Jus Populi. OR, A DISCOURSE Wherein clear satisfaction is given, as well concerning the Right of subjects, as the Right of PRINCES.  
Showing how both are consistent, and where they border one upon the other.  
AS ALSO, What there is Divine, and what there is human in both: and whether is of more value and extent.  

Claudianus ad Honorium.  
Tu Civem, Patremque geras, tu consule cunctis:  
Non tibi, nec tua, te moveant, sed publica damnae.   

In private matters do a brother's part,  
In public be a Father; let thy heart  
Be vast as is thy fortune, and extend  
Beyond thyself, unto the Common end.   
Published by Authority.  
LONDON: Printed for Robert Bostock, dwelling in Paul's churchyard at the sign of the King Head. 1644.   

Jus Populi. OR, A DISCOURSE Wherein clear satisfaction is given as well concerning the right of Subjects, as the right of Princes. &c.  
THe Observator (so he is styled at Oxford) writing against our parasitical Court-Doctors, who think they cannot be meritorious Patrons of Royalty, without showing themselves Anti-patriots, or destroyers of public liberty, grounds himself upon these three main Assertions. 1 Princes derive their power, and prerogatives from the people. Secondly, Princes have their investitures merely for the people benefit. Thirdly, In all well-formed States the Laws, by which Princes claim, do declare themselves more in favour of liberty than Prerogative.  
Much art, force, and industry has been used to destroy these fundamentals, wherein though the Royalists have not been prevalent in the judgement of wise men, yet something must further be replied, for the weaker sort of people's sake, lest multitudes of opponents should sway them, and effect that by number, which cannot be done by weight.  
Man (Says the Apostle) was not made of the woman, but the woman of man: and this is made an argument why the woman should pay a due subjection to man. And again, Man (Says the same Apostle) was not created for the woman, but the woman for the man; this is made an other argument to enforce the same thing. There cannot be therefore any to pick rules more properly pressed then these: nay without offering some contradiction to the Spirit of God, we cannot reject the same form of arguing in the case of a people, and their Prince: especially when we do not insist only upon the virtue of the efficient or final cause, but also upon the effect itself, and that form of Law, which was (as it were) the product of both.  
Let us now then re-examine these three grounds, and seek to give further satisfaction to others, by enlarging our Discourse, where our adversaries have given a just occasion. If we can make it good that Princes were created by the people, for the people's sake, and so limited by express Laws as that they might not violate the people's liberty, it will naturally follow; that though they be singulis majores, yet they are universis minores; and this being once made good, it will remain undeniable, that salus Populi is suprema Lex: and that bonum Publicum is that which must give Law, and check to all pretences, or disputes of Princes whatsoever.  
To make appear thus much, let us begin with the origo or first production of civil Authority.  
1 The Royalists take a great deal of superfluous pains, and quote many texts of Scripture to prove that all powers are from God: that Kings are anointed by God: and that they are to be obeyed as the vicegerents of God. If we did oppose or deny these clear Truths, no fraud were to be suspected in those that allege them: but when we do express no kind of dissent from them herein, and when they have too general a sense, as our dispute now runs, we must conclude that there is some secret fraud wrapped up, and clouded under the very generality of these asseverations. For 'tis not by us questioned whether powers are from God or no; but whether they are so extraordinarily from God, as that they have no dependence upon human consent. Neither do we raise any doubt, whether or no Kings are anointed by God; but whether that unction makes them boundless, and their Subjects remediless or no, in all cases whatsoever. Neither do we dispute whether Monarchs are God's deputies, or no, and so to be observed; but whether limited Monarchs, and other conditionate, mixed Potentates may not challenge the same privilege. To show then more ingenuity towards our Antagonists, we will be more clear in dividing, and distinguishing, and we will decline general expressions, as often as just occasion shall require.  
In the first place therefore we desire to take notice that {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, or Potestas is sometimes taken for order, sometimes for jurisdiction: and these terms always are not to be confusedly used. If Adam had not sinned in Paradise, order had been sufficient alone without any proper jurisdiction: it may well be supposed, that government, truly so called, had been no more necessary amongst men on earth, than it is now in Heaven amongst Angels. Government is in truth that discipline or method which we exercise in promoting, enabling, rewarding persons of good desert in the State, and whereby we prevent, suppress, punish such as are contrarily affected. And as government has Laws to guide its proceedings, so it is armed, with power and commission for putting those Laws in execution. It's plain therefore where there is no supposition of sin, order will be prevalent enough without formal jurisdiction: for as there needs no additional rules, besides those which creation imprinted, so there needs no additional power to attend those Rules. If we look up to Heaven, we see that pre-eminence which one Angel has above another is far different from that command which Princes obtain here on earth over their vassals: we apprehend it as an excellence, that partakes of more honour, than power, and that power which it has appertaining is rather physical than political. If we descend also to survey hell, we shall find some order observed there too, but no proper government used; for as Law is useless where there is no sin, so it is also improper or impossible where there is nothing but sin. Wherefore something of primitive order is retained below amongst the damned legions for the conservation of their infernal kingdom, but there is little resemblance of our policy in that cursed combination. We may then acknowledge that order is of a sublime and celestial extraction, such as nature in its greatest purity did own; but subjection, or rather servile subjection, such as attends human policy amongst us, derives not itself from Nature, unless we mean corrupted nature. Besides in order there is nothing defective, nothing excessive, it is so universally necessary, and purely good that it has a being amongst irrational creatures, and not only States, but even Towns, Villages, houses depend upon it, and as it was existent before sin, so it must continue after sin; but government, as it had no being without sin, nor has no being but amongst sinful men, so even amongst men it is not without its defects and inconveniences. We must not expect more than a mixture of good and evil in it, and if we will refuse the burden of it, we must withal deny the benefit of it. Nulla lex satis commodo est (saith Cato) id modo quaeritur si majori parti & in summa prodest. Wherefore it is now sufficiently apparent, that order does more naturally refer to God as its Author than Jurisdiction does, and that it also conveys nothing in special to Kings, inasmuch as the benefit of it is general, and extends to families, as well as States, and to popular States as well as Monarchies. As to government also we must in the next place observe three things therein very distinguishable. The constitution of power in general must be severed from the limitation of it to this or that form; and the form also must be severed from the designation of it to this or that person. The constitution or ordinance of Jurisdiction we do acknowledge to contain {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, but this excludes not {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, it may be both respectively, and neither simply: and St. Peter seems to affirm as much of the humanity, as St. Paul does of the divinity of the constitution.  
In Matrimony there is something divine (the Papist makes it sacramental beyond royal inauguration) but is this any ground to infer that there is no human consent or concurrence in it? does the divine institution of marriage take away freedom of choice before, or conclude either party under an absolute degree of subjection after the solemnization? is there not in conjugal Jurisdiction (notwithstanding the divine establishment of it) a strange kind of mixture, and coordination, and may not the Spouse plead that divine right as much for a sweet equality, as the husband does for a rigorous inequality?  Inferior matrona suo sit blanda marito, Non alitèr fuerit foemina, virque pares. 
There may be a parity even in the disparity of the matrimonial bond, and these two contraries are so far from being made contrary by any plea of divine institution, that nothing else could reconcile them; And if men, for whose sakes women were created, shall not lay hold upon the divine right of wedlock, to the disadvantage of women: much less shall Princes who were created for the people's sake, challenge any thing from the sanctity of their offices, that may derogate from the people. Besides even government itself in the very constitution of it is so far from being enjoined as divine upon any persons (not before engaged by their own, or their Ancestors consent) or from being necessitated by any precept, or precedent in Scripture, that we rather see an instance of the contrary in the story of Lot and Abraham. Certainly there was in nature some majority or precedence due either from Lot to Abraham, or from Abraham to Lot, (for the rules of order are no ways failing) and yet we see this is no sufficient enforcement to subject either of these patriarchs to the others jurisdiction. When discords arose amongst their servants, they might have been qualified and repressed by a friendly association, and either one or both jointly or by course might have had the oyer, and terminer thereof. Yet so it was, that they rather resolved upon a dissociation, and this could not but have been a great sin against the divine right of Government, if any such had been originally imprinted in Nature, or delivered by command from God, as of more value then common liberty. 'tis true it proved afterwards fatal to Lot, that he did disjoin from Abraham, and it had been far more politic and advantageous for both of them perhaps, if they had incorporated one with another: but the question is not whether it was prejudicial, or no, to esteem the privilege of an Independent liberty before the many other fruits and advantages of a well framed principality: but whether it was sin against God, or no, and a transgression against the constitution of power, to pursue that which was most pleasing, before that which was likely to prove more commodious. I conceive that freedom being in itself good, and acceptable to Nature, was preferred before Government, which was also good, and more especially commendable, but God had left the choice indifferent, and arbitrary, and therefore there was no scandal or trespass in the choice. I speak not this to unsettle any form of Government already founded, and composed, nor against the constitution itself, or intention of framing associations: 'tis sufficient for my purpose, if it be proved, that before such foundation or composition every man be left free, and not abridged of his own consent, or forced by any Law of God to depart from his freedom, and I am sure this example of Abraham, and Lot does evince thus much, unless we think good to charge them both as enemies to the politic constitution of power, and will needs introduce a perpetual yoke of authority upon all men whatsoever, whether preobliged by consent or not, which seems to me very uncharitable. But enough of this, I pass now from the constitution itself, to the determination of power to such a line, or such a person, electively, or hereditarily: and this also is an act wherein we do not deny God's ordinary interposition, we only deny, that the people's freedom of choice, or consent is at all drowned thereby.  
God's choosing of Saul particularly, is no general denial of human choice; we may rather suppose that that coronation was an act of divine providence, then of any special command. For as God remitted the matter to the decision of Lots, so it is undoubted that he guided the event of those lots, as gently, as he guides all other second causes, without violenting the nature of them. So the sceptre of Judah though it was prophetically intayled upon David's posterity, yet the individual person or line of that race was not always specified by God.  
The order of primogeniture was broken in Solomon, and there was no certain rule left as often as that order was to be altered, or inverted, to whose choice or discretion it should be left. After the Captivity there was also interruption in the lineal course of dissent, and by whom the successive right was then conveyed, is uncertain, but in probability either the people, or some other human hand was the pipe of that conveyance.  
We shall not need to prosecute this further, our Adversaries do grant us, that the election of Princes is not now so extraordinary, and divine as it was amongst the Jews, and the Scripture itself is clear, that even those Jewish Princes which God pointed out by Lots, or anointed by his Prophets were yet established, and invested by the people. And therefore in the first delivery of the Law by Moses, before any king was resolved upon by the people, God prescribed to them in this manner: Quando statues Regem super te, &c. when you shall think fit to set or erect a King over you, you shall choose that man whom I shall design. And the same word statuere is divers times elsewhere used in Scripture, so that though God did never interpose in any other Nation so eminently about the making of Kings, as in Judea, yet even there he did commend the person, the people did choose; or if he did choose, the people did statuere, viz. give force and sanction to the same.  
It remains now that we try what there is of God, and what of man in the limitations, or mixtures of authority. 'tis a true and old maxim in Law, Qui jus suum alienat, potest id jus pactis imminuere. And hereupon Grotius takes a good difference betwixt imperium and imperii habendi modum, and as for the manner or qualification of rule, that he accounts so merely human, that if the King seek to alter it, he may be (as he acknowledges) opposed by the people: nay he proceeds further, and citys Barclayes authority, who was the violentest assertor of absolute Monarchy that ever wrote) to prove that Kings may have but a part in the supremacy of power, and where they have but such a partial mixed interest they may not only be resisted, but also deposed for forfeiture in case they invade the other interest. The same Author also affirms, That States may condition with Kings to have a power of resisting, and that the same is a good condition, though the Royalty be limited by no other. If this be so, surely the founding or new erecting of authorities at first, and the circumscribing the same after by consent, is so far from being God's sole immediate act, that it is, as far as any act can be man's proper and entire act: for except we allow that God has left it indifferent to man to form government as he thinks most for his behoof, we must needs condemn all forms except one, as unlawful: and if we grant indifference 'tis all one, as if we left it to second causes. But soft to call Kings (Says one loud Royalist) derivatives of the people, it is to disgrace them, and to make them the basest extracts of the basest of rational creatures, the Community. If we fix an underived majesty in the community as in it first seat, and receptacle (where there is not one of a thousand an intelligent knowing man) this is (if not blasphemy) certainly high treason against God and the King. This is Oxford divinity. God reproves Kings for his anointed people's sake, these reproach the people for King's sakes. These are the miserable Heralds of this unnatural war, having mouths as black as their hands are crimson: but let the man fall to his Arguments.  
A world of reasons (Says he) may be brought from Scripture to prove that Kings are independent from all, and solely dependent from God. But for brevity's sake take these.  
1 To whom can it be more proper to give the rule over men, then to him who is the only King truly and properly of the whole world?  
Answer. To none more proper: there shall be no quarrel in this; provided you will no more except Kings than Subjects from this general subjection.  
2 God is the immediate Author of all rule and power amongst all his creatures above or below, why then should we seclude him from being the immediate Author of government and empire amongst men?  
Answer. We seclude him not. We only question whether he be so the immediate Author of our constitutions, as he is of primitive order, or whether or no he so extraordinarily intervene in the erecting of Governors, or limiting of governments, as to strangle second causes, and invalidate human acts.  
3 Man in his innocence received dominion over the creatures immediately from God; and shall we deny that the most noble, and excellent government over men it from God, or say it is by human constitution?  
Answer. God did not create so vast a distance betwixt man and man, as betwixt man and other irrational creatures: and therefore there was not at first the same reason of subjection amongst the one as the other. Yet we except nothing against order, or a mild subjection amongst men: we only say that such servility as our Adversaries would now fain patronize in God's name, was never introduced by God, Nature, or any good men.  
4 They who exercise the judgement of God must needs have their power to judge from God; but Kings by themselves and their Deputies exercise their judgement from God. Ergo.  
Answer. The Prince of Orange, or the Duke of Venice may as well plead thus, as the King of Spain, or the Emperor of Germany. Besides, according to this rule, Quod quis per alium facit, facit per se: the State may as truly say, it exercises judgement by the King, as the King may that he exercises judgement by his inferior Courts. Lastly, if this be pressed upon supposition, that the King is Judge next under God without any dependence from the State, it begs the question: if it be pressed, only to prove, that the King ought to be so independent, 'tis vain, and frivolous.  
5. King's are the Ministers of God, not only as to their Judiciary, but as to their Executory power, ergo, their charge is immediately from God. They are called Gods, angels, &c. So in the Church, Preachers are the ambassadors of God, and this makes their function immediately divine.  
Answ. The judiciary, and executory power flows from the same source, this shall breed no dispute: and as for all the glorious attributes of Majesty, and irradiations of sanctity, and divinity which the scripture frequently applies to Kings.  
First, We must know they are not only appropriated to Kings as they are absolute, and solely supreme; but to all chief governors also though bounded by laws, and restrained by coordinate partners.  
Secondly, They are many times affixed to Kings, not quatenus Kings, but quatenus religious and just Kings; these sacred expressions applied to Ahas or Jeroboam, do not sound so tunably, as when they point at David or Josiah.  
Thirdly, The people and flock of God sometimes communicate in terms of the like nature, not only Priests and Prophets were anointed as well as Kings, but the whole nation of the Jews was called holy, and dignified with that which the ceremony of unction shadowed only. Priests were not Kings, nor King's Priests, but the children of God are both Kings and Priests: the scripture expressly calls them a royal Priesthood.  
Fourthly, That sanctity, that divine grandeur which is thus shed from above upon Princes for the people's sake, in the judgement of wisemen does not so properly terminate itself in the means as in the end.  
