Lex Rex by S. Rutherford Questions 31-40

Question XXXI.

Whether or no self-defence against any unjust violence offered to the life, be warranted by God’s law, and the law of nature and nations.

Self-preservation in all creatures in which is nature, is in the creatures suitable to their nature. The bull defendeth itself by its horns, the eagle by her claws and bill, it will not follow that a lamb will defend itself against a wolf any other way than by flying. So men, and Christian men, do naturally defend themselves; but the manner of self-defence in a rational creature is rational, and not always merely natural; therefore, a politic community, being a combination of many natures, as neither grace, far less can policy, destroy nature, then must these many natures be allowed of God to use a natural self-defence. If the king bring in an army of foreigners, then a politic community must defend itself in a rational way. Why? Self-defence is natural to man, and natural to a lamb, but not the same way. A lamb or a dove naturally defend themselves against beasts or another kind only by flight, not by re-action and re-offending; but it followeth not that a man defendeth himself from his enemy only by flight. If a robber invade me, to take away my life and my purse, I may defend myself by re-action; for reason and grace both may determine the way of self-preservation. Hence royalists say, a private man against his prince hath no way to defend himself but by flight; therefore, a community hath no other way to defend themselves but by flight.

1. The antecedent is false. Dr Ferne alloweth to a private man supplications, and denying of subsidies and tribute to the prince, when he employeth tribute to the destruction of the commonwealth; which, by the way, is a clear resistance, and an active resistance made against the king (Rom. xiii. 6, 7) and against a commandment of God, except royalists grant tyrannous powers may be resisted. 2. The consequence is naught, for a private man may defend himself against unjust violence but not any way he pleaseth the first way is by supplications and apologies, — he may not presently use violence to the king’s servants before he supplicate, nor may he use re-offending, if flight may save David used ill the three in order. He made his defence by words, by the mediation of Jonathan; when that prevailed not, he took himself to flight, as the next; but because he knew flight was not safe every way, and nature taught him self-preservation, and reason and light of grace taught him the means, and the religious order of these means for self-preservation, therefore he addeth a third, “He took Goliath’s sword, and gathered six hundred armed men,” and after that made use of an host. Now a sword and armour are not horsing and shipping for flight, but contrary to flight; so re-offending is policy’s last refuge. A godly magistrate taketh not away the life of a subject if other means can compass the end of the law, and so he is compelled and necessitated to take away the life; so the private man, in his natural self-defence, is not to use re-action, or violent re-offending, in his self-defence against any man, far less against the servants of a king, but in the exigence of the last and most inexorable necessity. And it is true that M. Symmons saith, (sect. 11. p. 35,) “Self-defence is not to be used where it cannot be without sin.” It is certain, necessity is but a hungry plea for sin. (Luke xiv. 18,) but it is also true, re-offending comparatively, that I kill rather than I be killed, in the sinless court of nature’s spotless and harmless necessity, is lawful and necessary, except I be guilty of self-murder, in the culpable omission of self-defence. Now a private man may fly, and and that is his second necessity, and violent re-offending is the third mean of self-preservation; but, with leave, violent re-offending is necessary to a private man, when his second mean, to wit, flight, is not possible, and cannot attain the end, as in the case of David: if flight do not prevail, Goliath’s sword and an host of armed men are lawful. So, to a church and a community of protestants, men, women, aged, sucking children, sick, and diseased, who are pressed either to be killed or forsake religion and Jesus Christ, flight is not the second mean, nor a mean at all, because not possible, and therefore not. a natural mean of preservation; for the aged, the sick, the sucking infants, and sound religion in the posterity cannot flee; flight here is physically, and by nature’s necessity, impossible, and therefore no lawful mean. What is to nature physically impossible is no lawful mean. If Christ have a promise that the ends of the earth (Psal. ii. 8) and the isles shall be his possession, (Isa. xlix. 1,) I see not how natural defence can put us to flee, even all protestants and their seed, and the weak and sick, whom we are obliged to defend as ourselves, both by the law of nature and grace. I read that seven wicked nations and idolatrous were cast out of their land to give place to the church of God to dwell there, but show me a warrant in nature’s law and in God’s word that three kingdoms of protestants, their seed, aged, sick, sucking children, should flee out of England, Scotland, Ireland, and leave religion and the land to a king and to papists, prelates, and bloody Irish, and atheists; and therefore to a church and community having God’s right and man’s law to the land, violent re-offending is their second mean (next to supplications and declarations, &c.) and flight is not required of them as of a private man; yea flight is not necessarily required of a private man, but where it is a possible mean of self-preservation; violent and unjust invasion of a private man, which is unavoidable, may be obviated with violent re-offending. Now the unjust invasion made on Scotland in 1640, for refusing the service-book, or rather the idolatry of the mass, therein intended, was unavoidable; it was impossible for the protestants, their old and sick, their women and sucking children to flee over sea, or to have shipping betwixt the king’s bringing an army on them at Dunse Law, and the prelates’ charging of the ministers to receive the mass book. Althusius saith well, (Polit. c. 38, n. 78,) Though private men may flee, yet the estates, if they flee, they do not do their duty, to commit a country, religion and all, to a lion. Let not any object, We may not devise a way to fulfil the prophecy, Psal. ii. 8, 9; Isa. xlix. 1; it is true, if the way be our own sinful way; nor let any object, a colony went to New England and fled the persecution. Answer, True, but if fleeing be the only mean after supplication, there was no more reason that one colony should go to New England than it is necessary, and by a divine law obligatory, that the whole protestants in the three kingdoms, according to royalists’ doctrine, are to leave their native country and religion to one man, and to popish idolaters and atheists, willing to worship idols with them, and whither then shall the gospel be, which we are obliged to defend with our lives?

There is tutela vitæ proxima, et remota, a mere and immediate defence of our life, and a remote or mediate defence; when there is no actual invasion made by a man seeking our life, we are not to use violent re-offending. David might have killed Saul when he was sleeping, and when he cut off the lap of his garment, but it was unlawful for him to kill the Lord’s anointed, because he is the Lord’s anointed, as it is unlawful to kill a man, because he is the image of God, (Gen. ix. 6,) except in case of necessity. The magistrate in case of necessity may kill the malefactor, though his maleficus do not put him in that case, that he hath not now the image of God; now prudence and light of grace determineth, when we are to use violent re-offending for self-preservation, it is not left to our pleasure. In a remote posture of self-defence, we are not to use violent re-offending: David having Saul in his hand was in a remote posture of defence, the unjust invasion then was not actual, not unavoidable, not a necessary mean in human prudence for self-preservation, for king Saul was then in a habitual, not in an actual pursuit of the whole princes, elders, and judges of Israel, or of a whole community and church; Saul did but seek the life of one man, David, and that not for religion, or a national pretended offence, and therefore he could not in conscience put hands on the Lord’s anointed; but if Saul had actually invaded David for his life, David might, in that case, make use of Goliath’s sword, (for he took not that weapon with him as a cypher to boast Saul — it is no less unlawful to threaten a king than to put hands on him,) and rather kill or be killed by Saul’s emissaries; because then he should have been in an immediate and nearest posture of actual self-defence. Now the case is far otherwise between the king and the two parliaments of England and Scotland, for the king is not sleeping in his emissaries, for he hath armies in two kingdoms, and now in three kingdoms, by sea and land, night and day, in actual pursuit, not of one David, but of the estates, and a Christian community in England and Scotland, and that for religions, laws, and liberties; for the question is now between papist and protestant, between arbitrary or tyrannical government, and law government, and therefore by both the laws of the politic societies of both kingdoms, and by the law of God and nature, we are to use violent re-offending for self-preservation, and put to this necessity, when armies are in actual pursuit of all the protestant churches of the three kingdoms, to actual killing, rather than we be killed, and suffer laws and religion to be undone.

But, saith the royalist, David’s argument, “God forbid that I stretch out my hand against the Lord’s anointed, my master the king,” concludeth universally, that the king in his most tyrannous acts, still remaining the Lord’s anointed, cannot be resisted.

