men and yet we find no particular Point of Pride charged upon him but that he enjoyned the Romans to labour in cleansing and casting of Ditches and paving their Sinks an Act both for the Benefit and Ornament of the City and therefore commendable in the King But the Citizens of Rome who had been Conquerours of all Nations round about them could not endure of Warriers to become Quarriers and Day-labourers Whereas it is said that Tarquin was expelled for the Rape committed by his Son on Lucrece it is unjust to condemn the Father for the Crime of his Son it had been fit to have petitioned the Father for the Punishment of the Offender The Fact of young Tarquin cannot be excused yet without wrong to the Reputation of so chaste a Lady as Lucrece is reputed to be it may be said she had a greater Desire to be thought chaste than to be chaste she might have died untouched and unspotted in her Body if she had not been afraid to be slandered for Inchastity both Dionysius Halicarnasseus and Livie who both are her Friends so tell the Tale of her as if she had chosen rather to be a Whore than to be thought a Whore To say Truth we find no other Cause of the Expulsion of Tarquin than the Wantonness and Licentiousness of the People of Rome This is further to be considered in the Roman Government that all the time between their Kings and their Emperours there lasted a continued strife between the Nobility and Commons wherein by Degrees the Commons prevailed at last so to weaken the Authority of the Consuls and Senate that even the last sparks of Monarchy were in a manner extinguished and then instantly began the Civil War which lasted till the Regal Power was quickly brought home and setled in Monarchy So long as the Power of the Senate stood good for the Election of Consuls the Regal Power was preserved in them for the Senate had their first Institution from Monarchy It is worth the noting that in all those places that have seemed to be most popular that weak Degree of Government that hath been exercised among them hath been founded upon and been beholden unto Monarchical Principles both for the Power of assembling and manner of consulting for the entire and gross Body of any People is such an unweildy and diffused thing as is not capable of uniting or congregating or deliberating in an entire Lump but in broken Parts which at first were regulated by Monarchy Furthermore it is observable that Rome in her chief Popularity was oft beholden for her Preservation to the Monarchical Power of the Father over the Children by means of this Fatherly Power saith Bodin the Romans flourished in all Honour and Vertue and oftentimes was their Common-weal thereby delivered from most imminent Destruction when the Fathers drew out of the Consistory their Sons being Tribunes publishing Laws tending to Sedition Amongst others Cassius threw his Son headlong out of the Consistory publishing the Law Agraria for the Division of Lands in the Behoof of the People and after by his own private Judgment put him to Death the Magistrates Serjeants and People standing thereat astonied and not daring to withstand his Fatherly Authority although they would with all their Power have had that Law for Division of Lands which is sufficient Proof this Power of the Father not only to have been sacred and inviolable but also to have been lawful for him either by Right or Wrong to dispose of the Life and Death of his Children even contrary to the Will of the Magistrates and People It is generally believed that the Government of Rome after the Expulsion of Kings was popular Bodin endeavours to prove it but I am not satisfied with his Arguments and though it will be thought a Paradox yet I must maintain it was never truly popular First it is difficult to agree what a popular Government is Aristotle saith it is where Many or a Multitude do rule he doth not say where the People or the major part of the People or the Representors of the People govern Bodin affirms if all the People be interessed in the Government it is a Popular Estate Lib. 2. c. 1. but after in the same Chapter he resolves that it is a Popular Estate when all the People or the greater part thereof hath the Sovereignty and he puts the Case that if there be threescore thousand Citizens and forty thousand of them have the Sovereignty and twenty thousand be excluded it shall be called a popular Estate But I must tell him though fifty nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine of them govern yet it is no popular Estate for if but one man be excluded the same reason that excludes that one man may exclude many hundreds and many thousands yea and the major part it self if it be admitted that the People are or ever were free by Nature and not to be governed but by their own Consent it is most unjust to exclude any one man from his Right in Government and to suppose the People so unnatural as at the first to have all consented to give away their Right