may be compensed by that eminent Worth and Perfection is in You. I do confess I have so many ties by personal Favours received above my desert that I were the ingratest of Christians if I did not acknowledge it yet give me leave to speak truth notwithstanding all these Endowments if I had not seen and were not assured that in none in this Age there can be seen more true discreet Zeal to Christ's Church and Loyalty to Your Master our most gracious King I had never presumed to go this way I see it even there and then where and when Satan had erected his Throne and Antipas God and the King 's faithful Servant did fuffer My Lord God hath sent You to us for a comfort in these worst of Christian times who knoweth but at this time You are set at the Helm to help the Lord right his Anointed and to save a poor Church threatned with ruine Go on in Your Piety and Devotion with these Heroical Endowments God hath enabled You and be assured God will heap Honour on you and your Noble Family for ever and reward you with an uncorrupt undefiled and Eternal Crown of Glory Which shall be the fervent and constant Prayers of Your Lordships most humble and bounden Servant I. A. To the Christian Reader CHristian Reader this is an Extemporary Piece which was extorted by the importunity of Friends who prevailed so far with me that I chose rather to expose my Weakness and it to the Censure of the World than uncourteously refuse them To strengthen Truth I was able to bring more Zeal and good Affection than any other Abilities Believe I write nothing but that I am assured of in Conscience in certitudine mentis and which I believe to be really certain in certitudine entis God knows I am far from temporizing and he is of weak apprehension that in this Distemper can expect any great Reward by appearing in Publick to maintain this Sacred Truth Experience teacheth us that it is more advantageous to run the contrary course if a good Conscience could allow it If the method in handling and proposing these five ensuing Questions be not so orderly I beg pardon and that justly because I follow the Order proposed by the Observator If the Diction be not so terse and pregnant I am not able to help it for by nature I am not enabled to delicate and witty Expressions nor have I endeavoured by Industry to help those natural Defects My care was ever to study Truth and Reality more than flowers of Eloquence holding that for one as I am of small reach the better way is rather to be inter reales than inter nominales If there be any tart Expression construe it charitably as fallen by inadvertence from my Pen whereas there was no Gall in my Heart If any will be at pains to examine it critically and to answer it rationally and fully I humbly intreat him to do it in a Christian and Charitable way without Passion for which I shall heartily thank him And if I be not able with as much reason to answer him I shall not be ashamed to retract my Errours and joyn Heart Hand and Pen for him and all Christian Sacred Truth of which kind I hold those which I would maintain to be If any thing in it give thee content thank God for it and pray for Grace and Strength to the weak Author who hath resolved to be a Lover a Professor and a maintainer of Truth according to his Power at whatsoever peril to advance the true Reformed Catholick Religion and what may conduce to the Honour of our Church to the overthrow of that is truly Popery and to the regaining of all erring Sectaries to the Communion of this Church And let all of us put up our hearty and humble Prayers to Almighty God to touch our Hearts that we may endeavour to keep the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace to do good in his good pleasure unto Sion to build up the Walls of Ierusalem to re-establish his Anointed our Sovereign in His Throne and Right to set aright what is disjoynted in Church and State that all of us may be happy here and receive that Crown of Glory which the righteous Judge hath laid up for them that love him his Truth and Christian Peace Si quid novisti rectius istis Candidus imperti si non his utere mecunt Elenchus Questionum Quaestio Prima WHether or not the King be onely and immediately dependent from God and independent from the Body of the People diffusive collective representative or virtual Affirmatur Quaestio Secunda Whether or not God is no more Author of Regal than of Aristocratical and Democratical Power Of Supreme then of Subordinate Command and whether or not that Dominion which is usurped while it remains Dominion and till it be legally divested again refers to God as its Author and Donor as much as that which is hereditaryâ— Negatur Quaestio Tertia Whether or not the nature of conveyance of Sovereignty to the King is by Trust immediately from the People and mediately onely from God and as Fiduciary so Conditionate and proportioned to what measure or portion the People please or is it intirely and immediately by a Trust devolved upon him from the King of Kings Neg. prius Aff. posterius Quaestio Quarta Whether or not be there any Jura Majestatis some Divine Prerogatives intrinsecally inherent in the Kings Crown and Sovereignty which are incommunicable to the Subjects Aff. Where is explained what they be Quaestio Quinta Whether or not in any case upon any reason just or pretended it be lawful for the Subject or Subjects in what Notion soever imaginable singly or joyntly collectively or representatively to oppose the Sacred Authority of the King by Force or Arms or to resist him either in a Defensive or Offensive way Neg. Elenchus Capitum QUESTIONIS PRIMAE THE Preface Page 1. containing the Sum Method and Order of the ensuing Treatise Chap. I. Wherein is maintained that the King is onely and immediately dependent from God and independent from the Body of the People diffusive collective representative or virtual The contrary Opinion is explained the Authors and Asserters some of them with their differences are recited Pag. 9. Chap. II. How that God is the immediate Author of Sovereignty in the King and how he is no Creature of the Peoples making is explained and proved by Scriptures 30. Chap. III. The same Truth is proved by more Arguments from Holy Scripture 57. Chap. IV. That Kings are onely dependent from God and not from the Community is further proved by Scripture The poor shifts of Suarez and Bellarmine are removed who abusing the passage Deut. 17. would have the constitution of the Kings of Israel to relate to the People as its real and proper origine and Cause and the priviledged case onely this that God reserved to himself the designation of the Person of the King 62.
to refute the Errour of the Canonists and others who hold that Directum Dominium the direct and primarie power supream whether Civil or Ecclesiastical is in the Pope as Christs Vicar upon earth immediately from Christ derived unto him and from Him to all Kings whatsoever mediately by Dependence and Subordination The Jesuits are ashamed of this and therefore will have the Pope only to have Indirectum Imporium an Indirect Directive and Coercive power over all Kings and States in ordine ad Spiritualia as civil Power and Businesses are related to Religion and Salvation It is a curious subtle quirk and nicity of Scholastick Invention and a jugling Trick to bring all Kings Christian at Least Kingdoms and States into Subordination and Subjection to the transcendent and extravagant power of the Pope nor doth this Expression differ from the other in re in the matter or extent of the Power but in modo rei in the manner of the thing as they claim it And cometh fully home that the Pope by this indirect Right of his related to Religion by which any civil Act or Business whatsoever with his School Formalities he may qualifie with such an Ordination and Relation to Spirituals that directly by this indirect power he may King and Unking at his Pleasure Our Presbyterians if they run not fully in this way they are very near to it I wish we were so happy this time as that we had not to do with other Impugners of Sacred and Royal Authority but Jesuits and Canonists That which we have proposed to our selves in this short ensuing Treatise is to consider the main grounds by which the Jesuit and Puritan endeavour by no less spurious than specious Pretexts of Liberty of the People and Subject of the reforming of Religion purging it from Error preserving it in Purity to rob Kings of their Sacred and divine Right Prerogative making them Derivatives from the People in whom they will have all Supream Power originally and radically primarily seated So that if Kings fail in Performance of their Duty the People may supply it at least in some cases may do it of themselves Nay that Kings are accountable to them as to their Superiours censurable punishable and dethronable too By which the Copy-hold of a Crown is no better than Durante beneplacito plebis or communitatis during the good Will of the Community for by these mens Principles the People are made Judges and may find exigents which will warrant them to resume and to exercise this power Puritan and Jesuit in this not only consent and concur but like Herod and Pilate are reconciled to crucifie the Lords anointed A thousand pities it is that our Sectaries pretending such a Zeal against Popery and who no less maliciously than confidently rub upon sound Protestants the Aspersions of Popery and Malignancy do joyn with the worst of Papists in the worst at least most pernicious Doctrines of Papists But ten thousand times more pity it is that the true reformed and sound Protestant Religion should suffer by such miscreants that sound Protestants should be charged with these Heresies in after Ages We will be forced to disclaim them and say with St. Iohn They were amongst us but were not of us and they have gone out from us It is not warrantable to be so large in our charitable Defence of any as to prejudice the inviolable and sacred Truth of Almighty God Our work is to examine and discuss some new devised State-principles set on foot in this distempered Age which have robbed Church and State of Peace and Happiness which these Kingdoms of late and long Continuance have plentifully enjoyed under the Government of our blessed King and his Predecessors to the Envy of other neighbour Kingdoms and States These may all of them be reduced to five great ones 1. First that Royal Authority is originally and radically in the People from them by Consent derived to Kings immediately mediately only from God That the Collation or Donation of the Power is from the Community The Approbation only from God 2. The second that God is no more Author of Regal than of Aristocratical and Democratical Power of Supreme than of Subordinate and that Dominion which is usurped and not just while it remains Dominion and till it be legally again divested refers to God as to its Author and Donor as much as that which is hereditary 3. The third that Sovereignty and Power in a King is by Conveyance from the People by a Trust devolved upon him and that it is conditionate fiduciary and proportioned according as it pleaseth the Community to entrust more or less 4. The fourth that Royal Power in a King is not simply supreme but in some cases there is a co-ordinate Power or collateral nay that in some cases the King is subordinate to the Community 5. The fifth and last is that the King in some cases may be resisted and opposed by Violence Force and Arms at least in a defensive way These are the main Foundations upon which all those impious Courses are built and which have had such Influence upon disaffected and less knowing Subjects to raise and cherish these Distempers and Rebellions for which all sound-hearted and good Subjects mourn Yet to add the more Lustre to them there be couched under them or added to them a number of specious general Maxims apt to ensnare the popular Faction which we shall by Gods help clear and demonstrate to be Untruths and popular Sophisms as they offer in their own proper place The contrary of what they aâ—firm we hold to be sound Divinity agreeable to the Truth revealed in Scripture consonant to the Tenets and Practice of the ancient Christian Church and grounded upon sound Reason deducted out of nature and the best Institutions of Policy and Government That we may the more orderly proceed we sum up all into five Questions whereof the first is this Whether or not Sovereignty or the Royal Power of a King be independent from all Creatures solely and only dependent from God immediately from him and neither from the Community the diffusive collective representative or vertual Bodie of the People In which by Gods grace we will make it appear that the King is the derivative of the primative King who is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords The second is Whether or not God is no more Author of Royal Power than of Aristocratical or Democratical Of supreme than subordinate Of usurped and not just than of just Government and Regal In which it will appear that by Gods Institution Regal is graced and authorised above others that Aristocracy Democracy and Monarchy are not Species univocae regiminis sed analogicae not univocal Kinds and Species of Government but equivocal at best analogical are howsoever tolerable and not so perfect some way defective and that they degenerate from the true and most perfect Species of Government Monarchy in which is formalis completa gubernandi
that Power and in no case no exigent had any Power over or above the Prince If what is said be not sufficient let us remember the Story of Valentinian the Emperour when by the Army he was declared Emperour they earnestly begged 〈◊〉 him to joyn Valens his Brother with him in the Empire His answer was ut me ad imperandum eligereti◠in vestra situm erat potestate O milites at postquam me elegistis quod petitis in meo est arbitrio non vestro Vobis tanquam subditis competit parere mihi quae agend◠sunt cogitare O Souldiers before you did make choic◠of me to be Emperour it was in your Power but the Choice being made that which you now desire is in my Power not in yours It is your part and Duty as Subjects to obey it is in my Power to determine upon what is fit for the Government If all we have said cannot work upon our new Statists to forsake their Errour we pray them to consider whether or not this ground laid will not authorize the Corporations and Shires upon male-administration of the Trust committed to their Commissioners in the House of Commons or upon Jealousies and Fears to resume and make void that Trust committed to them and warrant them in case of Defailance to do better for themselves and Country Sure I am Buchanan one of their greatest Authors holds that if a Parliament determine in a matter of Law it can establish nothing but a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a preparatory precognition and that the Influence of a legislative Power is not till it be approved and admitted by the Community The Observator fearing this Tenet of Buchana may make void the Orders of the House leaving here his Master and averreth That the Right of the Gentry and Commonalty is entirely in the Knights and Burgesses of the House of Commons and will have their Orders irrevocable A wonder it is that they are so favourable in their own case and so unjust and unequal in the Kings case for if it were granted which is most false that all Power in the King were by Trust devolved upon him from the People what is the Reason of the Difference that he shall not have that Right as entirely as irrevocable as the Commissioners of Counties and Corporations Reason pleadeth more for this in the King than them for otherwise neither Sovereignty nor the person of the Sovereign can be secured nor any act of Government certain but mutable at the pleasure of an erring and inconstant Multitude If any will seriously consider they will find that what they take from the King they give to their Feoffees of Trust to Tables to Parliaments These in case of Necessity have an arbitrary Power the Prince in no case can have it exercise it Those have the entire right of the Community devolved upon them and the people are totally divested of their native Right the King hath his only in a fiduciary way some part is habitually reserved that in some Cases the People may resume it may practise it So in their Church it is not lawful to a Clergy-man to meddle in secular Businesses Their Clergy if they be worthy of name may do meddle in all Treaties of Peace Councils of War in Commissions for reversing fundamental Laws of Church and State in other Kingdoms This their practise is Protestatio contra factum it giveth a Lye to their Profession I think verily in after ages it shall scarce be believed that amongst Christians and such as would be accounted the best of Christians such Paradoxes could be maintained and such monstrous Practises acted with such sacrilegious robbing of Prince and Priest of their sacred Right It is high time for Prince and Priest to strengthen one another and neither of them to think that by making the other à publici odii victima a Sacrifice to malignant Malice to preserve himself It is high time for the People to consider how by such Doctrine and Practises they are plunged in such a bottomless Gulf of Miseries of Calamities that none but dextera excelsi the right hand of the Lord can rescue can deliver them How an arbitrary tyrannical civil Power is put upon them and established in the wrong hand that they dare not pretend to Liberty of Person or propriety of Goods How such a Tyrannical Antichristian Hierarchy of some few Patriarchs Lords over their Consciences make them run into Rebellion and kill both Body and Soul If these things these most fearful of all Judgments cannot awake us it is like we are given over to destruction more for the Terrour and Example of others than that we can expect to see the Glory and Mercy of God return again upon this Church and State Lord of his mercy make us turn to him timely by Repentance that he may turn to us in mercy make his Face shine upon us that we may be saved To return to our purpose In fine Let us still give it to them that Sovereignty is in a King by Derivation from the People and the Conveyance is by Contract or Covenant But then I demand how can this Contract be made void It must be made void either by mutual consent or by a legal Sentence and Iudgment That a Contract may be made void mutuo contrahentium assensu by a mutual accord and consent of the Parties Contracters in Law it holds the ground is Quibus modis contrahitur contractus iisdem dissolvitur and the main thing and binding force in a Contract is the consent of both The refiling of one Party Contractor is not sufficient to void the Contract Necessarily then it is required that both King and People consent to make the Contract void whether a King may do this or not you shall hear more in the following questions The People alone cannot do it This contract as yet is not made void by Royal consent if it be you must make it appear authenticis Tabulis upon evident and written Records I confess e're I put you to these pains I desire you first to produce Tabulas contractûs this Contract which in Law must be evident and faithful and when you do it in any of his Majesties Kingdoms you shall have me to plead for your pretended Right Well then I hope you will not say you have his Majesties Royal Assent although good and wise men regrate that by real deeds out of zeal to Peace and more than fatherly indulgence he hath indulged to your Favours which lessen his Prerogative and which without intrusion upon his Sacred Right you cannot enjoy if Scripture be either the Law or Umpire to determine in this case Seeing I say His Majesties consent to void this Contract cannot be alledged or made appear and the Law determines that De non apparentibus non existentibus eadem ratio or Quod non apparet in jure non est you must have a legal Sentence A Legal Sentence cannot be had without a
