OR. IAIN TORRANCE 
 
 DEPT OF THEOLOGY 
 
 UNIVERSITY Of ABERDEEN 
 
 ABERDEEN AB9 2UB 
 
 SCOTLAND. U.K. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 http://archive.org/details/lexrexorlawprincOOruth 
 
LEX, REX, 
 
 THE LAW AND THE PRINCE 
 
 A DISPUTE FOR 
 
 THE JUST PREROGATIVE OF KING AND PEOPLE: 
 
 CONTAINING 
 
 THE REASONS AND CAUSES OF THE MOST NECESSARY DEFENSIVE WARS 
 OF THE KINGDOM OF SCOTLAND, 
 
 AND OF THEIR 
 
 EXPEDITION FOR THE AID AND HELP OF THEIR DEAR BRETHREN 
 OF ENGLAND; 
 
 IN WHICH THEIR INNOCENCT IS ASSERTED, AND A FULL ANSWER IS GIVEN TO A SEDITIOUS PAMPHLET, 
 ENTITULED, 
 
 " SACRO-SANCTA REGUM MAJESTAS," 
 
 THE SACRED AND ROYAL PREROGATIVE OF CHRISTIAN KINGS J 
 UNDER THE NAME OF J. A., BUT PENNED BY 
 
 JOHN MAXWELL, THE EXCOMMUNICATE POPISH PRELATE ; 
 
 WITH A SCRIPTURAL CONFUTATION OF THE RUINOUS GROUNDS OF W. BARCLAY, H. GROTIUS, H. ARNISjEUS, 
 
 ANT. DE DOMI. POPISH BISHOP OF SPALATO, AND OF OTHER LATE ANTI-MAGISTRATICAL 
 
 ROYALISTS, AS THE AUTHOR OF OSSORIANUM, DR FERNE, E. SYMMONS, 
 
 THE DOCTORS OF ABERDEEN, ETC. 
 
 IN FORTY-FOUR QUESTIONS. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. SAMUEL,. RUTHERFORD. 
 
 SOMETIME PROFESSOR OF DIV>^»Y fx T%S^ff\ERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS. 
 
 But if you shall still do wickedly, ye shall bertfonsSiWd, botll ye and your king." — I Sam. xii. 25. 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 ROBERT OGLE AND OLIVER & BOYD. 
 
 M. OGLE & SON AND WILLIAM COLLINS, GLASGOW. 
 
 D. DEWAR, PERTH. A. BROWN & CO., ABERDEEN. W. M'COMB, BELFAST. 
 
 HAMILTON, ADAMS & CO., AND JAMES NISBET & CO., LONDON. 
 
 MDCCCXLIII. 
 
[London : Printed for John Field, and are to be sold at his house upon Addle-hill, 
 near Baynards-Casth. Octob. 7, 1644.] 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 
 REPRINTED BY A. MURRAY, MILNE SQUAI 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In issuing a new edition of Lex, Rex, it has been considered advisable to print along 
 with it Buchanan's De Jure Regni apud Scotos. This work, on its first appearance, gave 
 great offence to the government of the time, as containing principles which were opposed 
 to the established monarchy; and was consequently condemned by the parliament of 
 1584. In 1664 there was a proclamation issued against any translation of it being in the 
 possession of any person. " This proclamation," says Wodrow, " is every way singular; 
 for any thing that appears, this translation of that known piece of the celebrated Bu- 
 chanan was not printed, but only, it seems, handed about in manuscript ; while, in the 
 meantime, thousands of copies of it in the Latin original were in everybody's hands. 
 It had been more just to have ordered an answer to have been formed to the solid argu- 
 ments in that dialogue against tyranny and arbitrary government." Again, in 1688, an- 
 other proclamation was published by the Council, prohibiting every person from selling, 
 dispersing, or lending such books as Buchanan's " De Jure Regni apud Scotos,' n " Lex, 
 Rex," " Jus Popidi Nciphtali," along with some others which were considered as having 
 a treasonable tendency. The same principles are advocated in Lex, Rex, that are held 
 by Buchanan : both works are equally opposed to that absolute and passive obedience 
 required from the subject to a royal prerogative. A modern writer* well remarks, " That 
 resistance to lawful authority — even when that authority so called has, in point of fact, 
 set at nought all law — is in no instance to be vindicated, will be held by those only who 
 are the devotees of arbitrary power and passive obedience. The principles of Mr Ruther- 
 ford's Lex, Rex, however obnoxious they may be to such men, arc substantially the prin- 
 ciples on which all government is founded, and without which the civil magistrate would 
 become a curse rather than a blessing to a country. They are the very principles which 
 lie at the basis of the British constitution, and by whose tenure the house of Bruns- 
 wick does at this very moment hold possession of the throne of these realms." 
 
 * ReT. Robert Burns, D.D., in his Preliminary Dissertation to Wodrow's Church History. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 Sketch of the Life of Rutherford, ..... xv. 
 
 Author's Preface, . ...... xxi. 
 
 QUESTION I. 
 
 Whether government be by a divine law, ..... 1 
 
 How government is from God.- — Civil power, in the root, immediately from God. 
 
 QUESTION II. 
 
 "Whether or no government be warranted by the law of nature, ... 1 
 
 Civil society natural in radice, in the root, voluntary in modo, in the manner. — Power of govern- 
 ment, and power of government by sncli and such magistrates, different. — Civil subjection not 
 formally from nature's laws. — Our consent to laws penal, not antecedently natural. — Government 
 by such rulers, a secondary law of nature. — Family government and politic different. — Govern- 
 ment by rulers a secondary law of nature ; family government and civil different. — Civil govern- 
 ment, by consequent, natural. 
 
 QUESTION III. 
 
 Whether royal power and definite forms of government be from God, . . 3 
 
 That kings are from God, understood in a fourfold sense. — The royal power hath warrant from 
 divine institution. — The three forms of government not different in specie and nature. — How every 
 form is from God. — How government is an ordinance of man, 1 Pet. ii. 13. 
 
 QUESTION IV. 
 
 Whether or no the king be only and immediately from God. and not from the people, 6 
 
 How the king is from God, how from the people. — Roya.1 power three ways in the people. — How 
 royal power is radically in the people. — The people maketh the king. — How any form of govern- 
 ment is from God. — How government is a human ordinance, 1 Pet. ii. 3. — The people create the 
 king. — Making a king, and choosing a king, not to be distinguished. — David not a king formally, 
 because anointed by God. 
 
 QUESTION V. 
 
 Whether or no the P. Prelate proveth that sovereignty is immediately from God, not 
 
 from the people, ........ 9 
 
 Kings made by the people, though the office, in abstracto, were immediately from God. — The people 
 have a real action, more than approbation, in making a king. — Kinging of a person ascribed to the 
 people. — Kings in a special manner are from God, but it followeth not ; therefore, not from the 
 people. — The place, Prov. viii. 15, proveth not bnt kings are made by the people. — Nebuchad- 
 nezzar, and other heathen kings, had no just title before God to the kingdom of Judah, and divers 
 other subdued kingdoms. 
 
CONTEXTS. 
 
 QUESTION VI. 
 
 Page 
 Whether or no the king be so allenarly from both, in regard of sovereignty and desig- 
 nation of his person, as he is noway from the people, but only by mere approba- 
 tion, ......... 16 
 
 The forms of government not from God by an act of naked providence, but by his approving will. 
 — Sovereignty not from the people by sole approbation.- — Though God have peculiar acts of pro- 
 vidence in creating kings, it followeth not hence that the people maketh not kings. — The P. Pre- 
 late exponeth prophecies true only of David, Solomon, and Jesus Christ, as true of profane hea- 
 then kings. — The P. Prelate maketh all the heathen kings to be princes, anointed with the holy 
 oil of saving grace. 
 
 QUESTION VII. 
 
 Whether the P. Prelate conclude that neither constitution nor designation of kings is 
 
 from the people, ........ 22 
 
 The excellency of kings maketh them not of God's only constitution and designation. — How sove- 
 reignty is in the people, how not. — A community doth not surrender their right and liberty to 
 their rulers, so much as their power active to do, and passive to suffer, violence. — God's loosing of 
 the bonds of kings, by the mediation of the people's despising him, proveth against the P. Prelate 
 that the Lord taketh away, and giveth royal majesty mediately, not immediately. — The subordina- 
 tion of people to kings and rulers, both natural and voluntary ; the subordination of beasts and 
 creatures to man merely natural. — The place, Gen. ix. 5, " He that sheddeth man's blood," &c. 
 discussed. 
 
 QUESTION VIII. 
 
 Whether or no the P. Prelate proveth, by force of reason, that the people cannot be 
 
 capable of any power of government, ..... 28 
 
 In any community there is an active and passive power to government. — Popular government is not 
 that wherein the whole people are governors. — People by nature are equally indifferent to all 
 the three governments, and are not under any one by nature. — The P. Prelate denieth the Pope 
 his father to be the antichrist. — The bad success of kings chosen by people proveth nothing 
 against us, because kings chosen by God had bad success through their own wickedness. — The 
 P° Prelate condemneth king Charl.es' ratifying (Pari. 2, an. 1611) the whole proceedings of Scot- 
 land in this present reformation>-That there be any supreme judges is an eminent act of divine 
 providence, which hindereth not but that the king is made by the people.— The people not pa- 
 tients in making a king, as is water in the sacrament of baptism, in the act of production of 
 grace. 
 
 QUESTION IX. 
 
 Whether or no sovereignty is so in and from the people, that they may resume their 
 
 power in time of extreme necessity, . ... 33 
 
 How the people is the subject of sovereignty— Xo tyrannical power is from God.— People cannct 
 alienate the natural power of self-defence.— The power of parliaments.— The Parliament hath 
 more power than the king. — Judges and kings differ.— People may resume their power, not be- 
 cause they are infallible, but because they cannot so readily destroy themselves as one man may 
 do. — That' the sanhedrim punished not David, Bathsheba, Joab, is but a fact, not a law. — There is 
 a subordination of creatures natural, government must be natural ; and yet this or that form is 
 voluntary. 
 
 QUESTION X. 
 Whether or not royal birth be equivalent to divine unction, 
 
 Impunged by eight arguments.— Royalty not transmitted from father to son.— A family may be 
 chosen to a crown as a single person is chosen, but the tie is conditional in both. — The throne, by 
 special promise, made to David and bis seed, by God, (Psal. lxxxix.,) no ground to make birth, in 
 foro Dei, a just title to the crown.— A title by conquest to a throne must be unlawful, if birth be 
 "God's lawful title.— Royalists who hold conquest to be a just title to the crown, teach manifest 
 treason against king Charles and his royal heirs.— Only, bona fortune, not honour or royalty, pro- 
 
 39 
 
Page 
 perly transmitable from father to son. — Violent conquest cannot regulate the consciences of people 
 to submit to a conqueror as their lawful king. — Naked birth is inferior to that very divine unction, 
 that made no man a king without the people's election.— If a kingdom were by birth the king might 
 sell it. — The crown is the patrimony of the kingdom, not of him who is king, or of his father. — . 
 Birth a typical designment to the crown in Israel. — The choice of a family to the crown, resolveth 
 upon the'free election of the people as on the fountain cause. — Election of a family to the crown 
 lawful. 
 
 QUESTION XI. 
 
 Whether or no he be more principally a king who is a king by birth, or he who is a 
 
 king by the free election of the people, . . . . . 45 
 
 The elective king cometh nearer to the first king. (Deut. xvii.)— If the people may limit the king, 
 they give him the power. — A community have not power formally to punish themselves. — The 
 hereditary and the elective prince in divers considerations, better or worse, each one than another. 
 
 QUESTION XII. 
 
 Whether or no a kingdom may lawfully be purchased by the sole title of conquest, 48 
 
 A Twofold right of conquest. — Conquest turned in an after-consent of the people, becometh a just 
 title. — Conquest not a signification to us of God's approving will. — Mere violent domineering con- 
 trary to the acts of governing. — Violence hath nothing in it of a king. — A bloody conqueror not 
 a blessing, per se, as a king is. — Strength as prevailing is not law or reason. — Fathers cannot dis- 
 pose of the liberty of posterity not born. — A father, as a father, hath not power of life and death. 
 Israel and David's conquests of the Canaanites, Edomites, Ammonites not lawful, because con- 
 quest, but upon a divine title of God's promise. 
 
 QUESTION XIII. 
 
 Whether or no royal dignity have its spring from nature, and how it is true " Every 
 
 man is born free," and how servitude is contrary to nature, . . 50 
 
 Seven sorts of superiority and inferiority. — Power of life and death from a positive law. — A dominion 
 antecedent and consequent. — Kings and subjects no natural order. — A man is born, conseqwnUr , 
 in politic relation. — Slavery not natural from four reasons. — Every man born free in regard of 
 civil subjection ("not in regard of natural, such as of children and wife, to parents and husband) 
 proved by seven arguments. — Politic government how necessary, how natural. — That parents 
 6hould enslave their children not natural. 
 
 QUESTION XIV. 
 
 Whether or no the people make a person their king conditionally or absolutely ; and 
 
 whether the king be tyed by any such covenant, .... 54 
 
 The king under a natural, but no civil obligation to the people, as royalists teach.— The covenant 
 civilly tyeth the king proved by Scriptures and reasons, by eight arguments.— If the condition, 
 without which one of the parties would never have entered into covenant, be not performed, that 
 party is loosed from the covenant. — The people and princes are obliged in their places for justice 
 and religion, no less than the king. — In so far as the king presseth a false religion on the people. 
 eatenus, in so far they are understood not to have a king. — The covenant giveth a mutual co-ac- ' 
 tive power to king and people to compel each other, though there be not one on earth higher than 
 both to compel each of them. — The covenant bindeth the king as king, not as he is a man onlv. — 
 One or two tyrannous acts deprive not the king of his royal right.— Though there were no posi- 
 tive written covenant (which yet we grant not) yet there is a natural, tacit, implicit covenant tying 
 the king, by the nature of his office.— If the king be made king absolutely, it is contrary to Scrip- 
 ture and the nature of his office. — The people given to the king as a pledge, not as if they became 
 his own to dispose of at his absolute will. — The king could not buy, sell, borrow, if no covenant 
 should tie him to men. — The covenant sworn by Judah (2 Chron. xv.) tyed the king. 
 
 QUESTION XV. 
 
 Whether the king be univocally, or only analogically and by proportion, a father, 62 
 
 Adam not king of'the whole earth because a father.— The king a father metaphorically and impro- 
 perly, proved by eight arguments. 
 
QUESTION XVI. 
 
 Page 
 Whether or no a despotical or masterly dominion agree to the king, because he is king, 64 
 
 The king hath no masterly dominion over the subjects as if they were his servants, proved by four 
 arguments. — The king not over men as reasonable creatures to domineer. — The king cannot give 
 away his kingdom or his people as if they were his proper goods. — A violent surrender of liberty 
 tyeth not. — A surrender of ignorance is in so far involuntarily as it oblige not. — The goods of the 
 subjects not the king's, proved by eight arguments. — All the goods of the subjects are the king's 
 in a fourfold sense. 
 
 QUESTION XVII. 
 
 Whether or no the prince have properly the fiduciary or ministerial power of a tutor, 
 
 husband, patron, minister, head, master of a family, not of a lord or dominator, 69 
 
 The king a tutor rather than a father as these are distinguished. — A free community not properly 
 and in all respects a minor and pupil. — The king's power not properly marital and husbandly. — 
 The king a patron and servant. — The royal power only from God, immediatione simplicis consti- 
 tution^, et solum solitudine causae prima;, but not immediatione applications dignitatis ad perso- 
 nam. — The king the servant of the people both objectively and subjectively. — The Lord and the 
 people by one and the same act according to the physical relation maketh the king. — The king 
 head of the people metaphorically only, not essentially, not univocally, by six arguments. — His 
 power fiduciary only. 
 
 QUESTION XVIII. 
 
 What is the law or manner of the king (1 Sam. viii. 9, 11) discussed fully, . 72 
 
 The power and the office badly differenced by Barclay. — What is ^l^^pl IlDJi^Q the manner of 
 the king, by the harmony of interpreters, ancient and modern, 'piotestants and papists. — Crying 
 out (1 Sam. viii.) not necessarily a remedy of tyranny, nor a praying with faith and patience.— Re- 
 sisting of kings that are tyrannous, and patience, not inconsistent. — The law of the king not a per- 
 missive law, as was the law of divorcement. — The law of the king (1 Sam. xii. 23, 24) not a law of 
 tyranny. 
 
 QUESTION XIX. 
 
 Whether or no the king be in dignity and power above the people, . . 77 
 
 In what consideration the king is above the people, and the people above the king. — A mean, as a 
 mean, iuferior to the end, how it is true — The king inferior to the people. — The church, because J 
 the church, is of more excellency than the king, because king. — The people being those to whom 
 the king is given, worthier than the gift. — And the people immortal, the king mortal. — The king 
 a mean only.not both the efficient, or author of the kingdom, and a mean ; two necessary distinc- 
 tions of a mean. — If sin had never been, there should have been no king. — The king is to give his 
 life for his people. — The consistent cause more excellent than the effect — The people than the 
 king. — Impossible people can limit royal power, but they must give royal power also. — The peo- 
 ple have an action in making a king, proved by four arguments. — Though it were granted that 
 God immediately made kings, yet it is no consequent, God only, and not the people, can unmake 
 him. — The people appointing a king over themselves, retain the fountain-power of making a king. 
 — The mean inferior to the end, and the king, as a king, is a mean. — The king, as a mean, and 
 also as a man, inferior to the people. — To swear non-self-preservation, and to swear self-murder, 
 all one. — The people cannot make away their power, 1. Their whole power, nor 2. Irrevocably to 
 the king. — The people may resume the power they give to the commissioners of parliament, when 
 it is abused. — The tables in Scotland lawful, when the ordinary judicatures are corrupt. — Quod 
 efficit tale id ipsum magis talc discussed, the fountain-power in the people derived only in the king. 
 — The king is a fiduciary, a life-renter, not a lord or heritor. — How sovereignty is in the people. 
 — Power of life and death, how in a community. — A community void of rulers, is yet, and may 
 be a politic body. — Judges gods analogically. 
 
 QUESTION XX. 
 
 Whether inferior judges be essentially the immediate vicegerents of God, as kings, not 
 
 differing in essence and nature from kings, .... 88 
 
 Inferior judges the immediate vicars of God, no less than the king.— -The consciences of inferior 
 judges, immediately subordinate to God, not to the king, either mediately or immediately. — How 
 
Page 
 the inferior judge is the deputy of the king. — He may put to death murderers, as having God's 
 sword committed to him, no less than the king, even though the king command the contrary; for 
 he is not to execute judgment, and to relieve the oppressed conditionally, if a mortal king give 
 him leave ; but whether the king will or no, he is to obey the King of kings. — Inferior judges are 
 ministri regni, non ministri regis. — The king doth not make judges as he is a man, by an act of 
 private good-will ; but as he is a king by an act of royal justice, and by a power that he hath from 
 the people, who made himself a supreme judge.— The king's making inferior judges hindereth 
 not, but they are as essentially judges as the king who maketh them, not by fountain-power, but 
 power borrowed from the people. — The judges in Israel and the kings differ not essentially. Aris- 
 tocracy as natural as monarchy, and as warrantable. — Inferior judges depend some way on the 
 king in fieri, but not in facto esse. — The parliament not judges by derivation from the king. — The 
 king cannot make or unmake judges. — No heritable judges. — Inferior judges more necessary than 
 a king. 
 
 QUESTION XXI. 
 
 What power the people and states of parliament hath over the king and in the state, 95 
 
 The elders appointed by God to be judges. — Parliaments may convene and judge without the king. 
 — Parliaments are essentially judges, and so their consciences neither dependeth on the king, 
 quoad specificationem, that is, that they should give out this sentence, not that, nee quoad exerci- 
 tium, that they should not in the morning execute judgment.— Unjust judging, and no judging at 
 all, are sins in the states. — The parliament co-ordinate judges with the king, not advisers only ; by 
 eleven arguments. — Inferior judges not the king's messengers or legates, but public governors. — 
 The Jews' monarchy mixed.— A power executive of laws more in the king, a power legislative 
 more in the parliament. 
 
 QUESTION XXII. 
 
 Whether the power of the king, as king, be absolute, or dependent and limited by 
 
 God's first mould and pattern of a king, ..... 99 
 
 The royalists make the king as absolute as the great Turk. — The king not absolute in his power, 
 proved by nine arguments. — Why the king is a living law. — Power to do ill not from God. — Roy- 
 alists say power to do ill is not from God, but power to do ill, as punishable by man, is from God. 
 — A king, actu primo, is a plague, and the people slaves, if the king, by God's institution, be abso- 
 lute. — Absoluteness of royalty against justice, peace, reason, and law.— Against the king's relation 
 of a brother. — A damsel forced may resist the king. — The goodness of an absolute prince hinder- 
 eth not but he is actu primo a tyrant. 
 
 QUESTION XXIII. 
 
 Whether the king hath a prerogative royal above law, . . . 106 
 
 Prerogative taken two ways.— Prerogative above laws a garland proper to infinite majesty. — A three- 
 fold dispensation, 1. Of power ; 2. Of justice; 3. Of grace. — Acts of mere grace may be acts of 
 blood. — An oath to the king of Babylon tyed not the people of Judah to all that absolute power 
 could command.— The absolute prince is as absolute in acts of cruelty, as in acts of grace. — Ser- 
 vants are not (1 Pet. ii. 18, 19) interdicted of self-defence. — The parliament materially only, not 
 formally, hath the king for their lord. — Reason not a sufficient restraint to keep a prince from 
 acts of tyranny. — Princes have sufficient power to do good, though they have not absolute to do 
 evil. — A power to shed innocent blood can be no part of any royal power given of God. — The 
 king, because he is a public person, wanteth many privileges that subjects have. 
 
 QUESTION XXIV. 
 
 What relation the king hath to the law, . . . . . 113 
 
 Human laws considered as reasonable, or as penal. — The king alone hath not a nemothetic power. — 
 Whether the king be above parliaments as their judge. — Subordination of the kiug to the parlia- 
 ment and co-ordination both consistent. — Each one of the three governments hath somewhat from 
 each other, and they cannot any one of them be in its prevalency conveniently without the mix- 
 ture of the other two. — The king as a king cannot err, as he erreth in so far, he is not the remedy 
 of oppression intended by God and nature. — In the court of necessity the people may judge the 
 king. — Human laws not so obscure as tyranny is visible and discernible. — It is more reqnisite 
 that the whole people, church, and religion be secured than one man. — If there be any restraint 
 by law on the king it must be physical, for a moral restraint is upon all men. — To swear to an ab- 
 solute prince as absolute, is an oath eatenus, in so far unlawful, and not obligatory. • 
 
 b 
 
QUESTION XXV. 
 
 Page 
 Whether the supreme law, the safety of the people, be above the king, . 119 
 
 The safety of the people to be preferred to the king, for the king is not to seek himself, but the 
 good of the people.— Royalists make no kings but tyrants.— How the safety of the king is the 
 safety of the people.— A king, for the safety 'of the people, may break through the letter and 
 paper of the law. — The king's prerogative above law and reason, not comparable to the blood that 
 has been shed in Ireland and England. — The power of dictators prove not a prerogative above law. 
 
 QUESTION XXVI. 
 
 Whether the king be above the law, . . . . . .125 
 
 The law above the king in fonr things, 1. in constitution ; 2. direction ; 3. limitation ; 4. co-action.— 
 In what sense the king may do all things. — The king under the morality of laws ; under funda- 
 mental laws, not under punishment to be inflicted by himself, nor because of the eminency of his 
 place, but for the physical incongruity thereof. — If, and how, the king may punish himself. — That 
 the king transgressing in a heinous manner, is under the co-action of law, proved by seven argu- 
 ments. — The coronation of a king, who is supposed to be a just prince, yet proveth after a tyrant, 
 is conditional and from ignorance, and so involuntary, and in so far not obligatory in law. — Roy- 
 alists confess a tyrant in exercise may be dethroned. — How the people is the scat of the power 
 of sovereignty.— The place, Psal. li., " Against thee only have I sinned," &c. discussed. — Israel's 
 not rising in arms against Pharaoh examined. — And Judah's not working their own deliver- 
 ance under Cyrus.— A covenant without the king's concurrence lawful. 
 
 QUESTION XXVII. 
 
 Whether or no the king be the sole, supreme, and final interpreter of the law, . 136 
 
 He is not the supreme and peremptory interpreter.— Nor is his will the sense of the law.— Nor is 
 he the sole and only judicial interpreter of the law. 
 
 QUESTION XXVIII. 
 
 Whether or no wars raised by the estates and subjects for their own just defence 
 
 against the king's bloody emissaries be lawful, . . . .139 
 
 The state of the question. — If kings be absolute, a superior judge may punish an inferior judge, not 
 as a judge but an erring man. — By divine institution all covenants to restrain their power must be 
 unlawful. — Resistance in some cases lawful. — Six arguments for the lawfulness of defensive wars. 
 —Many others follow. 
 
 QUESTION XXIX. 
 
 Whether, in the case of defensive wars, the distinction of the person of the king as a 
 man, who may and can commit hostile acts of tyranny against his subjects, and of 
 the office and royal power that he hath from God and the people, can have place, 143 
 
 The king's person in concrete, and his office in abstract*), or, which is all one, the king using his 
 power lawfully to be distinguished (Rom. xiii). — To command unjustly maketh not a higher power. 
 ■ — The person may be resisted and yet the office cannot be resisted, proved by fourteen argu- 
 ments. — Contrary objections of royalists and of the P. Prelate answered. — What we mean by the 
 person and office in abstracto in this dispute ; we do not exclude the person in concrete altogether, 
 but only the person as abusing his power ; we may kill a person as a man, and love him as a son, 
 father, wife, according to Scripture. — We obey the king for the law, and not the law for the king. 
 — The losing of habitual and actual royalty different.— John xix. 10, Pilate's power of crucifying 
 Christ no law-power given to him of God, is proved against royalists, by six arguments. 
 
 QUESTION XXX. 
 
 Whether or no passive obedience be a mean to which we are subjected in conscience by 
 virtue of a divine commandment ; and what a mean resistance is. That flying is 
 resistance, ......... 152 
 
 The place, 1 Pet. ii. 18, discussed. — Patient bearing of injuries and resistance of injuries compatible 
 in one and the same subject. — Christ's non-resistance hath many things rare and extraordinary, 
 
Page 
 and is no leading rule to us. — Suffering is either commanded to us comparatively only, that we 
 rather choose to suffer than deny the truth ; or the manner only is commanded, that we suffer 
 with patience. — The physical act of taking away the life, or of offending -when commanded by the 
 law of self-defence, is no murder. — We have a greater dominion over goods and nrembers, (except 
 in case of mutilation, which is a little death,) than over our life. — To kill is no* of the nature 
 of self-defence, but accidental thereunto.— Defensive war cannot be without offending.— The na- 
 ture of defensive and offensive wars. — Flying is resistance. 
 
 QUESTION XXXI. 
 
 Whether self-defence, by opposing violence to unjust violence, be lawful, by the law of 
 
 God and nature, ........ 159 
 
 Self-defence in man natural, but modus, the way, must be rational and just. — The method of self- 
 defence. — Violent re-offending in self-defence the last remedy. — It is physically impossible for a 
 nation to fly in the case of persecution for religion, and so they may resist in their own self-de- 
 fence. — Tutela vitce proximo, and remota. — In a remote posture of self-defence, we are not to take 
 us to re-offending, as David was not to kill Saul when he was sleeping, or in the cave, for the 
 same cause. — David would not kill Saul because he was the Lord's anointed. — The king not lord 
 of chastity, name, conscience, and so may be resisted. — By universal and particular nature, self- 
 defence lawful, proved by divers arguments. — And made good by the testimony of jurists. — The 
 love of ourselves, the measure of the love of our neighbours, and enforceth self-defence. — Nature 
 maketh a private man his own judge and magistrate, when the magistyate is absent, and violence 
 is offered to his life, as the law saith. — Self-defence, how lawful it is.v-What presumption is from 
 the king's carriage to the two kingdoms, are in law sufficient grounds of defensive wars. — Offen- 
 sive and defensive wars differ in the event and intentions of men, but not in nature and specie, 
 nor physically. — David's case in not killing Saul nor his men, no rule to us, not in our lawful de- 
 fence, to kill the king's emissaries, the cases far different. 
 
 QUESTION XXXII. 
 
 Whether or no the lawfulness of defensive wars can be proved from the Scripture, 
 from the examples of David, the people's rescuing Jonathan, Elisha, and the 
 eighty valiant priests who resisted Uzziah, . . . . .166 
 
 David warrantably raised an army of men to defend himself against the unjust violence of his prince 
 Saul. — David's not invading Saul and his men, who did not aim at arbitrary government, at sub- 
 version of laws, religion, and extirpation of those that worshipped the God of Israel and opposed 
 idolatry, but on!y pursuing one single person, far unlike to our case in Scotland and England 
 now. — David's example not extraordinary. — Elisha's resistance proveth defensive wars to be war- 
 rantable. — Resistance made to king Uzziah by eighty valiant priests proveth the same. — The peo- 
 ple's rescuing Jonathan proveth the same. — Libnah's revolt proveth this. — The city of Abel de- 
 fended themselves against Joab, king David's general, when he came to destroy a city for one 
 wicked conspirator, Sheba's sake. 
 
 QUESTION XXXIII. 
 
 Whether or no Rom. xiii. 1 make any thing against the lawfulness of defensive wars, 172 
 The king not only understood, Rom. xiii. — And the place, Rom. xiii., discussed. 
 
 QUESTION XXXIV, 
 
 Whether royalists prove, by cogent reasons, the unlawfulness of defensive wars, 175 
 
 Objections of royalists answered.— The place, Exod. xxii. 28, " Thou shalt not revile the gods," &c. 
 answered. — And Eccles. x. 20. — The place, Eccles. viii. 3, 4, " Where the word of a king is," &c. 
 answered.— The place, Job. xxxiv. 18, answered.— And Acts xxiii. 3, " God shall smite thee, fhou 
 whited wall," &c. — The emperors in Paul's time not absolute by their law. — That objection, that 
 we have no practice for defensive resistance, and that the prophets never complain of the omis- 
 sion of the resistance of princes, answered. — The prophets cry against the sin of non-resistance, 
 when they cry against the judges, because they execute not judgment for the oppressed. — Judah's 
 subjection to Nebuchadnezzar, a conquering tyrant, no warrant to us to subject ourselves to ty- 
 rannous acts. — Christ's subjection to Caesar nothing against defensive wars. 
 
QUESTION XXXV. 
 
 Page 
 
 "Whether the sufferings of the martyrs in the primitive church militant be against the 
 
 lawfulness of defensive wars, . . . . . .182 
 
 Tertullian neither ours nor theirs in the question of defensive wars. 
 
 QUESTION XXXVI. 
 
 "Whether the king have the power of war only, . . . . .184 
 
 Inferior judges have the power of the sword no less than the king. — The people tyed to acts of cha- 
 rity, and to defend themselves, the church, and their posterity against a foreign enemy, though 
 the king forbid. — Flying unlawful to the states of Scotland and England now, God's "law tying 
 them to defend their country. — Parliamentary power a fountain-power above the king. 
 
 QUESTION XXXVII. 
 
 "Whether the estates of Scotland are to help their brethren, the protestants of England, 
 
 against cavaliers, proved by argument 13, . . . . .187 
 
 Helping of neighbour nations lawful, divers opinions concerning the point. — The law of Egypt 
 against those that helped not the oppressed. 
 
 QUESTION XXXVIII. 
 
 "Whether monarchy be the best of governments, . . . .190 
 
 Whether monarchy be the best of governments hath divers considerations, in which each one may 
 be less or more convenient. — Absolute monarchy is the worst of governments. Better want 
 power to, do ill as have it. — A mixture sweetest of all governments — Neither king nor parliament 
 have a voice against law and reason. 
 
 QUESTION XXXIX. 
 
 "Whether or no any prerogative at all above the law be due to the king. Or if jura 
 
 majestatis be any such prerogative, . . . . . .193 
 
 A threefold supreme power. — "What be jura regalia. — Kings confer not honours from their pleni- 
 tude of absolute power, but according to the strait line and rule of law, justice, and good observ- 
 ing. — The law of the king, 1 Sam. viii. 9, 11.— Difference of kings and judges. — The law of the 
 king, (1 Sam. viii. 9, 11,) no permissive law, such as the law of divorce. — What dominion the king 
 hath over the goods of the subjects. 
 
 QUESTION XL. 
 
 Whether or no the people have any power over the king, either by his oath, covenant, 
 
 or any other way, ........ 198 
 
 The people have power over the king by reason of his covenant and promise. — Covenants and pro- 
 mises violated, infer co-action, dejure, by law, though not de facto.— Mutual punishments may be 
 where there is no relation of superiority and inferiority. — Three covenants made by Arnisaeus. — 
 The king not king while he swear the oath and be accepted as king by the people. — The oath of the 
 kings of France. — Hugo Grotius setteth down seven cases in which the people may accuse, punish, 
 or dethrone the king. — The prince a noble vassal of the kingdom upon four grounds. — The cove- 
 nant had an oath annexed to it. — The prince is but a private man in a contract. — How the royal 
 power is immediately from God, and yet conferred upon the king by the people. 
 
 QUESTION XLI. 
 
 Whether doth the P. Prelate with reason ascribe to us doctrine of Jesuits in the 
 
 question of lawful defence, ....... 204 
 
 The sovereignty is originally and radically in the people, as in the fountain, was taught by fathers, 
 ancient doctors, sound divines, lawyers, before there was a Jesuit or a prelate whelped, in rcrum 
 
Page 
 natura. — The P. Prelate holdeth the Pope to be the vicar of Christ. — Jesuits' tenets concerning 
 kings.— The king not the people's deputy by our doctrine, it is only the calumny of the P. Pre- ■ 
 late. — The P. Prelate will have power to act the bloodiest tyrannies on earth upon the church of 
 Christ, the essential power of a king. 
 
 QUESTION XLII. 
 
 Whether all Christian kings are dependent from Christ, and may be called his vice- 
 gerents, ......... 210 
 
 Why God, as God, hath a man a vicegerent under him, but not as mediator. — The king not headof the 
 church. — The king a sub-mediator, and an nnder-redeemer, and a sub-priest to offer sacrifices to 
 God for us if he be a vicegerent. — The king no mixed person. — Prelates deny kings to be subject 
 to the gospel. — By no prerogative royal may the king prescribe religious observances and human 
 ceremonies in God's worship. — The P. Prelate giveth to the king a power arbitrary, supreme, and 
 independent, to govern the church. — Reciprocation of subjections of the king to the church, and of 
 the church to the king, in divers kinds, to wit, of ecclesiastical and civil subjection, are no more 
 absurd than for Aaron's priest to teach, instruct and rebuke Moses, if he turn a tyrannous Achab, 
 and Moses to punish Aaron if he turn an obstinate idolator. 
 
 QUESTION XLIII. 
 
 Whether the king of Scotland be an absolute prince, having a prerogative above laws 
 
 and parliaments, . . . . . . . .216 
 
 The king of Scotland subject to parliaments by the fundamental laws, acts, and constant practices 
 of parliaments, ancient and late in Scotland. — The king of Scotland's oath at his coronation. — A 
 pretended absolute power given to James VI. upon respect of personal endowments, no ground of 
 absoluteness to the king of Scotland. — By laws and constant practices the kings of Scotland sub- 
 ject to laws and parliaments, proved by the fundamental law of elective princes, and out of the 
 most partial historians, and our acts of parliament of Scotland. — Coronation oath. — And again at 
 the coronation of James VI. that oath sworn ; and again, 1 Pari. James VI. ibid and seq. — How 
 the king is supreme judge in all causes. — The power of the parliaments of Scotland. — The Confes- 
 sion of the faith of the church of Scotland, authorised by divers acts of parliament, doth evi- 
 dently hold forth to all the reformed churches the lawfulness of defensive wars, when the supreme 
 magistrate is misled by wicked counsel. — The same proved from the confessions of faith in other 
 reformed churches.— The place, Rom. xiii., exponed in our Confession of faith. — The confession, 
 not only Saxonic, exhibited to the Council of Trent, but also of Helvetia, France, England, Bohe- 
 mia, prove the same. — William Laud and other prelates, enemies to parliaments, to states, and to 
 the fundamental laws of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland. — The parliament 
 of Scotland doth regulate, limit, and set bounds to the king's power. — Fergus the first king not a 
 conqueror. — The king of Scotland below parliaments, considerable by them, hath no negative 
 voice. 
 
 QUESTION XLIV. 
 
 General results of the former doctrine in some few corollaries, in twenty-two ques- 
 tions, ......... 227 
 
 Concerning monarchy, compared with other forms— How royalty is an issue of nature.— And how 
 magistrates, as magistrates, be natural. — How absoluteness is not a ray of God's majesty. — And 
 resistance not unlawful, because Christ and his apostles used it not in some cases. — Coronation is 
 no ceremony. — Men may limit the power that they gave not. — The commonwealth not a pupil or 
 minor properly. — Subjects not more obnoxious to a king than clients, vassals, children, to their 
 superiors.— If subjection passive be natural. — Whether king Uzziah was dethroned.— Idiots and 
 children not complete kings, children are kings in destination only. — Denial of passive subjection 
 in things unlawful, not dishonourable to the king, more than denial of active obedience in the 
 same things. — The king may not make away or sell any part of his dominions. — People may in 
 some cases convene without the king. — How, and in what meaning subjects are to pay the king's 
 debts. — Subsidies the kingdom's due, rather than the king's. — How the seas, ports, forts, castles, 
 militia, magazine, are the king's, and how they are the kingdom's. 
 
SKETCH OF THE LIFE 
 
 SAMUEL RUTHERFORD. 
 
 The more prominent features of a man's public life are generally characterised by the 
 spirit of the times in which he lived. If the period has been peaceful and undisturbed 
 by party controversy and the disputes of opposing factions, then all flows smoothly and 
 quietly on ; the minds of the people repose unharassed and unexcited by public conten- 
 tions and quarrels ; there is opportunity for the cultivation of the useful arts ; a taste is 
 displayed in the pursuit of learning and literature, and improvements and discoveries, in 
 every branch of science and art, advance with rapid strides. Such a state of things men 
 of civilized nations in general desire. Yet a period like this, when there has been " peace 
 in the land," looked back upon from a succeeding age, or read as a chapter of history, ap- 
 pears tame and monotonous. There is nothing to arouse the attention or awaken the 
 feelings, when the only record we have of a man is, that he lived, died, and was buried. 
 But it is otherwise when the times have been the scene of anarchy, civil war, or persecu- 
 tion. Then the calmness and repose of the community is broken up ; men are excited 
 and roused by the spirit-stirring events that are passing around them ; each must take 
 their side ; — it is then that their characters are drawn out and shown in a true light : the 
 weak, the timid and undecided, keep the back ground, while men of courage and daring 
 stand forward in bold relief. 
 
 There has been in the history of mankind, in all ages, two great contending principles 
 at issue — the contest of error against truth, and the struggle of truth with error. On the 
 one side — error, with the violence of oppression, doing all that persecution can accomplish, 
 in endeavouring to exterminate virtue from the moral universe ; and on the other — truth, 
 with noble courage and exalted firmness, maintaining the purity of her principles in oppo- 
 sition to ignorance and persecution. For upwards of four thousand years she has grap- 
 pled with superstition, idolatry, and bigotry, and, with moral weapons, she has vindicated 
 the justice of her principles, which her enemies have found easier to answer with the sword 
 than by argument. In every age error has had the majority, for truth has had few fol- 
 lowers ; but, in the end, she has been triumphant even at the stake, or on the scaffold. 
 Yet the faggot will burn with a fiercer flame, and the guillotine will be deeper dyed with 
 the martyr's blood than it has ever yet been, ere the world assent to the truth of her doc- 
 trines. On looking back, and reviewing the civil and religious history of our own land, 
 we obsei-ve the mighty contest between Popery and the Reformed Doctrine — we see the 
 fearful conflict of right and wrong — and we see truth, with a gigantic effort, burst the fet- 
 ters which had so long held the people in mental bondage and ignorance. Again, we ob- 
 serve the struggles between Presbytery and Episcopacy, during most of the latter half of 
 the seventeenth century ; one party urged on by a spirit of opposition and bigotry, to 
 trample on the religious rights and privileges of the people, and doing all in their power 
 to bring them again under the iron sway of the Church of Rome ; the other, with moral 
 
XVI SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 
 
 courage and firmness, standing boldly forward, in the front of persecution, tyranny, and 
 oppression, for the cause and promotion of true religion ; and. from the martyrdom of 
 Hamilton, Scotland's first martyr, many a noble spirit has been immolated and set free, 
 for the cause, and at the shrine of Truth ; — 
 
 " Yet few remember them. They lived unknown 
 Till persecution dragg'd them into fame, 
 And chased them up to heaven." 
 
 Samuel Rutherford was born in the parish of Nisbet, in Roxburghshire, in the year 
 1600. Of the sphere in life occupied by his parents, we have no means of correctly ascer- 
 taining. He is mentioned by Reid " to have been born of respectable parents,"* and Wod- 
 row states that he came of " mean, but honest parents." It is probable, however, that his 
 father was engaged in agricultural pursuits ; at all events, he must have held a respectable 
 rank in society, as he otherwise could not have given his son so superior an education. At 
 an early period of his life he discovered a precocious talent, and his parents consequently 
 destined him for the ministry. 
 
 In 1617 he was sent to Edinburgh, and entered the University as a student, where he 
 appears to have excelled in the studies in which he was engaged, for, in four years, he 
 took his degree of Master of Arts; and in 1623, after a severe contest with three compe- 
 titors, he was elected one of the Regents of the College. The acquirements he displayed 
 at this early period were justly appreciated by his contemporaries. We are told that 
 " the whole Regents, out of their particular knowledge of Mr Samuel Rutherford, demon- 
 strated to them [the Judges] his eminent abilities of mind and virtuous dispositions, 
 wherewith the Judges, being satisfied, declared him successor in the Professor of Humani- 
 ty."! He, however, only acted in the capacity of Regent about two years, and, on leaving 
 his charge, he devoted himself to the study of Theology, under Mr Andrew Ramsay. 
 
 The Church of Scotland was at this period almost entirely under the jurisdiction of 
 Episcopal bishops. The establishment of Episcopacy had been gradually going on since 
 the accession of James to the throne of England, who lent all his aid and authority to the 
 furtherance of that end. The Presbyterians who would not conform to the discipline of 
 church government which had been obtruded upon them, were cruelly oppressed. Many 
 were imprisoned, and their goods confiscated ; others were banished from their native 
 land ; and not a few were dragged to the scaffold or the stake. At the death of King 
 James, in 1625, his son Charles succeeded to the throne, and the people hoped that their 
 grievances would now be listened to, and their wrongs redressed ; but they were disap- 
 pointed. " The father's madness," says Stevenson, " laid the foundation for his succes- 
 sor's woes, and the son exactly followed the father's steps." J James held the principles 
 of a royal prerogative, and required absolute and implicit obedience in too strict a manner. 
 These he instilled into the mind of his son, and was, unhappily, too successful ; for, on 
 Charles' succession, he carried out the same principles to a most intolerant degree, which 
 was the cause of so much anarchy and confusion in the nation, and entailed upon himself 
 those misfortunes which rendered his reign so unhappy, and his end so miserable. 
 
 In 1627, Rutherford was licensed as a preacher of the Gospel, and through the influ- 
 ence of John Gordon of Kenmure, (afterwards Viscount Kenmure,) appointed to a church 
 in the parish of Anwoth, in Kirkcudbright. There is sufficient authority to show that he 
 was not inducted by Episcopal ordination. Being firmly attached to the Presbyterian 
 form of Government from his youth, he manifested great dislike to Prelacy, and could 
 never be induced to stoop to the authority of the bishops, which, at that time, was a very 
 difficult matter to evade. We are told by Stevenson, that " until the beginning of the 
 year 1628, some few preachers, by influence, were suffered to enter the ministry without 
 conformity, and in this number we suppose Mr Rutherford may be reckoned, because 
 he was ordained before the doors came to be more closely shut upon honest preachei'S." 
 Other authorities might be quoted to the same effect. Here he discharged the duties of 
 
 * Lives of the Westminster Divines. t Crawford's History of the University, 
 
 i Stevenson's Church Historv, Vol. I. 
 
SAMUEL KUTHERFORD. XVI 
 
 his sacred calling with great diligence ; and, no doubt, with success. He was accustomed 
 to rise so early as three o'clock in the morning, and devoted his whole time to the spiri- 
 tual wants of his flock and his own private religious duties. His labours were not confined 
 to his own parishioners, many persons resorted to him from surrounding parishes. " He 
 was," says Livingston, " a great strengthener of all the Christians in that country, who 
 had been the fruits of the ministry of Mr John Welsh, the time he had been at Kirkcud- 
 bright." 
 
 In 1630, Rutherford experienced a severe affliction by the death of his wife, after a 
 painful and protracted illness of thirteen months, scarcely five years after their marriage. 
 Her death seems to have been the source of much sorrow to him, as he frequently takes 
 notice of it in his letters with much feeling, long after his painful bereavement. To add 
 to his distress, he was himself afflicted with a fever, which lasted upwards of three months, 
 by which he was so much reduced, that it was long ere he was able to perform his sacred 
 duties. 
 
 John Gordon, Viscount Kenmure, who had long been the friend and patron of Ruther- 
 ford, for whom he entertained the greatest respect and esteem, was in August 1634, seized 
 with a disease which caused his death on September following, to the deep sorrow of 
 Rutherford, who was with him at his last moments. Kenmure was a nobleman of an 
 amiable and pious disposition ; and, as may be supposed, experienced much pleasure in 
 his intercourse with Rutherford. To Lady Kenmure, Rutherford wrote many of his 
 famous " Letters." 
 
 About this time, the doctrines of Arminius began to spread to an alarming extent 
 amongst the Episcopalians. His tenets were espoused by Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 and also by many of the Scottish prelates, headed by Maxwell, Rishop of Ross, as those 
 only who held the same principles had any chance of preferment in the Church. Ruther- 
 ford viewed the promulgation of these dangerous tenets with great anxiety, and did all in 
 his power to controvert and oppose them. In 1636, appeared his learned treatise, en- 
 titled, " Excrcitationes Apologetics fro Divina Gratia" which was dedicated to Vis- 
 count Kenmure, but was not published till eighteen months after his death. This work 
 gave great offence to the government : he was in consequence summoned to appear before 
 a High Commission Court, which had been constituted by Thomas Sydserff, Rishop of 
 Galloway, a man of Arminian principles, which met at Wigton in June (1636), and there 
 deprived of his office. Sydserff, who had imbibed an inveterate hatred against him, was 
 not satisfied with this, but had him again summoned before the High Commission Court at 
 Edinburgh, which met in July following, and he was there accused " of non-conformity, 
 for preaching against the Perth Articles, and for writing a book, entitled, Exercitationes 
 Apologiticce pro Divina Gratia, which they alleged did reflect upon the Church of Scot- 
 land ; but the truth was, the arguments in that book did cut the sinews of Arminianism, 
 and galled the Episcopal clergy to the quick, and therefore Rishop Lydserff could no 
 longer abide him." Here many other false, frivolous, and extravagant charges were 
 brought against him, but being firm in his innocence, he repelled them all. Lord Lorn 
 (brother to Lady Kenmure), and many others, endeavoured to befriend him ; but such was 
 the malevolence of Sydserff, that he swore an oath, if they did not agree to his wishes, he 
 would write to the king. After three days' trial, sentence was passed upon him, that he 
 be deprived of his pastoral office, and discharged from preaching in any part of Scotland , 
 under pain of rebellion, and to be confined before the 20th of August 1636, within the 
 town of Aberdeen during the king's pleasure. This sentence he obeyed, but severe and 
 unjust as it was, it did not discourage him, for in one of his letters, he says, " I go to my 
 king's palace at Aberdeen ; tongue, pen, nor wit, cannot express my joy." 
 
 During his confinement in Aberdeen, he wrote many of his well-known " Letters," 
 which have been so popular. Indeed, there are few cottage libraries in Scotland in which 
 they do not find a place among the scanty but select collection. Episcopacy and Arminian- 
 ism at this time held the sole sway in Aberdeen, and it was with no gracious feeling that 
 the learned doctors beheld the arrival of Rutherford. They had all imbibed the principles 
 of their great patron, Laud, and manifested great hostility to Presbyterianism, which was 
 the principal cause of his being sent to that town. He met at first with a cold reception, 
 and his opponents did all in their power to operate on the minds of the people against him. 
 
KV111 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 
 
 He says himself, that " the people thought him a strange man, and his cause not good." 
 His innocency, however, and the truth of his cause, began at last to be known, and his 
 popularity was spreading daily ; — which so much alarmed the doctors, that they wished he 
 might be banished from the kingdom. They entered into several disputations with him, 
 but he appears to have proved himself a match for them. " I am here troubled," says he, 
 " with the disputes of the great doctors, (especially with Dr Barron, on ceremonial and 
 Arminian controversies — for all are corrupt here,) but, I thank God, with no detriment to 
 the truth, or discredit to my profession." 
 
 About this period, great confusion and commotion reigned in Scotland. It had long 
 been the wish of King Charles to introduce the Church of England Service-book and 
 Canons into the worship of the Presbyterians of Scotland. He accordingly, in April 1636, 
 with ill-judged policy, commenced arrangements for its accomplishment, and gave com- 
 mands to Archbishop Laud, Bishops Juxon and Wren, to compile a liturgy for the special 
 use of the Church of Scotland. Consequently, one was soon framed, which was nearly similar 
 to that used in the Church of England, excepting a few alterations ; and, wherever these 
 occurred, the language was almost synonimous with the Roman Missal. In 1637, a pro- 
 clamation was issued, commanding the people's strict observance of this new form of 
 worship, and a day was accordingly fixed for its introduction into Edinburgh, — on which 
 it was presumed that compliance would follow throughout all the land. The feelings of 
 the people, as may be supposed, were roused to a high pitch ; — they stood boldly forward in 
 opposition to such a tyrannical encroachment on their religious liberty, and manifested 
 such a firm and determined spirit of resistance, that Charles soon began to see, when too 
 late, that he had drawn the reing too tight. They would accept of no measure short 
 of an entirely free and unfettered Presbyterian form of worship, and a chain of events 
 followed which led to a renewal of the National Covenant and the abolition of 
 Episcopacy. 
 
 During these tumults, Rutherford ventured to leave the place of his confinement in 
 Aberdeen, and returned to his parishioners in Anwoth about February 1638, after an 
 absence of more than eighteen months. They did not, however, long enjoy his ministra- 
 tions, as we find him, in the same year, actively engaged in Glasgow in forwarding the 
 great covenanted work of reformation. Rutherford was deputed one of the commissioners 
 from the Presbytery of Kirkcudbright to the famous General Assembly of 1638, which was 
 convened at Glasgow on the 21st of November. He was called upon to give an account of 
 the accusations which had been preferred against him by the high commission court. 
 After deliberation, a sentence was passed in his favour, and he, along with some others who 
 were in the same circumstances, were recognised as members of the Assembly. Soon 
 after this, an application was made to the Assembly's commission to have him trans- 
 ferred to Glasgow, and another by the University of St. Andrews, that he might be elected 
 professor of divinity in the New College there. The commission appointed him to the 
 professorship in St. Andrews, as his learning and talents fully qualified him for that 
 important situation. He manifested, however, great reluctance to leave Anwoth, and 
 pleaded, in a petition, his " bodily weakness and mental incapacity." There were several 
 other petitions presented from the county of Galloway against his leaving Anwoth, but to 
 no effect; the Court sustained his appointment. In October 1639, he removed to the 
 scene of his future labours, and was appointed colleague to Mr Robert Blair, one of the 
 ministers of St. Andrews. 
 
 Rutherford was nominated one of the commissioners to the General Assembly of divines 
 held at Westminster in 1643. His colleagues were — Alexander Henderson, Robert 
 Baillie, George Gillespie, and Robert Douglas, ministers ; — the Earl of Cassilis, Lord 
 Maitland, (afterwards Duke of Lauderdale,) and Sir Archibald Johnston, of Warriston, 
 ciders. He took a prominent part in all the discussions in that famous council, and pub- 
 lished several works of a controversial and practical nature. About this time, he wrote 
 Lis celebrated work entitled Lex Rex, in answer to a treatise by John Maxwell, the 
 excommunicated Bishop of Ross, entitled " Sacro-Sancta Begum 31ajestas ) or the sacred 
 and royal prerogative of Christian kings, wherein soveraigntie is, by Holy Scripture, reve- 
 rend antiquitie, and sound reason asserted," 4to., Oxford, 1644. This work endeavours to 
 prove, that the royal prerogative of kingly authority is derived alone from God ; and it 
 
SAMUEL RUTHERFORD. XX 
 
 demands an absolute and passive obedience of the subject to the will of the sovereign. The 
 arguments in Lex Rex completely refute all the wild and absurd notions which Maxwell's 
 work contains, although some of the sentiments would be thought rather democratical 
 in modern times. The author displays an intimate knowledge of the classics and the writings 
 of the ancient fathers and schoolmen. The work caused great sensation on its appearance. 
 Bishop Guthrie mentions, that every member of the assembly " had in his hand that book 
 lately published by Mr Samuel Rutherford, which was so idolized, that whereas Buchanan's 
 treatise (de jure Regni apud Scotos) was looked upon as an oracle, this coming forth, it 
 was slighted as not anti-monarchical enough, and Rutherford's Lex Rex only thought 
 authentic." 
 
 Rutherford, who was anxious to return to Scotland, on account of bad health, had made 
 an application to the Assembly for permission to leave ; but it was not granted till their 
 business was finished, as his services were very valuable to them ; and it was not till 1647 
 that he was permitted to revisit his native land. On his return to Scotland, he resumed 
 his labours in St. Andrews, and was in December of the same year appointed Principal of 
 the New College, in room of Dr Howie, who had resigned on account of old age. In 
 1651 he was elected Rector of the University, and was now placed in situations of the 
 highest eminence to which a clergyman of the Church of Scotland can be raised. The fame 
 of Rutherford as a scholar and divine, had now spread both at home and abroad. In the 
 Assembly of 1649, a motion was made, that he would be removed to Edinburgh as Pro- 
 fessor of Divinity in the University ; and about the same time he received a special invita- 
 tion to occupy the chair of Divinity and Hebrew in the University of Harderwyck ; and 
 also another from the University of Utrecht, both of which he respectfully declined. He 
 had too much regard for the interests of the Church of Scotland to leave the kingdom, 
 considering the critical position in which it was at that time placed. 
 
 During the period which followed the death of Charles I. to the restoration, Rutherford 
 took an active part in the struggles of the church in asserting her rights. Cromwell had 
 in the meantime usurped the throne, and independency held the sway in England. On 
 the death of Cromwell in 1658, measures were taken for the restoration of Charles 
 II. to the throne. The Scottish Parliament met in 1651, when the national covenant 
 was recalled — Presbyterianism abolished — and all the decrees of Parliament, since 1638, 
 which sanctioned the Presbyterian system, were rescinded. The rights of the people were 
 thus torn from them — their liberties trampled upon — and the whole period which follow- 
 ed, till the martyrdom of Renwick in 1688, was a scene of intolerant persecution and 
 bloodshed. Rutherford, as may be supposed, did not escape persecution in such a state 
 of things. His work, Lex, Rex, was considered by the government as " inveighing against 
 monarchie and laying ground for rebellion;" and ordered to be burned by the hand of the 
 common hangman at Edinburgh. It met with similar treatment at St Andrews, and also 
 at London ; and a proclamation was issued, that every person in possession of a copy, who 
 did not deliver it up to the king's solicitor, should be treated as an enemy to the govern- 
 ment. Rutherford himself was deprived of his offices both in the University and the 
 Church, and his stipend confiscated ; he was ordered to confine himself within his own 
 house, and was summoned to appear before the Parliament at Edinburgh, to answer a 
 charge of high treason. It may be easily imagined what his fate would have been had 
 he lived to obey the mandate ; but ere the time arrived he was summoned to a far higher 
 than an earthly tribunal. Not having a strong constitution, and being possessed of an ac- 
 tive mind, he had evidently overworked himself in the share he took in the struggles and 
 controversies of the time. Although not an old man, his health had been gradually de- 
 clining for several years. His approaching dissolution he viewed with Christian calmness 
 and fortitude. A few weeks before his death, he gave ample evidence of his faith and 
 hope in the Gospel, by the Testimony which he left behind him.* On his death-bed he 
 was cheered by the consolations of several Christian friends, and on the 20th of March 
 1661, in the sixty-first year of his age, he breathed his last, in the full assurance and hope 
 of eternal life. His last words were, " Glory, glory, dwelleth in Emmanuel's land." 
 
 * A Testimony left by Mr Samuel Rutherford to the Work of Reformation in Great Britain and Ireland, 
 before his death, 8to. 
 
Ai SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF SAMUEL RUTHERFORD. 
 
 On April 28th, 1842, the foundation-stone of a colossal monument, called the " Ruther- 
 furd Monument," was laid to his memory ; it is erected on the farm of Boreland, in the 
 parish of Anwoth, about half-a-mile from where he used to preach. The monument is of 
 granite ; height, from the surface to the apex, sixty feet ; square of the pedestal, seven 
 feet, with three rows of steps. 
 
 Of the character of Rutherford — as to his talents and piety, nothing need be here said. 
 All who know his writings, will be at a loss whether most to admire his learning and depth 
 of reasoning, or his Christian graces. We give the following list of his works, which is 
 appended to a memoir* by a talented gentleman of this city ; a work compiled with great 
 research and discrimination, and which will amply repay a perusal by all who feel an inte- 
 rest in the remembrance of an individual so distinguished for learning, uprightness, and 
 piety, as was Samuel Rutherford. — Exercitationes Apologeticoz pro Divina Gratia : 
 Amst., 12mo., 1636. A Peaceable and Temperate Plea for PauVs Presbyterie in Scot- 
 land: Lond., 4to., 1642. A Sermon preached to the Honourable House of Commons, 
 January 31, 1643. Daniel vi. 26: Lond., 4to., 1644. A Sermon preached before the 
 Honourable House of Lords, the 2bth day of June 1645. Luke vii. 22 — 25. Mark iv. 
 38 — 40. Matt. viii. 26: Lond., 4to., 1645. Lex, Rex; or the Law and the Prince; a 
 discourse for the just prerogative of king and people : Lond., 4to., 1644. The Due 
 Right of Presbyteries, or a Peaceable Plea for the government of the Church of Scot- 
 land : Lond., 4to., 1644. The Tryal and Triumph of Faith : Lond., 4to., 1645. The 
 Divine Right of Church Government and Excommunication: Lond., 4to., 1646. Christ 
 Dying and Drawing to Himself: Lond., 4to., 1647. A Survey of the Spiritual Anti- 
 christ, opening the secrets of Familisme and Antinomianisme : Lond., 1648. A Free 
 Disputation against Pretended Liberty of Conscience : Lond., 4to, 1649. The Last and 
 Heavenly Speeches, and Glorious Departure of John Gordoun, Viscount Kenmuir : 
 Edin., 4to., 1649. Disputatio Scholastica de Divina Providentia: Edin., 4to, 1651. 
 The Covenant of Life opened: Edin., 4to., 1655. A Survey of the Survey of that 
 Summe of Church Discipline penned by Mr Thomas Hooker : Lond., 4to., 1658. Influ- 
 ences of the Life of Grace : Lond., 4to., 1659. Joshua Redivivus, or Mr Rutherford's 
 Letters, in three parts : 12mo., 1664. Examen Arminianismi, conscriptum et discipulis 
 dictatum a doctissimo clarissimoque viro, D. Samuele Rhetorforte, SS. Theol. in Aca- 
 demia Scotiae Sanctandreana Doctore et Professore: Ultraj., 12mo., 1668. 
 
 * Life of Samuel Rutherford, by Thomas Murray, L.L.D. Edin., 1827. 
 
THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 Who doubteth (Christian Reader.) but innocency 
 must be under the courtesy and mercy of malice, 
 and that it is a real martyrdom to be brought under 
 the lawless inquisition of the bloody tongue. Christ, 
 the prophets, and apostles of our Lord, went to 
 heaven with the note of traitors, seditious men, and 
 such as turned the world npside down : calumnies 
 of treason to Caesar were an ingredient in Christ's 
 cup, and therefore the author is the more willing to 
 drink of that cup that touched his lip, who is our 
 glorious Forerunner : what, if conscience toward 
 God, and credit with men, cannot both go to heaven 
 with the saints, the author is satisfied with the for- 
 mer companion, and is willing to dismiss the other. 
 Truth to Christ cannot be treason to Ceesar, and for 
 his choice he judgeth truth to have a nearer relation 
 to Christ Jesus, than the transcendent and bound- 
 less power of a mortal prince. 
 
 He considered that popery and defection had made 
 a large step in Britain, and that arbitrary govern- 
 ment had over-swelled all banks of law, that it was 
 now at the highest float, and that this sea approach- 
 ing the farthest border of fancied absoluteness, was 
 at the score of ebbing : and the naked truth is, pre- 
 lates, a wild and pushing cattle to the lambs and 
 flock of Christ, had made a hideous noise, the wheels 
 of their chariot did run an equal pace with the 
 blood-thirsty mind of the daughter of Babel. Pre- 
 lacy, the daughter planted in her mother's blood, 
 must verify that word, As is the mother, so is the 
 daughter : why, but do not the prelates now suffer ? 
 True, but their sufferings are not of blood, or kin- 
 dred, to the calamities of these of whom Lactantius 
 saith, (1. 5, c. 19,) quam honesta voluntate miseri 
 erant. The causes of their suffering are, 1. Hope 
 of gain and glory, steering their helm to a shore 
 they much affect ; even to a church of gold, of pur- 
 ple, yet really of clay and earth. 2. The lie is more 
 active upon the spirits of men, not because of its 
 own weakness, but because men are more passive in 
 receiving the impressions of error than truth ; and 
 opinions lying in the world's fat womb, or of a con- 
 quering nature, whatever notions side with the 
 world, to prelates and men of their make are very 
 efficacious. 
 
 There is another cause of the sickness of our 
 time, God plagued heresy to beget Atheism and se- 
 curity, as atheism and security had begotten heresy, 
 even as clouds through reciprocation of causes en- 
 gender rain, rain begat vapours, vapours clouds, and 
 clouds rain, so do sins overspread our sad times in a 
 circular generation. 
 
 And now judgment presseth the kingdoms, and 
 of all the heaviest judgments the sword, and of 
 swords the civil sword, threateneth vastation, yet 
 
 not, I hope, like the Roman civil sword, of which it 
 was said, 
 
 Bella geri placuit nullos habitura triumphos. 
 
 I hope this war shall be Christ's triumph, Baby- 
 lon's ruin. 
 
 That which moved the author, was not (as my ex- 
 communicate adversary, like a Thraso, saith) the 
 escapes of some pens, which necessitated him to 
 write, for many before me hath learnedly trodden in 
 this path, but that I might add a new testimony to 
 the times. 
 
 I have not time to examine the P. Prelate's pre- 
 face, only, I give a taste of his gall in this preface, 
 and of a virulent piece, of his agnosco stylum et gc- 
 nium Thrasonis, in which he laboureth to prove how 
 inconsistent presbyterial government is with mon- 
 archy, or any other government. 
 
 1. He denieth that the crown and sceptre is under 
 any co-active power of pope or presbytery, or cen- 
 surable, or dethroneable ; to which we say, presby- 
 teries profess that kings are under the co-active 
 power of Christ's keys of discipline, and that pro- 
 phets and pastors, as ambassadors of Christ, have 
 the keys of the kingdom of God, to open and let in 
 believing princes, and also to shut them out, if they 
 rebel against Christ ; the law of Christ excepteth 
 none, (Mat. xvi. 19 ; xviii. 15, 16 ; 2 Cor. x. 6 ; Jer. 
 i. 9,) if the king's sins may be remitted in a ministe- 
 rial way, (as Job xx. 23, 24,) as prelates and their 
 priests absolve kings ; we think they may be bound 
 by the hand that loosed ; presbyteries never de- 
 throned kings, never usurped that power. Your 
 father, P. Prelate, hath dethroned many kings ; I 
 mean the Pope, whose power, by your own confes- 
 sion, (c. 6, p. 58,) differeth from yours by divine 
 right only in extent. 
 
 2. When sacred hierarchy, the order instituted by 
 Christ, is overthrown, what is the condition of 
 sovereignty ? — Ans. — Surer than before, when pre- 
 lates deposed kings. 2. I fear Christ shall never 
 own this order. 
 
 3. The mitre cannot suffer, and the diadem be 
 secured.- — Ans. — Have kings no pillars to their 
 thrones but antichristian prelates. Prelates have 
 trampled diadem and sceptre under their feet, as 
 histories teach us. 
 
 4. Do they not (puritans) magisterially determine 
 that kings are not of God's creation by authorita- 
 tive commission ; but only by permission, extorted 
 by importunity, and way given, that they may be a 
 scourge to a sinful people? — Ans. — Any unclean 
 spirit from hell, could not speak a blacker lie ; we 
 hold that the king, by office, is the church's nurse 
 father, a sacred ordinance, the deputed power of 
 
God ; but by the Prelate's way, all inferior judges, 
 and God's deputies on earth, who are also our fathers 
 in the fifth commandment style, are to be obeyed by 
 no divine law ; the king, misled by p. prelates, shall 
 forbid to obey them, who is in downright truth, a 
 mortal civil pope, may loose and liberate subjects 
 from the tie of a divine law. 
 
 5. His inveighing against ruling elders, and the 
 rooting out of antichristian prelacy, without any 
 word of Scripture on the contrary, I pass as the 
 extravagancy of a malcontent, because he is de- 
 servedly excommunicated for perjury, popery, So- 
 cinianism, tyranny over men's conscience, and invad- 
 ing places of civil dignity, and deserting his calling, 
 and the camp of Christ, &c. 
 
 6. None were of old anointed but kings, priests, 
 and prophets ; who, then, more obliged, to maintain 
 the Lord's anointed, than priests and prophets ? 
 The church hath never more beauty and plenty un- 
 der any government than monarchy, which is most 
 countenanced by God, and magnified by Scripture. 
 — Ans. Pastors are to maintain the rights of peo- 
 ple, and a true church, no less than the right of 
 kings ; but prelates, the court parasites, and crea- 
 tures of the king, that are born for the glory of 
 their king, can do no less than profess this in words, 
 yet it is true that Tacitus writeth of such, (Hist. 1. 
 1,) Libentius cum fortuna principis, quam cumprin- 
 cipe loquuntur .- and it is true, that the church hath 
 had plenty under kings, not so much, because they 
 were kings, as because they were godly and zealous : 
 except the P. P. say, that the oppressing kings of 
 Israel and Judah, and the bloody horns that made 
 war with the lamb, are not kings. In the rest of 
 the epistle he extols the Marquis of Ormond with 
 base flattery, from his loyalty to the king, and 
 his more than admirable prudence in the treaty 
 of cessation with the rebels ; a woe is due to this 
 false prophet, who calleth darkness light, for the 
 former was abominable and perfidious apostacy from 
 the Lord's cause and people of God, whom he once 
 defended, and the cessation was a selling of the 
 blood of many hundred thousand protestants, men, 
 women, and sucking children. 
 
 This cursed P. hath written of late a treatise 
 against the presbyterial government of Scotland, in 
 which there is a bundle of lies, hellish calumnies, 
 and gross errors. 
 
 1. The first lie is, that we have lay elders, where- 
 as, they are such as rule, but labour not in the word 
 and doctrine (1 Tim. v. 7, p. 3). 
 
 2. The second lie, that deacons, who only attend 
 tables, are joint rulers with pastors (p. 3). 
 
 3. That we never, or little use the lesser excom- 
 munication, that is, debarring from the Lord's Sup- 
 per (p. 4J. 
 
 4. That any church judicature in Scotland exact- 
 eth pecuniary mulcts, and threaten excommunica- 
 tion to the non-payers, and refuseth to accept the 
 repentance of any who are not able to pay : the 
 civil magistrate only fineth for drunkenness, and 
 adultery, blaspheming of God, which are frequent 
 sins in prelates. 
 
 5. A calumny it is to say that ruling elders are 
 of equal authority to preach the word as pastors 
 (p. 7). 
 
 6. That laymen are members of presbyteries or 
 general assemblies. Buchanan and Mr Melvin were 
 doctors of divinity ; and could have taught such an 
 ass as John Maxwell. 
 
 7. That expectants are intruders upon the sacred 
 function, because, as sons of the prophets, they exer- 
 cise their gifts for trial in preaching. 
 
 8. That the presbytery of Edinburgh hath a super- 
 intending power, because they communicate the af- 
 fairs of the church, and write to the churches, what 
 
 they hear prelates and hell devise against Christ and 
 his church. 
 
 9. That the king must submit his sceptre to the 
 presbytery; the king's sceptre is his royal office, 
 which is not subject to any judicature.no more than 
 any lawful ordinance of Christ ; but if the king, as a 
 man, blaspheme God, murder the innocent, advance 
 belly-gods, (such as our prelates, for the most part, 
 were,) above the Lord's inheritance, the ministers of 
 Christ are to say, " The king troubleth Israel, and 
 they have the keys to open and shut heaven to, and 
 upon the king, if he can offend." 
 
 10. That king James said, a Scottish presbytery 
 and a monarchy agreeth as well as God and the 
 devil, is true, but king James meant of a wicked 
 king ; else he spake as a man. 
 
 11. That the presbytery, out of pride, refused to 
 answer king James's honourable messengers, is a 
 lie; they could not, in business of high concern- 
 ment, return a present answer to a prince, seeking 
 still to abolish presbyteries. 
 
 12. Its a lie, that all sins, even all civil business, 
 come under the cognizance of the church, for only 
 sins, as publicly scandalous, fall under their power. 
 (Matt, xviii. 15—17, &c. ; 2 Thess. iii. 11 ; 1 Tim. v. 
 20.) It is a calumny that they search out secret 
 crimes, or that they ever disgraced the innocent, or 
 divided families ; where there be flagrant scandals, 
 and pregnant suspicions, of scandalous crimes, 
 they search out these, as the incest of Spotswood, 
 P. Prelate of St Andrews, with his own daughter ; 
 the adulteries of Whiteford, P. Prelate of Brichen, 
 whose bastard came weeping to the assembly of 
 Glasgow in the arms of the prostitute : these they 
 searched out, but not with the damnable oath, ex 
 officio, that the high commission put upon inno- 
 cents, to cause them accuse themselves against the 
 law of nature. 
 
 13. The presbytery hinder not lawful merchandise; 
 scandalous exhortation, unjust suits of law, they may 
 forbid ; and so doth the Scripture, as scandalous to 
 Christians, 2 Cor. vi. 
 
 14. They repeal no civil laws ; they preach against 
 unjust and grievous laws, as, Isaiah (x. 1) doth, and 
 censure the violation of God's holy day, which pre- 
 lates profaned. 
 
 15. ^\ e know no parochial popes, we turn out no 
 holy ministers, but only dumb dogs, non-residents, 
 scandalous, wretched, and apostate prelates. 
 
 16. Our moderator hath no dominion, the P. Pre- 
 late absolveth him, while he saith, "All is done in 
 our church by common consent" (p. 7). 
 
 17. It is true, we have no popish consecration, 
 such as P. Prelate contendeth for in the mass, but 
 we have such as Christ and his apostles used, in con- 
 secrating the elements. 
 
 18. If any sell the patrimony of the church, the 
 presbytery censures him ; if any take buds of malt, J 
 meal, beef, it is no law with us, no more than the 
 bishop's five hundred marks, or a year's stipend 
 that the entrant gave to the Lord Bishop for a 
 church. And whoever took buds in these days, (as 
 king James by the earl of Duubar, did buy episco- 
 pacy at a pretended assembly, by foul budding,) 
 they were either men for the episcopal way, or per- 
 fidiously against their oath became bishops, all per- 
 sonal faults of this kind imputed to presbyteries, 
 agree to them under the reduplication of episcopal 
 
 19. The leading men that covered the sins of the 
 dying man, and so lost his soul, were episcopal 
 men ; and though some men were presbyterians, 
 the faults of men cannot prejudice the truth of 
 God ; but the prelates always cry out against the 
 rigour of presbyteries in censuring scandals ; because 
 they themselves do ill, they hate the light; now here 
 
the Prelate condemneth them of remissness in dis- 
 cipline. 
 
 20. Satan, a liar from the beginning, saith, The 
 presbytery was a seminary and nursery of fiends, 
 contentions, and bloods, because they excommuni- 
 cated murderers against king James' will ; which is 
 all one to say, prophecying is a nurse of bloods, 
 because the prophets cryed out against king Achab, 
 and the murderers of innocent Naboth : the men of 
 God must be either on the one side or the other, 
 or then preach against reciprocation of injuries. 
 
 21. It is false that presbyteries usurp both 
 swords ; because they censure sins, which the civil 
 magistrate should censure and punish. Elias might 
 be said then to mix himself with the civil business 
 of the kingdom, because be propheeied against ido- 
 laters' killing of the Lord's prophets ; which crime 
 the civil magistrate was to punish. But the truth 
 is, the assembly of Glasgow, 1637, condemned the 
 prelates, because they, being pastors, would be also 
 lords of parliament, of session, of secret council, of 
 exchequer, judges, barons, and in their lawless high 
 commission, would fine, imprison, and use the 
 6word. 
 
 22. It is his ignorance that he saith, a provincial 
 synod is an associate body chosen out of all judi- 
 cial presbyteries ; for all pastors and doctors, with- 
 out delegation, by virtue of their place and office, 
 repair to the provincial synods, and without any 
 choice at all, consult and voice there. 
 
 23. It is a lie that some leading men rule all 
 here ; indeed, episcopal men made factions to rent 
 the synods; and though men abuse their power to 
 factions, this cannot prove that presbyteries are in- 
 consistent with monarchy; for then the Prelate, the 
 monarch of his diocesan rout, should be anti-mo- 
 narchical in ahigher manner, for he ruleth all at his 
 will. 
 
 24. The prime men, as Mr R. Bruce, the faithful 
 servant of Christ, was honoured and attended by all, 
 because of his suffering, zeal, holiness, his fruitful 
 ministry in gaining many thousand souls to Christ. 
 So, though king James cast him off, and did swear, 
 by God's name, he intended to be king, (the Prelate 
 niaketh blasphemy a virtue in the king,) yet king 
 James swore he could not find an honest minister in 
 Scotland to be a bishop, and therefore he was neces- 
 sitated to promote false knaves ; but he said some- 
 times, and wrote it under his hand, that Mr R. Bruce 
 was worthy of the half of his kingdom : but will this 
 prove presbyteries inconsistent with monarchies ? 
 I should rather think that knave bishops, by king 
 James' judgment, were inconsistent with monarchies. 
 
 25. His lies of Mr R. Bruce, excerpted out of the 
 lying manuscripts of apostate Spotswood, in that 
 he would not but preach against the king's recalling 
 from exile some bloody popish lords to undo all, are 
 nothing comparable to the incests, adulteries, blas- 
 phemies, perjuries, Sabbath-breaches, drunkenness, 
 profanity, &c, committed by prelates before the sun. 
 
 26. Our General Assemby is no other than Christ's 
 court, (Acts xv.) made up of pastors, doctors, and 
 brethren, or elders. 
 
 27. They ought to have no negative vote to impede 
 the conclusions of Christ in his servants. 
 
 28. It is a lie that the king hath no power to ap- 
 point time and place for the General Assembly ; but 
 his power is not privative to destroy the free courts 
 of Christ, but accumulative to aid and assist them. 
 
 29. It is a lie that our General Assembly may re- 
 peal laws ; command and expect performance of the 
 king, ort.: u excommunicate, subject to them, force 
 and compii king, judges, and all, to submit to them. 
 They may not force the conscience of the poorest 
 beggar, nor is any Assembly infallible, nor can it lay 
 bounds upon the souls of judges, which they are to 
 
 obey with blind obedience — their power is ministe- 
 rial, subordinate to Christ's law; and what civil laws 
 parliaments make against God's word, they may 
 authoritatively declare them to be unlawful, as 
 though the emperor (Acts xv.) had commanded for- 
 nication and eating of blood. Might not the Assem- 
 bly forbid these in the synod ? 1 conceive the pre- 
 lates, if they had power, would repeal the act of par- 
 liament made, anno 1641, in Scotland, by his majesty 
 personally present, and the three estates concerning 
 the annulling of these acts of parliament and laws 
 which established bishops in Scotland ; therefore 
 bishops set themselves as independent monarchs 
 above kings and laws ; and what they damn in pres- 
 byteries and assemblies, that they practise them- 
 selves. 
 
 30. Commissioners from burghs, and two from 
 Edinburgh, because of the largeness of that church, 
 not for cathedral supercminence, sit in assemblies, 
 not as sent from burghs, but as sent and authorised 
 by the church session of the burgh, and so they sit 
 there in a church capacity. 
 
 31. Doctors both in academies and in parishes, 
 we desire, and our book of discipline holdeth forth 
 such. 
 
 32. They hold, (I believe with warrant of God's 
 word,) if the king refuse to reform religion, the in- 
 ferior judges, aud assembly of godly pastors, and 
 other church-officers may reform ; if the king will 
 not kiss the Son, and do his duty in purging the 
 House of the Lord, may not Eliah and the people 
 do their duty, and cast out Baal's priests. Refor- 
 mation of religion is a personal act that belongeth 
 to all, even to any one private person according to 
 his place. 
 
 33. They may swear a covenant without the king, 
 if he refuse ; and build the Lord's house (2 Chron. 
 xv. 9) themselves ; and relieve and defend one an- 
 other, when they are oppressed. For my acts and 
 duties of defending myself and the oppressed, do not 
 tye my conscience conditionally, so the king con- 
 sent, but absolutely, as all duties of the law of na- 
 ture do. (Jer. xxii. 3; Prov. xxiv. 11 ; Isa. lviii. 6 ; 
 i. 17.) 
 
 34. The P. Prelate condemneth our reformation, 
 because it was done against the will of our popish 
 queen. This showeth what estimation he hath of 
 popery, and how he abhorreth protestant religion. 
 
 35. They deposed the queen for her tyranny, but 
 crowned her son; all this is vindicated in the fol- 
 lowing treatise. 
 
 36. The killing of the monstrous and prodigious 
 wicked cardinal in the Castle of St Andrews, and 
 the violence done to the prelates, who against all 
 law of God and man, obtruded a mass service upon 
 their own private motion, in Edinburgh anno 1637, 
 can conclude nothing against presbyterial govern- 
 ment except our doctrine commend these acts as 
 lawful. 
 
 37. What was preached by the servant of Christ, 
 whom (p. 46) he calleth the Scottish Pope, is 
 printed, and the P. Prelate durst not, could not, 
 cite any thing thereof as popish or unsound, he 
 knoweth that the man whom he so slandereth, 
 knocked down the Pope and the prelates. 
 
 38. The making away the fat abbacies and bishop- 
 rics is a bloody heresy to the earthly-minded Prelate ; 
 the Confession of Faith commended by all the pro- 
 testant churches, as a strong bar against popery, 
 and the book of discipline, in which the servants of 
 God laboured twenty years with fasting and pray- 
 ing, andfrcquent advice and counsel from the whole 
 reformed churches, are to the P. Prelate a nega- 
 tive faith and devout imaginations ; it isa lie that 
 episcopacy, by both sides, was ever agreed on by law 
 in Scotland. 
 
39. And it was a heresy that Mr Melvin taught, 
 that presbyter and bishop are one function in Scrip- 
 ture, and that abbots and priors were not in God's 
 books, die ubilegis; and is this a proof of incon- 
 sistency of presbyteries with a monarchy ? 
 
 40. It is a heresy to the P. Prelate that the 
 church appoint a fast, when king James appointed 
 an unseasonable feast, when God's wrath was upon 
 the land, contrary to God's word (Isa. xxii. 12 — 14) ; 
 and what ! will this prove presbyteries to be incon- 
 sistent with monarchies ? 
 
 41. This Assembly is to judge what doctrine is 
 treasonable. What then ? Surely the secret coun- 
 cil and king, in a constitute church, is not synodi- 
 cally to determine what is true or false doctrine, 
 more than the Roman emperor could make the 
 church canon, Acts xv. 
 
 42 Mr Gibson, Mr Black, preached against king 
 James' maintaining the tyranny of bishops, his 
 sympathizing with papists, and other crying sins, 
 and were absolved in a general Assembly ; shall this 
 make presbyteries inconsistent with monarchy ? Nay, 
 but it proveth only that they are inconsistent with 
 the wickedness of some monarchies ; and that pre- 
 lates have been like the four hundred false prophet3 
 that flattered king Achab, and those men that 
 preached against the sins of the king and court, by 
 prelates in both kingdoms, have been imprisoned, 
 banished, their noses ript, their cheeks burnt, their 
 ears cut. 
 
 43. The godly men that kept the Assembly of 
 Aberdeen, anno'l603, did stand for Christ's Prero- 
 gative, when king James took away all General As- 
 semblies, as the event proved ; and the king may, 
 with as good warrant, inhibit all Assemblies for 
 word and sacrament, as for church discipline. 
 
 44. They excommunicate not for light faults and 
 trifles, as the liar saith : our discipline saith the 
 contrary. 
 
 45. This assembly never took on them to choose 
 the king's counsellors ; but those who were in au- 
 thority took king James, when he was a child, out 
 of the company of a corrupt and seducing papist, 
 
 Esme Duke of Lennox, whom the P. Prelate nam- 
 eth noble, worthy, of eminent endowments. 
 
 46. It is true Glasgow Assembly, 1637, voted 
 down the high commission, because it was not con- 
 sented unto by the church, and yet was a church 
 judicature, which took upon them to judge of the 
 doctrine of ministers, and deprive them, and did 
 encroach upon the liberties of the established law- 
 ful church judicatures. 
 
 47. This Assembly might well forbid Mr John 
 Graham, minister, to make use of an unjust decree, 
 it being scandalous in a minister to oppress. 
 
 48. Though nobles, barons, and burgesses, that 
 profess the truth, be elders, and so members of the 
 general Assembly, this is not to make the church 
 the house, and the commonwealth the hanging ; 
 for the constituent members, we are content to be 
 examined by the pattern of synods, Acts xv. 22, 23. 
 Is this inconsistent with monarchy ? 
 
 49. The commissioners of the General Assembly, 
 are, 1. A mere occasional judicature. 2. Appointed 
 by, and subordinate to the General Assembly. 3. 
 They have the same warrant of God's word, that 
 messengers of the synod (Acts. xv. 22—27) hath. 
 
 50. The historical calumny of the 17th day of De- 
 cember, is known to all : 1. That the ministers had 
 any purpose to dethrone king James, and that they 
 wrote to John L. Marquis of Hamilton, to be king, 
 because king James had made defection from the 
 true religion: Satan devised, Spotswood and this P. 
 Prelate vented this ; I hope the true history of this 
 is known to all. The holiest pastors, and professors 
 in the kingdom, asserted this government, suffered 
 for it, contended with authority only for sin, never 
 for the power and office. These on the contrary 
 side were men of another stamp, who minded earth- 
 ly things, whose God was the world. 2. All the 
 forged inconsistency betwixt presbyteries and mo- 
 narchies, is an opposition with absolute monarchy 
 and concluded with a like strength against parlia- 
 ments, and all synods of either side, against the law 
 and gospel preached, to which kings and kingdoms 
 are subordinate. Lord establish peace and truth. 
 
LEX, REX. 
 
 QUESTION I. 
 
 WHETHER GOVERNMENT BE WARRANTED BY 
 A DIVINE LAW. 
 
 I reduce all that I am to speak of the 
 power of kings, to the author or efficient, — 
 the matter or subject, — the form or power, 
 — the end and fruit of their government, — 
 and to some cases of resistance. Hence, 
 
 The question is either of government in 
 general, or of particular species of govern- 
 ment, such as government by one only, 
 called monarchy, the government by some 
 chief leading men, named aristocracy, the 
 government by the people, going under the 
 name of democracy. We cannot but put 
 difference betwixt the institution of the of- 
 fice, viz. government, and the designation 
 of person or persons to the office. What is 
 warranted by the direction of nature's light 
 is warranted by the law of nature, and con- 
 sequently by a divine law; for who can deny 
 the law of nature to be a divine law ? 
 
 That power of government in general 
 must be from God, I make good, 1st, Be- 
 cause (Rom. xiii, 1) " there is no power 
 but of God ; the powers that be are or- 
 dained of God." 2d, God commandeth 
 obedience, and so subjection of conscience 
 to powers ; Rom. xiii. 5, " Wherefore ye 
 must needs be subject, not only for wrath, 
 (or civil punishment) but also for conscience 
 sake ;" 1 Pet. ii. 13, " Submit yourselves 
 to every ordinance of man, for the Lord's 
 sake, whether it be to the king as supreme," 
 &c. Now God only by a divine law can 
 lay a band of subjection on the conscience, 
 tying men to guilt and punishment jf they 
 transgress. 
 
 Conckis. All civil power is immediately 
 from God in its root ; in that, 1st, God 
 hath made man a social creature, ami one 
 who inclineth to be governed by man. then 
 certainly he must have put this power in 
 man's nature : so are we, by good reason, 
 taught by Aristotle. 1 2d, God and nature 
 intendeth the policy and peace of mankind, 
 then must God and nature have given to 
 mankind a power to compass this end ; and 
 this must be a power of government. I see 
 not, then, why John Prelate, Mr Maxwell, 
 the excommunicated prelate of Ross, who 
 speaketh in the name of J. Armagh, 2 had 
 reason to say, That he feared that we fan- 
 cied that the government of superiors was 
 only for the more perfect, but had no au- 
 thority over or above the perfect, nee rex, 
 nee lex, justo posita. He might have im- 
 puted this to the Brazillians, who teach, 
 that every single man hath the power of 
 the sword to revenge his own injuries, as 
 Molina saith. 3 
 
 QUESTION II. 
 
 WHETHER OR NOT GOVERNMENT BE WAR- 
 RANTED BY THE LAW OF NATURE. 
 
 As domestic society is by nature's instinct, 
 so is civil society natural in radiec, in the 
 root, and voluntary in modo, in the man- 
 ner of coalescing, Politic power of govern- 
 ment agreeth not to man, singly as one 
 man, except in that root of reasonable na- 
 
 i Aristot. Polit- Iib.l,c.2. 
 3 Sacro Sane. Reg. Majestas, c. 1, p. 1, 
 3 Molina, torn. 1, de justit. <Msp. 2g. 
 B 
 
 s Ay 
 
ture : but supposing that men be combined 
 in societies, or that one family cannot con- 
 tain a society, it is natural that they join in 
 a civil society, though the manner of union 
 in a politic body, as Bodine saith, 1 be vo- 
 luntary, Gen. x. 10 ; xv. 7 ; and Suarez 
 saith, 2 That a power of making laws is given 
 by God as a property flowing from nature, 
 Qui datformam, dat ronscquentia ad for- 
 mam ; not by any special action or grant, 
 different from creation, nor will he have it 
 to result from nature, while men be united 
 into one politic body : which union being 
 made, that power followeth without any new 
 action of the will. 
 
 We are to di-tinguish betwixt a power of 
 government, and a power of government by 
 magistracy. That we defend ourselves from 
 violence by violence is a consequent of un- 
 broken and sinless nature ; but that we de- 
 fend ourselves by devolving our power over 
 in the hands of one or more rulers seemeth 
 rather positively moral than natural, except 
 that it is natural for the child to expect help 
 against violence from his lather : for which 
 cause I judge that learned senator Ferdin- 
 andus Vasquius said well, 3 That princedom, 
 empire, kingdom, or jurisdiction hath its 
 rise from a positive and secondary law of 
 nations, and not from the law of pure na- 
 ture. 1st, The law saith 4 there is no law 
 of nature agreeing to all living creatures for 
 superiority ; for by no reason in nature hath 
 a boar dominion over a boar, a lion over a 
 lion, a dragon over a dragon, a bull over a 
 bull : and if all men be born equally free, 
 as I hope to prove, there is no reason in na- 
 ture why one man should be king and lord 
 over another; therefore while I be other- 
 wise taught by the aforesaid Prelate Max- 
 well, I conceive all jurisdiction of man over 
 man to be as it were artificial and positive, 
 and that it inferreth some servitude whereof 
 nature from the womb hath freed us, if you 
 except that subjection of children Jo parents, 
 and the wife to the husband ; ami the law 
 saith, 6 De jure gentium secundarius est 
 btnnis principatus. 2d, This also the 
 Scripture proveth, while as the exalting of 
 Saul or David above their brethren to be 
 
 i Bodin. de rep. lib. 1, c.6. 
 
 2 Suarez, torn. 1, dc legib. lib. 3, c. 3. 
 
 3 Vazquez illust. quaest. lib. 1, c. 41, num. 28. 29. 
 
 4 lb. lib. 2, in princ. F. de inst. et jur. et in princ. 
 In«t. Cod. tit. c. jus. nat. 1. disp. 
 
 5 Dominium est jus quoddam. lib. fin. ad med. C. 
 de long. temp, prest. 1, qui u-um fVrt. 
 
 kings and captains of the Lord's people, is 
 ascribed not to nature (for king and beggar 
 spring of one clay), but to an act of divine 
 bounty and grace above nature, 1 Sam. xiii. 
 13; Ps. lxxviii. 70, 71. 
 
 1. There is no cause why royalists should 
 deny government to be natural, but to be 
 altogether from God, and that the kingly 
 power is immediately and only from God, 
 because it is not natural to us to be subject 
 to government, but against nature for us to 
 resign our liberty to a king, or any ruler 
 or rulers; for this is much for us, and 
 proveth not but government is natural ; it 
 concludeth that a power of government tali 
 modo, by magistracy, is not natural ; but 
 this is but a sophism, a *«« n ad illud 
 quod est dictum a-x\u%, this special of 
 government, by resignation of our liberty, 
 is not natural, therefore, power of govern- 
 ment is not natural ; it followeth not, a ne- 
 gatione specici non sequitur negatio ge- 
 neris, non est homo, ergo non est Animal. 
 And by the same reason I may, by an an- 
 tecedent will, agree to a magistrate and a 
 law, that I may be ruled in a politic soci- 
 ety, and by a consequent will only, yea, and 
 conditionally only, agree to the penalty and 
 punishment of the law ; and it is most true 
 no man, by the instinct of nature, giveth 
 consent to penal laws as penal, for nature 
 doth not teach a man, nor incline his spirit 
 to yield that his life shall be taken away by 
 the sword, and his blood shed, except on 
 this remote ground : a man hath a disposi- 
 tion that a vein be cut by the physician, or a 
 member of his body cut off, rather than the 
 whole body and life perish by some conta- 
 gious disease ; but here reason in cold blood, 
 not a natural disposition, is the nearest pre- 
 valent cause and disposer of the business. 
 "When, therefore, a community, by the in- 
 stinct and guidance of nature, incline to 
 government, and to defend themselves from 
 violence, they do not, by that instinct, for- 
 mally agree to government by magistrates ; 
 and when a natural conscience giveth a de- 
 liberate consent to good laws, as to this, 
 " Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man 
 shall his blood be shed," Gen. ix. 6, he 
 doth tacitly consent that his own blood shall 
 be shed ; but this he consenteth unto conse- 
 quently, tacitly, and conditionally, — if he 
 shall do violence to the life of his brother : 
 yet so as this consent proceedeth not from 
 a disposition every way purely natural. I 
 grant reason may be necessitated to assent 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 to the conclusion, being, as it wore, forced 
 by the prevalent power of the evidence of 
 an insuperable and invincible light in the 
 premises, yet, from natural affections, there 
 resulteth an act of self-love for self-preser- 
 vation. So David shall condemn another 
 rich man, who hath many lambs, and rob- 
 beth his poor brother of his one lamb, and 
 yet not condemn himself, though he be most 
 deep ia that fault, 1 Sam. xii. 5, 6 ; yet 
 all this doth not binder, but government, 
 even by riders, hath its ground in a secon- 
 dary law of nature, which lawyers call secun- 
 daria jus naturale, or jus gentium secun- 
 daria™ ; a secondary law of nature, which is 
 granted by Plato, and denied by none of 
 sound judgment in a sound sense, and that 
 is this, Licet vim virepellere, It is lawful to 
 repel violence by violence ; and this is a 
 special act of the magistrate. 
 
 2. But there is no reason why we may 
 not defend by good reasons that political 
 societies, rulers, cities, and incorporations, 
 have their rise, and spring from the secon- 
 dary law of nature. 1st, Because by nature's 
 law family-government hath its warrant ; 
 and Adam, though there had never been 
 any positive law, had a power of governing 
 his own family, and punishing malefactors; 
 but as Tannerus saith well, 1 and as I shall 
 prove, God willing, this was not properly a 
 royal or monarchical power; and I judge by 
 the reasoning of Sotus, 2 Molina, 3 and Victo- 
 ria. 4 By what reason a family hath a power 
 of government, and of punishing malefac- 
 tors, that same power must be in a society 
 of men, supposing that society were not 
 made up of families, but of single persons ; 
 for the power of punishing ill-doers doth 
 not reside in one single man of a family, or 
 in them all, as they are single private per- 
 sons, but as they are in a family. But this 
 argument holdeth not but by proportion ; for 
 paternal government, or a fatherly power 
 of parents over their families, and a politic 
 power of a magistrate over many families, 
 are powers different in nature, — the one be- 
 ing warranted by nature's law even in its 
 species, the other being, in its specie and 
 kind, warranted by a positive law, and, in 
 the general only, warranted by a law of na- 
 ture. 2d, If we once lay the supposition, 
 
 1 Ad Tannerus, m. 12, torn. 2, disp. 5. de peccatis, 
 q. 5, dub. 1, num. 22. 
 
 2 Sotus, 4. de justit. q. 4, art. 1. 
 
 3 Lod. Molina, torn. 1, de just. disp. 22. 
 
 4 Victoria in relect. de potest civil, q. 4, art, 1. 
 
 that God hath immediately by the law of 
 nature appointed there should be a govern- 
 ment, and mediately defined by the dictate 
 of natural light in a community, that there 
 shall be one or many rulers to govern a com- 
 munity, then the Scripture's arguments may 
 well be drawn out of the school of nature : 
 as, (1,) The powers that be, are of God 
 (Rom. xii.), therefore nature's light teach- 
 eth that we should be subject to these 
 powers. (2.) It is against nature's light to 
 resist the ordinance of God. (3.) Not to 
 fear him to whom God hath committed the 
 sword for the terror of evil-doers. (4.) Not 
 to honour the public rewarder of well-doing. 
 (5.) Not to pay tribute to him for his work. 
 Therefore I see not but Govarruvias, 1 Soto, 2 
 and Suarez, 3 have rightly said, that power 
 of government is immediately from God, and 
 this or that definite power is mediately from 
 God, proceeding from God by the mediation 
 of the consent of a community, which resign- 
 eth their power to one or more rulers ; and 
 to me, Barclaius saith the same, 4 Quamvis 
 populus potcntice largitor videatur, &c. 
 
 QUESTION III. 
 
 WHETHER ROYAL POWER AND DEFINITE 
 FORMS OF GOVERNMENT BE FROM COD. 
 
 The king may be said to be from God 
 and his word in these several notions : — 
 
 1. By way of permission, Jer. xliii. 10, 
 " Say to them, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, 
 the God of Israel, Behold I will send and 
 take Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, 
 my seivant, and will set his throne upon 
 these stones that I have hid, and he shall 
 spread his royal pavilion over them.*' And 
 thus God made him a catholic king, and gave 
 him all nations to serve him, Jer. xxvii. 6 
 — 8, though he was but an unjust tyrant, 
 and his sword the best title to those crowns. 
 
 2. The king is said to be from God by 
 way of naked approbation ; God giving to a 
 people power to appoint what government 
 they shall think good, but instituting none 
 in special in his word. This way some 
 make kingly power to be from God in the 
 
 i (iovarruvias, tr. 2, praet. quest. 1, n. 2, 3, 4. 
 
 2 Soto, loc. ett. 
 
 3 Suarez de Reg. lib. 3, c. 4, n. 1, 2 
 
 4 Barclaius con. Monavchoma, 1. 3, c. 2. 
 
Lex, rex ; or, 
 
 general, but in the particular to be an in- 
 vention of men, negatively lawful, and not 
 repugnant to the word, as the wretched 
 popish ceremonies are from God. But we 
 teach no such thing : let Maxwell 1 free his 
 master Bellarmine, 8 and other Jesuites with 
 whom he sideth in Romish doctrine : we 
 are free of this. Bellarmine saith that po^ 
 litic power in general is warranted by a di- 
 vine law ; but the particular forms of politic 
 power, (he meaneth monarchy, with the 
 first,) is not by divine right, but de jure 
 gentium, by the law of nations, and floweth 
 immediately from human election , as all 
 things, saith he, that appertain to the law 
 of nations. So monarchy to Bellarmine is 
 but an human invention, as Mr Maxwell's 
 surplice is ; and Dr Feme, sect. 3, p. 13, 
 saith with Bellarmine. 
 
 3. A king is said to be from God, by 
 particular designation, as he appointed Saul 
 by name for the crown of Israel. Of this 
 hereafter. 
 
 4. The kingly or royal office is from God 
 by divine institution, and not by naked 
 approbation ; for, 1st, we may well prove 
 Aaron's priesthood to be of divine institu- 
 tion, because God doth appoint the priest's 
 qualification from his family, bodily perfec- 
 tions, and his charge. 2d, We take the 
 pastor to be by divine law and God's insti- 
 tution, because the Holy Ghost (1 Tim. iii. 
 1 — 4) describeth his qualifications ; so may 
 we say that the royal power is by divine in- 
 stitution, because God mouldeth him : Deut. 
 xvii. 15, " Thou shalt in any wise set him 
 king over thee, whom the Lord thy God 
 shall choose, one from amongst thy breth- 
 ren," &c. ; Rom. xiii. 1, " There is no power 
 but of God, the powers that be arc ordained 
 iii' God." 3d, That power must be ordained 
 of God as his own ordinance, to which we 
 owe subjection for conscience, and not for 
 fear of punishment ; but every power is 
 such, Rom. xiii. 4th, To resist the kingly 
 } lower is to resist God. 5th, He is the min- 
 ister of God for our good. 6th, He beareth 
 the sword of God to take vengeance upon 
 ill-doers. 7th, The Lord expressly saith, 
 1 Pet. ii. 17, " Fear God, honour the king ;" 
 ver. 13, 14, " Submit yourselves to every 
 ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whe- 
 
 1 Xacrosan. Reg. Maj. the Sacred and Royal Pro- 
 bative of Christian kin^s, c. 1, q.l, p. 6, 7. 
 
 - Bellarm. de loris, lib. 5, c. 6, not. 5. Politira 
 universe considerata est de jure divino, in particu- 
 lari considerata est de jure gentium. 
 
 ther it be to the king as supreme, or unto 
 governors, as those that are sent by him,'* 
 &c. ; Tit. iii. 1, " Put them in mind to be 
 subject to principalities and powers ;" and so 
 the fifth commandment layeth obedience to 
 the king on us no less than to our parents ; 
 whence, I conceive that power to be of God, 
 to which, by the moral law of God, we owe 
 perpetual subjection and obedience. 8th, 
 Kings and magistrates are God's, and God's 
 deputies and lieutenants upon earth, (Psalm 
 lxxxii. 1, 6, 7 ; Exod. xxh\ 8 ; iv. 16,) and 
 therefore their office must be a lawful ordi- 
 nance of God. 9th, By their office they are 
 feeders of the Lord's people, Psalm lxxviii. 
 70—72, the shields of the earth, Psal. xlvii. 
 9, nursing fathers of the church, Psal. xlix. 
 23, captains over the Lord's people, 1 Sam, 
 ix. 19i 10th, It is a great judgment of 
 God when a land wanteth the benefit of such 
 ordinances of God, Isa, iii. 1 — 3, 6, 7, 11. 
 The execution of their office is an act of the 
 just Lord of heaven and earth, not only by 
 permission, but according to God's revealed 
 will in his word ; their judgment is not the 
 judgment of men, but of the Lord, 2 Chron. 
 xix. 6, and their throne is the throne of 
 God, 1 Chron. xxii. 10. Jerome saith, 3 to 
 punish murderers and sacrilegious persons is 
 not bloodshed, but the ministry and service 
 of good laws. So, if the king be a living 
 law by office, and the law put in execution 
 which God hath commanded, then, as the 
 moral law is by divine institution, so must 
 the officer of God be, who is custos et vin- 
 dex legis divinoS, the keeper, preserver, 
 and avenger of God's law, Basilius saith, 2 
 this is the prince's office, Ut opem ferat 
 virtu ti, malitiam vcro impugnet. When 
 Paulinus Treverensis, Lucifer Metropolis 
 tane of Sardinia, Dionysius Mediolanensis, 
 and other bishops, were commanded by 
 Constantine to write against Athanasius, 
 they answered, Regnum non ipsius esse, 
 sted dei, a quo acceperit, — the kingdom was 
 God's, not his ; as Athanasius saith, 3 Opta- 
 tus Milevitanus 4 helpeth us in the cause, 
 where he saith with Paul, " We are to pray 
 for heathen kings," The genuine end of 
 the magistrate, saith Epiphanius, 5 is ut ad 
 bouinii ordinem uuivcrsitatis raundi omnia 
 ex deo bene disponautur atque admmistre.n- 
 
 1 Jerome in 1.4, Comment, in Jerein. 
 
 a Basilius, epist. 125. 
 
 3 Athanasius, epist. ad solita. 
 
 J Optat. Melevitanuih lib. 3. 
 
 5 Epiphanius, lib. 1, torn. 3, Hcres. i.0. 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 tur. But some object, It' the kingly power 
 be of divine institution, then shall any other 
 government be unlawful, and contrary to a 
 divine institution, and so we condemn aris- 
 tocracy and democracy as unlawful. Ans. 
 This consequence were good, if aristocracy 
 and democracy wei*e not also of divine insti- 
 tution, as all my arguments prove ; for I 
 judge they are not governments different in 
 nature, if we speak morally and theologi- 
 cally, only they differ politically and posi- 
 tively ; nor is aristocracy any thing but 
 diffused and enlarged monarchy, and mo- 
 narchy is nothing but contracted aristocracy, 
 even as it is the same hand when the thumb 
 and the four fingers are folded together and 
 when all the five fingers are dilated and 
 stretched out ; and wherever God appoint- 
 ed a king he never appointed him absolute, 
 and a sole independent angel, but joined al- 
 ways with him judges, who were no less to 
 judge according to the law of God (2 Chron. 
 xix. 6,) than the king, Deut. xvii. 15. And 
 in a moral obligation of judging righteous- 
 ly, the conscience of the monarch and the 
 conscience of the inferior judges are equally 
 under immediate subjection to the King 
 of kings ; for there is here a co-ordination 
 of consciences, and no subordination, for it 
 is not in the power of the inferior judge to 
 judge, quoad specijicationan, as the king 
 commandeth him, because the judgment is 
 neither the king's, nor any mortal man's, 
 but the Lord's, 2 Chron. xix. 6, 7. 
 
 Hence all the three forms are from God ; 
 but let no man say, if they be all indiffer- 
 ent, and equally of God, societies and king- 
 doms are left in the dark, and know not 
 which of the three they shall pitch upon, 
 because God hath given to them no special 
 direction for one rather than for another. 
 But this is easily answered. 1st, That a re- 
 public appoint rulers to govern them is not 
 an indifferent, but a moral action, because 
 to set no rulers over themselves I conceive 
 were a breach of the fifth commandment, 
 •which commandeth government to be one 
 or other. 2d, It is not in men's free will 
 that they have government or no govern- 
 ment, because it is not in their free will 
 to obey or not to obey the acts of the court 
 of nature, which is God's court ; and this 
 court enacteth that societies suffer not man- 
 kind to perish, which must necessarily fol- 
 low if they appoint no government ; also it 
 is proved elsewhere, that no moral acts, in 
 their exercises and use, are left indifferent 
 
 to us ; so then, the aptitude and temper of 
 every commonwealth to monarchy, rather 
 than to democracy or aristocracy, is God's 
 warrant and nearest call to determine the 
 wills and liberty of people to pitch upon a 
 monarchy, hie et nunc, rather than any 
 other form of government, though all the 
 three be from God, even as single life and 
 marriage are both the lawful ordinances of 
 God, and the constitution and temper of the 
 body is a calling to either of the two ; nor 
 are we to think that aristocracy and de- 
 mocracy are either unlawful ordinances, or 
 men's inventions, or that those societies 
 which want monarchy do therefore live in 
 sins. 
 
 But some say that Peter calleth any 
 form of government an human ordinance, 
 1 Pet. ii. 13, M^Tivn xrleis, therefore mo- 
 narchy can be no ordinance of God. Ans. 
 Bivetus saith, 1 — " It is called an ordinance 
 of man, not because it is an invention of 
 man, and not an ordinance of God, but re- 
 spectu subjecti;" Piscator, 2 — " Not because 
 man is the efficient cause of magistracy, but 
 because they are men who are magistrates ;" 
 Diodatus, 3 — " Obey princes and magistrates, 
 or governors made by men, or amongst men ;" 
 Oecumenius,* — " An human constitution, 
 because it is made by an human disposition, 
 and created by human suffrages ;" Dydimus, 
 — Because over it " presides presidents made 
 by men ;" Cajetanus, 6 Estius, 7 — " Every 
 creature of God (as, preach the gospel to 
 every creature) in authority." But I take 
 the word, " every creature of man," to be 
 put emphatically, to commend the worth of 
 obedience to magistrates, though but men, 
 when we do it for the Lord's sake ; there- 
 fore Betrandus Cardinalis Ednen.-ds saith, 8 
 " He speaketh so for the more necessity of 
 merit ;" and Glossa Ordinaria saith, " Be 
 subject to all powers, etiam ex injidelibus 
 et ineredulis, even of infidels and unbe- 
 lievers." Lyranus, — " For though they be 
 men, the image of God shineth in them ;" 
 and the Syriac, as Lorinus saith ; 8 leadeth us 
 thereunto, K^tf ^2 HnS^S Lechulle- 
 chum benai anasa : Obey all the children of 
 
 1 Rivetus in decal. Mand. 5, p. 194. 
 
 2 Piscator in loc. 3 Diodatus, annot. 
 
 * Occumenius quod horuinum disijositiono con- 
 sistit, et liumanis suffragiis creatur. 
 
 o Cajetanus, officium regiminis, quia humanis 
 suffragiis creatur. 
 
 6 Kstius in loc. 7 Betrandus, torn. 4, Bib. 
 
 8 Lorin. in. lo. 
 
LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 men that are in authority. It is an ordinance 
 of men, not effectively, as if it were an inven- 
 tion and a dream of men ; but subjectively, 
 because exercised by man. Objectively, and 
 tiXikus, for the good of men, and for the ex- 
 ternal man's peace and safety especially ; 
 whereas church -officers are for the spiri- 
 tual good of men's souls. And Durandus 
 saith well, 1 " Civil power according to its 
 institution is of God, and according to its 
 acquisition and way of use is of man." And 
 we may thus far call the forms of magis- 
 trates a human ordinance, — that some ma- 
 gistrates are ordained to care for men's lives 
 and matters criminal, of life and death, and 
 some for men's lands and estates ; some for 
 commodities by sea, and some by land ; and 
 are thus called magistrates according to these 
 determinations or human ordinances. 
 
 QUESTION IV. 
 
 WHETHER THE RING BE ONLY AND IMME- 
 DIATELY FROM GOD, AND NOT FROM THE 
 PEOPLE. 
 
 That this question may be the clearer we 
 are to set down these considerations : — 
 
 1. The question is, Whether the kingly 
 office itself come from God. I conceive it 
 is, and floweth from the people, not by for- 
 mal institution, as if the people had by an 
 act of reason devised and excogitated such 
 a power : God ordained the power. It is 
 from the people only by a virtual emana- 
 tion, in respect that a community having no 
 government at all may ordain a king or ap- 
 point an aristocracy. But the question is 
 concerning the designation of the person : 
 Whence is it that this man rather than 
 that man is crowned king ? and whence is 
 it — from God immediately and only — that 
 this man rather than that man, and this 
 race or family rather than that race and 
 family, is chosen for the crown ? Or is it 
 from the people also, and their free choice ? 
 For the pastor's and the doctor's office is 
 from Christ only ; but that John rather 
 than Thomas be the doctor or the pastor is 
 from the will and choice of men — the pres- 
 byters and people. 
 
 2. The royal power is three ways in the 
 people : 1st, Radically and virtually, as in 
 
 Durandus lib. de orig. juris. 
 
 the first subject. 2d, Collative vcl com- 
 municative, by way of free donation, they 
 giving it to this man, not to that man, that 
 he may rule over them. 3d, Limitate, — 
 they giving it so as these three acts re- 
 main with the people. (1.) That they may 
 measure out, by ounce weights, so much 
 royal power, and no more and no less. (2.) | 
 So as they may limit, moderate, and set 
 banks and marches to the exercise. (3.) 
 That they give it out, couditionate, upon 
 this and that condition, that they may take 
 again to themselves what they gave out 
 upon condition if the condition be violated. 
 The first I conceive is clear, 1st, Because 
 if all living creatures have radically in 
 them a power of self-preservation, to defend 
 themselves from violence, — as we see lions 
 have paws, some beasts have horns, some 
 claws, — men being reasonable creatures, 
 united in society, must have power in a 
 more reasonable and honourable way to put 
 this power of warding off violence in the 
 hands of one or more rulers, to defend 
 themselves by magistrates. 2d, If all men 
 be born, as concerning civil power, alike, — ■ 
 for no man cometh out of the womb with a 
 diadem on his head or a sceptre in his hand, 
 and yet men united in a society may give 
 crown and sceptre to this man and not to 
 that man, — then this power was in this 
 united society, but it was not in them for- 
 mally, for they should then all have been 
 one king, and so both above and superior, 
 and below and inferior to themselves, which 
 we cannot say ; therefore this power must 
 have been virtually in them, because neither 
 man nor community of men can give that 
 which they neither have formally nor vir- 
 tually in them. 3d, Royalists cannot deny 
 but cities have power to choose and create 
 interior magistrates ; therefore many cities 
 united have power to create a higher ruler ; 
 for royal power is but the united and super- 
 lative power of inferior judges in one greater 
 judge whom they call a king. 
 
 Conclus. The power of creating a man 
 a king is from the people. 
 
 1. Because those who may create this man 
 a king rather than that man have power 
 to appoint a king ; for a comparative action 
 doth positively infer an action. If a man 
 have power to marry this woman and not 
 that woman, we may strongly conclude that 
 he hath power to marry ; now, 1 Kings xvi. 
 the people made Omri king and not Ziniri, 
 and his son Achab rather than Tibui the 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 son of Sinath. Nor can rt be replied that 
 this was no lawful power that the people 
 used, for that cannot elude the argument ; 
 for (1 Kings i.) the people made Solomon 
 king and not Adonijah, though Adonijah 
 was the elder brother. They say, God did 
 extraordinarily both make the office, and 
 design Solomon to be king, — the people 
 had no hand in it, but approved God's act. 
 Arts. This is what we say, God by the 
 people, by Nathan the prophet, and by the 
 servants of David and the states crying, 
 " God save king Solomon ! " made Solomon 
 king ; and here is a real action of the peo- 
 ple. God is the first agent in all acts of the 
 creature. "Where a people maketh choice 
 of a man to be their king, the states do no 
 other thing, under God, but create this man 
 rather than another; and we cannot here 
 find two actions, one of God, another of the 
 people ; but in one and the same action, 
 God, by the people's free suffrages and 
 voices, createth such a man king, passing 
 by many thousands ; and the people are not 
 passive in the action, because by the autho- 
 ritative choice of the states the man is made 
 of a private man and no king, a public per- 
 son and a crowned king : 2 Sam. xvi. 18, 
 " Hushai said to Absalom, Nay, but whom 
 the Lord and the people, and all the men 
 of Israel choose, his will I be, and with him 
 will I abide ;" Judg. viii. 22, " The men of 
 Israel said to Gideon, Rule thou over us ;" 
 Judg. ix. 6, " The men of Sechem made 
 Abimelech king;" Judg. xi. 8, 11 ; 2 Kings 
 xiv. 21, " The people made Azariah king ;" 
 1 Sam. xii. 1 ; 2 Chron. xxiii. 3. 
 
 2. If God doth regulate his people in 
 making this man king, not that man, then 
 he thereby insinuateth that the people have 
 a power to make this man king, and not 
 that man. But God doth regulate his 
 people in making a king ; therefore the 
 people have a power to make this man king, 
 not that man king. The proposition is 
 clear, because God's law doth not regulate 
 a non-ens, a mere nothing, or an unlawful 
 power ; nor can God's holy law regulate an 
 unlawful power, or an unlawful action, but 
 quite abolish and interdict it. The Lord 
 setteth not down rules and ways how men 
 should not commit treason, but the Lord 
 commandeth loyalty, and simply interdict- 
 eth treason. If people have then more 
 power to create a king over themselves 
 than they had to make prophets, then God 
 forbidding them to choose such a man for 
 
 their king should say as much to his people 
 as if he would say, " I command you to 
 make Isaiah and Jeremiah prophets over 
 you, but not these and those men." This, 
 certainly, should prove that not God only, 
 but the people also, with God, made pro- 
 phets. I leave this to the consideration of 
 the godly. The prophets were immediately 
 called of God to be prophets, whether the 
 people consented that they should be pro- 
 phets or not ; therefore God immediately 
 and only sent the prophets, not the people ; 
 but though God extraordinarily designed 
 some men to be kings, and anointed them 
 by his prophets, yet were they never ac- 
 tually installed kings till the people made 
 them kings. I prove the assumption, Deut. 
 xvii. 14, 15, " When thou shaft say, I will 
 set a king over me, like as all the nations 
 that are about me, thou shalt in any wise 
 set him king over thee whom the Lord thy 
 God shall choose ; one from amongst thy 
 brethren shalt thou set king over thee : thou 
 mayest not set a stranger over thee, which 
 is not thy brother." Should not this be an 
 unjust charge to the people, if God only, 
 without any action of the people, should 
 immediately set a king over them ? Might 
 not the people reply, We have no power at 
 all to set a king over ourselves, more than 
 we have power to make Isaiah a prophet, 
 who saw the visions of God. To what end 
 then should God mock us, and say, " Make 
 a brother and not a stranger king over you ?" 
 3. Expressly Scripture saith, that the 
 people made the king, though under God : 
 Judg. ix. 6, " The men of Sechem made 
 Abimelech king ;" 1 Sam. xi. 15, " And 
 all the people went to Gilgal, and there 
 they made Saul king before the Lord ;" 
 2 King. x. 5, " We will not make any 
 king." This had been an irrational speech 
 to Jehu if both Jehu and the people held 
 the royalists' tenet, that the people had no 
 power to make a king, nor any active or 
 causative influence therein, but that God 
 immediately made the king : 1 Chron. xii. 
 38, " All these came with a perfect heart 
 to make David king in Hebron ;" and all 
 the rest were of one heart to make David 
 king. On these words Lavater saith, 1 The 
 same way are magistrates now to be chosen ; 
 now this day God, by an immediate oracle 
 
 1 Lavater com. in part 12, 38. Hodie quoque in 
 liberis urbibus, et gentibus, magistratus secundum 
 dei verbum, Exod. xviii., Deut. i., eligendi sunt, non 
 ex affectibus. 
 
I. 'A, REX ; OR, 
 
 from heaven, appointeth the office of a king, 
 but I am sure he doth not immediately de- 
 sign the man, but doth only mark him out 
 to the people as one who hath the most royal 
 endowments, and the due qualifications re- 
 quired in a lawful magistrate by the word 
 of God : Exod. xviii. 21, " Men of truth, 
 hating covetousness," &c. ; Deut. i. 16, 17, 
 Men who will judge causes betwixt their 
 brethren righteously, without respect of per- 
 sons ; 1 Sam. x. 2l, Saul was chosen out of 
 the tribes according to the law of God ; 
 Deut. xvii., They might not choose a stran- 
 ger ; and Abulensis, Serrarius, Cornelius 
 a Lapide, Sancheiz, and other popish wri- 
 ters, think that Saul was not only anointed 
 with oil first privately by Samuel, (1 Sam. 
 x. 1, 2,) but also at two other times before 
 the people, — once at Mizpeh, and another 
 time at Gilgal, by a parliament and a con- 
 vention of the states. And Samuel judged 
 the voices of the people so essential to make 
 a king that Samuel doth not acknowledge 
 him as formal king, (1 Sam. x. 7, 8, 17, 
 18, 19,) though he honoured him because 
 he was to be king, (1 Sam. ix. 23, 24,) 
 while the tribes of Israel and parliament 
 were gathered together to make him king- 
 according to God's law, (Deut. xvii.) as is 
 evident. 1st, For Samuel (1 Sam. v. 20,) 
 caused all the tribes of Israel to stand be- 
 fore the Lord, and the tribe of Benjamin 
 was taken. The law provided one of their 
 own, not a stranger to reign over them ; 
 and, because some of the states of parlia- 
 ment did not choose him, but, being chil- 
 dren of Belial, despised him in their hearts, 
 (v. 27,) therefore after king Saul, by that 
 victory over the Ammonites, had conquered 
 the affections of all the people fully, (v. 10, 
 11,) Samuel would have his coronation and 
 election by the estates of parliament re- 
 newed at Gilgal by all the people, (v. 1-1, 
 15,) to establish him king. 2d, The Lord 
 by lots found out the tribe of Benjamin. 
 3d, The Lord found out the man, by name, 
 Saul the son of Kish, when he did hide 
 himself amongst the stuff, that the people 
 might do their part in the creating of the 
 king, whereas Samuel had anointed him 
 before. But the text saith expressly that 
 the people made Saul king ; and Calvin, 
 Martyr, Lavater, and popish writers, as 
 Serrarius, Mendoza, Sancheiz, Cornelius a 
 Lapide, Lyranus, Hugo Cardinalis, Carthu- 
 sius, Sanctius, do all hence conclude that 
 the people, under God, make the king. 
 
 I see no reason why Barclaius should 
 here distinguish a power of choosing a king, 
 which he granteth the people hath, and a 
 power of making a king, which he saith is 
 only proper to God. 1 Ans. Choosing of a 
 king is either — a comparative crowning of 
 this man, not that man ; and if the people 
 have this it is a creating of a king under 
 God, who principally disposeth of kings and 
 kingdoms ; and this is enough for us. The 
 want of this made Zimri no king, and those 
 whom the rulers of Jezreel at Samaria (2 
 King, x.) refused to make kings, no kings. 
 This election of the people made Athaliah 
 a princess ; the removal of it, and translation 
 of the crown by the people to Joash made 
 her no princess : for, I ask you, what other 
 calling of God hath a race of a family, 
 and a person to the crown, but only the 
 election of the states ? There is now no 
 voice from heaven, no immediately inspired 
 prophets such as Samuel and Elisha, to 
 anoint David, not Eliab, — Solomon, not 
 Adonijah. The ^W^'s or the heroic spirit 
 of a royal faculty of governing, is, I grant, 
 from God only, not from the people ; but 
 I suppose that maketh not a king, for then 
 many sitting on the throne this day should 
 be no kings, and many private persons 
 should be kings. If they mean by the peo- 
 ple's choosing nothing but the people's ap- 
 probative consent, posterior to God's act of 
 creating a king, let them show us an act of 
 God making kings, and establishing royal 
 power in this family rather than in that 
 family, which is prior to the people's con- 
 sent, — distinct from the people's consent I 
 believe there is none at all. 
 
 Hence I argue : If there be no calling 
 or title on earth to tie the crown to such a 
 family and person but the suffrages of the 
 people, then have the line of such a family, 
 and the persons now, no calling of God, no 
 right to the crown, but only by the suffrages 
 of the people, except we say that there be 
 no lawful kings on earth now when prophe- 
 tical unction and designation to crowns are 
 ceased, contrary to express scripture : Bom. 
 xiii. 1—3 ; 1 Pet. ii. 13—17. 
 
 But there is no title on earth how to tie 
 crowns to families, to persons, but only the 
 suffrages of the people : for, 1st, Conquest 
 without the consent of the people is but 
 royal robbery, as we shall see. 2d, There 
 is no prophetical and immediate calling to 
 
 1 Barclaius, lib. 3, cont. Monarchoraach. 8. c. 3. 
 
THE LAW .VXD THE PRINCE. 
 
 kingdoms now. 3d, The Lord's giving of 
 regal parts is somewhat ; but I hope roy- 
 alists will not deny but a child, young in 
 years and judgment, may be a lawful king. 
 4th, Mr Maxwell's appointing of the kingly 
 office doth no more make one man a lawful 
 king than another; for this were a wide 
 consequence. God hath appointed that 
 kings should be ; therefore John a Stiles is 
 a king ; yea, therefore David is a king. It 
 followeth not. Therefore it remaineth only 
 that the suffrages of the people of God is 
 that just title and divine calling that kings 
 have now to their crowns. I presuppose 
 they have gifts to govern from God. 
 
 If the Lord's immediate designation of 
 David, and his anointing by the divine au- 
 thority of Samuel, had been that which 
 alone, without the election of the people, 
 made David formally king of Israel, then 
 there were two kings in Israel at one time ; 
 for Samuel anointed David, and so he was 
 formally king upon the ground laid by roy- 
 alists, that the king hath no royal power 
 from the people ; and David, after he him- 
 self was anointed by Samuel, divers times 
 calleth Saul the Lord's anointed, and that 
 by the inspiration of God's Spirit, as we 
 and royalists do both agree. Now two law- 
 ful supreme monarchs in one kingdom I 
 conceive to be most repugnant to God's 
 truth and sound reason ; for they are as re- 
 pugnant as two most highs or as two in- 
 finites. It shall follow that David all the 
 while betwixt his anointing by Samuel and 
 his coronation by the suffrages of all Israel 
 at Hebron, was in-lacking in discharging 
 and acquitting himself of his royal duty, 
 God having made him formally a king, and 
 so laying upon him a charge to execute 
 justice and judgment, and defend religion, 
 which he did not discharge. All David's 
 suffering, upon David's part, must be unr 
 just, for, as king, he should have cut off 
 the murderer Saul, who killed the priests of 
 the Lord ; especially, seeing Saul, by this 
 ground, must be a private murderer, and 
 David the only lawful king. David, if he 
 was formally king, deserted his calling in 
 flying to the Philistines ; for a king should 
 not forsake his calling upon any hazard, 
 even of his life, no more than a pilot should 
 give over the helm in an extreme storm ; 
 but certainly God's dispensation in this war- 
 ranteth us to say, no man can be formally 
 a lawful king without the suffrages of the 
 people : for Saul, after Samuel from the 
 
 Lord anointed him, remained a private 
 man, and no king, till the people made him 
 king, and elected him ; and David, anointed 
 by that same divine authority, remained 
 formally a subject, and not a king, till all 
 Israel made him kinoj at Hebron ; and So- 
 lomon, though by God designed and or- 
 dained to be king, yet was never king un- 
 til the people made him so, (1 Kings i.) ; 
 therefore there floweth something from the 
 power of the people, by which he who is no 
 king now becometh a king formally, and by 
 God's lawful call ; whereas before the man 
 was no king, but, as touching all royal 
 power, a mere private man, And I am 
 sure birth must be less than God's desigv 
 nation to a crown, as is clear, — Adonijah 
 was older than Solomon, yet God will have 
 Solomon, the younger by birth, to be king, 
 and not Adonijah. And so Mr Symons, 
 and other court prophets, must prevaricate, 
 who will have birth, without the people's 
 election, to make a king, and the people's 
 voices but a ceremony. 
 
 I think royalists cannot deny but a peo=- 
 pie ruled by aristocratic magistrates may 
 elect a king, and a king so elected is for- 
 mally made a lawful king by the people's 
 election ; for of six willing and gifted to 
 reign, what maketh one a king and not the 
 other five ? Certainly by God's disposing 
 the people to choose this man, and not an- 
 other man. It cannot be said but God giveth 
 the kingly power immediately ; and by him 
 kings reign, that is true. The office is im- 
 mediately from God, but the question now 
 is, What is that which formally applieth 
 the office and royal power to this person 
 rather than to the other fiye as meet ? 
 Nothing can here be dreamed of but God's 
 inclining the hearts of the states to choose 
 this man and not that man. 
 
 QUESTION V. 
 
 WHETHER OR NO THE POPISH PRELATE, THE 
 AUTHOR OF " SAC. SAN. REGUM MAJESTAS," 
 CALLED THE SACRED AND ROYAL PRERO- 
 GATIVE OF KINGS, PROVETH THAT GOD IS 
 THE IMMEDIATE AUTHOR OF SOVEREIGNTY, 
 AND THAT THE KING IS NO CREATURE OF 
 THE PEOPLE'S MAKING. 
 
 Consider, 1. That the excommunicated 
 prelate saith, (c. 2, p. 19,) " Kings are not 
 
 D 
 
10 
 
 LEX, REX : OR, 
 
 immediately from God as by any special or- 
 dinance sent from heaven by the ministry of 
 angels and prophets ; there were but some 
 few such ; as Moses, Saul, David, &c. ; yet 
 something may immediately proceed from 
 God, and be his special work, without a re- 
 velation or manifestation extraordinary from 
 heaven ; so the designation to a sacred func- 
 tion is from the church and from man, yet 
 the power of word, sacraments, binding and 
 loosing, is immediately from Jesus Christ. 
 The "apostle Matthias was from Christ's 
 immediate constitution, and yet he was de- 
 signed by men, Acts i. The soul is by 
 creation and infusion, without any special 
 ordinance from heaven, though nature be- 
 getteth the body, and disposeth the matter, 
 and prepareth it as fit to be conjoined with 
 the soul, so as the father is said to beget the 
 son." Arts. 1st, The unchurched Prelate 
 striveth to make us hateful by the title of 
 the chapter, — That God is, by his title, the 
 immediate author of sovereignty ; and who 
 denieth that? Not those who teach that 
 the person who is king is created king by 
 the people, no more than those who deny 
 that men are now called to be pastors and 
 deacons immediately, and by a voice from 
 heaven, or by the ministry of angels and 
 prophets, because the office of pastors and 
 deacons is immediately from God. 2d, 
 When he hath proved that God is the im- 
 mediate author of sovereignty, what then ? 
 Shall it follow that the sovereign in concrcto 
 may not be resisted, and that he is above all 
 law, and that there is no armour against his 
 violence but prayers and tears? Because 
 God is the immediate author of the pastor 
 and of the apostle's office, does it therefore 
 follow that it is unlawful to resist a pastor 
 though he turn robber ? If so, then the 
 pastor is above all the king's laws. This is 
 the Jesuit and all made, and there is no ar- 
 mour against the robbing prelate but prayer 
 and tears. 
 
 2. He saith in his title, that " the king is 
 no creature of the people's making." If he 
 mean the king in the abstract, that is, the 
 royal dignity, whom speaketh he against? 
 Not against us, but against his own father, 
 Bellarmine, who saith, 1 that "sovereignty 
 hath no warrant by any divine law." If he 
 mean that the man who is king is not cre- 
 ated and elected king by the people, he con- 
 tradicteth himself and all the court doctors. 
 
 Bellarmine, lib. 5, c. 6, not 5, de Laicis 
 
 3. It is false that Saul and David's call 
 to royalty was only from God, " by a special 
 ordinance sent from heaven," for their office 
 is (Deut. xvii. 14) from the written word of 
 God, as the killing of idolaters, (ver. 3, 7,) 
 and as the office ot the priests and Levites, 
 (ver. 8 — 10,) and this is no extraordinary 
 office from heaven, more than that is from 
 heaven which is warranted by the word of 
 God. If he mean that these men, Saul and 
 David, were created kings only by the ex- 
 traordinary revelation of God from heaven, 
 it is a lie ; for besides the prophetical anoint- 
 ing of them, they were made kings by the 
 people, as the Word saith expressly ; except 
 we say that David sinned in not setting him- 
 self down on the throne, when Samuel first 
 anointed him king ; and so he should have 
 made away with his master, king Saul, out 
 of the world ; and there were not a few 
 called to the throne by the people, but 
 many, yea, all the kings of Israel and of 
 Judah. 
 
 4. The prelate contendeth that a king is 
 designed to his royal dignity " immediately 
 from God, without an extraordinary revela- 
 tion from heaven," as the man is " designed 
 to be a pastor by men, and yet the power of 
 preaching is immediately from God," &c. ; 
 but he proveth nothing, except he prove 
 that all pastors are called to be pastors im- 
 mediately, and that God callcth and design- 
 eth to the office such a person immediately 
 as he hath immediately instituted by the 
 power of preaching and the apostleship, and 
 hath immediately infused the soul in the 
 body by an act of creation ; and we cannot 
 conceive how God in our days, when there 
 are no extraordinary revelations, doth im- 
 mediately create this man a king, and im- 
 mediately tie the crown to this family rather 
 than to that. This he doth by the people 
 now, without any prophetical unction, and 
 by this medium, viz., the free choice of the 
 people. He need not bring the example of 
 Matthias more than of any ordinary pastor ; 
 and yet an ordinary pastor is not immediate- 
 ly called of God, because the office is from 
 God immediately, and also the man is made 
 pastor by the church. 
 
 The P. Prelate saith, (c. 2, p. 20—23,) 
 A thing is immediately from God three 
 ways. 1st, When it is solely from God, and 
 presupposeth nothing ordinary or human an- 
 tecedent to the obtaining of it. Such was 
 the power of Moses, Saul and David ; such 
 were the apostles. 2d, When the collation 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 of the power to such a person is immediately 
 from God, though some act of man be ante- 
 cedent, as Matthias was an apostle. A bap- 
 tised man obtaineth remission and regenera- 
 tion, yet aspersion of water cannot produce 
 these excellent effects. A king giveth power 
 to a favourite to make a lord or a baron, yet 
 who is so stupid as to aver, that the honour 
 pf a lord cometh immediately from the fa- 
 vourite and not from the king. 3d, When 
 a man hath, by some ordinary human right, 
 a full and just right, and the approbation 
 and confirmation of this right is immediate- 
 ly from God. 
 
 The first way, sovereignty is not from 
 God. The second way, sovereignty is con- 
 ferred on kings immediately : though some 
 created act of election, succession or con- 
 quest intervene, the interposed act contain- 
 eth not in it power to confer sovereignty ; 
 as in baptism, regeneration, if there be no- 
 thing repugnant in the recipient, is con- 
 ferred, not by water, but immediately by 
 God. In sacred orders, designation is from 
 men, power to supernatural acts from God. 
 Election, succession, conquests, remotely and 
 improperly constitute a king. To say in the 
 third sense, that sovereignty is immediately 
 from God by approbation or confirmation 
 only, is against Scripture, Prov. viii. 15 ; 
 Psal. lxxxvih. 8 ; John xix. ; then the peo- 
 ple say, You are God's, your power is from 
 below. And Paul's " ordained of God," is 
 " approved and confirmed only of God ;" the 
 power of designation, or application of the 
 person to royalty, is from man ; the power 
 of conferring royal power, or of applying the 
 person to royal power, is from God. A 
 man's hand may apply a faggot to the fire, 
 the fire only maketh the faggot to burn. 
 
 Answer. 1st, Apostles, both according to 
 their office and the designation of their per- 
 son to the office, were immediately and only 
 from God, without any act of the people, 
 and therefore are badly coupled with the 
 royal power of David and king Saul, who 
 were not formally made kings but by the 
 people at Mizpeh and Hebron. 2d, The se- 
 cond way God giveth royal power, by mov- 
 ing the people's hearts to confer royal power, 
 and this is virtually in the people, formally 
 from God. Water hath no influence to pro- 
 duce grace, God's institution and promise 
 doth it ; except you dream with your Je- 
 suits, of opus operatum, that water sprin- 
 kled, by the doing of the deed, conferreth 
 grace, nisi ponatur obex, what can the child 
 
 11 
 
 do, or one baptised child more than another, 
 to hinder the flux of remission of sins, if you 
 mean not that baptism worketh as physic on 
 a sick man, except strength of humours hin- 
 der ? and therefore this comparison is not 
 alike. The people cannot produce so noble 
 an effect as royalty, — a beam from God. 
 True, formally they cannot, but virtually 
 it is in a society of reasonable men, in whom 
 are left beams of authoritative majesty, which 
 by a divine institution they can give (Deut. 
 xvii. 14) to this man, to David, not to Eliab. 
 And I could well say the favourite made the 
 lord, and placed honour in the man whom 
 he made lord, by a borrowed power from 
 his prince ; and yet the honour of a lord is 
 principally from the king. 3. It is true the 
 election of the people containeth not formal- 
 ly royal dignity, but the Word saith, they 
 made Saul, they made David king ; so vir- 
 tually election must contain it. Samuel's 
 oil maketh not David king, he is a subject 
 after he is anointed ; the people's election 
 at Hebron maketh him king, differeth him 
 from his brethren, and putteth him in royal 
 state ; yet God is the principal agent. What 
 immediate action God hath here, is said and 
 dreamed of, no man can divine, except Pro- 
 phet P. Prelate. The i?««r«s, royal author- 
 ity, is given organically by that act by which 
 he is made king : another act is a night- 
 dream, but by the act of election, David is 
 of no king, a king. The collation of $vvaf£i S} 
 royal gifts, is immediately from God, but 
 that formally maketh not a king, if Solo- 
 mon saw right, " servants riding on horses, 
 princes going on foot." 4th, Judge of the 
 Prelate's subtflty, — I dare say not his own ; 
 he stealeth from Spalato, but telleth it not, 
 — " The applying of the person to royal au- 
 thority is from the people; but the applying 
 of royal authority to the person of the kino-, 
 is immediately and only from God ; as the 
 hand putteth the faggot to the fire, but the 
 fire maketh it burn." To apply the subject 
 to the accident, is it any thing else but to 
 apply the accident to the subject ? Royal 
 authority is an accident, the person of the 
 king the subject. The applying of the fag- 
 got to the fire, and the applying of the fire 
 to the faggot, are all one, to any one not 
 forsaken of common sense. When the peo- 
 ple applyeth the person to the royal autho- 
 rity, they but put the person in the state of 
 royal authority ; this is to make an union 
 betwixt the man and royal authority, and 
 this is to apply royal authority to the per- 
 
12 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 son. 5th, The third sense is the Prelate's 
 dream, not a tenet of ours. We never said 
 that sovereignty in the king is immediately 
 from God by approbation or confirmation 
 only, as if the people first made the king, 
 and God did only by a posterior and latter 
 act say Amen to the deed done, and sub- 
 scribe, as recorder, to what the people doth : 
 so the people should deal crowns and king- 
 doms at their pleasure, and God behoove to 
 ratify and make good their act. When God 
 doth apply the person to royal power, is this 
 a different action from the people's applying 
 the person to royal dignity ? It is not ima- 
 ginable. But the people, by creating a king, 
 applyeth the person to royal dignity ; and 
 God, by the people's act of constituting the 
 man king, doth by the mediation of this act 
 convey royal authority to the man, as the 
 church by sending a man and ordaining him 
 to be a pastor, doth not by that, as God's 
 instruments, infuse supernatural powers of 
 preaching ; these supernatural powers may 
 be, and often are in him before he be in or- 
 ders. And sometimes God infuseth a super- 
 natural power of government in a man when 
 he is not yet a king, as the Lord turned 
 Saul into another man, (1 Sam. x. 5, 6,) nei- 
 ther at that point of time when Samuel a- 
 nointed him, but afterwards: "After that 
 thou shalt come to the hill of God, the Spi- 
 rit of the Lord shall come upon thee, and 
 thou shalt prophesy with them, and shalt be 
 turned into another man ;" nor yet at that 
 time when he is formally made king by the 
 people ; for Saul was not king formally be- 
 cause of Samuel's anointing, nor yet was he 
 king because another spirit was infused into 
 him, (v. 5, 6) for he was yet a private man 
 till the states of Israel chose him king at 
 Mizpeh. And the word of God used words 
 of action to express the people's power: 
 Judg. ix. 6, And all the men of Sechem 
 gathered together, and all the men of Millo, 
 T^Sft'T regnare feccrunt, they caused him 
 to be king. The same is said 1 Sam. x. 15, 
 They caused Saul to reign ; 2 Kings x. 15, 
 t^tf^ 1 ?^ $h We shall not king any 
 man ; 1 Cliron. xii. 38, They came to He- 
 bron TilT nttT^-H 1 ? to king David 
 over all Israel ; Deut. xvii. three times the 
 making of a king is given to the people. 
 
 When thou shalt say, -jSd »Sy HD'J^K 
 I shall set a king over me. If it were not 
 in their power to make a king no law could 
 
 be imposed on them not to make a stranger 
 their king ; 1 Kings xii. 20, All the con- 
 
 fregation kinged Jeroboam, or made him 
 ing over all Israel ; 2 Kings xi. 12, They 
 kinged Joash, or made Joash to reign. 6, 
 The people are to say, You are God's, and 
 your power is below, saith the Prelate : 
 What then ? therefore their power is not 
 from God also ? It followeth not subordi- 
 nate!, non pugnant. The Scripture saith 
 both, the Lord exalted David to be king, 
 and, all power is from God ; and so the 
 power of a lord mayor of a city : the people 
 made David king, and the people maketh 
 such a man lord mayor. It is the Anabap- 
 tists' argument, — God writeth his law in our 
 heart, and teacheth his own children ; there- 
 fore books and the ministry of men are need- 
 less. So all sciences and lawful arts are from 
 God ; therefore sciences applied to men are 
 not from men's free will, industry and studies. 
 The prelate extolleth the king when he will 
 have his royalty from God, the way that 
 John Stiles is the husband of such a woman. 
 P. Prelate. — Kings are of God, they are 
 God's, children of the Most High, his ser- 
 vants, public ministers, — their sword and 
 judgment are God's. This he hath said of 
 their royalty in abstracto and in concreto ; 
 their power, person, charge, are all of divine 
 extract, and so their authority and person 
 are both sacred and inviolable. 1 
 
 Ans.— So are all the congregation of the 
 judges; Psal. lxxxii. 1, 6, All of them are 
 God's ; for he speaketh not there of a con- 
 gregation of kings. So are apostles, their 
 office and persons of God ; and so the pre- 
 lates (as they think), the successors of the 
 apostles, are God's servants ; their ministry, 
 word, rod of discipline, not theirs, but of 
 God. The judgment of judges, inferior to 
 the king, is the Lord's judgment, not men's. 
 Deut. i. 17 ; 2 Cliron. xix. 6, Hence by the 
 Prelate's logic, the persons of prelates, ma- 
 yors, bailiffs, constables, pastors, are sacred 
 and inviolable above all laws, as are kings. 
 Is this an extolling of kings ? But where 
 are kings' persons, as men, said to be of God, 
 as the royalty in abstracto is ? The Pre- 
 late seeth beside his book, (Psal. lxxxii. 7,) 
 " But ye shall die like men." 
 
 P. Prelate. — We begin with the law, in 
 which, as God by himself prescribed the es- 
 sentials, substantiate, and ceremonies of his 
 piety and worship, gave order for piety and 
 
 i Sacro. Sa. Rpi. Ma. c. 24. 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 13 
 
 justice ; Deut. xvii. 14, 15, the king is here 
 originally and immediately from God, and 
 independent from all others. " Set over 
 them" — them is collective, that is, all and 
 every one. Scripture knoweth not this 
 state principle, — Rex est singulis major, 
 univcrsis minor. The person is expressed 
 in concreto, " Whom the Lord thy God 
 shall choose." This peremptory precept 
 dischargeth the people, all and every one, 
 diffusively, representatively, or in any ima- 
 ginable capacity to attempt the appointing 
 of a king, but to leave it entirely and totally 
 to God Almighty. 
 
 Ans. — Begin with the law, but end not 
 with traditions. If God by himself pre- 
 scribed the essentials of piety and worship, 
 the other part of your distinction is, that 
 God, not by himself, but by his prelates, 
 appointed the whole Romish rites, as acci- 
 dentals of piety. This is the Jesuits' doc- 
 trine. This place is so far from proving the 
 king to be independent, and that it totally 
 is God's to appoint a king, that it expressly 
 giveth the people power to appoint a king ; 
 for the setting of a king over themselves, 
 this one and not that one, makes the people 
 to appoint the king, and the king to be less 
 and dependent on the people, seeing God 
 intendeth the king for the people's good, 
 and not the people for the king's good. 
 This text shanieth the Prelate, who also 
 confessed, (p. 22,) that remotely and im- 
 properly, succession, election, and conquest 
 maketh the king, and so it is lawful for men 
 remotely and improperly to invade God's 
 chair. 
 
 P. Prelate— Jesuits and puritans say, it 
 was a privilege of the Jews that God chose 
 their king. So Suarez, Soto, Navarra. 
 
 Ans. — The Jesuits are the Prelate's bre- 
 thren, they are under one banner, — we are 
 in contrary camps to Jesuits. The Prelate 
 said himself, (p. 19,) Moses, Saul, and Da- 
 vid, were by extraordinary revelation from 
 God. Sure I am kings are not so now. 
 The Jews had this privilege that no nation 
 had. God named some kings to them, as 
 Saul, David, — he doth not so now. God did 
 tie royalty to David's house by a covenant 
 till Christ should come, — he doth not so 
 now ; yet we stand to Deut. xvii. 
 
 P. Prelate. — Prov. 8. 15, " By me kings 
 reign." If the people had right to consti- 
 tute a king, it had not been king Solomon, 
 but king Adonijah. Solomon saith not of 
 himself, but indefinitely, " By me," as by 
 
 the Author, Efficient, and Constituent, 
 kings reign. Per is by Christ, not by 
 the people, not by the high priest, state or 
 presbytery, — not per me iratum, by me in 
 my anger, as some sectaries say. Paul's 
 'iia.Tccyh tov Sim, an ordinance by high autho- 
 rity not revocable. Sinesius so useth the 
 word, Aristotle, Lucilius, Appian, Plutarch, 
 •>^ in me and by me, and also Doctor An- 
 drews. Kings indefinitely, all kings : none 
 may distinguish where the law distinguish- 
 eth not, — they reign in concreto. That 
 same power that maketh kings must unmake 
 them. 
 
 Ans. — 1. The prelate cannot restrict this 
 to kings only ; it extendeth to parliaments 
 also. Solomon addeth, Q , 3T"n and con- 
 suls, QH8P all the sirs, and princes, 
 QO'IJT and magnificents, and nobles, 
 and more JHtf '£2^ SD and all the 
 judges of the earth, they reign, rule, and 
 decree justice by Christ. Here, then, ma- 
 yors, sheriffs, provosts, constables, are by the 
 Prelate extolled as persons sacred, irresis- 
 tible. Then, (1.) the judges of England rule 
 not by the king of Britain, as their author, 
 efficient, constituent, but by Jesus Christ 
 immediately ; nor doth the commissary rule 
 by the prelate. (2.) All these, and their 
 power, and persons, ride independently, and 
 immediately by Jesus Christ. (3.) All in- 
 ferior judges are itamya.} rov StoZ, the ordi- 
 nances of God not revocable. Therefore 
 the king cannot deprive any judge under 
 him ; he cannot declare the parliament no 
 parliament : once a judge, and always and 
 irrevocably a judge. This Prelate's poor 
 pleading for kings deserves no wages. La- 
 vater intelligit superiorcs et inferiores ma- 
 gistratuS) non est potcstas nisi a deo, Vata- 
 blus consiliarios. 2. If the people had 
 absolute right to choose kings by the law of 
 Israel, they might have chosen another than 
 either Adonijah or Solomon ; but the Lord 
 expressly put an express law on them, that 
 they should make no king but him whom 
 the Lord should choose, Deut. xvii. 4. Now 
 the Lord did either by his immediately in- 
 spired prophet anoint the man, as he anoin- 
 ted David, Saul, Jehu, &c, or then he re- 
 stricted, by a revealed promise, the royal 
 power to a family, and to the eldest by 
 birth ; and, therefore, the Lord first chose 
 the man and then the people made him 
 king. Birth was not their rule, as is clear, 
 in that they made Solomon their king, not 
 
11 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 Adonijah, the elder ; and this proveth that 
 God did both ordain kingly government to 
 the kingdom of Israel, and chose the man, 
 either in his person, or tied it to the first- 
 born of the line. Now we have no Scrip- 
 ture nor law of God to tie royal dignity to 
 one man or to one family ; produce a war- 
 rant for it in the Word, for that must be a 
 privilege of the Jews for which we have no 
 word of God. We have no immediately in- 
 spired Samuels to say, "Make David, or 
 this man king ;" and no word of God to say, 
 " Let the first-born of this family rather 
 than another family sit upon the throne;" 
 therefore the people must make such a man 
 king, following the rule of God's word, 
 (Deut. xvii. 14,) and other rules showing 
 what sort of men judges must be, as Deut. 
 i. 16—18; 2 Chron. xix. 6, 7. 3. It is 
 true, kings in a special manner reign by 
 Christ ; therefore not by the people's free 
 election ? The P. Prelate argueth like 
 himself : by this text a mayor of a city by 
 the Lord decreeth justice ; therefore he is 
 not made a mayor of a city by the people 
 of the city. It follovveth not. None of us 
 teach that kings reign by God's anger. We 
 judge a king a great mercy of God to church 
 or state ; but the text saith not, By the 
 Lord kings and judges do not only reign and 
 decree justice, but also murder protestants, 
 by raising against them an army of papists. 
 And the word 1t*Tuyui, powers, doth in no 
 Greek author signily irrevocable powers; for 
 Uzziah was a lawful king, and yet (2 Chron. 
 xxvi.) lawfully put from the throne, and 
 " cut off from the house of the Lord." And 
 interpreters of this passage deny that it is to 
 be understood of tyrants. So the Chaldee 
 paraphrase turns it well, Potentes virga 
 justhiai .- 1 so Lavater and Diodatus saith, 
 this place doth prove, " That all kings, 
 judges and laws, derivari a lege cetcrna, 
 are derived from the Eternal Law." The 
 prelate, eating his tongue for anger, striveth 
 to prove that all power, and so royal power, 
 is of God ; but what can he make of it ? 
 We believe it, though he say (p. 30,) secta- 
 ries prove, by *«» m< " That a man is justi- 
 fied by faith only ;" so there is no power but 
 of God only : but feel the smell of a Jesuit. 
 It is the sectaries' doctrine, that we are jus- 
 tified by faith only, but the prelates and the 
 Jesuits go another way, — not by faith only, 
 but by works also. And all power is from 
 
 i Aquinas, 12, q. 93, art. 3. 
 
