hand against the Lords Anointed the matter between them was not Tyranny but private Enmity and David as a private Person had been his own Revenger not so much the Peoples but when any Tyrant at this day can shew to be the Lords Annointed the only mentioned reason why David withheld his hand he may then but not till then presume on the same Priviledge We may pass therefore hence to Christian times And first our Saviour himself how much he favour'd Tyrants and how much intended they should be found or honour'd among Christians declares his mind not obscurely accounting their absolute Authority no better than Gentilism yea though they flourish'd it over with the splendid name of Benefactors charging those that would be his Disciples to usurp no such dominion but that they who were to be of most Authority among them should esteem themselves Ministers and Servants to the Publick Matt. 20.25 The Princes of the Gentiles exercise Lordship over them and Mark 10.42 They that seem to Rule saith he either slighting or accounting them no lawful Rulers but ye shall not be so but the greatest among you shall be your Servant And although he himself were the meekest and came on Earth to be so yet to a Tyrant we hear him not vouchsafe and humble word But Tell that Fox Luke 13. And wherefore did his Mother the Virgin Mary give such praise to God in her Prophetick Song that he had now by the coming of Christ Cut down Dynasta's or proud Monarchs from the Throne if the Church when God manifests his power in them to do so should rather choose all misery and vassalage to serve them and let them still sit on their potent Seats to be Ador'd for doing Mischief Surely it is not for nothing that Tyrants by a kind of natural instinct both hate and fear none more than the true Church and Saints of God as the most dangerous Enemies and Subverters of Monarchy though indeed of Tyranny Hath not this been the perpetual cry of Courtiers and Court Prelates whereof no likelier cause can be alledg'd but that they well discern'd the mind and principles of most devout and zealous Men and indeed the very discipline of Church tending to the dissolution of all Tyranny No marvel then if since the faith of Christ receiv'd in purer or impurer times to Depose a King and put him to Death for Tyranny hath been accounted so just and requisite that neighbour Kings have both upheld and taken part with Subjects in the Action An Ludovicus Pius himself an Emperor and Son of Charles the Great being made Judge Du Haillan is my Author between Milegast King of the Vultzes and his Subjects who had depos'd him gave his Verdict for the Subjects and for him whom they had chosen in his room Note here that the right of Electing whom they please is by the impartial testimony of an Emperor in the People For said he A just Prince ought to be preferr'd before an unjust and the end of Government before the Prerogative And Constantinus Leo another Emperor in the Byzantine Laws saith That the end of a King is for the general good which he not performing is but the counterfeit of a King. And to prove that some of our own Monarchs have acknowledg'd that their high Office exempted them not from Punishment they had the Sword of St. Edward born before them by an Officer who was called Earl of the Palace even at the times of their highest Pomp and Solemnity to mind them saith Matthew Paris the best of our Historians that if they err'd the Sword had power to restrain them And what restraint the Sword comes to at length having both edge and point if any Sceptick will needs doubt let him feel It is also affirm'd from diligent search made in our ancient Books of Law that the Peers and Barons of England had a legal right to judge the King Which was the cause most likely for it could be no slight cause that they were call'd his Peers or Equals This however may stand immovable so long as Man hath to deal with no better than Man that if our Law judge all Men to the lowest by their Peers it should in all Equity ascend also and judge the Highest And so much I find both in our own and Foreign Story that Dukes Earls and Marquesses were at first not heriditary not empty and vain Titles but names of trust and office and with the office ceasing as induces me to be of Opinion that every worthy man in Parliament for the word Baron imports no more might for the publick good be thought a fit Peer and judge of the King without regard had petty Cavears and Circumstances the chief impediment in high Affairs and ever stood upon most by circumstantial men Whence doubltless our Ancestors who were not ignorant with what rights either Nature or ancient Constitution had endowed them when Oaths both at Coronation and renew'd in Parliament would not serve thought it no way illegal to Depose and put to Death their Tyrannous Kings insomuch that the Parliament drew up a Charge against Richard the Second and the Commons requested to have Judgment decree'd against him that the Realm might not be endangered And Peter Martyr a Divine of foremost