OR. IAIN TORRANCE
DEPT OF THEOLOGY
UNIVERSITY Of ABERDEEN
ABERDEEN AB9 2UB
SCOTLAND. U.K.
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2012 with funding from
Princeton Theological Seminary Library
http://archive.org/details/lexrexorlawprincOOruth
LEX, REX,
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE
A DISPUTE FOR
THE JUST PREROGATIVE OF KING AND PEOPLE:
CONTAINING
THE REASONS AND CAUSES OF THE MOST NECESSARY DEFENSIVE WARS OF THE KINGDOM OF SCOTLAND,
AND OF THEIR
EXPEDITION FOR THE AID AND HELP OF THEIR DEAR BRETHREN OF ENGLAND;
IN WHICH THEIR INNOCENCT IS ASSERTED, AND A FULL ANSWER IS GIVEN TO A SEDITIOUS PAMPHLET, ENTITULED,
" SACRO-SANCTA REGUM MAJESTAS,"
THE SACRED AND ROYAL PREROGATIVE OF CHRISTIAN KINGS J UNDER THE NAME OF J. A., BUT PENNED BY
JOHN MAXWELL, THE EXCOMMUNICATE POPISH PRELATE ;
WITH A SCRIPTURAL CONFUTATION OF THE RUINOUS GROUNDS OF W. BARCLAY, H. GROTIUS, H. ARNISjEUS,
ANT. DE DOMI. POPISH BISHOP OF SPALATO, AND OF OTHER LATE ANTI-MAGISTRATICAL
ROYALISTS, AS THE AUTHOR OF OSSORIANUM, DR FERNE, E. SYMMONS,
THE DOCTORS OF ABERDEEN, ETC.
IN FORTY-FOUR QUESTIONS.
BY THE
REV. SAMUEL,. RUTHERFORD.
SOMETIME PROFESSOR OF DIV>^»Y fx T%S^ff\ERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS.
But if you shall still do wickedly, ye shall bertfonsSiWd, botll ye and your king." — I Sam. xii. 25.
EDINBURGH: ROBERT OGLE AND OLIVER & BOYD.
M. OGLE & SON AND WILLIAM COLLINS, GLASGOW.
D. DEWAR, PERTH. A. BROWN & CO., ABERDEEN. W. M'COMB, BELFAST.
HAMILTON, ADAMS & CO., AND JAMES NISBET & CO., LONDON.
MDCCCXLIII.
[London : Printed for John Field, and are to be sold at his house upon Addle-hill, near Baynards-Casth. Octob. 7, 1644.]
EDINBURGH:
REPRINTED BY A. MURRAY, MILNE SQUAI
PREFACE.
In issuing a new edition of Lex, Rex, it has been considered advisable to print along with it Buchanan's De Jure Regni apud Scotos. This work, on its first appearance, gave great offence to the government of the time, as containing principles which were opposed to the established monarchy; and was consequently condemned by the parliament of 1584. In 1664 there was a proclamation issued against any translation of it being in the possession of any person. " This proclamation," says Wodrow, " is every way singular; for any thing that appears, this translation of that known piece of the celebrated Bu- chanan was not printed, but only, it seems, handed about in manuscript ; while, in the meantime, thousands of copies of it in the Latin original were in everybody's hands. It had been more just to have ordered an answer to have been formed to the solid argu- ments in that dialogue against tyranny and arbitrary government." Again, in 1688, an- other proclamation was published by the Council, prohibiting every person from selling, dispersing, or lending such books as Buchanan's " De Jure Regni apud Scotos,'n " Lex, Rex," " Jus Popidi Nciphtali," along with some others which were considered as having a treasonable tendency. The same principles are advocated in Lex, Rex, that are held by Buchanan : both works are equally opposed to that absolute and passive obedience required from the subject to a royal prerogative. A modern writer* well remarks, " That resistance to lawful authority — even when that authority so called has, in point of fact, set at nought all law — is in no instance to be vindicated, will be held by those only who are the devotees of arbitrary power and passive obedience. The principles of Mr Ruther- ford's Lex, Rex, however obnoxious they may be to such men, arc substantially the prin- ciples on which all government is founded, and without which the civil magistrate would become a curse rather than a blessing to a country. They are the very principles which lie at the basis of the British constitution, and by whose tenure the house of Bruns- wick does at this very moment hold possession of the throne of these realms."
* ReT. Robert Burns, D.D., in his Preliminary Dissertation to Wodrow's Church History.
CONTENTS
Page Sketch of the Life of Rutherford, ..... xv.
Author's Preface, . ...... xxi.
QUESTION I.
Whether government be by a divine law, ..... 1
How government is from God.- — Civil power, in the root, immediately from God.
QUESTION II.
"Whether or no government be warranted by the law of nature, ... 1
Civil society natural in radice, in the root, voluntary in modo, in the manner. — Power of govern- ment, and power of government by sncli and such magistrates, different. — Civil subjection not formally from nature's laws. — Our consent to laws penal, not antecedently natural. — Government by such rulers, a secondary law of nature. — Family government and politic different. — Govern- ment by rulers a secondary law of nature ; family government and civil different. — Civil govern- ment, by consequent, natural.
QUESTION III.
Whether royal power and definite forms of government be from God, . . 3
That kings are from God, understood in a fourfold sense. — The royal power hath warrant from divine institution. — The three forms of government not different in specie and nature. — How every form is from God. — How government is an ordinance of man, 1 Pet. ii. 13.
QUESTION IV.
Whether or no the king be only and immediately from God. and not from the people, 6
How the king is from God, how from the people. — Roya.1 power three ways in the people. — How royal power is radically in the people. — The people maketh the king. — How any form of govern- ment is from God. — How government is a human ordinance, 1 Pet. ii. 3. — The people create the king. — Making a king, and choosing a king, not to be distinguished. — David not a king formally, because anointed by God.
QUESTION V.
Whether or no the P. Prelate proveth that sovereignty is immediately from God, not
from the people, ........ 9
Kings made by the people, though the office, in abstracto, were immediately from God. — The people have a real action, more than approbation, in making a king. — Kinging of a person ascribed to the people. — Kings in a special manner are from God, but it followeth not ; therefore, not from the people. — The place, Prov. viii. 15, proveth not bnt kings are made by the people. — Nebuchad- nezzar, and other heathen kings, had no just title before God to the kingdom of Judah, and divers other subdued kingdoms.
CONTEXTS.
QUESTION VI.
Page Whether or no the king be so allenarly from both, in regard of sovereignty and desig- nation of his person, as he is noway from the people, but only by mere approba- tion, ......... 16
The forms of government not from God by an act of naked providence, but by his approving will. — Sovereignty not from the people by sole approbation.- — Though God have peculiar acts of pro- vidence in creating kings, it followeth not hence that the people maketh not kings. — The P. Pre- late exponeth prophecies true only of David, Solomon, and Jesus Christ, as true of profane hea- then kings. — The P. Prelate maketh all the heathen kings to be princes, anointed with the holy oil of saving grace.
QUESTION VII.
Whether the P. Prelate conclude that neither constitution nor designation of kings is
from the people, ........ 22
The excellency of kings maketh them not of God's only constitution and designation. — How sove- reignty is in the people, how not. — A community doth not surrender their right and liberty to their rulers, so much as their power active to do, and passive to suffer, violence. — God's loosing of the bonds of kings, by the mediation of the people's despising him, proveth against the P. Prelate that the Lord taketh away, and giveth royal majesty mediately, not immediately. — The subordina- tion of people to kings and rulers, both natural and voluntary ; the subordination of beasts and creatures to man merely natural. — The place, Gen. ix. 5, " He that sheddeth man's blood," &c. discussed.
QUESTION VIII.
Whether or no the P. Prelate proveth, by force of reason, that the people cannot be
capable of any power of government, ..... 28
In any community there is an active and passive power to government. — Popular government is not that wherein the whole people are governors. — People by nature are equally indifferent to all the three governments, and are not under any one by nature. — The P. Prelate denieth the Pope his father to be the antichrist. — The bad success of kings chosen by people proveth nothing against us, because kings chosen by God had bad success through their own wickedness. — The P° Prelate condemneth king Charl.es' ratifying (Pari. 2, an. 1611) the whole proceedings of Scot- land in this present reformation>-That there be any supreme judges is an eminent act of divine providence, which hindereth not but that the king is made by the people.— The people not pa- tients in making a king, as is water in the sacrament of baptism, in the act of production of grace.
QUESTION IX.
Whether or no sovereignty is so in and from the people, that they may resume their
power in time of extreme necessity, . ... 33
How the people is the subject of sovereignty— Xo tyrannical power is from God.— People cannct alienate the natural power of self-defence.— The power of parliaments.— The Parliament hath more power than the king. — Judges and kings differ.— People may resume their power, not be- cause they are infallible, but because they cannot so readily destroy themselves as one man may do. — That' the sanhedrim punished not David, Bathsheba, Joab, is but a fact, not a law. — There is a subordination of creatures natural, government must be natural ; and yet this or that form is voluntary.
QUESTION X. Whether or not royal birth be equivalent to divine unction,
Impunged by eight arguments.— Royalty not transmitted from father to son.— A family may be chosen to a crown as a single person is chosen, but the tie is conditional in both. — The throne, by special promise, made to David and bis seed, by God, (Psal. lxxxix.,) no ground to make birth, in foro Dei, a just title to the crown.— A title by conquest to a throne must be unlawful, if birth be "God's lawful title.— Royalists who hold conquest to be a just title to the crown, teach manifest treason against king Charles and his royal heirs.— Only, bona fortune, not honour or royalty, pro-
39
Page perly transmitable from father to son. — Violent conquest cannot regulate the consciences of people to submit to a conqueror as their lawful king. — Naked birth is inferior to that very divine unction, that made no man a king without the people's election.— If a kingdom were by birth the king might sell it. — The crown is the patrimony of the kingdom, not of him who is king, or of his father. — . Birth a typical designment to the crown in Israel. — The choice of a family to the crown, resolveth upon the'free election of the people as on the fountain cause. — Election of a family to the crown lawful.
QUESTION XI.
Whether or no he be more principally a king who is a king by birth, or he who is a
king by the free election of the people, . . . . . 45
The elective king cometh nearer to the first king. (Deut. xvii.)— If the people may limit the king, they give him the power. — A community have not power formally to punish themselves. — The hereditary and the elective prince in divers considerations, better or worse, each one than another.
QUESTION XII.
Whether or no a kingdom may lawfully be purchased by the sole title of conquest, 48
A Twofold right of conquest. — Conquest turned in an after-consent of the people, becometh a just title. — Conquest not a signification to us of God's approving will. — Mere violent domineering con- trary to the acts of governing. — Violence hath nothing in it of a king. — A bloody conqueror not a blessing, per se, as a king is. — Strength as prevailing is not law or reason. — Fathers cannot dis- pose of the liberty of posterity not born. — A father, as a father, hath not power of life and death. Israel and David's conquests of the Canaanites, Edomites, Ammonites not lawful, because con- quest, but upon a divine title of God's promise.
QUESTION XIII.
Whether or no royal dignity have its spring from nature, and how it is true " Every
man is born free," and how servitude is contrary to nature, . . 50
Seven sorts of superiority and inferiority. — Power of life and death from a positive law. — A dominion antecedent and consequent. — Kings and subjects no natural order. — A man is born, conseqwnUr , in politic relation. — Slavery not natural from four reasons. — Every man born free in regard of civil subjection ("not in regard of natural, such as of children and wife, to parents and husband) proved by seven arguments. — Politic government how necessary, how natural. — That parents 6hould enslave their children not natural.
QUESTION XIV.
Whether or no the people make a person their king conditionally or absolutely ; and
whether the king be tyed by any such covenant, .... 54
The king under a natural, but no civil obligation to the people, as royalists teach.— The covenant civilly tyeth the king proved by Scriptures and reasons, by eight arguments.— If the condition, without which one of the parties would never have entered into covenant, be not performed, that party is loosed from the covenant. — The people and princes are obliged in their places for justice and religion, no less than the king. — In so far as the king presseth a false religion on the people. eatenus, in so far they are understood not to have a king. — The covenant giveth a mutual co-ac- ' tive power to king and people to compel each other, though there be not one on earth higher than both to compel each of them. — The covenant bindeth the king as king, not as he is a man onlv. — One or two tyrannous acts deprive not the king of his royal right.— Though there were no posi- tive written covenant (which yet we grant not) yet there is a natural, tacit, implicit covenant tying the king, by the nature of his office.— If the king be made king absolutely, it is contrary to Scrip- ture and the nature of his office. — The people given to the king as a pledge, not as if they became his own to dispose of at his absolute will. — The king could not buy, sell, borrow, if no covenant should tie him to men. — The covenant sworn by Judah (2 Chron. xv.) tyed the king.
QUESTION XV.
Whether the king be univocally, or only analogically and by proportion, a father, 62
Adam not king of'the whole earth because a father.— The king a father metaphorically and impro- perly, proved by eight arguments.
QUESTION XVI.
Page Whether or no a despotical or masterly dominion agree to the king, because he is king, 64
The king hath no masterly dominion over the subjects as if they were his servants, proved by four arguments. — The king not over men as reasonable creatures to domineer. — The king cannot give away his kingdom or his people as if they were his proper goods. — A violent surrender of liberty tyeth not. — A surrender of ignorance is in so far involuntarily as it oblige not. — The goods of the subjects not the king's, proved by eight arguments. — All the goods of the subjects are the king's in a fourfold sense.
QUESTION XVII.
Whether or no the prince have properly the fiduciary or ministerial power of a tutor,
husband, patron, minister, head, master of a family, not of a lord or dominator, 69
The king a tutor rather than a father as these are distinguished. — A free community not properly and in all respects a minor and pupil. — The king's power not properly marital and husbandly. — The king a patron and servant. — The royal power only from God, immediatione simplicis consti- tution^, et solum solitudine causae prima;, but not immediatione applications dignitatis ad perso- nam.— The king the servant of the people both objectively and subjectively. — The Lord and the people by one and the same act according to the physical relation maketh the king. — The king head of the people metaphorically only, not essentially, not univocally, by six arguments. — His power fiduciary only.
QUESTION XVIII.
What is the law or manner of the king (1 Sam. viii. 9, 11) discussed fully, . 72
The power and the office badly differenced by Barclay. — What is ^l^^pl IlDJi^Q the manner of the king, by the harmony of interpreters, ancient and modern, 'piotestants and papists. — Crying out (1 Sam. viii.) not necessarily a remedy of tyranny, nor a praying with faith and patience.— Re- sisting of kings that are tyrannous, and patience, not inconsistent. — The law of the king not a per- missive law, as was the law of divorcement. — The law of the king (1 Sam. xii. 23, 24) not a law of tyranny.
QUESTION XIX.
Whether or no the king be in dignity and power above the people, . . 77
In what consideration the king is above the people, and the people above the king. — A mean, as a mean, iuferior to the end, how it is true — The king inferior to the people. — The church, because J the church, is of more excellency than the king, because king. — The people being those to whom the king is given, worthier than the gift. — And the people immortal, the king mortal. — The king a mean only.not both the efficient, or author of the kingdom, and a mean ; two necessary distinc- tions of a mean. — If sin had never been, there should have been no king. — The king is to give his life for his people. — The consistent cause more excellent than the effect — The people than the king. — Impossible people can limit royal power, but they must give royal power also. — The peo- ple have an action in making a king, proved by four arguments. — Though it were granted that God immediately made kings, yet it is no consequent, God only, and not the people, can unmake him. — The people appointing a king over themselves, retain the fountain-power of making a king. — The mean inferior to the end, and the king, as a king, is a mean. — The king, as a mean, and also as a man, inferior to the people. — To swear non-self-preservation, and to swear self-murder, all one. — The people cannot make away their power, 1. Their whole power, nor 2. Irrevocably to the king. — The people may resume the power they give to the commissioners of parliament, when it is abused. — The tables in Scotland lawful, when the ordinary judicatures are corrupt. — Quod efficit tale id ipsum magis talc discussed, the fountain-power in the people derived only in the king. — The king is a fiduciary, a life-renter, not a lord or heritor. — How sovereignty is in the people. — Power of life and death, how in a community. — A community void of rulers, is yet, and may be a politic body. — Judges gods analogically.
QUESTION XX.
Whether inferior judges be essentially the immediate vicegerents of God, as kings, not
differing in essence and nature from kings, .... 88
Inferior judges the immediate vicars of God, no less than the king.— -The consciences of inferior judges, immediately subordinate to God, not to the king, either mediately or immediately. — How
Page the inferior judge is the deputy of the king. — He may put to death murderers, as having God's sword committed to him, no less than the king, even though the king command the contrary; for he is not to execute judgment, and to relieve the oppressed conditionally, if a mortal king give him leave ; but whether the king will or no, he is to obey the King of kings. — Inferior judges are ministri regni, non ministri regis. — The king doth not make judges as he is a man, by an act of private good-will ; but as he is a king by an act of royal justice, and by a power that he hath from the people, who made himself a supreme judge.— The king's making inferior judges hindereth not, but they are as essentially judges as the king who maketh them, not by fountain-power, but power borrowed from the people. — The judges in Israel and the kings differ not essentially. Aris- tocracy as natural as monarchy, and as warrantable. — Inferior judges depend some way on the king in fieri, but not in facto esse. — The parliament not judges by derivation from the king. — The king cannot make or unmake judges. — No heritable judges. — Inferior judges more necessary than a king.
QUESTION XXI.
What power the people and states of parliament hath over the king and in the state, 95
The elders appointed by God to be judges. — Parliaments may convene and judge without the king. — Parliaments are essentially judges, and so their consciences neither dependeth on the king, quoad specificationem, that is, that they should give out this sentence, not that, nee quoad exerci- tium, that they should not in the morning execute judgment.— Unjust judging, and no judging at all, are sins in the states. — The parliament co-ordinate judges with the king, not advisers only ; by eleven arguments. — Inferior judges not the king's messengers or legates, but public governors. — The Jews' monarchy mixed.— A power executive of laws more in the king, a power legislative more in the parliament.
QUESTION XXII.
Whether the power of the king, as king, be absolute, or dependent and limited by
God's first mould and pattern of a king, ..... 99
The royalists make the king as absolute as the great Turk. — The king not absolute in his power, proved by nine arguments. — Why the king is a living law. — Power to do ill not from God. — Roy- alists say power to do ill is not from God, but power to do ill, as punishable by man, is from God. — A king, actu primo, is a plague, and the people slaves, if the king, by God's institution, be abso- lute.— Absoluteness of royalty against justice, peace, reason, and law.— Against the king's relation of a brother. — A damsel forced may resist the king. — The goodness of an absolute prince hinder- eth not but he is actu primo a tyrant.
QUESTION XXIII.
Whether the king hath a prerogative royal above law, . . . 106
Prerogative taken two ways.— Prerogative above laws a garland proper to infinite majesty. — A three- fold dispensation, 1. Of power ; 2. Of justice; 3. Of grace. — Acts of mere grace may be acts of blood. — An oath to the king of Babylon tyed not the people of Judah to all that absolute power could command.— The absolute prince is as absolute in acts of cruelty, as in acts of grace. — Ser- vants are not (1 Pet. ii. 18, 19) interdicted of self-defence. — The parliament materially only, not formally, hath the king for their lord. — Reason not a sufficient restraint to keep a prince from acts of tyranny. — Princes have sufficient power to do good, though they have not absolute to do evil. — A power to shed innocent blood can be no part of any royal power given of God. — The king, because he is a public person, wanteth many privileges that subjects have.
QUESTION XXIV.
What relation the king hath to the law, . . . . . 113
Human laws considered as reasonable, or as penal. — The king alone hath not a nemothetic power. — Whether the king be above parliaments as their judge. — Subordination of the kiug to the parlia- ment and co-ordination both consistent. — Each one of the three governments hath somewhat from each other, and they cannot any one of them be in its prevalency conveniently without the mix- ture of the other two. — The king as a king cannot err, as he erreth in so far, he is not the remedy of oppression intended by God and nature. — In the court of necessity the people may judge the king. — Human laws not so obscure as tyranny is visible and discernible. — It is more reqnisite that the whole people, church, and religion be secured than one man. — If there be any restraint by law on the king it must be physical, for a moral restraint is upon all men. — To swear to an ab- solute prince as absolute, is an oath eatenus, in so far unlawful, and not obligatory. •
b
QUESTION XXV.
Page Whether the supreme law, the safety of the people, be above the king, . 119
The safety of the people to be preferred to the king, for the king is not to seek himself, but the good of the people.— Royalists make no kings but tyrants.— How the safety of the king is the safety of the people.— A king, for the safety 'of the people, may break through the letter and paper of the law. — The king's prerogative above law and reason, not comparable to the blood that has been shed in Ireland and England. — The power of dictators prove not a prerogative above law.
QUESTION XXVI.
Whether the king be above the law, . . . . . .125
The law above the king in fonr things, 1. in constitution ; 2. direction ; 3. limitation ; 4. co-action.— In what sense the king may do all things. — The king under the morality of laws ; under funda- mental laws, not under punishment to be inflicted by himself, nor because of the eminency of his place, but for the physical incongruity thereof. — If, and how, the king may punish himself. — That the king transgressing in a heinous manner, is under the co-action of law, proved by seven argu- ments.— The coronation of a king, who is supposed to be a just prince, yet proveth after a tyrant, is conditional and from ignorance, and so involuntary, and in so far not obligatory in law. — Roy- alists confess a tyrant in exercise may be dethroned. — How the people is the scat of the power of sovereignty.— The place, Psal. li., " Against thee only have I sinned," &c. discussed. — Israel's not rising in arms against Pharaoh examined. — And Judah's not working their own deliver- ance under Cyrus.— A covenant without the king's concurrence lawful.
