CERTAIN CONSIDERATIONS UPON THE DUTIES BOTH OF PRINCE and People Written by a Gentleman of quality a Well-wisher both to the KING and PARLIAMENT OXFORD Printed by LEONARD LICHFIELD Printer to the Vniversity 1642. CERTAIN CONSIDERATIONS upon the duties both of Prince People AMONG many intemperances that minister disturbance to the Church and State we have those whose supine affectation of flattery has grown to that impudence as that they have not only for learnings sake disputed but in the name of the word of God and at the time and place when we should expect no other then the lively Oracles of God delivered that the persons and fortunes of all Subjects are absolutely at the will and command of the Prince to dispose according to his will and pleasure To such licentiousnes we need give no other answer then only to demaund that the maintainers of such Doctrine would put us but a case wherein those opinions of theirs being admitted a Prince can commit any Injustice and that they would shew us wherein lies the justice which the Scripture commaunds Princes to execute and which it affirmes to be the establishment of their Thrones and the violation of it to be their adversity or subversion We have on the other side those who finding it written that Governours are for the good of the People pursue it with Sophistry That the people are the end of Princes and Governors beings and that therefore as their government is for or against the good of the People so may they be continued or deposed by them To that end also there are opinions set on foot That all government first came from the people and that all authority does in the last place reside in them That in every Kingdome the whole body of the people must of necessity contain all power and authority whatsoever either is or may be erected in it so as that all the people or the greater part of them which amounts to all may by their votes re-assume all power into their own hands abrogate all Ordinances anull the formes of present government and new mould the State into such formes and institutions as best liketh them These are falsities which yet lay hold upon reasons and prevaile over the judgements of many that are understanding men and which have no evill affection toward government and these are of that consequence as that they subvert the stability of all kind of government whatsoever But were we shie of Iesuitisme as well as of Popery we would not with so little examination receive opinions which we know had their first hatching in the Schoole of the Iesuite The matter would require a very large field should we set forth all things that fitly conduce to the support of the truth but my purpose is to be very short Therefore declining to controvert what may be and usually is alleadged in the matter I shall humbly offer to consideration such apprehensions of the truth as I have conceived lesse vulgar submitting them to the approbation or correction of better judgements expect they shall returne unto mee with confirmation or rectification of my own private thoughts if from so mean a talent no mite of benefit be raised to the publique And first we are to consider that the originall of Kingdoms is of three sorts to wit Naturall which we may also call civill Violent or if you will Martiall or mixt of these two The first was of Parents over their children childrens children and servants bought or borne unto them In this the person of the Governour was before the being of the Subject and his authority before ever the Subject consented or had power to obey or disobey Such a King was Shem called therefore Melchisedeck or King of righteousnesse And a Prince of this kind was Abraham after that by Gods command he had left his Country and his father Shems house and lived of himselfe and Kings of this nature were they that were intimated in the names of Abimelech Abiam Abiram Abram Abishalom c. And this soveraignty was not inherent to the person of the Father only but from him descended by right of primogeniture to the eldest sonne to whole rule we see that God subjected the younger The second sort of Kingdoms was wholly founded by the sword over people that were subjugated by usurpers and invaders such as followed the way of Nimrod who being potent in his naturall dominion used his power to the oppression of his neighbours and changed the state of government into tyranny I say not the state of liberty as if till then men had lived in solute liberty but changed the naturall government into that which is tyrannicall The third sort had much what the same originall with the second where people surcharged at home and forced abroad men in division in distresse in feare exiles and fugitives distrusting their present condition served themselves on the Wit Spirit and courage of some notable man to whose command they with such limitation of his power as they could agree on subjected themselves and then falling into action prospered even into a Kingdom from hence sprung our Moderne Kingdoms more novell and various in their frame and many of them so qualified as not properly to be called Kingdoms but rather Republiques under Regall stiles with Princes elective much circumscribed in authority and obnoxious to deposing Now in the first and second sort apparantly the people had never any thing to doe with the institution and limitation of Soveraign Power and