are chiefly to be noted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whether to the King as Supreme THe King then is Supreme by the express Word of God And there being none superior to him that is Supreme it is impossible and contradictious that any other pretended Authority should justly overtop and controll the Supreme Imperial Power of the King From hence it must follow That every Insurrection or levying of War against the King by what persons soever Subjects of the same Kingdom or in what capacity soever must of necessity be that unlawful Resistence which God threatens with damnation * Rom. 13.2 For To say that the levying War and taking up Arms within the Kings Dominions without the Kings Commission against the Kings Armies which have his Commission is no levying of War against the King is but a sad Apology and too weak a Plea for all the hope of those mens salvation who scorn to repent to rely upon For in this Text the weak and wicked principle from which that grand Mistake and all the Mischief that hath ensued is most expresly confuted For if the King be Supreme the People or the Peoples Representative is not unless it were true That the People or their Representative is the King For Whosoever is Supreme is the King The whole People is not the King Therefore The whole People is not Supreme The Major is apparent because the Apostle ascribes the Supremacy to the King and to no other unless in one Kingdom there could be two or more Supremes which would infer a manifest contradiction He that denies the Minor must be sent to Bedlam Therefore the Conclusion is unavoidable The whole People is not Supreme Much less their Representative though virtually the whole Least of all a Party apostatizing from their faith given to the People and their promissory Oath to the King joyning with and approving the Armed force and violence which excluded their Fellow-Members that were more in number and so of greater authority than themselves out of that House into which they had been legally called by the King and sent by the People Yet how gloriously those Apostates could arrogate to themselves the Title of The Supreme Authority of the Nation Which was frequently given them also by their close Adherents and some other ignorant and besotted people XIII Exod. 20.12 Honour thy Father c. THat the Civil Magistracy and Paternal Authority are really the same though not gradually and so the former as well as the latter immediately derived from God and not at all from Man it most demonstratively appears in that Obedience is commanded to both by one and the same precept and signified by one and the same word in this moral and eternal Law of God For if the Authority of all Magistracy be not established upon this moral precept what ground is there for it How comes it to be morally lawful to be any Magistrate at all especially so far as in any case to be a Revenger and to punish any person especially for less than Murder with death since it is God alone that is the Lord of life If then the Civil Authority be established onely upon the same precept of the Moral Law which is the proper foundation and the adequate measure of all just Laws and lawful actions and the Magistrate there included in that word Father which the Paternal Authority it self is onely grounded on both that and this must necessarily be the self-same power and cannot differ really but only modally or gradually in the different Object and Execution And at that time when this Law was onely in the hearts of men and afterward with the whole Decalogue delivered to Moses and long after that too there was no Government in the world beside the Regal And this appears by the words of the people to Samuel Make us a King to judge us like all Nations * 1 Sam. 8.5 and also by all Instances that can be named Therefore the onely Magistratical Authority established at first of God himself upon this moral precept of his eternal Law was Regal And the Regal power being the same really and originally with the Paternal it certainly follows That the People do no more authorize their King than Children their Father to have dominion over them And it must needs be as lawful if not much more for Children to call their Natural Father to an account to depose him or to put him to death as for any People to do so to their Civil Father the King the LORD' 's Anointed FINIS
HONI SOIT QVI MAL Y PENSE DIEV ET MON DROIT THE SEDITIOUS Principle Viz. That the Supreme Power is inherent in the People and that perpetually as in the proper Subject Upon which the late lawlesse Actings against the KING were grounded and from which the long Thraldom and Misery of the three Nations did ensue Examined and Confuted By JOHN NOVELL B. D. LONDON Printed for Sarah Bartlet at the Gilt Cup in Westminster-Hall 1662. Perlegi hunc Tractatum cui Titulus The Seditious Principle c. Examined and Confuted Quem Lectu Typis dignum judico M. Franck S.T.P. R. P. Epis Lond. Ã sacris domesticis Feb. 26.1661 2 May it please Your Majesty THis unhappy Posthumus was intended to kisse Your Majesties hand before the Authors death but by some ill fate hath trewanted by the way till now of late it came to me who having had a former acquaintance with it in loyalty to Your Sacred Majesty duty to my Countrey and obedience to the Authors meaning whom I had the honour to call Tutor dare do no lesse than publish and present it nor could I have abused this opportunity without a tacite condemnation of my self as accessory to this horrid Principle The Dregs whereof hang too much in the heads of many mistaken moderate persons and still continues lurking in corners and building strong holds in secret and seditious Conventicles And to give it an honorable Pedigree they make it of kin to that ancient frontispiece of the Common Laws of England Salus populi suprema Lex Where without doubt the King in good manners must needs be understood in the first place as Head of the people and in case our Division-mongers shall take the King and people as distinct Estates it can bear no other meaning than that the health and welfare of the people is the strength of the King who is the life of the Law But their crooked constructions are like bad constitutions that turn the best of meats into the worst of humors And to give this popular principle the more formality and priviledge it must be denizon'd by the Taile of that Serpent-Parliament the memory whereof is only happy in the Act of Oblivion and laid up in their Journal as a perpetual magazen for the fifth of November or a recruit in taile to the black and dismal day of our late Kings murder Your Majesties Royal Father Though our late combustions by Your Majesties Providence and prudence are alayed for present yet 't is justly to be feared they will never be extinguished so long as this Principle hath one spark of life or being in the hearts and heads of your Majesties subjects To which the Author most humbly offers this expedient And if Your Majesty shall please to give a second life to him by a countenance of these lines with Your gracious acceptance without doubt You will find them bear a very considerable part in Your Majesties Life-guard But my duty to him forbids me all