People had themselves made or assented to And this often times with express warning that if the King or Magistrate proved unfaithful to his Trust the People would be disingaged They added also Counsellors and Parliaments not to be only at his beck but with him or without him at set times or at all times when any Danger threatned to have care of the Publick Safety Therefore saith Claudius Sesell a French Statesman The Parliament was set as a bridle to the King which I instance rather because that Monarchy is granted by all to be a far more Absolute than ours That this and the rest of what hath hitherto been spoken is most true might be copiously made appear throughout all Stories Heathen and Christian even of those Nations where Kings and Emperors have sought means to abolish all Ancient Memory of the Peoples Right by their Encroachments and Usurpations But I spare long Insertions appealing to the German French Italian Arragonian English and not least the Scottish Histories Not forgetting this only by the way that William the Norman though a pretended Conqueror and not unsworn at his Coronation was compelled a second time to take Oath at St. Albans ere the People would be brought to yield Obedience First It being thus manifest that the Power of Kings and Magistrates is nothing else but what is only derivative transferr'd and committed to them in trust from the People to the common good of them all in whom the Power yet remains Fundamentally and canot be taken from them without a violation of their natural Birth-right And seeing that from hence Aristotle and the best of Political Writers have defin'd a King him who Governs to the good and profit of his People and not for his own ends it follows from necessary causes that the Titles of Soveraign Lord Natural Lord and the like are either Arrogancies or Flatteries not admitted by Emperors and Kings of best Note and disliked by the Church both of Jews Isa 26.13 and ancient Christians as appears by Tertullian and others Although generally the People of Asia and with them the Jews also especially since the time they chose a King against the advice and counsel of God are noted by wise Authors much inclinable to Slavery Secondly That to say as is usual the King hath as good right to his Crown and Dignity as any Man to his Inheritance is to make the Subject no better than the King's Slave his Chattel or his Possession that may be bought and sold And doubtless if hereditary Title were sufficiently enquired the best Foundation of it would be found but either in Courtesie or Convenience But suppose it to be of right hereditary what can be more just and legal if a Subject for certain Crimes be to forfeit by Law from himself and Posterity all his Inheritance to the King than that a King for Crimes proportional should forfeit all his Title and Inheritance to the People unless the People must be thought Created all for him he not for them and they all in one Body Inferior to him single which were a kind of Treason against the dignity of Mankind to affirm Thirdly It follows that to say Kings are accountable to none but God is the overturning of all Law and Government For if they may refuse to give account then all Covenants made with them at Coronation all Oaths are in vain and meer Mockeries all Laws which they swear to keep made to no purpose for if the King fear not God as how many of them do not We hold then our Lives and Estates by the tenure of his meer Grace and Mercy as from a God not a mortal Magistrate a position that none but Court Parasites or Men Besotted would maintain And no Christian Prince not drunk with high mind and prouder than those Pagan Caesars that Deifi'd themselves would arrogate so unreasonably above human condition or derogate so basely from a whole Nation of Men his Brethren as if for him only subsisting and to serve his Glory valuing them in comparison of his own brute will and pleasure no more than so many Beasts or Vermin under his feet not to be reasoned with but to be injur'd among whom there might be found so many thousand men for Wisdom Vertue nobleness of mind and other respects but the fortune of his Dignity of above him Yet some would perswade us that this absurd opinion was King David's because in the 51 Psalm he crys out to God Against thee only have I Sinned as if David had imagined that to Murther Uriah and Adulterate his Wife had been no sin against his Neighbour when as that Law of Moses was to the King expresly Deut. 17. not to think so highly of himself above his Brethren David therefore by those words could mean no other than either that the depth of his guiltiness was known to God only or to so few as had not the will or power to question him or that the sin against God was greater beyond compare than against Uriah What ever his meaning were any wise Man will see that the pathetical words of a Psalm can be no certain decision to a point that hath abundantly more certain rules to go by How much more rationally spake the Heathen King Demophoon in a Tragedy of Enripides than these Interpreters would put upon King David I rule not my People by Tyranny as if they were Barbarians but am my self liable if I do unjustly to suffer justly Not unlike was the Speech of Trajan the worthy Emperor to one whom he made General of his Praetorian Forces Take this drawn Sword saith he to use for me if I Reign well if not to use against me Thus Dion relates and not