to a major part as if they had Liberty given them only to give away and not to use it themselves is not only improbable but impossible for the whole People is a thing so uncertain and changeable that it alters every moment so that it is necessary to ask of every Infant so soon as it is born its Consent to Government if you will ever have the Consent of the whole People Moreover if the Arbitrary Tryal by a Jury of Twelve men be a thing of that admirable Perfection and Justice as is commonly believed wherein the Negative Voice of every single Person is preserved so that the dissent of any of the Twelve frustrates the whole Judgment How much more ought the natural freedom of each man be preserved by allowing him his Negative Voice which is but a continuing him in that Estate wherein it is confessed Nature at first placed him Justice requires that no one Law should bind all except all consent to it there is nothing more violent and contrary to Nature than to allow a major part or any other greater part less than the whole to bind all the People The next difficulty to discovering what a Popular Estate is is to find out where the Supreme Power in the Roman Government rested it is Bodin's Opinion that in the Roman State the Government was in the Magistrates the Authority and Council in the Senate but the Sovereign Power and Majesty in the People Lib. 2. c. 1. So in his first Book his Doctrine is that the ancient Romans said Imperium in Magistratibus Authoritatem in Senatu Potestatem in plebe Majestatem in Populo jure esse dicebant These four words Command Authority Power and Majesty signifie ordinarily one and the same thing to wit the Sovereignty or supreme Power I cannot find that Bodin knows how to
Most of the Civilest Nations of the Earth labour to fetch their Original from some One of the Sons or Nephews of Noah which were scatterd abroad after the Confusion of Babel In this Dispersion we must certainly find the Establishment of Regal Power throughout the Kingdoms of the World It is a common Opinion that at the Confusion of Tongues there were 72 distinct Nations erected all which were not Confused Multitudes without Heads or Governors and at Liberty to chose what Governors or Government they pleased but they were distinct Families which had Fathers for Rulers over them whereby it appears that even in the Confusion God was careful to preserve the Fatherly Authority by distributing the diversity of Languages according to the diversity of Families for so plainly it appears by the Text First after the Enumeration of the Sons of Japhet the Conclusion is By these were the Isles of the Gentiles divided in their Lands every one after his Tongue after their Families in their Nations so it is said These are the Sons of Ham after their Families after their Tongues in their Countreys and in their Nations The like we read These are the Sons of Shem after their Families after their Tongues in their Lands after their Nations These are the Families of the Sons of Noah after their Generations in their Nations and by these were these Nations divided in the Earth after the Flood In this Division of the World some are of Opinion that Noah used Lots for the distribution of it others affirm he sayled about the Mediterranean Sea in Ten years and as he went about appointed to each Son his part and so made the Division of the then known World into Asia Africa and Europe according to the number of his Sons the Limits of which Three Parts are all found in that Midland Sea 6 But howsoever the manner of this Division be uncertain yet it is most certain the Division it self was by Families from Noah and his Children over which the Parents were Heads and Princes Amongst these was Nimrod who no doubt as Sir Walter Raleigh affirms was by good Right Lord or King over his Family yet against Right did he enlarge his Empire by seizing violently on the Rights of other Lords of Families And in this sense he may be said to be the Author and first Founder of Monarchy And all those that do attribute unto him the Original Regal Power do hold he got it by Tyrany or Usurpation and not by any due Election of the People or Multitude or by any Faction with them As this Patriarchal Power continued in Abraham Isaac and Jacob even until the Egyptian Bondage so we find it amongst the Sons of Ismael and Esau It is said These are the Sons of Ismael and these are their Names by their Castles and Towns Twelve Princes of their Tribes and Families And these are the Names of the Dukes that came of Esau according to their Families and their Places by their Nations 7 Some perhaps may think that these Princes and Dukes of Families were but some petty Lords under some greater Kings because the number of them are so many that their particular Territories could be but small and not worthy the Title of Kingdoms but they must consider that at first Kings had no such large Dominions as they have now adays we find in the time of