 God only, as the first Author, and from no 
 man. What then ? Therefore men and 
 people interpose no human act in making 
 this man a king and not that man. It fol- 
 loweth not. Let us with the Prelate join 
 Paul and Solomon together, and say, " That 
 sovereignty is from God, of God, by God, as 
 God's appointment irrevocable." Then shall 
 it never follow : it is inseparable from the 
 person unless you make the king a man im- 
 mortal. As God only can remove the crown, 
 it is true God only can put an unworthy and 
 an excommunicated prelate from office and 
 benefice ; but how ? Doth that prove that 
 men and the church may not also in their 
 place remove an unworthy churchman, when 
 the church, following God's word, delivereth 
 to Satan? Christ only, as head of the 
 church, excommunicateth scandalous men ; 
 therefore the church cannot do it. And yet 
 the argument is as good the one way as the 
 other ; for all the churches on earth cannot 
 make a minister properly,— they but design 
 him to the ministry whom God hath gifted 
 and called. But shall we conclude that no 
 church on earth, but God only, by an im- 
 mediate action from heaven, can deprive a 
 minister? How, then, dare prelates excom- 
 municate, unmake, and imprison so many 
 ministers in the three kingdoms? But the 
 truth is, take this one argument from the 
 Prelate, and all that is in his book falleth to 
 the ground, — to wit, Sovereignty is from 
 God only. A king is a creature of God's 
 making only ; and what then ? Therefore 
 sovereignty cannot be taken from him : so 
 God only made Aaron's house priests. So- 
 lomon had no law to depose Abiathar from 
 the priesthood. Possibly the Prelate will 
 grant all. The passage, Rom. xiii., which he 
 saith hath tortured us, I refer to a fitter place 
 — it will be found to torture court parasites. 
 
 I go on with the Prelate, (c. 3,) " Sacred 
 sovereignty is to be preserved, and kings 
 are to be prayed for, that we may lead a 
 godly life," 1 Tim. iii. What then ? All 
 in authority are to be prayed for, — even 
 parliaments ; by that text pastors are to be 
 prayed for, and without them sound religion 
 cannot well subsist. Is this questioned, that 
 kings should be prayed for ; or are we want- 
 ing in this duty ? but it followeth not that 
 all dignities to be prayed for are imme- 
 diately from God, not from men. 
 
 P. Prelate. — Prov. viii., Solomon spcak- 
 cth first of the establishment of government 
 before he speaks of the works of creation ; 
 
THE LAW AND THE V1UXCE. 
 
 15 
 
 therefore better not bo at all as be without 
 government. And God fixed government 
 in the person of Adam before Eve, or any 
 one else, came into the world ; and how 
 shall government be, and we enjoy the fruits 
 of it, except we preserve the king's sacred 
 authority inviolable ? 
 
 Ans. — 1. Moses (Gen. i.) speaketh of 
 creation before he speaketh of kings, and 
 he speaketh (Gen. iii.) of Adam's sins be- 
 fore he speaks of redemption through the 
 blessed Seed ; therefore better never be re- 
 deemed at all as to be without sin. 2. If 
 God made Adam a governor before he made 
 Eve, and any of mankind, he was made a 
 father and a husband before he had either 
 son or wife. Is this the Prelate's logic ? 
 He may prove that two eggs on his father's 
 table are three this way. 3. There is no 
 government where sovereignty is not kept 
 inviolable. It is true, where there is a 
 king, sovereignty must be inviolable. What 
 then ? Arbitrary government is not sove- 
 reignty. 4. He intimateth aristocracy, and 
 democracy, and the power of parliaments, 
 which maketh kings, to be nothing but anar- 
 chy, for he speaketh here of no government 
 but monarchy. 
 
 P. Prelate. — There is need of grace to 
 obey the king, Psal. xviii. 43 ; cxliv. 2. It 
 is God who subdueth the people under Da- 
 vid. Rebellion against the king is rebellion 
 against God. 1 Pet. ii. 17 ; Prov. xxiv. 12. 
 Therefore kings have a near alliance with 
 God. 
 
 Ans. — 1. There is much grace in papists 
 and prelates then, who use to write and 
 preach against grace. 2. Lorinus your bro- 
 ther Jesuit will, with good warrant of the 
 texts infer, that the king may make a con- 
 quest of his own kingdoms of Scotland and 
 England by the sword, as David subdued the 
 heathen. 3. Arbitrary governing hath no 
 alliance with God ; a rebel to God and his 
 country, and an apostate, hath no reason to 
 term lawful defence against cut -throat Irish 
 rebellion. 4. There is need of much grace 
 to obey pastors, inferior judges, masters, (Col. 
 iii. 22, 23,) therefore their power is from 
 God immediately, and no more from men 
 than the king is created king by the people, 
 according to the way of royalists. 
 
 P. Prelate— God saith of Pharaoh, (Ex. 
 ix. 17,) I have raised thee up. Elisha, di- 
 rected by God, constituted the king of Sy- 
 ria, 2 Kings viii. 13. Pharaoh, Abime- 
 lech, Hiram, Hazael, Hadad, are no less 
 
 honoured with the appellation of kings, than 
 David, Saul, &c., Jer. xxix. 9. Nebuchad- 
 nezzar is honoured to be called, by way of 
 excellency, God's servant, which God giveth 
 to David, a king according to his own heart. 
 And Isa. xlv. I, " Thus saith the Lord to 
 his anointed, Cyrus ;" and God nameth him 
 near a hundred years before lie was born; 
 Isa. xliv. 28, "He is my shepherd;" Dan. 
 v. 21, God giveth kingdoms to whom he 
 will; Dan. v. 21, empires, kingdoms, roy- 
 alties, are not disposed of by the composed 
 contracts of men, but by the immediate 
 hand and work of God ; Hos. xiii. 11, " I 
 gave thee a king in my anger, I took him 
 away in my wrath ;" Job, He places kings 
 in the throne, &c. 
 
 Ans. — Here is a whole chapter of seven 
 pages for one raw argument ten times before 
 repeated. 1. Exod. ix. 7, I have raised up 
 Pharaoh ; Paul expoundeth it, (Rom. ix.) 
 to prove that king Pharaoh was a vessel of 
 wrath fitted for destruction by God's abso- 
 lute will ; and the Prelate following Ar- 
 minius, with treasonable charity, applieth 
 this to our king. Can this man pray for 
 the king ? 2. Elisha anointed, but did not 
 constitute, Hazael king ; he foretold he 
 should be king ; and if he be a king of 
 God's making, who slew his sick prince and 
 invaded the throne by innocent blocd, judge 
 you. I would not take kings of the Pre- 
 late's making. 3. If God give to Nebu- 
 chadnezzar the same title of the servant of 
 God, which is given to Daniel, (Psal. xviii. 
 1, and cxvi. 16 ;) and to Moses, (Jos. i. 2,) 
 all kings, because kings, are men according 
 to God's heart. Why is not royalty then 
 founded on grace ? Nebuchadnezzar was 
 not otherwise his servant, than he was the 
 hammer of the earth, and a tyrannous con- 
 queror of the Lord's people. All the hea- 
 then kings are called kings. But how came 
 they to their thrones for the most part ? 
 As David and Hezekiah ? But God anoint- 
 ed them not by his prophets ; they came to 
 their kingdoms by the people's election, or 
 by blood and rapine ; the latter way is no 
 ground to you to deny Athaliah to be a law- 
 ful princess — she and Abimelech were law- 
 ful princes, and their sovereignty, as imme- 
 diately and independently from God, as the 
 sovereignty of many heathen kinos. See 
 then how justly Athaliah was killed as a 
 bloody usurper of the throne ; and this 
 would licence your brethren, the Jesuits, to 
 stab heathen kings, whom you will have as 
 
16 
 
 LEX, REX 
 
 well kings, as the Lord's anointed, though 
 Nebuchadnezzar and many of them made 
 their way to the throne, against all law of 
 God and man, through a bloody patent, 4. 
 Cyrus is God's anointed and his shepherd 
 too, therefore his arbitrary government is 
 a sovereignty immediately depending on 
 God, and above all law ; it is a wicked 
 consequence. 5. God named Cyrus near 
 a hundred years ere he was born ; God 
 named and designed Judas veiy individu- 
 ally, and named the ass that Christ should 
 ride on to Jerusalem, (Zach. ix. 9,) some 
 more hundred years than one. What, will 
 the Prelate make them independent kings 
 for that ? 6. God giveth kingdoms to whom 
 he will. What then ? This will prove king- 
 doms to be as independent and immediately 
 from God as kings are ; for as God giveth 
 kings to kingdoms, so he giveth kingdoms 
 to kings, and no doubt he giveth kingdoms 
 to whom he will. So he giveth prophets, 
 apostles, pastors, to whom he will ; and he 
 giveth tyrannous conquests to whom he will : 
 and it is Nebuchadnezzar to whom Daniel 
 speaketh that from the Lord, and he had 
 no just title to many kingdoms, especially 
 to the kingdom of Judah, which yet God, 
 the King of kings, gave to him because it 
 was his good pleasure ; and if God had not 
 commanded them by the mouth of his pro- 
 phet Jeremiah, might they not have risen, 
 and, with the sword, have vindicated them- 
 selves and their own liberty, no less than 
 they lawfully, by the sword, vindicated 
 themselves from under Moab, (Judges hi.,) 
 and from under Jabin, king of Canaan, 
 who, twenty years, mightily oppressed the 
 children of Israel, Judges iv. Now this P. 
 Prelate, by all these instances, making hea- 
 then kings to be kings by as good a title as 
 David and Hezekiah, condemneth the peo- 
 ple of God as rebels, if, being subdued and 
 conquered by the Turk and Spanish king, 
 they should, by the sword, recover their 
 own liberty; and that Israel, and the sa- 
 viours which God raised to them, had not 
 warrant from the law of nature to vindicate 
 themselves to liberty, which was taken from 
 them violently and unjustly by the sword. 
 From all this it shall well follow that the 
 tyranny of bloody conquerors is immediately 
 and only dependent from God, no less than 
 lawful sovereignty ; for Nebuchadnezzar's 
 sovereignty over the people of God, and 
 many other kingdoms also, was revenged of 
 God as tyranny, Jer, 1. 6, 7 ; and therefore 
 
 the vengeance of the Lord, and the ven- 
 geance of his temple, came upon him and 
 his land, Jer. 1. 16, &c. It is true the peo- 
 ple of God were commanded of God to sub- 
 mit to the king of Babylon, to serve him, 
 and to pray for him, and to do the contrary 
 was rebellion ; but this was not because the 
 king of Babylon was their king, and because 
 the king of Babylon had a command of God 
 so to bring under his yoke the people of God. 
 So Christ had a commandment to suffer the 
 death of the cross, (John x. 18,) but had 
 Herod and Pilate any warrant to crucify 
 him ? None at all. 7. He saith, Royal- 
 ties, even of heathen kings, are not disposed 
 of by the composed contracts of men, but by 
 the immediate hand and work of God. But 
 the contracts of men to give a kingdom to a 
 person, which a heathen community may 
 lawfully do, and so by contract dispose of a 
 kingdom, is not opposite to the immediate 
 hand of God, appointing royalty and mo- 
 narchy at his own blessed liberty. Lastly 
 he saith, God took away Saul in his wrath ; 
 but I pray you, did God only do it ? Then 
 had Saul, because a king, a patent royal 
 from God to kill himself, for so God took 
 him away ; and we are rebels by this, if we 
 suffer not the king to kill himself. Well 
 pleaded. 
 
 QUESTION VI. 
 
 WHETHER THE KING BE SO FROM GOD ONLY, 
 BOTH IN REGARD OF HIS SOVEREIGNTY AND 
 OF THE DESIGNATION OF HIS PERSON TO 
 THE CROWN, AS THAT HE IS NO WAY FROM 
 THE PEOPLE, BUT BY MERE APPROBATION. 
 
 Dr Feme, a man much for monarchy, 
 saith, Though monarchy hath its excel- 
 lency, being first set up of God, in Moses, 
 yet neither monarchy, aristocracy, nor any 
 other form, is jure divino, but " we say 
 (saith he) 1 the power itself, or that suffi- 
 ciency of authority to govern that is in a 
 monarchy or aristocracy, abstractly consi- 
 dered from the qualification of other forms, 
 is a flux and constitution subordinate to that 
 providence ; an ordinance of that dixi or si- 
 lent word by which the world was made, 
 and shall be governed under God." This 
 is a great debasing of the Lord's anointed, 
 
 i Dr Feme, 3, a. 13. 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 17 
 
 for so sovereignty hath no warrant in God's 
 word, formally as it is such a government, 
 hut is in the world by providence, as sin is, 
 and as the falling of a sparrow to the ground ; 
 whereas God's word hath not only command- 
 ed that government should be, but that fa- 
 thers and mothers should be ; and not only 
 that politic rulers should be, but also kings 
 by name, and other judges aristocratical 
 should be, Rom. xiii, 3 ; Deut. xvii. 14 ; 
 1 Pet. ii, xvii. ; Prov. xxiv. 21 ; Prov. xv. 
 16. If the power of monarchy and aristo- 
 cracy, abstracted from the forms, be from 
 God, then it is no more lawful to resist aris- 
 tocratical government and our lords of par- 
 liament or judges, than it is lawful to resist 
 kings. 
 
 But hear the Prelate's reasons to prove 
 that the king is from the people by appro- 
 bation only. " The people (Deut. xvii.) are 
 said to set a king over them only as (1 Cor. 
 vi.) the saints are said to judge the world, 
 that is, by consenting to Christ's judgment : 
 so the people do not make a king by trans- 
 ferring on him sovereignty, but by accept- 
 ing, acknowledging, and reverencing him as 
 king, whom God hath both constituted and 
 designed king." 
 
 Ans. — 1. This is said, but not a word 
 proved, for the Queen of Sheba and Hiram 
 acknowledged, reverenced and obeyed Solo- 
 mon as king, and yet they made him not 
 king, as the princes of Israel did. 2. Reve- 
 rence and obedience of the people is relative 
 to the king's laws, but the people's making 
 of a king is not relative to the laws of a 
 king ; for then he should be a king giving 
 laws and commanding the people as king, 
 before the people make him king, 3. If 
 the people's approving and consenting that 
 an elected king be their king, presupposeth 
 that he is a king, designed and constituted 
 by God, before the people approve him as 
 king, let the P. Prelate give us an act of 
 God now designing a man king, for there 
 is no immediate voice from heaven saying 
 to a people, This is your king, before the 
 people elect one of six to be their king. 
 And this infallibly proveth that God de- 
 signeth one of six to be a king, to a people 
 who had no king before, by no other act but 
 by determining the hearts of the states to 
 elect and design this man king, and pass 
 any of the other five. 4. When God (Deut. 
 xvii.) forbiddeth them to choose a stranger, 
 he presupposeth they may choose a stran- 
 ger ; for God's law now given to man in the 
 
 state of sin, presupposeth he hath corruption 
 of nature to do contrary to God's law. Now 
 if God did hold forth that their setting a 
 king over them was but the people's approv- 
 ing the man whom God shall both consti- 
 tute and design to be king, then he should 
 presuppose that God was to design a stran- 
 ger to be the lawful king of Israel, and the 
 people should be interdicted to approve and 
 consent that the man should be king whom 
 God should choose; for it was impossible that 
 the people should make a stranger king (God 
 is the only immediate king-creator), the peo- 
 ple should only approve and consent that a 
 stranger should be king ; yet, upon supposi- 
 tion that God first constituted and designed 
 the stranger king, it was not in the people's 
 power that the king should be a brother ra- 
 ther than a stranger, for if the people have 
 no power to make a king, but do only ap- 
 prove him or consent to him, when he is 
 both made and designed of God to bo king, 
 it is not in their power that he be either 
 brother or stranger, and so God command- 
 eth what is simply impossible. Consider the 
 sense of the command by the Prelate's vain 
 logic: I Jehovah, as I only create the world 
 of nothing, so I only constitute and design a 
 man, whether a Jew or Nebuchadnezzar, a 
 stranger, to be your king ; yet I inhibit you, 
 under the pain of my curse, that you set 
 any king over yourselves, but only a brother. 
 What is this, but I inhibit you to be crea- 
 tors by omnipotent power ? 5. To these 
 add the reasons I produced before, that the 
 people, by no shadow of reason, can be com- 
 manded to make this man king, not that 
 man, if they only consent to the man made 
 king, but have no action in the making of 
 the king, 
 
 P. Prelate. — All the acts, real and ima- 
 ginable, which are necessary for the making 
 of kings, are ascribed to God. Take the 
 first king as a ruling case, 1 Sam. xii. 13, 
 " Behold the king whom ye have chosen, 
 and whom ye have desired ; and, behold, 
 the L,ord hath set a king over you !" This 
 election of the people can be no other but 
 their admittance or acceptance of the king 
 whom God hath chosen and constituted, as 
 the words, " whom ye have chosen," imply. 
 1 Sam. ix. 17 ; 1 Sam. x. 1, You have 
 Saul's election and constitution, where Sa- 
 muel, as priest and prophet, anointeth him, 
 doing reverence and obeisance to him, and 
 ascribing to God, that he did appoint him 
 supreme and sovereign over his inheritance. 
 
18 
 
 LEX, REX J OR, 
 
 And the same expression is, (1 Sam. xii. 
 13,) " The Lord hath set a king over you ;" 
 which is, Psal. ii. 6, " I have set my king 
 upon my holy hill of Zion." Neither man 
 nor angel hath any share in any act of con- 
 stituting Christ king. Deut. xvii. the Lord 
 vindicateth, as proper and peculiar to him- 
 self, the designation of the person. It was 
 not arbitrary to the people to admit or reject 
 Saul so designed. It pleased God to con- 
 summate the work by the acceptation, con- 
 sent and approbation of the people, ut sua- 
 viore modo, that by a smoother way he might 
 encourage Saul to undergo the hard charge, 
 and make his people the more heartily, with- 
 out grumbling and scrapie, reverence and 
 obey him. The people's admittance possi- 
 bly added something to the solemnity and 
 to the pomp, but nothing to the essential 
 and real constitution or necessity ; it only 
 puts the subjects in mala fide, if they 
 should contravene, as the intimation of a 
 law, the coronation of an hereditary king, 
 the enthronement of a bishop. And 1 Kings, 
 iii. 7, " Thou hast made thy servant king;" 
 1 Sam. xvi. 1, " I have provided me a king;" 
 Psal. xviii. 50, He is God's king ; Ps. lxxxix. 
 19, " I have exalted one chosen out of the 
 people ;" (ver. 20,) He anointeth them ; 
 (ver. 27,) adopteth them : " I will make him 
 my first-born." The first-born is above every 
 brother severally, and above all, though a 
 thousand jointly. 
 
 Ana. — 1. By this reason, inferior judges 
 are no less immediate deputies of God, and 
 so irresistible, than the king, because God 
 took off the spirit that was on Moses, and 
 immediately poured it on the seventy elders, 
 who were judges inferior to Moses, Num. ii. 
 14 — 16. 2. This P. Prelate cannot make a 
 syllogism. If all the acts necessary to make 
 a kin<r be ascribed to God, none to the peo- 
 ple, then God both constituteth and design- 
 eth the king — but the former the Scrip- 
 ture saith ; therefore, if all the acts be as- 
 cribed to God, as to the prime king-maker 
 and disposer of kings and kingdoms, and 
 none to the people, in that notion, then God 
 both constituteth and designeth a king. 
 Both major and minor are false. The ma- 
 jor is as false as the very P. Prelate him- 
 self. All the acts necessary for war-mak- 
 ing are, in an eminent manner, ascribed to 
 God, as (1.) The Lord fighteth for his own 
 people. (2.) The Lord scattered the ene- 
 mies. (3.) The Lord slew Og, king of Ba- 
 shan. (4.) The battle is the Lord's. (5.) 
 
 The victory the Lord's; therefore Israel 
 never fought a battle. So Deut. xxxii., 
 The Lord alone led his people — the Lord 
 led them in the wilderness — their bow and 
 their sword gave them not the land. God 
 wrought all their works for them, (Isa. xxvi. 
 12 ;) therefore Moses led them not ; there- 
 fore the people went not on then - own legs 
 through the wilderness ; therefore the people 
 never shot an arrow, never drew a sword. It 
 followeth not. God did all these as the first, 
 eminent, principal, and efficacious pre-deter- 
 minator of the creature (though this Armi- 
 nian and popish prelate mind not so to hon- 
 our God). The assumption is also false, for 
 the people made Saul and David kings ; and 
 it were ridiculous that God should command 
 them to make a brother, not a stranger, king, 
 if it was not in their power whether lie should 
 be a Jew, a Scythian, an Ethiopian, who was 
 their king, if God did only, without them, 
 both choose, constitute, design the person, 
 and perform all acts essential to make a 
 king ; and the people had no more in them 
 but only to admit and consent, and that for 
 the solemnity and pomp, not for the essen- 
 tial constitution of the king. 1 Sam. ix. 
 17; 1 Sam. x. 1, we have not Saul elect- 
 ed and constituted king. Samuel did obeis- 
 ance to him and kissed him, for the honour 
 royal which God was to put upon him ; for, 
 before this prophetical unction, (1 Sam. ix. 
 22,) he made him sit in the chief place, and 
 honoured him as king, when as yet Samuel 
 was materially king and the Lord's vice- 
 gerent in Israel. If, then, the Prelate con- 
 clude any thing from Samuel's doing reve- 
 rence and obeisance to him as king, it shall 
 follow that Saul was formally king, before 
 Samuel (1 Sam. x. 1) anointed him and 
 kissed him, and that must be before he was 
 formally king, otherwise he was in God's 
 appointment king, before ever he saw Sa- 
 muel's face ; and it is true he ascribeth hon- 
 our to him, as to one appointed by God to 
 be supreme sovereign, for that which he 
 should be, not for that which he was, as 
 (1 Sam. ix. 22) he set him in the chief 
 place ; and, therefore, it is false that we 
 have Saul's election and constitution to be 
 king, (1 Sam. x.,) for after that time the 
 people are rebuked for seeking a king, and 
 that with a purpose to dissuade them from 
 it as a sinful desire : and he is chosen by 
 lots after that and made king, and after Sa- 
 muel's anointing of him he was a private 
 man, and did hide himself amongst the stuff, 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 19 
 
 ver. 22. 3. The Prelate, from ignorance or 
 wilfully, I know not, saith, The expression 
 and phrase is the same, 1 Sam. xii. 13, and 
 Psal. ii. 6, which is false ; for 1 Sam. xii. 13, 
 
 it is -fin on»Sy mir ?na mm 
 
 Behold the Lord hath given you a king, 
 such is the expression ; Hos. xiii. 11,1 gave 
 them a king in my wrath, but that is not the 
 expression in Psalm ii. 6, hut this, O/D 
 TDDJ *JK1 " But I have established 
 him my king;" and though it were the 
 same expression, it followeth not that the 
 people have no hand any other way in ap- 
 pointing Christ their head, (though that 
 phrase also be in the Word, Hos. i. 11,) 
 than by consenting and believing in him as 
 king ; but this proveth not that the people, 
 in appointing a king, hath no hand but na- 
 ked approbation, for the same phrase doth 
 not express the same action ; nay, the judges 
 are to kiss Christ, (Psal. ii. 12,) the same 
 way, and by the same action, that Samuel 
 kissed Saul, (1 Sam. x. 1,) and the idolaters 
 kissed the calves, (Hos. xiii. 2 ;) for the same 
 Hebrew word is used in all the three places, 
 and yet it it certain the first kissing is spiri- 
 tual, the second a kiss of honour, and the 
 third an idolatrous kissing. 4. The anoint- 
 ing of Saul cannot be a leading rule to the 
 making of all kings to the world's end ; for 
 the P. Prelate, forgetting himself, said, that 
 only some few, as Moses, Saul, and David, 
 &c, by extraordinary manifestation from 
 heaven, were made kings, (p. 19.) 5. He 
 saith it was not arbitrary for the people to 
 admit or reject Saul so designed. What 
 meaneth he. It was not morally arbitrary, 
 because they were under a law (Deut. xvii. 
 14, 15) to make him king whom the Lord 
 should choose. That is true. But was it 
 not arbitrary to them to break a law phy- 
 sically ? I think he, who is a professed Ar- 
 minian, will not so side with Manicheans 
 and fatalists. But the P. Prelate must prove 
 it was not arbitrary, either morally or phy- 
 sically, to them not to accept Saul as their 
 king, because they had no action at all in 
 the making of a king. God did it all, both 
 by constituting and designing the king. 
 Why then did God (Deut. xvii.) give a law 
 to them to make this man king, not that 
 man, if it was not in their free will to have 
 any action or hand in the making of a king 
 at all ? But that some sons of Belial would 
 not accept him as their king, is expressly 
 said, (1 Sam. x. 27 ;) and how did Israel 
 
 conspire with Absalom to unking and de- 
 throne David, whom the Lord had made 
 king ? If the Prelate mean it was not arbi- 
 trary to them physically to reject Saul, he 
 speaketh wonders ; the sons of Belial did re- 
 ject him, therefore they had physical power 
 to do it. If he mean it was not arbitrary, 
 that is, it was not lawful to them to reject 
 him, that is true ; but doth it follow they 
 had no hand nor action in making Saul 
 king, because it was not lawful for them to 
 make a king in a sinful way, and to refuse 
 him whom God choose to be king ? Then 
 see what I infer. (1.) That they had no 
 hand in obeying him as king, because they 
 sinned in obeying unlawful commandments 
 against God's law, and so they had no hand 
 in approving and consenting he should be 
 king ; the contrary whereof the P. Prelate 
 saith. (2.) So might the P. Prelate prove 
 men are passive, and have no action in vio- 
 lating all the commandments of God, be- 
 cause it is not lawful to them to violate any 
 one commandment. 6. The Lord (Deut. 
 xvii.) vindicates this, as proper and peculiar 
 to himself, to choose the person, and to 
 choose Saul. What then ? Therefore now 
 the people, choosing a king, have no power 
 to choose or name a man, because God 
 anointed Saul and David by immediate 
 manifestation of his will to Samuel ; this 
 consequence is nothing, and also it follow- 
 eth in nowise, that therefore the people 
 made not Saul king. 7- That the people's 
 approbation of a king is not necessary, is the 
 saying of Beilarmine and the papists, and 
 that the people choose their ministers in the 
 apostolic church, not by a necessity of a di- 
 vine commandment, but to conciliate love 
 betwixt pastor and people. Papists hold 
 that if the Pope make a popish king the 
 head and king of Britain, against the peo- 
 ple's will, yet is he their king. 8. David 
 was then king all the time Saul persecuted 
 him. He sinned, truly, in not discharging 
 the duty of a king, only because he wanted 
 a ceremony, the people's approbation, which 
 the Prelate saith is required to the solemnity 
 and pomp, not to the necessity, and truth, 
 and essence, of a formal king. So the king's 
 coronation oath, and the people's oath, must 
 be ceremonies ; and because the Prelate is 
 perjured himself, therefore perjury is but a 
 ceremony also. 9. The enthronement of 
 bishops is like the kinging of the Pope. The 
 apostles must spare thrones when they come 
 to heaven, (Luke xxii. 29, 30;) the popish 
 
20 
 
 prelates, with their head the Pope, must be 
 enthroned. 10. The hereditary king he 
 maketh a king before his coronation} and 
 his acts are as valid before as after his coro- 
 nation. It might cost him his head to say- 
 that the Prince of Wales is now king of 
 Britain, and his acts acts of kingly royalty} 
 no less than our sovereign is king of Britain, 
 if laws and parliaments had their own vigour 
 from royal authority. 11. I allow that kings 
 be as high as God hath placed them, but 
 that God said of all kings, " I will make him 
 my first-born," &c, Psal. lxxxix. 26, 27, — 
 which is true of Solomon as the type, 2 Sam. 
 vii. ; 1 Chron. xvii. 22; 2 Sani; vii. 12 ; and 
 fulfilled of Christ, and by the Holy Ghost 
 spoken of him, (Heb. i. 5, 6,) — is blasphem- 
 ous ; for God said not to Nero, Julian, Dio- 
 clesian, Belshazzar, Evil-merodach, who were 
 lawful kings, " I will make him my first- 
 bom ;" and that any of these blasphemous 
 idolatrous princes should cry to God, " He 
 is my father, my God," &c, is divinity well- 
 beseeming an excommunicated prelate. Of 
 the king's dignity above the kingdom I 
 speak not now ; the Prelate pulled it in by 
 the hair, but hereafter we shall hear of it. 
 
 P. Prelate (p. 43, 44). — God only anoin- 
 ted David, (1 Sam. xvi. 4,) the men of Beth- 
 lehem, yea, Samuel knew it not before. God 
 saith, " With mine holy oil have I anointed 
 him," Psal. lxxxix. 91. 1. He is the Lord's 
 anointed. 2. The oil is God's, not from the 
 apothecary's shop, nor the priest's vial — this 
 oil descended from the Holy Ghost, who is 
 no less the true olive than Christ is the true 
 vine ; yet not the oil of saving grace, as some 
 fantastics say, but holy, (l) From the au- 
 thor, God. (2.) From influence in the per- 
 son, it maketh the person of the king sacred. 
 (3.) From influence on his charge, his func- 
 tion and power is sacred. 
 
 Ans. — 1. The Prelate said before, David's 
 anointing was extraordinary ; here he draw- 
 eth this anointing to all kings. 2. Let Da- 
 vid be formally both constituted and design- 
 ed king divers years before the states made 
 him king at Hebron, and then (1.) Saul was 
 not king, — the Prelate will term that trea- 
 son. (2.) This was a dry oil. David's per- 
 son was not made sacred, nor his authority 
 sacred by it, for he remained a private man, 
 and called Saul his king, his master, and 
 himself a subject. (3.) This oil was, no 
 doubt, God's oil, and the Prelate will have 
 it the Holy Ghost's, yet he denieth that I 
 saving grace, yea, (p. 2. c. i.) he denieth | 
 
 that any supernatural gift should be the 
 foundation of royal dignity, and that it is 
 a pernicious tenet. So to me he would 
 have the oil from heaven, and yet not from 
 heaven. (4.) This holy oil, wherewith Da- 
 vid was anointed, (Psal. lxxxix. 20,) is the 
 oil of saving grace j 1 his own dear brethren, 
 the papists, say so, and especially Lyranus, 2 
 Glossa ordinaria, Hugo Cardinalis, 3 his be- 
 loved Bellarmine, and Lorinus, Calvin, Mus- 
 culus, Marloratus. If these be fanatics, (as 
 I think they are to the Prelate,) yet the 
 text is evident that this oil of God was the 
 oil of saving grace, bestowed on David as on 
 a special type of Christ, who received the 
 Spirit above measure, and was the anointed 
 of God, (Psal. xlv. 7,) whereby all his "gar- 
 ments smell of myrrh, aloes and cassia," (ver. 
 8,) and " his name Messiah is as ointment 
 poured out, (Song, i.) This anointed shall be 
 head of his enemies. " His dominion shall 
 be from the sea to the rivers," ver. 25. He 
 is in the covenant of grace, ver. 26. He is 
 " higher than the kings of the earth." The 
 grace of perseverance is promised to his 
 seed, ver. 28—30. His kingdom is eternal 
 " as the days of heaven," ver. 35} 36. If 
 the Prelate will look under himself to Dio- 
 datus and Ainsworth, 4 this holy oil was 
 poured on David by Samuel, and on Christ 
 was poured the Holy Ghost, and that by 
 warrant of Scripture, (1 Sam. xvi. 1 ; xiii. 
 14 ; Luke iv. 18, 21 ; John iii. 34,) and 
 Junius 5 and Mollerus 6 saith with them; 
 Now the Prelate taketh the court way, to 
 pour this oil of grace on many dry princes, 
 who, without all doubt, are kings essentially 
 no less than David. He must see better 
 than the man who, finding Pontius Pilate in 
 the Creed, said} he behooved to be a good 
 man ; so, because he hath found Nero the 
 tyrant, Julian the apostate} Nebuchadnez- 
 zar, Evil-merodach, Hazael, Hagag, all the 
 kings of Spain, and, I doubt not, the Great 
 Turk, in Psal. lxxxix. 19, 20, so all these 
 kings are anointed with the oil of grace, and 
 all these must make their enemies' necks 
 their footstool. All these be higher than 
 the kings of the earth, and are hard and 
 fast in the covenant of grace, &c. 
 
 1 Aug. in locum, unxi manum fortem, servum 
 obedienteiu ideo in eo posui adjntorium. 
 
 2 Lyranus Gratia est habitualis, quia stat pugil 
 contra diabolum. 
 
 3 Hugo Cardinalis, Oleo latitiae quo prae consor- 
 tibus unctus fuit Christus, Ps. xlv. 
 
 4 Ainsworth, Annot. 
 
 5 Junius Annot. in loc. 6 .Mollerus Com. ib. 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 2] 
 
 P. Prelate. — All the royal ensigns and 
 acts of kings are ascribed to God. The 
 crown is of God, Isa. lxii. 3 ; Psal. xxi. 3. 
 In the emperors' coin was a hand putting a 
 crown on their head. The heathen said 
 they were Sum/pils, as holding their crowns 
 from God. Psal. xviii. 39, Thou hast girt 
 me with strength (the sword is the emblem 
 of strength) unto battle. See Judg. vii. 17, 
 Their sceptre God's sceptre. Exod. iv. 20 ; 
 xvii. 9, We read of two rods, Moses' and 
 Aaron's ; Aaron's rod budded : God made 
 both the rods. Their judgment is the Lord's, 
 2 Chron. xix> 6 ; their throne is God's, 1 
 Chron. xix. 21. The fathers called them, 
 sacra vestigia, sacra majestas, — their com- 
 mandment, divalis jussio. The law saith, 
 all their goods are res sacrce. Therefore 
 our new statists disgrace kings, if they blas- 
 pheme not God, in making them the deri- 
 vatives of the people, — the basest extract of 
 the basest of irrational creatures, the multi- 
 tude, the commonalty. 
 
 Ans. — This is all one argument from the 
 Prelate's beginning of his book to the end : 
 In a most special and eminent act of God's 
 providence kings are from God ; but, there- 
 fore, they are not from men and men's con- 
 sent. It followeth not. From a most spe- 
 cial and eminent act of God's providence 
 Christ came into the world, and took on 
 him our nature, therefore he came not of 
 David's loins. It is a vain consequence. 
 There could not be a more eminent act 
 than this, (Psal. xl.) " A body thou hast 
 given me ;" therefore he came not of Da- 
 vid's house, and from Adam by natural 
 generation, and was not a man like us in all 
 things except sin. It is tyrannical and do- 
 mineering logic. Many things are ascribed 
 to God only, by reason of a special and ad- 
 mirable act of providence, — as the saving of 
 the world by Christ, the giving of Canaan 
 to Israel, the bringing his people out from 
 Egypt and from Chaldee, the sending of the 
 gospel to both Jew and Gentile, &c. ; but, 
 shall we say that God did none of these 
 things by the ministry of men, and weak 
 and frail men ? 1 . How proveth the Pre- 
 late that all royal ensigns are ascribed to 
 God, because (Isa. lxii.) the church univer- 
 sal shall be as a crown of glory and a royal 
 diadem in the hand of the Lord ; therefore, 
 bceculus in angulo, the church shall be as a 
 seal on the heart of Christ. What then ? 
 Jerome, Procopius, Cyrillus, with good rea- 
 son, render the meaning thus : Thou, 
 
 Zion and church, shalt be to me a royal 
 priesthood, and a holy people. For that he 
 speaketh of his own kingdom and church is 
 most evident, (ver. 1, 2,) " For Zion's sake 
 I will not hold my peace," &c. 2. God 
 put a crown of pure gold on David's head, 
 (Psal. xxi. 3,) therefore Julian, Nero, and 
 no elective kings, are made and designed to 
 be kings by the people. He shall never 
 prove this conssquence. The Chaldee pa- 
 raphrase applieth it to the reign of King 
 Messiah ; Diodatus speaketh of the kingdom 
 of Christ ; Ainsworth maketh this crown 
 a sign of Christ's victory ; Athanasius, Eu- 
 sebius, Origen, Augustine, Dydimus, ex- 
 pound it of Christ and his kingdom. The 
 Prelate extendeth it to all kings, as the 
 blasphemous rabbins^ especially Kabbin Salo- 
 mon, deny that he speaketh of Christ here. 
 But what more reason is there to expound 
 this of the crowns of all kings given by God, 
 (which I deny not,) to Nero, Julian, &c, 
 than to expound the foregoing and following 
 verses as applied to all kings ? Did Julian 
 rejoice in God's salvation? did God grant 
 Nero his heart's desire ? did God grant (as 
 it is, ver. 4,) life eternal to heathen kings as 
 kings ? which words all interpreters expound 
 of the eternity of David's throne, till Christ 
 come, and of victory and life eternal pur- 
 chased by Christ, as Ainsworth, with good 
 reason, expounds it. And what though God 
 gave David a crown, was it not by second 
 causes, and by bowing all Israel's heart to 
 come in sincerity to Hebron to make Da- 
 vid king ? 1 Kings xii. 38. God gave corn 
 and wine to Israel, (Hos. ii.) and shall the 
 prelate and the anabaptist infer, therefore, 
 he giveth it not by ploughing, sowing, and 
 the art of the husbandman ? 3. The hea- 
 then acknowledgeth a divinity in kings, but 
 he is blind who readeth them and seeth not 
 in their writings that they teach that the 
 people maketh kings. 4. God girt David 
 with strength, while he was a private man, 
 and persecuted by Saul> and fought with 
 Goliah, as the title of the same beareth ; 
 and he made him a valiant man of war, to 
 break bows of steel ; therefore he giveth the 
 sword to kings as kings, and they receive no 
 sword from the people. This is poor logic. 
 5. The P. Prelate sendeth us (Judg. vii. 
 17,) to the singular and extraordinary power 
 of God with Gideon ; and, I say, that same 
 power behooved to be in Oreb and Zeeb, 
 (ver. 27,) for they were *"[& princes, and 
 such as the Prelate, from Prov. vii. 15, 
 
22 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 saith have no power from the people. 6. 
 Moses' and Aaron's rods were miraculous. 
 This will prove that priests are also God's, 
 and their persons sacred. I see not (except 
 the Prelate would be at worshipping of re- 
 lics) what more royal divinity is in Moses' 
 rod, because he wrought miracles by his rod, 
 than there is in Elijah's staff, in Peter's 
 napkin, in Paul's shadow. This is like the 
 strong symbolical theology of his fathers the 
 Jesuits, which is not argumentative, except 
 he say that Moses, as king of Jeshurun, 
 wrought miracles ; and why should not Ne- 
 ro's, Caligula's, Pharaoh's, and all kings' 
 rods then dry up the Red Sea, and work 
 miracles? 7. We give all the styles to 
 kings that the fathers gave, and yet we 
 think not when David commandeth to kill 
 Uriah, and a king commandeth to murder 
 his innocent subjects in England and Scot- 
 land, that that is divalis jussio, the com- 
 mand of a god ; and that this is a good con- 
 sequence — -Whatever the king commandeth, 
 though it were to kill his most loyal sub- 
 jects, is the commandment of God ; there- 
 fore the king is not made king by the peo- 
 ple. 8. Therefore, saith he, these new sta- 
 tists disgrace the king. If a new statist, 
 sprung out of a poor pursuivant of Crail — 
 from the dunghill to the court — could have 
 made himself an old statist, and more ex- 
 pert in state affah's than all the nobles and 
 soundest lawyers in Scotland and England, 
 this might have more weight. 9. There- 
 fore the king (saith P. P.) is not " the ex- 
 tract of the basest of rational creatures." 
 He meaneth, fex popidi, his own house and 
 lineage ; but God calleth them his own peo- 
 ple, " a royal priesthood, a chosen genera- 
 tion ;" and Psal. lxxviii. 71, will warrant 
 us to say, the people is much worthier be- 
 fore God than one man, seeing God chose 
 David for " Jacob his people, and Israel his 
 inheritance," that he might feed them. 
 John P. P.'s father's suffrage in making a 
 kincr will never be sought. We make not 
 the multitude, but the three estates, includ- 
 ing the nobles and gentry, to be as rational 
 creatures as any apostate prelate in the 
 three kingdoms. 
 
 QUESTION VII. 
 
 WHETHER OR NO THE POPISH PRELATE, THE 
 AFORESAID AUTHOR, DOTH BY FORCE OF 
 REASON EVINCE THAT NEITHER CONSTITU- 
 TION NOR DESIGNATION OF THE KING IS 
 FROM THE PEOPLE. 
 
 The P. Prelate aimeth (but it is an 
 empty aim) to prove that the people are 
 wholly excluded. I answer only arguments 
 not pitched on before, as the Prelate saith. 
 
 P. Prelate. — 1. To whom can it be more 
 proper to give the rule over men than to 
 Him who is the only king truly and properly 
 of the whole world ? 2. God is the imme- 
 diate author of all rule and power that is 
 amongst all his creatures, above or below. 
 3. Man before the fall received dominion 
 and empire over all the creatures below im- 
 mediately, as Gen. i. 28 ; Gen. ix. 2 ; there- 
 fore we cannot deny that the most noble 
 government (to wit monarchy) must be im- 
 mediately from God, without any contract 
 or compact of men. 
 
 Ans. — 1. The first reason concludeth not 
 what is in question ; for God only giveth 
 rule and power to one man over another ; 
 therefore he giveth it immediately. It fol- 
 loweth not. 2. It shall as well prove that 
 God doth immediately constitute all judges, 
 and therefore it shall be unlawful for a city 
 to appoint a mayor, or a shire a justice of 
 peace. 3. The second argument is in- 
 consequent also, because God in creation is 
 the immediate author of all tilings, and, 
 therefore, without consent of the creatures, 
 or any act of the creature, created an angel 
 a nobler creature than man, and a man than 
 a woman, and men above beasts; because 
 those that are not can exercise no act at all. 
 But it followeth not that all the works of 
 providence, such as is the government of 
 kingdoms, are done immediately by God; 
 for in the works of providence, for the most 
 part in ordinary, God worketh by means. 
 It is then as good a consequence as this: 
 God immediately created man, therefore he 
 keepeth Ids life immediately also without 
 food and sleep ; God immediately created 
 the sun, therefore God immediately, without 
 the mediation of the sun, giveth light to the 
 world. The making of a lung is an act of 
 reason, and God hath given a man reason to 
 rule himself ; and therefore hath given to a 
 society an instinct of reason to appoint a 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 23 
 
 governor over themselves ; but no act of rea- 
 son goeth before man be created, therefore 
 it is not in his power whether he be created 
 a creature of greater power than a beast or 
 no. 4. God by creation gave power to a 
 man over the creatures, and so immediately ; 
 but I hope men cannot say, God by creation 
 hath made a man king over men. 5. The 
 excellency of monarchy (if it be more excel- 
 lent than any other government, of which 
 hereafter) is no ground why it should be im- 
 mediately from God as well as man's domi- 
 nion over the creature ; for then the work 
 of man's redemption, being more excellent 
 than the raising of Lazarus, should have 
 been done immediately without the incar- 
 nation, death and satisfaction of Christ, (for 
 no act of God without himself is comparable 
 to the work of redemption, 1 Pet. i. 11, 12 ; 
 Col. i. 18—22,) and God's less excellent 
 works, as his creating of beasts and worms, 
 should have been done mediately, and his 
 creating of man immediately. 
 
 P. Prelate. — They who execute the judg- 
 ment of God must needs have the power to 
 judge from God ; but kings are deputies in 
 the exercise of the judgments of God, there- 
 fore the proposition is proved. How is it 
 imaginable that God reconcileth the world 
 by ministers, and saveth man by them, (1 
 Cor. v. ; 1 Tim. iv. 16,) except they receive 
 a power so to do from God ? The assump- 
 tion is, (Deut. i. 17 ; 1 Chron. xix. 6,) Let 
 none say Moses and Jehosaphat spake of in- 
 ferior judges ; for that which the king doth 
 to others he doth by himself. Also, the 
 execution of the kingly power is from God ; 
 for the king is the servant, angel, legate, 
 minister of God, Rom. xiii. 6, 7. God pro- 
 perly and primarily is King, and King of 
 kings, and Lord of lords (1 Tim. vi. 15 ; 
 Rev. i. 5) ; all kings, related to him, are 
 kings equivocally, and in resemblance, and 
 he the only King. 
 
 Aiis. — 1. That which is in question is 
 never concluded, to wit, that " the king is 
 both immediately constituted and designed 
 king by God only, and not by the mediation 
 of the people ;" for when God reconcileth 
 and saveth men by pastors, he saveth them 
 by the Intervening action of men ; so he 
 scourgeth his people by men as by his sword, 
 (Psal. xvii. 14,) hand, staff, rod, (Isa. x. 5,) 
 and his hammer. Doth it follow that God 
 only doth immediately scourge his people, 
 and that wicked men have no more hand 
 and action in scourging his people than the 
 
 Prelate saith the people hath a hand in 
 making a king ? and that is no hand at all 
 by the Prelate's way. 2. We may borrow 
 the Prelate's argument : — Inferior judges 
 execute the judgment of the Lord, and 
 not the judgment of the king ; therefore, 
 by the Prelate's argument, God doth only 
 by immediate power execute judgment in 
 them, and the inferior judges are not God's 
 ministers, executing the judgment of the 
 Lord. But the conclusion is against all 
 truth, and so must the Prelate's argument 
 be ; and that inferior judges are the imme- 
 diate substitutes and deputies of God, is 
 hence proved, and shall be hereafter made 
 good, it' God will. 3. God is properly King 
 of kings, so is God properly causa causa- 
 rum, the Cause of causes, the Life of lifes, 
 the Joy of joys. What ! shall it then fol- 
 low that he worketh nothing in the crea- 
 tures by their mediation as causes? Be- 
 cause God is Light of lights, doth he not 
 enlighten the earth and air by the media- 
 tion of the sun ? Then God communicateth 
 not life mediately by generation, he causeth 
 not his saints to rejoice, with joy unspeak- 
 able and glorious, by the intervening medi- 
 ation of the Word. These are vain conse- 
 quences. Sovereignty, and all power and 
 virtue is in God infinitely ; and what vir- 
 tue and power of action is in the creatures, 
 as they are compared with God, are in 
 the creatures equivocally and in resem- 
 blance, and *«™ loin* in opinion rather than 
 really. Hence it must follow that second 
 causes work none at all, — no more than the 
 people hath a hand or action in making the 
 king, and that is no hand at all, as the Pre- 
 late saith. And God only and immediately 
 worketh all works in the creatures, because 
 both the power of working and actual work- 
 ing cometh from God, and the creatures, in 
 all their working, are God's instruments. 
 And if the Prelate argue so frequently from 
 power given of God, to prove that actual 
 reigning is from God immediately, — Deut. 
 viii. 18, The Lord " giveth the power to 
 get wealth," — will it follow that Israel get- 
 teth no riches at all, or that Gad doth not 
 mediately by them and their industry get 
 them ? I think not. 
 
 P. Prelate. — To whom can it be due to 
 give the kingly office but to Him only who 
 is able to give the endowment and ability 
 for the office ? Now God only and imme- 
 diately giveth ability to be a king, as the 
 sacramental anointing proveth, Josh. iii. 10. 
 
24 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 Othniel is the first judge after Joshua ; and 
 it is said, " And the Spirit of the Lord 
 came upon him, and he judged Israel :" the 
 like is said of Saul and David. 
 
 Ans. — 1. God gave royal endowments 
 immediately, therefore he immediately now 
 maketh the king. It followeth not, for the 
 species of government is not that which for- 
 mally constituteth a king, for then Nero, Ca- 
 ligula, Julian, should not have been kings ; 
 and those who come to the crown by con- 
 quest and blood, are essentially kings, as the 
 Prelate saith. But be all these Othniels upon 
 whom the Spirit of the Lord cometh ? Then 
 they are not essentially kings who are babes 
 and children, and foolish and destitute of the 
 royal endowments ; but it is one thing to have 
 a royal gift, and another thing to be formally 
 called to the kingdom. David had royal 
 gifts after Samuel anointed him, but if you 
 make him king, before Saul's death, Saul 
 was both a traitor all the time that he per- 
 secuted David, and so no king, and also king 
 and God's anointed, as David acknowledgeth 
 him ; and, therefore, that spirit that came 
 on David and Saul, maketh nothing against 
 the people's election of a king, as the Spirit 
 of God is given to pastors under the New 
 Testament, as Christ promised ; but it will 
 not follow that the designation of the man 
 who is to be pastor should not be from the 
 church and from men, as the Prelate denieth 
 that either the constitution or designation of 
 the king is from the people, but from God 
 only. 2. I believe the infusion of the Spi- 
 rit of God upon the judges will not prove 
 that kings are now both constituted and de- 
 signed of God solely, only, and immediately; 
 for the judges were indeed immediately, and 
 for the most part extraordinarily, raised up 
 of God ; and God indeed, in the time of the 
 Jews, was the king of Israel in another man- 
 ner than he was the king of all the nations, 
 and is the king of Christian realms now, 
 and, therefore, the people's despising of Sa- 
 muel was a refusing that God should reign 
 over them, because God, in the judges, re- 
 vealed himself even in matters of policy, as 
 what should be done to the man that ga- 
 thered sticks on the Sabbath-day, and the 
 like, as he doth not now to kings. 
 
 P. Prelate. — Sovereignty is a ray of di- 
 vine glory and majesty, but this cannot be 
 found in people, whether you consider them 
 jointly or singly ; if you consider them sin- 
 gly, it cannot be in every individual man, for 
 sectaries say, That all are born equal, with 
 
 a like freedom ; and if it be not in the peo- 
 ple singly, it cannot be in them jointly, for 
 all the contribution in this compact and con- 
 tract, which they fancy to be human compo- 
 sition and voluntary constitution, is only by 
 a surrender of the native right that every 
 one had in himself. From whence, then, 
 can this majesty and authority be derived ? 
 Again, where the obligation amongst equals 
 is by contract and compact, violation of the 
 faith plighted in the contract, cannot in 
 proper terms be called disobedience or con- 
 tempt of authority. It is no more but a re- 
 ceding from, and a violation of, that which 
 was promised, as it may be in states or 
 countries confederate. Nature, reason, con- 
 science, Scripture, teach, that disobedience 
 to sovereign power is not only a violation of 
 truth and breach of covenant, but also high 
 disobedience and contempt, as is clear, 1 Sam. 
 x. 26. So when Saul (chap, xi.) sent a yoke 
 of oxen, hewed in pieces, to all the tribes, 
 the fear of the Lord fell on the people, and 
 they came out with one consent, 1 Sam. xi. 
 7 ; also, (Job xi. 18,) He looseth the bonds 
 of kings, that is, he looseth their authority, 
 and bringeth them into contempt ; and he 
 girdeth their loins with a girdle, that is, he 
 strengtheneth their authority, and maketh 
 the people to reverence them. Heathens 
 observe that there is Sum rf, some divine 
 thing in kings. Profane histories say, that 
 this was so eminent in Alexander the Great, 
 that it was a terror to his enemies, and a 
 powerful loadstone to draw men to compose 
 the most seditious councils, and cause his 
 most experienced commanders embrace and 
 obey his counsel and command. Some sto- 
 ries write that, upon some great exigency, 
 there was some resplendent majesty in the 
 eyes of Scipio. This kept Pharaoh from 
 lifting his hand against Moses, who charged 
 him so boldly with his sins. When Moses did 
 speak with God, face to face, in the mount, 
 this resplendent glory of majesty so awed 
 the people, that they durst not behold his 
 glory, Exod. xxxiv. ; this repressed the fury 
 of the people, enraged against Gideon from 
 destroying their idol, Judg. vi. ; and the fear 
 of man is naturally upon all living creatures 
 below, Gen. ix. So what can this reverence, 
 which is innate in the hearts of all subjects 
 toward their sovereigns, be, but the ordinance 
 unrepealable of God, and the natural effect 
 of that majesty of princes with which they 
 are endowed from above ? 
 
 Ans. — 1. 1 never heard any shadow of rea- 
 
THE LAW A.\n THK I'Ul.M '/'.. 
 
 son till now, and yet (because the lie hath 
 a latitude) here is but a shadow, which the 
 Prelate stole from M. Anton, de Dom. Ar- 
 chiepisc. Spalatensis ; x and I may say, confi- 
 dently, this Plagiarius hath not one line in 
 his book which is not stolen ; and, for the 
 present, Spalato's argument is but spilt, and 
 the nerves cut from it, while it is both bleed- 
 ing and lamed. Let the reader compare 
 them, and I pawn my credit he hath igno- 
 rantly clipped Spalato. But I answer, " So- 
 vereignty is a beam and ray (as Spalato 
 saith) of divine majesty, and is not either 
 formally or virtually in the people." It is 
 false that it is not virtually in the people ; 
 for there be two things in the judge, either 
 inferior or supreme, for the argument hold- 
 eth in the majesty of a parliament, as we 
 shall hear. (1.) The gift or grace of go- 
 verning (the Arminian Prelate will be of- 
 fended at this). (2.) The authority of go- 
 verning. The gift is supernatural, and is 
 not in man naturally, and so not in the 
 king ; for he is physically but a mortal 
 man, and this is a gift received, for Solo- 
 mon asked it by prayer from God. There 
 is a capacity passive in all individual men 
 for it. As for the official authority itself, 
 it is virtually in all in whom any of God's 
 image is remaining since the fall, as is clear, 
 as may be gathered from Gen. i. 28 ; yea, 
 the father, the master, the judge, have it 
 by God's institution, in some measure, over 
 son, servant, and subject, though it be more 
 in the supreme ruler ; and, for our purpose, 
 it is not x'equisite that authoritative majesty 
 should be in all, (what is in the father and 
 husband I hope to clear,) I mean, it needeth 
 not to be formally in all, and so all are born 
 alike and equal. But he who is a Papist, a 
 Socinian, an Arminian, and therefore de- 
 livered to Satan by his mother church, must 
 be the sectary, for we are where this Pre- 
 late left us, maintainers of the Protestant re- 
 ligion, contained in the Confession of Faith 
 and National Covenant of Scotland, when 
 this Demas forsook us and embraced the 
 world, 2. Though not one single man in 
 Israel be a judge or king by nature, nor 
 have in them formally any ray of royalty 
 or magistratical authority, yet it followeth 
 not that Israel, parliamentary convened, 
 hath no such authority as to name Saul 
 king in Mizpeh, and David king in Hebron, 
 
 1 Antonin. de Domiuis Archiepis. de dom. lib. 6, 
 c. 2, n. 5, 6, seq. 
 
 1 Sam. x. 24, 25 ; 1 Chron. xi. 12 ; xii. 38, 
 39. One man alone hath not the keys of 
 the kingdom of heaven ; (as the Prelate 
 dreameth) but it followeth not that many, 
 convened in a chiu'ch way, hath not this 
 power, Matt, xviii. 17 ; 1 Cor. v. 1 — 4. 
 One man hath not strength to fight against 
 an army of ten thousand ; doth it follow, 
 therefore, that an army of twenty thou- 
 sand hath not strength to fight against 
 these ten thousand ? Though one Paul 
 cannot synodically determine the question, 
 (Acts xv,) it followeth not that the apos- 
 tles, and elders, and brethren, convened 
 from divers churches, hath not power to 
 determine it in a lawful synod ; and, there- 
 fore, from a disjoined and scattered power, 
 no man can argue to a united power. So not 
 any one man is an inferior ruler, or hath 
 the rays and beams of a number of aristo- 
 cratical rulers ; but it followeth not that all 
 these men, combined in a city or society, 
 have not power, in a joint political body, 
 to choose inferior or aristocratical rulers. 
 3. The P. Prelate's reason is nothing. All 
 the contribution (saith he) in the compact 
 body to make a king, is only by a surrender 
 of the native right of every single man (the 
 whole being only a voluntary contribution). 
 How, then, can there be any majesty de- 
 rived from them ? I answer, Very well ; 
 for the surrender is so voluntary, that it is 
 also natural, and founded on the law of na- 
 ture, that men must have governors, either 
 many, or one supreme ruler. And it is vo- 
 luntary, and dependeth on a positive institu- 
 tion of God, whether the government be 
 by one supreme ruler, as in a monarchy, or 
 in many, as in an aristocracy, according as 
 the necessity and temper of the common- 
 wealth do most require. This constitution is 
 so voluntary, as it hath below it the law of 
 nature for its general foundation, and above 
 it, the supervenient institution of God, or- 
 daining that there should be such magis- 
 trates, both kings and other judges, because 
 without such, all human societies should be 
 dissolved. 4. Individual persons, in creat- 
 ing a magistrate, doth not properly surren- 
 der their right, which can be called a rioht ; 
 for they do but surrender their power of do- 
 ing violence to those of their fellows in that 
 same community, so as they shall not now 
 have moral power to do injuries without 
 punishment ; and this is not right or liberty 
 properly, but servitude, for a power to do 
 violence and injuries is not liberty, but ser- 
 
26 
 
 LEX, REX J OR, 
 
 vitude and bondage. But the Prelate talk- 
 eth of royalty as of mere tyranny, as if it 
 were a proper dominion and servile empire 
 that the prince hath over his people, and not 
 more paternal and fatherly, than lordly or 
 - masterly. 5. He saith, " Violation of faith, 
 J plighted in a contract amongst equals, can- 
 i not be called disobedience ; but disobedience 
 j to the authority of the sovereign is not only 
 breach of covenant, but high disobedience and 
 contempt." But violation of faith amongst 
 equals, as equals, is not properly disobe- 
 dience ; for disobedience is betwixt a supe- 
 rior and an inferior : but violation of faith 
 amongst equals, when they make one of their 
 equals their judge and ruler, is not only vio- 
 lation of truth, but also disobedience. All 
 Israel, and Saul, while he is a private man 
 seeking his father's asses, are equals by cove- 
 nant, obliged one to another ; and so any in- 
 jury done by Israel to Saul, in that case, is 
 not disobedience, but only violation of faith. 
 But when all Israel maketh Saul their king, 
 and sweareth to him obedience, he is not 
 now their equal ; and an injury done to him 
 now, is both a violation of their faith, and 
 high disobedience also. Suppose a city of 
 aldermen, all equal amongst themselves in 
 dignity and place, take one of their number 
 and make him their mayor and provost — a 
 wrong done to him now, is not only against 
 the rules of fraternity, but disobedience to 
 one placed by God over them. 6. 1 Sam. 
 xi. 7, " The fear of the Lord fell on the 
 people, and they came out with one consent 
 to obey Saul;" therefore God hath placed 
 authority in kings, which is not in people. 
 It is true; because God hath transferred the 
 scattered authorities that are in all the peo- 
 ple, in one mass ; and, by virtue of his own 
 ordinance, hath placed them in one man, 
 who is king. What followeth ? That God 
 eonferreth this authority immediately upon 
 the king, without the mediation of any ac- 
 tion of the people ? Yea, the contrary ra- 
 ther followeth. 7- God looseth the bond of 
 kings ; that is, when God is to cast off kings, 
 he causeth them to loose all authority, and 
 maketh them come into contempt with the 
 people. But what doth this prove ? That 
 God taketh away the majesty and authority 
 of kings immediately ; and therefore God 
 gave to kings this authority immediately, 
 without the people's conveyance ? Yea, I 
 take the Prelate's weapon from him. God 
 doth not take the authority of the king 
 from him immediately, but mediately, by the 
 
 people's hating and .despising him, when 
 they see his wickedness, as the people see 
 Nero a monster — a prodigious blood-sucker. 
 Upon this, all the people contemn him and 
 despise him, and so the majesty is taken 
 from Nero and all his mandates and laws, 
 when they see him trample upon all laws, 
 divine and human, and that mediately by 
 the people's heart despising of his majesty ; 
 and so they repeat, and take again, that awe- 
 some authority that they once gave him. 
 And this proveth that God gave him the 
 authority mediately, by the consent of man. 
 8. Nor speaketh he of kings only, but (ver. 
 21) he poureth contempt Q'^'O^y su- 
 per munificos. Pineda. Aria. Mont, super 
 Principcs, upon nobles and great men ; and 
 this place may prove that no judges of the 
 earth are made by men. 9. The heathen 
 say, That there is some divinity in princes, 
 as in Alexander the Great and Scipio, to- 
 ward their enemies ; but this will prove that 
 princes and kings have a superiority over 
 those who are not their native subjects, for 
 something of God is in them, in relation to 
 all men that are not their subjects. If this 
 be a ground strong and good, because God 
 only, and independently from men, taketh 
 away this majesty, as God only and inde- 
 pendently giveth it, then a king is sacred to 
 all men, subjects or not subjects. Then it 
 is unlawful to make war against any foreign 
 king and prince, for in invading him or re- 
 sisting him, you resist that divine majesty of 
 God that is in him ; then you may not law- 
 fully flee from a tyrant, no more than you 
 may lawfully flee from God. 10. Scipio 
 was not a king, therefore this divine majesty 
 is in all judges of the earth, in a more or 
 less measure ; — therefore God, only and im- 
 mediately, may take this spark of divine ma- 
 jesty from inferior judges. It followeth not. 
 And kings, certainly, cannot infuse any spark 
 of a divine majesty on any inferior judges, 
 for God only immediately infuseth it in men ; 
 therefore it is unlawful for kings to take this 
 divinity from judges, for they resist God who 
 resist parliaments, no less than those who re- 
 sist kings. Scipio hath divinity in him as 
 well as Csesar, and that immediately from 
 God, and not from any king. 11. Moses 
 was not a king when he went to Pharaoh, 
 for he had not, as yet, a people. Pharaoh 
 was the king, and because Pharaoh was a 
 king, the divines of Oxford must say, His 
 majesty must not, in words of rebuke, be re- 
 sisted more than by deeds. 12. Moses' face 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 27 
 
 did shine as a prophet receiving the law 
 from God — not as a king. And is this sun- 
 shine from heaven upon the face of Nero 
 and Julian ? It must be, if it be a beam of 
 royal majesty, if this pratler say right, but 
 (2 Cor. iii. 7) this was a majesty typical, 
 which did adumbrate the glory of the law 
 of God, and is far from being a royalty due 
 to all heathen kings. 13. I would our king- 
 would evidence such a majesty in breaking 
 the images and idols of his queen, and of 
 papists about him. 14. The fear of Noah, 
 and the regenerated who are in covenant 
 with the beasts of the field, (Job v. 23,) is 
 upon the beasts of the earth, not by appro- 
 bation only, as the people maketh kings by 
 the Prelate's way ; nor yet by free consent, 
 as the people freely transfer their power to 
 him who is king. The creatures inferior to 
 man, have, by no act of free will, chosen 
 man to be their ruler, and transferred their 
 power to him, because they are, by nature, 
 inferior to man ; and God, by nature, hath 
 subjected the creatures to man, (Gen. i. 28,) 
 and so this proveth not that the king, by na- 
 ture, is above the people — I mean the man 
 who is king ; and, therefore, though God 
 had planted in the hearts of all subjects a 
 fear and reverence toward the king, upon 
 supposition that they have made him king, 
 it followeth not that this authority and ma- 
 jesty is immediately given by God to the 
 man who is king, without the intervening 
 consent of the people, for there is a native 
 fear in the scholar to stand in awe of his 
 teacher, and yet the scholar may willingly 
 give himself to be a disciple to his teacher, 
 and so give his teacher power over him. 
 Citizens naturally fear their supreme gover- 
 nor of the city, yet they give to the man 
 who is their supreme governor, that power 
 and authority which is the ground of awe 
 and reverence. A servant naturally feareth 
 his master, yet often he giveth his liberty, 
 and resigneth it up voluntarily to his mas- 
 ter; and this was not extraordinary amongst 
 the Jews, where the servant did entirely love 
 the master, and is now most ordinary when 
 servants do, for hire, tie themselves to such 
 a master. Soldiers naturally fear their 
 commanders, yet they may, and often do, 
 by voluntary consent, make such men their 
 commanders ; and, therefore, from this, it 
 followeth in no way that the governor of a 
 city, the teacher, the master, the comman- 
 der in war, have not their power and autho- 
 rity only and immediately from God, but 
 
 from their inferiors, who, by their freo con- 
 sent, appointed them for such places. 
 
 P. Prelate (Arg. 7, p. 51, 52).— This 
 seemeth, or rather is, an unanswerable argu- 
 ment, — No man hath power of life and 
 death but the Sovereign Power of life and 
 death, to wit, God, Gen. ix. 5. God saith 
 thrice he will require the blood of man at 
 the hands of man, and this power God hath 
 committed to God's deputy : whoso sheddeth 
 man's blood DIJO hy man shall die, — by 
 the king, for the world knew not any kind 
 of government at this time but monarchical, 
 and this monarch was Noah ; and if this 
 power be from God, why not all sovereign 
 power ? seeing it is homogeneous, and, as 
 jurists say, in indivisibili posita, a thing in 
 its nature indivisible, and that cannot be 
 distracted or impaired, and if every man 
 had the power of life and death, God should 
 not be the God of order. 
 
 The P. Prelate taketh the pains to prove 
 out of the text that a magistracy is estab- 
 lished in the text. Ans. 1. Let us consi- 
 der this unanswerable argument. (1.) It is 
 grounded upon a lie, and a conjecture never 
 taught by any but himself, to wit, that 
 CliO by, or in, or through man, must 
 signify a magistrate, and a king only. This 
 king was Noah. Never interpreter, nay, 
 not common sense can say, that no magis- 
 trate is here understood but a king. The 
 consequence is vain : His blood shall be 
 shed by man ; therefore by a magistrate ? it 
 followeth not ; therefore by a king ? it fol- 
 loweth not. There was not a king in the 
 world as yet. Some make Belus, the father 
 of Ninus, the first king, and the builder of 
 Babylon. This Ninus is thought the first 
 builder of the city after called Nineveh, and 
 the first king of the Assyrians. So saith 
 Quintus Curtius 1 and others ; but grave au- 
 thors believe that Nimrod was no other than 
 Belus the father of Ninus. So saith Augus- 
 tine, 2 Eusebius, Hieronym. ; 3 and Eusebius 4 
 maketh him the first founder of Babylon : 
 so saith Clemens, 5 Pirerius, 6 and Josephus 
 saith the same. Their times, their cruel 
 natures are the same. Calvin saith, 7 Noah 
 
 1 Quintius Curtius, lib. 5. 
 
 2 Aug. de civ. Dei, lib. 16, c. 17. 
 
 3 Hieron. in Hos. ii. 
 
 4 Euseb. lib. 9, de prepar. Evan. c. 3. 
 6 Clemens recog. lib. 4. 
 
 6 Pirerius in Gen. x. 8, 9, disp. 3, n. 67. Illud quo- 
 que niihi fit percredible, Nimrod fuisse eundem, at- 
 que enim quem alii appellant Belum patrem Nini. 
 
 7 Calvin Com. in Gen. ix. 
 
2;; 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 yet lived while Nimrod lived ; and the 
 Scripture saith, " Nimrod began to reign, 
 and be powerful on the earth." And Babel 
 was IH^ftE IT^NT tne beginning of 
 his kingdom. No writer, Moses nor any 
 other, can show us a king before Nimrod. 
 So Eusebius, 1 Paul Orosius, 2 Hieronym., 3 
 Josephus, 4 say that he was the first king ; 
 and Tostatus Abulens., 5 and our own Cal- 
 vin, Luther, 6 Musculus on the place, and 
 Ainsworth, make him the first king and the 
 founder of Babylon. How Noah was a king, 
 or there was any monarchical government 
 in the world then, the Prelate hath alone 
 dreamed it. There was but family-govern- 
 ment before this. 2. And if there be ma- 
 gistracy here established by God, there is 
 no warrant to say it is only a monarchy ; 
 for if the Holy Ghost intendeth a policy, it 
 is a policy to be established to the world's 
 end, and not to be limited (as the Prelate 
 doth) to Noah's days. All interpreters, 
 upon good ground, establish the same po- 
 licy that our Saviour speaketh of, when he 
 saith, " He shall perish by the sword who 
 taketh the sword," Matt. xxvi. 52. So the 
 Netherlands have no lawful magistrate who 
 hath power of life and death, because their 
 government is aristocratical, and they have 
 no king. So all acts of taking away the lives 
 of ill-doers shall be acts of homicide in Hol- 
 land. How absurd ! 3. Nor do I see how 
 the place, in the native scope, doth establish 
 a magistracy. Calvin saith not so ; 7 and in- 
 terpreters deduce, by consequence, the power 
 of the magistrate from this place. But the 
 text is general, — He who killeth man shall 
 be killed by man : either he shall fall into 
 the magistrate's hand, or into the hand of 
 some murderer; so Calvin, 8 Marlorat, &c 
 He speaketh, saith Pirerius, not of the fact 
 and event itself, but of the deserving of 
 murderers ; and it is certain all murderers 
 
 1 Euseb. prolog. 1 Chron. 
 a Paul Orosius, lib. 1. de Ormesta mundi. 
 3 Hieron. in traditio Hebrei in Gen. 
 * 'I 'ostat Abuhns. in Gen. x. 9. 
 
 5 Josephus in Gen* x. 
 
 6 Lutb. Cora. ib. 
 
 7 Calvin Com. Quanquam hoc loco non simpliciter 
 fertur lex politica, ut plcctautur boinicide. 
 
 s Calvin in lect. 
 
 9 Pirerius in Gen. ix. 3, 4, n.37. Vatablus hath 
 diver- interpretations : In homine, i.e. in conspectu 
 omnium et publice, aut in homine, i. e. hominibus 
 testiticantibus ; alii, in homine, i. e. propter homin- 
 era, quia occidit hominem, jussu in agist ratus. Caje- 
 tan expotittdetb. D~1N^ contra hominem, in de- 
 spite of man. 
 
 fall not into the magistrate's hands ; but he 
 saith, by God and man's laws they ought to 
 die, though sometime one murderer killeth 
 another. 4. The sovereign power is given 
 to the king, therefore, it is given to him im- 
 mediately without the consent of the people. 
 It followeth not. 5. Power of life and death 
 is not given to the king only, but also to 
 other magistrates, yea, and to a single pri- 
 vate man in the just defence of his own life. 
 Other arguments are but what the Prelate 
 hath said already. 
 
 QUESTION VIII. 
 
 WHETHER THE PRELATE PROVETH BY FORCE 
 OF REASON THAT THE PEOPLE CANNOT BE 
 CAPABLE OF AN* POWER OF GOVERNMENT. 
 
 P. Prelate. — God and nature giveth no 
 power in vain, and which may not be re- 
 duced into action ; but an active power, or 
 a power of actual governing, was never acted 
 by the community ; therefore this power can- 
 not be seated in the community as in the 
 prime and proper subject, and it cannot be 
 in every individual person of a community, 
 because government intrinsically and essen- 
 tially includeth a special distinction of go- 
 vernors, and some to be governed ; and, to 
 speak properly, there can no other power be 
 conceived in the community, naturally and 
 properly, but only potestas passiva regimi- 
 nis, a capacity or susceptibility to be go- 
 verned, by one or by more, just as the first 
 matter desireth a form. This obligeth all, by 
 the dictate of nature's law, to submit to ac- 
 tual government ; and as it is in every indi- 
 vidual person, it is not merely and properly 
 voluntary, because, howsoever nature dictates 
 that government is necessary for the safety of 
 the society, yet every singular person, by cor- 
 ruption and self-love, hath a natural aver- 
 sion and repugnance to submit to any : every 
 man would be a king himself. This univer- 
 sal desire, appctitus universalis aut natu- 
 ralis, or universal propension to government, 
 is like the act of the understanding assenting 
 to the first principles of truth, and to the 
 will's general propension to happiness in ge- 
 neral, which propension is not a free act, ex- 
 cept our new statists, as they have changed 
 their faith, so they overturn true reason. It 
 will puzzle them infinitely to make anything, 
 in its kind passive, really active and collative 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 29 
 
 of positive acts and effects. All know no 
 man can give what he hath not. An old 
 philosopher would laugh at him who would 
 say, that a matter perfected and actuated 
 by union with a form, could at pleasure 
 shake off its form, and marry itself to an- 
 other. They may as well say, every wife 
 hath power to resume her freedom and 
 marry another, as that any such power ac- 
 tive is in the community, or any power to 
 cast off monarchy. 
 
 Ans. — 1. The P. Prelate might have 
 thanked Spalato for this argument, but he 
 doth not so much as cite him, for fear his 
 theft be apprehended ; but Spalato hath it 
 set down with stronger nerves than the Pre- 
 late's head was able to copy out of him. But 
 Jac. de Almain, 1 and Navarrus, 2 with the 
 Parisian doctors, said in the Council of Pa- 
 ris, " that politic power is immediately from 
 God, but first from the community ;" but so 
 that the community apply their power to 
 this or that government — not of liberty, but 
 by natural necessity — but Spalato and the 
 plagiary Prelate do both look beside the 
 book. The question is not now concerning 
 the vis rectiva, the power of governing in 
 the people, but concerning the power of go- 
 vernment ; for these two differ much. The 
 former is a power of ruling and monarchical 
 commanding of themselves. This power is 
 not formally in the people, but only virtu- 
 ally ; and no reason can say that a virtual 
 power is idle because it cannot be actuated 
 by that same subject that it is in ; for then 
 it should not be a virtual, but a formal 
 power. Do not philosophers say such an 
 herb virtually maketh hot? and can the 
 sotti-h Prelate say this virtual power is idle, 
 and in vain given of God, because it doth 
 not formally heat your hand when you touch 
 it. 2. The P. Prelate, who is excommuni- 
 cated for Popery, Socinianism, Arminianism, 
 and is now turned apostate to Christ and his 
 church, must have changed his faith, not we, 
 and be unreasonably ignorant, to press that 
 axiom, " That the power is idle that cannot 
 be reduced to acts ;" for a generative power 
 is given to living and sensitive creatures, 
 
 1 M. Anto. de domini. Arch. Spalatens. lib. 6, c. 
 2, n. 5, 6. Plebs potius habet a natura, non tain vim 
 active rectivam aut gubernativam, quam inclinatio- 
 nem passive regibilem (ut ita loquav) et gubernabi- 
 lem, qua volens et libens sese submittit rectoribus, 
 &c. 
 
 2 Almain de potest et La. 1, q. 1, c. 1, 6, et q. 2, 3, 5. 
 
 3 Nem. don jud. not. 3, n 85. 
 
 —this power is not idle though it be not 
 reduced in act by all and every individual 
 sensitive creature. A power of seeing is 
 given to all who naturally do, or ought to 
 see, yet it is not an idle power because di- 
 vers are blind, seeing it is put forth in action 
 in divers of the kind ; so this power in the 
 community is not idle because it is not put 
 forth in acts in the people in which it is vir- 
 tually, but is put forth in action in some of 
 them whom they choose to be their gover- 
 nors ; nor is it reasonable to say that it 
 should be put forth in action by all the peo- 
 ple, as if all should be kings and governors. 
 But the question is not of the power of go- 
 verning in the people, but of the power of 
 government, that is, of the power of making 
 governors and kings ; and the community 
 doth put forth in act this power, as a free, 
 voluntary, and active power ; for (1.) a com- 
 munity transplanted to India, or any place 
 of the world not before inhabited, have a 
 perfect liberty to choose either a monar- 
 chy, or a democracy, or an aristocracy ; for 
 though nature incline them to government 
 in general, yet are they not naturally de- 
 terminated to any one of those three more 
 than another. (2.) Israel did of their own 
 free will choose the change of government, 
 and would have a king as the nations had ; 
 therefore they had free will, and so an ac- 
 tive power so to do, and not a passive in- 
 clination only to be governed, such as Spa- 
 lato saith agreeth to the first matter. (3.) 
 Royalists teach that a people under demo- 
 cracy or aristocracy have liberty to choose 
 a king ; and the Romans did this, there- 
 fore they had an active power to do it, — 
 therefore the Prelate's simile crooks : the 
 matter at its pleasure cannot shake off its 
 form, nor the wife cast off her husband be- 
 ing once married; but Barclaius, Grotius, 
 Arnisfens, Blackwood, and all the royalists, 
 teach that the people under any of these 
 two forms of democracy or aristocracy may 
 resume their power, and cast off these forms 
 and choose a monarch ; and if monarchy be 
 the best government, as royalists say, they 
 may choose the best. And is this but a pas- 
 sive capacity to be governed ? (4.) Of ten 
 men fit for a kingdom they may design one, 
 and put the crown on his head, and refuse 
 the other nine, as Israel crowned Solomon 
 and refused Adonijah. Is this not a volun- 
 tary action, proceeding from a free, active, 
 elective power ? It will puzzle the preten- 
 ded Prelate to deny this, — that which the 
 
30 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 community doth freely, they do not from 
 such a passive capacity as is in the first 
 matter in regard of the form. 3. It is true 
 that people, through corruption of nature, 
 are averse to submit to governors " for con- 
 science sake, as unto the Lord," because the 
 natural man, remaining in the state of na- 
 ture, can do nothing that is truly good, but it 
 is false that men have no active moral power 
 to submit to superiors, but only a passive ca- 
 pacity to be governed. He quite contradict- 
 eth himself; for he said before, (c. 4, p. 49,) 
 that there is an " innate fear and reverence 
 in the hearts of all men naturally, even in 
 heathens, toward their sovereign ;" yea, as 
 we have a natural moral active power to 
 love our parents and superiors, (though it 
 be not evangelically, or legally in God's 
 court, good) and so to obey their command- 
 ments, only we are averse to penal laws of 
 superiors. But this proveth no way that we 
 have only by nature a passive capacity to 
 government ; for heathens have, by instinct 
 of nature, both made laws morally good, 
 submitted to them, and set kings and judges 
 over them, which clearly proveth that men 
 have an active power of government by na- 
 ture. Yea, what difference maketh the 
 Prelate betwixt men and beasts ? for beasts 
 have a capacity to be governed, even lions 
 and tio-ers ; but here is the matter, if men 
 have any natural power of government, the 
 P. Prelate would have it, with his breth- 
 ren the Jesuits and Arminians, to be not 
 natural, but done by the help of universal 
 grace ; for so do they confound nature and 
 grace. But it is certain our power to sub- 
 mit to rulers and kings, as to rectors, and 
 guides, and fathers, is natural ; to submit to 
 tyrants in doing ills of sin is natural, but in 
 sufferinT ills of punishment is not natural. 
 " No man can give that which he hath not," 
 is true, but that people have no power to 
 make their governors is that which is in 
 question, and denied by us. This argu- 
 ment doth prove that people hath no power 
 to appoint aristocrat ical rulers more than 
 kings, and so the aristocratical and demo- 
 cratical rulers are all inviolable and sacred 
 as the king. By this the people may not 
 resume their freedem if they turn tyrants 
 and oppressors. This the Prelate shall deny, 
 for he averreth, (p. 96,) out of Augustine, 
 that the people may, without sin, change a 
 corrupt democracy into a monarchy. 
 
 P. Prelate (pp. 95, 96). — If sovereignty 
 be originally inherent in the people, then 
 
 democracy, or government by the people, 
 were the best government, because it com- 
 eth nearest to the fountain and stream of 
 the first and radical power in the people, 
 yea, and all other forms of government were 
 unlawful ; and if sovereignty be natively in- 
 herent in the multitude it must be proper 
 to every individual of the community, which 
 is against that false maxim of theirs, Quisque 
 nascitur liber. Every one by nature is born 
 a free man, and the posterity of those who 
 first contracted with their elected king are 
 not bound to that covenant, but, upon their 
 native right and liberty, may appoint an- 
 other king without breach of covenant. The 
 posterity of Joshua, and the elders in their 
 time, who contracted with the Gibeonites to 
 incorporate them, though in a serving con- 
 dition, might have made their fathers' go- 
 vernment nothing. 
 
 Ans. — 1. The P. Prelate might thank 
 Spalato for this argument also, 1 for it is 
 stolen ; but he never once named him, lest 
 his theft should be apprehended. So are 
 his other arguments stolen from Spalato; 
 but the Prelate weakeneth them, and it is 
 seen stolen goods are not blessed. Spalato 
 saith, then, by the law of nature every com- 
 monwealth should be governed by the peo- 
 ple, and by the law of nature the people 
 should be under the worst government ; but 
 this consequence is nothing ; for a commu- 
 nity of many families is formally and of 
 themselves under no government, but may 
 choose any of the three ; for popular govern- 
 ment is not that wherein all the people are 
 rulers, for this is confusion and not govern- 
 ment, because all are rulers, and none are 
 governed and ruled. But in popular go- 
 vernment many are chosen out of the peo- 
 ple to rule ; and that this is the worst go- 
 vernment is said gratis, without warrant ; 
 and if monarchy be the best of itself, yet, 
 when men are in the state of sin, in some 
 other respects it hath many inconveniences. 
 2. I see not how democracy is best because 
 nearest to the multitude's power of making 
 a king ; for if all the three depend upon the 
 free will of the people, all are alike afar off, 
 and alike near hand, to the people's free 
 choice, according as they see most conducive 
 to the safety and protection of the common- 
 wealth, seeing the forms of government are 
 not more natural than politic incorporations 
 of cities, yea, than of shires ; but from a po- 
 
 i Spalatensis, p. 648. 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 31 
 
 sitive institution of God, who erecteth this 
 rather than that, not immediately now, but 
 mediately, by the free will of men ; no one 
 cometh formally, and ex natur a rei, nearer 
 to the fountain than another, except that 
 materially democracy may come nearer to 
 the people's power than monarchy, but the 
 excellency of it above monarchy is not hence 
 concluded ; for by this reason the number of 
 four should be more excellent than the num- 
 ber of five, of ten, of a hundred, of a thou- 
 sand, or of millions, because four cometh 
 near to the number of three, which Aristotle 
 calleth the first perfect number, cut addi- 
 tur <rl 3-Sv of which yet formally all do alike 
 share in the nature and essence of number. 
 2. It is denied that it follow eth from this 
 antecedent, that the people have power to 
 choose their own governors ; therefore all 
 governments except democracy, or govern- 
 ment by the people, must be sinful and un- 
 lawful. (1.) Because government by kings 
 is of divine institution, and of other judges 
 also, as is evident from God's word, Rom. 
 xiii. 1 — 3; Deut. xvii. 14; Prov. viii. 15, 
 16 ; 1 Pet. ii. 13, 14 ; Psal. ii. 10, 11, &c. 
 (2.) Power of choosing any form of govern- 
 ment is in the people ; therefore there is 
 no government lawful but popular govern- 
 ment. It followeth no ways ; but presup- 
 poseth that power to choose any form of 
 government must be formally actual go- 
 vernment; which is most false, yea, they 
 be contrary, as the prevalency or power and 
 the act are contrary ; so these two are con- 
 trary, or opposite. Neither is sovereignty, 
 nor any government, formally inherent in 
 either the community by nature, nor in any 
 one particular man by nature ; and that 
 every man is born free, so as no man, ra- 
 ther than his brother, is born a king and a 
 ruler, I hope, God willing, to make good, 
 so as the Prelate shall never answer on the 
 contrary. 3, It followeth not that the pos- 
 terity living, when their fathers made a co- 
 venant with their first elected king, may 
 without any breach of covenant on the king's 
 part, make void and null their fathers' elec- 
 tion of a king, and choose another king, be- 
 cause the lawful covenant of the fathers, in 
 point of government, if it be not broken, 
 tyeth the children, but it cannot deprive 
 them of their lawful liberty naturally inhe- 
 rent in them to choose the fittest man to be 
 king ; but of this hereafter more fully. 4. 
 Spalato addeth, (the Prelate is not a faith- 
 ful thief,) " If the community by the law of 
 
 nature have power of all forms of govern- 
 ment, and so should be, by nature, under 
 popular government, and yet should refuse 
 a monarchy and an aristocracy," yet, Au- 
 gustine addeth, 2 " If the people should pre- 
 fer their own private gain to the public good, 
 and sell the commonwealth, then some good 
 man might take their liberty from them, 
 and, against their will, erect a monarchy or 
 an aristocracy," But the Prelate (p. 97) 
 and Augustine supposeth the people to be 
 under popular government. This is not our 
 case ; for Spalato and the Prelate presup- 
 poseth by our grounds that the people by 
 nature must be under popular government, 
 Augustine dreameth no such thing, and we 
 deny that by nature they are under any 
 form of government. Augustine, in a case 
 most considerable thinketh one good and 
 potent man may take the corrupt people's 
 power of giving honours, and making rulers 
 from them, and give it to some good men, 
 few or many, or to one ; then Augustine 
 layeth down as a ground that which Spalato 
 and the Prelate denieth, — that the people 
 hath power to appoint their own rulers ; 
 otherwise, how could one man take that 
 power from them ? The Prelate's fifth ar- 
 gument is but a branch of the fourth argu- 
 ment, and is answered already. 
 
 P. Prelate (chap, 11). — He would prove 
 that kings of the people's making are not 
 blessed of God. The first creature of the 
 people's making was Abimelech (Judg. jx. 
 22), who reigned only three years, well near 
 Antichrist's time of endurance. He came 
 to it by blood, and an evil spirit rose betwixt 
 him and the men of Sechem, and he made 
 a miserable end. The next was Jeroboam, 
 who had this motto, He made Israel to sin. 
 The people made him king, and he made the 
 same pretence of a glorious reformation that 
 our reformers now make : new calves, new al- 
 tars, new feasts are erected ; they banish the 
 Levites and take in the scum and dross of the 
 vulgar, &c. Every action of Christ is our in- 
 struction. Christ was truly born a king, not- 
 withstanding, when the people would make 
 
 i Spalato, 16. 
 
 a August, de lib. arb., 
 populus rem privatum 
 beat venale suffragium < 
 nores amant, regnum in 
 committat ; non ne item 
 vir bonus qui plurimum 
 potestatem dandi honore 
 vcl etiam unjus redregat 
 
 lib. 1, c. 6. Si depravatus 
 Reipub. preferat. atque ha- 
 :or ruptusque ab lis qui lio- 
 sefactiosis consecleratisque 
 recte, si quis tunc extilerit 
 possit, adimat huic populo 
 s, et in paveorum bonorum, 
 arbitrium ? 
 
32 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 him a king, he disclaimed it — he would not 
 he an arbiter betwixt two brethren differ- 
 ing. 
 
 Ans. — I am not to follow the Prelate's 
 order every way, though, God willing, I 
 shall reach him in the forthcoming chapters. 
 Nor purpose I to answer his treasonable 
 railing against his own nation, and the 
 judges of the land, whom God hath set over 
 this seditious excommunicated apostate. He 
 layeth to us frequently the Jesuit's tenets, 
 when as he is known himself to be a papist. 
 In this argument he saith, Abimelech did 
 reign only three years, well near Anti- 
 christ's reign. Is not this the basis and 
 the mother principle of popery, That the 
 Pope is not the Antichrist, for the Pope 
 hath continued many ages? He is not 
 an individual man, but a race of men ; but 
 the Antichrist, saith Belarmine, Staple- 
 ton, Becanus, and the nation of Jesuits and 
 poplings, shall be one individual man — a 
 born Jew, and shall reign only three years 
 and a half. But, 1. The argument from 
 success proveth nothing, except the Prelate 
 prove their bad success to be from this, be- 
 cause they were chosen of the people. When 
 as Saul chosen of God, and most of the kings 
 of Israel and Judah, who, undeniably, had 
 God's calling to the crown, were not blessed 
 of God ; and their government was a ruin to 
 both people and religion, as the people were 
 removed to all the kingdoms of the earth, 
 for the sins of Manasseh, Jer. xv. 4. Was 
 therefore Manasseh not lawfully ^called to 
 the crown? 2. For his instance of kings 
 unlawfully called to the throne, he bring- 
 eth us whole two, and telleth us that he 
 doubteth, as many learned men do, whe- 
 ther Jeroboam was a king by permission 
 only, or by a commission from God. 3. 
 Abimelech was cursed, because he wanted 
 God's calling to the throne; for then Is- 
 rael had no king, but judges, extraordinarily 
 raised up by God ; and God did not raise 
 him at all, only he came to the throne by 
 blood, and carnal reasons moving the men 
 of Sechem to advance him. The argument 
 presupposeth that the whole lawful calling of 
 a king is the voices of the people. This we 
 never" taught, though the Prelate make con- 
 quest a just title to a crown, and it is but a 
 title of blood and rapine. 4. Abimelech 
 was not the first king, but only a judge. 
 All our divines, with the word of God, mak- 
 eth Saul the first king. 5. For Jeroboam 
 had God's word and promise to be king, 
 
 1 Kings xi. 34 — 38. But, in my weak 
 judgment, he waited not God's time and 
 way of coming to the crown ; but that his 
 coming to the throne was unlawful, because 
 he came by the people's election, is in ques- 
 tion. 6. That the people's reformation, and 
 their making a new king, was like the king- 
 dom of Scotland's reformation, and the par- 
 liament of England's way now, is a traitor- 
 ous calumny. For, 1. It condemneth the 
 king, who hath, in parliament, declared all 
 their proceedings to be legal, Behoboam 
 never declared Jeroboam's coronation to be 
 lawful, but, contrary to God's word, made 
 war against Israel. 2. It is false that Israel 
 pretended religion in that change. The 
 cause was the rough answer given to the 
 supplication of the estates, complaining of 
 the oppression they were under in Solo- 
 mon's reign. 3. Beligion is still subjected 
 to policy by prelates and cavaliers, not by 
 us in Scotland, who sought nothing but re- 
 formation of religion, and of laws so far as 
 they serve religion, as our supplications, de- 
 clarations, and the event proveth. 4. We 
 have no new calves, new altars, new feasts, 
 but profess, and really do hazard, life and 
 estate, to put away the Prelate's calves, 
 images, tree-worship, altar-worship, saints, 
 feast-days, idolatry, masses ; and nothing is 
 said here but Jesuits, and Canaanites, and 
 Baalites, might say, (though falsely) against 
 the reformation of Josiah. Truth and pu- 
 rity of worship this year is new in relation 
 to idolatry last year, but it is simpliciter 
 older. 5. We have not put away the Lord's 
 priests and Levites, and taken in the scum 
 of the vulgar, but have put away Baal's 
 priests, such as excommunicated Prelate 
 Maxwell and other apostates, and resumed 
 the faithful servants of God, who were 
 deprived and banished for standing to the 
 Protestant faith, sworn to by the prelates 
 themselves. 6. Every action of Christ, such 
 as his walking on the sea, is not our instruc- 
 tion in that sense, that Christ's refusing a 
 kingdom is directly our instruction. And 
 did Christ refuse to be a king, because the 
 people would have made him a king ? That 
 is, non causa pro causa, he refused it, be- 
 cause his kingdom was not in this world, and 
 he came to suffer for men, not to reign over 
 man. 7. The Prelate, and others who were 
 lords of session, and would be judges of men's 
 inheritances, and would usurp the sword by 
 bein<r lords of council and parliament, have 
 refused to be instructed by every action of 
 
THE LAW AND THE PIUXCK. 
 
 Christ, who would not judge betwixt bro- 
 ther and brother. 
 
 P. Prelate. — Jephthah came to be judge 
 by covenant betwixt him and the Gilead- 
 ites. Here you have an interposed act of 
 man, yet the Lord himself, in authorising 
 him as judge, vindicateth it no less to him- 
 self, than when extraordinarily he autho- 
 rised Gideon and Samuel, 1 Sam. xii, 11 ; 
 therefore, whatsoever act of man interven- 
 eth, it contributeth nothing to royal autho- 
 rit — it cannot weaken or repeal it. 
 
 Ans. — It was as extraordinary that Jeph- 
 thah, a bastard and the son of an harlot, 
 should be judge, as that Gideon should be 
 judo-e, God vindicateth to himself, that he 
 giveth his people favour in the eyes of their 
 enemies. But doth it follow that the ene- 
 mies are not agents, and to be commended 
 for their humanity in favouring the people 
 of God ? So Psal. lxv. 9, 10, God maketh 
 corn to grow, therefore clouds, and earth, 
 and sun, and summer, and husbandry, con- 
 tributeth nothing to the growing of corn. 
 But this is but that which he said before. 
 We errant that this is an eminent and singu- 
 lar act of God's special providence, that he 
 moveth and boweth the wills of a great mul- 
 titude to promote such a man, who, by na- 
 ture, cometh no more out of the womb a 
 crowned king, than the poorest shepherd in 
 the land ; and it is an act of grace to endue 
 him with heroic and royal parts for the go- 
 vernment. But what is all this ? Doth it 
 exclude the people's consent ? In no ways. 
 So the works of supernatural grace, as to 
 love Christ above all things, to believe in 
 Christ in a singular manner, are ascribed to 
 the rich grace of God, But can the Pre- 
 late say mat the understanding and will, in 
 these acts, are merely passive, and contri- 
 buteth no more than the people contribu- 
 teth to royal authority in the king? and 
 that is just nothing by the Prelate's way. 
 And we utterly deny, that as water in bap- 
 tism hath no action at all in the working of 
 remission of sins, so the people hath no in- 
 fluence in making a king ; for the people are 
 worthier and more excellent than the king, 
 and they have an active power of ruling and 
 directing themselves toward the intrinsical 
 end of human policy, which is the external 
 safety and peace of a society, in so far as 
 there are moral principles of the second ta- 
 ble, for this effect, written in their heart ; 
 and, therefore, that royal authority which, 
 by God's special providence, is united in one 
 
 king, and, as it were, over-gilded and lus- 
 tred with princely grace and royal endow- 
 ments, is diffused in the people, for the peo- 
 ple hath an after-approbative consent in 
 making a king, as royalists confess water 
 hath no such action in producing grace, 
 
 QUESTION IX. 
 
 WHETHER OR NO SOVEREIGNTY IS SO FROM 
 THE PEOPLE, THAT IT REMAINETH IN THEM 
 IN SOME PART, SO AS THEY MAY, IN CASE 
 OF NECESSITY, RESUME IT. 
 
 The Prelate will have it Babylonish con- 
 fusion, that we are divided in opinion. Je- 
 suits (saith he) place all sovereignty in the 
 community. Of the sectaries, some warrant 
 any one subject to make away his king, and 
 such a work is no less to be rewarded than 
 when one kilieth a wolf. Some say this 
 power is in the whole community ; some 
 will have it in the collective body, not con- 
 vened by warrant or writ of sovereignty ; 
 but when necessity (which is often fancied) 
 of reforming state and church, calleth them 
 together ; some in the nobles and peers ; 
 some in the three estates assembled by the 
 king's writ ; some in the inferior judges, 
 
 I answer, If the Prelate were not a Je» 
 suit himself, he would not bid his brethren 
 take the mote out of their eye ; but there is 
 nothing here said but what Barclaius 1 said 
 better before this plagiarius. To which I 
 answer, We teach that any private man 
 may kill a tyrant, void of all title ; and that 
 great Royalist saith so also. And if he have 
 not the consent of the people, he is an usur- 
 per, for we know no external lawful calling 
 that kings have now, or their family, to the 
 crown, but only the call of the people. All 
 other calls to us are now invisible and un- 
 known ; and God would not command us to 
 obey kings, and leave us in the dark, that 
 we shall not know who is the king, The 
 Prelate placeth his lawful calling to the 
 crown, in such an immediate, invisible, and 
 subtle act of omnipotency, as that whereby 
 God conferreth remission of sins, by sp ink- 
 ling with water in baptism, and that where- 
 
 i Barclaius contr. Monarch, lib. 4, c. 10, p. 268, 
 ut hostes publicos non solum ab universo populo, 
 sed a singulis etiam impeti osedique jure optimo 
 posse tota Antiquitas ceusuit. 
 
34 
 
 LEX, REX ; 
 
 by God directed Samuel to anoint Said and 
 David, not Eliab, nor any other brother. 
 It is the devil in the P. P., not any of us, 
 who teach that any private man may kill a 
 lawful king, though tyrannous in his go- 
 vernment. For the subject of royal power, 
 we affirm, the first, and ultimate, and native 
 subject of all power, is the community, as 
 reasonable men naturally inclining to a so- 
 ciety ; but the ethical and political subject, 
 or the legal and positive receptacle of this 
 power, is various, according to the various 
 constitutions of the policy. In Scotland and 
 England, it is the three estates of parlia- 
 ment ; in other nations, some other judges 
 or peers of the land. The Prelate had no 
 more common sense for him to object a 
 confusion of opinion to us, for this, than to 
 all the commonwealths on earth, because 
 all have not parliaments, as Scotland hath. 
 All have not constables, and officials, and 
 churchmen, and barons, lords of council, 
 parliaments, &c., as England had : but the 
 truth is, the community, orderly convened, 
 as it includeth all the estates civil, have 
 hand, and are to act in choosing their ru- 
 lers. I see not what privilege nobles have, 
 above commons, in a court of parliament, 
 by God's law ; but as they are judges, all 
 are equally judges, and all make up one 
 congregation of God's. But the question 
 now is, If all power of governing (the Pre- 
 late, to make all the people kings, saith, if 
 all sovereignty) be so in the people that they 
 retain power to guard themselves against ty- 
 ranny ; and if they retain some of it, habitu, 
 in habit, and in their power. I am not now 
 unseasonably, according to the Prelate's or- 
 der, to dispute of the power of lawful defence 
 against tyranny ; but, I lay down this maxim 
 of divinity ; Tyranny being a work of Satan, 
 is not from God, because sin, either habitual 
 or actual, is not from God : the power that 
 is, must be from God ; the magistrate, as 
 magistrate, is good in nature of office, and 
 the intrinsic end of his office, (Rom. xiii. 4) 
 for he is the minister of God for thy good ; 
 and, therefore, a power ethical, politic, or 
 moral, to oppress, is not from God, and is 
 not a power, but a licentious deviation of a 
 power ; and is no more from God, but from 
 sinful nature and the old serpent, than a li- 
 cense to sin. God in Christ giveth pardons 
 of sin, but the Pope, not God, giveth dis- 
 pensations to sin. To this add, if for na- 
 ture to defend itself be lawful, no commu- 
 nity, without sin, hath power to alienate 
 
 and give away this power ; for as no power 
 given to man to murder his brother is of 
 God, so no power to suffer his brother to be 
 murdered is of God ; and no power to suf- 
 fer himself, a fortiori, far less can be from 
 God. Here I speak not of physical power, 
 for if free will be the creature of God, a 
 physical power to acts which, in relation to 
 God's law, are sinful, must be from God. 
 
 But I now follow the P. Prelate (c. ix., 
 p. 101, 102). — Some of the adversaries, as 
 Buchanan, say that the parliament hath no 
 power to make a law, but only ■x^ov\iv I m 
 without the approbation of the community. 
 Others, as the Observator, say, that the right 
 of the gentry and commonalty is entirely in 
 the knights and burgesses of the House of 
 Commons, and will have their orders irre- 
 vocable. If, then, the common people can- 
 not resume their power and oppose the par- 
 liament, how can tables and parliaments re- 
 sume their power and resist the king ? 
 
 Ans. — The ignorant man should have 
 thanked Barclaius for this argument, and 
 yet Barclaius need not thank him, for it 
 hath not the nerves that Barclaius gave it. 
 But I answer, 1. If the parliament should 
 have been corrupted by fair hopes (as in our 
 age we have seen the like) the people did well 
 to resist the Prelate's obtruding the Mass 
 Book, when the lords of the council pressed 
 it, against all law of God and man, upon 
 the kingdom of Scotland ; and, therefore, it 
 is denied that the acts of parliament are ir- 
 revocable. The observator said they were 
 irrevocable by the king, he being but one 
 man ; the P. Prelate wrongeth him, for he 
 said only, they have the power of a law, 
 and the king is obliged to consent, by his 
 royal office, to all good laws, and neither 
 king nor people may oppose them. Buch- 
 anan said, Acts of parliament are not laws, 
 obliging the people, till they be promul- 
 gated ; and the people's silence, when they 
 are promulgated, is their approbation, and 
 maketh them obligatory laws to them ; but 
 if the people speak against unjust laws, they 
 are not laws at all: and Buchanan knew 
 the power of the Scottish parliament better 
 than this ignorant statist. 2. There is not 
 like reason to grant so much to the king, as 
 to parliaments, because, certainly, parlia- 
 ments who make kings under God, or above 
 any one man, and they must have more au- 
 thority and wisdom than any one king, ex- 
 cept Solomon (as base flatterers say) should 
 j return to the thrones of the earth. And as 
 
THE LAW AXD THE PRINXE. 
 
 85 
 
 the power to make just laws is all in the 
 parliament, only the people have power to 
 resist tyrannical laws. The power of all 
 the parliament was never given to the king 
 by God. The parliament are as essentially 
 judges as the king, and, therefore, the king's 
 deed may well be revoked, because he acteth 
 nothing as king, but united with his great 
 or lesser council, no more than the eye can 
 see, being separated from the body. The 
 peers and members of parliament have more 
 than the king, because they have both their 
 own power, being parts and special members 
 of the people, and, also, they have their 
 high places in parliament, either from the 
 people's express or tacit consent. 3. We 
 allow no arbitrary power to the parliament, 
 because their just laws are irrevocable ; for 
 the irrevocable power of making just laws 
 doth argue a legal, not an irrevocable, ar- 
 bitrary power ; nor is there any arbitrary 
 power in the people, or in any mortal man. 
 But of the covenant betwixt king and peo- 
 ple hereafter. 
 
 P. Prelate (c. 10, p. 105). — If sovereign 
 power be habitually in the community, so 
 as they may resume it at their pleasure, 
 then nothing is given to the king but an 
 empty title ; for, at the same instant, he 
 receiveth empire and sovereignty, and lay- 
 eth down the power to rule or determine 
 in matters which concern either private or 
 public good, and so he is both a king and a 
 subject. 
 
 Ans. — This naked consequence the Pre- 
 late saith and proveth not, and we deny it, 
 and give this reason, The king receiveth 
 royal power with the states to make good 
 laws, and power by his royalty to execute 
 those laws, and this power the community 
 hath devolved in the hands of the king and 
 states of parliament ; but the community 
 keepeth to themselves a power to resist 
 tyranny, and to coerce it, and eatemis in 
 so far is Saul subject, that David is not to 
 compear before him, nor to lay down Go- 
 liah's sword, nor disband his army of de- 
 fence, though the king should command 
 him so to do. 
 
 P. Prelate (c. xvi. pp. 105— 107).— By 
 all politicians, kings and inferior magistrates 
 are differenced by their different specific en- 
 tity, but by this they are not differenced ; 
 nay, a magistrate is in a better condition 
 than a king, for the magistrate is to judge 
 by a known statute and law, and cannot be 
 censured and punished but by law. But the 
 
 king is censurable, yea, disabled by the mul- 
 titude ; yea, the basest of subjects may cite 
 and convent the king, before the underived 
 majesty of the community, and he may be 
 judged by the arbitrary law that is in the 
 closet of their hearts, not only for real mis- 
 demeanour, but for fancied jealousies. It will 
 be said, good kings are in danger ; the con- 
 trary appeareth this day, and ordinarily the 
 best are in greatest danger. No govern- 
 ment, except Plato's republic, wanteth in- 
 commodities : subtle spirits may make them 
 apprehend them. The poor people, bewitch- 
 ed, follow Absalom in his treason; they strike 
 not at royalty at first, but labour to make the 
 prince naked of the good council of great 
 statesmen, &c. 
 
 Ans. — Whether the king and the under 
 magistrate differ essentially, we shall see. 
 1. The P. Prelate saith all politicians grant 
 it, but he saith untruth. He bringeth the 
 power of Moses and the judges to prove 
 the power of kings ; and so either the judges 
 of Israel and the kings differ not essential- 
 ly, or then the Prelate must correct the 
 spirit of. God, terming one book of Scrip- 
 ture 0O7D Kings, and another CtOSIJ^ 
 Judges, and make the book of Kings the 
 book of Judges. 2. The magistrate's con- 
 dition is not better than the king's, because 
 the magistrate is to judge by a known sta- 
 tute and law, and the king not so. God 
 moulded the first king, (Deut. xvii. 18,) 
 when he sitteth judging on his throne, to 
 look to a written copy of the law of God, as 
 his rule. Now, a power to follow God's law 
 is better than a power to follow man's sinful 
 will ; so the Prelate putteth the king in a 
 worse condition than the magistrate, not we, 
 who will have the king to judge according 
 to just statutes and laws. 3. Whether the 
 king be censurable and deposable by the 
 multitude, he cannot determine out of our 
 writings. 4. The community's law is the 
 law of nature — not their arbitrary lust. 5. 
 The Prelate's treasonable railings I cannot 
 follow. He saith that we agree not ten of 
 us to a positive faith, and that our faith is 
 negative ; but his faith is Privative, Popish, 
 Socinian, Arminian, Pelagian, and worse, for 
 he was one of that same faith that we are 
 of. Our Confession of Faith is positive, as 
 the confession of all the reformed churches; 
 but I judge he thinketh the Protestant faith 
 of all the reformed churches but negative. 
 The incommodities of government, before 
 our reformation, were not fancied, but prin- 
 
36 
 
 ted by authority. All the b:dy of popery 
 was printed and avowed as the doctrine of 
 the Church of Scotland and England, as 
 the learned author, and my much respected 
 brother, evidenceth in his Ludensium, av™ 
 xxruxptris, the Canterburian Self-conviction. 
 The parliament of England was never yet 
 found guilty of treason. The good counsel- 
 lors of great statesmen, that parliaments of 
 both kingdoms would take from the king's 
 majesty, are a faction of perjured Papists, 
 Prelates, Jesuits, Irish cut-throats, Stra- 
 fords, and Apostates ; subverters of all laws, 
 divine, human, of God, of church, of state. 
 
 P. Prelate (c. 15, pp. 147, 148).— In 
 whomsoever tliis power of government be it 
 is the only remedy to supply all defects, and 
 to set right whatever is disjointed in church 
 and state, and the subject of this superin- 
 tending power must be free from all error 
 in judgment and practice, and so we have a 
 pope in temporalibus ; and if the parlia- 
 ment err the people must take order with 
 them, else God hath left church and state 
 remediless. 
 
 Ans. — 1. This is stolen from Barclaius 
 also, who saith, 1 Si Rex regnum suum ali- 
 enee clitioni manciparit, regno eadit : " If 
 the king shall sell his kingdom, or enslave it 
 to a foreign power, he falleth from all right 
 to his kingdom." But who shall execute 
 any such law against him ? — not the people, 
 not the peers, not the parliament ; for this 
 mancipium ventris et aulee, this slave saith, 
 (p. 149,) " I know no power in any to pun- 
 ish or curb sovereignty but in Almighty 
 God." 2. We see no superintending power 
 on earth, in king or people, which is infal- 
 lible, nor is the last power of taking order 
 with a prince who enslaveth his kingdom to 
 a foreign power, placed by us in the people 
 because they cannot err. Court flatterers, 
 who teach that the will of the prince is the 
 measure of all right and wrong, of law and 
 no law, and above all law, must hold that 
 the king is a temporal pope, both in eocfe- 
 siastical and civil matters ; but because they 
 cannot so readily destroy themselves (the 
 law of nature having given to them a con- 
 trary internal principle of self-preservation) 
 as a tyrant who doth care for himself, and 
 not for the people. 3. And because Ex- 
 tremis morbis extrema remedia, in an ex- 
 traordinary exigent, when Ahab and Jeze- 
 
 i Barclaius contra Monarchum. lib. 5, c. 12, idem, 
 lib. 3, c. ult. p. 2, 3. 
 
 bel did undo the church of God, and tyran- 
 nise over both the bodies and consciences of 
 priest, prophet and people, Elijah procured 
 the convention of the states, and Elijah, 
 with the people's help, killed all Baal's 
 priests, the king looking on, without ques- 
 tion, against his heart. In this case I think 
 it is more than evident that the people re- 
 sumed their power. 4. We teach not that 
 people should supply all defects in govern- 
 ment, nor that they should use their power 
 when anything is done amiss by the king, 
 no more than the king is to cut off the whole 
 people of God when they refuse an idolatrous 
 service, obtruded upon them against all law. 
 The people are to suffer much before they 
 resume their power ; but this court slave will 
 have the people to do what he did not him- 
 self ; for when king and parliament sum- 
 moned him, was he not obliged to appear ? 
 Non -compearance when lawrul, royal, and 
 parliamentary power summoneth, is no less 
 resistance than taking of ports and castles. 
 
 P. Prelate. — Then this superintending 
 power in people may call a king to account, 
 and punish him for any misdemeanour or 
 act of injustice. Why might not the people 
 of Israel's peers, or sanhedrim, have con- 
 vented David before them, judged and pun- 
 ished him tor his adultery with Bethsheba, 
 and his murder of Uriah. But it is held 
 by all that tyranny should he an intended 
 universal, total, manifest destruction of the 
 whole commonwealth, which cannot fall in 
 the thoughts of any but a madman. What 
 is recorded in the story of Nero's wish in 
 this kind, may be rather judged the expres- 
 sion of transported passion than a fixed reso- 
 lution. 
 
 Ans. — The P. Prelate, contrary to the 
 scope of his book, which is all for the subject 
 and seat of sovereign power, against all or- 
 der, hath plunged himself in the deep of 
 defensive arms, and yet hath no new thing. 
 1. Our law of Scotland will warrant any 
 subject, if the king take from him his heri- 
 tage, or invade his possession against law, to 
 resist the invaders, and to summon the king's 
 intruders before the lords of session for that 
 act of injustice. Is this against God's word, 
 or conscience ? 2. The Sanhedrim did not 
 punish David, therefore, it is not lawful to 
 challenge a king for any one act of injustice : 
 from the practice of the Sanhedrim to con- 
 clude a thing lawful or unlawful, is logic we 
 may resist. 3. By the P. Prelate's doctrine, 
 the law might not put Bathsheba to death, 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 37 
 
 nor yet .Toab, the nearest agent of the mur- 
 dering of innocent Uriah, because Bathshe- 
 ba's adultery was the king's adultery — she 
 did it in obedience to king David ; Joab's 
 murder was royal murder, as the murder of 
 all the cavaliers, for he had the king's hand- 
 writing for it. Murder is murder, and the 
 murderer is to die, though the king by a se- 
 cret let-alone, a private and illegal warrant, 
 command it; therefore the Sanhedrim might 
 have taken Bathsheba's life and Joab's head 
 also ; and, consequently, the parliament of 
 England, if they be judges, (as I conceive 
 God and the law of that ancient and re- 
 nowned kingdom maketh them,) may take 
 the head ot many Joabs and Jermines for 
 murder ; for the command of a king cannot 
 legitimate murder. 4. David himself, as 
 king, speaketh more for us than for the 
 Prelate, — 2 Sam. xii. 7, " And David's an- 
 ger was greatly kindled against the man, 
 (the man was himself, ver. 7, ' Thou art 
 the man,') and he said to Nathan, as the 
 Lord liveth, the man that hath done this 
 thing shall surely die." 5. Every act of 
 injustice doth not unking a prince before 
 God, as every act of uncleanness doth not 
 make a wife no wife before God. 6. The 
 Prelate excuseth Nero, and would not have 
 him resisted, if " all Borne were one neck 
 that he might cut it off with one stroke (I 
 read it of Caligula ; if the Prelate see more 
 in history than I do, I yield). 7- He saith. 
 the thoughts of total eversion of a kingdom 
 must only fall on a madman. The king of 
 Britain was not mad when he declared the 
 Scots traitors (because they resisted the ser- 
 vice of the mass) and raised an army of pre- 
 latical cut-throats to destroy them, if all the 
 kingdom should resist idolatry (as all are 
 obliged). The king slept upon this prela- 
 tical resolution many months : passions in 
 fervour have not a day's reign upon a man ; 
 and this was not so clear as the sun, but it 
 was as clear as written, printed proclama- 
 tions, and the pressing of soldiers, and the 
 visible marching of cut-throats, and the 
 blocking up of Scotland by sea and land, 
 could be visible to men having five senses. 
 
 Covarruvias, a great lawyer, saith, 1 that 
 all civil power is penes remp. in the hands 
 of the commonwealth ; because nature hath 
 given to man to be a social creature, and 
 impossible he can preserve himself in a so- 
 ciety except he, being in community, trans- 
 
 1 Covarruvias. torn. 2, pract. quest, c. 1, n. 2- 
 
 form his power to an head. He saith : Hu- 
 jus vero eivilis societatis et resp. rector ab 
 alio quam ab ipsamet repub. constitui non 
 potest juste et absq. tyrannide. Siquidem 
 ab ipso Deo constitatus non est, nee clectus 
 euilibet civili societati immediate Rex aut 
 Princeps. Arist. (polit. 3, c. 10) saith, " It 
 is better that kings be got by election than 
 by birth; because kingdoms by succession 
 are vere regia, truly kingly : these by birth 
 are more tyrannical, masterly, and proper 
 to barbarous nations. And Covarruv. (torn. 
 2, pract. quest, de jurisd. Castellan. Beip. c. 
 1, n. 4,) saith, " Hereditary kings are also 
 made hereditary by the tacit consent of the 
 people, and so by law and consuetude." 
 
 Spalato saith, " Let us grant that a so- 
 ciety shall refuse to have a governor over 
 them, shall they be for that free? In no 
 sort. But there be many ways by which a 
 people may be compelled to admit a gover- 
 nor ; for then no man might rule over a 
 community against their will. But nature 
 hath otherwise disposed, ut quod singuli 
 nollent, universi vellent, that which every 
 one will not have, a community naturally 
 desireth." And the Prelate saith, " God is 
 no less the author of order than he is the 
 author of being ; for the Lord who createth 
 all conserveth all ; and without government 
 all human societies should be dissolved and 
 go to ruin : then government must be natu- 
 ral, and not depend upon a voluntary and 
 arbitrary constitution of men. In nature 
 the creatures inferior give a tacit consent 
 and silent obedience to their superior, and 
 the superior hath a powerful influence on 
 the inferior. In the subordination of crea- 
 tures we ascend from one superior to an- 
 other, till at last we come to one supreme, 
 which, by the way, pleadeth for the excel- 
 lency of monarchy. Amongst angels there 
 is an order ; how can it then be supposed 
 that God hath left it to the simple consent 
 of man to establish a heraldry of sub et su- 
 pra, of one above another, which neither 
 nature nor the gospel doth warrant? To 
 leave it thus arbitrary, that upon this sup- 
 posed principle mankind may be without 
 government at all, is vain ; which paradox 
 cannot be maintained. In nature God hath 
 established a superiority inherent in supe- 
 rior creatures, which is no ways derived from 
 the inferior by communication in what pro- 
 portion it will, and resumeable upon such 
 
 1 Spalato de rep. eccles. lib. G, c. 2, n. 32. 
 
<3« LEX, REX ; 
 
 exigents as the inferior listeth ; therefore 
 neither hath God left to the multitude, the 
 community, the collective, the representa- 
 tive or virtual body, to derive from itself 
 and communicate sovereignty, whether in 
 one or few, or more, in what measure and 
 proportion pleaseth them, which they re- 
 sume at pleasure." 
 
 Ans. — To answer Spalato : No society 
 hath liberty to be without all government, 
 for " God hath given to every society," saith 
 Covai-ruvias, " a faculty of preserving them- 
 selves, and warding off violence and in- 
 juries; and this they could not do except 
 they gave their power to one or many ru- 
 lers." 1 But all that the Prelate buildeth 
 on this false supposition, which is his fic- 
 tion and calumny, not our doctrine, to wit, 
 " that it is voluntary to man to be with- 
 out all government, because it is voluntary 
 to them to give away their power to one or 
 more rulers," is a mere non-consequence. 1. 
 We teach that government is natural, not 
 voluntary ; but the way and manner of go- 
 vernment is voluntary. All societies should 
 be quickly ruined if there were no govern- 
 ment ; but it followeth not, therefore, God 
 hath made some kings, and that immediate- 
 ly, without the intervening consent of the 
 people, and, therefore, it is not arbitrary to 
 the people to choose one supreme ruler, and 
 to erect a monarchy, or to choose more 
 rulers, and to erect an aristocracy. It fol- 
 loweth no way. It is natural to men to ex- 
 press their mind by human voices. Is not 
 speaking of this or that language, Greek ra- 
 ther than Latin, (as Aristotle saith,) *«™ 
 auvHx.n* by human institution ? It is natural 
 for men to eat, therefore election of this or 
 that meat is not in their choice. What rea- 
 son is in this consequence ? And so it is a 
 poor consequence also, Power of sovereign- 
 ty is in the people naturally, therefore it is 
 not in their power to give it out in that 
 measure that pleaseth them, and to resume 
 it at pleasure. It followeth no way. Be- 
 cause the inherency of sovereignty is natural 
 and not arbitrary, therefore, the alienation 
 and giving out of the power to one, not to 
 three, thus much, not thus much, condition- 
 ally, not absolutely and irrevocably, must be 
 also arbitrary. It is as if you should say, a 
 father having six children, naturally loveth 
 them all, therefore he hath not freedom of 
 will in expressing his affection, to give so 
 
 1 Covarr. torn. 4, praet. qnest. c. 1, n. 2. 
 
 much of his goods to this son, and that con- 
 ditionally, if he use these goods well ; and 
 not more or less of his goods at his pleasure. 
 2. There is a natural subordination in na- 
 ture in creatures superior and inferior, with- 
 out any freedom of election. The earth 
 made not the heavens more excellent than 
 the earth, and the earth by no freedom of 
 will made the heavens superior in excellency 
 to itself. Man gave no superiority of excel- 
 lency to angels above himself. The Creator 
 of all beings did both immediately, without 
 freedom of election in the creature, create 
 the being of all the creatures, and their es- 
 sential degrees of superiority and inferiority, 
 but God created not Saul by nature king 
 over Israel ; nor is David by the act of cre- 
 ation by which he is made a man, created 
 also king over Israel ; for then David should 
 from the womb and by nature be a king, 
 and not by God's free gift. Here both the 
 free gift of God, and the free consent of the 
 people intervene. Indeed God made the of- 
 fice and royalty of a king above the dignity 
 of the people, but he, by the intervening- 
 consent of the people, maketh David a king, 
 not Eliab ; and the people maketh a cove- 
 nant at David's inauguration, that David 
 shall have so much power, to wit, power to 
 be a father, not power to be a tyrant, — power 
 to fight for the people, not power to waste 
 and destroy them. The inferior creatures 
 in nature give no power to the superior, and 
 therefore they cannot give in such a propor- 
 tion power. The denial of the positive de- 
 gree is a denial of the comparative and su- 
 perlative, and so they cannot resume any 
 power ; but the designing of these men or 
 those men to be kings or rulers is a rational, 
 voluntary action, not an action of nature, — 
 such as is God's act of creating an angel a 
 nobler creature than man, and the creating 
 of man a more excellent creature than a 
 beast ; and, for this cause, the argument is 
 vain and foolish ; for inferior creatures are 
 inferior to the more noble and superior by 
 nature, not by voluntary designation, or, as 
 royalists say, by naked approbation, which 
 yet must be an arbitrary and voluntary ac- 
 tion. 3. The P. Prelate commendeth order 
 while we come to the most supreme ; hence 
 he commendeth monarchy above all govern- 
 ments because it is God's government. I 
 am not ao-ainst it, that monarchy well-tem- 
 pered is the best government, though the 
 question to me is most problematic ; but be- 
 cause God is a monarch who cannot err or 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 39 
 
 deny himself, therefore that sinful man be a 
 monarch is miserable logic ; and he must ar- 
 gue solidly, forsooth, by "this, because there is 
 order, as he saith, amongst angels, will he 
 make a monarch and a king-angel ? His 
 argument, if it have any weight at all in it, 
 driveth at that, even that there be crowned 
 kings amongst the angels. 
 
 QUESTION X. 
 
 WHETHER OR NOT ROYAL BIRTH BE EQUIVA- 
 LENT TO DIVINE UNCTION. 
 
 Symmons holdeth that birth is as good a 
 title to the crown, as any given of God. 
 How this question can be cleared, I see not, 
 except we dispute that, Whether or not 
 kinodoms be proper patrimonies derived 
 from the father to the son. I take there 
 is a larcre difference betwixt a thing trans- 
 mitable by birth from the father to the son, 
 and a thing not transmitable. I conceive, 
 as a person is chosen to be a king over a 
 people, so a family or house may be chosen ; 
 and a kingdom at first choosing a person to 
 be their king, may also tie themselves to 
 choose the first-born of his body, but as they 
 transfer their power to the father, for their 
 own safety and peace, (not if he use the 
 power they give him to their destruction,) 
 the same way they tie themselves to his 
 first-born, as to their king. As they choose 
 the father not as a man, but a man gifted 
 with royal grace and a princely faculty for 
 government, so they can but tie themselves 
 to his first-born, as to one graced with a 
 faculty of governing; and if his first-born 
 shall be born an idiot and a fool, they are 
 not obliged to make him king ; for the ob- 
 ligation to the son can be no greater than 
 the obligation to the father, which first obli- 
 gation is the ground, measure, and cause, of 
 all posterior obligations. If tutors be ap- 
 pointed to govern such an one, the tutors 
 have the royal power, not the idiot ; nor 
 can he govern others who cannot govern 
 himself. That kings go not as heritage 
 from the father to the son, I prove, 
 
 1. God (Deut. xvii.) could not command 
 them to choose such an one for the king, and 
 such an one who, sitting on his throne, shall 
 
 i Edward Symmons, in his Loyal Subjects Be- 
 leefe, sect. 3, p. 16. 
 
 follow the direction of God, speaking in his 
 word, if birth were that which gave him 
 God's title and right to the crown ; for that 
 were as much as such a man should be heir 
 to his father's inheritance, and the son not 
 heir to his father's crown, except he were 
 such a man. But God, in all the law moral 
 or judicial, never required the heir should be 
 thus and thus qualified, else he should not be 
 heir; but he requireth that a man, and so 
 that a family, should be thus and thus quali- 
 fied, else they should not be kings. And I 
 confirm it thus : — The first king of divine 
 institution must be the rule, pattern, and 
 measure, of all the rest of the kings, as 
 Christ maketh the first marriage (Matt. xix. 
 8,) a pattern to all others ; and Paul reduc- 
 eth the right administration of the Supper 
 to Christ's first institution, 1 Cor. xi. 23. 
 Now, the first king (Deut. xvii. 14, 15) 
 is not a man qualified by naked birth, for 
 then the Lord, in describing the manner of 
 the king and his due qualifications, should 
 seek no other but this, You shall choose only 
 the first-born, or the lawful son of the for- 
 mer king. But seeing the king of God's 
 first moulding is a king by election, and 
 what God did after, by promises and free 
 grace, give to David and his seed, even a 
 throne till the Messiah should come, and did 
 promise to some kings, if they would walk 
 in his commandments, that their sons, and 
 sons' sons, should sit upon the throne, in my 
 judgment, is not an obliging law that sole 
 birth should be as just a title, in foro Dei, 
 (for now I dispute the question in point of 
 conscience,) as royal unction. 
 
 2. If, by divine institution, God hath im- 
 pawned in the people's hand a subordinate 
 power to the Most High, who giveth king- 
 doms to whom he will, to make and create 
 kings, then is not sole birth a just title to 
 the crown. But the former is true. By pre- 
 cept (Deut. xvii. 15) God expressly saith, 
 " Thou shalt choose him king, whom the 
 Lord shall choose." And if it had not been 
 the people's power to create their own kings, 
 how doth God, after he had designed Saul 
 their king, yet expressly (1 Sam. x.) inspire 
 Samuel to call the people before the Lord 
 at Mizpeh to make Saul king ? And how 
 doth the Lord (ver. 22) expressly shew to 
 Samuel and the people, the man that they 
 might make him king? And because all 
 consented not that Saul should be king, God 
 will have his coronation renewed, Ver. 14, 
 " Then said Samuel to the people, come and 
 
40 
 
 LEX, REX 
 
 let us go to Gilgal, and renew the kingdom 
 there ;" ver. 15, " And all the people went 
 to Gilgal, and there they made Saul king 
 before the Lord in Gilgal." And how is it 
 that David, anointed by God, is yet no king, 
 but a private subject, while all Israel make 
 him king at Hebron ? 
 
 3. If royal birth be equivalent to royal 
 unction and the best title ; if birth speak and 
 declare to us the Lord's will and appoint- 
 ment, that the first-born of a king should be 
 king, as M. Symmons and others say, then 
 is all title by conquest, where the former 
 king standeth in title to the crown and hath 
 an heir, unlawful. But the latter is against 
 all the nation of the royalists, for Arnisseus, 
 Barclay, Grotius, Jo. Rossensis Episco., the 
 Bishop of Spalato, Dr Feme, M. Symmons, 
 the excommunicate Prelate, if his poor learn- 
 ing may bring him in the roll, teach that 
 conquest is a lawful title to a crown. I 
 prove the proposition, (1.) because if birth 
 speak God's revealed will, that the heir of a 
 king is the lawful king, then conquest can- 
 not speak contrary to the will of God, that 
 he is no lawful king, but the conqueror is 
 the lawful king. God's revealed will should 
 be contradictory to himself, and birth should 
 speak, it is God's will that the heir of the 
 former king be king, and the conquest being 
 also God's revealed will, should also speak 
 that that heir should not be king. (2.) If 
 birth speak and reveal God's will that the 
 heir be king, it is unlawful for a conquered 
 people to give their consent that a conque- 
 ror be their king ; for their consent being- 
 contrary to God's revealed will, (which is, 
 that birth is the just title,) must be an un- 
 lawful consent. If royalists say, God, the 
 King of kings, who immediately maketh 
 kings, may and doth transfer kingdoms to 
 whom he will; and when he putteth the 
 sword in Nebuchadnezzar's hand to con- 
 quer the king and kingdom of Judah, then 
 Zedekiah or his son is not king of Judah, 
 but Nebuchadnezzar is king, and God, be- 
 ing above his law, speaketh in that case his 
 will by conquests, as before he spake his 
 will by birth. This is all can be said. Ans. 
 They answer black treason in saying so, for 
 if Jeremiah, from the Lord, had not com- 
 manded expressly, that both the king and 
 kingdom of Judah should submit to the king 
 of Babylon, and serve him, and pray for 
 him, as their lawful king, it had been as 
 lawful for them to rebel against that tyrant, 
 as it was for them to ni>ht against the Phi- 
 
 listines and the king of Ammon ; but if birth 
 be the just and lawful title, in foro Dei, 
 in God's court, and the only thing that evi- 
 denceth God's will, without any election of 
 the people, that the first-born of such a 
 king is their lawful king, then conquests can- 
 not now speak a contradictory will of God ; 
 for the question is not, whether or not God 
 giveth power to tyrants to conquer kingdoms 
 from the just heirs of kings, which did reign 
 lawfully before their sword made an empty 
 throne, but whether conquest now, when 
 Jeremiahs are not sent immediately from 
 God to command, for example, Britain to 
 submit to a violent intruder, who hath ex- 
 pelled the lawful heirs of the royal line of 
 the king of Britain, whether, I say, doth 
 conquest, in a such a violent way, speak that 
 it is God's revealed will, called Voluntas 
 signi, the will that is to rule us in all our 
 moral duties, to cast off the just heirs of 
 the blood royal, and to swear homage to a 
 conqueror, and so as that conqueror now 
 hath as just right as the king of Britain 
 had by birth. This cannot be taken off by 
 the wit of any who maintain that conquest 
 is a lawful title to a crown, and that royal 
 birth, without the people's election, speaketh 
 God's regulating will in his word, that the 
 first-born of a king is a lawful king by birth, 
 for God now-a-days doth not say the con- 
 trary of what he revealed in his word. If 
 birth be God's regulating will, that the heir 
 of the king is in God's court a king, no act 
 of the conqueror can annul that word of 
 God to us, and the people may not lawfully, 
 though they were ten times subdued, swear 
 homage and allegiance to a conqueror against 
 the due right of birth, which by royalists' 
 doctrine revealeth to us the plain contradic- 
 tory will of God. It is, I grant, often God's 
 decree revealed by the event, that a conque- 
 ror be on the throne, but this will is not our 
 rule, and the people are to swear no oath of 
 allegiance contrary to God's Voluntas signi, 
 which is his revealed will in his word regu- 
 lating us. 
 
 4. Things transferable and communicable 
 by birth from father to son, are only, in 
 law, those which heathens call bona fortunes 
 riches, as lands, houses, monies and heri- 
 tages ; and so saith the law also. These 
 things which essentially include gifts of the 
 mind, and honour properly so called — I 
 mean honour founded on virtue — as Aris- 
 totle, with good reason, maketh honour -prce- 
 minum virtutis, cannot be communicated by 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 birth from the father to the son ; for royal 
 dignity includeth these three constituent 
 parts essentially, of which none can be com- 
 municable by birth. (1.) The royal faculty 
 of governing, which is a special gift of God 
 above nature, is from God. Solomon asked 
 it from God, and had it not by generation 
 from his father David. (2.) The royal hon- 
 our to be set above the people because of 
 this royal virtue is not from the womb, for 
 then God's Spirit would not have said, 
 " Blessed art thou, O land, when thy king- 
 is the son of nobles," Eccl. x. 17 ; this hon- 
 our, springing from virtue, is not born with 
 any man, nor is any man born with either 
 the gift or honour to be a judge. God 
 maketh high and low, not birth. Nobles are 
 born to great estates. If judging be heri- 
 tage to any, it is a municipal positive law. 
 I now speak in point of conscience. (3.) The 
 external lawful title, before men come to a 
 crown, must be God's will, revealed by such 
 an external sign as, by God's appointment 
 and warrant, is to regulate our will ; but ac- 
 cording to Scripture, nothing regulateth our 
 will, and leadeth the people now that they 
 cannot err following God's rule in making a 
 king, but the free suffrages of the states 
 choosing a man whom they conceive God 
 hath endued with these royal gifts required 
 in the king whom God holdeth forth to them 
 in his word, (Deut. xvii.) Now thei'e be but 
 these to regulate the people, or to be a rule 
 to any man to ascend lawfully, in foro Dei, 
 in God's court to the throne. (1.) God's 
 immediate designation of a man by prophe- 
 tical and divinely-inspired unction, as Sa- 
 muel anointed Saul and David ; this we are 
 not to expect now, nor can royalists say it. 
 (2.) Conquest, seeing it is an act of violence, 
 and God's revenging justice for the sins of 
 a people, cannot give in God's court such a 
 just title to the throne as the people are to 
 submit their consciences unto, except God 
 reveal his regulating will by some immediate 
 voice from heaven, as he commanded Judah 
 to submit to Nebuchadnezzar as to their 
 king by the mouth of Jeremiah. Now this 
 is not a rule to us ; for then, if the Spanish 
 king should invade this land, and, as Nebu- 
 chadnezzar did, deface the temple, and in- 
 struments and means of God's worship, and 
 abolish the true worship of God, it should 
 be unlawful to resist him, after he had once 
 conquered the land : neither God's word, nor 
 the law of nature could permit this. I sup- 
 pose, even by grant of adversaries, now no 
 
 act of violence done to a people, though in 
 God's court they have deserved it, can be a 
 testimony to us of God's regulating will ; ex- 
 cept it have some warrant from the law and 
 testimony, it is no rule to our conscience to 
 acknowledge him a lawful magistrate, whose 
 sole law to the throne is an act of the bloody 
 instrument of divine wrath, I mean the 
 sword. That, therefore, Judah was to sub- 
 mit, according to God's word, to Nebuchad- 
 nezzar, whose conscience and best warranted 
 calling to the kingdom of Judah was his 
 bloody sword, even if we suppose Jeremiah 
 had not commanded them to submit to the 
 king of Babylon, I think cannot be said. 
 (3) Naked birth cannot be this external 
 signification of God's regulating will to war- 
 rant the conscience of any to ascend to the 
 throne, for the authors of this opinion make 
 royal birth equivalent to divine unction ; for 
 David anointed by Samuel, and so anointed 
 by God, is not king, — Saul remained the 
 Lord's anointed many years, not David, al- 
 though anointed by God ; the people's mak- 
 ing him king at Hebron, founded upon di- 
 vine unction, was not the only external law- 
 ful calling that we read of that David had 
 to the throne ; then royal birth, because it is 
 but equivalent only to divine unction, not 
 superior to divine unction, it cannot have 
 more force to make a king than divine unc^- 
 tion. And if birth was equivalent to divine 
 unction, what needed Joash, who had royal 
 birth, be made king by the people? and 
 what needed Saul and David, who had 
 more than royal birth, even divine unc- 
 tion, be made kings by the people? and 
 Saul, having the vocal and infallible testi- 
 mony of a prophet, needed not the people's 
 election — the one at Mizpeh and Gilgal, 
 and the other at Hebron. 
 
 5. If royal birth be as just a title to the 
 crown as divine unction, and so as the peo- 
 ple's election is no title at all, then is it un- 
 lawful that there should be a king by elec- 
 tion in the world now ; but the latter is 
 absurd, — so is the former. I prove the 
 proposition, because where conquerors are 
 wanting, and there is no king for the pre- 
 sent, but the people governing, and so much 
 confusion aboundeth, they cannot lawfully 
 appoint a king, for his lawful title before 
 God must either be conquest — which to me 
 is no title — (and here, and in this case, there 
 is no conquest) or the title must be a pro- 
 phetical word immediately inspired of God, 
 but this is now ceased ; or the title must be 
 
 TT 
 
42 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 royal birth, but here there is no royal birth, 
 because the government is popular ; except 
 you imagine that the society is obliged in 
 conscience to go and seek the son of a fo- 
 reign king to be their king. But I hope 
 that such a royal birth should not be a just 
 title before God to make him king of that 
 society to which he had no relation at all, 
 but is a mere stranger. Hence in this case 
 no title could be given to any man to make 
 him king, but only the people's election, 
 which is that which we say. And it is most 
 unreasonable that a people under popular 
 government cannot lawfully choose a king to 
 themselves, seeing a king is a lawful magis- 
 trate, and warranted by God's word, be- 
 cause they have not a king of royal birth to 
 sit upon the throne. 
 
 Mr Symmons saith 1 that birth is the best 
 title to the crown, because after the first of 
 the family had been anointed unction was 
 no more used in that family, (unless there 
 arose a strife about the kingdom, as betwixt 
 Solomon and Adonijah, Joash and Athaliah) 
 the eldest son of the predecessor was after- 
 ward the chosen of the Lord, his birthright 
 spake the Lord's appointment as plainly as 
 his father's unction. — Ans. 1. It is a con- 
 jecture that unction was not used in the fa- 
 mily, after the first unction, except the con- 
 test was betwixt two brethren : that is said, 
 not proved ; for 2 Kings xxiii. 30, when 
 good Josiah was killed, and there was no 
 contest concerning the throne of that be- 
 loved prince, the people of the land took Je- 
 hoahaz his son, and anointed him, and made 
 him king in his father's stead ; and the 
 priests were anointed, (Lev. vi. 22,) yea, all 
 the priests were anointed, (Numb. iii. 3,) 
 yet read we not in the history, where this 
 or that man was anointed. 2. In that 
 Adonijah, Solomon's elder brother, was not 
 king, it is clear that God's anointing and 
 the people's electing made the right to the 
 crown, and not birth. 3. Birth de facto 
 did design the man, because of God's special 
 promises to David's house ; but how doth a 
 typical descent made to David, and some 
 others by God's promise, prove, that birth 
 is the birthright and lawful call of God to 
 a crown in all after ages ? For as gifts to 
 reign goeth not by birth, so neither doth 
 God's title to a crown go. 
 
 M. Symmons. — A prince once possessed 
 of a kingdom coming to him by inheritance, 
 
 i Symmons' Loyal Subjects Beleefe, sect. 3, p. 16. 
 
 can never, by any, upon any occasion be dis- 
 possessed thereof, without horrible impiety 
 and injustice. Royal unction was an inde- 
 lible character of old : Saul remained the 
 Lord's anointed till the last gasp. David 
 durst not take the right of government ac- 
 tually unto him, although he had it in re- 
 version, being already anointed thereunto, 
 and had received the spirit thereof. 
 
 Ans. — 1. This is the question, If a prince, 
 once a prince by inheritance, cannot be dis- 
 possessed thereof without injustice : for if a 
 kingdom be his by birth, as an inheritance 
 transmitted from the father to the son, I 
 see not but any man upon necessary occa- 
 sions may sell his inheritance ; but if a 
 prince sell his kingdom, a very Barclay and 
 a Grotius with reason will say, he may be 
 dispossessed and dethroned, and take up his 
 indelible character then. (2.) A kingdom 
 is not the prince's own, so as it is injustice to 
 take it from him, as to take a man's purse 
 from him ; the Lord's church, in a Christian 
 kingdom, is God's heritage, and the king 
 only a shepherd, and the sheep, in the court 
 of conscience, are not his. (3.) Royal unc- 
 tion is not an indelible character ; for nei- 
 ther Saul nor David were all their days 
 kings thereby, but lived many days private 
 men after divine unction, while the people 
 anointed them kings, except you say that 
 there were two kings at once in Israel ; and 
 that Saul, killing David, should have killed 
 his own lord, and his anointed. (4.) If Da- 
 vid durst not take the right of government 
 actually on him, then divine unction made 
 him not king, but only designed him to be 
 king : the people's election must make the 
 king. 
 
 M. Symmons addeth, " He that is born 
 a king and a prince can never be unborn, 
 Semel Augustus semper Augustus; yea, I 
 believe the eldest son of such a king is, in 
 respect of birth, the Lord's anointed in his 
 father's life-time, — even as David was be- 
 fore Saul's death, and to deprive him of his 
 right of reversion is as true injustice as to 
 dispossess him of it." 
 
 Ans. — It is proper only to Jesus Christ 
 to be born a king. Sure I am no man 
 bringeth out of the womb with him a scep- 
 tre, and a crown on his head. Divine unc- 
 tion giveth a right infallibly to a crown, but 
 birth doth not so ; for one may be born heir 
 to a crown, as was hopeful prince Henry, 
 
 1 Symmons, sect. 3, p. 7. 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 43 
 
 and yet never live to be king. The eldest 
 son of a king, if he attempt to kill his father, 
 as Absalom did, and raise forces against the 
 lawful prince, I conceive he may be killed in 
 battle without any injustice. If in his fa- 
 ther's time he be the Lord's anointed, there 
 be two kings ; and the heir may have a son, 
 and so there shall be three kings, possibly 
 four, — all kings by divine right. 
 
 The Prelate of Rochester saith, 1 " The 
 people and nobles give no right to him who 
 is born a king, they only declare his right." 
 
 Ans. — This is said, not proved. A man 
 born for an inheritance is by birth an heir, 
 because he is not born for these lands as a 
 mean for the end, but by the contrary, these 
 lands are for the heir as the mean for the 
 end ; but the king is for his kingdom as a 
 mean for the end, as the watchman for the 
 city, the living law for peace and safety to 
 God's people ; and, therefore, is not heres 
 hominum, an heir of men, but men are ra- 
 ther heredes regis, heirs of the king. 
 
 Arnisseus saith, 2 " Many kingdoms are 
 purchased by just war, and transmitted by 
 the law of heritage from the father to the 
 son, beside the consent of the people, because 
 the son receiveth right to the crown not 
 from the people, but from his parents ; nor 
 doth he possess the kingdom as the patri- 
 mony of the people, keeping only to himself 
 the burden of protecting and governing the 
 people, but as a propriety given to him lege 
 regni, by his parents, which he is obliged to 
 defend and rule, as a father looketh to the 
 good and welfare of the family, yet so also 
 as he may look to his own good. 
 
 Ans. — We read in the word of God that 
 the people made Solomon king, not that 
 David, or any king, can leave in his testa- 
 ment a kingdom to his son. He saith, the 
 son hath not the right of reigning as the 
 patrimony of the people, but as a propriety, 
 given by the law of the kingdom by his pa- 
 rents. Now this is all one as if he said the 
 son hath not the right of the kingdom as 
 the patrimony of the people, but as the pa- 
 trimony of the people — which is good non- 
 sense ; for the propriety of reigning given 
 from father to son by the law of the king- 
 dom, is nothing but a right to reign given 
 by the law of the people, and the very gift 
 and patrimony of the people ; for lex regni, 
 this law of the kingdom is the law of the 
 
 1 Joan. Episco. Roffens. de potest. Fapa?. lib. 2, c. 5. 
 
 2 Arnisaeus de authoiit. princip. c. 1, n. 13. 
 
 people, tying the crown to such a royal fa- 
 mily ; and this law of the people is prior 
 and more ancient than the king, or the 
 right of reigning in the king, or which the 
 king is supposed to have from his royal fa- 
 ther, because it made the first father the 
 first king of the royal line. For I demand, 
 how doth the son succeed to his father's 
 crown and throne ? Not by any promise of 
 a divine covenant that the Lord . maketh to 
 the father, as he promised that David's seed 
 should sit on his throne till the Messiah 
 should come. This, as I conceive, is van- 
 ished with the commonwealth of the Jews ; 
 nor can we now find any immediate divine 
 constitution, tying the crown now to such a 
 race, — nor can we say this cometh from the 
 will of the father-king making his son king. 
 For, 1. There is no Scripture can warrant 
 us to say the king maketh a king, but the 
 Scripture holdeth forth that the people 
 made Saul and David kings. 2. This may 
 prove that the father is some way a cause 
 why this son succeedeth king ; but he is not 
 the cause of the royalty conferred upon the 
 whole line, because the question is, Who 
 made the first father a king ? Not himself ; 
 nor doth God now immediately by prophets 
 anoint men to be kings, — then must the 
 people choose the first man, then must the 
 people's election of a king be prior and more 
 ancient than the birth-law to a crown ; and 
 election must be a better right than birth. 
 The question is, Whence cometh it that not 
 only the first father should be chosen king ; 
 but also whence is it, that whereas it is in 
 the people's free will to make the succession 
 of kings go by free election, as it is in Den- 
 mark and Poland, yet the people doth freely 
 choose, not only the first man to be king, 
 but also the whole race of the first-born of 
 this man's family to be Icings. All here 
 must be resolved in the free will of the com- 
 munity. Now, since we have no immediate 
 and prophetical enthroning of men, it is evi- 
 dent that the lineal deduction of the crown 
 from father to son, through the whole line, 
 is from the people, not from the parent. 
 
 6. Hence, I add this as my sixth argu- 
 ment, That which taketh away that natural 
 aptitude and nature's birthright in a com- 
 munity, given to them by God and nature, 
 to provide the most efficacious and prevalent 
 mean for their own preservation and peace 
 in the fittest government, that is not to be 
 holden ; but to make birth the best title to 
 the crown, and better than free election, 
 
LL'X, REX ; OK, 
 
 taketh away and imped eth that natural ap- 
 titude and nature's birthright of choosing, 
 not simply a governor, but the best, the 
 justest, the more righteous, and tyeth and 
 i'ettereth their choice to one of a house, 
 whether he be a wise man, and just, or a 
 fool and an unjust man ; therefore to make 
 birth the best title to the crown, is not to be 
 holden. 
 
 It is objected, That parents may bind their 
 after generations to choose one of such a line, 
 but by this argument, their natural birth- 
 right of a free choice to elect the best and 
 fittest, is abridged and clipped, and so the 
 posterity shall not be tyed to a king of the 
 royal line to which the ancestors did swear. 
 See for this the learned author of " Scrip- 
 ture and Reasons pleaded for Defensive 
 Arms." 
 
 Ans. — Frequent elections of a king, at 
 the death of every prince, may have, by ac- 
 cident, and through the corruption of our 
 nature, bloody and tragical sequels ; and to 
 eschew these, people may tie and oblige their 
 children to choose one of the first-born, 
 male or female, as in Scotland and England, 
 of such a line ; but I have spoken of the ex- 
 cellency of the title by election above that 
 of birth, as comparing things according to 
 their own nature together, but give me 
 leave to say, that the posterity are tied to 
 that line,— 1. Conditionally : so the first- 
 born, ceteris paribus, be qualified, and have 
 an head to sit at the helm. 2. Elections of 
 governors would be performed as in the sight 
 of God, and, in my weak apprehension, the 
 person coming nearest to God's judge, fear- 
 ing God, hating covetousness ; and to Mo- 
 ses' king, (Deut. xvii.) one who shall read in 
 the book of the law ; and it would seem now 
 that gracious morals are to us instead. of 
 God's immediate designation. 3. The gen- 
 uine and intrinsical end of making kings 
 is not simply governing, but governing the 
 best way, in peace, honesty, and godliness, 
 (1 Tim.ii.) therefore, these are to be made 
 kings who may most expeditely procure this 
 end. Neither is it my purpose to make him 
 no king who is not a gracious man, only here 
 I compare title with title. 
 
 Arg. 7. Where God hath not bound the 
 conscience, men may not bind themselves, or 
 the consciences of the posterity. But God 
 hath not bound any nation irrevocably and 
 unalterably to a royal line, or to one kind of 
 
 1 Sect. 4, p. 39. 
 
 government ; therefore, no nation can bind 
 their conscience, and the conscience of the 
 posterity, either to one royal line, or irrevo- 
 cably and unalterably to monarchy. The 
 proposition is clear. 1. No nation is tyed, 
 jure divino, by the tie of a divine law, to a 
 monarchy, rather than to another govern- 
 ment. The Parisian doctors prove, that the 
 precept of having a pope is affirmative, and 
 so tyeth not the church, ad semper, for ever; 
 and so the church is the body of Christ, 
 without the Pope : and all oaths to things 
 of their nature indifferent, and to things the 
 contrary whereof is lawful and may be ex- 
 pedient and necessary, lay on a tie only con- 
 ditionally, in so far as they conduce to the 
 end. If the Gibeonites had risen in Jo- 
 shua's days to cut off the people of God, I 
 think no wise man can think that Joshua 
 and the people were tyed, by the oath of 
 God, not to cut off the Gibeonites in that 
 case ; for to preserve them alive, as ene- 
 mies, was against the intent of the oath, 
 which was to preserve them alive, as friends 
 demanding and supplicating peace, and sub- 
 mitting. The assumption is clear. If a na- 
 tion seeth that aristocratical government is 
 better than monarchy, hie et nunc, that the 
 sequels of such a monarchy is bloody, destruc- 
 tive, tyrannous ; that the monarchy compel- 
 leth the free subjects to Mahomedanism, to 
 gross idolatry, they cannot, by the divine 
 bond of any oath, captive their natural free- 
 dom, which is to choose a government and 
 governors for their safety, and for a peace- 
 able and godly life ; or fetter and chain the 
 wisdom of the posterity unalterably to a 
 government or a royal line, which, hie et 
 nunc, contrary to the intention of their oath, 
 proveth destructive and bloody. And in this 
 case, even the king, though tyed by an oath 
 to govern, is obliged to the practices of the 
 Emperor Otho ; and as Speed saith of Rich- 
 ard the second, 1 to resign the crown for the 
 eschewing of the effusion of blood. And who 
 doubteth but the second wits of the expe- 
 rienced posterity may correct the first wits 
 of their fathers ; nor shall I ever believe 
 that the fathers can leave in legacy by oath, 
 any chains of the best gold to fetter the af- 
 ter wits of posterity, to a choice destructive 
 to peace and true godliness. 
 
 Arg. 8. An heritor may defraud his first- 
 born of his heritage, because of his dominion 
 ho hath over his heritage: a king cannot de- 
 
 1 Speed, Hist. p. 757. 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 45 
 
 fraud his first-born of the crown. An heritor 
 may divide his heritage equally amongst his 
 twelve sons : a king cannot divide his royal 
 dominions in twelve parts, and give a part to 
 every son ; for so he might turn a monarchy 
 into an aristocracy, and put twelve men in 
 the place of one king. Any heritor taken 
 captive may lawfully oppignerate, yea, and 
 give all his inheritance as a ransom for his 
 liberty ; for a man is better than his inheri- 
 tance : but no king may give his subjects as 
 a price or ransom. 
 
 Yet I shall not be against the succession 
 of kings by birth with good limitations ; and 
 shall agree, that through the corruption of 
 man's nature, it may be in so far profitable, 
 as it is peaceable, and preventeth bloody tu- 
 mults, which are the bane of human socie- 
 ties. Consider further for this, iEgid. Ro- 
 manus, lib. 3. de reg. princi. cap. 5, Turrec* 
 re mat. and Joan, de terrse Reubese, 1 tract, 
 contr. Rebelles, ar. 1, con. 4. Yet Aristo- 
 tle, the flower of nature's wit, (lib. 3. polit. 
 c. 10,) preferreth election to succession. He 
 preferreth Carthage to Sparta, though their 
 kings came of Hercules. Plutarch in Scylla, 
 saith, he would have kings as dogs, that is, 
 best hunters, not those who are born of best 
 dogs. Tacitus, lib. 1, Naci et generari a 
 Principibus, fortuitum, nee ultra ccstiman- 
 tur. 
 
