QUESTION XLIV: General results of the former doctrine in some few corollaries, in twenty-two questi

QUESTION XLIV: General results of the former doctrine in some few corollaries, in twenty-two questi

QUESTION XXXIII

WHETHER OR NO THE PLACE, ROM. 13:1, PROVE THAT IN NO CASE IT IS LAWFUL TO RESIST THE KING

The special ground of royalists from Rom. 13, against the lawfulness of defensive wars, is to make Paul (Rom. 13) speak only of kings. Hugo Grotius (de jure belli et pac. l. 1, c. 4, n. 6), and Barclay (cont. Monar. l. 3, c. 9) say, "Though Ambrose expound the place, Rom. 13, de solis regibus, of kings only, (this is false of kings only, he doth not, but of kings principally,) yet it followeth not that all magistrates, by this place, are freed from all laws, because (saith he) there is no judge above a king on earth, and therefore he cannot be punished; but there is a judge above all inferior judges, and therefore they must be subject to laws." So Dr Ferne followeth him, (sect. 2, p. 10,) and our poor Prelate must be an accident to them, (Sacr. San. Maj. c. 2, p. 29,) for his learning cannot subsist per se.

Assert. 1. In a free monarchy (such as Scotland is known to be) by the higher power (Rom. 13) is the king principally in respect of dignity understood, but not solely and only, as if inferior judges were not higher powers. 1. I say in a free monarchy; for no man can say, that where there is not a king, but only aristocracy, and government by states, as in Holland, that there the people are obliged to obey the king; and yet this text, I hope, can reach the consciences of all Holland, that there every soul must be subject to the higher powers, and yet not a subject in Holland is to be subject to any king: for non entis nulla sunt accidentia. 2. I said the king, in a free monarchy, is here principally understood in regard of dignity, but not in regard of the essence of a magistrate, because the essence of a magistrate doth equally belong to all inferior magistrates, as to the king, as is already proved; (let the Prelate answer if he can;) for though some judges be sent by the king, and have from him authority to judge, yet this doth no more prove that inferior judges are improperly judges, and only such by analogy, and not essentially, than it will prove a citizen is not essentially a citizen, nor a church-officer essentially a church-officer, nor a son not essentially a living creature, because the former have authority from the incorporation of citizens, and of church-officers, and the latter hath his life by generation from his father, as God's instrument. For though the citizen and the church-officers may be judged by their several incorporations that made them, yet are they also essentially citizens and church-officers, as those who made them such.

Assert. 2.—There is no reason to restrain the higher powers to monarchs only, or yet principally, as if they only were essentially powers ordained of God, 1. Because he calleth them ἑξουσίαι ὑπερχούσαι higher powers. Now this will include all higher powers, as Piscator observeth on the place; and certainly Rom had never two or three kings to which every soul should be subject. If Paul had intended that they should have given obedience to one Nero, as the only essential judge, he would have designed him by the noun in the singular number. 2. All the reasons that the apostle bringeth to prove that subjection is due, agreeth to inferior judges as well as to emperors, for they are powers ordained of God, and they bear the sword, and we must obey them for conscience sake, and they are God's deputies, and their judgment is not the judgment of men, but of the Lord (2 Chron. 11:6, 7; Deut. 1:16; Numb. 11:16, 17). Tribute and wages be no less due to them, as ministers and servants, for their work, than to the king, &c. 3. The apostle could not omit obedience to the good civil laws enacted by the senate, nor could he omit to command subjection to rulers, if the Romans should change the government, and abolish monarchy, and erect their ancient form of government before they had kings. 4. This is canonical Scripture, and a clear exposition of the fifth commandment, and so must reach the consciences of all Christian republics, where there is no monarchy. 5. Parallel places of Scripture prove this. Paul (1 Tim. 2:1, 2) will have prayers made to God for kings, and for all that are in authority, and the intrinsical end of all is a godly, honest, and peaceable life. And (1 Pet. 2:13) "Submit to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake;" also, (Tit. 3:1,) it is true, subjection to Nero, of whom Tertullian said, (Apol. 5,) Nihil nisi grande bonum a Nerone damnatum, is commanded here, but to Nero as such a one as he is obliged, de jure, to be, (whether you speak of the office in abstracto, or of the emperor in concreto, in this notion, to me it is all one,) but that Paul commandeth subjection to Nero, and that principally and solely, as he was such a man, de facto, I shall then believe, when antichristian prelates turn Paul's bishops, (1 Tim. 2,) which is a miracle. 6. Inferior judges are not necessarily sent by the king, by any divine law, but chosen by the people, as the king is; and, de facto, is the practice of creating all magistrates of cities in both kingdoms. 7. Augustine, (expos. prop. 72 on epist. Rom.,) Irenæus, (l. 5, c. 24;) Chrysostom, (in Psal. 148, and on the place,) and Hieron. (epist. 53, advers. vigilant.) expound it of masters, magistrates; so do Calvin, Beza, Pareus, Piscator, Rollocus, Marloratus; so do popish writers, Aquinas, Lyra, Hugo Cardinalis, Carthusius, Pirerius, Toletus, Cornelius à Lapide, Salmeron, Estius, expound the place; and therefore there is no argument that royalists hence draw against resisting of the king by the parliaments, but they do strongly conclude against the cavaliers' unlawful wars against the parliaments and estates of two kingdoms. Here what the P. Prelate saith to the contrary. 1. They are called eminent powers; therefore, kings only.—Ans. It followeth not, for these can be no other than πάντες ὁι ἐν υπεροχῇ ὀντὲς, (1 Tim. 2:2). But these are not kings, but in the text contradivided from βασιλεῖς kings, and they can be no other than ἀρχαῖ καὶ ἐξουσίαι principalities and powers. 2. The reason of the apostle proveth clearly that ἐξουσίαι cannot mean king's only, for Paul addeth of that same ἐξουσία "For there is no power but of God." It must be there is no supereminent royal power, but it is of God, and the powers only (so he must mean) that be, are ordained of God. Now the latter is manifestly false, for inferior powers are of God. The powers of the Roman senate, of a master, of a father, are of God.

P. Prelate.—"Peter must expound Paul, and Paul's higher powers must be (1 Pet. 2) βασιλεῖς ὑπερεχοντες More reason that Paul expound Paul. Now (1 Tim. 2:2) πάντες ἐν ὑπεροχη ἐντες, All in authority are not kings. P. Prelate.—"Are of God," or "ordained of God," cannot so properly be understood of subordinate powers, for that is not by immediate derivation from God, but immediately from the higher power the king, and mediately from God.

Ans. 1.—It is most false that king David is so immediately a king from God, as that he is not also by the mediation of the people, who made him king at Hebron. 2. The inferior magistrates are also immediate vicars and ministers of God as the king, for their throne and judgment is not the king's, but the Lord's (Deut. 1:16; 2 Chron. 21:6). 3. Though they were mediately from man, it followeth not that they are not so properly from God, for wisdom (Prov. 8) saith as properly, (ver. 16,) "By me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth;" as, (ver. 15,) "By me kings reign;" and promotion is as properly from God, and not from the east and the west, (Psal. 75:6, 7,) though God promote Joseph by the thankful munificence of Pharaoh, and Mordecai by Ahasuerus, Daniel by Darius, as if he gave them power and honour immediately from heaven.

P. Prelate.—Learned interpreters expound it so.—Ans. It is an untruth, for none expound it only and principally of kings. Produce one Interpreter for that conceit. P. Prelate.—Paul wrote this when Nero was monarch.—Ans. 1. Then must the text be expounded of Nero only. 2. He wrote this when Nero played the tyrant and persecuted Christians, therefore we are not to obey Neroes now. 3. He wrote it when the senate of Rome had power to declare Nero an enemy, not a father, as they did. P. Prelate.—αἱ must be referred to the antecedent ἐξουσία ὑπερχουσα and this, "There is no power εἰ μὴ but of God," must undeniably infer there is no supreme power but of God; and so, sovereignty relates to God as his immediate author, so sectaries reason, Gal. 2:16, "Not justified by works, (ἐαν μὴ) but by faith only." Then εἰ μὴ απὸ τους θεοῦ must be a perfect exclusive, else their stronghold for justification is overthrown.—Ans. αἱ hath a nearer antecedent, which is ἐξσία, it is alone without ὑπέρχουσα. And this grammar is not so good as Beza's, which he rejected. 2. ἐαν μὴ, will refer to God alone as the only cause, in genere causa primæ. God alone giveth rain, but not for that immediately, but by the mediation of vapours and clouds. "God alone killeth and maketh alive," Deut. 32:39, that is, excluding all strange gods, but not immediately; for, by his people's fighting, he slew Og, king of Bashan, and cast out seven nations, yet they used bow and sword, as it is used in the book of Joshua; and, therefore, God killed not Og immediately. God hath an infinite, eminent, transcendent way of working, so that in his kind he only worketh his alone; Deus solus operatur solitudme primæ causæ, non solus solitudine omnis causæ, God only giveth learning and wisdom, yet not immediately always—often he doth it by teaching and industry. God only maketh rich, yet the prelates make themselves rich also with the fat of the flock; and God only maketh poor, yet the P. Prelate's courts, mediately also under God, made many men poor. 3. ἐαν μὴ is not such an exclusive particle when we ascribe it to God, as when we ascribe it to two created causes, works and faith; and the protestants' form of arguing (Gal. 2), to prove "we are justified by faith," he calleth our stronghold, therefore it is not his stronghold. In this point, then, he must be a papist, and so he refuses to own protestant strongholds for justification by faith alone.

Dr Ferne (sect. 2, p. 10).—As many as have souls must be subject to the higher Powers spoken of here; but all inferior judges have souls.

Ans.—1. If the word souls be thus pressed, none shall be understood by higher powers, but the king only. 2. Certainly he that commandeth as he commandeth must be excepted, except, because the king hath a soul, you must subject the king to himself and to his own commandments royal, and so to penal laws. 3. Inferior judges, as judges, by this text, must either be subject to themselves as judges, (and, by the same reason, the king must be subject to himself, as he is a judge,) or judges, as men, or as erring men are to be subject; which I would grant, but they are not subject as judges, no more than one, as he commandeth, can also obey as he commandeth. These are contradictory. I am not put off that opinion since I was at school, species subjicibilis qua subjicibilis non est prædicabilis. 4. If Nero make fathers rulers over their mothers and children, and command them, by this public sword of justice, to kill their own children and mothers,—if a senate of such fathers disobey, and if, with the sword, they defend their own children and mothers, which some other Doegs, as judges, are to kill, in the name and commandment of Nero, then they, resisting Nero's bastard commandment by this doctrine, resist the ordinance of God, and resist the minister of God. I have not a faith stretched out so far to the Prelate's court-divinity. Yet Ferne saith, "There was never more cause to resist higher powers, for their wicked Nero was emperor, when he now forbiddeth resistance, (Rom. 13) under the pain of damnation." I desire to be informed, whether to resist the king's servants, be to resist the king? Dr Ferne (p. 3, sect. 2, p. 10, and part 3, sect. 9, p. 59) allows us, in unavoidable assaults where death is imminent, personal defence without offending, as lawful, whether the king or his emissaries invade, without law or reason. Well, then, the resisting of the king's cut-throats, though they have a personal command of the king to kill the innocent, yet if they want a legal, is no resisting of the king, as king, for the servant hath no more than the master giveth; but the king, in lawless commandments, gave nothing royal to his cut-throats, and so nothing legal.

QUESTION XXXIV

WHETHER ROYALISTS BY COGENT REASONS DO PROVE THE UNLAWFULNESS OF DEFENSIVE WARS

What reasons have already been discussed, I touch not.

Obj. 1.—Arnisæus (de authorit. princip. c. 2, n. 2). "If we are to obey our parents, not if they be good, but simply whether they be good or ill, (so Justin, saith of the king, Quamvis legum contemptor, quamvis impius, tamen pater, sect, si vero in ff. ves. 12,) then must we submit to wicked kings."

Ans.—Valeat totum, we are to submit to wicked kings and wicked parents, because kings and parents; but when it cometh to actual submission, we are to submit to neither but in the Lord. The question is not touching subjection to a prince, let him be Nero, but if in acts of tyranny we may not deny subjection. There be great odds betwixt wicked rulers and rulers commanding or punishing unjustly.

Obj. 2—Arnisæus (c. 3, n. 9). "We may resist an inferior magistrate, therefore we may resist the supreme. It followeth not; for an inferior judge hath a majesty in fiction only, not properly: treason is, or can only be committed against the king; the obligation to inferior judges is only for the prince, the person of none is sacred and inviolable but the king's.

Ans.—We obey parents, masters, kings, upon this formal ground, because they are God's deputies, and set over us not by man, but by God; so that not only are we to obey them because what they command is good and just, (such a sort of obedience an equal owes to the counsel of either equal or inferior,) but also by virtue of the fifth commandment, because of their place of dignity. Now this majesty, which is the formal reason of subjection, is one and the same in specie and nature in king and constable, and only different gradually in the king and in other judges; and it is denied that there is any incommunicable sanctity in the king's person which is not in some degree in the inferior judge. All proceedeth from this false ground, that the king and inferior judges differ in nature, which is denied; and treason inferior may be committed against an inferior judge, and it is a fiction that the inferior judge doth not resemble God as the king doth; yea, there is a sacred majesty in all inferior judges, in the aged, in every superior, wherefore they deserve honour, fear, and reverence. Suppose there were no king on earth, as is clear in Scripture, (Exod. 20:12; Levit. 19:32; Esther. 1:20; Psal. 149:9; Prov. 3:16; Matt. 13:57; Heb. 5:4; Isa. 3:3; Lam. 5:12; Mal. 1:6; Psal. 8:5,) and this honour is but united in a special manner in the king, because of his high place.

Obj. 3.—A king elected upon conditions may be resisted.

Ans.—He is as essentially a king as a hereditary, yea, as an absolute prince, and no less the Lord's anointed than another prince; if then one, also another may be resisted.

Obj. 4.—The oath of God bindeth the subjects; therefore, they must obey, not resist.

Ans.—Obedience and resistance are very consistent. No doubt the people gave their oath to Athaliah, but to her as the only heir of the crown, they not knowing that Joash, the lawful heir, was living; so may conditional oaths (all of this kind are conditional) in which there is interpretative and virtual ignorance, be broken; as the people swear loyalty to such a man conceived to be a father, he, after that, turneth tyrant, may they not resist his tyranny? They may. Also, no doubt, Israel gave their oath of loyalty to Jabin, (for when Nebuchadnezzar subdued Judah, he took an oath of loyalty of their king,) yet many of Zebulun, Naphtali, and lssachar, Barak leading them, conspired against Jabin.

Obj. 5.—There is no law to take a king's life if he turn a Nero,—we never read that subjects did it.

Ans.—The treatise of unlimited prerogative saith, (p. 7,) "We read not that a father, killing his children, was killed by them, the fact being abominable." The law (Gen. 6:9; Levit. 24:16) excepteth none. See Deut. 13:6, the dearest that nature knoweth are not excepted.

Obj. 6.—Vengeance pursued Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, who resisted Moses.

Ans.—From resisting of a lawful magistrate in a thing lawful, it followeth not it must be unlawful to resist kings in tyrannous acts.

Obj. 7.—Exod. 22:28, "Thou shalt not revile the gods, nor curse the Ruler of the people." Exod. 10:20, "Curse not the king, no not in thy thought, nor the rich in thy bed-chamber."

Ans.—The word elohim signifieth all judges, and נּשיﬡ, nasi signifieth one lifted up above the people, saith Rivetus, (in loc.) whether a monarch, or many rulers. All cursing of any is unlawful, even of a private man, (Rom. 12:14,) therefore we may not resist a private man by this; the other text readeth, contemn not the king, במדעךּ in scientia tua. Aria Mon., or in thy conscience or thought; and it may prove resisting any rich man to be unlawful. Nothing in word or deed tending to the dishonour of the king may be done; now to resist him in self-defence, being a commandment of God in the law of nature, cannot fight with another commandment to honour the king, no more than the fifth commandment can fight with the sixth; for all resistance is against the judge, as a man exceeding the limits of his office, in that wherein he is resisted, not as a judge.

Obj. 8.—Eccles. 8:3, 4, "Where the word of a king is, there is power; and who may say to him, What dost thou?" therefore, the king cannot be resisted.

Ans.—Tremelius saith well, That "the scope is that a man go not from the king's lawful command in passion and rebellion;" Vatab.—"If thou go from the king in disgrace, strive to be reconciled to him quickly;" Cajetanus—"Use not kings too familiarly, by coming too quickly to them, or going too hastily from them;" Plutarch,—"Cum rege agendum ut cum rogo, neither too near this fire nor too far off." Those have smarted who have been too great in their favour,—Ahasuerus slew Haman, Alexander so served Clitus and Tiberius Sejaunus, and Nero Seneca. But the sense is clear, rebellion is forbidden, not resistance, so the Hebrew אל־תעמד כדכר רע stand not in an evil matter, or in a rebellion, and he dehorteth from rebellion against the king by an argument taken from his power, for he doth whatsoever pleaseth him. Where the word of a king is, there is power, and who may say unto him, what doest thou? The meaning is, in way of justice, he is armed with power that cannot be resisted; otherwise Samuel said to king Saul, (1 Sam. 13:13,) "Thou hast done foolishly." Elijah said more to Ahab then What hast thou done.? And the prophets were to rebuke sin in kings (2 Kings 3:14; Jer. 1:18; 22:3; Hosea 5:1, 2); and though Solomon here give them a power, he speaketh of kings as they are de facto; but, de jure, they are under a law (Deut. 17:18). If the meaning be, as royalists dream, he doth whatsoever he will or desireth, as a prince, by his royal, that is, his legal will, by which he is lex animata, a breathing law, we shall own that as truth, and it is nothing against us; but if the meaning be, that de jure, as king, he doth whatsoever he will, by the absolute supremacy of royal will, above all law and reason, then Joram should, by law, as king, take Elisha's head away; and Elisha resisted God in saying, What doth the king? and he sinned in commanding to deal roughly with the king's messenger, and hold him at the door; then the fourscore valiant priests, who said to king Uzziah, What dost thou? and resisted him, in burning incense, which he desired to do; sinned, then Pharaoh, who said, (Ezek. 29:3,) "The river Nilus is mine, I have made it for myself; and the king of Tyrus, (Ezek. 27:2,) "I am God, I sit in the seat of God," should not be controlled by the prophets; and no man should say to them, What sayest thou? Did Cyrus, as a king, with a royal power from God, and jure regio, be angry at the river Ganges, because it drowned one of his horses, and punish it by dividing it in one hundred and thirty channels? (Sen. l. 3, de ira, c. 21.) And did Xerxes, jure regio, by a royal power given of God, when Hellespontus had cast down his bridges, command that three hundred whips should be inflicted on that little sea, and that it should be cast in fetters? And our royalists will have these mad fools, doing these acts of blasphemous insolence against heaven, to be honoured as kings, and to act those acts by a regal power. But hear flatterers,—a royal power is the good gift of God, a lawful and just power. A king acting and speaking as a king, speaketh and acteth law and justice. A power to blaspheme is not a lawful power; they did and spake these things with a human and a sinful will; if, therefore, this be the royalists' meaning,—as kings, 1. They are absolute, and so the limited and elected king is no king. 2. The king, as king, is above God's law put on him by God, Deut. 17:3. His will is the measure of good and ill. 4. It were unlawful to say to the king of Cyrus, What sayest thou? thou art not God, according to this vain sense of royalists.

Obj. 9.—Elihu saith, (Job. 34:18,) "Is it fit to say to a king, Thou art wicked, and to princes, Ye are ungodly?" Therefore, you may not resist kings.

Ans. 1.—This text no more proveth that kings should not be resisted than it proveth that rich men, or liberal men, or other judges inferior, should not be resisted, for נריבים signifieth all that, and it signifieth liberal, Isa. 32:5; and the same word is in ver. 8. 2. Deodatus and Calvin say, the meaning is, "Learn from the respect that is due to earthly princes the reverence due to the sovereign Lord," Mal. 1:8; for it is not convenient to reproach earthly kings, and to say to a prince, בליעלּ Beliel, a word of reproach, signifying extreme wickedness. And you may not say to a man of place, רשע an extremely wicked man; so are the words taken, as signifying most vile and wicked men, 1 Sam. 2:12; 10:27; 1 Sam. 25:6; Psal. 1:1, 6; 11:5; 12:8; Prov. 14:4; Psal. 146:9, and in infinite places. For בלּיעלּ is a word of extreme reproach, coming from בלי sine, non, and יעלּ profuit, (Jud. 19:22,) a most naughty and a lewd man, or from עיל jugum, a lawless man, who hath cast off all yokes of God's or man's laws. So then the meaning is, It is unlawful to reproach earthly princes and men of place, far more is it unlawful to reproach the Judge of the whole earth with injustice. And what then? We may not reproach the king, as Shimei cursed king David; therefore it is unlawful to resist the king in any tyrannous acts. I shall deny the consequence; nay, as Pineda observeth, if the royalist press the words literally, it shall not be lawful for prophets to reprove kings of their sins. Christ called Herod a fox, Elias Ahab, one that troubled Israel.

Obj. 10.—Acts 23. Paul excuseth himself that he called Ananias, the high-priest, a whited wall.

Ans.—Rivetus (Exod. 22) learnedly discussing the place, thinketh Paul, professing he knew him not to be the high-priest, speaketh ironically, that he could not acknowledge such a man for a judge. Piscator answereth, He could not then cite Scripture, "It is written," &c.—Ans. But they may well insist, in that act of smiting Paul unjustly, he might be reproached, otherwise it is not lawful to reproach him; and surely it is not like that Paul was ignorant that he was a judge; yea, it is certain he knew him to be a judge. 1. He appeared before him as a judge, to answer for himself. 2. Paul saith expressly he was a judge, (ver. 3,) "Sittest thou to judge me after the law," &c. And therefore the place is for us, for even according to the mind of all, the fault was (if there were any) in calling him a whited wall; and he resisted him in judgment, when he said, "Commandest thou me to be smitten against the law?" 3. Though royalists rather put a fault on the apostle Paul, (now in the act of prophesying judgment against Ananias, which after fell out,) than upon their god, the king, yet the consequence amounteth but to this, We may not revile the high-priest, therefore we may not resist the King in his illegal commandments. It followeth not; yea, it should prove, if a prelate come in open war to kill the innocent apostle Paul, the apostle might fly or hold his hands, but might not reoffend. Now the prelate is the high-priest's successor, and so his base person is as sacred as the person of the Lord's anointed, the king. Hence the cavaliers had in one of their colours, which was taken by the Scots at the battle of Marston, July 2, 1644, the crown and the Prelate's mitre, painted with these words, "Nolite tangere Christos meos," as if the antichristian mitre were as sacred as the lawful crown of the king of Britain.

Obj. 11.—Ferne, (sect. 9, 56,) "If the senate and people of Rome, who a little before had the supreme government over the then emperors, that of subjects had made them lords, might not resist their emperors, much less can the people of England have power of resistance against the succession of this crown, descending from the conqueror, who by force of arms, but in justice, conquered the kingdom.

Ans. 1.—Though the Roman emperors were absolute, (of which I much doubt,) and though the senate had made them absolute, I deny that, therefore, they cannot be resisted. The unlawful resistance condemned by Paul (Rom. 13) is not upon the ground of absoluteness, which is in the court of God nothing, being never ordained of God, but upon reasons of conscience, because the powers are of God, and ordained of God. But some may say, Volenti non fit injuria, If a people totally resign their power, and swear non-resistance to a conqueror, by compact, they cannot resist. I answer, neither doth this follow, because it is an unlawful compact, and none is obliged to what is unlawful. For, (1.) It is no more lawful for me to resign to another my power of natural self-defence than I can resign my power to defend the innocent drawn to death, and the wives, children, and posterity that God had tyed me unto. (2.) The people can no more resign power of self-defence, which nature hath given them, than they can be guilty of self-murder, and be wanting in the lawful defence of kingdom and religion. (3.) Though you make one their king with absoluteness of power, yet when he use that transcendent power, not for the safety but for the destruction of the state, it is known they could not resign to another that power which neither God nor nature gave them, to wit, a power to destroy themselves. 2. I much doubt if the Roman emperor was absolute when Paul wrote this. Justinian saith so, (Digest. l. 2, tit. 2,) but he is partial in this cause. Bodine (de repub. l. 2, c. 5, p. 221,) proveth that the Roman emperors were but princes of the commonwealth, and that the sovereignty remained still in the senate and people. Marius Salamon. writeth six books (De Principatu) on the contrary. How could they make their emperors absolute? Livy saith, "The name of a king was contrary to a senate liberty." Florus, Nomen Regis invidiosum, They instituted a yearly feast, Feb. 23, called Regifugium. Cicero, as Augustine observeth, Regem Romæ post hæc nec Dii, nec homines esse patiantur. The emperors might do something de facto, but Lex Regia was not before Vespasian's time. Augustus took on him to be tribune of the people from ten years to ten. Suetonius and Tacitus say, "The succeeding kings encroached by degrees upon the people's liberty." For speedier execution of law, the kings in time of war were forced to do many things without the senate, and after the reign of emperors, though there were no Plebiscita, yet there were Senatus-consulta, and one great one is, that the senate declared Nero to be an enemy to the state. It is thought Julius Cæsar, in the war against Pompey, subdued the Romans and the senate, and they were subdued again in the battle of Octavius against Cassius and Brutus. But Tacitus saith that was de facto, not de jure, (Anal. I. 1, s. 2,) Romæ ruere in servitium, Consules, Patres, Eques. Caligula intended to assume diadema, the ensign of a king, but his friends dissuaded him. 3. England is obliged to Dr Ferne, who maketh them a subdued nation; the contrary of which is known to the world.

Symmons (sect. 6, p. 19).—God is not honoured by being resisted, no more is the king.

Ans.—1. I deny the consequence. Those who resist the king's personal will, and will not suffer him to ruin his crown and posterity in following papists, against his oath at the coronation, do honour him, and his throne and race, as a king, though for the time they displease him. 2. Uzziah was not dishonoured in that he was resisted. 3. Nor do we honour the king when we flee from him and his law; yet that resistance is lawful, according to the way of royalists, and in truth also.

Obj. 12.—Supreme power is not to be resisted by subordinate powers, because they are inferior to the supreme.

Ans.—1. The bloody Irish rebels, then, being inferior to the parliament, cannot resist the parliament. 2. Inferior judges, as judges, are immediately subordinate to God as the king, and must be guilty of blood before God if they use not the sword against bloody cavaliers and Irish cut-throats, except you say inferior judges are not obliged to execute judgment but at the king's commandment.

Obj.—As the Irish rebels are armed with the king's power, they are superior to the parliament.

Ans.—So an army of Turks and Spaniards, armed with the king's power, and coming against the two kingdoms at the king's commandment, though they be but lictors in a lawless cause, are superior to the highest courts of parliament in the two kingdoms. But the king and the law gave power to the parliament first to resist rebels, now he giveth power to rebels to resist the parliament. Here must be contradictory wills and contradictory powers in the king. Which of them is the king's will and his power? the former is legal and parliamentary; then, because law is not contrary to law, the latter cannot be legal also, nor can it be from God, and to resist it, then, is not to resist God.

Obj. 13.—If resistance be restrained to legal commandments, what shall we say to these arguments,—that Paul forbiddeth resistance under these tyrannous governors, and that from the end of their government, which is for good, and which their subjects did in some sort enjoy under them?

Ans.—This proveth nothing, but that we are to co-operate with these governors, though tyrannous, by subjecting to their laws, so far as they come up to this end, the moral good and peace of their government; but Paul nowhere commandeth absolute subjection to tyrannous governors in tyrannous acts, which is still the question.

Obj. 14.—He that hath the supreme trust next to God, should have the greatest security to his person and power; but if resistance be lawful, he hath a poor security.

Ans.—1. He that hath the greatest trust should have the greatest security to his person and power in the keeping his power, and using it according to his trust for its own native end—for justice, peace, and godliness. God alloweth security to no man, nor that his angels shall guard them, but only when they are in their ways and the service of God; else, "there is no peace to the wicked." 2. It is denied that one man, having the greatest trust, should have the greatest security; the church and people of God, for whose safety he hath the trust, as a means for the end, should have a greater security; the city ought to have greater security than the watchers, the army than the leaders,—"The good shepherd giveth his life for his sheep." 3. A power to do ill, without resistance, is not security.

Obj. 15.—If God appoint ministers to preach, then the sheep cannot seek safety elsewhere.

Ans.—The wife is obliged to bed and board with her husband, but not if she fear he will kill her in the bed. The obedience of positive duties that subjects owe to princes cannot loose them from nature's law of self-preservation, nor from God's law of defending religion against papists in arms, nor are the sheep obliged to entrust themselves but to a saving shepherd.

Obj. 16.—If self-defence, and that by taking up arms against the king, be an unlawful duty, how is it that you have no practice, no precept, no promise for it, in all the word of God? 1. You have no practice: Ahab sold himself to do evil,—he was an idolater,—and killed the prophets; and his queen, a bloody idolatress, stirred him up to great wickedness. Elias had as great power with the people as you have, yet he never stirred up the people to take arms against the king. Why did God at this time rather use extraordinary means of saving his church? Arnisæus, (de autho. princ. c. 8,)—"Elias only fled. Nebuchadnezzar, Ahab, Manasseh, and Julian, were tyrants and idolaters, yet the people never raised an army against them." Bishop Williams of Ossory, (Deut. 14,) "If brother, son, daughter, wife, or friend, entice thee to follow strange gods, kill them; not a word of the father. Children are to love their fathers, not to kill them." "Christ (saith John P. P.), in the cradle, taught by practice to flee from Herod; and all Christ's acts and sufferings are full of mysteries and our instructions. He might have had legions of angels to defend him, but would rather work a miracle, in curing Malchus' ear, as use the sword against Cæsar. If sectaries give us a new creed, it will concern them never with expunging Christ's descent into hell, and the communion of saints, to raze out this, He suffered under Pontius Pilate. My resolution is (for this sin of yours) to dissolve in tears and prayers, and, with my master, say, daily and hourly, Father, forgive them, &c. Christ thought it an uncouth spirit to call for fire from heaven to burn the Samaritans, because they refused him lodging. The prophets cried out against idolatry, blasphemy, murder, adultery, &c., and all sins; never against the sin of neglect, and murderous omission to defend church and religion against a tyrannous king. No promise is made to such a rebellious insurrection in God's word."

