of little sins as they make little or no account of great ones and yet assume the disguise of Piety as the hating of Idolatry when they commit Sacriledg i Rom. 2.22 by it and their Hpocrisie making themselves more guilty than they could be in the thing they abhor For as one says wittily the Idolater is but mistaken in his God the other thinks God is mistaken in him the one dishonours the other undeifies his God Yet the men of our times who make themselves the only Church of God and reprobate those who are of the true Church are not only guilty of this but many other crying sins which they not only Act but Enact as a Law as Blood-shed Oppression Prophanation of God's Rights and Ordinances by which you may know them not to be yet born of God k 1 Joh. 3. for those sin not not such great known sins not with a deliberate purpose to sin And therefore let us neither adhere to their Persons how seemingly holy soever they are in other things nor countenance that Cause that causes so many crying Disorders and Impieties For as St. Cyprian saith ea non est Religio sed dissimulatio quoe per omnia non constat when as Religion teacheth us to walk in an orderly sincere universal and uniform observance of all God's revealed Will and so walking to persevere For they and they only who are constant unto death shall enjoy a Crown of Life which I heartily wish to the greatest Enemies of God our just Cause and our Persons beseeching God that though they send us through a red Sea of our own Blood to our Heavenly Canaan and with Mahomet's Tomb hang us between Heaven and Earth as unworthy of either they may yet become Instruments of restoring Peace and Truth in this Kingdom and account those fair and spotless Lillies greater Ornaments to thâ—iâ— Garlands than all their Roses of Bloody Trophies And that they may make God and the Kingdoms good the only Centre and Circumference of all their Thoughts Words and Actions truly repenting of their Sins that by Gods Mercy they may obtain Pardon for them and not be left in hardness of Heart Blindness and Impenitence a Judgment beyond all Judgments as it is a Judgment that hath no sense of Judgment and yet hath both Sin and Punishment in it And though they have resolved all Law into the Sentence of the Sword and almost all Gospel into the private whispers of a seducing Spirit God in Mercy keep them from the destruction of the one and afford them Mercy in the other for their Conviction and Amendment and let not the Spiritual Lethargy of Sin any longer stupifie their Consciences but awaken them to an active endeavour of repairing their Errours and restoring of God's Truth that their Souls may be saved 5. Lastly Prayer is the great Out-rent and Homage the Subject as a duty ows his Soveraign Now as Prayer is the top-Branch of all our Duties to God and the most prevailing Oratory for his Blessings upon a Nation we must pray for them as men but first as Kings that we may lead a peaceable and quiet life under them in all Godliness and Honesty l 1 Tim. 2. And therefore in the practice of that Duty I shall wind up my Discourse Humbly beseeching God that as he hath given us a Caesar for Piety exemplary for Prudence as an Angel of God knowing both good and evil who by day as a Cloud and as a Pillar of Fire by night doth go before us to direct comfort and refresh us in all our wearisom marches and hard sufferings not refusing to wade through another red Sea though tinctured with his own Blood for the regaining and maintaining of Truth and Peace amongst us that God would give us Grace truly to value so great a Blessing in our King and for his Fatherly Kindness to us to pay all filial Obedience to him And let us never cease humbly to pray thee O Lord still to establish the Crown upon the Head of him and His Posterity till Shiloh come Plead thou this Cause of our King O Lord or rather thine own Cause and fight against those that fight against Him hate them not so much as not to seem to hate them at all by letting them still prosper in their Wickedness but correct them to amend them here that they may not be condemned hereafter and make Him the more Pious by His Pressures the more just by their Oppressions and every way the better for and more glorious by His Sufferings Make His Enemies as the Dust before the Wind and the Angel of the Lord scattering them but upon His Head let His Crown ever flourish And thou who art the Supreme Goodness so temper thy Justice we beseech thee as to make thy Strokes become Mercies to Him that He may read thy favour in thy frowns and not turn thy Rod into a Serpent thy Antidote into Poyson but make thou it like Aaron's in the end to bud and bring forth the blessing of a happy Peace to Him and us Yet let Him not so value Peace as to prefer it to Truth for a just War is better tban an unjust Quiet but as His and our Sins have let in one so make our Sufferings by and Sorrows for them to fit us for the Blessing of the other and us by following Righteousness to find a happy rest In the mean time sanctifie and preserve Him from all the Artificial Vnderminings and open Violence of Bloody and Wicked Men prepare him for all Events and give him an holy use of all thy