though in the third sort they had more to doe therewith yet not alike in all of that sort nor had they the whole and sole power of instituting scarce in any of that sort so as we must rectify that misapprehension that in all Kingdoms the first derivation of authority was from the people In the next place we are to consider that Kingdomes are not associations of men in their naturall capacityes but communions of men quatenùs members politique united in one common bond of obedience into one politicall body where none can move to give his due aid for the weale of the body but in the capacity of a politique member and according to the peculiar office which every severall member properly ought to execute which office the members duly exercising make a true and perfect civill Communion Now though we consider a Kingdome as a meere Civill or temporall State only Yet even there the observance of this communion is a duty strictly required of every member even by the law of nature or morall law and by the law of God it selfe For man having lost his originall righteousnesse or justice and consequently the right of governing himselfe and being thereby necessarily subjected to the government of some justice without himselfe it was necessary for his owne good and safety that he should not only be subject to that justice in the things that concerned the well governing himselfe toward others but likewise in those things
that concerned his safety and defence from the violence of others misgoverning themselves toward him and that necessarily brings in Empire So that unlesse we can imagine some Kingdome to consist of people sprung of themselves in perfection of righteousnes not depending nor obliged to God or nature nor obnoxious to those conditions to which the fall of man has subjected all men we cannot devise how men should naturally be free from subjection to government and lesse how being subject private men in any State should in their naturall capacity meddle with any thing concerning government or so much as goe about the making changing on anulling of ordinances or so compell Governours to doe them without being criminally culpable not only against the positive lawes of the land but even against conscience pressed with the bonds of naturall or morall and also divine law Therefore to explicate the sense which all intend but some not well distinguishing confound It is certainly true that all the people of a Kingdome must needs comprehend all power whatsoever is or may be exercised in it but when we say so we by all the people meane the whole entire body of the members politique from head to foot every one of them abiding and working according to his proper and ordained office politique But if beside their ordained office power any shall doe or attempt any alteration in the State howsoever intended for common good their act must needs be so farre from being lawfull as being from the beginning repugnant and resisting the ordained power it can never become a lawfull act though all the Subjects of a Kingdome should after consent unto it But in the third place we are farther to consider That if the Kingdome be also a Church of God then is the originall and authority of it of farre higher nature and more remote from the reach and power of the people It is true God is King of all Kings and highest Soveraigne in all Kingdomes as well Heathen as Christian yet as he cautioned in the behalfe of his Church that no stranger should be King there but by any meanes one that was of the Brethren of the people so in His Church He himselfe is a neerer and as it were a more cognate Soveraigne then in other Kingdomes and his Vicegerents there are of more immediate and more important subordination to him For which cause he there reserves to himselfe the choice of the man and leaves the people no more then the bare investing of him Not but that God in all Kingdomes makes Kings whom he pleaseth but he will have it known that in his Church the choice is not only his and to be sought at his hand but that he more strictly requires the observance of his right in his Church then he does otherwhere Therefore he expresly commands there Thou shalt in any case set him over thee whom thy Lord thy God shall chuse And as in his Church he to himselfe reserved the nomination so when he had nominated he did not leave it to the people there to declare the right and manner of the Kingdom but by the Prophet by whom he signified his choice by the same was the manner of the Kingdom declared to the people written in a book and laid up before the Lord Kings of Gods Church having from God a more immediate and more sacred ordination have also a more especiall endowment of his spirit for which cause they have beene ever instituted with annointing their persons therewith consecrate for the exercise of their function This we see in Saul whose person though he were a wicked Prince David in this respect declared so sacred as that he pronounced a curse upon the Mountaines of Gilboa because in them his person was cast downe and vilefied without regard of the sacrednesse of his annointing Their annointing therefore is not a meere outward solemnity but is significant of the spirit of God in a more especiall manner given unto them and from thence proceeds that which the Scripture witnesseth A divine sentence in the lipps of the King yea and