 QUESTION XL 
 
 WHETHER OR NO HE BE MORE PRINCIPALLY A 
 KING WHO IS A KING BY BIRTH, OR HE 
 WHO IS A KING BY THE FREE ELECTION 
 AND SUFFRAGES OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 Assert. 1. — Without detaining the reader, 
 I desire liberty to assert that, where God es- 
 tablished a kingdom by birth, that govern- 
 ment, hie et nunc, is best ; and because God 
 principally distributeth crowns, when God es- 
 tablisheth the royal line of David to reign, 
 he is not principally a king who cometh near- 
 est and most immediately to the fountain of 
 royalty, which is God's immediate will ; but 
 God established, hie et nunc, for typical rea- 
 sons (with reverence of the learned) a king 
 by birth. 
 
 Assert. 2. — But to speak of them, ex ncc- 
 
 tur a rei, and according to the first mould 
 
 and pattern of a king by law, a king by elec- 
 
 • i tion is more principally king ( magis univoce 
 
 et per se) than an hereditary prince. (1.) 
 Because in hereditary crowns, the first fami- 
 ly being chosen by the free suffrages of the 
 people, for that cause ultimate, the heredi- 
 tary prince cometh to the throne, because 
 his first father, and in him the whole line 
 of the family, was chosen to the crown, and 
 propter quod unumquodque tale, id ipsum 
 magis tale. (2.) The first king ordained 
 by God's positive law, must be the measure 
 of all kings, and more principally the king 
 than he who is such by derivation. But the 
 first king is a king by election, not by birth, 
 Deut. xvii. 15, Thou shalt in any wise set 
 him king over thee, whom the Lord thy 
 God shall choose ; one from amongst thy 
 brethren shalt thou set over thee. (3.) The 
 law saith, Surrogatum fruitur privilegiis 
 ejus, in cujus locum surrogatur, he who 
 is substituted in the place of another, enjoy- 
 eth the privileges of him in whose place he 
 succeedeth. But the hereditary king hath 
 royal privileges from him who is chosen king. 
 Solomon hath the royal privileges of David 
 his father, and is therefore king by birth, 
 because his father David was king by elec- 
 tion ; and this I say, not because I think sole 
 birth is a just title to the crown, but because 
 it designeth him who indeed virtually was 
 chosen, when the first king of the race was 
 chosen. (4.) Because there is no dominion of 
 either royalty, or any other way by nature, 
 no more than an eagle is born king of eagles, 
 a lion king of lions ; neither is a man by na- 
 ture born king of men ; and, therefore, he 
 who is made king by suffrages of the peo- 
 ple, must be more principally king than 
 he who hath no title but the womb of his 
 mother. 
 
 Dr Feme is so far with us, to father roy- 
 alty upon the people's free election as on 
 the formal cause, that he saith, If to design 
 the person and to procure limitation of the 
 power, in the exercise of it, be to give the 
 power, we grant the power is from the peo- 
 ple ; but (saith he) you will have the power 
 originally from themselves, in another sense, 
 for you say, they reserve power to depose 
 and displace the magistrate ; sometimes they 
 make the monarchy supreme, and then they 
 divest themselves of all power, and keep 
 none to themselves; but, before establish- 
 ed government, they have no politic power 
 whereby they may lay a command on others, 
 but only a natural power of private resist- 
 
 i Dr Fern, part 3, sect. 3, p. 14. 
 
46 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 ance, which they cannot use against the ma- 
 gistrate. 
 
 Ans. — But to take off those by the way. 
 1. If the king may choose A. B. an ambas- 
 sador, and limit him in his power, and say, 
 Do this, and say this to the foreign state you 
 go to, but no more, half a wit will say the 
 king createth the ambassador, and the am- 
 bassador's power is originally from the king ; 
 and we prove the power of the lion is origi- 
 nally from God, and of the sea and the fire is 
 originally from God, because God limiteth 
 the lion in the exercises of its power, that 
 it shall not devour Daniel, and limiteth the 
 sea, as Jeremiah saith, when as he will have 
 its proud waves to come thither and no far- 
 ther, and will have the fire to burn those 
 who threw the three children into the fiery 
 furnace, and yet not to burn the three chil- 
 dren ; for this is as if Dr Feme said, The 
 power of the king of six degrees, rather than 
 his power of five, is from the people, there- 
 fore the power of the king is not from the 
 people ; yea, the contrary is true. 2. That 
 the people can make a king supreme, that is, 
 absolute, and so resign nature's birthright, 
 that is, a power to defend themselves, is not 
 lawful, for if the people have not absolute 
 power to destroy themselves, they cannot 
 resign such a power to their prince. 3. It 
 is false that a community, before they be es- 
 tablished with formal rulers, have no politic 
 power ; for consider them as men only, and 
 not as associated, they have indeed no politic 
 power: but before magistrates be established, 
 they may convene and associate themselves 
 in a body, and appoint magistrates; and this 
 they cannot do if they had no politic power 
 at all. 4. They have virtually a power to 
 lay on commandments, in that they have 
 power to appoint to themselves rulers, who 
 may lay commandments on others. 5. A 
 community hath not formally power to pun- 
 ish themselves, for to punish, is to inflict ma- 
 lum disconveniens naturae, an evil contrary 
 to nature ; but, in appointing rulers and 
 in agreeing to laws, they consent they shall 
 be punished by another, upon supposition of 
 transgression, as the child willingly going to 
 school submitteth himself in that to school 
 discipline, if he shall fail against any school 
 law ; and by all this it is clear, a king by 
 election is principally a king. Barclay then 
 faileth, who saith, 1 No man denieth but suc- 
 cession to a crown by birth is agreeable to 
 
 i Barcla. cont. Monarcham. c. 2, p. 56. 
 
 nature. It is not against nature, but it is no 
 more natural than for a lion to be born a 
 king of lions. 
 
 Obj. — Most of the best divines approve an 
 hereditary monarch, rather than a monarch 
 by election. 
 
 Ans. — So do I in some cases. In re- 
 spect of empire simply, it is not better ; in 
 respect of empire now, under man's fall 
 in sin, I grant it to be better in some re- 
 spects. So Salust in Jugurth. Natura 
 mortalium imperij avida. Tacitus, Hist. 
 2. Minore discrimine princeps sumitur, 
 quam queritu, there is less danger to ac- 
 cept of a prince at hand, than to seek one 
 afar off. In a kingdom to be constituted, 
 election is better; in a constituted kingdom, 
 birth seemeth less evil. In respect of liberty, 
 election is more convenient ; in respect of 
 safety and peace, birth is safer and the near- 
 est way to the well. See Bodin. de Rep. 
 lib. 6, c. iv. ; Thol. de Rep. lib. 7, c iv. 
 
 QUESTION XII. 
 
 WHETHER OR NOT A KINGDOM MAY LAWFUL- 
 LY BE PURCHASED BY THE SOLE TITLE 01? 
 CONQUEST. 
 
 The Prelate averreth confidently (c. 17, 
 p. 58) that a title to a kingdom by conquest, 
 without the consent of a people, is so just and 
 evident by Scripture, that it cannot be denied ; 
 but the man bringeth no Scripture to prove 
 it. Mr Marshall saith, (Let. p. 7,) a con- 
 quered kingdom is but continuata injuria, 
 a continued robbery. A right of conquest 
 is twofold. 1. When there is no just cause. 
 2. When there is just reason and ground of 
 the war. In this latter case, if a prince 
 subdue a whole land which justly deserveth 
 to die, yet, by his grace, who is so mild a 
 conqueror, they may be all preserved alive ; 
 now, amongst those who have thus injured 
 the conqueror, as they deserve death, we are 
 to difference the persons offending, and the 
 wives, children — especially those not bora — 
 and such as have not offended. The former 
 sort may resign their personal liberty to the 
 conqueror, that the sweet life may be saved. 
 He cannot be their king properly ; but I con- 
 ceive that they are obliged to consent that 
 he be their king, upon this condition, that 
 the conqueror put not upon them violent and 
 tyrannical conditions that are harder than 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 47 
 
 death. Now, in reason, we cannot think 
 that a tyrannous and unjust domineering can 
 be God's lawful mean of translating king- 
 doms ; and, for the other part, the conqueror 
 cannot domineer as king over the innocent, 
 and especially the children not yet born. 
 
 Assert. 1. — A people may be, by God's 
 special commandment, subject to a conquer- 
 ing Nebuchadnezzar and a Caesar, as to their 
 king, as was Judah commanded by the pro- 
 phet Jeremiah to submit unto the yoke of 
 the king of Babylon, and to pray for him, 
 and the people of the Jews were to give to 
 Caesar the things of Caesar ; and yet both 
 those were unjust conquerors : for those ty- 
 rants had no command of God to oppress 
 and reign over the Lord's people, yet were 
 they to obey those kings, so the passive sub- 
 jection was just and commanded of God, 
 and the active, unjust and tyrannous, and 
 forbidden of God. 
 
 Assert. 2. — This title by conquest, through 
 the people's after consent, may be turned 
 into a just title, as in the case of the Jews 
 in Caesar's time, for which cause our Saviour 
 commanded to obey Csesar, and to pay tri- 
 bute unto him, as Dr Feme confesseth, (sec. 
 vii. p. 30). But two things are to be con- 
 demned in the Doctor. 1. That God mani- 
 fested his will to us in this work of provi- 
 dence, whereby he translateth kingdoms. 
 2. That this is an over-awed consent. Now 
 to the former I reply, — 1 . If the act of con- 
 quering be violent and unjust, it is no mani- 
 festation of God's regulating and approving 
 will, and can no more prove a just title to a 
 crown, because it is an act of divine provi- 
 dence, than Pilate and Herod's crucifying 
 of the Lord of glory, which was an act of 
 divine providence, flowing from the will and 
 decree of divine providence, (Acts ii. 23 ; 
 iv. 28,) is a manifestation that it was God's 
 approving will, that they should kill Jesus 
 Christ. 2. Though the consent be some 
 way over-awed, yet is it a sort of contract 
 and covenant of loyal subjection made to the 
 conqueror, and therefore sufficient to make 
 the title just ; otherwise, if the people never 
 give their consent, the conqueror, domineer- 
 ing over them by violence, hath no just title 
 to the crown. 
 
 Assert. 3. — Mere conquest by the sword, 
 without the consent of the people, is no just 
 title to the crown. 
 
 Arg. 1. — Because the lawful title that 
 God's word holdeth forth to us, beside the 
 Lord's choosing and calling of a man to the 
 
 crown, isthepeope's election, Deut. xvii. 15, 
 all that had any lawful calling to the crown 
 in God's word, as Saul, David, Solomon, &c, 
 were called by the people ; and the first law- 
 ful calling is to us a rule and pattern to all 
 lawful callings. 
 
 Arg. 2. — A king, as a king, and by virtue 
 of his royal office, is the father of the king- 
 dom, a tutor, a defender, protector, a shield, 
 a leader, a shepherd, a husband, a patron, a 
 watchman, a keeper of the people over which 
 he is king, and so the office essentially in- 
 cludeth acts of fatherly affection, care, love 
 and kindness, to those over whom he is set, 
 so as he who is clothed with all these rela- 
 tions of love to the people, cannot exercise 
 those official acts on a people against their 
 will, and by mere violence. Can he be a 
 father, a guide and a patron to us against 
 our will, and by the sole power of the bloody 
 sword ? A benefit conferred on any against 
 their will is no benefit. Will he by the 
 awesome dominion of the sword be our fa- 
 ther, and we unwilling to be his sons — an 
 head over such as will not be members? 
 Will he guide me as a father, a husband, 
 against my will ? He cannot come by mere 
 violence to be a patron, a shield, and a de- 
 fender of me through violence. 
 * Arg. 3. — It is not to be thought that 
 that is God's just title to a crown which 
 hath nothing in it of the essence of a king, 
 but a violent and bloody purchase, which is 
 in its prevalency in an oppressing Nimrod, 
 and the crudest tyrant that is hath nothing- 
 essential to that which constituteth a king ; 
 for it hath nothing of heroic and royal wis- 
 dom and gifts to govern, and nothing of 
 God's approving and regulating will, which 
 must be manifested to any who would be a 
 king, but by the contrary, cruelty hath ra- 
 ther baseness and witless fury, and a plain 
 reluctancy with God's revealed will, which 
 forbiddeth murder. God's law should say, 
 " Murder thou, and prosper and reign ;" 
 and by the act of violating the sixth com- 
 mandment, God should declare his approv- 
 ing will, to wit, his lawful call to a throne. 
 
 Arg. 4. — There be none under a law of 
 God who may resist a lawful call to a lawful 
 office, but men may resist any impulsion of 
 God stirring them up to murder the most 
 numerous and strongest, and chief men of a 
 kingdom, that they may reign over the few- 
 est, the weakest, and the young, and lowest 
 of the people, against their will ; therefore 
 this call by the sword is not lawful. If it 
 
48 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 be said that the divine impulsion, stirring up 
 a man to make a bloody conquest, that the 
 ire and just indignation of God in justice 
 may be declared on a wicked nation, is an 
 extraoi'dinary impulsion of God, who is above 
 a law, and therefore no man may resist it ; 
 then all bloody conquerors must have some 
 extraordinary revelation from heaven to war- 
 rant their yielding of obedience to such an 
 extraordinary impulsion. And if it be so, 
 they must show a lawful and immediate ex- 
 traordinary impulsion now, but, it is certain, 
 the sins of the people conquered, and their 
 most equal and just demerit before God, 
 cannot be a just plea to legitimate the con- 
 quest; for though the people of God de- 
 served devastation and captivity by the 
 heathen, in regard of their sins, before the 
 throne of divine justice, yet the heathen 
 grievously sinned in conquering them, Zech. 
 i. 15, " And I am very sore displeased 
 with the heathen that are at ease ; for I 
 was but a little displeased, and they helped 
 forward the affliction." So though Judah 
 deserved to be made captives, and a con- 
 quered people, because of their idolatry and 
 other sins, as Jeremiah had prophecied, yet 
 God was highly displeased at Babylon for 
 their unjust and bloody conquest, Jer. 1. 17, 
 18, 33, 34 ; li. 35, " The violence done io 
 me and to my flesh be upon Babylon, shall 
 the inhabitants of Zion say ; and my blood 
 upon the inhabitants of Chaldea, shall Jeru- 
 salem say." And that any other extraor- 
 dinary impulsion to be as lawful a call to 
 the throne as the people's free election, we 
 know not from God's word ; and we have 
 but the naked word of our adversaries, that 
 William the Conqueror, without the people's 
 consent, made himself, by blood, the lawful 
 king of England, and aLso of all their poste- 
 rity ; and that king Fergus conquered Scot- 
 land. 
 
 Arg. 5. — A king is a special gift from 
 God, given to feed and defend the people 
 of God, that they may lead a godly and 
 peaceable life under him, (Psal. lxxviii. 71, 
 72 ; 1 Tim. ii. 2 ;) as it is a judgment of 
 God that Israel is without a king many 
 days, (Hos. hi. 4,) and that there is no 
 judge, no king, to put evil-doers to shame. 
 (Judg. xix. 1.) But if a king be given of 
 God as a king, by the acts of a bloody con- 
 quest, to be avenged on the sinful land over 
 which he is made a king, he cannot be given, 
 actu primo, as a special gift and blessing of 
 God to feed, but to murder and to destroy ; 
 
 for the genuine end of a conqueror, as a 
 conqueror, is not peace, but fire and sword. 
 If God change his heart, to be of a bloody 
 devastator, a father, prince, and feeder of 
 the people, ex officio, now he is not a violent 
 conqueror, and he came to that meekness by 
 contraries, which is the proper work of the 
 omnipotent God, and not proper to man, 
 who, as he cannot work miracles, so neither 
 can he lawfully work by contraries. And so 
 if conquest be a lawful title to a crown, and an 
 ordinary calling, as the opponents presume, 
 every bloody conqueror must be changed 
 into a loving father, prince and feeder ; and 
 if God call him, none should oppose him, but 
 the whole land should dethrone their own 
 native sovereign (whom they are obliged be- 
 fore the Lord to defend) and submit to the 
 bloody invasion of a strange lord, presumed 
 to be a just conqueror, as if he were lawfully 
 called to the throne both by birth and the 
 voices of the people. And truly they de- 
 serve no wages who thus defend the king's 
 prerogative royal ; for if the sword be a law- 
 ful title to the crown, suppose the two gene- 
 rals of both kingdoms should conquer the 
 most and the chiefest of the kingdom now, 
 when they have so many forces in the field, 
 by this wicked reason the one should have 
 a lawful call of God to be king of England 
 and the other to be king of Scotland ; which 
 is absurd. 
 
 Arg. 6. — Either conquest, as conquest, is 
 a just title to the crown, or as a just con- 
 quest. If as a conquest, then all conquests 
 are just titles to a crown ; then the Ammo- 
 nites, Zidonians, Canaanites, Edomites, &c, 
 subduing God's people for a time, have just 
 title to reign over them ; and if Absalom 
 had been stronger than David, he had then 
 had the just title to be the Lord's anoint 
 ted and king of Israel, not David ; and so 
 strength actually prevailing should be God's 
 lawful call to a crown. But strength, as 
 strength victorious, is not law nor reason : it 
 were then reason that Herod behead John 
 Baptist, and the Roman Emperors kill the 
 witnesses of Christ Jesus. If conquest, as 
 just, be the title and lawful claim before 
 God's court to a crown, then, certainly, a 
 stronger king, for pregnant national injuries, 
 may lawfully subdue and reign over an in- 
 nocent posterity not yet born. But what 
 word of God can warrant a posterity not 
 born, and so accessory to no offence against 
 the conqueror, (but only sin original,) to be 
 under a conqueror against their will, and 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 49 
 
 who hath no right to reign over them hut 
 the hloody sword ? For so conquest, as con- 
 quest, not as just, maketh him king over 
 the posterity. If it be said, The fathers 
 may engage the posterity hy an oath to sur- 
 render themselves as loyal subjects to the 
 man who justly and deservedly made the 
 fathers vassals by the title of the sword of 
 justice ; I answer, The fathers may indeed 
 dispose of the inheritance of their children, 
 because that inheritance belongeth to the 
 father as well as to the son ; but because 
 the liberty of the son being born with the 
 son, (all men being born free from all civil 
 subjection,) the father hath no more power 
 to resign the liberty of his children than 
 their lives ; and the father, as a father, hath 
 not power of the life of his child ; as a magis- 
 trate he may have power, and, as something 
 more than a father, he may have power of 
 life and death. I hear not what Grotius 
 saith, 1 " Those who are not born have no 
 accidents, and so no rights, Non entis nulla 
 sunt accidentia ; then children not bqrn 
 have neither right nor liberty." And so no 
 injury (may some say) can be done to chil- 
 dren not born, though the fathers should 
 give away their liberty to the conquerors, — 
 those who are not capable of law are not 
 capable of injury contrary to law. — Ans. 
 There is a virtual alienation of rights and 
 lives of children not born unlawful, because 
 the children are not born. To say that 
 children not born are not capable of law and 
 injuries virtual, which become real in time, 
 might say, Adam did not any injury to his 
 posterity by his first sin, which is contrary 
 to God's word ; so those who vowed yearly 
 to give seven innocent children to the Mino- 
 taur to be devoured, and to kill their chil- 
 dren not born to bloody Molech, did no acts 
 of bloody injury to their children ; nor can 
 any say, then, that fathers cannot tie them- 
 selves and their posterity to a king by suc- 
 cession. But I say, to be tyed to a lawful 
 king is no making away of liberty, but a re- 
 signing of a power to be justly governed, 
 protected and awed from active and passive 
 violence. 
 
 Arg. 7. — No lawful king may be de- 
 throned, nor lawful kingdom dissolved ; but 
 law and reason both saith, Quod vi partum 
 est imperium, vi dissolvi potest. Every 
 conquest made by violence may be dissolved 
 
 1 Hugo Grotius de jure belli et pacis, 
 c. 4, n. 10. 
 
 by violence: C&nsetur enim ipsa natura 
 jus dare ad id omnc, sine quo ob.tineri non 
 potest quod ipsa imperat. 
 
 Obj. — It is objected, that the people of 
 God, by their sword, conquered seven na- 
 tions of the Canaanites ; David conquered 
 the Ammonites for the disgrace done to his 
 ambassadors ; so God gave Egypt to Nebu- 
 chadnezzar for his hire in his service done 
 against Judah. Had David no right over 
 the A/mnonites an d Moabites but by expect- 
 ing their consent ? Ye wil] say, A right to 
 their lands, goods and lives, but not to chal- 
 lenge their moral subjection. Well, we 
 doubt nQt but such conquerors wjll chal- 
 lenge and obtain their moral consent. But 
 if the people refuse their consent, is there 
 no way, for providence giveth no right ? So 
 Dr Feme, 1 so Arnisseus.? 
 
 Ans. — A facto ad jus non vales conse* 
 quentia, God, to whom belongeth the world 
 and the fulness thereof, disponed to Abra- 
 ham and his seed the land of Canaan for 
 their inheritance, and ordained that they 
 should use their bow and their sword, for 
 the actual possession thereof; and the like 
 divine right had David to the Edomites and 
 Ammonites, though the occasion of David's 
 taking possession of these kingdoms by his 
 sword, did arise from particular and occa- 
 sional exigencies and injuries ; but it follow- 
 eth in no sort that, therefore, kings now 
 wanting apy word of promise, and so of di- 
 vine right to any lands, may ascend to the 
 thrones of other kingdoms than their own, 
 by no other title than the bloody sword. 
 That God's will was the chief patent here is 
 clear, in that God forbade his people to con- 
 quer Edom, or Esau's possession, when as he 
 gave them command to conquer the Amo- 
 rites. I doubt not to say, if Joshua and 
 David had no better title than their bloody 
 sword, though provoked by injuries, they 
 could have had no right to any kingly power 
 over these kingdoms ; and if only success by 
 the sword be a right of providence, it is no 
 right of precept. God's providence, as pro- 
 vidence without prepept or promise, can con- 
 clude a thing is done, or may be done, but 
 cannot conclude a thing is lawfully and war- 
 rantably done, else you might say the sel- 
 ling of Joseph, the crucifying of Christ, the 
 spoiling of Job, were lawfully done. Though 
 conquerors extort consent and oath of loyal- 
 
 1 Dr Feme part 3, sect. 3, p. 20. 
 
 2 Arnisasus de authoritat princip. c. 1, n. VI 
 
 I 
 
! 50 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 ty, yet that maketh not over a royal right 
 to the conqueror to be king over their pos- 
 terity without their consent. Though the 
 children of Ammon did a high injury to 
 David, yet no injury can be recompensed in 
 justice with the pressure of the constrained 
 subjection of loyalty to a violent lord. If 
 David had not had an higher warrant from 
 God than an injury done to his messengers, 
 he could not have conquered them. But 
 the Ammonites were the declared enemies 
 of the church of God, and raised forces 
 against David when they themselves were 
 the injurers and offenders. And if David's 
 conquest will prove a lawful title by the 
 sword to all conquerors, then may all con- 
 querors lawfully do to the conquered people 
 as David did ; that is, they may " put them 
 under saws, and under harrows of iron, and 
 under axes of iron, and cause them pass 
 through the brick-kilne." But, I beseech 
 you, will royalists say, that conquerors, who 
 make themselves kings by their sword, and 
 so make themselves fathers, heads, defen- 
 ders, and feeders of the people, may use the 
 most extreme tyranny in the world, such as 
 David used against the children of Ammon, 
 which he could not have done by the naked 
 title of sword-conquest, if God had not laid 
 a commandment of an higher nature on him 
 to serve God's enemies so ? I shall then 
 say, if a conquering king be a lawful king, 
 because a conqueror, then hath God made 
 such a lawful king both a father, because a 
 king, and a tyrant, and cruel and lion- 
 hearted oppressor of those whom he hath 
 conquered ; for God hath given him royal 
 power by this example, (2 Sam. xii. 30, 31,) 
 to put these, to whom he is a father and de- 
 fender by office, to torment, and also to be 
 a torturer of them by office, by bringing 
 their backs under such instruments of cruel- 
 ty as " saws, and harrows of iron, and axes 
 of iron." 
 
 QUESTION XIII. 
 
 WHETHER OR XO ROYAL DIGNITY HAVE ITS 
 SPRING FROM NATURE, AND HOW THAT IS 
 TRUE, " EVERY MAN IS BORN FREE," AND 
 HOW SERVITUDE IS CONTRARY TO NATURE. 
 
 I conceive it to be evident that royal dig- 
 nity is not immediately, and without the in- 
 tervention of the people's consent, given by 
 
 God to any one person, and that conquest 
 and violence is no just title to a crown. 
 Now the question is, If royalty flow from 
 nature, if royalty be not a thing merely na- 
 tural, neither can subjection to royal power 
 be merely natural ; but the former is rather 
 civil than natural : and the question of the 
 same nature is, Whether subjection or servi- 
 tude be natural. 
 
 I conceive that there be divers subjections 
 to these that are above us some way natural, 
 and therefore I rank them in order, thus : — 
 1. There is a subjection in respect of na- 
 tural being, as the effect to the cause ; so, 
 though Adam had never sinned, this mora- 
 lity of the fifth command should have stood 
 in vigour, that the son by nature, without 
 any positive law, should have been subject 
 to the father, because from him he hath his 
 being, as from a second cause. But I doubt 
 if the relation of a father, as a father, doth 
 necessarily infer a royal or kingly authority 
 of the father over the son ; or by nature's 
 law, that the father hath a power of life and 
 death over, or above, his children, and the 
 reasons I give are, (1.) Because power of 
 fife and death is by a positive law, presup- 
 posing sin and the fall of man ; and if Adam, 
 standing in innocency, could lawfully kill his 
 son, though the son should be a malefactor, 
 without any positive law of God, I much 
 doubt. (2.) I judge that the power royal, 
 and the fatherly power of a father over his 
 children, shall be found to be different ; and 
 the one is founded on the law of nature, the 
 other, to wit, royal power, on a mere posi- 
 tive law. 2. The degree or order of sub- 
 jection natural is a subjection in respect of 
 gifts or age. So Aristotle (1 polit. cap. 3) 
 saith, " that some are by nature servants." 
 His meaning is good, — that some gifts of 
 nature, as wisdom natural, or aptitude to 
 govern, hath made some men of gold, fitter 
 to command, and some of iron and clay, fit- 
 ter to be servants and slaves. But I judge 
 this title to make a king by birth, seeing 
 Saul, whom God by supervenient gifts made 
 a king, seemeth to owe small thanks to the 
 womb, or nature, that he was a king, for his 
 cruelty to the Lord's priests speaketh no- 
 thing but natural baseness. It is possible 
 Plato had a good meaning, (dialog. 3, de le- 
 gib.) who made six orders here. " 1. That 
 fathers command their sons; 2. The noble 
 the ignoble ; 3. The elder the younger ; 4. 
 The masters the servants ; 5. The stronger 
 the weaker ; 6. The wise the ignorant." 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 01 
 
 Aquinas (22, q. 57, art. 3), Driedo (de li- 
 bert. Christ, lib. 1, p. 8), following Aristo- 
 tle, (polit. lib. 7, c. 14,) hold, though man 
 had never sinned there should have been a 
 sort of dominion of the more gifted and 
 wiser above the less wise and weaker ; not 
 antecedent from nature properly, but conse- 
 quent, for the utility and good of the weaker, 
 in so far as it is good for the weaker to be 
 guided by the stronger, which cannot be de- 
 nied to have some ground in nature. But 
 there is no ground for kings by nature here. 
 
 1. Because even those who plead that the 
 mother's womb must be the best title for a 
 crown, and make it equivalent to royal unc- 
 tion, are to be corrected in memory thus, — 
 That it is merely accidental, and not natu- 
 ral, for such a son to be born a king, because 
 the free consent of the people making choice 
 of the first father of that line to be their 
 king, and in him making choice of the first- 
 born of the family, is merely accidental to 
 father and son, and so cannot be natural. 
 
 2. Because royal gifts to reign are not held 
 by either us or our adversaries to be the 
 specific essence of a king ; for if the people 
 crown a person their king, say we,— if the 
 womb bring him forth to be a king, say the 
 opponents, — he is essentially a king, and to be 
 obeyed as the Lord's anointed, though na- 
 ture be very farce, sparing, and a niggard 
 in bestowing royal gifts ; yea, though he be 
 an idiot, say some, if he be the first-born of 
 a king, he is by just title a king, but must 
 have curators and tutors to guide him in 
 the exercise of that royal right that he hath 
 from the womb. But Buchanan saith well, 1 
 " He who cannot govern himself shall never 
 govern others." 
 
 Assert. 1. — As a man cometh into the 
 world a member of a politic society, he is, 
 by consequence, born subject to the laws of 
 that society ; but this maketh him not, from 
 the womb and by nature, subject to a king, 
 as by nature he is subject to his father who 
 begat him, no more than by nature a Hon is 
 born subject to another king-lion ; for it is 
 by accident that he is born of parents under 
 subjection to a monarch, or to either democra- 
 tical or aristocratical governors, for Cain and 
 Abel were born under none of these forms 
 of government properly ; and if he had been 
 born in a new planted colony in a wilderness, 
 where no government were yet established, 
 he should be under no such government. 
 
 Buclian. de jure Regni apud Scotos. 
 
 Assert. 2. — Slavery of servants to lords or 
 masters, such as were of old amongst the 
 Jews, is not natural, but against nature. 
 1. Because slavery is malum naturce, a 
 penal evil and contrary to nature, and a 
 punishment of sin. 2. Slavery should not 
 have been in the world, if man had never 
 sinned, no more than there could have been 
 buying and selling of men, which is a miser- 
 able consequent of sin and a sort of death, 
 when men are put to the toiling pains of the 
 hireling, who longeth for the shadow, and 
 under iron harrows and saws, and to hew 
 wood, and draw water continually. 3. The 
 original of servitude was, when men were 
 taken in war, to eschew a greater evil, even 
 death, the captives were willing to undergo 
 a less evil, slavery, (S. Servitus, 1 de jure. 
 Pers.) 4. A man being created according to 
 God's image, he is res sacra, a sacred thing, 
 and can no more, by nature's law, be sold 
 and bought, than a religious and sacred 
 thing dedicated to God. S. 1. Instit. de 
 inutil. scrupl. I. inter Stipulantem. S. 
 Sacram. F. de verber. Obligat. 
 
 Assert. 3. — Every man by nature is a free- 
 man born, that is, by nature no man cometh 
 out of the womb under any civil subjection 
 to king, prince, or judge, to master, captain, 
 conqueror, teacher, &c. 
 
 Arg. 1. — Because freedom is natural to 
 all, except freedom from subjection to pa- 
 rents ; and subjection politic is merely acci- 
 dental, coming from some positive laws of 
 men, as they are in a politic society; whereas 
 they might have been born with all concomi- 
 tants of nature, though born in a single 
 family, the only natural and first society in 
 the world. 
 
 Arg. 2. — Man is born by nature free from 
 all subjection, except of that which is most 
 kindly and natural, and that is fatherly or 
 filial subjection, or matrimonial subjection of 
 the wife to the husband ; and especially he 
 is free of subjection to a prince by nature ; 
 because to be under jurisdiction to a judge 
 or king, hath a sort of jurisdiction, (argu- 
 ment, L. Si quis sit fugitivus. F. de edit, 
 edict, in S. penult, vel Jin.) especially to be 
 under penal laws now in the state of sin. 
 The learned senator Ferdinandus Vasquez 
 saith, (lib. 2. c. 82. n. 15,) Every subject is 
 to lay down his life for the prince. Now no 
 man is born under subjection to penal laws 
 or dying for his prince. 
 
 Arg. 3. — Man by nature is born free, and 
 as free as beasts ; but by nature no beast, no 
 
LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 lion is born king of lions ; no horse, no bul- 
 lock, no eagle, king of horses, bullocks, or 
 eagles. Nor is there any subjection here, 
 except that the young lion is subject to the 
 old, every foal to its dam ; and by that same 
 law of nature, no man is born king of men, 
 nor any man subject to man in a civil sub- 
 jection by nature, (I speak not of natural 
 subjection of children to parents,) and there- 
 fore Ferdi. Vasquez (illustr; quest, lib. 2, 
 c. 82, n. 6,) said, that kingdoms and empires 
 were brought in, not by nature's law, but by 
 the law of nations. He expoundeth himself 
 elsewhere to speak of the law of nature secon- 
 dary, otherwise the primary law of nations is 
 indeed the law of nature, as appropriated to 
 man. If any reply, That the freedom natu- 
 ral of beasts and birds, who never sinned, can- 
 not be one with the natural freedom of man 
 who is now under sin, and so under bondage 
 for sin, my answer is, That the subjection of 
 the misery of man by nature, because of sin, 
 is more than the subjection of beasts, com- 
 paring species and kinds of beasts and birds 
 with mankind, but comparing individuals of 
 the same kind amongst themselves ; as lion 
 with lion, eagle with eagle, and so man with 
 man ; in which respect, because he who is 
 supposed to be the man born free from sub- 
 jection politic, even the king born a king, is 
 under the sam state of sin, and so by rea- 
 son of sin, of which he hath a share equally 
 with all other men by nature, he must be, 
 by nature, born under as great subjection 
 penal for sin (except the king be born void 
 of sin) as other men ; therefore he is not 
 born freer by nature than other men, ex- 
 cept he come out of the womb with a king's 
 crown on his head. 
 
 Ar<j. 4. — To be a king is a free gift of 
 God, which God bestoweth on some men 
 above others, as is evident, (2 Sam. xii. 7, 8; 
 Psal. lxxv. 6 ; Dan. iv. 32 ;) and therefore 
 all must be born kings, if any one man be by 
 nature a king bom, and another a bom sub- 
 ject. But if some be by God's grace made 
 kings above others, they are not so by na- 
 ture ; for things which agree to man by na- 
 ture, agree to all men equally : but all men 
 equally are not born kings, as is evident ; 
 and all men are not equally born by nature 
 under politic subjection to kings, as the ad- 
 versaries grant-, because those who are by na- 
 ture kings, cannot be also by nature subjects. 
 
 Arg. 5. — If men be not by nature free 
 from politic subjection, then must some, by 
 the law of relation, by nature be kings. But 
 
 none are by nature kings, because none have 
 by nature these things which essentially con- 
 stitute kings, for they have neither by na- 
 ture the calling of God, nor gifts for the 
 throne, nor the free election ol the people, 
 nor conquest ; and if there be none a king 
 by nature, there can be none a subject by 
 nature. And the law saith, Omnes sumus 
 natura liberi, nullius ditioni subjecti. lib. 
 Manumiss. F. de just, etjur. S.jus antem 
 gentium, Jus. de jur. nat. We are by na- 
 ture free, and I). L. ex hoc jure cum simil. 
 
 Arg. 6.— Politicians agree to this as an un- 
 deniable truth, that as domestic society is na- 
 tural, being grounded upon nature's instinct, 
 so politic society is voluntary, being ground- 
 ed on the consent of men ; and so politic 
 society is natural, in radice, in the root, and 
 voluntary and free, in modo, in the manner 
 of their union ; and the Scripture cleareth 
 to us, that a king is made by the free con- 
 sent of the people , (Deut xvii. 15,) and so 
 not by nature. 
 
 Arg. 7- — What is from the womb, and so 
 natural, is eternal, and agreeth to all socie- 
 ties of men ; but a monarchy agreeth not to 
 all societies of men ; for many hundred years, 
 de facto, there was not a king till Nimrod's 
 time, the world being governed by families, 
 and till Moses' time we find no institution 
 for kings, (Gen. vii.) and the numerous mul- 
 tiplication of mankind did occasion monar- 
 chies, otherwise, fatherly government being 
 the first and measure of the rest, must be 
 the best ; for it is better that my father go- 
 vern me, than that a stranger govern me, 
 and, therefore, the Lord forbade his people 
 to set a stranger over themselves to be their 
 king. The P. Prelate contendeth for the 
 contrary, (c. 12, p^ 125,) " Every man 
 (saith he) is bom subject to his father, of 
 whom immediately he hath his existence in 
 nature ; and if his father be the subject of 
 another, he is born the subject of his fa- 
 ther's superior." — Ans. But the consequence 
 is weak. Every man is bom under natural 
 subjection to his father, therefore he is bom 
 naturally under civil subjection to his father's 
 superior or king. It followeth not. Yea, 
 because his father was born only by nature 
 subject to his own father, therefore he was 
 subject to a prince or king only by accident, 
 and by the free constitution of men, who 
 freely choose politic government, whereas 
 there is no government natural, but fatherly 
 or marital, and therefore the contradictory 
 consequence is true-. 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 53 
 
 P. Prelate. — Every man by nature hath 
 immunity and liberty from despotical and 
 hierarchial empire, and so may dispose of his 
 own at will, and cannot enslave himself with- 
 out his own free will ; but God hath laid a 
 necessity on all men to be under govern- 
 ment, and nature also laid this necessity on 
 him, therefore this sovereignty cannot pro- 
 tect us in righteousness and honesty, except 
 it be entirely endowed with sovereign power 
 to preserve itself, and protect us. 
 
 Ans. — 1. The Prelate here desert eth his 
 own consequence, which is strong against 
 himself, for if a man be naturally subject to 
 his father's superior, as he said before, why 
 is not the son of a slave naturally subject to 
 his father's superior and master ? 2. As a 
 man may not make away his liberty with- 
 out his own consent, so can he not, without 
 his own consent, give his liberty to be sub- 
 ject to penal laws under a prince, without 
 his own consent, either in his father's or in 
 the representative society in which he liveth. 
 3.' God and nature hath laid a necessity on 
 all men to be under government, a natural 
 necessity from the womb to be under some 
 government, to wit, a paternal government, 
 that is true ; but under this government po- 
 litic, and namely under sovereignty, it is 
 false; and that is but said : for why is he na- 
 turally under sovereignty rather than aris- 
 tocracy ? I believe any of the three forms 
 are freely chosen by any society. 4. It is 
 false that one cannot defend the people, ex- 
 cept he have entire power, that is to say, he 
 cannot do good except he have a vast power 
 to do both good and ill. 
 
 P. Prelate. — It is accidental to any to 
 render himself a slave, being occasioned by 
 force or extreme indigence, but to submit to 
 government congruous to the condition of 
 man, and is necessary for his happy being, 
 and natural, and necessary, by the inviola- 
 ble ordinance of God and nature; 
 
 Ans. 1. — If the father be a slave, it is 
 natural and not accidental} by the Prelate's 
 logic, to be a slave. 2. It is also accidental 
 to be under sovereignty, and sure not natu- 
 ral ; for then aristocracy and democracy must 
 be unnatural, and so unlawful governments. 
 3. If to be congruous to the condition of 
 man be all one with natural man, (which he 
 must say if he speak sense) to believe in God, 
 to be an excellent mathematician, to swim 
 in deep waters, being congruous to the nature 
 of man, must be natural. 4. Man by na- 
 ture is under government paternal, not poli- 
 
 tic properly, but by the free consent of his 
 will. 
 
 P. Prelate (p. 126).— Luke xi. 5, Christ 
 himself was b*ora.cr(riittho; subject to his pa- 
 rents, (the word which is used, Rom. xiii.) 
 therefore none are exempted from subjec- 
 tion to lawful government. 
 
 Ans. — We never said that any were ex- 
 empted from lawful government. The Pre- 
 late and his fellow Jesuits teach that the 
 clergy are exempted from the laws of the 
 civil magistrate, not we ; but because Christ 
 was subject to his parents, and the same 
 word is used, Luke xi., which is in Rom. 
 xiii., it will not follow, therefore^ men are 
 by nature subject to kings, because they are 
 by nature subject to parents. 
 
 P. Prelate. — The father had power over 
 the children, by the law of God and nature, 
 to redeem himself from debt, or any dis- 
 tressed condition, by enslaving his children 
 begotten of his own body ; if this power was 
 not by the right of nature and by the war- 
 rant of God, I can see no other, for it could 
 not be by mutual and voluntary contract of 
 children and fathers. 
 
 Ans. — 1. Show a law of nature, that the 
 father might enslave his children ; by a di- 
 vine positive law, presupposing sin, the father 
 might do that ; and yet I think that may be 
 questioned, whether it was not a permission 
 rather than a law, as was the bill of divorce ; 
 but a law of nature it was not; 2. The P. 
 Prelate can see no law but the law of nature 
 here ; but it is because he is blind or will not 
 see. His reason is, It was not by mutual 
 and voluntary contract of children and fa- 
 thers, therefore it was by the law of nature; 
 so he that cursed his father was to die by 
 God's law. This law was not made by mu- 
 tual consent betwixt the father and the son, 
 therefore it was a law of nature : the Pre- 
 late will see no better. Nature will teach a 
 man to enslave himself to redeem himself 
 from death, but that it is a dictate of nature 
 that a man should enslave his son, I conceive 
 not. 3; What can this prove, but that if 
 the son may, by the law of nature, be en- 
 slaved for the father, but that the son of a 
 slave is by nature under subjection to sla- 
 very, and that by nature's law ; the con- 
 trary whereof he spake in the page preced- 
 ing, and in this same page. 
 
 As for the argument of the Prelate to an- 
 swer Suarez, who laboureth to prove monar- 
 chy not to be natural, but of free consent, 
 because it is various in sundry nations, it 
 
54 
 
 is the Jesuits' argument, not ours. I own 
 it not. Let Jesuits plead for Jesuits. 
 
 QUESTION XIV. 
 
 WHETHER OR NO THE PEOPLE MAKE A PER- 
 SON THEIR KING CONDITIONALLY, OR AB- 
 SOLUTELY; AND WHETHER THERE BE SUCH 
 A THING AS A COVENANT TYING THE KING 
 NO LESS THAN HIS SUBJECTS. 
 
 There is a covenant natural, and a cove- 
 nant politic and civil. There is no politic or 
 civil covenant betwixt the king and his sub- 
 jects, because there be no such equality (say 
 royalists) betwixt the lung and his people, 
 as that the king can be brought under any 
 civil or legal obligation in man's court, to 
 either necessitate the king civilly to keep an 
 oath to his people, or to tie him to any 
 punishment, it' he fail, yet (say they) he is 
 under natural obligation in God's court to 
 keep his oath, but he is accountable only to 
 God if he violate his oath. 
 
 Assert. 1 — There is an oath betwixt the 
 king and his people, laying on, by reciproca- 
 tion of bands, mutual civil obligation upon 
 the king to the people, and the people to 
 the king; 2 Sam. v. 3, "So all the elders of 
 Israel came to the king to Hebron, and 
 king David made a covenant with them in 
 Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed 
 David king over Israel." 1 Chron. xi. 3, 
 " And David made a covenant with them 
 before the Lord, and they anointed David 
 king over Israel, according to the word of 
 the Lord by Samuel." 2 Chron. xxiii. 2, 3, 
 " And they went about in Judah, and ga- 
 thered the Levites out of all the cities of 
 Judah, and the chief of the fathers of Israel, 
 and they came to Jerusalem. And all the 
 congregation made a covenant with the king 
 [Joash] in the house of God." 2 Kings xi. 
 17, " Jehoiada made a covenant between the 
 Lord and the king and the people, that 
 they should be the Lord's people ; between 
 the king also and the people." Eccl. viii. 2, 
 " I counsel thee to keep the king's com- 
 mandment, and that in regard of the oath 
 of God." Then it is evident there was a 
 covenant betwixt the king and the people. 
 That was not a covenant that did tie the 
 king to God only, and not to the people, — 
 1. Because the covenant betwixt the king 
 and the people is clearly differenced from 
 
 the king's covenant with the Lord, 2 Kings 
 xi. 17. 2. There was no necessity that 
 this covenant should be made publicly be- 
 fore the people, if the king did not in the 
 covenant tie and oblige himself to the peo- 
 ple ; nor needed it be made solemnly before 
 the Lord in the house of God. 3. It is 
 expressly a covenant that was between Joash 
 the king and his people ; and David made a 
 covenant at his coronation with the princes 
 and elders of Israel, therefore the people 
 gave the crown to David covenant-wise, and 
 upon condition that he should perform such 
 and such duties to them. And this is clear 
 by all covenants in the word of God : even 
 the covenant between God and man is in 
 like manner mutual, — " I will be your God, 
 and ye shall be my people." The covenant 
 is so mutual, that if the people break the 
 covenant, God is loosed from his part of the 
 covenant, Zech. xi. 10. The covenant giv- 
 eth to the believer a sort of action of law, 
 and jus quoddam, to plead with God in 
 respect of his fidelity to stand to that cove- 
 nant that bindeth him by reason of his fi- 
 delity, Isa. xliii. 26; lxiii. 16; Dan.ix. 4, 5; 
 and far more a covenant giveth ground of a 
 civil action and claim to a people and the 
 free estates against a king, seduced by wicked 
 counsel to make war against the land, where- 
 as he did swear by the most high God, that 
 he should be a father and protector of the 
 church of God. 
 
 Assert. 2. All covenants and contracts 
 between man and man, yea, all solemn pro- 
 mises, bring the covenanters under a law 
 and a claim before men, if the oath of God 
 be broken, as the covenant betwixt Abra- 
 ham and Abimelech, (Gen. xxi. 27,) Jona- 
 than and David. (1 Sam. xviii. 3.) The 
 spies profess to Rahab in the covenant that 
 they made with her, (Josh. ii. 20,) " And if 
 thou utter this our business, we will be quit 
 of thine oath which thou hast made us to 
 swear." There be no mutual contract made 
 upon certain conditions, but if the conditions 
 be not fulfilled, the party injured is loosed 
 from the contract. Barclay saith, " That 
 this covenant obligeth the king to God, but 
 not the king to the people." — Ans. It is a 
 vain thing to say that the people and the 
 king make a covenant, and that David made 
 a covenant with the elders and princes of 
 Israel ; for if he be obliged to God only, and 
 not to the people, by a covenant made with 
 the people, it is not made with the people at 
 all, nay, it is no more made with the people 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 55 
 
 I of Israel than with the Chaldeans, for it 
 bindeth David no more to Israel than to 
 Chaldea, as a covenant made with men. 
 Arnisseus saith, 1 " When two parties con- 
 tract, if one perform the duty, the other is 
 acquitted." Sect. Oex hujus mod ubi vult 
 just, de duob. reis, lib. 3. Dr Feme saith, 
 " Because every one of them are obliged 
 fully (Sect. 1) Just. cod. to God, to whom 
 the oath is made (for that is his meaning), 
 and if either the people perform what is 
 sworn to the Lord or the king, yet one of 
 the parties remaineth still under obligation ; 
 and neither doth the people's obedience ex- 
 empt the king from punishment, if he fail, 
 nor the king's obedience exempt the people, 
 if they fail, but every one beareth the pun- 
 ishment of his own sin ; and there is no mu- 
 tual power in the parties to compel one an- 
 other to perform the promised duty, because 
 that belongeth to the pretor or magistrate, 
 before whom the contract is made. The 
 king hath jurisdiction over the people, if 
 they violate their oath; but the people hath 
 no power over the prince; and the ground 
 that ArnisEeus layeth down is this, — 1. The 
 king is not a party contracting with the peo- 
 ple, as if there were mutual obligations be- 
 twixt the king and the people, and a mutual 
 co-active power on either side. 2. That the 
 care of religion belongeth not to the people, 
 for that hath no warrant in the Word (saith 
 he). 3. We read not that the people was 
 to command and compel the priests and the 
 king to reform religion and abolish idolatry, 
 as it must follow, if the covenant be mutual. 
 
 4. Jehoiada (2 Kings xi.) obligeth himself, 
 and the king, and the people, by a like law, 
 to serve God ; and here be not two parties 
 but three — the high priest, the king, and 
 the people, if this example prove any thing. 
 
 5. Both king and people shall find the re- 
 venging hand of God against them, if they 
 fail in the breach of their oath ; every one, 
 king and people, by the oath stand obliged 
 to God, the king for himself, and the people 
 for themselves, but with this difference, the 
 king oweth to God proper and due obedience 
 as any of the subjects, and also to govern 
 the people according to God's true religion, 
 (Deut. xvii. ; 2 Chron. xxix. ;) and in this 
 the king's obligation differeth from the peo- 
 ple's obligation ; the people, as they would 
 be saved, must serve God and the king, for 
 the same cause. (1 Sam. xii.) But, besides 
 
 i Amis, de authorit. prin. c. 1. n. 6, 7. 
 
 this, the king is obliged to rule and govern 
 the people, and keep them in obedience to 
 God ; but the people is not obliged to go- 
 vern the king, and keep him in obedience 
 to God, for then the people should have as 
 great power and jurisdiction over the king, 
 as the king hath over the people, which is 
 against the word of God, and the examples 
 of the kings of Judah ; but this cometh not 
 from any promise or covenant that the king 
 hath made with the people, but from a pe- 
 culiar obligation whereby he is obliged to 
 God as a man, not as a king : — 
 
 Arg. 1. — This is the mystery of the busi- 
 ness which I oppose in these assertions. 
 
 Assert. 1. — As the king is obliged to God 
 for the maintenance of true religion, so are 
 the people and princes no less in their place 
 obliged to maintain true religion ; for the 
 people are rebuked, because they burn in- 
 cense in all high places, 2 Kings xvii. 11 ; 
 2 Chron. xxxiii. if ; Hos. iv. 13. And the 
 reason why the high places are not taken 
 away, is given in 2 Chron. xx. 33, for as yet 
 the people " had not prepared their heart 
 unto the God of their fathers ;" but you will 
 reply, elicit acts of maintenance of true re- 
 ligion are commanded to the people, and 
 that the places prove ; but the question is 
 de actibus imperatis, of commanded acts of 
 religion, sure none but the magistrate is to 
 command others to worship God according 
 to his word. I answer, in ordinary only, 
 magistrates (not the king only but all the 
 princes of the land) and judges are to main- 
 tain religion by their commandments, (Deut. 
 i. 16 ; 2 Chron. i. 2 ; Deut. xvi. 19 ; Eccles. 
 v. 8 ; Hab. i. 4 ; Mic. hi. 9 ; Zech. vii. 9 ; 
 Hos. v. 10, 11,) and to take care of reli- 
 gion ; but when the judges decline from 
 God's way and corrupt the law, we find the 
 people punished and rebuked for it : Jer. xv. 
 4, " And I will cause them to be removed 
 to all kingdoms of the earth, because of Ma- 
 nasseh, the son of Hezekiah king of Judah, 
 for that which he did in Jerusalem;" 1 Sam. 
 xii. 24, 25, " Only fear the Lord ; but if ye 
 shall still do wickedly, ye shall be consumed, 
 both ye and your king." And this case, I 
 grant, is extraordinary ; yet so, as Junius 
 Brutus proveth well and strongly, that reli- 
 gion is not given only to the king, that he 
 only should keep it, but to all the inferior 
 judges and people also in their kind ; but 
 because the estates never gave the king 
 power to corrupt religion, and press a false 
 and idolatrous worship upon them, therefore 
 
•30 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 when the king defendeth not time religion, 
 but presseth upon the people a false and 
 idolatrous religion, in that they are not un- 
 der the king, but are presumed to have no 
 king, catenus, so far, and are presumed to 
 have the power in themselves, as if they had 
 not appointed any king at all ; as if we pre- 
 sume the body had given to the right hand 
 a power to ward off strokes and to defend 
 the body ; if the right hand should by a pal- 
 sy, or some other disease, become impotent, 
 and be withered up, when ill is coming on 
 the body, it is presumed that the power of 
 defence is recurred to the left hand, and to 
 the rest of the body to defend itself in this 
 case as if the body had no right hand, and 
 had never communicated any power to the 
 right hand. So if an incorporation accused 
 of treason, and in danger of the sentence of 
 death, shall appoint a lawyer to advocate 
 their cause, and to give in their just de- 
 fences to the judge, if their advocate be 
 stricken with dumbness, because they have 
 lost their legal and representative tongue, 
 none can say that this incorporation hath 
 lost the tongues that nature hath given 
 them, so as by nature's law they may not 
 plead in their own just and lawful defence, 
 as if they had never appointed the foresaid 
 lawyer to plead for them. The king, as a 
 man, is not more obliged to the public and 
 regal defence of the true religion than any 
 other man of the land ; but he is made by 
 God and the people king, for the church and 
 people of God's sake, that he may defend 
 true religion for the behalf and salvation of 
 all. If therefore he defend not religion for 
 the salvation of the souls of all in his public 
 and royal way, it is presumed as undeniable 
 that the people of God, who by the law of 
 nature are to care for their own souls, are 
 to defend in their way true religion, which 
 so nearly concerneth them and their eternal 
 happiness. 
 
 Assert. 2. — When the covenant is betwixt 
 God, on the one part, and the king, priests 
 and people, on the other ; it is true, if the 
 one perform for his part to God the whole 
 duty, the other is acquitted : as if two men 
 be indebted to one man ten thousand pounds, 
 if the one pay the whole sum the other is ac- 
 quitted. But the king and people are not 
 so contracting parties in covenant with God 
 as that they are both indebted to God for 
 one and the same sum of complete obedience, 
 so as if the king pay the whole sum of obe- 
 dience to God, the people are acquitted ; and 
 
 if the people pay the whole sum, the king is 
 acquitted : for every one standeth obliged to 
 God for himself; for the people must do all 
 that is their part in acquitting the king from 
 his royal duty, that they may free him and 
 themselves both from punishment, if he dis- 
 obey the King of kings ; nor doth the king's 
 obedience acquit the people from their duty. 
 Arnisseus dreamed if he believed that we 
 make king and people this way party-con- 
 tractors in covenant with God. Nor can 
 two copartners in covenant with God so mu- 
 tually compel one another to do their duty ; 
 for we hold that the covenant is made be- 
 twixt the king and the people, betwixt mor- 
 tal men ; but they both bind themselves be- 
 fore God to each other. But saith Arni- 
 saeus, " It belongeth to a pretor or ruler, 
 who is above both king and people, to com- 
 pel each of them, — the king to perform his 
 part of the covenant to the people, and the 
 people to perform their part of the covenant 
 to the king. Now there is no ruler but God, 
 above both king and people." But let me 
 answer. The consequence is not needful, no 
 more than when the king of Judah and the 
 king of Israel make a covenant to perform 
 mutual duties one to another, — no more 
 than it is necessary that there should be a 
 king and superior ruler above the king of 
 Israel and the king of Judah, who should 
 compel each one to do a duty to his fellow- 
 king; for the king and people are each of 
 them above and below others in divers re- 
 spects : the people, because they create the 
 man king, they are so above the king, and 
 have a virtual power to compel him to do 
 his duty ; and the king, as king, hath an 
 authoritative power above the people, be- 
 cause royalty is formally in him, and origi- 
 nally and virtually only in the people, there- 
 fore may he compel them to their duty, as 
 we shall hear anon ; and therefore there is 
 no need of an earthly ruler higher than 
 both, to compel both. 
 
 Assert. 3. — We shall hereafter prove the 
 power of the people above the king, God 
 willing ; and so it is false that there is not 
 mutual coactive power on each side. 
 
 Assert. 4. — The obligation of the king in 
 this covenant floweth from the peculiar na- 
 tional obligation betwixt the king and the 
 estates, and it bindeth the king as king, and 
 not simply as he is a man. 1. Because it 
 is a covenant betwixt the people and David, 
 not as he is the son of Jesse, for then it 
 should oblige Eliab, or any other of David's 
 
THE LAW AND THE PKl.WF.. 
 
 brethren ; yea, it should oblige any man if 
 it oblige David as a man ; but it obligeth 
 David as a king, or as he is to be their king, 
 because it is the specific act of a king that 
 he is obliged unto, to wit, to govern the 
 people in righteousness and religion with his 
 royal power. And so it is false that Arni- 
 sseus saith, that " the king, as a man, is ob- 
 liged to God by this covenant, not as a king." 
 2, He saith, by covenant the king is bound 
 to God as a man, not as a king. But so the 
 man will have the king, as king, under no 
 law of God ; and so he must either be above 
 God, as king, or co-equal with God ; which 
 are manifest blasphemies. For I thought 
 ever the royalists had not denied that the 
 king, as king, had been obliged to keep his 
 oath to his subjects, in relation to God, and 
 in regard of natural obligation, — so as, he 
 sinneth before God if he break his covenant 
 with his people, — though they deny that he 
 is obliged to keep his covenant in relation to 
 his subjects, and in regard of politic or civil 
 obligation to men. Sure I am this the roy- 
 alists constantly teach. 3. He would have 
 this covenant so made with men as it oblig- 
 eth not the king to men, but to God. But 
 the contrary is true. Besides the king and 
 the people's covenant with the Lord, king 
 Joash made another covenant with the peo- 
 ple, and Jehoiada the priest was only a wit- 
 ness, or one who, in God's name, performed 
 the rite of anointing ; otherwise he was a 
 subject on the people's side, obliged to keep 
 allegiance to Joash, as to his sovereign and 
 master. But, certainly, whoever maketh a 
 covenant with the people, promising to go- 
 vern them according to God's word, and 
 upon that condition and these terms re- 
 ceiveth a throne and crown from the peo- 
 ple, he is obliged to what he promiseth to 
 the people, Omnis promittcns, facit alteri, 
 cui promissio facta est, jus in promitten- 
 tem. Whoever maketh a promise to an- 
 other, giveth to that other a sort of right 
 or jurisdiction to challenge the promise. 
 The covenant betwixt David and Israel 
 were a shadow, if it tie the people to alle- 
 giance to David as their king, and if it tie 
 not David as king to govern them in right- 
 eousness ; but leave David loose to the peo- 
 ple, and only tie him to God, then it is a co- 
 venant betwixt David and God only : but the 
 text saith, it is a covenant betwixt the king 
 and the people, 2 Kings xi. 17 ; 2 Sam. v. 3. 
 Arg. 2. — Hence our second argument. 
 He who is made a minister of God, not sim- 
 
 ply, but for the good of the subject, and so 
 lie take heed to God's law as a king, and 
 govern according to God's will, he is in so 
 lar only made king by God as he fulfilleth 
 the condition ; and in so far as he is a minis- 
 ter for evil to the subject, and ruleth not ac- 
 cording to that which the book of the law 
 commandeth him as king, in so far he is not 
 by God appointed king and ruler, and so 
 must be made a king by God conditionally ; 
 but so hath God made kings and rulers, 
 Bom. xiii. 4 ; 2 Goran, vi. 16 ; Psal. lxxxix. 
 30, 31 ; 2 Sam. vii. 12 ; 1 Chron. xxviii. 7 
 — 9. This argument is not brought to prove 
 that Jeroboam or Saul leave off to be kings 
 when they fail in some part of the condi- 
 tion ; or as if they were not God's vicege- 
 rents, to be obeyed in things lawful, after 
 they have gone on in wicked courses ; for 
 the people consenting to make Saul king, 
 they give him the crown, pro hac vice, at 
 his entry absolutely. There is no condition 
 required in him before they make him king, 
 but only that he covenant with them to rule 
 according to God's law. The conditions to 
 be performed are consequent, and posterior 
 to his actual coronation and his sitting on 
 the throne. But the argument presuppos- 
 eth that which the Lord's word teacheth, to 
 wit, that the Lord and the people giveth a 
 crown by one and the same action ; lor God 
 formally maketh David a king by the princes 
 and elders of Israel choosing of him to be 
 their king at Hebron ; and, therefore, see- 
 ing the people maketh him a king covenant- 
 wise and conditionally, so he rule according 
 to God's law, and the people resigning their 
 power to him for their safety, and for a 
 peaceable and godly life under him, and not 
 to destroy them, and tyrannise over them. 
 It is certain God giveth a king that same 
 way by that very same act of the people ; 
 and if the king tyrannise, I cannot say it is 
 beside the intention of God making a king, 
 nor yet beside his intention as a just pun- 
 isher of their transgressions ; for to me, as I 
 conceive, nothing either good or evil falleth 
 out beside the intention of Him who " doeth 
 all things according to the pleasure of his 
 will." If, then, the people make a king, as 
 a king, conditionally, for their safety, and not 
 for their destruction, (for as a king he saveth, 
 as a man he destroyeth, and not as a kino- 
 and father,) and if God, by the people's free 
 election, make a king, God maketh him a 
 king conditionally, and so by covenant ; and, 
 therefore, when God promiseth (2 Sam. vii. 
 
58 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 12 ; 1 Chron. xxviii. 7 — 9) to David's seed, 
 and to Solomon, a throne, he promiseth not 
 a throne to them immediately, as he raised 
 up prophets and apostles without any me- 
 diate action and consent of the people, but 
 he promiseth a throne to them by the me- 
 diate consent, election, and covenant of the 
 people ; which condition and covenant he 
 expresseth in the very words of the people's 
 covenant with the king, " So they walk as 
 kings in the law of the Lord, and take heed 
 to God's commandment and statutes to do 
 them." 
 
 Obj. 1. — But then Solomon, falling in 
 love with many outlandish women, and so 
 not walking according to God's law, loseth 
 all royal dignity and kingly power, and the 
 people is not to acknowledge him as king, 
 since the kingly power was conferred upon 
 him rather than Adonijah, upon such a con- 
 dition, which condition not being performed 
 by him, it is presumed that neither God, 
 nor the people under God, as God's instru- 
 ments in making king, conferred any royal 
 power on him. 
 
 Ans. — It doth not follow that Solomon, 
 falling in love with strange women, doth lose 
 royal dignity, either in the court of heaven 
 or before men ; because the conditions of 
 the covenant upon which God, by the peo- 
 ple, made him king must be exponed 
 by the law, Deut, xvii. Now that cannot 
 bear that any one act, contrary to the royal 
 office ; yea, that any one or two acts of 
 tyranny doth denude a man of the royal 
 dignity that God and the people gave him ; 
 for so David, committing two acts of tyran- 
 ny : one of taking his own faithful subject's 
 wife from, and another in killing himself, 
 should denude himself of all the kingly 
 power that he had ; and that, therefore, the 
 people, after his adultery and murder, were 
 not to acknowledge David as their king, — 
 which is most absurd ; for as one single act 
 of unchastity is indeed against the matrimo- 
 nial covenant, and yet doth not make the 
 woman no wife at all, so it must be such a 
 breach of the royal covenant as maketh the 
 king no king, that annulleth the royal cove- 
 nant, and denudeth the prince of his royal 
 authority and power, that must be inter- 
 preted a breach of the oath of God, because 
 it must be such a breach upon supposition 
 whereof the people would not have given 
 the crown, but upon supposition of his de- 
 structiveness to the commonwealth, they 
 would never have given to him the crown. 
 
 Obj. 2.— Yet at least it will follow that 
 Saul, after he is rejected of God for disobe- 
 dience in not destroying the Amalekites, as 
 Samuel speaketh to him, (1 Sam. xv.) is no 
 longer to be acknowledged king by the peo~ 
 pie, at least after he committeth such acts of 
 tyranny, as are 1 Sam. xviii. 12 — 15, &c. ; 
 and after he had killed the priests of the 
 Lord and persecuted innocent David, with- 
 out cause, he was no longer, either in the 
 court of heaven or the court of men, to be 
 acknowledged as king, seeing he had ma» 
 nifestly violated the royal covenant made 
 with the people; (1 Sam. xi. 14, 15,) and 
 yet, after those breaches, David acknowledge 
 eth him to be his prince and the Lord's 
 anointed 
 
 Ans. 1. — The prophet Samuel's threat- 
 ening, (1 Sam. xvii.) is not exponed of ac- 
 tual unkinging and rejecting of Saul at the 
 present ; for after that, Samuel both hon- 
 oured him as king before the people and 
 prayed for him, and mourned to God on his 
 behalf as king, (1 Sam. xvi. 1, 2,) but the 
 threatening was to have effect in God's time, 
 when he should bring David to the throne, 
 as was prophesied, upon occasion of less sin, 
 even his sacrificing and not waiting the time 
 appointed, as God had commanded, 1 Sam. 
 xiii. 13, 14. 2. The people and David's 
 acknowledgment of Saul to be the Lord's 
 anointed and a king, after he had committed 
 such acts of tyranny as seem destructive of 
 the royal covenant, and inconsistent there- 
 with, cannot prove that Saul was not made 
 king by the Lord and the people condition- 
 ally, and that for the people's good and 
 safety, and not for their destruction ; and 
 it doth well prove, — (1.) That those acts of 
 blood and tyranny committed by Saul, were 
 not done by him as king, or from the prin- 
 ciple of royal power given to him by God 
 and the people. (2.) That in these acts 
 they were not to acknowledge him as king. 
 (3.) That these acts of blood were contrary 
 to the covenant that Saul did swear at his 
 inauguration, and contrary to the conditions 
 that Saul, in the covenant, took on him to 
 perform at the making of the royal cove- 
 nant. (4.) They prove not but the states 
 who made Saul king might lawfully de- 
 throne him, and anoint David their king. 
 But David had reason to hold him for his 
 prince and the Lord's anointed, so long as 
 the people recalled not their grant of royal 
 dignity, as David, or any man, is obliged to 
 honour him as king whom the people mak- 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 59 
 
 eth king, though he were a bloodier and 
 more tyrannous man than Saul. Any ty- 
 rant standeth in titulo, so long as the peo- 
 ple and estates who made him king have 
 not recalled their grant ; so as neither Da- 
 vid, nor any single man, though six hundred 
 with him, may unking him or detract obe- 
 dience from him as king ; so many acts of 
 disloyalty and breaches of laws in the sub- 
 jects, though they be contrary to this cove- 
 nant that the states make with their prince, 
 doth not make them to be no subjects — and 
 the covenant mutual standeth thus. 
 
 Arg. 3. — 1. If the people, as God's instru- 
 ments, bestow the benefit of a crown on 
 their king, upon condition that he will rule 
 them according to God's word, then is the 
 king made king by the people conditionally; 
 but the former is true, therefore so is the 
 latter. The assumption is proved thus : — 
 Because to be a king, is to be an adopted 
 father, tutor, a politic servant and royal 
 watchman of the state ; and the royal hon- 
 our and royal maintenance given to him, is 
 a reward of his labours and a kingly hire. 
 And this is the apostle's argument, Rom. 
 xiii. 6, " For this cause pay you tribute also, 
 [there is the wages] for they are God's mi- 
 nisters, attending continually upon this very 
 thing." There is the work. Qui non implet 
 conditionem a sepromissam, cadit beneficio. 
 It is confirmed thus: — The people either 
 maketh the man their prince conditionally; 
 — (1.) that he rule according to law or abso- 
 lutely; — (2.) so that he rule according to will 
 or lust ; — or, (8.) without any vocat trans- 
 actions at all, but only brevi matin, say, 
 " Reign thou over us, and, God save the 
 king ;" and so there be no conditions spoken 
 on either side ; — or, (4.) the king is obliged 
 to God for the condition which he promis- 
 eth by oath to perform toward the people ; 
 but he is to make no reckoning to the peo- 
 ple, whether he perform his promise or no ; 
 tor the people being inferior to him, and he, 
 solo Deo minor, only next and immediate 
 to God, the people can have no jus, no law 
 over him by virtue of any covenant. But 
 the first standing, we have what we seek ; 
 the second is contrary to Scripture. He is 
 not (Deut. xvii. 15, 16) made absolutely a 
 a king to rule according to his will and lust ; 
 for " reign thou over us," should have this 
 meaning — " Come thou and play the tyrant 
 over us, and let thy lust and will be a law 
 to us," — which is against natural sense; nor 
 can the sense and meaning be according to 
 
 the third, That the people, without any ex- 
 press, vocal, and positive covenant, give a 
 throne to their king to rule as he pleaseth ; 
 because it is a vain thing for the Prelate 
 and other Mancipia Aulce, court-bellies, to 
 say Scotland and England must produce a 
 written authentic covenant betwixt the first 
 king and their people, because, say they, it is 
 the law's word, Do non apparentibus et non 
 existcntibus eadem lex, that covenant which 
 appeareth not, it is not ; for in positive cove- 
 nants that is true, and in such contracts as 
 are made according to the civil or municipal 
 laws, or the secondary law of nature. But 
 the general covenant of nature is presup- 
 posed in making a king, where there is no 
 vocal or written covenant. If there be no 
 conditions betwixt a Christian king and his 
 people, then those things which are just and 
 right according to the law of God, and the 
 rule of God in moulding the first king, are 
 understood to rule both king and people, as 
 if they had been written ; and here we pro- 
 duce our written covenant, Deut. xvii. 15; 
 Josh. i. 8, 9 ; 2 Chron. xxxi. 32. Because 
 this is as much against the king as the peo- 
 ple, and more ; tor if the first king cannot 
 bring forth his written and authentic tables 
 to prove that the crown was given to him 
 and his heirs, and his successors, absolutely 
 and without any conditions, so as his will 
 shall be a law, cadit causa, he loseth his 
 cause (say they). The king is in possession 
 of the royal power absolutely, without any 
 condition, and you must put him from his 
 possession by a law. I answer, This is most 
 false. (1.) Though he were in mala fide, 
 and in unjust possession, the law of nature 
 will warrant the people to repeal their right 
 and plead for it, in a matter which concern- 
 eth their heads, lives, and souls. (2.) The 
 parliaments of both kingdoms standing in 
 possession of a nomothetic power to make 
 laws, proveth clearly that the king is in no 
 possession of any royal dignity conferred ab- 
 solutely, and without any condition, upon 
 him ; and, therefore, it is the king's part by 
 law to put the estates out of possession ; and 
 though there were no written covenant, the 
 standing law and practice of many hundred 
 acts of parliament, is equivalent to a written 
 covenant. 
 
 2. When the people appointed any to be 
 their king, the voice of nature exponeth their 
 deed, though there be no vocal or written 
 covenant ; for that fact — of making a king 
 — is a moral lawful act warranted by the 
 
60 
 
 m:x, rex ; or, 
 
 word of God (Deut. xvii. 15, 16 ; Rom. 
 xiii. 1, 2) and the law of nature; and, there- 
 fore, they having made such a man their 
 kini;;, they have given him power to be their 
 father, feeder, healer, and protector ; and 
 so must only have made him king condi- 
 tionally, so he be a father, a feeder, and tu- 
 tor. Now, if this deed of making a king 
 must be exponed to be an investing with an 
 absolute, and not a conditional power, this 
 fact shall be contrary to Scripture and to 
 the law of nature ; for if they have given 
 him royal power absolutely, and without any 
 condition, they must have given to him power 
 to be a father, protector, tutor, and to be a 
 tyrant, a murderer, a bloody lion, to waste 
 and destroy the people of God. 
 
 3. The law permitteth the bestower of a 
 benefit to interpret his own mind in the be- 
 stowing of a benefit, even as a king and state 
 must expone their own commission given to 
 their ambassador, so must the estates expone 
 whether they bestowed the crown upon the 
 first king conditionally or absolutely. 
 
 4. If it stand, then must the people give 
 to their first elected king a power to waste 
 and destroy themselves, so as they may never 
 control it, but only leave it to God and the 
 king to reckon together, but so the condi- 
 tion is a chimera. " We give you a throne, 
 upon condition you swear by Him who made 
 heaven and earth, that you will govern us 
 according to God's law ; and you shall be 
 answerable to God only, not to us, whether 
 you keep the covenant you make with us, or 
 violate it." But how a covenant can be 
 made with the people, and the king obliged 
 to God, not to the people, I conceive not. 
 Tins presupposeth that the king, as king, 
 cannot do any sin, or commit any act of ty- 
 ranny against the people, but against God 
 only ; because if he be obliged to God only 
 as a king, by virtue of his covenant, how can 
 he fail against an obligation where there is 
 no obligation ? But, as a king, he oweth no 
 obligation of duty to the people ; and in- 
 deed so do our good men expound Psal. li., 
 " Against thee, thee only have I sinned," 
 not "against Uriah ; for if he sinned not 
 as king against Uriah, whose life he was 
 obliged to preserve as a king, he was not 
 obliged as a king by any royal duty to pre- 
 serve his life. Where there is no sin, there 
 is no obligation not to sin ; and where there 
 is no obligation not to sin, there is no sin. 
 By this the king, as king, is loosed from all 
 duties of the second table, bein<r once made 
 
 a king, he is above all obligation to love his 
 neighbour as himself ; for he is above all his 
 neighbours, and above all mankind, and only 
 less than God. 
 
 Arg. 4. — If the people be so given to the 
 king, that they are committed to him as a 
 pledge, oppignerated in his hand as a pupil 
 to a tutor, as a distressed man to a patron, 
 as a flock to a shepherd ; and so they remain 
 the Lord's church, his people, his flock, his 
 portion, his inheritance, his vineyard, his re- 
 deemed ones, then they cannot be given to the 
 king as oxen and sheep, that are freely gifted 
 to a man ; or as a gift or sum of gold or silver 
 that the man to whom they are given may 
 use, so that he cannot commit a fault against 
 the oxen, sheep, gold, or money that is given 
 to him, however -he shall dispose of them. 
 But the people are given to the king to be 
 tutored and protected of him, so as they re- 
 main the people of God, and in covenant with 
 him ; and if the people were the goods of for- 
 tune (as heathens say), he could no more sin 
 against the people than a man can sin against 
 his gold ; now, though a man by adoring 
 gold, or by lavish profusion and wasting of 
 gold, may sin against God, yet not against 
 gold ; nor can he be in any covenant with 
 gold, or under any obligation of either duty 
 or sin to gold, or to lifeless and reasonless 
 creatures properly, therefore he may sin in 
 the use of them, and yet not sin against them, 
 but against God. Hence, of necessity, the 
 king must be under obligation to the Lord's 
 people in another maimer than that he 
 should only answer to God for the loss of men, 
 as if men were worldly goods under his hand, 
 and as if being a king he were now by this 
 royal authority privileged from the best half 
 of the law of nature, to wit, from acts of mercy 
 and truth, and covenant-keeping with his 
 brethren. 
 
 Arg. 5. — If a king, because a king, were 
 privileged from all covenant obligation to his 
 subjects, then could no law of men lawfully 
 reach him for any contract violated by him ; 
 then he could not be a debtor to his subjects 
 if he borrowed money from them ; and it 
 were utterly unlawful either to crave him 
 money, or to sue him at law for debts ; yet 
 our civil laws of Scotland tyeth the king to 
 pay his debts, as any other man : yea, and 
 king Solomon trafficing, and buying, and 
 selling betwixt him and his own subjects, 
 woidd seem unlawful ; for how can a king- 
 buy and sell with his subjects, if he be under 
 no covenant obligation to men, but to God 
 
THE LAW AXD THE PRINCE. 
 
 61 
 
 only. Yea, then, a king could not marry a 
 wile, for he could not come under a cove- 
 nant to keep his body to her only, nor if he 
 committed adultery, could he sin against his 
 wife, because being immediate unto God, and 
 above all obligation to men, he could sin a- 
 gainst no covenant made with men, but only 
 against God. 
 
 Arg. 6. — If that was a lawful covenant 
 made by Asa, and the states of Judah, 2 
 Chron. 15, 13, " That whosoever would not 
 seek the Lord God of their fathers, should 
 be put to death, whether small or great, 
 whether man or woman," this obligeth the 
 king, for ought I see, and the princes, and 
 the people, but it was a lawful covenant ; 
 therefore the king is under a covenant to the 
 princes and judges, as they are to him ; it 
 is replied by Barclaius : " If a master of a 
 school should make a law, Whosoever shall 
 go out at the school doors without liberty 
 obtained of the master, shall be whipped, it 
 will not oblige the schoolmaster that he shall 
 be whipped if he go out at the school doors 
 without liberty ; so neither doth this law 
 oblige the king, the supreme lawgiver." 
 
 Ans. 1. — Suppose that the scholars have 
 no less hand and authority magisterial in 
 making the law than the schoolmaster, as 
 the princes of Judah had a collateral power 
 with king Asa about that law, it would fol- 
 low, that the schoolmaster is under the same 
 law. 2. Suppose going out at school doors, 
 were that way a moral neglect of studying 
 in the master, as it is in the scholars, as 
 the not seeking of God is as heinous a sin in 
 king Asa, and no less deserving death, than 
 it is in the people, then should the law ob- 
 lige schoolmaster and scholar both without 
 exception. 3. The schoolmaster is clearly 
 above all laws of discipline which he impos- 
 eth on his scholars ; but none can say that 
 king Asa was clearly above that law of seek- 
 ing of the Lord God of his fathers. Diodo- 
 rus Siculus (1. 17), saith, the kings of Persia 
 were under an oath, and that they might not 
 change the laws ; and so were the kings of 
 Egypt and Ethiopia. The kings of Sparta, 
 which Aristotle calleth just kings, renew their 
 oath every month. Romulus so covenanted 
 with the senate and people. Carolus V. Aus- 
 triacus sweareth he shall not change the laws 
 without the consent of the electors, nor make 
 new laws, nor dispose or pledge any thing 
 that belongeth to the empire. So read we 
 Spec. Saxon, lib. 3, act. 54, and Xenophon 
 (Cy roped, lib. 8,) saith there was a covenant 
 
 between Cyrus and the Persians. The no- 
 bles are crowned when they crown their king, 
 and exact a special oath of the king. So 
 doth England, Poland, Spain, Arragonia,&c. 
 Alber. Gentilis, 1 and Grotius, 2 prove that 
 kings are really bound to perform oaths and 
 contracts to their people ; but " notwith- 
 standing there be such a covenant, it follow- 
 eth not from this, (saith Arniseeus) 3 that if 
 the prince break his covenant and rule ty- 
 rannically, the people shall be free, and the 
 contract or covenant nothing." — Ans. The 
 covenant may be materially broken, while 
 the king remaineth king, and the subjects 
 remain subjects ; but when it is both mate- 
 rially and formally declared by the states to 
 be broken, the people must be free from their 
 allegiance ; but of this more hereafter. 
 
 Arg. 7. — If a master bind himself by an 
 oath to his servant, he shall not receive such 
 a benefit of such a point of service ; if he vio- 
 late the oath, his oath must give his servant 
 law and right both to challenge his master, 
 and to be free from that point of service ; an 
 army appointeth such a one their leader and 
 captain, but they refuse to do it except he ' 
 swear he shall not betray them to the ene- 
 my. If he doth betray them, then must the 
 soldiers be loosed from that contract. If one 
 be appointed pilate of a ship, and not but by 
 an oath, if he sell the passengers to the Turks, 
 they may challenge the pilate of his oath : 
 and it is clear that (1.) the estates should re- 
 fuse the crown to him who would refuse to 
 govern them according to God's law, but 
 should profess that he would make his own 
 will a law, therefore the intention of the oath 
 is clearly conditional. (2.) When the kin:', 
 sweareth the oath, he is but king in fieri, and 
 so not as king above the states of kingdoms. 
 Now his being king doth not put him in a 
 case above all civil obligation of a king to his 
 subjects, because the matter of the oath is, 
 that he shall be under them so far in regard 
 of the oath of God. 
 
 Arg. 8. — If the oath of God made to the 
 people do not bind him to the people to go- 
 vern according to law, and not according to 
 his will and lust, it should be unlawful for any 
 to swear such an oath, for if a power above 
 law agree essentially to a king as a king, as 
 royalists hold, he who sweareth such an oath 
 
 i Alber. Gentilis in disput. Regal, lib. 2, c. 12, 
 lib. 3, c. 14-16. 
 
 2 Hugo Grotius de jure belli et poc. lib. 2, 
 c. 11-13. 
 
 3 Arnisseus de authoritate princip. c. 1, n. 7, 8, 10. 
 
62 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 should both swear to be a king to such a peo- 
 ple, and should swear to be no king, in re- 
 pect by his oath he should renounce that 
 which is essential to a king. 
 
 Arnisaeus objecteth : Ex particularibus 
 non potest colligi conclusio universalis, some 
 few of the kings, as David and Joash, made 
 a covenant with the people ; it followeth not 
 that this was an universal law. — Ans. Yea, 
 the covenant is (Deut. 17.) and must be a 
 rule to all ; if so just a man as David was li- 
 mited by a covenant, then all the rest also. 
 
 QUESTION XV. 
 
 WHETHER OR NO THE KING BE UNTVOCALLY, 
 OR ONLY ANALOGICALLY, AND BY PROPOR- 
 TION, A FATHER. 
 
 It is true Aristotle (Polit. 1. 3, c.ll) saith, 
 that the kingly power is a fatherly power ; 
 and Justin, (Novell 12, c. 2,)Paterquamvis 
 legum contemptor, quamvis impius sit, ta- 
 men pater est. But I do not believe that, 
 i as royalists say, the kingly power is essen- 
 , tially and univocally that same with a pa- 
 ternal or fatherly power ; or that Adam, as 
 i a father, was as a father and king ; and that 
 suppose Adam should live in Noah's days, 
 that by divine institution and without consent 
 of the kingdoms and communities on earth, 
 Adam hoc ipso, and for no other reason but 
 because he was a father, should also be the 
 universal king, and monarch of the whole 
 world ; or suppose Adam was living to this 
 day, that all kings that hath been since, and 
 now are, held their crowns of him, and had 
 no more kingly power than inferior judges 
 in Scotland have, under our sovereign king 
 Charles, for so all that hath been, and now 
 are, lawful kings, should be unjust usurpers ; 
 for if fatherly power be the first and native 
 power of commanding, it is against nature 
 that a monarch who is not my lather by ge- 
 neration, should take that power from me, 
 and be a king over me and my children. 
 
 1. But I assert, first, that though the Word 
 warrant us to esteem kings fathers, Isa xlix. 
 23 ; Jud, v. 7 ; Gen. xx. 2, yet are not they 
 essentially and formally fathers by genera- 
 tion; Num. xi. 12, " Have I conceived all 
 this people ? have I begotten them ?" and 
 yet are they but fathers metaphorically — by 
 office, because they should care for them 
 as fathers do for children, and so come under 
 
 the name of fathers in the fifth commandment, 
 and therefore rigorous and cruel rulers are 
 leopards, and lions, and wolves, Ezek. xxii. 
 27 ; Zeph. iii. 3. If, then, tyrannous judges 
 be not essentially and formally leopards and 
 lions, but only metaphorically, neither can 
 kings be formally fathers. 2. Not only kings 
 but all judges are fathers, in defending their 
 subjects from violence and the sword, and 
 fighting the Lord's battles for them, and 
 counselling them. If, therefore, royalists ar- 
 gue rightly, a king is essentially a father, and 
 fatherly power and royal power are of the 
 same essence and nature. As, therefore, he 
 who is once a father is ever a father, and his 
 children cannot take up anus against him to 
 resist him, for that is unnatural and repug- 
 nant to the fifth commandment ; so he who 
 is once a king is evermore a king, and it is re- 
 pugnant to the fifth commandment to resist 
 him with arms. It is answered, — that the 
 argument presupposeth that royal power and 
 fatherly power is one and the same in nature, 
 whereas they differ in nature, and are only 
 one by analogy and proportion ; for so pas- 
 tors of the W ord are called fathers, 1 Cor. 
 iv. 15, it will not follow, that once a pastor, 
 evermore a pastor ; and that if therefore pas- 
 tors turn wolves, and by heretical doctrine 
 corrupt the flock, they cannot be cast out of 
 the church. 3. A father, as a father, hath 
 not power of life and death over his sons, be- 
 cause, Rom. xiii., by divine institution the 
 sword is given by God to kings and judges ; 
 and if Adam had had any such power to kill 
 his son Cain for the killing of his brother 
 Abel, it had been given to him by God as a 
 power politic, different from a fatherly pow- 
 er ; for a fatherly power is such as formally 
 to preserve the life of the children, and not 
 to take away the life ; yea, and Adam, though 
 he had never sinned, nor any of his posterity, 
 Adam should have been a perfect father, as 
 he is now indued with all fatherly power that 
 any father now hath ; yea God should not 
 have given the sword or power of punishing 
 ill-doers, since that power should have been 
 in vain, if there had been no violence, nor 
 bloodshed, or sin on the earth ; for the pow- 
 er of the sword and of lawful war, is given to 
 men now in the state of sin. 4. Fatherly go- 
 vernment and power is from the bosom and 
 marrow of that fountain law of nature ; but 
 royal power is not from the law of nature, 
 more than is aristocratical or democratical 
 power. Dr. Feme saith, (part 1, sec. 3, p. 8,) 
 Monarchy is not jure divino, (I am not of 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 63 
 
 his mind,) nor yet from the law of nature, but 
 ductu naturae, by the guidance of nature. 
 Sure it is from a supervenient command- 
 ment of God, added to the first law of na- 
 ture, establishing fatherly power. 5. Chil- 
 dren having their life and first breathings 
 of nature from their parents, must be in a 
 more entire relation from their father than 
 from their prince. Subjects have not their 
 being natural, but their civil, politic and 
 peaceable well-being from their prince. 6. 
 A father is a father by generation, and 
 giving the being of nature to children, and 
 is a natural head and root, without the free 
 consent and suffrages of his children, and is 
 essentially a father to one child, as Adam 
 was to one Cain ; but a prince is a prince by 
 the free suffrages of a community, and can- 
 not be a king to one only, and he is the po- 
 litic head of a civil corporation. 7. A fa- 
 ther, so long as his children liveth, can never 
 leave off to be a father, though he were mad 
 and furious — though he be the most wicked 
 man on earth. Qui genuit filium non po- 
 test non genuisse filium, what is once past 
 cannot, by any power, be not past; a fa- 
 ther is a father for ever. But by confession 
 of royalists, as Barclaius, Hugo Grotius, and 
 Arnisaeus, and others, grant, If a king sell 
 his subjects by sea or land to other nations, 
 - — if he turn a furious Nero, he may be de- 
 throned ; and the power that created the 
 king under such express conditions, as if the 
 king violate them by his own consent he shall 
 be put from the throne — may cease to hold 
 him king; and if a stronger king conquer 
 a king and his subjects, royalists say the 
 conqueror is a lawful king ; and so the con- 
 quered king must also lawfully come down 
 from his throne, and turn a lawful captive 
 sitting in the dust. 8. Learned politicians, 
 as Bartholomeus Romulus, (Defcns. part 1, 
 n. 153,J and Joannes de Anania (in c. fin. 
 de his qui fil. occid. ) teach that "the father 
 is not obliged to reveal the conspiracy of his 
 son against his prince ; nor is he more to ac- 
 cuse his son, than to accuse himself, because 
 the father loveth the son better than him- 
 self," (D. Listi quidem. Sect. Fin. quod, 
 met. caus, et D. L. fin. c. de cura furiosi, ) 
 and certainly a father had rather die in his 
 own person, as choose to die in his son's, in 
 whom he affecteth a sort of immortality, in 
 specie, quando non potest in individuo ; 
 but a king doth not Love his subjects with a 
 natural or fatherly love thus ; and if the af- 
 fections differ, the power which secondeth 
 
 the affection, for the conservation either of 
 being, or well-being, must also differ pro- 
 portionally. 
 
 The P. Prelate (c. 7, p. 87,) objecteth 
 against us thus, stealing word by word from 
 Arnisaeus. 1 1. When a king is elected so- 
 vereign to a multitude, he is surrogated in 
 the place of a common father, Exod. xx. 
 12, *' Honour thy father." Then, as a na- 
 tural father receiveth not paternal right, 
 power, or authority, from his sons, but hath 
 this from God and the ordinance of nature, 
 nor can the king have his right from the 
 community. 2. The maxim of the law is, 
 Surrogatus gaudet privilegus ejus cui sur- 
 rogatur, et qui succedit in locum, succedit 
 in jus. The person surrogated hath all the 
 privileges that he hath in whose place he 
 succeedeth ; he who succeedeth to the place 
 succeedeth to the rights ; the adopted son, 
 or the bastard who is legitimated and Com- 
 eth in the place of the lawful born son, com- 
 eth also in the privileges of the lawful born 
 son. A prince elected cometh to the full 
 possession of the majesty of a natural prince 
 and father, for Modus acquirendi non tol- 
 lit naturale jus possidendi (saith Arnisaeus, 
 more fully than the poor Plagiarius), the 
 manner of acquiring any thing, taketh not 
 away the natural possession, for however 
 things be acquired, if the title be just, pos- 
 session is the law of nations. Then when 
 the king is chosen in place of the father, as 
 the father hath a divine right by nature, (so 
 must the king have that same ;) and seeino- 
 the right proprietor (saith the pamphleting 
 Prelate) had his right by God, by nature, 
 how can it be but howsoever the designa- 
 tion of the person is from the disordered 
 community, yet the collation of the power is 
 from God immediately, and from his sacred 
 and inviolable ordinance? And what can 
 be said against the way by which any one 
 elected obtained his right, for seeing God 
 doth not now send Samuels or Elishas to 
 anoint or declare kings, we are, in his ordi- 
 nary providence, to conceive the designation 
 of the person is the manifestation of God's 
 will, called voluntas signi, as the schools 
 speak, just so as when the church designeth 
 one to sacred orders. 
 
 Ans. 1. — He that is surrogated in the 
 place of another, due to him by a positive 
 law of man, he hath law to all the privileges 
 that he hath in whose place he is surrro- 
 
 1 Arnisaeus de potest princip. c. 3, n. 1, 2. 
 
64 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 gated, that is true. He who is made assig- 
 nee to an obligation for a sum of money, 
 hatli all the rights that the principal party 
 to whom the bond or obligation was made. 
 He who cometh in the place of a mayor of a 
 city, of a captain in an army, of a pilot in a 
 ship, or of a pope, hath all the privileges 
 and rights that his predecessors had by law. 
 Jus succedit juri, persona jure predita per- 
 sonce jure preditce. So the law, so far as 
 my reading can reach, — who profess myself 
 a divine ; — but that he who succeedeth to 
 the place of a father by nature, should en- 
 joy all the natural rights and privileges of 
 the person to whom he succeedeth, I believe 
 the law never dreamed it; for then the 
 adopted son, coming in place of the natural 
 son, hath right to the natural affection of 
 the father. If any should adopt Maxwell 
 the prelate, should he love him as the pur- 
 suivant of Crail (Maxwell's father) loved him, 
 I conceive not. Hath the adopted son his 
 life, his being, the figure bodily, the man- 
 ners of the son in whose place he is adop- 
 ted ; or doth he naturally resemble the fa- 
 ther as the natural son doth ? The Prelate 
 did not read this law in any approved jurist, 
 though he did steal the argument from Ar- 
 nisseus, and stole the citations of Homer 
 and Aristotle out of him, with a little meta- 
 thesis. A natural son is not made a son by 
 the consent of parents, but he is a son by gen- 
 eration : so must the adopted son be adopted 
 without the free consent and grace of the 
 father adopting: so here the king cometh 
 in the place of a natural father. But I con- 
 ceive the law saith not that the elected king 
 is a king without consent of the subjects, as 
 a natural father is a father without the con- 
 sent of his sons. Nor is it a law true, as 
 " once a father always a father," so once an 
 elected king always a king, though he sell 
 his subjects, being induced thereunto by 
 wicked counsellors. If the king have no 
 privileges but what the natural father hath, 
 in whose place he cometh, then, as the na- 
 tural father, in a free kingdom, hath not 
 power of life and death over his sons, neither 
 hath the king power of life and death over 
 his subjects. This is no law. This maxim 
 should prove good if the king were essenti- 
 ally a father by generation and natural pro- 
 pagation ; but he is only a father metapho- 
 rically, and by a borrowed speech. A father 
 non generando, sed pjolitice alendo, tuendo, 
 regendo, therefore an elected prince cometh 
 not in the full possession of all the natural 
 
 power and rights of a natural father. 2. 
 The P. Prelate speaketh disgracefully of 
 the church of God, calling it a disorderly 
 community, as if he himself were born of 
 kings, whereas God calleth the king their 
 shepherd, and the people, " God's flock, in- 
 heritance and people ;" and they are not a 
 disorderly body by nature, but by sin ; in 
 which sense the Prelate may call king, 
 priest and people, a company of heirs of 
 God's wrath, except he be an Arminian 
 still, as once he was. If we are in ordinary 
 providence now, because we have not Sa- 
 muels and prophets to anoint kings, to hold 
 the designation of a person to be king to be 
 the manifestation of God's will, called vol- 
 untas signi, is treason, for if Scotland and 
 England should design Maxwell in the place 
 of king Charles our native sovereign, (an 
 odious comparison,) Maxwell should be law- 
 ful king ; for what is done by God's will, 
 called by our divines (they have it not from 
 schoolmen, as the Prelate ignorantly saith) 
 his signified, will, which is our rule, is done 
 lawfully. There can be no greater treason 
 put in print than this. 
 
 QUESTION XVI. 
 
 WHETHER OR NO A DESPOTICAL ANT) MAS- 
 TERLY DOMINION OF MEN AND THINGS 
 AGREE TO THE KING BECAUSE HE IS KING. 
 
 I may here dispute whether the king be 
 lord, having a masterly dominion both over 
 men and things. But I first discuss shortly 
 his dominion over his subjects. 
 
 It is agreed on by divines, that servitude 
 is a penal fruit of sin, and against nature. In- 
 stitutt. de jure personarum, Sect. 1, and F. 
 de statu hominum. I. libertas ; because all 
 men are born by nature of equal condition. 
 
 Assert. 1 . — The king hath no proper, mas- 
 terly, or lordly dominion over his subjects ; 
 his dominion is rather fiduciary and minis- 
 terial, than masterly. 
 
 1. Because royal empire is essentially to 
 feed, rule, defend, and to govern in peace 
 and godliness, (1 Tim. ii. 2,) as the father 
 doth his children; Psal. lxxviii. 71, " He 
 brought him to feed Jacob his people, and 
 Israel his inheritance ;" Isa. lv. 4, " I gave 
 him for a leader and commander to the peo- 
 ple ;" 2 Sam. v. 2, " Thou shalt feed my 
 people Israel ;" 2 Sam. v. 2 ; 1 Chron. xi. 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 65 
 
 2 ; 1 Chron. xvii. 6.) And so it is for the 
 good of the people, and to bring those oyer 
 whom he is a feeder and ruler, to such a hap- 
 py end ; and, as saith Althusius, (polit. c, 1, 
 n. 13,) and Marius Salomonius, (de princ. c. 
 2,) it is to take care of the good of those over 
 whom the ruler is set, and, conservare est, 
 rem illcesam servare, to keep a thing safe. 
 But to be a master, and to have a masterly 
 and lordly power over slaves and servants, is 
 to make use of servants for the owner's bener 
 fit, not for the good of the slave, (I. 2, de 
 leg, I. Scrvus de servit. expert. Dance po- 
 lit. I. 1, Tolossan. de Rep. I. 1, c. 1, n. 15, 
 16,) therefore are servants bought and sold 
 as goods, [jure belli. F, de statu hominum 
 I. et servorum.) 
 
 2. Not to be under governors and magisr 
 trates is a judgment of God, (Isa. iii. 6, 7 ; 
 iii. 1 ; Hos, iii. 4; Judg. xix. 1, 2,) but not 
 to be under a master as slaves are, is a bless- 
 ing, seeing freedom is a blessing of God, 
 (John viii. 33 ; Exod. xxi r 2, 26, 27 ; Deut. 
 xv, 12 ;) so he that killeth Goliath, (1 Sam. 
 xvii. 25,) his father's house shall be free in 
 Israel. (Jer. xxxiv. 9 ; Acts xxii. 28 ; 1 
 Cor. ix. 19; Gal, iv. 26, 31.) Therefore the 
 power of a king cannot be a lordly and mas- 
 terly power; for then to be under a kingly 
 power should both be a blessing and a curse, 
 and just punishment of sin. 
 
 3. Subjects are called the servants of the 
 king, (1 Sam. xv. 2 ; 2 Chron. xiii. 7 ; 1 
 Kings xii. 7 ; Exod. x. 1, 2 ; Exod. ix. 20,) 
 but they are not slaves, because (Deut. xvii. 
 20) they are his brethren : " That the king's 
 heart be not lifted up against his brethren ;" 
 and his sons; (Isa. xlix. 23 ;) and the Lord 
 gave his people a king as a blessing, (1 Kings 
 x. 9 ; Hos. i. 11 ; Isa. i. 26 ; Jer. xvii. 25,) 
 " and brought them out of the house of bon- 
 dage," (Exod, xx, 2,) as out of a place of 
 misery. And therefore to be the king's ser- 
 vants in the place cited, is some Qther thing 
 than to be the king's slaves. 
 
 4. The master might in some cases sell the 
 servant for money, yea for his own gain he 
 might do it, (Nehem. v. 8 ; Eccles. ii. 7 ; 1 
 Kings ii. 32 ; Gen. ix. 25 ; Gen. xxvi. 14 ; 
 2 Kings iv. 1 ; Gen. xx. 14, and might give 
 away his servants ; and the servants were the 
 proper goods and riches of the master ; (Ec- 
 cles. ii. 7 ; Gen. xxx. 43 ; Gen. xx. 14 ; Job 
 i. 3, 15) ; but the king may not sell his king- 
 dom or subjects, or give them away for mo- 
 ney, or any other way ; for royalists grant 
 that king to be a tyrant, and worthy to be 
 
 dethroned, who shall sell his people ; for the 
 king may not dilapidate the rents of the crown 
 and give them away to the hurt and preju- 
 dice of his successors, (/. ult. Sect, scd nostr. 
 e. Comment, de lege, I. peto, 69, Sect, fra- 
 trem de lege, 2, I. 32, ultimo, D. T.) and far 
 less can he lawfully sell men, and give away 
 a whole kingdom to the hurt of his succes- 
 sors, for that were to make merchandise of 
 the living temples of the Holy Ghost ; and 
 Arnisseus, (de authorit. princip. c. 3, n. 7,) 
 saith, servitude is prceter naturam, beside 
 nature ; he might have said, contrary to na- 
 ture (I. 5, de stat. homin. Sect. 2, Inst, de 
 jur. perso. c. 3, et Novel. 89) ; but the sub- 
 jection of subjects is so consonant to nature, 
 that it is seen in bees and cranes, Therefore 
 a dominion is defined, a faculty of using of 
 things to what uses you will. Now a man 
 hath not this way an absolute dominion over 
 his beasts, to dispose of them at his will ; for 
 a good man hath mercy on the life of his 
 beast, (Prov. xii. 10,) nor hath he dominion 
 over his goods to use them as he will, because 
 he may not use them to the damage of the 
 commonwealth, he may not use them to the 
 dishonour of God ; and so God and the ma- 
 gistrate hath laid sQme bound on his domi- 
 nion. And because the king being made a 
 king leaveth not off to be a reasonable crea- 
 ture, he must be under a law, and so his will 
 and lust cannot be the rule of his power and 
 dominion, but law and reason must regulate 
 him. Now if God had given to the king a 
 dominion over men as reasonable creatures, 
 his power and dominion which by royalists is 
 conceived to be above law, should be a rule 
 to men as reasonable men, which would make 
 men under kings no better than brute beasts, 
 for then should subjects exercise acts of rea- 
 son, not because good and honest, but because 
 their prince commandeth them so to dp ; and 
 if this cannot be said, none can be at the dis- 
 posing of kings in politic acts liable to royal 
 government, that way that the slave is in his 
 actions under the dominion of his master. 
 
 Obj. 1. — The Prelate objecteth out of 
 Spalatq, Arnisseus, and Hugo Grotius, (for in 
 his book there is not one line which is his 
 own, except his railings ;) " All government 
 aud superiority in rulers is not primely and 
 only for the subjects' good ; for some are by 
 God and nature appointed for the mutual 
 and inseparable good of the superior and in- 
 ferior, as in the government of husband and 
 wife, or father and son ; and in herili domi- 
 nio, in the government of a lord and his ser- 
 
66 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 vant, the good and benefit of the servant is 
 but secondary and consecutively intended, it 
 is not the principal end, but the external and 
 adventitious, as the gain that cometh to a 
 physician is not the proper and internal end 
 of his art, but followeth only from his practice 
 of medicine. 
 
 Ans. 1. — The Prelate's logic tendeth to 
 this ; some government tendeth to the mu- 
 tual good of the superior and inferior, but 
 royal government is some government, there- 
 fore, nothing followeth from a major propo- 
 sition, Ex particulars afirmantc, in prima 
 figura ; or of two particular propositions. 2. 
 If it be thus formed, every marital govern- 
 ment, and every government of the lord and 
 servant is for the mutual good of the supe- 
 rior and inferior ; but royal government is 
 such, therefore the assumption is false, and 
 cannot be proved, as I shall anon clear. 
 
 Obj. 2.— Solomon disposed of Cabul and 
 gave it to Hiram, therefore a conquered king- 
 dom is for the good of the conqueror espe- 
 cially. 
 
 Ans. — Solomon's special giving away some 
 titles to the king of Tyre, being a special act 
 of a prophet as well as a king, cannot war- 
 rant the king of England to sell England to 
 a foreign prince, because William made Eng- 
 land his own by conquest, which also is a most 
 false supposition ; and this he stole from Hu- 
 go Grotius, who condemneth selling of king- 
 doms. 
 
 Obj. 3. — A man may render himself to- 
 tally under the power of a master without 
 any conditions ; and why may not the body 
 of a people do the like ? even to have peace 
 and safety, surrender themselves fully to the 
 power of a king ? A lord of great manors 
 may admit no man to live in his lands but 
 upon a condition of a full surrender of him 
 and his posterity to that lord. Tacitus shew- 
 eth us it was so anciently amongst the Ger- 
 mans : those engaged in the campaigns sur- 
 rendered themselves fully to the Komans. 
 
 Ans. — What compelled people may do to 
 redeem their lives, with loss of liberty, is 
 nothing to the point ; such a violent conque- 
 ror who will be a father and a husband to a 
 people, against their will, is not their lawful 
 king ; and that they may sell the liberty of 
 their posterity, not yet born, is utterly de- 
 nied as unlawful ; yea, a violentated father to 
 me is a father, and not a father, and the pos- 
 terity may vindicate their own liberty given 
 away unjustly, before they were born, Qua 
 omne rcgnum vi partum potest vi dissolvi. 
 
 Obj. 4.— But (saith Dr Feme) these 
 which are ours, and given away to another, 
 in which there redoundeth to God by dona- 
 tion a special interest, as in things devoted 
 to holy uses, though after they be abused, 
 yet we cannot recal them ; therefore, if the 
 people be once forced to give away their li- 
 berty, they cannot recal it, far less if they 
 willingly resign it to then- prince. 
 
 Ans. — 1. This is not true, when the power 
 is given for the conservation of the kingdom, 
 and is abused for the destruction thereof; for 
 a power to destruction was never given, nor 
 can it, by rational nature, be given. Morti- 
 fications given to religious uses by a positive 
 law, may be recalled by a more divine and 
 stronger law of nature, such as this, — " I 
 will have mercy and not sacrifice." Sup- 
 pose David, of his own proper heritage, had 
 given the shew-bread to the priests; yet, 
 when David and his men are famishing, he 
 may take it back from them against their 
 will. Suppose Christ had bought the ears 
 of corn, and dedicated them to the altar, yet 
 might he and his disciples eat them in their 
 hunger. The vessels of silver, dedicated to 
 the church, may be taken and bestowed on 
 wounded soldiers. 2. A people free may 
 not, and ought not, totally surrender their 
 liberty to a prince, confiding on his good- 
 ness. (1.) Because liberty is a condition of 
 nature that all men are born with, and they 
 are not to give it away — no, not to a king, 
 except in part and for the better, that they 
 may have peace and justice for it, which is 
 better for them, hie et nunc. (2.) If a peo- 
 ple, trusting in the goodness of their prince, 
 enslave themselves to him, and he shall 
 after turn tyrant, a rash and temerarious 
 surrender obligeth not, Et ignorantia facit 
 factum quasi involuntarium. Ignorance 
 maketh the fact some way involuntary ; for 
 if the people had believed that a meek king 
 would have turned a roaring lion, they should 
 not have resigned their liberty into his hand ; 
 and, therefore, the surrender was tacitly con- 
 ditional to the king as meek, or whom they 
 believed to be meek, and not to a tyrannous 
 lord ; and, therefore, when the contract is 
 made for the utility of the one party, the 
 law saith, their place is for after wits, that 
 men may change their mind and resume 
 their liberty, though, if they had given away 
 their liberty for money, they cannot recal 
 it ; and if violence made the surrender of 
 liberty, here is slavery ; and slaves taken in 
 war, so soon as they can escape and return 
 
THE LAW AM) THE PRINCE. 
 
 <i7 
 
 to their own, they are free. ( D. Sect. item, 
 ea justit. de rerum divin. I. nihil. F. de 
 rapt. I. 3.) So the learned Ferdin. Vasquez 
 (illust. 1. 2. c. 82. n. 15.) saith, " The bird that 
 was taken, and hath escaped, is free." Na- 
 ture in a forced people, so soon as they can 
 escape from a violent conqueror, niaketh 
 them a free people ; and si solo tempore 
 (saith Ferd. Vasquez, 1. 2. c. 82, n. 6,) jus- 
 tificatur subjectio, solo tempore facilius 
 justificabitur liberatio. 
 
 Assert. 2. — All the goods of the subjects 
 belongeth not to the king. I presuppose 
 that tire division of goods doth not necessa- 
 rily flow from the law of nature, for God 
 made man, before the fall, lord of the crea- 
 tures indefinitely ; but what goods be Pe- 
 ter's, and not Paul's, we know not. But sup- 
 posing man's sin, though the light of the sun 
 and air be common to all, and religious 
 places be proper to none, yet it is morally 
 impossible that there should not be a dis- 
 tinction of mcum et tunm, mine and thine ; 
 and the decalogue forbidding theft, and co- 
 veting the wife of another man, (yet is she 
 the wife of Peter, not of Thomas, by free 
 election, not by an act of nature's law,) doth 
 evidence to us, that the division of things is 
 so far forth (men now being in the state of 
 sin) of the law of nature, that it hath evi- 
 dent ground in the law of nations ; and thus 
 far natural, that the heat that I have from 
 my own coat and cloak, and the nourishment 
 from my own meat, are physically incommu- 
 nicable to any. 1 But I hasten to prove the 
 proposition : — If, 1. I have leave to permit 
 that, in time of necessity, all things are com- 
 mon by God's law — a man travelling might 
 eat grapes in his neighbour's vineyard, though 
 he was not licensed to carry any way. I 
 doubt if David, wanting money, was neces- 
 sitated to pay money for the shew-bread, or 
 for Goliath's sword, supposing these to be the 
 very goods of private men, and ordinarily to 
 be bought and sold. Nature's law in ex- 
 tremity, for self-preservation, hath rather a 
 prerogative royal above all laws of nations 
 and all civil laws, than any mortal king; 
 and, therefore, by the civil law, all are the 
 king's, in case of extreme necessity. In this 
 meaning, any one man is obliged to give all 
 he hath for the good of the commonwealth, 
 and so far the good of the king, in as far as 
 
 i Quod jure gentium dieitur. F. de justitia et jure, 
 1. ex hoc. — Quod partim jure civili. Justi. de rerum 
 divisio. sect, singulorum. 
 
 he is head and father of the commonwealth. 1 
 2. All things are the king's, in regard of his 
 public power to defend all men and their 
 goods from unjust violence. 3. All are the 
 king's, in regard of his act of conservation of 
 goods, for the use of the just owner. 4. All 
 are the king's in regard of a legal limitation, 
 in case of a damage offered to the common- 
 wealth. Justice requireth confiscation of 
 goods for a fault ; but confiscated goods are 
 to help the interested commonwealth, and 
 the king, not as a man (to bestow them on 
 his children) but as a king. To this we 
 may refer these called bona caduca et in- 
 venta, things lost by shipwreck or any other 
 providence, Ulpian, tit. 19, t. c. de bonis 
 vacantibus. C. de Thesanro. 
 
 Arg. 1. — And the reasons why private 
 men are just lords and proprietors of their 
 own goods, are, — 1. Because, by order of 
 nature, division of goods cometh nearer to 
 nature's law and necessity than any king or 
 magistrate in the world ; and because it is 
 agreeable to nature that every man be 
 warmed by his own fleece — nourished by 
 his own meat, therefore, to conserve every 
 man's goods to the just owner, and to pre- 
 serve a community from the violence of ra- 
 pine and theft, a magistrate and king was 
 devised. So it is clear, men are just owners 
 of their own goods, by all good order, both 
 of nature and time, before there be any such 
 thing as a king or magistrate. Now, if it 
 be good that every man enjoy his own goods, 
 as just proprietor thereof, for his own use, 
 before there be a king, who can be proprie- 
 tor of his goods ? And a king being given of 
 God for a blessing, not for any man's hurt 
 and loss, the king cometh in to preserve a 
 man's goods, but not to be lord and owner 
 thereof himself, nor to take from any man 
 God's right to his own goods. 
 
 Arg. 2. — When God created man at the 
 beginning, he made all the creatures for 
 man, and made them by the law of nature 
 the proper possession of man, but then there 
 was not any king formally as king ; for cer- 
 tainly Adam was a father before he was a 
 king, and no man being either born or crea- 
 ted a king over another man, no more than 
 the first lion and the first eagle that God 
 created, were, by the birthright and first 
 start of creation, by nature the king of all 
 lions and all eagles to be after created, — no 
 
 1 L. item si verberatum. F. de rei vindicat. 
 plenc. m. lib. Barbarius. F. de offici. praetor. 
 
68 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 man can, by nature's law, be the owner of 
 all goods of particular men. And because 
 the law of nations, founded upon the law of 
 nature, hath brought in meum et tuum, mine 
 and thine, as proper to every particular man, 
 and the introduction of kings cannot over- 
 turn nature's foundation ; neither civility nor 
 grace destroyeth but perfecteth nature ; and 
 if a man be not born a king, because he is a 
 man, he cannot be born the possessor of my 
 goods. 
 
 Arg. 3. — What is a character and note of 
 a tyrant, and an oppressing king as a tyrant, 
 is not the just due of a king as a king ; but 
 to take the proper goods of subjects, and use 
 them as his own, is a proper character and 
 note of a tyrant and oppressor ; therefore the 
 proposition is evident : A king and a tyrant 
 are, by way of contradiction, contrary one to 
 another. The assumption is proved thus : — 
 Ezek. xlv. 9, 10, " Thus saith the Lord, 
 Let it suffice you, O princes of Israel: re- 
 move violence and spoil, and execute judg- 
 ment and justice ; take away your exactions 
 from my people, saith the Lord. Ye shall 
 have just balances, and a just ephah, and a 
 just bath." If all be the king's, he is not 
 capable of extortion and rapine. God com- 
 plaineth of the violence of kings, Micah iii. 
 1,3," Is it not for you to know judgment ? 
 who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay 
 their skins from off them ; and they break 
 their bones and chop them in pieces; as for 
 the pot, and as flesh within the chaldron." 
 (Isa. iii. 14 ; Zeph. iii. 3.) Was it not an 
 act of tyranny hi king Achab to take the 
 vineyard of Naboth? and in king Saul (1 
 Sam. viii. 14) to take the people of God's 
 " fields and vineyards, and oliveyards, and 
 give them to his servants ?" Was it a just 
 fault that Hybreas objected to Antonius, ex- 
 acting two tributes in one year, that he said, 
 " If thou must have two tributes in one 
 year, then make for us two summers and 
 two harvests in one year ?" This cannot be 
 just. If all be the king's, the king taketh 
 but his own. 
 
 Arg. 4. — Subjects under a monarch could 
 not give alms, nor exercise works of charity -, 1 
 for charity must be my own, Isa. lviii. 7, 
 " Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry;" 
 &c; Eccles. xi. 1, " Cast thy bread upon the 
 waters ;" and the law saith, " It is theft to 
 
 1 Species enim fuiti est tie ulimo largiri, et bene- 
 ficii debitorcm sibi acquirere, L. si pignore, sect. 
 <le furt. 
 
 give of another man's to the poor ;" yea, 
 the distinction of poor and rich should have 
 no place under a monarchy, he only should 
 be rich. 
 
 Arg. 5. — When Paul commandeth us to 
 pay tribute to princes (Rom. xiii. 6) because 
 they are the ministers of God, he layeth 
 this ground, that the king hath not all, but 
 that the subjects are to give to him of their 
 goods. 
 
 Arg. 6. — It is the king's place, by jus- 
 tice, to preserve every man in his own right, 
 and under his own fig-tree ; therefore, it is 
 not the king's house. 
 
 Arg. 7. — Even Pharaoh could not make 
 all the victual of the land his own, while he 
 had bought it with money ; and every thing 
 is presumed to be free (allodialis, free land,) 
 except the king prove that it is bought or 
 purchased. L. actius, C. de servit. et aqua. 
 et Joan. And. m. C. F. de ind. et hosti. in 
 C. minus de jur. 
 
 Arg. 8. — If the subjects had no propriety 
 in their own goods, but all were the prince's 
 due, then the subject should not be able to 
 make any contract of buying and selling 
 without the king, and every subject were in 
 the case of a slave. Now the law saith, (L. 
 2. F. de Noxali. act. 1. 2. F. ad legem 
 aquil.) When he maketh any covenant, 
 he is not obliged civilly to keep it, because 
 the condition of a servant; he not being sui 
 juris, is compared to the state of a beast, 
 though he be obliged by a natural obliga- 
 tion, being a rational creature, in regard of 
 tbe law of nature, L. naturaliter, L. si id 
 qttod, L. interdum, F. de cond. indebit. 
 cum aliis. The subject could not, by Solo- 
 mon, be forbidden to be surety for his friend, 
 as king Solomon doth counsel, (Prov. vi. 1 
 — 3 ;) he could not be condemned to bring 
 on himself poverty by sluggishness, (as Prov. 
 vi. 6 — 10 ;) nor were he to honour the Lord 
 with his riches, (as Prov. iii. 9 ;) nor to keep 
 his covenant, though to his loss, (Psal. xv. 
 14 ;) nor could he be merciful and lend, 
 (Psal. xxxvii. 26 ;) nor had he power to 
 borrow ; nor could he be guilty in not pay- 
 ing all again. (Psal. xxxvii. 21.) For sub- 
 jects, under a monarchy, can neither per- 
 form a duty, nor fail in a duty, in the mat- 
 ter of goods. If all be the king's, what 
 power or dominion hath the subject in dis- 
 posing of his prince's goods ? See more in 
 Petr. Rebuffus, tract, congruce portionis, 
 n. 22b, p. 109, 110. Sed quoad domini- 
 um rerum, fyc. 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 QUESTION XVII. 
 
 WHETHER OR NOT THE PRINCE HAVE PROPER- 
 LY A FIDUCIARY AND MINISTERIAL POWER 
 OF A TUTOR, HUSBAND, PATRON, MINISTER, 
 HEAD, FATHER OF A FAMILY, NOT OF A 
 LORD OR DOMINATOR. 
 
 That the power of the king is fiduciary, 
 that is, given to him immediately by God 
 in trust, royalists deny not ; but we hold 
 that the trust is put upon the king by the 
 people. We deny that the people give 
 themselves to the king as a gift, for what 
 is freely given cannot be taken again ; but 
 they gave themselves to the king as a pawn, 
 and if the pawn be abused, or not Used in 
 that manner as it was conditioned to be 
 used, the party in whose hand the pawn is 
 intrusted, faileth in his trust. 
 
 Assert. 1.— The king is more properly a 
 tutor than a father. 1. Indigency is the 
 original of tutors — the parents die ; what 
 then shall become of the orphan and his in- 
 heritance ? He cannot guide it himself, 
 therefore nature devised a tutor to supply 
 the place of a father, and to govern the tu- 
 tor ; but, with this consideration, the father 
 is lord of the inheritance, and if he be dis- 
 tressed, may sell it, that it shall never come 
 to the son-, and the father, for the bad de- 
 serving of his son, may disinherit him ; but 
 the tutor, being but a borrowed father, can- 
 not sell the inheritance of the pupil, nor can 
 he, for the pupil's bad deserving, by any do- 
 minion of justice over the pupil, take away 
 the inheritance from him, and give it to his 
 own son. So a community of itself, because 
 of sin, is a naked society that can but de- 
 stroy itself, and every one eat the flesh of 
 his brother • therefore G-od hath appointed a 
 king or governor, who shall take care of that 
 community-, rule them in peace, and save all 
 from reciprocation of mutual acts of violence, 
 yet so as, because a trust is put on the ruler 
 of a community which is not his heritage, he 
 cannot dispose of it as he pleaseth, because 
 he is not the proper owner of the inheri- 
 tance. 2. The pupil, when he cometh to 
 age, may call his tutor to an account for his 
 administration. I do not acknowledge that 
 as a truth, which Arnisseus saith, (de au- 
 thoritate prin. c. 3, n. 5,) " The common- 
 wealth is always minor and under tutory, be- 
 cause it alway hath need of a curator and 
 governor, and can never put away its gover- 
 
 nor ; but the pupil may grow to age and 
 wisdom, so as he may be without all tutors 
 and can guide himself, and so may call in 
 question on his tutor ; and the pupil cannot 
 be his judge, but must stand to the sentence 
 of a superior judge, and so the people can- 
 not judge or punish their prince — God must 
 be judge betwixt them both." 
 
 But this is begging the question ; every 
 comparison halteth. There is no community 
 but is major in this, that it can appoint its 
 own tutors ; and though it cannot be without 
 all rulers, yet it may well be without this or 
 that prince and ruler, and, therefore, may 
 resume its power, which it gave conditionally 
 to the ruler for its own safety and good ; and 
 in so far as this condition is violated, and 
 power turned to the destruction of the com- 
 monwealth, it is to be esteemed as not given ; 
 and though the people be not a politic judge 
 in their own cause, yet in case of manifest 
 oppression, nature can teach them to oppose 
 defensive violence against offensive. A com- 
 munity in its politic body is also above any 
 ruler, and may judge what is manifestly de- 
 structive to itself. 
 
 06/.— The pupil hath not power to ap- 
 point his own tutor, nor doth he give power 
 to him ; so neither doth the people give it 
 to the king. 
 
 Ans. — The pupil hath not indeed a for- 
 mal power to make a tutor, but he hath 
 virtually a legal power in his father, who 
 appointeth a tutor for his son ; and the peo- 
 ple hath virtually all royal power in them, 
 as in a sort of immortal and eternal foun- 
 tain, and may create to themselves many 
 kings. 
 
 Assert. 2.— The king's power is not pro- 
 perly and univocally a marital and husbandly 
 power, but only analogically. 1. The wife 
 by nature is the weaker vessel, and inferior 
 to the man, but the kingdom, as shall be 
 demonstrated, is superior to the king. 2. 
 The wife is given as an help to the man, but 
 by the contrary, the father here is given as 
 an help and father to the commonwealth, 
 which is presumed to be the wife. 3. Ma- 
 rital and husbandly power is natural, though 
 it be not natural but from free election that 
 Peter is Ana's husband, and should have 
 been, though man had never sinned ; but 
 royal power is a politic constitution, and the 
 world might have subsisted though aristo- 
 cracy or democracy had been the only and 
 perpetual governments. So let the Prelate 
 glory in his borrowed logic ; he had it from 
 
70 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 Barclay. " It is not in the power of the 
 wife to repudiate her husband, though never 
 so wicked. She is tyed to him for ever, and 
 may not give to him a bill of divorcement, 
 as by law the husband might give to her. 
 If therefore the people swear loyalty to him, 
 they keep it, though to their hurt." Psal. 
 xv. — Ans. There is nothing here said, ex- 
 cept Barclay and the Plagiary prove that 
 the king's power is properly a husband's 
 power, which they cannot prove but from a 
 simile that crooketh. But a king, elected 
 upon conditions, that if he sell his people he 
 shall lose his crown, is as essentially a king as 
 Adam was Eve's husband, and yet, by grant 
 of parties, the people may never divorce 
 from such a king, and dethrone him, if he 
 sell his people ; but a wife may divorce from 
 her husband, as the argument saith. And 
 this poor argument the Prelate stole from 
 Dr Feme (part 2, sect. 3, p. 10, 11). The 
 keeping of covenant, though to our hurt, is 
 a penal hurt, and loss of goods, not a moral 
 hurt, and loss of religion. 
 
 Assert. 3. — The king is more properly a 
 sort of patron, to defend the people, (and 
 therefore hath no power given either by God 
 or man to hurt the people,) and a minister, 
 or public and honourable servant, (Rom. 
 xiii. 4,) for he is the minister of God to 
 thee for good. 1. He is the commonwealth's 
 servant objectively, because all the king's 
 service, as he is king, is for the good, safety, 
 peace and salvation of the people, and in 
 this he is a servant. 2. He is the servant 
 of the people representatively, in that the 
 people hath impawned in his hand all their 
 power to do royal service. 
 
 Ob). 1. — He is the servant of God, there- 
 fore he is not the people's servant, but their 
 sovereign lord. 
 
 Ans. — It followeth not ; because all the 
 services the king, as king, performeth to 
 God, are acts of royalty, and acts of royal 
 service, as terminated on the people, or acts 
 of their sovereign lord; and this proveth, 
 that to be their sovereign is to be their ser- 
 vant and watchman. 
 
 Obj. 2. — God maketh a king only, and 
 the kingly power is in him only, not in the 
 people. 
 
 Ans. 1. — The royal power is only from 
 God immediately, — immediatione simplicis 
 constitutionis, et solum a Deo solitudine 
 primce causae, — by the immediation of sim- 
 ple constitution, none but God appointed 
 there should be kings. But, 2. Royal power 
 
 is not in God, nor only from God, imme- 
 diatione applicationis regice dignitatis 
 ad personam, nee a Deo solum, solitudine 
 causce applicantis dignitatem, huic, non 
 Mi, in respect of the applying of royal dig- 
 nity to this person, not to that. 
 
 Obj. 3. — Though royal power were given 
 to the people, it is not given to the people 
 as if it were the royal power of the people, 
 and not the royal power of God, neither is 
 it any otherwise bestowed on the people but 
 as on a beam, a channel, an instrument by 
 which it is derived to others, and so the king 
 is not the minister or servant of the people. 
 
 Ans. — It is not in the people as in the 
 principal cause ; sure all royal power that way 
 is only in God ; but it is in the people as in 
 the instrument, and when the people maketh 
 David their king at Hebron, in that same 
 very act, God, by the people using their free 
 suffrages and consent, maketh David king at 
 Hebron ; so God only giveth rain, and none 
 of the vanities and supposed gods of the Gen- 
 tiles can give rain, (Jer. xiv. 22,) and yet 
 the clouds also give rain, as nature, as an or- 
 gan and vessel out of which God poureth 
 down rain upon the dry earth ; (Amos ix. 
 6 ;) and every instrument under God that is 
 properly an instrument, is a sort of vicarious 
 cause in God's room, and so the people as in 
 God's room applieth royal power to David, 
 not to any of Saul's sons, and appointeth Da- 
 vid to be their royal servant to govern, and 
 in that to serve God, and to do that which a 
 community now in the state of sin cannot for- 
 mally do themselves ; and so I see not how 
 it is a service to the people, not only objec- 
 tively, because the king's royal service tend- 
 eth to the good, and peace, and safety of the 
 people, but also subjectively, in regard he 
 hath his power and royal authority which he 
 exerciseth as king from the people under 
 God, as God's instruments ; and, therefore, 
 the king and parliament give out laws and 
 statutes in the name of the whole people of 
 the land ; and they are but flatterers, and 
 belie the Holy Ghost, who teach that the 
 people do not make the king ; for Israel made 
 Saul king at Mizpeh, and Israel made David 
 king at Hebron. 
 
 Obj. 4. — Israel made David king, that 
 is, Israel designed David's person to be king, 
 and Israel consented to God's act of making 
 David king, but they did not make David 
 king. 
 
 Ans. — I say not that Israel made the roy- 
 al dignity of kings : God (Deut. xvii.) insti- 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 71 
 
 tutcd that himself; but the royalist must give 
 us an act of God going before an act of the 
 people's making David king at Hebron, by 
 which David of no king is made formally a 
 king ; and then another act of the people, 
 approving only and consenting to that act of 
 God, whereby David is made formally of no 
 king to be a king. This royalists shall never 
 instruct, for there be only two acts of God 
 here ; 1. God's act of anointing David by the 
 hand of Samuel ; and 2. God's act of making 
 David king at Hebron ; and a third they 
 shall never give. But the former is not that 
 by which David was essentially and formally 
 changed from the state of a private subject 
 and no king, into the state of a public judge 
 and supreme lord and king ; for (as I have 
 proved) after this act of anointing of David 
 king, he was designed only and set apart to 
 be king in the Lord's fit time ; and after this 
 anointing, he was no more formally a king 
 than Doeg or Nabal were kings, but a sub- 
 ject who called Saul the Lord's anointed and 
 king, and obeyed him as another subject doth 
 his king ; but it is certain God by no other act 
 made David king at Hebron, than by Israel's 
 act of free electing him to be king and leader 
 of the Lord's people, as God by no other act 
 sendeth down rain on the earth, but by his 
 melting the clouds, and causing rain to tall on 
 the earth ; and therefore to say Israel made 
 David king at Hebron, that is, Israel approv- 
 ed only and consented to a prior act of God's 
 making David king, is just to say Saul pro- 
 phecied, that is, Saul consented to a prior act 
 of the Spirit of God who prophecied ; and 
 Peter preached, (Acts ii.) that is, Peter ap- 
 proved and consented to the Holy Ghost's 
 act of preaching, which to say, is childish. 
 
 Assert. 4. — The king is an head of the 
 commonwealth only metaphorically, by a bor- 
 rowed speech in a politic sense, because he 
 ruleth, commandeth, directeth the whole po- 
 litic body in all their operations and func- 
 tions. But he is not univocally and essen- 
 tially the head of the commonwealth. 1. 
 The very same life in number that is in the 
 head, is in the members ; there be divers dis- 
 tinct souls and lives in the king and in his 
 subjects. 2. The head natural is not made 
 an head by the free election and consent of 
 arms, shoulders, legs, toes, fingers, &c. The 
 king is made king only by the free election 
 of his people. 3. The natural head, so long- 
 as the person liveth, is ever the head, and 
 cannot cease to be a head while it is seated 
 on the shoulders ; the king, if he sell his | 
 
 people's persons and souls, may leave off to 
 lie a king and head. 4. The head and mem- 
 bers live together and die together, the king 
 and the people are not so ; the king may die 
 and the people live. 5. The natural head 
 cannot destroy the members and preserve it- 
 self; but king Nero may waste and destroy 
 his people. Dr Feme, M. Symmons, the P. 
 Prelate, when they draw arguments from the 
 head, do but dream, as the members should 
 not resist the head. Natural members should 
 not or cannot resist the head, though the 
 hand may pull a tooth out of the head, which 
 is no small violence to the head ; but the 
 members of a politic body may resist the po- 
 litic head. This or that king is not the 
 adequate and total politic head of the com- 
 monwealth ; and therefore though you cut off 
 a politic head, there is nothing done against 
 nature. If you cut off all kings of the royal 
 fine, and all governors aristocratical, both 
 king and parliament, this were against na- 
 ture ; and a commonwealth which would cut 
 off all governors and all heads, should go 
 against nature and run to ruin quickly. I 
 conceive a society of reasonable men cannot 
 want governors. 6. The natural head com- 
 municateth life, sense, and motion to the 
 members, and is the seat of external and in- 
 ternal senses ; the king is not so. 
 
 Assert. 5. — Hence the king is not properly 
 the head of a family, for, as Tholossa saith 
 well, (de Rep. 1. 5, c. 5,) Nature hath one in- 
 tention in making the thumb, another in- 
 tention in making the whole hand, another 
 in forming the body ; so there is one inten- 
 tion of the God of nature in governing of one 
 man, another in governing a family, another 
 in governing a city : nor is the thumb king 
 of all the members ; so domestic government 
 is not monarchical properly. 1. The mother 
 hath a parental power as the father hath, 
 (Prov. iv. 5 ; x. 3 ; xxxi. 17,) so the fifth 
 commandment saith, " Honour thy father and 
 thy mother." 2. Domestic government is 
 natural, monarchical politic. 3. Domestic is 
 necessary, monarchical is not necessary ; other 
 government may be as well as it. 4. Do- 
 mestic is universal, monarchical not so. 5. 
 Domestic hath its rise from natural instinct 
 without any farther instruction ; a monarchi- 
 cal government is not but from election, 
 choosing one government, not another. Hence 
 that is a fiduciary power, or a power of trust, 
 wherein the thing put in trust is not either 
 his own proper heritage or gift, so as he may 
 dispose of it as he pleaseth, as men dispose of 
 
72 
 
 LEX, REX ; 
 
 their goods or heritage. But the king may 
 not dispose of men as men, as he pleaseth ; 
 nor of laws as he pleaseth ; nor of governing 
 men, killing or keeping alive, punishing and 
 rewarding, as he pleaseth. My life and re- 
 ligion, and so my soul, in some eases, are com- 
 mitted to the king as to a public watchman, 
 even as the flock to the feeder, the city to 
 the watchmen ; and he may betray it to the 
 enemy. Therefore, he hath the trust of life 
 and religion, and hath both tables of the law 
 in his custody, ex officio, to see that other 
 men than himself keep the law. But tbe law 
 is not the king's own, but given to him in 
 trust. He who receiveth a kingdom condi- 
 tionally, and may be dethroned if he sell it 
 or put it away to any other, is a fiduciary pa- 
 tron, and hath it only in trust. So Hotto- 
 man, (quest, ill. 1.) Ferdinand. Vasquez, 
 (Must, quest. LI, & 4.) Althusius, (polk, 
 c. 24, n. 35,) so saith the law of every factor 
 or deputy, (1. 40, 1. 63, procur. 1. 16, C. diet. 
 1.) Antigonus dixit regnum esse nobilem 
 servitutem. Tyberius Caesar called the ser 
 nate, dominum suum, his lord. (Suetonius 
 in vita Tiberii, c. 29.) 
 
 QUESTION XVIII. 
 
 WHAT IS THE LAW OF THE KING, AND HIS 
 POWER? 
 
 1 Sam. viii. 11. " This rvill be the manner of the king 
 who shall reign over you," &c. 
 
 This place, (1 Sam. viii. 11,) the law or 
 manner of the king is alleged to prove both 
 the absolute power of kings, and the unlaw- 
 fulness of resistance ; therefore I crave leave 
 here to vindicate the place, and to make it 
 evident to all that the place speaketh for no 
 such matter. Grotius argueth thus : x " that 
 by this place, the people oppressed with in- 
 juries of a tyi-annous king have nothing left 
 them but prayers and cries to God ; and 
 therefore there is no ground for violent re- 
 sisting." Barclay 2 will have us to distinguish 
 inter officium regis, et potestatem, between 
 the king's office and the king's power ; and 
 he will have the Lord here speaking, not of 
 
 1 Grotius de jure belli et pacis, lib. 1, c. 4, n. 3. 
 
 2 Barclaius contra Monarchom. lib. 2, p. 64. Po- 
 testatem intelligit non earn quae corapetit ex pras- 
 cepto, neque etiam quae ex permissu est, quatenus 
 liberat a peccato, sed quatenus paenis legalibus exi- 
 mit operantem. 
 
 the king's office, what he ought to do before 
 God, but what power a king hath beside and 
 above the power of judges, to tyrannise over 
 the people, so as the people hath no power to 
 resist it. He will have the office of the king 
 spoken of Deut. xvii., and the power of the 
 king, 1 Sam. viii., and that power which the 
 people was to obey and submit unto without 
 resisting. But I answer, 1. It is a vain 
 thing to distinguish betwixt the office and the 
 power ; for the power is either a power to 
 rule according to God's law, as he is com? 
 manded, (Deut. xvii.) and this is the veryofV 
 fice or official power which the King of kings 
 hath given to all kings under him, and this 
 is a power of the royal office of a king, to 
 govern for the Lord his Maker ; or this is 
 a power to do ill and tyrannise over God's 
 people ; but this is accidental to a king and 
 the character of a tyrant, and is not from 
 God, and so the law of the king in this place 
 must be the tyranny of the king, which is our 
 very mind. 2. " lieges sine dominatione ne 
 concipi quidem possunt ; — judices domi- 
 nationem in populum minime habebant."^ 
 Hence it is clear that Barclay saith, that 
 the judges of Israel and the kings are 
 different in essence and nature ; so that do- 
 mination is so essential to a king, that you 
 cannot conceive a king but he must have 
 domination, whereas the judges of Israel 
 had no domination over the people. Hence 
 I argue, that whereby a king is essentially 
 distinguished from a judge that must be 
 from God ; but by domination, which is a 
 power to oppress the subject, a king is esr 
 sentially distinguished from a judge qf Is- 
 rael ; therefore, domination and a power to 
 do acts of tyranny, as they are expressed, 
 (ver. 11 — 13,) and to oppress a subject, is 
 from God, and so must be a lawful power. 
 But the conclusion is absurd ; the assump- 
 tion is the doctrine of Barclay. The major 
 proposition I prove. 1. Because both the 
 judge and the king was from God ; for God 
 gave Moses a lawful calling to be a judge, 
 so did he to Eli and to Samuel, and hence 
 (Deut. xvii, 15) the king is a lawful ordi- 
 nance of God. If then the judge and the 
 king be both lawful ordinances, and if they 
 differ essentially, as Barclay saith, then 
 that specific form which distinguished! the 
 one from the other, to wit, domination and 
 a power to destroy the subject, must be 
 from God ; which is blasphemous : for God 
 
 3 Barclaius contra Monarcho. lib. 2. p. 56, 57. 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 can give no moral power to do wickedly ; for 
 that is licence, and a power to sin against 
 a law of God, which is absolutely inconsis- 
 tent with the holiness of God ; for so the 
 Lord might deny himself, and dispense with 
 sin. God avert such blasphemies ! 2. Now 
 if the kingly power be from God, that which 
 essentially and specifically constituteth a 
 king must be from God, as the office itself 
 is from God. Barclay saith^ expressly that 
 the kingly power is from God, and that 
 same, which is the specific form that con- 
 stituteth a king, must be that which essen- 
 tially separateth the king from the judge, 
 if they be essentially different, as Barclay 
 dreameth. Hence have we this jus reals, 
 this manner or law of the king to tyrannise 
 and oppress, to be a power from God, and 
 so a lawful power, by which you shall have 
 this result of Barclay's interpretation, — that 
 God made a tyrant as well as a king. 3, 
 By this difference that Barclay putteth be- 
 twixt the king and the judge, the judge 
 might be resisted ; for he had not this power 
 of domination that Saul hath, contrary to 
 Rom. xiij. 2 ; Exod, xxii. 28 ; xx, 12. 
 
 But let us try the text first, "lyOH 
 DBii^Q the word cannot enforce us to ex- 
 pone CDDJ^D a law, our English rendereth, 
 Show them the manner of the king. Arri. 
 Montanus turneth it ratio regis. 2 I grant 
 the LXX. render it, ™ hzaivpa rtfi jG«<n'Asa>f . 3 
 The Chaldee Paraphrase saith,* Statutum 
 regis. Hieronimus translateth it jus regis, 
 and also Calvin ; but I am sure the He- 
 brew, both in words and sense, beareth a 
 consuetude ; yea, and the word JODJ^D sig- 
 nifieth not always a law, as, (Josh. vi. 14,) 
 " They compassed the city IDSt^^DD seven 
 
 times : the IjXX. Ktf.ro. r.iv y^'iixa. rovri ', 2 
 
 Kings xvii. 26, They " know not the man- 
 ner of the God of the land ; (ver. 33) they 
 served their own gods, after the manner of 
 the heathen." DVTil tDSt^DD can- 
 not be according to the law or right of the 
 heathen, except £3D^D> be taken in an 
 
 evil part : the LXX. Kara re, Kfifta rZ/ \hm, 
 
 ver. 34, " Until this day they do after these 
 manners ;" 1 Kings xviii. 28, Baal's priests 
 " cut themselves with knives OtDS^DD 
 after their manner :" the LXX. Kara. ™\ 
 itutit.it ; Gen. xl. 13, Thou shalt give the 
 cup to Pharaoh, according as thou wast 
 
 i Barclaius, lib. 3, c. 2. 
 
 2 Arr. Mon. Haec erit ratio Regis. 
 
 3 Chald. Para. KPT XDQ1 NOSDI- 
 
 wont to do; tDDJJ^D, Exod. xxi. 9, "He 
 shall deal with her after the manner of 
 daughters;" 1 Sam. xxvii. 1\, "And Da- 
 vid saved neither man nor woman alive, to 
 bring tidings to Gatli, saying, So did David, 
 and so will his manner be," V&QWD- It 
 cannot be they meant that it was David's 
 law, right, or privilege, to spare none a- 
 live ; 1 Sam. ii. 13, " And the priests' cus- 
 tom with the people was," &c. D^POtl 
 1535^01- This was a wicked custom, not a 
 law ; and the LXX. turneth it, *«,' rh $/*«/- 
 afia rcu U£uf ; and therefore hxampa is not al- 
 ways taken in a good meaning : so P. Mar- 
 tyr, 1 " He meaneth here of an usurped law;" 
 Calvin,? Non jus a deo preseriptum, seal 
 tyranidcm, — " He speaketh not of God's 
 law here, but of tyranny ;" and Rivetus, 3 
 DDJtO signifieth not ever jus, law. Sed 
 aliquando morem sive modum et rationcm 
 agendi, — " The custom and manner of do- 
 ing:" so Junius* and Tremellius. Dioda- 
 tus^ exponeth jus,— This law, " namely, 
 (saith he,) that which is now grown to a 
 common custom, by the consent of nations 
 and God's toleration." Glossa, 6 (to speak 
 of papists,) Exactioneni ct dominationem, 
 — " The extortion and domination of king 
 Saul is here meant ;" Lyra 7 exponeth it 
 tyranny ; Tostatus Abulens., 8 " He mean- 
 eth here of kings indefinitely who oppressed 
 tlje people with taxes and tributes, as So- 
 lomon and others;" Cornelius a Lapide, 9 
 " This was an unjust law;" Cajetanus 10 call- 
 eth it tyranny; Hugo Cardinal, nameth 
 them, exactiones et servitudes,— fi exactions 
 and slaveries ;" and Serrarius speaketh not 
 here, Quid Reges jure possint, — " What 
 they may do by right and law :" Sed quid 
 audeant, — " What they will be bold to do, 
 and what they tyranically decern against 
 all laws of nature and humanity ;" and so 
 speaketh Thorn. Aquinas ; u so also Men- 
 
 1 P, Martyr, comment. 1 Sam. viii,, verum jus re- 
 gium desprib'it in Deut. apnd Samuelum autem usur- 
 patum. 
 
 2 Calvin, cone. 1 Sam. viii. 
 
 3 Andr. Rivetus in decal., Exod. xx. in 5, mun- 
 dat., p. 165. 
 
 4 Junius annot., in 1 Sam. ii. 13. 
 
 5 Diodatus annot., 1 Sam. viii. 3. 
 
 6 Glossa interlinearis. 
 
 7 Lyra in locum, hie accipitur jus large sumptum 
 qnod reputatur jus propter malum abusum. Nam 
 ilia quas dicuntur hie de jure Regis, magis coutin- 
 gunt per tyranidem. 
 
 8 Tostatus Abulens. in 1 Reg. 8, q. 17, de q. 21. 
 
 9 Cornelius a Lapide, in locum. 
 10 Cajetanus, in locum. 
 
 » Thorn. Aquinas, L 3, de Regni Princip. c. I}. 
 M 
 
LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 doza 1 speaketh of the "law of tyrants;" 
 and, amongst the fathers, Clemens Alexan- 
 drinus saith on this place, Non humanum 
 pollicetur dominium, sed insolentem datn- 
 rum minatur tyrannum, — " He promiseth 
 not a humane prince, but threateneth to give 
 them an insolent tyrant ;" and the like also 
 saith Bede ; 3 and an excellent lawyer, Pet. 
 Rebuffus saith, 4 Etiam loquitur de tyran- 
 no qui non crat a Deo electus, and that he 
 speaketh of Saul's tyrannical usurpation, and 
 not of the law prescribed by God, Deut. 
 xvii., I prove, — 1. He speaketh of such a 
 power as is answerable to the acts here 
 spoken of ; but the acts here spoken of are 
 acts of mere tyranny; ver. 11, "And this 
 will be the manner of your king that shall 
 reign over you : he will take your sons, and 
 appoint them for himself, for his chariots, 
 and to be his horsemen ; and some shall 
 run before his chariots." Now, to make 
 slaves of their sons was an act of tyranny. 
 2. To take their fields, and vineyards, and 
 oliveyards from them, and give them to his 
 servants, was no better than Ahab's taking 
 Naboth's vineyard from him, which by God's 
 law he might not lawfully sell, except in the 
 case of extreme poverty, and then, in the 
 year of jubilee, he might "redeem his own 
 inheritance. 3.' (Ver. 15, 16,) To put the 
 people of God to bondage, and make them 
 servants, was to deal with them as the ty- 
 rant Pharaoh did. 4. He speaketh of such 
 a law, the execution whereof should " make 
 them cry out to the Lord because of their 
 king ;" but the execution of the just law of 
 the king (Deut. xvii.) is a blessing, and not 
 a bondage which should make the people cry 
 out of the bitterness of their spirit. 5. It is 
 clear here that God is, by his prophet, not 
 instructing the king in his duty, but, as 
 Rabbi Levi Ben. Gersom. saith, 4 " Terrify- 
 ing them from their purpose of seeking a 
 king, and foretelling the evil of punishment 
 that they should suffer under a tyrannous 
 king;" but he speaketh not one word of 
 these necessary and comfortable acts of fa- 
 vour that a good king, by his good govern- 
 
 1 Mendoza, jus Tyrannorum. 
 
 2 Clemens Alexand. p. 26. 
 
 3 Beda, 1. 2, expo, in Samuel. 
 
 4 Pet. Rebuffus tract, de incongrua. prert. p. 110. 
 
 5 Ben. Gersom. in 1 Sam. viii., Pezelius in rxp. 
 leg. Mosai. 1.4, c. 8. Tossan. in not. Bibl. Bosseus 
 de Rep. Christ, potest, supra regem, c. 2, n, 103. 
 Bodin. de Rep. 1. 1, c. 19. Brentius, homil. 27, in 
 1 Sam. viii., Mos regis non de jure, sed de vulgatam 
 consuetudine. 
 
 ment, was to do for his people. Deut. xvii. 
 15, 16. But he speaketh of contrary facts 
 here ; and that he is dissuading them from 
 suiting a king is clear from the text. (1.) 
 Because he saith, Give them their will ; but 
 yet protest against their unlawful course. 
 (2.) He biddeth the prophet lay before 
 them the tyranny and oppression of their 
 king; which tyranny Saul exercised in his 
 time, as the story showeth. (3.) Because 
 how ineffectual Samuel's exhortation was 
 is set down, ver. 19, " Nevertheless they 
 would not obey the voice of Samuel, but 
 said, Nay, but we will have a king over us." 
 If Samuel had not been dehorting them 
 from a king, how could they be said in this 
 to refuse to hear the voice of Samuel ? 6. 
 The ground of Barclay and royalists here is 
 weak ; for they say, That the people sought 
 a king like the nations, and the kings of the 
 nations were all absolute, and so tyrants; 
 and God granted their unlawful desire, and 
 gave them a tyrant to reign over them such 
 as the nations had. 1 The plain contrary is 
 true. They sought not a tyrant ; but one 
 of the special reasons why they sought a 
 king was to be freed of tyranny ; for 1 Sam. 
 viii. 3, " Because Samuel's sons turned aside 
 alter lucre, and took bribes, and perverted 
 judgment ; therefore all the elders of Israel 
 gathered themselves together, and came to 
 Samuel, to Ramah, and there they sought 
 a king." 7. One could not more clearly 
 speak with the mouth of a false prophet 
 than the author of " Active and Passive 
 Obedience" doth, while he will have Samuel 
 here to describe a king, and to say, " Ye 
 have formerly committed one error in shak- 
 ing off the yoke of God, and seeking a king; 
 so now beware you fall not in the next error, 
 in casting off the yoke of a king, which God, 
 at your own desire, hath laid on you ; for 
 God only hath power to make and 'unmake 
 kings ; therefore prepare yourselves patient- 
 ly to suffer and bear. 
 
 Ans. 1. — For if he were exhorting to 
 patient suffering of the yoke of a king, he 
 should presume it were God's revealed and 
 regulating will that they should have a king. 
 But the scope of Samuel's sermon is to dis- 
 suade them from a king, and they by the 
 contrary, (ver. 19,) say, " Nay, but we will 
 have a king;" and there is not one word 
 in the text that may intimate patience un- 
 der the yoke of a king. 2. There is here 
 
 1 Dr Forne, sect. 2, p. 55. 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 75 
 
 the description of a tyrant, not of a king. 
 
 3. Here is a threatening and a prediction, 
 not anything that smelleth of an exhortation. 
 
 Obj. — But it is evident that God, teach- 
 ing the people how to behave themselves 
 under the unjust oppressions of their king, 
 set down no remedy but tears, crying to 
 God, and patience; therefore resistance is 
 not lawful. 1 
 
 Ans. — Though this be not the place due 
 to the doctrine of resistance, yet, to vindi- 
 cate the place, — 1. I say, there is not one 
 word of any lawful remedy in the text ; 
 
 only it is said, Kin!"! DV2 DnpVH 
 
 D^SO 'JS/D, Et clamatis in ilia die 
 afacicbus regis vestri. It is not necessari- 
 ly to be exponed of praying to God ; Job 
 xxxv. 9, " By reason of the multitude of 
 oppressions, they make the oppressed to 
 cry," 1p'J7n elamare faeiunt; Isa. xv. 
 
 4, "And Heshbon shall cry: pyTDI 
 the armed soldiers of Moab shall cry out." 
 There is no other word here than doth ex- 
 press the idolatrous prayers of Moab ; Isa. 
 xvii. 12 ; Hab. ii. 11, " The stone shall cry 
 out of the wall p^TH ;" Deut.. xxii. 24, 
 " You shall stone the maid "^7 "lJ^ft 
 "!DT"?y, because she cried not HpW ;" 
 but she is not to be stoned because she 
 prayed not to God ; Psal. xviii. 4, " Da- 
 vid's enemies cried, and there was none to 
 save, even to the Lord, and he heard not." 
 2. Though it were the prophet's meaning, 
 " they cried to the Lord," yet it is not the 
 crying of a people humbled, and, in faith, 
 speaking to God in their troubles ; Zech. vii. 
 13, " They cried, and I would not hear;" 
 therefore royalists must make crying to God 
 out of the bitterness of affliction, without 
 humiliation and faith, and such prayers of 
 sinners as God heareth not, (Psal. xviii. 41 ; 
 John ix. 31 ; Isa. xvii. 12,) to be the only 
 remedy of a people oppressed by a tyran- 
 nous king. Now, it is certain God pre- 
 scribeth no unlawful means to an oppressed 
 people under their affliction ; therefore it is 
 clear here that God speaketh only of evils 
 of punishment, such as is to cry in trouble 
 
 i Dr Ferne, part 3, sect. 2, p. 10. 
 