QUESTION XXVII.
Whether or no the king be the sole, supreme, and final interpreter of the law, . 136
He is not the supreme and peremptory interpreter.— Nor is his will the sense of the law.— Nor is he the sole and only judicial interpreter of the law.
QUESTION XXVIII.
Whether or no wars raised by the estates and subjects for their own just defence
against the king's bloody emissaries be lawful, . . . .139
The state of the question. — If kings be absolute, a superior judge may punish an inferior judge, not as a judge but an erring man. — By divine institution all covenants to restrain their power must be unlawful. — Resistance in some cases lawful. — Six arguments for the lawfulness of defensive wars. —Many others follow.
QUESTION XXIX.
Whether, in the case of defensive wars, the distinction of the person of the king as a man, who may and can commit hostile acts of tyranny against his subjects, and of the office and royal power that he hath from God and the people, can have place, 143
The king's person in concrete, and his office in abstract*), or, which is all one, the king using his power lawfully to be distinguished (Rom. xiii). — To command unjustly maketh not a higher power. ■ — The person may be resisted and yet the office cannot be resisted, proved by fourteen argu- ments.— Contrary objections of royalists and of the P. Prelate answered. — What we mean by the person and office in abstracto in this dispute ; we do not exclude the person in concrete altogether, but only the person as abusing his power ; we may kill a person as a man, and love him as a son, father, wife, according to Scripture. — We obey the king for the law, and not the law for the king. — The losing of habitual and actual royalty different.— John xix. 10, Pilate's power of crucifying Christ no law-power given to him of God, is proved against royalists, by six arguments.
QUESTION XXX.
Whether or no passive obedience be a mean to which we are subjected in conscience by virtue of a divine commandment ; and what a mean resistance is. That flying is resistance, ......... 152
The place, 1 Pet. ii. 18, discussed. — Patient bearing of injuries and resistance of injuries compatible in one and the same subject. — Christ's non-resistance hath many things rare and extraordinary,
Page and is no leading rule to us. — Suffering is either commanded to us comparatively only, that we rather choose to suffer than deny the truth ; or the manner only is commanded, that we suffer with patience. — The physical act of taking away the life, or of offending -when commanded by the law of self-defence, is no murder. — We have a greater dominion over goods and nrembers, (except in case of mutilation, which is a little death,) than over our life. — To kill is no* of the nature of self-defence, but accidental thereunto.— Defensive war cannot be without offending.— The na- ture of defensive and offensive wars. — Flying is resistance.
QUESTION XXXI.
Whether self-defence, by opposing violence to unjust violence, be lawful, by the law of
God and nature, ........ 159
Self-defence in man natural, but modus, the way, must be rational and just. — The method of self- defence. — Violent re-offending in self-defence the last remedy. — It is physically impossible for a nation to fly in the case of persecution for religion, and so they may resist in their own self-de- fence.— Tutela vitce proximo, and remota. — In a remote posture of self-defence, we are not to take us to re-offending, as David was not to kill Saul when he was sleeping, or in the cave, for the same cause. — David would not kill Saul because he was the Lord's anointed. — The king not lord of chastity, name, conscience, and so may be resisted. — By universal and particular nature, self- defence lawful, proved by divers arguments. — And made good by the testimony of jurists. — The love of ourselves, the measure of the love of our neighbours, and enforceth self-defence. — Nature maketh a private man his own judge and magistrate, when the magistyate is absent, and violence is offered to his life, as the law saith. — Self-defence, how lawful it is.v-What presumption is from the king's carriage to the two kingdoms, are in law sufficient grounds of defensive wars. — Offen- sive and defensive wars differ in the event and intentions of men, but not in nature and specie, nor physically. — David's case in not killing Saul nor his men, no rule to us, not in our lawful de- fence, to kill the king's emissaries, the cases far different.
QUESTION XXXII.
Whether or no the lawfulness of defensive wars can be proved from the Scripture, from the examples of David, the people's rescuing Jonathan, Elisha, and the eighty valiant priests who resisted Uzziah, . . . . .166
David warrantably raised an army of men to defend himself against the unjust violence of his prince Saul. — David's not invading Saul and his men, who did not aim at arbitrary government, at sub- version of laws, religion, and extirpation of those that worshipped the God of Israel and opposed idolatry, but on!y pursuing one single person, far unlike to our case in Scotland and England now. — David's example not extraordinary. — Elisha's resistance proveth defensive wars to be war- rantable.— Resistance made to king Uzziah by eighty valiant priests proveth the same. — The peo- ple's rescuing Jonathan proveth the same. — Libnah's revolt proveth this. — The city of Abel de- fended themselves against Joab, king David's general, when he came to destroy a city for one wicked conspirator, Sheba's sake.
QUESTION XXXIII.
Whether or no Rom. xiii. 1 make any thing against the lawfulness of defensive wars, 172 The king not only understood, Rom. xiii. — And the place, Rom. xiii., discussed.
QUESTION XXXIV,
Whether royalists prove, by cogent reasons, the unlawfulness of defensive wars, 175
Objections of royalists answered.— The place, Exod. xxii. 28, " Thou shalt not revile the gods," &c. answered. — And Eccles. x. 20. — The place, Eccles. viii. 3, 4, " Where the word of a king is," &c. answered.— The place, Job. xxxiv. 18, answered.— And Acts xxiii. 3, " God shall smite thee, fhou whited wall," &c. — The emperors in Paul's time not absolute by their law. — That objection, that we have no practice for defensive resistance, and that the prophets never complain of the omis- sion of the resistance of princes, answered. — The prophets cry against the sin of non-resistance, when they cry against the judges, because they execute not judgment for the oppressed. — Judah's subjection to Nebuchadnezzar, a conquering tyrant, no warrant to us to subject ourselves to ty- rannous acts. — Christ's subjection to Caesar nothing against defensive wars.
QUESTION XXXV.
Page
"Whether the sufferings of the martyrs in the primitive church militant be against the
lawfulness of defensive wars, . . . . . .182
Tertullian neither ours nor theirs in the question of defensive wars.
QUESTION XXXVI.
"Whether the king have the power of war only, . . . . .184
Inferior judges have the power of the sword no less than the king. — The people tyed to acts of cha- rity, and to defend themselves, the church, and their posterity against a foreign enemy, though the king forbid. — Flying unlawful to the states of Scotland and England now, God's "law tying them to defend their country. — Parliamentary power a fountain-power above the king.
QUESTION XXXVII.
"Whether the estates of Scotland are to help their brethren, the protestants of England,
against cavaliers, proved by argument 13, . . . . .187
Helping of neighbour nations lawful, divers opinions concerning the point. — The law of Egypt against those that helped not the oppressed.
QUESTION XXXVIII.
"Whether monarchy be the best of governments, . . . .190
Whether monarchy be the best of governments hath divers considerations, in which each one may be less or more convenient. — Absolute monarchy is the worst of governments. Better want power to, do ill as have it. — A mixture sweetest of all governments — Neither king nor parliament have a voice against law and reason.
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, . . . . . .193
A threefold supreme power. — "What be jura regalia. — Kings confer not honours from their pleni- tude of absolute power, but according to the strait line and rule of law, justice, and good observ- ing.— The law of the king, 1 Sam. viii. 9, 11.— Difference of kings and judges. — The law of the king, (1 Sam. viii. 9, 11,) no permissive law, such as the law of divorce. — What dominion the king hath over the goods of the subjects.
QUESTION XL.
Whether or no the people have any power over the king, either by his oath, covenant,
or any other way, ........ 198
The people have power over the king by reason of his covenant and promise. — Covenants and pro- mises violated, infer co-action, dejure, by law, though not de facto.— Mutual punishments may be where there is no relation of superiority and inferiority. — Three covenants made by Arnisaeus. — The king not king while he swear the oath and be accepted as king by the people. — The oath of the kings of France. — Hugo Grotius setteth down seven cases in which the people may accuse, punish, or dethrone the king. — The prince a noble vassal of the kingdom upon four grounds. — The cove- nant had an oath annexed to it. — The prince is but a private man in a contract. — How the royal power is immediately from God, and yet conferred upon the king by the people.
QUESTION XLI.
Whether doth the P. Prelate with reason ascribe to us doctrine of Jesuits in the
question of lawful defence, ....... 204
The sovereignty is originally and radically in the people, as in the fountain, was taught by fathers, ancient doctors, sound divines, lawyers, before there was a Jesuit or a prelate whelped, in rcrum
Page natura. — The P. Prelate holdeth the Pope to be the vicar of Christ. — Jesuits' tenets concerning kings.— The king not the people's deputy by our doctrine, it is only the calumny of the P. Pre- ■ late. — The P. Prelate will have power to act the bloodiest tyrannies on earth upon the church of Christ, the essential power of a king.
QUESTION XLII.
Whether all Christian kings are dependent from Christ, and may be called his vice- gerents, ......... 210
Why God, as God, hath a man a vicegerent under him, but not as mediator. — The king not headof the church. — The king a sub-mediator, and an nnder-redeemer, and a sub-priest to offer sacrifices to God for us if he be a vicegerent. — The king no mixed person. — Prelates deny kings to be subject to the gospel. — By no prerogative royal may the king prescribe religious observances and human ceremonies in God's worship. — The P. Prelate giveth to the king a power arbitrary, supreme, and independent, to govern the church. — Reciprocation of subjections of the king to the church, and of the church to the king, in divers kinds, to wit, of ecclesiastical and civil subjection, are no more absurd than for Aaron's priest to teach, instruct and rebuke Moses, if he turn a tyrannous Achab, and Moses to punish Aaron if he turn an obstinate idolator.
QUESTION XLIII.
Whether the king of Scotland be an absolute prince, having a prerogative above laws
and parliaments, . . . . . . . .216
The king of Scotland subject to parliaments by the fundamental laws, acts, and constant practices of parliaments, ancient and late in Scotland. — The king of Scotland's oath at his coronation. — A pretended absolute power given to James VI. upon respect of personal endowments, no ground of absoluteness to the king of Scotland. — By laws and constant practices the kings of Scotland sub- ject to laws and parliaments, proved by the fundamental law of elective princes, and out of the most partial historians, and our acts of parliament of Scotland. — Coronation oath. — And again at the coronation of James VI. that oath sworn ; and again, 1 Pari. James VI. ibid and seq. — How the king is supreme judge in all causes. — The power of the parliaments of Scotland. — The Confes- sion of the faith of the church of Scotland, authorised by divers acts of parliament, doth evi- dently hold forth to all the reformed churches the lawfulness of defensive wars, when the supreme magistrate is misled by wicked counsel. — The same proved from the confessions of faith in other reformed churches.— The place, Rom. xiii., exponed in our Confession of faith. — The confession, not only Saxonic, exhibited to the Council of Trent, but also of Helvetia, France, England, Bohe- mia, prove the same. — William Laud and other prelates, enemies to parliaments, to states, and to the fundamental laws of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland. — The parliament of Scotland doth regulate, limit, and set bounds to the king's power. — Fergus the first king not a conqueror. — The king of Scotland below parliaments, considerable by them, hath no negative voice.
QUESTION XLIV.
General results of the former doctrine in some few corollaries, in twenty-two ques- tions, ......... 227
Concerning monarchy, compared with other forms— How royalty is an issue of nature.— And how magistrates, as magistrates, be natural. — How absoluteness is not a ray of God's majesty. — And resistance not unlawful, because Christ and his apostles used it not in some cases. — Coronation is no ceremony. — Men may limit the power that they gave not. — The commonwealth not a pupil or minor properly. — Subjects not more obnoxious to a king than clients, vassals, children, to their superiors.— If subjection passive be natural. — Whether king Uzziah was dethroned.— Idiots and children not complete kings, children are kings in destination only. — Denial of passive subjection in things unlawful, not dishonourable to the king, more than denial of active obedience in the same things. — The king may not make away or sell any part of his dominions. — People may in some cases convene without the king. — How, and in what meaning subjects are to pay the king's debts. — Subsidies the kingdom's due, rather than the king's. — How the seas, ports, forts, castles, militia, magazine, are the king's, and how they are the kingdom's.
SKETCH OF THE LIFE
SAMUEL RUTHERFORD.
The more prominent features of a man's public life are generally characterised by the spirit of the times in which he lived. If the period has been peaceful and undisturbed by party controversy and the disputes of opposing factions, then all flows smoothly and quietly on ; the minds of the people repose unharassed and unexcited by public conten- tions and quarrels ; there is opportunity for the cultivation of the useful arts ; a taste is displayed in the pursuit of learning and literature, and improvements and discoveries, in every branch of science and art, advance with rapid strides. Such a state of things men of civilized nations in general desire. Yet a period like this, when there has been " peace in the land," looked back upon from a succeeding age, or read as a chapter of history, ap- pears tame and monotonous. There is nothing to arouse the attention or awaken the feelings, when the only record we have of a man is, that he lived, died, and was buried. But it is otherwise when the times have been the scene of anarchy, civil war, or persecu- tion. Then the calmness and repose of the community is broken up ; men are excited and roused by the spirit-stirring events that are passing around them ; each must take their side ; — it is then that their characters are drawn out and shown in a true light : the weak, the timid and undecided, keep the back ground, while men of courage and daring stand forward in bold relief.
There has been in the history of mankind, in all ages, two great contending principles at issue — the contest of error against truth, and the struggle of truth with error. On the one side — error, with the violence of oppression, doing all that persecution can accomplish, in endeavouring to exterminate virtue from the moral universe ; and on the other — truth, with noble courage and exalted firmness, maintaining the purity of her principles in oppo- sition to ignorance and persecution. For upwards of four thousand years she has grap- pled with superstition, idolatry, and bigotry, and, with moral weapons, she has vindicated the justice of her principles, which her enemies have found easier to answer with the sword than by argument. In every age error has had the majority, for truth has had few fol- lowers ; but, in the end, she has been triumphant even at the stake, or on the scaffold. Yet the faggot will burn with a fiercer flame, and the guillotine will be deeper dyed with the martyr's blood than it has ever yet been, ere the world assent to the truth of her doc- trines. On looking back, and reviewing the civil and religious history of our own land, we obsei-ve the mighty contest between Popery and the Reformed Doctrine — we see the fearful conflict of right and wrong — and we see truth, with a gigantic effort, burst the fet- ters which had so long held the people in mental bondage and ignorance. Again, we ob- serve the struggles between Presbytery and Episcopacy, during most of the latter half of the seventeenth century ; one party urged on by a spirit of opposition and bigotry, to trample on the religious rights and privileges of the people, and doing all in their power to bring them again under the iron sway of the Church of Rome ; the other, with moral
XVI SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF
courage and firmness, standing boldly forward, in the front of persecution, tyranny, and oppression, for the cause and promotion of true religion ; and. from the martyrdom of Hamilton, Scotland's first martyr, many a noble spirit has been immolated and set free, for the cause, and at the shrine of Truth ; —
" Yet few remember them. They lived unknown Till persecution dragg'd them into fame, And chased them up to heaven."
Samuel Rutherford was born in the parish of Nisbet, in Roxburghshire, in the year 1600. Of the sphere in life occupied by his parents, we have no means of correctly ascer- taining. He is mentioned by Reid " to have been born of respectable parents,"* and Wod- row states that he came of " mean, but honest parents." It is probable, however, that his father was engaged in agricultural pursuits ; at all events, he must have held a respectable rank in society, as he otherwise could not have given his son so superior an education. At an early period of his life he discovered a precocious talent, and his parents consequently destined him for the ministry.
In 1617 he was sent to Edinburgh, and entered the University as a student, where he appears to have excelled in the studies in which he was engaged, for, in four years, he took his degree of Master of Arts; and in 1623, after a severe contest with three compe- titors, he was elected one of the Regents of the College. The acquirements he displayed at this early period were justly appreciated by his contemporaries. We are told that " the whole Regents, out of their particular knowledge of Mr Samuel Rutherford, demon- strated to them [the Judges] his eminent abilities of mind and virtuous dispositions, wherewith the Judges, being satisfied, declared him successor in the Professor of Humani- ty."! He, however, only acted in the capacity of Regent about two years, and, on leaving his charge, he devoted himself to the study of Theology, under Mr Andrew Ramsay.
The Church of Scotland was at this period almost entirely under the jurisdiction of Episcopal bishops. The establishment of Episcopacy had been gradually going on since the accession of James to the throne of England, who lent all his aid and authority to the furtherance of that end. The Presbyterians who would not conform to the discipline of church government which had been obtruded upon them, were cruelly oppressed. Many were imprisoned, and their goods confiscated ; others were banished from their native land ; and not a few were dragged to the scaffold or the stake. At the death of King James, in 1625, his son Charles succeeded to the throne, and the people hoped that their grievances would now be listened to, and their wrongs redressed ; but they were disap- pointed. " The father's madness," says Stevenson, " laid the foundation for his succes- sor's woes, and the son exactly followed the father's steps." J James held the principles of a royal prerogative, and required absolute and implicit obedience in too strict a manner. These he instilled into the mind of his son, and was, unhappily, too successful ; for, on Charles' succession, he carried out the same principles to a most intolerant degree, which was the cause of so much anarchy and confusion in the nation, and entailed upon himself those misfortunes which rendered his reign so unhappy, and his end so miserable.
In 1627, Rutherford was licensed as a preacher of the Gospel, and through the influ- ence of John Gordon of Kenmure, (afterwards Viscount Kenmure,) appointed to a church in the parish of Anwoth, in Kirkcudbright. There is sufficient authority to show that he was not inducted by Episcopal ordination. Being firmly attached to the Presbyterian form of Government from his youth, he manifested great dislike to Prelacy, and could never be induced to stoop to the authority of the bishops, which, at that time, was a very difficult matter to evade. We are told by Stevenson, that " until the beginning of the year 1628, some few preachers, by influence, were suffered to enter the ministry without conformity, and in this number we suppose Mr Rutherford may be reckoned, because he was ordained before the doors came to be more closely shut upon honest preachei'S." Other authorities might be quoted to the same effect. Here he discharged the duties of
* Lives of the Westminster Divines. t Crawford's History of the University,
i Stevenson's Church Historv, Vol. I.
SAMUEL KUTHERFORD. XVI
his sacred calling with great diligence ; and, no doubt, with success. He was accustomed to rise so early as three o'clock in the morning, and devoted his whole time to the spiri- tual wants of his flock and his own private religious duties. His labours were not confined to his own parishioners, many persons resorted to him from surrounding parishes. " He was," says Livingston, " a great strengthener of all the Christians in that country, who had been the fruits of the ministry of Mr John Welsh, the time he had been at Kirkcud- bright."
In 1630, Rutherford experienced a severe affliction by the death of his wife, after a painful and protracted illness of thirteen months, scarcely five years after their marriage. Her death seems to have been the source of much sorrow to him, as he frequently takes notice of it in his letters with much feeling, long after his painful bereavement. To add to his distress, he was himself afflicted with a fever, which lasted upwards of three months, by which he was so much reduced, that it was long ere he was able to perform his sacred duties.
John Gordon, Viscount Kenmure, who had long been the friend and patron of Ruther- ford, for whom he entertained the greatest respect and esteem, was in August 1634, seized with a disease which caused his death on September following, to the deep sorrow of Rutherford, who was with him at his last moments. Kenmure was a nobleman of an amiable and pious disposition ; and, as may be supposed, experienced much pleasure in his intercourse with Rutherford. To Lady Kenmure, Rutherford wrote many of his famous " Letters."
About this time, the doctrines of Arminius began to spread to an alarming extent amongst the Episcopalians. His tenets were espoused by Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, and also by many of the Scottish prelates, headed by Maxwell, Rishop of Ross, as those only who held the same principles had any chance of preferment in the Church. Ruther- ford viewed the promulgation of these dangerous tenets with great anxiety, and did all in his power to controvert and oppose them. In 1636, appeared his learned treatise, en- titled, " Excrcitationes Apologetics fro Divina Gratia" which was dedicated to Vis- count Kenmure, but was not published till eighteen months after his death. This work gave great offence to the government : he was in consequence summoned to appear before a High Commission Court, which had been constituted by Thomas Sydserff, Rishop of Galloway, a man of Arminian principles, which met at Wigton in June (1636), and there deprived of his office. Sydserff, who had imbibed an inveterate hatred against him, was not satisfied with this, but had him again summoned before the High Commission Court at Edinburgh, which met in July following, and he was there accused " of non-conformity, for preaching against the Perth Articles, and for writing a book, entitled, Exercitationes Apologiticce pro Divina Gratia, which they alleged did reflect upon the Church of Scot- land ; but the truth was, the arguments in that book did cut the sinews of Arminianism, and galled the Episcopal clergy to the quick, and therefore Rishop Lydserff could no longer abide him." Here many other false, frivolous, and extravagant charges were brought against him, but being firm in his innocence, he repelled them all. Lord Lorn (brother to Lady Kenmure), and many others, endeavoured to befriend him ; but such was the malevolence of Sydserff, that he swore an oath, if they did not agree to his wishes, he would write to the king. After three days' trial, sentence was passed upon him, that he be deprived of his pastoral office, and discharged from preaching in any part of Scotland , under pain of rebellion, and to be confined before the 20th of August 1636, within the town of Aberdeen during the king's pleasure. This sentence he obeyed, but severe and unjust as it was, it did not discourage him, for in one of his letters, he says, " I go to my king's palace at Aberdeen ; tongue, pen, nor wit, cannot express my joy."
