Gods appointment where the Text faith hath not the Lord annointed thee to be Governour over his inheritance as also David who was Annointed King by Samuel according to Gods command 1 Sam. 16. 13. Solomon by Zadoc the Priest and Nathan the Prophet 1 King 1. 34. Jeroboam by the Prophet Ahijah 1 King 11. 30 31. all which being performed by the immediate command of God declaring his will and pleasure concerning the advancement of them to their several Power and Preheminence by Extraordinary Revelations do evidence the Right of Royal Investiture to pertain onely to God by whom Kings Raign And that not onely when he doth so declare his will by those Extraordinary means but also when that Power is attained by those ordinary wayes and means which are warranted by Gods word and the Rules of Reason and Equity as in Joas whom Jehoida the Priest made King in pursuance to the promise of God to his servant David that his house should be established for ever Or else these acts of the people are acts of seeming Power or Authority collating this Supremacy and Regal Power upon some person who hath no other Right or Title thereunto neither of Birth-right nor of Revelation from God as upon Absalom Adonijah Jehoadas Judas Theudas and Barchozba who professed himself the Messiah and drew the people into Rebellion against the Roman Emperor which occasioned those wars wherein Jerusalem and the Jewes were destroyed and these acts of the People are execrable sinful and Rebellious and so declared by Gods Judgements thereupon for wheresoever the Scriptures mention the constitution of a King after this manner you shall find that they likewise record not onely the frustration of the peoples endeavours but also that they were frustrated by some heavy and sudden Judgements of God both upon the Usurper whereby he was degraded from his undue honour and the people who presume to confer that honour upon him without a warrant from God and so by that means to obtrude a Deputy upon God of their own and not of Gods Election Whereof we have a lively instance in the madnesse of the People of England in these late times placing forsooth their Lord Protector by those horrible sins of Rebellion and Sacriledge not onely perpetrated against the Right and Power of our late dread Soveraign but even against his Sacred and most Royal Person O Heaven O Earth what satisfaction can be made for that Sacred blood shed to satiate the gluttonous and Sacrilegious lust of Traytors and Rebells who build up Sion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity But surely God will avenge the blood of his Servant crying like the blood of Abel for vengeance These acts of the people in Annointing of Kings are onely mentioned where some of these occasions happened that is where there was an interruption of the ordinary means of conferring the Supremacy by birth-right and Hereditary Succession either by the interposition of Gods just Prerogative in the Advancement of some Person by Extraordinary and Immediate Revelation or else by the usurpation of some who had no right or Title at all but Force and Violence either private of themselves and some few partners wherein God stirred up the people to vindicate the Kings right or Publick of the people but where the Supremacy and Soveraign Power with all the Appendages descended by Birthright there is no mention at all made of the people though the act of Duty and Homage was as necessary to be performed to all who enjoyed the Crown by Hereditary Succession as to Abijah Asa Jehosaphat Jehoram and the rest to whom the people were no less obedient and subject than to those who were appointed by God but I say in those cases the peoples acts of Submission and Homage are not expressed but presupposed as known acts of Duty to those Kings who attained the Supremacy by those ordinary and known means of Birthright And how many Instances are there in Scripture of the inefficacy of the peoples endeavours in this kind as in Aarons and the Israelites honouring and Proclaiming the Golden Calf to be a God and Guide in Moses stead yet did not that popular Election Legitimate that Calfes power and Title Exod. 32. And Absalom was proclaimed King by all the thousands of Israel yet did not that act of the people Legitimate Absaloms Title to the Crown For the Holy Ghost termeth it a Conspiracy when it was at the very height 1 Sam. 15. 12. Shcba had Ten Tribes for him when David had but one and yet was he never termed a King but a man of Belial 2 Sam. 20. Adonijah confesseth that although the faces of all Israel were set on him to make him King yet he never had any just Title or Right to the Kingdom for the Lord had designed it for his Brother Solomon 1 King 2. 