or Arms. Fourthly when the War was begun whether the King did not in all his Messages to and Treaties with the Parliament propose and seem to desire Peace upon equal and reasonable terms Fifthly Whether the two Houses did not instead of complying with those reasonable Proposals still insist upon higher Terms as their Victories and Successes over the King increased Sixthly when the King was deliver'd up by the Scots whether the Parliament and Army did not keep him as good as a close Prisoner and vote no more Addresses to be made to him meerly because he refused to pass whatever Bills they brought to him Seventhly When at last he was forced by necessity to grant them at the Isle of Wight almost whatever they demanded whether he was not hurried away from thence by Cromwell's Army and for the major part of the House of Commons who had Voted the King's Concessions satisfactory excluded the House by force till the far less Party had reversed all that the rest had done and then Voted the King should he called to an account for making War upon the Parliament and for Treason against the Kingdom Eighthly Whether in pursuance of this they did not appoint Iudges to Trie the King who upon his refusal to own their Authority Condemned him to death and cut off his head before the Gates of his own Palace Ninthly Whether this fag end of a Parliament did not alter the whole frame of the Government both in Church and State destroying both Monarchy and Episcopacy and Voting the House of Peers useless and dangerous and setting up a Democratical Commonwealth or rather an Oligarcy in their stead consisting of about fifty or sixty Men wholly governed and awed by Cromwell and the Officers of the Army Now let any Man but impartially consider all these Transactions with the late Revolution and read what hath been said in the three last Dialogues and then let him tell meingenuously whether he thinks this Revolution hath been begun upon the like grounds and carried on by the same violent Courses or has ended with the same direful effects as the late Civil War and Murther of King Charles the First I have no more to propose on this Subject but only to wish that these Discourses written with a real design for the publick good and peace of my Countrey may be read with the like affection with which they were written and may really promote that end for which they were designed but if not that they may at least serve as an Impartial History to Posterity of those Principles and Opinions on which this late great Revolution hath been brought about in England and also those on which it hath been so violently opposed by the dissenting Party THE Thirteenth Dialogue BETWEEN Mr. MEANWELL a Civilian AND Mr. FREEMAN a Gentleman F. SIR I hope I do not interrupt you by coming too soon for the truth is since I intend that this shall be the last Dispute I shall ever have with you upon this Subject I was very desirous to have it dispatched as soon as I could that when I have once discharged the duty of an old Friend and Acquaintance my mind may be at rest which side soever you take M. Dear Sir I thank you and though I intended to go abroad this Evening upon an Appointment yet I will not put it off that I may enjoy your better Conversation therefore pray begin where you left off and prove to me that I may lawfully take this new Oath of Allegiance to King William and Queen Mary F. I cannot see any reason why you may not safely do it since our best Common Lawyers are of this Opinion for my Lord Coke in his Third institutes in his Notes upon the Statute of Treason the 25 th of Edward the III d gives it for Law that this Act is to be understood of a King in possession of the Crown and Kingdom for if there be a King Regnant in possession although he be Rex de Facto non de Iure yet is he Seignior Le Roy within the purview of that Statute and the other that hath Right and is out of possession is not within this Act c. And if it be Treason to Levy War against him or to Conspire his Death as long as he continues King it can only be so because the Subjects Allegiance is then due to him for that all Men have either taken the Oath of Allegiance or else are supposed to have done it M. I must beg your pardon if I cannot come over to your Opinion neither in point of Law or Reason for as long as I am perswaded in my Conscience that King Iames is King de Iure so long must the obligation of my former Oath last and I suppose that you will grant that it is as impossible to owe Allegiance to two Kings at once as it is to serve two Masters and therefore you must pardon me if I suppose that my Lord Coke depending too much upon the commonly received sence of the Statute of the Eleventh of Henry the VII th which he quotes in the Margin may be
very letter of this Law but also because I have now said all private Persons ought to submit their Judgements in this matter to that of their Representatives who if they have judged falsely are 〈◊〉 bear the blame but yet their Judgement for all that is to be held for good 'till it be reversed in the same way in which it was given since if after such a recognition every private person should still be free to pay his Allegiance to him whom he suppos'd King de jure it would certainly follow that the Civil Society or Common-wealth must of necessity fall into Civil Wars which is against the nature of Civil Societies and inconsistent with the duty of self-preservation which obligeth men not to expose their Lives and Fortunes but to obtain a greater good than both those which can only be the publick good of the Community and not the single interest of any one person or Family and though I grant it is a great sin in those who are instrumental in raising Rebellion and who are thereby guilty of a very enormous Crime yet that which made it so was not barely the injury they committed against the Prince to whom if alone consider'd the breach of an Oath in withdrawing their Allegiance could be no greater a Sin than the breach of an Oath to another person but indeed the fatal mischief and irreparable dammage they did the Common-wealth is that which aggravates the Sin and if a new commotion to restore the King de jure would in all probability prove yet more destructive and a Nation by being so much weakned by a former Civil War be less able to bear a new Civil War which may happen so far to the weakning of it as to expose it to the Invasion and Conquest of a foreign Nation who may be Enemies both to our Religion and Civil Constitution in such a case I cannot think it our duty to restore a Prince by force though never so unjustly driven from his Throne And therefore if I had been then a man tho' I should have been as much for bringing home King Charles as any body ought to be yet I should have been only for it in the way in which it was brought about and should never have desir'd it if it could not have been done but by an Army of French or Irish Papists and the like I say now as to King Iames as long as he is joyn'd with the Interest of France and is already gone into Ireland on purpose to renew the War by the Arms and Assistance of those whose Fathers as well as several of themselves did all they could to destroy not only the Royal Power but also the English Religion and Government in that Nation And therefore I must freely tell you that if even Rebels have put it out of their power to make reparation for all the wrongs they may have done by Rebelling against their Lawful Prince because he in possession is too powerful to be driven out again without a violent Civil War and a general concussion of the whole Common-Wealth This reparation to the injur'd Prince being not to be made without a greater evil than that they endeavour'd avoid it ought to be omitted till it may be done with more safety to the Nation or else not at all I say if there be no other way to make reparation to their injur'd King but by engaging the Nation in fresh Civil Wars they ought not to attempt it by such unlawful and destructive means M. I confess the Discourse you have now made carries the greatest appearance of truth of any thing you have yet said since it is drawn from the publick Good of the Nation which I grant to be comprehended under the common good of Mankind and you have done well to own it to be Rebelion to deprive a lawful Prince and his Heirs of the Crown yet that it is unlawful to restore them again to it if we think it cannot be brought about without a general Subversion of our Religion and Civil Liberties may be a question I grant indeed if we could be absolutely certain of this there would be some colour for this Argument but since future things are not capable of Demonstration if the restoring our lawfull Prince be a Duty incumbent upon every good Subject we ought to endeavour it though with some Danger and Hazard of what ever is dear to us for God will either protect us both in our Religion and Civil Liberties for thus honestly performing our Duties according as we are bound by our Allegiance or if he has call'd us to suffer for the Truth he will either find us Patience to bear it or else provide us a way to escape this I speak in Relation to the French and Irish whose Conquest and Malice you are so much afraid of in case the King should happen to be restor'd by their assistance but indeed I think this a needless fear since I suppose the King will be too wise to bring over so many of either Nation as shall be able to make an entire Conquest of this Kingdom least thereby both he and his Crown may lie wholly at their Mercy when the