During his confinement in Aberdeen, he wrote many of his well-known " Letters," which have been so popular. Indeed, there are few cottage libraries in Scotland in which they do not find a place among the scanty but select collection. Episcopacy and Arminian- ism at this time held the sole sway in Aberdeen, and it was with no gracious feeling that the learned doctors beheld the arrival of Rutherford. They had all imbibed the principles of their great patron, Laud, and manifested great hostility to Presbyterianism, which was the principal cause of his being sent to that town. He met at first with a cold reception, and his opponents did all in their power to operate on the minds of the people against him.
KV111 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF
He says himself, that " the people thought him a strange man, and his cause not good." His innocency, however, and the truth of his cause, began at last to be known, and his popularity was spreading daily ; — which so much alarmed the doctors, that they wished he might be banished from the kingdom. They entered into several disputations with him, but he appears to have proved himself a match for them. " I am here troubled," says he, " with the disputes of the great doctors, (especially with Dr Barron, on ceremonial and Arminian controversies — for all are corrupt here,) but, I thank God, with no detriment to the truth, or discredit to my profession."
About this period, great confusion and commotion reigned in Scotland. It had long been the wish of King Charles to introduce the Church of England Service-book and Canons into the worship of the Presbyterians of Scotland. He accordingly, in April 1636, with ill-judged policy, commenced arrangements for its accomplishment, and gave com- mands to Archbishop Laud, Bishops Juxon and Wren, to compile a liturgy for the special use of the Church of Scotland. Consequently, one was soon framed, which was nearly similar to that used in the Church of England, excepting a few alterations ; and, wherever these occurred, the language was almost synonimous with the Roman Missal. In 1637, a pro- clamation was issued, commanding the people's strict observance of this new form of worship, and a day was accordingly fixed for its introduction into Edinburgh, — on which it was presumed that compliance would follow throughout all the land. The feelings of the people, as may be supposed, were roused to a high pitch ; — they stood boldly forward in opposition to such a tyrannical encroachment on their religious liberty, and manifested such a firm and determined spirit of resistance, that Charles soon began to see, when too late, that he had drawn the reing too tight. They would accept of no measure short of an entirely free and unfettered Presbyterian form of worship, and a chain of events followed which led to a renewal of the National Covenant and the abolition of Episcopacy.
During these tumults, Rutherford ventured to leave the place of his confinement in Aberdeen, and returned to his parishioners in Anwoth about February 1638, after an absence of more than eighteen months. They did not, however, long enjoy his ministra- tions, as we find him, in the same year, actively engaged in Glasgow in forwarding the great covenanted work of reformation. Rutherford was deputed one of the commissioners from the Presbytery of Kirkcudbright to the famous General Assembly of 1638, which was convened at Glasgow on the 21st of November. He was called upon to give an account of the accusations which had been preferred against him by the high commission court. After deliberation, a sentence was passed in his favour, and he, along with some others who were in the same circumstances, were recognised as members of the Assembly. Soon after this, an application was made to the Assembly's commission to have him trans- ferred to Glasgow, and another by the University of St. Andrews, that he might be elected professor of divinity in the New College there. The commission appointed him to the professorship in St. Andrews, as his learning and talents fully qualified him for that important situation. He manifested, however, great reluctance to leave Anwoth, and pleaded, in a petition, his " bodily weakness and mental incapacity." There were several other petitions presented from the county of Galloway against his leaving Anwoth, but to no effect; the Court sustained his appointment. In October 1639, he removed to the scene of his future labours, and was appointed colleague to Mr Robert Blair, one of the ministers of St. Andrews.
Rutherford was nominated one of the commissioners to the General Assembly of divines held at Westminster in 1643. His colleagues were — Alexander Henderson, Robert Baillie, George Gillespie, and Robert Douglas, ministers ; — the Earl of Cassilis, Lord Maitland, (afterwards Duke of Lauderdale,) and Sir Archibald Johnston, of Warriston, ciders. He took a prominent part in all the discussions in that famous council, and pub- lished several works of a controversial and practical nature. About this time, he wrote Lis celebrated work entitled Lex Rex, in answer to a treatise by John Maxwell, the excommunicated Bishop of Ross, entitled " Sacro-Sancta Begum 31ajestas) or the sacred and royal prerogative of Christian kings, wherein soveraigntie is, by Holy Scripture, reve- rend antiquitie, and sound reason asserted," 4to., Oxford, 1644. This work endeavours to prove, that the royal prerogative of kingly authority is derived alone from God ; and it
SAMUEL RUTHERFORD. XX
demands an absolute and passive obedience of the subject to the will of the sovereign. The arguments in Lex Rex completely refute all the wild and absurd notions which Maxwell's work contains, although some of the sentiments would be thought rather democratical in modern times. The author displays an intimate knowledge of the classics and the writings of the ancient fathers and schoolmen. The work caused great sensation on its appearance. Bishop Guthrie mentions, that every member of the assembly " had in his hand that book lately published by Mr Samuel Rutherford, which was so idolized, that whereas Buchanan's treatise (de jure Regni apud Scotos) was looked upon as an oracle, this coming forth, it was slighted as not anti-monarchical enough, and Rutherford's Lex Rex only thought authentic."
Rutherford, who was anxious to return to Scotland, on account of bad health, had made an application to the Assembly for permission to leave ; but it was not granted till their business was finished, as his services were very valuable to them ; and it was not till 1647 that he was permitted to revisit his native land. On his return to Scotland, he resumed his labours in St. Andrews, and was in December of the same year appointed Principal of the New College, in room of Dr Howie, who had resigned on account of old age. In 1651 he was elected Rector of the University, and was now placed in situations of the highest eminence to which a clergyman of the Church of Scotland can be raised. The fame of Rutherford as a scholar and divine, had now spread both at home and abroad. In the Assembly of 1649, a motion was made, that he would be removed to Edinburgh as Pro- fessor of Divinity in the University ; and about the same time he received a special invita- tion to occupy the chair of Divinity and Hebrew in the University of Harderwyck ; and also another from the University of Utrecht, both of which he respectfully declined. He had too much regard for the interests of the Church of Scotland to leave the kingdom, considering the critical position in which it was at that time placed.
During the period which followed the death of Charles I. to the restoration, Rutherford took an active part in the struggles of the church in asserting her rights. Cromwell had in the meantime usurped the throne, and independency held the sway in England. On the death of Cromwell in 1658, measures were taken for the restoration of Charles II. to the throne. The Scottish Parliament met in 1651, when the national covenant was recalled — Presbyterianism abolished — and all the decrees of Parliament, since 1638, which sanctioned the Presbyterian system, were rescinded. The rights of the people were thus torn from them — their liberties trampled upon — and the whole period which follow- ed, till the martyrdom of Renwick in 1688, was a scene of intolerant persecution and bloodshed. Rutherford, as may be supposed, did not escape persecution in such a state of things. His work, Lex, Rex, was considered by the government as " inveighing against monarchie and laying ground for rebellion;" and ordered to be burned by the hand of the common hangman at Edinburgh. It met with similar treatment at St Andrews, and also at London ; and a proclamation was issued, that every person in possession of a copy, who did not deliver it up to the king's solicitor, should be treated as an enemy to the govern- ment. Rutherford himself was deprived of his offices both in the University and the Church, and his stipend confiscated ; he was ordered to confine himself within his own house, and was summoned to appear before the Parliament at Edinburgh, to answer a charge of high treason. It may be easily imagined what his fate would have been had he lived to obey the mandate ; but ere the time arrived he was summoned to a far higher than an earthly tribunal. Not having a strong constitution, and being possessed of an ac- tive mind, he had evidently overworked himself in the share he took in the struggles and controversies of the time. Although not an old man, his health had been gradually de- clining for several years. His approaching dissolution he viewed with Christian calmness and fortitude. A few weeks before his death, he gave ample evidence of his faith and hope in the Gospel, by the Testimony which he left behind him.* On his death-bed he was cheered by the consolations of several Christian friends, and on the 20th of March 1661, in the sixty-first year of his age, he breathed his last, in the full assurance and hope of eternal life. His last words were, " Glory, glory, dwelleth in Emmanuel's land."
* A Testimony left by Mr Samuel Rutherford to the Work of Reformation in Great Britain and Ireland, before his death, 8to.
Ai SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF SAMUEL RUTHERFORD.
On April 28th, 1842, the foundation-stone of a colossal monument, called the " Ruther- furd Monument," was laid to his memory ; it is erected on the farm of Boreland, in the parish of Anwoth, about half-a-mile from where he used to preach. The monument is of granite ; height, from the surface to the apex, sixty feet ; square of the pedestal, seven feet, with three rows of steps.
Of the character of Rutherford — as to his talents and piety, nothing need be here said. All who know his writings, will be at a loss whether most to admire his learning and depth of reasoning, or his Christian graces. We give the following list of his works, which is appended to a memoir* by a talented gentleman of this city ; a work compiled with great research and discrimination, and which will amply repay a perusal by all who feel an inte- rest in the remembrance of an individual so distinguished for learning, uprightness, and piety, as was Samuel Rutherford. — Exercitationes Apologeticoz pro Divina Gratia : Amst., 12mo., 1636. A Peaceable and Temperate Plea for PauVs Presbyterie in Scot- land: Lond., 4to., 1642. A Sermon preached to the Honourable House of Commons, January 31, 1643. Daniel vi. 26: Lond., 4to., 1644. A Sermon preached before the Honourable House of Lords, the 2bth day of June 1645. Luke vii. 22 — 25. Mark iv. 38 — 40. Matt. viii. 26: Lond., 4to., 1645. Lex, Rex; or the Law and the Prince; a discourse for the just prerogative of king and people : Lond., 4to., 1644. The Due Right of Presbyteries, or a Peaceable Plea for the government of the Church of Scot- land : Lond., 4to., 1644. The Tryal and Triumph of Faith : Lond., 4to., 1645. The Divine Right of Church Government and Excommunication: Lond., 4to., 1646. Christ Dying and Drawing to Himself: Lond., 4to., 1647. A Survey of the Spiritual Anti- christ, opening the secrets of Familisme and Antinomianisme : Lond., 1648. A Free Disputation against Pretended Liberty of Conscience : Lond., 4to, 1649. The Last and Heavenly Speeches, and Glorious Departure of John Gordoun, Viscount Kenmuir : Edin., 4to., 1649. Disputatio Scholastica de Divina Providentia: Edin., 4to, 1651. The Covenant of Life opened: Edin., 4to., 1655. A Survey of the Survey of that Summe of Church Discipline penned by Mr Thomas Hooker : Lond., 4to., 1658. Influ- ences of the Life of Grace : Lond., 4to., 1659. Joshua Redivivus, or Mr Rutherford's Letters, in three parts : 12mo., 1664. Examen Arminianismi, conscriptum et discipulis dictatum a doctissimo clarissimoque viro, D. Samuele Rhetorforte, SS. Theol. in Aca- demia Scotiae Sanctandreana Doctore et Professore: Ultraj., 12mo., 1668.
* Life of Samuel Rutherford, by Thomas Murray, L.L.D. Edin., 1827.
THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
Who doubteth (Christian Reader.) but innocency must be under the courtesy and mercy of malice, and that it is a real martyrdom to be brought under the lawless inquisition of the bloody tongue. Christ, the prophets, and apostles of our Lord, went to heaven with the note of traitors, seditious men, and such as turned the world npside down : calumnies of treason to Caesar were an ingredient in Christ's cup, and therefore the author is the more willing to drink of that cup that touched his lip, who is our glorious Forerunner : what, if conscience toward God, and credit with men, cannot both go to heaven with the saints, the author is satisfied with the for- mer companion, and is willing to dismiss the other. Truth to Christ cannot be treason to Ceesar, and for his choice he judgeth truth to have a nearer relation to Christ Jesus, than the transcendent and bound- less power of a mortal prince.
He considered that popery and defection had made a large step in Britain, and that arbitrary govern- ment had over-swelled all banks of law, that it was now at the highest float, and that this sea approach- ing the farthest border of fancied absoluteness, was at the score of ebbing : and the naked truth is, pre- lates, a wild and pushing cattle to the lambs and flock of Christ, had made a hideous noise, the wheels of their chariot did run an equal pace with the blood-thirsty mind of the daughter of Babel. Pre- lacy, the daughter planted in her mother's blood, must verify that word, As is the mother, so is the daughter : why, but do not the prelates now suffer ? True, but their sufferings are not of blood, or kin- dred, to the calamities of these of whom Lactantius saith, (1. 5, c. 19,) 0 quam honesta voluntate miseri erant. The causes of their suffering are, 1. Hope of gain and glory, steering their helm to a shore they much affect ; even to a church of gold, of pur- ple, yet really of clay and earth. 2. The lie is more active upon the spirits of men, not because of its own weakness, but because men are more passive in receiving the impressions of error than truth ; and opinions lying in the world's fat womb, or of a con- quering nature, whatever notions side with the world, to prelates and men of their make are very efficacious.
There is another cause of the sickness of our time, God plagued heresy to beget Atheism and se- curity, as atheism and security had begotten heresy, even as clouds through reciprocation of causes en- gender rain, rain begat vapours, vapours clouds, and clouds rain, so do sins overspread our sad times in a circular generation.
And now judgment presseth the kingdoms, and of all the heaviest judgments the sword, and of swords the civil sword, threateneth vastation, yet
not, I hope, like the Roman civil sword, of which it was said,
Bella geri placuit nullos habitura triumphos.
I hope this war shall be Christ's triumph, Baby- lon's ruin.
That which moved the author, was not (as my ex- communicate adversary, like a Thraso, saith) the escapes of some pens, which necessitated him to write, for many before me hath learnedly trodden in this path, but that I might add a new testimony to the times.
I have not time to examine the P. Prelate's pre- face, only, I give a taste of his gall in this preface, and of a virulent piece, of his agnosco stylum et gc- nium Thrasonis, in which he laboureth to prove how inconsistent presbyterial government is with mon- archy, or any other government.
1. He denieth that the crown and sceptre is under any co-active power of pope or presbytery, or cen- surable, or dethroneable ; to which we say, presby- teries profess that kings are under the co-active power of Christ's keys of discipline, and that pro- phets and pastors, as ambassadors of Christ, have the keys of the kingdom of God, to open and let in believing princes, and also to shut them out, if they rebel against Christ ; the law of Christ excepteth none, (Mat. xvi. 19 ; xviii. 15, 16 ; 2 Cor. x. 6 ; Jer. i. 9,) if the king's sins may be remitted in a ministe- rial way, (as Job xx. 23, 24,) as prelates and their priests absolve kings ; we think they may be bound by the hand that loosed ; presbyteries never de- throned kings, never usurped that power. Your father, P. Prelate, hath dethroned many kings ; I mean the Pope, whose power, by your own confes- sion, (c. 6, p. 58,) differeth from yours by divine right only in extent.
2. When sacred hierarchy, the order instituted by Christ, is overthrown, what is the condition of sovereignty ? — Ans. — Surer than before, when pre- lates deposed kings. 2. I fear Christ shall never own this order.
3. The mitre cannot suffer, and the diadem be secured.- — Ans. — Have kings no pillars to their thrones but antichristian prelates. Prelates have trampled diadem and sceptre under their feet, as histories teach us.
4. Do they not (puritans) magisterially determine that kings are not of God's creation by authorita- tive commission ; but only by permission, extorted by importunity, and way given, that they may be a scourge to a sinful people? — Ans. — Any unclean spirit from hell, could not speak a blacker lie ; we hold that the king, by office, is the church's nurse father, a sacred ordinance, the deputed power of
God ; but by the Prelate's way, all inferior judges, and God's deputies on earth, who are also our fathers in the fifth commandment style, are to be obeyed by no divine law ; the king, misled by p. prelates, shall forbid to obey them, who is in downright truth, a mortal civil pope, may loose and liberate subjects from the tie of a divine law.
5. His inveighing against ruling elders, and the rooting out of antichristian prelacy, without any word of Scripture on the contrary, I pass as the extravagancy of a malcontent, because he is de- servedly excommunicated for perjury, popery, So- cinianism, tyranny over men's conscience, and invad- ing places of civil dignity, and deserting his calling, and the camp of Christ, &c.
6. None were of old anointed but kings, priests, and prophets ; who, then, more obliged, to maintain the Lord's anointed, than priests and prophets ? The church hath never more beauty and plenty un- der any government than monarchy, which is most countenanced by God, and magnified by Scripture. — Ans. Pastors are to maintain the rights of peo- ple, and a true church, no less than the right of kings ; but prelates, the court parasites, and crea- tures of the king, that are born for the glory of their king, can do no less than profess this in words, yet it is true that Tacitus writeth of such, (Hist. 1. 1,) Libentius cum fortuna principis, quam cumprin- cipe loquuntur .- and it is true, that the church hath had plenty under kings, not so much, because they were kings, as because they were godly and zealous : except the P. P. say, that the oppressing kings of Israel and Judah, and the bloody horns that made war with the lamb, are not kings. In the rest of the epistle he extols the Marquis of Ormond with base flattery, from his loyalty to the king, and his more than admirable prudence in the treaty of cessation with the rebels ; a woe is due to this false prophet, who calleth darkness light, for the former was abominable and perfidious apostacy from the Lord's cause and people of God, whom he once defended, and the cessation was a selling of the blood of many hundred thousand protestants, men, women, and sucking children.
This cursed P. hath written of late a treatise against the presbyterial government of Scotland, in which there is a bundle of lies, hellish calumnies, and gross errors.
1. The first lie is, that we have lay elders, where- as, they are such as rule, but labour not in the word and doctrine (1 Tim. v. 7, p. 3).
2. The second lie, that deacons, who only attend tables, are joint rulers with pastors (p. 3).
3. That we never, or little use the lesser excom- munication, that is, debarring from the Lord's Sup- per (p. 4J.
4. That any church judicature in Scotland exact- eth pecuniary mulcts, and threaten excommunica- tion to the non-payers, and refuseth to accept the repentance of any who are not able to pay : the civil magistrate only fineth for drunkenness, and adultery, blaspheming of God, which are frequent sins in prelates.
5. A calumny it is to say that ruling elders are of equal authority to preach the word as pastors (p. 7).
6. That laymen are members of presbyteries or general assemblies. Buchanan and Mr Melvin were doctors of divinity ; and could have taught such an ass as John Maxwell.
7. That expectants are intruders upon the sacred function, because, as sons of the prophets, they exer- cise their gifts for trial in preaching.
8. That the presbytery of Edinburgh hath a super- intending power, because they communicate the af- fairs of the church, and write to the churches, what
they hear prelates and hell devise against Christ and his church.
9. That the king must submit his sceptre to the presbytery; the king's sceptre is his royal office, which is not subject to any judicature.no more than any lawful ordinance of Christ ; but if the king, as a man, blaspheme God, murder the innocent, advance belly-gods, (such as our prelates, for the most part, were,) above the Lord's inheritance, the ministers of Christ are to say, " The king troubleth Israel, and they have the keys to open and shut heaven to, and upon the king, if he can offend."
10. That king James said, a Scottish presbytery and a monarchy agreeth as well as God and the devil, is true, but king James meant of a wicked king ; else he spake as a man.
11. That the presbytery, out of pride, refused to answer king James's honourable messengers, is a lie; they could not, in business of high concern- ment, return a present answer to a prince, seeking still to abolish presbyteries.
12. Its a lie, that all sins, even all civil business, come under the cognizance of the church, for only sins, as publicly scandalous, fall under their power. (Matt, xviii. 15—17, &c. ; 2 Thess. iii. 11 ; 1 Tim. v. 20.) It is a calumny that they search out secret crimes, or that they ever disgraced the innocent, or divided families ; where there be flagrant scandals, and pregnant suspicions, of scandalous crimes, they search out these, as the incest of Spotswood, P. Prelate of St Andrews, with his own daughter ; the adulteries of Whiteford, P. Prelate of Brichen, whose bastard came weeping to the assembly of Glasgow in the arms of the prostitute : these they searched out, but not with the damnable oath, ex officio, that the high commission put upon inno- cents, to cause them accuse themselves against the law of nature.
13. The presbytery hinder not lawful merchandise; scandalous exhortation, unjust suits of law, they may forbid ; and so doth the Scripture, as scandalous to Christians, 2 Cor. vi.
14. They repeal no civil laws ; they preach against unjust and grievous laws, as, Isaiah (x. 1) doth, and censure the violation of God's holy day, which pre- lates profaned.
15. ^\ e know no parochial popes, we turn out no holy ministers, but only dumb dogs, non-residents, scandalous, wretched, and apostate prelates.
16. Our moderator hath no dominion, the P. Pre- late absolveth him, while he saith, "All is done in our church by common consent" (p. 7).
17. It is true, we have no popish consecration, such as P. Prelate contendeth for in the mass, but we have such as Christ and his apostles used, in con- secrating the elements.
