As Sapiens semper incipit a fine saith the Philosopher in that the end sets all a-working let us consider how God in the conveying it out of himself for Administrations in the Political and Civil World did primarily intend the due ordering of things by it according to the rules of Justice Piety and Religion that all might concenter in Gods Glory and Mans Good Order Truth and Justice being the only Foundations and Pillars of Government For as in the lesser World of mixed Bodies due temper and moderation of parts and in the rational World Tranquillity of Soul by the subordination of inferiour Faculties and Passions to the Soveraignty of Reason preserves them so in the great World propriety and enjoyment of our just and native Rights with punishment of Offences which the mind of the Law rule of Justice and Right the measure of all things according to Equity and Reason under the Supreme Head is that which preserves a happy Harmony and sweet Society amongst men And for this end God gave his first Commission to Moses only even Regal Power which before was Natural and Paternal in Adam both for expedition in Affairs of State which could not be acted by many and the prevention of Factions and Schisms that Popular States are always subject unto but this under certain Fundamental Rules though he had immediate Revelation to shape himself by yet with an absolute Power where Gods Law did not restrain him to be derived to all Kings for ever who still are or ought to be the Depositories of that Supreme Authority as to make War and Peace to call and dissolve Assemblies both in State and Church Affairs which as the greatest Essentials of Regality p Num. 10.1 2 8. and 29.1 were only Originally in God himself but since exercised and practised by all succeeding Kings as may appear by multitudes of Scriptures q Jos 1.17 and 34.18 1 Chro. 15. 23.3.6 2 Chro. 15.14 20.21 25.5 34.31.32.33 and the Stories of all Ages so as none durst in former times have refused to come when called by them r Num. 20.13 though for matters of Conscience or a Diana unless some Demetrius or Crafts-man led on the Rout as one observes upon the Text. s Acts 19.4 23 36. Nor is this only of Divine Institution but founded in Nature as hath been shewed in that all the Conjugations of Sinews and Strength meet in the Head the Fountain of Motion from whence all the Members derive their Operations and practised among the Heathen by the Light of that Law only as in Pharaoh t Gen. 41.44 and the Character God gave the Jews of their Kings when they asked one after the manner of the Nations u 1 Sam. 8. From whence we may conclude That Moses had all Monarchical and Absolute Power in respect of the Jews radically in him even Jus Regale w Deut. 33.3 and was in Rectitudine Rex as well in Name as Power x vers 4.5 which afterwards was transferred upon Saul as a Punishment to the People for rejecting it in those God had appointed to conduct them by the immediate assistance of his Holy Spirit But that he ever left or gave Commission for the exercise of this Power to a Community can never be shewed Yet here God leaves not Tyrants to their own unbridled range and rapine as the Wild Beasts of the Forests without a rule both of Direction and Obligation as hath been shewed which ought to be the measure of all just Power y Deut. 17. Gen. 17.6.49.10 though he did foretel what did or should follow for he no sooner establishes the Throne upon David and his Seed but does it under a Covenant of Obedience z 2 Chro. 6.16.7.17 2 Kin. 11.6 Ezech. 37.12 by the fail of which his Crown was forfeited to God only not Men upon any Compact or Condition betwixt him and the People a 2 Sam. 5. Yet had there been a stipulation between them the violation thereof could not have evacuated his Power no more than a Fathers severity b 1 Tim. 6. 1 Pet. 2.18 can cancel a Child's Obedience it being only a peculiar of God's by whom Kings reign c Prov. 8.15 16. to remove and set them up d Dan. 2.21 which made Nazianzen in his first Oration against Julian condemn those that would not depend upon God's Providence and expect the execution of his Counsels upon Wicked Princes whose hearts are in his hands and He turneth them whithersoever he listeth e Prov. 21.1 but would be their own Gods and Deliverers when Tyrants are God's hand upon us for our Sins So Peter Martyr upon Rom. 13. out of Dan. 4. Nay Calvin saith It is our fault if so great a Blessing be turned into our Punishment it being but a just retaliation for our disobedience to God For Secundum merita populi disponuntur corda Rectorum according to the Deserts of a people the hearts of Governours are disposed and the just Judge punisheth the faults of the Prince many times upon them that had caused him to offend saith St. Gregory f Ep. l. 2. Ep. 6. So as we may justly invert that of David a King to his People and say as Wicked Subjects of a pious Prince Let thy Judgments O Lord fall upon us but that innocent Lamb what hath he done that he should become a Sacrifice for us who ought to sacrifice our selves for him since it is our Rebellions against Thee that have occasioned in us this Rebellion against so good a Prince g 2 Sam. 21.1 that by them thou mightest take occasion to be the more severe in thy Judgments upon our Nation However let us consider there is something good in the highest Tyranny and ever to be preferred to Anarchy For when there was no King in Israel every one did oppress his brother and act after the Lust of his own heart not only rejecting their Civil but Spiritual Obedience to God h Jud. 17.2.17.6.18 whereas the Oppression of a Tyrant most commonly extends but to some so as the good or evil Estate of Israel seemed to depend upon the having or not having a King And having thus shewed how the Power of Kings is absolute without dependency upon their Subjects though limited in regard of their Soveraign God I shall proceed to the exercise of it and shew how that may be bounded and moderated by Compact the Indulgence of good Princes and municipal Laws What that Power is and how limited 2. I say as God is Goodness and Power and every perfection in himself so he communicates of them in some degree to all though most to Kings his moving Statues upon Earth especially of those Attributes which most concerns the dispensation of Mercy Justice and Judgment to the World For Kings are maxime proxime seconds to God as Tertullian saith above all others and as it were his immediate Deputies upon Earth to
Govern us according to Principles of Common Equity and his revealed Will and such other Rules as the Indulgence of good Princes from whom all other subordinate Powers derive i Exod. 18. 1 Pet. 12. as the Moon borrows her Light from the Sun many times submit themselves to For thus though Monarchical Power be the same in root in all Kings it doth not spread nor grow to one and the same height in regard of Exercise but is with the free determination of their own Wills limited ab externo by some positive Law or Custome which only obliges so far as the Law extends and to that always except it be in Cases of extremity and visible necessity so as this restraint is Moral and Legal in it self and in regard of mixture of persons with the King many times in the Exercise not Supremacy of his Power From whence proceed the Voluntary Suffrages of all those he hath joyned with himself in the fabrication of this Government as in the making of Laws in our Parliaments But this Indulgence of Kings ought to be always free never forced Kings having sometimes the Obligation of an Oath they submit to to bind their Consciences but never of a Militia to bind their Hands if Caesar have his due For though in Democratical and Aristocratical Common-weales the practice be contrary we must consider them only as Governments of Gods Permission as a punishment upon a Nation for For the Transgression of a Land many are the Princes thereof k Prov. 28.2 and not of his Ordination but differing as much in Constitution as a sick and a sound man weakness and perfection and are as a Dwarf in nature if not a perversion of it For the Power of Arms with other things for protection which none else ought to assume are so essential to the being of a King by Divine Institution who owes protection to his people from all violence Foraign and Domestick as well as they him Obedience as he cannot divest himself of them because they are Fundamental and Inherent in his Office and one of those Principles out of which it is elemented l Num. 10. Deut. 33.3.4 1 Sam. 8. 1 Pet. 2. Otherwise he bears the Sword in vain or rather but the Scabbard when others have the Weapon with Endeavours to sheath it in his Bowels Nor is it more impious than unreasonable for to affirm men can convey more than they are invested with or that any should delegate a Power over others lives that hath not an immediate Commission for it from God since no man hath Power over his own nor can shed Blood though under the outward Formalities of Justice without being Guilty of Murder having no just Calling to it the usurpation of an unjust Power being much worse than the most Tyrannical use of the Sword can be in the hands where God hath placed it even in Kings and such as act by Commission from them m 1 Pet. 2.13 14. Ge. 9.5 6. So that as our Saviour said to Peter All they that take the Sword shall perish by the Sword n Mat. 26. because drawn without the consent of the lawful Magistrate o Mat. 22.20 Job 19.11 and if we once come but to say with the Sons of Belial Who is Saul or David that we should serve them that of the Atheist will soon follow p Job 26. Who is the Lord that we should serve him in that those that reject his Ordinances or act not according to them renounce God and then no Superiour will be owned but their own Lusts which always possessed the Throne when Israel had no acknowledged King q Judg. 17. and produced the Effects of Beasts not Men. For as in all Popular States there are many Eyes to discern what is best so there are many Heads to contrive their private Designs many Ambitions to satisfie many Lusts to obey many Injuries to revenge many Mouths to fill and many Hands to fight for Sin 's Empire but Man's Slavery Whereas a good King will restrain those mischiefs and in all just things make Salutem Populi supremam Legem believing he cannot condescend too much to the corresponding Affections of the People In that the favour of the King should be like the Dew upon the Grass r Prov. 19.12 to nourish and refresh them and make them produce Fruits of Obedience to him it being in the Body Politique as in the Natural an equal mixture of those Principles out of which they are elemented an even poyse of humours a due regulation of all the Powers in regard of exercise with symbolizing qualities in each towards one another that preserves a State Upon which grounds the happy constitution of our Kingdom according to the Rules of Equity is founded in three Estates each having a Negative Voice that none might be obliged to any Law but by their own Suffrage for in our Laws as in sounds the Harmony of all makes the Musick So as a middle temper between Supreme Power and Common Interest is that of which our Parliaments are fundamentally composed which have the Legislative and Supreme Power considering the King as a part of them for the making of Statutes as a measure between both as Nerves of a Body Politique and to be as Bonds of a Civil Life in that like the Center in the Circumference they do or ought to stand equal to all parts and with the Pin in the Balance upright to weigh unto every one their due according to Justice and Equity That for the King 's weighty Care and Protection of us we might pay him an ingenuous Subjection not Servitude but Obedience Now though a Derivative Power cannot set new bounds to Soveraign Power it may and ought to stand to keep those the Soveraign Power hath assented to by a Law in all ways but force Prayers and Tears in Extremities being as St. Ambrose saith the only Weapons we have Commission from God to use For in such Cases if they prevail not s 1 King 8. 1 Sam. 8.18 we must bear the Indignation of the Lord whatever it be because we have sinned against him the submission of his Will being the only way to compass our own t Psal 37. and to be protected by him in the greatest miseries that can fall upon a State u Isa 43.2 in that he is the Lord and besides him there is no Saviour w vers 11. who makes the Army and the Power to lie down together and to rise up no more x vers 17. Thus all Magistrates as in the Septemviri of the Medes and Persians y Dan. 6.14 Esdr 1.19 are Bounders in the Exercise of but are no Sharers Originally in the Supreme Power which is ever to be submitted to though not obeyed in contrary to Divine z Act. 5.29 and sometimes Humane National Laws a Phil. 4. For the just execution of which Magistrates distributive are to take care as the two
committed all Judgment to the Son c. And therefore herein a good King ought ever to make God's revealed Will and the known Laws of which his sworn Judges are to be the Interpreters the measure and rule of his proceedings and that under pain of Damnation a severity from God infinitely above the coercion of men nor shall their punishment be less who usurp the Exercise of this Justice without his Commission Thirdly Mercy must all derive from the King as a Flower that groweth only in his Garland a Gem which can shine only from the Diadem of Princes For Jus vitae necis a Power of pardoning Condemned Persons and delivering from the Terrour of the Law though in some cases limited as in wilful Murders and the like belongs only to him being there deposited by God himself and in no other Representative whatsoever so that where Regal Government is setled the Execution of any man though wicked and deserving to dye by the Law is wicked if not having the King's Commission for it Fourthly Honour the ennobling of the Blood is to derive from him when Vertue or some Heroick Acts dignifie the Person for without that he that receives it is but a Label which bears the Wax without any impression of the Seal or as a rotten Post that bears a glorious Escutcheon But for the more clear manifestations of this his Ornamenta Regia Regal Ornaments as a Crown a Throne a Scepter and the like with the universally acknowledged Rights to them speak him to be the only Spring from whence it can flow z 2 King 12. â—2 1 Kings 10.8 and ought still to issue in lesser and greater Streams by it to enrich the humble Valleys and make them shew gay when adorned with those Flowers of the Crown for the encouragement of Vertue as he beareth the Sword to cut down Offenders and prevent their growth And as a Testimony hereof the Romans had wont to send to Foreign Kings in League with them an Ivory-Sceptre a Royal Robe and Chair of State a Tacit. Annal. l. 4. to show in Hieroglyphick what they were Fifthly Kings owe an Example of Vertue and Piety to their Subjects in that instruimur praeceptis sed dirigimur exemplis saith Seneca the Actions of great men have a Compulsory Power in them Regis ad exemplum are an Eye-Catechism and as the Basilisk by seeing they many times kill our Vices or by being seen invite us to Vertue Examples being the shortest way of teaching For from that Milk we usually as from our Mothers Breasts suck our good or bad Inclinations b Gal. 2.14 Nay like the first Mover they carry all the Inferiour Orbs with them as the first Deer the Herd When bad Kings with the ill Influence of the Planets kill more deadly than Poyson in Plants because coming from a more glorious Body though the other be more Infectious But herein we in this Nation have the advantage of all others For if ever the Rayes of Vertue had a Power of affimilating others into their own Divine Nature the Beams of Goodness that shine upon us from the Example of our dear Soveraign who as a Combination or Conjunction of Graces both Divine and Moral hath all in himself that a finite and limited Being is capable of must needs have a prevalency over us Or if they make us not better they will make us much worse as they will rise up in Judgment against us to our greater Condemnation And I am confident as he is an Active Example of Vertue so he would be Passive to teach us how to suffer in a good Cause though it were to pass through a Red Sea of his own Blood for the good of his People Pelican-like to nourish us with the Spirits that flow out of his own Breast and by those Beams to reflect a more glorious Lustre than in his Meridian and height of Greatness But not to suffer my Zeal to carry me besides my purpose there is amongst many others one part of Duty most especially incumbent upon Kings For 6. Lastly as Kings reign by God so they should rule for him and the highest good of their People in matters of Religion both in maintaining the Substance and Essential Parts of it in their Vigour and Power by Active Compulsions and Humane Restraints to force the outward man to Obedience in things good in themselves and to prescribe such Rules Methods and Boundaries in things indifferent as may bring all to Uniformity in Worship and may stand as a Wall or Fence to God's Vineyard against the Invasions of the little Foxes of Schisms and Factions And this not only for Decency Order and Significancy but as that without which Religion it self cannot subsist For though they are no parts of it but Circumstantials Essentials in a Well-formed Church cannot be maintained without them no more than a Tree can be preserved to live without its Bark or Majesty in a King without Reverence For that like the Skin to the Body preserves it both in Being and Beauty which occasioned St. Paul's Precept of having all things be done decently and in order that is according to appointment as the Original c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will bear it so Dr. Hammond renders the Words d 1 Cor. 14.40 For take away those Regulations of our Publick Devotions which are as the Hemme that strengthens the Garment and keeps it Uniform all would resolve into Rents and Schisms Chaos and Confusion So as if the Church of God his enclosed Garden be not fenced by good Laws for Conformity all Methods of Devotion are lost and the Bores of the Forrest unruly men of Factious Spirits will soon break in to destroy and root it up and offer nothing but the blind and lame to God in loose and untruss'd postures unbecoming the Greatness of an Earthly Prince in our Addresses to them much more to our God e Mal. 1. by it to make their Superiours bend to them if pertinacious obstinacy could do it when they should bow to their Superiours f Rom. 13. 1 Pet. 2. Eph. 4. and 6. according to the Oeconomy of Nature it self where the inferiour Orbs are to be guided and move by the highest Spheres Otherwise the whole Fabrick would be unhinged and fall in pieces or at least grow weak by separation For a Dispensation to several Forms of Worship in one Church would prove an Act rather of Division than Comprehension encrease Emulation and Factions and plant a Seminary for a continued Schism In that there could be no such Encouragement but there would be scandal and a way of seduction in it to all Orthodox Protestants and a Transmigration of Souls amongst themselves from the Father to the Son with Encouragements and Supports from their proâ—use Zeal of the Proselites to their Opinions So as they would strengthen with time in that Novelties never want Courtship and Adorers though the old way is Regia via God's way and