Business is done nor do I think it either in the power of the French or Irish to perform these dangerous things not of the former because as I now said I suppose the King will never bring over more of them along with him than what may serve to make a stand against the Prince of Orange's Forces till his Good and Loyal Subjects can come in and join with them to his Assistance and as for the Irish they are also the King's Subjects and though Ignorant they are very inveterate against the Protestant Religion and the English Nation and Interest yet they may be so govern'd and over-rul'd by the King as not to be able to do us any considerable Damage But as to the King of France I do really believe he is far from intending to make an entire Conquest of this Kingdom for himself much less desiring to make the King as Absolute a Monarch here as himself is in France for us to the form◠he has too much consideration of his own Glory and Reputation in the World to seize upon the Kingdom of a near Kinsman and Allie of his own Religion and who had been driven from his Throne chiefly for being too much in his Interest and besides all this he may very well fear that if he went about any such thing as an entire Conquest of this Nation all Parties may join against him as a common Enemy and drive him out again as the English Barons did Prince Lewis in the time of King Henry the III d. nor can it be the French King's Interest to make our King Absolute here for then having the Persons and Purses of his Subjects wholly in his own Power King Lewis might justly fear that either this King or his Successors may prove as dangerous Enemies to the
it But as for King Iames himself I desire to know of you what trust there can be put in him or what assurance he can give us for the maintenance of our Religion and Civil Liberty more than the renewing of those Promises and that Oath which he has already broken this being most likely to be the consequence of things if King Iames prevail I shall leave it to your self or any indifferent person to judge if what I have undertaken to prove be not as clearly made out as future things are capable of and are sufficient to deter any Man that loves his Religion or Country from joyning in such pernicious Designs M. I confess you have made a long and tragical Narration of the dreadful consequences that may follow both upon our Religion and Civil Liberties if the King prevail by the present assistance of the French or Irish Arms and were I sure of all this I should so far agree with you as to this point as never so joyn with them for the Kings return and yet for all that I can never look upon my self as freed from that Allegiance I owe the King as well by being born his Subject as from the Oath I have already taken to him and his Heirs as long as they are in being for I think I have already prov'd as well from Law as Reason That first the Bond of Allegiance whether sworn or not sworn is in the nature of it perpetual and indispensable Secondly that it is so inseparable from the relation of a Subject that although the exercise of it may be suspended by reason of a prevailing force whilst the Subject is under such force viz. where it cannot be imagined how the endeavour of exercising it can be effectually serviceable to restore the Sovereign power to the right owner for the establishment of that publick Justice and Peace wherein the happiness of Common-wealths consists yet no outward force can so absolutely take it away or remove it but that still it remaineth vertually in the Subject and obligeth to a vigorous endeavour whenever the force that hindereth it is over to the actual exercise of it for the advantage of the party to whom of right it is due and the advancement of the common good thereby upon all fit occasions Thirdly That no Subject of England that either hath by taking the Oaths of Supremacy or Allegiance acknowledged or that not having taken either Oath yet otherwise knoweth or believeth that the true Sovereign power in England to whom natural Allegiance is due is the King his Heirs and Lawful Successors can without sinning against his Conscience take any new Oath or do any other act whereby to transfer his Allegiance from the King or his Heirs to any other party who have no right to it and thereby put himself into an incapacity of performing the Duties of his bounden Allegiance to his Lawful Sovereign when it may appear to be useful and serviceable to him This is the express Opinion of the Learned Bishop Sanderson in his case of Conscience concerning the lawfulness of taking the Engagement which though he did not think absolutely unlawful because it might be interpreted in a dubious and qualified sence without abjuring the Kings lawful right to the Crown yet cannot this new Oath be taken in the like doubtful sence because as I have already prov'd the words in the Oath being to bear true Allegiance to King William and Queen Mary would be indeed a transferring of our Allegiance from our lawful Prince to others which is absolutely unlawful F. I am somewhat pleas'd to see you are so far come off from your bigotry as not to think your self bound to assist for the restoring King Iames as long as it is no otherwise to be done but by the evident destruction of our Religion and Civil Liberties but yet you say you cannot take the Oath because it is Bishop Sandersons Opinion as well as that of our best Lawyers that Allegiance is perpetual and untransferrable to another whilst the King or his Heirs are in being Which let me tell you speaking as a Lawyer since it may well be proved from this Statute as from the constant practice before that time that Allegiance was due to the King de facto and that by the judgement of all the Judges in the Reign of Edward the IVth but to speak of this matter either as a Civilian or a Divine I think we are freed from the former Oath both by the Law of Nations as well as the Law of God For as for natural Allegiance by which you suppose a man is indispensably Subject to the King in whose Territories he is born and that as long as he lives I can by â—o means understand that being born in a Country makes one a Subject for all his life to the Government of that Country or why being when born in a Country it should make one become a Subject more than being in the same Countrey at another time Besides common experience shews this to be false because whoever is born in a Country where his Parents are Foreigners may as it is allow'd by all leave that Country when he pleaseth but perhaps iâ— may be said he is a Subject to that Prince where his Parents were born but what if they were born under the same Circumstances or suppose his Parents are of different Countries as if a Dutch Woman and an English Man have a Child in France since France does not pretend to him which of the Nations can claim him for their Subject or must he be divided So that I can see nothing at all in this notion of natural Allegiance that can oblige any body in Conscience to observe it M. If then Natural Allegiance signifies nothing pâ—â—y tell me is no body oblig'd to obey the King or not to plot against him until he has taken an Oath of Allegiance to the contrary this would make mad work indeed and upon these Principles no man were bound to obey the King or his Laws and not to conspire against his Person or Government untill he had taken the Oath of Allegiance so that three parts of four of the Kingdom would be absolutely free from this great duty F. No Sir you are very much mistaken since I think I can found Allegiance to the King and Government upon a much firmer foundation than that of being born his Subject that I am so far from supposing that our obligation commences from our taking the Oath of Allegiance that though I think it may serve to inforce our former obligation to our King and Country yet does it not super-induce any new obligation thereunto for indeed our obligation to any particular Government may be made out from much surer Principles viz. That every person though he be born free yet is he for the sake of his own safety obliged to part with his liberty and put himself under the protection of some Government nor can he be
