AN ANSWER TO A PASSAGE IN Mr. Baxters' Book, ENTITLED, A Key for Catholics: Beginning pag. 321. concerning the KING'S being put to Death.  
By John Nanfan Esq  
LONDON, Printed for John Jones Bookseller in Worcester.   

To the Reader.  
I Know not why I should endeavour to please or satisfy concerning this, that I throw it abroad, which was solitary, and private to me in the worst of times, or any such Apologies, or endeavours, or essays, to take off censure. It were too much submitting, and subjecting to others; let the matter and subject itself speak for it, and let others condescend their Judgements to it, and that is all that is desired: It has no end out of itself. Particular Reasons I have; as that there is as good warrant in me to take off Mr. Baxter's presumptive, violent, injurious Arguments against Kings, and Governments, as he to assert them; the cause is his: he the assailant, I am but the Defendant: The sally out into the World, and into so great an Interest as King's Governments, and terms of submission to them, and when in some cases, the people to kill, and slay, and destroy all; these great exorbitant, monstrous considerations come from Mr. Baxter: he hath stated cases, fixed them to Posterity, that they may be fruitful to generate in the World; mine but an Arrest upon him, both to redeem truth, and likewise to let the World know that great Writers may contain much iniquity in them, and how the World is to beware of them.  
But why do I entertain the Reader at the Porch, or without the Door, and seem to entreat him to like the structure within, which he is to behold? Therefore I give it off, only this, that it speaks that time, that disconsolate condition than it was made to: and making it now another thing, is not my end, but to show and represent the same; for every thing has its rectitude in respect of the point it tends to.  
And this good in it, that though the subject sad, yet it raises more considerations out of it, and from it; for we have our enjoyment from good times, but our information more from bad: And besides, these considerations are general, so as no time o●●● them; truths that are not particular in their nature, have an eternity in them. And for aught we know, there is as great a Wisdom required to retain our Government as to attain to it: that lay but in one design, and easily done, because not discerned in the doing; this is of a perpetual providence, and perpetual danger, and enmity against it, and we are to betake ourselves to all considerations wherein our good and evil is contained: and public good is the great end, the wheel, and sway, and compass to all motions, all particulars but considered in it.   

AN ANSWER TO A PASSAGE IN Mr. BAXTERS' Book; ENTITLED, A Key for Catholics; Beginning, pag. 321. concerning the Kings being put to Death.  
HE gins thus, Concerning the Death of the King, I shall not meddle at this time with the cause, nor meddle with the Reasons brought for it, or against it.  
Answ. It will appear, by so much as concerns me to answer to, whether Mr. Baxter meddle with the Cause or not. This pretended abstemiousness, is but to make it pierce the deeper, and to ●ake his strength more considerable: He is as great an Assertor of it, as possibly he can find matter to make it speculatively true, though in fact he keeps out of it.  
Whilst he vies Interests with the Papists, he takes upon him to hold the Balance; this of murdering the King, in manner and form of it, in one end of the Scale; and that of the Pope's cursing Kings, and consequently murdering of them, in the other: and he finds his leighter by much, which is the triumph of his cause; and to this he does abet all his strength to make it good, which is by making the evil of it less; so as this is the very state of his Cause, and you shall see him appearing in it by degrees, like a winding stairs, till he comes up to the top. I shall take all his by way of Objections, and answer to it.  
Object. The Providence of God hath so contrived it, that nothing but ignorance, or blind malice, can lay it upon the Protestants, Episcopal, or Presbyterian, that strove so much against it, and suffered so much for it as they have done.  
Answ. In this he doth confound Interests, to join the Episcopal with the Presbyterian; I am very confident the Episcopal would not mix with any other Interest in such a defence; and to piece them to the Presbyterian, is an abuse. It is a kind of Policy to defend a corrupt cause, by taking into it that which cannot be denied to be just, and clear in itself, and under colour of that to cry up the whole.  
Not that I mean to condemn the Presbyterians directly for the King's Death; I leave that to particular Arguments as they fall out, and to be understood in a just medium in it, relating to Presbyterians and Protestants both, that acted. But his further,  
Object. When many on the other side charged the Scots, and the Imprisoned Ministers of London, with those that were put to death, for going too far on the other side, in manifesting their distastes; of which I take not on me to be Judge, but mention it only as Evidence that clears them from the Deed.  
Answ. How cautious Mr. Baxter is, that he will not take upon him to be Judge, who were in the right of those two parties, one the Presbyterians that disliked the putting the King to Death, and the other that acted it, and were angry with them for disliking, and expressing their dislikes. He is very wary in this here, with his reserves and save, that he does declare it only as matter of fact; so tender is he not to engage too far, to judge or conclude any thing in it. This makes me doubt, that in some passages hereafter, where he calls it odious, and detestable, that he has a latitude in those expressions; for an Act may have those epithets, and yet possibly be lawful: Now whether there may not be some thing of this in it, though he declares against the fact; I may doubt, because of his denying here to condemn it. Certainly, he that in his Soul has not a full abhorrency to it, is of the infection of it; and no other construction can be made. He goes on,  
Object. To vindicate the Protestants openly before all the World, and to all posterity from that fact, it is most publicly known, that both Houses of Parliament, in their protestations engaged themselves and the Nation to be true to the King.  
Answ. This was but in order to the War, which they were forming against the King; It was made the very means of raising the People by whom the War must be acted. Upon a plain downright way of fight against the King could have had no colour with the People; who are always in such popular confusions to be deceived and abused, to serve to others ends.  
Object. That they openly professed to manage their War for King and Parliament; not against his Person and Authority, but against Delinquents that were fled from Justice, and against evil Councillors.  
Answ. Mr. Baxter would make their War just, That it was professed and engaged to be managed for King and Parliament; Certainly, they did no more in this then all Subjects ever did that made War against their King, that is, to disstinguish the King's interest from the cause of the War: A less pretention cannot be for a Rebellion; Rebellion in the nature of it, is so much a Monster, as it seeks the best cover, and never has the face to pretend against the King. The fallaciousness of this, he himself evinced in his following, by saying, or at least concluding, That a subdued King is never fit again to rule over the People that subdued him: We need no other evidence now then the things themselves, so as we are to argue à posteriori, from the ends and issues, back to their causes; that is, that all War taken up by Subjects upon any pretence whatsoever, or by whatsoever caution, or limitation evermore, in the nature of it, intends the destroying of King and Kingdom.  
Object. That the two Nations of England and Scotland, did in the midst of the Wars, swear in the Solemn League and Covenant, to be true to the King.  
Answ. Still this was but the same thing to strengthen the confederacy; when at any time there should be a fainting or scrupling by the People, a new engagement, or profession to public ends, and to common preservation, whereof the King was the Head, would give new life to it. And this was all the use that ever was made of that Covenant; It never served the King at all, but to beat him down and destroy him.  
And all bringing the people into a body by Covenant, is unlawful; because Government merely consists in having no contracts of the people acting of themselves.  
And likewise the Covenant was not absolute, as a King's preservation should be, but had a lose in it, that made it nothing; It was with a so far, as consists with Religion, Laws, and Liberties: The King's life, and his Rights were not absolutely covenanted; O God forbidden, there should not be an exception, as to Religion, Laws, and Liberties! and this a destroying power would be interpreter of. So as this Covenant was like Nebuchadnezzar's Image; the upper parts of Gold and Silver, the lower parts of Iron, and base stuff; but the truth is, when men Covenant things contradictory, as to fight against the King, and to be true to him; they cannot be expected to perform better: for truth is of that Nature, that though men abuse it ever so much, yet it is unalterable: Effects are certain to their causes, and own their true Parents.  
Object. The Committees, Commanders, Ministers and People, throughout the Land; professed openly to go only upon such terms as managing but a defensive War against the King's miscarriages, but an offensive against delinquent Subjects.  
Answ. There is no such thing in Nature, as a defensive War against a King, by Subjects; as I shall more clearly demonstrate in due place. But in this Mr. Baxter grants, as far as is possible, to make it defensive, necessary, and of mere necessity on the King's part: It was offensive against delinquent Subjects, as much as to say, it was a War on the Parliaments part, to the destruction of the King's Subjects, and the King must be unconcerned in it, sit by and be idle; withdraw all protection, and become immediately out of possession. For such is the Nature, and being of a King, when an armed power is acting, and the King sedentary, and not resisting.  
In a Kingdom, a War cannot be against any party, and not against the King; for it deprives the King, of his governing power.  
Consider but what the Nature of a War taken up by the People is (for his Senate signifies nothing, he shall find the whole is but King and People); First, when it once becomes powerful, it gains from its very unlawfulness, a liberty to be governed by none; for in unlawful actions they are all equals. No obligation can arise but where there is a primary justice to fix it to, and we see in this, every thing that prevails never disputes right; and the reason is, because the whole is unlawful. And I present this to Mr. Baxter's reason, as it is visible to his observation, to show him that such a kind of War can be wicked, but cannot find a Justice to govern it; and his first of rebelling with caution, and condition, was a mere fiction. His next is a Narrative only.  
Object. In that it was known that the Army was quite altered, not only by a new modelling, but by an intestine Jesuitical corrupting of multitudes of Soldiers, before this odious Fact could be done. And it was known, that the corrupted part of the Army, though the fewer, did so excel the rest in Industry and Activity, that thereby they hindered their Opposition: And it is known that the Jesuited party, that afterwards so many of them turned Levellers, did draw unto them the Anabaptists, Libertines, and other Sects, upon a Conjunction of Interests, and by many sly pretences, especially tying all together by the predicated Liberty for all Religions. And yet after this, the World knows they were fain, before they could accomplish it, to master the City of London, to master the Parliament, to imprison and cast out the Members, and to retain but a few that were partly of their mind, and partly seduced or overawed by them, to join with them in the work.  
Answ. It is incident always that when a King's Power is dissolved, all Wickedness, and all manner of Factions and Divisions, do grow up in the place of it; for want of that Power to retain them, and their own guilt still driving them on, and being all equals in wickedness; these are so natural Causes as I wonder any one can dispute them: They lie all in the first Cause of taking away the King's Power, all the rest results out of it.  
And they themselves had proceeded so far, as to all Deprivations of the King, and all manner of Imputations and Proscriptions, as guilty of all the evil of the War; settling him in the condition of a Traitor, being King, kept him in custody after they had bought him of the Scots, and not enduring him to terms till the last, when it was too late.  
I grant, his party would not have had the King been killed; A poor reserve! when he is made incapable of any other condition. If the People did but know what it were to subdue their King, and deprive him of his Power, they would never dispute terms of disposing him: It is the same thing as killing, it stays but the acting: And this serus to all he says of this kind.  
And let me insert this, though I consent wholly to his Narrative; that it is very ordinary and natural, when a party acts in a joint wickedness and cruelty, and after grow into difference; the less able party will ever dislike what the other go thorough with to act, and pretend to a greater Justice and Moderation, when it is acted by others, and out of their Power: but more of this in the following.  
Object. It is known, that before they were put out and imprisoned by the Army, the Commons voted the King's Concessions in the Treaty, to be so far satisfactory, as that they would have proceeded on them, towards a full agreement. See Mr. Prin's large Speech in the house to that end: And if they had not suddenly been secluded and imprisoned, they had agreed with the King.  
Answ. This was when they had no other Interest left them but that of the King's, which they had laid by, and trampled upon perpetually, till now they must lose all unless they held by that: How endless and insatiate were they in exercising their own greatness upon the King's weakness; the People perpetually defrauded of the Accommodation by them thirsted after: Never any thing satisfactory, though they had all; and playing with this their own fortune, and most delectable greatness too long, at length (as all new excessive things are incident to change) the accidents by him mentioned fell in amongst themselves; and they were voting conclusions with the King, just the instant before they broke. Some secluded, some made Prisoners; some, to avoid worse, fled out of the Land.  
It is the misfortune and condition of Tyrants to be subject to their own Power, and Slaves to it. An Army especially, that servs but to Subjects against their Sovereign, will, though humble, and obedient at first, as all such things are, grow insolent; as to equals, treat conditions, and have other Interests. It is like a hand-Wolf, that though he will be played with for a time, yet his Keepers and Masters are Subject to be torn in pieces by him upon the change of his humour. Such was this their Army, a hand-Wolf too long played with, till it grew to know its own strength, and to consider that all Rights were alike against the King, and amongst the People.  
