power Legally placed in the two houses more then sufficient to prevent and restrain the power of Tyranny I answer first when it pleased the King of His grace to restrain His own power of making Laws to the consent of Peeres Commons that by this Regulating of the same it might be purged from all destructive exorbitances the very Law it self being tender of the legitimate rights of the King and considering the Person of the Soveraign to be single his power counterpoysed by the opposite wisdom of the two Houses allowed him to sweare unto himselfe a body of Councell of State and Counsellors at Law the Iudges also to advise him informe him so that as he should not doe any wrong by reason of the restraining Votes of the Houses so he might not receive any wrong by the incroachment of the Parliament upon his right The Kings concessions very large and the King being driven away from his learned Councell and forced to make the defence of his rights by writing it is no wonder if his concessions and Promises as well in this poynt as in other things especially in that concerning the Act of excluding the Clergy were more then was due to them or then he needed to grant or then he ought to observe being to the dishonour of God and the prejudice of his Church when as nothing in Parliament where the wrong may be perpetuall should be extracted from him but what he should well consider of with the advice of his Counsell and what he should freely grant and whatsoever is otherwise done is ill done to the great disadvantage of the King and his Posterity and the unjust inlarging of their power more then is due unto them yet 2. I say D. Ferne in his reply to sever treat p. 32 if these words of His Majesties be rightly weighed they give no colour of resisting Tyranny by any forcible armes but as D. Ferne saith most truly of Legall Morall and Parliamentary restraint for the words are there is a power legally placed in the Houses that is the Law hath placed a power in them but you shall never find any Law that any King hath granted whereby himselfe might be resisted and subdued by open force and violence Roffensis de potest Papae 291. Eophan to â—ythag l. De Regno apud stabaeum fol. 335. for as Roffensis saith Regis suo solius judicio reservavit Deus qui stans in Synagogâ deorum dijudicat eos God hath reserved Kings to his own judgement and the Heathen man could say as Stobaeus testifieth primum Dei deinde Regis est ut nulli subjiciatur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first it is the priviledge of God next of the King to be subject unto none because the Regall power properly is unaccountable to any man A principle tenet of the Essaei And some think that the Common-wealth is happier under a Tyrant that will keep theÌ„ in awe then under too mild a Prince upon whose clemency they will presume to Rebell Iere. 27.5 6. A memorable place against resisting Tyrants as Suidas saith and Iosephus saith that the holiest men that ever were among the Hebrews called essaei or esseni that is the true practisers of the Law of God maintained that soveraigne Princes whatsoever they were ought to be inviolable to their Subiects for they saw there was scarce any thing more usuall in the holy Scripture then the prohibition of resistance or refusall of obedience to the Prince whether he were Iew or Pagan milde or tyrannicall good or bad as to instance one place for all where the Lord saith J have made the earth the man and the beast that are upon the ground by my great power and have given it to whom it seemed meet unto me and now I have given all those Lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the King of Babylon my Servant and he was both a Heathen an Idolater and a mighty Tyrant and all Nations shall serve him and his sonne and his sonnes sonne and it shall come to passe that the Nation and Kingdome which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar the King of Babylon and that will not put their necks under the yoake of the King of Babylon that Nation will I punish saith the Lord with the Sword and with the Famine and with the Pestilence untill I have consumed them by his hands therefore hearken not ye unto your Prophets nor to your Diviners which speak unto you saying you shall not serve the King of Babylon for they prophesy a lye unto you which he repeateth again and again they prophesy a lye unto you that you should perish and may not I apply these words to our very time God saith I have given this Kingdome unto King Charles which is a mild just and most pious King and they that will say nolumus hunc regnare super nos I will destroy them by his hand therefore ô ye seduced Londoners believe not your false Prophets nay hearken not to your diviners your Anabaptists and Brownists that preach lies and lies upon lies unto you that you should perish for God hath not sent them though they multiply their lies in his name therefore why will you dye why will you destroy your selves and your posterity by refusing to submit your selves to mine ordinance and what should God say more unto you to hinder your destruction and it was concluded by a whole Councell that si quis potestati regiae quae non est teste Apostolo nisi à deo Concil Meldens apud Roffen l. 2. c. 5. de potest papae Ob. contumaci afflato spiritu obtemperare irre fragabiliter noluerit anathematizetur Whosoever resisteth the Kings Power and with a proud spirit will not obey him let him be accursed But then you will say this is strange doctrine that wholly takes away the liberty of the Subject if they may not resist regall tyranny I think there is no good Subject Sol. that loves his Soveraigne that will speake against a iust and lawfull liberty when it is a farre greater honour unto any King to rule over a free and gentile Subjects then over base and turkish slaves but as under the shadow and pretence of Christian liberty Many evills to lurk under fair shewes many carnall men have rooted out of their hearts all christianity so many Rebellious aspiring minds have under these colourable titles of the liberty of the Subjects and suppressing tyranny shaked of the yoke of all true obedience and dashed the rights of government all to pieces therefore as the law of God and the rules of his owne conscience should keep every Christian King from exercising any uniust tyranny over his Subjects so if men will transcend the rules of due obedience the Kings Power and Authority should keep them from transgressing the limits of their iust liberty but this unlawfulnesse of resisting our lawfull King I have fully proved in my Grand Rebellion
verba mutare nemini latae ab illo sententiae qualicunque modo contraire and no man dares alter the Kings words nor gain-say his sentence whatsoever it is And we reade that the Turke is as absolute in his Dominions and as readily obeyed in his commands as the Tartar and yet these Subjects learne this duty of honour and obedience unto their Kings onely by the light of nature and if grace and the Gospell hath made us free from this slavish subjection should we not be thankefull unto our God and be contented with that liberty which he hath given us but because we have so much we will have more * And as the Poët saith Like Subjects arm'd the more their Princes gave They this advantage tooke the more to crave Lucan lib. 1. and seeing God hath delivered us from the rage of tyrannous Kings we will free our selves from all government and disobey the commands of the most clement Princes We may remember the fable of the Frogs when they prayed unto Jupiter to have a King and what was the successe thereof omnia dat qui justa negat and he that undutifully denyeth his due obedience may unwillingly be forced to undue subjection as the Israelites not contented with just Samuel shall be put under an unjust Saul So God may justly deale with us for our injustice towards our King to deny that honour unto him which God commanded to be given and the very Heathens have not detained from their Kings But 3. Christians 3. Lest with Saint Paul we should be blamed though unjustly for bringing the uncircumcised Greeks into the Temple for alleadging the disorderly practice of blinde Heathens to be a patterne for these zealous Christians which thing notwithstanding our Saviour did when he preferred Sodome and Gomorrah before Capernaum Matth. 11.21 yea Tyrus and Sydon before Corazin and Bethsaida we cannot want the example of good Christians and a multitude of most holy Martyrs to shame the practice of these prophane hypocrites For 1. Christ hâ—mselfe exhibited all duâ— honour unto wicked Kings 1. Christ himselfe the author and the finisher of our faith never left any plainer marke of his religion then to propagate the fame by patience as on the other side there cannot be a more suspicious signe of a false religion then to inlarge it and protect it by violence and therefore when the Inhabitants of a certaine Samaritane village refused to admit Christ and his Disciples into their Towne Luke 9.54 and so renounced him and his religion James and John two principall members of his Court remembring what Elias did in the like case 1. Reg. 18. 2. Reg. 1. asked if they should not command fire to consume them as Elias did that is if they should not use their best endeavours and be confident of Gods assistance to destroy those prophane rejecters of Christ and refusers of his religion Our Saviour though ever meeke yet now moved at this their unchristian thought rebuked them with that sharpnesse as he did Saint Peter when he committed the like errour Matth. 16.23 and said You know not what manner of spirit you are of as if he had said you understand not the difference betwixt the profession of Elias and my religion for he was such a zelot that jure zelotarum and the extraordinary instinct of Gods Spirit that was in him might at that time when the Jewes were governed by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Josephus saith and God presiding as it were their King amongst them and interposing rules by his Oracles and other particular directions that should oblige and warrant them as well as their standing Law doe this or the like act though not authorized by any ordinary Law and those actions thus performed are as just and as legall as any other that proceed legally from the authority of the supreame Magistrate but that dispensation of the Prophets is now ended and the profession of my Disciples must be farre otherwise for I doe not authorize my servants to pretend to the spirit of Elias or to doe as Phineas and others extraordinary men among the Jewes have done but they must learne of me to be meeke and lowly in heart Matth. 11.29 and rather to suffer wrong of others then to offer the least injury unto their meanest neighbour much lesse to resist their supreame Magistrate And when Christ was apprehended How Christ carried himselfe before Pilate and the High-Priests not by any legall power of the supreme Magistrate but by the rude servants of the High Priests and Saint Peter as zealous for his Master as our Zealots are for their Religion drew his sword and smote off Malchus eate a most justifiable and commendable act a man would thinke to defend Christ and in him all Christianity our Saviour bids him put up his sword and he addes a reason most considerable to all Christians for all they that take the sword shall perish by the sword that is all they that without lawfull authority take the sword to defend me and my religion with the sword they deserve to suffer by the sword and it is very well observed by the Author Pag. 6. of resisting the lawfull Magistrate upon colour of religion that the two parallel places quoted in the margent of our Bibles are very pertinent to this purpose for that Law concerning the effusion of bloud Gen. 9.6 being not any prohibition to the legall cutting off of Malefactors is notwithstanding urged against S. Peter to shew that his shedding of bloud in defence of religion was altogether illegall and prohibited by that Law and the other place where immediately after these words Revel 13.10 He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword the Holy Ghost adjoyneth here is the patience and the faith of the Saints doth most clearely shew that all forcible resistance is inconsistent with the religion of the Saints because their faith must be ever accompanied with their patience and it is contrary to their profession to save themselves by any violent opposition of them that have the lawfull authority But that example which is unparallel'd is the suffering of Christ under Pontius Pilate for the whole course of their proceeding against Christ was illegall when as no Law can be found to justifie the delivering up of an innocent person to the will of his accusers John 19.16 as Pilate did our Saviour Christ and our Saviour had ability and strength enough to have defended himselfe for he might have commanded more then 12 Legions of Angels to assist him yet our Saviour acknowledging the legall power of Pilate to proceed against him John 19.11 that it was given him from above makes no resistance either to maintaine his doctrine or to preserve his life but in all things submits himselfe to their illegall proceedings and gives unto the Magistrates all the honour that was due unto their places and you know the rule