varied Judgments and make Him to make a pious advantage of His Enemies and they to become His best Friends when by sucking the Venom and Poyson out of their Injuries He can by a charitable forgiveness turn them through God's Mercies into the richest Cordial Spirits to refresh His Soul with in His greatest Conflicts and Faintings And ever give Sentence with Him O God and defend His Cause against the Vngodly Let not the Justice of it sink under the weight of the Sins of His Party nor the not only acted but enacted Rebellion Sacriledge and Oppression of His Enemies separate any longer betwen them and thee nor us from one another but unite us all in inward Affections and the Bond of an outward Peace and that we may maintain truly zealous hearts to our God Loyal to our Soveraign and loving one towards another Protect Him by thy Power against all His Adversaries guide Him by thy Grace in all His Actions bring him to His Throne again with Happiness Safety and Honour re-establish Him in all His iust Rights and grant that all those committed to His charge may lead a peaceable and quiet life under Him in all Godliness and Honesty and that as He hath always defended thy Faith so thy Faith may still defend Him and He make it His Endeavours to restore thy Worship to its ancient Purity thy Church and Ministers to their ancient Glory and Himself and Kingdom to a happy and established Peace And for this end calm O Lord the raging of the Sea and the madness of His Pepole bound their Passions turn their outward Form into the substance of Religion let all their Schisms end in a Charitable Accord their Errours in Truth their Rebellion in Loyalty that as they have requited Him Evil for Good and Hatred for His Good-will they may now have hearts to repent of their Evils done and he one to forgive those he hath suffered by them Still preserve Him a Faithful Servant to thee though His Subjects be false to Him and ready to undergo the greatest Injuries rather than to consent to the least Sin Give Him a heart to part with all for thee but nothing of thine and though they would Vn-King Him by their Demands let Him not Vn-man Himself in His Condescentions depose the just Soveraignty of Reason in Himself nor prefer any preservation to that of His own Conscience but in all things to preserve His Subjects just Rights without enslaving Himself or His. Make thy Will O Lord the Rule of His and thy Glory and thy Self the Centre and Circumference of all His Thoughts Words and Actions Give Him a free submission to thee in all Events extricate Him from all His troubles carry Him through all Difficulties increase in him all saving Graces subdue in Him all Corruptions pardon all His Sins sanctifie unto Him all Afflictions guide him in all His wayes supply Him in all His wants lay no more upon Him than He may be able to bear but with the Temptation give Him a means to escape even the Snares of Sin and Malice of His Enemies and make Him not only be ready to suffer but to dye for the name of JESUS in Affections and Habit ever yet never in Act a Martyr unless for the advancement of thy Glory and His by one dying Man to make many living Saints to encrease the joyes of the Saints in Heaven though it would take from us the greatest upon Earth Give Him O Lord a dry Victory over all His Enemies and not the Temptation of a Bloody Conquest But if by those Issues thou wilt recover our weak and dying State come again with healing in thy Wings and once more restore what we have lost and give what is wanting to the manifestation of thine own Glory So be it Lord JESVS Amen Amen FINIS
us by it to efface all that is of God amongst men both outward Majesty and Piety when Regal Power as it conveys it self from the Father to the Son to a kind of immortalizing it self here is the legitimate Issue of God himself descended from him for the good and preservation of Men in a safe and religious course of life and ever bears his Stamp and Image in regard of the Power though the Persons that bear it sometimes when they think not themselves safe under the Guard of their own Vertues and Peoples Affections place their security in their strength and their happiness rather in a Power to hurt than in a just care to preserve their Subjects whose hearts they should account their best Treasury and surest Magazines and so degenerate into Tyrants and make that which is life to become death to us as S. Paul saith in another case Yet even then they are to be submitted to upon rational grounds and that Government is to be chosen before any other though Caesar's Image and Superscription were not stampt upon it by Divine Ordinance All others being but Counterfeits of it and of a more base allay little Money in great Medals when this like the noblest Coins contains much in little But as there are many snares beset the Throne of Majesty though there is nothing on Earth so near the Deity nor so commodious for the well-ordering of Humane â—ocieties the best Princes sometimes fall into great perplexities and difficulties because perhaps wanting the Meander's Thread of free and honest Admonitions and Advice to extricate themselves or by having their Ears dull'd with Flattery that