and is by the law of Nature oblig'd to Honour Obey Assist and Support So also is he born a Member of the body Politick and by consequence a Subject to the Sovereign of it and accordingly by the same eternal Law is bound to pay all faithful Service and Obedience to him when he in a capacity to perform them But your next Mistake is yet worse when you confound that common Obligation of a Foreigner or meer Denison to be true and faithful to the Common Wealth wherein he lives with this Natural Allegiance of every English Subject for though I grant the taking the Oath of Allegiance does not inforce any new Obligation upon him that takes it more than he was subject to before yet for all that I think you will not deny but that there is a great deal of difference between that common Obedience or Submission which such a Foreigner pays to the King and his Laws in a Country where he Sojourns and that more perfect Allegiance arising either by Birth or from such a strangers being naturalized and by taking the Oath of Allegiance becoming as true and perfect a Subject as a natural English Man and hence it is that in all Wars declar'd between Neighbouring Princes whatever Subjects of theirs shall presume to stay and reside in each others Dominions after once they are recall'd home may be justly Executed as Traytors when ever they shall be taken and therefore though I grant that every Person now living in England and of ripe Age is oblig'd to obey your King and Queen de facto in all ordinary and lawful things which tend to the publick Benefit and Defence of the Civil Society or Common-weal and which being for the benefit of the King de jure and his leige People it is to be morally suppos'd they have his Tacit consent for what they do as long as it tends only to this end yet does it not therefore follow that the bare protection of this usurpt Government and the enjoyment of the common priviledges of a Subject should give such a King de facto or Government a right of exacting an Oath of Allegiance to them since I have already prov'd from the true signification of being true and faithful as also from the legal signification of the word Allegiance that no true Subject can lawfully take it without renouncing his Allegiance to his natural Prince since not only a bare Neutrality or Obedience in not transgressing the Laws is thereby required of them but also an Active Obedience and Duty in performing the King de Facto's commands and the deâ—ending him when ever there is occasion in his ill-gotten power But since the only difficulty is how a strict observation of this Oath can consist with the quiet and happiness of the Subjects when ever a new Oath of Allegiance comes to be impos'd by the King de facto since the Subjects may be all ruin'd that do not take it if it be once offer'd to them This difficulty might be easily remov'd if the whole Nation would â—lick firmly to the Duty required by their former Oath of Allegiance and resolve never to take a new one for then the numbers of the refusers would be so great as that they would be more than could be made to suffer for their refusing it I speak of such Subjects as are in our case and who are not forced by a Prince who either has the Right or Power of a Conqueror to compel them by force and therefore your instances of the Subjects of the King of Spain or of the Duke of Holstein who were conquer'd or else as good as conquer'd by the power of France and Denmark whereas we are only over-aw'd by an inconsiderable number of Dutch and Germans and might set our selves free if we would give but a vigorous Effort towards it For that King William is a Conqueror over the whole Nation I think you dare not affirm And without he were so he could challenge no right to our Allegiance as such and therefore I must still believe that the Oath of Allegiance I have taken to King Iames and his Heirs is perpetual unless you could show me that their Right is determin'd which you have not done by any thing you have yet said and therefore I cannot be of your Opinion that the bare protection of an usurpt Power can justifie our Swearing Allegiance to it either in Law or Conscience for then all Men had been oblig'd to pay as firm an Allegiance to the Rump Parliament and also to Oliver Cromwell as to King William and Queen Mary since both the former protected the People as much in their Religion Civil Liberties and Properties as the latter I fear will ever do And that the bare protection of a Government does not give it no absolute right to the Allegiance of all those that enjoy their protection I think may be sufficiently prov'd from the instance of a Frenchman or any other Foreigner who though by his living here and enjoying the common protection of the Government I grant he is oblig'd to be obedient to its Laws and is not to Act or Conspire against it yet this does not discharge him from his natural Allegiance which he still owes to his former Prince so as to do any thing which may prejudice that Allegience he owes to him either by Conspiring or Fighting against him And this was solemnly declard to be Law by the Judges of the Kings-Bench in the case of Dr. Story in the 13 th Year of Queen Elizabeth He being a violent Papist fled over into Flanders to the Duke of Alva and there conspiring with him to invade this Kingdom and being afterwards taken and brought over Prisoner was Tryed as a Subject of England though he refused to plead as such because he said he had Sworn Allegiance to the King of Spain notwithstanding which Plea he was Executed as a Traytor as you will find at large in my Lord Chief Justice Dyers's Reports which Judgment is also confirm'd by the Lord Chief Justice Coke in Calvins's Case where he expresly Asserts That a Person born under the Dominion of the King of England owes him perpetual Faith and Allegiance and this by vertue of the Law of Nature because Iura naturalia sunt immutabilia from whence will also appear the falsity of your Conclusion that Oaths of Allegience extend no further then to the King in Possession or to that Government to which we do at present owe our common Protection and therefore that our Law has a much higher consideration of this inherent Allegiâ—nce that belongs to a King de Iure as to his particular Person and his Heirs so that it cannot be indifferently paid to any body else who can by seizing of the Government force us to owe our Protection to them Which appears by what my Lord Coke hath also laid down to have been agreed by all the Judges upon this Oath of Allegiance in Calvins's Case as I
Communion cannot depend upon the Canonical or Uncanonical deprivation of any Bishops in England I desire you to consider these things as a Canon-Lawyer and give me your answer if you can against the next time we meet and then tell me whether the causes of this threatned Schism be so just and apparent that it is like to involve so many of the Wisest and most Considerate of the Clergy and Laity into open separation from the Church as you suppose it will not but that I will grant there be many of the Clergy of this Opinion who as well out of Conscience as for their own interest will be contented to set up and encourage such a separation thereby to make themselves heads of separate Congregations when they shall be deprived of their present Benefices and Imployments upon their refusal of this Oath M. I must confess I never heard so much said upon this head before and if you could make out to me all the matters of fact you have now instanced in I know not but that I may come over to your Opinion tho' let me tell you this is the first time that ever you can shew me that any Bishops were deprived in England by the meer Lay Authority of the King and a Great Council or Convention of the Laity whilst they continued of the same Church-Communion with those Bishops for as to your instance of the Popish Bishops deprived by Parliament in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth I doubt you will find it does not come up to the Point in question since the Queen and Parliament having then newly declared themselves Protestants did not own them for true and Orthodox Bishops and consequently thought they might justly depart from their Communion and upon the same account might deprive them and the Queen might then nominate others of their own Religion in their Places F. I cannot but differ from you in the matter of fack as you now relate it for Queen Elizabeth and the Parliament were when they made this Act so far from being separated from the outward Communion of the Church of Rome that Mass was then said and the Romish Priests still continued in all the Parishes and Churches of England and yet they still maintain'd an outward Communion though their Bishops were deprived by the Civil â—ower and others ordain'd in their stead So that it is plain the Papists themselves had then no notion of this new cause of Schism by reason of their Bishops being Uncanonically deprived nor indeed can we well vindicate the Honour or Legality of our Reformation if the Protestant Bishops who succeeded in the places of those who were thus deprived by Act of Parliament could not be Canonical because their Predecessors deprived by the Lay Power were still alive But admit this was the first time that ever it had been thus practiced yet if it were then reasonable and done upon good grounds I cannot see but when the necessity of the Church and State require it and that the Clergy in Convocation are so wilfull and wedded to some old false notions as not to consult the peace and safety of the Church and Kingdom why the King and Queen who are acknowledged to be Supream over Ecclesiastical as well as Temporal Persons may not together with the two Houses of Parliament make the like Law now as was done in the first of Queen Elizabeth for a less matter for none of those Popish Bishops though they believed Queen Elizabeth to have no better than a Parliament Title to the Crown yet ever denied her to be their lawful and rightful Queen only they would not own her Supremacy in Spiritual Matters But leaving the farther discussion of this Point to those who better understand it I would gladly know of you what you intend to do and what you would have us do who are like to be made Deputy Lieutenants and Justices of Peace for if as you your self allow there be a necessity that some Civil Government be maintain'd during King Iames's absence I desire to know of you how it can be managed and who shall manage it in case all the Gentlemen of England were of your Principle and should positively refuse the Oath of Allegiance to their present Majesties for if King Iames be never so much our lawful King it is not now possible for us to be Govern'd by him since he is goâ—e and God knows whether ever he may return again since then you cannot have him if you would and that there is a necessity we should be Govern'd by some body And since