6. If the grace enabling Kings for their employment be only from God, then consequently the employment itself, ergo.  
Answer, if God by inspiration did enable all Kings extraordinarily, and none other but Kings, this were of some force: and yet this proves not that Kings are more, or less inspired by God, as they are more or less limited by man. Howsoever we know by woeful experience that the Major part of Kings are so far from being the best Judges, the profoundest Statesmen, the most expert soldiers, that when they so value themselves they prove commonly most wilful, and fatal to themselves and others; and that they ever govern best, when they most rely upon the abilities of other good Counsellors and Ministers.  
7. Where sovereign power is, as in Kings there is authority and Majesty and a ray of divine glory, but this cannot be found in the people, they cannot be the subject of it either jointly, or severally considered; not singly, for all by nature are equal: and if not singly: not jointly; for all have but the contribution of so many individuals.  
Answ. What ridiculous things are these? if Majesty and authority accompany supremacy of power, than it is residing at Geneva as well, as at Constantinople; or else we must take it for granted that there is no supremacy of power, but in Monarchies. All men will explode this: but suppose the crown escheated in a Monarchy, will you say because all have but the contribution of so many individuals, therefore there is no more virtue in the consent of all, then there is in the vote of one? must the wheels of government never move again except some miraculous ordinance from heaven come to turn, and actuate them? must such a fond dream as this confound us in an eternal night of Anarchy, and forbid us to wind up our weights again? how poor a fallacy is this? you cannot subject me, nor I you, nor one hundred of us one hundred of other men but by consent, it follows therefore that all of us jointly consenting cannot subject ourselus to such a law, such a Prince such a condition.  
8. Potestas vitae & necis, is only his who only gives life: ergo, Kings which only have this, can only derive this from God.  
Answ. This destroys all government but monarchical, this denies all aristocratical or democratical States to be capable of doing justice or proceeding against delinquents, what can be more erroneous or pernicious? the power of life and death in a legal sense is committed to man by God, and not to Kings only. For if the crown of England were escheated, the community even before a new restauration of government, during the inter-regnum, might join in putting to death murderers and capital offenders, and perhaps this it was which Cain stood in fear of. Nay it may be thought ex officio humani generis, they ought to prosecute all the common disturbers of mankind. And if this without some orderly tribunal were not lawful, or possible to be done, yet what right or power is there wanting in the people to erect such a tribunal? Grotius tells us, that as man is the general subject of the visive faculty, though the eye of man be its particular seat, so the whole body politic is the general subject of authority, though it be more intimately contracted sometimes into such a chair, such a Bench, such an Assembly: and if it be so after government settled, it is much more so before.  
9 The actions of Kings as well of mercy, as justice, are owned by God, and therefore when God blesses a people, he sends good Kings; when he scourges them, he sends evil Kings.  
Answer. If God be said to send evil Kings, and to harden them for our punishment in the same manner, as he sends good Kings &c. we must acknowledge the hand of God in these things, but not as overruling secondary causes: when the lot is cast into the lap, the event is from the Lord, but it does not always so fall out from the immediate sole causality of God, so as the second cause is forced thereby, or interrupted in its ordinary operation. Wherefore if the immediate hand of God does not violent such hidden contingent effects, sure it is more gentle to more rational and free causes: and where the effect is evil, we must not make it too causal.  
10. God is styled a King and represented on a Throne, therefore let us not make him a derivative of the people also.  
Answer. Demand what security you please for this, and we will give it.  
11. Kings, Priests, Prophets were anointed, but no fourth thing: and since Priests and Prophets are sacred by immediate constitution, why not Kings?  
Answer. we have instanced in a fourth thing, upon which the unction of God hath been poured, if not visibly yet spiritually, if not in the external ceremony, yet in the internal efficacy. We do not deny also but Kings are sacred by immediate constitution, as well as Priests: but we deny that Kings only, or absolute Kings only excluding other conditionate Princes, and Rulers are thus sacred; and as for Priests, they are not so properly a power as a function: neither do I perfectly understand how far they disclaim all human dependence in their functions, nor is the dispute thereof any way pertinent in this case.  
12. Disobedience to Princes is taken as disobedience to God, and therefore God says to Moses and Aaron, they murmur not against you, but me.  
Answ. Cursed for ever be that doctrine that countenances disobedience to Magistrates, much more such disobedience against such Magistrates in such things, as that was which God so severely chastised in the Israelites: our dispute at this present is not about obedience, but the measure of obedience; for if the Kings will be the sole rule thereof, we cannot disobey God in obeying the King, but this we know is false: and if any other rule be either in the law of God or man, to that we will conform in our actions, and to that we ought to be confined in our disputes.  
13. The last result is, Priests and Kings have their offices if not personal designations, immediately and solely from God's donation, and both (as to their persons and functions) being lawfully invested with sacred power, are inviolable.  
Answ. We need not doubt, but this great ostentatious undertaker, and this wide, gaping promissor, was some Cathedralist within orders, he does so shuffle Priests and Princes together. He will needs have Princes as inviolable as Priests, but he could wish much rather, I believe, that Priests were as unpunishable as Princes. He doth admit Princes to have their offices as immediately from God as Priests, but then his intent is that Priests shall claim a power too as independent as Princes, Caecus fert Claudum, &c. If Kings will be but as willing to carry Bishops as they are to guide Kings, 'tis no great matter whether anybody else have legs to walk, or eyes to see. But what if we grant Ministers to have persons as inviolable as Magistrates, and Magistrates offices as sacred as Ministers: what doth this prove against limited Monarchy, how doth this divest the people of God of all right and liberty?  
Thus we see he that answers one argument, answers all: for we do not deny God's hand in the crowning of Princes, we know the scripture is express in it, and we know there is a necessity of it, as there is in all other human things; and yet this is all they can say for themselves. All that we wonder at is, that since the scripture doth everywhere as expressly also mention the hand of man in making and choosing of Kings, and since there is no more ascribed to God for inthroning them then is for dethroning: That our adversaries will take no notice at all of the one, as well as of the other. It is plain in Job 12.18. that God loseth the bond of Kings, and girdeth their joins with a girdle: and many other proofs may be brought, that God giveth and taketh away sceptres. Wherefore it Jeroboam an usurper and seducer of the people do as truly hold his crown from God, as Rehoboam, if Nebuchadnezar may as justly require subjection from the Jews under the name of God's Vicegerents, as Josiah; if Cyrus be as truly invested from heaven as Judas Machabeus; if Rich. the third have a person and office as sacred, and inviolable by divine right, as his Nephew Edward the fifth whom he treacherously murdered: and if we cannot affirm that God is a more active or efficacious cause, or more overaweth, and wresteth inferior agents in the one, than the other, it behooves us to be as cautious how we impute to God, that which is man's, as how we impute to man, that which is God's.  
King's reign by God, 'tis confessed: but (Kings) there is used indefinitely for all supreme Commanders, as well limited as unlimited, as well those which have a greater, as those which have a lower stile than Kings, as well usurpers and such as ascend by violent means and unjust titles, as lawful Princes that enter by a fair descent and election: and so likewise the word (by) is taken indistinctly, it may as well signify that efficacy of God's hand which is ordinary, and stands with the freedom of natural causes, as that which is extraordinary, and excludes any human concurrent causality: and we have given reason, why it should intimate the first, but there is no reason given why it should intend the second. But the Royalists will now object, that if power do flow from a human natural principle (rather than a divine and supernatural one) yet still this proves not that public consent is that only principle. Nimrod was a greater hunter of men, and doubtless that Empire which he atcheeved, was rather by force then consent; and 'tis apparent that many other Princes have effected that by their own toils, which they never could have done by mere merit or moral inducements.  
'Tis not to be imagined that Nimrod or any other by mere personal puissance without the adherence of some considerable party, could subject nations; or lay the foundations of a spreading Empire: neither was any Conquest ever yet accomplished without some subsequent consent in the party conquered, as well as precedent combination in the party conquering, or concurring in the act of Conquest.  
Normandy and England were united by arms, but not merely by arms, for the acquisition of England was compassed at first by the voluntary aids of the Normans, and upheld afterwards by the voluntary compliance of the English.  
The maintaining of dominion is altogether as difficult as the purchase, and commonly is of the same nature: if nothing else but the sword had placed William in the Chair, nothing else but the sword perpetually unsheathed could have secured him & his posterity therein, but it was not Normandy that was engaged against England, it was William that was engaged against herald, no sooner therefore was that personal dispute ended, but William was as well satisfied with the translation of heralds right, as England was willing to transfer the same upon him. Without some rightful claim William had been a Robber, not a Victor, and without the consent of this nation either declaring or making that claim rightful, the robbery would have lasted for ever, and yet no title had ever accrued thereby. Wherefore if there must be a right of necessity to make a difference betwixt robbery, and purchase; and if that right can never be justly determined by force without consent either precedent, subsequent, or both: nor no Prince was ever yet found so impious or foolish as to decline the same: the plea of Conquest is but a weak absurd plea, for (as it is well observed) by a learned Gentleman, Conquest may be a good mean, or it may be a remote impulsive cause of royalty, but an immediate formal cause it cannot be, neither can God's ordinance be conveyed, or a people in conscience engaged by any other means than consent of the people, either by themselves, or their Ancestors. Our adversaries to involve us in a base thraldom boast of three Conquests in this island, and yet neither of them all was just, or total; or merely forcible, without consent preceding, or following. 'Tis a law amongst swordmen (and it hath no other sanction) Arma tenenti, omnia dat, qui justa negat. Try us by this law; and what could either the Saxon, Dane, or Norman pretend against this whole nation? if the crown was unduly withheld, that could beget but a particular quarrel betwixt the usurper here and him that was pretender, on the otherside. This was no national injury, and yet even no such manifest desseisin can be proved against us.  
Besides, if the whole Nation had transgressed, yet the whole Nation was never wholly subdued, nor scarce any part of it altered by conquest, all our conquerors themselves did rather lose themselves, and their customs, and their Laws to us, then assimilate us to themselves. Anglia omnibus Regunt & Nationum temporibus iisdem legibus, & consuetudinibus quibus nunc regitur continuò regebatur: we know by what an authentical hand this was written. Warlike incursions of foreign Armies prevail no more usually upon great States, than the influxes of rivers do upon the ocean, so far they are from making the Maine fresher, that they themselves become brackish in attempting it. We see the Norman here being in the full pride of his great victory, was in danger to have received a fatal check from the Inhabitants of Kent (one County of this realm) had he not prudently betaken himself to a mild way of treaty, and composition. And if the conquered remain in such condition, what justice is that, which ingulphs not only them but the conquering Nations also, and their posterities in the same vassalage under one insulting Lord? The natives here now are not distinguishable, nor ever were in point of freedom from those which entered by force amongst them; and shall we think, that the same hand which wrested away our liberty in favour of one man, would do it with expense of its own also?  
To use more words in this pretence of violent acquisition, were to attribute too much to it, if you rely upon any agreement and condescension of this Nation, produce the same, and the true form thereof, and that shall purchase you a good title; if you rely upon mere force, the continuation thereof to this day ought not to conclude us in a plea of this nature. 'tis no reason we should be now remedilessely oppressed, because our Ancestors could not defend themselves against your oppression.  
Let us come now to another objection: for the Royalists will still say, If the people be the true efficient, primary cause of sovereignty, yet the party constituting is not always better than the constituted. Still the rule is deniable, Quicquid efficit tale est magis tale. For the better ventilation of this truth, we shall distinguish betwixt natural and moral causes; for in moral causes this rule does not so constantly hold, as in natural. You will say, that in natural things, it does not always hold; for a spark may raise far greater flames than itself; and wine may intoxicate or work that in another, which it has not in itself.  
I answer. The spark that inflames other combustible stuff, and so dilates itself into a greater flame, works not as a cause only, but as an occasion also; and we shall more truly imagine that it is multiplied, and that it gathers new strength from other concauses, then that it spends itself, or effects something more vigorous, and perfect then itself: So wine, it makes not drunk, as it is itself drunk; because drunkenness proceeds not from wine immediately, but from other nearer causes. Wine heats the veins, annoys the stomach with humours, and the brain with fumes, and these are the immediate causes of drunkenness; the proper work of wine is heat, and so it ever has a heat as intense in itself, as that which itself causes elsewhere, and without the accession of other joint causes, it cannot produce a greater degree of heat, in another thing than it reserves in itself. As to ethical causes (if they may be truly called efficients) 'tis confessed, forasmuch as they work voluntarily and freely, they may in their influences depart with more, or less vigour as they please.  
Authority, land, honour, &c. may be passed either absolutely, or conditionally, and the conditions may be more or less restraining as the agreement provides, according to the intent of the grantor, expressed by instrument, or otherwise. In our case than we are to inquire whether supreme signiory, or command be to be reputed amongst natural or moral things, and I conceive it is of a mixed nature, proceeding from principles partly ethical, and partly natural. The honour and splendour of Monarchs (two main ingredients of dominion) are after a physical manner derived, the more glorious and noble the people is, the more glorious and noble the chief of the people is; and this honour and glory is such as flows from the people without wasting itself, in the act of flowing. In the like manner puissance, and force, it has a natural production from the people (and this is another principal ingredient of Empire) the more strength there is in such or such a Nation, the more strong is he who commands that Nation: and yet that puissance which by perpetual consent passes into the supreme Commander, does not so pass from the people, but that it retains its ancient site, and subject of inherence.  
Wherefore honour and Power though they be so great requisites in the composition of Princes, yet we see they have a natural efflux; and as honour is in Honorante not in Honorato, so Potestas is in Potestante (as I may use the word) not in Potestato. The woman is coruscant by the rays of her husband, borrowing resplendence like the Moon from the sun's aspect, without loss or diminution to the fountain and cause of that coruscance. In the same manner also Princes derive honour and power from their Subjects, yet drain not at all the scource which derives it: Tanti est rex, quanti est regnum: As the people increases, or impairs, so does the Prince; and we must not expect the contrary. If then a Prince be in value or excellence superior to that community from whence all his power and honour deduces itself (which can find but hard entertainment in our thoughts) yet 'tis not because the fountain has evacuated itself in that deduction; for we see the effect (even after its production, for I speak not of its former entity) is such here, that it has Aristotle's condition in it; it does utrique inesse, it has a residence in both parties, it invests the grantee without divesting the grantor. To do the office of a Protector, is the most proper, and therefore the most excellent, and incommunicable prerogative of a King, yet even that power by which he is made capable of protecting, issues solely from the adherence, consent, and unity of the people; and so issues, as that the people suffer no exhaustion in the business. Nevertheless, it must be granted, there is something of royalty which springs from a moral principle, but that is the Commission, or indeed that form of qualification by which one Prince differs from another in extent of Prerogative, and in respect of this principle the people does more or less straighten itself in point of liberty.  
This of all other rays of majesty is most immediately streaming from the consent of the people; but if a Nation by solemn oath, or otherwise has engaged itself to submit to the will of a Prince absolutely, affirmatively reserving no privileges, but tacitly renouncing all immunities except only at discretion, I shall not seek to destroy such agreements. I only say such agreements are not the effects of Nature, and 'tis not easy to imagine how right reason should ever mingle with such a moral principle, as gave being to such an agreement, especially when it renders the Prince, who for honour and power has his perpetual dependence upon the people, yet more honourable and powerful in reputation of others than the people, and that by the express grant of the people.  
Howsoever (not to make this any part of our quarrel) let such acts of communities be demonstrable positive, and unquestionable, as particular conveyances of lands, &c. use to be, and it shall not be denied, but the effect in these political affairs may be more such, then that impoverished cause, which emptied itself to make it such. Yet sure such acts are very rare, prescription is the great plea of Princes, and they themselves must be Judges of that plea, the Grand Signior himself has nothing but prescription to damn his Subjects (if they be to be accounted Subjects) to the base villainage of arbitrary rule.  
