man stands and unto what relation or state any man is called of God 6. Where the divine rule or law of God hath prescribed a special way of entring into any estate and constituting one in it there providence cannot be understood to call or lead into it another way or in a course crosse or subversive to that order 7. Providence may call a man without the act or concurrence of his own wil into this or that estate that is make it his duty by virtue of the divine rule to enter into it as he is thereby called to be a servant who hath not either wealth or skill whereby to subsist in and manage a free estate He is called to marry whose temperament or complexion leaves him not that power over himself as to contain when neverthelesse it doth not without his own will constitute him in that estate Where therefore to the being of a man in any estate or relation is prerequired the act or assent of the party there Providence though it invite order or give occasion to enter into that estate doth not anticipate the persons consent Providence may of it self without the said act of will be directive to but is not constitutive of such an estate It is I conceive no otherwise in the subject matter of this Treatise in civil policie and Magistracy Providence by virtue of that need many wayes that particular emergencies of Providence may invite lead or call a Nation to make choice of this form of Magistracy before another or of this or these persons to rule over them rather then others but neverthelesse people are not incorporate into distinct societies nor societies reduced into a moral relation or subjection unto any particular Magistracy or Magistrates without their own transaction or agreement their own I mean transacted either by themselves or those whom they may be involved in 8. Where Providence presents with any urging necessity whether of sin or of harm to be avoided there we must not think Providence to call either for the shunning of a harm to commit a sin or for the avoiding of one sin to run into another They that thus understand it in stead of making a virtue of necessity they make a vice of it and they do not follow Providence but falsifie it 9. There is a superseding as well as a leading a suspending as well as a moving a recalling as well as a calling Providence Where to a work or end in it self good necessary or desireable all prescribed or warranted means all honest and justifiable ways of advancing or compassing the same are wanting Providence there must be understâ—od to give a stop to our prosecutions and to determine during the incumbency of that defect a surcease of proceedings There Providence if we will understand it aright bids stand go not forward There we may apprehend Providence meeting us in the way as the Angel of the Lord in Balaams way with a drawn sword in his hand Thus much shall serve to be spoken of the use of Providence which is determining or applicative of the rule to its particular cases in the general the particular conceâ—nments of it unto civil Government the subject we are upon will be spoken to in the nexâ— Chapter I have thus endevoured to take a particular view of that guidance light or instruction that is in Providence and how far it goes what of God and of his will it doth discover to us and what it doth not The sum of all that I have gone over is Providence is the image or index of Gods decree or counsel that is as to things that are or have been not concerning future things It makes known that God is and what he is and that he is to be honored served and in all he commands obeyed The will of God extraordinarily revealed it doth sometime by special appointment confirm and that which is known by the ordinary means it doth constantly and of ordinary course second and set home upon the conscience yea in some casâ—s by extraordinary designation it hath revealed the will of God de novo or not otherwise made known And it doth continually determine or apply the will of God in general rules laid down in Scripture to particular times and persons or the obligation which the law of God hath in it by it self considered in actu signato it brings to be binding in actu exercito or pro hic and nunc But on the other hand it doth not of it self either enact or annul a divine law or dispense with the breach of or contrary act to it neither doth it alone or by it self declare or reveal the will of God or what Gods approving or disapproving minde or pleasure is either in the things of God that are instituted and of positive precept or in the rights and relative duties that are morall or of humane concernment CHAP. III. SECT III. Subsect 6. whether they be of the law of nature or of positive sanction So that the negative part of our resolution is this Where the law of God either written in the heart of man or in the book of God is silent or prescribes not any thing either in the matters of God that are institutive or in any humane rights whatsoever there Providence regulates not or is not either institutive or declarative of Gods will to be done by us And where the said law of God doth ordain or deliver a rule to us there providence gives no relaxation allowance or countermand to the contrary Subsection 6. That Dominion is not founded in Eventual Providence IN opposition to the negative part of this resolution of the Question about the use of Providence there are two positions or opinions now on foot both which would make out a wider or larger sense or use of Providence then is here allowed They are 1. That Providence of it self may without extraordinary appointment in the matters above specified and specially in humane rights dues or transactions deliver and declare what the will of God is or may justifie or condemn a way or where Scripture evidence is wanting or a warrant out of the word of God cannot be produced there we may collect or infer Gods approval or disapprovall of an humane action course or proceeding by Providence 2. That dominion is or may be founded meerly in eventual Providence or that a person or persons attainment and occupiation by whatever means of sway or command over a people makes him or them the Sovereign or higher power which is of God the ordinance of God the minister of God For the latter that Dominion is or may be founded in eventual Providence or which is all one in a persons being in place of rule or actual command the confutation of it and the vindication of this Text from admitting it is a main drift and subject of this whole discourse and therefore I refer the Reader for his satisfaction about it to that which is before and will be
to be ascribed unto God This is it then the Power is ordained of God that is CHAP. V. SECT IV. Subsect 1. whatsoever is effective or productive of a Magistrate is derived from God Subsection 1. Ordination contains Institution and Constitution and what each of these signifies THis ordination or creation of the power must needs I conceive have in it two things The first is institution or the ordaining of Magistracy to be in the state or civil society It is Gods preceptive ordinance that men in every politique body should have and live under a Government In this act of institution may be contained not only the simple appointment of Magistracy to be but the defining also of the office or the prescribing what shall be the end and what the measure compass or bounds of its authority how the Soveraign power shall rule and be obeyed what shall be necessary or allowable for him to do and what to have The other is Constitution which is the bringing of that Institution into act and execution in particular states And this may have ascribed to it two parts 1. Specification or the determining of the special kind of Government comprehensible under that general institution or the setting down which shall be the formâ— of policy pro bic nunc or here and now in this or that state whether Monarchy Aristocracy or another And unto this Specification may be reducible the designment of the proportion or latitude which this or that magistrate shall have I shall not here enter into the dispute whether the supreme power be limitable otherwise then the general institution it self confines him But I will suppose the which is to me the more probable opinion that there is a latitude in the allotment of power by that general institution and as some things are necessary and of the essence of supreme power so other things are allowable or lawful and being so are left arbitrary and referred to the choice and agreement of the parties concerned in the constitution and these may be the subject of that designation or apportionating as may be also the several shares or measures of power which each party shall have where the supreme power is either mixt or compounded of several simple formes or is distributed into several hands 2. Individuation or the investure of the power or the assignation of it to the person or persons that shall sustain it or the concrediting and committing of it to this or that man or number of men or to one living or stock of persons in whom the designed fram of Government shall reside That these acts must necessarily go to the creating or putting of the particular power in being I think will not be questioned It remains then to shew that they are and how they are every one of them from God and by his ordination understanding ordination in this sense in which we have before construed it Subsection 2. CHAP. V. SECT IV. Subsect 2. That Institution of the Power is of God and whether by the law of Nature in mans Innocency FIrst The institution of the Power the ordaining in general that Magistracy shall be and what shall be the office power and preeminencies of the Magistrate this is with one consent acknowledged to be of God Whether its institution by God was in mans innocency or it was since his whether Magistracy be of God by the law of nature or by a positive or postnate law is not agreed upon by all learned men but most Divines as far as I observe both antient and modern Protestants and of the Scools conclude it to have been instituted of God in the state of mans innocency and to be from the light and law of nature * Vide Aquin. part 1. qu. 97 art 4. Durand in Sentent lib. 2. Dist 44. qu. 2. fol. 157. A. P. Martyr loc com clas 4. cap. 13. Sect. 5. Bucan loc 49. qu. 16. Pareus in hunc loc Scharp Symph Epo 1. pag. 39. Estium Willet in loc Aristot pol. lib. 1. num 8 17. And to their authority I may add that of the Prince of Philosophers and also that of the Jewish Doctors These as Mr. Selden tels us †Selden de Jure Natur. lib. 1. cap. 10. p. 118 119 127. lib. 7. cap. 4. p. 804. Dr. Hammond of Resol centrov Quaer 1. Sect. 7. pag. 6. deliver seven principal heads of the law of nature which they call the seven precepts of the Noachidae and the sixth of them is concerning the being of Civill Government and of obedience to it and this tenent of the original of the law of Magistracy may be confirmed 1. By this that we finde the duty of all inferiors to their superiors injoyned in the Fifth commandement of the moral law as it is generally expounded by which it must needs be presupposed that the being of superiority in every state is enacted 2. In that all nations and people that are or have been and have owned reason and morality as they have inclined to entertain civill society and communion so they have been guided to esteem it necessary to have a Government in every society and accordingly have erected and submitted to it 3. God hath as is evident by Scripture by his law of creation set other reasonable creatures as spirits in a distinction of order and superiority of some over others and there can be no reason given why it should not be so in mankind by the same original law 4. Though there appear not what use the state of integrity could have of punishment or a coercive sword yet it is not to me conceivable how there could be either distinction or communion in humane societies or actions without the commanding and leading power of some over others Subsection 3. That constitution of the Power or putting in of the particular Magistrate is of God and how or by what means he doth it SEcondly The constitution of Magistracy this both as to the determination of the form and composure of the Government and as to the individuation or investure of the person is from God Yet not alwayes and in every state after the same manner 1. We read God did sometime CHAP. V. SECT IV. Subsect 3. unto the Common-wealth of Israel ordain both the special form of Government and the particular persons in whom it should reside by peculiar revelation So it was in the government of Israel by Moses Josuah Gideon Deborah Saul David and his posterity 2. But besides that way of peculiar Revelation proper to that people and those persons and such other as are in like manner mentioned in Scripture God hath another which is his ordinary and constant way of determining the special form of Goveâ—nment and designing the persons for it to wit by giving order and direction to men how to proceed in their vacancy of Magistracy and by leading and steering men according to that his order unto the constitution of it among them
the positive transaction of men to be disposed according to certain general rules of justice and prudence given by him It is not imaginable how God should impose or require any distinct state or special relation and order to be amongst a multitude of men or other his creatures but be must be said either immediately by himself to create it or to set down from what causes or out of what principles it shall arise 3. For the distinct understanding of the manner or how many wayes God interposeth and concurreth in the constitution of particular Magistrates in regard of which interposal the individual or particular power may be ascribed to Gods ordination I shall note Some things God doth herein immediately and some things mediately 1. Immediately and by himself he doth declare such and such formes of Government to be lawfull and eligible and he doth order where and in whom the interest shall be to make choice which of those forms in particular and who the person or persons shall be that shall be placed over this or that state respectively 2. Mediately and by men he doth enstate every special kind of Government and every particular Magistrate that is he doth set them up according to those rules which we say are immediately given by him And this his mediate concurrence is two ways 1. The authority or warrant of his word rule or law goeth along with those that act therein according to the same And this is his moral concurrence 2. His work or hand of Providence guideth the wils and exterior actions of them that proceed according to those rules and this is his physical concourse We do not therefore exclude the Providence of God from the ordination of the powers that be but we attribute to it its proper place and use which is to persue and execute the authority and rule of his word from which in the production of Magistracy we cannot neither ought by any means to separate or disjoyn it so as to make it constitutive of a Magistrate And this act of Providence is far different from that which some would confound with it and so put as the whole of sole basis of Civill government as to constitution to wit a persons meer possession or occupation of the seat of Majesty or a bare physical predominancy for this may be and yet no Magistracy and this though it be due to the Civil Magistrate yet it is separable from it as this discourse I hope will manifest The act of Providence which as far as I can apprehend may be productive of Civill power is that which disposeth of the title or right and not of the meer possession of the throne that which guideth mens wils to consent or give a call or confer on the one part and to accept of it on the other and not that which only swayeth mens hands on the one side lifting up an arme of force as a punishment over a people on the other binding the hands and leading away captive Princes and people that however disagreeing or relucting they can make no effectual resistance 4. Though God do not by immediate revelation assign to every particular State what shall be the special model of their government and who the persons to sustain it yet where men do act in the assignation of these for substance according to the prescript or rule given out by God unto all there is a power ordained of God and unless when a special revelation comes from God determining these particulars there only or not otherwise This Proposition hath two parts a positive and a negative 1. The positive is when men do act according to divine rule in the moulding of government and advancing of persons to wield it there the constitution may be said according to this text to be of God and the particular Government and Governors to be ordained of God Immediety of designation from God either of platform or person is not necessary to the bestowing of this style of God ordained of God upon the particular Magistracy It is in this case as it is in the point of any ordinary right or property God hath ordained a perpetual law of justice among men thou shalt not steal by which every mans property in his goods is required to be reserved to him and he hath given either in his word or by the light and law of nature a sufficient rule to determine what shall be right what wrong and how property in any possessibles shall be acquirable yet all this by it self invests no man in any right to any goods in particular it is a humane qualification or transaction which supervening and being bona fide passed now enstates men in an actual right to any goods and when this is emergent this or that mans title or property in these particular goods is asserted by God and then it may be said it is Gods ordinance that this man have and injoy these goods and a transgression against the same it is for another man without like warrant from God to disseise him of them The truth is the most if not all the moral precepts of God and perpetual laws of nature are so made and delivered to man as that to the putting of them in practise or the bringing of their obligation into act there must intervene some positive constitution either from God or man and most commonly it is from the latter The Schools tell us that humane positive constitutions do determine the law of nature as the form specificates the matter or the particular matter determines the generall * Vide Cajetan in Aquin. 1. 2ae qu. 95. art 2. Widdingtons Rejoynder cap. 8. num 20. Selden de Jure Nat. lib. 1. cap. 8. pag. 106. Hooker Eccles polit lib. 6. pag. 151 152. Grotius de Jure lib. 1. cap. 1. Sect. 10. That wives children servants subjects own their respective superiors and pay them their duties is the law of God but there are certain humane acts which are the immediate foundation and rise of these relations and so of persons lying under the duties which severally belong to them which acts once passed the bounds of relation and duty do take hold of the persons respectively by virtue of the divine ordination Our Saviour saith of marryed persons What God hath joyned together let no man put asunder Marriage then in all marryed couples is a conjunction made by God but how comes that seeing most that marry have no recourse to or particular direction from God when whom or how to marry probably never think of any ordinance of God about it but only to follow their own or others counsels and wils in it Why thus it is God in the beginning authorized marriage to be betwixt man and woman and appointed how it should be transacted to wit by the mutual consent or cleaving together of each party and enacted other rules concerning it as touching proximity of bloud c. And now by virtue of this his ordinance