a course of sin w Isa 1. 8. Defendendo For he that defends or maintains a bad Cause or Action espouseth the guilt of it in that He that justifyeth the Wicked or condemneth the Just is abominable before or unto God x Prov. 27.15 and becomes the greater sinner in that it hath more of deliberation and perhaps less of Temptation in it than the other had 9. Praecedendo By giving ill example For if I pluck up the first pale in anothers Inclosure and engage others by my Example to lay it waste and common I am guilty of their Trespass as he that wilfully makes or inlarges any cuts in a Sea-bank is liable to repair the damages any receives by those Waters For thus Jeroboam made Israel to sin saith the Text even exemplum dando as well as imperando and Peter the Jews y Gal. 2. And to these I might add many other ways as a learned Divine hath observed to me by which we derive others sins upon our selves but is not this enough to make us vigilant over our Souls since there are so many Avenues for sin to approach us and that it is of so subtil and insinuating a nature as tho the Guards be never so well kept it will sometimes enter by a false pass or glide in by the advantage of that gloomy darkness that over-shadows the best men So as we need add ballast to our sail Examination to every Action to poise and prove it by it being a safe and noble no melancholy thing as one wittily observes to be always in ploughing weeding and worming a Conscience in removing Straws as well as Loggs occasions of Temptations by trying and testing every thought word and work to make them currant by filing the Iron and melting the Ore to clear and smooth the greatest difficulties lest our spungy souls apt to receive any Liquor suck in and embrace any sin swell us into such an immense body of sin as through custom or impenitency should become too big to enter into the Bethesda of Christ's Blood when what comes there is ever cleansed and cured And therefore though prudence in declining evils of punishment be commanded z Mat. 10.16 it must always be with Innocency So as prudens simplicitas is the greatest Policie and best Fort to retreat to in all dangers when the least ungirting a man's self or allowed liberty in any thing evil by outward complyances or disguises is but a prostitution of him to contempt and would insecure the Interests of all men and make all things uneasie to them in matters of Trust and Confidence the period as one saith of cares and only Pillow of rest for man's Spirit when a pleasing entertainment to the Senses may as a Chamber of death and Magazine of Corruption become by its stench Poyson to the Brain and surely no man is the better for anothers artificial sweetness that feels the noisomness of his putrid and corrupted Lungs break in upon him through the thin Cloud of a perfumed breath And he that strowes a Pits mouth with Flowers and covers it with an Icy-crust instead of a Cristal Pavement for others fall and ruine hath but more of Artifice not less of Malice than a professed Enemy but is more dangerous and destructive to all Humane Society so as dissimulation is in no case to be allowed being ill in it self and the parent of so many mischiefs Quest 1. But admit God should for our Sins give us up for a time to the Arbitrary Tyranny of our State-Deformers and permit de facto a change in the face or rather a total Metamorphosis in our Government how far may we obey Answ Why then men may in reference to their Power while it continues and they command lawful things obey but not to the Authority For once admit of a Conscientious Obedience as due to an Usurped Power no State in the World shall ever be free from the Treacherous Practises and daring Attempts of ambitious Spirits or be left means to recover their just Rights if lost when Power of Arms ought only to support the just Power of Princes and not by Power to set up an Illegal and Usurped one Yet Conquest sometimes if grounded upon a just War which cannot be between King and Subjects may challenge a Conscientious Obedience as well as a King that comes to a Crown by a just descent as ours yet the persons of such many times raise a Title from common Humane and Municipal Laws also to their Subjects Obedience and many times by a mixture of both Humane and Divine weave the strongest Thread men being always more ready and prone to conform to their own than God's Laws And therefore it was the wisdom of our former Monarchs comprehensively to engage their People in the several Representatives to all those Statutes they were to be governed by constituting their Parliaments of the three Estates of Men Clergy Nobles and Commons by that temper and even poyse of Power in regard of the exercise of it to bring in all to a chearful Obedience when their known Laws were the known Boundaries and middle things between Supreme Power and Common Right By this exrtacting as it were the purest Essence and Spirits out of all other Forms of Government to make one perfect one including the rest as man doth the Inferiour Creatures having reason proper to himself sense common with Bruits and Vegetation with Plants for thus we have Monarchy in our King Aristocracy in the House of Peers and Democracy in the House of Commons And to prevent any exorbitancies in any one all must concur to the making any Law with the King's assent not otherwise and let him that affects either Arbitrary Power or Parity but begin it in his own house and he will never wish it should spread into the State of which he is a Member Quest 2. But may I not act under an Vsurped Power or a Power I conceive to be so nor seemingly comply to preserve my self Answ No not in any case to own the Authority but Power I am passive under some compulsion and that in lawful things OBJECTION II. Object 2. But if a People depose their lawful King for a Tyrannical and exorbitant use of a just Power or to preserve Religion it self be it by War or otherwise and by assuming the Power place it in many or one that wholly imployes it for the maintenances of the true Religion and just exercise of the known Laws may I lawfully and conscientiously obey him Answ That it is not lawful to acknowledge such an Authority just and in that notion to obey it because the Supreme Power in any one Person is derived from God and is Paternal founded in Adam upon Natural and Paternal Principles never collated by man but is absolute and unlimitted in regard of Humane Influences upon it in its first collation c 1 Sam. 8. though limited in respect of Divine Precept d Deut. 17. in regard of
A DISCOURSE CONCERNING SUPREME POWER AND COMMON RIGHT At first Calculated for the Year 1641. and now thought fit to be published By a Person of Quality LONDON Printed for R. Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in S. Paul's Church-yard 1680. TO THE READER THIS little following Treatise concerning the Origination of Paternal Power and the Derivation of all others from it with Reflections upon Regal Government and the Relative Duties both of King and People to each other is for Substance only a Summary Collection from the best Authorities of such necessary and Practical Notions as might have steer'd us in the most benighted and tempestuous times of the late unhappy and almost unparallel'd Rebellion and keep us within the Bounds of Duty and Allegiance both to God and our King But it lost its usefulness being calculated for the high Distempers of that Age only by miscarrying in the Press and for some years irrecoverably concealed and kept from its designed end by one since dead who communicated to me the following Discourse which hath for some years layn in my hands as buried unless something of the like Contagion should break out again and give it a new Resurrection as an Antidote against the spreading of so popular an Infection But now I am prevailed with upon the sad Prospect of things that threaten a relapsing into the like Dangers by Popish Plots and those many Sects Distractions and Divisions amongst us some of whose Principles agree with the rigid Scotch Presbyters and Jesuits in their Tenents concerning the deposing of Kings and the forfeiture of their Regal Power into the People and their Representatives to shew both from Scripture Antiquity the Doctrine Articles Canons Homilies and Liturgy of the Church of England which all agree with our ancient Laws and many late Acts of Parliament That our Kings are only submitted by God to the direction not coaction of Humane Laws as Mr. Faulkner in his Treatise upon that Subject hath lately and most learnedly made appear Yet Kings are not unconfined by the Laws of God and our Kingdom which set just bounds both to King and People to regulate their Actions by as a middle thing between Supreme Power and Common Interest And our Municipal Laws may be straiten'd or enlarged in regard of the Soveraign's Exercise of Power but cannot influence or affect the Power it self which is of God to alter or enervate the nature of it Nor can it oblige to any thing foro divino but what is just in the means as well as good in the end and safe in regard of Humane Prudence by which Rules we have much reason to believe our Superiours as they yet have done will take their measures and neither countenance nor indulge the least evil of sin to avoid the greatest evil of punishment Yet if God for our almost unpardonable provocation and abuse of those many Miracles of Mercy he hath hitherto preserved us by should submit us to the implacable malice of our common Enemies the Papists at home and abroad or to Civil Commotions within our selves to bring us again into Chaos and Disorder in which we may need some assistance for our Conscientious Comportments both with Prudence and Innocency the ensuing Treatise may be of great use there being things casuistically proposed and resolved with modesty and submission to others Judgments in Relation to the late Rebellion which may some way help us in other difficulties if we fall under any which that God in Mercy would avert is the Prayer of Your unknown Servant c. A DISCOURSE CONCERNING SUPREME POWER AND COMMON RIGHT CHAP. I. AS God is a Spiritual King so Kings are Humane Gods his Picture drawn in Little and the most express Image of his Power receiving as the Wax from the Seal all the parts and proportions of the Print in the largest Character in which he shews himself in Civil Administrations So as the endeavour of effacing any part of that just Power where God hath Engraven it in his Deputies is a Spiritual Treason and Rebellion against God himself a Rom. 13. For not only by me but for me Kings Reign saith God b Prov. 8.15 Rom. 13. in that he makes them his hand both to punish and protect by and stiles them for that end nursing Fathers to the Church and State Nor is the Stamp to be despised though it be engraven but in Lead and Iron the Power being the same in him who by the undue exercise of a just Power makes himself a Tyrant as it is in a good King and challenging the same Submission and Obedience in lawful things from us It being not the Wax but the Impression that bears the value as it is Gods And therefore to wrest the Sword out of our Soveraigns hands the best of Princes is as much as we can to dis-enthrone God from his way of Rule amongst us as the Jews did in the person of Samuel For which Reason our Laws give the King a kind of Immortality here in saying he cannot dye because his Power which is from above passes in the intendment of our Laws by a kind of Pythagorean Transmigration always into the next of his Line and upon the failure thereof only it Escheats into the People as to the Election of another person to Reign but never was nor is fundamentally in them in regard of the Power by which they Govern And the wisest People do but as a Pipe not the Spring derivatively pass it into one man to actuate it as the most absolute and perfect Government and that which God only owns For when he saith By me Kings Reign c Prov. 8.15 he implies all other Forms of Government to derive their Pedigree only from men not Divine Institution They have his Permission but Kings only his Commission so as all other lesser Rivulets in the Administration of Justice in their Kingdoms are in them as their Spring derivative from and subordinate to them For the Supreme Power is ever annexed to the Persons of Princes in whom it is seated the Inferiour only to the Offices of subordinate Administrations which are always responsible to him that hath the Supreme Power Else the God of Reason should make a Body without Reason a Head to govern it The contrary Opinion to which clear Truth hath caused the sad Tragedy of these benighted Times and hath ever proved the Seminary of Anarchy and Confusion in all States where it hath taken root and prevailed though it hath for the most part withered and perished in the end as having no true Principles of life and permanency however for some time maintained by Tyranny and Oppression as may be instanced in most of those Popular States that have been since the beginning of the World which were but Weeds no Plants of Gods setting For subordination of Persons which ariseth by degrees should rest when it comes to the Soveraign or all things would wheel into a Confusion But God is a God of
or any other Form When instead of a Mushroom the growth of one night that springs perhaps out of the basest Excrements and of such a lazy despondency of Mind as sinks him into the next degree to a Beast making him to have no designs generous and noble to carry him beyond his own felicity we shall have one whose blood is derived to him through the Veins of many Noble Heroick and Vertuous Progenitors who becomes all Spirits refined from those marish and terrene parts which weigh down or raise Vapours to eclipse others of a more base Extraction when they aspire to great and generous actions Nay this makes Princes live in their Posterities when dead and brings reverence to the very Swadling-Cloaths and Cradles of their Successors as if they might Command Obedience before they could speak as Barclay observes Nor can it be imagined but that their high and vertuous Educations should infuse a Gallantry into them above Pride saith the same Author having been always used to the greatest outward Observances and by being so placed above all Contempt so as it cannot but nourish in them higher thoughts than either Hatred Emulation or Avarice produces and free them from those self-reflections private Families are subject to as I have touched before because they are secured against the fears of Competitors in rule and have setled supplies for their wants enjoying in the Stream what others have but in the Cistern and conveying it to their posterity as their Patrimony and Inheritance making them many times Heirs of the Goods of their minds as well as Bodies and to reap the Harvest and crop of all their noble and growing Designs which as Seed sown by them will not perhaps ripen into Fruit in many years after For it is probable such will manure and nurse up with Industry and Care what their Predecessors planted Nor can the Infancy and weakness of a Prince be of so bad a Consequence as a Popular State because he is then in Guardian to the most able and faithful Great Ones or the great Council of the Kingdom it self which the wisest and best of Kings do always make use of to steer their Actions by Nay if that Government should for a time degenerate it is more likely soon to recover and unite again in one when broken into many Interests equally tainted with malignant Influences and self-seeking designs But not with the Mole to lose my self upon the face and superficies of things when I may make my Habitation safe by digging deeper the best Foundations being lowest laid I shall return to my first design and go to the Root of all endeavouring to show that Regal Power was a Plant of Paradise of God's own setting and so of Divine Right and that the Sword which contends with the Scepter and raises it self upon the ruines of just Power cannot be free from all the fore-mentioned sad Effects which must eclipse the Glory of every Nation and leave it no Trophies but such as Pyrrhus once said of his Victories as would undoe the Conquerour and appear best when shrouded under the Vail of true Repentance and offered up again by a holy Restitution to the Altar from which they were sacrilegiously taken Such successes being our greatest vanquishments and leaving us no just Title to make other use of our unjust acquisitions Though Abishai would have preached David into a Murder and Rebellion at once upon no better grounds than Gods delivering Saul into his power o 1 Sam. 26.9.10.24.12 had he not learnt a better Divinity measuring his Actions by Gods revealed Will not outward Events knowing he there writes in Characters shewing us his hand only but not letting us at all read his meaning in them p Deut. 9. 2 Chron. 13.8 But to be a little more plain and perspicuous in so necessary a Truth I shall endeavour as in an Epitome or Index to those many large and learned Discourses that have been written upon this subject to sum up the best Collections I can and to digest them into this Method First To shew that Kings are the Ordinance of and hold their Supreme Power from God not Man and that they are only accountable to him for the use of it Secondly What that Power is and how limited Thirdly That resistance in the Subject against that Power is in no Case warrantable Fourthly What Duties Kings owe to their Subjects Fifthly What the Subject's Allegiance consists in to them First That Kings are the Ordinance of God contrary to that of the Romanists and our new Statists Reges coronas sceptra ab hominibus recipiunt ad eorum placita tenent q Bellarm. lib. 5. de Rom. Pon. cap. 7. So Buchanan r De Jure Reg. apud Scotos Populus Rege praestantior etiam major Rex igitur cum ad Populi Judicium vocatur minor ad majorem in jus vocatur For they are called God's by Institution and Appropriation from God For By me Kings reign saith he s Prov. 8.15 Rom. 13. 1 Pet. 2. Jo. 14.30 Hos 13.11 Wis 6.13 and with my holy Oyl have I anointed him t Ps 89.20 not only to rule by but for God too as the most express Character of him upon Earth Which made him lead his people by the hand of Moses and Aaron one Chief in Civil matters the other in things concerning the Priest's Office though with subordination Not one People by many Rulers much less the Ruler by the People but by one in Chief under the conduct of God himself and by his Authority as may appear in that and all other Instances of Regal Power So as Kings are to be reverenced and distinguished from others in regard of that Natural and Paternal Power God planted in Adam and caused immediately after to derive from many Heads into one Chief in one place a cause of the division of the Nations amongst the Sons of Noah as Monarch of the whole Earth after the Flood u Gen. 10.32 So as Kings are Gods and to be obeyed First In regard of their Attribute of Power For where the word of a King is there is Power w Eccles 8.4 that he might be feared x Pro. 24.21 and who may say unto him what dost thou Secondly In that of Mercy For there is Mercy with him that he may be feared in that he beareth not the Sword in vain y Rom. 13. 1 Pet. 2. but doth whatsoever pleaseth him z Eccle. 8.3 1 Sam. 8. in giving gracious Indulgences Thirdly In regard of Majesty and Soveraignty For God expresseth them by those highest Titles saith Calvin a Inst 4. l. cap. 20. to affect us with the awful sence of the Divinity it self and our Duty to them in putting the Glory of his own name upon them For b Ps 82.6 I have said ye are Gods and not only so but decreed and ordained it it shall be so even Gods before Men though Men before God 1st
