all Kings because Kings are men according to Gods heart Why is not royalty then founded on grace Nebuchadnezer was not otherwise his servant then he was the hammer of the earth and a tyrannous conquerour of the Lords people and all the Heathen Kings are called Kings But how came they to their Thrones for the most part as David and Hezekiah but God anointed them not by his Prophets they came to their Kingdomes by the peoples election or by blood and rapine the latter way is no ground to you to deny Athaliah to be a lawfull Princesse she and Abimâ—lech were lawfull Princes and their soveraignty as immediatly and independently from God as the soveraignty of many heathen Kings See then how justly Athaliah was killed as a bloody usurper of the throne this would licence your brethren the Iesuites to stab heathen Kings whom you will have as well Kings 〈◊〉 the Lords anointed though Nebuchadnezer many of them made their way to the Throne against all Law of God and man through a bloudy patent 4. Cyrus is Gods anointed and his Shepheard too ergo his Arbitrary government is a soveraignty immediatly depending on God â—nd above all Law it is a wicked consequence 5. God named him neare a hundreth yeare ere he was borne God named and designed Judas very individually and named the Asse that Christ should ride on to Ierusalem Zach. 9.9 some moe hundred yeares then one What will the Prelate make them independent Kings for that 6. God giveth Kingdomes to whom he will What then this will prove Kingdomes to be as independent and immediatly from God as Kings are for as God giveth Kings to Kingdomes so he giveth Kingdomes to Kings and no doubt he giveth Kingdoms to whom he will so he giveth Prophets Apostles Pastors to whom he will and he giveth tyrannous conquests to whom he will and it is Nebuchadnezer to whom Daniel speaketh that from the Lord and he had no just title to many Kingdomes especially to the Kingdome of Iudah which yet God the King of Kings gave to him because it was his good pleasure and if God had not commanded them by the mouth of his Prophet Ieremiah might they not have risen and with the sword have vindicated themselves and their own liberty no lesse then they lawfully by the sword vindicated themselves from under Moab Iudges 3. from under Iabin Iaakin King of Canaan who twenty yeares mightily oppressed the children of Israel Iudges 4. now this P. Prelate by all these instances making Heathen Kings to be Kings by as good a title as David and Hezekiah condemneth the people of God as rebells if being subdued and conquered by the Turke and Spanish King they should by the sword recover their owne liberty and that Israel and the saviours which God raised to them had not warrant from the law of nature to vindicate themselves to liberty which was taken from them violently and unjustly by the sword but from all this it shall well follow that the tyranny of bloudy conquerours is immediatly and only dependent from God no lesse then lawfull soveraignty for Nebuchadnezers soveraignty over the people of God and many other Kingdomes also was revenged of God as tyranny Ier. 50.6.7 and therefore the vengeance of the Lord and the vengeance of his Temple came upon him and his land Ier. 50.16 17.18.28 29.30 It is true the people of God were commanded of God to submit to the King of Babylon to serve him and to pray for him and to doe on the contrary was rebellion but this was not because the King of Babylon was their King and because the King of Babylon had a command of God so to bring under his yoak the people of God So Christ had a Commandement to suffer the death of the Crosse Iohn 10.18 but had Herod and Pilate any warrant to crucifie him none at all 7. He saith Royalties even of Heathen Kings are not disposed of by the composed Contracts of men but by the immediate hand and worke of God But the Contracts of men to give a Kingdome to a person which a Heathen community may lawfully doe and so by contract dispose of a Kingdom is not opposite to the immediate hand of God appointing Royalty and Monarchy at his owne blessed liberty Lastly he saith God tooke away Saul in his wrath but I pray you did God onely doe it then had Saul because a King a Patent Royall from God to kill himselfe for so God tooke him away and we are rebells by this if we suffer not the King to kill himselfe Well pleaded QUEST VI. Whether the King be so from God onely both in regard of his Soveraignty and of the designation of his person to the Crown as that he is no waies from the people but by meere approbation Dr. Ferne a man much for Monarchy saith Though Monarchy hath its excellency being first set up of God in Moses yet neither Monarchy Aristocracy nor any other forme is jure divino but we say saith he the power it selfe or that sufficiency of authority to governe that is in a Monarchy or Aristocracy abstractly considered from the qualification of other formes is a flux and constitution subordinate to that providence an ordinance of that Dixi or silent word by which the world was made and shall be governed under God This is a great debasing of the Lords anoynted for so soveraignty hath no warrant in Gods Word formally as it is such a government but is in the world by providence as sin is and as the falling of a Sparrow to the ground whereas Gods Word hath not onely commanded that government should be but that fathers and mothers should be 2. and not only that politick Rulers should be but also Kings by name and other Iudges Aristocraticall should be Rom. 13.3 Deut. 17.14 1 Pet. 2.17 Prov. 24.21 Prov. 15.16.3 If the power of Monarchy and Aristocracy abstracted from the formes be from God then it is no more lawfull to resist Aristocraticall Government and our Lords of Parliament or Iudges then it is lawfull to resist Kings But heare the Prelates reasons to prove that the King is from the people by approbation only P. Prelate The people Deut. 17. is said to set a King over them only as 1 Cor. 6. The Saints are said to judge the world that is by consenting to Christs Iudgement So the people doe not make a King by transferring on him soveraignty but by accepting acknowledging reverencing him as King whom God hath both constituted and designed King Answ. This is said but not a word proved for the Queen of Sheba and Hiram acknowledged reverenced and obeyed Solomon as King and yet they made him not King as the Princes of Israell did 2. Reverence and obedience of the people is relative to the Kings lawes but the peoples making of a King is not relative to the laws of a King for then he should be a King giving laws and
constitution is onely by a surrender of the native right that every one had in himself from whence then can this majestie and authoritie be derived Again where the obligation amongst equals is by contract and compact violation of the faith plighted in the contract cannot in proper termes be called disobedience or contempt of authoritie it is no more but a receding from and a violation of that which was promised as it may be in States or Counties confederate Nature reason conscience scripture teach That disobedience to Soveraign power is not onely a violation of Truth breach of Covenant but also high disobedience and contempt as is clear 1 Sam. 10.26 So when Saul Chap. 11. sent a yoak of Oxen hewed in pieces to all the Tribes the fear of the Lord fell on the people and they came out with one consent 1 Sam. 11.17 so Job 11.18 He looseth the bonds of Kings that is he looseth their authoritie and bringeth them in contempt and he girdeth there loyns with a girdle that is he strengthneth their authoritie and maketh the people to reverence them Heathens observe that there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some divine thing in Kings Prophane Histories say that this was so eminent in Alexander the great that it was a terrour to his enemies and a powerfull Loadstone to draw men to compose the most seditious Counsels and cause his most experienced Commanders embrace and obey his counsel and command Some stories write that upon some great exigence there was some resplendent majesti◠in the eyes of Scipio This kept Pharaoh from lifting his hand against Moses who charged him so boldly with his sins When Moses did speak with God face to face in the Mount this resplendent glory of Majestie so awed the people that they durst not behold his glory Exod. 34. This repressed the fury of the people enraged against Gideon from destroying their idol Judg. 6. And the fear of man is naturally upon all living creatures below Gen. 9. So what can this reverence which is innate in the hearts of all subjects toward their Soveraigns be but the Ordinance unrepealable of God and the naturall effect of that majestie of Princes with which they are endowed with from above Ans. 1. I never heard any shadow of reason while now and yet because the lie hath a latitude here is but a shadow which the Prelate stole from M. Antonius de Dominis Archiepisc. Spalatensis and I may say confidently this Plagiarius hath not one line in his booke which is not stollen and for the present Spalato his argument is but spilt and the nerves cut from it while it is both bleeding and lamed Let the Reader compare them and I pawn my credit he hath ignorantly clipped Spalato But I answer 1. Soveraigntie is a beam and ray as Spalato saith of divine majestie and is not either formally or virtually in the people So he It is false that it is not virtually in the people for there be two things in the Iudge either inferior or supream for the argument holdeth in the majestie of a Parliament as we shall hear 1. The gift or grace of Governing the Arminian Prelate will offend at this 2. The Authority of governing 1. The gift is supernaturall and is not in man naturally and so not in the King for he is physically but a mortall man and this is a gift received for Salomon asked it by prayer from God There is a capacitie passive in all individuall men for it as for the officiall authoritie it self it is virtually in all in whom any of Gods image is remaining since the fall as is clear as may be gathered from Gen. 1.28 yea the Father the Master the Judge have it by Gods institution in some measure over son servant and subject though it be more in the supreme Ruler and for our purpose it is not requisite that authoritative majestie should be in all What is in the Father and Husband I hope to clear I mean it needeth not to be formally in all and so all are born alike and equall But he who is a Papist a Socinian an Arminian and therefore delivered to Satan by his mother Church must be the Sectarie for we are where this Prelate left us maintainers of the Protestant Religion continued in the Confession of Faith and Nationall Covenant of Scotland when this Demas forsook us and embraced the World 2. Though not on single man in Israel be a Judge or King by nature nor have in them formally any ray of Royaltie or of Magistraticall Authoritie yet it followeth not that Israel Parliamentarily convened hath no such authoritie as to make Saul King in Mizpah and David King in Hebron 1 Sam. 10.24 25. 1 Chro. 11.1 2. Chap. 12.38 39. One man alone hath not the Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven as the Prelate dreameth But it followeth not that many convened in a Church way hath not this power Matth. 18.17 1 Cor. 5.1 2 3 4. One man hath not strength to fight against an Army of ten thousand doth it follow Ergo An Army of twenty thousand hath not strength to fight against these ten thousand So one Paul cannot Synodically determine the question Acts 15. It followeth not Ergo The Apostles and Elders and Brethren convened from divers Churches hath not power to determine it in a lawfull Synod And therefore from a disjoyned and scattered power no man can argue to a united power So not any one man is an inferiour Ruler or hath the rayes and beams of a number of Aristocraticall Rulers but it followeth not Ergo All these men combined in a Citie or Societie have not power in a joynt Politicall body to chose Inferiour or Aristocraticall Rulers 3. The P. Prelates reason is nothing All the Contribution saith he in the compact body to make a King is onely by a surrender of the native right of every single man the whole being onely a voluntary constitution How then can there be any majestie derived from them I answer Very well For the surrender is so voluntary that it is also naturall and founded on the Law of nature That men must have Governours either many or one supreme Ruler And it is voluntary and dependeth on a positive institution of God Whether the Government be by one supreme Ruler as in a Monarchie or in many as in an Aristocracie according as the necessitie and temper of the Common-wealth do most require This Constitution is so voluntary as it hath below it the Law of nature for its generall foundation and above it the supervenient institution of God ordaining That there should be such Magistrates both Kings and other Iudges because without such all humane societies should be dissolved 4. Individuall persons in creating a Magistrate doth not properly surrender their right which can be called a right for they do but surrender their power of doing violence to these of their fellows in that same Communitie so as they shall not now
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 natura 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 Sâ—lust In Ingurth 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 continuata 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 Godâ— 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. Assert Meere conquest by the sword without the consent of the people is no just title to the Crowne 1. Because the lawfull title that Gods Word holdeth forth to us beside the Lords choosing and calling of a man to the Crowne is the peoples election Deut. 17.15 all that had any lawfull calling to the Crowne in Gods Word as Saul David Solomon c. were called by the people and the first lawfull calling is to us a rule and paterne to all lawfull callings 2. A King as a King and by vertue of his Royall Office is the Father of the Kingdome a Tutor a Defender Protector a Shield a Leader a Shepheard an Husband a Patron a Watchman a Keeper of the people over which he is King and so the Office essentially includeth acts of fatherly affection care love and kindnesse to those over whom he is set so as he who is cloathed with all these relations of love to the people cannot exercise those officiall Acts on a people against their will and by meere violence Can he be a Father and a Guide a Patron to us against our will and by the sole power of the bloudy sword a benefit conferred upon any against their will is no benefit Will he by the awsome dominion of the sword be our father and we unwilling to be his sonnes an head over such as will not be menbers will he guide me as a Father an Husband against my will he cannot come by meere violence to be a Patron a Shield and a defender of me through violence
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 pronounce 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 joarim 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 fiercely 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 power to the Parliament and States and of meere grace convening them So Ferne the Author of Ossorianum p. 69. but this ground is false because the Kings power is fiduciary and put in his hand upon trust and must be ministeriall and borrowed from these who put him in trust and so his power must be lesse and derived from the Parliament but the Parliament hath no power in trust from the King because the time was when the man who is the King had no power and the Parliament had the same power that they now have and now when the King hath received power from them they have the whole power that they had before That is to make Lawes and resigned no power to the King but to execute Lawes and his convening of them is an Act of Royall Duty which he oweth to the Paliament by vertue of his Office and is not an act of grace for an act of grace is an act of free Will and what the King doth of free Will he may not doe and so he may never convene a Parliament But when David Salomon Asa Ezekiah Iehosaphat Achas convened Parliaments they convened Parliaments as Kings and so Ex debito virtute officii out of debt and Royall Obligation and if the King as the King be Lex animata a breathing and living Law the King as King must doe by obligation of Law what he doth as King and not from spontaneous and Arbitrary grace 2. If the Scripture holds forth to us a King in Jsrael and two Princés and Elders who made the King and had power of life and death as we have seene then is there in Israel Monarchy tempered with Aristocracy and if there were Elders and Rulers in every City as the Scripture saith here was also Aristocracy and Democracy And for the warrant of the power of the Estates I appeale to Iurists and to approved Authors Argu. l. aliud 160. § 1. De Iur. Reg. l. 22. Mortuo de fidei l. 11.14 ad Mum. l. 3.1.4 Sigonius De Rep. Iudaeor l. 6. c. 7. Cornelius Bertramo c. 12. Iunius Brutus Vindic. contra Tyran § 2. Author Libelli de jur Magistrat in subd q. 6. Althus Politic. c. 18. Calvin Institut l. 4. c. 20. Pareus Coment in Rom. 13. Pet. Martyr in Lib. Iudic. c. 3. Ioan. Marianus de rege Lib. 1. c. 7. Hottoman de jure Antiq. Regni Gallici l. 1. c. 12. Buchanan De jure Regni apud Scotos Obj. The King after a more noble way representeth the people then the Estates doth for the Princes and Commissioners of Parliament have all their power from the people and the peoples power is concentricated in the King Ans. The Estates taken collectively doe represent the people both in respect of Office and of persons because they stand Iudges for them for many represent many ratione numeri officii better then one doeth The King doth unproperly represent the people though the power for actuall execution of Lawes be more in the King yet a legislative power is more in the