Abraham which was about 300 years after the Flood that in a little corner of Asia 9 Kings at once met in Battail most of which were but Kings of Cities apiece with the adjacent Territories as of Sodom Gomorrha Shinar c. In the same Chapter is mention of Melchisedeck King of Salem which was but the City of Jerusalem And in the Catalogue of the Kings of Edom the Names of each King's City is recorded as the only Mark to distinguish their Dominions In the Land of Canaan which was but a small circuit Joshua destroyed thirty one Kings and about the same time Adonibeseck had 70 Kings whose hands and toes he had cut off and made them feed under his Table A few years after this 32 Kings came to Benhadad King of Syria and about 70 Kings of Greece went to the Wars of Troy Caesar found more Kings in France than there be now Princes there and at his sailing over into this Island he found four Kings in our County of Kent These heaps of Kings in each Nation are an Argument their Territories were but small and strongly confirms our Assertion that Erection of Kingdoms came at first only by Distinction of Families By manifest Footsteps we may trace this Paternal Government unto the Israelites coming into Egypt where the Exercise of Supream Partriarchal Jurisdiction was intermitted because they were in subjection to a stronger Prince After the Return of these Israelites out of Bondage God out of a special Care of them chose Moses and Joshua successively to govern as Princes in the place and stead of the Supream Fathers and after them likewise for a time he raised up Judges to defend his People in time of Peril But when God gave the Israelites Kings he reestablished the Antient and Prime Right of Lineal Succession to Paternal Government And whensoever he made choice of any special Person to be King he intended that the Issue also should have benefit thereof as being comprehended sufficiently in the Person of the Father although the Father only was named in the Graunt 8. It may seem absurd to maintain that Kings now are the Fathers of their People since Experience shews the contrary It is true all Kings be not the Natural Parents of their Subjects yet they all either are or are to be reputed the next Heirs to those first Progenitors who were at first the Natural Parents of the whole People and in their Right succeed to the Exercise of Supreme Jurisdiction and such Heirs are not only Lords of their own Children but also of their Brethren and all others that were subject to their Fathers And therefore we find that God told Cain of his Brother Abel His Desires shall be subject unto thee and thou shalt rule over him Accordingly when Jacob bought his Brother's Birth-right Isaac blessed him thus Be Lord over thy Brethren and let the Sons of thy Mother bow before thee As long as the first Fathers of Families lived the name of Patriarchs did aptly belong unto them but after a few Descents when the true Fatherhood it self was extinct and only the Right of the Father descends to the true Heir then the Title of Prince or King was more significant to express the Power of him who succeeds only to the Right of that Fatherhood which his Ancestors did Naturally enjoy by this means it comes to pass that many a Child by succeeding a King hath the Right of a Father over many a Gray-headed Multitude and hath the Title of Pater Patriae 9. It may be demanded what becomes of the Right of Fatherhood in Case
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a House Nor doth Aristotle confine a Family to One House but esteems it to be made of those that daily converse together whereas before him Charondas called a Family Homosypioi those that feed together out of one common Pannier And Epimenides the Cretian terms a Family Homocapnoi those that sit by a Common Fire or Smoak But let Suarez understand what he please by Adam's Family if he will but confess as he needs must that Adam and the Patriarchs had Absolute power of Life and Death of Peace and War and the like within their Houses or Families he must give us leave at least to call them Kings of their Houses or Families and if they be so by the Law of Nature what Liberty will be left to their Children to dispose of Aristotle gives the Lie to Plato and those that say Political and Oeconomical Societies are all one and do not differ Specie but only Multitudine Paucitate as if there were no difference betwixt a Great House and a Little City All the Argument I find he brings against them is this The Community of Man and Wife differs from the Community of Master and Servant because they have several Ends. The Intention of Nature by Conjunction of Male and Female is Generation but the Scope of Master and Servant is Preservation so that a Wife and a Servant are by Nature distinguished because Nature does not work like the Cutlers of Delphos for she makes but one thing for one Use If we allow this Argument to be sound nothing doth follow but only this That