of the Parliaments of Scotland ibid. The confession of the faith of the Church of Scotland authorized by divers Acts of Parliament doth evidently hold forth to all the reformed Churches the lawfulnesse of defensive Wars when the supreme Magistrate is misââd by wicked Counsell p. 440 441 442. The same proved from the Confessions of Faith in other reformed Churches ibid. The place Rom. 13. exponed in our Confession of Faith p. 441 442 443. The Confession not onely Saxonick exhibited to the Councell of Trent but also of Helvetia France England Bohemia prove the same p. 444 445. William Laud and other Prelates enemies to Parliaments to States and to the Fundamentall Laws of the three Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland p. 446 447 448. The Parliament of Scotland doth regulate limit and set bounds to the Kings power p. 448 449 Fergus the first King not a Conquerour p. 449. The King of Scotland below Parliaments considerable by them hath no negative voice p. 450 451 seq QUEST XLIV Generall results of the former doctrine in some few Corrolaries in 22 Questions p. 454 455. Concerning Monarchy compared with other forms p. 454. How Royaltie is an issue of nature p. 454 455. And how Magistrates as Magistrates be naturall p. 455. How absolutenesse is not a Ray of Gods Majestie ibid. And resistance not unlawfull because Christ and his Apostles used it not in some cases p. 456 457. Coronation is no ceremony p. 457. Men may limit the power that they gave not p. 457 458. The Common-wealth not a pupill or minor properly p. 459. Subjects not more obnoxious to a King then Clients Vassals Children to their Superiours p. 459 460. If subjection passive be naturall p. 461. Whether King Uzziah was dethroned p. 461 462. Idiots and children not compleat Kings children are Kings in destination onely p. 462. Deniall of passive subjection in things unlawfull not dishonourable to the King more then deniall of active obedience in the same things p. 463. The King may not make away or sell any part of his Dominions p. 463 464. People may in some cases conveen without the King p. 464. How and in what meaning subjects are to pay the Kings debts p. 465. Subsidies the Kingdoms due rather then the Kings p. 465 466. How the Seas Ports Forts Castles Militia Magazeen are the Kings and how they are the Kingdoms p. 466. Lex Rex QUEST I. In what sense Government is from God I Reduce all that I am to speak of the power of Kings to the Author or efficient 2. The matter or subject 3. The form or power 4. The end and fruit of their Government And 5. to some cases of resistance Henc Quest I. Whether Government be warranted by a divine Law The question is either of Government in generall or of the particular species of Government such as are Government by one only called Monarchy the Government by some chief leading men named Aristocracie the Government by the people going under the name of Democracie 2. We cannot but put difference betwixt the institution of the Office to wit Government and the designation of person or persons to the Office 3. What is warranted by the direction of natures light is warranted by the Law of nature and consequently by a divine Law for who can deny the Law of nature to be a divine Law That power of Government in generall must be from God I make good 1. Because Rom. 13. 1. there is no power but of God the powers that be are ordained of God 2. God commandeth obedience and so subjection of conscience to powers Rom. 13. 5. Wherefore we must be subject not onely for wrath or civill punishment but for conscience sake 1 Pet. 2. 13. Submit your selves to every ordinance of man for the Lords sake whether it be to the King as Supreme c. Now God onely by a divine Law can lay a band of subjection on the conscience tying men to guilt and punishment if they transgrâsse 2. Conclus All civill power is immediately from God in its root In that 1. God hath made man a sociall creature and one who inclineth to be governed by man then certainly he must have put this power in mans nature so are we by good reason taught by Aristotle 2. God and nature intendeth the policie and peace of mankinde then must God and nature have given to mankinde a power to compasse this end and this must be a power of Government I see not then why John Prelate Master Maxwel the excommunicate P. of Rosse who speaketh in the name of I. Aâmagh had reason to say That he feared that we fancied that the Government of Superiours was onely for the more perfit but have no Authoritie over or above the perfit Nec Rex nec Lex justo posita He might have imputed this to the Brasilians who teach That every single man hath the power of the sword to revenge his own injuries as Molina saith QUEST II. Whether or not Government be warranted by the Law of nature AS domestick societie is by natures instinct so is civill societie naturall in radice in the root and voluntary in modo in the manner of coalescing Politick power of Government agreeth not to man singly as one man except in that root of reasonable nature but supposing that men be combined in societies or that one family cannot contain a societie it is naturall that they joyn in a civill societie though the manner of Union in a politick body as Bodine saith be voluntary Gen. 10. 10. Gen. 15. 7. and Suarez saith That a power of making Laws is given by God as a property flowing from nature Qui dat formam dat consequentia ad formam Not by any speciall action or grant different from creation nor will he have it to result from nature while men be united into one politick body which Union being made that power followeth without any new action of the will We are to distinguish betwixt a power of Government and a power of Government by Magistracy That we defend our selves from violence by violence is a consequent of unbroken and sin-lesse nature but that we defend our selves by devolving our power over in the hands of one or more Rulers seemeth rather positively morall then naturall except that it is naturall for the childe to expect help against violence from his father For which cause I judge that learned Senator Ferdinandus Vasquius said well That Princedom Empire Kingdom or Iurisdiction hath its rise from a positive and secundary law of Nations and not from the law of pure Nature The Law saith there is no law of Nature agreeing to all living creatures for superiority for by no reason in Nature hath a Boar dominion over a Boar a Lyon over a Lyon a Dragon over a Dragon a Bull over a Bull And if all Men be born equally free as I hope to prove there is no reason in
Dictator was not above a King but the Romanes ejected Kings 5. The Dictators power was not to destroy a State 2. He might be and was resisted 3. He might be deposed Prelate The safetie of the People is pretended as a Law that the Jewes must put Christ to death and that Saul spared Agag Ans No shadow for either in the word of God Caiaphas prophecied and knew not what he said But that the Iewes intended the salvation of the Elect in kilâing Christ or that Saul intended a publick good in sparing Agag shall be the Prelates Divinitie not mine 2. What howbeit many should abuse this Law of the peoples safety to wrong good Kings it ceaseth not therefore to be a Law and licenseth not ill Kings to place a Tyrannicall Prerogative above a just Dictate of nature In the last Chapter the Prelate hath no reasons onely he would have Kings holy and this he proveth from Apocrypha Books because he is ebbe in holy Scripture but it is Romish holinesse as is cleer 2. He must preach something to himself that the King adore a tree-Altar Thus Kings must be most reverend in their gestures pag. 182. 3. The King must hazard his sacred life and three Kingdoms his Crown Royall posterity to preserve sacred things that is Antichristian Romish Idols Images Altars Ceremonies Idolatry Popery 4. He must upon the same pain maintain sacred persons that is greasie Apostate Prelates The rest I am weary to trouble the Reader withall but know ex ungue leonem QUEST XXVI Whether the King be above the Law or no VVE may consider the question of the Laws supremacie over the King either in the supremacie of constitution of the King 2. or of direction or 3. of limitation or 4. of coaction and punishing Those who maintain this The King is not subject to the Law if their meaning be The King as King is not subject to the Laws direction They say nothing for the King as the King is a living Law then they say The Law is not subject to the Laws direction a very improper speech or The King as King is not subject to the coaction of the Law that is true for he who is a living Law as such cannot punish himself as the Law saith 1. Assert The Law hath a supremacy of constitution above the King 1. Because the King by nature is not King as is proved Ergo he must be King by a politique constitution and Law and so the Law in that consideration is above the King because it is from a civil Law that there is a King rather then any other kinde of Governour 2. It is by Law that amongst many hundred men this man is King not this man and because by the which a thing is constituted by the same thing it is or may be dissolved therefore 3. As a Community finding such and such qualifications as the Law requireth to be in a King in this man not in this man therefore upon Law-ground 5. They make him a King and upon Law-grounds and just demerit they may unmake him again for what men voluntarily doe upon condition the condition being removed they may undoe again 2. Assert It is denyed by none but the King is under the directive power of the Law though many liberate the King from the coactive power of a civil Law But I see not what direction a civil Law can give to the King if he be above all obedience or disobedience to a Law seeing all Law-direction is in ordine ad obedientiam in order to obey except thus far that the light that is in the civil Law is a morall or naturall guide to conduct a King in his walking but this is the morality of the Law which inlightneth and informeth not any obligation that aweth the King and so the King is under Gods and Natures Law this is nothing to the purpose 3. Assert The King is under the Law in regard of some coercive limitation 1. Because there is no absolute power given to him to do what he listeth as a man And because 2. God in making Saul a King doth not by any Royall stamp give him a power to sin or to play the Tyrant for which cause I expone these of the Law Omnia sunt possibilia Regi Imperator omnia potest Baldus in § F. de no. for fidel in F. in prima constitut C. col 2. Chassanaeus in Catalog gloriae mundi par 5. considerat 24. tanta est ejus celsitudo ut non posset ei imponi lex in regno suo Curt. in consol 65. col 6. ad F. Petrus Rebuff Notab 3. repet l. unicae C. de sentent quae pro eo quod nu 17. pag. 363. All these go no otherwise but thus The King can do all things which by Law he can do and that holdeth him id possumus quod jure possumus And therefore the King cannot be above the Covenant and Law made betwixt him and his people at his Coronation-oath for then the Covenant and Oath should binde him onely by a naturall obligation as he is a man not by a civil or politique obligation as he is a King So then 1. it were sufficient that the King should swear that Oath in his Cabinet-chamber and it is but a mocking of an Oath that he swear it to the people 2. That Oath given by the Representative-Kingdom should also oblige the Subjects naturally in foro Dei not politically in foro humano upon the same reason 3. He may be resisted as a man 4. Assert The fourth case is if the King be under the obliging politique coaction of civil Laws for that he in foro Dei be under the morality of civil Laws so as he cannot contraveen any Law in that notion but he must sin against God is granted on all hands Deut. 17. 20. Iosh 1. 8. 1 Sam. 12. 15. That the King binde himself to the same Law that he doth binde others is decent and obligeth the King as he is a man 1. Because Matth. 7. 12. It is said to be the Law and the Prophets All things whatsoever ye would men should do unto you do ye even so to them 2. It is the Law Jmperator L. 4. dignae vox C. de lege tit Quod quisque juris in alium statuit eodem ipse utatur Iulius Caesar commanded the youth who had defloured the Emperours daughter to be scourged above that which the Law allowed The youth said to the Emperour Dixisti legem Caesar You appointed the Law Caesar The Emperor was so offended with himself that he had failed against the Law that for the whole day he refused to taste meat Assert 5. The King cannot but he subject to the coactive power of Fundamentall Laws Because this is a Fundamentall Law that the free Estates lay upon the King that all the power that they give to the King as King is for the good and safety of the
Nature why one Man should be King and Lord over another therefore while I be otherwise taught by the forecasten Prelate Maxwell I conceive all jurisdiction of Man over Man to be as it were Artificiall and Positive and that it inferreth some servitude whereof Nature from the womb hath freed us if you except that subjection of children to parents and the wife to the husband and the Law saith De jure gentium secundarius est omnis principatus 2. This also the Scripture proveth while as the exalting of Saul or David above their Brethren to be Kings and Captains of the Lords people is ascribed not to Nature for King and Beggar spring of one clay-mettall but to an act of Divine bounty and grace above Nature so Psal 78. 70 71. He took David from following the Ewes and made him King and feeder of his people 1 Sam. 13. 13. There is no cause why Royallists should deny Government to be naturall but to be altogether from God and that the Kingly power is immediatly and only from God because it is not naturall to us to subject to Government but against Nature and against the hair for us to resign our liberty to a King or any Ruler or Rulers for this is much for us and proveth not but Government is naturall it concludeth that a power of Government tali modo by Magistracy is not naturall but this is but a Sophisme a ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ad illud quod est dictum ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã this speciall of Government by resignation of our liberty is not naturall Ergo power of Government is not naturall it followeth not a negatione speciei non sequitur negatio generis non est homo ergo non est animal And by the same reason I may by an antecedent will agree to a Magistrate and a Law that I may be ruled in a politick Society and by a consequent will onely yea and conditionally onely agree to the penalty and punishment of the Law and it is most true no man by the instinct of Nature giveth consent to Penall Laws as Penall for Nature doth not teach a man nor incline his spirit to yeeld that his life shall be taken away by the sword and his blood shed except in this remote ground a man hath a disposition that a veine be cutt by the Physitian or a Member of his body cut off rather then the whole body and life perish by some contagious disease but here reason in cold blood not a naturall disposition is the neerest prevalent cause and disposer of the businesse When therefore a communitie by natures instinct and guidance incline to Government and to defend themselves from violence they do not by that instinct formally agree to Government by Magistrates and when a naturall conscience giveth a deliberate consent to good Laws as to this He that doth violence to the life of a man by man shall his blood be shed Gen. 9. 6. He doth tacitely consent that his own blood shall be shed but this he consenteth unto consequently tacitely and conditionally If he shall do violence to the life of his brother Yet so as this consent proceedeth not from a disposition every way purely naturall I grant reason may be necessitated to assent to the conclusion being as it were forced by the prevalent power of the evidence of an insuperable and invincible light in the premises yet from naturall affections there resulteth an act of self-love for self-preservation So David shall condemn another rich man who hath many Lambs and robbeth his poor brother of his one Lamb and yet not condemn himself though he be most deep in that fault 1 Sam. 12. 5 6. yet all this doth not hinder but Government even by Rulers hath its ground in a secondary Law of nature which Lawyers call secundariò jus naturale or jus gentium secundarium a secondary Law of nature which is granted by Plato and denied by none of sound judgement in a sound sense and that is this Licet vim virepellere It is lawfull to repeal violence by violence and this is a speciall act of the Magistrate 2. But there is no reason why we may not defend by good reasons that politick Societies Rulers Cities and Incorporations have their rise and spring from the secundary Law of nature 1. Because by Natures Law Family-Government hath its warrant and Adam though there had never been any positive Law had a power of governing his own family and punishing malefactors but as Tannerus saith well and as I shall prove God willing this was not properly a Royall or Monarchicall power and I judge by the reasoning of Sotus Molina and Victoria By what reason a Family hath a power of Government and of punishing Malefactors that same power must be in a societie oâ men Suppose that sociâtie were not made up of Families but of single persons for the power of punishing ill-doers doth not reside in one single man of a familie or in them all as they are single private persons but as they are in a familie But this argument holdeth not but by proportion for paternall government or a fatherly power of parents over their families and a politick power of a Magistrate over many families are powers different in nature the one being warranted by natures law even in its species the other being in its spece and kind warranted by a positive law and in the generall only warranted by a law of nature 2. If we once lay the supposition that God hath immediately by the law of nature appointed there should be a Government and mediately defined by the dictate of naturall light in a communitie that there shall be one or many Rulers to governe the Communitie then the Scriptures arguments may well be drawn out of the school of nature as 1. The powers that are be of God therefore natures light teacheth that we should be subject to these powers 2. It is against natures light to resist the ordinance of God 3. Not to feare him to whom God hath committed the sword for the terror of evill doers 4. Not to honour the publike rewarder of well-doing 5. Not to pay tribute to him for his worke Therefore I see not but Govarruvias Soto Suarez have rightly said that power of Government is immediately from God and this or this definite power is mediately from God proceeding from God by the mediation of the consent of a Communitie which resigneth their power to one or moe Rulers and to me Barclaius saith the same quamvis populus potentiae largitor videatur c. QUEST III. Whether Royall Power and definite forms of Government be from God THe King may be said to be from God and his word in these seveall notions 1. By way of permission Ier. 43. 10. Say to them thus saith the Lord of hoasts the God of Israel Behold I will send and take Nebuchadnezzar the King of
no power in vain and which may not be reduced into action but an active power or a power of actuall governing was never acted by the Communitie therefore this power cannot be seated in the Communitie as in the prime and proper subject and it cannot be in every individuall person of a Communitie because Government intrinsecally and essentially includeth a specified distinction of Governours and some to be governed and to speak properly there can no other power be conceived in the Communitie naturally and properly but only potestas passiva regiminis a capacitie or susceptabilitie to be governed by one or by moe just as the first matter desireth a forme This obligeth all by the dictate of Natures law to submit to actuall government and as it is in every individuall person it is not meerly and properly voluntary because howsoever nature dictates that government is necessary for the safety of the society yet every singular person by corruption and selfe-love hath a naturall aversenesse and repugnancie to submit to any every man would be a King himselfe This universall desire appâtitus universalis aut naturalis or universall propension to Government is like the act of the understanding assenting to the first undeniable principles of truth and to the wills generall propension to happines in generall which propension is not a free act except our new Statists as they have changed their faith so they overturne true reason it will puzzle them infinitely to make any thing in its kinde passive really active and collative of positive acts and effects All know no man can give what he hath not an old Philosopher would laugh at him who would say that a matter perfected and actuated by union with a forme could at pleasure shake off its forme and marrie it selfe to another they may as well say every wife hath power to resume her freedome and marrie another as that any such power active is in the Communitie or any power to cast off Monarchie Ans The P. Prelate might have thanked Spalato for this Argument but he doth not so much as cite him for feare his theft be deprehended but Spalato hath it set downe with stronger nerves then the Prelates head was able to copie out of him But Iac de Almain and Navarrus with the Parision Doctors said in the Concell of Paris that politick power is immediately from God but first from the community but so that the community apply their power to this oâ that Government not of liberty but by naturall necessity but Spalato and the Plagiarie Prelate doe both looke beside the booke The question is not now concerning the vis rectiva the power of governing in the people but concerning the power of government for these two dister much the former is a power of ruling and Monarchicall commanding of themselves this power is not formally in the people but only vertually and no reason can say that a vertuall power is idle because it cannot be actuated by that same subject that it is in for then it should not be a vertuall but a formall power Doe not Philosophers say such a Hearb vertually maketh hot and can the sottish Prelate say this vertuall power is idle and ââ¦vaine given of God because it doth not formally heate your hand when you touch it 2. The P. Prelate who is excommunicated for Popery Socinianisme Arminianisme and is now turned Apostate to Christ and his Church must have changed his faith not we and be reasonlesly ignorant to presse that axiome that the power is idle that cannot be reduced to acts for a generative power is given to living and sensitive creatures this power is not idle though it be not reduced in act by all and every individuall sensitive creature A power of seeing is given to all who naturally doe or ought to see yet it is not an idle power because divers are blind seeing it is put forth in action in divers of the kind so this power in the community is not idle because it is not put forth in acts in the people in which it is vertually and is put forth in action in some of them whom they choose to be their Governours nor is it reasonable to say that it should be put forth in action by all the people as if all should be Kings and Governours But the question is not of the power of governing in the people but of the power of Government that is of the power of making Governours and Kings and the community doth put forth in act this power as a free voluntary and active power for 1. a Community transplanted to India or any place of the world not before inhabited have a perfect liberty to choose either a Monarchy or a Democracy or an Aristocracy for though nature incline them to Government in generall yet are they not naturally determinated to any one of those three more than another 2. Israel did of their free will choose the change of government and would have a King as the Nations had ergo they had free will and so an active power so to doe and not a a passive inclination only to be governed such as Spalato saith agreeth to the first matter 3 Royalists teach that a people under Democracy or Aristocracy have liberty to choose a King and the Romanes did this ergo they had an active power to do it ergo the Prelates simile crookes the matter at its pleasure cannot shake off its forme nor the wife cast off her husband being once married but Barclaius Grotius Arnisaens Blackwood and all the Royalists teach that the people under any of these two formes of Democracy or Aristocracy may resume their power and cast off these formes and choose a Monarch and if Monarchy be the best government as Royalists say they may chose the best and is this but a passive capacity to be governed 2. Of ten men fit for a Kingdome they may designe one and put the Crowne on his head and refuse the other nine and Israel crowned Solomon and refused Adoniah Is this not a voluntary action proceeding from a free active elective power It will puzzle the pretended Prelate to deny this that which the community doth freely they doe not from such a passive capacity as is in the first matter in regard of the forme 3. It is true that people through corruption of nature are averse to submit to Governours for conscience sake and as to the Lord because the naturall man remaining in the state of nature can doe nothing that is truely good but it is false that men have no active Morall power to submit to superiours but only a passive capacity to be governed he quite contradicteth himselfe for he said before c. 4. pag. 49. that there is an innate feare and reverence in the hearts of all men naturally even in Heathen toward their Severaign yea as we have a naturall morall active power to love our Parents and superiours though it be not
11. v. 14 15. and yet after those breaches David acknowledgeth him to be his Prince and the Lords annoynted Ans The Prophet Samuel his threatning 1 Sam. 17. is it not exponed of actuall unkinging and rejecting of Saul at the present for after that Samuel both honoured him as King before the people and prayed for him and mourned to God on his behalfe as King 1 Sam. 16. 1. 2. but the threatning was to have effect in Gods time when he should bring David to the Throne as was prophesied upon occasion of lesse sinne even his sacrificing and not waiting the time appointed as God had commanded 1 Sam. 13. v. 13 14. 2. The people and Davids acknowledgment of Saul to be the Lords annoynted and a King after he had committed such acts of Tyranny as seeme destructive of the Royall Covenant and inconsistent therewith cannot prove that Saul was not made King by the Lord and the people conditionally and that for the peoples good and safety and not for their destruction and it doth well prove that those acts of blood and tyranny committed by Saul were not done by him as King or from the principle of Royall power given to him by God and the people 2. That in these acts they were not to acknowledge him as King 3. That these acts of blood were contrary to the covenant that Saul did sweare at his inauguration and contrary to the conditions that Saul in the covenant tooke on him to perform at the making of the Royall covenant 4. They prove not but the States who made Saul King might lawfully dethrone him and annoint David their King But David had reason to hold him for his Prince and the Lords Anointed so long as the people recalled not their grant of Royall dignity as David or any man is obliged to honour him as King whom the people maketh King though he were a bloodier and more tyrannous man then Saul Any Tyrant standeth in titulo so long as the People and Estates who made him King have not recalled their grant so as neither David nor any single man though six hundred with him may unking him or detract obedience from him as King So many acts of disloyaltie and breaches of lawes in the Subjects though they be contrary to this Covenant that the States make with their Prince doth not make them to be no Subjects and the Covenant mutuall standeth thus 3 Arg. If the people as Gods instruments bestow the benefit of a Crown on their King upon condition that he will rule them according to Gods word then is the King made King by the people conditionally but the former is true Ergo so is the latter The assumption is proved thus because to be a King is to be an adopted father tutor a Politick servant and Royall watchman of the State and the Royall honour and Royall maintenance given to him is a reward of his labours and a Kingly hire And this is the Apostles argument Rom. 13. 6. For this cause pay you tribute also there is the wages for they are Gods ministers attending continually upon this very thing There is the worke Qui non implet conditionem à se promissam cadit benefiâio It is confirmed thus The people either maketh the man their Prince conditionally that he rule according to Law or absolutely so that he rule according to will or lust or 3. without any vocall transactions at all but only brevi manu say Reigne thou over us and God save the King And so there be no conditions spoken on either side Or 4. The King is obliged to God for the condition which he promiseth by oath to performe toward the people but he is to make no reckoning to the people whether he performe his promise or no for the people being inferiour to him and he solo Deo minor only next and immediate to God the people can have no jus no law over him by vertue of any covenant But the first standing we have what we seeke The second is contrary to Scripture He is not Deut. 17. 15 16. made absolutely a King to rule according to his will and lust for Reigne thou over us should have this meaning Come thou and play the Tyrant over us and let thy lust and will be a law to us which is against naturall sense nor can the sense and meaning be according to the third That the people without any expresse vocall and positive covenant give a Throne to their King to rule as he pleaseth because 1. it is a vain thing for the Prelate and other Mancipia Aulae Court-bellies to say Scotland and England must produce a written authentick covenant betwixt the first King and their People because say they it s the Lawes word De non apparentibus non existentibus eadem lex that covenant which appeareth not it is not For in positive covenants that is true and in such contracts as are made according to the Civill or Municipall lawes or the secondary law of Nations But the generall covenant of nature is presupposed in making a King where there is no vocall or written covenant if there be no conditions betwixt a Christian King and his people then those things which are just and right according to the law of God and the rule of God in moulding the first King are understood to regulate both King and People as if they had been written and here we produce our written covenant Deut. 17. 15. Josh 1. 8 9. 2 Chr. 31 32. 1. Because this is as much against the King as the people and more for if the first King cannot bring forth his written and authentick tables to prove that the Crown was given to him and his heires and his successors absolutely and without any conditions so as his will shall be a law ca lit causa he loseth his cause say they The King is in possession of the Royall power absolutely without any condition and you must put him from his possession by a law I answer this is most false 1. Though he were in mala fide and in unjust possession the law of Nature will warrant the people to repeal their right and plead for it in a matter which concerneth their heads lives and soules 2. The Parliaments of both Kingdomes standing in possession of a nomothetick power to make lawes proveth cleerely that the King is in no possession of any Royall dignitie conferred absolutely and without any condition upon him and therefore it is the Kings part by law to put the Estates out of possession And so though there were no written covenant the standing law and practice of many hundreth acts of Parliament is equivalent to a written covenant 2. When the people appointeth any to be their King the voyce of Nature exponeth their deed though there be no vocall or written covenant For that fact of making a King is a morall lawfull act warranted by the word of God Deut. 17. 15 16. Rom. 13.
to be obeyed by no Divine law the King misled by P. Prelates shall forbid to obey them who is in right-down truth a mortall civill Pope may loose and liberate subjects from the tye of a Divine law 5 His inveying against ruling Elders and the rooting out of Antichristian Prelacie without any word of Scripture on the contrary I passe as the extravagancy of a malecontent because he is deservedly excommunicated for Perjury Popery Socinianisme Tyranny over mens conscience and invading places of civill dignity and deserting his calling and the camp of Christ c. 6 None were of old anoynted but Kings Priests and Prophets who then more obliged to maintain the Lords Anoynted then Priests and Prophets The Church hath never more beauty and plenty under any government then Monarchy which is most countenanced by God and magnified by Scripture Ans Pastors are to maintain the rights of people and a true Church no lesse then the right of Kings but Prelates the Court Parasites and creatures of the King that are born for the Glory of their King can do no lesse then professe this in words yet it is true that Tacitus writeth of such Hist l. 1. Libentius cum fortuna principis quam cum principe loquuntur and it is true that the Church hath had plenty under Kings not so much because they were Kings as because they were godly and zealous except the P. P. say That the oppressing Kings of Israell and Judah and the bloody horns that made war with the Lamb are not Kings In the rest of the Epistle he extols the Marques of Ormond with base flattery from his Loyalty to the King and his more then Admirable prudence in the Treaty of Cessation with the Rebells a woe is due to this false prophet who calleth Darknesse Light for the former was abominable and perfidious Apostacy from the Lords cause and people of God whom he once defended and the Cessation was a selling of the blood of many hundred thousand protestants Men Women and sucking Children This cursed P. hath written of late a Treatise against the Presbyteriall government of Scotland in which there is a bundle of lyes hellish calumnies and grosse errors The first lye is that we have Lay-Elders whereas they are such as rule But labour not in the word and doctrine 1 Tim. 5. 7. pag. 3. 2. The second lye that Deacons who only attend Tables are joynt Rulers with Pastors pag. 3. 3. That we never or little use the lesser excommunication that is debarring from the Lords Supper Pag. 4. 4. That any Church judicature in Scotland exacteth pecuniary mulcts and threaten excommunication to the non-payers and refuseth to accept the repentance of any who are not able to pay the civill magistrate only fineth for Drunkennesse and Adultery Blaspheming of God which are frequent sins in Prelates 5 A calumnie it is to say That ruling Elders are of equall authority to Preach the Word as Pastors Pag. 7. 6. That Lay-men are members of Presbyteries or generall Assemblies Buchanan and Mr. Melvin were Doctors of Divinity and could have taught such an Asse as Jo. Maxwell 7. That exspectants are intruders upon the sacred function because as sons of the Prophets they exercise their gifts for tryall in Preaching 8. That the Presbytery of Edinbrough hath a superintending power because they communicate the affaires of the Church and writ to the Churches what they hear Prelates and Hell devise against Christ and his Church 9. That the King must submit his Scepter to the Presbytery the Kings Scepter is his Royal office which is not subject to any judicature no more then any lawfull ordinance of Christ but if the King as a man blaspheme God murther the innocent advance Belly-gods such as our Prelates for the most part were above the Lords inheritance the Ministers of Christ are to say The King troubleth Jsraell and they have the keyes to open and shut heaven to and upon the King if he can offend 10. That King James said a Scottish Presbytery and a Monarchy agreeth as well as God and the Devill is true but King James meant of a wicked King else he spake as a man 11. That the presbytery out of pride refused to answer King James his Honourable messengers is a lye they could not in businesse of high concernment return a present answer to a Prince seeking still to abolish Presbyteries 12. It s a lye that all sins even all civil businesse come under the cognizance of the Church for only sins as publikely scandalous fall under their power Mat. 18. 15 16 17. c. 2 Thess 3. 11. 1 Tim. 5. 20. It is a calumnie that they search out secret crimes or that ever they disgraced the innocent or devided families where there be flagrant scandals and pregnant suspitions of scandalous crimes they search out these as the incest of Spotswood P. P. of Saint Andrewes with his own daughter the adulteries of Whiteford P. P. of Brichen whose Bastard came weeping to the Assembly of Glasgow in the armes of the whore these they searched out but not with the damnable oath ex officio that the High Commission put upon innocents to cause them accuse themselves against the Law of nature 13. The Presbytery hinder not lawfull merchandize scandalous exhortation unjust suits of Law they may forbid and so doth the Scripture as scandalous to Christians 2 Cor. 6. 14. They repeal no civill Lawes they Preach against unjust and grievous lawes as Esa cap. 10. 1. doth and censure the violation of Gods Holyday which Prelates prophaned 15. We know no Parochiall Popes we turn out no holy Ministers but only dumbe dogs non-residents scandalous wretched and Apostate Prelates 16. Our Moderator hath no dominion the P. P. absolveth him while he saith All is done in our Church by common consent p. 7. 17. It is true we have no Popish consecration such as P. P. contendeth for in the Masse but we have such as Christ and his Apostles used in Consecrating the Elements 18. âf any sell the Patrimony of the Church the Presbytery censures him if any take buds of Malt Meale Beâffe it is no law with us no more then the Bishops five hundred markes or a yeares stipend that the intrant gave to the Lord Bishop for a church And who ever took buds in these dayes as King James by the Earl of Dumbar did buy Episcopacie at a pretended Assembly by foule budding they were either men for the Episcopall way or perfidiously against their oath became Bishops all personall faults of this kind imputed to Presbyters agree to them under the reduplication of Episcopall men 19. The leading men that covered the sins of the dying man and so losed his soul were Episcopall men and though some of them were presbyterians the faults of men cannot prejudice the truth of God but the Prelates alwayes cry out against the rigor of Presbyteries in
censuring scandals because they themselves do ill they hate the light now here the Prelate condemneth them of remissenesse in Discipline 20. Satan a lier from the beginning saith The Presbyterie was a seminary and nursery of fiends and contentions bloods because they excommunicated murtherers against King James his will which is all one as to say Prophecying is a nurse of bloods because the Prophets cryed out against King Achab and the murtherers of innocent Naboth the men of God must be either on the one side or the other or then preach against reciprocation of injuries 21. It is false that Presbyteries usurp both swords because they censure sins which the civill Magistrate should censure and punish Elias might be said then to mix himselfe with the civill businesse of the Kingdom because he prophecied against Idolators killing of the Lords Prophets which crime the civill Magistrate was to punish But the truth is the Assembly of Glasgow 1637. condemned the Prelates because they being Pastors would be also Lords of Parliament of Session of Secret Counsell of Exchequer Judges Barons and in their lawlesse High Commission would Fine Imprison and use the sword 22. It is his ignorance that he saith A provinciall synod is an associate body chosen out of all judiciall Presbyteries for all Pastors and Doctors without delegation by vertue of their place and office repaire to the Provinciall Synods and without any choice at all consult and voice there 23. It is a lye That some Leading men rule all here indeed Episcopall men made factions to rent the Synods and though men abuse their power to factions this cannot prove that Presbyteries are inconsistent with Monarchie for then the Prelate the Monarch of his Diocesian rout should be Anti-Monarchiall in a higher manner for he ruleth all at his will 24. The prime men as Mr. R. Bruce the faithfull servant of Christ was honoured and attended by all because of his Suffering Zeal Holinesse his fruitfull Ministery in gaining many thousand souls to Christ So though King James cast him off and did swear By Gods name he intended to be King the Prelate maketh Blasphemy a vertue in the King yet King James sware he could not find an honest Minister in Scotland to be a Bishop and therefore he was necessitated to promote false knaves but he said sometimes and wrote it under his hand that Mr. R. Bruce was worthy of the half of his kingdom but will this prove Presbyteries inconsistent with Monarchies I should rather think that Knave Bishops by King James his judgement were inconsistent with Monarchies 25. His lyes of Mr. R. Bruce excerpted out of the lying Manuscript of Apostat Spotswood in that he would not but preach against the Kings recalling from exile some Bloody Popish Lords to undo all are nothing comparable to the Incests Adulteries Blasphemies Perjuries Sabbath-breaches Drunkennesse Prophanity c. committed by Prelates before the Sun 26. Our Generall Assembly is no other then Christs Court Act. 15. made up of Pastors Doctors and Brethren or Elders 27. They ought to have no negative vote to impede the conclusions of Christ in his servants 28. It is a lye that the King hath no power to appoint time and place for the Generall Assembly but his power is not privative to destroy the free Courts of Christ but accumulative to ayd and assist them 29. It is a lye That our generall Assembly may repeal Laws command and expect performance of the King or then excommunicate subject to them force compell King Judges and all to submit to them They may not force the conscience of the poorest begger nor is any Assembly infallible nor can it lay bounds upon souls of Iudges which they are to obey with blind obedience their power is ministeriall subordinate to Christs Law and what civill Laws Parliaments make against Gods word they may Authoritatively declare them to be unlawfull as though the Emperour Act. 15. had commanded Fornication and eating of blood might not the Assembly forbid these in the Synod I conceive the Prelates if they had power would repeal the Act of Parliament made An. 1641. in Scotland by his Majestie personally present and the three Estates concerning the anulling of these Acts of Parliament and Laws which established Bishops in Scotland Erg. Bishops set themselves as independent Monarchs above Kings and Laws and what they damne in Presbyteries and Assemblies that they practise themselves 30. Commissioners from Burroughs and Two from Edinbrough because of the largenesse of that Church not for Cathedrall supereminence sit in Assemblies not as sent from Burroughs but as sent and Authorized by the Church Session of the Burrough and so they sit there in a Church capacity 31. Doctors both in Accademies and in Parishes we desire and our Book of Discipline holdeth forth such 32. They hold I beleeve with warrant of Gods word if the King refuse to reform Religion the inferior Iudges and Assembly of Godly Pastors and other Church Officers may reform if the King will not kisse the Sun and do his duty in purging the House of the Lord may not Eliah and the people do their duty and cast out Baals Priests Reformation of Religion is a personall act that belongeth to all even to any one private person according to his place 33. They may swear a Covenant without the King if he refuse and Build the Lords House 2 Chron. 15. 9. themselves and relieve and defend one another when they are oppressed For my acts and duties of defending my self and the oppressed do not tye my conscience conditionally so the King consent but absolutely as all duties of the Law of nature doe Jer. 22. 3. Prov. 24. 11. Esa 58. 6. Esa 1. 17. 34. The P. P. condemneth our Reformation because it was done against the will of our Popish Queen This sheweth what estimation he hath of Popery and how he abhorreth Protestant Religion 35. They deposed the Queen for Her Tyranny but Crowned her Son all this is vindicated in the following Treatise 36. The killing of the monstrous and prodigious wicked Cardinall in the Castle of St. Andrews and the violence done to the Prelates who against all Law of God and man obtruded a Masse service upon their own private motion in Edinbrough An. 1637. can conclude nothing against Presbyteriall Government except our Doctrine commend these acts as lawfull 37. What was preached by the servant of Christ whom p. 46. he calleth the Scottish Pope is Printed and the P. P. durst not could not cite any thing thereof as Popish or unsound he knoweth that the man whom he so slandereth knocked down the Pope and the Prelates 38. The making away the fat Abbacies and Bishopricks is a bloody Heresie to the earthly minded Prelate the Confession of Faith commended by all the Protestant Churches as a strong bar against Popety and the book of Discipline in which the servants of God laboured twenty yeares with fasting and
praying and frequent advice and counsell from the whole Reformed Churches are to the P. P. a negative faith and devote imaginations it s a lye that Episcopacie by both sides was ever agreed on by Law in Scotland 39. And was it a heresie that M. Melvin taught that Presbyter and Bishop are one function in Scripture and that Abbots and Priors were not in Gods book dic ubi legis and is this a proof of inconsistency of Presbyteries with a Monarchie 40 It is a heresie to the P. P. that the Church appoynt a Fast when King James appoynted an unseasonable Feast when Gods wrath was upon the Land contrary to Gods word Esa 22. 12 13 14. and what will this prove Presbyteries to be inconsistent with Monarchies 41. This Assembly is to judge what Doctrine is treasonable what then Surely the secret Counsell and King in a constitute Church is not Synodically to determine what is true or false Doctrine more then the Roman Emperor could make the Church Canon Act. 15. 42. M. Gibson M. Black preached against King James his maintaining the Tyranny of Bishops his sympathizing with Papists and other crying sins and were absolved in a generall Assembly shal this make Presbyteries inconsistent with Monarchie Nay but it proveth only that they are inconsistent with the wickednesse of some Monarchies and that Prelates have been like the four hundred false prophets that âlattered King Achab and these men that preached against the sins of the King and Court by Prelates in both Kingdomes have been imprisoned Banished their Noses ript their cheâks burnt their eares cut 43. The Godly men that kept the Assembly of Aberdeen An. 1603. did stand for Christs Prerogative when K. James took away all generall Assemblies as the event proved and the King may with as good warrant inhibit all Assemblies for Word and Sacraments as for Church Discipline 44. They excommunicate not for light faults and trifles as the Lyar saith our Discipline saith the contrary 45. This Assembly never took on them to chose the Kings Counsellours but these who were in authority took K. James when he was a child out of the Company of a corrupt and seducing Papist Esme Duke of Lennox whom the P. P. nameth Noble Worthy of eminent indowments 46. It is true Glasgow Assembly 1637. voted down the High Commission because it was not consented unto by the Church and yet was a Church Judicature which took upon them to judge of the Doctrine of Ministers and deprive them and did incroach upon the Liberties of the established lawfull Church judicatures 47. This Assembly might well forbid M. John Graham Minister to make use of an unjust decree it being scandalous in a Minister to oppresse 48. Though Nobles Barons and Burgesses that professe the truth be Elders and so Members of the generall Assembly this is not to make the Church the House and the Common-wealth the Hangings for the constistuent Members we are content to be examined by the patern of Synods Act. 15. v. 22 23. Is this inconsistent with Monarchie 49. The Commissioners of the generall Assembly arâ 1. A meer occasionall judicature 2. Appointed by and subordinate to the Generall Assembly 3. They have the same warrant of Gods Word that Messengers of the Synod Act. 15. v. 22. 27. hath 50. The historicall calumnie of the 17. day of December is known to all 1. That the Ministers had any purpose to dethrone King James and that they wrote to John L. Marquesse of Hamilton to be King because K. James had made defection from the true Religion Satan devised Spotswood and this P. P. vented this I hope the true history of this is known to all The holiest Pastors and professors in the Kingdom asserted this Government suffered for it contended with authority only for sin never for the power and Office These on the contrary side were men of another stamp who minded earthly things whose God was the world 2. All the forged inconsistency betwixt Presbyteries and Monarchies is an opposition with absolute Monarchie and concludeth with alike strength against Parliaments and all Synods of either side against the Law and Gospell preached to which Kings and Kingdoms are subordinate Lord establish Peace and Truth Farewell The Table of the Contents of the Book QUEST I. VVHether Government be by a divine Law Affirmed Pag. 1. How Government is from God Ibid. Civill Power in the Root immediately from God Pag. 2. QUEST II. Whether or no Goverment be warranted by the Law of nature Affirmed Ibid. Civil societie naturall in radice in the root voluntary in modo in the manner Ibid. Power of Government and Power of Government by such and such Magistrates different Pag. 2 3. Civil subjection not formally from natures Law Pag. 3. Our consent to Laws penal not antecedently naturall Ibid. Government by such Rulers a secondary Law of nature Ibid. Family Government and politike different Ibid. Government by Rulers a secondary Law of nature Family Government and Civil different Pag. 4. Civil Government by consequent naturall Pag. 5. QUEST III. Whether Royall Power and definite Forms of Government be from God Affirmed Ibid. That Kings are from God understood in a fourfold sense Pag. 5 6. The Royall Power hath warrant from divine institution Pag. 6. The three forms of Government not different in spece and nature P. 8. How every form is from God Ibid. How Government is an ordinance of man 1 Pet 2. 13. Pag. 8 9. QUEST IV. Whether or no the King be onely and immediately from God and not from the people Prius distinguitur posterius prârsus Negatur pag. 5. How the King is from God how from the people Ibid. Royall Power three wayes in the people P. 6 10. How Royall Power is radically in the people P. 7. The people maketh the King Ibid. How any form of Government is from God P. 8. How Government is a humane ordinance 1 Pet. 2. 3. P. 8 9. The people creat the King P. 10 11. Making a King and choosing a King not to be distinguished P. 12 13. David not a King formally because anointed by God P. 14 15. QUEST V. Whether or no the P. P. proveth that Soveraignty is immediately from God not from the people p. 16. Kings made by the people though the Office in abstracto worâ immediately from God P. 16. The people have a reall action more then approbation in making a King P. 19 Kinging of a person ascribed to the people P. 20. Kings in a speciall manner are from God but it followeth not Ergo not from the people P. 21. The place Prov. 8. 15. proveth not but Kings are made by the people P. 22 23. Nebuchadnezzar and other heathen Kings had no just Title before God to the Kingdom of Judah and divers other subdued Kingdoms P. 26 27. QUEST VI. Whether or no the King be so allanerly from both in regard of Soveraignty and Designation of his person as he is no wayes from the people
obligatory in Law p. 234 235. Royalists confesse a Tyrant in exercise may be dethroned p. 235 236. How the people is the seat of the power of Soveraigntie p. 239 240. The place Psal 51. Against thee onely have I sinned c. discussed p. 241 242. Israels not rising in arms against Pharaoh examined p. 245 246 247 248 249. And Judahs not working their own deliverance under Cyrus p. 248 249. A Covenant without the Kings concurrence lawfull p. 249 250 251. QUEST XXVII Whether or no the King be the sole supreme and finall Interpreter of the Law Negatur p. 252. He is not the supreme and peremptor Interpreter p. 254. Nor is his will the sense of the Law p. 252 253. Nor is he the sole and onely judiciall Interpreter of the Law p. 253 254 255 seq QUEST XXVIII Whether or no Wars raised by the Estates and Subjects for their owne just defence against the Kings bloody Emissaries be lawfull Affir p. 257. The state of the question P. 257 258 If Kings be absolute a superiour Iudge may punish an inferiour Iudge not as a Iudge but an erring man ibid. By Divine institution all Covenants to restraine their power must be unlawfull p. 258 259. Resistance in some cases lawfull p. 260 261 262. Six Arguments for the lawfulnesse of defensive Wars in this Quest 260. seq Many others follow Quest 29. and 30. seq QUEST XXIX Whether in the case of defensive War the distinction of the Person of the King as a man who may and can commit hostile acts of tyranny against his subjects and of the Office and Royall Power that he hath from God and the people can have place Affirmatur p. 265. The Kings Person in concreto and his Office in abstracto or which is all one the King using his Power lawfully to be distinguished Rom. 13. p. 265. To command unjustly maketh not a higher power p. 265. 266. The person may be resisted and yet the Office cannot be resisted prooved by fourteene Arguments p. 265 266. seq Contrary Objections of Royalists and of the P. Prelate answered p. 270 271. seq What we meane by the person and Office in abstracto in this dispute we doe not exclude the person in concreto altogether but only the person as abusing his power we may kill a person as a man and love him as a sonne father wife according to Scripture p. 272 273 274. We obey the King for the Law and not the Law for the King p. 275 276. The loosing of habituall and actuall Royalty different p. 276. Ioh. 19. 10. Pilates power of crucifying Christ no Law-power given to him of God it s proved against Royalists by six Arguments p. 280. QVEST. XXX Whether or no passive obedience be a meane to which we are subjected in conscience by vertue of a Divine Commandement Neg. What a meane resistance is that flying is resistance p. 313. The place 1 Pet. 2. 18. discussed ibid. Patient bearing of injuries and resistance of injuries compatible in one and the same subject ibid. Christs non-resistance hath many things rare and extraordinary and so is no leading rule to us p. 315. Suffering is either commanded to us comparatively only that we rather choose to suffer then deny the truth or the manner only is commanded that we suffer with patience p. 317 318. sequent The Physicall act of taking avvay the life or of offending vvhen commanded by the Lavv of self defence is no murther p. 321. We have a greater dominion over our goods and members except in case of mutilation vvhich is a little death then over our life p. 321. To kill is not of the nature of self defence but accidentall thereunto ibid. Defensive vvar cannot be vvithout offending p. 323. The nature of defensive and offensine Warrs p. 324 325. Flying is resistance p. 325 326. QUEST XXXI Whether selfe-defence by opposing violence to unjust violence be lawfull by the Law of God and Nature Affirm p. 326 327. Self-defence in man naturall but Modus the way must be rationall and just p. 327. The method of selfe-defence ibid. Violent re-offending in selfe-defence the last remedy p. 328. It s Physically unpossible for a Nation to fly in the case of persecution for Religion and so they may resist in their owne self-defence p. 328. Tutela Vitae proxima and remota p. 329. In a remote posture of selfe-defence we are not to take us to re-offending as David was not to kill Saul when he was sleeping or in the Cave for the same cause ibid. David would not kill Saul because he was the Lords Anoynted p. 330. The King not Lord of chastity name conscience and so may be resisted p. 331. By universall and particular nature selfe-defence lawfull proved by divers Arguments p. 330. And made good by the testimony of Iurists p. 331. The love of our selves the measure of the love of our neighbour and inforceth selfe-defence p. 332. Nature maketh a private man his owne Iudge and Magistrate when the Magistrate is absent and violence is offered to his life as the Law saith p. 334 335. Selfe-defence how lawfull it is p. 333 334 335. What presumption is from the Kings carriage to the two Kingdomes are in Law sufficient grounds of defensive warrs p. 336 337. Offensive and defensive warrs differ in the event and intentions of men but not in nature and spece nor Physically p. 336 337 338. Davids case in not killing Saul nor his men no rule to us not in our lawfull defence to kill the Kings Emissaries the cases farre different p. 338 339. QUEST XXXII Whether or no the lawfulnesse of defensive warrrs can be proved from the Scripture from the examples of David the peoples rescuing Ionathan Elisha and the 80. valiant Priests who resisted Vzziah Affirm p. 340. David warrantably raised an Army of men to defend himselfe against the unjust violence of his Prince Saul p. 340 341 342. Davids not invading Saul and his men who did not aime at Arbitrary Government at subversion of Lawes Religion and extirpation of those that worshipped the God of Israel and opposed Idolatry but only pursuing one single person farre unlike to our case in Scotland and England now p. 342. 343. Davids example not extraordinary p. 343 344. Elisha's resistance proveth defensive warrs to be warrantable p. 344 345 Resistance made to King Vzziah by eighty valiant Priests proveth the same p. 346 347 348. The peoples rescuing Ionathan proveth the same p. 348 349. Libnah's revolt proveth this p. 349. The City of Abel defended themselves against Ioab King Davids Generall when he came to destroy a City for one wicked conspirator Sheba his sake p. 349 350. QUEST XXXIII Whether or no Rom. 13. 1. make any thing against the lawfulnesse of defensive warrs Neg. p. 350. The King not only understood Rom. 13. p. 351. 352. And the place Rom. 13. discussed p. 352 353 354. QUEST XXXIV Whether Royalists prove by cogent reasons the unlawfulnesse of defensive warrs
republick appoint Rulers to governe them is not an action indifferent but a Morall action because to set no Rulers over themselves I conceive were a breach of the fift Commandement which commandeth government to be one or other 2. It is not in mens free will that they have government or no government because it is not in their free will to obey or not to obey the acts of the Court of nature which is Gods Court and this Court enacteth that societies suffer not mankind to perish which must necessarily follow if they appoint no government also it is proved else where that no Morall acts in their exercises and use are left indifferent to us so then the aptitude and temper of every Common-wealth to Monarchy rather then to Democracy or Aristocracy is Gods Warrant and nearest call to determine the wills and liberty of people to pitch upon a Monarchy Hic nunc rather then any other forme of Government though all the three be from God even as single life and Marriage are both the lawfull Ordinances of God and the constitution and temper of the body is a calling to either of the two nor are we to think that Aristocracy and Democracy are either unlawfull Ordinances or mens inventions or that those societies which want Monarchy doe therefore live in sins But some say that Peter calleth any form of Government an humane Ordinance 1 Pet. 2. 13. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Therefore Monarchy can be no Ordinance of God Answ Rivetus It is called an Ordinance of man not because it is an invention of man and not an Ordinance of God but respectu subjecti Piscator Not because man is the efficient cause of Magistracie but because they are men who are Magistrates Diodatus Obey Princes and Magistrates or Governours made by men or amongst men Oecumenius an humane constitution because it is made by an humane disposition and created by humane suffrages Dydimus presides presidents made by men Cajetanus Estius Every creature of God as Preach the Gospel to every creature in authority But I take the word every creature of man to be put 1. Emphatically to commend the worth of obedience to Magistrates though but men when we do it for the Lords sake Therefore Betrandus Cardinalis Ednââsis saith he speaketh so for the more necessity of merit and Glossa Ordinaria saith Be subject to all powers Etiam ex infidelibus incredulis Even of infidels and unbeleevers Lyranus For though they be men the image of God shineth in them and the Syriack as Lorinus saith leadeth us thereunto ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Lechullechum benai anasa Obey all the children of men that are in authority 2. It is an Ordinance of men not effectively as if it were an invention and a dream of men But 2. subjectively because exercised by man 3. Objectively and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã for the good of men and for the externall mans peace and safety especially Whereas Church-Officers are for the spirituall good of mens souls And Durandus saith well Civill power according to its institution is of God and according to its acquisition and way of use it s of man And we may thus farre call the forms of Magistrates an humane Ordinance That some Magistrates are ordained to care for mens lives and matters criminall of life and death and some for mens Lands and estates some for commodities by Sea and some by Land and Magistrates according to these Determinations or humane Ordinances QUEST IIII. Whether the king be only and imediatly from God not from the people THat this question may be the clearer we are to set down these Considerations 1. The question is Whether the Kingly Office it self come from God I conceive it is and floweth from the people not by formall institution as if the people had by an act of reason devised and excogitated such a power God ordained the power it is from the people onely by a virtuall emanation in respect that a community having no Government at all may ordain a King or appoint an Aristocracie But the question is concerning the designation of the person Whence is it that this man rather then this man is crowned King and whence is it from God immediatly and onely that this man rather then this man and this race or family rather then that race and family is chosen for the Crowne or is it from the people also and their free choise for the Pastor and the Doctors Office is from Christ onely but that Iohn rather then Thomas be the Doctor or the Pastor is from the will and choice of men the Presbyters and people 2. The Royall power is three wayes in the people 1. Radically and virtually as in the first subject 2. Collativè vel communicativè by way of free donation they giving it to this man not to this man that he may âule over them 3. Limitatè They giving it so as these three acts remain with the people 1. That they may measure ouâ by ounce weights so much Royall power and no more and no lesse 2. So as they mây lâââ ãâ¦ã and set banks and marches to the âxccrcââ 3. That âây give it ouâ conditionatè upon this and this condition that tâây take again to themselves what they gave ouâ upon condition âââââ condition be violated The first I conceive is cleere 1. ãâ¦ã ââ every ââing creature have radically in them a power of ãâ¦ã âo defend themselves from violence as we see Lyons have ãâ¦ã soââ beasts have hornes some clawes men being reasonable creatures united in societie must have power in a more reasonable and honorable way to put this power of warding off violence in the hands of one or moe Rulers to defend themselves by Magistrates 2. If all men be borne as concerning civill power alike for no man commeth out of the wombe with a Diadem on his head or a Scepter in his hand and yet men united in a societie may give crown and scepter to this man and not to this man then this power was in this united societie but it was not in them formally for they should then all have been one King and so both above and superiour and below and inferiour to themselves which we cannot say therefore this power must have been virtually in them because neither man nor communitie of men can give that which they neither have formally nor virtually in them 3. Royalists cannot deny but Cities have power to choose and create inferiour Magistrates ergo many Cities united have power to create an higher Ruler for Royall power is but the united and superlative power of inferiour Judges in one greater Judge whom they call a King 2 Conclus The power of creating a man a King is from the people 1. Because those who may create this man a King rather then this man they have power to appoint a