And then for the Nature of the Agreement with the King, It was that for some time, he should have been without his Power; and all agreements with a King that vest him not in his Power, are nothing at all in consideration to a King, for a future restoring, or for security against the present Power; they are things that cannot be, and any intervening time would have raised new accidents from so great an impending cause; the greatest in the World, beyond and above all conditions, and not being, can have no assurance of future being.  
I call to mind a Passage in a Book called A Plea for Parliaments, supposed to be written by Sir Walter Rawley, that it was moved in Parliament in Queen mary's time, that if she should die, leaving Issue; King Philip the Father, and now Matrimonial King, should hold the Kingdom till the Issue came of Age to govern, and strong bonds should be given for the Surrender. And a certain Lord (none of the wisest, saith the story) who had sat silent during the whole Debate, at last bolted out this Question; Who should sue those bonds against the King? They were all presently surprised, and so it fell, not a word more of it: As much as to say, An absolute Power in possession is above all Condition.  
Object. One thing I shall call him back to, that is, saying, That Multitudes who are now firm and loyal to the present Power, supposing it to be set over us by God, and therefore would abhor the like practices against them, do yet detest that Fact that intervened, and made way to it.  
Answ. I would desire to be satisfied, how Mr. Baxter can reconcile his Divinity. This Power set over us by God, therefore not to act against it: The King's Power either not in his sense set over us by God, or else why did he act against it? If he say, to reform it; then, why not this? Are all things so satisfactory to him in this as needs no Reformation? The other Power of the King's, peradventure in his sense, was not set over us by God. But how this is, I would desire him to distinguish, and when and where he would make a stop to man's acting: I should be very glad that the World were satisfied with it, that Supreme Power should be unquestionable; I would trust God and Man, and humane casual events, with my share out of it, because I see pretended Reformations never countervail the mischief of Rebellions.  
But in the mean time, I desire him to distinguish betwixt these two Interests, why he is indulgent to this now; and so much an Actor and Engineer employing his Divinity, Learning, and Passion, against the old. Let me still hold him to this his own ground, Set over us by God: Whether he means of God's general Providence as the great Governor of the World, and so assigning Governors subordinate, or else that he means it in special to this, out of his fancy, or favour to it: I would have him distinguish, and I am prepared for him with a further inquiry. But in the mean time, because I know not my future opportunities, I shall further trouble him, I suppose he will not otherwise call or account it Set over us by God, then as all other wicked things come to pass; as this did, through the blood and death of the King, which intervening cause he denotes detestable. Now what obligation extraordinary, and which the former Government did not, this throws upon man, is my Inquiry? Where shall man's Wisdom act or rest? This done by man, and why may not man undo his own Work? Is there a Fate upon him in one Action more than in another, if Reason doth nor state a difference? Is his Divinity otherwise intelligible to him than by his Reason? Does he act freely in some things, and not in all? Are some things of God, and not all things? If he will say, the being of Kings and Supreme Governors should oblige an unquestionable Obedience, let him answer then for destroying the former: Is a less Attribute due to a rightful King than to his Destroyer? His intended Reformation by a War, intended no less than destroying his Power to resist. Besides, it will be very hard for him, even in his own sense, to determine betwixt a true King driven or kept out, and a King in Fact, and by Usurpation and King-killing, which should draw to it the Right and Obligation of Conscience: and likewise hard for him to resolve, when the new is so settled, the other in being though out of possessing, as to make Obedience entire. Therefore surely it were best God were left out, who in these our miserable times hath been made a Stolen and a Colour for all the cruelties men have committed: Certainly Divinity, in understanding the Will of God, admits of some distinction betwixt things done to God's Glory, and the worst of Man's Actions, though all alike under the common Providence of God: But a little further, I desire his Patience to go along with me. A King killed to day, and the Regicide by his party becomes King in Fact, and in Power to morrow; then to morrow he obeys him with all Attributes of God's greatness, Will, Power, Goodness; and if him, another on the next day, then him too, and so on still. It is known, that after it began in Nero, how many Emperors came upon the stage of the World in a short space; killing and dispatching the present, gave being to the latter. Now, where will he define or place his Providence, or bond Man's acting? Certainly, if at all, in the first place, for many reasons; as the first lose or progression to Wickedness is the true cause of all the following; and because there is a natural stay in the first, which loosed, the like is not found in the following. The truth is, it is a foolish thing to tie up Man's reason more in one thing than in another; for if he argues things greater or higher to him, he argues still but to his reason.  
In the next he goes higher, and like a Stone falling, the nearer the Centre, the greater its force; so he, as he proceeds farther, grows fiercer about the King's being judged to death by his People, and he extenuates the Fact by the formality of it: I should wrong him not to give it him in his own words.  
Object. I must needs add, that every wise man sees that the case itself much differs from the Papists. If the Body of a Commonwealth, or those that have part in the Legislative Power, and so in the Supremacy, should unwillingly be engaged in a War with the Prince, and after many years' blood and desolations, judicially take away his life as guilty of all this Blood, and not to be trusted any more with Government: And all this do, not as private men, but as the remaining Sovereign Power, and say, they do it according to Laws: undoubtedly this case doth very much differ from the Powder-Plot, or Papists murdering of Kings, and teaching that it is lawful for a private hand to do it, if he be but an Heretic, or but deposed, yea, or excommunicated by the Pope.  
Answ. Mine throughout will give a larger consideration upon the whole; But to his particulars, as they pass from him.  
First he saith, have part in the Legislative Power, and so in the Supremacy, wherein he confounds them both together, and makes it but one and the same. To have part in the Legislative Power, as to the altering of Laws, or any other thing wherein it is exercised, implies a right in the People as to those things, and in the Nature of it a Negative Right: That is, that it could not be done without their consents; and this Negative Right gives them not a farther Right.  
Object. His next is, and judicially take away his life.  
Answ. The King's own words, at that hard time with him, when they sat over him as his Judges, are most worthy as from himself to be remembered; He told them how far his case was, their King, from being judged by them, when as all judicature was derived from him to them. And certainly, this alone of the King's carries Argument enough in it against all judging or condemning of King's or Supreams; for no Power can create a Power against itself, and nothing in nature can go higher than its first Cause: A Power derived out of the King, cannot be understood to be against the King. He goes on to criminate the King, whether his sense or supposition I know not.  
Object. As guilty of all that Blood.  
Answ. The King's unhappiness was, to be made guilty because he was not able to defend himself: And so shall every Prince be that is overcome by his Subjects, they must be guilty to be destroyed. Tyrant's Wickedness do but prepare a guilt for the cruelties they mean to act; It was the Kings own saying, That he had not one foot of Land in his own Kingdom, but what his Army stood upon. It was not possible to be a more necessitated War than the King's, for all the World knows, it was destiny upon him; never persons so obdurate as to take no conditions, never could find any Medium betwixt destroying their Sovereign, and their own desperateness. And the King's Interest wholly defensive, not only for himself but for his Kingdoms; and that made him say upon his death, which seals all truths, that he died his Kingdom's and his People's Martyr. It were easy to go upon demonstrative proofs in this, but it would involve the whole Cause, which we are to take in its parts.  
Object. And not any more to be trusted with Government.  
Answ. This is the reason in the Eye of the Law, which sees to the end in the first act, that all attempts to bring a King under any Power of his People, are the same as to destroy him; And this was resolved in the Case of the Earl of Essex, he would seize upon the Court, 
Camden's Annals, p. 547, 548.  take the Queen into his Power, not otherwise harm her; remove from her evil Counsellors, but honour her Person.  
Now this was all adjudged high Treason in every circumstance of it, because all depriving of a Sovereign Prince of his Power is the same as to destroy him. Essex himself said before his death, that the Queen and he both could not live; and others, the most eminent of his party, acknowledged that though it were not their design to destroy the Queen, yet it would have been the necessity of their proceeding, if they had prevailed; so as the effects of Rebellion Mr. Baxte● makes his Arguments. Before I put an end to these Papers I shall resume again his words, [No more to be trusted with Government,] to make inquiry into the Rights of Kings, and their Original; to find their first Cause, and to judge of their extent and terminations. But at present to his next.  
Object. And all this they do (that is, take away the King's life), not as private men, but the remaining Sovereign Power, and say, they do it according to Laws.  
Answ. Mr. Baxter's Objective words, without any proving, brings every thing to a question; as this hath two very great falsehoods and high presumptions in it: The one, a Sovereignty in the Parliament; the other, a lawfulness of killing the King. For the first, which is made the conveyance to the latter to erect so high a wickedness upon, a Parliamentary Supremacy, to make them an expedient to kill their King, is no more true, than that there were two Kings in England, two Suns in the Firmament of Government, two Centres in a Circle, two Infinites, or any Impossibility that can be imagined. But I shall have occasion to treat the Argument of the King's sole Sovereignty in divers passages; only at present to it, the Parliament is but a borrowed light, all derived out of the King, the Fountain; in opposition to the King it is but an opacous Body, the light withdrawn from it. Grotius states the case, 
Grotius de jure Villi, 54. inventi sunt nostro seculo.  whether Subordinates' may act against the Supreme Power; that is, whether any sort of Magistracy under a King have any quality or consideration in them, as dividing from the King; and he resolves it in the Negative: He reason's it thus, that these public Persons are but private in respect of the chief, and all the faculty of governing in them is so subjected to the chief Power, as whatsoever they act against the Will of that is defective of the faculty, and is but of the Nature of a private Act. I shall give it off here, because hereafter I shall demonstrate the impossibility of two Sovereignty's or Supremacies in one Government, and reduce Parliamentary Rights to their due Qualification.  
Now then, take away this, the other falls; this the Theatre Mr. Baxter erects for judging the King, and Scaffold for beheading him. The truth is, the Laws are all silent about this Question, Whether a Parliament may commit Tteason: so as if we shall not take them in their general understanding we have no law in this Case.  
It is a thing not to be doubted, that the Law never had it in imagination, that there was any exception to the committing of Treason; so as no such thing mentioned in Laws, nor ever entered into the mind of any Commentator, who writ at large, and many times their own conceits; yet it never came into the conceit of any Person, to except a Parliament for committing Treason. It is many times in Nature the strongest Law that which is not mentioned; because the case never imagined to be, and therefore not provided for.  
So as if Mr. Baxter will not take all the Laws that are general, without exception, to include all Persons, then is the King without Law, as against a Parliament.  
All the sense of the Laws respect the King without any consideration of Persons, no sense or intendment of that, but only the end to which it is directed; and therefore it is called Crimen laesae Majestatis; which shows where the end is, in the King's Preservation, but the means never differenced in respect of any.  
It were in vain to enumerate the Laws, and to aggravate them; all dread, and all saving, being to the life of the Government, the King.  
This differencing is out of all Laws, never thought of; it had its Law and Execution at once, as Treasons are never owned till they are acted.  
But let the Reader consider upon the Statute 25 Edw. 3. which is the Declarative of Treasons, whether there is discernible any differencing in it, or exceptions of Persons, or Callings, or of qualities, or any imagination of this Proposition, till now that wickedness strives to defend itself.  
I shall take occasion here to speak to former actings of Parliaments upon Kings, deposing them, and consequently killing them; because the Nature of man is, to think any thing that hath been done may be done, and so never finds end of wickedness but to make it infinite. Any extraordinary or transcendent acting upon Government, though never so unlawful and violent, yet if it become powerful, it commonly creates something to others to derive from it; as those Persons, whom Mr. Baxter would vindicate, long before they divided, declared, That in case they should act to the highest Precedents, they should not fail in duty or trust; having their eye and aim upon the deposing of Kings, Ed. 2. & Rich. 2. And the last Actors that completed the Tragedy, conclude power of Parliaments from former destroying Kings, and setting up others.  