15. upon all which God manifested the guilt of their sin by sending those fearful judgements both upon the people and the Traitors so exalted To the reason grounded upon that principle quod honor est in honorante non in honorato let it be premised that honour involves a twofold relation The one primarily and per se to that quality or excellency which is found in the person for which he is honoured and esteemed The other secondarily and virtute prioris to the act of honour and estimation whereby we judge well of the person so and so qualified and therefore all acts of honour in the secondary sence are acts of duty as being the effect of that qualification in the person so magnified and honoured So that it is evident the honour and submission which the people exhibite to their King even from this ground and principle of Aristotle are not acts of favour to be conferred and disposed voluntarily at their own will and pleasure but acts of Duty not onely morally as the acts of honour in the premised principle meerly intimates but also by a Divine necessity being thereto obliged by the Law of God And therefore must be performed to such as God esteems worthy of the honour to be his Deputies and not upon such as themselves judge worthy to be their Rulers For you know the people are obliged to exhibite acts of honour and reverence to a Judge but it doth not therefore follow that the people make that man a Judge but he is made such by Letters Patents from the King without asking any consent from the people To St. Peters Testimony I answer that the Apostles expression there relates to the subject of Soveraignty and Power which is the King and those who are over us under him As manifestly appears by the immediate following words of the Text 1 Peter 2. 13 14. Submit your selves unto every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake whether it be to the King as Supreme or unto Governours as them that are sent by him as if he had said Submit your selves to every Humane Power and Authority that God hath set over you not onely
may do male that is a wrong to himself for which he is accountable to God but he cannot do malum that is any wrong to us by inflicting any thing upon us which is not just and according to our deserts from God whose place the King supplies in Judgement which is the ground of Solomons assertion that The Kings lipps do pronounce Divine sentences and that his mouth transgresseth not in Judgement Proverbs 16. 10. Now therefore upon these grounds of Solomons it is manifest that there is no sence why the people should claim any power over the King by vertue of this Covenant First Because the King is not their Deputy but Gods and every man must accompt to him for his Actions who doth constitute and depute him as when the King doth depute a Judge for any Province or City the people under his Command have no power to question him for any act which they conceive unjust but either by Petition to that Judge or else by their addresses to the King his Master whose trust all corrupt Judges do deceive and not the Trust of the people for they receive not any Power or Authority from the people but from the King And in like manner the people for redress of their grievances from the Kings oppressions must address themselves to the King by Petition and if that prevail not then to God by prayer who is the Kings sole Lord and Master and from whom he receives his Power and whose Trust all Tyrannical Kings break by acts of Injustice which is the ultimum refugium as Samuel declares when he Prophesieth of Sauls Tyranny whereby the people should be grievously oppressed for redresse whereof the people when the King would not hear should cry unto the Lord 1 Sam. 8. 18. other means of remedy than which the Prophet Samuel did not dream of nor could prescribe to the people to make use of and whereas if he had conceived resistance to be Lawful he might soon have found out that way and have the people so to provide for their own security Secondly Because the people never receive Injustice from the King if they look upon themselves for the Judgment is the Lords who cannot do injustice nor break the Covenant upon his part although his Minister and Deputy may fail and offend in the execution of his Office in his own particular which is his own guilt As a Hangman that Executes the just sentence of death upon a Malefactor if in doing his office his intentions have not reference to the sentence of Justice but the satisfaction of some private grudge or some Covetous Design or the like that Officer is guilty of Murther although the Malefactor receive from his hand nothing but his due deserts And thus much I hope sufficiently declares the error and vanity of that opinion that the peoples consent and approbation are the ordinary and instrumental means and causes of that Supremacy and Soveraign Power which doth Preheminence the Monarch above all others within the same Society Now it rests to speak of that opinion which and that most certainly imputeth the Secondary and Instrumental cause of Monarchy and Regal Dignity to Birth-right and Hereditary Succession the Efficacy whereof Holy Writ doth manifest Preheminencing the first born above all his Brethren in Honour and Possessions as the Lord declared to Cain Gen. 4. 7. nor was it in the Fathers power either for love or hatred to alter the Law of the first born and to transmit the Honour and Inheritance due to him to his younger Brother Deut. 21. 15. and in that statute which the Lord himself made ordering the descent of honours and possessions Num. 27. the Lord doth direct that they be conferred by Birthright and Hereditary Succession and not by the Election or Discretion either of Moses or the people But more specially to our Case the Lord was pleased to honour it with the promises of perpetuating these Honours and Royal Dignities unto any Family which were alwayes grounded upon the perpetuation of the Royal Issue in giving Sons that should sit upon the Throne as appears in his promises to David 2 Sam. 7. 12. to Solomon 1 King 9. 4. to Jehu 2 King 10. 