Conjugal and Despotical Communities do differ But it is no consequence That therefore Oeconomical and Political Societies do the like for though it prove a Family to consist of two distinct Communities yet it follows not that a Family and a Commonwealth are distinct because as well in the Commonweal as in the Families both these Communities are found And as this Argument comes not home to our Point so it is not able to prove that Title which it shews for for if it should be granted which yet is false that Generation and Preservation differ about the Individuum yet they agree in the General and serve both for the Conservation of Mankind Even as several Servants differ in the particular Ends or Offices as one to Brew and another to Bake yet they agree in the general Preservation of the Family Besides Aristotle confesses that amongst the Barbarians as he calls all them that are not Grecians a Wife and a Servant are the same because by Nature no Barbarian is fit to Govern It is fit the Grecians should rule over the Barbarians for by Nature a Servant and a Barbarian is all one their Family consists only of an Ox for a Man-Servant and a Wife for a Maid so they are fit only to rule their Wives and their Beasts Lastly Aristotle if it had pleased him might have remembred That Nature doth not always make one Thing but for one Use he knows the Tongue serves both to Speak and to Taste 4. But to leave Aristotle and return to Suarez he saith that Adam had Fatherly Power over his Sons whilst they were not made Free Here I could wish that the Jesuite had taught us how and when Sons become Free I know no means by the Law of Nature It is the Favour I think of the Parents only who when their Children are of Age and Discretion to ease their Parents of part of their Fatherly Care are then content to remit some part of their Fatherly authority therefore the Custom of some Countreys doth in some Cases Enfranchise the Children of suferiour Parents but many Nations have no such Custome but on the contrary have strict Laws for the Obedience of Children the Judicial Law of Moses giveth full power to the Father to stone his disobedient Son so it be done in presence of a Magistrate And yet it did not belong to the Magistrate to enquire and examine the justness of the Cause But it was so decreed lest the Father should in his Anger suddenly or secretly kill his Son Also by the Laws of the Persians and of the People of the Upper Asia and of the Gaules and by the Laws of the West-Indies the Parents have power of Life and Death over their Children The Romans even in their most Popular Estate had this Law in force and this Power of Parents was ratified and amplified by the Laws of the Twelve Tables to the enabling of Parents to sell their Children two or three times over By the help of the Fatherly Power Rome long flourished and oftentimes was freed from great Dangers The Fathers have drawn out of the very Assemblies their own Sons when being Tribunes they have published Laws tending to Sedition Memorable is the Example of Cassius who threw his Son headlong out of the Consistory publishing the Law Agraria for the Division of Lands in the behoof of the People and afterwards by his own private Judgment put him to Death by throwing him down from the Tarpeian Rock the Magistrates and People standing thereat amazed and not daring to resist his Fatherly Authority although they would with all their Hearts have had that Law for the Division of Land by which it appears it was lawful for the Father to dispose of the Life of his Child contrary to the Will of the Magistrates or People The Romans also had a Law that what the Children got was not their own but their Fathers although Solon made a Law which acquitted the Son from Nourishing of his Father if his Father had taught him no Trade whereby to get his Living Suarez proceeds and tells us That in Process of Time Adam had compleat Oeconomical Power I know not what this compleat Oeconomical Power is nor how or what it doth really and essentially differ from Political If Adam did or might exercise the same Jurisdiction which a King doth now in a Commonwealth then the Kinds of Power are not distinct and though they may receive an Accidental Difference by the Amplitude or Extent of the Bounds of the One beyond the Other yet since the like Difference is also found in Political Estates It follows that Oeconomical and Political Power differ no otherwise than a Little Commonweal differs from a Great One. Next saith Suarez Community did not begin at the Creation of Adam It is true because he had no body to Communicate with yet Community did presently follow his Creation and that by his Will alone for it was in his power only who was Lord of All to appoint what his Sons should have in Proper and what in Common so that Propriety and Community of Goods did follow Originally from him and it is the Duty of a Father to provide as well for the Common Good of his Children as the Particular Lastly Suarez Concludes That by the Law of Nature alone it is not due unto any Progenitor to be also King