I shall produce it only into some considerations by Epitome only, leaving the large Subject of it to the Histories, how those Princes came to be declined, and lose their Power. The first, Edw. 2. his condition was, to be Prisoner to his own Queen, and his Son, a Prince of fourteen years of Age; and the implacable hatred of the Queen and her party was such, as the King must be destroyed; no competition being to them both: The whole Power was with them; they call a Parliament, which acted merely as they prescribed. The King, deposed by Act of Parliament, submitted, and resigned, in hope of life, which he could not have. The other as unhappy, Richard II. Prisoner to the Usurper Henry of Lancaster his Cousin-Germane. The Fate of subdued Kings by Traitors, is ever to run into the same Centre; Traitors leave nothing undone of the last Act of destroying. Now, the actings being thus, what are the considerations upon it; First, these Persons, and the Parliament, were the first that ever acted so in England, and so must derive the Justice and Authority of it out of themselves, and nothing from whatsoever had been done before.  
Next, there was no such thing as King or Parliament in the Nature of it. As well Jack Cade, or Wat Tyler, if they had completed their Rebellion, might have convened any party out of the People, calling it a Parliament, & set himself up King; for one Subject hath as much Right to be King as any other.  
Next, such a Parliament as it was, it was the Subject of an Army; the Army of the Usurper, by which he had got Possession, and destroyed the King's Power; so as in effect, condemning, deposing, was the Act of the Army absolutely; for so it must be done, by such a party called a Parliament, and for the purpose; and so are all our Mock-shews, to set up any wickedness, own Authority, but act servilly, and are mere imposture.  
Next, the Act, horrid Treason as was imaginable or possible to be in Nature: Now the Question comes to be, Whether doing wickedly can create a lawfulness? If so, all sins and villainies by the perpetrating them, lose their Natures to be evils, and become lawful; A conceit, nothing that comes into imagination can be more monstrous! There must be a first lawfulness in every Act, else the doing it, is a Wickedness; and still that wickedness perpetuated and multiplied in the after-acting it.  
Next, this condemned by the first Parliament that was upon the change of the Power; for so long as the Power continued it stood for good, as all Wickedness does. But the Parliament under the rightful King, damns it as traitorous, detestable, to be driven out of the World, never to rise up again, pulling down God's Judgements upon the Land, Civil War, and all the Plagues of it: I shall conclude this, that Wickedness can be no Precedent.  
Now, having gone along with him upon his particulars, which he only asserts, not proves; my next is, to take notice and mind him that he is very near losing his cause, which I fear he will do anon; for he is arguing to a lawfulness in their putting the King to death, and it is his business to keep himself out of it; and likewise the Parliament's Cause, and War, and the Religion, Protestant and Presbyterian.  
Now, being himself a chief Professor and Actor in those-Interests, if he finds Argument for it, so far it is his Reason; if his Reason, why not his Opinion (I know not the difference); if his Opinion, why not of the party: Thus he winds and screws himself into that Interest he would disclaim, and says more for it than the Actors themselves; and he concludes with these words, And they say, so as he says it and yet makes it their saying.  
Either Mr. Baxter holds it lawfully done or unlawfully; if lawfully, than he loses his cause, which is a disclamer of it as unlawful; if unlawfully, than his Judgement is, that Form of Law used to unlawful Actions, makes them less evil.  
In Answer to it; This is an Opinion so strange, that forms of Justice, put to wickedness to act it by, should be the good of it, or make it a less evil, that I never heard it reasoned, but condemned in Nature; very Nature itself hath an abhorrency to it, when we see Laws, and Justice, and Tribunals, and any thing that is good in its self to be made the means to wickedness.  
Now I shall inquire into the causes; First, it is because the Law is the Rule and measure of all Justice and Righteousness, and therefore the perverting of that begets a common Injustice, and this far exceeds the Nature of any particular evil, because it refers and relates to the common condition of men: All murdering by Law is most wicked and noxious, because the Law itself in its truth and righteousness is murdered in it; and therefore great actions of public Injustice, the Laws drawn down to serve to them, are looked upon as Prodigies; and this Argument is such as needs no amplification or addition to it, it contains all in itself.  
Then the villainy and apostasy of it, when it is done purposely of design and by Hypocrisy, this comprehends in it the complicate nature of Wickedness when Hypocrisy is added to it, and when that he calls Legal, Judicial, is made instrumental of it; the Law debauched, and bawded to serve to the interest of a wicked action; this is the very height of wickedness, it cannot in nature go higher. And hence it is, Hypocrisy, and false pretensions, and disguising our corruptions with shows, and false owning of good, is so hateful, and abominable, and detested an agravation of all evil, and wickedness.  
It was an instance given in Parliament by the Lord Digby, upon the trial of the Earl of Strafford, to illustrate the nature of acting wickedness by Law, which they were going upon, that one having gotten with Child his Brother's Daughter, to mend the matter, and to his further end of enjoying her, marries her; and this is condemned by the Casuists, as adding to the simple sin of Incest, by the Ordinance of Marriage abused to it. This shows the nature of it; but we shall find it higher presidented in that of Naboth: The design being the having his Vineyard, the means must be such as would serve to the end; a less means then to take away his life, would not do it; private murder will not serve, it must be such a way as he must be condemned, and lose his Inheritance with his life. The Elders of the City are plotted with in it; the solemnity of a Fast used; it must be done formally, Judicially; they gave Judgement, as appears, because they received testimony, heard Witnesses, then kill and possess. Nor this neither, though extremely wicked, rises up to the height of the King's Case; no parallel in the world for it.  
If it be objected, That they did not act deceitfully, but believingly, though wickedly; this is manifest against it, that they resolved the death of the King before they tried him. Mr. Baxter cannot be so blinded with partiality, as to believe the King in any case should have come off, or been acquitted, but precondemned; and thus to make him more the subject of their cruelties and scorn; and by a kind of Judgement, to be the fatal period of Kingship to the Nations; so as it was nothing but a direful design, dark as Hell, a mere conspiracy; And Pageantry in the acting of it, and the Law abused to it, false in every part of it, to do it in the name of the People, and Parliament, so as in this, Mr. Baxters' reason utterly deserts him, or else he contracts all the guilt, and odium of it upon himself, to extenuate the evil of the Act, by that which was the exquisite wickedness of it, the formality and owning Authority in doing it.  
Then to descend from the evil in the nature of it to a politic consideration of it; this goes to the Calling, the other but to the Person, this brings all Kings under their people: The difference betwixt this and that of the Pope is, Things may be as evil as is possible, yet not so extensively evil; this is as universal as man is: for where men are, must be Government. This judicial way which he places as the good of it, is such a Monster in the precedent and practice of it, as all the World is concerned in it. It strikes a greater blow than the kill of many Kings; the Calling killed in it; the privilege and exemption of Supreme Governors killed in it; the very essence of Government killed in it; the subordination to God, and to be judged by none but God killed in it; all is beaten down and trampled upon by this act, the whole frame of nature over-turned; No such thing as Government can be, if the governed may judge and execute their Governor.  
Then the manner of it by this formality, makes it viler upon the precious person of a Sovereign King than assassination, murdering, or sudden dispatching; The King to be subjected to so miserable a condition, as to be made appear a criminal at the Tribunal of his Subjects: And if he had answered out of any poor, embasing hope, he had stained that sacred Prerogative of Kings, Not to be judged: And all the tedious and odious formalities that did attend this, which horror makes me not express, but take it inwardly, as that we own the victims of our sorrow to.  
To conclude it, I confess before this horrid production, I thought nothing could be worse than that of the Pope: but now is the world of wickedness enlarged, and such a Monster as seems to add to Nature; the odium of it taints the English Nation, and will do as long as memory is of any thing: for he cannot deny it English, though so many out of it, so few in it.  
Now after all this, I do admire how Mr. Baxter can dispense with the Scriptures, against using force to Kings, or destroying them. His distinction of Parliamentary right will not serve, since it is absolutely forbidden.  
Thou shalt not revile the Gods, nor Curse the Ruler of thy People. 
Exod. 22. ver. 28.   
That they may have to offer sweet Odours to the God of Heaven, and pray for the King's life and his Sons. 
Ezr. 6.10.   
This was customary with the Jews, to pray for the King; which being practical in God's Worship, was more than Precept.  
Against thee, thee only have I sinned. 
Psal. 51.4.   
That is, None to judge the King's sin, but God: He might be evil, but the offence was only to God. The offence respected the Judge of it, which is God only.  
Curse not the King, no not in thy thought. 
Eccl. 10. ver. 20.   
This not thinking, is a restraint of all evil, since all evil is a first thinking evil; so as this is an universal prohibition.  
My Son fear thou the Lord, and the King, and meddle not with the seditious, for their destruction shall rise suddenly. 
Prov. 24. ver. 21.   
This proves the natural dependency of it, The fear of the King on the fear of God; than it goes to the reason of it, fear the King, not to rebel against him.  
I will conclude it with that of David, cautionary to his own Soul; Who can lay his hand on the Lords Anointed, and be guiltless? 
1 Sam. 26. ver. 9  A full definitive sentence in the Case, that no violence can be offered to a King's person.  
And that this was general to all Kings, see the consent of all Scriptures.  
Let every Soul be subject to the Higher Powers, for there is no Power but of God, and the Powers that be, are ordained of God; and whosoever resisteth the Power, resisteth the Ordinance of God; and they that resist, receive to themselves damnation. 
Rom. 13.   
Now that all these Powers doth properly intent a King, the words following are, For Princes are not to be feared for good works, but for evil.  
And then after, in the singular number, He is the Minister of God, and he beareth not the Sword for nought.  
Now this Text, as it makes subjection absolute, so it takes away all parity of Powers; it intends one Supreme. And Powers in the nature of it, is but one Power, for all subordinate Powers flow out of it, and refer to it.  

1 Tim. 2.  Exhort therefore that first of all Supplications, Prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men, for Kings, and all that are in Authority, that we may live a peaceable life in all Godliness and honesty; for that is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour.  
This present Emperor was a Tyrant, Claudius Nero, which stops all objection from the Kings misusing his Authority, it looks to the good of Government in general, and to the evil in general, of resisting to Government.  

1 Pet. 2.13.  Submit yourselves to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake, whether unto Kings as Supreme, or unto Governors, as unto them that are sent of him.  
Here all Government is included in the King; sent of him, that is out of him, and acts by him: And submission to Government here is made essential to Godliness.  

1 Pet. 2.17.  Fear God, Honour the King.  
Making them connaturals, and that the fear of God cannot consist with dishonouring the King; the word Honour includes all subjection in it.  
Having taken forth these Scriptures thus clearly, and considered all the united force of them for preservation of Kings, and for all Allegiance and fidelity to them, I reason thus, as to Mr. Baxter, and his Case, that the very force of Scripture, and Word of God, will not permit any such thing to be, as a lawfulness of killing or judging a King, or that possibly Law, or Authority amongst men, should be repugnant to the voice of God, being general and universal, for obedience to Kings, and not to offer violence to them; To acknowledge (as he needs must) that the Scripture commands such things of Kings. But we have a Parliament, a thing made out of the people, that may lawfully condemn and execute the King; This is a mere contradiction to God himself: no pretence of man can dissolve the universal Will of God, declared without exception; for a King he is, and no distinction can frustrate the will and command of God, for so it should be subject to a lie if it should come under man.  
And then to consider, that truths stated in Moral duties, never lose their natures, but are ever the same.  
And now I am loath yet to part with these Scriptures, till I have made a full claim to the sense of them, howsoever Mr. Baxter deal with them afterwards.  
Let every Soul be subject, etc. which is to the King, which I have proved, and the Text shows it; Is it not exclusive of any power, to be against the King? Every Soul; the word hath a strange emphasis in it; every Soul, that is, bringing it to a singularity, and nearest distinction of man by his Soul, which is most himself, and wherein he acts his subjection; and so precisely, and individually, every, containing all.  
Then to fear the Lord and the King; that is both as one, the condition of the one implying the other. Then forbidding to join with seditious, or such as are given to Change; which directly points out Rebellion: And then the case of very Tyrants, commanding supplications to God for them, showing directly the nature of Supreme Governors to be born by the people, whatsoever their condition be. And then setting forth all Government of subordinate's, to be but the King's Government, virtually in him, nothing of themselves pierce. And then, Curse not the King, admit not an evil thought of him, pray for him; still so many steps to his preservation, keeping all harm or hurt far off him, must needs intent the greatest, of not destroying him: Then to call them Gods, an exemption from all humane Tribunals, above the condition of mankind, subject to God only; as Supreme Governors cannot in nature be other: and then, generally submission to them for the Lords sake; that is to say, God's Service included in it.  