is the natural effect of that so it may be taken some notice of that the prevision and presage of a time of horrid violence and confusion and of spoile and expilation by the subversion of all Laws and humane Authority restraint and reverence to come upon the latter ages of the world hath sadly possessed the mindes of many sage and learned Christians both ancient and latter To give some instance as that of Tertullian Est alia major necessitas nobis orandi pro imperatoribus etiam pro omni statu imperii rebusque Romanis quod vim maximam universo orbi imminentem ipsamque clausulam seculi acerbitates horrendas comminantem Romani imperii commeatu scimus retardati Itaque nolumus experiri dum precamur differri Romanae diuturnitati favemus Tertull. Apolog. cap. 32. who declares in behalf of the Christians of his time that they took themselves bound to pray for the Emperors and Roman state though then Heathen and persecuting because that by means of the continuance thereof the great crash or conquassation threatning the worlds ruine and the most dreadfull calamities was retarded And Lactantius Vide Lactantium in Institut lib. 7. cap. 15. presageth that a little before the glorious restoring of the Church by him divined of to come ere the worlds end there shall antecede those desperate confusions and overturnings of order right and lawes as never were before in the world And in the Harmony of Confessions Confession of Saxony in the Harmony Artic. 23. of Civil Mag. pag. 596. that of Saxony gives warning that in this last age of the world great confusion is to be feared But enough of the causes of the Tumultuations Sect. 6 of the present age about Government Let us turn a thought toward something of remedy Amidst the many factions about political order not a few whereof bespeak themselves religious but are indeed seditious my perswasion is it is not only the worldly mans interest but the Christians and not only his interest but his bounden duty both to submit to Civill Authority and to support it and that sutably to the conjunction of the second and third petitions of the Lords-prayer we have no other way of active promoting the coming of the Kingdom of God but by doing his will The which will I understand to be not so much if at all his dispositive or decreeing will unto which his Prophesies belong for that in many things is to-us unrevealed and that ever shall and cannot but be done as well in earth as in heaven as his preceptive will delivered in his Law of nature and the rules of his word Which will of his is as much as for any thing expresse for the perpetual and indeterminable both authorization of Civill Magistracy viz. that which is by ordinary or humane creation or constitution and obligation of all men all Christians in homage to it * Nos judicium dei suspicimus in imperatoribus qui Gentibus illos praefecit Id in eis scimus esse quod Deus voluit Ideoque salvum volumus esse quod Deus voluit Tertull. in Apolog. cap. 32. For the better disposing and drawing of mens mindes to the doing of this will of God in this particular and for the abating of the pernitious contentions abovesaid to be now so incident and rife about it and which are the great obstacles of mens performing the Divine will in this matter Two things I suppose will be easily admitted to be chiefly desirable and contributory One on the part of the Government it self which is that it be evidently laid upon a ground of conscience a just foundation or which is the same that it apparently be by divine authority or according to that rule or will of God which we are to do The other which also is conducible unto that is on the part of those that are concerned in or upon its being setled to wit that it be clear and understood wherein consisteth that regularity and how the divine authorization held forth by it is passed or conveyed unto mens investure in it For the requisiteness and usefulnesse of these two a little may serve to be said The former is that Government be laid upon a bottom of conscience This is the only genuine true and connaturall and this is the surest and firmest groundwork for it Without this there is little hope for it to prove either beneficial or permanent little likelyhood of either a reall regular or durable subjection to it The discernable standing of Government upon consciencious grounds is the only thing that can bring in conscience and a consciencious submission to it Conscience that is a perswasion of the thing to be done that it is as it ought to be or is right and just is the highest and most kindly principle of any humane or morall act It is both the strongest and most lasting obligation to any relative duty It is the strongest and most inducing tye because it is the dictate of the supremest faculty in man the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his minde or intellectuall part and that upon the powerfullest perswasive a Law received from nature and from God And it is the most lasting tie 1. In being upon a consideration which is in it self certain and immutable viz. the everlasting rule of righteousnesse 2. Inasmuch as it doth most engage the will and so procures the most voluntary and free accord unto that which it imposeth There is scarce that thing which is more necessary to mankinde considered in society then Government but nothing would be more free in its imposall and reception It is true a coercive power is in the present depravation of man requisite to it both for its conservation and effectuall administration but this is not proper nor can it serve to be its procreative or constitutive no nor sole conservative cause It is easie to discerne that the personall strength of one man or a few Chieftains of a Community is not sufficient to this coercion and that Magistracy cannot have or validly put forth without the cordiall concurrence of a multitude For a Magistrate to hold and put forth this power by the strong hand of a consenting multitude distinct from and opposed to that he rules over who sees not the unnaturalnesse and unstablenesse of such a command This will never incorporate the governing and governed or joynt them in one politicall body but shall alway keep them dispartite and set them in a state of jealousie discontent and counter-working each of other If force be all that interveneth to the relation and correspondency of ruler and ruled how should that hold an aversation of wils and affections will work out it self and either dissever or dash them together Vim vi reprimere is a practise which begets the like to it in the other on whom it is practised and that is Vim vi rependere repellere These two are principles and studies that sit deep and keep the
effect of a natural power where it conquereth is but to involve them that are under it in an actual subduedness that they touch down as a man doth to a Lion being under his paw or as a traveller doth to a high-way-robber that hath set his pistol to his breast that is without either will or duty owed to the prevailer or obligation to go any further in subjection then self-preservation or the like considerations irrespective to the invader may suggest This then is the different effect or relative state produced by Natural and by Moral power in the persons to whom these respectively are extended the Natural power involveth men in an actual subduedness the Moral reduceth them to a rational and conscientious subordination Subsection 3. That Moral Power only is intended in this word Power in this place HAving observed and explained this distinction of Power it may perhaps remain a question with some Whether this term Power in the text be not of so general an extent as to contain both the members of this division or whether it be to be restrained to Moral power only The word indeed is put indefinitely or without express limitation but it may nevertheless be doubted whether it can here bear a sense as illimited as the words are My apprehension is and I think I shall make it good that only Moral power can be meant by this Text that is not that which meerly hath might force or bodily masterdom but that which besides that hath right title or warrant to govern My Argument for it besides what shall afterwards be said shall here be this Political or Magistratical power or the power of the Civil Ruler only is intended in this Text but this is only a Moral warranted or authorized power Therefore it is only a Moral or warranted power which is here intended in the Text. For the first or Major proposition That the Political or Magistratical power only is intended in this text this I suppose will not be stuck at The subject of this Proposition There is no power but of God is the same and of equal extent with that of the rest of the context viz. the discourse from the beginning of the Chapt. to vers 8. but therein it is manifest the Apostle speaks only of the Civil Magistrate as the adequate or the sole object of the duty he is therein perswaded to What power else can he call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Higher Powers and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rulers of what power else can it be said that he beareth the sword he is the Minister of God a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil a receiver of tribute custom fear honour Our Divines both Commentators and Controvertists do strongly evince this against the Romanists who would upon this text found the Popes power and against this text defend a superiority for him over and an exemption for his Clergy from the power of the Civil Magistrate Against both which our Protestant Authors do make good that in this text Political or State power only is intended and unto it subjection is injâ—yned universally or unto all persons whatsoever other power they be endowed with Vide Whitakar To. 2. Controv. 4. cap. 3. pag. 647 648 quaest 7 720. Pet. Martyr loc com â—las 4 cap. 13. Sect. 22. pag. 906. Chamier To. 2 lib. 15. cap. 17. Sect. 8. c. pag. 637 638. For the Minor that Political or State poweâ— is only a Moral warranted or authorize power or which is equipollent all Political or Civil power is Moral warranted or authorized * Facultas moralis civitatem gubernandi potestatis civilis vocabulo nuncupari solet Grot. de Jure lib. 1. cap. 3. Sect. 6. this also may be evident They are called Gods that is Civil Magistrates unto whom the word of God came saith Christ Joh. 10.35 that is to whom the commission came to put them in the place wherein they were So Mr. Burroughes paraphraseth it †Mr. Burroughes on Hos lect 1. pag. 10. and they are Judges of Israel whom God commanded to feed his people 1 Chron. 17.6 Political or Civil power as this text will tell us is in genere ordained of God is his ordinance By Ordination here as I shall after undertake to prove is to be understood the Institution warrant approval or authorization of God or his appointment by his revealed Will Law or Word and if Policy or Magistracy in its general concept or nature be ordained that is authorized of God then is all Political power in specie and every particular Civil Government contained under or reducible to this Genus warranted and authorized by God and what is by him unwarranted unauthorized or illegitimate is in truth no Political or Magistratical power When a person becomes a Magistrate or a Mâ—gâ—strate is made what is the change or effect that is thereby wrought in that man or what new habit or endowment doth the investing of a person into Magistracy either by election succession or otherwise produce in him He hath no more Natural power in him then he had before neither hath he ordinarily more understanding judgement reason counsell to govern then was before in him Where is the change then what doth this office add or put into him why this is it It gives him a moral capacity or a warrant right authority to rule it legally empowers or enables him to command over and obliges to be subject to his command all the natural power that is in the multitude or body politique however vastly superior to his own personal innate and natural power I am confident beyond all doubt that no man shall be able to give a perfect definition of Civil Magistracy or Political power which shall solely belong to it and distinguish it from all other power but he must take into his definition warranted authorized lawful or some other term that is equivalent thereto In this I am confirmed in that I finde the concurrence of learned Authors in their definitions of Magistracy expresly going this way I shall give some instances Augustinus To. 3. De Trinitate lib. 13. cap. 13. Potentia quippe adjuncta justitiae vel justitia accedens potentiae judiciariam potestatem facit Augustine For Power joyned to Justice or Justice added to Power makes a judiciary power Polanus Partit Theolog. lib. 1. pag. 330. Est autem Magistratus politicus persona publica potestatem in subditos legitime gerens Polanus The Political Magistrate is a publique person lawfull bearing sway over the Subjects Bucanus Instit Theolog. loc 49. quaest 13. pag. 853. Magistratus est officium politicum a Deo institutum quo ceria persona vel plures cum dignitate potestate legitime accepta totam Rempub. vel ejus partem quoad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. res quae ad hujus vitae usum pertinent honestis legibus regunt Bucan Magistracy is a political office instituted of God
them should have taken to them that function as did Korah and his company there was a power unlawful in regard of person The Ministry of the word or Office of teaching in the Church is expresly forbidden to women 1 Cor. 14.35 1 Tim. 2.11 12. If then a woman should take up this work as some they say of late have done and as the Pepasians Quintillians and Maxionites are said to allow and practise * Augustine de Haeres cap. 22 27. Et Daneus in cundem there were a power in this sense unlawful Master Knox of Scotland held a woman uncapable otherwise then by extraordinary call of Civil Magistracy or Supreme rule †History of the Reformation of the Church of Scotland pag. 220. 311. So did the Jews as Mr. Selden tels us * Jo. Selden de Jure Nat. lib. 7. cap. 6. pag. 812. and others conceive it simply prohibited by our Saviour unto a Minister of the Gospel by those words of his Matth. 20.26 According to these opinions if a Woman or if a Minister should undertake the Civill power however humanely admitted to it their power would be unlawful in regard of Person This is a second way of a powers lawfulness and unlawfulness Where note that under this head the person is considered in specie or in some common condition or rank for as â—o persons individual warrant or the want of it that 's reducible to the next particular Thirdly in regard of Title A power may be in it self or for matter abstracted from persons lawful and a person may be in common qualified for investure with it that is as capable to receive it as another but all this makes not this or that man a Moral power There must be put one thing more to both these to constitute an authorized or lawful and so a moral power and that is a right or title to rule This is of the nature and essence of Moral power for what is Authority but a right to Rule As private dominion or property consists in a right to employ and dispose of the thing owned so publique dominion or authority consists in a title to rule That right or title is necessary to all tenure or to Civil dominion in general or that such right in most worldly things consists in a special property or sequestration of the things from common claim and use to one or some peculiar persons it may seem too much digressive and not needful to go about here to prove For however some things by reason either of their vastness and inexhaustibleness or their joint-occupyableness by all without interruption to any are exposed to the common arbitrary and promiscuous use of every man as are the great Ocean the light the air and however at the beginning of the World and for some time after by reason of the fewness and simplicity of mankâ—nde dominion or right in respect of the objects was not reduced to distinct property yet now upon the multiplication of occupants besides the emergent pravity into which men are lapsed in most things dominion or right is stated by sequestration or peculiar appropriation and that doubtless agreeably to the law of Nature and from the dictate of right Reason and the general agreement of all men that are but sound witted and any thing moralized Yea it is delivered to us by Scripture to be the act of God The earth hath he given to the children of men Psal 115.16 he hath given it as the experience of this and all precedent ages discoverable to us tell us not to be catched up as fodder and harbor are by brute beasts in the Wilderness among whom the stronger and fiercer seize on what and where they please the weaker take only what the other leave them but under a rule of equity and right apportionated or distributed by property according to that of St. Paul He hath determined the bounds of theiâ— habitation Act. 17.26 and that of Moses When the most high divided to the nations their inheritance when he separated the sons of Ad m he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel Deut. 32.8 But to follow this Argument only with application to our particular subject Amongst the things that are subjected to property or a seqâ—estred right all authority of one person over another must neâ—ds be one yea and that more or rather then other things For though other things in the first age of the world mighâ— have been common as soon as ever matrimony or other domestick or civill societies were instituted he rights of the correlatives of these societies were distinguisht and appropriate neither could it be other ways for whereas there was possible to be a community of right or use at the beginning in things of ordinary and external possession whether moveable or immoveable yet in matter of authority this could never be It is repugnant to the nature of the thing it cannot exist without the subjection of some determinate persons to it and you must of necessity put and tie up authority and subjection in distinct and several subjects so as it may be said this man is to command and these are to obey whereupon it is inevitably to be yeelded that authority consists in a right or title to rule appropriate to one or some certain persons reserved from others That to the producing or constituting of a moral power whether Civil Magistracy or any other there must go the entitling or interesting of the persons to it or an investing him or them with a right thereto may be thus further manifest All Moral power is derived from God as the fountain or Author That which the Apostle here saith of the Civil Magistracy in specie There is no power but of God the powers that he are ordained of God is true of all power in general and he might have so expresly extended it had his scope in this place been so large Gods derivation of authority to men must needs import two things 1. His institution of authority in the general with the several species of it as conjugal parental herile magistraticall 2. His communicating conferring or conveying that power which he hath so instituted to be to particular persons There must be this latter as well as the former to the real actual constituting of an authority or putting it into existence Gods ordaining at the first the conjugal parental herile and political power that is his appointing that the husband parent master or prince shal have authority over their respective correlatives suppose by those words of the commandment Honour thy Father c. doth not of it self put any of those authorities in being or in one person more then another or it makes no man a husband father master or Prince Wherefore if we will make this good which cannot be denyed that all Power viz. Authority is derived from God we must say God doth by some act of his