 1 Learned authors teach that God's law, (Deut. 
 xvii.,) and the JJ^SJ^Q a wanner of the king, (1 
 Sam. viii. 9,) are opposite one to another, so Ger- 
 som. in trinprinc. sac. adu. lat. par. 4, Alp. 66, lit. 
 1. cons. 8, Buchan. de jure regni apud .Scot. Chas- 
 son. cat. glo. raundi cons. 24, n. 162, cons. 35. Tho- 
 loss. 1. 9, c. 1. Rosseu. dc polus, Rep. c. 2, n. 10. 
 Magdeburg, in trac. de off. ma. 
 
 and not be heard of God, and that he pre- 
 scribeth here no duty at all, nor any re- 
 medy. 3. All protestant divines say, Ex 
 particulari -non valet argumentum nega- 
 tive, — " From one particular place, a nega- 
 tive argument is not good." This remedy 
 is not written in this particular place, there- 
 fore it is not written at all in other places 
 of Scripture; so 1 Tim. i. 19, the end of 
 excommunication is, that the party excom- 
 municated may learn not to blaspheme ; 
 therefore the end is not also that the church 
 be not infected. It followeth not. The 
 contrary is clear (1 Cor. v. 6). Dr Feme, 
 and other royalists, teach us that we may 
 supplicate and make prayers to a tyrannous 
 king. We may fly from a tyrannous king ; 
 but neither supplicating the king, nor flying 
 from his fury, shall be lawful means left by 
 this argument ; because these means are no 
 more in this text (where royalists say the 
 Spirit of God speaketh of purpose of the 
 means to be used against tyranny) than vio- 
 lent resistance is in this text. 
 
 Barclay, Ferne, Grotius, Arnisa?us, the P. 
 Prelate following them, saith, " An ill king- 
 is a punishment of God for the sins of the 
 
 de, 
 
 people, and there is no remedy but patient 
 suffering." 
 
 Ans. — Truly it is a silly argument. The 
 Assyrians coming against the people of God 
 for their sins, is a punishment of God. (Isa. 
 x. 5 ; xii. 13.) But doth it follow that it is 
 unlawful for Israel to fight and resist the 
 Assyrians, and that they had warrant to do 
 no other thing but lay down arms and pray 
 to God, and fight none at all ? Is there 
 no lawful resisting of ills of punishment, but 
 mere prayers and patience ? The Amale- 
 kites came out against Israel for their sins, 
 Sennacherib against Hezekiah for the sins of 
 the people ; Asa's enemies fought against him 
 for his sins, and the people's sins. Shall Mo- 
 ses and the people, Hezekiah and Asa, do 
 then nothing but pray and suffer? Is it unlaw- 
 ful with the sword to resist them ? I believe 
 not. Famine is often a punishment of God in 
 a land, (Amos iv. 7, 8,) is it therefore in fa- 
 mine unlawful to till the earth, and seek 
 bread by our industry, and are we to do no- 
 thing but to pray for dady bread ? It is a 
 vain argument. 
 
 Observe, therefore, the wickedness of Bar- 
 clay, (contra monarch. 1. 2, p. 56,) for he 
 would prove, that " a power of doing ill, and 
 that without any punishment to be Inflicted 
 by man, is from God ; because our laws pu- 
 
76 
 
 lex, ki;x ; OR, 
 
 nish not perjury, but leaveth it to be punish- 
 ed of God (I. 2, i. de Reb. cred. Cujacius, I. 
 2, obs. c. 19) ; and the husband in the law of 
 Moses had power td give a bill of divorce to 
 his wife and send her away, and the husband 
 was not to be punished. And also stews and 
 work-houses for harlots, and to take usury, 
 are tolerated in many Christian common- 
 wealths, and yet these are all sorts of mur- 
 ders by the confession of heathen ; therefore, 
 (saith Barclay,) God may give a power of 
 tyrannous acts to kings, so as they shall be 
 under no punishment to be inflicted by men. 
 Anfr. — All this is an argument from fact. 
 1 . A wicked magistracy may permit perjury 
 and lying in the commonwealth, and that 
 without punishment ; and some Christian 
 commonwealths, he meaneth his own syna- 
 gogue of Rome, spiritual Sodom-, a cage of 
 unclean birds, suft'ereth harlots by law; and 
 the whores pay so many thousands yearly to 
 the Pope, and are free of all punishment by 
 law, to eschew homicides, adulteries of Ro- 
 mish priests, and other greater sins ; there- 
 fore God hath given power to a king to play 
 the tyrant without any fear of punishment to 
 be inflicted by man. But if this be a good 
 argument, the magistrate to whom God hath 
 committed the sword to take vengeance on 
 evil doers, (Rom. xiii. 3—6,) such as are per- 
 jured persons, professed whores and harlots, 
 hath a lawful power from God to connive at 
 pins and gross scandals in the commonwealth, 
 as they dream that the king hath power giv- 
 en from God to exercise all acts of tyranny 
 without any resistance. But, 1. This was a 
 grievous sin in Eli, that he being a father and 
 a judge, punished not his sons for their un- 
 cleanness, and his house, in God's heavy dis- 
 pleasure, was cut off from the priesthood 
 therefor. Then God hath given no such 
 power to the judge. 2. The contrary duty 
 is lying on the judge, to execute judgment 
 for the oppressed, (Job xxix. 12 — 17 ; Jer. 
 xxii. 15, 16,) and perverting of judgment, 
 and conniving at the heinous sins of the wick- 
 ed, is condemned, (Num-. v. 31, 32 ; 1 Sam. 
 xv. 23 ; 1 Kings xx. 42, 43 ; Isa. i. 17 ; x. 
 1 ; v. 23,) and therefore God hath given no 
 power to a judge to permit wicked men to 
 commit grievous crimes, without any punish- 
 ment. As for the law of divorce, it was in- 
 deed a permissive law, whereby the husband 
 might give the wife a bill of divorce, and be 
 free of punishment before men, but not free 
 of sin and guiltiness before God, for it was 
 contrary to God's institution of marriage at 
 
 the beginning, as Christ saith ; and the pro- 
 phet saith, (Mai. 2,) that the Lord hateth 
 putting away ; but that God hath given any 
 such permissive power to the king, that he 
 may do what he pleaseth, and cannot be re- 
 sisted, this is in question. 3. The law spoken 
 of in the text is by royalists called, not a con- 
 suetude of tyranny, but the divine law of God, 
 whereby the king is formally and essentially 
 distinguished from the judge in Israel ; now 
 if so, a power to sin and a power to commit 
 acts of tyranny, yea, and a power in the 
 king's sergeants and bloody emissaries to 
 waste and destroy the people of God, must 
 be a lawful power given ot God ; for a law- 
 ful power it must be if it cometh from God, 
 whether it be from the king in his own per- 
 son, or from his servants at his command- 
 ment, and by either put forth in acts, as the 
 power of a bill of divorce was a power from 
 God, exempting either the husband from 
 punishment before men, or freeing the ser- 
 vant, who at the husband's command should 
 write it and put it in the hands of the wo- 
 man. I cannot believe that God hath given 
 a power, and that by law, to one man to com- 
 mand twenty thousand cut -throats to kill and 
 destroy all the children of God, and that he 
 hath commanded Ins children to give their 
 necks and heads to Babel's 6ons without re- 
 sistance. This I am sure is another matter 
 than a law for a bill of divorce to one woman 
 married by free election of a changeable and 
 unconstant man. But sure I am, God gave 
 no permissive law from heaven like the law 
 of divorce, for the hardness of the heart, not 
 of the Jews only, but also of the whole Chris- 
 tian and heathen kingdoms under a monarch, 
 that one emperor may, by such a law of God 
 as the law of divorce, kill, by bloody cut- 
 throats, such as the Irish rebels are, all the 
 nations that call on God's name, men, wo- 
 men, and sucking infants. And if Provi- 
 dence impede the catholic issue, and dry up 
 the seas of blood, it is good ; but God hath 
 given a law, such as the law of divorce, to 
 the king, whei-eby he, and all his, may, with- 
 out resistance, by a legal power given of 
 God, who giveth kings to be fathers, nurses, 
 protectors, guides, yea the breath of nostrils 
 of his church, as special mercies and blessings 
 to his people, he may, I say, by a law of 
 God, as it is 1 Sam. viii. 9, 11, cut off na- 
 tions, as that lion of the world, Nebuchad- 
 nezzar, did. So royalists teach us. 
 
 Barclay saith (1. 2. contra Monarch, p. 
 69) — The Lord spake to Samuel the law uf 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 77 
 
 the king, and wrote it in a book, and laid it 
 up before the Lord, But what laW ? That 
 same law which he proposed to the people 
 when they first sought a king. But that was 
 the law contemning precepts, rather for the 
 people's obeying than for the king's com- 
 manding ; for the people was to be instruc- 
 ted witfi those precepts, not the king. Those 
 things that concerned the king's duty (Deut. 
 xvii.) Moses commanded to be put into the 
 ark ; but so if Samuel had commanded the 
 king that which Moses (Deut; xvii.) com- 
 manded, he had done no new thing, but had 
 done again what was once done actum egis- 
 set; but there was nothing before command- 
 ed the people concerning their obedience and 
 patience under evil princes. Joseph. Antiq. 
 (1. 6, c. 5,) wrote, va fuxxinrx *cLtx the evils 
 that were to befall them. 
 
 Ans. 1.— It was not that same law, for 
 though this law was written to the people, 
 yet it was the law of the king ; and, I pray 
 you, did Samuel write in a book all the rules 
 of tyranny, and teach Saul, and all the kings 
 after him, (for this book was put in the ark 
 of the covenant, where also was the book 
 of the law) how to play the tyrant ? And 
 what instruction was it to king or people to 
 write to them a book of the wicked ways of a 
 king, which nature teacheth without a doctor? 
 Sanctius saith on the place, These things 
 which, by men's fraud and to the hurt of 
 the public, may be corrupted-, were kept in 
 the tabernacle, and the book of the law was 
 kept in the ark. Cornelius a Lapide saith, 
 It was the law common to king and people, 
 which was commonly kept with the book of 
 the law in the ark of the covenant. Lyra 
 contradicteth Barclay. He exponeth Le- 
 gem, legem regni non secundum usurpa- 
 tionem supra positam, sed secundum ordi- 
 nationem Dei positam. (Deut. xvii.) Theo- 
 datius excellently exponeth it, The funda- 
 mental laws of the kingdom, inspired by God 
 to temper monarchy with a liberty befitting 
 God's people, and with equity toward a na- 
 tion — to withstand the abuse of an absolute 
 power. 2. Can any believe Samuel would 
 have written a law of tyranny, and put that 
 book in the ark of the covenant before the 
 Lord, to be kept to the posterity, seeing he 
 was to teach both king and people the good 
 and the right way, 1 Sami xii. 23 — 25. 3. 
 Where is the law of the kingdom called a 
 law of punishing innocent people ? 4; To 
 write the duty of the king in a book, and 
 apply it to the king, is no more superfluous 
 
 than to teach the people the good and the 
 right way out of the law, and apply general 
 laws to particular persons. 5. There is no- 
 thing in the law (1 Sam. viii. 9 — 12) of the 
 people's patience, but rather of their impa- 
 tient crying out, God not hearing nor help- 
 ing ; and nothing of that in this book, for any 
 thing that we know, and Josephus speaketh 
 of the law in 1 Sam. viii., not of this law, 1 
 Sam. xii. 
 
 QUESTION XIX. 
 
 WHETHER OR NO THE KING BE IN DIGNITY 
 AND POWER ABOVE THE PEOPLE. 
 
 In this grave question divers considera- 
 tions are to be pondered. 1. There is a 
 dignity material in the people scattered — 
 they being many representations of God and 
 his image, which is in the king also, and for- 
 mally more as king, he being endued with 
 formal magistratical and public royal autho- 
 rity. In the former regard, this or that 
 man is inferior to the king, because the 
 king hath that same remainder of the image 
 of God- that any private man hath, and 
 something more — he hath a politic resem- 
 blance of the King of heavens, being a little 
 god, and so is above any one man. 
 
 2. All these of the people taken collec- 
 tively having more of God, as being repre- 
 sentationsj are, according to this material 
 dignity j more excellent than the king, be- 
 cause many are more excellent than one ; 
 and the king, according to the magistratical 
 and royal authority he hath, is more excel- 
 lent than they are, because he partaketh 
 formally of royalty, which they have not for- 
 mally. 
 
 8. A mean or medium, as it is such, is 
 less than the end, though the thing materi- 
 ally that is a mean may be more excellent. 
 Every mean, as a mean, under that redup- 
 lication, hath all its goodness and excellency 
 in relation to the end ; yet an angel that is 
 a mean (or medium) and a ministering spi- 
 rit, ordained of God for an heir of life eter- 
 nal, (Heb. i. 13,) considered materially, is 
 more excellent than a man. (Psal. viii. 5 ; 
 Heb. ii. 6—8.) 
 
 4-. A king and leader j in a military consi- 
 deration, and as a governor and conserver of 
 the whole army, is more worth than ten 
 thousand of the people, 2 Sam. xviii. 13. 
 
78 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 5. But simply and absolutely the people 
 is above, and more excellent, than the king, 
 and the king in dignity inferior to the peo- 
 ple; and that upon these reasons : — 
 
 Arg. 1. — Because he is the mean ordain- 
 ed for the people, as for the end, that he 
 may save them, (2 Sam. xix. 9 ;) a public 
 shepherd to feed them, (Psal. lxxviii. 70 — 
 73 ;) the captain and leader of the Lord's 
 inheritance to defend them, (1 Sam. x. 1 ;) 
 the minister of God for their good. (Rom. 
 xiii. 4.) 
 
 Arg. 2. — The pilot is less than the whole 
 passengers ; the general less than the whole 
 army ; the tutor less than all the children ; 
 the physician less than all the living men 
 whose health he careth for; the master or 
 teacher less than all the scholars, because 
 the part is less than the whole ; the king is 
 but a part and member (though I grant a 
 very eminent and noble member) of the 
 kingdom. 
 
 Arg. 3. — A Christian people, especially, 
 is the portion of the Lord's inheritance, 
 (Deut. xxxii. 9) the sheep of his pasture — 
 his redeemed ones — for whom God gave his 
 blood, Acts xx. 28. And the killing of a 
 man is to violate the image of God, (Gen. 
 ix. 6,) and therefore the death and destruc- 
 tion of a church, and of thousand thousands 
 of men, is a sadder and a more heavy mat- 
 ter than the death of a king, who is but one 
 man. 
 
 Arg. 4. — A king as a king, or because a 
 king, is not the inheritance of God, nor the 
 chosen and called of God, nor the sheep or 
 flock of the Lord's pasture, nor the redeem- 
 ed of Christ, for those excellencies agree not 
 to kings because they are kings; for then all 
 kings should be endued with those excellen- 
 cies, and God should be an acceptor of per- 
 sons, if he put those excellencies of grace 
 upon men for external respects of highness 
 and kingly power, and worldly glory and 
 splendour ; for many living images and re- 
 presentations of God, as he is holy, or more 
 excellent than a politic representation of 
 God's greatness and majesty, such as the 
 king is ; because that which is the fruit of a 
 love of God, which cometh nearer to God's 
 most special love, is more excellent than that 
 which is farther remote from his special love. 
 Now, though royalty be a beam of the ma- 
 jesty of the greatness of the King of kings 
 and Lord of lords, yet is it such a fruit and 
 beam of God's greatness, as may consist with 
 the eternal reprobation of the party loved ; 
 
 so now God's love, from whence he com- 
 municateth his image representing his own 
 holiness, cometh nearer to his most special 
 love of election of men to glory. 
 
 Arg. 5. — If God give kings to be a ran- 
 som for his church, and if he slay great kings 
 for their sake, as Pharaoh king of Egypt, 
 (Isa. xliii. 3,) and Sihon king of the Amo- 
 rites, and Og king of Bashan ; (Psal. cxxxvi. 
 18 — 20 ;) if he plead with princes and kings 
 for destroying his people ; (Isa. hi. 12—14;) 
 if he make Babylon and her king a thresh- 
 ing-floor, for the " violence done to the in- 
 habitants of Zion," (Jer. li. 33 — 35,) then 
 his people, as his people, must be so much 
 dearer and more precious in the Lord's eyes 
 than kings, because they are kings ; by how 
 much more his justice is active to destroy 
 the one, and his mercy to save the other. 
 Neither is the argument taken off by say- 
 ing the king must, in this question, be com- 
 pared with his own people ; not a foreign 
 king, with other foreign people, over whom 
 he doth not reign, for the argument proveth 
 that the people of God are of more worth 
 than kings as kings ; and Nebuchadnezzar 
 and Pharaoh, for the time, were kings to 
 the people of God, and foreign kings are no 
 less essentially kings, than kings native are. 
 
 Arg. 6.— Those who are given of God as 
 gifts for the preservation of the people, to be 
 nurse-fathers to them, those must be of less 
 worth before God, than those to whom they 
 are given, since the gift, as the gift, is less 
 than the party on whom the gift is be- 
 stowed. But the king is a gift for the good 
 and preservation of the people, as is clear, 
 Isa. i. 26 ; and from this, that God gave his 
 people a king in his wrath, we may con- 
 clude, that a king of himself, except God be 
 angry with his people, must be a gift. 
 
 Arg. 7- — That which is eternal, and can- 
 not politically die, yea, which must continue 
 as the days of heaven, because of God's 
 promise, is more excellent than that which 
 is both accidental, temporary, and mortal. 
 But the people are both eternal as people, 
 because (Lccles. i. 4) " one generation pass- 
 eth away, and another generation cometh," 
 and as a people in covenant with God, (Jer. 
 xxxii. 40, 41,) in respect that a people and 
 church, though mortal in the individuals, 
 yet the church, remaining the church, can- 
 not die ; but the king, as king, may and 
 doth die. It is true, where a kingdom go- 
 eth by succession, the politicians say, the 
 man who is king dicth, but the king never 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 dieth, because some other, either by birth or 
 free election, succeedetb. in his room. But 
 I answer, — 1. People, by a sort of necessity 
 of nature, succeedetb. to people, generation 
 to generation, except God's judgment, con- 
 trary to nature, intervene to make Babylon 
 no people, and a land that shall never be in- 
 habited (which I both believe and hope for, 
 according to God's word of prophesy). But 
 a king, by a sort of contingency, succeedcth 
 to kings; for nature doth not ascertain us 
 there must be kings to the world's end, be- 
 cause the essence of governors is kept safe 
 in aristocracy and democracy, though there 
 were no kings ; and that kings should neces- 
 sarily have been in the world, if man had 
 never fallen in sin, I am not, by any cogent 
 argument, induced to believe. I conceive 
 there should have been no government but 
 those of fathers and children, husband and 
 wife, and (which is improperly government) 
 some more gifted with supervenient addi- 
 tions to nature, as gifts and excellencies of 
 engines. Now on this point Althusius 
 (polit. c. 38. n. 114) saith, the king, in re- 
 spect of office, is worthier than the people, 
 (out this is but an accidental respect,) but 
 as the king is a man, he is inferior to the 
 people. 
 
 Arg. 8. — He who, by office, is obliged to 
 expend himself, and to give Ins life for the 
 safety of the people, must be inferior to the 
 people. So Christ saith, the life is more 
 than raiment or food, because both these 
 give themselves to corruption for man's life ; 
 so the beasts are inferior to man, because 
 they die for our life, that they may sustain 
 our life. And Caiaphas prophesied right, 
 that it was better that one man die than the 
 whole nation perish (John xi. 50) ; and in 
 nature, elements, against their particular in- 
 clination, defraud themselves of their private 
 and particular ends, that the commonwealth 
 of nature may stand ; as heavy elements 
 ascend, light descend, lest nature should pe- 
 rish by a vacuity. And the good Shepherd 
 (John x.) giveth his life for his sheep ; so 
 both Saul and David were made kings to 
 fight the Lord's battles, and to expose their 
 lives to hazard for the safety of the church 
 and people of God. But the king, by office, 
 is obliged to expend his life for the safety of 
 the people of God ; he is obliged to fight the 
 Lord's battles for them ; to go betwixt the 
 flock and death, as Paul was willing to be 
 spent for the church. It may be objected, 
 Jesus Christ gave himself a ransom for his 
 
 church, and his life for the life of the world, 
 and was a gift given to the world, (John iii. 
 16 ; iv. 10,) and he was a mean to save us ; 
 and so, what arguments we have before pro- 
 duced to prove that the king must be infe- 
 rior to the people, because he is a ransom, 
 a mean, a gift, are not conclusive, I answer, 
 — 1. Consider a mean reduplicatively, and 
 formaliter, as a mean ; and secondly, as a 
 mean materially, that is, the thing which is 
 a mean. 2. Consider that which is only a 
 mean, and ransom, and gift, and no more ; 
 and that which, beside that it is a mean, is I 
 of a higher nature also. So Christ formally 
 as a mean, giving his temporal life for a i 
 time, according to the flesh, for the eter- 
 nal life of all the catholic church, to be 
 glorified eternally — (not his blessed god- 
 head and glory, which, as God, he had with 
 the Father from eternity) — in that respect 
 Christ hath the relation of a servant, ran- 
 som, gift, and some inferiority in compari- 
 son of the church of God ; and his Father's 
 glory, as a mean, is inferior to the end, but 
 Christ materially, in eonoreto. Christ is 
 is not only a mean to save his church, but, 
 as God (in which consideration he was the 
 immortal Lord of life) he was more than 
 a mean, — even the Author, Efficient and 
 Creator of heaven and earth ; and so there 
 is no ground to say that he is inferior to 
 the church, but the absolute head, king, — 
 the chief of ten thousand; — more in ex- 
 cellency and worth than ten thousand mil- 
 lions of possible worlds of men and angels. 
 But such a consideration cannot befall any 
 mortal king; because, consider the king ma- 
 terially as a mortal man, he must be infe- 
 rior to the whole church, for he is but one, 
 and so of less worth than the whole church ; 
 as the thumb, though the strongest of the 
 finger's, yet it is inferior to the hand, and 
 far more to the whole body, as any part is 
 inferior to the whole. Consider the king 
 reduplicative and formally as king, and by 
 the official relation he hath, he is no more 
 then but a royal servant, an official mean 
 tending, ex officio, to this end, to preserve 
 the people, to ride and govern them ; and a 
 gift of God, given by virtue of his office, to 
 rule the people of God, and so any way in- 
 ferior to the people. 
 
 Arg. 9. — Those who are before the peo- 
 ple, and may be a people without a king, must 
 be of more worth than that which is poste- 
 rior and cannot be a king without them. 
 For thus, God's self-sufficiency is proved, in 
 
80 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 that he might be, and eternally was, blessed 
 for ever, without his creature ; but his crea- 
 ture cannot subsist in being without him. 
 Now, the people were a people many years 
 before there was a government, (save do- 
 mestic,) and are a people where there is no 
 king, but only an aristocracy or a democra- 
 cy ; but the king can be no king without a 
 people. It is vain that some say, the king 
 and kingdoms are relatives, and not one is 
 before another, for it is true in the naked 
 relation ; so are father and son, master and 
 servant, Rclata simul natura ; but sure 
 there is a priority of worth and indepen- 
 dency, for all that, in the father above the 
 son, and in the master above the servant, 
 and so in the people above the king ; take 
 away the people, and Dionysius is but a poor 
 schoolmaster. 
 
 Arg. 10. — The people in power are su- 
 perior to the king, because every efficient and 
 constituent cause is more excellent than the 
 effect. Every mean is inferior in power to 
 the end ; (So Jun. Brutus, q. 31. JBucher 
 I. 1, c, 16. Author Lib. de ofic. Magistr. 
 q. 6. Hencenius disp. 2, n. 6. Joan Rof- 
 fensis Epist. de potest, pap. 1. 2, c. 5. Spa- 
 lato de Repu. Ecclesiast. I. 6, c. 2, n. 3;) 
 but the people is the efficient and constitu- 
 ent cause, the king is the effect ; the people 
 is the end ; both intended of God to save 
 the people, to be a healer and a physician to 
 them (Isa. iii. 7) ; and the people appoint 
 and create the king out of their indigence, 
 to preserve themselves from mutual vio- 
 lence. Many things are objected against 
 this.. That the efficient and constituent 
 cause is God, and the people are only the 
 instrumental cause; and Spalato saith, that 
 the people doth indirectly only give kingly 
 power, because God, at their act of election, 
 ordinarily giveth it. 
 
 Ans. — 1, The Scripture saith plainly, as 
 we heard before, the people made kings ; 
 and if they do, as other second causes pro- 
 duce their effects, it is all one that God, as 
 the principal cause, maketh kings, else we 
 should not argue from the cause to the ef- 
 fect amongst the creatures. 2. God, by 
 that same action that the people createth a 
 king, doth also, by them, as by his instru- 
 ments, create a king ; and that God doth 
 not immediately, at the naked presence of 
 the act of popular election, confer royal dig- 
 nity on the man, without any action of the 
 people, as they say, by the church's act of 
 conferring orders, God doth immediately, 
 
 without any act of the church, infuse from 
 heaven supernatural liabilities on the man, 
 without any active influence of the church, 
 is evident by this. 1. The royal power to 
 make laws with the king, and so a power 
 eminent in their states representative to go- 
 vern themselves, is in the people ; for if the 
 most high acts of royality be in them, why 
 not the power also ? And so, what need 
 to fetch a royal power from heaven to be 
 immediately infused in him, seeing the peo- 
 ple hath such a power in themselves at 
 hand ? 2. The people can, and doth, limit 
 and bind royal power in elected kings, 
 therefore they have in them royal power 
 to give to the king. Those who limit power, 
 can take away so many degrees of royal 
 power; and those who can take away power, 
 can give power ; and it is inconceiveable to 
 say that people can put restraint upon a 
 power immediately coming from God. If 
 Christ immediately infused an apostolic spi- 
 rit into Paul, mortal men cannot take from 
 him any degrees of that infused spirit; if 
 Christ infuse a spirit of nine degrees, the 
 church cannot limit it to six degrees only. 
 But royalists consent that the people may 
 choose a Iqng upon such conditions to reign, 
 as he hath royal power of ten degrees, 
 whereas his ancestor had by birth a power 
 of fourteen degrees. 3. It is not intelligi- 
 ble that the Holy Ghost should give com- 
 mandment unto the people to make this 
 man king, (Deut. xvii. 15, 16,) and forbid 
 them to make that man king, if the peo- 
 ple had no active influence in making a 
 king at all ; but God, solely and immedi- 
 ately from heaven, did infuse royalty in the 
 king without any action of the people, save 
 a naked consent only ; and that after God 
 had made the king, they should approve 
 only with an after-act of naked approbation. 
 4. If the people by other governors, as by 
 
 heads of families and other choice men, 
 
 go. 
 
 vern themselves and produce these same for- 
 mal effects of peace, justice, religion, on 
 themselves, which the king doth produce, 
 then is there a power of the same kind, and 
 as excellent as the royal power, in the peo- 
 ple ; and there is no reason but this power 
 should be held to come immediately from 
 God, as the royal power ; for it is every way 
 of the same nature and kind, as I shall 
 prove. Kings and judges differ not in na- 
 ture and specie, but it is experienced that 
 people do, by aristocratical guides, govern 
 themselves, &c. ; so then, if God imine- 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 81 
 
 diately infuse royalty when the people choos- 
 eth a king, without any action of the people, 
 then must God immediately infuse a beam 
 of governing on a provost and bailie, when 
 the people choose such, and that without any 
 action of the people, because all powers are, 
 in abstraeto, from God. (Rom. xiii. 2.) And 
 God as immediately maketh inferior judges 
 as superior, (Prov. viii. 16 ;) and all promo- 
 tion (even to be a provost or mayor) com- 
 eth from God only, as to be a king ; except 
 royalists say, all promotion cometh from the 
 east and from the west, and not from God, 
 except promotion to the royal throne ; the 
 contrary whereof is said, Psal. lxxv. 6, 7 ; 
 1 Sam. ii. 7, 8. Not only kings, but all 
 judges are gods, (Psal. lxxxii. 1, 2,) and 
 therefore all must be the same way created 
 and moulded of God, except by Scripture 
 royalists can show us a difference. An 
 English prelate 1 giveth reasons why peo- 
 ple, who are said to make kings as effi- 
 cients and authors, cannot unmake them : 
 the one is, because God, as chief and sole 
 supreme moderator, maketh kings ; but I 
 say, Christ, as the chief moderator and head 
 of the church, doth immediately confer abi- 
 lities upon a man to be a preacher; and 
 though, by industry, the man acquire abi- 
 lities, yet in regard the church doth not so 
 much as instrumentally confer those abi- 
 lities, they may be said to come from God 
 immediately, in relation to the church who 
 calleth the man to the ministry. Yea, 
 royalists, as our excommunicated Prelate 
 learned from Spalato, say, that God, at the 
 naked presence of the church's call, doth 
 immediately infuse that from heaven by 
 which the man is now in holy orders and a 
 pastor, whereas he was not so before ; and 
 yet prelates cannot deny but they can un- 
 make ministers, and have practised this in 
 their unhallowed courts ; and, therefore, 
 though God immediately, without any ac- 
 tion of the people, make kings, this is a 
 weak reason to prove they cannot unmake 
 them. As for their indellible character, 
 that prelates cannot take from a minister ; 
 it is nothing, if the church may unmake a 
 mi.iister, though his character go to prison 
 with him. We seek no more but to annul 
 the reason. God immediately maketh kings 
 and pastors, therefore no power on earth 
 can unmake them. This consequence is as 
 weak as water. 2. The other cause is, 
 
 1 Joan. Roffens. de potest, pap. 1. 2, c. 5. 
 
 because God hath erected no tribunal 
 on earth higher than the king's tribunal, 
 therefore no power on earth can unmake 
 a king. The antecedent and consequence 
 is both denied, and is a begging of the 
 question ; for the tribunal that made the 
 king is above the king. Though there be 
 no tribunal formally regal and kingly above 
 the king, yet is there a tribunal virtual 
 eminently above him in the case of tyran- 
 ny ; for the states and princes have a tribu- 
 nal above him. 
 
 Assert, — To this the constituent cause is 
 of more power and dignity than the effect, 
 and so the people are above the king. The P. 
 Prelate borrowed an answer from Arnisseus, 
 and Barclay, and other royalists, and saith, 
 If we knew anything in law, or were ruled 
 by reason, " every constituent, (saith Ar- 
 nisseus 1 and Barclay, more accurately than 
 the P. Prelate had a head to transcribe their 
 words,) where the constituent hath resigned 
 all his power in the hand of the prince whom 
 he constitutes, is of more worth and power 
 than he in whose hand he resigns the power : 
 so the proposition is false. The servant 
 who hath constituted his master lord of his 
 liberty, is not more worthy than his master 
 whom he hath made his lord, and to whom 
 he hath given himself as a slave, (for after he 
 hath resigned his liberty he cannot repent, 
 he must keep covenant though to his hurt,) 
 yea, such a servant is not only not above his 
 master, but he cannot move his foot with- 
 out his master." " The governor of Britain 
 (saith Arnisasus) being despised by king 
 Philip, resigned himself as vassal to king 
 Edward of England ; but did not for that 
 make himself superior to king Edward. In- 
 deed, he who constituteth another under him 
 as a legate is superior; but the people do con- 
 stitute a king above themselves, not a king 
 under themselves ; and, therefore, the people 
 are not by this made the king's superior, but 
 his inferior." 
 
 Ans. 1. — It is false that the people doth, 
 or can by the law of nature, resign their 
 whole liberty in the hand of a king. 1. 
 They cannot resign to others that which 
 they have not in themselves, Nemo potest 
 dare quod non habet; but the people hath 
 not an absolute power in themselves to de- 
 stroy themselves, or to exercise those tyran- 
 nous acts spoken of, 1 Sam. viii. 11 — 15, 
 &c. ; for neither God nor nature's law hath 
 
 de authorit. princip. c, 1. n. 1. 
 
82 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 given any such power. 2. He who consti- 
 tuted himself a slave is supposed to be com- 
 pelled to that unnatural act of alienation of 
 that liberty which he hath from his Maker 
 from the womb, by violence, constraint, or 
 extreme necessity, and so is inferior to all 
 free men ; but the people doth not make 
 themselves slaves when they constitute a 
 king over themselves ; because God, giving 
 to a people a king, the best and most excel- 
 lent governor on earth, giveth a blessing 
 and special favour, (Isa. i. 26 ; Hos. i. 1 1 ; 
 Isa. iii. 6, 7 ; Psal. lxxix. 70—72 ;) but to 
 lay upon his people the state of slavery, in 
 which they renounce their whole liberty, 
 is a curse of God. (Gen. ix. 25 ; xxvii. 
 29 ; Deut. xxviii. 32, 36.) But the peo- 
 ple, having their liberty to make any often, 
 or twenty, their king, and to advance one 
 from a private state to an honourable throne, 
 whereas it was in their liberty to advance 
 another, and to give him royal power of ten 
 degrees, whereas they might give him power 
 of twelve degrees, of eight, or six, must be 
 in excellency and worth above the man 
 whom they consitute king, and invest with 
 such honour ; as honour in the fountain, and 
 honos participans et originans, must be 
 more excellent and pure than the derived 
 honour in the king, which is honos partial* 
 patus et originatus. If the servant give 
 his liberty to his master, therefore he had 
 that liberty in him, and in that act, liberty 
 must be in a more excellent way in the ser- 
 vant, as in the fountain, than it is in the 
 master ; and so this liberty must be purer 
 in the people than in the king ; and there- 
 fore, in that both the servant is above the 
 master, and the people worthier than the 
 king. And when the people give themselves 
 conditionally and covenant-wise to the king, 
 as to a public servant, and patron, and tu- 
 tor, — as the governor of Britain, out of his 
 humour, gavenimself to king Edward — there 
 is even here a note of superiority. Every 
 giver of a benefit, as a giver, is superior to 
 him to whom the gift is given ; though after 
 the servant hath given away his gift of li- 
 berty, by which he was superior, he cannot 
 be a superior, because by his gift he hath 
 made himself inferior. The people consti^- 
 tuteth a king above themselves, I distin.- 
 guish supra se, above themselves ; according 
 to the fountain-power of royalty, — that is 
 false ; for the fountain-power remaineth 
 most eminently in the people, 1. Because 
 they give it to the king, ad modum recipi- 
 
 entis, and with limitations; therefore it is 
 unlimited in the people, and bounded and 
 limited in the king, and so less in the king 
 than in the people. 2. If the king turn 
 distracted, and an ill spirit from the Lord 
 come upon Saul, so as reason be taken from 
 a Nebuchadnezzar, it is certain the people 
 may put curators and tutors over him who 
 hath the royal power. 3. If the king be 
 absent and taken captive, the people may 
 give the royal power to one, or to some few, 
 to exercise it as custodes regni. And, 4. 
 If he die, and the crown go by eleotion, 
 they may create another, with more or less 
 power. All which evinceth, that they never 
 constituted over themselves a king, in re- 
 gard of fountain-power ; for if they give 
 away the fountain, as a slave selleth his li- 
 berty, they could not make use of it. In- 
 deed they set a king above them, quoad 
 potostatem legum executivam, in regard of 
 a power of executing laws and actual go- 
 vernment for their good and safety ; but this 
 proveth only that the king is above the peo- 
 ple, »ara «•}, in some respect. But the most 
 eminent and fountain-power of royalty re- 
 maineth in the people as in an immortal 
 spring, which they communicate by succes- 
 sion to this or that mortal man, in the man- 
 ner and measure that they think good. Ul- 
 pian 1 and Bartolus, 2 cited by our Prelate out 
 of Barclaius, are only to be understood of 
 the derived, secondary, and borrowed power 
 of executing laws, and not of the fountain- 
 power, which the people cannot give away, 
 no more than they can give away their ra- 
 tional nature ; for it is a power natural to 
 conserve themselves, essentially adhering to 
 every created being. For if the people give 
 all their power away, what shall they re- 
 serve to make a new king, if this man die? 
 What if the royal line should cease ? there 
 be no prophets immediately sent of God 
 to make kings. What if he turn tyrant, 
 and destroy his subjects with the sword ? 
 The royalists say, they may fly ; but, when 
 they made him king, they resigned all their 
 power to him, even their power of flying ; 
 for they bound themselves by an oath (say 
 royalists) to all passive and lawful active 
 obedience ; and, I suppose, to stand at his 
 tribunal, if he summoned the three estates, 
 upon treason, to come before him, is con- 
 
 1 Ulpian 1. 1, ad Sc. Tubil. Populus omne suum 
 imperium et potestatem confert in Regem. 
 a Bartolns ad 1. hostes 24, f. de capt. et host. 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 tained in the oath, that royalists say, bind- 
 eth all, and is contradictory to flying. 
 
 Arnisaeus, a more learned jurist and di- 
 vine than the P. Prelate, answereth the 
 other maxim, " The end is worthier than 
 the mean leading to the end, because it is 
 ordained for the end. These means, (saith 
 he,) which refer their whole nature to the 
 end, and have all their excellency from the 
 end, and have excellency from no other 
 thing but from the end, are less excellent 
 than the end. That is time, such an end as 
 medicine is for health." And Hugo Gro- 
 tius, (1. 1, c. 3, n. 8,) " Those means which 
 are only for the end, and for the good of the 
 end, and are not for their own good, also 
 are of less excellency, and inferior to the 
 end; but so the assumption is false. But 
 these means which, beside their relation to 
 the end, have an excellency of nature in 
 themselves, are not always inferior to the 
 end. The disciple, as he is instituted, is 
 inferior to the master ; but as he is the son 
 of a prince, he is above the master. But 
 by this reason the shepherd should be infe- 
 rior to brute beasts, to sheep ; and the mas- 
 ter of the family is for the family, and re- 
 ferreth all that he hath for the entertaining 
 of the family ; but it followeth not therefore 
 the family is above him. The form is for 
 the action, is therefore the action more ex- 
 cellent than the form, and an accident than 
 the subject or substance ?" And Grotius 
 saith, " Every government is not for the 
 good of another, but some for its own good, 
 as the government of a master over the ser- 
 vant, and the husband over the wife. 
 
 Arts. — I take the answer thus : Those 
 who are mere means, and only means re- 
 ferred to the end, they are inferior to the 
 end ; but the king, as king, hath all his of- 
 ficial and relative goodness in the world, as 
 relative to the end. All that you can ima- 
 gine to be in a king, as a king, is all relative 
 to the safety and good of the people, (Rom. 
 xiii. 4,) " He is a minister for thy good." 
 He should not, as king, make himself, or 
 his own gain and honour, his end. I grant, 
 the king, as a man, shall die as another 
 man, and so he may secondarily intend his 
 own good ; and what excellency he hath as 
 a man, is the excellency of one mortal man, 
 and cannot make him amount in dignity, 
 and in the absolute consideration of the ex- 
 cellency of a man, to be above many men 
 and a whole kingdom ; for the more good 
 things there be, the better they are, so the 
 
 good things be multiplicable, as a hundred 
 men are better than one ; otherwise, if the 
 good be such as cannot be multiplied, as one 
 God, the multiplication maketh them worse, 
 as many gods are inferior to one God. Now 
 if royalists can show us any more in the king 
 than these two, we shall be obliged to them ; 
 and in both he is inferior to the whole. 
 
 The Prelate and his followers would have 
 the maxim to lose credit ; for then (say 
 they) the shepherd should be inferior to the 
 sheep ; but in this the maxim faileth in- 
 deed, because the shepherd is a reasonable 
 man, and the sheep brute beasts, and so 
 must be more excellent than all the flocks 
 of the world. Now, as he is a reasonable 
 man, he is not a shepherd, nor in that rela- 
 tion referred to the sheep and their preser- 
 vation as a mean to the end ; but he is a 
 shepherd by accident, for the unruliness of 
 the creatures, for man's sin, withdrawing 
 themselves from that natural dominion that 
 man had over the creatures before the fall ; 
 in that relation of a mean to the end, and 
 so by accident, is this official relation put on 
 him ; and according to that official relation, 
 and by accident, man is put to be a servant 
 to the brutish creature, and a mean to so 
 base an end. But all this proveth him, 
 through man's sin and by accident, to be 
 under the official relation of a mean to baser 
 creatures than himself, as to the end, but 
 not a reasonable man. But the king, as 
 king, is an official and royal mean to this 
 end, that the people may lead a godly and 
 peaceable life under him; and this official 
 relation being an accident, is of less worth 
 than the whole people, as they are to be 
 governed. And I grant the king's son, in 
 relation to blood and birth, is more excel- 
 lent than his teachers ; but as he is tauo-ht, 
 he is inferior to his teacher. But in both 
 considerations the king is inferior to the 
 people ; or though he command the people, 
 and so have an executive power of law above 
 them, yet have they a fountain -power above 
 him, because they made him king, and in 
 God's intention he is given as king for their 
 good, according to this, " Thou shalt feed 
 my people Israel," and that, " I gave him 
 for a leader of my people." 
 
 The P. Prelate saith : " The constituent 
 cause is more excellent than the effect con- 
 stituted, where the constitution is voluntary, 
 and dependeth upon the free act of the will, 
 as when the king maketh a viceroy or a 
 judge, durante beneplacito, during his free 
 
84 
 
 LEX, REX : 
 
 will, but not when a man niaketh over his 
 right to another ; for then there should be 
 neither faith nor truth in covenants, if peo- 
 ple might make over their power to their 
 king, and retract and take back what they 
 have once given. 
 
 Ans. — This is a begging of the question ; 
 for it is denied that the people can abso- 
 lutely make away their whole power to the 
 king. It dependeth on the people that they 
 be not destroyed. They give to the king a 
 
 Eolitic power for their own safety, and they 
 eep a natural power to themselves which 
 they must conserve, but cannot give away ; 
 and they do not break their covenant when 
 they put in action that natural power to 
 conserve themselves ; for though the people 
 should give away that power, and swear 
 though the king should kill them all, they 
 should not resist, nor defend their own lives, 
 yet that being against the sixth command- 
 ment, which enjoineth natural self-preserva- 
 tion, it should not oblige the conscience, for 
 it should be intrinsically sinful ; for it is all 
 one to swear to non-self-preservation as to 
 swear to self-murder. 
 
 " If the people, (saith the Prelate, beg- 
 ging the answer from Barclay, 1 ) the consti- 
 tuent, be more excellent than the effect, and 
 so the people above the king, because they 
 constitute him king, then the comities and 
 corporations may make void all the commis- 
 sions given to the knights and burgesses of 
 the House of Commons, and send others in 
 their place, and repeal their orders; there- 
 fore Buchanan saith, that orders and laws 
 in parliament were but ■x^io-jxiyMTa. prepa- 
 ratory consultations, and had not the force 
 of a law, till the people give their consent 
 and have their influence authoritative, upon 
 the statutes and acts of parliament ; but the 
 observator holdeth that the legislative power 
 is whole and entire in the parliament. But 
 when the Scots were preferring petitions 
 and declarations they put all power in the 
 collective body, and kept their distinct ta- 
 bles. 
 
 Ans. — 1. There is no consequence here: 
 the counties and incorporations that send 
 commissioners to parliament, may make 
 void their commissions and annul then- acts, 
 because they constitute them commissioners. 
 If they be unjust acts, they may disobey 
 them, and so disannul them; but, it is pre- 
 
 i Sac Sane }Inj. c. 9, p, 129, stolen from Barcla., 
 lib. 5, c. 12. 
 
 sumed, God hath given no moral power to 
 do ill, nor can the counties and corporations 
 give any such power to evil, for they have 
 not any such from God. If they be just acts, 
 they are to obey them, and cannot retract 
 commissions to make just orders. Illud 
 tantum possumus quod jure possumus, and 
 therefore, as power to govern justly is irre- 
 vocably committed by the three estates who 
 made the king to the king, so is that same 
 power committed by the shires and corpo- 
 rations to their commissioners, to decree in 
 parliament what is just and good irrevo- 
 cably ; and to take any just power from the 
 king which is his due, is a great sin. But 
 when he abuseth his power to the destruc- 
 tion of his subjects, it is lawful to throw a 
 sword out of a madman's hand, though it be 
 his own proper sword, and though he have 
 due right to it, and a just power to use it 
 for good ; for all fiduciary power abused may 
 be repealed. And if the knights and bur- 
 gesses of the House of Commons abuse their 
 fiduciary power to the destruction of these 
 shires and corporations who put the trust on 
 them, the observator did never say that 
 parliamentary power w T as so entire and ir- 
 revocably in them, as that the people may 
 not resist them, annul their commissions 
 and rescind their acts, and denude them of 
 fiduciary power, even as the king may be 
 denuded of that same power by the three 
 estates ; for particular corporations are no 
 more to be denuded of that fountain-power 
 of making commissioners, and of the self- 
 preservation, than the three estates are. 2. 
 The P. Prelate cometh not home to the 
 mind of Buchanan, who knew the funda- 
 mental laws of Scotland, and the power of 
 parliaments ; for his meaning was not to 
 deny a legislative power in the parliament ; 
 but when he calleth their parliamentary de- 
 clarations vgeGouxivfiicra, his meaning is only 
 that which lawyers and schoolmen both say, 
 Leges non promulgates non habent vim le- 
 gis actu complete obligatoriw, — " Laws not 
 promulgated do not oblige the subject while 
 they be promulgated ;" but he fulfils Bucha- 
 nan, when he saith, " Parliamentary laws 
 must have the authoritative influence of the 
 people, before they can be formal laws, or 
 any more than vgdcvXiufutTa or preparatory 
 notions. And it was no wonder when the 
 king denied a parliament, and the supreme 
 senate of the secret council was corrupted, 
 that the people did then set up tables, and 
 extraordinary judicatures of the three es- 
 
Tilt: LAW AMD THE PRINCE. 
 
 85 
 
 tates, seeing there could not be any other 
 government for the time. 
 
 Barclay 1 answereth to this : " The mean 
 is inferior to the end, it holdeth not ; the 
 tutor and curator is for the minor, as for 
 the end, and given for his good ; but it fol- 
 loweth not that, therefore, the tutor, in the 
 administration of the minor or pupil's inhe- 
 ritance, is not superior to the minor." 
 
 Aiis. — It followeth well that the minor 
 virtually, and in the intention of the law, is 
 more excellent than the tutor, though the 
 tutor can exercise more excellent acts than 
 the pupil, by accident, for defect of age in 
 the minor, yet he doth exercise those acts 
 with subordination to the minor, and with 
 correction, because he is to render an ac- 
 count of his doings to the pupil coming to 
 age; so the tutor is only more excellent 
 and superior in some respect, x*rk *-< but not 
 simply, and so is the king in some respect 
 above the people. 
 
 The P. Prelate beggeth from the roya- 
 lists another of our arguments, Quod efficit 
 tale, est magis tale? — "That which maketh 
 another such, is far more such itself." If the 
 people give royal power to the king, then 
 tar more is the royal power in the people. 
 By this (saith the Prelate) it shall follow, if 
 the observator give all his goods to me, to 
 make me rich, the observator is more rich : 
 if the people give most part of their goods to 
 foment the rebellion, then the people are 
 more rich, having given all they have upon 
 the public faith. 
 
 Ans. — 1. This greedy Prelate was made 
 richer than ten poor pursuivants, by a bi- 
 shopric; it will follow well, — therefore, the 
 bishopric is richer than the bishop, whose 
 goods the curse of God blasteth. 2. It hold- 
 eth in efficient causes, so working in other 
 things as the virtue of the effect remaineth 
 in the cause, even after the production of 
 the effect. As the sun maketh all things 
 light, the fire all things hot, therefore the 
 sun is more light, the fire more hot ; but 
 where the cause doth alienate and make 
 over, in a corporal manner, that which it 
 hath to another, as the hungry Prelate would 
 have the observator's goods, it holdeth not ; 
 for the effect may exhaust the virtue of the 
 cause, but the people doth, as the fountain, 
 derive a stream of royalty to Saul, and 
 
 1 Barcla., lib. 4, cone. Monarrho., c. 11, p. 27. 
 " Sacr. Naur. Mai., c. 13, p. 130, stolen out of Ar- 
 aisxus de jure Majest. c. 3, u. 1, p. 34. 
 
 make him king, and yet so as they keep 
 fountain-power of making kings in them- 
 selves; yea, when Saul is dead to make Da- 
 vid king at Hebron, and when he is dead to 
 make Solomon king, and alter him to make 
 Rehoboam king ; and, therefore, in the peo- 
 ple there is more fountain-power of making 
 kings than in David, in Saul, in any king of 
 the world. As for the Prelate's scoff about 
 the people's giving of their goods to the good 
 cause, I hope it shall, by the blessing of God, 
 enrich them more ; whereas prelates, by the 
 rebellion in Ireland, (to which they assent, 
 when they council his Majesty to sell the 
 blood of some hundred thousands of inno- 
 cents killed in Ireland,) are brought, from 
 thousands a year, to beg a morsel of bread. 
 
 The P. Prelate (p. 131) answereth that 
 maxim, Quod efficit tale, id ipsum est ma- 
 gis tale, — " That which maketh another 
 such, it is itself more such." It is true, de 
 principio formali effectivo, (as I learned in 
 the university,) of such an agent as is for- 
 mally such in itself as is the effect produced. 
 Next, it is such as is effective and produc- 
 tive of itself, as when fire heateth cold water, 
 so the quality must be formally inherent in 
 the agent ; as wine maketh drank, it follow- 
 eth not, wine is more drunk, because drunk- 
 enness is not inherent in the wine, nor is it 
 capable of drunkenness; and, therefore, Aris- 
 totle qualifieth the maxim with this, Quod 
 efficit tale est magis tale, modo utrique in- 
 sit, — " and it holdeth not in agents, who ope- 
 rate by donation, if the right of the kino- be 
 transferred from the people to the king." 
 The donation divesteth the people totally of 
 it, except the king have it by way of loan, 
 which, to my thinking, never yet any spoke. 
 Sovereignty never was, never can be, in 
 the community. Sovereignty hath power of 
 life and death, which none hath over him- 
 self, and the community conceived without 
 government, all as equal, endowed with 
 nature's and native liberty, of that commu- 
 nity no one can have power over the life of 
 another. And so the argument may be 
 turned home, if the people be not tales, 
 such by nature, (as hath formally royal 
 power, he should say,) they cannot give the 
 king royal power ; also, none hath power of 
 life and death, either more eminently or 
 formally, the people, either singly or collec- 
 tively, have not power over their own life- 
 much less over their neighbours'. 
 
 Ans. — 1. The Prelate would make the 
 maxim true of a formal cause, and this he 
 
LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 learned in the University of St. Andrews. 
 He wrongeth the university, he rather learn- 
 ed it while he kept the calves of Crail. The 
 wall is white from whiteness ; therefore, 
 whiteness is more white by the Prelate's 
 learning. Never such thing was taught in 
 that learned university. 2. Principium for- 
 mate effectivum is as good logic as princi- 
 pium effectivum materiale, formale, finale. 
 The Prelate is in his accuracy of logic now. 
 He yet maketh the causality of the formal 
 cause all one with the causality of the effi- 
 cient ; but he is weak in his logic. 3. He 
 confoundeth a cause equivocal and a cause 
 univocal, and in that case the maxim hold- 
 eth not. Nor is it necessary to make true 
 the maxim, that the quality be inherent in 
 the cause the same way ; for a city maketh 
 a mayor, but to be a mayor is one way in the 
 city, and another way in him who is created 
 mayor. The Prelate's maxim would help 
 him, if we reasoned thus : The people mak- 
 eth the king, therefore the people is more a 
 king, and more formally a sovereign than 
 the king. But that is no more our argu- 
 ment than the simile that Maxwell used, as 
 near heart and mouth both. Wine maketh 
 drunk the Prelate, therefore wine is more 
 drunk. But we reason thus : The fountain- 
 power of making six kings is in the people, 
 therefore there is more fountain-power of 
 royalty in the people than in any one king. 
 For we read that Israel made Said king, 
 and made David king, and made Abimelech 
 king ; but never that king Said made an- 
 other king, or that an earthly king made 
 another absolute king. 4. The Prelate will 
 have the maxim false, where the agent work- 
 eth by donation, which yet holdeth true by 
 his own grant (c. 9, p. 98). The king giv- 
 eth power to a deputy, therefore there is 
 more power in the king. 5. He supposeth 
 that which is the basis and foundation of all 
 the question, that people divesteth them- 
 selves totally of their fountain-power, which 
 is most false. 6. Either they must divest 
 themselves totally (saith he) of their power, 
 or the king hath power from the people, 
 by way of loan, which, to my thinking, never 
 any yet Spake. But the P. Prelate's think- 
 ing is short, and no rule to divines and 
 lawyers ; for, to the thinking of the learned 
 jurists, this power of the king is but fiduci- 
 ary, and that is (whether the Prelate think 
 it or think it not) a sort of power by trust, 
 pawn or loan. Hex director Regni, non 
 proprietarius, (Molina;, in consnet. Parisi. 
 
 Tit. 1,9; I Gloss, 7, n. 9,)—" The king is 
 a life-renter, not a lord, or proprietor of his 
 kingdom." So Novel. 85, in princip, et c. 
 18, Quod magistratus sit nudus dispen- 
 sator et defensor jurium regni, non pro- 
 prietarius, constat, ex eo quod non posset 
 alienare imperium, oppida, urbes, regiones 
 ve, vel res subditorum, bonave regni. So 
 Gregory, /. 3, c. 8, de Repub. per c. 1, 
 Sect, prceterea, de propo. feud. Hotto- 
 man, quest, illust. 1 ; Ferdinan. Vasquez, 
 I. 1, c. 4; Bossius, de princip. et privileg. 
 illius, n. 290, — " The king is only a steward, 
 and a defender of the laws of the kingdom, 
 not a proprietor, because he hath not power 
 to make away the empire, cities, towns, 
 countries, and goods of the subjects ;" and, 
 bona commissa magistratui, sunt subjecta 
 restitutioni, et in prejudicium successorum 
 alienari non possunt, [per I. ult. Sect, sed 
 nost. C. Comment, de leg. I. peto 69, fra- 
 trem de leg. 2, I. 32, ult. d. t.) — " All the 
 goods committed to any magistrate are un- 
 der restitution ; for he hath not power to 
 make them away, to the prejudice of his 
 successors." The Prelate's thoughts reach 
 not the secrets of jurists, and therefore 
 he speaketh with a warrant; he will say 
 no more than his short-travelled thoughts 
 can reach, and that is but at the door. 
 7. Sovereignty is not in the community, 
 (saith the P. Prelate). Truly it neither 
 is, nor can be, more than ten, or a thou- 
 sand, or a thousand thousands, or a whole 
 kingdom, can be one man ; for sovereignty 
 is the abstract, the sovereign is the concrete. 
 Many cannot be one king or one soverign : 
 a sovereign must be essentially one ; and a 
 multitude cannot be one. But what then ? 
 May not the sovereign power be eminently, 
 fontaliter, originally and radically in the 
 people ? I think it may, and must be. A 
 king is not an under judge: he is not a 
 lord of council and session formally, be- 
 cause he is more. The people are not 
 king formally, because the people are emi- 
 nently more than the king ; for they make 
 David king, and Saul king ; and the power 
 to make a lord of council and session, is in 
 the king (say royalists). 8. A commu- 
 nity hath not power of life and death ; a 
 king hath power of life and death (saith 
 the Prelate). What then ? Therefore a 
 community is not king. I grant all. The 
 power of making a king, who hath power of 
 life and death, is not in the people. Poor 
 man ! It is like prelates' logic. Samuel 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 87 
 
 is not a king, therefore he cannot make 
 David a king. It followeth not by the Pre- 
 I late's ground. So the king is not an infe- 
 rior judge. What ! Therefore he cannot 
 make an inferior judge? 9. The power of 
 life and death is eminently and virtually in 
 the people, collectively taken, though not 
 formally. And though no man can take 
 away his own life, or hath power over his 
 own life formally, yet a man, and a body of 
 men, hath power over their own lives, radi- 
 cally and virtually, in respect they may ren- 
 der themselves to a magistrate, and to laws 
 which, if they violate, they must be in ha- 
 zard of then* lives ; and so they virtually 
 have power of their own lives, by putting 
 them under the power of good laws, for the 
 peace and safety of the whole, 10. This is 
 a weak consequence. None hath power of 
 his own life, therefore, far less of his neigh- 
 bour's (saith the Prelate). I shall deny the 
 consequence. The king hath not power of 
 his own life, that is, according to the Pre- 
 late's mind, he can neither, by the law of 
 nature, nor by any civil law, kill himself; 
 therefore, the king hath far less power to 
 kill another ; it followeth not ; for the 
 judge hath more power over his neigh- 
 bour's life than over his own, 11, But, 
 saith the P. Prelate, the community con- 
 ceived without government, all as equal, 
 endowed with nature's and native liberty, 
 hath no power of life and death, because all 
 are bom free ; and so none is born with 
 dominion and power over his neighbour's 
 life. Yea, but so, Mr P. Prelate, a king 
 considered without government, and as born 
 a free man, hath not power of any man's 
 life more than a community hath ; for king 
 and beggar are born both alike free. But a 
 community, in this consideration, as they 
 come from the womb, have no politic consi- 
 deration at all. If you consider them as 
 without all policy, you cannot consider them 
 as invested with policy ; yea, if you consi- 
 der them so as they are by nature, void of 
 all policy, they cannot so much as add their 
 after-consent and approbation to such a man 
 to be their king, whom God immediately 
 from heaven maketh a king ; for to add 
 such an after-consent, is an act of govern- 
 ment. Now, as they are conceived to want 
 all government, they cannot perform any 
 act of government. And this is as much 
 against himself as against us, 
 
 2. The power of a part and the power of 
 the whole is not alike. Royalty never ad- 
 
 vanceth the king above the place of a mem- 
 ber ; and lawyers say, the king is above the 
 subjects, in sensu diviso, in a divisive sense, 
 he is above this or that subject ; but he is 
 inferior to all the subjects collectively taken, 
 because he is for the whole kingdom, as a 
 mean for the end, 
 
 Obj. — If this be a good reason, that he is 
 a mean for the whole kingdom as for the 
 end ; that he is therefore inferior to the 
 whole kingdom, then is he also inferior to 
 any one subject ; for he is a mean for the 
 safety of every subject, as for the whole 
 kingdom. 
 
 Ans. — Every mean is inferior to its com- 
 plete, adequate, and whole end ; and such 
 an end is the whole kingdom in relation to 
 the king ; but every mean is not always 
 inferior to its incomplete, inadequate, and 
 partial end. This or that subject is not ade- 
 quate, but the inadequate and incomplete 
 end in relation to the king. 
 
 The Prelate saith, Kings are Dii Elohirn, 
 gods; and the manner of their propaga- 
 tion is by filiation, by adoption, sons of the 
 Most High, and God's tirst-bom. Now, 
 the first-born is not above every brother 
 severally ; but if there were thousands, 
 millions, numberless numbers, he is above 
 all in precedency and power. 
 
 Ans. — Not only kings but all inferior 
 judges are gods. Psal. lxxxii., God stand- 
 eth in the congregation of the gods, that is 
 not a congregation of kings. So (Exod. xxii. 
 8) the master of the house shall be brought 
 P'tlbtfrvSK to the gods, or to the 
 judges. And that there were more judges 
 than one, is clear by ver. 9 ; and it* they 
 shall condemn ]^\^^ jarshignur, con- 
 demnarint, (John x. 35,) im Sfoi"; He called 
 them gods ; Exod. iv. 16, " Thou shalt be 
 to Aaron □'PlS'Xb as a god." They 
 are gods analogically only. God is infi- 
 nite, not so the king. God's will is a law, 
 not so the king's. God is an end to himself, 
 not so the king. The judge is but God by 
 office, and representation, and conservation 
 of the people. It is denied that the first- 
 born is in power before all his brethren, 
 though there were millions. That is but 
 said, one, as one, is inferior to a multitude. 
 As the first-born was a politic ruler to his 
 brethren, he was inferior to them politically. 
 
 Obj, — The collective university of a king- 
 dom are subjects, sons, and the king their 
 father, no less than this or that subject is 
 the king's subject. For the university of 
 
LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 subjects are either the king, or the king's 
 subjects ; for all the kingdom must be one 
 of these two ; but they are not the king, 
 therefore they are his subjects. 
 
 Ans. — All the kingdom, in any considera- 
 tion, is not either king or subjects. I give 
 a third : The kingdom collective is neither 
 properly king nor subject ; but the king- 
 dom embodied in a state, having collateral, 
 is a co-ordinate power with the king. 
 
 Obj. — The university is ruled by laws, 
 therefore they are inferior to the king who 
 ruleth all by law. 
 
 Ans. — The university, properly, is no 
 otherwise ruled by laws than the king is 
 ruled by laws. The university, formally, is 
 the complete politic body, endued with a 
 nomothetic faculty, which cannot use vio- 
 lence against itself, and so is not properly 
 under a law. 
 
 QUESTION XX. 
 
 WHETHER OR NO INFERIOR JUDGES BE UNI- 
 VOCALLY AND ESSENTIALLY JUDGES, AND 
 THE IMMEDIATE VICARS OF GOD, NO LESS 
 THAN THE KING, OR IF THEY BE ONLY THE 
 DEPUTIES AND VICARS OF THE KING. 
 
 It is certain that, in one and the same 
 kingdom, the power of the king is more in 
 extension than the power of any inferior 
 judge ; but if these powers of the king and 
 the inferior judges differ intensive and in 
 spece, and nature is the question, though it 
 be not all the question. 
 
 Assert. — Inferior judges are no less es- 
 sentially judges, and the immediate vicars 
 of God, than the king. Those who judge in 
 the room of God, and exercise the judg- 
 ment of God, are essentially judges and de- 
 puties of God, as well as the king ; but in- 
 ferior judges are such, therefore the propo- 
 sition is clear. The formal reason, why the 
 king is univocally and essentially a judge, 
 is, because the king's throne is the Lord's 
 throne ; 1 Chron. xxix. 23, " Then Solomon 
 sat on the throne of the Lord, as king, in- 
 . stead of David his father." 1 Kings i. 13, 
 It is called David's throne, because the king 
 is the deputy of Jehovah ; and the judgment 
 is the Lord's. I prove the assumption. In- 
 ferior judges appointed by king Jehoshaphat 
 have this place, 2 Chron. xix. 6, " The king 
 
 said to the judges, Take heed what .ye do, 
 
 mrrS »d ibstpn c-ikS kS »3. 
 
 tor ye judge not tor man, but for the Lord." 
 Then, they were deputies in the place of the 
 Lord, and not the king's deputies in the for- 
 mal and official acts of judging. Ver. 7, 
 " Wherefore, now, let the fear of the Lord 
 be upon you, take heed and do it; for there 
 is no iniquity with the Lord our God, nor 
 respect of persons, or taking of gifts. 
 
 Hence I argue, 1. If the Holy Ghost, in 
 this good king, forbid inferior judges, wrest- 
 ing of judgment, respecting of persons, and 
 taking of gifts, because the judgment is 
 the Lord's, and if the Lord himself were 
 on the bench, he would not respect persons, 
 nor take gifts, then he presumeth, that 
 inferior judges are in the stead and place of 
 Jehovah, and that when these inferior 
 judges should take gifts, they make, as it 
 were, the Lord, whose place they repre- 
 sent, to take gifts, and to do iniquity, and 
 to respect persons ; but that the Holy Lord 
 cannot do. 2. If the inferior judges, in the 
 act of judging, were the vicars and deputies 
 of king Jehoshaphat, he would have said, 
 judge righteous judgment. Why? For the 
 judgment is mine, and if I, the king, were 
 on the bench, I would not respect persons, 
 nor take gifts ; and you judge for me, the 
 Supreme Judge, as my deputies. But the 
 king saith, They judge not for man, but for 
 the Lord. 3. If, by this, they were not 
 God's immediate vicars, but the vicars and 
 deputies of the king, then, being mere ser- 
 vants, the king might command them to 
 pronounce such a sentence, and not such a 
 sentence as I may command my servant 
 and deputy, in so far as he is a servant 
 and deputy, to say this, and say not that ; 
 but the king cannot limit the conscience of 
 the inferior judge, because the judgment is 
 not the king's, but the Lord's. 4. The 
 king cannot command any other to do that 
 as king, for the doing whereof he hath 
 no power from God himself; but the king 
 hath no power from God to pronounce what 
 sentence he pleaseth, because the judgment 
 is not his own but God's. And though in- 
 ferior judges be sent of the king, and ap- 
 pointed by him to be judges, and so have 
 their external call from God's deputy the 
 king, yet, because judging is an act of con- 
 science, as one man's conscience cannot 
 properly be a deputy for another man's con- 
 science, so neither can an inferior judge, 
 as a judge, be a deputy for a king. There- 
 
CHE LAW AXD THE PRINCE. 
 
 fore, the inferior judges have designation to 
 their office from the king ; but if they have 
 from the king that they are judges, and be 
 not God's deputies, but the king's, they 
 could not be commanded to execute judg- 
 ment for God, but for the king : (Deut, i. 
 17,) Moses appointed judges, but not as his 
 deputies to judge and give sentence, as sub- 
 ordinate to him ; for the judgment (saith 
 he) is the Lord's, not mine. 5. If all the 
 inferior judges in Israel were but the depu- 
 ties of the king, and not immediately subor- 
 dinate to God as his deputies, then could 
 neither inferior judges be admonished nor 
 condemned in God's word for unjust judg- 
 ment, because their sentence should be nei- 
 ther righteous nor unrighteous judgment, 
 but in so far as the king should approve it 
 or disapprove it ; and, indeed, that royalist, 
 Hugo Grotius* saith so, — that an inferior 
 judge can do nothing against the will of the 
 supreme magistrate if it be so. Whenever 
 God commandeth inferior judges to execute 
 righteous judgment, it must have this sense, 
 " .Respect not persons in judgment, except 
 the king command you ; crush not the poor, 
 oppress not the fatherless, except the king 
 command you." I understand not such po- 
 licy. Sure I am the Lard's commandments, 
 rebukes and threats, oblige, in conscience, the 
 inferior judge as the superior, as is manifest 
 in these scriptures, Jer. v. 1 ; Isa. i. 17, 21 ; 
 v. 7 ; x, 2 ; lix. 14 ; Jer. xxii. 3 ; Ezek. 
 xviii. 8 ; Amos v. 7 ; Mic. iii. 9 ; Hab. i. 
 4; Lev. xix. 15; Deut. xvii. 11; i. 17; 
 Exod. xxiii, 2. 
 
 Grotius saith, 2 " It is here as in a cate- 
 gory : the middle specie is, in respect of the 
 superior, a specie, — in respect of the inferior, 
 a genus ; so inferior magistrates in relation 
 to those who are inferior to them and un- 
 der them, are magistrates or public per- 
 sons; but in relation to superior magis- 
 trates, especially the king, they are private 
 persons, and not magistrates. 
 
 Ans. — Jehoshaphat esteemed not judges, 
 appointed by himself, private men, 2 Chron. 
 
 1 Grotius de jure belli et pac. lib. 1, c. 4, Nam 
 oranis facultas gubernandi in magistratibus, sum- 
 mae potestati ita subjicitur ut quiequid contra vo- 
 luntatem summi imperantis faciaut, id defectum sit 
 ea facultate, ac proinde de pro actu privato haben- 
 dum. 
 
 2 Grotius ib. species intermedia, si genus respi- 
 cias, est species, si speciem infra positam, est genus : 
 ita magistratus illi, inferiorum quidem ratione ha- 
 bita sunt publicae, personam, at snperiores si consi- 
 derentur, sunt privati. 
 
 xix. 6, 7, '* Ye judge not for men, but for 
 the Lord." We shall prove that under- 
 judges are powers ordained of God : in 
 Scotland the king can take no man's in- 
 heritance from him because he is the king ; 
 but if any man possess lands belonging to 
 the crown, the king, by his advocate, must 
 stand before the lordrjudges of the session, 
 and submit the matter to the laws of the 
 land ; and if the king, for property of 
 goods, were not under a law, and were not 
 to acknowledge judges as judges, I see not 
 how the subjects in either kingdoms have 
 any property I judge it blasphemy to say, 
 that a sentence of an inferior judge must be 
 no sentence, though never so legal nor just, 
 if it be contrary to the king's will, as Gro- 
 tius saith. 
 
 He citeth that of Augustine : " If the 
 consul command one thing, and the emperor 
 another thing, you contemn not the power, 
 but you choose to obey the highest." Peter 
 saith, He will have us one way to be sub- 
 ject to the king, as to the supreme, pine ul- 
 la exccptionc, without any exception ; but to 
 those who are sent by the king, as having 
 their power from the king. 
 
 Arg. 1. — When the consul commandeth 
 a thing lawful, and the king that same thing 
 lawful, or a thing not unlawful, we are to 
 obey the king rather than the consul. So I 
 expone Augustine. We are not to obey the 
 king and the consul the same way, that is, 
 with the same degree of reverence and sub- 
 mission ; for we owe more submission of spi- 
 rit to the king than to the consul ; but ma- 
 gis et minus non variant speciem, more or 
 less varieth not the nature of things. But if 
 the meaning be that we are not to obey the 
 inferior judge, commanding things lawful, 
 if the king command the contrary, this is 
 utterly denied. But saith Grotius, " The 
 inferior judge is but the deputy of the king, 
 and hath all his power from him ; therefore 
 we are to obey him for the king." — Ans. 
 The inferior judge may be called the deputy 
 of the king, (where it is the king's place to 
 make judges,) because he hath his external 
 call from the king, and is judge infora soli, 
 in the name and authority of the king ; but 
 being once made a judge, in foro poli, be- 
 fore God, he is as essentially a judge, and in 
 his official acts, no less immediately sub- 
 jected to God than the king himself. 
 
 Arg, 2. — These powers to whom we are 
 to yield obedience, because they are ordain- 
 ed of God, these are as essentially judges as 
 o 
 
LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 the supreme magistrate the king ; but in- 
 ferior judges are such, therefore inferior 
 judges are as essentially judges as the su- 
 preme magistrate. The proposition is, Rom. 
 xiii. 1, for that is the apostle's arguments; 
 whence we prove kings are to be obeyed, be- 
 cause they are powers from God. I prove the 
 assumption : inferior magistrates are powers 
 from God, Deut. i. 17; xix. 6, 7; Exod. 
 xxii. 7 ; Jer. v. i. ; and the apostle saith, 
 " The powers that be are ordained of God." 
 
 Arg. 3. — Christ testified that Pilate had 
 power from God as a judge (say royalists) 
 no less than Csesar the emperor. (John xix. 
 11 ; 1 Pet. ii. 12.) We are commanded to 
 obey the king and those that are sent by 
 him, and that for the Lord's sake, and for 
 conscience to God ; and (Rom. xiii. 5) we 
 must be subject to all powers that are of 
 God, not only for wrath, but for conscience. 
 
 Arg. 4. Those who are rebuked because 
 they execute not just judgment, as well as 
 the king, are supposed to be essentially 
 judges, as well as the king ; but inferior 
 judges are rebuked because of this, Jer. 
 xxii. 15—17; Ezek. xlv. 9—12; Zeph. 
 iii. 3 ; Amos v. 6, 7 ; Eccles. iii. 16 ; Mic. 
 iii. 2—4; Jer. v. 1,31. 
 
 Arg. 5. — He is the minister of God for 
 good, and hath the sword not in vain, but to 
 execute vengeance on the evil-doers, no less 
 than the king. (Rom. xiii. 2 — 4.) He to 
 whom agreeth, by an ordinance of God, the 
 specific acts of a magistrate, is essentially a 
 magistrate. 
 
 Arg 6. — The resisting of the inferior ma- 
 gistrate in his lawful commandments is the 
 resisting of God's ordinance, and a breach of 
 the fifth commandment, as is disobedience 
 to parents ; and not to give him tribute, and 
 fear, and honour, is the same transgression, 
 Rom. xiii. 1 — 7. 
 
 Arg. 7. — These styles, of gods, of heads 
 of the people, of fathers, of physicians and 
 healers of the sons of the Most High, of 
 such as reign and decree by the wisdom of 
 God, &c, that are given to kings, for the 
 which royalists make kings only judges, and 
 all inferior judges but deputed, and judges 
 by participation, and at the second hand, or 
 given to inferior judges. (Exod. xxii. 8, 9 ; 
 John x. 35.) Those who are appointed 
 judges under Moses (Deut. i. 16) are called, 
 in Hebrew or Chaldee, (1 Kings viii. 1, 2 ; 
 v. 2 ; Mic. iii. 1 ; Josh, xxiii. 2 ; Num. i. 
 16,) »tPK"l rasce, »{^H fathers, (Acts vii. 
 2 ; Josh. xiv. 1; xix. 15; 1 Chron. viii. 28,) 
 
 healers, (Isa. iii. 7,) gods, and sons of the 
 Most High. (Psal. lxxxii. 1, 2, 6, 7 ; Prov. 
 viii. 16, 17.) I much doubt if kings can in- 
 fuse godheads in their subjects. I conceive 
 they have, from the God of gods, these gifts 
 whereby they are enabled to be judges ; and 
 that kings may appoint them judges, but 
 can do no more : they are no less essentially 
 judges than themselves. 
 
 Arg. 8. — If inferior judges be deputies of 
 the king, not of God, and have all their au- 
 thority from the king, then may the king 
 limit the practice of these inferior judges. 
 Say that an inferior judge hath condemned 
 to death a paricide, and he be conveying 
 him to the place of execution, the king com- 
 eth with a force to rescue him out of his 
 hand ; if this inferior magistrate bear God's 
 sword for the terror of ill-doers, and to exe- 
 cute God's vengeance on murderers, he can- 
 not but resist the king in this, which. I judge 
 to be his office ; for the inferior judge is to 
 take vengeance on ill-doers, and to use the 
 co-active force of the sword, by virtue of his 
 office, to take away this paricide. Now, if 
 he be the deputy of the king, he is not to 
 break the jaws of the wicked (Job xxix. 
 17) ; not to take vengeance on evil-doers 
 (Rom. xiii. 4) ; nor to execute judgment on 
 the wicked, Psal. cxlix. 9) ; nor to execute 
 judgment for the fatherless (Deut. x. 18) ; 
 except a mortal man's creator, the king, say 
 Amen. Now, truly then, God, in all Israel, 
 was to rebuke no inferior judge for pervert- 
 ing judgment, — as he doth, Exod. xxiii. 
 26; Mic. iii. 2—4; Zech. iii. 3; Num. 
 xxv. 5 ; Deut. i. 16 ; for the king only is 
 lord of the conscience of the inferior judge 
 who is to give sentence, and execute sen- 
 tence righteously, upon condition that the 
 king, the only univocal and proper judge, 
 first decree the same, as royalists teach. 
 
 Hear our Prelate (c. 4, p. 46). — How is 
 it imaginable that kings can be said to judge 
 in God's place, and not receive the power 
 from God ? But kings judge in God's place. 
 (Deut. i. 17; 2 Chron. xix. 6.) Let no 
 man stumble (this is his prolepsis) at this, 
 that Moses in the one place, and Jeho- 
 shaphat in the other, spake to subordinate 
 judges under them. This weakeneth no- 
 wise our argument ; for it is a ruled case 
 in law, Quod quis facit per alium, facit 
 per se, all judgments of inferior judges are 
 in the name, authority, and by the power of 
 the supreme, and are but communicatively 
 and derivatively from the sovereign power. 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 ;!! 
 
 Ans. — How is it possible that inferior 
 judges (Deut. i. 17 ; 2 Chron. xix. 6) can 
 be said to judge in God's place, and not 
 receive the power from God immediately, 
 without any consent or covenant of men ? 
 So saith the P. Prelate. But inferior judges 
 judge in the place of God, as both the P. 
 Prelate and Scripture teach. (Deut. i. 17 ; 
 2 Chron. xix. 6.) Let the Prelate see to 
 the stumbling conclusion, for so he feareth 
 it proves to his bad cause. He saith the 
 places, Deut. i. 17 ; 2 Chron. xix. 6, prove 
 that the king judgeth in the room of God, 
 because his deputies judge in the place of 
 God. The Prelate may know we would deny 
 this stumbling and lame consequence; for 
 1. Moses and Jehoshaphat are not speaking 
 to themselves, but to other inferior judges, 
 and doth publicly exhort them. Moses and 
 Jehoshaphat are persuading the regulation 
 of the personal actions of other men who 
 might pervert judgment. 2. The Prelate 
 is much upon his law, after he had foresworn 
 the gospel and religion of the church where 
 he was baptized. " What the king doth by 
 another, that he doth by himself." But 
 were Moses and Jehoshaphat afraid that 
 they should pervert judgment in the un- 
 just sentence pronounced by under judges, 
 of which sentence they could not know any 
 thing ? And do inferior judges so judge in 
 the name, authority, and power of the long, 
 as not in the name, authority, and power of 
 the Lord of lords and King of kings ? or is 
 the judgment the king's? No; the Spirit of 
 God saith no such matter. The judgment 
 executed by those inferior judges is the 
 Lord's, not a mortal king's; therefore, a 
 mortal king may not hinder them to exe- 
 cute judgment. 
 
 Obj. — He cannot suggest an unjust sen- 
 tence, and command an inferior judge to give 
 out a sentence absolvatory on cut-throats, but 
 he may hinder the execution of any sentence 
 against Irish cut-throats. 
 
 Ans. — It is all one to hinder the execu- 
 tion of a just sentence, and to suggest or 
 command the inferior judge to pronounce 
 an unjust one ; for inferior judges, by con- 
 science of their office, are both to judge 
 rio-hteously, and by force and power of the 
 sword given to them of God (Rom. xiii. 
 1 — 4) to execute the sentence ; and so God 
 hath commanded inferior judges to execute 
 judgment, and hath forbidden them to wrest 
 judgment, to take gifts, except the king com- 
 mand them so to do. 
 
 The king is by the grace of God, the in- 
 ferior judge is judge by the grace of the 
 king ; even as the man is the image of God, 
 and the woman the man's image. 1 
 
 Ans. 1. — This distinction is neither true 
 in law nor conscience. Not in law, for it dis- 
 tmguisheth not betwixt ministros regis, et 
 ministros regni. The servants of the king- 
 are his domestics, the judges are ministri 
 regni, non regis ; the ministers and judges 
 of the kingdom, not of the king. The king- 
 doth not show grace, as he is a man, in 
 making such a man a judge ; but justice 
 as a king, by a royal power received from 
 the people, and by an act of justice, he 
 makes judges of deserving men ; he should 
 neither for favour nor bribes make any one 
 judge in the land. 2. It is by the grace of 
 God that men are to be advanced from a 
 private condition to be inferior judges, as 
 royal dignity is a free gift of God ; 1 Sam. 
 ii. 7, " The Lord bringeth low and lifteth 
 up ;" Psal. lxxv. 7, " God putteth down one 
 and setteth up another." Court flatterers 
 take from God and give to kings ; but to 
 be a judge inferior is no less an immediate 
 favour of God than to be king, though the 
 one be a greater favour than the other. 
 Magis honos and Majoc honos are to be 
 considered. 
 
 Arg 9. — Those powers which differ gra- 
 dually, and per magis et minus, by more 
 and less only, differ not in nature and spe- 
 cies, and constitute not kings and inferior 
 judges different univocally. But the power 
 of kings and inferior judges are such; there- 
 fore kings and inferior judges differ not uni- 
 vocally. That the powers are the same in 
 nature, I prove, 1. by the specific acts and 
 formal object of the power of both ; for both 
 are powers ordained of God. (Rom. xiii. 1.) 
 To resist either, Ls to resist the ordinance of 
 God. 2. Both are by office a terror to evil 
 workers, ver. 3. 3. Both are the ministers of 
 God for good. Though the king send and 
 give a call to the inferior judge, that doth 
 no more make the inferior judge's powers in 
 nature and specie different than ministers 
 of the Word, called by ministers of the 
 Word, have offices different in nature. Ti- 
 mothy's office to be preacher of the Word 
 differeth not in specie from the office of the 
 presbytery which laid hands on him, though 
 their office by extension he more than 1 i- 
 mothy's office. The people's power is put 
 
 Symmon'a Loyal Subjects' Belief, sect. 1, p. 3. 
 
92 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 forth in those same acts, when they choose 
 one to be their king and supreme governor^ 
 and when they set up an aristocratical go- 
 vernment, and choose many, or more than 
 one, to be their governors ; for the formal 
 object of one or many governors is justice 
 and religion, as they are to be advanced. 
 The form and manner of their operation is, 
 brachio seculari, by a co-active power, and 
 by the sword. The formal acts of king and 
 many judges in aristocracy are these same, 
 the defending of the poor and needy from 
 violence, the conservation of a community in 
 a peaceable and a godly life. (1 Tim. ii. 2 ; 
 Job xxix. 12, 13 ; Isa. i, 17.) These same 
 laws of God that regulateth the king in all 
 his acts of royal government^ and tyeth and 
 obligeth his conscience, as the Lord's de- 
 puty, to execute judgment for God, and not 
 in the stead of men, in God's court of hea- 
 ven, doth in like manner tie, and oblige 
 the conscience of aristocratical judges, and 
 all inferior judges, as is clear and evident 
 by these places, 1 Tim. ii. 2, not only kings, 
 but all in authority *«',«; Si l» im^tf oW«5 are 
 obliged to procure that their subjects lead a 
 quiet and peaceable life, in all godliness and 
 honesty. All in conscience are obliged 
 (Deut. i. 16) to judge righteously between 
 every man and his brother, and the stran^- 
 ger that is with them. Neither are they 
 to respect persons in judgment, but are to 
 hear the small as well as the great, nor to 
 be afraid of the lace of men, — the judgment 
 administered by all, is God's. (2 Chron. 
 xix. 6.) All are obliged to fear God, (Deut. 
 xvii. 19, 20,) to keep the words of the law ; 
 not to be lifted up in heart above their 
 brethren. (Isa. i. 17 ; Jer. xxii. 2, 3.) Let 
 any man show me a difference, according to 
 God's word, but in the extension, that what 
 the king is to do as a king, in all the king- 
 dom and whole dominions, (if God give to 
 him many, as he gave to David, and Solo- 
 mon, and Joshua^) that the inferior judges 
 are to do in such and such circuits, and li- 
 mited places, and I quit the cause ; so as 
 the inferior judges are little kings, and the 
 king a great and delated judge>— as a com- 
 pressed hand or fist, and the hand stretched 
 out in fingers and thumb, are one hand; so 
 here. 4. God owneth inferior judges as a 
 congregation of gods; (Psal. lxxxii. 1, 2 ;) 
 for that God sittcth in a congregation or 
 senate of kings or monarchs, I shall not be- 
 lieve till I see royalists show to me a com- 
 monwealth of monarchs convening in one 
 
 judicature. All are equally called gods, 
 (John x. 35; Exod. xxii. 8,) if for any 
 cause, but because all judges, even inferior, 
 are the immediate deputies of the King of 
 kings, and their sentence in judgment as 
 the sentence of the Judge of all the earth, 
 I shall be informed by the P. Prelate, 
 when he shall answer my reasons, if his in- 
 terdicted lordship may cast an eye to a poor 
 presbyter below ; and as wisdom is that 
 by which kings reign, (ProVi viih 15, so also 
 ven 16,) by which princes rule, and nobles, 
 even all the judges of the earth ; all that is 
 said against this is, that the king hath a 
 prerogative royal, by which he is differ- 
 enced from all judges in Israel, called jus 
 regis nJDtJ^D, for, (saith Barclay, 1 ) the 
 king, as king, essentially hath a domination 
 and power above all, so as none can censure 
 him, or punish him, but Godj because there 
 be no thrones above his but the throne of 
 God. The judges of Israel, as Samuel, 
 Gideon, &c. had no domination, — the do- 
 minion was in God's hand: " We may re- 
 sist an inferior judge, (saith Arnisseus, 2 ) 
 otherwise there were no appeal from him, 
 and the wrong we suffer were irreparable" 
 as saith Marantius. 3 " And all the judges 
 of the earth (saith Edward Symmons 4 ) 
 are from God more remotely ; namely, me- 
 diante rege-, by the mediation of the Su- 
 preme, even as the lesser stars have their 
 light from God by the mediation of the 
 sum To the first I answer : — There was a 
 difference betwixt the kings of Israel and 
 their judges, no question; but if it be an es- 
 sential difference, it is a question. For, 1. 
 The judges were raised up in an extraordi- 
 nary manner, out of any tribe, to defend 
 the people, and vindicate their liberty, God 
 remaining their king: the king, by the 
 Lord's appointment, was tyed, after Saul, 
 to the royal tribe of Judah, till the Mes- 
 siah's coming. God took his own blessed 
 liberty to set up a succession in the ten 
 tribes-. 2. The judges were not by succes- 
 sion from father to son : the kings were, as 
 I conceive, for the typical eternity of the 
 Messiah's throne, presignified to stand from 
 
 i Inferiores Judloes stint improprie Vicarii Regis, 
 quod missioriem externam ad officium, sed imme- 
 diati Dei vicarii, quoad officium in quod missi sunt. 
 Barclaius contr. Monarch. 1. 2, p. 56, 57. 
 
 2 Arnisaeus de autlioritate princip. c. 3, n. 9. 
 
 3 Marant. disp. 1, Zoan. tract. 3, de defens. Myn- 
 sing. obs, 18, cent. 5, 
 
 ■* Symmous, sect. 1, p. 2. 
 
THE LAW AXD THE PRINCE. 
 
 generation to generation; 3. Whether the 
 judges were appointed by the election of the 
 people, or no, some doubt ; because Jeph- 
 thah was so made judge : but I think it 
 was not a law in Israel that it should be so. 
 But the first mould of a king (Deut. xvii.) 
 is by election. But that God gave power 
 of domineering, that is, of tyrannising, to a 
 king, so as he cannot be resisted, which he 
 gave not to a judge, I think no scripture 
 can make good. For by what scripture 
 can royalists warrant to us that the people 
 might rise in anus to defend themselves 
 against Moses, Gideon, Eli, Samuel, and 
 other judges, if they should have tyrannised 
 over the people ; and that it is unlawful to 
 resist the most tyrannous king in Israel and 
 Judah ? Yet Barclay and others must say 
 this, if they be true to that principle of ty- 
 ranny, that the jus regis, the law or man- 
 ner of the king (1 Sam. viii. 9, 11 ; and 1 
 Sam. x. 25) doth essentially differ betwixt 
 the kings of Israel and the judges of Is- 
 rael. But we think God gave never any 
 power of tyranny to either judge or king of 
 Israel ; and domination in that sense was 
 by God given to none of them. Arnisseus 
 hath as little for him, to say the inferior 
 magistrate may be resisted, because we may 
 appeal from him ; but the king cannot be 
 resisted, quia sanctitas majestatis id non 
 permittit, the sanctity of royal majesty will 
 not permit us to resist the king. 
 
 Atis. — That is not Paul's argument to 
 prove it unlawful to resist Icings, as kings, 
 and doing their office, because of the sanc- 
 tity of their majesty; that is, as the man in- 
 tendethj because of the supreme, absolute, 
 and unlimited power that God hath given 
 him. But this is a begging of the question, 
 and all one as, to say, the king may not be 
 resisted, because he may not be' resisted; 
 for sanctity of majesty, if we believe roya- 
 lists, includeth essentially an absolute supre- 
 macy of power, whereby they are above the 
 reach of all thrones, laws, powers, or resis- 
 tance on earth. But the argument is, re- 
 sist not, because the power is of God; But 
 the inferior magistrate's power is of God. 
 Resist not, because you resist God's ordi- 
 nance in resisting the judge ; but the infe- 
 rior judge is God's ordinance. (Rom. xiii. 1 ; 
 Deut. i. 17 ; 2 Chron. xix. 6.) Mr Sym- 
 mons saith, " All judges on earth are from 
 the king, as stars have their fight from the 
 sun." I answer, 1. Then aristocracy were 
 unlawful, lor it hath not its power from mo- 
 
 narchy. Had the lords of the Philistines, 
 have the states of Holland, no power but 
 from a monarchy ? Name the monarch. 
 Have the Venetians any power from a king ? 
 Indeed, our Prelate saith from Augustine, 
 (Confess, lib. 3, cap. 8,) Generale pactum 
 est societatis humance, obedire Regibus suis, 
 it is an universal covenant of human so- 
 ciety, and a dictate of nature, that men 
 obey their kings. " I beg the favour of 
 sectaries (saith he) to show as much for 
 aristocracy and democracy." Now all other 
 governments, to those born at court, are the 
 inventions of men. But I can show that 
 same warrant for the one as for the other ; 
 because it is as well the dictate of nature 
 that people obey their judges and rulers as 
 it is that they obey their kings. And Au- 
 gustine speaketh of all judges in that place, 
 though he name kings ; for kingly govern- 
 ment is no more of the law of nature 
 than aristocracy or democracy ; nor are 
 any born judges or subjects at all. There 
 is a natural aptitude in all to either of these, 
 for the conservation of nature ■, and that is 
 all. Let us see that men, naturally inclining 
 to government, incline rather to royal go- 
 vernment than to any other. That the P. 
 Prelate shall not be able to show ; for father- 
 ly government, being in two, is not kingly, 
 but nearer to aristocracy ; and when many 
 families were on earth, every one indepen- 
 dent within themselves, if a common ene- 
 my should invade a tract of land governed 
 by families, I conceive, by nature's light, 
 they should incline to defend themselves, 
 and to join in one politic body for their own 
 safety, as is most natural. But, in that case 
 they, having no king, and there were no rea- 
 son of many lathers all alike loving their 
 own families and self-preservation, why one 
 should be king over all, rather than an- 
 other, except by voluntary compact. So it is 
 clear that nature is nearer to aristocracy be- 
 fore this contract than a monarchy. And let 
 him show us in multitudes of families dwell- 
 ing together, before there was a king, as 
 clear a w T arrant for monarchy as here is for 
 aristocracy ; though to me both be laudable 
 and lawful ordinances of God, and the dif- 
 ference merely accidental, being one and the 
 same power from the Lord, (Rom. xiii. 1,) 
 which is in divers subjects ; in one as a mo- 
 narchy, in many as in aristocracy ; and the 
 one is as natural as the other, and the sub- 
 jects are accidental to the nature of the 
 power. 2. The stars have no light at all 
 
94 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 but in actual aspect toward the sun ; and 
 they are not lightsome bodies by the free 
 will of the sun, and have no immediate light 
 from God formally, but from the sun ; so as 
 if there were no sun, there should be no 
 stars. 3. For actual shining and sending 
 out of beams of light actu secundo, they de- 
 pend upon the presence of the sun ; but for 
 inferior judges, though they have their call 
 from the king, yet have they gifts to govern 
 from no king on earth, but only from the 
 King of kings. 4. When the king is dead, 
 the judges are judges, and they depend not 
 on the king for their second acts of judging ; 
 and for the actual emission and putting forth 
 their beams and rays of justice upon the 
 poor and needy, they depend on no volun- 
 tary aspect, information or commandment 
 of the king, but on that immediate subjec- 
 tion of their conscience to the King of kings. 
 And their judgment which they execute is 
 the Lord's immediately, and not the king's ; 
 and so the comparison halteth. 
 
 Arg. 10. — If the king dying, the judges 
 inferior remain powers from God, the de- 
 puties of the Lord of Hosts, having their 
 power from God, then are they essentially 
 judges ; yea, and if the estates, in their prime 
 representators and leaders, have power in the 
 death of the king to choose and make an- 
 other king, then are they not judges and 
 rulers by derivation and participation, or im- 
 properly; but the king is rather the ruler 
 by derivation and participation than those 
 who are called inferior judges. Now, if these 
 judges depend in their sentences upon the 
 immediate will of him who is supposed to be 
 the only judge, when this only judge dieth, 
 they should cease to be judges : for Expir- 
 ante mandatore cxpirat mandatum ; be- 
 cause the fountain-judge drying up, the 
 streams must dry up. Now, when Saul 
 died, the princes of the tribes remain by 
 God's institution princes, and they by God's 
 law and warrant (Deut. xvii.) choose David 
 their king. 
 
 Arg. 11. — If the king, through absolute 
 power, do not send inferior judges, and con- 
 stitute them, but only by a power from the 
 people ; and if the Lord have no less imme- 
 diate influence in making inferior judges 
 than in making kings, then there is no 
 ground that the king should be sole judge, 
 and the inferior judge only judge by deri- 
 vation from him, and essentially his deputy, 
 and not the immediate deputy of God. If 
 the former is true, therefore, so is the lat- 
 
 ter. And, 1. That the king's absolute will 
 maketh not inferior judges, is clear, from 
 Deut. i. 15. Moses might not follow his 
 own will in making inferior judges whom 
 he pleased : God tyed him to a law, (ver. 
 13,) that he should take wise men, known 
 amongst the people, and fearing God, and 
 hating covetousness. And these qualifica- 
 tions were not from Moses, but from God ; 
 and no less immediately from God than the 
 inward qualification of a king (Deut. xvii.) ; 
 and therefore, it is not God's law that the 
 king may make inferior judges only, Du- 
 rante beneplacito, during his absolute will ; 
 for if these divine qualifications remain in 
 the seventy elders, Moses, at his will, could 
 not remove them from their places. 2. 
 That the king can make heritable judges 
 more than he can communicate faculties 
 and parts of judging, I doubt. Riches are 
 of fathers, but not promotion, which is from 
 God, and neither from the east nor the 
 west : that our nobles are born lords of 
 parliament, and judges by blood, is a posi- 
 tive law. 3. It seemeth to me, from Isa. 
 iii. 1 — 4, that the inferior judge is made by 
 consent of the people ; nor can it be called 
 a wronging of the king, that all cities and 
 burghs of Scotland and England have power 
 to choose their own provosts, rulers, and 
 mayors. 4. If it be wan-anted by God, 
 that the lawful call of God to the throne 
 be the election of the people, the call of in- 
 ferior judges must also be from the people, 
 mediately or immediately. So I see no 
 ground to say, that the inferior judge is 
 the king's vicegerent, or that he is in re- 
 spect of the king, or in relation to supreme 
 authority, only a private man. 
 
 Arg. 12. These judges cannot but be 
 univocally and essentially judges no less 
 than the king, without which in a king- 
 dom justice is physically impossible ; and 
 anarchy, and violence, and confusion, must 
 follow, if they be wanting in the kingdom. 
 But without inferior judges, though there 
 be a king, justice is physically impossible ; 
 and anarchy and confusion, &c. must follow. 
 
 Now this argument is more considerable, 
 that without inferior judges, though there 
 be a king in a kingdom, justice and safety 
 are impossible ; and if there be inferior 
 judges, though there be no king, as in aris- 
 tocracy, and when the king is dead, and 
 another not crowned, or the king is minor, 
 or absent, or a captive in the enemy's land, 
 yet justice is possible, and the kingdom 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 0.3 
 
 preserved ; the medium of the argument 
 is grounded upon God's word, Num. xi. 
 14, 15, when Moses is unable alone to judge 
 the people, seventy elders are joined with 
 him (ver. 16, 17) ; so were the elders ad- 
 
 ! joined to help him (Exod. xxiv. 1 ; Deut. 
 
 ! v. 23 ; xxii. 16 ; Josh, xxiii. 2 ; Judg. viii. 
 
 } 14; xi. 5, 11 ; 1 Sam. xi. 3 ; 1 Kings xx. 
 7; 2 Kings vi. 32; 2 Chron. xxxiv. 29; 
 Ruth iv. 4 ; Deut. xix. 12 ; Ezek. viii. 1 ; 
 Lam. i. 19); then were the elders of Moab 
 thought to have a king. The natural end 
 of judges hath been indigence and weak- 
 ness, because men could not in a society 
 defend themselves from violence ; therefore, 
 by the light of nature they gave their power 
 to one or more, and made a judge or judges 
 to obtain the end of self-preservation. But 
 nature useth the most efficacious means to 
 obtain its end; but in a great society and 
 kingdom, the end is more easily attained by 
 many governors than by one only ; for where 
 there is but one, he cannot minister justice 
 to all; and the farther that the children are 
 removed from their father and tutor, they 
 are the nearer to violence and injustice. 
 Justice should be at as easy a rate to the 
 poor as a draught of water. Samuel went 
 yearly through the land to Bethel, Gilgal, 
 Mizpeh, (1 Sam. vii. 16,) and brought jus- 
 tice to the doors of the poor. So were our 
 kings of Scotland obliged to do of old ; but 
 now justice is as dear as gold. It is not a 
 good argument to prove inferior judges to 
 be only vicars and deputies of the king, be- 
 cause the king may censure and punish them 
 when they pervert judgment. 1. Because 
 the king, in that punisheth them not as 
 judges, but as men. 2. That might prove 
 all the subjects to be vicars and deputies of 
 the king, because he can punish them all, in 
 the case of their breach of laws. 
 
 QUESTION XXI. 
 
 WHAT POWER THE PEOPLE AND STATES OF 
 PARLIAMENT HAVE OVER THE KING, AND 
 IN THE STATE. 
 
 It is true the king is the head of the 
 kingdom ; but the states of the kinodom 
 are as the temples of the head, and so, as 
 essentially parts of the head as the king is 
 the crown of the head. 1 
 
 1 Principcs sunt capitis tempora rex vertex. 
 
 Assert. 1. — These orrfincs regni, the 
 states, have been in famous nations : so 
 there were fathers of families, and princes 
 of tribes amongst the Jews: the Ephori 
 amongst the Lacedemonians, (Polyb. hist. 
 1. 6 ;) the senate amongst the Romans ; the 
 forum suprrbiense amongst the Arrago- 
 nians; the parliaments in Scotland, Eng- 
 land, France, Spain. Abner communed 
 with the elders ot Israel to bring the king 
 home; (2 Sam. iii. 17 ;) and there were 
 elders in Israel, both in the time of the 
 judges, and in the time of the kings, who 
 did not only give advice and counsel to the 
 judges and kings, but also were judges no 
 less than the kings and judges, which I shall 
 make good by these places: Deut. xxi. 19, 
 the rebellious son is brought to the elders of 
 the city, who had power of life and death, 
 and caused to stone him ; Deut. xxii. 18, 
 " The elders of the city shall take that man 
 and chastise him ;" Josh. xx. 4, but beside 
 the elders of every city, there were the el- 
 ders of Israel and the princes, who had also 
 judicial power of life and death, as the judges 
 and king had ; Josh. xxii. 30, even when 
 Joshua was judge in Israel, the princes of 
 the congregation and heads of the thousands 
 of Israel did judicially cognosce whether the 
 children of Reuben, of Gad, and of half the 
 tribe of Manasseh, were apostates from God, 
 and the religion of Israel ; 2 Sam. v. 3, all 
 the elders of Israel made David king at 
 Hebron ; and Num. xii., they are appointed 
 by God not to be the advisers only and help- 
 ers of Moses ; but (ver. 14 — 17) to bear a 
 part of the burden of ruling and governing 
 the people, that Moses might be eased. Je- 
 remiah is accused, (xxvi. 10,) upon his life, 
 before the princes ; Josh. vii. 4, the princes 
 sit in judgment with Joshua ; Josh. ix. 15, 
 Joshua and the princes of the congregation 
 sware to the Gibeonites that they would not 
 kill them. The princes of the house of 
 Israel could not be rebuked for oppression 
 in judgment (Mic. iii. 1 — 3) if they had 
 not had power of judgment. So (Zeph. iii. 
 3 ; Deut. i. 17 ; 2 Chron. xix. 6, 7) they 
 are expressly made judges in the place of 
 God; and (1 Sam. viii. 2) without advice 
 or knowledge of Samuel, the supreme judge, 
 they convene and ask a king ; and without 
 any head or superior, when there is no king, 
 they convene a parliament, and made David 
 king at Hebron; and when David is banished, 
 they convene to bring him home again ; 
 when tyrannous Athalia reigneth, they con- 
 
96 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 vene and make Joash king, and that with- 
 out any king; and (Josh, xxii.) there is a 
 parliament convened, and, for any thing we 
 can read, without Joshua, to take cognisance 
 of a new altar. It had been good that the 
 parliaments both of Scotland and of Eng- 
 land had convened, though the king had 
 not indicted and summoned a parliament, 
 without the king, to take order with the 
 wicked clergy, who had made many idola- 
 trousjaltars; and the P. Prelate should have 
 brought an argument to prove it unlawful, 
 in foro Dei, to set up the tables and con- 
 ventions in our kingdom, when the prelates 
 were bringing in the grossest idolatory into 
 the church — a service for adoring of altars, 
 of bread, the work of the hand of the baker 
 — a god more corruptible than any god of 
 silver and gold. 
 
 And against Achab's will and mind, (1 
 Kings xviii. 19,) Elias causeth to kill the 
 priests of Baal, according to God's express 
 law. It is true it was extraordinary ; but 
 no otherwise extraordinary than it is at this 
 day. When the supreme magistrate will 
 not execute the judgment of the Lord, those 
 who made him supreme magistrate, under 
 God, who have, under God, sovereign li- 
 berty to dispose of crowns and kingdoms, 
 are to execute the judgment of the Lord, 
 when wicked men make the law of God of 
 none effect. 1 Sam. xv. 32, so Samuel 
 killed Agag, whom the Lord expressly com- 
 manded to be killed, because Saul disobeyed 
 the voice of the Lord. I deny not but there 
 is necessity of a clear warrant that the ma- 
 gistrate neglect his duty, either in not con- 
 vening the states, or not executing the judg- 
 ment of the Lord. I see not how the con- 
 vening of a parliament is extraordinary to 
 the states ; for none hath power ordinary 
 when the king is dead, or when he is dis- 
 tracted, or captive in another land, to con- 
 vene the estates and parliament, but they 
 only ; and in their defect, by the law of na- 
 ture, the people may convene. But, if they 
 be essentially judges no less than the king, 
 as I have demonstrated to the impartial 
 reader, in the former chapter, I conceive, 
 though the state make a positive law, for or- 
 der's cause, that the king ordinarily convene 
 parliaments ; yet, if we dispute the matter 
 in the court of conscience, the estates have 
 intrinsically (because they are the estates, 
 and essentially judges of the land) ordinary 
 power to convene themselves. Because, 
 when Moses, by God's rule, hath appointed 
 
 seventy men to be catholic judges in the 
 land, Moses, upon his sole pleasure and will, 
 hath not power to restrain them in the ex- 
 ercise of judgment given them of God ; for, 
 as God hath given to any one judge power to 
 judge righteous judgment, though the king 
 command the contrary, so hath he given to 
 him power to sit down in the gate, or the 
 bench, when and where the necessity of the 
 oppressed people calleth for it. For the ex- 
 press commandment of God, which saith to 
 all judges, execute judgment in the morn- 
 ing, involveth essentially a precept to all 
 the physical actions, without wluch it is im- 
 possible to execute judgment ; — as, namely, 
 if, by a divine precept, the judge must exe- 
 cute judgment ; therefore he must come to 
 some public place, and he must cause party 
 and witnesses come before him, and he must 
 consider, cognosce, examine, in the place of 
 judgment, things, persons, circumstances : 
 and so God, who commandeth positive acts 
 of judging, commandeth the judge's loco- 
 motive power, and his natural aotions of 
 compelling, by the sword, the parties to 
 come before him, even as Christ, who com- 
 mandeth his servants to preach, command- 
 eth that the preacher and the people go to 
 church, and that he stand or sit in a place 
 where all may hear, and that he give him- 
 self to reading and meditating before he 
 come to preach. And if God command one 
 judge to come to the place of judgment, so 
 doth he command seventy, and so all 
 estates to convene in the place of judgment. 
 It is objected, " That the estates are not 
 judges, ordinary and habitually, but only 
 judges at some certain occasions, when the 
 king, for cogent and weighty causes, calleth 
 them, and calleth them not to judge, but to 
 give him advice and counsel how to judge." 
 
 Arg. 1. — -They are no less judges habitu- 
 ally than the king, when the common affairs 
 of the whole kingdom necessitated these 
 public watchmen to come together ; for even 
 the king judgeth not actually, but upon oc- 
 casion. This is to beg the question, to say 
 that the estates are not judges but when 
 the king calleth them at such and such oc- 
 casions ; for the elders, princes, and heads of 
 families and tribes, were judges ordinary, 
 because they made the king. 
 
 Arg. 2. — The kingdom, by God, yea, and 
 church, justice and religion, so far as they 
 concern the whole kingdom, are committed 
 not to the keeping of the king only, but to 
 all the judges, elders, and princes of the 
 
THE LAW AXD THE PHIXCE, 
 
 land : and they are rebuked as evening 
 wolves, lions, oppressors, (Ezek. xxii. 27 ; 
 Zee. iii. 3 ; Isa, iii. 14, 15 ; Mic. iii. 1—3,) 
 when they oppress the people in judgment, 
 so are they (Deut. i. 15 — 17 ; 2 Chron. xix, 
 6, 7) made judges, and therefore they are 
 no more to be restrained not to convene by 
 the king's power, (which is in this accumur 
 lative and auxiliary, not privative,) than 
 they can be restrained in judgment, and in 
 pronouncing such a sentence, as the king 
 pleased, and not such a sentence ; because, 
 as they are to answer to God for unjust 
 sentences, so also for no just sentences, and 
 for not convening to judge, when religion 
 and justice, which are fallen in the streets, 
 calleth for them. 
 
 Arg. 3.— As God in a law of nature hath 
 given to every man the keeping and self- 
 preservation of himself and of his brother, 
 Cain ought in his place to be the keeper of 
 Abel his brother; so hath God committed 
 the keeping of the commonwealth, by a posi- 
 tive law, not to the king alone, because that 
 is impossible.^ (Num. xi. 14, 17 ; 2 Chron. 
 xix. 1 — 6 ; 1 Chron. xxvii.) 
 
 Arg. 4. — If the king had such a power 
 as king, and so from God, he should have 
 power to break up the meeting of all courts 
 of parliament, secret councils, and all in- 
 ferior judicatures ; and when the congrega- 
 tion of gods, as Psal. lxxxii., in the midst of 
 which the Lord standeth, were about to 
 pronounce just judgment for the oppressed 
 and poor, they might be hindered by the 
 king ; and so they should be as just as the 
 king maketh them, and might pervert judg- 
 ment, and take away the righteousness of 
 the righteous from him, (Isa. v. 23,) be- 
 cause the king commandeth ; and the cause 
 of the poor should not come before the 
 judge, when the king so commandeth. And 
 shall it excuse the estates, to say, we could 
 not judge the cause of the poor, nor crush 
 the priests of Baal, and the idolatrous 
 mass-prelates, because the king forbade us ? 
 So might the king break up the meeting of 
 the lords of session, when they were to de- 
 cern that Naboth's vineyard should be re- 
 stored to him, and hinder the states to re- 
 press tyranny ; and this were as much as if 
 the states should say, We made this man 
 our king, and with our good-will we agree 
 he shall be a tyrant, For if God gave it to 
 
 Junius Brut. q. 2, p. 51, vind. contr. Tyran. 
 
 are to consent that he 
 
 him as a king, 
 enjoy it. 
 
 Arg. 5. — If Barclay and other flatterers 
 have leave to make the parliament but 
 counsellors and advisers of the king, and the 
 king to be the only and sole judge, the 
 king is, by that same reason, the sole judge, 
 in relation to all judges ; the contrary 
 whereof is clear. (Num. xi. 16 ; Deut. i. 
 15 — 17; Chron. xix. 6; Rom. xiii. 1, 2; 
 1 Pet, ii. 13, 14.) Yea, but (say they) the 
 king, when he sendeth an ambassador, he 
 may tie him to a written commission ; and 
 in so far as he exceedeth that, he is not an 
 ambassador; and clear it is, that all in- 
 ferior judges (1 Pet. ii. 13, 14) ar« but 
 sent by the king ; therefore, they are so 
 judges as they are but messengers, and are 
 to adhere to the royal pleasure of the prince 
 that sent them. Ans. (1.) — The ambassa- 
 dor is not to accept an unjust ambassage, 
 that fighteth with the law of nature. (2.) 
 The ambassador and the judge differ, the 
 ambassador is the king and states' deputy, 
 both in his call to the ambassy, and also 
 in the matter of the ambassy • for which 
 cause he is not to transgress what is given 
 to him in writ as a rule ; but the inferior 
 judges, and the high court of parliament, 
 though they were the king's deputies, (as 
 the parliament is in no sort his deputy, but 
 he their deputy royal) yet it is only in re- 
 spect of their call, not in respect of the 
 matter of their commission, for the king 
 may send the judge to judge in general 
 according to the law, justice, and religion, 
 but he cannot depute the sentence, and com- 
 mand the conscience of the judge to pro- 
 nounce such a sentence, not such. The in- 
 ferior judge in the act of judging is as 
 independent, and his conscience as imme- 
 diately subject to God as the king ; therefore, 
 the king owes to every sentence his appro- 
 bative suffrage as king, but not either his 
 directive suffrage, or his imperative suffrage 
 of absolute pleasure. 
 
 Arg. 6. — If the king should sell his 
 country, and bring in a foreign army, the 
 estates are to convene, to take course for the 
 safety of the kingdom. 
 
 Arg. 7. — If David exhort the princes of 
 Israel to help king Solomon in governing 
 the kingdom, and in building the temple 
 (2 Chron. xxxii.3): — if Hezekiahtookcounsel 
 with his princes, and his mighty men in the 
 matter of holding off the Assyrians, who 
 were to invade the land: if David (1 Chron. 
 
98 
 
 xiii. 1 — 1) consult with the captains of 
 thousands and hundreds, to bring the ark of 
 God to Kirjath-jearim : if Solomon (1 Kino-s 
 viii. 1) " assemble the elders of Israel, and 
 all the heads of the tribes, and the chief of 
 the fathers, to bring the ark of the taber- 
 nacle to the congregation of the Lord :" 
 if Achab gathered together the states of 
 Israel, in a matter that nearly concerned 
 religion : if the elders and people (1 Kings 
 xx. 8) counsel and decree that king Achab 
 should hearken to Ben-hadad king of Syria, 
 and if Ahasuerus make no decrees, but with 
 consent of his princes, (Esth. i. 21,) nor 
 Darius any act without his nobles and 
 princes: if Hamor and Shechem (Gen. 
 xxxiv. 20) would not make a covenant with 
 Jacob's sons, without the consent of the men 
 of the city, and Ephron the Hittite would 
 not sell Abraham a burial place in his land 
 without the consent of the children of Heth 
 (Gen. xxiii. 10) : — then must the estates 
 have a power of judging with the king or 
 prince in matters of religion, justice, °and 
 government, which concern the whole king- 
 dom. But the former is time by the records 
 of Scripture ; therefore, so is the latter. 
 
 Arg. 8. — The men of Ephraim complain 
 that Jephthah had gone to war against the 
 children of Amnion without them, and 
 hence rose war betwixt the men of Ephraim 
 and the men of Gilead, (Judges xii. 1 — 3,) 
 and the men of Israel fiercely contended 
 with the men of Judah, because they brought 
 king David home again without them, plead- 
 ing that they were therein despised, (2. Sam. 
 xix. 41 — 43,) which evinceth that the 
 whole states have hand in matters of public 
 government, that concern all the kingdom ; 
 and when there is no king, (Judg. xx.) the 
 chief of the people, and of all the tribes, go 
 out in battle against the children of Ben- 
 jamin. 
 
 Arg. 9. — Those who make the king, and 
 so have power to unmake him in the case of 
 tyranny, must be above the king in power 
 of government ; but the elders and princes 
 made both David and Saul kings. 
 
 Arg. 10. — There is not any who say that 
 the princes and people, (1 Sam. xiv.) did 
 not right in rescuing innocent Jonathan 
 from death, against the king's will and his 
 law. 
 
 Arg. 11. — The special ground of royalists 
 is, to make the king the absolute supreme, 
 giving all life and power to the parliament 
 and states, and of mere grace convening 
 
 them. So saith Feme, the author of 
 Ossorianum, (p. 69,) but this ground is 
 false, because the king's power is fiduciary, 
 and put in his hand upon trust, and must be 
 ministerial, and borrowed from those who 
 put him in trust, and so his power must be 
 less, and derived from the parliament. But 
 the parliament hath no power in trust from 
 the king, because the time was when the 
 man who is the king had no power, and the 
 parliament had the same power that they 
 now have ; and now, when the king hath re- 
 ceived power from them, they have the 
 whole power that they had before — that is, 
 to make laws ; and resigned no power to the 
 king, but to execute laws; and his convening 
 of them is an act of royal duty, which he 
 oweth to the parliament by virtue of his 
 office, and is not an act of grace ; for an act 
 of grace is an act of free will ; and what the 
 king doth of free will, he may not do, and so 
 he may never convene a parliament. But, 
 when David, Solomon, Asa, Hezekiah, Je- 
 hoshaphat, Ahaz, convened parliaments, 
 they convened parliaments as kings, and so 
 ex debito et virtute officii, out of debt and 
 royal obligation, and if the king as the king, 
 be lex animate/,, a breathing and living law, 
 the king, as king, must do by obligation of 
 law what he doth as king, and not from 
 spontaneous and arbitrary grace. If the 
 Scripture holds forth to us a king in Israel, 
 and two princes and elders who made the 
 king, and had power of life and death, as 
 we have seen ; then is there in Israel 
 monarchy tempered with aristocracy; and 
 if there were elders and rulers in every city, 
 as the Scripture saith, here was also aristo- 
 cracy and democracy ; and for the warrant 
 of the power of the estates, I appeal to 
 jurists, and to approved authors : Arg. I. 
 aliud. 160, sect. 1 ; De Jur. Reg. I. 22 ; 
 Mortuo de fidei. I. 11, 14, ad Mum. I. 3, 
 1,4/ Sigenius De Hep. Judceor. 1. 6, c. 7 ; 
 Cornelius Bertramo, c. 12,- Junius Brutus, 
 Vindic. contra. Tyran. sect. 2 ,• Author 
 Libelli de jur Magistrat. in subd. q. 6 ; 
 Althus. Politic, c. 18; Calvin Institut. I. 
 4, c. 20 ,• Pareus Content, in Rom. xiii. ; 
 Pet. Martyr in Lib. Judic. c. 3 ; Joan 
 Marianus de rege lib. 1, c. 7 ; Hottoman 
 de jure Antiq. Regni Gallici I. 1, c. 12/ 
 Buchanan de jure Regni apud Scotos. 
 
 Obj. — The king after a more noble way 
 representeth the people than the estates 
 doth ; for the princes and commissioners of 
 parliament have all their power from the 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 99 
 
 people, and the people's power is concen- 
 trated in the king. 
 
 Ans. — The estates taken collectively do 
 represent the people both in respect of office, 
 and of persons, because they stand judges 
 for them ; for many represent many, ratione 
 numeri et officii, better than one doth. 
 The king doth improperly represent the 
 people, though the power for actual execu- 
 tion of laws be more in the king, yet a legis- 
 lative power is more in the estates. Neither 
 will it follow, that if the estates of a king- 
 dom do any thing but counsel a king, they 
 must then command him, for a legal and 
 judicial advice hath influence in the effect 
 to make it a law, not on the king's will, to 
 cause him give the being of a law to that, 
 which without his will is no law, for this 
 supposeth that he is only judge. 
 
 Obj. — What power the people reserveth, 
 they reserve it to themselves in unitate, 
 as united in a parliament ; and therefore 
 what they do out of a parliament is tumul- 
 tuous. 
 
 Ans. — I deny the consequence ; they re- 
 serve the power of self-preservation out of a 
 parliament, and a power of convening in 
 parliament for that effect, that they may by 
 common counsel defend themselves. 
 
 QUESTION XXII. 
 
 WHETHER THE POWER OF THE KING AS KING 
 BE ABSOLUTE, OR DEPENDENT AND LIMITED 
 BY GOD'S FIRST MOULD AND PATTERN OF 
 A KING. 
 
 Dr Feme (sect. 3, p. 12) showeth us it was 
 never his purpose to plead for absoluteness 
 of an arbitrary commandment, free from all 
 moral restraint laid on the power by God's 
 law ; but only he striveth for a power in the 
 king that cannot be resisted by the subject. 
 But truly we never disputed with royalists 
 of any absolute power in the king, free from 
 moral subjection to God's law. 1. Because 
 any bond that God's law imposeth on the 
 king, cometh wholly from God, and the 
 nature of a divine law, and not from any 
 voluntary contract or covenant, either ex- 
 press or tacito, betwixt the king and the 
 people who made him king ; for, if he fail 
 against such a covenant, though he should 
 exceed the cruelty of a king or a man, and 
 become a lion, a Nero, and a mother-killer, 
 
 he should in all his inhumanity and breach 
 of covenant be accountable to God, not to 
 any man on earth. 2. To dispute with 
 royalists if God's law lay any moral restraint 
 upon the king, were to dispute whether the 
 king be a rational man or no, and whether 
 he can sin against God, and shall cry in the 
 day of God's wrath, (if he be a wicked 
 prince) Hills fall on us and cover us, as it is 
 Rev. vi. 15, 16 ; and whether Tophet be 
 prepared for all workers of iniquity; and 
 certainly I justify the schoolmen in that 
 question : Whether or no God could have 
 created a rational creature, such a one as 
 by nature is impeccable, and not naturally 
 capable of sin before God ? . If royalists dis- 
 pute this question of their absolute monarch, 
 they are wicked divines. 
 
 We plead not at this time, (saith the 
 Prelate, c. 14, p. 163, stealing from Gro- 
 tius, Barclay, Arnisaeus, who spake it with 
 more sinews of reason ;) for a masterly or 
 despotical, or rather for a slavish sovereign- 
 ty, which is dominium herile, an absolute 
 power, such as the great Turk this day ex- 
 erciseth over his subjects, and the king of 
 Spain hath over and in his territories with- 
 out Europe : we maintain only regiam po- 
 testatem, quce fundatur in paterna, such 
 royal, fatherly sovereignty, as we live un- 
 der, blessed be God, and our predecessors. 
 This, (saith he,) as it hath its royal prero- 
 gative inherent to the crown naturally, and 
 inseparable from it, so it trencheth not upon 
 the liberty of the person, or the property of 
 the goods of the subject, but in and by the 
 lawful and just acts of jurisdiction. 
 
 Ans. — 1. Here is another absolute power 
 disclaimed to be in the king ; he hath not 
 such a masterly and absolute liberty as the 
 Turk hath. Why ? John P. P., in such a 
 tender and high point as concerneth soul 
 and body of subjects in three Christian king- 
 doms, you should have taught us. What 
 bonds and fetters any covenant or paction 
 betwixt the king and people layeth upon 
 the king, — why he hath not, as kin<r, the 
 power of the great Turk, I will tell you. 
 The great Turk may command any of his 
 subjects to leap into a mountain of fire, and 
 burn himself quick, in conscience of obe- 
 dience to his law. And what if the subject 
 disobey the great Turk ? if the great Turk 
 be a lawful prince, as you will not deny ; — 
 and if the king of Spain should command 
 foreign conquered slaves to do the like. By 
 your doctrine, neither the one nor the other 
 
100 
 
 were obliged to resist by violence, but to 
 prayj or fly ; whicb botb were to speak to 
 stones, and were like the man who, in case 
 of shipwreck^ made his devotion of praying 
 to the waves of the sea, not to enter the 
 place of his bed and drown him. But a 
 Christian king hath not this power ; why ? 
 and a Christian king (by royalist's doctrine) 
 hath a greater power than the Turk (if 
 greater can be) : he hath power to com- 
 mand his subjects to cast themselves into 
 hell-fire ; that is, to press on them a ser- 
 vice wherein it is written, — Adore the work 
 of men's hands in the place of the living 
 God ; and this is worse than the Turk's 
 commandment of bodily burning quick. 
 And what is left to the Christian subjects 
 in this case is the very same, and no other 
 than is left to the Turkish and foreign Spa- 
 nish subject. Either fly, or make prayers. 
 There is no more left to us. 
 
 2. Many royalists maintain that England 
 is a conquered nation. Why, then, see 
 what power, by law of conquest* the king of 
 Spain hath over his slaves ; the same must 
 the king of England have over his subjects. 
 For, to royalists, a title by conquest to a 
 crown is as lawful as a title by birth or 
 election ; for lawfulness, in relation to God's 
 law, is placed in an indivisible point, if we 
 regard the essence of lawfulness ; and 
 therefore there is nothing left to England, 
 but that all protestants who take the oath of 
 a protestant king, to defend the true pro- 
 testant religion, should, after prayers con- 
 veyed to the king through the fingers of 
 prelates and papists, leave the kingdom 
 empty to papists, prelates, and atheists. 
 
 3. All power restrained that it cannot 
 arise from ten degrees to fourteen, — from 
 the kingly power of Saul (1 Sam. viii. 9, 
 11) to the kingly power of the great Turk, 
 to fourteen, — must either be restrained by 
 God's law* or by man's law > or by the in- 
 nate goodness and grace of the prince, or 
 by the providence of God. A restraint from 
 God's law is vain ; for it is no question be- 
 tween us and royalists but God hath laid a 
 moral restraint on kings, and all men, that 
 they have not moral power to sin against 
 God. Is the restraint laid on by man's 
 law ? What law of man ? The royalist saith, 
 the king, as king, is above all law of man. 
 Then (say I) no law of man can hinder 
 the king's power of ten, to arise to the Tur- 
 kish power of fourteen. All law of man, as 
 it is man's law, is seconded either with ec- 
 
 clesiastical and spiritual co-action, such as 
 excommunication, or with civil and tempo- 
 ral co-action, such as is the sword, if it be 
 violated. But royalists deny that either 
 the sword of the church in excommunica- 
 tion, or the civil sword, should be drawn 
 against the king. This law of man should 
 be produced by this profound jurist, the P. 
 Prelate, who mocketh at all the statists and 
 lawyers of Scotland. It is not a covenant 
 betwixt the king and people at his corona- 
 tion ; for though there were any such cove- 
 nant, yet the breach of it doth bind before 
 God, but not before man. Nor can I see, 
 or any man else, how a law of man can lay 
 a restraint on the king's power of two de- 
 grees* to cancel it within a law, more than 
 on a power of ten or fourteen degrees* If 
 the king of Spain, the lawful sovereign of 
 those over-European people, (as royalists 
 say,) have a power of fourteen degrees over 
 those conquered subjects, as a king, I see 
 not how he hath not the like power over his 
 own subjects of Spain, to wit, eren of four- 
 teen ; for what agreeth to a king, as a king, 
 (and kingly power from God he hath as 
 king,) he hath it in relation to all subjects, 
 except it be taken from him in relation to 
 some subjects, and given by some law of 
 God, or in relation to some other subjects. 
 Now no man can produce any such law. 
 The nature of the goodness and grace of 
 the prince cannot lay bonds oh the king to 
 cancel his power, that be should not usurp 
 the power of the king of Spain toward his 
 over-Europeans. 1. Royalists plead for a 
 power due to the king, as king, and that 
 from God, such as Saul had ; (1 Satm viii. 
 9, 11 : x. 25;) but this power should be a 
 power of grace and goodness in the king 
 as a good man ; not in the king as a king, 
 and due to him by law : and so the king 
 should have his legal power from God to 
 be a tyrant. But if he were not a tyrant, 
 but should lay limits on his own power, 
 through the goodness of his own nature, 
 no thanks to royalists that he is not a ty- 
 rant ; for, actu primo, and as he is a king, 
 (as they say) he is a tyrant, having from 
 God a tyrannous power of ten degrees, as 
 Saul had ; (1 Sam. viii. •) and why not of 
 fourteen degrees as well as the great Turk, 
 or the king of Spain ? If he use it not, it 
 is his own personal goodness, not his official 
 and royal power. The restraint of provi- 
 dence laid by God upon any power to do 
 ill, hindereth only the exercise of the power 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 101 
 
 not to break forth in as tyrannous acts as 
 ever the king of Spain or the great Turk 
 can exercise toward any. Yea, providence 
 layeth physical restraint, and possibly mo- 
 ral, sometimes, upon the exercise of that 
 power that devils and the most wicked men 
 of the world hath. But royalists must show 
 us that providence hath laid bounds on the 
 king's power, and made it fatherly and not 
 masterly ; so that if it, the power, exceed 
 bounds of fatherly power, and pass over to 
 the despotical and masterly power, it may 
 be resisted by the subjects ; but that they 
 will not say. 
 
 •i. This paternal and fatherly power that 
 God hath given to kings, as royalists teach, 
 trencheth not upon the liberty of the sub- 
 jects and the property of their goods, but in 
 and by lawful and just acts of jurisdiction 
 (saith the P. Prelate). Well ; then it may 
 trench upon the liberty of soul and body of 
 the subjects but in and by lawful and just 
 acts of jurisdiction. But none are to judge 
 of these acts of jurisdiction, whether they 
 be just or not just, but the king, the only 
 judge of supreme and absolute authority 
 and power. And if the king command the 
 idolatrous service in the obtruded service- 
 book, it is a lawful and a just act of jurisdic- 
 tion. For to royalists, who make the king's 
 power absolute, all acts are so just to the 
 subject, though he command idolatry and 
 Mahommedanism, that we are to suffer only, 
 and not to resist. 
 
 5. The Prelate presumeth that fatherly 
 power is absolute ; but so, if a father murder 
 his child, he is not accountable to the ma- 
 gistrate therefor, but, being absolute over 
 his children, only the Judge of the world, 
 not any power on earth, can punish him. 
 
 6. We have proved that the king's power 
 is paternal or fatherly only by analogy, and 
 improperly,. 
 
 7. What is this prerogative royal, we 
 shall hear by and by. 
 
 8. There is no restraint on earth laid 
 upon this fatherly power of the king but 
 God's law, winch is a moral restraint. If 
 then, the king challenge as great a power as 
 the Turk hath, he only sinneth against God, 
 but no mortal man on earth may control 
 him, as royalists teach. And who can know 
 what power it is that royalists plead for, 
 whether a despotical power of lordly power, 
 or a fatherly power ? If it be a power above 
 law, such as none on earth may resist it, it is 
 no matter whether it be above law of two 
 
 degrees, or of twenty, even to the great 
 Turk's power. 
 
 These go for oracles at court : Tacitus, — 
 Principi summun rerum arbitrium Dii de- 
 derunt, subditis obsequii gloria relicta est ; 
 Seneca, — Indigna digna habenda sunt, Bex 
 quafacit; Salust, — lrnpune quidvis facer e, 
 id est, Begem esse. As if to be a king and 
 to be a god who cannot err were all one. 
 But certainly these authors are taxing the 
 license of kings, and not commanding their 
 powei\ 
 
 But that God hath given no absolute and 
 unlimited power to a king above the law, is 
 evident by this : — 
 
 Arg. 1. — He who, in his first institution, 
 is appointed of God by office, even when he 
 sitteth on the throne, to take heed to read 
 on a written copy of God's law, that he may 
 " learn to fear the Lord his God, and keep 
 all the words of this law," &c, he is not of 
 absolute power above law, But (Deut. xvii. 
 18, 19) the king as king, while he sitteth 
 on the throne, is to do this ; therefore the 
 assumption is clear, for this is the law of the 
 king as king, and not of a man as a man. 
 But as he sitteth on the throne, he is to 
 read on the book of the law ; and (ver. 20) 
 because he is king, " his heart is not to be 
 lifted up above his brethren ;" and as king, 
 (ver. 16,) "he is not to multiply horses," 
 &c. So politicians make this argument 
 good : — they say, Rex est lex viva, ani- 
 mata, et loquens lex, the king as king, is a 
 living, breathing, and speaking law. And 
 there be three reasons of this, — 1. If all 
 were innocent persons, and could do no vio- 
 lence one to another, the law would rule 
 all, and all men would put the law in exe- 
 cution, agendo sponte, by doing right of 
 their own accord ; and there should be no 
 need of a king to compel men to do right. 
 But now, because men are by nature averse 
 to good laws, therefore there was need of a 
 ruler, who, by office, should reduce the law 
 into practice ; and so is the king the law re- 
 duced in practice. 2. The law is ratio sive 
 mens, the reason or mind, free from all per- 
 turbations of anger, lust, hatred, and can- 
 not be tempted to ill ; and the king, as a 
 man, may be tempted by his own passions, 
 and therefore, as king, he cometh by office 
 out of himself to reason and law ; and so 
 much as he hath of law, so much of a kino- ; 
 and in his remotest distance from law and 
 reason he is a tyrant. 3. Abstracta eon- 
 cretis sunt puriora et perfectiora. Justice 
 
102 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 is more perfect than a just man, whiteness 
 more perfect than the white wall ; so the 
 nearer the king comes to a law, for the 
 which he is a king, the nearer to a king, 
 Propter quod unumquodque tale, id ipsum 
 magis tale. Therefore, kings throwing laws 
 to themselves as men, whereas they should 
 have conformed themselves to the law, have 
 erred. Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, because 
 he loved his own sister, would have " the mar- 
 riage of the brother with the sister lawful." 
 Anaxarchus said to Alexander, (grieved in 
 mind that he had killed Clytus,) Regi ac 
 Jovi themin atque institiam assidere :-— 
 Judgment and righteousness did alway ac- 
 company God and the king in all they do ; 
 but some, to this purpose, say better : — The 
 law, rather than the king, hath power of 
 life and death. 
 
 Arg. 2. — The power that the king hath 
 (I speak not of his gifts) he hath it from the 
 people who maketh him king, as I proved 
 before ; but the people have neither for- 
 mally nor virtually any power absolute to 
 give the king. All the power they have 
 is a legal and natural power to guide them- 
 selves in peace and godliness, and save them- 
 ! selves from unjust violence by the benefit of 
 i rulers. Now, an absolute power above a 
 1 law is a power to do ill and to destroy the 
 people, and this the people have not them- 
 selves, it being repugnant to nature that any 
 should have a natural power in themselves 
 to destroy themselves, or to inflict upon 
 themselves an evil of punishment to destruc- 
 tion. Though therefore it were given, which 
 yet is not granted, that the people had re- 
 sio-ned all power that they have into their 
 king, yet if he use a tyrannical power against 
 the people for their hurt and destruction, he 
 useth a power that the people never gave 
 him, and against the intention of nature ; 
 for they invested a man with power to be 
 their father and defender for their good ; 
 and he faileth against the people's inten- 
 tion in usurping an over-power to himself, 
 which they never gave, never had, never 
 could give ; for they cannot give what they 
 never had, and power to destroy themselves 
 they never had. 
 
 Arg. 3. — All royal power, whereby a 
 king is a king and differenced from a pri- 
 vate man, armed with no power of the 
 sword, is from God. But absolute power 
 to tyrannise over the people and to destroy 
 them is not a power from God ; therefore 
 there is not any such royal power absolute. 
 
 The proposition is evident, because that 
 God who maketh kings and disposeth of 
 crowns, (Prov. viii. 15, 16 ; 2 Sam. xii. 7 ; 
 Dan. iv. 32,) must also create and give that 
 royal and official power by which a king is 
 a king. 1. Because God created man, he 
 must be the author of his reasonable soul. 
 If God be the author of things, he must be 
 the author of their forms by which they are 
 that which they are. 2. All power is God's, 
 (1 Chron. xxix. 11 ; Matt. vi. 13 ; Psal. 
 lxii. 1 1 ; lxviii. 35 ; Dan. ii. 37,) and that ab- 
 solute power to tyrannise, is not from God. 
 1. Because, if this moral power to sin be 
 from God, it being formally wickedness, 
 God must be the author of sin. 2. What- 
 ever moral power is from God, the exercises 
 of that power, and the acts thereof, must be 
 from God, and so these acts must be morally 
 good and just ; for if the moral power be of 
 God, as the author, so must the acts be. 
 Now, the acts of a tyrannical power are acts 
 of sinful injustice and oppression, and can- 
 not be from God. 3. Politicians say, there 
 is no power in rulers to do ill, but to help 
 and defend the people, — as the power of a 
 physician to destroy, of a pilot to cast away 
 the ship on the rock, the power of a tutor 
 to waste the inheritance of the orphan, and 
 the power of father and mother to kill their 
 children, and of the mighty to defraud and 
 oppress, are not powers from God. So 
 Ferdinand. Vasquez illustr. quest. I. 1, c. 
 26, c. 45; Prickman d. c. 3, sect. Soluta 
 potestas ; Althus. pol. cap. 9, n. 25. 
 
 Barclaius, 1 Grotius, Dr Feme, (The P. 
 Prelate's wit could come up to it,) say, 
 " That absolute power to do ill, so as no 
 mortal man can lawfully resist it, is from 
 God; and the king hath this way power 
 from God as no subject can resist it, but he 
 must resist the ordinance of God, and yet 
 the power of tyranny is not simply from 
 God." 
 
 Ans. — The law saith, Illud possumus 
 quod jure possumus, Papinus F. filius, D. 
 de cond. Just. It is no power which is not 
 lawful power. The royalists say, power of 
 tyranny, in so far as it may be resisted, and 
 is punishable by men, is not from God. But 
 what is the other part of the distinction ? It 
 must be, that tyrannical power is simpliciter 
 from God, or in itself it is from God ; but as 
 it is punishable or restrainable by subjects, 
 it is not from God. Now, to be punishable 
 
 i Barclaius, contra Monarcho. lib. 2. p. 62. 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 103 
 
 by subjects is but an accident, and tyrannical 
 power is the subject ; yea, and it is a separ- 
 able accident ; tor many tyrants are never 
 punished, and their power is never re- 
 strained : such a tyrant was Saul, and many 
 persecuting emperors. Now, it* the tyran- 
 nical power itself was from God, the ar- 
 gument is yet valid, and remaineth unan- 
 swered. And shall not this fall to the ground 
 as false, which Arnisaeus saith, (de autho. 
 princ. c. 2, n. 10,) Dum contra ojficium 
 facit, magistratus non est magistratus, 
 quippe a quo non injuria, sed jus nasei 
 debeat, I. meminerint. 6. C. unde vi. din. 
 in C. quod quis, 24, n. 4, 5. — Et de hoc 
 neminem dubitare aut dissentire scribit, 
 Mar ant. disp. 1, num. 14. When the 
 magistrate doth anything by violence, and 
 without law, in so far doing against his 
 office, he is not a magistrate. Then, say I, 
 that power by which he doth, is not of God. 
 None doth, then, resist the ordinance of God 
 who resist the king in tyrannous acts. If 
 the power, as it cannot be punished by the 
 subject nor restrained, be from God, there- 
 fore the tyrannical power itself, and without 
 this accident — that it can be punished by 
 men — it must be from God also. But the 
 conclusion is absurd, and denied by royalists. 
 I prove the connection : If the king have 
 such a power above all restraint, the power 
 itself, to wit, king David's power to kill 
 innocent Uriah, and deflower Bathsheba, 
 without the accident of being restrained or 
 punished by men, it is either from God or 
 not from God. If it be from God, it must 
 be a power against the sixth and seventh 
 commandments, which God gave to David, 
 and not to any subject ; and so David lied 
 when he confessed this sin, and this sin can- 
 not be pardoned because it was no sin : and 
 kings, because kings, are under no tie of 
 duties of mercy, and truth, and justice to 
 their subjects, contrary to that which God's 
 law requireth of all judges (Deut. i. 15 — 17; 
 xvii. 15—20; 2 Chron. xix. 6, 7; Rom. 
 xiii. 3, 4) : if this power be from God, as it 
 is unrestrainable and unpunishable by the 
 subject, it is not from God at all ; for how 
 can God give a power to do ill, that is un- 
 punishable by men, and not give that power 
 to do ill ? It is inconceivable ; for in this 
 very thing that God giveth to David — a 
 power to murder the innocent — with this re- 
 spect, that it shall be punishable by God 
 only, and not by men, God must give it as 
 a sinful power to do ill, which must be a 
 
 power of dispensation to sin, and so not to 
 be punished by either God or man, which is 
 contrary to his revealed will in his word. 
 If such a power as not restrainable by man 
 be from God by way of permission, as a 
 power to sin in devils and men is, then it 
 is no royal power, nor any ordinance of God ; 
 and to resist this power, is not to resist the 
 ordinance of God. 
 
 Arg. 4. — That power which maketh the 
 benefit of a king to be no benefit, but a 
 judgment of God, as a making all the peo- 
 ple slaves, such as were slaves amongst the 
 Romans and Jews, is not to be asserted by 
 any Christian ; but an absolute power to do 
 ill, and to tyrannise, which is supposed to be 
 an essential and constitutive of kings, to 
 difference them from all judges, maketh the 
 benefit of a king no benefit, but a judgment 
 of God, as making all the people slaves. 
 That the major may be clear, it is evident, 
 1. To have a king is a blessing of God, be- 
 cause to have no king is a judgment ; Judg. 
 xvii. 6, " Every man doth what seemeth 
 good in his own eyes." (Judg. xviii. 1 ; 
 xix. 1 ; xxi. 25.) 2. So it is a part of 
 God's good providence to provide a king for 
 his people. (1 Sam. xvi. 1 ; so 2 Sam. v. 
 12.) And David perceived that the Lord 
 had established him king over Israel, and 
 that he had exalted his kingdom for his 
 people Israel's sake, 2 Sam. xv. 2, 3, 6 ; 
 xviii. 3 ; Rom. xiii. 2 — 4. If the king be 
 a thing good in itself, then can he not, actu 
 primo, be a curse and a judgment, and es- 
 sentially a bondage and slavery to the peo- 
 ple ; also the genuine and intrinsical end of 
 a king is the good, (Rom. xiii. 4,) and the 
 good of a quiet and peaceable life in all god- 
 liness and honesty (1. Tim. ii. 2); and he is 
 by office, custos utriusque tabular, whose 
 genuine end is to preserve the law from 
 violence, and to defend the subject ; — he is 
 the people's debtor for all happiness possi- 
 ble to be procured by God's sword, either in 
 peace or war, at home or abroad. For the 
 assumption is evident. An absolute and 
 arbitrary power is a king-law, such as roy- 
 alists say God gave to Saul (1 Sam. viii. 
 9, 11 ; x. 25) to play the tyrant ; and this 
 power, arbitrary and unlimited, above all 
 laws, is that which, (1.) Is given to God; 
 (2.) Distinguisheth essentially the kings of 
 Israel from the judge, saith Barclary, Gro- 
 tius, Arnisasus; (3.) A constitutive form of 
 a king, therefore it must be actu primo, a 
 benefit, and a blessing of God ; but if God 
 
104 
 
 LEX, REX I OR, 
 
 hath given any such power absolute to a 
 king : as, 1. His will must be a law, either 
 to do or suffer all the tyranny and cruelty 
 of a tiger, a leopard, a Nero, or a Julian ; 
 then hath God given, actu primo, a power 
 to a king, as king, to enslave the people 
 and flock of God, redeemed by the blood of 
 God, as the slaves among the Romans and 
 Jews, who were so under their masters, as 
 their bondage was a plague of God, and the 
 lives of the people of God under Pharaoh, 
 who compelled them to work in brick and 
 clay. 2. Though he cut the throats of the 
 people of God, as the lioness Queen Mary 
 did, and command an army of soldiers to 
 come and burn the cities of the land, and 
 kill man, wife, and children ; yet in so do- 
 ing, he doth the part of a king, so as you 
 cannot resist him as a man, and obey him 
 as a king, but must give your necks to him, 
 upon this ground, because this absolute 
 power of his is ordained of God ; and there 
 is no power even to kill and destroy the in- 
 nocent , but it is of God. So saith Paul, 
 Rom. xiii., if we believe court-prophets, or 
 rather lying-spirits, who persuade the king 
 of Britain to make war against his three 
 dominions. Now, it is clear that the dis- 
 tinction of bound and free continued in Is- 
 rael even under the most tyrannous kings; 
 (2 Kings iv. 1 ;) yea, even when the Jews 
 were captives under Ahasuerus. (Esth. vii. 
 4.) And what difference should there be 
 between the people of God under their 
 own kings, and when they were captives 
 under tyrants, serving wood and stone, and 
 false gods, as was threatened as a curse in 
 the law? (Deut. xxviii. 25, 36, 64, 68.) 
 If their own lungs, by God's appointment, 
 have the same absolute power over them, 
 and if he be a tyrant, actu primo, that is, 
 if he be indued with absolute power, and so 
 have power to play the tyrant, then must 
 the people of God be actu primo, slaves, 
 and under absolute subjection ; for they are 
 relatives, as lord and servant, conqueror and 
 captive. It is true, they say, kings by office 
 are fathers, they cannot put forth in action 
 their power to destroy. I answer, it is their 
 goodness of nature that they put not forth 
 in action all their absolute power to destroy, 
 which God hath given them as kings, and 
 therefore, thanks are due to their goodness, 
 for that they do not, actu secundo, play the 
 tyrant ; for royalists teach, that by virtue of 
 their office God hath given to them a royal 
 power to destroy ; therefore, the Lord's 
 
 people are slaves under them, though they 
 deal not with them as slaves, but that hin- 
 dereth not but the people by condition are 
 slaves. So many conquerors of old did deal 
 kindly with their slaves whom they took in 
 war, and dealt with them as sons ; but as 
 conquerors they had power to sell them, to 
 kill them, to put them to work in brick and 
 clay. So say I here, royal power and a 
 king cannot be a blessing, and actu primo 
 a favour of God to the people, for the which 
 they are to pray when they want a king 
 that they may have one, or to praise God 
 when they have one. But a king must be 
 a curse and a judgment, if he be such a 
 creature as essentially, and in the intention 
 and nature of the thing itself, hath by office 
 a royal power to destroy, and that from 
 God ; for then the people praying — " Lord 
 give us a king," should pray, " Make us 
 slaves, Lord ; take our liberty and power from 
 us, and give a power unlimited and absolute 
 to one man, by which he may, if he please, 
 waste and destroy us, as all the bloody em- 
 perors did the people of God." Surely, I 
 see not but they should pray for a tempta- 
 tion, and to be led into temptation when 
 they pray God to give them a king; and, 
 therefore, such a power is a vain thing. 
 
 Arg. 5. — A power contrary to justice, 
 to peace and the good of the people, that 
 looketh to no law as a rule, and so is un- 
 reasonable, and forbidden by the law of God 
 and the civil law, (L. 15. filius de condit. 
 Instit.,) cannot be lawful power, and cannot 
 constitute a lawful judge ; but an absolute 
 and unlimited power is such. How can the 
 judge be the minister of God for good to 
 the people (Rom, xiii, 4) if he have such 
 a power as a king, given him of God, to 
 destroy and waste the people ? 
 
 Arg, 6. An absolute power is contrary to 
 nature, and so unlawful ; for it maketh the 
 people give away the natural power of de^ 
 tending their life against illegal and cruel 
 violence, and maketh a man who hath need 
 to be ruled and lawed by nature above all 
 rule and law, and one who, by nature, can 
 sin against his brethren such a one as can- 
 not sin against any but God only, and mak- 
 eth him a lion and an unsocial man. What 
 a man is Nero, whose life is poetry and 
 painting ! Domitian, only an archer ; Va<- 
 lentinian, only a painter ; Charles IX. of 
 France, only a hunter ; Alphonsus Dux 
 Ferrariensis, only an astronomer ; Philip 
 of Macedonia, a musican ; and all because 
 
THE LAW AND THE P1UXCE. 
 
 105 
 
 they are kings. This our king denieth, 
 when he saith, (art. 13,) " There is power 
 legally placed in the parliament more than 
 sufficient to prevent and restrain the power 
 of tyranny." But if they had not power to 
 play the lions, it is not much that kings are 
 musicians, hunters, &c. 
 
 Arg. 7. — God, in making a king to pre- 
 serve his people, should give liberty without 
 all politic restrain, for one man to destroy 
 many, which is contrary to God's end in the 
 fifth commandment, if one have absolute 
 power to destroy souls and bodies of many 
 thousands. 
 
 Arg. 8. — If the kings of Israel and Ju- 
 dah were under censures and rebukes of the 
 prophets, and sinned against God and the 
 people in rejecting these rebukes, and in 
 persecuting the prophets, and were under 
 this law not to take their neighbour's wife, 
 or his vineyard from him against his will ; 
 and the inferior judges were to accept the 
 persons of none in judgment, small or great ; 
 and if the king yet remain a brother, not- 
 withstanding he be a king, then is his power 
 not above any law, nor absolute. For what 
 reason ? — 1. He should be under one law of 
 God to be executed by men, and not under 
 another law ? Royalists are to show a differ- 
 rence from God's word. 2. His neighbours, 
 brother, or subjects, may by violence keep 
 back their vineyards, and chastity from the 
 king. Naboth may by force keep his own 
 vineyard from Achab. By the laws of Scot- 
 land, if a subject obtain a decree of the 
 king, of violent possession of the heritages 
 of a subject, he hath by law power to cast 
 out, force, apprehend, and deliver to prison 
 those who are tenants, brooking these lands 
 by the king's personal commandment. If 
 a king should force a damsel, she may vio- 
 lently resist, and by violence, and bodily op- 
 posing of violence to violence, defend her 
 own chastity. Now, that the prophets have 
 rebuked kings is evident : Samuel rebuked 
 Saul, Nathan David, Elias king Achab ; 
 Jeremiah is commanded to prophecy against 
 the kings of Judah, (Jer. i. 18,) and the pro- 
 phets practised it. (Jer. xix. 3 ; xxi. 2 ; xxii. 
 13 — 15; Hos. v. 1.) Kings are guilty be- 
 fore God because they submitted not their 
 royal power and greatness to the rebukes of 
 the prophets, but persecuted them. 
 
 Deut. xvii. 20, The king on the throne 
 remaineth a brother; Psal. xxii. 22, and 
 so the judges or three estates are not to ac- 
 cept of the pei'son of the king for his great- 
 
 ness in judgment; Deut. i. 16, 17, and the 
 judge is to give out such a sentence in judg- 
 ment as the Lord, with whom there is no 
 iniquity, would give out if the Lord himself 
 were sitting in judgment; because the judge 
 is in the very stead of God, as his lieutenant; 
 (2 Chron. xix. 6, 7; Psal. Lxxxii. 1, 2; 
 Deut. i. 17 ;) and with God there is no re- 
 spect of persons. (2 Chron. xix. 7 ; 1 Pet. 
 i. 17 ; Acts x. 34.) I do not intend that 
 any inferior judge sent by the king is to 
 judge the king ; but those who gave him 
 the throne, and made him king, are truly 
 above him, and to judge him without respect 
 of persons, as God himself would judge if 
 he were sitting on the bench. 
 
 God is the author of civil laws and go- 
 vernment, and his intention is therein the 
 external peace, and quiet life, and godliness 
 of his church and people, and that all judges, 
 according to their places, be nurse-fathers 
 to the church. (Isa. xlix. 23.) Now God 
 must have appointed sufficient means lor 
 tins end; but there is no sufficient means 
 at all, but a mere anarchy and confusion, 
 if to one man an absolute and unlimited 
 power be given of God, whereby, at his 
 pleasure, he may obstruct the fountains of 
 justice, and command lawyers and laws to 
 speak not God's mind, that is justice, right- 
 eousness, safety, true religion, but the sole 
 lust and pleasure of one man. And this 
 one having absolute and irresistible influ- 
 ence on all the inferior instruments of jus- 
 tice, may, by this power, turn all into an- 
 archy, and put the people in a worse condi- 
 tion than if there were no judge at all in 
 the land. For that of politicians, that ty- 
 ranny is better than anarchy, is to be taken 
 cum grano salts ; but I shall never believe 
 that absolute power of one man, which is 
 actu primo tyranny, is God's sufficient way 
 of peaceable government. Therefore, Bar- 
 claius 1 saith nothing for the contrary, when 
 he saith, " The Athenians made Draco and 
 Solon absolute law-givers, for, a facto ad 
 jus non valet consequentia." What if a 
 roving people, trusting Draco and Solon to 
 be kings above mortal men, and to be gods, 
 gave them power to make laws, written not 
 with ink, but with blood, shall other kings 
 have from God the like tyrannical and bloody 
 power from that to make bloody laws ? 
 Chytreus (lib. 2) and Sleidan citeth it, (1. 
 