it is also as certain that those who actually Govern us will exact this or the like Oaths of Allegiance from us as were due to their Predecessors and that no man must expect to enjoy or execute any Place or Office not only of profit but of burthen and charge for the necessary execution of Justice and the maintenance of Civil Government without which we cannot live or subsist without taking this new Oath of Allegiance as the only means to qualifie them for it if then the end viz. Civil Government be absolutely necessary and the taking of this Oath is the only means allow'd of to qualifie men for it this seems as evident to me that taking of this Oath is not only justifiable by Law but by Reason and good Conscience since it is done for the highest and noblest end viz. the publick good of the whole Nation or Common wealth which you grant cannot subsist without some kind of Civil Government amongst us M. I will say something in answer to what you have now alledged concerning the necessity of taking of the Oath in order to the maintenance of some Civil Government without which I grant the Kings good Subjects cannot subsist till his return since I confess this is the strongest Argument you have yet brought all I can say to it at present it that if all your Country Gentlemen and all the Lawyers in England would be so firm in their Loyalty to his Majesty as unanimously to declare that they cannot take this Oath with a safe Conscience the consequence then would be that either the present Usurped Power must be forced to give up the Government to the right owner or else they must at least desist from pressing this Oath upon you F. You know well enough this is altogether a vain supposition since you cannot but be sensible that their Majesties have not only a sufficient force both of Native Englishmen and Foreigners on their side who can force those that should make any opposition to the taking it and that there are also many Fanaticks and Common-wealths Men who not looking upon themselves as at all oblig'd by your notions of Natural Allegiance and the obligations of any former Oath of Allegiance will get into all the Offices and Imployments of the Kingdom to the great prejudice and destruction not only of the Church but the Monarchy it self which is as yet preserv'd tho the Person
8. p. 580 581. W. All Burroughs that sent Members antiently held in Capite of the King D. 8. p. 557 578. W. They sent such Members by an inherent Right or at the Discretion of the Sheriffs Ib. p. 593. 604. C Cain W. he forfeited his Birth-right by the Murther of his Brother D. 2. p. 67. W. His Eldest Son was a Prince over his Brethren Ib. Canons of 1640. their validity discussed D. 4. p. 284. to 286. King Charles the Firsts pretended Commission to Sir Philim O Neal considered D. 9. p. 636 637. Great Charter of King Iohnâ— W. it was the sole Act of that King or else made by the advice and consent of all the Freemen of England D. 5. p. 324. D. 7. p. 455 456. Great Charter of Hen. the Third W. all the Copies we have now of it were his or else Edward I. his Charters Ib. 461. Children how far and how long bound to be subject to their Parents D. 1. p. 45. to 52. Christians W. as much obliged to suffer for Religion now as in the Primitive Times D. 4â— p. 230. to 234. Chester its County W. the Earl thereof could charge all his Tenants in Parliament without their consent D. 7. p. 501. Church of England W. Passive Obedience be its distinguishing Doctrine from other Churches D. 4. p. 292 293. Cities and Burroughs more numerous in the Saxon times than now D. 6. p. 379. to 400. W. They had any Representatives in Parliament before the 49th of Henry the IIId D. 5. p. 565 572. Whether Cities and Burroughs had not always had Representatives in the Parliaments of Scotland D. 7. p. 505. Clerici terras habentes quae ad Ecclesias non pertinent who they were D. 7. p. 450.451 Clergy a part of the Great Council of the Kingdom in the Saxon Times and long after D. 8. p. 544 to 550. W. None of the Clergy but such as held in Capite appeared at such Councils Ibid. W. The Inferiour Clergy had their Representatives in Parliament different from the Convocation Ib. 546 to 558. Commandment Vth in what sence Princes are comprehended under it D. 2. p. 106. to 109 111. Communitas Regni W. that Phrase in ancient Records and Acts of Parliament does not often signifie the Commons as well before the 49th of Henry the Third as afterwards D. 7. p. 412 to 415. W. That Phrase does not also signifie the whole body of the Kingdom consisting of Peers and Commons D. 6. p. 416. The Drs. proofs to the contrary considered 417 to 423. W. It does also often signifie the Commons alone D. 8. p. 572. to 574. Their Declaration to the Pope in the 48th of Edward the Third D. 8. p. 581 to 582. Their Petition to Henry the Fifth Their Protestation in Parliament in Richard the Seconds time 584. Commons of Cities and great Towns had their Representatives in the Assemblies of Estates of all the Kingdoms in Europe founded by the ancient Germans and Gothes Ibid 607 to 612. Commons their request and consent when first mentioned in Old Statutes D. 5. p. 329. W. Ever summoned to Parliament from the 49th of Hen. the Third to the 18th of Edw. the First D. 7. p. 522. Commons W. part of the Great Council before the Conquest D. 5. p. 369 372. The words Commune de Commune les communes do frequently signifie the Commons before the 49th of Henry the Third D. 6. 423. D. 7. 423 to 484. Common-Council of the whole Kingdom W. different from the Common-Council of Tenants in Capite D. 7. p. 437. to 474. Communitas Scotiae W. it always signified none but Tenants in Capite Ibid. p. 505. to 508. Conquest alone W. it confers a right to a Crown D. 2. p. 128 129. W. It it gives a King a right to all the Lands and Estates of the Conquer'd Kingom D. 3. 168. to 170. W. Any Conquest of this Kingdom was made by King William the First D. 10. p. 715. to the end Constitutions of Clarendon their Title explained D. 6. p. 430 431. Contract Originel W. there were ever any such thing D. 10 p. 695 to 709. D. 12. p. 809 8â—3 Convention W. its voting King James to have abdicaâ—ed the Government be justifiable D. 11. p. 809 to 834. W. Its Declaration of King James's violations of our fundamental Rights be well grounded Ibid. p. 816 832. W. It s voting the Throne vacant can be justified from the ancient constitution of the Government D. 12. p. 839 to 883. W. Whether its placing K. W. and Q. M. on the Throne may be also justified by the said Constitution Ibid. p. 883 to 894. W. It s making an Act excluding all Roman Catholick Princes was legal Ibid. p. 894 to the end Convocation Book drawn up by Bishop Overal its validity examined D. 1. p. 6 8. Copy Holders why they to have no Votes at Elections to Parliament D. 5. p. 513. Great Councils or Convention the only Iudges of Princes Titles upon any dispute about the succession or vacancy of the Throne D. 12. p. 895. D. 13. p. 917. to 919 924. Council of the King in Parliament what it was anciently D. 5. p. 334. Great Council or general Convention of the Estates of the Kingdom W. legal without the Kings Summons D. 5. p. 353. D. 12. p. 894. to 898. Curia Regis what iâ— anciently was and W. it consisted of none but Tenants in Capite Ibid. 368. Crown W. it can by Law be ever forfeited D. 12. p. 833 834. D Defence of a Mans self in what case justifiable D. 3. p. 148 149. Declaration of the Convention setting forth King James's violation of the fundamental rights of the Nation W. justifiable or not D. 11. p. 816. to the end Private Divines their Opiâ—nions about Passive Obedience and Resistance of what Authority D. 4. p. 291 294. W. Many of them have not quitted the ancient Doctrine of the Church of England declaring the Pope to be Antichrist vid. Append. Dispencing Power W. justifiable by Law D. 12. p. 119 to 828. Dissolution of all Government W. it necessarily follows from the Conventions declaration of the vacancy of the Throne D. 12. p. 890 891. Durham W. its Bishop could lay Taxes in Parliament on the whole County Palatine without their consents D. 7. p. 501 502. E Earls of Counties their ancient Office and Institution D. 5 p. 363 to 370. King Edward the Second being deposed W. any vacancy of the Throne followed thereupon D. 12. p. 158 to 861. Queen Elizabeth W. she had any Title to the Crown but by Act of Parliament Ibid. p 872 873. England when first so called D. 5. p. 362. English-Men W. they lost all their Liberties and Estates by the Norman Conquest D. 10. p. 753. to the end English Bishops Earls and Barons W. then all deprived of their Honours and Estates Ib. 756 to 762. English Saxon Laws W. confirmed or abrogated by K. William D. 10. p. 760. Estates of the Kingdom