that did he Psal 115.3.136.6 First that is from all eternity his Will of good pleasure determineth and then in the foreset time his Providence effecteth things Only here we are to beware we stretch not this discovery beyond its own line that is beyond the past and present time We must not conceit or pretend to understand from is that of the purpose of God which it tels us not or to see by it that which it shewes us not Some there are that will proceed fuâ—ther then this mark and meerly out of their own airy imagination presume by it to divine of things to come I mean of moral and contingent futurities for where experience hath discovered a natural connexion of causes and effects there a probable conjecture and expectation of future events neer at hand by the intuition of their particular and immediate causes may be gathered as that a pregnant woman will bring forth a childe that the evening or morning face of the skie will be followed with such or such weather the day next ensuing thus the Aâ—â—rologer and the self-interested Statist â—oully overlash and exceed their bounds in interpreting the providences of God The Astrologer pretends a cunning to read in the great Ordinances of the heavens whose huge volums in regard of variety distinction and distribuâ—ion of influences as to this use doubtless are to them as the hand writing of the wall before Belshazzar was to the Caldean Astrologers altogether illegible and unintelligible yet they pretend I say to read and to be able to draw out from them a map of the disposition of the aire of every day for whole moneths and years to come and of the temper of living bodies of the successes of Husbandry Trade-adventurers and political-enterprises yea and of the very propensions contrivements counsels of mens mindes about Civill Church and spiritual affairs with the revolutions that will attend mens lives estates names and societies temporal and ecclesiastical yea what will passe not only betwixt man and man but betwixt God and man and which is very strange this map to be every year new and for every Countrey Nation City yea for every distinct sort or condition of men whether they live far dispersed from one another or promiscuously intermixt with others yea for each single person different The self-interested statist from Gods present proceedings either in punishing or prospering a way person family profession or Nation will needs fancy and confidently conclude that he doth foresee and can presage what God hath determined and will do with the same hereafter Forgetting with what reason Solomon hath cautioned us against boasting of to morrow to wit for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth and not minding that men and Nations even in regard of their visible worldly condition are in the hands of God as the clay is in the Potters hand soon made and soon marred now moulded into this frame and quickly turned into another and that as the grace of God may suddenly unexpectedly and wonderfully change mens hearts CHAP. III. SECT III. Subsect 3. or men deprived thereof may strangely alter themselves so God hath reserved out of what he hath clearly threatned in his word concerning mens temporal punishments much more out of what his Providence at present dispenseth a power to alter his proceeding in an instant Subsection 3. That Providence doth declare to us that God is and what he is 2. PRovidence is the Index or Character of the Divine Nature and so it is Doctrinal or delivers to us matter of faith or what we are to know and believe concerning the Divine Essence to wit as it is absolutely considered or abstracted from distinction of personal relations God is made known by his works as the workeman is by his artifice the cause by its effect Jer. 32.20 Rom. 1.19 20. Psal 19.1 c. Act. 14.17 Hence we finde that so frequently added in the prophets to the comminations and promises of God as the end of the execution of them and so of his providences And they shall know that I am the Lord. CHAP. III. SECT III. Subsect 4. Subsection 4. Certain distinctions premised for the discovery how far Providence is declarative of the will of God which we are to do 3 BUt to come neerer to the thing in question Providence is in some sort preceptive and directive in matter of practice Now for the opening of this use of Providence we must distinguish 1. Of preceptiveness or the delivery of Divine precepts to us This may be 1. Either by way of original institution 2. Or by way of abrogation of what is already in force 3. Or by way of declaration remembrance or monition of that which is already ordained And again this third may be 1. Either solitarily 2. Or joyntly and by way of concurrence with other means or the delivery of them otherwayes 2. Of divine precepts 1. Some are of the law of nature 2. Others are positive or subsequently instituted And of both those whether natural or positive 1. Some contain our duty to God 2. Some our duty to man 3. Distinguish of the use of Providence This is 1. Either ordinary which the general rules of the word of God allow and dirâ—ct us in 2. Or extraordinary the which special â—arrants in the word given on special occasions have allowed or prescribed 4. Distinguish betwixt the giving of a rule or law and the determining of it to this or that particular matter or case Subsection 5. CHAP. III. SECT III. Subsect 5. Five Propositions explaining wherein Providence is and wherein it is not declarative of Gods will to be done by us I Shall apply these distinctions and make use of them to our purpose in these following propositions 1. Providence as I understand câ—nnot be said to deliver us the will or precepts of God for our practise by way of original institution neither can it of it self abolish or make void any rule or law of God before ordained or draw a warrant for us to proceed contrary to the same Suspend it may or disenable from doing in point of affirmaâ—ive precepts but to the doing of the contrary it cannot dispense nor can it dissolve a law 2. Providence may by it self without the help of any other Index or Law-book deliver to us somewhat of the law of nature that is so much of our duty to God as is contained therein Divines distinguish betwixt cultum naturalem voluntarium Ames Medul Theol. lib 2. cap. 5. 13. seu institutum the natural worship of God and that which is voluntary or instituted The natural is that which belongs to him as Gods or by virtue of what he is or the consideration of his nature and this is taught by the law of nature The instituted is that which is given him by virtue of his own voluntary appointment The former is simply necessary and immutable one and the same in all ages and to all persons The
latter is arbitrary and variable as he pleaseth to order and hath been diversified It was appointed to be one wâ—y under the Law another way uâ—dâ—r the Gospel The former we say Providence my lead to or as it were dictate to us For in as much as of it self it reveals that there is a God and of what nature and perfections he is it hence infers or by force of that principle of faith teacheth us that he is to be worshipped and in particular that he is to be feared loved trusted in called upon praised and obeyed and to receive from us whatsoever else may be deemed an act of his natural worship And this is all I conceive which Providence can of it self or taken alone and apart teach or inculcate There being nothing else of duty which can be imagined necessary and immediately to follow upon that knowledge of God which Providence reveals That it goes thus far will need little proof The Apostle Paul told the Lystriaâ—s that the living God left not himself without witness Acts 14.7 in that he did good c. that is by his good and merciful Providences he testified against the Idolatry of the Heathen and called for their service to be yeelded to himself alone And he informs the Romans Rom. 1.20 that the same persons are left without excuse for their sins and therefore they must needs be taught somewhat of their duty by the discovery of the God-head in the creation 3. For other duties besides the forementioned general rules which immediately refer to God whether of the law of nature to wit those which respect man or of positive institution Providence doth not by it self dictate or declare them to us Observe here 1. I say it doth not declare Gods mind to us in these things It was before said the works of God in as much as they discover the Divine nature they of themselves tell us thus much that God is to be obeyed in all his commandments but what his will or commands are in particular as touching the posiâ—tives of his own worship or concerning either the natural or positive rights and relations which may be between man and man and what our own concernments are the particulars of these it doth not dictate or deliver to us 2. I say this it doth not solitarily or apart or by it self or by its own single light or voice For this must be acknowledged though it doth not declare or promulgate yet it doth confirm and though it doth nor of it self discover yet it doth second and set on that which is before discovered of the mind of God In reference to the whole revealed will of God Providence hath the use of a Testimony that is by way of association or concurrence See Dr. Sclater Serm. on 2 Kin. 93.1 pag. 25. though it be not Nomotherick or Legislative nor yet in the matters limitted in this proposition the original or primary dictator of the will of God yet where a declaration thereof is made and the same is actually known understood end apprehended there Providence comes in and gives a secondary sanctioâ— Let the light of nature or book of God written in the heart or his word in the Scriptures first tell a man thou shalt not kill thou shalt not steal then if the hand of God remarkeably break out in some notable curse or punishment upon a murderer or thief this Providence seen and noted doth by way of Item or Second in that it holds forth the displeasure of God against theft or murder prohibite admonish and warn him and others from those sins But in matters of this natuâ—e Providence solitarily or by it self alone is not significant or declarative of Gods approving or disapproving will Where both the law of nature and the Scriptures are either silent or which is all one as to this not understood or apprehended there providence as to these things is dumb or if it must be said to speak its language cannot be undeâ—stood Providence in these matters may be resembled unto consonants as these without vowels make not any words or speech but compounded with them are vocal and significative so Providence in concurrence and concomitancy with the written law speaks out to us backing and confirming what the word declares but of it self or apart from this it cannot do that office in these things of moral or positive precept Providence is in this respect like an echo which reiteraâ—es and resounds to what the word of God in Scripture or Conscience saith before it doth rather consignificate then signifie Gods will to us When God hath made known to us by his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or enunciative word what his mind or commandement is in this or that particulars then the providence of God which before and of it self could only tell us that God is to be obeyed in all his commandements now bespeaks our obedience in these particulars and addes its stampe or sanction to the commands of God so revealed In things which the conscience is already informed of to be either agreeable or repugnant to the law of God providence coming in with any remarkable either crosses or blessings beareth witness to that law and exciteth the conscience by way of Memento to take special notice of it And thus it is a good second though not a solitary testimony It hath vocem tonantem an awakening or startling efficacy to rouze up the dowzie consolence to attend to the rule already received See Deut. 4.3 4. 2 Chron. 30.7 Mal. 3.18 But this office holdeth only in concurrence with the word We cannot simply and singly conclude from any providence thus God crosseth men in this blesseth them in that way therefore he disallows that approves this But having a precedent light in the conscience from the testimony of Gods law of what he allowes and disallowes his so crossing or blessing may be an accumulative witnessâ— Thus David argues By this I know thou favorest me because mine enemy doth not triumph over me Psal 41.11 He know before from the written word and from the particular messages that he had received by the Prophets Samuel and Gad both what God had promised and what he willed him to do and thereupon this mentioned Providence of God toward him was an additional testimony And thus Josephs brethen metting with a shrewd and sudden crosse were prompted out of the light and sentences of their own consciences cleared and called forth by that crosse Providence as they took it in Egypt to say we are verily guilty concerning our brother in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us and we would not hear therefore is this distresse come upon us And Reuben sureably was enabled to say Spake I not unto you saying Do not sin against the childe and ye would not hear therefore behold also his bloud is required Gen. 42.21 22. And the reason of the necessity of the antecedency of the knowledge of the
For our right understanding and evidencing of this way of Gods ordination of particular Magistrates in particular States let these few particulars be considered 1. Gods ordination of Powers must needs import Constitution as well as Institution that is wherever there is a power ordained of God not only that Magistracy shall be but the special form and particular person is ordained of God he ordereth what shall be the platform and who shall be the Magistrate * Existimo Apostolum primum quidem testari in genere jus ipsum potestatem Magistratus a Deo esse deinde hujus potestatis distributionem eidem Deo vindicare Beza in loc Men have no title to Authority but by deputation from God as the Apostle expresly testifies Rom. 13.1 Jo. White his way c. cap. 3. pag. 47. This is the sense of that which is ordinarily said that the Magistrate hath his power by deputation from God And this must needs be acknowledged otherwise we could not say of the Powers that be or as some urge the words are existent that they are of God It is constitution that puts Magistracy in being By virtue of the general rule or command given to all States that there be a government in the Common-wealth no man is or câ—n claim to be the power more then another nor is this man bound to be a subject more then that CHAP. V. SECT IV. Subsect 6. nor are the people tied to own and subject to this man as their Magistrate more then to another or then he is to any of them or is any special form or kind of government expresly either justifiable or reprovable more then another nor is the setting up of Magistracy the work or interest of any in particular more then of others So that if many persons should start up and claim the seat of Magistracy each to himself in peculiar over the same Common-wealth or if in it divers parties either of that body politique or forein to it should enterprise the erection of Magistracy each of them in their own way and oppositewise to one another no one of them could be owned or binding or entitled to the ordination of God by virtue of that general command more then another It were to ascribe to God a bootless void frustraneous act to say he hath ordained Civil power to be but taken no order in whom it shall be or how it shall be conveyed to any man without an order or rule for constitution that law that there he a Magistracy may stand written in the word of God or in the heart of man by nature and never take effect or be acted God doth not ordain name or notions of things but their beings and realities and in ordaining them he must be supposed to ordain the acts method and course of their production We say of his will of decree and it must hold also of his will of command God not only ordaines the end or that a thing be but the means also or how and by whom it shall be Civil power being one of those things which the law of God both by nature and in Scriptuâ—e hath subjected to property or affixed to a peculiar having and holding by virtue whereof this man is enstated and entitled to this office and another is not such a property or peculiarity of tenure or reservedness cannot be without a law for the circumscription of mens wils hands in the acquisition and possession of it Now if such a law be fixed by God it must needs be supposed that some rule or direction is given by him for the founding and transferring of this property CHAP. V. SECT IV. Subsect 7. and for the discovery of it in whom it is We must therefore come to this conclusion viz. To say God ordaines the Powers is to say he regulates and prescribes by a law mens wils and actions about it and in reference to the giving taking and using of the Magistracy The words of Pareus and with him of Willet upon the place are to this effect Ordained 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ordinatae significat esse potestates a Deo ordinatas hâ—e certis limitibus juris honestatis circumscriptas intra quas nisi se contineant ab ordine divino exorbitent Pareus in loc signifies that the powers are of God ordained that is are circumscribed by certain limits and rules of right and honesty within which rules unless they contain themselves they degenerate from the ordinance of God And this circumscription doubtless must necessarily be admitted as well in relation to the assuming as to the using of the power Once more If it were not so that Gods ordaining of the powers doth import not only that he institutes magistracy to be but that he constitutes every particular Magistracy we could not say that an insurrection against this or any particular Magistrate or to depose him and occupy his place were a sin or a trangression and resistance of Gods ordinance as the Apostles words vers 2. without question intend for to take away or controul a particular Magistrate cannot otherwise be an entrenchment upon Gods ordinance then upon the particular Magistrates being ordained of God So much that God institutes Government to be would stand unshaken by such an act or would consist well with it for still it notwithstanding it would be undetermined who were the power and so it would be left as free and lawful for the resister to take the place as for the resisted to hold it the institution would be satisfied if any possessed it Wherefore we must needs suppose God doth in every Common-wealth constitute the proper and particular Magistracy where ever it can be said to be ordained of God 2. In regard God doth not ordinarily by any special revelation determine the constitution of the Civil state that is point out what shall be the special form of Government CHAP. V. SECT IV. Subsect 3. and who shall be the Governours in this or that place we must therefore conceive him to manage this matter ordinarily mediante homine or by men and that is by his defining the way of erecting Magistracy or giving order and prescribing rules to men how they shall proceed in the setting up of it and by mens proceeding accordingly They that say the law and light of nature enacteth Government to be in the Civill society tell us also that by nature no man is actually constitute a Magistrate more then another and that nature hath left all men equall and free or unengaged in actu exercito they mean to any one particul r form or person * Aristot pol. lib. 3. num 102. Selden de Jure Nat. lib. 1. cap. 7. pag. 92. Hobs Elements part 1. cap. 1. Sect. 1. cap. 4. Sect. 1. Wherefore it must needs be concluded seeing God by the law of nature hath injoyned government to be but hath ordered no particular in it with application to singulars he hath committed it to