18. If any sell the patrimony of the church, the presbytery censures him ; if any take buds of malt, J meal, beef, it is no law with us, no more than the bishop's five hundred marks, or a year's stipend that the entrant gave to the Lord Bishop for a church. And whoever took buds in these days, (as king James by the earl of Duubar, did buy episco- pacy at a pretended assembly, by foul budding,) they were either men for the episcopal way, or per- fidiously against their oath became bishops, all per- sonal faults of this kind imputed to presbyteries, agree to them under the reduplication of episcopal
19. The leading men that covered the sins of the dying man, and so lost his soul, were episcopal men ; and though some men were presbyterians, the faults of men cannot prejudice the truth of God ; but the prelates always cry out against the rigour of presbyteries in censuring scandals ; because they themselves do ill, they hate the light; now here
the Prelate condemneth them of remissness in dis- cipline.
20. Satan, a liar from the beginning, saith, The presbytery was a seminary and nursery of fiends, contentions, and bloods, because they excommuni- cated murderers against king James' will ; which is all one to say, prophecying is a nurse of bloods, because the prophets cryed out against king Achab, and the murderers of innocent Naboth : the men of God must be either on the one side or the other, or then preach against reciprocation of injuries.
21. It is false that presbyteries usurp both swords ; because they censure sins, which the civil magistrate should censure and punish. Elias might be said then to mix himself with the civil business of the kingdom, because be propheeied against ido- laters' killing of the Lord's prophets ; which crime the civil magistrate was to punish. But the truth is, the assembly of Glasgow, 1637, condemned the prelates, because they, being pastors, would be also lords of parliament, of session, of secret council, of exchequer, judges, barons, and in their lawless high commission, would fine, imprison, and use the 6word.
22. It is his ignorance that he saith, a provincial synod is an associate body chosen out of all judi- cial presbyteries ; for all pastors and doctors, with- out delegation, by virtue of their place and office, repair to the provincial synods, and without any choice at all, consult and voice there.
23. It is a lie that some leading men rule all here ; indeed, episcopal men made factions to rent the synods; and though men abuse their power to factions, this cannot prove that presbyteries are in- consistent with monarchy; for then the Prelate, the monarch of his diocesan rout, should be anti-mo- narchical in ahigher manner, for he ruleth all at his will.
24. The prime men, as Mr R. Bruce, the faithful servant of Christ, was honoured and attended by all, because of his suffering, zeal, holiness, his fruitful ministry in gaining many thousand souls to Christ. So, though king James cast him off, and did swear, by God's name, he intended to be king, (the Prelate niaketh blasphemy a virtue in the king,) yet king James swore he could not find an honest minister in Scotland to be a bishop, and therefore he was neces- sitated to promote false knaves ; but he said some- times, and wrote it under his hand, that Mr R. Bruce was worthy of the half of his kingdom : but will this prove presbyteries inconsistent with monarchies ? I should rather think that knave bishops, by king James' judgment, were inconsistent with monarchies.
25. His lies of Mr R. Bruce, excerpted out of the lying manuscripts of apostate Spotswood, in that he would not but preach against the king's recalling from exile some bloody popish lords to undo all, are nothing comparable to the incests, adulteries, blas- phemies, perjuries, Sabbath-breaches, drunkenness, profanity, &c, committed by prelates before the sun.
26. Our General Assemby is no other than Christ's court, (Acts xv.) made up of pastors, doctors, and brethren, or elders.
27. They ought to have no negative vote to impede the conclusions of Christ in his servants.
28. It is a lie that the king hath no power to ap- point time and place for the General Assembly ; but his power is not privative to destroy the free courts of Christ, but accumulative to aid and assist them.
29. It is a lie that our General Assembly may re- peal laws ; command and expect performance of the king, ort.: u excommunicate, subject to them, force and compii king, judges, and all, to submit to them. They may not force the conscience of the poorest beggar, nor is any Assembly infallible, nor can it lay bounds upon the souls of judges, which they are to
obey with blind obedience — their power is ministe- rial, subordinate to Christ's law; and what civil laws parliaments make against God's word, they may authoritatively declare them to be unlawful, as though the emperor (Acts xv.) had commanded for- nication and eating of blood. Might not the Assem- bly forbid these in the synod ? 1 conceive the pre- lates, if they had power, would repeal the act of par- liament made, anno 1641, in Scotland, by his majesty personally present, and the three estates concerning the annulling of these acts of parliament and laws which established bishops in Scotland ; therefore bishops set themselves as independent monarchs above kings and laws ; and what they damn in pres- byteries and assemblies, that they practise them- selves.
30. Commissioners from burghs, and two from Edinburgh, because of the largeness of that church, not for cathedral supercminence, sit in assemblies, not as sent from burghs, but as sent and authorised by the church session of the burgh, and so they sit there in a church capacity.
31. Doctors both in academies and in parishes, we desire, and our book of discipline holdeth forth such.
32. They hold, (I believe with warrant of God's word,) if the king refuse to reform religion, the in- ferior judges, aud assembly of godly pastors, and other church-officers may reform ; if the king will not kiss the Son, and do his duty in purging the House of the Lord, may not Eliah and the people do their duty, and cast out Baal's priests. Refor- mation of religion is a personal act that belongeth to all, even to any one private person according to his place.
33. They may swear a covenant without the king, if he refuse ; and build the Lord's house (2 Chron. xv. 9) themselves ; and relieve and defend one an- other, when they are oppressed. For my acts and duties of defending myself and the oppressed, do not tye my conscience conditionally, so the king con- sent, but absolutely, as all duties of the law of na- ture do. (Jer. xxii. 3; Prov. xxiv. 11 ; Isa. lviii. 6 ; i. 17.)
34. The P. Prelate condemneth our reformation, because it was done against the will of our popish queen. This showeth what estimation he hath of popery, and how he abhorreth protestant religion.
35. They deposed the queen for her tyranny, but crowned her son; all this is vindicated in the fol- lowing treatise.
36. The killing of the monstrous and prodigious wicked cardinal in the Castle of St Andrews, and the violence done to the prelates, who against all law of God and man, obtruded a mass service upon their own private motion, in Edinburgh anno 1637, can conclude nothing against presbyterial govern- ment except our doctrine commend these acts as lawful.
37. What was preached by the servant of Christ, whom (p. 46) he calleth the Scottish Pope, is printed, and the P. Prelate durst not, could not, cite any thing thereof as popish or unsound, he knoweth that the man whom he so slandereth, knocked down the Pope and the prelates.
38. The making away the fat abbacies and bishop- rics is a bloody heresy to the earthly-minded Prelate ; the Confession of Faith commended by all the pro- testant churches, as a strong bar against popery, and the book of discipline, in which the servants of God laboured twenty years with fasting and pray- ing, andfrcquent advice and counsel from the whole reformed churches, are to the P. Prelate a nega- tive faith and devout imaginations ; it isa lie that episcopacy, by both sides, was ever agreed on by law in Scotland.
39. And it was a heresy that Mr Melvin taught, that presbyter and bishop are one function in Scrip- ture, and that abbots and priors were not in God's books, die ubilegis; and is this a proof of incon- sistency of presbyteries with a monarchy ?
40. It is a heresy to the P. Prelate that the church appoint a fast, when king James appointed an unseasonable feast, when God's wrath was upon the land, contrary to God's word (Isa. xxii. 12 — 14) ; and what ! will this prove presbyteries to be incon- sistent with monarchies ?
41. This Assembly is to judge what doctrine is treasonable. What then ? Surely the secret coun- cil and king, in a constitute church, is not synodi- cally to determine what is true or false doctrine, more than the Roman emperor could make the church canon, Acts xv.
42 Mr Gibson, Mr Black, preached against king James' maintaining the tyranny of bishops, his sympathizing with papists, and other crying sins, and were absolved in a general Assembly ; shall this make presbyteries inconsistent with monarchy ? Nay, but it proveth only that they are inconsistent with the wickedness of some monarchies ; and that pre- lates have been like the four hundred false prophet3 that flattered king Achab, and those men that preached against the sins of the king and court, by prelates in both kingdoms, have been imprisoned, banished, their noses ript, their cheeks burnt, their ears cut.
43. The godly men that kept the Assembly of Aberdeen, anno'l603, did stand for Christ's Prero- gative, when king James took away all General As- semblies, as the event proved ; and the king may, with as good warrant, inhibit all Assemblies for word and sacrament, as for church discipline.
44. They excommunicate not for light faults and trifles, as the liar saith : our discipline saith the contrary.
45. This assembly never took on them to choose the king's counsellors ; but those who were in au- thority took king James, when he was a child, out of the company of a corrupt and seducing papist,
Esme Duke of Lennox, whom the P. Prelate nam- eth noble, worthy, of eminent endowments.
46. It is true Glasgow Assembly, 1637, voted down the high commission, because it was not con- sented unto by the church, and yet was a church judicature, which took upon them to judge of the doctrine of ministers, and deprive them, and did encroach upon the liberties of the established law- ful church judicatures.
47. This Assembly might well forbid Mr John Graham, minister, to make use of an unjust decree, it being scandalous in a minister to oppress.
48. Though nobles, barons, and burgesses, that profess the truth, be elders, and so members of the general Assembly, this is not to make the church the house, and the commonwealth the hanging ; for the constituent members, we are content to be examined by the pattern of synods, Acts xv. 22, 23. Is this inconsistent with monarchy ?
49. The commissioners of the General Assembly, are, 1. A mere occasional judicature. 2. Appointed by, and subordinate to the General Assembly. 3. They have the same warrant of God's word, that messengers of the synod (Acts. xv. 22—27) hath.
50. The historical calumny of the 17th day of De- cember, is known to all : 1. That the ministers had any purpose to dethrone king James, and that they wrote to John L. Marquis of Hamilton, to be king, because king James had made defection from the true religion: Satan devised, Spotswood and this P. Prelate vented this ; I hope the true history of this is known to all. The holiest pastors, and professors in the kingdom, asserted this government, suffered for it, contended with authority only for sin, never for the power and office. These on the contrary side were men of another stamp, who minded earth- ly things, whose God was the world. 2. All the forged inconsistency betwixt presbyteries and mo- narchies, is an opposition with absolute monarchy and concluded with a like strength against parlia- ments, and all synods of either side, against the law and gospel preached, to which kings and kingdoms are subordinate. Lord establish peace and truth.
LEX, REX.
QUESTION I.
WHETHER GOVERNMENT BE WARRANTED BY A DIVINE LAW.
I reduce all that I am to speak of the power of kings, to the author or efficient, — the matter or subject, — the form or power, — the end and fruit of their government, — and to some cases of resistance. Hence,
The question is either of government in general, or of particular species of govern- ment, such as government by one only, called monarchy, the government by some chief leading men, named aristocracy, the government by the people, going under the name of democracy. We cannot but put difference betwixt the institution of the of- fice, viz. government, and the designation of person or persons to the office. What is warranted by the direction of nature's light is warranted by the law of nature, and con- sequently by a divine law; for who can deny the law of nature to be a divine law ?
That power of government in general must be from God, I make good, 1st, Be- cause (Rom. xiii, 1) " there is no power but of God ; the powers that be are or- dained of God." 2d, God commandeth obedience, and so subjection of conscience to powers ; Rom. xiii. 5, " Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, (or civil punishment) but also for conscience sake ;" 1 Pet. ii. 13, " Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man, for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the king as supreme," &c. Now God only by a divine law can lay a band of subjection on the conscience, tying men to guilt and punishment jf they transgress.
Conckis. All civil power is immediately from God in its root ; in that, 1st, God hath made man a social creature, ami one who inclineth to be governed by man. then certainly he must have put this power in man's nature : so are we, by good reason, taught by Aristotle.1 2d, God and nature intendeth the policy and peace of mankind, then must God and nature have given to mankind a power to compass this end ; and this must be a power of government. I see not, then, why John Prelate, Mr Maxwell, the excommunicated prelate of Ross, who speaketh in the name of J. Armagh,2 had reason to say, That he feared that we fan- cied that the government of superiors was only for the more perfect, but had no au- thority over or above the perfect, nee rex, nee lex, justo posita. He might have im- puted this to the Brazillians, who teach, that every single man hath the power of the sword to revenge his own injuries, as Molina saith.3
QUESTION II.
WHETHER OR NOT GOVERNMENT BE WAR- RANTED BY THE LAW OF NATURE.
As domestic society is by nature's instinct, so is civil society natural in radiec, in the root, and voluntary in modo, in the man- ner of coalescing, Politic power of govern- ment agreeth not to man, singly as one man, except in that root of reasonable na-
i Aristot. Polit- Iib.l,c.2. 3 Sacro Sane. Reg. Majestas, c. 1, p. 1, 3 Molina, torn. 1, de justit. <Msp. 2g. B
sAy
ture : but supposing that men be combined in societies, or that one family cannot con- tain a society, it is natural that they join in a civil society, though the manner of union in a politic body, as Bodine saith,1 be vo- luntary, Gen. x. 10 ; xv. 7 ; and Suarez saith,2 That a power of making laws is given by God as a property flowing from nature, Qui datformam, dat ronscquentia ad for- mam ; not by any special action or grant, different from creation, nor will he have it to result from nature, while men be united into one politic body : which union being made, that power followeth without any new action of the will.
We are to di-tinguish betwixt a power of government, and a power of government by magistracy. That we defend ourselves from violence by violence is a consequent of un- broken and sinless nature ; but that we de- fend ourselves by devolving our power over in the hands of one or more rulers seemeth rather positively moral than natural, except that it is natural for the child to expect help against violence from his lather : for which cause I judge that learned senator Ferdin- andus Vasquius said well,3 That princedom, empire, kingdom, or jurisdiction hath its rise from a positive and secondary law of nations, and not from the law of pure na- ture. 1st, The law saith4 there is no law of nature agreeing to all living creatures for superiority ; for by no reason in nature hath a boar dominion over a boar, a lion over a lion, a dragon over a dragon, a bull over a bull : and if all men be born equally free, as I hope to prove, there is no reason in na- ture why one man should be king and lord over another; therefore while I be other- wise taught by the aforesaid Prelate Max- well, I conceive all jurisdiction of man over man to be as it were artificial and positive, and that it inferreth some servitude whereof nature from the womb hath freed us, if you except that subjection of children Jo parents, and the wife to the husband ; ami the law saith,6 De jure gentium secundarius est btnnis principatus. 2d, This also the Scripture proveth, while as the exalting of Saul or David above their brethren to be
i Bodin. de rep. lib. 1, c.6.
2 Suarez, torn. 1, dc legib. lib. 3, c. 3.
3 Vazquez illust. quaest. lib. 1, c. 41, num. 28. 29.
4 lb. lib. 2, in princ. F. de inst. et jur. et in princ. In«t. Cod. tit. c. jus. nat. 1. disp.
5 Dominium est jus quoddam. lib. fin. ad med. C. de long. temp, prest. 1, qui u-um fVrt.
kings and captains of the Lord's people, is ascribed not to nature (for king and beggar spring of one clay), but to an act of divine bounty and grace above nature, 1 Sam. xiii. 13; Ps. lxxviii. 70, 71.
1. There is no cause why royalists should deny government to be natural, but to be altogether from God, and that the kingly power is immediately and only from God, because it is not natural to us to be subject to government, but against nature for us to resign our liberty to a king, or any ruler or rulers; for this is much for us, and proveth not but government is natural ; it concludeth that a power of government tali modo, by magistracy, is not natural ; but this is but a sophism, a *«« n ad illud quod est dictum a-x\u%, this special of government, by resignation of our liberty, is not natural, therefore, power of govern- ment is not natural ; it followeth not, a ne- gatione specici non sequitur negatio ge- neris, non est homo, ergo non est Animal. And by the same reason I may, by an an- tecedent will, agree to a magistrate and a law, that I may be ruled in a politic soci- ety, and by a consequent will only, yea, and conditionally only, agree to the penalty and punishment of the law ; and it is most true no man, by the instinct of nature, giveth consent to penal laws as penal, for nature doth not teach a man, nor incline his spirit to yield that his life shall be taken away by the sword, and his blood shed, except on this remote ground : a man hath a disposi- tion that a vein be cut by the physician, or a member of his body cut off, rather than the whole body and life perish by some conta- gious disease ; but here reason in cold blood, not a natural disposition, is the nearest pre- valent cause and disposer of the business. "When, therefore, a community, by the in- stinct and guidance of nature, incline to government, and to defend themselves from violence, they do not, by that instinct, for- mally agree to government by magistrates ; and when a natural conscience giveth a de- liberate consent to good laws, as to this, " Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed," Gen. ix. 6, he doth tacitly consent that his own blood shall be shed ; but this he consenteth unto conse- quently, tacitly, and conditionally, — if he shall do violence to the life of his brother : yet so as this consent proceedeth not from a disposition every way purely natural. I grant reason may be necessitated to assent
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE.
to the conclusion, being, as it wore, forced by the prevalent power of the evidence of an insuperable and invincible light in the premises, yet, from natural affections, there resulteth an act of self-love for self-preser- vation. So David shall condemn another rich man, who hath many lambs, and rob- beth his poor brother of his one lamb, and yet not condemn himself, though he be most deep ia that fault, 1 Sam. xii. 5, 6 ; yet all this doth not binder, but government, even by riders, hath its ground in a secon- dary law of nature, which lawyers call secun- daria jus naturale, or jus gentium secun- daria™ ; a secondary law of nature, which is granted by Plato, and denied by none of sound judgment in a sound sense, and that is this, Licet vim virepellere, It is lawful to repel violence by violence ; and this is a special act of the magistrate.
2. But there is no reason why we may not defend by good reasons that political societies, rulers, cities, and incorporations, have their rise, and spring from the secon- dary law of nature. 1st, Because by nature's law family-government hath its warrant ; and Adam, though there had never been any positive law, had a power of governing his own family, and punishing malefactors; but as Tannerus saith well,1 and as I shall prove, God willing, this was not properly a royal or monarchical power; and I judge by the reasoning of Sotus,2 Molina,3 and Victo- ria.4 By what reason a family hath a power of government, and of punishing malefac- tors, that same power must be in a society of men, supposing that society were not made up of families, but of single persons ; for the power of punishing ill-doers doth not reside in one single man of a family, or in them all, as they are single private per- sons, but as they are in a family. But this argument holdeth not but by proportion ; for paternal government, or a fatherly power of parents over their families, and a politic power of a magistrate over many families, are powers different in nature, — the one be- ing warranted by nature's law even in its species, the other being, in its specie and kind, warranted by a positive law, and, in the general only, warranted by a law of na- ture. 2d, If we once lay the supposition,
1 Ad Tannerus, m. 12, torn. 2, disp. 5. de peccatis, q. 5, dub. 1, num. 22.
2 Sotus, 4. de justit. q. 4, art. 1.
3 Lod. Molina, torn. 1, de just. disp. 22.
4 Victoria in relect. de potest civil, q. 4, art, 1.
that God hath immediately by the law of nature appointed there should be a govern- ment, and mediately defined by the dictate of natural light in a community, that there shall be one or many rulers to govern a com- munity, then the Scripture's arguments may well be drawn out of the school of nature : as, (1,) The powers that be, are of God (Rom. xii.), therefore nature's light teach- eth that we should be subject to these powers. (2.) It is against nature's light to resist the ordinance of God. (3.) Not to fear him to whom God hath committed the sword for the terror of evil-doers. (4.) Not to honour the public rewarder of well-doing. (5.) Not to pay tribute to him for his work. Therefore I see not but Govarruvias,1 Soto,2 and Suarez,3 have rightly said, that power of government is immediately from God, and this or that definite power is mediately from God, proceeding from God by the mediation of the consent of a community, which resign- eth their power to one or more rulers ; and to me, Barclaius saith the same,4 Quamvis populus potcntice largitor videatur, &c.
QUESTION III.
WHETHER ROYAL POWER AND DEFINITE FORMS OF GOVERNMENT BE FROM COD.
The king may be said to be from God and his word in these several notions : —
1. By way of permission, Jer. xliii. 10, " Say to them, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold I will send and take Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my seivant, and will set his throne upon these stones that I have hid, and he shall spread his royal pavilion over them.*' And thus God made him a catholic king, and gave him all nations to serve him, Jer. xxvii. 6 — 8, though he was but an unjust tyrant, and his sword the best title to those crowns.
2. The king is said to be from God by way of naked approbation ; God giving to a people power to appoint what government they shall think good, but instituting none in special in his word. This way some make kingly power to be from God in the
i (iovarruvias, tr. 2, praet. quest. 1, n. 2, 3, 4.
2 Soto, loc. ett.
3 Suarez de Reg. lib. 3, c. 4, n. 1, 2
4 Barclaius con. Monavchoma, 1. 3, c. 2.
Lex, rex ; or,
general, but in the particular to be an in- vention of men, negatively lawful, and not repugnant to the word, as the wretched popish ceremonies are from God. But we teach no such thing : let Maxwell1 free his master Bellarmine,8 and other Jesuites with whom he sideth in Romish doctrine : we are free of this. Bellarmine saith that po^ litic power in general is warranted by a di- vine law ; but the particular forms of politic power, (he meaneth monarchy, with the first,) is not by divine right, but de jure gentium, by the law of nations, and floweth immediately from human election , as all things, saith he, that appertain to the law of nations. So monarchy to Bellarmine is but an human invention, as Mr Maxwell's surplice is ; and Dr Feme, sect. 3, p. 13, saith with Bellarmine.