Ans. It is a great non-consequence: this duty is not practised by any examples in God's word, therefore it is no duty. Practice in Scripture is a narrow rule of faith. Show a practice when a husband stoned his wife, because she enticed him to follow strange gods; yet it is commanded, (Deut. 13:6,) when a man lying with a beast is put to death; yet it is a law (Exod. 22:19). Infinite more laws are, the practice of which we find not in Scripture. 2. Jehu and the elders of Israel rooted out Ahab's posterity for their idolatry; and if Jehu, out of sincerity, and for the zeal of God, had done what God commanded, he should have been rewarded; for, say that it was extraordinary to Jehu that he should kill Ahab, yet there was an express law for it, that he that stirreth up others to idolatry should die the death (Deut. 13:6); and there is no exception of king or father in the law; and to except father or mother in God's matter, is expressly against the zeal of God (Deut. 32:9). And many grave divines think the people to be commended in making Jehu king, and in killing king Nabab, and smiting all the house of Jeroboam for his idolatry; they did that which was a part of their ordinary duty, according to God's express law (Deut. 13:6–9), though the facts of these men be extraordinary. 3. Ahab and Jezebel raised not an army of idolaters and malignants, such as are papists, prelates, and cavaliers, against the three estates, to destroy parliaments, laws, and religion—and the people conspired with Ahab in the persecution and idolatry, to forsake the covenant, throw down the altars of God, and slay his prophets—so as in the estimation of Elias, (1 King 19:9–11,) there was not one man, but they were malignant cavaliers; and hath any Elias now power with the cavaliers, to exhort them to rise in arms against themselves, and to show them it is their duty to make war against the king and themselves, in the defence of religion? When the prophets had much ado to convince the people that they sinned in joining with the king, what place was there to show them their sin, in not using their own lawful defence? And in reason, any may judge it unreasonable for Elias to exhort, of thousands of thousands in Israel, poor seven thousand (of which many no doubt were women, aged, weak, and young,) to rise in arms against Ahab and all Israel, except God had given a positive and extraordinary commandment, and with all miraculous courage and strength in war against the whole land. And God worketh not always by miracles to save his church, and therefore the natural mandate of self-preservation in that case doth no more oblige a few weak ones to lawful resistance than it obliged one martyr to rise against a persecuting Nero and all his forces. Arnisæus should remember we are not to tie our Lord to miracles.

1. Elias did not only flee, but denounced wrath against the king and cavaliers who joined with them in idolatry; and when God gave opportunity, he showed himself, and stirred the people up to kill Baal's Jesuits and seducing idolators, when the idolatrous king refused to do it; and Elias with his own hand took them not, but all Israel being gathered together, (1 Kings 18:19,) the princes and judges did apprehend them, (ver. 40,) which is a warrant, when the king refuseth to draw the sword of justice against armed papists, that other judges are to do it. 2. For Jeremiah, from the Lord, expressly forbade to fight against Nebuchadnezzar, show us the like for not defending ourselves against bloody papists and Irish cut-throats; for that example may as well prove, (if it be a binding law to us,) that our king should not raise his subjects to fight against a Spanish armada and a foreign prince; for before ever Nebuchadnezzar subdued the kingdom of Judah, (Jer. 27:1,) in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim, (Jer. 36 and 37,) the king of Judah is from the Lord commanded not to draw a sword against the king of Babylon. I hope this will not tie us and our king not to fight against foreign princes, or against the great Turk, if they shall unjustly invade us and our king; and this example is against the king's resisting of a foreign prince unjustly invading him, as much as against us, for Nebuchadnezzar was a tyrannous invader, and the king of Judah the Lord's anointed. 3. The people also conspired with Manasseh, as with Ahab. (Jer. 15:4). 4. Of emperors persecuting Christians we shall hear anon. 5. Deut. 13, None are excepted, by a synecdoche, the dearest are expressed, "son, daughter, brother, the friend that is as thine own soul;" therefore fathers also; "and husbands are to love their wives" (Ephes. 5:25); yet to execute judgment on them without pity (Deut. 13:8, 9); the father is to love the son, yet if the son prophecy falsely in the name of the Lord, to kill him. (Zech. 13:3.) Hence love, fear, reverence toward the king, may be commanded, and defensive wars also. 6. Christ fled from Herod, and all his actions and sufferings are mysteries and instructions, saith the poor Prelate. Christ kissed the man that, to his knowledge, came to betray him; Christ fled not, but knowing where and when his enemy should apprehend him, came willingly to the place; therefore we should not flee. His actions are so mysterious that John P. P., in imitation of Christ's forty days' fast, will fast from flesh in Lent, and the Prelate must walk on the sea and work miracles, if all Christ's actions be our instructions. 7. He might, with more than twelve legions of angels, defend himself, but he would not, not because resistance was unlawful—no shadow for that in the text—but because it was God's will that he should drink the cup his Father gave him, and because to take the sword without God's warrant, subjecteth the usurper of God's place to perish with the sword. Peter had God's revealed will that Christ behoved to suffer, (Matt. 26:52, 53; 16:21–23,) and God's positive command, that Christ should die for sinners, (John 10:24,) may well restrain an act of lawful self-preservation, hic et nunc, and such an act as Christ lawfully used at another time. (Luke 4:29, 30; John 11:7, 8.) We give no new creed; but this apostate hath forsaken his old creed, and the religion of the Church of Scotland, in which he was baptized. Nor do we expunge out of the creed Christ's descension into hell and the communion of saints, as the apostate saith; but the popish local descension of Christ, and the popish advancing of the church's power above the Scriptures, and the intercession and prayers to the saints, or of the saints for us, we deny; and this Prelate, though he did swear the doctrine of the Church of Scotland, preached expressly all these, and many other points of popery, in the pulpits of Edinburgh. 10. We believe that Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate, but that Pilate had any legal power to condemn Christ—but only a power by a permissive decree, (Acts 4:27, 28,) such as devils had by God's permission, (Luke 22:53,)—we utterly deny. 11. The Prelate saith it is his resolution, for our sin of natural self-defence, to dissolve in tears; because his bishopric, I conceive, by which he was wont to dissolve in cups, (being drunk on the Lord's day, after he, with other prelates, had been at the Lord's supper, while the chamber, wherein they were, was dissolved in vomiting,) was taken from him. 12. The prophets cry against all sins, but never against the sin of non-resistance; and yet they had very tyrannous and idolatrous kings. This is but a weak argument. 1. The prophets cry not out against all sins—they cry not out against men-stealers, and killers of father and mother, in express terms, yet do they, by consequence, condemn all these sins; and so do they condemn non-resistance in wars, by consequence, when they cry out, (Jer. 5:31,) "The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means, and my people love to have it so." And when they complain (Ezek. 22:26–28), "That the prophets and priests violate the law, her princes are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and the people use oppression, and exercise robbery, and vex the poor;" and when they say, (Jer. 22:2,) not to the king only, but also to his servants, and the people that enter in by the gates, "Execute judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor,"—I pray you, who are the oppressors? I answer, The murdering judges. (Isa. 1:21.) "As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them," (Isa. 3:12,) and, (ver. 14, 15,) "the ancients of the people grind the faces of the poor;" and when they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; and (Prov. 24:11) the Lord shall render to these men according to their works, which forbear to help men that are drawn to death, and those that be ready to be slain; if they shift the business, and say, Behold, we know not, doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? When, therefore, the Lord's prophets complain that the people execute not judgment, relieve not the oppressed, help not and rescue not those that are drawn to death unjustly by the king, or his murdering judges, they expressly cry out against the sin of non-resistance. 2. The prophets cannot expressly and formally cry out against the judges for non-resisting the king, when they join, as ravening wolves, with the king in these same acts of oppression, even as the judge cannot formally impannel twenty-four men, sent out to guard the travellers from an arch-robber, if these men join with the robber, and rob the travellers, and become cut-throats, as the arch-robber is, he cannot accuse them for their omission in not guarding the innocent travellers, but for a more heinous crime, that not only they omitted what was their duty, in that they did not rescue the oppressed out of the hands of the wicked, but because they did rob and murder; and so the lesser sin is swallowed up in the greater. The under-judges are watchmen, and a guard to the church of God; if the king turn a bosom robber, their part is, (Jer. 22:3,) "To deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor," to watch against domestic and foreign enemies, and to defend the flock from wolves; "To let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke," (Isa. 58:6,) "To break the jaws of the wicked, and pluck the spoil out of his teeth," (Job. 29:17.) Now if these judges turn lions and ravening wolves, to prey upon the flock, and join with the king, as always they did when the king was an oppressor, "his princes made him glad with their lies," and joined with him, and the people with both, (Jer. 1:18; 5:1; 9:1; Mic. 7:1; Ezek. 22:24–31; Jer. 15:1–3,) it is no wonder if the prophets condemn and cry out against the hugest and most bloody crime of positive oppression, formally and expressly, and in that their negative murders, in not relieving the oppressed, must also be cried out against. 13. The whole land cannot formally be accused for non-resistance when the whole land are oppressors, for then they should be accused for not resisting themselves. 14. The king ought to resist the inferior judges in their oppression of the people, by the confession of royalists, then this argument cometh with the like force of strength on themselves. Let them show us practice, precept, or promise in the Word, where the king raised an army for defence of religion, against princes and people who were subverting religion, and we shall make use of that same place of Scripture to prove that the estates and people, who are above the king, (as I have proved,) and made the king, may, and ought to resist the king, with the like force of scriptural truth in the like case. 15. Royalists desire the like precedent of practice and precept for defensive wars; but, I answer, let them show us a practice where any king of Israel or Judah raised an army of malignants, of Philistines, Sidonians, or Ammonites, against the princes of Israel and Judah, convened in an assembly to take course for bringing home the captived ark of God, and vindicating the laws of the land, and raised an army contrary to the knowledge of the elders, princes, and judges, to set up Dagon, or tolerate the worship of the Sidonian gods; and yet princes, elders, judges, and the whole people, were obliged all to flee out of God's, land or then only to weep and request that the king would not destroy souls and bodies of them and their innocent posterities, because they could not, in conscience, embrace the worship of Dagon and the Sidonian gods. When the royalists can parallel this with a precedent, we can answer, There was as small apparency of precedency in Scripture, (except you flee to the law of nature,) that eighty priests, the subjects of king Uzziah, should put in execution a penal law against the Lord's anointed, and that the inferiors and subjects should resist the superior, and that these priests, with the princes of the land, should remove the king from actual government, all his days, and crown his son, at least make the father, their prince and superior, (as royalist say,) as good as a cypher? Is not this a punishment inflicted by inferiors upon a superior, according to the way of royalists? Now it is clear, a worshipping of bread and the mass commanded, and against law obtruded upon Scotland, by influence of the counsel of known papists, is to us, and in itself, as abominable as the worshipping of Dagon or the Sidonian gods; and when the kingdom of Scotland did but convene, supplicate, and protest against that obtruded idolatry, they were first declared rebels by the king, and then an army raised against them by prelates and malignants, inspired with the spirit of antichrist, to destroy the whole land, if they should not submit, soul and conscience, to that wicked service.

QUESTION XXXV

WHETHER OR NO THE SUFFERINGS OF THE MARTYRS IN THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH MILITATE AGAINST THE LAWFULNESS OF DEFENSIVE WARS

Obj. 1.—Royalists think they burden our cause much with hatred, when they bring the fathers and ancient martyrs against us; so the P. Prelate (p. 74–76,) extracted out of other authors testimonies for this, and from I. Armagh, in a sermon on Rom. 13 (p. 20, 21); so the doctors of Aberdeen. The Prelate proveth from Clem. Alexand. (l. 7, c. 17) that the king is constituted by the Lord; so Ignatius.

Ans. 1.—Except he prove from these fathers that the king is from God only and immediately, he proveth nothing.

Obj. 2.—Iren. (I. 5, adv. hær. c. 20).—proveth that God giveth kingdoms, and that the devil lied, Luke 4; and we make the people to make kings, and so to be the children of the devil.

Ans.—If we denied God to dispose of kingdoms, this man might allege the church of God in England and Scotland to be the sons of Satan; but God's word, in Deut. 17:18, and many other places, makes the people to make kings, and yet not devils. But to say that prelates should crown kings, and with their foul fingers anoint him, and that as the Pope's substitute, is to make him that is the son of perdition a donor of kingdoms; also to make a man, with his bloody sword, to ascend to a throne, is to deny God to be the disposer of kingdoms; and prelates teach both these.

Obj. 3.—Tertul. (Apol. c. 30).—Inde est imperator, unde et homo, antequam imperator, inde potestas illi, unde et spiritus, God is no less the creator of sovereignty than of the soul of man.

Ans.—God only maketh kings by his absolute sovereignty, as he only maketh high and low, and so only he maketh mayors, provosts, bailiffs, for there is no power but of him, (Rom 13,) therefore provosts and bailiffs are not from men. The reader shall not be troubled with the rest of the testimonies of this poor plagiary, for they prove what never man denied but prelates and royalists, to wit, that kings are not from God's approving and regulating will, which they oppose, when they say, Sole conquest is a just title to the crown.

But they deserve rather an answer which Grotius, Barclay, Arnisæus, and Spalato, allege, as,—

Obj. 1—Cyprian (epist. 1).—Non est fas Christianis, armis, ac vi tueri se adversus impetum persecutorum, Christians cannot, by violence, defend themselves against persecutors.

Ans.—If these words be pressed literally, it were not lawful to defend ourselves against murderers; but Cyprian is expressly condemning in that place the seditious tumults of people against the lawful magistrate.

Obj. 2.—The ancients say he was justly punished who did rend and tear the edict of Dioclesian and Maximums (Euseb. I. 7, Hist. Eceles. c. 5).

Ans.—To rend an edict is no act of natural self-defence, but a breach of a positive commandment of the emperor's, and could not be lawfully done, especially by a private man.

Obj. 3.—Cyprian (epist. 56) Incumbamus gemitibus assiduis et deprecationibus crebris, hæc enim sunt munimenta spiritualia et tela divina quæ protegunt; and Ruffinus, (l. 2, c. 6,) Ambrosius adversus reginæ (Justinæ Arinæ) furorem non se manu defensabat aut telo, sed jejuniis continuatisque vigiliis sub altari positus.

Ans.—It is true, Cyprian reputed prayers his armour, but not his only armour. Though Ambrose, de facto, used no other against Justina, the places say nothing against the lawfulness of self-defence. Ambrose speaketh of that armour and these means of defence that are proper to pastors, and these are prayers and tears, not the sword; because pastors carry the ark, that is their charge, not the sword, that is the magistrate's place.

Obj. 4.—Tertullian (apolog. c. 37) saith expressly, that the Christians might, for strength and number, have defended themselves against their persecutors, but thought it unlawful. Quando vel una nox pauculis faculis largitatem ultionis poss et operari, si malum malo dispungi penes nos liceret, sed absit ut igni humano vindicetur divina secta, aut doleat pati, in quo probetur. Si enim hostes extraneos, non tantum vindices occultos agere vellemus, deesset nobis vis numerorum et copiarum?

Ans.—I will not go about to say that Tertullian thought it lawful to raise arms against the emperor: I ingenuously confess Tertullian was in that error. But, 1. something of the man; 2. Of the Christians. 1. Of the man—Tertullian after this turned a Montanist. 2. Pamelius saith of him, in vit. Tertul. inter Apocrypha numeratur—excommunicatus. 3. It was Tertullian's error in a fact, not in a question, that he believed Christians were so numerous as that they might have fought with the emperors. 4. M. Pryn doth judiciously observe, (part 3, Sovereign Power of Parl. p. 139, 140,) he not only thought it unlawful to resist, but also to flee, and therefore wrote a book de fuga; and therefore as some men are excessive in doing for Christ, so also in suffering for Christ. Hence I infer, that Tertullian is neither ours nor theirs in this point; and we can cite Tertullian against them also, Jam sumus ergo pares; yea, Fox, in his Monum., saith, "Christians ran to the stakes to be burnt, when they were neither condemned nor cited." 5. What if we cite Theodoret, (fol. 98. De provid.) "Who, about that time, say that evil men reign ἀρχομένων ἀνανδρία, through the cowardliness of the subjects;" as the Prelate saith of Tertullian, I turn it, If Theodoret were now living he would go for a rebel. 1. About that time Christians sought help from Constantine the Great against Lycinius their emperor, and overthrew him in battle; and the Christians, being oppressed by the king of Persia their own King, sent to Theodosius to help them against him. 2. For the man, Tertullian, in the place cited, saith, "The Christians were strangers under the emperor," externi sumus, and therefore they had no laws of their own, but were under the civil laws of heathen till Constantine's time; and they had sworn to Julian, as his soldiers, and therefore might have, and no doubt had, scruples of conscience to resist the emperor. 3. It is known Julian had huge numbers of heathen in his army, and to resist had been great danger. 4. Wanting leaders and commanders, (many prime men doubting of the lawfulness thereof,) though they had been equal in number, yet number is not all in war, skill in valorous commanders is required. 5. What if all Christians were not of Tertullian's mind. 6. If I would go to human testimonies, which I judge not satisfactory to the conscience, I might cite many: the practice of France, of Holland, the divines in Luther's time, (Sleidan. 8, c. 8, 22,) resolved resistance to be lawful; Calvin, Beza, Pareus, the German divines, Buchanan, and an host might be produced.

QUESTION XXXVI

WHETHER THE POWER OF WAR BE ONLY IN THE KING

It is not hard to determine this question. The sword in a constitute commonwealth is given to the judge supreme or subordinate; (Rom. 13:4;) "He beareth not the sword in vain" in the empire. The use of armour is restricted to the emperor by a positive law; so the law saith, Armorum officia nisi jussu principis sunt interdicta, (lib. de Cod. de Lege. 1.) Imperat Valentinian nulli, nobis inconsultis, usus armorum tribuatur, (ad 1. Jul. Mai. l. 3.) War is a species and a particular, the sword is a general.

Assert.—1. The power of the sword, by God's law, is not proper and peculiar to the king only, but given by God to the inferior judges. 1. Because the inferior judge is essentially a judge no less than the king, as is proved, therefore he must bear the sword. (Rom. 13:4.) 2. Not Moses only, but the congregation of Israel, had power of life and death, and so of the sword; Num. 35:12, the man-slayer shall not die, "until he stand before the congregation in judgment;" ver. 24, "Then the congregation shall judge between the slayer and the avenger of blood;" Deut. 22:18, "The elders of the city shall take that man and chastise him;" ver. 21, "The men of the city shall stone her with stones;" Deut. 17:5; 19:12, 13, 5:18–21; 21:19, "Then shall his father and his mother bring him to the elders of his city;" ver. 21, "And the men of the city shall stone him with stones;" 1 Kings 21:11, The elders and nobles that were inhabitants in his city stoned Naboth. 3. Inferior judges are condemned as murderers, who have shed innocent blood, (Isa. 1:12; Psal. 94:5, 6; Jer. 22:3; Ezek. 22:12, 27; Hosea 6:8; Zeph. 3:1–3,) therefore, they must have the power of the sword, hence, upon the same grounds.

Assert. 2.—That the king only hath the power of war, and raising armies must be but a positive civil law. For, 1. By divine right, if the inferior judges have the sword given to them of God, then have they also power of war, and raising armies. 2. All power of war that the king hath is cumulative, not privative, and not destructive, but given for the safety of the kingdom; as therefore the king cannot take from one particular man the power of the sword for natural self-preservation, because it is the birthright of life, neither can the king take from a community and kingdom a power of rising in arms for their own defence. If an army of Turks shall suddenly invade the land, and the king's express consent cannot be had, (for it is essentially involved in the office or the king, as king, that all the power of the sword that he hath be for their safety,) or if the king should, as a man, refuse his consent, and interdict and discharge the land to rise in arms, yet they have his royal consent, though they want his personal consent, in respect that his office obligeth him to command them to rise in arms. 3. Because no king, no civil power can take away nature's birthright of self-defence from any man, or a community of men. 4. Because if a king should sell his kingdom, and invite a bloody conqueror to come in with an army of men to destroy his people, impose upon their conscience an idolatrous religion, they may lawfully rise against that army without the king's consent; for, though royalists say, they need not come in asinine patience, and offer their throats to cut-throats, but may flee, yet several things hindereth a flight. 1. They are obliged by virtue of the fifth commandment to remain, and, with their sword, defend the cities of the Lord and the king (2 Sam. 10:12; 1 Chron. 19:13); for if to defend our country and children, and the church of God, from unjust invaders and cut-throats, by the sword, be an act of charity that God and the law of nature requireth of a people, as is evident, (Prov. 24:11,) and if the fifth commandment oblige the land to defend their aged parents and young children from these invaders, and if the sixth commandment lay on us the like bond, all the land are to act works of mercy and charity, though the king unjustly command the contrary, except, royalists say, that we are not to perform the duties of the second table commanded by God, if an earthly king forbid us; and if we exercise not acts of mercy towards our brethren, when their life is in hazard, to save them, we are murderers; and so men may murder their neighbour if the king command them so to do; this is like the court-faith. 2. The king's power of wars is for the safety of his people; if he deny his consent to their raising of arms till they be destroyed, he playeth the tyrant, not the king, and the law of nature will necessitate them either to defend themselves, (seeing flight of all in that case is harder than death,) else they must be guilty of self-murder. Now, the king's commandment of not rising in arms, at best, is positive and against the nature of his office, and it floweth then from him as from a man, and so must be far inferior to the natural commandment of God, which commandeth self-preservation, if we would not be guilty of self-murder, and of obeying men rather than God; so Althusius (Polit. c. 25, n. 9), Halicarnas. (l. 4, Antiq. Rom.), Aristot. (Polit. l. 3, c. 3). 3. David took Goliath's sword and became a captain, a captain to an host of armed men in the battle, and fought the battles of the Lord, (1 Sam. 25:28,) and this Abigail by the spirit of prophecy, as I take it, saith, (ver. 29–31; 1 Sam. 22:2; 1 Chron. 12:1–3; 17:18, 21, 22,) not only without Saul's consent, but against king Saul, as he was a man, but not against him as he was king of Israel. 4. If there be no king, or the king be minor, or an usurper, as Athaliah, be on the throne, the kingdom may lawfully make war without the king, as (Judg. 20) the children of Israel,—four hundred thousand footmen that drew sword, went out to war against the children of Benjamin. Judah had the power of the sword when Josiah was but eight years old, in the beginning of his reign, (2 Kings 22:1, 2,) and before Jehoash was crowned king, and while he was minor, (2 Kings 11,) there were captains of hundreds in arms raised by. Jehoiada, and the people of Judah, to defend the young king. It cannot be said that this is more extraordinary than that it is extraordinary for kings to die, and in the interregnum, wars, in an ordinary providence, may fall out in these kingdoms, where kings go by election; and for kings to fall to be minors, captives, tyrannous. And I shall be of that opinion that Mr Symmons, who holdeth that royal birth is equivalent to divine unction, must also hold, that election is not equivalent to divine unction; for both election and birth cannot be of the same validity, the one being natural, the other a matter of free choice, which shall infer that kings by election are less properly, and analogically only, kings; and so Saul was not properly a king, for he was king by election; but I conceive that rather kings by birth must be less properly kings, because the first king by God's institution, being the mould of all the rest, was by election (Deut. 17:18–20).

5. If the estates create the king, and make this man king, not that man, (as is clear from Deut. 17:18, and 2 Chron. 5:1–4,) they give to him the power of the sword, and the power of war, and the militia; and I shall judge it strange and reasonless, that the power given to the king, by the parliament or estates of a free kingdom, (such as Scotland is acknowledgeth by all to be,) should create, regulate, limit, abridge, yea, and annul that power that created itself. Hath God ordained a parliamentary power to create a royal power of the sword and war, to be placed in the king, the parliament's creature, for the safety of parliament and kingdom, which yet is destructive of itself? Dr Ferne saith that "the king summoneth a parliament, and giveth them power to be a parliament, and to advise and counsel him;" and, in the meantime, Scripture saith (Deut. 17:18–20; 1 Sam. 10:20–25; 2 Sam. 5:1–4) that the parliament createth the king. Here is admirable reciprocation of creation in policy! Shall God make the mother to destroy the daughter? The parliamentary power that giveth crown, militia, sword, and all to the king, must give power to the king to use sword and war for the destruction of the kingdom, and to annul all the power of parliaments, to make, unmake parliaments, and all parliamentary power, what more absurd?

Obj. 1.—(Symmons, p. 57). These phrases, (1 Sam. 9:1,) "When kings go forth to war," and (Luke 14:31) "What king going forth to war," speak to my conscience, that both offensive and defensive war are in the king's hand.

Ans.—It is not much to other men what is spoken to any man's conscience by phrase and customs; for by this no states, where there be no kings, but government by the best, or the people, as in Holland, or in other nations, can have power of war; for what time of year shall kings go to war who are not kings? and because Christ saith, "A certain householder delivered talents to his servants," will this infer to any conscience, that none but a householder may take usury? And when he saith, "If the good man of the house knew at what hour the thief would come, he would watch;" shall it follow the son or servant may not watch the house, but only the good man?

Obj. 2.—(Ferne, p. 95.) The natural body cannot move but upon natural principles; and so neither can the politic body move in war, but upon politic reasons from the prince, which must direct by law.

Ans. 1.—This may well be retorted, the politic head cannot then move but upon politic reasons; and so the king cannot move to wars but by the law, and that is by consent of Parliament; and no law can principle the head to destroy the members. 2. If an army of cut-throats rise to destroy the kingdom, because the king is behind in his place in doing his duty, how can the other judges, the states and parliament, be accessory to murder committed by them in not raising armies to suppress such robbers? Shall the inferior judges be guilty of innocent blood because the king will not do his duty? 3. The politic body ceaseth no more to renounce the principles of sinless nature in self-defence, because it is a politic body, and subject to a king, than it can leave off to sleep, eat, and drink; and there is more need of politic principles to the one than the other. 4. The parliaments and estates of both kingdoms move in these wars by the king's laws, and are a formal politic body in themselves.

Obj. 2.—The ground of the present wars against the king, saith Dr Ferne, (sect. 4, p. 13,) is false, to wit, that the parliament is co-ordinate with the king; but so the king shall not be supreme, the parliament's consent is required to an act of supremacy, but not to a denial of that act. And there can no more (saith Arnisæus, de jure majestatis, c. 3; in quo consistat essen. majest. c. 3, n. 1; and an jur. majest. separ., &c. c. 2, n. 2) be two equal and co-ordinate supreme powers than there can be two supreme Gods; and multitudo deorum est nullitas deorum, many gods infer no gods.

Ans. 1.—If we consider the fountain-power, the king is subordinate to the parliament, and not co-ordinate; for the constituent is above that which is constituted. If we regard the derived and executive power in parliamentary acts, they make but a total and complete sovereign power; yet so as the sovereign power of the parliament, being habitually and underived a prime and fountain-power, (for I do not here separate people and parliament,) is perfect without the king, for all parliamentary acts, as is clear, in that the parliament make kings, make laws, and raise armies, when either the king is minor, captived, tyrannous, or dead; but royal power parliamentary without the parliament, is null, because it is essentially but a part of the parliament, and can work nothing separated from the parliament, no more than a hand cut off from the body can write; and so here we see two supremes co-ordinate. Amongst infinite things there cannot be two, because it involveth a contradiction, that an infinite thing can be created, for then it should it be finite; but a royal power is essentially a derived and created power and supreme, secundum quid, only in relation to single men, but not in relation to the community; it is always a creature of the community, with leave of the royalist. 2. It is false, that to an act of parliamentary supremacy the consent of the king is required, for it is repugnant that there can be any parliamentary judicial act without the parliament, but there may be without the king. 3. More false it is, that the king hath a negative voice in parliament; then he shall be sole judge, and the parliament, the king's creator and constituent, shall be a cypher.

Obj. 3.—(Arnisæus, de jur. maj. de potest. armorum, c. 5, n. 4.) The people are mad and furious, therefore supreme majesty cannot be secured, and rebels suppressed, and public peace kept, if the power of armour be not in the king's hand only.

Ans. 1.—To denude the people of armour, because they may abuse the prince, is to expose them to violence and oppression, unjustly; for one king may more easily abuse armour than all the people; one man may more easily fail than a community. 2. The safety of the people is far to be preferred before the safety of one man, though he were two emperors, one in the east, another in the west, because the emperor is ordained of God for the good and safety of the people. (1 Tim. 2:2.) 3. There can be no inferior judges to bear the sword, as God requireth, (Rom. 13:4; Deut. 1:15, 16; 2 Chron. 19:6, 7,) and the king must be sole judge, if he only have the sword, and all armour monopolised to himself.

Obj. 4.—The causes of war, saith Mr Symmons, (sect. 4, p. 9,) should not be made known to the subjects, who are to look more to the lawful call to war from the prince than to the cause of the war.

Ans. 1.—The parliament and all the judges and nobles are subjects to royalists, if they should make war and shed blood upon blind obedience to the king, not inquiring either in causes of law or fact, they must resign their consciences to the king. 2. The king cannot make unlawful war to be lawful by any authority royal, except he could rase out the sixth commandment; therefore subjects must look more to the causes of war than to the authority of the king; and this were a fair way to make parliaments of both kingdoms set up popery by the sword, and root out the reformed religion upon the king's authority, as the lawful call to war, not looking to the causes of war.