what ever couple do accordingly contract are joyned together by God The same may be exemplified in the office of the Ministery of the Gospel Christ hath given commission to certain in the Church to ordain Elders and when such are accordingly ordained they aâ—e then the Ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God and are said to be made by the Holy Ghost * Act. 14.23 1 Tim. 4.14 5 22. Tit. 1.5 2 Tim. 2.2 with Act. 20.28 1 Cor. 4.1 In the natural body God is said to have given more abundant honour to that part which lacked 1 Cor. 12.24 How it is said God hath given this honour it is not by his making that part more comely then other parts for contrarily the words are spoken of those parts that by making are more uncomely and lesse honourable then the rest But in as much as we by an instinct of nature do repute some parts naturally lesse honourable and more uncomely then other and thereupon do bâ—stow more abundant artificial honour and comeliness upon them viz. do more cloath and cover them with dressings in this regard what is upon that consideration thought fit by man to be done in the distribution of honour to his natural parts in such an inequality as may fill up the natural disproportion God is said to do viz. by directing us by natures instinct to do it The Judges of Israel for those 450. years mentioned by St. Paul are said to be given them of God and to be raised up to them of God and that he commanded them to feed his people * Act. 13.20 Jud. 2.16 c. 1 Chron. 17.6 and yet we read not of any immediate particular expresse call from God given to them all or to the most of them none of them I take it can upon any evident ground be supposed to have had any such except Deborah Gideon and Sampson but a mediate call from God by men that all of them doubtless had and of Jeptha his call of this nature the text at large informs us †Jud. 10.5 from such an orderly call by men we may therefore take it to have been that they were given raised up commissioned to that people of God We all acknowledge Subordinate Magistrates to be ordained of God and many of our Commentators include them as well as the supreme in this text and Mr. Calvin Calvin in loc Spanhem Dub. Evang. part 3. Dub. 64. pag. 288. Estius in Ro. 13. Spanhemius and Estius takes those words in 1 Pet. 2.13 sent by him to refer not unto the King but to God as the sender yet those inferior Magistrates have their election and deputation from the supreme humane power but they are notwithstanding reckoned to be of God in as much as they are surrogated by them who are empowered by God to do it Our Saviour speaking of all Magistrates saith that unto them the word of God came that is Joh. 10.35 as Expositors interpret these words God hath given out to them a warrant and commission for their offices But how is that the speech certainly can have no reference to an immediate designation from God in relation to the most of them but the word of God comes to or authorizeth them who are advanced to the seat of power by men according to his word We may take this then for clear that the conveying of power from man so man may make a power ordained of God only with this proviso be it said this is not meerly because it is done by men for neither every humane action nor every act of any whomsoever in this matter can entitle this effect to divine ordination but it is because and so far forth as this is done of men by virtue of a rule and warrant from God and therefore hath the authorization and seal of God upon it Wherever therefore such a platform of Magistracy is erected and such persons are invested with it as God hath declared eligible and this by them to whom God hath committed this management and such power placed in the persons as he hath legitimated there is a power enstamped with this of the Apostle of God ordained of God And this is the sentence of Commentators on the text and others that treat on this subjâ—ct As Peter Martyr P. Martyr loc com clas 4. cap. 13. Sect. 5. Sometimes this to wit the creation of the power comes to passe by the consent of the Senate sometime by the suffrages of the people but these are but instruments the proper cause of Magistrates is God himself Pareus Pâ—reus in loc sub dub 3. Neither do second causes exclude the first In old time God by an immedia e call advanced some Magistrates Kings to the throne as Moses c. But the rest as the 70. Elders he by mans act and counsel placed in power and yet ceaseth not so to do and that according to the laws and custom received of every people either by the election and consent of a Senate as now the Roman Empire or by the voices of the people as the Governers of the Cities that are meerly or mixtly democratical c. Tolet in loc Toler Of God as of the first principle and cause the powers proceed although by the intervenient wils of men as heat cold and the like are of God but by intermediate second causes Estius in loc Estius The secular power is mediately of God by men who by the instinct of the law of Nature set over those of whom they may be governed in a community For this instinct is of God so that by reason thereof it may be truly and positively said that this power is not but of God Mr. John Selden Selden â— de Jure Nat. lib. 1. cap. 8. pag. 108. But whatsoever by that license is constituted variously betwixt men civilly and duely according to the several formes of Government only by way of determination as the Schoolmen speak so as not to be contrary neither to the natural nor the positive law of God that also receiveth sanction and obligation according to the several qualifications of the constitution from the said law which is both naturall and divinely positive or written Willet upon the place As the fruits of the earth are brought forth by mans labour yet are Gods gifts so is Magistracy c. 2. The negative is Whatever power so named or pretended there may be or whatsoever persons there be that take upon them to be the Power or Magistrate over a State and are not thereto appointed or therein enstated as is abovesaid that is either by special expresse revelation from God or by men proceeding upon and by virtue of a warrant or authority from God they are not a Power ordained of God This will follow upon what is said already For if it be so that to the making of a particular Power or Magistrate to be Gods ordinance there goes not only a law
of God universally enacting Civil Government to be but a further specificating act of God whereby be constituteth this special platform for this Common-wealth and cals forth or authorizeth this person or these persons here to bear it and that this he doth either by immediate revelation or by the intervention of men qualified and instructed by his set rule to make the said assignation then it must needs be yeelded that none can be entitled to the plea and priviledge of being Gods ordinance but they that come in by that door or ascend by that scale It will I think be said by all that Gods ordaining the power doth not necessarily import his dâ—signation immediately by his own mouth of the form and persons but that he committeth the doing of this ordinarily to humane arbitration And hereupon it will be to be inferred that either God hath left this determination to men absolutely indefinitly and promiscuously giving way to any that will in any place whatsoever to constitute what Magistracy and whom in it they please and who hath so little understanding either of God or of the matter hereby attributed to him as to say this or else that he hath set a stint and fixed rule to men in this matter appointing certain to constitute the Government and obliging people to the owning of the Government so constituted as from him with exclusion and disallowance of any other to determine these things And if this be the way as to me it seemeth so clear as that no other is imaginable then if in the erecting of government a substantial deviation from it be as when incompetent or unallowed persons be the advancers of themselves or others unto the place of power in as much as in that case there lies the divine disapprobation and men act besides the said prescript it may be said there is no ordinance of God but a contradiction and contraordination to Gods order CHAP. V. SECT IV. Subsect 4. Subsection 4. That Gods ordination is conveyed to the particular Magistrate by the consent of the community BUt then perhaps there will remain one Question viz. where hath God given out his warrant or rule to any to act or proceed in this business and who are they in every State respectively whom God hath authorized or qualified to determine the particulars of it Unto this my Answer is 1. That the said rule or the special way by which men should be called or attain to the place of Soveraign power and expresly defined in Scripture is not necessary or to be as such exacted We all grant that God hath in reference to all the proprietable things of this life and to all transactions about them injoyned a rule of right and equity to be kept and forbidden the transactions about them injoyned a rule of right and equity to be kept and forbidden the transgression of it yet he hath not in his written word particularly stated the several wayes by which the right or title to a thing shall be acquired nor yet the special lawes or rules by which the property of persons to such things may be determined or adjudged This the law and light of nature in mans heart as to many or most things or cases is left to discover and this it hath done in most things indifferent clearly and equally in so much as the affaires of men about them are ordinarily and both by vulgar maxims and customs and by publique laws and judgements regularly composed and determined 2. And yet we are not without some Scripture-light in this particular Even it doth not only prescribe an orderly call to the administration of Civill power and condemn the unorderly and violent assumption of it Num. 27.26 27. Luk. 12.14 Hos 8.4 Jer. 30.21 Ezek. 23.16 Amos 6.13 but doth also direct the way how men should be advanced to it and by whom in case of vacancy of Magistracy This it doth in the particular case of that nation to whom God at first gave his written law which may be a pattern to other Nations in this as in other matters confessedly it is See the direction to them Deut. 17.14 15. 16.18 1.13 In which places the transacting of this affair is by order from God put into the hands of the community over whom the Magistracy is set Judges and Officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates which the Lord thy God giveth thee throughout thy tribes and they shall judge the people with just judgement And unto this order seems the speech of that good man and wise Statist to refer 2 Sam. 16.18 Nay but whom the Lord and this people and all the men of Israel choose his will I be and with him will I abide And according to this prescript runs the promise of God to the people of Israel concerning their state after the return of their Babylonish captivity Jer. 30.21 And their Nobles shall be of themselves and their Governor shall proceed from the midst of them And answerable to this rule we finde instances of the people constituting their Supreme Governour as in the advancement of Jeptha Jud. 10.5 c. of David 1 Chron. 11.1 c. and others And I would ask them who seem willing to deny that in the Bible any commission is given to a prople to choose themselves Governors to what purpose is it that the Lord giveth by Moses directions and rules what manner of person the Israelites should set up to be King over them as it is Deut. 17.14 15 c. if they had no interest or commission given them to set up or choose any for themselves 3. Besides this light of the text the law of Nature is judged to dictate the same thing to wit that the right power or interest to transact this business of the constitution of Magistrates is in the community or people of each Countrey or State in relation to their own Magistracy So that whether we look into the Scriptures or into the Book of Natures law the way which God hath chalkt out the ordinary means he useth for the deputation of persons under himself and over the people in the office of the Supreme Civil power is the vote elective act or consent of the body politique or people to be ruled To testifie the latter viz. that the law of nature dictates this to men 1. I shall in stead of many cite a few learned Authors of best respect that affirm it 2. I shall alledge the original and primitive practise of Nations to have been conform thereto 1. For the affirmation of it to be so de Jure Mr. Richard Hooker Hooker Eccles pol. l. 1. cap. 10. pag. 26 27 29. lib. 8. pag. 150 151. To take away all such mutual grievance injuries and wrongs there was no way but only by growing upon composition and agreement amongst themselves by ordaining some government publique and by yeelding themselves subject thereunto that unto whom they granted authority to rule and govern by them
the peace tranquillity and happy estate of the rest might be procured without which consent there was no reason why one man should take upon him to be Lord or Judge over another Over a whole grand multitude having no such dependency as is in the family upon the Father upon any one and consisting of so many families as every politique society in the world doth impossible it is that any should have compleat lawful power but by consent of men or immediate appointment of God because not having the natural superiority of fathers their power must needs be either usurped and then unlawfull or if lawful then either granted or consented unto by them over whom they exercise the same or else given extraordinarily from God Of this point therefore we are to note that sith men naturally have no full and perfect power to command whole politique multitudes of men therefore utterly without our consent we could in such sort be at no mans commandement living Mr. Perkins Perkins To. 1. pag. 762. A. Treat of Callings Every lawful King is placed by God and by men that are appointed under God to set up Princes over them according the laws and customs of several Kingdoms Mr. John Selden Selden de Jure Nat. lib. 1. cap. 8. pag. 106 107. Among these viz. the acts of the permissive law of nature every man seeth that the acts of making constitutions entring into covenants introducing of Customs and forms of Government and of rescinding revoking or altering all these by the choice of those Societies of men whom it concerned where likewise permitted In like manner it hath still been granted that by the said permission whatsoever it by men joyned in Society limited forbidden or constituted that they are bound to keep who have so consented according to the conditions and qualification with which it is prescribed even as many as have and so far as they have given their consent But whence is it that they are so bound from the authority of a deity that is of mans superior even in these things the rise of the obligation is to be derived and therefore from some heads of the obligative law of nature For the acts whereof we speak were allowed to men so as either they might use them at their pleasure or they might by joynt consent prohibit them and confine their own liberty in them either by covenant naturally plighted or by Princes constituted to govern in those matters which thing seemeth not sufficiently conceivable how it should be whilst we alway lock at right and owing of duty unlesse then joyn this also to it that the obligation to the said inhibition or confinement of liberty doth accrew from his authority and command who as being mans superiour gives warrant to it Mr. Jeremiah Burroughes Burroughes on Hos 1. Lect. 4. pag. 111. see also Lect. 3. pa. 65. and on cap. 3. Lect. 2. pag. 704. There is no authority that we are subject to now but according to the laws and constitutions of the Countrey where we live We must require whether it be a power It is not because the man that is in authority commandeth it except he commandeth it by virtue of that authority which is according to the nature and condition of the foundamental constitutions of the Countrey where he liveth Otherwise we are not bound in conscience bound we may be in regard of prudence and in regard of preventing other disturbances but conscience doth not bind to wils of men but binds to laws The Author of the treatise of Monarchy Treatise of Monarchy chap. 1. Sect. 1. chap. 3. Sect. 2. 5. Vindication of that Treatise chap. 3. Sect. 6. called by one in print Mr. Hunton God by no word binds any people to this or that form till they by their own act bind themselves They to wit Soveraigns attain this determination of authority to their persons by the tacit and virtual or else expresse and formal consent of that society of men they govern either in their own persons or the root of their succession I do conceive that in the first original all monarchy yea any individual frame of Government whatsoever is elective that is is constituted and draws its force and right from the consent and choice of that community over which it swayeth My reason is because man being a voluntary agent and subjection being a moral act it doth essentially depend on consâ—nt so that a man may by force and extremity be brought under the force and power of another as unreasonable creatures are to be disposed of and trampled on whether they will or no but a bond of subjection cannot be put on him nor a right to claim obedience and service acquired unlesse a man become bound by some act of his own will I am perswaded it will appear an uncontrouleable truth in policy that the consent of the people either by themselves or their ancestors is the only mean in ordinary Providence by which Soveraignty is conferred on any persons or family neither can Gods ordinance be conveyed and people engaged in conscience by any other means The author of the fuller answer to Dr. Ferns Fuller Answer to Dr. Ferne â—ag 17 18. Treatise c. The meaning of the place Rom. 13. then must be this The powers that be i. e. so or so established by consent of man are ordained of God to be obeyed or it is Gods ordinance that men should live under some government and submit without resistance to that kinde of government they have by consent established just as St. Peter follows him to the ordinance of man for the Lords sake There are two kinds we use to say of Tyranny regiminis usurpationis that which is only of government though never so heavy must be endured That other kinde of usurpation it hath no right no ordination at all and so no subjection due to it In all power of government Divinity tels us there are four things the institution the constitution the acquisition and the use The constitution alwayes from mans consent the institution alwayes from God Mr. Thomas Hobs. Hobs Elements part 1. chap. 6. Sect. 6 7. part 2. chap. 10. Sect. 3. That this may be done viz. the erection of a common power there is no way imaginable but only union which is the involving or including the wils of many in the will of one man or of one counsel The making of union consisteth in this that every man by covenant oblige himself to some one and the same man or to some one and the same counsel by them all named and determined Lastly Polybius as cited by Gregory Tholosanus Greg. Tholos Syntag. Juris lib. 47. cap. 15. Sect. 22. Neither yet ought every Government of one be presently called a kingdom but that only which is granted by the subjects consent 2. Besides these testimonies to confirm that of right and by the law and light of nature so it is viz.
