own those Rebels for the people of the Lord charge Moses and Aaron as being guilty of their blood and again gather themselves together against them v. 41 42. And as S. Austin conceives sutably to the tumultuous violence of their Spirits they came with a resolution of putting them to death Aug. de mirabil S. Scriptur l. 1. c. 30. saith he Totus populus contra Moysem Aaron ut sanguinis reos consurrexit eosque in eorundem ultionem occidere voluit And all these transactions are the more to be admired because they presently succeeded after that sad threatning and the Plague therewith that their Carcases should fall in the Wilderness and not enter into the Land of Canaan Num. 14.29 30 37. which judgment was denounced against them in part because they would forsake Moses and chuse them another Captain to return to Egypt Num. 14.4 Ant. Jud. l. 3. c. 13. and did then as Jo sephus expresseth it revile and conspire against Moses and Aaron And if under so excellent a Governour who had so highly obliged Israel and done so much good for them there were such dangerous consequences from the people or men of a popular strain exercising a power of judging concerning a Case fit to warrant a forcible resistance this must needs be a destructive principle if allowed under the best Government in the World This gave birth to so bad an undertaking as that of Corah which was an enterprise to heinous Sanhedrin c. 11. that besides the severe censures of the Scripture the Jewish Talmud reckons up the managers thereof amongst them who shall have no portion in the life to come 7. And in the time of David The other instance I shall give is in the Government of David He was peculiarly chosen of God to rule Israel and known so to be he was a man after Gods own heart and in his Government over Israel he fed or ruled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 them according to the integrity of his heart and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands Ps 78.72 He was also so potent and victorious over all his Enemies and by reason hereof Israel in his time was so renowned that Maimonides saith their Consistories would not receive Proselytes in his Reign because they supposed it was the fare of his power Maim in Inure Biah which induced them to pretend respect to the worship of the God of Israel Yet Absalom by a popular carriage and infinuating words soon perswaded the people they were greatly injured under the Government of David and that no justice could be had 2 Sam. 15.3 4. Josep Ant. l 7. c. 8. And Josephus declares he complained much of the Kings Officers that there were no good Counsellers about him And hereupon almost all the Kingdom of Israel join themselves with Absalom again2t David 2 Sam. 15.12 13 14. Ch. 16.18 Ch. 18.6 and their Elders with them Ch. 17.15 8. And though this wicked attempt of Absalom was defeated and no less than twenty thousand men slain therein in one day yet while the people in their discontent and passion took to themselves a liberty to take Armes as they thought fit it is remarkably observable that no sooner was this rebellion after Absalom over but upon some hot words between the men of Judah and the men of Israel concerning the manner of their performing their duty to the King 2 Sam. 20 2. every man of Israel went up from David and followed Sheba in a new Rebellion And though Davids Conquests had been very great over many Nations which some of the ancient Greek Historians gave an account of as was observed by Eusebius for Eupolemus neither the splendour of his Kingdom nor the sense of their duty Eus Praep. Evang. l. 9. c. 30. nor the bitter effects of their former Conspiracy nor the Kings Kindness in receiving them again into his favour could contain them under the bond of obedience and in the paths of Peace 9. Now all this will manifest how extremely unsetled any Government in the World must be and therein the authority of executing justice preserving peace and conserving all rights and properties if it be once admitted that Subjects when they shall judge it a Case of necessity for the preservation of the common good may take Armes against their Soveraign And therefore for the Securing peace and righteousness and the common rights and interests of all men it must be acknowledged that the supreme Governour hath such an authority that it is not lawful to take up Armes against him 10. The sense of Grotius concerning Subjects taking Arms. Besides these instances I shall add the judgment of the learned Grotius after his long and more mature consideration of things That worthy man in his Book de Jure Belli pacis and in another Discourse written in his younger time did make use of some unmeet expressions and notions and unsound arguments too much tending to infringe the Authority of Kings and to allow a power in the people in some Cases of making War against them But though he did not expresly retract and alter those things yet in his Writings which he published after a greater experience of the World he wrote at another rate and falls in directly with what I have not asserted Grot. in Mat. 26.52 Thus in his Commentaries upon S. Matthew he saith If it be once admitted that private persons being injuriously dealt with by the Magistrate may make forcible resistance all places would be full of