habet They were furiously bent against them and you know furor arma ministrat dum regnant arma silent leges all Lawes must sleepe while Armes prevaile Besides you may finde those Canons as if they had beene prophetically made fore-saw the increasing strength of Anabaptisme Brownisme Puritanisme most likely to subvert true Protestanisme and therefore were as equally directed against these Sectaries of the left hand as against the Papists on the right hand and I thinke the whole Kingdome now findes and feeles the strength of that virulent Faction and therefore what wonder that they should seeke to breake all those Canons to pieces and batter them downe with their mighty Ordinances for seeking to subdue their invincible errours or else because as they say the Ecclesiasticall State is not an independent society but a member of the whole the Parliament was not so to be excluded as that their advice and approbation should not be required to make them obligatory to the rest of the Subjects of the whole Kingdome which claime this priviledge to be tyed to the observation of no humane Lawes that themselves by their representatives have not consented unto 2. To grant dispensations of his owne Lawes 2. As the King is intrusted by God to make Lawes for the government of the Church of Christ so it is a rule without question that ejus est dispensare absolvere cujus est condere he hath the like power to dispense with whom he pleaseth and to absolve him that transgresseth as he hath to oblige them therefore our Church being for reformation the most famous throughout all the parts of the Christian world and our King having so just an authority to doe the same it is a most impudent scandall full of all malice and ignorance not to be endured by any well-affected Christian that the new brood of the old Anabaptists doe lay upon our Church and State that they did very unreasonably and unconscionably by their Lawes grant Dispensations both for Pluralities and Non-residency The scandall of the malicious ignorants against the worthier Clergy onely to further the corrupt desires of some few to the infinite wrong of the whole Clergy besides the hazard of many thousands of soules the intolerable dishonour of Gods truth and the exceeding disadvantage of Christ his Church for seeing God hath principally committed and primarily commanded the care of his Church and Service unto Kings who are therefore to make Lawes and Orders for the well governing of the same I shall make it most evident that they may as they have ever done most lawfully and more beneficially both for Gods Church and also for the Common-wealth doe these three things 1. Three speciall points handled To grant that grace and favour unto their Bishops and other Ecclesiasticall persons as to admit them of their counsell and to undertake secular authority and civill jurisdiction 2. To allow dispensations of Pluralities and Non-residency which they may most justly and most wisely do without any transgression of the Law of God 3. To give tolerations where they see cause of many things prohibited by their Law to dispense with the transgressions and to remit the fault of the transgressors For 1. Though the world relapsed from the true light 1. Point and declined from the syncere religion to most detestable superstition yet there remained in the people certaine impressions of the divine truth that there was a God The great respect of the Clergy in former ages and that this God was religiously to be worshipped and those men that taught the worship of that God how fowly soever they did mistake it Sarawa l. 2. c. 2. p. 103. were had in singular account and supereminent authority among all Nations and as Saravia saith 1. Among the Gentiles they were compeeres with Kings in their government so that nothing was done without their counsell and consent and as Theseus was the first that Cives Atticos è pagis in urbem compulit Osor p. 231. and put the difference betwixt Nobles De tota Syria Palestina refert Dion l. 37. quòd rex summi Pontificis nomen habeat Husbandmen and Artificers so the Priests were alwayes selected out of the noblest families and were ever in all their publique counsels as the Divines sate among the Athenians and the South-sayers sate with the King among the Lacedemonians in all their weightiest consultations And Strabo tells us Strabo lib. 12. that the Priests of Bellona which were in Pontus and Cappadocia Apud Tertul. advers Valent. Hermetem legimus appellar◠Max. sacerdotem maximum regem for that Goddesse was honoured in both places were regarded with the greatest honour next to the King himselfe and the Romans that were both wealthy warlike and wise did almost nothing without the advice and counsell of their Priests I will omit what Valerius Maximus setteth downe of their care of religion and their great respect unto their Priests and religious persons and I will referre you onely to what Tully writeth of this point Cicero l. 2. de legibus Diotogenes apud Stob. dicit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aethiopes reges suos deligebant ex numero sacerdotum Diodor l. 3. c 1. Tòtus Vespas Pontificatum maximum ideo sese professus est accipere ut puras servaret manus Sueton. in Tito c. 9. In Aritia regnum erat concretum cum sacerdotio Diana ut innuit Ovid. Ecce suburbana templum nemorale Dianae Partaque per gladios regna nocente manu De arte amandi lib. 1. Strabo l. 5. where he saith that the greatest and the worthiest thing in their Common-wealth was the priviledge and preheminence of the Divines which was joyned with the greatest authority for they dismissed the companies and the Councels of the chiefest Empires and the greatest Potentates when they were proposed they restrayned them when they were concluded they ceased from the affaires which they had in hand if but one Divine did say the contrary they appointed that the Consuls should depose themselves from their Magistracie it was in their intire power either to give leave or not to give leave to deale with the people or not to deale to repeale Lawes not lawfully made and to suffer nothing to be done by the Magistrate in peace or warre without their leave or authority this was their Law though I beleeve it was not alwayes observed by their proud Consuls and unruly Magistrates Cicero de nat deorum l. 2. In like manner Caesar writeth of the Gaules and Britons that they had two sorts of men in singular honour the one was their Druides or Divines the other was their Souldiers or men of warre and he faith that their Druides determined of all controversies in a manner both private and publique and if there were any crime committed any murther attempted if any controversie about inheritance or the bounds of lands did arise they also did set downe
houses that are against it shall be destroyed because as S. Peter saith we have forsaken all to become his servants that otherwise might have served Kings with the like honour that they doe and we have left the world to build up his Church we put our trust under the shadow of his wings and being in trouble we doe cry unto the Lord and therefore he will heare our cry and will helpe us and we shall never be confounded Amen CHAP. X. Sheweth that it is the Kings right to grant Dispensations for Pluralities and Non-residency what Dispensation is reasons for it to tolerate divers Sects or sorts of religions the foure speciall sorts of false professors S. Augustines reasons for the toleration of the Jewes toleration of Papists and of Puritans and which of them deserve best to be tolerated among the Protestants and how any Sect is to be tolerated 2. WHereas the Anabaptists and Brownists of our time 2. That the King may lawfully grant his dâ—spensation for Pluralities and Non-residency with what conscience I know not cry out that our Kings by their Lawes doe unreasonably and unconscionably grant dispensations both for Pluralities and Non-residency onely to further the corrupt desire of some few aspiring Prelates to the infinite wrong of the whole Clergy the intolerable dishonour of our religion the exceeding prejudice of Gods Church and the lamentable hazard of many thousand soules I say that the Pluralities and Non-residency granted by the King and warranted by the Lawes of this Land may finde sufficient reasons to justifie them â—n anno 112. for if you consider the first limitation of Benefices In anno 636. that either Euaristus Bishop of Rome or Dionysius as others thinke did first assigne the precincts of Parishes The first distribution of Parishes and appointed a certaine compasse to every Presbyter and in this Kingdome Honorius Archbishop of Canterbury was the first that did the like appointing the Pastorall charge and the portion of meanes accrewing from that compasse to this or that particular person whereas before for many yeares they had no particular charge assigned nor any Benefice allotted them but had their Canonicall pensions and dividents given them by the Bishop out of the common stocke of the Church according as the Bishop saw their severall deserts for at first the greater Cities onely had their standing Pastors and then the Countrey Villages imitating the Cities to allow maintenance according to the abilities of the inhabitants had men of lesser learning appointed for those places â—iuâ— auticâ— and Non residency no transgression of Gods Law Therefore this limitation of particular Parishes being meerly positive and an humane constitution it cannot be the transgression of a divine ordinance to have more Parishes then one or to be absent from that one which is allotted to him when he is dispensed with by the Law maker to do the same for as it is not lawfull without a dispensation to doe either because we are to obey every ordinance of the higher power for the Lords sake so for the higher power to dispense with both is most agreeable to reason and Gods truth Gods Law admitteth an interpretation not a dispensation of it for all our Lawes are either divine or humane and in the divine Law though we allow of interpretation quia non sermoni res sed rei sermo debet esse subjectus because the words must be applyed to the matter else we may fall into the heresie of those that as Alfonsus de Castro saith held it unlawfull upon any occasion to sweare because our Saviour saith sweare not at all yet no man King nor Pope hath power to grant any dispensation for the least breach of the least precept of Gods Law he cannot dispense with the doing of that which God forbiddeth to be done nor with the omitting of that which God commandeth but in all humane Lawes so far as they are meerly positive and humane Mans Law may be dispensed with it is in the power of their makers to dispense with â—hem and so quicquid fit dispensatione superioris non fit contra praeceptum superioris and he sinneth neither against the Law nor against his owne conscience because he is delivered from the obligation of that Law by the same authority whereby he stood bound unto it And as he that is dispensed with is free from all sinne so the King which is the dispenser is as free from all fault as having full right and power to grant His dispensations For seeing that all humane Lawes are the conclusions of the Law of nature or the evidences of humane reason shewing what things are most beneficiall to any society either the Church or Common-wealth and that experience teacheth us our reason groweth often from an imperfection to be more perfect when time produceth more light unto us we cannot in reason deny an abrogation and dispensation to all humane Lawes which therefore ought not to be like the Lawes of the Medes and Persians that might not be changed and so Saint Augustine saith Aug. de libero arbit l. 1. Lex humana quamvis justa sit commutari tamen pro tempore justè potest any humane Law though it be never so just yet for the time as occasion requireth may be justly changed dispensatio est juris communis relaxatio facta cum causae cognitione ab eo qui jus habet dispensandi Dispensation what it is and as the Civilians say a dispensation is the relaxation of common right granted upon the knowledge of the cause by him that hath the power of dispensing or as the etymologie of the word beareth dispensare est diversa pensare The reward of learning and vertue how to be rendered to dispense is to render different rewards and the reward of learning or of any other vertue either in the civill or the ecclesiasticall person being to be rendered as one saith not by an Arithmeticall but a Geometricall proportion and the division of Parishes being as I said before a positive humane Law it cannot be denyed but the giver of honour and the bestower of rewards which is the King hath the sole power and right to dispose how much shall be given to this or that particular person Ob. If you say the Law of the King which is made by the advice of his whole Parliament hath already determined what portion is sit for every one and what service is required from him Sol. I answer that the voice of equity and justice tells us that a generall Law doth never derogate from a speciall priviledge or that a priviledge is not opposite to the principles of common right and where the Law it selfe gives this priviledge as our Law doth it yet envy it selfe can never deny this right unto the King to grant his dispensation whensoever he seeth occasion and where the Law is tacite and saith nothing of any priviledge yet seeing in all Lawes as