30. and most manifestly upon Jacobs Prophesie which upon this very ground Entailed the Crown and Scepter unto Judah until Shiloe came Gen 49. 10. The performance of which gratious promise was executed in Abijam who succeeded Rehoboam and Asa him Jehosaphat him and Jehoram him and so in the rest as the Sacred Chronicle doth at large relate who all inherited the Crown by vertue of this Birth-right without the concurrence of any other cause or meancs And this may suffice as touching that Instrumental and ordinary means viz. Gratious whereby God doth advance a man to the Regal Diadem Dignity and Honour and which is a constant Rule for us to Judge of whereby to acknowledge this Soveraignty and yield our obedience The other Instrumental means of this Supremacy which creates a Right and Title to the Crown is Vindicative and that is Sword and Conquest which the Lord declareth to be one of the severest and heaviest of his Curses and Judgements upon a Nation Lev. 26. 25. And the Lord styled the victorious King of Assyria Isa 10. 5. The Rod of his wrath and staffe of his Indignation because by his sword he was resolved to pour out the Vials of his fierce wrath upon the Ten Tribes for their Idolatries and abominations Quest It may be here demanded whether Conquest be a Lawful and good Title and whether any King who doth claim from thence be a Lawful King or onely an Usurper Answ Conquest in it self makes no better Title to a Crown than Ahab had to Naboths Vineyard or than the Robber hath to the Travellers purse For as it is an affliction and punishment to the passive party so it is a sin and Injustice in the active party and directly contrary to the Law of God which prohibits all injuries to our neighbours but yet such a Title may be legitimated and made Lawful by the declaration of Gods will concerning the same Now Gods will in this case is declared two wayes First Extraordinarily by immediate Revelation and so Jeroboams Jehues and Nebuchadnezzars Titles were Legitimated The second Ordinarily by the Extinguishment of the Royal Family which is a Declaration of his wrath and vengeance upon that House and so the Lord did Legitimate Baasha's Title as himself acknowledgeth by the Extinguishment of Jeroboams House 1 King 15. 29. Now where the Lord hath declared his will by either of these wayes the Conquerers Title is good and Legal and all those who claim from that Conquerer are Lawful Kings But where the Conquerers Title is not Legitimated by one of these two wayes the Conquerer is but a meer Usurper and it is not onely Lawful but a necessary duty in the people to resist him and to use their utmost endeavours for the Deposition of that Usurper and
to the King himself but also to his Ministers and Magistrates although they are his Subjects as well as you for there is no power but of God and whosoever resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God And they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation c. Rom. 13. But it doth not at all relate to the Original and Efficient cause of that Power which is God and neither King nor people And now I hope the profanity of that former inference of theirs is perspicuous appearing most damnable being directly contradictory to that express Rule which God himself hath prescribed in this case Exod. 23. 2. Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil neither agree in a controversie to decline after many Where God plainly declares that the universality of the offenders cannot legitimate the fault as appears in the sin in erecting the Golden Calf and Absaloms Conspiracy For though it be a Maxime in Policy that Multitudo peccantium tollit peccatum i. e Poenam peccati and therefore in crimes of the blackest dye the offenders often times escapes their due punishment It is as true a Maxime in Divinity that multitudo peccantium aggravat peccatum i. e. culpam peccati and the more I seduce the more guilt I contract Although the multitude of partakers may secure me from punishment in foro judicii humani yet I am sure to receive the just reward of that sin at Gods Tribunal from which the whole Society of men and Devils cannot secure me But not to bind these nice Disputants to an Argument of Conscience which indeed is scarce to be found amongst them to evince their error let us consider the absurdity and sencelesness of their opinion both in Policy and Reason For if the Major part of the people be Superiour to the King then the Government is not Monarchical but Democratical every species of Policy deriving its Denomination and nature from those that are Invested with the Supremacy But that Democracy is the basest kind of Policy Confusion and Destruction being the conclusion of such a Government both experience and the general consent of all Politians do declare and so asserted both by Jerome and Cyprian and even Calvin himself although a favourer of the Peoples Right in appointing of their King and Monarck divers men have divers minds and meanings and therefore amongst a multitude of Governors Emulation and dissention are no rare springs Nay both Jerome and Cyprian record it for a probatum in daily experience that so many Leaders so many followers so many Rulers so many Factions do tear and rent in pieces the peace and Vnity of all Societies To which agrees Calvin affirming an equality amongst Governours to be the mother of Factions It 's one of our Saviours own Maximes Matth. 3. 