tumults there would be no force or authority of Laws or Judicatures since there is no man who is not enclined to favour himself 11. And in his Votum pro pace Vot pro Pac. ad Art 16. after he had passionately complained of Armes being taken upon the pretext of Religion he goes on Ego vero non tantum subditos ab armis arceo c. But I do not only forbid Subjects from taking Armes but desire that Kings who have that power given to them would use it as feldom as may be Ibid. After this Grotius relateth at large and with approbation the proceedings of the University of Oxford about Paraeus upon the Romans with his allowance also of this their determination Subditos nullo modo vi armis Regi vel Principi suo resistere debere nec illis arma vel offensiva vel defensiva in cansa Religionis vel alia re quà cunque contra Regem vel Principem saum capessere debere That Subjects ought by no means to resist their King or Prince by force nor ought they to take either offensive or defensive Armes against their King or Prince Ibid. for the cause of Religion or for any other thing whatsoever And then asserting the generall rule of S. Paul even against the Cases excepted by Paraeus that whosoever resisteth the power receiveth to himself damnation he addeth If so many Exceptions of Paraeux i. e. underminings of S.
Reg. ubi sup And this absurd assertion hath put those Christian Writers who close with it upon unreasonable shifts for the defence thereof And for the reconciling this with the dignity of a King many of them make this their last refuge that this scourging amongst the Jews Grot. de Jur. Bel. pac ubi sup was without any note of infamy or disgrace and was voluntarily to be submitted to by their Kings as an act of penance and not of force But this answer stands chargeable with a twofold miscarriage 1. With a contradiction to the design of them who urge it and a giving up their cause for if there be nothing in it of disgrace it cannot be inflicted as a censure and the publick punishment of a fault and if it be undertaken only of voluntary choice and not of force then is it not the result of the sentence of a superiour Synedrial authority 2. This would also conclude that many considerable offenders who were to be punished with scourging as by the custom of the Jews according to the cases mentioned by Maimonides Maimon n. 134 135 156. he that curseth his neighbour in the name of Jehovah he that is guilty of perjury and he that commits whoredome and by the law of God the unfree woman who played the whore being betrothed Lev. 19.20 were free from all penalty and disgrace though the divine law Deut. 25.3 peculiarly mentions this punishment as infamous Wherefore these traditions are so absurd that Petitus justly affirmed Petit. Diatribe de Jure pr. c. 2. istam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 animo tantum conceperunt nulli principes eo jure regnarunt that no King of Judah with this manacled authority ever reigned any where else but in the fancies and pens of these Jewish Writers and their followers 10. Now a position so strange in it self and which puts men of learning upon such difficult service and hard shifts to bear it up had need bring with it very clear evidence if it expect to be entertained But in this case Seld. de Syn. l. 3. c. 9. n. 2. Mr Selden who is forward enough to embrace the notions of the Rabbins after he had represented what is usually said was so far in doubt of the truth that he saith hac in re nihil omnino definimus Schick ubi sup And Schickard who largely asserteth this synedrial power confesseth that he could not meet with any one instance of its having ever been reduced to practice And those who have ventured either at instances or arguments have greatly miscarried therein 11. Two instances by some have been produced only to shew that Kings have been cited before the Jewish Sanhedrim The one of Herod the King An. 31. n. 1◠mentioned by Baronius but it is strange to see how pitifully he mistakes the case or else imposeth upon his Reader For it is plain from Josephus whence he hath this story that Herod was then no King of Judea nor was he cited by the Sanhedrim but by Hyrcanus Ant. Jud. l. 14. c. 17. who was then King by the Roman authority And it is much that the Cardinal should not consider that if Herod after he was King of Judea by the Roman right was under the Jurisdiction of the standing Jewish Synedrial authority the consequence must be that the Jews then were Governours over the Romans and their power but were in no subjection to them which besides the credit of History herein concerned he who acknowledgeth Christ crucified cannot admit 12. Another instance is mentioned of Jannaeus the King who is said to have been cited by the Sanhedrim upon account of a servant of his being charged with murder This instance in his second thoughts Schick append in Carpzov p. 152 153. Schickard preferreth to the former Now if this had been true concerning Jannaeus it would be of no great moment since he lived under the lapsed state of the Jews and had the name but not the authority and dignity of a King But this story is manifestly fictitious is stiled by Salmasius nugae fabulae Rabbinicae is not at all mentioned by Josephus Defens Reg. c. 2. p. 49. or any good Historian and also brings in the