perhaps may not encroach upon the conditions for which the People promised subjection to him 1 I Answer That no People ought to ingage their subjection to another unless he condescend to be regulated by those Laws to which he shall give his consent and in case they accept of any one for their King upon other terms their posterity are not bound to stand to so imprudent a compact 2 That should a people be guilty of such an omission in their stipulation with a Conquerour or any whom they should prefer to bear rule over them his consenting to a Law which is for their advantage is an act of grace and favour by which he devesteth himself of some part of his prerogative which was setled upon him by his first agreement with the people and addeth it unto their privileges so that a Law may be called an additionall stipulation And were it otherwise it would scarce be worth his subjects labour to meet for the enacting of Laws sith their Prince should be left free to dispence with them at his pleasure 3 A Law which is beneficiall to the subject giveth him an interest in some privilege for which he may contend as lawfully as for any thing else which is his own And it seemeth clear to the light of reason that any one who hath power may defend his own by the ruine of an incroacher when otherwise he cannot be secure The controversie touching resistance to be made against a Prince who opposeth Religion when it is not established by an humane Law is more perplexed Suppose a Prince to make it his study to give a check-mate to Religion or though he affect not an utter extirpation thereof yet by his good will to allow it no existence but with subordination to his own designes Suppose him to prefer his carnall interests when they stand in competition with Religion and to assay the jumbling together and blending of heaven and earth rather than he will not attain his self-ends Suppose also that there is no humane Law to controule him I doubt not but in this case the Law of God warranteth the taking up of Arms against him My reasons are these which follow 1 Because God hath no where throughout the scripture forbidden us to resist such rulers as are a terror to good works There is no sin which is not prohibited in the scripture 2 Because every believer hath and every man ought to have a propriety in true Religion Who will dare to deny that the great Senate-house of heaven can give a propriety as effectually as any Parliament upon earth The Israelites had nothing besides the great Seal of heaven to justifie their driving out of the Cananites from the Land which they had in possession and that was sufficient Iud. 11.24 Every man hath as firm a Commission to dispossess his spirituall enemies and to worship God in sincerity truth And all who have effected this have a propriety in true Religion and the exercise thereof and may Lawfully resist all those who go about to restrain them from the free use of it The sixt word in the Decalogue taketh care for the preservation of mans life is an hedge about his bodie to restrain the incursions of the Sons of violence which none can break thorough but he shall get a prick in his Conscience and that I may allude to what the Apostle speaketh in another sence pierce thorough his soul with many sorrowes It forbiddeth men to take away the life to hinder the health and strength and to hasten the death of themselves or other men unless for the executing of a judiciarie sentence and requireth all men to preserve other mens lives but their own in the first place unless they can lay them out with advantage to Gods honor as by fighting his Battels and helping him against his Enemies or by suffering for a good cause when they are not at all likely to defend themselves by action or by way of exchange if an opportuniy be offered for the life or lives of some other who can do God better service By virtue of this precept a man is bound in conscience to defend his life if he be able against all malicious plots by which it is undermined and unjust practices by which it is assaulted and if he fail herein he is in the conspiracie against himself accessory to his own death guilty of self-murder In like manner by the 8th Commandement we are not only forbidden to invade that to which we have no right but enjoyned also to preserve and defend our own livelyhoods from Harpies from all who would unjustly snatch them from us Every man is an Iland or a little world and hath somewhat which he may call his own and which he not only lawfully may but also out of duty to God ought to defend from acts of violence according to his abilities against all other men in the Vniverse * We are autorised by the Law or Nature to oppose force against violence See Isidore Oâ—â—g l. 5. Cicero in orat pro Milone Iuven Satyr 15. Livie lib. 42. That War is just as a politick writer saith well though in some other points he miscary that is necessary and those arms are religious when there is no hope left elsewhere but in them Object Some will here Object that I