erring and deceived Multitude who loath things present and at hand and promise to themselves foolishly greater and better things by a Change Not unlike to a man sick of a burning and raging Fever imagineth this or that Bed he lyeth in is the cause of his Pain change him to another Bed in his Fancy he expects to recover Health yet is disappointed and putteth himself in a worse Condition It is easie for subtle and crafty Spirits to make people apprehend so because of the present sense of some little Pressures or Incommodities in the Government Which is unavoidable here because we are not to expect to enjoy a Plato's Republick or a More 's Vtopia an Eutopia indeed that were Heaven upon Earth that is there is no Government no where so compleatly perfect that it wanteth altogether its Incommodities and none so imperfect which hath not with it it 's own Commodities I may say of the most perfect and best ordered Government what the Father 's said against the Pelagians Omnis nostra perfectio imperfecta perfectio there is none so happy that hath not with the greatest Commodities some Incommodities and so we may say with the Comick aut haec cum illis habenda aut illa cum istis admittenda We must resolve to endure some Inconveniencies in the best Government rather than disturb and destroy Government and lose the excellent and sweet Fruits we have by it Hence they press upon the weaker and less Understanding but more numerous People the present seen and felt Inconveniences and possess them with Fears and Jealousies of more and greater ensuing dangers Fraus in parvis saith Livie sibi fidem praestruit ut cum operae-precium est magnâ cum mercede fallat that they ought not to lie under these Burdens and to be nakedly exposed to more imminent Dangers lest unprovided they be taken up and destroyed When these Male-contents have laid this Foundation then they raise the work by liberal undertaking and like the Devil their Father promise to the gulled people Matth. 4. Omnia haec tibi dabo to deliver them from all their Pressures incumbent Burthens and imminent fansied Dangers The People by their big words and promises conceive great Hopes cry up those Achitophels those Absalons those Shebaes as the only Worthies upon whom should be devolved the whole Trust and Care of State and Kingdom of Reformation of State of Church To entertain these false Hopes which are but false Conceptions Molaas they personate such as had no private ends were only publick Souls resolved to spend themselves nay offer themselves a Sacrifice for the People they speak as smooth as Absalon and will be thought to desire nothing but Piety and Purity in the Church and Justice Peace Liberty and plenty in the State When the multitude are thus bewitched then they advance the Work they desire the Assistance of the numerous and popular part to bring this glorious Reformation to effect pretending the Glory of God the Purity of Religion the Liberty of the Persons and the Propriety of the Goods of the Subjects The poor people follow Absalon in his Treason usurping the Crown pretending he is about to offer a great Sacrifice to God but intended to pull the Crown from his Fathers head Nemo repentè fuit turpissimus when they have thus gained the popular Affection and are Masters of their Hearts and Lives They strike not first at Royalty but express their Zeal and Courage in accusing the great States-men of purpose to leave the good Prince naked and destitute of all Good Counsel and by fierce accusing of them and charging them with all the Evils they fancy in the Government to flow from the Influence their Counsels and Courses have upon Sovereignty they prove themselves innocent to the World They hope having set them by their places they shall make place for themselves to make King and Government at their own Devotion and before they fail in this another Government they will erect They set on the furious multitude against men not only innocent but well deserving making the people believe that they are the Authors and Abettors of all Evil and Mischief whether real or fancyed present and that these are the only Rubs stand up betwixt them and an happy Government If they can make no relevant Endictment no legal proof against them before some of them be not gone new Laws new Presidents shall be made never to be a leading case hereafter and others shall suffer first as Papistical but if that appear not then as Praelatical but if this cannot be charged upon them a high Crime truly to be accounted a maintainer of that Order Christ hath established to preserve his Church they are Incendiaries in State Malignants in Church disaffected to the true Protestant which what it is but negatively we could never yet know for ten of them cannot agree upon a positive Faith Religion And such say the Achitophels of this time are the close Enemies of Church of State of Religion c. and so much the more dangerous because they carry their malignant Purposes Designs and Courses so closely that no Proofs can be made against them The People thus engaged thus by Fury enraged cry out crucifie them crucifie them are made guilty and run so far upon the score as they cannot be taken off again If it fall forth so that these Worthies miss their ends and others succeed in the places of the displaced then they cry out the malignant Party prevaileth still The Pilots are changed not the Tempest There is no Remedy Power must do it the Kingdom must put it self in a Posture of Defence Salus Populi the Safety of all of Religion of Liberty of Property and what is dear to us calleth for it for it is extremus necessitatis casus it hath come to the last Push But I pray you who are the competent Judges to determine that our case is such None else but those Worthies those who are animated with a publick Soul who are dead to private ends have no more life but what is to be spent for the Publick for the safety of it who have already as good Patriots layed their Lives their Honours their Fortunes at the stake There must then be a Power in some hands God knoweth the worst and that have least right to command men raise Arms seize all Ammunition command what Supplies of money is necessary for so great so glorious a Reformation to rectifie what is amiss to right what is disjoynted in Church and State to repell the dangers incumbent and imminent otherwise they are not sufficiently enabled for the great Work the preservation of the King and Kingdom Church and State Law and Liberty and what else is really or imaginably dear to us In end an Arbitrary Government that terrour of all popular terrours is introduced is practised true Sovereignty and Royalty is wrested from the true Sovereign and the thing we fear most is placed in a wrong
Sacro-sancta Regum Majestas OR THE SACRED and ROYAL Prerogative OF Christian Kings Wherein Sovereignty is by Holy Scriptures Reverend Antiquity and sound Reason asserted by discussing of five Questions AND The Puritanical Jesuitical Antimonarchical Grounds are disproved and the untruth and weakness of their new-devised-State-principles are discovered Rom. 13. 1 2. The Powers that be are ordained of God Whosoever therefore resisteth the Powâ—â— resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist â—â—all receive to themselves damnation Dei Gratia Mea Lux. London Printed for Tho. Dring over against the Inner-Temple-Gate in Fleet-street 1680. TO THE DUKE of ORMOND MY LORD PIety and Policy Church and State Prince and Priest are so nearly and naturally conjoyned in a mutual Interest that like to Hippocrates his Twins they rejoyce and mourn flourish and perish live and dye together Sound Reformed Catholick Protestants deny justly such a Subordination of the Prince to the Priest as by any direct or indirect over-ruling Power the Crown and Scepter are under any coactive directive we acknowledge over-ruling Power of the Mitre and that Kings by any Church-man or men whatsoever Pope or Presbytery are censurable dethronable deposable Notwithstanding it is certain Religion hath a mighty Influence upon State Governour and Government that from the happiness and quiet of Religion issueth forth necessarily the happiness and quiet of the Civil State The Heathen did see this that Religion rightly ordered is the Base and Bottom upon which King and State are founded Religion is the cement of all Societies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it bindeth Families together and Cities too and is their greatest splendour and ornament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That one saith Religion is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and a Christian to the same purpose Religio timor Dei solus est qui custodit hominum inter se Societatem Religion and the Fear of God and nothing else preserveth all Societies amongst men Religion teacheth Kings how to rule and Subjects how to obey maketh Obedience complete universal entire in all things not partial in some things onely it teacheth our Reverence Service and Obedience not to be outward with Eye-service but sincere for Conscience sake as in the sight of the Lord. Religion hath a powerful influence upon Laws the Heathen who termed Religion the Cement of all Society calleth it too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Cement the Strength the Vigour the Life of all Laws This made Zoroaster authorise the Laws by Horomasis Zamolxis by Vesta Trismegistus by Mercurius Minos by Jupiter Charondus by Saturnus Draco and Solon by Minerva and Apollo and Numa Pompilius by Aegeria Religion is the Nurse of the Quiet of State and Common-wealth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If all living in one Society and Kingdom were pious and religious none would wrong themselves or others Take it more fully from a Christian Emperour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If Religion be preserved in Peace it rights and facilitates all the rest of the Government Religion is the Walls Strength and Safeguard of King and Kingdom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Overthrow me Sion Civitatem Veritatis Sanctitatis and you cannot but overthrow Ierusalem Civitatem justitiae all this is much more and solely verified of the Christian Religion a strange Wonder then it is that so many Achitophels and Achans in the World should promise to themselves undertake to Christian Kings by sacrificing the Church undoing the Solemnity of the Service and Worship of God destroying Christ his Ordinances robbing him of his Patrimony and Right to establish King and Kingdom Peace and Quiet in the Land How is it probable or possible Religion being the Base and Bottom upon which all Happiness of King and Kingdom are grounded and founded the Cement and Bond that tieth all together the Rule of Right ruling the Mother of entire and hearty Obedience the life of Laws the use of Quiet and Strength of all Defence that it being disordered King Kingdom and State can be well and enjoy any kind of Happiness If neither the Dictate of Nature nor sacred Truth revealed in holy Word should confirm this Truth the sad and doleful Experience we find we feel this day in the Acheldama of these Kingdoms has laid it open to our Eyes in Letters of Blood that he that runneth by may read it Consider how since the Sacred Hierarchy the Order instituted by Christ for the Government of his Church constituted by the Apostles and continued against any prevalent Opposition for fifteen Ages and upwards without Interruption hath been opposed that in some places it is totally overthrown in other places disgraced weakened and threatned with Abolition of Root and Branch what is the Condition of Sovereignty and Subject You shall find that the Course against it hath been a preparatory Destructive to Royalty to the Liberty and Propriety of the Subject Many are deceived and think it skilleth not what Government be in the Church it is enough if the Essentials and Fundamentals of Faith and Worship be preserved They are infinitely deceived no Society can subsist without Government and if you destroy the Government neither can the sound Faith nor the true Worship be long maintained The Apostle intimateth this Col. 11. 5. that he joyed to behold their Order and the stedfastness of their Faith in Christ. First their Order then the stedfastness of their Faith in Christ implying where right Order is non maintained stedfastness of Faith in Christ cannot continue A Holy Father to this purpose saith well 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Order is the Mother and Security of the Being of all things that have Being Do we not see that the Order and Government of the Roman Church doth this day preserve their Humane Inventions and unwarrantable Superstions in such Safety that alas Truth doth not prevail much upon them are within her Communion and on the other part our Disorder and not setled Government maketh us lose too too much and gain too too little Look a little upon the Parallel and consider how since Episcopacy hath been infested and way too much given to a prevalent Faction what malign Influence this course hath had upon Sovereignty and it will make it appear that the Mitre cannot suffer and the Diadem be secured It was maintained that Episcopacy was none of Christ's Institution it was onely the positive constitution of man Hath not Royalty been thus entertained Do not our Sectaries impudently maintain that Kings are the onely Extract of the People having their Being and Constitution by derivation from them Do they not hold that howsoever Episcopacy is a tolerable government of the Church yet it is mutable at the pleasure of the Church And do they not answerably aver that the collective or representative Body of the Community may upon any real or fancied Exigent mould themselves into an Aristocracie or Democracie Others more desperately have reached higher and give out that the Sacred