But you will say to such causes, as remain more virtuous than their effects, there is another condition also requisite, they must not only utrique inesse, but they must admit of degrees also, that the effect may be less than the cause, as the water heated is less hot than the fire. And you will say, if the people's power be not totally involved, than they remain still, as well superior to the Parliament as to the King. And if it be, then why not inferior to the King, as well as to the Parliament? As for degrees, there is nothing more known and assented to by all: all men must take notice, that Prerogatives of Princes differ almost in all countries; and since this difference flows from different commissions, which Princes do not rightly grant to themselves, it cannot but issue from the people, and from an act of the people which is gradual in itself.  
For the other objection, we say 'tis not rightly supposed that the people and the Parliament are several in this case: for the Parliament is indeed nothing else, but the very people itself artificially congregated, or reduced by an orderly election, and representation, into such a Senate, or proportionable body. 'tis true, in my understanding, the Parliament differs many ways from the rude bulk of the universality, but in power, in honour, in majesty, in commission, it ought not at all to be divided, or accounted different as to any legal purpose. And thus it is not with the King, the King does not represent the people, but only in such and such cases: viz. in pleas of a common nature betwixt Subject and Subject. Wherein he can have no particular ends; and at such or such times, viz. when there is not a more full and near representation by the Parliament. And hereupon the supreme reason or Judicature of this State, from whence no appeal lies, is placed in that representative convention, which either can have no interests different from the people represented, or at least very few, and those not considerable: but I shall have occasion to be more large hereafter upon this, and therefore I now supersede.  
2 I come now to the final cause of government. The Scripture is very pregnant, and satisfying; that the proper end of government was the good of the governed: and that the people was subjected to dominion for their happiness, and tranquillity; and not that the Prince was elevated for his pomp, or magnificence. As for the Prince, the Law of God is most express in that, he is not to make his advancement any ground of lifting up his heart above his brethren: he is enjoined to that comportment which suits with a brother, not a Lord: and to be so far from lifting up his hand insultingly, as not to be inflated in his thoughts vain gloriously. And for the people, they are called God's flock, and the sheep of his pasture; and therefore it is said in the 78. psalm, that God chose David to feed his people. Our adversaries therefore though they seldom speak of the people but under the notion of the ruder multitude, and seldom name the multitude, but with terms of derision, yet they will not wholly disavow this, and therefore they would fain divide with us, and have a coordination of ends in the business. They will acknowledge that power was ordained, ut nobis bene sit, according to Jeremy; and ut tranquillam & quietam vitam degamus oum omni pietate, & sanctitate, atque etiam extrema honestate; according to Timothy: and {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, according to St. Paul: and pro bono publico, according to Aristotle, and all sound philosophy: But still they say, This end, is not the sole end, the power and honour of the Governor is an end coordinate withal, or at least not merely subordinate. This we can by no means admit, though by the word Governor be intended, the best regulated Governor that can be; much less if an arbitrary governor, or one that abuses his power be here understood.  
For though government be a necessary medium for the preservation of man considered in a lapsed condition, yet this or that form of government, is not always so much as a medium: arbitrary jurisdiction is so far sometimes from being a blessing, that it is a very pest to the people of God. And if it arrive not at the efficacy of a true medium, how can we imagine it an end in any respect whatsoever? Nevertheless if there were not fraud in Royalists, when they speak of the power, and honour of Princes generally, if they did not under those terms comprehend that arrogant tumour or grandeur of mind which is incompatible with brotherly demeanour, and so is precisely forbidden by God, we should not so curiously distinguish at this present betwixt a mean, and a sole or mere mean. But now it behooves us to be very strict, and therefore to use the words of Cicero upon this, Eo referenda sunt omnia, iis qui praesunt aliis, ut ei qui erunt eorum in imperio sint quam beatissimi. This seems a hard saying to our Royalists, must Princes do nothing at all but in order to public good, and are they bound to promote such as live under their command to all possible good, ut sint quam beatissimi? This goes very far; this makes the power, honour, of supreme Rulers so merely subservient, and subordinate to the public good, that to compass that at any time, nay or to add any scruple of weight unto the same, it is bound wholly to postpone or deny itself. Vt gubernatori cursus secundus, medico salus, imperatori victoria: sic moderatori reipub. beata civium vita proposita est: So in another place says the same Author, and this we may suppose he learned not only out of the discourses of Aristotle, and Plato, as he was a philosopher, but out of his State practise, as he was a noble Senator and Magistrate in Rome. We read of multitudes of heathens, both Greeks and Romans who had great commands, yet lived and died very poor, either by neglecting their own particular affairs, or by spending their own means upon the public. And therefore as Salvian says of some of them to our shame, Illi pauperes Magistratus opulentam rempub. habebant, nuuc autem dives potestas pauperem facit esse rempub.  
Adrian the Emperor did often say both to the people, and in the Senate of Rome, Ita serempub. gesturum ut sciret populi rem esse, non suam. and for this cause some Princes have deserted their thrones, others have bitterly complained against the perpetual miseries of sovereignty, as being sufficiently informed that to execute the imperial office duly, was nothing else but to die to themselves, and to live only to other men. This does absolutely destroy that opinion, which places the good of Kings in any rivalty with the good of States. For if Antonius Pius could truly say, Postquam ad imperium transcivimus, etiam quae prius habuimus perdidimus; how far distant are they from truth which makes King's gainers, and subjects losers by their inthronization? M. Anton. Phil. having by law, the sole, entire disposition of the public Treasure, yet upon his expedition into Scythia, would not make use of the same without the senate's consent, but professed openly, Eam pecuniam, caeteraque omnia esse Senatus Populisque Rom. nos enim usque adeo nihil habemus proprium, ut etiam vestras habitemus aedes. How diametrically opposite is this to that which our State-Theologues do now buzz into the King's ears? They instead of giving the subjects a just and complete propriety in the King, resign the subject and all that he possesses to the mere discretion of the King, instead of restraining Princes where the laws let them lose, they let loose Princes where the law restrains them. But our Royalists will say, this is to make the condition of a King miserable, and more abject than a private man's condition. For answer to this I must a little anatomize the State of a Prince.  
For a Prince is either wise, and truly understands the end of his promotion, or not; if he be not wise, than he is like a sottish prisoner loaden and bound with golden fetters, and yet is not so much perplexed with the weight, as inammored with the price of them. Then does he enter upon Empire, as if he went only ad auream messem, as Stratocles, and Dramoclidas had use to make their boasting in merriment; but these vain thoughts serve only to expose him to the trains of Flatterers, and Court-Harpyes, till having impoverished thousands to enrich some few, and gained the disaffection of good men to be abused by villains, he never reads his error till it comes presented to his eye in the black characters of ruin. The same wholesome advertisement commonly which first encounters him (as that hand-writing did which appeared to Belshazzar in his drunken revels) lets him understand withal, that all repentance will be too late. If the Prince be wise, then does he sit amongst all his sumptuous dishes like Damocles, owing his life perpetually to the strength of one horse hair: and knowing that nothing else saves his head from the sword's point: then must his Diadem seem to him as contemptible, or cumbersome as Seleucus his did, who confidently affirmed that no man would stoop to take it from the ground, to whom it was so perfectly known as it was to him. And it was no wild, but a very considerate interpellation of some other sad Prince, who being to put on the crown upon his own head amongst all the triumphant attendants of that solemnity could not but break out into this passion. O thou deceitful ornament, far more honourable than happy; what man would stretch forth his hand to take thee out of the dust, if he did first look into the hollow of thy circle, and seriously behold the throngs of dangers, and miseries that are there lodged?  
Secondly, A Prince is either good, and applies himself to compass the end of his inauguration or not, if he be not good, then does he under the majestical robes of a God, act the execrable part of a devil, than does he employ all those means and helps which were committed to him for saving purposes to the destruction of God's people, and to the heaping up of such vengeance to himself, as scarce any private man hath ability to merit. How happy had it been for Tiberius, for Nero, and for a hundred more, if they had wanted the fatal baits of royalty to deprave them, or the great advantages of power to satisfy them in deeds of lust, and cruelty? Nero's beginning, his quinquenium shows us what his disposition was as a mere man; but the latter part of his tragical reign shows us what the common frailty of man is being overcharged with unbounded signiory. Amongst other things which made Caius appear a monster and not a man, Suetonius in the first place reckons up his airy titles of pious most great, and most good &c. his impiety made him so audacious as to profane these sacred styles, and these, sacred styles made his impiety the more black, and detestable. If the Prince be good, then as Sencca says, Omnium domos unius Principis vigilia desendit, omnium otium illius labour, omnium delitias illius industria, omnium vacationem illius occupatio. And in the same Chapter he further adds, Ex quo se Caesar orbiterrarum dedicavit, sibi eripuit, & siderum modo, quae irrequieta semper cursus suos explicant, nunquam illi licet nec subsistere nec quicquam suum facere. 'Tis true of private men (as Cicero rightly observes) ut quisque maximè ad suum commodum refert quecunque agit, ita minimè est vir bonus. But this is much more true of public persons, whom God and man have by more special obligations, confined to public affairs only, and for that purpose raised above their own former narrow orb. O that our Courtiers at Oxford would admit of such politics, and blush to publish any directly contrary? then would these raging storms be soon allayed. But alas, amongst us, when the great counsel desires that the King's children may not be disposed of in marriage without public privity, and consent, all our peace and religion (being nearly concerned therein) it is answered with confidence, that private men are more free than so. So when the election, or nomination of Judges, Commanders, and Counsellors of State is requested, 'tis answered, that this is to mancipate the crown, and to subject the King to more exactness in high important affairs then common persons are in their lower interests. Till Machiavells days, such answers never durst approach the light, but now Princes have learned a new lesson; now they are not to look upon the people as God's inheritance, or as the efficient, and final causes of Empire, but as wretches created for servility, as mutinous vassals, whose safety, liberty, and prosperity is by all means to be opposed, and abhorred, as that which of all things in the world is the most irreconcilably adverse to Monarchy. Sallust a heathen complaines of his times, that instead of the ancient Roman virtues, they did entertain luxury and covetousness publice egestatem, privatim opulentiam. That which he complained of as the symptom of a declining State, we Christians cry up as a rare arcanum imperii: to make the Court rich, and keep the country poor as in France, is held the most subtle art of establishing a Prince. Trajan a Pagan was an enemy to his own safety further than it could stand with the safety of the State, as Pliny writes; and would not endure that any thing should be wished for to befall him, but what might be expedient for the public. Nay he appealed to the Gods to change their favour towards him if ever he changed his affection to the commonwealth. Yet Clergy men now in holy orders, advise Princes not only to prefer themselves, before the people, but even to propose the people's poverty, as the best mean to their wealth, and the people's embroiling the nearest passage to their safety. Cicero out of Plato gives Princes these precepts, so to provide for the people's commodity, as in all their actions to have relation to the same, and utterly to forget their private advantage: and in the next place to extend their care to the whole body of the commonwealth, and every part of it. Our Divines on the contrary think they cannot speak more like themselves then by inverting this order: making the King's profit the sole scope of his aims and actions, and the peoples either secondary thereunto, or which is worse inconsistent therewithal: and so far are they from taking any consideration of the whole body, that if the major part be not condemned to slavery, and poverty, they conceive the weal of the whole is exposed to great hazard.  
It is to be noted also, that we Christians are not only degenerated in our politics and become more unnatural than Gentiles, but even we also amongst Christians which have been born under regular governments, do more preposterously let lose the reins of sovereignty, than those Gentiles which knew no such regulations. Seneca under the Roman Empire says, Non licet tibi quicquam tuo arbitrio facere. His reason is, magna fortuna, magna servitus. In England this would now be treason, if not blasphemy against God and the King, we must be so far from saying that our King (though he pretend not to an absolute prerogative) is a servant, that we must not say he is universis minor: we must be so far from denying him an arbitrary power in any thing, that we must allow him an arbitrary dissent even in those things which the States of kingdoms after mature debate propose to him. Maximus the Emperor in his oration to his soldiers uses this expression: Neque enim unius tantum hominis possessio principatur est, sed communis totius Ro: populi siquidem in illa urbe sita est imperij fortuna: nobis autem dispensatatio tantum atque administratio principatus una vobiscum demandata est. Who dares now avow at Court that the whole nation of England hath a true interest and possession of this crown, and that there is nothing therein committed to the King, but the office and charge to dispense, and manage the same together with the people, for the people's best advantage? That which was true at Rome when there was neither religion, nor perfection of policy to bridle Tyranny is now false, dangerous, traitorous in England, amongst the most civil, and knowing Christians that ever were; what can be now spoken more odious in the Court of England, than this undeniable truth, that the King is a servant to the State, and though far greater, and superior than all particulars; yet to the whole collectively taken, a mere officer or Minister? The objections of our adversaries against this truth are especially these two. First, They say the end is not more honourable, and valuable than the means: And, Secondly, it cannot be so in this case, because (they say) it is contradictory in sense, and a thing impossible in nature to be both a servant, and a Lord to the same State. As to the first objection, whereas the example of our Saviour is produced to prove, that some instruments may be of more dignity than those ends for which they are ordained: we answer, our Saviour though he did by his blood purchase our redemption, yet was in the nature of a free and voluntary agent, he was not designed to so great a work of humiliation by any other cause then his own eternal choice: and therefore since he receives no ordination or designation from those whom he came to redeem, nor had no necessary impulsion from the work itself of redemption, but was merely moved thereunto by his own entire {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, we say he was not our mean or instrument, but his own; and whereas the example of the angels is next alleged: we answer also, that their ministry performed unto men is rather a thing expedient, then necessary; and it is not their sole or chief ministry, neither do they perform the same as necessarily drawn thereunto by any motive from man, as being the immediate end of their ministry, but their service is enjoined immediately by God, and so God, not man is the true scope of their attendance. Lastly, whereas it is pressed, that the Advocate is ordained for the Client, the physician for the Patient, &c. yet it is frequently seen that the Advocate is better than his Client, the physician than his Patient, &c. We answer, every particular Advocate or physician is not to be compared with every particular Client or Patient, but it is true in general that the skill and art of the Advocate and physician is directed in nature not so much for the benefit of him which possesses it, as of him which is served by it; and therefore Aristotle in the 2. Phys. cap. 1. affirms truly that the physician cures himself by accident, as the Pilot wafts himself by event, it being impossible that he should waft others, if he were absent. In all arts that which is principally intended, is the common benefit of all, and because the Artist himself is one part of the whole body, consequently some part of the benefit redounds to him. So after the same manner he that sits at the helm of a State amongst others, steers the same for his own ends, but according to Plato, and and Cicero both, his main aim, his supreme law, aught to be salus populi; it is a fit title for Princes to be called {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, and we know in a philosophical understanding, the shepherd, though by kind far more excellent than his charge, yet in quantum a shepherd, considered merely in that notion with respect to his charge, is subordinate and bound to expose himself for his sheep. It is our saviour's saying, and it was crowned with our saviour's practice, Bonus Pastor ponit vitam pro ovibus. Besides, Advocates, physicians, &c. as they voluntarily choose their own professions, perhaps intend their own private profit in the first place, the public in the second, such is the perverseness of human nature; but as the State designs, or authorises them, that intends public ends in the first place.  
