for the governed as heretofore noted even for the necessary preservation of those relations according to that saying If I be a father where is mine honor if I be a Master where is my fear For although a willing and hearty service be most acceptable and onely rewardable as to the doer yet the benefit of others will many times be gained by the deed itself Whereas a known impunity will by example and as it finds hope to attain the like procure common detriment both by neglect of the deed it self and by common invitation to disobedience But if the subject from his own or others experience once find that his obedience in respect of other damages and inforcements in the Princes power is unavoidable he must be supposed even through discreet willingness to submit and then through custom of so doing to arrive at last at a state of natural willingness in obedience it self experience telling us that steadiest loyalty is in such subjects as have been used to greatest subjection and most discontents and rebellions in such Families and Kingdoms where children and subjects have been most free And it will ever be a most certain truth that that obedience which must unavoidably be given will ever in equal things be more ready free and unreluctant then that which may have hopes of avoidance CONCLUSION BUt it is now time to have done having perhaps as much tyred others as my self in these tedious discourses driven so vehemently on to the cure of that evil which while men are men can never enter into a steady thought should be wholly done For when all is said Government will have its faults and when in the rule of nature we see it sometimes come to pass that the stobborness of the matter is such as will not admit of that form which to her policy in general or to the production of some more perfect creature were in particular species necessary but that pestilence murrains mildews c. to the destruction of men beasts and vegitables as also monstruous and imperfect shapes incident to the generation of each race and kind do sometimes happen why should we wonder at ineffectualness herein when besides matter there is a perpetual aversion of will in the governed and alas the while the workmans skill or care in this is too often so to seek that through his default also the malady is increased Since therefore nothing in this life can be to us perfect and without its inconveniences we can only call that Government good which is best and which upon tryal hath fewest and least settled mischiefs as not arising from its form but contingent accidents in its ministration and this is that which I have propounded as the drift of this whole Treatise Yet then again as the many unavoidable diseases of our natural bodies are not at all to discommend or excuse the Physicians care and pains for their mittigation or removal so I hope in this grand disease of the politique Body called Civil War although I cannot attain to a perfect or constant cure yet if the application of those remedies I have proposed shall sometimes cause diversion and sometimes mittigation I shall have comfort in my labours But in this as all things else we must leave the success to God whose work alone it is to still as the raging of the Sea so the madness of the people Even that mad and raging humor of liberty which being blown to a rebellious height by the breath of seditious Oratory as seas by the wind it is none other then if in our natural bodies the allurement of our pallats should tempt us to that food which should bring us to a feavor And as these surfeits seldom come but from such things as are best and then again loathing of that very thing doth follow so in the politique constitution though nothing more necessary and commodious then peace yet nothing more incident to mans fickle nature then in a giddy thirst for variety to grow weary thereof which as a thing bringing Kingdoms and States to their fatal periods no otherwise then bodily surfeits and sicknesses do single persons to their natural deaths shall we say that as they are permitted for the punishment of our sins which we can never want so to this end also And then shall we say that not so much in consideration of ours or our progenitors sins as that the will of God might be made manifest are these things befallen us Shall we say that since none of themselves can be called righteous or good that it may therefore be a reason that wickedness and vice are thus suffered as to the estating us good by comparison and that even again in Government as to the adorning loyalty and other civil vertues disobedience and rebellion is permitted also and to make us thereby more sensible and thankful when peace shall again be restored But be the reasons what they will our duties of obedience and submission being plain enough it is our parts to look to that and to leave these hidden things to God whose judgements are unsearchable and â—is ways past finding out For sure I am that however God for the punishing of a sinful people permit their Princes as he did David in the fact of numbring to fall upon such unwarrantable acts as may bring on their punishments yet can this punishment never warrant any active resistance of his Authority Or be the King not good as David was but such another as Saul was yet since he is our King and the Lords anointed who can without sin lift up their hand against him And why should we be more impatient of enduring those punishments from God that come from the hands of evil Kings then those of pestilence famine or the like that come more immediately from nature since all come from the same hand and to the same end the punishment of our sins And since God owns the giving of them in his anger and the having their hearts in his hand and turning them wheresoever he pleaseth why should we think of resisting one more then another Thus is wicked Pharoahs heart hardned and his subjects the â—gyptians thereby plagued And thus as aforesaid is good Davids heart stirred up to number the people and these people thereupon punished with pestilence And who would have thought a three years famine so long after Sauls death should be the punishment of surviving subjects for a past fact of zeal done by a King so long dead Or that the house of Jehu and his people by consequent should be threatned with Gods punishment for the execution of that his justice upon the house of Ahab three hundred years after the fact done when as yet the very fact it self was so plainly appointed and warranted by divine authority In which examples of Kings sins being made causes of punishing peoples sins with plagues pestilence famine civil war or the like I would know if resisting of Kings had not been resisting of God or
