both a father because a King and a Tyrant and cruell and lyon-hearted oppressour of these whom he hath conquered for God hath given him Royall power by this example to put these to whom he is a father and defender by office to torment and also to be a torturer of them by office by bringing their backs under such Instruments of crueltie as saws and harrows of iron and axes of iron QUEST XIII Whether or no Royall dignitie have its spring from nature and how that is true every man is born free and how servitude is contrary to nature I Conceive it to be evident that Royall dignity is not immediately and without the intervention of the peoples consent given by God to any one person 2. That conquest and violence is no just title to a Crown Now the question is If Royalty flow from nature if Royalty be not a thing meerly naturall neither can subjection to Royall power be meerly naturall but the former is rather civill then naturall and the question of the same nature is Whether subjection or servitude be naturall I conceive that there be divers subjections to these that are above us some way naturall and therefore I rank them in order thus 1. There is a subjection in respect of naturall being as the effect to the cause so though Adam had never sinned this morality of the fifth command should have stood in vigour that the son by nature without any positive Law should have been subject to the father because from him he hath his being as from a second cause But I much doubt if the relation of a father as a father doth necessarily infer a Royall or Kingly authority of the father over the son or by natures Law that the father hath power of life and death over or above his children and the reasons I give are 1. Because power of life and death is by a positive Law presupposing sin and the fall of man and if Adam standing in innocency could lawfully kill his son though the son should be a Malefactor without any positive Law of God I much doubt 2. I judge that the power Royall and the fatherly power of a father over his children shall be found to be different and the one is founded on the Law of nature the other to wit Royall power on a meere positive Law The 2. degree or order of subjection naturall is a subjection in respect of gifts or age so Aristotle 1 Polit. cap. 3. saith that some are by nature servants his meaning is good that some gifts of nature as wisedom naturall or aptitude to govern hath made some men of gold fitter to command and some of iron and clay fitter to be servants and slaves But I judge this title to make a King by birth seeing Saul whom God by supervenient gifts made a King seemeth to ow small thanks to the womb or nature that he was a King for his crueltie to the Lords Priests speaketh nothing but naturall basenesse It s possible Plato had a good meaning Dialog 3. de legib who made six orders here 1. That fathers command their sons 2. The noble the ignoble 3. The elder the younger 4. The masters the servants 5. The stronger the weaker 6. The wiser the ignorant 3. Aquinas 22. q. 57. art 3. Driedo de libert Christ l. 1. pag. 8. following Aristotle polit l. 7. c. 14. hold though man had never sinned there should have been a sort of dominion of the more gifted and wiser above the lesse wise and weaker not antecedent from nature properly but consequent for the utilitie and good of the weaker in so far as it is good for the weaker to be guided by the stronger which cannot be denyed to have some ground in nature but there is no ground for Kings by nature here 1. Because even these who plead that the mothers womb must be the best title for a Crown and make it equivalent to Royall unction are to be corrected in memory thus That it is meerly accidentall and not naturall for such a son to be born a King because the free consent of the people making choice of the first father of that Line to be their King and in him making choice of the first born of the family is meerly accidentall to father and son and so cannot be naturall 2. Because Royall gifts to reign are not holden by either us or our adversaries to be the specifice essence of a King for if the people Crown a person their King say we if the womb bring him forth to be a King say the opponents he is essentially a King and to be obeyed as the Lords annointed though nature be very Parca sparing and a niggard in bestowing Royall gifts Yea though he be an idiot say some if he be the first born of a King he is by just title a King but must have Curators and Tutors to guide him in the exercise of that Royall right that he hath from the womb But Buchanan saith well He who cannot govern himself shall never govern others 1 Assert de facto As a man commeth into the world a member of a politick societie he is by consequence borne subject to the laws of that societie but this maketh him not from the wombe and by nature subject to a King as by nature he is subject to his Father who begat him no more then by nature a Lyon is borne subject to another King-Lyon for it is by accident that he is borne of parents under subjection to a Monarch or to either Democraticall or Aristocraticall governours for Cain and Abel were borne under none of these formes of Government properly and if he had been borne in a new planted Colonie in a wildernesse where no government were yet established he should be under no such Government 2 Assert Slavery of servants to Lords or Masters such as were of old amongst the Iews is not naturall but against nature 1. Because slaverie is malum naturae a penall evill and contrary to nature and a punishment of sinne 2. Slaverie should not have been in the world if man had never sinned no more then there could have been buying and selling of men which is a miserable consequent of sin and a sort of death when men are put to the toyling paines of the hireling who longeth for the shadow and under iron harrowes and sawes and to hew wood and draw water continually 3. The originall of servitude was when men were taken in warre to eschew a greater evill even death the captives were willing to undergoe a lesse evill slaverie S. Servitus 1. de jur Pers 4. A man being created according to Gods image he is res sacrae a sacred thing and can no more by natures law be sold and bought then a religious and sacred thing dedicated to God S. 1. Instit do invtil scrupl l. inter Stipulantem S. Sacram. F. de verber Obligat 3 Assert Every man by
almes though it should proceed from mercie in the Prince Psal 72. 13. but an act of Royall debt 3. The P. Prelate objecteth The most you claime to Parliaments is a coordinate power which in law and reason run in equall tearmes In Law par in parem non habet imperium an equall cannot judge an equall much lesse may an inferiour usurpeto judge a superiour Our Lord knew gratiâ visionis the woman taken in adulterie to be guilty bat he would not scntence her to teach us not improbably not to be both Judge and Witnesse The Parliament are Judges accusers and witnesses against the King in their owne cause against the Imperiall lawes Ans 1. The Parliament is coordinate ordinarily with the King in the power of making Lawes but the coordination on the Kings part is by derivation on the Parliaments part originaliter fontaliter as in the fountaine 2. In ordinarie there is coordination but if the King turne Tyrant the Estates are to use their fountaine-power And that of the Law Par in parem c. is no better from his Pen that stealeth all he hath then from Barclaius Grotius Arnisaeus Blackwood c. It is cold and sowre We hold the Parliament that made the King at Hebron to be above their own creature the King Barclaius saith more acurately l. 5 cont Monarch p. 129. It is absurd that the People should both be subject to the King and command the King also Ans It is not absurd that a Father naturall as a private man should be subject to his Sonne even that Jesse and his elder brother the Lord of all the rest be subject to David their King Royalists say Our late Queen being supreme Magistrate might by Law have put to death her own husband for adulterie or murther 2. The Parliament should not be both Accuser Iudge and Witnesse in their own cause 1. It is the Cause of Religion of God of Protestants and of the whole people 2. The oppressed accuse there is no need of witnesses in raising armes against the Subjects 3. The P. Prelate could not object this if against the Imperiall laws the King were both Partie and Iudge in his own cause and in these acts of arbitrarie power which he hath done through bad counsell in wronging Fundamentall lawes raising armes against his subjects bringing in forraigne enemies into both his Kingdomes c. Now this is properly the cause of the King as he is a man and his owne cause not the cause of God and by no Law of nature reason or Imperiall Statutes can he be both Iudge and party 4. If the King be sole supreame Iudge without any fellow sharers in power 1. He is not obliged by Law to follow Counsell or hold Parliaments for Counsell is not Command 2. It is unpossible to limit him even in the exercises of his power which yet Dr. Ferne saith cannot be said for if any of his power be retrinched God is robbed saith Maxwell 3. He may by Law play the Tyrant gratis Ferne objecteth § 7. pag. 26. The King is a fundamentall with the Estates now foundations are not to be stirred or removed Ans The King as King inspired with Law is a fundamentall and his power is not to be stirred but as a man wasting his people he is a destruction to the house and community and not a fundamentall in that notion Some object The three Estates as men and looking to their owne ends not to Law and the publick good are not fundamentalls and are to be judged by the King Ans By the people and the conscience of the people they are to be judged Obj. But the people also doe judge as corrupt men and not as the people and a Politique Body providing for their owne safety Ans I grant all when God will bring a vengeance on Jerusalem Prince and people both are hardened to their owne destruction Now God hath made all the three in every Government where there is Democracy there is some chosen ones resembling an Aristocracy and some one for order presiding in Democraticall courts resembling a King In Aristocracy as in Holland there is somewhat of Democracy the people have their Commissioners and one Duke or Generall as theâ— Prince of Orange is some â—mbrage of Royalty and in Monarchy there are the three Estates of Parliament and these containe the three Estates and so somewhat of the three formes of Government and there is no one Government just that hath not some of all three powre and absolute Monarchy is Tyranny unmixed Democracy is confusion untempered Aristocracy is factious Dominion and a limited Monarchy hath from Democracy respect to publick good without confusion From Aristocracy safety in multitude of Counsells without factious emulation and so a barre laid on Tyranny by the joynt powers of many and from Soveraignty union of many children in one father and all the three thus contempered have their owne sweet fruits through Gods blessing and their owne diseases by accident and through mens corruption and neither reason nor Scripture shall warrant any one in its rigid purity without mixture And God having chosen the best government to bring men fallen in sinne to happinesse must warrant in any one a mixture of all three as in mixt bodies the foure Elements are reduced to a fit temper resulting of all the foure where the acrimony of all the foure first qualities is broken and the good of all combined in one The King as the King is an unerring and living Law and by grant of Barclay of old was one of excellent parts and noble through vertue and goodnesse and the goodnesse of a father as a father of a tutor as a tutor of a head as a head of a husband as a husband doe agree to the King as the King so as King he is the Law it selfe commanding governing saving 2. His Will as King or his Royall Will is reason conscience Law 3. This Will is politickly present when his person is absent in all Parliaments Courts and inferiour Iudicatures 4. The King as King cannot doe wrong or violence to any 5. Amongst the Romanes the name King and Tyrant were common to one thing 1. Because de facto some of their Kings were Tyrants in respect of their Dominion rather then Kings 2. Because he who was a Tyrant De facto should have been and was a King too de jure 6. It is not lawfull to either disobey or resist a King as a King no more then it is lawfull to disobey a good Law 7. What violence what unjustice and excesse of passion the King mixeth in with his Acts of Government are meerely accidentall to a King as King for because men by their owne innate goodnesse will not yea Morally cannot doe that which is lawfull and just one to another and doe naturally since the fall of man violence one to another therefore if there had not been sin there should not have been
Nature why one Man should be King and Lord over another therefore while I be otherwise taught by the forecasten Prelate Maxwell I conceive all jurisdiction of Man over Man to be as it were Artificiall and Positive and that it inferreth some servitude whereof Nature from the womb hath freed us if you except that subjection of children to parents and the wife to the husband and the Law saith De jure gentium secundarius est omnis principatus 2. This also the Scripture proveth while as the exalting of Saul or David above their Brethren to be Kings and Captains of the Lords people is ascribed not to Nature for King and Beggar spring of one clay-mettall but to an act of Divine bounty and grace above Nature so Psal 78. 70 71. He took David from following the Ewes and made him King and feeder of his people 1 Sam. 13. 13. There is no cause why Royallists should deny Government to be naturall but to be altogether from God and that the Kingly power is immediatly and only from God because it is not naturall to us to subject to Government but against Nature and against the hair for us to resign our liberty to a King or any Ruler or Rulers for this is much for us and proveth not but Government is naturall it concludeth that a power of Government tali modo by Magistracy is not naturall but this is but a Sophisme a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad illud quod est dictum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this speciall of Government by resignation of our liberty is not naturall Ergo power of Government is not naturall it followeth not a negatione speciei non sequitur negatio generis non est homo ergo non est animal And by the same reason I may by an antecedent will agree to a Magistrate and a Law that I may be ruled in a politick Society and by a consequent will onely yea and conditionally onely agree to the penalty and punishment of the Law and it is most true no man by the instinct of Nature giveth consent to Penall Laws as Penall for Nature doth not teach a man nor incline his spirit to yeeld that his life shall be taken away by the sword and his blood shed except in this remote ground a man hath a disposition that a veine be cutt by the Physitian or a Member of his body cut off rather then the whole body and life perish by some contagious disease but here reason in cold blood not a naturall disposition is the neerest prevalent cause and disposer of the businesse When therefore a communitie by natures instinct and guidance incline to Government and to defend themselves from violence they do not by that instinct formally agree to Government by Magistrates and when a naturall conscience giveth a deliberate consent to good Laws as to this He that doth violence to the life of a man by man shall his blood be shed Gen. 9. 6. He doth tacitely consent that his own blood shall be shed but this he consenteth unto consequently tacitely and conditionally If he shall do violence to the life of his brother Yet so as this consent proceedeth not from a disposition every way purely naturall I grant reason may be necessitated to assent to the conclusion being as it were forced by the prevalent power of the evidence of an insuperable and invincible light in the premises yet from naturall affections there resulteth an act of self-love for self-preservation So David shall condemn another rich man who hath many Lambs and robbeth his poor brother of his one Lamb and yet not condemn himself though he be most deep in that fault 1 Sam. 12. 5 6. yet all this doth not hinder but Government even by Rulers hath its ground in a secondary Law of nature which Lawyers call secundariò jus naturale or jus gentium secundarium a secondary Law of nature which is granted by Plato and denied by none of sound judgement in a sound sense and that is this Licet vim virepellere It is lawfull to repeal violence by violence and this is a speciall act of the Magistrate 2. But there is no reason why we may not defend by good reasons that politick Societies Rulers Cities and Incorporations have their rise and spring from the secundary Law of nature 1. Because by Natures Law Family-Government hath its warrant and Adam though there had never been any positive Law had a power of governing his own family and punishing malefactors but as Tannerus saith well and as I shall prove God willing this was not properly a Royall or Monarchicall power and I judge by the reasoning of Sotus Molina and Victoria By what reason a Family hath a power of Government and of punishing Malefactors that same power must be in a societie oâ— men Suppose that sociâ—tie were not made up of Families but of single persons for the power of punishing ill-doers doth not reside in one single man of a familie or in them all as they are single private persons but as they are in a familie But this argument holdeth not but by proportion for paternall government or a fatherly power of parents over their families and a politick power of a Magistrate over many families are powers different in nature the one being warranted by natures law even in its species the other being in its spece and kind warranted by a positive law and in the generall only warranted by a law of nature 2. If we once lay the supposition that God hath immediately by the law of nature appointed there should be a Government and mediately defined by the dictate of naturall light in a communitie that there shall be one or many Rulers to governe the Communitie then the Scriptures arguments may well be drawn out of the school of nature as 1. The powers that are be of God therefore natures light teacheth that we should be subject to these powers 2. It is against natures light to resist the ordinance of God 3. Not to feare him to whom God hath committed the sword for the terror of evill doers 4. Not to honour the publike rewarder of well-doing 5. Not to pay tribute to him for his worke Therefore I see not but Govarruvias Soto Suarez have rightly said that power of Government is immediately from God and this or this definite power is mediately from God proceeding from God by the mediation of the consent of a Communitie which resigneth their power to one or moe Rulers and to me Barclaius saith the same quamvis populus potentiae largitor videatur c. QUEST III. Whether Royall Power and definite forms of Government be from God THe King may be said to be from God and his word in these seveall notions 1. By way of permission Ier. 43. 10. Say to them thus saith the Lord of hoasts the God of Israel Behold I will send and take Nebuchadnezzar the King of
the Kings and Iudges which I shall make good by these places Deut. 21. 19. The rebellious Son is brought to the Elders of the Citie who had power of life and death and caused to stone him Deut. 22. 18. The Elders of the Citie shall take that man and chastise him Iosh 20. 4. But beside the Elders of every Citie there were the Elders of Israel and the Princes who had also judiciall power of life and death as the Iudges and King had Josh 22. 30. Even when Ioshua was Iudge in Israel the Princes of the Congregation and heads of the Thousands of Israel did judicially cognosce whether the Children of Reuben of Gad and of halfe the tribe of Manasseh were apostates from God and the Religion of Israel 2 Sam. 5. 3. All the Elders of Israel made David King at Hebron and Num. 11. They are appointed by God not to be the advisers only and helpers of Moses but v. 14 17. to beare a part of the burden of ruling and governing the people that Moses might be eased Jeremiah is accused c. 26. 10. upon his life before the Princes Iosh 7 4. The Princes sit in judgement with Ioshua Iosh 9. 15. Ioshua and the Princes of the Congregation sware to the Gibeonites that they would not kill them The Princes of the house of Israel could not be rebuked for oppression in judgement Mic. 3. 1 2 3. if they had not had power of judgement So Zeph. 3. 3. And Deut. 1. 17. 2. Chron. 19. 6 7. They are expresly made Iudges in the place of God And 1 Sam. 8. 2. without advise or knowledge of Samuel the supreme Iudge they conveene and ask a King and without any head or superior when there is no King they conveene a Parliament and make David King at Hebron And when David is banished they conveen to bring him home againe when Tyrannous Athalia reigneth they conveene and make Ioash King and that without any King And Iosh 22. there is a Parliament conveened and for any thing we can read without Ioshua to take cognisance of a new Altar It had been good that the Parliaments both of Scotland and of England had conveened though the King had not indicted and summoned a Parliament without the King to take order with the wicked Clergie who had made many idolatrous Altars And the P. Prelate should have brought an argument to prove it unlawfull in foro Dei to set up the Tables and Conventions in our Kingdome when the Prelates were bringing in the grossest idolatrie into the Church a service for adoring of Altars of Bread the worke of the hand of the Baker a God more corruptible then any god of silver and gold And against Achabs will and minde 1 King 18 19. Elias causeth to kill the Priests of Baal according to Gods expresse law It is true it was extraordinary but no otherwise extraordinary then it is at this day When the supreme Magistrate will not execute the judgement of the Lord Those who made him supreme Magistrate under God who have under God soveraigne libertie to dispose of crownes and kingdomes are to execute the judgement of the Lord when wicked men make the law of God of none effect 1 Sam. 15. 32. so Samuel killed Hagage whom the Lord expresly commanded to be killed because Saul disobeyed the voyce of the Lord. I deny not but there is necessitie of a cleere warrant that the Magistrate neglect his duty either in not conveening the States or not executing the judgement of the Lord. 3. I see not how the conveening of a Parliament is extraordinarie to the States for none hath power ordinary when the King is dead or when he is distracted or captive in another land to conveene the Estates and Parliament but they only and in their defect by the law of Nature the people may conveene But 4. If they be essentially Iudges no lesse then the King as I have demonstrated to the impartiall Reader in the former Chapter I conceive though the State make a positive law for Orders cause that the King ordinarily conveene Parliaments Yet if we dispute the matter in the court of Conscience the Estates have intrinsecally because they are the Estates and essentially Iudges of the Land ordinary power to conveene themselves 1. Because when Moses by Gods rule hath appointed seventie men to be Catholike Iudges in the Land Moses upon his sole pleasure and will hath not power to restraine them in the exercise of judgment given them of God for as God hath given to any one Iudge power to judge righteous judgement though the King command the contrary so hath he given to him power to sit down in the gate or the bench when and where the necessitie of the oppressed people calleth for it For 1. the expresse commandement of God which saith to all Iudges Execute judgement in the morning involveth essentially a precept to all the Physicall actions without which it is impossible to execute judgement As namely if by a divine precept the Iudge must execute judgement ergo he must come to some publique place and he must cause partie and witnesses come before him and he must consider cognosce examine in the place of judgement things persons circumstances and so God who commandeth positive acts of judgeing commandeth the Iudges locomotive power and his naturall actions of compelling by the sword the parties to come before him even as Christ who commandeth his servants to preach commandeth that the Preacher and the People goe to Church and that he stand or sit in a place where all may heare and that he give himselfe to reading and meditating before he come to preach And if God command one Iudge to come to the place of judgement so doth he command seventie and so all Estates to conveen in the place of judgement It is objected That the Estates are not Iudges ordinary and habitually but only Iudges at some certaine occasions when the King for cogent and weighty causes calleth them and calleth them not to judge but to give him advise and counsell how to judge Ans 1. They are no lesse Iudges habitually then the King when the common affaires of the whole Kingdome necessitateth these Publique Watchmen to come together for even the King judgeth not actually but upon occasion 2. This is to beg the question to say that the Estates are not Iudges but when the King calleth them at such and such occasions for the Elders Princes and Heads of families and Tribes were Iudges ordinarie because they made the King And 2. the Kingdome by God yea and Church Iustice and Religion so far as they concerne the whole Kingdome are committed not to the keeping of the King only but to all the Iudges Elders and Princes of the Land And they are rebuked as evening wolves lyons oppressors Ezech. 22. 27. Zaca 3. 3. Esa 3. 14 15. Mic. 3. 1 2 3. when they oppresse the people in judgement So are they Deut.