Encomiums knowing how little he loved them and how much lesse he needs them Now may it please Your Majesty since Your Pardon hath prevented the utmost darings of all mens askings I shall not be desperate of mine for assuming this boldnesse being the real effect of a heart brim full of affection and loyalty to Your most Sacred Majesty and upon that confidence shall presume to beg leave to write my self Your Majesties most humble and Loyal Subject JOHN SHADWELL TO THE KINGS most Excellent Majesty Most gracious and dread Soveraign THat ingenuous and true Loyalty which is due to your most Sacred Majesty if it can yet be as duly rendred is the truest and surest foundation of the whole peoples civil happiness and safety That which is most opposite to that true Loyalty is the late unchristian policy most perniciously practised in these Nations upon the false ground of this most erroneous and seditious Principle That the Supreme Political power is both originally from and still inherent in the People In the Confutation whereof which may by some other be much more irrefragably done All these persons that have from the very beginning of our late miseries in any Way or in any Capacity acted directly or indirectly against your Majesties Royal Father of ever blessed and most precious memory and against your most Sacred Majesties own Person and just Right will find themselves not a little concerned They will easily see that if this Principle be proved false the only pretence of lawfulnesse for all their lawless actings is utterly taken away For even to themselves and to all other men it is most apparent if duly considered that from this Principle arose the Confidence or Pretence of lawfulness so the most unlawful usurping of the power of the Militia their taking Armes by their pretended Authority from the People their making pretended Acts of Parliament without the Royal Assent their most impudent accusing and most sceleratious condemning of Your Majesties Royal Father expresly in the name of the People and which was the root of all the evil their first Covenanting to alter the fundamentals of Government and to abolish that which stood fully established by all the Law of England without any Concurrence of the Royal Authority and in a forcible and violent opposition against it their Ejecting the whole House of Lords and most unrighteous banishing of Your most Sacred Majesty upon pretence of sole Soveraignty in the People whose Representatives they would even in despight of the People be then esteemed For all which unrighteous practises and many other most nefariously perpetrated against all Law Divine and Humane the Authors Actors Abettors and Approvers have no other pretence of Apology by which they yet continue in impenitency besides their own Opinion or Dissimulation of this most false Antiscriptural and most seditious Principle Therefore any confutation of this will perhaps irritare crabrones too much irritate the whole nest of Hornets with all their disloyal and Antichristian Faction there being but little hope of more than forced Repentance from them that have sinned wilfully after they had received the knowledge of the truth and hence it is there is so little appearance yet of any such thing How seasonable therefore such a Corrosive may be to that old Sore that is but newly skinn'd it is not easie for any private person to determine Yet the Conscience of my necessary duty to serve God and Your Majesty and to defend Your most Sacred Authority in my way to the uttermost of my power hath enforced me to this Endeavour which I most humbly submit to Your Majesties Censure pleasure and Pardon as becomes Your Majesties most devoted Servant and lowest Subject JOHN NOVELL A Short Account of the danger of this PRINCIPLE THis popular and loose Doctrine was easily learned and greedily swallowed by many undiscerning People And by this were they soone flattered into their own undoing and made very active Contributers to their own destruction
They were told that Power was but derivative in the Prince and that of right the Soveraignty was theirs as properly inherent in them And that they could never recover their native Liberty but by casting off the yoke of all subjection to the most ancient and only lawful Government of the Nation till having lost the benefit of it and protection by it the pretended Liberty shew'd it self in its proper and true Colours of perfect bondage and misery The truth of this they have very long and very severely been school'd into Neverthelesse it is probable that many of them are not yet aware that so long as this pernicious Principle is where it was uncondemned and perhaps undiscerned by many the common danger of future Mischief by it is not yet removed Idem quâ idem semper facit idem If this and this only hath been the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the main leading Cause as indeed it hath of the slavery and misery we have long endured there can be no absolute and perfect Cure of these Evils with prevention of future danger without a total and timely removal of that Cause This Principle then had need be fetch'd out of the hearts and the heads of the Obstinate by a more powerful and effectual Confutation than that which is but verbal though never so Logical or Apodictical Argumentum baculinum or a good severe Law against it were perhaps at such a time as this no more than necessary But all they that have any thing of good in them will certainly by arguments truly and logically deduced from the Oracles of God effectually be wrought upon Especially considering that so long as this Principle remains in any credit and uncondemned That the proper and perpetual Right to the power is the Peoples Whensoever the multitudes of Seditious Spirits that are still though dispersed where they were and the same men they were and may secretly grow to be yet more in number can have the opportunity to rally and by Conspiracy get into a Body though they be not the fortieth part of the Nation they will by and by call themselves the people And then next to the grand Cheat Mockery of seeming Sanctimony by a false pretense of standing up for the Peoples Right bring the whole People many of their own party not excepted into that or a worse ruine and desolation if they can which no humane wisdom or power without the immediate helping hand of God could have now rescu'd and redeem'd us from That damnable Principle is therefore the most pernicious and dadgerous Cousenage that ever any people was abused and deluded by And if this were all it were not so fit for one of my profession to have medled with it But 't is also a Principle of Infidelity and of Rebellion against God as being expressely repugnant to the general Torrent of the Testimonies and Instances contained in His written Word And upon that precise account there is here endeavoured a Confutation of it AN Introduction Touching the state of the QVESTION WITH A Brief Explication of the Terms IT is the new and strange Doctrine of some of the late Jesuits more lately reduced into Practice by Persons professing the greatest Enmity and Opposition to those Innovators That the whole Political Power is not only originally from but