their Ministerial Function to them as an indelible Character which their first Electors could not efface nor any unless it derived from the Supreme Civil Magistrate under whom they lived justly suspend in the Exercise in that the Power doth ever derive from God and by them But for further illustration we will consider it in the more familiar Instances of free Elections And first in Corporations as in a Model or hand contracted which is but expanded and the more stretched out in the highest Governments where the Commons propound the Person for the succeeding Governour the Representatives choose and the Kings Power invests without which Act the rest are but Cyphers without a Figure but having once Caesar's stamp and Image upon it it becomes legitimate current and of value so as none can clip or efface it to lessen his Authority much less displace the Magistrate but orderly by the Power that set him up without much Crime Rebellion and hazard of damnation g Rom. 3. 1 Pet. 2. A second illustration is That the People by free Votes choose their Representatives in our Parliaments yet the Power by which they Elect and that of the Elected is derived from the Kings Writ so as they cannot for any miscarriage or breach of trust in the Person recal their choice or make a new Election in any case without a new Warrant from the Crown but do become instrumental in conferring that which is not at all inherent in them as may more fully appear in the application of those similitudes to Kings where they are Elected in that Almighty God how tyrannous soever they prove uses them but as he did Ashur for the Rod of his Anger h Isa 10.5 when he gives a King in his Wrath i Hos 3. like Saul to scourge the Rebellions of a people not leaving them any just Power to depose him or any remedy or other appeal than to him in Prayer k 1 Sam. 8.18 In that his Providence orders all Actions and Events and suffers no evil of punishment without intitling himself to it For there is no Evil in the Land but I have done it saith he And therefore he accounts repining as impatience resistance by force Rebellion against himself For as the Apostles were Christs Kings are Gods Ministers upon Earth in as near a Relation Nay himself as it were showes that all such Arrows are shot at them wound him when Christ says Saul Saul why persecutest thou me l Act. 9.4 And thus God expresses it both in Moses his case m Num. 16. where he made the dull and patient Earth the common Hackney to all injurious trampling the severe Avenger of his dishonour and so in Samuel's n 1 Sam. 8. though even then by the fore-designation of God o Deut. 7.15 the Peoples free Election was confined to Saul the man that he did choose p 1 Sam 9.15 16 17. For till then God did rule by immediate direction and revelation those he appointed to be their Governours and would not totally cast them off for their revolt but still continued his goodness to them even in his Indulgence of Anger not leaving them to a factious and tumultuous Election but ordered it by immediate command to the person he had fore-appointed till he had settled the succession in David and his Seed q 1 Sam. 16. By it shewing his dis-allowance of all popular and disorderly Elections for even there where he permitted their concurrence in choosing the person in whom all Power should habitually reside and from whom its Actual Administrations should derive he suffered them only to assist Samuel in holding forth the Wax which he had appointed to set his Seal and Image upon but not to give any Impression Nor can it rationally be imagined by any man that is a Christian and acknowledgeth the Sword to be Gods and that he that sheds Man's Blood without his Commission is guilty of Murder how a power of Life and Death should be collated by any Community of Men to one or more when neither divisim nor conjunctim they have power over their own or one anothers lives Nor could ever any pretend to it unless Parents and Heads of Families by Divine Natural and Paternal Right but when derived from God the other way and by his Commission exercised Yet the People may in some sence be said to be the Pipe by which not at all the Spring from which the Power is derived the Hand that holds the Burning-Glass to the Sun no cause of those Rayes of Power that shine upon it and are contracted in it or as the Men that lay out the dry Bones as the Prophet did whilest God breaths the Spirit of Government and animates them for Action In which we must next consider CHAP. II. What Power Kings have and how limited AS I have endeavoured to make it appear by what hath been said that all Power is Originally Fundamentally and Vertually flowing from God and abiding in the King only as its Cistern and Receptacle from whence it is conveyed to us by many Pipes of several sizes Our inquiry must be how it is limited in it Self or Execution For resolution wherein we must go to the Standard of the Sanctuary the Holy Scriptures and there we shall see That when God first gave a King in his Wrath r 1 Sam. 8. the cause of it was the Peoples being not satisfied with the Regal Power God did exercise over them in his Vice-Royes and Deputies before but distrusting God Almighty when they saw Nahash King of the Children of Ammon come against them that he would not suddenly provide for their deliverance they would have one in readiness always to go up and fight for them Which distrust or despair of theirs who had found so many miraculous Deliverances under God's Government was that which so highly displeased God and not simply the desire of a King yet they neither desired to cast off God's Laws nor his choosing the Person as in Saul nor is it said that the Kingdom of God is cast off at the Election of Saul but they desired more sensible Evidences of Majesty and Glory because Samuel held not forth the outward Pomp Splendour and Majesty of Heathen Kings but as a Type of Christ whose Kingdom was not of this World with Humility as well as Power Upon which God gave them a King after the manner of other Nations r 1 Sam. 8. Dan. 5.18.19 but withal commanded Samuel to let them know what kind of King they desired even Jus Regis and that he should rule by absolute and unlimited Power in regard of Man however he may want the immediate direction and over-ruling Grace of God though not for want of a Rule for direction s Deut 17.2 2 Sam. 23.3 in that t 2 Sam. 22.3 he that ruleth over men must rule as in the fear of God u Ezek. 46.16 17 18. and not oppress the
People For no King can do that de jure justly in regard of his Office and Commission yet from thence implying a Tyrant should be exempt from all account to Man and free from any force or resistance though he be exorbitant and that Subjects are in such cases denyed all Appeals but to God as may be proved out of Samuel w 1 Sam. 8.18 Nay against such a King there is no rising up saith Solomon x Prov. 30.31 Eccles 8. To which Calvin agrees in his Comment upon that place for against Tyrannical Acts in a lawful King he allows no resistance in these words Nec quicquam adversus Reges movere licet Tyrannidem exerceant rapinis sint graves subditis nullamque nec Dei nec aequi rectique rationem habeant For Non vestrum est his malis mederi hoc tantum est reliquum Domini opem implorare y Instit l. 4. c. 20. But though we find Jus a Right of security for Kings against all violence as I have observed we find no Jus right for Tyranny and Arbitrary Power which is to be esteemed a sin for which Kings are to account to God and the rather because they are above all Humane Judicature and only under him as the People are under them For which God styles him Lord of Lords and King of Kings And upon this ground though David had sinned against Vriah first in defiling his Bed then in murdering his Person both to be punished with Death by the Law of God in any common man but most in making him sin against his God in Drunkenness by one sin to conceal another he yet was never questioned for those black Deeds but in his Confessions to God cryes out z Psal 51. Against Thee Thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight Quia cum Rex sim saith the Gloss quamvis contra Vriam deliquerim non habeo tamen in terra qui me judicet sed te in Caelo agnosco Judicem meum So also in Psalm Miserere mei Deus written by R. P. and dedicated to Thom. de Trugillo And Joannes Lorinus a Câ—mm in Psal 50. saith to the same sence upon those words Tibi soli peccavi quia solus potest cognoscere aut punire peccatum ipsius qui Rex esset nec superiorem haberet Thus St. Hierom b Ep. 22. 4. Cassia Col. 20. Quia non fuit qui arguere auderet Regem qui posset accusare punire Vtpote cum quo nullus potestate par nedum major esset non est qui audeat dicere Regi Apostata vocareque Judices impios c Job 34.18 nisi velit ipse impius haberi ut Chrysostomus ac Nicetas hoc loco Cyrillus notant In which accord Cyprian d Ad Novatian Ambrose e Serm. 16. iu Ps 118. Clemens Alexandrinus f 4 Storm c. 6. Turracramata 1 Summae de Eccl. 1. Q. 92. ad 6. Though Baronius in his Annals speaking of the Sanhedrim Anno Christi 31. Num. 10. saith That Herod though a King was cited thither for his Cruelty But it was false by the Authority he quotes g Joseph Antiq l. 14. c. 17. in that Josephus denies him to be a King then but saith That he was a Subject to Hyrcanus For when Herod was cited by the Sanhedrim his Father Antipater was living and Hyrcanus then High-Priest and Prince in State and Right who gave him notice of the Confederacy against him in the Synagogue so as Baronius in that Instance as Bishop Mountague infers only shewed his good meaning to extend Papal Authority over Kings Yet Herod in revenge of it took away their lives that convented him when he came to the Crown And it is a Tradition among the Rabbins That when King Jannaeus was commanded by the Sanhedrim to appear and answer before them those who presumed to summon him were shrewdly punished by the Angel Gabriel which although it were perhaps fabulous yet it is certain that the Jews in their Talmud h In Cod. Sanedrim c. 11. have it as a confirmed Maxime Regem suum non judicari nec cuiquam licere in eum testimonium dicere The King was not to be judged or accused by any according to that of Solomon i Prov. 17.26 in that they are not Children of the most Voices but of the most Highest the Peoples approbation serving only ad pompam but not ad necessitatem in a King's Coronation A Reason why Melchisedech was said to have no Father in regard of his Kingly Office because Regal Power is an emanation from the Deity it self Yet this exemption from all Humane Powers here doth not exempt them from the highest Power for then most properly Judgment is mine and I will repay saith the Lord. Be wise now therefore o ye Kings be learned ye that are Judges of the Earth serve the Lord with fear and rejoyce before him with reverence c. lest ye perish from the right way if his Wrath be kindled yea but a little k Psal 2.10.11.12 Nay it is sometimes his greatest severity not to let them be punished here l Hos 4.14 that they might bear the weight of his Wrath hereafter m Heb. 1.12 In that every ones account must be according to the Talents they receive and Great Ones you know are hardly cleared Nay Experience tells us That he who falls from a high Scaffold or Pinacle is in more danger of irrecoverable hurts than he that slips upon a level ground So as this Opinion is no ground for Licentious Exorbitances in Kings but a just stating of the question concerning Regal Power which Originally is one and the same in it self in all States where it is though in many places and according to several Forms limited and regulated in regard of Exercise and Execution only which I shall endeavour to make yet more clear though veritas in profundo as one saith Truth lyeth not in the surface and superficies of things but is almost buryed under the Rubbish of false Opinions or corrupted in the steam before we come to the Fountain it self and being much obscured by Clouds of Errour hath some verisimilia plausible mistakes received and digested by wanton Stomachs which do morbum alere non hominem But it proves a Monster when pertinaciously held For then the truth of God is detained in Unrighteousness n Rom. 1 18. And therefore I will go with St. Basil to the Mine which was the Prophet's and our Saviour's advice to search the Scriptures o Joh. 5.29 Isa 8.20 and endeavour to follow the Vein of Truth as it lyes there where we shall find that all things even Hell it self stand by a subordination and that God did first settle it here in Adam then Moses from them to be derived to all posterities wherein we will farther consider the Power and then the Regulation of it And first for the Power
houses congregative conjunctive are in the making or repealing of them And thus and no otherwise is Supreme Power to be regulated though there are a Rebellious People Which say to the Seers see not and to the Prophets prophesie not unto us right things speak smooth things and Prophesie Deceits c. and Cause the Holy One of Israel to be forgotten before us b Isa 30.9 10 11. And therefore I shall proceed to the third part and speak a word of resistance in the Subject against the Soveraign Power CHAP. III. That Resistance in the Subject by force against his Lawful Magistrate is in no Case Lawful AS the great World even the whole frame of Nature stands by a wise and apt combination of several Beings so contempered by Divine Providence as all agree in a subordinate Obedience to make up one entire Body without any Reluctancy Strife or Rebellion against the superiour and first Mover though they are sometimes obstructed even to the Interruption of the whole course of things and unhinging of many goodly pieces of it as it were involuntarily as at the time of Our Saviour's Sufferings when all the whole Creation seemed to have Compassion of him except Man for whom only he suffered the glorious Sun withdrawing its light to put on blacks and the dull Earth trembling under the weight of our Sins So likewise Man as a Rational and the noblest of all God's Creatures should much more observe the Law of his Maker even the whole Oeconomy or Model of Government so deeply imprinted in his Soul where Reason is enthroned for Soveraign as a Beam or Lineament of God himself who is the only King of Kings upon Earth to suppress and not suffer any exorbitant and tumultuous rising of the lower Passions and Affections to carry it to any exorbitancy nor to indulge it to them which still ought to observe a regular motion in their own Sphere and leave the superior one to God's ordering in all their Irregularities In that it is he alone that is the first Mover in and sole Orderer of all Humane Affairs upon Earth for though the Obliquity of all ill Actions be from us the Natural Power of doing any thing is from him by it to shew us as by a clear light the absolute submission which is our Passive Obedience we owe our Lawful Soveraign though Wicked with the active in lawful Commands yet not for themselves but the Lord's sake and as his Ordinance c Rom. 13.2 1 Pet. 2.13.14 15. for we are not to revile them no not in upbraiding words d Ecc. 8.4 Ex. 22 28. Act. 23.5 2 Pet. 2. 2 Tim. 3. Jud. Epist And if we must not speak evil of the Rulers of the people a majore we may much less bind our Kings with Chains and our Nobles with Links of Iron which only is God's Prerogative though they be Heathenish and Tyrannous which made David always Loyal to Saul in all his Persecutions though e 1 Sam. 24. a Tyrant by the abuse of Power not Usurpation even when he himself was anointed of God and chosen to succeed the other f 1 Sam 16. And this he performed as an Obedience to God for The Lord forbid that I should do this thing saith he g 1 Sam. 24.6 to whom only his appeal lay against Saul though he was guilty of Murder Sacriledge Oppression Witchcraft and the greatest Crimes because that by his Holy Oyl which is ever uppermost amongst all Liquors God did design his Soveraignty and Superiority above all others and made him capable of reserving a charge only at the Divine Tribunal h 1 Sam. 24.12 And St. Paul in his time commanded no less Obedience to Claudius in whose Reign he lived as Baronius conjectures i 1 Tom. 11. An. 45. knowing that a Claudius a Nero or a Cyrus k Isa 45.1 because of the odour of that Oyntment of Inauguration are to be loved never to be rejected by their Subjects For God's Commissions to Kings are durante beneplacito during his pleasure who can by millions of ways take away their Aiery Beings the only difference between Sleep and Death without an unnatural Parricide or the rising of their People if he think fit to ease them of such a servile condition as cruel Tyrants bring upon them and not quamdiu se bene gesserint by it to make their Subjects Judges of their Actions who are only lyable to the Directive not Coactive and Coercive Power of Laws For as the Moral Law to the lively and true Members of Christ they are only a Rule to order and guide not to condemn Kings though as an Ashur the Rod of God's Wrath the King should ly heavy upon his People in himself or by inferiour Powers Much more therefore ought we to bear the Yoak of Christian Princes esspecially in such a mixed Government as ours wherein the King de facto may invade our Liberties but cannot without consent of both his Houses de jure change the Laws and much better indure Transient Acts than a Model of Man's framing which will be always subject to Arbitrary Changes And thus Calvin understands m Inst 4.20 Nu. 27. what was imposed upon the Jews n 1 Sam. 8. Jer. 27. not to be peculiare mandatum to them but general cuicunque delatum est Regnum ei serviendum when he says Ex quibus apparet subditos Regibus nec posse nec debere adversus ipsos quicquam movere licet tyrannidem exerceant So as by his sence the higher Power o Rom. 13. is the Power above Subjects and only below the highest Power of all even God which St. Paul there expresses in the singular number often to declare this Regal and Supreme Power to be in the King and all others derivative from him if St. Peter's be a good Comment upon it p 1 Pet. 2.13.15 where he styles the King as Supreme For Rex non debet esse sub homine sed sub Deo Lege the one for direction the other for punishment Under the Law as a Rule under God as Judge of his Actions q Eccle. 8. which made David be put in Ballance with all the People r 2 Sam. 18.3 for their telling him he was worth ten thousand was to be understood of all As in Jude s vers 14. where God's coming at the last Judgment is said to be with ten thousand of his Saints instead of all as is expressed by the Prophet Zachary t c. 14. v. 5 And therefore that now received but much abused Maxime That the King is major singulis universis minor can in its just latitude be meant only of the Original and Fundamental Right the People had in the first Election of the Person to the Power where God did not immediately appoint him not of giving the Power to the Person for that is only from God who claims the Sword as his own Right and will not
Repressor of the Tumults of the People which are more raging than the Waves of the Sea k Ps 65.7 For that keeps its bounds when the other will know none l Hos 5.10 11. But here it is but he that resisteth not he that obeyeth not that purchases Damnation For there may be not only a lawful but a necessary Disobedience when the Commands of our Superiours run counter to God's revealed Will m Acts 4.18 19.5.29 as in Daniel and the three Children n Dan. 3.4.5 chap. But even then resist not though a Nero under whom some think St. Paul writ his Epistle to the Romans and a little after felt some sparks of his Persecution o Ep. 3. as he was flagellum Domini p Hos 13.11 by an Ordinative Permission Nay further our submission to such should be ex animo as Aquinas glosses because the command is omnis anima For it is not an Eye but a Heart-service that God requires even to our froward and perverse Masters q 1 Pet. 2.18 Ep. 6.6 knowing that God will both recompence and protect those that suffer according to his Will and commit their Souls to him in well-doing r 1 Pet. 4.19 which made David conclude They that know thy name will put their trust in thee for thou Lord hast not failed them that seek thee but wilt be their refuge in such times of trouble s Ps 9.9 10. Nay the duty of not resisting may also be enforced from the contrary when Christ in saying that If his Kingdom were of this World then would his Servants fight t Joh. 18.36 intimates that we owe our lives for the protection of our King 's just Rights but ought not to do any thing against them or theirs whether concerning the Person or Posterity For after the free Suffrage or Submission of a People to a Successive Monarchy the Son and next in Blood have always a just right to the Crown as in our Kingdom upon the death of his Father though wanting the Ceremony of Coronation which doth but declare not convey the Right Nor is it in the Peoples Power to revoke their former Concessions no more than a Wife when she hath taken a Husband can divorce her self or justly refuse him other duties though he grow froward and unjust And if it were otherwise how should we imitate Christ our General in his Passive Obedience as is commanded u 1 Pet. 2.21 keep our Covenant in Baptism the Epitome of Christian Religion and make many living Christians by one dying Saint in that Sanguis Martyrum est semen Ecclesiae or be Partakers of that Spiritual Good that comes by suffering even the Tryal of our Faith w 1 Pet. 1.7 and Improvement of our Glory So as the contrary Opinion must needs proceed from Infidelity or distrust when we will be our own God's Deliverers and not rely upon Providence for the Event in all Distresses in only using such means as by his word are warrantable And the Weapons of our Warfare we know are not Carnal but Spiritual x 1 Cor. 10.4 2 Tim. 4.7 even our whole Panoplie being but the Girdle of Verity the Breast-plate of Righteousness the Sword of the Spirit the Helmet of Salvation and Shield of Faith y Eph. 6. by which we overcome the World z 1 Joh. 5.4 And therefore Tertullian in his Apology against forcible entrance a Text. 37. begins with an Absit and concludes We must rather be slain than slay our Superiours So Ambrose b L. 5. Ep. ad Aurent Prayers and Tears are our only Weapons And to that purpose speaks St. Cyprian c Ad Demetriad Gregory Nazianzen d Orat. 2. in Julian with all the concurrence of the Primitive times Nor are we to submit for fear unless filial or want of force but Conscience sake Nor can the New-minted Jesuitical Distinctions of differing between the Person and the Power in their Rebellions by placing it in the People and the Administration of it only in the King absolve their Consciences from the Guilt who de facto have resisted in our times it being but a Popish Riddle such as their Transubstantiation in which they turn the substance of the Regality of Kings into a mere Chymera a fancyed nothing and make Accidents to subsist without a Subject the Supreme Power without his Person a Paradox that neither the Gospel nor the Law can unriddle For they speak the contrary in making the Supreme Power inseparable from the Person of a King e 1 Pet 2. especially ours which is setled as well by Municipal as Divine Law as may appear by all the Laws of this Kingdom both Customs and Acts as well as by the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance f Cook fol. 36. 37. which condemn such Monsters of Opinion to be illegitimate g See Cook fol. 8. 35. So Pref. 4. part fol. 1. Bract. l. 1. c. 8. fol. 5. 6. 16. Ri. 2. cap. 5.24 Hen. 8. C. 12. D. c. Stu. f. 43. Dier 29. Co. 11.90.93 1 Eliz. c. 1. 5. Eliz. 1. Cook Calvin's Case f. 11. Exilium Henricide Spencer 1 Edw. 3. 3 Edw. 25. Calv. B. â—0 Cook 4. Parl. Inst fol. 46. 7 fol. 30. 2 fol. 15. 1 Jacob. c. 1.10.33 Hen. 8.21 And if the unhappiness of evil times and men have de facto done otherwise and deposed or destroyed or rejected their Princes they are to expect no Lawrels nor Trophies for it the memory and monuments of them being best buryed in Oblivion In that such Victories ought to be ashamed of themselves for though such ways may seem right to a man the end thereof are the ways of death h Prov. 14.2.16.25 And thus having taken the Timber that grows upon other Mens Soyles and squared it into a less Model for use gathered the choicest Flowers out of other mens Gardens and made them into a Nose-gay fit for every hand to refresh the Spirits of such as are fainting under the persecution of these times for their Loyalties there being little of mine but the Thread that binds them drawn my Oar out of others Mines to melt it into a small Wedg or Ingot that every one might carry a stock of Knowledg about him as a Counter-Charm to those seducing Spirits now raised among us to withdraw men from their due Obedience I desire every one to treasure up something for their use and having proved all Power to be of Divine Right and only subject to limitation in regard of Exercise with a security against Force though a Nebuchadonozor or a Jeroboam i Jer. 29 7. Hos 13.11 be over us I shall proceed to speak of the Duty of Kings in which I shall not say much since all are Doctors and read Lectures upon that subject being all Eye for without none for within to take notice of the slips and failings of their Prince which they always behold in a