incapable of being one earthly Monarchy 2. Or you must say the first-bâ—rn as he had in him a right to hold the power so he had a power to alienate it to his younger brethren or kin and did put into act this power to the distribution of the world into many intire States and Principalities but against this it will be said a right in Adams first begotten and in every first begotten of the first begotten successively to the power and a right to alienate the power either in whole or in part from descending to the fiâ—st in succession are incâ—nsistent he that alienates and gives away power to any of the younger unto so much as he gives he cuâ—s â—ff â—he right of the eldest and puts an end to this title of primogeniture 5. Let it be considered what is in Scripture the right of the first-born viz. some domestical preeminency or superiority of the eldest over his Brethren within the family as Gen. 4.7 Vide Cartwright on Gen. 25.31 The first-born were next in honour to their Parents saith Ainsworth on Gen. 25.31 what ever it was it appears to be that which Cain might have over Abel during the life of their Father Adam and was not therefore the Supreme Civil Power It appears the first Son had precedency of place Gen. 43.33 and a double portion of his Fathers inheritance Deut. 21.17 but all this and if there be any thing more amounts not to a political Power but in the contrary we finde it plainly distinguisht and separated from it The right of Jacobs first-born descended upon one Son the right of the Supreme Civil Power upon another 1 Chron. 5.1 2. Reuben was Israels first-born for his incest he lost the birth-right and Jacob gave it to Joseph but though the birth-right was Josephs yet Judah prevailed above his Brethren and of him came the chief ruler The blessing of Lordship over his Brethren which Isaac unawares bâ—queathed to Jacob and the birthright were two distinct things in Esaus repute Gen. 27.36 37. Probably in the beginning of mankind or of a family ere it was inlarged so far as to cause a full division into distinct Nations and Civil dominions and while by reason of paucity of persons and proximity of habitation there was little difference observed betwixt a Family and Common-wealth publique power did reside in the Father over all that sprung of him and after it had so gone on for a time that communities by union might enjoy more strength and security it might by the joynt consent of many families and the Fathers and Grandsires of them be divolved to one which was the first-born of the eldest house But that this was by natural right or that it was set down as a perpetual law or rule for every Common-wealth as the only warrantable rise or title to Supreme Government and that it was not as free for them or such as they who first reduced themselves under the dominion of the first-born by agreement to have with the same agreement constituted the power in another or a younger stem will I suppose never be proved neither can hold for the reasons above given 6. We finde that in the disposal of Government among Brethren this birth-order was not seldom inverted As when Jacob was preferred before Esau Judah before all the elder sons of Jacob Ephraim before Manasseh Solomon before Adonijah 2 King 23.30 36. See Divines Annotat. Dioâ—ate and Jackson in loc Jehoabaz the younger before Jehojakim the elder son of Josiah and Judas Maccabeus 1 Maccab. 2.66 with vers 2 3 4. the third son of Mattathias before his other elder brethren And of Simri the son of Hosah it it said though he was not the first-bâ—rn yet his Father made him the chief * 1 Chron. 26 10. Yea it was anteverted by a standing law in the câ—se of the elder brother dying childeless †Whereby the heiâ—ship did not descend upon the next Brother who then was his Fathers first-born but was entailed upon a childe to be begotten by him on the widow of the deceased which childe was to inherit his Vncles estate and so put by his own Father Deut. 25 5. Mat. 22.24 If primogeniture had been the constant law and channel of Government why was it pronounced as a peculiar curse upon Canaan the son of Ham the younger son of Noah that he should be a servant to his brethren 7. Lastly The preeminence of the first-born is supposed at the first to have been as well in matters Religious as Secular and to have comprised the office of Priest-hood * See the Chaldee paraphrase on Gen 49.3 Musculus and Ainsworth on the same and the latter on cap. 15.31 Yet that was after a time taken away from it perpetually and was under the law put into one tribe and family in Israel and ever since the Ecclesiastical function hath been meerly institutive and not hereditary Whereby it may appear that the preeminences yeelded to primogeniture in the beginning were not all of them of the unchangeable law of nature or any moral or perpetual institution but some of them at least arbitrary mutable and temporary Having argued first the claim of Fatherhood then that of Primogeniture I shall add this further of them laid both together Whatsoever respect or reverence either the relation of a Father or of a first-born hath at any time carried any where and whatsoever power was deferred to them at the beginning they cannot be imagined to have been intended by God or ordained by the law of nature as a fixt and constant basis no nor to be of any permanent use so much as to give us light either for the beginning founding or raising up of a Magistracy where it is wanting or for the legitimating or deducing and deriving of an original right or title to any that is already in being 1. If we consider the multiplication division confusion and extinction of families that hath been 1. The multiplication Now that mankind hath for so long a time been sprung forth into a world of families and kindreds which are every day sprouting out into more 2. Division the stock or family of Adam is and long since hath been not only multiplied and disseminated into innumerable families but those have been parted into a multitude of yea almost innumerable Nations and distinct politique bodies 3. Confusion every one of those nations is not only constituted of numberless families but those are so consounded and shuffled together that no distinction of any one stock in a continued descent from Adam or Noah is left and so the priority of geniâ—ure as reckoned from either of them to be in one family and person in relation to the rest of mankind or of the same Common-wealth is utterly unknown and unconjecturable Length of time want of records removal and shifting of habitations the identity variety and change of the names of persons and places and many other things have overwhelmed
with darke oblivion all knowledge of such distinction and priority 4. Extinction of families as the persons so the stocks and linages of men have a mortality upon them and in time divers of them are worn out and come to a period Now then when mankind is looked upon as at present and for some thousands of years it hath been drawn out into so many lines and races and those some broken off others transversed interwoven and mingled both in bloud and dwelling without any pale or difference of stock or precedency of birth deduced from primitive antiquity though the Father and first-begotten though both in the house and in the Common-wealth as far as they are known retain still a right and respect at their hands who stand in the relation of children and younger brethren to them and in the latter the title of dominion being once fixed in a stock or family the paternal and protogenial relations are of use to keep it on in succession and to convey it from person to person yet they are of no force to bottom or raise a title to Civil Soveraignty upon over or in reference to those who stand not in any known relation of children or younger brethren or any juniority of descent to them This may confidently enough be affirmed It cannot be said of any person or family in the world nor could have been for these many ages that he or it claimeth or holdeth the throne in such a nation by a right of Fatherhood or Primogeniture derived from the first father or first eldest son 2. But if none of these obscurities were but distinction of families and their order of precedency and subsequency of descent from the first head of mankind were clear so that in every nation or State one family or race could be pointed out as the eldest and first of the Nation in descent from Adam or Noah yet there shall lie difficulties incident to the pretence of succession by birth-priviledge even within any one family not to be extricated by the evidence of a natural pedegree or any otherwise then by positive constitution How many questions do Civilians agitate about the right of succession where the linage is known and what different rules and methods of succession do they observe in several Nations and Kingdoms He that shall but read one Chapter in Grotius viz. de Jure belli lib. 2. cap. 7. may discover that variety of opinion and practise in this point of succession that may satisfie him of the entangledness and intricacy of it There is one way of succession which they call hereditary and another lineal and of the lineal there is one which they term agnatical wherein males only are admitted another cognatical in which females are included There are some questions concerning what children shall succeed their Father as whether begotten only or also adopted and whether Legitimate only or the natural or bastard childe also There is a question about the matter into which the succession is to be to wit whether if a man have a plurality of issue the dominion shall passe undivided to one or be distributed into many portions that is to every childe a share There is some question of succession to him that hath issue as whether a mans first-born dying before him and leaving issue the issue of that son or his own second-born shall inherit But there are many questions of succâ—ssion to him that hath not issue of his body as whether his dominion shall go to his own brethren and their issue in order or to the brethren of his Father or to any other of his ancestors upwards whether his Brothers childe or his Uncle whether his Brothers daughter or his sisters son whether his younger Brother or the son of his elder Brother whether the Daughter of his elder Brother or his own younger Brother be to be preferred These questions and such like the positive lawes constitutions or customs of Nations do determine several wayes each in reference to their own territories so that by virtue of them successions may be carryed clearly and quietly But the paternal or protogenial right by it self abstracted from those arbitrary constitutions and as only laid upon the law of nature or lookt into by the light thereof is as to these particulars indeterminate The result of all this is that the authors of this title of Government must be driven to confess it now out of use and to be an impossible thing to build any soveraign power that now is or can be expected to be or for most of the ages of mankinde past hath been in the world upon it Hence is it that after all their discourses upon it they tell us in relation to all Governments that have been since the confusion of families of an elective primogeniture a contradiction in adjecto and that those Supreme Magistrates the world hath now or can have succeed in the place of the Father and first-born But if they come into their place and not by their title I ask then quo jure by this it is yeelded that Fatherhood and Primogeniture make out no title to them And why then are these so much urged as the only original rise and claim of all ordinary dominion and that exclusively and in opposition to any other title and specially against that which is by the vote consent and constitution of the people They that hold these to be the sole rest and basis of Civil Government and confess that no Governours now extant can be said or demonstrated to grow or be built upon these bring themselves to this resolution that there neither is nor can be by any ordinary means any known lawful Government in the earth And accordingly one of them is thus expresse * Observations of the original of Government in the Anarchy of a limited and mixed Monarchy pag. 12. All Kings that now are or ever were are or were either fathers of their people or the heirs of such fathers or the usurpers of the right of such fathers But before he involve all the Princes of the earth that either are or have been since the earth was divided about a hundred years as I take it after Noahs flood under this brand of usurpation or a suspicion of it so strong as it layes every one of them under the odds of ten thousand to one to be deserving of it I would desire his title of Fatherhood and Primogeniture both or either of them might be cleared of the incongruities and incapacities not only of being an evident and knowable but of being a practicabâ—e and possibly exâ—stent way of carrying on a course and succession of Government in the several states of the world from age to age the which have been above in this paper imputed and argued to attend them I will only take a little notice of the main and cornerstone which the friends of this opinion lay to found it upon and so passe from it This is the universal
Monarchy which they presuppose Adam had from God and which or any part whereof none of his posterity could have but by grant or succession from him But let this be supposed what will be gained by it to their purpose 1. Touching the universal Monarchy of Adam it will be questioned how he had or received it Whether by natural right as the Father of all or by an immediate expresse and positive grant from God 2. Besides the way of immediate and expresse grant from God which it may be supposed Adam and after him some other special persons as Moses Saul David had there must be acknowledged a mediate and ordinary way of Gods advancing of persons to authority and power which is standing general and common to all times and places And of this our controversie is I enquire therefore how this universal Monarchy of Adam passed from him unto others 1. Whether distributively and piecemeal to many that is to his sons cach a share or whole and solid to one 2. Whether it passed from him to them or any of them by his arbitrary and positive assignement or by order or law of nature as to the heir or heirs general 3. If by his voluntary assignement it passed to whom and in what proportion he pleased then the natural right of Fatherhood or Primogeniture took no place at his death carryed not the Civil power from him and so cannot challenge to convey it downwards 4. If by order or law of nature it passed from him then the question will be 1. Whether they that succeeded to him had it by right of Progenitorship that is by reason of the Fatherhood which was in them in relation to their posterity who were therefore their subjects so that upon that title every son of Adam was soveraign to the issue that came of him But then it will be said this course of deriving Supreme Magistracy could be but temporary and must needs have a stop for otherwise it would multiply Common-wealths in infinitum according to the multiplication of Fathers and confine Common-wealths to extend no further then to comprise a Father and his children which as was argued before is neither agreeable to the practise of men even from the time of Noah nor to the end of a Common-wealth which is union of a multitude of households for strength and security When therefore this course of Genarchy ceased what was the way of continuing Government 2. Or it passed from Adam by right of inherence to Adams sons as his sons and so as heirs of their Father And this is a way different from that of Progenitorship and upon this point the right of Fatherhood and that of Primogeniture are at odds and prove as to the purpose of conveying power from Adam inconsistible For if the Civil power went by Fatherhood then were all Adams sons joynt successors in it as was before said every one in relation to his posterity if it went by primogeniture but one of them could by that claim the power and this will run as upon the necessi y of having but one Monarchy over all mankind throughout all ages which was above disproved Unless we must say the first-begotten could but claim a double portion of power and then the rest of the sons had each a single part in proportion to his double But this 1. Fals again upon the absurdity even now alleadged of multiplying Common-wealths by the endlesse number of Fathers 2. Out of what or whom would you make the eldest son a double portion without depriving some other of the sons of his single part and so destroying the right of inheritance to it you could make no addition to the single share of the first born or give him dominion over more then he was superiour to by virtue of his own Fatherhood To make an end therefore with this point if the insisting on the meer natural right either of Fatherhood or Primogeniture will not beat us out a clear path for the derivation of Government from Adam or carrying it on with some justifiableness of title among men then we must return to that of voluntary agreement and grant unto which the true natural right of Fatherhood is not repugnant but may very well be reconciled yea and assistant unto the founding and continuing Civil Government Some of them that insist on the Fathers power as the only Civil Power in the world do yet place in him a right to transfer it from himself unto whom he pleaseth If this be granted then I will say the way of setling Civil authority by the agreement or consent of the governed might thus come in Suppose we Adam to have ruled as sole Monarch during his life afterward some one of his sons in succession to him or all his sons each over their own progeny as distinct societies after by the confusion of languages they being forced to sever or when those distinct races of Adam became so numerous and dispersive over many countries that they were too vast to be continued in one society they may be supposed each of them voluntarily to withdraw or part themselves into several Common-wealths and the Fathers of the families in every of these new erected Common-wealths having in them the interest of power each in relation to his children and family and agreeing together for themselves and theirs to some one as their publique civil-head or King and thus cometh in Magistracy to be voluntarily constituted in that way wherein the right of Fatherhood is preserved and continued in subordination to the Civil publique power and this put in such a way as both it and politique societies of convenient amplitude might be kept up and new ones as need should require might be erected whereas by the meer right of Fatherhood holding and exercising the power it had in relation to those only who were natural children to it it could not be no not with the supplement of Primogeniture as was before shewed And with this the Assertors of the sole right of Fatherhood are driven in a sort to comply * See the Anarchy c. p. 11. 2. I come to the second way of attaining a title to Government above proposed to consideration which is that of Conquest The jus gladii as it is understood and qualified by many Grave Learned and approved Authors I shall not here call into question But that the Sword and successe of it unto victory simply and by it self whatsoever the cause or quarrel pursued by it be or taken as it may be separate from or contradictory to the choice or consent of the people can be a sufficient and justificatory title to Civil Government I cannot yield We know how Augustine August de Civ Dei lib. 4. cap. 4. hath branded this claim with the style of Magnum Latrocinium In supply of the halts and defects which at every turn are detected to occurre in the title of Fatherhood and Primogeniture an Author of that way I even now quoted