formally inherent in the People Nota hanc Potestatem immediatè esse tanquam in Subjecto in tota Multitudine saith one * Bellar. lib. 3. de Laicis c. 6. Note that this power is immediately in the whole people as in the Subject of it And Pendet à Consensu multitudinis It depends upon the Agreement of the people saith the same Author And Potestas secularis est à Deomediatè quia Natura Recta Ratio dictat hominibus persuasit praeficere Reipublicae Magistratus saith another * Caanel à Lapide in his note upon Rom. 13.1 i. e. The secular power is of God but mediately because Nature and Right Reason which is of God doth dictate and hath perswaded men to set up Magistrates over the Common-wealth But saith the same Author Potestas Ecclesiastica immediatè est à Deo instituta The Ecclesiastical Power is ordained of God immediately This is true and so indeed must also that Original Power of Paternal Regality needs be which God by the Law of Nature hath ordained and by positive Institution settled of which his written Word gives us clear and certain Instances by which also He hath governed the world universally in the first ages of it and unto which He expresly commanded obedience to be yielded by one of the special Precepts of his moral and eternal Law then when there was no other kind of Civil Power extant in the world But this Device of Mediate derivation of the Civil Power and immediate Institution of the Ecclesiastick is invented and obtruded by these deceitful Workers to exalt the Pope to an absolute Soveraignty over all Kings and Princes and that not only in Spirituals but by the help of that Distinction of not directly but indirectly which is just as good as this of not immediately but mediately in all temporal and secular things and Causes too as well as in Spiritual In order to this Design intended by these Authors and in prosecution of many other farre Different Ends designed by the Anabaptists and others the Foxes have their tails tyed together in this false Principle equally common to both which is that Fire-brand that did for so long a time put these Nations into one general Combustion The self-same Principle was once delivered by one Dr. Dorislaus of infamous memory in the Schools at Cambridge in my hearing about thirty years since And had he then been punished as he was complain'd of according to his high Demerit and his dangerous Doctrine publickly condemned if it could have been by a just Law perhaps the mischief that hath since ensued of it in which the very same Man had a hand might have been prevented It hath also been more lately asserted by the Author of a seditious Pamphlet set forth about the beginning of our late fatal War entituled OBSERVATIONS upon some of His Majesties late Answers and Expresses wherein the Observators Fundamental Thesis confidently presumed and never proved is in these express words Power is originally inherent in the People And Power is but secundary and derivative in Princes the fountain and efficient Cause is the People And last of all the Author of the Armies Plea as 't was call'd affirmeth That Kings have no power and authority but what they have from the People Still the People are colloqued with and made believe all is their own till they are left Owners of Nothing but at the pleasure and allowance of their Covetous Undoers Why should I make these petty instances when this principle is become so National as to have the Countenance of a Vote in that which was called a Parliament as you may see in their Preparative
themselves must needs be principal under God in the governing of their own Civil Body and consequently all Government must of necessity be Democratical For even in a simple Democracy if any such be the whole people being utterly incapable of doing any Act of Government themselves in their universal Body must needs govern by some One or some few deputed and impowred by them If then in an ancient and lawful Monarchy the King or Monarch were but the peoples Minister or Deputy and only by them impowred Monarchy and Democracy were formally the self-same and no real or so much as formal difference between them which were manifestly false and contradictory Whosoever hath his Authority to govern from the people is the peoples Minister in governing themselves The Minister of God in governing the people is not the peoples Minister in governing themselves Therefore The Minister of God in governing the people hath not his Authority to govern from the people But consequently from God himself If this Minister of God were the peoples Minister then not only God but the people were principal in inflicting death which no Angel nor man but as Gods Minister only is any more capable of than of giving life God only is the Lord of life Therefore as the whole people cannot give to one man life so neither can the whole people have a just power to take it away None can justly destroy Gods image but God let the Cause be what it will And the power which the people have not they cannot give It is therefore God alone and not the people that gives to the Supreme Magistrate the Power to execute wrath and to punish with death IV. Judg. 7.20 The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon IN the whole Word of God there is neither mention nor intimation of any such thing as the Power of the Sword in or from the people But as here The Lord and Gideon so the Lord and the chief Magistrate such as Gideon was then made are only mentioned in Scripture to have any interest in that Power Whatsoever power is in the people is in them either principally or ministerially The power of the Sword is not in the people either of these wayes Therefore it is not at all in them The disjunction is undeniable The Minor is apparently true in respect of both for the principal power of the Sword can be in none but God and the Ministerial power of it can be in none but Gods Minister The Conclusion therefore is infallible The power of the Sword is not at all in the people And if this power be not in them which all political power doth either consist in or depend upon what other power can be where that of the Sword cannot Yet the Phanatick Spirit had of late taught many weak people to believe That the peoples Representative though really not that was the only Supreme Authority of the Nation as they commonly call'd the late Authours of our greatest evils But if what was phansied the peoples Representative by their own choice were the only Supreme and the only just Authority in every Nation and consequently the Kingly Office and Government in it self unjust and inconsistent with Liberty as all out Republican Zelots commonly asserted then all these consequences are inevitable viz. First That if Justice did everywhere obtain which God doth everywhere command that is If Gods own Will were done he must needs lose his own glory to be King of Kings for there would be never a King in all the World beside himself Secondly That God no less the Worlds immediate Governour than its Creatour having generally goven'd it ever since the Creation of it by the Monarchical which is really the same with the Paternal and Patriarchal power hath been all this while to seek how to govern it in the