own taking up should not find any cause to refuse obedience I conceive is the meaning of those absolute and unlimited injunctions which the Scripture layes upon Subjects in respect of their Superior powers so then the duty which God hath appointed Subjects to observe towards those that are over them in the places of power is clearly inconsistent with the scrupulositie of this question concerning their Right and Title to Rule Nor should those that are in places of power suffer their titles by meer private Subjects to be questioned for either they should actually suppresse the disputes disquiries of that nature in privat men as not at all belonging to their cognizance or they should prevent it in others who are to be accounted their equals to whom in reason they are accountable of their proceedings for God hath made no men so Supreme as not to be accountable unto others in a reasonable way by some satisfactory declarations or demonstrations of the grounds of their Right to their places of the equity of their proceedings therein Nor lastly can it stand with sound Reason or a good conscience in any privat man to take upon him to be a Judge of that matter to suspend his acts of obedience in things otherwise good lawfull in themselves till his scruples in that kinde be satisfied For first no sound reason will allow any man to take upon him the judicature of rights whereof it is not obvious to him to know the true grounds circumstantially seeing al claims to places amongst men depend upon the concurrences of many circumstances which in the way of justice give to one take away from another a right to the same it is in Gods hand alone to order the incidency of those circumstances between those that have power and the competitors for the same places privat men cannot possibly in their ordinary way wherein they are bound to stand and walk know assuredly the incidencies of these circumstances which change the nature of rights and claimes to places therefore no justice nor reason can allow privat men to be Iudges of things whereof it is not morally possible for them to have a true insight and whereinto they have no calling by God or men to make a speciall inquiry without which they become unreasonably and unconscionably presumptuous if they settle within themselvs or utter towards others any judgement definitively Then in the second place it is a most unconscionable practice in any whom God hath put in the place of subjection and of living in a private station to resist the powers that are over him requiring good and lawfull things onely because he is not satisfied in their right to require those things of him and in their Title to their places as if Superiour Powers that are actually in the posession of places which God hath put in their hands to rule others by and serve the publick with were accountable to every private man concerning their right by which they stand under God in their Charges and as if it were lawfull for men professing Christianity to dispense with matters of duty in themselves commendable and profitable to common edification onely because they will appear opposite for some worldly respects unto those that are over them to whom they owe due respect and submission Now after all this if you say what shall private Christians then make themselves slaves to any that will rule over them without judging rationally who are their lawfull Superiours to whom they owe obedience I say to this no for Christians are the only free men of the world all the rest are slaves to their proper passions lusts opposite interests but he that is subject to the law of liberty doing all by a Rule is truly free and none but he But you will say by what rule then shall he discern who is his superior I answer by a rule agreeable to sense to reason and to conscience Sense will shew him who is actually in profession of all power and places of Government over him and by this he will perceive under whom he doth stand Reason will shew what he who is over him pretends unto whether yea or no his pretences are backed with power to maintain his right against all adversaries therein and whether yea or no the use of that power be limited by law or let wholly to his own will without any law And Conscience will shew that he to whom God hath committed the plenary administration of publick affairs with unconfrontable power is Gods vicegerent over the society of those to whom his administration doth extend it self either by vertue of a contract which makes a law or by vertue of a conquest which is bound to no law but the will of the Conqueror for if the Apostle doth teach us that all soules ought to be subject to the higher powers because there is no power but of God and because the powers that be in place are ordained of God then it will follow that those who are actually supreme and in a plenary possession of power ought to be obeyed as Gods Ordinance for it is not possible that any can attain to the height of power without Gods disposall of it into his hands Here then a Christian rests and freely performs his duty toward him in all things good and lawfull and makes no further inquiry after the rights to titles according to lawes of men because he doth consider that the most high giveth the Kingdomes of men to whomsoever he pleaseth Thus keeping my Spirit from flying out beyond his bounds one way and following the directions of a clear rule another way I prevent this example wherewith you trouble your self without cause and intangle your Conscience against your duty But here again it may be said if this bee the condition of subjects and if their duty toward Superiors is thus circumscribed what way is there left for them to be freed from the unnaturall usurpation of tyrannicall powers I answer there be three ways which God hath left to the reason of men to make use of partly to prevent partly to redresse the tyrannicall usurpations of an over ruling Roman The first is to settle subordinate Officers under him with out whom he cannot act The second is to settle lawes whereby to circumscribe him and their actings and a law making power to whom both he and they are to be accountable And the third is the great and invincible law of necessity whereof every one is so far the judge in his own cause and in his own place as he is moved thereby to venture his life and welfare to observe the dictates thereof by these means subjects without judging of the titles of Superiours may represse the undue usurpation of power in tyrannicall spirits where you may take notice that although you and I as private men ought not to make our selves judges of the rights which superiors pretend to have in to their places yet