to make it yet more cleare that the Kings power to rule his people was arbitrary Sigonius saith most truly that the power of governing the people was given by God unto Moses before the Law was given and therefore he called the people to counsell and without either Judges or Magistrates jura eisdem reddidit he administred justice and did right to every one of them So Joshua exercised the same right and the Judges after him and after the Judges succeeded the Kings quorum potestas atque autoritas multo major ut quae non tam à legibus quà m ab arbitrio voluntate regis profecta sit Sigon de rep Heb. l. 7. c. 3. Hoc arbitrarium impertum expressit Deus 1. Sam. 8. David Ps 11. Reges eos in vâ—rga ferrea whose power and authority was farre greater as proceeding not so much from the Lawes as from the arbitrement and the will of the King saith Sigonius for they understood the power of a King in Aristotles sence Qui solutus legibus plenissimo jure regnaret who being freed from the Lawes or not tyed to Lawes might governe with a plenary right And so Saul judged Israel and had altogether the arbitrary power both of life and death Idem ibidem quodam modo superior legibus fuit and was after a sort above the Law undertaking and making warre pro arbitratu suo according to his owne will And in his sixth booke he saith the Jewes had three great Courts or Assemblies Cap. 2. 1. Their Councell which contained that company that handled those things especially which concerned the State of the whole Common-wealth as warre peace provision institution of Lawes creation of Magistrates and the like Cap. 3. 2. Their Synagogue or the meeting of the whole Congregation or people which no man might convocate but he which had the chiefe rule as Moses Joshua the Judges and the Kings Cap. 4. Numb 15. Plenum regnum vocatur quo cuncta rex sua voluntate gerit Idem 3. Their standing Senate which was appointed of God to be of the 70 Elders whereof he saith that although this was alwayes standing for consultation yet we must understand that the Kings which had the Common-wealth in their owne power and were not obnoxious to the Lawes made Decrees of themselves without the authority of the Senate ut qui cum summo imperio essent as men that were indued with the chiefest rule and command And we finde that the King judged the people two manner of wayes 1. Alone 2. Together with the Elders and Priests For it is said that Absolon when any man came to the King for judgement wished that he were made Judge in the Land 2. Sam. 15.2 6 and he did in this manner to all Israel that came to the King for judgement and when the people demanded a King instead of Samuel to reigne over them and God said 1. Sam. 8.7 They had cast him off from being their King he signifieth most plainly that while the Judges ruled which had their chiefest authority from the Law God raigned over them because his Law did rule them but the rule and government being translated unto Kings God raigned no longer over them Quia non penes legem Dei sed penes voluntatem unius hominis summa rerum autoritas esset futura because now all authority and all things were not in the power of the Law but in the power of one mans arbitrary will But seeing we are fallen upon the peoples desire of a King let us examine what right God saith belongeth unto him and because that place 1. Sam. 8. is contradicted by another Deut. 17. as it seemeth we will examine both places and see if Moses doth any wayes crosse Samuel Deut. 17.14 usque ad finem and truly I may say of these two places that as S. Aug. saith in the like case alii atque alii aliud atque aliud opinati sunt for some learned men say that Moses setteth downe to the King legem regendi the Law by which he should governe the people without wronging them and Samuel setteth downe to the people legem parendi the Law by which they should obey the King without resisting him whatsoever he should doe to them And other Divines say Haec est potestas legitima non tyrannica nec violenta Spalat tom 2. fol. 251. ideo quando rex propria negotia non possit expedire per proprias res ac servos G. Ocham tract 2. l. 2. c. 25. possit pro negotiis propriis tollere res servos aliorum isto modo dicebat Deus quod pertinebat ad jus regis this is the lawfull and just right of the King Therefore to finde out the truth let us a little more narrowly discusse both places And 1. In the words of Moses there I observe two speciall things 1. The charge of the people 2. The charge of the King 1. Popular election utterly forbidden 1. The people are commanded very strictly in any wise saith the Text to make choice of no King of their owne heads but to accept of him whom the Lord did chuse 2. The Kings charge 2. The King is commanded to write out the Law to study it and to practice it and he is forbidden to doe foure speciall things which are 1. Not to bring the people backe into Egypt nor to provide the means to bring them by multiplying his horses 2. Not to marry many wives that might intice him as they did Solomon unto Idolatry 3. Not to hoord up too much riches 4. Not to tyrannize over his Brethren Ioseph Anti. quit l. 4. And Josephus to the same purpose saith Si regis cupiditas vos incesserit is ex eadem gente sit curam omnino goraâ— justitiae allarum virtutum caveat vero ne plus legibus aut Deo sapiat nihil autem agat sine Pontificis Senator úmque sententia which Moses hath not neque nuptiis multis utatur nec copiam pecuniarum equorúmque sectetur quibus partis superleges superbia efferatur that is to be a Tyrant 2. The words of Samuel are set downe 1. Sam. 8.11 to the 18. Rex Iacobus in his true Law of free Monarchs verse whereof I confesse there are severall expositions some making the same a propheticall prediction of what some of their Kings would doe contrary to what they should doe as it was expressed by Moses So King James himselfe takes it others take it Grammatically for the true right of a King that may do all this and yet no way contradict those precepts forecited by Moses to confirme which supposition they say 1. The phrase here used must beare it out for as the Hebrew word signifieth as Pagninus noteth Morem aut modum aut consuetudinem and many other things as the place and the matter to be expressed doe require because every equivocall word of various signification
is not absurd nunquam mori regem that the King never dieth for assoone as ever the one parteth with this life the other immediately without expecting the consem either of Peeres or people doth by a just and plenary right succeed not onely as his fathers heire but as the lawfull governour of the people and as the Lord of the whole Kingdome not by any option of any men but by the condition of his birth and the donation of his God and therefore the resignation of the crowne by King John unto the Pope was but a fiction that could inferre no diminution of the right of his successor because no King can give away this right from him Tâ—ings that the King should not grant whom God hath designed for it And there be some things which no Christian King should grant away as any of those things that being granted may prejudice the Church of God and depresse the glory of the Gospell of Iesus Christ as the giving way for the diminution of the just revenues of the Church the prophanation of things consecrated to Gods service and the suppression of any of the divine callings of the Gospell which are Bishops Preists and Deacons because all Kings are bound to honour God and to hinder all those things whereby he is dishonoured either in respect of things persons or places And there be some things which the Kings of this realme have never granted away Things that Kings have not granted away but have still retained them in their owne hands as inviolable prerogatives and characteristicall Symboles and Properties of their Supremacy and the relicks of their pristine right as in the time of peace those two speciall parts of the government of the Common-wealth which doe consist 1. About the Lawes 1. About the Lawes 2. About the Magistrates The 1. whereof saith Arnisaeus containeth these particulars that is to make Lawes to create Nobility and give titles of dignity to legitimate the ill begotten to grant Priviledges to restore Offenders to their lost repute to pardon the transgressors and the like 1. Ius legislatiâ— vum Iohan. Beda pag. 25. 1. Then it is the right of the King jura dare to give Lawes unto his people for though as I said before the Subjects in Parliament may treat of Lawes and intreat the King to approve of them that they propose unto him yet they are no Lawes and carry with them no binding force till the King gives his consent and therefore out of Parliament The power of making Lawes is in the king you see the Kings Proclamation hath vim et vigorem legis the full force and strength of a law to shew unto us that the power of making lawes was never yeilded out of the Kings hands The case of our affaires pag. 11. Stat. West 1.3 E. 1.3 6. 42. Stat. ef Merch. 13. E. 1. Westm 3.18 E. 1.1 Stat. of Waste 20. E. 1. of appeale 28. E. 1.1 E. 2.1 and all the titles and acts of our Parliaments nor can it indeed be parted with except be part with His Majestie and Soveraignty for the limiting of his owne power by his voluntary concession of such favours unto his people not to make any Lawes without their consent doth no way diminish his Soveraignty or lessen his owne right and authority but as a man that yeildeth himselfe to be bound by some others hath the use of his strength taken from him but none of his naturall strength it selfe is lessened and much lesse is any part of it transferred to them that bound him but that whensoever his bonds are loosened he can worke againe by vertue of his owne naturall strength and not by any received strength from his loosers so the naturall right and interest of the Soveraignty being solely in the King and the Peeres and Commons by the Kings voluntary concession being onely interessed in the office of restraining his power for the more regular working of the true legitimate Soveraignty it cannot be denied but in whatsoever the Peeres and Commons doe remit the restraint by yeilding their consent to the point proposed the King worketh and acteth therein absolutely by the power of his owne inherent Soveraignty and all acts and lawes so passing doe virtually proceed from the King How the same acts may be said to be the acts of the king and of the Parliament as from the true and proper efficient author thereof and may notwithstanding be said to be the acts of the whole Court because the three estates contribute their power of remitting the restraint and yeilding their assent as well as the King useth his unrestrained power And therefore Suarez saith that as condere legem unus est ex praecipuâ—s actibus gubernationis reipublicae ita praecipuam superiorem requirit potestatem Suarez l. 1. c. 8. n. 8. to make Lawes is one of the cheifest acts of the government of a Common-wealth so it requireth the cheifest and supremest power and authority quae quidem potestas legislativa primariò in Deo est which legislative power is primarily in God and is communicated unto Kings saith he per quandam participationem according to the saying of the wise man Sapâ— 6. Heare O ye Kings because power is given unto you of the Lord. Aug. in Iohan. tract 6. And Saint Augustine calleth Jura humana jura imperatoruÌ„ quia ipsa jura humana per imperatores all humane laws are the lawes of Emperors or Kings because they are made by them and the Holy Ghost speaking of the Kings of Judah saith Gen. 49.10 The Scepter shall not depart from Iudah nor a Law giver from betweene his feete to teach us that whosoever swayeth the Scepter hath the right to be the Law-maker which is one of the prime prerogatives of Soveraignty 2. Ius nobilitandi 2. Jus nobilitandi the right of appointing the principall Officers of State to cry up any of all His Subjects whom the King will honour as Pharaoh did Ioseph and Ahasuerus did Haman and Mordecai and to give them titles of honour per codicillos honorarios aut per diplomata sua as to make Dukes Marquesses Barons Knights c. doth belong onely unto the King that hath onely the supreme Majestie But if the Dukes Earles It is the Doctrine of the Anabaptists and Puritans that there should be no Degrees of Schooles nor titles of honour among men and Barons be so plyable to the Puritan faction to put downe the spirituall Lords I doubt that e're long the King shall have but few Nobility when not onely the Mechanicks and Rusticks will all cry out against this Lordlinesse and say as they did in the rebellion of Jacke Cade and Wat Tyler When Adam delv'd and Eve span Who was then the Gentleman And why should we now indure so many titles of vanity and so many vaine honours to vapour it over us but the Puritan Clergy also seeing themselves deprived of