Court-Earwig or too tender to endure the too searching air of an ingenuous spirit which speaks his own Duty not his Soveraigns Affections Man having lost the felicity of being a Law to himself that should keep him from transgressing the limits of equal Justice to any other hath cause to submit himself to Monarchical Government as the most silken Rein and gentle Bit he can take on to restrain him in his deviations and startings out of the right way of common Equity though under an ill King rather than a Popular State or Elective Kingdom which make a great show and glorious ostentation of Liberty though it is but Paint artificially laid on like Absalom's m 2 Sam. 15. a Varnish of Piety and publick Utility only to hide a Thraldom For they are the greatest Servitudes imaginable when submitted to and are accompanied with the greatest Mischiefs like the back-doors in great Houses having many in-lets to Disorder more than the other and possess only n Hos 8.4 an Usufructuary and Gubernative Power to Rule without any just Propriety in the Legislative which none can pretend to but such as are Commissioned from God according to his revealed Will and possess their Crowns by a lawful Civil Right as in this Kingdom since the Conquest For first as a good Author observes to me Succession in one Man a King disarms the Ambition of all daring and aspiring Spirits who would be at the Stern every one a Pilot though they wrack the Ship through their Civil Contentions Nay it takes away that ground of Emulation that might justly be among men of one level equals in Worth Birth and ennobled Vertues to ascend the Throne and hinders the fomenting of Factions amongst those that in other Governments have the Suffrages to Elect to the Supreme Power or any other eminent Place Secondly It prevents the exhausting of the Publick Treasure many times which those temporary Rulers are ever guilty of holding it unnatural not to feather a Nest for their own young ones though by the pluming all others and a weakness to live like Gods and dye like ordinary Men And many Drains new-made you know will insensibly take away more water than one Stream where it is always full Sea Thirdly It cures the windy swelling Tympany of Pride in those temporary Rulers that are always in travel to bring forth a thing of their own shaping to succeed them in their Government though against the Rules of it and who so fit a Pourtraict as some of their own Issue or Kindred as may appear in some of the Roman Emperours and most Popular States who rather than fail in it have nursed and raised up their design not only with the Milk of Flattery and many vitious practices and indulgences the making of Factions by the toleration of all evils but fed and brought it to perfection with the blood of Civil Wars and exhausting their Countries Treasure in Bribes and Profuseness ever legitimating all undue ways to keep what they have no Title to but by their Crimes even to the subversion of Religion with Jeroboam not only in making Calves for but of the People never wanting specious pretences to prop and uphold their rotten Pile though not trusting to them For you shall always find such Usurping Tyrants maintain the Martial Sword when once unsheathed to Oppression that the Sword might maintain them and protect them against the just revenge of an injured People Fourthly Elective and Popular States as a breach in a Sea-bank let in a deluge of confusion the Effect of Arbitrary Power which in such a tottering condition is never maintained but by greater wickedness as Cataline said than that which first formed it And therefore read all Stories and you shall find that few Common-wealths and such Kingdoms have ever been happy for present felicity or continuance not having had the poor comfort of being ruined by their Gods but Men by their Servants not Masters or else Aetna-like they have been always wasting themselves by fire in their own Bowels Pride Envy and Avarice ever blowing it up into the flames of a Civil War where there are many equal Competitors or Pretenders to Soveraignty So as not the best and fittest who will not ascend by such winding steps but the most potent gain those Dictatorships all which are just Punishments for endeavouring to form the Weapons of our strength draw the Model and Materials of Government out of our selves Our own Reasons when clouded with Passion Interest and Prejudice not consulting with Religion nor suffering God that made the House to order it For when we so leave our Religion for our Reason we lose both Reason and Religion Which would oblige us to think our selves safer under the protection of God's Ordinances in whose hands are the hearts of Kings the restraints of Conscience than by any outward Force or Humane Providence without them For by God's appointment Gods they are and as the Head from whence all Veins distribute their Spirits equally with respect to the higher and inferiour Members in a Body Politick maintain a happy Commerce and Traffick betwixt it and the most remote parts Direction and Protection descending whilst Love and Obedience ascend But besides this have we not more Reason to expect happiness from a lineal Succession in Kings than the Election of Men to that