a sacred integrity also His mouth transgresseth not in judgement And suitable to their Prerogative of graces beyond the ordinary of other Princes God vouchsafes them his eare with more favour and familiarity then to the other as we may see by his ready hearing gratious answers vouchsafed messages sent and will declared touching them not only to the good as David Salomon Asa Iehosaphat Hezechiah Iosiah c. but even to Coniah Saul Ieroboam Ahab Jehu and other wicked Princes And we not only heare God himselfe saying by me Kings Raigne and I have said yee are Gods but his word couples also the feare that is to be rendred unto Kings with the feare that is due unto himselfe Feare God and the King Keepe the Kings Commandement in regard of the oath of the Lord Nor is it ordinary obedience that is commanded but the highest under God Submit unto the King as unto the Supreame And that not for the danger that may ensue but as the Apostle saith Not for wrath only but also for conscience sake Now if the King be supreame then is there in no Kingdome any superintending power or authority that may lawfully call the King to account for that power only is the supreame over which there is not any other to take account So high and sacred is the authority of them whom God has made nursing fathers and nursing mothers to his Church When Kings then both in their Persons and Functions are of so sacred an ordination and so hedged in by Gods especiall protection where is there place for the people to interpose and meddle with the affaires that doe belong unto them besides when without the Kings consent there can be no concurrence of people to joyne in any accord for the disposing of any affaires of the Kingdome but that the matter must first passe the project sollicitation and prosecution of diverse private men no way thereunto authorized how can any act of the people to such an end be justifiable when an unlawfull beginning what number or quality soever the attempters be of can never make a lawfull act Therefore omitting those places of Scripture It is not fit to say to a King thou art wicked Who may say to a King what doest thou Feare God and the King and meddle not with those that love innovation And many others which yet block up the way against private mens medling with matters of government If it were to be granted that the people in any Kingdome had power over all rights of the Kingdome yet unlesse that by the Ordinances of that Kingdome it be expresly declared and appointed how and by whom that power shall be executed and by the way where such Ordinances are there is not a right Kingdome but a Republique and againe unlesse those ordinances be rightly pursued there can be no combinement to
none of them but as if he would shew he should be a King in fact not in right in some way in which God would own nothing but the permission only he bad him as one would say be his owne carver and take ten peices to himselfe What the progresse of the story was we all know when the people had made a King of their own then they and their King must have a Religion of their own fitted to their new framed Kingdome and to effect that the old Priests of God must be sent away as absolute impediments to the setling of their new government and when that was done then were they absolute indeed and had as much authority over their God as they before had taken liberty against their King so it followed that when the People had made an usurper King their King and they made a Calfe their God and the summe of the peoples reforming their Kings misgovernance and relieving their own grievances was they made them selves a King that made them all castawaies he himselfe the reproach of Soveraignty and an infamous stigmatique to all posterity and his sinnes for ever adhering to the People till they had caused their utter extirpation and till of free-borne Subjects under a King of their own they became perpetuall slaves to the Subjects of another Kingdome So unpleasing to God and so pernitious to the people themselves are the fruits of those reformations which only or principally are managed by the popular inclination in which though for the most part a desire of doing justice or preserving true religion be pretended yet private discontent in some and ambition in others is commonly the chief and radicall incitement of the work The means that belongs to private men to use for reforming of Kingdoms is that which the Apostle shewes Let prayers saith he and supplications be made for Kings and all that are in Authority that we may lead a Godly life The people must not with impatience and puffed up mindes invade Gods peculiar right of calling Kings to account but every man betaking himselfe to the reformation of himselfe and to prayers unto God must seek of him that has the hearts of Kings in his hand to dispose the Kings heart to the desired reformation Many think this way long and tedious and like better that the people should Offer themselves willingly and help God in some readier way But truly if such private reformation and prayer be the right means of publique good and be too long neglected that is the peoples own fault and they may not by their fault gaine a power which before they had not Yet true it is that in great misgovernances God often uses the peoples hand to doe his work of Iustice but that we may know the way is not right