 2 Barclaius contra Monarch, lib. 2, p. 76, 77 
 Q 
 
106 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 1 ;) Sueron, Sub ptena periwrii non tenen- 
 tur fidtm sevare regi degeniri. 
 
 Arg. 9.— He who is regulated by law, 
 and sweareth to the three estates to be re- 
 gulated by law, and accepteth the crown 
 covenant-wise, and so as the estates would 
 refuse to make him their king, if either he 
 should refuse to swear, or if tliey did be- 
 lieve certainly that he would break his oath, 
 hath no unlimited and absolute power from 
 God or the people ; for, fcedus conditiona- 
 tizm, aut promissio conditionalis mutua, 
 facit jus alteri in alterum, a mutual condi- 
 tional covenant giveth law and power over 
 one to another. But, from that which hath 
 been said, the king sweareth to the three 
 estates to be regulated by law — he accepteth 
 the crown upon the tenor of a mutual cove- 
 nant, &c. ; for if he should, as king, swear 
 to be king, that is, one who hath absolute 
 power above a law, and also to be regulated 
 by a law, he should swear things contra- 
 dictory, that is, that he should be their 
 king, having absolute power over them, and 
 according to that power to rule them ; and 
 he should swear not to be their king, and 
 to rule them, not according to absolute 
 power, but according to law. If, therefore, 
 this absolute power be essential to a king, 
 as a king, no king can lawfully take the 
 oath to govern according to law, tor then he 
 should swear not to reign as king, and not 
 be their king; for how could he be then- 
 king, wanting that which God hath made 
 essential to a king as a king ? 
 
 QUESTION XXIII; 
 
 WHETHER THE KING HATH ANY ROYAL PRERO- 
 GATIVE, OR A POWER TO DISPENSE WITH 
 LAWS ; AND SOME OTHER GROUNDS AGAINST 
 ABSOLUTE MONARCHY. 
 
 A prerogative royal I take two ways : 
 cither to be an act of mere will and plea- 
 sure above or beside reason or law, or an 
 act of dispensation beside or against the 
 letter of the law. 
 
 Assert. 1. — That which royalists call the 
 prerogative royal of princes is the salt of 
 absolute power ; and it is a supreme and 
 highest power of a king, as a king, to do 
 nbovo, without or contrary to a law or rea- 
 
 son, which is unreasonable. 1. When God's 
 word speaketh of the power of kings and 
 judges, Deut. xvii. 15 — 17 ; i. 15 — 17, and 
 elsewhere there is not any footstep or any 
 ground for such a power ; and, therefore, 
 (if we speak according to conscience,) there 
 is no such thing in the world ; and because 
 royalists cannot give us any warrant, it is 
 to be rejected. 2. A prerogative royal 
 must be a power of doing good to the peo- 
 ple, and grounded upon some reason or law ; 
 but this is but a branch of an ordinary li- 
 mited power, and no prerogative above or 
 beside law ; yea, any power not grounded 
 on a reason different from mere will or ab- 
 solute pleasure is an irrational and brutish 
 power ; and, therefore, it may well be jus 
 personve, the power of the man who is king; 
 it cannot be jus coronce, any power annexed 
 to the crown ; for this holdeth true of all the 
 actions of the king, as a king, Mud potest 
 rex, et Mud tantum quod jure potest. The 
 king, as king, can do no more than that 
 which upon right and law he may do. 3. 
 To dispute this question, whether such a 
 prerogative agree to any king, as king, is to 
 dispute whether God hath made all under 
 a monarch slaves by their own consent ; 
 which is a vain question. Those who hold 
 such a prerogative, must say the king is so 
 absolute and unlimited a god on earth, that 
 either by law, or his sole pleasure beside 
 law, he may regularly and rationally move 
 all wheels in policy ; and his uncontrolled 
 will shall be the axletree on which all the 
 wheels are turned; 4. That which is the 
 garland and pi'oper flower of the King of 
 kings, as he is absolute above his creatures, 
 and not tied to any law, without himself, 
 that regulateth his will, that must be given 
 to no mortal man or king, except we would 
 communicate that which is God's proper 
 due to a sinful man, which must be idola- 
 tory. But to do royal acts out of an abso- 
 lute power above law and reason, is such a 
 power as agreeth to God, as is evident in 
 positive laws and in acts of God's mere 
 pleasure, where we see no reason without 
 the Almighty for the one side rather than 
 for the other, as God's forbidding the eat- 
 ing of the tree of knowledge maketh the 
 eating sin and contrary to reason; but 
 there is no reason in the object ; for if God 
 should command eating of that tree, not to 
 eat should also be sin. So God's choosing 
 Peter to glory and his refusing Judas, is a 
 good and a wise act, but not good or wise 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 107 
 
 from the object of the act, but from the sole 
 wise pleasure of God ; because, if God had 
 chosen Judas to glory and rejected Peter, 
 that act had been no less a good and a wise 
 act than the former. For when there is 
 no law in the object but only God's will, 
 the act is good and wise, seeing infinite 
 wisdom cannot be separated from the per- 
 fect will of God ; but no act of a mortal king, 
 i having sole and only will, and neither law 
 nor reason in it, can be a lawful, a wise, or 
 a good act. 
 
 Assert. 2. — There is something which 
 may be called a prerogative by way of dis- 
 pensation. There is a threefold dispensa- 
 tion, — one of power, another of justice, and 
 a third of grace. 1. A dispensation of power 
 is when the will of the law-giver maketh 
 that act to be no sin, which without that 
 will would have been sin, — as if God's com- 
 manding will had not intervened, the Israel- 
 ites borrowing the ear-rings and jewels of 
 the Egyptians, and not restoring them, had 
 been a breach of the eighth commandment ; 
 and in this sense no king hath a prerogative 
 to dispense with a law. 2. There is a dis- 
 pensation of law and justice not flowing from 
 any prerogative, but from the true intent of 
 the law ; and thus the king, yea, the inferior 
 judge, is not to take the life of a man whom 
 the letter of the law would condemn, be- 
 cause the justice of the law is the intent and 
 life of the law ; and where nothing is done 
 against the intent of the law, there is no 
 breach of any law, 3, The third is not un- 
 like unto the second, when the king expon- 
 eth the law by grace, and this is twofold : 
 (1.) Either when he exponeth it of his wis- 
 dom and merciful nature, inclined to mercy 
 and justice, yet, according to the just in- 
 tent, native sense, and scope of the law, 
 considering the occasion, circumstances of 
 the fact, and comparing both with the law, — 
 and this dispensation of grace I grant to 
 the king, as when the tribute is great and 
 the man poor, the king may dispense with 
 the custom.* (2.) The law saith, in a 
 doubtful case the prince may dispense, be- 
 cause it is presumed the law can have no 
 sense against the principal sense and intent 
 of the law. 
 
 But there is another dispensation that 
 royalists do plead for, and that is, a power 
 
 l In re dubia possunt dispensare principes, quia 
 nullns sensus presumitur, qui vincat principalem, 
 lib. 1, sect, initium ib. 
 
 in the king, c.c mera gratia absolute po- 
 testatis rcgalis, out of mere grace of abso- 
 lute royal power to pardon crimes which 
 God's law saith should be punished by death. 
 Now, this they call a power of grace ; — but 
 it is not a power of mere grace. 
 
 1, Though princes may do some things 
 of grace, yet not of mere grace ; because 
 what kings do as kings, and by virtue of 
 their royal office, that they do ex debito 
 officii, by debt and right of their office; and 
 that they cannot but do, it not being arbi- 
 trary to them to do the debtful acts of their 
 office : but what they do of mere grace, that 
 they do as good men, and not as kings, and 
 that they may not do. As, for example, 
 some kings, out of their pretended preroga- 
 tive, have given four pardons to one man Tor 
 four murders. Now this the king might 
 have left undone without sin, but of mere 
 grace he pardoned the murderer who killed 
 four men, But the truth is, the king killed 
 the three last, because he hath no power in 
 point of conscience to dispense with blood, 
 Num. xxxv, 3J ; Gen. ix. 6. These par- 
 dons are acts of mere grace to one man, but 
 acts of blood to the community. 
 
 2. Because the prince is the minister of 
 God for the good of the subject; and there- 
 fore the law saith, " He cannot pardon and 
 free the guilty of the punishment due to 
 him ; (Contra I. quod favor e, F. de leg. I. 
 non ideo minus, F. deproc, I. legata inuti- 
 liter, F. de lega. 1 ; ) and the reason is clear : 
 He is but the minister of God, a revenger 
 to execute wrath upon him that doth evil. 
 And if the judgment be the Lord's, not 
 man's, not the king's, as it is indeed, (Deut. 
 i. 17 ; 2 Chron. xix. 6,) he cannot draw the 
 sword against the innocent, nor absolve the 
 guilty, except he would take on himself to 
 carve and dispose of that which is proper to 
 his master. Now certain it is, God only, 
 uni vocally and essentially as God, is the 
 judge, (Psal. lxxv. 7,) and God only and 
 essentially king, (Psal. xcvii. 1 ; xcix. 1,) 
 and all men in relation to him are mere 
 ministers, servants, legates, deputies ; and 
 in relation to him, equivocally and impro- 
 perly, judges or kings, and mere created 
 and breathing shadows of the power of the 
 King of kings. And look, as the scribe 
 following his own device, and writing what 
 sentence he pleaseth, is not an officer of the 
 court in that point, nor the pen and servant 
 of the judge, so are kings and all judges 
 but forged intruders and bastard kings and 
 
108 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 judges, in so far as they give out the sen- 
 tences of men, and are not the very mouths 
 of the King of kings to pronounce such a 
 sentence as the Almighty himself would do, 
 if he were sitting on the throne or bench. 
 
 3. If the king, from any supposed prero- 
 gative royal, may do acts of mere grace 
 without any warrant of law, because he is 
 above law by office, then also may he do 
 acts of mere rigorous justice, and kill and de- 
 stroy the innocent, out of the same supposed 
 prerogative ; for God's word equally tyeth 
 him to the place of a mere minister in doing 
 good, as in executing wrath on evil-doers, 
 Rom. xiii. 3, 4. And reason would say, he 
 must be as absolute in the one as in the 
 other, seeing God tyeth him to the one as 
 to the other, by his office and place ; yea, 
 by this, acts of justice to ill-doers, and acts 
 of reward to well-doers, shall be arbitrary 
 morally, and by virtue of office to the king, 
 and the word prerogative royal saith this ; 
 for the word prerogative is a supreme power 
 absolute that is loosed from all law, and so 
 from all reason of law, and depending on 
 the king's mere and naked pleasure and 
 will ; and the word royal or kingly is an 
 epithet of office and of a judge, — a created 
 and limited judge, and so it must tie this 
 supposed prerogative to law, reason, and to 
 that which is debitum ler/ale officii and a 
 legal duty of an office ; and by this our mas- 
 ters, the royalists, make God to frame a 
 rational creature, which they call a king, to 
 frame acts of royalty, good and lawful, upon 
 his own mere pleasure and the super-domi- 
 nion of his will above a law and reason. 
 And from this it is that deluded counsellors 
 made king James (a man not of shallow un- 
 derstanding) and king Charles to give par- 
 dons to such bloody murderers as James a 
 Grant ; and to go so far on, by this supposed 
 prerogative royal, that king Charles in par- 
 liament at Edinburgh, 1633, did command 
 an high point of religion : — that ministers 
 should use, in officiating in God's service, 
 such habits and garments as he pleaseth, 
 that is, all the attire and habits of the ido- 
 latrous mass-priests that the Romish priests 
 of Raal useth in the oddest point of idola- 
 try (the adoring of bread) that the earth 
 has ; and by this prerogative the king com- 
 manded the Service Book in Scotland, anno 
 1637, without or above law and reason. 
 And I desh-e any man to satisfy me in this, 
 if the king's prerogative royal may over- 
 leap law and reason in two degrees, and if 
 
 he may as king, by a prerogative royal, 
 command the body of popery in a popish 
 book ; — if he may not, by the same reason, 
 over-leap law and reason by the elevation of 
 twenty degrees ; — and if you make the king 
 a Julian, (God avert, and give the spirit of 
 revelation to our king,) may he not com- 
 mand all the Alkoran and the religion of 
 the heathen and Indians? Royalists say 
 the prerogative of royalty excludeth not 
 reason, and maketh not the king to do as a 
 brute beast, without all reason, but it giv- 
 eth a power to a king to do by his royal 
 pleasure, not fettered to the dictates of a 
 law ; for in things which the king doth by 
 his prerogative royal he is to follow the ad- 
 vice and counsel of his wise council, though 
 their counsel and advice doth not bind the 
 royal will of the king. 
 
 Ans. 1. — I answer, it is to me, and I am 
 sure to many more learned, a great ques- 
 tion, — if the will of any reasonable creature, 
 even of the damned angels, can will or 
 choose anything which their reason, cor- 
 rupted as it is, doth not dictate hie et nunc 
 to be good ? For the object of the will of 
 all men is good, either truly, or apparently 
 good to the doer ; for the devil could not 
 suit in marriage souls except he war in the 
 clothes of an angel of light ; sin, as sin, can- 
 not sell, or obtrude itself upon any, but 
 under the notion of good. I think it seem- 
 eth good to the great Turk to command 
 innocent men to cast themselves over a 
 precipice two hundred fathoms high into 
 the sea, and drown themselves to pleasure 
 him ; so the Turk's reason (for he is ra- 
 tional, if he be a man) dictateth, to his vast 
 pleasure, that that is good which he com- 
 mandeth. 
 
 2. Counsellors to the king, who will 
 speak what will please the queen, are but 
 naked empty titles, for they speak que 
 placent, non que prosunt, what may please 
 the king whom they make glad with their 
 lies, not what law and reason dictateth. 
 
 3. Absoluteness of an unreasonable pre- 
 rogative doth not deny counsel and law 
 also, for none more absolute, de facto, I 
 cannot say de jure, than the kings of Baby- 
 lon and Persia ; for Daniel saith of one of 
 them, (Dan. v. 19,) " Whom he would he 
 slew, and whom he would he kept alive, and 
 whom he would he set up, and whom he 
 would he put down ;" and yet these same 
 kings did nothing but by advice of their 
 princes and counsellors ; yea, so as they could 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 109 
 
 not alter a decree and* law, as is clear; 
 (Esth. i. 14 — 17, 21) yea, Darius, de facto, 
 an absolute prince, was not able to deliver 
 Daniel, because the law was passed; that he 
 should be cast into the lions' den. (Dan. 
 vi. 14—16.) 
 
 4. That which the Spirit of God condem- 
 neth as a point of tyranny in Nebuchad- 
 nezzar, is no lawful prerogative royal ; but 
 the Spirit of God condemneth this as tyranny 
 in Nebuchadnezzar, — that he slew whom he 
 would, he kept alive whom he would, he set 
 up whom he would, he put down whom he 
 would. This is too God-like. (Deut, xxxii. 
 39.) So Polanus 1 and Rollocus 2 on the place 
 say, he did these things, (ver 19,) Ex 
 abusu legitimes potestatis ; for Nebuchad- 
 nezzar's will, in matters of death and life, 
 was his law, and he did what pleased him- 
 self, above all law, beside and contrary to 
 it. And our flatterers of kings draw the 
 king's prerogative out of Ulpian's words, who 
 saith, " That is a law which seemeth good 
 to the prince;" but Ulpian was far from 
 making the prince's will a rule of good and 
 ill; for he saith the contrary, " That the 
 law ruleth the just prince." 
 
 5. It is considerable here, that Sanches 3 
 defmeth the absolute power of kings to be 
 a plenitude and fulness of power, subject to 
 no necessity, and bounded with rules of no 
 public law; and so did Baldus 4 before him. 
 But all politicians condemn that of Caligula, 
 (as Suetonius saith, 5 ) which he spake to 
 Alexander the Great, " Remember that 
 thou must do all things, and that thou hast 
 a power to do to all men what thou pleasest." 
 And lawyers say, that this is tyranny. 
 Chilon, one of the seven wise of Greece, (as 
 Rodigi, 6 ) saith better, " Princes are like gods, 
 because they only can do that which is just ; 
 and this power, being merely tyrannical, can 
 be no ground of a royal prerogative. There 
 is another power (saith Sanches) absolute, 
 by which a prince dispenseth without a cause 
 in a human law ; and this power, saith he, 
 may be defended. But he saith, what the 
 king doth by this absolute power he doth it 
 
 i Polanus in Daniel, c. 5, 19. 
 
 2 Rollocus, com. 16, ib. 
 
 3 Th. Sanches de matr. torn. 1, lib. 2, dis. 15, n. 
 3, est arbitrii plenitudo, nulli necessitati subjecta, 
 nulliusq. ; publici juris regulis limitata. 
 
 4 Baldus, lib. 2, n. 40, C. de servit. et aqua. 
 
 B Suetoni. in Calign. cap. 29, memento tibi omnia, 
 et in omnes licere. 
 6 Cselius Rodigi, lib. 8, Lect. Antiq. c. 1. 
 
 valide, validly, but not jure, by law ; but by j 
 valid acts the Jesuit must mean royal acts. 
 But no acts void of law and reason (say we) 
 can be royal acts ; for royal acts are acts 
 performed by a king, as a king, and by a law, 
 and so cannot be acts above or beside a law. 
 It is true a king may dispense with the 
 breach of a human law, as a human law, 
 that is, if the law be death to any who 
 goeth upon the walls of the city, the king- 
 may pardon any, who, going up, discovereth j 
 the enemies approach, and saveth the city. 
 But, 1. The inferior judge according to 
 the \xuxilx that benign interpretation that 
 the soul and intent of the law requireth, 
 may do this as well as the king. 2. All 
 acts of independent prerogative are above 
 a law, and acts of free will having no cause 
 or ground in the law, otherwise it is not 
 founded upon absolute power, but on power 
 ruled by law and reason. But to pardon a 
 breach of the letter of the law of man by 
 exponing it according to the true intent of 
 the law, and benignly, is an act of legal ob- 
 ligation, and so of the ordinary power of all 
 judges ; and if either king or judge kill a 
 man for the violation of the letter of the 
 law, when the intent of the law contradict- 
 eth the rigid sentence, he is guilty of in- 
 nocent blood. If that learned Ferdinandus 
 Vasquez be consulted, he is against this 
 distinction of a power ordinary and extra- 
 ordinary in men ; and certainly, if you give 
 to a king a prerogative above a law, it is a 
 power to do evil as well as good ; but there 
 is no lawful power to do evil ; and Dr Feme 
 is plunged in a contradiction by this, for he 
 saith, (sect. 9, p. 58,) " I ask when these 
 emperors took away lives and goods at plea- 
 sure ? Was that power ordained by God ? 
 No ; but an illegal will and tyranny ; but 
 (p. 61) the power, though abused to execute 
 such a wicked commandment, is an ordi- 
 nance of God." 
 
 06;. 1. — For the lawfulness of an absolute 
 monarchy, — the Eastern, Persian, and Turk- 
 ish monarchy maketh absolute monarchy law- 
 ful, for it is an oath to a lawful obligatory 
 thing ; and judgment (Ezek. xvii. 16, 18) is 
 denounced against Judah for breaking the 
 oath of the king of Babylon, and it is called 
 the oath of God, and doubtless was an oath 
 of absolute subjection ; and the power (Rom. 
 xiii.) was absolute, and yet the apostle 
 calleth it an ordinance of God. The so- 
 
 1 Vasquez, illust. quest, lib. 1, c. 26, n. 2. 
 
110 
 
 LEX, REX 
 
 vereignty of masters over servants was ab- 
 solute, and the apostle exhorteth not to re- 
 nounce that title as too rigid, but exhorteth 
 to moderation in the use of it. 
 
 Ans. 1. — That the Persian monarchy 
 was absolute is but a facto ad jus, and no 
 rule of a lawful monarchy ; but that it was 
 absolute, I believe not. Darius, who was an 
 absolute prince, as many think, but I think 
 not, would gladly have delivered Daniel 
 from the power of a law, (Dan. vi. 14,) " And 
 he set his heart on Daniel to deliver him, 
 and he laboured till the going down of the 
 sun to deliver him," and was so sorrowful 
 that he could not break through a law, that 
 he interdicted himself of all pleasures of 
 musicians ; and if ever he had used the ab- 
 soluteness of a prerogative royal, I con- 
 ceive he would have done it in this, yet he 
 could not prevail. But in things not estab- 
 lished by law I conceive Darius was abso- 
 lute, as to me is clear, (Dan vi, 24,) but ab- 
 solute not by a divine law, but de facto, 
 quod tmnsierat in jus humanum, by fact, 
 which was now become a law. 
 
 2. It was God's oath, and God tied 
 Judah to absolute subjection, therefore, 
 people may tie themselves. It followeth not, 
 except you could make good this inference : 
 1. God is absolute, therefore the king of 
 Babylon may lawfully be absolute. This is a 
 blasphemous consequence. 2. That Judah 
 was to swear the oath of absolute subjection 
 in the latitude of the absoluteness of the 
 kings of Chaldea, I would see proved. Their 
 absoluteness by the Chaldean laws was to 
 command murder, idolatry, (Dan. iii. 4, 5,) 
 and to make wicked laws. (Dan. vi. 7, 8.) 
 I believe Jeremiah commanded not absolute 
 subjection in this sense, but the contrary. 
 (Jer. x. 11.) They were to swear the oath 
 in the point of suffering ; but what if the 
 king of Chaldea had commanded them all, 
 the whole holy seed, men, women and chil- 
 dren, out of his royal power, to give their 
 necks all in one day to his sword, were 
 they obliged by this oath to prayers and 
 tears, and only to suffer ? and was it 
 against the oath of God to defend them- 
 selves by arms? I believe the oath did 
 not oblige to such absolute subjection, and 
 though they had taken arms in their own 
 lawful defence, according to the law of na- 
 ture, they had not broken the oath of God. 
 The oath was not a tie to an absolute subjec- 
 tion of all and every one, either to worship 
 idols, or then to fly or suffer death. Now, 
 
 the Service Book commanded, in the king's 
 absolute authority, all Scotland to commit 
 grosser idolatry, in the intention of the 
 work, if not in the intention of the com- 
 mander, than was in Babylon. We read not 
 that the king of Babylon pressed the con- 
 sciences of God's people to idolatry, or that 
 all should either fly the kingdom, and leave 
 their inheritances to papists and prelates, or 
 then come under the mercy of the sword of 
 papists and atheists by sea or land. 3. God 
 may command against the law of nature, 
 and God's commandment maketh subjection 
 lawful, so as men may not now, being under 
 that law of God, defend themselves. What 
 then ? Therefore we owe subjection to ab- 
 solute princes, and their power must be a 
 lawful power, it nowise is consequent. God's 
 commandment by Jeremiah made the sub- 
 jection of Judah lawful, and without that 
 commandment they might have taken arms 
 against the king of Babylon, as they did 
 against the Philistines ; and God's com- 
 mandment maketh the oath lawful. As 
 suppose Ireland would all rise in arms, 
 and come and destroy Scotland, the king of 
 Spain leading, then we were by this argu- 
 ment not to resist. 4. It is denied, that 
 the power, (Rom. xiii.,) as absolute, is God's 
 ordinance. And I deny utterly that Christ 
 and his apostles did swear non-resistance 
 absolute to the Roman emperor. 
 
 Obj. 2.— It seemeth, (1 Pet. ii. 18, 19,) 
 if well-doing be mistaken by the reason and 
 judgment of an absolute monarch for ill- 
 doing, and we punished, yet the magistrate's 
 will is the command of a reasonable will, 
 and so to be submitted unto ; because such a 
 one suffereth by law, where the monarch's 
 will is a law, and in this case some power 
 must judge. Now in an absolute monarchy 
 all judgment resolveth in the will of the 
 monarch, as the supreme law ; and if an- 
 cestors have submitted themselves by oath, 
 there is no repeal or redressment. 
 
 Ans. — Whoever was the author of this 
 treatise he is a bad defender of the defen- 
 sive wars in England, for all the lawfulness 
 of wars then must depend on this : 1. 
 Whether England be a conquei'ed nation at 
 the beginning? 2. If the law -will of an 
 absolute monarch, or a Nero, be a reason- 
 able will, to which we must submit in suf- 
 fering ill, I see not but we must submit to 
 a reasonable will, if it be reasonable will in 
 doing ill, no less than in suffering ill. 3. 
 Absolute will in absolute monarchies is no 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 Ill 
 
 judge de jure, but an unlawful and a usurp- 
 ing judge. (1 Pet. ii. 18, 19.) Servants are 
 not commanded simply to suffer. (I can 
 prove suffering formally not to fall under 
 any law of God, but only patient suffering. 
 I except Christ, who was under a peculiar 
 commandment to suffer.) But servants, 
 upon supposition that they are servants, and 
 buffeted unjustly by their masters, are, by 
 the apostle Peter, commanded (vei\ 20) to 
 suffer patiently. But it doth not bind up a 
 servant's hand to defend his own life with 
 weapons if his master invade him, without 
 cause, to kill him ; otherwise, if God call him 
 to suffer, he is to suffer in the manner and 
 way as Christ did, not reviling, not threa- 
 tening. 4. To be a king and an absolute 
 master to me are contradictory. A king es- 
 sentially is a living law ; an absolute man is 
 a creature that they call a tyrant, and no 
 lawful king. Yet do I not mean that any 
 that is a king, and usurpeth absoluteness, 
 leaveth off to be a king ; but in so far as he 
 is absolute he is no more a king than in so 
 far as he is a tyrant. But further, the king 
 of England saith in a declaration ■, 1. The 
 law is the measure of the king's power; 2. 
 Parliaments are essentially lord-judges, to 
 make laws essentially, as the king is, there- 
 fore, the king is not above the law. 3. 
 Magna Charta, saith the king, can do no- 
 thing but by laws, and no obedience is due 
 to him but by law. 4. Prescriptions taketh 
 away the title of conquests. 
 
 Obj. 3. — The king, not the parliament, 
 is the anointed of God. 
 
 Ans.— The parliament is as good, even a 
 congregation of gods. (Ps. lxxxii. 6.) 
 
 Obj. 4. — The parliament in the court, in 
 their acts, they say, with consent of our so- 
 vereign lord. 
 
 Ans. — They say not at the command- 
 ment and absolute pleasure of our sovereign 
 lord. He is their lord materially, not as 
 they are formally a parliament, for the king 
 made them not a parliament; but sure I am 
 the parliament had power before he was 
 king, and made him king. (1 Sam. x. 17, 
 18.5 
 
 Obj. 5. — In an absolute monarchy there 
 is not a resignation of men to any will as 
 will, but to the reasonable will of the mo- 
 narch, which, having the law of reason to 
 direct it, is kept from injurious acts. 
 
 Ans. — If reason be a sufficient restraint, 
 and if God hath laid no other restraint upon 
 some lawful king, then is magistracy a lame, 
 
 a needless ordinance of God ; for all man- 
 kind hath reason to keep themselves from 
 injuries, and so there is no need of judges 
 or kings to defend them from either doing 
 or suffering injuries. But certainly this 
 must be admirable, — if God, as author of 
 nature, should make the lion king of all 
 beasts, the lion remaining a devouring beast, 
 and should ordain by nature all the sheep 
 and lambs to come and submit their bodies 
 to him, by instinct of nature, and to be 
 eaten at his will, and then say, the nature 
 of a beast in a lion is a sufficient restraint 
 to keep the lion from devouring lambs. 
 Certainly, a king being a sinful man, and 
 having no restraint on his power but rea- 
 son, he may think it reason to allow rebels 
 to kill, drown, hang, torture to death, an 
 hundred thousand protestants, men, wo- 
 men, infants in the womb, and sucking 
 babes, as is clear in Pharaoh, Manasseh^ 
 and other princes. 
 
 Obj. 6. — There is no court or judge above 
 the king, therefore he is absolutely supreme. 
 
 Ans. — The antecedent is false. 1. The 
 court that made the king of a private man 
 is above him ; and here are limitations laid 
 on him at his coronation. 2. The states of 
 parliament are above him, to censure him. 
 3. In case of open tyranny, though the 
 states had not time to convene in parlia- 
 ment, if he bring on his people an host of 
 Spaniards or foreign rebels, his own con- 
 science is above him, and the conscience of 
 the people far more, called conscientia ter- 
 ra, may judge him in so far as they may 
 rise up and defend themselves. 
 
 Obj. 7.— Here the Prelate, (c. 14, p. 
 144,) borrowing from Grotius, Barclay, 
 Arniseeus, (or it is possible he be not so far 
 travelled, for Dr Feme hath the same,) 
 " Sovereignty weakened in aristocracy can- 
 not do its work, and is in the next place to 
 anarchy and confusion. When Zedekiah 
 was overlorded by his nobles, he could nei- 
 ther save himself nor the people, nor the 
 prophet, the servant of God, Jeremiah ; 
 nor could David punish Joab when he was 
 overawed by that power he himself had put 
 in his head. To weaken the hand is to 
 distemper the whole body ; if any o-ood 
 prince, or his royal ancestors, be cheated of 
 their sacred right by fraud or force, he may, 
 at his fittest opportunity, resume it. What 
 a sin it is to rob God or the kino- of their 
 due!" 
 
 Ans. — Aristocracy is no less an ordinance 
 
112 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 of God than royalty, for (Rom. xiii. 1, and 
 1 Tim. ii.) — 1. All in authority are to be 
 acknowledged as God's vice-regents, the se- 
 nate, the consuls, as well as the emperor ; 
 and so one ordinance of God cannot weaken 
 another, nor can any but a lawless animal 
 say, aristocracy bordereth with confusion ; 
 but he must say, order and light are sis- 
 ter-germans to confusion and darkness. 2. 
 Though Zedekiah, a man void of God, was 
 over-awed by his nobles, and so could not 
 help Jeremiah, it followeth not that because 
 kings may not do this and this good, there- 
 fore they are to be invested with power to 
 do all ill : if they do all the good that they 
 have power to do, they will find way to help 
 the oppressed Jeremiahs, And, because 
 power to do both good and evil is given by 
 the devil to our Scottish witches, it is a poor 
 consequent that the states should give to the 
 king power absolute to be a tyrant. 3. A 
 state must give a king more power than or- 
 dinary, especially to execute laws, which re- 
 quireth singular wisdom, when a prince 
 cannot always have his great council about 
 with him to advise him. 1. That is power 
 borrowed, and by loan, and not properly his 
 own ; and therefore it is no sacrilege in the 
 states to resume what the king hath by a 
 fiduciary title, and borrowed from them. 2. 
 This power was given to do good, not evil, 
 i David had power over Joab to punish him 
 | for his murder, but he executed it not upon 
 I carnal fears, and abused his power to kill 
 innocent Uriah, which power neither God 
 nor the states gave him. But how proveth 
 he the states took power from David, or 
 that Joab took power from David to put to 
 death a murderer ? That I see not. 3. If 
 princes' power to do good be taken from 
 them, they may resume it when God giveth 
 opportunity ; but this is to the Prelate per- 
 jury, that the people by oath give away 
 their power to their king and resume it 
 when he abuseth it to tyranny. But it is no 
 perjury in the king to resume a taken-away 
 power, which, if it be his own, is yet lis sub 
 judice, a great controversy, Quod in Cajo 
 ; licet, in Nevio non licet. So he teacheth 
 the king that perjury and sacrilege is lawful 
 to him. If princes' power to do ill and cut 
 the whole land off as one neck, (which was 
 the wicked desire of Caligula,) be taken from 
 them by the states, I am sure this power 
 was never theirs, and never the people's ; 
 i and you cannot take the prince's power 
 from him which was never his power. I 
 
 am also sure the prince should never re- 
 sume an unjust power, though he were 
 cheated of it. 
 
 P. Prelate. — It is a poor shift to acknow- 
 ledge no more for the royal prerogative 
 than the municipal law hath determined, as 
 some smatterers in the law say. They can- 
 uot distinguish betwixt a statute declara- 
 tive and a statute constitutive ; but the sta- 
 tutes of a kingdom do declare only what is 
 the prerogative royal, but do not constitute 
 or make it. God Almighty hath by himself 
 constituted it. It is laughter to say the de- 
 calogue was not a law till God wrote it. 
 
 Ans. — Here a profound lawyer calleth 
 all smatterers in the law, who cannot say 
 that non ens, a prerogative royal, that is, a 
 power contrary to God and man's law to 
 kill and destroy the innocent, came not im- 
 mediately down from heaven. But I pro- 
 fess myself no lawyer; but do maintain 
 against the Prelate that no municipal law 
 can constitute a power to do ill, nor can 
 any law either justly constitute or declare 
 such a fancy as a prerogative royal. So far 
 is it from being like the decalogue, that is, 
 a law before it be written, that this prero- 
 gative is neither law before it be written, 
 nor after court-hunters have written for it ; 
 for it must be eternal as the decalogue if it 
 have any blood from so noble a house. In 
 what scripture hath God Almighty spoken 
 of a fancied prerogative royal ? 
 
 P. Prelate (p. 145). — Prerogative rest- 
 eth not in its natural seat, but in the king. 
 God saith, Reddite, not Date, render tic- 
 kings that which is kings, not give to kings ; 
 it shall never be well with us if his anointed 
 and his church be wronged. 
 
 Ans. — The Prelate may remember a 
 country proverb : he and his prelates (called 
 the church, — the scum of men, not the 
 church,) are like the tinker's dogs, — they 
 like good company — they must be ranked 
 with the king. And hear a false prophet : 
 It shall never be well with the land while 
 arbitrary power and popery be erected, saith 
 he, in good sense. 
 
 P. Prelate (c. 16, p. 170, 171).— The 
 king hath his right from God, and cannot 
 make it away to the people. Render to Cae- 
 sar the things that, are Caesar's. Kings' 
 persons, their charge, their right, their au- 
 thority, their prerogative, are by Scrip- 
 tures, fathers, jurists, sacred, inseparable 
 ordinances inherent in their crowns, — they 
 cannot be made away ; and when they are 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE, 
 
 113 
 
 given to inferior judges, it is not ad minu- 
 endam majestatem, sed solicitudinem, to 
 lessen sovereign majesty, but to ease them. 
 
 Ans. — The king hath his right from God. 
 What, then not from the people ? I read 
 in Scripture, the people made the king, 
 never that the king made the people. All 
 these are inseparably in the crown, but he 
 stealeth in prerogative royal, in the clause 
 which is now in question, " Render to Cae- 
 sar all Caesar's;" and therefore, saith he, 
 render to him a prerogative, that is, an ab- 
 solute power to pardon and sell the blood of 
 thousands. Is power of blood either the 
 the king's, or inherent inseparably in his 
 crown ? Alas ! I fear prelates have made 
 blood an inseparable accident of his throne. 
 When kings, by that public power given to 
 them at their coronation, maketh inferior 
 judges, they give them power to judge for 
 the Lord, not for men. (Deut. i, 17; 2 Chron. 
 xix. 6.) Now, they cannot both make away 
 a power and keep it also ; for the inferior 
 judge's conscience hangeth not at the king's 
 girdle. He hath no less power to judge in 
 his sphere than the king hath in his sphere, 
 though the orb and circle of motion be larger 
 in compass in the one than in the other; and 
 if the king cannot give himself royal power, 
 but God and the people must do it, how can 
 he communicate any part of that power to 
 inferior judges except by trust ? Yea, he 
 hath not that power that other men have 
 in many respects : — 
 
 1. He may not marry whom he pleaseth ; 
 for he might give his body to a leper woman, 
 and so hurt the kingdom. — 2. He may not 
 do as Solomon and Ahab, marry the daugh- 
 ter of a strange god, to make her the mother 
 of the heir of the crown. He must in this 
 follow his great senate. He may not expose 
 his person to hazard of wars. — 3. He may 
 not go over sea and leave his watch-tower, 
 without consent. — 4. Many acts of parlia- 
 ment of both kingdoms discharge papists to 
 come within ten miles of the king. — 5. Some 
 pernicious counsellors have been discharged 
 his company by laws. — 6. He may not eat 
 what meats he pleaseth. — 7. He may not 
 make wasters his treasurers. — 8. Nor dila- 
 pidate the rents of the crown. — 9. He may 
 not disinherit his eldest son of the crown at 
 his own pleasure. — 10. He is sworn to follow 
 no false gods and false religions, nor is it in 
 his power to go to mass. — 11. If a priest 
 say mass to the king, by the law he is hang- 
 ed, drawn and quartered. — 12. He may not 
 
 write letters to the Pope, by law. — 13. He 
 may not, by law, pardon seducing priosts and 
 Jesuits. — 14. He may not take physic for his 
 health but from physicians, sworn to be true 
 to him. — 15. He may not educate his heir 
 as he pleaseth. — 16. He hath not power of 
 his children, nor hath he that power that 
 other fathers have, to marry his eldest son 
 as he pleaseth. — 17. He may not befriend 
 a traitor. — 18. It is high treason for any 
 woman to give her body to the king, except 
 she be his married wife. — 19. He ought not 
 to build sumptuous houses without advice of 
 his council. — 20. He may not dwell con- 
 stantly where he pleaseth. — 21. Nor may 
 he go to the countxy to hunt, far less to 
 kill his subjects and desert the pai-liament. 
 — 22. He may not confer honours and high 
 places without his council. — 23. He may not 
 deprive judges at his will. — 24. Nor is it 
 in his power to be buried where he pleaseth, 
 but amongst the kings. Now, in most of 
 these twenty-four points, private persons 
 have their own liberty far less restricted 
 than the king. 
 
 QUESTION XXIV. 
 
 WHAT POWER THE KING HATH IN RELATION 
 TO THE LAW AND THE PEOPLE, AND HOW 
 A KING AND A TYRANT DIFFER. 
 
 Mr Symmons saith, (sect. 6, p. 19,) that 
 authority is rooted rather in the prince than 
 in the law ; for as the king giveth being to 
 the inferior judge, so he doth to the law it- 
 self, making it authorisable ; for propter quod 
 unum-quodque tale, id ipsum macjis tale, 
 and therefore the king is greater than the 
 law : others say, that the king is the foun- 
 tain of the law, and the sole and only law- 
 giver. 
 
 Assertion First. — 1. The law hath a two- 
 fold consideration, — (1.) Secundum esse pee- 
 nale, in relation to the punishment to be in- 
 flicted by man. 1 (2.) Secundum esse legis, 
 as it is a thing legally good in itself. In the 
 former notion it is this way true, — human 
 laws take life and being, so as to be pun- 
 ished or rewarded by men, from the will of 
 princes and law-givers ; and so Symmons 
 saith true, because men cannot punish or re- 
 ward laws but where they are made ; and 
 
 Barclaius, lib. 4, c. 23, p. 325. 
 R 
 
114 lex, r: 
 
 the will of rulers putteth a sort of stamp on 
 a law, that it bringeth the commonwealth 
 under guiltiness if they break this law. 
 But this maketh not the king greater than 
 the law, for therefore do rulers put the 
 stamp of relation to punishment on the law, 
 because there is intrinsical worth in the law 
 prior to the act of the will of lawgivers for 
 which it meriteth to be enacted ; and, there- 
 fore, because it is authorisable as good and 
 just, the king putteth on it this stamp of a 
 politic law. God formeth being and moral 
 aptitude to the end in all laws, to wit, the 
 safety of the people, and the king's will is 
 neither the measure nor the cause of the 
 goodness of kings. 
 
 2. If the king be he who maketh the 
 law good and just, because he is more such 
 himself, then as the law cannot crook, and 
 err, nor sin, neither can the king sin, nor 
 break a law. This is blasphemy; every man 
 is a liar : a law which deserveth the name 
 of a law cannot lie. 
 
 3. His ground is, that there is such ma- 
 jesty in kings, that their will must be done 
 either in us or on us. A great untruth. 
 Ahab's will must neither be done of Elias, 
 for he commandeth things unjust, nor yet 
 on Elias, for Elias fled, and lawfully we may 
 fly tyrants ; and so Ahab's will in killing 
 Elias was not done on him. 
 
 Assertion Second. — 1. Nor can it be 
 made good, that the king only hath power 
 of making laws, because his power were then 
 absolute to inflict penalties on subjects, with- 
 out any consent of theirs ; and that were 
 a dominion of masters, w T ho command what 
 they please, and under what pain they please. 
 And the people consenting to be ruled by 
 such a man, they tacitly consent to penalty 
 of laws, because natural reason saith, an ill- 
 doer should be punished ,• (Florianus in I. 
 inde. Vasquez, I. 2, c. 55, n. 3, ) therefore 
 they must have some power in making these 
 laws. 
 
 2. Jer. xxvi., It is clear the princes judge 
 with the people. A nomothetic power dif- 
 fereth gradually only from a judicial power, 
 both being collateral means to the end of 
 government, the people's safety. But par- 
 liaments judge, therefore they have a no- 
 mothetic power with the king. 
 
 3. The parliament giveth all supremacy 
 to the king, therefore to prevent tyranny, 
 it must keep a co-ordinate power with the 
 king in the highest acts. 
 
 4. If the kingly line be interruptsd, if 
 
 the king be a child or a captive, they make 
 laws who make kings ; therefore, this nomo- 
 thetic power recurreth into the states, as to 
 the first subject. 
 
 Obj. — The king is the fountain of the law, 
 and subjects cannot make laws to themselves 
 more than they can punish themselves. He 
 is only the supreme. 1 
 
 Ans. — The people being the fountain of 
 the king must rather be the fountain of 
 laws. It is false that no man maketh laws 
 to himself. Those who teach others teach 
 themselves also, (1 Tim. ii. 12 ; 1 Cor. xiv. 
 34,) though teaching be an act of authority. 
 But they agree to the penalty of the law 
 secondarily only ; and so doth the king who, 
 as a father, doth not will evil of punishment 
 to his children, but by a consequent will. 
 The king is the only supreme in the power 
 ministerial of executing laws ; but this is a 
 derived power, so as no one man is above 
 him ; but in the fountain-power of royalty 
 the states are above him. 
 
 5. The civil law is clear, that the laws of 
 the emperor have force only from this foun- 
 tain, because the people have transferred 
 their power to the king. Lib. 1, digest, tit. 
 4, de constit. Princip. leg. 1, sic Ulpian. 
 Quod principi placuit, (loquitur de prin- 
 cipe formaliter, qua princeps est, non qua 
 est homo,) legis habet vigorem, utpote cum 
 legi regia, quce de imperio ejus lata est. 
 populus ei, et in cum, omne suum imperium 
 et potestatem conferat. Yea, the emperor 
 himself may be convened before the prince 
 elector. (Aurea Bulla Carol. 4, Imper. 
 c. 5.) The king of France may be con- 
 vened before the senate of Paris. The 
 states may resist a tyrant, as Bossius saith, 
 (de principe, et privileg. ejus, n. 55. Pa- 
 ris de puteo, in tract, syno. tit. de excess, 
 reg. c. 3.) Divines acknowledge that Elias 
 rebuked the halting of Israel betwixt God 
 and Baal, that their princes permitted Baal's 
 priests to converse with the king. And is 
 not this the sin of the land, that they suffer 
 their king to worship idols? And, there- 
 fore, the land is punished for the sins of 
 Manasseh, as Knox observeth in his dispute 
 with Lethington, where he proveth that the 
 states of Scotland should not permit the 
 queen of Scotland to have her abominable 
 mass. (Hist, of Scotland.) Surely the power, 
 or sea prerogative, of a sleepy or mad pilot, 
 to split the ship on a rock, as I conceive, is 
 
 i Symmons' Loyal Subject, sect. 5, p. 8. 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 115 
 
 limited by the passengers. Suppose a father 
 in a distemper would set his own house on 
 fire, and burn himself and his ten sons, I 
 conceive his fatherly prerogative, which nei- 
 ther God nor nature gave, should not be 
 looked to in this, but they may bind him. 
 Yea, Althusius (polit. c. 39), answering this, 
 " That in democracy the people cannot both 
 command and obey," saith, It is true, secun- 
 dum idem, ad idem, et eodem tempore. But 
 the people may (saith he) choose magistrates 
 by succession. Yea, I say, 1. They may 
 change rulers yearly to remove envy : a 
 yearly king were more dangerous, the king 
 being almost above envy. Men incline more 
 to flatter than to envy kings. 2. Aristotle 
 saith, (polit. 1. 4, c. 4, 1. 6, c. 2,) The peo- 
 ple may give their judgment of the wisest. 
 
 Obj. 1. — Williams, bishop of Ossory, in 
 Vindic. Reg. (a looking-glass for rebels,) 
 saith, " To say the king is better than any 
 one, doth not prove him to be better than 
 two ; and if his supremacy be no more, then 
 any other may challenge as much, for the 
 prince is singulis major. A lord is above 
 all knights ; a knight above all esquires ; and 
 so the people have placed a king under them, 
 not above them. 
 
 Ans. — The reason is not alike : 1. For 
 all the knights united cannot make one 
 lord; and all the esquires united cannot 
 make one knight ; but all the people united 
 made David king at Hebron. 2. The king 
 is above the people, by eminence of derived 
 authority as a watchman, and in actual su- 
 premacy ; and he is inferior to them in 
 fountain-power, as the effect to the cause. 
 
 Obj. 2. — The parliament (saith Williams) 
 " may not command the king ; why, then, 
 make they supplication to him, if their vote 
 be a law ? 
 
 Ans. — They supplicate, ex decentia, of 
 decency and conveniency for his place, as 
 a city supplicate a lord mayor ; but they 
 supplicate not ex debito, of obligation, as 
 beggars seek alms, then should they be 
 cyphers. When a subject oppressed sup- 
 plicateth his sovereign tor justice, the king 
 is obliged, by office, to give justice ; and 
 to hear the oppressed is not an act of grace 
 and mercy, as to give alms, though it should 
 proceed from mercy in the prince, (Psal. 
 lxxii. 13,) but an act of royal debt. 
 
 Obj. 3.— The P. Prelate (c. 9, pp. 103, 
 104) objecteth : The most you claim to 
 parliament is a co-ordinate power, which, 
 in law and reason, run in equal terms. In 
 
 law, par in parem non habet imperium ; 
 an equal cannot judge an equal, much less 
 may an inferior usurp to judge a supe- 
 rior. Our Lord knew, gratia visionis, the 
 woman taken in adultery to be guilty, but 
 he would not sentence her ; to teach us, not 
 improbably, not to be both judge and wit- 
 ness. The parliament are judges, accusers, 
 and witnesses against the king in their own 
 cause, against the imperial laws. 
 
 Ans. 1. — The parliament is co-ordinate 
 ordinarily with the king in the power of 
 making laws ; but the co-ordination on the 
 king's part is by derivation, on the parlia- 
 ment's part, originaliter ct fontaliter, as in 
 the fountain. 2. In ordinary there is co- 
 ordination ; but if the king turn tyrant, 
 the estates are to use their fountain-power. 
 And that of the law, par in parem, &c. is 
 no better from his pen, that stealeth all he 
 hath, than from Barclaius, Grotius, Arni- 
 sseus, Blackwood, &c. : it is cold and sour. 
 We hold the parliament that made the king 
 at Hebron to be above their own creature, 
 the king. Barclaius saith more accurately, 
 (1. 5, cont. Monarch, p. 129,) " It is absurd 
 that the people should both be subject to 
 the king, and command the king also. — Ans. 
 1. It is not absurd that a father natural, as 
 a private man, should be subject to his son ; 
 even that Jesse, and his elder brother, the 
 lord of all the rest, be subject to David their 
 king. Royalists say, Our late queen, being 
 supreme magistrate, might by law have put 
 to death her own husband, for adultery or 
 murder. 2. The parliament should not be 
 both accuser, judge, and witness in their 
 own cause. 1. It is the cause of religion, 
 of God, of protestants, and of the whole 
 people. 2. The oppressed accuse ; there is 
 no need of witnesses in raising arms against 
 the subjects. 3. The P. Prelate could not 
 object this, if against the imperial laws the 
 king were both party and judge in his own 
 cause ; and in these acts of arbitrary power, 
 which he hath done through bad counsel, in 
 wronging fundamental laws, raising arms 
 against his subjects, bringing in foreign 
 enemies into both his kingdoms, &c. Now 
 this is properly the cause of the king, as he 
 is a man, and his own cause, not the cause 
 of God ; and by no law of nature, reason, 
 or imperial statutes, can he be both judge 
 and party. 4. If the king be sole supreme 
 judge without any fellow sharers in power, 
 (1.) He is not obliged by law to follow coun- 
 sel or hold parliaments ; for counsel is not 
 
116 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 command. (2.) It is impossible to limit him 
 even in the exercises of his power, which 
 yet Dr Feme saith cannot be said ; for if 
 any of his power be retrenched, God is rob- 
 bed, saith Maxwell. (3.) He may by law 
 play the tyrant gratis. 
 
 Feme objecteth, (sect. 7, p. 26,)— The 
 king is a fundamental with the estates ; now 
 foundations are not to be stirred or re- 
 moved. 
 
 Ans. — The king, as king, inspired with 
 law, is a fundamental, and his power is not 
 to be stirred ; but as a man wasting his 
 people, he is a destruction to the house and 
 community, and not a fundamental in that 
 notion. 
 
 Some object: The three estates, as men, 
 and looking to their own ends, not to law 
 and the public good, are not fundamentals, 
 and are to be judged by the king. 
 
 Ans. — By the people, and the conscience 
 of the people, they are to be judged. 
 
 Obj. — But the people also do judge as 
 corrupt men, and not as the people, and a 
 politic body providing for their own safety. 
 
 Ans. — I grant all; when God will bring 
 a vengeance on Jerusalem, prince and peo- 
 ple both are hardened to their own de- 
 struction. Now, God hath made all the 
 three. In every government where there 
 is democracy, there is some chosen ones re- 
 sembling an aristocracy, and some one for 
 order, presiding in democratical courts, re- 
 sembling a king. In aristocracy, as in Hol- 
 land, there is somewhat of democracy, — the 
 people have their commissioners, and one 
 duke or general, as the prince of Orange is 
 some umbrage of royalty ; and in monarchy 
 there are the three estates of parliament, 
 and these contain the three estates, and so 
 somewhat of the three fomis of government ; 
 and there is no one government just that 
 hath not some of all three. Power and ab- 
 solute monarchy is tyranny ; unmixed de- 
 mocracy is confusion ; untempered aristo- 
 cracy is factious dominion ; and a limited 
 monarchy hath from democracy respect to 
 public good, without confusion. From aristo- 
 cracy safety in multitude of counsels with- 
 out factious emulation, and so a bar laid on 
 tyranny by the joint powers of many; and 
 from sovereignty union of many children in 
 one father ; and all the three thus contem- 
 pered have their own sweet fruits through 
 God's blessing, and their own diseases by 
 accident, and through men's corruption ; 
 and neither reason nor Scripture shall war- 
 
 rant any one in its rigid purity without 
 mixture. And God having chosen the best 
 government to bring men fallen in sin to 
 happiness, must warrant in any one a mix- 
 ture of all three, as in mixed bodies the 
 four elements are reduced to a fit temper 
 resulting of all the four, where the acrimony 
 of all the four first qualities is broken, and 
 the good of all combined in one. 
 
 1. The king, as the king, is an unerring 
 and living law, and by grant of Barclay/ 
 of old, was one of excellent parts, and noble 
 through virtue and goodness ; and the good- 
 ness of a father as a father, of a tutor as a 
 tutor, of a head as a head, of a husband as 
 a husband, do agree to the king as a king ; 
 so, as king, he is the law itself, commanding, 
 governing, saving. 2. His will as king, or 
 his royal will, is reason, conscience, law. 3. 
 This will is politicly present (when his person 
 is absent) in all parliaments, courts, and in- 
 ferior judicatures. 4. The king, as king, can- 
 not do wrong or violence to any. 5. Amongst 
 the Romans the name king and tyrant were 
 common to one thing. (1.) Because, de 
 facto, some of their kings were tyrants, in 
 respect of their dominion, rather than kings. 
 (2.) Because he who was a tyrant, de facto, 
 should have been, and was a king too, de 
 jure. 6. It is not lawful either to disobey 
 or resist a king as a king, no more than it 
 is lawful to disobey a good law. 7- What 
 violence, what injustice and excess of pas- 
 sion the king mixeth in with his acts of 
 government, are merely accidental to a king 
 as king ; for, because men by their own in- 
 nate goodness will not, yea, morally cannot 
 do that which is lawful and just one to an- 
 other, and do naturally, since the fall of 
 man, violence one to another ; therefore, if 
 there had not been sin, there should not 
 have been need of a king, more than there 
 should have been need of a tutor to defend 
 the child whose father is not dead, or of a 
 physician to cure sickness where there is 
 health ; for, remove sin, and there is neither 
 death nor sickness ; but because sin is en- 
 tered into the world, God devised, as a re- 
 medy of violence and injustice, a living, 
 rational, breathing law, called a king, a judge, 
 a father. Now the aberrations, violence, 
 and oppression of this thing which is the 
 living, rational, breathing law, is no medium, 
 no mean intended by God and nature to 
 remove violence. How shall violence re- 
 
 Barcl. ad versus Monarcho. lib. 1, p. 24. 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 117 
 
 move violence ? Therefore an unjust king, 
 ;is unjust, is not that genuine ordinance of 
 God, appointed to remove injustice, but ac- 
 cidental to a king. So we may resist the 
 injustice of the king, and not resist the king. 
 8. If, then, any cast off the nature of a 
 king, and become habitually a tyrant, in so 
 far he is not from God, nor any ordinance 
 which God doth own. If the office of a 
 tyrant (to speak so) be contrary to a king's 
 offices, it is not from God, and so neither is 
 the power from God. 9. Yea, laws, (which 
 are no less from God than the king's are,) 
 when they begin to be hurtful, cessant ma- 
 terialiter, they leave off to be laws ; because 
 they oblige non secundum vim verborum, 
 sed in vim sensus, not according to the 
 force of words, but according to sense, — I. 
 non figura literarum F. de actione et ob- 
 ligatione, 1. ita stipulatus. But who (saith 
 the royalists) shall be judge betwixt the 
 king and the people, when the people allege 
 that the king is a tyrant. 
 
 Ans. — There is a court of necessity no 
 less than a court of justice ; and the funda- 
 mental laws must then speak, and it is with 
 the people, in this extremity, as if they had 
 no ruler. 
 
 Obj. 1. — But if the law be doubtful, as 
 all human, all civil, all municipal laws may 
 endure great dispute, — the peremptory per- 
 son exponing the law must be the supreme 
 judge. This cannot be the people, there- 
 fore it must be the king. 
 
 Ans. 1. — As the Scriptures in all funda- 
 mentals are clear, and expone themselves, 
 and actu jyrimo condemn heresies, so all 
 laws of men in their fundamentals, which 
 are the law of nature and of nations, are 
 clear ; and, 2. Tyranny is more visible and 
 intelligible than heresy, and is soon decerned. 
 If a king bring in upon his native subjects 
 twenty thousand Turks armed, and the king 
 lead them, it is evident they come not to 
 make a friendly visit to salute the kingdom, 
 and depart in peace. The people have a 
 natural throne of policy in their conscience 
 to give warning, and materially sentence 
 against the king as a tyrant, and so by 
 nature are to defend themselves. Where 
 tyranny is more ■ obscure, and the thread 
 small, that it escape the eye of men, the 
 king keepeth possession ; but I deny that 
 tyrannv can be obscure long. 
 
 Obj. 2.— Dr Feme (p. 3, sect. 5, p. 39).— 
 A king may not, or cannot easily alter the 
 frame of fundamental laws, he may make 
 
 some actual invasion in some transient and 
 unfixed acts ; and it is safer to bear these, 
 than to raise a civil war of the body against 
 the head. 
 
 Ans. 1. — If the king, as king, may alter 
 any one wholesome law, by that same reason 
 he may alter all. 2. You give short wings 
 to an arbitrary prince, if he cannot overfly 
 all laws to the subversion of the fundamen- 
 tals of a state, if you make him, as you do, 
 (1.) One who hath the sole legislative power, 
 who allenarly by himself maketh laws, and 
 his parliament and council are only to give 
 him advice, which by law he may as easily re- 
 ject as they can speak words to him, he may 
 in one transient act (and it is but one) cancel 
 all laws made against idolatry and popery, 
 and command, through bad counsel, in all his 
 dominions, the Pope to be acknowledged as 
 Christ's vicar, and all his doctrine to be 
 established as the catholic true religion. It 
 is but one transient act to seal a pardon to 
 the shedding of the blood of two hundred 
 thousand killed by papists. (2.) If you make 
 him a king, who may not be resisted in 
 any case, and though he subvert all funda- 
 mental laws, he is accountable to God only : 
 his people have no remedy, but prayers or 
 flight. 
 
 Obj. 3.— Feme (p. 3. sect. 5, p. 39).— 
 Limitations and mixtures in monarchies do 
 not imply a forcible restraining power in 
 subjects, for the preventing of the dissolution 
 of the state, but only a legal restraining 
 power ; and if such a restraining power be 
 in the subjects by reservation, then it must 
 be expressed in the constitution of the 
 government, and in the covenant betwixt 
 the monarch and his people. But such a 
 condition is unlawful, which will not have 
 the sovereign power secured, — is unprofitable 
 for king and people, — a seminary for sedi- 
 tions and jealousies. 
 
 Ans. 1. — I understand not a difference 
 betwixt forcible restraining and legal re- 
 straining : for he must mean by " legal," 
 man's law, because he saith it is a law in the 
 covenant betwixt the monarch and his people. 
 Now, if this be not forcible and physical, it is 
 only moral in the conscience of the king, and 
 a cypher and a mere vanity; for God, not the 
 people, putteth a restraint of conscience on 
 the king, that he may not oppress his poor 
 subjects; but he shall sin against God — that 
 is a poor restraint : the goodness of the 
 king, a sinful man, inclined from the womb 
 to all sin, and so to tyranny, is no restraint. 
 
118 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 2. There is no necessity that the reserve 
 be expressed in the covenant between king 
 and people, more than in contract of mar- 
 riage between a husband and a wife; beside 
 her jointure, you should set down this 
 clause in the contract, that if the husband 
 attempt to kill the wife, or the wife the 
 husband, in that case it shall be lawful to 
 either of them to part company. For Dr 
 Feme saith, " That personal defence is law- 
 ful in the people, if the king's assault be 
 sudden, without colour of law, or inevitable." 
 Yet the reserve of this power of defence is 
 not necessarily to be expressed in the con- 
 tract betwixt king and people. Exigencies 
 of the law of nature cannot be set down in 
 positive covenants, they are presupposed. 3. 
 He saith, " A reservation of power whereby 
 sovereignty is not secured, is unlawful." 
 Lend me this argument : the giving away of 
 a power of defence, and a making the king 
 absolute, is unlawful, because by it the people 
 is not secured ; but one man hath thereby 
 the sword of God put in his hand, whereby 
 ex officio he may, as king, cut the throats 
 of thousands, and be accountable to none 
 therefor, but to God only. Now, if the 
 non-securing of the king make a condition 
 unlawful, the non-securing of a kingdom and 
 church, yea, of the true religion, (which are 
 infinitely in worth above one single man,) 
 may far more make the condition unlaw- 
 ful. 4. A legal restraint on a king is no 
 more unprofitable, and a seminary of jea- 
 lousies between king and people, than a 
 legal restraint upon people ; for the king, 
 out of a non-restraint, as out of seed, may 
 more easily educe tyranny and subversion 
 of religion. If outlandish women tempt 
 even a Solomon to idolatry, as people may 
 educe sedition out of a legal restraint laid 
 upon a king, to say nothing that tyranny is 
 a more dangerous sin than sedition, by 
 how much more the lives of many, and true 
 religion, are to be preferred to the safety of 
 one, and a false peace. 
 
 Obj. 4. — An absolute monarch is free from 
 all forcible restraint, and so far as he is ab- 
 solute from all legal restraints of positive laws. 
 Now, in a limited monarch, there is only 
 sought a legal restraint ; and limitation can- 
 not infer a forcible restraint, for an absolute 
 monarch is limited also, not by civil compact, 
 but by the law of nature and nations, which he 
 cannot justly transgress. If therefore an abso- 
 
 i Dr Feme, p. 3, sort. 5, p. 40. 
 
 lute monarch, being exorbitant, may not be 
 resisted because he transgresseth the law of 
 nature, how shall we think a limited mo- 
 narch may be resisted for transgressing the 
 bounds set by civil agreement. 
 
 Ans. 1. — A legal restraint on the people 
 is a forcible restraint ; for if law be not 
 backed with force, it is only a law of reward- 
 ing well-doing, which is no restraint, but an 
 encouragement to do evil. If, then, there 
 be a legal restraint upon the king, without 
 any force, it is no restraint, but only such a 
 request as this : be a just prince, and we 
 will give your majesty two subsidies in one 
 year. 2. I utterly deny that God ever or- 
 dained such an irrational creature as an ab- 
 solute monarch. If a people unjustly, and 
 against nature's dictates, make away irre- 
 vocably their own liberty, and the liberty of 
 their posterity, which is not their's to dis- 
 pose off, and set over themselves as base 
 slaves, a sinning creature, with absolute 
 power, he is their king, but not as he is ab- 
 solute, and that he may not be forcibly 
 resisted, notwithstanding the subjects did 
 swear to his absolute power, (which oath in 
 the point of absoluteness is unlawful, and so 
 not obligatory,) I utterly deny. 3. An ab- 
 solute monarch (saith he) is limited, but by 
 law of nature. That is, Master Doctor, he is 
 not limited as a monarch, not as an absolute 
 monarch, but as a son of Adam ; he is under 
 the limits of the law of nature, which he 
 should have been under though he had never 
 been a king all his days, but a slave. But 
 what then ? Therefore, he cannot be re- 
 sisted. Yes, Doctor, by your own grant he 
 can be resisted : if he invade an innocent 
 subject (say you) suddenly, without colour 
 of law, or inevitably ; and that because he 
 transgresseth the law of nature. You say a 
 limited monarch can less be resisted for 
 transgressing the bounds set by civil agree- 
 ment. But what if the thus limited mo- 
 narch transgress the law of nature, and sub- 
 vert fundamental laws? He is then, you 
 seem to say, to be resisted. It is not for 
 simple transgression of a civil agreement 
 that he is to be resisted. The limited mo- 
 narch is as essentially the Lord's anointed, 
 and the power ordained of God, as the ab- 
 solute monarch. Now resistance by all 
 your grounds is unlawful, because of God's 
 power and place conferred upon him, not 
 because of men's positive covenant made 
 with him. 
 
 To find out the essential difference be- 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 119 
 
 twixt a king and a tyrant, we are to observe, 
 that it is one thing to sin against a man, an- 
 other thing against a state. David, killing- 
 Uriah , committed an act of murder. But 
 upon this supposition, that David is not 
 punished for that murder, he did not so sin 
 against the state, and catholic good of the 
 state, that he turneth tyrant and ceaseth to 
 be a lawful king. A tyrant is he who 
 habitually sinneth against the catholic good 
 of the subjects and state, and subverteth law. 
 Such a one should not be, as Jason, of whom 
 it is said byiEneas Silvius, Graviterferebat, 
 si non regnaret, quasi nesciret esse pri- 
 vatum. When such as are monstrous tyrants 
 are not taken away by the estates, God pur- 
 sueth them in wrath. Domitian was killed 
 by his own family, his wife knowing of it ; 
 Aurelianus was killed with a thunderbolt; 
 Darius was drowned in a river ; Dioclesian, 
 fearing death, poisoned himself; Salerius 
 died eaten with worms, — the end also of 
 Herod and Antiochus ; Maxentius was swal- 
 lowed up in a standing river; Julian died, 
 being stricken through with a dart thrown 
 at him by a man or an angel, it is not 
 known ; Valens, the Arian, was burnt with 
 fire in a litttle village by the Gothes ; Anas- 
 tasius, the Eutychian emperor, was stricken 
 by God with thunder ; Gundericus Vandalus, 
 when he rose against the church of God, 
 being apprehended by the devil, died. Some- 
 time the state have taken order with tyrants : 
 the empire was taken from Vitellius, Helio- 
 gabalus, Maximinus, Didius, Julianus ; so 
 was the two Childerici of France served ; 
 so were also Sigebertus, Dagabertus, and 
 Luodovic II. of France : Christiernus of 
 Denmark, Mary of Scotland, who killed her 
 husband and raised forces against the king- 
 dom ; so was Henricus Valesius of Poland, 
 for flying the kingdom ; Sigismundus of 
 Poland, for violating his faith to the states. 
 
 QUESTION XXV. 
 
 WHAT FORCE THE SUPREME LAW HATH OVER 
 THE KING, EVEN THAT LAW OF THE PEO- 
 PLE'S SAFETY, CALLED " SALUS POPULI." 
 
 The law of the twelve tables is, salus 
 populi, suprema lex. The safety of the 
 people is the supreme and cardinal law to 
 which all laws are to stoop. And that from 
 these reasons : — 
 
 1. Originally; Because if the people be 
 the first author, fountain and efficient under 
 God, of law and king, then their own safety 
 must be principally sought, and their safety 
 must be tar above the king, as the safety of a 
 cause, especially of an universal cause, such 
 as is the people, must be more than the safety 
 of one, as Aristotle saith, (1. 3. polit., alias 
 
 1. 5,) oil priri iriifuKt to /ii^os i-rt^i^liv rou tfavro; 
 
 — " The part cannot be more excellent 
 than the whole ;" nor the effect above the 
 cause. 
 
 2. Finaliter. This supreme law must 
 stand ; for if all law, policy, magistrates and 
 power be referred to the people's good as 
 the end, (Rom. xiii. 4,) and to their quiet 
 and peaceable life in godliness and honesty, 
 then must this law stand, as of more worth 
 than the king, as the end is of more worth 
 than the means leading to the end, for the 
 end is the measure and rule of the goodness 
 of the mean ; and, finis ultimus in infiuxu 
 est potentissimus, the king is good, because 
 he conduceth much for the safety of the 
 people ; therefore, the safety of the people 
 must be better. 
 
 3. By way of limitation : because no law 
 in its letter hath force where the safety of 
 the subject is in hazard ; and if law or king- 
 be destructive to the people they are to be 
 abolished. This is clear in a tyrant or a 
 wicked man. 
 
 4. In the desires of the most holy : Moses, 
 a prince, desired for the safety of God's 
 people, and rather than God should destroy 
 his people, that his name should be rased 
 out of the book of life ; and David saith, 
 (1 Chron. xxi. 17,) " Let thine hand, I pray 
 thee, O Lord my God, be on me, and on my 
 father's house ; but not on thy people, that 
 they should be plagued." This being a 
 
 holy desire of these two public spirits, the 
 object must be in itself true, and the safety 
 of God's people and their happiness must be 
 of more worth than the salvation of Moses 
 and the life of David and his father's house. 
 The Prelate (c. 16, p. 159) borroweth an 
 answer to this — for he hath none of his 
 own — from Dr Feme (sect. 7, p. 28) : The 
 safety of the subjects is the prime end of 
 the constitution of government ; but it is 
 not the sole and adequate end of govern- 
 ment in monarchy ; for that is the safety 
 of both king and people. And it beseem- 
 eth the king to proportion his laws for their 
 good ; and it becometh the people to pro- 
 portion all their obedience, actions, and en- 
 
120 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 deavours for the safety, honour, and happi- 
 ness of the king. It is impossible the peo- 
 ple can have safety when sovereignty is 
 weakened. 
 
 Ans. — The Prelate would have the other 
 half of the end, why a king is set over a peo- 
 ple, to be the safety and happiness of the 
 king, as well as the safety of the people. 
 This is new logic indeed, that one and the 
 same thing should be the mean and the 
 end. The question is, For what end is a 
 king made so happy as to be exalted king ? 
 The Prelate answereth, He is made happy 
 that he may be happy, and made a king 
 that he may he made a king. Now, is the 
 king, as king, to intend this half end ? that 
 is, whether or no accepteth he the burden 
 of setting his head and shoulders under the 
 crown, for this end, that he may not only 
 make the people happy, but also that he may 
 make himself rich and honourable above his 
 brethren, and enrich himself? I believe not ; 
 but that he feed the people of God ; for if 
 he intend himself, and his own honour, it is 
 the intention of the man who is king, and 
 intentio operantis, but it is not the intention 
 of the king, as the king, or intentio operis. 
 The king, as a king, is formally and essen- 
 tially the " minister of God for our good," 
 (Rom. xiii. 4 ; 1 Tim. ii. 2,) and cannot 
 come under any notion as a king, but as a 
 mean, not as an end, nor as that which he is, 
 to seek himself. I conceive God did forbid 
 this in the moulding of the first king. (Deut. 
 xvii. 18, 19, 26.) He is a minister by office, 
 and one who receiveth honour and wages 
 for this work, that, ex officio, he may feed his 
 people. But the Prelate saith, the people 
 are to intend his riches and honour. I can- 
 not say but the people may intend to honour 
 the king ; but the question is not, whether 
 the people be to refer the king and his 
 government as a mean to honour the king ? 
 I conceive not. But that end which the 
 people, in obeying the king, in being ruled 
 by him, may intend, is, (1 Tim. ii. 2,) 
 " That under him they may lead a quiet 
 and peaceable life, in all godliness and 
 honesty." And God's end in giving a king 
 is the good and safety of his people. 
 
 P. Prelate (c. 16, p. 160).— To reason 
 from the one part and end of monarchical 
 government — the safety of the subjects, to 
 the destruction and weakening of the other 
 part of the end — the power of sovereignty 
 and the royal prerogative, is a caption a 
 divisis. If the king be not happy, and in- I 
 
 vested with the full power of a head, the 
 body cannot be well. By anti-monarchists, 
 the people at the beginning were necessi- 
 tated to commit themselves, lives and for- 
 tunes, to the government of a king, because 
 of themselves they had not wisdom and 
 power enough to do it ; and therefore, they 
 enabled him with honour and power, with- 
 out which he could not do this, being as- 
 sured that he could not choose, but most 
 earnestly and carefully endeavour this end, 
 to wit, his own and the people's happiness ; 
 therefore, the safety of the people issueth 
 from the safety of the king, as the life of 
 the natural body from the soul. Weak go- 
 vernment is near to anarchy. Puritans will 
 not say, Quovis modo esse, etiam poenale, 
 is better than non esse : the Scripture saith 
 the contrary ; it were better for some never 
 to have been born than to be. Tyranny is 
 better than no government. 
 
 Ans. 1. — He knows not sophisms of logic 
 who calleth this argument a divisis ; for the 
 king's honour is not the end of the king's 
 government. He should seek the safety of 
 state and church, not himself; himself is a 
 private end, and a step to tyranny. 
 
 2. The Prelate lieth when he maketh us 
 to reason from the safety of the subject to 
 the destruction of the king. Feme, Bar- 
 clay, Grotius, taught the hungry scholar 
 to reason so. Where read he this ? The 
 people must be saved, that is the supreme 
 law, therefore, destroy the king. The 
 devil and the Prelate both shall not fasten 
 this on us. But thus we reason : when the 
 man who is the king endeavoureth not the 
 end of his royal place, but, through bad 
 counsel, the subversion of laws, religion, and 
 bondage of the kingdom, the free estates 
 are to join with him for that end of safety, 
 according as God hath made them heads of 
 tribes and princes of the people ; and if 
 the king refuse to join with them, and will 
 not do his duty, I see not how they are in 
 conscience liberated before God from doing 
 their part. 
 
 3. If the P. Prelate call resisting the 
 king by lawful defensive wars, the destruc- 
 tion of the head, he speaketh with the mouth 
 of one excommunicated and delivered up to 
 Satan. 
 
 4. We endeavour nothing more than the 
 safety and happiness of the king, as king ; 
 but his happiness is not to suffer him to 
 destroy his subjects, subvert religion, arm 
 papists who have slaughtered above two 
 
THE I..UV AM) THE 1'Kl 
 
 121 
 
 hundred thousand innocent protestants, only 
 for the profession of that true religion which 
 the king hath sworn to maintain. Not to 
 rise in arms to help the king against these 
 were to gratify him as a man, but to be 
 accessory to his soul's destruction as a king. 
 
 5. That the royal prerogative is the end 
 of a monarchy ordained by God, neither 
 Scripture, law, nor reason can admit. 
 
 6. The people are to intend the safety of 
 other judges as well as the king's. If par- 
 liaments be destroyed, whose it is to make 
 laws and kings, the people can neither be 
 safe, free to serve Christ, nor happy. 
 
 7. It is a lie that people were necessitated 
 at the beginning to commit themselves to a 
 king ; for we read of no king while Nimrod 
 arose : fathers of families (who were not 
 kings), and others, did govern till then. 
 
 8. It was not want of wisdom, (for in 
 many, and in the people, there must be 
 more wisdom than in one man,) but rather 
 corruption of nature and reciprocation of 
 injuries that created kings and other judges. 
 
 9. The king shall better compass his 
 end, to wit, the safety of the people, with 
 limited power, {pAaccnt mediocria,) and with 
 other judges added to help him, (Num. xi. 
 14, 16; Deut. i. 12 — 15,) than to put in 
 one man's hand absolute power ; for a sinful 
 man's head cannot bear so much new wine, 
 such as exorbitant power is. 
 
 10. He is a base flatterer who saith, 
 The king cannot choose, but earnestly and 
 carefully endeavour his own and the people's 
 happiness ; that is, the king is an angel, and 
 cannot sin and decline from the duties of a 
 king. Of the many kings of Judah and 
 Israel, how many chose this? All the 
 good kings that have been may be written 
 
 I in a gold ring. 
 
 11. The people's safety dependeth indeed 
 on the king, as a king and a happy gover- 
 nor ; but the people shall never be fattened 
 to eat the wind of an imaginary prerogative 
 royal. 
 
 12. Weak government, that is, a king 
 with a limited power, who hath more power 
 about his head than within his head, is a 
 strong king, and far from anarchy. 
 
 13. I know not what he meaneth, but 
 his master Arminius's way and words are 
 here, for Arminians say, 1 " That being in 
 the damned, eternally tormented, is no bene- 
 
 i Jac. Armini. Declar. Remonstrant, in suod. 
 dordrac. 
 
 fit ; it were better they never had being 
 than to be eternally tormented ;" and this 
 they say to the defiance of the doctrine of 
 eternal reprobation, in which we teach, that 
 though by accident, and because of the 
 danmed's abuse of being and life, it were to 
 them better not to be, as is said of Judas, 
 yet shnpliciter comparing being with non- 
 being, and considering the eternity of mise- 
 rable being in relation to the absolute liber- 
 ty of the Former of all things, who maketh 
 use of the sinful being of clay-vessels for the 
 illustration of the glory of his justice and 
 power, (Rom. ix. 17, 22 ; 1 Pet. ii. 8 ; 
 Jude v. 4,) it is a censuring of God and 
 his unsearchable wisdom, and a condemning 
 of the Almighty of cruelty, (God avert blas- 
 phemy of the unspotted and holy Majesty,) 
 who, by Arminian grounds, keepeth the 
 damned in life and being, to be fuel eter- 
 nally for Tophet, to declare the glory of his 
 justice. But the Prelate behoved to go out 
 of his way to salute and gratify a proclaimed 
 enemy of free grace, Arminius, and hence 
 he would infer that the king, wanting his 
 prerogative royal and fulness of absolute 
 power to do wickedly, is in a penal and mi- 
 serable condition, and that it were better 
 for the king to be a tyrant, with absolute 
 liberty to destroy and save alive at his plea- 
 sure, as is said of a tyrant, (Dan. v. 19,) 
 than to be no king at all. And here con- 
 sider a principle of royalists' court faith : — 
 1. The king is no king, but a lame and mi- 
 serable judge, if he have not irresistible 
 power to waste and destroy. 2. The king 
 cannot be happy, nor the people safe, nor 
 can the king do good in saving the needy, 
 except he have the uncontrollable and unli- 
 mited power of a tyrant to crush the poor 
 and needy, and lay waste the mountain of 
 the Lord's inheritance. Such court-ravens 
 who feed upon the souls of living kings, are 
 more cruel than ravens and vultures, who 
 are but dead carcases. 
 
 Williams, bishop of Ossory, answereth to 
 the maxim, Salus popidi, &c. " No wise 
 king but will carefully provide for the peo- 
 ple's safety, because his safety and honour is 
 included in theirs, his destruction in theirs." 
 And it is, saith Lipsius, egri animi propri- 
 um nihil diu pati. Absalom was persuaded 
 there was no justice in the land when he 
 intendeth rebellion ; and the poor Prelate, 
 following him, spendeth pages to prove that 
 goods, life, chastity, and fame, dependeth 
 on the safety of the king, as the breath of 
 s 
 
122 
 
 LEX, REX : OR, 
 
 our nostrils, our nurse-father, our head, cor- 
 ner-stone, and judge (c. 17, 6, 18, 1). The 
 reason why all disorder was in church and 
 state was not because there was no judge, 
 no government ; none can be so stupid as to 
 imagine that. But because, 1. They wanted 
 the most excellent of governments. 2. Be- 
 cause aristocracy was weakened so as there 
 was no right. No doubt priests there were, 
 but (Hos. iv.) either they would not serve, 
 or were over-awed. No doubt in those days 
 they had judges, but priests and judges 
 were stoned by a rascally multitude, and 
 they were not able to rule ; therefore it is 
 most consonant to Scripture to say, Salus 
 regis suprema populi salus, the safety of 
 the king and his prerogative royal is the 
 safest sanctuary for the people. So Hos. 
 iii. 4 ; Lament, ii. 9. 
 
 Ans. 1. — The question is not of the wis- 
 dom, but of the power of the king, if it 
 should be bounded by no law. 
 
 2. The flatterer may know, there be 
 more foolish kings in the world than wise, 
 and that kings misled with idolatrous queens, 
 and by name Ahab ruined himself, and his 
 posterity and kingdom. 
 
 3. The salvation and happiness of men 
 standing in the exalting of Christ's throne 
 and the gospel, therefore every king and 
 every man will exalt the throne ; and so let 
 them have an uncontrollable power, without 
 constraint of law, to do what they list, and 
 let no bounds be set to kings over subjects. 
 By this argument their own wisdom is a 
 law to lead them to heaven. 
 
 4. It is not Absalom's mad malcontents 
 in Britain, but there were really no justice 
 to protestants, — all indulgence to papists, 
 popery, Arminianism, — idolatry printed, 
 preached, professed, rewarded by authority, 
 parliaments and church assemblies ; the 
 bulwarks of justice and religion were de- 
 nied, dissolved, crushed, &c. 
 
 5. That by a king he understandeth a 
 monarch, (Judg. xvii.) and that such a one 
 as Saul, of absolute power, and not a judge, 
 cannot be proved, for there were no kings 
 in Israel in the judges' days, — the govern- 
 ment not being changed till near the end of 
 Samuel's government. 
 
 6. And that they had no judges, he 
 saith, it is not imaginable. But I rather be- 
 lieve God than the Prelate. Every one did 
 what was right in his own eyes, because 
 there was none to put ill-doers to shame. 
 Possibly the estates of Israel governed some 
 
 way for mere necessity, but wanting a su- 
 preme judge, which they should have, they 
 were loose ; but this was not because where 
 there is no king, as P. P. would insinuate, 
 there was no government, as is clear. 
 
 7. Of tempered and limited monarchy I 
 think as honourably as the Prelate, but that 
 absolute and unlimited monarchy is more ex- 
 cellent than aristocracy, I shall then believe 
 when royalists shall prove such a govern- 
 ment, in so far as it is absolute, to be of God. 
 
 8. That aristocracy was now weakened I 
 believe not, seeing God so highly commend- 
 eth it, and calleth it his own reigning over 
 his people. (1 Sam. viii. 7.) The weaken- 
 ing of it through abuse is not to a purpose, 
 more than the abuse of monarchy. 
 
 9. No doubt, saith he, (Hos. iv.) they 
 were priests and judges, but they were 
 over-awed, as they are now. I think he 
 would say, (Hos. iii. 4,) otherwise he cit- 
 eth Scripture sleeping, that the priests of 
 Antichrist be not only over-awed, but out of 
 the earth. I yield that the king be limited, 
 not over-awed, I think God's law and man's 
 law alloweth. 
 
 10. The safety of the king, as king, is not 
 only safety, but a blessing to church and 
 state, and therefore this P. Prelate and his 
 fellows deserve to be hanged before the 
 sun, who have led him on a war to destroy 
 him and his protestant subjects. But the 
 safety and flourishing of a king, in the ex- 
 ercises of an arbitrary unlimited power 
 against law and religion, and to the de- 
 struction of his subjects, is not the safety of 
 the people, nor the safety of the king's soul, 
 which these men, if they be the priests of 
 the Lord, should care for. 
 
 The Prelate cometh to refute the learned 
 and worthy Observator. The safety of the 
 people is the supreme law, therefore the 
 king is bound in duty to promote all and 
 every one of his subjects to all happiness. 
 The Observator hath no such inference, the 
 king is bound to promote some of his sub- 
 jects, even as king, to a gallows, especially 
 Irish rebels, and many bloody mahgnants. 
 But the Prelate will needs have God rigo- 
 rous (hallowed be his name) if it be so; for it 
 is impossible to the tenderest-hearted father 
 to do so. Actual promotion of all is impossi- 
 ble. That the king intend it of all his sub- 
 jects, as good subjects, by a throne estab- 
 lished on righteousness and judgment is that 
 which the worthy Observator meaneth. Other 
 things here are answered. 
 
THE LAW AXD THE PRINCE. 
 
 123 
 
 The sum of his second answer is a repe- 
 tition of what he hath said. I give my word, 
 in a pamphlet of one hundred and ninety- 
 four pages, I never saw more idle repeti- 
 tions of one thing twenty times hefore said ; 
 but (p. 168) he saith, " The safety of the 
 king and his subjects, in the moral notion, 
 may be esteemed morally the same, no less 
 than the soul and the body make one per- 
 sonal subsistence." 
 
 Ans. — This is strange logic. The king 
 and his subjects are ens per aggregationcm, 
 and the king, as king, hath one moral subsis- 
 tence, and the people another. Hath the 
 lather and the son, the master and the ser- 
 vant, one moral subsistence ? But the man 
 speaketh of their well-being, and then he 
 must mean that our king's government — that 
 was not long ago, and is yet, to wit, the 
 popery, Arminianism, idolatry, cutting off 
 men's ears and noses, banishing, imprison- 
 ment for speaking against popery, arming 
 of papists to slay protestants, pardoning the 
 blood of Ireland, that I fear, shall not be 
 soon taken away, &c, — is identically the 
 same with the life, safety, and happiness of 
 protestants. Then life and death, justice 
 and injustice, idolatry and sincere worship, 
 are identically one, as the soul of the Pre 
 late'and his body are one. 
 
 The third is but a repetition. The acts 
 of royalty (saith the Observator) are acts of 
 duty and obligation, therefore, not acts of 
 grace properly so called ; therefore we may 
 not thank the king for a courtesy. This is 
 no consequence. What fathers do to chil- 
 dren are acts of natural duty and of na- 
 tural grace, and yet children owe gratitude 
 to parents, and subjects to good kings, in a 
 legal sense. No, but in way of courtesy 
 only. The observator said, the king is not 
 a father to the whole collective body, and it 
 is well said he is son to them, and they his 
 maker. Who made the king ? Policy an- 
 swereth, The state made him, and divinity, 
 God made him. 
 
 The Observator said well, the people's 
 weakness is not the king's strength. The 
 Prelate saith, Amen. He said, That that 
 perisheth not to the king, which is granted 
 to the people. The Prelate (p. 170) de- 
 nieth, because, what the king hath in trust 
 from God, the king cannot make away to an- 
 other, nor can any take it from him with- 
 out sacrdege. 
 
 Ans. — True indeed, if the king had roy- 
 alty by immediate trust and infusion by God, 
 
 as Elias had the spirit of prophecy, that he 
 cannot make away. Royalists dream that 
 God, immediately from heaven, now in- 
 fuseth faculty and right to crowns with- 
 out any word of God. It is enough to make 
 an enthusiast leap up to the throne and kill 
 kings. Judge if these fanatics be favourers 
 of kings. But if the king have royalty me- 
 diately, by the people's free consent, from 
 God, there is no reason but people give as 
 much power, even by ounce weights, (for 
 power is strong wine and a great mocker,) 
 as they know a weak man's head will bear, 
 and no more. Power is not an immediate 
 inheritance from heaven, but a birthright 
 of the people borrowed from them ; they 
 may let it out for their good, and resume it 
 when a man is drunk with it. The man 
 will have it conscience on the king to fight 
 and destroy his three kingdoms for a dream, 
 his prerogative above law. But the truth is, 
 prelates do engage the king, his house, hon- 
 our, subjects, church, for their cursed mitres. 
 
 The Prelate (p. 172) vexeth the reader 
 with repetitions, and saith, The king must 
 proportion his government to the safety of 
 the people on the one hand, and to his own 
 safety and power on the other hand. 
 
 Ans. — What the kujg doth as king, he 
 doeth it for the happiness of his people. 
 The king is a relative ; yea, even his own 
 happiness that he seeketh, he is to refer to 
 the good of God's people. He saith far- 
 ther, The safety of the people includeth the 
 safety of the king, because the word popu- 
 lus is so taken ; which he proveth by a raw, 
 sickly rabble of words, stolen out of Pas- 
 serat's dictionary. His father, the school- 
 master, may whip him for frivolous etymo- 
 logies. 
 
 This supreme law, saith the Prelate, (p. 
 175,) is not above the law of prerogative 
 royal, the highest law, nor is rex above lex. 
 The democracy of Rome had a supremacy 
 above laws, to make and unmake laws ; and 
 will they force this power on a monarch, to 
 the destruction of sovereignty ? 
 
 Ans. — This, which is stolen from Spalato, 
 Barclay, Grotius, and others, is easily an- 
 swered. The supremacy of people is a law 
 of nature's self-preservation, above all posi- 
 tive laws, and above the king, and is to re- 
 gulate sovereignty, not to destroy it. If 
 this supremacy of majesty was in people be- 
 fore they have a king, then, 1. They lose 
 it not by a voluntary choice of a kino- ; for 
 a kin a is chosen for good, and not for the 
 
124 
 
 people's loss, therefore, they must retain 
 this power, in habit and potency, even when 
 they have a king. 2. Then supremacy of 
 majesty is not a beam of divinity proper to 
 a king only. 3. Then the people, having 
 royal sovereignty virtually in them, make, 
 and so unmake a king, — all which the Pre- 
 late denieth. 
 
 This supreme law (saith the Prelate, p. 
 176, begging it from Spalato, Amisseus, 
 Grotius) advances the king, not the people ; 
 and the sense is, the kingdom is really some 
 time in such a case that the sovereign must 
 exercise an arbitrary power, and not stand 
 upon private men's interests, or transgres- 
 sing of laws made for the private good of 
 individuals, but for the preservation of itself, 
 and the public, may break through all laws. 
 This he may, in the case when sudden 
 foreign invasion threateneth ruin inevitably 
 to king and kingdom : a physician may 
 rather cut a gangrened member than suffer 
 the whole body to perish. The dictator, in 
 case of extreme dangers, (as Livy and Dion. 
 Halicarnast show us,) had power according 
 to his own arbitrament, had a sovereign 
 commission in peace and war, of life, death, 
 persons, &c, not co-ordinate, not subordi- 
 nate to any. 
 
 Ans. 1. — It is not an arbitrary power, 
 but naturally tied and fettered to this same 
 supreme law, salus populi, the safety of 
 the people, that a king break through not 
 the law, but the letter of the law, for the 
 safety of the people ; as the chirurgeon, not 
 by any prerogative that he hath above the 
 art of chirurgery, but by necessity, cut- 
 teth off a gangrened member. Thus it is 
 not arbitrary to the king to save his people 
 from ruin, but by the strong and imperious 
 law of the people's safety he doth it ; for if, 
 he did it not, he were a murderer of his peo- 
 ple. 2. He is to stand upon transgression 
 of laws according to their genuine sense of 
 the people's safety ; for good laws are not 
 contrary one to another, though, when he 
 breaketh through the letter of the law, yet 
 he breaketh not the law ; for if twenty 
 thousand rebels invade Scotland, he is to 
 command all to rise, though the formality 
 of a parliament cannot be had to indict the 
 war, as our law provideth ; but the king 
 doth not command all to rise and defend 
 themselves by prerogative royal, proper to 
 him as king, and incommunicable to any 
 but to himself. 
 
 1. There is no such din and noise to be 
 
 made for a king and his incommunicable 
 prerogative ; for though the king were not 
 at all, yea, though he command the con- 
 trary, (as he did when he came against 
 Scotland with an English army,) the law 
 of nature teacheth all to rise, without the 
 king. 
 
 2. That the king command this, as king, 
 is not a particular positive law ; but he doth 
 it as a man and a member of the kingdom. 
 The law of nature (which knoweth no dream 
 of such a prerogative) forceth him to it, as 
 every member is, by nature's indictment, to 
 care for the whole. 
 
 3. It is poor hungry skill in this new 
 statist, (for so he nameth all Scotland,) to say 
 that any laws are made for private interests, 
 and the good of some individuals. Laws 
 are not laws if they be not made for the 
 safety of the people. 
 
 4. It is false that the king, in a public 
 danger, is to care for himself as a man, with 
 the ruin and loss of any ; yea, hi a public 
 calamity, a good king, as David, is to desire 
 he may die that the public may be saved, 
 2 Sam. xxiv. 17 ; Exod. xxxii. 32. It is 
 commended of all, that the emperor Otho, 
 yea, and Richard II. of England, as M. 
 Speed saith, (Hist, of England, p. 757,) 
 resigned their kingdoms to eschew the effu- 
 sion of blood. The Prelate adviseth the 
 king to pass over all laws of nature, and 
 slay thousands of innocents, and destroy 
 church and state of three kingdoms, for a 
 straw, and supposed prerogative royal. 
 
 1. Now, certainly, prerogative and abso- 
 luteness to do good and ill, must be inferior 
 to a law, the end whereof is the safety of the 
 people. For David willeth the pestilence 
 may take him away, and so his preroga- 
 tive, that the people may be saved (2. Sam. 
 xxiv. 17) ; for prerogative is cumulative to 
 do good, not privative to do ill ; and so is 
 but a mean to defend both the law and the 
 people. 
 
 2. Prerogative is either a power to do 
 good or ill, or both. If the first be said, it 
 must be limited by the end and law for 
 which it is ordained. A mean is no farther 
 a mean, but in so far as it conduceth to the 
 end, the safety of all. If the second be ad- 
 mitted, it is licence and tyranny, not power 
 from God. If the third be said, both rea- 
 sons plead against this, that prerogative 
 should be the king's end in the present 
 wars. 
 
 3. Prerogative being a power given by 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 125 
 
 the mediation of the people; yea, suppose 
 (which is false) that it were given imme- 
 diately of God, yet it is not a thing for which 
 the king should raise war against his sub- 
 jects ; for God will ask no more of the king 
 than he giveth to him. The Loi'd reapeth 
 not where he soweth not. If the militia, 
 and other things, be ordered hitherto for the 
 holding off Irish and Spanish invasion by 
 sea, and so for the good of the land, seeing 
 the king in his own person cannot make use 
 of the militia, he is to rejoice that his sub- 
 jects are defended. The king cannot an- 
 swer to God for the justice of war on his 
 part. It is not a case of conscience that the 
 king should shed blood for, to wit, because 
 the under-officers are such men, and not 
 others of his choosing, seeing the kingdom 
 is defended sufficiently except where cava- 
 liers destroy it. And to me this is an un- 
 answerable argument, that the cavaliers de- 
 stroy not the kingdoms for this prerogative 
 royal, as the principal ground, but for a 
 deeper design, even for that which was 
 working by prelates and malignants before 
 the late troubles in both kinodoms. 
 
 4. The king is to intend the safety of his 
 people, and the safety of the king as a go- 
 vernor ; but not as this king, and this man 
 Charles, — that is a selfish end. A king Da- 
 vid is not to look to that ; for when the peo- 
 ple was seeking his life and crown, he saith, 
 (Psal. iii. 8,) " Thy blessing upon thy peo- 
 ple." He may care for, and intend that 
 the king and government be safe ; for if the 
 kingdom be destroyed, there cannot be a 
 new kingdom and church on earth again to 
 serve God in that generation, (Psal. lxxxix. 
 47,) but they may easily have a new king 
 again ; and so the safety of the one cannot 
 in reason be intended as a collateral end 
 with the safety of the other ; for there is no 
 imaginable comparison betwixt one man, 
 with all his accidents of prerogative and ab- 
 soluteness, and three national churches and 
 kindgoms. Better the king weep for a 
 childish trifle of a prerogative than that 
 popery be erected, and three kingdoms be 
 destroyed by cavaliers for their own ends. 
 
 5. The dictator's power is, 1. A fact, 
 and proveth not a point of conscience. 2. 
 His power was in an exigence of extreme 
 danger of the commonwealth. The P. Pre- 
 late pleadeth for a constant absoluteness 
 above laws to the king at all times, and 
 that jure clivino. 3. The dictator was the 
 people's creature ; therefore the creator, 
 
 the people, had that sovereignty over him. 
 4. The dictator was not above a king ; but 
 the Romans ejected kings. 5. The dicta- 
 tor's power was not to destroy a state : he 
 might be, and was resisted ; he might be 
 deposed. 
 
 P. Prelate (p. 177).— The safety of the 
 people is pretended as a law, that the Jews 
 must put Christ to death, and that Saul 
 spared Agag. 
 
 Ans. 1. — No shadow for either in the 
 word of God. Caiaphas prophecied, and 
 knew not what he said ; but that the Jews 
 intended the salvation of the elect, in killing 
 Christ, or that Saul intended a public good 
 in sparing Agag, shall be the Prelate's di- 
 vinity, not mine. 2. What, howbeit many 
 should abuse this law of the people's safety, 
 to wrong good kings, it ceaseth not there- 
 fore to be a law, and licenceth not ill kings 
 to place a tyrannical prerogative above a 
 just dictate of nature. 
 
 In the last chapter (c. 16) the Prelate 
 hath no reasons, only he would have kings 
 holy, and this he proveth from Apocrypha 
 books, because he is ebb in Holy Scripture ; 
 but it is Romish holiness, as is clear, — 1. He 
 must preach something to himself, that the 
 king adore a tree-altar. Thus kings must 
 be most reverend in their gestures (p. 182). 
 2. The king must hazard his sacred life and 
 three kingdoms, his crown, royal posterity, 
 to preserve sacred things, that is, anti- 
 christian Romish idols, images, altars, cere- 
 monies, idolatry, popery. 4. He must, 
 upon the same pain, maintain sacred per- 
 sons, that is, greasy apostate prelates. The 
 rest, I am weary to trouble the reader with- 
 all, but know ex ungue leonem. 
 
 QUESTION XXVI. 
 
 WHETHER THE KING BE ABOVE THE LAW 
 OR NO. 
 
 We may consider the question of the 
 law's supremacy over the king, either in the 
 supremacy of constitution of the kino-, or of 
 direction, or of limitation, or of co-action 
 and punishing. Those who maintain this, 
 " The king is not subject to the law," if their 
 meaning be, " The king as king is not subject 
 to the law's direction," they say nothino- ; for 
 the king, as the king, is a living law ; then 
 they say, " The law is not subject to the 
 
126 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 law's direction :" a very improper speech ; or, 
 the king, as king, is not subject to the co- 
 action of the law : that is true ; for he who 
 is a living law, as such, cannot punish him- 
 self, as the law saith. 
 
 Assert. 1. — The law hath a supremacy 
 of constitution above the king : — 
 
 1. Because the king by nature is not king, 
 as is proved ; therefore, he must be king by 
 a politic constitution and law; and so the 
 law, in that consideration, is above the king, 
 because it is from a civil law that there is a 
 king rather than any other kind of gover- 
 nor. 2. It is by law, that amongst many 
 hundred men, this man is king, not that 
 man ; and because, by the which a thing is 
 constituted, by the same thing it is, or may 
 be dissolved ; therefore, 3. As a commu- 
 nity, finding such and such qualifications as 
 the law requireth to be in a king, in this 
 man, not in that man, — therefore upon law- 
 ground they make him a king, and, upon 
 law-grounds and just demerit, they may 
 unmake him again ; for what men volun- 
 tary do upon condition, the condition being 
 removed, they may undo again. 
 
 Assert. 2. — It is denied by none but the 
 king is under the directive power of the law, 
 though many liberate the king from the co- 
 active power of a civil law. But I see not 
 what direction a civil law can give to the 
 king if he be above all obedience, or disobe- 
 dience, to a law, seeing all law-direction is in 
 ordine ad obedientiam, in order to obey, ex- 
 cept thus far, that the light that is in the 
 civil law is a moral or natural guide to con- 
 duct a king in his walking ; but this is the 
 morality of the law which enlighteneth and 
 informeth, not any obligation that aweth the 
 king ; and so the king is under God's and 
 nature's law. This is nothing to the purpose. 
 
 Assert. 3. — The king is under the law, in 
 regard of some coercive limitation ; because, 
 1. There is no absolute power given to him 
 to do what he listeth, as a man. And be- 
 cause, 2. God, in making Saul a king, doth 
 not by any royal stamp give him a power to 
 sin, or to play the tyrant ; for which cause I 
 expone these of the law, omnia sunt possi- 
 bilia regi, impcrator omnia potest. Baldus 
 in sect. F. de no. for. fidel. in F. et in 
 prima constitut. C. col. 2. Chassanatus in 
 catalog, glorias mundi. par. 5. considerat. 
 24. et tanta est ejus celsitudo, ut non posset 
 ei imponi lex in regno suo. Curt, in consol. 
 65. col. 6. ad. F. Petrus Rebuff. Notab. 3. 
 repeL I. unices* C. de scntcnt. quce pro eo 
 
 quod n. 17, p. 363. All these go no otherwise 
 but thus, The king can do all things which 
 by a law he can do, and that holdeth him, id 
 possumus quod jure possumus ; and, there- 
 fore, the king cannot be above the covenant 
 and law made betwixt him and his people 
 at his coronation-oath ; for then the covenant 
 and oath should bind him only by a natural 
 obligation, as he is a man, not by a civil or 
 politic obligation, as he is a king. So then, 
 1. It were sufficient that the king should 
 swear that oath in his cabinet-chamber, and 
 it is but a mocking of an oath that he swear 
 it to the people. 2. That oath given by the 
 representative-kingdom should also oblige the 
 subjects naturally, inforo Dei, not politically, 
 inforo humano, upon the same reason. 3. 
 He may be resisted as a man. 
 
 Assert. 4. — The fourth case is, if the king 
 be under the obliging politic co-action of civil 
 laws, for that he, in foro Dei, be under the 
 morality of civil laws, so as he cannot contra- 
 vene any law in that notion but he must sin 
 against God, is granted on all hands. (Deut. 
 xvii. 20 ; Josh. i. 8 ; 1 Sam. xii. 15.) That 
 the king bind himself to the same law that 
 he doth bind others, is decent, and obligeth 
 the king as he is a man ; because, 1 . (Matt, 
 vii. 12,) It is said to be the law and the 
 prophets, " All things whatsoever ye would 
 men should do unto you, do ye even so to 
 them." 2. It is the law, impcrator I. 4. 
 digna vox. C. de lege et tit. Quod quisque 
 juris in alium statuit, eodem et ipse utatur. 
 Julius Caesar commanded the youth who had 
 deflowered the emperor's daughter to be 
 scourged above that which the law allowed. 
 The youth said to the emperor, Dixisti legem 
 Cwsar, — " You appointed the law, Caesar." 
 The emperor was so offended with himself 
 that he had failed against the law, that for 
 the whole day he refused to taste meat. 1 
 
 Assert. 5. — The king cannot but be sub- 
 ject to the co-active power of fundamental 
 laws. Because, 1. This is a fundamental law 
 that the free estates lay upon the king, that all 
 the power that they give to the king, as king, 
 is for the good and safety of the people; 
 and so what he doth to the hurt of his sub- 
 jects, he doth it not as king. 2. The law 
 saith, Qui habet potestatem constituendi 
 etiam et jus adimendi, I. nemo. 37. I. 21. 
 de reg. jure. Those who have power to 
 make have power to unmake kings. 3. 
 Whatever the king doth as king, that he 
 
 i Plutarch in Apothpg. lib. 4. 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 127 
 
 doth by a power borrowed from (or by a 
 fiduciary power which is his by trust) the 
 estates, who made him king. He must then 
 be nothing but an eminent servant of the 
 state, in the punishing of others. If, therefore, 
 he be unpunishable, it is not so much because 
 his royal power is above all law co-action, 
 as because one and the same man cannot be 
 both the punisher and the punished; and 
 this is a physical incongruity rather than a 
 moral absurdity. So the law of God layeth 
 a duty on the inferior magistrate to use the 
 sword against the murderer, and that by 
 virtue of his office ; but I much doubt, if for 
 that he is to use the sword against himself 
 in the case of murder, for this is a truth I 
 purpose to make good, That suffering, as 
 suffering, according to the substance and 
 essence of passion, is not commanded by any 
 law of God or nature to the sufferer, but 
 only the manner of suffering. I doubt if it 
 be not, by the law of nature, lawful even to 
 the ill-doer, who hath deserved death by 
 God's law, to fly from the sword of the law- 
 ful magistrate ; only the manner of suffering 
 with patience is commanded of God. I 
 know the law saith here, That the magistrate 
 is both judge and the executor of the sentence 
 aoainst himself, in his own cause, for the ex- 
 cellency of his office. 1 Therefore these are 
 to be distinguished, whether the king, rati- 
 one demeriti et jure, by law be punishable, 
 or if the king can actually be punished cor- 
 porally by a law of man, he remaining king ; 
 and since he must be a punisher himself, and 
 that by virtue of his office. In matters of 
 goods, the king may be both judge and 
 punisher of himself, as our law provideth 
 that any subject may plead his own heritage 
 from the king before the inferior judges, and 
 if the king be a violent possessor, and in 
 mala fide for many years, by law he is 
 obliged, upon a decree of the lords, to exe- 
 cute the sentence against himself, ex, officio, 
 and to restore the lands, and repay the 
 damage to the just owner ; and this the king- 
 is to do against himself, ex officio. I grant 
 here the king, as king, punisheth himself as 
 an unjust man, but because bodily suffering- 
 is mere violence to nature, I doubt if the 
 king, ex officio, is to do or inflict any bodily 
 punishment on himself. Nemo potest a 
 scipso cogi. I. ille a quo, sect. 13. 
 
 1 Magistrates ipse est judex et executor contra 
 scipsum, in propria causa, propter excellentiam sui 
 officii, 1. si pater familias, et 1. et hoc. Tiberius 
 Caesar, F. de Hered. hoc. jnst. 
 
 Assert. G.— There be some laws made in 
 favour of the king, as king, as to pay tribute. 
 The king must be above this law as king. 
 True, but if a nobleman of a great rent be 
 elected king, I know not if he can be free 
 from paying to himself, as king, tribute, see- 
 ing this is not allowed to the king by a divine 
 law, (Rom. xiii. 6,) as a reward of his work; 
 and Christ expressly maketh tribute a thing- 
 due to Caesar as a king. (Matt. xxii. 21.) 
 There be some solemnities of the law from 
 which the king may be free ; Prickman 
 (D. c. 3, n. 78) relateth what they are ; 
 they are not laws, but some circumstances 
 belonging to laws, and he answereth to many 
 places alleged out of the lawyers, to prove 
 the king to be above the law. Maiderus (in 
 12. Art. 4, 5, 9, 96,) will have the prince 
 under that law, which concerneth all the 
 commonwealth equally in regard of the mat- 
 ter, and that by the law of nature ; but he 
 will not have him subject to these laws which 
 concerneth the subjects as subjects, as to pay 
 tribute. He citeth Francisc. a Vict. Covar- 
 ruvias, and Turrecremata. He also will have 
 the prince under positive laws, such as not to 
 transport victuals ; not because the law bind- 
 eth him as a law, but because the making of 
 the law bindeth him, tanquam conditio sine 
 qua non, even " as he who teacheth another 
 that he should not steal, he should not steal 
 himself." (Rom. ii.) But the truth is, this 
 is but a branch of the law of nature, that I 
 should not commit adultery, and theft, and 
 sacrilege, and such sins as nature condem- 
 neth, if I shall condemn them in others, and 
 doth not prove that the king is under the 
 co-active power of civil laws. Ulpianus (1. 
 31. F. de regibus) saith, " The prince is 
 loosed from laws." Bodine (de Repub. 1. 7, 
 c. 8). — " Nemo imperat sibi," no man com- 
 mandeth himself. Tholosanus saith, (de 
 Rep. 1. 7, c. 20,) " Ipsius est dare, non ac- 
 cipere leges," the prince giveth laws, but re- 
 ceiveth none. Donellus (Lib. 1, Comment. 
 c. 17) distinguisheth betwixt a law and a 
 royal law proper to the king. Trentlerus 
 (vol. i. 79, 80) saith, " The prince is freed 
 from laws ;" and that he obeyeth laws, de 
 honestate, non de necessitate, upon honesty, 
 not of necessity. Thomas P. (1. q. 96, art. 
 6,) and with him Soto Gregonus de Valen- 
 tia, and other schoolmen, subject the king to 
 the directive power of the law, and liberate 
 him of the co-active power of the law. 
 
 Assert. 7- — If a king turn a parricide, 
 a Hon, and a waster and destroyer of the 
 
128 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 people, as a man he is subject to the co-active 
 power of the laws of the land. If any law 
 should hinder that a tyrant should not be 
 punished by law, it must be because he hath 
 not a superior but God, for royalists build all 
 upon this ; but this ground is false : — 
 
 Arg. 1. — Because the estates of the king- 
 dom, who gave him the crown, are above 
 him, and they may take away what they 
 gave him ; as the law of nature and God 
 saith, If they had known he would turn 
 tyrant, they would never have given him the 
 sword ; and so, how much ignorance is in 
 the contract they made with the king, as 
 little of will is in it ; and so it is not every 
 way willing, but, being conditional, is sup- 
 posed to be against their will. They gave 
 the power to him only for their good, and 
 that they may make the king, is clear. (2 
 Chron. xxiii. 11 ; 1 Sam. x. 17, 24; Deut. 
 xvii. 14 — 17 ; 2 Kings xi. 12 ; 1 Kings xvi. 
 21 ; 2 Kings x. 5 ; Judg. ix. 6.) Four- 
 score valiant men of the priests withstood 
 Uzziah with corporal violence, and thrust 
 him out, and cut him off from the house of 
 the Lord. (2 Chron. xxvi. 18.) 
 
 Arg. 2. — If the prince's place do not put 
 him above the laws of church discipline, 
 (Matt, xviii., for Christ excepteth none, 
 and how can men except?) and if the rod of 
 Christ's " lips smite the earth, and slay the 
 wicked," (Isa. xi. 4,) and the prophets Elias, 
 Nathan, Jeremiah, Isaiah, &c, and John 
 Baptist, Jesus Christ, and his Apostles, have 
 used this rod of censure and rebuke, as ser- 
 vants under God, against kings, this is a sort 
 of spiritual co-action of laws put in execution 
 by men; and by due proportion corporal co- 
 action being the same ordinance of God, 
 though of another nature, must have the 
 like power over all, whom the law of God 
 hath not excepted ; but God's law excepteth 
 none at all. 
 
 Arg. 3. — It is presumed that God hath 
 not provided better for the safety of the part 
 than of the whole, especially when he maketh 
 the part a mean for the safety of the whole. 
 But if God have provided that the king, who 
 is a part of the commonwealth, shall be free 
 of all punishment, though he be a habitual 
 destroyer of the whole kingdom, seeing God 
 hath given him to be a father, tutor, saviour, 
 defender thereof, and destined him as a mean 
 for their safety, then must God have worse, 
 not better, provided for the safety of the 
 whole than of the part. The proposition is 
 clear, in that God (Rom. xiii. 4; 1 Tim. ii. 
 
 2) hath ordained the ruler, and given to him 
 the sword to defend the whole kingdom and 
 city ; but we read nowhere that the Lord 
 hath given the sword to the whole kingdom, 
 to defend one man, a king, though a ruler, 
 going on in a tyrannical way of destroying 
 all his subjects. The assumption is evident : 
 for then the king, turning tyrant, might set 
 an army of Turks, Jews, or cruel Papists to 
 destroy the church of God, without all fear 
 of law or punishment. Yea, this is con- 
 trary to the doctrine of royalists : for Win- 
 zetus (adversus Buchananum, p. 275) saith 
 of Nero, that he, seeking to destroy the 
 senate and people of Rome, and seeking to 
 make new laws for himself, excidit jure 
 regni, lost right to the kingdom. And Bar- 
 claius (Monarch. 1. 3, c. ult. p. 213, ) saith, 
 a tyrant, such as Caligula, spoliare se jure 
 regni, spoileth himself of the right to the 
 crown. And in that same place, rcgem, si 
 regnum suum alienee ditioni manciparit, 
 regno cadere, if the king sell his kingdom, 
 he loseth the title to the crown. Grotius, 
 (de jure belli et pads, I. i. c. 4, n. 7,) Si 
 rex hostili anirno in totius populi exitium 
 feratur, amittit regnum, if he turn enemy 
 to the kingdom, for their destruction, he 
 loseth his kingdom, because (saith he) volun- 
 tas imperandi, et voluntas perdendi, simul 
 consistere non p>ossunt, a will or mind to go- 
 vern and to destroy cannot consist together 
 in one. Now, if this be true, that a king, 
 turning tyrant, loseth title to the crown, 
 this is either a falling from his royal title 
 only in God's court, or it is a losing of it 
 before men, and in the court of his subjects. 
 If the former be said, 1. He is no king, 
 having before God lost his royal title ; and 
 yet the people is to obey him as "the minis- 
 ter of God," and a power from God, when 
 as he is no such thing. 2. In vain do these 
 authors provide remedies to save the people 
 from a tyrannous waster of the people, if 
 they speak of a tyrant who is no king in 
 God's court only, and yet remaineth a ling 
 to the people in regard of the law : for the 
 places speak of remedies that God hath pro- 
 vided against tyrants cum titulo, such as are 
 lawful kings, but turn tyrants. Now by 
 this they provide no remedy at all, if only 
 in God's court, and not in man's court also, 
 a tyrant lose his title. As for tyrants sine 
 titulo, such as usurp the throne, and have 
 no just claim to it, Barclaius (adver. 
 Monarch, I. iv. c. 10. p. 268) saith, " Any 
 private man may kill him as a public enemy 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 129 
 
 of the state :" but if he lose his title to the 
 crown in the court of men, then is there a 
 court on earth to judge the king, and so he 
 is under the co-active power of a law ; — 
 then a king may be resisted, and yet those 
 who resist him do not incur damnation ; the 
 contrary whereof royalists endeavour to prove 
 from Rom. xiii. ; — then the people may un- 
 king one who was a king. But I would 
 know who taketh that »i7« t) from him, 
 whereby he is a king, that beam of divine 
 majesty? Not the people ; because royalists 
 say, they neither can give nor take away royal 
 dignity, and so they cannot unking him. 
 
 Arg. 4. — The more will be in the con- 
 sent, (saith Ferd. Vasquez, 1. i. c. 41,) the 
 obligation is the stricter. So doubled words 
 (saith the law, 1. 1, sect. 13, n. 13) oblige more 
 strictly. And all laws of kings, who are 
 rational fathers, and so lead us by laws, as 
 by rational means to peace and external hap- 
 piness, are contracts of king and people. 
 Omnis lex sponsio et contractus licip. sect. 
 1, Inst, de ver. relig. Now the king, at his 
 coronation-covenant with the people, giveth 
 a most intense consent, an oath, to be a 
 keeper and preserver of all good laws : and 
 so hardly he can be freed from the strictest 
 obligation that law can impose. And if he 
 keep laws by office, he is a mean to preserve 
 laws; and no mean can be superior and 
 above the end, but inferior thereunto. 
 
 Arg. 5. — Bodine proveth, (de Rep. I. 2, 
 c. 5, p. 221, ) that emperors at first were 
 but princes of the commonwealth, and that 
 sovereignty remained still in the senate and 
 people. Marius Salomonius, a learned Ro- 
 man civilian, wrote six books de principatu, 
 to refute the supremacy of emperors above 
 the state. Ferd. Vasq. (Must, quest, part. 
 1. I. 1, n. 21) proveth, that the prince, by 
 royal dignity, leaveth not off to be a citizen, 
 a member of the politic body, and not a 
 king, but a keeper of laws. 
 
 Arg. 6. — Hence, the prince remaineth, 
 even being a prince, a social creature, a man 
 as well as a king ; one who must buy, sell, 
 promise, contract, dispose : therefore, he is 
 not regula regulans, but under rule of law ; 
 for it is impossible, if the king can, in a poli- 
 tical way, live as a member of a society, and 
 do and perform acts of policy, and so per- 
 form them, as he may, by his office, buy and 
 not pay ; promise, and vow, and swear to 
 men, and. not perforin, nor be obliged to 
 men to render a reckoning of his oath, and 
 kill and destroy, — and yet in curia politico? 
 
 societatis, in the court of human policy, be 
 free : and that he may give inheritances, as 
 just rewards of virtue and well-doing, and 
 take them away again. Yea, seeing these 
 sins that are not punishable before men, are 
 not sins before men, if all the sins and op- 
 pressions of a prince be so above the punish- 
 ment that men can inflict, they are not sins 
 before men ; by which means the king is 
 loosed from all guiltiness of the sins against 
 the second table : for the ratio formalis, 
 the formal reason, why the judge, by war- 
 rant from God, condemneth, in the court of 
 men, the guilty man, is, that he hath sinned 
 against human society through the scan- 
 dal of blasphemy, or that through some other 
 heinous sin he hath defiled the land. Now 
 this is incident to the king as well as to 
 some other sinful man. 
 
 To these, and the like, hear what the ex- 
 communicated Prelate hath to say, (c. 15, p. 
 146, 147,) " They say (he meaneth the 
 Jesuits) every society of men is a perfect re- 
 public, and so must have within itself a 
 power to preserve itself from ruin, and by 
 that to punish a tyrant." He answereth, 
 " A society without a head, is a disorderly 
 rout, not a politic body ; and so cannot have 
 this power. 
 
 Ans. 1. — The Pope giveth to every so- 
 ciety politic power to make away a tyrant, 
 or heretical king, and to unking him, by his 
 brethren, the Jesuits', way. And observe 
 how papists (of which number I could easily 
 prove the P. Prelate to be, by the popish 
 doctrine that he delivered, while the iniquity 
 of time, and dominion of prelates in Scot- 
 land, advanced him, against all worth of 
 true learning and holiness, to be a preacher 
 in Edinburgh) and Jesuits agree, as the 
 builders of Babylon. It is the purpose of 
 God to destroy Babylon. 
 
 2. This answer shall infer, that the aris- 
 tocratical governors of any free state, and 
 that the Duke of Venice, and the senate 
 there, is above all law, and cannot be resisted, 
 because without their heads they are a dis- 
 orderly rout. 
 
 3. A political society, as by nature's in- 
 stinct they may appoint a head, or heads, to 
 themselves, so also if their head, or heads, 
 become ravenous wolves, the God of nature 
 hath not left a perfect society remediless ; 
 but they may both resist, and punish the 
 head, or heads, to whom they gave all the 
 power that they have, for their good, not for 
 their destruction. 
 
130 
 
 LEX, REX. ; OR, 
 
 4. They are as orderly a body politic, to 
 unmake a tyrannous commander, as they 
 were to make a just governor. The Prelate 
 saitk, " It is alike to conceive a politic body 
 without a governor, as to conceive the natu- 
 ral body without a head." He meaneth, 
 none of them can be conceivable. I am not 
 of his mind. When Saul was dead, Israel 
 was a perfect politic body ; and the Prelate, 
 if he be not very obtuse in his head, (as this 
 hungry piece, stolen from others, showeth him 
 to be,) may conceive a visible political so- 
 ciety performing a political action, (2 Sam. 
 v. 1 — 3,) making David king at a visible 
 and conceivable place, at Hebron, and mak- 
 ing a covenant with him. And that they 
 wanted not all governors, is nothing to make 
 them chimeras inconceivable. For when so 
 many families, before Nimrod, were go- 
 verned only by fathers of families, and they 
 agreed to make either a king, or other go- 
 vernors, a head, or heads, over themselves, 
 though the several families had government, 
 yet these associated families had no govern- 
 ment ; and yet so conceivable a politic body, 
 as if Maxwell would have appeared amongst 
 them, and called them a disorderly rout, or 
 an unconceivable chimera, they should have 
 made the Prelate know that chimeras can 
 knock down prelates. Neither is a king the 
 life of a politic body, as the soul is of the 
 natural body. The body createth not the 
 soul; but Israel created Saul king, and 
 when he was dead, they made David king, 
 and so, under God, many kings, as they 
 succeeded, till the Messiah came. No na- 
 tural body can make souls to itself by suc- 
 cession ; nor can sees create new prelates 
 always. 
 
 P. Prelate. — Jesuits and puritans differ 
 infinitely : we are hopeful God shall cast 
 down this Babel. The Jesuits, for ought I 
 know, seat the superintendent power in the 
 community. Some sectaries follow them, 
 and warrant any individual person to make 
 away a king in case of defects, and the work 
 is to be rewarded as when one killeth a 
 ravenous wolf. Some will have it in a col- 
 lective body ; but how ? Not met together 
 by warrant, or writ of sovereign authority, 
 but when fancy of reforming church and 
 state calleth them. Some will have the 
 power in the nobles and peers ; some in the 
 three estates assembled by the king's writ ; 
 some in the inferior judges. I know not 
 where this power to curb sovereignty is, but 
 in Almighty God. 
 
 Ans. 1. Jesuits and puritans differ in- 
 finitely ; true. Jesuits deny the Pope to 
 be antichrist, hold all Arminian doctrine, 
 Christ's local descension to hell, — all which 
 the Prelate did preach. We deny all this. 
 
 2. We hope also the Lord shall destroy 
 the Jesuits' Babel ; the suburbs whereof, and 
 more, are the popish prelates in Scotland 
 and England. 
 
 3. The Jesuits, for ought he knoweth, 
 place all superintendent power in the com- 
 munity. The Prelate knoweth not all his 
 brethren, the Jesuits', ways ; but it is igno- 
 rance, not want of good-will. For Bellarmine, 
 Beucanus, Suarez, Gregor. de Valentia, and 
 others, his dear fellows, say, that all super- 
 intendent power of policy, in ordine ad 
 spiritualia is in the man, whose foot Max- 
 well would kiss for a cardinal's hat. 
 
 4. If these be all the differences, it is 
 not much. The community is the remote 
 and last subject, the representative body the 
 nearest subject, the nobles a partial subject ; 
 the judges, as judges sent by the king, are 
 so in the game, that when an arbitrary 
 prince at his pleasure setteth them up, and 
 at command that they judge for men, and 
 not for the Lord, and accordingly obey, they 
 are by this power to be punished, and others 
 put in their place. 
 
 5. A true cause of convening parliaments 
 the Prelate maketh a fancy at this time : it 
 is as if the thieves and robbers should say a 
 justice-court were a fancy ; but if the Prelate 
 might compear before the parliament of 
 Scotland, (to which he is an outlaw like his 
 father, 2 Thess. ii. 4,) such a fancy, I con- 
 ceive, should hang him, and that deservedly. 
 
 P. Prelate (p. 147, 148).— The subject 
 of this superintending power must be se- 
 cured from error in judgment and practice, 
 and the community and states then should 
 be infallible. 
 
 Ans. — The consequence is nought. No 
 more than the king, the absolute indepen- 
 dent, is infallible. It is sure the people are 
 in less hazard of tyranny and self-destruc- 
 tion than the king is to subvert laws and 
 make himself absolute ; and for that cause 
 there must be a superintendent power above 
 the king, and God Almighty also must be 
 above all. 
 
 P. Prelate. — The parliament may err, 
 then God hath left the state remediless, 
 except the king remedy it. 
 
 Ans. — There is no consequence here, ex- 
 cept the king be impeccable. Posterior 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 131 
 
 parliaments may correct the former. A 
 state is not remediless, because God's reme- 
 dies, in sinful men's hands, may miscarry. 
 But the question is now, Whether God hath 
 given power to one man to destroy men, sub- 
 vert laws and religion, without any power 
 above him to coerce, restrain, or punish ? 
 
 P. Prelate (c. 15, p. 148).— If, when 
 the parliament erreth, the remedy is left to 
 the wisdom of God, why not when the king 
 erreth ? 
 
 Ans. — Neither is antecedent true, nor 
 the consequence valid, for the sounder part 
 may resist ; and it is easier to one to destroy 
 many, having a power absolute, which God 
 never gave him, than for many to destroy 
 themselves. Then, if the king Uzziah in- 
 trude himself and sacrifice, the priests do 
 sin in remedying thereof. 
 
 P. Prelate. — Why might not the peo- 
 ple of Israel, peers or sanhedrim, have con- 
 vened before them, judged and punished 
 David for his adultery and murder ? Ro- 
 manists and new statists acknowledge no 
 case lawful, but heresy, apostacy, or ty- 
 ranny ; and tyranny, they say, must be 
 universal, manifest as the sun, and with 
 obstinacy, and invincible by prayers, as is 
 recorded of Nero, whose wish was rather 
 a transported passion, than a fixed reso- 
 lution. This cannot fall in the attempts 
 of any but a madman. Now this cannot be 
 proved our king; but though we grant in 
 the foresaid case, that the community may 
 resume their power, and rectify what is 
 amiss, which we cannot grant ; but this will 
 follow by then- doctrine, in every case of 
 male administration. 1 
 
 Ans. — The Prelate draweth me to speak 
 of the case of the king's unjust murder, 
 confessed (Psal. h.) ; to which I answer : 
 He taketh it for confessed, that it had been 
 treason in the sanhedrim or states of Israel 
 to have taken on them to judge and punish 
 David for his adultery and his murder ; but 
 he giveth no reason for tins, nor any word 
 of God ; and truly, though I will not pre- 
 sume to go before others in this, God's law 
 (Gen. ix. 6, compared with Num. xxxv. 30, 
 31) seemeth to say against them. 
 
 6. Nor can I think that God's law, or his 
 deputy the judges, are to accept the persons 
 of the great, because they are great ; (Deut. 
 i. 17 ; 2 Chron. xix. 6, 7 ;) and we say, we 
 
 1 Stolen from Arnisaeus, de authorit. prin. c. 4, 
 n. 5, p. 73. 
 
 cannot distinguish where the law distinguish- 
 eth not. The Lord speaketh to under judges, 
 (Lev. xix. 15,) " Ihou shalt not respect 
 the person of the poor, nor honour the person 
 of the mighty," or of the prince, for we know 
 what these names Sl"0 an( ^ JO") mean- 
 eth. I grant it is not God's meaning that 
 the king should draw the sword against him- 
 self, but yet it followeth not, that if we speak 
 of the demerit of blood, that the law of God 
 accepteth any judge, great or small ; and if 
 the estates be above the king, as I conceive 
 they are, though it be a human politic con- 
 stitution, that the king be free of all co-action 
 of law, because it conduceth for the peace of 
 the commonwealth ; yet if we make a matter 
 of conscience, for my part I see no exception 
 that God maketh it ; if men make, I crave 
 leave to say, a facto ad jus non sequitur ; 
 and I easily yield that in every case the 
 estates may coerce the king, if we make it 
 a case of conscience. And for the place, 
 (Ps. li. 4,) " Against thee, thee only, have 
 I sinned," »nNtDm"QS *]S flatterers 
 allege it to be a place proving that the king- 
 is above all earthly tribunals, and all laws, 
 and that there was not on earth any who 
 might punish king David ; and so they cite 
 Clemens Alexandrin. (Strom. 1. 4,) Arnobi., 
 Psal. 1., Dydimus, Hieronim. ; but Calvin on 
 the place, giveth the meaning that most of 
 the fathers give, — Domine, etiam si me totus 
 mundus absolvat, mihi tamen plusquam 
 satis est, quod te solum judicem sentio. It 
 is true, Beda, Euthymius, Ambrosius, (Apol. 
 David, c. 4 and c. 10,) do all acknowledge 
 from the place, de facto, there was none 
 above David to judge him, and so doth Au- 
 gustine, Basilius Theodoret, say, and Chry- 
 sostomus, and Cyrillus, and Hieronimus, 
 (Epist. 22.) Ambrose (Sermon 16, in Psal. 
 cxviii.) Gregorius, and Augustine (Joan 8,) 
 saith, he meaneth no man durst judge or 
 punish him, but God only. Lorinus, the Je- 
 suit, observeth eleven interpretations of the 
 fathers all to this sense : " Since (Lyra saith) 
 he sinned only against God, because God only 
 could pardon him ;" Hugo Cardinalis, " Be- 
 cause God only could wash him," which he 
 asketh in the text. And Lorinus, " Solo Deo 
 conscio peccavir But the simple meaning 
 is, 1. Against thee only have I sinned, as my 
 eye-witness and immediate beholder; and, 
 therefore, he addeth — and have done this evil 
 in thy sight. 2. Against thee only, as my 
 judge, that thou mayest be justified when thou 
 judgest, as clear from all unrighteousness, 
 
132 
 
 LEX, REX ; OK, 
 
 when thou shalt send the sword on my house. 
 3. Against thee, O Lord only, who canst 
 wash me, and pardon me (ver. 1, 2). And if 
 this " thee only" exclude altogether Uriah, 
 Bathsheba, and the law of the judges, as it' 
 he had sinned against none of these in their 
 kind, then is the king, because a king, free, 
 not only from a punishing law of man, but 
 from the duties of the second table simply, 
 and so a king cannot be under the best and 
 largest half of the law, Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbour as thyself. He shall not need 
 to say, Forgive us our sins, as we forgive 
 them that sin against us; for there is no 
 reason, from the nature of sin, and the nature 
 of the law of God, why we can say more the 
 subjects and sons sin against the king and 
 father, than to say the father and king sin 
 against the sons and subjects. By this, 
 the king killing his father Jesse, should sin 
 against God, but not break the fifth com- 
 mand, nor sin against his father. God 
 should in vain forbid fathers to provoke their 
 children to wrath. 
 
 1. And kings to do injustice to their sub- 
 jects, because by this the superior cannot 
 sin against the inferior, forasmuch as kings 
 can sin against none but those who have 
 power to judge and punish them ; but God 
 only, and no inferiors, and no subjects, have 
 power to punish the kings ; therefore kings 
 can sin against none of their subjects ; and 
 where there is no sin, how can there be a 
 law ? Neither major or minor can be denied 
 by royalists. 
 
 2. We acknowledge tyranny must only 
 unking a prince. The Prelate denieth it, 
 but he is a green statist. Barclay, Grotius, 
 Winzetus, as I have proved, granteth it. 
 
 3. He will excuse Nero, as of infirmity, 
 wishing all Borne to have one neck, that he 
 may cut it off. And is that charitable of 
 kinors, that they will not be so mad as to 
 destroy their own kingdom ? But when his- 
 tories teach us there have been more tyrants 
 than kings, the kings are more obliged to 
 him for flattery than for state-wit, except 
 we say that all kings who eat the people of 
 Cod, as they do bi-ead, owe him little for 
 making them all mad and frantic. 
 
 4. But let them be Neroes, and mad, and 
 worse, there is no coercing of them, but all 
 must give their necks to the sword, if the 
 poor Prelate be heard ; and yet kings cannot 
 be so mad as to destroy their subjects. Mai-y 
 of England was that mad. The Romish 
 princes who have given (Bev. xvii. 13) 
 
 their power and strength to the beast, and 
 do make war with the Lamb ; and kings in- 
 spired with the spirit of the beast, and drunk 
 with the wine of the cup of Babel's fornica- 
 tions, are so mad ; and the ten emperors are 
 so mad, who wasted their faithfulest subjects. 
 P. Prelate. — If there be such a power in 
 the peers, resumable in the exigent of neces- 
 sity, as the last necessary remedy for safety 
 of church and state, God and nature not 
 being deficient in things necessary, it must 
 be proved out of the Scripture, and not taken 
 on trust, for affirmanti incumbit probatio. 
 
 Arts. — Mr Bishop, what better is your 
 affirmanti incumbit, &c, than mine? for 
 you are the affirmer. 1. I can prove a 
 power in the king, limited only to feed, go- 
 vern, and save the people ; and you affirm 
 that God hath given to the king, not only a 
 power official and royal to save, but also to 
 destroy and cut off, so as no man may say, 
 Why doest thou this? Shall we take this 
 upon the word of an excommunicated pre- 
 late ? Profer tabulas, John P. P., I believe 
 you not, royal power is, Deut. xvii. 18; Rom. 
 iii. 14. I am sure there is there a power 
 given to the king to do good, and that from 
 God. Let John P. P. prove a power to do 
 ill, given of God to the king. 2. We shall 
 quickly prove that the states may repress 
 this power, and punish the tyrant — not the 
 king, when he shall prove that a tyrannous 
 power is an ordinance of God, and so may 
 not be resisted ; for the law of nature teach- 
 eth, — if I give my sword to my fellow to de- 
 fend me from the murderer, if he shall 
 fall to and murder me with my own sword, 
 I may (if I have strength) take my sword 
 from him. 
 
 P. Prelate. — 1. It is infidelity to think 
 that God cannot help us, and impatience 
 that we will not wait on God. When a king 
 oppresseth us, it is against God's wisdom 
 that he hath not provided another mean for 
 our safety than intrusion on God's right. 2. 
 It is against God's power, — 3. His holiness, 
 — 4. Christian religion, that we necessitate 
 God to so weak a mean as to make use of 
 sin, and we cast the aspersion of treason on 
 religion, and deter kings to profess reformed 
 catholic religion ; — 5. We are not to jostle 
 God out of his right. 
 
 Ans. 1. — I see nothing but what Dr 
 Feme, Grotius, Barclay, Blackwood, have 
 said before, with some colour of proving the 
 consequence. The P. Prelate giveth us other 
 men's arguments, but without bones. All 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 133 
 
 were good, if the state's coercing and curbing 
 a power which God never gave to the king 
 were a sin and an act of impatience and un- 
 belief; and if it were proper to God only, 
 by his immediate hand, to coerce tyranny. 
 2. He calleth it not protestant religion, 
 either here or elsewhere, but cunningly 
 giveth a name that will agree to the Roman 
 catholic religion. For the Dominicans, 
 Franciscans, and the Parisian doctors and 
 schoolmen, following Occham, Gerson, Al- 
 main, and other papists, call themselves re- 
 formed catholics. He layeth this for a 
 ground, in three or four pages, — where these 
 same arguments are again and again repeated 
 in terminus, as his second reason, (p. 149,) 
 was handled ad nauseam (p. 148) ; his third 
 reason is repeated in his sixth reason, (p. 151 .) 
 He layeth down, I say, this ground, which 
 is the begged conclusion, and maketh the 
 conclusion the assumption, in eight raw and 
 often-repeated arguments, — to wit, That the 
 parliament's coercing and restraining of ar- 
 bitrary power is rebellion, and resisting the 
 ordinance of God. But he dare not look the 
 place, Rom. xiii., on the face. Other royalists 
 have done it with bad success. This I desire 
 to be weighed, and I retort the Prelate's 
 argument. But it is indeed the trivial ar- 
 gument of all royalists, especially of Barclay, 
 — obvious in his third book. If arbitrary and 
 tyrannical power, above any law that the 
 lawful magistrate commandeth under the 
 pain of death, — Thou shalt not murder one 
 man, Thou shalt not take away the vineyard 
 of one Naboth violently — be lawful and war- 
 rantable by God's word, then an arbitrary 
 power, above all divine laws, is given to the 
 keeping of the civil magistrate. And it is 
 no less lawful arbitrary, or rather tyrannical 
 power, for David to kill all his subjects, and 
 to plunder all Jerusalem, (as I believe pre- 
 lates and malignants and papists would serve 
 the three kingdoms, if the king should com- 
 mand them,) than to kill one Uriah, or for 
 Ahab to spoil one Naboth. The essence of 
 sin must agree alike to all, though the degrees 
 vary. 
 
 Of God's remedy against arbitrary power 
 hereafter, in the question of resistance ; but 
 the confused engine of the Prelate bringeth 
 it in here, where there is no place for it. 
 
 7. His seventh argument is :— Before 
 God would authorise rebellion, and give a 
 bad precedent thereof for ever, he would 
 rather work extraordinary and wonderful 
 miracles ; and therefore would not authorise 
 
 the people to deliver themselves from under 
 Pharaoh, but made Moses a prince, to bring 
 them out of Egypt with a stretched-out 
 arm. Nor did the Lord deliver his people 
 by the wisdom of Moses, or strength of the 
 people, or any act that way of theirs, but 
 by his own immediate hand and power. 
 
 Ans. — I reduce the Prelate's confused 
 words to a few ; for I speak not of his popish 
 term of St. Steven, and others the like ; 
 because all that he hath said in a book of 
 149 pages might have been said in three 
 sheets of paper. But, I pray you, what is 
 this argument to the question in hand, 
 which is, whether the king be so above all 
 laws, as people and peers, in the case of 
 arbitrary power, may resume their power 
 and punish a tyrant? The P. Prelate draw- 
 eth in the question of resistance by the 
 hair. Israel's not rising in arms against 
 king Pharaoh proveth nothing against the 
 power of a free kingdom against a tyrant. 
 
 1. Moses, who wrought miracles destruc- 
 tive to Pharaoh, might pray for vengeance 
 against Pharaoh, God having revealed to 
 Moses that Pharaoh was a reprobate ; but 
 may ministers and nobles pray so against 
 king Charles? God forbid. 
 
 2. Pharaoh had not his crown from 
 Israel. 
 
 3. Pharaoh had not sworn to defend 
 Israel, nor became he their king upon con- 
 dition he should maintain and profess the 
 religion of the God of Israel ; therefore 
 Israel could not, as free estates, challenge 
 him in their supreme court of parliament 
 of breach of oath ; and upon no terms could 
 they unking Pharaoh : he held not his 
 crown of them. 
 
 4. Pharaoh was never circumcised, nor 
 within the covenant of the God of Israel 
 
 5. Israel had their lands by the mere 
 gift of the king. I hope the king of Bri- 
 tain standeth to Scotland and England in a 
 fourfold contrary relation. 
 
 All divines know that Pharaoh, his princes, 
 and the Egyptians, were his peers and peo- 
 ple, and that Israel were not his native 
 subjects, but a number of strangers, who, 
 by the laws of the king and princes, by the 
 means of Joseph, had gotten the land of 
 Goshen for their dwelling, and liberty to 
 serve the God of Abraham, to whom they 
 prayed in their bondage, (Exod. ii. 23, 24,) 
 and they were not to serve the gods of 
 Egypt, nor were they of the king's reli- 
 
134 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 gion. And therefore, his argument is thus : 
 A number of poor exiled strangers under 
 king Pharaoh, who were not Pharaoh's 
 princes and peers, could not restrain the 
 tyranny of king Pharaoh ; therefore, the 
 three estates in a free kingdom may not re- 
 strain the arbitrary power of a king. 
 
 1. The Prelate must prove that God 
 gave a royal and kingly power to king 
 Pharaoh, due to him by virtue of his kingly 
 calling, (according as royalists explain 1 
 Sam. viii. 9, 11,) to kill all the male chil- 
 dren of Israel, to make slaves of themselves, 
 and compel them to work in brick and clay, 
 while their lives were a burden to them ; 
 and that if a Roman catholic, Mary of Eng- 
 land, should kill all the male children of 
 prqtestants, by the hands of papists, at the 
 queen's commandment, and make bond- 
 slaves of all the peers, judges, and three 
 estates, who made her a free princess ; yet, 
 notwithstanding that Mary had sworn to 
 maintain the protestant religion, they were 
 to suffer and not to defend themselves. But 
 if God give Pharaoh a power to kill all 
 Israel, so as they could not control it, then 
 God giveth to a king a royal power by office 
 to sin, only the royalist saveth God from being 
 the author of sin in this, that God gave the 
 power to sin ; but yet with this limitation, 
 that the subjects should not resist this power. 
 2. He must prove that Israel was to give 
 their male children to Pharaoh's butchers, — 
 for to hide them was to resist a royal power ; 
 and to disobey a royal power given of God, 
 is to disobey God. 3. The subjects may not 
 resist the king's butchers coming to kill 
 them and their male children ; for to resist 
 the servant of the king in that wherein he is 
 a servant, is to resist the king. (1 Sam. viii. 
 7 ; 1 Pet. ii. 14 ; Rom. xiii. 1.) 4. He 
 must prove, that upon the supposition that 
 Israel had been as strong as Pharaoh and 
 his people ; that without God's special com- 
 mandment, (they then wanting the written 
 word,) they should have fought with Pha- 
 raoh ; and that we now, for all wars, must 
 have a word from heaven, as if we had not 
 God's perfect will in his word, as at that 
 time Israel behoved to have in all wars, 
 Judg. xviii. 5 ; 1 Sam. xiv. 37 ; Isa. xxx. 
 2; Jer. xxxviii. 37; 1 Kings xxii. 5; 1 
 Sam. xxx. 5 ; Judg. xx. 27 ; 1 Sam. xxiii. 
 2 ; 2 Sam. xvi. 23 ; 1 Chron. x. 14. But 
 because God gave not them an answer to 
 fight against Pharaoh, therefore we have no 
 warrant now to fight against a foreign nation | 
 
 invading us; the consequence is null, and 
 therefore this is a vain argument. The pro- 
 phets never reprove the people for not per- 
 forming the duty of defensive wars against 
 tyrannous kings ; therefore, there is no such 
 duty enjoined by any law of God to us. 
 For the prophets never rebuke the people 
 for non-performing the duty of offensive 
 wars against their enemies, but where God 
 gave a special command and response from 
 his own oracle, that they should fight. And 
 if God was pleased never to command the 
 people to rise against a tyrannous king, they 
 did not sin where they had no command- 
 ment of God ; but I hope we have now a 
 more sure word of prophecy to inform us. 
 5. The Prelate conjectureth Moses' mira- 
 cles, and the deliverance of the people by 
 dividing the Red Sea, was to forbid and 
 condemn defensive wars of people against 
 their king ; but he hath neither Scripture 
 nor reasons to do it. The end of these 
 miracles was to seal to Pharaoh the truth 
 of God's calling of Moses and Aaron to 
 deliver the people, as is cleai', Exod. iv. 
 1 — 4, compared with vii. 8—10. And that 
 the Lord might get to himself a name on 
 all the earth, Rom. ix. 17 ; Exod. ix. 16 ; 
 xiii. 13, 14. But of the Prelate's conjec- 
 tural end, the Scripture is silent, and we 
 cannot take an excommunicated man's word. 
 What I said of Pharaoh, who had not his 
 crown from Israel, that I say of Nebuchad- 
 nezzar and the kings of Persia, keeping the 
 people of God captive. 
 
 P. Prelate (p. 153).— So in the book 
 of Judges, when the people were delivered 
 over to the hand of their enemies, because 
 of their sins, he never warranted the ordi- 
 nary judges or community to be their own 
 deliverers ; but when they repented, God 
 raised up a judge. The people had no hand 
 in their own deliverance out of Babylon ; 
 God effected it by Cyrus, immediately and 
 totally. Is not this a real proof God will 
 not have inferior judges to rectify what is 
 amiss; but we must wait in patience till 
 God provide lawful means, some sovereign 
 power immediately sent by himself, in which 
 course of his ordinary providence, he will 
 not be deficient. 
 
 Ans. 1. — All this is beside the question, 
 and proveth nothing less than that peers 
 and community may not resume their power 
 to curb an arbitrary power. For, hi the 
 first case, their is neither arbitrary nor law- 
 ful supreme judge. 2. If the first prove any 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 135 
 
 thing, it proveth that it was rebellion in the 
 inferior judges and community of Israel to 
 fight against foreign kings, not set over them 
 by God ; and that offensive wars against 
 any kings whatsoever, because they are 
 kings, though strangers, are unlawful. Let 
 Socinians and anabaptists consider if the P. 
 Prelate help not them in this, and may 
 prove all wars to be unlawful. 3. He is so 
 malignant to all inferior judges, as if they 
 were not powers sant of God, and to all 
 governors that are not kings, and so up- 
 holders of prelates, and of himself as he 
 conceiveth, that by his arguing he will have 
 all deliverance of kings only, the only lawful 
 means in ordinary providence ; and so aris- 
 tocracy and democracy, except in God's ex- 
 traordinary providence, and by some divine 
 dispensation, must be extraordinary and or- 
 dinarily unlawful. 1. The acts of a state, 
 when a king is dead and they choose an- 
 other, shall be an anticipating of God's pro- 
 vidence. 2. If the king be a child, a cap- 
 tive, or distracted, and the kingdom op- 
 pressed with malignants, they are to wait, 
 while God immediately from heaven create a 
 king to them, as he did Saul long ago. But 
 have we now kings immediately sent as Saul 
 was? How is the spirit of prophecy and 
 government infused in them, as in king 
 Saul? or are they by prophetical inspira- 
 tion, anointed as David was ? I conceive 
 their calling to the throne on God's part 
 differs as much from the calling of Saul and 
 David, in some respect, as the calling of 
 ordinary pastors, who must be gifted by in- 
 dustry and learning and called by the church, 
 and the calling of apostles. 3. God would 
 deliver his people from Babylon by moving 
 the heart of Cyras immediately, the people 
 having no hand in it, not so much as sup- 
 plicating Cyras ; therefore, the people and 
 peers who made the king cannot curb his 
 tyrannical power, if he make captives and 
 slaves of them, as the kings of Chaldea made 
 slaves of the people of Israel. What ! Be- 
 cause God useth another mean, therefore, 
 this mean is not lawful. It followeth in no 
 sort. If we must use no means but what 
 the captive people did under Cyrus, we may 
 not lawfully fly, nor supplicate, for the peo- 
 ple did neither. 
 
 P. Prelate. — You read of no covenant in 
 Scripture made without the king. (Exod. 
 xxxiv.) Moses king of Jeshurun : neither 
 tables nor parliament framed it. Joshua 
 another, (Josh, xxiv.) and Asa, (2 Chron. 
 
 xv. ; 2 Chron. xxxiv. ; Ezra x.) The 
 covenant of Jehoiada in the nonage of 
 
 Joash, was the high priest's act, as the 
 king's governor. There is a covenant w r ith 
 hell, made without the king, and a false 
 covenant. (Hos. x. 3, 4.) 
 
 Ans. — We argue this negatively. 1. This 
 is neither commanded, nor practised, nor 
 warranted by promise ; therefore, it is not 
 lawful. But this is not practised in Scrip- 
 ture ; therefore, it is not lawful. It follow- 
 eth it. Show me in Scripture the killing of 
 a goring ox who killed a man ; the not 
 making battlements on a house ; the putting 
 to death of a man lying with a beast ; the 
 killing of seducing prophets, who tempted 
 the people to go a whoring, and serve an- 
 other God than Jehovah : I mean, a god 
 made by the hand of the baker, such a one 
 as the excommunicated Prelate is known to 
 be, who hath preached this idolatry in three 
 kingdoms. (Deut. xiii.) This is written, and 
 all the former laws are divine precepts. 
 Shall the precept make them all unlawful, 
 because they are not practised by some in 
 Scripture ? By this ? I ask, Where read ye 
 that the people entered in a covenant with 
 God, not to worship the golden image, and 
 the king ; and those who pretended they are 
 the priests of Jehovah, the churchmen and 
 prelates, refused to enter in covenant with 
 God ? By this argument, the king and 
 prelates, in non-practising with us, want- 
 ing the precedent of a like practised in 
 Scripture, are in the fault. 2. This is no- 
 thing to prove the conclusion in question. 
 3. All these places prove it is the king's 
 duty, when the people under him, and their 
 fathers, have corrupted the worship of God, 
 to renew a covenant with God, and to cause 
 the people to do the like, as Moses, Asa, 
 and Jehoshaphat did. 4. If the king refuse 
 to do his duty, where is it written that the 
 people ought also to omit their duty, and to 
 love to have it so, because the rulers cor- 
 rupt their ways? (Jer. v. 31.) To renew a 
 covenant w r ith God is a point of service due 
 to God that the people are obliged unto, 
 whether the king command it or no. What 
 if the king command not his people to serve 
 God ; or, what if he forbid Daniel to pray 
 to God ? Shall the people in that case serve 
 the King of kings, only at the nod and royal 
 command of an earthly king? Clear this 
 from Scripture. 5. Ezra (ch. v.) had no 
 commandment in particular from Artax- 
 erxes, king of Persia, or from Darius, but a 
 
136 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 general. (Ezravii. 23.) " Whatsoever is com- 
 manded by the God of heaven, let it be dili- 
 gently done for the house of the God of 
 heaven." But the tables in Scotland, and 
 the two parliaments of England and Scot- 
 land, who renewed the covenant, and entered 
 in covenant not against the king, (as the P. 
 P. saith,) but to restore religion to its ancient 
 purity, have this express law both from king 
 James and king Charles, in many acts of 
 parliament, that religion be kept pure. Now, 
 as Artaxerxes knew nothing of the covenant, 
 and was unwilling to subscribe it, and yet 
 gave to Ezra and the princes a warrant, in 
 general, to do all that the God of heaven 
 required to be done, for the religion and 
 house of the God of heaven, and so a gene- 
 ral warrant for a covenant, without the 
 king ; and yet Ezra and the people, in 
 swearing that covenant, faded in no duty 
 against their king, to whom, by the fifth 
 commandment, they were no less subject 
 than we are to our king : just so we are, and 
 so have not faded. But they say, the king 
 hath committed to no lieutenant and deputy 
 under him, to do what they please in reli- 
 gion, without his royal consent in particular, 
 and the direction of his clergy, seeing he is 
 of that same religion with his people ; where- 
 as Artaxerxes was of another religion than 
 were the Jews and their governor. — Ans. 
 Nor can our king take on himself to do what 
 he please th, and what the prelates (amongst 
 whom those who ruled all are known, before 
 the world and the sun, to be of another reli- 
 gion than we are) pleaseth, in particular. 
 But see what religion and worship the Lord 
 our God, and the law of the land (which is 
 the king's revealed will) alloweth to us, that 
 we may swear, though the king should not 
 swear it ; otherwise, we are to be of no re- 
 ligion but of the king's, and to swear no 
 covenant but the king's, which is to join 
 with papists against protestants. 6. The 
 strano-ers of Ephraim and Manasseh, and out 
 of Simeon fell out of Israel in abundance to 
 Asa, when they saw that the Lord his God 
 was with him, (2 Chron. xv. 9, 10,) and 
 sware that covenant without their own king's 
 consent, their own king being against it. If 
 a people swear a religious covenant, without 
 their king, who is averse thereunto, far more 
 may the nobles, peers, and estates of parlia- 
 ment do it without their king ; and here is 
 an example of a practice, which the P. Pre- 
 late requireth. 7- That Jehoiada was go- 
 vernor and viceroy during the nonage of 
 
 Joash, and that by this royal authority the 
 covenant was sworn, is a dream, to the end 
 he may make the Pope, and the archprelate, 
 now viceroys and kings, when the tin-one 
 varieth. The nobles were authors of the 
 making of that covenant, no less than Jeho- 
 iada was ; yea, and the people of the land, 
 when the king was but a child, went unto 
 the house of Baal, and brake down his 
 images, &c. Here is a reformation, made 
 without the king, by the people. 8. Grave 
 expositors say, that the covenant with death 
 and hell (Isa. xxviii.) was the king's cove- 
 nant with Egypt. 9. And the covenant 
 (Hos. x.) is by none exponed of a covenant 
 made without the king. I have heard said, 
 this Prelate, preaching on this text before 
 the king, exponed it so ; but he spake words 
 (as the text is) falsely. The P. Prelate, to 
 the end of the chapter, giveth instance of the 
 ill success of popular reformation, because the 
 people caused Aaron to make a golden calf, 
 and they revolted from Rehoboam to Jero- 
 boam, and made two golden calves, and they 
 conspired with Absalom against David. — 
 Ans. If the first example make good any 
 thing, neither the high priest, as was Aaron, 
 nor the P. Prelate, who claimeth to be de- 
 scended of Aaron's house, should have any 
 hand in reformation at all ; for Aaron erred 
 in that. And to argue from the people's 
 sins to deny their power, is no better than 
 to prove Ahab, Jeroboam, and many kings 
 in Israel and Judah, committed idolatry, 
 therefore they had no royal power at all. 
 In the rest of the chapter, for a whole page, 
 he singeth over again Iris matins in a circle, 
 and giveth us the same arguments we heard 
 before ; of which you have these three 
 notes : — 1. They are stolen, and not his 
 own. 2. Repeated again and again to fill 
 the field. 3. All hang on a false supposi- 
 tion, and a begging of the question. That 
 the people, without the king, have no power 
 at all. 
 