QUESTION XXXVII

WHETHER OR NO IT BE LAWFUL THAT THE ESTATES OF SCOTLAND HELP THEIR OPPRESSED BRETHREN, THE PARLIAMENT AND PROTESTANTS IN ENGLAND, AGAINST PAPISTS AND PRELATES NOW IN ARMS AGAINST THEM, AND KILLING THEM, AND ENDEAVOURING THE ESTABLISHMENT OF POPERY, THOUGH THE KING OF SCOTLAND SHOULD INHIBIT THEM

1. Marianus saith, one is obliged to help his brother, non vinculo efficaci, not with any efficacious band; because in these, (saith he,) non est actio aut pæna, one may not have action of law against his brother, who refused to help him; yet, (saith he) as man he is obliged to man, nexu civilis societatis, by the bond of human society.

2. Others say, one nation may indirectly defend a neighbour nation against a common enemy, because it is a self-defence; and it is presumed that a foreign enemy, having overcome the neighbour nation, shall invade that nation itself who denieth help and succour to the neighbour nation. This is a self-opinion, and to me it looketh not like the spiritual law of God.

3. Some say it is lawful, but not always expedient, in which opinion there is this much truth, that if the neighbour nation have an evil cause, neque licet, neque expedit, it is neither lawful nor expedient. But what is lawful in the case of necessity so extreme, as is the loss of a brother's life, or of a nation, must be expedient; because necessity of non-sinning maketh any lawful thing expedient. As to help my brother in fire or water, requiring my present and speedy help, though to the loss of my goods, must be as expedient as a negative commandment, Thou shalt not murder.

4. Others think it lawful in the case that my brother seek my help only, otherwise I have no calling thereunto; to which opinion I cannot universally subscribe, it is held, both by reason and the soundest divines, that to rebuke my brother of sin is actus misericordiæ et charitatis, an act of mercy and charity to his soul; yet I hold I am obliged to rebuke him by God's law (Levit. 19:17,) otherwise I hate him. (Thes. 5:14; Col. 4:17; Math. 18:15.) Nor can I think in reason, that my duty of love to my brother doth not oblige me but upon dependency on his free consent; but as I am to help my neighbour's ox out of a ditch, though my neighbour know not, and so I have only his implicit and virtual consent, so is the case here. I so not farther in this case of conscience,—if a neighbour nation be jealous of our help, and in an hostile way should oppose us in helping, (which, blessed be the Lord, the honourable houses of the parliament of England hath not done, though malignant spirits tempted them to such a course,) what, in that case, we should owe to the afflicted members of Christ's body, is a case may be determined easily.

5. The fifth and last opinion is of those who think, if the king command papists and prelates to rise against the parliament and our brethren in England in wars, that we are obliged in conscience, and by our oath and covenant, to help our native prince against them,—to which opinion, with hands and feet I should accord, if our king's cause were just and lawful; but from this it followeth, that we must thus far judge of the cause, as concerneth our consciences, in the matter of our necessary duty, leaving the judicial cognizance to the honourable parliament of England. But because I cannot return to all these opinions particularly, I see no reason but the civil law of a kingdom doth oblige any citizen to help an innocent man against a murdering robber, and that he may be judicially accused as a murderer, who faileth in his duty, and that Solon said well, Beatam remp. esse illam, in qua quisque injuriam alterius suam estimet, It is a blessed society in which every man is to repute an injury done against a brother, as an injury done against himself. As the Egyptians had a good law, by which he was accused upon his head who helped not one that suffered wrong; and if he was not able to help, he was held to accuse the injurer, if not, his punishment was whips or three days' hunger; it may be upon this ground it was that Moses slew the Egyptian. Ambrose commended him for so doing.

Assert.—We are obliged, by many bands, to expose our lives, goods, children, &c., in this cause of religion and of the unjust oppression of enemies, for the safety and defence of our dear brethren and true religion in England; 1 Prov. 24:11, 12, "If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn to death, לּקחים לּמוּת (taken as captives to be killed,) and those that are ready to be slain. It thou sayest, Behold we knew it not, doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth he not know it? and shall he not render to every man according to his work?" Mr Jermine is too narrow, who, commenting on the place, restricteth all to these two, that the priest should deliver by interceding for the innocent, and the king by pardoning only. But to deliver is a work of violence, as (1 Sam. 30:18) David by the sword rescued his wives; Hos. 5:14, "I will take away, and none shall rescue;" 1 Sam. 17:35, "I rescued the lambs out of his mouth," out of the lion's mouth, which behoved to be done with great violence; 2 Kings 18:34, "They have not delivered כי הצילו Samaria out of my hand." So Cornel, à Lapide, Charitas suadet, ut vi et armis eruamus injuste ductos ad mortem. Ambrose (lib. 1, offic. c. 36) citeth this same text, and commendeth Moses who killed the Egyptian in defending a Hebrew man. To deliver is an act of charity, and so to be done, though the judge forbid it, when the innocent is unjustly put to death.

Obj.—But in so doing, private men may offer violence to the lawful magistrate when he unjustly putteth an innocent man to death, and rescue him out of the hands of the magistrate; and this were to bring in anarchy and confusion; for if it be an act of charity to deliver the innocent out of the hands of the magistrate, it is homicide to a private man not to do it; for our obedience to the law of nature tyeth us absolutely, though the magistrate forbid these acts; for it is known that I must obey God rather than men.

Ans.—1. The law of nature tyeth us to obedience in acts of charity, yet not to perform these acts after any way and manner in a mere natural way, impetu naturæ; but I am to perform acts of natural charity in a rational and prudent way, and in looking to God's law, else, if my brother or father were justly condemned to die, I might violently deliver him out of the magistrate's hand, but, by the contrary, my hand should be first on him, without natural compassion. As, if my brother or my wife have been a blasphemer of God, (Deut. 13:6–8,) therefore, I am to do acts natural, as a wise man observing (as Solomon saith, Eccles. 8:5) "both time and judgment." Now, it were no wisdom for one private man to hazard his own life by attempting to rescue an innocent brother, because he hath not strength to do it, and the law of nature obligeth me not to acts of charity when I, in all reason, see them impossible; but a multitude who had strength did well to rescue innocent Jonathan out of the hands of the king, that he should not be put to death; yet one man was not tyed by the law of nature to rescue Jonathan if the king and prince had condemned him, though unjustly.

2. The host of men that helped David against king Saul (1 Sam. 22:2) entered in a lawful war, and (1 Chron. 12:18) Amasa, by the Spirit of the Lord, blesseth his helpers,—"Peace, peace be unto thee, and peace be to thy helpers, for thy God helpeth thee." Therefore, peace must be to the parliament of England, and to their helpers, their brethren of Scotland.

3. Numb. 32:1–3, &c.; Josh. 1:12–14, the children of Gad, and of Reuben, and the half tribe of Manasseh, though their inheritance fell to be on this side of Jordan, yet they were to go over the river armed, to fight for their brethren, while they had also possession of the land, at the commandment of Moses and Joshua.

4. So Saul and Israel helped the men of Jabesh-Gilead conjoined in blood with them, against Nahash the Ammonite, and his unjust conditions in plucking out their right eyes, 1 Sam. 11.

5. Jephtha (Judg. 12:2) justly rebuketh the men of Ephraim because they would not help him and his people against the Ammonites.

6. If the communion of saints be any bond,—that England and we have "one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one head and Saviour, Jesus Christ," then are we obliged to help our bleeding sister-church against these same common enemies, papists and prelates; but the former is undeniably true, for we send help to the Rochelle, if there had not been a secret betraying of our brethren, we send help to the recovery of the palatinate, and the aid of the confederate princes against Babel's strength and power, and that lawfully, but we did it at great leisure and coldly. Queen Elizabeth helped Holland against the king of Spain; and, besides the union in religion, we sail in one ship together, being in one island, under one king; and now, by the mercy of God, have sworn one covenant, and so must stand or fall together.

7. We are obliged, by the union betwixt the kingdoms, concluded to be by the Convention of the Estates of Scotland, anno 1585, at the desire of the General Assembly, 1583, to join forces together at home, and enter in league with protestant princes and estates abroad, to maintain the protestant religion against the bloody confederacy of Trent; and, accordingly, this league between the two crowns was subscribed at Berwick, 1586, and the same renewed, 1587–8, as also the Confession of Faith subscribed, when the Spanish armada was on our coasts.

8. The law of God, commanding that we love our neighbour as ourselves, and therefore to defend one another against unjust violence, (l. ut vim. ff. de just, et jur.,) obligeth us to the same, except we think God can be pleased with lip-love in word only, which the Spirit of God condemneth (1 John 2:9, 10; 3:16). And the sum of law and prophets is, that as we would not men should refuse to help us when we are unjustly oppressed, so neither would we so serve our afflicted brethren, (l. in facto ff. de cond. et demonstr. sect. Si uxor. Justit. de nupt.)

9. Every man is a keeper of his brother's life. There is a voluntary homicide when a man refuseth food or physic necessary for his own life, and refuseth food to his dying brother; and men are not born for themselves; and when the king defendeth not subjects against their enemies, all fellow-subjects, by the law of nature, of nations, the civil and cannon law, have a natural privilege to defend one another, and are mutual magistrates to one another when there be no other magistrates. If an army of Turks or pagans would come upon Britain, if the king were dead, as he is civilly dead in this juncture of time, when he refuseth to help his subjects, one part of Britain would help another; as Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, did right in helping Ahab and Israel, so the Lord had approved of the war. If the left hand be wounded, and the left eye put out, nature teacheth that the whole burden of natural acts is devolved on the other hand and eye, and so are they obliged to help one another.

10. As we are to bear one another's burdens, and to help our enemies to compassionate strangers, so far more those who make one body of Christ with us.

11. Meroz is under a curse, who helpeth not the Lord, so one part of a church another. A woe lieth on them that are at ease in Zion, and helpeth not afflicted Joseph so far as they are able.

12. The law of gratitude obligeth us to this. England sent an army to free both our souls and bodies from the bondage of popery and the fury of the French, upon which occasion a parliament at Leith (anno 1560) established peace and religion, and then after, they helped us against a faction of papists in our own bosom, for which we take God's name in a prayer, seeking grace never to forget that kindness.

13. When papists in arms had undone England, (if God give them victory,) they should next fall on us, and it should not be in the king's power to resist them. When our enemies, within two days' journey, are in arms, and have the person of our king and his judgment, and so the breathing-law of the two kingdoms, under their power, we should but sleep to be killed in our nest, if we did not arise and fight for king, church, country, and brethren.

Obj. By these and the like grounds, when the king's royal person and life is in danger, he may use papists as subjects, not as papists, in his own natural self-defence.

Ans. 1.—Hell and the devil cannot say that a thought was in any heart against the king's person. He slept in Scotland safe, and at Westminster in his own palace, when the estates of both kingdoms would not so much as take the water-pot from his bedside, and his spear; and Satan instilled this traitorous lie, first in prelates, then in papists. 2. The king professeth his maintenance of the true protestant religion in his declarations since he took arms, but if Saul had put arms in the hands of Baal's priests, and in an army of Sidonians, Philistines, Ammonites, professing their quarrel against Israel was not to defend the king, but their Dagon and false gods, clear it were, Saul's army should not stand in relation of helpers of the king's, but of advancers of their own religion. Now, Irish papists, and English, in arms, press the king to cancel all laws against popery, and make laws for the free liberty or mass, and the full power of papists, then the king must use papists, as papists, in these wars.

QUESTION XXXVIII

WHETHER MONARCHY BE THE BEST OF GOVERNMENTS

Nothing more unwillingly do I write than one word of this question. It is a dark way; circumstances in fallen nature may make things best to be, hic et nunc, evil, though to me it is probable, that monarchy in itself, monarchy de jure, that is, lawful and limited monarchy is best, even now, in a kingdom, under the fall of sin, if other circumstances be considered.

But observe, I pray you, that Mr Symmons and this poor Prelate, do so extol monarchy, that there is not a government save monarchy only, all other governments are deviations; and therefore Mr Symmons saith, (p. 8,) "If I should affect another government than monarchy, I should neither fear God nor the king, but associate myself with the seditious;" and so the question of monarchy is,—1. Which is the choicest government in itself, or which is the choicest government in policy, and in the condition of man fallen in the state of sin? 2. Which is the best government, that is, the most profitable, or the most pleasant, or the most honest? For we know that there be these three kinds of good things,—things useful and profitable, bona utilia; things pleasant, jucunda; things honest, honesta; and the question may be of every one of the three. 3. The question may be, Which of these governments be most agreeable to nature? That is, either to nature in itself, as it agreeth communiter to all natures of elements, birds, beasts, angels, men, to lead them, as a governor, doth to their last end; or, Which government is most agreeable to men, to sinful men, to sinful men of this or that nation? For some nations are more ambitious, some more factious; some are better ruled by one, some better ruled by many, some by most and by the people. 4. The question may be in regard of the facility or difficulty of loving, fearing, obeying, and serving; and so it may be thought easier to love, fear, and obey one monarch than many rulers, in respect that our Lord saith, it is difficult to serve two masters, and possibly more difficult to serve twenty or an hundred. 5. The question may be in regard of the power of commanding, or of the justice and equity of commanding; hence from this last I shall set down the first thesis.

Assert. 1.—An absolute and unlimited monarchy is not only not the best form of government, but it is the worst, and this is against our petty Prelate and all royalists. My reasons are these:—1. Because it is an unlawful ordinance, and God never ordained it; and I cannot ascribe the superlative degree to anything of which I deny the positive. Absolute government in a sinful and peaceable man is a wicked government, and not a power from God, for God never gave a power to sin. Plenitudo potestatis ad malum et injuriam non extenditur. Sozenus Junior (cons. 65) in causa occurrenti (l. 2). Ferdinand. Loazes in suo cons. pro March, de Velez. (p. 54, n. 65), and so that learned senator, Ferd. Vasquez (p. 1, l. 1, c. 5, n. 17). 2. It was better for the state that Epiminondas could not sleep than that he could sleep, when the people were dancing, because, said he, "I wake that you may have leave to sleep and be secure;" for he was upon deep cogitations how to do good to the commonwealth when the people were upon their pleasures; because all kings, since the fall of the father, king Adam, are inclined to sin and injustice, and so had need to be guided by a law, even because they are kings, so they remain men. Omnipotency in one that can sin is a cursed power. With reason all our divines say, the state of saving grace in the second Adam, where there is non posse deficere, they cannot fall away from God, is better than the state of the first Adam, where there was posse non deficere, a power not to fall away; and that our free will is better in our country in heaven, where we cannot sin, than in the way to our country, on earth, where we have a power to sin; and so God's people is in a better case, (Hosea. 2:6, 7,) "Where her power to overtake her lovers is closed up with an hedge of thorns that she cannot find her paths;" then the condition of Ephraim, of whom God saith, (Hosea. 4:17,) "Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone." So cannot that be a good government when the supreme power is in a sinful man, as inclinable to injustice by nature as any man, and more inclinable to injustice by the condition of his place than any; and yet by office he is one that can do no injustice against his subjects; he is a king, and so may destroy Uriah, kill his subjects, but cannot sin; and this is, to flattering royalists, the best government in the world. As if an unchained lion were the best governor, because unchained, to all the beasts, sheep, and lambs, and all others, which with his teeth and paws he may reach, and that by virtue of an ordinance of God. 3. What is one man under no restraint, but made a god on earth, and so drunk with the grandeur of a sinning-god, here under the moon and clouds? who may hear good counsel from men of his own choosing, yet is under no restraint of law to follow it, being the supreme power absolute, high, mighty, and an impeccable god on earth. Certainly this man may more easily err, and break out in violent acts of injustice, than a number of rulers, grave, wise, under a law. One being a sinful man, shall sooner sin and turn a Nero (when he may go to hell, and lead thousands to hell with him gratis) than a multitude of sinful men, who have less power to do against law, and a tyrannous killing of innocents, and a subversion of laws, liberties, and religion, by one who may, by office, and without resistance of mortal men, do all ill, is more dangerous and hurtful than division and faction incident to aristocracy. 4. Cæsar is great, but law and reason are greater; by an absolute monarchy all things are ruled by will and pleasure above law; then this government cannot be so good as law and reason in a government by the best, or by many. 5. Under absolute monarchy, a free people is, actu primo, and in themselves enslaved, because though the monarch, so absolute, should kill all, he cannot be controlled; there is no more but flight, prayers, and tears remaining; and what greater power hath a tyrant? None at all, so may we say. An absolute monarch is, actu primo, a sleeping lion, and a tyrant is a waking and a devouring lion, and they differ in accidents only. 6. This is the papists' way. Bellarmine (de pontif., l. 1, c. 1), and Sanderus (de visibili Monorchia, l. 3, c. 3), Turrere (in sum de Eccles. l. 2, c. 2), prove that the government of the church is by an absolute monarch and pope, because that is the best government which yet is in question. So royalists prove commonwealths must be best governed by absolute monarchs, because that is the best government; but the law saith, it is contrary to nature, even though people should paction to make a king absolute: Conventio procuratoria ad dilapidandum et dissipandum juri naturali contraria nulla est, l. filius 15, de cond. Just. I. Nepos. procul 125, de verb. signif. l. 188, ubi. de jure Regni l. 85, d. tit.

Assert. 2.—Monarchy in its latitude—as heaven, and earth, and all the host therein, are citizens—is the best government absolutely, because God's immediate government must be best; but that other governments are good or best so far as they come near to this, must prove that there is a monarchy in angels if there be a government and a monarchy amongst fishes, beasts, birds, &c.; and that, if Adam had never sinned, there should be one monarchy amongst all mankind. I profess I have no eye to see what government could be in that state, but paternal, or marital; and, by this reason, there should be one catholic emperor over all the kings of the earth; a position held by some papists and interpreters of the cannon law, which maketh all the princes of the earth to be usurpers, except those who acknowledge a catholic dominion of the whole earth in the emperor, to whom they submit themselves as vassals. If kings were gods and could not sin, and just, as Solomon in the the beginning of his reign, and as David, I could say, monarchy so limited must be better than aristocracy or democracy, 1. Because it is farthest from injustice, nearest to peace and godliness. (M. I. 3, sect. aparet. ff. de administrat. tutor. l. 2, sect. novissime, ff. de orig. jur. Aristot. pol. l. 8, c. 10, Bodin. de Rep. l. 6, c. 4.) 2. Because God ordained this government in his people. 3. By experience it is known to be less obnoxious to change, except that some think the Venetian commonwealth best; but, with reverence, I see small difference between a king and the Duke of Venice.

Assert. 3.—Every government hath something wherein it is best; monarchy is honourable and glorious-like, before men; aristocracy, for counsel, is surest; democracy for liberty, and possibly for riches and gain, is best. Monarchy obtaineth its end with more conveniency, because the ship is easier brought to land when one sitteth at the helm, than when ten move the helm. We more easily fear, love, obey, and serve one than many. He can more easily execute the laws.

Assert. 4.—A limited and mixed monarchy, such as is in Scotland and England, seems to me the best government, when parliaments, with the king, have the good of all the three. This government hath glory, order, unity, from a monarch; from the government of the most and wisest, it hath safety of counsel, stability, strength; from the influence of the commons, it hath liberty, privileges, promptitude of obedience.

Obj. 1.—There is more power, terror, and love, in one than in many.

Ans.—Not more power; terror cometh from sin, and so to nature fallen in sin, in circumstances a monarchy is best.

Obj. 2.—It is more convenient to nature that one should be lord than many.

Ans.—To sinless nature, true, as in a father to many children.

Obj. 3.—Monarchy, for invention of counsels, execution, concealing of secrets, is above any other government.

Ans.—That is in some particulars, because sin hath brought darkness on us; so are we all dull of invention, slow in execution, and by reason of the falseness of men, silence is needful; but this is the accidentary state of nature, and otherwise there is safely in a multitude of counsellors; one commanding all, without following counsel, trusteth in his own heart, and is a fool.

Obj. 4.—A monarch is above envy, because he hath no equal.

Ans.—Granted; in many things a monarchy is more excellent, but that is nothing to an absolute monarchy, for which royalists contend.

Obj. 5.—In a multitude there be more fools than wise men, and a multitude of vices, and little virtue, is in many.

Ans.—Mere multitude cannot govern in either democracy or aristocracy, for then all should be rulers, and none ruled, but many eyes see more than one,—by accident one may see more than hundreds, but accidents are not rules.

Obj. 6.—Monarchy is most perfect, because most opposite to anarchy and most agreeable to nature, as is evident in plants, birds, bees.

Ans.—Government of sinless nature void of reason, as in birds and bees, is weak to conclude politic civil government amongst men in sin, and especially absolute government. A king-bee is not absolute, nor a king-eagle, if either destroy its fellows, by nature all rise and destroy their king. A king-bee doth not act by counsel borrowed from fellow-bees, as a king must do, and communication of counsels lesseneth absoluteness of a man. I see not how a monarchy is more opposite to anarchy and confusion than other governments. A monarch, as one, is more opposite to a multitude, as many, but there is no less order in aristocracy than in monarchy; for a government essentially includeth order of commanding and subjection. Now, one is not, for absoluteness, more contrary to anarchy than many; for that one now who can easily slip from a king to a tyrant, cannot have a negative voice in acts of justice, for then should he have a legal power to oppose justice, and so, for his absoluteness, he should be most contrary to order of justice; and a monarch, because absolute, should be a door-neighbour to disorder and confusion.

Obj.—But the parliament hath no power to deny their voices to things just, or to cross the law of God, more than the king.

Ans.—It is true neither of them hath a negative voice against law and reason, but if the monarch, by his exorbitant power, may deny justice, he may, by that same legal power, do all injustice; and so there is no absoluteness in either.

Obj.—Who should then punish and coerce the parliament in the case of exorbitance?

Ans.—Posterior parliaments.

Obj.—Posterior parliaments and people may both err.

Ans.—All is true; God must remedy that only.

QUESTION XXXIX

WHETHER OR NO ANY PREROGATIVE AT ALL ABOVE THE LAW BE DUE TO THE KING, OR IF "JURA MAJESTATIS" BE ANY SUCH PREROGATIVE ROYAL

I conceive kings are conceived to have a threefold supreme power. 1. Strictly absolute to do what they please, their will being simply a law. This is tyrannical. Some kings have it, de facto, ex consuetudine, but by a divine law none have it. I doubt if any have it by a human positive law, except the great Turk and the king of Spain, over his conquest without the borders of Europe, and some few other conquerors. 2. There is another power limited to God's law, the due proper right of kings. (Deut. 17:18–20.) 3. There is, a potestas intermedia, a middle power, not so vast as that which is absolute and tyrannical, which yet is some way human. This I take what jurists call jus regium, lex regia, jura regalia regis; Cicero, jura majestatis; Livius, jura imperii, and these royal privileges are such common and high dignities as no one particular magistrate can have, seeing they are common to all the kingdom, as that Cæsar only should coin money in his own name. Hence the penny given to Christ, because it had Cæsar's image and superscription, (Matt. 22:20, 21,) infers by way of argumentation, ἀποδοτὲ οὐν, &c., give therefore tribute to Cæsar as his due; so the magazine and armoury for the safety of the kingdom is in the king's hand. The king hath the like of these privileges, because he is the common, supreme, public officer and minister of God for the good of all the kingdom; and, amongst these royal privileges, I reckon that power that is given to the king, when he is made king, to do many things without warrant of the letter of the law, without the express consent of his council, which he cannot always carry about with him, as the law saith. The king shall not raise armies without consent of the parliament; but if an army of Irish, or Danes, or Spaniards, should suddenly land in Scotland, he hath a power, without a formally-convened parliament, to command them all to rise in arms against these invaders and defend themselves,—this power no inferior magistrate hath as he is, but such a magistrate. And in many such exigencies, when the necessity of justice or grace requireth an extemporal exposition of laws, pro re nata, for present necessary execution, some say only the emperor,—others, all kings have these pleasures. I am of the mind of Arnisæus, that these privileges are not rewards given to princes for their great pains; for the king is not obliged to govern the commonwealth because he receiveth these royal privileges as his reward, but because by office he is obliged to govern the commonwealth; therefore these privileges are given to him, and without them he could not so easily govern. But I am utterly against Arnisæus, who saith, "These are not essential to a king, because (saith he) he createth marquises, dukes, nobles, &c., and constituteth magistrates, not because of his royal dignity, but by reason of his aboslute power; for many princes have supreme power and cannot make nobles, and therefore to him they are jura majestatis, non jura potestatis.

Ans. 1.—The king, suppose a limited king, may and ought to make nobles, for he may confer honours as a reward of virtue; none can say Pharaoh, by his absolute authority, and not as a king, advanced Joseph to be a noble ruler, wife cannot say that, for there was merit and worth in him deserving that honour; and Darius, not by absolute authority, but on the ground of well-deserving, (the rule by which kings are obliged, in justice, to confer honours,) promoted Daniel to be the first president of all his kingdoms, because, (Dan. 6:3,) "an excellent spirit was in him;" and in justice the king could ennoble none rather than Daniel, except he should fail against the rule of conferring honours. It is acknowledgeth by all, that honos est præmium virtutis, honour is founded upon virtue; and therefore Darius did not this out of his absolute majesty, but as king.

2. All kings as kings, and by a divine law of God, and so by no absoluteness of majesty, are to make men of wisdom, fearing God, hating covetousness, judges under them, Deut. 1:13; 2 Chron. 19:6, 7; Psal. 101:6–8.

3. If we suppose a king to be limited, as God's king is, (Deut. 17:18–20,) yet is it his part to confer honours upon the worthiest. Now, if he have no absoluteness of majesty, he cannot confer honours out of a principle that is none at all, unum quodque sicut est, ita operatur; and if the people confer honours, then must royalists grant that there is an absolute majesty in the people, why then may they not derive majesty to a king? and why then do royalists talk to us of God's immediate creating of kings, without any intervening action of the people?

4. By this absoluteness of majesty, kings may play the tyrant, as Samuel (1 Sam. 8:9–14) foretelleth Saul would do. But I cannot believe that kings have the same very official absolute power, from whence they do both acts of grace, goodness, and justice, such as are to expone laws extemporally in extraordinary cases,—to confer honours upon good and excellent men of grace,—to pardon offenders upon good grounds, and also do acts of extreme tyranny: for out of the same fountain doth not proceed both sweet water and bitter. Then by this absoluteness kings cannot do acts of goodness, justice, and grace, and so they must do good as kings, and they must do acts of tyranny as men, not from absoluteness of majesty.

5. Inferior magistrates, in whom there is no absoluteness of majesty, according to royalists, may expound laws also extemporally, and do acts of justice, without formalities of civil or municipal laws, so they keep the genuine intent of the law, as they may pardon one that goeth up to the wall of a city, and discovereth the approach of the enemy, when the watchmen are sleeping, though the law be, that any ascending to the wall of the city shall die. Also, the inferior judge may make judges and deputies under himself.

6. This distinction is neither grounded upon reason or laws, nor on any word of God. Not the former, as is proved before, for there is no absolute power in a king to do above or against law; all the official power that a king hath, is a royal power to do good, for the safety and good of his subjects, and that according to law and reason, and there is no other power given to a king as a king; and for Scripture, Arnisæus allegeth, 1 Sam. 8 the manner or law of the king, ver. 9, 11, and he saith, It cannot be the custom and manner of the king, but must be the law of absolute majesty, 1. Because it was the manner of inferior judges, as Tiberius said of his judges, to flay the people, when they were commanded to shear them only. 2. Samuel's sons, who wrested judgment and perverted the law, had this manner and custom to oppress the people, as did the sons of Eli; and, therefore, without reason it is called the law of kings, jus regum, if it was the law of the judges; for if all this law be tyrannical, and but an abuse of kingly power, the same law may agree to all other magistrates, who, by the same unjust power, may abuse their power; but Samuel (as Brentius observeth, homi. 27, in 1 Sam. in princ.) doth mean here a greater license than kings can challenge, if at any time they would make use of their plentitude of absolute power; and therefore, nomine juris, by the word law here, he understandeth a power granted by law, jure, or right to the king, but pernicious to the people, which Gregory calleth jus regium tyrannorum, the royal law of tyrants.—So Seneca, 1 de clem. c. 11, hoc interest inter regem et tyrannum, species ipsa fortunes ac licentiæ par est, nisi quod tyranni ex voluntate sæviunt, reges non nisi ex causa et necessitate? quid ergo? non reges quoque occidere solent? sed quoties fieri publico, utilitas persuadet, tyrannis scevitia cordi est. A tyrant in this differeth from a king, Qui he ea quidem vult, quæ sibi licent, that a king will not do these things which are lawful; a tyrant doth qum libet, what he pleaseth to do.

Ans. 1. Arnisæus betrayeth his ignorance in the Scriptures, for the word משפט signifieth a custom, and a wicked custom, as by many Scriptures I have proved already: his reasons are poor. It is the manner of inferior judges, as we see in the sons of Eli and Samuel, to pervert judgment, as well as king Saul did; but the king may more oppress, and his tyranny hath more colour, and is more catholic than the oppression of inferior judges. It is not Samuel's purpose thus to distinguish the judges of Israel and the kings, in that the judges had no power granted them of God to oppress, because the people might judge their judges and resist them; and there was power given of God to the king, so far to play the tyrant, that no man could resist him, or say, What dost thou? The text will not bear any such difference; for it was as unlawful to resist Moses, Joshua, Samuel, (as royalists prove from the judgment of God that came upon Korah, Dathan, and Abiram,) as to resist king Saul and king David: royalists doubt not to make Moses a king. It was also no less sin to resist Samuel's sons, or to do violence to their persons, as judging for the Lord, and sent by the supreme judge, their father Samuel, than it was sin to resist many inferior judges that were lions and even wolves under the kings of Israel and Judah, so they judged for the Lord, and as sent by the supreme magistrate. But the difference was in this, that judges were extraordinarily raised up of God out of any tribe he pleased, and were believers, (Heb. 11:32,) saved by faith, and so used not their power to oppress the people, though inferior judges, as the sons of Eli and Samuel, perverted judgment; and therefore in the time of the judges, God, who gave them saviours and judges, was their king; but kings were tyed to a certain tribe, especially the line of David, to the kingdom of Judah.

