The truth of the times vindicated whereby the lawfulness of Parliamentary proceedings in taking…The truth of the times vindicated whereby the lawfulnesse of Parliamentary procedings in taking…

And as the Prince hath no more power then what is communicated from the community; so the people or community cannot give away from themselves the power of self-preservation. Because the same Commandment that faith, Thou shalt not kill: doth also say, Thou shalt preserve. Precepts that forbid evil, do command the contrary good. Now the moral natural Law of God forbids a man to kill himself, and therefore commands him to preserve himself: and as by a positive act men cannot make a Law to kill themselves, no more can they not to preserve themselves; the one being as strongly commanded by the moral Law, and as deeply seated in Nature as the other. Secondly, because if the community should give away the power of self-preservation, the state should not be in a better but in a worser condition then before. The King and Prince is taken into Office for the good of the people, therefore called Pater patriae, & Pastor gregis: not because he may arbitrarily rule in the Common wealth as a Father doth in his family; but because of his tender care that he is to have over his people; and that the people might live more secure and peaceably in all godliness and honesty: But if the community should give such a trust to any one that they might not at all defend themselves beyond his actual appointment, they should be infinitely in a worser condition then before, because before such trust they should be freemen; but after the trust they should be slaves, unless it pleases the King through his own gracious condescension to let them be free still: for what is a slave but such a one who is so absolutely at the power of another's command, that he may be spoiled, or sold, or put under the Galleys, and there beaten daily, having no power to make any resistance or self-defence. Thirdly, it is agreeable to the Law of Nations and Reason, that no inferior Court can undo what a superior Court hath done, As where an estate is settled upon children by Act of Parliament, no inferior Court of Justice can cut off the entail. Now self-preservation is enacted in the Court of Nature, as he that hath read but Magirus unbound, I mean common natural principles, will grant, and therefore no act of a community can cut off this entail from their posterity, or make such a deed of Conveyance whereby themselves and their children should be spoiled of self-preservation.