people had wash'd off that anointing of his whether Sacred or Civil with the Blood of his own Subjects I confess that those Kings whom God by his Prophets anointed to be Kings or appointed to some special service as he did Cyrus Isa 44. may not improperly be called the Lord 's Anointed but all other Princes according to the several ways of their coming to the Government are the People 's Anointed or the Army's or many times the Anointed of their own Faction only But taking it for granted That all Kings are God's Anointed you can never prove That therefore they are above all Laws and not to be called in question what Villanies soever they commit What if David laid a charge upon himself and other private persons not to stretch forth their hands against the Lord 's Anointed Does not God himself command Princes not so much as to touch his anointed Which were no other than his people Psal 105. He preferred that Anointing wherewith his People were Anointed before that of Kings if any such thing were Would any man offer to infer from this place of the Psalmist That Believers are not to be called in question tho they offend against the Laws because God commands Princes not to touch his Anointed King Solomon was about to put to death Abiathar the Priest tho he were God's Anointed too and did not spare him because of his Anointing but because he had been his Father's Friend If that Sacred and Civil Anointing wherewith the High-Priest of the Jews was anointed whereby he was not only constituted High-Priest but a Temporal Magistrate in many cases did not exempt him from the Penalty of the Laws how comes a Civil Anointing only to exempt a Tyrant But you say Saul was a Tyrant and worthy of death What then It does not follow that because he deserved it that David in the circumstances he was then under had power to put him to death without the People's Authority or the command of the Magistracy But was Saul a Tyrant I wish you would say so indeed you do so though you had said before in your Second Book page 32. That he was no Tyrant but a good King and chosen of God Why should false Accusers and Men guilty of Forgery be branded and you escape without the like ignominious Mark For they practice their Villanies with less Treachery and Deceit than you write and Treat of matters of the greatest moment Saul was a good King when it serv'd your turn to have him so and now he 's a Tyrant because it suits with your present purpose But 't is no wonder that you make a Tyrant of a good King for your Principles look as if they were invented for no other design than to make all good Kings so But yet David tho he would not put to Death his Father-in-Law for Causes and Reasons that we have nothing to do withal yet in his own Defence he raised an Army took and possessed Cities that belong'd to Saul and would have defended Kâ—ilah against the King's Forces had he not understood that the Citizens would be false to him Suppose Saul had besieged the Town and himself had been the first that had scal'd the Walls do you think David would presently have thrown down his Arms and have betray'd all those that assisted him to his anointed Enemy I believe not What reason have we to think David would have stuck to do what we have done who when his Occasions and Circumstances so required proffered his Assistance to the Philistines who were then the professed Enemies of his Country and did that against Saul which I am sure we should never have done against our Tyrant I 'm weary of mentioning your Lies and asham'd of them You say t is a Maxim of the English That Enemies are rather to be spared than Friends and that therefore we conceived we ought not to spare our King's Life because he had been our Friend You impudent Lyar what Mortal ever heard this Whimsy before you invented it But we 'll excuse it You could not bring in that thread-bare Flourish of our being more fierce than our own Mastiffs which now comes in the fifth time and will as oft again before we come to the end of your Book without some such Introduction We are not so much more fierce than our own Mastiffs as you are more hungry than any Dog whasoever who return so greedily to what you have vomitted up so often Then you tell us That David commanded the Amalekite to be put to Death who pretended to haveÌ„ killed Saul But that Instance neither in respect of the Fact nor the Person has any Affinity with what we are discoursing of I do not well understand what cause David had to be so severe up-upon that Man for pretending to have hastned the King's Death and in effect but to have put him out of his pain when he was dying unless it were to take away from the Israelites all Suspicion of his own having been instrumental in it whom they might look upon as one that had revolted to the Philistines and was part of their Army Just such another Action as this of David's do all Men blame in Domitian who put to Death Epaphroditus because he had helped Nero to kill himself After all this as another instance of your Impudence you call him not only the anointed of the Lord but the Lord 's Christ who a little before you had said was a Tyrant and acted by the impulse of some Evil Spirit Such mean thoughts you have of that Reverend Name that you are not asham'd to give it to a Tyrant whom you your self confess to have been possessed with the Devil Now I come to that President from which every Man that is not blind must needs infer the Right of the People to be Superior to that of Kings When Solomon was dead the People Assembled themselves at Sichem to make Rehoboam King Thither himself went as one that stood for the place that he might not seem to claim the Succession as his Inheritance the same Right over a freeborn People that every Man has over his Fathers Sheep and Oxen. The People propose Conditions upon which they were willing to admit him to the Government He desires three days time to advise he consults with the old Men they tell him no such thing as that he had an absolute Right to succeed but persuade him to comply with the People and speak them fair it being in their Power whether he should Reign or not Then he adviseth with the young Men that were brought up-with him they as if Salmasius's Phrensy had taken them thunder this Right of Kings into his Ears persuade him to threaten the People with Whips and Scorpions And he answered the People as they advised him When all Israel saw that the King hearkned not to them then they openly protest the Right of the People and their own Liberty What portion have we in David To thy