Trajan only But Theodosius the younger a Christian Emperor and one of the best caused it to be Enacted as a rule undeniable and fit to be acknowledged by all Kings and Emperors That a Prince is bound to the Laws that on the Authority of Law the Authority of a Prince depends and to the Laws ought to submit Which Edict of his remains yet unrepealed in the Code of Justinian lib. 1. tit 24. as a sacred Constitution to all the Succeeding Emperors How then can any King in Europe maintain and write himself accountable to none but God when Emperors in their own Imperial Statutes have written and decreed themselves accountable to Law. And indeed where such account is not fear'd he that bids a Man Reign over him above Law may bid as well a Savage Beast It follows lastly That the King or Magistrate holds his Authority of the People both Originally and Naturally for their good in the first Place and not his own then may the People as oft as they shall judge it for the best either chuse him or reject him retain him or depose him though no Tyrant meerly by the Liberty and Right of free-born Men to be Govern'd as seems to them best This though it cannot but stand with plain reason shall
hand against the Lords Anointed the matter between them was not Tyranny but private Enmity and David as a private Person had been his own Revenger not so much the Peoples but when any Tyrant at this day can shew to be the Lords Annointed the only mentioned reason why David withheld his hand he may then but not till then presume on the same Priviledge We may pass therefore hence to Christian times And first our Saviour himself how much he favour'd Tyrants and how much intended they should be found or honour'd among Christians declares his mind not obscurely accounting their absolute Authority no better than Gentilism yea though they flourish'd it over with the splendid name of Benefactors charging those that would be his Disciples to usurp no such dominion but that they who were to be of most Authority among them should esteem themselves Ministers and Servants to the Publick Matt. 20.25 The Princes of the Gentiles exercise Lordship over them and Mark 10.42 They that seem to Rule saith he either slighting or accounting them no lawful Rulers but ye shall not be so but the greatest among you shall be your Servant And although he himself were the meekest and came on Earth to be so yet to a Tyrant we hear him not vouchsafe and humble word But Tell that Fox Luke 13. And wherefore did his Mother the Virgin Mary give such praise to God in her Prophetick Song that he had now by the coming of Christ Cut down Dynasta's or proud Monarchs from the Throne if the Church when God manifests his power in them to do so should rather choose all misery and vassalage to serve them and let them still sit on their potent Seats to be Ador'd for doing Mischief Surely it is not for nothing that Tyrants by a kind of natural instinct both hate and fear none more than the true Church and Saints of God as the most dangerous Enemies and Subverters of Monarchy though indeed of Tyranny Hath not this been the perpetual cry of Courtiers and Court Prelates whereof no likelier cause can be alledg'd but that they well discern'd the mind and principles of most devout and zealous Men and indeed the very discipline of Church tending to the dissolution of all Tyranny No marvel then if since the faith of Christ receiv'd in purer or impurer times to Depose a King and put him to Death for Tyranny hath been accounted so just and requisite that neighbour Kings have both upheld and taken part with Subjects in the Action An Ludovicus Pius himself an Emperor and Son of Charles the Great being made Judge Du Haillan is my Author between Milegast King of the Vultzes and his Subjects who had depos'd him gave his Verdict for the Subjects and for him whom they had chosen in his room Note here that the right of Electing whom they please is by the impartial testimony of an Emperor in the People For said he A just Prince ought to be preferr'd before an unjust and the end of Government before the Prerogative And Constantinus Leo another Emperor in the Byzantine Laws saith That the end of a King is for the general good which he not performing is but the counterfeit of a King. And to prove that some of our own Monarchs have acknowledg'd that their high Office exempted them not from Punishment they had the Sword of St. Edward born before them by an Officer who was called Earl of the Palace even at the times of their highest Pomp and Solemnity to mind them saith Matthew Paris the best of our Historians that if they err'd the Sword had power to restrain them And what restraint the Sword comes to at length having both edge and point if any Sceptick will needs doubt let him feel It is also affirm'd from diligent search made in our ancient Books of Law that the Peers and Barons of England had a legal right to judge the King Which was the cause most likely for it could be no slight cause that they were call'd his Peers or Equals This however may stand immovable so long as Man hath to deal with no better than Man that if our Law judge all Men to the lowest by their Peers it should in all Equity ascend also and judge the Highest And so much I find both in our own and Foreign Story that Dukes Earls and Marquesses were at first not heriditary not empty and vain Titles but names of trust and office and with the office ceasing as induces