1. 15 16 17. 2 Chron. 19. 6 7. made Iudges and therefore they are no more to be restrained not to conveene by the Kings power which is in this accumulative and auxiliarie not privative then they can be restrained in judgement and in pronouncing such a sentence as the King pleased and not such a sentence Because as they are to answer to God for unjust sentences so also for no just sentences and for not conveening to judge when Religion and Iustice which are fallen in the streets calleth for them 3. As God in a law of nature hath given to every man the keeping and selfe-preservation of himselfe and of his brother Caâ—n ought in his place to be the keeper of Abel his brother So hath God committed the keeping of the Commonwealth by a positive law not to the King only because that is impossible Num. 11. 14 17. 2 Chron. 19. 1 2 3 4 5 6. 1 Chron. 27. 4. If the King had such a power as King and so from God he should have power to breake up the meeting of all Courts of Parliament Secret Councell and all inferior Iudicatures And when the Congregation of gods as Ps 82. in the midst of which the Lord standeth were about to pronounce just judgement for the oppressed and poere they might be hindred by the King and so they should be as just as the King maketh them and might pervert judgement and take away the righteousnesse of the righteous from him Esa 5. 23. because the King commandeth And the cause of the poore should not come before the Iudge when the King so commandeth And shall it excuse the Estates to say We could not judge the cause of the poore nor crush the Priests of Baal and the idolatrous Masse-Preltes because the King forbad us So might the King breake up the meeting of the Lords of Session when they were to decerne that Naboths vineyard should be restored to him and hinder the States to represse Tyranny And this were as much as if the States should say We made this man our King and with our good will we agree he shall be a Tyrant For if God gave it to him as a King we are to consent that he enjoy it 5. If Barclay and other flatterers have leave to make the Parliament but Counsellers and Advisers of the King and the King to be the only and sole Iudge 1. The King is by that same reason the sole Iudge in relation to all Iudges the contrary whereof is cleere Num. 11. 16. Deut 1. 15 16 17. 2 Chron. 19. 6. Rom. 13. 1 2. 1 Pet. 2. 13 14. Yea but say they the King when he sendeth an Ambassadour he may tye him to a written Commission and in so far as he exceedeth that he is not an Ambassadour and cleare it is that all inferiour Iudges 1 Pet. 2. 13 14. are but sent by the King ergo they are so Iudges as they are but messengers and are to adhere to the Royall pleasure of the Prince that sent them Ans 1. The Ambassadour is not to accept an unjust Ambassage that fighteth with the Law of nature 2. The Ambassadour and the Iudge differ the Ambassadour is the King and States Deputy both in his call to the Ambassage and also in the matter of the Ambassage for which cause he is not to transgresse what is given to him in Writ as a Rule but the inferiour Iudges and the high Court of Parliament though they were the Kings Deputies as the Parliament is in no sort his Deputy but he their Deputy Royall yet it is only in respect of their call not in respect of the matter of their Commission for the King may send the Iudge to judge in generall according to the Law and Iustice and Religion but he cannot depute the sentence and command the conscience of the Judge to prononnce such a sentence not such the inferiour Iudge in the act of judging is as independent and his conscience as immediatly subject to God as the King therefore the King owes to every sentence his approbative suffrage as King but not his either directive suffrage nor his imperative suffrage of absolute pleasure 6. If the King should sell his Country and bring in a forraigne Army the estates are to convene to take course for the safety of the Kingdome 7. If David exhort the Princes of Israel to helpe King Solomon in governing the Kingdome in building the Temple 2 Chron. 32. 3. Ezechiah tooke counsell with his Princes and his mighty men in the matter of holding off the Assyrians who were to invade the Land if David 1 Chron. 13. 1 2 3 4. consult with the Captaines of thousands and hundreds to bring the Arke of God to Kireath jearim if Solomon 1 King 8. 1. Assemble the Elders of Israel and all the Heads of the Tribes and the chief of the fathers to bring the Arke of the Tabernacle to the congregation of the Lord. And Achab gather together the States of Israel in a matter that nearely concerned Religion If the Elders and people 1 King 20. 8. counsell and decree that King Achab should hearken to Benhadad King of Syria and if Ahasuerus make no Decrees but with consent of his Princes Ester 1. 21. nor Darius any Act without his Nobles and Princes if Hamor and Schechem Genes 34. 20. would not make a Covenant with Iacobs Sons without the consent of the men of the City and Ephron the Hittite would not sell Abraham a buriall place in his Land without the consent of the children of Heth Gen. 23. 10. Then must the estates have a power of judging with the King or Prince in matters of Religion Iustice and Government which concerne the whole Kingdome but the former is true by the Records of Scripture ergo so is the latter 8. The men of Ephraim complaine that Iephtah had gone to warre against the children of Ammon without them and hence rose warre betwixt the men of Ephraim and the men of Gilead Iud. 12. 1 2 3. and the men of Israel â—iercely contend with the men of Iudah because they brought King David home againe without them pleading that they were therein dispised 2 Sam. 19. 41 42 43. which evinceth that the whole States have hand in matters of publick government that concerne all the Kingdome and when there is no King Iudg. 20. The chiefe of the people and of all the Tribes goe out in battell against the children of Benjamin 9. These who make the King and so have power to unmake him in the case of Tyranny must be above the King in power of Government but the Elders and Princes made both David and Saul Kings 10. There is not any who say that the Princes and people 1 Sam. 14. did not right in rescuing innocent Ionathan from death against the Kings Will and his Law 11. The speciall ground of Royalists is to make the King the absolute supreame giving all life and
supposed Prerogative to Law Reason and to that which is debitum legale officii and a legall duty of an office and by this our masters the Royalists make God to frame a rationall creature which they call a King to frame acts of Royalty good and lawfull upon his own meer pleasure and the super-dominion of his will above a Law and Reason And from this it is that deluded Counsellours made King James a man not of shallow understanding and King Charls to give pardons to such bloody murtherers as James a Grant and to go so far on by this supposed Prerogative Royall that King Charls in Parliament at Edinburgh 1633. did command an high point of Religion That Ministers should use in officiating in Gods service such Habits and Garments as he pleaseth that is all the Attire and Habits of the idolatrous Masse-Priests that the Romish Priests of Baal useth in the oadest point of idolatry the adoring of Bread that the earth has and by this Prerogative the King commanded the Service Book in Scotland An. 1637. without or above Law and Reason And I desire any man to satisfie me in this If the Kings Prerogative Royall may over-leap Law and Reason in two degrees and if he may as King by a Prerogative Royall command the body of Popery in a Popish Book If he may not by the same reason over-leap Law and Reason by the elevation of twenty degrees And if you make the King a Iulian God avert and give the spirit of revelation to our King may he not command all the Alcaron and the Religion of the Heathen and Indians Royalists say The Prerogative of Royalty excludeth not reason and maketh not the King to â—â— as a brute beast without all reason but it giveth a power to a King to do by his Royall pleasure not fettered to the dictates of a Law for in things which the King doth by his Prerogative Royall he is to follow the advice and counsell of his wise counsell though their counsell and advice doth not binde the Royall will of the King I answer it is to me and I am sure to many Learneder a great question If the will of any reasonable creature even of the damned angels can will or chose any thing which their reason corrupted as it is doth not dictate hic nunc to be good For the object of the will of all men is good either truely or apparently good to the doer for the devill could not suite in marriage souls except he war in the cloths of an Angel of light sin as sin cannot sell or obtrude it self upon any but under the notion of good I think it seemeth good to the great Turk to command innocent men to cast themselves over a precipie two hundreth fadom high in the Sea and drown themselves to pleasure him So the Turks reason for he is rationall if he be a man dictateth to his vast pleasure that that is good which he commandeth 2. Counsellours to the King who will speak what will please the Queen are but naked empty Titles for they speak que placent non que prosunt what may please the King whom they make glad with their lies not what law and reason dictateth 3. Absolutenesse of an unreasonable Prerogative doth not deny Counsell and Law also for none more absolute de facto I cannot say de jure then the Kings of Babylon and Persia for Daniel saith of one of them Dan. 5. 19. Whom he would he slew and whom he would he kept alive and whom he would he set up and whom he would he put down and yet these same Kings did nothing but by advice of their Princes and Counsellors yea so as they could not alter a decree and law as is clear Ester 1. 14 15 16 17 21. Yea Darius de facto an absolute Prince was not able to deliver Daniel because the Law was passed that he should be cast into the Lions den Dan. 6. 14 15 16. 4. That which the spirit of God condemneth as a point of Tyranny in Nebuchadnezzar that is no lawfull Prerogative Royall but the spirit of God condemneth this as Tyranny in Nebuchadnezzar That he slew whom he would he kept alive whom he would he set up whom he would he put down this is too God-like Deut. 32. 39. So Polanus Rollocus on the place say he did these things Vers 19. Ex abusu legitime potestatis for Nebuchadnezzars will in matters of death and life was his Law and he did what pleased himself above all Law beside and contrary to it and our flatterers of Kings draw the Kings Pretogative out of Vlpians words who saith That is a Law which seemeth good to the Prince but Vlpian was far from making the Princes will a rule of good and ill for he saith the contrary That the Law ruleth the just Prince 5. It is considerable here that Sanches defineth the absolute power of Kings to be a plenitude and fulnesse of power subject to no necessity and bounded with rules of no publick Law and so did Baldus before him but all Politicians condemn that of Caligula as Suetonius saith which he spake to Alexander the Great Remember that thou maist do all things and that thou hast a power to do to al men what thou pleasest And Lawyers say that this is Tyranny Chilon one of the seven wise of Greece as Rodigi saith better Princes are like gods because they onely can do that which is just And this power being meerly Tyrannicall can be no ground of a Royall Prerogative There is another power saith Sanches absolute by which a Prince dispenseth without a cause in a humane law and this power saith he may be defended but he saith What the King doth by this absolute power he doth it validè validly but not jure by Law but by valid acts the Iesuite must mean Royall Acts but no acts void of Law and Reason say we can be Royall Acts for Royall Acts are acts performed by a King as a King and by a Law and so cannot be Acts above or beside a Law It is true a King may dispence with the breach of an humane Law as a humane Law that is If the Law be death to any who goeth up on the Walls of the Citie the King may pardon any who going up discovereth the enemies approach and saveth the Citie But 1. The inferiour Iudge according to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that benigne interpretation that the soul and intent of the Law requireth may do this as well as the King 2. All acts of independent Prerogative are above a Law and acts of free-will having no cause or ground in the Law otherwayes it is not founded upon absolute power but on power ruled by Law and Reason but to pardon a breach of the letter of the Law of man by exponing it according to the true intent of the Law and benignly is an act of legall obligation and so of the ordinary power of
Prerogative pardoneth a murtherer and he killeth another innocent man and out of the same ground the King pardoneth him again and so till he kill twenty for by what reason the Prerogative giveth one pardon he may give twenty there is a like reason above Law for all This act of Absolute Royaltie is such an act of murther as if a shepherd would keep a Woolf in the fold with the sheep he were guilty of the losse of these sheep Now an act of destroying cannot be an act of judging far lesse of a supreme Iudge but of a supreme Murtherer 7. Whereas he is called Absolute Prince and Supreme Judge in all Causes Ecclesiasticall and Civill It is to be considered 1. That the Estates professe in these acts not to give any new Prerogative but onely to continue the old power and that onely with that amplitude and freedom which the King and his Predecessors did enjoy and exerce of before the extent whereof is best known from the Acts of Parliament Histories of the time and the Oaths of the Kings of Scotland 2. That he is called Absolute Prince not in any relation of freedom from Law or Prerogative above Law whereunto as unto the norma regula ac mensura potestatis suae ac subjectionis meae He is tyed by the Fundamentall Law and his own Oath but in opposition to all forraign Iurisdiction or principalitie above him as is evident by the Oath of Supremacie set down for acknowledging of his power in the first Act of Parliament 21. K. Iam. 6. 3. They are but the same expressions giving onely the same power before acknowledged in the 129. Act. Parl. 8. K. Iam. 6. And that onely over Persons or Estates considered Separatim and over Causes but neither at all over the Laws nor over the Estates taken Conjunctim and as convened in Parliament as is clear both by the two immediately subsequent Acts of that Parliament 8. K. Iam. 6. Establishing the Authority of Parliaments equally with the Kings and discharging all Iurisdictions albeit granted by the King without their Warrant as also by the Narrative Depositive words and certification of the Act it self otherwayes the Estates convened in Parliament might by vertue of that Act be summoned before and censured by the Kings Majestie or His Councell a Iudicatory substitute be subordinate to and censurable by themselves which were contrary to sense and reason 4. The very termes of Supreme Iudge and in all Causes according to the nature of Correlates presupposeth Courts and judiciall Proceedings and Laws as the ground work and rule of all not a freedom from them 5. The sixth Act of the twenty Parliament K. Iac. 6. Cleerly interpreteth what is meant by the Kings Iurisdiction in all Spirituall and Ecclesiastick Causes to wit to be onely in the Consistoriall Causes of Matrimony Testaments Bastardy Adulteries abusively called Spirituall Causes because handled in Commissary Courts wherin the King appoints the Commissary his Deputies and makes the Lords of the Session his great Consistory in all Ecclesiasticall Causes with reservation of his Supremacy and Prerogative therein 7. Supreame Iudge in all causes cannot be taken Quoad actus elicitos as if the King were to judge between two Sea-men or two Husband-men or two Trades-men in that which is proper to their Art or between two Painters certainly the King is not to Iudge which of the two draweth the fairest Picture but which of the two wasteth most gold on his Picture and so doth interest most of the Common-wealth So the King cannot judge in all Ecclesiasticall Causes that is he cannot Quoad actos elicitos prescribe this Worship for example the Masse not the Sacrament of the Lords Supper Therefore the King hath but Actus imperatos some Royall Politicall Acts about the Worship of God to command God to be Worshipped according to his Word to punish the superstitions or neglectors of Divine Worship therefore cannot the King be sole Iudge in matters that belong to the Colledge of Iudges by the Lawes of Scotland the Lords of Session onely may judge these maters K. Iames 1. Parl. 2. Act. 45. K. Iames 3. Par. 8. Act. 62. K. Iames 3. Par. 4. Act. 105. K. I. 1. Parl. 6. Act. 83. K. I. 1. Par. 6 Act. 86. K. I. 5. Par. 7. Act. 104. and that only according to Law without any remedy of appellation to King or the Parliament Act 62 and 63. Par. 14. K. I. 2. And the King is by Act of Parliament inhibited to send any private letter to stay the Acts of Iustice or if any such letter be procured the Iudges are not to acknowledge it as the Kings Will for they are to proceed unpartially according to Iustice and are to make the Law which is the King and Parliaments publick revealed will their rule King I. 5. Parl. 5. Act. 68. K. Ia. 6. Part. 8. Act. 139. and K. I. 6. Par. 6. Act. 92. most lawfull Nor may the Lords suspend the course of Iustice or the sentence or execution of Decrees upon the Kings private letter King I. 6. Parl. 11. Act 79. and K. Iam. 6. Par. 11. Act 47. and so if the Kings Will or desire as he is a man be opposite to his Law and his Will as King it is not to be regarded This is a strong Argument that the Parliaments never made the King supreame Iudge Quoad actus elicitos in all causes nay not if the King have a Cause of his owne that concerneth Lands of the Crowne farre lesse can the King have a will of Prerogative above the Law by our Lawes of Scotland And therefore when in the eighth Parliament King Ia. 6. the Kings Royall Power is established in the first Act the very next act immediatly subjoyned thereunto declareth the authority of thesupreame Court of Parliament continued past all memory of man unto this day and constitute of the free voices of the three estates of this ancient Kingdome which in the Parliament 1606. is called The ancient and fundamentall policy of this Kingdome and so fundamentall as if it should be innovate such confusion would ensue as it could no more be a free Monarchy as is exprest in the Parliaments printed Commission 1604. by whom the same under God hath been upholden rebellious and traiterous subjects punished the good and faithfull preserved and maintained and the Lawes and Acts of Parliament by which all men are governed made and established and appointeth the Honour Authority and Dignity of the Estates of Parliament to stand in their owne integrity according to the ancient and laudable custome by past without alteration or diminution and therefore dischargeth any to presume or take in hand To impugne the dignity and the authority of the said Estates or to seeke or procure the innovation or diminution of their power or authority under the paine of Treason and therefore in the next Act they discharge all Iurisdictions or Judicatories albeit appointed by the Kings Majesty as the High Commission
the tie of a divine Law to a Monarchy rather then to another Government The Parisian Doctors prove That the precept of having a Pope is affirmative and so tyeth not the Church ad semper for ever and so the Church is the body of Christ without the Pope and all oaths to things of their nature indifferent and to things the contrary whereof is lawfull and may be expedient and necessary lay on a tie onely conditionally in so far as they conduce to the end If the Gibeonites had risen in Joshuaes dayes to cut off the people of God I think no wise man can think that Joshua and the people were tyed by the oath of God not to cut off the Gibeonites in that case For to preserve them a live as enemies was against the intent of the oath which was to preserve them alive as friends demanding and supplicating peace and submitting The assumption is clear If a Nation seeth that Aristocraticall Government is better then Monarchy hic nunc That the sequels of such a Monarchy is bloody destructive tyrannous that the Monarchy compelleth the free subjects to Turcisme to grosse Idolatry they cannot by the divine bond of any oath captive their naturall freedom which is to choose a Government and Governours for their safetie for a peaceable and godly life or fetter and chain the wisdom of the posterity unalterably to a Government or a Royall Line which hic nunc contrary to the intention of their oath proveth destructive and bloody And in this case even the King though tyed by an oath to govern is obliged to the practices of the Emperour Otho And as Speed saith of Richard the second to resign the Crown for the eschewing of the effusion of blood And who doubteth but the second wits of the experienced posterity may correct the first wits of their fathers nor shall I ever beleeve that the fathers can leave in legacie by oath any chaines of the best gold to fetter the after wits of posteritie to a choice destructive to peace and true Godlinesse To these adde 8. That 1. an heritor may defraud his first borne of his heritage because of his dominion he hath over his heritage A King cannot defraud his first-borne of the Crown 2. An heritor may divide his heritage equally amongst his twelve sonnes A King cannot divide his Royall Dominions in twelve parts and give a part to every sonne for so he might turne a Monarchie into an Aristocracie and put twelve men in the place of one King 3. Any heritor taken captive may lawfully oppignorate yea and give all his inheritance as a ransome for his liberty for a man is better then his inheritance but no King may give his Subjects as a price or ransome Yet I shall not be against the succession of Kings by birth with good limitations and shall agree that through the corruption of mans nature it may be in so far profitable as it is peaceable and preventeth bloody tumults which are the bane of humane societies Consider further for this Aegid Romanus l. 3. de reg princi cap. 5. Turrecremat and Joan. de terra Reubea 1 tract contr Rebelles ar 1. â—on 4. Yet Aristotle the flower of Natures wit l. 3. polit c. 10. preferreth Election to Succession He preferreth Carthage to Sparta though their Kings came of Hercules Plutarch in Scylla saith he would have Kings as dogs that is best hunters not those who are borne of best dogs Tacitus lib. 1. Nasci generari à Principibus fortuitum nec ultra aestimantur QUEST XI Whether or no he be more principally a King who is a King by birth or he who is a King by the free election and suffrages of the people VVIthout deteining the Reader I desire liberty to assert that 1 Assert Where God establisheth a Kingdome by Birth that government hic nunc is best and because God principally distributeth Crownes when God establisheth the Royall line of David to reigne he is not principally a King who commeth neerest and most immediately to the fountaine of Royaltie which is Gods immediate will but God established his nunc for typicall reasons with reverence of the learned a King by birth 2 Assert But to speake of them ex natura rei and according to the first mould and paterne of a King by law A King by election is more principally King magis univoce per se then an hereditarie Prince 1. Because in hereditary Crownes the first familie being chosen by the free suffrages of the people for that cause ultimatè the hereditary Prince commeth to the throne because his first father and in him the whole line of the familie was chosen to the Crowne and propter quod unumquodque tale id ipsum magis tale 2. The first King ordained by Gods positive law must be the measure of all Kings and more principally the King then he who is such by derivation But the first King is a King by election not by birth Deut. 17. 15. Thou shalt in any wise set him King over thee whom the Lord thy God shall choose One from amongst thy brethren shalt thou set over thee If the free will of the people be not the neerest cause of the first moulded King God could have made no positive law to choose such a man not such a man for all positive lawes presuppose free election 3. The Law saith Surrogatum fruitur privilegiis ejus in cujus locum surrogatur He who is substituted in the place of another enjoyeth the priviledges of him in whose place be succeedeth But the hereditary King hath Royall priviledges from him who is chosen King Salomon hath the Royall priviledges of David his father and is therefore King by birth because his father David was King by election And this I say not because I think sole birth is a just title to the Crown but because it designeth him who indeed virtually was chosen when the first King of the race was chosen 4. Because there is no dominion of either Royalty or any other way by nature no more then an Eagle is born King of Eagles a Lyon King of Lyons neither is a man by nature born King of men and therefore he who is made King by suffrages of the people must be more principally King then he who hath no title but the womb of his mother Doct. Fern is so farre with us to father Royaltie upon the peoples free election as on the formall cause that he saith If to design the person and to procure limitation of the power in the exercise of it be to give the power we grant the power is from the people but saith he you will have the power originally from themselves in another sense for you say they reserve power to depose and displace the Magistrate sometime they make the Monarch supreme and then they devest themselves of all power and keep none to themselves but before established Government they have
