draw people from the prefent government, by your own text are felf-condemned, and not to be followed, not to be "meddled with," but to be noted, as moft of all others the "feditious and defirous of change."

Your third proof is no lefs againft yourself. Pfal. cv, 159 "Touch not mine anointed." For this is not fpoken in behalf of kings, but spoken to reprove kings, that they should not touch his anointed faints and fervants, the feed of Abraham, as the verse next before might have taught you: he reproved kings for their fakes, faying, "Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm;" according to that, 2 Cor. i, 21, "He who hath anointed us, is God." But how well you confirm one wrefted fcripture with another! 1 Sam. viii, 7, "They have not rejected thee, but me:" grofsly mifapplying these words, which were not spoken to any who had "refifted or rejected" a king, but to them who much againft the will of God had fought a king, and rejected a commonwealth, wherein they might have lived happily under the reign of God only, their king. Let the words interpret themfelves; ver. 6, 7, "But the thing difpleafed Samuel, when they faid, give us a king to judge us and Samuel prayed unto the Lord. And the Lord 'faid unto Samuel, hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they fay unto thee; for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I fhould not reign over them.” Hence you conclude, "fo indiffoluble is the conjunction of God and the king." O notorious abufe of fcripture! whenas you fhould have concluded, fo unwilling was God to give them a king, fo wide was the disjunction of God from a king. Is this the doctrine you boaft of, to be "fo clear in itfelf, and like a mathematical principle, that needs no farther demonftration ?" Bad logic, bad mathematics (for principles can have no demonftration at all) but worfe divinity. O people of an implicit faith, no better than Romish, if these be thy prime teachers, who to their credulous audience dare thus juggle with fcripture, to allege thofe places for the proof of their doctrine, which are the plain refutation: and this is all the fcripture which he brings to confirm his point.

The reft of his preachment is mere groundless chat,

Ff2

fave

fave here and there a few grains of corn scattered to entice the filly fowl into his net, interlaced here and there with fome human reading, though flight, and not without geographical and hiftorical miftakes: as pag. 29, Suevia the German dukedom, for Suecia the Northern kingdom: Philip of Macedon, who is generally understood of the great Alexander's father only, made contemporary, pag. 31, with T. Quintus the Roman commander, inftead of T. Quintius, and the latter Philip and pag. 44, Tully cited" in his third oration against Verres," to fay of him, "that he was a wicked conful," who never was a conful: nor "Trojan fedition ever portrayed" by that verfe of Virgil, which you cite pag. 47, as that of Troy: fchoolboys could have told you, that there is nothing of Troy in that whole portraiture, as you call it, of Sedition. Thefe grofs miftakes may juftly bring in doubt your other loofe citations, and that you take them up fomewhere at the fecond or third hand rashly, and without due confidering.

Nor are you happier in the relating or the moralizing your fable. "The frogs" (BEING ONCE A FREE NATION, faith the fable) "petitioned Jupiter for a king: he tumbled among them a log: they found it infenfible; they petitioned then for a king that fhould be active: he fent them a crane" (a STORK, faith the fable) "which ftraight fell to pecking them up." This you apply to the reproof of them who defire change: whereas indeed the true moral shows rather the folly of those who being free feek a king; which for the most part either as a log lies heavy on his fubjects, without doing aught worthy of his dignity and the charge to maintain him, or as a ftork is ever pecking them up, and devouring

them.

But" by our fundamental laws, the king is the highest power," pag. 40. If we must hear mooting and law lectures from the pulpit, what shame is it for a doctor of divinity not firft to confider, that no law can be fundamental, but that which is grounded on the light of nature or right reafon, commonly called moral Law: which no form of government was ever counted, but arbitrary,