3. A king is said to be from God, by particular designation, as he appointed Saul by name for the crown of Israel. Of this hereafter.
4. The kingly or royal office is from God by divine institution, and not by naked approbation ; for, 1st, we may well prove Aaron's priesthood to be of divine institu- tion, because God doth appoint the priest's qualification from his family, bodily perfec- tions, and his charge. 2d, We take the pastor to be by divine law and God's insti- tution, because the Holy Ghost (1 Tim. iii. 1 — 4) describeth his qualifications ; so may we say that the royal power is by divine in- stitution, because God mouldeth him : Deut. xvii. 15, " Thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose, one from amongst thy breth- ren," &c. ; Rom. xiii. 1, " There is no power but of God, the powers that be arc ordained iii' God." 3d, That power must be ordained of God as his own ordinance, to which we owe subjection for conscience, and not for fear of punishment ; but every power is such, Rom. xiii. 4th, To resist the kingly } lower is to resist God. 5th, He is the min- ister of God for our good. 6th, He beareth the sword of God to take vengeance upon ill-doers. 7th, The Lord expressly saith, 1 Pet. ii. 17, " Fear God, honour the king ;" ver. 13, 14, " Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whe-
1 Xacrosan. Reg. Maj. the Sacred and Royal Pro- bative of Christian kin^s, c. 1, q.l, p. 6, 7.
- Bellarm. de loris, lib. 5, c. 6, not. 5. Politira universe considerata est de jure divino, in particu- lari considerata est de jure gentium.
ther it be to the king as supreme, or unto governors, as those that are sent by him,'* &c. ; Tit. iii. 1, " Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers ;" and so the fifth commandment layeth obedience to the king on us no less than to our parents ; whence, I conceive that power to be of God, to which, by the moral law of God, we owe perpetual subjection and obedience. 8th, Kings and magistrates are God's, and God's deputies and lieutenants upon earth, (Psalm lxxxii. 1, 6, 7 ; Exod. xxh\ 8 ; iv. 16,) and therefore their office must be a lawful ordi- nance of God. 9th, By their office they are feeders of the Lord's people, Psalm lxxviii. 70—72, the shields of the earth, Psal. xlvii. 9, nursing fathers of the church, Psal. xlix. 23, captains over the Lord's people, 1 Sam, ix. 19i 10th, It is a great judgment of God when a land wanteth the benefit of such ordinances of God, Isa, iii. 1 — 3, 6, 7, 11. The execution of their office is an act of the just Lord of heaven and earth, not only by permission, but according to God's revealed will in his word ; their judgment is not the judgment of men, but of the Lord, 2 Chron. xix. 6, and their throne is the throne of God, 1 Chron. xxii. 10. Jerome saith,3 to punish murderers and sacrilegious persons is not bloodshed, but the ministry and service of good laws. So, if the king be a living law by office, and the law put in execution which God hath commanded, then, as the moral law is by divine institution, so must the officer of God be, who is custos et vin- dex legis divinoS, the keeper, preserver, and avenger of God's law, Basilius saith,2 this is the prince's office, Ut opem ferat virtu ti, malitiam vcro impugnet. When Paulinus Treverensis, Lucifer Metropolis tane of Sardinia, Dionysius Mediolanensis, and other bishops, were commanded by Constantine to write against Athanasius, they answered, Regnum non ipsius esse, sted dei, a quo acceperit, — the kingdom was God's, not his ; as Athanasius saith,3 Opta- tus Milevitanus4 helpeth us in the cause, where he saith with Paul, " We are to pray for heathen kings," The genuine end of the magistrate, saith Epiphanius,5 is ut ad bouinii ordinem uuivcrsitatis raundi omnia ex deo bene disponautur atque admmistre.n-
1 Jerome in 1.4, Comment, in Jerein.
a Basilius, epist. 125.
3 Athanasius, epist. ad solita.
J Optat. Melevitanuih lib. 3.
5 Epiphanius, lib. 1, torn. 3, Hcres. i.0.
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE.
tur. But some object, It' the kingly power be of divine institution, then shall any other government be unlawful, and contrary to a divine institution, and so we condemn aris- tocracy and democracy as unlawful. Ans. This consequence were good, if aristocracy and democracy wei*e not also of divine insti- tution, as all my arguments prove ; for I judge they are not governments different in nature, if we speak morally and theologi- cally, only they differ politically and posi- tively ; nor is aristocracy any thing but diffused and enlarged monarchy, and mo- narchy is nothing but contracted aristocracy, even as it is the same hand when the thumb and the four fingers are folded together and when all the five fingers are dilated and stretched out ; and wherever God appoint- ed a king he never appointed him absolute, and a sole independent angel, but joined al- ways with him judges, who were no less to judge according to the law of God (2 Chron. xix. 6,) than the king, Deut. xvii. 15. And in a moral obligation of judging righteous- ly, the conscience of the monarch and the conscience of the inferior judges are equally under immediate subjection to the King of kings ; for there is here a co-ordination of consciences, and no subordination, for it is not in the power of the inferior judge to judge, quoad specijicationan, as the king commandeth him, because the judgment is neither the king's, nor any mortal man's, but the Lord's, 2 Chron. xix. 6, 7.
Hence all the three forms are from God ; but let no man say, if they be all indiffer- ent, and equally of God, societies and king- doms are left in the dark, and know not which of the three they shall pitch upon, because God hath given to them no special direction for one rather than for another. But this is easily answered. 1st, That a re- public appoint rulers to govern them is not an indifferent, but a moral action, because to set no rulers over themselves I conceive were a breach of the fifth commandment, •which commandeth government to be one or other. 2d, It is not in men's free will that they have government or no govern- ment, because it is not in their free will to obey or not to obey the acts of the court of nature, which is God's court ; and this court enacteth that societies suffer not man- kind to perish, which must necessarily fol- low if they appoint no government ; also it is proved elsewhere, that no moral acts, in their exercises and use, are left indifferent
to us ; so then, the aptitude and temper of every commonwealth to monarchy, rather than to democracy or aristocracy, is God's warrant and nearest call to determine the wills and liberty of people to pitch upon a monarchy, hie et nunc, rather than any other form of government, though all the three be from God, even as single life and marriage are both the lawful ordinances of God, and the constitution and temper of the body is a calling to either of the two ; nor are we to think that aristocracy and de- mocracy are either unlawful ordinances, or men's inventions, or that those societies which want monarchy do therefore live in sins.
But some say that Peter calleth any form of government an human ordinance, 1 Pet. ii. 13, M^Tivn xrleis, therefore mo- narchy can be no ordinance of God. Ans. Bivetus saith,1 — " It is called an ordinance of man, not because it is an invention of man, and not an ordinance of God, but re- spectu subjecti;" Piscator,2— " Not because man is the efficient cause of magistracy, but because they are men who are magistrates ;" Diodatus,3 — " Obey princes and magistrates, or governors made by men, or amongst men ;" Oecumenius,* — " An human constitution, because it is made by an human disposition, and created by human suffrages ;" Dydimus, — Because over it " presides presidents made by men ;" Cajetanus,6 Estius,7 — " Every creature of God (as, preach the gospel to every creature) in authority." But I take the word, " every creature of man," to be put emphatically, to commend the worth of obedience to magistrates, though but men, when we do it for the Lord's sake ; there- fore Betrandus Cardinalis Ednen.-ds saith,8 " He speaketh so for the more necessity of merit ;" and Glossa Ordinaria saith, " Be subject to all powers, etiam ex injidelibus et ineredulis, even of infidels and unbe- lievers." Lyranus, — " For though they be men, the image of God shineth in them ;" and the Syriac, as Lorinus saith;8 leadeth us thereunto, K^tf ^2 HnS^S Lechulle- chum benai anasa : Obey all the children of
1 Rivetus in decal. Mand. 5, p. 194.
2 Piscator in loc. 3 Diodatus, annot.
* Occumenius quod horuinum disijositiono con- sistit, et liumanis suffragiis creatur.
o Cajetanus, officium regiminis, quia humanis suffragiis creatur.
6 Kstius in loc. 7 Betrandus, torn. 4, Bib.
8 Lorin. in. lo.
LEX, REX ; OR,
men that are in authority. It is an ordinance of men, not effectively, as if it were an inven- tion and a dream of men ; but subjectively, because exercised by man. Objectively, and tiXikus, for the good of men, and for the ex- ternal man's peace and safety especially ; whereas church -officers are for the spiri- tual good of men's souls. And Durandus saith well,1 " Civil power according to its institution is of God, and according to its acquisition and way of use is of man." And we may thus far call the forms of magis- trates a human ordinance, — that some ma- gistrates are ordained to care for men's lives and matters criminal, of life and death, and some for men's lands and estates ; some for commodities by sea, and some by land ; and are thus called magistrates according to these determinations or human ordinances.
QUESTION IV.
WHETHER THE RING BE ONLY AND IMME- DIATELY FROM GOD, AND NOT FROM THE PEOPLE.
That this question may be the clearer we are to set down these considerations : —
1. The question is, Whether the kingly office itself come from God. I conceive it is, and floweth from the people, not by for- mal institution, as if the people had by an act of reason devised and excogitated such a power : God ordained the power. It is from the people only by a virtual emana- tion, in respect that a community having no government at all may ordain a king or ap- point an aristocracy. But the question is concerning the designation of the person : Whence is it that this man rather than that man is crowned king ? and whence is it — from God immediately and only — that this man rather than that man, and this race or family rather than that race and family, is chosen for the crown ? Or is it from the people also, and their free choice ? For the pastor's and the doctor's office is from Christ only ; but that John rather than Thomas be the doctor or the pastor is from the will and choice of men — the pres- byters and people.
2. The royal power is three ways in the people : 1st, Radically and virtually, as in
Durandus lib. de orig. juris.
the first subject. 2d, Collative vcl com- municative, by way of free donation, they giving it to this man, not to that man, that he may rule over them. 3d, Limitate, — they giving it so as these three acts re- main with the people. (1.) That they may measure out, by ounce weights, so much royal power, and no more and no less. (2.) | So as they may limit, moderate, and set banks and marches to the exercise. (3.) That they give it out, couditionate, upon this and that condition, that they may take again to themselves what they gave out upon condition if the condition be violated. The first I conceive is clear, 1st, Because if all living creatures have radically in them a power of self-preservation, to defend themselves from violence, — as we see lions have paws, some beasts have horns, some claws, — men being reasonable creatures, united in society, must have power in a more reasonable and honourable way to put this power of warding off violence in the hands of one or more rulers, to defend themselves by magistrates. 2d, If all men be born, as concerning civil power, alike, — ■ for no man cometh out of the womb with a diadem on his head or a sceptre in his hand, and yet men united in a society may give crown and sceptre to this man and not to that man, — then this power was in this united society, but it was not in them for- mally, for they should then all have been one king, and so both above and superior, and below and inferior to themselves, which we cannot say ; therefore this power must have been virtually in them, because neither man nor community of men can give that which they neither have formally nor vir- tually in them. 3d, Royalists cannot deny but cities have power to choose and create interior magistrates ; therefore many cities united have power to create a higher ruler ; for royal power is but the united and super- lative power of inferior judges in one greater judge whom they call a king.
Conclus. The power of creating a man a king is from the people.
1. Because those who may create this man a king rather than that man have power to appoint a king ; for a comparative action doth positively infer an action. If a man have power to marry this woman and not that woman, we may strongly conclude that he hath power to marry ; now, 1 Kings xvi. the people made Omri king and not Ziniri, and his son Achab rather than Tibui the
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE.
son of Sinath. Nor can rt be replied that this was no lawful power that the people used, for that cannot elude the argument ; for (1 Kings i.) the people made Solomon king and not Adonijah, though Adonijah was the elder brother. They say, God did extraordinarily both make the office, and design Solomon to be king, — the people had no hand in it, but approved God's act. Arts. This is what we say, God by the people, by Nathan the prophet, and by the servants of David and the states crying, " God save king Solomon ! " made Solomon king ; and here is a real action of the peo- ple. God is the first agent in all acts of the creature. "Where a people maketh choice of a man to be their king, the states do no other thing, under God, but create this man rather than another; and we cannot here find two actions, one of God, another of the people ; but in one and the same action, God, by the people's free suffrages and voices, createth such a man king, passing by many thousands ; and the people are not passive in the action, because by the autho- ritative choice of the states the man is made of a private man and no king, a public per- son and a crowned king : 2 Sam. xvi. 18, " Hushai said to Absalom, Nay, but whom the Lord and the people, and all the men of Israel choose, his will I be, and with him will I abide ;" Judg. viii. 22, " The men of Israel said to Gideon, Rule thou over us ;" Judg. ix. 6, " The men of Sechem made Abimelech king;" Judg. xi. 8, 11 ; 2 Kings xiv. 21, " The people made Azariah king ;" 1 Sam. xii. 1 ; 2 Chron. xxiii. 3.
2. If God doth regulate his people in making this man king, not that man, then he thereby insinuateth that the people have a power to make this man king, and not that man. But God doth regulate his people in making a king ; therefore the people have a power to make this man king, not that man king. The proposition is clear, because God's law doth not regulate a non-ens, a mere nothing, or an unlawful power ; nor can God's holy law regulate an unlawful power, or an unlawful action, but quite abolish and interdict it. The Lord setteth not down rules and ways how men should not commit treason, but the Lord commandeth loyalty, and simply interdict- eth treason. If people have then more power to create a king over themselves than they had to make prophets, then God forbidding them to choose such a man for
their king should say as much to his people as if he would say, " I command you to make Isaiah and Jeremiah prophets over you, but not these and those men." This, certainly, should prove that not God only, but the people also, with God, made pro- phets. I leave this to the consideration of the godly. The prophets were immediately called of God to be prophets, whether the people consented that they should be pro- phets or not ; therefore God immediately and only sent the prophets, not the people ; but though God extraordinarily designed some men to be kings, and anointed them by his prophets, yet were they never ac- tually installed kings till the people made them kings. I prove the assumption, Deut. xvii. 14, 15, " When thou shaft say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me, thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee whom the Lord thy God shall choose ; one from amongst thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee : thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother." Should not this be an unjust charge to the people, if God only, without any action of the people, should immediately set a king over them ? Might not the people reply, We have no power at all to set a king over ourselves, more than we have power to make Isaiah a prophet, who saw the visions of God. To what end then should God mock us, and say, " Make a brother and not a stranger king over you ?" 3. Expressly Scripture saith, that the people made the king, though under God : Judg. ix. 6, " The men of Sechem made Abimelech king ;" 1 Sam. xi. 15, " And all the people went to Gilgal, and there they made Saul king before the Lord ;" 2 King. x. 5, " We will not make any king." This had been an irrational speech to Jehu if both Jehu and the people held the royalists' tenet, that the people had no power to make a king, nor any active or causative influence therein, but that God immediately made the king : 1 Chron. xii. 38, " All these came with a perfect heart to make David king in Hebron ;" and all the rest were of one heart to make David king. On these words Lavater saith,1 The same way are magistrates now to be chosen ; now this day God, by an immediate oracle
1 Lavater com. in part 12, 38. Hodie quoque in liberis urbibus, et gentibus, magistratus secundum dei verbum, Exod. xviii., Deut. i., eligendi sunt, non ex affectibus.
I. 'A, REX ; OR,
from heaven, appointeth the office of a king, but I am sure he doth not immediately de- sign the man, but doth only mark him out to the people as one who hath the most royal endowments, and the due qualifications re- quired in a lawful magistrate by the word of God : Exod. xviii. 21, " Men of truth, hating covetousness," &c. ; Deut. i. 16, 17, Men who will judge causes betwixt their brethren righteously, without respect of per- sons ; 1 Sam. x. 2l, Saul was chosen out of the tribes according to the law of God ; Deut. xvii., They might not choose a stran- ger ; and Abulensis, Serrarius, Cornelius a Lapide, Sancheiz, and other popish wri- ters, think that Saul was not only anointed with oil first privately by Samuel, (1 Sam. x. 1, 2,) but also at two other times before the people, — once at Mizpeh, and another time at Gilgal, by a parliament and a con- vention of the states. And Samuel judged the voices of the people so essential to make a king that Samuel doth not acknowledge him as formal king, (1 Sam. x. 7, 8, 17, 18, 19,) though he honoured him because he was to be king, (1 Sam. ix. 23, 24,) while the tribes of Israel and parliament were gathered together to make him king- according to God's law, (Deut. xvii.) as is evident. 1st, For Samuel (1 Sam. v. 20,) caused all the tribes of Israel to stand be- fore the Lord, and the tribe of Benjamin was taken. The law provided one of their own, not a stranger to reign over them ; and, because some of the states of parlia- ment did not choose him, but, being chil- dren of Belial, despised him in their hearts, (v. 27,) therefore after king Saul, by that victory over the Ammonites, had conquered the affections of all the people fully, (v. 10, 11,) Samuel would have his coronation and election by the estates of parliament re- newed at Gilgal by all the people, (v. 1-1, 15,) to establish him king. 2d, The Lord by lots found out the tribe of Benjamin. 3d, The Lord found out the man, by name, Saul the son of Kish, when he did hide himself amongst the stuff, that the people might do their part in the creating of the king, whereas Samuel had anointed him before. But the text saith expressly that the people made Saul king ; and Calvin, Martyr, Lavater, and popish writers, as Serrarius, Mendoza, Sancheiz, Cornelius a Lapide, Lyranus, Hugo Cardinalis, Carthu- sius, Sanctius, do all hence conclude that the people, under God, make the king.
I see no reason why Barclaius should here distinguish a power of choosing a king, which he granteth the people hath, and a power of making a king, which he saith is only proper to God.1 Ans. Choosing of a king is either — a comparative crowning of this man, not that man ; and if the people have this it is a creating of a king under God, who principally disposeth of kings and kingdoms ; and this is enough for us. The want of this made Zimri no king, and those whom the rulers of Jezreel at Samaria (2 King, x.) refused to make kings, no kings. This election of the people made Athaliah a princess ; the removal of it, and translation of the crown by the people to Joash made her no princess : for, I ask you, what other calling of God hath a race of a family, and a person to the crown, but only the election of the states ? There is now no voice from heaven, no immediately inspired prophets such as Samuel and Elisha, to anoint David, not Eliab, — Solomon, not Adonijah. The ^W^'s or the heroic spirit of a royal faculty of governing, is, I grant, from God only, not from the people ; but I suppose that maketh not a king, for then many sitting on the throne this day should be no kings, and many private persons should be kings. If they mean by the peo- ple's choosing nothing but the people's ap- probative consent, posterior to God's act of creating a king, let them show us an act of God making kings, and establishing royal power in this family rather than in that family, which is prior to the people's con- sent,— distinct from the people's consent I believe there is none at all.
Hence I argue : If there be no calling or title on earth to tie the crown to such a family and person but the suffrages of the people, then have the line of such a family, and the persons now, no calling of God, no right to the crown, but only by the suffrages of the people, except we say that there be no lawful kings on earth now when prophe- tical unction and designation to crowns are ceased, contrary to express scripture : Bom. xiii. 1—3 ; 1 Pet. ii. 13—17.
But there is no title on earth how to tie crowns to families, to persons, but only the suffrages of the people : for, 1st, Conquest without the consent of the people is but royal robbery, as we shall see. 2d, There is no prophetical and immediate calling to
1 Barclaius, lib. 3, cont. Monarchoraach. 8. c. 3.
THE LAW .VXD THE PRINCE.
kingdoms now. 3d, The Lord's giving of regal parts is somewhat ; but I hope roy- alists will not deny but a child, young in years and judgment, may be a lawful king. 4th, Mr Maxwell's appointing of the kingly office doth no more make one man a lawful king than another; for this were a wide consequence. God hath appointed that kings should be ; therefore John a Stiles is a king ; yea, therefore David is a king. It followeth not. Therefore it remaineth only that the suffrages of the people of God is that just title and divine calling that kings have now to their crowns. I presuppose they have gifts to govern from God.
If the Lord's immediate designation of David, and his anointing by the divine au- thority of Samuel, had been that which alone, without the election of the people, made David formally king of Israel, then there were two kings in Israel at one time ; for Samuel anointed David, and so he was formally king upon the ground laid by roy- alists, that the king hath no royal power from the people ; and David, after he him- self was anointed by Samuel, divers times calleth Saul the Lord's anointed, and that by the inspiration of God's Spirit, as we and royalists do both agree. Now two law- ful supreme monarchs in one kingdom I conceive to be most repugnant to God's truth and sound reason ; for they are as re- pugnant as two most highs or as two in- finites. It shall follow that David all the while betwixt his anointing by Samuel and his coronation by the suffrages of all Israel at Hebron, was in-lacking in discharging and acquitting himself of his royal duty, God having made him formally a king, and so laying upon him a charge to execute justice and judgment, and defend religion, which he did not discharge. All David's suffering, upon David's part, must be unr just, for, as king, he should have cut off the murderer Saul, who killed the priests of the Lord ; especially, seeing Saul, by this ground, must be a private murderer, and David the only lawful king. David, if he was formally king, deserted his calling in flying to the Philistines ; for a king should not forsake his calling upon any hazard, even of his life, no more than a pilot should give over the helm in an extreme storm ; but certainly God's dispensation in this war- ranteth us to say, no man can be formally a lawful king without the suffrages of the people : for Saul, after Samuel from the
Lord anointed him, remained a private man, and no king, till the people made him king, and elected him ; and David, anointed by that same divine authority, remained formally a subject, and not a king, till all Israel made him kinoj at Hebron ; and So- lomon, though by God designed and or- dained to be king, yet was never king un- til the people made him so, (1 Kings i.) ; therefore there floweth something from the power of the people, by which he who is no king now becometh a king formally, and by God's lawful call ; whereas before the man was no king, but, as touching all royal power, a mere private man, And I am sure birth must be less than God's desigv nation to a crown, as is clear, — Adonijah was older than Solomon, yet God will have Solomon, the younger by birth, to be king, and not Adonijah. And so Mr Symons, and other court prophets, must prevaricate, who will have birth, without the people's election, to make a king, and the people's voices but a ceremony.
