that concerned his safety and defence from the violence of others misgoverning themselves toward him and that necessarily brings in Empire So that unlesse we can imagine some Kingdome to consist of people sprung of themselves in perfection of righteousnes not depending nor obliged to God or nature nor obnoxious to those conditions to which the fall of man has subjected all men we cannot devise how men should naturally be free from subjection to government and lesse how being subject private men in any State should in their naturall capacity meddle with any thing concerning government or so much as goe about the making changing on anulling of ordinances or so compell Governours to doe them without being criminally culpable not only against the positive lawes of the land but even against conscience pressed with the bonds of naturall or morall and also divine law Therefore to explicate the sense which all intend but some not well distinguishing confound It is certainly true that all the people of a Kingdome must needs comprehend all power whatsoever is or may be exercised in it but when we say so we by all the people meane the whole entire body of the members politique from head to foot every one of them abiding and working according to his proper and ordained office politique But if beside their ordained office power any shall doe or attempt any alteration in the State howsoever intended for common good their act must needs be so farre from being lawfull as being from the beginning repugnant and resisting the ordained power it can never become a lawfull act though all the Subjects of a Kingdome should after consent unto it But in the third place we are farther to consider That if the Kingdome be also a Church of God then is the originall and authority of it of farre higher nature and more remote from the reach and power of the people It is true God is King of all Kings and highest Soveraigne in all Kingdomes as well Heathen as Christian yet as he cautioned in the behalfe of his Church that no stranger should be King there but by any meanes one that was of the Brethren of the people so in His Church He himselfe is a neerer and as it were a more cognate Soveraigne then in other Kingdomes and his Vicegerents there are of more immediate and more important subordination to him For which cause he there reserves to himselfe the choice of the man and leaves the people no more then the bare investing of him Not but that God in all Kingdomes makes Kings whom he pleaseth but he will have it known that in his Church the choice is not only his and to be sought at his hand but that he more strictly requires the observance of his right in his Church then he does otherwhere Therefore he expresly commands there Thou shalt in any case set him over thee whom thy Lord thy God shall chuse And as in his Church he to himselfe reserved the nomination so when he had nominated he did not leave it to the people there to declare the right and manner of the Kingdom but by the Prophet by whom he signified his choice by the same was the manner of the Kingdom declared to the people written in a book and laid up before the Lord Kings of Gods Church having from God a more immediate and more sacred ordination have also a more especiall endowment of his spirit for which cause they have beene ever instituted with annointing their persons therewith consecrate for the exercise of their function This we see in Saul whose person though he were a wicked Prince David in this respect declared so sacred as that he pronounced a curse upon the Mountaines of Gilboa because in them his person was cast downe and vilefied without regard of the sacrednesse of his annointing Their annointing therefore is not a meere outward solemnity but is significant of the spirit of God in a more especiall manner given unto them and from thence proceeds that which the Scripture witnesseth A divine sentence in the lipps of the King yea and a sacred integrity also His mouth transgresseth not in judgement And suitable to their Prerogative of graces beyond the ordinary of other Princes God vouchsafes them his eare with more favour and familiarity then to the other as we may see by his ready hearing gratious answers vouchsafed messages sent and will declared touching them not only to the good as David Salomon Asa Iehosaphat Hezechiah Iosiah c. but even to Coniah Saul Ieroboam Ahab Jehu and other wicked Princes And we not only heare God himselfe saying by me Kings Raigne and I have said yee are Gods but his word couples also the feare that is to be rendred unto Kings with the feare that is due unto himselfe Feare God and the King Keepe the Kings Commandement in regard of the oath of the Lord Nor is it ordinary obedience that is commanded but the highest under God Submit unto the King as unto the Supreame And that not for the danger that may ensue but as the Apostle saith Not for wrath only but also for conscience sake Now if the King be supreame then is there in no Kingdome any superintending power or authority that may lawfully call the King to account for that power only is the supreame over which there is not any other to take account So high and sacred is the authority of them whom God has made nursing fathers and nursing mothers to his Church When Kings then both in their Persons and Functions are of so sacred an ordination and so hedged in by Gods especiall protection where is there place for the people to interpose and meddle with the affaires that doe belong unto them besides