Ib.

But when the same men (Ussher, Williams, Morton, &c.) saw that greater things were aimed at, and episcopacy itself in danger, or their grandeur and riches at least, most of them turned against the Parliament.

This, and in this place, is unworthy of Baxter.  Even he, good man, could not wholly escape the jaundice of party.

Ib. p. 34.

  They said to this;—­that as all the courts of justice do execute their
  sentences in the King’s name, and this by his own law, and therefore
  by his authority, so much more might his Parliament do.

A very sound argument is here disguised in a false analogy, an inapplicable precedent, and a sophistical form.  Courts of justice administer the total of the supreme power retrospectively, involved in the name of the most dignified part.  But here a part, as a part, acts as the whole, where the whole is absolutely requisite,—­that is, in passing laws; and again as B. and C. usurp a power belonging to A. by the determination of A. B. and C. The only valid argument is, that Charles had by acts of his own ceased to be a lawful King.

Ib. p. 40.

  And that the authority and person of the King were inviolable, out of
  the reach of just accusation, judgment, or execution by law; as having
  no superior, and so no judge.

But according to Grotius, a king waging war against the lawful copartners of the ‘summa potestas’ ceases to be their king, and if conquered forfeits to them his former share.  And surely if Charles had been victor, he would have taken the Parliament’s share to himself.  If it had been the Parliament, and not a mere faction with the army, that tried and beheaded Charles, I do not see how any one could doubt the lawfulness of the act, except upon very technical grounds.

Ib. p. 41.

  For if once legislation, the chief act of government, be denied to any
  part of government at all, and affirmed to belong to the people as
  such, who are no governors, all government will hereby be overthrown.

Here Baxter falls short of the subject, and does not see the full consequents of his own prior, most judicious, positions.  Legislation in its high and most proper sense belongs to God only.  A people declares that such and such they hold to be laws, that is, God’s will.

Ib. p. 47.

In Cornwall Sir Richard Grenvill, having taken many soldiers of the Earl of Essex’s army, sentenced about a dozen to be hanged.  When they had hanged two or three, the rope broke which should have hanged the next.  And they sent for new ropes so oft to hang him, and all of them still broke, that they durst go no further, but saved all the rest.

The soldiers, doubtless, contrived this from the aversion natural to Englishmen of killing an enemy in cold blood; and because they foresaw that there would be Tit for Tat.