only just and good that is in the pure Democratical or simple Republican way or by Successions of Representatives or no man knowes what for which there hath never yet been one Example in the World Thirdly That all the good Kings of Israel as well as the bad and all those Kings and Queens over Christian Nations who God did promise should be nursing Fathers and nursing Mothers to his Church were and are all and every one of them even Queen Elizabeth among the rest wicked and unrighteous persons that is Tyrannical and unjust Invaders of the peoples Right and Subverters of their Native Liberty Fourthly That Gods promise in that particular must or of right ought to have been totally disappointed Fifthly That God himself was then the Authour of injustice and Tyranny when he sent his Prophets to anoint Saul and David and Solomon and Hazael and divers other Kings These and many other irrational and intolerable consequences must unavoidably follow if it were true That the peoples just Right and Liberty did only and formally consist in having the Supremacy of all Civil power in their own hands or at their disposal Another vulgar Errour consequent to the former was That the good of the people is not at all concerned in the Supremacy of power residing in the Prince and that the Kings Prerogative is to them no priviledge but in all a prejudice as they were senslesly made believe to publick Interest and Liberty The Kings Majesty in virtue of His Supremacy hath the Prerogative power as well of dissolving as of calling Parliaments If such a Parliament should come which God avert as should begin to do what the late long Parliament hath done the Nation would then scon learn to believe That the Kings Prerogative to dissolve such a Parliament would do them no harm The great end of Government and of the Supreme Kingly Prerogative and power is doubtless the general Welfare of the people Therefore most assuredly in such an anciently constituted Kingdom and after so many Lawes and Charters securing for ever the peoples Interest and Liberty no understanding man will now be made believe after the late horrid delusion That there is any ancient and legal Prerogative or power belonging to the King but is certainly though not visibly to all conducing directly to the general good and welfare of the people If the due Administration of Justice by the power of the Sword and of the Lawes of the Land against all wrong-doers and against all perturbators of the publick Peace in what place of capacity soever be for the general good of the whole people then assuredly the greater the Supreme Governers power and Prerogative is the greater is the whole peoples present safety and future security And for this cause it is that God hath given not another but his own Sword to his sole Vice-gerent the Supreme Magistrate The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon V. Numb 27.16 17 18 19. Let the Lord the God of the Spirits of all flesh set a man over the Congregation which may go out before them and which may go in before them and which may lead them out and
which may bring them in that the Congregation of the Lord be not as sheep which have no shepheard And the Lord said unto Moses Take thee Joshua the sonne of Nun c. And set him before Eleazer the Priest c. FRom all which words it is apparent First That the Lord is the immediate Author and Donor of the Civil Power and Authority Secondly that because this authority is derived immediately from God to the Prince the Prophet and the Priest were here appointed the special Ministers of God in the actual Conferring of it As in token that God is the proper fountain of this Power Christian Kings have usually had the Crown set on their Heads by the Metroplitan Bishop as the chief Minister of Christ who is now as man the King of Kings and Lord of Lords Thirdly that the Civil Authority and just power of Government could not be given by the people For the Lords setting of a man over them is here represented as the sole Expedient by which they could escape that fatal Evil of being as sheep that have no Shepherd From whence the illation is evident and certain That if God had left them to themselves they had been vested with no Civil power which they could of themselves have transferred to One or More For being in themselves without a Prince in a state of actual Anarchy they were no more united in a Civil Body without which there can be no Civil Power than Sheep can be one Flock in one Fould without a shepherd Neverthelesse the Authors of the new Policy well enough discerning how hard it would be to maintain there could ever in any time in which the meere imaginary founding if Authorities is dreamed of by some be any real and formal power of Magistracy inherent in a people without a Prince and the impossibility of a peoples conferring that to Others which they never had themselves to prevent if they can a manifest Conviction think to make their Escape by a nice Metaphysical distinction of Act and Habit and answer That the people indeed never had the power in Act but yet in habit they had and ever have it But if this be so when they come actually to conferre it which is a dream and never done can they do that Act by it and yet have it but in habit only Or may not this prove a Distinction without a difference For here indeed the Dispute is not of the actual administration and practice but of the power it self that is not of the power in actu secundo or Execution which on both sides is confessed to be only in the Magistrate but of the power in astu primo or Existence in it self and in this there can be no difference at all between Act and habit And therefore to say the people have it in habit but they have it not in act is an unavoidable Contradiction They have it and they have it not What the people never had could never by them be transferred to the Prince But the Supream authority the people never had Therefore The Supreme authority could never by them bee transferred to the Prince Consequently the Soveraign Prince must needs receive it immediately from God The truth of the Major appears by a manifest Rule in Philosophy and common Reason it selfe Nothing can give what it selfe hath not either formally or Eminently The Minor is also apparent in that the people have not nor ever had the Supreme authority either of these wayes not Eminently because it can be eminently competible to none but God For the Supream Civil authority is eminently conteined in the Divine and in no other Not Formally unless they could at once be Prince and people too that is unless it were possible for them to be the formal Governours of their own Selves in their whole collective Body Therefore they no way have nor ever had it And Consequently it never could by them be transferred to the Prince VI. Prov. 8.15 By me or in me Kings reign IF the Supreme Civil power were in the people or any way depending upon their will and pleasure it must necessarily follow that this special Ordinance and work of God should be as mutable as the mindes of men and lyable to be put by and disappointed upon every alteration of the most unstable Opinion of the giddy Multitude especially of the more subtile active ambitious