Angel Gabriel to bear a part in it by coming then into the Senate and destroying all the assessors thereof And this story is taken out of the Gemara where the whole Section is evidently vain and frivolous Gemar in Sanhed c. 2. Sect. 1. as amongst other things may appear from the way of its arguing in this matter which I shall presently take notice of Besides this I shall add that so much as hath any truth in this relation is very probably a kind of fabulous representation of the former instance of Herod under different names and circumstances For both of them are said to be cited upon occasion of some persons being put to death both the stories say that upon their appearance the whole Court whether properly the Sanhedrim or Hyrcanus his Judges called by Josephus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spake not a word against them save only one bold man and that thereupon all the rest besides this man were after put to death And this man is called Sameas or Shammai in the one story and Simeon in the other which I conceive to be one and the same name in a different Dialect Grot. in Mat. 16.17 Drus Praet in Joh. 21.15 Hor. Hebr. in Joh. 11.1 in Luk. 16.20 even as Johannes Johanan and Jonah in likelyhood are the vulgar latin expressing Jonas by Johannes Joh. 21.15 And so are Lazarus and Eleazar and many others whence the Ethiopick Version instead of Lazarus constantly useth Eleazar Luk. 16. and Joh. 11. and that they are one and the same name hath been clearly evinced To which I add submitting these conjectures to the judgments of others that the name of Jannaeus or Jannas might possibly be made use of in this Talmudical relation from the signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both in the Hebrew and Chaldee for one injurious and oppressive 13. How extream vainly they argue in this particular will appear from that noted instance of the Talmud Sanh c. 2. Sect. 2. The Mishneh had declared that the King neither judgeth nor is judged which it manifestly expresseth concerning the Kings of the line of David nor doth it intend to deny them the authority of judging because the same Treatise affirms C. 7. Sect. 3. capital punishments by the sword to be inflicted by the King but that they did not usually in person sit in any Court or Consistory Gemara ubi sup But the Gemara here being a Comment which contradicteth the Text telleth us that this sentence The King doth not judge nor is judged doth not belong to the Kings of the House of David for they did both judge and were judged And the proof it produceth that they were judged is from Jer. 21.12
where bad notions or inclinations get a through entrance they are apt to propagate and are not easily rooted out Thus S Hierome observes Hier. Prooem in lib. 2. Comment ad Galat. that Galatia which too readily embraced corrupt doctrines in the Apostles times notwithstanding S. Pauls Epistle to them continued to be a place prone to Heresy unto his time And the Church of corinth was so apt to fall into Divisions and Schisms that notwithstanding the Apostles severe rebukes of them for that sin they were soon after his Death Clem. Rom. Ep. ad Cor. strangely over-run with it again to the great disparagement of their Christian profession 7. Of the undutiful carriage of the Kirk of Scotland I gave a considerable and known instance in the former Book And that they at Rome do cast high disrespects and create great danger to Princes may be discerned both by the former Book and by the foregoing Section 8. Positions of Fanaticism and Jesuicism disloyal And besides these matters of Jact and practise it hath been manifest that many wild extravagant and disloyal Positions which are dangerous and destructive to Government and humane Society have been asserted by men of a Fanatick strain and temper of some of which I shall have occasion to take more particular notice in the progress of this discourse De Jur. Mag. in Subd qu. 6. Junius Brut. Vind. Qu. 2. Rutherf of Civil Policy Qu. 9 31 32 c. Some of them assert that the people in general may take the Power and Government into their own hands and deprive and punish their governours when they see cause others grant this power only to the persons who are the peoples representatives others fix the same in inferiour Officers with respect to the supreme governour And others have run on so far as to yield this pwoer to the meanest part of the people as was asserted by an Anonymous Scotchman about the time of the Galloway Rebellion that in the right of self defence the concourse of the Nobles or the Primores Regni is no way of absolute necessity 9. And amongst the Papists they who are of the Jesuitical strain do not only embrace those notions of the Popes deposing power to the great prejudice of Soveraign Princes Authority and safety but they also run into the highest strain of Fanaticism in violating the majesty of Kings and subjecting them and their authority to the people De Rege l. 1. c. 6. Thus Mariana when the Prince is accounted by the people to pervert his government alloweth to them the liberty of publick resistance by open War and also the use of Private violence commending the treasonable Murther of Hen. 3. of France by James Clement and allows very man to set himself against such a Prince whom he calls a Tyrant