Ans. — 1. David speaketh of stretching out his hand against the person of king Saul: no man in the three kingdoms did so much as attempt to do violence to the king’s person. But this argument is inconsequent, for a king invading, in his own royal person, the innocent subject, suddenly, without colour of law or reason, and unavoidably, may be personally resisted, and that with opposing a violence bodily, yet in that invasion he remaineth the Lord’s anointed. 2. By this argument the life of a murderer cannot be taken away by a judge, for he remaineth one indued with God’s image, and keepeth still the nature of a man under all the murders that he doth, but it followeth nowise, that because God hath endowed his person with a sort of royalty, of a divine image, that his life cannot be taken; and certainly, if to be A man endued with God’s image, (Gen. vi. 9, 10,) and to be an ill-doer worthy of evil punishment, are different, to be a king and an ill-doer may be distinguished.

1. The grounds of sell-defence are these: — A woman or a young man may violently oppose a king, if he force the one to adultery and incest, and the other to sodomy, though court flatterers should say, the king, in regard of his absoluteness, is lord of life and death; yet no man ever said that the king is lord of chastity, faith, and oath that the wife hath made to her husband.

2. Particular nature yields to the good of universal nature, for which cause heavy bodies ascend, airy and light bodies descend. If, then, a wild bull or a goring ox, may not be let loose in a great market-confluence of people, and if any man turn so distracted as he smite himself with stones and kill all that pass by him, or come at him, in that case the man is to be bound, and his hands fettered, and all whom he invadeth may resist him, were they his own sons, and may save their own lives with weapons, much more a king turning a Nero. King Saul, vexed with an evil spirit from the Lord, may be resisted; and far more if a king endued with use of reason, shall put violent hands on all his subjects, kill his son and heir; yea, and violently invaded, by nature’s law, may defend themselves, and the violent restraining of such a one is but the hurting of one man, who cannot be virtually the commonwealth, but his destroying of the community of men sent out in wars, as his bloody emissaries, to the dissolution of the commonwealth.

3. The cutting off of a contagious member, that by a gangrene, would corrupt the whole body, is well warranted by nature, because the safety of the whole is to be preferred to the safety of a part. Nor is it much that royalists say, The king being the head, destroy him, and the whole body of the commonwealth is dissolved; as cut off a man’s head, and the life of the whole man is taken away. Because, 1. God cutteth off the spirits of tyrannous kings, and yet the commonwealth is not dissolved, no more than when a leopard or a wild boar, running through children, is killed, can be the destruction of all the children in the land. 2. A king indefinitely is referred to the commonwealth as an adequate head to a monarchical kingdom; and remove all kings and the politic body, as monarchical, in its frame, is not monarchical, but it leaveth not off to be a politic body, seeing it hath other judges; but the natural body without the head cannot live. 3. This or that tyrannous king, being a transient mortal thing, cannot be referred to the immortal commonwealth, as it is adequate correlate. They say, “the king never dieth,” yet this king can die; an immortal politic body, such as the commonwealth, must have an immortal head, and that is a king as a king, not this or that man, possibly a tyrant, who is for the time (and eternal things abstract from time) only a king.

4. The reason of Fortunius Garcias, a skilful lawyer in Spain, is considerable, (Comment, in l. ut vim vi ff. de justit. et jure,) God hath implanted in every creature natural inclinations and motions to preserve itself, and we are to love ourselves for God, and have a love to preserve ourselves rather than our neighbour; and nature’s law teacheth every man to love God best of all, and next ourselves more than our neighbour; for the law saith, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” Then saith Malderius, (com. in 12, q. 26, tom. 2, c. 10, concl. 2,) “The love of ourselves is the measure of the love of our neighbour.” But the rule and the measure is more perfect, simple, and more principal than the thing that is measured. It is true I am to love the salvation of the church, it cometh nearer to God’s glory, more than my own salvation, as the wishes of Moses and Paul do prove; and I am to love the salvation of my brother more than my own temporal life; but I am to love my own temporal life more than the life of any other, and therefore, I am rather to kill than to be killed, the exigence of necessity so requiring. Nature without sin owneth this as a truth, in the case of loss of life, Proxmus sum egomet mihi, (Ephes. v. 28, 29,) “He that loveth his wife, loveth himself; for no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth it, and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church.” As then nature tyeth the dam to defend the young birds, and the lion her whelps, and the husband the wife, and that by a comparative re-offending, rather than the wife or children should be killed; yea, he that his wanting to his brother, (if a robber unjustly invade his brother,) and helpeth him not, is a murderer of his brother, so far God’s spiritual law requiring both conservation of it in our person, and preservation in others. The forced damsel was commanded to cry for help, and not the magistrate only, but the nearest private man or woman was to come, by an obligation of a divine law of the seventh commandment, to rescue the damsel with violence, even as a man is to save his enemy’s ox or his ass out of a pit. And if a private man may inflict bodily punishment of two degrees, to preserve the life and chastity of his neighbour, far rather than suffer his life and chastity to be taken away, then he may inflict violence of four degrees, even to killing, for his life, and much more for his own life. So when a robber, with deadly weapons, invadeth an innocent traveller to kill him for his goods, upon the supposition that if the robber be not killed, the innocent shall be killed. Now the question is, which of the two, by God’s moral law and revealed will, in point of conscience, ought to be killed by his fellow? For we speak not now of God’s eternal decree of permitting evil, according to the which murderers may crucify the innocent Lord of glory. By no moral law of God should the unjust robber kill the innocent traveller; therefore, in this exigence of providence, the traveller should rather kill the robber. If any say, by God’s moral law not one should kill his fellow, and it is a sin against the moral law in either to kill the other, I answer, — If a third shall come in when the robber and the innocent are invading each other for his life, all acknowledge by the sixth commandment the third may cut off the robber’s arm to save the innocent; but by what law of God he may cut off his arm, he may take his life also to save the other; for it is murder to wound unjustly, and to dismember a man by private authority, as it is to take away his life; if, therefore, the third may take away the robber’s member, then also his life, so he do it without malice or appetite of revenge, and if he may do it out of this principle, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;” because a man. is obliged more to love his own flesh than his neighbour’s, (Ephes. v. 28,) and so more to defend himself than to defend his neighbour, — then may he oppose violence to the robber. As two men drowning in a water the one is not obliged by God’s law to expose himself to drowning to save his neighbour; but by the contrary, he is obliged rather to save himself, though it were with the loss of his neighbour’s lift. As in war, if soldiers in a strait passage be pursued on their life, nature teacheth them to flee; if one fall, his fellow in that exigence is not only not obliged to lift him up, but he and the rest flying, though they trample on him and kill him, they are not guilty of murder, seeing they hated him not before, (Deut. xix. 4, 8;) so Chemnit. (loc. com. de vindic. q. 3) alloweth private defence. 1. When the violence is sudden. 2. And the violence manifestly inevitable. 3. When the magistrate is absent and cannot help. 4. When moderation is kept as lawyers require. 1. That it be done incontinent; if it be done after the injury, it is revenge, not defence. 2. Not of desire of revenge. 3. With proportion of armour. If the violent invader invade not with deadly weapons, you must not invade him with deadly weapons; and certainly the law (Exod. xxii.) of a man’s defending his house is clear. 1. If he come in the night, it is presumed he is a robber. 2. If he be taken with a weapon breaking the house, he cometh to kill, a man may defend himself, wife, and children. 3. But he is but to wound him, and if he die of the wound, the defender is free; so the defender is not to intend his death, but to save himself.