ratio the most formal and compleat Eâ—â—ence of Government The third is Whether or not Sovereignty and Royalty be in a King by Conveyance of Trust fiduciary and conditionate issuing from the People by a Trust devolved upon him in that portion it pleaseth them to proportion In which will be evident that the Trust of Sovereignty and Government is by God devolved upon the King That all Sovereignty related to God is fiduciary and conditionate but related to the People is absolute The fourth is Whether or not by divine Institution any man or men some few or many have any co-ordinate co-equal or collateral Power with the Sovereignty of Royalty Or whether or not in any case or exigent a King can be subordinate In the Resolution of which Question fitly and conveniently will be discussed that In quo formale Imperii consistit that in which the essence of Sovereignty doth consist and without which it cannot subsist as that it is supreme perpetual and freed from all coercive and coactive Power which the Hebrews call Imperium majus the Politicks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The fifth and last is Whether or not in any case it is lawful for Subjects one any more or all to oppose a Prince Quaestio prima Whether or not the King be only and immediately dependent from God and independent from the Body of the People diffusive collective representative or vertual CHAP. I. The Affirmative is maintained the contrary Opinion is explained the Authors and Assertors some of them with their Differences are recited WE hold the Affirmative that the King is only and immediately dependent from Almighty God the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and independent in his Sovereignty and Power from the Community in what Notion soever you conceive it either as a diffusive collective representative or vertual Body The Jesuit and Puritan to depress Kings aver that all Power is originally radically and formally inherent in the People or Community and from thence is derived to the King In the explaining of this Proposition there is amongst those who lay this Foundation for the building of their Babel a great Latitude of Diversity Lately I read in one who is the Author of the Tract concerning Schism and Schismaticks pag. 29. We have believed him that hath told us that in Christ Iesus there is neither high nor low and that in giving Honour every man should be ready to prefer another before himself which saying cuts off all claim certainly of Superiority by Title of Christianity except men think that these things were spoken only to poor and private men Nature and Religion agree in this that neither of them hath an hand in this Herauldry of Secundùm sub supra all this comes from Composition and Agreement amongst themselves I have given you his words I should be glad to be mistaken and crave him Mercy But as I conceive him this Position is worse than any I know of the Jesuits or more moderate Sectaries both of them acknowledge a Necessity of Government is taught by Nature and Grace and that the Distinction of Superiority and Inferiority is the dictate of common Reason and Religion Otherwise neither Nature nor Religion may avoid Confusion or Destruction God who is the God of Order and not of Confusion is the Author of this Herauldry of Secundum sub supra in the whole Universe in Church in State Hath not God in the moral Law taught it Honora Patrem c. Honour thy Father c Do not St. Paul and St. Peter Rom. 13. 1. Pet. 2. 14. v. command this as the Will of God And did not our Saviour practise it and his Apostles after him and after them all the Christian Church You must take away humane Society in Church and State if you take away this Herauldry of Superiority and Inferiority Sure I am the Jesuits do hold that Government is ex jure naturae by the Law of Nature I hope our Sectaries think no worse in this point than the Jesuits I return to the Jesuit and Puritan who are very like-in this Tenet but give me Leave to say for as bad as the Jesuit is in my conceiving the Puritan is worse Let us make a parallel 1. First the Jesuit says that all Power civil is radically and originally seated in the Community or Multitude God having made it the Primum subjectum the first Subject in which it is seated The Puritan joyneth hands here with the Jesuit 2. Next both of them say it is from the Multitude by way of Collation and Donation to one as in Monarchy to some as in Aristocracy to many as in Democracy so that immediately it is from the People and mediately from God and not so much by Collation as by Approbation How the Jesuit and Puritan walk along in an unequal pace See Bellarmine l. de Laicis cap. 6. Suarez Defens Doctrinae Orthod contra Sectam Anglicanam l. 3. 3. Thirdly that the People may change Monarchy into Aristocracy or Democracy or an Aristocracy into a Monarchy or Democracy or è contrae which way you will for ought I know they differ not in this neither 4. But some of our new State-Divines do hold that this Power is derived to the King from the People Cumulativè or Communicativè non Privativè by way of Communication or Cumulation but not by way of Privation that is howsoever the People communicate this Sovereignty to the King by trust yet they denude not themselves of this Sovereignty To make it plain it is in their Opinion no otherwise than as when the King of England appoints a Lieutenant Deputy or High Commissioner of Ireland or Scotland he denudes not himself of his Royal Power but delegates them with Power and Trust for his Service If this be their mind for I cannot conjecture at any other and if they have any other Sense I wish they would make it plain the King is in a poor case by such a derived Power for then as the King of England giving to his Deputy or Deputies that power only cumulativè he cannot by Reason or Law seeing Potior est delegantis quam delegati authoritas that the Principal his Authority is more excellent than he delegate's nor can he be debarred from that right the Law of Nations giveth him Anticipatione concursu or evocatione by procognition his own proper entire Right or Evocation to determine or judge in any thing that concerneth that His Kingdom If they authorize the People so let any that hath common Sense judge in what Condition these new-state-divines do put Kings 4. They aver which maketh me the more inclinable to conceive that to be their mind which before we have expressed that the same Sovereign Power is Howsoever derived from the Community to the King in the people suppletivè that is that if the King be deficient in necessary Duties of Government for the good of the Church and State the People by their innate power may do
Sovereign Power is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is by God from God under God and God's Appointment irrevocable ordinance irrepealable The three last are the Apostles the first is Solomon's for the Septuagint read the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This variety and plurality of Expressions how Sovereignty is of God and Gods the Spirit of God hath used that none presume sacrilegiously to usurp upon God his Prerogative who hath reserved this peculiarly for himself that all Kings upon Earth should be his immediate Creatures and Deputies by his own Letters Patent authorized Our Adversaries have been much puzled with this Text if they give us a new Bible it is like enough either this Text will be left out or we will have a Gloss upon it to destroy the original Text. It hath so tortured them that I cannot tell you how many ways they have coyned to themselves to elude it I have observed five main ones which I purpose by by Gods Grace to examine and refute quaests 5. now I content my self to take off one in which they please themselves much They say the Apostle speaketh abstractly not concretely of the power it felf not of the person cloathed and invested with the Power it is an ignorant shift Barcley in his Book de Regno who hath deserved well of all Christian Monarchs hath learnedly and truly observed that Saint Paul writing to the Romans did keep the Roman usual Diction in this with whom it was customable and ordinary by Potestates powers in the Abstract to express the persons authorized with this power He refers his Reader to classical and good Authors as to Pliny lib. 29. c. 4. Iuvenal Suet. in Claudio c. 21. Modest. lib. 27. de Pignorib Vlpian lib. 17. SS penult de Aedil edict Tertullian contr gent. I content my self with the Dialect of Canaan in Scripture in which frequently Expressions in the Abstract express existents in the Concrete Col. 1. 16. By him were all things created that are in Heaven and that are in Earth visible and invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or Powers By Thrones Dominions Principalities and Powers uncontrovertedly Angels are meant that the Expressions are abstract is clear as the Sun-shine To say Angels were created in abstracto is to send us to search after Platonick Idea's This instance it may be is too sublime let us see then if we can hit upon one nearer us and more fitting for the Purpose in hand I pray them to cast their Eyes upon St. Peter 2. Epist. 2. 10. where giving a Character of the man with whom we have to do he saith That they despise Government are presumptuous self-willed and not afraid to speak ill of Dignities The fellow of this you have Iud. 8. These filthy Dreamers defile the Flesh despise Dominion and speak ill of Dignities In which Passages the words in abstracto Government Dominion Dignities without any Doubt do express the persons of Governours Lords and Kings It is worth your notice taking to consider how zealous St. Peter and St. Iude were for the honour and due of Sovereignty the ray of Divine Majesty upon Earth that they speak so passionately and bitterly against such as professed themselves Christians and did speak Evil of Cajus Caligula Nero monsters of men O with what a zeal would they be inflamed if living now a days they did see what we see and hear what we hear the pretended Levites expressing their Zeal to God Religion Church and State by railing against the Lords anointed the best of Kings in the World The Fathers do use the word so too St. Austin epist. 48. saith Potestas humana saepe est divinae potestati inimica humane power is too often contrary to the Power of God Almighty The holy Father was not so bad a Divine as to think that Potestas in abstracto that Government which is Gods own Ordinance can be in Opposition or Enmity with God St. Austin then infallibly by the word Potestas Power meant him or them who are authorized with power from above If this doth not content our Adversaries I would entreat them to look upon St. Paul's Text and I hope they will find that St. Paul meant by being subject to higher powers to be subject to him who is invested with the Power Doth not he term them v. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rulers Higher Powers then and Rulers are with saint Paul equivalent terms Doth he not after call them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Ministers immediate and peculiar Servants of God v. 6. and even Nero himself is Gods Minister for thy Good Doth he not say v. 4. That he beareth not the Sword in vain which is non-sense if you conceive it of higher Powers in abstracto The like may be said of paying Tribute c. God did fore-see by his eternal Omniscience how apt man was to coin Distinctions to deceive himself and to wrong Gods Ordinance that mercifully to us he hath expressed in Scripture that both Sovereignty and the person cloathed with Sovereignty are of him by him and from him immediately and this that both the one and the other may be reverenced by us as sacred and inviolable The Apostle speaketh in abstracto Be subject to the Higher Powers The Powers that are are ordained of God He that resisteth c. Again the Spirit of God by Solomon saith In concreto with the Connotation of the Subject By me Kings reign I have said you are Gods c. What shall we judge then of this new-coyned Distinction to make a Difference betwixt the King and his Authority betwixt his personal Will and his Royal and Authoritative Will to pursue his Person with a Cannon-bullet at Edge-hill and to preserve his Authority at London or elsewhere These Fig-tree Leaves will not cover our Rebellion and Treason in the day of our Accounts before the Lord of Lords and King of Kings Remember his strait Charge Touch not mine anointed and do my Prophet no harm CHAP. III. The same Truth is proved by more Arguments from Holy Scripture THE Scripture hath not delivered any truth more purposely more apertly more frequently than this The Spirit of God knew well that if the Sacred Sovereignty of Kings be not preserved Religion Justice and Peace cannot be maintained This is the reason St. Paul gives to perswade us to pray for Kings That we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty 1 Tim. 2. 1 2. It is observable that Solomon Prov. 8. speaketh first of the establishment of Government before he speaks of the Works of Creation to intimate it is better not to be at all than to be without Government For the same reason God fixed Government in the Person of Adam before Evah or any else came into the World and how Government shall be and we enjoy the happy fruits of it it is not conceivable except we preserve
that their heart is in the hand of the Lord as a Boat in the Rivers of Waters how God sendeth them in their Expeditions their Wars maketh them in his day his appointed day to set their face against Ierusalem or otherwise casteth his hook in their nostrils to bring them back with shame To this Argument may be referred that when God is to bless a People he sendeth them good Kings the Sons of Nobles when he is to scourge them naughty Kings weak children c. The Testimonies of Scripture for all these are infinite many and obvious which we remit to the Reader 's memory or dilligent search 10. Tenthly Nor is to be passed by that the Sovereign immense Majesty of God is expressed by stiling and denominating him King and his Supreme glory is represented by sitting on a glorious Throne See Isaiah see Daniel and the Prophets Let us beware then that we make not God a Derivative too of the People and a Creature of mens making 11. Eleventhly In the Scripture we read that onely three kinds of men were anointed Kings Priests Prophets Let any give an instance of a fourth besides those three It is granted of all that Priests and Prophets have Sacred Charges and are Sacred Persoâ—s of God's immediate making and Constitution why then shall not Kings have the same Prerogative to be immediately from God Sacred in themselves Sacred in their Charge by Divine Ordinance and Appointment 12. Lastly To close up this first part of our Proof from Scripture it is a strong Reason to perswade Sovereignty Authority and Majesty to be from God immediately and independently from any others in what consideration soever that the irreverence disobedience contempt rebellion or any wrong whatsoever offered to their Persons to their Authority is wrong and contempt offered to God himself See 1 Sam. 8. This made David say Who can touch the Lords Anointed and be innocent This made the Apostle say Rom. 13. 2. Whosoever resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist receive to themselves damnation The like Phrase to the first you have of the Sacred Ministry in the Apostles 1 Thess. 4. 8. He therefore that despiseth despiseth not man but God When the People murmured against Moses and Aaron in the Law you have They murmure not against you but me The like you have in Samuel The result of all is That as the Sacred Ministry is by Collation immediately or independently from God although the designation of the Person may be by men and the Church so Kings may be personally designed and deputed to Royalty and Sovereignty by Election Succession Conquest or any other lawful possible way but their Sovereignty and Power is by Donation and Collation immediately and solely from God and refers to him as the only Donor and Author Again as the Person and Function of such as are lawfully invested with Sacred Power and in Sacred Orders is Inviolable and Sacred so are the Persons and Sovereignty of Kings Our order proposed in the beginning of this Treatise chargeth us now to produce our Proofs from Reverend Antiquity But I must beg leave of the Christian Reader to discover the weakness and wickedness of a new-devised trick of our Sectaries That the King is God's but not Christ's Vicegerent CHAP. V. All Christian Kings are dependent from Christ and may be called his Vice-gerents WHereas hitherto by express Scripture and by Arguments from thence by necessary consequence deduced we have proved That Kings and their Sovereignty are immediately dependent from God and dependent from no other Conceive it not so that hereby we seclude Christ and him considered not onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 personally as the Second Person in the Trinity but also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in his Capacity as God-man the Saviour and Redeemer of the World Our Sectaries have found out a quirk or trick rather of late to hold and argue That Kings are Gods not Christ's Lieutenants upon Earth Their purpose is the same in substance with the Romanists although they differ in something for the Romanists and Puritans both of them erect in every Kingdom another Sovereign not onely besides the true Sovereign but also above In this they agree and are like Sampson's Foxes who have their Tails knit together and do carry this Fire-brand to consume Church and State In one other they differ extremely for the Romanist and Iesuit will have it to be the Pope the Puritan and Sectaries fix this Sovereignty in the Presbytery We believe with warrant of Scripture and sound Antiquity that all Crowns and Scepters Kings and States are dependent from Christ the Son of God as he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God and man the Saviour of the World and Head of the Church We intend not at this time to discuss that curious Question Whether or not by Hereditary Right Christ was born King of the Iews We are speaking at this time of Christs Kingdom as the Head of the Church in order to all the Kingdoms of the World The Kingdom we speak of is not what was due to him as the Son of David but as he was the Saviour and Redeemer of David and all the World The right to which he had by Hypostatical Vnion and his perfect Merit and plenteous Redemption Some very Learned men do hold that Christ was not entitled to this Kingdom till his Resurrection and that then he had Ius quaesitum as the Jurists speak There is not much danger to hold this or deny it but with reverence to their great Parts and humble submission to better Reasons I dissent from them and do think however it may be granted that then he came to exercise it fully and perfectly or if you will that a new Title and Right did accrue to him that what he had before by Hypostatical Vnion onely now he had it by another supervenient Right of Merit and so had it duplioi Titulo as Saint Bernard saith of him in another case yet for any thing I could yet see I am of the mind from the first instant and moment of his Incarnation as God-man the Head of his Church By the grace of Hypostatical Vnion he was King of Kings and Lord of Lords It cannot be denied that while he was in the form and state of a Servant in statu 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the state of Humiliation as by the no less mysterious than admirable and wise Oeconomy of God the Glory of his Deity did not conspicuously and ordinarily shine thorow the veil of his Flesh no more did this Majesty and Glory of his Sovereignty and Kingdom shine forth to the Eyes of men God in his unsearchable Wisdom having appointed that the Kingdom of God should not come with observation and that the Iews might be rectified in their judgment who did not expect a spiritual King and Deliverer but a Messiah to reign temporally over them and by him to enjoy all external Plenty Peace and