24. That a Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand but every Democracy must necessarily divide a Kingdom against it self Ergo c. That Democracy must necessary divide a Kingdom against it self is proved from another of Christs own Maximes Matth. 6. 24. No man can serve two Masters much lesse three or four hundred masters but in every Democracy there are at least two Masters And therefore no man can be a true Subject or servant in such a Common-wealth but as Christ faith must necessarily be factious by loving one and hating all others and adhering to one and rebelling against others And therefore it is observed that in Christs time when Esay had prophesied that there should be an Universal peace over the whole Earth that then there was not any kind of Polarchy in any Kingdom in the world because in its own nature every Polarchy is inconsistent with Peace and Unity the end and conclusion thereof being absolute ruine and desolation the common fate of all divided Kingdoms except God in his mercy prevent the same by the reducement of such a Government to a Monarchy a manifest experience whereof we have both in the Athenian Syracusan Lacedemonian and Roman Common-wealths whose Polarchical Dissentions occasioned many Intestine Wars and Tragical Conflicts which in fine must necessarily have produced the ruine and desolation of them all if the opportune reducement of those Polarchies to a Monarchy had not prevented it Lastly every individual member of the same Society is obliged to exhibit acts of Obedience and Loyalty to their Lawful Prince as the former part of this distinction of these subtile Logicians intimate allowing the King to be Major singulis but upon what grounds they deny his Authority in Vniversis I leave to the Censure of every rational Judgement seriously considering this deduction Peter is obliged to exhibit acts of obedience to his Prince so Paul so John and so every individual member of the same Society Ergo according to that Logical Maxime a particularibus ad universale valet consequentia they all in universal are obliged to exhibit acts of Obedience to their King To the second Inference viz. That the King doth receive and enjoy this honour onely by vertue of a stipulation or Covenant between himself and the people and therefore if the King doth violate this Covenant and break the Trust reposed in him by the people that then the people are absolved from their Allegiance grounded upon that Trust and Covenant and may Lawfully provide for their own safety and welfare either by Resistance Deposition Dethronement or any such means as themselves judge to be most conducent to their own security To this I answer that this Covenant its true implyeth a mutual engagement of the parties therein concern'd but the parties primarily and originally concerned are God upon the one party and the people upon the other party as Moses declareth when he reciteth that Original and general Covenant which is indeed the ground of all other particular Covenants Lev. 26. Deut. 28. And therefore Solomon Eccles 8. 4. maketh this Covenant a ground why people should obey the Kings Commandments not as the Kings but as Gods Commandments whose Vicegerent the King is for where the word of the King is there is power and who shall say unto him what doest thou for the Kings heart is in the hand of the Lord as the Rivers of water he turns it which way soever he will Prov. 21. 1. And therefore the King is onely the deputative party assigned by God and intrusted by him for the performance of the Covenant upon Gods part either for a vengeance or recompence to the people as the Lord himself judgeth of their merits And though the King may spare the wicked and persecute the Righteous even unto death as Pilate did our Saviour yet even in that the King doth but execute Gods Decrees as the Holy Ghost doth declare concerning that unjust Judgement of Pilates Acts 4. 28. for Pilate did nothing but what God had Determined before to be done For every mans judgement is from the Lord Prov. 29. 26. and not from the Judge or Ruler So that in a word the King
God to Record with me when I remember makes my flesh tremble stupifies all my senses to think flesh and blood should be guilty of such execrable Acts the perpetration whereof Hell with all its damnable Crue scarcely could or ever did exceed But the prodigious guilt of this Miscreant so much exceedeth the mild point of my pen that in the further process I should but lessen my own resentments and seem to favour that which is the fittest subject for the greatest Satyre in the world The instrumental cause of Monarchy is the secondary means which God makes use of for the immediate collation of this Supremacy upon any man whereby to Intitle him to the Regal Diadem and that either Extraordinary when God doth declare his will by extraordinary revelation and that either for a blessing to his people over whom he placeth him by making him a Minister of his favours and mercies or for the Executioner of his Judgements for the punishment of the peoples sins Or Ordinary when God doth advance a man to this Regal Dignity and Honour by those ordinary wayes and means which are constant Rules for us to judge of whereby to acknowledge this Soveraignty and yeild our obedience and this likewise either when the Soveraign Power is attained by those ordinary wayes and means which are approved and warranted by the word of God and the Rules of Reason and Equity