rank on the third of Judges approves their doings Sir Thomas Smith also a Protestant and States man in his Common-wealth of England putting the question Whether it be Lawful to rise against a Tyrant answers That the Vulgar judge of it according to the event and the Learned according to the purpose of them that do it But far before those days Gildas the most Ancient of all our Historians speaking of those times wherein the Roman Empire decaying quitted and relinquish'd what right they had by Conquest to this Island and resign'd it all into Peoples hands testifies that the People thus reinvested with their own Original Right about the Year 446 both Elected them Kings whom they thought best the first Christian British Kings that ever Reign'd here since the Romans and by the same Right when they apprehended Cause usually Depos'd and put them to Death This is the most fundamental and ancient Tenure that any King of England can produce or pretend to in comparison of which all other Titles and Pleas are but of yesterday If any object that Gildas condemns the Britains for so doing the Answer is as ready that he condemns them no more for so doing than he did before for chusing such for saith he They anointed them Kings not of God but such as were more Bloody than the rest Next he condemns them not at all for Deposing or putting them to Death but for doing it over hastily without Tryal or well examining the cause and for Electing others worse in their room Thus we have here both Domestick and most Ancient Examples that the People of Britain have Deposed and put to Death their Kings in those Primitive Christian times And to couple Reason with
Pro Populo Adversus Tyrannos OR THE Sovereign Right AND POWER OF THE PEOPLE OVER TYRANTS Clearly Stated and plainly Proved With some Reflections on the late posture of Affairs By a true Protestant English-man and Well-wisher to Posterity London Printed in the Year 1689. IF Men within themselves would be govern'd by Reason and not generally give up their Understandings to a double Tyranny of Custom from without and blind Affections within they would discern better what it is to favour and uphold the Tyrant of a Nation But being Slaves within Doors no wonder that they strive so much to have the publick State conformably govern'd to the inward vicious Rule by which they govern themselves for indeed none can love Freedom heartily but good Men the rest love not Freedom but License which never hath more Scope or greater Indulgence than under Tyrants Hence it is that Tyrants are not often offended with nor stand much in doubt of bad Men as being all naturally Servile but in whom Virtue and true Worth is most eminent them they fear in earnest as by right their Masters against them lies all their Hatred and Suspicion Consequently neither do bad Men hate Tyrants but have been always readiest with the falsified Names of Loyalty and Obedience to colour over their base Servile Compliances And although sometimes for shame and when it comes to their own Grievances of Purse or Profit especially they would seem good Patriots and side with the better Cause yet when others for the deliverance of their Country indu'd with Fortitude and Heroick Virtue to fear nothing but the Curse against those that do the work of the Lord negligently Jer. 48.10 would go on to remove not only the Calamities and Thraldoms of a People but the Roots and Causes whence they spring straight these Men as if they hated the Miseries but not the Mischiefs after they have Juggled and paltred with the World reflected on their King and provok'd Persons to bear Arms against him nay forc'd him to fly the Land and curs'd him all over it to the engaging of sincere and real Men beyond what is possible or honest to retreat from not only turn Revolters from those Principles which only could at first move them but lay the stain of Disloyalty and worse on those Proceedings which just before themselves seem'd to desire and promote and which are the necessary Consequences of their own late Actions nor would they now perhaps shew any dislike to did they not fear they will not be managed intirely to the Advantages of their own Faction not considering the while that he toward whom they would boast their reviv'd and almost lost Loyalty counts them accessary and will if ever he gets Power by those Laws and Statutes which they have frequently and inhumanly brandish'd against others doom them to the death of Traytors for what they have done already Others there are too who not long ago seem'd fierce against their King under the just Notions of a Tyrant an Jncroacher on the Rights of the People a Dispencer with the Laws and a Promoter of all Arbitrary and Illegal Actions Yet when God out of his merciful Providence and singular Love hath deliver'd him over to follow such Councils and Methods as have induc'd him to rid us of such an Enemy to the Publick Good as himself was on a sudden and in a new Garb of Allegiance which their late doings seem'd to have cancel'd plead