2. Next is it not prophesied by Isaiah that Kings shall be the Nurse-fathers of his Church Reges erunt nutritii tui Is it not fit then that they hold their Crowns of Christ Is it not fit that Kings be taught so much that with the more Alacrity and Zeal they may advance the good of Christs Kingdom 3. Thirdly our Divines do acknowledge that by men in sacred Orders Christ doth rule his Church mediately in those things which primely concern Salvation And that by Kings their Scepter and Power he doth protect and preserve his Church and what concerns the external Government in Order and Decency How then can it be denied that Kings in this latter Sense are no less the immediate Vicegerents of Christ than Bishops Priests and Deacons in the former Look upon the Interpretations are given by the best and most able of our Divines upon 1 Cor. 15. 28. 4. Fourthly what is the reason that all Christian Emperours and Kings glory in the Sign of the Cross and place it upon the Top of their Sacred Crowns It is not only by this Symbolum Christianismi this ancient badge of Christianity to witness that they are Christians and not ashamed of the Cross of Christ but also to acknowledge that they have received and hold their Crowns of him Much more might be said to this purpose but for brevities sake and judging what is said to be sufficient to prove all Kings to be Christ's Vicegerents we spare with more Reasons to transgress upon the Patience of the understanding Reader Some have shunned to speak thus that Kings are Christ's Vicegerents upon Earth fearing that because of the Popes unjust Challenge to be Christs universal Vicar upon Earth it should usher in a Subordination of the Crown to the Miâ—re They scruple without just cause What need we to be afraid to speak with Scripture It is high Presumption in the Pope to challenge to himself the Title or Right of Christs universal vicar upon Earth by divine Right There is no colour almost or shew of Reason for it either in Scripture or reverend Antiquity The Pope the Bishop of Rome hath no more by Divine Right what he may have by positive Ecclesiastical Right it is not pertinent for us now to examine and discuss no higher Priviledge except it be in extent than the meanest Bishop in the World in his Diocess Doth not St. Hierom say Omnis Episcopus sive Romae fuerit sive Eugubii sive Constantinopoli sive Rhegii sive Alexandriae sive Tanis ejusdem est meriti ejusdem Sacerdotii The learned and holy Father compareth with the three great Patriarchs priviledged at that time by Ecclesiastical Canons aboveâ— all others with the Patriarchs of Antioch and the Honorary Patriarch of Ierusalem three of the meanest Bishops next adjacent to them the Bishops of Eugubium Rhegium and Tanais and averreth that by divine Right they had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 equal Right equal Power Nor doth that hold better that the Pope would make his transcendent and extravagant Jurisdiction over all to be grounded upon a fancied Eminency in St. Peter above his fellow Apostles ordinarie in him extraordinarie in them personal and temporarie in them but so fixed in Peter's Person that it is transmissible to his Successor and he forsooth whether God will or not must be the Pope of Rome This Paradox is against Scripture sacred Antiquity and sound Reason It is not fit now to prove it only to satisfie the judicious Reader I content my self with the Suffrage of that Holy Father and Martyr S. Cyprian who de unit Eccles. or singular Prelator saith Hoc utique erant caeteri Apostoli quod erat Petrus pari consortio praediti honoris potestatis He knew not these Differences these Novators have coyned and forged upon the Anvil of their own Hearts His Judgment was all the Apostles no less than Peter were endowed in Order to their Apostolical Charge with the same Endowment of Power and Priviledges of Honour Would God both sides in this and other Controversies would submit to the Judgment and Determination of the holy Fathers I wave the accurate discussing of these points they require more time and a more fit place To what is said I add that although we would give to the Pope of Rome to be Christ's immediate universal Vicar in spiritualibus in spiritual things there is no Danger and so to shun this Inconvenience we need not be so shie as to forbear to call Kings Christs Vicegerents Christs Lieutenants For if we should grant the Antecedent the Pope is Christs universal Vicar upon Earth which is certainly as false as Falshood it self it is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a lame Consequence to make this inference Ergo all Kings Crowns are subordinated and subjected to the Pope and his Mitre Their own Authors who advance his Power as high as Lucifer do acknowledge that all power that was in Christ Secundum quod homo as he was man was not collated upon St. Peter They confess moreover that all the Power that was in St. Peter was not by him transmitted to his spurious and usurping Successor They all with one Mouth profess that potestas Excellentiae quae in solo homine Christo fuit that Power of Excellency which is solely peculiar to and personal in Christ was not communicated to St. Peter They clear and prove it by specification of instances Saint Peter say they could not confer the Effect and Efficacy of the Sacrament without the Sacrament it self nor could he institute Sacraments of himself or in his own name or others than Christ himself did institute Do they not all of them give and grant that Saint Peter did not transmit the Power of doing Miracles to all his Successors So then although it were granted that the Pope were Christ's Vicar universal it will not necessarily follow that in this that Christ is King of Kings the Pope is his first immediate and universal Vicegerent I wish the Pope who claimeth so near alliance and contingency to Christ would learn of Christ to be meek and humble in heart and so not onely should he find rest to his own Soul but a great deal of more rest and quiet should be both in Church and State It is very considerable that in Scripture it is recorded that whilst our Saviour was Minister Circumcisionis the Minister of Circumcision he both practised and taught that it was God's Ordinance that the Mitre submit to the Crown and the Shepherd's Crook to the Scepter Scarce well come into the World when he taught this by his Practice flying from Herod's Persecution to Egypt who might have commanded Legions of Angels against him to destroy him if it had not been that it was fitter he should teach us true Obedience as at his Word they published his Birth to Shepherds and sung that glorious Anthem Gloria in Excelâ—is Some it is probable may judge this to be the Act and Fact rather of Ioseph
purpose that Cicero saith Orat. in Verr. 5. Omnes Religione moventur men are naturally swayed that way Religion hangeth we may see it in the furious Superstition of those Distempers It is not verified this day in our eyes that a multitude vana Religione capta melius vatibus quam ducibus paret suis misled with an erroneous Religion will obey and follow mad Priests sooner than their lawful and religious Prince they will part with what is dearest to them to advance their Designs their Desires they will throw away their Ear-rings to cast their molten Calves they will not spare to sacrifice their Children with the King of Edom or to cut themselves with Knives like to the Priests of Baal People thus madded and set on edge by mad Sectaries and Sheba's Circumcellion-like will act all Mischief spare neither Crown nor Mitre Ephodâ— nor Diadem things sacred or civil fancying strongly with themselves that they fight the Lord's Battels for Religion for Liberty and dying in Rebellion as men raging in a Feaver to dream they die Martyrs when they die Traytors to God and to his anointed Diodorus Sicul. lib. 6. cap. 10. relateth a Story very apposite to this Purpose that the Priests of Iupiter in the Island Meroe compassed with the River Nilus by this Sovereignty kept the People of Aethiopia in so superstitious Obedience so absolute and blind Dependance upon them that at Pleasure they commanded the killing of the King by their own Subjects none of them daring to deny or delay to put in Execution what the Priests commanded this continued long till Ergamenes a wise King of Aethiopia sensible of this damnable and impious extravagant Sovereignty waiting his Opportunity secretly surprized them all Priests and Profession We need not refer you to the Gâ—erman Writers and Italian that you may see what Mischiefs the Popes unjust Challenge of Sovereignty above Emperours hath wrought in the World nor to Ioseph lib. 2. de bell Iud. ca. 12. or to Florus his Slave Ennus by name who pretending an immediate Dependency from God wrought so much Disturbance to Rome in power Flor. lib. 3. cap. 16. Nor need I refer you to the Turkish Annals to learn what mischief upon this ground Shacoen Lis wrought or to Leo to read what mischief Elmahel with the people of Morocco wrought against Abraham their native King See Leo lib. 2. and if you will lib. 3. where you have the Story how upon this ground Chenim Mannal made the King of Fess to quit to him the Kingdom of Toâ—osma Heathenish Turkish Jewish Christian stories witness that where a Sovereignty religious independent is erected within a Kingdom or without it the temporal and civil must submit We need not I say refer you to these Stories Jewish Ethnish or Turkish we may see the doleful Effects this Tenet with it's practice hath brought upon these Kingdoms The Calamities which the Authors and Abettors of these Paradoxes have brought upon us and the present Distemper and Distress we are cast into if they surpass not certainly in their due Proportion are equal to those we have recorded in authentick Story were set on Foot betwixt Gregory the seventh and Henry the fourth betwixt Innocent the fourth and Frederick betwixt Boniface the eighth and Philip King of France The Puritan and Presbytery by their independent Ecclesiastical Sovereignty will act as much Mischief e're it be long if God in mercy stop not the Current of their Fury and Malice as in many Ages past the Pope of Rome hath done by his unjust and usurped Tyranny over and above Kings It feareth me the Tragedies of Munster and this time shall never be forgotten Let the Christian Reader whose Affection is right and whose judgment is not perverted judge how happy was our case when Gods Ordinance had place had Power Prince and Priest had their sacred due right what Plenty Peace what Happiness King and Kingdoms did enjoy and rejoyce in And on the other part let him reflect his Thoughts and consider how since this Sovereignty Ecclesiastical hath been elsewhere erected maintained how here a Sovereignty civil co-ordinate collateral to royal Sovereignty is set up And withal let the judicious Reader see how both the one and the other do concur to the Destruction of Episcopacy to the lessening certainly if not the total overthrowing of Monarchy but differ extreamly in this Sovereignty Ecclesiastical for in one Kingdom the Presbytery the Assembly is so Sovereign so independent in Ecclesiastical and spiritual things that it giveth Laws Orders to the Sovereign Prince and Parliament and demandeth as due a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Confirmation of them civil Sanction and Execution upon Refractories and Delinquents In the other the co-ordinate Power erected over-ruleth controuleth and at Pleasure directeth what they in their infallible Judgment and answerable Jurisdiction judge Orthodox in Faith right for the Worship and orderly for Canons of Government The last medleth in spiritualibus in things meerly spiritual and ecclesiastical in ordine ad civilia in order to the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdoms The other hath so enlarged its Jurisdiction and Sovereignty ecclesiastical that it trencheth upon and medleth with things meerly civil but in ordine ad spiritualia as related to Religion and the Church Both the one and the other are of equal Extent for this in ordine ad civilia on the one part and in ordine ad spiritualia on the other are such relative and respective Terms and Distinctions as can admit and authorise Church-men to do act and meddle in matters of State of highest Concernment and Lay-men again to do the like in things most spiritual and by divine Right reserved for men in sacred Orders So long as such Tenets are maintained with Practices accordingly strengthened we cannot expect God's Blessing on Church or State To both the one and the other God may justly say Quis haec requisivit à vobis Who hath required these things of your hands and where God's Ordinance is not and his own Ordinance is infringed that men intrude upon that is not their Right or usurp upon sacred Right his Blessing is not to be expected Again we aver confidently till this Babel be beat down there will never be peace nor Quiet in Church or Kingdom nor shall private men enjoy the Fruits of their Labours in Peace If this co-ordinate usurped and new-fancied Sovereignty usurp so much upon God and the Churches Right we shall become a mocking stock to the Roman Church If the other independent ecclesiastical Sovereignty obtain it is not to be doubted but that Immunity Ecclesiastical of sacred Persons and their Goods shall not only be established but also raised to a higher Strain and Pitch than Romanists do claim it This I say cannot but undoubtedly follow upon their Principles and Practices if there were not some hope that those Creatures whom God never made and Christ never instituted Lay Elders I mean oppose not and retard the
Course who are invested with sacred power to determine Truth in Controversies and Mysteries of highest Concernment in Councels to establish Canons to prescribe a Form of Worship a Catechism to have the power of the Keys in all censures Ecclesiastical in sum in all things Ecclesiastical to have no less power no less a Voice not only deliberativè but decisivè than Priests or Ministers as they are pleased to call them these Lay Elders are debarred from nothing but only publick Preaching and Administration of the Sacraments Baptism and the Eucharist it is expected if the independent Ministery another Head of this Hydra become the prevalent part they will justle the Presbyterian out of this and restore all the Laity who in their Divinity are no less the Lords anointed than Prince Priest or Prophet There is some hope I say that these Lay Elders a non ens in Scripture and never known to Antiquity will curb them that they shall not have way for such a vast Immunity finding already by sad and feeling Experience what a measure of Patience is required to bear their Insolency and what Prudence is necessary to disappoint their ambitious and pragmatical ends There is enough said to lay open the weakness and wickedness of this Antichristian tenet that Kings are God's but not Christ's Vicegerents They cry out much against the Pope to whom they do better service than they are aware of I pray God they were as real and true Enemies to Popery as moderate and Orthodox Protestants are whom the Pope feareth more than them and with just reason and seeing I have not much hope that what is said will work much upon them let me tell them that in their Tenet and Practice they are worse than the good Popes were and I dare say all to Gregory the Great hear it from his mouth and startle not at it he was a better Christian than any of your Sect or Sectaries thus he writeth Lib. 3. Epist. 61. to Maurice the Emperour Dominus meus fuisti quando adhuc Dominus omnium non eras Ecce pro me respondebit Christus dicens Ego te de notario countem excubitorum de comite Caesaerem de Caesare Imperatorem feci Sacerdotes meos manui tue commisi tu à servitio meo milites tuos substrahis Ego quidem jussioni vestrae subjectus legem vestram per divers as terrarum partes transmitti feci Et quia lex ipsa omnipotenti Deo minimè concordat ecce per suggestionis meae paginam Serenissimis Dominis nuntiavi utrobique ergo quae debui exolvi qui Imperatori obedientiam praebui pro Deo quod sensi minimè tacjii And in another Epistle written to Theodor. Epist. 