Or when the same is attained by Violence and Injustice and such cursed wayes and means as are repugnant to the word of God and the Rules of Justice and Equity The dispute of the former would be arrogant and impious for the extraordinary wayes of God are far above our Judgement and further above our imitation God never intending such for a president whereby to frame our Actions but onely our Submissions thereunto And therefore I shall insist upon those ordinary wayes and means which are the rule of our Actions in this kind which as I have said is twofold Either when attained by violence and injustice and repugnant to the word of God and the Rules of Justice and Equity which is called Vindicative Or when it is attained by those ordinary means which are approved and warranted by the word of God and this is called Gratious Concerning which there are two opinions the one propugned by some that the Right of the Royal Investiture pertaineth to the people The other and that most certainly is imputed to Birthright and Hereditary Succession Their Arguments whereupon they ground the former opinion are partly instantial and partly rational The instances alleadged for the propugnation hereof are the Inaugurations of those Kings which the Scriptures mention to be made or Annointed by the people as Saul 1 Sam. 11. 15. All the people of the Land came to Gilgal to make him King And David whom all the men of Juda Annointed King at Hebron 2 Sam. 2. 4. And afterwards was Annointed King over Israel at Hebron by all the Tribes of Israel 2 Sam. 5. 3. And Solomon who was likewise Annointed by the people 1 Chron. 29. 20. And Jeroboam whom the people made King 1 King 12. 20. And Vzziah whom the people of the Land made King 2 King 14. 21. And Jehoahas who although he was the second Son of Joshuah was made King by the people in his fathers stead 2 Chron. 23. 20. The reason they ground this opinion upon is taken from that Aristotelian principle Honor est in honor ante non in honorato And therefore the honour say they and Submission which Kings receive is originally in the people And therefore they think it not reasonable that the people should be obliged to give obedience and yield honour to any person but him whom they think and judge worthy of it and so manifest their Judgement of his worth by their Election of him to be their King and Soveraign And lastly they add St. Peters Testimony 1 Pet. 2. 13. who terms Regality an Ordinance of Man which were false if it did proceed from God and not from the people for then it were an ordinance of God and not of Man Now from these grounds they deduce two damnable because Rebellious Consequences and Corollaries 1. That though the King be Major singulis yet he is Minor universis and therefore that is no Rebellion but duty in the people to resist and oppose the King nay to depose and dethrone him where the people judge it necessary in relation to the defence of their own safety 2. That the King doth receive and enjoy this honour onely by vertue of a stipulation or Covenant between himself and the people And therefore if the King do violate this Covenant and break the Trust reposed in him by the people by any acts which are destructive ad Salutem populi whereof they presuppose themselves to be Judges that then the people are absolved from their Allegiance grounded upon that Trust and Covenant and may Lawfully provide for their own safety and welfare either by resistance deposition dethronement or any such means as themselves shall judge thereunto conducent Now to confute this opinion concerning the Peoples Right and Power in this Regal Investiture and in answer to the Arguments alleadged for the propugnation thereof and to those damnable and execrable inferences grounded thereupon we must know that these acts of the People mentioned in the premised instances of Scripture of making and Annointing Kings are Either acts of Homage and Duty by way of acknowledgement and testification of the Supremacy already Legally confirmed upon the person to whom these duties are performed which in Scripture are expressed upon two several occasions The one where God did confer this Supremacy and Regal Honour by any extraordinary wayes and means as in Saul David Solomon and Jeroboam The other where God used their means for the vindication of the Kings just Title against an Usurper as in Joas whom Jehoida the Priest and the Captaines and the people crowned and annointed King in the Temple restoring him to his just Rights which had been usurped by his Grandmother Athaliah 2 King 11. 12 13. And in Hosiah the son of Amaziah whom the people restored to his just Power which the Conspirators who slew his Father had usurped And in both these cases the acts of the People are good and Lawful and approved by God being declared to be the will of God upon the former occasion extraordinarily upon the latter ordinarily And indeed is nothing else but the peoples necessitated assent and manifestation of joy for that blessing which God hath bestowed upon them and therefore bound to perform all acts of obedience and Loyalty to him so Invested whereunto they do by this act of theirs silently and implicitely promise and engage And not by this act of theirs stipulating or adding any Authority or Supremacy to the person so inaugurated as in those instances if severally and seriously considered will appear For 1 Sam. 10. 1. we find Saul and that by