Multiplying-Glass though by making too much Window they weaken the Walls and cause Factions and Divisions that the Roof might fall and then I am sure the Frame will not stand long let them seem to underprop it with never so many specious pretences painted but rotten Posts For as the firmness and uniting of the Walls support the Roof so the Roof covers and preserves them from many an ill Blast that would otherwise weaken and overthrow them But I spin this Thread too long on this Subject and therefore I here wind it up and proceed to consider CHAP. IV. What Duties Kings owe to their Subjects with the Excellency of that Government HAving endeavoured to shew as it were in Landskip and dark shadow only the Great and High Prerogatives of Kings not being able perfectly to describe them as they are in themselves without a seeming Court-flattery which yet might be forgiven given in these times and in a Garrison where Peace of Conscience is the only reward of Loyalty I shall further show you the Excellency of Regal Government by its Effects For so as the Sun in Water it is best seen in its Reflections and the just Actions of Pious Kings who are the Fountains of Honour Justice Power and all other regular subordinate motions in the lower Spheres as the Vital Spirits in the Head are of all Natural Operations of the Body are always best seen in their Piety and Moralities the industrious endeavour of which makes their Mitres rather ponderous than glorious as the Emblems of Christian Kings do show in that the Cross is always fixt but superiour to their Crown to the imitation of their Master who was Crowned indeed but with Thorns to teach them how full of vexing Cares and Troubles that Head should be subject to that as the Stern to the Ship is to guide the great Barque of the State not only in Calms but Storms which best prove the Pilot. So as we may consider the Infelicities of Good Kings with respect to this World to be more in the Scale than their happiness when they are not Lords but Stewards not Owners but Dispensers of all their glorious Attributes and Endowments For Regal is that Paternal Power in the fifth Commandment which Philo Judaeus observes confines upon both Tables that their Arms of Protection might extend to the keeping of both and the greater the Trust the more severe the Account In which there stands First a Charge of Power upon each King's Score it being one of God's communicable Attributes how he hath used the Sword God hath put into his hand which St. Peter saith ought to be a terrour to the Evil not to the Good though a Protection to all against private wrongs with the Militia and Power of making War or Peace which is seated in them and inherent by Divine Right k Num. 10. Deut. 17. as well as in our King by the known and established Laws and magna charta l C. 2.6 7. Ed. 7. C. 1. and to the Son m H. 3. succeeding him and though it be regulated in the Exercise n By 13. El. 1. c. 6 1 E. 3. c. 5. 4 H. 4. c. 13 5 H. 4. 11 H. 7. c. 1. 2 E. â— 4. 5 of P. M. â— 3. 4 Jac. c. 1. 22 E. 4. the Parliament never did pretend to give the Power but to declare it And thus Reynolds in his Comment on the 110 Psalm o Upon Ps 110.2 amongst the Jura Regalia proper honours belonging to the Person of the King which none can use but in a subordination to him doth reckon Armamentaria Publica the Magazines of all Military Provisions citing Greg. Tholos p De Repub l. 9. c. 1. Rom. 13. 1 Sam. â—0 16 by them to fence and impail God's Church and Vineyard both from the wild Boar and little Foxes and the persons of men from Injuries and Violence which are the greatest Priviledges we can enjoy in this World as may more clearly appear by the contrary Effects For things are seen carendo magis quam fruendo As in Judges q Cap. 17. where the decay of Religion advancing of Idolatry making Priests of the lowest of the People and all other Civil uncivil Disorders proceeded from the want of this Power in one man and are imputed to it as to the efficient cause though properly malum non habet efficientem sed deficientem causam And therefore we may expect great good from them when so many Evils are occasioned by their want For when there was no King in Israel every man did what seemed good in his own Eyes saith the Spirit of God disenthroning Reason and making Lust their Law and Rapes their boast r Judg. 19. So that by just consequence the having of a good King is the proper Remedy of those Evils who makes his just Power the measure of his Will not his Will the measure of his Power And therefore it is Enacted saith St. Peter in the style of a Law-giver as some observe that all should be subject to him at least in not doing his Lawful Commands be punished by him s Rom. 3 4. Ecclâ—s â— Esdr 7 25 26 27. Rev. 2.20 And so we find it in all the Reigns of the good Kings of Israel for there were no Micha's Idols nor High-places left no Rapines nor Violences suffered no acting of Wickedness under the Countenance of Laws and Acts but as Gods t Ps 82.6 they medled with the Affairs of God as Nursing-Fathers they nourished the Church with the two Breasts of God's Word and Sacraments through the