64. He saith Valdè mihi durum videtur ut ab ejus servitio milites suos substrahat qui ei omnia tribuit dominari non solum militibus sed etiam sacerdotibus concessit Maurice was no bad Emperour and Gregory certainly was a good Bishop yet Maurice had commanded that none serving in his Wars or any Officer whatsoever accountant unto him should be admitted either to Sacred Orders or a Religious Monastical Life without his special Warrant Reason may plead for the equity of this charge because by the Bounty and Beneficence of Christian Emperours men in sacred Orders and Religious Persons had admirable Priviledges which might make his Armies weak by flying to sacred Orders and Religious Life and exempt Accountants from doing what was due in civil Justice ex Indulto Imperatorum not ex jure Divino by the gratuite concession of Princes and no direct Warrant from God or his Word Whatever this was in it self which Maurice commanded Gregory to keep and to intimate to all his Suffragan Bishops and to be published in all Churches within the verge of his Jurisdiction certain it is in St. Gregory's judgment it was unlawful and sinful for he saith Lex ipsa omnipotenti Deo minimè concordat and again Valdè durum mihi videtur yet what did he He made this Ordinance of the Emperour 's to be published throughout all his Churches here is Obedience and although it did belong properly and peculiarly to him as Bishop to admit any qualified by God Almighty to sacred Orders He submits to the restraining Ordinance of Sovereign Authority and I am confident did not transgress He pleadeth for no immunity to any sacred Person in sacred Orders nay he bringeth in Christ himself saying Sacerdotes meos manui tuae commisi I have committed to thy trust to thy power my Priests and in this case which is Spiritual enough and necessary enough for ought I can conceive at least that part of it of admitting of able men to sacred Orders he humbly obeys he pleads not that he was Christ's Vicegerent and Maurice only Goâ—'s he objects not Vzzia's attempt to sacrifice he â—onfesseth or rather bringeth in Christ speaking thus He calls him not onely His Lord but Dominus omnium the Lord of all without restraint he averreth that not onely he had by God Dominion over Souldiers but over all sacred Persons in sacred Functions Ei omnia tribuit dominari non solùm militibus sed etiam sacerdotibus concessit He knew no remedy else but per suggestionis paginam by humble supplication submiss admonition to tell the Emperour it was not right he professed his obedience and that not by compulsion an extorted a coacted one Quod debui exolvi Imperaâ—ori obedientiam praebui as he was bound he obeyed and for his humble Remonstrance he speaketh no less rightly than modestly Et pro Deo quod sensi minimè tacui He knew no more lay upon him than in humility and submiss freedom with Reverence to tell and admonish what he thought fit The poor man knew not that as Christ's Vicegerent in Christ's Kingdom he was to oppose to supplicate petition and if there were not a recalling a repealing of the Imperial Edict that they might excite the People to covenant swear and at last to present a Petition upon the point of a Pike by right as he was Christ's Vicegerent This holy man knew not this Divinity it was never heard of in his age nor any since the World began it sprang not up till many Ages after that that malicious one did sow Popple among the good Wheat of Christ's Field for a thousand years after Christ the independent Sovereignty Ecclesiastical of the Pope was never known in the Christian Church The Presbyterian Sovereignty not â—till fifteen hundred and above were run out The Parochian Pope or independent Sovereign in every Parish Christ's Vicegerent except Almighty God right in mercy what is disjoynted in Church and State is like to put the Presbyterian and Pope out of doors I may add a world of Testimonies of the Fathers who expresly call Kings Christs Vicegerents upon Earth Athanasius in the Sermon of the Blessed Virgin explaining that of the Psalm Et regnabit in domo Iacob in
iron hands Iotham's curse who for ought we read was the onely man durst speak against the course will come at 〈…〉 and devoureth Sichem and a fire cometh out from Sichem and destroyeth Abimelech The first stroke of Vengeance is upon the first Covenanters and Associates By the means and strength of the Sichemites Abimelech is made King over Israel The first divisive motion is there the Text saith God sent an evil spirit betwixt the men of Sichem and Abimelech and the men of Sichem dealt treacherously with him v. 23. The first who gave him the Kingdom sware and covenanted with him are the first Traytors or rather the scourge of God to begin his Mischief But how I pray you goeth this work on you have Covenant after Covenant The first Oath was unlawful now treacherously they sware another Oath against him What is the Solemnity They keep a solemn Festival Religion must ever be a stalking horse They go to the House of their God they seal a new Covenant a new Association they not onely unking him but also excommunicate him too v. 27. No Covenants no Associations seal them strengthen them with Oaths as many as you will with Sacraments too making Sacramenta pietatis vincula iniquitatis the seals of Piety the Bonds of Iniquity they will neither bind sure nor make unlawful pacts or compacts lasting Read and consider Psal. 11. Psal. 83. The story is worthy your looking on Come on then Zabul Abimelech's Governour at Sichem is over-awed he must comply with the second Covenant Abimelech advanceth with his Forces towards Sichem killeth them that sallied out man 's the Gates enters the City kills all in the City except such as flee to the Tower they escape not all of them are consumed with fire You see then how the first Authors 〈…〉 When he hath done Vengeance upon them he blocks up Thebez God having done Vengeance by him upon the Faction he taketh Vengeance upon Abimelech kills him by the hand of a Woman a dishonourable end for a King a Souldier and that by a piece of a Milstone which crushed his Skull To shun Ignominy he calls to his Armour-bearer to kill him by his Sword that it be not said hereafter that he died by the hand of a Woman This is the first King we read of in Scripture that was the Creature of the People How he atchieved it how he managed it and what end both he and they had is enough to make us fall out of love with popular Kings the Donatives of the People To this same purpose some bring the Example of Ieroboam who hold that Ieroboam was King only by Gods Permission and not by his Commission over the ten Tribes and that to punish Solomon in his Posterity for his Uncleanness and Idolatry Many things might be said Pro and Con we purpose not to dispute the point accurately The Reasons which incline some learned men to hold this Opinion amongst others are these That there is no anointing bestowed on Ieroboam at his Entry to the Kingdom The symbolical Ceremony of his Entry is expressed by renting of a Garment in twelve pieces he taketh ten of them to himself Scripture mentioneth not the giving of them The People grieved pitch upon Ieroboam either by him to get redress of their Grievances or otherwise if that be refused to assume him to be their King Consider how the Change is effected There is a specious shew made of a glorious Reformation of easing the Subjects of many great Pressures with which they were overburthened in Solomon's Reign by heavy Impositions laid upon them to build the Temple Solomon's Palaces and to entertain the Magnificence of his Court never so rich as in Solomon's Reign and never more grudging complaining These Pretences were no less specious and real than the specious and spuririous Pretences of our glorious Reformers and zealous Patriots to day great Promises are made great Hopes of better things are conceived but behold the Issue God in his secret but just Providence left Rhehoboam to the power of bad Counsellors he refuseth Redress of Grievances the ten Tribes revolt enthrone Ieroboam and made him King To bring all to a wished end the People and their new King begin at Religion Religion must ever be pretended whatever be the work whatever be the Intention How is Religion entreated By King and People it is subordinated to Policy Religion is made as Hangings for the House New Calves new Altars new Feasts are erected and instituted with a specious Protestation and Profession that God may be more frequently more fervently served and the People with more ease to attend to frequent the Service To this purpose the Calves are erected at Dan and Bethel The way of serving God before established was too too troublesome the true cause was the King feared if Gods Ordinance were kept and the ten Tribes should go to Ierusalem to keep the solemn Feasts do God service according to his Prescript true Religion preserved would reduce the ten Tribes to their due Obedience to the house of David New devices in State in Government necessitate the Authors and Abettors to new devices in Religion That this work may have no Rubbs the old Priests must be gone the Tribe of Levi must be rooted out Root and Branch It cannot be but the old Levites will cross the new established Government The basest of the people Tinkers Coblers Coachmen Mechanicks c. become Ieroboam's and his new Subjects Priests This done he and they take as much Authority over and above their God as before they did over and above their King A Calf must be their God What is the Success Here is a thorow Reformation in Church and State all is unanimously agreed upon by King and People Consider the Consequents They make to themselves a King to remedy their Grievances the King maketh them cast-aways They banish from them the true Levites they place in their stead the Scum and Dross of the vulgar By him and his Successors all the erroneous Religions amongst their Neighbours are admitted and received any Religion is allowed except the only true one But what Is not the King by this made glorious at home and terrible abroad No no such thing He is made the Reproach of all Kings his Motto for ever is Ieroboam that made Israel sin This is all his Excellency we read of in Scripture this is the Horn of his Exaltation How fare the People free-born people under a lawful and just King of their own setting up a King of themselves wrought and effected at last their own their Kings their States utter Extirpation and of free-born Subjects become the Slaves of strange Kings and Kingdoms This Story duely considered is able to rectifie the Errours of this time if mens minds be not fore-stalled with damnable Prejudice It layeth open to us that Kings when they are Peoples Donatives are not Succesful and discovereth how popular Reformations so much now in this
Jesuits all for ought I know do ascribe this to the Community The Sectaries do differ infinitely some warrant any one Subject any individual Person to make away a King in this case and that such a work is no less to be rewarded than when one killeth a ravenous Wolf Some will have it in the whole Community with the Jesuit Some will have it in the Collective Body but how not met together by the Warrant or Writ of Sovereign Authority but when necessity which is often fancied and imaginary of reforming State and Church calleth them together Some will have the Power in the Nobles and Peers of the Land Some in the three States assembled by the Kings Writ Some in the inferiour Judges In sum every one fancieth it to himself as he resolveth to Idol or serve corruptly the humour and state of the People where he liveth When these Classical Authors agree in one they will make us think their Tenets â—ounder and their courses more warrantable which I never hope to see because this Spirit of Discord God hath put as a Judgment upon all Masters of Errours I dispute not whether this Power be in the Community or in the Collective Body or in the Peers and Nobles or in the inferiour Judges or in the Parliament or where else you can imagine it for I know no where it is to punish or curb Sovereignty but in Almighty God Onely I demand of the Jesuit and Sectary that seeing wheresoever they put it they make it the last remedy the onely remedy to supply all Defect to redress all Wrongs to set aright whatever is dis-joynted in Church or State The Subject of this superintending Power must be secured from errour in Iudgment from errour in Practice and how happy are we now that in these late dayes we have a Pope in Temporalibus who is no less assisted and endowed with the gift and grace of Infallibility than the Pope of Rome determining ex Cathedra He is too much in love with a Community or with Nobles or with Parliaments or with inferiour Judges c. who thinketh or judgeth that they or any of them are secured from Errour in the reformation of State or Church But on the other side if the Multitude the Peers the Judges the Parliaments are liable to Errour and many times actually do err when they err in this glorious work of Reformation of Church and State doth not the perfect condition of a perfect Republick require that there be some authorized with a superintendent Power to rectifie their Errours and to punish their misdemeanours otherwise God hath left Church and State remediless they must name this Remedy and by all appearance this must be the Sovereign again and so Impius ambulat in circuitu If they will say that to eschew such a ridiculous regress and circle betwixt King and People and People and King and to shun Ne detur progressus in infinitum that if the Community or Parliament err the remedy is to be left to the Wisdom and Justice of God Why will not the Sectary acknowledge that it is as fit when the Sovereign transgresseth against the right Rules of Government that People and Subjects submit in Patience and wait till God send a Remedy either rectifying or removing the bad Governour Where ever you place this Superintending Power above a King I care not much for it is but an Idea by this same Power they who are authorized with it by God and Natures Right may call a King to account censure and punish him for any errour or misdemeanour whatsoever for any one act of injustice Why might not the People of Israel or Peers or Sanhedrim c. have convented David before them judged and punished him for his Adultery with Bathsheba and his murther of Vriah The Romanists and greatest part of Antimonarchical new Statists do acknowledge no case lawful but either in Heresie or in Apostasie or in Tyranny the first two the Romanists would have it to the Popes Power and at his Discretion the last of Tyranny all of them do qualifie thus Vt sit universalis manifesta cum obstinatione that it be in such Tyranny onely which is intended endeavoured attempted for the whole and total destruction of the Publick which cannot fall into the thoughts and attempts of any but a mad man What is recorded in story of Nero his wish in this kind may be rather judged the expression of a transported Passion than a fixed Resolution Next this case must be evident and clear as the Sun-shine at Noon-day Thirdly it must be joyned with such pervicacy and obstinacy that it is inseparable and invincible by any ordinary humble Remonstrance and Supplication to the contrary Although we give it that it were lawful in a case so qualified for the Community or any else to resume their Power and use it to remedy themselves and to rectifie what is amiss which we cannot grant we are very confident that all the Wit of the Opposites cannot make it appear that their case is such at this time Upon their grounds we see not how by sound reason not onely in such case as is expressed onely but also in every case of male-administration whatever it be they who have this pretended and fancied Power may not use and exercise this superintendent and transcendently extravagant Power I pray you if this Superintending Power in the People Peers or Parliament c. resumable in the exigent of great necessity be the onely means and last remedy allowed and so necessary that without it neither Church nor State can be preserved in their integrity how cometh it to pass that we have neither Precept nor Practice for it in Holy Writ Deus Natura non desunt in necessariis God and Nature are not deficient in things primely necessary Nothing can be conceived more necessary for State and Church than such a Remedy If then we cannot hit upon express and clear warrant by Precept or Practice in Scripture for a matter of so high and necessary concernment who can be so stupid in a Pythagorean way to believe this upon an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon your Rabbies bare assertion or trust it upon an Anabaptistical Enthusiasm There is nothing more certain than that there is not any thing in Scripture tending that way If it be our Adversaries are bound to produce it for affirmanti incumbit probatio He that affirms it to be so is bound to make his proof appear Next this tenet argues too great a confidence of our selves as if to be left to our own natural Providence were the onely sufficient competent and perfect means of Safety and Redress of Church and State We hereby presume upon our own strength that by our selves we are able to rectifie and preserve both Church and State It is Arrogancy too for hereby we are puffed up with an overweening conceit of our own Piety and Integrity as if our Judgment were so sound as that it