Now if out of all this we cannot make a construction, that Kings ought not to be destroyed by the People, or by any sort or calling of them under any Form, Guise, or pretence whatsoever; then nothing can be conclusive to man.  
If after all this, there be any thing for Mr. Baxter to pretend to, and not utterly give up his cause, he must make the King of England to be such a thing as not to be within the intendment of these Scriptures: Not a King, not a Supreme Governor, not so qualified, or to be so obeyed, or acknowledged, a thing merely nominal, and conditional, under some other Supremacy, and subject to a forfeiture of himself; That this was so at his beginning, and admitting; that time and succession hath given him no other right since; that all this proves itself so to be: That the Parliamentary was the only Primary right, and only natural, and National, and Kings their Servants, and trusties, and accountable; And that the Government so began, when no King was, and his being still under a condition; and the condition no less than to be subject to a lawful destroying Power.  
If all this were, which is as far from truth as madness itself; yet I think that God would take it ill that we should mock him, to set up a King to Govern, and then to reserve a Power to destroy him, against his Word, and meaning: for the very power of Governing invests him with all these rights of protection; virtually all these Attributes fall to him by his actual governing.  
It is a principle in nature, that Supremacy attracts all right to it, and all perfection: to be King, and not perfect, is impossible. And this I will say at last of the King himself, which I think his very enemies and destroyers cannot deny, that never any Prince fell by his people, that had fewer faults, and more virtues.  
Now at last my exception to Mr. Baxter is, that he personates the Protestants, so as to destroy them, and their Religion. There is no other way of keeping the guilt and imputation of that horrid accursed act from the Religion, but by a total condemnation of it. We say, and justly, that it was an act that transcends all that ever was, worse and more infernal, and execrable, than any thing else the Pope or man can do.  
Now Mr. Baxter out of his particular, makes it the Protestant interest, that it be not so evil as the wickedness under the Religion of Papists, and so puts it upon the Protestants account, of whatsoever nature it be, and makes it their interest to extenuate the evil of it, which is a mere involving them, and their cause into it, and the most unjust in the World; for, Is a Religion to answer for what wickedness men do in it: I mean, being of it, or professing it? But thus he loves to hale all Interests after him, to follow his sense. Let him himself be in love with it, extenuate it, find Jesuitical abstracted, quintessential notions, to dissolve all Allegiance upon Terms, let him take it to himself, and not make it more general than his own party.  
Having done with this sad subject, we will see him in his next, whither he will lead us.  
Object. It is a grievous Case, that the Senate or Body of a Nation should think themselves necessitated to defend themselves, and the Church and State, against their Prince, or any that act by his Commands; it will strongly tempt them to think that the end is to be preferred before the means; and, it ceaseth to be a means which is against or destructive to the end.  
Answ. The poor unfortunate King, that could never by any possible compliance and means beg off his own and his Kingdoms ruin of them, was wont to tell them, when they used the great Argument of necessity for all violent actions, that they were necessities of their own making. Because their ends were exorbitant, and such as the Laws would not bear, they must proportion the means, which drew on the necessities.  
Now to his preferring the end before the means; a principle he is fallen upon, and the most dangerous one of the World; for by this he may decline all Truth and Justice, to go the next way over to his ends: and yet a very strong one, that the end is that for which the means is; there is no use or consideration of the means, but to the end: By this ground he hath laid flat all Honesty, Truth, Goodness, whatsoever; for it may be it doth not suit to the end. And hence it was, that their ends being Reformation (as they call our Deformation and Destruction) it could not be done by a less means: I do but mind him of this, his party having made so much use of it. The truth is, if men would tie themselves to the Justice of the means, they could never attain to unjust ends.  
Object. It is essential to governing Power to be for common good.  
Answ. No doubt but it is, as appears by their destroying the Government, and we never had any good since. But without taking this advantage, I will give him a further Answer, from the nature of Government, and every other thing we call good; that is, good in the generality, not exact good in every action of it.  
Object. It is no Authority which is used against common good.  
Answ. Then there is no Authority in the World; for there is no Authority or Magistracy, but at some time or other is used against it. He multiplies forward still,  
Object. It would tempt them also to think that God never gave Power to any against himself, or above his Laws, or against the end of Government.  
Answ. He should prove here, that God gave them a Right of destroying both the King and the Government; for that is the Case: For he confesseth the War raised by themselves against delinquent Subjects.  
But to answer to this, as he intends it; God doth some times give evil Governors, and doth he not likewise give them Power? God himself forespoke in Saul, and then concluded the People, in these words; then, that is, when they were oppressed by their King, 
1 Sam. 8.18. Grotius de jure Belli, 81.  shall they cry out; that is to say, seek help of God (Quia scilicet humana remedia nulla extarent, Grotius exposition of it) call to God for help; that is, there was no means of resistance to be used on their part. His next,  
Object. A Senate, or the Body of a Nation, will be apt to think themselves fit to discern when the Public safety is dangerously assaulted, and will hardly be brought to trust any one to be the final Judge of their necessity; as thinking, such a public necessity proves itself, and needs no Judge but sense and reason to discern it.  
Answ. Suppose there had been no Parliament, this Argument would have served for the Body of the People to rise up, and take away the King's Power, as not fit to judge of the necessity, or to be trusted with the Public safety.  
It was the King's Act to call a Parliament, and 'twas his and our ruin that he put himself upon it.  
Having hitherto kept equal pace with him in these his several distinct heads, give me leave in general to censure of them; that is, that in them he hath sown the seeds of all the Rebellions in the World: Let them be taken as truths, abstractedly, without their alloy or composition, (as so the very Elements would destroy us,) no Government can stand. Do we not, as often as we err in any thing, employ the means against the end? and shall we, as often, fall out with our selus? These abstracted Considerations cannot consist with the being of Man, which is not certain in any thing, but subject to error; and as often as ever a King errs, so often, by his Argument, the means is against the end, and loseth the essence of a governing Power. So as by Mr. Baxter's Learning, there can never want matter for Rebellion.  
In the next, he raiseth his Parliament as an out-work to affront and batter Monarchy, in these words,  
Object. And if they also think, that the fundamental Constitution of the Government doth make the Senate the highest Judge of the safety or danger of the Republic; and that it is Treason against the Commonwealth, and (as Politicians say) against the Majestas realis, to rise against them.  
Answ. Mr. Baxter hath of this in several places, the Parliament's Supremacy, it is his Goliath: I shall answer generally to it at once.  
Now the Arguments may be many, I will make it but a Passage, not a serious Debate, and give but hints of truths that may be enlarged.  
The first is, that I am sure, though I was not of that time, that Kings were when Parliaments were not; and then, must be granted absolute, the other not in being: We cannot suppose here in England any time of Government without Kings, and the Kings themselves thought it best to convene the People, to draw thereby aids of the Public, by public consent; and likewise, to have all Counsels and all Grievances in common; to be common in helps and means which is strongest; and peradventure, to balance the Lo●ds by this popular Power.  
Whatsoever the ends were in it, or the use to be made of it, or accidents that grew out of it, it shows it was a Creature merely of the King's Will and creating; and therefore cannot be intended but to act under him, and to his help, as the end of its Being: So being called by the King in this sense, they bear in them the People's Rights, whatsoever was left in the People to be disposed of by their own consent: Their Power therefore must hold proportion with that; that is, only in the quality of the People, as to complain of Grievances, and petition Redresses, to give their private to the Public, and to consent to alter Fundamentals as there shall be cause; all which are the natural Rights of the People, and common consent is required to them.  
Now this does not reach at all to Mr. Baxter's sense of sharing with the King in Supremacy, and Power, and right of governing nothing at all of it. All Parliament rights have their station below governing, it is by accident when they meddle with the Government, as about the causes that require their help. And all great, and outward relations, and inward, may be Objects of this great Body of the People, as their help is required; but this with that caution, as the King puts them on, and takes them off: So jealous a thing is Sovereignty itself.  
And it is a nice distinction to make them Judges of the necessity, and not to judge of the cause of the necessity; and therefore involve themselves sometimes in it too far, and the retreats have been difficult. No doubt, this must needs be a strange, great, considerable Power in the consequence of it, that which all the rest moves by, and is the matter or means of the Government: But this does not alter the Nature of it.  
It is a most noble Constitution, because it begets treatment betwixt Prince and People; and there is a correspondency betwixt the giving of the one, and the retribution of the other; but when either make too much use of their Power it destroys the order, and the inconvenience is so intolerable to the Nation, as they are brought again to it, and must correspond.  
Now nothing preserus so much as when things keep to their Natures. The good of Parliaments does consist within their own rights, and not to enter into the King's; for than it breaks the Parliament, or the Parliament breaks the Government.  
To return to the nature of the Objection of  Power of Parliaments; The Parliament is a Creation that comes out of the King's Will and Power; nothing of Power to beget itself; and therefore cannot be understood to serve to another end, against that which was its cause, and which itself had absolute Being without it.  
Never to this day, they have Power to their own Being, but at the King's Will; a mere Entity first in the King's Will, before it can have any in them; so as they are merely Creatures, having their Creation from another's Will, and so to determine them after they are in being, which shows the most absolute depending on another Power that possibly can be.  
Hence rationally, and consequently of this it must be, that the end is of the Agent and Author, and not to be their own end, that did not, nor could not, move to their own Being; so as merely it follows, A Parliament is the King's business because it flows out of his Will: And some Acts have been made by consent of Kings for certainty of Parliaments, but have not bound Kings; for we see, they have been discontinued many years together: So certain it is, that Regal Right cannot be restrained.  
Now, the King's good and the People's, are so necessarily conjoined, as it cannot be supposed they can serve the King, but it must conserve the Kingdom, and all the People: And hence flows all public considerations and conclusions; the whole Interest of the Nation resolves itself into it, and all the Powers submit to it; because all parties are in it by convention or representation, and the King can make lawful whatsoever they can consent to.  
But without the King they are a mere inanimate Body, and can act nothing; they are as the Womb or Matrix, the King is the generative Masculine part, that gives life and production, and actuates and forms their conceptions.  
And the difference not rightly conceived begets the mistake, confounding their Power with that of ordinary standing Courts, which act by the King's Power invested in them, which he cannot withdraw, or deny to; and this of Parliaments, which is extraordinary and by the King's consent. And then too, their work is about the generality, not to do with the ordinary proceed of Law proper to other Courts, but only the abuse of them.  
The Author of the History of Independency affirms, pag. 35. 
History of Independency, 35.  that the judicial Power of the House of Lords is by the King's special Authority: his Argument upon it is, The King makes them Admiministrators and interpreters of his Laws, but he never trusts any but himself with the Power of pardoning, and dispensing with the rigour of the Law, in Criminal cases: And though the Lord Keeper is Speaker of the Lord's House of course, yet he is no Member of the Lord's House, virtute Officii. The Judges are not Members but Assistants only; so that no man in the House of Peers, as he is simply a Peer, is trusted by the King, either by dispensation of Law or Equity.  
When a Peer of Parliament, or any man else is tried before the Lords in Parliament, criminally, he cannot be tried by his Peers only, because in acts of Judicature there must be a Judge Superior, who must have his Inferiors ministerial to him: Therefore in the Trial of the Earl of Strafford, as in all other Trials upon Life and Death in the Lord's House, the King grants his Commission to a Lord High Steward to sit as Judge, and the rest of the Lords are but in the nature of Jurors; so that it is the King's Commission that authorizeth and distinguisheth them.  
When a Writ of Error issueth out of the Chancery to the House of Peer●, they derive their Authority merely from that Writ: For the three Reasons aforesaid, the House of Peers is no Court of Judicature at all without the King's special Authority granted to them either by his Writ, or his Commission.  