cap. 5. If Subjection be the Gift of the People how can Supreme Power pleno Jure in full Right be got by a just War As to the other means whereby Kings may get Supreme Power in full Right of Propriety Grotius will have it to be when some People for avoiding a greater Evil do so yield themselves into anothers Power as that they do except nothing It would be considered how without War any People can be brought into such danger of life as that because they can find no other ways to defend themselves or because they are so pressed with poverty as they cannot otherwise have means to sustain themselves they are forced to renounce all Right of Governing themselves and deliver it to a King But if such a Case cannot happen but by a War only which reduceth a People to such terms of extremity as compels them to an absolute Abrenunciation of all Sovereignty then War which causeth that necessity is the prime means of extorting such Soveraignty and not the free Gift of the People who cannot otherwise chuse but give away that Power which they cannot keep Thus upon the reckoning the two ways propounded by Grotius are but one way and that one way in conclusion is no way whereby Supreme Power may be had in full Right of Propriety His two ways are a Just War or a Donation of the People a just War cannot be without a Title no Title without the Donation of the People no Donation without such a Necessity as nothing can bring upon the Donors but a War So that howsoever Grotius in words acknowledges that Kings may have a full Right of Propriety yet by consequence he denies it by such circular Suppositions as by coincidence destroy each other and in effect he leaves all People a Right to plead in Bar against the Right of Propriety of any Prince either per minas or per dures Many times saith Grotius it happens that War is grounded upon Expletive Justice Justitiam Expletricem which is when a man cannot obtain what he ought he takes that which is as much in value which in moral Estimation is the same For in War when the same Province cannot be recovered to the which a man hath a Title he recovers another of the like value This recovery cannot give a full Right of Propriety because the Justice of such a War reacheth no farther than to a compensation for a former Right to another thing and therefore can give no new Right I am bound to take notice of a Case put by Grotius amongst those Causes which he thinks should move the People to renounce all their Right of Governing and give it to another It may also happen saith he that a Father of a Family possessing large Territories will not receive any man to dwell within his Land upon any other condition And in another place he saith That all Kings are not made by the People which may be sufficiently understood by the Example of a Father of a Family receiving Strangers under the Law of Obedience In both these passages we have a close and curt acknowledgment That a Father of a Family may be an absolute King over Strangers without Choice of the People now I would know whether such Fathers of Families have not the same absolute Power over their own Children without the Peoples Choice which he allows them over Strangers if they have I cannot but call them Absolute proprietary Kings though Grotius be not willing to give them that Title in plain terms for indeed to allow such Kings were to condemn his own Principle That Dominion came in by the Will of the People and so consequently to overthrow his Vsufructuary Kings of whom I am next to speak Grotius saith That the Law of Obeying or Resisting Princes depends upon the Will of them who first met in Civil Society from whom Power doth flow to Kings And That men of their own accord came together into Civil Society from whence springs Civil Power and the People may chuse what Form of Government they please Upon these Suppositions he concludes That Kings elected by the People have but an Vsufructuary Right that is a Right to take the profit or fruit of the Kingdom but not a Right of Propriety or Power to alienate it But why doth he call it an Vsufructuary Right It seems to me a term too mean or base to express the Right of any King and is derogatory to the Dignity of Supreme Majesty The word Vsufructuary is used by the Lawyers to signifie him that hath the Use Profit or Fruit of some Corporal thing that may be used without the Property for of fungible things res fungibles the Civilians call them that are spent or consumed in the Use as Corn Wine Oyl Money there cannot be an Vsufructuary Right It is to make a Kingdom all one with a Farm as if it had no other Use but to be let out to him that can make most of it whereas in truth it is the part and Duty of a King to govern and he hath a Right so to do and to that end Supreme Power is given unto him the taking of the profit or making use