open a gap to sedition and tumults many being apt without due occasion to pick quarrels against those whom God hath placed in lawfull authority over them Ans Such a determination as I have given of the question which is the subject of this chapter cannot smile upon sedition and encourage it as permitting men to make forcible resistance against superiours only upon just occasions and when they cannot obtain a redress by ordinary proceedings That in this sentence I am orthodox a learned and juditious author * Camero in his Myrothec Evang. upon Rom. 10.15 will bear me witness in these words which follow Hoc non est seditioni in urbe vel castris favere quod civis ultra injussus in rebellem proditorem Magistratum miles in perduellem Centurionem vel Decurionem suum insurgit si nulla alia via ratione occurrit malo potest tum duntaxat pervertitur ordo regnat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quum extra hujusmodi casum tantum quis sibi permittit licere putat I so far expressed the sence of these words in what I have already answered to the objection that I shall not need to construe them But moreover if any shall suck poyson from those truthes whence they might gather honey were they of well tempred spirits they will be somewhat restrained by the disadvantage upon which they should engage against those who are possessed of authority and by their want of divine assistance in an unlawfull enterprise And if any shall be so fool-hardy and fondly resolute as to engage against God and man against Law and Religion and against their own safety let
exempted from legall censures and forcible resistance is convicted of falsitie IT is taken for granted in the argument which is founded upon those places in Samuel which were produced in the last Chapter that there is as good reason that all other Kings as that Saul should be exempted from humane censures and forcible resistance which supposition I shall acknowledge to be Truths legitimate off-spring and Aeagle-like to sore above the mists and clouds of ignorance and falshood if it can with an undazled and undaunted eye behold the Sun of reason But you shall clearly perceive it to blink when it is brought to the tryall There are many reasons sure for which Saul being compared with other Kings had a large advantage in the cases now mentioned 1 Because he reigned by Gods immediate appointment God made choice of Saul to be Captain over his people Israel 1 Sam. 9.16 17. Those Kings who were chosen and autorized immediately by God had a vast advantage being compared with such as should be chosen by men When God suspended the people from the act of Electing he suspended them also from the act of Deposing otherwise they might presently have pulled down him whom God had set up I acknowledge a difference between the prohibiting people from deposing a Prince enthroned immediately by God himself quam diu benè se gesserit so long as he demeaned himself as it became a prince and an absolute debarring of them from going about to alter their condition howsoever such a Prince should carry himself A King by his mandate giving one title to some place in a society that have Lawes by which they are enabled unless a supetiour power interpose to eject any member of their corporation for certain misdemeanours or because they retain not those qualifications which are required in a member of such a body though permitted otherwise both by the Laws of God and men is not wont to reserve the party whom he hath preferred to his immediate jurisdiction but leaveth him to stand or fall by the statutes of the society into which he is admitted But neither may I omit a difference between the supreme Magistrate and earthly Monarches in this particular So boundless are the knowledg and power of God that he sees all the Delinquencies of the great ones and can punish them immediately by himself without any interruption of his affairs That God whose breath like a stream of Brimstone kindleth Tophet standeth not in need of any instruments for the executing of his wrath upon Kings and sometimes himself immediately inflicteth vengeance sometimes is pleased to assign unto men that office out of the sovereignty of his will What we read Deut. 17.20 leaveth us doubtfull whether God upon any occasions autorised the Israclites to reject their Kings or their posterity He might out of a displeasure conceived against the King permit his subjects or strangers to offer such violence unto him as he did not approve of Himself likewise by a penall sentence might translate the Kingdom from one Family to another One of the reasons which moved David to swear As the Lord liveth the Lord shall smite him or his day shall come to dye or he shall descend into baettell and perish was unless Abarbinel misconstrue him because he knew that the Lord had Anonited him King Most certain it is that Saul could not without injustice be deposed by humane authority much less suffer capitall punishments by any humane censures so long as he demeaned himself