or not from God if it be from God it must be a power against the sixth and seventh Commandment which God gave to David and not to any subject and so David lied when he confessed this sin and this sin cannot be pardoned because it was no sin and Kings because Kings are under no tye of duties of mercy and truth and jâ—stice to their subjects contrary to that which Gods Law requireth of all Judges Deut. 1.15 16 17. and 17.15 16 17 18 19 20. 2 Chro. 19.6 7. Rom. 13.3 4. If this power be from God as it is unrestrainable and unpunishable by the subject it is not from God at all for how can God give a power to do ill that is unpunishable by men and not give that power to do ill it is unconceiveable For in this very thing that God giveth to David a power to murther the innocent with this respect That it shall be punishable by God onely and not by men God must give it as a sinfull power to do ill which must be a power of dispensation to sin and so not to be punished by either God or man which is contrary to his revealed will in his word If such a power as not restrainable by man be from God by way of permission as a power to sin in divels and men is then it is no Royall power nor any Ordinance of God and to resist this power is not to resist the Ordinance of God Argum. 4. That power which maketh the benefit of a King to be no benefit but a judgement of God as a making all the people slaves such as were slaves amongst the Romans and Jews is not to be asserted by any Christian but an absolute power to do ill and to Tyrannize which is supposed to be an essentiall and constitutive of Kings to difference them from all Judges maketh the benefit of a King no benefit but a judgement of God as making all the people slaves That the major may be clear It is evident to have a King is a blessing of God because to have no King is a judgement Judg. 17.6 Every man doth what seemeth good in his own eyes Judg. 18.1 and 19.1 and 21.25 2. So it is a part of Gods good providence to provide a King for his people 1 Sam. 16.1 so 2 Sam. 5.12 And David perceived that the Lord had established him King over Israel and that he had exalted his Kingdom for his people Israels sake 2 Sam. 15.2 3 6. 2 Sam. 18.3 Rom. 13.2 3 4. If the King be a thing good in it self then can he not actu primo be a curse and a judgement and essentially a bondage and slavery to the people also the genuine and intrinsecall end of a King is the good Rom. 13.4 and the good of a quiet a peaceable life in all godlinesse and honesty 1 Tim. 2.2 and he is by Office custos utriusque tabulae whose genuine end is to preserve the law from violence and to defend the subject he is the peoples debtor for all happynesse possible to be procured by Gods sword either in peace or war at home or abroad For the assumption it is evident An absolute and Arbitrary power is a King-law such as Royalists say God gave to Saul 1 Sam. 8.9 11. and 10.25 to play the Tyrant and this power Arbitrary and unlimited above all Laws is that which 1. Is given of God 2. Distinguisheth essentially the Kings of Israel from the Iudge saith Barclay Grotius Arnisaeus 3. A constitutive form of a King therefore it must be actu primo a benefit and a blessing of God but if God hath given any such power absolute to a King as 1. His will must be a law either to do or suffer all the Tyranny and cruelty of a Tyger Leopard or a Nero and a Julian then hath God given actu primo a power to a King as King to inslave the people and flock of God redeemed by the blood of God as the slaves among the Romans and Iews who were so under their masters as their bondage was a plague of God and the lives of the people of God under Pharaoh who compelled them to work in brick and clay 2. Though he cut the throats of the people of God as the Lionnesse Queen Mary did and command an Army of souldiers to come and burn the Cities of the Land and kill man wife and children yet in so doing he doth the part of a King so as you cannot resist him as a man and obey him as a King but must give your necks to him upon this ground because this absolute power of his is ordained of God and there is no power even to kill and destroy the innocent but it is of God so saith Paul Rom. 13. If we beleeve Court-Prophets or rather Lying-Spirits who perswade the King of Britain to make war against his three Dominions Now it is clear that the distinction of bound and free continued in Israel even under the most tyrannous Kings 2 Kings 4.1 yea even when the Iews were captives under Ahasuerus Esther 7.4 And what difference should there be between the people of God under their own Kings and when they were captives under Tyrants serving wood and stone and false gods as was threatned as a curse in the Law Deut. 28 25 36 64 68. If their own Kings by Gods appointment have the same absolute power over them and if he be a Tyrant actu primo that is if he be indued with absolute power and so have power to play the Tyrant then must the people of God be actu primo slaves and under absolute subjection for they are relatives as lord and servant conquerour and captive It is true they say Kings by office are fathers they cannot put forth in action their power to destroy I answer it is their goodnesse of nature that they put not forth in action all their absolute power to destroy which God hath given them as Kings and therefore thanks are due to their goodnesse for that they do not actu secundo play the Tyrant for Royalists teach that by vertue of their office God hath given to them a Royall power to destroy Ergo The Lords people are slaves under them though they deal not with them as slaves but that hindereth not but the people by condition are slaves so many Conquerours of old did deal kindely with these slaves whom they took in war and dealt with them as sons but as Conquerours they had power to sell them to kill them to put them to work in brick and clay so say I here Royall power and a King cannot be a blessing and actu primo a favour of God to the people for the which they are to pray when they want a King that they may have one or to praise God when they have one But a King must be a curse and a judgement if he be such a creature as essentially and in the intention and nature of
Ergo they must have the power of the sword hence upon the same grounds Assert 2. That the King onely hath the power of warre and raising Armies must be but a positive civill Law For 1. by divine right if the inferiour Judges have the sword given to them of God then have they also power of Warre and raising Armies 2. All power of warre that the King hath is cumulative not privative and not distructive but given for the safety of the Kingdome as therefore the King cannot take from one particular man the power of the sword for naturall self-preservation because it is the birth-right of life neither can the King take from a community and Kingdome a power of rising in Armes for their owne defence If an Armie of Turks shall suddenly invade the Land and the Kings consent expresse cannot be had for it is essentially involved in the office of the King as King that all the power of the swoâ—d that he hath be for their safety or if the King should as a man refuse his consent and interdict and discharge the Land to rise in Armes yet they have his Royall consent though they want his personall consent in respect that his office obligeth him to command them to rise in Armes 2. Because no King no Civill power can take away Natures birth-right of self-defence from any man or a community of men 2. Because if a King should sell his Kingdome and invite a bloody Conquerour to come in with an Armie of men to destroy his people impose upon their conscience an Idolatrous Religion they may lawfully rise against that Armie without the Kings consent for though Royalists say they need not come in asinine patience and offer their throats to cut-throats but may flee yet two things hindereth a flight 1. They are obliged by vertue of the first Commandement to re-man and with their sword defend the Cities of the Lord and the King 2 Sam. 10.12 1 Chron. 19.13 for if to defend our Country and children and the Church of God from unjust invaders and cut-throats by the sword be an act of charity that God and the Law of Nature requireth of a people as is evident Prov. 24.11 and if the fift Commandement oblige the Land to defend their aged Parents and young children from these invaders and iâ— the sixt Commandement lay on us the like bond all the Land are to act works of mercy and charity though the King unjustly command the contrary except Royalists say that we are not to performe the duties of the second Table commanded by God if an earthly King forbid us and if we exercise not acts of mercy toward our brethren when their life is in hazard to save them wee are murtherers and so men may murther their neighbour if the King command them so to doe this is like the Court-faith 2. The Kinâ—s power of warres is for the safety of his people if he deny his conseâ—t to their raising of Armes till they be destroyed he playeth the Tyrant not the King and the law of Nature will necessiâ—ate them either to defend themselves seeing slight of all in that case is harder then death else they must be guilty of self-murther Now the Kings commandement of not rising in Armes at best is positive and against the nature of his Office and it â—loweth then from him as from a man and so must be farre inferiour to the naturall Commandement of God which commandeth self-preservation if wee would not be guilty of self-murther and of obeying men rather then God So Althusius Polit. c. 25. n. 9. Halicarnas l. 4. Antiq. Rom. Aristo Pol. l. 3. c. 3. 3. David tooke Goliahs sword and became a Captaine a Captaine to an hoast of armed men in the battaile and fought the battailes of the Lord 1 Sam. 25.28 and this Abigal by the spirit of prophecy as I take it saith ver 29 30 31. 1 Sam. 22.2 1 Chron. 12.1.2.3.17.18.21.22 not onely without Sauls consent but against King Saul as he was a man but not against him as hee was King of Israel 4. If there be no King or the King be minor or an usurper as Athalia be on the Throne the Kingdome may lawfully make war without the King as Iudges cap. 20. The children of Israel foure hundred thousand footemen that drew sword went out to warre against the children of Benjamin Iudah had the power of the sword when Iosiah was but eight yeares old in the beginning of his reigne 2 King 22.1 2. and before Iehoash was crowned King and while he was minor 2 King 11. there were Captaines of hundreds in armes raised by Iehoiada and the people of Iudah to defend the young King It cannot be said that this is more extraordinary then that it is extraordinary for Kings to die and in the interregnum warres in an ordinary providence may fall out in these Kingdoms where Kings goe by election and for Kings to fall to be Minors Captives Tyrannous And I shall be of that opinion that Mr Symmons who holdeth That Royall birth is equivalent to divine unction must also hold that election is not equivalent to divine unction for both election and birth cannot be of the same validity the one being naturall the other a matter of free choise which shall infer that Kings by election are lesse properly and analogically onely Kings and so Saul was not properly a King for he was King by election but I conceive that rather Kings by birth must be lesse properly Kings because the first King by Gods institution being the mould of all the rest was by election Deut. 17.18.19.20 5. If the estates create the King and make this man King not this man as is clear Deut. 17.18 and 2 Chron. 5.1 2 3 4. they give to him the power of the Sword and the power of War and the Militia and I shall judge it strange and reasonlesse that the power given to the King by the Parliament or estates of a free Kingdom such as Scotland as acknowledged to be by all should create regulate limit abridge yea and anull that power that created it self hath God ordained a Parliamentary power to create a Royal power of the sword and war to be placed in the King the Parliaments creature for the safety of Parliament and Kingdome which yet is destructive of it selfe D. Ferne saith that the King summoneth a Parliament and giveth them power to be a Parliament and to advise and counsell him and in the meane time Scripture saith Deut. 17.18 19 20. 1 Sam. 10 20 21 22 23 24 25. 2 Sam. 5.1 2 3 4. that the Parliament createth the King heir's admirable reciprocation of creation in policie and shall God make the mother to destroy the daughter The Parliamentarie power that giveth Crown Militia sword and all to the King must give power to the King to use sword and war for the destruction of the Kingdome and to annull all the power of Parliaments to
power and therefore nomine juris by the word law here he understandeth a power granted by law jure or right to the King but pernitious to the people which Gregory calleth jus regium Tyrannorum the Royall law of Tyrants So Seneca 1 de clem c. 11. hoc interest inter regem Tyrannum Species ipsa fortunae ac licentiae par est nisi quod Tyranni ex volutate saeviunt Reges non nisi ex causa necessitate quid ergo non Reges quoque accidere solent sed quoties fieri publica utilitas persuadet Tirannis saevitia cordi est A Tyran saith Arnisaeus in this differeth from a King Qui ne ea quidem vult quae sibi licent that a King will not do these things which are lawfull a Tyran doth quae libet what he pleaseth to do Answ. Arnisaeus bewrayeth his ignorance in the Scriptures for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth a custome and a wicked custome as by many Scriptures I have proved already his reasons are poor It is the manner of inferiour judges as we see in the sons of Eli and Samuel to pervert judgment as well as King Saul did but the King may more oppresse and his Tyranny hath more colour and is more catholick then the oppression of inferiour judges it is not Samuels purpose thus to distinguish the judges of Israel and the kings in that the judges had no power granted them of God to oppresse because the people might judge their judges and resist them and there was power given of God to the king so far to play the Tyrant that no man could resist him or say what dost thou the text will not beare any such difference for it was as unlawfull to resist Moses Ioshua Samuel as Royalists prove from the judgement of God that came upon Core Dathan and Abiram as to resist King Saul and King David Royalists doubt not to make Moses a King It was also no lesse sin to resist Samuels sons or to do violence to their persons as judging for the Lord and sent by the supreme judge their father Samuel then it was sin to resist many inferiour Judges that were Lyons and even Wolves under the Kings of Israel and Iudah so they judged for the Lord and as sent by the Supreme Magistrate But the difference was in this that judges were extraordinarily raised up of God out of any tribe as he pleased and were beleevers Heb. 11.32 Saved by faith and so used not their power to oppresse the people though inferiour judges as the sons of Eli and of Samuel perverted judgment and therefore in the time of the judges God who gave them saviours and judges was their King but Kings were tied to a certaine tribe especially the line of David to the Kingdom of Iudah 2. They were hereditary judges not so 3. They were made and chosen by the people Deut. 17.14.15 1 Sam. 10.17 18 19 20. 2 Sam. 5.1 2 3. as were the Kings of the nations and the first King though a King be the lawfull ordinance of God was sought from God in a sinfull imitation of the nations 1 Sam. 8.19 20. and therefore were not of Gods peculiar election as the judges and so they were wicked men and many of them yea all for the most part did evil in the sight of the Lord and their law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their manner and custome was to oppresse the people and so were their inferiour judges little Tyrants and lesser Lyons Leopards evening Wolves Ezech. 22.27 Mic. 3.1 2 3. Esa. 3.14 15. And the Kings and inferiour judges are onely distinguished de facto that the King was a more Catholick oppressour and the old Lyon and so had more art and power to catch the prey then the inferiour judges who were but whelps and had lesse power but all were oppressors some few excepted and Samuel speaketh of that which Saul was to be de facto not de jure and the most part of the Kings after him and this Tyranny is well called jus regis the manner of the King and not the manner of the jugdes because it had not been the practice custome and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the beleeving judges before Sauls Reigne and while God was his peoples King 1 Sam. 8.7 to oppresse 3. We grant that all other inferiour judges after the people cast off Gods government and in imitation of the nations would have a King were also lesser Tyrants as the King was a greater Tyrant and that was a punishment of their rejecting God and Samuel to be their King and judge 4. How shall Arnisaeus prove that this manner or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the King wâ—s potestas concessa a power granted I hope granted of God and 〈…〉 abuse of Kingly power for then he and Royalists must say that all the acts of Tyranny ascribed to King Saul 1 Sam. 8.11 12 13 14. by reason of which they did cry out and complaine to God because of their oppression was no abuse of power given to Saul Ergo it was an use and a lawfull use of power given of God to their King for there is no medium or mids betwixt a lawfull power used in morall acts and a lawfull power abused and indeed Arnisaeus so distinguisheth a King and a Tyrant that he maketh them all one in nature and spece He saith a Tyrant doth quod licet that which by Law he may do and a King doth not these things quae licent which by Law he may do but so to me it is clear a Tyrant acting as a Tyrant must act according to this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 law of the King and that which is lawfull and a King acting as a King and not doing these things that are lawfull must sin against his office and the power that God hath given to him which were to commend and praise the Tyrant and to condemne and dispraise the King 3. If this Law of the King be a permissive Law of God which the king may out of his absolutenesse put in execution to oppressâ— the people such as the law of a bill of divorcement as Arnisaeus Barcklay and other Royalists say then must God have given a Law to every King to play the Tyrant because of the hardnesse of the Kings heart but we would gladly see some word of God for this The Law of a bill of Divorcement is a meere positive Law permitted in a particular exigent when a husband out of levity of heart and affection cannot love his wife therefore God by a Law permitted him out of indulgence to put her away that both he might have a seed the want whereof because of the blessed seed to be borne of woman was a reproach in Israel and though this was an affliction to some particular women yet the intent of the Law and the soul thereof was a publique benefit to the Common-wealth of Israel of which sort of Lawes I judge the
of his wicked custome and his rapine and Tyranny He will take your sons your daughters your fields and your vineyards from you Saul took not these through any power of dominion by Law but by meere Tyranny 3. I have before cleared that the subjects have a propriety and an use also else how could we be obliged by vertue of the fift commandement to pay tribute to the King Rom. 13.7 for that which we pay was as much the Kings before we payed as when we have paied it 4. Arnisaeus saiâ—h all are the Kings in respect of the universall jurisdiction that the King hath in governing and ordering all to the universall end the good of the Common-wealth for as universall nature careth for the conservation of the spece and kind so doth particular nature care for the conservation of individuals so do men care for their private good and the King is to refer every mans private goods to the good of the publick but the truth is this taketh not away propriety of goods from private men retaining onely the use to private men and giving the dominion to the King because this power that the King â—ath of mens goods is not power of dominion that the King hath over the goods of men as if the King were Dominus Lord and owner of the fields and monyes of the private subject but it is a power to regulate the goods for a publique use and supposeth the abuse of goods when they are Monopolized to and for private ends 2. The power that the King hath over my bread is not a power of dominion so as he may eat my bread as if it were his own bread and he be Lord of my bread as I was sometimes my self before I abused it but it is a dominion unproperly and abusively so called and is a meere fiduciary and dispensatory power because he is set over my bread not to eat it nor over my houses to dwel in them but onely with a ministeriall power as a publique though a honourable servant and wâ—tchman appâ—inted by the community as a mean for an end to regulate my bread houses moneys fields for the good of the publique Dominion is defined a faculty to use a thing as you please except you be hindered by force or by Law â—ustin tit c. de legibus in l. digna vox c. So have I a dominion over my own garments house money to use them for usâ—s not forbidden by the Law of God and man but I may not lay my corne field wast that it shall neither bear grassâ— nor corne the King may hinder that because it is a hurt to the publique but the King as Lord and Soveraigne hath no such dominion over Naboths viâ—eyard Hâ—w the King is lord of all goods ratione jurisdictionis tuitionis sâ— Anton. de paudrill in l. Altius n. 5. c. de servit Hottom illust quest q. 1. ad fin Conc. 2. Lod. Molin de just jur dis 25. Soto de justitiâ— jur l. 4. q. 4. art 1. QUEST XL. Whether or no the people have any power over the King either by his oath covenant or any other way ARistotle saith Ethic. 8. c. 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Tyrant seeketh his owne a King the good of the Subjects for he is no King who is not content and excelleth in goodnesse The former part of these words distinguish essentially the King by his office from the Tyrant Now every office râ—quâ—reth essentially a duty to be performed by him that is in office and where there is a duty required there is some obligation if it be a politique duty it is a politique obligation Now amongst politique duties betwixt equall and equall superiour and infâ—riour that is not de facto required coaction for the performance therâ—â—f but de jure there is for two neighbour Kings and two neighbour Nations both being equall and independent the one toward the other the one owe a duty to the other and if the Ammonites do a wrong to David and Israel as they are equall de facto the one cannot punish the other though the Ammonites do a disgrace to Davids messengers yet de jure David and Israel may compell them to politique duties of politique consâ—ciation for betwixt independent kingdomes there must be some politique government and some politique and civil Lawes for two or three making a society cannot dwell together without some policy and David and Israel as by the Law of nature they may repell violence with violence so if the lawes of neighbour-hood and nations be broken the one may punish the other though there be no relation of superiority and inferiority betwixt them 2. Where ever there is a covenant and oath betwixt equals yea or superiours and inferiours the one hath some coactive power over the other if the father give his bond to pay to his son ten thousand pounds as his patrimony to him though before the giving of the bond the father was not obliged but onely by the Law of nature to give a patrimony to his son yâ—t now by a politique obligation of promise covenant and writ he is obliged so to his son to pay ten thousand pounds that by the Law of Nations and the civil Law the son hath now a coactive power by Law to compell his father though his superiour to pay him no lesse then ten thousand pounds of patrimony Though therefore the King should stand simply superiour to his kingdom and estates which I shall never grant yet if the King come under covenant with his kingdom as I have proved at length c. 13. he must by that same come under some coactive power to fulfill his covenant for omne promissum saith the Law cadit in debitum What any doth promise falleth under debt if the covenant be politique and civil as is the covenant between King David and all Israel 2 Sam. 5.1 2 3. and between King Iehoash and the people 2 King 11.17 18. Then the King must come under a civil obligation to performe the covenant and though their be none superiour to King and the people on earth to compell them both to performe what they have promised yet de jure by the Law of Nations each may compell the other to mutuall performance This is evident 1. By the Law of nations if one nation break covenant to another though both be independent yet hath the wronged nation a coactive power de jure by accident because they are weaker they want stength to compell yet they have right and jus to compell them to force the other to keep covenant or then to punish them because nature teacheth to repel violence by violence so it be done without desire of revenge and malice 2. This is proved from the nature of a promise or covenant for Solomon saith Prov. 6.1 My son if thou be surety for thy friend if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger 2. Thou art snared with