2. They were hereditary, but judges are not so.

3. They were made and chosen by the people, (Deut. 17:14, 15; 1 Sam. 10:17–20; 2 Sam. 5:1–3,) as were the kings of the nations; and the first king, (though a king be the lawful ordinance of God,) was sought from God in a sinful imitation of the nations, (1 Sam. 8:19, 20,) and therefore were not of God's peculiar election, as the judges, and so they were wicked men, and many of them, yea, all for the most part, did evil in the sight of the Lord, and their law, משפט, their manner and custom, was to oppress the people, and so were their inferior judges little tyrants, and lesser lions, leopards, evening wolves. (Ezek. 22:27; Mic. 3:1–3; Isa. 3:14, 15.) And the kings and inferior judges are only distinguished, de facto, that the king was a more catholic oppressor, and the old lion, and so had more art and power to catch the prey than the inferior judges, who were but whelps, and had less power, but all were oppressors, (some few excepted, and Samuel speaketh of that which Saul was to be, de facto, not de jure, and the most part of the kings after him,) and this tyranny is well called jus regis, the manner of the king, and not the manner of the judges, because it had not been the practice, custom, and משפט, of the believing judges, before Saul's reign, and while God was his people's king, (1 Sam. 8:7,) to oppress. We grant that all other inferior judges, after the people cast off God's government, and, in imitation of the nations, would have a king, were also lesser tyrants, as the king was a greater tyrant, and that was a punishment of their rejecting God and Samuel to be their King and judge. How shall Arnisæus prove that this manner or משפט of the king was, potestas concessa, a power granted, I hope, granted of God, and not an abuse of kingly power; for then he and royalists must say, that all the acts of tyranny ascribed to king Saul, (1 Sam. 8:11–14,) by reason of which they did cry out, and complain to God because of their oppression, was no abuse of power given to Saul; therefore it was an use, and a lawful use of power given of God to their king, for there is no medium betwixt a lawful power used in moral acts, and a lawful power abused; and, indeed, Arnisæus so distinguished a king and a tyrant, that he maketh them all one in nature and specie. He saith, a tyrant doth, quod licet, that which by law he may do, and a king doth not these things, quæ licent, which by law he may do; but, so to me it is clear, a tyrant, acting as a tyrant, must act according to this משפט law of the king, and that which is lawful, and a king, acting as a king, and not doing these things that are lawful, must sin against his office, and the power that God hath given to him, which were to commend and praise the tyrant, and to condemn and dispraise the king. If this law of the king be a permissive law of God, which the king may, out of his absoluteness, put in execution to oppress the people, such as a law of a bill of divorcement, as Arnisæus, Barclay, and other royalists say, then must God have given a law to every king to play the tyrant, because of the hardness of the king's heart; but we would gladly see some word of God for this. The law of a bill of divorcement is a mere positive law, permitted in a particular exigent, when a husband, out of levity of heart and affection, cannot love his wife; therefore God by a law permitted him out of indulgence to put her away, that both might have a seed, (the want whereof, because of the blessed Seed to be born of woman, was a reproach in Israel,) and though this was an affliction to some particular women, yet the intent of the law, and the soul thereof, was a public benefit to the commonwealth of Israel, of which sort of laws I judge the hard usage permitted by God to his people—in the master toward the servant—and the people of God toward the stranger, of whom they might exact usury—though not toward their brethren. But that God should make a permissive law, that Jeroboam might press all Israel to sin and worship the golden calves; and that a king by law may kill, as a bloody Nero, all the people of God, by a divine permissive law, hath no warrant in God's word. Judge, reader, if royalists make God to confer a benefit on a land, when he giveth them a king, if by a law of God, such as the law for a bill of divorcement, the king may kill and devour, as a lawful absolute lion, six kingdoms of nations that profess Christ and believe in his name. For if the king have a divine law to kill an innocent Jonathan, so as it be unlawful to resist him, he may, by that same law, turn bloodier than either Nero, Julian, or any that ever sucked the paps of a lioness, or of whom it may be said, and he shall be given as a plague of God, ex conditione doni, to the people, and the people, inasmuch as they are gifted of God with a king, to feed them in a peaceable and godly life, must be made slaves; now, it wanteth reason, that God will have a permissive law of murdering the church of Christ, a law so contrary to the public good and intrinsical intention of a king, and to the immutable and eternal law of nature, that one man, because of his power, may, by God's permissive law, murder millions of innocents. Some may say, "It is against the duty of love, that by nature and God's law the husband owes to the wife, (Ephes. 5:25,) that the husband should put away his wife; for God hateth putting away, and yet God made a law, that a husband might give his wife a bill of divorce, and so put her away; and by the same reason, God may make a law, though against nature, that a king should kill and murder, without all resistance."

Ans.—1. The question is not, if God may make permissive laws to oppress the innocent; I grant he may do it, as he may command Abraham to kill his son Isaac; and Abraham by law is obliged to kill him, except God retract his commandment, and whether God retract it or not, he may intend to kill his son, which is an act of love and obedience to God; but this were more than a permissive law. 2. We have a clear Scripture for a permissive law of divorce, and it was not a law tending to the universal destruction of a whole kingdom, or many kingdoms, but only to the grievance of some particular wives; but the law of divorce gave not power to all husbands to put away their wives, but only to the husband who could not command his affection to love his wife. But this law of the king is a catholic law to all kings, (for royalists will have all kings so absolute, as it is sin and disobedience to God to resist any,) that all kings have a divine law to kill all their subjects; surely, then, it were better for the church to want such nurse-fathers, as have absolute power to suck their blood; and for such a perpetual permissive law continuing to the end of the world, there is no word of God. Nor can we think that the hardness of one prince's heart can be a ground for God to make a law, so destructive to his church and all mankind; such a permissive law, being a positive law of God, must have a word of Christ for it, else we are not to receive it. Arnisæus, (cap. 4. distru. Tyran. et princ. n. 16,) thinketh a tyrant, in exercito, becoming a notorious tyrant, when there is no other remedy, may be removed from government, sine magno scelere, without great sin. But, I ask, how men can annul any divine law of God, though but a permissive law. For if God's permissive law warrant a tyrant to kill two innocent men, it is tyranny more or less, and the law distinguisheth not. 3. This permissive law is expressly contrary to God's law, limiting all kings. (Deut. 17:16–18.) How then are we to believe that God would make an universal law contrary to the law that he established before Israel had a king? 4. What Brentius saith is much for us, for he calleth this משפט law a licence, and so to use it, must be licentiousness. 5. Arnisæus desireth that kings may use sparingly the plenitude of their power for public good; there must be, saith he, necessity to make it lawful to use the plenitude of their power justly; therefore Ahab sinned, in that he unjustly possessed Naboth's vineyard, though he sinned specially in this, that he came to the possession by murder, and it was peculiar to the Jews that they could not transfer their possessions from one tribe to another. But if it be so, then this power of absoluteness is not given by permissive law, by which God permitted putting away of wives, for the object of a permissive law is sin; but this plenitude of power may be justly put forth in act, saith he, if the public good may be regarded. I would know what public good can legitimate tyranny and killing of the innocent,—the intentions of men can make nothing intrinsically evil to become good. 6. How can that be a permissive law of God, and not his approving law, by which kings create inferior judges? for this is done by God's approving will. 7. It is evident that Arnisæus' mind is, that kings may take their subjects' vineyards and their goods, so they err not in the manner and way of the act; so be like, if there had not been a peculiar law that Naboth should not sell his vineyard, and if the king had had any public use for it, he might have taken Naboth's vineyard from him; but he specially sinned, saith he, in eo maxime culpatur, &c., that he took away the man's vineyard by murdering of him; therefore, saith Arnisæus, (c. 1. de potest, maj. in bona privato. 2,) that by the king's law, (1 Sam. 8,) "There is given to the king, a dominion over the people's sons, daughters, fields, vineyards, olive-yards, servants, and flocks." So he citeth that, that Daniel putteth all places, the rocks of the mountains, the birds of the heaven, (Dan. 2,) under the king's power. So all is the king's in dominion, and the subjects in use only.

But 1. This law of the king, then, can be no ground for the king's absoluteness above law, and there can be no permissive law of God here; for that which asserteth the king's royal dominion over persons and things, that must be the law of God's approving, not his permitting evil; but this is such a law as Arnisæus saith.

2. The text speaketh of no law or lawful power, or of any absoluteness of king Saul, but of his wicked custom, and his rapine and tyranny, "He will take your sons, your daughters, your fields, and your vineyards from you." Saul took not these through any power of dominion by law, but by mere tyranny.

3. I have before cleared that the subjects have a propriety, and an use also, else how could we be obliged, by virtue of the fifth commandment, to pay tribute to the king, (Rom. 13:7,) for that which we pay was as much the king's before we paid as when we have paid it.

4. Arnisæus saith, all are the king's, in respect of the universal jurisdiction that the king hath in governing and ordering all to the universal end, the good of the commonwealth; for as universal nature careth for the conservation of the specie and kind, so doth particular nature care for the conservation of individuals, so do men care for their private goods, and the king is to refer every man's private goods to the good of the public. But the truth is, this taketh not away propriety of goods from private men, retaining only the use to private men, and giving the dominion to the king, because this power that the king hath of men's goods is not power of dominion, that the king hath over the goods of men, as if the king were dominus, lord and owner of the fields and monies of the private subject; but it is a power to regulate the goods for a public use, and supposeth the abuse of goods, when they are monopolised to and for private ends. The power that the king hath over my bread is not a power of dominion, so as he may eat my bread as if it were his own bread, and he be lord of my bread as I was sometime myself, before I abused it, but it is a dominion improperly and abusively so called, and is a mere fiduciary and dispensatory power, because he is set over my bread not to eat it, nor over my houses to dwell in them, but only with a ministerial power, as a public though honourable servant and watchman, appointed by the community as a mean for an end, to regulate my bread, houses, monies and fields, for the good of the public. Dominion is defined "a faculty to use a thing as you please, except you be hindered by force or by law;" (Justin, tit. c. de legibus in I. digna vox, &c.;) so have I a dominion over my own garments, house, money, to use them for uses not forbidden by the law of God and man, but I may not lay my corn-field waste, that it shall neither bear grass nor corn,—the king may hinder that, because it is a hurt to the public; but the king, as lord and sovereign, hath no such dominion over Naboth's vineyard. How the king is lord of all goods, ratione jurisdictionis, et tuitionis se. Anton, de paudrill. in l.; Altius. n. 5, c. de servit; Hottom. illust, quest, q. 1, ad fin., conc. 2; Lod. Molin. de just, et jur. dis. 25; Soto. de justitia et jur. l. 4, q. 4, art. 1.

QUESTION XL

WHETHER OR NO THE PEOPLE HAVE ANY POWER OVER THE KING, EITHER BY HIS OATH, COVENANT, OR ANY OTHER WAY

Aristotle saith, (Ethic. 8, c. 12,) Ὁ μὲν γὰρ τυράννος τὸ ἐαυτοῦ συμφέρον σκοπεῖ, ὁ δὲ βασελεῦς τὸ τῶν ἀρχεμενῶν, οὐ γὰρ ἐστι βασελεῦς, ὁ μὴ αὐταρκης και πασι τοῖς ἀγαιθοῖς ὑπερέχων, "A tyrant seeketh his own, a king the good of the subjects; for he is no king who is not content and excelleth in goodness." The former part of these words distinguish essentially the king by his office from the tyrant. Now, every office requireth essentially a duty to be performed by him that is in office; and, where there is a duty required, there is some obligation;—if it be a politic duty, it is a politic obligation. 1. Now, amongst politic duties betwixt equal and equal, superior and inferior, that is not, de facto, required co-action for the performance thereof, but, de jure, there is; for two neighbour kings and two neighbour nations, both being equal and independent the one toward the the other, the one owes a duty to the other; and if the Ammonites do a wrong to David and Israel, as they are equal, de facto, the one cannot punish the other, though the Ammonites do a disgrace to David's messengers, yet, de jure, David and Israel may compel them to politic duties of politic consociation, (for betwixt independent kingdoms there must be some politic government, and some politic and civil laws, for two or three making a society cannot dwell together without some policy,) and David and Israel, as by the law of nature they may repel violence with violence; so, if the laws of neighbourhood and nations be broken, the one may punish the other, though there be no relation of superiority and inferiority betwixt them. 2. Wherever there is a covenant and oath betwixt equals, yea, or superiors and inferiors, the one hath some co-active power over the other; if the father give his bond to pay to his son ten thousand pounds, as his patrimony to him, though before the giving of the bond the father was not obliged but only by the law of nature to give a patrimony to his son; yet now, by a politic obligation of promise, covenant, and writ, he is obliged so to his son to pay ten thousand pounds, that, by the law of nations and the civil law, the son hath now a co-active power by law to compel his father, though his superior, to pay him no less than ten thousand pounds of patrimony. Though, therefore, the king should stand simply superior to his kingdom and estates, (which I shall never grant,) yet if the king come under covenant with his kingdom, as I have proved at length, (c. 13,) he must, by that same, come under some co-active power to fulfil his covenant; for omne promissum (saith the law) cadit in debitum, what any doth promise falleth under debt. If the covenant be politic and civil, as is the covenant between king David and all Israel, (2 Sam. 5:1–3,) and between king Jehoash and the people, (2 Kings 11:17, 18,) then the king must come under a civil obligation to perform the covenant; and, though there be none superior to king and the people on earth, to compel them both to perform what they have promised, yet, de jure, by the law of nations, each may compel the other to mutual performance. This is evident,—

1. By the law of nations, if one nation break covenant to another, though both be independent, yet hath the wronged nation a co-active power, de jure, (by accident, because they are weaker they want strength to compel, yet they have right to compel them,) to force the other to keep covenant, or then to punish them, because nature teacheth to repel violence by violence, so it be done without desire of revenge and malice.

2. This is proved from the nature of a promise or covenant, for Solomon saith, (Prov. 6:1, 2,) "My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger, thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, and art taken with the words of thy mouth." But whence is it that a man free is now snared as a beast in a gin or trap? Certainly Solomon saith it is by a word and striking of hands, by a word of promise and covenant. Now, the creditor hath co-active power, though he be an equal or an inferior to the man who is surety, even by law to force him to pay, and the judge is obliged to give his co-active power to the creditor, that he may force the surety to pay. Hence it is clear, that a covenant maketh a free man under the co-active power of law to an equal or a weaker, and the stronger is by the law of fraternity to help the weaker with his co-active power, to cause the superior fulfil his covenant. If, then, the king (giving, and not granting, he were superior to his whole kingdom) come under a covenant to them to seek their good, not his own, to defend true protestant religion, they have power to compel him to keep his covenant, and Scotland (if the king be stronger than England, and break his covenant to them) is obliged, by God's law, (Prov. 24:11,) to add their forces and co-active power to help their brethren of England.

3. The law shall warrant to loose the vassal from the lord when the lord hath broken his covenant, Hippolitus in I., Si quis viduam col. 5, et dixit de quest. I. Si quis major. 41 et 161. Bartol. n. 41. The Magdeburgens. in libel, de offic. magistrat. Imperatores et reges esse primarios vassallos imperii, et regni, et proinde si feloniam contra imperium aut regnum committant, feudo privari, proinde ut alios vasallos.

Arnisæus (q. 6. An princeps qui jurat subditis, etc. n. 2) saith, "This occasioneth confusion and sedition." "The Egyptians cast off Ptolemæus because he affected too much the name of a king of the Romans, his own friend," Dion. (1. 9.) "The States punished Archidanius because he married a wife of a low stature," Plutarch, (in Ages. in pris.) "The ancient Burgundians thought it cause enough to expel their king, if matters went not well in the state," Marcel. (1. 27.) "The Goths in Spain gave no other cause of expelling their king, nisi quod sibi displiceret, because he displeased them," Aimon. (l. 2, c. 20, l. 4, c. 35.)

Ans.—All these are not to be excused in people, but neither every abuse of power in a king dethroneth a king, nor every abuse in people can make null their power.

Arnisæus maketh three kinds of oaths: The first is, when the king sweareth to defend true religion and the Pope; and he denieth that this is an oath of fidelity, or by paction or covenant made to the Pope or clergy, he saith it is only on oath of protection, nor doth the king receive the crown from the Pope or clergy.

Ans. 1.—Arnisæus divideth oaths that are to be conjoined. We do not read that kings swear to defend religion in one oath, and to administer judgment and justice in another; for David made not two covenants, but only one, with all Israel. 2. The king was not king while he did swear this oath, and therefore is must be a pactional oath between him and the kingdom, and it is true the king receiveth not a crown from the church; yet David received a crown from the church, for this end, "to feed the Lord's people," and so conditionally. Papir. Masse (I. 3, Chron. Gal.) saith, the king was not a king before the oath, and that he swore to be a keeper not only of the first, but also of the second table of the law. Ego N. Dei gratia, mox futurus rex Francorum, in die ordinationis meæ coram Deo, et Sanctis ejus polliceor, quod servabo privilegia canonica, justitiamque et jus unicuique Prælato debitum, vosque defendam, Deo juvante, quantum potero, quemadmodum rex ex officio in suo regno defendere debet, unumquemque episcopum ac ecclesiam, et administrabo populo justitiam et leges, uti jus postulat. And so it is ordained in the council of Toledo: Quisquis deinceps regni sortitus fuerit apicem, non ante conscendat regiam sedem, quam inter reliquas conditiones sacramento policitus fuerit, quod non sinet in regno suo degere eum qui non sit catholicus. All these by Scripture are oaths of covenant, Deut. 17:17, 18; 2 Sam. 5:1–4; 2 Kings 11:17, 18.

Arnisæus maketh a second oath of absolute kings, who swear they shall reign according to equity and justice; and he saith, "There is no need of this oath, a promise is enough; for an oath increaseth not the obligation, (L. fin, de non num. pec.,) only it addeth the bound of religion; for there is no use of an oath where there is no paction of law against him that sweareth; if he violate the oath, there followeth only the punishment of perjury. And the word of a prince is as good as his oath, only he condescendeth to swear to please the people, out of indulgence, not out of necessity. And the king doth not therefore swear because he is made king, but because he is made king he sweareth. And he is not king because he is crowned, but he is crowned because he is king. Where the crown goeth by succession, the king never dieth; and he is king by nature before he be crowned."

Ans. 1.—This oath is the very first oath spoken of before, included in the covenant that the king maketh with the people; (2 Sam. 5:2–4;) for absolute powers, by Arnisæus' grant, doth swear to do the duties of a king, as Bodinus maketh the oath of France, (de Rep. l. 1. c. 8,) Juro ego, per deum, ac promitto me juste regnaturum judicium, equitatem, ac misericordiam facturum; and Papir. Masse (1. 3, Chron.) hath the same expressly in the particulars. And by this a king sweareth he shall not be absolute; and if he swear this oath, he bindeth himself not to govern by the law of the king, whereby he may play the tyrant, as Saul did, (1 Sam. 8:9–12, &c.,) as all royalists expound the place. 2. It is but a poor evasion to distinguish betwixt the king's promise and his oath; for the promise and covenant of any man, and so of the king, doth no less bring him under a civil obligation and politic co-action to keep his promise than an oath; for he that becometh surety for his friend doth by no civil law swear he shall be good for the son, or perform in lieu and place of the friend; what he is to perform he doth only covenant and promise, and in law and politic obligation he is taken and snared by that promise, no less than if he had sworn. Reuben offered to be caution to bring Benjamin safe home to his old father, (Gen. 42:37,) and Judah also, (Gen. 43:9,) but they do not swear any oath; and it is true that an oath addeth nothing to a contract and promise, but only it lays on a religious tie before God, yet so as consequently, if the contractor violate both promise and oath, he cometh under the guilt of perjury, which a law of men may punish. Now, that a covenant bringeth the King under a politic obligation as well as an oath, is already proved, and farther confirmed by Gal. 3:15, "Though it be a man's testament or covenant, no man disannuleth and addeth thereunto." No man, even by man's law, can annul a confirmed covenant; and therefore the man that made the covenant bringeth himself under law to fulfil his own covenant, and so must the king put himself under men's law, by a covenant at his coronation; yea, and David is reputed by royalists an absolute prince, yet he cometh under a covenant before he be made a king. 3. It is but a weak reason to say that an oath is needless, where no action of law can be against the king who sweareth, if it have any strength of reason. I retort it; a legal and solemn promise then is needless also, for there is no action of law against a king (as royalists teach) if he violate his promise. So then king David needlessly made a covenant with the people at his coronation; for though David should turn as bloody an enemy to the church as Nero or Julian, the people have no law-action against David; and why then did Jeremiah seek an oath of the king of Judah, that he would not kill him nor deliver him into the hands of his enemies? and why did David seek an oath of Jonathan? It is not like Jeremiah and David could have law-action against a king and a king's son, if they should violate the oath of God; and farther, it is a begging of the question to say that the states can have no action against the king if he should violate his oath. Hugo Grotius putteth seven cases in which the people may have real action against the king to accuse and punish. (1.) They may punish the king to death, for matters capital, if so it be agreed on betwixt the king and the people, as in Lacedæmonia. (2.) He may be punished as a private man. (3.) If the king make away a kingdom given to him by succession, his act is null, and he may be resisted, because the kingdom is a life-rent only to him; yea, saith Barclay, he loseth the crown. (4.) He loseth his kingdom, if, with a hostile mind, he seek the destruction of the kingdom. (5.) If such a clause be put in, that if he commit felony, or do such oppressions, the subjects shall be loosed from the bonds of subjection; then the king, failing thus, turneth a private man. (6.) If the king have the one-half or part of the kingdom, and the people or senate the other half; if the king prey upon that half which is not his own, he may violently be resisted, for in so far he hath not the empire. (7.) If, when the crown was given, this be declared, that in some cases he may be resisted, then some natural liberty is free from the king's power, and reserved in the people's hand. 4. It is then reason that the king swear an oath, 1. That the king's oath is but a ceremony to please the people, and that because he is king, and king by birth, therefore he sweareth, and is crowned, is in question, and denied. No man is born a king, as no man is born a subject; and because the people maketh him king, therefore he is to swear. The council of Toledo saith, non antea conscendat regiam sedem quam juret. 2. An oath is a religious obligation, no arbitrary ceremony. 3. He may swear in his cabinet-chamber, not covenanting with the people, as David and Jehoash did. 4. So he maketh promises that he may be king, not because he is king; it were ridiculous he should promise or swear to be a just king, because he is a just king; and by the same reason the estates swear the oath of loyalty to the new king, not that they may be loyal in all time coming, but because they are loyal subjects already; for if the one-half of the covenant on the king's part be a ceremony of indulgence, not of necessity, by the same reason the other half of the covenant must be a ceremony of indulgence also to the people.

Obj.—Arnisæus saith, A contract cannot be dissolved in law, but by consent of two parties contracting, because both are obliged; (I. ab emptione 58, in pr. de pact. l. 3, de rescind, vend. l. 80, de solu;) therefore, if the subjects go from the covenant that they have made to be loyal to the king, they ought to be punished.

Ans.—A contract, the conditions whereof are violated by neither side, cannot be dissolved but by the joint consent of both; and in buying and selling, and in all contracts unviolated, the sole will of neither side can violate the contract: of this speaketh the law. But I ask the royalists, if the contract betwixt the spies sent to view Jericho, and Rahab the harlot, had not been null, and the spies free from any obligation, if Rahab had neglected to keep within doors when Jericho was taken, though Rahab and the spies had never consented expressly to break the covenant? We hold that the law saith with us, that vassals loss their farm if they pay not what is due. Now, what are kings but vassals to the state, who, if they turn tyrants, fall from their right?

Arnisæus saith in the council of Toledo, (4. c. 47,) the subjects ask from the king, that kings would be meek and just, not upon the ground of a voluntary contract and paction, but because God shall rejoice in king and people by so doing.

Ans.—These two do no more fight with one another than that two merchants should keep faith one to another, both because God hath said he shall dwell in God's mountain who sweareth and covenanteth, and standeth to his oath and covenant, though to his loss and hurt, (Psal. 15) and also because they made their covenant and contract thus and thus.

Arnisæus.—Every prince is subject to God, but not as a vassal; for a master may commit felony, and lose the propriety of his farm. Can God do so? The master cannot take the farm from the vassal without an express cause legally deduced; but cannot God take what he hath given but by a law process? A vassal can entitle to himself a farm against the master's will, as some jurists say, but can a prince entitle a kingdom to himself against the God of heaven's will? Though we grant the comparison, yet the subjects have no law over the kings, because the coercive power of the vassal is in the lord of the manor, the punishing of kings belongeth to God.

Ans. 1.—We compare not the lord of a manor and the Lord of heaven together; all these dissimilitudes we grant, but as the king is God's vassal, so is he a noble and princely vassal to the estates of a kingdom because they make him. 2. They make him rather than another their noble servant. 3. They make him for themselves and their own godly, quiet, and honest life. 4. They, in their first election, limit him to such a way, to govern by law, and give to him so much power for their good, no more; in these four actst hey are above the prince, and so have a coercive power over him.

Arnisæus.—It is to make the prince's fidelity doubtful to put him to an oath. Lawyers say there is no need of an oath, when a person is of approved fidelity.

Ans. 1.—Then we are not to seek an oath of an inferior magistrate, of a commander in wars, of a pastor, it is presumed these are of approved fidelity, and it maketh their integrity obnoxious to slander to put them on an oath. 2. David was of more approved fidelity than any king now a-days, and to put him to a covenant seemed to call his fidelity in question; Jonathan sought an oath of David to deal kindly with his seed when he came to the throne; Jeremiah sought an oath of the king of Judah. Did they put any note of falsehood on them therefore?

Arnisæus.—You cannot prove that ever any king gave an oath to his subjects in Scripture.

Ans. 1.—What more unbeseeming kings is it to swear to do their duty, than to promise covenant-wise to do the same? And a covenant you cannot deny. 2. In a covenant for religious duties there was always an oath, (2 Chron. 15:12–14,) hence the rite of cutting a calf, and swearing in a covenant (Jer. 34:18). 3. There is an oath that the people giveth to the king to obey him, (Eccles. 8:2,) and a covenant (2 Sam. 5:1–3) mutual between the king and people; I leave it to the judicious, if the people swear to the king obedience in a covenant mutual, and he swear not to them.

Arnisæus showeth to us a third sort of oath that limited princes do swear. This oath in Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Hungary, is sworn by the kings, who may do nothing without consent of the senate, and according to order of law; this is but the other two oaths specified, and a prince cannot contravene his own contract; the law saith, in that the prince is but as a private man (in I. digna vox C. de ll. Rom. cons. 426, n. 17); and it is known that the emperor is constituted and created by the prince's electors, subject to them, and by law may be dethroned by them.

The Bishop of Rochester (de potest, p. l. 2, c. 20) saith from Barclay, "None can denude a king of his power, but he that gave him the power, or hath an express commandment so to do, from him that gave the power. But God only, and the people, gave the king his power; therefore God, with the people, having an express commandment from God, must denude the king of power.

Ans. 1.—This shall prove that God only, by an immediate action, or some having an express commandment from him, can deprive a preacher for scandals; Christ only, or those who have an express commandment from him, can excommunicate; God only, or the magistrate with him, can take away the life of man (Numb. 11:14–16); and no inferior magistrates, who also have their power from God immediately, (Rom. 13:1,) if we speak of the immediation of the office, can denude inferior judges of their power. God only, by the husbandman's pains, maketh a fruitful vineyard, therefore, the husbandman cannot make his vineyard grow over with nettles and briers. 2. The argument must run thus, else the assumption shall be false. God only by the action of the people as his instrument, and by no other action, makes a lawful king; God only by the action of the people, as his instrument, can make a king; God only by the action of the people, as his instrument, can dethrone a king; for as the people, making a king, are in that doing what God doth before them, and what God doth by them in that very act, so the people unmaking a king, doth that which God doth before the people; both the one and the other according to God's rule obligeth. (Deut, 17:14–20.)

The prelate, whose tribe seldom saith truth, addeth,—"As a fatherly power, by God and nature's law, over a family, was in the father of a family before the children could either transfer their power, or consent to the translation of that power to him, so a kingly power (which succeedeth to a paternal or fatherly power) to govern many families, yea, and a kingdom, was in that same father, in relation to many families, before these many families can transfer their power. The kingly power floweth immediately from God, and the people doth not transfer that power, but doth only consent to the person of the king, or doth only choose his person at some time. And though this power were principally given to the people, it is not so given to the people as if it were the people's power, and not God's, for it is God's power; neither is it any otherwise given to the people, but as to a stream, a beam, and an instrument which may confer it to another." M. Antonius (de domini. l. 6, c. 2, n. 22, 23) doth more subtlely illustrate the matter: "If the king should confer honour on a subject, by the hand of a servant who had not power or freedom to confer that honour, or not to confer it, but by necessity of the king's commandment must confer it, nothing should hinder us to say, that such a subject had his honour immediately from the king: so the earth is immediately illuminated by the sun, although light be received on the earth, but by the intervening mediation of many inferior bodies and elements, because by no other thing but by the sun only, is the light as an efficient cause in a nearest capacity to give light; so the royal power in whomsoever it be, is immediately from God only, though it be applied by men to this or that person, because from God only, and from no other the kingly power is formally and effectively that which it is, and worketh that which it worketh; and if you ask by what cause is the tree immediately turned into fire, none sound in reason would say, it is made fire, not by the fire, but by him that laid the tree on the fire." John P. P. would have stolen this argument also, if he had been capable thereof.