so as it became him in which respect he had a large advantage being compared with other Kings who were mens creatures viz. not elected immediately by God himself much more above such whose sword is all the title by which they can pretend to the Scepter Those are as free as can be imagined to recover their liberty who are enslaved by conquest an unlawfull violence may lawfully be removed A people may set a King over them for some short time so that his autority must needs soon expire or with no firmer commission then durante beneplacito so that his Kingdom shall not be more stedfast than one of those houses whose foundations are said in the waves the inhabitants whereof may expect to be tossed to and fro without intermission unless they can congeale the billowes into a sleep The Authority which is perpetuated by the tenor of the Patent may in some cases be recalled both with more wisdom and Religion then it was granted as I before shewed CHAP. 16. That Presumption viz. That there is as good reason that all other Kings as well as Saul should be exempted from humane censures and violent resistance is by another reason refuted The Sin of the Israelites in asking a King is explained negatively and affirmatively The 14. and 15. Verses of Deuteron 17. are enlightened GOD though he granted unto the Israelites a King after the manner of other Nations and according to the Genius of their request might deservedly abridge them from that libertie of unthroning Tyrants which he granted unto other Nations in that they tendered to him such a Petition as was both in the substance and the circumstances thereof exceedingly unlawfull and sinfull God gave them a King in his anger Hos 13.11 God threatneth by Samuel 1 Sam. 8.18 that he would not hear the Israelites crying out to him for relief under the burden of their royall pressures This Scripture informeth us that God determined they should suffer in the things wherein they sinned Here is measure for measure That I may explain the sin of the Isra lites in its full dimensions I shall premise That a King is not a necessary ingredient of the Government of a People which Thesis I have already proved Moreover that the Israelites were not obliged by any divine precept to set over them a King And lastly that although a King had been necessary for other Nations in regard of Civill occasions yet could not he be necessary for the Israelites The Israelites were not necessitated by any divine precept to set over them a King of their own chusing nor yet to ask a King of God Three things saith R. Jehuda were injoyned the Israelites * Gâ—m Sanhedr c. 2. which they should doe after their entrance into the Holy Land to set a King over them to cut off the seed of Amaleck and to build a Temple Schickard also De Jure Regio Hebraeorum c. 1. Theor. 1. affirmeth that God commanded the Israelites to set a King over them Deut. 17.15 * Dei mandatum eâ—at eligere Regem The title of that Theoreme is yet more hardie affirming that God had commanded the Israelites to chuse them a King But if we accurately examine that comma in Deuteronomie quoted by Schickard we shall find that God did not at all permit much less command the Israelites to chuse a King but reserved that choice to himself Neither is there any expression in Deut. 17. which might countenance their asking of a
he there intended not to slay David neither ascended it into his heart neither did Israel agree at all to rebell against their King and to kill him farre be it from them for who shall stretch forth his hand against the Lords anointed and be guiltless The other two Arguments which I used against such as denyed Saul to be privileged above the Kings of other Nations in the 16. and 17 Chapter make equually for David and Solomon and the Kings of Iudah If Saul and the Kings of the Family of David were exempted from deposition and capitall punishment and forcible resistance yet not by a common Crown-privilege but by a speciall grant from God directly expressed or at least implied by the manner of their call to the Kingdom and some other reasons which were peculiar to them This assertion hath already been sufficiently confirmed but is much countenanced also * See Chap. 6. by the demeanour of the Iews towards their Kings which were not of the Family of David in the times of the second Temple Another reason for which David with his successors of his linage seem to have been privileged above the Kings of other Nations is that they were types of christ whose Kingdom should endure It is very considerable likewise that the Sanhedrin and that such among the Israelites as desired a reformation in the Church or State or both might want strength to oppose their Kings and that through the just ordination of divine Providence in that they had preferred earthly Kings before the Monarch of heaven and earth Neither can I doubt but the major part of the people would the rather bear with wicked Kings in that themselves were addicted to the like wickedness I shall now examine what the Hebrew Doctors say in this point touching matter of right and what the Scripture witnesseth touching matter of fact The kings of the Family of David judge and are judged saith the Babylonian Talmud in the tractate of the Mischnah called Sanhedr Chapt. 