no politique power whereby they may lay a command on others but onely a naturall power of private resistance which they cannot use against the Magistrate Ans But to take off those by the way 1. If the King may choose A. B. an Ambassadour and limit him in his power and say Doe this and say this to the forraigne State you goe to but no more halfe a wit will say the King createth the Ambassadour and the Ambassadours power is originally from the King and we prove the power of the Lyon is originally from God and of the Sea and the fire is originally from God because God limiteth the Lyon in the exercises of its power that it shall not devoure Daniel and limiteth the Sea as Ieremiah saith when as he will have its proud Waves to come thither and no farther and will have the fire to burne those who throwe the three Children into the fiery furnace and yet not to burne the three Children for this is as if Doctor Ferne said the power of the King of six degrees rather then his power of five is from the people therefore the power of the King is not from the people yea the contrary is true 2. That the people can make a King supreame that is Absolute and so resigne natures birth-right that is a power to defend themselves is not lawfull for if the people have not absolute power to destroy themselves they cannot resigne such a power to their Prince 3. It is false that a community before they be established with formall Rulers have no politicke power for consider them as men onely and not as associated they have indeed no politicke power but before Magistrates be established they may convene and associate themselves in a body and appoint Magistrates and this they cannot doe if they had no politicke power at all 4. They have virtually a power to lay on Commandements in that they have power to appoint to themselves Rulers who may lay commandements on others 5. A community hath not formally power to punish themselves for to punish is to inflict Malum disconveniens naturae an evill contrary to nature but in appointing Rulers and in agreeing to Lawes they consent they shall be punished by another upon supposition of transgression as the child willingly going to schoole submitteth himself in that to Schoole-discipline if he shall faile against any Schoole Law and by all this t is cleare a King by election is principally a King Barclay then faileth who saith No man denyeth but succession to a Crowne by birth is agreeable to nature it is not against nature but it is no more naturall then for a Lyon to be borne a King of Lyons Obj. Most of the best Divines approve an hereditary Monarch rather then a Monarch by election Ans So doe I in some cases in respect of Empire simply it is not better in respect of Empire now under mans fall in sin I grant it to be better in some respect So Salust In Iugurth Natura mortalium imperij avida Tacitus Hist 2. Minore discrimine princeps sumitur quam queritu there 's lesse danger to accept of a Prince at hand then to seeke one a farre off 2. In a Kingdome to be constituted election is better in a constituted Kingdome birth seemeth lesse evill 3. In respect of liberty election is more convenient in respect of safety and peace birth is safer and the nearest way to the Well See Bodin De Rep. l. 6. c. 4. Thol ozan De Rep. l. 7. c. 4. QUEST XII Whether or not a Kingdome may lawfully be purchased by the sole title of conquest THe Prelate averreth confidently that a Title to a Kingdome by Conquest without the consent of the people is so just and evident by Scripture that it cannot be denyed but the man bringeth no Scripture to prove it Mr. Marshall saith a conquered Kingdome is but câ—ntinuata injuria a continued robbery A right of conquest is twofold 1. When there is no just cause 2. When there is just reason and ground of the war in this latter case if a Prince subdue a whole Land which justly deserveth to dye yet by his grace who is so mild a conquerour they may be all preserved alive Now amongst those who have thus injured the conquerour as they deserve death we are to difference the persons offending and the wives children especially not borne and such as have not offended The former sort may resign their personall liberty to the conquerour that the sweet life may be saved but he cannot be their King properly but I conceive that they are obliged to consent that he be their King upon this condition that the conquerour put not upon them violent and tyrannicall conditions that are harder then death now in reason we cannot thinke that a tyrannous and unjust domineering can be Gods lawfull meane of translating Kingdomes and for the other part the conquerour cannot domineere as King over the innocent and especially the children not yet borne 1. Assertion A people may be by Gods speciall Commandement subject to a conquering Nebuchadnezer and a Caesar as to their King as was Iudah commanded by the Prophet Ieremiah to submit unto the yoake of the King of Babylon and to pray for him and the people of the Iewes were to give to Caesar the things of Caesar and yet both those were unjust conquerours for those Tyrants had no command of God to oppresse and raigne over the Lords people yet were they to obey those Kings so the passive subjection was just and commanded of God and the active unjust and tyranous and forbidden of God 2. Assert This title by conquest through the peoples after consent may be turned into a just title as it s like the case was with the Iewes in Caesars time for which cause our Saviour commanded to obey Caesar and to pay tribute unto him as Dr. Ferne confesseth But two things are to be condemned in the Doctor 1. That God manifesteth his Will to us in this worke of providence whereby he translateth Kingdomes 2. That this is an over-awed consent now to the former I reply if the act of conquering be violent and unjust it is no manifestation of Gods regulating and approving Will and can no more prove a just title to a Crowne because it is an act of Divine providence then Pilate and Herod their crucifying of the Lord of Glory which was an act of Divine providence flowing from the Will and Decree of Divine providence Act. 2. 23. Act. 4. 28. is a manifestation that it was Gods approving Will that they should kill Jesus Christ 2. Though the consent be some way over-awed yet is it a sort of Contract and Covenant of loyall subjection made to the conquerour and therefore sufficent to make the title just otherwise if the people never give their consent the conquerour domineering over them by violence hath no just title to the Crowne 3.
11. v. 14 15. and yet after those breaches David acknowledgeth him to be his Prince and the Lords annoynted Ans The Prophet Samuel his threatning 1 Sam. 17. is it not exponed of actuall unkinging and rejecting of Saul at the present for after that Samuel both honoured him as King before the people and prayed for him and mourned to God on his behalfe as King 1 Sam. 16. 1. 2. but the threatning was to have effect in Gods time when he should bring David to the Throne as was prophesied upon occasion of lesse sinne even his sacrificing and not waiting the time appointed as God had commanded 1 Sam. 13. v. 13 14. 2. The people and Davids acknowledgment of Saul to be the Lords annoynted and a King after he had committed such acts of Tyranny as seeme destructive of the Royall Covenant and inconsistent therewith cannot prove that Saul was not made King by the Lord and the people conditionally and that for the peoples good and safety and not for their destruction and it doth well prove that those acts of blood and tyranny committed by Saul were not done by him as King or from the principle of Royall power given to him by God and the people 2. That in these acts they were not to acknowledge him as King 3. That these acts of blood were contrary to the covenant that Saul did sweare at his inauguration and contrary to the conditions that Saul in the covenant tooke on him to perform at the making of the Royall covenant 4. They prove not but the States who made Saul King might lawfully dethrone him and annoint David their King But David had reason to hold him for his Prince and the Lords Anointed so long as the people recalled not their grant of Royall dignity as David or any man is obliged to honour him as King whom the people maketh King though he were a bloodier and more tyrannous man then Saul Any Tyrant standeth in titulo so long as the People and Estates who made him King have not recalled their grant so as neither David nor any single man though six hundred with him may unking him or detract obedience from him as King So many acts of disloyaltie and breaches of lawes in the Subjects though they be contrary to this Covenant that the States make with their Prince doth not make them to be no Subjects and the Covenant mutuall standeth thus 3 Arg. If the people as Gods instruments bestow the benefit of a Crown on their King upon condition that he will rule them according to Gods word then is the King made King by the people conditionally but the former is true Ergo so is the latter The assumption is proved thus because to be a King is to be an adopted father tutor a Politick servant and Royall watchman of the State and the Royall honour and Royall maintenance given to him is a reward of his labours and a Kingly hire And this is the Apostles argument Rom. 13. 6. For this cause pay you tribute also there is the wages for they are Gods ministers attending continually upon this very thing There is the worke Qui non implet conditionem à se promissam cadit benefiâ—io It is confirmed thus The people either maketh the man their Prince conditionally that he rule according to Law or absolutely so that he rule according to will or lust or 3. without any vocall transactions at all but only brevi manu say Reigne thou over us and God save the King And so there be no conditions spoken on either side Or 4. The King is obliged to God for the condition which he promiseth by oath to performe toward the people but he is to make no reckoning to the people whether he performe his promise or no for the people being inferiour to him and he solo Deo minor only next and immediate to God the people can have no jus no law over him by vertue of any covenant But the first standing we have what we seeke The second is contrary to Scripture He is not Deut. 17. 15 16. made absolutely a King to rule according to his will and lust for Reigne thou over us should have this meaning Come thou and play the Tyrant over us and let thy lust and will be a law to us which is against naturall sense nor can the sense and meaning be according to the third That the people without any expresse vocall and positive covenant give a Throne to their King to rule as he pleaseth because 1. it is a vain thing for the Prelate and other Mancipia Aulae Court-bellies to say Scotland and England must produce a written authentick covenant betwixt the first King and their People because say they it s the Lawes word De non apparentibus non existentibus eadem lex that covenant which appeareth not it is not For in positive covenants that is true and in such contracts as are made according to the Civill or Municipall lawes or the secondary law of Nations But the generall covenant of nature is presupposed in making a King where there is no vocall or written covenant if there be no conditions betwixt a Christian King and his people then those things which are just and right according to the law of God and the rule of God in moulding the first King are understood to regulate both King and People as if they had been written and here we produce our written covenant Deut. 17. 15. Josh 1. 8 9. 2 Chr. 31 32. 1. Because this is as much against the King as the people and more for if the first King cannot bring forth his written and authentick tables to prove that the Crown was given to him and his heires and his successors absolutely and without any conditions so as his will shall be a law ca lit causa he loseth his cause say they The King is in possession of the Royall power absolutely without any condition and you must put him from his possession by a law I answer this is most false 1. Though he were in mala fide and in unjust possession the law of Nature will warrant the people to repeal their right and plead for it in a matter which concerneth their heads lives and soules 2. The Parliaments of both Kingdomes standing in possession of a nomothetick power to make lawes proveth cleerely that the King is in no possession of any Royall dignitie conferred absolutely and without any condition upon him and therefore it is the Kings part by law to put the Estates out of possession And so though there were no written covenant the standing law and practice of many hundreth acts of Parliament is equivalent to a written covenant 2. When the people appointeth any to be their King the voyce of Nature exponeth their deed though there be no vocall or written covenant For that fact of making a King is a morall lawfull act warranted by the word of God Deut. 17. 15 16. Rom. 13.
regard the Church doth not so much as instrumentally conferre those abilities they may be said to come from God immediatly in relation to the Church who calleth the man to the ministery yea Royalists as our excommunicated Prelate learned from Spalato say that God at the naked presence of the Churches call doth immediatly infuse that from Heaven by which the man is now in Holy Orders and a Pastor whereas he was not so before and yet Prelates cannot deny but they can unmake Ministers and have practised this in their unhallowed Courts and therefore though God immediatly without any action of the people make Kings this is a weake reason to prove they cannot unmake them As for their undeleble character that Prelates cannot take from a Minister it is nothing if the Church may unmake a Minister though his character goe to prison with him we seeke no more but to anull the reason God immediatly maketh Kings and Pastors ergo no power on earth can unmake them this consequence is as weake as water 2. The other cause is because God hath erected no Tribunall on earth higher then the Kings Tribunall ergo no power on earth can unmake a King the Antecedent and consequence is both denyed and is a begging of the question for the Tribunall that made the King is above the King 2. Though there be no Tribunall formally regall and Kingly above the King yet is there a Tribunall vertuall eminently above him in the case of tyranny for the States and Princes have a Tribunall above him 3. To this the constituent cause is of more power and dignity then the effect and so the people is above the King The P. Prelate borrowed an answer from Arnisaeus and Barclay and other Royalists and saith If we knew any thing in Law or were ruled by reason Every constituent saith Arnisaeus and Barclay more accurately then the P. Prelate had a head to transcribe their words where the constituent hath resigned all his power in the hand of the Prince whom he constitutes is of more worth and power then he in whose hand they resigne the power so the proposition is false The servant who hath constituted his Master Lord of his liberty is not worthier then his Master whom he hath made his Lord and to whom he hath given himselfe as a slave for after he hath resigned his liberty he cannot repent he must keepe covenant though to his hurt yea such a servant is not only not above his Master but he cannot move his foot without his Master The Governour of Britaine saith Arnisaeus being despised by King Philip resigned himselfe as Vassall to King Edward of England but did not for that make himselfe superiour to King Edward indeed he who constituteth another under him as a Legat is superiour but the people doe constitute a King above themselves not a King under themselves and therefore the people are not by this made the Kings superiour but his inferiour Ans 1. It is false that the people doth or can by the Law of nature resigne their whole liberty in the hand of a King 1. they cannot resigne to others that which they have not in themselves Nemo potest dare quod non habet but the people hath not an absolute power in themselves to destroy themselves or to exercise those tyrannous acts spoken of 1 Sam. 8. 11 12 13 14 15 c. for neither God nor Natures Law hath given any such power 2. He who constituteth himselfe a slave is supposed to be compelled to that unnaturall fact of alienation of that liberty which he hath from his Maker from the wombe by violence constraint or extreame necessity and so is inferiour to all free men but the people doth not make themselves slaves when they constitute a King over themselves because God giving to a people a King the best and excellentest Governour on earth giveth a blessing and speciall fafour Esay 1. 26. Hosea 1. v. 11. Esay 3. 6 7. Ps 79. 70 71 72. but to lay upon his people the state of slaverie in which they renounce their whole libertie is a curse of God Gen. 9. 25. Gen. 27. 29. Deut. 28. 32. 36. But the people having their liberty to make any of ten or twenty their King and to advance one from a private state to an honorable throne whereas it was in their libertie to advance another and to give him Royall power of ten degrees whereas they might give him power of twelve degrees and of eight or sixe must be in excellencie and worth above the man whom they constitute King and invest with such honour as Honour in the fountain and honos participans originans must be more excellent and pure then the derived honour in the King which is honos participâ—tus originatus 2. If the servant give his libertie to his master ergo he had that libertie in him and in that act libertie must be in a more excellent way in the servant as in the Fountaine then it is in the master and so this libertie must be purer in the people then in the King and therefore in that both the servant is above the master and the People worthier then the King and when the people give themselves conditionally and Covenant-wise to the King as to a Publique servant and Patron and Tutour as the Governour of Britaine out of his humour gave himselfe to King Edward there is even here a note of superioritie Every giver of a benefit as a giver is superior to him to whom the gift is given though after the servant hath given away his gift of libertie by which he was superiour he cannot be a superior because by his gift he hath made himselfe inferior 3. The People constituteth a King above themselves I distinguish supra se above themselves according to the fountaine power of Royaltie that is false for the fountaine-power remaineth most eminently in the people 1. because they give it to the King ad modum recipientis and with limitations ergo it is unlimited in the people and bounded and limited in the King and so lesse in the King then in the people 2. If the King turne distracted and an ill spirit from the Lord come upon Saul so as reason be taken from a Nebuchadnezzar it is certaine the people may put Curators and Tutors over him who hath the Royall power 3. If the King be absent and taken captive the People may give the Royall power to one or to some few to exercise it as custodes regni And 4. if he die and the Crown goe by election they may create another with more or lesse power all which evinceth that they never constituted over themselves a King in regard of fountaine-power for if they give away the fountaine as a slave selleth his libertie they could not make use of it Indeed they set a King above them quoad potestatem legum executivam in regard of a power of executing lawes and
the Kings no the Spirit of God saith no such matter the Iudgement executed by those inferiour Iudges is the Lords not a mortall Kings ergo a mortall King may not hinder them to execute Iudgement Obj. He cannot suggest an unjust Sentence and command an inferiour Iudge to give out a sentence absolvatory on cut-throates but he may hinder the exocution of any sentence against Irish cut-throates Ans It is all one to hinder the execution of a just sentence and to suggest or command the inferiour Iudge to pronounce an unjust one for inferiour Iudges by conscience of their Office are both to judge righteously and by force and power of the sword given to them of God Rom. 13. 2 3 4. to execute the sentence and so God hath commanded inferiour Iudges to execute Iudgement and hath forbidden them to wrest Iudgement to take gifts except the King Command them so to doe Master Symmont The King is by the Grace of God the inferiour Iudge is Iudge by the grace of the King even as the man is the image of God and the woman the mans image Ans This distinction is neither true in Law nor conscience not in Law for it distinguisheth not betwixt Ministros regis ministros regni The servants of the King are his domesticks the Iudges are Ministri regni non regis the Ministers and Iudges of the Kingdome not of the King The King doth not show grace as he is a man in making such a man a Iudge but Iustice as a King by a Royall Power received from the people and by an Act of Iustice he makes Iudges of deserving men he should neither for favour nor bribes make any Iudge in the Land 2. It is the grace of God that men are to be advanced from a private condiâ—ion to be inferious Iudges as Royall Dignity is a free gift of God 1 Sam. 2. 7. The Lord bringeth low and lifteth up Ps 75. 7. God puâ—tâ—th downe one and seteth up another Court flatterers take from God and give to Kings but to be a Iudge inferiour is no lesse an immediate favour of God then to be King though the one be a greater favour then the other Magis honos and Majoc honos are to be considered 9. Arg. Those powers which differ gradually and per magis minus by more and lesse only differ not in nature and spece and constitute not Kings and inferiour Iudges different univocally But the power of Kings and inferiour Iudges are such therefore Kings and Inferiour Iudges differ not univocally That the powers are the same in nature I prove 1. by the specifice acts and formall object of the power of both for 1. both are power ordained of God Rom. 13. 1. to resist either is to resist the ordinance of God v. 2. both are by Office a terrour to evill workes v. â—3 3. both are the Ministers of God for good 2. Though the King send and give a call to the inferiour Iudge that doth no more make the inferiour Iudges powers in nature and spece different then Ministers of the Word called by Ministers of the Word have Offices different in nature Timotheus Office to be Preacher of the Word differeth not in specie from the Office of the Presbytery which layed hands on him though their Office by extension be more then Timothies Office 3. The peoples power is put forth in those same acts when they choose one to be their King and supreame Governour and when they set up an Aristocraticall Government and choose many or more then one to be their Governours for the formall object of one or many Governours is Iustice and Religion as they are to be advanced 2. The forme and manner of their opperation is brachio seculari by a coactive power and by the sword 3. The formall acts of King and many Iudges in Aristocracy are these same the defending of the poore and needy from violence the conservation of a Community in a peaceable and a godly life 1 Tim. 2. 2 Iob 29. 12 13. Esay 1. 17. 4. These same Lawes of God that regulateth the King in all His Acts of Royall Government and tyeth and obligeth his conscience as the Lords Deputy to execute Iudgement for God and not in the stead of men in Gods Court of Heaven doth in like manner tye and oblige the conscience of Aristocraticall Iudges and all inferiour Iudges as is cleare and evident by these places 1 Tim. 2. 2. not only Kings but all in authority 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are obliged to procure that their subjects leade a quiet and peaceable life in all godlinesse and honesty All in conscience are obliged Deut. 1. 16. to judge righteously between every man and his brother and the stranger that is with them 17. Neither are they to respect persons in judgement but are to heare the small as well as the great nor to be affraid of the face of men the judgement administred by all is Gods 2. Chro. 19. 6. All are obliged to feare God Deut. 17. 19. 20. to keepe the words of the Law not to be lifted up in heart above their brethren Esay 1. 17. Ier. 22. 2 3. Let any man show me a difference according to Gods Word but in the extention that what the King is to doe as a King in all the Kingdome and whole Dominions if God give to him many as he gave to David and Solomon and Ioshua that the inferiour Iudges are to doe in such and such Circuits and limited places and I quit the cause so as the inferiour Iudges are little Kings and the King a great and delated Iudge as a compressed hand or fist and the hand stretched out in fingers and thumbe are one hand so here 4. God owneth inferiour Iudges as a congregation of Gods Ps 82. 1. 2. for that God sitteth in a congregation or Senate of Kings or Monarches I shall not beleeve till I see Royalists shew to me a Common-wealth of Monarches convening in one Iudicature all are equally called Gods Ioh. 10. 35. Exod. 22. 8. if for any cause but because all Iudges even inferiour are the immediate Deputies of the King of Kings and their sentence in Iudgement as the sentence of the Iudge of all the earth I shall be informed by the P. Prelate when he shall answer my reasons if his interdicted Lordship may cast an eye to a poore Presbyter below and as wisedome is that by which Kings raigne Prov. 8. 15. so also v. 16. by which Princes Rule and Nobles even all the Iudges of the earth all that is said against this is That the King hath a Prerogative Royall by which he is differenced from all Iudges in Israel called jus regis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for saith Barclay The King as King essentially hath a Domination and power above all so as none can censure him or punish him but God because there be no thrones above his but the throne of God The Iudges