the nature of the thing it self So that whether you make the world of your mind or no your Doctrine must needs be mischievous and destructive and such as cannot but be abhorred of all Princes For if you should work men into a perswasion that the Right of Kings is without all bounds they would no longer be subject to a Kingly Government if you miss of your aim yet you make men weary of Kings by telling them that they assume such a power to themselves as of right belonging to them But if Princes will allow of those Principles that I assert if they will suffer themselves and their own power to be circumscribed by Laws instead of an uncertain weak and violent Government full of cares and fears they will reign peaceably quietly and securely If they slight this counsel of mine though wholsome in its self because of the meanness of the Author they shall know that it is not my counsel only but what was anciently advised by one of the wisest of Kings For Lycurgus King of Lacedemon when he observed that his own Relations that were Princes of Argos and Messana by endeavouring to introduce an Arbitrary Government had ruin'd themselves and their people he that he might benefit his Countrey and secure the Succession to his own Family could think upon no better expedient than to communicate his Power to the Senate and taking the great men of the Realm into part of the Government with himself and by this means the Crown continued in his Family for many ages But whether it was Lycurgus or as some learned men are of opinion Theopompus that introduced that mixt form of Government among the Lacedemonians somewhat more than a hundred years after Lycurgus his time of whom it is recorded That he used to boast that by advancing the Power of the Senate above that of the Prince he had setled the Kingdom upon a sure Foundation and was like to leave it in a lasting and durable condition to his Posterity which of them soever it was I say he has left a good Example to Modern Princes and was as creditable a Councellor as his Counsel was safe For that all men should submit to any one man so as to acknowledge a Power in him superior to all humane Laws neither did any Law ever Enact nor indeed was it possible that any such Law should ever be for that cannot be said to be a Law that strikes at the root of all Laws and takes them quite away It being apparent that your Positions are inconsistent with the nature of all Laws being such as render them no Laws at all You endeavour notwithstanding in this Fourth Chapter to make good by Examples what you have not yet been able to do by any Reasons that you have alledged as yet Let 's consider whether your Examples help your Cause for they many times make things plain which the Laws are either altogether silent in or do but hint at We 'll begin first with the Jews whom we suppose to have known most of the mind of God and then according to your own method we 'll come to the times of Christianity And first for those times in which the Israelites being subject to Kings who or howsoever they were did their utmost to cast that flavish yoke from off their necks Eglon the King of Moab had made a Conquest of them the Seat of his Empire was at Jericho he was no contemner of the True God when his Name was mentioned he rose from his Seat The Israelites had served him Eighteen Years they sent a present to him not as to an Enemy but to their own Prince notwithstanding which outward Veneration and Profession of Subjection they kill him by a wile as an Enemy to their Countrey You 'l say perhaps that Ehud who did that action had a Warrant from God for so doing He had so 't is like and what greater Argument of its being a warrantable and praise-worthy action God useth not to put men upon things that are unjust treacherous and cruel but upon such things as are virtuous and laudable But we read no where that there was any positive Command from Heaven in the case The Israelites called upon God So did we And God stirred up a Saviour for them so he did for us Eglon of a Neighbouring Prince became a Prince of the Jews of an Enemy to them he became their King Our Gentleman of an English King became an Enemy to the English Nation so that he ceas'd to be a King Those Capacities are inconsistent No man can be a Member of a State and an Enemy to it at the same time Antony was never lookt upon by the Romans as a Consul nor Nero as an Emperor after the Senate had voted them both Enemies This Cicero tells us in his Fourth Philippick If Antony be a Consul says he Brutus is an Enemy but if Brutus be a Saviour and Preserver of the Commonwealth Antony is an Enemy none but robbers count him a Consul By the same reason say I who but Enemies to their Countrey look upon a Tyrant as a King So that Eglon's being a Foreigner and King Charles a Prince of our own will make no difference in the case both being Enemies and both Tyrants they are in the same circumstances If Ehud kill'd him justly we have done so too in putting our King to Death Sampson that Renowned Champion of the Hebrews tho his Countrey-men blam'd him for it Dost thou not know say they that the Philistines have dominion over us yet against those Philistines under whose Dominion he was he himself undertook a War in his own person without any other help and whether he acted in pursuance of a Command from Heaven or was prompted by his own Valour only or whatever inducement soever he had he did not put to death one but many that tyranized over his Countrey having first called upon God by Prayer and implored his Assistance So that Sampson counted it no act of Impiety but quite contrary to kill those that enslaved his Countrey ' tho they had dominion over himself too and tho the greater part of his Countrey-men submitted to their Tyranny But yet David who was both a King and a Prophet would not take away Saul's life because he was God's Anointed Does it follow that because David refused to do a thing therefore we are obliged not to do that very thing David was a private person and would not kill the King is that a president for a Parliament for a whole Nation David would not revenge his own quarrel by putting his Enemy to death by stealth does it follow that therefore the Magistrates must not punish a Malefactor according to Law He would not kill a King must not an Assembly of the States therefore punish a Tyrant He scrupled the killing of God's Anointed must the People therefore scruple to condemn their own Anointed Especially one that after having so long professed Hostility against his own
