confound all within Church and State If such gifts and impulses be sufficient call for intruding in the office of the Magistrate to execute justice why is it not also sufficient for the office of the Ministry without call from men externally And thus Anabaptists Enthusiasts Photinians and the like denying the necessity of external call to the Ministry avowing gifts and excitations to be a sufficient call shall gain the day a man may take the honour of a Ministry to himself without waiting mans call as well as the honour of Magistracy a self-called-Magistrate and a self-called Minister are very sib together And how shall the Libeller refuse to admit women to baptize children in case of necessity the thing it self being good and for a good end and there being none other to do it and the exigence great or how will he hold back any private persons from preaching and ministring all Sacraments though they have no external call It is easie to pretend as great need for this as for intruding into the Magistrates office 8. It is in vain for this man to tell us that Gods hand is not shortened and he hath plenty of the Spâ—rit to give and is the same yesterday and to day and for ever and can give such gifts and excitations and such allowance in acting as Phineas had For our question is not anent Gods power or what he may do we adore that glorious Majesty who doth what he will in heaven and in earth and can do above all we can think But our question is if now after that the Canon of holy Scripture is perfected sealed and consigned we have warrand to look for any extraordinary persons having Gods secret and special mandates to do works which any ordinary calling they have by allowance and approbation of men according to the rules of common reason and the word doth not interest them in such as Phineas act supposing him a private man is to be esteemed The man falls out in wishing that all Gods people were as Phineas and had the same Spirit of holy Zeal that by removal of the cause his fierce anger against this poor Land might cease We shall easily concur with him in wishing and praying that Gods people may be filled with zeal to his Glory as Phineas was but not that they should have that same exercise of zeal that he had nor follow his fact unlesse they could be certified of their warrand and calling to do so as he was The Apostles of Christ are to us examples of zeal for God in their Ministery but who will say that the acts which they zealously did by vertue of their extraordinary calling are for our imitation albeit their zeal be Peter in zeal to Gods honour killed Ananias and Saphira who lied to the holy Ghost Shall therefore Ministers slay men that deal deceitfully with God or shed their blood the zeal was imitable but not the fact the fact is not justified meerly by the zeal that puts on to it but by the calling and warrand To follow all the facts of them who have been truly zealous for God is indeed a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an evil zeal like the zeal of the disciples Luke 9.54 Who knew not of what Spirit they were Peter Martyrs word speaking of imitation of extraordinary examples of zeal and facts done that way Loc. comâ— Clas 2. cap. 9. is good Nobis cavendum est ne illa quae vehementer extraordinario cupimus aliquo exemplo Majorum velimus constabilire cum inusitata volumus aggredi contra ordinaria Dei praecepta non est satis exempla produxisse Majorum sed excutiendus Spiritus quo ducimur ne spâ—cioso quodam praetextu carnis affectum prudentiam sequamur And Perkins on the Creed pag. 194. sayes well If a man be zealous for Christ he must be zealous within the compasse of his Calling and not be zealous first and then look for a Calling but first look for a Calling and then be zealous Which thing if Peter had marked he would not have dealt so rashly in drawing his sword and smitting for being without compass of his Calling he could not but do amisse But yet this man urgeth Nap. p. 24 impiety shall quickly gain an universal Empire to the extermination of all goodness if for fear of accidental hazards vertue and vertuous actions of private persons shall be utterly neglected Ans None offers to hinder vertue and vertuous actions of private persons but only their vitious usurpations upon the Magistrate no evil should be done either that good may come of it or a worse evil prevented the exercise of the Magistrates office in executing judgement is good being done by him but it is evil being done by a private person that hath no calling so to do every man hath not a calling to do all good but only that good which is competent to him in his calling to do when iniquity is like to prevail it is my part who am a private person to mourn for it to pray against it to use fraternal loving warnings to others as I have occasion and to keep my self pure from pollutions in so doing I may sit down with contentment referring the remedy of evils to God in his own way and time but to break Gods order by intruding