the only Iudges of all Disputes about the Succession of the Crown D. 2. p. 891 to 892. D. 12. p. 893. D. 13. p. 917 to 919 921. Eve W. by being subject to Adam all her Posterity became so likewise D. 1. p. 14. to 25. F Fathers W. by right of generation or of education Lords over their Children in the state of Nature D. 1 p. 13 14. W. Any such power was given by Divine Grant to Adam and in him to all other Fathers Ib. p. 26 30 to 36. W. Fathers of Families have power of life and death over their Children by the Law of Nature Ib. 19. to 26. W. They may sell their Children Ib. 26. to 31. W. They may be resisted by their Children in case of any violent assaults upon their lives Ib. p. 41. W. Perpetual Masters over their Children as long as they live Ib p. 45. to 51. Fideles the signification of the word before the Conquest D. 6. p. 390 391. D. 7. p. 448. to 451. Sir R. Filmers Principles W. they do not rather encourage Tyranny than Fatherly affection in Princes towards their Subjects D. 2. p. 118. W. They do not also favour Vsurpers Ib. 125. to 128. G Common Good of Mankind the main design of all Government D. 1. p. 55. to 61. Civil Government the end of its Institution D. 1. p. 11. 19. 21. W. There had been any necessity of it if Man had never sinned Ib. p. 11. What it is and its Prerogative D. 3. p. 173. W. it can be setled without liberty and property in Estates Ib. 174. Government of Families and Kingdoms its Original and Necessity D. 1. p. 10. to 12. Supream Governours in what cases they cease to be Gods Ordinance D. 1. p. 41. Government among the ancient Germans and Saxons always by Common Councils D. 5. p. 365. to 369. Grands or Grants in Parliaments what those words signifie in ancient Statutes and Records W. The Lords alone or the Commons also D. 6. p. 369. vid. Append. Guards of the King when when first set up D. 9. p. 639. H K. Harold W. William of Normandy had a just cause of making War upon him D. 10 p. 718. What Title he had to the Crown Ib. p. 720. Haereditamentum its derivation Ib. p. 721. Hengist and all the rest of the Kings who founded the Saxon Heptarchy W. so by Election or Conquest D. 5. p. 357. to 362. King Henry the IVth W. his Title to the Crown were by right of blood or Election of the Estates in Parliament D. 12. p. 861. to 863. King Henry the VI. W. his Son were not unjustly disinherited by the Duke of York and himself unjustly deposed by Edward the IVth Ib. p. 863. to 867. King Henry the VIIth W. he had any Title to the Crown by right of Inheritance Ib. p. 868. to 870. King Henry the VIIIth W. the several alterations he made as to the the Succession were legal D. 12. p. 871 872. Homage W. it rendred the Prince or Lord irresistible D. 10. p. 727.728 Homines Liberi its signification in English Histories D. 6. p. 428. to 430. Homilies of our Church the the chief passages therein against all manner of Resistance of Governours considered D. 4. p. 287.288 W. It be Heresie or Schism to deny their Authority in any point there laid down Ib. 289.290 vid. Append. Mr. Hookers Opinion concerning the Original of Civil Government D. 12. p. 129.130 W. The two Houses of Parliament or the whole People of England have any coercive Power ove the King D. 9. p. 634. W. The Two Houses have on the behalf of the whole People renounced all right of self-defence in any case whatsoever Ib. p. 636. to 658. I King James the Firsts Speech in Parliament against Tyranny D. 3. p. 148. The Act of Recognition of K. James's Hereditary Right how far it obliges Posterity D. 12. p. 871 to 874. King James II. W. he violatid the fundamental constitution of the Government before his desertion D. 9. p. 673. to 685. Or W. he had amended all those violations before his departure p. 685. to 689. W. His setting up a standing Army and puting in Popish Officers and Souldiers were an actual making War upon the Nation Ib. p. 683.687 W. He abdicated the Government by his breach of the Original contract or else by his deserting it D. 11. p. 790. to 799. W. He might have been again safely restored to the Government upon reasonable terms Ib. p. 801. to 807. W. He really intended to redress all the violations he had made upon it p. 805. to 807. W. He resumed the Government upon his return to London from Feversham Ib. 802. to 806. Iesus Christ did not alter Civil Government neither by taking away the Prerogative of Princes nor yet by abridging the Civil Liberties of Subjects D. 4. p. 216. to 220. Jews often rebelled and sometimes killed their Kings D. 3. p. 203 to 205. Their resistance of Antiochus considered Ibid. p. 208. to the end Jewish Government before Saul W. Aristocratical or Monarchical D. p. 93. to 101. Judah and Thamar the History considered D. 1. p. 33. Iudges over Israel their Power W. Monarchical D. 2. p. 95 96. W. Some of them were not Iudges of some particular Tribes p. 96 97. Iudgements Divine W. they may be removed by humane means or force D. 4. p. 259 260. K Kings W. to be reputed Fathers of their People as the Heirs or Representatives of those who were once so D. 2. p. 65. W. They derive their Power from God or from the People and Laws D. 11. p. 773. to 780. D. 12. p. 936 to 938. Saxon Kings of England W. absolute or limited Princes D. 5. p. 349. W. They were endued with the sole Legislative Power Ib. p. 338 to 345. Kings of the English Saxons Elected and often deposed by the Great Council Ibid. p. 365. The same done also in other Kingdoms of the Gothic Model Ib. p. 365. Kings of England ever since King William I. W. they derive their Title to the Crown from Conquest or some other Title D. 10. p. 713. Their Concessions to Subjects do no ways derogate from Royal Prerogative D. 10. p. 715.716 Kings of the Roman Catholick Religion W. many of them have not observed Magna Charta and their Coronation Oath D. 12.882.888 King by Sir R. Filmer's Principles above all Laws and alone makes them D. 2. p. 123.124 In what sence he is head of the Politick Body of the Common-wealth D. 11. p. 803. to 805. W. He could have anciently by his Prerogative Taxed all the Tenants in Capite at his discretion D. 7. p. 495. to 499. W. He could call or omit to summon to Parliament what Earls Lords and Tenants he pleased Ibid. p. 505 to 511.523 W. He could also summon those Knights of Shires who served befere without any new Election Ib. 537. W. He could by his Prerogative discharge what Knights of Shires he pleased after they were chosen Ibid.
E. I. ib. p. 554. Rot. cl 31. Ed. III. ib. p. 555. Rot. Pat. 54 H. III. ib. 573. Rot. Wal. 11. Ed. I. ib. 574.575 Rot. cl 28. E. I. Rot. Pat. 8. Ed. II. ib. 576. Rot. Pat. 52. H. III. ib. p. 578. Bundel Brev. 5. Ed. II. Rot. Pat. 40. Ed. III. ib. p. 581. Rot. Pat. 2. H. V. ib. p. 582. Placit Parl. 18. E. I. Rot. Parl. 18. Ed. III. ib. p. 584. inter Com. brev in Scac. 34. Ed. I. Prins Par Reg. p. 26.28.30 Ed. I. ib. p. 586. Parl. Reg. 8. Ed. II. 887. Rot. cl 15. E. II. Rot. cl 2. E. III. Rot. cl 50. E. III. p. 588. Rot. Pat. 42. E. III. p. 599. Rot. Pat. 17. Ed. III. Rot. Parl. 51. E. III. p. 605. A Regency W. legal or practicable in England upon King James's departure D. 12. p. 877. Religion in what Cases we are bound to suffer for it without any resistance D. 4. p. 222. to 235. The Remedies against Tyranny the People of England can have without Resistance considered D. 4. p. 262. to 664. Resistance of Fathers Husbands and Masters by their Wives Children and Servants W. ever lawful D. 1. p. 41. to 44. to 52.60 Resistance of the Supream Powers in what cases absolutely lawful D. 3. p. 146. to 149 D. 4. p. 270. In what cases absolutely unlawful D. 3. p. 176 177. All the evil Consequences of such Resistance considered D. 4. p. 261. to 264. D. 9. p. 649 659 to 666. W. All resistance be forbidden by God in the Old Testament D. 3. p. 190. to the end W. Forbidden by the word of God in the New Testament D. 4. p. 220. to 264. W. Contrary to the Doctrine of the Church of England Ib. p. 283. Resistance of the King and those in Commission by him W. absolutely â—orbid by the Statute of the seventh of Edward the First against bearing of Arms D. 8. p. 612. W. Contrary to the 25th of Edward the Third concerning Treasons Ib. to the end Resistance of Arbitrary Power in our Kings W. lawful both before and since the Conquest D. 9. p. 615 to 637. Such Resistance granted to be lawful by some of our Kings themselves D. 9. p. 617.620.622 Rights and Liberties of the Subject what they are D. 9. p. 666 to 669. Rolls Clause how many wanting in the Reigns of King John and Henry the Third D. 7. p. 517 518. S Sapientes its signification in Ancient Histories D. 6. p. 377. Late Schism upon the Deprivation of the Bishops W. justifiable D. 13. p. 963 to 966. Scotland W. it s ancient constitution were the same with England D. 7. p. 503. to 505. D. 8. p. 559. W. None but Tenants in Capite ever appeared at the Great Councils of the Kingdom Ib. to 510. Scutage Service W. different from a Scutage Tax D. 7. p. 439. to 440.479 to 481. Sermons for the Kings Absolute Power censured in Parliament D. 1. p. 5. Servants and Sons W. all one in the State of Nature D. 1. p. 54. Sheriffs Pardoned by Act of Parliament for holding above one year D. 12. p. 821. States General of the Vnited Provinces W. their making War upon King James the Second were justifiable D. 11. p. 781 782. Ancient Statutes W. the three Estates have not always given their Assent to them as well as the King D. 5. p. 330. to 348. Notwithstanding the different forms of Penning them Ibid. D. 7. p. 484 485.525.528 529. Statue of the Eleventh of Henry the Seventh Cap. 1. W. still in force D. 13. p. 909. to 933. Statute of the Thirteenth of Elizabeth Chap. 1. W. still in force D. 12. p. 894. to 898. All Statutes though made by Vsurpers W. they hold good till repeal'd D. 12. p. 909 911 912. Doctor Stories Case D. 13. p. 950. Subjects how different from Slaves D. 4. p. 251. to 261. W. Particular Subjects may resist the Supream Powers for satisfaction of their own private injuries D. 4. p. 252. Succession to Crowns no certain procepts to be found about it in Scripture or the Law of Nature D. 2. p. 89. to 90. Succession to the Crown of England W. always Hereditary since the Conquest without any vacancy of the Throne D. 12. p. 839 to 875. Sufferings of Christ how far an Example to us D. 4. p. 227. to 233. Suffering for Religion without Resistance when necessary Ib. p. 231. T Tenants in Capite W. they were all Barons D. 6. p. 399.400 W. They could anciently Tax the whole Kingdom at their pleasure as well the Lands held of them as what was not D. 7. 