unto me seventy men of the Elders of Israel whom thou knowest to be Elders of the people c. and I will come down and talk with thee and will take of the spirit which is upon thee and will put it upon them and they shall bear the burthen of the people with thee that thou bear it not thy self alone Which places plainly shew that although God at Moses suit did give others power to bear part of the burthen yet is their manner of constitution so ordered as to minde them of subordination to the Monarch and again there is nothing of popular consent herein All which would be well considered by such as are so credulous of the soveraign power of the Sanhedrim This delegation of power from God to Kings was usually conferred under the name of Unction for so saith Samuel in annointing Saul is it not because the Lord hath annointed thee to be Captain over his inheritance plainly implying the power and office to be conferred with the unction and that also as coming from God the Lord hath annointed thee And therefore under this incommunicable and sacred title of Gods anointed their protection is again by God more expresly owned then of other persons This unction or mark of power is in the first place due and proper to Christ thereupon called the Christ or the annointed of God Hereupon all the kingdoms of the earth are our Lords and he also is King of kings and Lord of lords and prince of the Kings of the earth Moreover he being the eternal wisdom of his father by and under him it is that kings raign and princes decree justice nay the very heathen are his inheritance and the utmost ends of the earth his possession And as in acknowledgement of derivation of office and power from Christ Kings as anointed under him do waer his cross on their Crowns so by vertue of this Unction as by a kinde of Sacrament it is that their persons have ever been held so sacred that none have ever yet found out a way or dared to practice the annihilation of the stile it self of King more then that of Father from the same persons that were really so as in other officers set up by humane authority is usually done by way of degradation The which amongst Christians hath been chiefly confirmed by the example of Davids usage towards Saul and Ishbosheth both of them his open and professed enemies Against the first of which although there might be high faults objected and that against God also who did thereupon by Samuel make so much known of his will of rejecting him that the people could not be ignorant thereof yet because they wanted express warrant from God to be actors therein as Jehu had they durst not presume to lift up their hands against the Lords annointed Nay David himself durst not do it although his advantage by his overthrow and his oportunity to do it were most apparant and who also had as high provocations from Saul as might have tempted any ordinary humor of revenge and had farther beyond the pretence of any ordinary subject or any order of them as great a presumption of insubjection as could be because of his own Unction by Gods appointment and from his knowdledge of Sauls rejection Yet he in proof of derivation of kingly Power from God only findes nothing but express authority from that God that hath set them up to be warrantable for the pulling them down they were the Lords anointed not the peoples It was therefore his part and much more is it the part of others now to permit that powerful hand that brought this rod upon them to have liberty to remove it in a way and time of his own For how can they do it as subjects and from whence should they derive insubjection If then they be Gods anointed the rightful power to govern accordingly must be therewith conferred or else the Unction were vaine and in a mockery of God If the politick corporation confer the power let the charter and seal of Office that speaks it be produced let us see the hands and seals of those that conferred this power as also their Commissions and authorities for so doing that we may be satisfied with the just derivation thereof But now as donations and assignations of humane interests use to pass and be conferred from one party to another by such like wayes of conveyance and none else so this passing by anointing it must shew it to be confessedly of a different nature But to give a cleerer light to the comprehension and distinction of Divine Right and Authority in these things we shall here take leave a little to digress As to deny God Almighty to be the prime and supreme cause of all things and of those vertues and abilities whereby each thing is effected is perfect Atheism so on the other hand to submit and fasten on him as immediate Agent those operations which by the ordinary course of his Providence he hath appointed to be the productions of natural causes doth as strongly argue ignorance but if in those effects and productions which may to our sense be observed to come to pass by the interposition of such second Agents as neither by any naturalness in themselves nor observation of ours could be reasonably concluded the causes of them in that case again to deny divine power and ascribe to Nature and second Agents what is above their reach is both Athiesm and folly too To ascribe the hardening of the Clay to God Almighty and not to the Sun or Fire is to be foolishly derogatory to him even as it is also to deny him to be the cause of that heat and vertue in the Sun or Fire whereby it came to pass And no less then so it is to ascribe to the vertue of the Clay that Cure which our Saviour wrought on the blinde man for neither any known naturalness in that Agent nor observation of the like elswhere could reasonably warrant such presumption therein As thus in Inanimates and the general course of Providence there ought to be a discreet distinction made by us in the setting down of what operations are immediately Divine and what Natural so much more in those things which are wrought by Creatures reasonable and where as well the Agent as Patient are voluntary as in Matters of Government and instruction it fareth In which respect since there cannot be any natural Reason or Cause assigned why the will of one should be efficatious to the Government of the will of another as in it self it must follow that that constant course and setled way of so doing must be attributed to Divine Authority only Constant and setled way I say for that there may many humane contrivances be made to introduce temporary subjection and agreement which cannot lay claim to be of divine institution and because again although this Monarchical Government be alone Jure Divino and so onely