and busie-headed party If these will translate the Supreme power for rather the Empty Name and Shadow of it from the King to the two Houses that had sworn subjection to it and then from two to one and then from that one to a falsely called Protector and then repenting of that turn it into other hands God must all along wait upon their unconstancy even in their foul iniquity not only with his Providence permitting but also with his Ordinance legitimating whatsoever new or no form of Government the wickedness of some and the weaknesse of others shall put them upon That which supposeth the special Ordinance and Operation of God to depend upon the inconstancy of men in their unrighteous wayes is impious and false But that Kings reigning by the special Ordinance and Co-operation of God should have their power of reigning from the pleasure of the people supposeth the special Ordinance and Operation of God to depend upon the inconstancy of men in their unrighteous wayes Therefore That Kings reigning by the special Ordinance and Operation of God should have their power of reigning from the pleasure of the people is impious and false The major cannot at all be doubted of nor yet the minor by such as will oblerve that Solomon reckons it for one of the Glories and Special Excellencies of God that By him Kings reign And this can signify no lesse than that the reigne of Kings is by the special Operation and Ordinance of God as S. Paul saith it is If then the Reign of Kings were penes populum in the Power and at the pleasure of the people so were also that special Operation and Ordinance of God by which they reign which as it is apparently false so were it gross impiety to imagine it to be true VII 1 Sam. 24.5 It came to pass afterward that Davids heart smote him because he had cut off Sauls skirt YET when our late political that is Atheistical Parricides spared not to cut off their Kings head their wicked hearts were never troubled at it Nor have many if any of them or of their close Adherents and parties to the same faction yet profess'd any remorse or sorrow for what they have done but still seek to cheat the world and their own soules with the meer form of Godlinesse and pharisaical Ostentation of more than ordinary Sanctimony and still hold on in their old way of justifying themselves in their farr greater by condemning some smaller sinnes in others as they account the setting up of a May-pole the meer drinking of a health and the like As
if our Saviour had never condemn'd this soul hypocrisy of spying motes in the eyes of others when huge beams are in their own But Observe the words that follow vers 6. And David said unto his men The Lord forbid that I should do this thing unto my Master the Lords Anointed to stretch forth my hand against him seeing he is the Anointed of the Lord. Here the people had all the Cause in the world if any cause could or can be to withdraw their Allegiance and to call home the Soveraign Power into their own hands if there had been any such thing to be done Saul their King was then a wicked man a Tyrant a Persecutor of holy David a man forsaken of God and evidently acted by the Devil Yet here we see no deposing much lesse murdering of him Nay David who was now in Sauls stead anointed King durst not here stretch forth his hand against him to imprison him or to do him any harme his heart quaked when he had but onely cut off the skirt of his Robe What would our new Polititians have done in the like case They would have looked upon the Opportunity as a Divine warranty to do the mischief and have told the world afterward That God put it into their hands and it was set upon their spirits and their prosperous successe in it was the good hand of God and the answer of prayers Three or four of the best of the new Rules of seeming Righteousness fitted for the justification of all their Lawlesse acting by that wicked Principle we here dispute against But here in the text we find all tendernesse shewed by David to Saul though God had put it into Davids hand and it was set by the Devil upon the spirits of Davids servants to destroy him And all this care which David took to stay his servants from rising against Saul was because Saul however then rejected of God remained still the Lords Anointed seeing he is the Anointed of the Lord. Now if Kings be the Lords Anointed and their special anointing be that by which they are formally made Kings then nothing can be more manifest than that they are made such immediately by God For the outward anointing of old was but a Ceremony the real and substantial unction by which Kings then were and now are formally constituted the Lords Anointed could be or can be no other but the formal Authority and supreme Power inherently vested in them And To signify the derivation of this from God immediately the outward unction was ever ministred by a special messenger immediately sent from God the people doing nothing in it nor knowing of it But since it is apparent that the Authority it self is the real anointing though the Ceremony be never had the King is thereby formally constituted the Lords Annointed Consequently all Christian Kings at this day are the Lords Anointed as well and as really as those that were anointed with outward oil by Prophets sent ro m God And this though manifest enough in it self is also proved by the example of Cyrus who though never anointed by a Prophet with outward oil was neverthelesse the Lords Anointed Isa 45.1 Thus saith the Lord to his Anointed to Cyrus c. He was the Lords Anointed as having the supreme authority of a King by which he was enabled to be a powerful deliverer of Gods people Much more then are all Christian Kings the Lords Anointed as having the same Kingly power by which they are enabled to be the nursing Fathers of the Church Whosoever are the Lords Anointed do receive their unction immediately from God All Kings are the Lords Anointed Therefore All Kings do receive their unction immediately from God The Minor is confirmed by as many clear Testimonies of holy Scripture as the most of those Divine Verities which we undoubtedly believe And it is evident in it self That in as much as those Kings that are recorded in Scripture to be the Lords Anointed were such in no other capacity but as they were Kings all Kings must needs be such by the known Rule Nor can the Major be doubted of since it is not at all or not only the outward but the inward and immaterial unction of Soveraign Authority by which Kings are really and formally the Lords Anointed and that which is inward and immaterial God only can be the immediate Giver and Creator of VIII 1 Sam. 8.4 5. WHEN the people of Israel desired a King they never so much as pretended to any Soveraign Authority in themselves which they would transfer in aliquem unum as is said and so set up a King of their own making If the people had had any such original power in themselves they were then in a two-fold disposition to make use of that without any more ado For first They were Gens Prophetica beside their natural Sagacity they were a Learned and Prophetick Nation and could not be ignorant of Jus naturate of any natural right and power they had of themselves to