Ans. 1.—A fatherly power is in a father, not before he hath a child, but indeed before his children by an act of their free-will consent that he be their father; yea, and whether the children consent or no, from a physical act of generation, he must be the father; and let the father be the most wicked man, and let him be made by no moral requisite, yet is he made a father, nor can he ever leave off physically to be a father: he may leave off morally to do the duty of a father, and so be non pater officio, but he cannot but be pater naturce generantis vi. So there never is, nor can be, any need that children's free consent intervene to make Kish the father of Saul, because he is by nature a father. To make Saul a king and a moral father by analogy and improperly,—a father by ruling, governing, guiding, defending Israel by good laws, in peace and godliness, I hope there is some act of the people's free-will required even by Spalato's way; the people must approve him to be king, yea, they must king him, or constitute him lung, say we. No such act is required of natural sons to make a physical father, and so here is a great halt in the comparison, and it is most false that there is a Kingly power to govern many families in the same father, before these many families can transfer their power to make him king. Put royalists to their logic, they have not found out a medium to make good that there is a formal kingly power whereby Saul is king and father morally over all Israel before Israel chose him and made him, as Kish was Saul's father formally, and had a fatherly power to be his father, before Saul had the use of free-will to consent that he should be his father. Royalists are here at a stand. The man may have royal gifts before the people make him king, but this is not regia potestas, a royal power, by which the man is formally king. Many have more royal gifts than the man that beareth the crown, yet are never kings, nor is there formally regia potestas, kingly power, in them. In this meaning Petrarch said, Plures sunt reges quam regna. 2. He saith, "The people doth not confer royal power, but only consent to the person of the man, or choice of his person." This is nonsense, for the people's choosing of David at Hebron to be king, and their refusing of Saul's seed to be king, what was it but an act of God, by the free suffrages of the people, conferring royal power on David, and making him king? Whereas in former times, David even anointed by Samuel at Bethlehem, (1 Sam. 16,) was only a private man, the subject of king Saul, and never termed by the Spirit of God a king; nor was he king till God, by the people's consent made him king at Hebron; for Samuel neither honoured him as king, nor bowed to him as king, nor did the people say, God save king David; but after this David acknowledgeth Saul as his master and king, Let royalists show us any act of God making David king, save this act of the people making him formally king at Hebron, and therefore the people, as God's instrument, transferred the power, and God by them in the same act transferred the power, and in the same they chose the person; the royalists affirm these to be different actions, affirmanti incumbit probatio. 3. This power is the people's radically, naturally, as the bees (as some think) have a power natural to choose a king-bee, so hath a community a power naturally to defend and protect themselves; and God hath revealed in Deut. 7:14, 15, the way of regulating the act of choosing governors and kings, which is a special mean of defending and protecting themselves; and the people is as principally the subject and fountain of royal power, as a fountain is of water. I shall not contend, if you call a fountain God's instrument to give water, as all creatures are his instruments. 4. For Spalato's comparison, he is far out, for the people choosing one of ten to be their king, have free will to choose any, and are under a law (Deut. 17:14, 15) in the manner of their choosing, and though they err and make a sinful choice, yet the man is king, and God's king, whom they make king; but, if the king command a servant to make A. B. a knight, if the servant make C. D. a knight, I shall not think C. D. is a valid knight at all; and indeed the honour is immediately here from the king, because the king's servant by no innate power maketh the knight, but nations by a radical, natural, and innate power, maketh this man a king, not that man; and I conceive the man chosen by the people oweth thanks and grateful service to the people, who rejected others, that they had power to choose, and made him king. 5. The light immediately and formally is light from the sun, and so is the office of a king immediately instituted of God, Deut. 17:14. Whether the institution be natural or positive, it is no matter. 2. The man is not king, because of royal endowments, though we should say these were immediately from God, to which instruction and education may also confer not a little; but he is formally king, ratione ἐξοίσιας βασιλίκης in regard of the formal essence of a king, not immediately from God, as the light is from the sun, but by the mediation of the free consent of the people; (2 Sam. 5:1–3;) nor is the people in making a king, as the man who only casteth wood in the fire; the wood is not made fire formally, but by the fire, not by the approach of fire to wood, or of wood to fire; tor the people do not apply the royalty, which is immediately in and from God to the person. Explicate such an application; for to me it is a fiction inconceivable, because the people hath the royalty radically in themselves, as in the fountain and cause, and conferreth it on the man who is made king; yea, the people, by making David king, confer the royal power on the king. This is so true, that royalists, forgetting themselves, inculcate frequently in asserting their absolute monarch from Ulpian, but misunderstood that the people have resigned all their power, liberty, right of life, death, goods, chastity, a potency of rapine, homicides, unjust wars, &c., upon a crearture called an absolute prince; even, saith Grotius, as a man may make himself a slave, by selling his liberty to a master. Now, if the people make away this power to the king, and this be nothing but the transcendent absoluteness of a king, certainly this power was in the people; for how can they give to a king that which they have not themselves? As a man cannot make away his liberty to a master, by becoming a slave to him, if his liberty were immediately in God, as royalists say, sovereignty is immediately in God, and people can exercise no act about sovereignty, to make it over to one man rather than to another. People only have an after-approbation, that this man to whom God hath given it immediately, shall have it. Furthermore, they say, people in making a king may make such conditions, as in seven cases a king may be dethroned, at least resisted, saith Hugo Grotius: therefore people may give more or less, half or whole, limited or absolute royal power to the prince; but if this power were immediately in God and from God, how could the people have the husbanding of it, at their need to expend it out in ounce weights, or pound weights, as they please? And that the people may be purveyors of it to sell or give it, is taught y Grotius (de jur. bel et pae. l. 1, c. 4); Barclay (advers. monarch. l. 4, c. 6); Arnisæus (c. 6, de majest. an princeps qui jurat subditis, &c. n. 10, n. se Aventium Anal l. 3); Chytreus (l. 23, Z. 28); Saxon Sleidan (lib. 1, in fi); yet Arnisæus is not ashamed to cite Aristot. (polit. c. 12, I. 3), that he is not a true and absolute king who ruleth by laws. The point blank contrary of which Aristotle saith.

QUESTION XLI

WHETHER DOTH THE P. PRELATE UPON GOOD GROUNDS ASCRIBE TO US THE DOCTRINE OF JESUITS IN THESE QUESTIONS OF LAWFUL DEFENSIVE WARS

The P. Prelate, without all ground, will have us all Jesuits in this point, but if we make good that this truth was in Scripture before a Jesuit was in the earth, he falleth from his cause.

P. Prelate (c. 1, p. 1, 2).—The Begardi saith, There was no government, no law given to the just. It feareth me this age fancieth to itself some such thing, and have learned of Korah, Dathan, &c.

Ans.—This calumniator, in the next words, belieth himself when he saith, We presuppose that those with whom we are to enter in lists, do willingly grant that government is not only lawful and just, but necessary both for church and commonwealth: then we fancy no such thing as he imputeth to us.

P. Prelate.—Some said that the right of dominion is founded on grace, whether the Waldenses and Huss held any such tenet, I cannot now insist to prove or disprove. Gerson and others held that there must be a new title and right to what men possess. Too many too confidently hold these or the like.

Ans.—1. That dominion is founded upon grace as its essential pillar, so as wicked men be no magistrates, because they are in mortal sin, was falsly imputed to ancient I protestants, the Waldenses, Wicliff, and Huss, by papists; and this day by Jesuits, Suarez, Bellarmine, Becanus. The P. Prelate will leave them under this calumny, that he may offend papists and Jesuits as little as he can, but he would lay it on us; but if the P. Prelate think that dominion is not founded on grace, de jure, that rulers should have that spirit that God put on the seventy elders for their calling, and that they ought not to be "men fearing God and hating covetousness," as Gerson and others did, he belieth the Scripture. 2. It is no error of Gerson that believers have a sipritual right to their civil possessions, but by Scripture, 1 Cor. 4:21; Rev. 21:7.

P. Prelate.—The Jesuits are ashamed of the error of casuists, who hold that, directum imperium, the direct and primary power, supreme, civil, and ecclesiastical, is in the Pope; and, therefore, they give an indirect directive and coercive power to him over kings and states, in ordine ad spiritualia, so may he king and unking princes at his pleasure. Our presbyterians, if they run not fully this way, are very near to it.

Ans.—1. The windy man would seem versed in schoolmen. He should have named some casuists, who hold any like thing. 2. The presbyterians must be popes, because they subject kings to the gospel, and Christ's sceptre in church censures, and think Christian kings may be rebuked for blasphemy, bloodshed, &c, whereas prelates, in ordine ad diabolica, murder souls of kings. 3. Prelates do king princes. A popish archprelate, when our king was crowned, put the crown on king Charles' head, the sword and sceptre in his hand, anointed him in his hands, crown, shoulders, arms, with sacred oil. The king must kiss the archbishop and bishops. Is not this to king princes in ordine ad spiritualia? And those that kingeth may unking, and judge what relation the popish archbishop Spotswood had, when he proffered to the king the oath that the popish kings sweareth to maintain the professed religion, (not one word of the true protestant religion,) and will carefully root out all heretics and enemies (that is protestants as they expone it.) to the true worship of God, that shall be convicted by the church of God of the foresaid crimes. And when the prelates professed they held not their prelacies of the king, but of the Pope indeed: who are then nearest to the Pope's power, in ordine ad spiritualia? 4. How will this black-mouthed calumniator make presbyterians to dethrone kings? He hath written a pamphlet of the inconsistency of monarchy and presbyterian government, consisting of lies, invented calumnies of his church in which he was baptized. But the truth is, all his arguments prove the inconsistency of monarchs and parliaments, and transform any king into a most absolute tyrant; for which treason he deserveth to suffer as a traitor.

P. Prelate (q. 1, c. 1). The puritan saith that all power civil is radically and originally seated in the community; he here joineth hands with the Jesuit.

Ans.—In six pages he repeateth the same things, 1. Is this such an heresy, that a colony cast into America by the tyranny of popish prelates, have power to choose their own government? All Israel was heretical in this; for David could not be their king, though designed and anointed by God, (1 Sam. 16,) till the people (2 Sam. 5.) put forth in act this power, and made David king in Hebron. 2. Let the Prelate make a syllogism, it is but ex utraque affirmante in secunda figura, logic like the bellies of the court, in which men of their own way is disgraced and cast out of grace and court; because in this controversy of the king with his two parliaments, they are like Erasmus in God's matters, who said, Lutherum nec accuso, nec defendo. He is discourted, whoever he be, who is in shape like a puritan, and not fire and sword against religion and his country, and oath and covenant with God; and so it is this: The Jesuit teacheth that power of government is in the community originally. The puritan teacheth, that power of government is in the community originally; therefore, the puritan is a Jesuit. But so the puritan is a Jesuit, because he and the Jesuit teacheth that there is one God and three persons. And if the Prelate like this reasoning, we shall make himself and the prelates, and court-divines, Jesuits upon surer grounds.

1. Jesuits teach, (1.) The Pope is not the antichrist. (2.) Christ locally descended to hell to free some out of that prison. (3.) It was sin to separate from Babylonish Rome. (4.) We are justified by works. (5.) The merit of fasting is not to be condemned. (6.) The mass is no idolatry. (7.) The Church is the judge of controversies. (8.) All the Arminian points are safer to be believed, than the contrary; yea, and all the substantiatis of popery are true, and catholic doctrine to be preached and printed. 2. The prelates and court-divines, and this Prelate, conspireth in all these with the Jesuits, as is learnedly and invincibly proved in the treatise, called ἀυτοκατακρίσις, the Canterburian self-conviction; to which no man of the prelatical and Romish faction durst ever make answer for their hearts; and see then who are Jesuits. 3. This doctrine was taught by lawyers, protestants, yielded to by papists, before any Jesuit was whelped in rerum natura. Never learned man wrote of policy, till of late, but he held power of government, by the light of nature, must be radically and originally in a community. The P. Prelate saith, Jesuits are not the fathers of this opinion (c. 1, p. 12). How then can the liar say, that the puritan conspireth with the Jesuit? Suarez, the Jesuit, (de primat. sum. pontifi. l. 3, c. 2, n. 10,) Non est novum, aut a Cardinali Bellarmino inventum. The Jesuit Tannerus, will not have their family the mother of this opinion, (tom 2, disp. 5, de leg, q. 5, in 12, q. 95, 96; Dubi. 1, n. 7). Sine dubio communis omnium Theologorum et Jurisperitorum sententia, &c. The Jesuit Tolet, (in Rom. 13,) taketh it for a ground, that the civil powers are from God, by the natural mediation of men, and civil societies. 4. Jesuits teach that there is no lawful Christian society, truly politic, that hath a near and formal power to choose and ordain their own magistrates, but that which acknowledgeth subjection, and the due regulation of their creating of magistrates, to be due and proper to the Pope of Rome. We acknowledge nowise the bishop of Rome, for a lawful bishop and pastor at all. But this popish Prelate doth acknowledge him, for he hath these words, (c. 5, p. 58,) "It is high presumption in the Pope to challenge to himself the title or right of Christ's universal vicar on earth, by divine right. The Pope, the bishop of Rome, hath no more by divine right, (what he may have by positive ecclesiastical right is not pertinent for us now to examine and discuss,) no higher privilege, (except it be in extent,) than the meanest bishop of the world in his diocese." And amongst all proofs, he passing by Scriptures, which should prove, or improve a divine right, he will content himself with one proof of Cyprian, (de unitat. Eccles.,) and endeth with these words,—"Would God, both sides in this, and other controversies, would submit to the judgment of the holy fathers."

1. Hence the P. Prelate, in his fourth article, (the other two I shall touch anon,) maketh puritans grosser than Jesuits, in dethroning kings; because if the king be deficient, the people may resume their power, and govern for him, and so dethrone the king. But Bellarmine (l. 3, q. de laic.) holdeth the people cannot dethrone the king, but, in certis easibus, in some cases, that is, (as Suarez saith,) si Rex sua potestate in manifestam, (Civitatis ceu Regni,) perniciem abutatur. But I will demonstrate, that if papists hold that the Pope may dethrone kings, this Prelate is of their mind; for, 1. The words I cited make good that he is for the Pope's supremacy; (now it is a joint or part of his supremacy, to king and unking princes.) 2. They make good that he is a papist; for, 1. It is presumption in the Pope to challenge to himself that he is Christ's universal vicar on earth, by divine right. Why saith he not, by no right at all, but only he is not Christ's vicar by divine right; for it is evident, that papists make him Christ's vicar only by ecclesiastical right; for they profess succession of popes to this day cannot be proved but by tradition, not by Scripture.

2. The Pope's supremacy, by papists, is expressly reckoned amongst unwritten traditions, and so there is no necessity that the right of it be proved from Scripture.

3. The Prelate expressly saith, "He will not discuss the ecclesiastical right that the Pope hath to be Christ's vicar;" and by that he clearly insinuateth that he hath a right to be Christ's vicar, besides a scriptural and divine right; only, for offending papists, he will not discuss it.

4. He hath no higher privilege, saith he, than other bishops, except in extent, by divine right. Now other bishops, as officers, in nature different from presbyters, (for of such the P. Prelate must speak in his own dialect,) have their office by divine right; and this the Prelate's word must include, else he saith nonsense to the matter in hand. And, in extent, the Pope hath, by divine right, more than other bishops have. Now what is the Pope of Rome's extent? All know it is the whole catholic visible church on earth. If then, all bishops be particular ambassadors in Christ's stead, (2 Cor. 5:20,) and so legates and deputies of Christ, he who by divine right is a bishop in extent over the whole world, is as like one that calleth himself the universal vicar of Christ, as one egg is like another. The doctrine taught by this Prelate, so popish, and hints, yea, are more than evidences, of gross popery in this book, and his other pamphlet against presbyteries. And his desire that the controversy, concerning the Pope's supremacy and others, were determined with submission to the judgment of the fathers, do cry that he is but a rotten papist. For why will he submit all other controversies to the judgment of the fathers? Why not to the prophets and apostles? Can fathers decide controversies better than the Word of God? A reason cannot be dreamed of why the fathers should be judges, and not the Scriptures, except that the Scriptures are obscure. Their authority and light cannot determine and judge controversies, except in so far as they have authority from fathers and the church; and we know this to be proprium quarto modo, proper to Jesuits and papists, to cry, Fathers, fathers, in all controversies, though the fathers be more for us than for them, except two things:—1. What fathers speak for us, are corrupted by them. 2. What were but errors in fathers, when children add contumacy to error, becomes the heresies of the sons.

And it is most false that we join with Jesuits. 1. We teach no more against tyrants, in exercitio, than Grotius, Barclay, and Winzetus, in the matter of deposing kings; and in this, royalists conspire with Jesuits. 2. We deny that the Pope may loose subjects from the oath of fidelity when a king turneth heretical. 3. That people, at the Pope's commandment, are to dethrone kings for heresy; so do the prelates, and their fellows, the papists, teach; so Gregory VII, practised; so Aquinas taught, (22 q. 12. ar. 2.) Antonin, (sum. par. 3. t. 22, c. 3, sect. 7,) "Thou hast put all things under the Pope's feet," oves, id est, Christianos; boves. Juæos et hereticos; pecora, Paganos; so Navar. (l. 1, c. 13,) Pagans have no jurisdiction. Jaco. Symanca, (de Catho. Instit. tit. 45, n. 25,) "Catholica uxor heretico viro debitum reddere non tenetur." Item, Constat, hæreticum privatum esse omni dominio, naturali, civili, politico, naturali quod habet in filios, nam propter hæresin patris efficiuntur filii sui juris, civili, quod habet in servos, ab eo enim servi liberantur, politico, quod rerum domini habent in subditos, ita Bannes, (22. q. 12, art, 10.) Gregor. (de valent. 22. dis. 1, q, 12, p. 2, lod. Mol. to. 1, de just. et jur. tract. 2, dis. 29, v. 3.) Papists hold that generatio clerici est corruptio subditi, churchmen are not subjects under the king's law. It is a canonical privilege of the clergy, that they are not subject to the king's civil laws. Now this Prelate and his fellows made the king swear, at his coronation, to maintain all canonical privileges of the prelatical clergy, the very oath and words sworn by all the popish kings.

P. Prelate.—Power is given by the multitude to the king immediately, and by God mediately, not so much by collation, as by approbation, how the Jesuit and puritan walk all along in equal pace. See Bellarmine, I. 1. de liac. c. 6. Suarez cont. sect. Angl. I. 2. c. 3.

Ans.—It is a calumny that we teach that the power of the king is from God mediately, by mere approbation; indeed, a fellow of his, a papist, writing against the king's supremacy, Anthony Capell saith, Saul was made king, and others also, by God's permission, and Deo invito et irato, God being angry, that is not our doctrine; but with what real efficiency God hath made men and communities rational and social men with the same hath he made them by instinct of nature, by the mediation of reason, to create a king; and Bellarmine and Suarez say not God maketh kings by approbation only.

P. Prelate.—The people may change monarchy into aristocracy or democracy, or aristocracy into monarchy; for aught I know, they differ not in this neither.

Ans. 1.—The P. Prelate knoweth not all things—the two Jesuits, Bellarmine and Suarez are produced only, as if they were all Jesuits; and Suarez saith, (De prim. po. l. 3, n. 4,) "Donationem absotutam semel valide factam revocari non posse, neque in totum, neque ex parce, maxime quando onerosa fuit," If the people once give their power to the king, they cannot resume it without cause; and laying down the grounds of Suarez and other Jesuits, that our religion is heresy, they do soundly collect this consequence, "That no king can he lord of the consciences of their subjects, to compel them to an heretical religion." We teach that the king of Spain hath no power over the consciences of protestant subjects to force them to idolatry, and that their souls are not his subjects, but only their persons, and in the Lord. 2. It is no great crime, that if a king degenerate in a tyranny, or if the royal line fail, that we think the people have liberty to change monarchy into aristocracy, aut contra. Jesuits deny that the people can make this change without the Pope's consent. We judge neither the great bishop, the Pope, nor the little popes, ought to have hand in making kings.

P. Prelate.—They say the power is derived to the king from the people, comulative or communicative, non privative, by way of communication, not by way of privation, so as the people denude not themselves of this sovereignty. As the king maketh a lieutenant in Ireland, not to denude himself of his royal power, but to put him in trust for his service. If this be their mind, the king is in a poor case. The principal authority is in the delegate, and so the people is still judge, and the king their deputy.

Ans.—The P. Prelate taketh on him to write, he knoweth not what, this is not our opinion. The king is king, and hath the people's power, not as their deputy.

1. Because the people is not principal judge, and the king subordinate. The king, in the executive power of laws, is really a sovereign above the people; a deputy is not so.

2. The people have irrevocably made over to the king their power of governing, defending, and protecting themselves, I except the power of sell-preservation, which people can no more make away, it being sinless nature's birthright, than the liberty of eating, drinking, sleeping; and this the people cannot resume, except in case of the king's tyranny; there is no power by the king so irrevocably resigned to his servant or deputy, but he may use it himself.

3. A delegate is accountable for all he doth to those that put him in trust, whether he do ill or well. The king, in acts of justice, is not accountable to any; for if his acts be not liable to high suspicions of tyranny, no man may say to him, What dost thou? only in acts of injustice; and those so tyrannous, that they be inconsistent with the habitual fiduciary repose and trust put on him, he is to render accounts to the parliament, which representeth the people.

4. A delegate in esse, in fieri, both that he may be a delegate, and that he may continue a delegate, whether he do ill or well, dependeth on his pleasure who delegateth him; but though a King depend in fieri, in regard of his call to the crown, upon the suffrages of his people, yet that he may be continued king, he dependeth not on the people simply, but only in case of tyrannical administration, and in this sense Suarez and Bellarmine spake with no more honesty than we do, but with more than prelates do, for they profess any emissary of hell may stab a protestant king. We know the prelates profess the contrary, but their judgment is the same with Jesuits in all points; and since they will have the Pope Christ's vicar, by such a divine right as they themselves are bishops, and have the king under oath to maintain the clergy, bishops, and all their canonical privileges, (amongst which the bishops of Rome's indirect power in ordine ad spiritualia, and to dethrone kings who turn heretics, is one principal right,) I see not how prelates are not as deep in treason against kings as the Pope himself, and therefore, P. Prelate, take the beam out of your own eye.

The P. Prelate taketh unlearned pains to prove that Gerson, Occam, Jac. de Almaine, and the Parisian doctors, maintained these same grounds anent the people's power over kings in the case of tyranny, and that before Luther and Calvin were in the world; and this is to give himself the lie, that Luther, Calvin, and we, have not this doctrine from Jesuits; and what is Calvin's mind is evident, (Instit. l. 4, c. 4,) all that the estates may coerce, and reduce in order a tyrant, else they are deficient in their trust that God hath given them over the commonwealth and church; and this is the doctrine for which royalists cry out against Knox of blessed memory, Buchanan, Junius Brutus, Bouchier, Rossæus, and Althusius, Luther, in scripto ad pastorem, (tom. 7, German, fol. 386,) bringeth two examples for resistance; the people resisted Saul, when he was willing to kill Jonathan his son, and Ahikam and other princes rescued Jeremiah out of the hands of the king of Judah; and Gerardus citeth many divines who second Luther in this, as Bugenliagius, Justus Jonas, Nicholas Ambsderffius, George Spalatinus, Justus Menius, Christopher Hofmanus. It is known what is the mind of protestant divines, as Beza, Parous, Melancthon, Bucanus, Polanus, Chamer, and all the divines of France, of Germany, and of Holland. No wonder than prelates were upon the plot of betraying the city of Rochelle, and of the protestant church there, when they then will have the protestants of France, for their defensive wars, to be rebels, and siders with Jesuits, when, in these wars, Jesuits sought their blood and ruin.

The P. Prelate having shown his mind concerning the deposing of Childerick by the Pope, (of which I say nothing, but the Pope was an antichristian usurper, and the poor man never fit to bear a crown,) he goeth on to set down an opinion of some mute authors; he might devise a thousand opinions that way, to make men believe he had been in a world of learned men's secrets, and that never man saw the bottom of the controversy, while he, seeing the escapes of many pens, (as supercilious Bubo praiseth,) was forced to appear a star new risen in the firmament of pursuivants, and reveal all dreams, and teach all the new statists, the Gamaliels, Buchanan, Junius Brutus, and a world who were all sleeping, while this Lucifer, the son of the night, did appear, this new way of laws, divinity, and casuists' theology.

P. Prelate.—They hold sovereign power is primarily and naturally in the multitude, from it derived to the king, immediately from God. The reason of which order is, because we cannot reap the fruits of government unless by compact we submit to some possible and accidental inconveniences.

Ans. 1.—Who saith so the P. Prelate cannot name,—That sovereign power is primarily and naturally in the multitude. Virtually (it may be) sovereignty is in the multitude, but primarily and naturally, as heat is in the fire, light in the sun, I think the P. Prelate dreamed it; no man said it but himself; for what attribute is naturally in a subject, I conceive may directly and naturally be predicated thereof. Now the P. Prelate hath taught us this very natural predication. "Our dreadful and sovereign lord, the multitude, commandeth this and that."

2. This is no more reason for a monarchy than for a democracy, for we can reap the fruits of no government except we submit to it.

3. We must submit in monarchy (saith he) to some possible and accidental inconveniences. Here be soft words, but is subversion of religion, laws, and liberties of church and state. Introducing of popery, Arminianism, of idolatry, altar-worship, the mass, (proved by a learned treatise, "the Canterburian self-conviction," printed 1641, third ed., never answered, couched under the name of inconveniency,) the pardoning of the innocent blood of hundreds of thousand protestants in Ireland, the killing of many thousand nobles, barons, commons, by the hands of papists in arms against the law of the land, the making of England a field of blood, the obtruding of an idolatrous service-book, with armies of men, by sea and land, to block up the kingdom of Scotland, are all these inconveniences only?

4. Are they only possible and accidental? But make a monarch absolute, as the P. Prelate doth, and tyranny is as necessary and as much intended by a sinful man, inclined to make a god of himself, as it is natural to men to sin, when they are tempted, and to be drunken and giddy with honour and greatness. Witness the kings of Israel and Judah, though de jure they were not absolute. Is it accidental to Nero, Julian, to the ten horns that grew out of the woman's head, who sat upon the scarlet coloured beast, to make war against the Lamb and his followers, especially the spirit of Satan being in them?

P. Prelate.—They infer, 1. They cannot, without violation of a divine ordinance and breach of faith, resume the authority they have placed in the king. 2. It were high sin to rob authority of its essentials. 3. This ordinance is not ἀλογος but ἐυδοκια and hath urgent reasons.

Ans. 1.—These nameless authors cannot infer that an oath is broken which is made conditionally; all authority given by the people to the king is conditional, that he use it for the safety of the people; if it be used for their destruction, they break no faith to resume it, for they never made faith to give up their power to the king upon such terms, and so they cannot be said to resume what they never gave.

2. So the P. Prelate maketh power to act all the former mischiefs, the essentials of a king. Balaam is not worthy his wages for prophesying thus, that the king's essentials is a power of blood, and destructive to people, law, religion, and liberties of church and state, for otherwise we teach not, that people may resume from the king authority and power to disarm papists, to root out the bloody Irish, and in justice serve them as they have served us.

3. This ordinance of the people, giving lawful power to a king for the governing of the people in peace and godliness, is God's good pleasure, and hath just reasons and causes. But that the people make over a power to one man, to act all the inconveniences above named, I mean the bloody and destructive inconveniences, hath nothing of God or reason in it.

P. Prelate.—The reasons of this opinion are:—1. If power sovereign were not in one, he could not have strength enough to act all necessary parts and acts of government. 2. Nor to prevent divisions which attend multitudes, or many endowed with equal power; and the authors say, they must part with their native right entirely for a greater good, and to prevent greater evils. 3. To I resume any part of this power, of which the people have totally divested themselves, or to limit it, is to disable sovereignty from government, loose the sinews of all society, &c.

Ans. 1.—I know none for this opinion, but the P. Prelate himself. The first reason may be made rhyme, but never reason: for though there be not absolute power to good and ill, there may be strength of limited power in abundance in the king, and sufficient for all acts of just government, and the adequate end of government, which is, salus populi, the safety of the people. But the royalist will have strength to be a tyrant, and act all the tyrannical and bloody inconveniences of which we spake, an essential part of the power of a king; as if weakness were essential to strength, and a king could not be powerful as a king, to do good, and save and protect, except he had power also as a tyrant to do evil, and to destroy and waste his people. This power is weakness, and no part of the image of the greatness of the King of kings, whom a king represented.

2. The second reason condemneth democracy and aristocracy as unlawful, and maketh monarchy the only physic to cure these; as if there were no government an ordinance of God save only absolute monarchy, which indeed is no ordinance of God at all, but contrary to the nature of a lawful king. (Deut. 17:3.)

3. That people must part with their native right totally to make an absolute monarch, is as if the whole members of the body would part with their whole nutritive power, to cause the milt to swell, which would be the destruction of the body.

4. The people cannot divest themselves of power of defensive wars more than they can part with nature, and put themselves in a condition inferior to a slave, who, if his master, who hath power to sell him, invade him unjustly, to take away his life, may oppose violence to unjust violence. And the other consequences are null.

QUESTION XLII

WHETHER ALL CHRISTIAN KINGS ARE DEPENDENT FROM CHRIST, AND MAY BE CALLED HIS VICEGERENTS

The P. Prelate taketh on him to prove the truth of this; but the question is not pertinent, it belongeth to another head, to the king's power in church matters. I therefore only examine what he saith, and follow him.