the words of thy mouth art taken with the words of thy mouth But whence is it that a man free is now snared as a beast in a gin or trap Certainly Solomon saith it is by a word and striking of hands by a word of promise and covenant Now the Creditor hath coactive power though he be an equall or an inferiour to the man who is surety even by Law to force him to pay and the Judge is obliged to give his coactive power to the Creditor that he may force the surety to pay Hence it is cleare that a Covenant maketh a free man under the coactive power of law to an equall and to weaker and the stronger is by the law of fraternity to help the weaker with his coactive power to cause the superiour fulfill his covenant If then the King giving and not granting he were superiour to his whole Kingdome come under a covenant to them to seek their good not his owne to defend true Protestant Religion they have power to compell him to keep his covenant and Scotland if the King be stronger then England and break his covenant to them is obliged by Gods law Prov. 24.11 to adde their forces and coactive power to help their brethren of England 3. The Law shall warrant to loose the vassal from the Lord when the Lord hath broken his covenant Hippolitus in l. Si quis viduam col 5. dixit de quest l. Si quis major 41. 161. Bartol n. 41. The Magdeburgens in libel de offic magistrat Imperatores reges esse primarios vasallos imperii regni proinde si feloniam contra imperium aut regnum committant fewdo privari proinde ut alios vasallos Arnisaeus q. 6. An princeps qui jurat subditis c. n. 2. saith This occasioneth confusion and sedition The Egyptians saith he cast off Ptolomeus because he affected too much the name of a King of the Romans his own friend Dion l. 9. The States punished Archidanius because he married a wife of a low stature Plutarch in Agos in pris The ancient Burgundions thought it cause enough to expell their King if matters went not well in the State Marcel l. 27. The Goths in Spain gave no other cause of expelling their King nisi quod sibi displiceret because he displeased them Aimon l. 2. c. 20. l. 4. c. 35. Ans. All these are not to be excused in people but neither every abuse of power in a King exautorateth a King nor every abuse in people can make null their power Arnisaeus maketh three kinds of oathes the first is when the King sweareth to defend true Religion and the Pope and he denyeth that this is an oath of fidelitie or by paction or covenant made to thâ— Pope or Clergie he saith it is onely on oath of protection nor doth the King receive the Crown from the Pope or Clergie Answ. 1. Arnisaeus divideth oathes that are to be conjoyned we read not that Kings sweare to defend Religion in one oath and to administrate judgement and justice in another for David made not two Covenants but onely one with all Israel 2. The king was not King while he did swear this oath and therefore it must be a pactionall oath between him and the Kingdom and it is true the King receiveth not a Crown from the Church yet David received a Crowne from the Church for this end to feed the Lords people and so conditionally Papir Masse l. 3. Chron. Gal. saith The King was not king before the oath 2. That he did sweare to be a keeper not onely of the first but also of the second Table of the Law Ego N. Dei gratia mox futuras rex Francorum in die ordinationis mea coram Deo sanctis ejus polliceor quod servabo privilegia canonica justitiamque jus unicuique Praelato debitum vosque defendam Deo juvante quantum potero quemadmodum Rex ex officio in suo regno defendere debet unumquemque Episcopum ac Ecclesiam administrabo populo justitiam leges uti jus postulat And so is it ordained in the Councel of Tolet. 6. c. 6. Quisquis deinceps regni sortitus fuerit apicem non ante conscendat Regiam sedem quam inter reliquas conditiones sacramento policitus fuerit quod non sinet in regno suo degere cum qui non sit Catholicus All these by Scripture are oathâ—s of Covenant Deut. 17. ver 17 18. 2 Sam. 5.1 2 3 4. 2 Kings 11.17 18. Arnisaeus maketh a second oath of absolute Kings who sweare they shall raigne according to equitie and justice and he saith There is no need of this oath a promise is enough for an oath encreaseth not the obligation L. fin de non num pec Onelie it addeth the bound of Religion for there is no use of an oath where there is no paction of law against him that sweareth if he violate his oath There followeth onelie the punishment of Perjurie And the word of a Prince is as good as his oath onelie he condescendeth to sweare to please the people out of indulgence not out of necessitie And the King doth not therefore sweare because he is made King but because he is made King he sweareth And he is not King because he is crowned but he is crowned because he is King Where the Crowne goeth by succession the King never dieth and he is King by nature before he be crowned Answ. 1. This oath is the very first oath spoken of before included in the covenant that the King maketh with the people 2 Sam. 5.2 3 4. For absolute Princes by Arnisaeus his grant doth swear to do the duties of a King as Bodinus maketh the oath of France de Rep. l. 1. c. 8. Iuro ego per deum ac promittâ— me justè regnaturum judicium equitatem ac misericordiam facturum And papir Mass. l. 3. Chron. hath the same expresly in the particulars And by this a King sweareth he shall not be absolute and if he swear this oath he bindeth himself not to governe by the Law of the King whereby he may play the Tyrant as Saul did 1 Sam. 8.9 10 11 12 c. As all Royalists expound the place 2. It is but a poor evasion to distinguish betwixt the Kings promise and his oath for the promise and covenant of any man and so of the King doth no lesse bring him under a civil obligation and politique coaction to keep his promise then an oath for he that becometh surety for his friend doth by no civil Law sweare he shall be good for the sonne or performe in liew and place of the friend what he is to performe he doth onely covenant and promise and in law and politique obligation he is taken and snared by that promise no lesse then if he had sworne Reuben offereth to be caution to bring Benjamin safe home to his old father Gen. 42.37 Iudah also Gen. 43.9
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 nature should be lawlesse or against Acts of Parliament Quest. 19. Whether the Subjects be obliged to pay the debts of the King Answ. These debts which the King contracteth as King in Throno Regali the people are to pay For the Law of nature and the divine Law doth prove That to every servant and Minister wages is due Rom. 13.5 6. compared with Vers. 4. and 1 Cor. 9.9 10 11 12. 1 Tim. 5.18 If the Prince be taken in a war for the defence of the people it is just that he be redeemed by them So the Law saith Tit. F. C. de negotiis gestis F. C. Manda But when Fer. Vasquius illust quest l. 1. c. 7. n. 6. Vicesimo tertio apparet c. saith If the Prince was not doing the businesse of the publike and did make war without advice and consent of the people then are they not to redeem him Now certain it is when the King raiseth war not onely against his Oath and saith God do so to me and mine if I intend any thing but peace yet maketh war and also raiseth war without consent of the Parliament and a Parliament at that time convocated by his own Royall Writ and not raised and dissolved at all but still sitting formally a Parliament if he borrow money from his own Subjects and from forraign Princes to raise war against his Subjects and Parliament then the people are not obliged to pay his debts 1. Because they are obliged to the King only as a King and not as an enemy But in so raising war he cannot be considered as a King 2. Though if the people agree with him and still acknowledge him King it is unpossible Physicè he can be their King and they not pay his debts yet they sin not but may ex decentia non ex debito legali pay his debts yet are they not obliged by any Law of God or man to pay his debts but though it be true by all Law the King be obliged to pay his debt except we say that all the peoples goods are the Kings a compendious way I confesse to pay all that any voluptuous Hâ—liogabolus shall contract yet it may easily be proved That what his subjects and forraign Princes lent him to the raising of an unjust war are not properly debts but expences unjustly given out under the reduplication of formall enemies to the Countrey and so not payable by the Subjects and this is evident by Law because one may give most unjustly moneys to his neighbour under the notion of loan which yet hath nothing of the essence of loan and debt but is meer delapidation and cannot properly be debt by Gods Law for the Law regulateth a man in borrowing and lending as in other politike actions if I out of desire of revenge should lend moneys to a robber to buy powder and fewel to burn an innocent Citie or to buy armour to kill innocent men I deny that that is legally debt I dispute not whether A. B. borrowing money formally that thereby he may buy a Whore shall be obliged to repay it to C. D. under the reduplication of debt or if the borrower be obliged to pay what the lender hath unjustly lent I dare not pray to God That all our Kings debts may be payed I have scarce faith so to do Quest. 20. Whether Subsidies be due to the King as King Answ. There is a twofold Subsidie one Debitum of debt another Charitativum By way of charitie a Subsidie of debt is rather the Kingdoms due for their necessitie then the Kings due as a part of his rent we read of Custome due to the King as King and for conscience sake Rom. 13.5 6. never of a Subsidie or taxation to the Kings of Israel and Judah at any convention of the States Augustus Caesar his taxing of all the World Luk. 2. for the maintenance of Wars cannot be the proper rent of Augustus as Emperour but the rent of the Romane Empire and it is but the fact of a man Charitative subsidies to the King of indulgence because through bad husbanding of the Kings rents he hath contracted debts I judge no better than Royall and Princely begging Yet lawfull they are as I owe charitie to my brother so to my father so to my Politique father the King See Ferd. Vasq. illust quest l. 1. c. 8. who desireth that Superiors under the name of Charitie hid not rapine and citeth Cleer gravely saying offic l. 1. Nulla generi humano justitiae major pestis est quam eorum qui dum maximè fallunt id agunt ut boni viri esse videantur c. Quest. 21. Whether the Seas Floods Road-wayes Castles Ports publike Magazine Militia Armour Forts and Strengths be the Kings Ans. All these may be understood to be the Kings in divers notions 1. They are the Kings quoad custodiam publicam possessionem as a pawn is the mans in whose hand the pawn is laid down 2. They are the Kings quoad jurisdictionem cumulativam non privativam The King is to direct and Royally to command that the Castles Forts Ports Strengths Armour Magazine Militia be imployed for the safetie of the Kingdome All the Wayes Bridges the publike Road-wayes are the Kings in so far as he as a publike and Royall watchman is to secure the Subjects from Robbers and to cognosce of unknown
Feast when Gods wrath was upon the Land contrary to Gods word Esa. 22.12 13 14. and what will this prove Presbyteries to be inconsistent with Monarchies 41. This Assembly is to judge what Doctrine is treasonable what then Surely the secret Counsell and King in a constitute Church is not Synodically to determine what is true or false Doctrine more then the Roman Emperor could make the Church Canon Act. 15. 42. M. Gibson M. Black preached against King James his maintaining the Tyranny of Bishops his sympathizing with Papists and other crying sins and were absolved in a generall Assembly shal this make Presbyteries inconsistent with Monarchie Nay but it proveth only that they are inconsistent with the wickednesse of some Monarchies and that Prelates have been like the four hundred false prophets that flattered King Achab and these men that preached against the sins of the King and Court by Prelates in both Kingdomes have been imprisoned Banished their Noses ript their cheeks burnt their eares cut 43. The Godly men that kept the Assembly of Aberdeen An. 1603. did stand for Christs Prerogative when K. James took away all generall Assemblies as the event proved and the King may with as good warrant inhibit all Assemblies for Word and Sacraments as for Church Discipline 44. They excommunicate not for light faults and trifles as the Lyar saith our Discipline saith the contrary 45. This Assembly never took on them to chose the Kings Counsellours but these who were in authority took K. James when he was a child out of the Company of a corrupt and seducing Papist Esme Duke of Lennox whom the P. P. nameth Noble Worthy of eminent indowments 46. It is true Glasgow Assembly 1637. voted down the High Commission because it was not consented unto by the Church and yet was a Church Judicature which took upon them to judge of the Doctrine of Ministers and deprive them and did incroach upon the Liberties of the established lawfull Church judicatures 47. This Assembly might well forbid M. John Graham Minister to make use of an unjust decree it being scandalous in a Minister to oppresse 48. Though Nobles Barons and Burgesses that professe the truth be Elders and so Members of the generall Assembly this is not to make the Church the House and the Common-wealth the Hangings for the constistuent Members we are content to be examined by the patern of Synods Act. 15. v. 22 23. Is this inconsistent with Monarchie 49. The Commissioners of the generall Assembly are 1. A meer occasionall judicature 2. Appointed by and subordinate to the Generall Assembly 3. They have the same warrant of Gods Word that Messengers of the Synod Act. 15. v. 22.27 hath 50. The historicall calumnie of the 17. day of December is known to all 1. That the Ministers had any purpose to dethrone King James and that they wrote to John L. Marquesse of Hamilton to be King because K. James had made defection from the true Religion Satan devised Spotswood and this P. P. vented this I hope the true history of this is known to all The holiest Pastors and professors in the Kingdom asserted this Government suffered for it contended with authority only for sin never for the power and Office These on the contrary side were men of another stamp who minded earthly things whose God was the world 2. All the forged inconsistency betwixt Presbyteries and Monarchies is an opposition with absolute Monarchie and concludeth with alike strength against Parliaments and all Synods of either side against the Law and Gospell preached to which Kings and Kingdoms are subordinate Lord establish Peace and Truth Farewell The Table of the Contents of the Book QUEST I. WHether Government be by a divine Law Affirmed Pag. 1. How Government is from God Ibid. Civill Power in the Root immediately from God Pag. 2 QUEST II. Whether or no Goverment be warranted by the Law of nature Affirmed Ibid. Civil societie naturall in radice in the root voluntary in modo in the manner Ibid. Power of Government and Power of Government by such and such Magistrates different Pag. 2 3. Civil subjection not formally from natures Law Pag. 3. Our consent to Laws penal not antecedently naturall Ibid. Government by such Rulers a secondary Law of nature Ibid. Family Government and politike different Ibid. Government by Rulers a secondary Law of nature Family Government and Civil different Pag. 4. Civil Government by consequent naturall Pag. 5. QUEST III. Whether Royall Power and definite Forms of Government be from God Affirmed Ibid. That Kings are from God understood in a fourfold sense Pag. 5 6. The Royall Power hath warrant from divine institution Pag. 6. The three forms of Government not different in spece and nature P. 8. How every form is from God Ibid. How Government is an ordinance of man 1 Pet. 2.13 Pag. 8 9. QUEST IV. Whether or no the King be onely and immediately from God and not from the people Prius distinguitur posterius prorsus Negatur pag. 5. How the King is from God how from the people Ibid. Royall Power three wayes in the people P. 6 10. How Royall Power is radically in the people P. 7. The people makâ—th the King Ibid. How any form of Government is from God P. 8. How Government is a humane ordinance 1 Pet. 2.3 P. 8 9. The people creat the King P. 10 11. Making a King and choosing a King not to be distinguished P. 12 13. David not a King formally because anointed by God P. 14 15. QUEST V. Whether or no the P. P. proveth that Soveraignty is immediately from God not from the people p. 16. Kings made by the people though the Office in abstracto were immediately from God P. 16. The people have a reall action more then approbation in making a King P. 19 Kinging of a person ascribed to the people P. 20. Kings in a speciall manner are from God but it followeth not Ergo not from the people P. 21. The place Prov. 8.15 proveth not but Kings are made by the people P. 22 23. Nebuchadnezzar and other heathen Kings had no just Title before God to the Kingdom of Judah and divers other subdued Kingdoms P. 26 27. QUEST VI. Whether or no the King be so allanerly from both in regard of Soveraignty and Designation of his person as he is no wayes from the people but onely by meer approbation Negatur pag. 28 29. The Forms of Government not from God by an act of naked Providence but by his approving will Ibid. Soveraignty not from the people by sole approbation P. 29 30. Though God have peculiar acts of providence in creating Kings it followeth not hence that the people maketh not Kings P. 31. The P. Prelate exponeth prophecies true onely of David Solomon and Iesus Christ as true of prophane heathen Kings P. 34 35. The P. P. maketh all the heathen Kings to be Princes anointed with the holy Oyl of saving grace Ibid. QUEST VII Whether the P.