I pass now to the second objection which maintains Lord and Servant to be incompatible; our Tenet is, that Kings may have supreme Majesty as to all individual subjects, yet acknowledge themselves subject to the whole State, and to that supreme Majesty which flows perpetually from that fountain. In brief, according to the old received maxim, the greatest Monarchs in the eye of Law, policy and nature, may be singulis majores, universis minores, they may obtain a limited Empire, or sub regno graviore regnum. Our adversaries though they cannot disprove, yet they much disrelish this doctrine, they cannot say it is impossible; for all Democracies, Aristocracies, mixed and limited Monarchies make it visibly true: nor can they say it is incommodious, for there are more mixed and limited States then absolute; and those which are mixed, and limited, are more civil, more religious, more happy than those which are not. These things are beyond all doubt, and debate. The question than is only, whether absolute Princes, that is, such as have no persons to share in power with them, nor no laws to circumscribe their power for them, be not as mere servants to the State, and as much obliged in point of duty to pursue its public interest, as they are Lords over private persons, and predominant over particular interests. Many of the authorities before cited make good the affirmative, and many more may be alleged to the same purpose: and the rule of final causes, makes it beyond all contradiction, that there is a certain service annexed to the office of the most independent Potentate. Nefas est, (Says Alexander Severus) à publico dispensatore prodigi quae Provinciales dederant. He contents himself with the name of a public Steward or Treasurer, and confesses that he cannot misspend the common stock entrusted with him, without great sin and injustice.  
Maximus also (as was before recited) challenged no more in the Empire than a kind of Commission to dispense, and administer (they are his own very words) the affairs of the Empire with the State. And therefore Seneca gives this admonition, that the Emperor should make his account, non suam esse Rempub. sed se Reipub. And this was that service (the very word itself is servitus) which Tiberius complained to be laid on his shoulders so miserable and burdenous, as Sueton. writes in the life of Tiberius. It was recorded in commendation also of Nasica, that he preferred his country before his own family, and did account no private thing his own, or worthy of his thoughts in comparison of those things, which were publicly advantageous; ut enim tutela, sic procuratio Reipub. ad utilitatem eorum, quibus commissi sunt, non ad eorum quibus commissa est, gerenda est: here the office of a Magistrate is a procuration, he is taken as a Guardian in Socage, and the end of his office is the utility of those which are committed to his trust, not his own. To conclude the laws of the Empire were very full, and clear in this, and many more histories might be brought forth to give more light and strength in the case, but there is no need of any. If any honest Patriot nevertheless think fitter to use the name of father then servant, I shall not wholly gainsay therein. My wish is, that subjects may always understand their right, but not too rigorously insist upon it; neither would I have them in private matters look too much upon their public capacity: Princes also may without indignity to themselves, at some times condescend to such acknowledgements of the people's due, as is not so fit to be heard from any mouth, but their own.  
Happy is that King which anticipates his subjects in submitting his own titles, and happy are those subjects which anticipate their King in submitting their own rights, and happy are both, when both thus comply at the same time.  
Nevertheless, if it may be ever seasonable to urge a verity with strictness, Princes are not to be called Fathers of their Subjects, except taken divisim: but are mere servants to the people taken collectim. How erroneous then are they, and how opposite to the end of government, which are so far from making Kings servants to the people, that they make the people servants to Kings; whereas the Lord doth not rule for the profit of his servant, but by the profit of his servant compasses his own.  
Servile power is tolerated, because it tends to the safety and good of him that is subject to it; but as Aristotle holds, 3. Pol. c. 4. the master in protecting his servant does not look upon his servants ends herein, but his own, because the loss of his servant, would be a loss to his family. Therefore this kind of Authority is not to be endured in a State, because it is incompetent with liberty, provided only for slaves, and such as have no true direct interest in the State: whereas finis justi imperii (as Ammianus writes) and as has been confirmed by many other proofs: Vtilitas obedientium aestimatur, & salus. But you will say, It is more reasonable that Subjects should remain under the condition of servants, than he which has authority over those Subjects, and is in place far above them.  
I answer: That end to which Princes are destined, viz. the Common good, or {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, as one calls, or {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, as another calls it, or cura salutis aliena, as another calls it, is so excellent, and noble, that without the inconvenience of servility, they may be servile to it. The truth is, all things that are in the nature of means and instruments are then most perfect, and entire, when they are most fit, and conducible to accomplish the end for which they are prepared. So Aristot. delivers in the 5. Metaphys. and so Averro, and Thomas thereupon. 'tis to quarrel against God, and Nature, to except against that true and proper end which God and Nature hath designed to any person or thing. The Greeks called excellence {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} from {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}; and the Romans called it perfectio, because that is perfect, or consummate which approaches nearest to its end. 'tis not only therefore to be said, that that is a perfect, or entire State, wherein the Governor executes all things in order to the Common good, but he also is a perfect, and entire Governor, which bends all his actions to that purpose. For if we look up to Almighty God, we must needs acknowledge that he is most truly represented and personated by such a Deputy as refers all things to public Good. For God is goodness itself, and there is nothing more essential to goodness, then to be diffusive, and God has no end of addition or profit to himself in making Heaven, or Earth, Angels or men.  
Next if we look upon Nations, they ever retribute most honour, and repay most duty, love, and gratitude to such Princes as are most free from particular aims. That reign which supports itself by terror is accompanied with hatred, and danger: but that which found itself upon love, is truly majestical, safe, and durable. For in part the Prince's happiness is involved in his Subjects, and he does more partake in their flourishing condition, than they in his private advantages. If Cicero can say, Nistrum dicamus esse, quicquid bono principi nascatur: the Prince may say as truly, Principis est quicquid est omnium. Therefore does Aristot. 8. Ethic. c. 10. maintain, that Kings do not regard their own particulars, but the community of their Subjects; because there is a self-sufficiency, and perfection in good Kings whilst they cannot be said to want that, which their Subjects have. Queen Elizab. by her public actions doubted not to win her Subjects hearts, and being possessed of her Subjects hearts, she doubted not but to command both their hands and purses, and what else could she want to make her truly great and glorious?  
Next, if we look upon Princes themselves, they have gallant, capacious, and heavenly souls, which know no bounds in their affections but the Community itself, over which God hath placed them: but they are ever narrow of heart, poor of spirit, and weak in judgement, that prefer themselves, and their own profit, or rather a shadow of profit, before the whole flock of God, and that which is indeed real, and substantial glory. Plato supposes that Nature in the composition of common people used the courfest metal in the composition of soldiers, and the middle rank silver; but in the production of chief Commanders, the purest sort of gold. His meaning is, she infused higher and better principles, where the confined to greater and nobler ends.  
Lastly, if we look upon the nature of the end itself, we shall see there is not that servility in it as is supposed, it differs toto genere from that preposterous end, which would make whole Nations servile. For if it be slavish, and base, to have the true good or prosperity of millions postponed to the false good and prosperity of one man, sure it is directly the contrary, for one man to abdicate that which has but the show of his single benefit in comparison of that which apparently is the true benefit of millions. Servility and slavery (if it be rightly defined) is that odious and unnatural condition, which subjects and necessitates a man to a false end, or to such an end, as God and Nature in his creation never did intend him for. Now this definition does not agree with that condition of a Prince, which subjects, and necessitates him to public ends. Let then all Princes from hence learn to renounce Machiavils ignoble, fordid principles, and let them industriously aspire to the true excellence and perfection of that public divine end, for which they were ordained. Let them think it more glorious, and better beseeming imperial dignity, to be accounted the love, and delights of Mankind, as Titus was; then the seducers of Israel, as Jeroboam was. Let them zealously imitate Augustus, who found Rome built of brick, but left it all beautified with marble; rather than Nero who consumed both brick and marble with fire, and reduced all to ashes.  
Let them follow that Prince, who preferred the saving of one subjects' life, before the slaughtering of a thousand enemies; rather than such Princes, as usually value the life of one traitor, before the peace and safety of divers Kingdoms.  
To conclude, let the public good of their Subjects, (being the true end of their royalty assigned both by God and Man) be the measure of their actions, the touchstone of their politics, the perfection of their Laws, the determination of their doubts, and the pacification of all their differences.  
We have now seen who is the Architect, and what the true intent is of the Architect. Let us in the third place take view of some frames and erections to gain more light from the parts, and fashions thereof. And first let us take notice of such politics as Scripture affords from Adam to Moses; and next from the introduction of the Law till the Incarnation of our Saviour: then let us inform ourselves of that Empire under which Christianity began first to spread; and lastly, let us draw down to our own times, and survey our own fabric.  
The first species of Power, which had a being in the world (for the word Power is applied diversely) was marital: and this we conceive to be something more than mere order, but not so much as Jurisdiction; for these reasons.  
First, the Scripture says, the man, and the woman were made one flesh, or one person; and they were so conjoined in their interests, that the love of son and father was not so strong, as this conjugal tye.  
This makes a coercive power improper, when man is to use it upon his own members: for man is not said justly to have any jurisdiction over his own parts, or members; 'tis a kind of solecism in nature. ubi tu Caius, ibi ego Caia, so said the old Roman law, and God in the fifth commandment allows the same degree of honour to the mother as to the father.  
Secondly, If the Husband have such a coercive power, it is so arbitrary that he may proceed to what degree of rigour he pleases, even to death itself; for as he hath no law to bound him, so he hath no equallito control him: nay, he is not Judge only, but informer, witness, and executioner also: and nothing can be more extreme, and rigid than this.  
Thirdly, The wife (admitting such a Jurisdiction of the husband) if in all cases remediless and destitute of appeal; though there be more bonds of duty, and awe, to restrain her from being injurious, disobedient and unnatural to her husband, then to withhold her husband from abasing his authority, (and this ought rather to exempt her, than him) yet in this case, for him there is no control, and for her there is no redress.  
Fourthly, There is no mention precept or precedent in Scripture, to countenance any coercion of this nature, unless we will call that of divorce and repudiation so; and that also seems discountenanced by our Saviour, except in case of Adultery.  
Fifthly, We see in all nations the power of Husbands is regulated by the public civil power; which if it were from nature, before civil power it could not justly be repealed, nor merit to be altered. Contra jus naturale, non valet dispositio humana.  
When Vashti the Empress would not submit to the command of him who was both her Husband and Prince, a law was made to punish that contempt, and the like offences, and till that law was made, it was not thought fit that the Jurisdiction either or husband or Prince should be exercised against her.  
'tis sufficient therefore that Nature teaches wives to look upon their husband's interests, as their own, and their persons as themselves; and to acknowledge them their Lords, as God has endued them with more majesty, strength, and noble parts: and to be submiss as they were created of and for men: and if then Nature prevails not, recourse must be had to an impartial Judicature, where either party may be indifferently heard: for there is no more justice intended to the one, then to the other, nor can injustice be more feared from the one, than the other. So much concerning marital power, and to show that nothing can be rightly extracted out of it, for the licensing of arbitrary rule in the State. Wherefore I pass to paternal power.  
The second species of Power which succeeded in the world, was that which Parents have over their children: and this also we conceive to exceed mere Order, but not to equal Jurisdiction, or at least absolute Jurisdiction; for these reasons:  
First, because 'tis apparent, that in the family the power of the Mother does participate with the power of the Father, and by its mixture and coordination cannot but be some qualification to its rigour.  
Secondly, take children before they are of maturity, and there needs no other sceptre, but a twig to awe them; and take them to be of full age, and then they spread into families themselves, and rise to the same command in their own houses, as they were subject to in their fathers.  
It were unjust also that Parents should claim any Jurisdiction to hold their children from marriage, or to usurp so over them after marriage, as they may not command in the same manner, as they are, or were themselves commanded.  
Thirdly, Nature with a very strong instinct breaks the force of paternal empire, by turning the current of affection rather from the father to the son, than from the son to the father: it rather makes the father, which is the root, convey sap to the son, which is the branch, than on the contrary: and therefore the natural end of the father, is not his own good only, but his whole families, (according to Aristotle) whereas, take him in the notion of a Master, and so he regards his own good in the first place, and his servants in the second, only as it conduces to his.  
Fourthly, If Parents had an absolute jurisdiction over their Children, even to life and death; then Children, which in the eye of policy, are sometimes many in number, and of more public value then their Parents, might be oppressed without all means of remedy: and this may prove mischievous and unequal, and not fit to be referred to nature's intention.  
Fifthly, In all civil Countries, where Government is established, there are laws to overrule Parents as well as Children, and to provide for the safety of Children as well as Parents: And where no Government is yet established, there is no precedent of such jurisdiction.  
Upon the murder of Abel, if the right of a Father had entitled Adam to the same power, as the right of a Prince useth to do, Adam ought to have arraigned Cain at his Bar, and to have required blood for blood. But we do not find that Adam did claim any such power, or sin, in not claiming it: We find rather that the whole stock of mankind then living, were the Judges that Cain feared: and there is reason why they should be more competent for such a trial than the Father himself. When there were no Kings, no Judges in Israel, the People by common consent did rise up to vindicate common trespasses; and God so required it at their hands. But if judgement should be left to Parents only, much injustice might be expected from them, which is not so much to be feared from the People not yet associated: For the offence of the Son is either against the Father, or some other: If against the Father, than is he Judge in his own case; and that is dangerous; the Father may be partial to himself: If against another, than the Father is a stranger to the plaintiff, not to the Defendant: and that is more dangerous, in regard that partiality is more to be feared. The Paternal right of Adam might better qualify him for rule, whilst he lived only amongst his own descendents, than any other pretence could any other particular person amongst his descendents: but it did only qualify, not actually constitute: and since Adam's death, none but Noah could pretend to the same qualification.  
The right of Fathers is now in all father's equal; and if we do not grant, that it is now emerged or made subordinate in all great associated Bodies, by that common authority which extends over all, we must make it incompatible with Common authority. 'Tis true, Bodin is very zealous for paternal empire; and he conceives, that the public Courts of Justice would not be so full of suits, if this domestical jurisdiction were not too far eclipsed thereby. But 'tis well answered, That Bodin, in this, doth not aim at the total cure of Contention in the State: his only ambition is, to ease the public Courts, and to fill private houses with more vexations and unnatural contestations.  
The Roman Law was very rigid against Children; and Bodin supposes that Law was grounded upon the Law of Nature: but we know it never was received in all Nations, neither is it now in force almost in any Nation: And whereas Bodin appeals to God's law, Deut. 21. we desire no better determination; for the very words of the Law there, give the definitive sentence to the Elders, and the execution to the whole City: the Parent hath no part, but that of the witness, left to him; neither indeed can any man be thought more unfit either to judge, or to execute, nay, or to be a spectator of the rebellious executed Son, than the Father himself. Civility hath now so far prevailed even in the imperial Law itself, that Parents may not causelessly abdicate or disinherit Children; nor is that held a good Testament, wherein the son's name is totally omitted; Nor if ingratitude, or disobedience, or any other cause be alleged against the Son, is the Father left solely to his own judgement in that cause.  
We do allow, that Parents are gods to their Children, and may challenge great piety from them; and that, in nature, their offices of kindness are of grace, and not of duty; whereas no office of the child is of grace, but of mere duty: Yet this destroys not Law, or the interposition of public authority. The father's right in the Son, is not so great as is the Countries. Cicero saith very well, Patria una omnium charitates complectitur. The Father therefore must not use his inferior right to the prejudice of a higher. Nay, the Father is not only restrained by Law from acts of injustice, the same being in him more to be detested than in a stranger: but he is of duty to perform all such pious offices also, as the infirm condition of Children stand in continual need of.  
And this duty, though the Child cannot challenge as proportionable to any merit in him, yet the State shall enjoin as necessary, and righteous, and altogether indispensable. Nay, suppose our Crown escheated, or suppose anybody of men not yet associated; yet still we maintain, the Father (not as animal sociatum, but only as animal sociale) owes a preservation of his Issue, for the common good of mankind; and cannot deny payment of the same, without great injustice to human nature. We may conclude then, that this paternal rule being so far divided and limited in point of loss of life, liberty, or other properties, wherein there is a rivalty or concurrence of a common interest: and so far clogged with pious duties and tender respects, will be very unapt to lend any testimony for rigorous, boisterous prerogatives in Princes.  