cause lest we should think it lawfull to swallow a Camell because we are able to streane a gnat and let us not be afraid where no feare is and think those things sinfull that are most lawfull A heavy judgement upon this Nation by mistaking sinnes 6. From perplexity which is a heavy judgement of God upon the wicked and hath now lighted very sore upon many of the Inhabitants of this land who thinke it Popery to say God blesse you and judge it idolatry to see a Crosse in Cheap-side 6. If it be of perplexity when a man is close as he conceives betwixt two sinnes where he seeth himselfe vnable though never so willing to avoyd both let him peccare in tutiorem partem which though it takes not away the sinne yet it will make the fault to be the lesse sinne as the casting away of the corne which is the gift of God and the sustenance of mans life is an unthankfull abuse of Gods creature Act. 27.38 yet as S. Paul caused the same to be cast into the Sea for the safeguard of their lives so must we doe the like when occasion makes it necessary as now rather to kill our enemies the Rebells though we should think it to be ill then suffer them to wrong our King and to destroy both Church and Kingdome because that of two things which we conceive evill When things are to be judged inevitable and are not both evitable the choice of the lesser to avoyd the greater is not evill but they are then to be judged inevitable when there is no apparent ordinary way to avoid them Hooker Eccles pol. l 5. p. 15. because that where counsell and advice doe beare rule we may not presume of Gods extraordinary power without extraordinary warrant saith iuditious Mr Hooker 7. If it be of too much humility 7. From too much humility which is an error of lesse danger yet by no meanes to be fostered lest by gathering strength it proves most pernitious they should pray to God to preserve them from too much feare Multos in summa periculamisit venturi timor ipse mali Lucan l 7. for though as S. Gregory saith bonarum mentium est ibi culpas agnoscere ubi culpa non est yet as J said before it is a heavy Iudgement and a want of Gods grace to be afraid where no feare is and it makes men to commit many sins many times for feare of sinne And thus having rectified our conscience in the understanding of all these things we are bound by the commandement of God to be obedient unto the commands of our King for it is a paradox to say Christians are free from the Lawes of men Act. 15.20 Rom. 13.2.3 1. Peter 2.13 because it was a human law touching things strangled blood and the Apostles doe exact our obedience unto human lawes even the Lawes of Heathen and Idolatrous Emperours and therefore being bound to obey them they cannot be freed in conscience from the Religion of them and so Dr Whitaker saith that as the Lawes of God must be simply obeyed without any difference of time place and circumstance so must the Lawes of men be obeyed as the circumstances doe require for example he that is a Roman and liveth at Rome must obey the Roman Lawes and he saith that the authority of the Magistrate which is sacred and holy cannot with any good conscience be contemned because it is the commandement of God that we should obey them Whitaker contra Camp p. 258. Ob. and this saith he doth binde the conscience when as the Apostle saith he is to be obeyed for conscience sake But you will say what if the King forbids me to doe what God commandeth as the high Priest did to the Apostles or commandeth me to doe what God forbiddeth as Julian did unto the Christians and Nebuchadnezzar to the three children We have often answered that in such a case Sol. it is better to obey God then man for it is sometimes lawfull not to obey Act. 5.25 but it is never lawfull to resist Ob. What if he compells us by force and violence to doe what God forbids us to do if he play 's the Tyrant violates our Laws and corrupts the true Religion with Idolatry and superstition may we not then as our forefathers did heretofore unto Chilperick King of France to Richard the second of this Kingdom and others bridle them and Depose them too if they will not be ruled by their Great Councell the Parliament I. â—â—gus â—â—â—saeus de â—â—thor princi 〈◊〉 Pop. I answer first Non spectandum quid factum sit sed quid fieri debuerit we are not so much to regard what hath been done as what ought to have been done as Arnisaeus proveth at large and sheweth most excellently with a full answer to all the articles that were alleadged against those Kings how unjustly they were handled and deposed contrary to all right and I wish that book were translated into English 2. Of our passive obed 2. I say that when our active obedience cannot be yeelded our passive obedience must be used for were our Kings as Tyrannicall as Nero as Idolatrous as Manasses as wicked as Achab and as Prophane as Iulian yet we may not resist wheÌ„ as Arnisaeus proveth by many many examples Idâ—m cap. 3. p. 68. that the Rebellion of Subjects against their King doth overthrow the order of nature and Justinian saith quis est tantae autoritatis ut nolentem principem possit coarctare but in such a case we must doe as all the Saints did before us not as the Heathens which thought them worthy of divine honour Cicero pro Milone Seneca in Hercul fur which did kill a Tyrant and said with Seneca victima haud ulla amplior Potest magisque opima mactari Iovi Quà m Rex iniquus But Christ and his Apostles suffered but never resisted the lawfull Magistrate as Christ himselfe suffered under Pontius Pilate a most wicked Magistrate and registred in the breviary of our Faith that we might never forget our duty rather to suffer then to resist the authority that is from Heaven and as Saint Ambrose answered the Emperour that would have his Church delivered to the Arians I shall never be willing to leave it coactus repugnare non novi if I be compelled I have not learned to resist I can grieve and weep and sigh and against the Armes and Gotish Souldiers my teares are my weapons for those are the Bulworkes of the Priest who in any other manner neither can neither ought he to resist so must all Christians rather by suffering death then by resisting our King to enter into the Kingdome of Heaven But 't is objected by our Sectaries Ob. The Author of the Treatise of Monarchy p. 31. Sol. The Law provides that the King should not be circumvented and wronged that His Majesty confesseth there is a
JVRA MAJESTATIS THE RIGHTS OF KINGS BOTH In CHVRCH and STATE 1. Granted by God 2. Violated by the Rebels 3. Vindicated by the Truth AND The wickednesses of the Faction of this pretended PARLIAMENT at VVestminster 1. Manifested by their Actions 1. Perjury 2. Rebellion 3. Oppression 4. Murder 5. Robberie 6. Sacriledge and the like 2. Proved by their Ordinances 1. Against Law 2. Against Equity 3. Against Conscience PUBLISHED 1. To the eternall honour of our just God 2. The indeleble shame of the wicked Rebels And 3. To procure the happy peace of this distressed Land Which many feare we shall never obtaine untill 1. The Rebels be destroyed or reduced to the obedience of our King And 2. The breaches of the Church be repaired 1. By the restauration of Gods now much prophaned service And 2. The reparation of the many injuries done to Christ his now dis-esteemed servants By GRYFFITH WILLIAMS Lord Bishop of OSSORY Impij homines qui dum volunt esse mali nolunt esse veritatem qua condemnantur mali Augustinus Printed at Oxford Ann. Dom. 1644. Carolus D G Mag Brittaniae Fra et Hiberniae Rex â—â—r TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTIE Most gracious Soveraigne WIth no small paines and the more for want of my books and of any setled place being multùm terris jactatus alto frighted out of mine house and tost betwixt two distracted Kingdomes I have collected out of the sacred Scripture explained by the ancient Fathers and the best Writers of Gods Church these few Rights our of many that God and nature and Nations and the Lawes of this Land have fully and undeniably granted unto our Sveraigne Kings My witnesse is in Heaven that as my conscience directed me without any squint aspect so I have with all sincerity and freely traced and expressed the truth as I shall answer to the contrary at the dreadfull judgement 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore with all fervency I humbly supplicate the divine Majestie still to assist Your Highnesse that as in Your lowest ebbe You have put on righteousnesse as a breast-plate and with an heroick resolution withstood the proudest waves of the raging Seas and the violent attempts of so many imaginary Kings so now in Your acquired strength You may still ride on with Your honour and for the glory of God the preservation of Christ his Church and the happinesse of this Kingdom not for the greatest storme that can be threatned suffer these Rights to be snatched away nor Your Crowne to be throwne to the dust nor the sword that God hath given You to be wrested out of Your hand by these uncircumcised Philistines these ungracious rebels and the vessels of Gods wrath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unlesse they do most speedily repent for if the unrighteous will be unrighteous still and our wickednesse provoke God to bring our Land to desolation Your Majestie standing in the truth and for the right for the honour of God and the Church of his Sonne is absolved from all blame and all the bloud that shall be spilt and the oppressions insolencies and abhominations that are perpetrated shall be required at the hands and revenged upon the heads of these detested rebels You are and ought in the truth of cases of conscience to be informed by Your Divines and I am confident that herein they will all subscribe that God will undoubtedly assist You and arise in his good time to maintaine his owne cause and by this warre that is so undutifully so unjustly made against Your Majestie so Giant like fought against Heaven to overthrow the true Church You shall be glorious like King David that was a man of warre whose deare sonne raised a dangerous rebellion against him and in whose reigne so much bloud was spilt and yet notwithstanding these distempers in his Dominion he was a man according to Gods owne heart especially because that from α to ω * As in the beginning by reducing the Arke from the Philistines throughout the midst by setling the service of the Tabernacle in the ending by his resolution to build and leaving such a treasure for the erecting of the Temple the beginning of his raigne to the end of his life his chiefest endeavour was to promote the service and protect the servants of the Tabernacle the Ministers of Gods Church God Almighty so continue Your Majestie blesse You and protect You in all Your wayes Your vertuous pious Queene and all Your royall Progenie Which is the daily prayer of The most faithfull to Your Majestie GRYFFITH OSSORY The Contents of the severall Chapters contained in this TREATISE CHAP. I. Sheweth who are the fittest to set downe the Rights which God granted unto Kings what causeth men to rebell the parts considerable in S. Peter's words 1. Pet. 2.17 in fine How Kings honoured the Clergy the faire but most false pretences of the refractary Faction what they chiefely ayme at and their malice to Episcopacie and Royaltie Pag. 1 CHAP. II. Sheweth what Kings are to be honoured the institution of Kings to be immediately from God the first Kings the three chiefest rights to Kingdomes the best of the three rights how Kings came to be elected and how contrary to the opinion of Master Selden Aristocracie and Democracie issued out of Monarchie Pag. 12 CHAP. III. Sheweth the Monarchicall Government to be the best forme the first Government that ever was agreeable to Nature wherein God founded it consonant to Gods owne Government the most universally received throughout the world the immediate and proper Ordinance of God c. Pag. 20 CHAP. IV. Sheweth what we should not do and what we should do for the King the Rebels transgressing in all those how the Israelites honoured their persecuting King in Egypt how they behaved themselves under Artaxerxes Ahashuerus and under all their own Kings of Israel c. Pag. 29 CHAP. V. Sheweth how the Heathens honoured their Kings how Christ exhibited all due honour unto Heathen and wicked Kings how he carried himselfe before Pilate and how all the good Primitive Christians behaved themselves towards their Heathen persecuting Emperours Pag. 41 CHAP. VI. Sheweth the two chiefest duties of all Christian Kings to whom the charge and preservation of Religion is committed three severall opinions the strange speeches of the Disciplinarians against Kings are shewed and Viretus his scandalous reasons are answered the double service of all Christian Kings and how the Heathen Kings and Emperours had the charge of Religion Pag. 48 CHAP. VII Sheweth the three things necessary for all Kings that would preserve true Religion how the King may attaine to the knowledge of things that pertaine to Religion by His Bishops and Chaplains and the calling of Synods c. Pag. 62 CHAP. VIII Sheweth it is the right of Kings to make Ecclesiasticall Lawes and Canons proved by many authorities and examples that the good Kings and Emperours made such Lawes by the advice of their Bishops and Clergy