disposed of by the composed contracts of men but by the immediate hand and worke of God Hos 13. 11. I gave them a King in my anger I tooke him away in my wrath Iob He places Kings in the throne c. Ans Here is a whole Chapter of seven pages for one raw argument ten times before repeated 1. to Exod. 9. 7. I have raised up Pharaoh Paul expoundeth it Rom. 9. to prove that King Pharaoh was a vessell of wrath fitted for destruction by Gods absolute Will and the Prelate following Arminius with treasonable charity applyeth this to our King Can this man pray for the King 2. Elisha anoynted but constituted not Hazael King and foretold he should be King and if he be a King of Gods making who slew his sicke Prince and invaded the Throne by innocent bloud judge you I would not take Kings of the Prelates making 3. If God give to Nebuchadnezer the same still of the servant of God given to David Ps 18. 1. 116. 16. and to Moses Ios 1 2. all Kings because Kings are men according to Gods heart Why is not royalty then founded on grace Nebuchadnezer was not otherwise his servant then he was the hammer of the earth and a tyrannous conquerour of the Lords people and all the Heathen Kings are called Kings But how came they to their Thrones for the most part as David and Hezekiah but God anointed them not by his Prophets they came to their Kingdomes by the peoples election or by blood and rapine the latter way is no ground to you to deny Athaliah to be a lawfull Princesse she and Abimelech were lawfull Princes and their soveraignty as immediatly and independently from God as the soveraignty of many heathen Kings See then how justly Athaliah was killed as a bloody usurper of the throne this would licence your brethren the Iesuites to stab heathen Kings whom you will have as well Kings as the Lords anointed though Nebuchadnezer many of them made their way to the Throne against all Law of God and man through a bloudy patent 4. Cyrus is Gods anointed and his Shepheard too ergo his Arbitrary government is a soveraignty immediatly depending on God and above all Law it is a wicked consequence 5. God named him neare a hundreth yeare ere he was borne God named and designed Judas very individually and named the Asse that Christ should ride on to Ierusalem Zach. 9. 9. some moe hundred yeares then one What will the Prelate make them independent Kings for that 6. God giveth Kingdomes to whom he will What then this will prove Kingdomes to be as independent and immediatly from God as Kings are for as God giveth Kings to Kingdomes so he giveth Kingdomes to Kings and no doubt he giveth Kingdoms to whom he will so he giveth Prophets Apostles Pastors to whom he will and he giveth tyrannous conquests to whom he will and it is Nebuchadnezer to whom Daniel speaketh that from the Lord and he had no just title to many Kingdomes especially to the Kingdome of Iudah which yet God the King of Kings gave to him because it was his good pleasure and if God had not commanded them by the mouth of his Prophet Ieremiah might they not have risen and with the sword have vindicated themselves and their own liberty no lesse then they lawfully by the sword vindicated themselves from under Moab Iudges 3. from under Iabin Iaakin King of Canaan who twenty yeares mightily oppressed the children of Israel Iudges 4. now this P. Prelate by all these instances making Heathen Kings to be Kings by as good a title as David and Hezekiah condemneth the people of God as rebells if being subdued and conquered by the Turke and Spanish King they should by the sword recover their owne liberty and that Israel and the saviours which God raised to them had not warrant from the law of nature to vindicate themselves to liberty which was taken from them violently and unjustly by the sword but from all this it shall well follow that the tyranny of bloudy conquerours is immediatly and only dependent from God no lesse then lawfull soveraignty for Nebuchadnezers soveraignty over the people of God and many other Kingdomes also was revenged of God as tyranny Ier. 50. 6. 7. and therefore the vengeance of the Lord and the vengeance of his Temple came upon him and his land Ier. 50. 16 17. 18. 28 29. 30. It is true the people of God were commanded of God to submit to the King of Babylon to serve him and to pray for him and to doe on the contrary was rebellion but this was not because the King of Babylon was their King and because the King of Babylon had a command of God so to bring under his yoak the people of God So Christ had a Commandement to suffer the death of the Crosse Iohn 10. 18. but had Herod and Pilate any warrant to crucifie him none at all 7. He saith Royalties even of Heathen Kings are not disposed of by the composed Contracts of men but by the immediate hand and worke of God But the Contracts of men to give a Kingdome to a person which a Heathen community may lawfully doe and so by contract dispose of a Kingdom is not opposite to the immediate hand of God appointing Royalty and Monarchy at his owne blessed liberty Lastly he saith God tooke away Saul in his wrath but I pray you did God onely doe it then had Saul because a King a Patent Royall from God to kill himselfe for so God tooke him away and we are rebells by this if we suffer not the King to kill himselfe Well pleaded QUEST VI. Whether the King be so from God onely both in regard of his Soveraignty and of the designation of his person to the Crown as that he is no waies from the people but by meere approbation Dr. Ferne a man much for Monarchy saith Though Monarchy hath its excellency being first set up of God in Moses yet neither Monarchy Aristocracy nor any other forme is jure divino but we say saith he the power it selfe or that sufficiency of authority to governe that is in a Monarchy or Aristocracy abstractly considered from the qualification of other formes is a flux and constitution subordinate to that providence an ordinance of that Dixi or silent word by which the world was made and shall be governed under God This is a great debasing of the Lords anoynted for so soveraignty hath no warrant in Gods Word formally as it is such a government but is in the world by providence as sin is and as the falling of a Sparrow to the ground whereas Gods Word hath not onely commanded that government should be but that fathers and mothers should be 2. and not only that politick Rulers should be but also Kings by name and other Iudges Aristocraticall should be Rom. 13. 3. Deut. 17. 14. 1 Pet. 2. 17. Prov. 24. 21. Prov. 15. 16. 3. If
the power of Monarchy and Aristocracy abstracted from the formes be from God then it is no more lawfull to resist Aristocraticall Government and our Lords of Parliament or Iudges then it is lawfull to resist Kings But heare the Prelates reasons to prove that the King is from the people by approbation only P. Prelate The people Deut. 17. is said to set a King over them only as 1 Cor. 6. The Saints are said to judge the world that is by consenting to Christs Iudgement So the people doe not make a King by transferring on him soveraignty but by accepting acknowledging reverencing him as King whom God hath both constituted and designed King Answ This is said but not a word proved for the Queen of Sheba and Hiram acknowledged reverenced and obeyed Solomon as King and yet they made him not King as the Princes of Israell did 2. Reverence and obedience of the people is relative to the Kings lawes but the peoples making of a King is not relative to the laws of a King for then he should be a King giving laws and commanding the people as King before the people make him King 3. If the peoples approving and consenting that an elected King be their King presupposeth that he is a King designed and constituted by God before the people approve him as King Let the P. Prelate give us an act of God now designing a man King for there are no immediate voyces from heaven saying to a people This is your King before the people elect one of sixe to be their King And this infallibly proveth that God designeth one of sixe to be a King to a people who had no King before by no other act but by determining the hearts of the States to elect and designe this man King and passe any of the other five 4. When God Deut. 17. forbiddeth them to choose a stranger he presupposeth they may choose a stranger for Gods law now given to man in the state of sinne presupposeth he hath corruption of nature to doe contrary to Gods law Now if God did hold forth that their setting a King over them was but the peoples approving the man whom God shall both constitute and designe to be King then he should presuppose that God was to designe a stranger to be the lawfull King of Israel and the people should be interdicted to approve and consent that the man should be King whom God should choose for it was unpossible that the people should make a stranger King God is the only immediate King-creator the people should only approve and consent that a stranger should be King yet upon supposall that God first constituted and designed the stranger King it was not in the peoples power that the King should be a Brother rather then a stranger for if the people have no power to make a King but doe only approve him or consent to him when he is both made and designed of God to be King it is not in their power that he be either brother or stranger and so God commandeth what is simply impossible 2. Consider the sense of the command by the Prelates vaine Logick I Iehovah as I only create the world of nothing so I only constitute and designe a man whether Iew or Nebuchadnezzar a stranger to be your King yet I inhibit you under the pain of my curse that you set any King over your selves but only a brother What is this but I inhibite you to be creators by omnipotent power 5. To these adde the reasons I produced before that the people by no shadow of reason can be commanded to make such a man King not such a man if they only consent to the man made King but have no action in the making of the King P. Prelate All the acts reall and imaginable which are necessary for the making of Kings are ascribed to God Take the first King as a ruling case 1 Sam. 12. 13. Behold the King whom you have chosen and desired and behold the Lord hath set a King over you This election of the people can be no other but their admittance or acceptance of the King whom God hath chosen and constituted as the words whom ye have chosen imply 1 Sam. 9. 17. 1 Sam. 10. 1. You have Sauls election and constitution where Samuel as Priest and Prophet anointeth him doing reverence and obeysance to him and ascribing to God that he did appoint him supreame and Soveraigne over his inheritance And the same expression is 1 Sam. 12. 13. The Lord hath set a King over you which is Psal 2. 6. I have set my King upon my holy hill of Zion Neither man nor Angel hath any share in any act of constituting Christ King Deut. 17. The Lord vindicateth as proper and peculiar to himselfe the designation of the person It was not arbitrary to the people to admit or reject Saul so designed it pleased God to consummate the worke by the acceptation consent and approbation of the people ut suaviore modo that by a smoother way he might incourage Saul to undergoe the hard charge and make his people the more heartilyâ without grumbling and scruple reverence and obey him The peoples admittance possibly added something to the solemnitie to the pompe but nothing to the essentiall and reall constitution or necessitie it only puts the subjects in mala fide if they should contraveen as the intimation of a Law the coronation of an hereditary King the inthronization of a Bishop And 1 King 3. 7. Thou hast made thy servant King 1 Sam. 16. 1. I have provided me a King Psal 18. 50. He is Gods King Psal 89. 19. I have exalted one chosen out of the people v. 20. He anointeth them 27. adopteth them I will make him my first borne Psal 82. 6. the first borne is above every brother severally and above all though a thousand joyntly Answ 1. By this reason inferiour Iudges are no lesse immediate Deputies of God and so irresistible then the Kings because God took off the spirit that was on Moses and immediately powred it upon the seventy Elders who were Iudges inferiour to Moses Num. 11. 14. 15. 16. Answ 2. This P. P. cannot make a Syllogisme If all the acts necessary to make a King be given to God none to the people then God both constituteth and designeth the King But the former the Scripture saith ergo if all the acts be given to God as to the prime King-makâr and disposer of Kings and Kingdoms and none to the people in that notion then God both constituteth and designeth a King Both major and minor is false The major is as false as the very P. Prelate himselfe All the acts necessary for war-making are in an eminent manner given to God as 1. the Lord fighteth for his people 2. The Lord scattered the enemies 3. The Lord slew Og King of Bashan 4. The battell is the Lords 5. The victorie the Lords ergo Israel never fought a
Aristocraticall Rulers but it followeth not Ergo All these men combined in a Citie or Societie have not power in a joynt Politicall body to chose Inferiour or Aristocraticall Rulers 3. The P. Prelates reason is nothing All the Contribution saith he in the compact body to make a King is onely by a surrender of the native right of every single man the whole being onely a voluntary constitution How then can there be any majestie derived from them I answer Very well For the surrender is so voluntary that it is also naturall and founded on the Law of nature That men must have Governours either many or one supreme Ruler And it is voluntary and dependeth on a positive institution of God Whether the Government be by one supreme Ruler as in a Monarchie or in many as in an Aristocracie according as the necessitie and temper of the Common-wealth do most require This Constitution is so voluntary as it hath below it the Law of nature for its generall foundation and above it the supervenient institution of God ordaining That there should be such Magistrates both Kings and other Iudges because without such all humane societies should be dissolved 4. Individuall persons in creating a Magistrate doth not properly surrender their right which can be called a right for they do but surrender their power of doing violence to these of their fellows in that same Communitie so as they shall not now have Morall power to do injuries without punishment and this is not right or libertie properly but servitude for a power to do violence and injuries is not liberty but servitude and bondage But the Prelate talketh of Royaltie as of meer Tyranny as if iâ were a proper Dominion and servile Empire that the Prince hath over his people and not more paternall and fatherly then lordly or masterly 5. He saith Violation of faith plighted in a contract amongst equals cannot be called disobedience but disobedience to the authoritie of the Soveraign is not onely breach of Covenant but high disobedience and contempt But violation of faith amongst equals as equals is not properly disobedience for disobedience is betwixt a superiour and an inferiour but violation of faith amongst equals when they make one of their equals their Iudge and Ruler is not onely violation of truth but also disobedience All Israel and Saul while he is a private man seeking his fathers Asses are equals by Covenant obliged one to another and so any injury done by Israel to Saul in that case is not disobedience but onely violation of âaith but when all Israel maketh Saul their King and sweareth to him obedience he is not now their equall and an injury done to him now is both a violation of their faith and high disobedience also Suppose a Citie of Aldermen all equall amongst themselves indignitie and place take one of their number and make him their Major and Provost a wrong done to him now is not onely against the rules of fraternitie but disobedience to one placed by God in authoritie over them 6. 1 Sam. 11. 7. The fear of the Lord fell on the people and they came out with one consent to obey Saul Ergo God hath placed authority in Kings which is not in people It is true because God hath transferred the scattered authorities that are in all the people in one Masse and by vertue of his own Ordinance hath placed them in one man who is King What followeth Ergo God conferreth this authoritie immediately upon the King without the mediation of any action of the people yea the contrary rather followeth 7. God looseth the bond of Kings that is when God is to cast off Kings he causeth them to lose all authoritie and maketh them come in contempt with the people But what doth this prove That God taketh away the majestie and authority of Kings immediately And therefore God gave to Kings this authoritie Immediately without the peoples conveiance Yea I take the Prelates weapon from him God doth not take the authority of the King from him immediately but mediately by the people their hating and dispising him when they âee his wickednesse as the people see Nero a Monster a prodigeous blood-sucker upon this all the people contemn him and dispise him and so the majesty is taken from Nero and all his Mandates and Laws when they see him trample upon all Laws divine and humane and that mediately by the peoples heart dispising of his majestie and so they repeat and take again that aw-some authoritie that they once gave him And this proveth that God gave him the authoritie mediately by the consent of man 8. Nor speaketh he of Kings onely but Vers 21. He powreth contempt ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã super munificos Pineda Aria Mont. super Principes Upon Nobles and great men And this place may prove That no Iudges of the earth are made by men 9. The Heathen say That there is some divinity in Princes as in Alexander the great toward his enemies and Scipio But this will prove That Princes and Kings have a Superiority over those who are not their native Subjects for something of God is in them in relation to all men that are not their Subjects If this be a ground strong and good because God onely and independently from men taketh away this majestie as God onely and independently giveth it then a King is sacred to all men subjects or not subjects then it is unlawfull to make war against any forraign King and Prince for in invading him or resisting him you resist that divine majestie of God that is in him then you may not lawfully flee from a tyrant no more then you may lawfully flie from God 10. Scipio was not a King Ergo This divine majestie is in all Iudges of the earth in a more or lesse measure Ergo God onely and immediately may take this spark of divine majestie from inferiour Iudges It followeth not And Kings certainly cannot infuse any sparkle of a divine majestie on any inferiour Iudges for God onely immediately infuseth it in men Ergo It is unlawfull for Kings to take this divinitie from Iudges for they resist God who resist Parliaments no lesse then those who resist Kings Scipio hath divinity in him as well as Cesar and that immediately from God and not from any King 10. Moses was not a King when he went to Pharaoh for he had not as yet a people Pharaoh was the King and because Pharaoh was a King the Divines of Oxford must say His Majestie must not in words of rebuke be resisted more then by deeds 11. Moses his face did shine as a Prophet receiving the Law from God not as a King and is this Sunshine of Heaven upon the face of Nero and Julian It must be if it be a beam of Royall Majestie if this pratler say right but 2 Cor. 3. 7. this was a majestie typicall which did adumbrate the glory of the Law of God and is far
Evangelically or legally in Gods Court good and so to obey their commandements only we are averse to penall Lawes of superiours but this proveth no way that we have only by nature a passive capacity to government for Heathens have by instinct of nature both made Lawes morally good submitted to them set Kings and Iudges over them which clearely proveth that men have an active power of Government by nature 4. yea what difference maketh the Prelate betwixt men and beasts for beasts have a capacity to be governed even Lyons and Tigers but here is the matter if men have any naturall power of Government the P. Prelate would have it with his brethren Iesuites and Arminians to be not naturall but done by the helpe of universall grace for so doe they confound nature and grace But it is certaine our power to submit to Rulers and Kings as to rectors and guides and fathers is naturall to submit to Tyrants in doing ills of sinne is naturall but in suffering ills of punishment it s not naturall 5. No man can give that which he hath not is true but that people have no power to make their Governours is that which is in question and denyed by us 6. This argument doth prove that people hath no power to appoint Aristocraticall Rulers more then Kings and so the Aristocraticall and Democraticall Rulers are all inviolable and sacred as the King 2. by this the people may not resume their freedome if they turne tyrants and oppressors this the Prelate shall deny for he averreth p. 96. out of Augustine that the people may without sin change a corrupt Democracy into a Monarchy P. Prelate If Soveraignty be originally inherent in the people then Democracy or Government by the people were the best Government because it commeth nearest to the fountaine and streame of the first and radicall power in the people yea and all other formes of government were unlawfull and if Soveraignty be natively inherent in the multitude it must be proper to every individuall of the community which is against that false Maxime of theirs Quisque nascitur liber every one by nature is borne a free man and the posterity of those who first contracted with their elected King are not bound to that Couenant but upon their native rest and liberty may appoint another King without breach of covenant The posterity of Ioshua and the Elders in their time who contracted with the Gibeonites to incorporate them though in a serving condition might have made their fathers government nothing Ans The P. Prelate might thanke Spalato for this Argument also for it is stollen but he never once nameth his name lest his theift should be deprehended so are his other Arguments stollen from Spalato but the Prelate weakeneth them and it is seene stollen goods are not blessed Spalato saith then by the law of nature every Common-wealth should be governed by the people and by the law of nature the people should be under the badest Government but this consequence is nothing for community of many families is formally and of themselves under no government but may choose any of the three for popular government is not that wherein all the people are Rulers for this is confusion no government because all are Rulers and none are governed and ruled but in popular government many are chosen out of the people to rule and that this is the worst government is said gratis without warrant and if Monarchy be the best of it selfe yet when men are in the state of sin in some other respects it hath many inconveniences 2. I see not how Democracie is best because neerest to the multitudes power of making a King for if all the three depend upon the free will of the people all are alike a far off and alike neer hand to the peoples free choice according as they see most conducible for the safety and protection of the Common-wealth And seeing the forms of Government are no more naturall then politick Incorporations of Cities yea then of Shires But from a positive institution of God who erecteth this form rather then this not immediately now but mediately by the free will of men not one cometh formally and eâ naturâ rei neerer to the fountain then another except that materially Democracie may come neerer to the peoples power then Monarchie but the excellencie of it above Monarchie is not hence concluded for by this reason the number of four should be more excellent then the number of five of ten of an hundreth of a thousand or of millions because four cometh neer to the number of three which Aristotle calleth the first perfit number cui additur ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã of which yet formally all doe alike share in the nature and essence of number 2. It is denied that it followeth from this antecedent The people have power to chose their own Governours Ergo All Governments except Democracie or Government by the people must be sinfull and unlawfull 1. Because Government by Kings is of Divine institution and of other Iudges also as is evident by Gods Word Rom. 13. 1 2 3. Deut. 17. 14. Prov. 8. 15 16. 1 Pet. 2. 13 14. Psal 2. 10 11 c. 2. Power of chosing any form of Government is in the people Ergo There is no Government lawfull but popular Government it followeth no wayes but presupposeth that power to chose any form of Government must be formally actuall Government which is most false yea they be contrary as the prevalency or power and the act are contrary so these two are contrary or opposite neither is Soveraigntie nor any Government formally inherent in either the Communitie by nature nor in any one particular man by nature and that every man is born free so as no man rather then his brother is born a King and Ruler I hope God willing to make good so as the Prclate shall never answer on the contrary 3. It followeth not that the Posteritie living when their Fathers made a Covenant with their first elected King may without any breach of Covenant on the Kings part make voyd and null their Fathers election of a King and chose another King because the lawfull Covenant of the Fathers in point of Government if it be not broken tieth the children but it cannot deprive them of their lawfull libertie naturally inherent in them to chose the fittest man to be King But of this hereafter more fully 4. Spalato addeth the Prelate is not a faithfull theef If the Communitie by the Law of nature have power of all forms of Government and so should be by nature under popular Government and yet should refuse a Monarchy and an Aristocracie yet Augustine addeth If the people should preferre their own private gain to the publike good and sell the Common-wealth then some good man might take their libertie from them and against their will erâct a Monarchie or an Aristocracie But 1. the Prelate and Augustine
Jepthah a bastard and the sonne of an harlot should be Iudge as that Gideon should be Iudge God vindicateth to himselfe that he giveth his people favour in the eyes of their enemies but doth it follow that the enemies are not agents and to be commended for their humanitie in favouring the people of God So Psal 65. 9 10. God maketh corne to grow therefore clouds and earth and sun and summer and husbandry contributeth nothing to the growing of corne But this is but that which he said before We grant that this is an eminent and singular act of Gods speciall providence that he moveth and boweth the wills of a great multitude to promote such a man who by nature commeth no more out of the wombe a crowned King then the poorest shepherd in the land and it is an act of grace to endue him with heroick and royall parts for the government But what is all this doth it exclude the peoples consent in no wayes So the works of supernaturall grace as to love Christ above all things to beleeve in Christ in a singular manner are ascribed to the rich grace of God but can the Prelate say that the understanding and will in these acts are meere patients and contribute no more then the people contributeth to Royall authority in the King and that is just nothing by the Prelates way And we utterly deny that as water in baptisme hath no action at all in the working of remission of sinnes so the people hath no influence in making a King for the people are worthier more excellent then the King and they have an active power of ruling and directing themselves toward the intrinfecall end of humane policie which is the externall safety and peace of a societie in so far as there are morall principles of the Second Table for this effect written in their heart and therefore that royall authoritie which by Gods speciall providence is united in one King and as it were over-gilded and lustered with Princely grace and royall endowments is diffused in the people for the people hath an after-approbative consent in making a King as Royalists confesse water hath no such action in producing grace QUEST IX Whether or no Soveraigntie is so from the people that it remaineth in them in some part so as they may in case of necessitie resume it THe Prelate will have it Babylonish confusion that we are divided in opinion Jesuites saith he place all Soveraigntie in the communitie Of the Sectaries some warrant any one subject to make away his King and that such a worke is no lesse to be rewarded then when one killeth a wolfe Some say this power is in the whole Communitie some will have it in the collective body not conveened by warrant or writ of Soveraignty but when necessitie which is often fancied of reforming State and Church calleth them together Some in the Nobles and Peeres some in the three Estates assembled by the Kings writ some in the inferour Iudges I answer If the Prelate were not a Iesuite himselfe he would not bid his brethren take the mote out of their eye but there is nothing here said but which Barclaius said better before this Plagarius To which I answer We teach that any private man may kill a a Tyrant voyd of all title and a great Royalist Barclaius saith so also And if he have not the consent of the people he is an usurper for we know no externall lawfull calling that Kings have now or their familie to the Crown but only the call of the people all other calls to us are now invisible and unknown and God would not command us to obey Kings and leave us in the darke that we shall not know who is the King the Prelate placeth his lawfull calling to the Crown in such an immediate invisible and subtile act of omnipotencie as that whereby God conferreth remission of sinnes by sprinkling with water in baptisme and that whereby God directed Samuel to annoint Saul and David not Eliab nor any other brother It is the Devill in the P. P. not any of us who teach that any private man may kill a lawfull King though tyrannous in his government For the subject of Royall power we affirme the first and ultimate and native subject of all power is the Communitie as reasonable men naturally inclining to a societie but the ethicall and politicall subject or the legall and positive receptacle of this power is various according to the various constitutions of the policie In Scotland and England it is the three Estates of Parliament in other Nations some other Iudges or Peeres of the Land The Prelate had no more common sense for him to object a confusion of opinions to us for this then to all the Common-wealths on earth because all have not Parliaments as Scotland hath all have not Constables and Officials and Churchmen Barons Lords of Councell Parliaments c. as England had But the truth is the Communitie orderly conveened as it includeth all the Estates civill have hand and are to act in choosing their Rulers I see not what priviledge Nobles have above Commons in a Court of Parliament by Gods law but as they are Iudges all are equally Iudges and all make up one congregation of Gods But the question now is if all power of governing the Prelate to make all the people Kings saith if all Soveraignty be so in the people that they retaine power to guard themselves against Tyranny And if they reteine some of it habitu in habit and in their power I am not now unseasonably according to the Prelates order to dispute of the power of lawfull defence against tyranny but I lay down this maxime of Divinitie Tyranny being a worke of Sathan is not from God because sinne either habituall or actuall is not from God the power that is must be from God the Magistrate as Magistrate is good in nature of office and the intrinsecall end of his office Rom. 13. 4. for he is the Minister of God for thy good and therefore a power ethicall politick or morall to oppresse is not from God and is not a power but a licentious deviation of a power and is no more from God but from sinfull nature and the old serpent then a license to sinne God in Christ giveth pardons of sinne but the Pope not God giveth dispensations to sinne 2. To this adde If for nature to defend it selfe be lawfull no Communitie without sin hath power to alienate and give away this power for as no power given to man to murther his brother is of God so no power to suffer his brother to be murthered is of God and no power to suffer himselfe à fortiori far lesse can be from God Here I speake not of physicall power for if free will be the creature of God a physicall power to acts which in relation to Gods law are sinfull must be from God But I now follow
the P. Prelate Some of the adversaries as Buchanan say that the Parliament hath no power to make a law but only a ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã without the approbation of the Communitie Others as the the Observator say that the right of the Gentry and Communalty is intirely in the Knights and Burgesses of the House of Commons and will have their Orders irrevocable If then the common people cannot resume their power and oppose the Parliament how can Tables and Parliaments resume their power and resist the King Answ The ignorant man should have thanked Barclaius for this Argument and yet Barclaius need not thanke him for it hath not the nerves that Barclaius gave it But I answer 1. if the Parliament should have been corrupted by fair hopes as in our age we have seene the like the people did well to resist the Prelates obtruding the Masse Booke when the Lords of the Counsell pressed it against all Law of God and man upon the Kingdome of Scotland and therefore it is denyed that the Acts of Parliament are irrevocable the observator said they were irrevocable by the King he being but one man the P. Prelate wrongeth him for he said onely they have the power of a Law and the King is obliged to confent by his Royall Office to all good Lawes and neither King nor people may oppose them Buchanan said Acts of Parliament are not Lawes obliging the people till they be promulgated and the peoples silence when they are promulgated is their approbation and maketh them obligatory Lawes to them but if the people speak against unjust Lawes they are not Lawes at all and Buchannan knew the power of the Scottish Parliament better then this ignorant Statist 2. There is not like reason to grant so much to the King as to Parliaments because certainly Parliaments who make Kings under God or above any one man and they must have more authority and wisedome then any one King except Solomon as base flatterers say should returne to the thrones of the earth And as the power to make just Lawes is all in the Parliament only the people have power to resist tyrannicall Lawes the power of all the Parliament was never given to the King by God the Parliament are as essentially Iudges as the King and therefore the Kings deed may well be revoked because he acteth nothing as King but united with his great or lesser Councell no more then the eye can see being separated from the body The Peeres and Members of Parliament have more then the King because they have both their owne power being parts and speciall Members of the people and also they have their high places in Parliament either from the peoples expresse or tacite consent 3. We allow no Arbitrary power to the Parliament because their just Lawes are irrevocable for the irrevocable power of making just Lawes doth argue a legall not an irreovocable Arbitrary power nor is there any arbitrary power in the people or in any mortall man but of the Covenant betwixt King and people hereafter P. Prelate If Soveraigne power be habitually in the community so as they may resume it at their pleasure then nothing is given to the King but an empty title for at the same instant he receiveth Empire and Soveraignty and layeth downe the power to rule or determine in matters which concerne either private or publick good and so he is both a King and a Subject Ans This naked consequence the Prelate sayeth and proveth not and we deny it and give this reason the King receiveth Royall power with the States to make good Lawes and 2. power by his royalty to execute those Lawes and this power the community hath devolved in the hands of the King and States of Parliament but the community keepeth to themselves a power to resist tyranny and to coerce it and eatenus in so far is Saul subject that David is not to compeare before him nor to lay downe Goliahes sword nor disband his Army of defence though the King should command him so to doe P. Prelate By all Polititians Kings and enferiour Magistrates are differenced by their different specifice entity but by this they are not differenced nay a Magistrate is in a better condition then a King for the Magistrate is to judge by a knowne Statute and Law and cannot be censured and punished but by Law But the King is censurable yea disabled by the multitude yea the basest of subjects may cite and convent the King before the underived Majesty of the community and he may be judged by the Arbitrary Law thut is in the closet of their heart not only for reall misdemeanour but for fancied jealousies It will be said good Kings are in no danger the contrary appeareth this day and ordinarily the best are in greatest danger no Government except Plato'es Republick wanteth incommodities subtile spirits may make them apprehend them The poore people bewitched follow Absolom in his treason they strike not at Royalty at first but labour to make the Prince naked of the good counsell of great Statesmen c. Ans Whether the King and the under Magistrate differ essentially we shall see The P. Prelate saith all Polititians grant it but he saith untruth he bringeth Moses and the Iudges their power to prove the power of Kings and so either the Iudges of Israel and the Kings differ not essentially or then the Prelate must correct the spirit of God tearming one booke of Scripture ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Kings and another ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Iudges and make the booke of Kings the booke of Iudges 2. The Magistrates condition is not better then the Kings because the Magistrate is to judge by an knowne Statute and Law and the King not so God moulded the first King Deut. 17. 18. when he sitteth judging on his Throne to looke to a written Coppy of the Law of God as his rule Now a power to follow Gods Law is better then a power to follow mans sinfull will so the Prelate putteth the King in a worse condition then the Magistrate not we who will have the King to judge according to just statutes and lawes 3. Whether the King be censurable and deposable by the multitude he cannot determine out of our writings 4. The communities law is the law of nature not their arbitrary lust 5. The Prelates treasonable raylings I cannot follow he first saith that we agree not ten of us to a positive faith and that our faith is negative but his faith is Privative Popish Socinian Arminian Pelagian and worse for he was once of that same faith that we are of 2. Our Confession of Faith is positive as the confession of all the reformed Churches but I judge he thinketh the Protestant Faith of all the reformed Churches but negative 3. The incommodities of Government before our reformation were not fancied but printed by Authority all the body of Popery was printed and
avowed as the Doctrine of the Church of Scotland and England as the learned Author and my much respected brother evidenceth in his Ludensium ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The Canterburian selfe conviction 4. The Parliament of England was never yet found guilty of Treason 5. The good Counsellers of great States-men that Parliaments of both Kingdomes would take from the Kings Majesty are a faction of perjured Papists Prelates Iesuites Irish cut-throates Strafords and Apostate subverters of all Lawes divine humane of God of Church of State P. Prelate In whom so ever this power of Government be it is the onely remedy to supply all defects and to set right what ever is disjoynted in Church and State and the subject of this super-intending power must be free from all errour in Iudgement and Practice and so we have a Pope in temporalibus and if the Parliament erre the people must take order with them else God hath left Church and State remedilesse Ans This is stollen from Barolaius also 1. but the same Barclaius saith Si Rex regnum suum alienâ ditioni manciparit regno cadit If the King shall sell his Kingdome or inslave it to a forraigne power he falleth from all right to his Kingdome but who shall execute any such Law against him not the people not the Peeres not the Parliament for this Mancipium ventris aulae this slave saith p. 147. I know no power in any to punish or curbe Soveraignty but in Almighty God 2. We see no super-intending power on earth in King or people infallible nor is the last power of taking order with a Prince who inslaveth his Kingdome to a forraigne power placed by us in the people because they cannot erre Court flattererâ who teach that the will of the Prince is the measure of all right and wrong of Law and no Law and above all Law must hold that the King is a temporall Pope both in Ecclesiasticall and Civill matters but because they cannot so readily destroy themselves the law of Nature having given to them a contrary internall principle of selfe preservation as a Tyrant who doth care for himselfe and not for the people 3. And because Extremis morbis extrema remedia in an extraordinary exigent when Achab and Iezabell did undoe the Church of God and Tyrannize over both the bodies and consciences of Priest Prophet and people Elias procured the convention of the States and Elias with the peoples helpe killed all Baals Priests the King looking on and no question against his heart In this case I thinke it s more then evident that the people resumed their power 4. We teach not that people should supply all defects in Government nor that they should use their power when any thing is done amisse by the King no more then the King is to cut off the whole people of God when they refuse an Idolatrous service obtruded upon them against all Law the people is to suffer much before they resume their power but this Court slave will have the people to doe what he did not himselfe for when King and Parliament summoned him was he not obliged to appeare Non-compearance when lawfull royall and Parliamentory power summoneth is no lesse resistance then taking of Forts and Castles P. Prelate Then this super-intending power in people may call a King to accompt and punish him for any misdemeanour or act of injustice Why might not the people of Israels Peeres or Sanedrin have convented David before them judged and punished him for his Adultery with Bathsheba and his murther of Uriah but it is holden by all that Tyranny should be an intended universall totall manifest destruction of the whole Common-wealth which cannot fall in the thoughts of any but a mad man What is recorded in the Story of Nero his wish in this kind may be rather judged the expression of transported passion then a fixed resolution Ans The P. Prelate contrary to the scope of his booke which is all for the subject and seat of Soveraigne power against all order hath plunged himselfe in the deep of Defensive armes and yet hath no new thing 1. Our law of Scotland will warrant any subject if the King take from him his heritage or invade his possession against Law to resist the invaders and to summon the Kings intruders before the Lords of Session for that act of injustice Is this against Gods Word or Conscience 2. The Sancdrim did not punish David Ergo it is not lawfull to challenge a King for any one act of injustice from the practice of the Sanedrim to conclude a thing lawfull or unlawfull is logick we may resist 3. By the P. Prelates doctrine the law might not put Bathshebah to death nor yet Joab the neerest agent of the murthering of innocent Vriah because Bathshebaes adulterie was the Kings adulterie she did it in obedience to King David Joabs murther was Royall murther as the murther of all the Cavaliers for he had the Kings hand-writing for it Murther is Murther and the murtherer is to dye though the King by a secret Let alone a private and illegall warrant command it Ergo the Sanedrim might have taken Bathshebaes life and Joabs head also and consequently the Parliament of England if they be Judges as I conceive God and the Law of that ancient and renowned Kingdome maketh them may take the head of many Joabs and Jermines for murther âor the command of a King cannot legitimate murther 4. David himselfe as King speaketh more for us then for the Prelate 2 Sam. 12. 7. And Davids anger was greatly kindled against the man the man was himselfe v. 7. Thou art the man and he said to Nathan as the Lord liveth the man that hath done this shall surely dye 5. Every act of injustice doth not un-King a Prince before God as every act of uncleannesse doth not make a wife no wife before God 6. The Prelate excuseth Nero and would not have him resisted if all Rome were one neck that he might cut it off with one stroke I read it of Caligula If the Prelate see more in Historie then I doe I yield 7. He saith the thoughts of totall eversion of a Kingdome must only fall on a mad man The King of Britaine was not mad when he declared the Scots Traytors because they resisted the service of the Masse and raised an Army of Prelaticall cut-throats to destroy them if all the Kingdome should resist Idolatry as all are obliged The King sleeped upon this Prelaticall resolution many moneths passions in servor have not a dayes raigne upon a man And this was not so cleare as the sun but it was as cleare as written printed Proclamations and the pressing of Souldiers and the visible marching of Cut-throats and the blocking of Scotland up by sea and land could be visible to men having five senses Covaruv a great Lawyer saith 1. that all Civill power is penes remp in the hands of the Common-wealth
say God the King of Kings who immediately maketh Kings may and doth transferre Kingdomes to whom he will and when he putteth the sword in Nebuchadnezers hand to conquer the King and Kingdome of Iudah then Zedikiah or his sonne is not King of Iudah but Nebuchadnezer is King and God being above his Law speaketh in that case his Will by conquests as before he spake his Will by birth this is all can be said Ans They answer black treason in saying so for if Ieremiah from the Lord had not commanded expresly that both the King and Kingdome of Judah should submit to the King of Babylon and serve him and pray for him as their lawfull King it had been as lawfull to them to rebell against that Tyrant as it was for them to fight against the Philistimes and the King of Ammon but if birth be the just and lawfull title in foro Dei in Gods Court and the only thing that evidenceth Gods Will without any election of the people that the first borne of such a King is their lawfull King then conquests cannot now speake a contrardictory Will of God for the question is not whether or not God giveth power to Tyrants to conquer Kingdomes from the just Heires of Kings which did raigne lawfully before their sword made an empty Throne But whether conquest now when Jeremiahs are not sent immediatly from God to command for example Britaine to submit to a violent intruder who hath expelled the lawfull Heires of the royall Line of the King of Britaine whether I say doth conquest in such a violent way speake that it is Gods revealed Will called Voluntas signi the will that is to rule us in all our Morall duties to cast off the just Heires of the blood Royall and to sweare homage to a conquerour and so as that conquerour now hath as just right as the King of Britaine had by birth This cannot be taken off by the wit of any who 1. maintaine that conquest is a lawfull title to a Crowne and 2. that royall birth without the people election speaketh Gods regulating Will in his Word that the first borne of a King is a lawfull King by birth for God now a daies doth not say the contrary of what he revealed in his Word If birth be Gods regulating Will that the Heire of the King is in Gods Court a King no act of the conquerour can anull that Word of God to us and the people may not lawfully though they were ten times subdued sweare homage and allegiance to a conquerour against the due right of birth which by Royalists Doctrine revealeth to us the plaine contradictory Will of God It is I grant often Gods Decree revealed by the event that a conquerour be on the Throne but this Will is not our rule and the people are to sweare no Oath of Allegiance contrary to Gods Voluntas signi which is his revealed Will in his Word regulating us 4. Things transferrible and communicable by birth from father to sonne are onely in Law those which Heathen call bona fortunae riches as lands houses monies and heritages and so saith the Law also These things which essentially include gifts of the mind and honour properly so called I meane honour founded on vertue as Aristotle with good reason maketh honour praeminum virtuâis cannot be communicated by birth from the father to the sonne for royall dignity includeth these three constituent parts essentially of which none can be communicable by birth 1. The royall faculty of governing which is a speciall gift of God above nature is from God Solomon asked it from God and had it not by generation from his father David 2. The royall honour to be set above the people because of this royall vertue is not from the wombe for then Gods spirit would not have said Blessed art thou O Land when thy King is the sonne of Nobles Eccles 10. 17. this honour springing from vertue is not borne with any man noâ is any man borne with either the gift or honour to be a Iudge God maketh high and low not birth Nobles are borne to great estates if judging be heritage to any it is a municipall positive law I now speake in point of conscience 3. The externall lawfull title before men come to a Crowne must be Gods Will revealed by such an externall signe as by Gods appointment and warrant is to regulate our will but according to Scripture nothing regulateth our will and leadeth the people now that they cannot erre following Gods rule in making a King but the free suffrages of the States choosing a man whom they conceive God hath endued with these royall gifts required in the King whom God holdeth forth to them in his Word Deut. 17. now there be but these to regulate the people or to be a rule to any man to ascend lawfully in foro Dei in Gods Court to the Throne 1. Gods immediate designation of a man by Propheticall and Divinely inspired unction as Samuel annoynted Saul and David this we are not to expect now nor can Royalists say it 2. Conquest seeing it is an act of violence and Gods revenging Justice for the sinnes of a people cannot give in Gods Court such a just title to the Throne as the people are to submit their consciences unto except God reveale his regulating will by some immediate voice from Heaven as he commanded Iudah to submit to Nebuchadnezer as to their King by the mouth of Ieremiah now this is not a rule to us for then if the Spanish King should invade this Iland and as Nebuchadnezer did deface the Temple and instruments and meanes of Gods Worship and abolish the true worship of God it should be unlawfull to resist him after he had once conquered the Iland neither Gods Word nor the Law of nature could permit this I suppose even by grant of adversaries now no act of violence done to a people though in Gods Court they have deserved it can be a testification to us of Gods regulating Will except it have some warrant from the Law and testimony it is no rule to our conscience to acknowledge him a lawfull Magistrate whose sole law to the Throne is an act of the bloody instrument of divine wrath I meane the sword That therefore Iudah was to submit according to Gods Word to Nebuchadnezer whose conscience and best warranted calling to the Kingdome of Judah was his bloody sword even if we suppose Ieremiah had not commanded them to submit to the King of Babylon I thinke cannot be said 3. Naked birth cannot be this externall signification of Gods regulating Will to warrant the conscience of any to ascend to the Throne for the Authors of this opinion make royall birth equivalent to divine unction for David anoynted by Samuel and so anoynted by God is not King Saul remained the Lords anoynted many yeares not David even anoynted by God the peoples making him King at Hebron
no politique power whereby they may lay a command on others but onely a naturall power of private resistance which they cannot use against the Magistrate Ans But to take off those by the way 1. If the King may choose A. B. an Ambassadour and limit him in his power and say Doe this and say this to the forraigne State you goe to but no more halfe a wit will say the King createth the Ambassadour and the Ambassadours power is originally from the King and we prove the power of the Lyon is originally from God and of the Sea and the fire is originally from God because God limiteth the Lyon in the exercises of its power that it shall not devoure Daniel and limiteth the Sea as Ieremiah saith when as he will have its proud Waves to come thither and no farther and will have the fire to burne those who throwe the three Children into the fiery furnace and yet not to burne the three Children for this is as if Doctor Ferne said the power of the King of six degrees rather then his power of five is from the people therefore the power of the King is not from the people yea the contrary is true 2. That the people can make a King supreame that is Absolute and so resigne natures birth-right that is a power to defend themselves is not lawfull for if the people have not absolute power to destroy themselves they cannot resigne such a power to their Prince 3. It is false that a community before they be established with formall Rulers have no politicke power for consider them as men onely and not as associated they have indeed no politicke power but before Magistrates be established they may convene and associate themselves in a body and appoint Magistrates and this they cannot doe if they had no politicke power at all 4. They have virtually a power to lay on Commandements in that they have power to appoint to themselves Rulers who may lay commandements on others 5. A community hath not formally power to punish themselves for to punish is to inflict Malum disconveniens naturae an evill contrary to nature but in appointing Rulers and in agreeing to Lawes they consent they shall be punished by another upon supposition of transgression as the child willingly going to schoole submitteth himself in that to Schoole-discipline if he shall faile against any Schoole Law and by all this t is cleare a King by election is principally a King Barclay then faileth who saith No man denyeth but succession to a Crowne by birth is agreeable to nature it is not against nature but it is no more naturall then for a Lyon to be borne a King of Lyons Obj. Most of the best Divines approve an hereditary Monarch rather then a Monarch by election Ans So doe I in some cases in respect of Empire simply it is not better in respect of Empire now under mans fall in sin I grant it to be better in some respect So Salust In Iugurth Natura mortalium imperij avida Tacitus Hist 2. Minore discrimine princeps sumitur quam queritu there 's lesse danger to accept of a Prince at hand then to seeke one a farre off 2. In a Kingdome to be constituted election is better in a constituted Kingdome birth seemeth lesse evill 3. In respect of liberty election is more convenient in respect of safety and peace birth is safer and the nearest way to the Well See Bodin De Rep. l. 6. c. 4. Thol ozan De Rep. l. 7. c. 4. QUEST XII Whether or not a Kingdome may lawfully be purchased by the sole title of conquest THe Prelate averreth confidently that a Title to a Kingdome by Conquest without the consent of the people is so just and evident by Scripture that it cannot be denyed but the man bringeth no Scripture to prove it Mr. Marshall saith a conquered Kingdome is but cântinuata injuria a continued robbery A right of conquest is twofold 1. When there is no just cause 2. When there is just reason and ground of the war in this latter case if a Prince subdue a whole Land which justly deserveth to dye yet by his grace who is so mild a conquerour they may be all preserved alive Now amongst those who have thus injured the conquerour as they deserve death we are to difference the persons offending and the wives children especially not borne and such as have not offended The former sort may resign their personall liberty to the conquerour that the sweet life may be saved but he cannot be their King properly but I conceive that they are obliged to consent that he be their King upon this condition that the conquerour put not upon them violent and tyrannicall conditions that are harder then death now in reason we cannot thinke that a tyrannous and unjust domineering can be Gods lawfull meane of translating Kingdomes and for the other part the conquerour cannot domineere as King over the innocent and especially the children not yet borne 1. Assertion A people may be by Gods speciall Commandement subject to a conquering Nebuchadnezer and a Caesar as to their King as was Iudah commanded by the Prophet Ieremiah to submit unto the yoake of the King of Babylon and to pray for him and the people of the Iewes were to give to Caesar the things of Caesar and yet both those were unjust conquerours for those Tyrants had no command of God to oppresse and raigne over the Lords people yet were they to obey those Kings so the passive subjection was just and commanded of God and the active unjust and tyranous and forbidden of God 2. Assert This title by conquest through the peoples after consent may be turned into a just title as it s like the case was with the Iewes in Caesars time for which cause our Saviour commanded to obey Caesar and to pay tribute unto him as Dr. Ferne confesseth But two things are to be condemned in the Doctor 1. That God manifesteth his Will to us in this worke of providence whereby he translateth Kingdomes 2. That this is an over-awed consent now to the former I reply if the act of conquering be violent and unjust it is no manifestation of Gods regulating and approving Will and can no more prove a just title to a Crowne because it is an act of Divine providence then Pilate and Herod their crucifying of the Lord of Glory which was an act of Divine providence flowing from the Will and Decree of Divine providence Act. 2. 23. Act. 4. 28. is a manifestation that it was Gods approving Will that they should kill Jesus Christ 2. Though the consent be some way over-awed yet is it a sort of Contract and Covenant of loyall subjection made to the conquerour and therefore sufficent to make the title just otherwise if the people never give their consent the conquerour domineering over them by violence hath no just title to the Crowne 3.