 QUESTION XXVII. 
 
 WHETHER OR NO THE KING BE THE SOLE, 
 SUPREME AND FINAL INTERPRETER OF THE 
 LAW. 
 
 This question conduceth not a little to the 
 clearing of the doubts concerning the king's 
 absolute power, and the supposed sole no- 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 r.r, 
 
 mothetic power in the king. And I think 
 it not unlike to the question, Whether the 
 Pope and llomish church have a sole and 
 peremptory power of exponing laws, and 
 the word of God ? We are to consider that 
 there is a twofold exposition of laws; 1. 
 One speculative in a school way, so exquisite 
 jurists have a power to expone laws. 2. 
 Practical, in so far as the sense of the law 
 falleth under our practice ; and this is two- 
 fold, — either private and common to all, or 
 judicial and proper to judges ; and of this 
 last is the question. 
 
 For this public, the law hath one funda- 
 mental rule, salus populi, like the king of 
 planets, the sun, which lendeth star-light to 
 all laws, and by which they are exponed : 
 whatever interpretation swerveth either from 
 fundamental laws of policy, or from the law 
 of nature, and the law of nations, and espe- 
 cially from the safety of the public, is to be 
 rejected as a perverting of the law ; and 
 therefore, conscientia humani generis, the 
 natural conscience of all men, to which the 
 oppressed people may appeal unto when the 
 king exponeth a law unjustly, at his own 
 pleasure, is the last rule on earth for expon- 
 ing of laws. Nor ought laws to be made so 
 obscure, as an ordinary wit cannot see their 
 connexion with fundamental truths of policy, 
 and the safety of the people ; and therefore 
 I see no inconvenience, to say, that the law 
 itself is norma et regula juduicandi, the 
 rule and directory to square the judge, and 
 that the judge is the public practical inter- 
 preter of the law. 
 
 Assert. 1. — The king is not the sole and 
 final interpreter of the law. 
 
 1. Because then inferior judges should 
 not be interpreters of the law ; but inferior 
 judges are no less essentially judges than 
 the king, (Deut. i. 17; 2 Chron. xix. 6; 
 1 Pet. ii. 14; Rom. xiii. 1, 2,) and so by 
 office must interpret the law, else they can- 
 not give sentence according to their con- 
 science and equity. Now, exponing of the 
 law judicially is an act of judging, and so a 
 personal and incommunicable act ; so as I 
 can no more judge and expone the law ac- 
 cording to another man's conscience, than I 
 can believe with another man's soul, under- 
 stand with another man's understanding, or 
 see with another man's eye. The king's 
 pleasure, therefore, cannot be the rule of 
 the inferior judge's conscience, for he giveth 
 an immediate account to God, the Judge of 
 all, of a just or an unjust sentence. Suppose 
 
 Caesar shall expone the law to Pilate, that 
 Christ deserveth to die the death, yet Pilate 
 is not in conscience to expone the law so. 
 If therefore inferior judges judge for the 
 king, they judge only by power borrowed 
 from the king, not by the pleasure, will, or 
 command of the king thus and thus expon- 
 ing the law, therefore the king cannot be the 
 sole interpreter of the law. 
 
 2. If the Lord say not to the king only, 
 but also to other inferior judges, " Be wise, 
 understand, and the cause that you know 
 not, search out," then the king is not the 
 only interpreter of the law. But the Lord 
 saith not to the king only, but to other judges 
 also, Be wise, understand, and the cause that 
 you know not, search out ; therefore the king 
 is not the sole law-giver. The major is 
 clear from Psal. ii. 10, " Be wise now there- 
 fore, O ye kings, be instructed, ye judges of 
 the earth." So are commands and rebukes 
 for unjust judgment given to others than to 
 kings. (Ps. lxxxii. 1 — 5; lviii. 1, 2; Isa. i. 
 17, 23, 25, 26 ; iii. 14 ; Job xxix. 12—15; 
 xxxi. 21, 22.) 
 
 3. The king is either the sole interpreter 
 of law, in respect he is to follow the law as 
 his rule, and so he is a ministerial interpre- 
 ter of the law, or he is an interpreter of the 
 law according to that super-dominion of ab- 
 solute pow r er that he hath above the law. If 
 the former be holden, then it is clear that 
 the king is not the only interpreter, for all 
 judges, as they are judges, have a ministerial 
 power to expone the law by the law : but the 
 second is the sense of royalists. 
 
 Assert. 2. — Hence our second assertion is, 
 That the king's power of exponing the law 
 is a mere ministerial power, and he hath no 
 dominion of any absolute royal power to ex- 
 pone the law as he will, and to put such a 
 sense and meaning of the law as he pleaseth. 
 
 1. Because Saul maketh a law, (1 Sam. 
 xiv. 24,) " Cursed be the man that tasteth 
 any food till night, that the king may be 
 avenged on his enemies," the law, according 
 to the letter, was bloody ; but, according to 
 the intent of the lawgiver and substance of 
 the law, profitable, for the end was that the 
 enemies should be pursued with all speed. 
 But king Saul's exponing the law after a 
 tyrannical way, against the intent of the law, 
 which is the diamond and pearl of all laws — 
 the safety of the innocent people, was justly 
 resisted by the innocent people, who violently 
 hindered innocent Jonathan to be killed. 
 Whence it is clear, that the people and 
 u 
 
138 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 princes put on the law its true sense and 
 meaning ; for Jonathan's tasting of a little 
 honey, though as it was against that sinful 
 and precipitate circumstance, a rash oath, 
 yet it was not against the substance and true 
 intent of the law, which was the people's 
 speedy pursuit of the enemy. Whence it is 
 clear, that the people, including the princes, 
 hath a ministerial power to expone the law 
 aright, and according to its genuine intent, 
 and that the king, as king, hath no absolute 
 power to expone the law as he pleaseth. 
 
 2. The king's absolute pleasure can no 
 more be the genuine sense of a just law than 
 his absolute pleasure can be a law ; because 
 the genuine sense of the law is the law itself, 
 as the formal essence of a tiling differeth 
 not really, but in respect of reason, from 
 the thing itself. The Pope and Romish 
 church cannot put on the Scripture, ex 
 plenitudine potestatis, whatever meaning 
 they will, no more than they can, out of 
 absolute power, make canonic scripture. 
 Now so it is, that the king, by his absolute 
 power, cannot make law no law. 1. Because 
 he is king by, or according to, law, but he is 
 not king of law. Rex est rex secundum 
 legem, sed non est dominus et rex legis. 2. 
 Because, although it have a good meaning, 
 which Ulpian saith, " Quod principi placet 
 legis vigorem habet," — the will of the prince 
 is the law ; yet the meaning is not that any- 
 thing is a just law, because it is the prince's 
 will, for its rule formally; for it must be 
 good and just before the prince can will it, — 
 and then, he finding it so, he putteth the 
 stamp of a human law on it. 
 
 3. This is the difference between God's 
 will and the will of the king, or any mortal 
 creature. Things are just and good, because 
 God willeth them, — especially things posi- 
 tively good, (though I conceive it hold in all 
 things,) and God doth not will things, be- 
 cause they are good and just ; but the crea- 
 ture, be he king or any never so eminent, 
 do will things, because they are good and 
 just, and the king's willing of a thing maketh 
 it not good and just ; for only God's will — 
 not the creature's — can be the cause why 
 things are good and just. If, therefore, it 
 be so, it must undeniably hence follow, that 
 the king's will maketh not a just law to 
 have an unjust and bloody sense ; and he 
 cannot, as king, by any absolute super-domi- 
 nion over the law, put a just sense on a 
 bloody and unjust law. 
 
 4. The advancing of any man to the 
 
 throne and royal dignity putteth not the 
 man above the number of rational men. 
 No rational man can create, by any act of 
 power never so transcendent or boundless, a 
 sense to a law contrary to the law. Nay, 
 give me leave to doubt if Omnipotence can 
 make a just law to have an unjust and 
 bloody sense, aut contra, because it involveth 
 a contradiction ;— the true meaning of a law 
 being the essential form of the law. Hence 
 judge what brutish, swinish flatterers they 
 are who say, " That it is the true meaning 
 of the law which the king, the only supreme 
 and independent expositor of the law, saith 
 is the true sense of the law." There was 
 once an animal — a fool of the first magnitude 
 — who said he could demonstrate, by invin- 
 cible reasons, that the king's dung was more 
 nourishing food than bread of the flour of 
 the finest wheat. For my part I could wish 
 it were the demonstrator's only food for 
 seven days, and that should be the best 
 demonstration he could make for his pi - oof. 
 
 5. It must follow that there can be no 
 necessity of written laws to the subjects, 
 against Scripture and natural reason, and 
 the law of nations, in which all accord : that 
 laws not promulgated and published cannot 
 oblige as law ; yea, Adam, in his innocency, 
 was not obliged to obey a law not written in 
 his heart by nature, except God had made 
 known the law; as is clear, Gen. iii. 11, 
 " Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I 
 commanded thee that thou shouldest not 
 eat?" But if the king's absolute will may 
 put on the law what sense he pleaseth, out 
 of his independent and irresistible supremacy, 
 the laws promulgated and written to the 
 subjects can declare nothing what is to be 
 done by the subjects as just, and what is to 
 be avoided as unjust ; because the laws must 
 signify to the subjects what is just and what 
 is unjust, according to their genuine sense. 
 Now, their genuine sense, according to roy- 
 alists, is not only uncertain and impossible 
 to be known, but also contradictory ; for the 
 king obligeth us, without gainsaying, to be- 
 lieve that the just law hath this unjust sense. 
 Hence this of flattering royalists is more 
 cruel to kings than ravens, (for these eat but 
 dead men, while they devour living men,) 
 "When there is a controversy between the 
 king and the estates of parliament, who shall 
 expone the law and render its native mean- 
 ing ? Royalists say, Not the estates of parlia- 
 ment, for they are subjects, not judges, to 
 | the king, and only counsellors and advisers 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 139 
 
 of the king. The king, therefore, must 
 be the only judicial and final expositor. " As 
 for lawyers, (said Strafford,) the law is not 
 enclosed in a lawyer's cap." But I remem- 
 ber this was one of the articles laid to the 
 charge of Richard II., that he said, " The 
 law was in his head and breast." * And, 
 indeed, it must follow, if the king, by the 
 plenitude of absolute power, be the only 
 supreme uncontrollable expositor of the law, 
 that is not law which is written in the acts 
 of parliament, but that is the law which is in 
 the king's breast and head, which Josephus 
 (lib. 19, Antiq. c. 2.) objected to Caius. 
 And all justice and injustice should be finally 
 and peremptorily resolved on the king's will 
 and absolute pleasure. 
 
 6. The king either is to expone the law by 
 the law itself; or by his absolute power, loosed 
 from all law, he exponeth it ; or according to 
 the advise of his great senate. If the first be 
 said, he is nothing more than other judges. 
 If the second be said, he must be omnipo- 
 tent, and more. If the third be said, he is 
 not absolute, if the senate be only advisers, 
 and he yet the only judicial expositor. 
 The king often professeth his ignorance of 
 the laws ; and he must then both be abso- 
 lute above the law, and ignorant of the law, 
 and the sole and final judicial exponer of 
 the law. And by this, all parliaments, and 
 their power of making laws, and of judging, 
 are cried down. 
 
 05;. 1. — Prov. xvi. 10, " A divine sen- 
 tence is in the lips of the king ; his mouth 
 trangresseth not in judgment;" therefore 
 he only can expone the law. 
 
 Ans. — Lavater saith, (and I see no rea- 
 son on the contrary,) " By a king he mean- 
 eth all magistrates." Aben Ezra and Isi- 
 dorus read the words imperatively. The 
 Tigurine version, — " They are oracles which 
 proceed from his lips ; let not therefore his 
 mouth transgress in judgment." Vatabu- 
 lus, — " When he is in his prophecies, he 
 lieth not." Jansenius, — " Non facile er- 
 rabit in judicando." Mich. Jermine, — 
 " If he pray." Calvin, — " If he read in the 
 book of the law, as God commandeth him," 
 Deut. xvii. But why stand we on the place ? 
 " He speaketh of good kings, (saith Cor- 
 nel, a Lapide,) otherwise Jeroboam, Ahab, 
 and Manasseh, erred in judgment." " And 
 except (as Mercerus exponeth it) we under - 
 
 i Imperator se leges in scrinio condere dicit. 1. 
 omnium. C. de testam. 
 
 stand him to speak of kings according to 
 their office, not their facts and practice, we 
 make them popes, and men who cannot give 
 out grievous and unjust sentences on the 
 throne," — against both the "Word and ex- 
 perience. 
 
 06/. 2. — Sometimes all is cast upon one 
 man's voice ; why may not the king be this 
 one man ? 
 
 Ans. — The antecedent is false ; the last 
 voter in a senate is not the sole judge, else 
 why should others give suffrages with him ? 
 This were to take away inferior judges, con- 
 trary to God's word, Deut. i. 17 ; 2 Chron. 
 xix. 6, 7 ; Rom. xiii. 1 — 3. 
 
 QUESTION XXVIII. 
 
 WHETHER OR NO WARS RAISED BY THE SUB- 
 JECTS AND ESTATES, FOR THEIR OWN JUST 
 DEFENCE AGAINST THE KING'S BLOODY 
 EMISSARIES, BE LAWFUL. 
 
 Arnisreus pervertcth the question ; he 
 saith, " The question is, Whether or no 
 the subjects may, according to their power, 
 judge the king and dethrone him ; that is, 
 Whether or no it is lawful for the subjects 
 in any case to take arms against their lawful 
 prince, if he degenerate, and shall wickedly 
 use his lawful power." 
 
 1. The state of the question is much per- 
 verted, for these be different questions, 
 Whether the kingdom may dethrone a 
 wicked and tyrannous prince, and whether 
 the kingdom may take up arms against the 
 man who is the king, in their own innocent 
 defence. For the former is an act offensive, 
 and of punishing ; the latter is an act of de- 
 fence. 
 
 2. The present question is not of subjects 
 only, but of the estates, and parliamentary 
 lords of a kingdom. I utterly deny these, 
 as they are judges, to be subjects to the 
 king ; for the question is, Whether is the 
 king or the representative kingdom greatest, 
 and which of them be subject one to an- 
 other? I affirm, amongst judges, as judges, 
 not one is the commander or superior, and 
 the other the commanded or subject. In- 
 deed, one higher judge may correct and 
 punish a judge, not as a judge, but as an 
 erring man. 
 
 3. The question is not so much concern- 
 ing the authoritative act of war, as concern- 
 
140 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 ing the power of natural defence, upon sup- 
 position, that the king be not now turned 
 an habitual tyrant ; but that upon some 
 acts of misinformation, he come in arms 
 against his subjects. 
 
 Arniseeus maketh two sort of kings, — 
 " Some kings integrce majestatis, of entire 
 power and sovereignty ; some kings by pac- 
 tions, or voluntary agreement between king 
 and people." But I judge this a vain dis- 
 tinction; for the limited prince, so he be 
 limited to a power only of doing just and 
 right, by this is not a prince integrce ma- 
 jestatis, of entire royal majesty, whereby he 
 may both do good and also play the tyrant ; 
 but a power to do ill being no ways essen- 
 tial, yea, repugnant to the absolute majesty 
 of the King of kings, cannot be an essential 
 part of the majesty of a lawful king ; and 
 therefore the prince, limited by voluntary 
 and positive paction only to rule according 
 to law and equity, is the good, lawful, and 
 entire prince, only if he have not power to 
 do every thing just and good in that regard, 
 he is not an entire and complete prince. So 
 the man will have it lawful to resist the 
 limited prince, not the absolute prince ; by 
 the contrary, it is more lawful to me to re- 
 sist the absolute prince than the limited, 
 inasmuch as we may with safer consciences 
 resist the tyrant and the lion, than the just 
 pi'ince and lamb. Nor can I assent to (Jun- 
 nerius (de officio vrincip. Christia. c. 5 and 
 17,) who holdeth, " that these voluntary 
 pactions betwixt king and people, in which 
 the power of the prince is diminished, can- 
 not stand, because their power is given to 
 them by God's word, which cannot be taken 
 from them by any voluntary paction, law- 
 fully;" and from the same ground, Winzetus 
 (in velit. contr. Buchan. p. 3) " will have 
 it unlawful to resist kings, because God hath 
 made them irresistible." I answer, — If 
 God, by a divine institution, make kings ab- 
 solute, and above all laws, (which is a blas- 
 phemous supposition — the holy Lord can give 
 to no man a power to sin, for God hath not 
 himself any such power.) then the covenant 
 betwixt the king and people cannot lawfully 
 remove and take away what God by insti- 
 tution has given ; but because God (Deut. 
 xvii.) hath limited the first lawful king, the 
 mould of all the rest, the people ought also 
 to limit him by a voluntary covenant ; and 
 | , because the lawful power of a king to do 
 good is not by divine institution placed in an 
 indivisible point. It is not a sin tor the people 
 
 to take some power, even of doing good, from 
 the king, that he solely, and by himself, shall 
 not have power to pardon an involuntary ho- 
 micide, without advice and the judicial suf- 
 frages of the council of the kingdom, least 
 he, instead of this, give pardons to robbers, 
 to abominable murderers ; and in so doing, 
 the people robbeth not the king of the power 
 that God gave him as king, nor ought the 
 king to contend for a sole power in himself 
 of ministering justice to all ; for God layeth 
 not upon kings burdens impossible ; and God 
 by institution hath denied to the king all 
 power of doing all good; because it is his 
 will that other judges be sharers with the 
 king in that power, (Num. xiv. 16 ; Duet, 
 i. 14—17; 1 Pet. ii. 14; Rom. xiii. 1—4;) 
 and therefore the duke of Venice, to me, 
 cometh nearest to the king moulded by God, 
 (Deut. xvii.) in respect of power, de jure, 
 of any king I know in Europe. And in 
 point of conscience, the inferior judge dis- 
 cerning a murderer and bloody man to die, 
 may in foro conscientice despise the king's 
 unjust pardon, and resist the king's force by 
 his co-active power that God hath given 
 him, and put to death the bloody murderer ; 
 and he sinneth if he do not this ; for to me 
 it is clear, that the king cannot judge so 
 justly and understandingly of a murderer in 
 Scotland, as a judge to whom God hath 
 committed the sword in Scotland. Nor 
 hath the Lord laid that impossible burden 
 on a king to judge so of a murder four hun- 
 dred miles removed from the king, as the 
 judge nearer to him, as is clear by Num. 
 xiv. 16; 1 Sam. vii. 15—17. The king 
 should go from place to place and judge ; 
 and whereas it is impossible to him to go 
 through three kingdoms, he should appoint 
 faithful judges, who may not be resisted, — 
 no, not by the king. 
 
 1. The question is, If the king command 
 A. B. to kill his father or his pastor, — the 
 man neither being cited nor convicted of 
 any fault, he may lawfully be resisted. 
 
 2. Queritur. — If, in that case in which 
 the king is captived, imprisoned, and not 
 sui juris, and awed or overawed by bloody 
 papists, and so is forced to command a 
 barbarous and unjust war; and if, being 
 distracted physically or morally through 
 wicked counsel, he command that which no 
 father in his sober wits would command, 
 even against law and conscience, — that the 
 sons should yield obedience and subjection 
 to him in maintaining, with lives and goods, 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 141 
 
 a bloody religion and bloody papists : if in 
 that case the king may not be resisted in 
 his person, because the power lawful and 
 the sinful person cannot be separated. We 
 hold, that the king using, contrary to the 
 oath of God and his royal office, violence 
 in killing, against law and conscience, his 
 subjects, by bloody emissaries, may be re- 
 sisted by defensive wars, at the command- 
 ment of the estates of the kingdom. 
 
 But before I produce arguments to prove 
 the lawfulness of resistance, a little of the 
 case of resistance. 1. Br Feme (part 3, 
 sect. 5, p. 39) granteth resistance by force 
 to the king to be lawful, when the assault is 
 sudden, without colour of a law or reason, 
 and inevitable. But if Nero burn Borne, he 
 hath a colour of law and reason ; yea, though 
 all Borne, and his mother, in whose womb 
 he lay, were one neck. A man who will 
 with reason go mad, hath colour of reason, 
 and so of law, to invade and kill the inno- 
 cent. 2. Arnisseus saith, (c. 2, n. 10,) " If 
 the magistrate proceed extra-judicialiter, 
 without order of law by violence, the laws 
 giveth every private man power to resist, if 
 the danger be irrecoverable ; yea, though it 
 be recoverable." (L. prohibitum, C. de 
 jur. Jisc. I. que madmodum, sect. 39, ma- 
 gistratus ad I. aquil. I. nee. magistratibus, 
 32, de injur.) Because, while the magis- 
 trate doth against his office, he is not a 
 magistrate ; for law and right, not injury, 
 should come from the magistrate. (L. me- 
 minerint. 6, C. unde vi.) Yea, if the ma- 
 gistrate proceed judicially, and the loss be 
 irrecoverable, jurists say that a private 
 man hath the same law to resist. (Maran- 
 tius. dis. 1, n. 35). And in a recoverable 
 loss they say, every man is holden to resist, 
 si evidenter constet de iniquitate, if the ini- 
 quity be known to all. (D. D. Jason, n. 
 19, des. n. 26, ad I. ut vim dejust. et jur.) 
 3. I would think it not fit easily to resist 
 the king's unjust exactors of custom or tri- 
 bute. (1.) Because Christ paid tribute to 
 Tiberius Caesar, an unjust usurper, though 
 he was free from that, by God's law, lest 
 he should offend. (2.) Because we have a 
 greater dominion over goods than over our 
 lives and bodies ; and it is better to yield in 
 a matter of goods than to come to arms, for 
 of sinless evils we may choose the least. 4. 
 A tyrant, without a title, may be resisted 
 by any private man. Quia licet vim vi re- 
 pellere, because we may repel violence by 
 violence; yea, he may be killed. Ut I. et 
 
 vim. F. de instit. et jure, ubi plene per om- 
 nes. Vasquez, 1. 1, c. 3, n. 33 ; Barclaius, 
 contra Monarch. 1. 4, c. 10, p. 268. 
 
 For the lawfulness of resistance in the 
 matter of the king's unjust invasion of life 
 and religion, we offer these arguments. 
 
 Arg. 1. — That power which is obliged to 
 command and rule justly and religiously for 
 the good of the subjects, and is only set over 
 the people on these conditions, and not abso- 
 lutely, cannot tie the people to subjection 
 without resistance, when the power is abused 
 to the destruction of laws, religion, and the 
 subjects. But all power of the law is thus 
 obliged, (Rom. xiii. 4 ; Deut. xvii. 18 — 20 ; 
 2 Chron. xix. 6 ; Ps. exxxii. 11, 12 ; Ixxxix. 
 30, 31; 2 Sam. vii. 12; Jer. xvii. 24, 25,) 
 and hath, and may be, abused by kings, to 
 the destruction of laws, religion, and sub- 
 jects. The proposition is clear. 1. For the 
 powers that tie us to subjection only are of 
 God. 2. Because to resist them, is to re- 
 sist the ordinance of God. 3. Because they 
 are not a terror to good works, but to evil. 
 4. Because they are God's ministers for our 
 good, but abused powers are not of God, but 
 of men, or not ordinances of God ; they are 
 a terror to good works, not to evil ; they are 
 not God's ministers for our good. 
 
 Arg. 2. — That power which is contrary 
 to law, and is evil and tyrannical, can tie 
 none to subjection, but is a mere tyrannical 
 power and unlawful; and if it tie not to sub- 
 jection, it may lawfully be resisted. But the 
 power of the king, abused to the destruction 
 of laws, religion, and subjects, is a power con- 
 trary to law, evil, and tyrannical, and tyeth 
 no man to subjection : wickedness by no ima- 
 ginable reason can oblige any man. Obliga- 
 tion to suffer of wicked men falleth under 
 no commandment of God, except in our Sa- 
 viour. A passion, as such, is not formally 
 commanded, I mean a physical passion, such 
 as to be killed. God hath not said to me in 
 any moral law, Be thou killed, tortured, be- 
 headed ; but only, Be thou patient, if God 
 deliver thee to wicked men's hands, to suffer 
 these things. 
 
 Arg. 3. — There is not a stricter obligation 
 moral betwixt king and people than betwixt 
 parents and children, master and servant, 
 patron and clients, husband and wife, the 
 lord and the vassal, between the pilot of a 
 ship and the passengers, the physician and 
 the sick, the doctor and the scholars, but 
 the law granteth, (I. Minime 35, de Relig. 
 et sumpt. funer,) if these betray their trust 
 
142 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 committed to them, they may be resisted : if 
 the father turn distracted,' and arise to kill 
 his sons, his sons may violently apprehend 
 him, and bind his hands, and spoil him of 
 his weapons ; for in that he is not a father. 
 Vasquez, (Lib. 1, Tllustr. quest, c. 8, n. 
 18,,) — Si dominus subditum enormiter et 
 atrociter oneraret, princeps superior vas- 
 sallum posset ex toto eximere a sua juris- 
 diction, et etiam tacente subdito et nihil 
 petente. Quid papa in suis decis. parliam. 
 grat. decis. 62. Si quis Baro. abutentes 
 dominio privari possunt. The servant may 
 resist the master if he attempts unjustly to 
 kill him, so may the wife do to the husband; 
 if the pilot should wilfully run the ship on a 
 rock to destroy himself and his passengers, 
 they might violently thrust him from the 
 helm. Every tyrant is a furious man, and 
 is morally distracted, as Althusius saith, 
 Polit. c. 28, n. 30, and seq. 
 
 Arg. 4. — That which is given as a bless- 
 ing, and a favour, and a screen, between 
 the people's liberty and their bondage, can- 
 not be given of God as a bondage and sla- 
 very to the people. But the power of a 
 king is given as a blessing and favour of 
 God to defend the poor and needy, to pre- 
 serve both tables of the law, and to keep 
 the people in their liberties from oppress- 
 ing and treading one upon another. But 
 so it is, that if such a power be given of 
 God to a king, by which, actu primo, he is 
 invested of God to do acts of tyranny, and 
 so to do them, that to resist him in the 
 most innocent way, which is self-defence, 
 must be a resisting of God, and rebellion 
 against the king, his deputy ; then hath 
 God given a royal power as uncontrollable 
 by mortal men, by any violence, as if God 
 himself were immediately and personally 
 resisted, when the king is resisted, and so 
 this power shall be a power to waste and 
 destroy irresistibly, and so in itself a plague 
 and a curse ; for it cannot be ordained both 
 according to the intention and genuine for- 
 mal effect and intrinsical operation of the 
 f>ower, to preserve the tables of the law, re- 
 igion and liberty, subjects and laws, and 
 also to destroy the same. But it is taught 
 by royalists that this power is for tyranny, 
 as well as for peaceable government ; because 
 to resist this royal power put forth in acts 
 either ways, either in acts of tyranny or 
 just government, is to resist the ordinance 
 of God, as royalists say, from Rom. xhi. 1 
 — 3. And we know, to resist God's or- 
 
 dinances and God's deputy, formaliter, as 
 his deputy, is to resist God himself, (1 Sam. 
 viii. 7 ; Matt. x. 40,) as if God were doing 
 personally these acts that the king is doing ; 
 and it importeth as much as the King of 
 kings doth these acts in and through the 
 tyrant. Now, it is blasphemy to think or 
 say, that when a king is drinking the blood 
 of innocents, and wasting the church of God, 
 that God, if he were personally present, 
 would commit these same acts of tyranny, 
 (God avert such blasphemy !) and that God 
 in and through the king, as his lawful de- 
 puty and vicegerent in these acts of tyran- 
 ny, is wasting the poor church of God. If 
 it be said, in these sinful acts of tyranny, he 
 is not God's formal vicegerent, but only in 
 good and lawful acts of government, yet he 
 is not to be resisted in these acts, not be- 
 cause the acts are just and good, but be- 
 cause of the dignity of his royal person. 
 Yet this must prove that those who resist 
 the king in these acts of tyranny, must re- 
 sist no ordinance of God, but only resist 
 him who is the Lord's deputy, though not 
 as the Lord's deputy. What absurdity is 
 there in that more than to disobey him, re- 
 fusing active obedience to him who is the 
 Lord's deputy, not as the Lord's deputy, 
 but as a man commanding besides his mas- 
 ter's warrant ? 
 
 Arg. 5. — That which is inconsistent with 
 the care and providence of God in giving a 
 king to his church is not to be taught. 
 Now God's end in giving a king to his 
 church, is the feeding, safety, preservation, 
 and the peaceable and quiet life of his 
 church. (1 Tim. ii. 2 ; Isa. xlix. 23 ; Psal. 
 lxxix. 71). But God should cross his own 
 end in the same act of giving a king, if he 
 should provide a king, who, by office, were 
 to suppress robbers, murderers, and all op- 
 pressors and wasters in his holy mount, 
 and yet should give an irresistible power to 
 one crowned lion, a king, who may kill ten 
 hundred thousand protestants for their re- 
 ligion, in an ordinary providence ; and they 
 are by an ordinary law of God to give their 
 throats to his emissaries and bloody execu- 
 tioners. If any say the king will not be so 
 cruel, — I believe it ; because, actu secundo, 
 it is not possibly in his power to be so cruel. 
 We owe thanks to his good will that he 
 killeth not so many, but no thanks to the 
 nature and genuine intrinsical end of a king, 
 who hath power from God to kill all these, 
 and that without resistance made by any 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 143 
 
 mortal man. Yea, no thanks (God avert 
 blasphemy !) to God's ordinary providence, 
 which (if royalists may be believed) putteth 
 no bar upon the unlimited power of a man 
 inclined to sin, and abuse his power to so 
 much cruelty. Some may say, the same 
 absurdity doth follow if the king should 
 turn papist, and the parliament all were 
 papists. In that case there might be so 
 many martyrs for the truth put to death, 
 and God should put no bar of providence 
 upon this power, then more than now ; 
 and yet, in that case, the king and parlia- 
 ment should be judges given of God, actu 
 primo, and by virtue of their office obliged 
 to preserve the people in peace and godli- 
 ness. But I answer, If God gave a lawful 
 official power to king and parliament to 
 work the same cruelty upon millions of 
 martyrs, and it should be unlawful for them 
 by arms to defend themselves, I should 
 then think that king and parliament were 
 both ex officio, by virtue of their office, and 
 actu primo, judges and fathers, and also by 
 that same office, murderers and butchers, — 
 which were a grievous aspersion to the un- 
 spotted providence of God. 
 
 Arg. 6. — If the estates of a kingdom give 
 the power to a king, it is their own power 
 in the fountain ; and if they give it for their 
 own good, they have power to judge when 
 it is used against themselves, and for their 
 evil, and so power to limit and resist the 
 power that they gave. Now, that they may 
 take away this power, is clear in Athaliah's 
 case. It is true she was a tyrant without a 
 title, and had not the right of heaven to the 
 crown, yet she had, in men's court, a title. 
 For supposing all the royal seed to be 
 lulled, and the people consent, we cannot 
 say that, for these six years or thereabout, 
 she was no magistrate : that there were none 
 on the throne of David at this time : that she 
 was not to be obeyed as God's deputy. But 
 grant that she was no magistrate ; yet when 
 Jehoash is brought forth to be crowned, it 
 was a controversy to the states to whom the 
 crown should belong. 1. Athaliah was in 
 possession. 2. Jehoash himself being but 
 seven years old, could not be judge. 3. It 
 might be doubted if Joash was the true son 
 of Ahaziah, and if he was not killed with 
 the rest of the blood royal. 
 
 Two great adversaries say with us ; Hugo 
 Grotius (dejur. belli et pads, I. 1, c. 4, n. 
 7,) saith he dare not condemn this, if the 
 lesser part of the people, and every one of 
 
 them indifferently, should defend them- 
 selves against a tyrant, ultimo necessitatis 
 prcesidio. The case of Scotland, when we 
 were blocked up by sea and land with 
 armies : the case of England, when the king, 
 induced by prelates, first attempted to bring 
 an army to cut off the parliament, and 
 then gathered an army, and fortified York, 
 and invaded Hull, to make the militia his 
 own, sure is considerable. Barclay saith, 
 the people hath jus se tuendi adversus im- 
 manent scevitiem, (advers. Monarch. I. 3, 
 c. 8,) a power to defend themselves against 
 prodigious cruelty. The case of England 
 and Ireland, now invaded by the bloody 
 rebels of Ireland, is also worthy of consi- 
 deration. I could cite hosts more. 
 
 QUESTION XXIX. 
 
 WHETHER, IN THE CASE OF DEFENSIVE WAR, 
 THE DISTINCTION OF THE PERSON OF THE 
 KING, AS A MAN, WHO CAN COMMIT ACTS 
 OF HOSTILE TYRANNY AGAINST HIS SUB- 
 JECTS, AND OF THE OFFICE AND ROYAL 
 POWER THAT HE HATH FROM GOD AND 
 THE PEOPLE, AS A KING, CAN HAVE 
 PLACE. 
 
 Before I can proceed to other Scripture 
 proofs for the lawfulness of resistance, this 
 distinction, rejected by royalists, must be 
 cleared. This is an evident and sensible 
 distinction : — The king in concreto, the man 
 who is king, and the king in abstracto, the 
 royal office of the king. The ground of this 
 distinction we desire to be considered from 
 Rom. xiii. We affirm with Buchanan, that 
 Paul here speaketh of the office and duty of 
 good magistrates, and that the text speak- 
 eth nothing of an absolute king, nothing 
 of a tyrant ; and the royalists distinguish 
 where the law distinguished not, against 
 the law, (1. pret. 10, gl. Bart, de pub. in 
 Rem.) ; and therefore we move the question 
 here, Whether or no to resist the illegal and 
 tyrannical will of the man who is king, be 
 to resist the king and the ordinance of 
 God ; we say no. Nor do we deny the 
 king, abusing his power in unjust acts, to 
 remain king, and the minister of God, whose 
 person for his royal office, and his royal 
 office, are both to be honoured, reverenced, 
 and obeyed. God forbid that we should do 
 so as the sons of Belial, imputing to us the 
 
144 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 doctrine of anabaptists, and the doctrine 
 falsely imputed to Wicliffe, — that dominion 
 is founded upon supernatural grace, and 
 that a magistrate being in the state of mor- 
 tal sin, cannot be a lawful magistrate, — we 
 teach no such thing. The P. Prelate show- 
 eth us his sympathy with papists, and that 
 he buildeth the monuments and sepulchres 
 of the slain and murdered prophets, when 
 he, refusing to open his mouth in the gates 
 for the righteous, professeth he will not 
 purge the witnesses of Christ, the Wal- 
 denses, and Wicliffe, and Huss, of these 
 notes of disloyalty, but that these acts pro- 
 ceeding from this root of bitterness, the 
 abused power of a king, should be acknow- 
 ledged with obedience active or passive, in 
 these unjust acts, we deny. 
 
 Assert. 1. — It is evident from Rom. xiii. 
 that all subjection and obedience to higher 
 powers commanded there, is subjection to 
 the power and office of the magistrate in 
 abstracto, or, which is all one, to the person 
 using the power lawfully, and that no sub- 
 jection is due by that text, or any word of 
 God, to the abused and tyrannical power of 
 the king, which I evince from the text, and 
 from other Scriptures. 
 
 1. Because the text saith, " Let every 
 soul be subject to the higher powers." But 
 no powers commanding things unlawful, and 
 killing the innocent people of God, can be 
 ixwrlai vvipx<"><>-' higher powers, but in that 
 lower powers. lie that commandeth not 
 what God commandeth, and punisheth and 
 killeth where God, if personally and imme- 
 diately present, would neither command nor 
 punish, is not in these acts to be subjected 
 unto, and obeyed as a superior power, 
 though in habit he may remain a superior 
 power ; for all habitual, all actual superiority 
 is a formal participation of the power of the 
 Most High. Arnisseus well saith, (c. 4, p. 
 96,) " That of Aristotle must be true, It is 
 against nature, better and worthier men 
 should be in subjection to un worthier and 
 more wicked men ;" but when magistrates 
 command wickedness, and kill the innocent, 
 the non-obeyers, in so far, are worthier 
 than the commanders (whatever they be in 
 habit and in office) actually, or in these 
 wicked acts are unworthier and inferior, and 
 the non-obeyers are in that worthier, as being 
 zealous adherents to God's command and 
 not to man's will. I desire not to be mis- 
 taken ; if we speak of habitual excellency, 
 godly and holy men, as the witnesses of 
 
 Christ in things lawful, are to obey wicked 
 and infidel kings and emperors, but in that 
 these wicked kings have an excellency in 
 respect of office above them ; but when they 
 command things unlawful, and kill the in- 
 nocent, they do it not by virtue of any 
 office, and so in that they are not higher 
 powers, but lower and weak ones. Laertius 
 doth explain Aristotle well, who defineth a 
 tyrant by this, " That he commandeth his 
 subjects by violence ;" and Arnisaeus con- 
 demneth Laertius for this, " Because one 
 tyrannical action doth no more constitute a 
 tyrant, than one unjust action doth consti- 
 tute an unjust man." But he may con- 
 demn, as he doth indeed, (Covarruvias pract. 
 quest, c. 1, and Vasquez Illustr. quest. 1. 1, 
 c. 47, n. 1, 12,) for this is essential to a 
 tyrant, to command and rule by violence. 
 If a lawful prince do one or more acts of a 
 tyrant, he is not a tyrant for that, yet his 
 action in that is tyrannical, and he doth not 
 that as a king, but in that act as a sinful 
 man, having something of tyranny in him. 
 
 2. The powers (Rom. xiii. 1) that be, are 
 ordained of God, as their author and effi- 
 cient ; but kings commanding unjust things, 
 and killing the innocent, in these acts, are 
 but men, and sinful men ; and the power 
 by which they do these acts, a sinful and an 
 usurped power, and so far they are not 
 powers ordained of God, according to his 
 revealed will, which must rule us. Now 
 the authority and official power, in ab- 
 stracto, is ordained of God, as the text 
 saith, and other Scriptures do evidence. 
 And this politicians do clear, while they dis- 
 tinguish betwixt jus personal, and jus co- 
 rona;, the power of the person, and the power 
 of the crown and royal office. They must 
 then be two different things. 
 
 3. He that resisteth the power, that is, 
 the official power, and the king, as king, 
 and commanding in the Lord, resisteth the 
 ordinance of God, and God's lawful consti- 
 tution. But he who resisteth the man, who 
 is the king, commanding that which is 
 against God, and killing the innocent, re- 
 sisteth no ordinance of God, but an ordi- 
 nance of sin and Satan ; for a man command- 
 ing unjustly, and ruling tyrannically, hath, 
 in that, no power from God. 
 
 4. They that resist the power and royal 
 office of the king in things just and right, 
 shall receive to themselves damnation, but 
 they that resist, that is, refuse, for con- 
 science, to obey the man who is the king, 
 
TIIC LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 145 
 
 and choose to obey God rather than man, 
 as all the martyrs did, shall receive to them- 
 selves salvation. And the eighty valiant 
 men, the priests, who used bodily violence 
 against king Uzziah's person, " and thrust 
 him out of the house of the Lord," from 
 offering incense to the Lord, which be- 
 longed to the priest only, received not 
 damnation to themselves, but salvation in 
 doing God's will, and in resisting the king's 
 wicked will. 
 
 5. The lawful ruler, as a ruler, and in 
 respect of his office, is not to be resisted, 
 because he is not a terror to good works, 
 but to evil ; and no man who doth good is 
 to be afraid of the office or the power, but 
 to expect praise and a reward of the same. 
 But the man who is a king may command 
 an idolatrous and superstitious worship- 
 send an army of cut-throats against them, 
 because they refuse that worship, and may 
 reward papists, prelates, and other corrupt 
 men, and may advance them to places of 
 state and honour because they kneel to a 
 tree altar, — pray to the east, — adore the 
 letters and sound of the word Jesus — teach 
 and write Arminianism, and may imprison, 
 deprive, confine, cut the ears, and slit the 
 noses, and burn the faces of those who speak 
 and preach and write the truth of God ; and 
 may send armies of cut-throats, Irish rebels, 
 and other papists and malignant atheists, to 
 destroy and murder the judges of the land, 
 and innocent defenders of the reformed re- 
 ligion, &c, — the man, I say, in these acts 
 is a terror to good works, — an encourage- 
 ment to evil ; and those that do good are to 
 be afraid of the king, and to expect no 
 praise, but punishment and vexation from 
 him ; therefore, this reason in the text 
 will prove that the man who is the king, 
 in so far as he doth those things that are 
 against his office, may be resisted ; and that 
 in these we are not to be subject, but only 
 we are to be subject to his power and royal 
 authority, in abstracto, in so far as, accord- 
 ing to his office, he is not a terror to good 
 works, but to evil. 
 
 6. The lawful ruler is the minister of 
 God, or the servant of God, for good to the 
 commonwealth ; and to resist the servant in 
 that* wherein he is a servant, and using the 
 power that he hath from his master, is to 
 resist the Lord his master. But the man 
 who is the king, commanding unjust things, 
 and killing the innocent, in these acts is not 
 the minister of God for the good of the 
 
 commonwealth; — he serveth himself, and 
 papists, and prelates, for the destruction of 
 religion, laws, and commonwealth ; there- 
 fore the man may be resisted, by this text, 
 when the office and power cannot be 
 resisted. 
 
 7. The ruler, as the ruler, and the nature 
 and intrinsical end of the office is, that he 
 bear God's sword as an avenger to execute 
 wrath on him that doth evil, — and so cannot 
 be resisted without sin. But the man who 
 is the ruler, and commandeth things unlaw- 
 ful, and killeth the innocent, carrieth the 
 papist's and prelate's sword to execute, not 
 the righteous judgment of the Lord upon 
 the ill-doer, but nis own private revenge 
 upon him that doth well ; therefore, the 
 man may be resisted, the office may not 
 be resisted ; and they must be two different 
 things. 
 
 8. We must needs be subject to the royal 
 office for conscience, by reason of the fifth 
 commandment ; but we must not needs be 
 subject to the man who is king, if he com- 
 mand things unlawful ; for Dr Feme war- 
 ranteth us to resist, if the ruler invade us 
 suddenly, without colour of law or reason, 
 and unavoidably; and Winzetus, Barclay, 
 and Grotius, as before I cited, give us leave 
 to resist a king turning a cruel tyrant ; but I 
 Paul (Rom. xiii.) forbiddeth us to resist the 
 power, in abstracto ; therefore, it must be 
 the man, in concreto, that we must resist. 
 
 9. Those we may not resist to whom we 
 owe tribute, as a reward of the onerous 
 work on which they, as ministers of God, 
 do attend continually. But we owe not 
 tribute to the king as a man, — for then 
 should we be indebted tribute to all men, — 
 but as a king, to whom the wages of tribute 
 is due, as to a princely workman, — a king as 
 a king ; — therefore, the man and the king- 
 are different. 
 
 10. We owe fear and honour as due to 
 be rendered to the man who is king, because 
 he is a king, not because he is a man ; for 
 it is the highest fear and honour due to any , 
 mortal man, which is due to the king, as 
 king. 
 
 11. The man and the inferior judge are 
 different ; and we cannot, by this text, 
 resist the inferior judge, as a judge, but we 
 resist the ordinance of God, as the text 
 proveth. But cavaliers resist the inferior 
 judges as men, and have killed divers 
 members of both houses of parliament ; but 
 they will not say that they killed them as 
 
 x 
 
146 
 
 LKX, REX ; OR, 
 
 judges, but as rebels. If, therefore, to be a 
 rebel, as a wicked man, and to be a judge, 
 are differenced thus, then, to be a man, 
 and commit some acts of tyranny, and to be 
 the supreme judge and king, are two diffe- 
 rent things. 
 
 12. The congregation, in a letter to the 
 nobility, (Knox, Hist, of Scotland, 1. 2.) say, 
 " There is great difference betwixt the au- 
 thority, which is God's ordinance, and the 
 persons of those who are placed in authority. 
 The authority and God's ordinance can never 
 do wrong, for it commandeth that vice and 
 wicked men be punished, and virtue, with 
 virtuous men and just, be maintained ; but 
 the corrupt person placed in this authority 
 may offend, and most commonly do contrary 
 to this authority. And is then the corrup- 
 tion of man to be followed, by reason that 
 it is clothed with the name of authority ?" 
 And they give instance in Pharaoh and 
 Saul, who were lawful kings and yet corrupt 
 men. And certainly the man and the divine 
 authority differ, as the subject and the acci- 
 dent, — as that which is under a law and can 
 offend God, and that which is neither capa- 
 ble of law nor sin. 
 
 13. The king, as king, is a just creature, 
 and by office a living and breathing law. His 
 will, as he is king, is nothing but a just law; 
 but the king, as a sinful man, is not a just 
 creature, but one who can sin and play the 
 tyrant ; and his will, as a private sinful man, 
 is a private will, and may be resisted. So the 
 law saith, " The king, as king, can do no 
 wrong," but the king, as a man, may do a 
 wrong. While as, then, the parliaments of 
 both kingdoms resist the king's private will, 
 as a man, and fight against his illegal cut- 
 throats, sent out by him to destroy his native 
 subjects, they fight for him as a king, and 
 obey his public legal will, which is his royal 
 will, de jure ; and while he is absent from 
 his parliaments as a man, he is legally and 
 in his law-power present, and so the parlia- 
 ments are as legal as if he were personally 
 present with them. 
 
 Let me answer royalists. — The P. Prelate 
 saith it is Solomon's word, " By me kings 
 reign ;" — kings, in concreto, with their sove- 
 reignty. He saith not, by me royalty or 
 sovereignty reigneth. And elsewhere he 
 saith that Barclay saith, " Paul, writing to 
 the Romans, keepeth the usual Roman dic- 
 tion in this, — who express by powers, in ab- 
 stractor the persons authorised by power, — 
 and it is the Scripture's dialect: by him 
 
 were created " thrones, dominions, princi- 
 palities," that is, angels; to say angels, in 
 abstracto, were created, (2 Pet. ii. 10,) 
 They " speak evil of dignities," Jude viii., 
 " despise dominion," that is, they speak ill 
 of Cajus, Caligula, Nero. Our Levites rail 
 against the Lord's anointed, — the best of 
 kings in the world. Nero, (Rom. xii. 4,) 
 in concreto, beareth not the sword in vain. 
 Arnisaeus saith it better than the Prelate, 1 
 (he is a witless thief,) Rom. xiii. 4, " The 
 royal power, in abstracto, doth not bear the 
 sword, but the person; not the power, but 
 the prince himself beareth the sword." And 
 the Prelate, poor man, following Dr Feme, 
 saith, " It is absurd to pursue the king's 
 person with a cannon bullet at Edgehill, and 
 preserve his authority at London, or else- 
 where." So saith Feme, (sect. 10, p. 64,) 
 " The concrete powers here are purposed as 
 objects of our obedience, which cannot be 
 directed but upon power in some person ; for 
 it is said, «; dca, «!«!«■;«< The powers that be 
 are of God." Now power cannot be ,irx 
 existent but in some person ; and, saith 
 Feme, " Can power in the abstract have 
 praise ? Or is tribute paid to the power in 
 the abstract ? Yea, the power is the reason 
 why we yield obedience to the person," &c. 
 The Prelate hath as much learning as to 
 copy out of Feme, Barclay, Arnisaeus, and 
 others, these words and the like, but hath 
 not wit to add the sinews of these authors' 
 reason ; and with all this he can in his pre- 
 face call it his own, and " provoke any to 
 answer him if they dare ;" whereas, while I 
 answer this excommunicated pamphleteer, I 
 answer these learned authors, from which 
 he stealeth all he hath ; and yet he must 
 persuade the king he is the only man who 
 can defend his Majesty's cause, and " the 
 importunity (forsooth) of friends extorted 
 this piece," as if it were a fault that this 
 delphic oracle (giving out railings and lies 
 for responses) should be silent. 1. Not we 
 only, but the Holy Ghost, in terminis, hath 
 this distinction, Acts iv. 19 ; v. 29, " We 
 ought to obey God rather than men." Then 
 rulers (for of rulers sitting in judgment is 
 that speech uttered) commanding and ty- 
 rannising over the apostles, are men con- 
 tradistinguished from God ; and as they 
 command and punish unjustly, they are but 
 men, otherwise commanding for God, they 
 are gods, and more than men. 2. From 
 
 1 ArniBaeus de potest, princip. c. 2, 11, 17. 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 147 
 
 Theophylact also, or from Chrysostom on 
 Rom. xiii. we have this, — The apostle 
 speaketh not (say they) <r.j) «wi **6 i™™ 
 
 i^itruv, iXXa. «•!£< aurou rou v^iy/utrcf. 3. 
 
 Sovereignty or royalty doth not properly 
 reign or bear the sword, or receive praise, 
 and this accident doth not bear a sword ; 
 nor do we think (or Paul speak, Rom. xiii.) 
 of the abstracted due of power and royalty, 
 subsisting out of its subject ; nor dream we 
 that the naked accident of royal authority 
 is to be feared and honoured as the Lord's 
 anointed ; the person or man who is the 
 king, and beareth the crown on his head, 
 and holdeth the sceptre in his hand, is to 
 be obeyed. Accidents are not persons ; but 
 they speak nonsense, and are like brute 
 beasts who deny that all the kingly honour 
 due to the king must be due to him as a 
 king, and because of the royal dignity that 
 God hath given to him, and not because he 
 is a man ; for a pursuivant's son is a man ; 
 and if a pursuivant's son would usurp the 
 throne, and take the crown on his head, 
 and the sceptre in his hand, and command 
 that all souls be subject to such a superior 
 power, because he is a man, the laws of 
 Scotland would hang a man for a less fault, 
 we know ; and the P. Prelate was wont to 
 edify women, and converted souls to Christ, 
 with such a distinction as objectum quod 
 and objectum quo, in the pulpits of Edin- 
 burgh, and it hath good use here ; we never 
 took abstract royalty to be the king. The 
 kings of Scotland of old were not second 
 notions, and we exclude not the person of 
 the king ; yet we distinguish, with leave of 
 the P. Prelate, betwixt the person in linea 
 physica (we must take physica largly here) 
 and in linea morali, obedience, fear, tri- 
 bute, honour is due to the person of the 
 king, and to the man who is king, not be- 
 cause of his person, or because he is a man, 
 (the P. Prelate may know in what notion 
 we take the name person,) but because 
 God, by the people's election, hath exalted 
 him to royal dignity ; and for this cause 
 ill-doers are to subject their throats and 
 necks to the sword of the Lord's anointed's 
 executioner or hangman, with patience, 
 and willingly ; because, in taking away the 
 head of ill-doers, for ill-doing, he is acting 
 the office of the Lord, by whom he reign- 
 eth ; but if he take away their heads, and 
 send out the long-tusked vultures and boars 
 of Babylon, the Irish rebels, to execute his 
 wrath, as he is in that act a misinformed 
 
 man, and wanteth the authority of God's 
 law and man's law, he may be resisted with 
 arms. For, 1. If royalists say against this, 
 then, if a king turn an habitual tyrant, and 
 induce an hundred thousand Turks to 
 destroy his subjects upon mere desire of 
 revenge, they are not to resist, but to be 
 subject, and suffer for conscience. I am 
 sure Grotius saith, 1 " If a king sell his sub- 
 jects, he loseth all title to the crown, and 
 so may be resisted ;" and Winzetus saith, 2 
 " A tyrant may be resisted ;" and Barclay, 3 
 " It is lawful for the people, in case of ty- 
 ranny, to defend themselves, adversus im- 
 manent scevetiam, against extreme cruelty." 
 And I desire the Prelate to answer how 
 people are subject in suffering such cruelty 
 of the higher power, because he is God's 
 ordinance, and a power from God, except 
 he say, as he selleth his people, and barba- 
 rously destroyeth by the cut-throat Irish- 
 men, his whole subjects refusing to worship 
 idols, he is a man and a sinful man, eatenus, 
 and an inferior power inspired by wicked 
 counsel, not a king, eatenus, not a higher 
 power ; and that in resisting him thus, the 
 subjects resist not the ordinance of God. 
 Also suppose king David defend his king- 
 dom and people against Jesse, his natural 
 father, who we suppose cometh in against 
 his son and prince, king David, with a huge 
 army of the Philistines to destroy him and 
 his kingdom, if lie shall kill his own native 
 father in that war, at some Edgehill, how 
 shall he preserve at Jerusalem that honour 
 and love that he oweth to his father, by 
 virtue of the fifth commandment, " Honour 
 thy father and thy mother, &c," let them an- 
 swer this ; except king David consider Jesse 
 in one relation, in abstracto, as his father, 
 whom he is to obey, and as he is a wicked 
 man, and a perfidious subject, in another 
 relation ; and except king David say, he is 
 to subject himself to his father, as a father, 
 according to the fifth commandment, and 
 that in the act of his father's violent inva- 
 sion, he is not to subject himself to him, as 
 he is a violent invader, and as a man. Let 
 the royalist see how he can answer the ar- 
 gument, and how Levi is not to know his 
 father and mother, as they are sinful men, 
 (Deut. xxxiii. 9,) and yet to know and 
 honour them as parents; and how an Is- 
 
 i Grot, de jur. et pacis, 1. 1, c. 4, n. 7. 
 
 2 Winzetus Vclitat. adver. Buchanan. 
 
 3 Barcl. adv. Monarchom. lib. 3, c. 8. 
 
148 
 
 iex, rex; ok, 
 
 raelite is not to pity the wife that lieth in 
 his bosom, when she enticeth him " to go 
 a whoring after strange gods," but is to kill 
 her, (Deut. xiii. 6 — 8,) and yet the husband 
 is to " love the wile, as Christ loved his 
 church," Eph. v. 25. If the husband take 
 away his wife's life in some mountain in the 
 Holy Land, as God's law commandeth, let 
 the royalists answer us, where is then the 
 marital love he owes to her, and that re- 
 spect due to her as she is a wife and a 
 helper ? 2. But let not the royalist infer that 
 I am from these examples pleading for the 
 killing of kings ; for lawful resistance is one 
 thing, and killing of kings is another, — the 
 one defensive and lawful, the other offen- 
 sive and unlawful, so long as he remaineth a 
 king, and the Lord's anointed ; but if he 
 be a murderer of his father, who doth coun- 
 sel his father to come to a place of danger 
 where he may be killed, and where the king 
 ought not to be; as Abner was worthy of 
 death, who watched not carefully king Saul, 
 but slept when David came to his bedside, 
 and had opportunity to kill the king ; they 
 are traitors and murderers of the king, who 
 either counselled his Majesty to come to 
 Edgehill, where the danger was so great, 
 or did not violently restrain him from com- 
 ing thither, seeing kings' safety and lives 
 are as much, yea, more, in the disposing of 
 the people than in their own private will 
 (2 Sam. xviii. 2, 3) ; for certainly the peo- 
 ple might have violently restrained king 
 Saul from killing himself; and the king is 
 guilty of his own death, and sinneth against 
 his office and subjects, who comet h out in 
 person to any such battles where he may be 
 killed, and the contrary party free of his 
 blood. And here our Prelate is blind, if 
 he see not the clear difference between the 
 king's person and his office as king, and 
 between his private will and his public and 
 royal will. 3. The angels may be named 
 thrones and dominions in abstracto, and yet 
 created in concreto, and we may say the 
 angel and his power are both created at 
 once ; but David was not both born the son 
 of Jesse and a king at once ; and the P. 
 Prelate by this may prove it is not lawful 
 to resist the devil, (tor he is of the number 
 of these created angels, Col. i.,) as he is a 
 devil; because in resisting the devil as a 
 devil, we must resist an angel of God and a 
 principality. 4. To speak evil of dignities, 
 (2 Pet. ii. ; Jude viii..) Piscator insinuateth, 
 is, to speak evil of the very office of rulers, 
 
 as well as of their manners ; and Theodat. 
 saith, on 2 Pet. ii., that " these railers 
 speak evil of the place of governors and 
 masters, as unbeseeming believers." All 
 our interpreters, as Beza, Calvin, Luther, 
 Bucer, Marloratus, from the place, saith it 
 is a special reproof of anabaptists and liber- 
 tines, who in that time maintained that we 
 are all free men in Christ, and that there 
 should not be kings, masters, nor any ma- 
 gistrates. However the abstract is put for 
 the concrete, it is true, and it saith we are 
 not to rail upon Nero ; but to say Nero was 
 a persecutor of Christians, and yet obey him 
 commanding what is just, are very consis- 
 tent. 5. " The persons are proposed (Rom. 
 xiii.) to be the object of our obedience," 
 saith Dr Feme. This is very true : but he 
 is ignorant of our mind in exponing the 
 word person. We never meant that fear, 
 honour, royalty, tribute, must be due to the 
 abstracted accident of kingly authority, and 
 not to the man who is king ; nor is it our 
 meaning that royalty, in abstracto, is 
 crowned king, and is anointed, but that 
 the person is crowned and anointed. But, 
 again, by a person, we mean nothing less 
 than the man Nero wasting Rome, burn- 
 ing, crucifying Paul, and torturing Chris- 
 tians ; and that we owe subjection to Nero, 
 and to his person in concreto, as to God's 
 ordinance, God's minister, God's sword- 
 bearer, in that notion of a person, is that 
 only that we deny. Nay, in that Nero, in 
 concreto, to us is no power ordained of God, 
 no minister of God, but a minister of the 
 devil, and Satan's armour-bearer, and there- 
 fore we owe not fear, honour, subjection, or 
 tribute to the person of Nero. But the 
 person thus far is the object of our obedi- 
 ence, that fear, honour, subjection and tri- 
 bute must be due to the man in concreto, 
 to his person who is prince, but not because 
 he is a man, or a person simply, or a sword- 
 bearer of papists, but for his office, — for 
 that eminent place of royal dignity that 
 God hath conferred on his person. We 
 know the light of the sun, the heat of fire, 
 in abstracto, do not properly give light and 
 heat, but the sun and fire in concreto ; yet 
 the jjrincipium quo, ratio qua, the prin- 
 ciples of these operations in sun and fire be 
 lioht and heat ; and we ascribe illuminating 
 of dark bodies, heating of cold bodies, to sun 
 and fire in concreto, yet not to the subjects 
 simply, but to them as affected with such 
 accidents; so here we honour and submit to 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 149 
 
 the man who is king, not because he is a 
 man, that were treason ; not because he 
 useth his sword against the church, that 
 were impiety ; but because of his royal dig- 
 nity, and because he useth it for the Lord. 
 It is true, Arnisseus, Barclay, and Feme, 
 say, " That kings leave not off to be kings 
 when they use their power and sword against 
 the church and religion. And also it is 
 considerable, that when the worst of em- 
 perors, bloody Nero, did reign, the apostle 
 presseth the duty of subjection to him, as 
 to a power appointed of God, and condemn- 
 eth the resisting of Nero, as the resisting of 
 an ordinance of God. And certainly, if 
 the cause and reason, in point of duty mo- 
 ral, and of conscience before God remain in 
 kings, to wit, that while they are enemies 
 and persecutors, as Nero was, their royal 
 dignity, given them of God remaineth, then 
 subjection upon that ground is lawful, and 
 resistance unlawful." — Ans. It is true, so 
 long as kings remain kings, subjection is due 
 to them because kings ; but that is not the 
 question. The question is, if subjection be 
 due to them, when they use their power 
 unlawfully and tyrannically. Whatever Da- 
 vid did, though he was a king, he did it 
 not as king ; he deflowered not Bathsheba 
 as king, and Bathsheba might with bodily 
 resistance and violence lawfully have re- 
 sisted king David, though kingly power re- 
 mained in him, while he should thus attempt 
 to commit adultery ; else David might have 
 said to Bathsheba, " Because I am the 
 Lord's anointed, it is rebellion in thee, a 
 subject, to oppose any bodily violence to my 
 act of forcing of thee ; it is unlawful to thee 
 to cry for help, for if any shall offer vio- 
 lently to rescue thee from me, he resisteth 
 the ordinance of God." Subjection is due to 
 Nero as an emperor, but not any subjection 
 is due to him in the burning of Borne, and 
 torturing of Christians, except you say that 
 Nero's power abused in these acts of cruelty 
 was, 1. A power from God. 2. An ordi- 
 dance of God. 3. That in these he was the 
 minister of God for the good of the com- 
 monwealth. Because some believed Chris- 
 tians were free from the yoke of magistracy, 
 and that the dignity itself was unlawful ; 
 and because (c. 12) he had set down the 
 lawful church rulers, and in this and the fol- 
 lowing chapter, the duties of brotherly love 
 of one toward another ; so here (c. 13) he 
 teacheth that all magistrates, suppose hea- 
 ther., are to be obeved and submitted unto 
 
 in all things, so far as they are ministers 
 of God. ArnisiBus objecteth to Buchanan, 
 " If we are by this place to subject ourselves 
 to every power, in abstracto, then also to a 
 power contrary to the truth, and to a power 
 of a king exceeding the limits of a king ; 
 for such a power is a power, and we are not 
 to distinguish where the law distinguisheth 
 not." 
 
 Ans. 1. — The law clearly distinguisheth 
 we are to obey parents in the Lord, and if 
 Nero command idolatry, this is an excessive 
 power. Are we obliged to obey, because the 
 law distinguisheth not ? 2. The text saith 
 we are to obey every power from God that 
 is God's oidinance, by which the man is a 
 minister of God for good ; but an unjust 
 and excessive power is none of these three. 
 3. The text in words distinguisheth not 
 obedience active in things wicked and law- 
 ful, yet we are to distinguish. 
 
 Symmons. — Is authority subjected solely 
 in the king's law, and no whit in his person, 
 though put upon him both by God and 
 man ? Or, is authority only the subject, 
 and the person exercising the authority, a 
 bare accident to that, being in it only more 
 separably, as pride and folly are in a man. 
 Then, if one in authority command out of 
 his own will, and not by law, — if I neither 
 actively nor passively obey, I do not so much 
 as resist abused authority ; and then must 
 the prince, by his disorderly will, have quite 
 lost his authority and become like another 
 man ; and yet his authority has not fled from 
 him. 
 
 Ans. 1. — If we speak accurately, neither 
 the man solely, nor his power only, is re- 
 sisted ; but the man clothed with lawful ha- 
 bitual power, is resisted in such and such 
 acts flowing from an abused power. 2. It 
 is an ignorant speech to ask, Is authority 
 subjected solely in the king's law, and no 
 whit in his person, for the authority hath 
 all its power by law, not from the man's 
 person ? The authority hath nothing from 
 the person but a naked inheritance in the 
 person, as in the subject ; and the person is 
 to be honoured for the authority, not the 
 authority for the person. 3. Authority is 
 not so separable from the person, as that for 
 every act of lawless will the king loseth 
 his royal authority and ceaseth to be king. 
 No, but every act of a king, in so far, can 
 claim subjection of the interior, as the act 
 of commanding and ruling hath law tor it ; 
 and in so far as it is lawless, the person in 
 
150 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 that act repugnant to law loseth all due 
 claim of actual subjection in that act, and in 
 that act power actual is lost, as is clear, 
 Acts iv. 19 ; v. 29. The apostles say to 
 rulers, It is safer to obey God than man. 
 What ! Were not these rulers lawful ma- 
 gistrates armed with power from God ? I 
 answer, habitually they were rulers and more 
 than men, and to obey them in things law- 
 ful is to obey God. But, actually, in these 
 unlawful commandments, especially being 
 commanded to speak no more in the name 
 of Jesus, the apostles do acknowledge them 
 to be no more but men ; and so their actual 
 authority is as separable from the person, as 
 pride and folly from men. 
 
 Symmons. — The distinction holdeth good 
 of inferior magistrates, that they may be 
 considered as magistrates and as men, be- 
 cause their authority is only sacred, and 
 addeth veneration to their persons, and is 
 separable from the person. The man may 
 live when his authority is extinguished, but 
 it holdeth not in kings. King Saul's per- 
 son is venerable as his authority, and his 
 authority cometh by inheritance, and dieth, 
 and liveth, inseparably with his person ; and 
 authority and person add honour, each one 
 to another. 
 
 Ans. 1. — If this be true, Manasseh, a 
 king, did not shed innocent blood and use 
 sorcery. He did not these great wicked- 
 nesses as a man, but as a king. Solomon 
 played the apostate as a king, not as a man, 
 if so, the man must make the king more in- 
 fallible than the Pope ; for the Pope, as a 
 man, can err ; — as a pope he cannot err, say 
 papists. But prophets, in their persons, 
 were anointed of God as Saul and David 
 were, then must we say, Nathan and Sa- 
 muel erred not as men, because their per- 
 sons were sacred and anointed, and sure 
 they erred not as prophets, therefore they 
 erred not all. A king, as a king, is an holy 
 ordinance of God, and so cannot do injus- 
 tice, therefore they must do acts of justice 
 as men. 1. The inferior judge is a power 
 from God. 2. To resist him is to resist 
 an ordinance of God. 3. He is not a ter- 
 ror to good works, but to evil. 4. He is a 
 minister of God for good. 5. He is God's 
 sword-bearer. His official power to rule 
 may by as good right come by birth as the 
 crown ; and the king's person is sacred only 
 for his office, and is anointed only for his 
 office. For then the Chaldeans dishonoured 
 not inferior judges (Lam. v. 12,) when they 
 
 " hanged the prince, and honoured not the 
 faces of elders." It is in question, if the 
 king's actual authority be not as separable 
 from him, as the actual authority of the 
 judge. 
 
 Symmons (p. 24). — The king himself may 
 use this distinction. As a Christian he may 
 forgive any that offendeth against his per- 
 son, but as a judge, he must punish, in re- 
 gard of his office. 
 
 Ans. — Well, then, flatterers will grant 
 the distinction, when the king doth good 
 and pardoneth the blood of protestants, shed 
 by bloody rebels ; but when the king doth 
 acts of injustice, he is neither man nor king, 
 but some independent absolute god. 
 
 Symmons (p. 27). — God's word tyeth me 
 to every one of his personal commandments, 
 as well as his legal commandments. Nor do 
 I obey the king's law, because it is esta- 
 blished, or because of its known penalty, 
 nor yet the king himself, because he ruleth 
 according to law, but I obey the king's law, 
 because I obey the king ; and I obey the 
 king, because I obey God ; I obey the king 
 and his law, because I obey God and his 
 law. Better obey the command for a re- 
 verent regard to the prince than for a pen- 
 alty. 
 
 Ans. — It is hard to answer a sick man. 
 It is blasphemy to seek this distinction of 
 person and office in the King of kings, be- 
 cause by person in a mortal lung, we under- 
 stand a man that can sin. 1. I am not 
 obliged to obey his personal commandment, 
 except I were his domestic ; nor his unlaw- 
 ful personal commandments, because they 
 are sinful. 2. It is false that you obey the 
 king's law, because you obey the king ; for 
 then you say but this, I obey the king be- 
 cause I obey the king. The truth is, obe- 
 dience is not formally terminated on the 
 person of the king. Obedience is relative 
 to a precept, and it is men-service to obey a 
 law, not because it is good and just, but upon 
 this formal motive, because it is the will of 
 a mortal man to command it. And reve- 
 rence, love, fear, being acts of the affection, 
 are not terminated on a law, but properly on 
 the person of the judge ; and they are modi- 
 fications, or laudable qualifications of acts of 
 obedience, not motives, not the formal reason 
 why I obey, but the manner how I obey. 
 And the apostle maketh expressly (Rom. 
 xiii. 4) fear of punishment a motive of obe- 
 dience, while he saith, " He beareth not 
 the sword in vain," therefore be subject to 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 151 
 
 the king ; and this hindereth not personal 
 resistance to unjust commandments. 
 
 Symmons (p. 27 — 29). — " You say, ' To 
 obey the prince's personal commandment 
 against his legal will, is to obey himself 
 against himself.' So say I, ' To obey his 
 legal will against his personal will, is to 
 obey himself against himself, for I take his 
 person to be himself.' " 
 
 Ans. — 1. To obey the king's personal will, 
 when it is sinful, (as we now suppose,) against 
 his legal will, is a sin, and a disobedience to 
 God and the king also, seeing the law is the 
 king's will as king ; but to obey his legal 
 will, against his sinful personal will, (as it 
 must be sinful if contrary to a just law,) is 
 obedience to the king as king, and so obe- 
 dience to God. 2. You take the king's 
 person to be himself, but you take quid pro 
 quo ; for his person here you must not take 
 physically, for his suppost of soul and body, 
 but morally : it is the king, as a sinful man 
 doing his worst will against the law, which 
 is his just and best will, and the rule of the 
 subjects. And the king's personal will is so 
 far just, and to regulate the subjects, in so 
 far as it agreeth with his legal will or his 
 law, and this will can sin, and therefore may 
 be crossed without breach of the fifth com- 
 mandment ; but his legal will cannot be 
 crossed without disobedience both to God 
 and the king. 
 
 Symmons (p. 28). — The king's personal 
 will doth not always presuppose passion ; 
 and if it be attended with passion, yet we 
 must bear it for conscience sake. — Ans. We 
 are to obey the king's personal will, when 
 the thing commanded is not sin ; but his 
 subjects, as subjects, have little to do with 
 his personal will in that notion. It con- 
 cerneth his domestic servant, and is the 
 king's will as he is the master of servants, 
 not as he is king in relation to subjects ; 
 but we speak of the king's personal will as 
 repugnant to law, and contrary to the king's 
 will as king, and so contrary to the filth 
 commandment; and this is attended often 
 not only with passion, but also with pre- 
 judice ; and we owe no subjection to pre- 
 judice and passions, or to actions commanded 
 by these disordered powers, because they 
 are not from God, nor his ordinances, but 
 from men and the flesh, and we owe no 
 subjection to the flesh. 
 
 Dr Feme (sect. 9, p. 58). — The distinc- 
 tion of personal and legal will hath place in 
 evil actions, but not in resistance, where we 
 
 cannot sever the person and the dignity, 
 or authority, because we cannot resist the 
 power but we must resist the person who 
 hath the power. Saul had lawfully the 
 command of arms, but that power he useth 
 unjustly, against innocent David. I ask, 
 When these emperors took away lives and 
 goods at their pleasure, was that a power 
 ordained of God ? No, but an illegal will, 
 a tyranny — but they might not resist ; nay, 
 but they cannot resist ; for that power and 
 sovereignty employed to compass these il- 
 legal commandments was ordained and 
 settled in them. When Pilate condemned 
 our Saviour, it was an illegal will, yet our 
 Saviour acknowledged in it, that Pilate's 
 power was given him from above. 
 
 Ans. — 1. Here we have the distinction 
 denied by royalists, granted by Dr Feme. 
 But if, when the king commands us to do 
 wickedness, we may resist that personal will, 
 and when he commandeth us to suffer un- 
 justly we cannot resist his will but we must 
 resist also his royal person ; what ! is it 
 not still the king, and his person sacred, as 
 his power is sacred, when he commandeth 
 the subjects to do unjustly, as when he com- 
 mandeth them to suffer unjustly ? It were 
 fearful to say, when kings command any 
 one act of idolatry, they are no longer kings. 
 If, for conscience, I am to suffer unjustly, 
 when Nero commandeth unjust punishment, 
 because Nero commanding so, remaineth 
 God's minister, why, but when Nero com- 
 mandeth me to worship an heathen god, 
 I am upon the same ground to obey that 
 unjust will in doing ill ; for Nero, in com- 
 manding idolatry, remaineth the Lord's 
 minister, his person is sacred in the one com- 
 mandment of doing ill, as in inflicting ill of 
 punishment. And do I not resist his per- 
 son in the one as in the other ? His power 
 and his person are as inseparably conjoined 
 by God in the one as in the other. 2. In 
 bodily thrusting out of Uzziah from the 
 temple, these fourscore valiant men did re- 
 sist the king's person by bodily violence, as 
 well as his power. 3. If the power of killing 
 the martyrs in Nero was no power ordained 
 of God, then the resisting of Nero, in his 
 taking away the lives of the martyrs, was 
 but the resisting of tyranny ; and certain- 
 ly, if that power in Nero was riray/iiyr, a 
 power ordained of God, and not to be re- 
 sisted, as the place (Pom. xiii.) is alleged 
 by royalists, then it must be a lawful power, 
 and no tyranny ; and if it cannot be re- 
 
152 
 
 LEX, REX ; OK, 
 
 sisted, because it was a power ordained and 
 settled in him, it is either settled by God, 
 and so not tyranny, (except God be the 
 author of tyranny,) or then settled by the 
 devil, and so may well be resisted. But the 
 text speaketh of no power but of that which 
 is of God. 4. We are not to be subject to 
 all powers in concreto, by the text ; for we 
 are not to be subject to powers lawful, yet 
 commanding active obedience to things un- 
 lawful. Now subjection includeth active 
 obedience of honour, love, fear, paying tri- 
 bute, and therefore of need force, some 
 powers must be excepted. 5. Pilate's 
 power is merely a power by divine permis- 
 sion, not a power ordained of God, as are 
 the powers spoken of, Rom. xiii. Gregorius 
 (mor. 1. 3, c. 11) expressly saith, — " This 
 was Satan's power given to Pilate against 
 Christ. Manibus Satance pro nostra re- 
 demptione se tradidit." Lyra, " A prin- 
 cipibus Romanorum et ulterius permissum 
 a deo, qui est potestas, superior." Calvin, 
 Beza and Diodatus, saith the same ; and 
 that he cannot mean of legal power from 
 God's regulating will is evident, 1. Because 
 Christ is answering Pilate, (John xix. 10,) 
 " Knowest though not that I have power 
 to crucify thee?" This was an untruth. 
 Pilate had a command to worship him, and 
 believe in him ; and whereas Feme saith, 
 (sect. 9, p. 59,) " Pilate had power to 
 judge any accused before him ;" it is true ; 
 but he being obliged to beheve in Christ, 
 he was obliged to believe in Christ's inno- 
 cency, and so neither to judge nor receive 
 accusation against him ; and the power he 
 saith he had to crucify, was a law-power in 
 Pilate's meaning, but not in very deed any 
 law power ; because a law-power is from 
 God's regulating will in the fifth command- 
 ment, but no creature hath a lawful or a 
 law-power to crucify Christ. 2. A law- 
 power is for good, (Rom. xiii. 4,) a power 
 to crucify Christ is for ill. 3. A law-power 
 is a terror to ill works, and a praise to good : 
 Pilate's power to crucify Christ was the con- 
 trary. 4. A law-power is to execute wrath 
 on ill-doing, a power to crucify Christ is no 
 such. 5. A law-power conciliateth honour, 
 fear, and veneration, to the person of the 
 judge, a power to crucify Christ conciliateth 
 no such thing, but a disgrace to Pilate. 6. 
 The genuine acts of a lawful power are law- 
 ful acts ; for such as is the fountain-power, 
 such are the acts flowing therefrom. Good 
 acts flow not from bad powers, neither hath 
 
 God given a power to sin, except by way of 
 permission. 
 
 QUESTION XXX. 
 
 WHETHER OR NO PASSIVE OBEDIENCE BE A 
 MEAN TO WHICH WE ARE SUBJECTED IN 
 CONSCIENCE, BY VIRTUE OF A DIVINE COM- 
 MANDMENT ; AND WHAT A MEAN RESIST- 
 ANCE IS. THAT FLYING IS RESISTANCE. 
 
 Much is built, to commend patient suf- 
 fering of ill, and to condemn all resistance of 
 superiors, by royalists, on the place, 1 Pet. 
 ii. 18, where we are commanded, being ser- 
 vants, to suffer buffets not only for ill-doing 
 of good masters, but also undeservedly ; and 
 when we do well, we are to suffer of those 
 masters that are evil; and so much more 
 are we patiently without resistance to suffer 
 of kings. But it is clear, the place is no- 
 thing against resistance, as in these assertions 
 I clear : — 
 
 Assert. 1. — Patient suffering of wicked 
 men, and violent resisting are not incom- 
 patible, but they may well stand together ; 
 so this consequence is the basis of the argu- 
 ment, and it is just nothing : to wit, ser- 
 vants are to suffer unjustly wounds and 
 buffeting of their wicked masters, and they 
 are to bear it patiently ; therefore, servants 
 are in conscience obliged to non-resistance. 
 Now, Scripture maketh this clear, — 1. The 
 church of God is to bear with all patience 
 the indignation of the Lord, because she 
 hath sinned, and to suffer of wicked enemies 
 which were to be trodden as mire in the 
 streets (Micah vii. 9 — 12) ; but withal, 
 they were not obliged to non-resistance and 
 not to fight against these enemies, yea, they 
 were obliged to fight against them also. If 
 these were Babylon, Judah might have re- 
 sisted and fought if God had not given a 
 special commandment of a positive law, that 
 they should not fight; if these were the 
 Assyrians and other enemies, or rather 
 both, the people were to resist by fighting, 
 and yet to endure patiently the indignation 
 of the Lord. David did bear most patiently 
 the wrong that his own son Absalom, and 
 Ahitophel, and the people inflicted on him, 
 in pursuing him to take his life and the 
 kingdom from him, as is clear by his gra- 
 cious expressions (2 Sam. xv. 25, 26 ; xvi. 
 10—12; Psal. iii. 1 — 3); yea, he prayeth 
 
THE LAW AM) THE PRINCE. 
 
 153 
 
 far ;i blessing on the people that conspired 
 against him (Psal. iii. 8) ; yet did he law- 
 fully resist Absalom and the conspirators, 
 and sent out Joab and a huge army in open 
 battle against them, (2 Sam. xviii. 1—4, 
 &c.,) and fought against them. And were 
 not the people of God patient to endure the 
 violence done to them in the wilderness 
 by Og, king of Bashan ; Sihon, king of 
 Heshbon ; by the Amorites, Moabites, &c. ? 
 I think God's law tyeth all men, especially 
 his people, to as patient a suffering in wars. 
 (Deut. viii. 16.) God then trying and hum- 
 bling his people, as the servant is to endure 
 patiently, unjustly inflicted buffets (1 Pet. 
 ii. 18) ; and yet God's people at God's com- 
 mand did resist these kings and people, and 
 did fight and kill them, and possess their 
 land, as the history is clear. See the like 
 Josh. xi. 18, 19. 2. One act of grace and 
 virtue is not contrary to another ; resistance 
 is in the children of God an innocent act of 
 self-preservation, as is patient suffering, and 
 therefore they may well subsist in one. 
 And so saith Amasa by the Spirit of the 
 Lord, 1 Chron. xii. 18, " Peace, peace be 
 unto thee, and peace to thy helpers, for 
 God helpeth thee." Now, in that, David 
 and all his helpers were resisters of king 
 Saul. 3. The scope of the place (1 Pet. ii.) 
 is not to forbid all violent resisting, as is 
 clear he speaketh nothing of violent resisting 
 either one way or other, but only he for- 
 biddeth revengeful resisting of repaying one 
 wrong with another, from the example of 
 Christ, who, " when he was reviled, reviled 
 not again ; when he suffered, he threatened 
 not ;" therefore, the argument is a falacy, 
 ab eo quod docitur xara r), ad illud quod 
 dicitur a.wXus- Though therefore the mas- 
 ter should attempt to kill an innocent ser- 
 vant, and invade him with a weapon of 
 death suddenly, without all reason or cause, 
 or unavoidably, Dr Feme, (p. 3, sect. 2, p. 
 10,) in that case, doth free a subject from 
 guiltiness if he violently resist his prince ; 
 therefore, the servant who should violently 
 resist his master in the aforesaid case should, 
 and might patiently suffer and violently re- 
 sist, notwithstanding anything that royalists 
 can conclude on the contrary. 4. No prince 
 hath a masterly or lordly dominion over his 
 subjects, but only a free, ingenuous, paternal 
 and tutorly oversight for the good of the 
 people. (Rom. xiii. 4.) The master, espe- 
 cially in the apostle Peter's time, had a domi- 
 nion over servants as over their proper goods. 
 
 Assert. 2. — Neither suffering formally as 
 suffering, and so neither can non-resisting 
 passive fall under any moral law of God, 
 except in two conditions : 1. In the point 
 of Christ's passive obedience, he being the 
 eternal God as well as man, and so lord of 
 his own blood and life, by virtue of a special 
 commandment imposed on him by his Fa- 
 ther, was commanded to lay down his life, 
 yea, and to be an agent as well as a patient 
 in dying (Job. x. 18) ; yea, and actively he 
 was to contribute something for his own 
 death, and offer himself willingly to death 
 (Matt, xxviii. 20) ; and, knowing the hour 
 that he was to depart out of this world unto 
 the Father, (John xiii. 1,) would not only 
 not fly — which is to royalists lawful, to us a 
 special point of resistance (John xiv. 31 ; 
 xviii. 4—7) — but upbraided Peter as the 
 agent of Satan, who would dissuade him to 
 die, (Matt. xvi. 22, 23,) and would fight for 
 him. And he doth not fetch any argument 
 against Peter's drawing of his sword from 
 the unlawfulness of self-defence and innocent 
 resistance, (which he should have done if 
 royalists plead with any colour of reason 
 from his example, against the lawfulness of 
 resistance and self-defence,) but from the 
 absolute power of God. 2. From God's 
 positive will, who commanded him to die. 
 (Matt. xxvi. 53, 54.) If therefore royalists 
 prove anything against the lawfulness of re- 
 sisting kings, when they offer (most unjust- 
 ly) violence to the life of God's servants, 
 from this one merely extraordinary and 
 rare example of Christ, the like whereof was 
 never in the world, they may, from the 
 same example, prove it unlawiul to fly, for 
 Christ would not fly. (Psal. xl. 6, 7 ; Heb. 
 x. 6—9; John xiv. 31; xviii. 4—7.) 1. 
 They may prove that people sought by a ty- 
 rant to be crucified for the cause of God, are 
 to reveal and discover themselves to an army 
 of men who come to seek them. (John xiii. 
 1, 2; xviii. 4 — 7)- 2. That martyrs are of 
 purpose to go to the place where they know 
 they shall be apprehended and put to death, 
 for this Christ did, and are willingly to offer 
 themselves to the enemy's army, for so did 
 Christ (John xiv. 3; Mark xiv. 41, 42; 
 Matt. xxvi. 46, 47) ; and so by his example, 
 all the parliament, all the innocents of the 
 city of London, and assembly of divines, are 
 obliged to lay down arms and to go to their 
 own death to prince Rupert, and the bloody 
 Irish rebels. 3. By this example it is un- 
 lawful to resist the cut-throats of a kincr for 
 
154 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 in his own royal person — the high 
 priest in person, came not out against Christ ; 
 yea, it is not lawful for the parliament to 
 resist a Judas, who hath fled as a traitorous 
 apostate from the truth and the temple of 
 Christ. 4. It is not lawful for innocents to 
 defend themselves by any violence against 
 the invasion of superiors, in Dr Feme's 
 three cases in which he alloweth resistance : 
 (1.) When the invasion is sudden. (2.) Un- 
 avoidable. (3.) Without all colour of law 
 and reason. In the two last cases, royahsts 
 defend the lawfulness of self-defence. 5. 
 If the example be pressed, — Christ did not 
 this and that, he resisted not with violence, 
 to save his own life, therefore, we are to 
 abstain from resistance and such and such 
 means of self-preservation ; then, because 
 Christ appealed not from inferior judges to 
 the emperor Caesar ; who, no doubt, would 
 have shown him more favour than the scribes 
 and pharisees did, and because Christ con- 
 veyed not a humble supplication to his sove- 
 reign and father Caesar, — then because he 
 proffered not a humble petition to prince 
 Pilate for his life, he being an innocent man, 
 and his cause just, — because he neither pro- 
 cured an orator to plead his own just cause, 
 nor did he so plead for himself, and give 
 in word and writ, all lawful and possible de- 
 fences for his own safety, but answered 
 many things with silence, to the admiration 
 of the judge, (Mark xv. 3 — 5,) and was 
 thrice pronounced by the judge to be inno- 
 cent (Luke xxii. 23) ; because, I say, Christ 
 did not all these for his own life, therefore 
 it is unlawful for Scotland and England to 
 appeal to the king, to supplicate, to give in 
 apologies, &c. I think royalists dare not say 
 so. But if they say he would not resist, 
 and yet might have done all these lawfully, 
 because these be lawful means, and resis- 
 tance with the sword unlawful, — because 
 " He that taketh the sword, shall perish by 
 the sword," — let me answer then, 1. They 
 leave the argument from Christ's example, 
 who was thus far subject to higher powers, 
 that he would not resist, and plead from the 
 unlawfulness of resistance; this is petitio 
 principii. 2. He that taketh the sword 
 without God's warrant, which Peter had not, 
 but the contrary, he was himself a Satan to 
 Christ, who would but counsel him not to 
 die ; but there is no shadow of a word to 
 prove that violent resisting is unlawful, when 
 the king and his Irish cut-throats pursue us 
 unjustly ; only Christ saith, when God may 
 
 deliver extraordinarily by his angels, except 
 it be his absolute will that his Son should 
 drink the cup of death, then to take the 
 sword, when God hath declared his will on 
 the contrary, is unlawful; and that is all; 
 though I do not question but Christ's ask- 
 ing tor swords, and his arresting all his 
 enemies to the ground (John xviii. 6) back- 
 ward, is a justifying of self-defence. But 
 hitherto it is clear, by Christ's example, that 
 he only was commanded to suffer. Now the 
 second case in which suffering falleth under 
 a commandment, is indirectly and compa- 
 ratively, when it cometh to the election of 
 the witness of Jesus, that it is referred to 
 them, either to deny the truth of Christ 
 and his name, or then to suffer death. The 
 choice is apparently evident; and this choice 
 that persecutors refer us unto, is to us a 
 commandment of God, that we must choose 
 suffering for Christ, and refuse sinning 
 against Christ. But the supposition must 
 stand, that this alternative is unavoidable, 
 that is not in our power to decline either suf- 
 fering for Christ, or denying of Christ before 
 men ; otherwise no man is to expect the 
 reward of a witness of Jesus, who having 
 a lawful possible means of eschewing suffer- 
 ing, doth yet cast himself into suffering 
 needlessly. But I prove that suffering by 
 men of this world falleth not formally and 
 directly under any divine positive law ; for 
 the law of nature, — whatever Arminians in 
 their declaration, or this Arminian excom- 
 municate think with them, (for they teach 
 that God gave a commandment to Adam, 
 to abstain from such and such fruit, with 
 pain and trouble to sinless nature,) — doth 
 not command suffering, or anything con- 
 trary to nature, as nature is sinless : I prove 
 it thus : — 
 
 1. Whatever falleth under a positive com- 
 mandment of God, I may say here, under 
 any commandment of God, is not a thing 
 under the free will and power of others, 
 from whom we are not descended necessarily 
 by natural generation, but that men of the 
 world kill me, even these from whom I am 
 not descended by natural generation (which 
 I speak to exclude Adam, who killed all his 
 posterity) is not in my free will, either as if 
 they had my common nature in that act, or 
 as if I were accessory by counsel, consent, or 
 approbation to that act, for this is under the 
 free will and power of others, not under my 
 own free will; therefore, that I suffer by 
 others is not under my free will, and cannot 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 155 
 
 fall under a commandment of God ; and cer- 
 tainly it is an irrational law (glorified be his 
 name) that God should command Antipas 
 either formally to suffer, or formally not to 
 suffer death by these of the synagogue of 
 Satan, (Rev. ii. 13,) because if they be 
 pleased not to kill him, it is not in his free 
 will to be killed by them ; and if they shall 
 have him in their power (except God extra- 
 ordinarily deliver) it is not in his power, in 
 an ordinary providence, not to be killed. 
 
 2. All these places of God's word, that 
 recommendeth suffering to the followei'S of 
 Christ, do not command formally that we 
 suffer ; therefore, suffering falleth not for- 
 mally under any commandment of God. I 
 prove the antecedent, because if they be con- 
 sidered, they prove only that comparatively 
 we are to choose rather to suffer than to 
 deny Christ before men, (Mat. x. 28, 32 ; 
 Rev. ii. 13 ; Mat. x. 37 ; xvi. 24 ; xix. 29,) 
 or then they command not suffering accord- 
 ing to the substance of the passion, but ac- 
 cording to the manner that we suffer, will- 
 ingly, cheerfully, and patiently. Hence 
 Christ's word to take up his cross, which is 
 not a mere passion, but commendeth an act 
 of the virtue of patience. Now no Christian 
 virtue consisteth in a mere passion, but in 
 laudable habits, and good and gracious acts, 
 and the text we are now on (1 Pet. ii. 18, 
 19) doth not recommend suffering from the 
 example of Christ, but patient suffering; and 
 so the woi-d inrorairiroftsvou, not simply enjoined, 
 but U **vr) rZ p»C» in all fear, (ver. 18,) and 
 the words imtpi^M and i*ofiin~», to suffer with 
 patience, as 2 Tim. hi. 11; 1 Cor. x. 13, 
 and bxtfivuv, is to suffer patiently, 1 Cor. 
 xiii. 7, love natr* vreftim suffereth all 
 things ; Heb. xii. 17, if you suffer correc- 
 tion ; 1 Tim. v. 5, she continueth pa- 
 tiently in prayers ; Heb. xii. 2, Christ en- 
 dureth the cross patiently (Rom. xv. 5 ; 
 viii. 25; Luke viii. 15; xxi. 29). The deriva- 
 tions hence signify patience ; so do all our in- 
 terpreters, Reza, Calvin, Marloratus, and 
 popish expositors, as Lorinus, Estius, Carthu- 
 sian, Lyra, Hugo Cardinalis, expound it of 
 patient suffering; and the text is clear, it is 
 suffering like Christ, without rendering evil 
 for evil, and reviling for reviling. 
 
 3. Suffering simply, according to substance 
 of the passion, (I cannot say action,) is com- 
 mon to good and ill, and to the wicked, yea 
 to the damned in hell, who suffer against 
 their will, and that cannot be joined accord- 
 ing to its substance as an act of formal obedi- 
 
 ence and subjection to higher powers, kings, 
 fathers, masters, by force of the fifth com- 
 mandment, and of the place, Rom. xiii. 1, 2. 
 Which, according to its substance, wicked 
 men suffer, and the damned in hell also 
 against their will. 
 
 4. Passive obedience to wicked emperors 
 can but be enjoined (Rom. xiii.) but only in 
 the manner, and upon supposition, that we 
 must be subject to them, and must suffer 
 against our wills all the ill of punishment 
 that they can inflict ; we must suffer pa- 
 tiently, and because it is God's permissive 
 will that they punish us unjustly ; for it is 
 not God's ruling and approving will (called 
 voluntas signi) that they should, against the 
 law of God and man, kill us, and persecute 
 us ; and therefore neither Rom. xiii., nor 1 
 Pet. ii., nor any other place in God's word, 
 any common divine, natural, national or 
 any municipal law, commandeth formally 
 obedience passive, or subjection passive, or 
 non-resistance under the notion of passive 
 obedience ; yea, to me, obedience passive (if 
 we speak of obedience, properly called, as re- 
 lative essentially to a law) is a chimera, a 
 dream, and repugnantia in adjecto ; and 
 therefore I utterly deny that resistance pas- 
 sive, or subjection passive, doth formally fall 
 under either commandment of God affirma- 
 tive or negative ; only the unlawful manner 
 of resistance by way of revenge, or for de- 
 fence of popery and false religion, and out of 
 impatient toleration of monarchy or any ty- 
 ranny, is forbidden in God's word ; and cer- 
 tainly all the words used Rom. xiii., as they 
 fall under a formal commandment of God, are 
 words of action, not of any chimerical pas- 
 sive obedience, as we are not to resist active- 
 ly God's ordinance, as his ordinance, (ver. 
 1, 2,) that is, to resist God actively. We 
 are to do good works, not evil, if we would 
 have the ruler no terror to us (ver. 3). We 
 must not do ill if we would be free of venge- 
 ance's sword (ver. 7) ; we are to pay tribute 
 and to give fear and honour to the ruler, all 
 which are evidently actions, not passive sub- 
 jection ; and if any passive subjection be com- 
 manded, it is not here, nor in the first com- 
 mandment, commanded, but in the first 
 commandment under the hand of patience 
 and submission under God's hand in suffer- 
 ings, or in the third commandment under 
 the hand of rather dying for Christ than de- 
 nying his truth before men. Hence I argue 
 here (Rom. xiii. ; 1 Pet. ii. ; Tit. iii.) is 
 nothing else but an exposition of the fifth 
 
156 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 commandment ; but in the fifth command- 
 ment only active obedience is formally com- 
 manded, and the subordination of inferiors 
 to superiors is ordained, and passive obe- 
 dience is nowhere commanded, but only 
 modus rei, the manner of suffering, and the 
 occasion of the commandment, here it is 
 thought that the Jews converted under this 
 pretext, that they were God's people, be- 
 lieved that they should not be subject to the 
 Romans. A certain Galilean made the 
 Galileans believe that they should not pay 
 tribute to strangers, and that they should 
 call none lord, but the God of heaven ; as 
 Josephus saith, (Antiq. Judaic. 1. 20, c. 2, 
 and dc bell. Judaic. 1 7, c. 29,) yea and 
 Hieron. (Com. in Tit.,) saith, At this time 
 the sect of the Galileans were on foot. It is 
 like the Jews were thought to be Galileans, 
 and that their liberty, purchased in Christ, 
 could not consist with the order of master 
 and servant, king and subject. And to re- 
 move this, Paul established magistracy, and 
 commandeth obedience in the Lord ; and he 
 is more to prove the office of the magistrate 
 to be of God than any other thing, and to 
 show what is his due, than to establish abso- 
 luteness in Nero to be of God ; yea, to me, 
 every word in the text speaketh limitedness 
 of princes, and crieth down absoluteness : — 
 (1.) No power of God, (2.) no ordinance of 
 God, who is a terror to evil, but a praise 
 to good works, (3.) no minister of God for 
 good, &c. can be a power to which we sub- 
 mit ourselves on earth, as next unto God, 
 without controlmerit. That passive obedi- 
 ence falleth formally under no command- 
 ment of God, I prove thus : All obedience 
 liable to a divine commandment, doth com- 
 mend morally the performer of obedience, 
 as having a will conformed to God's moral 
 law, and deformity betwixt the will of him 
 who performeth not obedience, involveth the 
 non-obedient in wrath and guiltiness. But 
 non-passive subjection to the sword of the 
 judge doth not morally commend him that 
 suffereth not punishment; for no man is for- 
 mally a sinner against a moral law because 
 he suffereth not the ill of punishment, nor 
 is he morally good, or to be commended, 
 because he suffereth ill of punishment, but 
 because he doth the ill of sin. And all evil 
 of punishment unjustly inflicted hath God's 
 voluntas beneplaciti, the instrumental and 
 hidden decree of God, which ordereth both 
 good and ill, (Ephes. i. 11,) for its rule and 
 cause, and hath not God's will or approba- 
 
 tion called, voluntas signi, for its rule, both 
 is contrary to that will. I am sure Epipha- 
 nius, (1. 1, torn. 3, heres. 40,) Basihus (in 
 Psal. xxxii.), Nazianzen Orat. (ad subd. et 
 imperat^), Hilar, (li. ad Constant.), and Au- 
 gustine, all citeth these words, and saith the 
 same. If, then, passive subjection be not 
 commanded, non-subjection passive cannot 
 be forbidden, and this text, Kom. xiii., and 
 1 Pet. ii. cannot a whit help the bad cause 
 of royalists. All then must be reduced to 
 some action of resisting ; arguments for pas- 
 sive subjection, though there were shipfulsof 
 them, they cannot help us. 
 
 Assert. 3. — By the place, 1 Pet. ii., the 
 servant unjustly buffeted is not to buffet 
 his master again, but to bear patiently as 
 Christ did, who, when he was reviled, did 
 not revile again. Not because the place 
 condemneth resistance for self-defence, but 
 because buffeting again is formally re-of- 
 fending — not defending : defending is pro- 
 perly a warding off a blow or stroke. If my 
 neighbour come to kill me, and I can by no 
 means save my life by flight, I may defend 
 myself; and all divines say I may rather 
 kill ere I be killed, because I am nearer, by 
 the law of nature, and dearer to myself and 
 my own life than to my brother ; — but if I 
 kill him, out of malice or hatred, the act of 
 defending, by the unlawful manner of doing, 
 becometh an act of offending and murder ; 
 whence the mind of the blood-shedder will 
 vary the nature of the action from whence 
 this corollary doth naturally issue, that the 
 physical action of taking away the life mak- 
 eth not murder nor homicide, and so the 
 physical action of offending my neighbour is 
 not murder. 1. Abraham may kill his son, 
 — he for whom the cities of refiige were or- 
 dained, and did kill his brother, yet, not ' 
 hating him, he was not, by God's law, 
 judged a murderer; and, 2. It necessarily 
 hence followeth, that an act which is physi- 
 cally an act of offending my brother, yea 
 even to the taking away of his life, is often 
 morally and legally an act of lawful self- 
 defence : an offending of another, necessi- 
 tated from the sole invention of self-defence, 
 is no more but an act of innocent self-defence. 
 If David, with his men, had killed any of 
 Saul's men in a set battle, David and his 
 men only intending self-defence, the war on 
 David's part was mere defensive ; for physi- 
 cal actions of killing, indifferent of them- 
 selves, yet imperated by a principle of natu- 
 ral self-defence, and clothed with this formal 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 157 
 
 end of self-defence, or according to the sub- 
 stance of the action, the act is of self-defence. 
 If, therefore, one shall wound me deadly, 
 and I know it is my death, after that, to 
 kill the killer of myself, I being only a 
 private man, must be no act of self-defence, 
 but of homicide ; because it cannot be impe- 
 rated by a sinless dictate of a natural con- 
 science, for this end of self-defence, after I 
 know I am killed. Any mean not used for 
 preventing death must be an act of revenge, 
 not of self-defence, for it is physically un- 
 suitable for the intended end of self-defence. 
 And so, for a servant buffeted to buffet 
 ao-ain, is of the same nature, — the second 
 buffet not being a conducible mean to ward 
 the first buffet, but a mean to procure hea- 
 vier strokes, and, possibly, killing, it cannot 
 be an act of self-defence ; for an act of self- 
 defence must be an act destinated ex natura 
 rei, only for defence ; and if it be known to 
 be an act of sole offending, without any 
 known necessary relation of a mean to self- 
 defence as the end, it cannot be properly an 
 act of self-defence. 
 
 Assert. 4. — When the matter is lighter, 
 as in paying tribute, or suffering a buffet of 
 a rough master, though unjustly, we are not 
 to use any act of re-offending. For, though 
 I be not absolute lord of my own goods, and 
 so may not at my sole pleasure give tribute 
 and expend monies to the hurting of my 
 children, where I am not, by God's law or 
 man's law, obliged to pay tribute ; and 
 though I be not an absolute lord of my 
 members, to expose face, and cheeks, and 
 back, to stripes and whips at my own mere 
 will, yet have we a comparative dominion 
 given to us of God in matters of goods, and 
 disposing of our members, (I think I may 
 except the case of mutilation, which is a 
 little death,) for buffets, because Christ, no 
 doubt to teach us the like, would rather give 
 of his goods, and pay tribute where it was not 
 due, than that this scandal be in the way of 
 Christ, that Christ was no loyal subject to 
 lawful emperors and kings. And (1 Cor. ix.) 
 Paul would rather not take stipend, though 
 it was due to him, than hinder the course of 
 the gospel. And the like is 1 Cor. vi., where 
 the Corinthians were rather to suffer loss in 
 their goods than to go to law before infidel 
 judges, and by the hke to prevent greater 
 inconveniences, and mutilation, and death. 
 The Christian servant hath that dominion 
 over his members, rather to suffer buffets 
 than to ward off buffets with violent resis- 
 
 tance. But it is no consequence, that inno- 
 cent subjects should suffer death of tyrants, 
 and servants be killed by masters, and yet 
 that they shall not be allowed, by the law of 
 nature, to defend themselves, by re-offending, 
 when only self-defence is intended, because 
 we have not that dominion over life and 
 death. And therefore, as a man is his bro- 
 ther's murderer, who, with fro ward Cain, 
 will not be his brother's keeper, and may 
 preserve his brother's life, without loss of 
 his own life, when his brother is unjustly 
 preserved ; so, when he may preserve his 
 own life, and doth not that which nature's 
 law alloweth him to do, (rather to kill ere 
 he be killed,) he is guilty of self-murder, 
 because he is deficient in the duty of lawful 
 self-defence. But I grant, to offend or kill 
 is not of the nature of defensive war, but 
 accidental thereunto ; and yet killing of cut- 
 throats, sent forth by the illegal command- 
 ment of the king, may be intended as a 
 mean, and a lawful mean, of self-defence. 
 Of two ills of punishment, we have a com- 
 parative dominion over ourselves, — a man 
 may cast his goods into the sea to redeem 
 his life ; so, tor to redeem peace, we may 
 suffer buffets, but because death is the great- 
 est ill of punishment, God hath not made 
 it eligible to us when lawful self-defence is 
 at hand. But, in defending our own life 
 against tyrannical power, though we do it 
 by offending and killing, we resist no ordi- 
 nance of God, only I judge killing of the 
 king in self-defence not lawful, because self- 
 defence must be national on just causes. 
 
 Let here the reader judge Barclay, (1. 3, 
 c. 8, p. 159, con. Monar.) " If the king 
 (saith he) shall vex the commonwealth, or 
 one part thereof, with great and intolerable 
 cruelty, what shall the people do? They 
 have (saith he) in that case a power to resist 
 and defend themselves from injury; but only 
 to defend themselves, nor to invade the 
 prince, nor to resist the injury, or to recede 
 from reverence due to the prince." 1 
 
 I answer, 1. Let Barclay or the Prelate, 
 (if he may carry Barclay's books) or any, 
 difference these two, — the people may resist 
 a tyrant, but they may not resist the inju- 
 ries inflicted by a tyrant's officers and cut- 
 throats. I cannot hna:>ine how to conciliate 
 
 1 Populo quidem hoc casu resitendi ac tuendi se ab 
 injuria potestas competit. sed tuendi setantum,non 
 autem principem invadendi, et resistendi injuria il- 
 latee, non reeedendi a debita reverentia — non vim 
 praeteritam ulciscendi jus liabet. 
 
158 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 these two ; for to resist the cruelty of a kinor 
 is but to hold off the injury by resistance. 
 2. If this Nero waste the commonwealth 
 insufferably with his cruelty, and remain a 
 lawful king, to be honoured as a king, who 
 may resist him, according to the royalists' 
 way ? But, from Rom. xiii., they resist the 
 ordinance of God. Resisting is not a mere 
 suffering, nor is it a moral resisting by al- 
 leging laws to be broken by him. We had 
 never a question with royalists about such 
 resisting. Nor is this resisting non-obe- 
 dience to unjust commandments ; that re- 
 sisting was never yet in question by any 
 except the papists, who in good earnest, by 
 consequent, say, It is better to obey men 
 than God. 3. It is then resisting by bodily 
 violence. But if the king have such an ab- 
 solute power given him by God, as royalists 
 fancy, from Rom. xiii. 1,2; 1 Sam. viii. 9 — 
 11, I know not how subjects have any power 
 given them of God to resist the power from 
 God, and God's ordinance. And if this re- 
 sisting extend not itself to defensive wars, 
 how snail the people defend themselves from 
 injuries, and the greatest injuries imagina- 
 ble, — from an army of cut-throats and idola- 
 ters, in war coming to destroy religion, set 
 up idolatry, and root out the name of God's 
 people, and lay waste the mountain of the 
 Lord's house ? And if they may defend 
 themselves by defensive wars, how can wars 
 be without offending ? 4. The law of nature 
 teacheth to repel violence with violence, 
 when one man is oppressed, no less than 
 when the commonwealth is oppressed. Bar- 
 clay should have given either Scripture or 
 the law of nature for his warrant here. 5. 
 Let us suppose a king can be perjured, how 
 are the estates of the kingdom, who are his 
 subjects, by Barclay's way, not to challenge 
 such a tyrant of his perjury ? He did swear 
 he should be meek and clement, and he is 
 now become a furious lion. Shall the flock 
 of God be committed to the keeping of a 
 furious lion ? 
 
 Dr Feme (p. 3, sect. 2, p. 9,) addeth, 
 " Personal defence is lawful against sudden 
 and illegal invasion, such as Elisha practised, 
 even if it were against the prince, to ward 
 blows, and to hold the prince's hand, but 
 not to return blows ; but general resistance 
 by arms cannot be without many unjust 
 violences, and doth immediately strike at 
 the order, which is the life of the common- 
 wealth. 
 
 Ans. — 1. If it be natural to one man to 
 
 defend himself against the personal invasion 
 of a prince, then is it natural and warrant- 
 able to ten thousand, and to a whole king- 
 dom ; and what reason to defraud a kingdom 
 of the benefit of self-defence more than one 
 man ? 2. Neither grace nor policy destroy- 
 eth nature ; and how shall ten or twenty 
 thousand be defended against cannons and 
 muskets, that killeth afar off, except they 
 keep towns against the king, (which Dr 
 Feme and others say had been treason in 
 David, if he had kept Keilah against king 
 Saul,) except they be armed to offend, with 
 weapons of the like nature to kill rather 
 than be killed, as the law of nature teacheth. 
 3. To hold the hands of the prince is no less 
 resisting violence than to cut the skirt of his 
 garment, which royalists think unlawful, and 
 is an opposing of external force to the king's 
 person. 4. It is true, wars merely defensive 
 cannot be but they must be offensive ; but 
 they are offensive by accident, and intended 
 for mere defence, and they cannot be with- 
 out wars sinfully offensive, nor can any wars 
 be in rerum natura now, (I except the wars 
 commanded by God, who only must have 
 been sinful in the manner of doing,) but 
 some innocent must be killed ; but wars 
 cannot for that be condemned. 5. Neither 
 are offensive wars against those who are no 
 powers and no ordinances of God, such as 
 are cut-throat Irish, condemned prelates and 
 papists now in arms, more destructive to the 
 order established by God than acts of lawful 
 war are, or the punishing of robbers. And 
 by all this, protestants in Scotland and Eng- 
 land should remain in their houses unarmed, 
 while the papists and Irish come on them 
 armed, and cut their throats, and spoil, and 
 plunder at will. 
 
 Nor can we think that resistance to a 
 king, in holding his hands, can be natural ; 
 if he be stronger, it is not a natural mean of 
 self-preservation. Nature hath appointed 
 innocent and offending violence, against un- 
 just violence, as a means of self-preservation. 
 Goliath's sword is no natural means to hold 
 Saul's hands, for a sword hath no fingers ; 
 and if king Saul suddenly, without colour of 
 law or reason, or inevitably, should make 
 personal invasion on David to kill him, Dr 
 feme saith he may resist ; but resisting is 
 essentially a re-action of violence. Show us 
 Scripture or reason for violent holding a 
 king's hands in an unjust personal invasion, 
 without any other re-action of offence. Wal- 
 ter Torrils killed king W. Rufus as he was 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 159 
 
 shooting at a deer ; the Earl of Suffolk killed 
 Henry VIII. at tilting ; there is no trea- 
 sonable intention here, and so no homicide. 
 Defensive wars are offensive, ex eventu et 
 ejfectu, not ex causa, or ex intentione. 
 
 But it may he asked, if no passive sub- 
 jection at all be commanded as due to su- 
 periors. — Ans. None properly so called, 
 that is, purely passive, only we are, for fear 
 of the sword, to do our duty. "We are to 
 suffer ill of punishment of tyrants, ex hypo- 
 thesi, that they inflict that ill on us some 
 other way, and in some other notion than 
 we are to suffer ill of equals ; for we are to 
 suffer of equals not for any paternal authority 
 that they have over us, as certainly we are 
 to suffer ill inflicted by superiors. I demand 
 of royalists, If tyrants inflicting evil of punish- 
 ment upon subjects unjustly be powers or- 
 dained of God : if to resist a power in ty- 
 rannical acts be to resist God. Since we are 
 not to yield active obedience to all the com- 
 mandments of superiors, whether they be 
 good or ill, by virtue of this place, Rom. xiii. 
 how is it that we may not deny passive sub- 
 jection to all the acts of violence exercised, 
 whether of injustice, whether in these acts of 
 violence wherein the prince in actu exercito 
 and formally, punisheth not in God's stead, 
 or in these wherein he punisheth tyrannically, 
 in no formal or actual subordination to God, 
 we owe passive subjection ? I desire an an- 
 swer to these. 
 
 Assert. 5. — Flying from the tyranny of 
 abused authority, is a plain resisting of rulers 
 in their unlawful oppression and perverting 
 of judgment. 
 
 All royalists grant it lawful, and ground 
 it upon the law of nature, that those that 
 are persecuted by tyrannous princes may 
 flee, and it is evident from Christ's com- 
 mandment, " If they persecute you in one 
 city, flee to another," Matt. x. 23, and by 
 Matt, xxiii. 34. Christ fled from the fury 
 of the Jews till his hour was come ; Elias, 
 Uriah, (Jer. xxvi. 20,) and Joseph and 
 Mary fled ; the martyrs did hide them- 
 selves in caves and dens of the earth (Heb. 
 xi. 37, 38) ; Paul was let down through a 
 window in a basket at Damascus. This cer- 
 tainly is resistance ; for look, what legal 
 power God hath given to a tyrannous ruler, 
 remaining a power ordained of God, to sum- 
 mon legally, and set before his tribunal the 
 servants of God, that he may kill them, and 
 murder them unjustly, that same legal power 
 he hath to murder them ; for if it he a 
 
 legal power to kill the innocent, and such a 
 power as they ax-e obliged in conscience to 
 submit unto, they are obhged in conscience 
 to submit to the legal power of citing ; for 
 it is one and the same power. 1. Now, if 
 resistance to the one power be unlawful, re- 
 sistance to the other must be unlawful also ; 
 and if the law of self-defence, or command of 
 Christ, warrant me to disobey a tyrannous 
 power commanding me to compear to receive 
 the sentence of death, that same law far more 
 shall warrant me to resist and deny passive 
 subjection in submitting to the unjust sen- 
 tence of death. 2. When a murderer, self- 
 convicted, fleeth from the just power of a 
 judge lawfully citing him, he resisteth the 
 just power ordained of God (Rom. iii.); 
 therefore, by the same reason, if we flee 
 from a tyrannous power, we resist that ty- 
 rannous power, and so, by royalists' ground, 
 we resist the ordinance of God by flying. 
 Now, to be disobedient to a just power sum- 
 moning a malefactor, is to hinder that lawful 
 power to be put forth in lawful acts; for the 
 judge cannot purge the land of blood if the 
 murderer flee. 3. When the king of Israel 
 sendeth a captain and fifty lictors to fetch 
 Elisha, these come instructed with legal 
 power from the king ; if I may lay fetters 
 on their power by flight, upon the ground 
 of self-preservation, the same warrant shall 
 allow me to oppose harmless violence for my 
 own safety. 4. Royalists hold it unlawful 
 to keep a stronghold against the kino-, 
 though the fort be not the king's house, and 
 though that David should not have offended 
 if he had kept Keilah against Saul: Dr Feme 
 and royalists say it had been unlawful resis- 
 tance. What more resistance is made to 
 royal power by walls interposed than by 
 seas and miles of earth interposed ? Both are 
 physical resistance, and violent in their kind. 
 
 QUESTION XXXI. 
 
 WHETHER OR NO SELF-DEFENCE AGAINST 
 ANY UNJUST VIOLENCE OFFERED TO THE 
 LIFE, BE WARRANTED BY GOD'S LAW, AND 
 THE LAW OF NATURE AND NATIONS. 
 
 Self-preservation in all creatures in which 
 is nature, is in the creatures suitable to their 
 nature. The bull defendeth itself by its 
 horns, the eagle by her claws and bill, it 
 will not follow that a lamb will defend itself 
 
160 
 
 LEX. REX ; OR, 
 
 against a wolf any other way than by flying. 
 So men, and Christian men, do naturally 
 defend themselves ; but the manner of self- 
 defence in a rational creature is rational, and 
 not always merely natural ; therefore, a po- 
 litic community, being a combination of many 
 natures, as neither grace, far less can policy, 
 destroy nature, then must these many natures 
 be allowed of God to use a natural self-de- 
 fence. If the king bring in an army of 
 foreigners, then a politic community must 
 defend itself in a rational way. Why ? 
 Self-defence is natural to man, and natural 
 to a lamb, but not the same way. A lamb 
 or a dove naturally defend themselves against 
 beasts of another kind only by flight, not by 
 re-action and re-offending ; but it followeth 
 not that a man defendeth himself from his 
 enemy only by flight. If a robber invade 
 me, to take away my life and my purse, I 
 may defend myself by re-action ; for reason 
 and grace both may determine the way of 
 self-preservation. Hence royalists say, a 
 private man against his prince hath no way 
 to defend himself but by flight ; therefore, 
 a community hath no other way to defend 
 themselves but by flight. 
 
 1. The antecedent is false. Dr Feme 
 alloweth to a private man supplications, and 
 denying of subsidies and tribute to the 
 prince, when he employeth tribute to the 
 destruction of the commonwealth ; which, by 
 the way, is a clear resistance, and an active 
 resistance made against the king (Rom. xiii. 
 6, 7) and against a commandment of God, 
 except royalists grant tyrannous powers may 
 be resisted. 2. The consequence is naught, 
 for a private man may defend himself 
 against unjust violence, but not any way he 
 pleaseth ; the first way is by supplications 
 and apologies, — he may not presently use vio- 
 lence to the king's servants before he suppli- 
 cate, nor may he use re-offending, if flight 
 may save. David used all the three in order. 
 He made his defence by words, by the me- 
 diation of Jonathan; when that prevailed 
 not, he took himself to flight, as the next ; 
 but because he knew flight was not safe every 
 way, and nature taught him self-preserva- 
 tion, and reason and light of grace taught 
 him the means, and the religious order of 
 these means for self-preservation, there- 
 fore he addeth a third, " He took Goliath's 
 sword, and gathered six hundred armed 
 men," and after that made use of an host. 
 Now a sword and armour are not horsing 
 and shipping ibr flight, but contrary to 
 
 flight ; so re-offending is policy's last refuge; 
 A godly magistrate taketh not away the life 
 of a subject if other means can compass the 
 end of the law, and so he is compelled and 
 necessitated to take away the life; so the 
 private man, in his natural self-defence, is 
 not to use re-action, or violent re-offending, 
 in his self-defence against any man, far less 
 against the servants of a king, but in the 
 exigence of the last and most inexorable ne- 
 cessity. And it is true that M. Symmons 
 saith, (sect. 11, p. 35,) " Self-defence is not 
 to be used where it cannot be without sin." 
 It is certain, necessity is but a hungry plea 
 for sin, (Luke xiv. 18,) but it is also true, 
 re-offending comparatively, that I kill rather 
 than I be killed, in the sinless court of na- 
 ture's spotless and harmless necessity, is law- 
 ful and necessary, except I be guilty of self- 
 murder, in the culpable omission of self-de- 
 fence. Now a private man may fly, and 
 and that is his second necessity, and violent 
 re-offending is the third mean of self-preser- 
 vation ; but, with leave, violent re-offend- 
 ing is necessary to a private man, when his 
 second mean, to wit, flight, is not possible, 
 and cannot attain the end, as in the case of 
 David : if flight do not prevail, Goliath's 
 sword and an host of armed men are lawful. 
 So, to a church and a community of protes- 
 tants, men, women, aged, sucking children, 
 sick, and diseased, who are pressed either 
 to be killed or forsake religion and Jesus 
 Christ, flight is not the second mean, nor a 
 mean at all, because not possible, and there- 
 fore not a natural mean of preservation ; 
 for the aged, the sick, the sucking infants, 
 and sound religion in the posterity cannot 
 flee; flight here is physically, and by nature's 
 necessity, impossible, and therefore no lawful 
 mean. What is to nature physically impos- 
 sible is no lawful mean. If Christ have a 
 promise that the ends of the earth (Psal. ii. 
 8) and the isles shall be his possession, (Isa. 
 xlix. 1,) I see not how natural defence can 
 put us to flee, even all protestants and their 
 seed, and the weak and sick, whom we are 
 obliged to defend as ourselves, both by the 
 law of nature and grace. I read that seven 
 wicked nations and idolatrous were cast out 
 of their land to give place to the church of 
 God to dwell there, but show me a warrant 
 in nature's law and in God's word that three 
 kingdoms of protestants, their seed, aged, 
 sick, sucking children, should flee out of 
 England, Scotland, Ireland, and leave reli- 
 gion and the land to a king and to papists, 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 161 
 
 prelates, and bloody Irish, and atheists ; and 
 therefore to a church and community having 
 God's right and man's law to the land, vio- 
 lent re-offending is their second mean (next 
 to supplications and declarations, &c.) and 
 flight is not required of them as of a private 
 man ; yea flight is not necessarily required 
 of a private man, but where it is a possible 
 mean of self-preservation ; violent and unjust 
 invasion of a private man, which is unavoid- 
 able, may be obviated with violent re-offend- 
 ing. Now the unjust invasion made on 
 Scotland in 1640, for refusing the service- 
 book, or rather the idolatry of the mass, 
 therein intended, was unavoidable ; it was 
 impossible for the protestants, their old and 
 sick, their women and sucking children to 
 flee over sea, or to have shipping betwixt 
 the king's bringing an army on them at 
 Dunse Law, and the prelates' charging of 
 the ministers to receive the mass book. 
 Althusius saith well, (Polit. c. 38, n. 78,) 
 Though private men may flee, yet the es- 
 tates, if they flee, they do not do their duty, 
 to commit a country, religion and all, to a 
 Hon. Let not any object, We may not de- 
 vise a way to fulfil the prophecy, Psal. ii. 
 8, 9 ; Isa. xlix. 1 ; it is true, if the way be 
 our own sinful way ; nor let any object, a 
 colony went to New England and fled the 
 persecution. Answer, True, but if fleeing be 
 the only mean after supplication, there was 
 no more reason that one colony should go to 
 New England than it is necessary, and by a 
 divine law obligatory, that the whole protes- 
 tants in the three kingdoms, according to 
 royalists' doctrine, are to leave their native 
 country and religion to one man, and to po- 
 pish idolators and atheists, willing to worship 
 idols with them, and whither then shall the 
 gospel be, which we are obliged to defend 
 with our lives ? 
 
 There is tutela vitaz proximo,, et remota, 
 a mere and immediate defence of our life, 
 and a remote or mediate defence ; when 
 there is no actual invasion made by a man 
 seeking our life, we are not to use violent 
 re-offending. David might have killed Saul 
 when he was sleeping, and when he cut off 
 the lap of his garment, but it was unlawful 
 for him to kill the Lord's anointed, because 
 he is the Lord's anointed, as it is unlawful 
 to kill a man, because he is the image of 
 God, (Gen. ix. 6,) except in case of neces- 
 sity. The magistrate in case of necessity 
 may kill the malefactor, though his malefi- 
 cus do not put him in that case, that he hath 
 
 not now the image of God ; now prudence 
 and light of grace determineth, when we are 
 to use violent re-offending for self-preserva- 
 tion, it is not left to our pleasure. In a re- 
 mote posture of self-defence, we are not to 
 use violent re-offending : David having Saul 
 in his hand was in a remote posture of de- 
 fence, the unjust invasion then was not ac- 
 tual, not unavoidable, not a necessary mean 
 in human prudence for self-preservation, for 
 king Saul was then in a habitual, not in an 
 actual pursuit of the whole princes, elders, 
 and judges of Israel, or of a whole commu- 
 nity and church ; Saul did but seek the life 
 of one man, David, and that not for religion, 
 or a national pretended offence, and there- 
 fore he could not in conscience put hands on 
 the Lord's anointed ; but if Saul had actual- 
 ly invaded David for his life, David might, 
 in that case, make use of Goliath's sword, 
 (for he took not that weapon with him as a 
 cypher to boast Saul — it is no less unlawful 
 to threaten a king than to put hands on 
 him,) and rather kill or be killed by Saul's 
 emissaries ; because then he should have 
 been in an immediate and nearest posture 
 of actual self-defence. Now the case is 
 far otherwise between the king and the two 
 parliaments of England and Scotland, for 
 the king is not sleeping in his emissaries, 
 for he hath armies in two kingdoms, and 
 now in three kingdoms, by sea and land, 
 night and day, in actual pursuit, not of one 
 David, but of the estates, and a Christian 
 community in England and Scotland, and 
 that for religions, laws, and liberties ; for the 
 question is now between papist and protes- 
 tant, between arbitrary or tyrannical go- 
 vernment, and law government, and there- 
 fore by both the laws of the politic societies 
 of both kindoms, and by the law of God and 
 nature, we are to use violent re-offending 
 for self-preservation, and put to this neces- 
 sity, when armies are in actual pursuit of 
 all the protestant churches of the three 
 kingdoms, to actual killing, rather than we 
 be killed, and suffer laws and religion to be 
 undone. 
 
 But, saith the royalist, David's argument, 
 " God forbid that I stretch out my hand 
 against the Lord's anointed, my master the 
 king," concludeth universally, that the kinw 
 in his most tyrannous acts, still remaining 
 the Lord's anointed, cannot be resisted. 
 
 Ans. — 1. David speaketh of stretching out 
 his hand against the person of king Saul : no 
 man in the three kingdoms did so much as 
 
162 
 
 LEX, REX I OR, 
 
 attempt to do violence to the king's person. 
 But this argument is inconsequent, for a 
 king invading, in Ins own royal person, the 
 innocent subject, suddenly, without colour 
 of law or reason, and unavoidably, may be 
 personally resisted, and that with opposing 
 a violence bodily, yet in that invasion he re- 
 maineth the Lord's anointed. 2. By this 
 argument the life of a murderer cannot be 
 taken away by a judge, for he remaineth one 
 indued with God's image, and keepeth still 
 the nature of a man under all the murders 
 that he doth, but it followeth nowise, that 
 because God hath endowed his person with 
 a sort of royalty, of a divine image, that his 
 life cannot be taken ; and certainly, if to be 
 a man endued with God's image, (Gen. vi. 
 9, 10,) and to be an ill-doer worthy of evil 
 punishment, are different, to be a king and 
 an ill -doer may be distinguished. 
 
 1 . The grounds of self-defence are these : 
 — A woman or a young man may violently 
 oppose a king, if he force the one to adul- 
 tery and incest, and the other to sodomy, 
 though court flatterers should say, the king, 
 in regard of his absoluteness, is lord of life 
 and death ; yet no man ever said that the 
 king is lord of chastity, faith, and oath that 
 the wife hath made to her husband. 
 
 2. Particular nature yields to the good of 
 universal nature, for which cause heavy 
 bodies ascend, airy and light bodies de- 
 scend. If, then, a wild bull or a goring ox, 
 may not be let loose in a great market-con- 
 fluence of people, and if any man turn so 
 distracted as he smite himself with stones 
 and kill all that pass by him, or come at 
 him, in that case the man is to be bound, 
 and his hands fettered, and all whom he in- 
 vadeth may resist him, were they his own 
 sons, and may save their own lives with 
 weapons, much more a king turning a Nero. 
 King Saul, vexed with an evil spirit from 
 the Lord, may be resisted ; and far more if 
 a king endued with use of reason, shall put 
 violent hands on all his subjects, kill his 
 son and heir; yea, and violently invaded, 
 by nature's law, may defend themselves, 
 and the violent restraining of such a one is 
 but the hurting of one man, who cannot be 
 virtually the commonwealth, but his de- 
 stroying of the community of men sent out 
 in wars, as his bloody emissaries, to the dis- 
 solution of the commonwealth. 
 
 3. The cutting off of a contagious mem- 
 ber, that by a gangrene, would corrupt the 
 whole body, is well warranted by nature, be- 
 
 cause the safety of the whole is to be pre- 
 ferred to the safety of a part. Nor is it much 
 that royalists say, The king being the head, 
 destroy him, and the whole body of the 
 commonwealth is dissolved ; as cut off a 
 man's head, and the life of the whole man 
 is taken away. Because, 1. God cutteth off 
 the spirits of tyrannous kings, and yet the 
 commonwealth is not dissolved, no more 
 than when a leopard or a wild boar, running 
 through children, is killed, can be the de- 
 struction of all the children in the land. 
 2. A king indefinitely is referred to the 
 commonwealth as an adequate head to a 
 monarchical kingdom; and remove all kings 
 and the politic body, as monarchical, in its 
 frame, is not monarclucal, but it leaveth not 
 off to be a politic body, seeing it hath other 
 judges ; but the natural body without the 
 head cannot live. 3. This or that tyran- 
 nous king, being a transient mortal thing, 
 cannot be referred to the immortal com- 
 monwealth, as it is adequate correlate. 
 They say, " the king never dieth," yet this 
 king can die ; an immortal politic body, 
 such as the commonwealth, must have an 
 immortal head, and that is a king as a king, 
 not this or that man, possibly a tyrant, who 
 is for the time (and eternal things abstract 
 from time) only a king. 
 
 4. The reason of Fortunius Garcias, a 
 skilful lawyer in Spain, is considerable, 
 (Comment, in I. ut vim vi ff. de justit. et 
 jure,) God hath implanted in every crea- 
 ture natural inclinations and motions to pre- 
 serve itself, and we are to love ourselves for 
 God, and have a love to preserve ourselves 
 rather than our neighbour; and nature's 
 law teacheth every man to love God best of 
 all, and next ourselves more than our neigh- 
 bour ; for the law saith, " Thou shalt love 
 thy neighbour as thyself." Then saith Mal- 
 derius, (com. in 12, q. 26, torn. 2, c. 10, 
 concl. 2,) " The love of ourselves is the 
 measure of the love of our neighbour." But 
 the rale and the measure is more perfect, 
 simple, and more principal than the thing 
 that is measured. It is tree I am to love 
 the salvation of the church, it cometh nearer 
 to God's glory, more than my own salva- 
 tion, as the wishes of Moses and Paul do 
 prove; and I am to love the salvation of 
 my brother more than my own temporal 
 life; but I am to love my own temporal 
 life more than the life of any other, and 
 therefore, I am rather to kill than to be killed, 
 the exigence of necessity so requiring. Na- 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 1C3 
 
 ture without sin owneth this as a truth, in 
 the case of loss of life, Proximus sum e<jo- 
 met mihi, (Ephes. v. 28, 29,) "He that 
 loveth his wife, loveth himself; for no man 
 ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth 
 it, and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the 
 church." As then nature tyeth the dam to 
 defend the young birds, and the lion her 
 whelps, and the husband the wife, and that 
 by a comparative re-offending, rather than 
 the wife or children should be killed ; yea, 
 he that his wanting to his brother, (if a 
 robber unjustly invade his brother,) and 
 helpeth him not, is a murderer of his bro- 
 ther, so far God's spiritual law requiring 
 both conservation of it in our person, and 
 preservation in others. The forced damsel 
 was commanded to cry for help, and not the 
 magistrate only, but the nearest private 
 man or woman was to come, by an obliga- 
 tion of a divine law of the seventh com- 
 mandment, to rescue the damsel with vio- 
 lence, even as a man is to save his enemy's 
 ox or his ass out of a pit. And if a private 
 man may inflict bodily punishment of two 
 degrees, to preserve the life and chastity of 
 his neighbour, far rather than suffer his 
 life and chastity to be taken away, then he 
 may inflict violence of four degrees, even to 
 killing, for his life, and much more for his 
 own life. So when a robber, with deadly 
 weapons, invadeth an innocent traveller to 
 kill him for his goods, upon the supposition 
 that if the robber be not killed, the inno- 
 cent shall be killed. Now the question is, 
 which of the two, by God's moral law and 
 revealed will, in point of conscience, ought to 
 be killed by his fellow ? For we speak not now 
 of God's eternal decree of permitting evil, 
 according to the which murderers may cru- 
 cify the innocent Lord of glory. By no 
 moral law of God should the unjust robber 
 kill the innocent traveller ; therefore, in 
 this exigence of providence, the traveller 
 should rather kill the robber. If any say, 
 by God's moral law not one should kill his 
 fellow, and it is a sin against the moral law 
 in either to kill the other, I answer, — If 
 a third shall come in when the robber and 
 the innocent are invading each other for his 
 life, all acknowledge by the sixth command- 
 ment the third may cut off the robber's 
 arm to save the innocent ; but by what law 
 of God he may cut off his arm, he may take 
 his life also to save the other ; for it is mur- 
 der to wound unjustly, and to dismember a 
 man by private authority, as it is to take 
 
 away his life ; if, therefore, the third may 
 take away the robber's member, then also 
 his life, so he do it without malice or ap- 
 petite of revenge, and if he may do it out 
 of this principle, " Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbour as thyself;" because a man is 
 obliged more to love his own flesh than his 
 neighbour's, (Ephes. v. 28.) and so more to 
 defend himself than to defend his neigh- 
 bour, — then may ho oppose violence to the 
 robber. As two men drowning in a water, 
 the one is not obliged by God's law to ex- 
 pose himself to drowning to save his neigh- 
 bour; but by the contrary, he is obliged 
 rather to save himself, though it were with 
 the loss of his neighbour's life. As in war, 
 if soldiers in a strait passage be pursued on 
 their life, nature teacheth them to flee ; if 
 one fall, his fellow in that exigence is not 
 only not obliged to lift him up, but he and 
 the rest flying, though they trample on him 
 and kill him, they are not guilty of murder, 
 seeing they hated him not before, (Deut. 
 xix. 4, 6 ;) so Chemnit. (loe. com. de vindic. 
 q. 3) alloweth private defence. 1. When 
 the violence is sudden. 2. And the vio- 
 lence manifestly inevitable. 3. When the 
 magistrate is absent and cannot help. 4. 
 When moderation is kept as lawyers re- 
 quire. 1 . That it be done incontinent ; if 
 it be done after the injury, it is revenge, 
 not defence. 2. Not of desire of revenge. 
 3. With proportion of armour. If the vio- 
 lent invader invade not with deadly weapons, 
 you must not invade him with deadly wea- 
 pons ; and certainly the law (Exod. xxii.) 
 of a man's defending his house is clear. 1. 
 If he come in the night, it is presumed he 
 is a robber. 2. If he be taken with a wea- 
 pon breaking the house, he cometh to kill, 
 a man may defend himself, wife, and chil- 
 dren. 3. But he is but to wound him, and 
 if he die of the wound, the defender is free ; 
 so the defender is not to intend his death, 
 but to save himself. 
 
 5. It were a mighty defect in providence 
 to man, if dogs by nature may defend them- 
 selves against wolves, bulls against lions, 
 doves against hawks, if man, in the absence 
 of the lawful magistrate, should not defend 
 himself against unjust violence ; but one 
 man might raise armies of papists, sick for 
 blood, to destroy innocent men. They ob- 
 ject, " When the king is present in his per- 
 son, and his invaders, he is not absent, and 
 so though you may rather kill a private 
 man than suffer yourself to be killed, yet, 
 
164 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 because prudence determineth the means of 
 self-defence, you are to expose your life to 
 hazard for justice of your king, and there- 
 fore not to do violence to the life of your 
 king; nor can the body, in any self-defence, 
 fight against the head, that must be the 
 destruction of the whole." — Ans. 1. Though 
 the king be present as an unjust invader in 
 wars against his innocent subjects, he is ab- 
 sent as a king, and a father and defender, 
 and present as an unjust conqueror, and 
 therefore the innocent may defend them- 
 selves when the king neither can, nor will 
 defend them. " Nature maketh a man, 
 (saith the law, Gener. c. de decur. I. 10, I. 
 si alius, seel. Bellissime ubique Gloss, in 
 vers, ex magn. not. per. ilium, text. ff. 
 quod vi aut clam. l. ait praetor, sect, si 
 debitorem meum. ff. de hisque in fraud, 
 credito.,) even a private man, his own judge, 
 magistrate, and defender, quando copiam 
 judicis, qui sibi jus reddat, non habet, 
 when he hath no judge to give him justice 
 and law." The subjects are to give their 
 lives for the king, as the king, because the 
 safety of the king, as king, is the safety of the 
 commonwealth. But the king, as offering 
 unjust violence to his innocent subjects, is 
 not king. Zoannet. (part 3, defens. n. 44,) 
 — Transgrediens notorie qftcium suum 
 judex, agit velut privatus aliquis, non ut 
 magistratus (ff. de injur, est bonus in si- 
 mili in. I. qui fundum. sect. si. tutor, ff. 
 pro emptore). 3. If the politic body fight 
 against this head in particular, not as head, 
 but as an oppressor of the people, there 
 is no fear of dissolution ; if the body rise 
 against all magistracy, as magistracy and 
 laws, dissolution of all must follow. Parlia- 
 ments and inferior judges are heads (Num. 
 i. 16 ; x. 4 ; Deut i. 15 ; Josh. xxii. 21 ; 
 Mic. hi. 1, 9, 11; 1 Kings viii. 1 ; 1 Chron. 
 v. 25 ; 2 Chron. v. 2,) no less than the 
 king ; and it is unlawful to offer violence to 
 them, though I shall rather think a private 
 man is to suffer the king to kill him rather 
 than he kill the king, because he is to pre- 
 fer the life of a private man to the life of a 
 public man. 
 
 6. By the law of nature a ruler is ap- 
 pointed to defend the innocent. Now, by 
 nature, an infant in the womb defendeth 
 itself first, before the parents can defend 
 it, then when parents and magistrates are 
 not, (and violent invading magistrates are 
 not in that magistrates,) nature hath com- 
 mended every man to self-defence. 
 
 7. The law of nature excepteth no vio- 
 lence, whether inflicted by a magistrate or 
 any other. Unjust violence from a ruler is 
 double injustice. 1. He doth unjustly as a 
 man. 2. As a member of the common- 
 wealth. 3. He committeth a special kind 
 of sin of injustice against his office, but it is 
 absurd to say we may lawfully defend our- 
 selves from smaller injuries, by the law of 
 nature, and not from the greater. "If the 
 Pope, saith Fer. Vasquez (illust.' quest. L 
 1, c. 24, n. 24, 25) command to take away 
 benefices from the just owner, those who are 
 to execute his commandment are not to 
 obey, but to write back that that mandate 
 came not from his holiness, but from the 
 avarice of his officers ; but if the Pope still 
 continue and press the same unjust mandate, 
 the same should be written again to him : 
 and though there be none above the Pope, 
 yet there is natural self-defence patent for 
 all." " Defensio vitce necessaria est, et a 
 jure naturali profluit,'" (L. ut vim. ff. de 
 just, et jure 16, ) " Nam quod quisque ob 
 tutelam corporis sui fecerit, jure fecisse vi- 
 deatur," (C.jus naturale, 1 distinc. I. l,ff. 
 de vi et vi armata, I. injuriarum, ff. de in- 
 juria : C. significasti. 2, de horn. I. scien- 
 tiam, sect, qui non aliter ff. ad leg. Aquil ; 
 C. si vero 1, de sent, excom. et I. sed etsi 
 ff. ad leg. Aquil.) " Etiamsi sequatur ho- 
 micidium." Vasquez. (1. 1, c. 17, n. 5.) — 
 " Etiam occidere licet ob defensionem re- 
 rum. Vim vi repellere omnia jura per- 
 mittunt in C. significasti." Garcias Fortu- 
 nius (Comment, in I. ut vim. ff. de instit. et 
 jur. n. 3.) — " Defendere se est juris na- 
 turce et gentium. A jure civilifuit addi- 
 turn moderamen inculpatce tutelce." No- 
 vel (defens. n. 101. J — " Occidens princi- 
 pem vel alium tyrannidem exercentem, a 
 poena homicidii excusatur." Grotius (de 
 jure belli et pads, I. 2, c. 1, n. 3.) — " Si 
 corpus impetatur vi presente, cum periculo 
 vitoz non aliter vitabili, tunc bellum est lici- 
 tum etiam cum interfectione periculum in- 
 ferentis, ratio, natura quemque sibi com- 
 mendat. ,, Barclaius (advers. Monar. I. 3, 
 c. 8. ) — " Est jus cuilibet se tenendi adver- 
 sus immanem sevitiam." 
 
 But what ground (saith the royalist) is 
 there to take arms against the king ? Jea- 
 lousies and suspicions are not enough. 
 
 Ans. — 1. The king sent first an army to 
 Scotland, and blocked us up by sea, before we 
 took arms. 2. Papists were armed in Eng- 
 land. They have professed themselves in 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 165 
 
 their religion of Trent to be so much the 
 holier, that they root out protestants. 3. 
 The king declared we had broken loyalty to 
 him since the last parliament. 4. He de- 
 clared both kingdoms rebels. 5. Attempted 
 in his emissaries to destroy the parliament ; 
 6. And to bring in a foreign enemy. And 
 the law saith, " An imminent danger, which 
 is a sufficient warrant to take up arms, is not 
 strokes, but either the terror of arming or 
 threatening." Glossator, (in d. I. 1, C.) — 
 " Unde vi. ait non esse verbera expectan- 
 da, sed vel terrorem armorum sujftccre, vel 
 minas, et hoc esse imminens periculumP 
 L. sed et si quemcunque in princ. ff. ad leg. 
 Aquil I. 3, quod qui armati ff. de vi et vi 
 armata is qui aggressorem C. ad legem 
 Corncli. 
 
 In most heinous sins, conatus, the endea- 
 vour and aim, etiamsi effectus non sequa- 
 tur, puniri debet, is punishable. Bartol. 
 in I. " Si quis non dicam rapere." 
 
 The king hath aimed at the destruction 
 of his subjects, through the power of wicked 
 counsellors, and we are to consider not the 
 intention of the workers, but the nature and 
 intention of the work. Papists are in arms, 
 — their religion, the conspiracy of Trent, 
 their conscience, (if they have any,) their 
 malice against the covenant of Scotland, 
 which abjureth their religion to the full, 
 their ceremonies, their prelates, — lead and 
 necessitate them to root out the name of 
 protestant religion, yea, and to stab a king 
 who is a protestant. Nor is our king, re- 
 maining a protestant, and adhering to his 
 oath made at the coronation in both king- 
 doms, lord of his own person, master of him- 
 self, nor able, as king, to be a king over pro- 
 testant subjects, if the papists, now in arms 
 under his standard, shall prevail. 
 
 The king hath been compelled to go 
 against his own oath, and the laws which 
 he did swear to maintain ; the Pope sendeth 
 to his popish armies both dispensations, bulls, 
 mandates, and encouragements ; the king 
 hath made a cessation with the bloody Irish, 
 and hath put arms in the hands of papists. 
 Now, he being under the oath of God, tyed 
 to maintain the protestant religion, he hath 
 a metaphysically subtle, piercing faith of 
 miracles, who believeth armed papists and 
 prelates shall defend the religion of protes- 
 tants ; and those who have abjured prelates 
 as the lawful sons of the Pope, that i xvrixz><mt 
 and as the law saith, Quilibet in dubio prai- 
 sumitur bonus. L. merito prcesumi. L. 
 
 non omnes, sect, a Barbaris de re milk. 
 Charity believeth not ill ; so charity is not 
 a fool to believe all things. So saith the 
 law, Semel malus, semper prozsumitur ma- 
 lus, in eodem genere. C. semel malus de 
 jure gentium in 6. Once wicked, is always 
 wicked in that kind. Marius Salamonius, 
 I. C. in L. ut vim atque injuriam ff. de just 
 et jure. We are not to wait on strokes, the 
 terror of armour, omnium consensu, by con- 
 sent of all is sufficient (n. 3). " If I see 
 (saith he) the enemy take an arrow out of 
 the quiver, before he bend the bow, it is 
 lawful to prevent him with a blow — cuncta- 
 tio est pcriculosa^ The king's coming with 
 armed men into the House of Commons to 
 demand the five members, is very symboli- 
 cal, and war was printed on that fact, " he 
 that runneth may read." His coming to Hull 
 with an army, saith not he had no errand 
 there, but to ask what it was in the clock. 
 Novellus, that learned Venetian lawyer, in 
 a treatise for defence, maketh continuatam 
 rixam, a continued upbraiding, a sufficient 
 ground of violent defence. He citeth Dr 
 Comniter. in L. ut vim. ff. dc just et jure. 
 Yea, he saith, drunkenness, (defens. n. 44,) 
 error, (n. 46,) madness, (n. 49, 50,) igno- 
 rance, (n. 51, 52,) impudence, (n. 54,) ne- 
 cessity, (n. 56,) laciviousness, (n. 58,) con- 
 tinual reproaches, (n. 59,) the fervour of 
 anger, (n. 64,) threatening, (n. 66,) fear 
 of imminent danger, (n. 67,) and just 
 grief, do excuse a man from homicide, and 
 that in these he ought to be more mildly 
 punished, quia obnubilatum et mancum 
 est consilium, reason in these being lame 
 and clogged. (Ambros. 1. 1. offic.) Qui 
 non repellit injuriam a socio, cum potest, 
 tarn est in vitio, quam ille qui facit. And 
 as nature, so the law saith, " When the 
 losses are such as can never be repaired, as 
 death, mutilation, loss of chastity, quoniam 
 facta infecta fieri nequeunt, things of that 
 kind once done, can never be undone, we 
 are to prevent the enemy" (I. Zonat. tract, 
 defens. par. 3, I. in bello sect, facta, de ca- 
 pit. notat. Gloss, in I. si quis provocatione). 
 If the king send an Irish rebel to cast me 
 over a bridge, and drown me in a water, I 
 am to do nothing, while the king's emissary 
 first cast me over, and then in the next 
 room I am to defend myself; but nature 
 and the law of self-defence warranteth me 
 (if I know certainly his aim,) to horse him 
 first over the bridge, and then consult how 
 to defend myself at my own leisure. 
 
166 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 Royalists object that David, in his defence, 
 never invaded and persecuted Saul ; yea, 
 when he came upon Saul and his men sleep- 
 ing, he would not kill any ; but the Scottish 
 and parliament's forces not only defend, but 
 invade, offend, kill, and plunder ; and this 
 is clearly an offensive, not a defensive war. 
 
 Ans. 1. — There is no defensive war dif- 
 ferent in specie and nature from an offen- 
 sive war ; if we speak physically, they differ 
 only in the event and intention of the heart ; 
 and it is most clear that the affection and 
 intention doth make one and the same ac- 
 tion of taking away the life, either homicide, 
 or no homicide. 1. If a man, out of hatred, 
 deliberately take away his brother's life, he 
 is a murderer eatenus, but if that same man 
 had taken away that same brother's life, by 
 the flying off of an axe-head off the staff, 
 while he was hewing timber, he neither 
 hating him before, nor intending to hurt 
 his brother, he is no murderer, by God's 
 express law, (Deut. iv. 42 ; xix. 4 ; Joshua 
 xx. 5.) 2. The cause between the king and 
 the two parliaments, and between Saul and 
 David, are so different in this, as it is much 
 for us. Royalists say, David might, if he 
 had seen offending to conduce for self-pre- 
 servation, have invaded Saul's men, and, say 
 they, the case was extraordinary, and bind- 
 eth not us to self-defence ; and thus they 
 must say — for offensive weapons, such as 
 Goliath's sword, and an host of armed men, 
 cannot by any rational man be assumed (and 
 David had the wisdom of God) but to of- 
 fend, if providence should so dispose ; and 
 so what was lawfpl to David, is lawful to us 
 in self-defence ; he might offend lawfully, 
 and so may we. 
 
 2. If Saul and the Philistines, aiming (as 
 under an oath) to set up dagon in the land 
 of Israel, should invade David, and the 
 princes and elders of Israel who made him 
 king ; and if David, with an host of armed 
 men, he and the princes of Israel, should 
 come in that case upon Saul and the Philis- 
 tines sleeping, if in that case David might 
 not lawfully have cut off the Philistines, and 
 as he defended in that case God's church 
 and true religion, if he might not then have 
 lawfully killed, I say, the Philistines, I re- 
 mit to the conscience of the reader. Now 
 to us, papists and prelates under the king's 
 banner, are Philistines, introducing the ido- 
 latry of bread-worship and popery, as hate- 
 ful to God as dagon-worship. 
 
 3. Saul intended no arbitrary govern- 
 
 ment, nor to make Israel a conquered peo- 
 ple, nor yet to cut off all that professed the 
 true worship of God ; nor came Saul against 
 these princes, elders and people, who made 
 him king, only David's head would have 
 made Saul lay down arms ; but prelates, and 
 papists, and malignants, under the king, in- 
 tend to make the king's sole will a law, to 
 destroy the court of parliament, which put- 
 teth laws in execution against their idola- 
 try ; and their aim is, that protestants be a 
 conquered people ; and their attempt hath 
 been hitherto to blow up king and parlia- 
 ment, to cut off all protestants; and they 
 are in arms, in divers parts of the kingdom, 
 against the princes of the land, who are no 
 less judges and deputies of the Lord than 
 the king himself; and would kill, and do 
 kill, plunder, and spoil us, if we kill not 
 them. And the case is every way now be- 
 tween armies and armies, as between a sin- 
 gle man unjustly invaded for his life, and an 
 unjust invader. Neither in a natural action, 
 such as is self-defence, is that of policy to be 
 urged, — none can be judge in his own cause, 
 when oppression is manifest : one may be 
 both agent and patient, as the fire and 
 water conflicting ; there is no need of a 
 judge, a community casts not off nature; 
 when the judge is wanting, nature is judge, 
 actor, accused, and all. 
 
 Lastly, no man is lord of the members 
 of his own body, (m. I. liber homo ff. ad leg. 
 Aqui.) nor lord of his own life, but is to be 
 accountable to God for it. 
 
 QUESTION XXXII. 
 
 WHETHER OR NOT THE LAWFULNESS OF DE- 
 FENSIVE WARS HATH ITS WARRANT IN GOD'S 
 WORD, FROM THE EXAMPLE OF DAVID, ELI- 
 SHA, THE EIGHTY PRIESTS WHO RESISTED 
 UZZIAH, &C. 
 
 David defended himself against king Saul, 
 1. By taking Goliath's sword with him. 2. 
 By being captain to six hundred men ; yea, 
 it is more than clear, (1 Chron. xii. 22—34,) 
 that there came to David a host like the host 
 of God, to help against Saul, exceeding four 
 thousand. Now, that this host came war- 
 rantably to help him against Saul, I prove, 
 1. Because it is said, "Now these are they 
 that came to David to Ziklag, while he 
 kept himself close, because of Saul the son 
 
:he law and the prixce. 
 