for him pitty him extol him and protest against those that talk of Excluding him from the Government of these Nations which by his Arbitrary Actings he has justly Forfeited But certainly if we consider who and what these are on a sudden grown so pittiful we may conclude their pitty can be no True and Christian Commiseration but either Lenity or Shallowness of Mind or else a carnal admiring of that Worldly Pomp and Greatness from whence they see him fallen or rather lastly a dissembled and Seditious Pitty feigned of Industry to beget new Commotions As for Mercy if it be to a Tyrant undoubtedly it is the Mercy of Wicked Men and their Mercies we read are Cruelties who would hazard the Wellfare of a whole Nation to save him who rather than have fail'd in the Accomplishment of his Arbitrary and Popish Designs had it lain in his Power would have set the whole World on Fire There is yet another sort who coming in the course of their Affairs or by choice of the People to have a share in great great Actions now in Agitation at least to give their Voice and Approbation therein begin to swerve and almost shiver at the Majesty and Grandeur of this Noble Deed as if they were newly entered into a great Sin disputing Presidents Forms and Circumstances when the Commonwealth nigh Perishes for want of Deeds in Substance done with just and faithful Expedition To these I wish better Instruction and Virtue equal to their Calling the former of which that is to say Instruction I shall endeavour as my duty is to bestow on them but considering what Attempts are daily made to withdraw the Nation from their Duty and cause them to mistake their Interest I will crave leave briefly to exhort them all not to start from the necessary just and pious Resolution of adhering with all their assistance to those to whom next under the Divine Providence we owe our Deliverance from Popery Tyranny and Arbitrary Government and the Safety both of our Lives and Estates And fiâ—st â—et not any be discouraged by any New Seditious Foolish or Apostate Scare-crows who under shew of giving Counsel send out their barking Monitories Mementoes Speeches and Advices empty of ought else but the Spleen of a Foolish and frustrated Faction for how can that pretended Counsel be either Sound or Faithful when they that give it see not for Madness and Vexation of their Ends lost that those Statutes and Scriptures which both Falsly and Scandalously they wrest against us would by Sentence of the common Adversary fall first and heaviest upon their own Heads Neither let mild and tender Dispositions be Foolishly softened from their Duty and Perseverance with the unmasculine Rhetorick of any puling Priest Chaplain or Prelate either in their Pulpits which have constantly been made the place whence Revilings and Curses instead of Christian Doctrine and Exhortations have been passionately emitted or in their Papers pretended to be sent as Friendly Letters of Advice or the like for fashion-sake in private and forthwith publish'd by the Sender himself that we may know how much of Friend there was in it to cast an odious Envy on him to whom it was pretended to be sent in Charity Nor lastly Let any man be deluded by either the Ignorance or notorious Hypocrisie and Self-repugnance of some of our Dancing Clergy who have the Conscience and the Boldness to come with Scripture in their Mouths glos'd and fitted for their turns with a double contradictory Sense transforming the Sacred Verity
People had themselves made or assented to And this often times with express warning that if the King or Magistrate proved unfaithful to his Trust the People would be disingaged They added also Counsellors and Parliaments not to be only at his beck but with him or without him at set times or at all times when any Danger threatned to have care of the Publick Safety Therefore saith Claudius Sesell a French Statesman The Parliament was set as a bridle to the King which I instance rather because that Monarchy is granted by all to be a far more Absolute than ours That this and the rest of what hath hitherto been spoken is most true might be copiously made appear throughout all Stories Heathen and Christian even of those Nations where Kings and Emperors have sought means to abolish all Ancient Memory of the Peoples Right by their Encroachments and Usurpations But I spare long Insertions appealing to the German French Italian Arragonian English and not least the Scottish Histories Not forgetting this only by the way that William the Norman though a pretended Conqueror and not unsworn at his Coronation was compelled a second time to take Oath at St. Albans ere the People would be brought to yield Obedience First It being thus manifest that the Power of Kings and Magistrates is nothing else but what is only derivative transferr'd and committed to them in trust from the People to the common good of them all in whom the Power yet remains Fundamentally and canot be taken from them without a violation of their natural Birth-right And seeing