if they break this Law But this maketh not the King greater then the Law for therefore do Rulers put the stamp of relation to punishment on the Law because there is intrinsecall worth in the Law Prior to the Act of the will of Law-givers for which it meriteth to be inacted and therefore because it is authorizable as good and just the King puteth on it this stamp of a Politique Law God formeth Being and morall Aptitude to the end in all Laws to wit the safetie of the people and the Kings will is neither the measure nor the cause of the goodnesse of things 2. If the King be he who maketh the Law good and just because he is more such himself then as the Law cannot crook and erre nor sin neither can the King sin nor break a Law This is blasphemy Every man is a lyer a Law which deserveth the name of a Law cannot lie 3. His ground is That there is such majesty in Kings that their will must be done either in us or on us A great untruth Achabs will must neither be done of Elias for he commandeth things unjust nor yet on Elias for Elias fled and lawfully we may slie Tyrants and so Achabs will in killing Elias was not done on him Assert 2. Nor can it be made good that the King only hath power of making Lawes because his power were then absolute to inflict penalties on Subjects without any consent of theirs and that were a dominion of Masters who command what they please and under what paine they please And the people consenting to be ruled by such a man they tacitely consent to penaltie of laws because naturall reason saith An ill-doer should be punished Florianus in l. inde Vasquez l. 2. c. 55. n. 3. Therefore they must have some power in making these lawes 2. Jer. 26. It is cleare The Princes judge with the people A nomothetick power differeth gradually only from a judiciall power both being collarerall meanes to the end of Government the peoples safetie But Parliaments judge ergo they have a nomothetick power with the King 3. The Parliament giveth all supremacie to the King ergo to prevent Tyrannie it must keep a coordinate power with the King in the highest acts 4. If the Kingly line be interrupted if the King be a Childe or a Captive they make Lawes who make Kings Ergo this nomothetick power recurreth into the States as to the first subject Obj. The King is the fountaine of the law and Subjects cannot make Lawes to themselves more then they can punish themselves He is only the Supreme Answ The People being the fountaine of the King must rather be the fountaine of Lawes 2. It is false that no man maketh lawes to himselfe Those who teach others teach themselves also 1 Tim. 2. 12. 1 Cor. 14. 34. though Teaching be an act of authoritie But they agree to the penaltie of the Law secondarily only and so doth the King who as a father doth not will evill of punishment to his children but by a consequent will 3. The King is the only Supreme in the power ministeriall of executing lawes but this is a derived power so as no one man is above him but in the fountaine-power of Royaltie the States are above him 5. The Civil law is cleare that the laws of the Emperor have force only from this fountaine because the People have transferred their power to the King Lib. 1. digest tit 4. de constit Princip leg 1. sic Vlpian Quod Principi placuit loquitur de Principe formaliter qua Princeps est non qua est homo legis habet vigorem utpote cum lege Regia quae de imperio ejus lata est populus â—i in eum omne suum imperium potestatem conferat Yea the Emperour himselfe may be conveened before the Prince Elector Aurea Bulla Carol. 4. Imper c. 5. The King of France may be conveened before the Senate of Paris The States may resist a Tyrant as Bossius saith de Principe privileg ejus n. 55. Paris de puteo in tract syno tit de excess Reg. c. 3. Divines acknowledge that Elias rebuked the halting of Israel betwixt God and Baal that their Princes permitted Baals Priests to converse with the King And is not this the sinne of the Land that they suffer their King to worship Idols and therefore the Land is punished for the sinnes of Manasseh as Knox observeth in his Dispute with Lethington where he proveth that the States of Scotland should not permit the Queen of Scotland to have her abominable Masse Hist of Scotland l. 4. p. 379. edit an 1644. Surely the power or Sea-Prerogative of a sleepie or mad Pilot to split the ship on a rock as I conceive is limited by the Passengers Suppose a father in a distemper would set his own house on fire and burne himselfe and his ten sonnes I conceive his Fatherly prerogative which neither God nor Nature gave should not be looked to in this but they may binde him Yea Althusius polit c. 39. n. 60. answering that That in Democracie the people cannot both command and obey saith It is true secundum idem ad idem eodem tempore But the people may saith he choose Magistrates by succession Yea I say 1. they may change Rulers yearely to remove envie A yearely King were more dangerous the King being almost above envie Men incline more to flatter then to envie Kings 2. Aristotle saith polit l. 4. c. 4. l. 6. c. 2. The people may give their judgement of the wisest Obj. Williams B. of Ossorie Vindic. Reg. A Looking-glasse for Rebels saith p. 64. To say the King is better than any one doth not prove him to be better then two and if his supremacie be no more then any other may challenge as much for the Prince is singulis major A Lord is above all Knights a Knight above all Esquires and so the People have placed a King under them not above them Ans The reason is not alike for all the Knights united cannot make one Lord and all the Esquires united cannot make one Knight but all the People united made David King at Hebron 2. The King is above the people by eminencie of derived authoritie as a Watchman and in actuall supremacie and he is inferior to them in fountaine-power as the effect to the cause Object 2. The Parliament saith Williams may not command the King Why then make they supplications to him if their Vote be a Law Ans They supplicate ex decentia of decencie and conveniencie for his place as a Citie doth supplicate a Lord Major but they supplicate not ex debito of obligation as beggars seeke almes then should they be cyphers 2. When a Subject oppressed supplicateth his Soveraigne for justice the King is obliged by office to give justice And to heare the oppressed is not an act of grace and mercie as to give
A legall restraint on a King is no more unprofitable and a seminary of jealousies between King and people then a legall restraint upon people for the King out of a non-restraint as out of seed may more easily educe tyranny and subversion of religion If outlandish women tempt even a Solomon to idolatry as people may educe sedition out of a legall restraint laid upon a King to say nothing that Tyranny is a more dangerous sin then sedition by how much more the lives of many and true religion are to be preferred to the safetie of one and a false peace Object 4. An absolute Monarch i◠free from all forceable restraint and so far as he is absolute from all legall restraint of positive Laws now in a limited Monarch there is onely sought a legall restraint and limitation cannot infer a forceable restraint for an absolute Monarch is limited also not by civill compact but by the Law of nature and nations which he cannot justly transgresse if therefore an absolute Monarch being exorbitant may not be resisted because he transgresseth the Law of nature how shall we think a limited Monarch may be resisted for transgressing the bounds set by civill agreement Answ A legall restraint on the people is a forceable restraint For if Law be not backed with force it is onely a Law of rewarding weldoing which is no restraint but an incouragement to do evil If then there be a legall restraint upon the King without any force it is no restraint but onely such a request as this Be a just Prince and we will give your Majestie two Subsidies in one yeer 2. I utterly deny that God ever ordained such an irrationall creature as an absolute Monarch If a people unjustly and against natures dictates make away irrevocably their own libertie and the libertie of their posteritie which is not their's to dispose off and set over themselves as base slaves a sinning creature with absolute power he is their King but not as he is absolute and that he may not be forceably resisted notwithstanding the subjects did swear to his absolute power which oath in the point of absolutenesse is unlawfull and so not obligatory I utterly deny 3. An absolute Monarch saith he is limited but by Law of nature That is Master Doctor he is not limited as a Monarch not as an absolute Monarch but as a son of Adam he is under the limites of the Law of nature which he should have been under though he had never been a King all his dayes but a slave But what then Therefore he cannot be resisted Yes Doctor by your own grant he can be resisted If he invade an innocent subject say you 1. Suddenly 2. Without colour of Law 3. Inevitably And that because he transgresseth the Law of nature 4. You say a limited Monarch can lesse be resisted for transgressing the bounds set by civill agreement But 1. What if the thus limited Monarch transgresse the Law of nature and subvert Fundamentall Lawes he is then you seem to say to be resisted it is not for simple transgression of a civill agreement that he is to be resisted 2. The limited Monarch is as essentially the Lords anointed and the power ordained of God as the absolute Monarch Now resistance by all your grounds is unlawfull because of Gods power and place conferred upon him not because of mens positive covenant made with him To finde out the essentiall difference betwixt a King and a Tyrant We are to observe that it is one thing to sin against a man another thing against a State David killing Vriah committed an act of murther But on this supposition that David is not punished for that murther he did not so sin against the State and Catholike good of the State that he turneth Tyrant and ceaseth to be a lawfull King A Tyrant is he who habitually sinneth against the Catholike good of the Subjects and State and subverteth Law Such a one should not be as Jason of whom it is said by Aeneas Silvius Graviter ferebat si non regnaret quasi nesciret esse privatus When such as are monstrous Tyrants are not taken away by the Estates God pursueth them in wrath Domitian was killed by his own Family his wife knowing of it Aurelianus was killed with a thunder-bolt Darius was drowned in a River Dioclesian fearing death poysoned himself Salerius died eaten with Worms The end of Herod and Antiochus Maxentius was swallowed up in a standing River Iulian died being stricken through with a Dart thrown at him by a man or an Angel it is not known Valens the Arian was burnt with fire in a little Village by the Gothes Anastasius the Eutychian Emperour was stricken by God with thunder Gundericus Vandalus when he rose against the Church of God being apprehended by the Divell died Some time the State have taken order with Tyrants The Empire was taken from Vitellius Heliogabalus Maximinus Didius Iulianus So was the two Childerici of France served So were also Sigebertus Dagabertus and Lodowick the 11. of France Christiernus of Denmark Mary of Scotland who killed her husband and raised Forces against the Kingdom So was Henricus Valesius of Pol for fleeing the Kingdom Sigismundus of Pol for violating his faith to the States QUEST XXV What force the Supreme Law hath over the King even that Law of the Peoples safetie called Salus Populi THe Law of the 12. Tables is Salus populi Suprema lex The safetie of the People is the supreme and Cardinall law to which all Lawes are to stoope And that from these Reasons 1. Originally Because if the People be the first Author Fountaine and Efficient under God of Law and King then their own safetie must be principally sought and their safetie must be farre above the King as the safetie of a Cause especially of an universall Cause such as is the People must be more then the safetie of one as Aristotle saith l. 3. polit alias l. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The part cannot be more excellent then the whole nor the effect above the cause 2. Finaliter This Supreme law must stand for if all Law Policie Magistrates and Power be referred to the peoples good as the end Rom. 13. 4. and to their quiet and peaceable life in godlinesse and honestie then must this Law stand as of more worth then the King as the end is of more worth then the meanes leading to the end for the end is the measure and rule of the goodnesse of the meane and finis ultimus in influxu est potentissimus The King is good because he conduceth much for the safetie of the People Ergo the safetie of the people must be better 3. By way of limitation Because no Law in its letter hath force where the safetie of the Subject is in hazard and if Law or King be destructive to the people they are to be abolished This is cleare in a Tyrant or a
people and so what he doth to the hurt of his subjects he doth it not as King 2. The Law saith Qui habet potestatem constituendi etiam jus adimendi l. nemo 37. l. 21. de reg jure Those who have power to make have power to unmake Kings 3. What ever the King doth as King that he doth by a power borrowed from or by a fiduciary power which is his by trust the Estates who made him King He must then be nothing but an eminent servant of the State in the punishing of others If therefore he be unpunishable it is not so much because his Royall power is above all Law-coaction as because one the same man cannot be both the punisher and the punished and this is a Physicall incongruity rather then a Morall absurdity So the Law of God layeth a duty on the inferiour Magistrate to use the sword against the murtherer and that by vertue of his Office but I much doubt if for that he is to use the sword against himselfe in the case of Murther for this is a truth I purpose to make good that suffering as suffering according to the substance and essence of passion is not commanded by any Law of God or nature to the sufferer but only the manner of suffering I doubt if it be not by the Law of Nature lawfull even to the ill doer who hath deserved death by Gods Law to fly from the sword of the lawfull Magistrate only the manner of suffering with patience is commanded of God I know the Law saith here That the Magistrate is both Iudge and the Executor of the sentence against himselfe in his owne cause for the excellency of his Office Therefore these are to be distinguished whether the King Ratione demeriti jure by Law be punishable or if the King can actually be punished corporally by a Law of man he remaining King and since he must be a punisher himselfe and that by vertue of his Office In matters of goods the King may be both Iudge and punisher of himselfe as our Law provideth that any subject may plead his owne heritage from the King before the inferiour Iudges and if the King be a violent possessour and in Mala fide for many yeares by Law he is obliged upon a Decree of the Lords to execute the sentence against himselfe Ex officio and to restore the Lands and repay the dammage to the just owner and this the King is to doe against himselfe ex officio I grant here the King as King punisheth himselfe as an unjust man but because bodily suffering is meere violence to nature I doubt if the King ex officio is to doe or inflict any bodily punishment on himselfe Nemo potest a seipso cogi l. ille a quo 13. § Assert 6. There be some Lawes made in favour of the King as King as to pay tribute The King must be above this Law as King True but if a Noble man of a great rent be elected King I know not if he can be free from paying to himselfe as King tribute seeing this is not allowed to the King by a Divine Law Rom. 13. 6. as a reward of his worke and Christ expresly maketh tribute a thing due to Caesar as a King Matth. 22. v. 21. There be some solemnities of the Law from which the King may be free Prickman D. c. 3. n. 78. and he relateth what they are they are not Lawes but some circumstances belonging to Lawes and Prickman answereth to many places alledged out of the Lawyers to prove the King to be above the Law Maldorus in 12. Art 4 5 9 96. will have the Prince under that Law which concerneth all the Common-wealth equally in regard of the matter and that by the Law of nature but he will not have him subject to these Lawes which concerneth the subjects as subjects as to pay tribute He citeth Francisc a Vict. Covarruvia and Turrecremata He also will have the Prince under positive Lawes such as not to transport victualls not because the Law bindeth him as a Law But because the making of the Law bindeth him Tanquam conditio sine qua non even as he who teacheth another that he should not steale he should not steale himselfe Rom. 2. But the truth is this is but a branch of the Law of Nature that I should not commit Adultery and Theft and Sacriledge and such sinnes as nature condemneth if I shall condemne them in others and doth not prove that the King is under the coactive power of Civill Lawes Vlpianus l. 31. F. de regibus saith The Prince is loosed from Lawes Bodine de Repub. l. 7. c. 8. Nemo imperat sibi No man commandeth himselfe Tholosanus saith Ipsius est dare non accipere leges The Prince giveth Lawes but receiveth none De Rep. l. 7. c. 20. Donellus Lib. 1. Comment c. 17. distinguisheth betwixt a Law and a Royall Law proper to the King Trentlerus Volum 1. 79. 80. saith The Prince is freed from Laws and that he obeyeth Laws de honestate non de necessitate Vpon honesty not of necessity Thomas P. 1. q. 96. Art 5. and with him Soto Gregorius de Valentia and other Schoole-men subject the King to the directive power of the Law and liberate him of the coactive power of the Law Assert 7. If a King turne a Paricide a Lyon and a waster and destroyer of the people as a man he is subject to the Coactive power of the Lawes of the Land If any Law should hinder that a Tyrant should not be punished by Law it must be because he hath not a superiour but God for Royalists build all upon this but this ground is false because the Estates of the Kingdome who gave him the Crowne are above him and they may take away what they gave him as the Law of Nature and God saith If they had knowne he would turne Tyrant they would never have given him the sword and so how much ignorance is in the contract they made with the King as little of will is in it and so it is not every way willing but being conditionall is supposed to be against their will 2. They gave the power to him only for their good and that they make the King is cleare 2 Chron. 23. 11. 1 Sam. 10. 17 24. Deut. 17. 14 15 16 17. 2 King 11. v. 12. 1 King 16. 21. 2 King 10. 5. Iud. 9. 6. 2. 2 Chron. 26. 18. fourescore valiant men of the Priests withstood Vzziah in a corporall violence and thrust him out and cut him off from the house of the Lord. And 2. If the Princes place doe not put him above the Lawes of Church-Discipline Matth. 18. for Christ excepteth none and how can men except and if the rod of Christs lips smite the earth and stay the wicked Esay 11. 4. and the Prophets Elias Nathan Ieremiah Esaiah c. Iohn Baptist Iesus Christ and his