findeth this shift The obedience which all Subjects yeeld to Kings is but the paying of that duty which is due to the supreme Fatherhood Many times by the act either of usurper himself or of those that set him up the true heir of a Crown is dispossessed In such cases the subjects obedience to the Fatherly power must go along and wait upon Gods providence who only hath right to give and to take away Kingdoms and thereby to adopt subjects into the obedience of another Fatherly power †The Anarchy c. pag. 12. Hereby the Fatherly right and power are made a meer Equivocum or to signifie power entitled or coming in any way whatsoever though it do not only not derive from the right of Fatherhood but be privatively opposed to or destructive of it and thus he confounds and makes to meet together in one name and title the thing that he had argued against with the thing that he had asserted And the saying that Providence in dispossessing of a Crown him that is the true heir and so hath the right and disposing it to the hands of an unjust invader doth put a fatherly power in that invader and adopt the subjects to an obligation to it is to deny the right both of paternity and birth-right and of the consent of the people and of every other special way of conveying a title to Government and to make the right thereof only to follow come by and consist in possession and to die forthwith in the Father and heir upon dispossession And to what purpose then is all his plea for Fatherhood and primogeniture or any other mans for any other title what a void distinction is that of his when he distinguisheth of a natural and an a usurped right According to him now there is no Power but Fatherhood no Fatherhood but possession But let us passe by this laxe and wide claim to dominion by the sword which swalloweth up all other titles and look into that which I noted to be qualified and cautioned and so admitted by learned authors ancient and modern as it is distinguishable from this and reconcileable with that of the consent of the ruled Two wayes I observe the Sword is admitted to conduce or have influence into the disposal or placing of Government but by neither is it made the sole or the immediate ground or cause of a right or title to it or any otherwayes then as concordant with that political constitution I have asserted 1. Conquest or the Conquerour rather is admitted to be interested in Government where it is the effect of a reall and just war And so it makes no exception against my assertion That Victory which is acknowledged justly to lay claim to a Crown is the issue of such a war as supposeth the equity and necessity of the war to be on the victors part and the default and provocation to be on the part of the conquered and moreover that the default of the conquered is so high as either to detain from the Conqueror his right or to forfeit into his hands by wrong offered their power or liberty in the enjoyment or disposal of the throne and that there is a necessity on the part of the Conqueror in reference to his attaining and enjoying of his own right and just security therein that he take and use that forfeiture * Vide Groâ—a Jure â—elli lib. 3. ca. 15. Sect. 1. In this case conquest is only a means to the conquerers seising and holding of that power or rule which was his own before he prevailed and which the cause and state of the war before the successe obtained entitled him unto By which it is evident that his right is not founded on his victory but was in being before it and had its rise from an antecedent investure or trespass Upon this ground it is that the title of the sword is alledged not by it self alone but in subjunction to another title A late Historian tels us that our King Henry the sevenâ—h at his coronation was proclaimed with these titles Henâ—icus Rex Angliae Buckes History of Richard the Third lib. 2. pag. 54 55. Jure Divino Jure Humano Jure belli And that the Pope Innocent the 8. in his bull to the said King Anno 1486. hath theâ—â— words Hic Rex Angliae de domo Lancastriae originem trahens ac qui notorio Jure indubitato proximo successionis Titulo praelatorum procerum Angliae electione successione c. etiam de Jure belli est Rex Angliae And this way of ingresse into the seat of Authority as it is not grounded on conquest as its title so it is not privative of or altogether another from that which was before affirmed to be the only ordinary way viz. the consent of the people Forfeiture as it is a singular exception that lies in many cases so it presupposeth a law or constitution that ordains it and so in a sort involveth their consent of whom it is taken Though there be no explicite and present act of will in the conquered that the Conquerer shall reign over them but an utter averseness and all possible reluctancy against and that brings the war yet it is so allowed to be when that case is put which is presupposed as the cause of the war by the law of Nations yea of Nature and being so their wils have antecedently originally and implicitely subscribed to it as such and are therefore in this manner concluded in it In like manner as we account that to be by a mans will or consent which his Predecessors in whom he is virtually included have willed or himself hath formerly granted though now he be quite of another minde He that gives his vote personally or by proxie to any penal law or act to be binding to the community of which he is though he do not formally and absolutely will his own punishment yet he doth it interpretatively consequentially and conditionally if he himself shall fall under the provision of that Act and his will so passed is upon his offending after it sufficient to make his punishment not only just in it self but just ex ore proprio and to have his own consent 2. As Conquest may interest a person in Government by being an attainment of possession in pursuance of an antecedent right so the other sort of conquest to wit that which is a seasing of anothers right or the setting of a man in meet possession may have some tendency thereto though not so directly and that is thus It may be an inducement to the conquered if they be indeed free and unengaged to any other to a submission and delivery up of themselves to be the subjects of the victor and to take him for their Soveraign The former way conquest is postnate and subsequent to the right of the Conquerer and so doth not give him his title but only introduce his possession this latter way
it is antecedaneous previous and preparatory to his title but is not productive or constitutive of it Of this latter way of conquests leading to a title to dominion I have spoken before and refer my Reader thither * Chap. 3. Sect. 3. Subsect 5. Proposition 5. Only whereas some object that the title of the Sword or Conquest hath been the usuall beginning of the Kingdoms and principalities which now are or have been in the world I answer 1. A facto ad jus non valet argumentum We do not ask neither is it to the puâ—pose what hath been done in the getting of rule but what ought to be and what is the rise of that power which can truly derive from God as his ordinance 2. I take this assertion to be too broad that this hath been the usuall beginning of Dominions Though many unjust invâ—sions have been yet that hath not been the constant birth of Soverainty I have before alledged humane testimony of the best authority to the contrary 3. And where unlicentiate intrusion into the throne hath been it hath commonly not continued but the dominion hath been shortly either dispossessed or setled upon a better ground-work by the consent of the interested sufficiently valid in point of conscience to such an act 3. But if the sword by it self cannot create a title Let us see what the third fore-named way will help Non enim si quid alicui est utile id statim mihi licet ei per vim imponere Nam his qui Rationis habent usum libera debet esse utilium inutilium electio nisi alâ—â—ri jus quoddam in eos quaesitum sit Gâ—otius de Jure lib. 2. cap. 22. Sect. 12. either added to it or alone viz. that of voluntary beneficialness by protection There are some who would build a kinde of claim to rule upon the consideration of the good or benefit which the Governing may be said to bring to the governed which they will suppose it equal for him to obtrude upon them though against their wils and in recompence of it to exact their obedience to him But such pretences of benefit besides that they are often withouâ— reality and are made the visour of proceedings of a qâ—ite contrary tenor were they never so real cannot reach to such an effect The intention promise or actual collation of a good â—urn doth not create a right in the promiser over him or any thing of his to whom the same is done withoâ—t his consent or acceptance of it with such a condition To bring some colour for this claim of Dominion there are by an Author alledged some cases out of the Civill law they are contained under that head of obligations which they call ex quasi contracta and particularly they are of those ex negotiis gestis There is saith that law an obligation debt or duty upon a man when ones business is done without his consent to his benefit In this case the obligation is upon the owner of the business done unto the Gestor or doer of it The said Author 1. Urges the case de negâ—tiorum gestione in general 2. Insists on that particular one of the minor to his guardian which saith he is the case of the Common-wealth according to that maxim Res publica semper est in curâ tutelâ * A R ply to Dr. Sandersons Letter pag. 5. 1. To the case in general ex negotiis gestis I say there is a wide disparity betwixt it as stated by the Civilian and this for which it is alledged 1. In that case the ground of the obligation and compensation awarded is because the thing done is behooveful for the party obliged to be done and yet no consent can be possibly given the person whose business it is being supposed by reason of absence death nonage madness or such like impediment incapable of giving consent There is no such ground here where the parties he would have obâ—iged are extant present and of age to declare their minde and do either declare their dissent or not declare their assent 2. What is the extent or matter of the obligation in that ex negotiis gestis not the passing of the beneficiary into the dominion of the benefactor but only an obligation of debt to the repayment of such necessary charges as the gestor hath been at it being all reason that in doing anothers business commodiously to that other the doer should be indemnified But no obligation here to a new personal state of subjection By the law a Tutor or Curator may oblige them under his charge without their consent in their goods to defray his layings out for them but he cannot without their consent oblige them in a personal relation as in marriage or servitude which are obligations of state 3. The law acknowledgeth such an obligation as is specified but under those cautions as do exclude and contradict the conclusion for which they are here brought As 1. It denies that obligation if a man handle another mans business as his own 2. If a man act anothers occasions after that other hath forbidden or disclaimed his acting 3. If they be acted no necessity requiring it * Vide Greg. Tholâ— saâ—i Syntag. â—uâ—iâ— lib. â—9 cap. â— Sect. 〈…〉 2. Sect. 8 9 11. 2. To that of the Minor or Pupil in particular 1. Though the Law allowes the Guardian his charges out of the Minor yet it allwes not any one to be a Curator that will undertake it That 's against the very nature and end of Curatorship which is to defend the minor from invasors He that is a Tutor that is a Guardian of one under the age of 14. years must be either jure civili datus or permissus he must either be Tâ—stamentary that is assigned by the decaseds will or Dative that is appointed by the law or magistrate And he that is a Curator that is over one above 14 but under 25 years old must be chosen by the Minor and constituted by the Law The Civill Law expresly provides that they shall not be Tutors of Pupils who put themselves upon or offer to buy or make suit for the employment and lest this office should seem arbitrarily taken up or by force put upon the Pupil or Minor it ordains that military men be excepted from it It gives both the Pupil and the right Guardian an action against him that takes upon him that charge being not lawfully ordained to it yea and against those that assist him in possessing or exercising that place and condemnes the false Guardian in as much as the value of that wherein he deals amounts unto †Idem cap. 7. Sect. 2. lib. 13. cap. 1. Sect. 4. cap. 3. Sect. 1. cap. 10. Sect. 6 16 37 38 39. lib. 12. cap. 4. Sect 6. Let these rules of the saw about Tutorship to a Pupil take place in the case of the Common-wealth and its Guardian and this title by arbitrary beneficialness
life without the guilt of self-murder the conclusion would as well be not only ergo the people cannot but ergo no man can confer such a power on another and thus the argument would run as against the peoples so against any others conferring or consenting to as to their sense who make the terms equivalent such a power in another so that by this it should be unlawfull 1. For a Prince or any other Supreme power to transmit resigne or put off their Government in their life time to another which yet the Author of this objection allowes 2. For one that is a subject to no State to desire or offer himself to or accept of naturalization or incorporatien in any Common-wealth under any civil power 3. For one that is a member of a Legislative assembly and out of it but a subject to give his vote to an act for the punishing of a crime with death by which his own life is concerned as subjected to death by the said act upon his breach of the same Yet I suppose no man can defend any of these to be unlawful And for the last it is very ordinary and generally allowed and the reason is Because such a persons vote and the ordaining of such a law doth not create a power of life and death nor confer it de novo on the Magistrate to whom the execution of it is committed It only doth determine or apply that power which is already instituted by God and inherent in the Magistrate to its particular matter such a fact or make that power which was in him in actu signato to be in him in actu exercito in reference to such a crime As therefore a Parliament mans vote conduceth to determine or apply that power which was in some sort in being before to its particular matter this fact so doth the peoples vote determine that power which was in some sort ordained before that is instituted by God to its particular subject this person I have thus dispatched their Herculean argument let us see what more is said 2 Object The Anarchy c. pag. 11. This supposed right in the people to choose or constitute their Government is a thing which it is not possible for them any way lawfully to exercise To make this objection good and to shew the difficulty or impâ—ssibility of the said exercise they raise these scruples 1. Sith nature must be supposed to have left mankind loose or unreduced into civil publique societies how come they distributed into distinct Common-wealths so as this person family or people belong to this State that to another severally Answ 1. It must be supposed that nature hath ordained upon supposal of the multiplication and spreading of men over the several regions of the earth a partition of men into divers civil Societies to be under distinct and peculiar civil Governments So that in actu signato or in specie mankinde is naturally bound and is not in that respect originally free but in actu exercito they are naturally free as to political we mean not as to paternal subjection that is originally the reduction of men into this or that Common-wealth distinct from others is yet to do the union of them into one or division into many civill States is yet unmade and it is yet in facto undetermined of what society this or that person family or people shall be and so unto what civil Superiour they belong This is very apparent A Common-wealths Society is made by some act constitution or law which ordinarily is humane or transacted by men according to that of Augustine August de libero Arbitr lib. 1. cap. 6. Ex hominibus una lege societatis populus constat there must be men before there can be a family the being of families is before that of a Common-wealth the Common-wealth is before the Magistrate and a distinction of Common-wealths before a plurality of Supreme Magistrates There must be the matter before the forme the constituting parts before the constitution the esse absolutum before the esse relativum of these respective societies and correlatives and therefore a natural freedom or original unengagedness of men in actu exercito Which yet we must not so understand as if now every single person still were born free and so remaineth untill he by his personal act contract an engagement for in the erection of communities and Governments in them the Master of the family having the rule thereof representeth all the persons of his house and the persons then actually incorporate involve their posterity so that only they in this respect are free who are not by the act either of themselves or of their progenitors or other representers compacted in society with others They that think it irrational that the Father should represent involve the family must resolve us how the Religious and civill covenants of Israel and Judah made in Moses Josuahs Davids Asas Joashes Hezekiahs Josiahs and Nehemiahs dayes did comprehend and bind as well the absent as the present and their posterity born and yet unborn as also how the lawes and contracts continually passed by some do take in others not personally consenting 2. Sith the partition of Common-wealths is acknowledged by the Objectors as well as by us and both must say it is not determined or brought to the actus exercitus by nature it behoves not us nor toucheth our assertion that this query be cleared more then it doth them and theirs and possibly if they will resolve this their own Question we shall accord with them in the Answer And to make it somewhat more explicate if they would please tâ— resolve us how any one Common-wealth hatâ— been without immediatly divine direction as was that of Israel constitute or raised out of a multitude of collateral families destitute of one natural Father common to them all as doubtless most or all that are or ever were have been we might I think easily agree how the distribution of mankind into many civil States hath come and if I must here spend mine opinion it is brought to passe or effected 1. Not by Consanguinity or tye of bloud for this is in some degree extensive to all mankinde and for a confinement of it within any certain degrees whereby to make a division of Common-wealths 1. There is no direction from Nature or Scripture either that any such confinement shall make out the bounds of a Common-wealth or what such degrees are 2. There is no ordinary means left or possibility of knowing what persons of any number neer to that of a Common-wealth are within such degrees and what without 3. It is contingent to a Common-wealth and rarely if ever known to consist of one distinct kindred or stock and it is contingent to such a kindred to be comprised within one Common-wealth collateral linages being ordinarily either dissociated into severall republiques or but intermixed with and parcels of one 2. Not by Cohabitation for though