Ministerial Administrations of Priests and as publick Ministers for good u Rom. 13. they restrained all other Uncivil Insolencies not suffering every man to be a King nay more than a King in doing what he list for a King ought not to be a Jeroboam favouring idolatry or any false Worship w 2 Chro. 10.14 but a David Learned Pious and Wise as an Angel of God x 2 Sam. 19.27 that Fraud Injuries and violence might be detected and restrained Innocency relieved Industry encouraged Vertue rewarded and Vice punished Secondly Justice Distributive is owing from a King to all his Subjects as that which establishes his own Throne saith Solomon and keeps the just Boundaries of meum tuum Common Right amongst men out of which as Seeds the large Harvest of Contentions growes For Judicium or Potestas judiciaria is a peculiar of Royalty in that the Administration is from the Prince as the Fountain of all Humane Equity under God deposited in the hands of inferiour Officers y Prâ—v 20.8 For so he is interpretative in them who as his mouth are to publish the Laws and to execute those Acts of Justice and Peace which principally belong to his own sacred Breast So Reynolds still in that place alluding there to that of Joh. 5.22 27. and drawing his Parallel from Christ where he saith The Father hath
or any other Form When instead of a Mushroom the growth of one night that springs perhaps out of the basest Excrements and of such a lazy despondency of Mind as sinks him into the next degree to a Beast making him to have no designs generous and noble to carry him beyond his own felicity we shall have one whose blood is derived to him through the Veins of many Noble Heroick and Vertuous Progenitors who becomes all Spirits refined from those marish and terrene parts which weigh down or raise Vapours to eclipse others of a more base Extraction when they aspire to great and generous actions Nay this makes Princes live in their Posterities when dead and brings reverence to the very Swadling-Cloaths and Cradles of their Successors as if they might Command Obedience before they could speak as Barclay observes Nor can it be imagined but that their high and vertuous Educations should infuse a Gallantry into them above Pride saith the same Author having been always used to the greatest outward Observances and by being so placed above all Contempt so as it cannot but nourish in them higher thoughts than either Hatred Emulation or Avarice produces and free them from those self-reflections private Families are subject to as I have touched before because they are secured against the fears of Competitors in rule and have setled supplies for their wants enjoying in the Stream what others have but in the Cistern and conveying it to their posterity as their Patrimony and Inheritance making them many times Heirs of the Goods of their minds as well as Bodies and to reap the Harvest and crop of all their noble and growing Designs which as Seed sown by them will not perhaps ripen into Fruit in many years after For it is probable such will manure and nurse up with Industry and Care what their Predecessors planted Nor can the Infancy and weakness of a Prince be of so bad a Consequence as a Popular State because he is then in Guardian to the most able and faithful Great Ones or the great Council of the Kingdom it self which the wisest and best of Kings do always make use of to steer their Actions by Nay if that Government should for a time degenerate it is more likely soon to recover and unite again in one when broken into many Interests equally tainted with malignant Influences and self-seeking designs But not with the Mole to lose my self upon the face and superficies of things when I may make my Habitation safe by digging deeper the best Foundations being lowest laid I shall return to my first design and go to the Root of all endeavouring to show that Regal Power was a Plant of Paradise of God's own setting and so of Divine Right and that the Sword which contends with the Scepter and raises it self upon the ruines of just Power cannot be free from all the fore-mentioned sad Effects which must eclipse the Glory of every Nation and leave it no Trophies but such as Pyrrhus once said of his Victories as would undoe the Conquerour and appear best when shrouded under the Vail of true Repentance and offered up again by a holy Restitution to the Altar from which they were sacrilegiously taken Such successes being our greatest vanquishments and leaving us no just Title to make other use of our unjust acquisitions Though Abishai would have preached David into a Murder and Rebellion at once upon no better grounds than Gods delivering Saul into his power o 1 Sam. 26.9.10.24.12 had he not learnt a better Divinity measuring his Actions by Gods revealed Will not outward Events knowing he there writes in Characters shewing us his hand only but not letting us at all read his meaning in them p Deut. 9. 2 Chron. 