because he hath sinned against humane societie either through the scandall of blasphemie or through other heynous sinnes he hath defiled the Land Now this is incident to the King as well as to some other sinfull man To these and the like heare what the excommunicated Prelate hath to say 1. They say he meaneth the Jesuites Every societie of men is a perfect Republick and so must have within it selfe a power to preserve it selfe from ruine and by that to punish a Tyrant He answereth A societie without a Head is a disorderly rout not a Politique body and so cannot have this power Ans 1. The Pope giveth to every Societie Politick power to make away a Tyrant or hereticall King and to un-king him by his brethren the Jesuites way And observe how Papists of which number I could easily prove the P. Prelate to be by the Popish doctrine that he delivered while the iniquitie of time and dominion of Prelates in Scotland advanced him against all worth of true learning and holinesse to be a Preacher in Edinborough and Iesuites agree as the builders of Babylon It is the purpose of God to destroy Babylon 2. This answer shall inferre that the Aristocraticall Governors of any free State and that the Duke of Venice and the Senate there is above all Law and cannot be resisted because without their Heads they are a disorderly Rout. 3. A Politicall societie as by Natures instinct they may appoint a Head or Heads to themselves so also if their Head or Heads become ravenous Wolves the God of Nature hath not left a perfect Societie remedilesse but they may both resist and punish the Head or Heads to whom they gave all the power that they have for their good not for their destruction 4. They are as orderly a body Politique to unmake a Tyrannous Commander as they were to make a just Governonr The Prelate saith It is alike to conceive a Politique body without a Governour as to conceive the naturall body without a Head He meaneth None of them can be conceivable I am not of his minde When Saul was dead Israel was a perfect Politique body and the Prelate if he be not very obtuse in his head as this hungry peece stollen from others sheweth him to be may conceive a visible Politicall societie performing a Politicall action 2 Sam. 5. 1 2 3. making David King at a visible and conceivable place at Hebron and making a Covenant with him And that they wanted not all Governors is nothing to make them Chymera's unconceivable For when so many families before Nimrod were governed only by fathers of families and they agreed to make either a King or other Governors a Head or Heads over themselves though the severall families had government yet these consociated families had no government and yet so conceivable a Politique body as if Maxwell would have compeared amongst them and called them a disorderly rout or an unconceivable Chymera they should have made the Prelate know that Chymera's can knock down Prelates Neither is a King the life of a Politique body as the soule is of the naturall body The body createth not the soule but Israel created Saul King and when he was dead they made David King and so under God many Kings as they succeeded till the Messiah came No naturall body can make soules to it selfe by succession Nor can Seas create new Prelates alwayes P. Prelate Jesuites and Puritans differ infinitely We are hopefull God shall cast down this Babel The Iesuites for ought I know seat the superintendent power in the Communitie Some Sectaries follow them and warrant any individuall person to make away a King in case of defects and the worke is to be rewarded as when one killeth a ravenous Wolfe Some will have it in a collective body but how not met together by warrant or writ of Soveraigne Authoritie but when fancie of reforming Church and State calleth them Some will have the power in the Nobles and Peeres some in the three Estates assembled by the Kings Writ some in the inferior Iudges I know not where this power to curbe Soveraigntie is but in Almighty God Ans 1. Iesuites and Puritans differ infinitely true Jesuites deny the Pope to be Antichrist hold all Arminian doctrine Christs locall descension to hell all which the Prelate did preach We deny all this 2. We hope also the Lord shall destroy the Jesuites Babel the â—uburbs whereof and more are the Popish Prelates in Scotland and England 3. The Jesuites for ought he knoweth place all superintendent power in the Communitie The Prelate knoweth not all his brethren the Iesuites wayes but it is ignorance not want of good will For Bellarmine Beucanus Suarez Gregor de Valentia and others his deare fellowes say That all superintendent power of policy in ordine ad spiritualia is in the man whose foot Maxwell would kisse for a Cardinals Haâ— 4. If these be all the differences it is not much the Community is the remote and last subject the representative body the nearest subject the Nobles a partiall subject the Iudges as Iudges sent by the King are so in the game that when an Arbitrary Prince at his pleasure setteth them up and at command that they judge for men and not for the Lord and accordingly obey they are by this power to be punished and others put in their place 5. A true cause of convening Parliaments the prelate maketh a Fancie at this time it is as if the theeves and robbers should say a Iustice Court were a fancie but if the Prelate might compeare before the Parliament of Scotland to which he is an out-law like his father 2 Thess 2. 4. such a fancie I conceive should hang him and that deservedly P. Prelate The subject of this superintending power must be secured from errour in judgement and practise and the community and States then should be infallible Ans The consequence is nought no more then the King the absolute independent is infallible 2. It is sure the people are in lesse hazard of Tyranny and selfe destruction then the King is to subvert Lawes and make himselfe absolute and for that cause there must be a superintendent power above the King and God Almighty also must be above all P. Prelate The Parliament may erre then God hath left the state remedilesse except the King remedy it Ans There 's no consequence here except the King be impeccable 2. Posteriour Parliaments may correct the former 3. A State is not remedilesse because Gods remedies in sinfull mens hands may miscarry But the question is now whether God hath given power to one man to destroy men subvert Lawes and Religion without any power above him to coerce restraine or punish P. Prelate If when the Parliament erreth the remedy is left to the Wisedome of God why not when the King erreth Ans Neither is Antecedent true nor the consequence valid for the sounder part may resist and it is
better then to prove Achab Ieroboam and many Kings in Israel and Judah committed Idolatry Ergo They had no Royall power at all In the rest of the Chapter for a whole Page he singeth over again his Mattens in a circle and giveth us the same Arguments we heard before of which you have these three notes 1. They are stoln and not his own 2. Repeated again and again to fill the field 3. All hang on a false supposition and a begging of the question That the people without the King have no power at all QUEST XXVII Whether or no the King be the sole supreme and finall interpreter of the Law THis Question conduceth not a little to the clearing of the doubts concerning the Kings absolute power and the supposed sole nomothetick power in the King And I thinke it not unlike to the question whether the Pope and Romish Church have a sole and peremptory power of exponing Lawes and the Word of God We are to consider that there is a twofold exposition of Lawes one speculative in a Schoole way so exquisite Iurists have a power to expone Lawes 2. Practicall in so farre as the sense of the Law falleth under our Practice and this is twofold either private and common to all or judiciall and proper to Iudges and of this last is the question For this Publicke the Law hath one fundamentall rule Salus populi like the King of Planets the Sunne which lendeth Star-light to all Lawes and by which they are exponed whatever interpretation swarveth either from fundamentall Lawes of policy or from the Law of Nature and the Law of Nations and especially from the safety of the publick is to be rejected as a perverting of the Law and therefore Conscientia humani generis the naturall conscience of all men to which the oppressed people may appeale unto when the King exponeth a Law unjustly at his owne pleasure is the last rule on earth for exponing of Lawes Nor ought Lawes to be made so obscure as an ordinary wit cannot see their connexion with fundamentall truths of policy and the safety of the people and therefore I see no inconvenience to say that The Law it selfe is Norma regula judicandi the Rule and directory to square the Iudge and that the Iudge is the publicke practicall interpreter of the Law Assert 1. The King is not the sole and finall interpreter of the Law 1. Because then inferiour Iudges should not be interpreters of the Law but inferiour Iudges are no lesse essentially Iudges then the King Deut. 1. 17. 2 Chron. 19. 6. L Pet. 2. 14. Rom. 13. 1 2. and so by Office must interpret the Law else they cannot give sentence according to their conscience and equity now exponing of the Law judicially is an act of judging and so a personall and incommunicable act so as I can no more judge and expone the Law according to another mans conscience then I can beleeve with another mans soule or understand with another mans understanding see with another mans eye The Kings pleasure therefore cannot be the rule of the inferiour Iudges conscience for he giveth an immediate accompt to God the Iudge of all of a just or an unjust sentence Suppoâ—e Caesar shall expone the Law to Pilate that Christ deserveth to dye the death yet Pilate is not in conscience to expone the Law so If therefore inferiour Iudges judge for the King they judge only by power borrowed from the King not by the pleasure will or command of the King thus and thus exponing the Law ergo the King cannot be the sole interpreter of the Law 2. If the Lord say not to the King only but also to other inferiour Iudges Be wise understand and the cause that you know not search out then the King is not the only interpreter of the Law But the Lord saith not to the King only but to other Iudges also Be wise understand and the cause that you know not search out ergo the King is not the sole Law-giver The Major is cleare from Ps 2. 10. Be wise now therefore O yee Kings be instructed yee Iudges of the earth So are commands and rebukes for unjust judgement given to others then to Kings Ps 82. 1 2 3 4 5. Ps 58. 1 2. Esay 1. 17 23 25 26. Esay 3. 14. see Iob. 29. 12 13 14 15. c. 31. v. 21. 22. 3 The King is either the sole interpreter of Law in respect he is to follow the Law as his Rule and so he is a ministeriall interpreter of the Law or he is an interpreter of the Law according to that super-dominion of absolute power that he hath above the Law If the former be holden then it is cleare that the King is not the only interpreter for all Iudges as they are Iudges have a ministeriall power to expone the Law by the Law but the second is the sense of Royalists Hence our second Assertion is That the Kings power of exponing the Law is a meere ministeriall power and he hath no dominion of any absolute Royall Power to expone the Law as he will and to put such a sense and meaning of the Law as he pleaseth 1. Because Saul maketh a Law 1 Sam. 14. 24. Cursed be the man that tasteth any food till night that the King may be avenged on his enemies the Law according to the letter was bloudy but according to the intent of the Law-giver and substance of the Law profitable for the end was that the enemies should be persued with all speed But King Sauls exponing the Law after a Tyrannicall way against the intent of the Law which is the Diamond and Pearle of all Lawes the safety of the innocent people was justly resisted by the people who violently hindered innocent Jonathan to be killed Whence it is cleare that the people and Princes put on the Law its true sense and meaning for Ionathans tasting of a little honey though as it was against that sinfull and precipitate circumstance a rash oath yet it was not against the substance and true intent of the Law which was the peoples speedy pursuite of the enemy Whence it is cleare that the people including the Princes hath a ministeriall power to expone the Law aright and according to its genuine intent and that the King as King hath no absolute power to expone the Law as he pleaseth 2. The Kings absolute pleasure can no more be the genuine sense of a just Law then his absolute pleasure can be a Law because the genuine sense of the Law is the Law it selfe as the formall essence of a thing differeth not really but in respect of reason from the thing it selfe The Pope and Romish Church cannot put on the Scripture Ex plenitudine potestatis what ever meaning they will no more then they can out of absolute power make Canonicke Scripture Now so it is that the King by his absolute power cannot make
where the King ought not to be as Abner was worthy of death who watched not carefully King Saul but slept when David came to his bed side and had opportunity to kill the King they are Traitors and murtherers of the King who either counselled his Majesty to come to Edge-hill where the danger was so grett or did not violently restraine him from comming thither seeing Kings safety and lives are as much yea more in the disposing of the people then in their owne private will 2 Sam. 18. 2 3. for certainly the people might have violently restrained King Saul from killing himselfe and the King was guilty of his own death and sinneth against his Office and subjects who commeth out in person to any such battles where he may be killed and the contrary party free of his blood And here our Prelate is blind if he see not the cleare difference between the Kings Person and the Office as he is King and between his private Will and his publicke and Royall Will 3. The Angels may be named Thrones and Dominions in abstracto and yet created in concreto and we may say the Angell and his power are both created at once but David was not both borne the Son of Iesse and a King at once and the P. Prelate by this may prove it is not lawfull to resist the Divell for he is of the number of these created Angells Col. 1. as he is a Divell because in resisting the Divell as a Divell we must resist an Angell of God and a Principality 4. To speake ill of dignities 2 Pet. 2. and Iud. 8. Piscator insinuateth is to speake evill of the very Office of Rulers as well as of their manners and Theodat saith on 2 Pet. 2. that these Raylers spake evill of the place of Governours and Masters as unbâ—seeming beleevers All our Interpreters as Beza Calvin Luther Bucer Marloratus from the place saith It is a speciall reproofe of Anabaptists and Libertines who in that time maintained that we are all free men in Christ and that there should not be Kings Masters nor any Magistrates however the abstract is put for the concrete its true and it saith we are not to raile upon Nero but to say Nero was a persecutor of Christians and yet obey him commanding what is just are very consistent 5. The persons are proposed Rom. 13. to be the object of our obedience saith D. Ferne it is very true but he is ignorant of our mind in exponing the word Person we never meant that feare honour royalty tribute must be due to the abstracted accident of Kingly Authority and not to the man who is King Nor is it our meaning that Royalty in abstracto is Crowned King and is anoynted but that the Person is crowned and anoynted But againe by a person we meane nothing lesse then the man Nero wasting Rome burning crucifying Paul and torturing Christians and that we owe subjection to Nero and to his person in concreto as to Gods ordinance Gods Minister Gods sword-bearer in that notion of a Person is that only that we deny Nay in that Nero in concreto to us is no Power ordained of God no Minister of God but a Minister of the Divell and Sathans armour-bearer and therefore we owe not feare honour subjection and tribute to the Person of Nero. But the Person thus far is the object of our obedience that feare honour subjection and tribute must be due to the man in concreto to his Person who is Prince but not because he is a man or a person simply or a sword bearer of Papists but for his office for that eminent place of royall dignity that God hath conferred on his Person We know the light of the Sun the heate of fire in abstracto doe not properly give light and heat but the Sun and fire in concreto yet the principium quo ratio qua the principles of these operations in Sun and fire be light heate and we ascribe illuminating of dark bodies heating of cold bodies to Sun and fire in concreto yet not to the subjects simply but to them as affected with such accidents so here we honour and submit to the man who is King not because he is a man that were treason not because he useth his sword against the Church that were impiety but because of his Royall Dignity and because he useth it for the Lord. It is true Arnisaeus Barclay Ferne say That Kings leave not off to be Kings when they use their power and sword against the Church and Religion And also it is considerable that when the worst of Emperors bloody Nero did raigne the Apostle presseth the duty of subjection to him as to a power appointed of God and condemneth the resisting of Nero as the resisting of an ordinance of God And certainely if the cause and reason in point of duty Morall and of conscience before God remaine in Kings to wit that while they are enemies and persecutors as Nero was their Royall Dignity given them of God remaineth then subjection upon that ground is lawfull and resistance unlawfull Ans It is true so long as Kings remaine Kings subjection is due to them because Kings but that is not the question But the question is if subjection be due to them when they use their power unlawfully and Tyrannically What ever David did though he was a King he did it not as King he deflowred not Bathsheba as King and Bathsheba might with bodily resistance and violence lawfully have resisted King David though Kingly Power remained in him while he should thus attempt to commit Adultery else David might have said to Bathshba Because I am the Lords Anoynted it is rebellion in thee a subject to oppose any bodily violence to my act of forcing of thee it is unlawfull to thee to cry for helpe for if any shall offer violently to rescue thee from me he resisteth the ordinance of God Subjection is due to Nero as an Emperour but not any subjection is due to him in the burning of Rome and torturing of Christians except you say that Nero's power abused in these acts of cruelty was 1. A power from God 2. An ordinance of God 3. That in these he was the Minister of God for the good of the Common-wealth Because some beleeved Christians were free from the yoake of Magistracy and that the dignity it selfe was unlawfull And 2. because ch 12. he had set downe the lawfull Church Rulers and in this and the following chapter the duties of brotherly love of one toward another So here ch 13. he teacheth that all Magistrates suppose Heathen are to be obeyed and submitted unto in all things so far as they are Ministers of God Arnisaeus objecteth to Buchan If we are by this place to subject our selves to every power in abstracto then also to a power contrary to the truth and to a power of a King exceeding the limits of a King for such a power
Parliament 4. He dâ—clared both Kingdoms Rebels 5. Attempted in his Emissaries to destroy the Parliament 6. And to bring in a forraigne enemie And the Law saith An imminent danger which is a sufficient warrant to take up Armes is not strokes but either the terrour of Armour or threatning Glossator in d. l. 1. C. Vinde vi ait non esse verbera expectanda sed vel terrorem armorum sufficere vel minas hoc esse imminâ—ns periculum L. Sed si quemcunque in princ ff ad leg Aquil. l. 3. quod qui armati ff de vi vi armata is qui aggressorem C. adlegem C. adlegem Corneli In most hainous sinnes conatus the endeavour and aime etiamsi effectus non sequatur puniridebet is punishable Bartoln in l. Si quis non dicam rapere The King hath aimed at the destruction of his Subjects through the power of wicked counsellors and we are to consider not the intenton of the workes but the nature and intention of the work Papists are in armes their religion the Conspiracy of Trent their conscience if they have any their malice against the convenant of Scotland which abjureth their Religion to the full their ceremonies their Prelates lead and necessitate them to root out the name of Protestant Religion yea and to stab a King who is a Protestant Nor is our King remaining a Protestant and adhering to his oath made at his Coronation in both kingdomes Lord of his own person master of himself nor able as King to be a King over Protestant subjects if the Papists now in armes under his standard shall prevail The King hath been compelled to go against his own oath and the Lawes which he did swear to maintaine The Pope sendeth to his popish armies both dispensations bulls mandats incouragements The King hath made a cessation with the bloody Irish and hath put arms in the hands of Papists Now he being under the oath of God tied to maintain the Protestant Religion he hath a metaphysically subtle pearcing faith of miracles who beleeveth armed Papists and Prelates shall defend Protestants their Religion and these who have abjured Prelats as the lawful sons of the Pope that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and as the law saith Quilibet in dubio praesumitur bonus L. merito praesumi L. non omnes § à Barbaris de re milit Charity beleeveth not ill So Charity is not a foole to beleeve all things So saith the Law Semel malus semper praesumitur malus in eodem genere C. semel malus de jure gentium in 6. Once wicked is alwayes wicked in that kind Marius Salamonius I. C. in L. ut vim at que injuriam ff de just jure We are not to wait on strokes the terrour of armour omnium consensu by consent of all is sufficient n. 3. If I see saith he the enemy take an arrow out of the Quiver before he bend the bow it is lawfull to prevent him with a blow cunctatio est periculosa The Kings comming with armed men to demand the Five Members into the House of Commons is very symbolicall and Warre was printed on that fact he that runneth may reade His comming to Hull with an Armie saith not he had no errand there but aske what it was in the clock See Novellus that learned Venetian Lawyer in a Treatise for defence he maketh continuatam rixam a continued upbraiding a sufficient ground of violent defence He citeth Doctores Comniter in L. ut vim ff de just jure Yea he saith Drunkennesse defens n. 44. Error n. 46. Madnesse n. 49 50. Ignorance n. 51. 52. Impudence n. 54. Necessity n. 56. Lasciviousnesse 58. Continuall reproaches 59. The fervour of anger 64. Threatning 66. Feare of imminent danger 67. Iust grief doe excuse a man from homicide and that in these he ought to be more mildly punished Quia obnubilatum mancum est consilium Reason in these being lame and clogged Ambros l. 1. offic Quinon repellit injuriam à socio cum potest tam est in vitio quam ille qui facit And as Nature so the Law saith When the losses are such as can never be repaired as Death Mutilation lesse of Chastity Quoniam facta infecta fieri nequeunt things of that kinde once done can never be undone we are to prevent the enemy l. Zonat. tract defens par 3. l. in bello § factae de capit notat Gloss in l. si quis provocatione If the King send an Irish Rebell to cast me over a bridge and drowne me in a water I am not to do nothing while the Kings emissary first cast me over and then in the next room I am to defend my self but nature and the law of self-defence warranteth me if I know certainly his ayme to horse him first over the bridge and then consult how to defend my selfe at my own leasure Royalists object that David in his defence never invaded and persecuted Saul yea when he came upon Saul and his men sleeping hee would not kill any but the Scottish and Parliaments Forces not onely defend but invade offend kill and plunder and this is cleerely an offensive not a defensive warre Answ There is no defensive warre different in spece and nature from an offensive warre if we speake physically they differ onely in the event and intention of the heart and it is most cleare that the affection and intention doth make one and the same action of taking away the life either homicide or no homicide If a man out of hatred deliberately take away his brothers life he is a murtherer eatenus but if that same man had taken away that same brothers life by the flying off of an Axe head off the staffe while he was hewing timber he neither hating him before nor intending to hurt his brother he is no murtherer by Gods expresse Law Deut. 4. 42. Deut. 19 4. Ioshua 20. 5. 2. The cause betweene the King and the two Parliaments and betweene Saul and David are so different in this as it is much for us Royalists say David might if he had seene offending to conduce for selfe-preservation have invaded Sauls men and say they the case was extraordinary and bindeth not us to selfe-defence and thus they must say for offensive weapons such as Goliahs sword and an hoast of armed men cannot by any rationall men be assumed and David had the wisdome of God but to offend if providence should so dispose and so what was lawfull to David is lawfull to us in self-defence he might offend lawfully and so may we 2. If Saul and the Philistims ayming as under an oath to set up Dagon in the land of Israel should invade David and the Princes and Elders of Israel who made him King and if David with an hoast of armed men he and the Princes of Israel should come in that case upon Saul and the Philistims sleeping if in that case David might not lawfully