as not agreeable to his revealed will we shall finde that the work of justice that he so beginneth by them he endeth not till he hath finished it on them and his hand is never more heavy then against that rodd that in the way of injustice hath done his justice service But will you heare God himselfe taking cognisance of the misgovernance of Princes and determining of it In the 81. Psalme God declares himselfe to stand in the congregation of Princes and to be judge among Gods so calleth he Kings there Then he expostulâ—teth the matter with wicked Princes How long will ye give wrong judgement and accept the persons of the wicked Then he complaineth They will not be instructed but walk on in darknesse the foundations of the earth are out of square The misgovernance is great and the consequence of it desperate but does God in that case give the people power to reforme No clean contrary God without any revocation still affirmes I have said ye are Gods and ye are all children of the most high persons sacred not to be approached by the prophane hands of the people but to awe and restraine Princes he tells them that though he has made them Gods yet they shall dye like men when they must make account to him of their misgoverning so that God reserves the judgement of them to himselfe and no whit authorises the people to have any thing to doe with their misdoeings This is not to flatter Princes to say God has appointed men no meanes to relieve themselves against their misgovernment but only praiers to be made either to them or for them and that men have not otherwise to meddle with the right of liberty and duties of Princes then only by way of supplication Nor is this a security for Princes for though in a lawfull and ordinate way there be no other means yet no examples are more familiar then those in which the sinne the injustice and violence of wicked Princes are in this world punished by the sinne injustice violence of wicked people sometimes their own sometime others subjects Gods extraordinary and supream justice is tied to none of those regulations with which he has circumscribed his ordinary justice committed to the administration of man but as we said before we may still observe Gods indignation not more fatally incensed against any then against those whose wickednesse has put them forward to be the instruments of his extraordinary justice upon others But to pursue the examination of the right that people may have in questioning and reforming the rule of Kings Let us farther examine what we find in Scripture David sinning by numbring the people was enforced to his choice of one of three plagues Famine Sword or Pestilence Deus malum avertat this is but a dolefull instance for the people The King sinnes and God laies all the punishment upon the people Nay he gives not them so much as the choice of the punishment which they must suffer for the King but the sinning King must choose which of the three plagues the innocent people must undergoe this is strange did not the great judge of heaven and earth doe right yes undoubtedly and the matter was the wickednesse of the people had grievously provoked God so as the King must be let goe and suffered to fall into sinne that way may be made for the peoples punishment This seems no lesse strange on the other side that because the people sinne therefore the Prince should be let fall that for the transgressions of the land the Prince as wee have it in another place should be punished with division and diminution and many should be the Princes of the land Nay that for the sinne of the people the Prince should be cast away as in that place If ye doe wickedly ye shall perish you and your King All this were strange indeed should we consider Prince and people as persons strangers in interest to one another but therefore these places shew the strict union and indivisible mutuality of interest that they have in the doings and sufferings each of other beyond any thing that can be created by the
meer constitution or agreement of men This case of Davids further teaches that if when the sinnes of the people be grown high it be any way necessary that the King be let fall into sinne before the People be punished then are Kings immediatly between God and the people and stand there like Moses in the gap to with-hold the hand of God from the people untill that they also by falling someway be removed Again if the Kings transgression in government has the originall from the sinnes of the people then are the People the prime offendors and first agents in the Kings transgression and He himselfe is as it were accessary and in a manner passive in it We see that God himselfe here judged so and laid the reall punishment upon the people whom he accounted the originall sinners as for the King to whom the sinne is verbally ascribed we see God reckons as if he were only passive in committing it and therefore inflicts no punishment on him but what he voluntarily took upon him an humbling of himself and a compassionate fellowfeeling of punishment such as a good common father has alwaies by the sense of his peoples suffering It now followes plainly that the people that have their hands in sinne are no competent Iusticiars for hearing judging and reforming of any misdemeanours especially of those in which they themselves having the principall hand are the principalls