13.8 But to be a little more plain and perspicuous in so necessary a Truth I shall endeavour as in an Epitome or Index to those many large and learned Discourses that have been written upon this subject to sum up the best Collections I can and to digest them into this Method First To shew that Kings are the Ordinance of and hold their Supreme Power from God not Man and that they are only accountable to him for the use of it Secondly What that Power is and how limited Thirdly That resistance in the Subject against that Power is in no Case warrantable Fourthly What Duties Kings owe to their Subjects Fifthly What the Subject's Allegiance consists in to them First That Kings are the Ordinance of God contrary to that of the Romanists and our new Statists Reges coronas sceptra ab hominibus recipiunt ad eorum placita tenent q Bellarm. lib. 5. de Rom. Pon. cap. 7. So Buchanan r De Jure Reg. apud Scotos Populus Rege praestantior etiam major Rex igitur cum ad Populi Judicium vocatur minor ad majorem in jus vocatur For they are called God's by Institution and Appropriation from God For By me Kings reign saith he s Prov. 8.15 Rom. 13. 1 Pet. 2. Jo. 14.30 Hos 13.11 Wis 6.13 and with my holy Oyl have I anointed him t Ps 89.20 not only to rule by but for God too as the most express Character of him upon Earth Which made him lead his people by the hand of Moses and Aaron one Chief in Civil matters the other in things concerning the Priest's Office though with subordination Not one People by many Rulers much less the Ruler by the People but by one in Chief under the conduct of God himself and by his Authority as may appear in that and all other Instances of Regal Power So as Kings are to be reverenced and distinguished from others in regard of that Natural and Paternal Power God planted in Adam and caused immediately after to derive from many Heads into one Chief in one place a cause of the division of the Nations amongst the Sons of Noah as Monarch of the whole Earth after the Flood u Gen. 10.32 So as Kings are Gods and to be obeyed First In regard of their Attribute of Power For where the word of a King is there is Power w Eccles 8.4 that he might be feared x Pro. 24.21 and who may say unto him what dost thou Secondly In that of Mercy For there is Mercy with him that he may be feared in that he beareth not the Sword in vain y Rom. 13. 1 Pet. 2. but doth whatsoever pleaseth him z Eccle. 8.3 1 Sam. 8. in giving gracious Indulgences Thirdly In regard of Majesty and Soveraignty For God expresseth them by those highest Titles saith Calvin a Inst 4. l. cap. 20. to affect us with the awful sence of the Divinity it self and our Duty to them in putting the Glory of his own name upon them For b Ps 82.6 I have said ye are Gods and not only so but decreed and ordained it it shall be so even Gods before Men though Men before God 1st
their Ministerial Function to them as an indelible Character which their first Electors could not efface nor any unless it derived from the Supreme Civil Magistrate under whom they lived justly suspend in the Exercise in that the Power doth ever derive from God and by them But for further illustration we will consider it in the more familiar Instances of free Elections And first in Corporations as in a Model or hand contracted which is but expanded and the more stretched out in the highest Governments where the Commons propound the Person for the succeeding Governour the Representatives choose and the Kings Power invests without which Act the rest are but Cyphers without a Figure but having once Caesar's stamp and Image upon it it becomes legitimate current and of value so as none can clip or efface it to lessen his Authority much less displace the Magistrate but orderly by the Power that set him up without much Crime Rebellion and hazard of damnation g Rom. 3. 1 Pet. 2. A second illustration is That the People by free Votes choose their Representatives in our Parliaments yet the Power by which they Elect and that of the Elected is derived from the Kings Writ so as they cannot for any miscarriage or breach of trust in the Person recal their choice or make a new Election in any case without a new Warrant from the Crown but do become instrumental in conferring that which is not at all inherent in them as may more fully appear in the application of those similitudes to Kings where they are Elected in that Almighty God how tyrannous soever they prove uses them but as he did Ashur for the Rod of his Anger h Isa 10.5 when he gives a King in his Wrath i Hos 3. like Saul to scourge the Rebellions of a people not leaving them any just Power to depose him or any remedy or other appeal than to him in Prayer k 1 Sam. 8.18 In that his Providence orders all Actions and Events and suffers no evil of punishment without intitling himself to it For there is no Evil in the Land but I have done it saith he And therefore he accounts repining as impatience resistance by force Rebellion against himself For as the Apostles were Christs Kings are Gods Ministers upon Earth in as near a Relation Nay himself as it were showes that all such Arrows are shot at them wound him when Christ says Saul Saul why persecutest thou me l Act. 9.4 And thus God expresses it both in Moses his case m Num. 16. where he made the dull and patient Earth the common Hackney to all injurious trampling the severe Avenger of his dishonour and so in Samuel's n 1 Sam. 8. though even then by