set up a King had there been any such Secondly They were in this very thing rebellious against the Lord and therefore not over-scrupulous of adventuring of themselves to set up a King if they had known themselves to have had original power of their own so to do But though they met with a strong Repulse by which they had occasion to plead their Right they never so much as mentioned any such Right or power of their own but they only went and made their Address to God That he would set a King over them and accordingly Behold said Samuel the Lord hath given you a King 1 Sam. 12.13 Whatsoever is incommunicably in God is not at all in men The Original and only Right of erecting a Monarchy and setting up a King is incommunicably in God Therefore It is not at all in men The Major is evident And the truth of the Minor also is clearly seen in that famous instance and in many other as in Gods anointing and setting up David afterwards by his own immediate Act to be King instead of Saul This he did not at second hand but immediately by his own without and before any Act of the people touching that Affair as appears 1 Sam. 16.1 c. especially ver 12 13. And this appears also by Gods giving without the consent of the people and before they knew it the Kingdom of the ten Tribes to Jeroboam 1 Kings 11.31 and ver 35. and ver 37. and also Chap. 12.24 Therefore though it be said that the people made David King 2 Sam. 2.4 and so Jeroboam 1 Kings 12.20 yet we see how apparent it is that those Kings had their Right from God without and before any consent or knowledge of the people IX Dan. 2.21 22. He changeth the times and the seasons He removeth Kings and setteth up Kings He giveth Wisdom to the Wise and Knowledge to them that know understanding He revealed deep and secret things He knoweth what is in
the dark and the light dwelleth with him THAT which is principally intended by the Prophet here as the Context evidently shewes is to celebrate the praise of God as the only Authour of setting up in Succession the several Monarchies of the World And to make it evident that to do this belongs to none but God he compares it with these other Prerogatives of his which are apparently belonging so to him as that no other can have any thing to do in them For who can have any thing to do in changing the times and the seasons which God hath put in his own power * Acts 1.7 Who but God alone can be the Giver of Wisdom and Knowledge Who can reveal Secrets that are absolutely such such as the knowledge of the future Monarchies and the meaning of a forgotten dream concerning them but God alone Who besides him or with him can tell what is in the dark Who then if Daniels parallel here made be true can have the right or the power to remove Kings and to set up Kings but God alone His meaning must necessarily be that men can have no more to do in this than in those other special Prerogatives of God in any of which they can be at most but instrumental which signifies nothing to the purpose save that it infers a necessity of Gods immediate Essiciency as of the principal Cause without whose immediate Concurrence the Instrumental operates nothing at all And if the people cannot be principal or other than meerly instrumental in the Fact they can have no pretence of interest in the Right The Right therefore that is the lawful Power and just Authority of removing Kings and setting up Kings can in no wise belong unto them but precisely and incommunicably to God alone No proper Right and special Prerogative of God is at all belonging to men But The just power to remove Kings and set up Kings is the proper Right and special Prerogative of God Ergo. The Major is evident in it self the Minor is clearly evinced by the Text alledged the Conclusion then is certain and infallible viz. The just power to remove Kings and set up Kings is not at all belonging to men From whence it followes That if a whole people and much more if a prevailing Party against the will and to the extream regret of the whole shall de facto not only remove but murder their lawful King all the aggravations of that Monster-sin duly weighed they can be no less wicked than the worst wickedness can make them except that of desperation and final impenitency For in that wilful deliberate and affected Anomy wherein all Law Divine and Humane is knowingly transgressed beside the greatest wrong done to the Best of men they boldly assault Heaven and invade the proper Right and special Prerogative of God From hence the justness of the severest punishment of those horrid Offendors is most evident to all understandings and even to their own consciences if they have or ever had any X. John 19.11 Thou couldst have no power at all against me except it were given thee from above THAT this was the Civil Judiciary and just power it is apparent otherwise when Pilate evidently spake of this Christs answer had been equivocal and the Supreme power of life and death it was which though formally competible to none but to the Supreme Magistrate is yet here by Christ attributed to Pilate because the Supreme Magistrate and his immediate Minister are in a moral sense but as one person to wit the latter sustaining in the exercise of this power not his own but precisely the person of the former And the Magistrate saith Christ here can have no power at all except it be given him from above Consequently all his power is from God alone That which is not given to the Magistrate but from above is given him of God alone The Supreme power is not given to the Magistrate but from above Therefore The Supreme power is given to the Magistrate of God alone Here all is manifest and certain from whence every one must needs conclude That what hand soever men may have in making a King de facto or restoring a King to the exercise of His Kingly Office the formal Authority and Supreme Kingly power and the just Right to exercise that power is not at all from men but from God alone Therefore also they that have interrupted and sought to annihilate this power and right which God alone hath created have not only sinned against God as sinners usually do but have striven to shew themselves stronger than he to overthrow what he alone without them and without all men hath only by his own Ordinance and Act established XI Acts 22.27 The Jewes which were of Asia stirred up all the people of Jerusalem and they laid hands on Paul And Chap. 22.22 They lifted up their voyces and said Away with such a Fellow from the earth for it is not fit that he should live FROM this unjust sentence of that whole people the Apostle made his just Appeal to Caesar Chap. 25.11 If it be true which is averred That Kings have no Power and Authority but what they have from the people St. Pauls Appeal from the whole people to the single person of the King was apparently unjust and he a manifest Abettor of Tyranny in owning a power in Caesars person above the power of the collected Body of all the people But the holy Apostle well knew where and in whom the highest power next and immediately under God was found and therefore declined to be censured by the peoples universal Vote or to go up to Jerusalem where the peoples Representative was to be judged