440.479 to 483.500 W. They or else Tenants by Knights service were anciently the only Persons who served upon Iuries D. 10. p. 741. to 746. W. They represented all their under Tenants in Parliament D. 7. p. 512. Tenants in Sâ—â—age W. they were bound by the Acts of those of whom they held their Estates D. 6. p. 420. Tenants in Demesne claimed to be discharged from the Knights Wages by prescription D. 8. p. 588 589. Tenure by Knights service W. in use before King Wil. I. D. 10. p. 750 751. A new Test Oath opposed by a great party of the Poeâ—s in the Reign of King Charles the Second D. 9. p. 659. Testaments W. valid in the meer State of Nature D. 2. p. 86 87 91. The several Texts of Scripture made use of for or against absolute Non-resistance examined viz. in the Old Testament D. 3. p. 190. to the end Texts of Scripture out of the New Testament urged for the like purpose D. 4. p. 220. to 279. Thanes the ancient signification of that Title discussed D. 6. p. 374. to 379. The divers sorts of them amongst the English Saxons D. 5. p. 370. Treason against the Kingdom anciently as well as against the King D. 5. p. 344. Trials by Combate W. in use before the Conquest D. 10. p. 758. Trust committed by the People to the Supream Powers W. unaccountable and irrevocable D. 3. p. 152.154 Insupportable Tyranny W. worse than the State of Nature Ib. 155. Tyrants W. Ordained of God D. 4. 245 246. U Vavasors or mesne Tenants W. anciently reckon'd as part of the Baronage of the Kingdom D. 6. p. 405 406. Universitas Baronagii Angliae Regni what it signified and W. the Commons were comprehended under that Title D. 6. p. 408 409 415 416. Universitas Communis the meaning of that Phrase in Matthew Paris D. 7. p. 470. W. It comprehended no more than the less Tenants in Capite Ib. 471. Primate Ushers Opinion in his Treatise of the Power of the Prince and Obedience of the Subject considered D. 4. p. 271 272. Vsurpers by Sir R. Filmers Principles to be obeyed before the Lawful Prince and his Heirs D. 2. p. 126 127. When Vsurpers may be obeyed before the Lawful Prince and his Heirs D. 4. p. 246. Usurpation W. it gives a rightful Title after three Generations D. 2. p. 128. Vulgus what that word signified in the
Latine Translation of the Old Coronation-Oath D. 8. p. 560. to 563. W Wales W. it s Titular Prince be really Son to King James the Second and Queen Mary D. 11. p. 784 to 789. W. He ought to have been received as the true Son and Heir of the said King D. 12. p. 875. to 877. and that let the consequences be what they will Ib. p. 879. to 881. Wardship Marriage and Relief W. wholly derived from the Normans D. 10. p. 750.751 Its advantages and inconveniencies considered Ib. A Wife W. she can ever be discharged from the Power her Husband hath over her in the state of Nature by any means but by his express consent D. 1. p. 43. King William the First why stiled the Conquerour D. 5. p. 325. W. He claimed to be King of England by Donation of King Edward the Confessor or by Conquest D. 10. p. 715.718 719. W. He was ever Elected and took the same Coronation-Oath as the English Saxon Kings had done before D. 10. p. 716.722 to 737. W. He might justly have seized all the Lands in England to his own use D. 2. p. 171. W. He gave most of the Lands of England to his followers Ibid. p. 721 to 729. and to 747. W. He alter'd any thing in the fundamental constitution of the Government D. 5. p. 320. to 322. W. He altered all the Old Laws of England or confirmed those of King Edward D. 10. p. 737. to 760. His Second Oath upon the Relicks of St. Alban Ib. 761 762. His Laws concerning all Freemens exemption from Taxes upon their finding Arms D. 6. p. 426 427. W. He and his Son William Rufus made Laws and imposed Taxes without the consent of the Great Council D 10. p. 744 755. King William the Third W. he hath any Title by Conquest over King James or else from his Marriage with the Princess and the Act of the Convention D. 12. p. 883. to 899. His Religion and Principles vindicated Ib. 886 887. Wites or Wise-Men in the English Saxon Councils the true signification of that term D. 6. p. 373. to 378. Wittena à Gemots or Great Councils among the English Saxons W. they consisted of more than the higher Nobility Ib. p. 381. Wives how far obliged to be obedient to the Commands of their Husbands D. 1. p. 40. Writ of Summons to the Commmons of the 49th of Henry the Third W it was the first of that kind D. 7. p. 519. to 521. W. Any Writs of Summons of Bishops or Lords to Parliament are to be found before that time Ib. p. 516. Writ of the 19th of Henry the Third to the Sâ—eriffs to levy two Marks Scutage upon Tenants by Knights Service holding of Tenants in Capite Ib. 445 Writ of the 24th of Henry the Third commanding all Men holding a whole Knights Fee of whatsoever Tenure to be Knighted D. 6. p. 432. Writs of Summons to Knights Citizens and Burgesses to Parliament at Shrewsbury in the 11th of Edward the First D. 8. p. 574. Writ of Summons to Knights of Shires cited by Dr. B. in the 18th of Edward the First W. it was to a Parliament D. 7. p. 530. to 536. Writ of the 22d of Edward the First W. a Summons to Parliament D. 7. p. 533 534. Writ of the 30th of Edward the First commanding the Levying of Forty Shillings upon each Knights Fee which had been granted ever since the Eighteenth Ibid. p. 479. W. The Commons Granted that Tax Ibid. Writs of the 28th of Edward the First and 45th of Edward the Third W. of Summons to Parliaments Ib. 537. Writs for Expences to Knights of Shires how ancient D. 8. p. 589. to 591. Y Duke of York Richard his Title declared in Parliament D. 12. p. 863. Edward Duke of York Recognized by Parliament to be lawful King from the Death of his Father Richard Duke of York Ib. p. 865. Duke of York James W. he was not intirely in the French Interest and Designs before he came to the Crown D. 11. p. 802. AN APPENDIX Containing some Authorities sit to be added for farther confirmation of some things laid down in the foregoing Dialogues TO be added to Dialogue the Fourth p. 290. at the end of F s Speech after these words no particular Church can read thus And that divers of the most Eminent Divines of our Church have used the same freedom with several other Doctrines contained in these Homilies may appear from Dr. Hammonds Dr. Heylins and Dr. Taylors with several other Eminent Writers expresly denying that the Church of Rome is guilty of Idolatry or that the Pope is Antichrist tho' both these Doctrines are as plainly laid down in the Homilies as the Doctrine of Non-Resistance And yet none of these Men are ever taxed by those of the Church of England for quitting her Ancient Orthodox Doctrines and I desire you to give me a good Reason if you can why it is more lawful and excusable to part with the former of these Doctrines than the latter The like I may say also for the Doctrine of Predestination which tho expresly asserted in the 36 Articles of the Church of England as interpreted by all the Bishops and Writers in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth and King Iames as also the Bishops and Divines sent as Delegates from our Church to the Synod of Dort who joyned in the interpretation of that Article in the strict Calvinistical sense you find in all the determinations of that Synod against the Doctrines of the Arminians which then began to prevail yet since the time that Arch-Bishop Laud had the nominating of what Persons he thought fit to be made Bishops Deans c. not one in ten of them but have been Arminians in all those Points wherein they wholly differ from the Doctrine of Calvin which is but the same with that of our 36 Articles so interpreted yet none of the Divines of our present Church who hold these Opinions are branded with Apostacy from its Ancient Doctrine but if any well meaning Divine out of love to his Country and to prevent Popery and Slavery from breaking in upon us have but Preach'd or Publish'd any thing in derogation to these Darling Doctrines of Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance he is straight branded with Apostacy from the Church in quitting its main distinguishing Character and we have lately seen Degrading nay the most cruel Whipping and Imprisonment thought too little for such a Man but one may say of some Men with truth enough Dat veniam Corvis vexat censura Columbis So Dialogue the Sixth p. 397. at the bottom after these words in those times read this But that the House of Commons were anciently often comprehended under the stile of Grantz which is the same with Magnates in Latine pray consult the Parliament Rolls of Edward the Third where you will find in the 4 th of that King this passage est assentu accorde per nostre Seigneur le Roy tous les Grantz