him imparted shall in them spring up like tender grass in their earthly administrations And then he foretels the state of Antichristianism to follow and that under the Jewish notion of insubjection and Rebellion viz. Sons of Belial or men without yoak but the sons of Belial shall be all of them as thorns thrust away because they cannot be taken with hands That is because they cannot be kept under by Laws but as Thornes have been troublesom to others and been ready to raise civil flames of dissention therefore as Thornes they shall be burnt or thrust away But the man that shall touch them must be fenced with Iron and the staffe of a spear That is as he that will meddle with cutting down of Thorns must have his person defended against their pricking as it were with Iron and also must have a staffe or fork to manage them with and not his bare hands so prudence must direct Christian Princes to have in readiness Davids Chelethites and Pelethites and the assistance of their Militia typified under Iron and a spear and then they shall be utterly burnt with fire in the same place that is these Thornes of rebellion shall be consumed That Christ and the Christian Kings were in these Promises meant appears yet more fully by that Promise which God makes of the prosperity of his people at the same time which could not have likelihood of accomplishment in the Jews Moreover I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will place them that they may dwell in a place of their own and move no more neither shall the Children of wickedness afflict them any more as before time Which Promise was not made good to the Israelites whom the Assyrian and other Nations did so many times afflict and whom the Romans did utterly subdue and remove but was made good after the time of Christian Kingship in that this Christian Church was ever more glorious and strong then to be oppressed by her enemies And so David himself farther instructs us acknowledging these things spoken of his house for a great while to come In this fore-recited Prophesie and those whereto it alludes it is farther observable that as it is the first that speaks particularly and largely of the perpetuity and glory of the Church so doth it also of the kingship that should be therein coupling them so together as to make it apparent that as the glory of a Church and Nation doth arise by Gods vouchsafeing to own them and by having a place amongst them so this owning them and this place is still accompanyed with the Promise of kingship nay made subsequent thereunto For so we finde that while Moses is directing the people to go with their hard controversies or appeals from the ordinary Judges unto the Iudge that shall be in those days meaning that future Government of kings which immediately follows in the same chapter he appoints them to go up unto the place which the Lord their God should choose Shewing to us that when God would have his Church most eminent by having a chief and eminent place amongst them he will also have one most eminent Officer to be his servant in establishment thereof who may also more gloriously represent him therein All which as it appears in the examples of David and Solomon so doth the words of Solomon cleerly manifest it shewing That God chose no City out of all Israel to build an house for his name before he chose David to be over his people And therefore because the good intention of Davids heart to build Gods house could not be performed by him God promiseth to raise up to him a son that should come forth of his loyns and that he should build this house to his Name Which son of his we cannot think otherwise of then as having his kingdom purposely made glorious and established for the encrease of Gods glory by this work And therefore it was not a work which God required to be done by any of the former Iudges but the height and glory belonging to each Church and Nation is to be accomplished under the most glorious instrument And by having this future regard to things we may finde those Gospel promises of restitution or reward which could not in kinde be made good to the Primitive persecuted Church and the oppressed Christians therein to be made good to the Catholike Church and the generality of Christians under the protection of Christian Kings since Namely that in comparison of those former losses the Church hath since been rewarded both in respect of increase of possession and degree of continuance with an hundred fold now in this time of houses and brethren and sisters and mothers and children and lands c. Whereupon we may make the whole issue and interpretation of this forementioned Promise to be that Christ typified in David is represented as desirous out of his zeal to Gods house to be as active and forward as he can for advancing of Gods own glory and also for the promotion of his Churches happiness represented under the figure of the Jewish Temple But because he in regard of those Victories he was to make over sin and death was in his own person disabled to perform it even as David was for the wars which were about him on every side until the Lord had put them under the soles of his feet therefore is he by God the Father Promised in the person of David When thy days shall be fulfilled and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers that is when thou shalt have accomplished the days of thy flesh and by being seated at the right hand of thy Father shalt have thy foes made thy footstool then shall God make good the word he had spoken concerning him and his house to establish it for ever That is in accomplishing the glory of the Church under his adopted sons the Christian Emperors and Monarchs as the glory of the Jewish Church and Temple was setled under Solomon and not under David By which words for ever we are also to understand Christian kingship to be promised to last till the worlds end notwithstanding all opposition as we may finde them typified under Solomon the Kings son in the seventy second Psalm where the flourishing estate and increase of the Church is foretold to continue to the glory of Christs name by reason of these that held their Crowns of him His Name shall endure for ever his Name shall be continued as long as the Sun and men shall be blessed in him all Nations shall call him blessed That is each Christian Monarch from him anointed shall be as a Son to continue his Fathers Name for ever meaning so long as the Sun and Moon shall endure For if this Psalm had intended the setting forth of the continuance of Christs own Name as the second person in the Trinity and not in relation to his