into publick places and the actions of Magistrates for preventing or remedying impiety is but to cure one sin by another And when we have invaded the Magistrates place being private persons others will do the like to us and there shall be no end of confusion Fearers of God would not listen to the charmes of vain talkers but beware of removing the ancient limits God hath set of mens callings were it for prevention of greatest idolatry or wickedness nothing that is either evil in it self or evil as circumstantiated in our hands from whom God hath required no such thing is to be done Will ye speak wickedly for God and talk deceitfully for him Job 13.7 But this Libeller insists upon the matter of private mens usurping the Magistrates place not only in the first part of his Book speaking in reference to our first Reformation and Way of it which he brings to justifie present insurrections but in the latter part p. 151.152 he will have private men taking the punishing and reforming sword in their hands against all Magistrates and sayes expresly people of inferior degree may step forward to occupy the places and assert the interests which wicked Rulers have forfeited and deserted And this he sayes is according to the Covenant where they swear in their places and callings to endeavour reformation c. which clause he sayes is to be taken not restrictively but as he speaks the clause is exegetick and ampliative and that the sense is that if others in their respective places concur in advancing the work every one shall confine himself to his own place and calling but if these in higher employment fail in their oath
Satyrum for hardly can a man meet in any book with more bitter invectives against all Authorities and Dignities appointed and approven by God then are here to be found All that have gone that path before him seem but children in wickedness in comparison of him He deserves to be in the first classe of these Jude 8. who despise Dominion and speak evil of Dignities Yet it must be confessed that the man deserves well albeit beside his intention of all the Authorities civil and ecclesiastical in the Land for while others do politickly keep in supprimit Orator quae rusticus edit inepte He hath plainly laid open the spirit of the faction for which he is Advocate and gives as we will hear fair warning to the King that he must not expect impunity if they can have their will and to all the Nobles and Magistrates whose places and dignities forfeited as he saith by them private persons in a Phineas-like spirit are allowed to possess removing and taking order with them for great apostasie and patronising abominations as he speaks but especially to all the ministry whom he calls Wolves and Theeves and mainely to the Bishops what they are to expect for loading them outragiously with all sorts of reproaches which his wicked heart could prompt him to utter he directly endeavours to stir up the people to embrew their hands in their blood and to destroy them in their innocency with tragical oh s awakening the rage of the rudest multitude which he calls zeal of God to execute judgement on them that the fierce anger of God may be turned away and tells them if they do not so they are plagued with stupidity and blindness All sorts of rulers in the Land may see their dittay and their doom drawn in this Libell and the man should have thanks for discovering the malitious bloody and cruel designs of his party that these who are concerned being fore-warned may be fore-armed professa perdunt odia vendictae locum when the snare is sett in a mans sight he deserves to fall into it that will fall into it When a mans deadly enemies proclaim their intentions if he take not warning and be not upon his guard who will not think that in his lifetime he were worthy of a fair hood and bells and because he perishes in the snare that was set in his sight he will be thought worthy of Abners Epitaph Dyed Abner as a fool dyeth This man will make us wise whither we will or not and force us to keep our eyes in our head But as to this infamous Libeller how irksome a thing were it to follow him closely in all his foolish reasonings that are continually interlaced and larded with foul revilings How unsuitable were it for one who desires to keep the constant composure of a Christian spirit to indulge a humour in retaliating according as the indignity of his abuses requires verily in dealing with men of this stamp outragious in their opprobrious speeches defenders of the truth are at a great disadvantage in regard of these who have sober and grave adversaries to deal with But it almost transcends humane patience to treat myldly with such an insolent one as this who transgresseth so far the bounds of all humane modesty in dealing with all sorts of persons in Authority as will be seen anone Although then a more then ordinary vehemency of a keen stile should be used in beating down the fierceness of one so excessively insolent whose intemperate pride despiseth moderate