of the Patrimony of the Crown is but as a means only to enable him to perform that work of Government Besides Grotius will not only have an elected King but also his lawful Successors to have but an Vsufructuary Right so that though a King hath a Crown to him and to his Heirs yet he will allow him no Propriety because he hath no power to alienate it for he supposeth the primary VVill of the People to have been to bestow Supreme Power to go in Succession and not to be alienable but for this he hath no better proof than a naked presumption In Regnis quae Populi voluntate delatâ sunt concedo non esse praesumendum eam fuisse Populi voluntatem aut alienatio Imperii sui Regi permitteretur But though he will not allow Kings a Right of Propriety in their Kingdoms yet a Right of Propriety there must be in some body and in whom but in the People For he saith The Empire which is exercised by Kings doth not cease to be the Empire of the People His meaning is the Use is the King 's but the Property is the Peoples But if the Power to alienate the Kingdom be in him that hath the Property this may prove a comfortable Doctrine to the People but yet to allow a Right of Succession in Kings and still to reserve a Right of Property in the People may make some contradiction for the Succession must either hinder the Right of Alienation which is in the People or the Alienation must destroy that Right of Succession which by Grotius's confession may attend upon elected Kings Though Grotius confess that Supreme Power be Vnum quiddam and in it self indivisible ye he bsaith Sometimes it may be divided either by parts potential or subjunctive I take his meaning to
by any Rules of Reason or of State Examine his Actions without a distempered Judgment and you will not Condemn him to be exceeding either Insufficient or Evil weigh the Imputations that were objected against him and you shall find nothing either of any Truth or of great moment Hollingshed writeth That he was most Unthankfully used by his Subjects for although through the frailty of his Youth he demeaned himself more dissolutely than was agreeable to the Royalty of his Estate yet in no Kings Days were the Commons in greater Wealth the Nobility more honoured and the Clergy less wronged who notwithstanding in the Evil-guided Strength of their will took head against him to their own headlong destruction afterwards partly during the Reign of Henry his next Successor whose greatest Atchievements were against his own People in Executing those who Conspired with him against King Richard But more especially in succeeding times when upon occasion of this Disorder more English Blood was spent than was in all the Foreign Wars together which have been since the Conquest Twice hath this Kingdom been miserably wasted with Civil War but neither of them occasioned by the Tyranny of any Prince The Cause of the Barons Wars is by good Historians attributed to the stubbornness of the Nobility as the Bloody variance of the Houses of York and Lancaster and the late Rebellion sprung from the Wantonness of the People These three Unnatural Wars have dishonoured our Nation amongst Strangers so that in the Censures of Kingdoms the King of Spain is said to be the King of Men because of his Subjects willing Obedience the King of France King of Asses because of their infinite Taxes and Impositions but the King of England is said to be the King of Devils because of his Subjects often Insurrections against and Depositions of their Princes CHAP. III. Positive Laws do not infringe the Natural and Fatherly Power of Kings 1. REgal Authority not subject to the Positive Laws Kings before Laws the King of Judah and Israel not tyed to Laws 2. Of Samuel's description of a King 1 Sam. 8. 3. The Power ascribed unto Kings in the New Testament 4. Whether Laws were invented to bridle Tyrants 5. The Benefit of Laws 6. Kings keep the Laws though not bound by the Laws 7. Of the Oaths of Kings 8. Of the Benefit of the King's Prerogative over Laws 9. the King the Author the Interpreter and Corrector of the Common Laws 10. The King Judge in all Causes both before the Conquest and since 11. The King and his Council have anciently determined Causes in the Star-Chamber 12. Of Parliaments 13. When the People were first called to Parliament 14. The Liberty of Parliaments not from Nature but from Grace of the Princes 15. The King alone makes Laws in Parliament 16. Governs both Houses as Head by himself 17. By his Council 18. By his Judges 1. HItherto I have endeavoured to shew the Natural Institution of Regal Authority and to free it from Subjection to an Arbitrary Election of the People It is necessary also to enquire whether Humane Laws have a Superiority over Princes because those that maintain the Acquisition of Royal Jurisdiction from the People do subject the Exercise of it to Positive Laws But in this also they err for as Kingly Power is by the Law of God so it hath no inferiour