P. Prelate.—Sectaries have found a query of late, that kings are God's, not Christ's lieutenants on earth. Romanists and puritans erect two sovereigns in every state,—the Jesuit in the Pope, the puritan in the presbytery.

Ans. 1.—We give a reason why God hath a lieutenant, as God; because kings are gods, bearing the sword of vengeance against seditious and bloody prelates, and other ill doers. But Christ, God-man, the Mediator and head of the body—the church, hath neither pope nor king to be head under him. The sword is communicable to men; but the headship of Christ is communicable to no king, nor to any created shoulders. 2. The Jesuit maketh the Pope a king; and so this P. Prelate maketh him, in extent, the bishop of bishops, and so king, as I have proved. But we place no sovereignty in presbyteries, but a mere ministerial power of servants, who do not take on them to make laws and religious ceremonies, as prelates do, who indeed make themselves kings and lawgivers in God's house.

P. Prelate.—We speak of Christ as head of the church. Some think that Christ was king by his resurrection, jure acquisito, by a new title, right of merit. I think he was a king from his conception.

Ans.—1. You declare hereby, that the king is a ministerial head of the church, under the head Christ. All our divines, disputing against the Pope's headship, say, No mortal man hath shoulders for so glorious a head. You give the king such shoulders. But why are not the kings, even Nero, Julian, Nebuchadnezzar, and Belshazzar, vicegerents of Christ, as mediator, as priest, as redeemer, as prophet, as advocate, presenting our prayers to God his father? What action, I pray you, have Christian kings, by office, under Christ, in dying and rising from the dead for us, in sending down the Holy Ghost, preparing mansions for us? Now, it is as proper and incommunicably reciprocal with the mediator to be the only head of the body, the church, (Col. 1:18,) as to be the only redeemer and advocate of his church.

2. That Christ was king from his conception, as man born of the Virgin Mary, suiteth well with papists, who will have Christ, as man, the visible head of the church; that so as Christ-man is now in heaven, he may have a visible pope to be head in all ecclesiastical matters. And that is the reason why this P. Prelate maketh him head of the church by an ecclesiastical right, as we heard; and so he followeth Becanus the Jesuit in this, and others of his fellows.

P. Prelate.—1. Proof. If kings reign by בי per, in and through Christ, as the wisdom of God and the mediator, then are kings the vicegerents of Christ as mediator; but the former is said, Prov. 8:15, 16; so Dr Andrews, of blessed memory.

Ans. 1.—I deny the major. All believers living the life of God, engrafted in Christ as branches in the tree, (John 15:1, 2,) should, by the same reason, be vicegerents of the Mediator; so should the angels to whom Christ is a head, (Col. 2:10,) be his vicegerents; and all the judges and constables on earth should be under-mediators, for they live and act in Christ; yea, all the creatures, in the Mediator, are made new, (Rev. 21:5; Rom. 8:20–22.) 2. Dr Andrew's name is a curse on the earth, his writings prove him to be a popish apostate.

P. Prelate.—2. Christ is not only king of his church, but in order to his church, King over the kings and kingdoms of the earth. (Psal. 2:5, 8.) 3. Matt. 21:18, "To him is given all power in heaven and earth;" therefore, all sovereignty over kings.

Ans. 1.—If all these be Christ's vicegerents, over whom he hath obtained power, then, because the Father hath given him power over all flesh, to give them life eternal, (John 17:1, 2,) then are all believers his vicegerents, yea, and all the damned men and devils, and death and hell, are his vicegerents; for Christ, as mediator, hath all power given to him as king of the church, and so power kingly over all his enemies, "to reign until he make them his footstool," (Psal. 110:1, 2,) "to break them with a rod of iron." (Psal. 2:9; 1 Cor. 15:24–27; Rev. 1:18, 20; 5:10–14.) And, by that same reason, the P. Prelate's fourth and fifth arguments fall to the ground, He is heir of all things; therefore, all things are his vicegerents. What more vain? He is Prince of the kings of the earth, and King of Ogs, of kings, of his enemies; therefore, sea and land are his vicegerents.

P. Prelate (p. 58).—Kings are nurse-fathers of the church, therefore they hold their crowns of Christ. Divines say, that by men in sacred orders Christ doth rule his church mediately in those things which primely concern salvation, and that by kings' sceptres and power he doth protect his church, and what concerneth external pomp, order, and decency. Then, in this latter sense, kings are no less the immediate vicegerents of Christ than bishops, priests, and deacons, in the former.

Ans. 1.—Because kings hold their crowns of Christ as mediator and redeemer, it followeth, by as good consequence, kings are sub-mediators, and under-priests, and redeemers, as vicegerents. Christ, as king, hath no visible royal vicegerents under him.

2. Men in holy orders, sprinkled with one of the papists' five blessed sacraments, such as antichristian prelates, unwashed priests to offer sacrifices, and popish deacons, are no more admitted by Christ to enter into his sanctuary as governors, than the leper into the camp of old, and the Moabite and Ammonite Were to enter into the congregation of the Lord (Deut. 23:3); therefore, we have excommunicated this P. Prelate and such Moabites out of the Lord's house. What be the things that do not primely concern salvation, the P. Prelate knoweth, to wit, images in the church, altar worship, antichristian ceremonies, which primely concern damnation.

3. I understand not what the P. Prelate meaneth, That the king preserveth external government in order and decency. In Scotland, in our parliament, 1633, he prescribed the surplice, and he commanded the service-book, and the mass-worship. The Prelate degradeth the king here, to make him only keep or preserve the prelates' mass-clothes; they intended, indeed, to make the king but the Pope's servant, for all they say and do for him now.

4. If the king be vicegerent of Christ in prescribing laws for the external ordering of the worship, and all their decent symbolical ceremonies, what more doth the Pope and the prelate in that kind? He may, with as good warrant, preach and administer the sacraments.

P. Prelate.—Kings have the sign of the cross on their crowns.

Ans.—Therefore, baculus est in angulo, prelates have put a cross in the king's heart, and crossed crown and throne too. Some knights, some ships, some cities and boroughs do carry a cross; are they made Christ's vicegerents of late? By what antiquity doth the cross signify Christ? Of old it was a badge of Christians, no religious ceremony. And is this all; the king is the vicegerent of Christians. The prelates, we know, adore the cross with religious worship; so must they adore the crown.

P. Prelate.—Grant that the Pope were the vicar of Christ in spiritual things, it followeth not—therefore, kings' crowns are subject to the Pope; for papists teach that all power that was in Christ, as man, as power to work miracles, to institute sacraments, was not transmitted to Peter and his successors.

Ans.—This is a base consequence; make the Pope head of the church, the king, if he be a mixed person, that is, half a churchman and Christ's vicegerent, both he and prelates must be members of the head. Papists teach that all in Christ, as man, cannot be transmitted to Peter; but a ministerial catholic headship (say Bucanus and his fellows) was transmitted from Christ, as man and visible head, to Peter and the Pope.

P. Prelate.—I wish the Pope, who claimeth so near alliance with Christ, would learn of him to be meek and humble in heart, so should he find rest to his own soul, to church and state.

Ans. 1.—The same wag the wish of Gerson, Occam, the doctors of Paris, the fathers of the councils of Constance and Basil, yet all make him head of the church.

2. The excommunicate Prelate is turned chaplain to preach to the Pope; the soulrest that protestants wish to the Pope is, "That the Lord would destroy him by the Spirit of his mouth." (2 Thes. 2:8,) But to popish prelates this wish is a reformation of accidents, with the safety of the subject, the Pope, and is as good as a wish, that the devil, remaining a devil, may find rest for his soul: all we are to pray for as having place in the church, are supposed members of the church. The Prelate would not pray so for the presbytery by which he was ordained a pastor, (1 Tim. 4:14,) though he be now an apostate; it is gratitude to pray for his lucky father, the Pope. Whatever the Prelate wish, we pray for and believe that desolation shall be his soul-rest, and that the vengeance of the Lord and of his temple shall fall upon him and the prelates, his sons.

P. Prelate.—That which they purpose, by denying kings to be Christ's vicegerents, is to set up a sovereignty ecclesiastical in presbyteries, to constrain kings, repeal his laws, correct his statutes, reverse his judgments, to cite, convent, and censure kings; and, if there be not power to execute what presbyteries decree, they may call and command the help of the people, in whom is the underived majesty, and promise, and swear, and covenant to defend their fancies against all mortal men, with their goods, lands, fortunes, to admit no derisive motion; and this sovereign association maketh every private man an armed magistrate.

Ans.—You see the excommunicate apostate strives against the presbytery of a reformed church, from which he had his baptism, faith, and ministry.

1. We deny the king to be the head of the church.

2. We assert, that in the pastors, doctors, and elders of the church, there is a ministerial power, as servants under Christ, in his authority and name to rebuke and censure kings; that there is revenge in the gospel against all disobedience (2 Cor. 2:6; 10:6);—the rod of God (1 Cor. 4:21); the rod of Christ's lips (Isa. 11:4); the sceptre and sword of Christ (Rev. 1:16; 19:15); the keys of his kingom, to bind and loose, open and shut (Matt. 18:17, 18; 16:19; 1 Cor. 5:1–3; 2 Thess. 3:14, 15; 1 Tim. 1:19; 5:22; 5:17); and that this power is committed to the officers of Christ's house, call them as you will.

3. For reversing of laws made for the establishing of popery, we think the church of Christ did well to declare all these unjust, grievous decrees, and that woe is due to the judges, even the queen, if they should not repent. (Isa. 10:1.) And this Prelate must show his teeth in this against our reformation in Scotland, which he once commended in pulpit as a glorious work of God's right arm; and the Assembly of Glasgow, 1638, declared, That bishops, though established by acts of parliament, procured by prelates only, commissioners and agents for the church, who betrayed their trust, were unlawful; and did supplicate that the ensuing parliament would annul these wicked acts. They think God privilegeth neither king nor others from church-censures. The popish prelates imprisoned and silenced the ministers of Christ, who preached against the public sins, the blood, oppressions, injustice, open swearing, and blasphemy of the holy name of God, the countenancing of idolaters, &c., in king and court.

4. They never sought the help of the people against the most unjust standing law of authority.

5. They did never swear and covenant to defend their own fancies; for the confession and covenant of the protestant religion, translated in Latin to all the protestants in Europe and America, being termed a fancy, is a clear evidence that this P. Prelate was justly excommunicated for popery.

6. This covenant was sworn by king James and his house, by the whole land, by the prelates themselves; and to this fancy this P. Prelate, by the law of our land, was obliged to swear when he received degrees in the university.

7. There is reason our covenant should provide against divisive motions. The prelates moved the king to command all the land to swear our covenant, in the prelatical sense, against the intent thereof, and only to divide and so command. Judge what religion prelates are of, who will have the name of God profaned by a whole nation, by swearing fancies.

8. Of making private men magistrates in defending themselves against cut-throats, enough already. Let the P. Prelate answer if he can.

P. Prelate.—Let no man imagine me to privilege a king from the direction and just power of the church, or that, like Uzziah, he should intrude upon sacred actions, ex vi ordinis, in foro interno conscientiæ, to preach or administrate sacraments, &c.

Ans.—Uzziah did not burn incense, ex vi ordinis, as if he had been a priest, but because he was a king and God's anointed. Prelates sit not in council and parliament, ex vi ordinis, as temporal lords. The pope is no temporal monarch, ex vi ordinis, yet all are intruders. So the P. Prelate will license kings to administer sacraments, so they do it not ex vi ordinis.

P. Prelate.—Men in sacred orders, in things intrinsically spiritual, have immediately a directive and authoritative power, in order, to all whatsoever, although ministerial only as related to Christ; but that giveth them no coercive civil power over the prince, per se, or per accidens, directly or indirectly, that either the one way or the other, any or many in sacred order, pope or presbytery, can cite and censure kings, associate, covenant or swear to resist him, and force him to submit to the sceptre of Christ. This power over man God Almighty useth not, much less hath he given it to man. (Psal. 110) His people are a willing people. Suadenda non cogenda religio.

Ans. 1.—Pastors have a ministerial power (saith he) in spiritual things, but in order to Christ; therefore, in order to others it is not ministerial, but lordly. So here a lordly power pastors have over kings, by the P. Prelate's way. We teach it is ministerial in relation to all, because ministers can make no laws as kings can do, but only, as heralds, declare Christ's laws.

2. None of us give any coercive civil power to the church over either kings or any other—it is ecclesiastical; a power to rebuke and censure was never civil.

3. A religious covenant to swear to resist, that is, to defend ourselves, is one thing, and a lawful oath, as is clear in those of Israel that did swear Asa's covenant, without the authority of their own king, (2 Chron. 15:9–12,) and to swear to force the king to submit to Christ's sceptre, is another thing. The presbytery never did swear or covenant any such thing; nor do we take sacrament upon it, to force the king. Prelates have made the king swear, and take his sacrament upon it, that he shall root out puritans, that is, protestants, whereas, he did swear at his coronation to root out heretics, that is, (if prelates were not traitorous in administering the oath,) Arminians and papists, such as this P. Prelate is known to be; but I hold that the estates of Scotland have power to punish the king, if he labour to subvert religion and laws.

4. If this argument, that religion is to be persuaded, not forced, which the P. Prelate useth, be good, it will make much against the king; for the king, then, can force no man to the external profession and use of the ordinances of God, and not only kings, but all the people should be willing.

P. Prelate.—Though the king may not preach, &c. yet the exercise of these things freely within his kingdom, what concerneth the decent and orderly doing of all, and the external man, in the external government of the church, in appointing things arbitrary and indifferent, and what else is of this strain, are so due to the prerogative of the crown, as that the priests, without highest rebellion, may not usurp upon him; a king in the state and church is a mixed person, not simply civil, but sacred too. They are not only professors of truth, that they have in the capacity of Christians, but they are defenders of the faith as kings; they are not sons only, but nurse-fathers; they serve God, as Augustine saith, as men, and as kings also.

Ans. 1.—If ye give the king power of the exercises of word and sacraments in his kingdom, this is deprivation of ministers in his kingdom, (for he sure cannot hinder them in another kingdom,) you may make him to give a ministerial calling, if he may take it away. By what word of God can the king close the mouth of the man of God, whom Christ hath commanded to speak in his name? 2. If the king may externally govern the church, why may he not excommunicate; for this is one of the special acts of church government, especially seeing he is a mixed person, that is, half a churchman, and if he may prescribe arbitrary-teaching ceremonies, and instruct men in the duties of holiness required of pastors, I see not but he may teach the Word. 3. Dr Ferne, and other royalists, deny arbitrary government to the king in the state, and with reason, because it is tyranny over the people; but prelates are not ashamed of commanding a thing arbitrary and indifferent in God's worship; shall not arbitrary government in the church be tyranny over the conscience? But, say they, "Churchmen teacheth the king what is decent and orderly in God's worship, and he commandeth it."

Ans.—1. Solomon by no teaching of churchmen deposed Abiathar; David by no teaching of churchmen appointed the form of the temple. 2. Hath God given a prerogative royal to kings, whereby they may govern the church, and as kings, they shall not know how to use it, but in so far as they are taught by churchmen? 3. Certainly, we shall once be informed by God's word, what is this prerogative, if according to it, all the external worship of God may be ordered. Lawyers and royalists teach, that it is an absoluteness of power to do above or against a law, as they say from 1 Sam. 8:9–11, and whereby the king may oppress, and no man may say, What dost thou? Now, good P. Prelate, if, by a plenitude of tyranny, the king prescribe what he will in the external worship and government of God's house, who can rebuke the king though he command all the antichristian ceremonies of Rome, and of Turkey, yea, and the sacrificing of children to Molech? (for absoluteness royal will amount to shedding of innocent blood,) for, if any oppose the king, or say, Sir, what do you? he opposeth the prerogative royal, and that is highest rebellion, saith our P. Prelate. 4. I see not how the king is a mixed person, because he is defender of the faith, as the Pope named the king of England, Henry VIII.; he defendeth it by his sword, as he is a nurse-father, not by the sword that cometh out of his mouth. 5. I would know how Julian, Nebuchadnezzar, Og, and Sihon, were mixed persons, and did all in the external government of the church, and that by their office, as they were kings. 6. All the instances that Augustine bringeth to prove that the king is a mixed person, proveth nothing but civil acts in kings; as Hezekiah cast down the high places, the king of Nineveh compelled to obey the prophet Jonah, Darius cast Daniel's enemies to the lions.

P. Prelate.—If you make two sovereigns and two independents, there is no more peace in the state, than in Rebecca's womb, while Jacob and Esau strove for the prerogative.

Ans. 1.—What need Israel strive, when Moses and Aaron are two independents? If Aaron make a golden calf, may not Moses punish him? It Moses turn an Ahab, and sell himself to do wickedly, ought not eighty valiant priests and Aarons both rebuke, censure, and resist?

2. The P. Prelate said, (p. 65,) "Let no man imagine we privilege the king from the direction and power of the church, so he be no intruding Uzziah." I ask, P. Prelate, what is this church power? Is it not supreme in its kind of church power? or is it subordinate to the king? If it be supreme, see how P. Prelate maketh two supremes, and two sovereigns. If it be subordinate to the king, as he is a mixed person, the king is privileged from this power, and he may intrude as Uzziah; and by his prerogative, as a mixed person, he may say mass, and offer a sacrifice, if there be no power above his prerogative to curb him. If there be none, the P. Prelate's imagination is real; the king is privileged from all church power. Let the P. Prelate see to it. I see no inconvenience for reciprocations of subjections in two supremes; and that they may mutually censure and judge one another.

Obj.—Not in the same cause, that is impossible. If the king say mass, shall the church judge and censure the king for intrusion? and because the king is also sovereign and supreme in his kind, he may judge and punish the church for their act of judging and censuring the king; it being an intrusion on his prerogative, that any should judge the highest judge.

Ans.—The one is not subject to the other, but in the case of mat-administration; the innocent, as innocent, is subject to no higher punishing; he may be subject to a higher, as accusing, citing, &c. Now, the royalist must give instance in the same cause, where the church faileth against the king and his civil law; and the king, in the same cause, faileth against the church canon; and then it shall be easy to answer.

P. Prelate.—Religion is the bottom of all happiness, if you make the king only to execute what a presbytery commandeth, he is in a hard case, and you take from him the chiefest in government. Ecclesiastical power hath the soul in subjection; the civil sovereignty holdeth a dead dominion over the body. Then the Pope and presbytery shall be in a better condition than the king. Cic. in ver. omnes religione moventur: superstition is furious, and maddeneth people, that they spare neither crown nor mitre.

Ans.—Cold and dry is the P. Prelate when he spendeth four pages in declamation for the excellency of religon: the madness of superstition is nothing to the purpose.

1. The king hath a chief hand in church affairs, when he is a nurse-father, and beareth the royal sword to defend both the tables of the law, though he do not spin and weave surplices, and other base mass-clothes to prelates, and such priests of Baal: they dishonour his majesty, who bring his prerogative so low.

2. The king doth not execute with blind obedience, with us, what the Pope commandeth, and the prelates, but with light of knowledge what synods discern; and he is no more made the servant of the church by this, than the king of Judah and Nebuchadnezzar are servants to Jeremiah and Daniel, because they are to obey the word of the Lord in their mouth. Let them show a reason of this, why they are servants in executing God's will in discipline, and in punishing what the Holy Ghost, by his apostles and elders, decree, when any contemn the decree concerning the abstinence from blood, things strangled, &c. (Acts 15,) rather than when they punish murder, idolatry, blasphemy, which are condemned in the Word, preached by pastors of Christ; and farther, this objection would have some more colour, (in reality it hath not,) if kings were only to execute what the church ministerially, in Christ's name, commandeth to be done in synods; but kings may, and do command synods to convene, and do their duty, and command many duties, never synodically decreed; as they are to cast out of their court apostate prelates, sleeping many years in the devil's arms, and are to command trencher-divines, neglecting their flock, and lying at court attending the falling of a dead bishop, as ravens do an old dying horse, to go and attend the flock, and not the court, as this P. Prelate did.

3. A king hath greater outward glory, and may do much more service to Christ, in respect of extension, and is more excellent than the pastor, who yet, in regard of intention, is busied about nobler things, to wit, the soul, the gospel, and eternity, than the king.

4. Superstition maddeneth men; but it followeth not that true religion may not set them on work to defend soul and body against tyranny of the crown, and antichristian mitres.

P. Prelate.—The kingdom had peace and plenty in the prelates' time.

Ans.—1. A belly-argument. We had plenty, when we sacrificed to the queen of heaven. If the traveller contend to have his purse again, shall the robber say, Robbery was blessed with peace? The rest, to the end, are lies, and answered already. Only his invectives against ruling elders, falsely called lay-elders, are not to purpose. Parliament-priests, and lay and court-pastors, are lay-prophets.

2. That presbyteries meddle with civil business, is a slander. They meddle with public scandals that offendeth in Christ's kingdom. But the prelates, by office, were more in two elements, in church and state, than any frogs, even in the king's leaven-tubs, ordinarily.

3. Something he saith of popes usurping over kings, but only of one of his fathers, a great unclean spirit, Gregory the Great. But if he had refuted him by God's word, he should have thrown stones at his own tribe; for prelates, like him, do ex officio trample upon the neck of kings.

4. His testimonies of one council and one father for all antiquity proveth nothing. Athanasius said, "God hath given David's throne to kings." What, to be head of the church? No; to be minister of God, without ἐξω to tutor the church. And, because "Kings reign by Christ," as the council of Armin saith; therefore, it may follow, a bailie is also head of the church. It is taken from Prov. 8, and answered.

5. That presbyteries have usurped over kings more than popes, since Hildebrand, is a lie. All stories are full of the usurpation of prelates, his own tribe. The Pope is but a swelled fat prelate; and what he saith of popes, he saith of his own house.

6. The ministers of Christ in Scotland had never a contest with king James but for his sins, and his conniving with papists, and his introducing bishops, the ushers of the Pope.

QUESTION XLIII

WHETHER THE KING OF SCOTLAND BE AN ABSOLUTE PRINCE, HAVING PREROGATIVES ABOVE PARLIAMENT AND LAWS: THE NEGATIVE IS ASSERTED BY THE LAWS OF SCOTLAND, THE KING'S OATH OF CORONATION, THE CONFESSION OF FAITH, &c.

The negative part of this I hold in these assertions.

Assert. 1.—The kings of Scotland have not any prerogative distinct from supremacy above the laws. If the people must be governed by no laws but by the king's own laws, that is, the laws and statutes of the realm, acted in parliament under pain of disobedience, then must the king govern by no other laws, and so by no prerogative above law. But the former is an evident truth by our acts of parliament; therefore, so is the latter. The proposition is confirmed, 1. Because whatever law enjoineth passive obedience no way but by laws, that must enjoin also the king actively to command no other way but by law; for to be governed by law essentially includeth to be governed by the supreme governor only by law. 2. An act of regal governing is an act of law, and essentially an act of law; an act of absolute prerogative is no act of law, but an act above law, or of pleasure loosed from law; and so they are opposed as acts of Law, and non-acts of law. If the subjects, by command of the king and parliament, cannot be governed but by law, how can the king but be under his own and the parliament's law, to govern only by law? I prove the assumption from Parl. 3, of king James I, act 48, which ordains "That all and sundry the king's lieges be governed under the king's laws and statutes of the realm allenarly, and under no particular laws or special privileges, nor by any laws of other countries or realms." Privileges do exclude laws. Absolute pleasure of the king as a man, and the law of the king as king, are opposed by way of contradiction; and so in Parl. VI, James IV. act 79, ratified Parl. 8, James VI. act 131.

2. The king, at his coronation, (Parl. 1, James VI. act 8,) sweareth "to maintain the true kirk of God, and religion now presently professed, in purity, and to rule the people according to the laws and constitutions received in the realm, causing justice and equity to be ministered without partiality." This did king Charles swear at his coronation, and was ratified, Parl. 7, James VI. act 99. Hence he who, by the oath of God, is limited to govern by law, can have no prerogative above the law. If, then, the king change the religion and confession of faith, authorised by many parliaments, (especially by Parl. 1, Charles, 1633,) he goeth against his oath. The king's royal prerogative, or rather supremacy, (enacted Parl. 8, James VI. act 129; Parl. 18, act 1; Parl. 21, act 1, James; and Parl. 1, Charles, act 3,) cannot be contrary to the oath that king Charles did swear at his coronation, which bringeth down the prerogative to governing according to the standing laws of the realm." It cannot be contrary to these former parliaments and acts, declaring that "the lieges are to be governed by the laws of the realm, and by no particular laws and special privileges;" (but absolute prerogative is a special privilege above, or without law;) which acts stand unrepealed to this day; and these acts of parliaments stand ratified by Parl. 1, Charles, 1633.

3. Parl. 8, James VI. in the first three acts thereof, the king's supremacy, and the power and authority of parliaments are equally ratified under the same pain:—"Their jurisdictions, power, and judgments in spiritual or temporal causes, not ratified by his Majesty, and the three estates convened in parliament, are discharged." But the absolute prerogative of the king above law, equity, and justice, was never ratified in any parliament of Scotland to this day.

4. By Parl. 12, James VI. act 114, all former acts in favour of the true church and religion being ratified, their power of making constitutions concerning τὸ πρέπον, order and decency, the privileges that God hath given to spiritual office-bearers, as well of doctrine and dicipline, in matters of heresy, excommunication, collation, deprivation, and such like, warranted by the word of God, and also to assemblies and presbyteries, are ratified. Now in that parliament, in acts so contiguous, we are not to think that the king and three estates would make acts for establishing the church's power in all the former heads of government, in which royalists say, "the soul of the king's absolute prerogative doth consist;" and therefore it must be the true intent of our parliament to give the king a supremacy and a prerogative royal, (which we also give,) but without any absoluteness of boundless and transcendent power above law, and not to obtrude a service-book, and all the superstitious rites of the church of Rome, without God's word, upon us.

5. The former act of parliament ratifieth the true religion, according to the word of God, then could it never have been the intent of our parliament to ratify an absolute supremacy, according to which a king might govern his people, as a tyrannous lion, contrary to Deut. 17:18–20: And it is true, Parl. 18, James VI. acts 1 and 2, upon personal qualifications, giveth a royal prerogative to king James over all causes, persons, and estates within his Majesty's dominion, whom they humbly acknowledge to be "sovereign monarch, absolute prince, judge and governor over all estates, persons, and causes."

These two acts, for my part I acknowledge, are spoken rather in court expressions than in law terms.

1. Because personal virtues cannot advance a limited prince (such as the kings of Scotland, post hominum memoriam, ever were) to be an absolute prince. Personal graces make not David absolutely supreme judge over all persons and causes; nor can king James, advanced to be king of England, be for that made more king of Scotland, and more supreme judge, than he was while he was only king of Scotland. A wicked prince is as essentially supreme judge as a godly king.

2. If this parliamentary figure of speech, which is to be imputed to the times, exalted king James to be absolute in Scotland, for his personal endowments, there was no ground to put the same on king Charles. Personal virtues are not always hereditary, though to me the present king be the best.

3. There is not any absoluteness above law in act 1,—the parliament must be more absolute in themselves. King James VI. had been divers years, before this 18th parliament, king of Scotland; then, if they gave him by law an absoluteness, which he had not before, then they were more absolute. Those who can add absoluteness must have it in themselves, Nemo dat quod non habet. If it be said king James had that before the act; the parliament legally declared it to be his power, which, before the declaration, was his power, I answer, all he had before this declaration was, to govern the people according to law and conscience, and no more; and if they declare no other prerogative royal to be due to him, there is an end,—we grant all. But, then, this which they call prerogative royal, is no more than a power to govern according to law, and so you had nothing to add to king James upon the ground of his personal virtues, only you make an oration to his praise in the acts of parliament.

4. If this absoluteness of prerogative be given to the king, the subjects, swearing obedience, swear that he hath power from themselves to destroy themselves: this is neither a lawful oath, nor though they should swear it, doth it oblige them.

5. A supreme judge is a supreme father of all his children and all their causes; and to be a supreme father cannot be contrary to a supreme judge; but contrary it must be, if this supremacy make over to the prince a power of devouring as a lion, and that by a regal privilege, and by office, whereas he should be a father to save; or if a judge kill an evil-doer, though that be an act destructive to one man, yet is it an act of a father to the commonwealth. An act of supreme and absolute royalty is often an act of destruction to one particular man, and to the whole commonwealth. For example, when the king, out of his absolute prerogative, pardoneth a murderer, and he killeth another innocent man, and out of the same ground the king pardoneth him again, and so till he kill twenty, (for by what reason the prerogative giveth one pardon, he may give twenty, there is a like reason above law for all,) this act of absolute royalty is such an act of murder, as if a shepherd would keep a wolf in the fold with the sheep, he were guilty of the loss of these sheep. Now an act of destroying cannot be an act of judging, far less of a supreme judge, but of a supreme murderer.