 167 
 
 of Kish ; and they were amongst the mighty ' 
 men, helpers of the war ;" and then so many 
 mighty captains are reckoned out. " There 
 came of the children of Benjamin and Ju- 
 dah to the hold of David." And there fell 
 some of Manasseh to David, — " As he went 
 to Ziklag there fell to him of Manasseh, Ke- 
 nah and Jozabad, Jediel and Michael, and 
 Jozabad and Elihu, and Zilthai, captains of 
 the thousands that were of Manasseh." "And 
 they helped David against the band of the 
 rovers." " At that time, day by day, there 
 came to David, until it was a great host, like 
 the host of God." Now the same expres- 
 sion that is in the first verse, where it is 
 said they came to help David against Saul, 
 is repeated in ver. 16, 19 — 23. 2. That 
 they warrantably came, is evident ; because, 
 {].) The Spirit of God commendeth them 
 for their valour and skill in war, (ver. 2 
 &c), which the Spirit of God doth not in 
 unlawful wars. (2.) Because Amassai, (ver. 
 18), the Spirit of the Lord coming on him, 
 saith, "Thine are we, David, and on thy 
 side, thou son of Jesse ; peace, peace unto 
 thee, and peace to thy helpers, for thy God 
 helpeth thee." The Spirit of God inspireth 
 no man to pray peace to those who are in an 
 unlawful war. 3. That they came to David's 
 side only to be sufferers, and to flee with 
 David, and not to pursue and offend, is ridi- 
 culous. 1. It is said, (ver. 1,) " They came 
 to David to Ziklag, while he kept himself 
 close, because of Saul the son of Kish. And 
 they were amongst the mighty men, helpers 
 of the war." It is a scorn to say, that 
 their might, and their helping in war, con- 
 sisted in being mere patients with David, 
 and such as fled from Saul, for they had 
 been on Saul's side before ; and to come 
 with armour to flee, is a mocking of the 
 word of God. 2. It is clear, the scope of 
 the Spirit of God is to show how God help- 
 ed his innocent servant David against his 
 persecuting prince and master, king Saul, in 
 moving so many mighty men of war to come 
 in such multitudes, all in arms, to help him 
 in war. Now to what end would the Lord 
 commend them as fit for war, " men of might, 
 fit to handle shield and buckler, whose faces 
 are as the faces of lions, as swift as the roes 
 on the mountains," (ver. 8,) and commend 
 them as helpers of David, if it were unlaw- 
 ful for David, and all those mighty men, to 
 carry arms to pursue Saul and his followers, 
 and to do nothing with their armour but 
 flee ? Judge if the Spirit of God, in reason, 
 
 could say, " All these men came armed with 
 bows," (ver. 2,) and could " handle both 
 the right hand and the left in flinging stones, 
 and shooting of arrows," and that (ver. 22) 
 all these " came to David, being mighty 
 men of valour, and they came as captains 
 over hundreds, and thousands, and they put 
 to flight all them of the valleys, both to- 
 ward the east and toward the west," (ver. 
 13, 15,) and that " David received them, 
 and made them captains of the band," if 
 they did not come in a posture of war, and 
 for hostile invasion, if need were? For if 
 they came only to suffer and to flee, not to 
 pursue, bowmen, captains, and captains of 
 bands made by David, and David's helpers 
 in the war, came not to help David by fly- 
 ing, that was a hurt to David, not a help. 
 It is true, Mr Symmons saith, (1 Sam. xxii. 
 2,) " Those that came out to David streng- 
 thened him, but he strengthenea not them ; 
 and David might easily have revenged him- 
 self on the Ziphites, who did good will to 
 betray him to the hands of Saul, if his con- 
 science had served him. 
 
 Ans. 1. — This would infer that these 
 armed men came to help David against his 
 conscience, and that David was a patient 
 in the business. The contrary is in the text, 
 (1 Sam. xxvi. 2,) "David became a captain 
 over them ;" and (1 Chron. xii. 17, 18,) 
 " If ye come peaceably to help me, my heart 
 shall be knit to you. Then David received 
 them, and made them captains of the band." 
 2. David might have revenged himself upon 
 the Ziphites, true ; but that conscience hin- 
 dered him cannot be proved. To pursue an 
 enemy is an act of a council of war ; and he 
 saw it would create more enemies, not help 
 his cause. 3. To David to kill Saul sleep- 
 ing, and the people who, out of a mis-in- 
 formed conscience came out, many of them 
 to help their lawful prince against a traitor 
 (as was supposed) seeking to kill their king, 
 and to usurp the throne, had not been wis- 
 dom nor justice ; because to kill the enemy 
 in a just self-defence, must be, when the 
 enemy actually doth invade, and the life of 
 the defendant cannot be otherwise saved. 
 A sleeping enemy is not in the act of unjust 
 pursuit of the innocent ; but if an army 
 of papists, Philistines, were in the fields 
 sleeping, pursuing not one single David only 
 for a supposed personal wrong to the king, 
 but lying in the fields and camp against the 
 whole kingdom and religion, and labouring 
 to introduce arbitrary government, popery, 
 
168 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 idolatry, and to destroy laws, and liberties, 
 and parliaments, then David were obliged 
 to kill these murderers in their sleep. 
 
 If any say, The case is all one in a natu- 
 ral self-defence, whatever be the cause, and 
 whoever be the enemy, because the self-de- 
 fender is not to offend, except the unjust in- 
 vader be in actual pursuit, — now armies in 
 their sleep are not in actual pursuit. 
 
 Ans. 1. — When one man with a multi- 
 tude invadeth one man, that one man may 
 pursue, as he seeth most conducible for self- 
 defence. Now the law saith, " Threaten- 
 ings and terror of armour maketh imminent 
 danger," and the case of pursuit in self-de- 
 fence lawful ; if therefore an army of Irish 
 rebels and Spaniards were sleeping in their 
 camp, and our king in a deep sleep in the 
 midst of them, and these rebels actually in 
 the camp besieging the parliament, and the 
 city of London, most unjustly to take away 
 parliament, laws, and liberties of religion, 
 it should follow that General Essex ought 
 not to kill the king's majesty in his sleep, 
 for he is the Lord's anointed ; but will it 
 follow that General Essex may not kill the 
 Irish rebels sleeping about the king ; and 
 that he may not rescue the king's person out 
 of the hands of the papists and rebels, en- 
 snaring the king, and leading him on to po- 
 pery, and to employ his authority to defend 
 popery, and trample upon protestant parlia- 
 ments and laws? Certainly from this ex- 
 ample this cannot be concluded. For armies 
 in actual pursuit of a whole parliament, 
 kingdom, laws, and religion, (though sleep- 
 ing in the camp,) because in actual pursuit, 
 may be invaded, and killed, though sleeping. 
 And David useth no argument, from con- 
 science, why he might not kill Saul's army, 
 (I conceive he had not arms to do that,) and 
 should have created more enemies to himself, 
 and hazard his own life, and the life of all his 
 men, if he had of purpose killed so many 
 sleeping men ; yea, the inexpedience of that, 
 for a private wrong to kill God's misled peo- 
 ple, should have made all Israel enemies to 
 David. But David useth an argument, from 
 conscience only, to prove it was not lawful 
 for him to stretch forth his hand against 
 the king ; and for my part, so long as he re- 
 maineth king, and is not dethroned by those 
 who made him king at Hebron, to put hands 
 on his person, I judge utterly unlawful. One 
 man sleeping cannot be in actual pursuit of 
 another man ; so that the self-defender may 
 lawfully kill him in his sleep ; but the case 
 
 is far otherwise in lawful wars ; the Israel- 
 ites might lawfully kill the Philistines en- 
 camping about Jerusalem to destroy it, and 
 religion, and the church of God, though 
 they were all sleeping ; even though we 
 suppose king Saul had brought them in by 
 his authority, and though he were sleeping 
 in the midst of the uncircumcised armies ; 
 and it is evident, that an host of armed ene- 
 mies, though sleeping, by the law of self- 
 defence, may be killed, lest they awake and 
 kill us ; whereas one single man, and that a 
 king, cannot be killed. 2. I think, certainly, 
 David had done unwisely, and hazarded his 
 own life and all his men's, if he, and Abime- 
 lech, and Abishai, should have killed an host 
 of their enemies sleeping : that had been a 
 work as impossible to three, as hazardous to 
 all his men. 
 
 Dr Feme, as Arnisaeus did before him, 
 saith, " The example of David was extraor- 
 dinary, because he was anointed and designed 
 by God as successor to Saul, and so he must 
 use an extraordinary way of guarding him- 
 self." Arnisaeus (c. 2, n. 15) citeth Alberic. 
 Gentilis, that David was now exempted from 
 amongst the number of subjects. 
 
 Ans. — 1. There were not two kings in 
 Israel now, both David and Saul. 1. David 
 acknowledged his subjection in naming 
 Saul the Lord's anointed, and his master, 
 lord and king; and, therefore, David was 
 yet a subject. 2. If David would have 
 proved his title to the crown by extraordi- 
 nary ways, he who killed Goliath extraordi- 
 narily might have killed Saul by a miracle ; 
 but David goeth a most ordinary way to 
 work for self-defence, and his coming to the 
 kingdom was through persecution, want, 
 eating shew-bread in case of necessity, de- 
 fending himself with Goliath's sword. 3. 
 How was anything extraordinary and above 
 a law, seeing David might have killed his 
 enemy Saul, and, according to God's law, 
 he spared him ? and he argueth from a mo- 
 ral duty, He is the Lord's anointed, there- 
 fore I will not kill him. Was this extraor- 
 dinary above a law? then, according to 
 God's law, he might have killed him. loy- 
 alists cannot say so. What ground to say 
 one of David's acts in his deportment to- 
 wards Saul was extraordinary, and not all ? 
 Was it extraordinary that David fled ? No ; 
 or that David consulted the oracle of God 
 what to do when Saul was coming against 
 him? 4. In an ordinary fact something 
 may be extraordinary, — as the dead sleep 
 
THE LAW AXD THE PUIXCK. 
 
 169 
 
 from the Lord upon Saul and his men, (1 
 Sam. xxvi.) and yet the fact, according to 
 its substance, ordinary. 5. Nor is this ex- 
 traordinary, — that a distressed man, being 
 an excellent warrior, as David was, may use 
 the help of six hundred men, who, by the 
 law of charity, are to help to deliver the 
 innocent from death ; yea, all Israel were 
 obliged to defend him who killed Goliath. 6. 
 Royalists make David's act of not putting 
 hands on the Lord's anointed an ordinary 
 moral reason against resistance, but his put- 
 ting on of armour they will have extraordi- 
 nary ; and this is, I confess, a short way to 
 an adversaiy to cull out something that is 
 for his cause and make it ordinary, and 
 something that is against his cause must be 
 extraordinary. 7. These men, by the law 
 of nature, were obliged to join in arms with 
 David ; therefore, the non-helping of an op- 
 pressed man must be God's ordinary law, — 
 a blasphemous tenet. 8. If David, by an 
 extraordinary spirit, killed not king Saul, 
 then the Jesuits' way of killing must be 
 God's ordinary law. 
 
 2. David certainly intended to keep Kei- 
 lah against lung Saul, for the Lord would not 
 have answered David in an unlawful fact ; 
 for that were all one as if God should teach 
 David how to play the traitor to his king ; 
 for if God had answered, They will not de- 
 liver thee up, but they shall save thee from 
 the hand of Saul, — as David believed he 
 might say this, as well as its contradicent, 
 then David behoved to keep the city ; for 
 certainly David's question pre-supposeth he 
 was to keep the city. 
 
 The example of Elisha the prophet is con- 
 siderable, (2 Kings vi. 32,) " But Elisha 
 sat in his house, and the elders with him ; 
 and the king sent a man before him ; but, 
 ere the messengers came to him, he said to 
 the elders, See now, the son of a murderer 
 hath sent to take away mine head." 1. Here 
 is unjust violence offered by king Joram to an 
 innocent man. Elisha keepeth the house 
 violently against the king's messenger, as we 
 did keep castles against king Charles' un- 
 lawful messengers. " Look (saith he) when 
 the messenger cometh, — shut the door." 2. 
 There is violence also commanded, and re- 
 sistance to be made, " Hold him fast at 
 the door." In the Hebrew it is, J"lS"0 
 
 inK DnsfnSv-hVyi tud Aria * 
 
 Montan. : Claudite ostium, et oppremetis 
 eumin ostio, " Violently press him at the 
 door." And so the Chaldee paraphrase, Ne 
 
 sinatis cum introire, Jerome. The LXX. 
 Interpreters, IkSx'^olti *h™ U ™ 9^« Mi" 
 dite eum in ostio, " Press him betwixt the 
 door and the wall." It is a word of bodily 
 violence, according to Vatablus ; yea, Theo- 
 doret will have king Joram himself holden 
 at the door. And, 3. It is no answer that 
 Dr Feme and other royalists give, that 
 Elisha made no personal resistance to the 
 king himself, but only to the king's cut- 
 throat, sent to take away his head ; yea, 
 they say, it is lawful to resist the king's cut- 
 throats. But the text is clear, that the vio- 
 lent resistance is made to the king himself 
 also, for he addeth, " Is not the sound of his 
 master's feet behind him ?" And by this 
 answer, it is lawful to keep towns with iron 
 gates and bars, and violently to oppose the 
 king's cut-throats coming to take away the 
 heads of the parliaments of both kingdoms, 
 and of protestants in the three kingdoms. 
 
 Some royalists are so impudent as to say 
 that there was no violence here, and that 
 Elisha was an extraordinary man, and that 
 it is not lawful for us to call a king the son 
 of a murderer, as the prophet Elisha did ; 
 but Feme, (sect. 2, p. 9,) forgetting him- 
 self, saith from hence, "It is lawful to 
 resist the prince himself, thus far, as to 
 ward his blows, and hold his hands." But 
 let Feme answer, if the violent binding of 
 the prince's hand, that he shall not be able 
 to kill, be a greater violence done to his 
 royal person than David's cutting off the 
 skirt of Saul's garment; for certainly tlie 
 royal body of a prince is of more worth than 
 his clothes. Now it was a sin, I judge, that 
 smote David's conscience, that he being a 
 subject, and not in the act of natural self- 
 defence, did cut the garment of the Lord's 
 anointed. Let Feme see, then, how he will 
 save his own principles; for certainly he 
 yieldeth the cause for me. I judge that 
 the person of the king, or any judge who is 
 the Lord's deputy, as is the king, is sacred ; 
 and that remaining in that honourable case, 
 no subject can, without guiltiness before 
 God, put hands on his person, the case of 
 natural self-defence being excepted ; for, 
 because the royal dignity doth not advance 
 a king above the common condition of men, 
 and the throne maketh him not leave off to 
 be a man, and a man that can do wrong; 
 and therefore as one that doth manifest vio- 
 lence to the life of a man, though his sub- 
 ject, he may be resisted with bodily resist- 
 ance, in the case of unjust and violent in- 
 2 a 
 
170 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 vasion. It is a vain thing to say, " Who 
 shall be judge between the king and his sub- 
 jects ? The subject cannot judge the king, 
 because none can be judge in his own cause, 
 and an inferior or equal cannot judge a 
 superior or equal." But I answer, 1. This 
 is the king's own cause also, and he doth 
 unjust violence as a man, and not as a king, 
 and so he cannot be judge more than the 
 subject. 2. Every one that doth unjust vio- 
 lence, as he is such, is inferior to the inno- 
 cent, and so ought to be judged by some. 
 3. There is no need of the formality of a 
 judge in things evident to nature's eye, such 
 as are manifestly unjust violences. Nature, 
 in acts natural of self-defence, is judge, 
 party, accuser, witness, and all; for it is 
 supposed the judge is absent when the 
 judge doth wrong. And for the plea of 
 Elisha's extraordinary spirit, it is nothing 
 extraordinary to the prophet to call the 
 king the son of a murderer, when he com- 
 plaineth to the elders for justice of his op- 
 pression, no more than it is for a plaintiff to 
 libel a true crime against a wicked person, 
 and if Elisha's resistance came from an ex- 
 traordinary spirit, then it is not natural for 
 an oppressed man to close the door upon a 
 murderer, then the taking away of the in- 
 nocent prophet's head must be extraordinary, 
 for this was but an ordinary and most na- 
 tural remedy against this oppression ; and 
 though to name the king the son of a mur- 
 derer be extraordinary, (and I should grant 
 it without any hurt to this cause,) it follow - 
 eth nowise that the self-defence was extra- 
 ordinary. 4. (2 Chron. xxvi. 17.) Four 
 score of priests, with Azariah, are com- 
 mended as valiant men. LXX. net lumpiat 
 Heb. 7 ♦("!"* J H Arms Montan. Filii virtu- 
 tis, Men of courage and valour, for that 
 they resisted Uzziah the king, who would 
 take on him to burn incense to the Lord, 
 against the law. Mr Symmons, (p. 34, 
 sect. 10,) They withstood him not with 
 swords and weapons, but only by speaking, 
 and one but spake. I answer, 1. It was a 
 boddy resistance ; for beside that, Jerome 
 turneth it, Virifortissimi, most violent men. 
 And it is a speech in the Scriptures taken 
 for men valorous for war ; as 1 Sam. xvi. 25 ; 
 2 Sam. xvii. 10 ; 1 Chron. v. 18 ; and so 
 doth the phrase ^ipf TO J Potent in va- 
 lour; and the phrase, 7in-tyiN ^ Sam. 
 xxiv. 9 ; xi. 16 ; 1 Sam. xxxi. 12 ; and 
 therefore all the eighty, not only by words, 
 but violently, expelled the king out of the 
 
 temple. 2. VAty-Sp MQW\ Ar. Mont. 
 Et steterunt contra Huzzi-Jahu ; the LXX 
 say, »a) tvttrrivtav they resisted the king. So 
 Dan. xi. 17, The armies of the south shall 
 not stand, Dan. viii. 25, it is a word of 
 violence. 3. The text saith, (ver. 20,) and 
 they thrust him out. irOS'nD'l Arias 
 Mont. Et fecerunt eum festinare ; Hieron. 
 Festinato expulerunt eum. The LXX. say, 
 
 The priest xu-ritrTairtv uiriv Ixiihv ', SO Vata- 
 
 blus, 1 They cast him out. 4. It is said, (ver. 
 21,) " He was cut off from the house of 
 the Lord." Dr Feme saith, (sect. 4, p. 50,) 
 " They are valiant men who dare withstand 
 a king in an evil way, by a home reproof, 
 and by withdrawing the holy things from 
 him, especially since, by the law, the leper 
 was to be put out of the congregation." 
 
 Ans. 1. — He contradicteth the text. It 
 was not a resistance by words, for the text 
 saith, " They withstood him, and they thrust 
 him out violently." 2. He yieldeth the 
 cause, for to withdraw the holy things of 
 God by corporeal violence, and violently to 
 pull the censer out of his hand, that he 
 should not provoke God's wrath by offering 
 incense to the Lord, is resistance; and the 
 like violence may, by this example, be used 
 when the king useth the sword and the 
 militia to bring in an enemy to destroy the 
 kingdom. It is no less injustice against the 
 second table, that the king useth the sword 
 to destroy the innocent than to usurp the 
 censer against the first table. But Dr 
 Feme yieldeth, that the censer may be 
 pulled out of his hand, lest he provoke God 
 to wTath ; therefore, by the same very rea- 
 son, afortiore, the sword, the castles, the 
 sea-ports, the militia, may be violently 
 pulled out of his hand ; for if there was an 
 express law that the leper should be put out 
 of the congregation, and therefore the king 
 also should be subject to his church-censor, 
 then he subjecteth the king to a punishment 
 to be inflicted by the subjects upon the 
 king. 1. Therefore the king is obnoxious 
 to the co-active power of the law. 2. There- 
 fore subjects may judge him and punish 
 him. 3. Therefore he is to be subject to 
 all church-censors no less than the people. 
 4. There is an express law that the leper 
 should be put out of the congregation. 
 What then ? Flattering court divines say, 
 
 1 Vatab. — Deturbarunt enm ex illo loco, compul- 
 snsque ut egrederetur, in not. Festinanter egredi 
 eum coegerunt, hoc est, extruserunt eum. 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 171 
 
 " The king is above all these laws ;" for 
 there is an express law of God as express as 
 that ceremonial law on touching lepers, and 
 a more binding law, that the murderer 
 should die the death. Will royalists put no 
 exception upon a ceremonial law of expel- 
 ling the leper, and yet put an exception 
 upon a divine moral law, concerning the 
 punishing of murderers given before the 
 law on Mount Sinai. (Gen. vi. 9.) They 
 so declare that they accept the persons of 
 men. 5. If a leper king could not actually 
 sit upon the throne, but must be cut off 
 from the house of the Lord, because of an 
 express law of God, these being inconsistent, 
 that a king remaining amongst God's people, 
 ruling and reigning, should keep company 
 with the church of God, and yet be a leper, 
 who was to be cut off, by a divine law, from 
 the church. Now, I persuade myself, that 
 far less can he actually reign in the full use 
 of the power of the sword, if he use the 
 sword to cut off thousands of innocent 
 people ; because, murdering the innocent 
 and the fatherless, and royal governing in 
 righteousness and godliness, are more incon- 
 sistent by God's law, being morally oppo- 
 site, than remaining a governor of the peo- 
 ple, and the disease of leprosy, are incom- 
 patible. 6. I think not much that Barclay 
 saith, (cont. Monar. 1. 5, c. 11,) " Uzziah 
 remained king, after he was removed from 
 the congregation for leprosy." 1. Because 
 that toucheth the question of dethroning 
 kings, this is an argument brought for 
 violent resisting of kings, and that the 
 people did resume all power from Uzziah, 
 and put it in the " hand of Jotham his son, 
 who was over the king's house, judging the 
 people of the land " (ver 21). And by this 
 same reason the parliaments of both king- 
 doms may resume the power once given to 
 the king, when he hath proved more unfit 
 to govern morally than Uzziah was cere- 
 monially, that he ought not to judge the 
 people of the land in this case. 2. If the 
 priests did execute a ceremonial law upon 
 king Uzziah, far more may the three estates 
 of Scotland, and the two houses of parlia- 
 ment of England, execute the moral law of 
 God on their king. 
 
 If the people may covenant by oath to 
 rescue the innocent and unjustly-condemned 
 from the sentence of death, notoriously 
 known to be tyrannous and cruel, then may 
 the people resist the king in his unlawful 
 practices ; but this the people did in the 
 
 matter of Jonathan. Mr Symmons (p. 32) 
 and Dr Feme (sect. 9, 49) say, " That 
 with no violence, but by prayers and tears, 
 the people saved Jonathan ; as Peter was 
 rescued out of prison by the prayers of the 
 church, king Saul might easily be entreated 
 to break a rash vow to save the life of his 
 eldest son." — Ans. 1. I say not the com- 
 mon people did it, but the people, including 
 proceres rcgni, the princes of the land, and 
 captains of thousands. 2. The text hath 
 not one word or syllable of either prayers, 
 supplications or tears ; but by the contrary, 
 they bound themselves by an oath, contrary 
 to the oath of Saul, (1 Sam. xiv. 44, 45,) 
 and swore, " God forbid: as the Lord liveth, 
 there shall not one hair of his head fall to the 
 ground. So the people rescued Jonathan." 1 
 The church prayed not to God for Peter's 
 deliverance with an oath, that they must 
 have Peter saved, whether God will or no. 
 Though we read of no violence used by the 
 people, yet an oath upon so reasonable a 
 ground, — 1. Without the king's consent. 
 2. Contrary to a standing law that they had 
 agreed unto. (ver. 24.) 3. Contradictory to 
 the king's sentence and unjust oath. 4. 
 Spoken to the king in his face, — all these 
 prove that the people meant, and that the 
 oath ex conditione operis, tended to a vio- 
 lent resisting of the king in a manifestly 
 unjust sentence. Chrysostom, horn. 14, ad 
 Pop., Antioch accuseth Saul as a murderer 
 in this sentence, and praiseth the people : 
 so Junius, Peter Martyr 2 (whom royalists 
 impudently cite) ; so Cornelius a Lapide, 
 Zanchius, Lyra, and Hugo Cardinalis say, 
 " It was tyranny in Saul, and laudable that 
 the people resisted Saul ;" and the same 
 is asserted by Josephus (1. 6, antiquit. c. 7 ; 
 so Althusius, Polit. c. 38, n. 109). 
 
 We see also, (2 Chron. xxi. 10.) that 
 Libnah revolted from under Jehoram, be- 
 cause he had forsaken the Lord God of his 
 fathers. It hath no ground in the text that 
 royalists say, that the defection of Libnah 
 is not justified in the text, but the cause is 
 from the demerit of wicked Jeboram, be- 
 cause he made defection from God. Libnah 
 made defection from him, as the ten tribes 
 revolted from Rehoboam for Solomon's 
 
 i Chald. Par. — Manifestum est quod Jonathan 
 peccavit per ignorantiam. 
 
 3 P. Mart, saith with a doubt, Si ista seditiose 
 fecerunt — nullo modo excusari possunt. Yea. he 
 saith they might suffragiis, with their suffrages free 
 him. 
 
172 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 idolatry, which, before the Lord, procured 
 this defection, yet the ten tribes make de- 
 fection for oppression. I answer, "Where the 
 literal meaning is simple and obvious, we 
 are not to go from it. The text showeth 
 what cause moved Libnah to revolt : x it was 
 a town of the Levites, and we know they 
 were longer found in the truth than the 
 ten tribes (2 Chron. xiii. 8 — 10; Hosea 
 xi. 12). Lavater saith, Jehoram hath pressed 
 them to idolatry, and therefore they re- 
 volted. Zanchius and Cornelius aLapide say, 
 This was the cause that moved them to re- 
 volt, and it is clear, (ver. 13,) he caused Ju- 
 dah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to go 
 a whoring from God, and no doubt tempted 
 Libnah to the like." 2 
 
 Yea, the city of Abel (2 Sam. xx.) did 
 well to resist Joab, David's general, for he 
 came to destroy a whole city for a traitor's 
 sake, for Sheba ; they resisted and defended 
 themselves. The wise woman calleth the city 
 a mother in Israel, and the inheritance of 
 the Lord ; (ver. 19 ;) and Joab professeth, 
 (ver. 20,) far be it from him to swallow up 
 and destroy Abel. The woman saith, (ver. 
 18,) " They said of old, they shall surely 
 ask counsel at Abel ; and so they ended the 
 matter ;" that is, the city of Abel was a 
 place of prophets and oracles of old, where 
 they asked responses of their doubts, and 
 therefore peace should be first offered to 
 the city before Joab should destroy it, as the 
 law saith, Deut. xx. 10. From all which 
 it is evident, that the city, in defending 
 itself, did nothing against peace, so they 
 should deliver Sheba, the traitor, to Joab's 
 hand, which they accordingly did ; and 
 Joab pursued them not as traitors for keep- 
 ing the city against the king, but professeth 
 in°that they did no wrong. 
 
 QUESTION XXXIII. 
 
 WHETHER OR NO THE PLACE, ROM. XIII. 1, 
 PROVE THAT IN NO CASE IT IS LAWFUL TO 
 RESIST THE KING. 
 
 The special ground of royalists from Rom. 
 xiii., against the lawfulness of defensive wars, 
 
 1 P. Mar. Com. in 2 Reg. c. 8, saith Libnah re- 
 volted, Quia subditos nitebatur cogere ad idololatri- 
 am, quod ipsi libnenses pati noluerunt et raerito : 
 principibus enim parendum est, verum usque ad aras. 
 
 2 Vatab. in not. — Irapulit Judaeos ad idololatri- 
 am, alioqui jam pronos ad rultuin idololorum. 
 
 is to make Paul (Rom. xiii.) speak only of 
 kings. Hugo Grotius (de jure belli et pac. 
 I. 1, c. 4, n. 6), and Barclay {coat. Monar. 
 I. 3, c. 9) say, " Though Ambrose expound 
 the place, Rom. xiii., de solis regibus, of 
 kings only, (this is false of kings only, he 
 doth not, but of kings principally}) yet it 
 followeth not that all magistrates, by this 
 place, are freed from all laws, because (saith 
 he) there is no judge above a king on earth, 
 and therefore he cannot be punished ; but 
 there is a judge above all inferior judges, 
 and therefore they must be subject to laws." 
 So Dr Feme followeth him, (sect. 2, p. 10,) 
 and our poor Prelate must be an accident to 
 them, (Sacr. San. Maj. c. 2, p. 29,) for his 
 learning cannot subsist per se. 
 
 Assert. 1. In a free monarchy (such as 
 Scotland is known to be) by the higher 
 power (Rom. xiii.) is the king principally in 
 respect of dignity understood, but not solely 
 and only, as if inferior judges were not 
 higher powers. 1. I say in a free mo- 
 narchy ; for no man can say, that where 
 there is not a king, but only aristocracy, 
 and government by states, as in Holland, 
 that there the people are obliged to obey 
 the king ; and yet this text, I hope, can reach 
 the consciences of all Holland, that there 
 every soul must be subject to the higher 
 powers, and yet not a subject in Holland is 
 to be subject to any king : for non entis 
 nulla sunt accidentia. 2. I said the king, 
 in a free monarchy, is here principally un- 
 derstood in regard of dignity, but not in re- 
 gard of the essence of a magistrate, because 
 the essence of a magistrate doth equally 
 belong to all inferior magistrates, as to the 
 king, as is already proved ; (let the Prelate 
 answer if he can ;) for though some judges 
 be sent by the king, and have from him 
 authority to judge, yet this doth no more 
 prove that inferior judges are improperly 
 judges, and only such by analogy, and not 
 essentially, than it will prove a citizen is 
 not essentially a citizen, nor a church-officer 
 essentially a church-officer, nor a son not 
 essentially a living creature, because the for- 
 mer have authority from the incorporation 
 of citizens, and of church-officers, and the 
 latter hath his life by generation from his 
 father, as God's instrument. For though 
 the citizen and the church-officers may be 
 judged by their several incorporations that 
 made them, yet are they also essentially citi- 
 zens and church-officers, as those who made 
 them such. 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 173 
 
 Assert. 2. — There is no reason to restrain 
 the higher powers to monarchs only, or yet 
 principally, as if they only were essentially 
 powers ordained of God, 1. Because he call- 
 eth them ifyvriai faux™"" higher powers. 
 Now this will include all higher powers, as 
 Piscator observeth on the place; and cer- 
 tainly Rome had never two or three kings 
 to which every soul should be subject. If 
 Paul had intended that they should have 
 given obedience to one Nero, as the only 
 essential judge, he would have designed him 
 by the noun in the singular number. 2. All 
 the reasons that the apostle bringeth to 
 prove that subjection is due, agreeth to infe- 
 rior judges as well as to emperors, for they 
 are powers ordained of God, and they bear 
 the sword, and we must obey them for con- 
 science sake, and they are God's deputies, 
 and their judgment is not the judgment of 
 men, but of the Lord (2 Chron. xix. 6, 7 ; 
 Deut. i. 16 ; Numb. xi. 16, 17). Tribute 
 and wages be no less due to them, as minis- 
 ters and servants, for their work, than to 
 the king, &c. 3. The apostle could not omit 
 obedience to the good civil laws enacted by 
 the senate, nor could he omit to command 
 subjection to rulers, if the Romans should 
 change the government, and abolish mo- 
 narchy, and erect their ancient form of go- 
 vernment before they had kings. 4. This 
 is canonical Scripture, and a clear exposi- 
 tion of the fifth commandment, and so must 
 reach the consciences of all Christian repub- 
 lics, where there is no monarchy. 5. Pa- 
 rallel places of Scripture prove this. Paul 
 (1 Tim. ii. 1, 2) will have prayers made to 
 God for kings, and for all that are in autho- 
 rity, and the intrinsical end of all is a godly, 
 honest, and peaceable life. And (1 Pet. ii. 
 13) " Submit to every ordinance of man for 
 the Lord's sake ;" also, (Tit. hi. 1,) it is 
 true, subjection to Nero, of whom Tertullian 
 said, (Apol. 5,) Nihil nisi grande bonum a 
 Nerone damnatum, is commanded here, but 
 to Nero as such a one as he is obliged, de 
 jure, to be, (whether you speak of the office 
 in abstracto, or of the emperor in concreto, 
 in this notion, to me it is all one,) but that 
 Paul commandeth subjection to Nero, and 
 that principally and solely, as he was such 
 a man, de facto, I shall then believe, when 
 antichristian prelates turn Paul's bishops, 
 (1 Tim. ii.,) which is a miracle. 6. Inferior 
 judges are not necessarily sent by the king, 
 by any divine law, but chosen by the people, 
 as the king is ; and, de facto, is the practice 
 
 of creating all magistrates of cities in both 
 kingdoms. 7. Augustine, (expos, prop. 72 
 on epist. Rom.,) Irenseus, (1. 5, c. 24;) 
 Chrysostom, (in Psal. cxlviii., and on the 
 place,) and Hieron. (epist. 53, advers. vi- 
 gilant.) expound it of masters, magistrates ; 
 so do Calvin, Beza, Pareus, Piscator, Rol- 
 locus, Marloratus ; so do popish writers, 
 Aquinas, Lyra, Hugo Cardinalis, Carthusius, 
 Pirerius, Toletus, Cornelius a Lapide, Sal- 
 meron, Estius, expound the place ; and 
 therefore there is no argument that royalists 
 hence draw against resisting of the king by 
 the parliaments, but they do strongly con- 
 clude against the cavaliers' unlawful wars 
 against the parliaments and estates of two 
 kingdoms. Here what the P. Prelate saith 
 to the contrary. 1. They are called emi- 
 nent powers ; therefore, kings only. — Ans. 
 It followeth not, for these can be no other 
 than <ravT$s oi ii vTrt^xv »**&) (1 Tim. ii. 2). 
 But these are not kings, but in the text con- 
 tradivided from jWiXs/s kings, and they can 
 be no other than «^«r *«i I^v^m principalities 
 and powers. 2. The reason of the apostle 
 proveth clearly that \\we\ai cannot mean 
 king's only, for Paul addeth of that same 
 \\mtrttt. " For there is no power but of God." 
 It must be there is no supereminent royal 
 power, but it is of God, and the powers only 
 (so he must mean) that be, are ordained of 
 God. Now the latter is manifestly false, for 
 inferior powers are of God. The powers of 
 the Roman senate, of a master, of a father, 
 are of God. 
 
 P. Prelate. — " Peter must expound Paul, 
 and Paul's higher powers must be (1 Pet. ii.) 
 ^aaixCi v*ipx<»<ns More reason that Paul 
 expound Paul. Now (1 Tim. ii. 2) *&, rtl 
 U v*ipx» " T£ *> All in authority are not 
 kings. P. Prelate. — " Are of God," or 
 " ordained of God," cannot so properly be 
 understood of subordinate powers, for that 
 is not by immediate derivation from God, 
 but immediately from the higher power the 
 king, and mediately from God. 
 
 Ans. 1. — It is most false that king David 
 is so immediately a king from God, as that 
 he is not also by the mediation of the people, 
 who made him king at Hebron. 2. The 
 inferior magistrates are also immediate vi- 
 
 Vatab — Homiucs intelligit publica authoritate 
 
 P. Martyr. — Varia sunt potestatutn genera — ■ 
 rcgna, aristocratica, politica, tyrannica, oligarchica 
 — Deus etiam illorum author. AVillct saith the 
 same, and so Beza, Tolet., Hammond, &c. 
 
174 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 cars and ministers of God as the king, for 
 their throne and judgment is not the king's, 
 but the Lord's (Deut. i. 16; 2 Chron. xxi. 
 6). 3. Though they were mediately from 
 man, it followeth not that they are not so 
 properly from God, for wisdom (Prov. viii.) 
 saith as properly, (ver. 16,) " By me princes 
 rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the 
 earth ;" as, (ver. 15,) " By me kings reign ;" 
 and promotion is as properly from God, and 
 not from the east and the west, (Psal. lxxv. 
 6, 7,) though God promote Joseph by the 
 thankful munificence of Pharaoh, and Mor- 
 decai by Ahasuerus, Daniel by Darius, as if 
 he gave them power and honour immediate- 
 ly from heaven. 
 
 P. Prelate. — Learned interpreters ex- 
 pound it so. — Ans. It is an untruth, for 
 none expound it only and principally of 
 kings. Produce one Interpreter for that 
 conceit. P. Prelate. — Paul wrote this when 
 Nero was monarch. — Ans. 1. Then must 
 the text be expounded of Nero only. 2. 
 He wrote this when Nero played the tyrant 
 and persecuted Christians, therefore we are 
 not to obey Neroes now. 3. He wrote it 
 when the senate of Rome had power to de- 
 clare Nero an enemy, not a father, as they 
 did. P. Prelate. — *', must be referred to 
 the antecedent Vfyvtl* l-xiix™** an< i th^i 
 " There is no power t l ^ but of God," must 
 undeniably infer there is no supreme power 
 but of God ; and so, sovereignty relates to 
 God as his immediate author, so sectaries 
 reason, Gal. ii. 16, " Not justified by works, 
 (iat ph) but by faith only." Then t l ph a-ri 
 reus Sm must be a perfect exclusive, else 
 their stronghold for justification is over- 
 thrown. — Ans. al hath a nearer antece- 
 dent, which is i&a, it is alone without 
 Iv'izzovff*. And this grammar is not so 
 good as Beza's, which he rejected. 2. i« v 
 fib wdl refer to God alone as the only 
 cause, in genere causa prima?. God alone 
 giveth rain, but not for that immediately, 
 but by the mediation of vapours and clouds. 
 " God alone killeth and maketh alive," Deut. 
 xxxii. 39, that is, excluding all strange gods, 
 but not immediately; for, by his people's 
 fighting, he slew Og, king of Bashan, and 
 cast out seven nations, yet they used bow 
 and sword, as it is used in the book of 
 Joshua ; and, therefore, God killed not Og 
 immediately. God hath an infinite, emi- 
 nent, transcendent way of working, so that 
 in his kind he only worketh his alone ; Deus 
 solus operatur solitudinc primes causae, 
 
 non solus solitudine omnis causa:, God only 
 giveth learning and wisdom, yet not imme- 
 diately always — often he doth it by teaching 
 and industry. God only maketh rich, yet 
 the prelates make themselves rich also with 
 the fat of the flock ; and God only maketh 
 poor, yet the P. Prelate's courts, mediately 
 also under God, made many men poor. 3. 
 Urn fin is not such an exclusive particle 
 when we ascribe it to God, as when we as- 
 cribe it to two created causes, works and faith ; 
 and the protestants' form of arguing (Gal. 
 ii.), to prove " we are justified by faith," he 
 calleth our stronghold, therefore it is not 
 his stronghold. In this point, then, he 
 must be a papist, and so he refuses to own 
 protestant strongholds for justification by 
 faith alone. 
 
 Dr Feme (sect. 2, p. 10). — As many as 
 have souls must be subject to the higher 
 powers spoken of here ; but all inferior 
 judges have souls. 
 
 Ans. — 1. If the word souls be thus 
 pressed, none shall be understood by higher 
 powers, but the king only. 2. Certainly 
 he that commandeth as he commandeth 
 must be excepted, except, because the king 
 hath a soul, you must subject the king to 
 himself and to his own commandments royal, 
 and so to penal laws. 3. Inferior judges, 
 as judges, by this text, must either be sub- 
 ject to themselves as judges, (and, by the 
 same reason, the king must be subject to 
 himself, as he is a judge,) or judges, as men, 
 or as erring men are to be subject ; which I 
 would grant, but they are not subject as 
 judges, no more than one, as he command- 
 eth, can also obey as he commandeth. 
 These are contradictory. I am not put off 
 that opinion since I was at school, species 
 subjicibilis qua subjicibilis non est prcedi- 
 cabilis. 4. If Nero make fathers rulers 
 over their mothers and chddren, and com- 
 mand them, by this public sword of justice, 
 to kill their own children and mothers, — if a 
 senate of such fathers disobey, and if, with 
 the sword, they defend their own children 
 and mothers, which some other Doegs, as 
 judges, are to kill, in the name and com- 
 mandment of Nero, then they, resisting 
 Nero's bastard commandment by this doc- 
 trine, resist the ordinance of God, and resist 
 the minister of God. I have not a faith 
 stretched out so far to the Prelate's court- 
 divinity. Yet Feme saith, " There was 
 never more cause to resist higher powers, 
 for their wicked Nero was emperor, when 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 he now fbrbiddeth resistance, (Rom. xiii.) 
 under the pain of damnation." I desire to 
 he informed, whether to resist the king's 
 servants, he to resist the king ? Dr Feme 
 (p. 3, sect. 2, p. 10, and part 3, sect. 9, p. 
 59) allows us, in unavoidable assaults where 
 death is imminent, personal defence without 
 offending, as lawful, whether the king or his 
 emissaries invade, without law or reason. 
 Well, then, the resisting of the king's cut- 
 throats, though they have a personal com- 
 mand of the king to kill the innocent, yet 
 if they want a legal, is no resisting of the 
 king, as king, for the servant hath no more 
 than the master giveth; but the king, in 
 lawless commandments, gave nothing royal to 
 his cut-throats, and so nothing legal. 
 
 QUESTION XXXIV. 
 
 WHETHER ROYALISTS BY COGENT REASONS 
 DO PROVE THE UNLAWFULNESS OF DEFEN- 
 SIVE WARS. 
 
 What reasons have already been dis- 
 cussed, I touch not. 
 
 Obj. 1. — Arniseeus (de auihorit. princip. 
 c. 2, n. 2). " If we are to obey our parents, 
 not if they be good, but simply whether 
 they be good or ill, (so Justin, saith of the 
 king, Quamvis legum contemptor, quam- 
 vis impius, tamen pater, sect, si vero in ff. 
 vos. 12,) then must we submit to wicked 
 kings." 
 
 Ans. — Valeat totum, we are to submit 
 to wicked kings and wicked parents, because 
 kings and parents ; but when it cometh to 
 actual submission, we are to submit to nei- 
 ther but in the Lord. The question is not 
 touching subjection to a prince, let him be 
 Nero, but if in acts of tyranny we may not 
 deny subjection. There be great odds be- 
 twixt wicked rulers and rulers commanding 
 or punishing unjustly. 
 
 Obj. 2 — Arnisseus (c. 3, n. 9). "We 
 may resist an inferior magistrate, therefore 
 we may resist the supreme. It followeth not ; 
 for an inferior judge hath a majesty in fic- 
 tion only, not properly : treason is, or can 
 only be committed against the king; the 
 obligation to inferior judges is only for the 
 prince, the person of none is sacred and in- 
 violable but the king's. 
 
 Ans. — We obey parents, masters, kings, 
 upon this formal ground, because they are 
 
 God's deputies, and set over us not by man, 
 but by God; so that not only are we to 
 obey them because what they command is 
 good and just, (such a sort of obedience an 
 equal owes to the counsel of either equal or 
 inferior,) but also by virtue of the fifth com- 
 mandment, because of their place of dignity. 
 Now this majesty, which is the formal rea- 
 son of subjection, is one and the same in 
 specie and nature in king and constable, and 
 only different gradually in the king and in 
 other judges ; and it is denied that there is 
 any incommunicable sanctity in the king's 
 person which is not in some degree in the 
 inferior judge. All proceedeth from this 
 false ground, that the king and inferior 
 judges differ in nature, which is denied ; 
 and treason inferior may be committed 
 against an inferior judge, and it is a fiction 
 that the inferior judge doth not resemble 
 God as the king doth ; yea, there is a sacred 
 majesty in all inferior judges, in the aged, 
 in every superior, wherefore they deserve 
 honour, fear, and reverence. Suppose there 
 were no king on earth, as is clear in Scrip- 
 ture, (Exod. xx. 12 ; Levit. xix. 32 ; Esther, 
 i. 20 ; Psal. cxlix. '9 ; Prov. iii. 16 ; Matt, 
 xiii. 57 ; Heb. v. 4 ; Isa. iii. 3 ; Lam. v. 
 12 ; Mai. i. 6 ; Psal. viii. 5,) and this hon- 
 our is but united in a special manner in the 
 king, because of his high place. 
 
 Obj. 3.— A king elected upon conditions 
 may be resisted. 
 
 Ans. — He is as essentially a king as a he- 
 reditary, yea, as an absolute prince, and no 
 less the Lord's anointed than another prince; 
 if then one, also another may be resisted. 
 
 Obj. 4.— The oath of God bindeth the 
 subjects ; therefore, they must obey, not 
 resist. 
 
 Ans. — Obedience and resistance are very 
 consistent. No doubt the people gave their 
 oath to Athaliah, but to her as the only 
 heir of the crown, they not knowing that 
 Joash, the lawful heir, was living ; so may 
 conditional oaths (all of this kind are condi- 
 tional) in which there is interpretative and 
 virtual ignorance, be broken; as the people 
 swear loyalty to such a man conceived to be 
 a father, he, after that, turneth tyrant, may 
 they not resist his tyranny ? They may. 
 Also, no doubt, Israel gave their oath of 
 loyalty to Jabin, (for when Nebuchadnezzar 
 subdued Judah, he took an oath of loyalty 
 of their king,) yet many of Zebulun, Naph- 
 tali, and Issachar, Barak leading them, 
 conspired against Jabin. 
 
17< 
 
 LEX, REX I OR, 
 
 Obj. 5. — There is no law to take a king's 
 life if he turn a Nero, — we never read that 
 subjects did it. 
 
 Ans. — The treatise of unlimited preroga- 
 tive saith, (p. 7,) " We read not that a 
 father, killing his children, was killed by 
 them, the tact being abominable." The 
 law (Gen. vi. 9 ; Levit. xxiv. 16) excepteth 
 none. See Deut. xiii. 6, the dearest that 
 nature knoweth are not excepted. 
 
 Obj. 6. — Vengeance pursued Korah, Da- 
 than, and Abiram, who resisted Moses. 
 
 Ans. — From resisting of a lawful magis- 
 trate in a thing lawful, it followeth not it 
 must be unlawful to resist kings in tyran- 
 nous acts. 
 
 Obj. 7. — Exod. xxii. 28, " Thou shalt 
 not revile the gods, nor curse the lluler of 
 the people." Exod. x. 20, " Curse not 
 the king, no not in thy thought, nor the 
 rich in thy bed-chamber." 
 
 Ans. — The word elohim signifieth all 
 judges, and So^^D, nasi signifieth one 
 lifted up above the people, saith Rivetus, (in 
 loc.) whether a monarch, or many rulers. 
 All cursing of any is unlawful, even of a 
 private man, (Rom. xii. 14,) therefore we 
 may not resist a private man by this ; the 
 other text readeth, contemn not the king, 
 "nyiJDD m scientia tua. Aria Mon., or 
 in thy conscience or thought ; and it may 
 prove resisting any rich man to be unlawful. 
 Nothing in word or deed tending to the dis- 
 honour of the king may be done ; now to 
 resist him in self-defence, being a com- 
 mandment of God in the law of nature, can- 
 not fight with another commandment to 
 honour the king, no more than the fifth 
 commandment can fight with the sixth ; for 
 all resistance is against the judge, as a man 
 exceeding the limits of his office, in that 
 wherein he is resisted, not as a judge. 
 
 Obj. 8.— Eccles. viii. 3, 4, " Where the 
 word of a king is, there is power ; and 
 who may say to him, What dost thou?" 
 therefore, the king cannot be resisted. 
 
 Ans. — Tremelius saith well, That "the 
 scope is that a man go not from the king's 
 lawful command in passion and rebellion ;" 
 Vatab. — " If thou go from the king in dis- 
 grace, strive to be reconciled to him quickly;" 
 Cajetanus — " Use not kings too familiarly, 
 by coming too quickly to them, or going 
 too hastily from them ;" Plutarch, — " Cum 
 rege agendum ut cum rogo, neither too 
 near this fire nor too far off." Those have 
 smarted who have been too great in their 
 
 favour, — Ahasuerus slew Haman, Alexan- 
 der so served Clitus and Tiberius Sejaunus, 
 and Nero Seneca. But the sense is clear, 
 rebellion is forbidden, not resistance, so the 
 Hebrew y-| "1313 lD^H-'jX stand 
 not in an evil matter, or in a rebellion, 
 and he dehorteth from rebellion against 
 the king by an argument taken from his 
 power, for he doth whatsoever pleaseth 
 him. Where the word of a king is, there 
 is power, and who may say unto him, what 
 doest thou ? The meaning is, in way of 
 justice, he is armed with power that cannot 
 be resisted ; otherwise Samuel said to king 
 Saul, (1 Sam. xiii. 13,) " Thou hast done 
 foolishly." Elijah said more to Ahab then 
 What hast thou done ? And the prophets 
 were to rebuke sin in kings (2 Kings iii. 14 ; 
 Jer. i. 28; xxii. 3; Hosea v. 1, 2); and 
 though Solomon here give them a power, he 
 speaketh of kings as they are de facto ; but, 
 de jure, they are under a law (Deut. xvii. 
 18). If the meaning be, as royalists dream, 
 he doth whatsoever he will or desireth, as a 
 prince, by his royal, that is, his legal will, by 
 which he is lex animata, a breathing law, 
 we shall own that as truth, and it is nothing 
 against us ; but if the meaning be, that 
 de jure, as king, he doth whatsoever he 
 will, by the absolute supremacy of royal 
 will, above all law and reason, then Joram 
 should, by law, as king, take Elisha's head 
 away; and Elisha resisted God in saying, 
 What doth the king? and he sinned in 
 commanding to deal roughly with the king's 
 messenger, and hold him at the door ; then 
 the fourscore valiant priests, who said to 
 king Uzziah, What dost thou ? and resisted 
 him, in burning incense, which he desired 
 to do ; sinned, then Pharaoh, who said, 
 (Ezek. xxix. 3,) " The river Nilus is mine, 
 I have made it for myself; and the king of 
 Tyrus, (Ezek. xxvii. 2,) "I am God, I sit 
 in the seat of God," should not be control- 
 led by the prophets; and no man should 
 say to them, What sayest thou ? Did Cy- 
 rus, as a king, with a royal power from God, 
 and jure regio, be angry at the river Ganges, 
 because it drowned one of his horses, and 
 punish it by dividing it in one hundred and 
 thirty channels? (Sen. I. 3, de ira, c. 21.) 
 And did Xerxes, jure regio, by a royal 
 power given of God, when Hellespontus 
 had cast down his bridges, command that 
 three hundred whips should be inflicted on 
 that little sea, and that it should be cast in 
 fetters ? And our royalists will have these 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRIXCE. 
 
 177 
 
 mad fools, doing these acts of blasphemous 
 insolence against heaven, to be honoured as 
 kings, and to act those acts by a regal 
 power. But hear flatterers, — a royal power 
 is the good gift of God, a lawful and just 
 power. A king acting and speaking as a 
 king, speaketh and acteth law and justice. 
 A power to blaspheme is not a lawful power ; 
 they did and spake these things with a hu- 
 man and a sinful will ; if, therefore, this be 
 the royalists' meaning, — as kings, 1. They are 
 absolute, and so the limited and elected 
 king is no king. 2. The king, as king, is 
 above God's law put on him by God, Deut. 
 xvii. 3. His will is the measure of good and 
 ill. 4. It were unlawful to say to the king 
 of Cyrus, What sayest thou ? thou art not 
 God, according to this vain sense of royalists. 
 
 Obj. 9. — Eliliu saith, (Job. xxxiv. 18,) 
 " Is it fit to say to a king, Thou art wicked, 
 and to princes, Ye are ungodly ?" There- 
 fore, you may not resist kings. 
 
 Ans. 1. — This text no more proveth that 
 kings should not be resisted than it proveth 
 that rich men, or liberal men, or other 
 judges inferior, should not be resisted, for 
 DOH} signifieth all that, and it signifieth 
 liberal, Isa. xxxii. 5 ; and the same word is 
 in ver. 8. 2. Deodatus and Calvin say, the 
 meaning is, " Learn from the respect that 
 is due to earthly princes the reverence due 
 to the sovereign Lord," Mai. i. 8 ; for it is 
 not convenient to reproach earthly kings, 
 and to say to a prince, Sy'/i Beliel, a 
 word of reproach, signifying extreme wicked- 
 ness. And you may not say to a man of 
 place, J/jyi an extremely wicked man; so 
 are the words taken, as signifying most vile 
 and wicked men, 1 Sam. ii. 12; x. 27; 2 
 Sam. xxv. 6 ; Psal. i. 1, 6 ; xi. 5 ; xii. 8 ; 
 Prov. xiv. 4 ; Psal. cxlvi. 9, and in infinite 
 places. For ^y^^ is.a word of extreme 
 reproach, coming from »^^ sine, non, and 
 ^yt profuit, (Jud. xix. 22,).a most naughty 
 and a lewd man, or from ^»y jugum, a 
 lawless man, who hath cast off all yokes of 
 God's or man's laws. So then the meaning 
 is, It is unlawful to reproach earthly princes 
 and men of place, far more is it unlawful to 
 reproach the Judge of the whole earth with 
 injustice. And what then ? We may not 
 reproach the king, as Shimei cursed king 
 David ; therefore it' is unlawful to resist the 
 king in any tyrannous acts. I shall deny 
 the consequence ; nay, as Pineda observeth, 
 if the royalist press the words literally, it 
 shall not be lawful for prophets to reprove 
 
 kings of their sins. Christ called Herod a 
 fox, Elias Ahab, one that troubled Israel. 
 
 Obj. 10. — Acts xxiii. Paul excuseth him- 
 self that he called Ananias, the high-priest, 
 a whited wall. 
 
 Ans. — Bivetus (Exod. xxii.) learnedly 
 discussing the place, thinketh Paul, profess- 
 ing he knew him not to be the high-priest, 
 speaketh ironically, that he could not ac- 
 knowledge such a man for a judge. Pisca- 
 toranswereth, He could not then cite Scrip- 
 ture, " It is written," &c. — Ans. But they 
 may well insist, in that act of smiting Paul 
 unjustly, he might be reproached, otherwise 
 it is not lawful to reproach him ; and surely 
 it is not like that Paul was ignorant that he 
 was a judge ; yea, it is certain he knew him 
 to be a judge. 1. He appeared before him 
 as a judge, to answer for himself. 2. Paul 
 saith expressly he was a judge, (ver. 3,) 
 " Sittest thou to judge me after the law," 
 &c. And therefore the place is for us, for 
 even according to the mind of all, the fault 
 was (if there were any) in calling him a 
 whited wall ; and he resisted him in judg- 
 ment, when he said, " Commandest thou me 
 to be smitten against the law ?" 3. Though 
 royalists rather put a fault on the apostle 
 Paul, (now in the act of prophesying judg- 
 ment against Ananias, which after fell out,) 
 than upon their god, the king, yet the conse- 
 quence amounteth but to this, We may not 
 revile the high-priest, therefore we may 
 not resist the king in his illegal command- 
 ments. It followeth not; yea, it should 
 prove, if a prelate come in open war to kill 
 the innocent apostle Paul, the apostle might 
 fly or hold his hands, but might not re- 
 offend. Now the prelate is the high-priest's 
 successor, and so Ids base person is as sacred 
 as the person of the Lord's anointed, the 
 king. Hence the cavaliers had in one of 
 their colours, which was taken by the Scots 
 at the battle of Marston, July 2, 1644, 
 the crown and the Prelate's mitre, painted 
 with these words, " Nolite tangere Christos 
 meos," as if the antichristian mitre were as 
 sacred as the lawful crown of the king of 
 Britain. 
 
 Obj. 11.— Feme, (sect. 9, 56,) " If the 
 senate and people of Borne, who a little be- 
 fore had the supreme government over the 
 then emperors, that of subjects had made 
 them lords, might not resist their emperors, 
 much less can the people of England have 
 power of resistance against the succession 
 of this crown, descending from the eon- 
 2b 
 
178 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 queror, who by force of arms, but in justice, 
 conquered the kingdom. 
 
 Ans. 1. — Though the Roman emperors 
 were absolute, (of which I much doubt,) and 
 though the senate had made them absolute, 
 I deny that, therefore, they cannot be re- 
 sisted. The unlawful resistance condemned 
 by Paul (Rom. xiii.) is not upon the ground 
 of absoluteness, which is in the court of 
 God nothing, being never ordained of God, 
 but upon reasons of conscience, because the 
 powers are of God, and ordained of God. 
 But some may say, Volenti non fit injuria, 
 If a people totally resign their power, and 
 swear non-resistance to a conqueror, by com- 
 pact, they cannot resist. I answer, neither 
 doth this follow, because it is an unlawful 
 compact, and none is obliged to what is un- 
 lawful. For, (1.) It is no more lawful for 
 me to resign to another my power of na- 
 tural self-defence than I can resign my 
 power to defend the innocent drawn to 
 death, and the wives, children, and pos- 
 terity that God had tyed me unto. (2.) The 
 people can no more resign power of self- 
 defence, which nature hath given them, 
 than they can be guilty of self-murder, and 
 be wanting in the lawful defence of king- 
 dom and religion. (3.) Though you make 
 one their king with absoluteness of power, 
 yet when he use that transcendent power, 
 not for the safety but for the destruction of 
 the state, it is known they could not resign 
 to another that power which neither God nor 
 nature gave them, to wit, a power to destroy 
 themselves. 2. I much doubt if the Roman 
 emperor was absolute when Paul wrote this. 
 Justinian saith so, [Digest. I. 2, tit. 2,) but 
 he is partial in this cause. Bodine (de 
 repub. I. 2, c. 5, p. 221,) proveth that the 
 Roman emperors were but princes of the 
 commonwealth, and that the sovereignty re- 
 mained still in the senate and people. Ma- 
 rks Salamon. writeth six books (l)e Princi- 
 patu) on the contrary. How could they make 
 their emperors absolute ? Livy saith, " The 
 name of a king was contrary to a senate 
 liberty." Floras, Nomcn Regis invidiosum, 
 They instituted a yearly feast, Feb. 23, called 
 Regifugium. Cicero, as Augustine observ- 
 eth, Reg em Rornce posthcec nee Dii, nee 
 homines esse patiantur. The emperors 
 might do something de facto, but Lex Regia 
 was not before Vespasian's time. Augustus 
 took on him to be tribune of the people from 
 ten years to ten. Suetonius and Tacitus 
 say, " The succeeding kings encroached by 
 
 degrees upon the people's liberty." For 
 speedier execution of law, the kings in time 
 of war were forced to do many things with- 
 out the senate, and after the reign of empe- 
 rors, though there were no Plebiscita, yet 
 there were Scnatus-consulta, and one great 
 one is, that the senate declared Nero to be 
 an enemy to the state. It is thought Julius 
 Ctesar, in the war against Pompey, subdued 
 the Romans and the senate, and they were 
 subdued again in the battle of Octavius 
 against Cassius and Brutus. But Tacitus 
 saith that was de facto, not de jure, {Anal. 
 I. 1, s. 2,) Romce mere in scrvitium, Con- 
 sules, Patres, Eques. Caligula intended to 
 assume diadema, the ensign of a king, but 
 his friends dissuaded him. 3. England is 
 obliged to Dr Feme, who maketh them a 
 subdued nation ; the contrary of which is 
 known to the world. 
 
 Symmons (sect. 6, p. 19). — God is not 
 honoured by being resisted, no more is the 
 king. 
 
 Ans. — 1. I deny the consequence. Those 
 who resist the king's personal will, and will 
 not suffer him to ruin his crown and poste- 
 rity in following papists, against his oath at 
 the coronation, do honour him, and his 
 throne and race, as a king, though for the 
 time they displease him. 2. Uzziah was 
 not dishonoured in that he was resisted. 3. 
 Nor do we honour the king when we flee 
 from him and his law ; yet that resistance 
 is lawful, according to the way of royalists, 
 and in truth also. 
 
 Obj. 12. — Supreme power is not to be 
 resisted by subordinate powers, because they 
 are inferior to the supreme. 
 
 Ans. — 1. The bloody Irish rebels, then, 
 being inferior to the parliament, cannot re- 
 sist the parliament. 2. Inferior judges, as 
 judges, are immediately subordinate to God 
 as the king, and must be guilty of blood 
 before God if they use not the sword against 
 bloody cavaliers and Irish cut-throats, ex- 
 cept you say inferior judges are not obliged 
 to execute judgment but at the king's com- 
 mandment. 
 
 Obj. — As the Irish rebels are armed with 
 the king's power, they are superior to the 
 parliament. 
 
 Ans. — So an army of Turks and Spa- 
 niards, armed with the king's power, and 
 coming against the two kingdoms at the 
 king's commandment, though they be but 
 lictors in a lawless cause, are superior to the 
 highest courts of parliament in the two 
 
IE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 179 
 
 kingdoms. But the king and the law gave 
 power to the parliament first to resist rebels, 
 now he giveth power to rebels to resist the 
 parliament. Here must be contradictory 
 wills and contradictory powers in the king. 
 Which of them is the king's will and his 
 power ? the former is legal and parliamen- 
 tary ; then, because law is not contrary to 
 law, the latter cannot be legal also, nor can 
 it be from God, and to resist it, then, is not 
 to resist God. 
 
 Obj. 13. — If resistance be restrained to 
 legal commandments, what shall we say to 
 these arguments, — that Paul forbiddeth re- 
 sistance under these tyrannous governors, 
 and that from the end of their government, 
 which is for good, and which their subjects 
 did in some sort enjoy under them ? 
 
 Ans. — This proveth nothing, but that 
 we are to co-operate with these governors, 
 though tyrannous, by subjecting to their 
 laws, so far as they come up to this end, the 
 moral good and peace of their government ; 
 but Paul nowhere commandeth absolute sub- 
 jection to tyrannous governors in tyrannous 
 acts, which is still the question. 
 
 Obj. 14. — He that hath the supreme trust 
 next to God, should have the greatest secu- 
 rity to his person and power ; but if resist- 
 ance be lawful, he hath a poor security. 
 
 Ans. — 1. He that hath the greatest trust 
 should have the greatest security to his per- 
 son and power in the keeping his power, and 
 using it according to his trust for its own 
 native end — for justice, peace, and godliness. 
 God alloweth security to no man, nor that 
 his angels shall guard them, but only when 
 they are in their ways and the service of 
 God; else, " there is no peace to the wicked." 
 2. It is denied that one man, having the 
 greatest trust, should have the greatest se- 
 curity ; the church and people of God, for 
 whose safety he hath the trust, as a means 
 for the end, should have a greater security ; 
 the city ought to have greater security than 
 the watchers, the army than the leaders, — 
 " The good shepherd giveth his life for his 
 sheep." 3. A power to do ill, without re- 
 sistance, is not security. 
 
 Obj. 15. — If God appoint ministers to 
 preach, then the sheep cannot seek safety 
 elsewhere. 
 
 Ans. — The wife is obliged to bed and 
 board with her husband, but not if she fear 
 lie will kill her in the bed. The obedience 
 of positive duties that subjects owe to princes 
 cannot loose them from nature's law of self- ' 
 
 preservation, nor from God's law of defending 
 religion against papists in arms, nor are the 
 sheep obliged to entrust themselves but to a 
 saving shepherd. 
 
 Obj. 16. — If self-defence, and that by 
 taking up arms against the king, be an un- 
 lawful duty, how is it that you have no prac- 
 tice, no precept, no promise for it, in all the 
 word of God ? 1 . You have no practice : 
 Ahab sold himself to do evil, — he was an 
 idolater, — and killed the prophets ; and his 
 queen, a bloody idolatress, stirred him up to 
 great wickedness. Elias had as great power 
 with the people as you have, yet he never 
 stirred up the people to take arms against 
 the king. Why did God at this time rather 
 use extraordinary means of saving his church ? 
 Arnisseus, (de autho. princ. c. 8,) — " Elias 
 only fled. Nebuchadnezzar, Ahab, Manas- 
 seh, and Julian, were tyrants and idolaters, 
 yet the people never raised an army against 
 them." Bishop Williams of Ossory, (Deut. 
 xiv.,) " If brother, son, daughter, wife, or 
 friend, entice thee to follow strange gods, kill 
 them ; not a word of the father. Children 
 are to love their fathers, not to kill them." 
 " Christ (saith John P. P.), in the cradle, 
 taught by practice to flee from Herod ; and 
 all Christ's acts and sufferings are full of my- 
 steries and our instructions. He might have 
 had legions of angels to defend him, but would 
 rather work a miracle, in curing Malchus' 
 ear, as use the sword against Ca:sar. If 
 sectaries give us a new creed, it will concern 
 them never with expunging Christ's descent 
 into hell, and the communion of saints, to 
 raze out this, He suffered under Pontius 
 Pilate. My resolution is (for this sin of 
 yours) to dissolve in tears and prayers, and, 
 with my master, say, daily and hourly, Fa- 
 ther, forgive them, &c. Christ thought it 
 an uncouth spirit to call for fire from hea- 
 ven to burn the Samaritans, because they re- 
 fused him lodging. The prophets cried out 
 against idolatry, blasphemy, murder, adul- 
 tery, &c, and all sins ; never against the sin 
 of neglect, and murderous omission to de- 
 fend church and religion against a tyran- 
 nous king. No promise is made to such a 
 rebellious insurrection in God's word." 
 
 Ans. It is a great non-consequence : this 
 duty is not practised by any examples in 
 God's word, therefore it is no duty. Prac- 
 tice in Scripture is a narrow rule of faith. 
 Show a practice when a husband stoned his 
 wife, because she enticed him to follow strange 
 gods ; yet it is commanded, (Deut. xiii. 6,) 
 
180 
 
 when a man lying with a beast is put to 
 death ; yet it is a law (Exod. xxii. 19). In- 
 finite more laws are, the practice of which 
 we find not in Scripture. 2. Jehu and the 
 elders of Israel rooted out Ahah's posterity 
 for their idolatry ; and if Jehu, out of sin- 
 cerity, and for the zeal of God, had done 
 what God commanded, he should have been 
 rewarded ; for, say that it was extraordinary 
 to Jehu that he should kill Ahab, yet there 
 was an express law for it, that he that stir- 
 reth up others to idolatry should die the 
 death (Deut. xiii. 6) ; and there is no ex- 
 ception of king or father in the law ; and to 
 except father or mother in God's matter, is 
 expressly against the zeal of God (Deut. 
 xxxii. 9). And many grave divines think 
 the people to be commended in making Jehu 
 king, and in killing kingNabab, and smit- 
 ing all the house of Jeroboam for his idola- 
 try ; they did that which was a part of their 
 ordinary duty, according to God's express 
 law (Deut. xiii. 6 — 9), though the facts of 
 these men be extraordinary. 3. Ahab and 
 Jezebel raised not an army of idolaters and 
 malignants, such as are papists, prelates, and 
 cavaliers, against the three estates, to destroy 
 parliaments, laws, and religion — and the peo- 
 ple conspired with Ahab in the persecution 
 and idolatry, to forsake the covenant, throw 
 down the altars of God, and slay his pro- 
 phets — so as in the estimation of Elias, (1 
 King xix. 9 — 11,) there was not one man, 
 but they were malignant cavaliers ; and hath 
 any Elias now power with the cavaliers, to 
 exhort them to rise in arms against them- 
 selves, and to show them it is their duty to 
 make war against the king and themselves, 
 in the defence of religion ? When the pro- 
 phets had much ado to convince the people 
 that they sinned in joining with the king, 
 what place was there to show them their 
 sin, in not using their own lawful defence ? 
 And in reason, any may judge it unreason- 
 able for Elias to exhort, of thousands of 
 thousands in Israel, poor seven thousand 
 (of which many no doubt were women, aged, 
 weak, and young,) to rise in arms against 
 Ahab and all Israel, except God had given 
 a positive and extraordinary commandment, 
 and with all miraculous courage and strength 
 in war against the whole land. And God 
 worketh not always by miracles to save his 
 church, and therefore the natural mandate 
 of self-preservation in that case doth no 
 more oblige a few weak ones to lawful resis- 
 tance than it obliged one martyr to rise 
 
 against a persecuting Nero and all his forces. 
 Amisseus should remember we are not to 
 tie our Lord to miracles. 
 
 1. Elias did not only flee, but denounced 
 wrath against the king and cavaliers who 
 joined with them in idolatry; and when 
 God gave opportunity, he showed himself, 
 and stirred the people up to kill Baal's Jesu- 
 its and seducing idolators, when the idola- 
 trous king refused to do it ; and Elias with 
 his own hand took them not, but all Israel 
 being gathered together, (1 Kings xviii. 19,) 
 the princes and judges did apprehend them, 
 (ver. 40,) which is a warrant, when the king 
 refuseth to draw the sword of justice against 
 armed papists, that other judges are to do 
 it. 2. Eor Jeremiah, from the Lord, ex- 
 pressly forbade to fight against Nebuchad- 
 nezzar, show us the like for not defend- 
 ing ourselves against bloody papists and Irish 
 cut-throats ; for that example may as well 
 prove, (if it be a binding law to us,) that our 
 king should not raise his subjects to fight 
 against a Spanish armada and a foreign 
 prince ; for before ever Nebuchadnezzar 
 subdued the kingdom of Judah, (Jer. xxvii. 
 1,) in the beginning of the reign of Jehoi- 
 akim, (Jer. xxxvi. and xxxvii.,) the king of 
 Judah is from the Lord commanded not to 
 draw a sword against the king of Babylon. 
 I hope this will not tie us and our king 
 not to fight against foreign princes, or against 
 the great Turk, if they shall unjustly invade 
 us and our king ; and this example is against 
 the king's resisting of a foreign prince un- 
 justly invading him, as much as against us, 
 for Nebuchadnezzar was a tyrannous invader, 
 and the king of Judah the Lord's anointed. 
 3. The people also conspired with Manasseh, 
 as with Ahab. (Jer. xv. 4). 4. Of empe- 
 rors persecuting Christians we shall hear 
 anon. 5. Deut. xiii., None are excepted, 
 by a synecdoche, the dearest are expressed, 
 " son, daughter, brother, the friend that is 
 as thine own soul;" therefore fathers also; 
 " and husbands are to love their wives" 
 (Ephes. v. 25) ; yet to execute judgment 
 on them without pity (Deut. xiii. 8, 9) ; 
 the father is to love the son, yet if the son 
 prophecy falsely in the name of the Lord, to 
 kill him. (Zech. xiii. 3.) Hence love, fear, 
 reverence toward the king, may be com- 
 manded, and defensive wars also. 6. Christ 
 fled from Herod, and all his actions and 
 sufferings are mysteries and instructions, 
 saith the poor Prelate. Christ kissed the 
 man that, to his knowledge, came to betray 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 181 
 
 him ; Christ fled not, but knowing where 
 and when his enemy should apprehend him, 
 came willingly to the place ; therefore we 
 should not flee. His actions are so myste- 
 rious that John P. P., in imitation of Christ's 
 forty days' fast, will fast from flesh in Lent, 
 and the Prelate must walk on the sea and 
 work miracles, if all Christ's actions be our 
 instructions. 7- He might, with more than 
 twelve legions of angels, defend himself, but 
 he would not, not because resistance was un- 
 lawful — no shadow for that in the text — 
 but because it was God's will that he should 
 drink the cup his Father gave him, and be- 
 cause to take the sword without God's war- 
 rant, subjecteth the usurper of God's place 
 to perish with the sword. Peter had God's 
 revealed will that Christ behoved to suffer, 
 (Matt. xxvi. 52, 53; xvi. 21—23,) and 
 God's positive command, that Christ should 
 die for sinners, (John x. 24,) may well re- 
 strain an act of lawful self-preservation, hie 
 et nunc, and such an act as Christ lawfully 
 used at another time. (Luke iv. 29, 30 ; 
 John xi. 7, 8.) We give no new creed ; but 
 tins apostate hath forsaken his old creed, 
 and the religion of the Church of Scotland, 
 in which he was baptized. Nor do we ex- 
 punge out of the creed Christ's descension 
 into hell and the communion of saints, as the 
 apostate saith ; but the popish local descen- 
 sion of Christ, and the popish advancing of 
 the church's power above the Scriptures, 
 and the intercession and prayers to the 
 saints, or of the saints for us, we deny ; and 
 this Prelate, though he did swear the doc- 
 trine of the Church of Scotland, preached 
 expressly all these, and many other points 
 of popery, in the pulpits of Edinburgh. 10. 
 We believe that Christ suffered under Pon- 
 tius Pilate, but that Pilate had any legal 
 power to condemn Christ — but only a power 
 by a permissive decree, (Acts iv. 27, 28,) 
 such as devils had by God's permission, 
 (Luke xxii. 53,) — we utterly deny. 11. 
 The Prelate saith it is his resolution, for our 
 sin of natural self-defence, to dissolve in 
 tears; because his bishopric, I conceive, by 
 which he was wont to dissolve in cups, (being- 
 drunk on the Lord's day, after he, with other 
 prelates, had been at the Lord's supper, 
 while the chamber, wherein they were, was 
 dissolved in vomiting,) was taken from him. 
 12. The prophets cry against all sins, but 
 never against the sin of non-resistance ; and 
 yet they had very tyrannous and idolatrous 
 kings. This is but a weak argument. 1. 
 
 The prophets cry not out against all sins — 
 they cry not out against men-stealers, and 
 killers of father and mother, in express 
 terms, yet do they, by consequence, con- 
 demn all these sins ; and so do they condemn 
 non-resistance in wars, by consequence, when 
 they cry out, (Jer. v. 31,) "The prophets 
 prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule 
 by their means, and my people love to have 
 it so." And when they complain (Ezek. xxii. 
 26 — 28), " That the prophets and priests 
 violate the law, her princes are like wolves 
 ravening the prey, to shed blood, and the 
 people use oppression, and exercise robbery, 
 and vex the poor ;" and when they say, 
 (Jer. xxii. 2,) not to the king only, but 
 also to his servants, and the people that en- 
 ter in by the gates, " Execute judgment and 
 righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out 
 of the hand of the oppressor," — I pray you, 
 who are the oppressors ? I answer, The 
 murdering judges. (Isa. i. 21.) " As for 
 my people, children are their oppressors, 
 and women rule over them," (Isa. iii. 12,) 
 and, (ver. 14, 15,) " the ancients of the 
 people grind the laces of the poor ;" and 
 when they are not valiant for the truth 
 upon the earth ; and (Prov. xxiv. 11) the 
 Lord shall render to these men according 
 to their works, which forbear to help men 
 that are drawn to death, and those that be 
 ready to be slain ; if they shift the business, 
 and say, Behold, we know not, doth not 
 he that pondereth the heart consider it ? 
 When, therefore, the Lord's prophets com- 
 plain that the people execute not judgment, 
 relieve not the oppressed, help not and 
 rescue not those that are drawn to death 
 unjustly by the king, or his murdering 
 judges, they expressly cry out against the 
 sin of non-resistance. 2. The prophets can- 
 not expressly and formally cry out against 
 the judges for non-resisting the king, when 
 they join, as ravening wolves, with the king 
 in these same acts of oppression, even as the 
 judge cannot formally impannel twenty-four 
 men, sent out to guard the travellers from 
 an arch-robber, if these men join with the 
 robber, and rob the travellers, and become 
 cut-throats, as the arch-robber is, he cannot 
 accuse them for their omission in not guard- 
 ing the innocent travellers, but for a more 
 heinous crime, that not only they omitted 
 what was their duty, in that they did not 
 rescue the oppressed out of the hands of the 
 wicked, but because they did rob and mur- 
 der ; and so the lesser sin is swallowed up 
 
182 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 in the greater. The under-judges are watch- 
 men, and a guard to the church of God ; if 
 the king turn a bosom robber, their part is, 
 (Jer. xxii. 3,) " To deliver the spoiled out of 
 the hand of the oppressor," to watch against 
 domestic and foreign enemies, and to defend 
 the flock from wolves ; " To let the oppress- 
 ed go free, and to break every yoke," (Isa. 
 lviii. 6,) " To break the jaws of the wicked, 
 and pluck the spoil out of his teeth." (Job. 
 xxix. 17.) Now if these judges turn lions 
 and ravening wolves, to prey upon the flock, 
 and join with the king, as always they did 
 when the king was an oppressor, " his princes 
 made him glad with their lies," and joined 
 with him, and the people with both, (Jer. i. 
 18 ; v. 1 ; ix. 1 ; Mic. vii. 1 ; Ezek. xxii. 
 24 — 31 ; Jer. xv. 1 — 3,) it is no wonder if 
 the prophets condemn and cry out against 
 the hugest and most bloody crime of positive 
 oppression, formally and expressly, and in 
 that their negative murders, in not relieving 
 the oppressed, must also be cried out against. 
 13. The whole land cannot formally be ac- 
 cused for non-resistance when the whole 
 land are oppressors, for then they should be 
 accused for not resisting themselves. 14. 
 The king ought to resist the inferior judges 
 in their oppression of the people, by the 
 confession of royalists, then this argument 
 cometh with the like force of strength on 
 themselves. Let them show us practice, pre- 
 cept, or promise in the Word, where the 
 king raised an army for defence of religion, 
 against princes and people who were sub- 
 verting religion, and we shall make use of 
 that same place of Scripture to prove that 
 the estates and people, who are above the 
 king, (as I have proved,) and made the 
 king, may, and ought to resist the king, 
 with the like force of scriptural truth in 
 the like ease. 15. Royalists desire the like 
 precedent of practice and precept for defen- 
 sive wars ; but, I answer, let them show us 
 a practice where any king of Israel or Ju- 
 dah raised an army of malignants, of Phil- 
 istines, Sidonians, or Ammonites, against 
 the princes of Israel and Judah, convened 
 in an assembly to take course for bringing 
 home the captived ark of God, and vindi- 
 cating the laws of the land, and raised an 
 army contrary to the knowledge of the 
 elders, princes, and judges, to set up Dagon, 
 or tolerate the worship of the Sidoniangods; 
 and yet princes, elders, judges, and the whole 
 people, were obliged all to flee out of God's 
 land, or then only to weep and request that 
 
 the king would not destroy souls and bodies 
 of them and their innocent posterities, be- 
 cause they could not, in conscience, embrace 
 the worship of Dagon and the Sidonian gods. 
 When the royalists can parallel this with a 
 precedent, we can answer, There was as small 
 apparency of precedency in Scripture, (ex- 
 cept you flee to the law of nature,) that 
 eighty priests, the subjects of king Uzziah, 
 should put in execution a penal law against 
 the Lord's anointed, and that the inferiors 
 and subjects should resist the superior, and 
 that 'these priests, with the princes of the 
 land, should remove the king from actual 
 government, all his days, and crown his son, 
 at least make the father, their prince and 
 superior, (as royalist say,) as good as a cy- 
 pher ? Is not this a punishment inflicted by 
 inferiors upon a superior, accoi'ding to the 
 way of royalists ? Now it is clear, a worship- 
 ping of bread and the mass commanded, 
 and against law obtruded upon Scotland, 
 by influence of the counsel of known papists, 
 is to us, and in itself, as abominable as the 
 worshipping of Dagon or the Sidonian gods ; 
 and when the kingdom of Scotland did but 
 convene, supplicate, and protest against that 
 obtruded idolatry, they were first declared 
 rebels by the king, and then an army raised 
 against them by prelates and malignants, 
 inspired with the spirit of antichrist, to de- 
 stroy the whole land, if they should not sub- 
 mit, soul and conscience, to that wicked ser- 
 
 QUESTION XXXV. 
 
 WHETHER OR NO THE SUFFERINGS OF THE 
 MARTYRS IN THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH MI- 
 LITATE AGAINST THE LAWFULNESS OF DE- 
 FENSIVE WARS. 
 
 Obj. 1 . — Royalists think they burden our 
 cause much with hatred, when they bring 
 the fathers and ancient martyrs against us ; 
 so the P. Prelate (p. 74 — 76,) extracted 
 out of other authors testimonies for this, 
 and from I. Armagh, in a sermon on Rom. 
 xiii. (p. 20, 21 ); so the doctors of Aber- 
 deen. The Prelate provcth from Clem. 
 Alexand. (1. 7, c. 17) that the king is 
 constituted by the Lord ; so Ignatius. 
 
 Ans. 1. — Except he prove from these 
 fathers that the king is from God only and 
 immediately, he proveth nothing. 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 183 
 
 Obj. 2.— Iren. (1. 5, adv. hcer. c, 20).— 
 proveth that God giveth kingdoms, and 
 that the devil lied, Luke iv. ; and we make 
 the people to make kings, and so to be the 
 children of the devil. 
 
 Ans. — If we denied God to dispose of 
 kingdoms, this man might allege the church 
 of God in England and Scotland to be the 
 sons of Satan ; but God's word, in Deut. 
 xvii. 18, and many other places, makes the 
 people to make kings, and yet not devils. 
 But to say that prelates should crown kings, 
 and with their foul fingers anoint him, and 
 that as the Pope's substitute, is to make him 
 that is the son of perdition a donor of 
 kingdoms; also to make a man, with his 
 bloody sword, to ascend to a throne, is to 
 deny God to be the disposer of kingdoms ; 
 and prelates teach both these. 
 
 Obj. 3.— Tertul. (Apol. c. 30).— hide 
 est imperator, undc et homo, antequam im- 
 perator, hide potestas illi, unde et spiritus, 
 God is no less the creator of sovereignty than 
 of the soul of man. 
 
 Ans. — God only maketh kings by his ab- 
 solute sovereignty, as he only maketh high 
 and low, and so only he maketh mayors, 
 provosts, bailiffs, for there is no power but 
 of him, (Rom xiii.,) therefore provosts and 
 bailiffs are not from men. The reader shall 
 not be troubled with the rest of the testimo- 
 nies of this poor plagiary, for they prove 
 what never man denied but prelates and 
 royalists, to wit, that kings are not from 
 God's approving and regulating will, which 
 they oppose, when they say, Sole conquest is 
 a just title to the crown. 
 
 But they deserve rather an answer which 
 Grotius, Barclay, Arnisseus, and Spalato, 
 allege, as, — 
 
 Obj. 1 — Cyprian (epist, 1). — Non est fas 
 Christianis, armis, ac vi tueri se adversus 
 impetum persecutorum, Christians cannot, 
 by violence, defend themsehres against per- 
 secutors. 
 
 Ans. — If these words be pressed literally, 
 it were not lawful to defend ourselves against 
 murderers ; but Cyprian is expressly con- 
 demning in that place the seditious tumults 
 of people against the lawful magistrate. 
 
 Obj. 2. — The ancients say he was justly 
 punished who did rend and tear the edict 
 of Dioclesian and Maximinus {Euseb. I. 7, 
 Hist. Ecclcs. c. 5). 
 
 Ans. — To rend an edict is no act of na- 
 tural self-defence, but a breach of a positive 
 commandment of the emperor's, and could 
 
 not be lawfully done, especially by a private 
 man. 
 
 Obj. 3. — Cyprian (epist. 56) Incumbamus 
 gemitibus assiduis et deprecationibvs crc- 
 bris, hcec enim sunt munimenta spiritualia 
 et tela divina quce protcgunt ; and Ruffi- 
 nus, (1. 2, c. 6,) Ambrosius adversus regince 
 (Justince Arlnoz) furorcm non se manu 
 defensabat aut tclo, sed jejitniis continua- 
 tisque vigiliis sub altari positus. 
 
 Ans. — It is true, Cyprian reputed prayers 
 his armour, but not his only armour. Though 
 Ambrose, de facto, used no other against 
 Justina, the places say nothing against the 
 lawfulness of self-defence. Ambrose speak- 
 eth of that armour and these means of de- 
 fence that are proper to pastors, and these 
 are prayers and tears, not the sword ; be- 
 cause pastors carry the ark, that is their 
 charge, not the sword, that is the magis- 
 trate's place. 
 
 Obj. 4. — Tertullian (apolog. c. 37) saith 
 expressly, that the Christians might, for 
 strength and number, have defended them- 
 selves against their persecutors, but thought 
 it unlawful. Quanclo vcl una nox pauculis 
 faculis largitatcm ultionis poss et operari, 
 si malum malo dispungi penes nos liceret, 
 sed absit ut igni humano vindicctur divina 
 secta, aut doleat pati, in quo probctur. Si 
 enim hostes extraneos, non tantum vindiccs 
 occultos agere vcllemus, deesset nobis vis 
 numcrorum et copiarum ? 
 
 Ans. — I will not go about to say that 
 Tertullian thought it lawful to raise arms 
 against the emperor : I ingenuously confess 
 Tertullian was in that error. But, 1 . some- 
 thing of the man; 2. Of the Christians. 1. 
 Of the man — Tertullian after this turned a 
 Montanist. 2. Pamelius saith of him, in vit. 
 Tertul. inter Apocrypha numcratur — cx- 
 communicatus. 3. It was Tertullian's error 
 in a fact, not in a question, that he believed 
 Christians were so numerous as that they 
 might have fought with the emperors. 4. 
 M. Pryn doth judiciously observe, (part 3, 
 Sovereign Power of Pari. p. 139, 140,) he 
 not only thought it unlawful to resist, but 
 also to flee, and therefore wrote a book de 
 fuga; and therefore as some men are ex- 
 cessive in doing for Christ, so also in suffering 
 for Christ. Hence I infer, that Tertullian 
 is neither ours nor theirs in this point ; and 
 we can cite Tertullian against them also, 
 Jam sumus ergo pares ; yea, Fox, in his 
 Monum., saith, " Christians ran to the 
 stakes to be burnt, when they were nei- 
 
184 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 ther condemned nor cited." 5. What if we 
 cite Theodoret, (fol. 98. De provid.) " Who, 
 about that time, say that evil men reign 
 a^o^svwv a.vxv\i*, through the cowardliness 
 of the subjects ;" as the Prelate saith of 
 Tertullian, I turn it, If Theodoret were now 
 living he would go for a rebel. 1. About 
 that time Christians sought help from Con- 
 stantine the Great against Lycinius their 
 emperor, and overthrew him in battle ; and 
 the Christians, being oppressed by the king 
 of Persia their own king, sent to Theodosius 
 to help them against him. 2. For the man, 
 Tertullian, in the place cited, saith, " The 
 Christians were strangers under the empe- 
 ror," externi sumus, and therefore they 
 had no laws of their own, but were under 
 the civil laws of heathen till Constantine's 
 time ; and they had sworn to Julian, as his 
 soldiers, and therefore might have, and no 
 doubt had, scruples of conscience to resist 
 the emperor. 3. It is known Julian had 
 huge numbers of heathen in his army, and 
 to resist had been great danger. 4. Want- 
 ing leaders and commanders, (many prime 
 men doubting of the lawfulness thereof,) 
 though they had been equal in number, yet 
 number is not all in war, skill in valorous 
 commanders is required. 5. What if all 
 Christians were not of Tertullian's mind. 6. 
 If I would go to human testimonies, which 
 I judge not satisfactory to the conscience, I 
 might cite many : the practice of France, of 
 Holland, the divines in Luther's time, (Slei- 
 dan. 8, c. 8, 22,) resolved resistance to be 
 lawful; Calvin, Beza, Pareus, the German 
 divines, Buchanan, and an host might be 
 produced. 
 
 QUESTION XXXVI. 
 
 WHETHER THE POWER OF WAR BE ONLY IN 
 THE KING. 
 
 It is not hard to determine this question. 
 The sword in a constitute commonwealth is 
 given to the judge supreme or subordinate ; 
 (Rom. xiii. 4;) "He beareth not the sword in 
 vain" in the empire. The use of armour is 
 restricted to the emperor by a positive law ; 
 so the law saith, Armorum officio, nisijussu 
 principis sunt interdicta, {lib. de Cod. de 
 Lege. 1.) Imperat Valentinian nulli, nobis 
 inconsultis, usus armorum tribuatur, (ad 
 1. Jul. Mai. I. 3.) War is a species and a 
 pai-ticular, the sword is a general. 
 
 Assert. — 1. The power of the sword, by 
 God's law, is not proper and peculiar to the 
 king only, but given by God to the inferior 
 judges. 1. Because the inferior judge is essen- 
 tially a judge no less than the king, as is 
 proved, therefore he must bear the sword. 
 (Rom. xiii. 4.) 2. Not Moses only, but the 
 congregation of Israel, had power of life and 
 death, and so of the sword ; Num. xxxv. 12, 
 the man-slayer shall not die, " until he stand 
 before the congregation in judgment;" ver. 
 24, " Then the congregation shall judge 
 between the slayer and the avenger of 
 blood;" Deut. xxii. 18, " The elders of the 
 city shall take that man and chastise him ;" 
 ver. 21, " The men of the city shall stone her 
 with stones ;" Deut. xvii. 5 ; xix. 12, 13, v. 
 18—21; xxi. 19, " Then shall his father 
 and his mother bring him to the elders of 
 his city ;" ver. 21, " And the men of the city 
 shall stone him with stones ;" 1 Kings xxi. 
 
 11, The elders and nobles that were inha- 
 bitants in his city stoned Naboth. 3. In- 
 ferior judges are condemned as murderers, 
 who have shed innocent blood, (Isa. i. 12 ; 
 Psal. xciv. 5, 6 ; Jer. xxii. 3 ; Ezek. xxii. 
 
 12, 27; Hosea vi. 8; Zeph. iii. 1—3,) 
 therefore, they must have the power of the 
 sword, hence, upon the same grounds. 
 
 Assert. 2. — That the king only hath the 
 power of war, and raising armies must be 
 but a positive civd law. For, 1. By divine 
 right, if the inferior judges have the sword 
 given to them of God, then have they also 
 power of war, and raising armies. 2. All power 
 of war that the king hath is cumulative, not 
 privative, and not destructive, but given for 
 the safety of the kingdom ; as therefore the 
 king cannot take from one particular man 
 the power of the sword for natural self-pre- 
 servation, because it is the birthright of life, 
 neither can the king take from a com- 
 munity and kingdom a power of rising in 
 arms for their own defence. If an army of 
 Turks shall suddenly invade the land, and 
 the king's express consent cannot be had, 
 (for it is essentially involved in the office of 
 the king, as king, that all the power of the 
 sword that he hath be for their safety,) or if 
 the king should, as a man, refuse his con- 
 sent, and interdict and discharge the land to 
 rise in arms, yet they have his royal con- 
 sent, though they want his personal consent, 
 in respect that his office obligeth him to 
 command them to rise in arms. 3. Because 
 no king, no civil power can take away 
 nature's birthright of self-defence from any 
 
THE I. AW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 183 
 
 man, or a community of men. 4. Because 
 if a king should sell his kingdom, and invito 
 a bloody conqueror to come in with an army 
 of men to destroy his people, impose upon 
 their conscience an idolatrous religion, they 
 may lawfully rise against that army without 
 the king's consent ; for, though royalists say, 
 they need not come in asinine patience, and 
 offer their throats to cut-throats, but may 
 flee, yet several things hindereth a flight. 
 1. They are obliged by virtue of the fifth 
 commandment to remain, and, with their 
 sword, defend the cities of the Lord and the 
 king (2 Sam. x. 12 ; 1 Chron. xix. 13) ; 
 for if to defend our country and children, 
 and the church of God, from unjust invaders 
 and cut-throats, by the sword, be an act of 
 charity that God and the law of nature 
 requireth of a people, as is evident, (Prov. 
 xxiv. 11,) and if the fifth commandment 
 oblige the land to defend their aged parents 
 and young children from these invaders, and 
 if the sixth commandment lay on us the 
 like bond, all the land are to act works of 
 mercy and charity, though the king unjustly 
 command the contrary, except, royalists say, 
 that we are not to perform the duties of the 
 second table commanded by God, if an 
 earthly king forbid us ; and if we exercise 
 not acts of mercy towards our brethren, 
 when their life is in hazard, to save them, 
 we are murderers ; and so men may murder 
 their neighbour if the king command them 
 so to do ; this is like the court-faith. 2. The 
 king's power of wars is for the safety of his 
 people ; if he deny his consent to their 
 raising of arms till they be destroyed, he 
 playeth the tyrant, not the king, and the 
 law of nature will necessitate them either to 
 defend themselves, (seeing flight of all in 
 that case is harder than death,) else they 
 must be guilty of self-murder. Now, the 
 king's commandment of not rising in arms, 
 at best, is positive and against the nature of 
 his office, and it floweth then from him as 
 from a man, and so must be far inferior to 
 the natural commandment of God, which 
 commandeth self-preservation, if we would 
 not be guilty of self-murder, and of obeying 
 men rather than God ; so Althusius (Polit. 
 c. 25, n. 9), Halicarnas. (1. 4, Antiq. Rom.), 
 Aristot. (Polit. 1. 3, c. 3). 3. David took 
 Goliath's sword and became a captain, a 
 captain to an host of armed men in the 
 battle, and fought the battles of the Lord, 
 (1 Sam. xxv. 28,) and this Abigail by the 
 spirit of prophecy, as I take it, saith, (ver. 
 
 29—31; 1 Sam. xxii. 2; 1 Chron. xii. 
 1 — 3 ; X vii. 18, 21, 22,) not only without 
 Saul's consent, but against king Saul, as he 
 was a man, but not against him as he was 
 king of Israel. 4. If there be no king, or 
 the king be minor, or an usurper, as Athaliah, 
 be on the throne, the kingdom may law- 
 fully make war without the king, as (Judg. 
 xx.) the children of Israel, — four hundred 
 thousand footmen that drew sword, went out 
 to war against the children of Benjamin. 
 Judah had the power of the sword when 
 Josiah was but eight years old, in the be- 
 ginning of his reign, (2 Kings xxii. 1, 2,) 
 and before Jehoash was crowned king, and 
 while he was minor, (2 Kings xi.,) there 
 were captains of hundreds in arms raised 
 by Jehoiada, and the people of Judah, to 
 defend the young king. It cannot be said 
 that this is more extraordinary than that 
 it is extraordinary for kings to die, and 
 in the interregnum, wars, in an ordinary 
 providence, may fall out in these kingdoms, 
 where kings go by election ; and for kings 
 to fall to be minors, captives, tyrannous. 
 And I shall be of that opinion that Mr Sym- 
 mons, who holdeth that royal birth is equi- 
 valent to divine unction, must also hold, that 
 election is not equivalent to divine unction ; 
 for both election and birth cannot be of the 
 same validity, the one being natural, the 
 other a matter of free choice, which shall in- 
 fer that kings by election are less properly, 
 and analogically only, kings ; and so Saul 
 was not properly a king, for he was king by 
 election ; but I conceive that rather kings 
 by birth must be less properly kings, because 
 the first king by God's institution, being the 
 mould of all the rest, was by election (Deut. 
 xvii. 18—20). 
 
 5. If the estates create the king, and 
 make this man king, not that man, (as is 
 clear from Deut. xvii. 18, and 2 Chron. v. 
 1 — 4,) they give to him the power of the 
 sword, and the power of war, and the mili- 
 tia ; and I shall judge it strange and reason- 
 less, that the power given to the king, by the 
 parliament or estates of a free kingdom, 
 (such as Scotland is acknowledged by all to 
 be,) should create, regulate, limit, abridge, 
 yea, and annul that power that created itself. 
 Hath God ordained a parliamentary power 
 to create a royal power of the sword and 
 war, to be placed in the king, the parlia- 
 ment's creature, for the safety of parliament 
 and kingdom, which yet is destructive of it- 
 self? Dr Feme saith that " the kina sum- 
 
186 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 moneth a parliament, and giveth them power 
 to be a parliament, and to advise and coun- 
 sel him ;" and, in the meantime, Scripture 
 saith (Deut. xvii. 18—20 ; 1 Sam. x. 20— 
 25 ; 2 Sam. v. 1 — 4) that the parliament 
 createth the king. Here is admirable reci- 
 procation of creation in policy ! Shall God 
 make the mother to destroy the daughter ? 
 The parliamentary power that giveth crown, 
 militia, sword, and all to the king, must give 
 power to the king to use sword and war for 
 the destruction of the kingdom, and to an- 
 nul all the power of parliaments, to make, 
 unmake parliaments, and all parliamentary 
 power. What more absurd ? 
 
 Obj. 1. — (Symmons, p. §7). These 
 phrases, (1 Sam. ix. 1,) " When kings go 
 forth to war," and (Luke xiv. 31) " What 
 king going forth to war," speak to my con- 
 science, that both offensive and defensive war 
 are in the king's hand. 
 
 Ans. — It is not mueh to other men what 
 is spoken to any man's conscience by phrase 
 and customs; for by this no states, where there 
 be no kings, but government by the best, or 
 the people, as in Holland, or in other na- 
 tions, can have power of war ; for what time 
 of year shall kings go to war who are not 
 kings? and because Christ saith, " A cer- 
 tain householder delivered talents to his 
 servants," will this infer to any conscience, 
 that none but a householder may take usury ? 
 And when he saith, " If the good man of 
 the house knew at what hour the thief 
 would come, he would watch ;" shall it fol- 
 low the son or servant may not watch the 
 house, but only the good man ? 
 
 Obj. 2.— (Feme, p. 95.) The natural 
 body cannot move but upon natural prin- 
 ciples ; and so neither can the politic body 
 move in war, but upon politic reasons from 
 the prince, which must direct by law. 
 
 Ans. 1. — This may well be retorted, the 
 politic head cannot then move but upon 
 politic reasons ; and so the king cannot 
 move to wars but by the law, and that is 
 by consent of Parliament; and no law can 
 principle the head to destroy the members. 
 2. If an army of cut-throats rise to destroy 
 the kingdom, because the king is behind in 
 his place in doing his duty, how can the 
 other judges, the states and parliament, be 
 accessory to murder committed by them in 
 not raising armies to suppress such robbers ? 
 Shall the inferior judges be guilty of in- 
 nocent blood because the king will not do 
 his duty ? 3. The politic body ceaseth no 
 
 more to renounce the principles of sinless 
 nature in self-defence, because it is a politic 
 body, and subject to a king, than it can 
 leave off to sleep, eat, and drink; and there 
 is more need of politic principles to the one 
 than the other. 4. The parliaments and 
 estates of both kingdoms move in these 
 wars by the king's laws, and are a formal 
 politic body in themselves. 
 
 Obj. 2. — The ground of the present wars 
 against the king, saith Dr Feme, (sect. 4, 
 p. 13,) is false, to wit, that the parliament 
 is co-ordinate with the king; but so the king 
 shall not be supreme, the parliament's con- 
 sent is required to an act of supremacy, but 
 not to a denial of that act. And there can 
 no more (saith Arnisaeus, de jure majes- 
 tatis, c. 3 ; in quo consistat essen. majest. 
 c. 3, n. 1 ; and an jur. majest. separ., fyc. 
 c. 2, n. 2) be two equal and co-ordinate 
 supreme powers than there can be two su- 
 preme Gods; and multitudo deorum est 
 nullitas deorum, many gods infer no gods. 
 
 Ans. 1. — If we consider the fountain- 
 power, the king is subordinate to the par- 
 liament, and not co-ordinate ; for the con- 
 stituent is above that which is constituted. 
 If we regard the derived and executive 
 power in parliamentary acts, they make 
 but a total and complete sovereign power ; 
 yet so as the sovereign power of the parlia- 
 ment, being habitually and underived a 
 prime and fountain-power, (for I do not 
 here separate people and parliament,) is per- 
 fect without the king, for all parliamentary 
 acts, as is clear, in that the parliament make 
 kings, make laws, and raise armies, when 
 either the king is minor, captived, tyran- 
 nous, or dead ; but royal power parliamen- 
 tary without the parliament, is null, be- 
 cause it is essentially but a part of the par- 
 liament, and can work nothing separated 
 from the parliament, no more than a hand 
 cut off from the body can write ; and so 
 here we see two supremes co-ordinate. 
 Amongst infinite things there cannot be 
 two, because it involveth a contradiction, 
 that an infinite thing can be created, for 
 then it should it be finite ; but a royal 
 power is essentially a derived and created 
 power and supreme, secundum quid, only 
 in relation to single men, but not in rela- 
 tion to the community ; it is always a crea- 
 ture of the community, with leave of the 
 royalist. 2. It is false, that to an act of 
 parliamentary supremacy the consent of the 
 king is required, for it is repugnant that 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 187 
 
 there can be any parliamentary judicial act 
 without the parliament, but there may be 
 without the king. 3. More false it is, that 
 the king hath a negative voice in parliament ; 
 then he shall be sole judge, and the par- 
 liament, the king's creator and constituent, 
 shall be a cypher. 
 
 06/'. 3. — (Arnisseus, de jur. maj. de po- 
 test, armorum, c. 5, n. 4.) The people are 
 mad and furious, therefore supreme majesty 
 cannot be secured, and rebels suppressed, 
 and public peace kept, if the power of ar- 
 mour be not in the king's hand only. 
 
 Ans. 1. — To denude the people of armour, 
 because they may abuse the prince, is to 
 expose them to violence and oppression, un- 
 justly; for one king may more easily abuse 
 armour than all the people ; one man may 
 more easily fail than a community. 2. The 
 safety of the people is far to be preferred 
 before the safety of one man, though he 
 were two emperors, one in the east, an- 
 other in the west, because the emperor is 
 ordained of God for the good and safety of 
 the people. (1 Tim. ii. 2.) 3. There can be 
 no inferior judges to bear the sword, as 
 God requireth, (Rom. xiii. 4 ; Deut. i. 15, 
 16 ; Chron. xix. 6, 7,) and the king must 
 be sole judge, if he only have the sword, 
 and all armour monopolised to himself. 
 
 Obj. 4. — The causes of war, saith Mr 
 Symmons, (sect. 4, p. 9,) should not be 
 made known to the subjects, who are to 
 look more to the lawful call to war from 
 the prince than to the cause of the war. 
 
 Ans. 1. — The parliament and all the 
 judges and nobles are subjects to royalists, 
 if they should make war and shed blood 
 upon blind obedience to the king, not in- 
 quiring either in causes of law or tact, they 
 must resign their consciences to the king. 
 2. The king cannot make unlawful war to 
 be lawful by any authority royal, except he 
 could rase out the sixth commandment; 
 therefore subjects must look more to the 
 causes of war than to the authority of the 
 king; and this were a fair way to make 
 parhaments of both kingdoms set up popery 
 by the sword, and root out the reformed 
 religion upon the king's authority, as the 
 lawful call to war, not looking to the causes 
 of war. 
 
 QUESTION XXXVII. 
 
 WHETHER OR NO IT BE LAWFUL THAT THE 
 ESTATES OF SCOTLAND HELP THEIR OP- 
 PRESSED BRETHREN, THE PARLIAMENT AND 
 PROTESTANTS IN ENGLAND, AGAINST PA- 
 PISTS AND PRELATES NOW IN ARMS 
 AGAINST THEM, AND KILLING THEM, AND 
 ENDEAVOURING THE ESTABLISHMENT OF 
 POPERY, THOUGH THE KING OF SCOTLAND 
 SHOULD INHIBIT THEM. 
 
 1. Marianus saith, one is obliged to help 
 his brother, non vinculo ejicaci, not with 
 any efficacious band ; because in these, 
 (saith he,) non est actio aut poena, one 
 may not have action of law against his 
 brother, who refused to help him ; yet, 
 (saith he) as man he is obliged to man, 
 nexu civilis societatis, by the bond of human 
 society. 
 
 2. Others say, one nation may indirectly 
 defend a neighbour nation against a com- 
 mon enemy, because it is a seli-defence ; and 
 it is presumed that a foreign enemy, having 
 overcome the neighbour nation, shall in- 
 vade that nation itself who denieth help 
 and succour to the neighbour nation. This 
 is a self-opinion, and to me it looketh not 
 like the spiritual law of God. 
 
 3. Some say it is lawful, but not always 
 expedient, in which opinion there is this 
 much truth, that if the neighbour nation 
 have an evil cause, neque licet, neque ex- 
 pedit, it is neither lawful nor expedient. 
 But what is lawful in the case of necessity 
 so extreme, as is the loss of a brother's life, 
 or of a nation, must be expedient ; because 
 necessity of non-sinning maketh any lawful 
 thing expedient. As to help my brother 
 in fire or water, requiring my present and 
 speedy help, though to the loss of my goods, 
 must be as expedient as a negative com- 
 mandment, Thou shalt not murder. 
 
 4. Others think it lawful in the case 
 that my brother seek my help only, other- 
 wise I have no calling thereunto; to which 
 opinion I cannot universally subscribe, it is 
 held, both by reason and the soundest di- 
 vines, that to rebuke my brother of sin is 
 actus misericordice et charitatis, an act of 
 mercy and charity to his soul ; yet I hold 
 I am obliged to rebuke him by God's law 
 (Levit. xix. 17,) otherwise I hate him. 
 (Thes. v. 14; Col. iv. 17; Math, xviii. 15.) 
 
188 
 
 LEX, REX : OR, 
 
 Nor can I think in reason, that my duty of 
 love to my brother doth not oblige me but 
 upon dependency on his tree consent ; but 
 as I am to help my neighbour's ox out of 
 a ditch, though my neighbour know not, 
 and so I have only his implicit and virtual 
 consent, so is the case here. I go not far- 
 ther in this case of conscience, — if a neigh- 
 bour nation be jealous of our help, and in 
 an hostile way should oppose us in helping, 
 (which, blessed be the Lord, the honourable 
 houses of the parliament of England hath not 
 done, though malignant spirits tempted 
 them to such a course,) what, in that case, 
 we should owe to the afflicted members of 
 Christ's body, is a case may be determined 
 easily. 
 
 5. The fifth and last opinion is of those 
 who think, if the king command papists and 
 prelates to rise against the parliament and 
 our brethren in England in wars, that we 
 are obliged in conscience, and by our oath 
 and covenant, to help our native prince 
 against them, — to which opinion, with hands 
 and feet I should accord, if our king's cause 
 were just and lawful ; but from this it fol- 
 loweth, that we must thus far judge of the 
 cause, as concerneth our consciences, in the 
 matter of our necessary duty, leaving the 
 judicial cognizance to the honourable par- 
 liament of England. But because I cannot 
 return to all these opinions particularly, I 
 see no reason but the civil law of a king- 
 dom doth oblige any citizen to help an in- 
 nocent man against a murdering robber, 
 and that he may be judicially accused as a 
 murderer, who faileth in his duty, and that 
 Solon said well, Beatam remp. esse Mam, 
 in qua quisque injuriam alterius suam 
 estimet, It is a blessed society in which 
 every man is to repute an injury done 
 against a brother, as an injury done against 
 himself. As the Egyptians had a good 
 law, by which he was accused upon his head 
 who helped not one that suffered wrong; 
 and if he was not able to help, he was 
 held to accuse the injurer, if not, his pu- 
 nishment was whips or three days' hunger ; 
 it may be upon this ground it was that 
 Moses slew the Egyptian. Ambrose com- 
 mended him for so doing. 
 
 Assert. — We are obliged, by many bands, 
 to expose our lives, goods, children, &c, in 
 this cause of religion and of the unjust op- 
 pression of enemies, for the safety and de- 
 fence of our dear brethren and true religion 
 in England ; 1 Prov. xxiv. 11, 12, " If thou 
 
 forbear to deliver them that are drawn to 
 death, J^DS D^flpS (taken as captives to 
 be killed,) and those that are ready to be 
 slain. If thou sayest, Behold we knew it 
 not, doth not he that pondereth the heart 
 consider it ? and he that keepeth thy soul, 
 doth he not know it ? and shall he not ren- 
 der to every man according to his work ?" 
 Mr Jermine is too narrow, who, commenting 
 on the place, restricteth all to these two, 
 that the priest should deliver by interceding 
 for the innocent, and the king by pardoning 
 only. But to deliver is a work ot violence, 
 as (1 Sam. xxx. 18) David by the sword 
 rescued his wives ; Hos. v. 14, " I will take 
 away, and none shall rescue ;" 1 Sam. xvii. 
 35, " I rescued the lambs out of his mouth," 
 out of the lion's mouth, which behoved to be 
 done with great violence ; 2 Kings xviii. 
 34, " They have not delivered "^^H O 
 Samaria out of my hand." So Cornel, a 
 Lapide, Charitas suadet, ut vi et armis 
 eruamus injuste ductos ad mortem. Am- 
 brose (lib. 1, ojfic. c. 36) citeth this same 
 text, and commendeth Moses who killed the 
 Egyptian in defending a Hebrew man. To 
 deliver is an act of charity, and so to be 
 done, though the judge forbid it, when the 
 innocent is unjustly put to death. 
 
 Obj. — But in so doing, private men may 
 offer violence to the lawful magistrate when 
 he unjustly putteth an innocent man to 
 death, and rescue him out of the hands of 
 the magistrate ; and this were to bring in 
 anarchy and confusion ; for if it be an act of 
 charity to deliver the innocent out of the 
 hands of the magistrate, it is homicide to a 
 private man not to do it ; for our obedience 
 to the law of nature tyeth us absolutely, 
 though the magistrate forbid these acts; for 
 it is known that I must obey God rather 
 than men. 
 
 Ans. — 1. The law of nature tyeth us to 
 obedience in acts of charity, yet not to per- 
 form these acts after any way and manner 
 in a mere natural way, impetu natures; but 
 I am to perform acts of natural charity in a 
 rational and prudent way, and in looking to 
 God's law, else, if my brother or father were 
 justly condemned to die, I might violently 
 deliver him out of the magistrate's hand, 
 but, by the contrary, my hand should be first 
 on him, without natural compassion. As, if 
 my brother or my wife have been a blasphe- 
 mer of God, (Deut. xiii. 6 — 8,) therefore, 
 I am to do acts natural, as a wise man ob- 
 serving (as Solomon saith, Eccles. viii. 5) 
 
THE LAW AND THE TRIXCE. 
 
 189 
 
 " both time and judgment." Now, it were 
 no wisdom for one private man to hazard 
 his own life by attempting to rescue an inno- 
 cent brother, because he hath not strength 
 to do it, and the law of nature obligeth me 
 not to acts of charity when I, in all reason, 
 see them impossible ; but a multitude who 
 had strength did well to rescue innocent 
 Jonathan out of the hands of the king, that 
 he should not be put to death ; yet one man 
 was not tyed by the law of nature to rescue 
 Jonathan if the king and prince had con- 
 demned him, though unjustly. 
 
 2. The host of men that helped David 
 against king Saul (1 Sam. xxii. 2) entered 
 in a lawful war, and (1 Chron. xii. 18) 
 Amasa, by the Spirit of the Lord, blesseth 
 his helpers, — " Peace, peace be unto thee, 
 and peace be to thy helpers, for thy God 
 helpeth thee." Therefore, peace must be 
 to the parliament of England, and to their 
 helpers, their brethren of Scotland. 
 
 3. Numb, xxxii. 1—3, &c. ; Josh. i. 12 
 — 14, the children of Gad, and of Reuben, 
 and the half tribe of Manasseh, though their 
 inheritance fell to be on this side of Jordan, 
 yet they were to go over the river armed, to 
 fight for their brethren, while they had also 
 possession of the land, at the commandment 
 of Moses and Joshua. 
 
 4. So Saul and Israel helped the men of 
 Jabesh-Gilead conjoined in blood with them, 
 against Nahash the Ammonite, and his un- 
 just conditions in plucking out their right 
 eyes, 1 Sam. xi. 
 
 5. Jephtha (Judg. xii. 2) justly rebuketh 
 the men of Ephraim because they would 
 not help him and his people against the 
 Ammonites. 
 
 6. If the communion of saints be any 
 bond, — that England and we have " one 
 Lord, one faith, one baptism, one head and 
 Saviour, Jesus Christ," then are we obliged 
 to help our bleeding sister-church against 
 these same common enemies, papists and 
 prelates ; but the former is undeniably true, 
 tor we send help to the Kochelle, if there 
 had not been a secret betraying of our bre- 
 thren, we send help to the recovery of the 
 palatinate, and the aid of the confederate 
 princes against Babel's strength and power, 
 and that lawfully, but we did it at great 
 leisure and coldly. Queen Elizabeth helped 
 Holland against the king of Spain ; and, be- 
 sides the union in religion, we sail in one 
 ship together, being in one island, under one 
 king ; and now, by the mercy of God, have 
 
 sworn one covenant, and so must stand or 
 fall together. 
 
 7. We are obliged, by the union betwixt 
 the kingdoms, concluded to be by the Con- 
 vention of the Estates of Scotland, anno 
 1585, at the desire of the General Assem- 
 bly, 1583, to join forces together at home, 
 and enter in league with protestant princes 
 and estates abroad, to maintain the protes- 
 tant religion against the bloody confederacy 
 of Trent ; and, accordingly, this league be- 
 tween the two crowns was subscribed at 
 Berwick, 1586, and the same renewed, 
 1587-8, as also the Confession of Faith sub- 
 scribed, when the Spanish armada was on 
 our coasts. 
 
 8. The law of God, commanding that we 
 love our neighbour as ourselves, and there- 
 fore to defend one another against unjust 
 violence, (I. ut vim. ff. de just, et jur.,) 
 obligeth us to the same, except we think 
 God can be pleased with lip-love in word 
 only, which the Spirit of God condemneth 
 (1 John ii. 9, 10 ; iii. 16). And the sum of 
 law and prophets is, that as we would not 
 men should refuse to help us when we are 
 unjustly oppressed, so neither would we so 
 serve our afflicted brethren, (I. in facto ff. 
 de cond. et demonstr. sect. Si uxor. Justit. 
 dc nupt.) 
 
 9. Every man is a keeper of his brother's 
 life. There is a voluntary homicide when a 
 man refuseth food or physic necessary for his 
 own life, and refuseth food to his dying bro- 
 ther; and men are not born for themselves; 
 and when the king defendeth not subjects 
 against their enemies, all fellow-subjects, by 
 the law of nature, of nations, the civil and 
 cannon law, have a natural privilege to de- 
 fend one another, and are mutual magistrates 
 to one another when there be no other ma- 
 gistrates. If an army of Turks or pagans 
 would come upon Britain, if the king were 
 dead, as he is civilly dead in this juncture of 
 time, when he refuseth to help his subjects, 
 one part of Britain would help another ; as 
 Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, did right in 
 helping Ahab and Israel, so the Lord had 
 approved of the war. If the left hand be 
 wounded, and the left eye put out, nature 
 teacheth that the whole burden of natural 
 acts is devolved on the other hand and eye, 
 and so are they obliged to help one another. 
 
 10. As we are to bear one another's bur- 
 dens, and to help our enemies to compas- 
 sionate strangers, so far more those who 
 make one body of Christ with us. 
 
190 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 11. Meroz is under a curse, who helpeth 
 not the Lord, so one part of a church 
 another. A woe lieth on them that are at 
 ease in Zion, and helpeth not afflicted 
 Joseph so far as they are able. 
 
 12. The law of gratitude obligeth us to 
 this. England sent an army to free both 
 our souls and bodies from the bondage of 
 popery and the fury of the French, upon 
 which occasion a parliament at Leith (anno 
 1560) established peace and religion, and 
 then after, they helped us against a faction 
 of papists in our own bosom, for which we 
 take God's name in a prayer, seeking grace 
 never to forget that kindness. 
 
 13. When papists in arms had undone 
 England, (if God give them victory,) they 
 should next fall on us, and it should not be 
 in the king's power to resist them. When 
 our enemies, within two days' journey, are in 
 arms, and have the person of our king and 
 his judgment, and so the breathing-law of 
 the two kingdoms, under their power, we 
 should but sleep to be killed in our nest, if 
 we did not arise and fight for king, church, 
 country, and brethren. 
 
 Obj. By these and the like grounds, 
 when the king's royal person and life is in 
 danger, he may use papists as subjects, not 
 as papists, in his own natural self-defence. 
 
 Ans. 1. — Hell and the devil cannot say 
 that a thought was in any heart against the 
 king's person. He slept in Scotland safe, 
 and at Westminster in his own palace, when 
 the estates of both kingdoms would not so 
 much as take the water-pot from his bed- 
 side, and his spear ; and Satan instilled this 
 traitorous lie, first in prelates, then in 
 papists. 2. The king professeth his main- 
 tenance of the true protestant religion in his 
 declarations since he took arms, but if Saul 
 had put arms in the hands of Baal's priests, 
 and in an army of Sidonians, Philistines, 
 Ammonites, professing their quarrel against 
 Israel was not to defend the king, but their 
 Dagon and false gods, clear it were, Saul's 
 army should not stand in relation of helpers 
 of the king's, but of advancers of their own 
 religion. Now, Irish papists, and English, 
 in arms, press the king to cancel all laws 
 against popery, and make laws for the free 
 liberty of mass, and the full power of 
 papists, then the king must use papists, as 
 papists, in these wars. 
 
 QUESTION XXXVIII. 
 
 WHETHER MONARCHY BE THE BEST OF GO- 
 VERNMENTS. 
 
 Nothing more unwillingly do I write 
 than one word of this question. It is a 
 dark way; circumstances in fallen nature 
 may make things best to be, hie et nunc, 
 evil, though to me it is probable, that 
 monarchy in itself, monarchy de jure, that 
 is, lawful and limited monarchy is best, 
 even now, in a kingdom, under the fall of 
 sin, if other circumstances be considered. 
 
 But observe, I pray you, that Mr Sym- 
 mons and this poor Prelate, do so extol 
 monarchy, that there is not a government 
 save monarchy only, all other governments 
 are deviations ; and therefore Mr Symmons 
 saith, (p. 8,) " If I should affect another 
 government than monarchy, I should neither 
 tear God nor the king, but associate myself 
 with the seditious ;" and so the question of 
 monarchy is, — 1. Which is the choicest 
 government in itself, or which is the choicest 
 government in policy, and in the condition 
 of man fallen in the state of sin ? 2. Which 
 is the best government, that is, the most 
 profitable, or the most pleasant, or the 
 most honest ? For we know that there be 
 these three kinds of good things, — things use- 
 ful and profitable, bona utilia ; things plea- 
 sant, jucunda ; things honest, honesta ; 
 and the question may be of every one of the 
 three. 3. The question may be, Which of 
 these governments be most agreeable to na- 
 ture? That is, either to nature in itself, as it 
 agreeth communiter to all natures of ele- 
 ments, birds, beasts, angels, men, to lead 
 them, as a governor, doth to their last end ; 
 or, Which government is most agreeable to 
 men, to sinful men, to sinful men of this or 
 that nation ? For some nations are more 
 ambitious, some moi*e factious; some are 
 better ruled by one, some better ruled by 
 many, some by most and by the people. 
 4. The question may be in regard of the 
 facility or difficulty of loving, fearing, obey- 
 ing, and serving ; and so it may be thought 
 easier to love, tear, and obey one monarch 
 than many l-ulers, in respect that our Lord 
 saith, it is difficult to serve two masters, and 
 possibly more difficult to serve twenty or an 
 hundred. 5. The question may be in re- 
 gard of the power of commanding, or of the 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 191 
 
 justice and equity of commanding; hence 
 from this last I shall set down the first 
 thesis. 
 
 Assert. 1. — An absolute and unlimited 
 monarchy is not only not the best form of 
 government, but it is the worst, and this is 
 against our petty Prelate and all royalists. 
 My reasons are these : — 1. Because it is an 
 unlawful ordinance, and God never ordained 
 it; and I cannot ascribe the superlative 
 degree to anything of which I deny the 
 positive. Absolute government in a sinful 
 and peaceable man is a wicked government, 
 and not a power from God, for God never 
 gave a power to sin. Plenitudo potestatis 
 ad malum et injuriam non extenditur. 
 Sozenus Junior (cons. 65) in causa occur- 
 renti (I. 2). Ferdinand. Loazes in suo 
 eons, pro March, de Velez. (p. 54, n. 65) , 
 and so that learned senator, Ferd. Vasquez 
 (p. 1, 1. 1, c. 5, n. 17). 2. It was better 
 for the state that Epiminondas could not 
 sleep than that he could sleep, when the 
 people were dancing, because, said he, " I 
 wake that you may have leave to sleep and 
 be secure ;" for he was upon deep cogitations 
 how to do good to the commonwealth when 
 the people were upon their pleasures ; be- 
 cause all kings, since the Ml of the father, 
 king Adam, are inclined to sin and injustice, 
 and so had need to be guided by a law, even 
 because they are kings, so they remain men. 
 Omnipotency in one that can sin is a 
 cursed power. With reason all our divines 
 say, the state of saving grace in the second 
 Adam, where there is non posse deficere, 
 they cannot fall away from God, is better 
 than the state of the first Adam, where 
 there was posse non deficere, a power not to 
 fall away ; and that our free will is better 
 in our country in heaven, where we cannot 
 sin, than in the way to our country, on earth, 
 where we have a power to sin ; and so God's 
 people is in a better case, (Hosea, ii. 6, 7,) 
 " Where her power to overtake her lovers 
 is closed up with an hedge of thorns that she 
 cannot find her paths ;" then the condition 
 of Ephraim, of whom God saith, (Hosea, iv. 
 17,) " Ephraim is joined to idols, let him 
 alone." So cannot that be a good govern- 
 ment when the supreme power is in a sinful 
 man, as inclinable to injustice by nature as 
 any man, and more inclinable to injustice 
 by the condition of his place than any ; 
 and yet by office he is one that can do no 
 injustice against his subjects ; he is a king, 
 and so may destroy Uriah, kill his subjects, 
 
 but cannot sin ; and this is, to flattering 
 royalists, the best government in the world. 
 As if an unchained lion were the best go- 
 vernor, because unchained, to all the beasts, 
 sheep, and lambs, and all others, which 
 with his teeth and paws he may reach, and 
 that by virtue of an ordinance of God. 
 3. What is one man under no restraint, but 
 made a god on earth, and so drunk with 
 the grandeur of a sinning-god, here under 
 the moon and clouds ? who may hear good 
 counsel from men of his own choosing, yet 
 is under no restraint of law to follow it, 
 being the supreme power absolute, high, 
 mighty, and an impeccable god on earth. 
 Certainly this man may more easily err, 
 and break out in violent acts of injustice, 
 than a number of rulers, grave, wise, un- 
 der a law. One being a sinful man, shall 
 sooner sin and turn a Nero (when he may 
 go to hell, and lead thousands to hell with 
 him gratis) than a multitude of sinful men, 
 who have less power to do against law, and 
 a tyrannous killing of innocents, and a sub- 
 version of laws, liberties, and religion, by 
 one who may, by office, and without resist- 
 ance of mortal men, do all ill, is more dange- 
 rous and hurtful than division and faction 
 incident to aristocracy. 4. Caesar is great, 
 but law and reason are greater ; by an abso- 
 lute monarchy all things are ruled by will 
 and pleasure above law ; then this govern- 
 ment connot be so good as law and reason 
 in a government by the best, or by many. 
 5. Under absolute monarchy, a free people 
 is, actu primo, and in themselves enslaved, 
 because though the monarch, so absolute, 
 should kill all, he cannot be controlled ; 
 there is no more but flight, prayers, and 
 tears remaining ; and what greater power 
 hath a tyrant? None at all, so may we 
 say. An absolute monarch is, actu primo, 
 a sleeping lion, and a tyrant is a waking 
 and a devouring lion, and they differ in 
 accidents only. 6. This is the papists' way. 
 Bellarinjne (de pontif., I. 1, c. 1), and 
 Sanderus (de visibili Monarchia, I. 3, c. 3), 
 Turrere (in sum de Eccles. I. 2, c. 2), 
 prove that the government of the church is 
 by an absolute monarch and pope, because 
 that is the best government which yet is 
 in question. So royalists prove common- 
 wealths must be best governed by absolute 
 monarchs, because that is the best govern- 
 ment ; but the law saith, it is contrary to 
 nature, even though people should paction 
 to make a king absolute : Conventio procur- 
 
192 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 atoria ad dilapidandwm et dissipandwm 
 juri natwali contraria nulla est, I. Jilius 
 15, deeonrf. Just. I. Xepos. procul 125, de 
 ■,i'f. I. 188, ubi. de jure Regni I. 
 85, d. tit. 
 
 Assert. 2. — Monarchy in its latitude — 
 as heaven, and earth, and all the host there- 
 in, are citizens— is the best government ab- 
 solutely, because God's immediate govern- 
 ment must be best ; but that other govern- 
 ments are good or best so far as they come 
 near to this, must prove that there is a mo- 
 narchy in angels if there be a government 
 and a monarchy amongst fishes, beasts, birds, 
 &c. ; and that, if Adam had never sinned, 
 there should be one monarchy amongst all 
 mankind. I profess I have no eye to see 
 what government could be in that state, but 
 paternal, or marital ; and, by this reason, 
 there should be one catholic emperor over 
 all the kings of the earth ; a position held by 
 some papists and interpreters of the cannon 
 law, which maketh all the princes of the 
 earth to be usurpers, except those who ac- 
 knowledge a catholic dominion of the whole 
 earth in tbe emperor, to whom they submit 
 themselves as vassals. If kings were gods 
 and could not sin, and just, as Solomon hi the 
 the beginning of his reign, and as David, I 
 could say, monarchy so limited must be bet- 
 ter than aristocracy or democracy, 1. Be- 
 cause it is farthest from injustice, nearest to 
 peace and godliness. (J/. /. 3, sect, aparet. 
 ff. de administrat. tutor. I. 2, sect, novis- 
 sime, ff. de orig. jur. Aristot. pol. I. 8, c. 
 10, Bodin. de Rep. I. G, e.4.) 2. Because 
 God ordained this government in his people. 
 3. By experience it is known to be less ob- 
 noxious to change, except that some think 
 the Venetian commonwealth best ; but, with 
 reverence, I see small difference between a 
 king and the Duke of Venice. 
 
 Assert. 3. — Every government hath some- 
 thing wherein it is best ; monarchy is hon- 
 ourable and glorious-like before men ; aris- 
 tocracy, for counsel, is surest; democracy 
 for liberty, and possibly for riches and gain, 
 is best. Monarchy obtaineth its end with 
 more conveniency, because the ship is easier 
 brought to land when one sitteth at the 
 helm, than when ten move the helm. We 
 more easily fear, love, obey, and serve one 
 than many. He can more easily execute 
 the laws. 
 
 Assert. 4.— A limited and mixed monar- 
 chy, such as is in Scotland and England, 
 seems to me the best government, when par- 
 
 liaments, with the king, have the good of all 
 the three. This government hath glory, 
 order, unity, from a monarch ; from the 
 government of the most and wisest, it hath 
 safety of counsel, stability, strength ; from 
 the influence of the commons, it hath liber- 
 ty, privileges, promptitude of obedience. 
 
 Obj. 1. — There is more power, terror, and 
 love, in one than in many. 
 
 Ans. — Not more power ; terror cometh 
 from sin, and so to nature fallen in sin, in 
 circumstances a monarchy is best. 
 
 Obj. 2. — It is more convenient to nature 
 that one should be lord than many. 
 
 Ans. — To sinless nature, true, as in a fa- 
 ther to many children. 
 
 Obj. 3. — Monarchy, for invention of coun- 
 sels, execution, concealing of secrets, is above 
 any other government. 
 
 Ans. — That is in some particulars, be- 
 cause sin hath brought darkness on us; so 
 are we all dull of invention, slow in execu- 
 tion, and by reason of the falseness of men, 
 silence is needful ; but this is the accidentary 
 state of nature, and otherwise there is safety 
 in a multitude of counsellors; one command- 
 ing all, without following counsel, trusteth in 
 his own heart, and is a fool. 
 
 Obj. 4. — A monarch is above envy, be- 
 cause he hath no equal. 
 
 Ans. — Granted ; in many things a mo- 
 narchy is more excellent, but that is no- 
 thing to an absolute monarchy, for which 
 royalists contend. 
 
 Obj. 5. — In a multitude there be more 
 fools than wise men, and a multitude of 
 vices, and little virtue, is in many. 
 
 Ans. — Mere multitude cannot govern in 
 either democracy or aristocracy, for then all 
 should be rulers, and none ruled, but many 
 eyes see more than one, — by accident one 
 may see more than hundreds, but accidents 
 are not rules. 
 
 Obj. 6. — Monarchy is most perfect, be- 
 cause most opposite to anarchy and most 
 agreeable to nature, as is evident in plants, 
 birds, bees. 
 
 Ans. — Government of sinless nature void 
 of reason, as in birds and bees, is weak to 
 conclude politic civil government amongst 
 men in sin, and especially absolute govern- 
 ment. A king-bee is not absolute, nor a 
 king-eagle, if either destroy its fellows, by 
 nature all rise and destroy their king. A 
 king-bee doth not act by counsel borrowed 
 from fellow-bees, as a king must do, and 
 communication of counsels lesseneth abso- 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 193 
 
 luteness of a man. I see not how a monar- 
 chy is more opposite to anarchy and confu- 
 sion than other governments. A monarch, 
 as one, is more opposite to a multitude, as 
 many, but there is no less order in aristo- 
 cracy than in monarchy ; for a government 
 essentially includeth order of commanding 
 and subjection. Now, one is not, for abso- 
 luteness, more contrary to anarchy than 
 many ; for that one now who can easily slip 
 from a king to a tyrant, cannot have a ne- 
 gative voice in acts of justice, for then should 
 he have a legal power to oppose justice, 
 and so, for his absoluteness, he should be 
 most contrary to order of justice ; and a mo- 
 narch, because absolute, should be a door- 
 neighbour to disorder and confusion. 
 
 Obj. — But the parliament hath no power 
 to deny their voices to things just, or to 
 cross the law of God, more than the king. 
 
 Ans. — It is true neither of them hath a 
 negative voice against law and reason, but if 
 the monarch, by his exorbitant power, may 
 deny justice, he may, by that same legal 
 power, do all injustice ; and so there is no 
 absoluteness in either. 
 
 Obj. — Who should then punish and co- 
 erce the parliament in the case of exorbi- 
 tance ? 
 
 Ans. — Posterior parliaments. 
 
 Obj. — Posterior parliaments and people 
 may both err. 
 
 Ans. — All is true; God must remedy that 
 only. 
 
 QUESTION XXXIX. 
 
 WHETHER OR NO ANY PREROGATIVE AT ALL 
 ABOVE THE LAW BE DUE TO THE KING, OR 
 IF " JURA MAJESTATIS" BE ANY SUCH PRE- 
 ROGATIVE ROYAL. 
 
 I conceive kings are conceived to have a 
 threefold supreme power. 1. Strictly abso- 
 lute to do what they please, their will being 
 simply a law. This is tyrannical. Some 
 kings have it, de facto, ex consuetudine, but 
 by a divine law none have it. I doubt if 
 any have it by a human positive law, except 
 the great Turk and the king of Spain, over 
 his conquest without the borders of Europe, 
 and some few other conquerors. 2. There 
 is another power limited to God's law, the 
 due proper right of kings. (Deut. xvii. 18 — 
 20.) 3. There is, a potestas intermedia, a 
 
 middle power, not so vast as that which is 
 absolute and tyrannical, which yet is some 
 way human. This I take what jurists call 
 jus regium, lex regia, jura regalia regis ; 
 Cicero, jura majestatis ; Livius, jura im- 
 perii, and these royal privileges are such 
 common and high dignities as no one parti- 
 cular magistrate can have, seeing they are 
 common to all the kingdom, as that Csesar 
 only should coin money in his own name. 
 Hence the penny given to Christ, because 
 it had Csesar's image and superscription, 
 (Matt. xxii. 20, 21,) infers by way of argu- 
 mentation, dir»Ws «Jv, &c, give therefore 
 tribute to Caesar as his due ; so the maga- 
 zine and armoury for the safety of the king- 
 dom is in the king's hand. The king hath 
 the like of these privileges, because he is the 
 common, supreme, public officer and minis- 
 ter of God for the good of all the kingdom ; 
 and, amongst these royal privileges, I reckon 
 that power that is given to the king, when 
 he is made king, to do many things without 
 warrant of the letter of the law, without the 
 express consent of his council, which he can- 
 not always carry about with him, as the law 
 saith. The king shall not raise armies with- 
 out consent of the parliament ; but if an 
 army of Irish, or Danes, or Spaniards, 
 should suddenly land in Scotland, he hath 
 a power, without a formally-convened par- 
 liament, to command them all to rise in 
 arms against these invaders and defend 
 themselves, — this power no inferior magis- 
 trate hath as he is, but such a magistrate. 
 And in many such exigencies, when the ne- 
 cessity of justice or grace requireth an ex- 
 temporal exposition of laws, pro re nata, 
 for present necessary execution, some say 
 only the emperor, — others, all kings have 
 these pleasures. I am of the mind of Ar- 
 nisseus, 1 that these privileges are not re- 
 wards given to princes for their great pains ; 
 for the king is not obliged to govern the 
 commonwealth because he receiveth these 
 royal privileges as his reward, but because 
 by office he is obliged to govern the com- 
 monwealth ; therefore these privileges are 
 given to him, and without them he could 
 not so easily govern. But I am utterly 
 against Arnisseus, who saith, " These are 
 not essential to a king, because (saith he) he 
 createth marquises, dukes, nobles, &c, and 
 constituteth magistrates, not because of his 
 royal dignity, but by reason of his aboslute 
 
 1 Arnisaeus de jure, 6 maj. c. 1, n. 3, p. 157, 158. 
 2d 
 
194 
 
 power; for many princes have supreme 
 power and cannot make nobles, and there- 
 fore to him they are jura majestatis, non 
 jura potestatis. 
 
 Ans. 1. — The king, suppose a limited 
 king, may and ought to make nobles, for he 
 may confer honours as a reward of virtue ; 
 none can say Pharaoh, by his absolute au- 
 thority, and not as a king, advanced Joseph 
 to be a noble ruler. "VY e cannot say that, 
 for there was merit and worth in him de- 
 serving that honour; and Darius, not by 
 absolute authority, but on the ground of 
 well-deserving, (the rule by which kings 
 are obliged, in justice, to confer honours,) 
 promoted Daniel to be the first president 
 of all his kingdoms, because, (Dan. vi. 3,) 
 " an excellent spirit was in him ;" and in 
 justice the king could ennoble none rather 
 than Daniel, except he should fail against 
 the rule of conferring honours. It is ac- 
 knowledged by all, that honos est proemium 
 virtutis, honour is founded upon virtue ; 
 and therefore Darius did not this out of 
 his absolute majesty, but as king. 
 
 2. All kings as kings, and by a divine 
 law of God, and so by no absoluteness of 
 majesty, are to make men of wisdom, fear- 
 ing God, hating covetousness, judges under 
 them, Deut. u 13; 2 Chron. xix. 6, 7; 
 Psal. ci. 6—8. 
 
 3. If we suppose a king to be limited, as 
 God's king is, (Deut. xvii. 18 — 20,) yet is 
 it his part to confer honours upon the 
 worthiest. Now, if he have no absolute- 
 ness of majesty, he cannot confer honours 
 out of a principle that is none at all, unum 
 quodque sicut est, ita operatur ; and if the 
 people confer honours, then must royalists 
 grant that there is an absolute majesty in 
 the people, why then may they not derive 
 majesty to a king ? and why then do royal- 
 ists talk to us of God's immediate creating 
 of kings, without any intervening action of 
 the people ? 
 
 4. By this absoluteness of majesty, kings 
 may play the tyrant, as Samuel (1 Sam. 
 viii. 9 — 14) foretelleth Saul would do. But 
 I cannot believe that kings have the same 
 very official absolute power, from -whence 
 they do both acts of grace, goodness, and 
 justice, such as are to expone laws extem- 
 porally in extraordinary cases, — to confer 
 honours upon good and excellent men of 
 grace, — to pardon offenders upon good 
 grounds, and also do acts of extreme ty- 
 ranny : for out of the same fountain doth 
 
 not proceed both sweet water and bitter. 
 Then by this absoluteness kings cannot do 
 acts of goodness, justice, and grace, and so 
 they must do good as kings, and they must 
 do acts of tyranny as men, not from ab- 
 soluteness of majesty. 
 
 5. Inferior magistrates, in whom there 
 is no absoluteness of majesty, according to 
 royalists, may expound laws also extempo- 
 rally, and do acts of justice, without forma- 
 lities of civil or municipal laws, so they keep 
 the genuine intent of the law, as they may 
 pardon one that goeth up to the wall of a 
 city, and discovereth the approach of the 
 enemy, when the watchmen are sleeping, 
 though the law be, that any ascending to 
 the wall of the city shall die. Also, the 
 inferior judge may make judges and depu- \ 
 ties under himself. 
 
 6. This distinction is neither grounded 
 upon reason or laws, nor on any word of 
 God. Not the former, as is proved before, 
 for there is no absolute power in a king to 
 do above or against law ; all the official 
 power that a king hath, is a royal power to 
 do good, for the safety and good of his sub- 
 jects, and that according to law and reason, 
 and there is no other power given to a king 
 as a king; and for Scripture, Arnisseus al- 
 legeth, 1 Sam. viii. the manner or law 
 of the king, ver. 9, 11, and he saith, It 
 cannot be the custom and manner of the 
 king, but must be the law of absolute ma- 
 jesty, 1. Because it was the manner of in- 
 ferior judges, as Tiberius said of his judges, 
 to flay the people, when they were com- 
 manded to shear them only. 2. Samuel's 
 sons, who wrested judgment and perverted 
 the law, had this manner and custom to 
 oppress the people, as did the sons of Eli ; 
 and, therefore, without reason it is called 
 the law of kings, jus regum, if it was the 
 law of the judges ; for if all this law be ty- 
 rannical, and but an abuse of kingly power, 
 the same law may agree to all other magis- 
 trates, who, by the same unjust power, may 
 abuse their power; but Samuel (as Bren- 
 tius observeth, komi. 27, in 1 Sam. inprinc.) 
 doth mean here a greater license than kings 
 can challenge, if at any time they would 
 make use of their plentitude of absolute 
 power ; and therefore, nomine juris, by 
 the word law here, he understandeth a 
 power granted by law, jure, or right to the 
 king, but pernicious to the people, which 
 Gregory calleth jus regium tyrannorum, 
 the royal law of tyrants. — So Seneca, 1 de 
 
fHE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 195 
 
 clem. c. 11, hoc interest inter regem et ty- 
 rannum, species ipsa fortunes ac licentice 
 par est, nisi quod tyranni ex voluntate 
 soeviunt, reges non nisi ex causa et neces- 
 sitate ? quid ergo ? 11071 reges quoque occi- 
 dere solent ? sed quoties fieri publica uti- 
 litas persuadet, tyrannis scevitia cordi est. 
 A tyrant in this differeth from a king, Qui 
 ne ea quidem vult, quo?, sibi licent, that a 
 king will not do these things which are law- 
 ful ; a tyrant doth quae libet, what he pleas- 
 eth to do. 
 
 Ans. 1. Arnisceus betray eth his ignor- 
 ance in the Scriptures, for the word tOD££>Q 
 signifieth a custom, and a wicked custom, 
 as by many Scriptures I have proved al- 
 ready : his reasons are poor. It is the man- 
 ner of inferior judges, as we see in the sons 
 of Eli and Samuel, to pervert judgment, as 
 well as king Saul did ; but the king may 
 more oppress, and his tyranny hath more 
 colour, and is more catholic than the op- 
 pression of inferior judges. It is not Sa- 
 muel's purpose thus to distinguish the judges 
 of Israel and the kings, in that the judges 
 had no power granted them of God to op- 
 press, because the people might judge their 
 judges and resist them; and there was 
 power given of God to the king, so far to 
 play the tyrant, that no man could resist 
 him, or say, What dost thou ? The text will 
 not bear any such difference ; for it was as 
 unlawful to resist Moses, Joshua, Samuel, 
 (as royalists prove from the judgment of 
 God that came upon Korah, Dathan, and 
 Abiram,) as to resist king Saul and king 
 David : royalists doubt not to make Moses a 
 king. It was also no less sin to resist Sa- 
 muel's sons, or to do violence to their per- 
 sons, as judging for the Lord, and sent by 
 the supreme judge, their father Samuel, 
 than it was sin to resist many inferior judges 
 that were lions and even wolves under the 
 kings of Israel and Judah, so they judged 
 for the Lord, and as sent by the supreme 
 magistrate. But the difference was in this, 
 that judges were extraordinarily raised up 
 of God out of any tribe he pleased, and 
 were believers, (Heb. xi. 32,) saved by faith, 
 and so used not their power to oppress the 
 people, though inferior judges, as the sons 
 of Eli and Samuel, perverted judgment; 
 and therefore in the time of the judges, 
 God, who gave them saviours and judges, was 
 their king ; but kings were tyed to a certain 
 tribe, especially the line of David, to the 
 kingdom of Judah. 
 
 2. They were hereditary, but judges are 
 not so. 
 
 3. They were made and chosen by the 
 people, (Deut. xvii. 14, 15 ; 1 Sam. x. 17 — 
 20 ; 2 Sam. v. 1 — 3,) as were the kings of 
 the nations ; and the first king, (though a 
 king be the lawful ordinance of God,) was 
 sought from God in a sinful imitation of the 
 nations, (1 Sam. viii. 19, 20,) and therefore 
 were not of God's peculiar election, as the 
 judges, and so they were wicked men, and 
 many of them, yea, all for the most part, 
 did evil in the sight of the Lord, and their 
 law, tODt^Qj their manner and custom, was 
 to oppress the people, and so were their in- 
 ferior judges little tyrants, and lesser lions, 
 leopards, evening wolves. (Ezek. xxii. 27 ; 
 Mic. iii. 1—3 ; Isa. iii. 14, 15.) And the 
 kings and inferior judges are only distin- 
 guished, de facto, that the king was a more 
 catholic oppressor, and the old lion, and so 
 had more art and power to catch the prey 
 than the inferior judges, who were but 
 whelps, and had less power, but all were op- 
 pressors, (some few excepted, and Samuel 
 speaketh of that which Saul was to be, de 
 facto, not de jure, and the most part of the 
 kings after him,) and this tyranny is well 
 called jus regis, the manner of the king, 
 and not the manner of the judges, because 
 it had not been the practice, custom, and 
 tDDti^D) of the believing judges, before 
 Saul's reign, and while God was his people's 
 king, (1 Sam. viii. 7,) to oppress. We grant 
 that all other inferior judges, after the peo- 
 ple cast off God's government, and, in imi- 
 tation of the nations, would have a king, 
 were also lesser tyrants, as the king was a 
 greater tyrant, and that was a punishment 
 of their rejecting God and Samuel to be 
 their King and judge. How shall Arnis- 
 seus prove that this manner or tODJ£^£ °f the 
 king was, potestas concessa, a power grant- 
 ed, I hope, granted of God, and not an 
 abuse of kingly power ; for then he and roy- 
 alists must say, that all the acts of tyranny 
 ascribed to king Saul, (1 Sam. viii. 11 — 14,) 
 by reason of which they did cry out, and 
 complain to God because of their oppres- 
 sion, was no abuse of power given to Saul ; 
 therefore it was an use, and a lawful use of 
 power given of God to their king, for there 
 is no medium betwixt a lawful power used 
 in moral acts, and a lawful power abused ; 
 and, indeed, Arnisseus so distinguisheth a 
 king and a tyrant, that he maketh them all 
 one in nature and specie. He saith, a ty- 
 
196 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 rant doth, quod licet, that which by law he 
 may do, and a king doth not these things, 
 quae licent, which by law he may do ; but, 
 so to me it is clear, a tyrant, acting as a ty- 
 rant, must act according to this DDJ^D ^ aw 
 of the king, and that which is lawful, and a 
 king, acting as a king, and not doing these 
 things that are lawful, must sin against his 
 office, and the power that God hath given 
 to him, which were to commend and praise 
 the tyrant, and to condemn and dispraise 
 the king. If this law of the king be a per- 
 missive law of God, which the king may, 
 out of his absoluteness, put in execution to 
 oppress the people, such as a law of a bill of 
 divorcement, as Arnisaeus, Barclay, and 
 other royalists say, then must God have 
 given a law to every king to play the tyrant, 
 because of the hardness of the king's heart ; 
 but we would gladly see some word of God 
 for this. The law of a bill of divorcement 
 is a mere positive law, permitted in a par- 
 ticular exigent, when a husband, out of le- 
 vity of heart and affection, cannot love his 
 wife ; therefore God by a law permitted 
 him out of indulgence to put her away, that 
 both might have a seed, (the want where- 
 of, because of the blessed Seed to be born 
 of woman, was a reproach in Israel,) and 
 though this was an affliction to some parti- 
 cular women, yet the intent of the law, and 
 the soul thereof, was a public benefit to the 
 commonwealth of Israel, of which sort of 
 laws I judge the hard usage permitted by 
 God to his people — in the master toward 
 the servant — and the people of God toward 
 the stranger, of whom they might exact 
 usury — though not toward their brethren. 
 But that God should make a permissive law, 
 that Jeroboam might press all Israel to sin 
 and worship the golden calves ; and that a 
 king by law may kill, as a bloody Nero, all 
 the people of God, by a divine permissive 
 law, hath no warrant in God's word. Judge, 
 reader, if royalists make God to confer a 
 benefit on a land, when he giveth them a 
 king, if by a law of God, such as the law for 
 a bill of divorcement, the king may kill and 
 devour, as a lawful absolute lion, six king- 
 doms of nations that profess Christ and be- 
 lieve in his name. For if the king have a 
 divine law to kill an innocent Jonathan, so 
 as it be unlawful to resist him, he may, by 
 that same law, turn bloodier than either 
 Nero, Julian, or any that ever sucked the 
 paps of a lioness, or of whom it may be said, 
 Quaeque dedit nutrix ubera, tigris erat, 
 
 and he shall be given as a plague of God, 
 ex conditione doni, to the people, and the 
 people, inasmuch as they are gifted of God 
 wath a king, to feed them in a peaceable and 
 godly life, must be made slaves; now, it 
 wanteth reason, that God will have a permis- 
 sive law of murdering the church of Christ, 
 a law so contrary to the public good and in- 
 trinsical intention of a king, and to the im- 
 mutable and eternal law of nature, that one 
 man, because of his power, may, by God's 
 permissive law, murder millions of innocents. 
 Some may say, " It is against the duty of 
 love, that by nature and God's law the hus- 
 band owes to the wife, (Ephes. v. 25,) that 
 the husband should put away his wife ; for 
 God hateth putting away, and yet God made 
 a law, that a husband might give his wife 
 a bill of divorce, and so put her away ; and 
 by the same reason, God may make a law, 
 though against nature, that a king should 
 kill and murder, without all resistance." 
 