me to be of Opinion that every worthy man in Parliament for the word Baron imports no more might for the publick good be thought a fit Peer and judge of the King without regard had petty Cavears and Circumstances the chief impediment in high Affairs and ever stood upon most by circumstantial men Whence doubltless our Ancestors who were not ignorant with what rights either Nature or ancient Constitution had endowed them when Oaths both at Coronation and renew'd in Parliament would not serve thought it no way illegal to Depose and put to Death their Tyrannous Kings insomuch that the Parliament drew up a Charge against Richard the Second and the Commons requested to have Judgment decree'd against him that the Realm might not be endangered And Peter Martyr a Divine of foremost rank on the third of Judges approves their doings Sir Thomas Smith also a Protestant and States man in his Common-wealth of England putting the question Whether it be Lawful to rise against a Tyrant answers That the Vulgar judge of it according to the event and the Learned according to the purpose of them that do it But far before those days Gildas the most Ancient of all our Historians speaking of those times wherein the Roman Empire decaying quitted and relinquish'd what right they had by Conquest to this Island and resign'd it all into Peoples hands testifies that the People thus reinvested with their own Original Right about the Year 446 both Elected them Kings whom they thought best the first Christian British Kings that ever Reign'd here since the Romans and by the same Right when they apprehended Cause usually Depos'd and put them to Death This is the most fundamental and ancient Tenure that any King of England can produce or pretend to in comparison of which all other Titles and Pleas are but of yesterday If any object that Gildas condemns the Britains for so doing the Answer is as ready that he condemns them no more for so doing than he did before for chusing such for saith he They anointed them Kings not of God but such as were more Bloody than the rest Next he condemns them not at all for Deposing or putting them to Death but for doing it over hastily without Tryal or well examining the cause and for Electing others worse in their room Thus we have here both Domestick and most Ancient Examples that the People of Britain have Deposed and put to Death their Kings in those Primitive Christian times And to couple Reason with
Example if the Church in all Ages Primitive Romish or Protestant held it ever no less their Duty than the power of their Keys though without express warrant of Scripture to bring indifferently both King and Peasant under the utmost rigor of their Canons and Censures Ecclesiastical even to the smiting him with a final Excommunication if he persist Impenitent what hinders but the Temporal Law both may and ought though without a special Text or President extend with like indifference the Civil Sword to the cutting off without exemption him that capitally offends seeing that Justice and Religion are from the same God and works of Justice oft-times more acceptable Yet because some of our late Passive Obèdience Men have wrote That proceedings against Kings are without Presidents from any Protestant State or Kingdom I will briefly rehearse a few of many Examples which shall be all Protestant In the year 1546. the Duke of Saxony Lantgrave of Hessen and the whole Protestant League raised open War against Charles the Fifth their Emperor sent him a Defiance renounced all Faith and Allegiance toward him and debated long in Council whether they should give him so much as the Title of Caesar Sleidan l. 17. Let all Men judge what this wanted of Deposing or of Killing but the Power to do it In the Year 1559. the Scotch Protestants claiming Promise of their Queen Regent for Liberty of Conscience she answering That Promises were not to be claimed of Princes beyond what was commodious for them to grant told her to her Face in the Parliament then at Sterling that if it were so they renounced their Obedience and soon after betook them to Arms. Buchanan Hist l. 16. Certainly when Allegiance is renounced that very hour the King or Queen is in effect Deposed In the Year 1564. John Knox a most Famous Divine and the Reformer of Scotland at a general Assembly maintained openly in a Dispute against Lethington the Secretary of State that Subjects might and ought execute Gods Judgments upon their King that the Fact of Jehu and others against their King having the Ground of Gods ordinary Command to put such and such Offenders to Death was not Extraordinary but to be imitated of all that preferred the Honour of God to the affection of Flesh and wicked Princes that Kings if they offend have no Priviledge to be exempted from the Punishments of Law more than any other Subject so that if the King be a Murtherer Adulterer or Idolater he should suffer not as a King but as an Offender This Position he repeats again and again before them Answerable was the Opinion of John Craig another Learned Divine and that Laws made by the Tyranny of Princes or the Negligence of People their Posterity might Abrogate and Reform all things according to the Original Institution of Commonwealths and Knox being commanded by the Nobility to write to Calvin and other Learned Men for their Judgements in that Question refused alledging that both himself was fully resolved in Conscience and had