6. Whereas he is called "absolute prince and supreme judge, in all causes, ecclesiastical and civil," it is to be considered, 1. That the estates profess not in these acts to give any new prerogative, but only to continue the old power, and that only with that amplitude and freedom which the king and his predecessors did enjoy and exercise before: the extent whereof is best known from the acts of parliament, histories of the time, and the oaths of the kings of Scotland. 2. That he is called absolute prince, not in any relation of freedom from law, or prerogative above law, whereunto, as unto the norma regula ac mensura potestatis suæ, ac subjectionis meæ, he is tyed by the fundamental law and his own oath, but in opposition to all foreign jurisdiction or principality above him, as is evident by the oath of supremacy set down for acknowledging of his power in the first act of parliament 21, king James 6:3. They are but the same expression, giving only the same power before acknowledgeth in the 129th act, Parl. 8, king James VI., and that only over persons or estates, considered separatim, and over causes; but neither at all over the laws nor over the estates, taken conjunctim, and as convened in parliament, as is clear, both by the two immediately subsequent acts of that parliament, 8, James VI., establishing the authority of parliaments equally with the kings, and discharging all jurisdictions (albeit granted by the king) without their warrant, as also by the narrative depositive words, and certification of the act itself; otherwise the estates convened in parliament might, by virtue of that act, be summoned before and censured by the king's majesty or his council, a judicatory substitute, be subordinate to, and censured by themselves, which were contrary to sense and reason. 4. The very terms of supreme judge, and in all causes, according to the nature of correlates, presupposeth courts and judicial proceedings and laws, as the ground-work and rule of all, not a freedom from them. 5. Act 6, Parl. 20, James VI. clearly interpreteth what is meant by the king's jurisdiction in all spiritual and ecclesiastical causes; to wit, to be only in the consistorial causes of matrimony, testaments, bastardy, adulteries, abusively called spiritual causes, because handled in commissary courts, wherein the king appoints the commissary, his deputies, and makes the lords of the session his great consistory in all ecclesiastical causes, with reservation of his supremacy and prerogative therein.

7. Supreme judge in all causes, cannot be taken quoad actus elicitos, as if the king were to judge between two seamen, or two husbandmen, or two tradesmen, in that which is proper to their art; or between two painters. Certainly the king is not to judge which of the two draweth the fairest picture, but which of the two wasteth most gold on his picture, and so doth interest most of the commonwealth. So the king cannot judge in all ecclesiastical causes, that is, he cannot, quoad actos elicitos, prescribe this worship, for example, the mass, not the sacrament of the Lord's supper. Therefore the king hath but actus imperatos, some royal political acts about the worship of God, to command God to be worshipped according to his word, to punish the superstitions or neglectors of divine worship; therefore, cannot the king be sole judge in matters that belong to the college of judges by the laws of Scotland, the lords of session only may judge these matters, (Parl. 2, James I, act 45; Parl. 8, James III., act 62; Parl. 4, James III, act 105; Parl. 6, James I., act 83; Parl. 6, James I., act 86; Parl. 7, James V., act 104,) and that only according to law, without any remedy of appellation to king or the parliament (Parl. 14, James II, act 62 and 63). And the king is by act of parliament inhibited to send any private letter to stay the acts of justice; or if any such letter be procured, the judges are not to acknowledge it as the king's will, for they are to proceed impartially according to justice, and are to make the law, which is the king and parliament's public revealed will, their rule (Parl. 5, James V., act 68; Parl. 8, James VI., act 139; Parl. 6, James 6, act 92). Nor may the lords suspend the course of justice, or the sentence or execution of decrees upon the king's private letter (Parl. 11, James VI., act 79, and Parl. 11, James VI., act 47). And so, if the king's will or desire, as he is a man, be opposite to his law and his will as king, it is not to be regarded. This is a strong argument, that the parliaments never made the king supreme judge, quoad actus elicitos, in all causes, may not if the king have a cause of his own that concerneth lands of the crown, far less can the king have a will of prerogative above the law by our laws of Scotland. And, therefore, when in Parl. 8, James VI., the king's royal power is established in the first act, the very next act immediately subjoined thereunto declareth the authority of the supreme court of parliament continued past all memory of man unto this day, and constitute of the free voices of the three estates of this ancient kingdom, which, in the parliament 1606, is called, "the ancient and fundamental policy of this kingdom;" and so fundamental, as if it should be innovated, such confusion would ensue, as it could no more be a free monarchy, as is expressed in the parliament's printed commission, 1604, by whom the same, under God, hath been upholden, rebellious and traitorous subjects punished, the good and faithful preserved and maintained, and the laws and acts of parliament (by which all men are governed) made and established, and appointeth the honour, authority, and dignity of the estates of parliament to stand in their own integrity, according to the ancient and laudable custom by-past, without alteration or diminution, and therefore dischargeth any to presume or take in hand, "to impugn the dignity and the authority of the said estates, or to seek or procure the innovation or diminution of their power or authority, under the pain of treason:" and, therefore, in the next act, they discharge all jurisdictions, or judicatories, (albeit appointed by the king's majesty, as the high commission was,) without their warrant and approbation; and that, as contrary to the fundamental laws above titled, (Parl. 3, James I., act 48 and Parl. 6, James IV., act 79,) whereby the lieges should only be ruled by laws or acts passed in the parliament of this kingdom. Now, what was the ancient dignity, authority, and power of the parliaments of Scotland, which is to stand without diminution, that will be easily and best known from the subsequent passages, or historians, which can also be very easily verified by the old registers, whensoever they should be produced. In the meantime, remember that in parliament and by act of Parl James VI., for observing the due order of parliament, promiseth, never to do or command any thing which may directly or indirectly prejudge the liberty of free reasoning or voting of parliament (Parl. 11, James VI., act 40). And withal, to evidence the freedom of the parliament of Scotland, from that absolute unlimited prerogative of the prince, and their liberty to resist his breaking of covenant with them, or treaties with foreign nations, ye shall consider—1. That the kings of Scotland are obliged, before they be inaugurated, to swear and make their faithful covenant to the true kirk of God, that they shall maintain, defend, and set forward the true religion confessed and established within this realm; even as they are obliged and restricted by the law of God, as well in Deuteronomy as in 2 Kings 11, and as they crave obedience of their subjects. So that the bond and contract shall be mutual and reciprocal, in all time coming, between the prince and the people, according to the word of God, as is fully expressed in the register of the convention of estates, July 1567. 2. That important acts and sentences at home, (whereof one is printed, Parl. 14, James III., act 112,) and in treaties with foreign princes, the estates of parliament did append their several seals with the king's great seal, (which to Grotius, Barclaius, and Arnisæus, is an undeniable argument of a limited prince, as well as the style of our parliament, that the estates, with the king, ordain, ratify, rescind, &c.) as also they were obliged, in case of the king's breaking these treaties, to resist him therein, even by arms, and that without any breach of their allegiance, or of his prerogative, as is yet extant in the records of our old treaties with England and France, &c. But to go on, and leave some high mysteries unto a rejoinder.

And to the end I may make good, 1. That nothing is here taught in this treatise but the very doctrine of the Church of Scotland, I desire that the reader may take notice of the larger Confession of the Church of Scotland, printed with the body of the confessions at Geneva, anno 1612, and authorised by James VI. and the three estates in parliament, and printed in our acts of parliament (Parl. 15, James VI., anno 1567). Amongst good works of the second table, saith our Confession, (art. 14,) are these:—To honour father, mother, princes, rulers, and superior powers. To love them, to support them, yea, to obey their charge, (not repugning to the commandment of God,) to save the lives of innocents, to repress tyranny, to defend the oppressed, to keep our bodies clean and holy, &c. The contrary whereof is, to disobey or resist any that God hath placed in authority, (while they pass not over the bounds of their office,) to murder, or to consent thereunto, to bear hatred, or to let innocent blood be shed, if we may withstand it, &c. Now the Confession citeth in the margin, Eph. 1:1, 7 and Ezek. 22:1–4, &c., where it is evident, by the name of father and mother, all inferior judges as well as the king, and especially the princes, rulers, and lords of parliament are understood. 2. The bloody city is to be judged, because they relieved not the oppressed out of the hand of the bloody princes, (5:6,) who every one of them did to their power shed innocent blood (Ezek. 22:6). 3. To resist superior powers, and so the estates of parliament, as the cavaliers of Scotland do, is resistance forbidden (Rom. 13:1). The place is also cited in the Confession, and the Confession exponeth the place (Rom. 13.) according to the interpretation of all sound expositors, as is evident in these words, art. 24, "And therefore we confess and avouch, that such as resist the supreme power, doing that thing which appertaineth to his charge, do resist God's ordinance, and therefore cannot be guiltless. And farther, we affirm, that whosoever denieth unto them aid, their counsel and support, while as the princes and rulers vigilantly travel in execution of their office, that the same men deny their help, support, and counsel to God, who, by the presence of his lieutenant, craves it of them." From which words we have clear:—

1. That to resist the king or parliament, is to resist them while as they are doing the thing that appertaineth to their charge, and while they vigilantly travel in the execution of their office. But while king and Parliament do acts of tyranny against God's law, and all good laws of men, they do not the things that appertain to their charge and the execution of their office; therefore, by our Confession, to resist them in tyrannical acts is not to resist the ordinance of God.

2. To resist princes and rulers, and so inferior judges, and to deny them counsel and comfort, is to deny help, counsel, and comfort to God. Let then cavaliers, and such as refuse to help the princes of the land against papists, prelates and malignants, know, that they resist God's ordinance, which rebellion they unjustly impute to us.

3. Whereas it is added in our Confession, that God, by the presence of his lieutenant, craveth support and counsel of the people, it is not so to be taken, as if then only we are to aid and help inferior judges and parliaments, when the king personally requireth it, and not otherways. 1. Because the king requireth help, when, by his office, he is obliged to require our help and counsel against papists and malignants, though as misled, he should command the contrary: so if the law require our help, the king requireth it ex officio. 2. This should expressly contradict our Confession, if none were obliged to give help and counsel to the parliaments and estates, except the king in his own person should require it, because (art. 14) it is expressly said, That to save the lives of innocents, or repress tyranny, to defend the oppressed,—not to suffer innocent blood to be shed, are works pleasing to God, which he rewardeth. Now we are not to think in reason, if the king shall be induced by wicked counsel to do tyrannical works, and to raise papists in arms against protestants, that God doth by him, as by his lieutenant, require our help, comfort, and counsel in assisting the king in acts of tyranny, and in oppression, and in shedding innocent blood; yea, our Confession tyeth us to deny help and comfort to the king in these wicked acts, and therefore our help must be in the things that pertaineth to his royal office and duty only, otherwise we are to repress all tyranny (art. 14).

4. To save the lives of innocents, to repress tyranny, to defend the oppressed, are, by our Confession, good works, well pleasing to God, and so is this a good work, not to suffer innocent blood to be shed, if we may withstand it. Hence it is clear as the sun, that our Confession, according to the word of God, to which king Charles did swear at his coronation, doth oblige and tie us in the presence of God and his holy angels, to rise in arms to save the innocent, to repress tyranny, to defend the oppressed. When the king, by ill counsel, sent armies by sea and land to kill and destroy the whole kingdom who should refuse such a service-book as they could not in conscience receive, except they would disobey God, renounce the Confession of Faith, which the king and they had sworn unto, and prove perfidious apostates to Christ and his church, what could we do, and that the same Confession, considering our bonds to our dear brethren in England, layeth bonds on us to this, as a good work also, not to suffer their innocent blood to be shed, but to defend them, when they, against all law of God, of men, of state, of nations, are destroyed and killed. For my part, I judge it had been a guiltiness of blood upon Scotland, if we had not helped them, and risen in arms to defend ourselves and our innocent brethren against bloody cavaliers. Add to this what is in the 24th article of the same Confession:—"We confess, whosoever goeth about to take away, or to confound the whole state of civil polity, now long established, we affirm the same men not only to be enemies to mankind, but also wickedly to fight against God's will." But those who have taken arms against the estates of Scotland, and the princes and rulers of the land, have laboured to take away parliaments, and the fundamental laws of this kingdom, therefore, the Confession addeth, (art. 16,) "We farther confess and acknowledge, that such persons as are placed in authority are to be loved, honoured, feared, and holden in most reverent estimation, because that they are lieutenants of God, in whose sessions God himself doth sit and judge; yea, even the judges and princes themselves, to whom, by God, is given the sword, to the praise and defence of good men, and to revenge and punish all open malefactors." Therefore, the parliament, and princes, and rulers of the land, are God's lieutenants on earth no less than the king, by our Confession of Faith; and those who resist them, resist the ordinance of God. Royalists say, they are but the deputies of the king, and when they do contrary to his royal will, they may be resisted, yea, and be killed, for in so far they are private men, though they are to be honoured as judges when they act according to the king's will, whose deputies they are. But, I answer:—

1. It is a wonder that inferior judges should be formally judges, in so far as they act conform to the will of a mortal king, and not in so far as they act conform to the will of the King of kings, seeing the judgment they execute is the King of kings', and not the judgment of a mortal king. (2 Chron. 19:6.)

2. Royalists cannot endure the former distinction as it is applied to the king, but they receive it with both hands as it is applied to inferior judges; and yet, certain it is, that it is as ordinary for a king, being a sinful man, to act sometimes as the lieutenant of God, and sometimes as an erring and misinformed man, no less than the inferior judge acteth sometimes according to the king's will and law, and sometimes according to his own private way; and if we are to obey the inferior judge as the deputy of the king, what shall become of his person, when cavaliers may kill him at some Edgehill? for so they mock this distinction, as applied to the king in regard of his person and of his royal office; and for this point our Confession citeth in the margin Rom. 13:7; 1 Pet. 2:17; Psal. 82:1, which places do clearly prove that inferior magistrates are, 1. God's ordinances; 2. Gods on earth, (Psal. 82:6); 3. Such as bear the Lord's sword; 4. "That they are not only (as the Confession saith) appointed for civil policy, but also for maintenance of true religion, and for suppressing of idolatry and superstition." Then, it is evident, to resist inferior magistrates is to resist God himself, and to labour to throw the sword out of God's hand. 5. Our Confession useth the same Scriptures cited by Junius Brutus, to wit, Ezek. 22:1–7; Jer. 22:3, where we are, no less than the Jews, commanded to "execute judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hands of the oppressor;" for both the law of God and the civil law saith, Quinon impedit homicidium quum, potest, is homicidii reus est. I will cast in a word of other Confessions, lest we seem to be Jesuits alone.

The Confession of Helvetia saith, (c. 30,) de Magistratu. Viduas, pu pillos, afflictos asserat, every magistrate is to defend the widow, the orphan, and the oppressed. The French Confession saith, (art. 40,) Affirmamus ergo parendumesse legibus et statutis, solvenda tributa, subjectionis denique jugum voluntarie tolerandum, etiamsi infideles fuerint magistratus, dummodo Deisummum imperium integrum et illibatum maneat. So clear it is that all active obedience is due to all magistrates, and that that yoke of passive obedience is to be tolerated but conditionally, with a dummodo, so as the magistrate violate not the supreme commandment of the King of kings; and we know, accordingly, protestants of that church have taken defensive arms against their king. But our P. Prelate can say, the Confessions of Scotland, Helvetia, France, and all the reformed churches, are Jesuitical, when as it was the doctrine of the Waldenses, the protestants, Luther, Calvin, and others, while as there was no Jesuit on earth.

The thirty-seventh article of the Church of England's Confession is so far from erecting an absolute power in the king, that they expressly bring down the royal prerogative from the high seat and transcendent superlative power above the law, and expone the prerogative to be nothing but mere law-power. "We only (say they) ascribe that prerogative to the king which the Scripture doth ascribe to all godly princes; that is, that they cause all committed to their trust, whether ecclesiastical or civil persons, to do their duty, and punish with the civil sword all disobedient offenders." In syntag. Confess. "And this they say in answer to some who believed the Church of England made the king the head of the church." The Prelates' Convocation must be Jesuits to this P. Prelate also.

So the thirty-sixth article of the Belgic Confession saith of all magistrates, no less than of a king, (we know, for tyranny of soul and body, they justly revolted from their king,) Idcirco magistratus ipsos gladio armavit, ut malos quidem plectant pænis, probos vero tueantur. Horum porro est, non modo de civili politia conservanda esse solicitos, verum etiam dare operam ut sacrum ministerium conservetur, omnis idololatria et adulterinus Dei cultus e medio tollatur, regnum antichristi diruatur, &c. Then, all magistrates, though inferior, must do their duty that the low of God hath laid on them, though the king forbid them; but, by the Belgic Confession and the Scripture, it is their duty to relieve the oppressed, to use the sword against murdering papists and Irish rebels and destroying cavaliers; for, shall it be a good plea in the day of Christ to say, "Lord Jesus, we would have used thy sword against bloody murderers if thy anointed, the king, had not commanded us to obey a mortal king rather than the King of ages, and to execute no judgment for the oppressed, because he judged them faithful catholic subjects." Let all Oxford and cavalier doctors in the three kingdoms satisfy the consciences of men in this, that inferior judges are to obey a divine law, with a proviso that the king command them so to do, and otherwise they are to obey men rather than God. This is evidently holden forth in the Argentine Confession, exhibited by four cities to the emperor Charles V., 1530, in the very same cause of innocent defence that we are now in in the three kingdoms of Scotland, England, and Ireland.

The Saxon Confession, exhibited to the Council of Trent, (1551, art. 23,) maketh the magistrate's office essentially to consist in keeping of the two tables of God's law; and so, what can follow hence, but in so far as he defendeth murderers,—or, if he be a king, and shall with the sword or arms impede inferior magistrates (for the Confession speaketh of all) to defend God's law and true religion against papists, murderers, and bloody cavaliers, and hinder them to execute the judgment of the Lord against evil doers,—he is not, in that, a magistrate; and the denying of obedience, active or passive, to him in that, is no resistance to the ordinance of God; but, by the contrary, the king himself must resist the ordinance of God.

The Confession of Bohemia is clear, (art. 16,) Qui publico munere magistratuquefunguntur, quemcunque, gradum teneant, se non suum, sed Dei opus agere sciant. Hence, all inferior or the supreme magistrate, whatever be their place, they do not their own work, nor the work of the king, but the work of God, in the use of the sword; therefore, they are to use the sword against bloody cavaliers, as doing God's work-suppose the king should forbid them to do God's work; and it saith of all magistrates, Sunt autem magistratuum partes ac munus, omnibus ex æquo jus dicere, in communem omnium usum, sine personarum acceptatione, pacem ac tranquilitatem publicam tueri ac procurare de malis ac facinorosis hanc inter turbantibus pænas sumere, aliosque, omnes ab eorum vi et injuria vindicare. Now, this confession was the faith of the barons and nobles of Bohemia who were magistrates, and exhibited to the emperor, anno 1535, in the cause not unlike unto ours now, and the emperor was their sovereign; yet they profess they are obliged, in conscience, to defend all under them from all violence and injuries, that the emperor, or any other, could bring on them; and that this is their office before God, which they are obliged to perform as a work of God, and the Christian magistrate is not to do that work which is not his own but God's, upon condition that the king shall not inhibit him. What if the king shall inhibit parliaments, princes, and rulers, to relieve the oppressed, to defend the orphan, the widow, the stranger, from unjust violence? Shall they obey man rather than God?

To say no more of this: prelates in Scotland did what they could, 1. To hinder his Majesty to indict a parliament. 2. When it was indicted, to have its freedom destroyed by prelimitations. 3. When it was sitting, their care was to divide, impede, and annul the course of justice. 4. All in the P. Prelate's book tendeth to abolish parliaments, and to enervate their power. 5. There were many ways used to break up parliaments in England; and to command judges not to judge at all, but to interrupt the course of justice, is all one as to command unrighteous judgment (Jer. 22:3). 6. Many ways have been used by cavaliers to cut off parliaments, and the present parliament in England.

The paper found in William Laud's study, touching fears and hopes of the parliament of England, evidenceth that cavaliers hate the supreme seat of justice, and would it were not in the world; which is the highest rebellion and resistance made against superior powers.

1. He feareth this parliament shall begin where the last left.

Ans.—Whatever ungrateful courtier had hand in the death of king James deserved to come under trial.

2. He feareth they sacrifice some man.

Ans.—1. If parliaments have not power to cut off rebels, and corrupt judges, the root of their being is undone. 2. If they be lawful courts, none need fear them, but the guilty.

3. He feareth their consultations be long, and the supply must be present.

Ans.—1. Then cavaliers intend parliaments for subsidies to the king, to foment and promote the war against Scotland, not for justice. 2. He that feareth long and serious consultations, to rip up and lance the wounds of church and state, is afraid that the wounds be cured.

4. He feareth they deny subsidies, which are due by the law of God, nature, and nations, whereas parliaments have but their deliberation and consent for the manner of giving, otherwise this is to sell subsidies, not to give them.

Ans.—Tribute, and the standing revenues of the king, are due by the law of God and nations; but subsidies are occasional rents given upon occasion of war, or some extraordinary necessity; and they are not given to the king as tribute and standing revenues, which the king may bestow for his house, family, and royal honour, but they are given by the kingdom, rather to the kingdom than to the king, for the present war, or some other necessity of the kingdom, and therefore are not due to the king as king, by any law of nature or nations, and so should not be given but by deliberation and judicial sentence of the states; and they are not sold to the king, but given out by the kingdom by statute of parliament, to be bestowed on the kingdom, and the king should sell no acts of justice for subsidies.

5. He dare not speak of the consequences, if the king grant bills of grace, and part with the flowrets of the crown.

Ans.—He dare not say, the people shall vindicate their liberty by selling subsidies to buy branches of the prerogative royal, and diminishing the king's fancied absoluteness; so would prelates have the king absolute, that they may ride over the souls, purses, persons, estates, and religion of men, upon the horse of pretended absoluteness.

6. He feareth the parliament fall upon church business; but, 1. The church is too weak already; if it had more power, the king might have more both of obedience and service. 2. The houses can be no competent judges in point of doctrine. 3. For the king, clergy, and convocation are judges in all causes ecclesiastical.

Ans. 1.—This striketh at the root of all parliamentary power. 1. The P. Prelate giveth them but a poor deliberative power in subsidies; and that is, to make the king's will a law, in taking all the subjects' goods from them, to foment war against the subjects. 2. He taketh all jurisdiction from them over persons, though they were as black traitors as breathe. 3. And spoileth them of all power in church matters; to make all judges, yea, and the king himself yield blind obedience to the Pope and Prelate, and their illuminated clergy. Sure I am, P. Maxwell imputeth this, but most unjustly, to presbyteries. What essential and fundamental privileges are left to parliaments? David and the parliament of Israel are impertinent judges in the matter of bringing home the ark of God. And for the church's weakness, that is, the weakness of the damned prelates, shall this be the king's weakness? Yes; the P. Prelate must make it true, no bishop, no king.

7. He feareth factious spirits will take heart to themselves, if the king yield to them without any submission of theirs.

Ans.—The princes and judges of the land are a company of factious men, and so no parliament, no court, but at best some good advisers of a king to break up the parliament, because they refuse subsidies, that he may, by a lawless way, extort subsidies.

8. He desireth the parliament may sit a short time, that they may not well understand one another.

Ans.—He loveth short or no justice from the parliament; he feareth they reform God's house, and execute justice on men like himself. But I return to the Scottish parliament.

Assert. 2.—The parliament is to regulate the power of the king. The heritable sheriffs complain that the king granteth commissions to others in cases pertaining to their office; whereupon the estates (Parl. 6, James VI., act 82) dischargeth all such commissions, as also appointeth that all murderers be judged by the justice general only. And in several acts the king is inhibited to grant pardons to malefactors, Parl. 11, James VI. act 75.

It is to be considered that king James, in his Basilikon Doron, layeth down an unsound ground, that Fergus the first, father of one hundred and seven kings of Scotland, conquered this kingdom. The contrary whereof is asserted by Fordome, Major, Boethius, Buchanan, Hollanshed, who run all upon this principle, that the estates of the Kingdom did, 1. Choose a monarchy, and freely, and no other government. 2. That they freely elected Fergus to be their king. 3. King Fergus frequently convened the parliament called Insulanorum duces, tribuum rectores, majorum consessus, conventus ordinum, conventus statuum, communitatum regni, phylarchi, primores, principes, patres; and, as Hollanshed saith, they made Fergus king, therefore a parliament must be before the king; yea, and after the death of king Fergus, philarchi coeunt concione advocata, the estates convened without any king, and made that fundamental law regnielective, that when the king's children were minors, any of the Fergusian race might be chosen to reign, and this endured to the days of Kenneth; and Redotha, the seventh king, resigned and maketh over the government into the hands of the parliament, and Philarchi Tribuum Gubernatores ordained Thereus the eighth king. Buchanan, (l. 4, rer. Scot.) calleth him Reutha, and said he did this, populo egre permittente, then the royal power recurred to the fountain. Thereus, the eighth king, a wicked man, filled the kingdom with robbers, and fearing the parliament should punish him, fled to the Britons, and thereupon the parliament choose Connanus to be prorex and protector of the kingdom.

Finnanus, the tenth king, decreed,—Ne quid reges, quod majoris esset momenti, nisi de publici consilii authoritate juberent, et he domestico consilio remp. administrarent, regia publicaque negotia non sine patrum consultatione ductuque tractarentur, nec bellum pacem aut fædera reges per se patrum, tribuumve, rectorum injussu facerent, demerentue; then it is clear that parliaments were consortes imperii, and had the authority with and above the king. When a law is made that the kings should do nothing injussu rectorum tribuum, without commandment of the parliament, a cabinet-council was not lawful to the kings of Scotland. So Durstus, the eleventh king, sweareth to the parliament, "Se nihil nisi de primorum consilio acturum," that he shall do nothing but by counsel of the rulers and heads of the kingdom.

The parliament, rejecting the lawful son of Corbredus, the nineteenth king, because he was young, created Dardanus, the nephew of Metellanus, king, which is a great argument of the power of the Scottish parliament of old for elective rather than hereditary kings.

Corbredus II., called Galdus, the twentyfirst king, at his coronation, renouncing all negative voices, did swear, Se majorum consiliis acquieturnm, that he should be ruled by the parliament; and it is said, Leges quasdam tollere non potuit, adversante multitudine.

Luctatus, the twenty-second king, is censured by a parliament, "Quod spreto majorum consilio," he appointed base men to public offices.

Mogaldus, the twenty-third king, "Ad consilia seniorum omnia ex prisco more revocavit," did all by the parliament, as the ancient custom was.

Conarus, the twenty-fourth king, was cast into prison by the parliament, "Quod non expectato decreto patrum, quod summæ erat potestatis, privatis consiliis administrasset," because he did these weightiest business that concerned the kingdom, by private advice, without the judicial ordinance of parliament, that was of greatest authority. Where is the negative voice of the king here?

Ethodius II. (son of Ethodius I.) the twenty-eighth king, (the parliament passing him by on account of his age, and electing Satrael, his father's brother, king before him,) was a simple ignorant man, yet for reverence to the race of Fergus, kept the name of a king, but the estates appointed tutors to him.

Nathalocus, the thirtieth king, corrupting the nobles with buds and fair promises, obtained the crown.

Romachus, Fethelmachus, and Angusianus, or as Buchanan calleth him, æneanus, contended for the crown, the parliament convened to judge the matter was dissolved by tumult, and Romachus chosen king, doing all, non adhibito, de more, consilio majorum, was censured by the parliament.

Fergus II. was created king by the states, de more.

Constantine, the forty-third king, a most wicked man, was punished by the states.

Aidanus, the forty-ninth king, by the counsel of St Columba, governed all in peace, by three parliaments every year.

Ferchard I., the fifty-second king, and Ferchard II., the fifty-fourth king, were both censured by parliaments.

Eugenius VII., the fifty-ninth king, was judicially accused, and absolved by the states, of killing his wife Spondana.

Eugenius VIII., the sixty-second king, a wicked prince, was put to death by the parliament, omnibus in ejus exitium, consentientibus.

Donaldus, the seventieth king, is censured by a parliament, which convened, pro salute reipublicæ, for the good of the land. So Ethus, the seventy-second king, Ne unius culpa, regnum periret.

Gregory, the seventy-third king, sweareth to maintain kirk and state in their liberties; the oath is ordained to be sworn by all kings at their coronation.

The estates complain of Duff, the seventy-eighth king, because contemning the counsel of the nobles, Sacrificulorum consiliis abduceretur, and that either the nobility must depart the kingdom, or another king must be made.

Culen, the seventy-ninth king, was summoned before the estates, so before him, Constantine III., the seventy-fifth king, did, by oath, resign the kingdom to the states, and entered in a monastery at St Andrews.

Kenneth III., the eightieth king, procured almost, per vim, saith Buchanan, that the parliament should change the elective kings into hereditary; observe the power of parliaments.

After this Grim, and then Macbeth, the eighty-fifth king, is rebuked for governing by private counsel; in his time, the king is ordained by the states to swear to maintain the community of the kingdom.

When Malcolm IV., the ninety-second king, would have admitted a treaty to the hurt of the kingdom, the nobles said, Non jus esse regi, the king had no right to take anything from the kingdom, Nisi omnibus ordinibus consentientibus. In the time of Alexander, the ninty-fourth king, is ordained, Acta regis oporteri confirmari decreto ordinum regni, quia ordinibus regni non consultis, aut adversantibus, nihil guod ad totius regni statum attinet, regiagere liceret; so all our historians observe; by which it is clear, that the parliament, not the king, hath a negative voice.

The states' answer to king Edward's legates, concerning Balzee's conditions in his contest with Bruce is, that these conditions were made a solo rege, by the king only, without the estates of the kingdom, and therefore they did not oblige the kingdom.

In Robert the Bruce's reign, the ninty-seventh king, the succession to the crown is appointed by act of parliament, and twice changed; and in the league with France, Quod quando de successuro rege ambigeretur apud Scotos, ea controversia ab ordinum de creto decideretur.

Robert, the hundredth king, in a parliament at Scoon, moved the states to appoint the earl of Carrick, his eldest son of the second marriage, to the crown, passing his children of the first marriage; and when he would have made a treaty, he was told, that he could not inducias facere nisi ex sententia conventus publici, he could not make truces but with the consent of the estates of parliament.

James I. could not do anything in his oath in England. The parliament's approbation of the battle at Stirling against king James III. is set down in the printed acts, because he had not the consent of the states.