against the Tyranny of the Duke D'Alva in the beginning of the Belgick Wars and it was soon after seconded by the revolt of divers other Cities and Towns in those Provinces till the Spaniards were quite driven out M. I do not deny but you speak more moderately on this Subject than most of your opinion who think every private man has a right to take up Arms and raise a Rebellion whenever he judges his Person or Estate is invaded or injured by the Government And indeed this remedy of Resistance seems at first sight prety tolerable if it were not that we very well knew that this many-headed Beast the Multitude is very apt to be deluded by the cunning Speeches and sly Insinuations of factious and ambitious Men whose Interest it will always be to fish in troubled Waters and raise Disturbances to make themselves the Heads of a Party Thus in the Year 42. what Lies and Stories were there raised to incense the People against that good King to make them take up Arms against him as an Invader of their Liberties and one that was about to make War upon them And who that is not over-partial to his own Opinions does not see that the Nation has been blown up into a flame by the lying Reports of a French League and a Supposiâ—irious Prince of Wales neither of which I durst pawn my life have the least tittle of truth in them so that this Doctrine can scarce fail almost every time it is put in practice to bring all Government to Anarchy and Confusion F. I have already in part answered this Objection at our Third Meeting but since you will urge it over again I shall in the first place admit the Matter of Fact to be as you say that the People may by some turbulent Demogogues be sometimes so far incensed as to take up Arms when there is no just Occasion but let me tell you I doubt that neither of the Instances you have given will make good your Assertion for in the first place as to King Charles the First it is said by all Writers on the Parliaments side that the King by leaving his Parliament and going to York and there taking a Guard when no Enemy was near and when the Parliament had as yet raised no Forces at all as also by his going to Hull to remove the Magazine of Arms that lay there in order to put them into the hands of an Army to make War upon the Parliament who then demanded the Settlement of the Militia to be in Commissioners of their Nomination that he thereby broke his Coronation Oath whereby he was Sworn to Govern according to Law and not by force But as for what you say as to the present juncture of Affairs I never can desire a more plain proof of the Peoples necessity of â—aking up defensive Arms since admitting that neither of the Reports concerning the French League and the false Birth of this supposed Prince be true yet I think the Nation has had sufficient Provocations to rise as one man and joyn with the Prince of Orange for the obtaining of a free Parliament to set all things right which the King 's violent illegal Administration has so much discomposed But admitting the utmost you can suppose that sometimes the people may Judge amiss as well as the King and through that mis-information may take up Arms against their Prince when there is no real Occasion shall this abuse of a right be a sufficient cause against there ever exercising of it at all I am sure this is no good Argument against the natural Right of Self defence between private persons in the state of Nature that some men do often abuse it nor can I see how upon these Grounds even Soveraign Princes may be allowed to make so much as Defensive Wars as I said but now since they may pretend that themselves are wronged and invaded or at least are like to be so when no such thing was really done or intended and so by their mis-judgment or false pretences many millions of Lives may be lost What then must no Princes ever make War at all till all the World be satisfied of the Justice of their Quarrel If so I doubt the last War of King Charles the Second made against the Dutch and this late War the King of France has now made upon the Empire should never have been by your Principles so much as begun much less carried on with so great an Effusion of Blood and the Destruction of so many Cities and Towns and whether this as well as Tyranny at home is not more often put in practice by Princes than any Resistance this Nation or all the Subjects of the World have made against such Tyranny and Arbitrary Power I leave it to your self or any indifferent Person to judge M. I doubt not but I may very well join issue with you upon this point for I think that upon those very conditions and grounds you have now laid down the Clergymen Lords Gentlemen and Commons of this Kingdom who have either come over with the Prince of Orange or have taken up Arms in defence of his Late Declaration cannot justifie themselves by any of the Instances you have given for joyning themselves with him in Arms for tho' I grant His Majesty by hearkning too much to Popish Counselâ— may have done many things which in strictness of Law cannot be justified yet since they do not strike at that which you call the fundamental constitution of the Government and has been also done without any force on the People of this Nation but hath been either transacted by Judgment of Law or the colour of it at least viz. by the opinion of all or the Major part of Judges all the Parties above mention'd ought according to your own Principles to have waited for the meeting of the next Parliament to whose determination they ought by the Law of the Land to have referred all such grievances and violations of Laws which they had to complain of and if then the King had refused to have remedied them they might have had some colour I do not say right for taking up Arms and doing what they have done whereas I cannot see how you can even upon your Principles defend the late risers from wilful Rebellion against the King And for proof of this I need go no farther than the Prince of Oranges Late Declaration which being drawn by the best advice of the Male-contents then in Holland would not fall to mention all the violations of Law which they thought his Majesties Government had been guilty of ever since his coming to the Crown and therefore not to insist upon the want of right which I conceive the Prince had to concern himself with the affairs of another Kingdom which he had no right to I shall however mention every Article in which his Highness conceives the Religion Laws and civil Liberties of this Nation to be endangered In the first
and Lord Lieutenants and if they had refused to answer positively to those questions proposed to them I know no other penalty they had been liable to more than being put out of Commission which sure is no punishment but rather an ease and tho' I do not defend those evil Ministers that put the King upon this Method of distrusting and disobliging his best Protestant Subjects I mean those of the Church of England by putting them out and putting in either Papists or Fanaticks in their steads yet all that own themselves of that Communion ought to have been of more loyal Principles than to have taken up Arms as some of them have done upon pretence of standing by the Prince of Oranges Declaration against these abuses F. I see though you cannot directly justifie the examining of the Lords Lieutenants and Deputy Lieutenants and Justices of the Peace about taking away the Penal Laws and Test and turning those out of Commission that refus'd yet you strive to mitigate it as far as you can by making it part of the Kings Prerogative to put in and out what Judges Justices and other Officers he pleases well granting this to be so yet sure you cannot deny but that the clositing of Judges and all other Officers you have now mention'd and putting those out of Commission that refus'd to comply with the Kings Will and that for no other reason was sure a strange abuse of that Prerogative and the excuse you make that the persons examin'd had a liberty to refuse whether they would give any positive answer or not is yet more trivial since it is very well known that as well those who gave doubtful answers or refused to make any answer at all were as much turned out as they who positively denied to comply with the Kings demands so that no answer was looked upon as satisfactory but such as seemed to give up all freedom of Elections and Votes in Parliament none being to be chosen by the Kings directions but such as would engage before hand to repeal the Test and Penal Laws and I think you will not deny but that the King by thus examining all these Magistrates and Officers you now mention and by turning those out that refused to comply did all he could to hinder the free Election of Members to serve in Parliament and the freedom of giving their Votes when they came thither and the King might as well another time have declar'd that he would have no Members chosen but such as would agree to take away the Statute de Tallagio non concidendo or any branch of Magna Chartâ— which he should think fit to have repeal'd and as this strikes at the very fundamental constitution of the Government viz the free Election of Parliament men so it was inserted among the Articles against Richard the II. that he had caus'd the Sheriffs to return whom he pleas'd for Knights of Shires as I have already shewed you But what say you to the Kings late calling in almost all the Charters of Cities Towns and Corporations in England and putting in Popish or Fanatick Officers and Magistrates into the rooms of those that were turn'd out only to influence Elections and to procure what persons he desired to be return'd for Parliament men is not this a grand breach of the fundamental constitution of the Kingdom thus to take away the legal Rights and Priviledges of these Corporations for no other cause than to procure the King such Parliament men as he had a mind to M. I beg your pardon I forgot to mention this sooner and though I will not take upon me absolutely to defend the Legality of it much less the design for which it was done since I grant that it was in order to destroy or at least to humble the Church of England yet