5. It were a mighty defect in providence to man, if dogs by nature may detend themselves against wolves, bulls against lions, doves against hawks, if man, in the absence of the lawful magistrate, should not defend himself against unjust violence; but one man might raise armies of papists, sick for blood, to destroy innocent men. They object, “When the king is present in his person, and his invaders, he is not absent, and so though you may rather kill a private man than suffer yourself to be killed, yet, because prudence determineth the means of self-defence, you are to expose your life to hazard for justice of your king, and therefore not to do violence to the life of your king; nor can the body, in any self-defence, fight against the head, that must be the destruction of the whole.” — Ans. 1. Though the king be present as an unjust invader in wars against his innocent subjects, he is absent as a king, and a father and defender, and present as an unjust conqueror, and therefore the innocent may defend themselves when the king neither can, nor will defend them. “Nature maketh a man, (saith the law, Gener. c. de decur. l. 10, l. si alius. sect. Bellissime ubique Gloss. in vers. ex magn. not. per. illum, text. ff. quod vi aut clam. l. ait prætor, sect. si debitorem meum. ff. de hisque in fraud. credito.,) even a private man, his own judge, magistrate, and defender, quando copiam judicis, qui sibi jus reddat, non habet, when he hath no judge to give him justice and law.” The subjects are to give their lives for the king, as the king, because the safety of the king, as king, is the safety of the commonwealth. But the king, as offering unjust violence to his innocent subjects, is not king. Zoannet. (part 3, defens. n. 44,) — Transgrediens notorie offcium suum Judex, agit velut privatus atiquis, non ut magistratus (ff. de injur. est bonus in simili in. l. qui fundum. sect. si. tutor, ff. pro emptore). 3. If the politic body fight against this head in particular, not as head, but as an oppressor of the people, there is no fear of dissolution; if the body rise against all magistracy, as magistracy and laws, dissolution of all must follow. Parliaments and inferior judges are heads (Num. i. 16; x. 4; Deut i. 15; Josh, xxii. 21; Mic. iii 1, 9, 11; 1 Kings viii. 1; 1 Chron. v. 25; 2 Chron. v. 2,) no less than the king; and it is unlawful to offer violence to them, though I shall rather think a private man is to suffer the king to kill him rather than he kill the king, because he is to prefer the life of a private man to the life of a public man.

6. By the law of nature a ruler is appointed to defend the innocent. Now, by nature, an infant in the womb defendeth itself first, before the parents can defend it, then when parents and magistrates are not, (and violent invading magistrates are not in that magistrates,) nature hath commended every man to self-defence.

7. The law of nature excepteth no violence, whether inflicted by a magistrate or any other. Unjust violence from a ruler is double injustice. 1. He doth unjustly as a man. 2. As a member of the commonwealth. 3. He committeth a special kind of sin of injustice against his office, but it is absurd to say we may lawfully defend ourselves from smaller injuries, by the law of nature, and not from the greater. “If the Pope, saith Fer. Vasquez (illust. quest. l. 1, c. 24, n. 24, 25) command to take away benefices from the just owner, those who are to execute his commandment are not to obey, but to write back that that mandate came not from his holiness, but from the avarice of his officers; but if the Pope still continue and press the same unjust mandate, the same should be written again to him: and though there be none above the Pope, yet there is natural self-defence patent for all.” “Defensio vitæ necessaria est, et a jure naturali profluit” (L. ut vim. ff. de just, et jure 16,) “Nam quod quisque ob tutelam carporis sui feceritjure fecisse videatur,” (C. jus naturale, 1 distinc. l. 1, ffde vi et vi armatal. injuriarum, ff. de injuria: C. significasti. 2, de hom. lscientiam, sect. qui non aliter ff. ad leg. Aquil; C. si vero 1, de sent. excom. et l. sed etsi ff. ad leg. Aquil.) “Etiamsi sequatur homicidium.” Vasquez. (1. 1, c. 17, n. 5.) — “Etiam occidere licet ob defensionem rerum. Vim vi repellere omnia jura permittunt in C. signijicasti.” Garcias Fortunius (Comment, in l. ut vim. ff. de instit. et jur. n. 3.) — “Defendere se est juris naturos et gentium. A jure civili fuit additum moderamen inculpates tutelæ.” Novel (defens. n. 101.) — “Occidens principem vel alium tyrannidem exercentem, a pœna homicidii excusatur.” Grotius (de jure belli et pacis, l. 2, c. 1, n. 3.) — “Si corpus impetatur vi presente, cum periculo vitas non aliter vitabili, tunc bellum est licitum etiam cum interfectione periculum inferentis, rationatura quemque sibi commendat.” Barclaius (advers. Monarl. 3, c. 8.) — “Est jus cuilibet se tenendi adversus immanem sevitiam.”

But what ground (saith the royalist) is there to rake arms against the king? Jealousies and suspicions are not enough.

Ans. — 1. The king sent first an army to Scotland, and blocked us up by sea, before we took arms. 2. Papists were armed in England. They have professed themselves in their religion of Trent to be so much the holier, that they root out protestants. 3. The king declared we had broken loyalty to him since the last parliament. 4. He declared both kingdoms rebels. 5. Attempted in his emissaries to destroy the parliament; 8. And to bring in a foreign enemy. And the law saith, “An imminent danger, which is a sufficient warrant to take up arms, is not strokes, but either the terror of arming or threatening.” Glossator. (in d. l. 1, C.) — “Unde vi. ait non esse verbera expectanda, sed vel terrorem armorum sufficere, vel minas, et hoc esse imminens periculum.” L. sed et si quemcunque in princ. ff. ad leg. Aquil l. 3, quod qui armati ff. de vi et vi armata is qui aggressorem C. ad legem Corneli.

In most heinous sins, conatus, the endeavour and aim, etiamsi effectus non sequatur, puniri debet, is punishable. Bartol. in l., “Si quis non dicam rapere.”

The king hath aimed at the destruction of his subjects, through the power of wicked counsellors, and we are to consider not the intention of the workers, but the nature and intention of the work. Papists are in arms, — their religion, the conspiracy of Trent, their conscience, (if they have any,) their malice against the covenant of Scotland, which abjureth their religion to the full, their ceremonies, their prelates, — lead and necessitate them to root out the name of protestant religion, yea, and to stab a king who is a protestant. Nor is our king, remaining a protestant, and adhering to his oath made at the coronation in both kingdoms, lord of his own person, master of himself, nor able, as king, to be a king over protestant subjects, if the papists, now in arms under his standard, shall prevail.

The king hath been compelled to go against his own oath, and the laws which he did swear to maintain; the Pope sendeth to his popish armies both dispensations, bulls, mandates, and encouragements; the king hath made a cessation with the bloody Irish, and hath put arms in the hands of papists. Now, he being under the oath of God, tyed to maintain the protestant religion, he hath a metaphysically subtle, piercing faith of miracles, who believeth armed papists and prelates shall defend the religion of protestants; and those who have abjured prelates as the lawful sons of the Pope, that o9 a0nti/xristoj and as the law saith, Quilibet in dubio præsumitur bonus. L. merito præsumi. L. non omnes, sect. a Barbaris de re milit. Charity believeth not ill; so charity is not a fool to believe all things. So saith the law, Semel malus, semper præsumitur malus, in eodem genere. C. semel malus de jure gentium in 6. Once wicked, is always wicked in that kind. Marius Salamonius, lC. in L. ut vim atque injuriam ff. de just et jure. We are not to wait on strokes, the terror of armour, omnium consensu, by consent of all is sufficient (n. 3). “If I see (saith he) the enemy take an arrow out of the quiver, before he bend the bow, it is lawful to prevent him with a blow — cunctatio est periculosa.” The king’s coming with armed men into the House of Commons to demand the five members, is very symbolical, and war was printed on that fact, “he that runneth may read.” His coming to Hull with an army, saith not he had no errand there, but to ask what it was in the dock. Novellus, that learned Venetian lawyer, in a treatise for defence, maketh continuatam rixam, a continued upbraiding, a sufficient ground of violent detence. He citeth Dr Comniter. in L. ut vim. f. de just et jure. Yea, he saith, drunkenness, (defens. n. 44,) error, (n. 46,) madness, (n. 49, 50,) ignorance, (n. 51, 52,) impudence, (n. 54,) necessity, (n. 56,) laciviousness, (n. 58,) continual reproaches, (n. 59,) the fervour of anger, (n. 64,) threatening, (n. 66,) fear of imminent danger, (n. 67,) and just grief, do excuse a man from homicide, and that in these he ought to be more mildly punished, quia obnubilatum et mancum est consilium, reason in these being lame and clogged. (Ambros. l. 1. offic.) Qui non repellit injuriam a socio, cum potest, tam est in vitio, quam ille qui facit. And as nature, so the law saith, “When the losses are such as can never be repaired, as death, mutilation, loss of chastity, quoniam facta infecta fieri nequeunt, things of that kind once done, can never be undone, we are to prevent the enemy” (lZonat. tract. defens. par. 3, l. in bello sect. factæ de capit, notat. Gloss. in lsi quis provocatione). If the king send an Irish rebel to cast me over a bridge, and drown me in a water, I am to do nothing, while the king’s emissary first cast me over, and then in the next room I am to defend myself; but nature and the law of self-defence warranteth me (if I know certainly his aim,) to horse him first over the bridge, and then consult how to defend myself at my own leisure.