Multiplying-Glass though by making too much Window they weaken the Walls and cause Factions and Divisions that the Roof might fall and then I am sure the Frame will not stand long let them seem to underprop it with never so many specious pretences painted but rotten Posts For as the firmness and uniting of the Walls support the Roof so the Roof covers and preserves them from many an ill Blast that would otherwise weaken and overthrow them But I spin this Thread too long on this Subject and therefore I here wind it up and proceed to consider CHAP. IV. What Duties Kings owe to their Subjects with the Excellency of that Government HAving endeavoured to shew as it were in Landskip and dark shadow only the Great and High Prerogatives of Kings not being able perfectly to describe them as they are in themselves without a seeming Court-flattery which yet might be forgiven given in these times and in a Garrison where Peace of Conscience is the only reward of Loyalty I shall further show you the Excellency of Regal Government by its Effects For so as the Sun in Water it is best seen in its Reflections and the just Actions of Pious Kings who are the Fountains of Honour Justice Power and all other regular subordinate motions in the lower Spheres as the Vital Spirits in the Head are of all Natural Operations of the Body are always best seen in their Piety and Moralities the industrious endeavour of which makes their Mitres rather ponderous than glorious as the Emblems of Christian Kings do show in that the Cross is always fixt but superiour to their Crown to the imitation of their Master who was Crowned indeed but with Thorns to teach them how full of vexing Cares and Troubles that Head should be subject to that as the Stern to the Ship is to guide the great Barque of the State not only in Calms but Storms which best prove the Pilot. So as we may consider the Infelicities of Good Kings with respect to this World to be more in the Scale than their happiness when they are not Lords but Stewards not Owners but Dispensers of all their glorious Attributes and Endowments For Regal is that Paternal Power in the fifth Commandment which Philo Judaeus observes confines upon both Tables that their Arms of Protection might extend to the keeping of both and the greater the Trust the more severe the Account In which there stands First a Charge of Power upon each King's Score it being one of God's communicable Attributes how he hath used the Sword God hath put into his hand which St. Peter saith ought to be a terrour to the Evil not to the Good though a Protection to all against private wrongs with the Militia and Power of making War or Peace which is seated in them and inherent by Divine Right k Num. 10. Deut. 17. as well as in our King by the known and established Laws and magna charta l C. 2.6 7. Ed. 7. C. 1. and to the Son m H. 3. succeeding him and though it be regulated in the Exercise n By 13. El. 1. c. 6 1 E. 3. c. 5. 4 H. 4. c. 13 5 H. 4. 11 H. 7. c. 1. 2 E. â— 4. 5 of P. M. â— 3. 4 Jac. c. 1. 22 E. 4. the Parliament never did pretend to give the Power but to declare it And thus Reynolds in his Comment on the 110 Psalm o Upon Ps 110.2 amongst the Jura Regalia proper honours belonging to the Person of the King which none can use but in a subordination to him doth reckon Armamentaria Publica the Magazines of all Military Provisions citing Greg. Tholos p De Repub l. 9. c. 1. Rom. 13. 1 Sam. â—0 16 by them to fence and impail God's Church and Vineyard both from the wild Boar and little Foxes and the persons of men from Injuries and Violence which are the greatest Priviledges we can enjoy in this World as may more clearly appear by the contrary Effects For things are seen carendo magis quam fruendo As in Judges q Cap. 17. where the decay of Religion advancing of Idolatry making Priests of the lowest of the People and all other Civil uncivil Disorders proceeded from the want of this Power in one man and are imputed to it as to the efficient cause though properly malum non habet efficientem sed deficientem causam And therefore we may expect great good from them when so many Evils are occasioned by their want For when there was no King in Israel every man did what seemed good in his own Eyes saith the Spirit of God disenthroning Reason and making Lust their Law and Rapes their boast r Judg. 19. So that by just consequence the having of a good King is the proper Remedy of those Evils who makes his just Power the measure of his Will not his Will the measure of his Power And therefore it is Enacted saith St. Peter in the style of a Law-giver as some observe that all should be subject to him at least in not doing his Lawful Commands be punished by him s Rom. 3 4. Ecclâ—s â— Esdr 7 25 26 27. Rev. 2.20 And so we find it in all the Reigns of the good Kings of Israel for there were no Micha's Idols nor High-places left no Rapines nor Violences suffered no acting of Wickedness under the Countenance of Laws and Acts but as Gods t Ps 82.6 they medled with the Affairs of God as Nursing-Fathers they nourished the Church with the two Breasts of God's Word and Sacraments through the Ministerial Administrations of Priests and as publick Ministers for good u Rom. 13. they restrained all other Uncivil Insolencies not suffering every man to be a King nay more than a King in doing what he list for a King ought not to be a Jeroboam favouring idolatry or any false Worship w 2 Chro. 10.14 but a David Learned Pious and Wise as an Angel of God x 2 Sam. 19.27 that Fraud Injuries and violence might be detected and restrained Innocency relieved Industry encouraged Vertue rewarded and Vice punished Secondly Justice Distributive is owing from a King to all his Subjects as that which establishes his own Throne saith Solomon and keeps the just Boundaries of meum tuum Common Right amongst men out of which as Seeds the large Harvest of Contentions growes For Judicium or Potestas judiciaria is a peculiar of Royalty in that the Administration is from the Prince as the Fountain of all Humane Equity under God deposited in the hands of inferiour Officers y Prâ—v 20.8 For so he is interpretative in them who as his mouth are to publish the Laws and to execute those Acts of Justice and Peace which principally belong to his own sacred Breast So Reynolds still in that place alluding there to that of Joh. 5.22 27. and drawing his Parallel from Christ where he saith The Father hath
Exercise and sometimes by National and Municipal Laws through the Indulgence of good Princes yet Kings are never subject to the Coactive but Directive Power of them and answerable unto God only as David was e Psal 51. not to man for their violation from whom they hold their Commission f Prov. 8.25 Rom. 13. 1 Pet. 2. Hos 13.11 And therefore by Precept they are exempt in their Persons from all other Powers g Prov. 21.3 8.15 Eccles 8. 1 Pet. 2. Rom. 13. as immediately designed by God in their individual persons to be obeyed h Deut. 17.15 Job 3.6 7. 34.30 Hos 13.11 Wisd 6.3 with a brand and desert of punishment upon all those that resist or rebel against them i 1 Sam. 8. Num. 16. 2 Sam. 1.4 15.15 as if done against God k Rom. 13. when our Prayers Tribute Reverence Assistance and Obedience are an Homage we owe them though Wicked and Tyrants where the Divine Providence concurs with other just mediate instrumental ways for the making their Titles lawful l 1 Tim. 2.2 Jer. 25.9 29.7 Dan. 3.21 Gen. 20.27 Mat. 22.21 1 Sam. 8. 24. 1 Pet. 2.27 as they are God's breathing Images the Mortal Pictures of the Immortal God saith Optatus even Gods before men m Ps 82.6 though men before God First By Analogie Secondly Deputation Thirdly Participation So Tertullian n Lib. de Scapul Cyrill o Epist ad Theod. prefix lib. advers Julian Hierom p Ad Pap. Anâ—i Greg. l. 9. decret 1 Tim 3.3 c. Nay this truth hath been derived to us from all Antiquity as well as Scripture and was never contradicted till the Romanists and Schismaticks like Simeon and Levi Brethren in Iniquity as Samson's Foxes concurred though looking contrary wayes to the setting all Cristendom on Fire by it and broached the contrary Doctrine As Buchanan q De Jure Regis apud Scotos and Bellarmine r De Rom. Pont. l. 5. though all antiquity be against them as Calvin acknowledgeth s Inst l. 4. c. 20. and as appears by multitudes of Authors both ancient and Modern t Glos Incog in Ps 50. R.P. dedicated to Tho. de Trugil Loranus in Ps 50. Hieron Ep. 22. 46. So St. Chrysost in Ps 50. as cited by Cyril So Cyprian ad Novatian Ambros Serm. 16. in Ps 118. Clemens Alex. l. 4. c. 6. Turrecre 1 Sum. de Ec. 1. Q 92 Which ought to convince our late Statists the Corahs Dathans and Abirams of these times of their Errours and satisfie all men that the person in whom the Supreme Power is placed cannot by any Tyrannical Act or Introducing Heresie forfeit his Right and that none ought nor can Conscientiously obey it in another that assumes or accepts it from an unjust Collation though for the best ends imaginable Yet if the Objection be still framed and pressed as I suppose it is by the Actors in our present troubles the sad effects whereof are but the Airy Off-spring of their Platonick Speculations a wild and wise folly they may receive a further satisfaction from our known Laws as may be seen in Bracton and all our ancient Sages the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance and our King 's just Title acknowledged by all Carolus Dei Gratia not by the Peoples Suffrage his Coronation not making but declaring him King only Nor ought it to be otherwise in Popular States where by Universal Suffrage and consent the People have lawfully placed the exercise of the Supreme Power in many retaining the esse perhaps not bene esse of Government there being no rising up or opposition lawful against the Supreme Power or those we conceive lawful Magistrates u Rom. 13. Now upon these grounds that the Supreme Power is not Originally Fundamentally and radically in the People but in that single Person God hath by Prescription Succession and Inheritance or other Humane Rights commissioned for it there is no just means of assuming it into the People and their transferring it upon any nor can any such act be lawful whether by the Pomp and Artifice of a pretended Justice or the Power of the Sword both which do but heighten the Crime according to the weight of Circumstances in either the one clothing the Devil in the Robes of Justice and Majesty the other making the Sword the unjust Arbitrator over the Lives Liberties and Fortunes of many innocent persons without any lawful Power w Mat. 26. Joh. 10.10 and against all our known Municipal Laws when in such a case no Title of Conquest can ly for that must be ever grounded upon a just War which is alwayes constituted of these essential parts 1. A Just Power 2. A Just Cause 3. Just means to prosecute it None of which can concur in Subjects taking up Arms against their lawful Soveraign or Warrant Obedience to any other without countenancing Injustice Violence Oppression c. x Mat. 26. 22 24. Joh. 19.10 which is in no case lawful no dispensation being lawful to any Action that partakes of the nature of sin For with the Hypocrite to do a seeming good to let in or countenance any evil for the most pious ends is but to bring in Religion upon the Devil's Shoulders and follow a seeming Triumph to Hell So as all that can be done under such a Government is but a prudent submission to the Power in things indifferent without giving any countenance to the Authority that imposes it or just scandal to our weak Brethren For then even lawful and indifferent things in their nature are not at all times expedient to be done saith St. Paul y 1 Corin. 6.12 as in the Instances of eating or not eating z 1 Corin. 8.13 but we may or may not according to several Circumstances For 1. A thing indifferent may become ineligible unto me in regard of use or exercise where a lawful Power interposeing determines my choice either way if the thing be equally indifferent and stand like the Pin in the Ballance in an even poyse all Obedience to the Supreme Magistrate depending in its just latitude upon things indifferent to be done or omitted upon which ground as a learned man observes God made choice of a Fruit in Paradice indifferent in its own nature to be eaten or refused for the tryal of man's Obedience in the State of Innocency to teach us that the interposing of a Command from a just Authority ought in all things indifferent to determine our choice and by making it a duty takes off all just cause of scandal to others for in this way scandal is taken not given in the other I am guilty of Disobedience to my Superiour a Rom. 13. as my Magistrate of scandal to him as my Brother and of ill example to all if I do the contrary Though my choice may nay ought to be determined in the use of an indifferent thing rather than break a rule
of Charity in the doing or not doing it as in the Instance before of eating or not eating of Flesh at any time to the scandal of my weak Brother b 1 Cor. 8. when free in the aequilibrium of choice Yet if any necessity of nature or other great prejudice to my Person or Fortune depends upon my not eating I ought to eat Flesh though to the scandal of another rather than impair my health or bring any great mischief upon my self by the Omission of it For there though the thing be indifferent in it self it is not so to me such Natural or Moral Necessity interposing From whence I conceive I may safely conclude against the former Objection That no conscientious Obedience is due to such an exercise of Power as is there proposed no nor submission in indifferent things if done with scandal to others because not imposed by a lawful Power to determine my choice yet where my personal freedom self-preservation or any great prejudice to my Estate in which my Posterity is concerned be put into the Scale to weigh against an unwilling scandal I may submit for that alters the case in relation to Conscience though not the nature of the thing for there I owe a prudent submission when by the rule of Charity which is but to love my Neighbour as my self I am to prefer the well being of my self and mine to an offence taken by not willingly given to another where a compulsory Injunction and Power inforceth my submission to an indifferent thing it being agreeable to the Law of God Nature and Nations to preserve my self by all lawful ways OBJECTION III. Object 3. If it be so that honest and well-meaning men may not be in any case voluntarily instrumental under an usurped and unlawful Power to the executing the known Laws by which distributive Justice between Party and Party Religion Peace and Propriety may be maintained and perhaps some advantages gained by which they may much improve the Interest of their lawful Soveraign which they prefer in their wishes to their own Being and that if they decline a making use of such opportunities and that all men should walk by the same Rule there must necessarily follow Oppression Atheism and Anarchy the Womb of all Confusion that would reduce all things into the first Chaos so as nothing but darkness and disorder would cover the Earth which their Omissions may contract the guilt of when in acting with the present Power for these ends they do but choose the least of Evils and have no thought of doing the least Evil and so may act Answ As I said The least Evil is not to be committed nor allowed to produce the greatest good c Rom. 3.8 and that there the choice is not between Evils of Punishments where the least may be chosen but between an Evil of Sin which I have proved an outward Compliance in an Unjust Cause or with an Usurped or unlawful Power especially against a just claim to be and no Sin being as the Schools determine in the number of things eligible Malum non est in numero eligibilium propter aliud bonum in that actus peccati non est ordinabilis in bonum finem So Thomas Aquinas d 2. 2. Qu. 110. Art 3. And upon the Egyptian Midwives and Rachels Pious Ly it is concluded by St Augustine e sup Ps 5. Peter Lombard f Lib. 3. dist 38. and Thomas Aquinas d 2. 2. Qu. 110. Art 3. That no man ought to tell a Ly to preserve a Life nor for any Spiritual Good Though St. Augustine saith wittily g Tract 5. Tom. 9. super Joan. Nemo habet de suo nisi mendacium peccatum when all truth comes from the Fountain of it God h Eccles 7. Jam. 1. And St. Ambrose i Tom. 4. upon those words Quis ex vobis arguit me de peccato Omne mendacium fugiendum est tam in verbis quam in operibus c. all outward dissimulation is to be avoided when Opus exterius naturaliter significat intentionem k Aquin. 2. 2. Qu. 111. Art 11. Qu. 111. Art 2. And we should be the more careful not to make Hell the way to Heaven Vice to introduce Vertue when even lawful Actions become sins if done with scandal to others and that some higher end or duty determine not my choice in them as I have determined in another case of Conscience concerning Actions in themselves indifferent For the least defect or excess makes a lawful Action become sinful and a willing countenancing of any sin draws on the toleration of all and like the Spirits in the Blood will soon run through the whole Body of sin For with Aquinas l 2. 2. Qu. 110. Art 2. veritas aequalis est cui per se opponitur magis minus So as in doubtful Cases Gerson's rule is good m Par. 2. Reg. mor. Ab omni actu cui non est necessario astrictus teneatur desistere where scandal may be given OBJECTION IV. Object 4 Ay but Salus Populi est Suprema Lex So as I may act voluntarily with and under an usurped Power though against legal settlements and known Laws for the preservation of the Common-wealth and that by a Law of necessity which gives the Law to all Laws and warrants the doing of that which otherwise is unlawful for by this our Saviour seems to justifie his Disciples gathering Ears of Corn on the Sabbath-day and urges the Authority of David's Example for it n Mat. 12. Answ 1. It is true that Salus Populi est Suprema Lex in reference to Humane and Municipal Laws for so Kings in whom the Supreme and Legislative Power resides may for the good of their People in great Exigents act besides nay against the known National Laws of their Kingdom but not contrary to any Divine Sanction Answ 2. I acknowledg that necessity is a very powerful Argument both before God and man to excuse not justifie an ill Action For so God himself the Supreme Law-giver hath sometimes been pleased in a Gracious Condescention to man's infirm condition to dispence with his own Laws as well as Kings with theirs in Cases of great necessity as may be instanced But this hath been ever in things only mala quia prohibita evil because forbidden as in Ceremonial and Judicial Laws never in any thing that is malum in se prohibitum quia malum evil in it self and forbidden because specifically so Such as are Schisms Heresies Idolatry Rebellion Usurpation Oppression Murder Sacriledg and the like for in these God never leaves his Servants without a just way of extricating themselves from any such necessity of acting by enabling them to dare to dye rather than do any thing that in its nature is evil and by suffering according to the Will of God to commit the keeping of their Souls to him in well-doing as unto a faithful Creator o 1 Pet.