heard their Judgments and had the same opinion under Hand writing of many the most Godly and most Learned that he knew in Europe that if he should move the Question to them again what should he do but shew his own Forgetfulness and Inconstancy All this is far more largely in the Ecclesiastical History of Scotland lib. 4. with many other Passages to this effect all the Book over set out with Diligence by Scotch-men of best Repute among them to let the World know that the whole Church and Protestant State of Scotland in those purest times of Reformation were of the same Belief three years after they met in the Field Mary their Lawful and Hereditary Queen took her Prisoner yielding before Fight kept her in Prison and the same year Deposed her Buch. Hist lib. 18. And four years after that the Scots in Justification of their Deposing Queen Mary sent Ambassadors to Queen Elizabeth and in a Written Declaration alledg'd that they had used towards her more Lenity than she deserved that their Ancestors had heretofore punish'd their Kings by Death or Banishment that the Scots were a Free Nation made King whom they Freely Chose and with the same Freedom Unking'd him if they saw cause by Right of ancient Laws and Ceremonies yet remaining and Old Customs yet among the High-landers in choosing the Head of their Clans or Families all which with many other Arguments bore witness that Regal Power was nothing else but a mutual Covenant or Stipulation between King and People Buchan Hist lib. 20. Nor did our Queen at the earnest Desires of both Houses of Parliament forbear to take off her Head though a Crown'd one and the Reasons which were urged by our Learned Bishops and others for the Queens Encouragement in and speedy Execution of that great act of Justice being so very Remarkable and Convincing I think it not amiss to transcribe a few of them which may be read more at large in Sir. S. D'Ewes Journal which are as follow viz. For that they had a long time to their intolerable Grief seen by how manifold most dangerous and execrable Practices the said Queen of Scots had compassed the Destruction of her Majesties Person thereby not only to bereave them of the Sincere and True Religion of Almighty God bringing them and this Noble Crown back again into the Thraldom of the Romish Tyranny but also utterly to ruinate and overthrow the happy State and Commonweale of this most Noble Realm to banish and destroy the Professors and Professing of the True Religion of Jesus Christ and the Ancient Nobility of this Land and to bring this whole State and Common-weale to Forreign Subjection and to utter Ruine and Confusion which Malicious Purposes would never cease to be prosecuted by all possible Means so long as the said Queens Confederates but Ministers and Favourites had their Eyes and Imaginations fixed upon the said Queen the only Ground of their Treasonable Hopes and Conceits and the only Seed-plot of all Dangerous and Traiterous Devices and Practices against her Majesties Sacred Person And for that upon advised and great Consultation they could not find any possible means to provide for her Majesties Safety but by the just and speedy Execution of the said Queen the neglecting whereof might procure the heavy Displeasure and Punishment of Almighty God as by sundry severe Examples of his great Justice in that behalf left us in Sacred Scripture doth appear and that if the same were not put in Execution they should thereby so far as Man's Reason could reach be brought into utter Despair of the Continuance amongst them of the true Religion of Almighty God and of her Majesties Life and of the Safety of all her Subjects and of the Good Estate of this flourishing Common weale For that she the said Queen of Scots had continually breathed the overthrow and Suppression of the Protestant Religion being poysoned with Popery from her tender Youth
Dominion spent it self Vaingloriously abroad but shall heceforth learn a better Fortitude to dare Execute the highest Justice on them that shall by force of Arms endeavour the oppressing and bereaving Men of their Religion and Liberty at home that no ubridled Potentate or Tyrant but to his Sorrow for the future may presume such high and irresponsible Licence over Mandkind to havock and turn upside down whole Kingdoms of Men as though they were no more in respect of his perverse Will than a Nation of Pismires I conclude all with one word of Advice to that Party called Prelatical many of whom I believe to be Honest Men though they have been strangely misled by some of corrupt Principles and Prosecuting Turbulent Spirits I wish them earnestly and calmly not to affect Rigor and Superiority over Men nor justly under them not to compell unlawful and unmerciful things in Religion especially if not voluntary becomes a Sin nor to assist the clamour and malicious drifts of Men who they themselves have judg'd to be the worst of Men the obdurate Enemies of God and his Church nor to dart against the Actions of their Brethren for want of other Arguments those Laws and Scripture which tho' they hurt not otherwise yet taken up by them to the Condemnation of their own late doings give Scandal unto all Men and discover in themselves either extream Passion or Apostasy Let them not oppose their best Friends and Associates who molest them not at all nor Infringe the least of their Liberties unless they call it their Liberty to bind other Mens