saying Ibid. c. 3. tanquam fera omnium telis peti debet He also such are the wicked and wretched principles of these Jesuits approveth the use in this Case of deceit and fraud yea and of poyson by poysoning his Seat or Cloaths But that we may think there is something of Conscience remaining in such a spirit as this he condemns Ibid. c. 7. and declares against the giving such a person poyson in his meat and drink for this doughty reason because it is saith he against humanity that he should be put upon contributing to his own Death by any act of his own which he would here do by taking this poyson in his food But sure this mans reason was as far from him as Conscience when he wrote these things in his not discerning that there was altogether as much done in contributing to his own death by putting on his poysoned Cloaths 10. â—ess de Just Iure l. 2. c. 9. â—ub 4. Becan de jure Just ad Qu. 64. D. Thom. qu. 4. And Lessius and M. Becanus two other Jesuits in this particular agree almost word for word with one another in asserting these Positions that a Prince who hath a just title becomes a Tyrant with respect to the administration of his Government when he designs in his Government and aims at his private advantage and not the publick good and burdens the common-wealth with unjust exactions sells the offices and places of Judges and makes Laws to his own advantage and not the publick That when this Tyranny is no longer fit to be born this Prince is first to be deposed or to be declared an enemy by the Common-wealth or the chief Estates of the Kingdom or by any other who hath authority and then he thereby ceaseth to be a Prince and it becomes lawful to attempt any thing against his person and life That so long as he remaineth a Prince that is till such acts be done as are now mentioned he may not be killed by private persons unless it be for their necessary self defence And Lessius saith in another place Dubit 8. for the further clearing his sense in this particular that for the necessary defending a mans own life or securing himself from being maimed it is lawful to kill him who sets upon him himself or procures another to do it And this saith he must be owned allowable against any superiours whatsoever even that a Vasal may in this Case kill his King unless it be likely that civil Wars may follow for discord about succession And in such an high strain of treason and Unchristian disloyalty is the Jesuits Casuistical Divinity But against the falshood and wickedness of these assertions it is needful to declare and defend the true and peaceable principles of Reason and Christianity and against the dangerous effects which such positions tend to promote it is necessary that publick laws provide due security for the person of the King to which purpose the general acknowledgment of the unlawfulness of taking up Armes against him The Laws of England condemnall Waragainst the King is of very good use 11. Our English Laws providing for the safety both of King and Subjects and the preservation of their just Rights do declare it universally unlawful to make or levy any War against the King And upon this account it must also be as much against reason and Christianity yea more both because of the greater duty to superiours and the concern of the general good to invade that Right and Royalty which the Law secures to the King as to deny to Subjects that property right and safety which the Law provides for them I confess the consideration of our Law in matters of doubtfulness difficulty or profound disquisition would be an unfit undertaking for my profession and especially for a man of no deeper study in the Law than my self But I am perswaded that if no men had made use of subtil Artifices and designed methods to obscure plain things there would have been no want of evidence even to any ordinary understanding in this particular to direct them to the honest practises
expressed Socr. l. 6. c. 6. by the appearance of an Army of Angels as a Guard about his Palace which so astonished them who were with Gainas that they gave over their attempt Theod. Hist l. 5. c. 24. And when the small Army of Theodosius was engaged against the formidable Forces of Eugenius who rebelled against him the Enemies Darts and Arrows are related to have been forced back upon themselves by the rising of a violent Wind. To these I shall adde that late relation concerning King James Sect. 3 whom when Agnes Sampson had undertaken to kill by Witchcraft Spotsw Hist of SC. B. 6. an 1509. her Familiar Spirit which She employed to effect it came to her and told her it could not perform it adding these words which She did not understand Il est Homme de Dieu He is a Man of God And though all these things deserve consideration the plain Rules of Conscience and Religion give the most full and unexceptionable testimony of the great displeasure of God against all actings of Treason and Sedition SECT III. The practice and sence of the Primitive Church concerning resistance 1. The loyal spirit of the Primitive Christians Above the examples of any other sort of men the spirit of the Primitive Christians deserves to be reverenced and regarded Whilest they lived under Pagan Emperours before the time of Constantine there was no such thing heard of as their undertaking to