that from hence Aristotle and the best of Political Writers have defin'd a King him who Governs to the good and profit of his People and not for his own ends it follows from necessary causes that the Titles of Soveraign Lord Natural Lord and the like are either Arrogancies or Flatteries not admitted by Emperors and Kings of best Note and disliked by the Church both of Jews Isa 26.13 and ancient Christians as appears by Tertullian and others Although generally the People of Asia and with them the Jews also especially since the time they chose a King against the advice and counsel of God are noted by wise Authors much inclinable to Slavery Secondly That to say as is usual the King hath as good right to his Crown and Dignity as any Man to his Inheritance is to make the Subject no better than the King's Slave his Chattel or his Possession that may be bought and sold And doubtless if hereditary Title were sufficiently enquired the best Foundation of it would be found but either in Courtesie or Convenience But suppose it to be of right hereditary what can be more just and legal if a Subject for certain Crimes be to forfeit by Law from himself and Posterity all his Inheritance to the King than that a King for Crimes proportional should forfeit all his Title and Inheritance to the People unless the People must be thought Created all for him he not for them and they all in one Body Inferior to him single which were a kind of Treason against the dignity of Mankind to affirm Thirdly It follows that to say Kings are accountable to none but God is the overturning of all Law and Government For if they may refuse to give account then all Covenants made with them at Coronation all Oaths are in vain and meer Mockeries all Laws which they swear to keep made to no purpose for if the King fear not God as how many of them do not We hold then our Lives and Estates by the tenure of his meer Grace and Mercy as from a God not a mortal Magistrate a position that none but Court Parasites or Men Besotted would maintain And no Christian Prince not drunk with high mind and prouder than those Pagan Caesars that Deifi'd themselves would arrogate so unreasonably above human condition or derogate so basely from a whole Nation of Men his Brethren as if for him only subsisting and to serve his Glory valuing them in comparison of his own brute will and pleasure no more than so many Beasts or Vermin under his feet not to be reasoned with but to be injur'd among whom there might be found so many thousand men for Wisdom Vertue nobleness of mind and other respects but the fortune of his Dignity of above him Yet some would perswade us that this absurd opinion was King David's because in the 51 Psalm he crys out to God Against thee only have I Sinned as if David had imagined that to Murther Uriah and Adulterate his Wife had been no sin against his Neighbour when as that Law of Moses was to the King expresly Deut. 17. not to think so highly of himself above his Brethren David therefore by those words could mean no other than either that the depth of his guiltiness was known to God only or to so few as had not the will or power to question him or that the sin against God was greater beyond compare than against Uriah What ever his meaning were any wise Man will see that the pathetical words of a Psalm can be no certain decision to a point that hath abundantly more certain rules to go by How much more rationally spake the Heathen King Demophoon in a Tragedy of Enripides than these Interpreters would put upon King David I rule not my People by Tyranny as if they were Barbarians but am my self liable if I do unjustly to suffer justly Not unlike was the Speech of Trajan the worthy Emperor to one whom he made General of his Praetorian Forces Take this drawn Sword saith he to use for me if I Reign well if not to use against me Thus Dion relates and not Trajan only But Theodosius the younger a Christian Emperor and one of the best caused it to be Enacted as a rule undeniable and fit to be acknowledged by all Kings and Emperors That a Prince is bound to the Laws that on the Authority of Law the Authority of a Prince depends and to the Laws ought to submit Which Edict of his remains yet unrepealed in the Code of Justinian lib. 1. tit 24. as a sacred Constitution to all the Succeeding Emperors How then can any King in Europe maintain and write himself accountable to none but God when Emperors in their own Imperial Statutes have written and decreed themselves accountable to Law. And indeed where such account is not fear'd he that bids a Man Reign over him above Law may bid as well a Savage Beast It follows lastly That the King or Magistrate holds his Authority of the People both Originally and Naturally for their good in the first Place and not his own then may the People as oft as they shall judge it for the best either chuse him or reject him retain him or depose him though no Tyrant meerly by the Liberty and Right of free-born Men to be Govern'd as seems to them best This though it cannot but stand with plain reason shall