it would create more enemies not help his Cause 3. To David to kill Saul sleeping and the people who out of a mis-informed conscience came out many of them to help their lawfull Prince against a Traitor as was supposed seeking to kill their King and to usurp the throne had not been wisdome nor justice because to kill the enemie in a just self-defence must be when the enemie actually doth invade and the life of the defendant cannot be otherwise saved A sleeping enemie is not in the act of unjust pursuit of the innocent but if an Armie of Papists Philistims were in the fields sleeping pursuing not one single David onely for a supposed personall wrong to the King but lying in the fields and campe against the whole Kingdome and Religion labouring to introduce arbitary Government Popery Idolatry and to destroy Lawes and Liberties and Parliaments then David were obliged to kill these murtherers in their sleep If any say The case is all one in a naturall self-defence what ever be the cause and who ever be the enemy because the self-defender is not to offend except the unjust Invader be in actuall pursuit now Armies in their sleep are not in actuall pursuit Answ When one man with a multitude invadeth one man that one man may pursue as he seeth most conducible for self-defence Now the Law saith Threatnings and terror of Armour maketh imminent danger and the case of pursuit in self-defence lawfull if therefore an Armie of Irish Rebels and Spanyards were sleeping in their Camp and our King in a deep sleep in the midst of them and these Rebels actually in the Camp besieging the Parliament and the Citie of London most unjustly to take away Parliament Laws and Liberties of Religion it should follow that Generall Essex ought not to kill the Kings Majesty in his sleep for he is the Lords Anointed but 1. will it follow that Generall Essex may not kill the Irish Rebels sleeping about the King and that he may not rescue the Kings Person out of the hands of the Papists and Rebels ensnaring the King and leading him on to Popery and to employ his Authority to defend Popery and trample upon Protestant Parliaments and Lawes Certainly from this example this cannot be concluded For Armies in actuall pursuit of a whole Parliament Kingdome Lawes and Religion though sleeping in the Camp because in actuall pursuit may be invaded and killed though sleeping And David useth no argument from conscience why hee might not kill Sauls Armie I conceive he had not Armes to doe that and should have created more enemies to himselfe and hazard his owne life and the life of all his men if he had of purpose killed so many sleeping men yea the inexpedience of that for a private wrong to kill Gods mis-led people should have made all Israel enemies to David But David useth an Argument from Conscience onely to prove it was not lawfull for him to stretch forth his hand against the King and for my part so long as he remaineth King and is not dethroned by those who made him King at Hebron to put hands on his person I judge utterly unlawfull one man sleeping cannot be in actuall pursuit of another man so that the self-defender may lawfully kill him in his sleep but the case is farre otherwise in lawfull wars the Israelites might lawfully kill the Philistims encamping about Jerusalem to destroy it and Religion and the Church of God though they were all sleeping even though we suppose King Saul had brought them in by his Authority though he were sleeping in the midst of the uncircumcised Armies and it is evident that an hoast of armed enemies though sleeping by the law of self-defence may be killed left they awake and kill us whereas one single man and that a King cannot be killed 2. I think certainly David had not done unwisely but hazarded his owne life and all his mens if he and Ahimelâ—ch and Abishai should have killed an host of their enemies sleeping that had been a work as impossible to three so hazard some to all his men D. Ferne as Arnisaeus did before him saith The example of David was extraordinary because he was anointed and designed by God as successor to Saul and so he must use an extraordinary way of guarding himselfe Arnisaeus citeth Alberic Gentilis that David was now exempted from amongst the number of Subjects Answ There were not two Kings in Israel now both David and Saul 2. David acknowledgeth his subjection in naming Saul the Lords Anointed his Master Lord King and therefore David was yet a subject 3. If David would have proved his title to the Crowne by extraordinary wayes he who killed Goliah extraordinarily might have killed Saul by a miracle but David goeth a most ordinary way to work for self-defence and his comming to the Kingdom was through persecution want eating shew-bread in case of necessity defending himself with Goliahs sword 4. How was any thing extraordinary and above a Law seeing David might have killed his enemie Saul and according to Gods Law he spared him and hee argueth from a morall duty he is the Lords annoynted therefore I will not kill him was this extraoardinary above a law then according to Gods law he might have killed him Royalists cannot say so what ground to say one of Davids acts in his deportment toward Saul was extraordinary and not all was it extraordinary that David flâ—d no or that David consulted the oracle of God what to do when Saul was coming against him 5. in an ordinary fact something may be extraordinary as the dead sleep from the Lord upon Saul and his men 1. Sam. 26. and yet the fact according to its substance ordinary 6. Nor is this extraordinary that a distressed man being an excellent warriour as David was may use the help of six hundred men who by the law of charity are to help to deliver the innocent from death yea all Israel were obliged to defend him who killed Goliah 7. Royalists make Davids act of not putting hands on the Lords annointed an ordinary morall reason against resistance but his putting on of armour they will have extraordinary and this is I confesse a short way to an adversary to cull out something that is for his cause and make it ordinary and something that is against his cause must be extraordinary 8. These men by the law of nature were obliged to joyne in armes with David ergo the non-helping of an oppressed man must be Gods ordinary law a blasphemous tenet 9. If David by an extraordinary spirit killed not King Saul then the Jesuits way of killing must be Gods ordinary Law 2. David certainly intended to keep Keilah against King Saul for the Lord would not have answered David in an unlawfull fact for that were all one as if God should teach David how to play the Traitor to his King for if God had answered They will not deliver
holy things from him especially since by the law the leper was to be put out of the congregation Ans 1. He contradicteth the text it was not a resistance by words for the text saith they withstood him and they thrust him out violently 2. He yeeldeth the cause for to withdraw the holy things of God by corporall violence and violently to pull the censer out of his hand that he should not provoke Gods wrath by offering incense to the Lord is resistance and the like violence may by this example be used when the King useth the sword and the Militia to bring in an enemy to destroy the kingdom it is no lesse injustice against the second table that the King useth the sword to destroy the innocent then to usurpe the câ—nsor against the first table But Doctor Ferne yeeldeth that the censor may be pulled out of his hand lest he provoke God to wrath Ergo by the same very reason a fortiore the Sword the Castles the Sea-ports the Militia may be violently pulled out of his hand for if there was an expresse Law that the leper should be put out of the congregation and therefore the King also should be subject to his Church-censor then he subjecteth the King to a punishment to be inflicted by the subjects upon the King Ergo the King is obnoxious to the coactive power of the law 2. Ergo subjects may judge him and punish him 3. Ergo he is to be subject to all Church-censors no lesse then the people 4. There is an expresse law that the leper should be put out of the congregation What then flattering court Divines say the King is above all these lawes for there is an expresse law of God as expresse as that ceremoniall on touching lepers and a more binding law that the murtherer should die the death Will Royalists put no exception upon a ceremoniall law of expelling the leper and yet put an exception upon a Divine morall law concerning the punishing of murtherers given before the law on Mount Sinai Gen. 6. 9. They so declare that they accept the persons of men 5. If a leper King could not actually sit upon the throne but must be cut off from the house of the Lord because of an expresse law of God these being inconsistent that a King remaining amongst Gods people ruling and raigning should keep company with the Church of God and yet be a leper who was to be cut off by a Divine law from the Church now I perswade my self that far lesse can he actually raigne in the full use of the power of the sword if he use the sword to cut off thousands of innocent people because murthering the innocent and fatherles and Royall governing in Righteousnesse and Godlinesse are more inconsistent by Gods law being morally opposite then remaining a governour of the people and the disease of leprosie are incompatible 6. I think not much that Barcley saith cont Monar l 5. c. 11. Vzziah remained King after he was removed from the congregation for leprosie 1. Because that toucheth the question of dethroning Kings this is an argument brought for violent resisting of Kings and that the people did resume all power from Vzziah and put it in the hand of Iotham his son who was over the Kings house judging the people of the land ver 21. And by this same reason the Parliaments of both Kingdomes may resume the power once given to the King when he hath proved more unfit to governe morally then Vzziah was ceremonially that he ought not to judge the people of the land in this case 2. If the priests did execute a ceremoniall law upon King Vzziah Far more may the three estates of Scotland and the two houses of Parliament of England execute the morall law of God on their King If the people may covenant by oath to rescue the innocent and unjustly condemned from the sentence of death notoriously known be to tyranous and cruel then may the people resist the King in his unlawfull practises But this the people did in the matter of Ionathan M. Symmons saith pag. 32. and Doctor Ferne § 9. 49. That with no violence but by prayers and teares the people saved Jonathan as Peter was rescued out of prison by the prayers of the Church King Saul might easily be intreated to break a rash vow to save the life of his eldest son Ans 1. I say not the common people did it but the people including proceres regni the Princes of the land and captaines of thousands 2. The text hath not one word or syllable of either prayers supplications or teares but by the contrary They bound themselves by an oath contrary to the oath of Saul 1 Sam. 14. 44. and swear ver 45. God forbid as the Lord liveth there shal not one hair of his head fall to the ground so the people rescued Ionathan The Church prayed not to God for Peters deliverance with an oath that they must have Peter saved whether God will or no. 2. Though we read of no violence used by the people yet an oath upon so reasonable a ground 1. without the Kings consent 2. contrary to a standing law that they had agreed unto ver 24. 3. contradictory to the Kings sentence and unjust oath 4. spoken to the King in his face all these prove that the people meaned and that the oath ex conditione operis tended to a violent resisting of the King in a manifestly unjust sentence Chrysostom hom 14. ad Pop. Antioch accuseth Saul as a murtherer in this sentence and praiseth the people So Iunius Peter Martyr whom Royalists impudently cite so Cor. à lap Zanch. Lyra and Hug. Cardinalis say it was Tyranny in Saul and laudable that the people resisted Saul and the same is asserted by Iosephus l. 6. antiquit c. 7. so Althus Polyt c. 38. n. 109. We see also 2 Chron. 21. 10. That Libnah revolted from under Iehoram because he had forsaken the Lord God of his fathers It hath no ground in the text that Royalists say that the defection of Lybnah is not justified in the text but the cause is from the demerit of wicked Iehoram because he made defection from God Libnah made defection from him as the ten tribes revolted from Rehoboam for Solomons idolatry which before the Lord procured this defection yet the ten tribes make defection for oppression I answer where the literall meaning is simple and obvious we are not to go from it The text sheweth what cause moved Libnah to revolt it was a town of the Levites and we know they were longer sound in the truth then the ten tribes 2. Chron. 13. 8 9 10. Hos 11. 12. Lavater saith Iehoram hath pressed them to idolatry and therefore they revolted Zanch. Cor. à Lap. saith this was the cause that moved them to revolt and it is cleare ver 13. he caused Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to go a whoring from God and no doubt tempted
Kingdoms move in these wars by the Kings Lawes and are a formall politique body in themselves Obj. 2. The ground of the present wars against the King saith D. Ferne sect 4. pag. 13. is false to wit that the Parliament is coordinate with the King but so the King shall not be supreme the Parliaments consent is required to an act of supremacie but not to a denyall of that act And there can no more saith Arnisaeus de jure majestatis c. 3. in quo consistat essen majest c. 3. n. 1. and c. 2. anjur majest separ c. n. 2. be two equall and coordinate supreme powers then there can be two supreme Gods and multitudo deorum est nullitas deorum many gods infer no gods Ans 1. If we consider the fountaine-power the King is subordinate to the Parliament and not coordinate for the constituent is above that which is constituted If we regard the derived and executive power in Parliamentarie acts they make but a totall and compleat soveraigne power yet so as the soveraigne power of the Parliament being habitually and underived a prime and fountaine power for I doe not here separate people and Parliament is perfect without the King for all Parliamentarie acts as is cleare in that the Parliament make Kings 2. Make Lawes raise Armies when either the King is minor captived tyrannous or dead but Royall power Parliamentarie without the Parliament is null because it is essentially but a part of the Parliament and can work nothing separated from the Parliament no more then a hand cut off from the body can write and so here we see two supremes coordinate Amongst infinite things there cannot be two because it involveth a contradiction that an infinite thing can be created for then should it be finite but a royall power is essentially a derived and created power and supreme secundum quid onely in relation to single men but not in relation to the Communitie it is alwayes a creature of the communitie with leave of the Royalist 2. It is false that to an act of Parliamentarie supremacie the consent of the King is required for it is repugnant that there can be any Parliamentarie judiciall act without the Parliament but there may be without the King 3. More false it is that the King hath a negative voice in Parliament then he shall be sole Judge and the Parliament the Kings Creator and Constituent shall be a cypher Obj. 3. Arnesaeus de jur Maj. de potest armorum c. 5. n. 4. The People is mad and furious therefore supreme Majestie cannot be secured and Rebels suppressed and publike Peace kept if the power of Armour be not in the Kings hand only Answ To denude the people of Armour because they may abuse the Prince is to expose them to violence and oppression unjustly for one King may easilier abuse armour then all the people one man may more easily fail then a Community 2. The safety of the people is far to be preferred before the safety of one man though he were two Emperours one in the East another in the West because the Emperour is ordained of God for the good and safety of the people 1 Tim. 2. 2. 3. There can be no inferiour Judges to bear the sword as God requireth Rom. 13 4. Deut. 1. 15 16. 2 Chron. 19. 6 7. and the King must be sole Judge if he onely have the sword and all armour monopolized to himselfe Obj. 4. The causes of Warre saith M. Simmons sect 4. pag. 9. should not be made knowne to the Subjects who are to look more to the lawfull call to Warre from the Prince then to the cause of the War Answ The Parliament and all the Judges and Nobles are Subjects to Royalists if they should make war and shed blood upon blind obedience to the King not inquiring either in causes of Law or fact they must resigne their consciences to the King 2. The King cannot make unlawfull warre to be lawfull by any authority Royall except he could raze out the sixt Commandement therefore Subjects must look more to the causes of Warre then to the authority of the King and this were a faire way to make Parliaments of both Kingdomes â—et up Popery by the sword and root out the Refâ—rmed Religion upon the Kings Authority as the lawfull call to warre not looking to the causes of warre QUEST XXXVII Whether or no it be lawfull that the Estates of Scotland help their oppressed brethren the Parliament and Protestants in England against Papists and Prelates now in Armes against them and killing them and â—ndevouring the establishment of Poperie though the King of Scotland should inhibit them MArianus saith one is obliged to help his brother non vinculâ— essicace not with any efficacious band because in these saith he non est actio aâ—t poena one may not have action of law against his brother who refuseth to help him yet saith he as man he is obliged to man nexu civilis societatis by the bond of humane society Others say one nation may indirectly defend a neighbour nation against a common enemie because it is a self-defence and it is presumed that a forraigne enemie having overcome the neighbour nation shall invade that nation it selfe who denyeth help and succour to the neighbour nation this is a self-opinion and to me it looketh not like the spiritâ—all Law of God 3. Some say it is lawfull but not alwayes expedient in which opinion there is this much truth that if the neighbor nation have an evil cause neque licet neque expedit it is neither lawfull nor expedient But what is lawful in the case of necessity so extreame as is the losse of a brothers life or of a nation must be expedient because necessity of non-sinning maketh any lawfull thing expedient As to help my brother in fire or water requiring my present and speedy help though to the losse of my goods must be as expedient as a negative commandement Thou shalt not murther 4. Others think it lawfull in the case that my brother seek my help only other wayes I have no calling thereunto to which opinion I cannot universally subscribe it is holden both by reason and the soundest divines that to rebuke my brother of sinne is actus misericordiae charitatis an act of mercy and charity to his soul yet I hold I am obliged to rebuke him by Gods law Levit. 19. 17. otherwise I hate him 1 Thes 5. 14. Col. 4. 17. Math. 18. 15. Nor can I think in reason that my duty of love to my brother doth not oblige me but upon dependency on his free consent but as I am to help my neighbours oxe out of a ditch though my neighbour know not and so I have onely his implicit and virtuall consent so is the case here I go not farther in this case of conscience if a neighbour nation be jealous of our help and in an hostile
way should oppose us in helping which blessed be the Lord the honourable houses of the Parliament of England hath not done though Malignant spirits tempted them to such a course what in that case we should owe to the afflicted members of Christs body is a case may be determined easily The fift and last opinion is of those who think if the King command Papists and Prelates to rise against the Parliament and our dear brethren in England in warres that we are obliged in conscience and by our oath and covenant to help our native Prince against them to which opinion with hands and feet I should accord if our Kings cause were just and lawfull but from this it followeth that we must thus far judge of the cause as concerneth our consciences in the matter of our necessary duty leaving the judiciall cognizance to the honourable Parliament of England But because I cannot returne to all these opinions particularly I see no reason but the Civil Law of a Kingdom doth oblige any Citizen to help an innocent man against a murthering robber that he may be judicially accused as a murtherer who faileth in his duty that Solon said well beatam remp esse illam in quâ quisque injuriam alterius suam estimet It is a blessed society in which every man is to repute an injury done against a brother 〈…〉 injury done against himself As the Egyptians had a good law by which he was accused upon his head who helped not one that suffered wrong and if he was not able to help he was holden to accuse the injurer if not his punishment was whips or three dayes hunger it may be upon this ground it was that Moses flew the Egyptian Ambrose commendeth him for so doing Assert We are obliged by many bands to expose our lives goods children c. in this cause of religion and of the unjust oppression of enemies for the safety and defence of our deare brethren and true religion in England 1. Prov. 24. 11. If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn to death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taken as captives to be killed and those that are ready to be slaine 12. If thou say behold we know it not doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it and he that keepeth thy soul doth he not know it and shall he not render to every man according to his work Master Iermin on the place is too narrow who commenting on the place restricteth all to these two that the priest should deliver by interceding for the innocent and the King by pardoning only But 1. to deliver is a word of violence as 1 Sam. 30. 18. David by the sword rescued his wives Hos 5 14. I will take away and none shall rescue 1 Sam. 17. 35. I rescued the lambs out of his mouth out of the Lyons mouth which behoved to be done with great violence 2 King 18. 34. They have not delivered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Samaria out of my hand So Cornel. à Lapide Charitas suadâ—â— ut vi armis eruamus injuste ductos ad mortem Ambros lib. 1. offic c. 36. citeth this same text and commendeth Moses who killed the Egyptian in defending a Hebrew man 2. It is an act of Charity and so to be done though the judge forbid it when the innocent is unjustly put to death Object But in so doing private men may offer violence to the lawfull magistrate when he unjustly putteth an innocent man to death and rescue him out of the hands of the magistrate and this were to bring in anarchy and confusion for if it be an act of charity to deliver the innocent out of the hand of the Magistrate it is homicide to a private man not to do it for our obedience to the law of nature tyeth us absolutely though the Magistrate forbid these acts for it is known that I must obey God rather then man Answ The law of nature tyeth us to obedience in acts of charity yet not to performe these acts after any way and manner in a meere naturall way impetu naturae but I am to performe acts of naturall charity in a rationall and prudent way and in looking to Gods law else if my brother or father were justly condemned to die I might violently deliver him out of the Magistrates hand but by the contrary my hand should be first on him without naturall compassion As if my brother or my wife have been a blasphemer of God Deut. 13. 6 7 8. and therefore am I to do acts naturall as a wise man observing as Solomon saith Eccles 8. 5. both time and judgement Now it were no wisdom for one private man to hazard his own life by attempting to rescue an innocent brother because he hath not strength to do it and the law of nature obligeth me not to acts of charity when I in all reason see them unpossible but a multitude who had strength did well to rescue innocent Ionathan out of the hands of the King that he should not be put to death yet one man was not tyed by the law of nature to rescue Ionathan if the King and Prince had condemned him though unjustly 2. The hoast of men that helped David against King Saul 1 Sam. 22. 2. entered in a lawfull war and 1 Chron. 12. 18. Amasa by the spirit of the Lord blesseth his helpers peace peace be unto thee and peace be to thy helpers for thy God helpeth the. Ergo Peace must be to the Parliament of England and to their helpers their brethren of Scotland 3. Numb 32. 1. 2. 3. 16. 17. 18. 19. Iosh 1. 12. 13. 14. The children of Gad and of Reuben and the half tribe of Manasseh though their inheritance fell to be in this side of Iordan yet they were to goe over the river armed to fight for their brethren while they had also possession of the land at the commandement of Moses and Joshua 4. So Saul and Israel helped the men of Iabesh Gilead conjoyned in blood with them against Nahash the Ammonite and his unjust conditions in plucking out their right eyes 1 Sam. 11. 5. Iephtha Iudg. 12. 2. justly rebuketh the men of Ephraim because they would not help him and his people against the Ammonites 6. If the communion of Saints be any bound that England and we have one Lord one faith one Baptisme one head and Saviour Iesus Christ then are we obliged to help our bleeding sister Church against these same common enemies Papists and Prelates but the former is undenyably true for 1. We send help to the Rotchel if there had not been a secret betraying of our brethren we send help to the recovery of the Palatinate and the aide of the confederat Princes against Babels strength and power and that lawfully but we did it at great leisure and coldly Q. Elizabeth helped Holland against the King of Spain And beside the union in Religion 1. We sayle in one