Book pag. 9. and this is impossible to be or the major part must conclude the rest and against this they say The major part bindes not the whole unless either men first agree to be so bound or a higher power so commands Unto this I answer It may be supposed that each community at their first coalition either judge themselves bound by the law of nature which is a superiours command to stand to the vote of the major part or are so wise as either to constitute that or some other way of bringing their matters of publique interest unto a result obligatory to the whole Common reason will guide them to the one at least of these or rather to both for if it dictate the former it must be presumed to bring on the latter viz. either by tacite or expresse consent The dictate of right reason in materia morali I suppose must be yielded to be the appointment of nature But that the major part doth conclude the whole in those affairs the determination of which doth necessarily concern the whole untill suâ—â— time as they have setled the determination of such affaires to be by other persons or means seems to be the plain dictate of right reason For in this case the very end of a multitudes associating and becoming one Common-wealth and the being and interest of them as such is concerned that so it be 1. From a peoples becoming one society there doth result in them a faculty and interest to act some things politically all being is in order to action and every actus primus is for an actus secundus and a Political being is for Political operation and although such a body may put off its affairs to be acted not perse totum immediately but vicariously by particular organs or members yet some acts it must needs put forth immediately viz. such as conduce to the organizing of it self and such also as are necessary to its own preservation and cannot be or are not transected by others as suppose a common engine or other calamity be seising on a people destitute of or neglected by particular subsidiaries 2. In those matters that are to be acted immediately by the whole community there must be some way for them to come to a resolution and conclusion about â—hem If the concurrence of the whole multitude very numerous and vast to a single person be not at all or not ordinarily possible or likely then cannot that he the way of determination and if not that then some other there must be and what more obvious natural and congruous to reason then this that the lesser part be swayed and obliged by the greater 3. Yea what other expedient can common sense suggest but this When a thing is proposed to the determination of a multitude which requires a conclusion by them either positive or negative and there is foreseen likely or found to be a diversity of sense and vote among them 1. In case the major part consent and the minor deny the thing either the major part must carry it for the whole or the negative of the minor by their dissent carries it against the major which is against all Reason 2. And if the major be for the negative and the minor for the affirmative either the minor must be overruled by the negative of the major or standing to their affirmative they must secede and be severed into another Common wealth for to the nature of a community it is required that there be communio juris and this secession as it is unreasonable to be made by a lesser party without the others consent so it and the occasion of it admitted tends to the making void and ruining of societies This course then of the minor parts obliging the whole appearing so necessary to the acting and to the subsistence of a community why may we not conclude it in the cases and matter above specified to be the dictate of nature * Vide Grotium lib. 2. cap. 5. Sect. 17. 2. If the major part be allowed to conclude the whole it is next asked Idem pag. 10. How shall the whole people be assembled Here are two difficulties 1. Where all are equally interested and authorized what one or more lesse then the whole hath power to appoint time or place or give summons to the rest without which appointment it is unjust to binde the absent R. It is to be presumed this scruple is practically precluded by the peoples proceeding when they agree to become one people for who can imagine but that then they have the end and immediate necessary acts for which they joyne to be a community before them and in order to them either they forthwith make choise of the Government they shall be under and provide for a succession in it and the means by which it shall be continued or if that be not at the first instant dispatched they appoint how they shall come together or pâ—sse their resolutions on that or the like publique occasion We see there is a course to be taken for such assemblies in the polarchies that now are as in the united Provinces of the Netherlands in Venice Genoa and the rest Yea the many distinct Republiques of Germany confederate in one general interest and band as one great community have their order how to assemble and hold their publique diets as likewise have the thirteen united Common-wealths of the Switzers who upon any occasion of universal concernment have referred it to the Burgomasters of Zurich to give notice to all the Cantons to meet at Baden And in the ancient State of Rome the Consuls summoned the Senate the Senate the Assembly of the Centuries and the Tribunes the Assembly of the Tribes 2. But suppose this uncertainty setled and a diet orderly called with time and place appointed another difficulty there is which may be subdivided into two Idem ibid. 1. All cannot be present one is sick another is lame a third is aged a fourth under age besides many are women some are Virgins all these are of the people and how shall the consent of them be passed or included R. 1. These natural or personal defects are common to all mankind and apt to incapacitate persons as much or more for other humane affaires as for this which yet are not therefore argued into a frâ—stration This occasion of a peoples agreement about politique Government but rarely occurreth but when a Government is setled whether by our or by the Objectors means the dayly management of it is much more obnoxious to these impediments in the person or persons in whom it is seated and when one of them seiseth on such a subject it is prone to make a greater interruption in publique concernments then all of them are wont to do in this yet are Salvos in those cases ordinarily found out 2. We have already seen that some acts at some time must needs be admitted to flow from a politique body immediately now
goods the gifts of God if you mean by the phrase such a gift as conveyes a title or right to the Donee or receiver which alone can be strictly and properly called a gift and can be parallel to the having of a thing of God as by his ordinance For as for that larger acception wherein things may be said by God to be given into the hands of men when they are exposed by his providence to them as their spoyl or the matter of other their acts of cruelty or fraud it is not of any collaterall affinity with that kind of being of God which the Text as hath been proved speaketh of neither doth it import a deed of gift such as makes over a property in the thing given to the Donee Isai 42.24 Job 12.6 God gave Jacob for a spoyl and Israel to the Robbers and Job whose goods were so given up to the Sabeans and Chaldeans saith of the tabernacle of Robbers that God brings into their hands abundantly Shall we compare these mens havings in respect of the being of them of God with the being of the power of God as his ordinance intended in this Text 3. It is evident the Authors of the distinction take the being of the power of God in these words in a stricter sense then is that wherein wealth dishonestly gotten can be called the gift of God whilest in the application of their distinction they tell us the usurpers acquisition of the power is not of God they would not doubtlesse deny it to be the gift of God and consequently its acquisition to be of God In the same acception wherein they affirm the gain of usury and extortion to be the gift of God Certainly it is not their meaning to make the usurers and extortioners way and title to their riches by so much as the gift of God comes to better then the usurpers way and his Title to his power whilest they say their goods are the gifts of God but his power is not acquired of God 4. But then they argue As the owner of these unjustly procured riches may be said to be a rich man and he that hath Learning though procured by unlawfull means may be said to be a learned man so the possessor of a most unjustly obtained authority may be said to be a Magistrate and in authority I answer each of these sentences severally 1. The owner of these unjustly procured riches may be said to be a rich man say they but contrarily I say 1. An unjust procurer and possessor is no owner 2. Neither do riches denominate their unjust possessor rich 1. An unjust possessor properly is no owner There is in truth no propriety in an unjust tenure for propriety is nothing but a separate right and right and unjust possession are incompetible There aâ—e many cases wherein one may have such a possession as the law of man in a sort protects him in that is it takes no cognizance of the injuriousnesse of his holding Vide Augustinum de lib. Arbitr lib. 1. cap. 5. Greg. Tholos Syntag. Juris lib. 21. cap. 3. Grotium de Jure lib. 3. cap. 4. Sect 2. et cap. 10. Sect. 1. lib. 2. cap. 23. Sect. 13. lib. 3. cap. 7. Sect. 6. lib. 3. cap. 20. Sect. 48. but this notwithstanding the possessiâ—n being wrongfull neither it nor its humane impunity or indulgence can create a right or property in the p ssessor There is a difference betwixt a presumed or supposititious and a true owner Civilians confesse humane positive lawes do not take notice of all that is just by the law of nature scripture and conscience either to establish it or to correct the contrary Hence those distinctions betwixt that licet quod caret vitio and that quod impune fit betwixt licentiam interiâ—rem exteriorem That is a lawfulnesse which is free from fault and the lawfulnesse which is free from punishment a lawfulnesse which is internall appertaining to the conscience that is and that which is externall or in respect of the Court of man And in those things wherein the law of man interposeth there are also many cases wherein one holding a thing against all right his possession is therefore irritable or ejectable and yet because the title must be first tried and evicted the law allowes effectum quendam juris where there is nullum jus a kind of priviledge of right without right and for the present looks at him as titular proprieter that is no morall reall or warrantable proprieter but only fictitious and therefore upon eviction it ejects him 2. Neither do riches denominate their unjust possessor rich This follows upon the former For seeing the haver of unjustly gotten goods is a bare possessor or a meer holder and user of goods and not the true owner or proprietor of them he cannot from such riches be truly termed a rich man A possessor in fact or in respect of that possession which the Civilian calls a naturall deserves not to be called rich neither is he in many cases vulgarly so esteemed A thief may by robbery have gotten into his hands a great treasure yea a man may be a just occupant of a wealthy estate he may be a depositary a mutuary or an usufructuary thereof that is he may have it in his custody and use by way of trust hire or tenantry yet such a one if he be wise counts not himself a rich man in any such respect neither doth the world understanding how he hath it so repute him A meer occupancy that is eftsoon voidable by law or that is determinable by a little time or that is accountable for to another proprietor is not wont to denominate the occupant rich But to make both these points a little clearer we are to distinguish of injustice or evil dealing in the getting of wealth There is some wrong in getting which is so deep and intrinsecall to the substance of the title as that it doth vitiate and destroy its being and the contract or other way of procuring the goods by means thereof is null as to the producing of a property to the procurer And there is some injustice that reacheth not so far as to evacuate the title Every slip or deviation from the path of uprightnesse doth not make void a bargain or title about which it is used Casuists distinguish therefore betwixt that dolus malus that evil dealing which gives cause to the contract and that which is only incident or circumstantiall to it and say the former doth nullifie a contract but not the latter * Vide Bonacinam To. 2. Tractat. de Restitut Contract Disput 3. qu 1. punct 2. Sect. 2. Emanuel Sa Tit. Dolus Alsted Cas Consc Cap. 20. Reg. 9. Bp. Halls Resolut Decas 1. Cas 6. and hence we must say riches gotten with some failing of the latter sort may truly denominate a man an owner and a rich man because notwithstanding such an error or tincture he
civill politick 2. His private personall and humane capacity And this distinction is grounded upon that of power before given in Chap. 1. to wit that there is 1. A naturall or physical 2. A moral power The difference betwixt those two capacities they have assigned to be that his personall private capacity in it all that he is and doth or may and can do either naturally or ethically that is by vertue of any naturall or morall power distinct from the Civill or Magistratical His politick capacity is conferred on him and exercised by the Law it is still inclusive of the Law both as it is originall and instrument of working and it signifies onely that which he is doth and may doe legally or by the Lawes of the Land The necessiâ—y and use of this distinction is to state the rise and extent of the Magistrates authority and both the ground or reason and the measure or latitude of the Subj cts obligation unto the power This distinction hath been much used by them that have defended the late Parliaments cause See it in the fuller answer to Dr. Ferne pag. 9. 16. And the answer to Dr. Fern's Reply pag. 36. The vindication of the Treatise of Monarchy pag. 27. The Answer to Doubts and Queries upon the Oath and Covenant pag. 6. Mr. Burroughs upon Hos cap. 1. Lect. 4. pag. 111. Yet had it not its effiction from them but was unto the very same sense delivered by our Divines before as Bishop Bilson in his true difference of Christian subjection c pag. 520. Dr. Willer Hexap 〈◊〉 Rom. cap. 3. quest 17. pag. 593. Yea the substance of this distinction hath been owned by both the Parliaments and the Royal party Yea both by Prince and People hence these generally received maximes The King hath no power in him but what is invested in him by Law The Law is the measure and bottome of the Kings power He can claim nothing but what the Law gives him He is our Liâ—ge that is legall Lord we his liege or legall Subjects Whatsoever power is exercised and is not setled by Law it is not authoritative See the Kings Declaration from New-Market March 9. 1641. Judge Jenkins Judge Jenkins saith The Kings prerogative and the Subjects liberty are determined and bounded and measured by the written Law what they are We doe not hold the King to have any more power neither doth his Majestie claime any other but what the Law gives him his vindication pag 19. Treatise of Monarchy pars 3. cap. 1. and sect 2. pag 31 32. and the vindication of that Treatise pag 58 61. This distinction and the import of it if it may passe for good as it is no lesse cleare boâ—h in â—eason and Religion then generally acknowledged doth quit and clean diâ—claim and shut out this potation and title of the possessory power and that so plainly as it is supeâ—fluous fuâ—ther to forme or draw out the argument For how can you distinguish of these two capacities in a meer possessor where is his legall civill politick capacity to wit that which is conferred on or exeâ—cised by him by the Lawes distinct from his naturall private CHAP. IX SECT VIII and personall capacity and consequently where is any ground or rise of the peoples obligation unto obedience to him as their civill power SECT VIII Argueth from the being of civill power by the law of nature 8 UPon supposal of the truth of that Position that civill Magistracy is by the Law of nature for the proof of which I have said something before * Chap. 5. Sect. 4. Subsect 2. I would thus argue If the law of nature doth and from the beginning hath dictated that civil Government be in politick societies it must also be presumed to direct and authorize a way how in particular communities it may be erected and that way which it hath determined is to be practised and no other can unlesse it derive an expresse positive rule from God be admitted especially none that is contradictory or subversive to that now no man can reasonably imagine that meeer possession which must be ever supposed to be against the wills of the community and for the most part is in prejudice and wrong of anothers title yea which alway is by unnatural violent and dishonest meanes introduced and maintained can be by order or law of natur or otherwise then by encroachment upon and violation of it CHAP. IX SECT IX SECT IX Argueth from the generall solemn disclaim of Arbitrary Government 9 ARbitrary rule government is a thing that we to wit this kingdom generally did condemn and decry as a publique evill and in opposition to it we entred into a publique and solemn promise vow and protestation See the Preface to the Protestation of May 3. 1641. I do not in the least reprehend that action but upon it I argue If that were well and justly done then is not Arbitrary government an ordinance of God necessarily to be submitted to and maintained and that which may not be resisted On the other hand if Arbitrary government be an ordinance of God c. then were we externally extreamly out in the said action but then the question is what is Arbitrary government and wherein doth it and that government which we owned and took upon us to assert and stand for differ Doubtless arbitrary is opposed to lawful or legal or that which is setled by National convention pact and constitution The government then we have in that Protestation obliged our selves to is that established by Law and that which is otherwise and without controversie meer possessory dominion is otherwise we bound our selves from and against SECT X. CHAP. IX SECT X. Argueth from the impossibility of determining what measure of possession shall make a power 10 LAstly If possession will serve to make a power and to breed an obligation in the people to it I aske what sort size or degree of possession is it that will do it If you say partial possession will suffice I reply possession of a part cannot give title to the whole For that may at one and the same time be in divers opposite competitors as it hath been in England in our late Wars and is in every Territory where there are wars for Dominion One contrary party may be seised on one City or Province another of another within the same Common-wealth If then the title follow partiall possession it may appertain to many at once But this cannot be The intire title or interest over a Kingdome cannot be wholly in divers contra-distinct and opposite parties neither can the peoples allegiance be owing or yielded to many contrary claimers 1. It hath often come to passe that the forcible occupancy of one part of a Kingdome by one and another by another power hath been the occasion of dividing the same into severall and distinct Kingdoms or Principalities So was the Greek Empire parcelled after the death of Alexander