and lesse where the person questioned is but an accessary drawn in by them and least of all where he is a person sacred and one so much superiour as by Gods ordinance to stand immediatly betwixt God and them sure he that would not suffer one with a beam in his eye to pull a moat out of the eye of his brother does not permit him to doe it toward one so much superiour as his Prince nor suffer guilty Subjects to arraigne their soveraigne guilty servants their Lord nor guilty sonnes their common father To conclude we may consider the unlawfulnesse of popular animadversion into the manners and government of Princes especially of Princes that are lawfull Christian Monarchs even in this alone that there are no received nor known bounds of limitation how farre people may walk in the way of questioning and reforming the errours of Princes but that if any thing at all be lawfull for them to doe therein then may they without restraint proceed so farre as to depose Princes and deprive them of their lives if according to the doctrine of the Iesuite they finde it for the good and reformation of the Church and Commonwealth which how well it is warranted by the word of God we may see plainly enough in the case between Saul and David Saul was King but misgoverning himself and the Kingdom became as bad as excommunicate and deposed for he was rejected of God and David was by Gods expresse command annoynted to be King all which notwithstanding neither David nor the people ever sought to depose him to renounce obedience unto him to combine against him question his government or so much as meddle with ordering any of the affaires that belonged to the King Nay Saul after this persecuted David unjustly and in the midst of his unjust and hostile persecution was delivered into Davids hand and it was of necessity that David should take the advantage and kill him for he could not otherwise have any assurance of his owne life David did then but even cut of the skirt of Sauls garment to the end it might witnesse his faithfull loyalty because it made it manifest he could as easily have cut the thread of his life and even for this his heart so smote him as that he cries out The Lord forbid that I should doe this thing to my Maister the Lords annointed to stretch forth my hand against him That was not all neither but there were more circumstances in the case Saul was not yet reformed and going on still was another time delivered into Davids hands and the people both times understood it the speciall delivery of his enemy into his hands by God and would have embraced the opportunity and have made him away David restraines them still with the same bridle The Lord forbid c. and tells them Who can lay his hands on the Lords annointed and be guiltlesse No David though already annointed would tary Gods time the Lord should smite Saul or his day should come or he should descend into battaile and perish but Davids hand should not be against him No whatsoever Saul was or whatsoever he had done neither his falling from God nor Gods declaring him rejected nor Davids annointing by Gods command nor Sauls unjust persecution of David the Lords annointed in future could dissolve the duty of his Subjects nor make it lawfull for them to lay their hands on him no not when he was in wicked hostility against them But Saul in Davids account was still the Lords annointed still a sacred person still Davids maister notwithstanding the circumstances which might seeme to have discharged the tyes of duty which David and the people did formerly owe unto him Neither is the annointing of Kings a thing sacred as to their own Subjects only but the regard thereof is required at the hands of strangers also because of the prophanation and sacriledge that in the violation of their persons is committed even against God Wherefore we see that though the Amalekite were a stranger and made a faire pretence that he had done Saul a good office when at his own request he dispatched him of the paine of his wounds and of the pangs of his approaching death yet David taking his fact according to his owne confession makes a slight account of the causes which he pretended as a frivolous extenuation of an haynous fact and condemnes him though a stranger as an hainous Delinquent against the Majesty of God How wert thou not afraid saith he to stretch forth thy hand to destroy the Lords annointed neither his being a stranger nor any of the other circumstances were so availeable but that his bloud fell deservedly upon his own head The act is in it selfe perfectly wicked and in the degree hainous altogether against the word of God and therefore all actions of Subjects that in the progresse of them tend or by the way threaten to arrive at that upshot are all unlawfull fowle and wicked and not only the actors themselves wicked but their assistants favourers those that wish them well or as St Iohn speakes That bid them God speed are partakers of their evill deeds But errour in this point has made such impressions in the mindes of many as that they will never be perswaded but that they may disobey and resist Authority if ever they finde it faulty or the commaunds thereof not agreeing with their consciences They will grant that they may not disobey Authority in the lawfull commaunds thereof neither doe evill that good may come thereon but then they themselves will