As for the House of Commons, they never pretended to any Power of Judicature, and have not so much Authority as to administer an Oath. Thus far his,  
But the Argument is not at all pertinent as to the House of Lords whom they have expelled, and all Form of Parliament or Callings, but in the People; their ground is only upon a House of Commons, as the People's Representatives. Nevertheless, we take the whole, and give truly the Nature of a Parliament; for the perfectest way of rejecting Falsehood is by delineating the true Form.  
It is not imaginable for a King to govern without the assistance and assent of the Peers, for Government cannot stand alone; for as they are ever a party, where any King is: the Question is only of the Commons, 
Prin's plea for Lords, pag. 182.  which is an Adjunct; and therefore the Searchers into Antiquity take upon them to antedate them, and derive them but as an Accident to the Government in England.  
But to take it in the whole, it being a truly poised Government and mixed Interest, hath left so great a share in the People as serus to treat their King's with, and be at all times able to gain conditions: And God forbidden any Power should deny to the People's good; it can be no end of Government, and therefore he is not single or alone, but hath common consent in the great Interests of the Nation, changing or making Laws, or making impositions; He must have common consent to this, and this draws all the rest to it, since hardly any thing can move but by these two Interests; and this is the balance of the Government, to make it hang equal betwixt Prince and People.  
And the evils and mischief that sometimes redounds is from the abuse of it, not from the Nature of it, being the best composition of Government in the World, and the People freer under it than in any Commonwealth Government, which they call free Government; the Reason is a Secret till looked into Physically, that is this (best of all to be seen in our late, long, odious, Parliament), there all the People's Liberties were swallowed up, the People uncreatured as it were, no defensive, all in the Parliament; when as in the King and Parliament the People have a direct party, and a defensive, as there shall be cause, against any deprivation of their Rights.  
There are some Signals of Kingly absolute Right, which need but naming, as the King's Adviseray, to Bills which he will not pass, which was ever effectual, as to a total condemnation.  
So as here was no Power out of the King, all reduced to him in his last Power of denying, and likewise of pardoning. And this needs not plead any right for it, but right of Nature, in reason of Government, else without such a Power the King might be reduced to nothing. And a King never falls or loseth his Power, but he is lost in himself too: He does not retain Kingly Government but on condition to perish with it.  
And therefore all Laws are styled of Grace, and petitioned for; because the People, till they are passed the Royal assent, have but a Right in Reason to them, not in Law; only from the Supreme Law of Salus Populi, which is the comprehensive of all Laws.  
The common mistake is, because the King cannot do such and such things without the Parliament, Ergo, The Parliament governs the King. Now, as to this, Many may be said to govern me, so as to restrain me, that I cannot go beyond my own Power, and yet this no active governing Power over another; this is the easiest thing to conception that can come into imagination. Is there not, where any Right is, which we call property, a power of denying? And this is all the absolute Parliamentary power, considered dividedly from the King; and this vast inconsequence, containing all the means almost to be King, unless the King would break throw it, which is the hardest task any King can go about; yet nothing of the Nature of governing power, no agency or efficiency in it by itself, but only a mere Negative. Because I am engaged in this consideration, I will resort back to the state of the Question, of a Parliament to be the highest Judge of the safety, or danger of the Republic: The Answer is direct, that the King is the sole Judge of the safety or danger of the Republic; as King he is only trusted, and there cannot be two such judging powers; for then there can be no determination, when they stand in competition.  
Therefore all the Powers in the Kingdom act subordinately to the King, and not against or athwart the King's Power, for that were for a Being to destroy itself.  
The distinction lies in this, that they have nothing to do with the King's Power, but the People's Rights; which they dispose of by the King's consent, and not absolutely at all out of themselves.  
In this they may oppose the King's desire; that is, they have a Negative Power, not to be compelled, or the People to be put out of possession without them.  
But where the disagreement is, they are to acquiesce, and so nothing comes of it, and the King fails of his end; this is the height of their power.  
Their Bills, which they are free to make, contain in them Grievances to be reform, which implies complaint and consent; whatsoever the King cannot do by his quality singly as King, he doth by consent of the People; and that is the Character of a Parliament, the People; for it directly represents the Universality, the People; and hath directly and truly no power but what is nationally and naturally the People's, so as look upon that, you find this, and no difference at all in it; hence consenting and denying, giving, aiding, being natural properties of Rights, are left to them, as the People in them: And this, though great, as to all the means of governing, it doth not come near it; so vast a difference is betwixt being free in mine own, and having Power over another's, as no reason needs to be given of it.  
Nevertheless, the King, as the common Interest, is not to be supposed deficient of the Public means; that were unnatural: therefore as to Government itself, all means are lawful; nor any thing so concerning to the People, as to keep the temperament; for when they destroy that, they lose the means to their own good.  
I might leave it here in its causes, but I shall say something by way of Precedent.  
Queen Elizabeth, the greatest Courter of her People, and yet the best Governor, would lose nothing of her Prerogative; she did every thing with her Parliament as with Subjects; they knew their own business, and she would keep them to it; and abundantly the better for their obedience, for every thing is good or evil as it is governed.  
Not a Fast, or Humiliation day, or Preaching, 
His Plea for the Lords, p. 409.  as learned Mr. Prin hath given the recital of it, that they could set up for themselves, but she would check it, and bring them to Humiliation for it.  
So dangerous a wise Prince sees it, popular liberty but to begin to creep out. They had essays upon her about Marriage: she would not admit the pressure upon her, nor suffer them to be Judge in it.  
Then after, that of her Successor; that went nearer to her, 
Camden's An a●s, Elizb.  a pinching thought, and in this the repulse of them was harder, because apparently did depend upon it the safety, or danger of the Kingdoms after her; yet in this, she was resolved 'twas too precious to her to part with it to them, kept it to the last hour of her life; when she could live no longer, than she declared a Successor, imprisoned their Members that promoted it, laid absolute peremptory command upon the House against it, 
Pryn's Plea for the Lords, p. 410, 411.  at other times imprisoned their Members, and would usually tell them, when they exceeded, that it was in Her to give them being, and to dissolve their being, and to assent and descent to any thing done in Parliament. This from the best and wisest of Princes; well knowing, that it is not possible for a Prince to be just to the People, without true obedience from the people.  
King James his time, by some Passages then in the Parliaments, will show us the difference betwixt Regal Right, and Parliamentary Right. Parliament 5 James, 
Dr. Rawley's result from Sir Francis Bacon, p. 38, 39  the Earl of Salisburyes words to a Committee of the House; That matter of War or Peace, was Arcanum Imperii, and must be kept within the vail; nevertheless that sometimes, Parliaments have been made acquainted with matter of War and Peace, in a generality; but it was upon one of these two motives, when the King and Council conceived, that either it was material to have some declaration of the zeal, and affection of the people; or else when the King needed to demand moneys, and aids, for the charge of the War. The Earl of Northampton, at the same time, another of the Council of State, that both by Philosophy, and Civil Law, Ordinatio belli et pacis, est absoluti Imperii. He further reasoned, That the composition of the House of Common, was merely Democratical, and intended to have a private and local Wisdom, as to the places that sent them, and not fit to examine secrets of State, which depend upon variety of circumstances; and although there be divers Gentlemen in the mixture of the House, that are of good capacity, and insight in matters of State, yet that was the accident of the person, not the intention of the place; and things are to be taken in the institution, not in the practice.  
The Parliament of the 18th of King James, was a Parliament of contest and dispute; and held out long by an able King, and a severe People. It was an effectual Parliament as to the granting of Subsidies, and reforming abuses, yet in the end thrown off. The evils that it had to work upon, were the evils of Peace, and making danger of Religion a Monster; and looking at it through the glass of their own Passions, would dictate extremes to the King about it, and the Spanish match formidable; and the King's unkindnesses from Parliaments, had put him upon petty helps, as livelihoods, Monopolies: about those bred no breach, but was matter served them to work upon, and wholly put to them, and the persons offenders in it exposed, and the King himself a chief actor to suppress it: And to pull down the Chancellor Bacon for Bribery, was their work; yet at last, it had not a legal end of a Parliament, but dissolved by Proclamation, and Crimination. The King enforced to this: for this King never acted to public offence by his Passion, but merely his necessity. Therefore I shall resort back, and take some remarks and passages of the proceed along with me, to find where the stone of it was.  
After the matter of the punishments were over, the great and high considerations, as for diversion of the Match with Spain, and declaring war against that King for the Palatinate, and new devised pressures upon Papists, and pressing executions of Laws upon them; so as they involve all the King's Interest into their hands, under the notion, that it was the Kingdom's Interest. The King hearing of this, and it beating thorough his sides, betakes himself to high resolution; and to prevent the prejudice of receiving it formally from them, writes thus to the Speaker.  
These are to command You to make known in Our Name unto the House, that none therein shall presume henceforth, to meddle with any thing concerning Our Government, or deep matters of State; and namely, not to deal with Our dearest Son's Match with the Daughter of Spain, and also not to meddle with any man's particulars, which have their due motion in Our ordinary Courts of Justice. And whereas we hear they have sent a Messenger to Sir Edwin Sandis, to know the reasons of his late restraint, You shall in Our Name resolve them, That it was not for any misdemeanour of his in Parliament. But, to put them out of doubt of any question of that nature that may arise among them hereafter, You shall resolve them in Our Name, That we think Ourselves very free, and able to punish any man's misdemeanours in Parliament, as well during their Sitting, as after.  
Their Answer by way of Petition to the King: first Palliating over, and with the manner and inducements to go upon such things, they have these words; In the discourse whereof we did not assume to ourselves, any power to determine of any part thereof, nor intrude upon the Sacred bounds of your Royal Authority; to whom, and to whom only, we acknowledge it doth belong to Resolve of Peace and War, and of the Marriage of the most Noble Prince, your Son; but as your most loyal and humble Subjects and Servants, representing the whole Commons of your Kingdom, who have a large interest in the happy, and prosperous Estate of your Majesty, and your Royal Posterity, and of the flourishing Estate of Our Church, and Commonwealth; did resolve, out of our cares, and fears, truly and plainly, to demonstrate these things to your Majesty, which we were not assured could otherwise come so safely, and clearly to your knowledge; and that being done, to lay the same down at your Majesty's feet, without expectation of any other answer of your Majesty touching these higher points, than what at your good pleasure, and in your own time should be held fit.  
Now if we do but make a breathing space, and a stop here, or being like getting to some height of ground look about us, certainly it shows, that no Supremacy is pretended to, but utterly disclaimed; and all resolving, determining, or the last power in business of Government; and no persons can come lower, or assert more extremely, and exemplarly against themselves in any such point of Right. So as we see plainly, Governing Power is all with the King; and the question comes to be only about propounding, proposing, discoursing, upon those high points of Regal power in Government, not being specially required to it; which Kings think, comes too near their skirts, like David, cutting off a lap of King Saul's Garment, to show only, that he was in his power; so Kings think the one cannot be done, or assumed, that is entering into, or assuming out of self Authority, to treat of the very essentials about Government, or the great weighty occasions that refer to it, but like the cutting off of the lap of the Garment, begets a power over the person; and this was the very stone of difference in this Parliament; so as we see to how near a point it is reduced, a little space or difference, one would think, betwixt proposing only, without power of resolving, and not proposing; now there is nothing more satisfactory than the Kings own answer to them about this; for no person could speak his business so well as himself, and this very particular of the passage, it is a School of Learning. Now because I will not altogether write out of another, nor be tedious, I omit it: It is no matter, let it be amongst arcana imperii, not to bring all into vulgar light, else the reasons might be abstracted why Parliaments are not of themselves to assume to treat of the points proper to the King in Government. I shall leave this, and only excuse myself in it, being far too high for me, that I only do it in the defensive to regal Right, which is higher, and to the people's right, which does not consist in confusion of Government, but in the certainty of it.  