be made good also by Scripture Deut. 17.14 When thou art come into the Land which the Lord thy God giveth thee and shalt say I will set a King over me like as all the Nations about me These words confirm us that the right of choosing yea of changing their own Government is by the Grant of God himself in the People And therefore when they desired a King though then under another form of Government and though their changing displeased him yet he that was himself their King and rejected by them would not be a hindrance to what they intended further than by perswasion but that they might do therein as they saw good 1 Sam. 8. only he reserv'd to himself the nomination of who should Reign over them Neither did that exempt the King as if he were to God only accountable though by his especial command Anointed Therefore David first made a Covenant with the Elders of Israel and so was by them anointed King 1 Chron. 11. And Jehoiadah the Priest making Jehoash King made a Covenant between him and the People 2 Kings 11.17 Therefore when Rehoboam at his coming to the Crown rejected those conditions which the Israelites brought him hear what they answer him What portion have we in David or Inheritance in the Son of Jesse See to thine own house David And for the like conditions not perform'd all Israel before that time Deposed Samuel not for his own default but for the misgovernment of his Sons But some will say to both these Examples it was evilly done I answer that not the latter because it was expresly allow'd them in the Law to set up a King if they pleas'd and God himself joyn'd with them in the Work though in some sort it was at that time displeasing to him in respect of old Samuel who had govern'd them uprightly As Livy praises the Romans who took occasion from Tarquinius a wicked Prince to gain their Liberty which to have extorted saith he from Numa or any of the good Kings before had not been seasonable Nor was it in the former Example done unlawfully for when Rehoboam had prepar'd a huge Army to reduce the Israelites he was forbidden by the Prophet 1 Kings 12.24 Thus saith the Lord Ye shall not go up nor fight against your Brethren for this thing is from me He calls them their Brethren not Rebels and forbids to be proceeded against them owning the thing himself not by single Providence but by approbation and that not only of the Act as in the former Example but of the fit Season also he had not otherwise forbid to molest them And those grave and wise Counsellors whom Rehoboam first advis'd with spake no such thing as our old gray headed Flatterers now are wont stand upon your Birth-right scorn to capitulate you hold of God and not of them for they know no such matter unless conditionally but gave him politick Counsel as in a civil Transaction Therefore Kingdom and Magistracy whether Supream or Subordinate is called a human Ordinance 1 Pet. 2.13 c. Which we are there taught is the will of God we should submit to so far as for the punishment of Evil doers and the encouragement of them that do well Submit saith he as Free-men And there is no power but of God saith Paul Rom. 13. as much as to say God put it into mans heart to find out that way at first for common Peace and Preservation approving the exercise thereof else it contradicts Peter who calls the same Authority an Ordinance of Man. It must be also understood of Lawful and Just Power else we read of great power in the Affairs and Kingdoms of the World permitted to the Devil For saith he to Christ Luke 4.6 All this power will I give thee and the glory of them for it is delivered to me and to whomsoever I will I give it Neither did he lie or Christ gainsay what he affirm'd For in the 13. of the Revelations we read how the Dragon gave to the Beast his power his seat and great authority Which Beast so authorized most expound to be the tyrannical Powers and Kingdoms of the Earth Therefore St. Paul in the fore-cited Chapter tells us that such Magistrates he means as are not a terror to the good but to the evil such as bear not the Sword in vain but to punish Offenders and to encourage the Good. If such only be mentioned here as powers to be obeyed and our submission to them only required then doubtless those powers that do the contrary are no powers ordained of God and by consequence no obligation laid upon us to obey or not to resist them And it may be well observed that both these Apostles when ever they give this Precept express it in terms not concret but abstract as Logicians are wont to speak that is they mention the Ordinance the Power the Authority before the Persons that execute it and what that power is left we should be deceived they describe exactly So that if the power be not such or the Person execute not such power neither the one nor the other is of God but of the Devil and by consequence to be Resisted From this exposition Chrysostom also on the same Place dissents not explaining that these words were not written in behalf of a