Royalists object that David, in his defence, never invaded and persecuted Saul; yea, when he came upon Saul and his men sleeping, to would not kill any; but the Scottish and parliament’s forces not only defend, but invade, offend, kill, and plunder; and this is clearly an offensive, not a defensive war.

Ans. 1. — There is no defensive war different in specie and nature from an offensive war; if we speak physically, they differ only in the event and intention of the heart; and it is most clear that the affection and intention doth make one and the same action of taking away the life, either homicide, or no homicide. 1. If a man, out of hatred, deliberately take away his brother’s life, he is a murderer eatenus, but if that same man had taken away that same brother’s life, by the flying off of an axe-head off the staff, while he was hewing timber, he neither hating him before, nor intending to hurt his brother, he is no murderer, by God’s express law, (Deut. iv. 42; xix. 4; Joshua xx. 5.) 2. The cause between the king and the two parliaments, and between Saul and David, are so different in this, as it is much for us. Royalists say, David might, if he had seen offending to conduce for self-preservation, have invaded Saul’s men, and, say they, the case was extraordinary, and bindeth not us to self-defence; and thus they must say — for offensive weapons, such as Goliath’s sword, and an host of armed men, cannot by any rational man be assumed (and David had the wisdom of God) but to offend, if providence should so dispose; and so what was lawful to David, is lawful to us in self-defence; he might offend lawfully, and so may we.

2. If Saul and the Philistines, aiming (as under an oath) to set up dagon in the land of Israel, should invade David, and the princes and elders of Israel who made him king; and if David, with an host of armed men, he and the princes of Israel, should come in that case upon Saul and the Philistines sleeping, if in that case David might not lawfully have cut off the Philistines, and as he defended in that case God’s church and true religion, if he might not then have lawfully killed, I say, the Philistines, I remit to the conscience of the reader. Now to us, papists and prelates under the king’s banner, are Philistines, introducing the idolatry of bread-worship and popery, as hateful to God as dagon-worship.

3. Saul intended no arbitrary government, nor to make Israel a conquered people, nor yet to cut off all that professed the true worship of God; nor came Saul against these princes, elders and people, who made him king, only David’s head would have made Saul lay down arms; but prelates, and papists, and malignants, under the king, intend to make the king’s sole will a law, to destroy the court of parliament, which putteth laws in execution against their idolatry; and their aim is, that protestants be a conquered people; and their attempt hath been hitherto to blow up king and parliament, to cut off all protestants; and they are in arms, in divers parts of the kingdom, against the princes of the land, who are no less judges and deputies of the Lord than the king himself; and would kill, and do kill, plunder, and spoil us, if we kill not them. And the case is every way now between armies and armies, as between a single man unjustly invaded for his life, and an unjust invader. Neither in a natural action, such as is self-defence, is that of policy to be urged, — none can be judge in his own cause, when oppression is manifest: one may be both agent and patient, as the fire and water conflicting; there is no need of a judge, a community casts not off nature; when the judge is wanting, nature is judge, actor, accused, and all.

Lastly, no man is lord of the members of his own body, (m. l. liber homo ff. ad leg. Aqui.) nor lord of his own life, but is to be accountable to God for it.

Question XXXII.

Whether or not the lawfulness of defensive wars hath its warrant in God’s word, from the example of David, Elisha, the eighty priests who resisted Uzziah, &c.

David defended himself against king Saul, 1. By taking Goliath’s sword with him. 2. By being captain to six hundred men; yea, it is more than clear, (1 Chron. xii. 22-34,) that there came to David a host like the host of God, to help against Saul, exceeding four thousand. Now, that this host came warrantably to help him against Saul, I prove, 1. Because it is said, “Now these are they that came to David to Ziklag, while he kept himself close, because of Saul the son of Kish; and they were amongst the mighty men, helpers of the war;” and then so many mighty captains are reckoned out. “There came of the children of Benjamin and Judah to the hold of David.” And there fell some of Manasseh to David, — “As he went to Ziklag there fell to him of Manasseh, Kenah and Jozabad, Jediel and Michael, and Jozabad and Elihu, and Zilthai, captains of the thousands that were of Manasseh.” “And they helped David against the band of the rovers.” “At that time, day by day, there came to David, until it was a great host, like the host of God.” Now the same expression that is in the first verse, where it is said they came to help David against Saul, is repeated in ver. 16, 19-23. 2. That they warrantably came, is evident; because, (1.) The Spirit of God commendeth them for their valour and skill in war, (ver. 2 &c.), which the Spirit of God doth not in unlawful wars. (2.) Because Amassai, (ver. 18), the Spirit of the Lord coming on him, saith, “Thine are we, David, and on thy side, thou son of Jesse; peace, peace unto thee, and peace to thy helpers, for thy God helpeth thee.” The Spirit of God inspireth no man to pray peace to those who are in an unlawful war. 3. That they came to David’s side only to be sufferers, and to flee with David, and not to pursue and offend, is ridiculous. 1. It is said, (ver. 1,) “They came to David to Ziklag, while he kept himself close, because of Saul the son of Kish. And they were amongst the mighty men, helpers of the war.” It is a scorn to say, that their might, and their helping in war, consisted in being mere patients with David, and such as fled from Saul, for they had been on Saul’s side before; and to come with armour to flee, is a mocking of the word of God. 2. It is clear, the scope of the Spirit of God is to show how God helped his innocent servant David against his persecuting prince and master, king Saul, in moving so many mighty men of war to come in such multitudes, all in arms, to help him in war. Now to what end would the Lord commend them as fit for war, “men of might, fit to handle shield and buckler, whose faces are as the faces of lions, as swift as the roes on the mountains,” (ver. 8,) and commend them as helpers of David, if it were unlawful for David, and all those mighty men, to carry arms to pursue Saul and his followers, and to do nothing with their armour but flee? Judge if the Spirit of God, in reason, could say, “All these men came armed with bows,” (ver. 2,) and could “handle both the right hand and the left in flinging stones, and shooting of arrows,” and that (ver. 22) all these “came to David, being mighty men of valour, and they came as captains over hundreds, and thousands, and they put to flight all them of the valleys, both toward the east and toward the west” (ver. 13 15,) and that “David received them, and made them captains of the band,” if they did not come in a posture of war, and for hostile invasion, if need were? For if they came only to suffer and to flee, not to pursue, bowmen, captains, and captains of bands made by David, and David’s helpers in the war, came not to help David by flying, that was a hurt to David, not a help. It is true, Mr Symmons saith, (1 Sam. xxii. 2,) “Those that came out to David strengthened him, but he strengthened not them; and David might easily have revenged himself on the Ziphites, who did good will to betray him to the hands of Saul, if his conscience had served him.

Ans. 1. — This would infer that these armed men came to help David against his conscience, and that David was a patient in the business. The contrary is in the text, (1 Sam. xxvi. 2,) “David became a captain over them;” and (1 Chron. xii. 17, 18,) “If ye come peaceably to help me, my heart shall be knit to you. Then David received them, and made them captains of the band.” 2. David might have revenged himself upon the Ziphites, true; but that conscience hindered him cannot be proved. To pursue an enemy is an act of a council of war; and he saw it would create more enemies, not help his cause. 3. To David to kill Saul sleeping, and the people who, out of a mis-informed conscience came out, many of them to help their lawful prince against a traitor (as was supposed) seeking to kill their king, and to usurp the throne, had not been wisdom nor justice; because to kill the enemy in a just self-defence, must be, when the enemy actually doth invade, and the life of the defendant cannot be otherwise saved. A sleeping enemy is not in the act of unjust pursuit of the innocent; but if an army of papists, Philistines, were in the fields sleeping, pursuing not one single David only for a supposed personal wrong to the king, but lying in the fields and camp against the whole kingdom and religion, and labouring to introduce arbitrary government, popery, idolatry, and to destroy laws, and liberties, and parliaments, then David were obliged to kill these murderers in their sleep.