Rebellion under a pretence of lawful Obedience 3. Lastly For other inferiour employments in things absolutely in their own nature lawful men may as an Act of Submission under a Power comply passively though no Beam of any just Power appear in the Person commanding so as it be involuntary and with a publick owning the dislike of it Nay there may be perhaps a voluntary and yet lawful acting in some such Capacities in things of an inferior nature when men do it rather by permission of than commission from the Usurpers of the Supreme Power having their Call only from the ancient and known Laws of the Kingdom as Constables Bailiffs c. OBJECTION VI. Object 6. Well if it be not lawful to countenance or any way support an unjust Power it is not lawful to pay Taxes Customs Excise c. when imposed and to maintain a War against a Just Title Answ Every Voluntary Act herein is sinful and not to be done in that the matter manner and end ought to be good in every Action And in this case though it may be in some cases lawful to submit to such Payments I ought rather to dye than do any thing willingly that may advance those ends for which it is designed But then if the demand of it comes seconded with a Power and direction to levy ten times as much if refused the state of the question is altered and directs me to an act of prudence in chooseing the less evil of punishment which will be rather a weakening than strength to the Usurper who would make an advantage by my refusal without contracting the guilt of the Tyrants misapplying it For the compulsion in the Law it self looks only at the money not the employment of it and directs my choice to what is least penal and takes off all just cause of scandal when my intentions in paying are as far distant from his in receiving as Heaven from Hell And though this particular case be hardly to be found amongst the Casuists it is thus resolved in other Notions to which I will propose a Parallel or two for illustration never questioned or condemned by any I suppose as unlawful having Universal Consent and Practise for it But first I shall answer another Objection OBJECTION VII Object 7. It is true every Act hath only so much of sin as it hath of the will in it but here what you do cannot be said to be meerly Passive or Involuntary but a mixed Action partly constrained and partly free and so in some measure sinful as involving your consent Answ I confess man in all things works as a rational Creature and doth nothing but of choice his will being never forced as Natural Agents are from the impulse of a Foreign Power so that it is his choice not necessity which fixes him be the thing in its nature eligible or not but this happens not in this case For if the question were whether I would pay Taxes c. to the ends proposed or loose all I ought to part with all and my Life too rather than do it But if it be reduced to this Will you give me so much money or let me take all you have or ten times as much then the choice is meerly between evils of punishment in which the Law of Nature obliges me in prudence to choose the least as also the Law of Charity and is so universally understood to free me both from scandal and sinister interpretations Compulsion in Law never implying more than submission to the Act and then when all Power of resistance is taken from me and no liberty of Election left whether I will part with so much Money or not but that my liberty is limited to one Object only the evil of suffering in a less or greater degree I may pay the Money assessed without any check of Conscience in sensu diviso abstracted from all ill but not in sensu composito as parting with it to a sinful end Nor doth the intention of the Imposers though it binds not in Usurped Powers extend further than to our submission to the payment of the Money they require though they declare the end for which they intend it or else to undergo the Penalty they require as may appear by all the Ordinances of these times And for Parallels to this 1. Consider That if Thieves assault me upon a way and swear to kill me if I will not give them a Bond for an hundred pounds to be employed for the corrupting of some Virgins Chastity or other Wicked end and will have it inserted in the Conditions I am to subscribe I ought not to do it for a World But if the condition be only to pay so much Money I may yield to it as a ransom for my life For it then becomes a choice of the least evil of punishment only without countenancing or contracting any evil of sin which I am obliged to by the Law of self-preservation especially when my Actions declare no more 2. Consider If a lawful King disputing his just Rights against the actual Invasion of his Rebellious Subjects shall place all his Treasure and Magazines in some strong Garrison there to be kept as the Nerves and Sinews of his War as Pillars and Supports of his Royalty and intrust them into some Loyal hand to keep and defend them for his Service they cannot be delivered up to his Enemies to prove his Masters Ruine when designed for his strength without great sin till held and disputed beyond all probability of longer defence or hope of relief because something of his Soveraigns Interest remains still in his Power But when it can be no longer kept by force it is a duty upon him both for the preservation of himself and the Loyal Party with him to surrender upon Capitulation rather than become a wilful Sacrifice all Election being taken from him but that of the less evil of punishment when he only parts with what he cannot keep to preserve himself for some fairer opportunity of serving his King which proportion holds in our payment of Taxes when the demand is seconded by a Compulsory Power For there Natural Equity permits a Passive Submission and in things not absolutely necessary by Divine Sanction as in observing the Rules and Canons of the Church in Ceremonies Forms of Prayer and Liturgies c. For there Omissions are no acts of Contempt nor just cause of scandals if we are forced to it OBJECTION VIII Object 8. Well admit that it be not lawful voluntarily to obey but passively only to submit to the Impositions of those that usurp an unjust Power I may yet to ransome my person in case of restraint or Imprisonment and to enjoy the benefit of Laws and protection of the present Government engage to be true and faithful to them rather than to continue both in Misery and Incapacity of ever paying that Tribute of Homage and Allegiance I owe my just Soveraign either in aiding or assisting to the
recovery of his just Rights Answ In this case Faithfulness implying Trust Duty and Active Obedience as in the Revelations Be faithful unto Death and I will give thee a Crown of Life and so understood in Common Notions you ought not to do it For though you cannot pay the Debt of an Operative Allegiance to the right Owner it is not in your Power to transfer his Right to another the Duty of Subjects to their Kings deriving from God's Precept not Man's Donation so as it falls not under the consideration of things Arbitrary Obedience being simply good or evil as it is objected And therefore all I conceive we can do in this case lawfully is but the giving of a Negative Assurance not to act any thing against them so long as we remain under their protection which once made we ought to be faithful in the observing till our condition be enlarged by Exchange Ransom or some other way of Providence which ever presumes the means to be lawful as well as the end good For this is but a submission to my fate with an Improvement of my Condition no restraint of my Power but the exercise of it for a time a prudent Election of the least evil of Punishment without any Ingredient of the evil of sin For so we may keep Loyal and strengthen in the Habit when suspended in the Act and interrupted in the mafestation of the Duty a wrong possession de facto never cancelling the Owners right de jure but engages all honest mens Compassions to the oppressed and Prayers for their restitution and not with the Pagan Indians to worship the Devil ne noceat or for the Temptations of Greatness or Power q Mat. 4. So as our Oaths and Engagements must be always as the Casuists determine 1. Super re licita 2. In bonum finem 3. Never contra pactum aliquod prius initum which the equity of the thing and some just occasion may again call me to upon a former tye or Obligation for if otherwise taken they engage us only to an hearty Repentance for having taken them And all this we ought to do out of an humble and reverential awfulness to the Person and Commands of our King not servile Affection as not consisting with a noble and ingenuous nature but a filial one issuing from love For this is grounded upon the Law of Nature and should be filial as Power it self is Paternal r Lev. 19.3 Pro. 14.21 And therefore my Son saith Solomon fear God and the King for as the King to God so the Subjects are to the King and he is a middle thing in regard of just Power between them and God Nay he is so much Gods nay God to us in regard of the immediate Power and delegation he hath from God that Josephus to distinguish Monarchical Government from all others framed by men calls it Theocratie that of God which in the Inventory of all Blessings of this life was by Ezekiel accounted the greatest Ezek. 16.3 And as a Beam from the Sun it is so inseparable from the person where it is once legally setled in a King and his Progenitors as it is with us owned both by the Articles of our Church Canons Homilies Laws and Oaths both of Supremacy and Allegiance that nothing but death can divide them For though some Kings have been deposed by Rebellions and others forced to resign their Crowns as Edward the Second see Baker's Chronicle they were never divested of the Habit of Power de jure but only deprived of its exercises de facto And though that of Resignation can hardly be justifiable in any case it ought never to be done but to his lawful Successor as it was in the Instance mentioned without throwing off God as in the rejection of Samuel where his Providence had otherwayes settled the Right in that where the Divine Constitution hath placed the Supremacy in any God still expects from him a just managing of that Power for the advancement of his Glory and good of his people which he can never cast off no more than a Father Wife or Child can discharge themselves from the mutual duty of those Relations so long as they continue Nor is this slightly to be passed over when the single duty of fear due to the King s Eccl. 12.13 is comprehensive of all others for as Love it is a Catholick Grace runs through all our Actions and is a Watch upon them for their Regulation or as the Life and Soul that animates them and the more it is free the more it dilates to shew it self saith Irenaeus in just duties and makes our Filiation under the Gospel of much more liberty than the condition of Servants under the Law as it imports a voluntary Reverence or Worship for so Fear and Reverence in the Language of the Spirit speak the same thing t Eccl. 1. Ps 5.7 compared with Ps 132.7 Ps Ps 95. Mal. 1.6 But to test our selves in this duty we may know it by our fear of God which includes it as God will know that is take notice of our fear of him by that to our Superiours As in Abraham's Sacrifice where though intuitively and eternally he knew that Abraham feared him yet he would not own it but from the evidence of his outward expressions u Gen. 22.13 And thus our Saviour would only take notice of St. Peter's love to him by feeding his Flock w Joh. 2 P. 17. though he well knew his Affections before which was also the reason of Job's Tryals x Job 1. Nor is this a slight Argument as a Reverend Divine observes but grounded upon an impregnable Reason and Syllogism framed by the Spirit of God y 1 Joh. 4. who concludes by a Topick rule That if we love not the general Image of God in our Brethren whom we do see we cannot love God whom we do not see but in such Shadows and Representations And if by my want of Affection and Charity to my Brother and the fruit of it God concludes against my love to him he will do it much more for the want of our duty of fear to our King who is not only his general but the particular and peculiar Image of his Divine Power and Glory to whom fear is originally due which made Jacob to say of his Lord Esau z Gen. 32.10 vidi faciem ut faciem dei And Moses a Num. 16. Exo. 16.8 Your murmurings are not contra nos sed contra Jehovam Nay thus God himself saith of the ten Tribes revolt b 2 Chr. 13.8 they resisted the Kingdom of God in David's Son and to Samuel c 1 Sam. 8.7 non te sed me So as our failings in this or any other way to our Prince is a disobedience to God himself as their hearts are said to be in his hands by appropriation Therefore my Son says he not Sons give me thy heart d Pro. 24.21 in exchange
Order d 1 Cor. 14.32.40 and as his Power made all in Number Weight and Measure e Wisd 11.20 so his Providence upholds all according to the same Model by setting a kind of Hierarchy and Regiment amongst all the several Societies of the Creatures even from the lowest to the highest Story of created Beings so that levelling is contrary to his Design and by a sweet subordination and symbolizing quality and affection even amongst Contraries preserves the whole First In the Inanimate Creatures For the Heavens have the Sun and Moon inthroned there to govern in their several Spheres the one over the Day and the other over the Night which with the Stars though differing from one another in glory make one uniform and glorious Structure f Is 60.13 and though of several proportions states and inequalities maintain a happy harmony amongst themselves Secondly In the Unreasonable Creatures As in Bees which of all others maintain a most perfect Polity of Monarchical Government amongst them and are the best Emblems of good Subjects painful in their labour dutiful in their life all uniting in Obedience to the service of their King and supplying his weakness with their Wings when he is unable to fly with his own as some observe Nay all other Creatures from a Natural Principle mould themselves into a sociable subordination Thus the Lyon is King of all the salvage Regiments of the Forest the Eagle of Birds Nay even Sholes of Fishes Heards of Beasts Flocks of Fowls and the rest have their Heads and Leaders Thirdly In Man's Soul by placing the Understanding in it as the Sun in its Orb the Moon and lesser Lights as the Will and Affections inferior to it in their Sphere and Station to follow its Influences and derive all their light and direction from it Nor is it otherwise in the Body which is compact of many Members one more noble than another yet all united under one Head as supreme from whence they receive Laws and to which they pay Obedience there being not the least Sinew String or Part unuseful Fourthly In the Church State and all Societies there being in all by his Ordination superior and less Noble Offices as in great Buildings Rooms for State others for more ordinary use and conveniency In Clocks greater and lesser Wheels every one like Stones in an Ark being of equal necessity though not beauty with the rest yet all making but one Uniform and Glorious Structure g Isa 60.13 Fifthly In Heaven it self For there amongst the Angels there is a Gabriel and in other Orders Cherubim Seraphim Thrones Principalities and Powers teaching us that the more things draw to Unity the nearer they are to Perfection and Assimilation with God himself who is not only a strict Unity but Oneness in himself Now upon this fundamental Principle and according to these Natural Productions God doth will in his voluntas signi or beneplaciti a Conformity to them in all things but chiefly amongst Men rational Creatures if not believing Christians by centring all Power of Families Societies Kingdoms in one Supreme and Paternal Head both for perfection and permanence So as all other Forms argue not only weakness in but tend to the perversion nay subversion of the Fabrick the several Policies of Men would seem to raise because not agreeing to the Model which God first erected in Adam For even there he established Regal and Paternal Power that differ only in proportion not similitude it being the same as a Child is a Man in little For all Government was virtually and seminally in him though spreading and propagating with the growth and Generations of Men being first founded in Families and with Ezekiel's Waters rising by degrees from thence to the uniting of many and incorporating them into Societies under one Head till at last many Heads did center in one Supreme many natural Parents chose one common Parent to them all one Pater Patriae to whom they submitted the exercise of the Legislative Power which was before in every Father of a Family who over his own Children and Servants had a Power even to Life and Death and was their King being guided to it both by dictates of right Reason God's over-ruling Providence the guidance of his Spirit and immediate designation of the Person from him as in the Jewish Common-wealth till he setled it in a lineal Succession That of Parents Patriarchs Kings being but the same Power under several Dresses and Appellations the same Beams of Majesty though reflecting several Lusters and challenging a-like Obedience from all that are subjected to them from one and the same Divine Right So as the Duty of the fifth Commandment had been as binding upon Adam's posterity in the State of Innocency had he stood as upon us though not promulgated till a thousand years after but there would have been none of that reluctancy and opposition in us nor of that oppression and irregularity in our Superiours which we are now subjected to by our Sins and his first disobedience to God So that I conceive it can neither be rationally nor upon grounds of Religion denyed that all just Power especially the Government by Kings derives its pedigree from Paternal and is an Ordinance of God springing out of a Natural and Eternal Principle which hath ever been owned First In the exemptive Precept of their persons to be free from all other Power h Prov. 21.3 Isa 10.5 Pro. 8.15 Eccles 8. 1 Pet. 2. Rom. 3. Secondly In the designation of the person i Deut. 17.15 Job 36.7.34.30 Hos 13.11 Wisd 6.3 Thirdly In the punishment of Rebellion against his sacred Ordinance k Num. 16. 2 Sam. 1.4.14.15 Fourthly By the command of our Prayers for and Obedience to them he hath set over us though Wicked and Tyrants l 1 Tim. 2.2 1 Chron. 12.1 â— Jer. 29.7.25.9 Dan. 3.21 Gen. 20.27 Bar. 1.15 Mat. 22.21 1 Sam. 24.4.6.8.9 1 Pet. 2.27 for since the loss of our first Estate wherein all should have continued in a sweet harmony and orderly subordination and lived in an happy subjection without any Schisms or mutinous irregularities we must submit to them even in their Aegyptian Tasks as the just punishment of our Rebellions against God and not Rebel against his Ordinances And upon these grounds saith Optatus David in fearing the Anointed spared his Enemy King Saul as he was God's breathing Image the mortal picture of the immortal God a piece made for lasting wrought in Oyl at his Inauguration and not to be defaced by any hand A president worthy the imitation of these apostate times wherein mens speculative Atheism hath made them such Monsters in Wickedness as to attempt to depose the King to root up the tallest Cedars to pull down and level all the high Mountains of greatness God hath set up that they might introduce and usher in an Anarchy or make the Bramble to Reign bearing no Fruit but Thorns to tear and wound