Tyrant And this is verified by David himself a King and likeliest to be Author of the Psalm 94.20 which saith Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee And it were worth the knowing since Kings and that by Scripture boast the justness of their Title by holding it immediately of God yet cannot shew the time when God ever set on the Throne them or their Forefathers but only when the People chose them why by the same reason since God ascribes as often to himself the casting down of Princes from the Throne it should not be thought as Lawful and as much from God when none are seen to do it but the People and that for just Causes For if it needs must be a sin in them to Depose it may as likely be a sin to have Elected And Contrary if the Peoples Act in Election be pleaded by a King as the Act of God and the most just Title to Enthrone him why may not the Peoples Act of Rejection be as well pleaded by the People as the Act of God and the most just Reason of Depose him So that we see the Title and just Right of Reigning or Deposing in reference to God is found in Scripture to be all one visible only in the People and depending meerly upon Justice and Demerit Thus far hath been considered briefly the Power of Kings and Magistrates how it was and is originally the Peoples and by them conferred in Trust only to be imployed to the common Peace and Benefit with Liberty therefore and Right remaining in them to reassume it to themselves if by Kings and Magistrates it be abus'd or to dispose of it
Dominion spent it self Vaingloriously abroad but shall heceforth learn a better Fortitude to dare Execute the highest Justice on them that shall by force of Arms endeavour the oppressing and bereaving Men of their Religion and Liberty at home that no ubridled Potentate or Tyrant but to his Sorrow for the future may presume such high and irresponsible Licence over Mandkind to havock and turn upside down whole Kingdoms of Men as though they were no more in respect of his perverse Will than a Nation of Pismires I conclude all with one word of Advice to that Party called Prelatical many of whom I believe to be Honest Men though they have been strangely misled by some of corrupt Principles and Prosecuting Turbulent Spirits I wish them earnestly and calmly not to affect Rigor and Superiority over Men nor justly under them not to compell unlawful and unmerciful things in Religion especially if not voluntary becomes a Sin nor to assist the clamour and malicious drifts of Men who they themselves have judg'd to be the worst of Men the obdurate Enemies of God and his Church nor to dart against the Actions of their Brethren for want of other Arguments those Laws and Scripture which tho' they hurt not otherwise yet taken up by them to the Condemnation of their own late doings give Scandal unto all Men and discover in themselves either extream Passion or Apostasy Let them not oppose their best Friends and Associates who molest them not at all nor Infringe the least of their Liberties unless they call it their Liberty to bind other Mens Consciences but are still seeking to live at Peace with them and Brotherly accord Let them beware an old and implacable Enemy though he hopes by sowing Discord to make them his Instrument yet cannot forbear a minute the open threatened Revenge upon them when they have served his Purposes Let them fear therefore if they be wise rather what they have done already than what remains to do and be warned in time to put no confidence in Princes whom they have provoked lest they be added to the Examples of those that miserably have tasted the Event Stories can inform them how Christiern the Second King of Denmark not much above a hundred years past driven out by his Subjects and received again upon new Oaths and Conditions broke through them all to his most Bloody Revenge Slaying his chief Opposers when he saw his time both them and their Children invited to a Feast for that purpose How Maximilian dealt with those of Bruges though by Mediation of the German Princes reconciled to them by solemn and publick Writing drawn and sealed How the Massacre at Paris was the effect of that credulous Peace with the French Protestants made with Charles the Ninth their King and that the main visible cause which to this day hath saved the Netherlands from utter ruine was their final not believing the perfidious Cruelty which as a constant Maxim of State hath been used by the Spanish Kings on their Subjects that have taken Arms and after trusted them as no latter Age but can testifie heretofore in Belgia it self and not many years ago in Naples And further they may remember how the present Tyrant of France has after all his many Edicts Oaths and Grants to maintain the Protestants in all their Priviledges besides the Obligations they have laid on him most inhumanly and perfidiously Banish'd Dragoon'd Murther'd and made away most if not all his Protestant Subjects nay what might be more convincing would they but lay it to Heart how our late Tyrant