that they are not without a judicature over them in those places for the subordinate Officers belonging to a state are bound to judge of the rights of those that are over them both by which they stand in their places of supremacy and by which they proceed in their actings toward subjects least they be made the instruments of Arbitrary power and Tyranny and then also the law-making power which in all Nations resides by the law of Nature in the convention of the Representatives of the whole body of the people whether it be made up of the heads of familes or of chosen Deputies who are intrusted with a delegated power from all the rest doth make or unmake rights in all places and persons within it self as it from time to time doth see cause As for the Law of necessity which begetteth war whereby God is immediately appealed unto by those that pretend to have no Superiors on earth that he may judge of their rights whatsoever his hand doth determine in the event is to be counted the right of those in favour of whom the determination is made by his judgement By these rules then quiet your mind according to your place concerning the right which the present powers have to Rule do not take upon you to define matters whereof you are no competent judge you are made a competent judge only of your own actions which belong to a subject as you are under a visible and uncontroulable power which God hath set over you and your duty is to submit thereunto in all things agreeable to the will of God judging your self that you put no stumbling block or an occasion of offence in any mans way Rom. 14 13 yet I will not say but in the judgement of discretion as you are a member of this Common-wealth and concerned in the publick welfare thereof you may look upon your superiours to see how they pretend to stand that is by what apparent right and with what visible power they possess their places but this you ought not to do so peremptorily as to oblige your conscience as to be suspended upon the observations which you shall happen to make of them and their proceedings as if your private iudgement in such cases should be the Rule by which you ought to walk in point of obedience I say you ought not to set up this judgement of yours so high within your self and over others as to drown the thoughts of all other rules but you ought to limit it as I have said before within the bounds of Christianity and discreet rationallity wherein that I may help you yet a little further Consider soberly with your self what can be answered to this plea which they will alleadge for themselves 1. Whether yea or no the Nationall tye and association by which we were a Common-wealth while we were yet called a Kingdome hath ever been dissolved 2. If it hath not been dissolved what hath kept it entire in the middest of all these shakings was is not a Parliament and the subordination of all Officers throughout the nation under it 3. And if a Parliament is still remaining and all subordinate Officers in places of judicature and execution stand under it throughout the whole nation so that all men may have a legal protection from injuries what is there wanting to a lawfull power and government 4. If nothing be wanting to a legall protection for those that acknowledge the jurisdiction then such as acknowledge it not do put themselves out of that protection and if they resist the power which God hath set over them for the publick good and which is actually fully possest with al the places of publick administration they resist the Ordinance of God and they that resist this Ordinance saith the Apostle shall receive to themselves damnation Rom. 12.2 As for the point of enquiry how these particular men in whose hands the power and government is are come to their present places whether in a legall way or that which you call usurpation it doth not belong to the Conscience of any man who is in a private station to determine peremptorily far lesse upon his determination to suspend his actings towards the publique good Yet if in this also you desire to reflect upon the passages of Right without oblieging your Conscience to stand engaged either way by that which you shall observe I shall further suggest these heads of matters appliable unto the case of those whom you suspect to be usurpers unto your impartiall meditation as a Plea which they do alledge for themselves First Whether yea or no it be any way unjust by the law of Nature among men that are equals to resist force with force Secondly If it be just among equals to resist force with force the second point will be to consider Whether he that invades another mans naturall right or he that defends his own is to be accounted the Usurger Thirdly If he that invades and seeks to deprive another man of his right be the Usurper then he that by resistance is deprived of that whereof he attempted to deprive his neighbour is not wronged by way of usurpation but justly defeated of the power which he did abuse Now they will say that the case was thus first between the King and Parliament if you count them Equals which is the least can be given say they to a Parliament by the Law of Nature and Nations and then afterward between the one party and the other in the Parliament the same case was acted again as between Equals whereupon the City Militia on the one hand and the Army on the other was depending and see on work for action And how far these powers having dashed those that prevailed did think themselves necessitated to settle the safety of the Common-wealth in their own way and what settlement that hath by Gods permission brought forth and upon what ground it now stands I shall not need to represent unto you only the sober consideration of the grounds which the party accused of usurpation doth alleadge for its proceedings are to be thought upon indifferently without prajudicat affectus if you will free your Conscience from a snare And this shall suffice also concerning the first branch of your second doubt but let us now come to the second branch thereof which supposing the power to be usurped doth question how far by taking the Engagement you become accessary to the guilt thereof To this question I shall answer briefly thus That the Engagement being a duty just to be required by the present Powers from their subjects without the performance of which there is no protection due unto them and necessary to be performed by all that will not professe themselves desirous to overthrow the present safety and publique wellfare of the nation it cannot make those that take it accessary to the guilt of those that tender it if any be in them because the performance of a thing good in it self