Law to limit it The Father of a Family governs by no other Law than by his own Will not by the Laws and Wills of his Sons or Servants There is no Nation that allows Children any Action or Remedy for being unjustly Governed and yet for all this every Father is bound by the Law of Nature to do his best for the preservation of his Family but much more is a King always tyed by the same Law of Nature to keep this general Ground That the safety of the Kingdom be his Chief Law He must remember That the Profit of every Man in particular and of all together in general is not always one and the same and that the Publick is to be preferred before the Private And that the force of Laws must not be so great as natural Equity it self which cannot fully be comprised in any Laws whatsoever but is to be left to the Religious Atchievement of those who know how to manage the Affairs of State and wisely to Ballance the particular Profit with the Counterpoize of the Publick according to the infinite variety of Times Places Persons a Proof unanswerable for the superiority of Princes above Laws is this That there were Kings long before there were any Laws For a long time the Word of a King was the only Law and if Practice as saith Sir Walter Raleigh declare the Greatness of Authority even the best Kings of Judah and Israel were not tied to any Law but they did whatsoever they pleased in the greatest Matters 2. The Unlimited Jurisdiction of Kings is so amply described by Samuel that it hath given Occasion to some to imagine that it was but either a Plot or Trick of Samuel to keep the Government himself and Family by frighting the Israelites with the Mischiefs in Monarchy or else a prophetical Description only of the future ill Government of Saul But the Vanity of these Conjectures are judiciously discovered in that Majestical Discourse of the true Law of free Monarchy wherein it is evidently shewed that the Scope of Samuel was to teach the People a dutiful Obedience to their King even in those things which themselves did esteem Mischievous and Inconvenient for by telling them what a King would do he indeed instructs them what a Subject must suffer yet not so that it is Right for Kings to do Injury but it is Right for them to go Unpunished by the People if they do it So that in this Point it is all one whether Samuel describe a King or a Tyrant for Patient Obedience is due to both no Remedy in the Text against Tyrants but in crying and praying unto God in that Day But howsoever in a Rigorous Construction Samuel's description be applyed to a Tyrant yet the Words by a Benigne Interpretation may agree with the manners of a Just King and the Scope and Coherence of the Text doth best imply the more Moderate or Qualified Sense of the Words for as Sir W. Raleigh confesses all those Inconveniences and Miseries which are reckoned by Samuel as belonging to Kingly Government were not Intollerable but such as have been born and are still born by free Consent of Subjects towards their Princes Nay at this day and in this Land many Tenants by their Tenures and Services are tyed to the same Subjection even to Subordinate and Inferiour Lords To serve the King in his Wars and to till his Ground is not only agreeable to the Nature of Subjects but much desired by them according to their several Births and Conditions The like may be said for the Offices of Women-Servants Confectioners Cooks and Bakers for
we cannot think that the King would use their Labours without giving them Wages since the Text it self mentions a Liberal Reward of his Servants As for the taking of the Tenth of their Seed of their Vines and of their Sheep it might be a Necessary Provision for their Kings Household and so belong to the Right of Tribute For whereas is mentioned the taking of the Tenth it cannot agree well to a Tyrant who observes no Proportion in fleecing his People Lastly The taking of their Fields Vineyards and Olive-trees if it be by Force or Fraud or without just Recompence to the Dammage of Private Persons only it is not to be defended but if it be upon the publick Charge and General Consent it might be justified as necessary at the first Erection of a Kingdom For those who will have a King are bound to allow him Royal maintenance by providing Revenues for the CROWN Since it is both for the Honour Profit and Safety too of the People to have their King Glorious Powerful and abounding in Riches besides we all know the Lands and Goods of many Subjects may be oft-times Legally taken by the King either by Forfeitures Escheat Attainder Outlawry Confiscation or the like Thus we see Samuel's Character of a King may literally well bear a mild Sense for greater probability there is that Samuel so meant and the Israelites so understood it to which this may be added that Samuel tells the Israelites this will be the manner of the King that shall Reign over you And Ye shall cry because of your King which Ye shall have chosen you