By Analogy 2dly Deputation 3dly By Participation Thus Tertullian c Lib. ad Scapalum Cyrillus d Ep. ad Thro. prefix lib. advers Julian Chrysostom e Hom. ad Pop. Antioch Gregory f L 9. Decret 1 Tit. 3.3 which is the reason of those high Titles of Prerogative the sacred Word styles them with after the Israelites rejection of Samuel as that of God in regard of the immediate rule they were to exercise over them after their desire of a King for before the Power was not vested in the Person of any but ministerially only in regard of Exercise which still proceeded from immediate and Divine Directions But after he placed the Power in the person of the King g 1 Sam. 8. to be accounted for only to God h Psal 51. as a punishment of the Peoples Rebellion against him and desire of innovating their Form of Government Nay he then dignified the person of the King with all the Attributes of Majesty to show that he left the power of ordering all things to the conduct of Man though with an over-ruling Providence which before derived immediately from himself so establishing Monarchy but no other Form of Government by any Divine Commission And then he styles them First Children of the most high i Psal 82. to show from whom the Inheritance of their Crowns descends and that they are a middle thing as it were between Heaven and Earth like a Cloud in the Air above Man and below God Secondly The Lords Anointed k 1 Chr. 4.18 1 Sam. 24.16 and so Sacred by Consecration Thirdly The Angels of God l 2 Sam. 14.20 in regard of Wisdom Fourthly The Light of Israel m 2 Sam. 21.17 in regard of comfort and influence Fifthly The Kings of Nations n Luk. 12.25 in regard of their vast Empire Sixthly Nursing Fathers and Nursing Mothers o Isa 49.23 in regard of their tender Care and Affections to their People and to sit in the Throne of God p 2 Sam 3.1 1 Chron. 29.23 2 Sam. 12.7 Isa 62.3 in regard of protection as the Spring and Fountain from whence all Justice doth flow And therefore the Queen of Sheba acknowledged of Solomon That he was King as hath been said not only from but for God to do Justice and Judgment q 2 Chron. 9.8 for ever r Job 36.7 Custos moderator utriusque Tabulae And not only so neither though these are great Prerogatives but even as God two Constellations in one Hemisphere God and Man neither eclipsing the light of the other For so said Jacob to his Lord Esau s Gen. 33.10 vidi faciem ut faciem Dei that is saith the Chaldee as a Reverend Divine observes God in him as he was the Prince For Rex est animata Imago Dei saith St. Augustine And for this Cause it was said of Moses who with the Patriarchs and Judges had the exercise of Regal Power successively before Saul's Inauguration the Scepter he held was God's not his own virga Dei in manu t Exod. 17.9 God and Caesar u Mat. 22.21 Prov. 24.21 being to be obeyed tanquam conjunctae Personae Nor is it St. Peter's calling all Magistracy an Humane Creature and St. Paul's styling it God's Ordinance contradictory one to the other For one speaks of the Authority w Rom. 13. the other of the Laws or Ordinances made by such as he hath impowered to it whether it be the King or those Commissioned by him which St. Peter calls Humane Ordinances most properly because made by Men but intends not the King himself as if he were made by the People x 1 Pet. 2. nor his Power but the exercise of it which in regard of Circumstance as Time Place Actings c. is by Custome or Municipal Laws become Humane And now after so great Light hath shined into the World is it not strange that Men should seal up their Eyes and choose to walk in darkness of Errour should trace the Paths of Disobedience and Rebellion and by a daring Impiety heaping of one sin upon another as the Gyants of old did Pelion upon Ossa should mount this Throne of God by force and violence y 1 Chron. 29.23 to overthrow and divest him of all his Regalia and Soveraign Power on Earth pulling the Crown from his Head the Scepter and Sword from his Hand in the Person of our Sacred King who as the sum and recapitulation of the Virtues of all his Predecessors or as so many Lights in one Constellation shows the Glory and Lustre of all when a Heathen by the Light of Nature even Aristotle z 1 Eth. c. 2. as well as Calvin a 4 Inst 20. Sect. 33. did see something Divine in the Officers of Governours who are called b Sap. 6 4. The Officers of God's Kingdom From whence the Schools conclude That any the least Irreverence to a King as to question our Obedience to him may justly be called Sacriledge And since Sacriledge is a violation or taking away of something that is Holy it is evident that the Office and Person of a King is Sacred so as one observes Those Men that are most Sacrilegious against God and his Church are most likely always to offer Violence to the Honour and Persons of their Princes as too late experience hath taught us and to deny themselves the greatest Blessing c Jer. 22.34 Num. 23.21 Isa 49 22 23. to introduce the greatest Curse Licentiousness and Confusion d Prov. 28.2 Isa 3.5 All which sad Effects are but the airy Off-spring of a Platonick Speculation a wild and untaimed seemingly wise Folly in affirming that the People are in their Representative above the King contrary to St. Peter's Doctrine e 1 Pet. â— 13. our known Laws as may be seen in Bracton and all our ancient Sages the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance which they have sworn and his just Title being ever acknowledged by all Carolus but Dei Gratia Charles by the Grace of God not Election nor Suffrages of the People Though were it admitted that in some places as in Elective Kingdoms or here in case of Escheat if there were none living that by lawful descent were right Heir of the Crown the choice of their King were in the People they can only hold forth the Person to the Power if God have so in his Providence ordained it f Deut. 17.15 not give the Power to the Person which is not habitually in them though by them mediately not immediately conveyed but in God's Unction and Approbation of the person For Power like the Soul in the Body when reduced to its first Element returns to God that gave it And as in the Ordination of Bishops though the choice sometimes was perhaps in the People God was the Author and other Bishops by laying on of hands and Prayer the immediate Instruments only of conveying the Power of
have it used by any hand to which he conveyes it not by Humane which is always accompanied with Divine Right And so it is to be esteemed of according to God's revealed Will who never instituted other Government for Civil Regiment but commands it as other Spiritual Functions in the Church for Divine Administration there being no happy State in the perfection of Government without a Lawful King nor Glorious Church without Episcopacy Nor can any other justly intitle themselves to the having a Divine Precept or Institution for their Practise So as if others have the esse they want the bene esse of Government though men have found out many other inventions for both And therefore whosoever resist their Lawful Rulers by force purchase to themselves Damnation as they oppose the Ordinance of God though in wicked ones yet Rulers if wicked are to expect the same Reward For saith Bucer the word Subject signifies a fall and absolute Subjection to Rulers and forbids all force because as another observes u upon Tit. 3. to be subject is to obey and the rather because in the worst Government of any King the protection we receive from it doth more than ballance the Evils we perhaps might suffer under another Form w Jud. 17. And therefore saith the Apostle let every Soul as well Spiritual as Temporal be subject to Kings as the best Form of Ruling in whom by Gods Ordination the Habit of all Power resides though the Act be in his Ministers in all Causes though not over them but their Persons as Supreme and qui tentat accipere tentat decipere saith Bernard So as none but those that swear falsly in making a Covenant and fear not the Lord will say what should a King do to us x Hos 10.3 4. When as it is in the Fable of Beasts all should agree to choose the Lion for their King rather than have none For praestat unum timere quam multos And therefore it is probable God in his Providence to prevent Inter-regnums the mischiefs that did follow upon having no King y Judg. 17. and the tumultuousness of Popular Elections did settle Regal Powers in a succession of Blood first in David though promised to Abraham and prophesied of to Judah z Gen. 17.6.49.10 1 King 11.14 Jer. 41.1 2 Chro. 22.10 So as that Position of the Romanists and our new Statists Simeon and Levi Brethren in Iniquity that Princes are made by the People because made by the consent of the People and that People Originally make the Magistrate not the Magistrate the People is most false yet thus Parsons in his Dolman and many others broached that seditious Position with divers of the same nature to stir up the People against Queen Elizabeth perswading them they had power to dispose of the Crown and might depose her and transfer the Kingdom to the Infanta of Spain and since that time both Junius Brutus Buchanan and others like Sampson's Foxes have joyned with the Jesuits in this though standing as Extreams in other things But this Opinion as a most Reverend Divine of our Church hath shewed hath no Foundation in Reason nor Scripture For saith he from the Canon the Powers that be are ordained of God And how can man give the Sword the power of Life and Death over others that hath not power to take away his own life by any Natural or Divine Right For as hath been said no man can convey to another what he hath not himself So that Power wheresoever placed is an Emanation from God immediately and so to be obeyed only where orderly setled and constituted For the Powers that be saith the Apostle a Rom. 13. whether by Election or Inheritance Compact or just Conquest being once legally established are of God and may not be disturbed by their Subjects in a way of Arms or Force for any Impiety Tyranny or Oppression whatsoever they having no Power over the person once invested in and discriminated by the Power all Kings have by God's Ordination for in all changes men can only choose the person but never give the Power As Silver that is mere Plate if it be tendered for exchange may be taken or left at the liberty of him to whom it is offered but when once stampt by the King and Coyned becomes currant and not to be refused Or as Acts of Parliament whilest Voted by the two Houses have to this time been only Consents but after the King's concurrence Statutes that bind the persons that Voted them and all others and not to be altered by them without his assent So in Governments or Governours as soon as any are created by man whether Kings Elective or by Succession even St. Peter's Humane Creatures are by St. Paul called God's Ordinance b Rom. 13. and not to be resisted nor altered at the Will of the Electors who irrevocably part with their own Right as the Jewish Servant by boring made himself a Slave For if there remained in them a Power dormant to over-rule and unmake them whom they have once submitted to then where were decency and order c 1 Cor. 14. Nay what Tumults Disorders and Massacres would arise from it when Revenge would remove the one or Ambition Faction and the like set up another to compass their own ends like Herodet a Persian King who being a cruel Tyrant when he could not find out a Law to warrant his unlawful Actions found out another that he might do what he list And those that fear not God and the King conjunctim as one in regard of Divine Relation and Institution are given to such changes d Prov. 24.21 though Christ himself as man gave the example of submission and acknowledgment of the Divine Right of Caesar's and his Deputy Pilate's Power e Mat. 17.27 Joh. 9.11 the conviction of which Truth fetcht the Confession of it from a Popish Divine f Royard in Dom in 1. Advent Rege constituto non potest Populus jugum subjectionis repellere And though Bellarmine lays it as a Position as cited by Suarez g Li. 3. c. 3. p. 224. That the People never so give up the Act of Power unto the King but that they retain the Habit still in themselves it is contradicted by Suarez h Defend Fid. Cath. l. 3. c. 3. p. 225. in these words Non est simpliciter verum Regem pendere in sua potestate a Populo etiamsi ab ipso eam acceperit for he adds Postquam Rex legitime constitutus est supremam habet potestatem in his omnibus ad quae accipit etiamsi a Populo illam acceperit So Cuneris i L. de Offic Princi Principis sive Electione sive Postulatione vel Successione vel belli jure Princeps fiat Principi tamen facto divinitus potestas adest Otherways there would be Sword against Sword whereas God hath made but one because for one hand and will still be a
only to be contended for g St. Jude Ep. and preserved by our Act of Uniformity And in this respect Kings and Queens are chiefly styled Nursing Fathers and Nursing Mothers to the Church Fathers for Provision and Protection Mothers for their tenderness and care when as by little Stratagems and Circumventions they bring their Children to an habituated Obedience and keep Dangers from them by some outward and extraordinary Confinements both for Honesty and Order h 1 Cor. 14.40 So as Kings have no meaner a depositum committed to them than the Crown and Throne of God and Christ in the Church For they are as the Lions about the Throne to secure and guard it and as Law-givers in indifferent things i Deut. 33.4 5. though subject to the direction of their Laws and are with David to prescribe Rules for fixed Services and Devotions k 1 Chro. 23. and with Josiah to compel to Religious Duties and Laws of his commanding as is before exprest l 2 Chro. 34.33 as Hezekiah did m 2 Chro. 29. 30. 31. which Constantine the first Christian Emperour imitated n Euseb de vita Constant l. 2. c. 37 38 39. But they never as Praxiteles the Painter made the silly People worship the Image of his Strumpet under the Title of Venus imposed the Visions of their own Fansies nor licensed the crude and unnourishing Vapours of others empty Wits upon the credulous People it being below the Majesty of Truth and Religion but according to the sincerity of God's Law not suffering their Lusts to guide them which ever bring unconstancy with them and make the Soul like a distempered Body never well in any position or condition For then men like Bees from one Flower to another will be ever flying from one Change and Vanity to another and not find enough to satiate the intemperate desire of change So as it can be neither agreeable to Religion nor Prudence for a King to suffer variety of Postures and Forms in the outward Exercise of Religion for what is good is to be obeyed for it self what indifferent in Obedience to his Command when in middle things Supreme Power chiefly consists And 1. For Religion Kings ought to maintain it in its Essentials and Purity without any Indulgence or Dispensations to any as that only which can maintain them o Prov. 16.12 20 28. And such Josephs will be Store-houses in their Kingdoms and as Elijah Chariots and Horse-men for their security there being no guard to that of Piety and Zeal for God's Glory which they are entrusted to preserve even both Tables of the Law and are not to bear the Sword in vain which is put into their hands for that use Compulsion being necessary where Commands are contemned q Luk. 14.23 Rev. 2.2 6 14 15 20. Ch. 3.15 16. Nor doth Christ's Permission of the Tares to grow give any just Power of Toleration to Princes by God's Law in known Evils or pertinacious contumacy to lawful Commands but only permits mixed Assemblies where by reason of outward Conformity none can discriminate the truly pious from the Hypocrite by which he yet doth not forbid their Eradication absolutely but for fear the good Seed also should be destroyed when a Connivance to known Errours in Doctrine or to pertinacious Non-conformists in indifferent things would make the Magistrate contract the guilt of their Crimes Judg. 5.23 by confirming the one in their mistaken Doctrines and the other in their superstitious believing indifferent things unlawful even to an adoring the Idol of their own Fancy uncharitably censuring of all others even the Church and Government it self though it bring Hell out of Heaven in a pretence of Devotion and the Devil upon God's Shoulders to rule amongst us in Samuel's Garment by the silly Charms of a seducing Spirit through the warmth of Zeal when it wants the light of Knowledge to guide it though like the Volatil Spirits of Poysons when unconfined by not being luted up in some Viol or Vessel it evaporates into an Airy being of use only to infect others that suck it in by a nearness of Conversation So as some Ingredients of a seeming Cruelty in our Laws will prove the most Soveraign Mercy to reduce and recover them and preserve the sound from their Contagion if tempered in a proportion to their Crimes by pecuniary Mulcts or other Confinements saving some by Compassion others by Fears r Jude ver 22.23 when the violation of any just Law if wilfully done is unlawful Nay the least minute Atome or Airy Omission if habitual may become the greatest Crime if done with Scandal and Contempt to Authority in that the Transgression is against Gods Ordinance that requires Obedience to the Commander not in the value of the thing commanded by him it being no less Treason to coyne a Farthing that has the King's stamp upon it than a piece of Gold according to our Saviours Rule in that He that offends in one wilfully is guilty of the breach of all the Commandments when upon equal Temptations he would break the rest for one little wilful Sin like the first drop in an Orifice will usher in more and dispose the whole Body to such Evacuations and Eruptions 2. In Prudence there ought to be no Indulgence as to the Publick Exercise of any false Religion or variety of Forms in outward Worship For what Unity Decency or Order can there be in setting up one Congregation against another when Order is the Bond of Peace that keeps us in Unity For once break that or tye but with a slip-knot and all will be dissolved and come to Confusion which is the Womb of all Rebellion and Schisms Nay it were to depose Reason the Supreme Monarch and Enthrone the Inferiour Members which should submit and not impose And certainly the giving Ground in such a Duel would give Courage and Insolency in the Enemy to press for more and the Pale of Law that has a breach once made in it will let out all the Beasts of the Forrest to Rapine and Prey to the loss of good Subjects but not to the making any better So as however wise Princes may inlarge any thing that is too strait in matters of Discipline they will never let Clamour or the Unjust Discontents of any Midwife in what they call Reformation and much less a Toleration of all Sects and Errours Nor can the King expect a Harmony amongst Antipathies by permitting several Forms in one settled Government though the want of Power to maintain his own Laws may force him to unreasonable Condescensions for then a Dam against that Current would but enrage it to greater Violences yet in such a Case I conceive he ought rather to make a General Rule of Conformity for all if possible than Differing-ones to Parties by it to lay asleep and bury all Animosities the other would maintain and like Oyl upon Paper would rather harden than soften such Rebellious