both a father because a King and a Tyrant and cruell and lyon-hearted oppressour of these whom he hath conquered for God hath given him Royall power by this example to put these to whom he is a father and defender by office to torment and also to be a torturer of them by office by bringing their backs under such Instruments of crueltie as saws and harrows of iron and axes of iron QUEST XIII Whether or no Royall dignitie have its spring from nature and how that is true every man is born free and how servitude is contrary to nature I Conceive it to be evident that Royall dignity is not immediately and without the intervention of the peoples consent given by God to any one person 2. That conquest and violence is no just title to a Crown Now the question is If Royalty flow from nature if Royalty be not a thing meerly naturall neither can subjection to Royall power be meerly naturall but the former is rather civill then naturall and the question of the same nature is Whether subjection or servitude be naturall I conceive that there be divers subjections to these that are above us some way naturall and therefore I rank them in order thus 1. There is a subjection in respect of naturall being as the effect to the cause so though Adam had never sinned this morality of the fifth command should have stood in vigour that the son by nature without any positive Law should have been subject to the father because from him he hath his being as from a second cause But I much doubt if the relation of a father as a father doth necessarily infer a Royall or Kingly authority of the father over the son or by natures Law that the father hath power of life and death over or above his children and the reasons I give are 1. Because power of life and death is by a positive Law presupposing sin and the fall of man and if Adam standing in innocency could lawfully kill his son though the son should be a Malefactor without any positive Law of God I much doubt 2. I judge that the power Royall and the fatherly power of a father over his children shall be found to be different and the one is founded on the Law of nature the other to wit Royall power on a meere positive Law The 2. degree or order of subjection naturall is a subjection in respect of gifts or age so Aristotle 1 Polit. cap. 3. saith that some are by nature servants his meaning is good that some gifts of nature as wisedom naturall or aptitude to govern hath made some men of gold fitter to command and some of iron and clay fitter to be servants and slaves But I judge this title to make a King by birth seeing Saul whom God by supervenient gifts made a King seemeth to ow small thanks to the womb or nature that he was a King for his crueltie to the Lords Priests speaketh nothing but naturall basenesse It s possible Plato had a good meaning Dialog 3. de legib who made six orders here 1. That fathers command their sons 2. The noble the ignoble 3. The elder the younger 4. The masters the servants 5. The stronger the weaker 6. The wiser the ignorant 3. Aquinas 22. q. 57. art 3. Driedo de libert Christ l. 1. pag. 8. following Aristotle polit l. 7. c. 14. hold though man had never sinned there should have been a sort of dominion of the more gifted and wiser above the lesse wise and weaker not antecedent from nature properly but consequent for the utilitie and good of the weaker in so far as it is good for the weaker to be guided by the stronger which cannot be denyed to have some ground in nature but there is no ground for Kings by nature here 1. Because even these who plead that the mothers womb must be the best title for a Crown and make it equivalent to Royall unction are to be corrected in memory thus That it is meerly accidentall and not naturall for such a son to be born a King because the free consent of the people making choice of the first father of that Line to be their King and in him making choice of the first born of the family is meerly accidentall to father and son and so cannot be naturall 2. Because Royall gifts to reign are not holden by either us or our adversaries to be the specifice essence of a King for if the people Crown a person their King say we if the womb bring him forth to be a King say the opponents he is essentially a King and to be obeyed as the Lords annointed though nature be very Parca sparing and a niggard in bestowing Royall gifts Yea though he be an idiot say some if he be the first born of a King he is by just title a King but must have Curators and Tutors to guide him in the exercise of that Royall right that he hath from the womb But Buchanan saith well He who cannot govern himself shall never govern others 1 Assert de facto As a man commeth into the world a member of a politick societie he is by consequence borne subject to the laws of that societie but this maketh him not from the wombe and by nature subject to a King as by nature he is subject to his Father who begat him no more then by nature a Lyon is borne subject to another King-Lyon for it is by accident that he is borne of parents under subjection to a Monarch or to either Democraticall or Aristocraticall governours for Cain and Abel were borne under none of these formes of Government properly and if he had been borne in a new planted Colonie in a wildernesse where no government were yet established he should be under no such Government 2 Assert Slavery of servants to Lords or Masters such as were of old amongst the Iews is not naturall but against nature 1. Because slaverie is malum naturae a penall evill and contrary to nature and a punishment of sinne 2. Slaverie should not have been in the world if man had never sinned no more then there could have been buying and selling of men which is a miserable consequent of sin and a sort of death when men are put to the toyling paines of the hireling who longeth for the shadow and under iron harrowes and sawes and to hew wood and draw water continually 3. The originall of servitude was when men were taken in warre to eschew a greater evill even death the captives were willing to undergoe a lesse evill slaverie S. Servitus 1. de jur Pers 4. A man being created according to Gods image he is res sacrae a sacred thing and can no more by natures law be sold and bought then a religious and sacred thing dedicated to God S. 1. Instit do invtil scrupl l. inter Stipulantem S. Sacram. F. de verber Obligat 3 Assert Every man by
nature is a freeman borne that is by nature no man commeth out of the wombe vnder any civill subjection to King Prince or Judge to master captaine conquerour teacher c. 1. Because freedome is naturall to all except freedome from subjection to Parents And subjection politick is meerly accidentall comming from some positive lawes of men as they are in a politique societie whereas they might have been borne with all concomitants of nâure though borne in a single familie the only naturall and first societie in the world 2. Man is borne by nature free from all subjection except of that which is most kindly and naturall and that is fatherly or filial subjection or matrimoniall subjection of the wife to the husband and especially he is free of subjection to a Prince by nature Because to be under jurisdiction to a Iudge or King hath a sort of jurisdiction Argument L. Si quis sit fugitivus F. de edil edict in S. penult vel fin especially to be under penall lawes now in the state of sinne The learned Senator Ferdinandus Vasquez saith l. 2. c. 82. n. 15. Every subject is to lay down his life for the Prince now no man is borne under subjection to penall lawes or dying for his Prince 3. Man by nature is borne free and as free as beasts but by nature no beast no Lyon is born King of Lyons no Horse no Bullock no Eagle King of Horses Bullocks Eagles nor is there any subjection here except that the young Lyon is subject to the old every soul to its damme and by that same law of nature no man is borne King of men nor any man subject to man in a civill subjection by nature I speake not of naturall subjection of children to parents and therefore Ferdi. Vasquez illustr quest l. 2. c. 82. n. 6. said that Kingdomes and Empires were brought in not by Natures law but by the law of Nations he expoundeth himself elsewhere to speak of the law of nature secondary otherwise the primarie law of Nations is indeed the law of Nature as appropriated to man If any reply that the freedome naturall of beasts and birds who never sinned cannot be one with the naturall freedome of man who are now under sin and so under bondage for sin my answer is That the subjection of the miserie of man by nature because of sinne is more then the subjection of beasts comparing spece and kind of beasts and birds with mankind but comparing individuals of the same kinde amongst themselves a Lyon with Lyon Eagle with Eagle and so Man with Man in which respect because he who is supposed to be the man borne free from subjection politike even the King borne a King is under the same state of sin and so by reason of sinne of which he hath a share equally with all other men by nature he must be by nature borne under as great subjection penall for sinne except the King be borne voyd of sinne as other men Ergo he is not borne freer by nature then other men except he come out of the wombe with a Kings crown on his head 4. To be a King is a free gift of God which God bestoweth on some men above others as is evident 2 Sam. 12. 7 8. Psal 75. 6. Dan. 4. 32. and therefore all must be borne Kings if any one man be by nature a King borne and another a borne subject But if some be by Gods grace made Kings above others they are not so by nature for things which agree to man by nature agree to all men equally but all men equally are not borne Kings as is evident and all men are not equally borne by nature under politique subjection to Kings as the Adversaries grant because those who are by nature Kings cannot be also by nature subjects 5. If men be not by nature free from politique subjection then must some by the law of relation by nature be Kings But none are by nature Kings because none have by nature these things which essentially constitute Kings for they have neither by nature the calling of God nor gifts for the throne nor the free election of the people nor conquest and if there be none a King by nature there can be none a Subject by nature And the Law faith Omnes sumus naturâ liberi nullius ditioni subjecti l. Manuâiss F. de just jur S. jus autem gentium Ius de jur nat We are all by nature free and D. L. ex hâc jure cum simil 6. Politicians agree to this as an undeniable truth that as domestick society is naturall being grounded upon Natures instinct so Politique societie is voluntary being grounded on the consent of men and so politique societie is naturall in radice in the root and voluntary and free in modo in the manner of their union and the Scripture cleareth to us that a King is made by the free consent of the people Deut. 17. 15. and so not by nature 7. What is from the wombe and so naturall is eternall and agreeth to all societies of men but a Monarchie agreeth not to all societies of men for many hundred years de facto there was not a King till Nimrods time the world being governed by families and till Moses his time we find no institution for Kings Gen. 7. and the numerous multiplication of mankind did occasion Monarchies otherwise Fatherly government being the first and measure of the rest must be the best for it is better that my father governe me then that a stranger governe me and therefore the Lord forbad his people to set a stranger over themselves to be their King The P. Prelate contendeth for the contrary Every man saith he is borne subject to his father of whom immediately he hath his existence in nature and if his Father be the subject of another he is borne the subject of his fathers superiour Answ But the consequence is weake every man is borne under naturall subjection to his father ergo he is borne naturally under civill subjection to his fathers superiour or King it followeth not yea because his father was borne only by nature subject to his owne father ergo he was subject to a Prince or King only by accident and by the free constitution of men who freely choose politick government whereas there is no government naturall but fatherly or martiall and therefore the contradictory consequence is true P. Prelat Obj. 2. Every man by nature hath immunity and liberty from despoticall and herill Empire and so may dispose of his owne at will and cannot inslave himselfe without his owne free will but God hath laid and cannot inslave himselfe without his owne free will but God hath laid a necessity on all men to be under government and nature also laid this necessity on him therefore this soveraignty cannot protect us in righteousnesse and honesty except it be intirely indowed with soveraigne power to preserve
it selfe and protect us Ans The Prelate here deserteth his owne consequence which is strong against himselfe for if a man be naturally subject to his fathers superiour as he said before why is not the sonne of a slave naturally subiect to his fathers superiour master 2. As a man may not make away his liberty without his own consent so can he not without his owne consent give his liberty to be subject to penall Lawes under a Prince without his owne consent either in his fathers or in the representative society in which he liveth 3. God and nature hath laid a necessity on all men to be under government a naturall necessity from the wombe to be under some government to wit a paternall government that is true but under this government politique and namely under soveraignty it is false and that is but said for why is he naturally under soveraignty rather then Aristocracy I beleeve any of the three formes are freely chosen by any society 4. It is false that one cannot defend the people except he have intire power that is to say he cannot doe good except he have a vast power to doe both good and ill Obj. 3. It is accidentall to any to render himselfe a slave being occasioned by force or extreame indigence but to submit to Government congrnous to the condition of man and is necessary for his happy being and naturall and necessary by the inviolable Ordinance of God and nature Ans If the father be a slave it is naturall and not accidentall by the Prelates Logick to be a slave 2. it is also accidentall to be under Soveraignty and sure not naturall for then Aristocracy and Democracy must be unnaturall and so unlawfull Governments 3. If to be congruous to the condition of man be all one with naturall man which he must say if he speake sense to beleeve in God to be an excellent Mathematician to swim in deepe waters being congruous to the nature of man must be naturall 4. Man by nature is under government Paternall not Politique properly but by the free consent of his will Obj. 4. Luke 11. 5. Christ himselfe was ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã subject to his Parents the word that is used Rom. 13. ergo none is exempted from subjection to lawfull government Ans We never said that any was exempted from lawfull goverment the Prelate and his fellow Iesuites teach that the Clergy is exempted from the lawes of the civill Magistrate not we but because Christ was subject to his Parents and the same word is used Luk. 11. that is Rom. 13. it will not follow therefore men are by nature subject to Kings because they are by nature subject to parents Obj. 5. The father had power over the children by the Law of God and nature to redeeme himselfe from debt or any distressed condition by inslaving his children begotten of his owne body if this power was not by the right of nature and by the Warrant of God I can see no other for it could not be by mutuall and voluntary contract of children and fathers Ans 1. Shew a law of nature that the father might inslave his children by a Divine positive law presupposing sin the father might doe that and yet I thinke that may be questioned whether it was not a permission rather then a law as was the Bill of devorce but a law of nature it was not 2. The P. Prelate can see no Law but the law of nature here but it is because he is blind or will not see his reason is it was not by mutuall and voluntary contract of children and fathers ergo it was by the law of nature so he that cursed his father was to dye by Gods Law This law was not made by mutuall consent betwixt the Father and the Sonne ergo it was a law of inature the Prelate will see no better Nature will teach a man to inslave himselfe to redeeme himselfe from death but that it is a Dictate of nature that a man should inslave his sonne I conceive not 3. What can this prove but that if the sonne may by the law of nature be inslaved for the father but that the sonne of a slave is by nature under subjection to slavery that by natures law the contrary whereof he spake in the page preceding and in this same page As for the Argument of the Prelate to answer Suarez who laboureth to prove Monarchy not to be naturall but of free consent because it is various in sundry nations it is the Iesuites Argument not ours I owne it not Let Iesuites plead for Iesuites QUEST XIIII Whether or no the people make a Person their King conditionally or absolutely and whether there be such a thing as a Covenant tying the King no lesse then his subjects THere is a Covenant Naturall and a Covenant Politick and Civill there is no politick or civill covenant betwixt the King and his Subjects because there be no such equality say Royalists betwixt the King and his people as that the King can be brought under any civill or legall obligation in mans Court to either necessitate the King civilly to keepe an Oath to his people or to tye him to any punishment if he faile yet say they he is under naturall obligation ân Gods Court to keepe his Oath but he is comptible only to God if he violate his Oath Asser 1. There is an Oath betwixt the King and his people laying on by reciprocation of bands mutuall civill obligation upon the King to the people and the people to the King 2 Sam. 5. 3. So âll the Elders of Israel came to the King to Hebron and King David made a Covenant with them in Hebron before the Lord and they anuoynted David King over Israel 1 Chron. 11. 3. And David made a covenant with them before the Lord and they annoynted David King over Israel according to the Word of the Lord by Samuel 2 Chron. 23. 2. And they went about in Iudah and gathered the Levites out of all the Cities of Iudah and the chiefe of the fathers of Israel and they câme to Ierusalem 3. And all the congregation made a covenant with the King Ioash in the house of God 2 King 11. 17. and Jehoiada made a covenant betwixt the Lord and the King and the people that they should be the Lords people between the King also and his people Eccles 8. 2. I counsell thee to keepe the Kings commandement and that in regard of the Oath of God then it is evident there was a covenant betwixt the King and the people 2. That was not a covenant that did tye the King to God onely and not to the people 1. because the covenant betwixt the King and the people is clearly differenced from the Kings covenant with the Lord 2 King 11. 17. 2. there were no necessity that this covenant should be made publickly before the people if the King did not in the
1 Sam. 12. 24. only feare the Lord 25. But if yee doe still wickedly yee shall be consumed both yee and your King And this case â grant is extraordinary yet so as Iunius Brutus proveth well and strongly that Religion is not given only to the King that he only should keepâ it but to all the inferiour Iudges and people also in their kind but because the estates never gave the King power to corrupt Religion and presse a false and Idolatrous worship upon them therefore when the King defendeth not true Religion but presseth upon the people a false and Idolatrous Religion in that they are not under the King but are presumed to have no King eatenus so farre and are presumed to have the power in themselves as if they had not appointed any King at all as if we presume the body had given to the right hand a power to ward off strokes and to defend the body if the right hand should by a Palsie or some other disease become impotent and be withered up when ill is comming on the body it is presumed that the power of defence is recurred to the left hand and to the rest of the body to defend it selfe in this case as if the body had no right hand and had never communicated any power to the right hand at all So if an incorporation accused of Treason and in danger of the sentence of death shall appoint a Lawyer to Advocate their cause and to give in their just defences to the Iudge if their Advocate be stricken with dumbnesse because they have losed their legall and representative tongue none can say that this incorporation hath loosed the tongues that Nature hath given them so as by Natures law they may not plead in their own just lawfull defence as if they had never appointed the foresaid lawyer to plead for them The King as a man is not more obliged to the publick and regall defence of the true Religion then any other man of the land but he is made by God and the people King for the Church and people of God's sake that he may defend true Religion for the behalfe and salvation of all If therefore he defend not Religion for the salvation of the soules of all in his publick and royall way it is presumed as undeniable that the people of God who by the law of nature are to care for their own soule are to defend in their way true Religion which so nearly concerneth them and their eternall happinesse 2 Assert When the covenant is betwixt God on the one part and the King Priests and people on the other part it is true if the one performe for his part to God the whole duty the other is acquitted as if two men be indebted to one man ten thousand pounds if the one pay the whole summe the other is acquitted but the King and People are not so contracting parties in covenant with God as that they are both indebted to God for one and the same sum of compleat obedience so as if the King pay the whole summe of obedience to God the people is acquitted and if the People pay the whole summe the King is acquitted for every one standeth obliged to God for himselfe for the people must doe all that is their part in acquitting the King from his Royall duty that they may free him and themselves both from punishment if he disobey the King of Kings Nor doth the Kings obedience acquit the people from their duty And Arnisaeus dreamed if he believed that we make King and People this way partie contractors in covenant with God Nor can two co-partners in covenant with God so mutually compell one another to doe their duty for we hold that the covenant is made betwixt the King and the People betwixt mortall men but they both bind themselves before God to each other But saith Arnisaeus It belongeth to a Pretor or Ruler who is above both King and People to compell each of them the King to performe his part of the covenant to the people and the people to performe their part of the covenant to the King Now there is no Ruler but God above both King and People But let me answer The consequence is not needfull no more then when the King of Iudah and the King of Israel make a covenant to perform mutuall duties one to another no more then it is necessarie that there should be a King and superior Ruler above the King of Israel and the King of Iudah who should compell each one to doe a duty to his fellow King for the King and People are each of them above and below others in divers respects The People because they create the man King they are so above the King and have a virtuall power to compell him to doe his duty and the King as King hath an authoritative power above the People because Royaltie is formally in him and originally and virtually only in the People therefore may he compell them to their duty as we shall heare anon and therefore there is no need of an earthly Ruler higher then both to compell both 3 Assert We shall hereafter prove the power of the people above the King God willing And so it is false that there is not mutuall coactive power on each side 4 Assert The obligation of the King in the covenant floweth from the peculiar obligation nationall betwixt the King and the Estates and it bindeth the King as King and not simply as he is a man 1. Because it is a covenant betwixt the people and David not as he is the sonne of Jesse for then it should oblige Eliab or any other of Davids brethren yea it should oblige any man if it oblige David as a man but it obligeth David as a King or as he is to be their King because it is the specifice act of a King that he is obliged unto to wit to governe the people in Righteousnesse and Religion with his Royall power And so it is false that Arnisaeus saith that the King as a man is obliged to God by this covenant not as a King 2. He saith by covenant the King is bound to God as a Man not as a King But so the man will have the King as King under no law of God and so he must either be above God as King or coequall with God which are manifest blasphemies for I thought ever the Royalists had not denyed but the King as King had been obliged to keep his oath to his subjects in relation to God and in regard of naturall obligation so as he âmneth before God if he breake his covenant with his people though they deny that he is obliged to keep his covenant in relation to his Subjects and in regard of politique or civill obligation to men Sure I am this the Royalists constantly teach 3. He would have this covenant so made with men as it obligeth not the King to men
1. 2. and the law of Nature and therefore they having made such a man their King they have given him power to be their father feeder healer protector and so must only have made him King conditionally so he be a father a feeder and tutor Now if this deed of making a King must be exponed to be an investing with an absolute and not a conditionall power this fact shall be contrary to Scripture and to the law of Nature for if they have given him Royall power absolutely and without any condition they must have given to him power to be a father protector tutor and to be a tyrant a murtherer a bloody lyon to waste and destroy the people of God 3. The Law permitteth the bestower of a benefit to interpret his own mind in the bestowing of a benefit even as a King and State must expone their own Commission given to their Ambassadour so must the Estates expone whether they bestowed the Crown upon the first King conditionally or absolutely For the 4th if it stand then must the people give to their first elected King a power to wast and destroy themselves so as they may never controle it but only leave it to God and the King to reckon together but so the condition is a Chimera We give you a Throne upon condition you swear by him who made heaven and earth that you will govern us according to Gods Law and you shall be answerable to God only not to us whether you keep the covenant you make with us or violate it but how a covenant can be made with the people and the King obliged to God not to the people I conceive not 2. This presupposeth that the King as King cannot doe any sin or commit any act of tyranny against the people but against God only because if he be obliged to God only as a King by vertue of his covenant How can he faile against an obligation where there is no obligation but as a King he owe no obligation of duty to the people and indeed so doe our good men expound that Psal 51. Against thee thee only have I sinned not against Vriah for if he sinned not as King against Vriah whose life he was obliged to conserve as a King he was not obliged as a King by any royall duty to conserve his life Where there is no sin there is no obligation not to sin and where there is no obligation not to sin there is no sin By this the King as King is loosed from all duties of the second Table being once made a King he is above all obligation to love his neighbour as himselfe for he is above all his neighbours and above all mankind and only lesse then God 4. Arg. If the people be so given to the King that they are committed to him as a pledge oppignorated in his hand as a pupill to a Tutor as a distressed man to a Patron as a flocke to a Shepheard and so as they remaine the Lords Church his people his flocke his portion his inheritance his vineyard his redeemedones then they cannot be given to the King as Oxen and Sheepe that are freely gifted to a man or as a gift or summe of gold or silver that the man to whom they are given may use so that he cannot commit a fault against the oxen sheepe gold or mony that is given to him how ever he shall dispose of them But the people are given to the King to be tutored and protected of him so as they remaine the people of God and in covenant with him and if the people were the goods of fortune as Heathens say he could no more sinne against the people then a man can sin against his gold now though a man by adoring gold or by lavish profusion and wasting of gold may sin against God yet not against gold nor can he be in any covenant with gold or under any obligation of either duty or sin to gold or to livelesse and reasonlesse creatures properly therefore he may sin in the use of them and yet not sin against them but against God Hence of necessity the King must be under obligation to the Lords people in another manner then that he should only answer to God for the losse of men as if men were worldly goods under his hand and as if being a King he were now by this Royall Authority priviledged from the best halfe of the law of nature to wit from acts of mercy and truth and covenant keeping with his brethren 5. Arg. If a King because a King were priviledged from all covenant obligation to his subjects then could no Law of men lawfully reach him for any contract violated by him then he could not be a debtor to his subjects if he borrowed mony from them and it were utterly unlawfull either to crave him mony or to sue him at Law for debts yet our Civill Lawes of Scotland tyeth the King to pay his debts as any other man yea and King Solomons traffiquing and buying and selling betwixt him and his owne subjects would seeme unlawfull for how can a King buy and sell with his subjects if he be under no covenant obligation to men but to God only Yea then a King could not marry a wife for he could not come under a covenant to keepe his body to her only nor if he committed adultery could he sin against his wife because being immediate unto God and above all obligation to men he could sin against no covenant made with men but only against God 6. If that was a lawfull covenant made by Asa and the States of Iudah 2 Chron. 15. 13. That whosoever would not seeke the Lord God of their fathers should be put to death whether small or great whether man or woman this obligeth the King for ought I see and the Princes and the people but it was a lawfull covenant ergo the King is under a covenant to the Princes and Iudges as they are to him it is replyed If a Master of a Schoole should make a law whoever shall goe out at the Schoole doores without liberty obtained of the Master shall be whipped it will not oblige the Schoole-master that he shall be whipped if he goe out at the Schoole doores without liberty so neither doth this Law oblige the King the supreame Law-giver Ans Suppose that the Schollars have no lesse hand and authority magisteriall in making the law then the Schoole-master as the Princes of Iudah had a collaterall power with King Asa about that law it would follow that the Schoole-master is under the same law 2. Suppose going out at Schoole doores were that way a morall neglect of studying in the Master as it is in the Scholars as the not seeking of God is as hainous a sinne in King Asa and no lesse deserving death then it is in the people then should the Law oblige Schoolmaster and Scholler both without exception 3. The
sword is given by God to Kings and Iudges and if Adam had had any such power to kill his sonne Cain for the killing of his brother Abel it had been given to him by God as a power politike different from a fatherly power for a fatherly power as such is formally to conserve the life of the childaen and not to take away the life yea and Adam though he had never sinned nor any of his posteritie Adam should have been a perfect father as he is now indued with all fatherly power that any father now hath yea should not God have given the sword or power of punishing ill doers since that power should have been in vaine if there had been no violence nor bloodshed or sinne on the earth for the power of the sword and of lawfull warre is given to men now in the state of sinne 4. Fatherly government and power is from the bosome and marrow of that fountaine law of nature but Royall power is not from the law of nature more then Aristocraticall or Democraticall power D. Ferne saith Monarchie is not jure divino I am not of his mind nor yet from the law of Nature but ductu naturae by the guidance of nature Sure it is from a supervenient commandement of God added to the first law of nature establishing Fatherly power 5. Children having their life and first breathings of nature from their parents must be in a more intire relation from their father then from their Prince Subjects have not their Being naturall but their civill politique and peaceable well-being from their Prince 6. A father is a father by generation and giving the being of nature to children and is a naturall head and root without the free consent and suffrages of his children and is essentially a father to one childe as Adam was to one Cain but a Prince is a Prince by the free suffrages of a community and cannot be a King to one only and he is the politique head of a civill Corporation 7. A father so long as his children liveth can never leave off to be a father though he were mad and surious though he be the most wicked man on earth Qui genuit filium non potest non genuisse filium what is once past cannot by any power be not passed a father is a father for ever But by confession of Royalists as Barclay Hug. Grotius and Arnisaeus and others grant if a King sell his subjects by sea or land to other nations if he turne a furious Nero he may be dethroned and the power that created the King under such expresse conditions as if the King violate them by his owne consent he shall be put from the Throne may cease to be a King and if a stronger King conquer a King and his subjects Royalists âay the conquerour is a lawfull King and so the conquered King must also lawfully come downe from his Throne and turne a lawfull captive sitting in the dust 8. Learned Polititians as Bartholomeus Romulus Defens part 1. num 153. Ioannes de Anania in c. fin de his qui fil occid teach that the father is not obliged to reveale the conspiracy of his son against his Prince nor is he more to accuse his son then to accuse himselfe because the father loveth the sonne better then himselfe D. Listi quidem Sect. Fin. quod met caus D. L. fin c. de cura furiosi and certainly a father had rather dye in his own person as choose to dye in his sonnes in whom he affecteth a sort of immortality In specie quando non potest in individuo but a King doth not love his subjects with a naturall or fatherly love thus and if the affections differ the power which secondeth the affection for the conservation either of being or well being must also differ proportionally The P. Prelate objecteth against us thus stealing word by word from Arnisaeus When a King is elected Soveraigne to a multitude he is surrogated in the place of a common father Exod. 20. 5. Honour thy father then as a naturall father receiveth not Paternall right power or authority from his sonnes but hath this from God and the ordinance of nature nor can the King have his right from the community 2. The maxime of the Law is Surrogatus gaudet privilegiis ejus cui surrogatur qui succedit ân locum succedit in jus The person surrogated hath all the Priviledges that he hath in whose place he succeedeth he who succeedeth to the place succeedeth to the right the adopted sonne or the bastard who is legittimated and commeth in the place of the lawfull borne sonne commeth also in the priviledges of the lawfull borne sonne a Prince elected commeth to the full possession of the Majesty of a naturall Prince and Father for Moduâ acquirendi non tollit naturale jus possidendi saith Arnisaeus more fully then the poore Plagiarius the manner of acquiring any thing taketh not away the naturall possession for how ever things be acquired if the title be just possession is the Law of Nations then when the King is chosen in place of the father as the father hath a divine right by nature so must the King have that same and seeing the right proprietor saith the Pamphleting Prelate had his right by God by nature how can it be but howsoever the designation of the person is from the disordered community yet the collation of the power is from God immediatly and from his sacred and inviolable ordinance And what can be said against the way by which any one elected obtained his right for seeing God doth not now send Samuells or Elisha's to anoynt or declare Kings we are in his ordinary providence to conceive the designation of the person is the manifestation of Gods Will called Voluntas signi as the Schooles speake just so as when the Church designeth one to sacred orders Ans 1. He that is surrogated in the place of another due to him by a positive Law of man he hath Law to all the priviledges that he hath in whose place he is surrogated that is true He who is made Assignee to an Obligation for a summe of money hath all the rights that the principall party to whom the Bond or Obligation was madâ he who commeth in the place of a Major of a City of a Captaine in an Army of a Pilot in a ship of a Pope hath all the priviledges and Rights that his predecessors had by Law Jus succedit juri persona jure predita personae jure preditae So the Law so far as my reading can reach who professe my selfe a Divine but that he who succeedeth to the place of a father by nature should injoy all the naturall Rights and Priviledges of the person to whom he succeedeth I beleeve the Law never dreamed it for then the adopted sonne comming in place of the naturall sonne hath right to the naturall affection of the father if any should adopt
farre lesse can he lawfully sell men and give away a whole Kingdome to the hurt of his successours for that were to make merchandize of the living Temples of the Holy Ghost And Arnisaus de authorit Princip c. 3. n. 7. saith Servitude is praeter naturam beside nature he might have said contrary to nature l. 5. de stat homin Sect. 2. Iust de jur perso c. 3. Novel 89. but the subjection of subjects is so consonant to nature that it is seen in Bees and Cranes Therefore a dominion is defined a facultie of using of things to what uses you will Now a man hath not this way an absolute dominion over his beasts to dispose of them at his will for a good man hath mercy on the life of his beast Prov. 12. 10. nor hath he dominion over his goods to use them as he will because he may not use them to the dammage of the Commonwealth he may not use them to the dishonour of God and so God and the Magistrate hath laid some bound on his dominion And because the King being made a King leaveth not off to be a reasonable creature he must be under a Law and so his will and lust cannot be the rule of his power and dominion but law and reason must regulate him Now if God had given to the King a dominion over men as reasonable creatures his power and dominion which by Royalists is conceived to be above Law should be a rule to men as reasonable men which would make men under Kings no better then bruit beasts for then should subjects exercise acts of reason not because good and honest but because their Prince commandeth them so to doe and if this cannot be said none can be at the disposing of Kings in politick acts liable to Royall government that way that the slave is in his actions under the dominion of his master The Prelate objecteth out of Spalato Arnisaeus and Hug. Grotius for in his booke there is not one line which is his own except his raylings 1. All government and superioritie in Rulers is not primely and only for the Subjects good for some are by God and Nature appointed for the mutuall and inseperable good of the superiour and inferiour as in the government of husband and wife or father and sonne and in herili dominio in the government of a Lord and his servant the good and benefit of the servant is but secondary and consecutively intended it is not the principall end but the externall and adventâtious as the gaine that commeth to a Physitian is not the proper and internall end of his art but followeth only from his practice of Medicine Ans The Prelates logick tendeth to this some government tendeth to the mutuall good of the superior and inferior but Royall Government is some government ergo nothing followeth from a major proposition Ex particulari affirmante in prima figura Or of two particular propositions 2. If it be thus formed every maritall government and every government of the Lord and servant is for the mutuall good of the superiour and inferiour But Royall Government is such ergo c. the assumption is false and cannot be proved as I shall anon cleare 2. Obj. Solomon disposed of Cabul and gave it to Hiram ergo a conquered Kingdome is for the good of the conquerour especially Ans Solomons speciall giving away some Titles to the King of Tyre being a speciall fact of a Prophet as well as a King cannot warrant the King of England to sell England to a forraine Prince because William made England his owne by conquest which also is a most false supposition and this he stole from Hugo Grotius who condemneth selling of Kingdomes 3 Object A man may render himselfe totally under the power of a Master without any conditions and why may not the body of a people doe the like even to have peace and safety surrender themselves fully to the power of a King A lord of great Mannours may admit no man to live in his Lands but upon a condition of a full surrender of him and his posterity to that lord Tacitus sheweth us it was so anciently amongst the Germans and the Campanians surrendered themselves fully to the Romans Answ What compelled people may do to redeem their lives with losse of liberty is nothing to the point such a violent Conquerour who will be a father and a husband to a people against their will is not their lawfull King and that they may sell the liberty of their posteritie not yet born is utterly denied as unlawfull yea a violentated father to me is a father and not a father and the posteritie may vindicate their own liberty given away unjustly before they were born Qua omne regnum vi partum potest vi dissolvi Object 4. But saith Doct. Fern these which are ours and given awaâ to another in which there redoundeth to God by donation a speciall interest as in things devoted to holy uses though after they be abused yet we cannot recall them Ergo If the people be once forced to give away their liberty they cannot recall it far lesse if they willingly resign it to their Prince Answ This is not true when the power is given for the conservation of the Kingdom and is abused for the destruction thereof for a power to destruction was never given nor can it by rationall nature be given 2. Mortifications given to religious uses by a positive law may be recalled by a more divine and stronger law of nature such as is this I will have mercy and not sacrifice Suppose David of his own proper heritage had given the Shew-bread to the Priests yet when David and his men are famishing he may take it back from them against their will Suppose Christ man had bought the Corns and dedicated them to the Altar yet might he and his Disciples eat the Ears of Corn in their hunger The vessels of silver dedicated to the Church may be taken and bestowed on wounded Souldiers 2. A people free may not and ought not totally surrender their liberty to a Prince confiding on his goodnesse 1. Because liberty is a condition of nature that all men are born with and they are not to give it away no not to a King except in part and for the better that they may have peace and justice for it which is better for them hic nunc 2. If a people trusting in the goodnesse of their Prince inslave themselves to him and he shall after turn Tyrant a rash and temerarious surrender obligeth not Et ignorantia facit factum quasi involuntarium Ignorance maketh the fact some way unvoluntary for if the people had beleeved that a meek King would have turned a rouring Lyon they should not have resigned their liberty into his hand and therefore the surrender was tacitely conditionall to the King as meek or whom they beleeved to be meek and not to a
tyrannous Lord and therefore when the contract is made for the utilitie of the one party the law saith their place is for after wits that men may change their minde and resume their liberty though if they had given away their liberty for money they cannot recall it and if violence made the surrender of liberty here is slavery and slaves taken in war so soon as they can escape and return to their own they are free D. Sect. item eâ Justit de rerum divin l. nihil F. de capt l. 3. So the learned Ferdin Vasquez illustri l. 2. c. 82. â 15. saith The bird that was taken and hath escaped is free nature in a forced people so soon as they can escape from a violent Conqueror maketh them a free people and si solo tempore saith Ferd. Vasquez l. 2. c. 82. n. 6. justificatur subjectio solo tempore facilius justificabitur liberatio Assert 20. All the Goods of the Subjects belongeth not to the King I presuppose that the division of Goods doth not necessarily flow from the law of nature for God made man before the fall Lord of the creatures indefinitely but what Goods be Peters and not Pauls we know not But supposing mans sin though the light of the Sun and Air be common to all and religious places be proper to none yet it is morally unpossible that there should not be a distinction of meum tuum mine and thine and the decalogue forbidding theft and coveting the wife of another man yet is she the wife of Peter not of Thomas by free election not by an act of natures law doth evidence to us that the division of things is so far forth men now being in the state of sin of the law of nature that it hath evident ground in the Law of nations and thus farre naturall that the heat that I have from my own coat and cloak and the nourishment from my own meat are physically incommunicable to any But I hasten to prove the Proposition If 1. I have leave to premit that in time of necessitie all things are common by Gods Law A man travelling might eat Grapes in his neighbours vineyard though he was not licenced to carry any away I doubt if David wanting money was necessitated to pay money for the Shew-bread or for Goliahs sword supposing these to be the very Goods of private men and ordinarily to be bought and sold natures Law in extremity for self preservation hath rather a Prerogative Royall above all Laws of Nations and all civill Laws then any mortall King and therefore by the civill Law all are the Kings in case of extreme necessity in this meaning any one man is obliged to give all he hath for the good of the Common-wealth and so far the good of the King in as farre as he is head and father of the Common-wealth 2. All things are the Kings in regard of his publike power to defend all men and their Goods from unjust violence 3. All are the Kings in regard of his Act of conservation of Goods for the use of the just owner 4. All are the Kings in regard of a legall limitation in case of a dammage offered to the Common-wealth justice requireth confiscation of Goods for a fault but confiscated Goods are to help the interessed Common-wealth and the King not as a man to bestow them on his children but as a King to this we may referre these called bona caduâa inventa things losed by Shipwrack or any other providence Vlpian tit 19. t. c. de bonis vacantibus C. de Thesauro And the Reasons why private men are just Lords and proprietors of their own Goods are 1. Because by order of nature division of Goods cometh neerer to natures law and necessity then any King or Magistrate in the world for because it is agreeable to nature that every man be warmed by his own fleece nourished by his own meat therefore to conserve every mans Goods to the just owner and to preserve a communitie from the violence of rapine and theft a Magistrate and King was devised So it is clear men are just owners of their own Goods by all good order both of nature and time before there be any such thing as a King or Magistrate Now if it be good that every man enjoy his own Goods as just proprietor thereof for his own use before there be a King who can be proprietor of his Goods and a King being given of God for a blessing not for any mans hurt and losse the King cometh in to preserve a mans Goods but not to be lord and owner thereof himself nor to take from any man Gods right to his own Goods 2. When God created man at the beginning he made all the creatures for man and made them by the law of nature the proper possession of man but then there was not any King formally as King for certainly Adam was a father before he was a King and no man being either born or created a King over an other man no more then the first Lyon and the first Eagle that God created were by the birth-right and first-start of creation by nature the King of all Lyons and all Eagles to be after created no man can by natures law be the owner of all Goods of particular men And because the law of nations founded upon the law of nature hath brought in meum tuum mine and thine as proper to every particular man and the introduction of Kings cannot overturn natures foundation neither civility nor grace destroyeth but perfiteth nature and if a man be not born a King because he is a man he cannot be born the possessour of my Goods 3. What is a Character and note of a Tyrant and an oppressing King as a Tyrant is not the just due of a King as a King But to take the proper Goods of Subjects and use them as his own is a proper Character and note of a Tyrant and an oppressour Ergo the proposition is evident A King and a Tyrant are by way of contradiction contrary one to another the assumption is proved thus Ezek. 45. 9. Thus saith the Lord Let it suffice you O Princes of Israel remove violence and spoil and execute judgement and justice take away your exactions from my people saith the Lord Vers 10. Ye shall have just ballances and a just Ephah and a just bath If all be the Kings he is not capable of extortion and rapine Micah 3. 2. God complaineth of the violence of Kings Is it not for you to know judgement Vers 3. Who eat the flesh of my people and flea their skins from off them and they break their bones and chop them in pieces as for the pot and as flesh within the chaldron Isai 3. 14. Zeph. 3. 3. and was it not an act of tyranny in King Achab to take the vineyard of Naboth and in King Saul 1 Sam. 8. 14.
to take the people of Gods fields and vineyards and olive-yards and give them to their servants Was it a just fault that Hybreas objected to Antonius exacting two tributes in one yeer that he said If thou must have two tributes in one yeer then make for us two Summers and two Harvests in one yeer This cannot be just if all be the Kings the King taketh but his own 4. Subjects under a Monarch could not give alms nor exercise works of charity for charity must be my own Isai 58. 7. Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry c. Eccles 11. 1. Cast thy bread into the waters and the Law saith It is theft to give of another mans to the poor yea the distinction of poor and rich should have no place under a Monarchie he onely should be rich 5. When Paul commandeth us to pay tribute to Princes Rom. 13. 6. because they are the Ministers of God he layeth this ground That the King hath not all but that the subjects are to give to him of their goods 6. It is the Kings place by justice to preserve every man in his own right and under his own fig-tree Ergo It s not the Kings house 7. Even Pharaoh could not make all the victuall of the land his own while he had bought it with money and every thing is presumed to be free Allodialis free land except the King prove that it is bought or purchased L. actius C. de servit aqua Joan. And. m. C. F. de ind hosti in C. minus de jur 8. If the subjects had no proprietie in their own goods but all were the Princes due then the subject should not be able to make any contract of buying and selling without the King and every subject were in the case of a slave Now the Law saith L. 2. F. de Noxali act l. 2. F. ad legem aquil When he maketh any Covenant he is not obliged civilly to keep it because the condition of a servant he not being sui juris is compared to the state of a beast though he be obliged by a naturall obligation being a rationall Creature in regard of the law of nature L. naturaliter L. si id quod L. interdum F. de cond indebit cum aliis 2. The subject could not by Solomon be forbidden to be suretie for his friend as King Solomon doth counsell Prov. 6. 1 2 3. he could not be condemned to bring on himself poverty by sluggishnesse as Prov. 6. 6 7 8 9 10. nor were he to honour the Lord with his riches as Prov. 3. 9. nor to keep his Covenant though to his losse Psal 15. 4. nor could he be mercifull and lend Psal 37. 26. nor had he power to borrow nor could he be guiltie in not paying all again Psal 37. 21. For subjects under a Monarch can neither perform a duty nor fail in a duty in the matter of Goods If all be the Kings what power or dominion hath the subject in disposing of his Princes Goods See more in Petr. Rebuffus tract congruae portionis num 225. pag. 109 110. Sed quoad dominiumrerum c. QUEST XVII Whether or not the Prince have properly a fiduciarie and ministeriall power of a Tutor Husband Patron Minister head father of a family not of a Lord or dominator THat the power of the King is fiduciarie that is given to him immediatly by God in trust Royallists deny not but we hold that the tâust is put upon the King by the people 2. We deny that the people give themselves to the King as a gift for what is freely given cannot be taken againe but they gave themselves to the King as a pawne and if the pawne be abused or not used in that manner as it was conditionated to be used the party in whose hand the pawne is intrusted faileth in his trust 1. Assertion The King is more properly a Tutor then a Father 1. Indigencie is the originall of Tutors the Parents dye what then shall become of the Orphan and his inheritance he cannot guide it himselfe therefore nature devised a Tutor to supply the place of a father and to governe the Tutor but with this consideration the father is Lord of the inheritance and if he be distressed may sell it that it shall never come to the sonne and the father for the bad deserving of his sonne may dis-inherite him but the Tutor being but a borrowed father cannot sell the inheritance of the pupill nor can he for the pupills bad deserving by any dominion of Justice over the pupill take away the inheritance from him and give it to his owne son so a Community of it selfe because of sin is a naked society that can but destroy it selfe and every one eate the flesh of his brother therefore God hath appointed a King or governour who shall take care of that community rule them in peace and save all from reciprocation of mutuall acts of violence yet so as because a trust is put on the Ruler of a community which is not his heritage he cannot dispose of it as he pleaseth because he is not the proper owner of the inheritance 2. The Pupill when he commeth to age may call his Tutor to an accompt for his administration I doe not acknowledge that as a truth which Arnisaeus saith De authoritate prin c. 3. n. 5. The Common-wealth is alwaies minor and under Tutory because it alway hath need of a curator and governour and can never put away its governour but the pupill may grow to age and wisedome so as he may be without all Tuâors and can guide himselfe and so may call in question his Tutor and the pupill cannot be his Iudge but must stand to the sentence of a superiour Iudge and so the people cannot judge or punish their Prince God must be Iudge betwixt them both But this is 1. a begging of the question every comparison halteth no community but it is Major in this that it can appoint its owne Tutors and though it cannot be without all Rulers yet it may well be without this or that Prince and Ruler and therefore may resume its power which it gave conditionally to the Ruler for its owne safety and good and in so farre as this condition is violated and power turned to the destruction of the Common-wealth it is to be esteemed as not given and though the people be not a politique Iudge in their owne cause yet in case of manifest oppression nature can teach them to oppose defensive violence against offensive a community in its politique body is also above any Ruler and may judge what is manifestly destructive to it selfe Obj. The Pupill hath not power to appoint his owne Tutor nor doth he give power to him so neither doth the people give it to the King Ans The Pupill hath not indeed a formall power to make a Tutor but he hath vertually
power to rule according to Gods law as he is commanded Deut. 17. and this is the very office or officiall power which the King of Kings hath given to all Kings under him and this is a power of the Royall office of a King to governe for the Lord his maker or this is a power to doe ill and tyrannize over Gods people but this is accidentall to a King and the character of a Tyrant and is not from God and so the Law of the King in this place must be the Tyranny of the King which is our very mind 2. Barclay Reges sine dominatione ne concipi quidem possunt Iudices dominationem in populum minimé habebant Hence it is cleare that Barclay saith that the Iudges of Israel and the Kings are different in essence and nature so that domination is so essentiall to a King that you cannot conceive a King but he must have domination whereas the Iudges of Israel had no domination over the people Hence I argue that whereby a King is essentially distinguished from a Iudge that must be from God but by domination which is a power to oppresse the subject a King is essentially distinguished from a Iudge of Israel Ergo Domination and a power to do Acts of Tyranny as they are expressed Verse 11 12 13. and to oppresse a subject is from God and so must be a lawfull power but the conclusion is absurd the assumption is the doctrine of Barclay The major proposition I prove 1. Because both the Iudge and the King was from God for God gave Moses a lawfull calling to be a Iudge so did he to Eli to Samuel and Deut. 17. 15. the King is a lawfull Ordinance of God If then the Judge and the King be both lawfull Ordinances and if they differ essentially as Barclay saith then that specifice forme which distinguisheth the one from the other to wit Domination and a power to destroy the subject must be from God which is blasphemous for God can give no morall power to do wickedly for that is licence and a power to sin against a Law of God which is absolutely inconsistent with the holinesse of God for so the Lord might deny himself and dispence with sin God avert such blasphemies Now if the kingly power be from God That which essentially and specifically constituteth a King must be from God as the Office it self is from God And Barclay saith expressely That the kingly power is from God and that same which is the specifice form that constituteth a King must be that which essentially separateth the King from the Iudge if they be essentially different as Barclay dreameth Hence have we this jus Regis this Manner or Law of the King to tyrannize and oppresse to be a power from God and so a lawfull power by which you shall have this result of Barclayes interpretation That God made a Tyrant as well as a King 3. By this difference that Barclay putteth betwixt the King and the Judge the Judge might be resisted for he had not this power of domination that Saul hath contrary to Rom. 13. 2. Exod. 22. 28. and 20 12. But let us try the Text first ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the word cannot inforce us to expone ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a law our English rendreth Shew them the manner of the King Arri. Montanus turneth it ratio Regis I grant the Seventy render it ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The Chalde Paraphrase saith Statutum regis Hieronimus translateth it jus regis so Calvin but I am sure the Hebrew both in words and sense beareth a consuetude yea and the word ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã signifieth not alwayes a law as Josh 6. 14. They compassed the citiâ ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã seven times 70. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 2 King 17. 26. They know not the manner of the God of the Land Vers 33. They served their âân gods after the manner of the Heathen ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã It cannot be according to the Law or right of the Heathen except ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã be taken in an evill part 70. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Vers 34. Vntill this day they do after these manners 1 Kings 18. 28. Baals Priests cut themselves with Knives ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã after their manner 70. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Gen. 40. 13. Thou shalt give the cup to Pharaoh according as thou wast wont to do ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Exod. 21. 19. He shall deal with her after the manner of daughters 1 Sam. 27. 11. And David saved neither man nor woman alive to bring tydings to Gath saying So did David and so will his manner be ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã It cannot be they meaned that it was Davids law right or priviledge to spare none alive 1 Sam. 2. 13. And the Priests custome with the people was c. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã This was a wicked custome not a law and the 70. turneth it ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and therefore ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is not alwayes taken in a good meaning so P. Martyr He meaneth here of an usurped law saith he Calvin Non jus a deo prescriptum sed tyranidem He speaketh not of Gods law here saith he but of tyranny And Rivetus ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã signifieth not ever jus law Sed aliquando morem sive modum rationem agendi The custome and manner of doing so Junius and Tremellius Diodatus exponeth jus This law namely saith he that which is now grown to a common custome by the consent of nations and Gods toleration The interline glosse to speak of Papists exactionem dominationem The extortion and domination of King Saul is here meant Lyra exponeth it tyranny Tostatus Abulens He meaneth here of Kings indefinitely who oppressed the people with taxes and tributes as Solomon and others Cornelius a lapide This was an unjust law Cajetanus calleth it tyranny Hugo Cardinal nameth them exactiones servitutes exactions and slaveries And Serrarius he speaketh not here Quid Reges jure possint What they may do by right and law Sed quid audeant What they will be bold to do and what they tyrannically decern against all Laws of nature and humanitie And so speaketh Tho. Aquinas So also Mendoza saith he speaketh of the law of Tyrants and amongst the fathers Clemens Alexandrinus saith on this place Non humanum pollicetur dominum sed insolentem daturum minatur tyrannum He promiseth not a humane Prince but threatneth to give them an insolent Tyrant and the like also saith Beda And an excellent Lawyer Pet. Rebuffus saith Etiam loquitur de Tyranno qui non erat a Deo electus And that he speaketh of Sauls Tyrannicall usurpation and not of the law prescribed by God Deut. 17. I prove 1. He speaketh of such a power as is answerable to
when they first sought a King but that was the Law contemning Precepts rather for the peoples obeying then for the Kings commanding for the people was to be instructed with those precepts not the King Those things that concerned the Kings duty Deut. 17. Moses commanded to be put into the Arke but so if Samuel had commanded the King that which Moses Deut. 17. commanded he had done no new thing but had done againe what was once done actum egisset but there was nothing before commanded the people concerning their obedience and patience under evill Princes Ioseph Antiq. l. 6. c. 5. he wrote ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the evills that were to befall them Ans It was not that same Law for though this Law was written to the people yet it was the Law of the King and I pray you did Samuel write in a booke all the Rules of Tyranny and teach Saul and all the Kings after him for this book was put in the Ark of the Covenant where also was the booke of the Law how to play the Tyrant And what instruction was it to King or people to write to them a book of the wicked waies of a King which nature teacheth without a Doctor Sanctius saith on the place These things which by mens fraud and to the hurt of the publick may be corrupted were kept in the Tabernacle and the booke of the Law was kept in the Arke Cornelius a Lapide saith It was the Law common to King and people which was commonly kept with the booke of the Law in the Arke of the Covenant Lyra contradicteth Barclay he exponeth Legem legem regni non secundum usurpationem supra positam sed secundum ordinationem Dei positam Deut. 17. Theodat excellently exponeth it the fundamentall Lawes of the Kingdome inspride by God to temper Monarchy with a liberty befitting Gods people and with equity toward a Nation to withstand the abuse of an absolute power 2. Can any beleeve Samuel would have written a Law of Tyranny and put that booke in the Arke of the Covenant before the Lord to be kept to the posterity seeing he was to teach both King and people the good and the right way 1 Sam. 12. 23 24 25. 3. Where is the Law of the Kingdome called a Law of punishing innocent people 4. To write the duty of the King in a booke and apply it to the King is no more superfluous nor to teach the people the good and the right way out of the Law and apply generalls to persons 5. There is nothing in the Law 1 Sam. 8. 9. 11. 12. of the peoples patience but rather of their impatient crying ouâ God not hearing nor helping and nothing of that in this booke for any thing that we know and Iosephus speaketh of the Law 1 Sam. 8. not of this Law 1 Sam. 12. QUEST XIX Whether or no the King be in Dignity and power above the people IN this grave question divers considerations are to be pondered 1. There is a Dignity materiall in the people scattered they being many representations of God and his Image which is in the King also and formally more as King he being indued with formall Magistraticall and publick Royall Authority in the former regard this or that man is inferiour to the King because the King hath that same remander of the Image of God that any private man hath and something more âe hath a politicke resemblance of the King of Heavens being a little God and so is above any one man 2. All these of the people taken collectively having more of God as being representations are according to this materiall dignity excellenter then the King because many are excellenter then one and the King according to the Magistraticall and Royall Authority he hath is excellenter then they are because he partaketh formally of Royalty which they have not formally 3. A meane or medium as it is such is lesse then the end though the thing materially that is a meane may be excellenter every mean as a meane under that reduplication hath all its goodnesse and excellency in relation to the end yet an Angell that is a meane and a ministring Spirit ordained of God for an heire of life eternall Heb. 1. 13. considered materially is excellenter then a man Psal 8. 5. Heb. 2. 6 7 8. 4. A King and leader in a military consideration and as a Governour and conserver of the whole Army is more worth then ten thousand of the people 2 Sam. 18. 3. 5. But simply and absolutely the people is above and more excellent then the King and the King in Dignity inferiour to the people and that upon these Reasons 1. Because he is the meane ordained for the people as for the end that he may save them 2. Sam. 19. 9. a publick shepheard to feede them Ps 78. 70 71 72 73. the Captaine and Leader of the Lords inheritance 1 Sam. 10. 1. to defend them the Minister of God for their good Rom. 13. 4. 2. The Pilot is lesse then the whole Passengers the Generall lesse then the whole Army the Tutor lesse then all the children the Physician lesse then all the living men whose health he careth for the Master or Teacher lesse then all the Schollars because the part is lesse then the whole the King is but a part and a member though I grant a very eminent and Noble Member of the Kingdome 3. A Christian people especially is the portion of the Lords inheritance Deut. 32. 9. the sheepe of his pasture his redeemed ones for whom God gave his blood Act. 20. 28. And the killing of a man is to violate the Image of God Gen. 9. 6. and therefore the death and destruction of a Church and of thousand thousands of men is a sadder and a more heavy matter then the death of a King who is but one man 4. A King as a King or because a King is not the inheritance of God nor the chosen and called of God nor the sheepe or flocke of the Lords pasture nor the redeemed of Christ for those excellencies agree not to Kings because they are Kings for then all Kings should be indued with those excellencies and God should an be accepter of persons if he put those excellencies of Grace upon men for externall respects of highnesse and Kingly power and worldly glory and splendor for many living Images and representations of God as he is holy or more excellent then a politique representation of Gods greatnesse and Majesty such as the King is because that which is the fruit of a love of God which commeth nearer to Gods most speciall love is more excellent then that which is farther remote from his speciall love now though Royalty be a beame of the Majesty of the greatnesse of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords yet is it such a fruit and beam of Gods greatnesse as may consist with the eternall reprobation of the party
regard the Church doth not so much as instrumentally conferre those abilities they may be said to come from God immediatly in relation to the Church who calleth the man to the ministery yea Royalists as our excommunicated Prelate learned from Spalato say that God at the naked presence of the Churches call doth immediatly infuse that from Heaven by which the man is now in Holy Orders and a Pastor whereas he was not so before and yet Prelates cannot deny but they can unmake Ministers and have practised this in their unhallowed Courts and therefore though God immediatly without any action of the people make Kings this is a weake reason to prove they cannot unmake them As for their undeleble character that Prelates cannot take from a Minister it is nothing if the Church may unmake a Minister though his character goe to prison with him we seeke no more but to anull the reason God immediatly maketh Kings and Pastors ergo no power on earth can unmake them this consequence is as weake as water 2. The other cause is because God hath erected no Tribunall on earth higher then the Kings Tribunall ergo no power on earth can unmake a King the Antecedent and consequence is both denyed and is a begging of the question for the Tribunall that made the King is above the King 2. Though there be no Tribunall formally regall and Kingly above the King yet is there a Tribunall vertuall eminently above him in the case of tyranny for the States and Princes have a Tribunall above him 3. To this the constituent cause is of more power and dignity then the effect and so the people is above the King The P. Prelate borrowed an answer from Arnisaeus and Barclay and other Royalists and saith If we knew any thing in Law or were ruled by reason Every constituent saith Arnisaeus and Barclay more accurately then the P. Prelate had a head to transcribe their words where the constituent hath resigned all his power in the hand of the Prince whom he constitutes is of more worth and power then he in whose hand they resigne the power so the proposition is false The servant who hath constituted his Master Lord of his liberty is not worthier then his Master whom he hath made his Lord and to whom he hath given himselfe as a slave for after he hath resigned his liberty he cannot repent he must keepe covenant though to his hurt yea such a servant is not only not above his Master but he cannot move his foot without his Master The Governour of Britaine saith Arnisaeus being despised by King Philip resigned himselfe as Vassall to King Edward of England but did not for that make himselfe superiour to King Edward indeed he who constituteth another under him as a Legat is superiour but the people doe constitute a King above themselves not a King under themselves and therefore the people are not by this made the Kings superiour but his inferiour Ans 1. It is false that the people doth or can by the Law of nature resigne their whole liberty in the hand of a King 1. they cannot resigne to others that which they have not in themselves Nemo potest dare quod non habet but the people hath not an absolute power in themselves to destroy themselves or to exercise those tyrannous acts spoken of 1 Sam. 8. 11 12 13 14 15 c. for neither God nor Natures Law hath given any such power 2. He who constituteth himselfe a slave is supposed to be compelled to that unnaturall fact of alienation of that liberty which he hath from his Maker from the wombe by violence constraint or extreame necessity and so is inferiour to all free men but the people doth not make themselves slaves when they constitute a King over themselves because God giving to a people a King the best and excellentest Governour on earth giveth a blessing and speciall fafour Esay 1. 26. Hosea 1. v. 11. Esay 3. 6 7. Ps 79. 70 71 72. but to lay upon his people the state of slaverie in which they renounce their whole libertie is a curse of God Gen. 9. 25. Gen. 27. 29. Deut. 28. 32. 36. But the people having their liberty to make any of ten or twenty their King and to advance one from a private state to an honorable throne whereas it was in their libertie to advance another and to give him Royall power of ten degrees whereas they might give him power of twelve degrees and of eight or sixe must be in excellencie and worth above the man whom they constitute King and invest with such honour as Honour in the fountain and honos participans originans must be more excellent and pure then the derived honour in the King which is honos participâtus originatus 2. If the servant give his libertie to his master ergo he had that libertie in him and in that act libertie must be in a more excellent way in the servant as in the Fountaine then it is in the master and so this libertie must be purer in the people then in the King and therefore in that both the servant is above the master and the People worthier then the King and when the people give themselves conditionally and Covenant-wise to the King as to a Publique servant and Patron and Tutour as the Governour of Britaine out of his humour gave himselfe to King Edward there is even here a note of superioritie Every giver of a benefit as a giver is superior to him to whom the gift is given though after the servant hath given away his gift of libertie by which he was superiour he cannot be a superior because by his gift he hath made himselfe inferior 3. The People constituteth a King above themselves I distinguish supra se above themselves according to the fountaine power of Royaltie that is false for the fountaine-power remaineth most eminently in the people 1. because they give it to the King ad modum recipientis and with limitations ergo it is unlimited in the people and bounded and limited in the King and so lesse in the King then in the people 2. If the King turne distracted and an ill spirit from the Lord come upon Saul so as reason be taken from a Nebuchadnezzar it is certaine the people may put Curators and Tutors over him who hath the Royall power 3. If the King be absent and taken captive the People may give the Royall power to one or to some few to exercise it as custodes regni And 4. if he die and the Crown goe by election they may create another with more or lesse power all which evinceth that they never constituted over themselves a King in regard of fountaine-power for if they give away the fountaine as a slave selleth his libertie they could not make use of it Indeed they set a King above them quoad potestatem legum executivam in regard of a power of executing lawes and
actuall government for their good and safetie but this proveth only that the King is above the people ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in some respect but the most eminent and fountaine-power of Royaltie remaineth in the people as in an immortall spring which they communicate by succession to this or that mortall man in the manner and measure that they thinke good And Vlpian and Bartolus cited by our Prelate out of Barclaius are only to be understood of the derived secondary and borrowed power of executing lawes and not of the fountaine power which the people cannot give away no more then they can give away their rationall nature for it is a power naturall to conserve themselves essentially adhering to every created Being For if the People give all their power away 1. What shall they reserve to make a new King if this man dye 2. What if the Royall line surcease there be no Prophets immediately sent of God to make Kings 3. What if he turne Tyrant and destroy his Subjects with the sword The Royalists say they may slie but when they made him King they resigned all their power to him even their power of flying for they bound themselves by an oath say Royalists to all passive and lawfull active obedience and I suppose to stand at his Tribunal if hâ summoned the three Estates upon Treason to come before him is conteined in the oath that Royalists say bindeth all and is contradictorie to flying Arnisaeus a more learned Iurist and Divine then the P. Prelate answereth the other Maxime The end is worthier then the meane leading to the end because it is ordained for the end These meanes saith he which referre their whole nature to the end and have all their excellencie from the end and have excellencie from no other thing but from the end are lesse excellent then the end that is true such an end as medicine is for health And Hugo Grotius l. 1. c. 3. n. 8. Those meanes which are only for the end for the good of the end and are not for their own good also are of lesse excellencie and inferior to the end But so the assumption is false But those meanes which beside their relation to the end have an excellencie of nature in themselves are not alwayes inferior to the end The Disciple as he is instituted is inferior to the Master but as he is the sonne of a Prince he is above the Master But by this reason the shepherd should be inferior to bruit beasts to sheep And the master of the familie is for the familie and referreth all that he hath for the entertaining of the familie but it followeth not therefore the familie is above him The forme is for the action therefore the action is more excellent then the forme and an accident then the subject or substance And Grotius saith Every government is not for the good of another but some for its own good as the government of a master over the servant and the husband over the wife Ans I take the answer thus Those who are meere meanes and only meanes referred to the end they are inferior to the end but the King as King hath all his officiall and relative goodnesse in the world as relative to the end All that you can imagine to be in a King as a King is all relative to the safety and good of the people Rom. 13. 4. He is a minister for thy good He should not as King make himselfe or his own gaine and honour his end I grant the King as a man shall dye as another man and so he may secondarily intend his own good and what excellencie he hath as a man is the excellencie of one mortall man and cannot make him amount in dignitie and in the absolute consideration of the excellencie of a man to be above many men and a whole Kingdome for the moe good things there be the better they are so the good things be multiplicable as a hundred men are better then one Otherwise if the good be such as cannot be multiplied as one God the multiplication maketh them worse as many Gods are inferiour to one God Now if Royalists can shew us any more in the King then these two we shall be obliged to them and in both he is inferiour to the whole The Prelate and his followers would have the Maxime to lose credit for then say they the shepherd should be inferior to the sheep But in this the Maxime faileth indeed 1. Because the shepherd is a reasonable man and the sheep bruit beasts and so must be excellenter then all the flocks of the world Now as he is a reasonable man he is not a shepherd nor in that relation referred to the sheep and their preservation as a mean to the end but he is a shepherd by accident for the unrulinesse of the creatures for mans sinne withdrawing themselves from that naturall dominion that man had over the creatures before the fall of man in that relation of a meane to the end and so by accident is this officiall relation put on him and according to that officiall relation and by accident man is put to be a servant to the bruitish creature and a meane to so base an end But all this proveth him through mans sinne and by accident to be under the officiall relation of a meane to baser creatures then himselfe as to the end but not as a reasonable man But the King as King is an officiall and Royall meane to this end that the people may lead a godly and peaceable life under him And this officiall relation being an accident is of lesse worth then the whole people as they are to be governed And I grant the Kings sonne in relation to blood and birth is more excellent then his Teachers but as he is taught he is inferiour to his Teacher but in both considerations the King is inferior to the people for though he coÌmand the people and so have an executive power of law above them yet have they a fountain power above him because they made him King and in Gods intention he is given as King for their good according to that Thou shalt feed my people Israel that I gave him for a leader of my people 4. Saith the P. Prelate The constituent cause is excellenter then the effect constituted where the constitution is voluntary and dependeth upon the free act of the will as when the King maketh a Vice-Roy or a Judge durante beneplacito during his free will but not when a man maketh over his right to another for then there should be neither faith nor truth in covenants if people might make over their power to their King and retract and take back what they have once given Ans This is a begging of the question for it is denyed that the people can absolutely make away their whole power to the King It dependeth on the people that they be not
then ergo a Communitie is not King I grant all But poore man Ergo the power of making a King who hath power of life and death is not in the people It is like Prelates logick Samuel is not a King ergo he cannot make David a King It followeth not by the Prelates ground So the King is not an in inferiour Iudge What ergo he cannot make an inferiour Iudge 9. The power of life and death is eminently and virtually in the people collectively taken though not formally And though no man can take away his own life or hath power over his own life formally yet a man and a body of men hath power over their own lives radically and virtually in respect they may render themselves to a Magistrate and to Lawes which if they violate they must be in hazard of their lives and so they virtually have power of their own lives by putting them under the power of good lawes for the peace and safety of the whole 10. This is a weake consequence None hath power of his owne life Ergo far lesse of his neighbours saith the Prelate I shall denie the consequence The King hath not power of his own life that is according to the Prelates mind he can neither by the law of nature nor by any Civill law kill himselfe Ergo the King hath far lesse power to kill another It followeth not for the Iudge hath more power over his neighbours life then over his own 11. But saith the P. Prelate The Communitie conceived without government all as equall endowed with natures and native libertie hath no power of life and death because all aâe borne free and so none is borne with dominion and power over his neighbours life Yea but so Mr. P. Prelate a King considered without government and as born a free man hath not power of any mans life more then a Communitie hath for King and Begger are borne both alike free But a Communitie in this consideration as they come from the wombe have no Politique consideration at all If you consider them as without all policie you cannot consider them as invested with policie yea if you consider them so as they are by nature voyd of all policie they cannot so much as adde their after-consent and approbation to such a man to be their King whom God immediately from heaven maketh a King for to adde such an after-consent is an act of government Now as they are conceived to want all government they cannot performe any act of government And this is as much against himselfe as against us 2. The power of a part and the power of the whole is not alike Royaltie never advanceth the King above the place of a member And Lawyers say The King is above the subjects in sensu diviso in a divisive sense he is above this or that subject but he is inferiour to all the subjects collectively taken because he is for the whole Kingdome as a meane for the end Object If this be a good reason that he is a meane for the whole Kingdome as for the end that he is therefore inferiour to the whole Kingdome then is he also inferior to any one subject for he is a meane for the safety of every subject as for the whole Kingdome Answ Every meane is inferior to its compleat adequate and whole end and such an end is the whole Kingdome in relation to the King but every man is not alwayes inferiour to its incompleat inadequate and partiall end This or that subject is not adequate but the inadequate and incompleat end in relation to the King The Prelate saith Kings are Dii Elohim Gods and the manner of their propagation is by filiation by adoption sonnes of the most high and Gods first borne Now the first borne is not above every brother severally but if there were thousands millions numberlesse numbers he is above all in precedencie and power Answ Not only Kings but all inferiour Iudges are Gods Psal 82. God standeth in the congregation of the Gods that is not a congregation of Kings So Exo. 22. 8. the master of the house shall be brought ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to the Gods or to the Judges And that there were more Iudges then one is cleare by vers 9. and if they shall condemne ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã jarshignur condemnarint Joh. 10. 35. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã He called them Gods Exod. 4. 16. Thou shalt be to Aaron ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as a God They are Gods analogically only God is infinite not so the King 2. Gods will is a law not so the Kings 3. God is an end to himselfe not so the King The Iudge is but God by office and representation and conservation of the people 2. It is denyed that the first-borne is in power before all his brethren though there were millions That is but said One as one is inferior to a multitude as the first-borne was a Politick Ruler to his brethren he was inferiour to them politically Object 3. The collective Vniversitie of a Kingdome are subjects sonnes and the King their father no lesse then this or that subject is the Kings subject For the universitie of Subjects are either the King or the King subjects for all the kingdome must be one of these two but they are not the King Ergo they are his subjects Answ All the Kingdome in any consideration is not either King or Subjects I give a third The Kingdome collective is neither properly King nor Subject but the Kingdome embodied in a State having collaterall or coordinate power with the King Object 4. The universitie is ruled by lawes Ergo they are inferior to the King who ruleth all by law Answ The Universitie properly is no otherwise ruled by lawes then the King is ruled by lawes The Universitie formally is the compleat Politick body indued with a nomothetick facultie which cannot use violence against it selfe and so is not properly under a Law QUEST XX. Whether or no inferiour Judges be univocally and essentially Judges and the immediate Vicars of God no lesse then the King or if they be onely the Deputies and Vicars of the King IT is certain that in one and the same Kingdom the power of the King is more in extension then the power of any inferiour Iudge but if these powers of the King and the inferiour Iudges differ intenfivè and in spece and nature is the question though it be not all the question Assert Inferiour Iudges are no lesse essentially Iudges and the immediate Vicars of God then the King 1. These who judge in the room of God and exercise the judgement of God are essentially Iudges and the Deputies of God as well as the King but inferiour Iudges are such Ergo The proposition is clear the formall reason why the King is univocally and essentially a Iudge is because the Kings throne is the Lords throne 1 Chron. 29. 23. And Solomon sate on the
of Israel as Samuel Gedeon c. had no domination the dominion was in Gods hand 2. Wee may resist an inferior Iudge saith Arnisaeus otherwise there were no appeale from him and the wrong we suffer were irreparable as saith Marantius And all the Iudges of the earth saith Edw. Symmons are from God more remotely namely mediante Rege by the mediation of the Supreame even as the lesser starres have their light from God by the mediation of the Sun To the first I answer There was a difference betwixt the Kings of Israel and their Iudges no question but if it be an essentiall difference it is a question for 1. The Iudges were raised up in an extraordinary manner out of any Tribe to defend the people and vindicate their libertie God remaining their King the King by the Lords appointment was tyed after Saul to the Royall tribe of Judah till the Messiahs comming God tooke his own blessed libertie to set up a succession in the ten tribes 2. The Iudges were not by succession from father to sonne the Kings were as I conceive for the typicall eternitie of the Messiahs throne presignified to stand from generation to generation 3. Whether the Iudges were appointed by the election of the people or no some doubt because Iepthah was so made Iudge but I thinke it was not a law in Israel that it should be so but the first mould of a King Deut. 17. is by election But that God gave power of domineering that is of Tyrannizing to a King so as he cannot be resisted which he gave not to a Iudge I thinke no Scripture can make good For by what Scripture can Royalists warrant to us that the people might rise in armes to defend themselves against Moses Gideon Eli Samuel and other Iudges if they should have tyrannized over the people and that it is unlawfull to resist the most Tyrannous King in Israel and Iudah Yet Barclay and others must say this if they be true to that principle of Tyranny That the jus Regis the law or manner of the King 1 Sam. 8. 9 11. 1 Sam. 10. 25 doth essentially difference betwixt the Kings of Israel and the Iudges of Israel but we thinke God gave never any power of Tyranny to either Iudge or King of Israel and domination in that sense was by God given to none of them 2. Arnisaeus hath as little for him to say the inferior Magistrate may be resisted because we may appeale from him but the King cannot be resisted quia sanctitas Majestatis id non permittit the sanctitie of Royall majestie will not permit us to resist the King Ans That is not Pauls argument to prove it unlawfull to resist Kings as Kings and doing their office because of the sanctitie of their Majestie that is as the man intendeth because of the supreme absolute and illimited power that God hath given him But this is a begging of the question and all one as to say the King may not be resisted because he may not be resisted for sanctitie of Majestie if we beleeve Royalists includeth essentially an absolute supremacie of power whereby they are above the reach of all thrones lawes powers or resistance on Earth But the Argument is Resist not because the Power is of God But the inferiour Magistrates power is of God 2. Resist not because you resist Gods ordinance in resisting the Iudge But the inferior Iudge is Gods ordinance Rom. 13. 1. Deut. 1. 17. 2 Chro. 19. 6. 3. Mr. Symmons saith all Iudges on earth are from the Kings as starres have their light from the Sun I answer 1. Then Aristocracie were unlawfull for it hath not its power from Monarchie Had the Lords of the Philistims have the States of Holland no power but from a Monarchie Name the Monarch Have the Venetians any power from a King Indeed our Prelate saith from Augustine Confess lib. 3. cap. 8. Generale pactum est societatis humana obedire Regibus suis It is an universall covenant of humane societie and a dictate of nature that men obey their Kings I beg the favour of Sectaries saith âhe to shew as much for Aristocracie and Democracie Now all other governments to bellies borne at Court are the inventions of men But I can shew that same warrant for the one as for the other because it is as well the dictate of nature that People obey their Iudges and Rulers as it is that they obey their Kings And Austin speaketh of all Iudges in that place though he name Kings for Kingly government is no more of the law of nature then Aristocracie or Democracie nor are any borne Iudges or Subjects at all There is a naturall aptitude in all to either of these for the conservation of nature and that is all Let us see that men naturally inclining to Government incline rather to Royall Government then to any other That the P. Prelate shall not be able to show For fatherly government being in two is not Kingly but nearer to Aristocracy and when many families were on earth every one independent within themselves if a commune enemy should invade a tract of Land governed by families I conceive by natures light they should incline to defend themselves and to joyne in one politique body for their owne safety as is most naturall but in that case they having no King and there were no reason of many fathers all alike loving their own families and selfe preservation why one should be King over all rather then another except by voluntary compact so it is cleare that Nature is nearer to Aristocracy before this contract then a Monarchy and let him shew us in multitudes of families dwelling together before there was a King as cleare a warrant for Monarchy as here is for Aristocracy though to me both be lawdable and lawfull ordinances of God and the difference meerely accidentall being one and the same power from the Lord Rom. 13. 1. which is in divers subjects in one as a Monarchy in many as in Aristocracy and the one is as naturall as the other and the subjects are accidentall to the nature of the power 2. The Starrs have no light at all but in actuall aspect toward the Sun and they are not lightsome bodies by the free will of the Sunne and have no immediate light from God formally but from the Sun so as if there were no Sun there should be no Starres 3. for actuall shining and sending out of beames of light actusecundo they depend upon the presence of the Sun but for inferiour Iudges though they have their call from the King yet have they gifts to governe from no King on earth but only from the King of Kings 4. When the King is dead the Iudges are Iudges and they depend not on the King for their second acts of judging and for the actuall emission and putting forth their beames and raies of justice upon the poore and needy they depend on no
the Kings and Iudges which I shall make good by these places Deut. 21. 19. The rebellious Son is brought to the Elders of the Citie who had power of life and death and caused to stone him Deut. 22. 18. The Elders of the Citie shall take that man and chastise him Iosh 20. 4. But beside the Elders of every Citie there were the Elders of Israel and the Princes who had also judiciall power of life and death as the Iudges and King had Josh 22. 30. Even when Ioshua was Iudge in Israel the Princes of the Congregation and heads of the Thousands of Israel did judicially cognosce whether the Children of Reuben of Gad and of halfe the tribe of Manasseh were apostates from God and the Religion of Israel 2 Sam. 5. 3. All the Elders of Israel made David King at Hebron and Num. 11. They are appointed by God not to be the advisers only and helpers of Moses but v. 14 17. to beare a part of the burden of ruling and governing the people that Moses might be eased Jeremiah is accused c. 26. 10. upon his life before the Princes Iosh 7 4. The Princes sit in judgement with Ioshua Iosh 9. 15. Ioshua and the Princes of the Congregation sware to the Gibeonites that they would not kill them The Princes of the house of Israel could not be rebuked for oppression in judgement Mic. 3. 1 2 3. if they had not had power of judgement So Zeph. 3. 3. And Deut. 1. 17. 2. Chron. 19. 6 7. They are expresly made Iudges in the place of God And 1 Sam. 8. 2. without advise or knowledge of Samuel the supreme Iudge they conveene and ask a King and without any head or superior when there is no King they conveene a Parliament and make David King at Hebron And when David is banished they conveen to bring him home againe when Tyrannous Athalia reigneth they conveene and make Ioash King and that without any King And Iosh 22. there is a Parliament conveened and for any thing we can read without Ioshua to take cognisance of a new Altar It had been good that the Parliaments both of Scotland and of England had conveened though the King had not indicted and summoned a Parliament without the King to take order with the wicked Clergie who had made many idolatrous Altars And the P. Prelate should have brought an argument to prove it unlawfull in foro Dei to set up the Tables and Conventions in our Kingdome when the Prelates were bringing in the grossest idolatrie into the Church a service for adoring of Altars of Bread the worke of the hand of the Baker a God more corruptible then any god of silver and gold And against Achabs will and minde 1 King 18 19. Elias causeth to kill the Priests of Baal according to Gods expresse law It is true it was extraordinary but no otherwise extraordinary then it is at this day When the supreme Magistrate will not execute the judgement of the Lord Those who made him supreme Magistrate under God who have under God soveraigne libertie to dispose of crownes and kingdomes are to execute the judgement of the Lord when wicked men make the law of God of none effect 1 Sam. 15. 32. so Samuel killed Hagage whom the Lord expresly commanded to be killed because Saul disobeyed the voyce of the Lord. I deny not but there is necessitie of a cleere warrant that the Magistrate neglect his duty either in not conveening the States or not executing the judgement of the Lord. 3. I see not how the conveening of a Parliament is extraordinarie to the States for none hath power ordinary when the King is dead or when he is distracted or captive in another land to conveene the Estates and Parliament but they only and in their defect by the law of Nature the people may conveene But 4. If they be essentially Iudges no lesse then the King as I have demonstrated to the impartiall Reader in the former Chapter I conceive though the State make a positive law for Orders cause that the King ordinarily conveene Parliaments Yet if we dispute the matter in the court of Conscience the Estates have intrinsecally because they are the Estates and essentially Iudges of the Land ordinary power to conveene themselves 1. Because when Moses by Gods rule hath appointed seventie men to be Catholike Iudges in the Land Moses upon his sole pleasure and will hath not power to restraine them in the exercise of judgment given them of God for as God hath given to any one Iudge power to judge righteous judgement though the King command the contrary so hath he given to him power to sit down in the gate or the bench when and where the necessitie of the oppressed people calleth for it For 1. the expresse commandement of God which saith to all Iudges Execute judgement in the morning involveth essentially a precept to all the Physicall actions without which it is impossible to execute judgement As namely if by a divine precept the Iudge must execute judgement ergo he must come to some publique place and he must cause partie and witnesses come before him and he must consider cognosce examine in the place of judgement things persons circumstances and so God who commandeth positive acts of judgeing commandeth the Iudges locomotive power and his naturall actions of compelling by the sword the parties to come before him even as Christ who commandeth his servants to preach commandeth that the Preacher and the People goe to Church and that he stand or sit in a place where all may heare and that he give himselfe to reading and meditating before he come to preach And if God command one Iudge to come to the place of judgement so doth he command seventie and so all Estates to conveen in the place of judgement It is objected That the Estates are not Iudges ordinary and habitually but only Iudges at some certaine occasions when the King for cogent and weighty causes calleth them and calleth them not to judge but to give him advise and counsell how to judge Ans 1. They are no lesse Iudges habitually then the King when the common affaires of the whole Kingdome necessitateth these Publique Watchmen to come together for even the King judgeth not actually but upon occasion 2. This is to beg the question to say that the Estates are not Iudges but when the King calleth them at such and such occasions for the Elders Princes and Heads of families and Tribes were Iudges ordinarie because they made the King And 2. the Kingdome by God yea and Church Iustice and Religion so far as they concerne the whole Kingdome are committed not to the keeping of the King only but to all the Iudges Elders and Princes of the Land And they are rebuked as evening wolves lyons oppressors Ezech. 22. 27. Zaca 3. 3. Esa 3. 14 15. Mic. 3. 1 2 3. when they oppresse the people in judgement So are they Deut.