that is to say Thus shall be the common Custom or Fashion or Proceeding of Saul your King Or as the Vulgar Latine renders it this shall be the Right or Law of your King not Meaning as some expound it the Casual Event or Act of some individuum vagum or indefinite King that might happen one day to Tyrannize over them So that Saul and the constant Practice of Saul doth best agree with the Literal Sense of the Text. Now that Saul was no Tyrant we may note that the People asked a King as All Nations had God answers and bids Samuel to hear the Voice of the People in all things which they spake and appoint them a King They did not ask a Tyrant and to give them a Tyrant when they asked a King had not been to hear their Voice in all things But rather when they asked an Egge to have given them a Scorpion Unless we will say that all Nations had Tyrants Besides we do not find in all Scripture that Saul was Punished or so much as Blamed for committing any of those Acts which Samuel describes and if Samuel's drift had been only to terrifie the People he would not have forgotten to foretell Saul's bloody Cruelty in Murthering 85 innocent Priests and smiting with the Edge of the Sword the City of Nob both Man Woman and Child Again the Israelites never shrank at these Conditions proposed by Samuel but accepted of them as such as all other Nations were bound unto For their Conclusion is Nay but we will have a King over Vs that We also may be like all the Nations and that Our King may Judge us and go out before us to fight our Battels Meaning he should earn his Privileges by doing the work for them by Judging them and Fighting for them Lastly Whereas the mention of the Peoples crying unto the Lord argues they should be under some Tyrannical Oppression we may remember that the Peoples Complaints and Cries are not always an Argument of their living under a Tyrant No Man can say King Solomon was a Tyrant yet all the Congregation of Israel complain'd that Solomon made their Yoke grievous and therefore their Prayer to Rehoboam is Make thou the grievous Service of thy Father Solomon and his heavy Yoke which he put upon us lighter and we will serve thee To conclude it is true Saul lost his Kingdom but not for being too Cruel or Tyrannical to his Subjects but by being too Merciful to his Enemies his sparing Agag when he should have slain him was the Cause why the Kingdom was torn from him 3. If any desire the direction of the New Testament he may find our Saviour limiting and distinguishing Royal Power By giving to Caesar those things that were Caesar 's and to God those things that were God's Obediendum est in quibus mandatum Dei non impeditur We must obey where the Commandment of God is not hindred there is no other Law but God's Law to hinder our Obedience It was the Answer of a Christian to the Emperour We only worship God in other things we gladly serve you And it seems Tertullian thought whatsoever was not God's was the Emperours when he saith Bene opposuit Caesari pecuniam te ipsum Deo alioqui quid erit Dei si omnia Caesaris Our Saviour hath well apportioned our Money for Caesar and our selves for God for otherwise what shall God's share be if all be Caesar's The Fathers mention no Reservation of any Power to the Laws of the Land or to the People S. Ambrose in his Apology for David expresly saith He was a King and therefore bound to no Laws because Kings are free from the Bonds of any Fault S. Augustine also resolves Imperator non est subjectus Legibus qui habet in potestate alias Leges ferre The Emperour is not subject to Laws who hath Power to make other Laws For indeed it is the Rule of Solomon that We must keep the King's Commandment and not to say What dost Thou because Where the Word of a King is there is Power and all that he pleaseth he will do If any mislike this Divinity in England let him but hearken to Bracton Chief Justice in Henry the Third's days which was since the Institution of Parliaments his Words are speaking of the King Omnes sub Eo Ipse sub nullo nisi tantum sub Deo c. All are under him and he under none but God only If he offend since no Writ can go against him their Remedy is by petitioning him to amend his Fault which if he shall not do it will be Punishment sufficient for him to expect God as a Revenger let none presume to search into his Deeds much less to oppose them When the Jews asked our Blessed Saviour whether they should pay Tribute he did not first demand what the Law of the Land was or whether there was any Statute against it nor enquired whether the Tribute were given by Consent of the People nor advised them to stay their Payment till they should grant it he did no more but look upon the Superscription and concluded This Image you say is Caesar's therefore give it to Caesar Nor must it here be said that Christ taught this Lesson only to the conquered Jews for in this he gave Direction for all Nations who are bound as much in Obedience to their