when without the Kings consent there can be no concurrence of people to joyne in any accord for the disposing of any affaires of the Kingdome but that the matter must first passe the project sollicitation and prosecution of diverse private men no way thereunto authorized how can any act of the people to such an end be justifiable when an unlawfull beginning what number or quality soever the attempters be of can never make a lawfull act Therefore omitting those places of Scripture It is not fit to say to a King thou art wicked Who may say to a King what doest thou Feare God and the King and meddle not with those that love innovation And many others which yet block up the way against private mens medling with matters of government If it were to be granted that the people in any Kingdome had power over all rights of the Kingdome yet unlesse that by the Ordinances of that Kingdome it be expresly declared and appointed how and by whom that power shall be executed and by the way where such Ordinances are there is not a right Kingdome but a Republique and againe unlesse those ordinances be rightly pursued there can be no combinement to
CERTAIN CONSIDERATIONS UPON THE DUTIES BOTH OF PRINCE and People Written by a Gentleman of quality a Well-wisher both to the KING and PARLIAMENT OXFORD Printed by LEONARD LICHFIELD Printer to the Vniversity 1642. CERTAIN CONSIDERATIONS upon the duties both of Prince People AMONG many intemperances that minister disturbance to the Church and State we have those whose supine affectation of flattery has grown to that impudence as that they have not only for learnings sake disputed but in the name of the word of God and at the time and place when we should expect no other then the lively Oracles of God delivered that the persons and fortunes of all Subjects are absolutely at the will and command of the Prince to dispose according to his will and pleasure To such licentiousnes we need give no other answer then only to demaund that the maintainers of such Doctrine would put us but a case wherein those opinions of theirs being admitted a Prince can commit any Injustice and that they would shew us wherein lies the justice which the Scripture commaunds Princes to execute and which it affirmes to be the establishment of their Thrones and the violation of it to be their adversity or subversion We have on the other side those who finding it written that Governours are for the good of the People pursue it with Sophistry That the people are the end of Princes and Governors beings and that therefore as their government is for or against the good of the People so may they be continued or deposed by them To that end also there are opinions set on foot That all government first came from the people and that all authority does in the last place reside in them That in every Kingdome the whole body of the people must of necessity contain all power and authority whatsoever either is or may be erected in it so as that all the people or the greater part of them which amounts to all may by their votes re-assume all power into their own hands abrogate all Ordinances anull the formes of present government and new mould the State into such formes and institutions as best liketh them These are falsities which yet lay hold upon reasons and prevaile over the judgements of many that are understanding men and which have no evill affection toward government and these are of that consequence as that they subvert the stability of all kind of government whatsoever But were we shie of Iesuitisme as well as of Popery we would not with so little examination receive opinions which we know had their first hatching in the Schoole of the Iesuite The matter would require a very large field should we set forth all things that fitly conduce to the support of the truth but my purpose is to be very short Therefore declining to controvert what may be and usually is alleadged in the matter I shall humbly offer to consideration such apprehensions of the truth as I have conceived lesse vulgar submitting them to the approbation or correction of better judgements expect they shall returne unto mee with confirmation or rectification of my own private thoughts if from so mean a talent no mite of benefit be raised to the publique And first we are to consider that the originall of Kingdoms is of three sorts to wit Naturall which we may also call civill Violent or if you will Martiall or mixt of these two The first was of Parents over their children childrens children and servants bought or borne unto them In this the person of the Governour was before the being of the Subject and his authority before ever the Subject consented or had power to obey or disobey Such a King was Shem called therefore Melchisedeck or King of righteousnesse And a Prince of this kind was Abraham after that by Gods command he had left his Country and his father Shems house and lived of himselfe and Kings of this nature were they that were intimated in the names of Abimelech Abiam Abiram Abram Abishalom c. And this soveraignty was not inherent to the person of the Father only but from him descended by right of primogeniture to the eldest sonne to whole rule we see that God subjected the younger The second sort of Kingdoms was wholly founded by the sword over people that were subjugated by usurpers and invaders such as followed the way of Nimrod who being potent in his naturall dominion used his power to the oppression of his neighbours and changed the state of government