if the people swear to the king obedience in a covenant mutuall and he swear not to them Arnisaeus sheweth to us a third sort of oath that limited Princes do swear this oath in Denmarke Suecia Polonia Hungaria is sworne by the kings who may do nothing without consent of the Senat and according to order of Law this is but the other two oathes specified and a Prince cannot contraveen his own contract the law saith in that the Prince is but as a private man in l. digna vox C de ll Rom. cons 426. n. 17. And it is known that the Emperour is constituted and created by the Princes Electors subject to them and by Law may be dethroned by them The B. of Rochester saith from Barclay none can denude a King of his power but he that gave him the power or hath an expresse commandement so to do from him that gave the power But God onely and the people gave the King his power Ergo God with the people having an expresse commandement from God must denude the King of power Answ 1. This shall prove that God onely by an immediat action or some having an expresse commandement from him can deprive a preacher for scandals Christ onely or those who have an expresse commandement from him can excommunicate God only or the magistrate with him can take away the life of man and Numb 11. 14 15 16. No inferiour Magistrates who also have their power from God immediatly Rom. 13. 1. If we speak of the immediation of the office can devide inferiour judges of their power God only by the husbandmans paines maketh a fruitfull vineyard Ergo the husbandman cannot make his vineyard grow over with nettles and briars 2. The argument must run thus else the assumption shall be false God onely by the action of the people as his instrument and by no other action make a lawfull King God onely by the action of the people as his instrument can make a King God onely by the action of the people as his instrument can dethrone a King for as the people making a King are in that doing what God doth before them and what God doth by them in that very act so the people unmaking a King doth that which God doth before the people both the one and the other according to Gods rule obligeth Deut. 17. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. The Prelate whose tribe seldom saith truth addeth As a fatherly power by God and natures law over a family was in the father of a family before the children could either transfer their power or consent to the translation of that power to him so a Kingly power which succeedeth to a paternal or fatherly power to governe many families yea a Kingdom was in that same father in relation to many families before these many families can transfer their power The Kingly power floweth immediately from God the people doth not transfer that power but doth onely consent to the person of the King or doth onely choose his person at some time And though this power were principally given to the people it is not so given to the people as if it were the peoples power not Gods for it is Gods power neither is it any other waies given to the people but as to a streame a beam and an instrument which may confer it to another M. Anton. de domini l. 6. c. 2. n 23. 23. doth more subtilly illustrate the matter if the King should confer honour on a subject by the hand of a servant who had not power or freedom to confer that honour or not to confer it but by necessity of the Kings commandment must confer it nothing should hinder us to say that such a subject had his honour immediately from the King so the earth is immediately illuminated by the sun although light be received in the earth but by the interveening mediation of many inferiour bodies and elements because by no other thing but by the sun only is the light as an efficient cause in a nearest capacity to give light so the Royall power in whomsoever it be is immediatly from God onely though it be applyed by men to this or this person because from God onely and from no other the Kingly power is formally and effectively that which it is and worketh that which it worketh and if you ask by what cause is the tree immediatly turned in fire none sound in reason would say it is made fire not by the fire but by him that laid the tree on the fire Iohn P. P. would have stollen this argument also if he had been capable thereof Ans 1. A fatherly power is in a father not before he have a child but indeed before his children by an act of their free-wil consent that he be their father yea whether the children consent or no from a physical act of generation he must be the father let the father be the most wicked man lethim be made by no moral requisite is he made a father nor can heever leave off physically to be a father he may leave off morally to do the duty of a father so be non pater officio but he cannot but be pater naturae generantis vi So there never is nor can be any need that childrens fre consent interveen to make Kish the Father of Saul because he is by nature a father to make Saul a King a moral father by analogy and improperly a father by ruling governing guiding defending Israel by good laws in peace and godlinesse I hope there is some act of the peoples free-will required even by Spalatoes way the people must approve him to be King yea they must King him or constitute him King say we no such act is required of naturall sons to make a physicall father and so here is a great halt in the comparison and it is most false that there is a Kingly power to governe many families in the same father before these many families can transfer their power to make him King Put Royallists to their Logick they have not found out a medium to make good that there is a formall Kingly power whereby Saul is King and father morally over all Israel before Israel chose him and made him as Kish was Sauls father formally and had a fatherly power to be his father before Saul had the use of free-will to consent that he should be his father Royalists are here at a stand The man may have Royall gifts before the people make him King but this is not regia potestas a Royall power by which the man is formally King Many have more Royal gifts then the man that beareth the Crown yet are never Kings nor is there formally regia potestas kingly power in them In this meaning Petrarcha said Plures sunt reges quam regna 3. He saith The people doth not confer royall power but onely consent to the person of the man or
primarily and naturally in the multitude from it derived to the King immediatly from God The reason of which order is because we cannot reape the fruites of government unlesse by compact we submit to some possible and accidentall inconveniences Ans 1. Who speaketh so the P. Prelate cannot name That Soveraigne power is primarily and naturally in the multitude Vertually it may be Soveraignty is in the multitude but primarily and naturally as heat is in the fire light in the Sun I thinke the P. Prelate dreamed it no man said it but himselfe for what attribute is naturally in a Subject I conceive may directly and naturally be predicated thereof Now the P. Prelate hath taught us of a very naturall predication Our Dreadful and Soveraign Lord the multitude commandeth this and this 2. This is no more a reason for a Monarchy then for a Democracy for we can reape the fruites of no government except we submit to it 3. We must submit in Monarchy saith he to some possible and accidentall inconveniences Here be soft words but is subversion of Religion Lawes and Liberties of Church and State introducing of Popery Arminianisme of Idolatry Altar-worship the Masse proved by a learned Treatise The Canterburian selfe conviction printed the 3. edit an 1641. never answered couched under the name of inconveniency The pardoning of the innocent blood of hundreds of thousand Protestants in Ireland the killing of many thousands Nobles Barons Commons by the hands of Papists in Armes against the Law of the Land the making of England a field of blood the obtruding of an Idolatrous Service-Booke with Armies of men by Sea and Land to blocke up the Kingdome of Scotland are all these inconveniences only 4. Are they only possible and accidentall but make a Monarch absolute as the P. Prelate doth and tyranny is as necessary and as much intended by a sinfull man inclined to make a God of himselfe as it is naturall to men to sinne when they are tempted and to be drunken and giddy with honour and greatnesse witnesse the Kings of Israel and Iudah though de jure they were not absolute Is it accidentall to Nero Iulian to the ten hornes that grew out of the womans head who sate upon the scarlet colloured beast to make warre against the Lambe and his followers especially the spirit of Sathan being in them P. Prelate They inferre 1. They cannot without violation of a Divine ordinance and breach of faith resume the authority they have placed in the King 2. It were high sin to rob authority of its essentials 3. This ordinance is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and hath urgent reasons Ans 1. These namelesse Authors cannot inferre that an Oath is broken which is made conditionally all authority given by the people to the King is conditionall that he use it for the safety of the people if it be used for their distruction they breake no faith to resume it for they never made faith to give up their power to the King upon such tearmes and so they cannot be said to resume what they never gave 2. So the P. Prelate maketh power to act all the former mischiefes the essentialls of a King Balaam he is not worthy his wages for Prophecying thus that the Kings essentialls is a power of blood and destructive to people Law Religion and liberties of Church and State for otherwise we teach not that people may resume from the King Authority and power to disarme Papists to roote out the bloody Irish and in justice serve them as they have served us 3. This ordinance of the people giving lawfull power to a King for the governing of the people in peace and godlinesse is Gods good pleasure and hath just reasons and causes But that the people make over a power to one man to act all the inconveniences above named I mean the bloody and destructive inconveniences hath nothing of God or reason in it P. Prelate The reasons of this opinion are 1. If Power soveraigne were not in one he could not have strength enough to act all necessary parts and acts of government 2. Nor to prevent divisions which attend multitudes or many indowed with equall power and the Authors say They must part with their native right entirely for a greater good and to prevent greater evills 3. To resume any part of this power of which the people have totally devested themselves or to limit it is to disable Soveraignty from government loose the sinewes of all society c Ans 1. I know none for this opinion but the P. Prelate himselfe The first Reason may be made rhyme but never reason for though there be not absolute power to good and ill there may be strength of limited power in abundance in the King and sufficient for all acts of just Government and the adequate end of Government which is salus populi the safetie of the people But the Royalist will have strength to be a Tyrant and act all the Tyrannicall and bloody inconveniences of which we spake an essentiall part of the power of a King As if weaknesse were essentiall to strength and a King could not be powerfull as a King to doe good and save and protect except he had power also as a Tyrant to doe evill and to destroy and waste his people This power is weaknesse and no part of the image of the greatnesse of the King of Kings whom a King representeth 2. The second Reason condemneth Democracie and Aristocracie as unlawfull and maketh Monarchie the only Physick to cure these as if there were no Government an ordinance of God save only absolute Monarchie which indeed is no ordinance of God at all but contrary to the nature of a lawfull King Deut. 17. 3. 3. That people must part with their native right totally to make an absolute Monarch is as if the whole members of the Body would part with their whole nutritive power to cause the Milt to swell which would be the destruction of the Body 4. The people cannot divest themselves of power of defensive Warres more then they can part with Nature and put themselves in a condition inferior to a slave who if his master who hath power to sell him invade him unjustly to take away his life may oppose violence to unjust violence And the other Consequences are null QUEST XLII Whether all Christian Kings are dependent from Christ and may be called his Vicegerents THe P. Prelate taketh on him to prove the truth of this but the question is not pertinent it belongeth to another head to the Kings power in Church matters I therefore only examine what he saith and follow him P. Prelate Sectaries have found a Quere of late that Kings are Gods not Christs Lieutenants on earth Romanists and Puritans erect two Soveraignes in every State The Jesuite in the Pope the Puritan in the Presbyterie Ans We give a reason why God hath a Lieutenant as God
that they may mutually censure and judge one another Object Not in the same cause that is impossible If the King say Masse shall the Church judge and censure the King for intrusion and because the King is also Soveraigne and Supreme in his kinde he may judge and punish the Church for their act of judging and censuring the King it being an intrusion on his prerogative that any should judge the highest Judge Ans The one is not subiect to the other but in the case of male-administration the innocent as innocent is subject to no higher punishing he may be subject to a higher as accusing citing c. Now the Royalist must give instance in the same cause where the Church faileth against the King and his Civill law and the King in the same cause faileth against the Church-canon and then it shall be easie to answer P. Prelate Religion is the bottome of all happinesse if you make the King only to execute what a Presbyterie commandeth he is in a hard case and you take from him the chiefest in Government Ecclesiasticall power hath the soule in subjection the Civill Soveraigntie holdeth a dead dominion ever the body Then the Pope and Presbyterie shall be in better condition then the King Cic. in Ver. Omnes Religione moventur Superstition is furious and maddeth people that they spare neither Crown nor Mitre Ans Cold and dry is the P. P. when he spendeth foure pages in declamation for the excellencie of Religion The madnesse of Superstition nothing to the purpose 1. The King hath a chiefe hand in Church affaires when he is a Nurse-father and beareth the Royall sword to defend both the Tables of the Law though he doe not spin and weave Surplices and other base Masse-cloaths to Prelates and such Priests of Baal They dishonour his Majestie who bring his Prerogative so low 2. The King doth not execute with blind obedience with us what the Pope commandeth and the Prelates but with light of knowledge what Synods discernes and he is no more made the servant of the Church by this then the King of Iudah and Nebuchadnezzar are servants to Ieremiah and Daniel because they are to obey the Word of the Lord in their mouth Let them shew a reason of this why they are servants in executing Gods will in Discipline and in punishing what the Holy Ghost by his Apostles and Elders decree when any contemne the Decree concerning the abstinence from blood things strangled c. Act. 15. rather then when they punish murther idolatrie blasphemie which are condemned in the Word preached by Pastors of Christ and farther this objection would have some more colour realitie it hath not if Kings were only to execute what the Church ministerially in Christs name commandeth to be done in Synods but Kings may and doe command Synods to conveen and doe their duty and command many duties never Synodically decreed as they are to cast out of their Court apostare Prelates sleeping many yeares in the Devils armes and are to command Trencher-Divines neglecting their flock and lying at Court attending the falling of a dead Bishop as Ravens doe an old dying horse To goe and attend the flock and not the Court as this P. P. did 3. A King hath greater outward glory and may doe much more service to Christ in respect of extension and is excellenter then the Pastor who yet in regard of intension is busied about nobler things to wit the Soule the Gospel Eternitie than the King 4. Superstition maddeth men but it followeth not that true Religion may not set them on work to defend soule and body against Tyrannie of the Crown and Antichristian Mitres P. Prelate The Kingdome had peace and plentie in Prelates time Ans A belly-argument We had plenty when we sacrificed to the Queen of Heaven 2. If the Traveller contend to have his purse againe shall the Robber say Robberie was blessed with peace The rest to the end are lies and answered already Only his invectives against ruling Elders falsly called Lay-Elders are not to purpose Parliament-Priests and Lay and Court-Pastors are Lay-Prophets 2. That Presbyteries meddle with Civill businesse is a slander They meddle with publike scandals that offendeth in Christs Kingdome But the Prelate by office was more in two elements in Church and State then any Frogs even in the Kings Leaven-tubs ordinarily 3. Something he saith of Popes usurping over Kings but only of one of his fathers a great uncleane spirit Gregorie the Great But if he had refuted him by Gods Word he should have thrown stones at his own Tribe for Prelates like him doe ex officio trample upon the neck of Kings 4. His testimonies of one Councell and one Father for all Antiquitie proveth nothing Athanasius said God hath given Davids Throne to Kings What to be Head of the Church No to be the Minister of God without 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to tutour the Church And because Kings reigne by Christ as the Councell of Arimin saith therefore it may follow a Baily is also Head of the Church It is taken from Prov. 8. and answered 5. That Presbyteries have usurped upon Kings more then Popes since Hildebrand is a lie all stories are full of the usurpation of Prelates his own tribe The Pope is but a swelled fat Prelate and what he saith of Popes he saith of his own house 6. The Ministers of Christ in Scotland had never a contest with King Iames but for his sinnes and his conniving with Papists and his introducing Bishops the usher of the Pope QUEST XLIII Whether the King of Scotland be an absolute Prince having Prerogatives above Parliament and Laws The Negative is asserted by the Lawes of Scotland the Kings Oath of Coronation the Confession of Faith c. THe negative part of this I hold in these Assertions Assert 1. The Kings of Scotland have not any Prerogative distinct from Supremacie above the Lawes 1. If the People must be governed by no Lawes but by the Kings own Lawes that is the Lawes and Statutes of the Realme acted in Parliament under paine of disobedience then must the King governe by no other Lawes and so by no Prerogative above Law But the former is an evident truth by our Acts of Parliament ergo so is the latter The Proposition is confirmed 1. Because what ever Law enjoyneth passive obedience no way but by Lawes that must injoyne also the King actively to command no other way but by Law for to be governed by Law essentially includeth to be governed by the Supreme Governour only by Law 2. An act of Regall governing is an act of Law and essentially an act of Law an act of absolute Prerogative is no act of Law but an act above Law or of pleasure loosed from Law and so they are opposed as acts of Law and non-acts of Law If the Subjects by command of the King and Parliament cannot be governed but by Law How can the King but
and counsell in assisting the King in acts of Tyranny and in oppression and in shedding innocent blood yea our confession tyeth us to deny helpe and comfort to the King in these wicked acts and therefore our helpe must be in the things that pertaineth to his Royall Office and duty only otherwise we are to represse all tyranny art 14. 4 To save the lives of innocents to represse Tyranny to defend the oppressed are by our confession good workes well pleasing to God and so is this a good worke not to suffer innocent blood to be shed if we â—ay withstand it Hence it is cleare as the Sunne that our confession according to the Word of God to which King Charles did sweare at his Coronation doth oblige and tye us in the presence of God and his holy Angels to rise in Armes to save the innocent to represse Tyranny to defend the oppressed When the King induced by ill counsell sent Armies by Sea and Land to kill and destroy the whole Kingdome who should refuse such a Service-booke as they could not in conscience receive except they would disobey God renounce the confession of Faith which the King and they had sworne unto and prove perfidious Apostates to Christ and his Church what could we doe and that the same Confession considering our bonds to our deare Brethren in England layeth bonds on us to this as a good worke also not to suffer their innocent blood to be shed but to defend them when they against all Law of God of men of State of Nations are destroyed and killed For my part I judge it had been a guiltinesse of blood upon Scotland if we had not helped them and risen in Armes to defend our selves and our innocent brethren against bloody Cavaliers Adde to this what is in the 24. Article of the same Confession We confesse whosoever goeth about to take away or to confound the whole state of Civill Polity now lonâ— established we affirme the same men not only to be enemies to mankind but also wickedly to fight against Gods Will. But these who have taken Armes against the Estates of Scotland and the Princes and Rulers of the Land have laboured to take away Parliaments and the fundamentall Lawes of this Kingdome ergo c. The Confession addeth 16. We farther confesse and acknowledge that such persons as are placed in authority are to be loved honoured feared and holden in most reverent estimation because that they are Lieutenants of God in whose Sessions God himselfe doth sit and Iudge yea even the Iudges and Princes themselves to whom by God is given the sword to the praise and defence of good men and to revenge and punish all open malefactors Ergo the Parliament and Princes and Rulers of the Land are Gods Lieutenants on earth no lesse then the King by our Confession of Faith and those who resist them resist the ordinance of God Royalists say They are but the Deputies of the King and when they doe contrary to his Royall Will they may be resisted yea and killed for in so farre they are private men though they are to be honoured as Iudges when they act according to the Kings Will whose Deputies they are But I answer 1. It is a wonder that inferiour Judges should be formally Iudges in so far as they act conforme to the will of a mortall King and not in so far as they act conforme to the will of the King of Kings seeing the judgement they execute is the King of Kings and not the Iudgement of a mortall King 2 Chro. 19. 6. 2. Royalists cannot indure the former distinction as it is applyed to the King but they receive it with both hands as it is applyed to inferiour Iudges and yet certaine it is that it is as ordinary for a King being a sinfull man to act sometimes as the Lieutenant of God and sometimes as an erring and misinformed man no lesse then the inferiour Iudge acteth sometimes according to the Kings will and Law and sometimes according to his owne private way and if we are to obey the inferiour Iudge as the Deputy of the King what shall become of his Person when Cavaliers may kill him at some Edge-hill for so they mock this distinction as applyed to the King in regard of his Person and of his Royall Office and for this point our Confession citeth in the Margin Rom. 13. 7. 1 Pet. 2. 17. Psal 82. 1. which places doe clearely prove 1. That inferiour Magistrates are 1. Gods ordinances 2. Gods on earth Psal 82. 3. Such as beare the Lords sword 4. That they are not only as the Confession saith appointed for Civill policie but also for maintenance of true Religion and for suppressing of idolatrie and superstition Then it is evident to resist inferior Magistrates is to resist God himselfe and to labour to throw the sword out of Gods hands 5 Our Confession useth the same Scriptures cited by Junius Brutus to wit Ezek. 22. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. and Ier. 22. 3. where we are no lesse then the Iewes commanded to execute judgement and righteousnesse and deliver the spoyled out of the hands of the oppressour For both the Law of God and the Civill Law saith Qui non impedit homicidium quum potest is homicidii reus est I will cast in a word of other Confessions lest we seeme to be Iesuites alone The Confession of Helvetia saith c. 30. de Magistratu Viduas pupillos afflictos asserat Every Magistrate is to defend the widow the orphan and the oppressed The French Confession saith art 40. Affirmamus ergo parendumesse Legibus Statutis solvenda Tributa subjectionis denique jugum voluntariè tolerandum etiamsi infideles fuerint Magistratus dummodo Dei summum imperium integrum illibatum maneat So cleare it is that all active obedience is due to all Magistrates and that that yoake of passive obedience is to be tolerated but conditionally with a dummodo so as the Magistrate violate not the supreme commandement of the King of Kings And we know accordingly Protestants of that Church have taken defensive armes against their King But our P. Prelate can say The Confessions of Scotland Helvetia France and all the Reformed Churches are Jesuiticall when as it was the doctrine of the Waldenses Protestants and Luther Calvin and others while as there was no Iesuite on earth The 37. Art of the Church of Englands Confession is so far from erecting an absolute power in the King that they expresly bring down the Royall Prerogative from the high seat and transcendent superlative power above the Law and expone the Prerogative to be nothing but meere Law-power We only say they ascribe that Prerogative to the King which the Scripture doth ascribe to all Godly Princes that is that they cause all committed to their trust whether Ecclesiasticall or Civill persons doe their duty and punish with the Civill sword all disobedient offenders In syntag Confess And