If any say, The case is all one in a natural self-defence, whatever be the cause, and whoever be the enemy, because the self-defender is not to offend, except the unjust invader be in actual pursuit, — now armies in their sleep are not in actual pursuit.

Ans. 1. — When one man with a multitude invadeth one man, that one man may pursue, as he seeth most conducible for self-defence. Now the law saith, “Threatenings and terror of armour maketh imminent danger,” and the case of pursuit in self-defence lawful; if therefore an army of Irish rebels and Spaniards were sleeping in their camp, and our king in a deep sleep in the midst of them, and these rebels actually in the camp besieging the parliament, and the city of London, most unjustly to take away parliament, laws, and liberties of religion, it should follow that General Essex ought not to kill the king’s majesty in his sleep, for he is the Lord’s anointed; but will it follow that General Essex may not kill the Irish rebels sleeping about the king; and that he. may not rescue the king’s person out of the hands of the papists and rebels, ensnaring the king, and leading him on to popery, and to employ his authority to defend popery, and trample upon protestant parliaments and laws? Certainly from this example this cannot be concluded. For armies in actual pursuit of a whole parliament, kingdom, laws, and religion, (though sleeping in the camp,) because in actual pursuit, may be invaded, and killed, though sleeping. And David useth no argument, from conscience, why he might not kill Saul’s army, (I conceive he had not arms to do that,) and should have created more enemies to himself, and hazard his own life, and the life of all his men, if he had of purpose killed so many sleeping men; yea, the inexpedience of that, for a private wrong to kill God’s misled people, should have made all Israel enemies to David. But David useth an argument, from conscience only, to prove it was not lawful for him to stretch forth his hand against the king; and for my part, so long as he remaineth king, and is not dethroned by those who made him king at Hebron, to put hands on his person, I judge utterly unlawful. One man sleeping cannot be in actual pursuit of another man; so that the self-defender may lawfully kill him in his sleep; but the case is far otherwise in lawful wars; the Israelites might lawfully kill the Philistines encamping about Jerusalem to destroy it, and religion, and the church of God, though they were all sleeping; even though we suppose king Saul had brought them in by his authority, and though he were sleeping in the midst of the uncircumcised armies; and it is evident, that an host of armed enemies, though, sleeping, by the law of self-defence, may be killed, lest they awake and kill us; whereas one single man, and that a king:, cannot be killed. 2. I think, certainly, David had done unwisely, and hazarded his own life and all his men’s, if he, and Abimelech, and Abishai, should have killed an host of their enemies sleeping: that had been a work as impossible to three, as hazardous to all his men.

Dr. Ferne, as Arnisæus did before him, saith, “The example of David was extraordinary, because he was anointed and designed, by God as successor to Saul, and so he must use an extraordinary way of guarding himself.” Arnisæus (c. 2, n. 15) citeth Alberic. Gentilis, that David was now exempted from amongst the number of subjects.

Ans. — 1. There were not two kings in Israel now, both David and Saul. 1. David acknowledged his subjection in naming Saul the Lord’s anointed, and his master, lord and king; and, therefore, David was yet a subject. 2. If David would have proved his title to the crown by extraordinary ways, he who killed Goliath extraordinarily might have killed Saul by a miracle; but David goeth a most ordinary way to work for self-defence, and his coming to the kingdom was through persecution, want, eating shew-bread in case of necessity, defending himself with Goliath’s sword. 3. How was anything extraordinary and above a law, seeing David might have killed his enemy Saul, and, according to God’s law, he spared him? and he argueth from a moral duty. He is the Lord’s anointed, therefore I will not kill him. Was this extraordinary above a law? then, according to God’s law, he might have killed him. Royalists cannot say so. What ground to say one of David’s acts in his deportment towards Saul was extraordinary, and not all? Was it extraordinary that David fled? No; or that David consulted the oracle of God what to do when Saul was coming against him? 4. In an ordinary fact something may be extraordinary, — as the dead sleep from the Lord upon Saul and his men, (1 Sam. xxvi.) and yet the fact, according to its substance, ordinary. 5. Nor is this extraordinary, — that a distressed man, being an excellent warrior, as David was, may use the help of six hundred men, who, by the law of charity, are to help to deliver the innocent from death; yea, all Israel were obliged to defend him who killed Goliath. 6. Royalists make David’s act of not putting hands on the Lord’s anointed an ordinary moral reason against resistance, but his putting on of armour they will have extraordinary; and this is, I confess, a short way to an adversary to cull out something that is for his cause and make it ordinary, and something that is against his cause must be extraordinary. 7. These men, by the law of nature, were obliged to join in arms with David; therefore, the non-helping of an oppressed man must be God’s ordinary law, — a blasphemous tenet. 8. If David, by an extraordinary spirit, killed not king Saul, then the Jesuits’ way of killing must be God’s ordinary law.

2. David certainly intended to keep Keilah against king Saul, for the Lord would not have answered David in an unlawful fact; for that were all one as if God should teach David how to play the traitor to his king; for if God had answered, They will not deliver thee up, but they shall save thee from the hand of Saul, — as David believed he might say this, as well as its contradicent, then David behoved to keep the city; for certainly David’s question pre-supposeth he was to keep the city.

The example of Elisha the prophet is considerable, (2 Kings vi. 32,) “But Elisha sat in his house, and the elders with him; and the king sent a man before him; but, ere the messengers came to him, he said to the elders, See now, the son of a murderer hath sent to take away mine head.” 1. Here is unjust violence offered by king Joram to an innocent man. Elisha keepeth the house violently against the king’s messenger, as we did keep castles against king Charles’ unlawful messengers. “Look (saith he) when the messenger cometh, — shut the door.” 2. There is violence also commanded, and resistance to be made. “Hold him fast at the door.” In the Hebrew it is, tlede@ba@ wOt)o Mte@c;xal;w% tled@aha  w%rg;si Arias Montan.: Claudite ostium, et oppremetis eumin ostio, “Violently press him at the door.” And so the Chaldee paraphrase, Ne sinatis eum introire, Jerome. The LXX. Interpreters, paraqli/yate au0to\n e0n th~| qu/ra| illidite eum in ostio, “Press him betwixt the door and the wall” It is a word of bodily violence, according to Vatablus; yea, Theodoret will have king Joram himself holden at the door. And, 3. It is no answer that Dr Ferne and other royalists give, that Elisha made no personal resistance to the king himself but only to the king’s cutthroat, sent to take away his head; yea, they say, it is lawful to resist the king’s cutthroats. But the text is clear, that the violent resistance is made to the king himself also, for he addeth, “Is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him?” And by this answer, it is lawful to keep towns with iron gates and bars, and violently to oppose the king’s cut-throats coining to take away the heads of the parliaments of both kingdoms, and of protestants in the three kingdoms.