into tyranny I say not the state of liberty as if till then men had lived in solute liberty but changed the naturall government into that which is tyrannicall The third sort had much what the same originall with the second where people surcharged at home and forced abroad men in division in distresse in feare exiles and fugitives distrusting their present condition served themselves on the Wit Spirit and courage of some notable man to whose command they with such limitation of his power as they could agree on subjected themselves and then falling into action prospered even into a Kingdom from hence sprung our Moderne Kingdoms more novell and various in their frame and many of them so qualified as not properly to be called Kingdoms but rather Republiques under Regall stiles with Princes elective much circumscribed in authority and obnoxious to deposing Now in the first and second sort apparantly the people had never any thing to doe with the institution and limitation of Soveraign Power and though in the third sort they had more to doe therewith yet not alike in all of that sort nor had they the whole and sole power of instituting scarce in any of that sort so as we must rectify that misapprehension that in all Kingdoms the first derivation of authority was from the people In the next place we are to consider that Kingdomes are not associations of men in their naturall capacityes but communions of men quatenùs members politique united in one common bond of obedience into one politicall body where none can move to give his due aid for the weale of the body but in the capacity of a politique member and according to the peculiar office which every severall member properly ought to execute which office the members duly exercising make a true and perfect civill Communion Now though we consider a Kingdome as a meere Civill or temporall State only Yet even there the observance of this communion is a duty strictly required of every member even by the law of nature or morall law and by the law of God it selfe For man having lost his originall righteousnesse or justice and consequently the right of governing himselfe and being thereby necessarily subjected to the government of some justice without himselfe it was necessary for his owne good and safety that he should not only be subject to that justice in the things that concerned the well governing himselfe toward others but likewise in those things
yet condemne the fact and though their sufferings wash away much of the soile that would make both the deed and the doers more odious yet must they be content to confesse the deed to be evill But to justifie it were to commit the accursed sinne of calling good evill and evill good yea the sacrilegious sinne of making God weake and wicked who for the necessary support of his Church should stand in need and require not only the helpe of sinfull men but even of their sinnes also Private men in things not plainly forbidden cannot say they resist not authority but sinne not the lawfull power but the licentiousnes of them which abuse it for they have no authority to distinguish And if they offer to pull the mote out of the Governours eye they will put a beame into their owne For though we be every one tyed to resist sinne in our selves that we commit it not yet are we not every one tyed to resist it in others that they commit it not and we must leave every thing to be rectified by those only to whom it properly belongs and where there is no ordidinate meanes of reforming there God has reserved that particular case unto himselfe and we must not justle him out of his tribunall We might in this place remember also what infinite doubts and questions perpetually ensnaring and wounding the consciences of private men and with continuall disturbance and divisions threatning the ruine of the State doe follow the admitting of this one opinion that when other remedies faile Subjects in case of necessity may leavy Armes and defend their Lawes Liberties and Religion against the oppressors of them For what shall be sufficient necessity and who shall be judge of it what way and how farr may Subjects so proceed who shall commaund c. But it is impossible to set forth all the branchings and consequents of errours or the confusions that follows upon them We might also remember what dangerous straines and snares these opinions are to those that have taken expresse oaths of obedience and allegiance but we hope that this shall be hint enough to stirr men up to take heed how they entertain such opinions and if already they have been led away with them they make a more advised examination of the matter and like good Christians be content whatsoever censure fall upon their actions past or whatsoever diminution upon their present esteem they will yet submit that Gods truth may not be corrupted nor his holinesse blasphemed but that as the Psalmist faies he may be justified in his sayings and be cleere when he is judged yea that God may be found true and every man a lyar We do not all this while contend that Princes are without law we have in the entrance of our discourse shown the contrary and we doubt not but that the rights maners of Kingdoms are religiously to be observed as well of the Prince as of the People that the establishment of a Kingdom depends upon the observance of the rights thereof as well by the one as by the other and that the Rights and Maner of every Kingdom is as sacred as the Kingdom it selfe When God layd a curse upon those that removed the