are in most Courts 2 Sam. 12. Thou hast done this thing in secret Besides what if the Senate should neglect to punish private persons would any infer that therefore they ought not to be punish'd at all But the reason why David was not proceeded against as a malefactor is not much in the dark He had condemn'd himself in the 5th verse The man that hath done this thing shall surely die To which the Prophet presently replies Thou art the man So that in the Prophet's judgment as well as his own he was worthy of death but God by his Soveraign Right over all things and of his great mercy to David absolves him from the guilt of his Sin and the sentence of death which he had pronounc'd against himself verse 13th The Lord hath put away thy sin thou shalt not die The next thing you do is to rail at some bloody Advocate or other and you take a deal of pains to refute the conclusion of his Discourse Let him look to that I 'le endeavour to be as short as I can in what I 'ue undertaken to go through with But some things I must not pass by without taking notice of as first and formost your notorious contradictions for in the 30th Page you say The Israelites do not deprecate an unjust rapacious Tyrannical King one as bad as the worst of Kings are And yet page 42 you are very smart upon your Advocate for maintaining that the Israelites asked for a Tyrant Would they have leaped out of the Frying-pan into the fire say you and grâ—an under the cruelty of the worst of Tyrants rather than live under bad Judges especially being us'd to such a form of Government First you said the Hebrews would rather live under Tyrants than Judges here you say they would rather live under Judges than Tyrants and that they desir'd nothing less than a Tyrant So that your Advocate may answer you out of your own Book For according to your Principles 't is every King's right to be a Tyrant What you say next is very true The Supreme Power was then in the people which appears by their own rejecting their Judges and making choice of a Kingly Government Remember this when I shall have occasion to make use of it You say that God gave the children of Israel a King as a thing good and profitable for them and deny that he gave them one in his anger as a punishment for their sin But that will receive an easie answer for to what purpose should they cry to God because of the King that they had chosen if it were not because a Kingly Government is an evil thing not in it self but because it most commonly does as Samuel forewarns the people that theirs would degenerate into Pride and Tyranny if y' are not yet satisfied hark what you say your self acknowledg your own hand and blush 't is your Apparatus ad Primatum God gave them a King in his anger say you being offended at their sin in rejecting him from ruling over them and so the Christian Church as a punishment for it's forsaking the pure Worship of God has been subjected to the more than Kingly Government of one mortal head So that if your own comparison holds either God gave the Children of Israel a King as an evil thing and as a punishment or he has set up the Pope for the good of the Church Was there ever any thing more and light mad than this man is Who would trust him in the smallest matters that in things of so great concern says and unsays without any consideration in the world You tell us in your 29th Page That by the constitution of all Nations Kings are bound by no Law That this had been the judgment both of the Eastern and Western part of the VVorld And yet pag. 43. you say That all the Kings of the East ruled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to Law nay that the very Kings of Egypt in all matters whatsoever whether great or small were tied to Laws Though in the beginning of this Chapter you had undertook to demonstrate that Kings are bound by no Laws that they give Laws to others but have none prescribed to themselves For my part I 've no reason to be angry with ye for either y' are mad or of our side You do not defend the King's cause but arguë against him and play the fool with him Or if y' are in earnest that Epigram of Catullus Tantò pessimus omnium Poeta Quantò tu optimus omnium Patronus The worst of Poets I my self declare By how much you the best of Patrons are That Epigram I say may be turn'd and very properly applied to you for there never was so good a Poet as you are a bad Patron Unless that stupidity that you complain your Advocate is immers'd over head and ears in has blinded the eyes of your own understanding too I 'le make ye now sensible that y' are become a very brute your self For now you come and confess that the Kings of all Nations have Laws prescribed to them But then you say again They are not so under the power of them as to be liable to censure or punishment of death if they break them Which yet you have proved neither from Scripture nor from any good Authour Observe then in short to prescribe Municipal Laws to such as are not bound by them is silly and ridiculous and to punish all others but leave some one man at liberty to commit all sort of Impieties without fear of punishment is most unjust the Law being general and not making any exception neither of which can be suppos'd to hold place in the Constitutions of any wise Law-maker much less in those of God's own making But that all may perceive how unable you are to prove out of the writings of the Jews what you undertook in this Chapter to make appear by 'em you confess of your own accord That there are some Rabbins who affirm that their fore fathers ought not to have had any other King than God himself and that he set other Kings over them for their punishment And of those men's opinion I declare my self to be It is not fitting nor decent that any man should be a King that does not far excel all his Subjects But where men are Equals as in all Governments very many are they ought to have an equal interest in the Government and hold it by turns But that all Men should be Slaves to one that is their Equal or as it happens most commonly far inferior to 'em and very often a Fool who can so much as entertain such a thought without Indignation Nor does it make for the Honour of a Kingly Government that our Saviour was of the posterity of some Kings more than it does for the commendation of the worst of Kings that he was the Offspring of some of them too The Messias is a King We acknowledg him so to be and