Spirits and render them rather Conquerours than Supplicants But I hope God will not submit his own Glory and our King to such an Eclipse when nothing but necessity can make it lawful Though probably such a Scheme by some may be set and calculated for our Horizon when his Majesty's Complyance to some things has made them rather impose more than acquiesce in what they desired for he that once gives Ground ever loses more in his Retreat unless it be to rally again with some Reserves to maintain his own Right more vigorously so as we ought still to contend to Blood for our King's Freedom in his Actings against such Especially those whose Principles are for Resistance and Rebellion not Submission in things that are contrary to their seditious Principles that hold it lawful to murder the King if not the man in whom the Regal Power is vested by dispoiling him of all his Regalia and Essentials of Royalty which were to un shakel mad-men and set them free to Fury and Rage perhaps for the destruction of those that endeavoured their recovery and preservation and not to strike Sparks into those Brands that need be quenched but they heighten all into a Flame Besides it were unsafe to the Publick Peace to permit the Factious Separatists who are yet as Sand without Morter weak dispersed and loose to gather into Combinations and Confederacies by which they 'll know their own strength and take advantage of others weakness to compass their own end whose end is only like Oyl among other Liquors to be uppermost and bring all into a subjection to them and to be able perhaps to give not ask Dispensations Nay it would reflect dishonour and disgrace upon our Government and Governours and Discouragement to all Orthodox Professors not to maintain what hath been prosperously practised among us since the Reformation and hath had the Influences of Heaven to give it a Prolifick Vertue in producing a Loyal Zealous and Pious People to beautifie their Professions And therefore Christian Kings should not be out-done by a Heathen inspired by God to it but send out a Decree that whosoever will not do th Law of God and the King's Law let him have Judgment without delay whether it be to Death or to Banishment or to Confiscation of Goods or to Imprisonment s Ezr. 7.25 26 27. which was in part practised by the Kings of Israel t 2 Chro. 15.12 13 14 15. 29. â—0 31. 34.31 â—2 â—3 1 Chron. 23. and ought much more to be done under the Gospel that hath more of light and direction in it to walk by lest Liberty should turn into Licentiousness in holding things contrary to the Analogy of Faith and against the Rules of Charity Purity Loyalty Sobriety and Expedience to the disturbance of the Peace and Unity of the Church which Good and Pious Kings ought always to prevent or restrain by wholesom and Penal Laws of Regulation to encourage or fright their People the more to their Duties and Obedience which I shall in the next place touch upon with a light and unskilful Pencil CHAP. V. Of the Debt and Allegiance Subjects owe to their Princes NOW that we may pay and retribute the Native Rights rightly which we owe to the Person upon whom God hath fixt the Sacred Character of Supremacy let us endeavour to set a true value and estimate upon the great benefits we receive by him when we either find in the foot of the Account all the Glory of Religion and happiness of a free People if he Governs well summed up in him or when ill not only the Exercise of many Christian Graces in us God commanding our Submission to him but sometimes the highest Crown of Martyrdom when we suffer for Christ and a Good Cause and are not only ready with St. Paul to do but dye for his Name u Acts 21. For by it we may make Tyrants and our greatest Enemies to become our best Friends if we can but improve those holy advantages for our Spiritual Good and make our Spirits when extracted from the more earthly parts in all outward enjoyments to multiply our Joyes so that were there not a higher Principle to move us our own Interest and self-advantage the delight and complaisance of a quiet Conscience should naturally incline us to an holy gratitude to God for them and oblige us to all proportionable returns unless we will have the inanimate and irrational Creatures to rise up against us in Judgment For thus the Rivers run back into the Lap of their Natural Mother and offer up their streams there as a just Tribute for having sucked and derived their nourishment from her Breasts Thus the dull and heavy Earth doth put forth her self in an early Spring to make an Offering of her Fruits to man for his labour and cost bestowed on her and sends up an Incense to Heaven confest of the Spirits of her richest Flowers in thanks for her fruitful Showers and sweet Influences by which they grow and flourish Nay the most unnatural of all Birds the Raven became Elias his Caterer out of a natural gratitude to God as some have observed for feeding her young ones when she left them And therefore let not these become in this reasonable Creatures and we Men become Beasts nay worse by our unthankfulness for Blessings by Afflictions but most when we fail in our Duties to our Superiours for their benefits to us the contrary being enjoined by God who because Princes are to rule for him takes care for them and no sooner provides for his own Worship but for their Honour w Ex. 20.2 3 1â— still coupling them with himself through all the Scripture as x Prov. 24.21 Mat. 22.21 1 Pet. 2.17 Fear God honour the King that so both Law Prophets Apostles nay the Son of God himself might enforce it as a Duty upon us as a learned Father of our Church observes But not to loose my self in this Sea we will follow the several streams that run into it and shew how they all meet there And First of Obedience 1. The first great Out-rent and Homage we are to acknowledge our subjection in is Obedience in lawful Commands For so St. Paul to Titus y Tit. 3.1 commenting as it were upon the 13th Chapter to the Romans expounds it And as the Learned observe the very word Subjects signifies Obeyers in the Original as an Essential Ingredient into an happy Government which with Solon is ever most glorious Si Populus Magistratui obediat Magistratus autem legibus But then this duty must be rooted in Conscience and spring from thence in that we must obey for the Lord's sake terminating it in him because the bond to Civil Obedience is from Divine Ordinance and that not only to the good but froward Masters z 1 Pet. 2.18 Eph. 6. And then let it spread into every duty even in all things a Col. 3.20 Actively or
Passively obeying the Lawful submitting our Persons though not our Actions to the rest b Act. 5.29 to our King as he is Pater Patriae c 1 Pet. 2.17 of all others the Supreme Head for only in rebus mediis Lâ—x posita est Obedientiae because as I noted before in things necessary by any Divine Law we ought to obey though no Humane Authority command them in things unlawful we ought not to obey though commanded and are only to obey for the Commands sake not the things commanded in things indifferent which only become unlawful because forbidden and are not forbidden because unlawful For such Obedience is not only accepted with but rewarded of God as in the Recabites Jer. 35. and can only keep us in a serene and calm temper in the Body politick so as a frown will not appear in the face of that great Ocean by the raging of Waves and madness of the People nor will a wrinckle show it self to abate its beauty 2. We owe Honour to him and that as justly as Fear to God himself being commanded to pay it to God in the Man not to the Man but as he represents God And this as the Flags and main Sails of a Ship doth not only deck and adorn the Throne but makes it bear up in all Weathers nay as the Bark the Tree doth preserve it in all its other Rights For let us but once slight or contemn the Person in saying what is this Moses that takes so much upon him d Num. 9. and we shall soon despise his Power nay God himself as represented in the King or Supreme e 1 Sam. 1.8 Upon which ground it is probable that God and the King are linked together Fear God Honour the King f 1 Pet. 2.17 to teach us that their Precepts are not two but one and the same in Root though the Fruit we must pay them is different And therefore St. Paul in commanding all to submit to the higher Powers concludes to whom you owe Honour g Rom. 13.7 as to a Father or to God for Gods command h Isa 49.23 and this in our thoughts not to blaspheme them i Eccl. 10.20 in our words not to deprave them k Ex. 22.28 Acts 22.5 Jude 8. nor speak evil of them in all our Actions to reverence them as Gods upon Earth his Chair of State wherein Divinity it self is Enthroned l Ps 8â— 6 2 Sam. 14.10 Num. 12.10 16.32 though in the Person of a Wicked man For though he forfeit his claim to double Honour due to them that rule well m 1 Tim. 5. one to his Place another to his Vertues he cannot devest himself of nor justly be denyed that Honour Fear Subjection c. which Subjects as a debt and duty must everpay to his Office and Supremacy as a most learned Divine hath observed 3. We owe Tribute both of our Persons and Purses First of our Persons for the just defence of our King and his just Rights This is implyed in those words of our Saviour My Kingdom is not of this World else would my Servants fight n Joh. 18.36 1 Tim. 22. As also in respect of the Power of Life a King has over his Rebellious Subjects that would not submit to his Government o Luke 19.27 which though a Parable may from the Application inforce it And it may be further proved from his just Power of making War and Peace p Num. 10. as hath been shewed fully from Scripture and our Law-books Secondly To this we must add the Tribute of our Purses in that Money is one of the Pillars of Power and the Nerves of War Majesty without it being but the shadow of Regality and without Power but a Speculative Greatness that hath the Vision of gallant things but no means to detain them because wanting of that Soul which should animate that otherwise dead and useless thing to Action And therefore God hath provided against the Galilites and Herodians q Act. 5.37 Mark 12.17 Mat. 22.16.21 in one and the same Command resolving upon that Common Rule of Justice suum cuique for neither but against both those that would give all to God and no Tribute to Caesar or all to Caesar and nothing to God divorcing those he hath joined together by saying Give therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's r Mat. 22.21 Upon which ground as I conceive Dr. Reynolds still observes s Ps 110. pag. 128. Bona adespota incerti Domini vectigalia census c. Concealments Tributes Customs and the like are Testifications of Homage and Fidelity belonging to the Personal Prerogative of Princes and are as the Apostle saith due unto them t Rom. 13.6 7. Thus Solomon levyed and the Princes with whom he held Correspondence payed Tribute u 1 Kings 4.21 9.21 10.10 Deut. 20.16 Nay Christ himself paid it by his Command to Peter though he was at the cost of a Miracle for it w Mat. 17.27 even to a Tiberius a Wicked Prince though it was the only Miracle he ever wrought in money matters as peculiar to Princes whereas all his others concerned the general necessities of mankind And we may further observe the justness of it from the Latine word Reddite not Date importing that it is not only lawful to pay but unlawful to with-hold it as a due nay it should be willingly the Offering of a free-heart x 2 Cor. 9.71 So as Legal Customs y Luke 3.3 Taxes or Homage z 1 Sam. 17.25 2 Kings 15.19 20. Fines a Est 7.26 Confiscations b Ezr. 10.8 are the just Rights of our Superiours But extraordinary Impositions cannot legally be now laid upon us in any case but visible and immergent necessity without the consent of both Houses of Parliament it having been the Wisdom of our Predecessors by the Indulgence of good Kings to keep the Purse and the Power by Municipal Law divided to prevent all Tyranny and Exorbitancy in the use of either And if we owe these Assistances to our lawful Soveraign how are they guilty against God of a High Rebellion that reject and oppose him in their Superiour and do not endeavour by just duty to prop but undermine his Throne For if a Negative Obligation not to aid him be unlawful where God commands assistance what is their Crime but as the Sin of Witch-craft that enter into an Engagement against him who is to them God amongst men in the visible Character of his Power when all others are only Men before God So as he never countenanced any other Government than what was Monarchical deposited and summed up in one Person exercising the Power though not always possessing the name of King As appears by that of Judges where it is said every one did what they list when there was no King that is no supreme Judge
What then is their guilt who make or put on their own Shackles and twist the Halter for the strangling of themselves by departing from that Rule Though we may in lawful Actions submit to the Power of Usurpers especially when seconded with some Coercive Penalty as in paying of Taxes compounding for ones own Estate in case of sequestration c. where the least evil of Punishment only falls under Election yet we ought not otherwise to countenance such a Party for these ensuing Reasons which may contribute some directions for men to walk by in the sad and Labyrinthian turns of these times by shewing the unreasonableness of any such Complyance or Dissimulation by our Actings And 1. First All compliance in an unlawful thing or that which I believe so and every Act of Dissimulation ought to be avoided as it is opposite to sincerity and truth which God commands in every Word and Act there being nothing so contrary unto him as a Lye nor so destructive of Humane Society in that our Words are our common Coin and ought to bear the stamp of the heart both in regard of our Commerce with men and Tribute we pay in them to God u Psal 5. Rev. 21.27 nay to our own happiness w Aug. c. 3. Tom. 3. Tho. Aquinas 2. 2 qu. 10. Art 1. yet when Words and Actions are of a double signification and that no other is defrauded mis-led or justly scandalized by them a man may use them by way of design though Opus exterius naturaliter significat intentionem x Aquin. 2. 2. qu 111. Art 1. 2. Aug in Ps 25. as the Woman 's of Tekoah to David y 2 Sam. 14. and Nathan z 2 Sam. 12. 2. Secondly as it takes away the Glory and Crown of Martyrdom and Suffering for God and a Good Cause and prevents the exercise and manifestation of Faith Patience Perseverance and many other saving Graces contrary to St. Peter and St. Paul in their whole Epistle Yet where there is a lawful means to preserve my self I am bound to use it but not to tempt God by a temptation in making dissimulation or outward complyance a way to preserve my self or Estate by for that were to allow to every man a retreat in all Tryals and hold it forth as the Horns of the Altar by which he may be saved and place truth in unrighteousness though neither Law nor Gospel ever allowed of such a Dispensation as to deny a truth or speak or act a Lye for self-preservation but Elisha denyed it to Naaman the Syrian a 2 King 5. The Prophet's Go in Peace being nothing but a Civil Farewel to him no toleration for his bowing in the Temple of Rimmon though he professed an uprightness of heart to the true God Nay St. Paul reproved it in St. Peter b Gal. 2. though but in an Act of Omission a not doing what he might at some other times lawfully have forborn even a not conversing with the Gentiles because then proceeding from a servile fear it proved scandalous and of ill Example And if Christ the Morning-Star vincenti dabitur be only given to them that overcome what hope can they have that yield before the fight 3. Thirdly All seeming outward Approbation of or consent to any thing that is evil makes us guilty of all the whole Chain of Sins the first Link draws along with it For if a Robbery in one occasion a Rape in his Companion and that a Murther in a third the first Approbation and Complyance in an unlawful King and Confederacy in one evil makes all three guilty of all those sins So if I but once give up my person to a free and voluntary Obedience to any unlawful Power usurping the Crown in any thing that conduces to the support of it though not my heart I do with Peter deny my own Master ore si non corde and not only forsake David for Absolom but become guilty of our unnatural Rebellion and the Innocent Blood it occasioned the expence of with all its train of Vices As Jerusalem by countenancing the Persecution of the Prophets in her time became guilty of the Blood of all the Righteous that had been slain in that Cause from the first Martyr Abel to the Death of Zacharias c Mat. 23.34 35. For as I may be guilty of murthering one that overlives me if I comply with the Wicked in designing of it though it fail in the Event or but countenance it in the Attempt so may I by an after Approbation be guilty of a Murther committed a thousand years before And therefore we are commanded to separate from Babylon in Practice and Communion if we will not partake of her sins and punishments d Rev. 18. as Daniel did from the Nation he lived in though but in a Negative Precept e Dan. 3. For what Communion can light have with darkness in what is ill Christ with Belial if we will keep our selves void of offence towards God and towards Man f Acts 24. Thyatira's countenancing of Jezabel being as hateful as Laodicea's lukewarmness g Rev. 2. 3.20 So that we ought to reprove and not become guilty of others Crimes by a tacite complyance but fearing God and the King as Solomon commands h Prov. 20.19 avoid them that are given to change Loyalty into Licentiousness Religion into Prophaneness Piety into Policy Oblations into Ablations i Prov. 20.25 Mic. 3.8 Acts 5.3 5. Rom. 2 22 known Laws into Arbitrary Orders Monarchy into Anarchical Tyranny a Virgin into an Harlot whose house is the way of Hell going to the Chambers of Death k Prov. 7.27 by the prostitution of Religion Law and Right For know saith Solomon man's iniquity shall take and hold him in the Cords of Death l Prov. 5. that wilfully doth what is evil in it self evil in his Opinion or generally esteemed so of the best men m Phil. 4.8 whether in thought or act n Jer. 17. Jam. 1.15 4. Fourthly We are the rather to avoid all such Compliance and Dissimulation and to walk with all circumspection in regard of Man's proneness to follow a Multitude to do evil and to run upon the Byass of Popularity or self-interest Especially since the Example of great men hath not only a perswasive but compulsory Power in it o Gal. 2. For he that in Authority countenances one Thief makes many Nay he will soon do what he should not that doth all he may lawfully not considering Expedience So as rather than for to prejudice or scandalize others we ought to suffer all things p 2 Tim. 2.10 and rather expose our selves to all personal hazards in a strict walking and self-denyal than comply willingly with the Apostatizing Practice of these times charactered by St. Paul q 1 Tim 3. and St. Jude and not only avoid every appearance of evil but every lawful Action that may be an inlet to a