there but made his just and last Appeal to Caesar Every just and last Appeal is to the highest power next and immediately under God St. Pauls just and last Appeal was to Caesar Therefore Caesar was the highest power next and immediately under God The Major must needs be true unless it could be lawful and just to Appeal from the highest Authority under God to meer violence and force for Inferiour power against the Superiour from which it is derived can be nothing else The Minor is found in the express words of the Text the Conclusion therefore is certain That Caesar was and so every Caesar or Soveraign Prince is the highest Power next and immediately under God And that the King is solo Deo minor less than none but God is a Maxim in the Common and Fundamental Law of the Land So grossly and palpably false is that Seditious Assertion That the King is singulis mojor sed universis minor only greater than the single persons but less than all together XII 1 Pet. 2.13 Submit you selves to every humane Creature Which signifies that every Man that is a Magistrate is of God himself created such and therefore to be readily submitted to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the Lords sake But the words that follow
to the High Court of Justice Jan. 4. 1648. and the eigth of January 1648. you may see the same Dorislaus appear in his Colours as one of the Chief Architects of that most Horrid Structure But That there can be no other Fountain and efficient Cause of Civil Power and just Authority but God That it is derived to Princes immediately from God and not solely or chiefly from the People That the Special Right and Title to it is from God alone And That God never gave his own glory to men to have the giving of this Power is that which is here endeavoured to be made apparent But first a little explication of Terms such as shall here occasionally be mentioned will not be amiss When the word Magistrate is used not every one that is vulgarly called by that Name is meant The inferiour Minister of Justice having no inherent power but deriving all his authority by Commission from the King is not the Magistrate here spoken of The King alone is the Magistrate properly so called who only is that Supreme Person whose Authority is not Commissionary but original formal inherent and inexistent as created in Him of God by communicating to Him the Image and Title of his Own Dominion and Power by which He Himself Governs the world And it is of the same Nature but more eminent with that authority which a Father hath over his sons which depends on no Act or Deed much less on any Concession or Grant of theirs And by this it also appears what must needs be meant by the Supreme Political Power and Authority to wit that Paternal and equitable and yet full and uncontroulable Dominion over the free people of the Land whose freedom consists in this that He Rules and Governs them as the Minister of God in true judgement and justice according to the known Laws ancient Customs and fundamental Constitutions of the Kingdom and that for the Common Good and Universal Benefit of all As a Father uncontroulably governs his Children yet for the equal and common Welfare both of Him and them What is meant by immediate Derivation of this Power from God which is often mentioned is next and last to be unfolded Things may be said to be of God or from God divers wayes 1. By his immediate Influx into the Essence of every thing as he is the Universal Cause of all things that have a Being 2. By his immediate Instinct Motion Special Help and Exciration as He is the Father of Lights and Giver of every good and perfect Gift and thus he gives to his Special Minister the Supreme Magistrate special grace wisdom counsel courage justice love to his people and a tender care of their Welfare 3. By his own proper Donation Grant and Conveyance of just Right Title and Interest And thus the Right and just Title to Supreme Government and Political Power comes immediately from God to the lawful Magistrate As every private Right Title and Interest to or in any thing must needs come to him that receives it immediately from the only just possessor and proper owner of it Such as God must needs be of all Dominion Government and Rule over the Nations of the world as their Sole Creator and Upholder For God of his own right being the only King and by his own Act the immediate Governor of and in all the actual Governments and Kingdoms of the world it incommunicably belongs to him to have the giving and conveying of the Right of Government to them that justly possess it And it incommunicably belonging to him to have the giving of that Right from him immediately must it needs come This way of Derivation and Collation of Civil Authority and the Right of it directly and immediately to the Supreme Magistrate from God the proper Fountain and formal Owner and actual Possessor of it who imparts it to the Supreme Magistrate not by alienation from but by communication with himself these ensuing Arguments by vertue of that high Principle upon which they are founded the Word of God will it may be hoped sufficiently prove and manifest to all but such as are given to change and are led by the Phanatick Spirit to Despise Dominion and to count all just Authority tyranny if they be not allowed to take the liberty to controul it at their pleasure to use the Lords Anointed as execrably as they have lately done and to shed the blood of the chief Nobility also to satisfie their filthy Lust I. Exod. 22.28 Thou shalt not revile the Gods nor curse the Ruler of thy People or the Prince among thy People GOD gives his own Name and Title to the Prince which were utterly incongruous and incompetible if he did not also communicate to him a competent proportion of his own authority and power But if God had given the whole civil Authority to the People and the People only and only upon their own account had given it to the Prince by such a meer extrinsecal Commission of authority from Men how could Princes be stiled Gods when those men themselves could never be stiled so I have said Ye are Gods likewise saith the Psalmist The reason whereof is expressely and purposely rendred by our Saviour in the Gospel * Psal 82.6 John 10.34 Because to them the Word of God came Which can signifie no less than that their Civil Power is given and conveyed to them by the express Word of God For it is God himself that saith by the mouth of David I have said Ye are Gods Therefore Dicit Christus Reges vocari Deos quòd munus sustineant divinitus sibi injunctum saith Calvin rightly upon those words that is Christ affirmeth that Kings are therefore stiled Gods because they bear an Office by Divine Injunction Who will say that the Peoples Election or Commission unless they were all Prophets is Divine Injunction Or who will say in express contradiction to the Text that not the Word of God but only the word of the People it was that came to them Where a Kingdom is by Custom elective the Case differs not For in this the Act of men is only instrumental to God In their electing who have right to elect God alone gives the right and the just Power to govern Which is apparent because this right and power the Electors themselves never had and therefore could never give it Briefly thus Whosoever can have the giving of Supreme Political Power can likewise have the giving of Gods own Name and Title No mortal men nor Angels in heaven can have the giving of Gods own Name and Title Therefore no mortal men nor Angels in heaven can have the giving of Supreme Political Power The Major is evident because God hath said to Princes I have said Ye are Gods and directed his Prophets to call them Gods for no other reason but because they communicate with God in that Supreme Power of Government that principally and properly is his peculiar Whence also the