cannot be darkened or corrupted and our Affections so orderly as they cannot over-rule us in a wrong course to do against that is pious and just I was ever in opinion till now that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be secured from Sin was the onely propriety of God and that it is antichristian in the Pope to lay claim to an absolute Infallibility But this new Policy will find the like in the Parliament the collective Body or Community Thirdly consider attentively and impartially what you hold and you will find it resolve into Infidelity and Impatience Infidelity that we do not trust that God is able to do it Impatience that we will not wait patiently till he do it The Heathen are nearer to Christianity in this than our glorious Reformers Tacitus saith Quomodo sterilitatem aut nimios imbres caetera naturae mal◠ita luxum vel avaritiam dominantium tolerate vitia erunt donec homines sed neque haec continua meliorum interventu pensantur The safest way in the wise Historian's judgment is to endure the Tempests of ill Government patiently as we do other Tempests falling from Heaven while men are faults will be but will not be alwayes lasting and better things will come with compensation of our losses Fourthly It is much better for us that God hath reserved this as a peculiar case to himself to punish Sovereigns and to rectifie their Errours But for us on the other part to usurp upon his Right it is no less than intrusion upon his Divine Prerogative and carrieth along with it Morbum complicatum a number of Sins against many of his most glorious Attributes 1. It wrongeth God in his glorious Wisdom that he hath not prepared such a Remedy for us in this case nay it putteth foolishness upon him that in this case he hath commanded Patience and so left us totally remediless 2. It wrongeth God in his glorious Power by making him weak that by no other means he could set aright what is disjoynted in Church and State 3. It wrongeth his Holiness who for the necessary support of Church and State by these means is necessitated for effecting the Work most concerneth him and his Glory to have and use the help of sinful men nay even of their Sins 4. To what is said add this that this Principle of theirs dishonoureth Christian Religion it turneth Religion into Rebellion Faith into Faction and Christian obedience into disloyal Treason Nothing is more powerful to deter Kings from coming to the profession of Reformed Catholick Religion than to hold that such a Superintendent Power is in People or Parliament to censure and unking Christian Kings Fifthly Christian obedience and Sobriety teacheth us to leave all Evils in Church and State to be redressed by those means God himself hath appointed and when the ordinate means do it not or do to the contrary we are to keep our selves pure possess our selves with Patience and refer the Remedy to God who hath reserved this to himself We ought not to justle God out of his Right Before we have said that Scripture affords no warrant by Precept or Practice to the Community the collective or representative Body to do it But now we add for them to do it by opposing or resisting Sovereignty is in Scripture expresly forbidden Romans 13. 2. Whosoever resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation Of this more Quaest. 5. We must therefore closely adhere to what God hath commanded not turning to the left hand to obey unlawful things commanded by the Sovereign nor to the right hand with violence to resist lawful Authority Let all Subjects remember that in the day of their Accounts the charge will be to all singly or joyntly considered Who hath required these things at your hands Who hath made you Judges and Executers of matters of so high concernment And though it be pretended and possibly intended too that the work so done shall make much for the glory of God the good of the Church the liberty and happiness of the Subject it will not take us off We must not do evil that good may come of it Rom. 3. 8. To do God a piece of good service against his Will manifested is not to acquit our selves as his humble servants but to prove us his arrogant and proud Masters He is most glorified when his voice is obeyed 1 Sam. 15. 22. God standeth not in need of wicked man nor of his sinful wayes It was a pious Intention Vzza had when he put out his hand to save the Ark from falling yet because it was above his Charge God did strike him presently dead 2 Sam. 6. 6. 1 Chron. 13. 10. It is not enough for these Reformers to be assured in their Consciences that the work they intend and are about tends to a good religious and pious effect but they must have a sufficient Warrant from written Truth that they are warranted and called to this work Sixthly as it is against Piety it is against Prudence and the good of Policy Prudence doth not allow us to lose what real Good we have in present Possession for any future good which we have only in uncertain Expectation By this projected Course of our New-Statist-Divines we loose a good Conscience fall in actual Disobedience and Rebellion against the Lord and his Anointed We refuse Gods Tryal and with an unwarrantable indiscreet and unseasonable Zeal for Religion and our temporary Good come contrary to God and his Commandments We antevert nay shake off the Glory that God expecteth by our Tryals and cannot dare not expect Gods Blessing to our Endeavours If the Root be evil the Fruit can be no better Who may expect a Blessing to a sinful and rebellious Course Doth he allow us to do wrong and seek an Opportunity to do Good God acteth no Evil but only permitteth it and that because he is able to work Good out of Evil which is as inseparably proper to God alone as the immensity of his Power it is infinitely a superlative Presumption for us to presume upon the like We cannot expect any Blessing without a promise and have no Interest in the Promise but when our Acts and Works presuppose Obedience to his Precepts By such a Course as you prescribe we make the precept of God of none Effect Our excuse in this case will prove no better than the Pharisees who taught their Disciples doing things unlawful to say Corban God shall have Profit by it in the good we shall do to Church and State When we come to Judgment our Works shall witness against us and our good Intentions will not save us you know it is commonly and truly said Hell is full of good Intentions and Heaven of good works Seventhly if we look upon the practice recorded in Scripture when Gods people were delivered from Bondage or Captivity or when Grievances in Church and State were rectified and reformed God
never gave warrant to the Community or to the Sanhedrim but did it by his own high hand or authorized a Sovereign and put it in his Heart and Power to do it Look upon the Bondage of Aegypt which lasted 250 years God did not use or authorize the People to deliver themselves by a strong hand but sent and authorized Moses Exod. 3. 10. Come now saith the Lord and. I will send thee a calling he had Authority from God he had and it proved successful Some pious and learned men are of the Opinion that when Moses rescued the Israelite and killed the Aegyptian he did offer himself a Protector and Deliverer to his Nation but that for his unwarrantable Intention and Attempt he was forced to flee and with forty years Penance and Repentance wash away that Guiltiness As I dare not condemn them confidently yet I trust such is their Charity to allow me in Modesty to dissent from them First because I hold it a good rule not rashly to condemn the extraordinary Acts of the Saints when they are not evidently in Scripture condemned it is Saint Austin's Rule Next because of Saint Stephen's Testimony who Acts 7. expresseth so much that this was a praeludium an Evidence that God was to send him to be their Deliverer I am certainly assured that God did not think it a fit way by Moses and the People of Israel's Sword to work his Deliverance But forty years after sent Moses cloathed with his immediate Commission to command Pharaoh his Vicegerent to let his people go and authorized Moses his Vice-Roy over his own People that so the Peoples obedience to his Servant Moses and to the word delivered in his Name might be without check or wrong of Conscience in regard of their Allegiance It is very observable and conducible to our Purpose that God did not deliver his people by the wisdom of Moses or strength of the People or any act that way of theirs but did with an high hand by his own immediate Might and Power God thereby declaring to us that before he would authorize his own People to do it which had been a bad president for ever for Rebellion he would rather put himself to pains to work extraordinary and wonderful Miracles So in the Book of the Iudges when the people were delivered over into the hands of their Enemies because of their Sins He never warranted and authorized the ordinary Judges or Community to be their Deliverers but the Text saith expresly that when they groaned under their Oppression and repented of their Sins God raised up a Iudge Is not this a real proof God will not have inferiour Judges or the Community to rectifie what is amiss but we must in patience wait till he provide lawful means some Sovereign power immediately sent by himself to do it in which course in his ordinary Providence he will never be deficient although the extraordinary way be ceased if we will repent us truly of our Sins and wait in patience for the Salvation of our God Is it not worth your Labour to observe when the gracious Deliverance came to Israel from the Captivity of Babylon which lasted seventy years that his people had no hand no part in it not to contribute the least Auxiliary help but God effected it by the hand of Cyrus his Anointed immediately and totally Appeareth it not clearly by this how careful God hath been in his Providence that People may not right themselves by their own doing not when they are under greatest Pressures highest Oppressions For what were the Kings of Babylon but to speak in our Adversaries diction Tyranni cum titulo Who acquired Sovereignty over them by Conquest their Consent being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 voluntarily involuntarily Lastly for these popular Reformations lately so much cryed up as the best the most divine the most warrantable methinks are most unwarrantably magnified It is not to be denied but people are much taken with such Doctrines and are very ambitious to be Reformers of Church and State And subtle factioâ—s Spirits have great Advantages to work on the People and their weak Understandings for there can be no Government either in Church or State so eminently perfect where something might not be wished to be amended No Government is so commodious which is not attended with some Incommodities that as the Comick saith aut haec cum illis habenda aut illa cum his amittenda sunt from those Inconveniences in Government crafty and discontented men take occasion to press upon the weaker sort which is most numerous the present Inconveniences shew them their Interest how in Conscience they are bound and by God warranted to put to their hand promise them not only a share in the glorious Work of Reformation but also to free them from all Errours and Pressures to mould and frame such an Vtopia in the State and such a Paradise of the Church that shall not want any thing but Christ to come and reign actually and personally amongst them which they expect as I hear and have defined the time When people are deceived thus and transported these Achitophels Absaloms and Sheba's desire the Assistance of the people to bring this happy Change about They obtain it engage their Souls by Oaths Covenants and Perjury and engage them so much in Treason and Rebellion that Life State Fortune and Honour lie at the Stake come off they cannot By which means they get into their hands surreptitiously an arbitrary Power the thing they most feared most abhorred and practise it too And although the people are made to believe that they all and the whole are interressed yet really and truly some few domineer They command what Supplies they will of Men Arms and Monies seize all Forts press all Horses c. and that in that way in that quantity they think necessary which must be obeyed otherwise they are not sufficiently enabled to bring about such a great Work Reformation of Church and State and Preservation of the people This is the way by which these Principles find easie Admittance upon popular Affections but cunning Subtilty doth so abuse them that they are cheated out of their Wits and follow Courses destructive to themselves and bring upon them the Evils they most feared It is not reason that will right these deceived and abused Fools 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Misery will be the first competent Instructor to undeceive them The Doctrine and Reasons we first bring to the contrary of this Tenet we know assuredly they will not relish them but the contrary use will be made to incense a mad people and make them more mad yet Truth forceth us to speak for Vbi resipuerint when they come to their Wits they will curse their Gamaliels and forsake their Principles First then I demand of those who so magnifie popular Reformations as the only best most perfect and absolute Remedies of what is amiss in Church
or State who that hath read Scripture or by Experience hath remarked the Temper and Constitution of the Multitude can believe that Almighty God hath committed such a Trust to them Is there one of a thousand if you trust Iob or Solomon amongst them of understanding Was ever any act done by them but in a tumultuary way And is not their Reformation attended with Fury and Violence Impiety against God sacred Persons sacred Places sacred Things Have not these mis-called Reformations been acted prosecuted with open and crying Injustice not only against innocent but well deserving men Secondly I desire them to shew me in Scripture or in Ecclesiastical and authentick Story any popular Reformations of Church or State happy and successful what they alledge in this last Age are the Instances controverted and till they give instances extra propositum not questioned by their Favour they only beg the Question When God established both Policy and Church after the Deliverance of his People from the House of Bondage he would not do it but by Moses his Sovereign Viceroy King of Ieshurun Deut. 33. Ioshua did the like Ios. 24. The Judges raised by God as they delivered the people from their Slavery so they rectified what was amiss in Church and State What Desolations were there in Church and State in Saul's Reign Both State and Church in the Solemnity and Sincerity of the Worship in the days of David came to their Zenith to their highest Perfection aâ—d Beauty Read you I pray you of any doing in it but by David the King with the Advice and Direction of some Church-men Afterwards when it was corrupted who made the Reformation None but he who was King or Sovereign as Ioash 2 Chron. 24. Ezechias 2 Chron. 29 30 31. Iosias 2 Chron. 34. 35. Ezra Esd. To make Covenants against King or Sovereign pretending or intending if you will so the Reformation of Religion where read you it The first Covenant of a people formed into a politick Body is that you read Exod. 34. Had either the Community the collective or representative Body any other hand in it than to obey as Moses King of Ioshurun commanded Ioshua made another Iosh. 24. consider the place and see if either Tables or Parliament framed it urged it You have another 2 Chron. 15. but it is done and pressed by the royal Authority of Asa the King You have another 2 Chron. 34. but it is the Act of Iosiah the King The like you read of Esdra Esd. 10. If any object the Covenant of Iehojada in the Non-age of Ioash Let them be pleased to remember that this was the High Priests act not as High Priest but as Governour to the King By the same Power he did it by which he dethroned Athaliah armed the Subjects and enthroned Ioash Shew me one Covenant in the book of God which was made without the King except it be a Covenant with Hell and Death or as Iudas covenanted with the Iews to sell and betray his Master Or such a Covenant as the Prophet Hosea speaketh of Chap. 10. vers 3 4. For now they shall say we have no King because we feared not the Lord what then should a King do unto us They have spoken words swearing falsely in making a Covenant thus Iudgment springeth up as Hemlock in the furrows of the field Lastly Reflect upon Popular acts invading Sovereignty and attempting Reformation and you will find them as sinful as little successful as Kings of Popular Election It is recorded in Exodus that Moses the Sovereign of the People of Israel being absent forty dayes in the Mountain with God the People notwithstanding that they had lately sworn a lawful Covenant forced Aaron to make them Gods a molten Calf and forsake the true and living God Exod 11. Here you have a glorious popular Reformation in Religion Take another Reformation in the State and see if it be better The People of Israel living under the happy Government of David by the suggestions of Absalom and his fellow-Traytors possessed a Prejudice of David and his Government that Justice was not done and the State might be better ordered assemble without Warrant of the King a Treason if any thing else if we look on Scripture to Absalom under pretence of a Vow shake off David and acknowledge themselves Subjects to Absalom the Traytor the Usurper 1 Sam. 15. The ten Tribes after the death of Solomon supplicate Reboboam for a Redress of their Grievances not answered to their mind rebel against Rehoboam To strengthen their Kingdom and Policy they set up a new Religion make new Priests of their own Their Religion is the same their Fathers attempted in the Wilderness Exod. 32. and this is the second glorious Reformation of Calvesworship what was the issue I pray you it pursued them to their utter extirpation What can be said oâ— that abominable act of the Iews who to save themselves condemned Christ Are not Communities subject to dangerous Inclinations from private Incitements Are not their Representatives subject to mis-leading Factions and ambitions of private ends They are too much transported with the love of a popular estate who can so over-rule their Understandings as to force themselves to think that Communities or their Representative bodies are not molested or transported with corrupt judgments and affections for private ends To conclude Seeing then to establish the People to be the last and best Remedy to rectifie all Errours in State in Church establisheth so many Absurdities and Paradoxes and hath no warrant by Scripture sound Reason or Experience we can neither believe it nor approve it for to aver and affirm that a Community diffusive collective or representative is a perfect Republick to preserve it self and to right what is amiss abstracting the notion of a Republick from the Sovereign Governour or Governours is a notion not imaginable nor ever used by any who ever wrote or spoke right in Policy It secureth the multitude from Errour both in matters concerning Church and State There is neither Precept nor Practice in Holy Writ to warrant that the multitude have such a superintendent Power above their Sovereign Nay Scripture commandeth us the contrary not to assume this Power or to resist the Higher Powers under no less pain than Damnation This Maxim resolves into infidelity that we trust not God can do it or will do it and into Impatience that we will not wait patiently till he do it Christian obedience and Sobriety teacheth us to reserve the rectifying of the Sovereign and his Errours in Government to God himself We must not serve God against his Will nor without an express Warrant for our doing so By doing as our new Statists warrant us we run into Rebellion and lose a good Conscience in dutiful obedience and humble submission and prejudice God of that glory he expects by our tryals We must not do evil that good may come of it nor upon pretences of good intentions and good effects