remedies good and wise men will not judge it very criminal but at least somewhat excusable Shall Masters of confusion indulging themselves in their proud morosity unworthily demean themselves toward the sober defenders of the truth and will not this be sufficient Apology for them to put forth some sting and use some measure of vehemency in this case Should such a person as this who as the Poets feign of Hecuba metamorphosed into a mad barking bitch after the destruction of Troy barks and bawles and dares with his furious petulant and pestilent pen overrun and bespatter King Parliament Council Nobles Judges Bishops Ministers and all ranks of people in the Land should he be smoothed and stroaked with soft words might not possibly a too faint-like and toothless defense of the truth tend to harden him and his complices and breed suspition of some signs of diffidence distrust and timorousness in owning the truth and rightousnesse of the cause that is owned against him Sed motos praestat componere fluctus It shall be fitter to consider what becomes us to utter then what becomes him to hear or what he is worthy of There lyes indeed a tentation in these nameless writings which therefore it is to be wished were not in use to exceed in passions and to utter words incognito that will not be stood to but remembring that we have not so learn'd Christ as to render revilling for reviling and that mans wrath works not the rightousness of God though sometimes it is for peoples edification to see the due characters of such as lead them out of the way so far as humane infirmity permitts the truth shall be searched after and spoken in love all bitterness wrath anger and clamour with all malice being put away but if any thing aculeat and pungent do escape it not being used in any private cause or quarrel but in the publick concerns of truth of the Church of God and of the State of the Common-wealth nor proceeding from any private revenge there being room enough in our fraternal affection for any who will leave their unchristian sanguinary and inhumane wayes it will at least be excused by the judicious and wise And if any such thing be it is heartily wished it may prick the Libeller to repentance for these things wherein he hath already put himself to shame But to prepare for consideration of the matter of this infamous Libel it shall be fit to advert how palpably and closely this man treads in the foot-steps of the old Masters of confusion the Anabaptists It shall not be said that his complices or he are arrived to the owning of the highest mysteries of that Sect in the points of Enthusiasme and Libertinisme nor that they are so cruel as to exclude Christian infants from their Birth-right priviledge of Baptisme howbeit it is worthy to be considered how far the common demand of expresse command or example in Scripture for Episcopacy may reach the Anabaptists conclusion concerning infants And this man doth let fall such tenets as smell too rankly of the foul scum of the high flown Anabaptistical and Enthusiastical way while he tells us pag. 21. c. That meer private men may now a dayes take their impulses of Zeal as a sufficient call to pull down all Magistrates from their seats which they abuse to execute judgement on them and to place themselves in their rooms thinking that Phineas act may justifie them and while he tells us
exemption and impunity as to subjects of the person invested with Soveraignity and Majesty Gods law natures light and sound reason are all for this that the person or persons invested with soveraign Majesty having the Legislative-power the Jurisdictional-power the Coerecive and Punitive-power originally in himself must enjoy exemption and impunity as to subjects actings against them The contrary tenet overthrows the order of God and nature and precipitates humane Societies in a gulf of endlesse confusions 3. This hath been the constant sense of the generation of the righteous and the antient Christians and great lights of Gods Church whom none will call flatterers of Princes but such as have lost their fore-heads Tertul. apol contra gentes imperatores sunt in solius Dei potestate a quo sunt secundi post quem primi ante omnes Deos super omnes homines And a little after Majestatem Caesaris soli Deo subjicio So ad Scapulam Imperator omnibus major est dum solo deo est minor So Optat. contra Parmenian super imperatorem non est nisi solus Deus qui fecit imperatorem And Jerom. epist ad Rusticum speaking of Davids words Ps 51. Against thee against thee onely have I sinned sayes he spake so quia Rex erat alium non timebat And Ambrose in Apol. Davidis cap. 4. 