proud favorite had wickedly decreed and most tyrannically destined all the Nation of the Jewes to a sudden death yet this dutifull people did not undutifully rebell and plead the King was seduced by evill counsell and misguided by proud Haman therefore nature teaching them vim vi pellere to stand upon their owne defence they would not submit their necks to his unjust Decree but being versed in Gods Lawes and unacquainted with these new devices they returne to God and betake themselves to their prayers Hester 8.11 untill God had put it into the Kings heart to grant them leave to defend themselves and to sheath their swords in the bowels of their adversaries which is a most memorable example of most dutifull unresisting Subjects an example of such piety as would make our Land happy if our zealous generation were but acquainted with the like Religion But here I know what our Anabaptist Brownist and Puritane will say that I build Castles in the aire The author of the Treatise of Monarchie p. 33. and lay downe my frame without foundation because all Kings are not such as the Kings of Israel and Judah were as the Kings that God gave unto the Jewes and prescribed speciall Lawes both for the Kings to governe and the people to obey them but all other Nations have their owne different and severall Lawes and Constitutions according to which Lawes their Kings are tyed to rule and the Subjects bound to obey and no otherwise I answer Henric. Stephan in libello de hac re contendit in omneâ— respull debere leges Hebraerum tanquam ab ipso Deo profectas per consequens omnium optemas â—educi that indeed it is granted there are severall constitutions of Royalties in severall Nations and there may be Regna Laconica conditionall and provisionall Kingdomes wherein perhaps upon a reall breach of some exprest conditions some Magistrates like the Ephori may pronounce a forfeiture aswell in the successive as in the elective Kingdomes because as one saith succession is not a new title to more right but a legall continuance of what was first gotten which I can no wayes yeild unto if you meane it of any Soveraigne King because the name of a King doth not alwayes denotate the Soveraigne power as the Kings of Lacedamon though so called yet had no regall authority and the Dictator for the time being and the Emperours afterwards had an absolute power though not the name of Kings for I say that such a government is not properly a regall government ordained by God but either an Aristocraticall or Democraticall governement instituted by the people though approved by God for the welfare of the Common-wealth 1. Sam. 8.4.20 but as the Israelites desired a King to judge them like all the Nations that is such a King as Aristotle describeth such as the Nations had intrusted with an absolute and full regall power as Sigonius sheweth so the Kings of the Nations if they be not like the Spartan Kings were and are like the Kings of Israel both in respect of their ordination from God by whom all Kings as well of other Nations as of Israel doe raigne and of their full power and inviolable authority over the people which have no more dispensation to resist their Kings then the Iewes had to resist theirs And therefore Valentinian though an elected Emperour yet when he was requested by his Electors to admit of an associate answered Sâ—zom hâ—stor l. 6. c. 6. Niceph. hist l. 11. c. 1. it was in your power to chuse me to be an Emperour but now after you have chosen me what you require is in my power not in you Vobis tanquam subditis competit parere mihi verò quae facienda sunt cogitare it becomes you to obey as Subjects and I am to consider what is fittest to be done And when the wife takes an husband there is a compact agreement and a solemne vow past in the presence of God that he shall love cherish and maintaine her yet if he breakes this vow The wife may not forsake her husband though hee break hâ—s vow and neglect his duty and neglects both to love and to cherish her she cannot renounce him she must not forsake him she may not follow after another and there is a greater marriage betwixt the King and his people therefore though as a wife they might have power to chuse him and in their choice to tye him to some conditions yet though he breakes them they have no more power to abdicate their King then the wife hath to renounce her husband nor so much because she may complaine and call her husband before a competent Judge and produce witnesses against him whereas there can be no Iudge betwixt the King and his people but onely God and no witnesses can be found on earth because it is against all lawes and against all reason that they which rise against their King should be both the witnesses against him and the Iudges to condemne him or were it so that all other Kings have not the like constitution which the Scripture setteth downe for the Kings of Israel yet I say that excepting some circumstantiall Ceremonies in all reall points the Lawes of our Land are so farre as men could make them in all things agreeable to the Scriptures in the constituting of our Kings An Appeale to thy conscience pag. 30. according to the livelyest patterne of the Kings of Israel as it is well observed by the Author of the Appeale to thy conscience in these 4 speciall respects 1. In his Right to the Crowne 2. In his Power and Authority Our kings of the like Institution to the kings of Israeâ— 3. In his Charge and Duty 4. In the rendering of his Account For 1. As the Kings of Israel were hereditary by succession and Respect 1 not elective unlesse there were an extraordinary and divine designation as in David Salomon Iohn Kings of England are kings by birth Proved so doe the Kings of England obtaine their Kingdomes by birth or hereditary succession as it appeareth 1. By the Oath of Allegeance used in every Leete that you Reason 1 shall be true and faithfull to our Soveraigne Lord King Charles and to his Heires 2. Because we owe our legeance to the King in his naturall Reason 2 capacity that is as he is Charles the Sonne and Heire apparent of King Iames Coke l. 7. Calvins case when as homage cannot be done to any King in his politique capacity the body of the King being invisible in that sense 3. Because in that case it is expresly affirmed that the King Reason 3 holds the Kingdome of England by birth-right inherent by descent from the bloud-royall therefore to shew how inseperable this right is from the next in bloud Hen. 4. though he was of the bloud-royall being first cozen unto the King and had the Crowne resigned unto him by Rich. 2d Speed l. 9.
Omnis Christi actio debet esse nostra instructio we ought to follow his example And therefore not onely Christ but also all good Christians have imitated him in this point for the Apostles prayed for their persecuting Tyrants exhorted all their followers to honour even the Pagan Kings and most sharplâ— reproved all that spake evill of authority much more would they say against them that commit evill and proceed in all wickednesse against authority How the Primitive Christians behaved themselves towards their Heathen persecutors And Tertullian speaking of the behaviour of the Primitive Christians towards the Heathen Emperours and their cruell persecutors saith that because they knew them to be appointed by God they did love and reverence them and wish them safe with all the Romane Empire yea they honoured the Emperour and worshipped him as a man second from God solo Deo minorem and inferiour onely unto God and in his Apologetico he saith Deus est solus in cujus solius potestate sunt reges à quo sunt secundi post quem primi super omnes homines ante omnes Deos God alone is he by whose power Kings are preserved which are second from him first after him above all men and before all gods that is all other Magistrates that the Scripture calleth Gods So Justin Martyr Minutius Felix Nazianzen which also wrote against the vices of Julian S. Augustine and others of the prime Fathers of the Church have set downe how the Primitive Christians and godly Martyrs that suffered all kinde of most barbarous cruelty at the hands of their Heathen Magistrates did notwithstanding pray for them and honour them and neither derogated from their authority nor any wayes resisted their insolencie Beda p. 15. And Iohannes Beda Advocate in the Court of Parliament of Paris saith that the Protestants of France in the midst of torments have blessed their King by whom they were so severely intreated and in the midst of fires and massacres have published their confession in these words Artic. 39. 40. confess eccles Gal. refor For this cause he that is God put the sword into the Magistrates hand that he may represse the sinnes committed not onely against the second table of Gods Commandements but also against the first We must therefore for his sake not onely endure that Superiours rule over us but also honour and esteeme of them with all reverence holding them for his Lieutenants and Officers to whom he hath given in commission to execute a lawfull and a holy function We therefore hold that we must obey their Lawes and Statutes pay Tributes Imposts and other duties and beare the yoke of subjection with a good and free will although they were Infidels Ob. But against this patience of the Saints Ob. and the wisedome of these good Christians it is objected by Goodwin and others of his Sect that either they wanted strength to resist or wanted knowledge of their strength or of their priviledge and power which God granted them to defend themselves and their religion or were over-much transported with an ambitious desire of Martyrdome or by some other misguiding spirit were utterly mis-led to an unnecessary patience and therefore we having strength enough as we conceive to subdue the King and all his strength and being wiser in our generation then all the generation of those fathers as being guided by a more unerring spirit we have no reason to pray for patience but rather to render vengeance both to the King and to all his adherents Sol. This unchristian censure Sol. and this false imputation laid upon these holy Fathers by these stabborne Rebels and proud Enthusiasts are so mildly and so learnedly answered by the Author of resisting the lawfull Magistrate upon colour of religion Where they are fully answered that more need not be said to stop the mouthes of all ignorant gain-sayers Therefore seeing that by the institution of Kings by the precept of God and by the practice of all wise men and good Christians Heathen Kings and wicked Tyrants are to be loved honoured and obeyed it is a most hatefull thing to God and man to see men professing themselves Christians but are indeed like those in the Revel Revel 2 9. which say they are Jewes and are not in steed of honouring transcendently to hate and most violently to persecute their owne most Chrâ—stian and most gracious King a sinne so infinitely sinfull that I doe not wonder to see the greatnesse of Gods anger to powre all the plagues that we suffer upon this Nation but I doe rather admire and adore his wonted clemency and patience that he hath not all this while either sent forth his fire and lightning from Heaven as he did upon Sodome and Gomorrah Gen. 19.24 Numb 16.31 to consume them or cause the earth to swallow them as it did Corah Dathan and Abiram for this their rebellion against their King or that he hath not showred downe farre greater plagues and more miserable calamities then hitherto we have suffered because we have suffered these Antichristian Rebels to proceed so farre and have with the Merozites neglected all this while to adde our strength to assist the Lords Annointed Judges 5.23 to reduce his seduced Subjects to their obedience and to impose condigne punishments upon the seducers and the ringleaders of this unnaturall and most horrible Rebellion CHAP. VI. Sheweth the two chiefest duties of all Christian Kings to whom the charge and preservation of Religion is committed three severall opinions the strange speeches of the Disciplinarians against Kings are shewed and Viretus his scandalous reasons are answered the double service of all Christian Kings 2. Christian Kings are to have double honour in respect of their double duty and how the Heathen Kings and Emperours had the charge of Religion 2. AS all Kings are to be honoured in the fore-said respects so all Christian Kings are to have a double honour in respect of the double charge and duty that is laid upon them As 1. To preserve true religion and to defend the faith of Dutie 1 Christ against all Atheists Hereticks Schismaticks and all other adversaries of the Gospell within their Territories and Dominions 2. To preserve their Subjects from all forraigne adversaries Dutie 2 and to prevent civill dissentions to governe them according to the rules of justice and equity which all other Kings are bound to doe but neither did nor can doe it so fully and so faithfully as the Christian Kings because no Law either Solons Lycurgus Pompilius or any other Greeke or Latine nor any Politique Plato Aristotle Machiavil or whom you will old or new can so perfectly set downe and so fairely declare quid justum quid honestum as the Law of Christ hath done and therefore seeing omnis honos praesupponit onus the honour is but the reward of labour and that this labour or duty of Kings to maintaine true religion well performed