Having done with this high consideration, I shall take notice of his dangerous inserted words, of Majestas Realis; the self same as condemned in the Spencers, in Ed. 2. his time, and likewise in the following Parliaments of that Age, for the most destructive design against the persons, and safety of Kings, that ever was imagined. A dividing of the King's person, and his end of Governing; they would have the Majesty to consist in the end, and so diviseable from the person; and so the King might be deposed and destroyed, and yet the Majesty whole. What will not man's brain hatch, when he is disposed to be wicked? This was new forged, brought out of the Mint again, and begot the Notion, of Treason against the Commonwealth, and served to make the King a Traitor. I desire his patience to read Sir Edward Cook, 
●o. 7. Rep. fly. Case.  7. Report, calvin's Case; there he will tell him that all Allegiance is tied, and refers to the person of the King; that the whole consistency of Majesty, and Kingship, must be in a person in being, not to hang in the Air, as an accident without his subject; all Relation, all Attributes, all Majesty, are but rays from that body, dividedly from the King, can be no consideration at all of Treason, or Majesty; this Serpenti e way of creeping betwixt the King's person and his Authority was a device to destroy him.  
Object. When the Legislative Power, and highest judicial Power, is by the constitution of the Government, divided between the Prince and the Senate, and so the Sovereignty divided, many will be ready to think with Grotius, de jure belli Lib. 1.13. pag. 91. That the Prince invading the Senate's Right, may justly be resisted, and may lose his Right: quod locum, saith Grotius, habere censeo etiam si dictum sit belli potestatem penes Regem fore; id enim de bello externo intelligendum est, cum alioqui, quisquis imperii summi partem habeat non potest non jus habere eam partem tuendi; quod ubi fit, potest Rex etiam, suam imperii partem, belli jure amittere.  
Answ. These parties will still stumble at the same stone; that is, because of the Legislative power, in some sort, or manner, or form of it, in the Parliament, therefore the Supremacy: which does not follow, for the Supremacy is the sole Governing Power, and Government is a constant being, the other but at times, and by occasion; so as no proportion at all is betwixt a constant governing Power, and an occasional Power; and when they are demanded but about their own Rights; it being planted in Nature, that where Right is, there is a power of denying, and a power of giving, yielding, and consenting; and this is the Parliamentary power properly, and per se, all which arises out of the Rights, and property of the People merely. Now these persons will not discern the difference betwixt the power of consenting (which must needs be likewise a power of denying), and active, efficient power, which is in Government itself, and is always constant and universal: It has the properties, as the Soul in the Animal, cannot have parts in it, and dividedness, or to discontinue.  
Now they introduce this their objection with a When, when it is so, that is, the Sovereignty divided; they should prove where it is so: I think not in nature of two Sovereign Powers in one Government: certainly this is no Government, but distinct Governments; and how it can refer to one people governed, requires the inquisition: for when they stand upon terms of difference, than the Government presently is in the state of War, and none to reconcile it, being equal divided Powers. Rights may lie so, but Governing Power cannot lie so; the distance is the same as betwixt two Foreign States, or Princes, who may reconcile, and accommodate their reciprocal good so long as they can accord upon it, as well as these several distinct Powers in one body; and in this, either party upon the difference, betakes himself to his defensive, and then the Government ceases to be; so as it is not at all consistent with the nature of Government, but of Governments, in respect the one of the other.  
All Governments are either Monarchial Governments, or mixed Governments; now in Monarchical Government, first it supposes absoluteness of Supremacy in the Monarch or Prince, and then it cannot suppose it likewise in any other, for then the Government should be a Monster of two heads; and besides, so cannot act, the Powers in counterpoise being equal, and so it is no Power, but a Power of destroying itself; as equal contraries when they meet, are destructive to the matter that is the subject of them. Peradventure some instances may be found of some that have been called Kings, and have been but head Members of Commonwealths, and such, their safety and being is to act subordinately to the Powers of the Commonwealth, not above them, for so presently they should perish, having no power absolute to defend them; so as we see directly, it must be one or other, either Subordination, or Supremacy entire.  
That must needs be a strange Government, where the Sovereignty is divided, and lying in divers Powers, when they differ, the people distracted in their obedience, not knowing where to obey to, but made to follow the lusts, appetites, and injustice of either party, as it gains power, and not certain to retain it. Therefore there is a Law amongst our Statute Laws of England, 
H. 7.11. y. C. 1.  That the subject shall be secured to fight for the King in being. This merely from this reason of avoiding the mischief the Subject is put to, by a divided commanding Power; this Law, though a gross one, and against truth many times, because Usurpers did possess the Throne, yet for this reason preferred, and not yet destroyed; though the Sword was too hard for it, as for all things else.  
It is to be observed, that there is no Government without a mixture, which makes Rights in the People; God himself doth not govern the World otherwise so, but that he gives the People Laws both for their direction and conviction; for it is, in some sense, that the Law makes the offence; and besides, otherwise all must flow from the King as Water continually renewed out of its Fountain, and the People not know whom to obey, nor subordinate's how to act; so as mixture in the Government makes no Argument, it being of necessity to all Governments.  
And as for taking up Arms, and fight for their Rights; Right and right of defending holds not against Government absolutely. His next.  
Object. If a Prince engage either hired Strangers, or Fugitives, or homebred Delinquents, or others, to rise up against the Senate or People, either it is lawful to defend themselves by Arms, or not; if not, especially if they have a share in the Sovereignty, then is his Power absolute and unlimited, and neither Laws, or any thing below, are any security against his Will to the common safety.  
Answ. The Ages that follow shall be very little beholden to Mr. Baxter, to let them know the true state of a business of the highest and most horrid importance that ever befell England, far excelling in accursedness the intestine War betwixt the two Houses of York and Lancaster, because it hath destroyed our Form of Government, and all Title to Govern; which is an unhappiness upon a People above all evil whatsoever, Usurpation being a continued source of evil.  
I admire he can be so little serious in it; This of his seems no more, then that the King raiseth wicked Forces to destroy the Parliament; and a Question merely, Whether or no they should defend themselves.  
There is a great Narrative and Historical part belongs to this, to set it forth; But it was not my end, but only so far as to answer his, and no farther.  
In the first place, the Parliament made alliance with the Scots, disbanded the English Army, to work their end upon the King. The King was taken in a Toil of his own making, calling a Parliament, the Scottish Army being in England; and now both Interests clasped him, that he had no means left him to get out of it, but to break thorough it by force, which he despaired of. They draw up a Remonstrance to the three Nations, to shame the King to the People, and make him odious; not the accidents of Government but are put upon the King's score; as if any Government could be without faults, and as if we should have been so much happier under them, under whom we have found the little finger heavier than the Loins of Kings, and their whip Scorpions to the other's Rods; an Instance taken from Scripture, and often applied, but never truer than in this of our condition and suffering under them.  
The Parliament once in, ruin was inevitable upon the King, never after was any wisdom or means useful to him; preservation is not always in our own Power, we have but the offer of it, which neglected or omitted, commonly the means turns to another Interest, and cannot be regained. The King did now, too late, strive by all manner of concessions and compliance, yet nothing would divert destructin that did fix upon him, like the poisoned Shirt prepared by Dejanira for Hercules, which once on, though he did strive to tear it from him, yet to no purpose; the venom and poison, and fiery quality of it, did penetrate into great Hercules, and consume him.  
The truth is, the King was dispossessed before he durst appear in opposition; all his Forces by Sea and Land, City of London, Hull, and Port-Towns, engaged against him; his own Ordnance and Arms to fight against him: He had nothing but the Interest of a King, and the pity of those few that did compassionate him, (the People generally poisoned,) to raise up any party for him, and fight was but his mere necessity; for, as he said himself, he was sure to be the loser, because he had nothing but his own to oppose to in his own Kingdom, and his own People his Enemies. Yet further, no Concessions would serve, and Concessions were his fault and misfortune too; it comes to be the case of the King not to be trusted, and so the dispute grew upon the Militia; a word introduced, commonly treated, as if an ordinary thing, no less in itself, than the being of a King, who should have the Power. I may very well give it off here, because the case came to be, Whether King or no King.  
This being somewhat of the active part, I shall speak now to the speculative part of his Objection; That if a Prince engage either hired Strangers, or Fugitives, or homebred Delinquents, or others, to rise up against the Senate or People, either it is lawful to defend themselves by Arms, or not; if not, especially if they have a share in the Sovereignty, than (saith he) is the King's Power absolute and unlimited, and neither Laws, or any thing below, are any security against his Will to the common safety.  
Now, in Answer to this, first it supposeth a Case that never can be, as a King to raise Forces to destroy his People, or any party of them; it can never be the case, that is, for a King to War upon his People in condition of Subjection; therefore it is ever the People's War, resisting the King, in his governing Power. It may be a case, that the Parliament will not dissolve, but defend themselves by force, and this is a making War upon the King.  
Now this being directly the Nature of a War betwixt King and Subjects, all the pretences to a defence are taken off, and the Question comes simply to be, Whether for other respects about the Government, any party out of the King may raise War. This must of necessity be resolved in the Negative, because it is not possible to fancy governing power with a power in the People, or any party out of the King, to resist his power; for than he should govern no longer than the governed party were disposed to obey, and so no Government at all; nor is it possible, in the reason of Government, to put a power upon the governing Power, and yet that to govern: So as no Argument can be made for resisting, because it is against Government itself.  
But, saith Mr. Baxter, Then what assurance of Laws, all at the King's Will.  
Now, the precise consideration upon this is, that the very Nature of the Government, and the King's Interest in it, binds him to the good of it: The Law saith, Nulli magis tueri Rempublicam creditum est quàm Regi, no person so believed to intent the good of the Commonwealth as the King, his sole Interest makes it so; all others, as Subjects, have private Interests in them, and so have private respects, which commonly consists not with the public; the King is the only public Person of the Kingdom, who hath no reason or consideration of his being, but as King; without that, or beyond that, nothing, his whole being placed in it; the public is his private; and this very reason, in Nature of Government, making the Government the same with the King, is the full absolute cause of the certainty and good of it, and is as much as is for any thing in Nature, or any Being in the World, since nothing can be more assured than Self-Interest for the good of it. And therefore Kingly Government is the most certain Government, because there can be no end out of it, all contained in it; the good of the Government is the King's good, without any difference: Whereas in all other Forms of Government, the Persons that govern have particular ends, as private persons, and this is truly the Nature of it, never any reason can be for the abuse of Government by a King: It may be abuse upon the King's Government, but never out of any just end of it. So as it is the foulest mistake that can be, to suppose a King's Interest divided from the People's, and that he must be held in chains for the People's good and certainty of Government; when as the People directly lose all their good if the King want freedom of Will and Power to act. The People's consistency is merely in the King's power; without that it were nothing, presently the Government grows seditious and factious, and moving in parts, when the Regal Power cannot retain it. And hence it is, that those Persons that pretend for Liberty and Power over Kings, are cause of Murders, and Massacres, of the People.  
Nevertheless, if it be objected, that there are evils and abuses under a King's Government, yet not so considerable (especially here with us in England, where hardly can be any great grievance, the form of the Government being so equal) as to make War for them.  
Government hath many hard things come into it, and extreme difficulties; and the evils of it are out of the People themselves, stubbornly acting against the King, and repugning to the means of Government, and of Persons doing wickedly, and great Ones oppressing and having their ends by wicked means: Nor is it possible, almost in any Government, to have it so, that the ordinary People can be able to find Remedy against the Oppressions of great Ones, such as are wicked and turn even the Government itself into the means of it, and the King is the party most extremely wronged in it; for all reflects upon the King, and yet it cannot be helped but in degrees, as things are subject to their accidents, and so far only the good of Government goes, and never to an absoluteness. Now, the manner is, that where the universality meets in Parliament, all is represented, and they complain, and supply the King's wants, and this is the great means to redress.  
And if some hard condition in the Government cannot be got mended at present, yet extremes do never long endure, but return to the nature of the Government, they cannot hold out; so as we see, all excesses in Government are causes still of falling back, and reverting to its right temper, and commonly causes of pulling away something of the former with it; as ever, all violating of the grand Charters and Liberties are cause of binding them up, and taking greater advantage of the King.  
A King can never affect to govern ill, but they may affect to have Power; for Power is not simply good or evil, but in the use of it: and to have treasure; and the People in Parliament, not complying, Kings are enforced to break out into extraordinaries, and it cannot be helped; for it is not to be supposed a failer of the means of Government, all must die and perish before it.  
King James in the Parliament, the 18th of his Reign, tells them, that in ten years he had not made use of them; and had he not been all peace he could not have lived so.  