10. speaking of the same words sayes Rex utique erat nullis ipse legibus tenebatur he means as to fear punishment from man quia liberi sunt Reges a vinculis delictorum neque enim ullis ad paenam vocantur Legibus tuti Imperii potestate homini ergo non peccavit qui non tenebatur obnoxius There is no doubt but David was sensible both of the horrid injury he had done to Vriah the occasion of that Psalm and of the scandal he had given to Gods people in which sense he might be well said to sin against both But in this word against thee thee only have I sinned As he minds to acknowledge that God onely was conscious to his sin in committing it So also he shews that this above all touched his conscience that he had violated Gods Law and shews that he is touched with his terrors as his only Judge though as Diodat on the place sayes well as he was a King he was exempted from the punishment of man and not obnoxious to humane Tribunals And excellent Mr. Calvin in that 20. Ch. of the 4. Book of his institut S. 2 7. Assumptum in Regiam Majestatem violare nefas est nunquam nobis seditiosae istae cogitationes in mentem veniant tractandum esse pro meritis Regem S. 29 Personam sustinent voluntate Domini cui inviolabilem Majestatem ipse impressit insculpsit And if Princes be tyrannous nostrum non est hujusmodi malis mederi c. and so S. 31. fully to our purpose it is a wonder how many who pretend respect to Calvin as he is indeed most worthy of respect should dare to violate the Sacrosanct Maiesty of Kings if they will but read over that Chapter wherein he speaks most notably against the seditious Doctrines of our times as if he had been living in them 4. It is not denyed that the King is bound before God to rule his people according to the Law of God of reason and nature yea and to take his direction in Government from the rational Laws of the Kingdom which are deductions from or determinations of the Law of God reason and nature to particular circumstances agreed to by the consent and with the good liking of his people It is too grosse a saying Regi quicquid libet licet a good King will turn the word and say Regi quod licet supposing it expedient libet he will make use of good Laws as his instruments in governing the people and account it his honour and a thing greatly becoming his Majesty to do nothing contrary to Law in the ordinary course of his Government and not at all stray there-from but when great reason urges an equitable interpretation of the Law and respect to the end and aim of it when precise cleaving to the rigidity of the letter thereof might make summum jus summa injuria It is a royal thing for a King to live by the same good Laws which are given by him to the people and it is of efficicious influence upon them to move them to walk in their duties orderly Rex tenetur servare Leges si non ut Leges tamen ut rationes But if the supreme Power should deviat we maintain that as a sure truth which this man proudly and traiterously jeers at That impunity as from Subjects necessarily attends Soveraignity and supreme Majesty which hath this inseparable priviledge of exemption from violence by Subjects by the Law of God Reason and Nature whatever sort the Government be Monarchical or Polyarchical For no man can be judged or punished but by a Judge above him and the Supreme hath none such otherwise he were not Supreme To teach contrary to this is but to confound Gods Order and dissipate humane Societies by continual rebellions Yet this inviolableness of the sacred persons of Kings and supreme â—owers invested with Soveraign Authority from God thus asserted should be so far from licensing or incouraging them to do what they list that they have the greater cause to walk with holy fear within the boundaries of Gods Law and their own just Laws for the more immunity they have from mens violence which must be granted unless all things be turned into confusion the sadder punishments they shall have from God if they debord The sixth Chapter of the Book of Wisdom though it be Apocrypha is well worthy to be read by Kings and Potentates and to be trembled at for the matter is very agreeable to Gods Word The heaviest vengeances that are recorded in History sacred and profane have come upon flagitious and tyrannous Kings their exemption from mens hands reserves them to fall into the hands of the living God which is a fearful thing who besides the wrath that is to come sometimes calls for forreign scourges upon them sometimes suffers an evil spirit of rebellion to go out amongst their own Subjects who though they do wickedly in stretching forth their hands against the sacred head of the Lords Anointed yet it is ordinary for the great God to do the work of his holy Justice by wicked hands and when men are serving their own lusts and crossing his revealed will for which vengeance attends them yet they may be in these actions serving his Providence and his Justice against wicked Powers albeit they think not so nor comes it into their minds or hearts But Potentates should remember the word Potentes paâ—ce debent uti potestate sua ut semper eam retinere possint But the Libeller will have the memorable instance of the times whereof he now speaks Naph P. 30. of casting away the Carcases and