I think royalists cannot deny but a peo=- pie ruled by aristocratic magistrates may elect a king, and a king so elected is for- mally made a lawful king by the people's election ; for of six willing and gifted to reign, what maketh one a king and not the other five ? Certainly by God's disposing the people to choose this man, and not an- other man. It cannot be said but God giveth the kingly power immediately ; and by him kings reign, that is true. The office is im- mediately from God, but the question now is, What is that which formally applieth the office and royal power to this person rather than to the other fiye as meet ? Nothing can here be dreamed of but God's inclining the hearts of the states to choose this man and not that man.
QUESTION V.
WHETHER OR NO THE POPISH PRELATE, THE AUTHOR OF " SAC. SAN. REGUM MAJESTAS," CALLED THE SACRED AND ROYAL PRERO- GATIVE OF KINGS, PROVETH THAT GOD IS THE IMMEDIATE AUTHOR OF SOVEREIGNTY, AND THAT THE KING IS NO CREATURE OF THE PEOPLE'S MAKING.
Consider, 1. That the excommunicated prelate saith, (c. 2, p. 19,) " Kings are not
D
10
LEX, REX : OR,
immediately from God as by any special or- dinance sent from heaven by the ministry of angels and prophets ; there were but some few such ; as Moses, Saul, David, &c. ; yet something may immediately proceed from God, and be his special work, without a re- velation or manifestation extraordinary from heaven ; so the designation to a sacred func- tion is from the church and from man, yet the power of word, sacraments, binding and loosing, is immediately from Jesus Christ. The "apostle Matthias was from Christ's immediate constitution, and yet he was de- signed by men, Acts i. The soul is by creation and infusion, without any special ordinance from heaven, though nature be- getteth the body, and disposeth the matter, and prepareth it as fit to be conjoined with the soul, so as the father is said to beget the son." Arts. 1st, The unchurched Prelate striveth to make us hateful by the title of the chapter, — That God is, by his title, the immediate author of sovereignty ; and who denieth that? Not those who teach that the person who is king is created king by the people, no more than those who deny that men are now called to be pastors and deacons immediately, and by a voice from heaven, or by the ministry of angels and prophets, because the office of pastors and deacons is immediately from God. 2d, When he hath proved that God is the im- mediate author of sovereignty, what then ? Shall it follow that the sovereign in concrcto may not be resisted, and that he is above all law, and that there is no armour against his violence but prayers and tears? Because God is the immediate author of the pastor and of the apostle's office, does it therefore follow that it is unlawful to resist a pastor though he turn robber ? If so, then the pastor is above all the king's laws. This is the Jesuit and all made, and there is no ar- mour against the robbing prelate but prayer and tears.
2. He saith in his title, that " the king is no creature of the people's making." If he mean the king in the abstract, that is, the royal dignity, whom speaketh he against? Not against us, but against his own father, Bellarmine, who saith,1 that "sovereignty hath no warrant by any divine law." If he mean that the man who is king is not cre- ated and elected king by the people, he con- tradicteth himself and all the court doctors.
Bellarmine, lib. 5, c. 6, not 5, de Laicis
3. It is false that Saul and David's call to royalty was only from God, " by a special ordinance sent from heaven," for their office is (Deut. xvii. 14) from the written word of God, as the killing of idolaters, (ver. 3, 7,) and as the office ot the priests and Levites, (ver. 8 — 10,) and this is no extraordinary office from heaven, more than that is from heaven which is warranted by the word of God. If he mean that these men, Saul and David, were created kings only by the ex- traordinary revelation of God from heaven, it is a lie ; for besides the prophetical anoint- ing of them, they were made kings by the people, as the Word saith expressly ; except we say that David sinned in not setting him- self down on the throne, when Samuel first anointed him king ; and so he should have made away with his master, king Saul, out of the world ; and there were not a few called to the throne by the people, but many, yea, all the kings of Israel and of Judah.
4. The prelate contendeth that a king is designed to his royal dignity " immediately from God, without an extraordinary revela- tion from heaven," as the man is " designed to be a pastor by men, and yet the power of preaching is immediately from God," &c. ; but he proveth nothing, except he prove that all pastors are called to be pastors im- mediately, and that God callcth and design- eth to the office such a person immediately as he hath immediately instituted by the power of preaching and the apostleship, and hath immediately infused the soul in the body by an act of creation ; and we cannot conceive how God in our days, when there are no extraordinary revelations, doth im- mediately create this man a king, and im- mediately tie the crown to this family rather than to that. This he doth by the people now, without any prophetical unction, and by this medium, viz., the free choice of the people. He need not bring the example of Matthias more than of any ordinary pastor ; and yet an ordinary pastor is not immediate- ly called of God, because the office is from God immediately, and also the man is made pastor by the church.
The P. Prelate saith, (c. 2, p. 20—23,) A thing is immediately from God three ways. 1st, When it is solely from God, and presupposeth nothing ordinary or human an- tecedent to the obtaining of it. Such was the power of Moses, Saul and David ; such were the apostles. 2d, When the collation
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE.
of the power to such a person is immediately from God, though some act of man be ante- cedent, as Matthias was an apostle. A bap- tised man obtaineth remission and regenera- tion, yet aspersion of water cannot produce these excellent effects. A king giveth power to a favourite to make a lord or a baron, yet who is so stupid as to aver, that the honour pf a lord cometh immediately from the fa- vourite and not from the king. 3d, When a man hath, by some ordinary human right, a full and just right, and the approbation and confirmation of this right is immediate- ly from God.
The first way, sovereignty is not from God. The second way, sovereignty is con- ferred on kings immediately : though some created act of election, succession or con- quest intervene, the interposed act contain- eth not in it power to confer sovereignty ; as in baptism, regeneration, if there be no- thing repugnant in the recipient, is con- ferred, not by water, but immediately by God. In sacred orders, designation is from men, power to supernatural acts from God. Election, succession, conquests, remotely and improperly constitute a king. To say in the third sense, that sovereignty is immediately from God by approbation or confirmation only, is against Scripture, Prov. viii. 15 ; Psal. lxxxvih. 8 ; John xix. ; then the peo- ple say, You are God's, your power is from below. And Paul's " ordained of God," is " approved and confirmed only of God ;" the power of designation, or application of the person to royalty, is from man ; the power of conferring royal power, or of applying the person to royal power, is from God. A man's hand may apply a faggot to the fire, the fire only maketh the faggot to burn.
Answer. 1st, Apostles, both according to their office and the designation of their per- son to the office, were immediately and only from God, without any act of the people, and therefore are badly coupled with the royal power of David and king Saul, who were not formally made kings but by the people at Mizpeh and Hebron. 2d, The se- cond way God giveth royal power, by mov- ing the people's hearts to confer royal power, and this is virtually in the people, formally from God. Water hath no influence to pro- duce grace, God's institution and promise doth it ; except you dream with your Je- suits, of opus operatum, that water sprin- kled, by the doing of the deed, conferreth grace, nisi ponatur obex, what can the child
11
do, or one baptised child more than another, to hinder the flux of remission of sins, if you mean not that baptism worketh as physic on a sick man, except strength of humours hin- der ? and therefore this comparison is not alike. The people cannot produce so noble an effect as royalty, — a beam from God. True, formally they cannot, but virtually it is in a society of reasonable men, in whom are left beams of authoritative majesty, which by a divine institution they can give (Deut. xvii. 14) to this man, to David, not to Eliab. And I could well say the favourite made the lord, and placed honour in the man whom he made lord, by a borrowed power from his prince ; and yet the honour of a lord is principally from the king. 3. It is true the election of the people containeth not formal- ly royal dignity, but the Word saith, they made Saul, they made David king ; so vir- tually election must contain it. Samuel's oil maketh not David king, he is a subject after he is anointed ; the people's election at Hebron maketh him king, differeth him from his brethren, and putteth him in royal state ; yet God is the principal agent. What immediate action God hath here, is said and dreamed of, no man can divine, except Pro- phet P. Prelate. The i?««r«s, royal author- ity, is given organically by that act by which he is made king : another act is a night- dream, but by the act of election, David is of no king, a king. The collation of $vvaf£iS} royal gifts, is immediately from God, but that formally maketh not a king, if Solo- mon saw right, " servants riding on horses, princes going on foot." 4th, Judge of the Prelate's subtflty, — I dare say not his own ; he stealeth from Spalato, but telleth it not, — " The applying of the person to royal au- thority is from the people; but the applying of royal authority to the person of the kino-, is immediately and only from God ; as the hand putteth the faggot to the fire, but the fire maketh it burn." To apply the subject to the accident, is it any thing else but to apply the accident to the subject ? Royal authority is an accident, the person of the king the subject. The applying of the fag- got to the fire, and the applying of the fire to the faggot, are all one, to any one not forsaken of common sense. When the peo- ple applyeth the person to the royal autho- rity, they but put the person in the state of royal authority ; this is to make an union betwixt the man and royal authority, and this is to apply royal authority to the per-
12
LEX, REX ; OR,
son. 5th, The third sense is the Prelate's dream, not a tenet of ours. We never said that sovereignty in the king is immediately from God by approbation or confirmation only, as if the people first made the king, and God did only by a posterior and latter act say Amen to the deed done, and sub- scribe, as recorder, to what the people doth : so the people should deal crowns and king- doms at their pleasure, and God behoove to ratify and make good their act. When God doth apply the person to royal power, is this a different action from the people's applying the person to royal dignity ? It is not ima- ginable. But the people, by creating a king, applyeth the person to royal dignity ; and God, by the people's act of constituting the man king, doth by the mediation of this act convey royal authority to the man, as the church by sending a man and ordaining him to be a pastor, doth not by that, as God's instruments, infuse supernatural powers of preaching ; these supernatural powers may be, and often are in him before he be in or- ders. And sometimes God infuseth a super- natural power of government in a man when he is not yet a king, as the Lord turned Saul into another man, (1 Sam. x. 5, 6,) nei- ther at that point of time when Samuel a- nointed him, but afterwards: "After that thou shalt come to the hill of God, the Spi- rit of the Lord shall come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy with them, and shalt be turned into another man ;" nor yet at that time when he is formally made king by the people ; for Saul was not king formally be- cause of Samuel's anointing, nor yet was he king because another spirit was infused into him, (v. 5, 6) for he was yet a private man till the states of Israel chose him king at Mizpeh. And the word of God used words of action to express the people's power: Judg. ix. 6, And all the men of Sechem gathered together, and all the men of Millo, T^Sft'T regnare feccrunt, they caused him to be king. The same is said 1 Sam. x. 15, They caused Saul to reign ; 2 Kings x. 15, t^tf^1?^ $h We shall not king any man ; 1 Cliron. xii. 38, They came to He- bron TilT nttT^-H1? to king David over all Israel ; Deut. xvii. three times the making of a king is given to the people.
When thou shalt say, -jSd »Sy HD'J^K I shall set a king over me. If it were not in their power to make a king no law could
be imposed on them not to make a stranger their king ; 1 Kings xii. 20, All the con-
fregation kinged Jeroboam, or made him ing over all Israel ; 2 Kings xi. 12, They kinged Joash, or made Joash to reign. 6, The people are to say, You are God's, and your power is below, saith the Prelate : What then ? therefore their power is not from God also ? It followeth not subordi- nate!, non pugnant. The Scripture saith both, the Lord exalted David to be king, and, all power is from God ; and so the power of a lord mayor of a city : the people made David king, and the people maketh such a man lord mayor. It is the Anabap- tists' argument, — God writeth his law in our heart, and teacheth his own children ; there- fore books and the ministry of men are need- less. So all sciences and lawful arts are from God ; therefore sciences applied to men are not from men's free will, industry and studies. The prelate extolleth the king when he will have his royalty from God, the way that John Stiles is the husband of such a woman. P. Prelate. — Kings are of God, they are God's, children of the Most High, his ser- vants, public ministers, — their sword and judgment are God's. This he hath said of their royalty in abstracto and in concreto ; their power, person, charge, are all of divine extract, and so their authority and person are both sacred and inviolable.1
Ans.— So are all the congregation of the judges; Psal. lxxxii. 1, 6, All of them are God's ; for he speaketh not there of a con- gregation of kings. So are apostles, their office and persons of God ; and so the pre- lates (as they think), the successors of the apostles, are God's servants ; their ministry, word, rod of discipline, not theirs, but of God. The judgment of judges, inferior to the king, is the Lord's judgment, not men's. Deut. i. 17 ; 2 Cliron. xix. 6, Hence by the Prelate's logic, the persons of prelates, ma- yors, bailiffs, constables, pastors, are sacred and inviolable above all laws, as are kings. Is this an extolling of kings ? But where are kings' persons, as men, said to be of God, as the royalty in abstracto is ? The Pre- late seeth beside his book, (Psal. lxxxii. 7,) " But ye shall die like men."
P. Prelate. — We begin with the law, in which, as God by himself prescribed the es- sentials, substantiate, and ceremonies of his piety and worship, gave order for piety and
i Sacro. Sa. Rpi. Ma. c. 24.
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE.
13
justice ; Deut. xvii. 14, 15, the king is here originally and immediately from God, and independent from all others. " Set over them" — them is collective, that is, all and every one. Scripture knoweth not this state principle, — Rex est singulis major, univcrsis minor. The person is expressed in concreto, " Whom the Lord thy God shall choose." This peremptory precept dischargeth the people, all and every one, diffusively, representatively, or in any ima- ginable capacity to attempt the appointing of a king, but to leave it entirely and totally to God Almighty.
Ans. — Begin with the law, but end not with traditions. If God by himself pre- scribed the essentials of piety and worship, the other part of your distinction is, that God, not by himself, but by his prelates, appointed the whole Romish rites, as acci- dentals of piety. This is the Jesuits' doc- trine. This place is so far from proving the king to be independent, and that it totally is God's to appoint a king, that it expressly giveth the people power to appoint a king ; for the setting of a king over themselves, this one and not that one, makes the people to appoint the king, and the king to be less and dependent on the people, seeing God intendeth the king for the people's good, and not the people for the king's good. This text shanieth the Prelate, who also confessed, (p. 22,) that remotely and im- properly, succession, election, and conquest maketh the king, and so it is lawful for men remotely and improperly to invade God's chair.
P. Prelate— Jesuits and puritans say, it was a privilege of the Jews that God chose their king. So Suarez, Soto, Navarra.
Ans. — The Jesuits are the Prelate's bre- thren, they are under one banner, — we are in contrary camps to Jesuits. The Prelate said himself, (p. 19,) Moses, Saul, and Da- vid, were by extraordinary revelation from God. Sure I am kings are not so now. The Jews had this privilege that no nation had. God named some kings to them, as Saul, David, — he doth not so now. God did tie royalty to David's house by a covenant till Christ should come, — he doth not so now ; yet we stand to Deut. xvii.
P. Prelate. — Prov. 8. 15, " By me kings reign." If the people had right to consti- tute a king, it had not been king Solomon, but king Adonijah. Solomon saith not of himself, but indefinitely, " By me," as by
the Author, Efficient, and Constituent, kings reign. Per is by Christ, not by the people, not by the high priest, state or presbytery, — not per me iratum, by me in my anger, as some sectaries say. Paul's 'iia.Tccyh tov Sim, an ordinance by high autho- rity not revocable. Sinesius so useth the word, Aristotle, Lucilius, Appian, Plutarch, •>^ in me and by me, and also Doctor An- drews. Kings indefinitely, all kings : none may distinguish where the law distinguish- eth not, — they reign in concreto. That same power that maketh kings must unmake them.
Ans. — 1. The prelate cannot restrict this to kings only ; it extendeth to parliaments also. Solomon addeth, Q,3T"n and con- suls, QH8P all the sirs, and princes, QO'IJT and magnificents, and nobles, and more JHtf '£2^ SD and all the judges of the earth, they reign, rule, and decree justice by Christ. Here, then, ma- yors, sheriffs, provosts, constables, are by the Prelate extolled as persons sacred, irresis- tible. Then, (1.) the judges of England rule not by the king of Britain, as their author, efficient, constituent, but by Jesus Christ immediately ; nor doth the commissary rule by the prelate. (2.) All these, and their power, and persons, ride independently, and immediately by Jesus Christ. (3.) All in- ferior judges are itamya.} rov StoZ, the ordi- nances of God not revocable. Therefore the king cannot deprive any judge under him ; he cannot declare the parliament no parliament : once a judge, and always and irrevocably a judge. This Prelate's poor pleading for kings deserves no wages. La- vater intelligit superiorcs et inferiores ma- gistratuS) non est potcstas nisi a deo, Vata- blus consiliarios. 2. If the people had absolute right to choose kings by the law of Israel, they might have chosen another than either Adonijah or Solomon ; but the Lord expressly put an express law on them, that they should make no king but him whom the Lord should choose, Deut. xvii. 4. Now the Lord did either by his immediately in- spired prophet anoint the man, as he anoin- ted David, Saul, Jehu, &c, or then he re- stricted, by a revealed promise, the royal power to a family, and to the eldest by birth ; and, therefore, the Lord first chose the man and then the people made him king. Birth was not their rule, as is clear, in that they made Solomon their king, not
11
LEX, REX ; OR,
Adonijah, the elder ; and this proveth that God did both ordain kingly government to the kingdom of Israel, and chose the man, either in his person, or tied it to the first- born of the line. Now we have no Scrip- ture nor law of God to tie royal dignity to one man or to one family ; produce a war- rant for it in the Word, for that must be a privilege of the Jews for which we have no word of God. We have no immediately in- spired Samuels to say, "Make David, or this man king ;" and no word of God to say, " Let the first-born of this family rather than another family sit upon the throne;" therefore the people must make such a man king, following the rule of God's word, (Deut. xvii. 14,) and other rules showing what sort of men judges must be, as Deut. i. 16—18; 2 Chron. xix. 6, 7. 3. It is true, kings in a special manner reign by Christ ; therefore not by the people's free election ? The P. Prelate argueth like himself : by this text a mayor of a city by the Lord decreeth justice ; therefore he is not made a mayor of a city by the people of the city. It follovveth not. None of us teach that kings reign by God's anger. We judge a king a great mercy of God to church or state ; but the text saith not, By the Lord kings and judges do not only reign and decree justice, but also murder protestants, by raising against them an army of papists. And the word 1t*Tuyui, powers, doth in no Greek author signily irrevocable powers; for Uzziah was a lawful king, and yet (2 Chron. xxvi.) lawfully put from the throne, and " cut off from the house of the Lord." And interpreters of this passage deny that it is to be understood of tyrants. So the Chaldee paraphrase turns it well, Potentes virga justhiai .-1 so Lavater and Diodatus saith, this place doth prove, " That all kings, judges and laws, derivari a lege cetcrna, are derived from the Eternal Law." The prelate, eating his tongue for anger, striveth to prove that all power, and so royal power, is of God ; but what can he make of it ? We believe it, though he say (p. 30,) secta- ries prove, by *«» m< " That a man is justi- fied by faith only ;" so there is no power but of God only : but feel the smell of a Jesuit. It is the sectaries' doctrine, that we are jus- tified by faith only, but the prelates and the Jesuits go another way, — not by faith only, but by works also. And all power is from
i Aquinas, 12, q. 93, art. 3.
God only, as the first Author, and from no man. What then ? Therefore men and people interpose no human act in making this man a king and not that man. It fol- loweth not. Let us with the Prelate join Paul and Solomon together, and say, " That sovereignty is from God, of God, by God, as God's appointment irrevocable." Then shall it never follow : it is inseparable from the person unless you make the king a man im- mortal. As God only can remove the crown, it is true God only can put an unworthy and an excommunicated prelate from office and benefice ; but how ? Doth that prove that men and the church may not also in their place remove an unworthy churchman, when the church, following God's word, delivereth to Satan? Christ only, as head of the church, excommunicateth scandalous men ; therefore the church cannot do it. And yet the argument is as good the one way as the other ; for all the churches on earth cannot make a minister properly,— they but design him to the ministry whom God hath gifted and called. But shall we conclude that no church on earth, but God only, by an im- mediate action from heaven, can deprive a minister? How, then, dare prelates excom- municate, unmake, and imprison so many ministers in the three kingdoms? But the truth is, take this one argument from the Prelate, and all that is in his book falleth to the ground, — to wit, Sovereignty is from God only. A king is a creature of God's making only ; and what then ? Therefore sovereignty cannot be taken from him : so God only made Aaron's house priests. So- lomon had no law to depose Abiathar from the priesthood. Possibly the Prelate will grant all. The passage, Rom. xiii., which he saith hath tortured us, I refer to a fitter place — it will be found to torture court parasites.