When the War began, the contest was about nothing but that they would not trust the King, and were resolved to bring him below them, being an inexorable party; and cruelty growing out of Religion is of all other the greatest Cruelty: But the Laws and Rights were just the same as in all times formerly, no alteration as to the great Interest of Regal right and the People's Rights, which shows it is not alterable, that which no time had wrought upon, and all accidents had in all those ages and times come into it; of so durable matter is the Government, as no fear ever can be in it, as to necessitate Arms of the People to vindicate it.  
The People themselves are the only destroyers of it.  
Nevertheless, though a King may seem all Power, yet naturally and necessarily all Government involus itself into the consent of the People, and all Power comes out of them; so as we are to see where the Interest of it lies, not merely in the King's Will, who is tied to more necessities than any other; so foolish it is to think, that though they have the Power of governing, they have not the natural restraints and necessities of Government upon them.  
We are at last to consider the infinite mischsef of a Civil War, and the strange danger the People run into, the greatest and most devouring Gulf that is in nature, a body destroying its self and ripping out its own Bowels; for it is all-acted within the body itself, and the People know not whether they shall ever return to their Government again, but live under perpetual Usurpation and Rebellion, which utterly destroys a People, to fall and live under the King's destroyers; for Usurpation is all wickedness, and all misery, and all force, and cannot be amended so long as it stands in resistance; so as if possible, the People's Interest is to get out of it, and come under their Government: And it is so far a King of England's cause, that hath no military Power in governing, as he will never enforce the People beyond Subjection, which is their best condition: The very end and design of the Government being to keep down the great Monster of it, that threatens it; so as on neither side it can be imaginable, that Rebellion should ever be the People's best good, remedy, or necessity, which is pretended for it, when it is acted, being so wicked and unlawful in itself.  
Therefore we see it is ever, either of the People pampered with Peace, and know not what belong to War, or judge not of the good of Government, though they have it but in some degree good, or else are cheated into it by Treason in a party designing other ends.  
And the Vulgar, the Character of them is all folly, and evil inclination, as misjudging and to be unsatisfied, so as never any condition makes their good under Government, but when it is utterly out of their own Power.  
Now the evil and destructive mischief of Rebellion, as all accidents of destroying and oppressing come into it, must needs prove the unlawfulness; for wherefore are things unlawful, but as they in their Natures are wicked; & Rebellion being of all causes in nature the greatest cause of Wickedness, must needs be the greatest unlawfulness.  
We are a little further to consider of the difficulty of Government in its self, how many things naturally oppose to the good of it, though the common good of all the Members is placed in it, yet the most in their particular good or profit, would act against it, or some prejudice to it; as every unlawful acting is against it: besides, all the dangers that come into it, and difficulty to the means of it. And some King's Governments, naturally as it were, though from accident, are obstructed with difficulties and dangers, which they must still overcome or else they perish; so that the best that ever I could discern in it is, for a Parliament to help the King, as much as they can possibly to the good of it: And a King of England his necessity will ever bring him to meet the People in Parliament.  
And still let it be noted, that resistance out of a Parliament makes no difference at all; for it is rebelling still against the governing Power, and most destructive when it shall pretend a lawfulness in another power.  
I shall come now to the King's own acting, Did he not deny his own Prerogative about Ship-money, and all other extraordinaries? Regulate the Privy-Council, and take away the Star-Chamber, High-Commission-Court, dissolve the great body of the Bishops out of Parliament, to please the House of Commons? Establish a Triennial Parliament, pass against his Judgement and Conscience the Act for condemning and executing the Earl of Strafford, and after grant them perpetual sitting against his power of dissolving? Did so much to his own preserving, that he gave away the means of his preservation, and wrought his own ruin by it.  
The like he had done before in Scotland, restrained his Royal power there, rewarded the very Rebels, and against nature, justified their Acts of Enmity against himself, and declared his own party guilty.  
I have set forth this, to show the nature of Kings in this their condition, and in relation to the People, and wherein a King's Interest consists; that is, not to fight for his own which by peace he possesseth; and likewise it disproves them about the War itself, to prove the Injustice of it on their part, merely affected to destroy the Government, and to decline the King.  
To show what compliers Kings are to peace, we ever see all Kings style their People, their good People, most when they fear evil from them; treat them by all possible means of satisfaction and lowly terms; send forth Proclamations to purge any evil apprehensions of the People; awed even by the very thoughts of the People; such is the nature of Government to implant fear in Kings, which is their great Governor.  
Henry VIII. the veriest Tyrant in his nature of any man that ever was, yet his Government as to the Commons was good; he acted cruelties, beyond any other King, upon particular persons of the great Ones, whom his Jealousy did reach to: In his Government good in general, and declined all things of breach with the People, though he seemed absolutely to command them.  
'Tis true, There are no Princes so stout as those who are most just; as Queen Elizabeth, with her sure ground of goodness to defend her, kept her Parliament and People at greatest distance from encroaching upon Royal Authority. King James had innocency and worth enough in him to vindicate him still; and the truth is, if the People could but weigh and penetrate into the exigencies and urgencies of State Interests, how hard a thing it is to do but indifferently well in the Work of Government, as to the People's satisfaction, they would not seek to take advantages of Kings, and hold them to extremes; and can never have any good in the nature of it, for the misfortune of the King ever returns upon the People,  
It was not possible for the People to know their own Happiness under the Government of former Princes; and it is a Blessing man never is endowed withal, to know the measure of his good whilst he enjoys it; and this is the cause that they prise it not, but throw it away, and wilfully bring themselves to misery.  
King James, in whose time the People had nothing to do but laugh, and play, and follow their own Interests; no great Taxes, not the half as of Queen Elizabeth, as for the time; no fear upon the Nobility, no fear or danger from the Prince's humour, Religion perfectly Protestant, the King himself the great owner of Interests in the reason and science of them; yet the People most ungrateful, no more satisfied than if they had been under a bad Government, tired out with their very peace: It is his own words to them in the Parliament, 18. of his Reign, We indeed find by experience, that a number of our Subjects, are so pampered with peace, as they are desirous of Change, though they know not what.  
This happiness continued in the substance, though not in all circumstances, till the people themselves destroyed it, so as they acted their sin and their Plague in one.  
We come in the next place, to that wherein he betrays himself, to the utter overthrowing of his Cause, which I foresaw he would do at last.  
Object. If the Soldiers must know beforehand, that if they do purchase a Victory by their blood, when they have all done, they must be Governed by him whom they have conquered, and lie at his mercy, they would hardly ever have an Army to defend them; for who would do the uttermost that is possible to exasperate him, that he knows must rule him when all is done?  
Answ. If this be reason with Mr. Baxter now, why not at first? What Faith could he have in his Covenant, which he destroys by a Principle in his understanding? We at first looked upon their pretences as for King and Parliament, and all their Vows and Protestations, but as so many charms only to destroy the King, because by other means they could not delude the people; and now he confesses it, concludes, and consents to the reason of it; that an exasperated King is never to be trusted again with his power over those that subdued him; by this he destroys his Covenant, his Cause, and the whole; only that served then, and this now.  
To drive this further, because Mr. Baxter declares himself so in it, as he can have no retreat out of it: First fight their King, subdue him, be Victorious upon him, make him Captive; then kill him, according to the Kings own sense and saying when he was in that condition; That there were but few steps betwixt the Prisons and the Graves of Princes.  
Now Mr. Baxter makes it his very Argument for the death of the King, and so involves his whole Cause and Party in it, has destroyed all difference and distinction, and makes the death of the King natural and consequential to the first of warring upon him. We see here how naturally falsehoods betray themselves out of their own Arguments.  
I shall not pass by the insolency and impropriety of his saying, Conquered the King; If Mr. Baxter were skilled in the Laws of England, which is out of his Element, he would know, that there can be no such thing as a Conquest of Subjects over their King; it is desertion, or Treason, not Conquest.  
If he consult but nature, it will tell him, that that which is the proper strength, existency, and being of any thing, cannot be said to conquer it, no more than any thing can be said to conquer itself; the being ceases to be, if the essential▪ do but divide from it. 
Cook 3. Inst. p. 12.  Nay the voice and reason of our Laws would never call them Enemies, but Traitors; Enemies implies a kind of equals. He says.  
Object. It was the Judgement of the Parliament upon the division.  
Answ. Upon their division, their dividing from the King, their Judgement was nothing, but as private persons, or wicked enemies; all Subordination depends so upon its first Cause, as dividing from that, the being ceases to be.  
In the next, you shall observe Mr. Baxter overrule Scripture to his own sense, as he hath dealt in Politics.  
Object. And that those that did resist the Higher Powers set over them by God, are guilty of the damnation of resisters.  
Answ. This of Higher Powers here in Mr. Baxters' meaning, is of those that raised the War against the King, that they were the Higher Powers not to be resisted.  
Now I have not met with a greater violation of Scripture than this, to make it a mere contrary to its self, and destructive to the end it serves to, not only indirectly, but oppositely. This Scripture proceeds from the Spirit of God directly for preservation of Kings, and Mr. Baxter applies it to the King's destroyers, making them the mere object of it, in the act of destroying the King.  
I have driven it thus home, to fix it upon observation, what a strange degree of falsifying, and abusing Scripture in it, and the horridness of the example, and consequence of falsifying grounds, and rules by which truths should be measured, and creating false conceptions which are seeds of all wicked actions.  
Now to clear out this more fully and directly, past exception: there is not one word or syllable in Scripture Doctrinally, of any Power or Authorities, since God Governed by his Prophets; but still generally, the intendment is of Kings, and no other Form of Government owned in Scripture, or ever intended; that being only natural, all Power consisting in unity of Power; and evermore the Powers are intended as part of the King's Power; for there is no fraction in Government, supposing it a Government; so as all Power is ever but the Power of the chief Power.  
So many signals upon Kings, and Guards for their fence and safety, because if the head fail, all the parts and dependency of the people must needs dissolve.  
And here I shall take up again his words; no more to be trusted with Government. A Speech of great scorn, and contempt upon Kings, to make them the people's Servants, and at their dispose, to turn off when they will, and to destroy; and deriving no higher than out of the People's trust, their being still but a depending being, nothing being higher in nature then its first Cause; and upon this basis they plant their Engine for pulling down, debasing Kings, and casting them into their Graves.  
It is good therefore to see the relation that Kings have.  
For so much as we see immediate of God in it (which is not ordinarily in the things of the World, but limited to the chosen people, and when he appeared by his Prophets) then most manifestly the Kings, or at least the first Kings (which shows the nature of it, and right of it in all) was from God, leaving out the people at all in it, to have any share in it: All this legible in Saul, David, Solomon, and in the removes of Kings by God's special denunciation, and sending by his Prophets: The people the Executioners in some cases and circumstances; so as there is no footstep or mark from God of the People's title over Kings, or their making them, or giving them their power. This in God, special, and appearing proves in all, shows the nature of it, for that which we see was done, and of God, and freely done, and at first when no accident had been, (so as it was a mere promulgation out of nature, and proper to the nature of it) must needs be held certain to it, and most reasonable to conceive of it.  
Corresponding to these are the Texts, 
Rom. 13.1.  There is no Power but of God, the Powers that be are ordained of God; this referring to Kings, for the words are after, For Princes are not to be feared for good works, but for evil, and he is the Minister of God; Power, as Power, is properly of God, who is the Power.  

● Chr. 1.9. & 11.  Thou hast made me a King over a People.  
That thou mayest Judge the People over whom I have made thee King.  

● Sam. 16. ●er. 1.  I have provided me a King; still pointing out his End, and his Author.  
The Texts are many more, and clear it beyond all doubt, or objection of man; that Kings, as Kings, are God's Creatures, and derive not lower then from God himself, as immediate to him.  
Now because this was of the Jews, a peculiar people to God, we will see what evidence the Scripture yields in case of Heathen Kings. Nabuchadnezzar an Heathen, and Idolater, was owned by God as his Servant.  

Jer. 25.9.  Nabuchadnezzar, my servant.  

Isa. 45.1.  And thus said the Lord to Cyrus his anointed.  