2. Sect 2. That the Kings of the Family of David were not exempted from that Law Deut. 25.2 which required that a certain number of stripes should be inflicted upon those who deserved to be beaten but were for certain faults liable to it is affirmed by Mabimon Hal. Melach c. 3. Sect. 4. in the Talmud Sanhedr c. 19. and in other Tractates thereof and in severall other writings of the Hebrew Doctors That those who reigned over the Israelites were as obnoxious to censure for some other faults as for those three which were wont to be reckoned up by the Hebrew Doctors viz. the multiplying of Wives Gold and Silver and Horses is so clear to such as will not jurare in verba Magistrorum that it needeth no proof Neither could this Law be executed without the endangering of their lives in case they resisted If the Kings of the Iews for multiplying Wives Gold and Silver and horses were to be punished with stripes then by the rule of proportion for the greatest fault with death and they might be deposed when they were notoriously wicked as the next heir of the Kingdom might by his wickedness be debarred from reigning unless they were exempted for the reasons before mentioned which agrees not to any Princes now a dayes God foretelleth in 1 Sam. 8. how their Kings should demean themselves but doth not there or elsewhere authorise them to use such acts of violence Mischpat in 1 Sam. 8.11 signifieth the Manner or Custome as in 1 Sam. 2.13 not Right and Authority as in c. 10.25 That the Kings of Iudah were not liable to be censured by the Sanhedrin in such manner as the Hebrew Doctors affirm because we read not in the Scripture that they were so censured or because they never were so censured is an argument not so substantive but it will fall of it self without opposition We may conclude much rather that we ought to assent to that piece of history in those writers in that it is not contradicted in the word of God some of them I conjecture had been brought to their trialls and censures by the Sanhedrin nisi impunitatis Cupido retinuisset maginis semper conatibus adversa That I may now speak touching matter of fact we shall find in the practice of the Israelites in the times of David and Rehodoam and Iehoram might we lawfully make the examples of actions and omissions our rules enough to warrant the taking up of Arms against Kings when they neglect the executing of justice or squeese their Subjects by immoderate taxes or impose upon them too heavy servitude That method which Absolom used to steal away he peoples hearts from his Father 2 Sam. 15.2 3 4. being compared with his successe maketh us conjecture that those who joyned themselves to him in the conspiracy thought it lawfull for them to wrest authority out of Davids hands and to settle it upon Absolom by the sword that justice might be more freely dispenced David was old neither deputed any if we may believe Absolom to hear those who had controversies with other men Absolom promiseth that he were he made judge in the Land would do justice and meant as it is probable by himself immediately not by his ministers It appeareth that they intended not only to strip David of his Authority but also to take away his life from 2. 4. verses of the 2 Sam. 17. compared together Abarbinel conceiveth that neither Absolom nor the Elders of Israel nor the rest of the People who sided with him in the conspiracie had any thought to devest David of his Crown and Dignity but to substitute Absolom to him for the executing of the Royall Authority during his life and for his successor afterwards Absolom was induced saith this Doctour to that attempt because David had sworn unto Bathsheba that Solomon should reign after him and sit on his Throne in his stead as also because he suspected that David would cause Solomon to be placed in the Kingdom during his own life and after he was once King who should say unto him what doest thou The people consented to Absolom saith the same Author because he was Davids eldest Son after the death of Amnon and was of the fittest age both to judge them and to fight their Battles to with about * Rasi R. Kim fasten the epocha of the 40. years which are mentioned 2 Sam. 15.7 In the Iraelites asking a King of Samuel and Kimchi addeth that Saul reigned with Samuel 1 year and two years alone and that the other 37 years belonged to the reign of David Ralbag and R. Ieschaiah make mention of this opinion but seem to have thought that the 40 years began with Davids Kingdom Ralbag also conjectureth that it was prophesied of Davids Kingdom that it should stand only 40 years and Absolom concluded these years now expired that the Kingdom should depart from david and that he should bring to passe his Intention of killing him These 40