since iâ— was done by colour of Law and Judgment of the Court of Kings Bench and no more than what has been formerly done in the Reign of King Charles I cannot see how the Noblemen and Gentlemen lately in Arms could defend their rising upon that ground unless they would also at the same time justifie the lawfulness of the Plot and Rebellion intended in the same Reign and in which so many of the Whig Nobility and Gentry were deeply engaged F. To answer what you have said in vindication of this great violation of one of the fundamental Rights and Liberties of the Kingdom I must in the first place tell you that as I shall not now examine into the matter of Law whether a Corporation can forfeit it's Charter for misdemeanours or not much less shall I concern my self whether it were done by or without colour of Law or the Judgment of the Court of Kings Bench since it is notoriously known that none of the Judges were permitted to sit there nor any new ones put in but such as would blindly agree to all the Court would have done and therefore I value nor any thing they did nor think it one â—ot the more legal for their Judgments nor is it any excuse that the same thing was done in King Charles Reign and therefore might as well be done now without any rising against it for though I must tell you I look upon the taking away of the Charters from the City of London and the other Cities and Corporations of the Kingdom one of the most arbitrary and illegal acts of that Kings Reign yet there were several reasons which made it unlawful for the Nation to rise then yet it might not be so now as in the first place because most of those Charters were either willingly surrender'd by the members of those Corporations or else were declared forfeited by due trial and Judgment of Law whereas it was much otherwise in this Kings Time when notwithstanding that all the Cities and Towns Corporate in England had but a few years before taken out new Charters to their great trouble and expence they were now summon'd anew to surrender these again for no other reason but because it was the Kings pleasure it should be so for who can imagine that all the Corporations of England could have forfeited their Charters in so short a time as three or four years and they were plainly told that the King must and would have them and that it was to no purpose to stand out and therefore it was no wonder if all the Cities and Corporations of England were forced to submit patiently to this violation since they found by experience the Judges were ready to give Judgment against them right or wrong And besides this I have already laid it down as a Maxime that no resistance whatever is to be made till matters become desperate and all other means are become absolutely ineffectual which I think they were not as long as King Charles lived who besides the inconstancy of his humour which seldome persisted long either in well or evil doing especially if the ill consequences of it were well laid
then time enough and not till then for the Nation to have call'd in the Prince of Orange and His Dutc-hmen to their Deliverance so that till this Parliament had been try'd you could not say that matters were altogether desperate F. I see you do all you can to prove that the Kings Raising an Army wherein he had Listed so many Popish Officers and Souldiers and which were like to be daily increas'd upon us was no making War upon the Nation because they had not yet actually robb'd or murder'd People and you may with as much reason tell me that a Thief upon the High-way do's not use any Violence upon the party he robbs if he should only clap a cok'd Pistol to his breast without asking him to deliver his Money Now I suppose you will not deny but that the Passinger would quickly understand the meaning of that sign and wo'd soon deliver his Purse for fear of loosing his life apply this to the Chimney Money that has been rais'd upon the poor part of the Nation and the taking away the Charters from the Corporations merely through the Terrour of this standing Army and see if the Similitude do's not exactly fit and for what you say concerning the presuming upon the Doctrine of Passive Obedience and so might have done the same Arbitrary things whether he had raised an Army or not tho' I am very glad you confess that those Doctrines encouraged the Kings Arbitrary proceedings yet I must Beg your Pardon if I cannot beleive the rest whatever thoughts the King might have of the Major part of the Clergy Nobility and Gentry Yet certainly he had no such good Opinion of the Ordinary People who compos'd the Militia and indeed are the Hands of the Kingdom since you confess the King did not look upon them as sufficiently Loyal and therefore was forc'd to maintain a Standing Army for fear of them So that it seems the Nation was not yet thorough pac'd in your Doctrines of Passive Obedience and Non-resistance as you would have had them but that even this Standing Army when it was to Fight against the Religion and Liberties of their own Country it was not to be trusted the King himself was convinc'd of when he so lately ran away from them at Salisbury and because some of them deserted him he feared the rest wo'd not Fight in so unjust a Quarrell But as for the rest of Tour Speech that the People sho'd have â—arried till matters had become altogether desperate and that a Parliament had actually given us our Religion Civil Liberties and Properties to the Kings Arbitrary will that had been indeed intalling Slavery upon us by a Law and would have made good the Proverb of shuâ—â—ing the Stable Door after the Horse is Stolen and puts me in mind of a Story I have heard of a Gentleman whose House being beset by Thieves who were actually breaking in at a Window and that he was about to shoot at them his over scrupulous Chaplain who I suppose had nicely study'd your Doctrine of Nonresistance desired his Patron to forbear because the Thieves had not as yet sufficiently declar'd their wicked intentions by assaulting or robbing any Body in the House But I suppose the Gentleman was not such a Fool as to take his Chaplains advice and a great part of the Nation was too sensible of the dangers they saw hang over their Heads than to follow your Opinion M. I see you are very free in your Comparisons in making the Kings Late Army little better then Thieves and then what Opinion you have of the King himself who headed 'em I leave it to your self to consider but since Similitudes are no Arguments I shall not trouble my self to argue this point any longer with you since I see it is to little purpose but yet let your right of Resistance be what it will in desperate cases yet I am sure that diverse Lords and Gentlemen of your Opinion can no way justify their renouncing all Allegiance to his Majesty by adhering to a Foreign Prince and by their Late advising the same Prince to call a Free Parliament without taking any notice of the King or making any more Addresses to him about it than if he had never been their Anointed Soveraign and indeed it was a burning shame as well as a crying Sin for the Nobility Gentry and People in and about this great and populous City to let their King be hurryed away Prisoner by a handful of Dutch-men though his Majesty hath had since the good Fortune to escape out of their hands when he saw there was no other means to fail him F. In answer to what you have now said I must freely tell you that if the resistance that hath been made against the Army Commission'd by the King was Lawfull so has all that has been done in pursuance of that resistance been alike Lawfull and necessary and therefore what if I tell you that the King by breaking the Fundamental Constitution of the Kingdom and by twice going away without ever offering to repair those breaches and give the Nation any sufficient satisfaction for the same has not only put himself in a state of War against the People but has also thereby ceas'd to be King or if you will have it more plainly has lost and forfeited his right to the Crown M. This is rare Commonwealth Doctrine and of the same batch with that of Bradshaws and Cooks Speeches against King Charles the First but I thank God I have learn'd Loyaler Principles and do firmly believe that a King of England cannot for any Tyrrany or breach of Laws whatsoever forfeit his Crown or Royal Dignity as you suppose But since this is a new Doctrine I shall not be unwilling to hear what you have to say upon this Subject another time since it is now too late to pursue this Argument any further F. Before I make any reply to what you have now said I desire not to be misunderstood as if I call all the Kings Late Army Thieves or himself the Captain of them since in Similes it is sufficient if they agree in some common propertie without being the same things to which they are compar'd tho this much I may safely say that those that take Free Quarter without consent of the owners in time of Peace and those who support 'em in it are no better than Thieves but since you desire to hear my reasons for this opinion I have now given you I desire that we may have another meeting to debate this weighty question and then I will likewise hear whatever you have to say against it but I must tell you by the way that you are very much out in making my opinion of the same batch with that of the Regicides for it appears plainly by the Printed Tryal of the King that they acknowledged him for King of England at the same time when they read his Indictment to him whereas I affirm the contrary and