1. 15 16 17. 2 Chron. 19. 6 7. made Iudges and therefore they are no more to be restrained not to conveene by the Kings power which is in this accumulative and auxiliarie not privative then they can be restrained in judgement and in pronouncing such a sentence as the King pleased and not such a sentence Because as they are to answer to God for unjust sentences so also for no just sentences and for not conveening to judge when Religion and Iustice which are fallen in the streets calleth for them 3. As God in a law of nature hath given to every man the keeping and selfe-preservation of himselfe and of his brother Caân ought in his place to be the keeper of Abel his brother So hath God committed the keeping of the Commonwealth by a positive law not to the King only because that is impossible Num. 11. 14 17. 2 Chron. 19. 1 2 3 4 5 6. 1 Chron. 27. 4. If the King had such a power as King and so from God he should have power to breake up the meeting of all Courts of Parliament Secret Councell and all inferior Iudicatures And when the Congregation of gods as Ps 82. in the midst of which the Lord standeth were about to pronounce just judgement for the oppressed and poere they might be hindred by the King and so they should be as just as the King maketh them and might pervert judgement and take away the righteousnesse of the righteous from him Esa 5. 23. because the King commandeth And the cause of the poore should not come before the Iudge when the King so commandeth And shall it excuse the Estates to say We could not judge the cause of the poore nor crush the Priests of Baal and the idolatrous Masse-Preltes because the King forbad us So might the King breake up the meeting of the Lords of Session when they were to decerne that Naboths vineyard should be restored to him and hinder the States to represse Tyranny And this were as much as if the States should say We made this man our King and with our good will we agree he shall be a Tyrant For if God gave it to him as a King we are to consent that he enjoy it 5. If Barclay and other flatterers have leave to make the Parliament but Counsellers and Advisers of the King and the King to be the only and sole Iudge 1. The King is by that same reason the sole Iudge in relation to all Iudges the contrary whereof is cleere Num. 11. 16. Deut 1. 15 16 17. 2 Chron. 19. 6. Rom. 13. 1 2. 1 Pet. 2. 13 14. Yea but say they the King when he sendeth an Ambassadour he may tye him to a written Commission and in so far as he exceedeth that he is not an Ambassadour and cleare it is that all inferiour Iudges 1 Pet. 2. 13 14. are but sent by the King ergo they are so Iudges as they are but messengers and are to adhere to the Royall pleasure of the Prince that sent them Ans 1. The Ambassadour is not to accept an unjust Ambassage that fighteth with the Law of nature 2. The Ambassadour and the Iudge differ the Ambassadour is the King and States Deputy both in his call to the Ambassage and also in the matter of the Ambassage for which cause he is not to transgresse what is given to him in Writ as a Rule but the inferiour Iudges and the high Court of Parliament though they were the Kings Deputies as the Parliament is in no sort his Deputy but he their Deputy Royall yet it is only in respect of their call not in respect of the matter of their Commission for the King may send the Iudge to judge in generall according to the Law and Iustice and Religion but he cannot depute the sentence and command the conscience of the Judge to prononnce such a sentence not such the inferiour Iudge in the act of judging is as independent and his conscience as immediatly subject to God as the King therefore the King owes to every sentence his approbative suffrage as King but not his either directive suffrage nor his imperative suffrage of absolute pleasure 6. If the King should sell his Country and bring in a forraigne Army the estates are to convene to take course for the safety of the Kingdome 7. If David exhort the Princes of Israel to helpe King Solomon in governing the Kingdome in building the Temple 2 Chron. 32. 3. Ezechiah tooke counsell with his Princes and his mighty men in the matter of holding off the Assyrians who were to invade the Land if David 1 Chron. 13. 1 2 3 4. consult with the Captaines of thousands and hundreds to bring the Arke of God to Kireath jearim if Solomon 1 King 8. 1. Assemble the Elders of Israel and all the Heads of the Tribes and the chief of the fathers to bring the Arke of the Tabernacle to the congregation of the Lord. And Achab gather together the States of Israel in a matter that nearely concerned Religion If the Elders and people 1 King 20. 8. counsell and decree that King Achab should hearken to Benhadad King of Syria and if Ahasuerus make no Decrees but with consent of his Princes Ester 1. 21. nor Darius any Act without his Nobles and Princes if Hamor and Schechem Genes 34. 20. would not make a Covenant with Iacobs Sons without the consent of the men of the City and Ephron the Hittite would not sell Abraham a buriall place in his Land without the consent of the children of Heth Gen. 23. 10. Then must the estates have a power of judging with the King or Prince in matters of Religion Iustice and Government which concerne the whole Kingdome but the former is true by the Records of Scripture ergo so is the latter 8. The men of Ephraim complaine that Iephtah had gone to warre against the children of Ammon without them and hence rose warre betwixt the men of Ephraim and the men of Gilead Iud. 12. 1 2 3. and the men of Israel âiercely contend with the men of Iudah because they brought King David home againe without them pleading that they were therein dispised 2 Sam. 19. 41 42 43. which evinceth that the whole States have hand in matters of publick government that concerne all the Kingdome and when there is no King Iudg. 20. The chiefe of the people and of all the Tribes goe out in battell against the children of Benjamin 9. These who make the King and so have power to unmake him in the case of Tyranny must be above the King in power of Government but the Elders and Princes made both David and Saul Kings 10. There is not any who say that the Princes and people 1 Sam. 14. did not right in rescuing innocent Ionathan from death against the Kings Will and his Law 11. The speciall ground of Royalists is to make the King the absolute supreame giving all life and
power to the Parliament and States and of meere grace convening them So Ferne the Author of Ossorianum p. 69. but this ground is false because the Kings power is fiduciary and put in his hand upon trust and must be ministeriall and borrowed from these who put him in trust and so his power must be lesse and derived from the Parliament but the Parliament hath no power in trust from the King because the time was when the man who is the King had no power and the Parliament had the same power that they now have and now when the King hath received power from them they have the whole power that they had before That is to make Lawes and resigned no power to the King but to execute Lawes and his convening of them is an Act of Royall Duty which he oweth to the Paliament by vertue of his Office and is not an act of grace for an act of grace is an act of free Will and what the King doth of free Will he may not doe and so he may never convene a Parliament But when David Salomon Asa Ezekiah Iehosaphat Achas convened Parliaments they convened Parliaments as Kings and so Ex debito virtute officii out of debt and Royall Obligation and if the King as the King be Lex animata a breathing and living Law the King as King must doe by obligation of Law what he doth as King and not from spontaneous and Arbitrary grace 2. If the Scripture holds forth to us a King in Jsrael and two Princés and Elders who made the King and had power of life and death as we have seene then is there in Israel Monarchy tempered with Aristocracy and if there were Elders and Rulers in every City as the Scripture saith here was also Aristocracy and Democracy And for the warrant of the power of the Estates I appeale to Iurists and to approved Authors Argu. l. aliud 160. § 1. De Iur. Reg. l. 22. Mortuo de fidei l. 11. 14. ad Mum. l. 3. 1. 4. Sigonius De Rep. Iudaeor l. 6. c. 7. Cornelius Bertramo c. 12. Iunius Brutus Vindic. contra Tyran § 2. Author Libelli de jur Magistrat in subd q. 6. Althus Politic. c. 18. Calvin Institut l. 4. c. 20. Pareus Coment in Rom. 13. Pet. Martyr in Lib. Iudic. c. 3. Ioan. Marianus de rege Lib. 1. c. 7. Hottoman de jure Antiq. Regni Gallici l. 1. c. 12. Buchanan De jure Regni apud Scotos Obj. The King after a more noble way representeth the people then the Estates doth for the Princes and Commissioners of Parliament have all their power from the people and the peoples power is concentricated in the King Ans The Estates taken collectively doe represent the people both in respect of Office and of persons because they stand Iudges for them for many represent many ratione numeri officii better then one doeth The King doth unproperly represent the people though the power for actuall execution of Lawes be more in the King yet a legislative power is more in the Estates Neither will it follow that if the Estates of a Kingdome doe any thing but counsell a King they must then command him for a legall and judiciall advice hath influence in the effect to make it a Law not on the Kings Will to cause him give the being of a Law to that which without his Will is no Law for this supponeth that he is only Iudge Obj. What power the people reserveth they reserve it to themselves in unitate as united in a Parliament and therefore what they doe out of a Parliament is tumultous Ans I deny the consequence they reserve the power of selfe preservation out of a Parliament and a power of convening in Parliament for that effect that they may by Common Counsell defend themselves QUEST XXII Whether the power of the King as King be absolute or dependent and limited by Gods first mould and paterne of a King DOctor Ferne sheweth us it was never his purpose to plead for absolutenesse of an Arbitrary commandement free from all Morall restraint laid on the power by Gods Law but only he striveth for a power in the King that cannot be resisted by the subject But truely we never disputed with Royalists of any absolute power in the King free from Morall subjection to Gods Law 1. Because any bond that Gods Law imposeth on the King it commeth wholly from God and the nature of a Divine Law and not from any voluntary contract or covenant either expresse or tacito betwixt the King and the people who made him King for if he faile against such a covenant though he should exceed the cruelty of a King or a man and become a Lion and a Nero a Mother-killer he should in all his inhumanity and breach of covenant be countable to God not to any man on earth 2. To dispute with Royalists if Gods Law lay any Morall restraint upon the King nor to dispute whether the King be a rationall man or no and whether he can sin against God and shall cry in the day of Gods wrath if he be a wicked Prince Hills fall on us and cover us as it is Revel 6. 15 16. and whether Tophet be prepared for all workers of iniquity and certainly I justifie the Schoole-men in that question Whether or no God could have created a rationall creature such a one as by nature is impeccable and not naturally capable of sinne before God if Royalists dispute this question of their absolute Monarch they are wicked Divines 2. We plead not at this time saith the Prelate stealing from Grotius Barclaius Arnisaeus who spake it with more sinewes of reason for a masterly or despoticall or rather a slavishing Soveraignty which is Dominium herile an absolute power such as the great Turke this day exerciseth over his subjects and the King of Spaine hath over and in his territories without Europe we maintain only regiam potestatem quae fundatur in paterna such royall fatherly Soveraignty as we live under blessed be God and our predecessors This saith he as it hath its Royall Prerogative inherent to the Crowne naturally and inseparable from it so it trencheth not upon the liberty of the person or the property of the goods of the subject but in and by the lawfull and just acts of jurisdiction Ans 1. Here is another absolute power disclaimed to be in the King he hath not such a masterly and absolute liberty as the Turke hath Why Iohn P. P. in such a tender and high point as concerneth soule and body of subjects in three Christian Kingdomes you should have taught us 1. What bonds and fetters any covenant or paction betwixt the King and people layeth upon the King why he hath not as King the power of the great Turke I will tell you The Great Turke may command any of his subjects to leape into a mountaine of fire and burne himselfe quick in
conscience of obedience to his Law And what if the subject disobey the Great Turk if the Great Turke be a lawfull Prince as you will not deny And if the King of Spaine should command forraine conquered slaves to doe the like By your Doctrine neither the one nor the other were obliged to resist by violence but to pray or fly which both were to speake to stones and were like the man who in case of ship-wrack made his devotion of praying to the waves of the sea not to enter the place of his bâd and drowne him But a Christian King hath not this power Why and a Christian King by Royalists doctrine hath a greater power then the Turke if greater can be he hath power to command his subjects to cast themselves into Hell-fire that is to presse on them a service wherein it is written Adore the worke of mens hands in the place of the living God and this is worse then the Turkes commandement of bodily burning quick And what is left to the Christian Subjects in this case is the very same and no other then is left to the Turkish and forraigne Spanish subject Either flee or make prayers There is no more left to us 2. Many Royalists maintaine that England is a conquered Nation Why then see what power by law of Conquest the King of Spaine hath over his slaves the same must the King of England have over his subjects For to Royalists a title by Conquest to a Crown is as lawfull as a title by birth or election For lawfulnesse in relation to Gods law is placed in an indivisible point if we regard the essence of lawfulnesse And therefore there is nothing left to England but that all Protestants who take the oath of a Protestant King to defend the true Protestant Religion should after prayers conveyed to the King through the fingers of Prelates and Papists leave the Kingdome empty to Papists Prelates and Atheists 3. All power restrained that it cannot arise from ten degrees to foureteen from the Kingly power of Saul 1 Sam. 8. 9 11. to the Kingly power of the Great Turke to fourteen 1. must either be restrained by Gods law 2. or by Mans law or 3. by the innate goodnes and grace of the Prince or 4. by the providence of God A restraint from Gods law is vaine for it is no question between us and Royalists but God hath laid a morall restraint on Kings and all men that they have not morall power to sinne against God 2. Is the restraint laid on by mans law What law of man 1. The Royalist saith 1. The King as King is above all law of man Then say I no law of man can hinder the Kings power of ten to arise to the Turkish power of foureteen 2. All law of man as it is mans law is seconded either with Ecclesiasticall and spirituall coaction such as Excommunication or with Civill and temporall coaction such as is the Sword if it be violated But Royalists deny that either the sword of the Church in Excommunication or the Civill sword should be drawn against the King 3. This law of man should be produced by this profound Iurist the P. Prelate who mocketh at all the Statists and Lawyers of Scotland It is not a covenant betwixt the King and People at his Coronation for though there were any such covenant yet the breach of it doth binde before God but not before man nor can I see or any man else how a law of man can lay a restraint on the Kings power of two degrees to cancell it within a Law more then on a power of ten or fourteene degrees If the King of Spaine the lawfull Soveraigne of those over-European people as Royalists say have a power of foureteene degrees over those conquered Subjects as a King I see not how he hath not the like power over his own Subjects of Spaine to wit even of Foureteen for what agreeth to a King as a King and Kingly power from God he hath as King he hath it in relation to all Subjects except it be taken from him in relation to some Subjects and given by some law of God or in relation to some other Subjects Now no man can produce any such law 4. The nature of the goodnesse and grace of the Prince cannot lay bonds on the King to cancell his power that he should not usurpe the power of the King of Spaine toward his over-Europeans 1. Royalists plead for a power due to the King as King and that from God such as Saul had 1 Sam. 8. 9 11. 1 Sam. 10. 25. But this power should be a power of grace and goodnesse in the King as a good man not in the King as a King and due to him by law And so the King should have his Legall power from God to be a Tyrant But if he were not a Tyrant but should lay limits on his own power through the goodnesse of his own nature No thankes to Royalists that he is not a Tyrant For actu primo and as he is a King as they say he is a Tyrant having from God a Tyrannous power of ten degrees as Saul had 1 Sam. 8. and why not of foureteen degrees as well as the Great Turke or the King of Spaine if he use it not it is his own personall goodnesse not his officiall and Royall power 4. The rastraint of Providence laid by God upon any power to doe ill hindreth only the exercise of the power not to breake forth in as Tyrannous acts as ever the King of Spaine or the great Turke can exercise toward any Yea Providence layeth Physicall restraint and possibly morall sometimes upon the exercise of that power that Devils and the most wicked men of the world hath but Royalists must shew us that Providence hath laid bounds on the Kings power and made it fatherlie and not masterly so that if it the power exceed bounds of fatherly power and passe over to the dispoticall and masterly power it may be resisted by the Subjects But that they will not say 4. This paternall and fatherly power that God hath given to Kings as Royalists teach it trencheth not upon the libertie of the Subjects and propertie of their goods but in and by lawfull and just acts of Jurisdiction saith the P. Prelate Well Then it may trench upon the libertie of soule and body of the Subjects but in and by lawfull and just acts of of jurisdiction But none are to judge of these acts of Iurisdiction whether they be just or not just but the King the only Iudge of supreme and absolute authoritie and power And if the King command the idolatrous service in the obtruded Service-booke it is a lawfull and a just act of jurisdiction For to Royalists who make the Kings power absolute all acts are so just to the Subject though he command Idolatrie and Turcisme that we are to suffer only and not to resist 5. The
Prelate presumeth that Fatherly power is absolute But so if a father murther his childe he is not comptable to the Magistrate therefore but being absolute over his children only the Judge of the World not any power on earth can punish him 6. We have proved that the Kings power is paternall or fatherly only by analogie and improperly 7. What is this Prerogative Royall we shall heare by and by 8. There is no restraint on Earth laid upon this fatherly power of the King but Gods law which is a morall restraint If then the King challenge as great a power as the Turke hath he only sinneth against God but no mortall man on earth may controll him as Royalists teach and who can know what power it is that Royalists plead for whether a dispoticall power of Lordly power or a fatherly power If it be a power above law such as none on earth may resist it it is no matter whether it be above law of two degrees or of twenty even to the Great Turkes power These goe for Oracles at Court Tacitus Principi summum rerum arbitrium Dii dederunt subditis obsequii gloria relicta est Seneca Indigna digna habenda sunt Rex quae facit Salustius Impunâ quidvis facere id est Regem esse As if to be a King and to be a God who cannot erre were all one But certainly these Authors are taxing the Licence of Kings and not commanding their power But that God hath given no absolute and unlimited power to a King above the law is evident by this Arg. 1. He who in his first institution is appointed of God by office even when he sitteth on the throne to take heed to read on a written copie of Gods law that he may learne to feare the Lord his God and keep all the words of this law c. He is not of absolute power above law But Deut. 17. 18 19 the King as King while he sitteth on the Throne is to doe this Ergo the Assumption is cleare for this is the law of the King as King and not of a man as a man But as he sitteth on the Throne he is to read on the booke of the Law and ver 20. Because he is King his heart is not to be lifted up above his brethren And as King v. 16. he is not to multiply horses c. So Polititians make this argument good They say Rex est lex viva animata loquens lex The King as King is a living breathing and speaking Law And there be three reasons of this 1. If all were innocent persons and could doe no violence one to another the Law would rule all and all men would put the Law in execution agendo sponte by doing right of their own accord and there should be no need of a King to compell men to do right But now because men are by nature averse to good lawes therefore there was need of a Ruler who by office should reduce the Law into practice and so is the King the Law reduced in practice 2. The Law is ratio sive mens the reason or minde free from all perturbations of anger lust hatred and cannot be tempted to ill and the King as a man may be tempted by his own passions and therefore as King he commeth by office out of himselfe to reason and law and so much as he hath of Law so much of a King and in his remotest distance from Law and Reason he is a Tyrant 3. Abstracta concretis sunt puriora perfectiora Iustice is perfecter then a just man Whitenes perfecter then the white wall so the neerer the King comes to a Law for the which he is a King the neerer to a King Propter quod unumquodque tale id ipsum magis tale Therefore Kings throwing lawes to themselves as men whereas they should have conformed themselves to the Law have erred Cambyses the sonne of Cyrus because he loved his own sister would have the mariage of the brother with the sister lawfull Anaxarchus said to Alexander grieved in minde that he had killed Clytus Regi ac Iovi Themin atque Iustitiam assidere Iudgement and Righteousnesse did alway accompanie God and the King in all they doe But some to this purpose say better The Law rather then the King hath power of life and death Arg. 2. The power that the King hath I speak not of his gifts he hath it from the people who maketh him King as I proved before but the people have neither formally nor virtually any power absolute to give the King all the power they have is a legall and naturall power to guide themselves in peace and godlinesse and save themselves from unjust violence by the benefit of Rulers Now an absolute power above a Lawis a power to doe ill and to destroy the people and this the people have not themselves it being repugnant to nature that any should have a naturall power in themselves to destroy themselves or to inflict upon themselves an evill of punishment to destruction Though therefore it were given which yet is not granted that the people had resigned all power that they have into their King yet if he use a Tyrannicall power against the people for their hurt and destruction he useth a power that the people never gave him and against the intention of nature for they invested a man with power to be their father and defender for their good And he faileth against the peoples intention in usurping aâ over power to himselfe which they never gave never had never could give for they cannot give what they never had and power to destroy themselves they never had 3. Arg. All Royall Power whereby a King is a King and differenced from a private man armed with no power of the sword is from God But absolute power to Tyranize over the people and to destroy them is not a power from God Ergo there is not any such royall power absolute The proposition is evident because that God who maketh Kings and disposeth of Crownes Prov. 8. 15 16. 2 Sam. 12. 7. Daniel 4. 32. must also create and give that Royall and Officiall power by which a King is a King 1. Because God created man he must be the Author of his reasonable soule if God be the Author of things he must be the Author of their formes by which they are that which they are 2. All power is Gods 1 Chro. 29. 11 Matth. 6. 13. Ps 62. 11. Ps 68. 35. Dan. 2. 37. And that absolute power to Tyrannize is not from God 1. Because if this Morall power to sinne be from God it being formally wickednesse God must be the Author of sinne 2. What ever Morall power is from God the exercises of that power and the acts thereof must be from God and so these acts must be Morally good and just for if the Morall power be of God as the Author so must the acts
Leopard or a Nero and a Julian then hath God given actu primo a power to a King as King to inslave the people and slock of God redeemed by the blood of God as the slaves among the Romans and Iews who were so under their masters as their bondage was a plague of God and the lives of the people of God under Pharaoh who compelled them to work in brick and clay 2. Though he cut the throats of the people of God as the Lionnesse Queen Mary did and command an Army of souldiers to come and burn the Cities of the Land and kill man wife and children yet in so doing he doth the part of a King so as you cannot resist him as a man and obey him as a King but must give your necks to him upon this ground because this absolute power of his is ordained of God and there is no power even to kill and destroy the innocent but it is of God so saith Paul Rom. 13. If we beleeve Court-Prophets or rather Lying-Spirits who perswade the King of Britain to make war against his three Dominions Now it is clear that the distinction of bound and free continued in Israel even under the most tyrannous Kings 2 Kings 4. 1. yea even when the Iews were captives under Ahasuerus Esther 7. 4. And what difference should there be between the people of God under their own Kings and when they were captives under Tyrants serving wood and stone and false gods as was threatned as a curse in the Law Deut. 28. 25 36 64 68. If their own Kings by Gods appointment have the same absolute power over them and if he be a Tyrant actu primo that is if he be indued with absolute power and so have power to play the Tyrant then must the people of God be actu primo slaves and under absolute subjection for they are relatives as lord and servant conquerour and captive It is true they say Kings by office are fathers they cannot put forth in action their power to destroy I answer it is their goodnesse of nature that they put not forth in action all their absolute power to destroy which God hath given them as Kings and therefore thanks are due to their goodnesse for that they do not actu secundo play the Tyrant for Royalists teach that by vertue of their office God hath given to them a Royall power to destroy Ergo The Lords people are slaves under them though they deal not with them as slaves but that hindereth not but the people by condition are slaves so many Conquerours of old did deal kindely with these slaves whom they took in war and dealt with them as sons but as Conquerours they had power to sell them to kill them to put them to work in brick and clay so say I here Royall power and a King cannot be a blessing and actu primo a favour of God to the people for the which they are to pray when they want a King that they may have one or to praise God when they have one But a King must be a curse and a judgement if he be such a creature as essentially and in the intention and nature of the thing it self hath by office a Royall power to destroy and that from God for then the people praying Lord give us a King should pray make us slaves Lord take our Libertie and power from us and give a power illimited and absolute to one man by which he may if he please waste us and destroy us as all the bloody Emperours did the people of God Surely I see not but they should pray for a temptation and to be led in temptation when they pray God to give them a King and therefore such a power is a vain thing Argum. 5. A power contrary to justice 2. To peace and the good of the people 3. That looketh to no law as a rule and so is unreasonable and forbidden by the Law of God and the Civill Law L. 15. filius de condit Instit cannot be a lawfull power and cannot constitute a lawfull Iudge but an absolute and unlimited power is such How can the Iudge be the Minister of God for good to the people Rom. 13. 4 If he have such a power as a King given him of God to destroy and waste the people Argum. 6. An absolute power is contrary to nature and so unlawfull for it maketh the people give away the naturall power of defending their life against illegall and cruell violence and maketh a man who hath need to be ruled and lawed by nature above all rule and law and one who by nature can sin against his brethren such a one as cannot sin against any but God onely and maketh him a Lion and an unsociall man What a man is Nero whose life is poesie paintry Domitian only an Archer Valentinian only a Painter Charles the 9th of France only an Hunter Alphonsus Dux Ferrariensis only an Astronomer Philippe of Macedo only a Musitian and all because they are Kings This our King denyeth when he saith Art 13. There is power legally placed in the Parliament more then sufficient to prevent and restraine the power of Tyranny But if they had not power to play the Lions it is not much that Kings are Musitians Hunters c. 7. God in making a King to preserve his people should give liberty without all politick restraint for one man to destroy many which is contrary to Gods end in the fift Commandement if one have absolute power to destroy soules and bodies of many thousands 8. If the Kings of Israel and Iudah were under censures and rebukes of the Prophets and sinned against God and the people in rejecting these rebukes and in persecuting the Prophets and were under this Law not to take their neighbours wife or his Vineyard from him against his will and the inferiour Iudges were to accept the persons of none in Iudgement small or great and if the King yet remaine a brother notwithstanding he be a King then is his power not above any Law nor absolute for what reason 1. He should be under one Law of God to be executed by men and not under another Law Royalists are to shew a difference from Gods Word 2. His neighbours brother or subjects may by violence keepe back their Vineyards and chastity from the King Naboth may by force keepe his owne Vineyard from Achab by the Lawes of Scotland if a subject obtaine a Decree of the King of violent possession of the Heritages of a subject he hath by Law power to cast out force apprehend and deliver to prison these who are Tenants brooking these Lands by the Kings personall Commandement If a King should force a Damsell she may violently resist and by violence and bodily opposing of violence to violence defend her owne chastity Now that the Prophets have rebuked Kings is evident Samuel rebuked Saul Nathan David Elias King Achab.
sinfull man which must be idolatrie But to doe Royall acts out of an absolute power above Law and Reason is such a power as agreeth to God as is evident in positive lawes and in acts of Gods meere pleasure where we see no reason without the Almightie for the one side rather than for the other as Gods forbidding the eating of the tree of knowledge maketh the eating sinne and contrary to reason but there is no reason in the object for if God should command eating of that tree not to eat should be also sinne So Gods choosing Peter to glory and his refusing Judas is a good and a wise act but not good or wise from the object of the act but from the sole wise pleasure of God because if God had chosen Judas to glory and rejected Peter that act had been no lesse a good and a wise act then the former For when there is no law in the object but only Gods will the act is good and wise seeing infinite wisdome cannot be separated from the perfect will of God but no act of a mortall King having sole and only will and neither law nor reason in it can be a lawfull a wise or a good act Assert 2. There is something which may be called a Prerogative by way of dispensation There is a threefold dispensation one of power another of justice and a third of grace A dispensation of power is when the will of the Law-giver maketh that act to be no sinne which without that will would have been sinne As if Gods commanding Will had not interveened the Israelites borrowing the eare-rings and jewels of the Egyptians and not restoring them had been a breach of the 8 Commandement and in this sense no King hath a Prerogative to dispence with a Law 2. There is a dispensation of law and justice not flowing from any Prerogative but from the true intent of the Law And thus the King yea the inferiour Judge is not to take the life of a man whom the letter of the Law would condemne because the Justice of the Law is the intent and life of the Law and where nothing is done against the intent of the Law there is no breach of any Law The Third is not unlike unto the Second when the King exponeth the Law by Grace and this is twofold 1. Either when he exponeth it of his wisdome and mercifull nature inclined to mercy and justice yet according to the just intent native sense and scope of the Law considering the occasion circumstances of the fact and comparing both with the Law aud this dispensation of grace I grant to the King As when the tribute is great and the man poor the King may dispense with the custome 2. The Law saith In a doubtfull case the Prince may dispense because it is presumed the Law can have no sense against the principall sense and intent of the Law But there is another dispensation that Royalists doe plead for and that is a power in the King ex mera gratia absolutae potestatis regalis Out of meere grace of absolute Royall power to pardon crimes which Gods law saith should be punished by death Now this they call a power of Grace but it is not a power of meere Grace But 1. Though Princes may doe some things of Grace yet not of meere Grace because what Kings doe as Kings and by vertue of their Royall office that they do ex debito officii by debt and right of their office and that they cannot but do it not being arbitrarie to them to doe the debtfull acts of their office But what they doe of meere grace that they doe as good men and not as Kings and that they may not doe As for example Some Kings out of their pretended prerogative have given foure pardons to one man for foure murthers Now this the King might have left undone without sinne But of meere grace he pardoned the murtherer who killed foure men But the truth is the King killed the three last because he hath no power in point of Conscience to dispute with blood Num. 35. 31. Gen. 9. 6. These pardons are acts of meere grace to one man but acts of blood to the Communitie 2. Because the Prince is the Minister of God for the good of the subject and therefore the Law saith He cannot pardon and free the guilty of the punishment due to him Contra l. quod favore F. de leg l. non ideo minus F. de proc l. legata inutiliter F. de lega 1. And the reason is cleare He is but the minister of God a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evill And if the Judgement be the Lords not mans not the Kings as it is indeed Deut. 1. 17. 2 Chron. 19. 6. he cannot draw the sword against the innocent nor absolve the guiltie except he would take on himselfe to carve and dispose of that which is proper to his master Now certaine it is God only univocally and essentially as God is the Judge Ps 75. 7. and God only and essentially King Ps 97. 1. Ps 99. 1. and all men in relation to him are meere ministers servants legates deputies and in relation to him equivocally and improperly Iudges or Kings and meere created and breathing shadowes of the power of the King of Kings And looke as the Scribe following his own device and writing what sentence he pleaseth is not an officer of the Court in that point nor the pen and servant of the Iudge so are Kings and all Iudges but forged intruders and bastard Kings and Iudges in so far as they give out the sentences of men and are not the very mouthes of the King of Kings to pronounce such a sentence as the Almighty himselfe would doe if he were sitting on the Throne or Bench. 3. If the King from any supposed prerogative Royall may doe acts of meere grace without any warrant of Law because he is above Law by office then also may he doe acts of meere rigorous Iustice and kill and destroy the innocent out of the same supposed Prerogative For Gods word equally tyeth him to the place of a meere minister in doing good as in executing wrath on evill doers Rom. 13. 3 4. And reason would say he must be as absolute in the one as in the other seeing God tieth him to the one as to the other by his office and place yea by this acts of Iustice to ill-doers and acts of reward to well-doers shall be arbitrary morally and by vertue of office to the King and the word Prerogative Royall saith this for the word Prerogative is a supreme power absolute that is loosed from all Law and so from all reason of Law and depending on the Kings meer and naked pleasure and will and the word Royall or Kingly is an Epithete of office and of a Iudge a created and limited Iudge and so it must tye this
all Iudges and if either King or Iudge kill a man for the violation of the Letter of the Law when the intent of the Law contradicteth the rigid sentence he is guilty of innocent blood If that learned Ferdin Vasquez be consulted he is against this distinction of a power ordinary and extraordinary in men and certainly if you give to a King a Prerogative above a Law it is a power to do evill as well as good but there is no lawfull power to do evill and Doct. Ferne is plunged in a contradiction by this for he saith Sect. 9. pag. 58. I ask when these Emperours took away lives and goods at pleasure Was that power ordained by God No. But an illegall will and Tyranny But Pag. 61. The power though abused to execute such a wicked commandment is an Ordinance of God It is objected 1. For the lawfulnesse of an absolute Monarchy The Easterne Persian and Turkes Monarchy maketh absolute Monarchy lawfull for it is an Oath to a lawfull obligatory thing and judgment Ezech. 17. 16 18. is denounced against Iudah for breaking the Oath of the King of Babylon and it is called the Oath of God and doubtlesse was an Oath of absolute subjection and the power Rom. 13. was absolute and yet the Apostle calleth it an Ordinance of God The soveraignty of Masters over servanes was absolute and the Apostle exhorteth not to renounce that title as to ridged but exhorteth to moderation in the use of it Ans That the Persian Monarchy was absolute is but a facto ad jus and no rule of a lawfull Monarchy but that it was absolute I beleeve not Darius who was an absolute Prince as many think but I thinke not would gladly have delivered Daniel from the power of a Law and Dan. 6. 14. And he set his heart on Daniel to deliver him and he laboured till the going downe of the Sun to deliver him and was so sorrowfull that he could not breake through a Law that he interdicted himselfe of all pleasures of Musitians and if ever he had used the absolutenesse of a Prerogative Royall I conceive he would have done it in this yet he could not prevaile But in things not established by Law I conceive Darius was absolute as to me is cleare Daniel 6. v. 24. but absolute not by a Divine Law but De facto quod transierat in jus humanum by fact which was now become a lrw 2. It was Gods Oath and God tyed Iudah to absolute subjection ergo people may tye themselves It followeth not except you could make good this inference God is absolute ergo the King of Babylon may lawfully be absolute this is a blasphemous consequence 2. That Iudah was to sweare the Oath of absolute subjection in the latitude of the absolutenesse of the Kings of Chaldea I would see proved their absolutenesse by the Chaldean Lawes was to command murther Idolatry Daniel 3. 4 5. and to make wicked Lawes Dan. 6. v. 7 8. I beleeve Ieremiah commanded not absolute subjection in this sence But the contrary Ier. 10. v. 11. They were to sweare the Oath in the point of suffering but what if the King of Chaldea had commanded them all the whole holy Seed men women and children out of his Royall power to give their neckes all in one day to his sword were they obliged by this Oath to prayers and teares and only to suffer and was it against the Oath of God to defend themselves by Armes I beleeve the Oath did not oblige to such absolute subjection and though they had taken Armes in their owne lawfull defence according to the Law of Nature they had not broken the Oath of God The Oath was not a tye to an absolute subjection of all and every one either to worship Idols or then to fly or suffer death Now the Service-booke commanded in the Kings absolute authority all Scotland to commit grosser Idolatry in the intention of the work if not in the intention of the Commander then was in Babylon We read not that the King of Babylon pressed the consciences of Gods people to Idolatry or that all should either fly the Kingdome and leave their inheritances to Papists and Prelates or then come under the mercy of the sword of Papists and Atheists by sea or land 3. God may command against the Law of Nature and Gods Commandement maketh subjection lawfull so as men may not now being under that Law of God defend themselves What then Ergo we owe subjection to absolute Princes and their power must be a lawfull power it no waies is consequent Gods Commandement by Ieremiah made the subjection of Iudah lawfull and without that Commandement they might have taken Armes against the King of Babylon as they did against the Philistines and Gods Commandement maketh the Oath lawfull As suppone Ireland would all rise in Armes and come and destroy Scotland the King of Spain leading then we were by this Argument not to resist 4. Iâ is denyed that the power Rom. 13. as absolute is Gods ordinance And I deny utterly that Christ and his Apostles did sweare non-resistence absolute to the Roman Emperour Obj. 2. It sesmeth 1 Pet. 2. 18 19. if well doing be mistaken by the reason and judgement of an absolute Monarch for ill doing and we punished yet the Magistrates will is the command of a reasonable will and so to be submitted unto because such a one suffereth by Law where the Monarches Will is a Law and in this case some power must judge Now in an absolute Monarchy all judgement resolveth in the Will of the Monarch as the supreame Law and if Ancestors have submitted themselves by Oath there is no repeale or redresment Ans Who ever was the Author of this Treatise he is a bad defender of the defensive warres in England for all the lawfulnesse of warres then must depend on this 1. Whether England be a conquered Nation at the beginning 2. If the Law-will of an absolute Monarch or a Nero be a reasonable Will to which we must submit in suffering ill I see not but we must submit to a reasonable will if it be reasonable will in doing ill no lesse then in suffering ill 3. Absolute Will in absolute Monarches is no Iudge De jure but an unlawfull and a usurping Iudge 4. 1 Pet. 2. 18 19. Servants are not commanded simply to suffer I can prove suffering formally not to fall under any Law of God but only patient suffering I except Christ who was under a peculiar commandement to suffer But servants upon supposition that they are servants and buffeted unjustly by their Masters are by the Apostle Peter commanded v. 20. to suffer patiently But it doth not bind up a servants hand to defend his owne life with weapons if his Master invade him without cause to kill him otherwise if God call him to suffer he is to suffer in the manner and way as Christ did not reviling not
almes though it should proceed from mercie in the Prince Psal 72. 13. but an act of Royall debt 3. The P. Prelate objecteth The most you claime to Parliaments is a coordinate power which in law and reason run in equall tearmes In Law par in parem non habet imperium an equall cannot judge an equall much lesse may an inferiour usurpeto judge a superiour Our Lord knew gratiâ visionis the woman taken in adulterie to be guilty bat he would not scntence her to teach us not improbably not to be both Judge and Witnesse The Parliament are Judges accusers and witnesses against the King in their owne cause against the Imperiall lawes Ans 1. The Parliament is coordinate ordinarily with the King in the power of making Lawes but the coordination on the Kings part is by derivation on the Parliaments part originaliter fontaliter as in the fountaine 2. In ordinarie there is coordination but if the King turne Tyrant the Estates are to use their fountaine-power And that of the Law Par in parem c. is no better from his Pen that stealeth all he hath then from Barclaius Grotius Arnisaeus Blackwood c. It is cold and sowre We hold the Parliament that made the King at Hebron to be above their own creature the King Barclaius saith more acurately l. 5 cont Monarch p. 129. It is absurd that the People should both be subject to the King and command the King also Ans It is not absurd that a Father naturall as a private man should be subject to his Sonne even that Jesse and his elder brother the Lord of all the rest be subject to David their King Royalists say Our late Queen being supreme Magistrate might by Law have put to death her own husband for adulterie or murther 2. The Parliament should not be both Accuser Iudge and Witnesse in their own cause 1. It is the Cause of Religion of God of Protestants and of the whole people 2. The oppressed accuse there is no need of witnesses in raising armes against the Subjects 3. The P. Prelate could not object this if against the Imperiall laws the King were both Partie and Iudge in his own cause and in these acts of arbitrarie power which he hath done through bad counsell in wronging Fundamentall lawes raising armes against his subjects bringing in forraigne enemies into both his Kingdomes c. Now this is properly the cause of the King as he is a man and his owne cause not the cause of God and by no Law of nature reason or Imperiall Statutes can he be both Iudge and party 4. If the King be sole supreame Iudge without any fellow sharers in power 1. He is not obliged by Law to follow Counsell or hold Parliaments for Counsell is not Command 2. It is unpossible to limit him even in the exercises of his power which yet Dr. Ferne saith cannot be said for if any of his power be retrinched God is robbed saith Maxwell 3. He may by Law play the Tyrant gratis Ferne objecteth § 7. pag. 26. The King is a fundamentall with the Estates now foundations are not to be stirred or removed Ans The King as King inspired with Law is a fundamentall and his power is not to be stirred but as a man wasting his people he is a destruction to the house and community and not a fundamentall in that notion Some object The three Estates as men and looking to their owne ends not to Law and the publick good are not fundamentalls and are to be judged by the King Ans By the people and the conscience of the people they are to be judged Obj. But the people also doe judge as corrupt men and not as the people and a Politique Body providing for their owne safety Ans I grant all when God will bring a vengeance on Jerusalem Prince and people both are hardened to their owne destruction Now God hath made all the three in every Government where there is Democracy there is some chosen ones resembling an Aristocracy and some one for order presiding in Democraticall courts resembling a King In Aristocracy as in Holland there is somewhat of Democracy the people have their Commissioners and one Duke or Generall as theâ Prince of Orange is some âmbrage of Royalty and in Monarchy there are the three Estates of Parliament and these containe the three Estates and so somewhat of the three formes of Government and there is no one Government just that hath not some of all three powre and absolute Monarchy is Tyranny unmixed Democracy is confusion untempered Aristocracy is factious Dominion and a limited Monarchy hath from Democracy respect to publick good without confusion From Aristocracy safety in multitude of Counsells without factious emulation and so a barre laid on Tyranny by the joynt powers of many and from Soveraignty union of many children in one father and all the three thus contempered have their owne sweet fruits through Gods blessing and their owne diseases by accident and through mens corruption and neither reason nor Scripture shall warrant any one in its rigid purity without mixture And God having chosen the best government to bring men fallen in sinne to happinesse must warrant in any one a mixture of all three as in mixt bodies the foure Elements are reduced to a fit temper resulting of all the foure where the acrimony of all the foure first qualities is broken and the good of all combined in one The King as the King is an unerring and living Law and by grant of Barclay of old was one of excellent parts and noble through vertue and goodnesse and the goodnesse of a father as a father of a tutor as a tutor of a head as a head of a husband as a husband doe agree to the King as the King so as King he is the Law it selfe commanding governing saving 2. His Will as King or his Royall Will is reason conscience Law 3. This Will is politickly present when his person is absent in all Parliaments Courts and inferiour Iudicatures 4. The King as King cannot doe wrong or violence to any 5. Amongst the Romanes the name King and Tyrant were common to one thing 1. Because de facto some of their Kings were Tyrants in respect of their Dominion rather then Kings 2. Because he who was a Tyrant De facto should have been and was a King too de jure 6. It is not lawfull to either disobey or resist a King as a King no more then it is lawfull to disobey a good Law 7. What violence what unjustice and excesse of passion the King mixeth in with his Acts of Government are meerely accidentall to a King as King for because men by their owne innate goodnesse will not yea Morally cannot doe that which is lawfull and just one to another and doe naturally since the fall of man violence one to another therefore if there had not been sin there should not have been
need of a King more then there should have beene need of a Tutor to defend the child whose father is not dead or of a Physitian to cure sicknesse where there is health for remove sinne and there is neither death nor sicknesse but because sinne is entered into the world God devised as a remedy of violence and unjustice a living rationall breathing Law called a King a Iudge a Father now the aberrations violence and oppression of this thing which is the living rationall breathing Law is no Medium no meane intended by God and nature to remove violence How shall violence remove violence Therefore an unjust King as unjust is not that genuine ordinance of God appointed to remove unjustice but accidentall to a King So we may resist the unjustice of the King and not resist the King 8 If then any cast off the nature of a King and become habitually a Tyrant in so farre he is not from God nor any ordinance which God doth owne If the Office of a Tyrant to speake so be contrary to a Kings Offices it is not from God and so neither is the power from God 9. Yea Lawes which are no lesse from God then the Kings are when they begin to be hurtfull Cessant materialiter they leave off to be Lawes because they oblige Non secundum vim verborum sed in vim sensus not according to the force of words but according to sense â Non figura literarum F. de actione obligatione l. ita stipulatus But who saith the Royalists shall be judge betwixt the King and the people when the people alledge that the King is a Tyrant Ans There is a Court of necessity no lesse then a Court of Justice and 2. The fundamentall Lawes must then speake and it is with the people in this extremity as if they had no Ruler Obj. 1. But if the Law be doubtsome as all humane all Civill all municipall Lawes may endure great dispute the peremptory person exponing the Law must be the supreame Iudge This cannot be the people ergo it must be the King Ans 1. As the Scriptures in all fundamentalls are cleare and expone themselves and Actu primo condemne Hercsies so all Lawes of men in their fundamentals which are the Law of Nature and of Nations are cleare And 2. Tyranny is more visible and intelligible then Heresie and it s soone decerned If a King bring in upon his native subjects twenty thousand Turks armed and the King lead them It is evident they come not to make a friendly visite to salute the Kingdom and depart in peace the people have a naturall throne of policie in their conscience to give warning and materially sentence against the King as a Tyrant and so by nature are to defend themselves Where Tyranny is more obscure and the thred small that it escape the eye of men the King keepeth possession but I deny that Tyranny can be obscure long Object 2. Doct. Ferne. A King may not or cannot easily alter the frame of fundamentall Laws he may make some actuall invasion in some transient and not fixed acts and it is safer to bear these then to raise a civill Warre of the Body against the Head Answ 1. If the King as King may alter any one wholesome Law by that same reason he may alter all 2. You give short wings to an Arbitrary Prince if he cannot over flie all Laws to the subversion of the Fundamentalls of a State if you make him as you do 1. One who hath the sole Legislative power who allanerly by himself maketh Laws and his Parliament and Councell are onely to give him advice which by Law he may as easily reject as they can speak words to him He may in one transient act and it is but one cancell all Laws made against idlolatry and Popery and command through bad Counsell in all his Dominions the Pope to be acknowledged as Christs Vicar and all his doctrine to be established as the Catholike true Religion It is but one transient act to seal a pardon to the shedding of the blood of two hundred thousand killed by Papists 2. You make him a King who may not be resisted in any case and though he subvert all Fundamentall Laws he is countable to God onely his people have no remedy but prayers or flight Object 3. Ferne Limitations and mixtures in Monarchies do not imply a forceable restraining power in subjects for the preventing of the dissolution of the State but onely a legall restraining power and if such a restraining power be in the subjects by reservation then it must be expressed in the constitution of the Government and in the Covenant betwixt the Monarch and his people but such a condition ââ unlawfull which will not have the Soveraign power secured is unprofitable for King and people a seminary for seditions and jealousies Answ I understand not a difference betwixt forceable restraining and legall restraining For he must mean by legall mans Law because he saith It is a Law in the Covenant betwixt the Monarch and his people Now if this be not forceable and physicall it is onely Morall in the conscience of the King and a Cypher and a meer vanitie for God not the people putteth a restraint of conscience on the King that he may not oppresse his poor subjects but he shall sin against God that is a poor restraint the goodnesse of the King a sinfull man inclined from the womb to all sin and so to Tyranny is no restraint 2. There 's no necessitie that the reserve be expressed in the Covenant between King and people more then in contract of marriage between a husband and a wife beside her joynter you should set down this clause in the contract that if the husband attempt to kill the wife or the wife the husband in that case it shall be lawfull to either of them to part companies For Doct. Ferne saith That personall defence is lawfull in the people if the Kings assault be 1. Suddain 2. Without colour of Law 3. Inevitable Yet the reserve of this power of defence is not necessarily to be expressed in the contract betwixt King and people Exigences of the Law of nature cannot be set down in positive Covenants they are presupposed 3. He saith A reservation of power whereby soveraigntie is not secured is unlawfull Lend me this Argument The giving away of a power of defence and a making the King absolute is unlawfull because by it the people is not secured but one man hath thereby the sword of God put in his hand whereby ex officio he may as King cut the throats of thousands and be countable to none therefore but to God onely now if the non-securing of the King make a condition unlawfull the non-securing of a Kingdom and Church yea of the true religion which are infinitely in worth above one single man may far more make the condition unlawfull 4.