Some royalists are so impudent as to say that there was no violence here, and that Elisha was an extraordinary man, and that it is not lawful for as to call a king the son of a murderer, as the prophet Elisha did; but Ferne, (sect. 2, p. 9,) forgetting himself, saith from hence, “It is lawful to resist the prince himself, thus far, as to ward his blows, and hold his hands.” But let Ferne answer, if the violent binding of the prince’s hand, that he shall not be able to kill, be a greater violence done to his royal person than David’s cutting off the skirt of Saul’s garment; for certainly the royal body of a prince is of more worth than his clothes. Now it was a sin, I judge, that smote David’s conscience, that he being a subject, and not in the act of natural self-defence, did cut the garment of the Lord’s anointed. Let Ferne see, then, how he will save his own principles; for certainly he yieldeth the cause for me. I judge that the person of the king, or any judge who is the Lord’s deputy, as is the king, is sacred; and that remaining in that honourable case, no subject can, without guiltiness before God, put hands on his person, the case of natural self-defence being excepted; for, because the royal dignity doth not advance a king above the common condition of men, and the throne maketh him not leave off to be a man, and a man that can do wrong; and therefore as one that doth manifest violence to the life of a man, though his subject, he may be resisted with bodily resistance, in the case of unjust and violent invasion. It is a vain thing to say, “Who shall be judge between the king and his subjects? The subject cannot judge the king, because none can be judge in his own cause, and an inferior or equal cannot judge a superior or equal.” But I answer, 1. This is the king’s own cause also, and he doth unjust violence as a man, and not as a king, and so he cannot be judge more than the subject. 2. Every one that doth unjust violence, as he is such, is inferior to the innocent, and so ought to be judged by some. 3. There is no need of the formality of a judge in things evident to nature’s eye, such as are manifestly unjust violences. Nature, in acts natural of self-defence, is judge, party, accuser, witness, and all; for it is supposed the judge is absent when the judge doth wrong. And for the plea of Elisha’s extraordinary spirit, it is nothing extraordinary to the prophet to call the king the son of a murderer, when he complaineth to the elders for justice of his oppression, no more than it is for a plaintiff to libel a true crime against a wicked person, and if Elisha’s resistance came from an extraordinary spirit, then it is not natural for an oppressed man to close the door upon a murderer, then the taking away of the innocent prophet’s head must be extraordinary, for this was but an ordinary and most natural remedy against this oppression; and though to name the king the son of a murderer be extraordinary, (and I should grant it without any hurt to this cause,) it followeth nowise that the self-defence was extraordinary. 4. (2 Chron. xxvi. 17.) Four score of priests, with Azariah, are commended as valiant men. LXX. ui9oi\ dunatoi\ Heb. lyIxf-yn”b@; Arius Montan. Filii virtutis, Men of courage and valour, for that they resisted Uzziah the king, who would take on him to burn incense to the Lord, against the law. Mr Symmons, (p. 34, sect. 10,) They withstood him not with swords and weapons, but only by speaking, and one but spake. I answer, 1. It was a bodily resistance; for beside that, Jerome turneth it, Viri fortissimi, most violent men. And it is a speech in the Scriptures taken for men valorous for war; as 1 Sam. xvi. 25[sic]; 2 Sam. xvii. 10: 1 Chron. v. 18; and so doth the phrase lyixf rwOb@gi Potent in valour; and the phrase, lyixf-#Oy)i 2 Sam. xxiv. 9; xi. 16; 1 Sam. xxxi. 12; and therefore all the eighty, not only by words, but violently; expelled the king out of the temple. 2.Mw%hyF%zI(u-l(a w%dm;(ay%Awa [2 Chron 26:18] Ar. Mont. Et steterunt contra Huzzi-Jahu; the LXX say, kai e1sthsen e0pi\ they resisted the king. So Dan. xi. 17, The armies of the south shall not stand, Dan. viii. 25, it is a word of violence. 3. The text saith, ([2 Chron 26] ver. 20,) and they thrust him out. w%hw%lhib;y%AwA Arias Mont. Et fecerunt eum festinare; Hieron. Festinato expulerunt eum. The LXX. say, The priest kate/speusan au0to\n ekei~qen; so Vatablus,[1] They cast him out. 4. It is said, (ver. 21,) ” He was cut off from the house of the Lord.” Dr Ferne saith, (sect. 4, p. 50,) “They are valiant men who dare withstand a king in an evil way, by a home reproof, and by withdrawing the holy things from him, especially since, by the law, the leper was to be put out of the congregation.”

Ans. 1. — He contradicteth the text. It was not a resistance by words, for the text saith, “They withstood him, and they thrust him out violently.” 2. He yieldeth the cause, for to withdraw the holy things of God by corporeal violence, and violently to pull the censer out of his hand, that he should not provoke God’s wrath by offering incense to the Lord, is resistance; and the like violence may, by this example, be used when the king useth the sword and the militia to bring in an enemy to destroy the kingdom. It is no less injustice against the second table, that the king useth the sword to destroy the innocent than to usurp the censer against the first table. But Dr Ferne yieldeth, that the censer may be pulled out of his hand, lest he provoke God to wrath; therefore, by the same very reason, a fortiore, the sword, the castles, the sea-ports, the militia, may be violently pulled out of his hand; for if there was an express law that the leper should be put out of ‘the congregation, and therefore the king also should be subject to his church-censor, then he subjecteth the king to a punishment to be indicted by the subjects upon the king. 1. Therefore the king is obnoxious to the co-active power of the law. 2. Therefore subjects may judge him and punish him. 3. Therefore he is to be subject to all church-censors no less than the people. 4. There is an express law that the leper should be put out of the congregation. What then? Flattering court divines say, “The king is above all these laws;” for there is an express law of God 33 express as that ceremonial law on touching lepers, and a more binding law, that the murderer should die the death. Will royalists put no exception upon a ceremonial law of expelling the leper, and yet put an exception upon a divine moral law, concerning the punishing of murderers given before the law on Mount Sinai. (Gen. vi. 9.) They so declare that they accept the persons of men. 5. If a leper king could not actually sit upon the throne, but must be cut off from the house of the Lord, because of an express law of God, these being inconsistent, that a king remaining amongst God’s people, ruling and reigning, should keep company with the church of God, and yet be a leper, who was to be cut off, by a divine law, from the church. Now, I persuade myself, that far less can he actually reign in the full use of the power of the sword, if he use the sword to cut off thousands of innocent people; because, murdering the innocent and the fatherless, and royal governing in righteousness and godliness, are more inconsistent by God’s law, being morally opposite, than remaining a governor of the people, and the disease of leprosy, are incompatible. 6. I think not much that Barclay saith, (cont. Monar. l. 5, c. 11,) “Uzziah remained king, after he was removed from the congregation for leprosy,” 1. Because that toucheth the question of dethroning kings, this is an argument brought for violent resisting of kings, and that the people did resume all power from Uzziah, and put it in the “hand of Jotham his son, who was over the king’s house, judging the people of the land” (ver 21). Ana by this same reason the parliaments of both kingdoms may resume the power once given to the king, when he hath proved more unfit to govern morally than Uzziah was ceremonially, that he ought not to judge the people of the land in this case. 2. If the priests did execute a ceremonial law upon king Uzziah, far more may the three estates of Scotland, and the two houses of parliament of England, execute the moral law of God on their king.

If the people may covenant by oath to rescue the innocent and unjustly-condemned from the sentence of death, notoriously known to be tyrannous and cruel, then may the people resist the king in his unlawful practices; but this the people did in the matter of Jonathan. Mr Symmons (p. 32) and Dr Ferne (sect. 9, 49) say, “That with no violence, but by prayers and tears, the people saved Jonathan; as Peter was rescued out of prison by the prayers of the church, king Saul might easily be entreated to break a rash vow to save the life of his eldest son.” — Ans. 1. I say not the common people did it, but the people, including proceres regni, the princes of the land, and captains of thousands. 2. The text hath not one word or syllable of either prayers, supplications or tears; but by the contrary, they bound themselves by an oath, contrary to the oath of Saul, (1 Sam. xiv. 44, 45,) and swore, “God forbid: as the Lord liveth, there shall not one hair of his head fall to the ground. So the people rescued Jonathan.”[2]The church prayed not to God for Peter’s deliverance with an oath, that they must have Peter saved, whether God will or no. Though we read of no violence used by the people, yet an oath upon so reasonable a ground, — 1. Without the king’s consent. 2. Contrary to a standing law that they had agreed unto. (ver. 24.) 3. Contradictory to the king’s sentence and unjust oath. 4. Spoken to the king in his face, — all these prove that the people meant, and that the oath ex conditione operis, tended to a violent resisting of the king in a manifestly unjust sentence. Chrysostom, hom. 14, ad Pop., Antioch accuseth Saul as a murderer in this sentence, and praiseth the people: so Junius, Peter Martyr[3] (whom royalists impudently cite); so Cornelius à Lapide, Zanchius, Lyra, and Hugo Cardinalis say, “It was tyranny in Saul, and laudable that the people resisted Saul;” and the same is asserted by Josephus (L 6, antiquit. c. 7; so Althusius, Polit. c. 38, a. 109).