his Spirit with heroical motions to such acts as were not according to ordinary rules of procedure thence they would bring warrand for their irregularities and for going out of their line This vain Orator Naph p. 21 22 23 24 25. catches hold on the instance of Phineas Numb 25.7 8. executing justice upon an Israelitish Prince and will have that a precedent for any private persons such as lately did rise under colour of high pitches of zeal and fortitude whereto they are incited as he sayes by Gods Spirit to execute justice upon all the powers and people of the Land they being fallen in such a fearful apostatic as keeping the true protestant Religion to vary from them in the external ordering of the Ministry of the Church and embracing that way and order against which there is no command of Christ yea for the consonancy whereof to his word much and very much may be said and hath been And although he cannot but see the dreadful consequences of extracting a general rule for these times out of such an example yet though he turns himself Proteus-like into many shapes distinguishing about heroick and extraordinary motions denying Phineas act to be extraordinary but only heroical talking much of good intentions warrandableness of the work in it self deficiency of others in doing it and of Gods power to give rare heroick incitations c. he cannot by any thing he sayes put a sufficient bar against confusions under such pretexts but he opens a door he cannot close again And the result of all is to fasten the last insurrection upon the holy spirit of God to justifie their attempts against all Authorities in the Land and to assert they were no more to be condemned as Traitors then Phineas should be for his executing judgement seing they were led with the same spirit and had as good warrand as he And the design further is to inflame people again to the like courses under the like pretences for justifying the same When this mans discourse concerning Phineas fact and the exemplariness thereof and concerning pretended extraordinary or heroick incitations he talkes of was first looked upon men of any judgement consider'd that as the former bloody insurrections were endeavoured to be justified by him so he was laying down grounds for some merciless massacre or horrid assassinations on persons in power and others if any people might be found so deserted of God as to be serviceable to him in that wickedness for now no man can have security of his life if any private persons be allowed under Phineas cloak to come and cut the throats of all whom this man will point forth as black Apostats Such deeds must be fatherd upon the holy Spirit of God and his excitations to zeal which are held a sufficient calling though that so called zeal will prove no other but a corrupt lust proceeding from another spirit And we must forsooth when these men will have us so do own these irregularities as being from God and say He is employing the weak things and foolish of the world to confound the mighty and wise and must not condemn them as Vsurpers or Intruders although they be but meer private men more then we would have done Phineas in his fact Thus he What great Villanies have been under such pretences carried on in the world by persons taking their heroical motions and excitations of zeal for a sufficient calling to their irregular actions which is the direct Doctrine of this man the World knows well How the Munster madness was carried on under extraordinary shewes of zeal is known and how also God confounded that way The murthers of the two Kings Henries of France the third and fourth have been famous or infamous in this last age by the cruel hands of two Zelots inflamed by seditious Predicants and Jesuits they fell The assassinates actions were cryed up by such as set them on against these Neroes of the time as these Kings were called by them as actions most heroically zealous most Phineas like proceeding not from common vertue or grace sed à dono speciali Spiritus Sancti proh nefas And they taught that it was of God to excite these miscreants to cut the Basilick vein as they spake to prevent the State and Churches falling into a burning feaver And to come neerer home the remembrance of the Gun-powder Traitors who attempted at one blow to destroy King James and all his Family and Parliament is yet recent a deed which wanted nothing of the high commendation of an heroical and Phineas-like fact amongst the Zelots of the antichristian party but that it wanted successe which marred all Further in the time of Queen Elizabeth of England Anno 1591. Some male-contented Presbyterians being taken in the head with the same fancy of Heroical motions of zeal as a sufficient calling to attempt something beyond rule in the desolate and colapsed estate of the Church as they call'd it began first to question and propose it as a case of conscience If in such a case God might not give such high measures of zeal fortitude courage and rare excitations of his Spirit to meer private persons against oppressing powers which might be a sufficient call to attempt somewhat against