Consciences but are still seeking to live at Peace with them and Brotherly accord Let them beware an old and implacable Enemy though he hopes by sowing Discord to make them his Instrument yet cannot forbear a minute the open threatened Revenge upon them when they have served his Purposes Let them fear therefore if they be wise rather what they have done already than what remains to do and be warned in time to put no confidence in Princes whom they have provoked lest they be added to the Examples of those that miserably have tasted the Event Stories can inform them how Christiern the Second King of Denmark not much above a hundred years past driven out by his Subjects and received again upon new Oaths and Conditions broke through them all to his most Bloody Revenge Slaying his chief Opposers when he saw his time both them and their Children invited to a Feast for that purpose How Maximilian dealt with those of Bruges though by Mediation of the German Princes reconciled to them by solemn and publick Writing drawn and sealed How the Massacre at Paris was the effect of that credulous Peace with the French Protestants made with Charles the Ninth their King and that the main visible cause which to this day hath saved the Netherlands from utter ruine was their final not believing the perfidious Cruelty which as a constant Maxim of State hath been used by the Spanish Kings on their Subjects that have taken Arms and after trusted them as no latter Age but can testifie heretofore in Belgia it self and not many years ago in Naples And further they may remember how the present Tyrant of France has after all his many Edicts Oaths and Grants to maintain the Protestants in all their Priviledges besides the Obligations they have laid on him most inhumanly and perfidiously Banish'd Dragoon'd Murther'd and made away most if not all his Protestant Subjects nay what might be more convincing would they but lay it to Heart how our late Tyrant notwithstanding the manifold Obligations they heaped upon him and Oaths he laid himself under to maintain them and their Grandeur has nevertheless violated all and with all his Power as if Ingratitude was his chiefest Delight endeavoured their Extirpation and Ruine as well as other his Protestant Subjects And to conclude with one past Exception though far more Ancient David after once he had taken Arms never after that trusted Saul though with tears and much relenting he twice promised not to hurt him These Instances few of many might admonish them both English and Scotch not to let their own ends and the driving on of a Faction betray them blindly into the snare of those Enemies whose Revenge looks on them as the Men who first begun fomented and carried on beyond the cure of any sound of safe Accommodation all the evil which hath since unavoidably fallen upon them and their King. I have something also to the Clergy though brief to what were needful not to be Disturbers of the Civil Affairs being in hands better able and more belonging to manage them but to Study harder and to attend the Office of Good Pastors knowing that he whose Flock is least among them hath a dreadful Charge not performed by mounting frequently in the Desk to repeat their Prayers or into the Pulpit with a Formal Preachment hudled up at the old hours of a whole lazy Week but by incessant Pains and Watching in Season and out of Season from House to House over the Souls of whom they have to feed Which if they ever well considered how little leisure would they find to be the most Pragmatical Sides-men of every popular Tumult and Sedition And all this while are to learn what the true end and reason is of the Gospel which they teach and what a world it differs from the Censorious and Supercilious Lording over Conscience It would be good also they lived so as might perswade the People they hated Covetousness which worse than Heresie is Idolatry hated Pluralities and all kind of Simony left Rambling from Benefice to Befice like ravenous Wolves seeking where they may devour the Biggest of which if some well and warmly seated from the beginning be not guilty it were good they held not Conversation with such as are These things if they observe and wait with Patience no doubt but all things will go well without their Importunities or Exclamations and the printed Letters and Pamphlets which they send subscribed with the Ostentation of great Characters and little Moment would be more considerable than now they are But if they be the Ministers of Mammon instead of Christ and Scandalize his Church with the filthy Love of Gain aspiring also to sit the closest and heaviest of all Tyrants upon the Conscience and fall notoriously again into the same Sins which they lately seemed solemnly to have renounced and abjured as God has rooted out those great Enemies to Truth and Peace the Papists so may they if they will be the others Imitators except that the same God shall for the Vindication of his own Glory and Religion uncover their Hypocrisie to the open World and visit upon their Heads in double and treble manner those Curses and Miseries wherewith they have endeavoured to ruine and destroy the best of Subjects and Christians in Great Britain and Ireland 1 Sam. XII 24 25. Only fear the Lord and serve him in truth with all your heart for consider how great things he hath done for you But if ye shall still do wickedly ye shall be consumed both ye and your king FINIS