Which is the highest emblem of Sovereignty, anointing, attributed to Cyrus as King; that is, that he had it virtually as King.  

Ezr. 1.2.  And Cyrus King of Persia, The Lord God of Heaven hath given me the Kingdoms of the Earth.  
And Daniel most full, the Patent of the King as extensive to all Creatures and Powers under him.  

Dan. 1. ver. 37, 38.  The God of Heaven hath given thee a Kingdom, Power, and Strength, and Glory, and in all places where the Children of men dwell, the Beasts of the field, and the Fowls of the Heaven, has he given into thy hand, and hath made thee Ruler over them all.  
An Illustration of God's dominion over all Creatures, and acting by Kings, his immediate Vice-gerents; to the end of the 5th chapter of Daniel, being nothing else then Gods claiming his Title over Kings, as derivative from God, and accountable to him.  
Now all this is from the great end in nature, that Kings being to rule the people, which is God's proper Office, and Attribute; all Power, and all Dominion, and all Providence being his, they represent God, and are his Image, and Effigies in Ruling and Governing: and this makes their dependence to be merely of God, and not accountable to any Power under God.  
The nature of it is showed in that of Saul, as being the first King to the Jews, and being the institutive of it, comprehends the nature of it.  
The person was merely of God's choice, not left to the people, nor any power left in them, much less over the King.  
In that day shall they cry unto the Lord, says the Text; That is, 
1 Sam. 8.18.  no power to be against the King's Power, but an appeal only to an higher Power; that is, to God himself, his Author and Founder; they might complain of him that was set over them, but had not any Authority of their own over him.  
And this makes it in its nature to be the greatest trust in the World, because there is no remedy against it, contrary to Mr. Baxter's sense, abusing the Term, making Trust, subject.  
The reason of this absolute subjection of the People to Government, lies in the nature of it, that no medium can be found betwixt power of Governing, and liberty in the people as not Governed; to be subject only to the good of Government, is no Government at all, or to be subject at all: therefore of mere force, from its nature, it leaves nothing in the wills of the people; so as no such mean, or half being of it can be, by any constitution, provision, or Policy whatsoever, when it comes to Govern, all those things, though part of the Government, yet come under the governing Power.  
Now for the Originals of Ruling Powers ordinarily amongst men, as to the persons ruling in such a Line, and Succession; we shall find it to be still from a first Power, before it came to Governing Power; the one introductive of the other: for Power is its matter and nature; for we see all Government is Power, and the Power will govern. Therefore equivocally the terms and names are used; sometimes calling it the Government, and sometimes the Power; so as it is the same, and signifies the same thing; inseperables in nature, Government and Power: no remove can be in it; for where the Power is, there the Government will go along with it.  
Hence it is that there is never any discontinuance in governing Power over the people. In the most confused tumultuous War, and distraction that ever was, yet there is power still somewhere or other, that contains the people's liberty, and subjects them; so as there is not one moment, or minute of time in the World, where society and community of man is, that there is any vacuum of Power to be over them; and although powers divest one another, yet the Series of governing Power is still continued; and in all such removes of the Powers, yet the Power never falls, but is kept always up, and is in some still, and is as inseparable from the People, as the matter and the Form, which never are asunder.  
For that which we call Power out of the People, it is not the people, but a Power acting upon the People; and in such a circumstance of it, if it become too powerful for the Government, than it becomes the Government itself.  
Now having showed thus the nature of it, it destroys all those imaginary theatres that they would erect and build popular liberty upon, and popular right over Kings.  
They would fancy governing Power to be of the wills of the people, and the people the Author; so impossible an assertion, as I only leave it upon what I have stated, and how contradictory it is to nature in all consideration of it; so as still the people is but the subject matter of Government, never the Author of it, nor does Government ever come below the people in the cause of it, but must derive out of its own cause, which is power to be above the people, and so in all end and acting of it.  
All this is still to explode that Monstrous conceit of the people's instituting the Government; or more Monstrous consequence of it, the people as the first cause of it to dispose of it, and destroy it.  
It is observable in Government, that Laws and Liberties come afterward to the people, after power of the Government itself.  
In the Norman Conquest, all lay flatted some time under it, till afterward (as the Reporters of those times tell us); that the party of the Conqueror, or their Posterity, did revive the English Liberties: first the Conqueror's absolute will served them to expel, and dispossess the Natives, and after they were glad of establishments in Government, to assure their own condition, and what they had gained.  
So as hereby we see Governments, the farther they go on from their beginnings, the more they take in of composition to their first single Nature; so as still the Originals of Government are most absolute.  
Hence it is manifest that Power is their Fountain and first cause, as such is their Natures, and the People's Freedom still is under Government, and when Government is most confused then is their Freedom least; so as still Power is over them, and are always subject to it, let the Form of it be what it will.  
To consider it in common Reason and Understanding, the King took his Being from the People's Trust, in Mr. Baxter's sense; therefore the People are to dispose of him: This were for the People not to be governed, for then the Right were in the People, and the King betrayed to govern under another Authority to make it accountable. Therefore this supposeth a Monster in nature, and it would evermore make Government destructive to itself, for than it doth not govern; for where the end and ultimate of Power is, there the Government is.  
I shall insert something that is legal in this, pertinent to the Case of the King of England, how he comes to be King. Sir Edward Coke, that was a man popular enough, in his third part of his Institutes, pag. 7. saith, That there is no such thing of the Kingly Being in England as an Inter-Regnum, nor any Act confers to the making of the King, but instantly by the descent of the Crown to the right Heir, he is King. This his, and more, there expressed. And indeed, no worldly Power can dispose, alien, or transfer the right of the Crown. King Edward the sixth before his death would have settled the Crown upon his nearest Kinswoman, the Lady Jane Grace, Wife to the Lord Dudley; his Sister Mary being of the Roman Church: and the Council and Peers swore to this in his presence, and he died. Now, what the effect? Only to make them all Traitors, and no other right in it.  
Parliaments have declared for Titles, but never can make any, nor deprive Right. It is true, divers Usurpers have had Parliament Test for their Warrant, for those have most need of it, but still it was acted under power enforcing, and so it was nothing but merely so long as the Power lasted.  
Usurpation doth not come into possession without power, and it drags Parliaments after it, and deprives all reality, but mere Hypocrisy in all that is acted or pretended to, by Parliament or People.  
I have no more now to consider of, than of the Right of Kings, having spoken of their Original Cause, Power, etc.  
Now, this first is generally from the great end of it; that is, Government; which, as Government, is ever good; good, as Government, though it may be an evil Government: nor can any failings in the particularities so overrule the common good of it, but still it hath good of Government in it.  
But this comes not to the Question of Right in the person which we are to inquire.  
Certainly it cannot be Conquest which is only a great Riot, and multiplying of Rapines and Manslaughters; it is all Wickedness which is only distinguished from common wickedness as it transcends all other actings of wickedness; and such is the nature of Conquest by excess of wicedness, to make itself above offending and punishment.  
Then it cannot be in submission of the People to it, being first conquered still before they consent; and if they partly resist and gain conditions, yet it is in respect of the power, which is cause of all the following of what nature soever it be. And it is not possible that any one can receive a Right from his doing wrong.  
Some suppose upon the future settlement and equability of the Government established Title may result, yet still all this is after the power, and cannot imply in any kind a not Being of it, being first supposed absolute, at least not their condition to resist it.  
Besides, in the Case of a former Right, the People's consent cannot evacuate a right in the former Prince outed, or his posterity.  
Now that it appears directly, that none of these things make right, or are of any force to it, it is cleared by this; that if the outed Prince can recover and regain Power, these things vanish as unlawful, and as wicked consentings and compliance; and so long as the old Right can possibly retain its self in memory, add but power to it, and it is ever unquestionable.  
One instance with us in England of sixty years' discontinuance; yet when it recovered power to act, all the Usurpation went for nothing, and the old came in as Right, not as Conquest.  
Where yet shall we find it? Nothing but the Old extinguishing by long continuance of the latter, and that becoming natural, and consent goes with Nature; so hard it is to the Titles of Princes and so precious to the People to retain them, and so dangerous to lose them; And all the Intervals filled, and taken up with the uncertainty of Government, and all the accidents that attend want of Title.  
Therefore, since only time, and long time, makes unquestionable Right to Princes, it is of all Rights or Titles the hardest to be attained to, and must be most absolute, since nothing but User can give in its Authority; therefore it is most unquestionable, venerable, unchangeable, independent of any other Cause, and so under no other power, and never falls but with the ruin of the People.  
And this is a high perfection of Kingly Government, since no other Form of Government can have this precious thing, Title in it; that is, Right in the Person, which is the Cement of Government, and half the means of it; and consent goes along with it whereby all the People act subordinately, and this makes it easy and without force, because of this  consent of the People to it; for all operation of the Soul is but consent, consent is the genius of the Government by which it acts, and all the People, and all common Interest doth centre in the Right of it, and find their rest.  
And now I have done with the Argument.  
I have only something of Observation from the natural effects of Rebellion, and destroying rightful Government, as we see it in ours: Now, the Work is done, and all in the Power of the destroyers; What comes of it? Two very natural and great effects; the one is Wickedness, all manner of wickedness, impieties, false Religions, Cruelty of manners and actings, multiplicity of Tyrants; having destroyed the great Tyrant-Government under a King, as they called it, all persons that get Power, act as Tyrants: Multitude of Tyrants out of the People themselves, acting wickedly in all parts, Cities, and Towns, where most Interest of the People lies; strange Principles in profession and opinion, and despising ranks and degrees of persons, and of Kings, and Supreams, and bringing all into a contempt and baseness, against order of nature, and nature of Government, which consists in difference, and degrees, and subordination. To follow this subject of our present condition, what a Monster England is become, no such Copy of it in the World? It must be all written and taken out of itself; the strange infinite forms of Wickedness both in Faith and manners, base horrible Conceptions, monstrous Notions; all hatched, and have their production from the putrified matter of standing in condition of Rebellion, and loosed from the rightful governing Power, and running lose into parties and into their own sense, having cast off the right Power, which keeps to Order and Unity, all Order and Unity being the effect of Government; and the Monstrousness and Infiniteness that enters in the vacancy or deficiency of it; for Errors in their nature are infinite, whereas all true Being's have but their natural proportions and definitions.  
The other is unsettledness, which is the Curse of Usurpation, and of destroying rightful Government, that it cannot resolve itself into any thing of certainty or Being to the People, under the power of it: As we see these persons, to perpetuate their Wickedness, can make nothing of it.  
The King's Right, and the wrong they do, doth shine out of darkness itself, out of that rubbish of confusion and destruction they would bury it under: We see they can make nothing of all the Power, having the whole, it being the King's Power and the King's Right; they are confounded with it, do but toss and tumble this Power over and over, it can no no where settle to make a Government, but monstrous violence grows out of it; and this is all they can create from it, which doth admirably confirm the King's right, and that only in that doth consist the People's Interest; and what a strange spirit and principle is in it, that though trodden down, and debased, reviled, scandalised, and kept out, yet it riseth against all Power, not in nature left, or possible to make a settlement, or Justice, or Safety, to the People without it; the People undone by the usurping it; so dangerous is a King's Right when devested and displaced, and so precious to preserve in its true place.  
My last I will conclude withal, which may reflect upon the whole, is, that I conceive the best way of calling Parliaments is frequently, and never by necessity; for when a King hath most need, it proves most dangerous; therefore it is never to be used as the last remedy. King's ought to have something in reserve to help them off that again if it grow averse, and incline to danger. And it was the total ruin of the King, that he was so much a loser before he came to play this Game: When all was distempered and disordered round about, the out-Nations up in Arms, and the home-People poisoned, discontented, than he calls a Parliament, when no thing totally, and mainly, could have destroyed him but that; for every grievance, and every misery, and every distress of the King's served them for matter against the King; and so turned the cause of putting himself upon them for help, to be the means of their depressing him, and destroying him. It is like that our Saviour saith, putting a new piece of Cloth into an old Garment, it makes the rent worse; so all the parts so fear, and unsound, as nothing to bear the searching, severe remedy of a Parliament, and apt to grow wicked with their Power.   
FINIS.