if the people have this it s a creating of a King under God who principally disposeth of Kings and Kingdomes and this is enough for us The want of this made Zimri no King and those whom the Rulers of Iezreel at Samaria 2 King 10. refused to make Kings no Kings This election of the people made Athaliah a Princesse the removall of it and translation of the crown by the people to Ioash made her no Princesse for I beseech you what other calling of God hath a race of a familie and a person to the crowne but only the election of the States There is now no voice from heaven no immediately inspired Prophets such as Samuel and Elisha to annoynt David not Eliab Solomon not Adoniah The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the heroick spirit of a Royall facultie of governing is I grant from God only not from the people but I suppose that maketh not a King for then many sitting on the throne this day should be no Kings and many private persons should be Kings If he meane by the peoples choosing nothing but the peoples approbative consent posterior to Gods act of creating a King let them shew us an act of God making Kings and establishing royall power in such a familie rather then in such a familie which is prior to the peoples consent distinct from the peoples consent I believe there is none at all 4. Arg. Hence I argue If there be no calling or title on earth to tie the Crown to such a Familie and Person but the suffrages of the people then have the line of such a familie and the persons now no calling of God no right to the crown but only by the suffrages of the people except we say that there be no lawfull Kings on earth now when Propheticall unction and designation to Crowns are ceased contrary to expresse Scripture Rom. 13.1 2 3. 1 Pet. 2.13 14 15 16 17. But there is no title on earth now to tye crownes to families to persons but onely the suffrages of the people for 1. Conquest without the consent of the people is but royall latrocinie as we shall see 2. There is no propheticall and immediate calling to Kingdomes now 3. The Lords giving of Regall parts is somewhat but I hope Royallists will not deny but a child young in yeares and judgment may be a lawfull King 3. Mr. Maxwell his appointing of the Kingly office doth no more make one man a lawfull King then another for this were a wide consequence God hath appointed that Kings should be ergo Iohn a Stiles is a King yea ergo David is a King It followeth not Therefore it remaineth only that the suffrages of the people of God is that just title and divine calling that Kings have now to their crownes I presuppose they have gifts to governe from God 5. If the Lords immediate designation of David and his annointing by the divine authoritie of Samuel had been that which is alone without the election of the people made David formally King of Israel then there were two Kings in Israel at one time for Samuel annointed David and so he was formally King upon the ground layed by Royallists that the King hath no royall power from the people and David after he himselfe was annointed by Samuel divers times calleth Saul the Lords anointed and that by the inspiration of Gods spirit as we and Royallists doe both agree Now two lawfull supreme Monarchs in one Kingdome I conceive to be most repugnant to Gods truth and sound reason for they are as repugnant as two most Highs or as two Infinites 2. It shall follow that David all the while betwixt his anointing by Samuel and his coronation by the suffrages of all Israel at Hebron 1. Was in-lacking in discharging and acquiting himselfe of his royall duty God having made him formally a King and so laying upon him a charge to execute justice and judgement and defend Religion which he did not discharge 2. All Davids suffering upon Davids part must be unjust for as King he should have cut off the murtherer Saul who killed the Priests of the Lord especially seeing Saul by this ground must be a private murtherer and David the only lawfull King 3. David if he was formally King deserted his calling in flying to the Philistims for a King should not forsake his Kingdome upon no hazards even of his life no more then a Pilot should give over the helme in an extreme storme but certainly Gods dispensation in this warranteth us to say no man can be formally a lawfull King without the suffrages of the peoâ—leâ— for Saul after Samuel from the Lord anointed him remained a private man and no King till the people made him King and elected him And David anointed by that same divine authoritie remained formally a Subject and not a King till all Israel made him King at Hebron And Salomâ—n though by God designed and ordained to be King yet was never King till the people made him King 1 King 1. ergo there floweth something from the power of the people by which he who is no King now becommeth a King formally and by Gods lawfull call whereas before the man was no King but as touâ—hing all royall power a meere private man And I am sure birth must be lesse then Gods designation to a crowne as is cleere Adoniah was elder then Salomon yet God will have Salomon the younger by birth to be King and not Adoniah And so Mr. Symons and other Court-Prophets must prevaricate who will have birth without the peoples election to make a king and the peoples voyces but a ceremonie 6. I thinke Royalists cannot deny but a people ruled by Aristocraticall Magistrates may elect a King and a King so elected is formally made a lawfull King by the peoples election for of six apt and gifted to reigne what maketh one a King and not the other five Certainly God disposing the people to choose this man and not another man it cannot be said but God giveth the Kingly power immediately and by him Kings raigne that is true The Office is immediately from â—od but now the question is what is that which formally applyeth the Office and Royall Power to this Person rather thâ—n to the other five as meet Nothing can here be dreamed of but God inclining the hearts of the States to choose this man and not this men QUEST V. Whether or no P. P. the Author of Sac. San. Regum Majestas called the sacred and Royall Prerogative of Kings proveth that God is the immediate Author of Soveraignty and that the King is no creature of the peoples making COnsider first that the excommunicated Prelate saith cap. 2. p. 19. Kings are not immediatly from God as by any speciall Ordinance sent from Heaven by the ministery of Angels and Prophets there were but some few such as Moses Saul David c. yet something may immediatly proceed from God and be his speciall worke
Potentes virga justitiae so Lavater and Diâ—datus and Thomas saith this place doth prove That all Kings and Iudges Laws derivari a lege aeterna are derived from the eternall Law The Prelate eating his tongue for anger striveth to prove That all power and so Royall power is of God but what can he make of it we beleeve it though he say Sectaries prove by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That a man is justified by faith onely so there is no power but of God onely but feel the smell of a Iesuite it is the Sectaries doctrine That we are justified by faith onely but the Prelates and the Iesuites goe another way not by faith onely but by works also And all power is from God onely as the first Author and from no man What then Therefore men and people interpose no humane act in making this man a King and not this man It followeth And let us with the Prelate joyn Paul and Solomon together and say That Soveraigntie is from God of God by God as Gods appointment irrevocable Then shall it never follow it is unseparable from the person except you make the King a man immortall as God onely can remove the Crown it is true but God onely can put an unworthy and an excommunicated Prelate from Office and Benefice but how Doth that prove that men and the Church may not also in their place remove an unworthy Church-man when the Church following Gods Word delivereth to Satan Christ onely as head of the Church excommunicateth scandalous men Ergo The Church cannot do it and yet the Argument is as good the one way as the other for all the Churches on earth cannot make a Minister properly they but design him to the Ministery whom God hath gifted and called But shall we conclude ergo no Church on earth but God onely by an immediate action from Heaven can deprive a Minister how then durst Prelates excommunicate unmake and imprison so many Ministers in the three Kingdoms But the truth is take this one Argument from the Prelate and all that is in his Book falleth to the ground to wit Soveraigntie is from God onely A King is a creature of Gods making onely and what then Ergo Soveraigntie cannot be taken from him So God onely made Aarons house Priests 2. Solomon had no Law to depose Abiathar from the Priest-hood Possibly the Prelate will grant all the place Rom. 13. which he saith hath tortured us I refer to a fitter place it will be found to torture Court Parasites I goe on with the Prelate c. 3. Sacred Soveraignty is to be preserved and Kings are to be prayed for that we may lead a godly life 1 Tim. 3. What then 1. All in authority are to be prayed for even Parliaments by that text Pastors are to be prayed for and without them sound religion cannot well subsist 2. Is this questioned but Kings should be prayed for or are we wanting in this duty but it followeth not that all dignities to be prayed for are immediatly from God not from men Prelate Prov. 8. Solomon speaketh first of the establishment of Government before he speake of the workes of Creation ergo better not be at all as be without government And God fixed government in the person of Adam before Evah or any else came into the world and how shall government be and we enjoy the fruits of it except we preserve the Kings sacred Authority inviolable Ans. Moses Gen. 1. speaketh of Creation before he speaketh of Kings and Moses speaketh Gen. 3. of Adams sins before he speakes of redemption through the blessed seed ergo better never be redeemed at all as to to be without sin 2. If God made Adam a governour before he made Evah and any of Mankind he was made a father and a husband before he had either sonne or wife Is this the Prelates Logick he may prove that two eggs on his fathers Table are three this way 3. There is no government where soveraignty is not kept inviolable It is true where there is a King soveraignty must be inviolable What then Arbitrary government is not soveraignty 4. He intimateth Aristocracy and Democracy and the power of Parliaments which maketh Kings to be nothing but Anarchie for he speaketh here of no government but Monarchy P. Prelate there is need of grace to obey the King Ps. 18.43 Ps. 144.2 It is God who subdueth the people under David 2. Rebellion against the King is rebellion against God Pet. 2.17 Prov 24.12 Ergo Kings have a neare alliance with God Ans. 1. There is much grace in Papists and Prelates then who use to write and Preach against grace 2. Lorinus your brother Iesuite will with good warrant of the texts inferre that the King may make a conquest of his own Kingdomes of Scotland and England by the sword as David subdued the Heathen 3. Arbitrary governing hath no alliance with God a rebell to God his Country and an Apostate hath no reason to terme lawfull defence against â—ut-throat Irish rebellion 4. There is need of much grace to obey Pastors inferiour Iudges masters Col. 3.22 23. ergo their power is from God immediatly and no more from men then the King is created King by the people according to the way of Royalists P. Prelate God saith of Pharaoh Exo. 9.7 I have raised thee up Elisha from God constituted the King of Syria 2 King 8.13 Pharaoh Abimelech Hiram Hazael Hadad are no lesse honoured with the compellation of Kings then David Saul c. Ier. 29.9 Nebuchadnezer is honoured to be called by way of excellency Gods servant which God giveth to David a King according to his owne heart and Esay 45.1 2. Thus saith the Lord to his anoynted Cyrus and God nameth him neere a hundreth yeare before he was borne Esay 44.28 He is my shepheard Daniel 2.19 20.17.24 God giveth Kingdomes to whom he will Dan. 5.8 and p. 37. Empires Kingdomes Royalties are not disposed of by the composed contracts of men but by the immediate hand and worke of God Hos. 13.11 I gave them a King in my anger I tooke him away in my wrath Iob He places Kings in the throne c. Ans. Here is a whole Chapter of seven pages for one raw argument ten times before repeated 1. to Exod. 9.7 I have raised up Pharaoh Paul expoundeth it Rom. 9 to prove that King Pharaoh was a vessell of wrath fitted for destruction by Gods absolute Will and the Prelate following Arminius with treasonable charity applyeth this to our King Can this man pray for the King 2. Elisha anoynted but constituted not Hazael King and foretold he should be King and if he be a King of Gods making who slew his sicke Prince and invaded the Throne by innocent bloud judge you I would not take Kings of the Prelates making 3. If God give to Nebuchadnezer the same still of the servant of God given to David Ps. 18.1 116.16 and to Moses Ios. 1 2.
body but as they transferre their power to the father 1. for their owne safetie and peace not if he use the power they give him to their destruction the same way they tye themselves to his first borne as to their King 2. As they chose the father not as a man but a man gifted with Royall grace and a Princely facultie for government so they can but tye themselves to his first borne as to one graced with a facultie of governing and if his first borne shall be borne an idiot and a foole they are not obliged to make him King for the obligation to the sonne can be no greater then the obligation to the father which first obligation is the ground measure and cause of all posterior obligations If Tutors be appointed to governe such an one the Tutors have the Royall power not the Idiot nor can he governe others who cannot governe himselfe That Kings goe not as heritage from the father to the sonne I prove 1. God Deut. 17. could not command them to choose such a one for the King and such a one who sitting on his throne shall follow the direction of God speaking in his word if birth were that which gave him Gods title and right to the Crowne for that were as much as such a man should be heire to his fathers inheritance and the sonne not heire to his fathers crown except he were such a man But God in all the Law morall or judiciall never required that the heire should be thus and thus qualified else he should not be heire but he requireth that a man and so that a familie should be thus and thus qualified else they should not be Kings and I confirme it thus The first King of divine institution must be the rule paterne and measure of all the rest of the Kings as Christ maketh the first Mariage Mat. 19.8 a paterne to all others and Paul reduceth the right administration of the Supper to Christs first institution 1 Cor. 11.23 now the first King Deut. 17.14 15. is not a man qualified by naked birth for then the Lord in describing the manner of the King and his due qualifications should seeke no other but this You shall choose onely the first borne or the lawfull sonne of the former King But seeing the King of Gods first moulding is a King by election and what God did after by promises and free grace give to David and his seed even a throne till the Mesiah should come and did promise to some Kings if they would walke in his Commandements that their sonnes and sonnes sonne should sit upon the Throne in my judgement is not an obliging Law that sole birth should be as just a title in foro Dei for I now dispute the question in point of conscience as royall unction 2. If by divine institution God have impawned in the peoples hand a subordinate power to the most High who giveth Kingdomes to whom he will to make and create Kings then is not sole birth a just title to the Crowne But the former is true both by precept Deut. 17.1 and God expresly saith Thou shalt choose him King whom the Lord shall choose And if it had not been the peoples power to create their own Kings how doth God after he had designed Saul their King yet expresly 1 Sam. 10. inspire Samuel 17. to call the people before the Lord at Mizpeh to make Saul King and how doth the Lord v. 22. expresly shew to Samuel and the people the man that they might make him King and because all consented not that Saul should be King God will have his Coronation renewed v. 14. Then said Samuel to the people Come and let us goe to Gilgall and renew the Kingdome there 15. And all the people went to Gilgall and there they made Saul King before the Lord in Gilgall And how is it that David anoynted by God is yet no King but a private subject while all Israel make him King at Hebron 3. If royall birth be equivolent to royall unction and the best title and if birth speake and declare to us the Lords appointment and Will that the first born of a King should be King as M. Symmons and others say then is all title by conquest where the former King standeth in title to the Crowne and hath an Heire unlawfull But the latter is against all the nation of the Royalists for Arnisaeus Barclay Grotius Io. Roffensis Episco the Bishop of Spalato Dr. Ferne M. Symmons the excommunicate Prelat if his poore learning may bring him in the roll teach that conquest is a lawfull title to a Crowne I prove the Proposition 1. because if birth speake Gods revealed Will that the Heire of a King is the lawfull King then conquest cannot speake the contradicent Will of God that he is no lawfull King but the conquerour is the lawfull King Gods revealed Will should be contradictory to himselfe and birth should speake it is Gods Will that the Heire of the former King be King and the conquest being also Gods revealed Will should also speake that that Heire should not be King 2. If birth speake and reveale Gods Will that the Heire be King it is unlawfull for a conquered people to give their consent that a conquerour be their King For their consent being contrary to Gods revealed Will which is that birth is the just title must be an unlawfull consent If Royalists say God the King of Kings who immediately maketh Kings may and doth transferre Kingdomes to whom he will and when he putteth the sword in Nebuchadnezers hand to conquer the King and Kingdome of Iudah then Zedikiah or his sonne is not King of Iudah but Nebuchadnezer is King and God being above his Law speaketh in that case his Will by conquests as before he spake his Will by birth this is all can be said Ans. They answer black treason in saying so for if Ieremiah from the Lord had not commanded expresly that both the King and Kingdome of Judah should submit to the King of Babylon and serve him and pray for him as their lawfull King it had been as lawfull to them to rebell against that Tyrant as it was for them to fight against the Philistimes and the King of Ammon but if birth be the just and lawfull title in foro Dei in Gods Court and the only thing that evidenceth Gods Will without any election of the people that the first borne of such a King is their lawfull King then conquests cannot now speake a contrardictory Will of God for the question is not whether or not God giveth power to Tyrants to conquer Kingdomes from the just Heires of Kings which did raigne lawfully before their sword made an empty Throne But whether conquest now when Jeremiahs are not sent immediatly from God to command for example Britaine to submit to a violent intruder who hath expelled the lawfull Heires of the royall Line of the King of