Conscience still bound to preserve it to this very thing also the Engagement which is now offered doth clearly bind you as I conceive to nothing else directly for the obvious sense of the express words can be none other but this That so far as the Association of this people is setled in a course of Government and in the administration of Justice you shall not overthrow but preserve the same although the administration of this Government and justice is not now carried on by a King and House of Lords but onely by the Parl. that now is which certainly is your duty at this time And if this is cleerly your duty for the publick good then you cannot understand the words of the Covenant to be binding in any other sense but in this for the words must be taken in the sense which they can directly bear and which do impart the main end for which the Covenant was taken for the maine end of this very Article whereof you make a scruple was evidently to preserve the Parliament and Common-wealth for it self and if need so required also without the King Now this is that which the Engagement doth directly also require for which cause I say that by vertue of this very promise you are bound to take the present Engagement and if you take it not that you make your self a transgressor of that very Article which you pretend to keepe for if you refuse to be true and faithfull to the Common-wealth as it is now Established you do what in you lyeth to make the remaining Rights of Parliament and the beginnings of our settlement void which though at first it was not intended to be without a King yet it was clearly presupposed in the Article it selfe as possible to be without him and consequently that although he should not be yet that the Common-Wealth by the Rights of Parliament and the Liberties of the Nation should be preserved which is all that now is sought for by the Engagement I hope then that you shall find no cause to scruple any further at this but that such as under the pretence of such scruples take a course to overthrow this Parliament will be made conscionably awake to see their error and that they Diametrically by such a purpose crosse the main intention of their Covenant and become guilty of dissolving the whole tye of this Common-wealth And this shall suffice concerning your first scruple at this time As concerning the present power by which the Engagement is tendered your Doubt is what you ought to think of it whether you should count it a lawfull or an unlawfull and usurped Power and if such whether you will not be accessary to their usurpation by taking the Engagement To these Questions I shall answer distinctly and let you see the Rules by which I order my conversation in these cases that if you have nothing to except against them you may take them up and walk in the righteousnes thereof For mine own part then I have taken this to be a Rule whereby all privat men such as I am as Christians ought to walk unblameably under the superiour powers of this world Namely That it doth not be long to us to judge definitively of the rights which the Supreame powers over us in the world pretend to have unto their places And the Reason is this because I finde it no part of the profession of Christianity to meddle with this matter nor can I see that God doth allow privat men to take so much upon them over their Superiors nor ought Superiors to suffer it in their Subjects nor will sound reason or a good Conscience allow it in any It is no part of our Christian profession to become Judges of the great ones of this world in respect of their rights and pretentions to power For we are to behave our selves as spirituall men in this world by the Rule of our profession and as strangers and pilgrims therein taking it as our passage to a Kingdome that cannot be shaken and using it as the subject wherein our Faith Patience our mortification to things present and our hope for things to come are to be exercised A stranger passenger pilgrim takes things as he finds them on his way makes the best of them that he can and meddles only with his own matters how to advance prosperously and easily towards his journeys end that is how to behave himself without blame and offence towards God and men in all things with a good Conscience holding forth the Word of life which is the Rule by which he doth walke in the feare of God towards others This is all that a Christian as a Christian that is by vertue of his Profession is to meddle withall about the affairs of this world which in so doing he doth judge in the spirit of righteousnes but if he doth make himself a judge in another kind of particular rights pretentions of the great ones in this world he takes upon him that which doth not belong unto him in his Profession of Christianity for he doth more then Christ would do on earth for Christ our Master in this profession would not become a Iudge of the least matters between man man in the world and how shall we that ought to be his followers and Disciples take upon us to judge of the greatest of all How shall we Answer this to him Is not this one of the great Characters of the spirit of Antichrist that he exalts himself above all that is called God and wherein hath he done this more remarkably towards Magistrates who are called Gods amongst men then by exalting himself over them to become a Judge of all their Rights and pretentions to power in this world We must therefore beware of entertaining the motions and practises of his Spirit whereof this is a very eminent one to judge of the Right of power to Rule in the world Nor doth God allow in the Word those whom he hath made Subjects to Superior Powers to take upon them to judge of the Rights titles of those that are over them The Rule of Subjects behaviour as Subjects is clearly determined in Rom. 13.1 till 8. 1 Pet 2.13 14. Tit. 3.1 Where we find nothing but a command of submission subjection of not resisting and of paying taxes dues and of giving honour fear and respect for Conscience sake unto Superiour powers because they are Gods Ordinance over privat men and they bear not the sword which God hath put in their hand in vain Now the Commandements thus delivered without any limitation or restriction of their Rights to rule or of our obedience further then that we are bound to obey God rather than man I suppose do oblige all Subjects that are under them either to obey or to suffer patiently if they find cause to refuse obedience but that privat men in ourward and humane concernments and for worldly considerations of their