Magistrates not suiting ordinarily rules and committing the event to God The men were Arthington Coppinger and Hacket the chief of the three as they were all marvelous zealous for the discipline So this third having debauched his estate surpassed in zeal this way perhaps looking for some reparation by it and was as the History tells us a man of highest pretences of the internal unction of spirituality and of pure zeal and one who could ex tempore pray to admiration The godly Ministers who were of their perswasion in matters of discipline for the most part disliked and disswaded them from their course albeit some too furious entertained and encouraged them After this they went to action Hackets two complices went to the most open and publick streets of the City of London declaring to them that Hacket who was to be found at his lodging in one Mr. Walkers in Cripple-gate was sent of God to represent Jesus Christ on earth with his fan in his hand to separate the pretious from the vile and to erect the holy discipline in all Europe they having a great concourse of people flocking about them declared themselves to be his extraordinary Prophets the one to preach vengeance to them who would not obey them the other to preach mercy to all who would obey them And in the great concourse of people they ceased not to cry repent repent O England and embrace the Gospel and opportunity of Reformation As for the Queen they cried she had fallen from her right to the Kingdom And that most of her Councellours were but betrayers of the Kingdom And all their doctrines they set forth with terrible imprecations against themselves if they spake not truth The Queen being at Greenwich and
hearing of the uproar at London sent two of her Councellors to see what the matter was the deceivers all three were apprehended and arraigned as stirring up sedition against the Queen and designing to destroy her to murther her Councellors and Bishops to bring in their new King and trans-form all things in Church and State to their own fancies Hacket the King was executed and dyed blaspheming Coppinger in a fury pining himself with hunger at last beat his own brains against the wall and dyed Arthington upon his repentance obtained mercy of the Queen Such abominable courses carried on under pretext of Heroick motions and rare excitations of the Spirit should make the fearers of God very cautelous against the Principles of this man which lead this way For he asserts There needs no standing upon an external call if men think they have this internal call to use the Sword for vengeance against Apostate Magistrates all and sundry such as he reckons they are in this time Napht. p. 24. Any party of private men may according to his mind rise up in a Phineas like fortitude against not only Princes but all the Primores Regni becoming Patrons of abominations to execute Judgement upon them Napht. p. 22. and to reform an Apostate Church their zeal c. is a sufficient call without further If such Doctrines passe for current and good coine and if our people be so principled it were better living under the great Turk where no man is to losse his life but by Law then in Scotland where all Magistrates and others shall be proclaimed lyable to the fury of any private persons who can pretend rare and Heroick excitations of the Spirit to zealous executing justice upon men whenever they thus animated think there is cause For this man proclaims these inward excitations as a sufficient call without any other external call But this man seing the mischief of his evil Doctrine though he is loath to part with it would gladly add some Salvo if he could for saith he p. 24. We held not such instances viz. as that of Phineas as regular Precedents for all times and persons universally That is well said but where is the caution that is put in against any that will pretend Heroical excitations by the Spirit as a sufficient call He hath opened a door but how will he close it again It is easie to raise the Devil but not so easie to lay him again the man would say something to satisfaction if he could set down certain rules to bar a heady people under a pretence of Phineas-like motions and excitations to arise upon every occasion to confound all But as he cannot do this so doth he not attempt it he cannot give any remedy against confusion in all cases having proclaimed this libertinisme to private persons upon pretence of Heroick excitations of zeal c. to rise up against all Powers above them for they are made Judges in their own private discretion when it is fit to fall in hand with such irregular practices And when it is that such Heroick excitations are upon their Spirits and when it is that matters are so far out of order that they cannot be amended without their violent interposing and pulling down of Powers all this is referred to private persons private discretion and if this mans party were posessed in Power upon their principles another party perhaps of Quakers Ranters c. could