to follow upon such courses prove our selves to be proud Masters and forsake to be Gods humble Servants In all Deliverances God bestowed upon his own People in his wonderful Providence he effected them either by his own immediate hand or by some other hands not permitting or allowing to his People any share in the work foreseeing how we would make it if it had been otherwise a bad president for rebellious courses Popular Reformations are neither warrantable nor successful The multitude are most of all unfitted for preserving Church or State In Scripture we have no Reformations recorded but only such as have been acted by the authority of the Sovereign Many popular tumultuary courses we find attempted and effected by the People to the hurt and ruine of Church and Commonwealth Wherefore let every one and all of Subjects be subject to Superiour Powers in obedience to that is good and in Patience suffering what is evil waiting patiently till God in his appointed time send relief and deliver his Church and us from pressing and oppressing Evils CHAP. XVI Wherein is examined that Maxim Salus Populi Suprema Lex esto And the other That the People may be without a King but a King cannot be without People THis vulgar Maxim Salus Populi Suprema Lex esto was one of the Laws of the XII Tables It was made for a Democracy and hath in it a good and warrantable sense if it be rightly taken in its proper meaning But as it is abused and perverted by our Miso-monarchical Statists and Sectaries it hath been the Mother of much mischief The Sectaries who abuse it understand it so largely at least make the People conceive so that all Government and Superiority in Governours and Superiours is primely nay only for the Subjects and Inferiour's good This holds not for some Government and Governours are by God and Nature appointed for the mutual and inseparable good of the Governour and Governed of the Superiour and Inferiour as in maritali regimine in paterno as in the marital and fatherly Government Some Governments are primely principally and properly for the good of the Superiour and Governour as in herili dominio in the Government of a Lord and Servant where the good and benefit of the Servant is but secondary and consecutively intended it is not the principal end but the external and adventitious as the gain that cometh to a Physician by his Practice is not the proper internal and principal end of his Art Science and Practice but consequitur ad medicinam it followeth and attendeth his Skill and Practice What can our Adversaries say of a Title acquired to a Kingdom by lawful Conquest That such a Title is good and a King may be lawful King by Conquest meerly without the consent of the People is so evident in Scripture as it cannot be denied In this case the good and benefit of the Conquerour is the prime thing and principal The Conquerour may dispose of it at pleasure for his own good as Solomon did give Cabul to Hiram Moreover according to the Jesuit's and Puritan's grounds as a man may render himself totally under the Power of a Master without any conditions or limitations or bounds whatsoever why may not the Body of a People do the like to have Peace and Safety surrender themselves fully into the Power of a King May not a Lord of many great Mannors and Lands if the Laws of the Countrey do not forbid it admit no man to live and gain by living within his Territories and Countreys but upon condition of a full surrender of himself his Posterity and all belonging to him into his Lords power Doth not Tacitus tell us that anciently amongst the Germans every Head of the Family was Father King and Priest and that all the Tenants of his Territories had no more corn for meat no more number of Flocks no more for use of cloaths than it pleased their Lord to allow them Suam quisque familiam suo penates regis frumenti modum dominus aut pecoris aut vestis colono injungit servus hactenus patet May not a disorderly multitude without order and government or any subordination at all this is impossible but let us take it as probable because imaginable conceiving Safety and Good to themselves totally surrender themselves into the power of one to rule over them hereditarily Or may not a people in a formed and framed politick Body upon the Receit of a great Benefit as Deliverance by one from a mighty Oppression surrender themselves thus totally to their Deliverer and his Successors It is not improbable that the Israelites did offer some such Condition to Gideon and his Posterity for the great Deliverance they had from the Midianites by his Sword Iudges 8. Did not the Campani in this way if we may trust Livie subject themselves totally to the people of Rome Populum Campanum saith he in the words of their chief Heads Vrbemque Capuam agros delubra deûm divina humanaque omnia in vestram P. C. ditionem dedimus O noble Senators we surrender and give up unto your Dition and Power the people of Campania our City Capua our Lands the Temples of our Gods and what divine and humane things are ours By what is said it is more than apparent that this Salus populi suprema lex esto Let the Good and Safety of the People be the supreme Law is not an universal Dictate of Nature a paramont Law which is universally verified of all Government and Governours This Speech is as much abused when by these new Statists it is applied to Monarchy I most heartily grant that the Preservation of the Peace and Safety of Subjects and People is the prime end in the Constitution of all Government but it is not the sole and adaequate end The complete adaequate and perfect end of Government in Monarchy is Salus Regis Populi the Safety of King and People Notwithstanding the Safety and Good of the people may be called the prime and principal end in the Constitution of Monarchical Government because it is most agreeable with the joynt Interest of King and People It is a word exceeding well beseeming a King to say Salus Populi suprema lex esto let the Safety of the People be the Paramont Law There is no Doubt that the King ought to proportion all his Laws to this end this is just this is necessary this is honourable this is advantageous to the King who that is wise will not provide as much as he is able for the Good Safety Plenty and Peace of those in whose happiness is his Glory and in whose Destruction his own is involved And on the other hand it becometh Subjects well to say Salus Regis suprema lex esto and to proportion all their Obedience Endeavours and Actions for the Safety Honour Power Happiness and Glory of their King It is impossible the Subject can have Peace or Safety where the Sovereign and his
Prerogative are weakened so that he cannot command and protect To reason from the one part of the end of Monarchical Government the Safety and the Good of the Subjects to the Destruction or weakening of the other part of the end of the power of Sovereignty and the royal Prerogative is the Sophism which the School calleth à divisis Nor can we imagine a possible or probable Existence of the good and right of the Subject without a pre-existence of the entire Sovereignty and Prerogative in the King this is easily demonstrable if we consider what was the prime end of the Institution or Constitution of Kings By uniform and universal Consent it is acknowledged to be for this purpose primely to preserve people in Peace Plenty and Safety If the King then be not authorised and furnished with sufficient power to work this effect how can the People expect it By the Suffrage of our anti-monarchical opposites it is granted that the Multitude and People were at first necessitated to submit themselves unius imperio to the Government of one King and to commit themselves their Lives their Laws their Fortunes to his Trust and Power because they knew such was their Weakness that they had not Wisdom enough to rule themselves to foresee and prevent Dangers nor Power enough to protect them from wrong of the more powerful either living amongst them or nearly adjoyned to them And for this cause in their Opinion accorded that for Honour and Power he should be sufficiently enabled to act and perfect all these acts of Government and to effect and produce those ends his own and their Happiness nor doubted they to entrust him with Majesty the word Majesty speaketh two things summum honorem summam potestatem supremest Honour and supremest Power being assured that his Interest was so involved in theirs that he could not chuse but most earnestly and carefully endeavour this end by which premisses which are their own it is most certain that Salus Populi the Safety of the People issueth from Salus Regis the Safety of the King no less than the Life of the natural Body from the Soul that enliveneth it notwithstanding we think they should speak more divinely if with the dialect of holy Scripture they would say that Almighty God knowing that no Society of mankind could be nor Happiness in that Society without Government ordained for this and that Government should be and the Governours entirely endowed and enabled with Power and Honour to do it and that conformable to his own Government at first he in Paradise fixed this Government in the person of one Adam and provided for the Continuance and Succesâ—â—on of it that it should be transmitted to the first-â—orn in defailance of the Father God knew it well â—hat it was better not to be at all than to be without Government and that weak Government is the â—quivalent of Anarchy and no Government Saint Paul knew not how Quiet Peace Godliness or Honesty â—ould be without Government I do think our Puriâ—ans are not so much in love with School-tenets as to â—old that Quovis modo esse nay Poenale esse is better quà m non esse seeing Scripture hath spoken the contrary that it is better never to have been born better that a mill-stone were put about their neck and cast into the Sea than to be in a poenal condition and that some shall seek to dye for ease but shall not find it Heathen Politicians tell us Tyrannis potior Anarchiâ Tyranny is better than no Government Scripture is plain and powerful enough for this truth that no safety can be to mankind without the safety of Sovereignty and of the Prerogative of Governour and Government Exod. 20. It is the first Precept of the second Table Honor a patrem c. Honour thy Father where by Father is principally according to the Commentaries of Ancient and Modern Divines meant the King then followeth Thou shalt do no murder Thou shalt not commit adultery Thou shalt not steal c. To intimate to us that neither Life nor Chastity nor Goods nor Honour nor Fame nor any thing else can be preserved except the King have his Right The expressions of Scripture are admirably emphatical to import that in the King and his strength is all our Safety our Life our Happiness The King is called Lament 4. 20. The breath of our nostrils this place it seemeth alludeth to that Gen. 11. 7. He is called the Head of his Subjects 2. Sam. 21. 17. He iâ— the light of his People 2 Sam. vers 2. He is their Shepherd and Pastour Psal. 78. 71. The Heathen call Kings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They are the Nurse-fathers of the Church Isai. 49. 23. and 40. 26. The King is the Head-stone of the corner Psal. 118. 23. The same in the State that Christ is in the Church Isai 28. 16. 1 Pet. 11. 6. The Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implieth as much that he is the very bottom and foundation upon which the publick good of the whole State and the private good of every one is founded and built Excellent expressions they be diametrally opposed to the Divinity and Policy of this miserable Age. The King is the breath of our nostrils then no Life without him He is our Head then all Life Sense and Perfection in him all Motion from him and the influence of his Government he is our Light nothing then but Egyptiacal darkness and blindness without him without his Government he is our Shepherd then no maintenance no entertainment without him he is the Corner-stone then nothing but he can tye mankind together in a peaceable and comfortable Society nay he is the Foundation the Corner-stone and Head-stone of the Corner upon whom all is built and grounded in whom all are conjoyned and by whom all are protected Turn it over again take away the King you take away our Life our breath weaken him we faint we pant hurt the Head you distemper all the Body weaken the Head and you feeble both hand and foot and all parts and members of the Body smite the Shepherd and the Flock will be scattered if the foundations be destroyed what can the Righteous do If the corner-stone be pulled out the side-walls and whole Fabrick must fall if the Head-corner-stone be removed there is no protection against the Tempest but Rain and storm will spoil the whole Building Saint Paul hath a short but a most pithy expression of the good issueth from the Supreme Power upon all Rom. 13. 3. Tibi in bonum he is the Minister of God to thee for good this Indefinite Tibi to thee implieth as much as the Minister of God by his immediate Ordinance and Ordination is for thy good whosoever thoâ— be be thou Nobleman be thou Gentleman be thou Citizen be thou Countrey-man be thou Church-man be thou Lay-man he is for the good of all of the whole Politick Body joyntly and he is for the good