We see also, (2 Chron. xxi. 10,) that Libnah revolted from under Jehoram, because he had forsaken the Lord God of his fathers. It hath no ground in the text that royalists say, that the defection of Libnah is not justified in the text, but the cause is from the demerit of wicked Jeboram, because he made defection from God. Libnah made defection from him, as the ten tribes revolted from Rehoboam for Solomon’s idolatry, which, before the Lord, procured this detection, yet the ten tribes make defection for oppression. I answer, Where the literal meaning is simple and obvious, we are not to go from it. The text showeth what cause moved Libnah to revolt::[4] it was a town of the Levites, and we know they were longer found in the truth than the ten tribes (2 Chron. xiii. 8-10; Hosea xi. 12). Lavater saith, Jehoram hath pressed them to idolatry, and therefore they revolted. Zanchius and Cornelius à Lapide say, This was the cause that moved them to revolt, and it is clear, (ver. 13,) he caused Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to go a whoring from God, and no doubt tempted Libnah to the like.”[5]

Yea, the city of Abel (2 Sam. xx.) did well to resist Joab, David’s general, for he came to destroy a whole city for a traitor’s sake, for Sheba; they resisted and defended themselves. The wise woman calleth the city a mother in Israel, and the inheritance of the Lord; (ver. 19;) and Joab professeth, (ver. 20,) far be it from him to swallow up and destroy Abel. The woman saith, (ver. 18,) “They said of old, they shall surely ask counsel at Abel; and so they ended the matter;” that is, the city of Abel was a place of prophets and oracles of old, where they asked responses of their doubts, and therefore peace should be first offered to the city before Joab should destroy it, as the law saith, Deut. xx. 10. From all which it is evident, that the city, in defending itself, did nothing against peace, so they should deliver Sheba, the traitor, to Joab’s hand, which they accordingly did; and Joab pursued them not as traitors for keeping the city against the king, but professeth in that they did no wrong.


[1] Vatab. — Deturbarunt eum ex illo loco, compulsusque ut egrederetur, in not. Festinanter egredi eum coegeruat, hoc est, extruserunt eum.

[2] Chald. Par. — Manifestum est quod Jonathan peccavit per ignorantiam.

[3] P. Mart. saith with a doubt. Si ista seditiose fecerunt — nullo modo excusam possunt. Yea, he saith they might suffragiis, with their suffrages free him.

[4] P. Mar. Com. in 2 Reg. c. 8, saith Libnah revolted, Quia subditos nitebatur cogere ad idololatriam, quod ipsi libnenses pati noluernnt et merito: principibus enim parendum est, verum usque ad aras.

[5] Vatab. in not. — Impulit Judæos ad idololatriam, alioqui jam pronos ad cultum idololorum.

Question XXXIII.

Whether or no the place, Rom. xiii. 1, prove that in no case it is lawful to resist the king.

The special ground of royalists from Rom. xiii, against the lawfulness of defensive wars, is to make Paul (Rom. xiii.) 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. xiii., 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. xiii.) 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. Foe 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 e0cousi/aiv u9perexou/saiv higher powers. Now this will include all higher powers, as Piscator observeth on the place; and certainly Rome 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. xix. 6, 7; Deut. i. 16; Numb. xi. 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. ii. 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. ii. 13) “Submit to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake;” also, (Tit. iii. 1,) it is true, subjection to Nero, of whom Tertullian said, (Apol. 5,) Nihil nisi grande bonum a Nerone damnation, 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. ii.,) which is a miracle. 6. Interior 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.,) Irenaeus, (1. 5, c. 24;) Chrysostom, (in Psal. cxlviii., and on the place,) and Hieron. (epist. 53, advers. vigilant.) expound it of masters, magistrates; so do Calvin, Beza, Pareus, Piscator, Rollocua, 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 pa/ntev oi9 e0n u9peroxh|~ o0nte\v, (1 Tim. ii. 2). But these are not kings, but in the text contradivided from basilei~j kings, and they can be no other than a0rxai/ kai e0cousi/ai principalities and powers.[1] 2. The reason of the apostle proveth clearly that e0cousi/ai cannot mean king’s only, for Paul addeth of that same e0cousi/a “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.[2]

P. Prelate. — “Peter must expound Paul, and Paul’s higher powers must be (1 Pet. ii. [13]) basilei~j u9pere/xontej More reason that Paul expound Paul. Now (1 Tim. ii. 2) pa/ntev oi9 e0n u9peroxh|~ o0nte\v, 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. i. 16; 2 Chron. xxi. 6). 3. Though they were mediately from man, it followeth not that they are not so properly from God, for wisdom (Prov. viii.) 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. lxxv. 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. — ei0 must be referred to the antecedent e0cousi/aiv u9perexou/saiv and this, “There is no power ei0 mh\ 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. ii. 16, “Not justified by works, (e0a/n mh\) but by faith only.” Then ei0 mh\ u9po\ qeou~~ must be a perfect exclusive, else their stronghold for justification is overthrown. — Ansei0 hath a nearer antecedent, which is e0cousi/a it is alone without u9pere/xousa. And this grammar is not so good as Beza’s, which he rejected. 2. e0a/n mh\ 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. xxxii. 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 solitudine 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. e0a/n mh 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. ii.), 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. xiii.) 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 cutthroats, 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.


[1] Vatab. — Homines intelligit publica authoritate præditus. [Exponent missing in text, this placement is a guess.]

[2] P. Martyr. — Varia sunt potestatum genera — regna, aristocratica, politica, tyrannica, oligarchica — Deus etiam illorum author. Willet saith the same, and so Beza, Tolet., Hammond, &c. [Exponent missing in text, this placement is a guess.]

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. vos. 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, tear, and reverence. Suppose there were no king on earth, as is clear in Scripture, (Exod. xx. 12; Levit. xix. 32; Esther, i. 20; Psal. cxiix. 9; Prov. iii. 16; Matt xiii. 57; Heb. v. 4; Isa. iii. 3; Lam. v. 12; Mal. i. 6; Psal. viii. 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 lovalty to Jabin, (for when Nebuchadnezzar subdued Judah, he took an oath of loyalty of their king,) yet many of Zebulun, Naphtali, and Issachar, 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. vi. 9; Levit. xxiv. 16) excepteth none. See Deut. xiii. 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. xxii 28, “Thou shalt not revile the gods, nor curse the Ruler of the people.” Exod. x. 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 )y#oinF 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. xii. 14,) therefore we may not resist a private man by this; the other text readeth, contemn not the king, K1(jd@Fmab@; [Eccl. 10:20] 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. viii. 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 Hainan, Alexander so served Clitus and Tiberius Sejaunus, and Nero Seneca. But the sense is clear, rebellion is forbidden, not resistance, so the Hebrew (rF rbfdF@b;@ dmo(jt@a-l)a [Eccl. 8:3] 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. xiii. 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 iii. 14; Jer. i. 28; xxii. 3; Hosea v. 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. xvii. 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. xxix, 3,) “The river Nilus is mine, I have made it for myself; and the king of Tyrus, (Ezek. xxvii. 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 Granges, 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. xvii. 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. xxxiv. 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 Mybiydin: signifieth all that, and it signifieth liberal, Isa. xxxii. 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. i. 8; for it is not convenient to reproach earthly kings, and to say to a prince, l(ay%alib@; Beliel, a word of reproach, signifying extreme wickedness. And you may not say to a man of place, (#OfrF an extremely wicked man; so are the words taken, as signifying most vile and wicked men, 1 Sam. ii. 12; x. 27; 2 Sam. xxv. 6; Psai. i. 1, 6; xi. 5; xii. 8; Prov. xiv. 4; Psal. cxlvi. 9, and in infinite places. For l(ay%alib@; is a word of extreme reproach, coming from ylib sine, non, and l(yprofuit, (Jud. xix. 22,) a most naughty and a lewd man, or from lwO( 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 xxiii. Paul excuseth himself that he called Ananias, the high-priest a whited wall. Ans. — Rivetus (Exod. xxii.) 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 re-offend. 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 to 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. xiii.) 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 posthæc 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. l. 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. xiv.,) “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. xiii. 6.) when a man lying with a beast is put to death; yet it is a law (Exod. xxii. 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. xiii. 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. xxxii. 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. xiii. 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 xix. 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 idolaters, 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 xviii. 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. xxvii. 1,) in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim, (Jer. xxxvi. and xxxvii.,) 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. xv. 4). 4. Of emperors persecuting Christians we shall hear anon. 5. Deut. xiii., 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. v. 25); yet to execute judgment on them without pity (Deut. xiii. 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. xiii. 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 last 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. xxvi. 52, 53; xvi. 21-23,) and God’s positive command, that Christ should die for sinners, (John x. 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 iv. 29, 30; John xi. 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 iv. 27, 28,) such as devils had by God’s permission, (Luke xxii. 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. v. 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. xxii 26-28), “That the prophets and priests violate the law, her princes are like wolves ravening the prey, to shod blood, and the people use oppression, and exercise robbery, and vex the poor;” and when they say, (Jer. xxii. 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. i. 21.) “As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them,” (Isa. iii. 12,) and, (ver. 14, 15,) “the ancients of the people grind tho faces of the poor;” and when they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; and (Prov. xxiv. 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 tho 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. xxii. 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. lviii. 6,) “To break the jaws of the wicked, and pluck the spoil out of his teeth.” (Job. xxix. 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. i. 18; 7. 1; ix. 1; Mic. vii. 1; Ezek. xxii. 24-31; Jer. xv. 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 indicted 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. xiii. (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. (l. 5, adv. hær. c. 20). — proveth that God giveth kingdoms, and that the devil lied, Luke iv.; 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. xvii. 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 xiii.,) 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 Maximinus (Euseb. l. 7, Hist. Eccles. 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, (1. 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 a0rxome/nwn a0nandri/a, 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. xiii. 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 nullinobis 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. xiii. 4.) 2. Not Moses only, but the congregation of Israel, had power of life and death, and so of the sword; Num. xxxv. 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. xxii. 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. xvii. 5; xix. 12, 13, v. 18-21; xxi. 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 xxi. 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. i. 12; Psal. xciv. 5, 6; Jer. xxii. 3; Ezek. xxii. 12. 27; Hosea vi. 8; Zeph. iii. 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 seif-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, (tor it is essentially involved in the office of 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. x. 12; 1 Chron. xix. 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. xxiv. 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. (1. 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. xxv. 28,) and this Abigail by the spirit of prophecy, as I take it, saith, (ver. 29-31; 1 Sam. xxii. 2; 1 Chron. xii. 1-3; xvii. 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 law. fully make war without the king, as (Judg. xx.) 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 xxii. 1, 2,) and before Jehoash was crowned king, and while he was minor, (2 Kings xi.,) 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. xvii. 18-20).