The next kind of Power visible in the World, was fraternal: for the Father being dead, the eldest Son is supposed by some to have inherited his dominion, or at least to have attained to some superiority over his younger brethren. Much might be said to prove, that Fathers did not transmit all their power to their eldest Sons; for so there had remained but one Monarch in the World: and the story of Abraham and Lot sufficiently disproves this fond dream. But take it for granted, and yet the same Answers which make conditionate the power of the Father, must in the same manner be applied to the power of the Brother. Philosophy tells, that the cement betwixt brother and brother, is in some respects more knitting than any other whatsoever: for the cement of love betwixt Husband and Wife, is equal, but not natural; the cement betwixt Father and Son is natural, yet not equal; but the obliging power of amity betwixt Brother and Brother, is both equal and natural: and this is no sure preparation for superiority. Majestas & Amor non bene conveniunt. And therefore 'twill be superfluous to answer any farther to this point.  
Our next transition than will be from fraternal power to that of Masters or Lords, which from the Greek we term despotical, from the Latin, Herile. This power gives the Lord an absolute, arbitrary interest in the slave; and it cannot be called Jurisdiction, because it proposeth no ends of Justice in itself. A slave (according to Aristotle) is he, who is so wholly his Lords, as that he hath no property remaining in himself: he only lives, or hath a being to his Lord; but is as dead, nay nothing to himself. Whatsoever may be acquired by him. Whatsoever may accrue any other way to him, it rests immediately in his Lord: and his person, his life, all that Nature hath endowed him withal, is so his Lords, that at discretion he may be beaten, tortured, killed, or libidinously used, &c. His very Lord is not called his, as he is called his Lords: for he is his Lords absolute possession, as a horse, or any real or personal chattel is: but his Lord is his, only secundum quid, as he bears rule over him: in all other things the Lord retains his own state, person, liberty and right; neither doth he refer to the slave, but in a limited respect.  
Hereupon it is much controverted, whether Servitude be agreeable to Nature, or no? And as Naturalists do generally hold it affirmative; so our Civilians are strong for the Negative. Wherefore for the stating of this, we must know, that Servitude is largely taken by Aristotle, and not distinguished from order in Nature, or that power which Man hath over sensitive and vegetable things, or that Jurisdiction which intends public good, and the distributing to every man that which is his own. This caused that error. We must understand also, that when Lawyers maintain all men to have been equal by Nature, and free; their meaning is, that no violent, noxious, unvoluntarie inequality, or restraint, had its introduction from Nature.  
So the true Question is but this; Whether that power of a Lord, which is unlimited, over his slave, be in any kind profitable for the Slave, good for the State, or expedient for mankind, or no? If it be, it may have a foundation in Nature; If not, it is otherwise. And whereas Aristotle presupposes, that there are some men so servile by nature, and so nearly approaching to bruit beasts, that they cannot govern themselves, nor live but by the souls of other men: we may not reject this, yet wholly reject dominical-power notwithstanding.  
For first, That dominical-power which we oppose, is unnatural; it is such, as has no eye at all upon the good or conservation of the slave, or at least, none but secondary; the very definition of it leaves the slave utterly disinherited of himself, and subject to his masters sole ends: Now that which tends not to the preservation, is not natural, but violent, and consequently, to be abhorred.  
Secondly, there can be no condition of man so servile or brutish, as to require an Arbitrary subjection: Nature has not exposed infants to this rigour, no nor beasts, and therefore much less any that have a larger use of reason: This condition does make Government absolutely necessary; but absolute Government it does not prove so much as expedient.  
Thirdly, if this condition did justify dominical-rule as to that respect, yet this justifies it not generally, and as the world has ever hitherto used it, and as it is commonly understood: No generous mind, no knowing man, no politician ought to be mancipated by this ground; and yet we know well, Slavery hitherto has observed no such distinction in the world.  
Fourthly, Servile Government does not only show itself injurious and violent in divesting the propriety of those which are subjected to it, but also the more public and sublime propriety; which the commonwealth, the Society of mankind, nay God himself has in the parties enslaved. If the lord may destroy his slave at pleasure, than he may destroy that, which in part is belonging to another: then the condition of a slave is worse than of a beast, or any inanimate cattles; and this is most unnatural, and publicly detrimental. Sic utere tuo, ne noceas alieno: sic utere privato, ne noceas publico. These are maxims that restrain men from the abuse of any other things; nay, by these Rules, no man may abuse himself: yet these restrain not from abusing slaves; these deny not, but a lord may have a more confined power over his slave, than he has over himself. Seneca would not admit, that the masters right in the slave should derogate from the right of himself in himself, much less of others; therefore doth he most admirably expostulate, thus: Servi sunt? imò homines. Servi sunt? imò contubernales. Servi sunt? imò humiles amici. Servi sunt? imò conservi. His Conclusion is, Cum in servum omnia liceant, est aliquid quod in hominem licere communius velit. Here is a difference observed between the nature of the servant and the nature of the man: If thou mayst tyrannize over him as he is thy servant, yet thou mayst not as he is man: If the misery of one capacity have exposed him to thy cruelty, the privilege of the other capacity ought to recommend him to thy favour: If the more base relation of servant entitle thee to domineer, yet the more noble relation of man checks the insolence of that title.  
Fifthly, Arbitrary Government does not only rob slaves of that natural interest which they have in themselves, and States of their public Interests which they have both above lords and slaves; but it is often a very strong Incentive to cause an abuse of that usurped Interest.  
The Story of Vedius Pollio may make this good, and suffice instead of thousands that might be produced. This Pollio had a Pond stored with lampreys; and as he kept the lampreys for his own food, so his wicked use was to cast the bodies of men into the Pond, to feed the lampreys. Augustus the Emperor came by chance as a guest to his house; and, during the entertainment, a crystal-glass was broken by one of his slaves that attended. The slave knowing his Lord's cruelty, and fearing to be thrown into the lamprey-pool, and so made to die an unnatural prey to fishes, fell at the feet of Augustus, not supplicating for life, but some other manner of death, less to be abominated. The Emperor, moved with compassion, became an interceder for his pardon; and not prevailing, in abhorrence of that bloody Monster, commanded the slave to be dismissed, the Pond to be filled up with earth, and all the rest of Pollio's Crystal-Glasses to be broken instantly, for prevention of the like disasters.  
There was much grace in this; but there had been far more, if he had dismissed all the slaves in Rome for the same reason, or so kerbed the power of the lords, that they might not have been any longer incited thereby to such prodigious degrees of inhumanity. By the same reason also, as this unbridled licence make lords more insulting, it makes those that are insulted over the more vindicatives, false, and dangerous. Many horrid Stories might be produced, to prove, that the cruelty of lords has always been retalliated with infidelity, hatred and desperate revenge of slaves.  
But some will say, Slaves have been very useful to some States; and there are experiments, that slavery itself has been beneficial to thousonds of slaves themselves: and it is known to all, that in the first dilatation of Christianity, when slaves were everywhere discharged for the honour of Religion, the world became full of beggars: and though Hospitals and almshouses exceedingly increased, yet it was too little to keep many from starving, and begging up and down. Hereupon, the Emperor Valens was compelled, by his Edict, to recall into slavery again all such as had begged from door to door, and for want of industry or ingenuity could not provide for their own sustenance, and so declared themselves uncapable of the benefit of liberty.  
To this I make answer thus: First, Slaves in all countries and in all Ages have not been treated alike: and it is manifest, that in such countries and times, wherein they have been protected against extremity of rigour by courteous Laws, they have been of some private use: But when they have been too numerous, and when they have been governed with cruelty, they have been publicly fatal, for the most part. Let Bodin speak to this Point.  
Secondly, Where slaves are under the protection of other Laws than their Lord's wills, and where they are truly parts and members of the State, and so regarded; they cease to be slaves, according to our aforesaid Definition.  
Thirdly, A confused enlarging of slaves at the same instant of time, and dismission from all domestical rule, might be prejudicial in the infancy of Religion; but the altering of domestic rule, or changing the same from arbitrary to legal, from despotical to paternal, and that for some certain space of time, could have bred no inconvenience: For if the mere restoring of men to a right in themselves, and a common and reciprocal right in the State, could make them uncapable of subsisting, this would extend to all Nations and Times; whereas we know, we see, we daily try the contrary everywhere.  
But it will be further said, If Nature itself has no ways recommended this Arbitrary power over slaves; yet the Laws of Nations, or municipal Laws do justly permit the same. This, if it be granted, does nothing at all invalidate any thing by me undertaken: Yet, for further satisfaction herein also, it is to be observed,  
First, That God, by his Law against murder, oppression, &c. excepts not slaves more than freemen: That he equally hates sin in freemen, and rewards virtue in slaves: That he has care of slaves equally as of freemen; and extends the price of Christ's Blood equally to both: and in Levit. 25. his law is peremptorily to the Jews, That none of that Nation shall be in Bondage, or serve instar Mancipii; sed ut Mercenarius, aut hospes: Nay, even mercenary servants were to be set free, and to return to their kindred, and liberty with all their goods and family, vertente Jubelaeo: Nay, the Canaanites and Heathens, whom God had designed to extirpation, yet might not remain in slavery, after they did embrace the true Religion; then there was the same law to the Jew and to the Proselyte: the Apostle is clear in this, Omnes unum sunt in Christo. Whether they be Jews or Greeks, bond or free, &c. And if Saint Paul does persuade servants, not to withdraw themselves from their masters after conversion to Christianity; but remain under the yoke, and to honour and obey their masters: Ne nomen Dei, & doctrina male propter ipsorum iniquam pertinaciam audeat. This commends not at all the condition of slaves; it only tolerates it so far, as that where it is established by public authority, it may not be repealed by private persons. Yet we read of no slavery, till it was denounced to Cham's posterity, as a curse by God; neither may we impute the sin of that slavery which ensued upon that curse, to God, as the proper and immediate cause thereof.  
Secondly, as there is no difference of slaves and freemen before God, so neither is there in nature: Slaves are men as much as their lords; they have the same endowments of mind, the same ability of body; they are born with the same danger, and exposed to the same miseries.  
Thirdly, In the State, if liberty be a benefit, and may be publicly more useful than bondage, the liberty of the servant ought to be as precious, and is of as much public importance as the Lords: nay, it often happens, that the servant has more natural ingenuity than the master.  
Fourthly, If we have respect to mere usage, and the custom of Nations, we shall find, that the extreme rigour of arbitrary servitude was scarce ever entertained by any, but barbarous people; nay amongst Barbarians, scarce any would enslave natives, or such as they thought of the true Religion, or such as had not some way merited death by the Law: Scarce any but had Asylum, or some other means of refuge for slaves oppressed, and brought almost to desperation: and where too much rigor was used, scarce any but found the desperation of slaves pernicious.  
Tacitus says of the Germans, that they were so indulgent to slaves, that they were scarce to be called slaves there. And amongst the Russians, none but the Prince could take away the life of his slave. The Athenians allowed by Law, that the complaints and suits of slaves should be publicly heard: nay, they provided for ploughing Oxen, by Law, that they should not be abused. Cadmus at Thebes, and Theseus' at Athens, erected an Altar of Mercy, for protection of Slaves. At Rome, the statue of Romulus; at Ephesus, the Temple of Diana served for such merciful uses; And almost all Nations had the like places for recourse of oppressed Captives.  
The law Aquilia and Petronia were passed in favour of slaves, and to restrain all cruelty beyond scourging. And Augustus, as also many Emperors after him, when civility began to be enlightened by Christianity, began to break the arbitrary power of Lords, and to set bounds to it, as a thing fit to be antiquated for many equitable reasons. As soon as Christianity was established, by Law, provision was presently made to free all Christians from slavery And 'tis now 400 years, and more, since all slavery amongst Christians hath been wholly expulsed, so that there is scarce any name or memory thereof remaining. And this cannot but be attributed partly to piety, partly to equity, and partly to natural respects.  
Fifthly, If we have respect to Law, either we must acknowledge that the Commonwealth hath an interest in slaves, or not. If it hath not, what a maim, what a loss is this? If it hath, how can such misimprovement thereof be answered to God, or justified in policy? If it be said, that slavery may be inflicted as a due punishment not unsuitable to natural reason, or exchanged for death. I answer: My scope is not to prove, that arbitrary servility is at some times, and to some spirits, worse than death: Nor do I wholly bend myself against it, as it is inflicted upon any that really deserved death, I shall only thus argue: Either condemnation, and sentence of slavery passed upon the guilty, doth really put the Delinquent into a worse condition than death, or not. If it doth, than it is unjust and excessive. If not, than it reserves something to the delinquent, wherein neither the right of the Delinquent, nor the right of the State is wholly lost and relinquished; And if the Delinquent be dead to himself, and yet not to others; than not to the State, more than to the Lord; for how can the State, which hath an interest in the Lord, choose but have an interest in that, which is the interest of the Lord?  
So much of this kind of Power. Now we orderly arrive at that Power, which is the only intended subject of our discourse; and that we shall properly call Jurisdiction. We have already searched the schools for the causes of Power, both final and efficient; We have also ransacked the bosom of Nature for all other species of Power; and yet we can find no grounds for absolute Rule. We shall now therefore make enquiry for precedents or patterns, such as all ages may furnish us withal. And who now hath any competent share of reason, can suppose, that if God and Nature have been so careful to provide for liberty in Families, and in particulars; that Man would introduce, or aught to endure slavery, when it is introduced upon whole States and Generalities. Every thing intends its own good and preservation, and therefore when Communities fancied to themselves the forms of Jurisdiction, we must believe that they did not wholly depart from the originals of God and Nature, but rather copy out of those forms whatsoever was best and most sovereign in each. Howsoever 'tis granted on all sides, that Princes and supreme Commanders, in all Ages and Countries, have differed in the latitude of Jurisdiction; some have been more absolute, others less. Now since this did proceed from divers reasons, and hath produced divers effects; let this be the subject of our discussion.  
The nature of Man-being depraved by the fall of Adam, miseries of all sorts broke in upon us in throngs, together with sin; insomuch that no creature is now so uncivil and untame, or so unfit either to live with, or without society, as Man. Wolves and bears can better live without Wolves and bears, than Man can without Man; yet neither are Wolves nor bears so fell, so hostile, and so destructive to their own kind, as Man is to his. In some respects, Man is more estranged from political union than Devils are: for by reason of natural disparity, the reprobate Angels continue without dissolution of order, and shun that confusion amongst themselves, which they endeavour to promote amongst Men. But amongst Men, nothing but cursed enmity is to be seen. When Aristotle says, that Men do associate by instict of Nature, for ends of honesty, as they are communicative creatures, as well as necessity and safety: He rather intimates what we should be, than what we are; and tells us what we were created, rather than what we are being now lapsed.  
We must insist upon necessity therefore, as the main ground and end of policy; And besides Order, and the laws of God and Nature, we must find out some more particular constitutions, to cement us, and to hold us fast bound together. Though the times of Adam were not uncouth, as ours now are, yet even then the common consent of mankind (that which we now call, Jus Gentium) was too slack iand lose a bond, to keep the World from dissipation.  
Whilst the Universe was but one entire House, united under one common Father, in whom all tyrannous thoughts were contrary to the worst suggestions of Nature; whilst the near relation of blood was fresh, and unobliterated; whilst the spacious surface of the Earth (not yet thronged with plantations) afforded few baits of avarice, or objects of ambition, or grounds of difference betwixt brother and brother; whilst so many umpites of equal distance in blood, were at hand to interpose, in case any difference did unhappily arise; The reins of Government might hang more loose and easy upon the necks of Men. Yet even the infancy of the World, we see, required something more than the rod to over-awe it, and some other severer hand than a Fathers, to shake that rod: Nay, if Abel fall by the bloody hand of a murderer, (who hath no other provocation given him, but the piety and devotion of his nearest ally) little expiation or justice is to be expected from the common assembly of the whole body.  