of every individual and particular Person singly for our good from God they are sent for our good to us they come If Kings were not we should be as the Fishes of the Sea the greater destroying the smaller or as the Beasts of the Forest the strong destroying the weaker Hab. 1. 14. Saint Chrysostom explaining these words 1 Tim. 2. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where the Apostle saith that we may live a quiet and peaceable life that is to say saith the holy Father Our Security subsists in their Safety It is worthy your notice taking that in the Book of Iudges where it is recorded that all disorder was in the Church and State the reason is so often given and repeated Because in those dayes there was no King in Israel you read it cap. 17. 6. 18. 1. 19. 1. 21. 25. Which words import not simply that there was no Government in those dayes none can be so stupid to imagine it but the Spirit of God intimateth two things to us 1. The one is that they wanted Monarchy the most excellent of Governments 2. The other is that the Government then Aristocratical was so weakened that in Church and State nothing was sound the grossest Enormities did abound and there was no strength in Authority to right it Review the story There was no King this time and consequently there was all mischief this time and therefore a fit time to shake off the old and bring in a new Religion Micah and his old doting Mother will have a Religion of their own an Idol of their own a trencher-Chaplain of their own there is nothing to let it No matter for sacred Orders if a Levite may be had it is better otherwise it skilleth not much The reason is given in the Text In diebus illis c. in those ill dayes there was no King in Israel I wish we were so happy that these Times of ours had no resemblance with that time Well but it is no great matter for Religion if every man can enjoy his Liberty his Honour his Peace live in Safety what is Religion to us If this be Religion these Times want not Professours too too many It will not rest here although every man have liberty or licence rather in Anarchy to have and to profess what Religion he will the same Scripture telleth us where no King is Rapine and Spoil will be where no King is plundering will be good Justice every man's Lands Revenues and Chattels may be fortiter occupantis the stronger may disseize the weaker you shall have the Tribe of Dan to spoil too Nor is this all The men of Gibeah will abuse the Levite's Wife nay do it avowedly abuse her to death it is no great danger to act and do what mischief you will where no King is No man's Soul Wife Life or Goods can be secured where no King is Idols may be erected Murder may be acted and allowed Men robbed of their Goods and all this good Service for the glory of God and the good Cause Consider again how universal these Mischiefs are you have a Micah a private man Gibeah a City Dan a Tribe all out of order and course Religion is defaced Justice is abused Honesty and Civil moral Conversation is shaken off Dishonesty Impiety Uncleanness are avowed Again consider Micah was at Mount Ephraim in the midst of the Land Gibeah was at one end of the Countrey and Dan at the other so that these Mischiefs were not confined to one corner but were spred over all the Land And seeing Scripture repeats it let us repeat it too all these Disorders all these Mischiefs were because in those dayes there was no King in Israel Turn it over again No better way to keep Religion sincere and incorrupt mens Lives and Wives Honour Goods and Possessions in Safety to secure them from Murder Abuse Oppression than by Kings No doubt Priests there were then but either they would not serve at all or then the Priests were over-awed by the disorderly and sinful multitude Hos. 4. or did prescribe their Text give them Commentaries taught them what to say what to preach No doubt in those dayes Judges they had but Justice was not done or if done at pleasure otherwise Judges were posted and signed with a nigrum theta marked to be stoned by a rascally multitude Though Priests be in the Church and Judges be in the Land they are not able to guard the Publick or Private from wrong wherefore it is most consonant with Scripture to say Salus Regis suprema Populi salus the Safety of the King and his Divine Royal Prerogative is the safest Sanctuary for the People Vbi non est gubernator populus corruet so readeth St. Hierom Solomon's words I refer my self in this to the Consciences and Experience of the King's Subjects what hath been the security or comfort they have had in Person State or Goods since the Lords Anointed the best of Kings hath been wronged O if they durst speak O if they would speak The Prophet Hoseah cap. 3. 4. threatneth as the greatest of Judgments in this world That the children of Israel shall be many dayes without a King Listen I pray you to what followeth and without a Prince that is there shall be no Nobility and what more and without a Sacrifice that is there shall be no Religion no true Priest The same Prophet cap. 10. 3. sheweth they shall have no King because they feared not the Lord. The Prophet Ieremy Lam. 11. 9. lamenteth first that their Kings were captives then that they had no Nobility for their Princes were captives too then the Law is no more Justice is gone with the King and then the Prophets find no Vision from the Lord Religion is gone too Will not all this lead us to better thoughts a better esteem of Salus Regis of the Safety of the King the preferring of his Divine Right and Royal Prerogative It may be our Zealots account those Prophets no better than Court Parasites Cyprian or some other ancient Author masked under his Name summeth up shortly but pithily the happiness of People in a King de 12 abusionib Saeculi cap. 9. in fine Est pax populorum tutamen patriae immâ—nitas plebis munimentum gentis cura languorum gaudium hominum temperies aeris serenitas maris terrae foeâ—unditas solatium pauperum c. The words are plain enough they need no interpretation What mean they then who magnifie this Maxim Salus Populi suprema Lex esto Let the Safety of the People be the Supreme Law to call it in a narrow sense abstracting à salute Râ—gis from the safety of the King The transcendent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of all Politicks the Paramont Law that giveth Law to all Laws whatsoever that the Law of Prerogative it self is subservient to this Law and were it not conducing thereunto it were not necessary nor expedient Some more superlatively excessive commendations the
their proper and peculiar and yet several and distinct Rights What Law what Right what Reason is it that the King may or should part with his sacred Right and yet warrants the People to preserve their Rights nay to invade and challenge the King 's Right It feareth me that high Sacrilege robbing God his Anointed and Holy Church is not the least crying sin that hath brought upon us these Miseries and many good men fear that Kings giving too much way to Harpyes to rob God and his Church have made a furious multitude to invade the Sovereignty of Kings to teach Kings to be more zealous and careful to preserve Christ and his Churches Rights Let us remember that God and true Policy have so inseparably united and conjoyned the Interest of King and People that they be almost altogether the same upon which necessarily it followeth that the people ought not to account it a game or strength to them which they obtain and acquire by a Loss and wast of his Prerogative nor ought they to think that perished to them which is gained to him and by which his Prerogative is strengthened he more enabled to protect and they the more secured in safety to enjoy Liberty and Propriety with peace and plenty To reason à salute populi from the Good and Gain of the people to the weakning or destroying of Royalty and Sovereignty is sophistical it is that Sophism they call à dicto secundum quid or à limitato ad absolutum to reason from one end of Government to the Destruction of the other which is more excellent and which effecteth and worketh the other is totally to overthrow Royalty and Government The compleat and adequate end of Monarchical Government is as we have said to preserve the Kings Prerogative entire and the Liberty and Good of the Subject too If any man reason after this Form in the case betwixt the head and the body the Wife and the Husband he will soon discover the Fallacy of this Sophism It is right just necessary and honourable for a King to proportion his Laws and Government for the Good and Safety of his People and on the other part it is as just as necessary for the people to hold that Salus Regis suprema lex esto the safety of the King of his Sovereignty and Right ought to be the paramont Law without which no safety can be to the publick State nor to any private mans well-being If such Sophisms as these were confined within School-walls for the exercise of Wits it were no great matter but such abused Principles clogged with such paradoxal Consequences have a mighty Influence upon the multitude and will make them assume to themselves or commit to their Representatives an arbitrary Power which placed in a wrong hand cannot chuse but produce monstrous Mischiefs These Maxims with their absurd Consectaries embolden them authorize them to pull his Crown from his Head wrest his Sword out of his hands seize his Ships Forts Magazines Ammunitions and Revenues if they apprehend it fit for their own good It will make them break thorow all inferiour Laws that no more shall we have or know for Law but what it shall please them to unfold at pleasure out of the Closet of their Breasts And if this power be in some few or in many who are back't by the greater part of the people having a domineering power over the Judgment and Affections of the people gulled with fair and false promises and vain expectation of a glorious Reformation in Church and State What person how innocent how well-deserving soever can be secured in the Liberty of his Person and Propriety of Life and Goods Shall it not be a sufficient and just warrant to commit innocent men to Ieremiah's Dungeon to prove them guilty at Leisure because they are disaffected to the Good Cause Shall it not be just to take from men what Portion what Moity of their State and Revenues they will and sequestrate them for the publick because they cannot confide in them and the Good Cause must be maintained upon the Estates of Bishops Malignants and Delinquents God forgive you Remember there is a God in Heaven will call Ahab to an account for Naboth's Vineyard repent in time and make Satisfaction before the evil day come upon you May they not by the same Grounds disarm whom they will to weaken Gods Enemies Those Maxims and Sophisms will make way to Rebellion to murther the most innocent the most deserving men It will at last come at that except God and Sovereignty right it that it will be a crime to have Wealth and Treason to be faithful and loyal to King Church and State This Maxim with the annexed Sophisms is enough to destroy King and Kingdom Church and State and at last send the Authors and those are set on by them packing to Hell from which good Lord deliver them and all of us But what may be the proper natural and innocent sense of the words Salus populi suprema lex esto No doubt they have a good and just sense if they be not â—acked upon Tentures beyond their just Extent It was as we have said and as it appeareth by Cicero de Legibus one of the Laws of the twelve Tables and 〈◊〉 paramount Law too But it is only tant ' amount as Salus publica suprema lex esto let the publick Safety of 〈◊〉 be the paramount Law It is transcendent in this Respect that Government first and principally regardâ—th the common Good and Safety of the whole and 〈◊〉 the next place it intendeth the private Good of eveâ—y private singular one subordinately Conservatio speâ—â—ei est potior conservatione individui the Preservation 〈◊〉 the spece and whole is intended more by Nature 〈◊〉 the preservation of any individual The word Populus in classical Authors and its ordinary use is more than â—leâ—s Plebs is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a derivative from many but Populus is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 id est à mulâ—â—pluribus Plebs comprehends only the vulgar and bafâ—eâ— sort of the Society but Populus omnes ordines hominum complectâ—tur comprehends in its extent all men in the Kingdom of what Condition or Quality soever SS Plebiâ—scitum de jure â—atural apud Iustinianum Nicholaus Porretus ad 2. Epigramma Martial in Cornâ—copia By which it is easily conceived that in this Salus populi in this Salus publica Salus Regiâ— is necessarily involved The word Publicum as Latin Authors well observe is a populo and 〈…〉 that it may sound the better in our Ears we pronounce iâ— Publicum 〈…〉 so that publick and popular in their originaâ— Sense are equivalent Popularâ—s actiones in the Diction of Law are the same that 〈…〉 de popular action actio P. L. 〈…〉 de 〈◊〉 P. and 〈◊〉 sacra if we will trust Festus and Labeo were those solemn Festivities 〈…〉 kept by all the People Governour and governed different from those
up a state upon the Ruines of the Church or better a prior estate they care not although Levites usurp upon Priests Presbyters upon Bishops and Christ and his Patrimony be both put out of the World Ten shekels of Silver and a Sute of Apparel Micah's allowance Iudges 17. 10. is enough and too much for the best of God and Christ's Servants All in the end will prove Aurum Tholosanum like the collop the Eagle brought from the Altar to feed her young ones so much Fire came with it that it consumed the Nest and the young ones too When the Church of God is in this distress it is not onely sin to be accessary to these Counsels and Courses but such as may and are able to prevent these mischiefs and do it not God will charge them with it Some there be who profess that they like not the course against the Church but for reason of State way must be given to the current of the stream and a fit opportunity waited to right what was amiss I will not search the hearts of such men I leave them to him who trieth the reins and knoweth our thoughts afar off onely let me put them in mind that sins of Omission of necessary Duties are high sins in the balance of the Sanctuary Meroz is cursed that came not out to help the Lord and Matth. 25. They are to be condemned in the last Day who fed not Christ when he was hungry no less than those who robbed him of his Food It is the highest Service to God with the Church of Thyatira not to deny the Faith where Satan's seat is where Antipas sufereth for the truth Rev. 11. 13. If God hath endowed any with Wisdom Power and Trust by Princes and in such time they withdraw their help from God and his Church it is like they will call to him in the day of their trouble and God will not hear them Remember after the reducing of the People from the Captivity the Prophets did charge the re-building of the House of God the Princes of Iudah answered The time is not come the time wherein the Lord's House should be built None was so impudent to come directly contrary to this Charge but they meant we are poor newly come out of Captivity we have strong Enemies about us we must wait a better opportunity a more seasonable time a jugling trick it is to cross good Works and crush them substantially by opposing them onely circumstantially Notwithstanding all this the Prophet chargeth them Is it time for you O yee this compellation is very emphatical to dwell in your cieled Houses and this House lie waste Read the Judgments I cease to repeat it I love not to apply it and wish it be not the Judgment of our Times See Hag. 1. vers 1 2 3. Ã vers 6. ad vers 12. Do not deceive your selves with that imposture that you will wait upon an opportunity to right all that is disjoynted in Church you are not to tempt God to put him to extraordinary Providence when he has put you in the ordinary way to serve him and to prevent these mischiefs Is it lawful and warrantable to you to do Evil or give way to Evil and to wait opportunity to do good afterward to salve all this Or can you expect that God will honour you to make you fit instruments to repair again what is wrong Certainly you neither deserve it nor can lay any claim or interest to it If these men fear Covenants and Associations I desire them to remember that as in Scripture the first and happiest Covenant is the Covenant of Mercy and Grace so in the next place we have in Holy Writ mentioned A Covenant of Levi which is the means ordinary God hath appointed to preserve the other The Scripture telleth us that it is an high impiety to corrupt the Covenant of Levi Mal. 11. 8. Both the one and the other Covenant are Covenants of Salt that is of everlasting durance from which it followeth necessarily that whatsoever Covenant destroyeth the Ordinance of God in the necessary Government of the Church the Ordinances of the Worship and its Solemnities cannot be from God from whence then it comes you may easily guess Of all impieties in this kind there is no higher transgression than if the Tribe of Levi for some subsistence to themselves and theirs and to gain popular applause and credit with the Faction assure Kings they may give way to a popular current and flood to suffer God's Ordinances to be destroyed the Solemnity of the Worship defaced till a better opportunity offer I beg pardon to speak truth in humility and reverence and first to Kings that although Church-men advise Kings upon such exigents to do such unwarrantable Acts yet it will not excuse them in the Day of their Accounts no more than it excused Achab that had the warrant of Zedekiah 1 Kings 22. 11. Nor did it excuse Pilate who had the representative Body of Priests and State to warrant him they had a Law and by their Law Christ was a Malefactor and worthy to dye Next let me tell the Tribe of Levi who for their own good and popular applause do comply with a popular Eaction and set their brains on work to make specious shews of Reason and inducements to perswade or warrant Kings by permission and giving way or by actual concurrence with their Authority to permit and do Acts destructive to Christ's Ordinances or derogatory to the Worship are near to the sin of Apostacy and another of an higher degree which I fear to name But of all Levites those are the most miserable who being advanced to the highest of Sacred Orders having enriched themselves by the Patrimony of the Church to keep their purchase have abjured that Sacred Order as Antichristian and yet make not restitution of what they have purchased I wonder how such mens Repentance could be admitted for in such cases they cannot truly repent without Restitution Non dimittetur peccatum nisi restituetur ablatum These men come short of Iudas this Repentance who was not onely contrite for betraying his Master but restored the Money which unjustly he had purchased by his Villany By the detention of their purchase their Converts declare themselves Mercenary and their Fathers by receiving them into their Communion publish to the World they care not what they lose in truth if they can deceive the People to make them think by such a goodly access their evil Cause is strengthened I refer these Apostate Bishops to read the story of Ecebolus I wish them not to be in like condition and cease to apply the story I thank God there is no rancour in my heart against them nor their Fathers Converters my imprecations are no other but to pray Almighty God to give them true Repentance and to forgive them The sum of what we have said is this that neither King nor Kingdom can be happy if Kings fear not