notwithstanding the manifold Obligations they heaped upon him and Oaths he laid himself under to maintain them and their Grandeur has nevertheless violated all and with all his Power as if Ingratitude was his chiefest Delight endeavoured their Extirpation and Ruine as well as other his Protestant Subjects And to conclude with one past Exception though far more Ancient David after once he had taken Arms never after that trusted Saul though with tears and much relenting he twice promised not to hurt him These Instances few of many might admonish them both English and Scotch not to let their own ends and the driving on of a Faction betray them blindly into the snare of those Enemies whose Revenge looks on them as the Men who first begun fomented and carried on beyond the cure of any sound of safe Accommodation all the evil which hath since unavoidably fallen upon them and their King. I have something also to the Clergy though brief to what were needful not to be Disturbers of the Civil Affairs being in hands better able and more belonging to manage them but to Study harder and to attend the Office of Good Pastors knowing that he whose Flock is least among them hath a dreadful Charge not performed by mounting frequently in the Desk to repeat their Prayers or into the Pulpit with a Formal Preachment hudled up at the old hours of a whole lazy Week but by incessant Pains and Watching in Season and out of Season from House to House over the Souls of whom they have to feed Which if they ever well considered how little leisure would they find to be the most Pragmatical Sides-men of every popular Tumult and Sedition And all this while are to learn what the true end and reason is of the Gospel which they teach and what a world it differs from the Censorious and Supercilious Lording over Conscience It would be good also they lived so as might perswade the People they hated Covetousness which worse than Heresie is Idolatry hated Pluralities and all kind of Simony left Rambling from Benefice to Befice like ravenous Wolves seeking where they may devour the Biggest of which if some well and warmly seated from the beginning be not guilty it were good they held not Conversation with such as are These things if they observe and wait with Patience no doubt but all things will go well without their Importunities or Exclamations and the printed Letters and Pamphlets which they send subscribed with the Ostentation of great Characters and little Moment would be more considerable than now they are But if they be the Ministers of Mammon instead of Christ and Scandalize his Church with the filthy Love of Gain aspiring also to sit the closest and heaviest of all Tyrants upon the Conscience and fall notoriously again into the same Sins which they lately seemed solemnly to have renounced and abjured as God has rooted out those great Enemies to Truth and Peace the Papists so may they if they will be the others Imitators except that the same God shall for the Vindication of his own Glory and Religion uncover their Hypocrisie to the open World and visit upon their Heads in double and treble manner those Curses and Miseries wherewith they have endeavoured to ruine and destroy the best of Subjects and Christians in Great Britain and Ireland 1 Sam. XII 24 25. Only fear the Lord and serve him in truth with all your heart for consider how great things he hath done for you But if ye shall still do wickedly ye shall be consumed both ye and your king FINIS
by any Alteration as they shall judge most conducing to the Publick Good. We may from hence with more ease and force of Argument determine what a Tyrant is and what the People may do against him A Tyrant whether by wrong or by right coming to the Crown is he who regarding neither Law nor the Common Good Reigns only for himself and his Faction Thus St. Basil among others defines him And because his Power is great his Will boundless and exorbitant the fulfilling whereof is for the most part accompanied with innumerable Wrongs and Oppressions of the People Murders Massacres Rapes Adulteries Desolation and Subversion of Cities and whole Provinces look how great a good and happiness a Just King is so great a Mischief is a Tyrant as he the publick Father of his Country so this the Common Enemy against whom what the People lawfully may do as against a common Pest and destroyer of Mankind I suppose no Man of clear judgment need go farther to be guided than by the very Principles of Nature in him But because it is the Vulgar Folly of Men to desert their own Reason and shutting their Eyes to think they see best with other Mens I shall shew by such Examples as ought to have most weight with us what hath been done in this case heretofore The Greeks and Romans as their prime Authors witness held it not only lawful but a Glorious and Heroick Deed rewarded publickly with Statues and Garlands to kill an infamous Tyrant at any time without tryal and but reason that he who trod down all Law should not be vouchsafed the benefit of