of them have belebed forth against the Divine Truth of God's Word and the sacred Majesty of Kings Calvin in Amos cap. 7. Master Calvin a man otherwise of much worth and worthy to be honoured yet in this point transported with his own passion calleth those Blasphemers that did call King Henry the Eighth the Supreme Head of this Church of England Stapâ—â— cont â—â—dorn l 1. p. 22. and Stapleton saith that he handled the King himselfe with such villany and with so spitefull words as he never handled the Pope more spitefully and all for this Title of Supremacy in Church causes and in his 54. Epist to Myconius he termeth them prophane spirits and mad men that perswaded the Magistrates of Geneva not to deprive themselves of that authority which God had given them Viretus is more virulent for he resembleth them not to mad men as Calvin did but to white devils because they stand in defence of the Kings authority and he saith they are false Christians though they cover themselves with the cloak of the Gospell How Viretus would prove the temporall Pope as he calleth the King vvorse then the spirituall Pope affirming that the putting of all authority and power into the Civill Magistrates hands and making them Masters of the Church is nothing else but the changing of the Popedome from the Spirituall Pope into a Temporall Pope who as it is to be feared will prove worse and more tyrannous than the Spirituall Pope which he laboureth to confirme by these three reasons Reason 1 1. Because the Spiritual Pope had not the Sword in his own hand to punish men with death but was fain to crave the aid of the Secular power which the Temporal Pope needs not do 2. Because the old Spirituall Popes had some regard in their Reason 2 dealings of Councels Synods and ancient Canons but the new Secular Popes will do what they list without respect of any Ecclesiasticall Order be it right or wrong 3. Because the Romish Popes were most commonly very Reason 3 learned but it happeneth oftentimes that the Regall Popes have neither learning nor knowledge in divine matters and yet these shall be they that shall command Ministers and Preachers what they list and to make this assertion good he affirmeth that he saw in some places some Christian Princes under the title of Reformation to have in 10 or 20 yeares usurped more tyrannie over the Churches in their Dominions then ever the Pope and his adherents did in 600 yeares All which reasons are but meere fopperies Viretus his scandalous reasons answered blowne up by the blacke Devill to blast the beauty of this truth for we speake not of the abuse of any Prince to justifie the same against any one but of his right that cannot be the cause of any wrong and it cannot be denyed but an illiterate Prince may prove a singular advancer of all learning as Bishop Wickham was no great Scholler yet was he a most excellent instrument to produce abundance of famous Clerks in this Church and the King ruleth his Church by those Lawes which through his royall authority are made with the advice of his greatest Divines as hereafter I shall shew unto you yet these spurious and specious pretexts may serve like clouds to hide the light from the eyes of the simple So Cartwright also T. C. l. 2. p. 411 that was our English firebrand and his Disciples teach as Harding had done before that Kings and Princes doe hold their Kingdomes and Dominions under Christ as he is the Sonne of God onely before all worlds coequall with the father and not as he is Mediator and Governour of the Church and therefore the Christian Kings have no more to doe with the Church government then the Heathen Princes so Travers saith that the Heathen Princes being converted to the faith receive no more nor any further increase of their power whereby they may deale in Church causes then they had before so the whole packe of the Disciplinarians are all of the same minde and do hold that all Kings aswell Heathen as Christian receiving but one Commission and equall authority immediately from God have no more to doe with Church causes the one sort then the other And I am ashamed to set downe the rayling and the scurrilous speeches of Anthony Gilby against Hen. 8. Gilby in his admonition p. 69. Knox in his exhâ—ta iâ—n to the Nobility of Scotland fol. 77. and of Knox Whittingham and others against the truth of the Kings lawfull right and authority in all Ecclesiasticall causes For were it so as Cartwright Travers and the rest of that crew doe avouch that Kings by being Christians receive no more authority over Christ his Church then they had before * Which is most false yet this will appeare most evident to all understanding men that all Kings aswell the Heathens as the Christians are in the first place to see that their people do religiously observe the worship of that God which they adore and therefore much more should Christian Princes have a care to preserve the religion of Jesus Christ The Gentile Kings preservers of religion For it cannot be denyed but that all Kings ought to preserve their Kingdomes and all Kingdomes are preserved by the same meanes by which they were first established and they are established by obedience and good manners neither shall you finde any thing that can beget obedience and good manners but Lawes and Religion and Religion doth naturally beget obedience unto the Lawes therefore most of those Kings that gave Lawes were originally Priests Synes ep 126. Vide Amis part 2. pag. 14. Ad magnas râ—spubl utilitates retinetur religio in civitatibus Cicero de divin l. 2. and as Synesius saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Priest and a Prince was all one with them when the Kings to preserve their Lawes inviolable and to keepe their people in obedience that they might be happy became Priests and exercised the duties of Religion offering sacrifices unto their gods and discharging the other offices of the Priestly function as our factious Priests could willingly take upon them the offices of the King or if some of them were not Priests as all were not Law-makers yet all of them preserved Religion as the onely preservation of their Lawes and the happinesse of their Kingdomes which they saw could not continue without Religion But 2. In the Parliament 2. The wisedome of our grave Prelates and the learning of our religious Clergie having stopped the course of this violent streame and hindered the translation of this right of Kings unto their new-borne Presbyterie and late erected Synods There sprang up another generation out of the dregs of the former that because they would be sure to be bad enough out of their envy unto Kings and malice unto the Church that the one doth not advance their unworthinesse and the other doth not beare with their
undutifulnesse will needs transferre this right of ruling Gods Church unto a Parliament of Lay-men the King shall be denuded of what God hath given him and the people shall be indued with what God and all good men have ever denyed them I deny not but the Parliament men as they are most noble and worthy Gentlemen so many of them may be very learned and not a few of them most religious and I honour the Parliament rightly discharging their duties Hugo de Sancto Vict. lib. 2. de sacr fid par 2. cap. 3. Laicis Christianis fidelibus terrena possidere conceditur clericis verò tantùm spiritualiâ— committuntur quae autem illâ— spiritualia sunt subjicit c. 5. dicent omnis ecclesiastica administratio in tribus consistit in sacramentis in ordinibus in praeceptis Ergo Laici nihil juris habent in legibus praeceptis condendis ecclesiasticit as much as their modesty can desire or their merit deserve neither doe I gain-say but as they are pious men and the greatest Councell of our King so they may propose things and request such and such Lawes to be enacted such abuses to be redressed and such a reformation to be effected as they thinke befitting for Gods Church but for Aarons seed and the Tribe of Levi to be directed and commanded out of the Parliament chaire how to performe the service of the Tabernacle and for Lay men to determine the Articles of faith to make Canons for Church-men to condemne heresies and define verities and to have the chiefe power for the government of Gods Church as our Faction now challengeth and their Preachers ascribe unto them is such a violation of the right of Kings such a derogation to the Clergy and so prejudiciall to the Church of Christ as I never found the like usurpation of this right to the eradication of the true religion in any age for seeing that as the Proverb goeth Quod medicorum est promittunt medici tractant fabrilia fabri what Papist or Athiest will be ever converted to professe that religion which shall be truly what now they alleadge falsely unto us a Parliamentary religion or a religion made by Lay men with the advice of a few that they choose è faece Cleri I must seriously professe what I have often bewayled to see Nadab and Abihu offering strange fires upon Gods Altar to see the sacred offices of the Priests so presumptuously usurped by the Laity and to see the children of the Church nay the servants of the Church to prescribe Lawes unto their Masters and I did ever feare it to be an argument not onely of a corrupted but also of a decaying State when Moses chaire should be set in the Parliament House and the Doctors of the Church should never sit thereon therefore I wish that the Arke may be brought backe from the Philistines and restored to the Priests to be placed in Shilo where it should be and that the care of the Arke which King David undertooke may not be taken out of his hands by his people but that he may have the honour of that service which God hath imposed upon him For 3. Opinion Of the Oâ—thodox Quia religio est ex potioribus reipublica partibus ut aâ—t Aristot Polit. l. 7. c. 8. ipsa sola custodit hominum inter se societateâ— ut ait Lâ—ctant de ira Dei cap. 12. Veritura Troia perdidit primum Deos. 3. As nothing is dearer to understanding righteous and religious Kings then the increase and maintenance of true religion and the inlargement of the Church of Christ throughout all their Dominions so they have at all times imployed their studies to this end because it is an infallible maxime even among the Politicians that the prosperity of any Kingdome flourisheth for no longer time then the care of religion and the prosperity of the Church is maintained by them among their people as we see Troy was soone lost when they lost their Palladium so it is the truest signe of a declining and a decaying State to see the Clergy despised and Religion disgraced and therefore the provision for the safety of the Church the publique injoying of the Word of God the forme of Service the manner of Government and the honour and maintenance of the Clergie are all the duties of a most Christian King which the King of Heaven hath imposed upon him for the happinesse and prosperity of his Kingdome and whosoever derive the authority of this charge either in a blinde obedience to the See of Rome as the Jesuites doe or out of their too much zeale and affection to a new Consistory as the late Presbyterians did or to a Lay Parliament as our upstart Anabaptists and Brownists doe are most unjust usurpers of the Kings right which is not onely ascribed unto him and warranted by the Word of God but is also confirmed to the Princes of this Land by severall Acts of Parliament Therefore the Tyrians châ—yâ—â—d their gods lest if they fled thâ—y should be destroyed to have the supremacie in all causes and over all persons as well in the Ecclesiasticall as in the Civill governement which being so they are exempted thereby from all inforcement of any domesticall or forraigne power and freed from the penalties of all those Lawes both Ecclesiasticall and Civill whereunto all their Subjects Clergy and Laity Q. Curtius de rebus Alexand. Joh. Beda p. 22 23. and all inferiour Persons and the superiour Nobility within their Kingdomes are obliged by our Lawes and Statutes as hereafter I shall more fully declare Therefore it behoveth all Kings and especially our King at this time seriously to consider what prejudice they shall create unto themselves and their just authority if they should yeild themselves inferiour to their Subjects aggregativè or repraesentativè or how you will or liable to the penall Lawes for so they may be soone dethroned by the unstable affection and weake judgement of discontented people or subject to the jurisdiction of Lay Elders and the excommunication of a tyrannous Consistory who denounceing him tanquam Ethnicum Matth. 18.17 may soone adde a stranger shall not raigne over thee Deut. 17.15 and so depose him from all government For seeing all attempts are most violent that have their beginning and strength from zeale unto religion be the same true or false and from the false most of all and those are ever the most dangerous whose ringleaders are most base as the servile warre under Spartacus was most pernicious unto the Romans there can be nothing of greater use or more profitable either for the safety of the King How necessary it is for Kings to retaine their just rights in their hands the peace of the Church and the quiet state of the Kingdome then for the Prince the King to retaine the Militia and to keepe that power and authority which the Lawes of God and of our Land have granted