the fore-designation of God o Deut. 7.15 the Peoples free Election was confined to Saul the man that he did choose p 1 Sam 9.15 16 17. For till then God did rule by immediate direction and revelation those he appointed to be their Governours and would not totally cast them off for their revolt but still continued his goodness to them even in his Indulgence of Anger not leaving them to a factious and tumultuous Election but ordered it by immediate command to the person he had fore-appointed till he had settled the succession in David and his Seed q 1 Sam. 16. By it shewing his dis-allowance of all popular and disorderly Elections for even there where he permitted their concurrence in choosing the person in whom all Power should habitually reside and from whom its Actual Administrations should derive he suffered them only to assist Samuel in holding forth the Wax which he had appointed to set his Seal and Image upon but not to give any Impression Nor can it rationally be imagined by any man that is a Christian and acknowledgeth the Sword to be Gods and that he that sheds Man's Blood without his Commission is guilty of Murder how a power of Life and Death should be collated by any Community of Men to one or more when neither divisim nor conjunctim they have power over their own or one anothers lives Nor could ever any pretend to it unless Parents and Heads of Families by Divine Natural and Paternal Right but when derived from God the other way and by his Commission exercised Yet the People may in some sence be said to be the Pipe by which not at all the Spring from which the Power is derived the Hand that holds the Burning-Glass to the Sun no cause of those Rayes of Power that shine upon it and are contracted in it or as the Men that lay out the dry Bones as the Prophet did whilest God breaths the Spirit of Government and animates them for Action In which we must next consider CHAP. II. What Power Kings have and how limited AS I have endeavoured to make it appear by what hath been said that all Power is Originally Fundamentally and Vertually flowing from God and abiding in the King only as its Cistern and Receptacle from whence it is conveyed to us by many Pipes of several sizes Our inquiry must be how it is limited in it Self or Execution For resolution wherein we must go to the Standard of the Sanctuary the Holy Scriptures and there we shall see That when God first gave a King in his Wrath r 1 Sam. 8. the cause of it was the Peoples being not satisfied with the Regal Power God did exercise over them in his Vice-Royes and Deputies before but distrusting God Almighty when they saw Nahash King of the Children of Ammon come against them that he would not suddenly provide for their deliverance they would have one in readiness always to go up and fight for them Which distrust or despair of theirs who had found so many miraculous Deliverances under God's Government was that which so highly displeased God and not simply the desire of a King yet they neither desired to cast off God's Laws nor his choosing the Person as in Saul nor is it said that the Kingdom of God is cast off at the Election of Saul but they desired more sensible Evidences of Majesty and Glory because Samuel held not forth the outward Pomp Splendour and Majesty of Heathen Kings but as a Type of Christ whose Kingdom was not of this World with Humility as well as Power Upon which God gave them a King after the manner of other Nations r 1 Sam. 8. Dan. 5.18.19 but withal commanded Samuel to let them know what kind of King they desired even Jus Regis and that he should rule by absolute and unlimited Power in regard of Man however he may want the immediate direction and over-ruling Grace of God though not for want of a Rule for direction s Deut 17.2 2 Sam. 23.3 in that t 2 Sam. 22.3 he that ruleth over men must rule as in the fear of God u Ezek. 46.16 17 18. and not oppress the
have it used by any hand to which he conveyes it not by Humane which is always accompanied with Divine Right And so it is to be esteemed of according to God's revealed Will who never instituted other Government for Civil Regiment but commands it as other Spiritual Functions in the Church for Divine Administration there being no happy State in the perfection of Government without a Lawful King nor Glorious Church without Episcopacy Nor can any other justly intitle themselves to the having a Divine Precept or Institution for their Practise So as if others have the esse they want the bene esse of Government though men have found out many other inventions for both And therefore whosoever resist their Lawful Rulers by force purchase to themselves Damnation as they oppose the Ordinance of God though in wicked ones yet Rulers if wicked are to expect the same Reward For saith Bucer the word Subject signifies a fall and absolute Subjection to Rulers and forbids all force because as another observes u upon Tit. 3. to be subject is to obey and the rather because in the worst Government of any King the protection we receive from it doth more than ballance the Evils we perhaps might suffer under another Form w Jud. 17. And therefore saith the Apostle let every Soul as well