Page:The Leveller movement; a study in the history and political theory of the English Great Civil War (IA levellermovement01peas).djvu/64

 the Church itself. Even God had not imposed his law upon his people through Moses without their consent. No churchman, says Parker, can anywhere find warrant for a power of coercion similar to that with which the members of a civil society have endowed their rulers. Above all, there can be no power in the Church to discipline civil rulers. The glory of the civil power is its origin in the consent of the people. Before the full majesty of the king, sitting in Parliament and therefore invested with that supreme power that the people had not granted even to the king himself alone, Parker stands in awe. Indeed he is almost pagan. He sweeps away all apostolic preceddentsprecedents [sic] with the remark that temporary expedients were necessary when the magistrates were not Christians; and he considers that if Caesar had aided the early Christian church, he would have effected more for the propagation of Christian doctrine than all the apostles, bishops, and evangelists! E. 176 (18), pp. 24, 36–38, 61, 72, 91, 92.

While on the subject of Parker we may notice a pamphlet, very possibly written by him, and designed to stir the Houses to a decided stand on their sovereignty. The title is A Discourse betweene A Resolved and a Doubtfull Englishman. Dec. 3, 1642, E. 128 (41). Apart from the matter, the sole evidence for Parker’s authorship is that in format the tract is identical with some of his signed works.

The resolved Englishman in the course of the discourse vigorously disclaims any negative voice in the king as absurd and unbearable. The king was merely the highest magistrate, and the Parliament oversaw, disposed of, and displaced all magistrates (p. 2). Doubtful retorts that at any rate the Parliament calls itself the king’s great council, and what are private men to do in such a case but to believe it and to obey the king if his commands and those of Parliament clash? “To my minde now,” says Resolved, “I see some reasons inducing the Parliament to use such low expressions, and humble tearmes One reason may be the long disuse of the Parliamentary power, occasioned by a strong hand borne over them by the King, and most of his Predecessours  so that now in our present age, men esteeme of the Parliamentary power, iust as Kings would have them  Though no man can deny these things [the supremacy of Parliament] to be iust and reasonable, yet when they are spoken to the people, they grow angry, and are offended, and thinke it to be no lesse then treason; and therefore I conceive the Parliament in their addresses unto the King have used such language as you have recited  I have observed the Parliament have revealed their power but by degrees, and only upon necessity, that necessity might make the people know that that power was iust and reasonable.” Doubtful, who ap-