5. If the estates create the king, and make this man king, not that man, (as 13 clear from Deut. xvii. 18, and 2 Chron. v. 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 acknowledged 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. xvii. 18-20; 1 Sam. x. 20-25; 2 Sam. v. 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. ix. 1,) “When kings go forth to war,” and (Luke xiv. 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. armorumc. 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. ii. 2.) 3. There can be no inferior judges to bear the sword, as God requireth, (Rom, xiii. 4; Deut. i. 15, 16; Chron. xix. 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 pœna, 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 rnaketh 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 misencordiæ 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. xix. 17,) otherwise I hate him. (Thes. v. 14; Col. iv. 17: Math, xviii. 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 go 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 detence of our dear brethren and true religion in England; 1 Prov. xxiv. 11, 12, “If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn to death, twEmf@la Myxiqul; (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. xxx. 18) David by the sword rescued his wives; Hos. v. 14, “I will take away, and none shall rescue;” 1 Sam. xvii. 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 xviii. 34, “They have not delivered w%lyci@hi-yk@i 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 as 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. xiii. 6-8,) therefore, I am to do acts natural, as a wise man observing (as Solomon saith, Eccles. viii. 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. xxii. 2) entered in a lawful war, and (1 Chron.xii. 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. xxxii. 1-3, &c.; Josh. i. 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 Mood with them, against Nahash the Ammonite, and his unjust conditions in plucking out their right eyes, 1 Sam. xi.

5. Jephtha (Judg. xii. 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 ii. 9, 10; iii. 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 array 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 of 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 Syramons 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 tear 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, tear, 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. Plenitude potestatis ad malum et injuriam non extenditur. Sozenus Junior (cons. 65) in causa occurrenti (l. 2). Ferdinand. Loazes in suo sons, 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, ii. 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, iv. 17,) “Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone.” So cannot chat 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, vet 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 Monarchia, 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. l. 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. l. 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 safety 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. xvii. 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. xxii. 20, 21,) infers by way of argumentation, a0po/dote ou}n, &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,[1] 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 absolute 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. We 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. vi. 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 acknowledged by all, that honos est prœmium 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. i. 13; 2 Chron. xix. 6, 7; Psal. ci. 6-8.

3. If we suppose a king to be limited, as God’s king is, (Deut. xvii. 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 or 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. viii. 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. viii. 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 requm, 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 fortunæ ac licentiæ par est, nisi quod tyranni ex voluntate sæviuntj reges non nisi ex causa et necessitate? quid ergo? non reges quoque occidere solent? sed quoties fieri publica utilitas persuadet, tyrannis sævitia cordi est. A tyrant in this differeth from a king, Qui ne ea quidem vult, quæ sibi licent, that a king will not do these things which are lawful; a tyrant doth quæ libet, what he pleaseth to do.

Ans. 1. Arnisæus betrayeth his ignorance in the Scriptures, for the word +p%a#O;mi 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. xi. 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. xvii. 14, 15; 1 Sam. x, 17-20; 2 Sam. v. 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. viii. 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, +p%a#O;mi their manner and custom, was to oppress the people, and so were their inferior judges little tyrants, and lesser lions, leopards, evening wolves. (Ezek. xxii. 27; Mic. in. 1-3; Isa. iii. 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 +p%a#O;mi of the believing judges, before Saul’s reign, and while God was his people’s king, (1 Sam. viii. 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 +p%a#O;mi 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. viii. 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 distinguisheth 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, most act according to this +p%a#O;mi 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 pape of a lioness, or of whom it may be said, Quæque dedit autrix ubera, tigris erat, 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. v. 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 crave 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. xvii. 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 +p%a#O;mi 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 Re, 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. viii.,) “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 ii.,) 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. xiii. 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 and, 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 l. 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.


[1] Arnisæus de jure, 6 maj. c. 1, n. 3, p. 157, 158.

Question XL.

Whether or no the people have any power over the king, either by his oath, covenant, or any other way.

Aristotle saith, ([Nicho.] Ethic. 8, c. 12 [10],) (O me\n ga\r tu/rannov to\ e9autw| sumfe/rwn skopei~, o9 de basileu\v to\ tw~n a0rxome/nwn. “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. v. 1-3,) and between king Jehoash and the people, (2 Kings xi. 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. vi. 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. xxiv. 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 l., Si quis viduam col. 5, et dixit de quest. l. 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. (L 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. (l. 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 (l. 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. xvii. 17, 18; 2 Sam. v. 1-4; 2 Kings xi. 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; it 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. v. 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 (l. 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. viii. 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. xiii. 37,) and Judah also, (Gen. xliii. 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. iii. 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; (l. 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.[1] 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.[2]

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, (Psai. xv.) 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 acts they 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. xv. 12-14,) hence the rite of cutting a calf, and swearing in a covenant (Jer. xxxiv. 18). 3. There is an oath that the people giveth to the king to obey him, (Eccles. viii. 2,) and a covenant (2 Sam. v. 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 l. 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. 1. 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. xi. 14-16); and no inferior magistrates, who also have their power from God immediately, (Rom. xiii. 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 vinevard, therefore, the husbandman cannot make his vineyard grow over with nettles and briers. 2. The argument must run thus, else the assumption shall be raise. 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. xvii. 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, war 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, 22) 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 kindly 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 ha 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 naturæ 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 king, 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 raise 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 ha 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 reget 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. xvi.) 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 acknowledged 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. xvii. 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. xvii. 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. xvii. 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 e0cousi/av basili/khj 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. v. 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; for 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 creature 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 by Grotius (de jur. bel et pac. l..1, c. 4); Barclay (advers. monarch. l. 4, c. 6); Arnisæus (c. 6, de majest. an princeps qui jurat subditis, &c. n. 10, nse Aventium Anal. l. 3); Chytreus (l. 23, l. 28); Saxon Sleidan (lib. 1, in fi); yet Arnisæus is not ashamed to cite Anstot. (polit. c. 12, l. 3), that he is not a true and absolute king who ruleth by laws. The point blank contrary of which Aristotle saith.


[1] Bartol. in l. l. n. 4. de his. qui not. infam.

[2] Arnis., c. 6, an princeps qui jurat subditis, &c.