To come to our first reformation, the queen regent, breaking her promise to the states, said, "Faith of promise should not be sought from princes;" the states answered, that they then were not obliged to obey, and suspended her government as inconsistent with the duty of princes, by the articles of pacification at Leith, June 16, 1560. No peace or war can be without the states.

In the parliament thereafter, (1560,) the nobility say frequently to the queen, Regum Scotorum limitatum esse imperium, nec unquam ad unius libidinem, sed ad legum præscriptum et nobilitatis consensum regi solitum.

So it is declared, parliament at Stirling, 1578, and parl. 1567, concerning queen Mary, I need not insist here. James VI. July 21, 1567, was crowned, the earl of Morton and Hume, jurarunt pro eo, et ejus nomine, in leges, eum doctrinam et ritus religionis, quæ turn docebantur, publice quoad posset, servaturum, et contrarios oppugnaturum. (Buch. Rer. Scot. Hist. 1.18.) The three estates revoke all alienations made by the king without consent of the parliament. Parl. 2, James VI. c. 2, 4, 5, 6.

Three parliaments of James II. are held without any mention of the king, as 1437, 1438, and 1440, and act 5 and 6 of Parl. 1440, the estates ordain the king to do such and such things, to ride through the country for doing of justice; and Parl. 1, James I. act 23, the estates ordained the king to mend his money; but show any parliament where ever the king doth prescribe laws to the states, or censure the states.

In Parl. 1, James VI., the Confession of Faith being ratified, in acts made by the three estates, that the kings must swear at their coronation, "In the presence of the eternal God, that they shall maintain the true religion, right preaching, and administration of the sacraments now received and preached within this realm, and shall abolish and gain-stand all false religions contrary to the same, and shall rule the people committed to their charge, according to the will of God, laudable laws, and constitutions of the realm," &c.

The Parl. 1, James VI., 1567, approveth the acts of parliament 1560, conceived only in name of the states, without the king and queen, who had deserted the same; so saith the act 2, 4, 5, 20, 28. And so this parliament, wanting the king and queen's authority, is confirmed, Parl. 1572, act 51, king James VI.; Parl. 1581, act 1; and Parl. 1581, act 115, in which it is declared, "That they have been common laws from their first date," and are all ratified, Parl. 1587, and 1592, act 1; and stand ratified to this day by king Charles' parliament, 1633. The act of the Assembly, 1566, commendeth that parliament, 1560, as the "most lawful and free parliament that ever was in the kingdom."

Yea, even Parl. 1641, king Charles himself being present, an act was passed upon the occasion of the king's illegal imprisoning of the laird of Langton: that the king hath no power to imprison any member of the parliament without consent of the parliament. Which act, to the great prejudice of the liberty of the subject, should not have been left unprinted; for, by what law the king may imprison one member of the parliament, by that same reason he may imprison two, twenty, and a hundred; and so may he clap up the whole free estates, and where shall then the highest court of the kingdom be?

All politicians say, the king is a limited prince, not absolute; where the king giveth out laws, not in his own name, but in the name of himself and the estates judicially convened.

In p. 33 of the old acts of parliament, members are summoned to treat and conclude.

The duty of parliaments, and their power, according to the laws of Scotland, may be seen in the history of Knox, now printed at London (an. 1643), in the nobles' proceeding with the queen, who killed her husband and married Bothwell, and was arraigned in parliament, and by a great part condemned to death; by many, to perpetual imprisonment.

King Charles received not crown, sword, and sceptre, until first he did swear the oath that king James his father did swear. He was not crowned, till one of every one of the three estates came and offered to him the crown, with an express condition of his duty, before he be crowned.

After king Charles said, "I will by God's assistance bestow my life for your defence, wishing to live no longer than that I may see this kingdom flourish in happiness," thereafter, the king showing himself on a stage to the people, the popish archbishop said; "Sirs, I do present unto you king Charles, the right descended inheritor,—the crown and dignity of this realm, appointed by the peers of the kingdom. And are you willing to have him for your king, and become subject to him?" The king turning himself on the stage, to be seen of the peope, they declared willingness, by crying, God save king Charles! Let the king live!

QUESTION XLIV

GENERAL RESULTS OF THE FORMER DOCTRINE, IN SOME FEW COROLLARIES, OR STRAYING QUESTIONS, FALLEN OFF THE ROADWAY, ANSWERED BRIEFLY

Quest. 1.—Whether all governments be but broken governments and deviations from monarchy.

Ans.—1. It is denied: there is no less somewhat of God's authority in government by many, or some of the choicest of the people, than in monarchy; nor can we judge any ordinance of man unlawful, for we are to be subject to all for the Lord's sake. (1 Pet. 2:13; Tit. 3:1; 1 Tim. 2:1–3.) 2. Though monarchy should seem the rule of all other governments, in regard of resemblance of the Supreme Monarch of all, yet it is not the moral rule from which, if other governments shall err, they are to be judged sinful deviations.

Quest. 2.—Whether royalty is an immediate issue and spring of nature.

Ans.—No; for a man, fallen in sin, knowing naturally he hath need of a law and a government, could have, by reason, devised governors, one or more; and the supervenient institution of God, coming upon this ordinance, doth more fully assure us, that God, for man's good, hath appointed governors; but, if we consult with nature, many judges and governors, to fallen nature, seem nearer of blood to nature than one only; for two, because of man's weakness, are better than one. Now, nature seemeth to me not to teach that only one sinful man should be the sole and only ruler of a whole kingdom; God, in his word, ever joined with the supreme ruler many rulers, who, as touching the essence of a judge, (which is, to rule for God,) were all equally judges: some reserved acts, or a longer cubit of power in regard of extent, being due to the king.

Quest. 3.—Whether magistrates, as magistrates, be natural.

Ans.—Nature is considered as whole and sinless, or as fallen and broken. In the former consideration, that man should stand in need of some one to compel him with the sword to do his duty, and not oppress, was no more natural to man than to stand in need of lictors and hangmen, or physicians for the body, which in this state was not in a capacity of sickness or death; and so government by parents and husbands was only natural in the latter consideration. Magistrates, as magistrates, are two ways considered,—1. According to the knowledge of such an ordinance; 2. According to the actual erection of the practice of the office of magistrates. In the former notion, I humbly conceive, that by nature's light, man now fallen and broken, even under all the fractions of the powers and faculties of the soul, doth know, that promises of reward, fear of punishment, and the co-active power of the sword, as Plato said, are natural means to move us, and wings to promote obedience and to do our duty; and that government by magistrates is natural. But, in the second relation, it is hard to determine that kings, rather than other governors, are more natural.

Quest. 4.—Whether nature hath determined that there should be one supreme ruler, a king, or many rulers, in a free community.

Ans.—It is denied.

Quest. 6.—Whether every free commonwealth hath not in it a supremacy of majesty, which it may formally place in one or many.

Ans.—It is affirmed.

Quest 6.—Whether absolute and unlimited power of royalty be a ray and beam of divine majesty immediately derived from God?

Ans.—Not at all. Such a creature is not in the world of God's creation. Royalists and flatterers of kings are parents to this prodigious birth. There is no shadow of power to do ill in God. An absolute power is essentially a power to do without or above law, and a power to do ill, to destroy; and so it cannot come from God as a moral power by institution, though it come from God by a flux of permissive providence; but so things unlawful and sinful come from God.

Quest. 7.—Whether the king may in his actions intend his own prerogative and absoluteness.

Ans.—He can neither intend it as his nearest end, nor as his remote end. Not the former, for if he fight and destroy his people for a prerogative, he destroyeth his people that he may have a power to destroy them, which must be mere tyranny, nor can it be his remote end; for, granting that his supposed absolute prerogative were lawful, he is to refer all lawful power and all his actions to a more noble end, to wit, to the safety and good of the people.

Quest. 8.—Do not they that resist the parliament's power, resist the parliament; and they that resist the king's power, resist the king; God hath joined king and power, who dare separate them?

Ans.—1. If the parliament abuse their power, we may resist their abused power, and not their power parliamentary. Mr Bridges doth well distinguish (in his Annotations on the "Loyal Convert") betwixt the king's power, and the king's will. 2. The resisters do not separate king and power, but the king himself doth separate his lawful power from his will, if he work and act tyranny out of this principle, will, passion, lust; not out of the royal principle of kingly power. So far we may resist the one, and not the other.

Quest. 9.—Why, if God might work a miracle in the three children's resistance active, why doth he evidence omnipotence in the passive obedience of these witnesses? The kingdom of Judah was Christ's birthright, as man and David's son. Why did he not, by legions of men and angels, rather vindicate his own flesh and blood, than triumph by non-resistance, and the omnipotence of glory to shine in his mere suffering?

Ans.—Who art thou that disputest with God? He that killeth with the jaw-bone of an ass, thousands, and he that destroyed the numberless Midianites by only three hundred, should no more put the three children to an unlawful act in the one, if they had by three men killed Nebuchadnezzar and all his subjects, than in the other. But nothing is said against us in a sophism a non causa pro causa; except it be proved, God would neither deliver his three children, nor Christ from death, and the Jews from bondage, by miraculous resistance, because resistance is unlawful. And if patient suffering is lawful, therefore, is resistance unlawful? It is a poor consequent, and a begging of the question: both must be lawful to us; and so we hold, of ten lawful means, fit to compass God's blessed end, he may choose one and let go nine. Shall any infer, therefore, these other nine means are unlawful, because God chose a mean different from those nine, and refused them? So may I answer by retortion. The three hundred sinned in resisting Midian, and defeating them. Why? Because it should be more honour to God, if they had, by suffering patiently the sword of Midian, glorified God in martyrdom. So Christ and the apostles, who could have wrought miracles, might have wrought reformation by the sword, and destroyed kings and emperors, the opposers of the Lamb; and they did reform by suffering; therefore, the sword is unlawful in reformation. It followeth not. The mean Christ used, is lawful; therefore, all other means that he used not, are unlawful. It is vain logic.

Quest. 10.—Whether the coronation of a king is any other thing but a ceremony.

Ans.—In the coronation there is, and may be, the ceremony of a shout and an acclamation, and the placing of a sceptre in his right hand who is made king, and the like; but the coronation, in concreto, according to the substance of the act, is no ceremony, nor any accidental ingredient in the constitution of a king. 1. Because Israel should have performed a mere ceremonial action on Saul when they made him king, which we cannot say; for as the people's act of coronation is distinctive, so is it constitutive: it distinguished Saul from all Israel, and did constitute him in a new relation, that he was changed from no king to be a king. 2. The people cannot, by a ceremony, make a king; they must really put some honour on him, that was not put on him before. Now this ceremony, which royalists do fancy coronation to be, is only symbolical and declarative, not really dative. It placeth nothing in the king.

Quest. 11.—Whether subjects may limit the power that they gave not to the king, it being the immediate result (without intervening of law or any act of man) issuing from God only.

Ans.—1. Though we should allow (which in reason we cannot grant) that royal power were a result of the immediate bounty of God, without any act of man, yet it may be limited by men, that it over-swell not its banks. Though God immediately make Peter an apostle, without any act of men, yet Paul, by a sharp rebuke, (Gal. 2) curbeth and limiteth his power, that he abuse it not to Judaising. Royalists deny not, but they teach, that the eighty priests that restrained Uzziah's power "from burning incense to the Lord," gave no royal power to Uzziah. Do not subjects, by flight, lay restraint upon a king's power, that he kill not the subjects without cause? yet they teach that subjects gave no power to the king. Certainly this is a proof of the immediate power of the King of kings, that none can fly from his pursuing hand, (Psal. 139:1–3; Amos 9:1–4,) whereas men may fly from earthly kings. Nebuchadnezzar, as royalists teach, might justly conquer some kingdoms, for conquest is a just title to the crown, say they. Now, the conqueror then justly not only limiteth the royal power of the conquered king, but wholly removeth his royalty and unkingeth him; yet, we know, the conqueror gave no royal power to the conquered king. Joshua and David took away royal power which they never gave, and therefore this is no good reason,—the people gave not to the king royal power, therefore they could not lawfully limit it and take it away. 2. We cannot admit that God giveth royal power immediately, without the intervention of any act of law; for it is an act of law, that (Deut. 17) the people chooseth such a king, not such a king; that the people, by a legal covenant, make Saul, David, and Joash, kings, and that God exerciseth any political action of making a king over such subjects, upon such a condition, is absurd and inconceivable; for how can God make Saul and David kings of Israel upon this political and legal condition, that they rule in justice and judgment, but there must intervene a political action? and so they are not made kings immediately. If God feed Moses by bread and manna, the Lord's act of feeding is mediate, by the mediation of second causes; if he feed Moses forty days without eating any thing, the act of feeding is immediate; if God made David king, as he made him a prophet, I should think God immediately made him king; for God asked consent of no man, of no people, no, not of David himself, before he infused in him the spirit of prophecy; but he made him formally king, by the political and legal covenant betwixt him and the people. I shall not think that a covenant and oath of God is a ceremony, especially a law-covenant, or a political paction between David and the people, the contents whereof behoved to be de materia gravi et onerosa, concerning a great part of obedience to the fifth commandment of God's moral law, the duties moral concerning religion, and mercy, and justice, to be performed reciprocally between king and people. Oaths, I hope, are more than ceremonies.

Quest. 12.—Whether or no the commonwealth is not ever a pupil, never growing to age, as a minor under nonage doth come not to need a tutor, but the commonwealth being still in need of a tutor, a governor, or king, must always be a tutor, and so the kingdom can never come to that condition as to accuse the king, it always being minor.

Ans.—1. Then can they never accuse inferior judges, for a kingdom is perpetually in such a nonage, as it cannot want them, when sometimes it wanteth a king. 2. Can the commonwealth, under democracy and aristocracy, being perpetually under nonage, ever then quarrel at these governments and never seek a king? By this reason they cannot. 3. The king, in all respects, is not a tutor—every comparison in something beareth a leg; for the commonwealth, in their own persons, do choose a king, complain of a king, and resist an Uzziah, and tie their elective prince to a law. A pupil cannot choose his tutor, either his dying father, or the living law doth that service for him; he cannot resist his tutor, he cannot tie his tutor to a law, nor limit him, when first he chooseth him. Pupillo non licet postulare tutorem suspecti, quamdiu sub tutela est, et manethmpubes. (l. Pietatis 6, in sin. C. de susp. Tutor. l. impuberem. 7, and sect. impuberes. Just. eod).

Quest. 13.—Whether or no subjects are more obnoxious to a king than clients to patrons, and servants to masters, because the patron cannot be the client's judge, but some superior magistrate must judge both, and the slave had no refuge against his master, but only flight; and the king doth confer infinite greater benefits on the subjects, than the master doth on the slave, because he exposeth his life, pleasure, ease, credit, and all for the safety of his subjects.

Ans.—1. It is denied, for to draw the case to fathers and lords, in respect of children and vassals, the reason why sons, clients, vassals, can neither formally judge, nor judicially punish, fathers, patrons, lords, and masters, though never so tyrannous, is a moral impotency, or a political incongruity, because these relations of patron and client, fathers and children, are supposed to be in a community, in which are rulers and judges above the father and son, the patron and the client; but there is no physical incongruity that the politic inferior punish the superior, if we suppose there were no judges on the earth, and no relation but patron and client; and, because, for the father to destroy the children, is a troubling of the harmony of nature, and the highest degree of violence, therefore one violence of self-defence, and that most just, though contrary to nature, must be a remedy against another violence; but in a kingdom there is no political ruler above both king and people, and therefore, though nature have not formally appointed the political relation of a king rather than many governors and subjects, yet hath nature appointed a court and tribunal of necessity, in which the people may, by innocent violence, repress the unjust violence of an injuring prince, so as the people injured in the matter of self-defence may be their own judge. 2. I wonder that any should teach, That oppressed slaves had of old no refuge against the tyranny of masters, but only flight; for, (1.) The law expressly saith that they might not only fly but also change masters, which we all know was a great damage to the master, to whom the servant was as good as money in the purse. (2.) I have demonstrated before, by the law of nature, and out of divers learned jurists, that all inferiors may defend themselves by opposing violence against unjust violence; to say nothing that unanswerably I have proved that the kingdom is superior to the king. 3. It is true, Qui plus dat, plus obligat, as the Scripture saith, (Luke 7,) He that giveth a greater benefit layeth a foundation of a greater obligation. But, 1. If benefit be compared with benefit, it is disputable if a king give a greater benefit than an earthly father, to whom, under God, the son is debtor for life and being, if we regard the compensation of eminency of honour and riches, that the people putteth upon the king; but I utterly deny that a power to act tyrannous acts, is any benefit or obligation, that the people in reason can lay upon their prince, as a compensation or hire for his great pains he taketh in his royal watch-tower. I judge it no benefit, but a great hurt, damage, and an ill of nature, both to king and people, that the people should give to their prince any power to destroy themselves, and therefore that people do reverence and honour the prince most, who lay strongest chains and iron fetters on him, that he cannot tyrannise.

Quest. 14.—But are not subjects more subject to their prince, (seeing the subjection is natural, as we see bees and cranes,) to obey him, than servants to their Lord? (C. in Apib. 7, 9, 1, ex Hiero. 4, ad Rustic. Monach. Plin. n. 17.) For jurists teach, that servitude is beside dr against nature, (I. 5, de stat. homi. sect. 2, just. et jur. pers. c. 3, sect, et sicut Nov. 89, quib. med. nat. eff. sui.)

Ans.—There is no question, in active subjection to princes and fathers commanding in the Lord, we shall grant as high a measure as you desire. But the question is, if either active subjection to ill and unjust mandates, or passive subjection to penal inflictions of tyranny and abused power, be natural or most natural; or if subjects do renounce natural subjection to their prince, when they oppose violence to unjust violence. This is to beg the question. And for the commonwealth of bees and cranes, and crown and sceptre amongst them, give me leave to doubt of it. To be subject to kings, is a divine moral law of God; but not properly natural to be subject to coaction of the sword. Government and subjection to parents, is natural; but that a king is juris naturce strictim, I must crave leave to doubt. I hold him to be a divine moral ordinance, to which, in conscience, we are to submit in the Lord.

Quest. 15.—Whether king Uzziah was dethroned by the people?

Ans.—Though we should say he was not formally unkinged and dethroned, yet if the royal power consist in an indivisible point, as some royalists say, and if Uzziah was removed to a private house, and could not reign, being a leper; certainly much royal power was taken from. It is true, Arnisæus saith, he neither could be compelled to resign his power, nor was he compelled to resign his royal authority; but he willingly resigned actual government, and remained king, as tutors and curators are put upon kings that are mad or stupid, and children, who yet govern all by the authority of lawful kings. But that Uzziah did not denude himself of the royal power voluntarily, is clear. The reason (2 Chron. 26:21) why he dwelt in a house apart, and did not actually reign, is, because he was a leper; for, "He was cut off (saith the text) from the house of the Lord; and Jotham, his son, was over the king's house, judging the people of the land." Whereby it is clear, by the express law of God, he being a leper, and so not by law to enter into the congregation, he was cut off from the house of the Lord; and he being passive, is said to be cut off from the Lord's house. Whether, then, Uzziah turned necessity to a virtue, I know not: it is evident, that God's law removed the actual exercise of his power. If we obtain this, which God's word doth give us, we have enough for our purpose, though Uzziah kept the naked title of a king, as indeed he took but up room in the catalogue of kings. Now, if by law he was cut off from actual governing, whether he was willing or not willing to denude himself of reigning, is all one. And to say, that furious men, idiots, stupid men, and children, who must do all royal acts by curators and tutors, are kings jure, with correction, is petitio principii; for then hath God infused immediately from heaven (as royalists teach us) a royal power to govern a kingdom, on those who are as capable of royalty as blocks. I conceive that the Lord (Deut. 17:14–17) commandeth the people to make no blocks kings; and that the Lord hath not done that himself in a binding law to us, which we have no commandment from him to do. I conceive that God made Josiah and Joash kings typical, and in destination, for his promise sake to David, while they were children, as well as he made them kings; but not actu completo ratione officii, to be a rule to us now, to make a child of six years of age a king by office. I conceive children are to us only kings in destination and appointment; and for idiots and fools, I shall not believe (let royalists break their faith upon so rocky and stony a point, at their pleasure) that God hath made them governors of others, by royal office, who can scarce number their own fingers; or that God tyeth a people to acknowledge stupid blocks for royal governors of a kingdom, who cannot govern themselves. But far be it from me to argue with Bellarmine, (de pænit. l. 3, c. 2,) from Uzziah's bodily leprosy to infer that any prince who is spiritually leprous and turned heretical, is presently to be dethroned. Nothing can dethrone a king but such tyranny as is inconsistent with his royal office. Nor durst I infer that kings, now a-days, may be removed from actual government for one single transgression. It is true, eighty priests, and the whole kingdom, so serving king Uzziah (their motives, I know, were divine) proveth well that the subjects may punish the transgression of God's express law in the kins, in some cases even to remove him from the throne; but as from God's commanding to stone the man that gathered sticks on the Sabbath-day, we cannot infer that Sabbath-breakers are now to be punished with death; yet we may well argue, Sabbath-breakers may be punished, and Sabbath-breakers are not unpunishable, and above all law; so may we argue here, Uzziah, though a king, was punished; therefore kings are punishable by subjects.

Quest 16.—Whether or no, as the denial of active obedience in things unlawful is not dishonourable to the king, as king, he being obliged to command in the Lord only, so the denial of passive subjection to the king using unjust violence, be also no dishonouring of the king.

Ans.—As the king is under God's law both in commanding and in exacting active obedience, so is he under the same regulating law of God, in punishing or demanding of us passive subjection, and as he may not command what he will, but what the King of kings warranteth him to command, so may he not punish as he will, but by warrant also of the Supreme Judge of all the earth; and therefore it is not dishonourable to the majesty of the ruler, that we deny passive subjection to him when he punisheth beside his warrant, more than it is against his majesty and honour that we deny active obedience when he commandeth illegally; else I see not how it is lawful to fly from a tyrannous king, as Elias, Christ, and other of the witnesses of our Lord have done; and, therefore, what royalists say here is a great untruth, namely, that in things lawful we must be subject actively,—in things unlawful, passively. For as we are in things lawful to be subject actively, so there is no duty in point of conscience, laying on us to be subject passively, because I may lawfully fly, and so lawfully deny passive subjection to the king's will, punishing unjustly.

Quest. 17.—Whether the prince may make away any part of his dominions, as an island, or a kingdom, for the safety of the whole kingdoms he hath; as if goods be like to sink an over-burthened ship, the seamen cast away a part of the goods in the sea, to save the lives of the whole passengers; and if three thousand passengers being in one ship, and the ship in a storm like to be lost, it would seem that a thousand may be cast over board, to save the lives of the whole passengers.

Ans.—The kingdom being not the king's proper heritage, it would seem he cannot make away any part of his kingdom to save the whole, without the express consent of that part, though they be made away to save the whole. In things of this find, men are not as the commodities of merchants, nor is the case alike; as when one thousand, of three thousand, are to be cast into the sea to save all the rest, and that either by common consent, or by lots, or some other way; for it is one thing, when destruction is evidently inevitable, as in the casting so many men into the sea to save the whole and many passengers, and when a king for peace, or for help from another king, maketh away part of his dominion. The Lord is here to be waited on in his good providence, and events are to be committed to him; but far less, can it be imaginably lawful for a king to make away a part of his dominions without their consent, that he may have help from a foreign prince to destroy the rest: this were to make merchandise of the lives of men.

Quest. 18.—Whether or no the convening of the subjects, without the king's will, be unlawful.

Ans.—The convention of men, of itself, is an indifferent thing, and taketh its specification from its causes, and manner of convening, though some convention of the subjects without the king, be forbidden; yet ratio legis est anima legis, the reason and intent of the law, is the soul of the law. Convention of the subjects, in a tumultuary way, for a seditious end, to make war without warrant of law, is forbidden; but not when religion, laws, liberties, invasion of foreign enemies, necessitated the subjects to convene, though the king and ordinary judicatures, going a corrupt way to pervert judgment, shall refuse to consent to their conventions. Upon which ground, no convention of tables at Edinburgh, or any other place, (an. 1637, 1638, 1639,) can be judged there unlawful; for if these be unlawful, because they are conventions of the leagues, without express act of parliament, then the convention of the leagues to quench a house on fire, and the convention of a country to pursue a wolf entered in the land to destroy women and children, which are warranted by the law of nature, should be lawless, or against acts of parliament.

Quest. 19.—Whether the subjects be obliged to pay the debts of the king.

Ans.—These debts which the king contracteth as king, in throno regali, the people are to pay. For the law of nature and the divine law doth prove, that to every servant and minister wages is due. (Rom. 13:5, 6, compared with verse 4, and 1 Cor. 9:9–12; 1 Tim. 5:18.) If the prince be taken in a war, for the defence of the people, it is just that he be redeemed by them: so the law saith, (tit. F. et C. de negotiis gestis, et F. et C. Manda.) But, Ferdinandus Vasquez (illust quest. I. 1, c. 7, n. 6, Vicesimo tertio apparet, &c.) saith, if the prince was not doing the business of the public, and did make war without advice and consent of the people, then are they not to redeem him. Now certain it is, when the king raiseth war, and saith, "God do so to me and mine, if I intend any thing but peace," yet maketh war not only against his oath, but also without consent of the parliament, and a parliament at that time convocated by his own royal writ, and not raised, and dissolved at all, but still sitting formally a parliament; if he borrow money from his own subjects, and from foreign princes, to raise war against his subjects and parliament, then the people are not obliged to pay his debts, 1. Because they are obliged to the king only as a king, and not as an enemy; but in so raising war he cannot he considered as a king. 2. Though if the people agree with him, and still acknowledge him king; it is impossible, physice, he can be their king, and they not pay his debts; yet they sin not, but may, ex decentia, non ex debito legali, pay his debts, yet are they not obliged by any law of God or man to pay his debts. But though it be true, by all law the king is obliged to pay his debt, (except we say, that all the people's goods are the king's: a compendious way, I confess, to pay aff that any voluptuous Heliogabolus shall contract,) yet it may easily be proved, that what his subjects and foreign princes lent him to the raising of an unjust war are not properly debts, but expenses unjustly given out under the reduplication of formal enemies to the country, and so not payable by the subjects; and this is evident by law, because one may give most unjustly monies to his neighbour, under the notion of loan, which yet hath nothing of the essence of loan and debt, but is mere delapidation, and cannot properly be debt by God's law; for the law regulateth a man in borrowing and lending, as in other politic actions. If I, out of desire of revenge, should lend monies to a robber to buy powder and fuel to burn an innocent city, or to buy armour to kill innocent men, I deny that that is legally debt. I dispute not whether A. B., borrowing money formally, that thereby he may waste it on debauchery, shall be obliged to repay it to C. D. under the reduplication of debt; or if the borrower be obliged to pay what the lender hath unjustly lent. I dare not pray to God that all our king's debts may be paid; I have scarce faith so to do.

Quest. 20.—Whether subsidies be due to the king as king.

Ans.—There is a twofold subsidy; one debitum, of debt; another, charitativum, by way of charity. A subsidy of debt is rather the kingdom's due for their necessity than the king's due, as a part of his rent. We read of customs due to the king as king, and for conscience sake, (Rom. 13:5, 6,) never of a subsidy or taxation to the kings of Israel and Judah, at any convention of the states. Augustus Cæsar's taxing of all the world (Luke 2) for the maintenance of wars, cannot be the proper rent of Augustus, as emperor, but the rent of the Roman empire; and it is but the act of a man. Charitative subsidies to the king, of indulgence, because, through bad husbanding of the king's rents, he hath contracted debts, I judge no better than royal and princely begging. Yet lawful they are, as I owe charity to my brother, so to my father, so to my politic father the king. See Ferd. Vasq. (illust, quest. I. 1, c. 8) who desireth that superiors, under the name of charity, hide not rapine, and citeth Cicero, gravely saying, (offic. l. 1,) "Nulla generi humano et justitiæ major pestis est, quam eorum, qui dum maxime fallunt, id agunt, ut boni viri esse videantur," &c.

Quest. 21.—Whether the seas, floods, roadways, castles, ports, public magazine, militia, armour, forts, and strongholds be the king's.

Ans.—All these may be understood to be the king's in divers notions. 1. They are the king's, quoad custodiam, et publicam possessionem, as a pawn is the man's in whose hand the pawn is laid down. 2. They are the king's, quoad jurisdictionem cumulativam, non privativam. The king is to direct, and royally to command, that the castles, forts, ports, strongholds, armour, magazine, militia, be employed for the safety of the kingdom. All the ways, bridges, and public roadways, are the king's, in so far as he, as a public and royal watchman, is to secure the subject from robbers, and to cognosce of unknown murders, by himself and the inferior judges; yet may not the king employ any of these against the kingdom. 3. They are the kings, as he is king, quoad officialem, et regalem, et publicam proprietatem; for he hath a royal and princely propriety to all these, as his own, in so far as he useth them according to law. 4. And thus they are the king's also, quoad usum, in regard of official use. But, 1. They are the kingdom's, quoad fructum, in regard of the effect and fruit. 2. They are the kingdom's, finaliter, being destinated for the safety and security of the kingdom. 3. They are the kingdom's, quoad proprie-tatem propriam, et legalem stricte sumptam, according to the proper and legal propriety; and are not the king's proper heritage as he is a man: 1. Because he may not sell these forts, strongholds, ports, magazine, bridges, &c. to a stranger, or a foreign prince. 2. When the king is dead, and his heirs and royal line interrupted, these all remain proper to the kingdom; yet so as the state cannot, as they are men, make them away, or sell them, more than the king; for no public persons, yea the multitude cannot make away the security, safety, and that which necessarily conduceth to the security of the posterity. "The Lord build his own Zion, and appoint salvation for walls and bulwarks!"

THE END.

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Lex, Rex by Samuel Rutherford, Copyright © 2019

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