a compulsion in it as may appear by the Apostle t Gal. 2.14 and like Poyson in the Blood that runs through all the Veins taints and discolours them infects the very Air of our Conversation And therefore on the contrary let us as we ought rather suffer all for the Elect's sake with St. Paul u 2 Tim. 10. and expose our selves to all personal hazards in a strict walking according to this rule than comply in any unlawful act against Kings for those are not Children of the most Voices but of the most highest as hath been said the Peoples Approbation serving only ad Pompam but not ad necessitatem Thus the first King Melchisedech was said to have no Father in regard of his Office to shew that Regal Power is an emanation from the Deity it self and therefore the People cannot depose their Kings nor their Progeny because they are not of their making For cujus est instituere ejus est abrogare but still owe them Obedience and all things tending to their outward glory and support But our Royal Soveraign having also a Civil Right by the Municipal Laws of this Nation both to the Crown and all his other Regalia Rights and Revenues none can but by a complication of many sins as Rebellion Oppression and the like invade him in any of them nor acquit themselves from the guilt of it without opposing them that do it by all lawful means being bound to it by the Law of God and of this Kingdom and a Natural Obligation and common Charity which tyes every man not only to commiserate but relieve another that suffers under unjust pressures so as those neutral men that stand upon a safe Shore while the Ship is in danger and afford it no help cannot be found guiltless because they have not endeavoured to deliver him that had no helper nor broken the Jaws of the Wicked and pulled the Prey out of their Mouth w Job 29â— And if Damnation be to be pronounced against sins of Omission at the last day as for not helping not comforting those to whom we owe it but by a single Obligation of Charity what Hell is hot enough for those that act against so many clear convictions and endeavour to enforce others to approve of or seemingly to Covenant and engage for their Tyranny and Oppression and like those that have a Plague-sore desire to dilate and spread their Infection their sin to others when he that maintains or approves of an unlawful act done repeats it and sins it over again espouses the sin and makes it so habitually his as not to admit of any Divorce but as he that sets upon his house by Oppression or Injustice entails a Curse upon it to the Fourth Generation x Exod. 20.5 So he that countenances or confirms another in any unjustifiable Action and always approves it doth as much as in him lyes to make his whole life but one continued act of Wickedness and entails it upon his Posterity Nay our Charter for Heaven hath this condition in it That we speak the truth from our hearts y Ps 15. and in our hearts too in Words Actions and Desires for my inclination to a sin makes me guilty without the Act in that there is an Eye-Adultery and a Mental-Idolatry the Devil 's single mony and the connivance at much more complyance with another's sin in out-ward appearance makes it mine and so in God's account though my heart dis-allow and detest it For every Hypocrisie Dissimulation Guile and the like multiplies the sin and makes it two to me approving it in any for I contract both the guilt of the sin I countenance in another and the Lye I am guilty of in my self by it for my Hand or Eye or Foot or any fictitious Action may tell a lie as well as my Tongue But then every untruth is not a Lye when I believe what I say upon fair and probable grounds because mendacium consistit in voluntate every thing having only so much more of inordinateness and obliquity in it as it departs from what we believe or acknowledg to be truth 9. Ninethly we must not comply in any thing ill nor do the best Action if we believe it bad a Rom. 14.23 nor countenance an ill cause though to a good end in that the man is by it divided the heart and the hand moving several ways and becomes guilty of dissembling which is no less as hath been said than a real acted Lie and that every Lie is a sin that ought not to be given way to b Rev. 22. out of the contemplation of the greatest good even the saving of Souls c Rom. 3.8 For the Ark must fall rather than be supported by Vzzah's hands d 2 Sam. 6.6 any undue means and no Sacrifice must be offered to God rather than Disobedience e 1 Sam. 15. So that we must be sure that what we do be not only bonum but bene good in respect of the means as well as end For with St. Augustine f lib. 4 cap 7. tom 5. Quod est secundum se malum ex genere nullo modo potest esse bonum licitum Because as Aquinas saith ad hoc quod aliquid sit bonum requiritur quod omnia recte concurrant in that Bonum est ex causa integra malum vero ex singularibus defectibus A single defect making an Action sinful when all Circumstances are required to concur in a good one in that omne verum est omni vero consentiens quicquid non licet certe non oportet So Cicero g Pro Balbo For potest aliquid licere non expedire expedire autem quod non licet non potest h Aug. de Adult Conjug cap. 15. So that I will conclude with St. Augustine i Tom. 4. cap. 10. de mendatio and Thomas Aquinas excellently Non licitum mendacium dicere ad hoc quod aliquis alium a quocunque periculo liberaret And therefore with the Divine Poet Mr. George Herbert let us Dare to tell truth there 's nothing needs a Ly A Fault that needs it most grows two thereby and let us purifie our hearts Jam. 4.8 as well as cleanse our hands if we will draw nigh unto God k Jer. 17. the Law of God requiring an inward universality of the Subject to walk in as well as an Universal Obedience of the Precept to walk by 10. Tenthly Yet all this doth not by way of Obligation extend to the speaking of the whole truth at all times as in Abraham's calling Sarah his Sister to disguise his Relation to her as a Husband l Gen. 20 when God is not dishonoured nor my Brother damnified by it in that it may be but a concealing of something I am not bound to reveal when Mendacium est quippe falsa significatio cum voluntate fallendi m Aug. tom 4. l. 2. And therefore I
for those many hearts I have submitted unto you when you shall appear in Power and Majesty and this to speak the near ground of Relations between God and his Vice-gerent and instruct us that we ought to be Sons to the King in our Duties if we will be Heirs to God and Inheritors of his Glory For as in that where he said The Poor ye shall have always among you Christ did not only foretel but propose it as a Glass to represent God's bounty to us and an Object for the exercise of ours to him so in promising Kings should be our Nursing-Fathers he doth as it were promise us some Beams of his Majesty and Goodness should shine through that Glass and always be amongst us for the comfort of his people and commands our Reflections of Gratitude and Obedience to himself in them For when we look upon the Actions of Kings we terminate not our selves in their persons but the power of God working in them when lawfully deputed which makes the Schooles call Rebellion Sacriledge in that King's Persons are sacred and that God is opposed and violated in them who hath given them a right of propriety in Power not an usufructuary one only such as one King may gain in another's Kingdom by a just War yet of right he ought only to hold it till Reparation be made for the first Injury done and the Expence he hath been forced upon for the Vindication of himself and his Rights OBJECTION IX Object 9. But if a Nation be invaded when under an Vsurped Power by a Foreign King or People without either just Title or Ground of War I ought to assist the Vsurper in the defence of it Answ In this Case I ought only to joyn with any Force to defend my self and the Kingdom against any such Invasion so as I neither fight for the Usurper's Interest and Establishment nor against those of my lawful Soveraign But out of this Bough many Branches spring that afford Fruit of excellent taste and nourishment could I but gather and press them but I leave them for an abler hand and period my Lines and the Reader 's trouble in what I have exprest already In which Resolutions if I have been too severe and rigid I shall willingly and readily retract my errour upon the Evidence and Conviction of better Reasons For I only hold forth this Glow-worm-shine and little twilight to afford some glimmering in these benighted times by which men may guess at the way they should choose to walk in though difficult and rugged and to provoke some of the great Luminaries who had a fixation in the Orb of our late glorious Church or other Orthodox Divines Stars too though of a lesser magnitude to send forth some clearer Beams and more wholesom Influences both to guide and refresh us in this Wilderness we walk in inhabited rather by Beasts than rational Creatures there being no subject more proper and useful to these times wherein if we should but see Diogenes in his buisie search and ask what he strove to find he would answer Hominem quaero Nay I confess I am wholly excentrick in my motion being out of my own Sphere and have nothing but Pious Intentions and a Holy Zeale for a Rachel's Mantle to cover this weak Essay with and to hide it from the severe censure of a more exact Inquisition Only the Rule I propose to my self is in all doubtful and controverted Cases of Conscience to determine in that which is the strictest and hath most of self denial in it in regard of the proneness of Man's Nature to strain his Fetter and pass his Bounds and because the least sin like the falling of the first drop in the Orifice or the first Sand in the Hour-Glass disposeth to and prepares the way for more and many times if allowed proves the most dangerous in that it refers more to Infinity it self and grows into Habits because repeated without notice or purpose of limitation when great devastating Sins Allarms the Soul to a speedy discounting them by repentance and as great Fish-bones that are not easily swallowed stick in the mouth and are spit out again How Conscientious then ought we to be in every Action since the doing of an Act good in it self becomes sin to me if I be not fully perswaded of the lawfulness of it and the Complyance with others in any thing that is evil in it self though I do believe it lawful makes their sin become mine For so St. Augustine e Serm. 6. de verb. dom saith the Scriptures do attribute to one what he acts by or approve of in another's person Thus the Prophet attributes the Murder of Naboth to Ahab in saying Thou hast killed him f 3 King 20. because he disallowed it not when done though it was not he but Jezabel that contrived and acted it without his knowledge And thus the Jews are charged by St. Peter to have killed the Lord of Life though they did it not actually nor was it lawful for them as they confessed to put any man to death yet their guilt was more than the Romans in that they had Malice in their hearts to prosecute it when the other had hands only dipt in his Blood Therefore walk saith the Apostle with all Circumspection or Preciseness as the word bears it g Eph. 5.15 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 recoyling from all sorts of Evils in their first approach as the Blood in the Body will do from any apprehended danger to fortifie the most vital parts For if we must account for every vain thought h Jam. 4. Jer. 4.14 though thought be so near nothing as no man can think what it is how should we avoid the least act of scandal to our Brethren or complyance in the most minute sin when the smallest sins many times prove more dangerous than greater as is before expressed For like Worms they get insensibly into the heart of the Fruit and destroy it when the great Birds that fall upon the Tree are watched and driven away Thus small Distempers many times kill where a strong Feaver would not in that they infuse their Venom by gentle insinuations not to be discovered when the other by Assaults gives Allarm to our watchfulness Nay great sins discounted or not repeated are not so dangerous as the least multiplyed without our care or notice in that as I said they refer more to infinity it self when augmented without purpose of limitation For thus our pale-fac'd weak but repeated sins become many times more deadly than our scarlet and impudent ones repented of Therefore let us be so far from making little account of great sins as to make great account of little ones For if the owning or patronizing the least minute Atom aiery sin be so dangerous and when alone sits in State and draws a whole Train of Vices after it what hope is there of those men who on the contrary are so far from making great account
or lawful Magistrate in Israel Nay even in Popular States so natural a thing is Monarchy in what hands soever the Power is one Finger will still as in natural Bodies be found longer than the rest and become a Kingly Tyrant by his over-swaying Interest And therefore let us not cast Pelion upon Ossa heap Sin upon Sin by countenancing such mushroom Alterations Nay he that is not against them is with them in this case and so becomes guilty of their unfruitful deeds of Darkness if not discountenancing and preventing them by all lawful wayes according to that of the Apostle t 1 Thes 5. avoid all appearance of evil by appearing to disallow of it never concurring actively with it though we suffer to Bonds and death For that will in the end prove our Crown of rejoycing though the Absoloms of these times would with fair and specious pretences seduce us from our Allegiance For it is better in this Case contrary to David's choice to fall into the hands of Men embalmed with Innocence to preserve our names from Infamy and our Souls from Damnation than into the hands of God besmeared with the Leprosie of Sin that must needs cause his rejection of us But if the Despisers of God and their King will still pertinaciously maintain the black and horrid Sins of Oppression Sacriledge Murder and the like not only deposing but despoyling them as the greatest Delinquents of all their just Patrimonies and Rights by plundering the one and vilifying the other in all things sacred whether Places Persons or Revenues sanctified and discriminated by Gods own Institution by prophaning his Sanctuaries and despising his Priests and Ordinances d Lam. 31. Ps 74. they may be assured of a certain if not swift destruction to overtake them from the Authority of the like Precedents in all Ages and the Word of God it self For their Posterity here like a Plague-sore in the Body growing out of their own putrefaction their soul and ulcerous Sins as the meritorious cause of Judgments will hasten them Nor can they account themselves free from the other's guilt who have not acted in their Crimes if they have not some way opposed them e Judg. 5.23 according to their several Callings and Capacities being bound to it by the Laws of God the Kingdom and that of Natural Obligation to their Civil Parents and common Charity to their engaged Brethren in that Damnation will be chiefly pronounced against Sins of Omission at the last day which I express not to upbraid any but to convince them by it to make them steer a more safe course in Emergencies of the like nature if any shall hereafter happen making God's Law the Compass by which they sail even Heavenly Influences not sublunary Agitations However I hope they will keep themselves from a countenancing of or complyance with the Persons and Actings of those that usurp the Supreme Power both in regard of Scandal to others and contracting Crime upon themselves by avoiding all Appearances of Evil f 1 Thes 5. when Vertue and Vice border so upon one another are so near in their Confines and so contiguous as the least excess or defect makes a Natural Action many times an unnatural disorder and a thing indifferent in it self become the parent of a great Sin Therefore he cannot be innocent that holds Communion with those that are guilty of such high Crimes in any thing that seems to countenance them though God's Service be a thing pretended as in their Thanksgivings and Humiliations so St. Augustine g Serm. 6. de verb. Dom. For two will not walk together unless they agree saith the Prophet h Amos 3.3 So as it is the duty of every Christian not to betray the truth by his Silence or Countenance but to contend for it against all Actions that seem to favour the successes of an unjust Cause grounded in Rebellion or tending to the maintaining an Usurped Power i Judg. 3.11 And therefore we ought by separating from them k 2 Cor. 4.17 to reprove their Errours l Eph. 5.7 11 15. in that our Actions have a Tongue in them as well as the Corn Earth and other inanimate Creatures m Psal 19. So that though Humiliations and Thanksgivings are Pious and Religious Duties in themselves yet when called to advance any unjust Interest or to countenance it our presence there intitles us to their Sin though we abhor it and the Minister at that time preach against it in that the end for which it was commanded terminates and specificates the Duty in all ordinary and publick Interpretation and makes us give by our presence Offence to the Innocent confirm the Wicked and partake of their Crimes so as Disobedience in that case is better than Sacrifice n 1 Sam. 15. Nay I may not only appropriate others Sins o Psal 50.28 by Countenance Approbation or Imitation while living but may be guilty of Sin in others many thousand years after I am dead as well as I did Sin before I was born when they sin by Example or Infusion derived from me For as the long precogitation upon any sin with delight makes it an old and inveterate one before it be produced into Act so another's repetition of any sin by my Example or Authority though committed many Ages hence makes it a new sin to me and to increase my Damnation as is deduced most justly by Divines from the Parable of Dives p Luke 16. who reflected upon himself not his Brethren in his charity And therefore let us walk with all preciseness q Psal 119.53.63 hating Evil with a perfect hatred and doing nothing that either may be made an Argument to confirm others in any evil way or action by our complyance or be matter of just scandal to the Innocent and suffering Party especially if our Judgments approve it not For if I ought not to do a good Action nor favour a good Cause if not of Faith r Rom 14. I am much less excusable in countenancing an ill one my Judgment in any thing dissenting So that none can conscientiously and voluntarily act with those that usurp the exercise of Supreme Power in any Kingdom in any thing that gives countenance to such an Authority or is conducing to the establishing or maintaining of it without contracting the guilt of all those sins and irregularities the others smoothed their way by to that assumed Greatness For there are so many ways to contract others Crimes as Junius and Piscator observes s On Isa 10.1 that the very Scribe or Notary of an unjust decree though but instrumental in it is threatned with a Curse a woe being pronounced both against them that decree unrighteous decrees and that write grievous things which the other prescribed as the Prophet expresses it For we are commanded to walk honestly toward them that are without t 1 Pet. 2.12 not giving the least scandal in any thing