I go on with the Prelate, (c. 3,) " Sacred sovereignty is to be preserved, and kings are to be prayed for, that we may lead a godly life," 1 Tim. iii. What then ? All in authority are to be prayed for, — even parliaments ; by that text pastors are to be prayed for, and without them sound religion cannot well subsist. Is this questioned, that kings should be prayed for ; or are we want- ing in this duty ? but it followeth not that all dignities to be prayed for are imme- diately from God, not from men.
P. Prelate. — Prov. viii., Solomon spcak- cth first of the establishment of government before he speaks of the works of creation ;
THE LAW AND THE V1UXCE.
15
therefore better not bo at all as be without government. And God fixed government in the person of Adam before Eve, or any one else, came into the world ; and how shall government be, and we enjoy the fruits of it, except we preserve the king's sacred authority inviolable ?
Ans. — 1. Moses (Gen. i.) speaketh of creation before he speaketh of kings, and he speaketh (Gen. iii.) of Adam's sins be- fore he speaks of redemption through the blessed Seed ; therefore better never be re- deemed at all as to be without sin. 2. If God made Adam a governor before he made Eve, and any of mankind, he was made a father and a husband before he had either son or wife. Is this the Prelate's logic ? He may prove that two eggs on his father's table are three this way. 3. There is no government where sovereignty is not kept inviolable. It is true, where there is a king, sovereignty must be inviolable. What then ? Arbitrary government is not sove- reignty. 4. He intimateth aristocracy, and democracy, and the power of parliaments, which maketh kings, to be nothing but anar- chy, for he speaketh here of no government but monarchy.
P. Prelate. — There is need of grace to obey the king, Psal. xviii. 43 ; cxliv. 2. It is God who subdueth the people under Da- vid. Rebellion against the king is rebellion against God. 1 Pet. ii. 17 ; Prov. xxiv. 12. Therefore kings have a near alliance with God.
Ans. — 1. There is much grace in papists and prelates then, who use to write and preach against grace. 2. Lorinus your bro- ther Jesuit will, with good warrant of the texts infer, that the king may make a con- quest of his own kingdoms of Scotland and England by the sword, as David subdued the heathen. 3. Arbitrary governing hath no alliance with God ; a rebel to God and his country, and an apostate, hath no reason to term lawful defence against cut -throat Irish rebellion. 4. There is need of much grace to obey pastors, inferior judges, masters, (Col. iii. 22, 23,) therefore their power is from God immediately, and no more from men than the king is created king by the people, according to the way of royalists.
P. Prelate— God saith of Pharaoh, (Ex. ix. 17,) I have raised thee up. Elisha, di- rected by God, constituted the king of Sy- ria, 2 Kings viii. 13. Pharaoh, Abime- lech, Hiram, Hazael, Hadad, are no less
honoured with the appellation of kings, than David, Saul, &c., Jer. xxix. 9. Nebuchad- nezzar is honoured to be called, by way of excellency, God's servant, which God giveth to David, a king according to his own heart. And Isa. xlv. I, " Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, Cyrus ;" and God nameth him near a hundred years before lie was born; Isa. xliv. 28, "He is my shepherd;" Dan. v. 21, God giveth kingdoms to whom he will; Dan. v. 21, empires, kingdoms, roy- alties, are not disposed of by the composed contracts of men, but by the immediate hand and work of God ; Hos. xiii. 11, " I gave thee a king in my anger, I took him away in my wrath ;" Job, He places kings in the throne, &c.
Ans. — Here is a whole chapter of seven pages for one raw argument ten times before repeated. 1. Exod. ix. 7, I have raised up Pharaoh ; Paul expoundeth it, (Rom. ix.) to prove that king Pharaoh was a vessel of wrath fitted for destruction by God's abso- lute will ; and the Prelate following Ar- minius, with treasonable charity, applieth this to our king. Can this man pray for the king ? 2. Elisha anointed, but did not constitute, Hazael king ; he foretold he should be king ; and if he be a king of God's making, who slew his sick prince and invaded the throne by innocent blocd, judge you. I would not take kings of the Pre- late's making. 3. If God give to Nebu- chadnezzar the same title of the servant of God, which is given to Daniel, (Psal. xviii. 1, and cxvi. 16 ;) and to Moses, (Jos. i. 2,) all kings, because kings, are men according to God's heart. Why is not royalty then founded on grace ? Nebuchadnezzar was not otherwise his servant, than he was the hammer of the earth, and a tyrannous con- queror of the Lord's people. All the hea- then kings are called kings. But how came they to their thrones for the most part ? As David and Hezekiah ? But God anoint- ed them not by his prophets ; they came to their kingdoms by the people's election, or by blood and rapine ; the latter way is no ground to you to deny Athaliah to be a law- ful princess — she and Abimelech were law- ful princes, and their sovereignty, as imme- diately and independently from God, as the sovereignty of many heathen kinos. See then how justly Athaliah was killed as a bloody usurper of the throne ; and this would licence your brethren, the Jesuits, to stab heathen kings, whom you will have as
16
LEX, REX
well kings, as the Lord's anointed, though Nebuchadnezzar and many of them made their way to the throne, against all law of God and man, through a bloody patent, 4. Cyrus is God's anointed and his shepherd too, therefore his arbitrary government is a sovereignty immediately depending on God, and above all law ; it is a wicked consequence. 5. God named Cyrus near a hundred years ere he was born ; God named and designed Judas veiy individu- ally, and named the ass that Christ should ride on to Jerusalem, (Zach. ix. 9,) some more hundred years than one. What, will the Prelate make them independent kings for that ? 6. God giveth kingdoms to whom he will. What then ? This will prove king- doms to be as independent and immediately from God as kings are ; for as God giveth kings to kingdoms, so he giveth kingdoms to kings, and no doubt he giveth kingdoms to whom he will. So he giveth prophets, apostles, pastors, to whom he will ; and he giveth tyrannous conquests to whom he will : and it is Nebuchadnezzar to whom Daniel speaketh that from the Lord, and he had no just title to many kingdoms, especially to the kingdom of Judah, which yet God, the King of kings, gave to him because it was his good pleasure ; and if God had not commanded them by the mouth of his pro- phet Jeremiah, might they not have risen, and, with the sword, have vindicated them- selves and their own liberty, no less than they lawfully, by the sword, vindicated themselves from under Moab, (Judges hi.,) and from under Jabin, king of Canaan, who, twenty years, mightily oppressed the children of Israel, Judges iv. Now this P. Prelate, by all these instances, making hea- then kings to be kings by as good a title as David and Hezekiah, condemneth the peo- ple of God as rebels, if, being subdued and conquered by the Turk and Spanish king, they should, by the sword, recover their own liberty; and that Israel, and the sa- viours which God raised to them, had not warrant from the law of nature to vindicate themselves to liberty, which was taken from them violently and unjustly by the sword. From all this it shall well follow that the tyranny of bloody conquerors is immediately and only dependent from God, no less than lawful sovereignty ; for Nebuchadnezzar's sovereignty over the people of God, and many other kingdoms also, was revenged of God as tyranny, Jer, 1. 6, 7 ; and therefore
the vengeance of the Lord, and the ven- geance of his temple, came upon him and his land, Jer. 1. 16, &c. It is true the peo- ple of God were commanded of God to sub- mit to the king of Babylon, to serve him, and to pray for him, and to do the contrary was rebellion ; but this was not because the king of Babylon was their king, and because the king of Babylon had a command of God so to bring under his yoke the people of God. So Christ had a commandment to suffer the death of the cross, (John x. 18,) but had Herod and Pilate any warrant to crucify him ? None at all. 7. He saith, Royal- ties, even of heathen kings, are not disposed of by the composed contracts of men, but by the immediate hand and work of God. But the contracts of men to give a kingdom to a person, which a heathen community may lawfully do, and so by contract dispose of a kingdom, is not opposite to the immediate hand of God, appointing royalty and mo- narchy at his own blessed liberty. Lastly he saith, God took away Saul in his wrath ; but I pray you, did God only do it ? Then had Saul, because a king, a patent royal from God to kill himself, for so God took him away ; and we are rebels by this, if we suffer not the king to kill himself. Well pleaded.
QUESTION VI.
WHETHER THE KING BE SO FROM GOD ONLY, BOTH IN REGARD OF HIS SOVEREIGNTY AND OF THE DESIGNATION OF HIS PERSON TO THE CROWN, AS THAT HE IS NO WAY FROM THE PEOPLE, BUT BY MERE APPROBATION.
Dr Feme, a man much for monarchy, saith, Though monarchy hath its excel- lency, being first set up of God, in Moses, yet neither monarchy, aristocracy, nor any other form, is jure divino, but " we say (saith he)1 the power itself, or that suffi- ciency of authority to govern that is in a monarchy or aristocracy, abstractly consi- dered from the qualification of other forms, is a flux and constitution subordinate to that providence ; an ordinance of that dixi or si- lent word by which the world was made, and shall be governed under God." This is a great debasing of the Lord's anointed,
i Dr Feme, 3, a. 13.
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE.
17
for so sovereignty hath no warrant in God's word, formally as it is such a government, hut is in the world by providence, as sin is, and as the falling of a sparrow to the ground ; whereas God's word hath not only command- ed that government should be, but that fa- thers and mothers should be ; and not only that politic rulers should be, but also kings by name, and other judges aristocratical should be, Rom. xiii, 3 ; Deut. xvii. 14 ; 1 Pet. ii, xvii. ; Prov. xxiv. 21 ; Prov. xv. 16. If the power of monarchy and aristo- cracy, abstracted from the forms, be from God, then it is no more lawful to resist aris- tocratical government and our lords of par- liament or judges, than it is lawful to resist kings.
But hear the Prelate's reasons to prove that the king is from the people by appro- bation only. " The people (Deut. xvii.) are said to set a king over them only as (1 Cor. vi.) the saints are said to judge the world, that is, by consenting to Christ's judgment : so the people do not make a king by trans- ferring on him sovereignty, but by accept- ing, acknowledging, and reverencing him as king, whom God hath both constituted and designed king."
Ans. — 1. This is said, but not a word proved, for the Queen of Sheba and Hiram acknowledged, reverenced and obeyed Solo- mon as king, and yet they made him not king, as the princes of Israel did. 2. Reve- rence and obedience of the people is relative to the king's laws, but the people's making of a king is not relative to the laws of a king ; for then he should be a king giving laws and commanding the people as king, before the people make him king, 3. If the people's approving and consenting that an elected king be their king, presupposeth that he is a king, designed and constituted by God, before the people approve him as king, let the P. Prelate give us an act of God now designing a man king, for there is no immediate voice from heaven saying to a people, This is your king, before the people elect one of six to be their king. And this infallibly proveth that God de- signeth one of six to be a king, to a people who had no king before, by no other act but by determining the hearts of the states to elect and design this man king, and pass any of the other five. 4. When God (Deut. xvii.) forbiddeth them to choose a stranger, he presupposeth they may choose a stran- ger ; for God's law now given to man in the
state of sin, presupposeth he hath corruption of nature to do contrary to God's law. Now if God did hold forth that their setting a king over them was but the people's approv- ing the man whom God shall both consti- tute and design to be king, then he should presuppose that God was to design a stran- ger to be the lawful king of Israel, and the people should be interdicted to approve and consent that the man should be king whom God should choose; for it was impossible that the people should make a stranger king (God is the only immediate king-creator), the peo- ple should only approve and consent that a stranger should be king ; yet, upon supposi- tion that God first constituted and designed the stranger king, it was not in the people's power that the king should be a brother ra- ther than a stranger, for if the people have no power to make a king, but do only ap- prove him or consent to him, when he is both made and designed of God to bo king, it is not in their power that he be either brother or stranger, and so God command- eth what is simply impossible. Consider the sense of the command by the Prelate's vain logic: I Jehovah, as I only create the world of nothing, so I only constitute and design a man, whether a Jew or Nebuchadnezzar, a stranger, to be your king ; yet I inhibit you, under the pain of my curse, that you set any king over yourselves, but only a brother. What is this, but I inhibit you to be crea- tors by omnipotent power ? 5. To these add the reasons I produced before, that the people, by no shadow of reason, can be com- manded to make this man king, not that man, if they only consent to the man made king, but have no action in the making of the king,
P. Prelate. — All the acts, real and ima- ginable, which are necessary for the making of kings, are ascribed to God. Take the first king as a ruling case, 1 Sam. xii. 13, " Behold the king whom ye have chosen, and whom ye have desired ; and, behold, the L,ord hath set a king over you !" This election of the people can be no other but their admittance or acceptance of the king whom God hath chosen and constituted, as the words, " whom ye have chosen," imply. 1 Sam. ix. 17 ; 1 Sam. x. 1, You have Saul's election and constitution, where Sa- muel, as priest and prophet, anointeth him, doing reverence and obeisance to him, and ascribing to God, that he did appoint him supreme and sovereign over his inheritance.
18
LEX, REX J OR,
And the same expression is, (1 Sam. xii. 13,) " The Lord hath set a king over you ;" which is, Psal. ii. 6, " I have set my king upon my holy hill of Zion." Neither man nor angel hath any share in any act of con- stituting Christ king. Deut. xvii. the Lord vindicateth, as proper and peculiar to him- self, the designation of the person. It was not arbitrary to the people to admit or reject Saul so designed. It pleased God to con- summate the work by the acceptation, con- sent and approbation of the people, ut sua- viore modo, that by a smoother way he might encourage Saul to undergo the hard charge, and make his people the more heartily, with- out grumbling and scrapie, reverence and obey him. The people's admittance possi- bly added something to the solemnity and to the pomp, but nothing to the essential and real constitution or necessity ; it only puts the subjects in mala fide, if they should contravene, as the intimation of a law, the coronation of an hereditary king, the enthronement of a bishop. And 1 Kings, iii. 7, " Thou hast made thy servant king;" 1 Sam. xvi. 1, " I have provided me a king;" Psal. xviii. 50, He is God's king ; Ps. lxxxix. 19, " I have exalted one chosen out of the people ;" (ver. 20,) He anointeth them ; (ver. 27,) adopteth them : " I will make him my first-born." The first-born is above every brother severally, and above all, though a thousand jointly.
Ana. — 1. By this reason, inferior judges are no less immediate deputies of God, and so irresistible, than the king, because God took off the spirit that was on Moses, and immediately poured it on the seventy elders, who were judges inferior to Moses, Num. ii. 14 — 16. 2. This P. Prelate cannot make a syllogism. If all the acts necessary to make a kin<r be ascribed to God, none to the peo- ple, then God both constituteth and design- eth the king — but the former the Scrip- ture saith ; therefore, if all the acts be as- cribed to God, as to the prime king-maker and disposer of kings and kingdoms, and none to the people, in that notion, then God both constituteth and designeth a king. Both major and minor are false. The ma- jor is as false as the very P. Prelate him- self. All the acts necessary for war-mak- ing are, in an eminent manner, ascribed to God, as (1.) The Lord fighteth for his own people. (2.) The Lord scattered the ene- mies. (3.) The Lord slew Og, king of Ba- shan. (4.) The battle is the Lord's. (5.)
The victory the Lord's; therefore Israel never fought a battle. So Deut. xxxii., The Lord alone led his people — the Lord led them in the wilderness — their bow and their sword gave them not the land. God wrought all their works for them, (Isa. xxvi. 12 ;) therefore Moses led them not ; there- fore the people went not on then- own legs through the wilderness ; therefore the people never shot an arrow, never drew a sword. It followeth not. God did all these as the first, eminent, principal, and efficacious pre-deter- minator of the creature (though this Armi- nian and popish prelate mind not so to hon- our God). The assumption is also false, for the people made Saul and David kings ; and it were ridiculous that God should command them to make a brother, not a stranger, king, if it was not in their power whether lie should be a Jew, a Scythian, an Ethiopian, who was their king, if God did only, without them, both choose, constitute, design the person, and perform all acts essential to make a king ; and the people had no more in them but only to admit and consent, and that for the solemnity and pomp, not for the essen- tial constitution of the king. 1 Sam. ix. 17; 1 Sam. x. 1, we have not Saul elect- ed and constituted king. Samuel did obeis- ance to him and kissed him, for the honour royal which God was to put upon him ; for, before this prophetical unction, (1 Sam. ix. 22,) he made him sit in the chief place, and honoured him as king, when as yet Samuel was materially king and the Lord's vice- gerent in Israel. If, then, the Prelate con- clude any thing from Samuel's doing reve- rence and obeisance to him as king, it shall follow that Saul was formally king, before Samuel (1 Sam. x. 1) anointed him and kissed him, and that must be before he was formally king, otherwise he was in God's appointment king, before ever he saw Sa- muel's face ; and it is true he ascribeth hon- our to him, as to one appointed by God to be supreme sovereign, for that which he should be, not for that which he was, as (1 Sam. ix. 22) he set him in the chief place ; and, therefore, it is false that we have Saul's election and constitution to be king, (1 Sam. x.,) for after that time the people are rebuked for seeking a king, and that with a purpose to dissuade them from it as a sinful desire : and he is chosen by lots after that and made king, and after Sa- muel's anointing of him he was a private man, and did hide himself amongst the stuff,
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE.
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ver. 22. 3. The Prelate, from ignorance or wilfully, I know not, saith, The expression and phrase is the same, 1 Sam. xii. 13, and Psal. ii. 6, which is false ; for 1 Sam. xii. 13,
it is -fin on»Sy mir ?na mm
Behold the Lord hath given you a king, such is the expression ; Hos. xiii. 11,1 gave them a king in my wrath, but that is not the expression in Psalm ii. 6, hut this, O/D TDDJ *JK1 " But I have established him my king;" and though it were the same expression, it followeth not that the people have no hand any other way in ap- pointing Christ their head, (though that phrase also be in the Word, Hos. i. 11,) than by consenting and believing in him as king ; but this proveth not that the people, in appointing a king, hath no hand but na- ked approbation, for the same phrase doth not express the same action ; nay, the judges are to kiss Christ, (Psal. ii. 12,) the same way, and by the same action, that Samuel kissed Saul, (1 Sam. x. 1,) and the idolaters kissed the calves, (Hos. xiii. 2 ;) for the same Hebrew word is used in all the three places, and yet it it certain the first kissing is spiri- tual, the second a kiss of honour, and the third an idolatrous kissing. 4. The anoint- ing of Saul cannot be a leading rule to the making of all kings to the world's end ; for the P. Prelate, forgetting himself, said, that only some few, as Moses, Saul, and David, &c, by extraordinary manifestation from heaven, were made kings, (p. 19.) 5. He saith it was not arbitrary for the people to admit or reject Saul so designed. What meaneth he. It was not morally arbitrary, because they were under a law (Deut. xvii. 14, 15) to make him king whom the Lord should choose. That is true. But was it not arbitrary to them to break a law phy- sically ? I think he, who is a professed Ar- minian, will not so side with Manicheans and fatalists. But the P. Prelate must prove it was not arbitrary, either morally or phy- sically, to them not to accept Saul as their king, because they had no action at all in the making of a king. God did it all, both by constituting and designing the king. Why then did God (Deut. xvii.) give a law to them to make this man king, not that man, if it was not in their free will to have any action or hand in the making of a king at all ? But that some sons of Belial would not accept him as their king, is expressly said, (1 Sam. x. 27 ;) and how did Israel
conspire with Absalom to unking and de- throne David, whom the Lord had made king ? If the Prelate mean it was not arbi- trary to them physically to reject Saul, he speaketh wonders ; the sons of Belial did re- ject him, therefore they had physical power to do it. If he mean it was not arbitrary, that is, it was not lawful to them to reject him, that is true ; but doth it follow they had no hand nor action in making Saul king, because it was not lawful for them to make a king in a sinful way, and to refuse him whom God choose to be king ? Then see what I infer. (1.) That they had no hand in obeying him as king, because they sinned in obeying unlawful commandments against God's law, and so they had no hand in approving and consenting he should be king ; the contrary whereof the P. Prelate saith. (2.) So might the P. Prelate prove men are passive, and have no action in vio- lating all the commandments of God, be- cause it is not lawful to them to violate any one commandment. 6. The Lord (Deut. xvii.) vindicates this, as proper and peculiar to himself, to choose the person, and to choose Saul. What then ? Therefore now the people, choosing a king, have no power to choose or name a man, because God anointed Saul and David by immediate manifestation of his will to Samuel ; this consequence is nothing, and also it follow- eth in nowise, that therefore the people made not Saul king. 7- That the people's approbation of a king is not necessary, is the saying of Beilarmine and the papists, and that the people choose their ministers in the apostolic church, not by a necessity of a di- vine commandment, but to conciliate love betwixt pastor and people. Papists hold that if the Pope make a popish king the head and king of Britain, against the peo- ple's will, yet is he their king. 8. David was then king all the time Saul persecuted him. He sinned, truly, in not discharging the duty of a king, only because he wanted a ceremony, the people's approbation, which the Prelate saith is required to the solemnity and pomp, not to the necessity, and truth, and essence, of a formal king. So the king's coronation oath, and the people's oath, must be ceremonies ; and because the Prelate is perjured himself, therefore perjury is but a ceremony also. 9. The enthronement of bishops is like the kinging of the Pope. The apostles must spare thrones when they come to heaven, (Luke xxii. 29, 30;) the popish
20
prelates, with their head the Pope, must be enthroned. 10. The hereditary king he maketh a king before his coronation} and his acts are as valid before as after his coro- nation. It might cost him his head to say- that the Prince of Wales is now king of Britain, and his acts acts of kingly royalty} no less than our sovereign is king of Britain, if laws and parliaments had their own vigour from royal authority. 11. I allow that kings be as high as God hath placed them, but that God said of all kings, " I will make him my first-born," &c, Psal. lxxxix. 26, 27, — which is true of Solomon as the type, 2 Sam. vii. ; 1 Chron. xvii. 22; 2 Sani; vii. 12 ; and fulfilled of Christ, and by the Holy Ghost spoken of him, (Heb. i. 5, 6,) — is blasphem- ous ; for God said not to Nero, Julian, Dio- clesian, Belshazzar, Evil-merodach, who were lawful kings, " I will make him my first- bom ;" and that any of these blasphemous idolatrous princes should cry to God, " He is my father, my God," &c, is divinity well- beseeming an excommunicated prelate. Of the king's dignity above the kingdom I speak not now ; the Prelate pulled it in by the hair, but hereafter we shall hear of it.