easily start up and plead their impulses from above to rectifie the corrupted and collapsed estate of affairs and to reform and punish offenders So there shall be no end of confusion when these are got into the saddle others shall met to them in that same measure erranti nullus terminus there shall be a progress to confusion in infinitum And never shall people when they mind changes want the pretexts of corruption in Rulers and in all besides themselves and will lay hold on any probable capacity which qualifies them for exercise of Justice against all not of their way And although they be not in probable capacity to take the fields or leavy Armies yet they will go so far in executing justice upon all Magistrates Phineas-like as upon patronisers p. 24. of abominations as he sayes all our Magistrates of all degrees are now for he tells us p. 18. They ought without doubt be suppressed by all meanes n. b. by all meanes if there be no probable capacity for armies a dag or a dagger a pistol or poisoned poinard a Spanish-fig or some secret applications may do the business with some great ones And any Heroick Saint may be in probable capacity for such matters these are amongst the generality of any means usable for suppressing Powers it is all one matter if Justice be execute and the evil removed whatever way it is all one as Phineas did it with his Javelin and God should be praised when justice is executed on adversaries an apostat Church such as now is reformed Of this no more shall be said But we are to pray that the life of our dread Soveraign may be bound up with the Lord his God in the bundle of Life and also that the same great and good God may be a shield and buckler to his servants who desire in honouring the King to fear him the King of Kings above all against the generation of men of blood and violence who bewray their ungodliness too much in daring to seek patrociny for villanous assassinations from the holy Scriptures of God But behold how the man wrings his wit to work out Napht. pag. 21 23 24 25. an Apologie for the seditions from Phineas example he tells us Phineas was but a private man that he had no extraordinary calling to execute judgement only he had heroical motions and zealous excitations to it and that God who is the same yesterday and to day and for ever and hath the residue and plenty of his Spirit to pour out upon meer private persons may by giving them such or the same Spirit of zeal magnaminity and courage sufficiently call them by his breathings upon them to execute justice on adversaries and to reform an apostate Church c. and when it is so we should not condemn but honour Gods instruments for if they did not step in to act impiety would quickly gaine an universal empire to the extermination of all goodness To all which we say 1. As to the person Phineas from whose actings Patrociny is â—ought for justifying the violence of private persons against the Magistrate and their usurping over him as Judges to punish him it is much doubted if he was a meer private person he was the high Priests son a chief Priest himself and afterward he became high Priest himself he was a singular person and a Prince in his tribe employed with other Princes by Gods people in great Embassages both in Peace and in War Numb 31.6 Josh 22.31.32 he was one of the great Council of the people of
reason that these who are Plaintifes shall be judges of the Party they complain of more then the party or Prince Judge to them Is not this a perversion of all judgement that in one and the same body politick the accuser and Judge shall be coincident in the same persons or person And they shall use the punishing Sword over all Rulers to whom God never committed it the notions of original fountaine virtual royalty in the people which they may render formal effectual and actual when they see fit are but high flown unregardable fancies of the masters of confusion All magistratical Authority is originally and fountally in God alone whose Minister the Magistrate is and not the peoples although for the peoples good whatever interests people may have in instrumental application of the power to such or such persons sometimes Government is not in the people virtually though wrongously sometimes they usurp it No man hath the Power of the Sword over his own life nor over the life of his neighbours as he is a private man not invested with magistratical Authority and so cannot transmit that to another which he hath not himself None have this avenging Power of the Sword over mens lives but the Magistrate alone whom people by Gods law are bound to choose if they want one in their Societies and Combinations but whomever they designe they do not empower him it is God by his Ordinance that doth this the Power is from God not from them albeit the application of the person to the Power or of it to him be instrumentally and dispositively by the peoples act where they have liberty for such acts 5. Though it be true that all Covenants and Contracts