Britaine whether I say doth conquest in such a violent way speake that it is Gods revealed Will called Voluntas signi the will that is to rule us in all our Morall duties to cast off the just Heires of the blood Royall and to sweare homage to a conquerour and so as that conquerour now hath as just right as the King of Britaine had by birth This cannot be taken off by the wit of any who 1. maintaine that conquest is a lawfull title to a Crowne and 2. that royall birth without the peoples election speaketh Gods regulating Will in his Word that the first borne of a King is a lawfull King by birth for God now a daies doth not say the contrary of what he revealed in his Word If birth be Gods regulating Will that the Heire of the King is in Gods Court a King no act of the conquerour can anull that Word of God to us and the people may not lawfully though they were ten times subdued sweare homage and allegiance to a conquerour against the due right of birth which by Royalists Doctrine revealeth to us the plaine contradictory Will of God It is I grant often Gods Decree revealed by the event that a conquerour be on the Throne but this Will is not our rule and the people are to sweare no Oath of Allegiance contrary to Gods Voluntas signi which is his revealed Will in his Word regulating us 4. Things transferrible and communicable by birth from father to sonne are onely in Law those which Heathen call bona fortunae riches as lands houses monies and heritages and so saith the Law also These things which essentially include gifts of the mind and honour property so called I meane honour founded on vertue as Aristotle with good reason maketh honour praeminum virtutis cannot be communicated by birth from the father to the sonne for royall dignity includeth these three constituent parts essentially of which none can be communicable by birth 1. The royall faculty of governing which is a speciall gift of God above nature is from God Solomon asked it from God and had it not by generation from his father David 2. The royall honour to be set above the people because of this royall vertue is not from the wombe for then Gods spirit would not have said Blessed are thou O Land when thy King is the sonne of Nobles Eccles. 10.17 this honour springing from vertue is not borne with any man nor is any man borne with either the gift or honour to be a Iudge God maketh high and low not birth Nobles are borne to great estates if judging be heritage to any it is a municipall positive law I now speake in point of conscience 3. The externall lawfull title before men come to a Crowne must be Gods Will revealed by such an externall signe as by Gods appointment and warrant is to regulate our will but according to Scripture nothing regulateth our will and leadeth the people now that they cannot erre following Gods rule in making a King but the free suffrages of the States choosing a man whom they conceive God hath endued with these royall gifts required in the King whom God holdeth forth to them in his Word Deut. 17. now there be but these to regulate the people or to be a rule to any man to ascend lawfully in foro Dei in Gods Court to the Throne 1. Gods immediate designation of a man by Propheticall and Divinely inspired unction as Samuel annoynted Saul and David this we are not to expect now nor can Royalists say it 2. Conquest seeing it is an act of violence and Gods revenging Justice for the sinnes of a people cannot give in Gods Court such a just title to the Throne as the people are to submit their consciences unto except God reveale his regulating will by some immediate voice from Heaven as he commanded Iudah to submit to Nebuchadnezer as to their King by the mouth of Ieremiah now this is not a rule to us for then if the Spanish King should invade this Iland and as Nebuchadnezer did deface the Temple and instruments and meanes of Gods Worship and abolish the true worship of God it should be unlawfull to resist him after he had once conquered the Iland neither Gods Word nor the Law of nature could permit this I suppose even by grant of adversaries now no act of violence done to a people though in Gods Court they have deserved it can be a testification to us of Gods regulating Will except it have some warrant from the Law and testimony it is no rule to our conscience to acknowledge him a lawfull Magistrate whose sole law to the Throne is an act of the bloody instrument of divine wrath I meane the sword That therefore Iudah was to submit according to Gods Word to Nebuchadnezer whose conscience and best warranted calling to the Kingdome of Judah was his bloody sword even if we suppose Ieremiah had not commanded them to submit to the King of Babylon I thinke cannot be said 3. Naked birth cannot be this externall signification of Gods regulating Will to warrant the conscience of any to ascend to the Throne for the Authors of this opinion make royall birth equivalent to divine unction for David anoynted by Samuel and so anoynted by God is not King Saul remained the Lords anoynted many yeares not David even anoynted by God the peoples making him King at Hebron founded upon divine unction was not the only externall lawfull calling that we read of that David had to the Throne then royall birth because it is but equivalent only to divine unction not superiour to divine unction it cannot have more force to make a King then divine unction And if birth was equivalent to divine unction what needed Ioash who had royall birth be made King by the people and what needed Saul and David who had more then royall birth even divine unction be made Kings by the people and Saul having the vocall and infallible testimony of a Prophet needed not the peoples election the one at Mizpeh and Gilgall and the other at Hebron 5. If royall birth be as just a title to the Crowne as divine unction and so as the peoples election is no title at all then is it unlawfull that there should be a King by election in the world now but the latter is absurd so is the former I prove the Proposition because where conquerours are wanting and there is no King for the present but the people governing and so much confusion aboundeth they cannot lawfully appoint a King for his lawfull title before God must either be conquest which to me is no title and here and in this case there is no conquest or if the title must be a Propheticall word immediatly inspired by God but this is now ceased or thirdly the title must be royal birth but here there is no royall birth because the government is popular except you imagine that
the society is obliged in conscience to goe and seek the sonne of a forraine King to be their King But I hope that such a royall birth should not be a just title before God to make him King of that society to which he had no relation at all but is a meere stranger Hence in this case no title could be given to any man to make him King but onely the peoples election which is that which we say And it is most unreasonable that a people under popular Government cannot lawfully choose a King to themselves seeing a King is a lawfull Magistrate and warranted by Gods Word because they have not a King of royall birth to sit upon the throne Mr. Symmons saith that birth is the best title to the Crowne because after the first of the family had been anoynted unction was no more used in that family unlesse there arose a strife about the Kingdome as betwixt Solomon and Adonijah Ioash and Athalia the eldest sonne of the predecessor was afterward the chosen of the Lord his birth-right spake the Lords appointment as plainly as his fathers unction Ans. It is a conjecture that unction was not used in the family after the first unction except the contest was betwixt two Brethren that is said not proved for 2 King 23.30 when good Iosiah was killed and there was no contest concerning the Throne of that beloved Prince the people of the Land took Iehoahaz his son and anointed him and made him King in his fathers stead and the Priests were anointed Levit. 6.22 yea all the Priests were anointed Num. 3. â— yet read we not in the History where this or this man was anointed 2. In that Adonijah Solomons elder Brother was not King it is clear That Gods anointing and the peoples electing made the right to the Crown and not birth 3. Birth de facto did design the man because of Gods speciall promises to Davids house but how doth a typicall discent made to David and some others by Gods speciall promise prove that birth is the birth-right and lawfull call of God to a Crown in all after ages For as gifts to reign goeth not by birth so neither doth Gods title to a Crown go M. Symons A Prince once possessed of a Kingdome coming to him by inheritance can never by any upon any occasion be dispossessed thereof without horrible impietie and unjustice Royall unction was an indeleble Character of old Saul remained the Lords anointed till the last gaspe David durst not take the right of Government actually into him although he had it in reversion being already anointed thereunto and had received the spirit thereof Answ. That is the question If a Prince once a Prince by inheritance cannot be dispossessed thereof without unjustice For if a Kingdom be his by birth as an inheritance transmitted from the father to the son I see not but any man upon necessary occasions may sell his inheritance but if a Prince sell his Kingdom a very Barclay and an Hug. Grotius with reason will say he may be dispossessed and dethroned and take up his indeleble Character then 2. A Kingdom is not the Princes own so as it is unjustice to take it from him as to take a mans purse from him the Lords Church in a Christian Kingdom is Gods heritage and the King onely a shepheard and the sheep in the court of conscience are not his 3. Royall unction is not an indeleble Character for neither Saul nor David were all their dayes Kings thereby but lived many dayes private men after divine unction while the people anointed them Kings except you say 1. That there were two Kings at once in Israel 2. And that Saul killing David should have killed his own Lord and his anointed 4. If David durst not take the right of Government actually on him then divine unction made him not King but onely designed him to be King the peoples election must make the King M. Symons addeth He that is born a King and a Prince can nâ—ver be unborn Semel Augustus semper Augustus yea I beleeve the eldest son of such a King is in respect of birth the Lords anointed in his fathers life time even as David was before Sauls death and to deprive him of his right of reversion is as true unjustice as to dispossesse him of it Answ. It is proper onely to Jesus Christ to be born a King sure I am No man bringeth out of the womb with him a Scepter and a Crown on his head Divine unction giveth a right infallibly to a Crown but birth doth not so for one may be born here to a Crown as was hopefull Prince Henry and yet never live to be King The eldest son of a King if he attempt to kill his father as Absolom did and raise forces against the lawfull Prince I conceive he may be killed in battell without any unjustice 2. If in his fathers time he be the Lords anointed there be two Kings and the heir may have a son and so there shall be three Kings possibly four all Kings by divine right The Prelate of Rochester saith The people and nobles give no right to him who is born a King they onely declare his right Answ. This is said not proved A man born for an inheritance is by birth an heir because he is not born for these Lands as a mean for the end but by the contrary these Lands are for the heir as the mean for the end But the King is for his Kingdom as a mean for the end as the watch-man for the Citie the living Law for peace and safetie to Gods people and therefore is not heres hominum An heir of men but men are rather heredes regis heirs of the King Arnisaeus Many Kingdoms saith he are purchased by just war and transmitted by the Law of heritage from the father to the son beside the consent of the people because the son receiveth right to the Crown not from the people but from his parents nor doth he possesse the Kingdom as the â—â—trimony of the people keeping onely to himself the burden of protecting and governing the people but as a proprietie given to him lege regni by his parents which he is obliged to defend and rule as a father looketh to the good and welfare of the family yet so also as he may look to his own good Answ. We read in the Word of God That the people made Solomon King not that David or any King can leave in his Testament a Kingdom to his son 2. He saith The son hath not the right of reigning as the patrimony of the people but as a proprietie given by the Law of the Kingdom by his parents Now this is all one as if he said The son hath not the right of the Kingdom as the patrimony of the people but as the patrimony of the people which is good non-sense For the proprietie of reigning given from father
father as a father hath not power of the life of his child as a Magistrate he may have power and as something more then a father he may have power of life and death I heare not what Grotius saith Those who are not borne have no accidents and so no rights Non entis nulla sunt accidentia then Children not borne have neither right nor liberty and so no injury may some say can be done to Children not borne though the fathers should give away their liberty to the conquerour those who are not capable of Law are not capable of injury contrary to Law Ans. There is a virtuall alienation of rights and lives of children not borne unlawfull because the children are not borne to say that children not borne are not capable of law and injuries virtuall which become reall in time might say Adam did not an injury to his posterity by his first sin which is contrary to Gods Word so those who vowed yearely to give seven innocent children to the Minotaure to be devoured and to kill their children not borne to bloody Molech did no acts of bloody injury to their children nor can any say then that fathers cannot tye themselves and their posterity to a King by succession but I say To be tyed to a lawfull King is no making away of liberty but a resigning of a power to be justly governed protected and awed from active and passive violence 7. No lawfull King may be dethroned nor lawfull Kingdome dissolved but Law and reason both saith Quod vi partum est imperium vi dissolvi potest Every conquest made by violence may be dissolved by violence Censetur enim ipsa natura jus dare ad id omne sine quo obtineri non potest quod ipsa imperat It is objected that the people of God by their sword conquered seven nations of the Canaanites David conquered the Ammonites for the disgrace done to his Embassadours So God gave Egypt to Nebuchadnezar for his hire in his service done against Iudah had David no right over the Ammonites and Moabites but by expecting their consentâ— yee will say A right to their lands goods and lives but not to challenge their morall subjection well we doubt not but such conquerours will challenge and obtain their morall consent but if the people refuse their consent is there no way for providence giveth no right So D. Ferne so Arnisaeus Ans. A facto ad jus non valeâ— consequentia God to whom belongeth the world and the fulnesse thereof disponed to Abraham and his seed the Land of Canaan for their inheritance and ordained that they should use their bow and their sword for the actuall possession thereof and the like divine right had David to the Edomites and Ammonites though the occasion of Davids taking possession of these Kingdoms by his sword did arise from particular and occasionall exigences and injuries but it followeth in no sort That therefore Kings now wanting any word of promise and so of divine right to any Lands may ascend to the Throns of other Kingdoms then their own by no better title then the bloody sword That Gods will was the chief patent here is clear in that God forbad his people to conquer Edom or Esau's possession when as he gave them command to conquer the Ammorites I doubt not to say if Joshua and David had had no better title then their bloody sword though provoked by injuries they could have had no right to any kingly power over these Kingdoms and if onely successe by the sword be a right of providence it is no right of precept Gods providence as providence without precept or promise can conclude a thing is done or may be done but cannot conclude a thing is lawfully and warrantably done else you might say the selling of Joseph the crucifying of Christ the spoiling of Job were lawfully done 2. Though Conquerors extort consent and oath of Loyaltie yet that maketh not over a Royall right to the Conquerour to be King over their posterity without their consent 3. Though the Children of Ammon did a high injury to David yet no injury can be recompensed in justice with the pressure of the constrained subjection of Loyaltie to a violent Lord if David had not had an higher warrant from God then an injury done to his messengers he could not have conquered them But 1. the Ammonites were the declared enemies of the Church of God and raised forces against David when they themselves were the injurer's and offenders and if Davids Conquest will prove a lawfull title by the sword to all Conquerours then may all Conquerours lawfully do to the conquered people as David did that is they may put them under saws and under harrows of iron and under axes of iron and cause them passe through the Brick-kilne But I beseech you will Royalists say that Conquerours who make themselves Kings by their sword and so make themselves fathers heads defenders and feeders of the people may use the extreamest Tyranny in the world such as David used against the children of Ammon which he could not have done by the naked title of sword-conquest if God had not laid a Commandment of an higher nature on him to serve Gods enemies so I shall then say if a conquering King be a lawfull King because a Conquerour then hath God made such a lawfull King 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
say they we will be quit of thine Oath which thou hast made us to swear There be no mutuall contract made upon certain conditions but if the conditions be not fulfilled the party injured is loosed from the contract Barclay saith That this covenant obligeth the King to God but not the King to the people Ans. It is a vaine thing to say that the people and the King make a covenant and that David made a covenant with the Elders and Princes of Israel for if he be obliged to God only and not to the people by a covenant made with the people it is not made with the people at all nay it is no more made with the people of Israel nor with the Chaldeans for it bindeth David no more to Israel nor to Chaldea as a covenant made with men Arnisaeus saith when two parties contract if one performe the duty the other is acquitted Sect. Ex hujusmod ubi vult just de duob reis l. 3. F. because every one of them are obliged fully Sect. 1. Iust. eod to God to whom the Oath is made for that is his meaning and if either the people performe what is sworne to the Lord or the King yet one of the parties remaineth still under obligation and neither doth the peoples obedience exempt the King from punishment if he faile nor the Kings obedience exempt the people if they faile but every one beareth the punishment of his owne sin and there is no mutuall power in the parties to compell one another to performe the promised duty because that belongeth to the Pretor or Magistrate before whom the contract was made The King hath jurisdiction over the people if they violate their Oath but the people hath no power over the Prince and the ground that Arnisaeus layeth downe is that 1. The King is not a party contracting with the people as if there were mutuall obligations betwixt the King and the people and a mutuall coactive power on either side 2. That the care of Religion belongeth not to the people for that hath no warrant in the Word saith he 2. We read not that the people was to command and compell the Priests and the King to reforme Religion and abolish Idolatry as it must follow if the covenant be mutuall 3. Iehoiada 2 King 11. obligeth himselfe and the King and the people by a like law to serve God and here be not two parts but three the high Priest the King the People if this example prove any thing 4. Both King and people shall finde the revenging hand of God against them if they faile in the breach of their Oath but with this difference and every one of the two King and people by the Oath stand obliged to God the King for himselfe and the people for themselves but with this difference the King oweth to God proper and due obedience as any of the subjects and also to governe the people according to Gods true religion Deut. 17. 2 Chro. 29. and in this the Kings obligation differeth from the peoples obligation the people as they would be saved must serve God and the King for the same cause 1 Sam. 12. But besides this the King is obliged to rule and governe the people and keepe them in obedience to God but the people is not obliged to governe the King and keepe him in obedience to God for then the people should have as great power of jurisdiction over the King as the King hath o-over the people which is against the Word of God and the examples of the Kings of Iudah but this commeth not from any promise or covenant that the King hath made with the people but from a peculiar obligation whereby he is obliged to God as a man not as a King This is the mystery of the businesse but I oppose this in these Assertions 1. Assert As the King is obliged to God for the maintenance of true Religion so are the people and Princes no lesse in their place obliged to maintaine true Religion for 1. the people are rebuked because they burnt Incense in all high places 2 King 17.11 2 Chron. 33.17 Hos. 4.13 And the reason why the high places are not taken away 2 Chro. 20.33 is given for as yet the people had not prepared their heart unto the God of their fathers but you will reply elicite acts of maintenance of true Religion are commanded to the people and that the places prove but the question is De actibus imperatis of commanded acts of Religion sure none but the Magistrate is to command others to worship God according to his Word I answer in ordinary only Magistrates not the King only but all the Princes of the Land and Iudges are to maintaine Religion by their commandements Deut. 1.16 2 Chro. 1.2 Deut. 16.19 Eccles. 5.8 Hab. 1.4 Mic. 3.9 Zach. 7.9 Hos. 5.10.11 and to take care of Religion but when the Iudges decline from Gods way and corrupt the Law we finde the people punished and rebuked for it Ier. 15.4 And I will cause them to be removed to all Kingdomes of the earth because of Manasseh the sonne of Hezekiah King of Iudah for that which he did in Ierusalem 1 Sam. 12.24 only feare the Lord 25. But if yee doe still wickedly yee shall be consumed both yee and your King And this case I grant is extraordinary yet so as Iunius Brutus proveth well and strongly that Religion is not given only to the King that he only should keepe it but to all the inferiour Iudges and people also in their kind but because the estates never gave the King power to corrupt Religion and presse a false and Idolatrous worship upon them therefore when the King defendeth not true Religion but presseth upon the people a false and Idolatrous Religion in that they are not under the King but are presumed to have no King catenus so farre and are presumed to have the power in themselves as if they had not appointed any King at all as if we presume the body had given to the right hand a power to ward off strokes and to defend the body if the right hand should by a Palsie or some other disease become impotent and be withered up when ill is comming on the body it is presumed that the power of defence is recurred to the left hand and to the rest of the body to defend it selfe in this case as if the body had no right hand and had never communicated any power to the right hand at all So if an incorporation accused of Treason and in danger of the sentence of death shall appoint a Lawyer to Advocate their cause and to give in their just defences to the Iudge if their Advocate be stricken with dumbnesse because they have losed their legall and representative tongue none can say that this incorporation hath loosed the tongues that Nature hath given them so as by Natures law they may not plead in their own just