and

and at all times in the choice of every free people, or their representers? This choice of government is fo effential to their freedom, that longer than they have it, they are not free. In this land not only the late king and his posterity, but kingship itself hath been abrogated by a law; which involves with as good reason the pofterity of a king forfeited to the people, as that law heretofore of treafon against the king, attainted the children with the father. This law against both king and kingfhip they who most question, do not lefs queftion all enacted without the king and his antiparliament at Oxford, though called mongrel by himfelf. If no law muft be held good, but what paffes in full parliament, then furely in exactness of legality no member must be miffing: for look how many are miffing, fo many counties or cities that fent them want their reprefenters. But if, being once chofen, they ferve for the whole nation, then any number, which is fufficient, is full, and most of all in times of difcord, neceffity, and danger. The king himself was bound by the old mode of parliaments, not to be absent, but in cafe of fickness, or fome extraordinary occafion, and then to leave his fubftitute; much lefs might any member be allowed to abfent himself. If the king then and many of the members with him, without leaving any in his ftead, forfook the parliament upon a mere panic fear, as was that time judged by moft men, and to levy war againft them that fat, fhould they who were left fitting, break up, or not dare enact aught of nearest and prefenteft concernment to public fafety, for the punctilio wanting of a full number, which no lawbook in fuch extraordinary cafes hath determined? Certainly if it were lawful for them to fly from their charge upon pretence of private fafety, it was much more lawful for thefe to fit and act in their truft what was neceffary for the public. By a law therefore of parliament, and of a parliament that conquered both Ireland, Scotland, and all their enemies in England, defended their friends, were generally acknowledged for a parliament both at home and abroad, kingfhip was abolished: this law now of late hath been negatively repealed; yet kingship not pofitively restored, and I fuppofe never

Ff3

was

was established by any certain law in this land, nor poffibly could be: for how could our forefathers bind us to any certain form of government, more than we can bind our pofterity? If a people be put to war with their king for his mifgovernment, and overcome him, the power is then undoubtedly in their own hands how they will be governed. The war was granted juft by the king himfelf at the beginning of his laft treaty, and ftill maintained to be fo by this laft parliament, as appears by the qualification prefcribed to the members of this next enfuing, that none fhall be elected, who have borne arms against the parliament finçe 1641. If the war were juft, the conqueft was alfo juft by the law of nations. And he who was the chief enemy, in all right ceased to be the king, especially after captivity, by the deciding verdict of war; and royalty with all her laws and pretenfions yet remains in the victor's power, together with the choice of our future government. Free commonwealths have been ever counted fittelt and propereft for civil, virtuous, and induftrious nations, abounding with prudent men worthy to govern: monarchy fittest to curb degenerate, corrupt, idle, proud, luxurious people. If we defire to be of the former, nothing better for us, nothing nobler than a free commonwealth: if we will needs condemn ourfelves to be of the latter, despairing of our own virtue, induftry, and the number of our able men, we may then, confcious of our own unworthinefs to be governed better, fadly betake us to our befitting thraldom: yet choofing out of our own number one who hath beft aided the people, and beft merited against tyranny, the space of a reign or two we may chance to live happily enough, or tolerably. But that a victorious people fhould give up themselves again to the vanquished, was never yet heard of, feems rather void of all reafon and good policy, and will in all probability fubject the fubduers to the fubdued, will expofe to revenge, to beggary, to ruin, and perpetual bondage, the victors under the vanquifhed: than which what can be more unworthy?

From mifinterpreting our law, you return to do again the faine with fcripture, and would prove the fupremacy

of

of English kings from 1 Pet. ii, 13, as if that were the apoftle's work: wherein if he faith that "the king is fupreme," he fpeaks fo of him but as an "ordinance of man," " and in refpect of thofe "governors that are fent by him," not in refpect of parliaments, which by the law of this land are his bridle; in vain his bridle, if not alfo his rider and therefore hath not only coordination with him, which you falfely call feditious, but hath fuperiority above him, and that neither" against religion,' nor" right reafon :" no nor against common law; for our kings reigned only by law. But the parliament is above all pofitive law, whether civil or common, makes or unmakes them both; and fill the latter parliament above the former, above all the former lawgivers, then certainly above all precedent laws, entailed the crown on whom it pleafed; and as a great lawyer faith, "is fo tranfcendent and abfolute, that it cannot be confined either for caufes or perfons, within any bounds." But your cry is, no parliament without a king. If this be fo, we have never had lawful kings, who have all been created kings either by fuch parliaments, or by conquest: if by fuch parliaments, they are in your allowance none: if by conqueft, that conqueft we have now conquered. So that as well by your own affertion as by ours, there can at prefent be no king. And how could that perfon be abfolutely fupreme, who reigned, not under law only, but under oath of his good demeanour, given to the people at his coronation, ere the people gave him his crown? and his principal oath was to maintain those laws, which the people thould choose. If then the law itself, much more he who was but the keeper and minifter of law, was in their choice, and both he fubordinate to the performance of his duty fworn, and our fworn allegiance in order only to his performance.

You fall next on the confiftorian Schifmatics; for fo you call Prefbyterians, pag. 40, and judge them to have "enervated the king's fupremacy by their opinions and practice, differing in many things only in terms from popery;" though fome of thofe principles, which you there cite concerning kingthip, are to be read in Arif totle's Politics, long ere popery was thought on. The prefbyterians

Ff4