depose their Kings or Emperours nor no pretence of power in any Christian Bishop to absolve them from their allegiance And I think that for three hundred and forty years after Christ there can be no one instance given of any Christians making any forcible opposition by taking Armes against their Governours Con◠〈…〉 p 115 Origen in his time tells Ceâ—sâ—s that he could shew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—o undertaking of Sedition among Christians who were not allowed to defend themselves against their Persecutors 2. Vnder heavy sufferings Yet the heavy sufferings of the Christians were then very great not only by reason of the several cruel deaths inflicted upon divers of them but also because of the great multitudes who died Martyrs in bearing the Cross and following the patience and meekness of Christ. Of which I shall give three instances from the several parts of the World in the end of the third and beginning of the fourth Centurie Eus Eccl. Hist l. 8. c. 9. Eusebius acquaints us that in the Dioclesian Persecution in Thebais which was none of the greatest Countries of Africa there were not only for some days but for some whole years together sometimes ten or twenty oft thirty other times about sixty and sometimes an hundred with their Wives and Children in one day slain by various Methods of cruel death And he himself had there seen some put to death by fire and others the same day by the Axe even so many that the Executioners were tired out and their Axes blunted Such instances speak the admirable patience hope and obedience of those holy men and the wonderful Power of God that preserved and propagated his Church notwithstanding so great oppositions 3. In Persia Sozomen tells us Sozom. l. 2. c. 10 13. that under Sapores his Reign there were sixteen thousand Martyrs of whom an account could be given by name and that besides them there were so great a multitude who died for the profession of Christ that they were more than could be numbred And in France the Thebaean Legion of almost seven thousand Christians being all armed and valiant men became Martyrs by the cruelty of Maximianus the Emperour when they refused to join in the Pagan worship the Emperour commanded twice that every tenth man should be put to death but after both these executions the remainder persisting in the same resolution were all commanded to be slain But they according to the counsel of Mauritius and Exuperius their Commanders tell the Emperour that they submitted their Bodies to his power that they could never be charged with cowardise or deserting his Wars but in this utmost peril where desperate circumstances might make men more resolute they would not take Armes against him yea said they though we have Armes in our hands we will not use them for resistance Ban. an 297. n. 10 11 12. Grot. de J. B. P. l. 1. c. 4. n. 7. de Imp. c. 3. n. 14. Cent. 4. c. 12. col 1420. tenemus Arma non resistemus This famous Story related by Eucherius and the Martyrology is thence insisted on by Baronius and Grotius as also from Crantzius and others And a like account is given by the Magdeburgenses from P. de Natalibus Simeon Metaphrastes and Vincentius 4. And the chief Guides of the Christian Church who lived under the Arian Princes and Julian the Apostate retained the same spirit and sense of their duty Among other slanders Bar. an 351. n. 34. with which Athanasius was charged he was accused before Constantius Athan. Apolog ad Const of conspiring with and stirring up Magnentius against him But Athanasius not only denyeth the fact and declareth how he had openly prayed for the success of Constantius but he utterly disclaimeth such things as not consistent with Christian Principles affirming that if there was any appearance of any such thing in him he would condemn himself to myriads of deaths And he entreats the Emperour that he would have no such suspicion against the Church as if any right Christian and especially a Bishop would advise or write any such thing And much more is in the same Apology in detestation of resistance though Constantius was an Arian and a Persecutor and Athanasius had in his Reign been ejected from Alexandria 5. Under Julian Naz. Orat. 4. Nazianzen declared that the Christians only arms fortress and defence was their hope in God And when under Valentinian the younger St. Ambr. Orat in Auxent Ambrose was required to yield up his Church to Auxentius he tells his people I shall not leave you willingly if I be compelled I know not how to withstand I can grieve I can weep I can groan aliter nec debeo nec possum resistere by other means I neither ought nor can resist And the language that he and the other sound Christians then used was Rogamus Auguste non pugnamus we ask O Emperour we fight not Id. in Epist 33. aâ— Marcellin and tradere basilicam non possum sed pugnare non debeo I cannot yield up the Church but I ought not to fight The result of all these testimonies is that when the authority laws and rules of Government they lived under did oppose the Christian Profession or the truth and purity of its Doctrine they thought it their duty patiently to suffer and not in opposition to those laws which were then established to take up Armes against their Governors But against the force of this Argument from the