The Observator said The King is not a father to the whole collective body and it s well said he is son to them and they his maker Who made the King Policy answereth The State made him and Divinitie God made him 4. The Observator said well The peoples weaknesse is not the Kings strength The Prelate saith Amen He said That that perisheth not to the King which is granted to the people The Prelate denyeth Because What the King hath in trust from God the King cannot make away to another nor can any take it from him without sacriledge Answ. True indeed If the King had Royalty by immediate trust and infusion by God as Elias had the spirit of prophecie that he cannot make away Royalists dream that God immediately from heaven now infuseth facultie and right to Crowns without any word of God It s enough to make an Euthysiast leap up to the Throne and kill Kings Judge if these Fanaticks be favourers of Kings But if the King have Royaltie mediately by the peoples free consent from God there is no reason but people give as much power even by ounce weights for power is strong Wine and a great mocker as they know a weak mans head will bear and no more power is not an immediate inheritance from heaven But a birth-right of the people borrowed from them they may let it out for their good and resume it when a man is drunk with it 2. The man will have it conscience on the King to fight and destroy his three Kingdoms for a dream his prerogative above Law But the truth is Prelates do engage the King his house honour subjects Church for their cursed Mytres The Prelate vexeth the Reader with Repetitions and saith The King must proportion his Government to the safety of the people on the one hand and to his owne safety and power on the other hand Ans. What the King doth as King he doth it for the happinesse of his people the King is a relative yea even his owne happinesse that he seeketh he is to referre to the good of Gods people He saith farther The safety of the people includeth the safety of the King because the word populus is so taken which he proveth by a raw sickly rabble of words stollen out of Passerats Dictioner His father the Schoole-master may whip him for frivolous Etymologies This supreame Law saith the Prelate is not above the Law of Prerogative Royall the highest Law nor is Rex above Lex The Democracie of Rome had a supremacie above Lawes to make and unmake Lawes and will they force this power on a Monarch to the destruction of Soveraigntie Answ. This which is stollen from Spalato Barclay Grotius and others is easily answered The supremacie of People is a Law of natures selfe-preservation above all positive Lawes and above the King and is to regulate Soveraigntie not to destroy it 2. If this supremacie of Majâ—stie was in people before they have a King then 1. they lose it not by a voluntary choise of a King for a King is chosen for good and not for the peoples losse ergo they must retain this power in habite and potency even when they have a King 2. Then supremacy of Majesty is not a beame of Divinity proper to a King only 3. Then the people having Royall soveraignty vertually in them make and so unmake a King all which the Prelate denyeth This supreme Law saith the Prelate begging it from Spalato Arnisaeus Grotius advance the King not the people and the sense is The Kingdome is really some time in such a case that the Soveraigne must exercise an Arbitrary Power and not stand upon private mens interests or transgressing of Lawes made for the private good of individualls but for the preservation of it selfe and the publicke may break through all Lawes This he may in the case when suddaine forraine invasion threatneth ruine inevitably to King and Kingdome a Physitian may rather cut a Gangreened member then suffer the whole body to perish The Dictator in case of extreame dangers as Livie and Dion Halicarnass shew us had power according to his owne Arbitrament had a soveraigne Commission in peace and war of life death persons c. not co-ordinate not subordinate to any Ans. It is not an Arbitrary power but naturally tyed and fettered to this same supreame Law Salus populi the safety of the people that a King breake through not the Law but the letter of the Law for the safety of the people as the Chyrurgion not by any prerogative that he hath above the Art of Chyrurgery but by necessity cutteth off a Gangreened member thus it s not Arbitrary to the King to save his people from ruine but by the strong and imperious Law of the peoples safety he doth it for if he did it not he were a murtherer of his people 2. He is to stand upon transgression of Lawes according to their genuine sense of the peoples safety for good Lawes are not contrary one to another though when he breaketh through the letter to the Law yet he breaketh not the Law for if twenty thousand Rebells invade Scotland he is to command all to rise though the formality of a Parliament cannot be had to indict the war as our Law provideth but the King doth not command all to rise and defend themselves by a Prerogative Royall proper to him as King and incommunicable to any but to himselfe 1. There is no such dinne and noise to be made for a King and his incommunicable Prerogative for though the King were not at all yea though he command the contrary as he did when he came against Scotland with an English Army the law of Nature teacheth all to rise without the King 2. That the King command this as King it is not a particular positive Law but he doth it as a man and a member of the Kingdom The law of Nature which knoweth no dreame of such a Prerogative forceth him to it as every member is by Natures indictment to care for the whole 3. It is poore hungry skill in this New Statist for so he nameth all Scotland to say that any Lawes are made for private interests and the good of some individuals Lawes are not Lawes if they be not made for the safetie of the people 4. It is false that the King in a publike danger is to care for himselfe as a man with the ruine and losse of any Yea in a publike calamitie a good King as David is to desire he may die that the Publique may bee saved 2 Samuel 24.17 Exodus 32.32 It is commended of all that the Emperour Otho yea and Richard the 2. of England as M. Speed saith Hist. of England p. 757. resigned their Kingdomes to eschew the effusion of blood The Prelate adviseth the King to passe over all lawes of Nature and slay thousands of innocents and destroy Church and State of three Kingdomes
for a straw and supposed Prerogative Royall Now certainly Prerogative and Absolutenes to doe good and ill must be inferior to a Law the end whereof is the safetie of the People For David willeth the pestilence may take him away and so his Prerogative that the People may be saved 2 Sam. 24.17 for Prerogative is cumulative to doe good not privative to doe ill and so is but a meane to defend both the Law and the People 2. Prerogative is either a power to doe good or ill or both If the first be said it must be limited by the End and Law for which it is ordained A meane is no farther a meane but in so far as it conduceth to the end the safetie of all If the second be admitted it is Licence and Tyrannie not power from God If the third be said both reasons plead against this that Prerogative should be the Kingâ— end in the present warres 3. Prerogative being a power given by the mediation of the people yea suppose which is false that it were given immediately of God yet it not a thing for which the King should raise war against his Subjects for God will aske no more of the King then he giveth to him The Lord reapeth not where he soweth not If the Militia and other things be ordered hitherto for the holding off Irish and Spanish invasion by Sea and so for the good of the Land seeing the King in his own person cannot make use of the Militia he is to rejoyce that his Subjects are defended The King cannot answer to God for the justice of warre on his part It is not a case of conscience that the King should shed blood for to wit because the under-Officers are such men and not others of his choosing seeing the Kingdome is defended sufficiently except where Cavaliers destroy it And to me this is an unanswerable argument that the Cavaliers destroy not the Kingdomes for this Prerogative Royall as the principall ground but for a deeper designe even for that which was working by Prelates and Malignants before the late troubles in both Kingdomes 4. The King is to intend the safetie of his People and the safety of the King as a Governour but not as this King and this man Charles that is a selfe end a King David is not to looke to that for when the people was seeking his life and crown he saith Ps. 3.8 Thy blessing upon thy People He may care for and intend that the King and Government be safe for if the Kingdome be destroyed there cannot be a new Kingdome and Church on earth againe to serve God in that generation Psal. 89.47 but they may easily have a new King againe and so the safetie of the one cannot in reason be intended as a collaterall end with the safetie of the other for there is no imaginable comparison betwixt one man with all his accidents of Prerogative and Absolutenesse and three Nationall Churches and Kingdomes Better the King weep for a Childish trifle of a Prerogative than Poperie be erected and three Kingdomes be destroyed by Cavaliers for their own ends 5. The Dictators power is 1. a fact and proveth not a point of Conscience 2. His power was in an exigence of extreme danger of the Commonwealth The P. Prelate pleadeth for a constant absolutenesse above Lawes to the King at all times and that jure Divino 3. The Dictator was the Peoples creature ergo the Creator the People had that soveraigntie over him 4. The Dictator was not above a King but the Romanes ejected Kings 5. The Dictators power was not to destroy a State 2. He might be and was resisted 3. He might be deposed Prelate The safetie of the People is pretended as a Law that the Jewes must put Christ to death and that Saul spared Agag Ans. No shadow for either in the word of God Caiaphas prophecied and knew not what he said But that the Iewes intended the salvation of the Elect in kilâ—ing Christ or that Saul intended a publick good in sparing Agag shall be the Prelates Divinitie not mine 2. What howbeit many should abuse this Law of the peoples safety to wrong good Kings it ceaseth not therefore to be a Law and licenseth not ill Kings to place a Tyrannicall Prerogative above a just Dictate of nature In the last Chapter the Prelate hath no reasons onely he would have Kings holy and this he proveth from Apocrypha Books because he is ebbe in holy Scripture but it is Romish holinesse as is cleer 2. He must preach something to himself that the King adore a tree-Altar Thus Kings must be most reverend in their gestures pag. 182. 3. The King must hazard his sacred life and three Kingdoms his Crown Royall posterity to preserve sacred things that is Antichristian Romish Idols Images Altars Ceremonies Idolatry Popery 4. He must upon the same pain maintain sacred persons that is greasie Apostate Prelates The rest I am weary to trouble the Reader withall but know ex ungue leoâ—em QUEST XXVI Whether the King be above the Law or no WE may consider the question of the Laws supremacie over the King either in the supremacie of constitution of the King 2. or of direction or 3. of limitation or 4. of coaction and punishing Those who maintain this The King is not subject to the Law if their meaning be The King as King is not subject to the Laws direction They say nothing for the King as the King is a living Law then they say The Law is not subject to the Laws direction a very improper speech or The King as King is not subject to the coaction of the Law that is true for he who is a living Law as such cannot punish himself as the Law saith 1. Assert The Law hath a supremacy of constitution above the King 1. Because the King by nature is not King as is proved Ergo he must be King by a politique constitution and Law and so the Law in that consideration is above the King because it is from a civil Law that there is a King rather then any other kinde of Governour 2. It is by Law that amongst many hundred men this man is King not this man and because by the which a thing is constituted by the same thing it is or may be dissolved therefore 3. As a Community finding such and such qualifications as the Law requireth to be in a King in this man not in this man therefore upon Law-ground 5. They make him a King and upon Law-grounds and just demerit they may unmake him again for what men voluntarily doe upon condition the condition being removed they may undoe again 2. Assert It is denyed by none but the King is under the directive power of the Law though many liberate the King from the coactive power of a civil Law But I see not what direction a civil Law can give to the King if he be above all obedience or
indeed the triviall Argument of all Royalists especially of Barclay obvious in his 3. Booke If Arbitrarie and Tyrannicall power above any Law that the lawfull Magistrate commandeth under the paine of death Thou shalt not murther one man Thou shalt not take away the vineyard of one Naboth violently be lawfull and warrantable by Gods word then an Arbitrarie power above all Divine lawes is given to the keeping of the Civill Magistrate And it is no lesse lawfull Arbitrarie or rather Tyrannicall power for David to kill all his Subjects and to plunder all Jerusalem as I beleeve Prelates and Malignants and Papists would serve the three Kingdomes if the King should command them then to kill one Vriah or for Achab to spoile one Naboth The essence of â—inne must agree alike to all though the degrees varie Of Gods remedie against Arbitrary power hereafter in the Question of Resistance but the confused ingine of the Prelate bringeth it in here where there is no place for iâ— His 7. Argument is Before God would authorize Rebellion and give a bad president thereof for ever he would rather worke extraordinary and wondâ—rfull miracles and therefore would not authorize the people to deliver themselves from under Pharaoh but made Moses a Prince to bring them out of Egypt with a strâ—tched-out armâ— nor did the Lord deliver his people by the wisdome of Moses or strength of the people or any act that way of theirs but by his own immediate hand and power Ans. I reduce the Prelates confused words to a few for I speake not of his Popish tearme of Saint Steven and others the like because all that he hath said in a book of 149 pages might have been said in three sheets of paper But I pray you what is this Argument to the Question in hand wâ—â—ch is Whether the King be so above all Lawes as People and Peeres in the case of Arbitrarie power may resume their power and punish a Tyrant The P. Prâ—late draweth in the Question of Resistance by the haire Israels not rising in armes against K. Pharaoh proveth nothing against the power of a Free Kingdome against a Tyrant 1. Moses who wrought miracles destructive to Pharaoh might pray a vengeance against Pharaoh God having revealed to Moses that Pharaoh was a Reprobate But may Ministers and Nobles pray so against King Charles God forbid 2. Pharaoh had not his Crown from Israel 3. Pharaoh had not sworne to defend Israel nor became he their King upon condition he should maintaine and professe the Religion of the God of Israel Therefore Israel could not as free Estates challenge him in their supreme Court of Parliament of breach of oath and upon no termes could they un-king Pharaoh He held not his Crown of them 4. Pharaoh was never circumcised nor within the Covenant of the God of Isrâ—el in profession 5. Israel had their lands by the meere gift of the King I hope the King of Britaine standeth to Scotland and England in a foure-fold contrary relation All Divines know that Pharaoh his Princes and the Egyptians were his Peeres and People and that Israel were not his native Subjects but a number of strangers who by the lawes of the King and Princes by the meanes of Joseph had gotten the land of Goshen for their dwelling and libertie to serve the God of Abraham to whom they prayed in their bondage Exod. 2.23 24. and they were not to serve the Gods of Egypt nor were of the Kings Religion And therefore his Argument is thus A number of poore exiled strangers under King Pharaoh who were not Pharaohs Princes and Peeres could not restraine the Tyrannie of King Pharaoh Ergo the three Estates in a free Kingdome may not restraine the Arbitrarie power of a King 2. The Prelate must prove that God gave a Royall and Kingly power to King Pharaoh due to him by vertue of his Kingly calling according as Royalists expone 1 Sam. 8.9 11. to kill all the male children of Israel to make slaves of themselves and compell them to worke in brick and clay while their lives were a burden to them And that if a Romish Catholique Mary of England should kill all the male Children of Protestants by the hands of Papists at the Queenes commandement and make bondslaves of all the Peeres Iudges and three Estates who made her a free Princesse yet notwithstanding that Mary had sworne to maintaine the Protestant Religion they were to suffer and not to defend themselves But if God give Pharaoh a power to kill all Israel so as they could not controll it then God giveth to a King a Royall power by office to sinne only the Royalist saveth God from being the author of sinne in this that God gave the power to sinne but yet with this limitation that the Subjects should not resist this power 2. He must prove that Israel was to give their Male-childâ—en to Pharaohs Butchers for to hide them was to resist a Royall power and to disobey a Royall power given of God is to disobey God 3. The Subjects may not resist the Kings Butchers coming to kill them and their Male-children For to resist the servant of the King in that wherein he is a servant is to resist the King 1 Sam. 8.7 1 Pet. 2.14 Rom. 13.1 4. He must prove that upon the supposition That Israel had been as strong as Pharaoh and his people that without Gods speciall commandment they then wanting the written Word they should have fought with Pharaoh and that we now for all wars must have a word from Heaven as if we had not Gods perfit Will in his Word as at that time Israel behoved to have in all wars Judg. 18.5 1 Sam. 14.37 Esa. 30.2 Iere. 38.37 1 King 22.5 1 Sam. 30.5 Iudg. 20.27 1 Sam. 23.2 2 Sam. 16.23 1 Chron. 10.14 But because God gave not them an answer to fight against Pharaoh therefore we have no warrant now to fight agâ—inst a forraign Nation invading us the consequence is null and therefore this is a vain Argument The Prophets never reprove the people for not performing the duty of defensive wars against Tyraâ—nous Kings Ergo There is no such dutie enjoyned by any Law of God to us For the Prophets never rebuke the people for non-performing the dutie of offensive wars against their enemies but where God gave a speciall command and responce from his own Oracle that they should fight And if God was pleased never to command the people to rise against a Tyrannous King they did not sin where they had no commandment of God but I hope we have now a more sure word of prophecie to inform us 5. The Prelate conjectureth Moses his miraâ—les and the deliverance of the people by dividing the Red Sea was to forbid and condemn defensive wars of people against their King but he hath neither Scripture nor Reasons to do it The end of these miracles was to Seal to Pharaoh the Truth of Gods calling of Moses and
an habituall Tyrant and conduce an hundred thousand Turkes to destroy his subjects upon meere desire of revenge they are not to resist but to be subject and suffer for conscience I am sure Grotius saith If a King sell his subjects he loseth all title to the Crowne and so may be resisted and Winzetus saith A Tyrant may be resisted and Barclay It is lawfull for the people in case of Tyranny to defend themselves Adversus immanem saevetiam against extreame cruelty and I desire the Prelate to answer how people are subject in suffering such cruelty of the higher power because he is Gods ordinance and a power from God except he say as he selleth his people and barbarously destroyeth by Cut-throat Irishes his whole subjects refusing to worship Idolls he is a man and a sinfull man eatenus and an inferiour power inspired by wicked counsell not a King eatenus not a higher power and that in resisting him thus the subjects resist not the ordinance of God Also suppone King David defend his Kingdome and people against Iesse his naturall father who we suppose cometh in against his sonne and Prince King David with a huge army of the Philistimes to destroy him and his Kingdome if he shall kill his owne native father in that warr at some Edge-hill how shall he preserve at Ierusalem that honour love that he oweth to his father by vertue of the fifth Commandement Honour thy father and thy mother c. Let them answer this except King David consider Iesse in one relation in abstracto as his father whom he is to obey and as he is a wicked man and a perfidious subject in another relation and except King David say he is to subject himselfe to his father as a father according to the fifth Commandement and that in the act of his fathers violent invasion he is not to subject himselfe to him as he is a violent invader and as a man Let the Royalist see how he can answer the Argument and how Levie is not to know his father and mother as they are sinfull men Deut. 33.9 and yet to know and honour them as Parents and how an Israelite is not to pitty the wife that lyeth in his bosome when she inticeth him to goe a whooring after strange Gods but is to kill her Deut. 13.6 7 8. and yet the husband is to love the wife as Christ loved his Church Eph. 5.25 If the husband take away his wives life in some mountaine in the holy Land as Gods Law commandeth let the Royalists answer us where is then the maritall love he owes to her and that respect due to her as she is a wife and a helper But let not the Royalist infer that I am from these examples pleading for the killing of Kings for lawfull resistance is one thing and killing of Kings is another the one defensive and lawfull the other offensive and unlawfull so long as he remaineth a King and the Lords Anoynted But if he be a murtherer of his father who doth counsell his father to come to a place of danger where he may be killed and 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 unbeseeming 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