Spiritual as Temporal be subject to Kings as the best Form of Ruling in whom by Gods Ordination the Habit of all Power resides though the Act be in his Ministers in all Causes though not over them but their Persons as Supreme and qui tentat accipere tentat decipere saith Bernard So as none but those that swear falsly in making a Covenant and fear not the Lord will say what should a King do to us x Hos 10.3 4. When as it is in the Fable of Beasts all should agree to choose the Lion for their King rather than have none For praestat unum timere quam multos And therefore it is probable God in his Providence to prevent Inter-regnums the mischiefs that did follow upon having no King y Judg. 17. and the tumultuousness of Popular Elections did settle Regal Powers in a succession of Blood first in David though promised to Abraham and prophesied of to Judah z Gen. 17.6.49.10 1 King 11.14 Jer. 41.1 2 Chro. 22.10 So as that Position of the Romanists and our new Statists Simeon and Levi Brethren in Iniquity that Princes are made by the People because made by the consent of the People and that People Originally make the Magistrate not the Magistrate the People is most false yet thus Parsons in his Dolman and many others broached that seditious Position with divers of the same nature to stir up the People against Queen Elizabeth perswading them they had power to dispose of the Crown and might depose her and transfer the Kingdom to the Infanta of Spain and since that time both Junius Brutus Buchanan and others like Sampson's Foxes have joyned with the Jesuits in this though standing as Extreams in other things But this Opinion as a most Reverend Divine of our Church hath shewed hath no Foundation in Reason nor Scripture For saith he from the Canon the Powers that be are ordained of God And how can man give the Sword the power of Life and Death over others that hath not power to take away his own life by any Natural or Divine Right For as hath been said no man can convey to another what he hath not himself So that Power wheresoever placed is an Emanation from God immediately and so to be obeyed only where orderly setled and constituted For the Powers that be saith the Apostle a Rom. 13. whether by Election or Inheritance Compact or just Conquest being once legally established are of God and may not be disturbed by their Subjects in a way of Arms or Force for any Impiety Tyranny or Oppression whatsoever they having no Power over the person once invested in and discriminated by the Power all Kings have by God's Ordination for in all changes men can only choose the person but never give the Power As Silver that is mere Plate if it be tendered for exchange may be taken or left at the liberty of him to whom it is offered but when once stampt by the King and Coyned becomes currant and not to be refused Or as Acts of Parliament whilest Voted by the two Houses have to this time been only Consents but after the King's concurrence Statutes that bind the persons that Voted them and all others and not to be altered by them without his assent So in Governments or Governours as soon as any are created by man whether Kings Elective or by Succession even St. Peter's Humane Creatures are by St. Paul called God's Ordinance b Rom. 13. and not to be resisted nor altered at the Will of the Electors who irrevocably part with their own Right as the Jewish Servant by boring made himself a Slave For if there remained in them a Power dormant to over-rule and unmake them whom they have once submitted to then where were decency and order c 1 Cor. 14. Nay what Tumults Disorders and Massacres would arise from it when Revenge would remove the one or Ambition Faction and the like set up another to compass their own ends like Herodet a Persian King who being a cruel Tyrant when he could not find out a Law to warrant his unlawful Actions found out another that he might do what he list And those that fear not God and the King conjunctim as one in regard of Divine Relation and Institution are given to such changes d Prov. 24.21 though Christ himself as man gave the example of submission and acknowledgment of the Divine Right of Caesar's and his Deputy Pilate's Power e Mat. 17.27 Joh. 9.11 the conviction of which Truth fetcht the Confession of it from a Popish Divine f Royard in Dom in 1. Advent Rege constituto non potest Populus jugum subjectionis repellere And though Bellarmine lays it as a Position as cited by Suarez g Li. 3. c. 3. p. 224. That the People never so give up the Act of Power unto the King but that they retain the Habit still in themselves it is contradicted by Suarez h Defend Fid. Cath. l. 3. c. 3. p. 225. in these words Non est simpliciter verum Regem pendere in sua potestate a Populo etiamsi ab ipso eam acceperit for he adds Postquam Rex legitime constitutus est supremam habet potestatem in his omnibus ad quae accipit etiamsi a Populo illam acceperit So Cuneris i L. de Offic Princi Principis sive Electione sive Postulatione vel Successione vel belli jure Princeps fiat Principi tamen facto divinitus potestas adest Otherways there would be Sword against Sword whereas God hath made but one because for one hand and will still be a