amongst men embodied in a Society brings each of the contracters under a Law-claim in case of failing coram Judice proprio before his own and competent Judge yet it is not true that any Contracts betwixt man and man in one and the same Society gives the party keeping contract coactive Power over the party breaking it is true the Judge hath a coactive Power to lay forth in behalf of the keeper against the breaker but that is not the keeper his coactive Power but the Judges employed for his good the one party is not Judge of the other but the Magistrate is Judge over both Now there is no Judge over all Magistrates nor the supreme Magistrate before whom a complaining people can plead wrong done to them This complaint lyes before God only to take order with it And it must needs be a strange assertion to say as some do that it leads Kings to Atheisme to tell them They are countable to God only whereas this leads them genuinly to stand in awe of God and the lesse fear they have from men to be in greater dreador of more terrible strokes from God if if they do wrong ordinarily where there is much fear of mans punishments there is lesse fear of Gods but when it is told Princes the more exemption they have from man the more terribly will God handle them if they do wrong this may make the highest and stoutest hearts to tremble at the dreadful vengeance by the hands of the living God which will strike a deeper stroke then creatures can 6. To provoke people to go about the medling with the advancing Religion actibus Imperatis which is the Magistrates part and not only actibus elicitis is but a ruining of all order God hath set the imperate acts for advancing Religion are not to be done but by these to whom God hath given the Empire It is not his will that people run out of their rank and calling to serve him more then it was his will that Saul or Vzziah offered sacrifice or incense the works were good in themselves but the workers were not warranded to do the same extraordinary necessities are more easily pleaded then justified as ground sufficient for actions whereto there is no extraordinary call If Magistrates be deficient as to their imperat acts in advancing Religion private persons are sufficiently discharged if they keep themselves pure and do what possibly they can for advancing Religion in their private capacities and by their elicit acts Nor shall they be involved in guiltiness for not intruding in the Magistrates office or doing his duty wherein he hath failed If a mans eyes be put out his ears or other senses will go as far to supply that defect for the good of the body as may be yet cannot help the body by elicit acts of seeing So whatever length private persons may go for the good of the body they must not go to exercise and exert formally acts Magistratical upon whatever pretence of extraordinary need which will never be wanting to a people enflamed with a seditious spirit August Lib. 2. contra literas Petiliani Auferenda idola non potest quispiam jubere privatis Lact. instit S. 20. Defendenda est Religio a privatis omnibus non occidendo sed moriendo c. It is a dangerous and destructive tenent to be held forth to be believed by people That in all cases whither concerning Religion or Liberty when they account the Magistrate to pervert the Government that they are eatenus and so far even as they had no King and that the royalty hath recurred to themselves and they may act and exercise it formally as if they had no King at all which is the express Doctrine of L. R. p 99.100 And more intolerable is Naphtali who grants this not only to the body of the people and inferiour Magistrates but to any the least meer private part of the people against the whole body and against all Magistrates supreme and subordinate Where or when shall confusions end if these Doctrines have faith or free passage CHAP. IV. Anent the following of Phineas fact of heroick or extraordinary impulsions and concerning some courses taken at our first Reformation and their exemplariness THat every man should walk in his own calling with God 1 Cor. 7.20 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 love the honour to be quiet and do his own business 1 Thes 4.11 yea ambitiously contend as the word bears it so to do is agreeable to the mind and will of the God of Order it is a godly ambition to act within the precincts of our own calling but Sathan striving to make men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 disorderly and unsubject to these whom God hath set over them under several colours of extreme necessity the lawfulness of the matter of actions in themselves the goodness of ends and intentions the want or deficiency of others to do the work mens own probable capacity to do it doth often drive men out of their ranks and stations to act such things whereof God will say I never required them at your hands in your hands they are evil quia ego non jussi and because sometimes God hath given extraordinary callings or incited men by