when Nero commandeth unjust punishment because Nero commanding so remaineth Gods Minister Why But when Nero commandeth me to worship an Heathen God I am upon the same ground to obey that unjust will in doing ill For Nero in commanding Idolatry remaineth the Lords Minister his person is sacred in the one commandment of doing ill as in inflicting ill of punishment And do I not resist his person in the one as in the other His power and his person are unseparably conjoyned by God in the one as in the other 2. In bodily thrusting out of Vzzah from the Temple these fourscore valiant men did resist the Kings person by bodily violence as well as his power 3. If the power of killing the Martyrs in Nero was no power ordained of God then the resisting of Nero in his taking away the lives of the Martyrs was but the resisting of Tyranny And certainly if that power in Nero was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a power ordained of God and not to be resisted as the place Rom. 13. is alleaged by Royalists then it must be a lawfull power and no Tyranny and if it cannot be resisted because it was a power ordained and settled in him it is either setled by God and so not Tyranny except God be the Author of Tyranny or then settled by the devill and so may well be resisted but the Text speaketh of no power but of that which is of God 4. We are not to be subject to all powers in concreto by the Text for we are not to be subject to powers lawfull yet commanding active obedience to things unlawfull Now subjection includeth active obedience of honour love fear paying tribute and therefore of need force some powers must be excepted 5. Pilates power is meerly a power by divine permission not a power ordained of God as are the powers spoken of Rom. 13. Gregori mor. l. 3. c. 11. expresly saith This was Satans power given to Pilate against Christ. Manibus Satanae pro nostra redemptione se traddit Lyra. A Principibus Romanorum ulterius permissum a Deo qui est potestas superior Calvin Bâ—za Diodâ—tus saith the same and that he cannot mean of Legall power from Gods regulating will is evident 1. Because Christ is answering Pilate John 19.10 Knowest thou not that I have power to crucifie thee This was an untruth Pilate had a command to worship him and beleeve in him and whereas Ferne saith Sect. 9. pag. 59. Pilate had power to judge any accused before him It is true but he being obliged to beleeve in Christ he was obliged to be perswaded of Christs innocency and so neither to judge nor receive accusation against him and the power he saith he had to crucifie was a Law-power in Pilates meaning but not in very deed any Law-power because a Law-power is from Gods regulating will in the fifth Commandment but no creature hath a lawfull or a Law-power to crucifie Christ. 2. A Law-power is for good Rom. 13.4 A power to crucifie Christ is for ill 3. A Law-power is a terrour to ill works and a praise to good Pilates power to crucifie Christ was the contrary 4. A Law-power is to execute wrath on ill-doing a power to crucifie Christ is no such 5. A Law-power conciliateth honour fear and veneration to the person of the Judge a power to crucifie Christ conciliateth no such thing but a disgrace to Pilate 6. The Genuine Acts of a lawfull power are lawfull Acts for such as is the Fountain-power such are the Acts flowing therefrom good Acts slow not from bad powers neither hath God given a power to sin except by way of permission QUEST XXX Whether or no Passive Obedience be a meane to which we are subjected in conscience by vertue of a Divine Commandement and what a meane Resistance is That Flying is Resistance MUch is built to commend patient suffâ—ring of ill and conâ—emne all râ—sistance of Superiors by Royalists on the place 1 Pet. 2.18 Where we are commanded being servants to suffer buffets not onely for ill doing of good masters but also undeservedly and when we doâ— well we aâ—e to suffer of these masters that are eviâ—l and so much more are we patiently without Resistance to suffer of Kings Bâ—t it is cleare the place is nothing against Resistance as in these Assertions I cleare Assertion 1. Patiâ—nt suffâ—ring of wicked men and violent resisting are not incompatible but they may well stand together So this consequence is the basis of the argument and it is just nothing To wit Servants are to suffâ—r uâ—jâ—stly wounds and â—uâ—â—â—ting of their wicked Masters and they aâ—e to bear iâ— patiently Ergo Servants are in conscience obliged to non-resistance Now Scripture maketh this clâ—ar The Church of God is to bear with all patience the 〈◊〉 of the Lord because she hath sinned and to suffer of wicked enemies which were to be troden as mire in the streets Micah 7.9 10 11 12. but withall they were not obliged to non-resistance and not to fight against these enemies yea they were obliged to fight against them also If these were Babilon Iudah might have resisted and fought if God had not givâ—n a speciall commandement of a positive law that they should not fight if these were the Assyrians and other enemies or rather both the people were to resist by fighting and yet to endure patiently the indignation of the Lord. David did bear most patiently the wrong that his own son Absolon and Achitophel and the people inflicted on him in pursuing him to take his life and the kingdom from him as is cleare by his gracious expressions 2 Sam. 15.25 26. chap. 16. ver 10 11 12. Psal. 3.1 2 3. Yea he prayeth for a blessing on the people that conspired against him Psal. 3.8 Yet did he lawfully resist Absalom and the conspiratours and sent out Ioab and a huge army in open battel against them 2. Sam. 18.1 2 3 4 c. and fought against them And were not the people of God patient to endure the violence done to them in the wildernes by Og king of Bashan Sihon king of Heshbon by the Ammorites Moabites c I think Gods law tyeth all men especially his people to as patient a suffering in wars Deut. 8.16 God then trying and humbling his people as the servant is to endure patiently unjustly inflicted buffets 1 Pet. 2.18 And yet Gods people at Gods command did resist these Kings and people and did fight and kill them and possesse their land as the history is cleare See the like Iosh. 11. ver 18 19. 2. One act of grace and vertue is not contrary to another Resistance is in the Children of God an innocent act of self-preservation as is patient suffering and therefore they may well subsist in one And so saith Amasa by the spirit of the Lord. 1 Chro. 12.18 Peace peace be unto thee and peace to thy helpers for God helpeth thee Now David in that and all
Sauls emissaries Because then he should have been in an immediate and nearest posture of actuall self-defence Now the case is farre otherwayes between the King and the two Parliaments of England and Scotland for the King is not 1. Sleeping in his emissariâ—s for he hath armies in two kingdomes and now in threâ— kingdomes by sea and land night and day in actuall pursuit not of one David but of the estates and a Christian community in England and Scotland and that for Religions Lawes and Liberties for the question is now betweene Papist and Protestant between Arbitrâ—ry or Tyranicall government and law-government and Therefore by both the Lawes of the politique societies of both Kingdomes and by the Law of God and nature we are to use violent re-offâ—nding for sâ—lf-preservation and put to this necessity when armies are in actuall pursuit of all the Protestant Churches of the suffâ—r â—awes and Religion to be undone But saith the Royalist Davids argument God forbid that I stretch out my hand against the Lords Annoâ—nted my Master the King concludeth universally that the King in his most Tyrannous acts still remaining the Lords Anoynted cannot be resisted Ans. 1. David speaketh of stretching out his haâ—d against the person of King Saul no man in the three Kingdomes did so much as attempt to do violence to the Kings person But this argument 2. is inconsequent for a King invading in his own Royall person the innocent subject 1. Suddainly 2. Without colâ—ur of Law and reason 3. Unavoidably may be personally resistâ—d and that with opposing a violence bodily yet in that invasion he remaineth the Lords Annoynted 2. By this argument the life of a murtherer cannot be taken away by a Judge for he râ—maineth one endued with Gods image and keepeth stil the nature of a man under all the murthers that he doth but it followeth no wayes that because God hath indowed his person with a sort of Royalty of a Divine image that his life cannot be taken and certainly if to be a man endued with Gods image Gen. 6.9 10. and to bee an ill doer worthy of evill punishment are different to be a King and an ill doer may be distinguished The grounds of self-defence are these A woman or a young man may violently oppose a King if he force the one to adultery and incest and the other to Sodomy Though Court-flatterers should say the King in regard of his absolutenesse is Lord of life and death yet no man ever said that the King is Lord of chastity faith and oath that the wife hath made to her husband 2. Particular nature yeelds to the good of universall nature for which cause heavie bodies ascend aerie and light bodies descend If then a wilde Bull or a goaring Oxe may not be let loose in a great market-confluence of people and if any man turne so distracted as he smite himselfe with stones and kill all that passe by him or come at him in that case the man is to be bound and his hands fettered and all whom he invadeth may resist him were they his owne sons and may save their owne lives with weapons much more a King turning a Nero King Saul vexed with an evill spirit from the Lord may be resisted and faâ—re more if a King indued with use of reason shall put violent hands on all his subjects kill his son and heire yea any violently invaded by natures law may defend themselves and the violent restraining of such an one is but the hurting of one man who cannot be virtually the Common-wealth but his destroying of the community of men sent out in warres as his bloody emissaries to the dissolution of the Common-wealth 3. The cutting off of a contagious member that by a Gangrene would corrupt the whole body is well warranted by nature because the safety of the whole is to be preferred to the safety of a part Nor is it much that Royalists say the King being the head destroy him the whole body the Common-wealth is dissolved as cut off a mans head the life of the whole man is taken away Because 1. God cutteth off the spirits of tyrannous Kings and yet the Common-wealth is not dissolved no more then when a Leopard or a wilde Boare running through children is killed it can be the destruction of all the children in the land 2. A king indefinitely is referred to the Common-wealth as an adequat head to a Monarchicall Kingdome and remove all Kings and the politique body as Monarchicall in its frame is not Monarchicall but it leaveth not off to be a politique body seeing it hath other Judges but the naturall body without the head cannot live 2. This or that tyrannous King being a transient mortall thing cannnot be referred to the immortall Common-wealth as it is adequat correlate They say the King never dieth yet this King can dye an immortall politique body such as the Common-wealth must have an immortall head and that is a King as a King not this or that man possibly a tyrant who is for the time and eternall things abstract from time onely a King 4. The reason of Fortunius Garcias a skilfull Lawyer in Spaine is considâ—rable Coment in l. ut vim vi ff de justit jure God hath implâ—nted in every creature naturall inclinations and motions to preserve it selfe and we are to love our self for God and have a love to preserve our selves rather then our neighbour and Natures law teacheth every man to love God best of all and next our selves more then our neighbour for the Law saith Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy selfe then saith Malderus com in 12. q. 26. tom 2. c. 10. concl 2. The love of our selfe is the measure of the love of our neighbour But the rule and the measure is more perfect simple and more principall then the thing that is measured It is true I am to love the salvation of the Church it comming neerer to Gods glory more then my owne salvation as the wishes of Moses and Paul do prove and I am to love the salvation of my brother more then my owne temporall life but I am to love my owne temporall life more then the life of any other and therefore I am rather to kill then to be killed the exigence of necessity so requiring Nature without sin aimeth this as a truth in the case of losse of life Proximus sum egomet mihi Ephes. 5.28 29. He that loveth his wife loveth himselfe for no man ever yet hated his owne flesh but nourisheth it and cherisheth it even as the Lord the Church As then nature tyeth the dam to defend the young birds and the Lyon her whelps and the husband the wife and that by a comparative re-offending rather then the wife or children should be killed yea hee that is wanting to his brother if a robber unjustly invade his brother and helpeth him not is a murtherer of his
because of Saul the son of Kish And they were amongst the mighty men helpers of the warre It is a scorne to say that their might and their helping in warre consisted in being meere patients with David and such as fled from Saul for they had beene on Sauls side before and to come with armour to flee is a mocking of the word of God 2. It is cleare the scope of the Spirit of God is to shew how God helped his innocent servant David against his persecuting Prince and Master King Saul in moving so many mighty men of warre to come in such multitudes all in Armes to help him in warre Now to what end would the Lord commend them as fit for Warre men of might fit to handle shield buckler whose faces are as the faces of Lyons as swift as the Roes on the Mountaines ver 8. and commend them as helpers of David if it were unlawfull for David and all those mighty men to carry Armes to pursue Saul and his followers and to doe nothing with their armour but flee Judge if the Spirit of God in reason could say All these men came armed with bowes ver 2. and could handle both the right hand and the left in slinging stones and shooting of arrowes and that ver 22. all these came to David being mighty men of valour and they came as Captains over hundreds and thousands they put to slight all them of the valleyes both toward the East and toward the West ver 14 15. and that David received them and made them Captains of the band if they did not come in a posture of warre and for hostile invasion if need were For if they came onâ—ly to suffer and to flee not to pursue Bowes Captaines and Captaines of Bands made by David and Davids helpers in the warre came not to help David by â—lying that was a hurt to David not a help It is true M. Symmons saith 1 Sam. 22.2 Those that came out to David strengthened him but he strengthened not them and David might easily have revenged himselfe on the Ziphites who did good will to betray him to the hands of Saul if his conscience had served him Answ. 1. This would inferre that these armed men came to help David against his conscience and that David was a patient in the businesse the contrary is in the Text 1 Sam. 26.2 David became a Captaine over them and 1 Chron. 12.17 If ye come peaceably to help me my heart shall be knit to you ver 18. Then David received them and made them Captains of the band 2. David might have revenged himselfe upon the Ziphites True but that Conscience hindred him cannot be proved To pursue an enemie is an act of a Councell of Warre and he saw 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 consciencâ— 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 arbitrary 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. Whâ—n 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 iâ— 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 Râ—bâ—ls 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 lest 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 Ahimelech and Abâ—shai 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 fled no or that David consulted the oracle of God what to do when Saul was coming against him 5. in an ordinary fact something â—ay 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 〈◊〉 I confesse a short way to an adversary to cull out something tâ—at 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 â—ot 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 answâ—red They will not deliver thee up but they shall save thee from the hand of Saul As David beleeved he might say this as well as its contradicent then David behoved to keep the city for certainly Davids question pre-supposeth he was to keep the city The example of Elisha the Prophet is considerable 2 Kings 6.32 But Elisha sate in his house and the Elders with him And the King sent a man before him but â—re the messengers came to him he said to the Elders See now the sonnâ— of a murtherer hath sent to take away mine head Here is unjust violence offered by King Ioram to an innocent man Elisha keepeth the house violently against the Kings Messenger as we did keep Castles against King Charles his unlawfull messengers Look saith he when the messenger commeth shut the doore 2. There is violence also commanded and resistence to be made Hold him fast at the doore In the Hebrew it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arias Montan. Claudite ostium opprimetis eum in ostio Violently presse him at the doore And so the Chaldee Paraphrase Ierom. Ne sinatis eum introirâ— The LXX Interpreters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 illidite eum in ostio Presse him betwixt the doore and the wall It is a word of bodily violence according to Vatablus Yea Theodoret will have King Ioram himselfe holden at the doore And 3. It is no Answer that D. Ferne and other Royalists give that Elisha made no personall resistance to the King himselfe but onely to the Kings cut-throat sent to take away his head Yea they say It is lawfull to resist the Kings cut-throats But the text is cleere that the violent resistance is made to the King himselfe also for he addeth Is not the sound of his Masters feet behinde him And by this answer it is lawfull to keep Townes with iron gates and barres and violently to oppose the Kings cut-throats comming to take away the heads of the Parliaments of both Kingdomes and of Protestants in the three Kingdomes Some Royalists are so impudent as to say that there was no violence here and that Elisha was an extraordinary man and that it is not lawfull for us to call a King the son of a murtherer as the Prophet Elisha did but Ferne sect 2. pag. 9. forgeâ—ting himselfe saith from hence It is lawfull to resist the Prince himselfe thus farre as toward his blowes and hold his hands But let Ferne answer if the violent binding of the Princes hands that he shall not be able to kill be a greater violence done to his Royall person then Davids cutting off the lap of Sauls garment for certainly the Royall body of a Prince is of more worth then his cloathes Now it was a sinne I judge that smote Davids conscience that he being a subject and not in the act of naturall self-defence did cut the garment of the Lords Annointed Let Ferne see then how he will save his owne principles for certainly hee yeeldeth the cause for me I judge that the person of the King or any Judge who is the Lords Deputy as is the King is sacred and that remaining in that honourable case no subject can without guiltinesse before God put hands in his person the case of naturall self-defence being excepted for because the Royall dignity doth not advance a King above the common condition of men and the Throne maketh him not leave off to bee a man and a man that can do wrong and therefore as one that doth manifest violence to the life of a man though his subject he may be resisted with â—odâ—ly 〈◊〉 in the case of uâ—jâ—st and violent invasion It is a vaine thing to say Who shall be judge betweene the King and his subjâ—cts The â—ubject cannot judge the King because none can be judge in his owne cause and an inferiour or equall cannot judge a superiour or equall But I answer 1. This is the Kings owne cause also and he doth unjust violence as a man and not as a King and so he cannot be judge more then the subject 2. Every one that doth unjust violence as he is such is inferiour to the innocent and so ought to be judged by some 3. There is no need of
to make warre against the King and themselves in the defence of Religion when the Prophets had much adoe to convince the people that they sinned in joyning with the King what place was there to shew them their sin in not using their owne lawfull defence And in reason any may judge it unreasonable for Elias to exhort of thousand thousands in Israel poore seven thousand of which many no doubt were women aged weake young to rise in Armes against Ahab and all Israel except God had given a positive and extraordinary Commandement and with all miraculous courage and strength in war against the whole Land and God worketh not alwayes by miracles to save his Church and therefore the naturall mandate of self-preservation in that case doth no more oblige a few weake ones to lawfull resistance then it obliged one Martyre to rise against a persecuting Nero and all his forces Arnisaeus should remember wee are not to tye our Lord to miracles 2. Elias did not onely flee but denounced wrath against the King and Cavalliers who joyned with them in Idolatry and when God gave oportunity he shewed himself and stirred the people up to kill Baals Iesuits and seducing idolatours when the Idolatrous King refuâ—ed to do it and Eliah with his own hand took them not but all Israel being gathered together 1 King 18.19 The Princes and Judges did apprehend them ver 40. which is a warrant when the King refuseth to draw the sword of justice against armed Papists that other judges are to do it 2. For Nebuchadnezzer Ieremiah from the Lord expresly forbad to fight against him shew us the like for no defending our selves against bloody Papists and Irish cut-throats for that example may as well prove if it be a binding law to us that our King should not raise his Subjects to fight against a Spanish Armado and a forraigne Priâ—ce for before ever Nebuchadnezzer subdued the Kingdom of Iudah Ier. 27.1 In the beginning of the raigne of Iehoiakim ver 12 13 14. chap. 36. chap. 37. the King of Iudah is from the Lord commanded not to draw a sword against the King of Babylon I hope this will not tye us and our King not to fight against forraigne Princes or against the great Turk if they shall injustly invade us and our King and this example is against the Kings resisting of a forraigne Prince unjustly invading him as much as against us for Nebuchadnezzar was a Tyrannous invader and the King of Iudah the Lords Annoynted 3. The people also conspired with Manasseh as with Ahab Ier. 15.4 4 Of Empâ—rours persecuting Christians we shall heare anon 5. Deut. 13. None are excepted by a synecdoche the dearest are expressed sonne daughter brother the friend that is as thine own soul. Ergo fathers also And husbands are to love their lives Ephes. 5.25 Yet to execute judgement on them without pitty Deut. 13.8.9 The father is to love the son yet if the son prophecy falsely in the name of the Lord to kill him Zach. 13.3 Hence love fear reverence toward the King may be commanded and defensive warres also 6. Christ fled from Herod and all his actions and sufferings are mysteries and instructions saith the poor Prelate 1. Christ kissed the man that to his knowledge came to betray him Christ fled not but knowing where and when his enemy should apprehend him came willingly to the place Ergo we should not flee 2. His actions are so mysterious that Iohn P. P. in imitation of Christs fourty dayes fast will fast from flesh in lent and the Prelate must walk on the sea and work miracles if all Christs actions be our instructions 7. He might with more then twelve Lâ—gions of Angels defend himself but he would not not because resistance was unlawfull no shadow for that in the text but because it was Gods will that he should drink the cup his Father gave him because to take the sword without Gods warrant subjecteth the usurper of Gods place to perish with the sword Peter had Gods revealed wil that Christ behoved to suffer Math. 26.52 53. Math. 16.21 22 23. Gods positive command that Christ should die for sinners Iohn 10.24 may well restraine an act of lawfull sâ—lf-preservation hic nunc and such an act as Christ lawfully used at another time Luk. 4.29 30. Ioh. 11.7 8. we give no new creed but this apostate hath forsaken his old creed the religion of the Church of Scotland in which he was Baptised 9. Nor do we expuâ—ge out of the Creed Christs descension into hell the communion of Saints as the apostate saith but the Popish locall descension of Christ the Popish advancing of the Churches power above the Scriptures the intercession prayers to the saints or of the saints for us we deny this Prelate though he did swear the doctrine of the Church of Scotland preached expresly all these many other poynts of Popery in the Pulpits of Edenburgh 10. We beleeve that Christ suffered under Pontius Pilat but that Pilat had any legal power to condemne Christ but onely a power by a permissive Decree Act. 4.27 28. Such as Devils had by Gods permission Luke 22.53 we utterly deny 11. The Prelat saith it is his resolution for our sin of naturall selfe defence to dissolve in tears because his Bishopricke I conceive by which he was wont to dissolve in cups being drunk on the Lords day after he with other Prelates had been at the Lords Supper while the Chamber wherein they were was dissolved in vomitting was taken from him 12. The prophets cry against all sins but never against the sin of non-resistance and yet they had very Tyrannous and Idolatrous Kings 1. This is but a weak argument 1. The Prophets cry not out against all sins they cry not out against men-stealers and killers of father and mother in expresse tearmes yet do they by consequence condemne all these sins and so do they condemne non-resistance in wars by consequence when they cry out Ier. 5.31 The Prophets prophesie falsly and the Priests beare rule by their meanes and my people love to have it so And when they complaine Ezek. 22.26 27 28. That the Prophets and Priests violate the Law her Princes are like wolves ravening the prey to shed blood and the people use oppression and exercise robbery and vexe the poore And when they say Ier. 22.2 not to the King onely but also to his servants and the people that enter in by the gates 3. Execute judgement and righteousnesse and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressour I pray you who are the oppressors I answer The murthering Judges Esa. 1.21 And Esa. 3.12 As for my people children are their oppressors and women rule over them And ver 14 15. The ancients of the people grind the faces of the poore and when they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth And Prov. 24.11 the Loâ—d shal render to