bounds between private man and private man he left not the bounds of publique right in which all private right is included open to secure violation but what was wicked in the one case he accounted hainous in the other as carrying with it not only the transitory fortunes but even the lives and soules of the People And for this cause when God finds in Princes the sinne of those that remove the bounds he threatens that he will Powre out his wrath on them like water It will not be unworthy our labour a little to enquire into the reason Tyranny as we have touched began first in the Eastern parts and thence dispersed it selfe through the world And being from the beginning greivous and incomportable in time it discovered it self to be but weak Withall it was supposed that the greivousnesse of it consisted in the Monarchall forme for remedy of which they instituted in some places Aristocraticall in some places Popular government But in the use of them they all also were discerned to be but other faces of the same tyranny and men found plainly that the absolute government of either People or Nobles was as well obnoxious unto tyranny as the sole government of the Prince and that in which of the three soever the government absolutly resided the government was both tyrannicall and infirme and that in every of them the comportablenesse and stability depended only on the well regulating of the soveraigne power by a reasonable interposition of some power committed into the hands of the two other potent limbs So it became an experimented principle among Statists that the composite forme wherein every of the three potent limbs for the surer support of the instituted State had such apportioned influence and power as was proper for the frame of government was the only firme and durable forme and that of the three powers Regall Aristocraticall or Popular any of them prevailing so far as to be wholy free from being qualified or tempered by some operation of the other two corrupted the legitimate form into a tyrannicall and made a prognostick of the States declining into ruine This principle of State is not impeached by any instance of long continuance of the old Assyrian or present Turkish Empire because the Assyrian had a peculiar advantage of continuance by the simplicity and unactivenesse of the age it was in And the Turks to worke their security and continuance have wholy put out the light of knowledge from among their people and have subdued them to a false Religion that has in it selfe no other end nor office then only to keep men in subjection so that they having deprived themselves of the principall of all conditions of humanity and made themselves in a manner an Empire of beasts the successe of their affaires determines nothing of the event of theirs that ayme to live as men much lesse of theirs who are to live the lives of supernaturall men that is to say of Christians Absolute power then when it hath neither bound nor limitation like the naturall heat too much enforced which soon devoures the radicall moisture that maintaines it tends not to prosperity but to the distruction of itselfe For all things being created in number weight and measure the destruction of their proportions must needs be the decay of their being Where there is no inclosure saith the wise man there the possession goes to decay For though one by decaying his fence gives himselfe liberty to prey upon his neighbours which seems some advantage yet he thereby layes himselfe open to be a prey also unto them and when after he would close it again he will find it hard to shut unruly beasts out from the haunt they have once gotten Now
for preservation of the bounds and fences of a Kingdom it is necessary not only to have just and equitable lawes but it must have also an institution of good and sound orders for the making and executing of those Lawes which orders must be sacredly observed for as evill words corrupt good manners so evill manners frustrate the effect of all good lawes and good manners especially those that belong to government are not preserved without strict adherence to the instituted orders of the Kingdom Neither will those orders long continue valid and of use unlesse the protection and care of them be committed into the hands of some conservatory power more especially interessed in the continuance of them Who though not absolutely nor with any single power of immediate coertion yet by their powerfull intercession in the Councells and convocate Assemblies of the State may be effectually operative to the preservation of the publike right for which cause the use of these Assemblies are by no meanes long to be neglected When then the continuance and prosperity of every State stands upon no surer ground then the observance of the Rights and Orders of the Kingdome upon no better stand the lives and fortunes of the Subject of the Prince and Royall race yea and of the inheritance and Church of God himselfe And it is then no marvaile that God should threaten to powre out his wrath like water on Princes that are like to those that remove the bounds It is no marvaile that to the Kings of Iudah to whom God no question with a promise of perpetuity gave the most absolute dominion that has beene communicable to the Princes of his Church he should command Execute Yee judgement and righteousnes c for then shall King sitting on the throne of David enter in by these gates c but otherwise I will prepare destroyers against thee It is the important consequence