How long it was before Families did incorporate, and grow up into Cities, and Cities into States; and how long it was before Cities and States did frame Laws, and settle Magistrates to enforce those Laws, is dimly and obscurely set forth, either in the Book of God, or other Authors: but we may very well guess, by the many small petty Principalities that we read of in all ancient Chronicles, either divine or profane. That Regiment in the first ages of the world was rather too mild and finewlesse, than too violent and rigorous: Where the Territories are narrower, the managery of affairs is the easier; and where the sceptre is more easy to be swayed by the Prince, it is more gentle to be born by the people. Were it not for fear of foreign infestations, smaller signories were best constituted and disposed, for peace and duration: And because they require no large Prerogatives, but rest satisfied with little more than paternal power, the people are less jealous of their lord, and they, consequently, have the less occasion to be harsh to the people.  
Nimrod is registered with the title of a great Hunter; but whether he had that addition given him for enlarging the confines of his Dominion, or for acquiring a more unbounded Prerogative, or for exercising his power more insolently, is not declared: Besides, it is left utterly uncertain, whether Nimrod laid his foundation upon force, or consent; whether he did by his tongue or his sword drive and hunt men out of Woods and wild Recesses into Towns and Cities: for that force by which he did prevail, can hardly be supposed to be itself wholly forced. It is left also as dubious to conjecture, how far consent was left by Nature; for if order, and right of succession, did give the rule according to primogeniture, than all mankind must have been subjected to one Crown; whereas, if Primogeniture were wholly neglected, and every father or brother left independent in his own family, to associate or not at his pleasure, than Rule would have been crumbled into atoms.  
To avoid therefore surmises, and the dark Labyrinths of our primative-Records before the Flood, and immediately following, let us fall lower, upon the Story of Abraham, Moses, David, and such as succeeded them. The people of God, at several times, were under either several forms, or several degrees of power and jurisdiction: That sovereignty which Abraham and the Patriarchs had, was not the same as that which Moses and the Judges had; neither had Moses and the Judges the same as Saul and the Kings; nor yet had Saul and the Kings the same as Cyrus, and the Persian Emperors.  
It is disputed much by some, Whether the Patriarchs and Judges before Saul's days had Regal-power or no: Some say, Their power was Regal; others say, It was but aristocratical: and others (more judiciously, in my opinion) say, It was mixed of both. One says, That, after the Flood, till Nimrod's usurpation, men lived under the Empire of single Commanders, who nevertheless did not govern as Kings, but as Fathers: Now since this is but the pattern which all Kings ought to follow, therefore what other meaning can this bear, but that governors in those days, having small Territories, did claim but moderate Prerogatives, though they were as solely supreme in the State, as Fathers are in the Families? As for Moses, and the Judges also, it is truly said, They were no other than God's Vice-Roys, in regard they did go forth to battle by immediate Commission, and transact many other great affairs by direction from God's own mouth: nevertheless, this altars the case little or nothing, as to the latitude of their Prerogatives; this rather added than took honour, grandeur, or jurisdiction from them; this left them as sole a Sovereignty, and as unbounded over the people, as other Princes have who are God's ordinary vicegerents.  
It must needs be, therefore, That that case and freedom which the people then found under God's immediate Substitutes, was not procured by any further Right or law, or from any other indifferent composition of Government which they had below, from other Monarchies; but from a Regulation above; because it was impossible for their chief lord to oppress, or do injustice, or to direct his thought to particular ends, contrary to theirs.  
This shows how impious and stupid a frenzy that was in the Israelites, which made them weary of God's Headship; for indeed, they did not so properly create to themselves a new Government, as a new governor. We cannot think that Saul, being invested with Style and State of an ordinary King, and discharged of such an immediate extraordinary dependence upon God, as Samuel acknowledged, had thereby any new Right granted him, to do wrong, or be oppressive to his Subjects: his Diadem did not absolve him from the true end of Diadems, nor did his mere Instalment (so much against God's will and advertisement) cancel the Law of God, which forbids Kings to amass treasure into their private Coffers, or to increase their Cavalries, or to provide extraordinary Magazines of Arms and Munition, or to lift up their hearts above their brethren; much more to employ their Treasure, Horses or Arms against their Subjects.  
Barclay, and our royalists, offer apparent violence to Scripture, when they will make God to call the usual rapine and insolence of Kings, Jus Regis; whereas indeed, the word in the Original signifieth nothing but Mos Regis, as is plain to all that will look into the same.  
Howsoever, let the Prerogative of the Jewish Kings be taken in its utmost extent, and take the restraint of God's moral Law not to be of any political efficacy; yet we shall still perceive, that the very composition of that Monarchy was not without qualifications of mixture, and other Limitations.  
The Crown, it was settled upon Judah, and more particularly, upon the House of David; yet the people's election was not thereby wholly drowned: for still, before every Coronation, they might assemble to give their Votes, and were not necessitated to choose any individual person in the House of David. It appears also by the Story of Rehoboam, that the people might capitulate for just Munities, and require some Obligation for assurance of the same: and in case that was not granted, it was esteemed, and properly it might be said, That the King did reject the people, and deny protection; not that the People did reject the King, and deny subjection.  
Next, there was a great college and council of Elders, called, The Sanhedrin, consisting of 71 Princes, who had the hearing and determining of all weighty and intricate Suits, unto whom the last appeal lay from inferior Courts; and the King, without tyranny, could not interrupt or impeach the proceedings of this Sanhedrin. If Saul will charge David with Treason, and, without all legal process, take Arms against him, untried and uncondemned, David may leavie Forces of volunteers against the followers of Saul, and stand upon his justification, cum moderamine inculpatae tutelae. Wicked Ahab stood in so much awe of such kind of trials, in the corrupted State of Israel, that when he coveted Naboth's Vineyard, he durst not attempt to wrest it away by force, nor did he obtrude upon the Court what Sentence he pleased; he was driven to hire perjured villains, and so by fraud to procure an erroneous judgement. It is worthy of notice also, that these 71 Elders, or Princes of the Tribes, who had the supremacy of judgement, were not eligible by the King, and so the more obnoxious to his Commands; but did inherit this dignity; and for that cause were extirpated by Herod, as the main obstacle to his tyranny.  
Besides, though the children of Israel had abandoned God for their chief Ruler, yet God, out of his unspeakable grace, did not utterly cast them out of his protection; but oftentimes did extraordinarily interpose by his Prophets, as he had done by Princes before, for relief of his Inheritance. In behalf of Uriah, Nathan was sent with a vindicative-Message, to bridle David's cruelty: In behalf of the whole Nation, groaning under Solomon's ponderous hand, another menacing Prophet was dispatched, to repress his impotent pride: And in the behalf of the ten Tribes, recoiling from the same pressures under his son Rehoboam, a third Prophet was sent, to put a hook into his nostrils.  
Lastly, though the Jewish Kings, by having the Militia put into their hands more arbitrarily than the Judges had before, obtained greater opportunity, and not right of oppressing their subjects: Yet that Militia did not consist of strangers or mercenaries, or such soldiers as had no other profession or right in the State; nor were there constant Armies and garrisons kept in pay, like those of the Roman Praetorians, or Turkish janissaries.  
And hence it is, that if Saul, in a brutish unnatural fury, will attempt against the life of his son Jonathan, or seek to compass any other thing subversive to the State, he cannot find instruments barbarous enough amongst all his swordmen for his black purposes, but he shall presently meet with opposition, and forcible resistance.  
Thus far then, we find in the world no prints or footsteps of tyranny, or of absolute Royalty, nay, nor of Royalty itself, till the people's cursed ingratitude and folly introduced it: We must go beyond God and nature's Workmanship and impressions, before we can discover any thing but parental majesty, or gentle aristocracy, or compounded or mixed monarchy.  
Since therefore it so fared with God's people in point of liberty and safety, out of God's unspeakable favour, under patriarchs, Judges and Kings. Now let us inquire how it fared with them under those foreign Emperors, by whom they were subjugated, and made tributary. Judea being seated near the centre of the World, became obnoxious to all the great vicissitudes of change which happened to the four vast overruling Monarchies. The Babylonian or Assyrian first, and the Persian next, from the East, spread victorious arms almost over all Asia. After, from the West successively, both the Grecian and Roman made eruptions; and in all these general periods of Empire, the State of the Jews had its sense and share of the calamity.  
As for the two first Monarchies, there is little in particular recorded, and left to posterity in Writing, concerning their true forms and compositions; as there can no laws be produced, by which the Subjects had resigned all right of liberty and safety; so neither can there be any produced, by which they had precisely compounded for the same. Some instances only we find mentioned, that the laws of the Medes and Persians were unalterable by the Prince; and by this it seems, that the prime ensign of majesty, which consists in making and abrogating of laws, was not residing in the Emperor alone, without the great council of his Sages. For if the King could not alter Law at his own pleasure, there was some other extrinsical power circumscribed that pleasure; and that power must be no other, than the same which made Law; for the true legislative power itself can never put fetters or manacles upon itself; howsoever Aristotle fancies to himself a kind of monarchy which he calls Lordly; and this he placeth betwixt royalty and tyranny, making it more unbounded than that of Kings, but not so violent as that of Tyrants. And this dominical rule he ascribes to the Barbarians rather than unto the Grecians; and amongst Barbarians, rather to those of Asia, than to the Europeans. Asia (it seems) being more rich and fertile, bred a people more esseminate and disposed to luxury, and so by consequence more ignoble, and prone to servility.  
Hereupon the asiatics were ever extremely despicable in the eyes of more magnanimous Nations, especially the Greeks, for adoring and postrating themselves with so much devotion before their Princes. Plutarch, speaking of divers unmanly slavish Customs amongst the Persians, refers that Empire to the kind of such as are absolute, and equal to tyrannical. Plato calls it, despotical; and Aristotle says, It was then very near approaching to tyrannical Institution. We may well then imagine. That God, in bringing such a yoke upon the necks of his chosen Inheritance, did it for their chastisement, and out of his indignation; not for their advantage, and out of his wonted loving kindness. As for the Grecian Empire, we know, Alexander becoming instated with success, and tainted with the luxury of Persia, soon began to degenerate from the moderation of his own native country, and those political Rudiments which his tutor Aristotle had seasoned him withal: and we read how exceeding fatal it proved: he and his Empire both perhaps had been longer lived, if he had not rendered himself odious, first to Callisthenes, by his insolence; and to all other men afterwards, for his cruelty to Callisthenes. This justly administers here an occasion to us, to insist a little upon great Monarchies, in that Notion only as they are great.  
Alexander King of Persia, had no more right added to be insolent, than had Alexander King of Macedonia; but greatness of Dominion did alter him for the worse: and since it doth so usually other Princes, we cannot but take notice how this comes to pass; For either the largeness of Dominion doth require a proportionable Prerogative, and so enable Princes to do greater mischief, and after by accident becomes a temptation and provocation to abuse that ability; or else we must not confess that there is any difference, in this respect, betwixt a large and narrow Dominion. Now that there is a great difference, is so clear, that I will not undertake any proof of it. The Scripture ever, speaking of the great Monarchies of the world, pencils them under the lineaments of Lions, Bears, Eagles, &c. armed for rapine with Iron-teeth, Brazen-talons, and sharp horns, &c. and the woeful experience of all Ages seconds Scripture therein, testifying them to be monstrous excessives in Nature, and the perpetual plagues of mankind. Yet let not me be taxed to condemn all excessive Monarchies, as utterly unlawful: for, though I doubt much, whether ever any one of them were at first justly purchased, or after by any one man rightly administered, without Tyranny; yet I conceive neither of these things totally impossible; and so I will pass no judgement thereupon. Howsoever, Nature seems to have chalked out the just dimensions of a complete monarchy, by Mountains, Seas, or other lines: Spain, Italy, France, &c. seems to be cut out as proportionable patterns: and few Nations have ever prospered, when their pride had transported them beyond their native barricadoes. Hannibal, after seventeen years' War waged with the Romans for the Mastery of the world, at last sought a Composition, in humble terms, from Scipio; and blamed that dangerous fond competition, which had either engaged the Carthaginians beyond the Coasts of Africa, or the Romans beyond the Coasts of Italy: But alas, it is ill success that opens the eyes of Hannibal. Hanno was before held his bitter enemy, and disaffected to his country's prosperity, for seeking an honourable Peace with the Romans, and preventing the mischiefs of an overswelling Empire: Yet by the way note, in the mean time Carthage is lost, by an unpolitike and uncertain indifferency, whilst it will neither wholly desist from attempting against foreign States, nor yet wholly concur with such courageous Generals as it entrusted with those attempts: Either Hanno ought to have been silenced, or Hannibal recalled: The Victories of Hannibal are too glorious, to admit of a straightened Commission: things are now come to that pass, that, if Hannibal be not enabled to scale the Walls of Rome, Scipio is to be expected at the Gates of Carthage. Great Bodies cannot be moved, but with great Engines; nor can extensive Monarchies be erected or conserved, without extensive Prerogatives: Gravity and policy both, do in this keep a just correspondency. A moliminous vast Frame, can by no means rise into a decent symmetrical Pile, except there be an orderly proportion kept between the Basis, the Conus and the pyramid: If the Basis be excessive, What is it but a deformed heap? If the bottom be too narrow for the Spire, How unstable is the fabric likely to be. The Egyptian Pyramids had, perhaps, intention to express hieroglyphical politics to us, and to let us know, that though small States may be moulded almost into any form; yet great Heights cannot be arrived at, but by orderly gradual ascents. At Athens, Sparta, Thebes, Pella, where the Precincts are narrow, the Government is easy; decency requires that it be as lowly: But in the magnificent Court of Persia, where the Crown is more glorious, the sceptre must be more ponderous: where the Spire is more lofty, the proportion of the Conus and Basis must answer thereto: where Rule is more difficult, the Ruler must be more majestical. This lets us see how inconsiderate that great Dispute is, amongst politicians, about the comparisons of this and that Form of Government, viz. Whether monarchy, or democracy, or aristocracy, be to be preferred amongst men: For, without doubt, the difference is not so much to be seen in the Forms themselves, as in the States, which make choice of those Forms.  
But you will say, Mighty Sovereigns may be enabled, as to all that is good; yet restrained by Law, from all that is evil: or, if the Law of man cannot, externally; yet the Law of God, internally, may check them in matters wicked and pernicious.  
We answer; Bounds are set, by God and Nature, to the greatest and most absolute Monarchs, as well as to the least, and most conditionate: but those Bounds seem but as imaginary Lines, or as mere stones, not real Trenches, or Fortifications: They serve only to discover to the Subject what his Right is, but they have no strength at all to protect him from wrong Those slaves that are sold, and forfeited to the worst of Bondages, as we have proved before, have a Divine and natural claim to safety, and freedom from abuses, as other Subjects have; yet want of some political remedy, exposeth them to miseries far worse than death, and detrudes them often into a condition below beasts. The same slaves also are equally entitled to their Lord's courtesy, as the best of Subjects are: there is no safety nor freedom from abuse which depends upon mere will, as an Arbitrary power, but the poorest slave is as capable of it as the freest Subject.  
Nay, it hath been often a glory to weak Princes, to attribute that to slaves, which they would not to men ingenuously born: For, who had Offices of great Command? who had chief Honours? who had the communication of secret State-affairs? who had the prime sway in Court amongst the Roman Emperors, but slaves enfranchised? What senator, what Officer in Rome had riches equal to Narcissus, or Pallas? Who could more powerfully sway in the Palace, or better patronize Cities and Nations, than Eunuchs, Grooms and Libertines? If there be any difference then betwixt the most ingenuously-born subject and the lowest-purchased caitiff, it is only in this, That the one hath a stronger circumvallation of human Policy to secure him, than the other; and that he is not left so merely to divine, natural and discretionary pretences, as is the other. But in wide expansive signories, no Law, no policy can sufficiently entrench or immure itself: For, if the Prince be bad, he hath the more opportunity to do mischief; if he be good, he hath yet the less power to govern well.  