absolute power is essentially a power to do without or above Law and a power to doe ill to destroy and so it cannot come from God as a Morall power by institution though it come from God by a flux of permissive providence but so things unlawfull and sinfull come from God Quest. 7. Whether the King may in his actions intend his owne Prerogative and Absolutenes Answ. He can neither intend it as his nearest end nor as his remote end Not the former for if he fight and destroy his People for a Prerogative he destroyeth his People that he may have a power to destroy them which must be meere Tyranny nor can it be his remote end for granting that his supposed absolute Prerogative were lawfull he is to referre all lawfull Power and all his actions to a more noble end to wit to the safetie and good of the People Quest. 8. Doe not they that resist the Parliaments power resist the Parliament And they that resist the Kings power resist the King God hath joyned King and Power who dare seperate them Answ. If the Parliament abuse their power we may resist their abused power and not their power Parliamentarie Mr. Bridges doth well distinguish in his Annot. on the Loyall Convert betwixt the Kings power and the Kings will 2. The Resisters doe not separate King and Power but the King himselfe doth separate his lawfull Power from his Will if he worke and act Tyrannie out of this principle Will Passion Lust not out of the Royall principle of Kingly power So far we may resist the one and not the other Quest. 9. Why if God might work a miracle in the three Childrens resistance active why doth he evidence omnipotencie in the passive obedience of these Witnesses The Kingdome of Iudah was Christs birthright as man and Davids sonne why did he not by legions of Men Angels rather vindicate his own flesh and blood than triumph by non-resistance and the omnipotencie of glorie to shine in his meere suffering Ans. Who art thou that disputest with God He that killeth with the jaw-bone of an Asse thousands and he that destroyed the numberlesse Midianites by only three hundred should no more put the three Children to an unlawfull fact in the one if they had by three men killed Nebuchadnezzar and all his Subjects than in the other But nothing is said against us in a Sophisme à non-causa pro causa except it be proved God would neither deliver his three Children nor Christ from death and the Iewes from bondage by miraculous resistance because resistance is unlawfull What patient suffring is lawfull Ergo resistance is unlawfull It is a poor consequent and a begging of the question both must be lawfull to us And so we hold of ten lawfull meanes fit to compasse Gods blessed end he may choose one and let goe nine shall any inferre ergo These other nine meanes are unlawfull because God chose a mean dâ—fferent from those ninâ— and refused them So may I answer by retortion The three hundred sinned in resisting Midian and defeating them Why Because it should be more honour to God if they had by suffering patiently the sword of Midian glorified God in Martyrdome So Christ and the Apostles who could have wrought miracles might have wrought Reformation by the sword and destroyed Kings and Emperors the opposers of the Lambe and they did reforme by suffering Ergo the sword is unlawfull in Reformation It followeth not The meane Christ used is lawfull Ergo all other meanes that he used not are unlawfull It is vaine Logick Quest. 10. Whether is the Coronation of a King any other thing but a Ceremonie Ans. In the Coronation there is and may be the Ceremonie of a shout and an Acclamation and the reaching of a Scepter in his right hand who is made King and the like But the Coronation in concreto according to the substance of the act is no Ceremonie nor any accidentall ingredient in the constitution of a King 1. Because Israel should have performed a meere ceremoniall action on Saul when they made him King which we cannot say for as the Peoples act of Coronation is distinctive so is it constitutive it distinguished Saul from all Israel and did constitute him in a new relation that he was changed from no King to be a King 2. The people cannot by a Ceremonie make a King they must really put some honour on him that was not on him before Now this Ceremonie which Royalists doe fancie Coronation to be is only symbolicall and declarative not really dative it placeth nothing in the King Quest. 11. Whether may Subjects limit the power that they gave not to the King it being the immediate result without intervening of Law or any act of man issuing from God only Ans. Though we should give which in reason we cannot grant that Royall power were a result of the immediate bounty of God without any act of man Yet it may be limited by men that it over-swell not its banks though God immediatly make Peter an Apostle without any act of men yet Paul by a sharpe rebuke Gal. 2. curbeth and limiteth his power that he abuse it not to Iudaizing Royalists deny not but they teach That the 80. Priests that restrained Vzziah his power from burning incense to the Lord gave no Royall power to Vzziah Doe not subjects by flight lay restraint upon a Kings power that he kill not the subjects without cause yet they teach That subjects gave no power to the King certainly this is a proofe of the immense power of the King of Kings that none can fly from his pursuing hand Ps. 139.1 2 3. Amos 9.1 2 3 4. whereas men may fly from earthly Kings Nebuchadnezzar as Royalists teach might justly conquer some Kingdomes for conquest is a just title to the Crowne say they now the Conquerour then justly not only limiteth the Royall Power of the conquered King but wholly removeth his Royalty and unkingeth him yet we know the conquerour gave no Royall power to the conquered King Ioshua and David tooke away Royall power which they never gave and therefore this is no good reason The people gave not to the King Royall Power ergo they could not lawfully limit it and take it away 2. We cannot admit that God giveth Royall power immediatly without the intervention of any Act of Law for it is an Act of Law that Deut. 17. the people chooseth such a King not such a King that the people by a legall covenant make Saul David and Joash Kings and that God exerciseth any politicall action of making a King over such subjects upon such a condition is absurd and inconceivable for how can God make Saul and David Kings of Jsrael upon this politicall and legall condition that they rule in Iustice and Judgement but there must intervene a politicall action and so they are not made Kings immediatly If God feed Moses by bread and Manna
1 Chro. 17.22 2 Sam. 7.12 and fulfilled of Christ and by the Holy Ghost spoken of him Heb. 1.5.6 is blasphemous for God said not to Nero Iulian Dioclesian Belshazer Evilmerodach who were lawfull Kings I will make him my first borne and that any of these blasphemous Idolatrous Princes should cry to God he is my Father my God c. is Divinity well beseeming an excommunicated Prelate Of the Kings dignity above the Kingdome I speake not now the Prelate pulled it in by the haire but hereafter we shall heare of it P. Prelate God onely anoynted David 1 Sam. 16.4 the men of Bethleem yea Samuel knew it not before God saith with mine holy oyle have I anoynted him Ps. 89.91 1. He is the Lords anoynted 2. The oyle is Gods not from the Apothecaries shop nor the Priests Viall this oyle descended from the Holy Ghost who is no lesse the true Olive then Christ is the true Vine yet not the oyle of saving grace as some Fantasticks say but holy 1. From the Author God 2. From influence in the person it maketh the Person of the King sacred 3. From influence on his charge his function and power is sacred Ans. 1. The Prelate said before Davids anoynting was extraordinary here he draweth this anoynting to all Kings 2. Let David be formally both constituted and designed King divers yeares before the States made him King at Hebron and then 1. Saul was not King the Prelate will tearme that treason 2. This was a dry oyle David his person was not made sacred nor his authority sacred by it for he remained a private man and called Saul his King his Master and himselfe a subject 3. This oyle was no doubt Gods Oyle and the Prelate will have it the Holy Ghosts yet he denieth that saving grace yea p. 2. c. 1 he denyeth that any supernaturall gift should be the foundation of Royall dignity and that it is a pernitious tenent So to me he would have the Oyle from Heaven and not from Heaven 4. This holy oyle wherewith David was annointed Psalme 89.20 to Augustine is the oyle of saving grace His own deare brethren the Papists say so and especially Lyranus Glossa ordinaria Hugo Cardinal his beloved Bellarmine and Lorinus Calvin Musculus Marlorat If these be Fanaticks as I think they are to the Prelate yet the Text is evident that this oyle of God was the oyle of saving gtace bestowed on David as on a speciall type of Christ who received the spirit above measure and was the anointed of God Ps. 45.7 whereby all his garments smell of myrrhe aloes and cassia ver 8. and his name Messiah is as an oyntment powred out Cant. 1. 2. This anointed shall be head of his enemies 3. His dominion shall be from the sea to the rivers v. 25. 4. He is in the covenant of grace v. 26. 5. He is higher then the Kings of the earth 6. The grace of perseverance is promised to his seed v. 28 29 30. 7. His kingdome is eternall as the dayes of Heaven vers 35 36. 8. If the Prelate will looke under himselfe to Diodatus and Ainsworth they say this holy oyle was powred on David by Samuel and on Christ was powred the Holy Ghost and that by warrant of Scripture and Junius and Mollerus saith with them Now the Prelate taketh the Court way to powre this oyle of grace on many drie Princes who without all doubt are Kings essentially no lesse then David He must see better then the man who finding Pontius Pilate in the Creed said he behoved to be a good man so because he hath found Nero the tyrant Julian the apostate Nebuchadnezzar Evil-Merodach Hazael Hagag all the Kings of Spaine and I doubt not the Great Turke in the 89 Psalm v. 19 20. so all these Kings are anointed with the oyle of grace and all these must make their enemies necks their footstoole all these be higher then the Kings of the Earth and are hard and fast in the covenant of grace c. P. Prelate All the royall ensignes and acts of Kings are ascribed to God The Crown is of God Esa. 62.3 Psal. 21.3 in the Emperours coyne was an hand putting a crowne on their head the Heathen said they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as holding their Crownes from God Psal. 18.39 Thou hast girt me with strength the sword is the embleme of strength unto battell See Iud. 7.17 their scepter Gods scepter Exod. 4.20 17 9. we read of two rods Moses and Aarons Aarons rod budded God made both the rods Their judgement is the Lords 2 Chron. 19.6 their throne is Gods 1 Chron. 19.21 The Fathers called them sacra vestigia sacra majestas their commandements Divalis jussio The Law saith all their goods are res sacrae Ergo our new Statists disgrace Kings if they blaspheme not God in making them the derivatives of the people the basest extract of the basest of irrationall creatures the Multitude the Communaltie Answ. This is all one Argument from the Prelates beginning of his booke to the end In a most speciall and eminent act of Gods providence Kings are from God but therefore they are not from men and mens consent It followeth not From a most speciall and eminent act of Gods providence Christ came into the world and tooke on him our nature ergo he came not of Davids l oynes It is a vaine consequencâ— There could not be a more eminent act then this Psal. 40. A body thou hast given me Ergo he came not of Davids house and from Adam by naturall generation and was not a man like us in all things except sinne It is tyrannicall and domineering Logick Many things are ascribed to God only by reason of a speciall and admirable act of providence as the saving of the world by Christ the giving of Canaan to Israel the bringing hâ—s people out of Egypt and from Chaldea the sending of the Gospel to both Iew Gentile c. But shall we say that God did none of these things by the ministerie of men and weake and fraile men 2. How proveth the Prelate that all royall ensignes are ascribed to God because Esa. 62. the Church universall shall be as a crown of glorie and a royall diadem in the hand of the Lord ergo baculus in angulo the Church shall be as a seale on the heart of Christ. what then Hieronymus Procopius Cyrillus with good reason render the meaning thus Thou O Zion and Church shalt be to me a royall Priesthood and a holy people For that he speaketh of his owne Kingdome and Church is most evident v. 1.2 For Zions sake I will not hold my peace c. 3. God put a crown of pure gold on Davids head Psal. 21.3 therefore Iulian Nero and no elective Kings are made and designed to be Kings by the people He shall never prove this consequence The Chaldee
paraphrase applyeth it to the reigne of King Messiah Diodatus he speaketh of the kingdome of Christ. Ainsworth maketh this crowne a signe of Christs victorie Athanasius Eusebius Origen Augustine Dydimus expound it of Christ and his kingdome The Prelate extendeth it to all Kings as the blasphemous Rabbines especially Ra. Salomon deny that he speaketh of Christ here but what more reason is there to expound this of the crownes of all Kings given by God I deny not to Nero Julian c. then to expound the foregoing and following verses as applyed to all Kings Did Julian rejoyce in Gods salvation did God grant Nero his hearts desire did God grant as it is v. 4. life eternall to Heathen Kings as Kings which words all Interpreters expound of the eternitie of Davids throne till Christ come and of victorie and life eternall purchased by Christ as Ainsworth with good reason expounds it And what though God give David a Crown ergo not by second causes and by bowing all Israels heart to come in sinceritie to Hebron to make David King 1 King 12.38 God gave corne and wine to Israel Hos. 2. shall the Prelate and the Anabaptist inferre Ergo he giveth it not by plowing sowing and the art of the husbahd-man 3. The Heathen acknowledged a Divinitie in Kings but he is blind who readeth them and seeth not in their writings that they teach that the people maketh Kings 4. God girt David with strength while he was a private man and persecuted by Saul and fought with Goliah as the title of the same beareth and he made him a valiant man of warre to breake bowes of steele ergo he giveth the sword to Kings as Kings and they receive no sword from the people This is poore Logick 5. The P. Prelate sendeth us Judg. 7.17 to the singular and extraordinarie power of God with Gideon and I say that same power behoved to be in Oreb and Zeba v. 27. for they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Princes and such as the Prelate from Pro. 8.15 saith have no royall power from the people 6. Moses and Aaron their two rods were miraculous This will prove that Priests are also Gods and their persons srcred I see not except the Prelate would be at woâ—shâ—pping of Reliques what more royall Divinitie is in Moses his rod because he wrought miracles by his rod then there is in Elias his staffe in Peters napkin in Pauls shadow This is like the strong symbolicall Theologie of his fathers the Jesuites which is not argumentative except he say that Moses as King of Jesurum wrought miracles and why should not Nero Caligula Pharoah and all Kings rods then dry up the red sea and work miracles 7. We give all the stiles to Kings that the Fathers gave and yet we thinke not when David commandeth to kill Vriah and a King commandeth to murther his innocent subjects in England and Scotland that that is Divalis jussio the command of a God and that this is a good consequence What ever the King commandeth though it were to kill his loyallest Subjects is the commandement of God Ergo the King is not made King by the people 8. Ergo saith he these new Statists disgrace the King If a most New Statist sprung out of a poore pursevant of Kraill from the dunghill to the Court could have made himselfe an old Statist and more expert in state affaires then all the Nobles and soundest Lawyers in Scotland and England this might have more weight 9. Therefore the King saith P. P. is not the extract of the basest of rationall creatures He meaneth fex populi his owne house and linage but God calleth them his owne people a royall Priesthood a chosen generation and ps 78.71 will warrant us to say the people is much worthier before God then one man seeing God choose David for Iacob his people and Israel his inheritance that he might feede them Iohn P. P. his fathers suffrage in making a King will never be sought We make not the multitude but the three Estates including the Nobles and Gentry to be as rationall creatures as any Apostate Prelate in the three Kingdomes QUEST VII Whether or no the P. Prelate the aforesaid Author doth by force of reason evince that neither constitution nor designation of the King is from the people THe P. Prelate aymeth but it is an empty ayme to prove that the people are wholly excluded I answer only Arguments not pitched on before as the Prelate saith P. Prelate 1. To whom can it be more proper to give the rule over men then to him who is the onely King truely and properly of the whole world 2. God is the immediate Author of all rule and power that is amongst all his creatures above or below 3. Man before the fall received dominion and empire over all the creatures below immediatly as Gen. 1.28 Gen. 9.2 ergo we cannot deny that the most noble government to wit Monarchy must be immediatly from God without any Contract or compact of men Ans. The first reason concludeth not what is in question for God only giveth rule and power to one man over another ergo he giveth it immediatly it followeth not 2. It shall as well prove that God doth immediatly constitute all Iudges and therefore it shall be unlawfull for a city to appoint a Major or a shire a Iustice of peace 3. The second argument is inconsequent also because God in creation is the immediat Author of all things and therefore without consent of the creatures or any act of the creature created an Angell a nobler creature then man and a man then a woman and men above beasts because those that are not can exercise no act at all But it followeth not ergo all the workes of providence such as is the government of Kingdomes are done immediatly by God for in the workes of providence for the most part in ordinary God worketh by meanes it is then as good a consequence as this God immediatly created man ergo he keepeth his life immediatly also without foode and sleepe God immediatly created the Sunne ergo God immediatly without the mediation of the Sunne giveth light to the world The making of a King is an act of reason and God hath given a man reason to rule himselfe and therefore hath given to a society an instinct of reason to appoint a governour over themselves but no act of reason goeth before man be created ergo it is not in his power whether he be created a creature of greater power then a beast or no. 4. God by creation gave power to a man over the creatures and so immediatly but I hope a man cannot say God by creation hath made a man King over men 5. The Excellency of Monarchy if it be excellenter then any other government of which hereafter is no ground why it should be immediatly from God as well as mans dominion over the creature for then the worke