A legall restraint on a King is no more unprofitable and a seminary of jealousies between King and people then a legall restraint upon people for the King out of a non-restraint as out of seed may more easily educe tyranny and subversion of religion If outlandish women tempt even a Solomon to idolatry as people may educe sedition out of a legall restraint laid upon a King to say nothing that Tyranny is a more dangerous sin then sedition by how much more the lives of many and true religion are to be preferred to the safetie of one and a false peace Object 4. An absolute Monarch iâ free from all forceable restraint and so far as he is absolute from all legall restraint of positive Laws now in a limited Monarch there is onely sought a legall restraint and limitation cannot infer a forceable restraint for an absolute Monarch is limited also not by civill compact but by the Law of nature and nations which he cannot justly transgresse if therefore an absolute Monarch being exorbitant may not be resisted because he transgresseth the Law of nature how shall we think a limited Monarch may be resisted for transgressing the bounds set by civill agreement Answ A legall restraint on the people is a forceable restraint For if Law be not backed with force it is onely a Law of rewarding weldoing which is no restraint but an incouragement to do evil If then there be a legall restraint upon the King without any force it is no restraint but onely such a request as this Be a just Prince and we will give your Majestie two Subsidies in one yeer 2. I utterly deny that God ever ordained such an irrationall creature as an absolute Monarch If a people unjustly and against natures dictates make away irrevocably their own libertie and the libertie of their posteritie which is not their's to dispose off and set over themselves as base slaves a sinning creature with absolute power he is their King but not as he is absolute and that he may not be forceably resisted notwithstanding the subjects did swear to his absolute power which oath in the point of absolutenesse is unlawfull and so not obligatory I utterly deny 3. An absolute Monarch saith he is limited but by Law of nature That is Master Doctor he is not limited as a Monarch not as an absolute Monarch but as a son of Adam he is under the limites of the Law of nature which he should have been under though he had never been a King all his dayes but a slave But what then Therefore he cannot be resisted Yes Doctor by your own grant he can be resisted If he invade an innocent subject say you 1. Suddenly 2. Without colour of Law 3. Inevitably And that because he transgresseth the Law of nature 4. You say a limited Monarch can lesse be resisted for transgressing the bounds set by civill agreement But 1. What if the thus limited Monarch transgresse the Law of nature and subvert Fundamentall Lawes he is then you seem to say to be resisted it is not for simple transgression of a civill agreement that he is to be resisted 2. The limited Monarch is as essentially the Lords anointed and the power ordained of God as the absolute Monarch Now resistance by all your grounds is unlawfull because of Gods power and place conferred upon him not because of mens positive covenant made with him To finde out the essentiall difference betwixt a King and a Tyrant We are to observe that it is one thing to sin against a man another thing against a State David killing Vriah committed an act of murther But on this supposition that David is not punished for that murther he did not so sin against the State and Catholike good of the State that he turneth Tyrant and ceaseth to be a lawfull King A Tyrant is he who habitually sinneth against the Catholike good of the Subjects and State and subverteth Law Such a one should not be as Jason of whom it is said by Aeneas Silvius Graviter ferebat si non regnaret quasi nesciret esse privatus When such as are monstrous Tyrants are not taken away by the Estates God pursueth them in wrath Domitian was killed by his own Family his wife knowing of it Aurelianus was killed with a thunder-bolt Darius was drowned in a River Dioclesian fearing death poysoned himself Salerius died eaten with Worms The end of Herod and Antiochus Maxentius was swallowed up in a standing River Iulian died being stricken through with a Dart thrown at him by a man or an Angel it is not known Valens the Arian was burnt with fire in a little Village by the Gothes Anastasius the Eutychian Emperour was stricken by God with thunder Gundericus Vandalus when he rose against the Church of God being apprehended by the Divell died Some time the State have taken order with Tyrants The Empire was taken from Vitellius Heliogabalus Maximinus Didius Iulianus So was the two Childerici of France served So were also Sigebertus Dagabertus and Lodowick the 11. of France Christiernus of Denmark Mary of Scotland who killed her husband and raised Forces against the Kingdom So was Henricus Valesius of Pol for fleeing the Kingdom Sigismundus of Pol for violating his faith to the States QUEST XXV What force the Supreme Law hath over the King even that Law of the Peoples safetie called Salus Populi THe Law of the 12. Tables is Salus populi Suprema lex The safetie of the People is the supreme and Cardinall law to which all Lawes are to stoope And that from these Reasons 1. Originally Because if the People be the first Author Fountaine and Efficient under God of Law and King then their own safetie must be principally sought and their safetie must be farre above the King as the safetie of a Cause especially of an universall Cause such as is the People must be more then the safetie of one as Aristotle saith l. 3. polit alias l. 5. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The part cannot be more excellent then the whole nor the effect above the cause 2. Finaliter This Supreme law must stand for if all Law Policie Magistrates and Power be referred to the peoples good as the end Rom. 13. 4. and to their quiet and peaceable life in godlinesse and honestie then must this Law stand as of more worth then the King as the end is of more worth then the meanes leading to the end for the end is the measure and rule of the goodnesse of the meane and finis ultimus in influxu est potentissimus The King is good because he conduceth much for the safetie of the People Ergo the safetie of the people must be better 3. By way of limitation Because no Law in its letter hath force where the safetie of the Subject is in hazard and if Law or King be destructive to the people they are to be abolished This is cleare in a Tyrant or a
of Monarchy 9. No doubt saith he Hos 4. They were Priests and Iudges Hos 4. but they were over-awed as they are now J thinke he would say Hos 3. 4. otherwise he citeth Scripture sleeping That the Priests of Antichrist be not only over-awed but out of the earth I yeeld that the King be limited not over-awed I thinke Gods Law and mans Law alloweth 10. The safety of the King as King is not only safety but a blessing to Church and State and therefore this P. Prelate and his fellowes deserve to be hanged before the Sun who have led him on a warre to destroy him and his Protestant subjects But the safety and flourishing of a King in the exercises of an Arbitrary unlimited power against Law and Religion and to the destruction of his subjects is not the safety of the people nor the safety of the Kings soule which these men if they be the Priests of the Lord should care for The Prelate commeth to refute the learned and worthy Observator The safety of the people is the supreme Law ergo the King is bound in duty to promote all and every one of his subjects to all happinesse The Observator hath no such inference the King is bound to promote some of his subjects even as King to a Gallowes especially Irish Rebells and many bloudy Malignants But the Prelate will needs have God rigorous hallowed be his name if it be so for it is unpossible to the tenderest-hearted father to doe so actuall promotion of all is unpossible that the King intend it of all his subjects as good subjects by a Throne established on righteousnesse and judgement is that which the worthy Observator meaneth other things here are answered The summe of his second answer is a repetition of what he hath said I give my word in a Pamphlet of one hundred ninety and foure pages I never saw more idle repetitions of one thing twenty times before said But page one hundred sixty and eight he saith The safety of the King and his subjects in the Morall notion may be esteemed Morally the same no lesse then the soule and the body make one personall subsistence Ans This is strange Logick the King and his subjects are Ens por aggregationem and the King as King hath one Morall subsistence and the people another Hath the Father and the sonne the Master and the servant one Morall subsistence but the man speaketh of their well being and then he must meane that our Kings Government that was not long agoe and is yet to wit the Popery Arminianisme Idolatry cutting of mens eares and noses banishing imprisonment for speaking against Popery arming of Papists to slay Protestants pardoning the bloud of Ireland that I feare shall not be soone taken away c. are identically the same with the life safety and happinesse of Protestants then life and death justice and unjustice Idolatry and sincere worship are identically one as the soule of the Prelate and his body are one The third is but a repitition The Acts of Royaltie saith the Observator are Acts of dutie and obligation Ergo not acts of grace properly so called Ergo We may not thank the King for a courtesie This is no consequence What fathers do to children are acts of naturall dutie and of naturall grace and yet children owe gratitude to parents and subjects to good Kings in a legall sense No but in way of courtesie onely The Observator said The King is not a father to the whole collective body and it s well said he is son to them and they his maker Who made the King Policy answereth The State made him and Divinitie God made him 4. The Observator said well The peoples weaknesse is not the Kings strength The Prelate saith Amen He said That that perisheth not to the King which is granted to the people The Prelate denyeth Because What the King hath in trust from God the King cannot make away to another nor can any take it from him without sacriledge Answ True indeed If the King had Royalty by immediate trust and infusion by God as Elias had the spirit of prophecie that he cannot make away Royalists dream that God immediately from heaven now infuseth facultie and right to Crowns without any word of God It s enough to make an Euthysiast leap up to the Throne and kill Kings Judge if these Fanaticks be favourers of Kings But if the King have Royaltie mediately by the peoples free consent from God there is no reason but people give as much power even by ounce weights for power is strong Wine and a great mocker as they know a weak mans head will bear and no more power is not an immediate inheritance from heaven But a birth-right of the people borrowed from them they may set it out for their good and resume it when a man is drunk with it 2. The man will have it conscience on the King to fight and destroy his three Kingdoms for a dream his prerogative above Law But the truth is Prelates do engage the King his house honour subjects Church for their cursed Mytres The Prelate vexeth the Reader with Repetitions and saith The King must proportion his Government to the safety of the people on the one hand and to his owne safety and power on the other hand Ans What the King doth as King he doth it for the happinesse of his people the King is a relative yea even his owne happinesse that he seeketh he is to referre to the good of Gods people He saith farther The safety of the people includeth the safety of the King because the word populus is so taken which he proveth by a raw sickly rabble of words stollen out of Passerats Dictioner His father the Schoole-master may whip him for frivolous Etymologies This supreame Law saith the Prelate is not above the Law of Prerogative Royall the highest Law nor is Rex above Lex The Democracie of Rome had a supremacie above Lawes to make and unmake Lawes and will they force this power on a Monarch to the destruction of Soveraigntie Answ This which is stollen from Spalato Barclay Grotius and others is easily answered The supremacie of People is a Law of natures selfe-preservation above all positive Lawes and above the King and is to regulate Soveraigntie not to destroy it 2. If this supremacie of Majestie was in people before they have a King then 1. they lose it not by a voluntary choise of a King for a King is chosen for good and not for the peoples losse ergo they must retain this power in habite and potency even when they have a King 2. Then supremacy of Majesty is not a beame of Divinity proper to a King only 3. Then the people having Royall soveraignty vertually in them make and so unmake a King all which the Prelate denyeth This supreme Law saith the Prelate begging it from Spalato Arnisaeus Grotius advance the
King not the people and the sense is The Kingdome is really some time in such a case that the Soveraigne must exercise an Arbitrary Power and not stand upon private mens interests or transgressing of Lawes made for the private good of individualls but for the preservation of it selfe and the publicke may break through all Lawes This he may in the case when suddaine forraine invasion threatneth ruine inevitably to King and Kingdome a Physitian may rather cut a Gangreened member then suffer the whole body to perish The Dictator in case of extreame dangers as Livie and Dion Halicarnass shew us had power according to his owne Arbitrament had a soveraigne Commission in peace and war of life death persons c. not co-ordinate not subordinate to any Ans It is not an Arbitrary power but naturally tyed and fettered to this same supreame Law Salus populi the safety of the people that a King breake through not the Law but the letter of the Law for the safety of the people as the Chyrurgion not by any prerogative that he hath above the Art of Chyrurgery but by necessity cutteth off a Gangreened member thus it s not Arbitrary to the King to save his people from ruine but by the strong and imperious Law of the peoples safety he doth it for if he did it not he were a murtherer of his people 2. He is to stand upon transgression of Lawes according to their genuine sense of the peoples safety for good Lawes are not contrary one to another though when he breaketh through the letter to the Law yet he breaketh not the Law for if twenty thousand Rebells invade Scotland he is to command all to rise though the formality of a Parliament cannot be had to indict the war as our Law provideth but the King doth not command all to rise and defend themselves by a Prerogative Royall proper to him as King and incommunicable to any but to himselfe 1. There is no such dinne and noise to be made for a King and his incommunicable Prerogative for though the King were not at all yea though he command the contrary as he did when he came against Scotland with an English Army the law of Nature teacheth all to rise without the King 2. That the King command this as King it is not a particular positive Law but he doth it as a man and a member of the Kingdom The law of Nature which knoweth no dreame of such a Prerogative forceth him to it as every member is by Natures indictment to care for the whole 3. It is poore hungry skill in this New Statist for so he nameth all Scotland to say that any Lawes are made for private interests and the good of some individuals Lawes are not Lawes if they be not made for the safetie of the people 4. It is false that the King in a publike danger is to care for himselfe as a man with the ruine and losse of any Yea in a publike calamitie a good King as David is to desire he may die that the Publique may bee saved 2 Samuel 24. 17. Exâdus 32. 32. It is commended of all that the Emperour Otho yea and Richard the 2. of England as M. Speed saith Hist of England p. 757. resigned their Kingdomes to eschew the effâsion of blood The Prelate adviseth the King to passe over all lawes of Nature and slay thousands of innocents and destroy Church and State of three Kingdomes for a straw and supposed Prerogative Royall Now certainly Prerogative and Absolutenes to doe good and ill must be inferior to a Law the end whereof is the safetie of the People For David willeth the pestilence may take him away and so his Prerogative that the People may be saved 2 Sam. 24. 17. for Prerogative is cumulative to doe good not privative to doe ill and so is but a meane to defend both the Law and the People 2. Prerogative is either a power to doe good or ill or both If the first be said it must be limited by the End and Law for which it is ordained A meane is no farther a meane but in so far as it conduceth to the end the safetie of all If the second be admitted It is Licence and Tyrannie not power from God If the third be said both reasons plead against this that Prerogative should be the Kings end in the present warres 3. Prerogative being a power given by the mediation of the people yea suppose which is false that it were given immediately of God yet it not a thing for which the King should raise war against his Subjects for God will aske no more of the King then he giveth to him The Lord reapeth not where he soweth not If the Militia and other things be ordered hitherto for the holding off Irish and Spanishe invasion by Sea and so for the good of the Land seeing the King in his own person cannot make use of the Militia he is to rejoyce that his Subjects are defended The King cannot answer to God for the justice of warre on his part It is not a case of conscience that the King should shed blood for to wit because the under-Officers are such men and not others of his choosing seeing the Kingdome is defended sufficiently except where Cavaliers destroy it And to me this is an unanswerable argument that the Cavaliers destroy not the Kingdomes for this Prerogative Royall as the principall ground but for a deeper designe even for that which was working by Prelates and Malignants before the late troubles in both Kingdomes 4. The King is to intend the safetie of his People and the safety of the King as a Governour but not as this King and this man Charles that is a selfe end a King David is not to looke to that for when the people was seeking his life and crown he saith Ps 3. 8. Thy blessing upon thy People He may care for and intend that the King and Government be safe for if the Kingdome be destroyed there cannot be a new Kingdome and Church on earth againe to serve God in that generation Psal 89. 47. but they may easily have a new King againe and so the safetie of the one cannot in reason be intended as a collaterall end with the safetie of the other for there is no imaginable comparison betwixt one man with all his accidents of Prerogative and Absolutenesse and three Nationall Churches and Kingdomes Better the King weep for a Childish triâle of a Prerogative than Poperie be erected and three Kingdomes be destroyed by Cavaliers for their own ends 5. The Dictators power is 1. a fact and proveth not a point of Conscience 2. His power was in an exigence of extreme danger of the Commonwealth The P. Prelate pleadeth for a constant absolutenesse above Lawes to the King at all times and that jure Divino 3. The Dictator was the Peoples creature ergo the Creator the People had that soveraigntie over him 4. The
people and so what he doth to the hurt of his subjects he doth it not as King 2. The Law saith Qui habet potestatem constituendi etiam jus adimendi l. nemo 37. l. 21. de reg jure Those who have power to make have power to unmake Kings 3. What ever the King doth as King that he doth by a power borrowed from or by a fiduciary power which is his by trust the Estates who made him King He must then be nothing but an eminent servant of the State in the punishing of others If therefore he be unpunishable it is not so much because his Royall power is above all Law-coaction as because one the same man cannot be both the punisher and the punished and this is a Physicall incongruity rather then a Morall absurdity So the Law of God layeth a duty on the inferiour Magistrate to use the sword against the murtherer and that by vertue of his Office but I much doubt if for that he is to use the sword against himselfe in the case of Murther for this is a truth I purpose to make good that suffering as suffering according to the substance and essence of passion is not commanded by any Law of God or nature to the sufferer but only the manner of suffering I doubt if it be not by the Law of Nature lawfull even to the ill doer who hath deserved death by Gods Law to fly from the sword of the lawfull Magistrate only the manner of suffering with patience is commanded of God I know the Law saith here That the Magistrate is both Iudge and the Executor of the sentence against himselfe in his owne cause for the excellency of his Office Therefore these are to be distinguished whether the King Ratione demeriti jure by Law be punishable or if the King can actually be punished corporally by a Law of man he remaining King and since he must be a punisher himselfe and that by vertue of his Office In matters of goods the King may be both Iudge and punisher of himselfe as our Law provideth that any subject may plead his owne heritage from the King before the inferiour Iudges and if the King be a violent possessour and in Mala fide for many yeares by Law he is obliged upon a Decree of the Lords to execute the sentence against himselfe Ex officio and to restore the Lands and repay the dammage to the just owner and this the King is to doe against himselfe ex officio I grant here the King as King punisheth himselfe as an unjust man but because bodily suffering is meere violence to nature I doubt if the King ex officio is to doe or inflict any bodily punishment on himselfe Nemo potest a seipso cogi l. ille a quo 13. § Assert 6. There be some Lawes made in favour of the King as King as to pay tribute The King must be above this Law as King True but if a Noble man of a great rent be elected King I know not if he can be free from paying to himselfe as King tribute seeing this is not allowed to the King by a Divine Law Rom. 13. 6. as a reward of his worke and Christ expresly maketh tribute a thing due to Caesar as a King Matth. 22. v. 21. There be some solemnities of the Law from which the King may be free Prickman D. c. 3. n. 78. and he relateth what they are they are not Lawes but some circumstances belonging to Lawes and Prickman answereth to many places alledged out of the Lawyers to prove the King to be above the Law Maldorus in 12. Art 4 5 9 96. will have the Prince under that Law which concerneth all the Common-wealth equally in regard of the matter and that by the Law of nature but he will not have him subject to these Lawes which concerneth the subjects as subjects as to pay tribute He citeth Francisc a Vict. Covarruvia and Turrecremata He also will have the Prince under positive Lawes such as not to transport victualls not because the Law bindeth him as a Law But because the making of the Law bindeth him Tanquam conditio sine qua non even as he who teacheth another that he should not steale he should not steale himselfe Rom. 2. But the truth is this is but a branch of the Law of Nature that I should not commit Adultery and Theft and Sacriledge and such sinnes as nature condemneth if I shall condemne them in others and doth not prove that the King is under the coactive power of Civill Lawes Vlpianus l. 31. F. de regibus saith The Prince is loosed from Lawes Bodine de Repub. l. 7. c. 8. Nemo imperat sibi No man commandeth himselfe Tholosanus saith Ipsius est dare non accipere leges The Prince giveth Lawes but receiveth none De Rep. l. 7. c. 20. Donellus Lib. 1. Comment c. 17. distinguisheth betwixt a Law and a Royall Law proper to the King Trentlerus Volum 1. 79. 80. saith The Prince is freed from Laws and that he obeyeth Laws de honestate non de necessitate Vpon honesty not of necessity Thomas P. 1. q. 96. Art 5. and with him Soto Gregorius de Valentia and other Schoole-men subject the King to the directive power of the Law and liberate him of the coactive power of the Law Assert 7. If a King turne a Paricide a Lyon and a waster and destroyer of the people as a man he is subject to the Coactive power of the Lawes of the Land If any Law should hinder that a Tyrant should not be punished by Law it must be because he hath not a superiour but God for Royalists build all upon this but this ground is false because the Estates of the Kingdome who gave him the Crowne are above him and they may take away what they gave him as the Law of Nature and God saith If they had knowne he would turne Tyrant they would never have given him the sword and so how much ignorance is in the contract they made with the King as little of will is in it and so it is not every way willing but being conditionall is supposed to be against their will 2. They gave the power to him only for their good and that they make the King is cleare 2 Chron. 23. 11. 1 Sam. 10. 17 24. Deut. 17. 14 15 16 17. 2 King 11. v. 12. 1 King 16. 21. 2 King 10. 5. Iud. 9. 6. 2. 2 Chron. 26. 18. fourescore valiant men of the Priests withstood Vzziah in a corporall violence and thrust him out and cut him off from the house of the Lord. And 2. If the Princes place doe not put him above the Lawes of Church-Discipline Matth. 18. for Christ excepteth none and how can men except and if the rod of Christs lips smite the earth and stay the wicked Esay 11. 4. and the Prophets Elias Nathan Ieremiah Esaiah c. Iohn Baptist Iesus Christ and his
Apostles have used this rod of censure and rebuke as servants under God against Kings this is a sort of spirituall coaction of Lawes put in execution by men and by due proportion corporall coaction being the same ordinance of God though of another nature must have the like power over all whom the Law of God hath not excepted but Gods Law excepteth none at all 3. It is presumed that God hath not provided better for the safety of the part then of the whole especially when he maketh the part a meane for the safety of the whole But if God have provided that the King who is a part of the Common-wealth shall be free of all punishment though he be a habituall destroyer of the whole Kingdome seeing God hath given him to be a Father Tutor Saviour Defender thereof and destinated him as a meane for their safety then must God have worse not better provided for the safety of the whole then of the part The Proposition is cleare in that God Rom. 13. 4. 1 Tim. 2. 2. hath ordained the Ruler and given to him the sword to defend the whole Kingdome and City but we read no where that the Lord hath given the sword to the whole Kingdome to defend one man a King though a Ruler come going on in a Tyrannicall way of destroying all his subjects The assumption is evident for then the King turning Tyrant might set an Army of Turkes Jewes cruell Papists to destroy the Church of God without all feare of Law or punishment Yea this is contrary to the doctrine of Royalists for Winzetus adversus Buchananum p. 275. saith of Nero that he seeking to destroy the Senate and people of Rome and seeking to make new lawes for himselfe excidit jure Regni lost right to the Kingdome And Barclaiâs advers Monarcho-Machous l. 3. c. ult p. 212 213. saith A Tyrant such as Caligula spoliare se jure Regni spoileth himselfe of the right to the Crown And in that same place Regem si regnum suum alienae ditioni manciparit regno cadere If the King sell his Kingdome he loseth the title to the Crown Grotius de jure belli pacis l. 1. c. 4. n. 7 Si Rex hostili animo in totius populi exitium feratur amittit regnum If he turne Enemie to the Kingdome for their destruction he loseth his Kingdome because saith he Voluntas imperandi voluntas perdendi simul consistere non possunt A will or minde to governe and to destroy cannot consist together in one Now if this be true that a King turning Tyrant loseth title to the Crown this is either a falling from his Royall title only in Gods court or it is a losing of it before men and in the court of his Subjects If the former be said 1. He is no King having before God lost his Royall title and yet the people is to obey him as the Minister of God and a power from God when as he is no such thing 2. In vaine doe these Authors provide remedies to save the people from a Tyrannous waster of the people if they speake of a Tyrant who is no King in Gods court only and yet remaineth a King to the people in regard of the Law for the places speake of Remedies that God hath provided against Tyrants cum titulo such as are lawfull Kings but turn Tyrants Now by this they provide no remedie at all if only in Gods court and not in Mans court also a Tyrant lose his title As for Tyrants sine titulo such as usurpe the throne and have no just claime to it Barclaius adver Monarcho-Ma l. 4. c. 10. p. 268. saith Any private man may kill him as a publike enemie of the State but if he lose his title to the Crown in the court of Men then is there 1. a Court on Earth to judge the King and so he is under the coactive power of a Law 2. Then a King may be resisted and yet those who resist them doe not incurre damnation the contrary where of Royalists endeavour to prove from Rom. 13. 3. Then the people may un-king one who was a King But 4. I would know who taketh that ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã from him whereby he is a King that beame of Divine majestie Not the people because Royalists say they neither can give nor take away Royall dignitie and so they cannot un-king him 4. The more Will be in the consent saith Ferd. Vasquez l. 1. c. 41. the obligation is the stricter So doubled words saith the Law l. 1. § 13. n. 13. oblige more strictly And all lawes of Kings who are rationall fathers and so lead us by Lawes as by rationall meanes to peace and externall happinesse are contracts of King and People Omnis lex sponsio contractus Reip. § 1. Iust de ver relig Now the King at his Coronation-covenant with the people giveth a most intense consent an Oath to be a keeper and preserver of all good Laws and so hardly he can be freed from the strictest obligation that Law can impose And if he keep Lawes by office he is a meane to preserve Lawes and no meane can bee superior and above the end but inferior thereunto 5. Bodine proveth de Rep. l. 2. c. 5. p. 221. that Emperors at first were but Princes of the Commonwealth and that Soveraigntie remained still in the Senate and people Marius Salomonius a learned Romane Civilian wrote sixe bookes de Principatu to refute the supremacie of Emperors above the State Ferd. Vasq illust quest part 1. l. 1. n. 21. proveth that the Prince by Royall dignitie leaveth not off to be a Citizen a member of the Politique body and not a King but a Keeper of Lawes Hence 6. The Prince remaineth even being a Prince a sociall creature a Man as well as a King one who must buy sell promise contract dispose Ergo he is not Regula regulans but under rule of law for impossible it is if the King can in a politicall way live as a member of societie and doe and performe acts of policie and so performe them as he may by his office buy and not pay promise and vow and sweare to men and not performe nor be obliged to men to render a reckoning of his Oath and kill and destroy and yet in Curia politicae societatis in the Court of humane policie be free and that he may give inheritances as just rewards of vertue and well-doing and take them away againe Yea seeing these sinnes that are not punishable before men are not sinnes before men If all the sinnes and oppressions of a Prince be so above the punishment that men can inflict they are not sinnes before men by which meanes the King is loosed from all guiltinesse of the sinnes against the Second Table for the ratio formalis the formall reason why the Iudge by warrant from God condemneth in the Court of men the guilty man is
because he hath sinned against humane societie either through the scandall of blasphemie or through other heynous sinnes he hath defiled the Land Now this is incident to the King as well as to some other sinfull man To these and the like heare what the excommunicated Prelate hath to say 1. They say he meaneth the Jesuites Every societie of men is a perfect Republick and so must have within it selfe a power to preserve it selfe from ruine and by that to punish a Tyrant He answereth A societie without a Head is a disorderly rout not a Politique body and so cannot have this power Ans 1. The Pope giveth to every Societie Politick power to make away a Tyrant or hereticall King and to un-king him by his brethren the Jesuites way And observe how Papists of which number I could easily prove the P. Prelate to be by the Popish doctrine that he delivered while the iniquitie of time and dominion of Prelates in Scotland advanced him against all worth of true learning and holinesse to be a Preacher in Edinborough and Iesuites agree as the builders of Babylon It is the purpose of God to destroy Babylon 2. This answer shall inferre that the Aristocraticall Governors of any free State and that the Duke of Venice and the Senate there is above all Law and cannot be resisted because without their Heads they are a disorderly Rout. 3. A Politicall societie as by Natures instinct they may appoint a Head or Heads to themselves so also if their Head or Heads become ravenous Wolves the God of Nature hath not left a perfect Societie remedilesse but they may both resist and punish the Head or Heads to whom they gave all the power that they have for their good not for their destruction 4. They are as orderly a body Politique to unmake a Tyrannous Commander as they were to make a just Governonr The Prelate saith It is alike to conceive a Politique body without a Governour as to conceive the naturall body without a Head He meaneth None of them can be conceivable I am not of his minde When Saul was dead Israel was a perfect Politique body and the Prelate if he be not very obtuse in his head as this hungry peece stollen from others sheweth him to be may conceive a visible Politicall societie performing a Politicall action 2 Sam. 5. 1 2 3. making David King at a visible and conceivable place at Hebron and making a Covenant with him And that they wanted not all Governors is nothing to make them Chymera's unconceivable For when so many families before Nimrod were governed only by fathers of families and they agreed to make either a King or other Governors a Head or Heads over themselves though the severall families had government yet these consociated families had no government and yet so conceivable a Politique body as if Maxwell would have compeared amongst them and called them a disorderly rout or an unconceivable Chymera they should have made the Prelate know that Chymera's can knock down Prelates Neither is a King the life of a Politique body as the soule is of the naturall body The body createth not the soule but Israel created Saul King and when he was dead they made David King and so under God many Kings as they succeeded till the Messiah came No naturall body can make soules to it selfe by succession Nor can Seas create new Prelates alwayes P. Prelate Jesuites and Puritans differ infinitely We are hopefull God shall cast down this Babel The Iesuites for ought I know seat the superintendent power in the Communitie Some Sectaries follow them and warrant any individuall person to make away a King in case of defects and the worke is to be rewarded as when one killeth a ravenous Wolfe Some will have it in a collective body but how not met together by warrant or writ of Soveraigne Authoritie but when fancie of reforming Church and State calleth them Some will have the power in the Nobles and Peeres some in the three Estates assembled by the Kings Writ some in the inferior Iudges I know not where this power to curbe Soveraigntie is but in Almighty God Ans 1. Iesuites and Puritans differ infinitely true Jesuites deny the Pope to be Antichrist hold all Arminian doctrine Christs locall descension to hell all which the Prelate did preach We deny all this 2. We hope also the Lord shall destroy the Jesuites Babel the âuburbs whereof and more are the Popish Prelates in Scotland and England 3. The Jesuites for ought he knoweth place all superintendent power in the Communitie The Prelate knoweth not all his brethren the Iesuites wayes but it is ignorance not want of good will For Bellarmine Beucanus Suarez Gregor de Valentia and others his deare fellowes say That all superintendent power of policy in ordine ad spiritualia is in the man whose foot Maxwell would kisse for a Cardinals Haâ 4. If these be all the differences it is not much the Community is the remote and last subject the representative body the nearest subject the Nobles a partiall subject the Iudges as Iudges sent by the King are so in the game that when an Arbitrary Prince at his pleasure setteth them up and at command that they judge for men and not for the Lord and accordingly obey they are by this power to be punished and others put in their place 5. A true cause of convening Parliaments the prelate maketh a Fancie at this time it is as if the theeves and robbers should say a Iustice Court were a fancie but if the Prelate might compeare before the Parliament of Scotland to which he is an out-law like his father 2 Thess 2. 4. such a fancie I conceive should hang him and that deservedly P. Prelate The subject of this superintending power must be secured from errour in judgement and practise and the community and States then should be infallible Ans The consequence is nought no more then the King the absolute independent is infallible 2. It is sure the people are in lesse hazard of Tyranny and selfe destruction then the King is to subvert Lawes and make himselfe absolute and for that cause there must be a superintendent power above the King and God Almighty also must be above all P. Prelate The Parliament may erre then God hath left the state remedilesse except the King remedy it Ans There 's no consequence here except the King be impeccable 2. Posteriour Parliaments may correct the former 3. A State is not remedilesse because Gods remedies in sinfull mens hands may miscarry But the question is now whether God hath given power to one man to destroy men subvert Lawes and Religion without any power above him to coerce restraine or punish P. Prelate If when the Parliament erreth the remedy is left to the Wisedome of God why not when the King erreth Ans Neither is Antecedent true nor the consequence valid for the sounder part may resist and it is
easier to one to destroy many having a power absolute which God never gave him then for many to destroy themselves Then if the King Vzzah intrude himselfe and sacrifice the Priests doe sin in remedying thereof P. Prelate Why might not the people of Israell Peers or Sanedrim have convened before them judged and punished David for his Adultery and Murther Romanists and new Statists acknowledge no case lawfull but Heresie Apostacy or Tyranny and tyranny they say must be universall 2. Manifest as the Sunne 3. And with obstinacy and invincible by prayers as is recorded of Nero whose wish was rather a transported passion then a fixed resolution this cannot fall in the attempts of any but a Mad-man Now this cannot be proved of our King but though we grant in the foresaid case that the community may resume their power and rectifie what is amisse which we canno grant but this will follow by their doctrine in every case of male administration Ans The Prelate draweth me to speake of the case of the Kings unjust Murther confessed Ps 51. to which I answer He taketh it for confessed that it had been treason in the Sanedrin and States of Israel to have taken on them to judge and punish David for his Adultery and his Murther but he giveth no reason for this nor any word of God and truely though I will not presume to goe before others in this Gods Law Gen. 9. 6. compared with Num. 35. 30. 31. seemeth to say against them Nor can I thinke that Gods Law or his Deputy the Iudges are to accept the persons of the great because they are great Deut. 1. 17. 2 Chro. 19. 6 7. and we say We cannot distinguish where the Law distinguisheth not The Lord speaketh to under Iudges Levit. 19. 15. Thou shalt not respect the person of the poore nor honour the person of the mighty or of the Prince for we know what these names ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã meaneth I grant it is not Gods meaning that the King should draw the sword against himselfe but yet it followeth not that if we speake of the demerit of blood that the Law of God accepteth any Iudge great or small if the Estate be above the King as I conceive they are though it be a humane politicke constitution that the King be free of al coaction of Law because it conduceth for the peace of the Common-wealth yet if we make a matter of conscience for my part I see no exception that God makethit if men make I crave leave to say A facto ad jus non sequitur And I easily yeeld that in every case the Estates may coerce the King if we make it a case of conscience And for the place Ps 51. 4. Against thee only have I sinned ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã flatterers alleadge it to be a place that proveth that the King is above all earthly Tribunals and all Lawes and that there was not on earth any who might punish King David and so they cite Clemens Alexandria Strom. l. 4. Arnobi Psal 50. Dydimus Hieronim But Calvine on the place giveth the meaning that most of the Fathers give Domine etiam si me totus mundus absolvat mihi tamen plusquam satis est quod te solum judicem sentio It is true Beda Euthymius Ambrosius Apol. David c. 4. c. 10. do all acknowledge from the place De facto there was none above David to judge him and so doth Augustine Basilius Theodoret say and Chrysostomus and Cyrillus and Hyeronim Epist 22. Ambrose Sermo 16. in Psal 118. Gregorius and Augusti Ioan. 8. saith he meaneth no man durst judge or punish him but God only Lorinus the Iesuit observeth eleven interpretatioÌs of the Fathers all to this sense since Lyra saith he sinned only against God because God only could pardon him Hugo Cardinalis because God only could wash him which he asketh in the Text. And Lorin Solo Deo conscio peccavi But the simple meaning is Against thee only have I sinned as my eye witnesse and imediate beholder and therfore he addeth and have done this evill in thy sight 2. Against thee only as my Iudge that thou maist be justified when thou judgest as cleare from all unrighteousnesse when thou shalt send the sword on my house 3. Against thee O Lord only who canst wash me and pardon me v. 1 2. And if this thee only exclude all together Vriah Bathsheba and the Law of the Iudges as if he had sinned against none of these in their kind then is the King because a King free not only from a punishing Law of man but from the duties of the second Table simply and so a King cannot be under the best and largest halfe of the Law Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy selfe 2. He shall not need to say Forgive us our sinnes as we forgive them that sin against us for there is no reason from the nature of sin and the nature of the Law of God why we can say more the subjects and sonnes sin against the King and Father then to say the Father and King sin against the sonnes and subjects 3. By this the King killing his Father Iesse should sin against God but not breake the fist Command nor sinne against his father 4. God should in vaine forbid fathers to provoke their children to wrath 1. And Kings to doe unjustice to their subjects because by this the superiour cannot sinne against the inferiour for as much as Kings can sin against none but those who have power to judge and punish them but God only and no inferiours and no subjects have power to punish the Kings therefore Kings can sin against none of their subjects and where there is no sin how can there be a Law neither Major or Minor can be denyed by Royalists 2. We acknowledge Tyranny must only unking a Prince The Prelate denyeth it but he is a green Statist Barclay Grotius Winzetus as I have proved granteth it 3. He will excuse Nero as of infirmity wishing all Rome to have one necke that he may cut it off And is that charitable of Kings that they will not be so mad as to destroy their owne Kingdome But when Stories teach us there have been more Tyrants then Kings the Kings are more obliged to him for flattery then for State-wit except we say that all Kings who cate the people of God as they doe bread owe him little for making them all madde and franticke 4. But let them be Nero's and madde and worse there is no coercing of them but all must give their neckes to the sword if the poore Prelate be heard and yet Kings cannot be so madde as to destroy their subjects Mary of England was that madde the Romish Princes who have given Revel 17. 13. their power and strength to the beast and doe make warre with the Lambe and Kings inspired with the spirit of the beast and drunke
with the wine of the Cup of Babells fornications are so madde and the ten Emperours are so madde who wasted their faithfullest subjects P. Prelate If there be such a power in the Peeres resumable in the exigent of necessity as the last necessary remedy for safety of Church and State God and nature not being deficient in things necessary it must be proved out of the Scripture and not taken on trust for Affirmanti incumbit probatio Ans Mr. Bishop what better is your Affirmanti incumbit c then mine for you are the affirmer I can prove a power in the King limited onely to feed governe and save the people and you affirme that God hath given to the King not only a power officiall and Royall to save but also to destroy and cut off so as no man may say Why doest thou this Shall we take this upon the word of an excommunicated Prelate Profer tabulas Iohn P. P. I beleeve you not Royall power is Deut. 17. 18. Rom. 3. 14. I am sure there is there a power given to the King to doe good and that from God Let John P. P. prove a power to doe ill given of God to the King 2. We shall quickly prove that the States may represse this power and punish the Tyrant not the King when he shall prove that a Tyrannous power is an Ordinance of God and so may not be resisted For the law of Nature teacheth If I give my sword to my fellow to defend me from the murtherer if he shall fall to and murther me with my own sword I may if I have strength take my sword from him Prelate It is infidelitie to thinke that God cannot helpe us and impatience that we will not wait on God When a King oppresseth us it is against Gods wisdome that he hath not provided another meane for our safetie than intrusion on Gods right 2. It is against Gods power 3. his Holinesse 4. Christian Religion that we necessitate God to so weake a meane to make use of sinne and we cast the aspersion of Treason on Religion and deterre Kings to professe Reformed Catholike Religion 5. We are not to justle God out of his right Ans I see nothing but what D. Ferne Grotius Barclay Blackwood have said before with some colour of proving the consequence The P. Prelate giveth us other mens arguments but without bones All were good if the States coercing and curbing a power which God never gave to the King were a sinne and an act of impatience and unbelief And if it were proper to God only by his immediate hand to coerce Tyrannie 2. He calleth it not Protestant Religion either here or elsewhere but cautelously giveth a name that will agree to the Roman Catholique Religion For the Dominicans Franciscans and the Parisian Doctors and Schoolemen following Occham Gerson Almain and other Papists call themselves Reformed Catholiques 2. He layeth this for a ground in 3 or 4 pages where these same Arguments are againe and againe repeated in terminis as his second Reason p. 149. was handled ad nauseam p. 148. his 3. Reason is repeated in his 6. Reason p. 151. He layeth I say down this ground which is the begged Conclusion and maketh the Conclusion the Assumption in 8 raw and often repeated Arguments to wit That the Parliaments coercing and restraining of Arbitrarie power is rebellion and resisting the Ordinance of God But he dare not looke the place Rom. 13. on the face other Royalists have done it with bad successe This I desire to be weighed ââd I retort the Prelates argument But it is indeed the triviall Argument of all Royalists especially of Barclay obvious in his 3. Booke If Arbitrarie and Tyrannicall power above any Law that the lawfull Magistrate commandeth under the paine of death Thou shalt not murther one man Thou shalt not take away the vineyard of one Naboth violently be lawfull and warrantable by Gods word then an Arbitrarie power above all Divine lawes is given to the keeping of the Civill Magistrate And it is no lesse lawfull Arbitrarie or rather Tyrannicall power for David to kill all his Subjects and to plunder all Jerusalem as I beleeve Prelates and Malignants and Papists would serve the three Kingdomes if the King should command them then to kill one Vriah or for Achab to spoile one Naboth The essence of sinne must agree alike to all though the degrees varie Of Gods remedie against Arbitrary power hereafter in the Question of Resistance but the confused ingine of the Prelate bringeth it in here where there is no place for it His 7. Argument is Before God would authorize Rebellion and give a bad president thereof for ever he would rather worke extraordinary and wonderfull miracles and therefore would not authorize the people to deliver themselves from under Pharaoh but made Mosesâ Prince to bring them out of Egypt with a stretched-out arme nor did the Lord deliver his people by the wisdome oâ Moses or strength of the people or any act that way of theirs but by his own immediate hand and power Ans I reduce the Prelates confused words to a few for I speake not of his Popish tearme of Saint Steven and others the like because all that he hath said in a book of 149 pages might have been said in three sheets of paper But I pray you what is this Argument to the Question in hand which is Whether the King be so above all Lawes as People and Peeres in the case of Arbitrarie power may resume their power and punish a Tyrant The P. Prelate draweth in the Question of Resistance by the haire Israels not rising in armes against K. Pharaoh proveth nothing against the power of a Free Kingdome against a Tyrant 1. Moses who wrought miracles destructive to Pharaoh might pray a vengeance against Pharaoh God having revealed to Moses that Pharaoh was a Reprobate But may Ministers and Nobles pray so against King Charles God forbid 2. Pharaoh had not his Crown from Israel 3. Pharaoh had not sworne to defend Israel nor became he their King upon condition he should maintaine and professe the Religion of the God of Israel Therefore Israel could not as free Estates challenge him in their supreme Court of Parliament of breach of oath and upon no termes could they un-king Pharaoh He held not his Crown of them 4. Pharaoh was never circumcised nor within the Covenant of the God of Isrdel in profession 5. Israel had their lands by the meere gift of the King I hope the King of Britaine standeth to Scotland and England in a fourefold contrary relation All Divines know that Pharaoh his Princes and the Egyptians were his Peeres and People ând that Israel were not his native Subjects but a number of strangers who by the lawes of the King and Princes by the meanes of Joseph had gotten the land of Goshen for their dwelling and libertie to serve the God of Abraham to whom they prayed in their
better then to prove Achab Ieroboam and many Kings in Israel and Judah committed Idolatry Ergo They had no Royall power at all In the rest of the Chapter for a whole Page he singeth over again his Mattens in a circle and giveth us the same Arguments we heard before of which you have these three notes 1. They are stoln and not his own 2. Repeated again and again to fill the field 3. All hang on a false supposition and a begging of the question That the people without the King have no power at all QUEST XXVII Whether or no the King be the sole supreme and finall interpreter of the Law THis Question conduceth not a little to the clearing of the doubts concerning the Kings absolute power and the supposed sole nomothetick power in the King And I thinke it not unlike to the question whether the Pope and Romish Church have a sole and peremptory power of exponing Lawes and the Word of God We are to consider that there is a twofold exposition of Lawes one speculative in a Schoole way so exquisite Iurists have a power to expone Lawes 2. Practicall in so farre as the sense of the Law falleth under our Practice and this is twofold either private and common to all or judiciall and proper to Iudges and of this last is the question For this Publicke the Law hath one fundamentall rule Salus populi like the King of Planets the Sunne which lendeth Star-light to all Lawes and by which they are exponed whatever interpretation swarveth either from fundamentall Lawes of policy or from the Law of Nature and the Law of Nations and especially from the safety of the publick is to be rejected as a perverting of the Law and therefore Conscientia humani generis the naturall conscience of all men to which the oppressed people may appeale unto when the King exponeth a Law unjustly at his owne pleasure is the last rule on earth for exponing of Lawes Nor ought Lawes to be made so obscure as an ordinary wit cannot see their connexion with fundamentall truths of policy and the safety of the people and therefore I see no inconvenience to say that The Law it selfe is Norma regula judicandi the Rule and directory to square the Iudge and that the Iudge is the publicke practicall interpreter of the Law Assert 1. The King is not the sole and finall interpreter of the Law 1. Because then inferiour Iudges should not be interpreters of the Law but inferiour Iudges are no lesse essentially Iudges then the King Deut. 1. 17. 2 Chron. 19. 6. L Pet. 2. 14. Rom. 13. 1 2. and so by Office must interpret the Law else they cannot give sentence according to their conscience and equity now exponing of the Law judicially is an act of judging and so a personall and incommunicable act so as I can no more judge and expone the Law according to another mans conscience then I can beleeve with another mans soule or understand with another mans understanding see with another mans eye The Kings pleasure therefore cannot be the rule of the inferiour Iudges conscience for he giveth an immediate accompt to God the Iudge of all of a just or an unjust sentence Suppoâe Caesar shall expone the Law to Pilate that Christ deserveth to dye the death yet Pilate is not in conscience to expone the Law so If therefore inferiour Iudges judge for the King they judge only by power borrowed from the King not by the pleasure will or command of the King thus and thus exponing the Law ergo the King cannot be the sole interpreter of the Law 2. If the Lord say not to the King only but also to other inferiour Iudges Be wise understand and the cause that you know not search out then the King is not the only interpreter of the Law But the Lord saith not to the King only but to other Iudges also Be wise understand and the cause that you know not search out ergo the King is not the sole Law-giver The Major is cleare from Ps 2. 10. Be wise now therefore O yee Kings be instructed yee Iudges of the earth So are commands and rebukes for unjust judgement given to others then to Kings Ps 82. 1 2 3 4 5. Ps 58. 1 2. Esay 1. 17 23 25 26. Esay 3. 14. see Iob. 29. 12 13 14 15. c. 31. v. 21. 22. 3 The King is either the sole interpreter of Law in respect he is to follow the Law as his Rule and so he is a ministeriall interpreter of the Law or he is an interpreter of the Law according to that super-dominion of absolute power that he hath above the Law If the former be holden then it is cleare that the King is not the only interpreter for all Iudges as they are Iudges have a ministeriall power to expone the Law by the Law but the second is the sense of Royalists Hence our second Assertion is That the Kings power of exponing the Law is a meere ministeriall power and he hath no dominion of any absolute Royall Power to expone the Law as he will and to put such a sense and meaning of the Law as he pleaseth 1. Because Saul maketh a Law 1 Sam. 14. 24. Cursed be the man that tasteth any food till night that the King may be avenged on his enemies the Law according to the letter was bloudy but according to the intent of the Law-giver and substance of the Law profitable for the end was that the enemies should be persued with all speed But King Sauls exponing the Law after a Tyrannicall way against the intent of the Law which is the Diamond and Pearle of all Lawes the safety of the innocent people was justly resisted by the people who violently hindered innocent Jonathan to be killed Whence it is cleare that the people and Princes put on the Law its true sense and meaning for Ionathans tasting of a little honey though as it was against that sinfull and precipitate circumstance a rash oath yet it was not against the substance and true intent of the Law which was the peoples speedy pursuite of the enemy Whence it is cleare that the people including the Princes hath a ministeriall power to expone the Law aright and according to its genuine intent and that the King as King hath no absolute power to expone the Law as he pleaseth 2. The Kings absolute pleasure can no more be the genuine sense of a just Law then his absolute pleasure can be a Law because the genuine sense of the Law is the Law it selfe as the formall essence of a thing differeth not really but in respect of reason from the thing it selfe The Pope and Romish Church cannot put on the Scripture Ex plenitudine potestatis what ever meaning they will no more then they can out of absolute power make Canonicke Scripture Now so it is that the King by his absolute power cannot make
Law no Law 1. Because he is King by or according to Law but he is not King of Law Rex est Rex secundum legem sed non est Dominus Rex legis 2. Because although it have a good meaning which Vlpian saith Quod principi placet legis vigorem habet The Will of the Prince is the Law yet the meaning is not that any thing is a just Law because it is the Princes Will for its rule formally for it must be good and just before the Prince can will it and then he finding it so he puteth the stampe of a humane Law on it 3. This is the difference between Gods Will and the will of the King or any mortall creature Things are just and good because God willeth them especially things positively good though I conceive it hold in all things and God doth not will things because they are good and just But the creature be he King or any never so eminent doe will things because they are good and just and the Kings willing of a thing maketh it not good and just for only Gods will not the Creatures will can be the cause why things are good and just If therefore it be so it must undeniably hence follow that the Kings will maketh not a just Law to have an unjust and bloody sense and he cannot as King by any absolute super-dominion over the Law put a just sense on a bloody and unjust Law 4. The advancing of any man to the Throne and Royall dignitie putteth not the man above the number of rationall men But no rationall man can create by any act of power never so transcendent or boundlesse a sense to a Law contrary to the Law Nay give me leave to doubt if Omnipotencie can make a just Law to have an unjust and bloody sense aut contra because it involveth a contradiction the true meaning of a Law being the essentiall forme of the Law Hence judge what bruitish swinish flatterers they are who say That it is the true meaning of the Law which the King the only supreme and independent expositor of the Law saith is the true sense of the Law There was once an Animal a Foole of the first magnitude who said He could demonstrate by invincible reasons that the Kings dung was more nourishing food then bread of the floore of the finest wheat For my part I could wish it were the Demonstrators only food for seven dayes and that should be the best demonstration he could make for his proofe 5. It must follow that there can be no necessitie of written laws to the Subjects against Scripture and naturall reason and the law of Nations in which all accord That Lawes not promulgated and published cannot oblige as Lawes Yea Adam in his innocencie was not obliged to obey a Law not written in his heart by Nature except God had made known the Law as is cleare Gen. 3. 11. Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat But if the Kings absolute Will may put on the Law what sense he pleaseth out of his independent and irresistable Supremacie The Lawes promulgated and written to the Subjects can declare nothing what is to be done by the Subjects as just and what is to be avoyded as unjust because the Lawes must signifie to the Subjects what is just and unjust according to their genuine sense Now their genuine sense according to Royalists is not only uncertaine and impossible to be known but also contradictorious for the King obligeth us without gainsaying to believe that the just Law hath this unjust sense Hence this of flattering Royalists crueller to Kings than Ravens for these eat but dead men and they devoure living men when there is a controversie between the King and the Estates of Parliament who shall expone the Law and render its native meaning say Royalists not the Estates of Parliament for they are Subjects not Iudges to the King and only Counsellers and advisers of the King The King therefore must be the only judiciall and finall expositor As for Lawyers said Strafford the Law is not inclosed in a Lawyers Cap. But I remember this was one of the Articles laid to the chargeb of Richard the Second that he said The Law was in his head and breast And indeed it must follow if the King by the plenitude of absolute power be the only supreme uncontrollable Expositor of the Law that is not Law which is written in the Acts of Parliament but that is the Law which is in the Kings breast and head which Iosephus lib. 19. Antiq. c. 2. objected to Caius And all justice and injustice should be finally and peremptorily resolved on the Kings will and absolute pleasure 6. The King either is to expone the Law by the Law it selfe or by his Absolute power loosed from all Law he exponeth it or according to the advise of his Great Senate If the first be said he is nothing more then other Iudges If the second be said he must be omnipotent and more If the third be said he is not absolute if the Senate be only Advisers and he yet the only Iudiciall expositor The King often professeth his ignorance of the Lawes and he must then both be absolute above the Law and ignorant of the Law and 2. the sole and finall Iudiciall exponer of the Law And by this all Parliaments and their power of making Lawes and of judging is cryed down They object Prov. 16. 10. A Divine sentence is in the lips of the King His mouth transgresseth not in judgement ergo he only can expone the Law Ans 1. Lavater saith and I see no reason on the contrary by a King he meaneth all Magistrates 2. Aben Ezra and Isidorus read the words imperatively The Tigurine version They are Oracles which proceed from his lips let not therefore his mouth transgresse in judgement Vatabulus When he is in his prophecies he lyeth not Iansenius Non facile errabit in judicando Mich. Iermine If he pray Calvine If he read in the booke of the Law as God commandeth him Deut. 17. But why stand we on the place He speaketh of good Kings saith Cornel. a Lapide Otherwise âeroboam Achab Manasseh erred in judgement And except as Mercerus exponeth it We understand him to speake of Kings according to their office not their facts and practice we make them Popes and men who cannot give out grievous and unjust sentences on the Throne against both the Word and experience Object 2. Sometimes all is cast upon one mans voice why may not the King be this one man Answ The Antecedent is false the last Voter in a Senate is not the sole Iudge else why should others give suffrages with him 2. This were to take away inferiour Iudges contrary to Gods Word Deut. 1. 17. 2 Chron. 19. 6 7. Rom. 13. 1 2 3. QUEST XXVIII Whether or no Wars raised by the Subjects and Estates