Martyn Travers Throgmorton Philips Nicholls and the rest of those introducers of Out-landish and Genevian Discipline first broached these uncouth and unsufferable tenets in our Land in the Realme of England and Scotland and truely if their opinions had not dispersed themselves like poyson throughout all the veines of this Kingdome and infected many of our Nobility and as many of the greatest Cities of this Kingdome as it appeareth by this late unparallâ—'d rebellion these and the rest of the trayterous authors of those unsavory bookes which they published and those damnable tenets which they most ignorantly held and maliciously taught unto the people should have slept in silence their hallowed and sanctified Treason should have remained untouched and their memoriall should have perished with them But seeing as Saint Chrysostome saith of the Heretiques of his time that although in age they were younger yet in malice they were equall to the ancient Heretiques and as the brood of Serpents though they are of lesse stature Our rebellious Sectaries farre worse then all the former Disciplinarians yet in their poyson no lesse dangerous then their dammes so no more have our new Sectaries our upstart Anabaptists any lesse wickednesse then their first begetters nay we finde it true that as the Poët saith Aetas parentum pejor avis Tulit nos nequiores These young cubbes prove worse then the old foxes for if you compare the whelpes with the wolves our latter Schismatickes with their former Masters I doubt not but you shall finde lesse learning and more villany lesse honesty and more subtilty hypocrisie and treachery in Doctor Burges Master Marshall â—â—se Goodwin Burrowes Calamy Perne Hill Cheynell and the rest of our giddy-headed Incendiaries then can be found in all the seditious Pamphlets of the former Disciplinarians or of them that were hanged as Penry for their treasons for these men doe not onely as Sidonius saith of the like apertè invidere 〈…〉 â—pâ—sâ— abjectè fingere serviliter superbiro openly envy the state of the Bishops basely forge lyes against them and servilely swell with the pride of their owne conceited sanctity and appâ—â—â—ut ignorance but they have also most impudently even 〈◊〉 their Pulpits slandered the footsteps of Gods Annointed and to brought the abhomination of their transgression to stand in the holy place they have with Achan troubled Israel and tormented the whole Land yea these three Kingdomes England Scotland and Ireland and for inciting provoking and incouraging simple ignorant poore discontented and seditious Sectaries For which their intolerable villanies if I be not deceived in my judgement they of all others and above all the Rebels in the Kingdome deserve the greatest and severest punishment God of Heaven give them the grace to repent to be Rebels and Traytors against their owne most gracious King they have not onely with Jerusalem justified Samaria Sodome and Gomorrah but they have justified all the Samaritanes all the Sodomites all the Schismaticks Hereticks Rebels and Traytors Papists and Atheists and all that went before them Iudas himselfe in many circumstances not excepted and that which makes their doings the more evill and the more exceedingly wicked is that they make religion to be the warrant for their evill doings the packe-horse to carry and the cloake to cover all their treacheries and thereby they drew the greater multitudes of poore Zelots to be their followers And therefore seeing it is not onely the honour but also the duty as of all other Kings so likewise of our King to be as the Princes of our Land are justly stiled the Defenders of the Faith and that not onely in regard of enemies abroad but also in respect of those farre worse enemies which desire alteration at home it behoves the King to looke to these home-bred enemies of the Church and seeing the King though never so willing for his piety and religion What Gods faithfull servants and the Kings loyall Subjects must doe in these times 1. To justifie the Kings right never so able for his knowledge and understanding yet without strength and power to effect what he desires cannot defend the faith and maintaine the true religion from the violence of Sectaries and Traytors within his Kingdome it behoves us all to doe these two things 1. To justifie the Kings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his authority and right to be the supreame governour and defender of the Church and of Gods true religion and service both in respect of Doctrine and Discipline and that none else Pope or Parliament hath any power at all herein but what they have derivatively from him which I hope we have sufficiently proved 2. 2 To assist Him against the Rebels To submit our selves unto our King and to adde our strength force and power to inable his power to discharge this duty against all the Innovators of our religion and the enemies of our peace for the honour of God and the happinesse of this Church and Common-wealth for that power which is called the Kings power and is granted and given to him of God is not onely that heroicke vertue of fortitude which God planteth in the hearts of most noble Princes as he hath most graciously done it in abundant measure in our most gracious King but it is the collected and united power and strength of all his Subjects which the Lord hath commanded us to joyne and submit it for the assistance of the Kings power against all those that shall oppose it and if we refuse or neglect the same then questionlesse whatsoever mischiefe idolatry barbarity or superstition shall take root in the Church and whatsoever oppression and wickednesse shall impaire the Common-wealth Heaven will free His Majestie and the wrath of God in no small measure must undoubtedly light upon us and our posterity even as Debora saith of them that refused to assist Barac against his enemies Curse ye Meroz Judg. 5.23 curse bitterly the Inhabitants thereof because they came not forth to helpe the Lord against the mighty CHAP. VIII Sheweth it is the right of Kings to make Ecclesiasticall Lawes and Canons proved by many authorities and examples that the good Kings and Emperours made such Lawes by the advice of their Bishops and Clergie and not of their Lay Counsellors how our late Canons came to be annulled that it is the Kings right to admit his Bishops and Prelates to be of his Councell and to delegate secular authority or civill jurisdiction unto them proved by the examples of the Heathens Jewes and Christians OUt of all this that hath been spoken it is more then manifest that the King ought to have the supreme power over Gods Church and the government thereof and the greatest care to preserve true religion throughout all his Dominions this is his duty and this is his honour that God hath committed not a people but his people and the members of his Son under his charge For the performance of which charge it is
Ariamirus Wambanus Richaredus and divers other Kings of Spaine did in like manner And Charlemaine who approved not the decisions of the Greekish Synod wrote a booke against the same * Intituled A Treatise of Charlemaigne against the Greekish Synod touching Images whereby the King maintained himselfe in possession to make Lawes for the Church saith Iohannes Beda of which Lawes there are many in a booke called The capitulary Decrees of Charles the Great who as Pepin his predecessor had done in the Citie of Bourges so did he also assemble many Councels in divers places of his Kingdomes as at Mayens at Tours at Reines at Chaalons at Arles and the sixt most famous of all at Francfort where himselfe was present in person and condemned the errour of Felician and so other Kings of France and the Kings of our owne Kingdome of England both before and after the Conquest as Master Fox plentifully recordeth did make many Lawes and Constitutions for the government of Gods Church But as Dioclesian The saying of Dioclesian that was neither the best nor the happiest governour said most truly of the civill government that there was nothing harder then to rule well * That is to rule the Common-wealth so it is much harder to governe the Church of Christ therefore as there cannot be an argument of greater wisedome in a Prince nor any thing of greater safety and felicity to the Common-wealth then for him to make choice of a wise Councell to assist him in his most weighty affaires Tacitus Annal. lib. 12. saith Cornelius Tacitus So all religious Kings must do the like in the government of the Church and the making of their Lawes for that government for God out of his great mercy to them and no lesse desire to have his people religiously governed left such men to be their supporters their helpers and advicers in the performance of these duties and I pray you whom did Kings choose for this businesse but whom God had ordained for that purpose for you may observe that although those Christian Kings and Emperours made their Laws as having the supremacy and the chiefest care of Gods religion committed by God into their hands yet they did never make them that ever I could reade with the advice counsell or direction of any of their Peeres or Lay Subjects but as David had Nathan and Gad The good Kings and Emperours made their Lavves for the government of the Church onely by the advice of their Clergy Nebuchadnezzar had Daniel and the rest of the Jewish Kings and Heathens had their Prophets onely and Priests to direct them in all matters of religion so those Christian Kings and Princes tooke their Bishops and their Clergie onely to be their counsellors and directors in all Church causes as it appeareth out of all the fore-cited Authors and all the Histories that doe write thereof and Justinian published this Law that when any Ecclesiasticall cause or matter was moved his Lay officers should not intermeddle with it A good Law of Iustinian but should suffer the Bishops to end the same according to the Canons the words are Si Ecclesiasticum negotium sit nullam communionem habento civiles magistratus cum ea disceptatione Constit 123. sed religiosissimi Episcopi secundum sacros canones negotio finem imponunto For the good Emperours knew full well that the Lay Senate neither understood what to determine in the points of faith and the government of Christ's Church nor was ever willing to doe any great good or any speciall favour unto the Shepherds of Christ's flocke and the teachers of the true religion because the Sonne of God had fore-told it that the world should hate us John 15.19 that secular men and Lay Senators should commonly oppose crosse and shew all the spite they can unto the Clergy of whom our Saviour saith Matth. 10.16 Behold I send you forth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as sheepe in the midst of wolves Whence this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 great distance between their dispositions being observed it grew into a Proverb that Laici semper infesti sunt Clericis How the Laity love the Clergie And Doctor Meriton in a Sermon before King James observed this as one of the good favours the Clergie of England found from our Parliaments since the reformation when many men first began to be translated from the seat of the scornefull to sit in Moses chaire A very memorable act Anno 39. Eliz. cap. 4. and to prescribe Lawes for Christ his Spouse to make an Act that all wandering beggars after their correction by the Constable should be brought to the Minister of the Parish to have their names registred in a booke and the Constable used to give to the Minister 2d for his paines for every one so registred but if he refused or neglected to doe it the Statute saith he should be punished 5 for every one that should be so omitted where besides the honourable office I will not say to make the Minister of Christ a Bedle of the beggars but a Register of the vagrants you see the punishment of one neglect amounteth to the reward of thirty labours therefore all the Christian Emperours and the wisest Kings considering this great charge that God had laid upon them to make wholesome Lawes and Constitutions for the government of his Church and seeing the inclinations of the Laity would never permit any of these Lay Elders and the Citizens of the world to usurpe this authority to be the composers contrivers or assistants in concluding of any Ecclesiasticall Law That the Laity should have no interest in making Lawes for the Church untill the fences of Gods vineyard were pulled downe and the wilde Boare out of the forrest the audacious presumption of the unruly Commonalty ventured either to governe the Church or to subdue their Prince since which incroachment upon the rights of Kings it hath never succeeded well with the Church of Christ and I dare boldly say it fidenter quia fideliter and the more boldly because most truly the more authority they shall gaine herein the lesse glory shall Christ have from the service of his Church and therefore Be wise ô ye Kings And consider how any new Canons are to be made by our Statute 25. Hen. 8. Ob. Ob. But then it may be demanded if this be so that the Laity hath no right in making Lawes and Decrees for the government of Gods Church but that it belongs wholly unto the King to doe it with the advice of his Bishops and the rest of his Clergy then how came the Parliament to annull those Canons that were so made by the King and Clergy because they had no vote nor consent in confirming of them Sol. Sol. Truely I cannot answer to this Objection unlesse I should tell you what the Poet saith Dum furor in cursu currenti cede furori Difficiles aditus impetus omnis