habait Of Tiberius his admission by the Senate and people let be consulted Tacitus Suetonius Arch bishop Usher and Emanuel Thesaurus * Tacit. Annal. lib. 1. cap. 2. Sueton. in Tiberio cap. 24. Usseri Annal. pag. 549 554. Of whom the last saith Sponte se Roma tyranno tradidit tempori serviens non Regi Of the most cheerfull coming in of Cajus Caligula let Suetonius testifie †Sueton. in Caio cap. 13 14. And of Claudius see Josephus Cluverus and Mr. Lightfoot * Josephus de Bel. Jud. lib. 2. cap. 10. Antiqu. lib. 19 cap. 3. Cluver hist lib. 8. pag. 267. Lightfoot on Acts Ann. Christi 42. Sect. 4 5. Of Nero Tacitus †Tacit. Annal. lib. 12. cap. 14. If against the validity of the consent given to any of these it be alledged that it was enforced by armes and therefore void It may be said 1. Unto some of them as Augustus Caligula and Nero the consent of the Roman S a e is related to have been such as leaveth no colour for this objâ—ction 2. It will be a very hard yea I think an impossible thing for any at this distance of time and in such an imperfection of historical narration of circumstances to bring sufficient ground upon which to conclude any such awe to have been upon the Senate and people at the time of their consent given to any or to such of them as might be in the Throne at the mission of this Epistle as may serve to make the said consent invalid Let the definition which Civilians and Casuists give of that terrour which may annull a civill act to wit that it must be 1. From a cause extrinsical 2. Probable 3. Grievous 4. Unjust 5. Impressed on purpose to overawe to such an act * Metus 1. Extrinsecus 2. Probabilis 3. Atrox 4. Injustus 5. Incussus ad hoc Vide Bonacinam Tom. 2. Tract 2. de Restit Disp 3. qu. 1. punct 2. sect 3. Et Tom. 1. Tract 2. qu. 3. punct 8. Et Greg. Thol Synt. Jur. lib. 21. cap. 2. sect 3. Et lib. 36. cap. 25. sect 5. he made out to have been then the case There is no great ground of presumption for it that I met with in story in any of them save in that of Julius Caesar which will no way concern the title of them that followed particularly of that Nero in whose reign the writing of this Epistle is computed to fall 3. There are that conceive though in foro civili promises made under some kind of feare or force are voyded that is are made politically null yet by the law of nature and so in the Court of Conscience a contract notwithstanding any force impelling the contractor is obliging †Grotius de Jure Bel. lib. 2. cap. 11. sect 7. SECT II. CHAP. X SECT II. Subsect 1. Object Of Christs paying and commanding Tribute-paying to Caesar of his owning Pilates power Of Souldiers serving the Romans without the disallowance of the Baptist Christ c. Object 2. CHrist himselfe payed and commanded the Jewes to pay Tribute to Caesar acknowledged Pilates power which was the Romans to be of God and we read of diverse souldiers and officers under the Romans with whom John the Baptist Christ and his Apostles had to do and none of them that we read of ever reprehended any of them for or disswaded them from that service But the Romans were usurpers over Judea Subsection 1. The question whether the Romans were usurpers over Judea discussed and concluded negatively Answer 1. IF the Romans were usurpers over Judea there is something of an argument otherwise there is none in all this But how will this be proved Most of the Authors of this objection do no more for this then cite the names of some learned and good Authors affirming it and so they take it fâ—r granted But for their full answer and the clearing of this I shall 1. Scan a little this their common proof by such humane assertion 2. Then consider what reason may suggest to us in this matter 3. And then remove some other reasons pretending the conviction of the Romans of usurpation For the former the assertion of sundry learned Authors that so it was though such do in transitis aliud agentes affirme the Romanes in the dayes of our Saviour upon earth to have been usurpers over Judeaâ— yet is not their bare affirmative to be taken for an evidence in such a businesse viz. sufficient to state the sense of a Scripture in controversie or to extend or limit a Scripture rule of practice such as this is Their ground for so saying would be seen to such an end and untill then I shall with as good authority I think deny it Not that I oppose mine own negation as to be as firm and credible as the assertion of any such learned men but because I have the authority of I deeme as learned and good Authors denying the same and asserting the lawfulness of the Roman government over the Jewish Nation by consent ere this given to it whereby it stood cleared of usurpation There is a little Treatise printed about 7 yeares since called An exercitation concerning usurped powers which pag. 87 88. hath cited some passages out of Josephus to prove the Jewes giving up themselves to the Roman Dominion antecedently to this time which the objection concerns I shall refer the Reader to these adding here one or two more out of the same Author whose testimony in this matter is absolutely the greatest of humane and then produce the attestation of others of best note and after that subjoyn a shâ—rt vindica iâ—n of what that exercta ion had before given A further testimony out of Josephus is in these words of Agrippa in his oration to the Jewes at Jerusalem a little before their siege and destruction by the Romans for their rebellion For servitude is grievous when new Joseph de Bel. Jud. lib. 2. cap. 16. and it seems just to strive to avoid it but he that is once brought under it and then makes defection appears to be rather a rebellious servant then a lover of liberty Therefore it behoved when Pompey entred into this Province to have used all meanes against the Romans entry but yee that have received an hereditary obedience and are far inferiour in meanes to those who first submitted how can ye now thinke of making resistance to the whole Roman Empire This passage is clear enough for the Jewes reception of the Roman Rule under Pompey Another may be that which the same Author hath in the relating of an occurrence which happened about seven yeares after this first close of this Nation with the Roman in subjection which was this Alexander the son of Aristobulus who was the head of that party that fell under the force of the Roman sword and still repined at their government beginning to make insurrection against the Romans was supprest by Gabinius
or that hope to prevail with them which I should promise my self in the undertaking Deo laus omnis FINIS The Contents THE entry and partition of the work pag. 1. CHAP. I. Of the subject here spoken of power the powers p. 3. Sect. 1. An enquiry wâ—â—ther power be put for the person invested who power or for the abstract the office seated in him p. 3. Sect. 2. The main enquiry to wit what kind of power it is which the Apostle intends in those words power powers p. 5. Subsection 1. Of the force of the woâ—d 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 5. Subsection 2. Power distinguisht into Naturall and Morall p. 15. Subsection 3. That Moâ—all power oâ—ly is intended in this woâ—d power in this place p. 23. Subsection 4. What is required to the making of a Morall power p. 29. CAHP. II. Of the Tearm of God p. 40. Sect. 1. The diverse Scripture-acceptations of this tearm of God p. 41. Sect. 2. For the clearing of the Question which of these acceptations are proper for this Text divers things discussed p. 46. Subsection 1. The difference betwixt the Narrative and the Legislative word of God and that Scripture predictions are not a warrant for us to act upon in the things predicted p 46. Subsection 2. Certain propositions to explain those severall wayes wherein things are said to be of God p. 49. Subsection 3. Of Gods working in humane actions whether good or evill and the difference betwixt the being of the one of God and of the other p 51. Subsection 4. How the hand of God is clear from the sin of man when it actâ—th in mans sinfull action and from injustice in punish him for that action p. 57. CHAP. III. A Digressive enquiry concerning the voice or declarative use of Divine providence p. 61. Sect. 1. The usefulnesse of the said enquiry p. 62. Sect. 2. In what sense the word providence is taken in this enquiry p. 63. Sect. 3. The question discussed whether Divine providence be and wherein it is regulating or declarative of the will of God to be done by us p. 63. Subsection 1. That providence doth declare something of God p. 64. Subsection 2. That providence doth declare somewhat of Gods counsels p. 65. Subsection 3. That providence doth declare to us that God is and what he is p 67. Subsection 4. Certain distinctions premised for the discovery how far providence is declarative of the wil of God which we are to doe p. 68. Subsection 5. Five propositions explaining wherein providence is and wherein it is not declarative of Gods will to be done by us and how providence where it deâ—ivers not the rule may yet determine its obligation to the particular matter p. 69. Subsection 6. That Dominion is not founded in eventual providence p. 89. Subsection 7. That providence alone or without the Rule of Gods word doth not signifie to us the allowing or disallowing will of God in matters either of human right or positive institutim p. 92. CHAP. IV. The Question how the text saith thâ— power is of God stated and resolved p. 97. CHAP. V. Of the tearm ordained of God p. 101. Sect. 1. Of the severall acceptions of the word ordained being put for an action of God p. 102. Sect. 2. What the speciall and proper acception of the Term ordained of God is in this Text p. 107. Sect. 3. Reasons to prove that Gods ordination of the power is preceptive or warrantive not meerly providential p. 109. Sect. 4. Gods preceptive ordination of the power explained particularly how it is communicated to this or that particular Magistrate p. 120. Subsection 1. Ordination contains institution and constitution and what each of these signifies p. 121. Subsection 2. That institution of the power is of God and whether by the law of nature in man innocency p. 123. Subsection 3. That constitution of the power or putting in of the particular Magistrate is of God and how or by what means he doth it p. 124. Subsection 4 That Gods ordination is conveyd to the particular Magistrate by the consent of the community p. 136. Subsection 5. Three other wayes of conveying into persons a title to Soveraign Magistracy examiâ—ed viz. 1. That of Father-hood and primogeniture 2. That of Conquest 3. That of voluntary benefiâ—iallnesse by protection p. 144. Subsection 6. A solution of some objections made against the passing of Gods ordination unto the person of the Supreme Magistrate by the consent of the people p. 167. Sect. 5. That distinction which some give betwixt the power and the acquisition or assumption of the power and its aptnesse to resolve the question Whether a violent intruder into Dominion be among the powers in this Text that are of God ordained of God considered p. 191. CHAP. VI. Of the universal negative note in the words there is no power but of God p. 204. Sect. 1. The originall is not in those words no power but of God expressely universall p. 205. Sect. 2. The severall qualifications which sentences in terms universall do admit p. 207. Sect. 3. The sutablenesse of some of those qualifications of universalls to this supposed universall in the Text p. 210. CHAP. VII Of the being of the powers in that proposition the powers that be are ordained of God p. 216. Sect. 1. The question moved wherein consists the being of the power or what it is that makes the power to be p. 217. Sect. 2. Reasons to prove that prevalency or actual possession of the seat of Government doth not make or inferre one to be the power p. 218. Subsection 1. Argument 1. Taken from the nature of 〈◊〉 p. 218. Subsection 2. Argument 2. From the absurdity of admitting Satans and the Popes usurped powers upon the ground of actual rule p. 220. Subsection 3. Argument 3. From the custome of hereditary Kingdomes accounting the succeeding to be King in the moment of the death of his predecessor without actual investure p. 225. Subsection 4. Argument 4. From the lawfulnesse and usâ—fulnesse of fundamental Lawes and provisions for the future continuance of Government by succession and against encroachers upon the same p. 226. Subsection 5. Argument 5. From the practice of Nations owning them for their Soveraign powers who have not actually ruled p. 228. Subsection 6. Argument 6. From another practice of Kingdomes their admitting some to the place of Supreme command whom they acknowledge not to be the Supreme power p. 233. Subsection 7. Argument 7. From the approved custome of determining controverted Titles unto Soveraignty by arbitration p. 234. Subsection 8. Argument 8. From the expressions of the holy Ghost in Scripture owning men for Kings in relation to the Kingdomes of which they have been unpossessed p. 236. Subsection 9. Argument 9. Taken from the nature of Magistracy p. 245. Subsection 10. Argument 10. From Gods expresse disallowance of some in actual command p. 249. CHAP. VIII Some Arguments to prove that by the power in the Text is to be
understood a power lawfull as to title and not a meer possessory power taken from the context p. 252. Sect. 1. A consideration of the duty to be yielded to the power in those words veâ—s 1. Be subject p. 253. Sect. 2. Of the term higher annexed to the powers vers 1. p. 259. Sect. 3. Of the whole style higher powers vers 1. p. 262. Sect. 4. Of the resistance of the power concluded under the penalty of damnation vers 2. p. 263. Sect. 5. The opposition and distance which the Text puts betwixt him that is the power and him that is the resister of the power vers 2. p. 269. Sect. 6. Of the worke of the power described vers 3 4. p. 274. Sect. 7. Of the Magistrates style the Minister of God vers 4 6. p. 279. Sect. 8. Of the Magistrates bearing the Sword vers 4. p. 281. CHAP. IX Some other Arguments for the conclusion insisted on in the former Chapter taken from other Mediums p. 283. Sect. 1. Argueth from the sense of some Scriptures forbidding the retaliating of evil ibid. Sect. 2. Argueth from the Prophets comparison of the Jewish State under the Predatory power of the Chaldean unto that of such Animals as have no Ruler over them p 287. Sect. 3. Argueth from the nullity of a self-created power declared negatively in Christs positively in Babylons case p. 288. Sect. 4. Argueth from the sundry absurdities following upon the attributing of a meer possessory power unto God as his ordinance p. 290. Sect. 5. Argueth from that State-maxim Politicall power is originally in the people and in the Magistrate onely derivatively from them p. 294. Sect. 6. Argueth from the rise or nature of Civil Government p. 295. Sect. 7. Argueth from the received dâ—st nction of a Soveraigns legall or publique and his personall or private capacity p. 297. Sect. 8. Argueth from the being of Civil power by the Law of Nature p. 299. Sect. 9. Argueth from the generall and solemn disclaim of Arbitrary Government p. 300. Sect. 10. Argueth from the impossibility of determining what measure of possession shall make a power p. 301. CHAP. X. Answers to some objections and doubts concerning that sense of the Text which the aforegoing Chapters have stated and confirmed p. 303. Sect. 1 The Objection that this Text commandeth the Roman Christians obedience to the then Roman Emperor as the Supreme Power of God ordained in that Empire and that he was a Vsurper answered p. 304. Sect. 2. The Objection of Christs paying and commanding Tribute-paying to Caesar of his owning Pilates power of Souldiers serving the Roman without disallowance of the Baptist Christ or his Apostles answered p. 311. Subsection 1. The question whether the Romans were Vsurpers over Judea in our Saviours time discussed p. 311. Subsection 2. Of Christs paying Tribute Matth. 17. p. 326. Subsection 3. Of Christs commanding Tribute-paying to Caesar p. 327. Subsection 4. Of Christs acknowledging Pilates power to be of God p. 329. Subsection 5. Of the Souldiers serving the Roman without the disallowance of the Baptist Christ or his Apostles p. 329. Sect. 3. The prejudice which it is alledged the requiring a good title to the making one a power ordained of God may cast upon all Governments inasmuch as their beginning is ordinarily either unknown or known to have been violent weighed p. 330. Sect. 4. The force of the examples of the Jewes submitting to the Babylonian Persian and Graecian Kings and of the Christians to others and the command the Jewes had of submitting to the Babylonian viewed p. 334. Subsection 1. Of the examples of the Jewes and Christians submission to the supposed Vsurpers over them p. 335. Subsection 2. Of the command the Jewes had of submitting to the Babylonian p. 337. Sect. 5. The Allegation of the supposed goodnesse which may be in the administrations of a meer possessory power considered p. 340. Sect. 6. Of the sayings of some Protestant Authors interpreting this Text not only to require obedience to present Rulers whatever their Title be but to justifie their being ordained of God p. 342. Sect. 7. Many examples of exemplary persons disowning or opposing meer possessory powers in such recognitions and rights as are due to the powers ordained of God p. 349. Sect. 8. Three other Enquiries spoken to viz. whether the power of a meer possessor may not be made use of whether subjection to it be not lawfull and necessary and if it be whether the subjects conscience or practice be at all concerned in the justnesse or unjustnesse of the power that is over them p. 364. Sect. 9. The conclusion is with a short view of the question what kinde of consent of the Community it is which is requisite to the conveying of Gods ordination to the power p. 371. FINIS