Minor is manifest because none but God whose only peculiar the Power is can upon the account of communicating thereof to Princes be the Giver of his own Name and Title And therefore saith our Saviour To them the Word of God came that is It was God himself that said thus to them I have said Ye are Gods And if he had not said it who ever durst or could The conclusion therefore is certain He who alone could say Ye are Gods could really make them such that is could really communicate to them of his own Power for which he so entitles them II. Rom. 13.1 Let every soul be Subject to the Higher Powers or to the Supreme Power TO say a Derivative Power is Supreme is a contradiction Therefore Nero's Power was not then Derivative but under God Original and Inherent in himself which it could no otherwise be but by his communicating therein with God whose Minister the Apostle saith he was whereby it became as properly his own against all other men as wisdom or learning or any other quality which God also is the Giver of is his that hath it Upon occasion of the Sedition of Judas of Galilee mentioned Acts 5.37 the Romans were ever apt to suspect that Christ and his Apostles being also Galileans were ill-affected to Caesar and to the Roman Empire Hence it was that the Pharisees sent their Disciples with the Herodians to Christ thinking with flattery and hypocrisie to discover it to be his Opinion That it was not lawful to acknowledge the Authority of the Roman King over Gods people to be taxed by him or to pay Tribute to him in that it might seem a betraying of their Liberty as they were the seed of Abraham The pretence whereof specious and very taking was that that drew so great a multitude after the Galilean Rebel For this Cause our Saviour himself and his holy Apostles were as watchful upon all Occasions to wipe off this unjust Aspersion cast upon them Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars said our Saviour Matth. 22.21 Thereby declaring not only the lawfulness but the justness and duness of Caesars Tribute even from Gods own people the Jewes which is plainly notified by Caesaris and Reddite Render it Now if the Civil Power over the land of Judaea had been of Right in the People that whole Nation and all the World besides Luke â— 1. could not have been taxed to pay it as they were against their Wills without manifest Injustice The Tribute had in no wise been due to Caesar till it had first been granted by the full and free Consent of the people It was not their own Act but only Caesars Decree that drew it from them yet by our Saviours own words was this Tribute just and due to Caesar which manifestly shewes that Caesars just Power was not depending on any Act Grant or Consent of the People That now Taxes are not ordinarily raised in this Christian Monarchy without the Peoples own Act and Consent in Parliament hath grown into an ancient and obliging Custom now which took its beginning no doubt from those Christian Principles in our Christian Kings which are of greater perfection than what the Rules of meer Civil Justice do require which infers not any dependance of the Kingly Office and Authority on the Consent or Will of the People And as Christ himself so his Apostle Paul writing here to the Romans endeavours in like manner to evidence to the World That Christians were no way guilty of the Galilean Heresie as the Ancients call'd it And therefore doth here effectually move the Christians to yield Obedience and Subjection to the Roman King though then an Infidel and afterward * For this Epistle was written in Quinquennio Neronis a fierce Enemy and a Persecutor of the Church To this Duty he stirs them up by divers convincing Arguments whereof the first is to this effect All Power that is of God must every soul be subject to But the Power of the Roman King is of God Therefore The Power of the Roman King must every soul be subject to Here our later Polititians could for a need have helped the Christians if they had had a Will to Rebel to such a near distinction upon the Minor as should have utterly repelled the force of the Apostles Argument viz. Power is of God two wayes either mediately or immediately And would have taught the people to apply it thus If Caesars Power were of God by immediate derivation of it from himself then indeed it were not for men to reverse it or to disobey it But since it is of God according to the new discovery but only mediately that is only by and through the agreement of the people to transfer that Power to the Magistrate which God had first and originally given to them alone in this case O Paul the Power of our King being no otherwise from God but thus We the people that gave it to him and still have it inherent in our selves as in the Subject of it may not only disobey it in him but take it from him if we think good as they that can grant a Commission can recall it when they will and then give it to whom we please or take it into our own hands again Whosoever therefore will believe there is any thing in that distinction and that God who gives life health strength wisdom grace goodness and every thing else immediately by himself doth not give this so too will by an avoidable consequence make but a weak Logician of the holy Apostle But the Wisdom of God by which the Apostle was directed hath so ordered his words as to prevent this furilous Evasion For he so affirmeth the Power of the King to be from God as withall expresly to deny it to be from any other The words run thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which can be rendred strictly and â—â—â—batim no otherwise but thus The Power is not but from God Or There is not Power but from God Which is a flat denial that the Power there spoken of is at all from men And therefore to say it is not only from God but also and more immediately from the people is not only the express Contradictory to the Apostles Assertion but quite destroyes the Reason involved in it For if the Supreme Power of the Prince be from the people and no more directly and immediately from God then these things are that come by second Causes That there is no Power but of God is no more a Reason why every soul should be subject to the Power of Caesar than to the command of a Robber for this also is mediately from God in that the mans Nature and Reason is from him by which he commands III. Rom. 13.4 He is the Minister of God IF the Supreme Magistrate be Gods Minister then is he not the peoples as he needs must if he received his power immediately from them Then also the whole people