that makes God not give the charge without threatning Though God declares Princes to be Gods among men yet between him and them God as David confesses has made the observance of the rule of justice and religion to be the condition of their reigning Bear rule saith God to David over men being just and ruleing in the feare of God Indeed when Princes derive their authority from Christ and justly challeng the prerogative of his vice-gerents it well behoves them to looke that the derivatives faile not of the condition of their primitive The Scepter of Christs Kingdome is declared to be a right Scepter and therefore his seat to endure for ever If his vice-gerents would have their seates durable they also must have care their Scepters be right Scepters they must see that the aunciently-established Formes and Orders of their Kingdomes be not violated or neglected but from time to time renewed and kept they must not to be absolute breake the Rights and Orders of the Kingdome and thinke to be good and just Princes in their Arbitrary Rule it were a reproachfull incongruity and nothing suitable to the vice-gerents of Christ to be good and faire Governours of that which they have made a tyrannicall government The Governours and government must have one face and way their rule cannot otherwise escape infamy not their providence cut off occasion from after times of invading the Rights and consequently the continuance of their Kingdomes The Lawes then the Rights and Orders of Kingdomes are most sacred and binding even to Kings themselves but that is to be understood in Safety in Honour in Conscience betweene God and them not in any way wherein in their default the people can become authorized For if we looke to what is written we find that when Subjects doe amisse they ought to feare for the Ruler is Gods minister to take vengeance and beareth not the sword in vaine But we read of no authority committed to the people in case the Prince failes of his Duty nor of any sword that is to be born by them if therefore they take the sword or any course that leades unto it they take the sword of injustice to the wounding of their own soules But while we name the people in these things we doe not make all Subjects living under the obedience of Soveraignes naturally to have this protence that they may doe themselves right in case their Prince doe not For as we see them of their owne naturall inclination to desire a King so we know they naturally submit unto his government And Prince and people of themselves stand naturally well-affected one to the other But as there are those that are sinisterly officious to the one so are there toward the other also And as those often counsell the Prince as if they would have him pull out the stones from out the foundation of his Throne to build higher the roofe and enlarge the battlements thereof so these often perswade the people that they have the authority of Princes though they have neither Throne Scepter nor any thing belonging to the Sovereigne right these find pretences and broach opinions in the peoples behalfe and then the people naturally jealous and impatient of the violation of their supposed Right or Liberty are facile to entertaine suggestions and through want of judgment easily carryed away with them but wanting also moderation they so violently adhere unto them as that with their intemperate prosecution they often by their owne instruments bring upon themselves the evills that they most doe feare from others So the people of Rome having expelled their Kings and setled a Republique with such hatred to the memory of them as that they would not endure the name of King growing afterward ill satisfied with the proceedings of their Senate they would not only have Tribunes Guardians of their Liberty and Rights which was indeed no more then necessary but they would have their Tribunes indued with Consular authority then with that of the Dictator of the Pontifex Max and whatsoever other power the common-wealth afforded In the end they made them so unresistable to vindicate their Liberty against the Nobles and the Senate as that in the upshot when they were become secure against their adverse party they had no meanes of interposition against the absolutenes of their own Guardians Insomuch as that Caesar obtaining to be head of their Faction could not be hindered but that even under the formes which they ordained to preserve their Liberty he introduced a Tyranny more absolute and worse conditioned then was that of their Kings which they expelled Hitherto tends the Doctrines of those who while they pretend to instruct for the common good Liberty and Right doe as it were appeale unto the people and support their doctrines with the peoples approbation and applause and do so in shew make the people and indeed themselves the soveraigne judges of all things FINIS Prov. 29. 4. Gen. 4. 7. Deut. 17. 15. 1. Sam. 10. 25. Prov. 16. 10. Prov. 8. 15. Psal. 81. 1. Pet. 2. 13. Rom. 13. 5. Prov. 24. 21. Rom. 13. 1. 2. 1. Sam. 15. 22. 2. Sam. 6. 6. 1. Chr. 13. 10 1. Cor. 14. 32 33. Acts. 7. 25. Exod. 2. 12. Acts. 7. 30. Exod. 3. 10. 1. King 12. 4. 1. Tim. 2. 1. Prov. 21. 1. Vers. 6. 2. Sam. 24. 1. 1. Sam. 12. 25 1. Sam. 15. 23. 16. 13. 1. Sam. 24. 5. 1. Sam. 26. 9. 2. Tim. 3. 5. Matth. 7. 16. 2. Tim. 3. 6. 4. 3. Iude. 19. 2. Tim. 3. 3. 2. Pet. 2. 10. Iude. 8. 11. Numb. 16. Mat. 7. 16. 1. Pet. 2. 21. Psal. 51. Hosea 5. 10. Eccles. 36. 25. Hosea 5. 10. Ier. 22. 3. 7. 2. Sam. 23. 3. Psal. 45. 7. Rom. 13. 4. 1. Sam. 8. 5.