It is almost a miracle, to see a great Monarch good: and if he be, it is more miraculous, to see him upon the receipt of Appeals, and other Addresses (as often as occasion shall require) from remote parts, to distinguish truth and falsehood, or to sift the Bran from the Flour so nearly as it ought to be. Mark how Solomon begs wisdom of God, that he may be able to go in and out before the Nation of the Jews: Mark how great a Charge he makes that little inconsiderable State to be. It was more than natural, that Augustus (though a Pagan-Phoenix) should ever know what Peace was, over all his Dominions: That little space of Haltionian tranquillity which the world enjoyed during some part of his Reign, is in verity more to be ascribed to the Cradle of Christ, than to his Throne.  
Change then the Scene, and see how the face of things varies: Assoon as Tiberius enters, see how the Head of so many several Legions, of so many several Nations, of so many several Parties in Religion and Opinion, of so many several disagreeing Magistrates and Commanders, can be reduced to Order, or forced to do reason, by any one Faction framed out of all these.  
More need not be said: Where many States are subjugated to one signior, War can never be absent; where War is, Military rule must needs predominate; where Military rule is, Law must needs give place to Discretion; and what that bloody fatal Train is, which ever attends War and a Military arbitrary Empire, is sufficiently known to all. What gain then is it to our Adversaries, to allege, That Alexander, or any of the Eastern Emperors did what they pleased, and ruled always uncontrolled? This is no more but to allege, That the Persians were first conquered by the Grecians, and that after the Grecians were poised by the Persians, and that the division and enmity which remained betwixt both, served the Prince as a sit means to enthrall both.  
This is no just proof in Law, that the Macedonians were to undergo thraldom and servitude, because they had overrun the East; or that the East was to stoop to the like endurance, because it could not withstand Grecia: Nor if Alexander did de facto tyrannize, cutting the Diamond (as it were) by the powder of the Diamond, is this any stronger Argument for the legality of tyrannising, than dethroning or murdering of him had been for the justification of the same in his subjects. A facto adjus non datur consequentia. When mere force lays the foundation of sovereignty, and where mere force raises up the Structure, mere force may with the same equality and reason effect the demolition of the same.  
It is true, Zedekiah being bound by oath to the Babylonian conqueror to remain a true vassal, and being forbidden to make defection, by an express from heaven; and undertaking the same at an unseasonable time, by improbable means, commits the sin of Rebellion: But we see one of the successors of Alexander, acting the bloody part of a Tyrant in Judea, is not only resisted by Judas Maccabeus, but quite expelled: And we see that right which the sword of a stranger had acquired, was more honourably rescinded by the sword of a native.  
Neither doth God not seem only to countenance that revolt in the Jews, but to reward also the principal agent therein, by transferring the Diadem from the Grecian Race, to him and his posterity.  
The Story of Eglon also may serve for an instance of the same truth: And who can now look upon all those goodly Provinces and Kingdoms which the grand Signors sceptre hath for so many Ages converted into Theatres of Slavery, beggary, Barbarism and Desolalation, and yet hold that they are no ways redeemable from that sceptre? Who can say, that all those woeful Nations, or rather, the starved Skeletons of Nations, if opportunity were offered, might not by consent abjure their feral, sanguinary oppressor, and choose to themselves several protectors out of their own native Territories? But the strength of Custom and Prescription, is still by some magnified, and in the worst of Empires made the Ordinance of God, and as valid as any other divine Right or Title. I have seen a whole Volume, written to that purpose, yet the answer thereof may lie (in my opinion) in a very narrow room; for if custom may make that necessary which was indifferent, yet it cannot make that just which was unjust, if it may change the Mode, or external form of some things, it cannot change the Nature or internal form of all things. For example, if the Grecian Line have reigned in Persia for so many generations, prescription may have vigour enough to confirm that reign: but if the Macedonians have reigned tyrannicaly; to the disinheriting and despoiling the Persians of their due freedom, mere usage can give no ratification at all to this tyrannical reign. But soft of this enough: I descend now to the Roman story, and to the times of Christ's Nativity, and such as are successive thereunto.  
Hitherto our inquisition hath met with no sufficient rule, precedent, or authority, for arbitrary power; neither Nature nor History from the Creation to the Redemption afford us any vestigia of it.  
Wheresoever God had a Church whosoever were the governors of it, whether patriarchs, Judges, Kings, Emperors, we have made a strict survey, and as yet discover no Empire so uncircumscribed, and absolved from Laws, as our Adversaries contend for, and as for those Nations which were merely Pagan, their Chronicles are very uncertain, and scarce worth turning over: I know our Royalists will now challenge us to prove by what particular laws, Liberty was secured, and the hands of Princes bound up in all ages, but we must reply, that this is more than reason or equity will require at our hands; if they will maintain, That the part is better than the whole: if they will maintain, That the effect is more potent than the efficient: if they will maintain, That the means is more valuable than the end: their proofs ought to be Positive, and full against us, we are on the Defensive part only, and do convince, if we are not convinced.  
'tis not sufficient for them to say, Such a Nation was slavishly treated de facto, they must prove, that there was clear Law for that Treatance: nay they must produce such a clear Law as extends to all Nations. 'tis not sufficient for them to say; Such a Nation submitted themselves to Monarchy, without any precise conditions made for liberty, and much less without any such now remaining extant upon record.  
They must prove there was clear Law for abjuring liberty, and that the force of the same is universal, and agreeable to that of God and Nature: but the main shelf-Anchor of our Adversaries is that of the Apostle in his 13. Chap. to the Romans, there all resistance to the higher power is forbidden, and pronounced all damnable, And 'tis all one (they say) to be irresistible, and to be absolute. Now I believe all that is in the book of God and Nature to be expressed for the right of Princes, is there compendiously enfolded. Since then this was written in the infancy of the gospel, and during the reign of Caesar, and was directed to the Romans, not without particular respect (as Doctor Fern conceives) that the government, which was supereminent, or supreme at Rome; We will take it into more special consideration.  
The Primate of Ireland in his Sermon upon this Text, preached at Oxford, March 3. 1643. delivers it for a sure doctrine, (and there is scarce any other divinity known now there) That no Subject may upon any occasion take arms, or use violence against the supreme power, no not in defence of Religion: Now this doth much scandalize us for divers Reasons. For first, when he speaks of the supreme power, he doth not define that which he means it to be; he takes no notice, how supremacy of power may vest in one man, as to one purpose; in another, as to another: how it may vest in the people, as to some affairs, in the Prince as to others. The body is not so the Subject of the seeing faculty as the eye is, yet it cannot be denied to be so in some sense.  
The Prince of Orange is supreme in Military commands especially in reference to all individual persons: but he is not so in all other expedients, nor in matters of the Militia neither, if you compare him with the whole State. Grotius affirms supreme power to be such: Cujus actus alterius juri non subsunt, ita ut alterius voluntati humanae arbitrio irriti possent reddi; If then Caesar was that supreme power at Rome, which the Primate intended, he ought to have portrayed him according to this definition; he ought to have Armed him with power beyond all the laws and Rights of Rome; such as could not, or ought not to be frustrated by any other right or power of the Senate and people of Rome in any case whatsoever.  
Secondly, when he speaks of the supreme Power, he doth not at all discriminate the person of the sovereign Prince, from the persons of those which are employed only as instruments under the sovereign Prince. Now we conceive, if there had been true candour and ingenuity in this learned Prelate, he would have showed a little learning in this, which we hold to be exceedingly necessary to be distinguished, and he knows we insist much upon.  
Thirdly, when he speaks of Subjects he doth not take notice of any difference amongst them, neither in freedoms and immunities, he doth not declare the Roman Subjects and the English, or the English and the Venetian, to be a like obnoxious to the will of an absolute Lord, neither doth he declare the contrary. Now since he thus Preaches at this time, we must needs condemn him, either of great hypocrisy, or of great folly; for if he did intend that the whole people and Senate of Rome, had no Title to assemble, nor right to defend themselves, and therefore that the Parliament of England had no more Title than the Romans, we say he did manifestly offer violence to his Text, if he did not intend so: yet since he was no more careful at such a time, and before such an assembly to interpret himself for the avoiding of dangerous misprisions, we say he had not such circumspection as he ought.  
Fourthly, when he speaks of the occasions of taking up arms and using resistance against powers, he seems to allow of no degrees at all: if Religion be to be subverted, if the ruin of the Prince himself, or of his whole kingdom be attempted, if the attemptors proceed ad infinitum, yet in all cases (for aught he distinguishes) resistance is alike unlawful, and altogether as damnable, as if the mischief were not publicly considerable. This tenet seems to us horrid, unnatural, and against the light of all men's reason: for hereby it is plainly averred, that either government was erected for subversive ends, or else that general subversion may conduce to salutiferous ends.  
In cases of obedience a difference of command is to be observed: all commands are not alike; binding and Potestative, but in case of resistance all acts of the Prince are taken to be equally authoritative. If Saul command Doeg to kill the Priests of the Lord; Doeg may receive that as a void command; but if Doeg do wickedly draw his sword upon the Priests, this violence proceeds from so unquestionable a warrant, that it may not be repulsed with violence.  
Our adversaries sometimes when we dispute rationally, will acknowledge our grounds to be very plausible, (this is very Dr. Fern himself) but say they; Scripture is clearly against all limits of Monarchy, and scripture is to be adhered to rather than reason.  
Nevertheless when we submit ourselves to the balance of the Sanctuary, and when they see the letter and immediate sense thereof does not come home to our particular differences, than they are fain to retreat to reason. But their greatest subterfuge is to lurk between scripture and reason, and to remain in a kind of transcient posture, as that they may be confined neither to the one, nor to the other, nor yet to both. If our controversies were in credendis, or about things that did exceed the compass of human understanding, scripture might justly be opposed to policy: but when we are treating of worldly affairs, we ought to be very tender how we seek to reconcile that to God's law, which we cannot reconcile to man's equity: or how we make God the author of that constitution which man reaps inconvenience from.  
But for the present on both sides, we are agreed to address ourselves to the Roman story. Rome for the space of two hundred and forty years was subject to Kings: and some say those Kings were absolute: others say with Halycarnasseus: Populum Rom: principio formam Reipub: habuisse mixtam ex potestate Regia, & optimatum dominatum fuisse constitutum: ultimo verum. Regum Tarquinio regnum in Tirannidem vertere capiente, optimatum dominatum fuisse constitutum.  
Questionless, written laws were wanting at first (as they are, and ever were to all new foundations) and in this respect the Kings might be said to be more loose from restraints: but this amounts to nothing; for as the Kings by defect of laws were less obliged to the people, so the people by the same defect were less obliged to Kings: and forasmuch as the people where they were more contracted, and so might more easily correspond, hold intelligence, consult together, (as in all infant small States they might) were better able to oppress the King, than the King was to oppress them, the mere want of written laws was no more prejudicial to the people, then to the King: great moderation therefore was used towards the people by all the Kings, only Romulus was too harsh to the Nobility, and so fell by their hands, and Tarquin grew intolerably insolent towards all, and so occasioned the expulsion of himself, together with the extirpation of Kingly government.  
The word Tyrannus had been made odious all over Greece long before, and now the word Rex is as much abominated, and abjured amongst the Romans: so insufferable in all ages were the cruelties, and excesses of lawless Monarchy. After Kings thus driven out, all the rights of Majesty were devolved in equity to the whole people of Rome, distinguished then into Patritians and Plebeians: but the Patritians affecting an aristocratical form, and seeking totally to exclude the Plebeians from communion in government, they embroiled the whole State in continual wars, and contestations for many ages together: and not being able to support their own weaker, and lesser side lost all by degrees, and brought upon themselves the worst inconveniences of corrupted democracy. For the Plebeians having long remained contemptible under the endurance of many indignities by force at first obtained the defence of Tribunes, and after so increased the same power, that at last Censors, Consuls, Dictators, all the chief Magistrates of Rome became subject to their check and sway. And whereas those assemblies managed by the Senate which were called Curiata Comitia, or Centuriata had the predominance hitherto, now the Tributa Comitia managed only by the Plebeians draw all power of choosing Magistrates, and passing laws to themselves. Quintius therefore blaming the Tribunes for not resting satisfied with what they had already gained from the Senate, makes this sad complaint. You desired Tribunes, (Says he) we granted them; you would have a Decemvirate created, we permitted it. You grew weary of those ten Commissioners, we deposed them. Your anger was not so pacified against their persons, though most Noble, and Honourable: we pursued them with death, or banishment. You would again create new Tribunes, they were created. You would have the Consulship communicated to your party, as a free gift; it was conferred upon you, though we knew that gift was very unequal to our Order. You would have the Tribune power enlarged, you would have an appeal lie from the Senate to you, you would have your Plebeian acts binding to the Senate, under pretence of dividing power with you, we have endured, and do yet endure that all our right and share be usurped. It was alleged also, that even the Kings themselves had never attempted to violate the Majesty of that supreme Order, and that the whole Common wealth of Rome did consist of something else, besides the mere commonalty, but all will not prevail: that which was due being once denied, more than is due must be now restored by way of expiation. Aristocracy standing in competition with Democracy can say no more for itself (nor perhaps so much) than Monarchy can: the Senate itself therefore having been accessary in subverting Monarchy, had implicitly pronounced the same judgement against Aristocracy. The truth is, both Monarchy, and Aristocracy, are derivative forms, and owe a dependence upon Democracy, which though it be not the best, and most exact form for all nations and Empires at all times, yet it is ever the most natural, and primarily authentical; and forsome times, and places the most beneficial. Howsoever the Romans never knew the benefit of Democracy, so wisely and exactly regulated, as it ought to be; for their Tributa Comitia, were too adverse to the patrician Order, and very ill composed in themselves for order and decency. The whole State had not any just influence of consent in them by right of election or representation, nor was that body of Plebeians themselves, which did therein concur to the nomination of Magistrates, and sanction of laws, any thing else commonly but a vast, rude, confused, indigested heap of the vulgar.  
This the Senators might at first have amended, and better disposed, had they undertaken the same, whilst they had superiority, or equality of power in the State: but in policy 'tis, as in logic: Vno dato absurdo sequuntur mille: Little neglects in fundamental Institutions may draw on great mischiefs in the consequence. This time made evident amongst the Romans, for after many and very bloody disputes betwixt the Optimacy, and populacy for sundry ages, at length the bulk of the Empire growing too spacious for the rule of the multitude (especially so tumultuously, and disorderly assembled) a contrary change begins to be better relished. Sylla now observing such a conjuncture of affairs, takes courage to reform this seditious, turbulent Ochlocraty (notwithstanding that many gallant spirited men had perished before in the enterprise) and though he pretend for Aristocracy, yet his thoughts tower as high as Monarchy. Florus says true of him: Susceptâ dictaturà rebus novis Reipub. statum confirmavit, Tribunorumque plebis potestatem minuit, & omne jus legum ferendarum ademit. nevertheless neither was Sylla, nor his favourite Pompey so certain and true to his own lordly principles, as he ought to have been: for though they were both more daring then private men, yet they were not so confident as the Lords of Rome should be: and therefore 'tis hard to say whether they did oppress liberty, or not settle the Principality with the greater expense of blood. Well might Caesar deride Sylla as a man not skilled in letters, nor able to dictate, when he would make no other use of the Dictature, but only to enure Rome to the snaflle, and break the Senate to the mussel, that an other might the readilier mount into the saddle. The body of Rome was now grown too gross for a popular form, and the populacy also of Rome had such errors, and defects in the composition of it, that according to the judgement of Tacitus, Non aliud discor dantis patriae remedium fuit, quam ut ab uno regeretur. 'tis strange, that Augustus should so solemnly take advise of Maecenas, and Agrippa about the quitting of the Empire, after that he had exposed himself to far more danger in the winning of it, then possibly could attend the holding of it. For without the advertisement of Maecenas, his own easy access to the imperial chair by the sword might have sufficiently informed him, Quod multorum imperium magnitudo rerum ferre non poterat. It had been far more seasonable (in my opinion) if Augustus had entered into debate about the manner of government, and had proposed rather, whether a regal prerogative, or something more, or some thing less had been fit for that adjustment of time, and other circumstances.  