P. Prelate (p. 43, 44). — God only anoin- ted David, (1 Sam. xvi. 4,) the men of Beth- lehem, yea, Samuel knew it not before. God saith, " With mine holy oil have I anointed him," Psal. lxxxix. 91. 1. He is the Lord's anointed. 2. The oil is God's, not from the apothecary's shop, nor the priest's vial — this oil descended from the Holy Ghost, who is no less the true olive than Christ is the true vine ; yet not the oil of saving grace, as some fantastics say, but holy, (l) From the au- thor, God. (2.) From influence in the per- son, it maketh the person of the king sacred. (3.) From influence on his charge, his func- tion and power is sacred.
Ans. — 1. The Prelate said before, David's anointing was extraordinary ; here he draw- eth this anointing to all kings. 2. Let Da- vid be formally both constituted and design- ed king divers years before the states made him king at Hebron, and then (1.) Saul was not king, — the Prelate will term that trea- son. (2.) This was a dry oil. David's per- son was not made sacred, nor his authority sacred by it, for he remained a private man, and called Saul his king, his master, and himself a subject. (3.) This oil was, no doubt, God's oil, and the Prelate will have it the Holy Ghost's, yet he denieth that I saving grace, yea, (p. 2. c. i.) he denieth |
that any supernatural gift should be the foundation of royal dignity, and that it is a pernicious tenet. So to me he would have the oil from heaven, and yet not from heaven. (4.) This holy oil, wherewith Da- vid was anointed, (Psal. lxxxix. 20,) is the oil of saving grace j1 his own dear brethren, the papists, say so, and especially Lyranus,2 Glossa ordinaria, Hugo Cardinalis,3 his be- loved Bellarmine, and Lorinus, Calvin, Mus- culus, Marloratus. If these be fanatics, (as I think they are to the Prelate,) yet the text is evident that this oil of God was the oil of saving grace, bestowed on David as on a special type of Christ, who received the Spirit above measure, and was the anointed of God, (Psal. xlv. 7,) whereby all his "gar- ments smell of myrrh, aloes and cassia," (ver. 8,) and " his name Messiah is as ointment poured out, (Song, i.) This anointed shall be head of his enemies. " His dominion shall be from the sea to the rivers," ver. 25. He is in the covenant of grace, ver. 26. He is " higher than the kings of the earth." The grace of perseverance is promised to his seed, ver. 28—30. His kingdom is eternal " as the days of heaven," ver. 35} 36. If the Prelate will look under himself to Dio- datus and Ainsworth,4 this holy oil was poured on David by Samuel, and on Christ was poured the Holy Ghost, and that by warrant of Scripture, (1 Sam. xvi. 1 ; xiii. 14 ; Luke iv. 18, 21 ; John iii. 34,) and Junius5 and Mollerus6 saith with them; Now the Prelate taketh the court way, to pour this oil of grace on many dry princes, who, without all doubt, are kings essentially no less than David. He must see better than the man who, finding Pontius Pilate in the Creed, said} he behooved to be a good man ; so, because he hath found Nero the tyrant, Julian the apostate} Nebuchadnez- zar, Evil-merodach, Hazael, Hagag, all the kings of Spain, and, I doubt not, the Great Turk, in Psal. lxxxix. 19, 20, so all these kings are anointed with the oil of grace, and all these must make their enemies' necks their footstool. All these be higher than the kings of the earth, and are hard and fast in the covenant of grace, &c.
1 Aug. in locum, unxi manum fortem, servum obedienteiu ideo in eo posui adjntorium.
2 Lyranus Gratia est habitualis, quia stat pugil contra diabolum.
3 Hugo Cardinalis, Oleo latitiae quo prae consor- tibus unctus fuit Christus, Ps. xlv.
4 Ainsworth, Annot.
5 Junius Annot. in loc. 6 .Mollerus Com. ib.
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE.
2]
P. Prelate. — All the royal ensigns and acts of kings are ascribed to God. The crown is of God, Isa. lxii. 3 ; Psal. xxi. 3. In the emperors' coin was a hand putting a crown on their head. The heathen said they were Sum/pils, as holding their crowns from God. Psal. xviii. 39, Thou hast girt me with strength (the sword is the emblem of strength) unto battle. See Judg. vii. 17, Their sceptre God's sceptre. Exod. iv. 20 ; xvii. 9, We read of two rods, Moses' and Aaron's ; Aaron's rod budded : God made both the rods. Their judgment is the Lord's, 2 Chron. xix> 6 ; their throne is God's, 1 Chron. xix. 21. The fathers called them, sacra vestigia, sacra majestas, — their com- mandment, divalis jussio. The law saith, all their goods are res sacrce. Therefore our new statists disgrace kings, if they blas- pheme not God, in making them the deri- vatives of the people, — the basest extract of the basest of irrational creatures, the multi- tude, the commonalty.
Ans. — This is all one argument from the Prelate's beginning of his book to the end : In a most special and eminent act of God's providence kings are from God ; but, there- fore, they are not from men and men's con- sent. It followeth not. From a most spe- cial and eminent act of God's providence Christ came into the world, and took on him our nature, therefore he came not of David's loins. It is a vain consequence. There could not be a more eminent act than this, (Psal. xl.) " A body thou hast given me ;" therefore he came not of Da- vid's house, and from Adam by natural generation, and was not a man like us in all things except sin. It is tyrannical and do- mineering logic. Many things are ascribed to God only, by reason of a special and ad- mirable act of providence, — as the saving of the world by Christ, the giving of Canaan to Israel, the bringing his people out from Egypt and from Chaldee, the sending of the gospel to both Jew and Gentile, &c. ; but, shall we say that God did none of these things by the ministry of men, and weak and frail men ? 1 . How proveth the Pre- late that all royal ensigns are ascribed to God, because (Isa. lxii.) the church univer- sal shall be as a crown of glory and a royal diadem in the hand of the Lord ; therefore, bceculus in angulo, the church shall be as a seal on the heart of Christ. What then ? Jerome, Procopius, Cyrillus, with good rea- son, render the meaning thus : Thou, 0
Zion and church, shalt be to me a royal priesthood, and a holy people. For that he speaketh of his own kingdom and church is most evident, (ver. 1, 2,) " For Zion's sake I will not hold my peace," &c. 2. God put a crown of pure gold on David's head, (Psal. xxi. 3,) therefore Julian, Nero, and no elective kings, are made and designed to be kings by the people. He shall never prove this conssquence. The Chaldee pa- raphrase applieth it to the reign of King Messiah ; Diodatus speaketh of the kingdom of Christ ; Ainsworth maketh this crown a sign of Christ's victory ; Athanasius, Eu- sebius, Origen, Augustine, Dydimus, ex- pound it of Christ and his kingdom. The Prelate extendeth it to all kings, as the blasphemous rabbins^ especially Kabbin Salo- mon, deny that he speaketh of Christ here. But what more reason is there to expound this of the crowns of all kings given by God, (which I deny not,) to Nero, Julian, &c, than to expound the foregoing and following verses as applied to all kings ? Did Julian rejoice in God's salvation? did God grant Nero his heart's desire ? did God grant (as it is, ver. 4,) life eternal to heathen kings as kings ? which words all interpreters expound of the eternity of David's throne, till Christ come, and of victory and life eternal pur- chased by Christ, as Ainsworth, with good reason, expounds it. And what though God gave David a crown, was it not by second causes, and by bowing all Israel's heart to come in sincerity to Hebron to make Da- vid king ? 1 Kings xii. 38. God gave corn and wine to Israel, (Hos. ii.) and shall the prelate and the anabaptist infer, therefore, he giveth it not by ploughing, sowing, and the art of the husbandman ? 3. The hea- then acknowledgeth a divinity in kings, but he is blind who readeth them and seeth not in their writings that they teach that the people maketh kings. 4. God girt David with strength, while he was a private man, and persecuted by Saul> and fought with Goliah, as the title of the same beareth ; and he made him a valiant man of war, to break bows of steel ; therefore he giveth the sword to kings as kings, and they receive no sword from the people. This is poor logic. 5. The P. Prelate sendeth us (Judg. vii. 17,) to the singular and extraordinary power of God with Gideon ; and, I say, that same power behooved to be in Oreb and Zeeb, (ver. 27,) for they were *"[& princes, and such as the Prelate, from Prov. vii. 15,
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saith have no power from the people. 6. Moses' and Aaron's rods were miraculous. This will prove that priests are also God's, and their persons sacred. I see not (except the Prelate would be at worshipping of re- lics) what more royal divinity is in Moses' rod, because he wrought miracles by his rod, than there is in Elijah's staff, in Peter's napkin, in Paul's shadow. This is like the strong symbolical theology of his fathers the Jesuits, which is not argumentative, except he say that Moses, as king of Jeshurun, wrought miracles ; and why should not Ne- ro's, Caligula's, Pharaoh's, and all kings' rods then dry up the Red Sea, and work miracles? 7. We give all the styles to kings that the fathers gave, and yet we think not when David commandeth to kill Uriah, and a king commandeth to murder his innocent subjects in England and Scot- land, that that is divalis jussio, the com- mand of a god ; and that this is a good con- sequence— -Whatever the king commandeth, though it were to kill his most loyal sub- jects, is the commandment of God ; there- fore the king is not made king by the peo- ple. 8. Therefore, saith he, these new sta- tists disgrace the king. If a new statist, sprung out of a poor pursuivant of Crail — from the dunghill to the court — could have made himself an old statist, and more ex- pert in state affah's than all the nobles and soundest lawyers in Scotland and England, this might have more weight. 9. There- fore the king (saith P. P.) is not " the ex- tract of the basest of rational creatures." He meaneth, fex popidi, his own house and lineage ; but God calleth them his own peo- ple, " a royal priesthood, a chosen genera- tion ;" and Psal. lxxviii. 71, will warrant us to say, the people is much worthier be- fore God than one man, seeing God chose David for " Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance," that he might feed them. John P. P.'s father's suffrage in making a kincr will never be sought. We make not the multitude, but the three estates, includ- ing the nobles and gentry, to be as rational creatures as any apostate prelate in the three kingdoms.
QUESTION VII.
WHETHER OR NO THE POPISH PRELATE, THE AFORESAID AUTHOR, DOTH BY FORCE OF REASON EVINCE THAT NEITHER CONSTITU- TION NOR DESIGNATION OF THE KING IS FROM THE PEOPLE.
The P. Prelate aimeth (but it is an empty aim) to prove that the people are wholly excluded. I answer only arguments not pitched on before, as the Prelate saith.
P. Prelate. — 1. To whom can it be more proper to give the rule over men than to Him who is the only king truly and properly of the whole world ? 2. God is the imme- diate author of all rule and power that is amongst all his creatures, above or below. 3. Man before the fall received dominion and empire over all the creatures below im- mediately, as Gen. i. 28 ; Gen. ix. 2 ; there- fore we cannot deny that the most noble government (to wit monarchy) must be im- mediately from God, without any contract or compact of men.
Ans. — 1. The first reason concludeth not what is in question ; for God only giveth rule and power to one man over another ; therefore he giveth it immediately. It fol- loweth not. 2. It shall as well prove that God doth immediately constitute all judges, and therefore it shall be unlawful for a city to appoint a mayor, or a shire a justice of peace. 3. The second argument is in- consequent also, because God in creation is the immediate author of all tilings, and, therefore, without consent of the creatures, or any act of the creature, created an angel a nobler creature than man, and a man than a woman, and men above beasts; because those that are not can exercise no act at all. But it followeth not that all the works of providence, such as is the government of kingdoms, are done immediately by God; for in the works of providence, for the most part in ordinary, God worketh by means. It is then as good a consequence as this: God immediately created man, therefore he keepeth Ids life immediately also without food and sleep ; God immediately created the sun, therefore God immediately, without the mediation of the sun, giveth light to the world. The making of a lung is an act of reason, and God hath given a man reason to rule himself ; and therefore hath given to a society an instinct of reason to appoint a
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE.
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governor over themselves ; but no act of rea- son goeth before man be created, therefore it is not in his power whether he be created a creature of greater power than a beast or no. 4. God by creation gave power to a man over the creatures, and so immediately ; but I hope men cannot say, God by creation hath made a man king over men. 5. The excellency of monarchy (if it be more excel- lent than any other government, of which hereafter) is no ground why it should be im- mediately from God as well as man's domi- nion over the creature ; for then the work of man's redemption, being more excellent than the raising of Lazarus, should have been done immediately without the incar- nation, death and satisfaction of Christ, (for no act of God without himself is comparable to the work of redemption, 1 Pet. i. 11, 12 ; Col. i. 18—22,) and God's less excellent works, as his creating of beasts and worms, should have been done mediately, and his creating of man immediately.
P. Prelate. — They who execute the judg- ment of God must needs have the power to judge from God ; but kings are deputies in the exercise of the judgments of God, there- fore the proposition is proved. How is it imaginable that God reconcileth the world by ministers, and saveth man by them, (1 Cor. v. ; 1 Tim. iv. 16,) except they receive a power so to do from God ? The assump- tion is, (Deut. i. 17 ; 1 Chron. xix. 6,) Let none say Moses and Jehosaphat spake of in- ferior judges ; for that which the king doth to others he doth by himself. Also, the execution of the kingly power is from God ; for the king is the servant, angel, legate, minister of God, Rom. xiii. 6, 7. God pro- perly and primarily is King, and King of kings, and Lord of lords (1 Tim. vi. 15 ; Rev. i. 5) ; all kings, related to him, are kings equivocally, and in resemblance, and he the only King.
Aiis. — 1. That which is in question is never concluded, to wit, that " the king is both immediately constituted and designed king by God only, and not by the mediation of the people ;" for when God reconcileth and saveth men by pastors, he saveth them by the Intervening action of men ; so he scourgeth his people by men as by his sword, (Psal. xvii. 14,) hand, staff, rod, (Isa. x. 5,) and his hammer. Doth it follow that God only doth immediately scourge his people, and that wicked men have no more hand and action in scourging his people than the
Prelate saith the people hath a hand in making a king ? and that is no hand at all by the Prelate's way. 2. We may borrow the Prelate's argument : — Inferior judges execute the judgment of the Lord, and not the judgment of the king ; therefore, by the Prelate's argument, God doth only by immediate power execute judgment in them, and the inferior judges are not God's ministers, executing the judgment of the Lord. But the conclusion is against all truth, and so must the Prelate's argument be ; and that inferior judges are the imme- diate substitutes and deputies of God, is hence proved, and shall be hereafter made good, it' God will. 3. God is properly King of kings, so is God properly causa causa- rum, the Cause of causes, the Life of lifes, the Joy of joys. What ! shall it then fol- low that he worketh nothing in the crea- tures by their mediation as causes? Be- cause God is Light of lights, doth he not enlighten the earth and air by the media- tion of the sun ? Then God communicateth not life mediately by generation, he causeth not his saints to rejoice, with joy unspeak- able and glorious, by the intervening medi- ation of the Word. These are vain conse- quences. Sovereignty, and all power and virtue is in God infinitely ; and what vir- tue and power of action is in the creatures, as they are compared with God, are in the creatures equivocally and in resem- blance, and *«™ loin* in opinion rather than really. Hence it must follow that second causes work none at all, — no more than the people hath a hand or action in making the king, and that is no hand at all, as the Pre- late saith. And God only and immediately worketh all works in the creatures, because both the power of working and actual work- ing cometh from God, and the creatures, in all their working, are God's instruments. And if the Prelate argue so frequently from power given of God, to prove that actual reigning is from God immediately, — Deut. viii. 18, The Lord " giveth the power to get wealth," — will it follow that Israel get- teth no riches at all, or that Gad doth not mediately by them and their industry get them ? I think not.
P. Prelate. — To whom can it be due to give the kingly office but to Him only who is able to give the endowment and ability for the office ? Now God only and imme- diately giveth ability to be a king, as the sacramental anointing proveth, Josh. iii. 10.
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Othniel is the first judge after Joshua ; and it is said, " And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he judged Israel :" the like is said of Saul and David.
Ans. — 1. God gave royal endowments immediately, therefore he immediately now maketh the king. It followeth not, for the species of government is not that which for- mally constituteth a king, for then Nero, Ca- ligula, Julian, should not have been kings ; and those who come to the crown by con- quest and blood, are essentially kings, as the Prelate saith. But be all these Othniels upon whom the Spirit of the Lord cometh ? Then they are not essentially kings who are babes and children, and foolish and destitute of the royal endowments ; but it is one thing to have a royal gift, and another thing to be formally called to the kingdom. David had royal gifts after Samuel anointed him, but if you make him king, before Saul's death, Saul was both a traitor all the time that he per- secuted David, and so no king, and also king and God's anointed, as David acknowledgeth him ; and, therefore, that spirit that came on David and Saul, maketh nothing against the people's election of a king, as the Spirit of God is given to pastors under the New Testament, as Christ promised ; but it will not follow that the designation of the man who is to be pastor should not be from the church and from men, as the Prelate denieth that either the constitution or designation of the king is from the people, but from God only. 2. I believe the infusion of the Spi- rit of God upon the judges will not prove that kings are now both constituted and de- signed of God solely, only, and immediately; for the judges were indeed immediately, and for the most part extraordinarily, raised up of God ; and God indeed, in the time of the Jews, was the king of Israel in another man- ner than he was the king of all the nations, and is the king of Christian realms now, and, therefore, the people's despising of Sa- muel was a refusing that God should reign over them, because God, in the judges, re- vealed himself even in matters of policy, as what should be done to the man that ga- thered sticks on the Sabbath-day, and the like, as he doth not now to kings.
P. Prelate. — Sovereignty is a ray of di- vine glory and majesty, but this cannot be found in people, whether you consider them jointly or singly ; if you consider them sin- gly, it cannot be in every individual man, for sectaries say, That all are born equal, with
a like freedom ; and if it be not in the peo- ple singly, it cannot be in them jointly, for all the contribution in this compact and con- tract, which they fancy to be human compo- sition and voluntary constitution, is only by a surrender of the native right that every one had in himself. From whence, then, can this majesty and authority be derived ? Again, where the obligation amongst equals is by contract and compact, violation of the faith plighted in the contract, cannot in proper terms be called disobedience or con- tempt of authority. It is no more but a re- ceding from, and a violation of, that which was promised, as it may be in states or countries confederate. Nature, reason, con- science, Scripture, teach, that disobedience to sovereign power is not only a violation of truth and breach of covenant, but also high disobedience and contempt, as is clear, 1 Sam. x. 26. So when Saul (chap, xi.) sent a yoke of oxen, hewed in pieces, to all the tribes, the fear of the Lord fell on the people, and they came out with one consent, 1 Sam. xi. 7 ; also, (Job xi. 18,) He looseth the bonds of kings, that is, he looseth their authority, and bringeth them into contempt ; and he girdeth their loins with a girdle, that is, he strengtheneth their authority, and maketh the people to reverence them. Heathens observe that there is Sum rf, some divine thing in kings. Profane histories say, that this was so eminent in Alexander the Great, that it was a terror to his enemies, and a powerful loadstone to draw men to compose the most seditious councils, and cause his most experienced commanders embrace and obey his counsel and command. Some sto- ries write that, upon some great exigency, there was some resplendent majesty in the eyes of Scipio. This kept Pharaoh from lifting his hand against Moses, who charged him so boldly with his sins. When Moses did speak with God, face to face, in the mount, this resplendent glory of majesty so awed the people, that they durst not behold his glory, Exod. xxxiv. ; this repressed the fury of the people, enraged against Gideon from destroying their idol, Judg. vi. ; and the fear of man is naturally upon all living creatures below, Gen. ix. So what can this reverence, which is innate in the hearts of all subjects toward their sovereigns, be, but the ordinance unrepealable of God, and the natural effect of that majesty of princes with which they are endowed from above ?
Ans. — 1. 1 never heard any shadow of rea-
THE LAW A.\n THK I'Ul.M '/'..
son till now, and yet (because the lie hath a latitude) here is but a shadow, which the Prelate stole from M. Anton, de Dom. Ar- chiepisc. Spalatensis ;x and I may say, confi- dently, this Plagiarius hath not one line in his book which is not stolen ; and, for the present, Spalato's argument is but spilt, and the nerves cut from it, while it is both bleed- ing and lamed. Let the reader compare