this they say in answer to some who beleeved the Church of England made the King the Head of the Church The Prelates Convocation must be Iesuites to this P. P. also So the 36. Article of the Belgick Confession saith of all Magistrates no lesse then of a King We know for Tyrannie of Soule and Body they justly revolted from their King Idcirco Magistratus ipsos gladio armavit ut malos quidem plectant paenis probos vero tueantur Horum porro est non modo de Civili politia conservanda esse solioitâ—s verum etiam dare operam ut sacrum Ministerium conservetur omnis Idololatria adulterinus Dei cultus è medio tollatur regnum Antichristi diruatur c. Then all Magistrates though inferiour must doe their duty that the Law of God hath laid on them though the King forbid them But by the Belgick Confession and the Scripture it is their duty to relieve the oppressed to use the sword against murthering Papists and Irish Rebels and destroying Cavaliers For shall it be a good plea in the day of Christ to say Lord Iesus we would have used thy sword against bloody Murtherers if thy Anoynted the King had not commanded us to obey a mortall King rather than the King of ages and to execute no judgement for the oppressed because he judged them faithfull Catholike subjects Let all Oxford and Cavalier Doctors in the three Kingdomes satisfie the consciences of men in this that inferior Iudges are to obey a Diviue Law with a proviso that the King command them so to doe and otherwise they are to obey Men rather then God This is evidently holden forth in the Argentine Confession exhibited by foure Cities to the Emperour Charles the Fifth An. M. D. XXX in the same very cause of innocent Defence that we are now in in the three Kingdomes of Scotland England and Ireland The Saxonick Confession exhibited to the Councell of Trent An. M. D. LI. art 23 maketh the Magistrates office essentially to consist in keeping of the two Tables of Gods Law and so what can follow hence but in so far as he defendeth Murtherers or if he be a King and shall with the sword or Armies impede inferior Magistrates for the Confession speaketh of all to defend Gods law and true Religion against Papists Murtherers and bloody Cavaliers and hinder them to execute the judgement of the Lord against evill doers He is not in that a Magistrate and the denying of obedience active or passive to him in that is no resistance to the Ordinance of God but by the contrary the King himselfe must resist the ordinance of God The Confession of Bohemia is clear art 16. Qui publico munere magistratuque funguntur quemcunque graduÌ„ teneant se non suum sed Dei opus agere sciant Hence all inferior or the supreme Magistrate what ever be their place they doe not their own work nor the work of the King but the work of God in the use of the sword Ergo they are to use the sword against bloody Cavaliers as doing Gods worke suppose the King should forbid them to doe Gods worke And it saith of all Magistrates Sunt autem Magistratuum partes ac munus omnibus ex aequo jus dicere in communem omnium usum sine personarum acceptatione pacem ac tranquilitatem publicam tueri ac procurare de malis ac facinorosis hanc inter turbantibus poenas sumere aliosque omnes ab eorum vi injuria vindicare Now this Confession was the faith of the Barons and Nobles of Bohemia who were Magistrates and exhibited to the Emperor An. 1535. in the cause not unlike unto ours now and the Emperor was their Soveraigne yet they professe they are obliged in conscience to defend all under them from all violence and injuries that the Emperor or any other could bring on them and that this is their office before God which they are obliged to performe as a worke of God and the Christian Magistrate is not to doe that worke which is not his own but Gods upon condition that the King shall not inhibite him What if the King shall inhibite Parliaments Princes and Rulers to relieve the oppressed to defend the Orphan the Widow the Stranger from unjust violence Shall they obey man rather than God To say no more of this Prelates in Scotland did what they could to hinder his Majestie to indict a Parliament 2. When it was indicted to have its freedome destroyed by prelimitations 3. When it was sitting their care was to divide impede and anull the course of Iustice 4. All in the P. Prelates booke tendeth to abolish Parliaments and to enervate their power 5. There were many wayes used to break up Parliaments in England And to command Iudges not to judge at all but to interrupt the course of Iustice is all one as to command unrighteous judgement Ier. 22. v. 3. 6. Many wayes have been used by Cavaliers to cut off Parliaments and the present Parliament in England The paper found in William Lauds Studie touching feares and hopes of the Parliament of England evidenceth that Cavaliers hate the Supreme seat of Iustice and would it were not in the World which is the highest rebellion and resistance made against superior Powers 1. He feareth this Parliament shall begin where the last left Ans What ever ungrate Courtier had hand in the death of King Iames deserved to come under Tryall 2. He feareth they sacrifice some man Ans If Parliaments have not power to cut off Rebels and corrupt Iudges the root of their being is undone 2. If they be lawfull Courts none needeth feare them but the guilty 3. He feareth their Consultations be long and the supply must be present Ans Then Cavaliers intend Parliaments for Subsidies to the King to foment and promote the warre against Scotland not for Iustice 2. He that feareth long and serious consultations to rip up and launce the wounds of Church and State is affraid that the wounds be cured 4. He feareth they deny Subsidies which are due by the Law of God Nature and Nations whereas Parliaments have but their deliberation and consent for the manner of giving otherwise this is to sell Subsidies not to give them Ans Tribute and the standing Revenues of the King are due by the Law of God and Nations but Subsidies are occasionall Rents given upon occasion of Warre or some extraordinary necessity and they are not given to the King as Tribute and standing Revenues which the King may bestow for his House Family and Royall Honour but they are given by the Kingdome rather to the Kingdome then to the King for the present warre or some other necessity of the Kingdome and therefore are not due to the King as King by any Law of Nature or Nations and so should not be given but by deliberation and judiciall sentence of the States and they are not sold to the King but given out by the
his power If we obteine this which Gods Word doth give us we have enough for our purpose though Vzzah kept the naked title of a King as indeed he tooke but up roome in the Catalogue of Kings Now if by Law he was cut off from actuall governing Whether he was willing or not willing to denude himselfe of Reigning it is all one And to say that furious men ideots stupid men and Children who must doe all Royall acts by Curators and Tutors are Kings jure with correction is petitio principii for then hath God infused immediately from heaven as Royalists teach us a Royall power to governe a Kingdome on those who are as capable of Royaltie as blocks I conceive that the Lord Deut. 17. 14 15 16 17. commandeth the people to make no blocks Kings and that the Lord hath not done that himselfe in a binding Law to us which we have no commandement from him to doe I conceive that God made Josiah and Joash Kings typicall and in destination for his promise sake to David while they were Children as well as he made them Kings but not actu completo ratione officii to be a rule to us now to make a Childe of sixe yeares of age a King by office I conceive Children are to us only Kings in destination and appointment And for Idiots and Fooles I shall not believe let Royalists breake their faith upon so rocky and stony a point at their pleasure that God hath made them Governors of others by Royall office who can scarce number their own fingers Or that God tyeth a people to acknowledge stupid blocks for Royall Governours of a Kingdome who cannot governe themselves But far be it from me to argue with Bellarmine From Vzziah his bodily leprosie to inferre that any Prince spiritually Leprous and turned Hereticall is presently to be dethroned Nothing can dethrone a King but such Tyrannie as is inconsistent with his Royall office Nor durst I inferre that Kings now adayes may be removed from actuall Government for one single transgression It is true 80 Priests and the whole Kingdome so serving King Vzzah their motives I know were Divine proveth well that the Subjects may punish the transgression of Gods expresse law in the King in some cases even to remove him from the Throne but as from Gods commanding to stone the man that gathered sticks on the Sabbath day we cannot inferre that Sabbath-breakers are now to be punished with death yet we may well argue Sabbath-breakers may be punished and Sabbath-breakers are not unpunishable and above all Law So may we argue here Vzzah though a King was punished Ergo Kings are punishable by Subjects Quest 16. Whether or no as the deniall of active obedience in things unlawfull is not dishonourable to the King as King he being obliged to command in the Lord only so the deniall of passive subjection to the King using unjust violence be also no dishonouring of the King Ans As the King is under Gods Law both in commanding or in exacting active obedience so is he under the same regulating Law of God in punishing or demanding of us passive subjection and as he may not command what he will but what the King of Kings warranteth him to command so may he not punish as he will but by warrant also of the supreame Iudge of all the earth and therefore it is not dishonourable to the Majesty of the Ruler that we deny passive subjection to him when he punisheth beside his warrant more then its against his Majesty and honour that we deny active obedience when he commandeth illegally else I see not how it is lawfull to fly from a tyrannous King as Elias Christ and other of the witnesses of our Lord have done and therefore what Royalists say here is a great untruth namely That in things lawfull we must be subject actively in things unlawfull passively For as we are in things lawfull to be subject actively so there is no duty in point of conscience laying on us to be subject passively because I may lawfully fly and so lawfully deny passive subjection to the Kings will punishing unjustly Quest 17. Whether may the Prince make away any part of his Dominions as an Iland or a Kingdome for the safety of the whole kingdomes he bath as if goods be like to sinke an over burthened Ship the Sea-men cast away a part of the Goods in the Sea to save the lives of the whole Passengers and if three thousand Passengers being in one Ship and the Ship in a storme like to be loosed it would seeme that a thousand may be cast over-board to save the lives of the whole Passengers Ans The Kingdome being not the Kings proper Heritage it would seeme he cannot make away any part of his Kingdome to save the whole without the expresse consent of that part though they be made away to save the whole In things of this kind men are not as the commodities of Merchants nor is the case alike as when one thousand of three thousand are to be cast into the Sea to save all the rest and that either by common consent or by Lots or some other way for it is one thing when destruction is evidently inevitable as in the casting so many men into the Sea to save the whole and many Passengers and when a King for peace or for help from another King maketh away part of his Dominion The Lord is here to be waited on in his good Providence and events are to be committed to him but far lesse can it be imaginably lawfull for a King to make away a part of his Dominions without their consent that he may have help from a forraign Prince to destroy the rest This were to make merchandize of the lives of men Quest 18. Whether or no the convening of the subjects without the Kings will be unlawfull Answ The convention of men of it self is an indifferent thing and taketh its specification from its causes and manner of convening though some convention of the Subjects without the King be forbidden yet Ratio Legis est anima Legis The reason and intent of the Law is the soul of the Law Convention of the Subjects in a tumultuary way for a seditious end to make war without warrant of Law is forbidden but not when Religion Laws Liberties Invasion of forraign Enemies necessitateth the Subjects to conveen though the King and ordinary Iudicatures going a corrupt way to pervert Iudgement shall refuse to consent to their conventions Upon which ground no convention of Tables at Edinburgh or any other place An. 1637. 1638. 1639. can be judged there unlawfull for if these be unlawfull because they are convention of the Leagues without expresse Act of Parliament then the convention of the Leagues to quench a house on fire and the convention of a Countrey to pursue a Wolf entered in the Land to destroy women and children which are warranted by the Law of
as caâ—â—â— to take Christ 2. He waited not on Christs answer 3. He could have defended himself another way 4. It was contrary to Gods will revealed to Peter The Prophets cry against the sin of non-resistance when they cry against the peoples not executeing judgement for the oppressed and not relieving those that were crushed in the gate There is no warrant in the word by precept or practice that the King and Cavalliers should rise and oppose Princes and States in a hostile way for their conscience Sacr. sanâ—â— 6. pag. 74 75 76. The Doctors of Aberdeene in their Duplyes Tertullian in an errour The ancient Christians did rise in Armes against persecuting Emperours Inferiour Judges have the power of the sword aswell as the King The people tyed to acts of Charity and to defend themselves the Church and their posterity against a forreigne Army though the King forbid We must defend with the sword the Church of God whether the King will or no except it be said the King may command murther and discharge us of the duties of the second Table Examples of lawfull warres without the King If the Parliament make the King and give to him the sword the King cannot make the Parliament nor use the sword to their destruction Parliamentary power a fountaine power above the King Loyall Sâ—aj Beliefâ— Causes oâ— wâ—r make lawfull war not the sole pleasure of the King De â—â—iâ—cip 6. â— 18. It is necessary and lawfull for the States of Scotland to help their brethren in England Cases â—n which we are to help our brethren according to divers opinions We are to help our brethren though they desire us â—â—â— Solons testimony Law of the Egyptians against those that helped not the oppressed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Erne captos ad mortem Acts of charity as helping our brethren against unjust oppressions oblige us whether the King command them or forbid them Loyall subjects beliefe sect 4. pag. 7. Sacr. sanct Reg. maj c. 2. pag. 26. 27. The question concerning the excellency of Monarchy above other formes various according to divers considerations An absolute Monarchy the baddest of governments Epiminondas his watchfulnesse A power to sin worse then a power of non-sinning Monarchy in it selfe considered is the best government Every forme in some construction best A mixed Monarchy bâ—st Tolossan de Rep. l. 13. c. 12. Barâ—l cont Monarch l. 1. c. 39. Symmons Loyall Subj unbeliefe §. 4. pag. 7. A threefold supreame power What be jura regalia or jura majestatis Arnisaeus de 〈…〉 6. maâ— â— 1. â— 3. pag. 15â— 158. Kings conâ—â—r honours as rewards of vertue as they punish ildoers not because they are absolute but according to law The law of the King 1 Sam 8. 9. 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Farther consideration of the place 1. Sam. 8. 9. 11. Difference of Kings and Judges The law or manner of the King 1 Sam. 8. 9. no permissive law of God as was the law of a bill of divorcement God cannot make a permissive law tending to the destruction of a whole national Church and Kingdome What dominion the King hath over the goods of the subject The peoples power over the King by reason of the Coronation covenant Mutuall punishments may be where there be no mutuall relations of superiority and inferiority A promise layeth a politique obligation on the promiser and giveth law to him to whom the promise is made to presse performance or punish violation when the promises are betwixt man and man Three kindes of oathes or covenants â—â—de by Kings as Arnisaeus thinketh The King not King 〈…〉 â—â— first â—wear the oâ—â—h It is an evasion onely to distinguâ—sh between the Kings promisâ—s and his oath Grotius de jur bel pat l. 1. c. 4. Barclai l. 4. c. 6. A King cannot swear to be a just King because he is already King Bartol in l. 1. n. 4. de his qui not infam Arnisae cap. 6. An princeps qui iuraâ— subditis c. â—o Roâ—â— de potest pa. lib. 2. c. 20. B. Rochester 16 A difference betwixt a father and a King A people may give Royall power to the King by limitation and measure but people can give no gift which is solely and immediately from God by measure they cannot measure God Sacr. san reg maj c. 1. pag. 1 2. An. 1633. Coronation of King Charls in Scotland L. 3. defens fid Orth. c. 3. n. 2 3. The P. Prelate is a Papist Iesuites tenents concerning Kings Tract contra primatum Regis Angliae Calvin Iust l. 4. c. 4. Sac. sanc Mai. c. 1. p. 17 18. Soveraigne power in the King but not power of Tyrannie The King not the Vicegerent of Christ as mediator The King not the head of the Church The prelates reason proveth all creatures to be the vicegerents of Christ as Mediator 2 Reas p. 58. The King no mixed person or half Clergie man in the externail government of the Church as the P. P. dreameth 1 Parl. King Charles aâ— 1633. The P. Prelate prayeth for the Pope The Power of Presbyteries Ministeriall P. Prelates deny Kings to be subject to the Gospel and Discipline of Christ Pag. 65. The Ministeriall power of Pastors what Page 65. The P. Prelate maketh the King a Church-man The P. Prelate giveth an Arbitrary power of government in Christs-Church to the King Prelates extend a lawlesse prerogative to the government of the Church Two Supremes under Christ one in the Church another in the State are not absurd P. 66 67 68. The King not the servant of the Church Ruling Elders not Lay-men The King of Scotland not above Laws and Parliaments proved from our acts of Parliament The King of Scotland's oath at his Coronation How the King is supreme Iudge in all Causes The Estates of Parliament do append their collaterall Seales with the Great Seal in Treaties with forraigne Princes Angl. Conf. art 37. Sed eam tantum Prerogativam aequam in sacris Scripturis à Deo ipso omnibus piis Princibus semper fuisse tributam hoc est ut omnes status atque ordines fidei sive commlssos sixe illi ecclesiastiei sint sive civiles in officio â—ontineant â—ontumaces ac delinquenteâ— gladio civili â—oerceant W. Laud and other Prelates enemies to Parliaments The Parliaments of Scotland doe regulate limit and set bounds to the Kings power Fergus the first King of Scotland no Conquerour but a freely elected Prince A fundamentall Law of elective Kings in Scotland The Parliaments of Scotland chosed Kings The Oath of Galdus the 21. King of Scotland Kings of Scotland censured and punished by the Parliament Kings of Scotland of old had no negative voyce Buchan Rer. Scot. l. 7. Coronation Oath Parliaments of Scotland by Law are to decide who should raigne How Royaltie is the first and naturall Government Many Rulers over a great multitude more naturall than one To resist the Will is not to resist the Power Pag. 9. It is no good consequence Christ and the Apostles used not violent resistance to spread the Gospel ergo such resistance is unlawfull The Coronation of the King in concreto is more then a Ceremonie Men may limit the Power that they gave not Arnisaeus de authorit princi c. 3. n. 6. Subiects not more obnoxious to a King then Clients Vassals Children Servi indignè habiti confugiendi ad statuas dominum mutandi copiam habent l. 2. De his qui sunt sui Item C. De lat Hered toll Arnisaeus De authori principumâ—in popul c. 3. n. 7. Subjects in active obedience must subject to a Kings lawfull commandement but in things unlawfull they are not naturally subject in passive subjection Whether King Vzzah was dethroned Arnisaeus de jure Pontif. Rom. in Regna Princ. c. 5. n. 30. Bellarm. de pâ—nit l. 3. c. 2. Deniall of passive obedience in things unjust not dishonourable to the King more then deniall of active obedience in these same things Loyall Convâ—rt page 10. The King may not make away a part of his owne Dominions Ferdinan Vasquius illustr quest l. 1. c. 3. n. 8. juri alieno quisquam nâ—c in minima parte obesse potest l. id quod nostru F. de reg jur l. jur natu cod titul l. How subjects are obliged to pay the Kings debts Subsidies the Kingdoms due rather then the Kings In how many divers notions the Seas Forts Castles Militia Road-wayes are the Kings and how more properly they are the Kingdomes