The Romans had been sworn by Brutus upon the ejection of Tarquin never to suffer any man to reign, or to admit of regal power at Rome, and perhaps a vain superstition might so far prevail, as to make the word reign, and yet not the thing detestable. What then is to be done? is all supremacy of one man abjured, or only such a supremacy as Tarquin challenged? And if the intent of Brutus be dubious, who shall determine that, but such as have the same authority now, as Brutus then had? and may bind now, where he did loose; or lose now, where he did then bind? But soft; three things especially touching the imperial Prerogative at Rome are now proper for our inquiry: First what power did the Caesar's use, and assume de facto? Bodin gives just satisfaction to this: For Augustus (Says he) though he did craftily dissemble, and seem to settle a colour, and show of a Princely, and not Kingly regiment by pretending only to be Captain general of the Military Forces, and Tribune for the commonalties safety; yet having disposed of forty Legions all over the Provinces, and reserved three Legions about his own person for his own guard: and having placed garrisons in all Forts, and places of importance, he did exercise Kingly authority though without a sceptre, or Diadem. His successors also addicted themselves to most cruel tyranny, every one transcending his predecessor in acts of inhumanity, except only some few of them.  
2 The next quaere, then is about the right of this absolute jurisdiction, and upon what Law, or Commission it was grounded. The Lex Regia, or the Law of Majesty (as Cremutius calls it) did absolve the Emperors ab omni legum coactione, as Dion expresses it; the principal vigour of it did consist in this, that it did transfer Dictatorian power without limits of time upon them: and the Dictature, we know, was Legum nexu exoluta.  
Now this is the occasion of some dispute amongst Civilians, for they all grant, That no Law, or Commission could discharge the Caesars from the bonds which God, and Nature had imposed; nor from that main duty which Government itself enforces them to. No privilege can free any Magistrate from the obligation of rendering to every one that which is his due; nor can those primitive rules be annulled which proportion to every one his due; especially those which proportion to States more than to particulars, and attribute to ends, more than to means. It seems therefore to some Lawyers, That the force of this royal Law is to be restrained only to forms, and solemnities of such human constitutions, as might perhaps interpose, and impede the Caesar's in the execution of their main charge. And though other Lawyers do not allow this restriction, yet I conceive it very rational, for even the Dictators themselves when they were acquitted of all Laws, yet had this Law affixed to that very Commission which did therefore acquit them, that they should take more care, and might be the better enabled to provide, Ne quid detrimenti capeat Respub. All things which stood in direct order to that end, for which they had Dictatorian power put into their hands, (viz. the suppressing of such a sedition at home, or the finishing of such a war abroad, or some other design) might lawfully be done, any opposition of particular Laws, or formalities notwithstanding. But if the Dictator himself did walk eccentrically, or contrary to this end, he was not exempted from resistance during his term of command, nor from giving an account after the expiration of the same.  
The last thing inquirable into is the date, or commencement of this royal Law: and this also is not agreed upon of all sides. Arnissaeus will needs refer the time of this Law to Augustus his reign: but his reason is exceeding weak: alias enim (Says he) injusti possessores fuissent tam Augustus, quam Tiberius, & caeteri regnatricis domus sucsessores, nec leges ferre novas jure potuissent.  
I shall not stand to answer this, I shall rather herein follow Bodin, for that he was not only a grave Statesman, but a learned Lawyer also. Now in his judgement, and if we may credit his reading, this royal Law was first passed in Vespasians days, and he gives some proofs, and quotes Authorities for confirmation of the same. Besides others, he citys Suetonius, censuring thus of Caligula: Paerum abfuit quin diadema sumeret, aec speciem Prinoipatus in regnum converteret. Also of Tiberius, he censures thus: Faedissima servitute Remp. oppressit. He calls his reign mere tyranny, and oppression. Bodin therefore having defined Princely government to be either a State of Optimacy, or Populacy wherein some one has preeminence above all other particular persons, and is called Princeps, that is, Primus: He concludes that the commonwealth of Rome from Augustus and his immediate successors, usque ad Flavium Vespasianum Principatus dicebatur: and he closes all with this, that from the battle of Actium, the State of Rome was neither popular, nor aristocratical, nor regal, but mixed of all. By all this we see, that our great Irish Prelate, when he sends us for St. Paul's meaning to the Roman Empire before Vespasians days, there to find out what sovereign power is irresistible; He sends us not to regal power, more than to aristocratical, or democratical. I will therefore put the case stronger against myself: and make it my quaere, what irresistibility is due to Domitian after his Fathers, and brother's death. And here first, I may except against the royal Law itself passed in Vespasians time, as not being the complete voluntary lawful act both of Patritians, and Plebeians. For besides that the Senate had been now long overawed, and corrupted many ways by the acts of the Court; we know the Tributa Comitia are also totally depraved, and evirtuated by being called out of the field into the palace, insomuch that all liberty of choice and suffrage is lost, to that great convention, and it is now turned into a ridiculous solemnity.  
Wherefore when Nero was to be deposed, and all his barbarous acts of inhumanity to be accounted for, no plebiscitum could be obtained, an act of the Senate only was past to declare him an enemy of mankind. But I shall not insist upon this, I shall grant the royal law to be a good law, and enacted in a full assembly of both the States, yet still I shall maintain, that the lawmakers did not pass any thing to Vespasian, or his successors, but only in order to the public good, and safety: nor did they grant away their own original right, and power in themselves, by granting a fiduciary use and administration of that right, and power to the Emperors. The whole body of the law will furnish testimonies to this purpose, that the Emperor is not proprietary of his subjects, or hath any interest at all in them to his own use merely.  
Give me leave to frame a case upon supposition. Conceive that the major part of the Patritiaens, and Plebeians all over the Roman Empire are converted to the faith of Christ: conceive that Domitian (whose claim is by the law past to his Father) hates Christianity, and being incited by his soothsaying Priests, his Concubines, and parasitical Libertines to eradicate true Religion, and enrich himself by the great spoil of the professors thereof, sets up such an idol, and makes such an edict for the general adoration thereof, as the Persian Monarch once did. Conceive that the Christians, both Senators and Plebeians petition for their lives, but are rejected, and seeing a number of assassins armed ready to rush upon them, betake themselves to their defence, and rely upon forcible resistance. Conceive further that they first acquaint Domitian with their resolutions, and thus publish the justice thereof.  
May it please your sacred imperial Majesty, the peaceable and gentle principles of our pure Religion teach us rather to suffer moderate wrongs from private hands, then to offer the least injurious violence to Princes. nevertheless since (after all our vain supplications) we see ourselves remorsely designed to a general massacre, for not obeying you against God: and since you expect, that we should tamely surrender not only out estates, and such other rights as are in our arbitrary disposition, but our lives also, and the gospel itself (of neither whereof we are masters, at discretion) for as much also, as we being the major part of the State, and virtually that whole Community from which you derive your Commission, and for whose behoefe alone you are bound to pursue that Commission, and not to decline from the main intendment of it: and whereas further we have not so totally devested ourselves by entrusting you with power, but that we are to give some account to God, and the law if we oppose not general subversion where. we may, especially we being now farther entitled to defence by the extraordinary law of general necessity (of the benefit of which iron law, particular men are not wholly abridged) we are compelled hereby to protest, and remonstrate to all the world, that we take now up these one just arms only for defence to secure our Lives, Liberties, and Religion, against the bloody emissaries, which indeed from your undue warrant can derive no authority; and not to bridle any just authority of yours, or to attempt any thing against that idolatrous devotion which hath been hitherto established by law. And because we impute it to the wretched falsities and artifices of calumniators that your Majesty is incensed against us, and our Religion, and misinformed of our intentions: we crave leave farther to declare, that we though we are freemen, and not slaves, and have some share in Empire itself, and are not mere subjects, will yet continue in the same obedience, as our Ancestors paid you for peace sake, if we may not be driven to extremities. And as for our Religion, it is no other than a holy blessed law revealed from heaven, prescribed for the good of all immortal, rational creatures, more beneficial to Princes than paganism, and such as without diminution of power you may submit to, and cast down your crown before. In the like manner also it will concern your imperial office rather to protect us then those that seek our subversion, as being the greater, and nobler part of the Empire, and better devoted to your person, and crown than they are. Neither is it distrust in our own numbers, forces, or advantages that draws these lowly, loyal expressions from us, nor is it any doubt in our cause: for Christianity dies as much lift up the heart in a just war, as it dies weaken the hands in unjust enterprises; and the world shall see it is as far from transforming us into ashes, as into wolves. Prefer your sacred ears therefore, we pray you, from the suggestions of our enemies, and the abusers, who may render us in your thoughts either absolutely disloyal, or hestially servile, and do usually traduce our Religion as being utterly inconsistent either with duty, or magnanimity. Let it be a confutation to them at this present, that we do neither derogate in this case from your majesty's prerogative, nor utterly renounce our own interests: and yet that we do rather fore-judge ourselves, inasmuch as though we do not disclaim, yet we forbear to claim a right of establishing true Religion, and abolishing idolatry; as also of bringing your seducers to condign punishment. And thus far we condescend in all humility for our blessed religion's sake, that that may be liable to no aspersions, as if it had any causality in this war, and that you may receive in the better apprehension, and relish of the profession from the humble comportment of the professors. It is not in us to set an end to these broils because we have no prevalence with you to gain just satisfaction from you, but it is in you without all impediment to quiet our party, in regard that we fight not now for a well being, but a mere being: not that paganism may be subverted, but that Christianity may subsist: all our conditions are entirely in your own hands, and they speak no more but this, let us have hopes to remain safe, and you shall have assurances to remain Caesar.  
If his Grace of Armagh like not this Remonstrance, let him frame an answer to it, & in so doing he shall appear a profounder scholar, a more judicious Statesman, a more peaceable Patriot, a more godly Preacher than his last Sermon upon the 13. Rom. did show him. I am sure there is no man that lives in these days, can say I have feigned an impossible case, especially when He sees two Parliaments of two Protestant kingdoms driven to petition for their lives to a Prince that does acknowledge the truth of the Protestant Religion, and the privileges of both Parliaments: and the liberties of both kingdoms, and yet brings a third Popish kingdom against them; though traitorously besmeared in the blood of thousands of Protestants, and proclaimed against by the King himself, as the most execrable monsters of men. But perhaps our Primate will say that the Roman law of royalty did extend farther, and that the people thereby did confer to, and upon the Emperor, omne suum imperium & potestatem, and thereupon it was said, Omnia poterat imperator, and Quicquid Principi placebat Legis habebat vigorem. I take these to be no parts of the royal Law, but only several glosses, and interpretations of Jurists thereupon, yet all these extend no farther than to a perpetual dictature. For the people could confer no more on the Emperor, than what it had in itself; and no man will say, that the people had any power to destroy itself: and what end could the people have (if that Law might be said to be the people's act) in enslaving themselves, or giving away the propriety of themselves? where the Prince's pleasure is entertained for Law, it is intended that that pleasure of the Prince shall be natural, and prudential, and that it shall be first regulated by Law if not in its formalities, yet in its essentials. Grotius tells us of the Campanians how they did resign themselves, and all that they possessed in ditionem Romanorum: and he conceives, that by this resignation, they did make the Romans their proprietaries. By the favour of Grotius, I think there is stronger reason, that no Nation yet ever did voluntarily or compulsorily embrace servitude, or intend submission to it: it is more agreeable to nature and sense to expound this word ditio in a mild sense, and to suppose that the Campanians did intend to incorporate themselves with the Romans, and to live under the same government or dition, and no other; and not only reason, but the true story makes this good: and evidence of fact, the strongest of proofs puts it out of doubt, that the Campanians were not at all differenced in freedom from the Citizens of Rome themselves. In brief we may rely upon these assertions.  
First, there is no certainty of any Nations, that ever they so formally did resign themselves in Terms, as the Romans, and Campanians did here: scarce any story can parallel such particular grants of sovereignty.  
Secondly, if these be expounded mildly, and in favour of public liberty as they ought, they can create no prejudice at all to those Nations which enacted them, or any other.  
Thirdly, if they be expounded in a tortuous, unnatural sense, they are to be damned, and rejected by all people, and they remain no way vigorous, or obligatory in any country whatsoever. If the Primate have now recourse to the practice of the Christians in the first ages, and urge, that because, they used no arms but tears, and prayers when they were oppressed, we ought to do the like: we answer,  
First, The Christians till Constantine's time in probability were not equal in numbers, and forces, with the Pagans, whatsoever Tertullian might conceive.  
Secondly, if they were, they wanted other advantages of arms, commands, and other opportunities to free themselves. Aug. Caesar by forty Legions, and the strength of citadels, and other places of strength yoked and enthralled forty times as many in number as those Legions; and so did but purchase fear for fear, making himself as formidable to the people, as the people was to him.  
Thirdly, if they wanted no power, nor advantage, they might want policy to infranchise Religion, perhaps they might be tainted with Tertullian's opinion, who thought it not only unlawful to resist tyranny, but also to fly from it.  
Fourthly, History is clear, that in Constantine's days, they did adhere to him being a Christian, and fight against Licinius being a Pagan, and their enemy. And in the reign of Theodosius, such Christians as lived in Persia, and were there tyrannically and cruelly treated, did incite the Roman Emperor to undertake their defence against their own natural Lord.  
Let this be sufficient for the Roman story, and for the phanning out of our way such advantages, as the Primate, and his fellow Royalists may seem there to lay hold of in expounding this text of the 13. of Rom. to our prejudice: our method now hands us to our own Laws, and Chronicles, let us follow our Preacher thither. If St. Paul teach us that the supreme power is not to be resisted by any persons merely inferior, and subordinate: but leaves us no certain rule, whereby to discern what that supreme power is in all countries: our Preacher should do well to let us know what he utters out of his mere Text, and what he utters out of his own imagination. Barclay, Grotius, Arnisseus, all our Royalists besides are so ingenious, as to acknowledge, that a Prince in an Aristocracy, or compounded democracy is not so irresistible, as an absolute Monarch: nay in Monarchy they do acknowledge degrees also. What shall we think then of this Prelate, who without proving Caesar an absolute Monarch, or reducing England to the pattern of Rome, or stepping at all out of his Text, where neither Rome, nor England is mentioned, yet will out of his Text condemn both Rome and England, and by consequence all other States to the remediless servitude of nonresistance? The Emperor of Germany is now Caesar's successor, and not denied to be the supreme Magistrate in that country, in diverse respects: yet the Electors, and other Princes are in some respect supreme also in their several territories, and may use resistance against the Emperor in some cases. Now if our Preacher may except Germany out of his Text, why not England, unless He will appeal to something beyond his Text? and if England, why not others? and if he except, nor Germany, nor England, nor any: nor will refer himself to any other authority but his Text, which mentions no particulars: let Him enlarge his Sermon, and be a little more ingenious, and vouchsafe us some account why He is induced thus to confound all forms of government, and to recede from the judgement of all politicians. But soft, what have we to do with a mere Divine? let the Monarchy of England speak for itself, let Divinity, and Law, and Policy be admitted into this Junto, for that which is to be the subject of this consultation is to be reckoned inter agenda, and not inter credenda.  
FINIS.   

Eerata.  
Pag. 3. l. 4. r. desire them. p. 21. l. 30. r. Dramoctidas. p. 37. l. 7. dele the. p. 38. l. 3. r. commune jus vetet. p. 42. l. 1. for death r. slavery.