reason in the Text will prove that the Man who is the King in so far as he doth these things that are against his office may be resisted and that in these we are not to be subject but only we are to be subject to his power and Royall authoririe in abstracto in so farre as according to his office he is not a terrour to good workes but to evill 6. The lawfull Ruler is the minister of God or the servant of God for Good to the Commonwealth And to resist the servant in that wherein he is a servant and using the power that he hath from his Master is to resist the Lord his Master v. 4. But the man who is the King commanding unjust things and killing the innocent in these acts is not the minister of God for the Good of the Commonwealth he serveth himselfe and Papists and Prelates for the destruction of Religion Lawes and Commonwealth therefore the Man may be resisted by this Text when the office and power cannot be resisted 7. The Ruler as the Ruler and the nature and intrinsecall end of the office is that he beare Gods sword as an avenger to execute wrath on him that doth evill v. 4. and so cannot be resisted without sinne But the man who is the Ruler and commandeth things unlawfull and killeth the innocent carieth the Papists and Prelates sword to execute not the righteous judgement of the Lord upon the ill-doer but his own private revenge upon him that doth well Ergo the Man may be resisted the Office may not be resisted and they must be two different things 8. We must needs be subject to the Royall office for conscience v. 5. by reason of the fifth Commandement But we must not needs be subject to the man who is King if he command things unlawfull for D. Ferne warranteth us to resist if the Ruler invade us sodainly 2. Without colour of Law or Reason 3. Vnavoydably And Winzetus and Barclay and Grotius as before I cited give us leave to resist a King turning a cruell Tyrant But Paul Rom. 13. forbiddeth us to resist the Power in Abstracto Ergo it must be the Man in concreto that we must resist 9. Those we may not resist to whom we owe tribute as a reward of the onerous worke on which they as Ministers of God doe attend continually But we owe not tribute to the King as a man for then should we be addebted tribute to all men but as a King to whom the wages of tribute is due as to a Princely workman a King as a King ergo the Man and the King are different 10. We owe fear and honour as due to be rendred to the man who is King because he is a King not because he is a man for it is the highest feare and honour due to any mortall man which is due to the King as King 11. The Man and the inferiour Judge are different and we cannot by this Text resist the inferiour Iudge as a Iudge but we resist the ordinance of God as the Text proveth But Cavaliers resist the inferior Iudges as men and have killed divers members of both Houses of Parliament but they will not say that they killed them as Judges but as Rebels If therefore to be a Rebell as a wicked Man and to be a Iudge are differenced thus then to be a Man and to commit some acts of Tyrannie and to be the supreme Iudge and King are two different things 12. Mr. Knox Hist of Scotland l. 2. The Congregation in a letter to the Nobilitie say There is great difference betwixt the Authoritie which is Gods Ordinance and the Persons of those who are placed in authoritie The Authoritie and Gods ordinances can never doe wrong for it commandeth that Vice and wicked men be punished and Vertue with vertuous men and just be maintained But the corrupt Person placed in this Authoritie may offend and most commonly doe contrary to this Authoritie and is then the corruption of Man to be followed by reason that it is clothed with the name of Authoritie And they give instance in Pharaoh and Saul who were lawfall Kings and yet corrupt Men. And certainly the Man and the Divine authoritie differ as the Subject and the Accident as that which is under a Law and can offend God and that which is neither capable of Law nor sinne 13. The King as King is a just creature and by office a living and breathing Law His Will as he is King is nothing but a just Law But the King as a sinfull man is not a just creature but one who can sinne and play the Tyrant and his Will as a private sinfull man is a private Will and may be resisted So the Law saith The King as King can doe no wrong but the King as a Man may doe a wrong While as then the Parliaments of both Kingdomes resist the Kings private will as a Man and fight against his illegall Cut-throats sent out by him to destroy his native subjects they fight for him as a King and obey his publick Legall will which is his Royall will de jure and while he is absent from his Parliaments as a man he is Legally and in his Law-Power present and so the Parliaments are as Legall as if he were personally present with them Let me answer Royalists The P. Prelate saith it is Solomons word By me Kings raign Kings in concreto with their Soveraignty he saith not By me Royalty or Soveraignty raigneth And elsewhere he saith that Barclay saith Paul writing to the Romans keepeth the Roman usuall diction in this who expresse by Powers in abstracto the persons authorized by Power and it is the soriptures Dialect By him were created thrones Dominions Principalities that is Angels to say Angels in abstracto were created 2 Pet. 2. 10. They speak ill of dignities Iud. 8. dispise dominion That is they speak ill of Cajus Caligula Nero our Levites rail against the Lords Anoynted the best of Kings in the world Nero Rom. 13. 4. in concreto beareth not the sword in vain Arnisaeus saith it better then the Prelate he is a witlesse theef Rom. 13. 4. the Royall Power in abstracto doth not bear the sword but the Person not the Power but the Prince himself beareth the sword And the Prelate poor man following Doctor Fern saith It s absurd to pursue the Kings Person with a canon-bullet at Edge-hill and preserve his authority at London or elsewhere So saith Fern 16. sect 10. pag. 64. The concret Powers here are purposed as objects of our obedience which cannot be directed but upon power in some person for it is said ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the powers that are are of God now Power cannot be ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã existent but in some person and Pag. 69. saith Fern can Power in the abstract have praise Or is tribute payed to the Power in the abstract Yea the Power is the reason why
18. 4 5 6 7. 2. They may prove that people sought by a Tyrant to be crucifyed for the Cause of God or to reveale and discover themselves to an Armie of men who come to seek them Ioh. 13. 1 2. Ioh. 18. 4 5 6 7. 3. That Martyrs are of purpose to goe to the place where they know they shall be apprehended and put to death for this Christ did and are willingly to offer themselves to the enemies Armie for so did Christ Ioh. 14. 3. Mar. 14. 41 42. Mat. 26. 46 47. and so by his example all the Parliament all the Innocents of the Citie of London and Assemblie of Divines are obliged to lay downe Armes and to goe to their owne death to Prince Rupert and the bloody Irish Rebels 4. By this example it is unlawfull to resist the cut-throats of a King for Cesar in his owne Royall person the High Priest in person came not out against Christ Yea it is not lawfull for the Parliament to resist a Iudas who hath fled as a traiterous Apostate from the Truth and the Temple of Christ 5. It is not lawful for innocents to defend themselves by any violence against the invasion of superiours in D. Fernes three cases in which he alloweth resistance 1. When the Invasion is sudden 2. Vnavoidable 3. Without all colour of Law and Reason In the two last cases Royalists defend the lawfulnes of self-defence 6. If the example be pressed Christ did not this and this he resisted not with violence to save his owne life therefore we are to abstaine from resistance and such and such meanes of self-preservation then because Christ appealed not from inferiour Judges to the Emperour Caesar who no doubt would have shewne him more favour then the Scribes and Pharisees did and because Christ conveyed not a humble supplication to his Soveraigne and Father Caesar then because he proffered not a humble petition to Prince Pilate for his life he being an innocent man and his cause just because he neither conduced an Orator to pleade his owne just cause nor did he so plead for himselfe and give in word and writ all lawfull and possible defences for his own safety but answered many things with silence to the admiration of the Judge Marke 15. 3 4. 5. and was thrice pronounced by the Judge to be innocent Luke 22. ver 23. because I say Christ did not all these for his owne life therefore it is unlawfull for Scotland and England to appeale to the King to supplicate to give in Appologiâs c. I thinke Royalists dare not say so But if they say he would not resist and yet might have done all these lawfully because these be lawfull meanes and resistance with the sword unlawfull because He that taketh the sword shall perish by the sword Let me Answer then 1. They leave the argument from Christs example who was thus farre subject to higher powers that he would not resist and plead from the unlawfulnesse of resistance this is petitio principii 2. He that taketh the sword without Gods warrant which Peter had not but the contrary he was himselfe a Sathan to Christ who would but councell him not to die but there is no shadow of a word to prove that violent resisting is unlawfull when the King and his Irish cut-throats pursue us unjustly onely Christ saith when God may deliver extraordinarily by his Angels except it be his absolute will that his Son should drink the cup of death then to take the sword when God hath declared his will on the contrary is unlawfull and that is all Though I doe not question but Christs asking for swords and his arresting all his enemies to the ground Ioh. 18. 6. backward is a justifying of selfe-defence But hit herto it is cleare by Christs example that he onely was commanded to suffer Now the second case in which suffering falleth under a Commandement is indirectly and comparatively when it commeth to the election of the witnesse of Jesus that it is referred to them either to deny the truth of Christ and his name or then to suffer death the choise is apparently evident and this choise that persecuters referre us unto is to us a Commandement of God that we must choose suffering for Christ and refuse sinning against Christ but the supposition must stand that this alternative is unavoydable that is not in our power to decline either suffering for Christ or denying of Christ before men otherwayes no man is to expect the reward of a witnesse of Iesus who having a lawfull possible meanes of eschewing suffering doth yet cast himselfe into suffering needlesly But I prove that suffering by men of this world falleth not formally and directly under any divine positive Law for the Law of nature what ever Arminians in their Declaration or this Arminian excommunicate think with them for they teach that God gave a Commandement to Adam to abstaine from such and such fruit with paine and trouble to sinlesse nature doth not command suffering or any thing contrary to nature as nature is sinlesse I prove it thus 1. What ever falleth under a positive Commandement of God I may say here under any Commandement of God is not a thing under the free will and power of others from whom we are not discended necessarily by naturall generation but that men of the world kill me even these from whom I am not discended by naturall generation which I speake to exclude Adam who killed all his posterity is not in my free will either as if they had my common nature in that act or as if I were accessory by counsell consent or approbation to that act for this is under the free-will and power of others not under my owne free-will Ergo that I suffer by others is not under my free-will and cannot fall under a Commandement of God And certainly it is an irrationall Law glorified be his name that God should command Antipas either formally to suffer or formally not to suffer death by these of the Synagogue of Sathan Revel 2. 13. because if they be pleased not to kill him it is not in his free-will to be killed by them and if they shall have him in their power except God extraordinarily deliver it is not in his power in an ordinary providence not to be killed 2. All these places of Gods word that recommendeth suffering to the followers of Christ do not command formally that we suffer Ergo suffering falleth not formally under any Commandement of God I prove the Antecedent because if they be considered they prove only that comparatively we are to choose rather to suffer then to deny Christ before men Mat. 10 28 32. Revel 2. 13. Mat. 10. 37. Mat. 16. 24. c. 19. 29. or then they command not suffering according to the substance of the passion but according to the manner that we suffer willingly cheerfully and patiently Hence Christs word to take up his Crosse
cannot help us Assert 3. By the place 1 Pet. 2. The servant unjustly buffeted is not to buffet his master again but to bear patiently as Christ did who when he was reviled did not revile again Not because the place condemneth resistance for self-defence but because buffeting again is formally re-offending not defending defending is properly a warding of a blow or stroak if my neighbour come to kill me and I can by no means save my life by flight I may defend my self and all Divines say I may rather kill ere I be killed because I am nearer by the law of nature and dearer to my self and my own life then to my brother but if I kill him out of malice or hatred the act of defending by the unlawfull manner of doing becometh an act of offending and murther whence the mind of the blood-shedder will vary the nature of the action from whence this corolarie doth naturally issue that the physicall action of taking away the life maketh not murther nor homicide and so the physical action of offending my neighbour is not murther Abraham may kill his son he for whom the cities of refuge were ordained and did kill his brother yet not hating him he was not by Gods law judged a murtherer And 2. It necessarily hence followeth that an act which is physically an act of offending my brother yea even to the taking away of his life is often morally and legally an act of lawfull self-defence an offending of another necessitated from the sole invention of self-defence is no more but an act of innocent self defence if David with his men had killed any of Sauls men in a set battel David and his men onely intending self defence the waren Davids part was meere defensive for physicall actions of killing indifferent of themselves yet imperated by a principle of naturall self-defence and clothed with this formall end of self-defence or according to the substance of the action the act is of self-defence If therefore one shall wound me deadly and I know it is my death after that to kill the killer of my selfe I being onely a private man must be no act of self-defence but of homicide because it cannot be imperated by a sinlesse dictate of a naturall conscience for this end of self-defence after I know I am killed Any mean not used for preventing death must be an act of revenge not of self-defence for it is physically unsutable for the intended end of self-defence And so for a servant buffeted to buffet againe is of the same nature the second buffet not being a conducible meane to ward the first buffet but a meane to procure heavier stroakes and possibly killing it cannot be an act of self defence for an act of self defence must be an act destinated ex naturarei onely for defence and if it be known to be an act of sole offending without any known necessary relation of a mean to self-defence as the end it cannot be properly an act of self-defence Assert 4. When the matter is lighter as in paying tribute or suffering a buffet of a rough master though un justly we are not to use any act of re-offending For though I be not absolute Lord of my owne goods and so may not at my sole pleasure give tribute and expend monies to the hurting of my children where I am not by Gods Law or Mans Law obliged to pay tribute and though I be not an absolute Lord of my members to expose face and cheeks and back to stripes and whips at my owne meere will yet have we a comparative dominion given to us of God in matters of goods and disposing of our members I think I may except the case of mutilation which is a little death for buffets because Christ no doubt to teach us the like would rather give of his goods and pay tribute where it is not due then that this scandall lay on the way of Christ that Christ was no loyall subject to lawfull Emperors and Kings And 1 Cor. 9. Paul would rather not take stipend though it was due to him then hinder the course of the Gospel And the like is 1 Cor. 6. where the Corinthians were rather to suffer losse in their goods then to goe to Law before Infidel Judges and by the like to prevent greater inconveniences and mutilation and death the Christian servant hath that dominion over his members rather to suffer buffets then to ward off buffets with violent resistance But it is no consequent that innocent subjects should suffer death of tyrants and servants be killed by masters and yet that they shall not be allowed by the law of nature to defend themselves by re-offending when onely self-defence is intended because we have not that dominion over life and death And therefore as a man is his brothers murtherer who with froward Cain will not be his brothers keeper and may preserve his brothers life without losse of his owne life when his brother is unjustly preserved so when he may preserve his owne life and doth not that which Natures Law alloweth him to doe rather to kill ere he be killed he is guilty of self-murther because he is deficient in the duty of lawfull self-defence But I grant to offend or kill is not of the nature of defensive warre but accidentall thereunto and yet killing of cut-throats sent forth by the illegal commandement of the King may be intended as a mean and a lawfull mean of self-defence 2. Of two ills of punishment we have a comparative dominion over our selves a man may cast his goods in the sea to redeeme his life So for to redeeme peace we may suffer buffets but because death is the greatest ill of punishment God hath not made it eligible to us when lawfull self defence is at hand But in defending our own life against Tyrannicall power though we do it by offending and killing we resist no ordinance of God onely I judge killing of the King in self-defence not lawfull because self-defence must be national on just causes Let here the reader judge Barcley l. 3. c. 8. pag. 159. con Monar If the King saith he shall vex the Common-wealth or one part thereof with great and intollerable cruelty what shall the people do they have saith he in that case a power to resist and defend themselves from injury but onely to defend themselves not to invade the Prince nor to resist the injury or to recede from reverence due to the Prince I answer 1. Let Barclay or the prelate if he may carry Barclayes books or any difference these two the people may resist a Tyrant but they may not resist the injuries inflicted by a Tyrants officers cut-throats I cannot imagine how to conciliate these two for to resist the cruelty of a King is but to hold off the injurie by resistance 2. If this Nero waste the Common-wealth unsufferably with his cruelty and remaine a lawful King to be honoured
as a King who may resist him according to Royalists way but from Rom. 13. they resist the Ordinance of God 3. Resisting is not a meere suffering nor is it a morall resisting by alledging lawes to be broken by him We had never a question with Royalists about such resisting 2. Nor is this resisting non-obedience to unjust commandements that resisting was never yet in question by any except the Papists who in good earnest by consequent say It is better to obey men then God 3. Iâ is then resisting by bodily violence but if the King have such an absolute power given him by God as Royalists fancie from Rom. 13. 1 2. 1 Sam. 8. 9 11. I know not how Subjects have any power given them of God to resist the power from God and Gods Ordinance And if this resisting extend not it selfe to defensive wars how shall the people defend themselves from injuries and the greatest injuries imaginable from an Armie of Cut-throats and Idolaters in war comming to destroy Religion set up Idolatry and root out the name of Gods people and lay waste the mountaine of the Lords house And if they may defend themselves by defensive wars how can wars be without offending 3. The law of Nature teacheth to repell violence with violence when one man is oppressed no lesse then when the Common-wealth is oppressed Barclay should have given either Scripture or the law of Nature for his warrant here 4. Let us suppose a King can be perjured how are the Estates of the Kingdome who are his Subjects by Barclays way not to challenge such a Tyrant of his perjurie He did swear he should be meek and clement and he is now become a furious Lyon shall the flock of God be committed to the keeping of a furious Lyon D. Ferne p. 3. sect 2. pag. 9. addeth Personall defence is lawfull against sudden and illegall invasion such as Elisha practiced even if it were against the Prince to ward blowes and to hold the Princes hand but not to returne blowes but generall resistance by Armes cannot be without many unjust violences and doth immediatelie strike at the order which is the life of the Common-wealth Answ If it be naturall to one man to defend himself against the personall invasion of a Prince then is it naturall and warrantable to ten thousand and to a whole Kingdome and what reason to defraud a Kingdome of the benefit of self-defence more then one man Neither grace nor policy destroyeth nature and how shall ten or twenty thousand be defended against Cannons and Musquets that killeth afar off except they keepe Townes against the King which D. Ferne and others say had beene treason in David if he had kept Keilah against King Saul except they be armed to offend with weapons of the like nature to kill rather then be killed as the Law of nature teacheth 3. To hold the hands of the Prince is no lesse resisting violence then to cut the lap of his garment which Royalists think unlawfull and is an opposing of externall force to the Kings person 4. It is true warres meerely defensive cannot be but they must be offensive but they are offensive by accident and intended for meere defence and they cannot be without warres sinfully offensive nor can any warres be in rerum naturâ now I except the warres commanded by God who onely must have beene sinfull in the manner of doing but some innocent must be killed but warâes cannot for that be condemned 5. Neither are offensive warres against these who are no powers and no ordinances of God such as are cut-throate Irish condemned Prelates and Papists now in Armes more destructive to the order established by God then acts of lawfull war are or the punishing of robbers and by all this Protestants in Scotland and England should remaine in their houses unarmed while the Papists and Irish come on them armed and cut their throats and spoyle and plunder at will Nor can we think that resistance to a King in holding his hands can be naturall if he be stronger it is not a naturall meane of selfe-preservation Nature hath appoynted innocent and offending violence against unjust violence as a meanes of selfe-preservation Goliahs sword is no naturall meanes to hold Sauls hands for a sword hath no fingers and if Saul 1. suddainly 2. without colour of Law or reason 3. inevitably should make personall invasion on David to kill him Dr. Ferne saith he may resist but resisting is essentially a reaction of violence shew us Scripture or reason for violent holding a Kings hands in an unjust personall invasion without any other reaction of offence Walter Torrils killed King W. Rufus as he was shooting at a Deere the Earle of Suffolk killed Henrie the 8. at Tilting there is no treasonable intention here and so no homicide Defensive wars are offensive ex eventu effectu not ex causa or ex intentione But it may be asked if no passive subjection at all be commanded as due to Superiours Rom. 13. Answ None properly so called that is purely passive onely weare for feare of the sword to doe our duety 2. We are to suffer ill of punishment of Tyrants ex hypothesi that they inflict that ill on us some other way and in some other notion then we are to suffer ill of equals for we are to suffer of equals not for any paternall authority that they have over us as certainly wee are to suffer ill inflicted by Superiours I demand of Royalists if Tyrants inflicting evill of punishment upon Subjects unjustly be powers ordained of God 2. If to resist a power in Tyrannicall acts be to resist God 3. Since wee are not to yield active obedience to all the commandements of Superiours whether they be good or ill by vertue of this place Rom. 13. how is it that we may not deny passive subjection to all the Acts of violence exercised whether of injustice whether in these Acts of violence wherein the Prince in actu ex cito and formally punisheth not in Gods stead or in these wherein he punishâth Tyrannically in no formall or actuall subordination to God we owe passive subjection I desire an answer to these Assert 5. Flying from the tyranny of abused Authority is a plaine resisting of Rulers in their unlawfull oppression and perverting of judgement All Royalists grant it lawfull and ground it upon the Law of Nature that those that are persecuted by tyrannous Princes may flee and it is evident from Christs Commandment If they persecute you in one City flee to another Mat. 10. 23. and by Mat. 23. 34. Christ fled from the fury of the Jewes till his houre was come Elias Vriah Ier. 26. 20. Ioseph and Mary fled the Martyres did hide themselves in caves and dens of the earth Heb. 11. 37 38. Paul was let downe through a window in a basket at Damascus this certainly is resistance For looke what legall power God hath given to a
tyrannous Ruler remaining a power ordained of God to summon legally and set before his tribunall the servants of God that he may kill them and murther them unjustly that same legall power he hath to murther them For if it be a legall power to kill the innocent and such a power as they are obliged in conscience to submit unto they are obliged in conscience to submit to the legall power of citing for it is one and the same power Now if resistance to the one power be unlawfull resistance to the other must be unlawfull also and if the law of self-defence or command of Christ warrant me to disobey a tyrannous power commanding me to compeir to receive the sentence of death that same Law farre more shall warrant me to resist and deny passive subjection in submitting to the un-unjâst sentence of death 2. When a murtherer self-convicted fleeth from the just power of a Judge lawfully citing him he resisteth the just power ordained of God Rom. 3. Ergo by the same reason if we flee from a tyrannous power we resist that tyrannous power and so by Royalists ground we resist the ordinance of God by flying Now to be disobedient to a just power summoning a malefactor is to hinder that lawfull power to be put forth in lawfull Acts for the Judge cannot purge the land of blood if the murtherer flee 3. When the King of Israel sendeth a Captaine and fifty Lictors to fetch Elisha these come instructed with legall power from the King if I may lay fetters on their power by flight upon the ground of self-preservation the same warrant shall allow me to oppose harmelesse violence for my owne safety 4. Royalists hold it unlawfull to keepe a strong hold against the King though the Fort be not the Kings house and though that David should not have offended if he had kept Keilah against Saul Dr. Ferne and Royalists say it had beene unlawfull resistance What more resistance is made to Royall power by wals interposed then by Seas and miles of earth interposed Both are physicall resistance and violent in their kinde QUEST XXXI Whether or no self-defence against any unjust violence offered to the life be warranted by Gods Law and the Law of Nature and Nations SElfe-preservation in all creatures in which is nature is in the creatures sutable to their nature The Bull defendeth it selfe by its hornes the Eagle by her clawes and bill it will not follow that a Lambe will defend it selfe against a Wolfe any other way then by flying So men and Christian men doe naturally defend themselves but the manner of self-defence in a rationall creature is rationall and not alwayes meerely naturall therefore a politique communitie being a combination of many natures as neither grace farre lesse can policy destroy nature then must these many natures be allowed of God to use a naturall self-defence If the King bring in an Army of forraigners then a politique community must defend it selfe in a rationall way Why Self-defence is naturall to Man and naâurall to a Lamb but not the same way A Lamb or a Dove naturally defend themselves against beasts of another kinde onely by flight not by re-action and re-offending But it followeth not that a man defendeth himselfe from his enemy only by flight If a robber invade me to take away my life and my purse I may defend my selfe by re-action for reason and grace both may determine the way of self-preservation Hence Royalists say a private man against his Prince hath no way to defend himselfe but by flight Ergo a community hath no other way to defend themselves but by flight 1. The antecedent is false Dr. Ferne alloweth to a private man supplications and denying of Subsidies and Tribute to the Prince when he imployeth Tribute to the destruction of the Common-wealth which by the way is a cleere resistance and an active resistance made against the King Rom. 13. 6 7. and against a Commandement of God except Royalists grant tyrannous powers may be resisted 2. The consequence is naught for a private man may defend himselfe against unjust violence but not any way he pleaseth The first way is by supplications and apologies he may not presently use violence to the Kings servants before he supplicate nor may he use re-offending if flight may save David used all the three in order 1. He made his defence by words by the mediation of Ionathan when that prevailed not he tooke himselfe to flight as the next but because he knew flight was not safe every way and nature taught him self-preservation and reason and light of grace taught him the meanes and the religious order of these meanes for self-preservation Therefore he addeth a third He took Goliahs sword and gathered six hundred armed men and after that made use of an hoast Now a sword and armour are not horsing and shipping for flight but contrary to flight so re-offending is Policies last refuge A godly magistrate taketh not away the life of a subject if other means can compasse the end of the Law and so he is compelled and necessitated to take away the life so the private man in his naturall self-defence not to use re-action or violent re-offending in his self-defence against any man farre lesse against the servants of a King but in the exigence of the last and most inexorable necessity And it is true that M. Symmons faith Sect. 11. pag. 35. Self-defence is not to be used where it cannot be without sinne It is certaine Necessity is but a hungry plea for sinne Luke 14. 18. but it is also true re-offending comparatively that I kill rather then I be killed in the sinlesse Court of Natures spotlesse and harmelesse necessity is lawfull and necessary except I be guilty of self-murder in the culpable omission of self-defence Now a private man may flie and that is his second necessity and violent re-offending is the third meane of self-preservation But with leave violent re-offending is necessary to a private man when his second meane to wit âlight is not possible and cannot attaine the end as in the case of David if âlight doe not prevaile Goliahs sword and an host of armed men are lawfull So to a Church and a community of Protestants men women aged sucking children sick and diseased who are pressed either to be killed or forsake Religion and Jesus Christ âlight is not the second meane nor a meane at all because 1. not possible and therefore not a naturall meane of preservation For 1. the aged the sick the sucking infants and sound Religion in the posteritie cannot flee âlight here is physically and by natures necessity unpossible and therefore no lawfull mean What is to nature physically unpossible is no lawfull mean 2. If Christ have a promise that the ends of the earth Psal 2. 8. and the Isles shall be his possession Esa 49. 1. I see not how naturall defence can
put us to flee even all Protestants and their seed and the weak and sick whom we are obliged to defend as our selves both by the Law of nature and grace I read that seven wicked nations and idolatrous were cast out of their land to give place to the Church of God to dwell there but shew me a warrant in natures Law and in Gods word that three Kingdomes of Protestantâ their seed aged sick sucking children should flee out of England Scotland Ireland and leave Religion and the Land to a King and to Papists Prelates and bloody Irish and Atheists and therefore to a Church and community having Gods right and mans law to the land violent re-offending is their second mean next to supplications and declarations c. and flight is not required of them as of a private man Yea flight is not necessarily required of a private man but where it is a possible mean of self-preservation violent and unjust invasion of a private man which is unavoidable may be obviated with violent re-offending Now the unjust invasion made on Scotland in 1640. for refusing the Service-book or rather the idolatry of the Masse therein intended was unavoidable it was unpossible for the Protestants their old and sick their women and sucking children to flee over sea or to have shipping betwixt the Kings bringing an army on them at Duns-law and the Prelates charging of the Ministers to receive the masse-book Althusius saith well Pol. c. 38. n. 78. Though private men may flee but the estates if they flee they do not their duty to commit a country religion and all to a Lion Let not any oâject we may not devise a way to fulfill the prophecy Psal 2. 8 9. Isa 49. 1. it is true if the way be our own sinfull way nor let any object a Colony went to New-England and fled the persecution Answer True but if fleeing be the onely mean after supplication there was no more reason that one Colony should go to New-England then it is necessary by a divine law obligatory that the wholâ Protestants in the three kingdomes according to Royalists Doctrine are to leave their native country religion to one man to popish Idolators Atheists willing to worship idols with them and whethere then shall the Gospel be which we are obliged to defend with our lives 2. There is Tutela vitae proxima remota A meer and immediat defence of our life and a remote or mediat defence when there is no actuall invasion made by a man seeking our life we are not to use violent re-offending David might have killed Saul whân he was sleeping and when he cut off the lap of his garment but it was unlawfull for him to kill the Lords Anointed because he is the Lords Annoited as it is unlawfull to kill a man because he is the Image of God Gen. 96. except in case of necessity The magistrate in case of necessity may kill the malefector thought his malefices do not put him in that case that he hath not now the image of God now prudency and light of grace determineth When we are to use violent re-offending for self-preservation it is not left to our pleasure In a remote posture of self-defence we are not to âse violet re-offending David having Saul in his hand was in a remote posture of defence the unjust invasion then was not actuall not inavoidable not a necessary mean in human prudence for self-preservation for King Saul was then in a habituall not in an actuall pursuit of the whole Princes Elders and judges of Israel or of a whole community and Church Saul did but seek the life of one man David and that not for religion or a nationall pretended offence and therefore he could not in conscience put hands on the Lords anoynted but if Saul had actually invaded David for his life David might in that case make use of Goliahs sword for he took not that weapon with him as a Cypher to boast Saul it is no lesse unlawfull to threatten a King then to put hands on him and rather kill or be killed by Sauls emissaries Because then he should have been in an immediate and nearest posture of actuall self-defence Now the case is farre otherwayes between the King and the two Parliaments of England and Scotland for the King is not 1. Sleeping in his emissaries for he hath armies in two kingdomes and now in three kingdomes by sea and land night and day in actuall pursuit not of one David but of the estates and a Christian community in England and Scotland and that for Religious Lawes and Liberties for the question is now betweene Papist and Protestant between Arbitrary or Tyranicall government and law-government and Therefore by both the Lawes of the politique societies of both Kingdomes and by the Law of God and nature we are to use violent re-offending for self-preservation and put to this necessity when armies are in actuall pursuit of all the Protestant Churches of the three Kingdoms to actuall killing rather then we be killed and suffer Lawes and Religion to be undone But saith the Royalist Davids argument God forbid that I stretch out my hand against the Lords Annoynted my Master the King concludeth universally that the King in his most Tyrannous acts still remaining the Lords Anoynted cannot be resisted Ans 1. David speaketh of stretching out his hand against the person of King Saul no man in the three Kingdomes did so much as attempt to do violence to the Kings person But this argument 2. is inconsequent for a King invading in his own Royall person the innocent subject 1. Suddainly 2. Without colour of Law and reason 3. Unavoidably may be personally resisted and that with opposing a violence bodily yet in that invasion he remaineth the Lords Annoynted 2. By this argument the life of a murtherer cannot be taken away by a Judge for he remaineth one endued with Gods image and keepeth stil the nature of a man under all the murthers that he doth but it followeth no wayes that because God hath indowed his person with a sort of Royalty of a Divine image that his life cannot be taken and certainly if to be a man endued with Gods image Gen. 6. 9 10. and to bee an ill doer worthy of evill punishment are different to be a King and an ill doer may be distinguished The grounds of self-defence are these A woman or a young man may violently oppose a King if he force the one to adultery and incest and the other to Sodomy Though Court-flatterers should say the King in regard of his absolutenesse is Lord of life and death yet no man ever said that the King is Lord of chastity faith and oath that the wife hath made to her husband 2. Particular nature yeelds to the good of universall nature for which cause heavie bodies ascend aerie and light bodies descend If then a wilde Bull or a goaring Oxe
may not be let loose in a great market-confluence of people and if any man turne so distracted as he smite himselfe with stones and kill all that passe by him or come at him in that case the man is to be bound and his hands fettered and all whom he invadeth may resist him were they his owne sons and may save their owne lives with weapons much more a King turning a Nero King Saul vexed with an evill spirit from the Lord may be resisted and farre more iâ a King indued with use of reason shall put violent hands on all his subjects kill his son and heire yea any violently invaded by natures law may defend themselves and the violent restraining of such an one is but the hurtingof one man who cannot be virtually the Common-wealth but his destroying of the community of men sent out in warres as his bloody emissaries to the dissolution of the Common-wealth 3. The cutting off of a contagious member that by a Gangrene would corrupt the whole body is well warranted by nature because the safety of the whole is to be preferred to the safety of a part Nor is it much that Royalists say the King being the head destroy him the whole body the Comon-wealth is dissolved as cut off a mans head the life of the whole man is taken away Because 1. God cutteth off the spirits of tyrannous Kings and yet the Common-wealth is not dissolved no more then when a Leopard or a wilde Boare running through children is killed it can be the destruction of all the children in the land 2. A king indefinitely is referred to the Common-wealth as an adequat head to a Monarchicall Kingdome and remove all Kings and the politique body as Monarchicall in its frame is not Monarchicall but it leaveth not off to be a politique body seeing it hath other Judges but the naturall body without the head cannot live 2. This or that tyrannous King being a transient mortall thing cannot be referred to the immortall Common-wealth as it is adequat correlate They say the King âever dieth yet this King can dye an immortall politique body such as the Common-wealth must have an immortall head and that is a King as a King not this or that man possibly a tyrant who is for the time and eternall things abstract from time onely a King 4. The reason of Fortunius Garcias a skilfull Lawyer in Spaine is considerable Coment in l. ut vim vi ff de justit jure God hath implânted in every creature naturall inclinations and motions to preserve it selfe and we are to love our self for God and have a love to preserve our selves rather then our neighbour and Natures law teacheth every man to love God best of all and next our selves more then our neighbour for the Law saith Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy selfe then saith Malderus com in 12. q. 26. tom 2. c. 10. concl 2. The love of our selfe is the measure of the love of our neighbour But the rule and the measure is more perfect simple and more principall then the thing that is measured It is true I am to love the salvation of the Church it comming neerer to Gods glory more then my owne salvation as the wishes of Moses and Paul do prove and I am to love the salvation of my brother more then my owne temporall life but I am to love my owne temporall life more then the life of any other and therefore I am rather to kill then to be killed the exigence of necessity so requiring Nature without sin aimeth this as a truth in the case of losse of life Proximus sum egomet mihi Ephes 5. 28 29. He that loveth his wife loveth him selfe for no man ever yet hated his owne flesh but nourisheth it and cherisheth it even as the Lord the Church As then nature tyeth the dam to defend the young birds and the Lyon her whelps and the husband the wife and that by a comparative re-offending rather then the wife or children should be killed yea hee that is wanting to his brother if a robber unjustly invade his brother and helpeth him not is a murtherer of his brother so farre Gods spirituall law requiring both conservation of it in our person and preservation in others The forced Damsell was commanded to cry for help and not the Magistrate onely but the neerest private man or woman was to come by an obligation of a divine Law of the seventh Commandement to rescue the Damsell with violence even as a man is to save his enemies Oxe or his Asse out of a pit And if a private man may inflict bodily punishment of two degrees to preserve the life and chastity of his neighbour far rather then suffer his life and chastity to be taken away then he may inflict violence of foure degrees even to killing for his life and much more for his owne life So when a Robber with deadly weapons invadeth an innocent traveller to kill him for his goods upon the supposition that if the Robber be not killed the innocent shall be killed Now the question is which of the two by Gods morall Law and revealed will in point of conscience ought to be killed by his fellow for we speake not now of Gods eternall decree of permitting evill according to the which murtherers may crucisie the innocent Lord of glory by no morall Law of God should the ââ just robber kill the innocent traveller therefore in this exigence of providence the traveller should rather kill the robber If any say by Gods morall Law not one should kill his fellow and it is a sin against the morall Law in either to kill other I answer If a third shall come in when the robber and the innocent are invading each other for his life all acknowledge by the sixt Commandement the third may cut off the robbers arme to save the innocent but by what Law of God he may cut off his arme he may take his life also to save the other for it is murther to wound unjustly and to dismember a man by private authority as it is to take away his life If therefore the third may take away the robbers member then also his life so hee doe it without malice or appetite of revenge and if he may doe it out of this principle Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy selfe because a man is obliged more to love his owne flesh then his neighbours Ephes 5. 28. and so more to defend himselfe then to defend his neighbour then may he oppose violence to the robber As two men drowning in a water the one is not obliged by Gods Law to expose himselfe to drowning to save his neighbour but by the contrary hee is obliged rather to save himselfe though it were with the losse of his neighbours life As in war if souldiers in a strait passage be pursued on their life nature teacheth them to flee if one fall his fellow
in that exigence is not onely not obliged to lift him up but he and the rest flying though they trample on him and kill him they are not guilty of murther seeing they hated him not before Deut. 19. 4. 6. so Chemnit loc com de vindic q. 3. alloweth private defence 1. When the violence is suddaine And the 2. Violence manifestly inevitable 3. When the Magistrate is absent and cannot help 4. When moderation is kept as Lawyers require 1. That it be done incontinent if it be done after the injury it is revenge not defence 2. Not of Desire of revenge 3. With proportion of armor If the violent invader invade not with deadly weapons you must not invade him with deadly weapons and certainly the law Exod. 22. of a mans defending his house is clear 1. If he come in the night it is presumed he is a robber 2. If he be taken with a weapon breaking the house he cometh to kill a man may defend himself wife and children but he is 3. but to wound him and if he die of the wound the defender is free so the defender is not to intend his death but to save himself 5. It were a mighty defect in providence to man if dogs by nature may defend themselves against Wolves Bulls against Lyons Doves against Haukes if man in the absence of the lawfull Magistrate should not defend himself against unjust violence but one man might raise armies of Papists sick for blood to destroy innocent men They object When the King is present in his person and his invaders he is not absent and so though you may rather kill a private man then suffer your self to be killed yet because prudence determineth the means of self-defence you are to expose your life to hazard for justice of your King and therefore not to do violence to the life of your King nor can the body in any self-defence fight against the head that must be the destruction of the whole Ans Though the King be present as an unjust invader in Warres against his innocent subjects he is absent as a King and a father and defender and present as an unjust grassator and therefore the innocent may defend themselves when the King neither can nor will defend him Nature maketh a man saith the law l. Gener. c. de decur l. 10. l. sialius § Bellissimè ubique Gloss in vers ex magn not per. illum text ff quod vi aut clam l. ait praetor § si debitorem meum ff de hisque in fraud credito even a privat man his own judge magistrate and defender quando copiam judicis qui sibijus reddat non habet When he hath no judge to give him justice and law 2. The subjects are to give their lives for the King ad the King because the safety of the King as King is the safety of the common-wealth But the King as offering unjust violence to his innocent subjects is not King Zoannet part 3. defens n. 44. transgrediens notoriè officium suum judex agit velut privatus aliquis non ut magistratus ff de injur est bonus in simili in l. qui fundum § si tutor ff pro emptore 3. If the politick body fight against this head in particular not as head but as an oppressor of the people There is no fear of dissolution if the body rise against all magistracy as magistracy and lawes dissolution of all must follow Parliaments and inferiour jadges are heads Num. 1. 16. Num. 10. 4. Deut. 1. 15. Iosh 22. 21. Mic. 3. 1. ver 9. 11. 1 King 8. 1. 1 Chron. 5. 25. 2 Chro. 5. 2. No lesle then the King and it is unlawfull to offer violence to them though I shall rather thinke a private man is to suffer the King to kill him rather then he kill the King because he is to preferre the life of a private man to the life of a publique man 6. By the law of nature a ruler is appointed to defend the innocent Now by nature an infant in the wombe dâfendeth it self first before the parents can defend it then when parents and magistrates are not and violent invading magistrates are not in that magistrates nature hath commended every man to self-defence 7. The Law of nature excepteth no violence whether inflicted by a magistrate or any other unjust violence from a ruler is twice injustice 1. He doth unjustly as a man 2. As a member of the common-wealth 3. He committeth a speciall kind of sin of injustice against his office but it is absurd to say we may lawfully dâfend our selves from smaller injuries by the law of nature and not from the greater If the Pope saith Fer. Vasquez illust quest l. 1. c. 24. n. 24 25. command to take away benefices from the just owner these who are to execute his commandement are not to obey but to write back that that mandat came not from his holinesse but from the avarice of his Officers but if the Pope still continue and presse the same unjust Mandat the same should be written againe to him and though there be none above the Pope yet there is naturall self-defence patent for all Defensio vitae neceâaria est à jure naturali profluit L. ut vim ff de just jure 16. Nam quod quisque ob tutelam corporis sui fecerit jure fecisse videatur Câjus naturale 1. distinc l. 1. ff de vi vi armata l. injuriarum ff de injuria C. significasti 2. de hom l. scientiam sect qui non aliter ff ad leg Aquil. C. si vero 1. de sent excom l. sed etsi ff ad leg Aquil. etiamsi sequatur homicidium Vasquez l. 1. c. 17. n. 5. etiam occidere licet ob defensionem rerum Vim vi repellere omnia jura permittunt in C. significasti Garcias Fortunius Comment in l. ut vim ff de instit jur n. 3. defendere se est juris naturae gentium A jure civili fuit additum moderamen inculpatae tutelae lac Novel defens n. 101. Occidens Principem vel alium Tyrannidem exercentem à paena homicidii excusatur Grotius de jure belli pacis l. 2. c. 1. n. 3. Si corpus impetatur vi presente cum periculo vitae non aliter vitabili tune bellum est licitum etiam cum intersectione periculum infârentis ratio natura quemque sibicommendat Barcl advers Monar l. 3. c. 8 est jus cuilibet se tenendi adversus immanem sevitiam But what ground saith the Royalist is there to take Arms against a King Ielousies and suspitions are not enough Ans The King sent first an Armie to Scotland and blocked us up by sea before we took Armes 2. Papists were armed in England they have professed themselves in their Religion of Trent to be so much the holyer that they root out Prottstants 3. The King declared we had broken loyalty to him since the last
it would create more enemies not help his Cause 3. To David to kill Saul sleeping and the people who out of a mis-informed conscience came out many of them to help their lawfull Prince against a Traitor as was supposed seeking to kill their King and to usurp the throne had not been wisdome nor justice because to kill the enemie in a just self-defence must be when the enemie actually doth invade and the life of the defendant cannot be otherwise saved A sleeping enemie is not in the act of unjust pursuit of the innocent but if an Armie of Papists Philistims were in the fields sleeping pursuing not one single David onely for a supposed personall wrong to the King but lying in the fields and campe against the whole Kingdome and Religion labouring to introduce arbitary Government Popery Idolatry and to destroy Lawes and Liberties and Parliaments then David were obliged to kill these murtherers in their sleep If any say The case is all one in a naturall self-defence what ever be the cause and who ever be the enemy because the self-defender is not to offend except the unjust Invader be in actuall pursuit now Armies in their sleep are not in actuall pursuit Answ When one man with a multitude invadeth one man that one man may pursue as he seeth most conducible for self-defence Now the Law saith Threatnings and terror of Armour maketh imminent danger and the case of pursuit in self-defence lawfull if therefore an Armie of Irish Rebels and Spanyards were sleeping in their Camp and our King in a deep sleep in the midst of them and these Rebels actually in the Camp besieging the Parliament and the Citie of London most unjustly to take away Parliament Laws and Liberties of Religion it should follow that Generall Essex ought not to kill the Kings Majesty in his sleep for he is the Lords Anointed but 1. will it follow that Generall Essex may not kill the Irish Rebels sleeping about the King and that he may not rescue the Kings Person out of the hands of the Papists and Rebels ensnaring the King and leading him on to Popery and to employ his Authority to defend Popery and trample upon Protestant Parliaments and Lawes Certainly from this example this cannot be concluded For Armies in actuall pursuit of a whole Parliament Kingdome Lawes and Religion though sleeping in the Camp because in actuall pursuit may be invaded and killed though sleeping And David useth no argument from conscience why hee might not kill Sauls Armie I conceive he had not Armes to doe that and should have created more enemies to himselfe and hazard his owne life and the life of all his men if he had of purpose killed so many sleeping men yea the inexpedience of that for a private wrong to kill Gods mis-led people should have made all Israel enemies to David But David useth an Argument from Conscience onely to prove it was not lawfull for him to stretch forth his hand against the King and for my part so long as he remaineth King and is not dethroned by those who made him King at Hebron to put hands on his person I judge utterly unlawfull one man sleeping cannot be in actuall pursuit of another man so that the self-defender may lawfully kill him in his sleep but the case is farre otherwise in lawfull wars the Israelites might lawfully kill the Philistims encamping about Jerusalem to destroy it and Religion and the Church of God though they were all sleeping even though we suppose King Saul had brought them in by his Authority though he were sleeping in the midst of the uncircumcised Armies and it is evident that an hoast of armed enemies though sleeping by the law of self-defence may be killed left they awake and kill us whereas one single man and that a King cannot be killed 2. I think certainly David had not done unwisely but hazarded his owne life and all his mens if he and Ahimelâch and Abishai should have killed an host of their enemies sleeping that had been a work as impossible to three so hazard some to all his men D. Ferne as Arnisaeus did before him saith The example of David was extraordinary because he was anointed and designed by God as successor to Saul and so he must use an extraordinary way of guarding himselfe Arnisaeus citeth Alberic Gentilis that David was now exempted from amongst the number of Subjects Answ There were not two Kings in Israel now both David and Saul 2. David acknowledgeth his subjection in naming Saul the Lords Anointed his Master Lord King and therefore David was yet a subject 3. If David would have proved his title to the Crowne by extraordinary wayes he who killed Goliah extraordinarily might have killed Saul by a miracle but David goeth a most ordinary way to work for self-defence and his comming to the Kingdom was through persecution want eating shew-bread in case of necessity defending himself with Goliahs sword 4. How was any thing extraordinary and above a Law seeing David might have killed his enemie Saul and according to Gods Law he spared him and hee argueth from a morall duty he is the Lords annoynted therefore I will not kill him was this extraoardinary above a law then according to Gods law he might have killed him Royalists cannot say so what ground to say one of Davids acts in his deportment toward Saul was extraordinary and not all was it extraordinary that David flâd no or that David consulted the oracle of God what to do when Saul was coming against him 5. in an ordinary fact something may be extraordinary as the dead sleep from the Lord upon Saul and his men 1. Sam. 26. and yet the fact according to its substance ordinary 6. Nor is this extraordinary that a distressed man being an excellent warriour as David was may use the help of six hundred men who by the law of charity are to help to deliver the innocent from death yea all Israel were obliged to defend him who killed Goliah 7. Royalists make Davids act of not putting hands on the Lords annointed an ordinary morall reason against resistance but his putting on of armour they will have extraordinary and this is I confesse a short way to an adversary to cull out something that is for his cause and make it ordinary and something that is against his cause must be extraordinary 8. These men by the law of nature were obliged to joyne in armes with David ergo the non-helping of an oppressed man must be Gods ordinary law a blasphemous tenet 9. If David by an extraordinary spirit killed not King Saul then the Jesuits way of killing must be Gods ordinary Law 2. David certainly intended to keep Keilah against King Saul for the Lord would not have answered David in an unlawfull fact for that were all one as if God should teach David how to play the Traitor to his King for if God had answered They will not deliver