Law. Insomuch that Seneca the Tragedian brings in Hercules the grand Suppressor of Tyrants thus speaking Victima haud ulla amplior Potest magisque opima mactari Jovi Quà m Rex iniquus There can be slain No Sacrifice to God more acceptable Than an unjust and wicked King But of these I name no more lest it be objected they were Heathen and come to produce another sort of Men that had the knowledge of true Religion Amongst the Jews this Custom of Tyrant-killing was not unusual First Ehud a Man whom God had raised to deliver Israel from Eglon King of Moab who had conquered and ruled over them eighteen years being sent to him as an Ambassador with a Present slew him in his own Hoase But he was a Forreign Prince an Enemy and Ehud besides had special warrant from God. To the first I answer it imports not whether Forreign or Native for no Prince so Native but professes to hold by Law which when he himself overturns breaking all the Covenants and Oaths that gave him Title to his Dignity and were the Bond and Alliance between him and his People what differs he from an Outlandish King or from an Enemy For look how much Right the King of Spain hath to govern us at all so much Right hath the King of England to govern us Tyrannically If he though not bound to us by any League coming from Spain in Person to subdue us or to destroy us might lawfully by the People of England either be slain in Fight or put to Death in Captivity what hath a Native King to plead bound by so many Covenants Benefits and Honours to the wellfare of his People why he through the contempt of all Laws and Parliaments the only tye of our Obedience to him for his own wills sake and a boasted Prerogative unaccountable after unspeakable Damages done by him to the People of Great Britain for these many years and being now fled to our greatest Enemy should think to scape unquestionable as a thing Divine in respect of whom so great a number of Christians destroy'd should lye unaccounted for polluting with their slaughtered Carcasses all the Land over and crying for Vengeance against the Living that should have righted them Who knows not that there is a mutual Bond of Amity and Brotherhood between Man and Man over all the World neither is it the English Sea that can sever us from that Duty and Relation A straiter Bond yet there is between Fellow-subjects Neighbours and Friends But when any of these do one to another so as Hostility could do no worse what doth the Law Decree less against them than open Enemies and Invaders Or if the Law be not present or too weak what doth it warrant us to less than single Defence or Civil War and from that time forward the Law of civil defensive War differs nothing from the Law of Forreign Hostility Nor is it distance of place that makes Enmity but Enmity that makes distance He therefore that keeps Peace with me near or remote of whatsoever Nation is to me as far as all Civil and Human Offices an English-man and a Neighbour but if an English-man forgetting all Laws Humane Civil and Religious offend against Life and Liberty to him offend and to the Law in his behalf though born in the same Womb he is no better than a Turk a Saracen a Heathen This is Gospel and this was ever Law among Equals how much rather then in Force against any King whatsoever who in respect of the People is confess'd Inferior and not Equal to distinguish therefore of a Tyrant by Outlandish or Domestick is a weak Evasion To the second That he was an Enemy I answer what Tyrant is not Yet Eglon by the Jews had been acknowledged as their Sovereign they had served him eighteen years as long almost as we our William the pretended Conqueror in all which time he could not be so unwise a Statesman but to have taken of them Oaths of Fealty and Allegiance by which they made themselves his proper Subjects as their Homage and Present sent by Ehud testified To the Third That he had special Warrant to kill Eglon in that manner it cannot be granted because not expressed it is plain that he was raised by God to be a Deliverer and went on just Principles such as were then and ever held allowable to deal so by a Tyrant that could no otherwise be dealt with Neither did Samuel though a Prophet with his own hand abstain from Agag a Forreign Enemy no doubt but mark the reason As thy Sword hath made women childless a cause that by the Sentence of Law it self nullifies all Relations And as the Law is between Brother and Brother Father and Son Master and Servant wherefore not between King or rather Tyrant and People And whereas Jehu had special command to slay Jeboram a Successive and Hereditary Tyrant it seems not the less imitable for that for where a thing grounded so much on natural reason hath the addition of a command from God what does it but establish the lawfulness of such an Act. Nor is it likely that God who had so many ways of punishing the House of Ahab would have sent a Subject against his Prince if the Fact in it self as done to a Tyrant had been of bad Example And if David refused to lift his