Majestie and so much trust reposed in him and would notwithstanding prove so unthankfull as to kick with his heeles against his Master and so follow whom you know passibus aequis whose example any other man that were not robb'd of his understanding would make a remora to retaine him from rebellion and what are the other heads but a company either of poore needy Who the Rebells are and what manner of persons they be and meane condition'd Lords and Gentlemen or discontented Peeres that are misled or such factious Sectaries whose blind zeale and furious malice are able to hurry them headlong to perpetrate any mischeife for their Captaines and their Officers I beleeve they fight neither for the Anabaptists creed nor against the Roman faith nor to overthrow our Protestant Church but for their pay for which though they cannot be justified to take their hire for such ill service to rebell against their King and to murder their innocent brethren Yet are they not so bad as their grand Masters and for their common Souldiers I assure my selfe many of them fight against their wills many seduced by their false Prophets others inticed by their factious Masters and most of them compelled to kill their brethren against their wills and therefore in some places though their number trebled the Kings yet they had rather run away then fight and what a miserable and deplorable case is this when so many poore soules shall be driven unto the Devill by Preachers and Parliament against their wills 4. The supreme authority 4. If you consider qua authoritate by what authority they wage this warre they will answer by the Authority of Parliament and that is just none at all because the Parliament hath not the supreme authority without which the warre is not publique nor can it be justified for a warre is then justifiable when there is no legall way to end the controversie by prohibiting farther appeales which cannot be but onely betwixt independent States and severall Princes Albericus Gentilis de jure belli l 1. c. 2. that have the supreme power in their owne hands and are not liable to the censure of any Court which power the Parliament cannot challenge because they are or should be the Kings lawfull Subjects and therefore cannot be his lawfull enemies but they will say Master Goodwin Burroughes and all the rest of our good men zealous brethren Subjects can never make a lawfull warre against their king and powerfull Preachers doe continually cry out in our eares it is bellum sanctum a most just and holy warre a warre for the Gospell and for our Lawes and Liberties wherein whosoever dies he shall he crowned a Martyr I answer that for their reward they shall be indeed as Saint Augustine saith of the like Martyres stultae Philosophiae when every one of them may be indicted at the barre of Gods justice for a felo de se a Malefactor guilty of his owne untimely death Res dura ac plena pericli est regale occidisse genus and for their good Orators that perswade them to this wickednesse I pray you consider well what they are men of no worth rebellious against the Church rebells against the King factious Schismatiques of no faith of no learning In what condition their Preachers are and of what worth that have already forfeited their estates if they have any and their lives unto the Kingâ— and will any man that is wise hazard his estate his life and his soule to follow the perswasions of these men my life is as deere to mee as the Earle of Essex his head is to him and my soule deerer and I dare ingage them both that if all the Doctors in both Universities and all the Divines within the Kingdome of England were gathered together to give their judgement of this warre there could not be found one of ten it may be as I beleeve not one of twenty that durst upon his conscience say this warre is lawfull upon the Parliament side It is contrary to the doctrine of all the Protestant Church for Subjects to resist their king for though these Locusts that is the German Scottish and the English Puritane agreeing with the Romane Jesuite ever since the reformation harped upon this string and retained this serpentine poison within their bosome still spitting it forth against all States as you may see by their bookes Yet I must tell you plainely this doctrine of Subjects taking up armes against their lawfull King is point blanke and directly against the received doctrine of the Church of England and against the tenet of all true Protestants Paraeus in Rom. 13. Boucher l. 2. c. 2. Keckerm Syst pol. c. 32 â—un Brut. q. 2. p. 56. Bellar. de lâ—â—c c. 6 Suar. dâ—f fid cathol c. 3. and therefore Andreas Rivetus Professor at Leyden writing against a Jesuite that cast this aspersion upon the Protestants that they jumpe with them in this doctrine of warring against and deposing Kings saith that no Protestant doth maintaine that damnable doctrine and that rashnesse of Knox and Buchanan is to be ascribed praefervido Scotorum ingenio ad audendum prompto Juell and Bilson and all the Doctors of our Church are of the same minde and Lichfield saith no Orthodox father did by word or writing teach any resistance for the space of a thousand yeares and Doctor Feild saith â—ichfield l. 4. c â—9 § 19 â—ield l. 5. c. 30 that all the worthy fathers and Bishops of the Church perswaded themselves that they owed all duty unto their Kings though they were Heretiques and Infidells and the Homilies of the Church of England allowed by authority do plainely and peremptorily condemne all Subjects warring against their King for Rebells and Traitors that doe resist the ordinance of God and procure unto themselves damnation and truly I beleeve most of their own consciences tell them so they that think otherwise I would have them to consider that if they were at a banquet where twenty should averre such a dish to be full of poyson for every one that would warrant it good would'st thou venture to eate it and hazard thy life in such a case O then consider what it is to hazard thy soule upon the like termes So you see the justnesse of the warre on the Parliament side But 1. On the Kings side it cannot be denied but his cause is most just for his owne defence for the maintenance of the true Protestant Religion that is established by our Lawes and for the rights of the Church and the just liberties and property of all his loyall Subjects this he testifieth in all his Declarations and this we know in our owne consciences to be true and therefore 2. As His Majestie professeth so we beleeve him that he never intended otherwise by this warre but to protect us and our Religion and to maintaine his owne just and unquestionable rights which these Rebells would
maker hath appoynted for them when as the Psalmist saith he hath given them a Law which shall not be broken therefore this must needs be a great reproofe and a mighty shame to those men that being Subjects unto their King and to be ruled by his Lawes will notwithstanding disobey the King and transgresse those Lawes that are made for their safety and resist that authority which they are bound to obey only because their weake heads or false hearts doe account the commandement of the King to be against right and what themselves doe to be most holy and just Ob. Diverse kinds of Monarchies But our City Prophets will say that although the King be the supream Monarch whom we are commanded to obey yet there are diverse kinds of Monarchies or Regall governments as usurped lawfull by conquest by inheritance by election and these are either absolute as were the Easterne Kings and the Roman Emperours or limited and mixed which they terme a Politicall Monarchie where the King or Monarch can do nothing alone but with the assistance direction of his Nobility Parliament or if he doth attempt to bring any exorbitancies to the Common-wealth or deny those things that are necessary for the preservation thereof they may lawfully resist him in the one and compell him to the other to which I answer 1. As God himselfe which is most absolute Sol. Absolute Monarchs may limit themselves liberrimum agens may notwithstanding limit himselfe and his own power as he doth when he promiseth and sweareth that he will not fail David and that the unrepentant Rebells should never enter into his rest so the Monarch may limit himselfe in some points of his administration and yet this limitation neither transferreth any power of soveraignty unto the Parliament nor denieth the Monarch to be absolute nor admitteth of any resistance against him for 1. This is a meer gull to seduce the people I cannot devise words to expresse this new devised government that cannot distinguish the poynt of a needle just like the Papist that saith he is a Roman Catholike that is a particular universall a black white a polumonarcha a many one governour when we say he is a Monarch joyned in his government with the Parliament for he can be no Monarch or supream King Soveraign that hath any sharers with him or above him in the governmeÌ„t 2. There is no Monarch that can be said to be simply absolute but only God yet where there is no superior but the soveraignty residing in the King he may be said to be an absolute Monarch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. because there is none on earth that can controule him 2 Because he is free absolute in all such things wherein he is not expresly limited and therefore 3. Seeing no Monarch or Soveraigne is so absolute No Monarch so Absolute but some way limited but that he is some way limited either by the Law of God or the rules of nature or of his own concessions and grants unto his people or else by the compact that he maketh with them if he be an elective King and so admitted unto his Kingdome there is no reason they should resist their King for transgressing the limitations of one kinde more then the other or if any no doubt but he that transcendeth the limits of Gods Law or goeth against the common rules of nature ought rather to be resisted then he that observeth not his own voluntary concessions but themselves perceiving how peremptorily the Apostle speaketh against resistance of the Heathen Emperours that then ruled doe confesse that absolute Monarchs ought not to be resisted wherein also they are mistaken because the histories tell us those Emperours were not so absolute as our Kings till the time of Vespasian when the lex Regia transferred all the power of the People upon the Emperour No Monarch ought to be resisted Vlpian de constit Principis therefore indeed no Monarch ought to be resisted whatsoever limitations he hath granted unto his Subjects And the resisters of authority might understand if their more malitious then blind leaders would give them leave that this virtue of obedience to the supream power maketh good things unlawfull when we are forbidden to doe them as the eating of the forbidden tree was to Adam and the holding up of the Arke was to Vzza and it maketh evill things to be good and lawfull when they are commanded to be done as the killing of Isaack if he had done it had been commendable in Abraham and the smiting of the Prophet was very laudable in him that smote him when the Prophet commanded him to doe it and therefore Adam and Vzza were punished with death because they did those lawfull good things which they were forbidden to doe Rebels should well consider these things and the others were recompenced with blessings because they did and were ready to doe those evill things that they were commanded to doe when as he that refused to smite the Prophet 1. Reg. 20.38 being commanded to doe it was destroyed by a Lion because he did it not whereby you see that things forbidden when they are commanded è contra cannot be omitted without sinne Ob. Mandatum imperantis â—ollit peccatum obedientis Aug. Sol. You will say it is true when it is done by God whose injunction or prohibition his precept or his forbidding to doe it or not to doe it maketh all things lawfull or unlawfull I answer that we cannot think our selves obedient to God whilest we are disobedient to him whom God hath commanded us to obey and therefore if we will obey God we must obey the King because God hath commanded us to obey him and being to obey him non attendit verus obediens quale fit quod praecipitur sed hoc solo contentus quia praecipitur he that is truly obedient to him whom God commanded us to obey never regardeth what it is that is commanded so it be not simply evill for then as the Apostle saith it is better to obey God then man were he the greatest Monarch in the World but he considereth and is therewith satisfied that it is commanded Bernard in l. de praecept dispensat and therefore doth it saith St Bernard in l. de praecept dispensat CHAP. XVI Sheweth the answer to some objections against the obeying of our Soveraigne Magistrate all actions of three kinds how our Consciences may be reformed of our passive obedience to the Magistrates and of the Kings concessions how to be taken BVt against this our sectaries and Rebells will object Ob. that their conscience which is vinculum accusator testis judex their bond their accuser their witnesse and their judge against whom they can say nothing and from whom they cannot appeale unlesse it be to a severer Iudge will not give them leave to obey to doe many things that the King requireth to be done and