the Kings cut-throats though they have a personall command of the King to kill the innocent yet if they want a legall is no resisting of the King not as King and the servant hath no more then the Master giveth but the King in lawlesse commandements gave nothing royall to his cut-throates and so nothing legall QUEST XXXIIII Whether Royalists by cogent reasons do prove the unlawfulnesse of defensive warres VVHat reasons have already been discussed I touch not Obj. 1. Arnisaeus de authorit princip c. 2. num 2. If we are to obey our parents not if they be good but simply whether they be good or ill so Iust saith of the King Quamvis legum contemptor quamvis impius tamen pater § si vero in ff vos 12. then must we submit to wicked Kings Ans Valeat totum we are to submit to wicked Kings wicked parents because Kings and parents but when it cometh to actuall submission we are to submit to neither but in the Lord the question is not touching subjection to a Prince let him be Nero but if in acts of Tyranny we may not deny subjection there be great odds betwixt wicked rulers and rulers commanding or punishing unjustly Obj. 2. Arnisaeus c. 3. n. 9. We may resist an inferior magistrate Ergo we may resist the supreame it followeth not for an inferiour judge hath a Majesty infiction onely not properly treason is or can onely be committed against the King the obligation to inferiour judges is onely for the prince the person of none is sacred and inviolable but the Kings Ans We obey parents masters kings upon this formall ground because they are Gods deputies and set over us not by man but by God So that not onely are we to obey them because what they command is good and just such a sort of obedience an equall owes to the counsell of either equall or inferiour but also by vertue of the fift commandement because of their place of dignity now this Majesty which is the formall reason of subjection is one and the same in spece and nature in King and Constable and onely different gradually in the King and in other judges and it is denyed that there is any incommunicable sanctity in the Kings person which is not in some degree in the inferiour judge all proceedeth from this false ground that the King and inferiour judges differ in nature which is denied and treason inferiour may be committed against an inferiour judge and it is a fiction that the inferiour judge doth not resemble God as the King doth yea there is a sacred Majesty in all inferiour judges in the aged in every superiour wherefore they deserve honour feare and reverence Suppose there were no King on earth as is cleare in Scripture Exod. 20. 12. Levit. 19. 32. Esther 1. 20. Psal 149. 9. Prov. 3. 16. Math. 13. 57. Heb. 5. 4. Isa 3. 3. Lam. 5. 12. Mal. 1. 6. Psal 8. 5. and this honour is but united in a speciall manner in the King because of his high place Obj. 3. A King elected upon conditions may be resisted Ans He is as âssentially a King as a hereditary yea as an absolute Prince and no lesse the Lords annoynted then another prince if then one also another may be resisted Obj. 4. The oath of God bindeth the subjects Ergo they must obey not resist Ans Obedience and resistance are very consistent 2. No doubt the people gave their oath to Athaliah but to her as the onely heir of the crown they not knowing that Ioash the lawfull heir was liveing so may conditionall oaths all of this kinde are conditionall in which there is interpretative and virtuall ignorance be broken as the people swear loyalty to such a man conceived to be a father he after that turneth Tyrant may they not resist his Tyranny they may Also no doubt Israel gâve their oath of loyalty to Iabin for when Nebuchadnezer subdued Iudah he took an oath of loyalty of their King Yet many of Zabulon Nepthali and Isachar Barack leading them conspired against Iabin Obj. 5. There is no law to take a Kings life if he turne a Nero we never read that Subjects didit Ans The treatise of unlimited prerogative saith p. 7. We read not that a father killing his children was killed by them the fact being abhominable 2. The law Gen. 6. 9. Levit. 24. 16. excepteth none Seâ Deut. 13. 6. the dearest that nature knoweth are not excepted Obj. 6. Vengeance pursued Core Dathan and Abiram who resisted Moses Ans From resisting of a lawfull magistrate in a thing lawfull it followeth not it must be unlawfull to resist Kings in Tyrannous acts Obj. 7. Exod. 22. 28. Thou shalt not revile the Gods nor curse the Ruler of the people Exod. 10 20. Curse not the King no not in thy thought nor the rich in thy bed-chamber Ans 1. The word Elohim signifieth all judges and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã nasifignifieth one lifted up above the people saith Rivetus in loc whether a monarch or many rulers All cursing of any is unlawfull even of a private man Rom. 12. 14. Ergo we may not resist a private man by this the other text readeth contemne not the King ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in scientiâ tuâ Aria Mon. or in thy conscience or thought and it may prove resisting any rich man to be unlawfull Nothing in word or deed tending to the dishonour of the King may be done now to resist him in self-defence being a commandment of God in the law of nature cannot fight with another commandment to honour the King no more then the fift commandement can fighâ with the sixth for all resistance is against the judge as a man exceeding the limits of his office in that wherein he is resisted not as a judge Obj. 8. Eccles 8. 3. 4. Where the word of a King is there is power and who may say to him what dost thou Ergo the King cannot be resisted Ans 1. Tremel saith well that the scope is that a man go not from the Kings lawfull command in passion and rebellion Vatab. If thou go from the King in disgrace strive to be reconciled to him quickly Cajetan Vse not Kings too familiarly by comming too quickly to them or going too hastily from them Plutarch Cum rege agendum ut cum rogo neither too neere this fire nor too farre off Those have smarted who have been too great in their favour Ahasuerus slew Haman Alexander so served Clitus and Tiberius Sejanus and Nero Seneca But the sence is cleare rebellion is forbidden not resistance so the hebrew ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã stand not in an evil matter or in a rebellion And he dehorteth from rebellion against the King by an argument taken from his power 3. For he doth whatsoever pleaseth him 4. Where the word of a King is there is power And who may say unto him What doest thou The meaning is in way of justice he is
whole Land cannot formally be accused for non-resistance when the whole Land are oppressors for then they should be accused for not resisting themselves 14. The King ought to resist the inferiour judges in their oppression of the people by the confession of Royalists then this argument cometh with the like force of strength on themselves let them shew us practice precept or promise in the Word where the King raised an Armie for defence of Religion against Princes and people who were subverting Religion and we shall make use of that same place of Scripture to prove that the Estates and people who are above the King as I have proved and made the King may and ought to resist the King with the like force of Scripturall truth in the like case 16. Royalists desire the like president of practice and precept for defensive warres but I answer let them shew us a practice where any King of Israel or Judah raised an Armie of Malignants of Phylistims Sydonians Ammonites against the Princes of Israel and Judah conveened in an Assemblie to take course for bringing home the captived Arke of God and vindicating the Lawes of the Land and raised an Armie contrary to the knowledge of the Elders Princes and Judges to set up Dagon or tollerate the worship of the Sydonian gods and yet Princes Elders Judges and the whole people were obliged all to flee out of Gods land or then onely to weep and request that the King would not destroy souls and bodies of them and their innocent posterities because they could not in conscience imbrace the worship of Dagon and the Sydonian gods when the Royalist can parallel this with a precedent we can answer there was as smal apparency of precedency in Scripture except you flee to the law of nature that 80 Priests the Subjects of King Vzziah should put in execution a penall Law against the Lords Annoynted and that the inferiours and subjects should resist the Superiour and that these Priests with the Princes of the land should remove the King from actuall government all his dayes and crown his son at least make the father their Prince and superiour as Royalists say as good as a Cypher Is not this a punishment inflicted by inferiours upon a superiour according to the way of Royalists Now it is clear a worshipping of bread and the Masse commanded and against law obtruded upon Scotland by influence of the counsell of known Papists is to us and in it self as abominable as the worshiping of Dagon or the Sydonian Gods and when the Kingdom of Scotland did but conveen supplicat and protest against that obtruded Idolatry they were first declared rebels by the King and then an army raised against them by Prelates and Malignants inspired with the spirit of Anti-christ to destroy the whole land if they should not submit soul and conscience to that wicked service QUEST XXXV Whether or no the suffering of the Martyrs in the Primitive Church militate against the lawfulnesse of defensive wars ROyalists think they burden our Cause much with hatred when they bring the Fathers and ancient Martyrs against us So the P. Prelate extracted out of other Authors testimonies for this and from I. Armagh in a Sermon on Rom. 1. 3. pag. 20 21. So the Do. of Aberdeene The Prelat proveth from Clem. Alexand. l. 7. c. 17. That the King is constituted by the Lord. So Ignatius Answ 1. Except he prove from these Fathers that the King is from God onely and immediately he proveth nothing Obj. 2. Iren. l. 5. adv haer c. 20. proveth that God giveth Kingdomes and that the devill lied Luk. 4. and we make the people to make Kings and so to be the children of the Devill Answ If we denyed God to dispose of Kingdomes this man might alledge the Church of God in England and Scotland to be the sons of Satan But Gods Word Deut. 17. 18. and many other places make the people to make Kings and yet not devils But to say that Prelates should crowne Kings and with their foule fingers anoint him and that as the Popes substitutes is to make him that is the sonne of perdition a Donor of Kingdoms also to make a man with his bloodie sword to ascend to a throne is to deny God to be the disposer of Kingdoms and Prelats teach both these Obj. 3. Tertul. Apol. c. 30. Inde est Imperator unde homo antequam imperator inde potestas illi unde spiritus God is no lesse the Creator of Soveraigntie then of the soul of man Answ God onely maketh Kings by his absolute soveraignty as he onely maketh high and low and so onely he maketh Mayors Provosts Bailiffes for there is no power but of him Rom. 13. Ergo Provosts and Bailiffes are not from men The Reader shall not be troubled with the rest of the testimonies of this poore Plagiarie for they prove what never man denyed but Prelats and Royalists to wit that Kings are not from Gods approving and regulating will which they oppose when they say Sole Conquest is a just title to the Crowne But they deserve rather an answer which Grotius Barclay Arnisaeus and Spalato alledge as Obj. 1. Cyprian Epist 1. Non est fas Christianis armis ac vituori se adversus impetum persecutorum Christians cannot by violence defend themselves against persecutors Answ If these words be pressed literally it were not lawfull to defend our selfe against murtherers but Cyprian is expresly condemning in that place the seditious tumults of people against the lawfull Magistrate Obj. 2. The Ancients say he was justly punished who did rend and teare the Edict of Dioclesian and Maximinus Euseb l. 7. Hist Eccles c. 5. Answ To rend an Edict is no act of naturall self-defence but a breach of a positive commandment of the Emperors and could not be lawfully done especially by a private man Object 3. Cyprian Epist 56. Incumbamus gemitibus assiduis deprecationibus crebris haec enim sunt munimenta spiritualia tela divina quae protegunt And Russinus l. 2. c. 6. Ambrosius adversus reginae Iustinae Arianae furorem non se manu defensabat aut telo sed jejuniis continuatisque vigiliis sub altari positus Answ It is true Cyprian reputed prayers his armour but not his onely armour Though Ambrose de facto used no other against Iustina the places say nothing against the lawfulnesse of selfe-defence Ambrose speaketh of that armour and these meanes of defence that are proper to Pastors and these are prayers and teares not the sword because Pastors carry the Arke that is their charge not the sword that is the Magistrates place Object 4. Tertullian Apolog. c. 37. saith expresly that the Christians might for strength and number have defended themselves against their persecutors but thought it unlawfull Quando vel una nox pauculis faculis largitatem ulâionis po et operari si malum malo dispungi penes nos liceret sed absit
ut igni humano vindicetur divina secta aut doleat pati in quo probetur Si enim hostes extraneos non tantum vindices occultos agere vellemus deesset nobis vis numerorum copiarum Answ I will not goe about to say that Tertullian thought it lawfull to raise Armes against the Emperour I ingeniously confesse Tertullian was in that errour But 1. something of the man 2. Of the Christians Of the man Tertullian after this turned a Montanist 2. Pamelius saith of him in vit Tertul. inter Apocrypha numeratur excommunicatus 3. It was Tertullians error in a fact not in a question that he believed Christians were so numerous as that they might have fought with the Emperours 4. M. Pryn doth judiciously observe 3. part soveraigne power of Parl. pag. 139 140. He not onely thought it unlawfull to resist but also to flee and therefore wrote a booke de fuga and therefore as some men are excessive in doing for Christ so also in suffering for Christ Hence I inferre that Tertullian is neither ours nor theirs in this point and we can cite Tertullian against them also I am sumus ergo pares Yea Fox in his Monum saith Christians ranne to the stakes to be burnt when they were neither condemned nor cited 4. What if wee cite Theodoret fol. 98. De provid Who about that time say that evill men reigne ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã through the cowardlinesse of the subjects as the Prelate saith of Tertullian I turne it If Theodoret were now living he would goe for a Rebell About that time Christians sought help from Constantine the Great against Lycinius their Emperour and overthrew him in battaile And the Christians being oppressed by the King of Persia their owne King sent to Theodosius to help them against him 2. For the man Tertullian in the place cited saith The Christians were strangers under the Emperour Externi sumus and therefore they had no Laws of their owne but were under the Civill Laws of Heathen till Constantines time and they had sworne to Iulian as his souldiers and therefore might have and no doubt had scruples of conscience to resist the Emperour 2. It is knowne Iulian had huge numbers of Heathen in his Armie and to resist had beene great danger 3. Wanting Leaders and Commanders many prime men doubting of the lawfulnesse thereof though they had beene equall in number yet number is not all in warre skill in valorous Commanders is required 4. What if all Christians were not of Tertullians minde 5. If I would go to humane testimonies which I judge not satisfactory to the conscience I might cite many The practice of France of Holland The Divines in Luthers time as Sleidan 8. c. 8. 22. resolved resistance to be lawfull Calvin Beza Pareus the German Divines Bucanus and an hoast might be produced QUEST XXXVI Whether the power of Warre be onely in the King IT is not hard to determine this question The Sword in a constitute Common-wealth is given to the Judge supreme or subordinate Rom. 13. 4. He beareth not the sword in vaine in the Empire the use of Armour is restricted to the Emperour by a positive Law so the Law saith Armorum officia nisi jussu Principis sunt interdicta lib. de Cod. de Lege 1. Imperat Valentinian nulli nobis inconsultis usus armorum tribuatur ad 1. Jul. Mai. l. 3. Warre is a species and a particular the sword is a generall Assert 1. The power of the sword by Gods Law is not proper peculiar to the King only but given by God to the inferiour Judges 1. Because the inferiour Judge is essentially a Judge no lesse then the King as is proved and therefore he must beare the sword Rom. 13. 4. 2. Not Moses onely but the Congregation of Israel had power of life and death and so of the sword Numb 35. 12. The manslayer shall not die untill he stand before the Congregation in judgement ver 24. Then the Congregation shall judge betweene the slayer and the avenger of blood Deut. 22. 18. The Elders of the City shall take that man and chastise him 21. The men of the Citie shall stone her with stones Deu. 17. 5. Deu. 19. 12 13. v. 18 19 20 21. Deu. 21. 19. Then shall his father and his mother bring him to the Elders of his City 21. And the men of the City shall stone him with stones 1 King 21. 11. The Elders and Nobles that were inhabitants in his City stoned Naboth 3. Inferiour Judges are condemned as murtherers who have shed innocent blood Esay 1. 21. Psal 94. 5. 6. Ier. 22. 3. Ezek. 22. 12. ver 27. Hosea 6. 8. Zephan 3. 1 2 3. Ergo they must have the power of the sword hence upon the same grounds Assert 2. That the King onely hath the power of warre and raising Armies must be but a positive civill Law For 1. by divine right if the inferiour Judges have the sword given to them of God then have they also power of Warre and raising Armies 2. All power of warre that the King hath is cumulative not privative and not distructive but given for the safety of the Kingdome as therefore the King cannot take from one particular man the power of the sword for naturall self-preservation because it is the birth-right of life neither can the King take from a community and Kingdome a power of rising in Armes for their owne defence If an Armie of Turks shall suddenly invade the Land and the Kings consent expresse cannot be had for it is essentially involved in the office of the King as King that all the power of the sword that he hath be for their safety or if the King should as a man refuse his consent and interdict and discharge the Land to rise in Armes yet they have his Royall consent though they want his personall consent in respect that his office obligeth him to command them to rise in Armes 2. Because no King no Civill power can take away Natures birth-right of self-defence from any man or a community of men 2. Because if a King should sell his Kingdome and invite a bloody Conquerour to come in with an Armie of men to destroy his people impose upon their conscience an Idolatrous Religion they may lawfully rise against that Armie without the Kings consent for though Royalists say they need not come in asinine patience and offer their throats to cut-throats but may flee yet two things hindereth a flight 1. They are obliged by vertue of the first Commandement to re-man and with their sword defend the Cities of the Lord and the King 2 Sam. 10. 12. 1 Chron. 19. 13. for if to defend our Country and children and the Church of God from unjust invaders and cut-throats by the sword be an act of charity that God and the Law of Nature requireth of a people as is evident Prov. 24. 11. and if the fift Commandement oblige the
Land to defend their aged Parents and young children from these invaders and if the sixt Commandement lay on us the like bond all the Land are to act works of mercy and charity though the King unjustly command the contrary except Royalists say that we are not to performe the duties of the second Table commanded by God if an earthly King forbid us and if we exercise not acts of mercy toward our brethren when their life is in hazard to save them wee are murtherers and so men may murther their neighbour if the King command them so to doe this is like the Court-faith 2. The Kings power of warres is for the safety of his people if he deny his consent to their raising of Armes till they be destroyed he playeth the Tyrant not the King and the law of Nature will necessitate them either to defend themselves seeing flight of all in that case is harder then death else they must be guilty of self-murther Now the Kings commandement of not rising in Armes at best is positive and against the nature of his Office and it floweth then from him as from a man and so must be farre inferiour to the naturall Commandement of God which commandeth self-preservation if wee would not be guilty of self-murther and of obeying men rather then God So Althusius Polit. c. 25. n. 9. Halicarnas l. 4. Antiq. Rom. Aristo Pol. l. 3. c. 3. 3. David tooke Goliahs sword and became a Captaine a Captaine to an hoast of armed men in the battaile and fought the battailes of the Lord 1 Sam. 25. 28. and this Abigal by the spirit of prophecy as I take it saith ver 29 30 31. 1 Sam. 22. 2. 1 Chron. 12. 1. 2. 3. 17. 18. 21. 22. not onely without Sauls consent but against King Saul as he was a man but not against him as hee was King of Israel 4. If there be no King or the King be minor or an usurper as Athalia be on the Throne the Kingdome may lawfully make war without the King as Iudges cap. 20. The children of Israel foure hundred thousand footemen that drew sword went out to warre against the children of Benjamin Iudah had the power of the sword when Iosiah was but eight yeares old in the beginning of his reigne 2 King 22. 1 2. and before Iehoash was crowned King and while he was minor 2 King 11. there were Captaines of hundreds in armes raised by Iehoiada and the people of Iudah to defend the young King It cannot be said that this is more extraordinary then that it is extraordinary for Kings to die and in the interregnum warres in an ordinary providence may fall out in these Kingdoms where Kings goe by election and for Kings to fall to be Minors Captives Tyrannous And I shall be of that opinion that Mr Symmons who holdeth That Royall birth is equivalent to divine unction must also hold that election is not equivalent to divine unction for both election and birth cannot be of the same validity the one being naturall the other a matter of free choise which shall infer that Kings by election are lesse properly and analogically onely Kings and so Saul was not properly a King for he was King by election but I conceive that rather Kings by birth must be lesse properly Kings because the first King by Gods institution being the mould of all the rest was by election Deut. 17. 18. 19. 20. 5. If the estates create the King and make this man King not this man as is clear Deut. 17. 18. and 2 Chron. 5. 1 2 3 4. they give to him the power of the Sword and the power of War and the Militia and I shall judge it strange and reasonlesse that the power given to the King by the Parliament or estates of a free Kingdom such as Scotland is acknowledged to be by all should create regulate limit abridge yea and anull that power that created it self hath God ordained a Parliamentary power to create a Royal power of the sword and war to be placed in the King the Parliaments creature for the safety of Parliament and Kingdome which yet is destructive of it selfe D. Ferne saith that the King summoneth a Parliament and giveth them power to be a Parliament and to advise and counsell him and in the meane time Scripture saith Deut 17. 18 19 20. 1 Sam. 10 20 21 22 23 24 25. 2 Sam. 5. 1 2 3 4. that the Parliament createth the King heir's admirable reciprocation of creation in policie and shall God make the mother to destroy the daughter The Parliamentarie power that giveth Crown Militia sword and all to the King must give power to the King to use sword and war for the destruction of the Kingdome and to annull all the power of Parliaments to make unmake Parliaments and all Parliamentary power what more absurd Obj. 1. Symmons Loyall Subj Pag. 57. These phrases 2 Sam. 9. 1. When Kings goe forth to warre and Luk. 14. 31. What King going forth to warre speak to my conscience that both offensive and defensive warre are in the Kings hand Answ It is not much to other men what is spoken to any mans conscience by Phrase and customes for by this no States where there be no Kings but government by the best or the people as in Holland or in other Nations can have power of war for what time of yeare shall Kings goe to war who are not Kings and because Christ saith A certaine housholder delivered talents to his servants will this infer to any conscience that none but a housholder may take usurie And when he saith If the good man of the house knew at what houre the thiefe would come he would watch shall it follow the sonne or servant may not watch the house but onely the good man Obj. 2. Ferne pag. 95. The naturall Bodie cannot move but upon naturall Principles and so neither can the Politique Bodie move in Warre but upon Politique reasons from the Prince which must direct by Law Answ This may well be retorted the Politique Head cannot then move but upon politique reasons and so the King cannot move to wars but by the Law and that is by consent of Parliament and no Law can principle the head to destroy the members 2. If an Armie of cut-throats rise to destroy the Kingdome because the King is in lacking in his place to doe his duty how can the other Judges the States and Parliament be accessorie to murther committed by them in not raising armies to suppresse such robbers Shall the inferiour Judges be guilty of innocent blood because the King will not doe his duty 3. The politique body ceaseth no more to renounce the principles of sinlesse nature in self-defence because it is a politique body and subject to a King then it can leave off to sleep eat and drink and there is more need of politique principles to the one then the other 4. The Parliaments and Estates of both
way should oppose us in helping which blessed be the Lord the honourable houses of the Parliament of England hath not done though Malignant spirits tempted them to such a course what in that case we should owe to the afflicted members of Christs body is a case may be determined easily The fift and last opinion is of those who think if the King command Papists and Prelates to rise against the Parliament and our dear brethren in England in warres that we are obliged in conscience and by our oath and covenant to help our native Prince against them to which opinion with hands and feet I should accord if our Kings cause were just and lawfull but from this it followeth that we must thus far judge of the cause as concerneth our consciences in the matter of our necessary duty leaving the judiciall cognizance to the honourable Parliament of England But because I cannot returne to all these opinions particularly I see no reason but the Civil Law of a Kingdom doth oblige any Citizen to help an innocent man against a murthering robber that he may be judicially accused as a murtherer who faileth in his duty that Solon said well beatam remp esse illam in quâ quisque injuriam alterius suam estimet It is a blessed society in which every man is to repute an injury done against a brother ãâ¦ã injury done against himself As the Egyptians had a good law by which he was accused upon his head who helped not one that suffered wrong and if he was not able to help he was holden to accuse the injurer if not his punishment was whips or three dayes hunger it may be upon this ground it was that Moses flew the Egyptian Ambrose commendeth him for so doing Assert We are obliged by many bands to expose our lives goods children c. in this cause of religion and of the unjust oppression of enemies for the safety and defence of our deare brethren and true religion in England 1. Prov. 24. 11. If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn to death ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã taken as captives to be killed and those that are ready to be slaine 12. If thou say behold we know it not doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it and he that keepeth thy soul doth he not know it and shall he not render to every man according to his work Master Iermin on the place is too narrow who commenting on the place restricteth all to these two that the priest should deliver by interceding for the innocent and the King by pardoning only But 1. to deliver is a word of violence as 1 Sam. 30. 18. David by the sword rescued his wives Hos 5 14. I will take away and none shall rescue 1 Sam. 17. 35. I rescued the lambs out of his mouth out of the Lyons mouth which behoved to be done with great violence 2 King 18. 34. They have not delivered ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Samaria out of my hand So Cornel. à Lapide Charitas suadââ ut vi armis eruamus injuste ductos ad mortem Ambros lib. 1. offic c. 36. citeth this same text and commendeth Moses who killed the Egyptian in defending a Hebrew man 2. It is an act of Charity and so to be done though the judge forbid it when the innocent is unjustly put to death Object But in so doing private men may offer violence to the lawfull magistrate when he unjustly putteth an innocent man to death and rescue him out of the hands of the magistrate and this were to bring in anarchy and confusion for if it be an act of charity to deliver the innocent out of the hand of the Magistrate it is homicide to a private man not to do it for our obedience to the law of nature tyeth us absolutely though the Magistrate forbid these acts for it is known that I must obey God rather then man Answ The law of nature tyeth us to obedience in acts of charity yet not to performe these acts after any way and manner in a meere naturall way impetu naturae but I am to performe acts of naturall charity in a rationall and prudent way and in looking to Gods law else if my brother or father were justly condemned to die I might violently deliver him out of the Magistrates hand but by the contrary my hand should be first on him without naturall compassion As if my brother or my wife have been a blasphemer of God Deut. 13. 6 7 8. and therefore am I to do acts naturall as a wise man observing as Solomon saith Eccles 8. 5. both time and judgement Now it were no wisdom for one private man to hazard his own life by attempting to rescue an innocent brother because he hath not strength to do it and the law of nature obligeth me not to acts of charity when I in all reason see them unpossible but a multitude who had strength did well to rescue innocent Ionathan out of the hands of the King that he should not be put to death yet one man was not tyed by the law of nature to rescue Ionathan if the King and Prince had condemned him though unjustly 2. The hoast of men that helped David against King Saul 1 Sam. 22. 2. entered in a lawfull war and 1 Chron. 12. 18. Amasa by the spirit of the Lord blesseth his helpers peace peace be unto thee and peace be to thy helpers for thy God helpeth the. Ergo Peace must be to the Parliament of England and to their helpers their brethren of Scotland 3. Numb 32. 1. 2. 3. 16. 17. 18. 19. Iosh 1. 12. 13. 14. The children of Gad and of Reuben and the half tribe of Manasseh though their inheritance fell to be in this side of Iordan yet they were to goe over the river armed to fight for their brethren while they had also possession of the land at the commandement of Moses and Joshua 4. So Saul and Israel helped the men of Iabesh Gilead conjoyned in blood with them against Nahash the Ammonite and his unjust conditions in plucking out their right eyes 1 Sam. 11. 5. Iephtha Iudg. 12. 2. justly rebuketh the men of Ephraim because they would not help him and his people against the Ammonites 6. If the communion of Saints be any bound that England and we have one Lord one faith one Baptisme one head and Saviour Iesus Christ then are we obliged to help our bleeding sister Church against these same common enemies Papists and Prelates but the former is undenyably true for 1. We send help to the Rotchel if there had not been a secret betraying of our brethren we send help to the recovery of the Palatinate and the aide of the confederat Princes against Babels strength and power and that lawfully but we did it at great leisure and coldly Q. Elizabeth helped Holland against the King of Spain And beside the union in Religion 1. We sayle in one
ship together being in one Iland under one King and now by the mercy of God have sworne one Covenant and so must stand or fall together 7. We are obliged by the union betwixt the Kingdomes concluded to be by the Convention of the Estates of Scotland An. 1585. at the desire of the Generall Assembly 1583. to joyne forces together at home and enter in League with Protestant Princes and Estates abroad to maintaine the Protestant Religion against the bloody confederacy of Trent and accordingly this League betweene the two Crownes was subscribed at Berwick An. 1586. and the same renewed An. 1587 1588. as also the confession of Faith subscribed when the Spanish Armado was on our coasts 8. The Law of God commanding that we love our neighbour as our selfe and therefore to defend one another against unjust violence l. ut vim ff de just jur obligeth us to the same except we thinke God can be pleased with lippe-love in word onely which the Spirit of God condemneth 1 Ioh. 2. 9 10. cap. 3. 16. and the summe of Law and Prophets is that as we would nor men should refuse to help us when we are unjustly oppressed so neither would we so serve our afflicted brethren l. in facto ff de cond demonstr § Siuxor Iustit de nupt 9. Every man is a keeper of his brothers life there is a voluntary homicide when a man refuseth food or physick necessary for his owne life and refuseth food to his dying brother and men are not borne for themselves And when the King defendeth not subjects against their enemies all fellow-subjects by the law of Nature of Nations the Civill and cannon Law have a naturall priviledge to defend one another and are mutuall Magistrates to one another when there be no other Magistrates If an Army of Turks or Pagans would come upon Britaine if the King were dead as he is civilly dead in this juncture of time when he refuseth to helpe his subjects one part of Britaine would help another As Iehoshaphat King of Iudah did right in helping Ahab and Israel so the Lord had approved of the warre If the left hand be wounded and the left eye put out nature teacheth that the whole burden of naturall acts is devolved on the other hand and eye and so are they obliged to helpe one another 10. As we are to beare one anothers burthens and to help our enemies to compassionate strangers so far more these who make one body of Christ with us 11. Meroz is under a curse who helpeth not the Lord one part of a Church another A woe lieth on them that are at ease in Zion and helpeth not afflicted Ioseph so farre as they are able 12. The law of Gratitude obligeth us to this England sent an Armie to free both our soules and bodies from the bondage of Popery and the fury of the French upon which occasion a Parliament at Leith Anno 1560. established Peace and Religion and then after they helped us against a faction of Papists in our owne bosome for which we take Gods name in a prayer seeking grace never to forget that kindnesse 13. When Papists in Armes had undone England if God give them victory they should next fall on us and it should not be in the Kings power to resist them When our enemies within two dayes journey are in Armes and have the person of our King and his judgement and so the breathing Law of the two Kingdomes under their power we should but sleepe to be killed in our nest if we did not arise and fight for King Church Countrey and Brethren Object By these and the like grounds when the Kings Royall Person and life is in danger he may use Papists as subjects not as Papists in his owne naturall self-defence Answ Hell and the Devill cannot say that a thought was in any heart against the Kings person He sleeped in Scotland safe and at Westminster in his owne Palace when the Estates of both Kingdomes would not so much as take the water-pot from his bed-side and his Speare and Satan instilled this traiterous lye first in Prelates then in Papists 2. The King professeth his maintenance of the true Protestant Religion in his Declarations since he tooke Armes but if Saul had put Armes in the hands of Baals Priests and in an Armie of Sidonians Philistims Ammonites professing their quarrell against Israel was not to defend the King but their Dagon and false gods cleere it were Sauls Armie should not stand in relation of helpers of the Kings but of advancers of their owne Religion Now Irish Papists and English in Armes presse the King to cancell all Lawes against Popery and make Laws for the free liberty of Masse and the full power of Papists then the King must use Papists as Papists in these warres QUEST XXXVIII Whether Monarchy be the best of governments NOthing more unwillingly doe I write then one word of this question It is a darke way circumstances in falne nature may make things best to be hic nunc evill Though to me it is probable that Monarchy in it selfe 2. Monarchy de jure that is lawfull and limited Monarchy is best even now in a Kingdome under the fall of sin if other circumstances be considered But observe I pray you 1. That M. Symmons and this poore Prelate do so extoll Monarchy that there is not a government save Monarchy onely all other governments are deviations and therefore M. Symmons saith pag. 8. If I should affect another government then Monarchy I should neither feare God nor the King but associate my selfe with the seditious and so the question of Monarchy is 1. Which is the choisest government in it selfe or which is the choisest government in policie and in the condition of man falne in the state of sinne 2. Which is the best government that is the most profitable or the most pleasant or the most honest For wee know that there bee these three kinds of good things things usefull and profitable bona utilia things pleasant jucunda things honest honesta and the question may be of every one of the three 3. The question may be which of these governments be most agreeable to nature that is either to nature in it selfe as it agreeth communiter to all natures of elements birds beasts Aâgels Men to lead them as a governour doth to their last end or which government is most agreeable to men to sinfull men to sinfull men of this or this Nation for some Nations are more ambitious some more factious some are better ruled by one some better ruled by many some by most and by the people 4. The question may be in regard of the facility or difficulty of loving fearing obeying and serving and so it may be thought easier to love feare and obey one Monarch then many Rulers in respect that our Lord saith it is difficult to serve two Masters and possibly more difficult to serve twenty or
an hundred 5. The question may be in regard of the power of commanding or of the justice and equity of commanding hence from this last I shall set downe the first Thesis Assert 1. An absolute and unlimited Monarchy is not onely not the best forme of Government but it is the worst and this is against our Petty Prelat and all Royalists My reasons be these 1. Because it is an unlawfull Ordinance and God never ordained it and I cannot ascribe the superlative degree to any thing of which I deny the positive Absolute government in a sinfull and peccable man is a wicked government and not a power from God for God never gave a power to sin Plenitudo potestatis ad malum injuriam non extenditur Sozenus Iunior cons 65. in causa occurrenti l. 2. Ferdinand Loazes in suo cons pro March de Velez pag. 54. n. 65. And so that learned Senator Ferdin Vasquez pag. 1. lib. 1. cap. 5. n. 17. 2. It was better for the State that Epiminondas could not sleepe then that he could sleepe when the people was dancing because said he I wake that you may have leave to sleepe and be secure for he was upon deepe cogitations how to doe good to the Common-wealth when the people were upon their pleasures Because all Kings since the fall of the Father King Adam are inclined to sin and injustice and so had need to be guided by a Law even because they are Kings so they remaine men Omnipotency in one that can sin is a cursed power With reason all our Divines say the state of saving grace in the second Adam where there is non posse deficere they cannot fall away from God is better then the state of the first Adam where there was posse non deficere a power not to fall away and that our free-will is better in our countrey in Heaven where we cannot sin then in the way to our countrey on earth where we have a power to sin and so Gods people is in a better case Hos 2. 6 7. Where her power to overtake her lovers is closed up with an hedge of thornes that she cannot finde her paths then the condition of Ephraim of whom God saith Hos 4. 17. Ephraim is joyned to Idols let him alone So cannot that be a good government when the supreme power is in a sinfull man as inclinable to injustice by nature as any man and more inclinable to injustice by the condition of his place then any and yet by office he is one that can doe no injustice against his subjects he is a King and so may destroy Vriah kill his subjects but cannot sinne and this is to flattering Royalists the best government in the world As if an unchained Lion were the best governour because unchained to all the beasts sheepe and lambs and all others which with his teeth and pawes he may reach and that by vertue of an ordinance of God 3. What is on man under no restraint but made a God on earth and so drunk with the graunder of a sinning-God here under the Moone and Clouds who may heare good counsell from men of his owne choosing yet is under no restraint of Law to follow it being the supreme power absolute high mighty and an impeccable god on earth Certainly this man may more easily erre and break out in violent acts of injustice then a number of Rulers grave wise under a Law One being a sinfull man shall sooner sin and turne a Nero when he may goe to hell and leade thousands to hell with him gratis then a multitude of sinfull men who have lesse power to doe against Law and a tyrannous killing of innocents and a subversion of Lawes Liberties and Religion by one who may by office and without resistance of mortall men doe all ill is more dangerous and hurtfull then division and fraction incident to Aristocracy 4. Caesar is great but Law and reason is greater by an absolute Monarchy all things are ruled by will and pleasure above Law then this government cannot be so good as Law and Reason in a government by the best or by many 5. Under absolute Monarchy a free people is actu primo and in themselves inslaved because though the Monarch so absolute should kill all hee cannot be controlled there is no more but flight prayers and teares remaining and what greater power hath a Tyrant none at all so may we say An absolute Monarch is actu primo a sleeping Lion and a Tyrant is a waking and a devouring Lion and they differ in accidents onely 6. This is the Papists way Bellarmine de Pontif. l. 1. c. 1. and Sanderus de visibili Monarchia l. 3. c. 3. Turrere in sum de Eccles l. 2. c. 2. prove that the government of the Church is by an absolute Monarch and Pope because that is the best government which yet is in question So Royalists prove Common-wealths must be best governed by absolute Monarchs because that is the best government but the Law saith it is contrary to nature even though people should paction to make a King absolute Conventio procuratoria ad dilapidandum dissipandum juri naturali contraria nulla est l. filius 15. de cond lust l. Nepos procul 125. de verb. signif l. 188. ubi de jure Regni l. 85. d. tit Assert 2. Monarchy in its latitude as heaven and earth and all the hoast therein are Citizens is the best government absolutely because Gods immediate government must be best but that other governments are good or best so farre as they come neere to this must prove that there is a Monarchy in Angels if there be a government and a Monarchy amongst Fishes Beasts Birds c. and that if Adam had never sinned there should be one Monarchy amongst all mankinde I professe I have no eye to see what Government could be in that State but paternall or maritall and by this reason there should be one Catholique Emperour over all the Kings of the earth A position holden by some Papists and Interpreters of the cannon Law which maketh all the Princes of the earth to be usurpers except these who acknowledge a Catholique dominion of the whole earth in the Emperour to whom they submit themselves as Vassals If Kings were Gods and could not sin and just as Solomon in the beginning of his reigne and as David I could say Monarchy so limited must be better then Aristocracy or Democracy 1. Because it is farthest from injustice neerest to peace and godlinesse m. l. 3. § aparet ff de administrat tutor l. 2. § novissime ff de Orig. jur Aristot pol. l. 8. c. 10. Bodin de Rep. l. 6. c. 4. 2. Because God ordained this government in his people 3. By experience it is knowne to be lesse obnoxious to change except that some think the Venetian Common-wealth best but with reverence I see small difference betweene a King and the
the Lord and sent by the supreme judge their father Samuel then it was sin to resist many inferiour Judges that were Lyons and even Wolves under the Kings of Israel and Iudah so they judged for the Lord and as sent by the Supreme Magistrate But the difference was in this that judges were extraordinarily raised up of God out of any tribe as he pleased and were beleevers Heb. 11. 32. Saved by faith and so used not their power to oppresse the people though inferiour judges as the sons of Eli and of Samuel perverted judgment and therefore in the time of the judges God who gave them saviours and judges was their King but Kings were tied to a certaine tribe especially the line of David to the Kingdom of Iudah 2. They were hereditary judges not so 3. They were made and chosen by the people Deut. 17. 14. 15. 1 Sam. 10. 17 18 19 20. 2 Sam. 5. 1 2 3. as were the Kings of the nations and the first King though a King be the lawfull ordinance of God was sought from God in a sinfull imitation of the nations 1 Sam. 8. 19 20. and therefore were not of Gods peculiar election as the judges and so they were wicked men and many of them yea all for the most part did evil in the sight of the Lord and their law ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã their manner and custome was to oppresse the people and so were their inferiour judges little Tyrants and lesser Lyons Leopards evening Wolves Ezech. 22. 27. Mic. 3. 1 2 3. Esa 3. 14 15. And the Kings and inferiour judges are onely distinguished de facto that the King was a more Catholick oppressour and the old Lyon and so had more art and power to catch the prey then the inferiour judges who were but whelps and had lesse power but all were oppressors some few excepted and Samuel speaketh of that which Saul was to be de facto not de jure and the most part of the Kings after him and this Tyranny is well called jus regis the manner of the King and not the manner of the judges because it had not been the practice custome and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã of the beleeving judges before Sauls Reigne and while God was his peoples King 1 Sam. 8. 7. to oppresse 3. We grant that all other inferiour judges after the people cast off Gods government and in imitation of the nations would have a King were also lesser Tyrants as the King was a greater Tyrant and that was a punishment of their rejecting God and Samuel to be their King and judge 4. How shall Arnisaeus prove that this manner or ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã of the King was potestas concessa a power granted I hope granted of God and not an abuse of Kingly power for then he and Royalists must say that all the acts of Tyranny ascribed to King Saul 1 Sam. 8. 11 12 13 14. by reason of which they did cry out and complaine to God because of their oppression was no abuse of power given to Saul Ergo it was an use and a lawfull use of power given of God to their King for there is no medium or mids betwixt a lawfull power used in morall acts and a lawfull power abused and indeed Arnisaeus so distinguisheth a King and a Tyrant that he maketh them all one in nature and spece He saith a Tyrant doth quod licet that which by Law he may do and a King doth not these things quae licent which by Law he may do but so to me it is clear a Tyrant acting as a Tyrant must act according to this ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã law of the King and that which is lawfull and a King acting as a King and not doing these things that are lawfull must sin against his office and the power that God hath given to him which were to commend and praise the Tyrant and to condemne and dispraise the King 3. If this Law of the King be a permissive Law of God which the king may out of his absolute enesse put inexecution to oppressâ the people such as the law of a bill of divorcement as Arnisaeus Barcklay and other Royalists say then must God have given a Law to every King to play the Tyrant because of the hardnesse of the Kings heart but we would gladly see some word of God for this The Law of a bill of Divorcement is a meere positive Law permitted in a particular exigent when a husband out of levity of heart and affection cannot love his wife therefore God by a Law permitted him out of indulgence to put her away that both he might have a seed the want whereof because of the blessed seed to be borne of woman was a reproach in Israel and though this was an affliction to some particular women yet the intent of the Law and the soul thereof was a publique benefit to the Common-wealth of Israel of which sort of Lawes I judge the hard usage permitted by God to his people in the Master toward the servant and the people of God toward the stranger of whom they might exâct usury not toward their brethren to be But that God should make a permissive Law that Ieroboam might presse all Israel to âiâne and worship the Golden Calves and that a King by Law may kill as a bloody Nero all the people of God by a Divine permissive Law hath no warrant in Gods word Judge reader if Royalists make God to confer a benefit on a land when he giveth them a King if by a Law of God such as the Law for a bill of Divorcement the King may kill and devour as a lawfull absolute Lion six kingdoms of nations that professe Christ and beleeve in his name For if the King have a divine law to kill an innocent Ionathan so as it be unlawfull to resist him he may by that same law turne bloodier then either Nero Iulian or any that ever sucked the paps of a Liones or of any of whom it may be said Quaeque dedit nutrix ubera Tigris erat and he shall be given as a plague of God ex conditione doni to the people and the people inasmuch as they are gifted of God with a King to feed them in a peaceable and godly life must be made slaves now it wanteth reason that God will have a permissive Law of murthering the Church of Christ a Law so contrary to the publique good and intrinsecall intention of a King and to the immutable and eternall law of Nature that one man because of his power may by Gods permissive Law murther millions of innocents Some may say It is against the duty of love that by Nature and Gods Law the husband owes to the wife Ephes 5. 25. that the husband should put away his wife for God hateth putting away and yet God made a Law that a husband might give his wife a bill of divorce and so put her away and by the same
reason God may make a Law though against nature that a King should kill and murther without all resistance Answ The question is not if God may make permissive Laws to oppresse the innocent I grant he may doe it as he may command Abraham to kill his son Isaac and Abraham by Law is obliged to kill him except God retract his Commandement and whether God retract it or no he may intend to kill his son which is an act of love and obedience to God but this were more then a permissive Law 2. We have a cleere Scripture for a permissive Law of divorce and it was not a Law tending to the universall destruction of a whole Kingdome or many Kingdomes but onely to the grievance of some particular wives but the Law of divorce gave not power to all husbands to put away their wives but onely to the husband who could not command his affection to love his wife But this law of the King is a Catholique law to all Kings for Royalists will have all Kings so absolute as it is sin and disobedience to God to resist any that all Kings have a divine law to kill all their subjects surely then it were better for the Church to want such nurse-fathers as have absolute power to suck their blood and for such a perpetuall permissive Law continuing to the end of the world there is no word of God Nor can we think that the hardnesse of one Princes heart can be a ground for God to make a Law so destructive to his Church and all mankinde such a permissive Law being a positive Law of God must have a word of Christ for it else we are not to receive it 2. Arnisaeus cap. 4. distru Tyran princ n. 16. thinketh a Tyrant in excercito becomming a notorious Tyrant when there is no other remedy may be removed from government sine magno scelere without great sin But I aske how men can annull any divine Law of God though but a permissive Law For if Gods permissive Law warrant a Tyrant to kill two innocent men it is tyranny more or lesse and the Law distinguisheth not 3. This permissive Law is expressely contrary to Gods Law limiting all Kings Deut. 17. 16 17 18. How then are we to beleeve that God would make an universall Law contray to the Law that he established before Israel had a King 4. What Brentius saith is much for us for he calleth this ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Law a licence and so to use it must be licentiousnesse 5. Arnisaeus desireth that Kings may use sparingly the plenitude of their power for publique good there must be saith he necessity to make it lawfull to use the plenitude of this power justly therefore Ahab sinned in that he unjustly possessed Naboths vineyard though he sinned specially in this that he came to the possession by murther and it was peculiar to the Iewes that they could not transfer their possessions from one tribe to another But if it be so then this power of absolutenesse is not given by permissive Law by which God permitted putting away of wives for the object of a permissive Law is sinne but this plenitude of power may be justly put forth in act saith he if the publique good may be regarded I would know what publique good can legittimate Tyranny and killing of the innocent the intentions of men can make nothing intrinsecally evil to become good And 6. How can that be a permissive Law of God and not his approveing Law by which Kings create inferiour judges for this is done by Gods approving will 7. It is evident that Arnisaeus his minde is that Kings may take their subjects vineyards and their goods so they erre not in the manner and way of the act so be like if there had not been a peculiar Law that Naboth should not sell his vineyard and if the King had had any publique use for it he might have taken Naboths vineyard from him but he specially sinned saith he in eo maxime culpatur c. that he took away the mans vineyard by murthering of him therefore saith Arnisaeus c. 1. de potest maj in bona privato 2. that by the Kings Law 1 Sam. 8. There is given to the King a dominion over the peoples sons daughters fields vineyards olive-yards servants and âlockes So he citeth that that Daniel putteth all places the Rocks of the Mountaines the birds of the heaven Dan. 2. under the Kings power So all is the Kings in dominion and the subjects in use onely But 1. This law of the King then can be no ground for the Kings absolutenesse above Law and there can be no permissive Law of God here for that which asserteth the Kings Royall Dominion over persons and things that must be the Law of Gods approving not his permiting evil but this is such a Law as Arnisaeus saith 2. The text speaketh of no Law or lawful power or of any absolutenesse of King Saul but of his wicked custome and his rapine and Tyranny He will take your sons your daughters your fields and your vineyards from you Saul took not these through any power of dominion by Law but by meere Tyranny 3. I have before cleared that the subjects have a propriety and an use also else how could we be obliged by vertue of the fift commandement to pay tribute to the King Rom. 13. 7. for that which we pay was as much the Kings before we payed as when we have paied it 4. Arnisaeus saith all are the Kings in respect of the universall jurisdiction that the King hath in governing and ordering all to the universall end the good of the Common-wealth for as universall nature careth for the conservation of the spece and kind so doth particular nature care for the conservation of individuals so do men care for their private good and the King is to refer every mans private goods to the good of the publick but the truth is this taketh not away propriety of goods from private men retaining onely the use to private men and giving the dominion to the King because this power that the King bath of mens goods is not power of dominion that the King hath over the goods of men as if the King were Dominus Lord and owner of the fields and monyes of the private subject but it is a power to regulate the goods for a publique use and supposeth the abuse of goods when they are Monopolized to and for private ends 2. The power that the King hath over my bread is not a power of dominion so as he may eat my bread as if it were his own bread and he be Lord of my bread as I was sometimes my self before I abused it but it is a dominion unproperly and abusively so called and is a meere fiduciary and dispensatory power because he is set over my bread not to eat it nor over my houses to dwel in them but onely with a ministeriall
power as a publique though a honourable servant and watchman appointed by the community as a mean for an end to regulate my bread houses moneys fields for the good of the publique Dominion is defined a faculty to use a thing as you please except you be hindered by force or by Law Iustin tit c. de legibus in l. digna vox c. So have I a dominion over my own garments house money to use them for uses not forbidden by the Law of God and man but I may not lay my corne field wast that it shall neither bear grassâ nor corne the King may hinder that because it is a hurt to the publique but the King as Lord and Soveraigne hath no such dominion over Naboths viâeyard How the King is lord of all goods ratione jurisdictionis tuitionis se Anton. de paudrill in l. Altius n. 5. c. de servit Hottom illust quest q. 1. ad fin Conc. 2. Lod. Molin de just jur dis 25. Soto de justitia jur l. 4. q. 4. art 1. QUEST XL. Whether or no the people have any power over the King either by his oath covenant or any other way ARistotle saith Ethic. 8. c. 12. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã A Tyrant seeketh his owne a King the good of the Subjects for he is no King who is not content and excelleth in goodnesse The former part of these words distinguish essentially the King by his office from the Tyrant Now every office requireth essentially a duty to be performed by him that is in office and where there is a duty required there is some obligation if it be a politique duty it is a politique obligation Now amongst politique duties betwixt equall and equall superiour and inferiour that is not de facto required coaction for the performance thereof but de jure there is for two neighbour Kings and two neighbour Nations both being equall and independent the one toward the other the one owe a duty to the other and if the Ammonites do â wrong to David and Israel as they are equall de facto the one cannot punish the other though the Ammonites do a disgrace to Davids messengers yet de jure David and Israel may compell them to politique duties of politique consociation for betwixt independent kingdomes there must be some politique government and some politique and civil Lawes for two or three making a society cannot dwell together without some policy and David and Israel as by the Law of nature they may repell violence with violence so if the lawes of neighbour-hood and nations be broken the one may punish the other though there be no relation of superiority and inferiority betwixt them 2. Where ever there is a covenant and oath betwixt equals yea or superiours and inferiours the one hath some coactive power over the other if the father give his bond to pay to his son ten thousand pounds as his patrimony to him though before the giving of the bond the father was not obliged but onely by the Law of nature to give a patrimony to his son yet now by a politique obligation of promise covenant and writ he is obliged so to his son to pay ten thousand pounds that by the Law of Nations and the civil Law the son hath now a coactive power by Law to compell his father though his superiour to pay him no lesse then ten thousand pounds of patrimony Though therefore the King should stand simply superiour to his kingdom and estates which I shall never grant ât if the King come under covenant with his kingdom as I have proved at length c. 13. he must by that same come under some coactive power to fulfill his covenant for omne promissum saith the Law cadit in debitum What any doth promise falleth under debt if the covenant be politique and civil as is the covenant between King David and all Israel 2 Sam. 5. 1 2 3. and between King Iehoash and the people 2 King 11. 17 18. Then the King must come under a civil obligation to performe the covenant and though their be none superiour to King and the people on earth to compell them both to performe what they have promised yet de jure by the Law of Nations each may compell the other to mutuall performance This is evident 1 By the Law of nations if one nation break covenant to another âââugh both be independent yet hath the wronged nation a coactive power de jure by accident because they are weaker they want stength to compell yet they have right and jus to compell them to force the other to keep covenant or then to punish them because nature teacheth to repel violence by violence so it be done without desire of revenge and malice 2. This is proved from the nature of a promise or covenant for Solomon saith Prov. 6. 1. My son if thou be surety for thy friend if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger 2. Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth art taken with the words of thy mouth But whence is it that a man free is now snared as a beast in a gin or trap Certainly Solomon saith it is by a word and striking of hands by a word of promise and covenant Now the Creditor hath coactive power though he be an equall or an inferiour to the man who is surety even by Law to force him to pay and the Judge is obliged to give his coactive power to the Creditor that he may force the surety to pay Hence it is cleare that a Covenant maketh a free man under the coactive power of law to an equall and to weaker and the stronger is by the law of fraternity to help the weaker with his coactive power to cause the superiour fulfill his covenant If then the King giving and not granting he were superiour to his whole Kingdome come under a covenant to them to seek their good not his owne to defend true Protestant Religion they have power to compell him to keep his covenant and Scotland if the King be stronger then England and break his covenant to them is obliged by Gods law Prov. 24. 11. to adde their forces and coactive power to help their brethren of England 3. The Law shall warrant to loose the vassal from the Lord when the Lord hath broken his covenant Hippolitus in l. Si quis viduam col 5. dixit de quest l. Si quis major 41. 161. Bartol n. 41. The Magdeburgens in libel de offic magistrat Imperatores reges esse primarios vasallos imperii regni proinde si feloniam contra imperium aut regnum committant fewdo privari proinde ut alios vasallos Arnisaeus q. 6. An princeps qui jurat subditis c. n. 2. saith This occasioneth confusion and sedition The Egyptians saith he cast off Pâolomeus because he affected too much the name of a King of the Romans his own friend Dion l.
if the people swear to the king obedience in a covenant mutuall and he swear not to them Arnisaeus sheweth to us a third sort of oath that limited Princes do swear this oath in Denmarke Suecia Polonia Hungaria is sworne by the kings who may do nothing without consent of the Senat and according to order of Law this is but the other two oathes specified and a Prince cannot contraveen his own contract the law saith in that the Prince is but as a private man in l. digna vox C de ll Rom. cons 426. n. 17. And it is known that the Emperour is constituted and created by the Princes Electors subject to them and by Law may be dethroned by them The B. of Rochester saith from Barclay none can denude a King of his power but he that gave him the power or hath an expresse commandement so to do from him that gave the power But God onely and the people gave the King his power Ergo God with the people having an expresse commandement from God must denude the King of power Answ 1. This shall prove that God onely by an immediat action or some having an expresse commandement from him can deprive a preacher for scandals Christ onely or those who have an expresse commandement from him can excommunicate God only or the magistrate with him can take away the life of man and Numb 11. 14 15 16. No inferiour Magistrates who also have their power from God immediatly Rom. 13. 1. If we speak of the immediation of the office can devide inferiour judges of their power God only by the husbandmans paines maketh a fruitfull vineyard Ergo the husbandman cannot make his vineyard grow over with nettles and briars 2. The argument must run thus else the assumption shall be false God onely by the action of the people as his instrument and by no other action make a lawfull King God onely by the action of the people as his instrument can make a King God onely by the action of the people as his instrument can dethrone a King for as the people making a King are in that doing what God doth before them and what God doth by them in that very act so the people unmaking a King doth that which God doth before the people both the one and the other according to Gods rule obligeth Deut. 17. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. The Prelate whose tribe seldom saith truth addeth As a fatherly power by God and natures law over a family was in the father of a family before the children could either transfer their power or consent to the translation of that power to him so a Kingly power which succeedeth to a paternal or fatherly power to governe many families yea a Kingdom was in that same father in relation to many families before these many families can transfer their power The Kingly power floweth immediately from God the people doth not transfer that power but doth onely consent to the person of the King or doth onely choose his person at some time And though this power were principally given to the people it is not so given to the people as if it were the peoples power not Gods for it is Gods power neither is it any other waies given to the people but as to a streame a beam and an instrument which may confer it to another M. Anton. de domini l. 6. c. 2. n 23. 23. doth more subtilly illustrate the matter if the King should confer honour on a subject by the hand of a servant who had not power or freedom to confer that honour or not to confer it but by necessity of the Kings commandment must confer it nothing should hinder us to say that such a subject had his honour immediately from the King so the earth is immediately illuminated by the sun although light be received in the earth but by the interveening mediation of many inferiour bodies and elements because by no other thing but by the sun only is the light as an efficient cause in a nearest capacity to give light so the Royall power in whomsoever it be is immediatly from God onely though it be applyed by men to this or this person because from God onely and from no other the Kingly power is formally and effectively that which it is and worketh that which it worketh and if you ask by what cause is the tree immediatly turned in fire none sound in reason would say it is made fire not by the fire but by him that laid the tree on the fire Iohn P. P. would have stollen this argument also if he had been capable thereof Ans 1. A fatherly power is in a father not before he have a child but indeed before his children by an act of their free-wil consent that he be their father yea whether the children consent or no from a physical act of generation he must be the father let the father be the most wicked man lethim be made by no moral requisite is he made a father nor can heever leave off physically to be a father he may leave off morally to do the duty of a father so be non pater officio but he cannot but be pater naturae generantis vi So there never is nor can be any need that childrens fre consent interveen to make Kish the Father of Saul because he is by nature a father to make Saul a King a moral father by analogy and improperly a father by ruling governing guiding defending Israel by good laws in peace and godlinesse I hope there is some act of the peoples free-will required even by Spalatoes way the people must approve him to be King yea they must King him or constitute him King say we no such act is required of naturall sons to make a physicall father and so here is a great halt in the comparison and it is most false that there is a Kingly power to governe many families in the same father before these many families can transfer their power to make him King Put Royallists to their Logick they have not found out a medium to make good that there is a formall Kingly power whereby Saul is King and father morally over all Israel before Israel chose him and made him as Kish was Sauls father formally and had a fatherly power to be his father before Saul had the use of free-will to consent that he should be his father Royalists are here at a stand The man may have Royall gifts before the people make him King but this is not regia potestas a Royall power by which the man is formally King Many have more Royal gifts then the man that beareth the Crown yet are never Kings nor is there formally regia potestas kingly power in them In this meaning Petrarcha said Plures sunt reges quam regna 3. He saith The people doth not confer royall power but onely consent to the person of the man or
and Bellarmine and Suarez say Not God maketh Kings by approbation only P. Prelate The people may change Monarchy into Aristocracy or Democracy or Aristocracy into Monarchy for ought I know they differ not in this neither Ans The P. Prelate knoweth not all things the two Iesuites Bellarmine and Suarez are produced only as if they were all Iesuites and Suarez saith De prim po l. 3. n. 4. Donationem absolutam semel valide factam revocari non posse neque in totum neque ex parce maxime quando onerosa fuit If the people once give their power to the King they cannot resume it without cause and laying downe the grounds of Suarez and other Iesuites that our Religion is Heresie they doe soundly collect this consequence That no King can be Lord of the consciences of their subjects to compell them to an Hereticall Religion We teach that the King of Spaine hath no power over the consciences of Protestant Subjects to force them to Idolatry and that their soules are not his subjects but only their persons and in the Lord. 2. It is no great crime that if a King degenerate in a Tyranny or if the Royall Line faile that we thinke the people have liberty to change Monarchy into Aristocracy aut contra Iesuites deny that the people can make this change without the Popes consent We judge neither the great Bishop the Pope nor the little Popes ought to have hand in making Kings P. Prelate They say the power is derived to the King from the people Cumulativè or Communicativé non Privativé by way of communication not by way of privation so as the people denude not themselves of this soveraignty As the King maketh a Lieutenant in Ireland not to denude himselfe of his Royall power but to put him in trust for his service If this be their mind the King is in a poore case The principal authority is in the Deligate and so the people is still Iudge and the King their Deputy Ans The P. Prelate taketh on him to write he knoweth not what this is not our opinion The King is King and hath the peoples power not as their Deputy 1. Because the people is not principall Iudge and the King subordinate The King in the executive power of Lawes is really a Soveraigne above the people a Deputy is not so 2. The people have irrevocably made over to the King their power of governing defending and protecting themselves I except the power of selfe preservation which people can no more make away it being sinlesse natures birth-right then the liberty of eating drinking sleeping and this the people cannot resume except in case of the Kings Tyranny there is no power by the King so irrevocably resigned to his Servant or Deputy but he may use it himselfe 3. A Delegate is comptable for all he doth to those that put him in trust whether he doe ill or well The King in acts of Iustice is not comptable to any for if his acts be not lyable to high suspitions of Tyranny no man may say to him What dost thou onely in acts of unjustice and those so tyrannous that they be inconsistent with the habituall fiduciary repose and trust put on him he is to render accounts to the Parliament which representeth the people 4. A Delegate in esse in fieri both that he may be a Delegate and that he may continue a Delegate whether he doe ill or well dependeth on his pleasure who delegateth him but though a King depend in fieri in regard of his call to the Crowne upon the suffrages of his people yet that he may be continued King he dependeth not on the people simply but only in case of Tyrannicall administration and in this sense Suarez and Bellarmine spake with no more honesty then we doe but with more then Prelates doe for they professe any Emissary of Hell may stab a Protestant King We know the Prelates professe the contrary but their judgement is the same with Iesuites in all points and since they will have the Pope Christs Vicar by such a Divine right as they themselves are Bishops and have the King under Oath to maintaine the Clergie Bishops and all their Canonicall priviledges amongst which the Bishops of Rome his indirect power in ordine ad spiritualia and to dethrone Kings who turne Heritickes is one principall right I see not how Prelates are not as deepe in treason against Kings as the Pope himselfe and therefore P. Prelate take the beame out of your owne eye The P. Prelate taketh unlearned paines to prove that Gerson Occam Iac. de almaine Parisian Doctors maintained these same grounds anent the peoples power over Kings in the case of Tyranny and that before Luther and Calvine was in the world and this is to give himselfe the lye that Luther Calvin and we have not this Doctrine from Iesuites and what is Calvines mind is evident Instit l. 4. c. all that the estates may coerce and reduce in order a Tyrant else they are deficient in their trust that God hath given them over the Common-wealth and Church and this is the Doctrine for which Royalists cry out against Master Knox of blessed memory Buchanan Iunius Brutus Bâuchier Rossaeus Althusius and Luther in scripto ad pastorem to 7. German fol. 386. bringeth two examples for resistance the people resisted Saul when he was willing to kill Ionathan his sonne and Ahikam and other Princes rescued Ieremiah out of the hands of the King of Iudah and Gerardus citeth many Divines who second Luther in this as Bugenliagius Iustus Ionas Nicholas Ambsderffius George Spalatinus Iustus Menius Christopher Hofmanus It is knowne what is the mind of Protestant Divines as Beza Pareus Melancthon Bucanus Polanus Chamer all the Divines of France of Germany of Holland No wonder then Prelates were upon the plot of betraying the City of Rochel and of the Protestant Church there when they then will have the Protestants of France for their defensive warres to be Rebels and siders with Iesuites when in these warres Iesuites sought their blood and ruine The P. Prelate having shewn his mind concerning the deposing of Childericke by the Pope of which I say nothing but the Pope was an Antichristian Usurper and the poore man never fit to beare a Crowne he goeth on to set downe an opinion of some mute Authors he might devise a thousand opinions that way to make men beleeve he had been in a wood of learned mens secrets and that never man saw the bottome of the controversie while he seeing the escapes of many Pens as supercilious Bubo praiseth was forced to appeare a Star new risen in the firmament of Pursevants and reveale all dreames and teach all the New-Statists the Gamâliels Buchanan Iunius Brutus and a world who were all sleeping while this Lucifer the sonne of the night did appeare this new way of Lawes Divinity and casuists Theologie They hold saith P. P. Soveraigne power is
this they say in answer to some who beleeved the Church of England made the King the Head of the Church The Prelates Convocation must be Iesuites to this P. P. also So the 36. Article of the Belgick Confession saith of all Magistrates no lesse then of a King We know for Tyrannie of Soule and Body they justly revolted from their King Idcirco Magistratus ipsos gladio armavit ut malos quidem plectant paenis probos vero tueantur Horum porro est non modo de Civili politia conservanda esse solioitâs verum etiam dare operam ut sacrum Ministerium conservetur omnis Idololatria adulterinus Dei cultus è medio tollatur regnum Antichristi diruatur c. Then all Magistrates though inferiour must doe their duty that the Law of God hath laid on them though the King forbid them But by the Belgick Confession and the Scripture it is their duty to relieve the oppressed to use the sword against murthering Papists and Irish Rebels and destroying Cavaliers For shall it be a good plea in the day of Christ to say Lord Iesus we would have used thy sword against bloody Murtherers if thy Anoynted the King had not commanded us to obey a mortall King rather than the King of ages and to execute no judgement for the oppressed because he judged them faithfull Catholike subjects Let all Oxford and Cavalier Doctors in the three Kingdomes satisfie the consciences of men in this that inferior Iudges are to obey a Diviue Law with a proviso that the King command them so to doe and otherwise they are to obey Men rather then God This is evidently holden forth in the Argentine Confession exhibited by foure Cities to the Emperour Charles the Fifth An. M. D. XXX in the same very cause of innocent Defence that we are now in in the three Kingdomes of Scotland England and Ireland The Saxonick Confession exhibited to the Councell of Trent An. M. D. LI. art 23 maketh the Magistrates office essentially to consist in keeping of the two Tables of Gods Law and so what can follow hence but in so far as he defendeth Murtherers or if he be a King and shall with the sword or Armies impede inferior Magistrates for the Confession speaketh of all to defend Gods law and true Religion against Papists Murtherers and bloody Cavaliers and hinder them to execute the judgement of the Lord against evill doers He is not in that a Magistrate and the denying of obedience active or passive to him in that is no resistance to the Ordinance of God but by the contrary the King himselfe must resist the ordinance of God The Confession of Bohemia is clear art 16. Qui publico munere magistratuque funguntur quemcunque graduÌ teneant se non suum sed Dei opus agere sciant Hence all inferior or the supreme Magistrate what ever be their place they doe not their own work nor the work of the King but the work of God in the use of the sword Ergo they are to use the sword against bloody Cavaliers as doing Gods worke suppose the King should forbid them to doe Gods worke And it saith of all Magistrates Sunt autem Magistratuum partes ac munus omnibus ex aequo jus dicere in communem omnium usum sine personarum acceptatione pacem ac tranquilitatem publicam tueri ac procurare de malis ac facinorosis hanc inter turbantibus poenas sumere aliosque omnes ab eorum vi injuria vindicare Now this Confession was the faith of the Barons and Nobles of Bohemia who were Magistrates and exhibited to the Emperor An. 1535. in the cause not unlike unto ours now and the Emperor was their Soveraigne yet they professe they are obliged in conscience to defend all under them from all violence and injuries that the Emperor or any other could bring on them and that this is their office before God which they are obliged to performe as a worke of God and the Christian Magistrate is not to doe that worke which is not his own but Gods upon condition that the King shall not inhibite him What if the King shall inhibite Parliaments Princes and Rulers to relieve the oppressed to defend the Orphan the Widow the Stranger from unjust violence Shall they obey man rather than God To say no more of this Prelates in Scotland did what they could to hinder his Majestie to indict a Parliament 2. When it was indicted to have its freedome destroyed by prelimitations 3. When it was sitting their care was to divide impede and anull the course of Iustice 4. All in the P. Prelates booke tendeth to abolish Parliaments and to enervate their power 5. There were many wayes used to break up Parliaments in England And to command Iudges not to judge at all but to interrupt the course of Iustice is all one as to command unrighteous judgement Ier. 22. v. 3. 6. Many wayes have been used by Cavaliers to cut off Parliaments and the present Parliament in England The paper found in William Lauds Studie touching feares and hopes of the Parliament of England evidenceth that Cavaliers hate the Supreme seat of Iustice and would it were not in the World which is the highest rebellion and resistance made against superior Powers 1. He feareth this Parliament shall begin where the last left Ans What ever ungrate Courtier had hand in the death of King Iames deserved to come under Tryall 2. He feareth they sacrifice some man Ans If Parliaments have not power to cut off Rebels and corrupt Iudges the root of their being is undone 2. If they be lawfull Courts none needeth feare them but the guilty 3. He feareth their Consultations be long and the supply must be present Ans Then Cavaliers intend Parliaments for Subsidies to the King to foment and promote the warre against Scotland not for Iustice 2. He that feareth long and serious consultations to rip up and launce the wounds of Church and State is affraid that the wounds be cured 4. He feareth they deny Subsidies which are due by the Law of God Nature and Nations whereas Parliaments have but their deliberation and consent for the manner of giving otherwise this is to sell Subsidies not to give them Ans Tribute and the standing Revenues of the King are due by the Law of God and Nations but Subsidies are occasionall Rents given upon occasion of Warre or some extraordinary necessity and they are not given to the King as Tribute and standing Revenues which the King may bestow for his House Family and Royall Honour but they are given by the Kingdome rather to the Kingdome then to the King for the present warre or some other necessity of the Kingdome and therefore are not due to the King as King by any Law of Nature or Nations and so should not be given but by deliberation and judiciall sentence of the States and they are not sold to the King but given out by the
Member of the Parliament by that same reason he may imprison two and twenty and a hundreth and so may he clap up the whole Free Estates and where shall then the highest Court of the Kingdome be All Polititians say The King is a limited Prince not absolute where the King giveth out Lawes not in his own name but in the name of himselfe and the Estates judicially conveened Pag. 33. of the old Acts of Parliament Members are summoned to treat and conclude The duty of Parliaments and their power according to the Laws of Scotland may be seen in the Historie of Knox now printed at London An. 1643. in the Nobles proceeding with the Queen who killed her Husband and maried Bodwell and was arraigned in Parliament and by a great part condemned to death by many to perpetuall imprisonment King Charles received not Crown Sword and Scepter while first he did sweare the Oath that King Iames his Father did sweare 2. He was not crowned till one of every one of the three Estates came and offered to him the Crown 3. With an expresse condition of his duty before he be crowned After King Charles said I will by Gods assistance bestow my life for your defence wishing to live no longer then that I may see this Kingdome flourish in happinesse Thereafter the King shewing himselfe on a Stage to the people the P. Archbishop said Sir I doe present unto you King Charles the right descended inheritor the Crown and dignitie of this Realme appointed by the Peeres of the Kingdome And Are ye not willing to have him for your King and become subject to him The King turning himselfe on the stage to be seen of the People They declare their willingnesse by crying God save King Charles Let the King live QUEST XLIV Generall results of the former Doctrine in some few Corollaries or straying Questions fallen off the Road-way answered briefly QUest 1. Whether all Governments be but broken Governments and deviations from Monarchie Answ It is denyed There is no lesse somewhat of Gods authoritie in Government by many or some of the choisest of the People than in Monarchie nor can we judge any Ordinance of Man unlawfull for we are to be subject to all for the Lords sake 1 Pet. 2. 13. Tit. 3. 1. 1 Tim. 2. 1 2 3. 2. Though Monarchie should seeme the rule of all other Governments in regard of resemblance of the supreme Monarch of all Yet is it not the morall rule from which if other Governments shall erre they are to be judged sinfull deviations Quest 2. Whether is Royaltie an immediate issue and spring of Nature Answ No For man fallen in sinne knowing naturally he hath need of a Law and a Government could have by reason devised Governors one or moe and the supervenient institution of God comming upon this Ordinance doth more fully assure us that God for mans good hath appointed Governours but if we consult with Nature many Iudges and Governors to fallen Nature seeme nearer of blood to Nature then one only for two because of mans weaknesse are better then one Now Nature seemeth to me not to teach that one onely sinfull man should be the sole and onely Ruler of a whole Kingdome God in his Word ever joyned with the Supreme Ruler many Rulers who as touching the essence of a Iudge which is to rule for God were all equally Iudges some reserved Acts or a longer cubite of power in regard of extent being due to the King Quest 3. Whether Magistrates as Magistrates be naturall Answ Nature is considered as whole and sinlesse or as fallen and broken In the former consideration that either man should stand in need of any to compell him with the sword to doe his duty and not oppresse was no more naturall to man than to stand in need of Lictors and Hangmen or Physitians for the body which in this state was not in a capacitie of sicknesse or death And so Government by Parents and Husbands was only naturall in the latter consideration Magistrates as Magistrates are two wayes considered 1. According to the knowledge of such an Ordinance 2. According to the actuall erection of the practice of the office of Magistrates In the former notion I humbly conceive that by Natures light Man now fallen and broken even under all the fractions of the powers and faculties of the soule doth know that promises of reward feare of punishment and the coactive power of the Sword as Plato said are naturall meanes to move us and wings to promote obedience and to doe our duty And that Government by Magistrates is naturall But in the second relation it is hard to determine that Kings rather then other Governours are more naturall Quest 4. Whether Nature hath determined that there should be one supreme Ruler a King or many Rulers in a free Commnitie Answ It is denyed Quest 6. Whether every free Commonwealth hath not in it a supremacie of Majestie which it may formally place in one or many Answ It is affirmed Quest 6. Whether absolute and unlimited power of Royaltie be a ray and beame of Divine Majestie immediately derived from God Answ Not at all Such a creature is not in the world of Gods creation Royalists and flatterers of Kings are parents to this prodigious birth There is no shadow of power to doe ill in God An absolute power is essentially a power to do without or above Law and a power to doe ill to destroy and so it cannot come from God as a Morall power by institution though it come from God by a flux of permissive providence but so things unlawfull and sinfull come from God Quest 7. Whether the King may in his actions intend his owne Prerogative and Absolutenes Answ He can neither intend it as his nearest end nor as his remote end Not the former for if he fight and destroy his People for a Prerogative he destroyeth his People that he may have a power to destroy them which must be meere Tyranny nor can it be his remote end for granting that his supposed absolute Prerogative were lawfull he is to referre all lawfull Power and all his actions to a more noble end to wit to the safetie and good of the People Quest 8. Doe not they that resist the Parliaments power resist the Parliament And they that resist the Kings power resist the King God hath joyned King and Power who dare seperate them Answ If the Parliament abuse their power we may resist their abused power and not their power Parliamentarie Mr. Bridges doth well distinguish in his Annot. on the Loyall Convert betwixt the Kings power and the Kings will 2. The Resisters doe not separate King and Power but the King himselfe doth separate his lawfull Power from his Will if he worke and act Tyrannie out of this principle Will Passion Lust not out of the Royall principle of Kingly power So far we may resist the one and not the other Quest
King by this reason they cannot 3. The King in all respects is not a Tutor every comparison in something beareth a Leg for the Common-wealth in their owne persons doe choose a King 2. Complaine of a King 3. Resist an Vzziah 4. Tye their elective Prince to a Law a Pupill cannot choose his Tutor either his dying Father or the living Law doth that service for him he cannot resist his Tutor he cannot tye his Tutor to a Law nor limit him when first he chooseth him Pupillo non licet postulare Tutorem suspecti quamdiu sub tutela est manet impubes l. Pietatis 6. in fin C. de susp Tutor l. impuberem 7. § Impuberes Iust eod Quest 13. Whether or no are subjects more obnoxious to a King then Clients to Patrons and servants to Masters because the Patron cannot be the Clients Judge but some superiour Magistrate must judge both and the slave had no refuge against his Master but only flight And the King doth conferre infinite greater benefits on the subjects then the Master doth on the slave because he exposeth his life pleasure ease credit and all for the safety of his subjects Ans It s denyed for to draw the case to Fathers and Lords in respect of Children and Vassals the reason why Sons Clients Vassals can neither formally judge nor judicially punish Fathers Patrons Lords and Masters though never so Tyrannous is a Morall impotency or a politicall incongruity because these relations of Patron and Client Fathers and Children are supposed to be in a Community in which are Rulers and Iudges above the Father and Sonne the Patron and the Client but there is no Physicall incongruity that the politique inferiour punish the superiour if we suppone there were no Iudges on the earth and no relation but Patron and Client and because for the father to destroy the children is a troubling of the harmony of Nature and the highest degree of violence therefore one violence of selfe defence and that most just though contrary to nature must be a remedy against anoâher violence but in a Kingdome there is no politicall Ruler above both King and People and therefore though Nature have not formally appointed the politicall relation of a King rather then many Governours and subjects yet hath Nature appointed a Court and Tribunall of necâssity in which the people may by innocent violence represse the unjust violence of an injuring Prince so as the people injured in the matter of selfe defence may be their owne Iudge 2. I wonder that any should teach That oppressed slaves had of old no refuge against the tyranny of Masters but only flight for 1. The Law expresly saith That they might not only fly but also change Masters which we all know was a great dammage to the Master to whom the servant was as good as mony in his purse 2. I have demonstrated before by the Law of Nature and out of divers learned Iurists that all inferiours may defend themselves by opposing violence against unjust violence to say nothing that unanswerably I have proved that the Kingdome is superiour to the King 3. It is true Qui plus dat plus obligat as the Scripture saith Luke 7. He that giveth a greater benefit layeth a foundation of a greater obligation But 1. If benefit be compared with benefit it is disputable if a King give a greater benefit then an earthly father to whom under God the sonne is debtor for life and being if we regard the compensation of eminency of honour and riches that the People puteth upon the King but I utterly deny that a power to act Tyrannous acts is any benefit or obligation that the People in reason can lay upon their Prince as a compensation or hire for his great paines he taketh in his Royall Watch-Tower I Iudge it no benefit but a great hurt dammage and an ill of nature both to King and people that the people should give to their Prince any power to destroy themselves and therefore that people doth reverence and honour the Prince most who lay strongest chaines and Iron fetters on him that he cannot tyrannize Quest 14. But are not Subjects more subject to their Prince seeing the subjection is naturall as we see Bees and Cranes to obey him then servants to their Lord. C. in Apib. 7. 9. 1. ex Hiero. 4. ad Rustic Monach. Plin. n. 17. For Jurists teach that servitude is beside or against nature l. 5. de stat homi § 2. just jur pers c. 3. § sicut Nov. 89. quib med nat off sui Ans There is no question in active subjection to Princes and Fathers commanding in the Lord we shall grant as high a measure as you desire But the question is if either active subjection to ill and unjust mandates or passive subjection to penall inflictions of Tyrannie and abused power be naturall or most naturall or if Subjects doe renounce naturall subjection to their Prince when they oppose violence to unjust violence This is to beg the question And for the Commonwealth of Bâes and Cranes and Crown and Scepter amongst them Give me leave to doubt of it To be subject to Kings is a Divine morall Law of God but not properly naturall to be subject to coaction of the Sword Government and subjection to Parents is naturall But that a King is juris naturae strictim I must crave leave to doubt I hold him to be a Divine morall Ordinance to which in conscience we are to submit in the Lord. Quest 15. Whether was King Uzzah dethroned by the People Ans Though we should say he was not formally unkinged and dethroned yet if the Royall power consist in an indivisible point as some Royalists say and if Vzzah was removed to a private house and could not reigne being a Leper Certainly much Royall power was taken from him 'T is true Arnisaeus saith he neither could be compelled to resigne his power nor was he compelled to resigne his Royall authoritie but he willingly resigned actuall government and remained King as Tutors and Curators are put upon Kings that are mad stupid and Children who yet governe all by the authoritie of lawfull Kings But that Vzzah did not denude himselfe of the Royall power voluntarily is cleare The reason 2 Chro. 26. 21. why he dwelt in an house apart and did not actually reigne is because he was a Leper for He was cut off saith the Text from the house of the Lord and Jotham his sonne was over the Kings house judging the people of the Land Whereby it is cleare by the expresse law of God he being a Leper and so not by Law to enter into the Congregation he was cut off from the house of the Lord and he being a patient is said to be cut off from the Lords house Whether then Vzzah turned necessitie to a vertue I know not It is evident that Gods Law removed the actuall exercise of
nature should be lawlesse or against Acts of Parliament Quest 19. Whether the Subjects be obliged to pay the debts of the King Answ These debts which the King contracteth as King in Throno Regali the people are to pay For the Law of nature and the divine Law doth prove That to every servant and Minister wages is due Rom. 13. 5 6. compared with Vers 4. and 1 Cor. 9. 9 10 11 12. 1 Tim. 5. 18. If the Prince be taken in a war for the defence of the people it is just that he be redeemed by them So the Law saith Tit. F. C. de negotiis gestis F. C. Manda But when Fer. Vasquius illust quest l. 1. c. 7. n. 6. Vicesimo tertio apparet c. saith If the Prince was not doing the businesse of the publike and did make war without advice and consent of the people then are they not to redeem him Now certain it is when the King raiseth war not onely against his Oath and saith God do so âo me and mine if I intend any thing but peace yet maketh war and also raiseth war without consent of the Parliament and a Parliament at that time convocated by his own Royall Writ and not raised and dissolved at all but still sitting formally a Parliament if he borrow money from his own Subjects and from forraign Princâs to raise war against his Subjects and Parliament then the people are not obliged to pay his debts 1. Because they are obliged to the King only as a King and not as an enemy But in so raising war he cannot be considered as a King 2. Though if the people agree with him and still acknowledge him King it is unpossible Physicè he can be their King and they not pay his debts yet they sin not but may ex decentia non ex debito legali pay his debts yet are they not obliged by any Law of God or man to pay his debts but though it be true by all Law the King be obliged to pay his debt except we say that all the peoples goods are the Kings a compendious way I confesse to pay all that any voluptuous Heliogabolus shall contract yet it may easily be proved That what his subjects and forraign Princes lent him to the raising of an unjust war are not properly debts but expences unjustly given out under the reduplication of formall enemies to the Countrey and so not payable by the Subjects and this is evident by Law because one may give most unjustly moneys to his neighbour under the notion of loan which yet hath nothing of the essence of loan and debt but is meer delapidation and cannot properly be debt by Gods Law for the Law regulateth a man in borrowing and lending as in other politike actions if I out of desire of revenge should lend moneys to a robber to buy powder and fewel to burn an innocent Citie or to buy armour to kill innocent men I deny that that is legally debt I dispute not whether A. B. borrowing money formally that thereby he may buy a Whore shall be obliged to repay it to C. D. under the reduplication of debt or if the borrower be obliged to pay what the lender hath unjustly lent I dare not pray to God That all our Kings debts may be payed I have scarce faith so to do Quest 20. Whether Subsidies be due to the King as King Answ There is a twofold Subsidie one Debitum of debâ another Charitativum By way of charitie a Subsidie of debt is rather the Kingdoms due for their necessitie then the Kings due as a part of his rent we read of Custome due to the King as King and for conscience sake Rom. 13. 5 6. never of a Subsidie or taxation to the Kings of Israel and Judah at any convention of the States Augustus Caesar his taxing of all the World Luk. 2. for the maintenance of Wars cannot be the proper rent of Augustus as Emperour but the rent of the Romane Empire and it is but the fact of a man Charitative subsidies to the King of indulgence because through bad husbanding of the Kings rents he hath contracted debts I judge no better than Royall and Princely begging Yet lawfull they are as I owe charitie to my brother so to my father so to my Politique father the King See Ferd. Vasq illust quest l. 1. c. 8. who desireth that Superiors under the name of Charitie hid not rapine and citeth Cieer gravely saying offic l. 1. Nulla generi humano justitiae major pestis est quam eorum qui dum maximè fallunt id agunt ut boni viri esse videantur c. Quest 21. Whether the Seas Floods Road-wayes Castles Ports publike Magazine Militia Armour Forts and Strengths be the Kings Ans All these may be understood to be the Kings in divers notions 1. They are the Kings quoad custodiam publicam possessionem as a pawn is the mans in whose hand the pawn is laid down 2. They are the Kings quoad jurisdictionem cumulativam non privativam The King is to direct and Royally to command that the Castles Forts Ports Strengths Armour Magazine Militia be imployed for the safetie of the Kingdome All the Wayes Bridges the publike Road-wayes are the Kings in so far as he as a publike and Royall watchman is to secure the Subjects from Robbers and to cognosce of unknown Murthers by himselfe and the inferior Iudges yet may not the King imploy any of these against the Kingdome 3. They are the Kings as he is King quoad officialem Regalem publicam proprietatem for he hath a Royall and Princely propriety to all these as his own in so far as he useth them according to Law And thus they are 4. The Kings also quoad usum in regard of officiall use But they are the Kingdomes quoad fructum in regard of the effect and fruit 2. They are the Kingdomes sinaliter being destinated for the safetie and securitie of the Kingdome 3. They are the Kingdomes quoad proprietatem propriam legalem stricté sumptam according to the proper and legall proprietie And are not the Kings proper heritage as he is a Man 1. Because he may not sell these Forts Strengths Ports Magazine Bridges c. to a stranger or a Forraigne Prince 2. When the King is dead and his Heires and Royall line interrupted these all reâaine proper to the Kingdome yet so as the State cannot as they are Men make them away or sell them more then the King for no Publike persons yea the Multitude cannot make away the securitie safetie and that which necessarily conduceth to the securitie of the Posteritie The Lord build his owne Zion and appoint Salvation for walls and bulwarks FINIS ERRATA In the Preface p. 4. l. 5. for who is r. which is PAge 14. Line 9. for he read they ib. l. 39. for is r. it s p. 24. l. 19. adde not ib. l. 27.
r. Satan p. 28. l. penult for Ant. r. for p. 47. l. 38. for yet as r. as yet p. 52. l. 28. for rest r. right p. 91. l. 36. r. nature p. 96. l. 33. for is r. in p. 97. l. 21. for him r. her p. 98. l. 10. for 2. r. 3. ib. l. 13. for 3. r. 4. l. 17. for 4. r. 5. for fol. 92 93. r. 108 109 p. 121. l. 8 for far r. for p. 158. l. 31. for or r. is a. p. 171. l. 22. for re-joyned r. are joyned p. 179 l. 31. for nor r. were p. 186. l. 28. for are r. or p. 195. l. 10. for dispute r. dispence p. 201 l. 37. for is r. in p. 203. l. 13. dele by p. 224. l. 9 r. in so far as it is p. 228. l. 37. for it r. it s p. 234. l. 8. r. Malderus p. 235. l. 37. dele come p. 271. l. 2. for them r. then p. 280 l. 16. for traddit r. tradidit for fol. 313. r. 290. sequent p. 325. l. 23. for excito r. exercito p. 332. l. 29. for aimeth r. owneth p. 336. l. 33. for workâ r. worker p. 343 l. 16. dele not p. 351. l. 35. for first r. fift p. 373. l. penult for first r. fift ib. l. ult for re-man r. remain p. 388. l. 10. for needlesse r. needfull p. 392. l. 22. for accidere r. occidere p. 405. l. antepenult for right r. rite p. 406. l. 26. for devide r. denude p. 433 l. 23. for from r. or p. 438. l. 30. for most lawfull r. fully p. 440. l. 28. for Parl. 15. r. Paâl 1. p. 444. in marg for five r. suae p. 451. l. 8. for neither r. either p. 452. l. 6. after England r. because he had not the consent of the States The Parliamentâ approbation c. ib. l. 36. for being r. was Sacr. san Epist âediâ Sacr. san reg maj c. 5. A refutation of the P. P. Pamphlet touching the inconsistency of the Presbytery with Monarchy The pretended Prelates lies and calumnies of the Presbyterits of Scotland Pag. 6. 6. 7. Pag. 9. Pag. 10. 10. 10 11. Pag. 11. Pa. 11 12 13. 14. 15. Pag. 7. Pag. 9. Pag. 18. Pa. 17 18. Pag. 18. Pag. 19. Pag. 22. P. 22 23 24. Pag. 31. Pag. 31. Pag. 33 34 35. His lies of the generall Assemblies of Scotland How Government is from God Civill power in the root immediately from God a Aristot polit l. 1. c. 2. b Sacro sanc reg majestas c. 1. p. 1. c Molina to â de justit disp 22. d Bodin de rep l. 1. c. 6. e Suarez to 1. delegib l. 3. c. 3. Civill societie âow naturall Power of Government and of Government by Magistrates different f Vasquez illust quaest l. 1. c. 41. num 28 29. g L. 2. in princ F. de inst jur in princ Inst Cod. tit c. jus nat 1. disp h Dominium est jus quoddam l. sin ad med C. de long temp prest l. qui usum fert Civil subjection formally not natures Law Our consent to Laws not antecedently naturall Government by Rulers a secondary Law of nature a Ad Tannerus m. 12. tom 2. disp 5. de peccatis q. 5. dub 1. num 22. b Sotus 4. de justit q. 4 ar 1. c Lod. Molina to 1. de just disp 22. d Victoria in relect de potest civil q. 4. art â Family Government and civil different Civill government by consequent naturall Rom. 13. e Gââârruvias tr 2. pract quest 1. n 2 3 4 f Soto loâ âât g Suarez de Reg. lib. 3. c. 4. n. 1 2. h Barclaius con Monarchoma l. 3. c. 2. The King from God understood in a foureâold sense i Sacrosan reg maj the sacred and royall prerogative of Christian Kings c. 1. q. 1. p. 6 7. k Bellarm. de locis l. 5. c. 6. not 5. Politica universè considerata est de jure divino in particulari considerata est de jure gentium Royall power is of divine institution a Hiâromy in L. 4. Comment in Iârem b Basilius Epist 125. c Athanasius Epist ad solita d Optat. Melevitanus Lib. 3. e Epiphanius â 1. tom 3. Heres 40. How and in what sence any forme of Government is indifferent How Government is an Ordinance of man 1 Pet. 2 3. f Rivetus in dâeal Mand. 5. pa. 194. g Pisc in loc h Diodat annot i Oecumenius Quod hominum dispositione consistit humanis suffragiiâ creatur k Dydimus l Cajetan officium regiminis quia humanis suffragiis creatur m Estius in loc n Betrandus tom 4. Bib. o Gloss ordinar p Lyranus q Syriak r Lorin in lâ Å¿ Durandus lib. de orig juris How the King is from God and how from the people Royall power three wayes in the people How Royall power is radidically in the people The people make the King The people create a King according to the Scripture a Lavater com in Part 12 38. Hodie quo que in liberis urbibus gencibus magistratus secundum dei verbum Exod. 18. Deut. 1. cligendi sunt non ex affectiâus b Barclaius l. 3. cout Monarâhomach 8. c. 3. Making a king and choosing a king not to be distinguished David not a King because anointed by Samuel By the peoples election one is made of no King a King Kings elected made by the people though the Office in the abstract be immediately of God a Bellarmine l. 5. c. 6. not 5. De Laicis Sacrâ Sa. reg Ma. 5. 2. pag. 20. 21 22 23. The people have a reall action more then approbation in making a King The same word that is ascribed to the people in making a King 2 Sam. 16. 18. is given to God 1 King 12. 28. Kinging of a person ascribed to the people Kings in a speciall manner from God but it followeth not ergo not from the people Ib. c 24. Kings are from God yet from the people also The place Prov. 8. 15. proveth not but Kings are made by the people Thoâ 12. q. 93. art 3. Pag. 30. Dr. Fern 3. S. 13. The formes of Government not from God by a naked act of Providence but by his approving will cap. 4. pag. 41. Soveraigntie not from the people by sole approbation That Kings in an eminent act of divine providence have their crownes from God hindreth not but they have their crownes from the people also Phrases ascribing the making of Kings in a peculiar manner to God prove not that the free will of the people hath no hand in the making Kings Prophesies of Christ expounded by the P. Prelate of prophane Heathen Kings The P. Prelate expoundeth Prophesies of David Solomon and Iesus Christ as true of prophane heathen Kings Sacro sancta Maj. 43. 44. The P. P. maketh all the Heathen Kings to be anoynted with grace from Heaven a Aug. in locum unxi mânum fortâm servum obedientenâ ideo in co posui adjutorium
resolveth upon the free election of the people as on the fountain-cause 6. Argum. Sect. 4. p. 39. Election of a family to the Crown lawfull Speed Hist pag. 757. A King by election commeth neerer to the first King then a King by succession D. Fern part 3. sect â p. 14. If the people may limit the King they may give him power A community have not power formally to punish themselves Barclay cont Monarcham c. 2 p. 5 6. The elective King and the hereditary King better and worse every one then another in divers relations Sac. sanc Reg. Maiest c. 17. p. 158. Letter p. 7. Twofold right of conquest Sect. 7. p. 30. Vniust conquest is no signification of Gods approving Will. 1 Arg. 2 Arg. Meere violent domineering is contrary to the rules of governing 3 Arg. Violence hath nothing in it of a King 4 Arg. 5 Arg. A King given to a people by a bloody Conquest must be a judgement not a blessing and so not pââ se a King 6 Arg. Strength as prevailing strength is not law or reason Fathers cannot dispose of the liberty of the posteritie not borne A father as a father hath not power of life and death Hugo Gâotius de iute belli pacis l. 2. c. 4. n. 10. 7 Arg. Part 3. Sect. 3. pâg 20. Arnisaeus de authoritat Priâcip c. 1. n. 1 â The peoples and Davids conquest of Canaanites Amonites and Edomites do not prove conquest to be a good title to a Crown Davids conquest of the Ammonites more rigorous then that it can legitimate Crowns by âonquest 2 Sam. 12. 30. 31. 7 sorts of superioritie and inferioritie Power of life and death from a positive law not from the superioritie of father children ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã A dominion antecedent and consequent Kings and subjects no naturall order Buchan de jure Regni apud Scoles A man is born consequenter in a politique ââlation Slavery not naturall Every man by nature free borne in regard of civill subjection 1 Arg. 2 Arg. 3 Arg. 4 Arg. 5 Arg. 6 Arg. Politque societie naturall in radice free in modo rei 7 Arg. Sac. sanct Reg. ma. c. 12. p. 12 P. Prelate Politick Government how naturall P. Prelate Sac. sanct Mai. p. 126. Inslaving of children by the parents not naturall The King under a naturall but no civil obligation to the people say Royalists If the condition without the which one of the parties would never have entered in covenant be not performed that person is loosed from the covenant Arnis de authorit prin â â n. 6. 7. The people Princes in their place are obliged to maintain Religion and Iustice no lesse then the King In so far as the King presseth a false Religion on the people catenus in so far they are understood not to have a Kingly power The covenant between King and People giveth a coactive power to each other The covenant bindeth the King as King not as he is a man only The covenant tyeth the King to the People politically as well as to God naturally or religiously 2 Arg. How the covenant is conditionall and what breach dissolveth the covenant One or two tyrannous acts deprive not a King of his Royall right The covenant between King and people conditionall Though there be no positive written covecant which yet we grant not yet there is a naturall tacite and implicite covenant betwixt the King and ths people If the King be made King absolutely he is made such an one contrary to the word of God and nature of his office The people are not given to the Kings keeping so as they be his owne as sheep or mony are given The King could not buy or sell borrow or contract debt if his covenant with men did not bind him The covenant sworn by Asa and all Iudah 2 Chron. 15. obligeth the King Barclay Alber. Gentilis in disput Regal l. 2. c. 12. l. 3. c. 14 15. 16. Hug. Grotius de jure belli poc l. 2. c. 11 12 13. Arnisaeus dâ authorit princip c. 1. n. 7. 8. 10. Haenon disp 2. Ioan. Roffens de potest papâ l. 2. c. 5. Adam suppose he had lived till now should not have bin King of the whole earth because â father King a father Metaphorically only A fatherly power and a politike power are not one and the fame D. Ferne par 1. sect 3. pag. 8. Sacr. sanct Reg. Maiest c. 7. pag. 87. Arnisaeus de potest princip c. 3. u. 1. 2. See Aristotle saith the Prelate Eth. 8. 10. pol. 1. c. Homer Odys 1. he might have said see Arnisaeus loe tit The King as King hath no masterly domion over the people but only fiduciarie To be a King is by office and actu primo to defend save feed and not to hurt or inthral A King not over men as reasonable men Prelatâ Sacr. sanct mas c. 16. p. 15. Hugo Grotius hath the same de jur bel pacis l. 1. c. 3. A compelled surrender of liberty tyeth not A surrender of ignorance and mistake is some way unvoluntary and obligeth not The Goods of the Subjects not the Kings * Quod jure gentium dicitur F. de justi tia jure l. ex hee Quod partim jure civili Iusti de rerum divisio sect singulorum * L. item si verberatum F. de rei vindicat Ias plene m. l. Barbarius F. de oâfici praetor all the goods of the people are the Kings in a fourfold notion but not in propriety Subjects are propriators of their own Goods Argum. 1. Argum. 2. Argum. 3. The answer of Hybreas to a extorting Prince Autonius Argum. 4. Species enim furti est de alieuo largiri beneficii debitorem sihi acquirere L. si pignore sect de furt Argum. 5. Argum. 6. Argum. 7. Argum. 8. The Kings power fiduciarie The King a Tutor Difference between a father and a Tutor A free Community no pupill or minor The Kings power not properly Maritall or husbandly The King a Patron rather then a Lord. The King an honourable servant Royall power only from God and only from the people in divers respects The King the servant of the people both objectively subjectively By one and the same act the Lord of Heaven and the People make the King according to the physicall realitie of the act The King head of the Communitie only metaphorically The King but metaphorically only Lord of the familie The King not heire nor proprietor of the Kingdome The place 1 Sam. 8 9 11. discussed a Grotius de ju bel pacis l. 1. c. 4. n. 3. b Barclaius contra Monarchom l. 2. p. 64. Potostatem intelligit non âaâ quae competit ex praecepto neque etiam quae ex permissu est quatenus liberat à peccato sed quatenus paenis legalibus âximit operantem c Barclaius contra Monarcho l. 2. p. 56 57. The power office of the King badly disterenced by Barclay
the Deputy of the King Inferiour Iudges powers ordained of God Rebuked for perverting judgement They are the Ministers of God To resist them is to resist God They are Gods By this the Parliame nt of both Kingdomes ought to put to death cut-rhroat Cavaliers âaising warre against the subject though the King commands the contrary Sac. Sanc. mai c. 4. pag. 46. How the King judgeth by inferiour Iudges Simmons loyall subjects beleif Sect. 1. pag. 3. The honour of an inferiour Iudge commeth neither from East nor from West more then from the King Argu. 9. Power of Kings and of inferiour Iudges differ gradually not specifically The specifick acts and formall object of Kings and inferiour Iudges are the same The same obligation of conscience that lyeth on the King in all things lyeth on the inferiour Iudge Inferiores Iudices sunt impropriè Vicarii Regis quoad missionem externam ad officium sed immediati Dei vicarii quoad officium in quod missi sunt Barcl l. 2. contr Monarchom p. 56 57. Arnisaeus de authorit Princ. c. 3. â 9. Marant disp 1. Zoan tract 3. de defens Mynsin g. obs 18. cent 5. Symmons sect â p. 2. The Iudges of Israel and the Kings after them differed but not essentially Sacr. sanct maj c. 7. p. 81 82. Nature is aâ neare to Aristocracy as to Monarchy for the wise cannot be under the husband as a subject under a Monarch she by the fift Commandement haâh a joynt âheadship with the husband Iudges inferiour depend on the King in fieri when the constitution of the Kingdome is such but not in facto esse nor in their essence Arg. 10. Inferiour Iudges after the King is dead as also the States of Parliament remain Iudges Arg. 11. God not the absolute Prince maketh the inferiour Iudges No heritable Iudges according to Gods Word Inferiour Iudges more necessary in a large Kingdom then the Kfng and fo Aristocracy in that more sutable to the naturall end of government then Monarchy Principes sunt capitis tempora Rex vertex Elders of a land joyntly in Parliament must have as much if not more vis unita fortior then when they are divided in severall tribes âities shires but divided they are as essentially Iudges as the King The whole must have more power in extension then the part Jer. 38. 25 they had power against the Kings will to put Ieremiah to death Ieremiah saith Doe whatsoever seemeth good to you v. 10. The power of conveening Parliaments in the Estates without the King Ps 122. 2 3. Why are thrones set for judgement for all the tribes if only the King judge Tables in Scotland lawfull The inferiour Iudges are not subject in their conscience to the King in their acts of judgement either quoad specificationem to give unjust sentences at his will nor quoad exercitium to execute or not execute judgement for the oppressed Vnjust judgeing and no judging at all are sinnes in the States Junius Brut. q. 2. p. 51. vind contr Tyran The Parliament Iudges not advisers only Ieferiour Iudges not the Legats or Servants or Messengers of the King Publick Government belongeth to the States and Elders as to the King Arg. 8. Arg. 9. Arg 10. Arg. 11. Ferne par 3. Defence Sect. 3. pag. pag. 1â The question is not if the King be so absolute as he is freed from all Morall restraint comming from Gods Law Sacr. sanc Maj. cap. 14. p. 1â3 No resisting of the most Turkish Tyran by the Royalists way An absolute King more absolute then the Great Turke by Royalists way No law at all by Royalists way to impede a King from a super-inundation of overflowing Tyrannâ 1 Arg. against Absolutenesse of Kings Why the King a breathing Law three reasons 2. Argument against an absolute King The People have no absolute power over themselves and so cannot make over any such power to the King Arg. 3. Against an absolute Prince Power Tyrannicall is not from God Barclaius contr Monarcho l. 2. pag. 62. That evasion removed Tyrannicall power is not from God but a power to do ill so as no mortall man may resist is from God Argum. 4. Against an absolute Prince A King as a King must be a plague iâ God be the Creator of an absolute Prince The goodnesse of an absolute Prince in not putting forth his power in actuall destroying of the people hindereth not the power to be actu primo Tyrannicall Argum. 5. Against absolute Princes An absolute Prince against justice peace reason law c. Argum. 6. Against an absolute Prince It is against nature Arg. 7. Against an absolute Prince contrary to the fift Commandement Arg. 8. Against an absolute Prince The King remaineth a brother when he is King and may be rebuked may not take his neighbours vineyard from him A Damsell forced by the King may violently resist No sufficient meanes against all cruelties and unjust violences if an absolute Prince be from God all goe to confusion Barclaius cont Monarch l. 2 pag. 76 77. 9. Argument against an absolute Prince The conditions tacite or expresse upon which the Prince receiveth the crown fight with all absolute power Prerogative taken two wayes No Prerogative Royall in the Scripture Jus personae jus corouae The question touching Prerogative Royall vaine Prerogative Royall of Royalists Gods due Acts founded upon the soleâ pleasure of the Agent proper to God A threefold dispensation A dispensation 1. of sole pleasure 2. of justice 3. of grace A twofold exponing of the Law by grace In re dubia possunt dispensare Principes quia nullus sensus presumitur qui vincat principalem l. 1. Sect. initium ib. Kings as Kings cannot doe things of meere grace because they must doe all ex debito officii by necessitie of their office Rom-13 4. Prov. 17. 15. Kings equivocally Kings The King may as well do acts of meer cruelty from his supposed Prerogative as acts of meer grace to one man out of the same fountain If Prerogative may over leap Law in one why not in twenty No Tyrant can do any thâ most cruell act but under the notion of apprehended good Pretended Prerogative Royal of Royalists Tyranny Polanus in Daniel c. 5. 19. Rollocus com 16. ib. Th. Sanches de matr tom 1. l. 2. dis 15. n. 3. est arbâârii plenitudo nulli necessitati subjecta nulliusque publici juris regulis limita ta Baldus l. 2. n. 40. C. de servit aqua Sueâoni in Calign cap. 29. memento tibi omnia in omnes licere Coelius Rodigi l. 8. Lect. Antiq c. 1. Vasquez illust quest l. 1. c. 26. n. 2. A contradiction in Ferne. Treaties of Monarchicall Government c. 2. pag. 6 7. The King of Persia not absolute The Oath of Iudah to the King of Babylon tyed them notto renounce naturall selfe preservation Servants are not by 1 Pet. 2. 18 19. interdited of selfe-defence Declar. at New Market Mar. 9. 1641. Magna Charca against
that commandeth obedience active or passive unjustly is eatenus no higher power Arnisaeus 16. Laertius l. 3. in Plato The person or the man who is the Magistrate may lawfully be resisted and the man as using the power lawfully or the office can not be resisted Arg. â Pag. 141. Sac. sanâ mac 2 pag 28. pag. 30. 31. Arnisaen de potest prin c. 2. 11. 17. pag. 3. sec 5. pag. 30. Royalists reasons that to resist the man or person is to resist the King office or ordinance of God Grot. dâ iur belli pacis l. 1. c. 4. n. 7. Winzetus Velitat adver Buchanan Barclay adv Monarchom l. 3. c. 8. We may kill a person as a man and love him as a sonne a father a wife according to Gods Word How the person and office âf the Ruler are both theobject of our subiection The question of subjection toucheth the persons as abusing their power De Authorit princ c. 2. n. 18. Loyall Subiects beliefe pag. 49. Sect. 5. pag. 9. Pilates power to crucifie Christ was no Law-power given by God to Pilate as a Iudge Patient bearing of ill and resistance are compatible in one and the same person Resistance not forbidden 1 Pet. 2. 18. but patient suffering onely recommended D. Ferne part 3. § 2. p. 10. Suffering and non-resistance passive fell under no law Christs non-resisting of Pilate no plea against resistance of unjust violence Many things not imitable by us in Christs non-resistance D. Ferne part 3. §. 2. p. 10. Conses Remonstrant Suffering not commanded of God formally We are comparatively rather to suffer then to deny the truth but we are not commanded formally to suffer Patience in suffering is commanded not suffering it self formally Re-offending in ended is contrary to patient subjection The physicall act of taking away of the liââ makeâh not homâcide We have a greater dominion over our goods and members mutilation excepted then over our life Populo quidem hoc casu resistendi actuendi se ab injuâia potestas competir sed tuendise tantum non autem ââinâipem inââ¦di resisâendâ injuriae illaâae nân reââdendi a deââra reverenâia non vim pââ¦am uââisâ⦠ãâ¦ã âââ Defenââve warres cannot be without offending D. Ferne acknowledgeth violent resisting to be lawfull but not defensive warres Defensive wars are offensive only by accidânt There is âo holding of an arâies hands or warding of stroakes âut by âffensive wars conjoyned by accidânt with defensive wars Flying is resistance Self-defence naturall D. Ferne alloweth the resistance of denying of Tribute to a tyranous Prince Apologies Supplications Flight taking of Armes lawfull in self-defence Violent re-offending in self-defence the last remedy Simmons Loyâll Subjects belees Re-offending comparatively that I kill ere I be killed in the court of necessity lawâull The âleeing of a Church or nation not a mean of self-defence alway possible and so not required of God A self defence remote and a self-defence nâere hand When David had Saul in his hand he was in a case of actuall self-defence Saul being in a habituall unjust pursuit The Protestants of the three kingdoms not in the case that David was in when he came armed upon King Saul sleeping So D. Ferne. The law of universall and particular nature warranteth self-defence This or that King not the adequat head of the community Fxod 32. Rom. 9. The love of our selfe the rule and measure of our love to our neighbour We are to love our brethrens salvation aobve our lâfe not their life aâove our owne How many wayes a man may preferre the safety of his owne life to the safety of his brother Self defence common to man with beasts Takeing of armes in the law is a soveraigne ground of a dâfensive postuâe Offensive and defensive wars differ in the event and intentions of men but not physically A where may not sell her own body for hire Covar to 1. par 2. â 1. de furti rapi restituti §. 2. n. 1. The lawfulness of violent resistance of Kings cleare from Scripture proofes Symmons Loyall subject § 10. pag 31. Davids not invading Saul and his men a case far contrary to the condition of England and Scotland now It is not lawfull to kill the King as Jesuits teach D. Ferne his resolving of conscience Sect. 2. Arnisaeus de authorit prinâ c. 2. n. 15. Davids example not extraordinary Elisha's fact proveth the lawfulnesse of defensive wars Elisha by no extraordinary spirit resisted Joram Loyall subjects beliefe Resistance made to King Vzziah proveth the same Vaâib Deturba ânt eum ex illo lâco compulsusque ut egââde etur inââ ââ Fâââinanter eg âdâ eum coeâeâunt hoc est extruserunt eum 1 Sam. 14. The peoples resisting of Saul in rescuing Jonathan unjustly condemned to die saith that the Estates of the two Kingdomes may swear and covenant to rescue thousands of innocents from the unjust sword of cuâthroats of Ireland Papists in England Chald. Par. Manifestum est quod Jonathan peccavit perignorantiam P. Mart. saith with a doubt Si ista seditiose fecerunt nullo modo excusari possunâ Yea he saith they might suffragiis with their suffrages free him Jun. The people opposed a just oath to Sauls hypocriticall oath Osiander and Borhaius justifie the people P. Mar. Com. in 2 Reg. c. 8. saith Libnah revoltrd Quia subditos nitebatur cogere ad Idololatriam quod ipsi libnenses pati noluerunt merito principibus enim parendum est verum usque ad aras The King would compell them to Idolatry and they justly râvolt d. Vatab. in noâ Impulit Judaeos ad Idololatriam alioqui âam pronos ad cultum Idololorum The Citie of Abels revolting a proof for the lawfulnesse of resistance The place Rom. 13. discussed The King onely is not understood in the Text. The King is principally understood in the Text Rom. 13. in regard of dignity but not only in regard of âssance Onely Nero cannot be understood Rom. 13. â Vatab. Homines intelligit publica authoritatepâaeditus The P. Prelats poore reasons restraining the Text to Kings answered Prelat Sac. Sanct. maj c. 2. pag. 29. P. Martyr Varia sunt potestatum gânera regna Aristocâatica Politica Tyrannica Oligaâchica Deus etiam illorum author Willet saith the same and so Beza so Tolet. Haymo Reasons against the lawfulnesse of resistance made to unjust violence answered ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Herod l. 7. de Xerxe Vulgar version and Lyra turn ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã an Apostate Luk. 15. 32. Prelat Sac. sanc maj c. 5. n. 6. The objection that Goâs Prophets never rebuked non-resistance as a murtherous omission and that Gods people in Scripture never practâsâd resistancâ aâd God nâvâr commanded it fâlly ânswâred Nota. Rivet in Dâcal in mand 6. pag. 234. Sheweth the reasons why Christ condemned Peter not because he thought self defence unlawfull but 1. it had a kind of revenge in it for so few could not repel such an army
his power If we obteine this which Gods Word doth give us we have enough for our purpose though Vzzah kept the naked title of a King as indeed he tooke but up roome in the Catalogue of Kings Now if by Law he was cut off from actuall governing Whether he was willing or not willing to denude himselfe of Reigning it is all one And to say that furious men ideots stupid men and Children who must doe all Royall acts by Curators and Tutors are Kings jure with correction is petitio principii for then hath God infused immediately from heaven as Royalists teach us a Royall power to governe a Kingdome on those who are as capable of Royaltie as blocks I conceive that the Lord Deut. 17. 14 15 16 17. commandeth the people to make no blocks Kings and that the Lord hath not done that himselfe in a binding Law to us which we have no commandement from him to doe I conceive that God made Josiah and Joash Kings typicall and in destination for his promise sake to David while they were Children as well as he made them Kings but not actu completo ratione officii to be a rule to us now to make a Childe of sixe yeares of age a King by office I conceive Children are to us only Kings in destination and appointment And for Idiots and Fooles I shall not believe let Royalists breake their faith upon so rocky and stony a point at their pleasure that God hath made them Governors of others by Royall office who can scarce number their own fingers Or that God tyeth a people to acknowledge stupid blocks for Royall Governours of a Kingdome who cannot governe themselves But far be it from me to argue with Bellarmine From Vzziah his bodily leprosie to inferre that any Prince spiritually Leprous and turned Hereticall is presently to be dethroned Nothing can dethrone a King but such Tyrannie as is inconsistent with his Royall office Nor durst I inferre that Kings now adayes may be removed from actuall Government for one single transgression It is true 80 Priests and the whole Kingdome so serving King Vzzah their motives I know were Divine proveth well that the Subjects may punish the transgression of Gods expresse law in the King in some cases even to remove him from the Throne but as from Gods commanding to stone the man that gathered sticks on the Sabbath day we cannot inferre that Sabbath-breakers are now to be punished with death yet we may well argue Sabbath-breakers may be punished and Sabbath-breakers are not unpunishable and above all Law So may we argue here Vzzah though a King was punished Ergo Kings are punishable by Subjects Quest 16. Whether or no as the deniall of active obedience in things unlawfull is not dishonourable to the King as King he being obliged to command in the Lord only so the deniall of passive subjection to the King using unjust violence be also no dishonouring of the King Ans As the King is under Gods Law both in commanding or in exacting active obedience so is he under the same regulating Law of God in punishing or demanding of us passive subjection and as he may not command what he will but what the King of Kings warranteth him to command so may he not punish as he will but by warrant also of the supreame Iudge of all the earth and therefore it is not dishonourable to the Majesty of the Ruler that we deny passive subjection to him when he punisheth beside his warrant more then its against his Majesty and honour that we deny active obedience when he commandeth illegally else I see not how it is lawfull to fly from a tyrannous King as Elias Christ and other of the witnesses of our Lord have done and therefore what Royalists say here is a great untruth namely That in things lawfull we must be subject actively in things unlawfull passively For as we are in things lawfull to be subject actively so there is no duty in point of conscience laying on us to be subject passively because I may lawfully fly and so lawfully deny passive subjection to the Kings will punishing unjustly Quest 17. Whether may the Prince make away any part of his Dominions as an Iland or a Kingdome for the safety of the whole kingdomes he bath as if goods be like to sinke an over burthened Ship the Sea-men cast away a part of the Goods in the Sea to save the lives of the whole Passengers and if three thousand Passengers being in one Ship and the Ship in a storme like to be loosed it would seeme that a thousand may be cast over-board to save the lives of the whole Passengers Ans The Kingdome being not the Kings proper Heritage it would seeme he cannot make away any part of his Kingdome to save the whole without the expresse consent of that part though they be made away to save the whole In things of this kind men are not as the commodities of Merchants nor is the case alike as when one thousand of three thousand are to be cast into the Sea to save all the rest and that either by common consent or by Lots or some other way for it is one thing when destruction is evidently inevitable as in the casting so many men into the Sea to save the whole and many Passengers and when a King for peace or for help from another King maketh away part of his Dominion The Lord is here to be waited on in his good Providence and events are to be committed to him but far lesse can it be imaginably lawfull for a King to make away a part of his Dominions without their consent that he may have help from a forraign Prince to destroy the rest This were to make merchandize of the lives of men Quest 18. Whether or no the convening of the subjects without the Kings will be unlawfull Answ The convention of men of it self is an indifferent thing and taketh its specification from its causes and manner of convening though some convention of the Subjects without the King be forbidden yet Ratio Legis est anima Legis The reason and intent of the Law is the soul of the Law Convention of the Subjects in a tumultuary way for a seditious end to make war without warrant of Law is forbidden but not when Religion Laws Liberties Invasion of forraign Enemies necessitateth the Subjects to conveen though the King and ordinary Iudicatures going a corrupt way to pervert Iudgement shall refuse to consent to their conventions Upon which ground no convention of Tables at Edinburgh or any other place An. 1637. 1638. 1639. can be judged there unlawfull for if these be unlawfull because they are convention of the Leagues without expresse Act of Parliament then the convention of the Leagues to quench a house on fire and the convention of a Countrey to pursue a Wolf entered in the Land to destroy women and children which are warranted by the Law of