 Ans. — 1. The question is not, if God 
 may make permissive laws to oppress the in- 
 nocent ; I grant he may do it, as he may 
 command Abraham to kill his son Isaac ; and 
 Abraham by law is obliged to kill him, ex- 
 cept God retract his commandment, and whe- 
 ther God retract it or not, he may intend to 
 kill his son, which is an act of love and obe- 
 dience to God ; but this were more than a 
 permissive law. 2. We have a clear Scrip- 
 ture for a permissive law of divorce, and it 
 was not a law tending to the universal de- 
 struction of a whole kingdom, or many king- 
 doms, but only to the grievance of some par- 
 ticular wives ; but the law of divorce gave 
 not power to all husbands to put away their 
 wives, but only to the husband who could not \ 
 command his affection to love his wife. But 
 this law of the king is a catholic law to all 
 kings, (for royalists will have all kings so 
 absolute, as it is sin and disobedience to God 
 to resist any,) that all kings have a divine 
 law to kill all their subjects; surely, then, it 
 were better for the church to want such 
 nurse-fathers, as have absolute power to suck 
 their blood ; and for such a perpetual per- 
 missive law continuing to the end of the 
 world, there is no word of God. Nor can 
 we think that the hardness of one prince's 
 heart can be a ground for God to make a 
 law, so destructive to his church and all 
 mankind ; such a permissive law, being a 
 positive law of God, must have a word of 
 Christ for it, else we are not to receive it. 
 Arnisseus, (cap. 4. distru. Tyran. ct priuc. 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 197 
 
 «. 16, ) thinketh a tyrant, in exercito, be- 
 coming a notorious tyrant, when there is no 
 other remedy, may be removed from govern- 
 ment, sine magno scelerc, without great 
 sin. But, I ask, how men can annul any di- 
 vine law of God, though but a permissive law. 
 For if God's permissive law warrant a ty- 
 rant to kill two innocent men, it is tyranny 
 more or less, and the law distinguisheth not. 
 3. This permissive law is expressly contrary 
 to God's law, limiting all kings. (Deut. xvii. 
 16 — 18.) How then are we to believe that 
 God would make an universal law contrary 
 to the law that he established before Israel 
 had a king 2 4. What Brentius saith is 
 much for us, for he calleth this JOSJJ^D law 
 a licence, and so to use it, must be licen- 
 tiousness. 5. Amisseus desireth that kings 
 may use sparingly the plenitude of their 
 power for public good ; there must be, saith 
 he, necessity to make it lawful to use the 
 plenitude of their power justly ; therefore 
 Ahab sinned, in that he unjustly possessed 
 Naboth's vineyard, though he sinned spe- 
 cially in this, that he came to the possession 
 by murder, and it was peculiar to the Jews 
 that they could not transfer their possessions 
 from one tribe to another. But if it be so, 
 then this power of absoluteness is not given 
 by permissive law, by which God permitted 
 putting away of wives, for the object of a 
 permissive law is sin ; but this plenitude of 
 power may be justly put forth in act, saith 
 he, if the public good may be regarded. I 
 would know what public good can legitimate 
 tyranny and killing of the innocent, — the 
 intentions of men can make nothing intrin- 
 sically evil to become good. 6. How can that 
 be a permissive law of God, and not his ap- 
 proving law, by which kings create inferior 
 judges ? for this is done by God's approving 
 will. 7- It is evident that Arniseeus' mind 
 is, that kings may take their subjects' vine- 
 yards and their goods, so they err not in 
 the manner and way of the act ; so be like, 
 if there had not been a peculiar law that 
 Naboth should not sell his vineyard, and if 
 the king had had any public use for it, he 
 might have taken Naboth's vineyard from 
 him ; but he specially sinned, saith he, in eo 
 maxime culpatur, §c, that he took away 
 the man's vineyard by murdering of him ; 
 therefore, saith Arnisseus, (c. 1. de potest, 
 moj. in bona privato. 2,) that by the king's 
 law, (1 Sam. viii.,) " There is given to the 
 king, a dominion over the people's sons, 
 daughters, fields, vineyards, olive-yards, ser- 
 
 vants, and flocks." So he citeth that, that 
 Daniel putteth all places, the rocks of the 
 mountains, the birds of the heaven, (Dan. 
 ii.,) under the king's power. So all is the 
 king's in dominion, and the subjects in use 
 only. 
 
 But 1. This law of the king, then, can be 
 no ground for the king's absoluteness above 
 law, and there can be no permissive law of 
 God here ; for that which asserteth the 
 king's royal dominion over persons and 
 things, that must be the law of God's ap- 
 proving, not his permitting evil ; but this is 
 such a law as Arnisseus saith. 
 
 2. The text speaketh of no law or law- 
 ful power, or of any absoluteness of king 
 Saul, but of his wicked custom, and his ra- 
 pine and tyranny, " He will take your sons, 
 your daughters, your fields, and your vine- 
 yards from you." Saul took not these 
 through any power of dominion by law, but 
 by mere tyranny. 
 
 3. I have before cleared that the subjects 
 have a propriety, and an use also, else how 
 could we be obliged, by virtue of the fifth 
 commandment, to pay tribute to the king, 
 (Bom. xiii. 7,) for that which we pay was 
 as much the king's before we paid as when 
 we have paid it. 
 
 4. Arniseeus saith, all are the king's, in 
 respect of the universal jurisdiction that the 
 king hath in governing and ordering all to 
 the universal end, the good of the common- 
 wealth ; for as universal nature careth for the 
 conservation of the specie and kind, so doth 
 particular nature care for the conservation of 
 individuals, so do men care for their private 
 goods, and the king is to refer every man's 
 private goods to the good of the public. But 
 the truth is, this taketh not away propriety 
 of goods from private men, retaining only the 
 use to private men, and giving the dominion 
 to the king, because this power that the king 
 hath of men's goods is not power of domi- 
 nion, that the king hath over the goods of 
 men, as if the king were dominus, lord and 
 owner of the fields and monies of the private 
 subject ; but it is a power to regulate the 
 goods for a public use, and supposeth the 
 abuse of goods, when they are monopolised 
 to and for private ends. The power that 
 the king hath over my bread is not a power 
 of dominion, so as he may eat my bread as 
 if it were his own bread, and he be lord of 
 my bread as I was sometime myself, before 
 I abused it, but it is a dominion improperly 
 and abusively so called, and is a mere fidu- 
 
198 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 ciary and dispensatory power, because he is 
 set over my bread not to eat it, nor over my 
 houses to dwell in them, but only with a mi- 
 nisterial power, as a public though honoura- 
 ble servant and watchman, appointed by the 
 community as a mean for an end, to regulate 
 my bread, houses, monies and fields, for the 
 good of the public. Dominion is defined " a 
 faculty to use a thing as you please, except 
 you be hindered by force or by law;" (Jus- 
 tin, tit. c. de legibus in I. digna vox, Sfc. ;) 
 so have I a dominion over my own gar- 
 ments, house, money, to use them for uses 
 not forbidden by the law of God and man, 
 but I may not lay my corn-field waste, that 
 it shall neither bear grass nor corn, — the 
 king may hinder that, because it is a hurt to 
 the public ; but the king, as lord and sove- 
 reign, hath no such dominion over Naboth's 
 vineyard. How the king is lord of all goods, 
 ratione jurisdictionis, et tuitionis se. An- 
 ton, de paudrill. in I. ; Altius. n. 5, c. de 
 servit; Hottotn. Must, quest, q. 1, ad fin., 
 cone. 2 ,• Lod. Molin. de just, et jur. dis. 
 25 ; Soto, de justitia et jur. I. 4, q. 4, 
 art. 1. 
 
 QUESTION XL. 
 
 WHETHER OR NO THE PEOPLE HAVE ANY 
 POWER OVER THE KING, EITHER BY HIS 
 OATH, COVENANT, OR ANY OTHER WAY. 
 
 Aristotle saitli, (JEthic. 8, c. 12,) 'O f*h 
 
 yap Tupavvo; to lavTou ffv/Aidigov ffxoTU. o ot fiao-tkiuf 
 ri Tail apxifi'.vuv , oil yao itrTi fiatriXiu;, o fih uIto-p- 
 xr, t xu xatri To~t iyai6o7; unifix™ '■> " & ty" 
 
 rant seeketh his own, a king the good of 
 the subjects ; for he is no king who is not 
 content and excelleth in goodness." The 
 former part of these words distinguish essen- 
 tially the king by his office from the tyrant. 
 Now, every office requireth essentially a duty 
 to be performed by him that is in office ; 
 and, where there is a duty required, there 
 is some obligation ; — if it be a pohtic duty, 
 it is a pohtic obligation. 1. Now, amongst 
 politic duties betwixt equal and equal, supe- 
 rior and inferior, that is not, de facto, re- 
 quired co-action for the performance thereof, 
 but, de jure, there is ; for two neighbour 
 kings and two neighbour nations, both being 
 equal and independent the one toward the 
 the other, the one owes a duty to the other ; 
 
 and if the Ammonites do a wrong to David 
 and Israel, as they are equal, de facto, the 
 one cannot punish the other, though the 
 Ammonites do a disgrace to David's messen- 
 gers, yet, de jure, David and Israel may 
 compel them to politic duties of politic con- 
 sociation, (for betwixt independent kingdoms 
 there must be some politic government, and 
 some pohtic and civil laws, for two or three 
 making a society cannot dwell together with- 
 out some policy,) and David and Israel, as by 
 the law of nature they may repel violence 
 with violence ; so, if the laws of neighbour- 
 hood and nations be broken, the one may 
 punish the other, though there be no rela- 
 tion of superiority and inferiority betwixt 
 them. 2. Wherever there is a covenant 
 and oath betwixt equals, yea, or superiors 
 and inferiors, the one hath some co-active 
 power over the other ; if the father give his 
 bond to pay to his son ten thousand pounds, 
 as his patrimony to him, though before the 
 giving of the bond the father was not obliged 
 but only by the law of nature to give a pa- 
 trimony to his son ; yet now, by a politic 
 obligation of promise, covenant, and writ, he 
 is obliged so to his son to pay ten thousand 
 pounds, that, by the law of nations and the 
 civil law, the son hath now a co-active power 
 by law to compel his father, though his supe- 
 rior, to pay him no less than ten thousand 
 pounds of patrimony. Though, therefore, 
 the king should stand simply superior to his 
 kingdom and estates, (which I shall never 
 grant,) yet if the king come under covenant 
 with his kingdom, as I have proved at 
 length, (c. 13,) he must, by that same, come 
 under some co-active power to fulfil his cove- 
 nant ; for omne promissum (saith the law) 
 cadit in debitum, what any doth promise 
 falleth under debt. If the covenant be pohtic 
 and civd, as is the covenant between king 
 David and all Israel, (2 Sam. v. 1 — 3,) and 
 between king Jehoash and the people, (2 
 Kings xi. 17, 18,) then the king must come 
 under a civil obhgation to perform the cove- 
 nant; and, though there be none superior 
 to king and the people on earth, to compel 
 them both to perform what they have pro- 
 mised, yet, de jure, by the law of nations, 
 each may compel the other to mutual per- 
 formance. This is evident, — 
 
 1. By the law of nations, if one nation 
 break covenant to another, though both be 
 independent, yet hath the wronged nation a 
 co-active power, de jure, (by accident, be- 
 cause they are weaker they want strength to 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRIXCE. 
 
 199 
 
 compel, yet they have right to compel them,) 
 to force the other to keep covenant, or then 
 to punish them, because nature teacheth to 
 repel violence by violence, so it be done 
 without desire ot* revenge and malice. 
 
 2. This is proved from the nature of a 
 promise or covenant, for Solomon saith, 
 (Prov. vi. 1, 2,) " My son, if thou be surety 
 for thy friend, if thou hast stricken thy hand 
 with a stranger, thou art snared with the 
 words of thy mouth, and art taken with the 
 words of thy mouth." But whence is it that 
 a man free is now snared as a beast in a gin 
 or trap ? Certainly Solomon saith it is by a 
 word and striking of hands, by a word ot 
 promise and covenant. Now, the creditor 
 hath co-active power, though he be an equal 
 or an inferior to the man who is surety, even 
 by law to force him to pay, and the judge is 
 obliged to give his co-active power to the 
 creditor, that he may force the surety to 
 pay. Hence it is clear, that a covenant 
 maketh a free man under the co-active 
 power of law to an equal or a weaker, and 
 the stronger is by the law of fraternity to 
 help the weaker with his co-active power, 
 to cause the superior fulfil his covenant. If, 
 then, the king (giving, and not granting, he 
 were superior to his whole kingdom) come 
 under a covenant to them to seek their 
 good, not his own, to defend true protestant 
 religion, they have power to compel him to 
 keep his covenant, and Scotland (if the king 
 be stronger than England, and break his co- 
 venant to them) is obliged, by God's law, 
 (Prov. xxiv. 11,) to add their forces and 
 co-active power to help their brethren of 
 England. 
 
 3. The law shall warrant to loose the 
 vassal from the lord when the lord hath 
 broken his covenant. Hippolitus in I., Si 
 quis viduam col. 5, et dixit de quest. I. Si 
 quis major. 41 et 161. Bartol. n. 41. The 
 Magdeburgens. in libel, de offic. magistrat. 
 Imperatores et reges esse primarios vassal- 
 los imperii, et regni, et proinde sifeloniam 
 contra imperium aut regnum committant, 
 feudo privari, proinde ut alios vasallos. 
 
 Arnisseus (q. 6. An princeps qui jurat 
 subditis, etc. n. 2) saith, " This occasioneth 
 confusion and sedition." " The Egyptians 
 cast off Ptolemseus because he affected too 
 much the name of a king of the Romans, 
 his own friend," Dion. (1. 9.) " The States 
 punished Archidanius because he married a 
 wife of a low stature," Plutarch, (in Ages, 
 inpris.) " The ancient Burgundians thought 
 
 it cause enough to expel their king, if mat- 
 ters went not well in the state," Marcel. (1. 
 27.) " The Goths in Spain gave no other 
 cause of expelling their king, nisi quod sibi 
 displiceret, because he displeased them," 
 Aimon. (1. 2, c. 20, 1. 4, c. 35.) 
 
 Ans. — All these are not to be excused in 
 people, but neither every abuse of power in 
 a king dethroneth a king, nor every abuse 
 in people can make null their power. 
 
 Arnisseus maketh three kinds of oaths : 
 The first is, when the king svveareth to de- 
 fend true religion and the Pope ; and he 
 denieth that this is an oath of fidelity, or 
 by paction or covenant made to the Pope or 
 clergy, he saith it is only on oath of pro- 
 tection, nor doth the king receive the crown 
 from the Pope or clergy. 
 
 Ans. 1. — Arnisseus divideth oaths that 
 are to be conjoined. We do not read that 
 kings swear to defend religion in one oath, 
 and to administer judgment and justice 
 in another ; for David made not two cove- 
 nants, but only one, with all Israel. 2. The 
 king was not king while he did swear this 
 oath, and therefore is must be a pactional 
 oath between him and the kingdom, and it 
 is true the king receiveth not a crown from 
 the church; yet David received a crown 
 from the church, for this end, " to feed the 
 Lord's people," and so conditionally. Papir. 
 Masse (I. 3, Chron. Gal.) saith, the king 
 was not a king before the oath, and that he 
 swore to be a keeper not only of the first, 
 but also of the second table of the law. 
 Ego N. Dei gratia, mox futurus rex Fran- 
 corum, in die ordinationis mea; coram Deo, 
 et Sanctis ejus polliceor, quod servabo pri- 
 vilegia canonica, justitiamque et jus uni- 
 cuique Prcelato debitum, vosque defendant, 
 Deo juvante, quantum potero, quemad- 
 modum rex ex officio in suo regno defen- 
 dere debet, unumquemque episcopum ac 
 ecclesiam, et administrabo populo justitiam 
 et leges, uti jus postulat. And so it is or- 
 dained in the council of Toledo : Quisquis 
 deinceps regni sortitus fuerit apicem, non 
 ante conscendat regiam sedem, quam in- 
 ter reliquas conditiones sacramento poli- 
 citus fuerit, quod non sinet in regno suo 
 degcre eum qui non sit catholicus. All 
 these by Scripture are oaths of covenant, 
 Deut, xvii. 17, 18; 2 . Sam. v. 1—4; 2 
 Kings xi. 17, 18. 
 
 Arnisseus maketh a second oath of abso- 
 lute kings, who swear they shall reign ac- 
 cording to equity and justice ; and he saith, 
 
200 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 " There is no need of this oath, a promise 
 is enough ; for an oath increaseth not the 
 obligation, (L. fin. de non num. pec.,) only 
 it addeth the bound of religion ; for there 
 is no use of an oath where there is no pac- 
 tion of law against him that sweareth; if he 
 violate the oath, there followeth only the 
 punishment of perjury. And the word of 
 a prince is as good as his oath, only he con- 
 descendeth to swear to please the people, 
 out of indulgence, not out of necessity. And 
 the king doth not therefore swear because 
 he is made king, but because he is made 
 king he sweareth. And he is not king be- 
 cause he is crowned, but he is crowned be- 
 cause he is king. Where the crown goeth 
 by succession, the king never dieth ; and he 
 is king by nature before he be crowned." 
 
 Ans. 1. — This oath is the very first oath 
 spoken of before, included in the covenant 
 that the king maketh with the people ; (2 
 Sam. v. 2—4;) for absolute powers, by 
 Arnisseus' grant, doth swear to do the du- 
 ties of a king, as Bodinus maketh the oath 
 of France, (de Rep. 1.1. c. 8,) Juro ego, 
 per deum, ac promitto me juste regnatu- 
 rum judicium, equitatem, ac misericor- 
 diam facturum ; and Papir. Masse (1. 3, 
 Chron.) hath the same expressly in the par- 
 ticulars. And by this a king sweareth he 
 shall not be absolute ; and if he swear this 
 oath, he bindeth himself not to govern by 
 the law of the king, whereby he may play 
 the tyrant, as Saul did, (1 Sam. viii. 9 — 12, 
 &c.,) as all royalists expound the place. 2. 
 It is but a poor evasion to distinguish be- 
 twixt the kihg's promise and his oath ; for 
 the promise and covenant of any man, and 
 so of the king, doth no less bring him under 
 a civil obligation and politic co-action to 
 keep his promise than an oath ; for he that 
 becometh surety for his friend doth by no 
 civil law swear he shall be good for the son, 
 or perform in lieu and place of the friend ; 
 what he is to perform he doth only cove- 
 nant and promise, and in law and politic 
 obligation he is taken and snared by that 
 promise, no less than if he had sworn. 
 Reuben offered to be caution to bring Ben- 
 jamin safe home to his old father, (Gen. 
 xlii. 37,) and Judah also, (Gen. xliii. 9,) 
 but they do not swear any oath ; and it is 
 true that an oath addeth nothing to a con- 
 tract and promise, but only it lays on a re- 
 ligious tie before God, yet so as consequent- 
 ly, if the contractor violate both promise 
 and oath, he cometh under the guilt of per- 
 
 jury, which a law of men may punish. Now, 
 that a covenant bringeth the king under a 
 politic obligation as well as an oath, is al- 
 ready proved, and farther confirmed by Gal. 
 hi. 15, " Though it be a man's testament or 
 covenant, no man disannuleth and addeth 
 thereunto." No man, even by man's law, 
 can annul a confirmed covenant ; and there- 
 fore the man that made the covenant 
 bringeth himself under law to fulfil his own 
 covenant, and so must the king put himself 
 under men's law, by a covenant at his coro- 
 nation ; yea, and David is reputed by roy- 
 alists an absolute prince, yet he cometh 
 under a covenant before he be made a king. 
 3. It is but a weak reason to say that an 
 oath is needless, where no action of law can 
 be against the king who sweareth, if it have 
 any strength of reason. I retort it ; a legal 
 and solemn promise then is needless also, 
 for there is no action of law against a king 
 (as royalists teach) if he violate his promise. 
 So then king David needlessly made a co- 
 venant with the people at his coronation ; 
 for though David should turn as bloody an 
 enemy to the church as Nero or Julian, 
 the people have no law-action against Da- 
 vid ; and why then did Jeremiah seek an 
 oath of the king of Judah, that he would 
 not kill him nor deliver him into the hands 
 of his enemies? and why did David seek 
 an oath of Jonathan ? It is not like Jere- 
 miah and David could have law-action 
 against a king and a king's son, if they 
 should violate the oath of God; and far- 
 ther, it is a begging of the question to say 
 that the states can have no action against 
 the king if he should violate his oath. 
 Hugo Grotius putteth seven cases in which 
 the people may have real action against the 
 king to accuse and punish. (1.) They may 
 punish the king to death, for matters capi- 
 tal, if so it be agreed on betwixt the king 
 and the people, as in Lacedaemonia. (2.) 
 He may be punished as a private man. (3.) 
 If the king make away a kingdom given to 
 him by succession, his act is null, and he 
 may be resisted, because the kingdom is a 
 life-rent only to him ; yea, saith Barclay, 
 he loseth the crown. (4.) He loseth his 
 kingdom, if, with a hostile mind, he seek 
 the destruction of the kingdom. (5.) If 
 such a clause be put in, that if he commit 
 felony, or do such oppressions, the subjects 
 shall be loosed from the bonds of subjec- 
 tion ; then the king, failing thus, turneth a 
 private man. (6.) If the king have the 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINT E. 
 
 201 
 
 one-half or part of the kingdom, and the 
 people or senate the other half; if the king 
 prey upon that half which is not his own, 
 he may violently be resisted, for in so far 
 he hath not the empire. (7.) If, when the 
 crown was given, this be declared, that in 
 some cases he may be resisted, then some 
 natural liberty is free from the king's power, 
 and reserved in the people's hand. 4. It 
 is then reason that the king swear an oath, 
 1. That the king's oath is but a ceremony 
 to please the people, and that because he is 
 king, and king by birth, therefore he swear- 
 eth, and is crowned, is in question, and de- 
 nied. No man is born a king, as no man 
 is born a subject ; and because the people 
 maketh him king, therefore he is to swear. 
 The council of Toledo saith, non antea con- 
 scendat regiam sedem quam juret. 2. An 
 oath is a religious obligation, no arbitrary 
 ceremony. 3. He may swear in his cabi- 
 net-chamber, not covenanting with the peo- 
 ple, as David and Jehoash did. 4. So he 
 maketh promises that he may be king, not 
 because he is king ; it were ridiculous he 
 should promise or swear to be a just king, 
 because he is a just king ; and by the same 
 reason the estates swear the oath of loyalty 
 to the new king, not that they may be loyal 
 in all time coining, but because they are 
 loyal subjects already ; for if the one-half of 
 the covenant on the king's part be a cere- 
 mony of indulgence, not ot necessity, by 
 the same reason the other half of the cove- 
 nant must be a ceremony of indulgence also 
 to the people. 
 
 Obj. — Arnisseus saith, A contract cannot 
 be dissolved in law, but by consent of two par- 
 ties contracting, because both are obliged ; 
 (I. ab emptione 58, in pr. de pact. I. 3, de 
 rescind, vend. 1. 80, de solu ;) therefore, if 
 the subjects go from the covenant that they 
 have made to be loyal to the king, they 
 ought to be punished. 
 
 Ans. — A contract, the conditions whereof 
 are violated by neither side, cannot be dis- 
 solved but by the joint consent of both ; 
 and in buying and selling, and in all con- 
 tracts unviolated, the sole will of neither 
 side can violate the contract : of this speak- 
 eth the law. But I ask the royalists, if 
 the contract betwixt the spies sent to view 
 Jericho, and Rahab the harlot, had not 
 been null, and the spies free from any obli- 
 gation, if Rahab had neglected to keep 
 within doors when Jericho was taken, though 
 Rahab and the spies had never consented 
 
 expressly to break the covenant ? We hold 
 that the law saith with us, that vassals loss 
 their farm if they pay not what is due. 1 
 Now, what are kings but vassals to the 
 state, who, if they turn tyrants, fall from 
 their right ? 
 
 Arniseeus saith in the council of Toledo, 
 (4. c. 47,) the subjects ask from the king, 
 that kings would be meek and just, not 
 upon the ground of a voluntary contract 
 and paction, but because God shall rejoice 
 in king and people by so doing. 2 
 
 Ans. — These two do no more fight with 
 one another than that two merchants should 
 keep faith one to another, both because God 
 hath said he shall dwell in God's mountain 
 who sweareth and covenanteth, and stand- 
 eth to his oath and covenant, though to his 
 loss and hurt, (Psal. xv.) and also because 
 they made their covenant and contract thus 
 and thus. 
 
 Arnisceus. — Every prince is subject to 
 God, but not as a vassal ; for a master may 
 commit felony, and lose the propriety of his 
 farm. Can God do so ? The master can- 
 not take the farm from the vassal without 
 an express cause legally deduced ; but can- 
 not God take what he hath given but by a 
 law process ? A vassal can entitle to him- 
 self a farm against the master's will, as some 
 jurists say, but can a prince entitle a king- 
 dom to himself against the God of heaven's 
 will? Though we grant the comparison, 
 yet the subjects have no law over the kings, 
 because the coercive power of the vassal is 
 in the lord of the manor, the punishing of 
 kings belongeth to God. 
 
 Ans. 1. — We compare not the lord of a 
 manor and the Lord of heaven together; 
 all these dissimilitudes we grant, but as the 
 king is God's vassal, so is he a noble and 
 princely vassal to the estates of a kingdom 
 because they make him. 2. They make 
 him rather than another their noble ser- 
 vant. 3. They make him for themselves 
 and their own godly, quiet, and honest 
 life. 4. They, in then- first election, limit 
 him to such a way, to govern by law, and 
 give to him so much power for their good, 
 no more ; in these four actst hey are above 
 the prince, and so have a coercive power 
 over him. 
 
 Arnisceus. — It is to make the prince's 
 fidelity doubtful to put him to an oath. 
 
 i Bartol. in 1. 1, n. 4, de his qui not. infam. 
 
 - Amis., c. 6, an priuceps qui jurat subditis, &c. 
 
 2e 
 
202 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 Lawyers say there is no need of an oath, 
 when a person is of approved fidelity. 
 
 Ans. 1. — Then we are not to seek an 
 oath of an inferior magistrate, of a com- 
 mander in wars, of a pastor, it is presumed 
 these are of approved fidelity, and it maketh 
 their integrity obnoxious to slander to put 
 them on an oath. 2. David was of more 
 approved fidelity than any king now a-days, 
 and to put him to a covenant seemed to 
 call his fidelity in question ; Jonathan 
 sought an oath of David to deal kindly 
 with his seed when he came to the throne ; 
 Jeremiah sought an oath of the king of 
 Judah. Did they put any note of falsehood 
 on them therefore ? 
 
 Arnisceus. — You cannot prove that ever 
 any king gave an oath to his subjects in 
 Scripture. 
 
 Ans. 1. — What more unbeseeming kings 
 is it to swear to do their duty, than to pro- 
 mise covenant-wise to do the same ? And 
 a covenant you cannot deny. 2. In a 
 covenant for religious duties there was 
 always an oath, (2 Chron. xv. 12 — 14,) 
 hence the rite of cutting a calf, and swear- 
 ing in a covenant (Jer. xxxiv. 18). 3. 
 There is an oath that the people giveth to 
 the king to obey him, (Eccles. viii. 2,) and 
 a covenant (2 Sam. v. 1 — 3) mutual be- 
 tween the king and people ; I leave it to 
 the judicious, if the people swear to the 
 king obedience in a covenant mutual, and 
 he swear not to them. 
 
 Arnisaeus showeth to us a third sort of oath 
 that limited princes do swear. This oath 
 in Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Hungary, is 
 sworn by the kings, who may do nothing 
 without consent of the senate, and according 
 to order of law ; this is but the other two 
 oaths specified, and a prince cannot con- 
 travene his own contract ; the law saith, in 
 that the prince is but as a private man (in 
 I. digna vox C. de 11. Rom. cons. 426, n. 
 17) ; and it is known that the emperor is 
 constituted and created by the prince's elec- 
 tors, subject to them, and by law may be 
 dethroned by them. 
 
 The Bishop of Bothester (de potest, p. 1. 2, 
 c. 20) saith from Barclay, " IS one can de- 
 nude a king of his power, but he that gave 
 him the power, or hath an express com- 
 mandment so to do, from him that gave the 
 power. But God only, and the people, gave 
 the king his power ; therefore God, with 
 the people, having an express commandment 
 from God, must denude the king of power. 
 
 Ans. 1. — T his shall prove that God only, 
 by an immediate action, or some having an 
 express commandment from him, can de- 
 prive a preacher for scandals ; Christ only, 
 or those who have an express commandment 
 from him, can excommunicate ; God only, 
 or the magistrate with him, can take away 
 the life of man (Nnmb. xi. 14 — 16); and 
 no inferior magistrates, who also have their 
 power from God immediately, (Bom. xiii. 
 1,) if we speak of the immediation of the 
 office, can denude inferior judges of their 
 power. God only, by the husbandman's 
 pains, maketh a fruitful vineyard, therefore, 
 the husbandman cannot make his vineyard 
 grow over with nettles and briers. 2. The 
 argument must run thus, else the assump- 
 tion shall be false. God only by the action 
 of the people as his instrument, and by no 
 other action, makes a lawful king ; God only 
 by the action of the people, as his instru- 
 ment, can make a king ; God only by the 
 action of the people, as his instrument, can 
 dethrone a king ; for as the people, making 
 a king, are in that doing what God doth 
 before them, and what God doth by them 
 in that very act, so the people unmaking a 
 king, doth that which God doth before the 
 people ; both the one and the other accord- 
 ing to God's rule obligeth. (Deut. xvii. 
 14—20.) 
 
 The Prelate, whose tribe seldom saith 
 truth, addeth, — " As a fatherly power, by 
 God and nature's law, over a family, was in 
 the father of a family before the children 
 could either transfer then- power, or consent 
 to the translation of that power to him, so 
 a kingly power (which succeedeth to a pa- 
 ternal or fatherly power) to govern many 
 families, yea, and a kingdom, was in that 
 same father, in relation to many families, 
 before these many families can transfer 
 their power. The kingly power floweth 
 immediately from God, and the people 
 doth not transfer that power, but doth 
 only consent to the person of the king, or 
 doth only choose his person at some time. 
 And though tliis power were principally 
 given to the people, it is not so given to 
 the people as u it were the people's power, 
 and not God's, for it is God's power ; nei- 
 ther is it any otherwise given to the people, 
 but as to a stream, a beam, and an instru- 
 ment which may confer it to another." 
 M. Antonius (de domini. I. 6, c. 2, n. 22, 
 23) doth more subtlely illustrate the mat- 
 ter : " If the king should confer honour on 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 203 
 
 a subject, by the hand of a servant who had 
 not power or freedom to confer that honour, 
 or not to confer it, but by necessity of the 
 king's commandment must confer it, no- 
 thing should hinder us to say, that such a 
 subject had his honour immediately from 
 the king : so the earth is immediately 
 illuminated by the sun, although light be 
 received on the earth, but by the interven- 
 ing mediation of many inferior bodies and 
 elements, because by no other thing but 
 by the sun only, is the light as an efficient 
 cause in a nearest capacity to give light ; so 
 the royal power in whomsoever it be, is 
 immediately from God only, though it be 
 applied by men to this or that person, be- 
 cause from God only, and from no other 
 the kingly power is formally and effectively 
 that which it is, and worketh that which it 
 worketh ; and if you ask by what cause is 
 the tree immediately turned into fire, none 
 sound in reason would say, it is made fire, 
 not by the fire, but by him that laid the 
 tree on the fire." John P. P. would have 
 stolen this argument also, if he had been 
 capable thereof. 
 
 Ans. 1. — A fatherly power is in a father, 
 not before he hath a child, but indeed be- 
 fore his children by an act of their free-will 
 consent that he be their father ; yea, and 
 whether the children consent or no, from a 
 physical act of generation, he must be the 
 father ; and let the father be the most 
 wicked man, and let him be made by no 
 moral requisite, yet is he made a father, 
 nor can he ever leave off physically to be a 
 father : he may leave off morally to do the 
 duty of a father, and so be non pater officio, 
 but he cannot but be pater natural gener- 
 antis vi. So there never is, nor can be, 
 any need that chddren's free consent inter- 
 vene to make Kish the father of Saul, be- 
 cause he is by nature a father. To make Saul 
 a king and a moral father by analogy and 
 improperly, — a father by ruling, governing, 
 guiding, defending Israel by good laws, in 
 peace and godliness, I hope there is some 
 act of the people's free-will required even 
 by Spalato's way ; the people must approve 
 him to be king, yea, they must king him, or 
 constitute him king, say we. No such act is 
 required of natural sons to make a physical 
 father, and so here is a great halt in the 
 comparison, and it is most false that there 
 is a kingly power to govern many families 
 in the same father, before these many 
 families can transfer their power to make 
 
 him king. Put royalists to their logic, they 
 have not found out a medium to make good 
 that there is a formal kingly power whereby 
 Saul is king and father morally over all 
 Israel before Israel chose him and made 
 him, as Kish was Saul's father formally, and 
 had a fatherly power to be his father, before 
 Saul had the use of free-will to consent that 
 he should be his father. Royalists are here 
 at a stand. The man may have royal gifts 
 before the people make him king, but this 
 is not regiapotcstas, a royal power, by which 
 the man is formally king. Many have more 
 royal gifts than the man that beareth the 
 crown, yet are never kings, nor is there 
 formally regia potestas, kingly power, in 
 them. In this meaning Petrarch said, 
 Plures sunt reges quam regna. 2. He 
 saith, " The people doth not confer royal 
 power, but only consent to the person of the 
 man, or choice of his person." This is non- 
 sense, for the people's choosing of David at 
 Hebron to be king, and their refusing of 
 Saul's seed to be king, what was it but an 
 act of God, by the free suffrages of the 
 people, conferring royal power on David, 
 and making him king ? Whereas in former 
 times, David even anointed by Samuel at 
 Bethlehem, (1 Sam. xvi,)was only a private 
 man, the subject of king Saul, and never 
 termed by the Spirit of God a king ; nor 
 was he king till God, by the people's con- 
 sent made him king at Hebron; for Samuel 
 neither honoured him as king, nor bowed to 
 him as king, nor did the people say, God 
 save king David ; but after this David ac- 
 knowledged Saul as his master and king. 
 Let royalists show us any act of God making 
 David king, save this act of the people mak- 
 ing him formally king at Hebron, and there- 
 fore the people, as God's instrument, trans- 
 ferred the power, and God by them in the 
 same act transferred the power, and in the 
 same they chose the person ; the royalists 
 affirm these to be different actions, affir- 
 mant incumbit probatio. 3. This power is 
 the people's radically, naturally, as the bees 
 (as some think) have a power natural to 
 choose a king-bee, so hath a community a 
 power naturally to defend and protect 
 themselves; and God hath revealed in 
 Deut. xvii. 14, 15, the way of regulating 
 the act of choosing governors and kings, 
 which is a special mean of defending and 
 protecting themselves ; and the people is as 
 principally the subject and fountain of royal 
 power, as a fountain is of water. I shall not 
 
204 
 
 LEX, REX : OR, 
 
 contend, if you call a fountain God's instru- 
 ment to give water, as all creatures are his 
 instruments. 4. For Spalato's comparison, 
 he is far out, for the people choosing one 
 of ten to be their king, have free will to 
 choose any, and are under a law (Deut. 
 xvii. 14, 15) in the manner of their choos- 
 ing, and though they err and make a sinful 
 choice, yet the man is king, and God's king, 
 whom they make king; but, if the king 
 command a servant to make A. B. a knight, 
 if the servant make C. D. a knight, I shall 
 not think C. D. is a valid knight at all ; and 
 indeed the honour is immediately here from 
 the king, because the king's servant by no 
 innate power maketh the knight, but nations 
 by a radical, natural, and innate power, 
 maketh this man a king, not that man ; 
 and I conceive the man chosen by the 
 people oweth thanks and grateful service to 
 the people, who rejected others, that they 
 had power to choose, and made him king. 
 5. The light immediately and formally is 
 light from the sun, and so is the office of a 
 king immediately instituted of God, Deut. 
 xvii. 14. Whether the institution be na- 
 tural or positive, it is no matter. 2. The 
 man is not king, because of royal endow- 
 ments, though we should say these were 
 immediately from God, to which instruction 
 and education may also confer not a little ; 
 but he is formally king, ratione VfaAtmt 
 /W/X/xu; in regard of the formal essence of 
 a king, not immediately from God, as the 
 light is from the sun, but by the mediation 
 of the free consent of the people; (2 Sam. v. 
 1 — 3 ;) nor is the people in making a king, 
 as the man who only casteth wood in the 
 fire ; the wood is not made fireTormally, but 
 by the fire, not by the approach of fire to 
 wood, or of wood to fire ; for the people do 
 not apply the royalty, which is immediately 
 in and from God to the person. Explicate 
 such an application ; for to me it is a fiction 
 inconceivable, because the people hath the 
 royalty radically in themselves, as in the 
 fountain and cause, and conferreth it on the 
 man who is made king ; yea, the people, by 
 making David king, confer the royal power 
 on the king. This is so true, that royalists, 
 forgetting themselves, inculcate frequently 
 in asserting their absolute monarch from 
 Ulpian, but misunderstood that the people 
 have resigned all their power, liberty, right 
 of life, death, goods, chastity, a potency of ra- 
 pine, homicides, unjust wars, &c, upon a crea- 
 ture called an absolute prince ; even, saith 
 
 Grotius, as a man may make himself a slave, 
 by selling his liberty to a master. Now, 
 if the people make away this power to the 
 king, and this be nothing but the tran- 
 scendent absoluteness of a king, certainly 
 this power was in the people ; for how can 
 they give to a king that which they have 
 not themselves ? As a man cannot make 
 away his liberty to a master, by becoming 
 a slave to him, if his liberty were imme- 
 diately in God, as royalists say, sovereignty 
 is immediately in God, and people can ex- 
 ercise no act about sovereignty, to make 
 it over to one man rather than to another. 
 People only have an after-approbation, that 
 this man to whom God hath given it imme- 
 diately, shall have it. Furthermore, they 
 say, people in making a king may make 
 such conditions, as in seven cases a king 
 may be dethroned, at least resisted, saith 
 Hugo Grotius : therefore people may give 
 more or less, half or whole, limited or ab- 
 solute royal power to the prince ; but if this 
 power were immediately in God and from 
 God, how could the people have the hus- 
 banding of it, at their need to expend it 
 out in ounce weights, or pound weights, as 
 they please ? And that the people may be 
 purveyors of it to sell or give it, is taught 
 by Grotius {de jwr. bel et pac. I. 1, c. 4) ; 
 Barclay (advcrs. monarch. I. 4, c. 6) ; Ar- 
 nisaeus (c. 6, de majest. an princeps qui 
 jurat subditis, fyc. n. 10, n. se Aventium 
 Anal. I. 3) ; Ohytreus (I. 23, I. 28) ; Saxon 
 Sleidan {lib. 1, in fi) ; yet Arnisaeus is not 
 ashamed to cite Aristot. [polit. c. 12, I. 3), 
 that he is not a true and absolute king who 
 ruleth by laws. The point blank contrary 
 of which Aristotle saith. 
 
 QUESTION XLI. 
 
 WHETHER DOTH THE P. PRELATE UPON GOOD 
 GROUNDS ASCRIBE TO US THE DOCTRINE OF 
 JESUITS IN THESE QUESTIONS OF LAWFUL 
 DEFENSIVE WARS. 
 
 The P. Prelate, without all ground, will 
 have us all Jesuits in this point, but if we 
 make good that this truth was in Scripture 
 before a Jesuit was in the earth, he falleth 
 from his cause. 
 
 P. Prelate (c. 1, p. 1, 2).— The Begardi 
 saith, There was no government, no law 
 given to the just. It feareth me this age 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 205 
 
 fancieth to itself some such thing, and have 
 learned of Korah, Dathan, &c. 
 
 Ans. — This calumniator, in the next 
 words, belieth himself when he saith, We 
 presuppose that those with whom we are to 
 enter in lists, do willingly grant that govern- 
 ment is not only lawful and just, but ne- 
 cessary both for church and commonwealth: 
 then we fancy no such thing as he imput- 
 eth to us. 
 
 P. Prelate. — Some said that the right of 
 dominion is founded on grace, whether the 
 Waldenses and Huss held any such tenet, I 
 cannot now insist to prove or disprove. Ger- 
 son and others held that there must be a new 
 title and right to what men possess. Too 
 many too confidently hold these or the like. 
 Ans. — 1. That dominion is founded upon 
 grace as its essential pillar, so as wicked 
 men be no magistrates, because they are in 
 mortal sin, was falsly imputed to ancient 
 protestants, the Waldenses, WiclifF, and 
 Huss, by papists ; and this day by Jesuits, 
 Suarez, Bellarmine, Becanus. The P. Pre- 
 late will leave them under this calumny, 
 that he may offend papists and Jesuits as 
 little as he can, but he would lay it on us ; 
 but if the P. Prelate think that dominion 
 is not founded on grace, de jure, that rulers 
 should have that spirit that God put on the 
 seventy elders for their calling, and that 
 they ought not to be " men fearing God and 
 hating covetousness," as Gerson and others 
 did, he belieth the Scripture. 2. It is no 
 error of Gerson that believers have a sip- 
 ritual right to their civil possessions, but by 
 Scripture, 1 Cor. iv. 21 ; Rev. xxi. 7- 
 
 P. Prelate. — The Jesuits are ashamed of 
 the error of casuists, who hold that, directum 
 imperium, the direct and primary power, 
 supreme, civil, and ecclesiastical, is in the 
 Pope ; and, therefore, they give an indirect 
 directive and coercive power to him over 
 kings and states, in ordine ad spiritualia, 
 so may he king and unking princes at his 
 pleasure. Our presbyterians, if they run 
 not fully this way, are very near to it. 
 
 Ans. — 1. The windy man would seem 
 versed in schoolmen. He shoidd have 
 named some casuists, who hold any like 
 thing. 2. The presbyterians must be popes, 
 because they subject kings to the gospel, 
 and Christ's sceptre in church censures, and 
 think Christian kings may be rebuked for 
 blasphemy, bloodshed, &c, whereas prelates, 
 in ordine ad diabolica, murder souls of 
 kings. 3. Prelates do king princes. A 
 
 popish archprelate, when our king was 
 crowned, put the crown on king Charles' 
 head, the sword and sceptre in his hand, 
 anointed him in his hands, crown, shoul- 
 ders, arms, with sacred oil. The king must 
 kiss the archbishop and bishops. Is not this 
 to king princes in ordine ad spiritualia'i 
 And those that kingeth may unkino-, and 
 judge what relation the popish archbishop 
 Spotswood had, when he proffered to the 
 king the oath that the popish kinos swear- 
 eth to maintain the professed religion, (not 
 one word of the true protestant religion,) and 
 will carefully root out all heretics and ene- 
 mies (that is protestants as they expone it) 
 to the true worship of God, that shall be 
 convicted by the church of God of the fore- 
 said crimes. And when the prelates pro- 
 fessed they held not their prelacies of the 
 king, but of the Pope indeed : who are then 
 nearest to the Pope's po-A-er, in ordine ad 
 spiritualia? 4. How will this black-mouthed 
 calumniator make presbyterians to dethrone 
 kings i He hath written a pamphlet of 
 the inconsistency of monarchy and presby- 
 terian government, consisting of lies, in- 
 vented calumnies of his church in which he 
 was baptized. But the truth is, all his ar- 
 guments prove the inconsistency of monarchs 
 and parliaments, and transform any king in- 
 to a most absolute tyrant; for which treason 
 he deserveth to suffer as a traitor. 
 
 P. Prelate (q. 1, c. 1). The puritan 
 saith that all power civil is radically and 
 originally seated in the commnnity ; he here 
 joineth hands with the Jesuit. 
 
 Ans. — In six pages he repeateth the same 
 things, 1. Is this such an heresy, that a 
 colony cast into America by the tyranny 
 of popish prelates, have power to choose 
 their own government ? All Israel was he- 
 retical in this ; for David could not be their 
 king, though designed and anointed by God, 
 (1 Sam. xvi.,) till the people (2 Sam. v.) 
 put forth in act this power, and made Da- 
 vid king in Hebron. 2. Let the Prelate 
 make a syllogism, it is but ex utraque af- 
 Jirmante in secunda figura, logic like the 
 bellies of the court, in which men of their 
 own way is disgraced and cast out of grace 
 and court; because in this controversy of 
 the king with his two parliaments, they are 
 like Erasmus in God's matters, who said, 
 Lutherum nee accuso, nee defendo. He 
 is discourted, whoever he be, who is in 
 shape like a puritan, and not fire and sword 
 against religion and his country, and oath 
 
206 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 and covenant with God ; and so it is this : 
 The Jesuit teacheth that power of govern- 
 ment is in the community originally. The 
 puritan teacheth, that power of government 
 is in the community originally ; therefore, 
 the puritan is a Jesuit. But so the puritan 
 is a Jesuit, because he and the Jesuit teach- 
 eth that there is one God and three per- 
 sons. And if the Prelate like this reason- 
 ing, we shall make himself and the pre- 
 lates, and court-divines, Jesuits upon surer 
 grounds. 
 
 1. Jesuits teach, (1.) The Pope is not the 
 antichrist. (2.) Christ locally descended to 
 hell to free some out of that prison. (3.) It 
 was sin to separate from Babylonish Rome. 
 (4.) We are justified by works. (5.) The 
 merit of fasting is not to be condemned. 
 (6.) The mass is no idolatry. (7.) The 
 Church is the judge of controversies. (8.) 
 All the Arminian points are safer to be be- 
 lieved, than the contrary ; yea, and all the 
 substantiate of popery are true, and catholic 
 doctrine to be preached and |printed. 2. 
 The prelates and court-divines, and this 
 Prelate, conspireth in all these with the 
 Jesuits, as is learnedly and invincibly proved 
 in the treatise, called ivr^aranolffis, the Can- 
 terburian self-conviction ; to which no man 
 of the prelatical and Romish faction durst 
 ever make answer for their hearts ; and see 
 then who are Jesuits. 3. This doctrine was 
 taught by lawyers, protestants, yielded to by 
 papists, before any Jesuit was whelped in 
 rerum natura. Never learned man wrote 
 of policy, till of late, but he held power of 
 government, by the light of nature, must 
 be radically and originally in a community. 
 The P. Prelate saith, Jesuits are not the 
 fathers of this opinion (c. 1, p. 12). How 
 then can the liar say, that the puritan 
 conspireth with the Jesuit ? Suarez, the 
 Jesuit, (de primat. sum. pontifi. I. 3, c. 2, 
 n. 10,) Non est novum, aut a Cardinali 
 Bcllarmino inventum. The Jesuit Tanne- 
 rus, will not have their family the mother of 
 this opinion, (torn 2, disp. 5, de leg, q. 5, 
 in 12, q. 95, 96 ,• Dubi. 1, n. 7). Sine du- 
 bio communis omnium Theologorum et Ju- 
 risperitorum sententia, fyc The Jesuit To- 
 let, (in Rom. xiii.,) taketh it for a ground, 
 that the civil powers are from God, by the 
 natural mediation of men, and civil socie- 
 ties. 4. Jesuits teach that there is no 
 lawful Christian society, truly politic, that 
 hath a near and formal power to choose and 
 ordain their own magistrates, but that which 
 
 acknowledged subjection, and the due re- 
 gulation of their creating of magistrates, to 
 be due and proper to the Pope 5 of Rome. 
 We acknowledge nowise the bishop of Rome, 
 for a lawful bishop and pastor at all. But 
 this popish Prelate doth acknowledge him, 
 for he hath these words, (c. 5, p. 58,) " It 
 is high presumption in the Pope to chal- 
 lenge to himself the title or right of Christ's 
 universal vicar on earth, by divine right. 
 The Pope, the bishop of Rome, hath°no 
 more by divine right, (what he may have 
 by positive ecclesiastical right is not perti- 
 nent for us now to examine and discuss,) no 
 higher privilege, (except it be in extent,) 
 than the meanest bishop of the world in his 
 diocese." And amongst all proofs, he pass- 
 ing by Scriptures, which should prove, or 
 improve a divine right, he will content him- 
 self with one proof of Cyprian, (de unitat. 
 Eccles.,) and endeth with these words, — 
 " Would God, both sides in this, and other 
 controversies, would submit to the judgment 
 of the holy fathers." 
 
 1. Hence the P. Prelate, in his fourth 
 article, (the other two I shall touch anon,) 
 maketh puritans grosser than Jesuits, in 
 dethroning kings ; because if the king be de- 
 ficient, the people may resume their power, 
 and govern for him, and so dethrone the 
 king. But Bellarmine (I. 3, q. de laic.) 
 holdeth the people cannot dethrone the 
 king, but, in certis casibus, in some cases, 
 that is, (as Suarez saith,) si Rex sua potes- 
 tate in manifestam, (Civitatis ceu Regni,) 
 perniciem abutatur. But I will demon- 
 strate, that if papists hold that the Pope 
 may dethrone kings, this Prelate is of their 
 mind ; for, 1. The words I cited make good 
 that he is for the Pope's supremacy ; (now 
 it is a joint or part of his supremacy, to 
 king and unking princes.) 2. They make 
 good that he is a papist ; for, 1. It is pre- 
 sumption in the Pope to challenge to him- 
 self that he is Christ's universal vicar on 
 earth, by divine right. Why saith he not, 
 by no right at all, but only he is not Christ's 
 vicar by divine right ; for it is evident, that 
 papists make him Christ's vicar only by ec- 
 clesiastical right ; for they profess succes- 
 sion of popes to this day cannot be proved 
 but by tradition, not by Scripture. 
 
 2. The Pope's supremacy, by papists, is 
 expressly reckoned amongst unwritten tra- 
 ditions, and so there is no necessity that the 
 right of it be proved from Scripture. 
 
 3. The Prelate expressly saith, " He will 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 207 
 
 not discuss the ecclesiastical right that the 
 Pope hath to be Christ's vicar ;" and by 
 that he clearly insinuateth that he hath a 
 right to be Christ's vicar, besides a scriptu- 
 ral and divine right; only, for offending 
 papists, he will not discuss it. 
 
 •i. He hath no higher privilege, saith he, 
 than other bishops, except in extent, by di- 
 vine right. Now other bishops, as officers, 
 in nature different from presbyters, (for of 
 such the P. Prelate must speak in his own 
 dialect,) have their office by divine right ; 
 and this the Prelate's word must include, 
 else he saith nonsense to the matter in hand. 
 And, in extent, the Pope hath, by divine 
 right, more than other bishops have. Now 
 what is the Pope of Rome's extent ? All 
 know it is the whole catholic visible church 
 on earth. If then, all bishops be particular 
 ambassadors in Christ's stead, (2 Cor. v. 20,) 
 and so legates and deputies of Christ, he who 
 by divine right is a bishop in extent over the 
 whole world, is as hke one that calleth him- 
 self the universal vicar of Christ, as one egg 
 is like another. The doctrine taught by this 
 Prelate, so popish, and hints, yea, are more 
 than evidences, of gross popery in this book, 
 and his other pamphlet against presbyteries. 
 And his desire that the controversy, concern- 
 ing the Pope's supremacy and others, were 
 determined with submission to the judgment 
 of the fathers, do cry that he is but a rot- 
 ten papist. 1 or why will he submit all other 
 controversies to the judgment of the fathers? 
 Why not to the prophets and apostles ? Can 
 lathers decide controversies better than the 
 Word of God ? A reason cannot be dreamed 
 of why the fathers should be judges, and not 
 the Scriptures, except that the Scriptures are 
 obscure. Their authority and light cannot 
 determine and judge controversies, except 
 in so far as they have authority from fathers 
 and the church ; and we know this to be pro- 
 jjrium quarto modo, proper to Jesuits and 
 papists, to cry, lathers, lathers, in all contro- 
 versies, though the fathers be more for us 
 than for them, except two things : — 1. What 
 fathers speak for us, are corrupted by them. 
 2. What were but errors in lathers, when 
 children add contumacy to error, becomes 
 the heresies of the sons. 
 
 And it is most false that we join with Je- 
 suits. 1. We teach no more against tyrants, 
 in exercitio, than Grotius, Barclay, and Win- 
 zetus, in the matter of deposing kings ; and 
 in this, royalists conspire with Jesuits. 2. 
 We deny that the Pope may loose subjects 
 
 from the oath of fidelity when a king turn- 
 eth heretical. 3. That people, at the Pope's 
 commandment, are to dethrone kings for he- 
 resy ; so do the prelates, and their fellows, 
 the papists, teach; so Gregory VII. prac- 
 tised ; so Aquinas taught, (22 q. 12. ar. 2.) 
 Antonin, [sum. par. 3. t. 22, c. 3, sect. 7,) 
 " Thou hast put all things under the Pope's 
 feet," oves, id est, Christianos ; boves. Ju- 
 dceos et hereticos ; pecora, Paganos ; so 
 Navar. (I. 1, c. 13,) Pagans have no juris- 
 diction. Jaco. Symanca, (de Catho. Instit. 
 tit. 45, n. 25,) " Catholica uxor heretico 
 viro debitum reddere non tenetur." Item, 
 Constat, hcereticum privatum esse omnido- 
 minio, naturali, civili, politico, naturali 
 quod habet in filios, nam propter hceresin 
 patris ejjiciuntur jilii sui juris, civili, quod 
 habct in servos, ab eo enim scrvi liberantur, 
 politico, quod rerum domini habcnt in sxtb- 
 ditos, ita Bannes, (22. q. 12, art. 10.) Gre- 
 gor. (de valent. 22. dis. 1, q. 12, p. 2, lod. 
 Mol. to. 1, de just, et jur. tract. 2, dis. 29, 
 v. 3.) Papists hold that generatio clerici 
 est corruptio subditi, churchmen are not 
 subjects under the king's law. It is a cano- 
 nical privilege of the clergy, that they are 
 not subject to the king's civd laws. Now 
 this Prelate and his fellows made the kino- 
 swear, at his coronation, to maintain all ca- 
 nonical privileges of the prelatical clergy, 
 the very oath and words sworn by all the 
 popish kings. 
 
 P. Prelate. — Power is given by the mul- 
 titude to the king immediately, and by God 
 mediately, not so much by collation, as by 
 approbation, how the Jesuit and puritan 
 walk all along in equal pace. See Bellar- 
 mine, 1.1. de liac. c. 6. Suarez cont. sect. 
 Angl. I. 2. c. 3. 
 
 Ans. — It is a calumny that we teach that 
 the power of the king is from God mediate- 
 ly, by mere approbation ; indeed, a fellow 
 of has, a papist, writing against the king's 
 supremacy, Anthony Capell saith, 1 Saul was 
 made king, and others also, by God's per- 
 mission, and Deo invito et irato, God being 
 angry, that is not our doctrine; but with 
 what real efficiency God hath made men 
 and communities rational and social men 
 with the same hath he made them by in- 
 stinct of nature, by the mediation of reason, 
 to create a king ; and Bellarmine and Sua- 
 rez say not God maketh kings by approba- 
 tion only. 
 
 1 Tract, contra primatura Regis Anglise. 
 
208 
 
 LEX, REX : 
 
 /'" 
 
 P. Prelate. — The people may change mo- 
 narchy into aristocracy or democracy, or aris- 
 tocracy into monarchy ; for aught I know, 
 they differ not in this neither. 
 
 Ans. 1. — The P. Prelate knoweth not all 
 things — the two Jesuits, Bellarmine and 
 Suarez are produced only, as if they were 
 all Jesuits; and Suarez saith, (De prim. 
 I. 3, n. 4,) " Donationem absolutam 
 valide factam rcvocari non posse, ne- 
 que in totum, neque ex parce, maxime 
 quando onerosa fuit," If the people once 
 give their power to the king, they cannot 
 resume it without cause ; and laying down 
 the grounds of Suarez and other Jesuits, 
 that our religion is heresy, they do soundly 
 collect this consequence, " That no king can 
 be lord of the consciences of their subjects, 
 to compel them to an heretical religion." 
 We teach that the king of Spain hath no 
 power over the consciences of protestant 
 subjects to force them to idolatry, and that 
 then- souls are not his subjects, but only their 
 persons, and in the Lord. 2. It is no great 
 crime, that if a king degenerate in a tyran- 
 ny, or if the royal line fail, that we think the 
 people have liberty to change monarchy into 
 aristocracy, aut contra. Jesuits deny that 
 the people can make this change -without 
 the Pope's consent. We judge neither the 
 great bishop, the Pope, nor the little popes, 
 ought to have hand in making kings. 
 
 P. Prelate. — They say the power is de- 
 rived to the king from the people, comula- 
 tive or communicative, non privative, by 
 way of communication, not by way of priva- 
 tion, so as the people denude not themselves 
 of this sovereignty. As the king maketh a 
 lieutenant in Ireland, not to denude him- 
 self of his royal power, but to put him in 
 trust for his service. If this be then- mind, 
 the king is in a poor case. The principal 
 authority is in the delegate, and so the peo- 
 ple is still judge, and the king their deputy. 
 
 Ans. — The P. Prelate taketh on him "to 
 write, he knoweth not what, this is not our 
 opinion. The king is king, and hath the 
 people's power, not as then- deputy. 
 
 1. Because the people is not principal 
 judge, and the king subordinate. The 
 kino-, in the executive power of law y s, is 
 really a sovereign above the people; a de- 
 puty is not so. 
 
 2. The people have irrevocably made over 
 to the king their power of governing, de- 
 fending, and protecting themselves, I ex- 
 cept the power of sell-preservation, which 
 
 people can no more make away, it being sin- 
 less nature's birthright, than the liberty of 
 eating, drinking, sleeping ; and this the 
 people cannot resume, except in case of the 
 king's tyranny ; there is no power by the 
 king so irrevocably resigned to his servant 
 or deputy, but he may use it himself. 
 
 3. A delegate is accountable for all he 
 doth to those that put him in trust, whether 
 he do ill or well. The king, in acts of jus- 
 tice, is not accountable to any ; for if his 
 acts be not liable to high suspicions of ty- 
 ranny, no man may say to him, What dost 
 thou ? only in acts of injustice ; and those 
 so tyrannous, that they be inconsistent with 
 the habitual fiduciary repose and trust put 
 on him, he is to render accounts to the par- 
 liament, which representeth the people. 
 
 4. A delegate in esse, in fieri, both that 
 he may be a delegate, and that he may con- 
 tinue a delegate, whether he do ill or well, 
 dependeth on his pleasure who delegateth 
 him ; but though a king depend in fieri, in 
 regard of iiis call to the crown, upon the suf- 
 frages of his people, yet that he may be con- 
 tinued king, he dependeth not on the people 
 simply, but only in case of tyrannical admi- 
 nistration, and in this sense Suarez and Bel- 
 larmine spake with no more honesty than 
 we do, but with more than prelates do, for 
 they profess any emissary of hell may stab a 
 protestant king. We know the prelates pro- 
 fess the contrary, but their judgment is the 
 same with Jesuits in all points ; and since 
 they will have the Pope Christ's vicar, by 
 such a divine right as they themselves are 
 bishops, and have the king under oath to 
 maintain the clergy, bishops, and all their 
 canonical privileges, (amongst which the bi- 
 shops of Home's indirect power in ordine 
 ad spiritualia, and to dethrone kings who 
 turn heretics, is one principal right,) I see 
 not how prelates are not as deep in treason 
 against kings as the Pope himself, and there- 
 fore, P. Prelate, take the beam out of your 
 own eye. 
 
 The P. Prelate taketh unlearned pains to 
 prove that Gerson, Occam, Jac. de Almaine, 
 and the Parisian doctors, maintained these 
 same grounds anent the people's power over 
 kings in the case of tyranny, and that before 
 Luther and Calvin were in the world; and 
 this is to give himself the he, tint Luther, 
 Calvin, and we, have not this doctrine from 
 Jesuits; and what is Calvin's mind is evi- 
 dent, (Instit. 1. 4, c. 4,) all that the estates 
 may coerce, and reduce in order a tyrant, 
 
THE LAW AND THE l'RIXCE. 
 
 20!) 
 
 else they arc deficient in their trust that 
 God hath given them over the common- 
 wealth and church ; and this is the doc- 
 trine for which royalists cry out against 
 Knox of blessed memory, Buchanan, Junius 
 Brutus, Bouchier, Rossaeus, and Althusius. 
 Luther, in scripto ad pastorem, (torn. 7, 
 German, fol. 386,) bringeth two examples 
 for resistance ; the people resisted Saul, when 
 he was willing to kill Jonathan his son, and 
 Ahikam and other princes rescued Jeremiah 
 out of the hands of the king of Judah ; and 
 Gerardus citeth many divines who second 
 Luther in this, as Bugenliagius, Justus 
 Jonas, Nicholas Ambsderfrius, George Spa- 
 latinus, Justus Menius, Christopher Hof- 
 manus. It is known what is the mind of 
 protestant divines, as Beza, Pareus, Me- 
 lancthon, Bucanus, Polanus, Chamer, and all 
 the divines of France, of Germany, and of 
 Holland. No wonder than prelates were 
 upon the plot of betraying the city of 
 Rochelle, and of the protestant church there, 
 when they then will have the protestants 
 of France, for their defensive wars, to be 
 rebels, and siders with Jesuits, when, in 
 these wars, Jesuits sought their blood and 
 ruin. 
 
 The P. Prelate having shown his mind 
 concerning the deposing of Childerick by the 
 Pope, (of which I say nothing, but the Pope 
 was an antichristian usurper, and the poor 
 man never fit to bear a crown,) he goeth on 
 to set down an opinion of some mute au- 
 thors ; he might devise a thousand opinions 
 that way, to make men believe he had been 
 in a world of learned men's secrets, and that 
 never man saw the bottom of the contro- 
 versy, while he, seeing the escapes of many 
 pens, (as supercilious Bubo praiseth,) was 
 forced to appear a star new risen in the fir- 
 mament of pursuivants, and reveal all 
 dreams, and teach all the new statists, the 
 Gamaliels, Buchanan, Junius Brutus, and a 
 world who were all sleeping, while this 
 Lucifer, the son of the night, did appear, 
 tins new way of laws, divinity, and casuists' 
 theology. 
 
 P. Prelate. — They hold sovereign power 
 is primarily and naturally in the multitude, 
 from it derived to the king, immediately 
 from God. The reason of which order is, 
 because we cannot reap the fruits of govern- 
 ment unless by compact we submit to some 
 possible and accidental inconveniences. 
 
 Ans. 1. — Who saith so the P. Prelate 
 cannot name, — That sovereign power is pri- 
 
 marily and naturally in the multitude. Vir- 
 tually (it may be) sovereignty is in the mul- 
 titude, but primarily and naturally, as heat 
 is in the fire, light in the sun, I think the 
 P. Prelate dreamed it ; no man said it but 
 himself; for what attribute is naturally in a 
 subject, I conceive may directly and natu- 
 rally be predicated thereof. Now the P. 
 Prelate hath taught as this very natural pre- 
 dication. " Our dreadful and sovereign 
 lord, the multitude, commandeth this and 
 that." 
 
 2. This is no more reason for a mo- 
 narchy than for a democracy, for we can 
 reap the fruits of no government except we 
 submit to it. 
 
 3. We must submit in monarchy (saith 
 he) to some possible and accidental incon- 
 veniences. Here be soft words, but is sub- 
 version of religion, laws, and liberties of 
 church and state. Introducing of popery, 
 Arminianism, of idolatry, altar-worship, the 
 mass, (proved by a learned treatise, " the 
 Canterburian self-conviction," printed 1641, 
 third ed., never answered, couched under 
 the name of inconveniency,) the pardoning 
 of the innocent blood of hundreds of thou- 
 sand protestants in Ireland, the killing of 
 many thousand nobles, barons, commons, 
 by the hands of papists in arms against the 
 law of the land, the making of England a 
 field of blood, the obtruding of an idolatrous 
 service-book, with armies of men, by sea 
 and land, to block up the kingdom of Scot- 
 land, are all these inconveniences only ? 
 
 4. Are they only possible and accidental ? 
 But make a monarch absolute, as the P. 
 Prelate doth, and tyranny is as necessary 
 and as much intended by a sinful man, in- 
 clined to make a god of himself, as it is natu- 
 ral to men to sin, when they are tempted, 
 and to be drunken and giddy with honour 
 and greatness. Witness the kings of Israel 
 and Judah, though de jure they were not 
 absolute. Is it accidental to Nero, Julian, 
 to the ten horns that grew out of the wo- 
 man's head, who sat upon the scarlet co- 
 loured beast, to make war against the Lamb 
 and his followers, especially the spirit of 
 Satan being in them ? 
 
 P. Prelate. — They infer, 1. They cannot, 
 without violation of a divine ordinance and 
 breach of faith, resume the authority they 
 have placed in the king. 2. It were high 
 sin to rob authority of its essentials. 3. 
 This ordinance is not i.u y oi but iuhxuc and 
 hath urgent reasons. 
 
 2f 
 
210 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 Ans. 1. — These nameless authors cannot 
 infer that an oath is broken which is made 
 conditionally ; all authority given by the 
 people to the king is conditional, that he use 
 it for the safety of the people ; if it be used 
 for their destruction, they break no faith to 
 resume it, for they never made faith to give 
 up their power to the king upon such terms, 
 and so they cannot be said to resume what 
 they never gave. 
 
 2. So the P. Prelate maketh power to 
 act all the former mischiefs, the essentials of 
 a king. Balaam is not worthy his wages 
 for prophesying thus, that the king's essen- 
 tials is a power of blood, and destructive to 
 people, law, religion, and liberties of church 
 and state, for otherwise we teach not, that 
 people may resume from the king autho- 
 rity and power to disarm papists, to root 
 out the bloody Irish, and in justice serve 
 them as they have served us. 
 
 3. This ordinance of the people, giving 
 lawful power to a king for the governing of 
 the people in peace and godliness, is God's 
 good pleasure, and hath just reasons and 
 causes. But that the people make over a 
 power to one man, to act all the inconve- 
 niences above named, I mean the bloody 
 and destructive inconveniences, hath nothing 
 of God or reason in it. 
 
 P. Prelate. — The reasons of this opinion 
 are : — 1. If power sovereign were not in one, 
 he could not have strength enough to act all 
 necessary parts and acts of government. 2. 
 Nor to prevent divisions which attend mul- 
 titudes, or many endowed with equal power ; 
 and the authors say, they must part with 
 their native right entirely for a greater 
 good, and to prevent greater evils. 3. To 
 resume any part of this power, of which the 
 people have totally divested themselves, or 
 to limit it, is to disable sovereignty from go- 
 vernment, loose the sinews of all society, &c. 
 
 Ans. 1. — I know none for this opinion, 
 but the P. Prelate himself. The first rea- 
 son may be made rhyme, but never reason : 
 for though there be not absolute power to 
 good and ill, there may be strength of 
 limited power in abundance in the king, 
 and sufficient for all acts of just government, 
 and the adequate end of government, which 
 is, salus populi, the safety of the people. 
 But the royalist will have strength to be a 
 tyrant, and act all the tyrannical and bloody 
 inconveniences of which we spake, an essen- 
 tial part of the power of a king ; as if weak- 
 ness were essential to strength, and a king 
 
 could not be powerful as a king, to do good, 
 and save and protect, except he had power 
 also as a tyrant to do evil, and to destroy 
 and waste his people. This power is weak- 
 ness, and no part of the image of the great- 
 ness of the Kin<j of kings, whom a king re- 
 presentetn. 
 
 2. The second reason condemneth de- 
 mocracy and aristocracy as unlawful, and 
 maketh monarchy the only physic to cure 
 these ; as if there were no government an 
 ordinance of God save only absolute mo- 
 narchy, which indeed is no ordinance of God 
 at all, but contrary to the nature of a lawful 
 king. (Deut. xvii. 3.) 
 
 3. That people must part with their native 
 right totally to make an absolute monarch, 
 is as if the whole members of the body 
 would part with their whole nutritive power, 
 to cause the milt to swell, which would be 
 the destruction of the body. 
 
 4. The people cannot divest themselves 
 of power of defensive wars more than they 
 can part with nature, and put themselves in 
 a condition inferior to a slave, who, if his 
 master, who hath power to sell him, invade 
 him unjustly, to take away his life, may op- 
 pose violence to unjust violence. And the 
 other consequences are null. 
 
 QUESTION XLII. 
 
 WHETHER ALL CHRISTIAN KINGS ARE DEPEN- 
 DENT FROM CHRIST, AND MAY BE CALLED 
 HIS VICEGERENTS. 
 
 The P. Prelate taketh on him to prove 
 the truth of this ; but the question is not 
 pertinent, it belongeth to another head, to 
 the king's power in church matters. I 
 therefore only examine what he saith, and 
 follow him. 
 
 P. Prelate. — Sectaries have found a query 
 of late, that kings are God's, not Clirist's 
 lieutenants on earth. Romanists and puri- 
 tans erect two sovereigns in every state, — 
 the Jesuit in the Pope, the puritan in the 
 presbytery. 
 
 Ans. 1. — We give a reason why God hath 
 a lieutenant, as God; because kings are 
 gods, bearing the sword of vengeance against 
 seditious and bloody prelates, and other ill 
 doers. But Christ, God-man, the Mediator 
 and head of the body — the church, hath 
 neither pope nor king to be head under him. 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 211 
 
 The sword is communicable to men ; but the 
 headship of Christ is communicable to no 
 king, nor to any created shoulders. 2. 
 The Jesuit maketh the Pope a king; and 
 so this P. Prelate maketh him, in extent, 
 the bishop of bishops, and so king, as I 
 have proved. But we place no sovereignty 
 in presbyteries, but a mere ministerial power 
 of servants, who do not take on them to 
 make laws and religious ceremonies, as pre- 
 lates do, who indeed make themselves kings 
 and lawgivers in God's house. 
 
 P. Prelate. — We speak of Christ as head 
 of the church. Some think that Christ was 
 king by his resurrection, jure acquisito, by 
 a new title, right of merit. I think he was 
 a king from his conception. 
 
 Ans. — 1. You declare hereby, that the 
 king is a ministerial head of the church, 
 under the head Christ. All our divines, 
 disputing against the Pope's headship, say, 
 No mortal man hath shoulders for so glo- 
 rious a head. You give the king such 
 shoulders. But why are not the kings, 
 even Nero, Julian, Nebuchadnezzar, and 
 Belshazzar, vicegerents of Christ, as media- 
 tor, as priest, as redeemer, as prophet, as 
 advocate, presenting our prayers to God his 
 father? What action, I pray you, have 
 Christian kings, by office, under Christ, in 
 dying and rising from the dead for us, in 
 sending down the Holy Ghost, preparing 
 mansions for us ? Now, it is as proper and 
 incommunicably reciprocal with the media- 
 tor to be the only head of the body, the 
 church, (Col. i. 18,) as to be the only re- 
 deemer and advocate of his church. 
 
 2. That Christ was king from his concep- 
 tion, as man born of the Virgin Mary, suit- 
 eth well with papists, who will have Christ, 
 as man, the visible head of the church ; 
 that so as Christ-man is now in heaven, he 
 may have a visible pope to be head in all 
 ecclesiastical matters. And that is the 
 reason why this P. Prelate maketh him 
 head of the church by an ecclesiastical 
 right, as we heard; and so he followeth 
 Becanus the Jesuit in tins, and others of his 
 fellows. 
 
 P. Prelate. — 1. Proof. If kings reign by 
 O per, in and through Christ, as the wisdom 
 of God and the mediator, then are kings 
 the vicegerents of Christ as mediator ; but 
 the former is said, Prov. viii. 15, 16 ; so Dr 
 Andrews, of blessed memory. 
 
 Ans. 1. — I deny the major. All believ- 
 ers living the life of God, engrafted in Christ 
 
 as branches in the tree, (John xv. 1, 2,) 
 should, by the same reason, be vicegerents 
 of the Mediator ; so should the angels to 
 whom Christ is a head, (Col. ii. 10,) be his 
 vicegerents ; and all the judges and consta- 
 bles on earth should be under-mediators, 
 for they live and act in Christ ; yea, all the 
 creatures, in the Mediator, are made new, 
 (Rev. xxi. 5 ; Rom. viii. 20—22.) 2. Dr 
 Andrew's name is a curse on the earth, his 
 writings prove him to be a popish apostate. 
 P. Prelate. — 2. Christ is not only king 
 of his church, but in order to his church, 
 King over the kings and kingdoms of the 
 earth. (Psal. ii. 5, 8.) 3. Matt. xxi. 18, 
 " To him is given all power in heaven and 
 earth ;" therefore, all sovereignty over kings. 
 Ans. 1. — If all these be Christ's vice- 
 gerents, over whom he hath obtained power, 
 then, because the Father hath given him 
 power over all flesh, to give them life eter- 
 nal, (John xvii. 1, 2,) then are all believers 
 his vicegerents, yea, and all the damned 
 men and devils, and death and hell, are his 
 vicegerents ; for Christ, as mediator, hath 
 all power given to him as king of the church, 
 and so power kingly over all his enemies, 
 " to reign until he make them his foot- 
 stool," (Psal. ex. 1, 2,) " to break them with 
 a rod of iron." (Psal. ii. 9 ; 1 Cor. xv. 24 — 
 27 ; Rev. i. 18, 20 ; v. 10—15.) And, by 
 that same reason, the P. Prelate's fourth 
 and fifth arguments fall to the ground, He is 
 heir of all things ; therefore, all things are 
 his vicegerents. What more vain ? He is 
 Prince of the kings of the earth, and King of 
 Ogs, of kings, of his enemies; therefore, 
 sea and land are his vicegerents. 
 
 P. Prelate (p. 58).— Kings are nurse- 
 fathers of the church, thereibre they hold 
 their crowns of Christ. Divines say, that 
 by men in sacred orders Christ doth rale 
 his church mediately in those things which 
 primely concern salvation, and that by 
 kings' sceptres and power he doth protect 
 his church, and what concerneth external 
 pomp, order, and decency. Then, in this 
 latter sense, kings are no less the immediate 
 vicegerents of Christ than bishops, priests, 
 and deacons, in the former. 
 
 Ans. 1. — Because kings hold their crowns 
 of Christ as mediator and redeemer, it fol- 
 loweth, by as good consequence, kings are 
 sub-mediators, and under-priests, and re- 
 deemers, as vicegerents. Christ, as king, 
 hath no visible royal vicegerents under him. 
 2. Men in holy orders, sprinkled with one 
 
212 
 
 LEX, REX J OB, 
 
 of the papists' five blessed sacraments, such 
 as antichristian prelates, unwashed priests 
 to offer sacrifices, and popish deacons, are 
 no more admitted by Christ to enter into 
 his sanctuary as governors, than the leper 
 into the camp of old, and the Moabite and 
 Ammonite were to enter into the con- 
 gregation of the Lord (Deut. xxiii. 3) ; 
 therefore, we have excommunicated this P. 
 Prelate and such Moabites out of the Lord's 
 house. What be the things that do not 
 primely concern salvation, the P. Prelate 
 knoweth, to wit, images in the church, altar- 
 worship, antichristian ceremonies, which 
 primely concern damnation. 
 
 3. I understand not what the P. Prelate 
 meaneth, That the king preserveth external 
 government in order and decency. In Scot- 
 land, in our parliament, 1633, he prescribed 
 the surplice, and he commanded the service- 
 book, and the mass-worship. The Prelate 
 degradeth the king here, to make him only 
 keep or preserve the prelates' mass-clothes ; 
 they intended, indeed, to make the king but 
 the Pope's servant, for all they say and do 
 for him now. 
 
 4. If the king be vicegerent of Christ in 
 prescribing laws for the external ordering of 
 the worship, and all their decent symbolical 
 ceremonies, what more doth the Pope and 
 the prelate in that kind ? He may, with as 
 good warrant, preach and administer the 
 sacraments. 
 
 P. Prelate. — Kings have the sign of the 
 cross on their crowns. 
 
 Ans. — Therefore, baculus est in angulo, 
 prelates have put a cross in the king's heart, 
 and crossed crown and throne too. Some 
 knights, some ships, some cities and boroughs 
 do carry a cross; are they made Christ's 
 vicegerents of late ? By what antiquity doth 
 the cross signify Christ ? Of old it was a 
 badge of Christians, no religious ceremony. 
 And is this all ; the king is the vicegerent 
 of Christians. The prelates, we know, adore 
 the cross with religious worship; so must 
 they adore the crown. 
 
 P. Prelate. — Grant that the Pope were 
 the vicar of Christ in spiritual things, it fol- 
 loweth not — therefore, kings' crowns are 
 subject to the Pope ; for papists teach that 
 all power that was in Christ, as man, as 
 power to work miracles, to institute sacra- 
 ments, was not transmitted to Peter and his 
 successors. 
 
 Ans. — This is a base consequence ; make 
 the Pope head of the church, the king, if 
 
 he be a mixed person, that is, half a church- 
 man and Christ's vicegerent, both he and 
 prelates must be members of the head. 
 Papists teach that all in Christ, as man, 
 cannot be transmitted to Peter ; but a mi- 
 nisterial catholic headship (say Bucanus and 
 his fellows) was transmitted from Christ, as 
 man and visible head, to Peter and the 
 Pope. 
 
 P. Prelate. — I wish the Pope, who 
 claimeth so near alliance with Christ, would 
 learn of him to be meek and humble in 
 heart, so should he find rest to Iris own soul, 
 to church and state. 
 
 Ans. 1. — The same was the wish of Ger- 
 son, Occam, the doctors of Paris, the fathers 
 of the councils of Constance and Basil, yet 
 all make him head of the church. 
 
 2. The excommunicate Prelate is turned 
 chaplain to preach to the Pope ; the soul- 
 rest that protestants wish to the Pope is, 
 " That the Lord would destroy him by the 
 Spirit of his mouth." (2 Thes. ii. 8.) But 
 to popish prelates this wish is a reformation 
 of accidents, with the safety of the subject, 
 the Pope, and is as good as a wish, that the 
 devil, remaining a devil, may find rest for 
 his soul : all we are to pray for as having 
 place in the church, are supposed members of 
 the church. The Prelate would not pray so 
 for the presbytery by which he was ordained 
 a pastor, (1 Tim. iv. 14,) though he be 
 now an apostate ; it is gratitude to pray for 
 his lucky lather, the Pope. Whatever the 
 Prelate wish, we pray for and believe that 
 desolation shall be his soul-rest, and that 
 the vengeance of the Lord and of his temple 
 shall fall upon him and the prelates, his sons. 
 P. Prelate. — That which they purpose, 
 by denying kings to be Christ's vicegerents, 
 is to set up a sovereignty ecclesiastical in 
 presbyteries, to constrain kings, repeal his 
 laws, correct his statutes, reverse his judg- 
 ments, to cite, convent, and censure kings ; 
 and, if there be not power to execute what 
 presbyteries decree, they may call and com- 
 mand the help of the people, in whom is 
 the underived majesty, and promise, and 
 swear, and covenant to defend their fancies 
 against all mortal men, with their goods, 
 lands, fortunes, to admit no devisive motion ; 
 and this sovereign association maketh every 
 private man an armed magistrate. 
 
 Ans. — You see the excommunicate apos- 
 tate strives against the presbytery of a re- 
 formed church, from which he had his 
 baptism, faith, and ministry. 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 213 
 
 1. We deny the king to be the head of 
 the church. 
 
 2. We assert, that in the pastors, doctors, 
 and elders of the church, there is a minis- 
 terial power, as servants under Christ, ih his 
 authority and name to rebuke and censure 
 kings; that there is revenge in the gospel 
 against all disobedience; (2 Cor. ii. 6 ; x. 6) ; 
 —the rod of God (1 Cor. iv. 21) ; the rod 
 of Christ's lips (Isa. xi. 4); the sceptre 
 and sword of Christ (Rev. i. 16 ; xix. 15) ; 
 the keys of his kingom, to bind and loose, 
 open and shut (Matt, xviii. 17, 18; xvi. 
 19; 1 Cor. v. 1—3; 2 Thess. iii. 14, 15; 
 1 Tim. i. 19 ; v. 22; v. 17) ; and that this 
 power is committed to the officers of Christ's 
 house, call them as you will. 
 
 3. For reversing of laws made for the 
 establishing of popery, we think the church 
 of Christ did well to declare all these unjust, 
 grievous decrees, and that woe is due to the 
 judges, even the queen, if they should not 
 
 I repent. (Isa. x. 1.) And this Prelate must 
 ' show his teeth in this against our reforma- 
 j tion in Scotland, which he once commended 
 in pulpit as a glorious work of God's right 
 arm ; and the Assembly of Glasgow, 1638, 
 declared, That bishops, though established 
 by acts of parliament, procured by prelates 
 I only, commissioners and agents tor the 
 church, who betrayed their trust, were un- 
 lawful ; and did supplicate that the ensuing 
 parliament would annul these wicked acts. 
 They think God privilegeth neither king nor 
 others from church-censures. The popish 
 prelates imprisoned and silenced the minis- 
 ters of Christ, who preached against the 
 public sins, the blood, oppressions, injustice, 
 open swearing, and blasphemy of the holy 
 name of God, the countenancing of idola- 
 ters, &c, in king and court. 
 
 4. They never sought the help of the 
 people against the most unjust standing law 
 of authority. 
 
 5. They did never swear and covenant to 
 defend their own fancies ; for the confession 
 and covenant of the protestant religion, 
 translated in Latin to all the protestants in 
 Europe and America, being termed a fancy, 
 is a clear evidence that this P. Prelate was 
 justly excommunicated for popery. 
 
 6. This covenant was sworn by king- 
 James and his house, by the whole land, by 
 the prelates themselves; and to this fancy 
 this P. Prelate, by the law of our land, was 
 obliged to swear when ho received degrees 
 in the university. 
 
 7. There is reason our covenant should 
 provide against divisive motions. The pre- 
 lates moved the king to command all the 
 land to swear our covenant, in the prelatical 
 sense, against the intent thereof, and only 
 to divide and so command. Judge what 
 religion prelates are of, who will have the 
 name of God profaned by a whole nation, 
 by swearing fancies. 
 
 8. Of making private men magistrates in 
 defending themselves against cut-throats, 
 enough already. Let the P. Prelate answer 
 if he can. 
 
 P. Prelate. — Let no man imagine me to 
 privilege a king from the direction and just 
 power of the church, or that, like Uzziah, 
 he should intrude upon sacred actions, ex vi 
 ordinis, in foro intcrno conscientice, to 
 preach or administrate sacraments, &c. 
 
 Ans. — Uzziah did not burn incense, ex 
 vi ordinis, as if he had been a priest, but 
 because he was a king and God's anointed. 
 Prelates sit not in council and parliament, 
 ex vi ordinis, as temporal lords. The pope 
 is no temporal monarch, ex vi ordinis, yet 
 all are intruders. So the P. Prelate will 
 license kings to administer sacraments, so 
 they do it not ex vi ordinis. 
 
 P. Prelate. — Men in sacred orders, in 
 things intrinsically spiritual, have imme- 
 diately a directive and authoritative power, 
 in order, to all whatsoever, although minis- 
 terial only as related to Christ ; but that 
 giveth them no coercive civil power over 
 the prince, per se, or per accidens, directly 
 or indirectly, that either the one way or the 
 other, any or many in sacred order, pope or 
 presbytery, can cite and censure kings, asso- 
 ciate, covenant or swear to resist him, and 
 force him to submit to the sceptre of Christ. 
 This power over man God Almighty useth 
 not, much less hath he given it to man. 
 (Psal. ex.) His people are a willing people. 
 Suadenda non cogenda religio. 
 
 Ans. 1. — Pastors have a ministerial power 
 (saith he) in spiritual things, but in order to 
 Christ; therefore, in order to others it is 
 not ministerial, but lordly. So here a lordly 
 power pastors have over kings, by the P. 
 Prelate's way. We teach it is ministerial 
 in relation to all, because ministers can 
 make no laws as kings can do, but only, as 
 heralds, declare Christ's laws. 
 
 2. None of us give any coercive civil 
 power to the church over either kings or 
 any other — it is ecclesiastical; a power to 
 rebuke and censure was never civil. 
 
214 
 
 LEX, REX 
 
 3. A religious covenant to swear to resist, 
 that is, to defend ourselves, is one thing, 
 and a lawful oath, as is clear in those of 
 Israel that did swear Asa's covenant, with- 
 out the authority of their own king, (2 
 Chron. xv. 9 — 12,) and to swear to force 
 the long to submit to Christ's sceptre, is 
 another thing. The presbytery never did 
 swear or covenant any such thing; nor do 
 we take sacrament upon it, to force the 
 king. Prelates have made the king swear, 
 and take his sacrament upon it, that he 
 shall root out puritans, that is, protestants, 
 whereas, he did swear at his coronation to 
 root out heretics, that is, (if prelates were 
 not traitorous in administering the oath,) 
 Arminians and papists, such as this P. Pre- 
 late is known to be ; but I hold that the 
 estates of Scotland have power to punish 
 the king, if he labour to subvert religion and 
 laws. 
 
 4. If this argument, that religion is to be 
 persuaded, not forced, which the P. Prelate 
 useth, be good, it will make much against 
 the king; for the king, then, can force no 
 man to the external profession and use of 
 the ordinances of God, and not only kings, 
 but all the people should be willing. 
 
 P. Prelate. — Though the king may not 
 preach, &c, yet the exercise of these things 
 ireely within his kingdom, what concerneth 
 the decent and orderly doing of all, and the 
 external man, in the external government 
 of the church, in appointing things arbitrary 
 and indifferent, and what else is of this strain, 
 are so due to the prerogative of the crown, 
 as that the priests, without highest rebellion, 
 may not usurp upon him ; a king in the state 
 and church is a mixed person, not simply 
 civil, but sacred too. They are not only 
 professors of truth, that they have in the 
 capacity of Christians, but they are defen- 
 ders of the faith as kings ; they are not sons 
 only, but nurse-fathers; they serve God, as 
 Augustine saith, as men, and as kings also. 
 
 Ans. 1. — If ye give the king power of the 
 exercises of word and sacraments in his king- 
 dom, this is deprivation of ministers in his 
 kingdom, (for he sure cannot hinder them in 
 another kingdom,) you may make him to give 
 a ministerial calling, if he may take it away. 
 By what word of God can the king close the 
 mouth of the man of God, whom Christ 
 hath commanded to speak in his name ? 2. 
 If the king may externally govern the 
 church, why may he not excommunicate ; 
 for this is one of the special acts of church 
 
 government, especially seeing he is a mixed 
 person, that is, half a churchman, and if he 
 may prescribe arbitrary -teaching ceremonies, 
 and instruct men in the duties of holiness 
 required of pastors, I see not but he may 
 teach the "Word. 3. Dr Feme, and other 
 royalists, deny arbitrary government to the 
 king in the state, and with reason, because 
 it is tyranny over the people ; but prelates 
 are not ashamed of commanding a thing ar- 
 bitrary and indifferent in God's worship ; 
 shall not arbitrary government in the church 
 be tyranny over the conscience ? But, say 
 they, " Churchmen teacheth the king what 
 is decent and orderly in God's worship, and 
 he commandeth it." 
 
 Ans. — 1. Solomon by no teaching of church- 
 men deposed Abiathar ; David by no teach- 
 ing of churchmen appointed the form of the 
 temple. 2. Hath God given a prerogative 
 royal to kings, whereby they may govern 
 the church, and as kings, they shall not 
 know how to use it, but in so far as they are 
 taught by churchmen? 3. Certainly, we 
 shall once be informed by God's word, what 
 is this prerogative, if according to it, all the 
 external worship of God may be ordered. 
 Lawyers and royalists teach, that it is an 
 absoluteness of power to do above or against 
 a law, as they say from 1 Sam. viii., 9 — 11, 
 and whereby the king may oppress, and 
 no man may say, What dost thou? Now, 
 good P. Prelate, if, by a plenitude of ty- 
 ranny, the king prescribe what he will in 
 the external worship and government of 
 God's house, who can rebuke the king 
 though he command all the antichristian 
 ceremonies of Borne, and of Turkey, yea, 
 and the sacrificing of children to Molech ? 
 (for absoluteness royal will amount to shed- 
 ding of innocent blood,) for, if any oppose 
 the king, or say, Sir, what do you ? he op- 
 poseth the prerogative royal, and that is 
 highest rebellion, saith our P. Prelate. 4. I 
 see not how the king is a mixed person, be- 
 cause he is defender of the faith, as the Pope 
 named the king of England, Henry VIII. ; 
 he defendeth it by his sword, as he is a nurse- 
 father, not by the sword that cometh out of 
 his mouth. 5. I would know how Julian, 
 Nebuchadnezzar, Og, and Silion, were mix- 
 ed persons, and did all in the external go- 
 vernment of the church, and that by their 
 office, as they were kings. 6. All the in- 
 stances that Augustine bringeth to prove 
 that the king is a mixed person, proveth 
 nothing but civil acts in kings ; as Hezekiah 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 215 
 
 cast down the high places, the king of Nin- 
 eveh compelled to obey the prophet Jonah, 
 Darius cast Daniel's enemies to the lions. 
 
 P. Prelate. — It' you make two sovereigns 
 and two independents, there is no more peace 
 in the state, than in Rebecca's womb, while 
 Jacob and Esau strove for the prerogative. 
 
 Ans. 1. — What need Israel strive, when 
 Moses and Aaron are two independents ? If 
 Aaron make a golden calf, may not Moses 
 punish him ? If Moses turn an Ahab, and 
 sell himself to do wickedly, ought not eighty 
 valiant priests and Aarons both rebuke, cen- 
 sure, and resist ? 
 
 2. The P. Prelate said, (p. 65,) " Let no 
 man imagine we privilege the king from the 
 direction and power of the church, so he be 
 no intruding Uzziah." I ask, P. Prelate, 
 what is this church power? Is it not su- 
 preme in its kind of church power ? or is it 
 subordinate to the king ? If it be supreme, 
 see how P. Prelate maketh two supremes, 
 and two sovereigns. If it be subordinate to 
 the king, as he is a mixed person, the king 
 is privileged from this power, and he may 
 intrude as Uzziah ; and by his prerogative, 
 as a mixed person, he may say mass, and of- 
 fer a sacrifice, if there be no power above 
 his prerogative to curb him. If there be 
 none, the P. Prelate's imagination is real ; 
 the king is privileged from all church power. 
 Let the P. Prelate see to it. I see no in- 
 convenience for reciprocations of subjections 
 in two supremes ; and that they may mutu- 
 ally censure and judge one another. 
 
 Obj. — Not in the same cause, that is im- 
 possible. If the king say mass, shall the 
 church judge and censure the king for intru- 
 sion ? and because the king is also sovereign 
 and supreme in his kind, he may judge and 
 punish the church for their act of judging 
 and censuring the king ; it being an intru- 
 sion on his prerogative, that any should 
 judge the highest judge. 
 
 Ans. — The one is not subject to the other, 
 but in the case of mal-administration ; the 
 innocent, as innocent, is subject to no higher 
 punishing ; he may be subject to a higher, 
 as accusing, citing, &c. Now, the royalist 
 must give instance in the same cause, where 
 the church faileth against the king and his 
 civil law ; and the king, in the same cause, 
 faileth against the church canon ; and then 
 it shall be easy to answer. 
 
 P. Prelate. — Religion is the bottom of 
 all happiness, if you make the king only to 
 execute what a presbytery commandeth, he 
 
 is in a hard case, and you take from him the 
 chiefest in government. Ecclesiastical power 
 hath the soul in subjection ; the civil sove- 
 reignty holdeth a dead dominion over the 
 body. Then the Pope and presbytery shall 
 be in a better condition than the king. Cic. 
 in ver. omncs religione moventur : super- 
 stition is furious, and maddeneth people, that 
 they spare neither crown nor mitre. 
 
 Ans. — Cold and dry is the P. Prelate 
 when he spendeth four pages in declama- 
 tion for the excellency of religon : the mad- 
 ness of superstition is nothing to the pur- 
 pose. 
 
 1. The king hath a chief hand in church 
 affairs, when he is a nurse-father, and bear- 
 eth the royal sword to defend both the ta- 
 bles of the law, though he do not spin and 
 weave surplices, and other base mass-clothes 
 to prelates, and such priests of Baal : they 
 dishonour his majesty, who bring his prero- 
 gative so low. 
 
 2. The king doth not execute with blind 
 obedience, with us, what the Pope com- 
 mandeth, and the prelates, but with light of 
 knowledge what synods discern ; and he is 
 no more made the servant of the church by 
 this, than the king of Judah and Nebuchad- 
 nezzar are servants to Jeremiah and Daniel, 
 because they are to obey the word of the 
 Lord in their mouth. Let them show a rea- 
 son of this, why they are servants in exe- 
 cuting God's will in discipline, and in pun- 
 ishing what the Holy Ghost, by his apostles 
 and elders, decree, when any contemn the 
 decree concerning the abstinence from blood, 
 things strangled, &c, (Acts xv.,) rather than 
 when they punish murder, idolatry, blas- 
 phemy, which are condemned in the Word, 
 preached by pastors of Christ ; and farther, 
 this objection would have some more colour, 
 (in reality it hath not,) if kings were only to 
 execute what the church ministerially, in 
 Christ's name, commandeth to be done in 
 synods; but kings may, and do command 
 synods to convene, and do their duty, and 
 command many duties, never synodically 
 decreed ; as they are to cast out of their 
 court apostate prelates, sleeping many years 
 in the devil's arms, and are to command 
 trencher-divines, neglecting their flock, and 
 lying at court attending the falling of a 
 dead bishop, as ravens do an old dying 
 horse, to go and attend the flock, and not 
 the court, as this P. Prelate did. 
 
 3. A king hath greater outward glory, 
 and may do much more service to Christ, 
 
216 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 in respect of extension, and is more excel- 
 lent than the pastor, who yet, in regard of 
 intention, is busied about nobler things, to 
 wit, the soul, the gospel, and eternity, than 
 the king. 
 
 4. Superstition maddeneth men; but it 
 followeth not that true religion may not set 
 them on work to defend soul and body 
 against tyranny of the crown, and antichris- 
 tian mitres. 
 
 P. Prelate. — The kingdom had peace and 
 plenty in the prelates' time. 
 
 Ans. — 1. A belly-argument. We had 
 plenty, when we sacrificed to the queen of 
 heaven. If the traveller contend to have 
 his purse again, shall the robber say, Rob- 
 bery was blessed with peace ? The rest, to 
 the end, are lies, and answered already. 
 Only his invectives against ruling elders, 
 falsely called lay-elders, are not to purpose. 
 Parliament-priests, and lay and court-pas- 
 tors, are lay-prophets. 
 
 2. That presbyteries meddle with civil 
 business, is a slander. They meddle with 
 public scandals that offendeth in Christ's 
 kingdom. But the prelates, by office, were 
 more in two elements, in church and state, 
 than any frogs, even in the king's leaven- 
 tubs, ordinarily. 
 
 3. Something he saith of popes usurping 
 over kings, but only of one of his fathers, a 
 great unclean spirit, Gregory the Great. 
 But if he had refuted him by God's word, 
 he should have thrown stones at his own 
 tribe ; for prelates, like him, do ex officio 
 trample upon the neck of kings. 
 
 4. His testimonies of one councd and 
 one father for all antiquity proveth nothing. 
 Athanasius said, " God hath given David's 
 throne to kings." What, to be head of the 
 church ? No ; to be minister of God, with- 
 out lla, to tutor the church. And, because 
 " Kings reign by Christ," as the council of 
 Armin saith ; therefore, it may follow, a 
 bailie is also head of the church. It is taken 
 from Prov. viii., and answered. 
 
 5. That presbyteries have usurped over 
 kings more than popes, since Hildebrand, 
 is a he. All stories are full of the usurpa- 
 tion of prelates, his own tribe. The Pope 
 is but a swelled fat prelate ; and what he 
 saith of popes, he saith of his own house. 
 
 6. The ministers of Christ in Scotland 
 had never a contest with king James but 
 for his sins, and his conniving with papists, 
 and his introducing bishops, the ushers of 
 the Pope. 
 
 QUESTION XLIIL 
 
 WHETHER THE KING OF SCOTLAND BE AN 
 ABSOLUTE PRINCE, HAVING PREROGATIVES 
 ABOVE PARLIAMENT AND LAWS : THE NE- 
 GATIVE IS ASSERTED BY THE LAWS OF 
 SCOTLAND, THE KING'S OATH OF CORONA- 
 TION, THE CONFESSION OF FAITH, &C 
 
 The negative pax*t of this I hold in these 
 assertions. 
 
 Assert. 1. — The kings of Scotland have 
 not any prerogative distinct from supremacy 
 above the laws. If the people must be 
 governed by no laws but by the king's own 
 laws, that is, the laws and statutes of the 
 realm, acted in parliament under pain of 
 disobedience, then must the king govern by 
 no other laws, and so by no prerogative 
 above law. But the former is an evident 
 truth by our acts of parliament ; therefore, 
 so is the latter. The proposition is con- 
 firmed, 1. Because whatever law enjoineth 
 passive obedience no way but by laws, that 
 must enjoin also the king actively to com- 
 mand no other way but by law ; for to be 
 governed by law essentially includeth to be 
 governed by the supreme governor only 
 by law. 2. An act of regal governing is 
 an act of law, and essentially an act of law; 
 an act of absolute prerogative is no act of 
 law, but an act above law, or of pleasure 
 loosed fi - om law ; and so they are opposed 
 as acts of law, and non-acts of law. If the 
 subjects, by command of the king and par- 
 liament, cannot be governed but by law, 
 how can the king but be under his own 
 and the parliament's law, to govern only by 
 law ? I prove the assumption from Pari. 3, 
 of king James I. act 48, which ordains 
 " That all and sundry the king's lieges be 
 governed under the king's laws and statutes 
 of the realm allenarly, and under no par- 
 ticular laws or special privileges, nor by any 
 laws of other countries or realms." Privi- 
 leges do exclude laws. Absolute pleasure 
 of the king as a man, and the law of the 
 king as king, are opposed by way of con- 
 tradiction ; and so in Pari. 6, James IV. 
 act 79, ratified Pari. 8, James VI. act 
 131. 
 
 2. The king, at his coronation, (Pari. 1, 
 James VI. act 8,) sweareth " to maintain 
 the true kirk of God, and religion now pre- 
 sently professed, in purity, and to rule the 
 people according to the laws and constitu- 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 217 
 
 tions received in the realm, causing justice 
 and equity to be ministered without par- 
 tiality." This did king Charles swear at 
 his coronation, and was ratified, Pari. 7, 
 James VI. act 99. Hence he who, by the 
 oath of God, is limited to govern by law, 
 can have no prerogative above the law. If, 
 then, the king change the religion and con- 
 fession of faith, authorised by many par- 
 liaments, (especially by Pari. 1, Charles, 
 1633,) he goeth against his oath. The 
 king's royal prerogative, or rather supre- 
 macy, (enacted Pari. 8, James VI. act 
 129 ; Pari. 18, act 1 ; Pari. 21, act 1, 
 James; and Pari. 1, Charles, act 3,) can- 
 not be contrary to the oath that king 
 Charles did swear at his coronation, which 
 bringeth down the prerogative to governing 
 according to the standing laws of the realm." 
 It cannot be contrary to these former par- 
 liaments and acts, declaring that " the lieges 
 are to be governed by the laws of the realm, 
 and by no particular laws and special privi- 
 leges ;" (but absolute prerogative is a special 
 privilege above, or without law ;) which acts 
 stand unrepealed to this day ; and these acts 
 of parliaments stand ratified by Pari. 1, 
 Charles, 1633. 
 
 3. Pari. 8, James VI. in the first three 
 acts thereof, the king's supremacy, and the 
 power and authority of parliaments are 
 equally ratified under the same pain : — 
 " Their jurisdictions, power, and judgments 
 in spiritual or temporal causes, not ratified 
 by his Majesty, and the three estates con- 
 vened in parliament, are discharged." But 
 the absolute prerogative of the king above 
 law, equity, and justice, was never ratified 
 in any parliament of Scotland to this day. 
 
 4. By Pari. 12, James VI. act 114, all 
 former acts in favour of the true church and 
 religion being ratified, their power of mak- 
 ing constitutions concerning r i xpvev, order 
 and decency, the privileges that |God hath 
 given to spiritual office-bearers, as well of 
 doctrine and dicipline, in matters of heresy, 
 excommunication, collation, deprivation, and 
 such like, warranted by the word of God, 
 and also to assemblies and presbyteries, are 
 ratified. Now in that parliament, in acts so 
 contiguous, we are not to think that the 
 king and three estates would make acts for 
 establishing the church's power in all the 
 former heads of government, in which roy- 
 alists say, " the soul of the king's absolute 
 prerogative doth consist ;" and therefore it 
 must be the true intent of our parliament 
 
 to give the king a supremacy and a prero- 
 gative royal, (which we also give,) but with- 
 out any absoluteness of boundless and tran- 
 scendent power above law, and not to ob- 
 trude a service-book, and all the supersti- 
 tious rites of the church of Rome, without 
 God's word, upon us. 
 
 5. The former act of parliament ratifieth 
 the true religion, according to the word of 
 God, then could it never have been the in- 
 tent of our parliament to ratify an absolute 
 supremacy, according to which a king might 
 govern his people, as a tyrannous lion, con- 
 trary to Deut. xvii. 18 — 20. And it is 
 true, Pari. 18, James VI. acts 1 and 2, 
 upon personal qualifications, giveth a royai 
 prerogative to king James over all causes, 
 persons, and estates within his Majesty's 
 dominion, whom they humbly acknowledge 
 to be " sovereign monarch, absolute prince, 
 judge and governor over all estates, per- 
 sons, and causes." 
 
 These two acts, for my part I acknow- 
 ledge, are spoken rather in court expres- 
 sions than in law terms. 
 
 1. Because personal virtues cannot ad- 
 vance a limited prince (such as the kings of 
 Scotland, pout hominum memoriam, ever 
 were) to be an absolute prince. Personal 
 graces make not David absolutely supreme 
 judge over all persons and causes ; nor can 
 king James, advanced to be king of Eng- 
 land, be for that made more king of Scot- 
 land, and more supreme judge, than he 
 was while he was only king of Scotland. 
 A wicked prince is as essentially supreme 
 judge as a godly king. 
 
 2. If this parliamentary figure of speech, 
 which is to be imputed to the times, exalted 
 king James to be absolute in Scotland, for 
 his personal endowments, there was no 
 ground to put the same on king Charles. 
 Personal virtues are not always hereditary, 
 though to me the present king be the best. 
 
 3. There is not any absoluteness above 
 law in act 1, — the parliament must be more 
 absolute in themselves. King James VI. 
 had been divers years, before this 18th par- 
 liament, king of Scotland; then, if they gave 
 him by law an absoluteness, which he had 
 not before, then they were more absolute. 
 Those who can add absoluteness must have 
 it in themselves, Nemo dat quod non habet. 
 If it be said king James had that before the 
 act ; the parliament legally declared it to be 
 his power, which, before the declaration, 
 was his power, I answer, all he had before 
 
 2g 
 
518 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 this declaration was, to govern the people 
 according to law and conscience, and no 
 more ; and if they declare no other prero- 
 gative royal to be due to him, there is an 
 end, — we grant all. But, then, this which 
 they call prerogative royal, is no more than 
 a power to govern according to law, and so 
 you had nothing to add to king James upon 
 the ground of his personal virtues, only you 
 make an oration to his praise in the acts of 
 parliament. 
 
 4. If this absoluteness of prerogative be 
 given to the king, the subjects, swearing 
 obedience, swear that he hath power from 
 themselves to destroy themselves: this is 
 neither a lawful oath, nor though they 
 should swear it, doth it oblige them. 
 
 5. A supreme judge is a supreme father 
 of all his children and all their causes ; and 
 to be a supreme father cannot be contrary 
 to a supreme judge ; but contrary it must 
 be, if this supremacy make over to the 
 prince a power of devouring as a lion, and 
 that by a regal privilege, and by office, 
 whereas he should be a father to save ; or 
 if a judge kill an evil-doer, though that be 
 an act destructive to one man, yet is it an 
 act of a father to the commonwealth. An 
 act of supreme and absolute royalty is often 
 an act of destruction to one particular man, 
 and to the whole commonwealth. For ex- 
 ample, when the king, out of his absolute 
 prerogative, pardoneth a murderer, and he 
 killeth another innocent man, and out of 
 the same ground the king pardoneth him 
 again, and so till he kill twenty, (for by what 
 reason the prerogative giveth one pardon, 
 he may give twenty, there is a like reason 
 above law for all,) this act of absolute 
 royalty is such an act of murder, as if a 
 shepherd would keep a wolf in the fold with 
 the sheep, he were guilty of the loss of these 
 sheep. Now an act of destroying cannot 
 be an act of judging, far less of a supreme 
 judge, but of a supreme murderer. 
 
 6. Whereas he is called " absolute prince 
 and supreme judge, in all causes, ecclesias- 
 tical and civil," it is to be considered, 1. 
 That the estates profess not in these acts to 
 give any new prerogative, but only to con- 
 tinue the old power, and that only with that 
 amplitude and freedom which the king and 
 his predecessors did enjoy and exercise be- 
 fore : the extent whereof is best known 
 from the acts of parliament, histories of the 
 time, and the oaths of the kings of Scot- 
 land. 2. That he is called absolute prince, 
 
 not in any relation of freedom from law, or 
 prerogative above law, whereunto, as unto 
 the norma regula ac mensura potestatis 
 suce, ac subjectionis mece, he is tyed by the 
 fundamental law and his own oath, but in 
 opposition to all foreign jurisdiction or prin- 
 cipality above him, as is evident by the oath 
 of supremacy set down for acknowledging of 
 his power in the first act of parliament 21, 
 king James VI. 3. They are but the same 
 expression, giving only the same power be- 
 fore acknowledged in the 129th act, ParL 
 8, king James VI., and that only over per- 
 sons or estates, considered separatim, and 
 over causes ; but neither at all over the 
 laws nor over the estates, taken conjunctim, 
 and as convened in parliament, as is clear, 
 both by the two immediately subsequent 
 acts of that parliament, 8, James VI., esta- 
 blishing the authority of parliaments equally 
 with the kings, and discharging all jurisdic- 
 tions (albeit granted by the king) without 
 their warrant, as also by the narrative deposi- 
 tee words, and certification of the act itself; 
 otherwise the estates convened in parliament 
 might, by virtue of that act, be summoned be- 
 fore and censured by the king's majesty or his 
 council, a judicatory substitute, be subordi- 
 nate to, and censured by themselves, which 
 were contrary to sense and reason; 4. The 
 very terms of supreme judge, and in all 
 causes, according to the nature of correlates, 
 presupposeth courts and judicial proceedings 
 and laws, as the ground-work and rule of 
 all, not a freedom from them. 5. Act 6, 
 Pari. 20, James VI. clearly interpreteth 
 what is meant by the king's jurisdiction in 
 all spiritual and ecclesiastical causes ; to wit, 
 to be only in the consistorial causes of ma- 
 trimony, testaments, bastardy, adulteries, 
 abusively called spiritual causes, because 
 handled in commissary courts, wherein the 
 king appoints the commissary, his deputies, 
 and makes the lords of the session his great 
 consistory in all ecclesiastical causes, with 
 reservation of his supremacy and preroga- 
 tive therein. 
 
 7. Supreme judge in all causes, cannot be 
 taken quoad actus ellcitos, as if the king 
 were to judge between two seamen, or two 
 husbandmen, or two tradesmen, in that 
 which is proper to their art ; or between two 
 painters. Certainly the king is not to judge 
 which of the two draweth the iairest picture, 
 but which of the two wasteth most gold on 
 his picture, and so doth interest most of the 
 commonwealth. So the king cannot judge 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 219 
 
 in all ecclesiastical causes, that is, he cannot, 
 quoad actos elicitos, prescribe this worship, 
 for example, the mass, not the sacrament of 
 the Lord's supper. Therefore the king 
 hath but actus imperatos, some royal poli- 
 tical acts about the worship of God, to com- 
 mand God to be worshipped according to 
 his word, to punish the superstitions or ne- 
 glectors of divine worship ; therefore, can- 
 not the king be sole judge in matters that 
 belong to the college of judges by the laws 
 of Scotland, the lords* of session only may 
 judge these matters, (Pari. 2, James I., act 
 45 ; Pari. 8, James III., act 62 ; Pari. 4, 
 James III., act 105 ; Pari. 6, James I., 
 act 83 ; Pari. 6, James I., act 86 ; Pari. 7, 
 James V., act 104,) and that only according 
 to law, without any remedy of appellation to 
 king or the parliament (Pari. 14, James II., 
 act 62 and 63). And the king is by act of 
 parliament inhibited to send any private 
 letter to stay the acts of justice ; or if any 
 such letter be pix>cured, the judges are not 
 to acknowledge it as the king's will, for 
 they are to proceed impartially according to 
 justice, and are to make the law, which is 
 the king and parliament's public revealed 
 will, their rule (Pari. 5, James V., act 68 ; 
 Pari. 8, James VI., act 139 ; Pari. 6, James 
 VI., act 92). Nor may the lords suspend 
 the course of justice, or the sentence or exe- 
 cution of decrees upon the king's private let- 
 ter (Pari. 11, James VI., act 79, and Pari. 
 11, James VI., act 47). And so, if the 
 king's will or desire, as he is a man, be op- 
 posite to his law and his will as king, it is 
 not to be regarded. This is a strong argu- 
 ment, that the parliaments never made the 
 king supreme judge, quoad actus elicitos, 
 in all causes, nay not if the king have a 
 cause of his own that concerneth lands of 
 the crown, far less can the king have a will 
 of prerogative above the law by our laws of 
 Scotland, And, therefore, when in Pari. 
 8, James VI., the king's royal power is 
 established in the first act, the very next 
 act immediately subjoined thereunto declar- 
 eth the authority of the supreme court of 
 parliament continued past all memory of 
 man unto this day, and constitute of the free 
 voices of the three estates of this ancient 
 kingdom, which, in the parliament 1606, is 
 called, " the ancient and fundamental po- 
 licy of this kingdom ;" and so fundamental, 
 as if it should be innovated, such confusion 
 would ensue, as it could no more be a free 
 monarchy, as is expressed in the parliament's 
 
 printed commission, 1604, by whom the 
 same, under God, hath been upholden, re- 
 bellious and traitorous subjects punished, 
 the good and faithful preserved and main- 
 tained, and the laws and acts of parliament 
 (by which all men are governed) made and 
 established, and appointeth the honour, au- 
 thority, and dignity of the estates of parlia- 
 ment to stand in their own integrity, ac- 
 cording to the ancient and laudable custom 
 by -past, without alteration or diminution, 
 and therefore dischargeth any to presume or 
 take in hand, " to impugn the dignity and 
 the authority of the said estates, or to seek 
 or procure the innovation or diminution of 
 their power or authority, under the pain of 
 treason :" and, therefore, in the next act, 
 they discharge all jurisdictions, or judica- 
 tories, (albeit appointed by the king's ma- 
 jesty, as the high commission was,) without 
 their warrant and approbation ; and that, 
 as contrary to the fundamental laws above 
 titled, (Pari. 3, James I., act 48 and Pari. 
 6, James IV., act 79,) whereby the lieges 
 should only be ruled by laws or acts passed 
 in the parliament of this kingdom. Now, 
 what was the ancient dignity, authority, and 
 power of the parliaments of Scotland, which 
 is to stand without diminution, that will be 
 easily and best known from the subsequent 
 passages, or historians, which can also be 
 very easily verified by the old registers, 
 whensoever they should be produced. In 
 the meantime, remember that in parliament 
 and by act of Pari. James VI., for observ- 
 ing the due order of parliament, promiseth, 
 never to do or command any thing which 
 may directly or indirectly prejudge the li- 
 berty of free reasoning or voting of parlia- 
 ment (Pari. 11, James VI., act 40). And 
 withal, to evidence the freedom of the par- 
 liament of Scotland, from that absolute un- 
 limited prerogative of the prince, and their 
 liberty to resist his breaking of covenant 
 with them, or treaties with foreign nations, 
 ye shall consider — 1. That the kings of 
 Scotland are obliged, before they be in- 
 augurated, to swear and make their faithful 
 covenant to the true kirk of God, that they 
 shall maintain, defend, and set forward the 
 true religion confessed and established within 
 this realm; even as they are obliged and 
 restricted by the law of God, as well in 
 Deuteronomy as in 2 Kings xi., and as they 
 crave obedience of their subjects. So that 
 the bond and contract shall be mutual and 
 reciprocal, in all time coming, between the 
 
220 
 
 LEX, REX J OR, 
 
 prince and the people, according to the word 
 of God, as is fully expressed in the register 
 of the convention of estates, July 1567. 2. 
 That important acts and sentences at home, 
 (whereof one is printed, Pari. 14, James 
 III., act 112,) and in treaties with foreign 
 princes, the estates of parliament did append 
 their several seals with the king's great seal, 
 (which to Grotius, Barclaius, and Arnisteus, 
 is an undeniable argument of a limited 
 prince, as well as the style of our parlia- 
 ment, that the estates, with the king, ordain, 
 ratify, rescind, &c.) as also they were obliged, 
 in case of the king's breaking these treaties, 
 to resist him therein, even by arms, and 
 that without any breach of their allegiance, 
 or of his prerogative, as is yet extant in the 
 records of our old treaties with England and 
 France, &c. But to go on, and leave some 
 high mysteries unto a rejoinder. 
 
 And to the end I may make good, 1. That 
 nothing is here taught in this treatise but 
 the very doctrine of the Church of Scotland, 
 I desire that the reader may take notice of 
 the larger Confession of the Church of Scot- 
 land, printed with the body of the confes- 
 sions at Geneva, anno 1612, and authorised 
 by James VI. and the three estates in par- 
 liament, and printed in our acts of parlia- 
 ment (Pari. 15, James VI., anno 1567). 
 Amongst good works of the second table, 
 saith our Confession, (art. 14,) are these : — 
 To honour father, mother, princes, rulers, 
 and superior powers. To love them, to sup- 
 port them, yea, to obey their charge, (not 
 repugning to the commandment of God,) to 
 save the lives of innocents, to repress ty- 
 ranny, to defend the oppressed, to keep our 
 bodies clean and holy, &c. The contrary 
 whereof is, to disobey or resist any that 
 God hath placed in authority, (while they 
 pass not over the bounds of their office,) to 
 murder, or to consent thereunto, to bear 
 hatred, or to let innocent blood be shed, if 
 we may withstand it, &c. Now the Confes- 
 sion citeth in the margin, Eph. i. 1, 7 and 
 Ezek. xxii. 1 — 4, &c, where it is evident, 
 by the name of father and mother, all infe- 
 rior judges as well as the king, and espe- 
 cially the princes, rulers, and lords of par- 
 liament are understood. 2. The bloody city 
 is to be judged, because they relieved not 
 the oppressed out of the hand of the bloody 
 princes, (v. 6,) who every one of them did 
 to their power shed innocent blood (Ezek. 
 xxii. 6). 3. To resist superior powers, and 
 so the estates of parliament, as the cavaliers 
 
 of Scotland do, is resistance forbidden (Rom. 
 xiii. 1). The place is also cited in the Con- 
 fession, and the Confession exponeth the 
 place (Rom. xiii.) according to the interpre- 
 tation of all sound expositors, as is evident in 
 these words, art. 24, " And therefore we 
 confess and avouch, that such as resist the 
 supreme power, doing that thing which ap- 
 pertaineth to his charge, do resist God's or- 
 dinance, and therefore cannot be guiltless. 
 And farther, we affirm, that whosoever 
 denieth unto them aid, their counsel and 
 support, while as the princes and rulers vigi- 
 lantly travel in execution of their office, that 
 the same men deny their help, support, and 
 counsel to God, who, by the presence of his 
 lieutenant, craves it of them." From which 
 words we have clear : — 
 
 1. That to resist the king or parliament, 
 is to resist them while as they are doing 
 the thing that appertaineth to their charge, 
 and while they vigilantly travel in the exe- 
 cution of their office. But while king and 
 parliament do acts of tyranny against God's 
 law, and all good laws of men, they do not 
 the things that appertain to their charge 
 and the execution of their office ; therefore, 
 by our Confession, to resist them in tyran- 
 nical acts is not to resist the ordinance of 
 God. 
 
 2. To resist princes and rulers, and so in- 
 ferior judges, and to deny them counsel and 
 comfort, is to deny help, counsel, and com- 
 fort to God. Let then cavaliers, and such 
 as refuse to help the princes of the land 
 against papists, prelates and malignants, 
 know, that they resist God's ordinance, 
 which rebellion they unjustly impute to us. 
 
 3. Whereas it is added in our Confession, 
 that God, by the presence of his lieutenant, 
 craveth support and counsel of the people, 
 it is not so to be taken, as if then only we 
 are to aid and help inferior judges and 
 parliaments, when the king personally re- 
 quireth it, and not otherways. 1. Because 
 the king requireth help, when, by his office, 
 he is obliged to require our help and coun- 
 sel against papists and malignants, though as 
 misled, he should command the contrary: 
 so if the law require our help, the king re- 
 quireth it ex officio. 2. This should ex- 
 pressly contradict our Confession, if none 
 were obliged to give help and counsel to the 
 parliaments and estates, except the king 
 in his own person should require it, because 
 (art. 14) it is expressly said, That to save 
 the lives of innocents, or repress tyranny, to 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 221 
 
 defend the oppressed, — not to suffer inno- 
 cent blood to be shed, are works pleasing to 
 God, which he rewardeth. Now we are not 
 to think in reason, if the king shall be in- 
 duced by wicked counsel to do tyrannical 
 works, and to raise papists in arms against 
 protestants, that God doth by him, as by his 
 lieutenant, require our help, comfort, and 
 counsel in assisting the king in acts of ty- 
 ranny, and in oppression, and in shedding in- 
 nocent blood ; yea, our Confession tyeth us 
 to deny help and comfort to the king in these 
 wicked acts, and therefore our help must be 
 in the tilings that pertaineth to his royal 
 office and duty only, otherwise we are to re- 
 press all tyranny (art. 14). 
 
 4. To save the lives of innocents, to re- 
 press tyranny, to defend the oppressed, are, 
 by our Confession, good works, well pleasing 
 to God, and so is this a good work, not to 
 suffer innocent blood to be shed, if we may 
 withstand it. Hence it is clear as the sun, 
 that our Confession, according to the word of 
 God, to which king Charles did swear at his 
 coronation, doth oblige and tie us in the 
 presence of God and his holy angels, to rise 
 in arms to save the innocent, to repress 
 tyranny, to defend the oppressed. When 
 the king, by ill counsel, sent armies by sea 
 and land to kill and destroy the whole king- 
 dom who should refuse such a service-book 
 as they could not in conscience receive, ex- 
 cept they would disobey God, renounce the 
 Confession of Faith, which the king and they 
 had sworn unto, and prove perfidious apos- 
 tates to Christ and his church, what could 
 we do, and that the same Confession, consi- 
 dering our bonds to our dear brethren in 
 England, layeth bonds on us to this, as a 
 good work also, not to suffer their innocent 
 blood to be shed, but to defend them, when 
 they, against all law of God, of men, of 
 state, of nations, are destroyed and killed. 
 For my part, I judge it had been a guilti- 
 ness of blood upon Scotland, if we had not 
 helped them, and risen in arms to defend 
 ourselves and our innocent brethren against 
 bloody cavaliers. Add to this what is in the 
 24th article of the same Confession : — 
 " We confess, whosoever goeth about to take 
 away, or to confound the whole state of civil 
 polity, now long established, we affirm the 
 same men not only to be enemies to man- 
 kind, but also wickedly to fight against God's 
 will." But those who have taken arms 
 against the estates of Scotland, and the 
 princes and rulers of the land, have la- 
 
 boured to take away parliaments, and the 
 fundamental laws of this kingdom, there- 
 fore, the Confession addeth, (art. 16,) "We 
 farther confess and acknowledge, that such 
 persons as are placed in authority are to be 
 loved, honoured, feared, and holden in most 
 reverent estimation, because that they are 
 lieutenants of God, in whose sessions God 
 himself doth sit and judge ; yea, even the 
 judges and princes themselves, to whom, by 
 God, is given the sword, to the praise and 
 defence of good men, and to revenge and 
 punish all open malefactors." Therefore, 
 the parliament, and princes, and rulers of 
 the land, are God's lieutenants on earth no 
 less than the king, by our Confession of 
 Faith ; and those who resist them, resist the 
 ordinance of God. Royalists say, they are 
 but the deputies of the king, and when they 
 do contrary to his royal will, they may be 
 resisted, yea, and be killed, for in so far 
 they are private men, though they are to be 
 honoured as judges when they act according 
 to the king's will, whose deputies they are. 
 But, I answer : — 
 
 1. It is a wonder that inferior judges 
 should be formally judges, in so far as they 
 act conform to the will of a mortal king, 
 and not in so far as they act conform to the 
 will of the King of kings, seeing the judg- 
 ment they execute is the King of kings', 
 and not the judgment of a mortal king. (2 
 Chron. xix. 6.) 
 
 2. Royalists cannot endure the former 
 distinction as it is applied to the king, but 
 they receive it with both hands as it is ap- 
 plied to inferior judges ; and yet, certain it 
 is, that it is as ordinary for a king, being a 
 sinful man, to act sometimes as the lieute- 
 nant of God, and sometimes as an erring and 
 misinformed man, no less than the inferior 
 judge acteth sometimes according to the 
 king's will and law, and sometimes accord- 
 ing to his own private way ; and if we are 
 to obey the inferior judge as the deputy of 
 the king, what shall become of his person, 
 when cavaliers may kill him at some Edge- 
 hill ? for so they mock this distinction, as 
 applied to the king in regard of his person 
 and of his royal office ; and for this point 
 our Confession citeth in the margin Rom. 
 xiii. 7; 1 Bet. ii. 17; Fsal. lxxxii. 1, 
 which places do clearly prove that inferior 
 magistrates are, 1. God's ordinances; 2. 
 Gods on earth, (Fsal. lxxxii. 6) ; 3. Such 
 as bear the Lord's sword ; 4. " That they 
 are not only (as the Confession saith) ap- 
 
222 
 
 LEX, REX : OR, 
 
 pointed for civil policy, but also for main- 
 tenance of true religion, and for suppressing 
 of idolatry and superstition." Then, it is 
 evident, to resist inferior magistrates is to 
 resist God himself, and to labour to throw 
 the sword out of God's hand. 5. Our Con- 
 fession useth the same Scriptures cited by 
 Junius Brutus, to wit, Ezek. xxii. 1 — 7; 
 Jer. xxii. 3, where we are, no less than the 
 Jews, commanded to " execute judgment 
 and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled 
 out of The hands of the oppressor ;" for both 
 the law of God and the civil law saith, Qui 
 non impedit homicidium, quum potest, is 
 homicidii reus est. I will cast in a word of 
 other Confessions, lest we seem to be Jesuits 
 alone. 
 
 The Confession of Helvetia saith, (c. 30,) 
 de Magistrate, Viduas,pupillos, afflictos 
 asserat, every magistrate is to defend the 
 widow, the orphan, and the oppressed. The 
 French Confession saith, (art. 40,) Ajjirma- 
 mus ergo parendumesse legibus et statutis, 
 solvenda tributa, subjectionis denique ju- 
 gum voluntarie tolerandum, etiamsi infi- 
 deles fuerint magistrates, dummodo Dei 
 summum imperium integrum et illibatum 
 maneat. So clear it is that all active obe- 
 dience is due to all magistrates, and that 
 that yoke of passive obedience is to be tole- 
 rated but conditionally, with a dummodo, 
 so as the magistrate violate not the supreme 
 commandment of the King of kings ; and 
 we know, accordingly, protestants of that 
 church have taken defensive arms against 
 their king. But our P. Prelate can say, the 
 Confessions of Scotland, Helvetia, France, 
 and all the reformed churches, are Jesuiti- 
 cal, when as it was the doctrine of the 
 Waldenses, the protestants, Luther, Calvin, 
 and others, while as there was no Jesuit on 
 earth. 
 
 The thirty-seventh article of the Church 
 of Enoland's Confession 1 is so far from erect- 
 ing an absolute power in the king, that they 
 expressly bring down the royal prerogative 
 from the high seat and transcendent super- 
 lative power above the law, and expone the 
 prerogative to be nothing but mere law- 
 power. " We only (say they) ascribe that 
 
 1 Angl. Conf. art. 37. Sed earn tantum preroga- 
 tivam aquam in sacris Scripturis a Deo ipso omni- 
 bus piis princibus semper fuisse tributam, hoc est, 
 ut omnes status atque ordines fidei, suae commissos, 
 fixe illi ecclesiastici sint, sive civiles, in officio con- 
 tineant, et contumaces ac delinquentes gladio civili 
 coerceant. 
 
 prerogative to the king which the Scripture 
 doth ascribe to all godly princes; that is, 
 that they cause all committed to their trust, 
 whether ecclesiastical or civil persons, to do 
 their duty, and punish with the civil sword all 
 disobedient offenders." In syntag. Confess. 
 " And this they say in answer to some who 
 believed the Church of England made the 
 king the head of the church." The Pre- 
 lates' Convocation must be Jesuits to this 
 P. Prelate also. 
 
 So the thirty-sixth article of the Belgic 
 Confession saith of all magistrates, no less 
 than of a king, (we know, for tyranny of 
 soul and body, they justly revolted from 
 their king,) Idcirco magistrates ipsos gla- 
 dio armavit, ut malos quidem plectant 
 paznis, probos vero teeanter. Horum por- 
 ro est, non modo de civili politia conser- 
 vanda esse solicitos, verum etiam dare 
 operam ut sacrum ministerium conservetur, 
 omnis idololatria et adulterinus Dei cultus 
 e medio tollatur, regnum antichristi diru- 
 ater, fyc Then, all magistrates, though in- 
 ferior, must do their duty that the law of 
 God hath laid on them, though the king 
 forbid them ; but, by the Belgic Confession 
 and the Scripture, it is their duty to relieve 
 the oppressed, to use the sword against mur- 
 dering papists and Irish rebels and destroy- 
 ing cavaliers ; for, shall it be a good plea in 
 the day of Christ to say, " Lord Jesus, we 
 would have used thy sword against bloody 
 murderers if thy anointed, the king, had 
 not commanded us to obey a mortal king 
 rather than the King of ages, and to exe- 
 cute no judgment for the oppressed, because 
 he judged them faithful catholic subjects." 
 Let all Oxford and cavalier doctors in the 
 three kingdoms satisfy the consciences of 
 men in this, that inferior judges are to obey 
 a divine law, with a proviso that the king 
 command them so to do, and otherwise they 
 are to obey men rather than God. This is 
 evidently holden forth in the Argentine 
 Confession, exhibited by four cities to the 
 emperor Charles V., 1530, in the very same 
 cause of innocent defence that we are now in 
 in the three kingdoms of Scotland, England, 
 and Ireland. 
 
 The Saxon Confession, exhibited to the 
 Council of Trent, (1551, art. 23,) maketh 
 the magistrate's office essentially to consist 
 in keeping of the two tables of God's law ; 
 and so, what can follow hence, but in so far 
 as he defendeth murderers, — or, if he be a 
 king-, and shall with the sword or arms iin- 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 223 
 
 pede inferior magistrates (for the Confession 
 speaketh of all) to defend God's law and 
 true religion against papists, murderers, and 
 bloody cavaliers, and hinder them to exe- 
 cute the judgment of the Lord against evil 
 doers, — he is not, in that, a magistrate ; and 
 the denying of obedience, active or passive, 
 to him in that, is no resistance to the ordi- 
 nance of God; but, by the contrary, the 
 king himself must resist the ordinance of 
 God. 
 
 The Confession of Bohemia is clear, (art. 
 16,) Quipublico muneremagistratuquefun- 
 guntur, quemcunque, gradum teneant, se 
 non suum,sed Deiopus agere sciant. Hence, 
 all inferior or the supreme magistrate, what- 
 ever be their place, they do not their own 
 work, nor the work of the king, but the work 
 of God, in the use of the sword ; therefore, 
 they are to use the sword against bloody 
 cavaliers, as doing God's work — suppose the 
 king should forbid them to do God's work ; 
 and it saith of all magistrates, Sunt autem 
 magistratuum partes ac munus, omnibus 
 ex aequo jus dicere, in communem omnium 
 usum, sine personarum acceptatione, pacem 
 ac tranquilitatem publicam tueri ac pro- 
 curare de malis ac facinorosis, hanc inter 
 turbantibus pcenas sumere, aliosque, omnes 
 ab eorum vi et injuria vindicare. Now, 
 this confession was the faith of the barons 
 and nobles of Bohemia who were magistrates^ 
 and exhibited to the emperor, anno 1535, 
 in the causes not unlike unto ours now, and 
 the emperor was their sovereign ; yet they 
 profess they are obliged, in conscience, to 
 defend all under them from all violence and 
 injuries, that the emperor, or any other, 
 could bring on them ; and that this is their 
 office before God, which they are obliged to 
 perform as a work of God, and the Chris- 
 tian magistrate is not to do that work which 
 is not his own but God's, upon condition that 
 the king shall not inhibit him. What if the 
 king shall inhibit parliaments, princes, and 
 rulers, to relieve the oppressed, to defend 
 the orphan, the widow, the stranger, from 
 unjust violence ? Shall they obey man ra- 
 ther than God ? 
 
 To say no more of this : prelates in Scot- 
 land did what they could, 1. To hinder his 
 Majesty to indict a parliament. 2. When 
 it was indicted, to have its freedom destroyed 
 by prelimitations. 3. When, it was sitting, 
 their care was to divide, impede, and annul 
 the course of justice. 4. All in the P. Pre- 
 late's book tendeth to abolish parliaments, 
 
 and to enervate their power. 5. There were 
 many ways used to break up parliaments in 
 England ; and to command judges not to 
 judge at all, but to interrupt the course of 
 justice, is all one as to command unrighteous 
 judgment (Jer. xxii. 3). 6. Many ways 
 have been used by cavaliers to cut off par- 
 liaments, and the present parliament in 
 England. 
 
 The paper found in William Laud's study, 
 touching fears and hopes of the parliament 
 of England, evidenceth that cavaliers hate 
 the supreme seat of justice, and would it 
 were not in the world ; which is the highest 
 rebellion and resistance made against supe- 
 rior powers. 
 
 1. He feareth this parliament shall begin 
 where the last left. 
 
 Ans. — Whatever ungrateful courtier had 
 hand in the death of king James deserved 
 to come under trial. 
 
 2. He feareth they sacrifice some man. 
 Ans. — 1. If parliaments have not power 
 
 to cut off rebels, and corrupt judges, the root 
 of their being is undone. 2. If they be 
 lawful courts, none need fear them, but the 
 guilty. 
 
 3. He feareth their consultations be long, 
 and the supply must be present; 
 
 Ans. — 1. Then cavaliers intend parlia- 
 ments for subsidies to the king, to foment 
 and promote the war against Scotland, not 
 for justice. 2. He that feareth long and 
 serious consultations, to rip up and lance the 
 wounds of church and state, is afraid that 
 the wounds be cured. 
 
 4. He feareth they deny subsidies, which 
 are due by the law of God, nature, and na- 
 tions, whereas parliaments have but their 
 deliberation and consent for the manner of 
 giving, otherwise this is to sell subsidies, not 
 to give them. 
 
 Ans. — Tribute, and the standing revenues 
 of the king, are due by the law of God and 
 nations ; but subsidies are occasional rents 
 given upon occasion of war, or some extra- 
 ordinary necessity ; and they are not given 
 to the king as tribute and standing revenues, 
 which the king may bestow for his house, 
 family, and royal honour, but they are given 
 by the kingdom, rather to the kingdom 
 than to the king, for the present war, or 
 some other necessity of the kingdom, and 
 therefore are not due to the king as king, 
 by any law of nature or nations, and so 
 should not be given but by deliberation and 
 | judicial sentence of the states ; and they are 
 
22-1 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 not sold to the king, but given out by the 
 kingdom by statute of parliament, to be be- 
 stowed on the kingdom, and the king should 
 sell no acts of justice for subsidies. 
 
 5. He dare not speak of the consequences, 
 if the king grant bills of grace, and part with 
 the flowrets of the crown. 
 
 Ans. — He dare not say, the people shall 
 vindicate their liberty by selling subsidies to 
 buy branches of the prerogative royal, and 
 diminishing the king's fancied absoluteness ; 
 so would prelates have the king absolute, 
 that they may ride over the souls, purses, 
 persons, estates, and religion of men, upon 
 the horse of pretended absoluteness. 
 
 6. He feareth the parliament fall upon 
 church business; but, 1. The church is too 
 weak already; if it had more power, the 
 king might have more both of obedience and 
 service. 2. The houses can be no competent 
 judges in point of doctrine. 3. For the 
 king, clergy, and convocation are judges in 
 all causes ecclesiastical. 
 
 Ans. 1. — This striketh at the root of all 
 parliamentary power. 1. The P. Prelate 
 giveth them but a poor deliberative power in 
 subsidies ; and that is, to make the king's 
 will a law, in taking all the subjects' goods 
 from them, to foment war against the sub- 
 jects. 2. He taketh all jurisdiction from 
 them over persons, though they were as 
 black traitors as breathe. 3. And spoileth 
 them of all power in church matters ; 'to 
 make all judges, yea, and the king himself 
 yield blind obedience to the Pope and Pre- 
 late, and their illuminated clergy. Sure I 
 am, P. Maxwell imputeth this, but most 
 unjustly, to presbyteries. What essential 
 and fundamental privileges are left to par- 
 liaments? David and the parliament of 
 Israel are impertinent judges in the matter 
 of bringing home the ark of God. And for 
 the church's weakness, that is, the weak- 
 ness of the damned prelates, shall this 
 be the king's weakness ? Yes ; the P. 
 Prelate must make it true, no bishop, no 
 king. 
 
 7. He feareth factious spirits will take 
 heart to themselves, if the king yield to 
 them without any submission of theirs. 
 
 Ans. — The princes and judges of the 
 land are a company of factious men, and so 
 no parliament, no court, but at best some 
 good advisers of a king to break up the 
 parliament, because they refuse subsidies, 
 that he may, by a lawless way, extort sub- 
 sidies. 
 
 8. He desireth the parliament may sit a 
 short time, that they may not well under- 
 stand one another. 
 
 Ans. — He loveth short or no justice from 
 the parliament ; he feareth they reform 
 God's house, and execute justice on men 
 like himself. But I return to the Scottish 
 parliament. 
 
 Assert. 2. — The parliament is to regu- 
 late the power of the king. The heritable 
 sheriffs complain that the king granteth 
 commissions to others in cases pertaining to 
 their office ; whereupon the estates (Pari. 
 6, James VI., act 82) dischargeth all such 
 commissions, as also appointeth that all mur- 
 derers be judged by the justice general only. 
 And in several acts the king is inhibited 
 to grant pardons to malefactors, Pari. 11, 
 James VI., act 75. 
 
 It is to be considered that king James, 
 in his Basilikon Dor on, layeth down an 
 unsound ground, that Fergus the first, fa- 
 ther of one hundred and seven kings of 
 Scotland, conquered this kingdom. The 
 contrary whereof is asserted by Fordome, 
 Major, Boethius, Buchanan, Hollanshed, 
 who run all upon this principle, that the 
 estates of the kingdom did, 1. Choose a 
 monarchy, and freely, and no other govern- 
 ment. 2. That they freely elected Fergus 
 to be their king. 3. King Fergus fre- 
 quently convened the parliament called In- 
 sulanorum duces, tribuum rectores, ma- 
 jorum consessus, conventus ordinum, con- 
 ventus statuum, communitatum regni, phy- 
 larchi, prhnores, principes, patres ; and, 
 as Hollanshed saith, they made Fergus 
 king, therefore a parliament must be be- 
 fore the king ; yea, and after the death of 
 king Fergus, philarchi coeunt condone ad- 
 vocata, the estates convened without any 
 king, and made that fundamental law regni 
 elective, that when the king's children were 
 minors, any of the Fergusian race might be 
 chosen to reign, and this endured to the 
 days of Kenneth ; and Redotha, the seventh 
 king, resigned and maketh over the govern- 
 ment into the hands of the parliament, and 
 Philarchi Tribuum Gubernatores ordained 
 Thereus the eighth king. Buchanan, (I. 4, 
 rer. Scot.) calleth him Beutha, and said he 
 did this, populo egre permittente, then the 
 royal power recurred to the fountain. The- 
 reus, the eighth king, a wicked man, filled 
 the kingdom with robbers, and fearing the 
 parliament should punish him, fled to the 
 Britons, and thereupon the parliament 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 225 
 
 choose Connanus to be prorex and protector 
 of the kingdom. 
 
 Finnanus, the tenth king, decreed, — Ne 
 quid reges, quod majoris esset momenti, 
 nisi de publici consilii authoritate juberent, 
 et ne domcstico consilio rcmp. administra- 
 rent, regia publicaque ncgotia non sine 
 patrum consultatione ductuque tractaren- 
 tur, nee bellum pacem aut fcedera reges 
 per se patrum, tribuumve, rectorum in- 
 jussu facerent, demerentue ; then it is 
 clear that parliaments were consortes im- 
 perii, and had the authority with and above 
 the king. When a law is made that the 
 kings should do nothing injussu rectorum 
 tribuum, without commandment of the par- 
 liament, a cabinet-council was not lawful to 
 the kings of Scotland. So Durstus, the 
 eleventh king, sweareth to the parliament, 
 " Se nihil nisi de primorum consilio actu- 
 rum," that he shall do nothing but by coun- 
 sel of the rulers and heads of the kingdom. 
 
 The parliament, rejecting the lawful son 
 of Corbredus, the nineteenth king, because 
 he was young, created Dardanus, the ne- 
 phew of Metellanus, king, which is a great 
 argument of the power of the Scottish par- 
 liament of old for elective rather than here- 
 ditary kings. 
 
 Corbredus II., called Galdus, the twenty- 
 first king, at his coronation, renouncing all 
 negative voices, did swear, Se majorum 
 consiliis acquieturnm, that he should be 
 ruled by the parliament ; and it is said, 
 Leges quasdam tollere non potuit, adver- 
 sante midtitudine. 
 
 Luctatus, the twenty-second king, is cen- 
 sured by a parliament, " Quod spreto ma- 
 jorum consilio" he appointed base men to 
 public offices. 
 
 Mogaldus, the twenty-third king, " Ad 
 consilia seniorum omnia ex prisco more 
 revocavit," did all by the parliament, as the 
 ancient custom was. 
 
 Conarus, the twenty-fourth king, was cast 
 into prison by the parliament, " Quod non 
 expectato decreto patrum, quod summce 
 erat potestatis, privatis consiliis adminis- 
 trasset," because he did these weightiest 
 business that concerned the kingdom, by 
 private advice, without the judicial ordin- 
 ance of parliament, that was of greatest au- 
 thority. Where is the negative voice of the 
 king here ? 
 
 Ethodius II. (son of Ethodius I.) the 
 twenty-eighth king, (the parliament passing 
 him by on account oi his age, and electing 
 
 Satrael, his father's brother, king before 
 him,) was a simple ignorant man, yet for 
 reverence to the race of Fergus, kept the 
 name of a king, but the estates appointed 
 tutors to him. 
 
 Nathalocus, the thirtieth king, corrupting 
 the nobles with buds and fair promises, ob- 
 tained the crown. 
 
 Romachus, Fethelmachus, and Angu- 
 sianus, or as Buchanan calleth him, iEne- 
 anus, contended for the crown, the parlia- 
 ment convened to judge the matter was 
 dissolved by tumult, and Romachus chosen 
 king, doing all, non adhibito, de more, 
 consilio majorum, was censured by the par- 
 liament. 
 
 Fergus II. was created king by the 
 states, de more. 
 
 Constantino, the forty-third king, a most 
 wicked man, was punished by the states. 
 
 Aidanus, the forty-ninth king, by the 
 counsel of St Columba, governed all in 
 peace, by three parliaments every year. 
 
 Ferchard I., the fifty-second king, and 
 Ferchard II., the fifty-fourth king, were 
 both censured by parliaments. 
 
 Eugenius VII., the fifty-ninth king, was 
 judicially accused, and absolved by the states, 
 of killing his wife Spondana. 
 
 Eugenius VIII., the sixty-second king, 
 a wicked prince, was put to death by the 
 parliament, omnibus in ejus exitium, con~ 
 sentientibus. 
 
 Donaldus, the seventieth king, is cen- 
 sured by a parliament, which convened, 
 pro salute reipublicai, for the good of the 
 land. So Ethus, the seventy-second king, 
 Ne unius culpa, regnum periret. 
 
 Gregory, the seventy-third king, swear- 
 eth to maintain kirk and state in their li- 
 berties; the oath is ordained to be sworn 
 by all kings at their coronation. 
 
 The estates complain of Duff, the seventy- 
 eighth king, because contemning the coun- 
 sel of the nobles, Sacrificulorum consiliis 
 abduceretur, and that either the nobility 
 must depai't the kingdom, or another king 
 must be made. 
 
 Culen, the seventy-ninth king, was sum- 
 moned before the estates, so before him, 
 Constantine III., the seventy-fifth king, 
 did, by oath, resign the kingdom to the 
 states, and entered in a monastery at St 
 Andrews. 
 
 Kenneth III., the eightieth king, pro- 
 cured almost, per vim, saith Buchanan, 
 that the parliament should change the elec- 
 2h 
 
226 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 tive kings into hereditary ; observe the power 
 of parliaments. 
 
 After this Grim, and then Macbeth, 
 the eighty-fifth king, is rebuked for govern- 
 ing by private counsel; in his time, the 
 king is ordained by the states to swear to 
 maintain the community of the kingdom. 
 
 When Malcolm IV., the ninety-second 
 king, would have admitted a treaty to the 
 hurt of the kingdom, the nobles said, Non 
 jus esse regi, the king had no right to take 
 anything from the kingdom, Nisi omnibus 
 ordinibus consentientibus. In the time of 
 Alexander, the ninty-fourth king, is or- 
 dained, Acta regis oporteri confirrnari de- 
 er eto ordinum regni, quia ordinibus regni 
 non considtis, aut adversantibus, nihil 
 quod ad totius regni statum attinet, regi 
 agere liceret; so all our historians observe ; 
 by which it is clear, that the parliament, 
 not the king, hath a negative voice. 
 
 The states' answer to king Edward's le- 
 gates, concerning Balzee's conditions in his 
 contest with Brace is, that these conditions 
 were made a solo rege, by the king only, 
 without the estates of the kingdom, and 
 therefore they did not oblige the kingdom. 
 
 In Robert the Brace's reign, the ninty- 
 seventh king, the succession to the crown is 
 appointed by act of parliament, and twice 
 changed ; and in the league with France, 
 Quod quando de successuro rege ambige- 
 retur apud Scotos, ea controversia ab or- 
 dinum de creto decideretur. 
 
 Robert, the hundredth king, in a parlia- 
 ment at Scoon, moved the states to appoint 
 the earl of Carrick, his eldest son of the 
 second marriage, to the crown, passing his 
 children of the first marriage ; and when 
 he would have made a treaty, he was told, 
 that he could not inducias facere nisi ex 
 sententia conventus publici, he could not 
 make truces but with the consent of the 
 estates of parliament. 
 
 James I. could not do anything in his 
 oath in England. The parliament's appro- 
 bation of the battle at Stirling against king 
 James III. is set down in the printed acts, 
 because he had not the consent of the states. 
 To come to our first reformation, the 
 queen regent, breaking her promise to the 
 states, said, " Faith of promise should not 
 be sought from princes ;" the states an- 
 swered, that they then were not obliged to 
 obey, and suspended her government as in- 
 consistent with the duty of princes, by the 
 articles of pacification at Leith, June 16, 
 
 1560. No peace or war can be without 
 the states. 
 
 In the parliament thereafter, (1560,) the 
 nobility say frequently to the queen, Regum 
 Scotorum limitatum esse imperium, nee 
 unquam ad unius libidinem, sed ad legum 
 prcescriptum et nobilitatis consensum regi 
 solitum. 
 
 So it is declared, parliament at Stirling, 
 1578, and pari. 1567, concerning queen 
 Mary, I need not insist here. James VI. 
 July 21, 1567, was crowned, the earl of 
 Morton and Hume, jurarunt pro eo, et 
 ejus nomine, in leges, eum doctrinam et 
 ritus religionis, quce turn docebantur, pub- 
 lice quoad posset, servaturum, et con- 
 trarios oppugnaturum. (Buch. Rer. Scot. 
 Hist. 1. 18.) The three estates revoke all 
 alienations made by the king without con- 
 sent of the parliament. Pari. 2, James VI. 
 c. 2, 4, 5, 6. 
 
 Three parliaments of James II. are held 
 without any mention of the king, as 1437, 
 1438, and 1440, and act 5 and 6 of Pari. 
 1440, the estates ordain the king to do such 
 and such things, to ride through the coun- 
 try for doing of justice ; and Pari. 1, James 
 I. act 23, the estates ordained the king to 
 mend his money ; but show any parliament 
 where ever the king doth prescribe laws to 
 the states, or censure the states. 
 
 In Pari. 1, James VI., the Confession of 
 Faith being ratified, in acts made by the 
 three estates, that the kings must swear at 
 their coronation, " In the presence of the 
 eternal God, that they shall maintain the 
 true religion, right preaching, and admini- 
 stration of the sacraments now received and 
 preached within this realm, and shall abo- 
 lish and gain-stand all false religions con- 
 trary to the same, and shall rule the people 
 committed to their charge, according to 
 the will of God, laudable laws, and constitu- 
 tions of the realm," &c. 
 
 The Pari. 1, James VI., 1567,approveth 
 the acts of parliament 1560, conceived only 
 in name of the states, without the king and 
 queen, who had deserted the same ; so saith 
 the act 2, 4, 5, 20, 28. And so this par- 
 liament, wanting the king and queen's au- 
 thority, is confirmed, Pari. 1572, act 51, 
 king James VI. ; Pari. 1581, act 1 ; and 
 Pari. 1581, act 115, in which it is declared, 
 " That they have been common laws from 
 their first date," and are all ratified, Pari. 
 1587, and 1592, act 1 ; and stand ratified 
 to this day by king Charles' parliament, 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 227 
 
 1633. The act of the Assembly, 1566, 
 commendeth that parliament, 1560, as the 
 " most lawful and free parliament that ever 
 was in the kingdom." 
 
 Yea, even Pari. 1641, king Charles him- 
 self being present, an act was passed upon 
 the occasion of the king's illegal imprisoning 
 of the laird of Langton : that the king hath 
 no power to imprison any member of the 
 parliament without consent of the parlia- 
 ment. Which act, to the great prejudice 
 of the liberty of the subject, should not have 
 been left unprinted ; for, by what law the 
 king may imprison one member of the par- 
 liament, by that same reason he may im- 
 prison two, twenty, and a hundred ; and so 
 may he clap up the whole free estates, and 
 where shall then the highest court of the 
 kingdom be? 
 
 All politicians say, the king is a limited 
 prince, not absolute ; where the king giveth 
 out laws, not in his own name, but in the 
 name of himself and the estates judicially 
 convened. 
 
 In p. 33 of the old acts of parliament, 
 members are summoned to treat and con- 
 clude. 
 
 The duty of parliaments, and their power, 
 according to the laws of Scotland, may be 
 seen in the history of Knox, now printed at 
 London (an. 16-43), in the nobles' proceed- 
 ing with the queen, who killed her husband 
 and married Bothwell, and was arraigned 
 in parliament, and by a great part con- 
 demned to death ; by many, to perpetual 
 imprisonment. 
 
 King Charles received not crown, sword, 
 and sceptre, until first he did swear the 
 oath that king James his father did swear. 
 He was not crowned, till one of every one 
 of the three estates came and offered to him 
 the crown, with an express condition of his 
 duty, before he be crowned. 
 
 After king Charles said, " I will by God's 
 assistance bestow my life for your defence, 
 wishing to live no longer than that I may 
 see this kingdom flourish in happiness," 
 thereafter, the king showing himself on a 
 stage to the people, the popish archbishop 
 said ; " Sirs, I do present unto you king 
 Charles, the right descended inheritor, — the 
 crown and dignity of this realm, appointed 
 by the peers of the kingdom. And are you 
 willing to have him for your king, and be- 
 come subject to him ?" The king turning 
 himself on the stage, to be seen of the 
 peope, they declared willingness, by cry- 
 
 ing, God save king Charles ! Let the king 
 
 QUESTION XLIV. 
 
 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE FORMER DOCTRINE, 
 IN SOME FEW COROLLARIES, OR STRAYING 
 QUESTIONS, FALLEN OFF THE ROADWAY, 
 ANSWERED BRIEFLY. 
 
 Quest. 1. — Whether all governments be 
 but broken governments and deviations from 
 monarchy. 
 
 Ans. — 1. It is denied: there is no less 
 somewhat of God's authority in government 
 by many, or some of the choicest of the 
 people, than in monarchy; nor can we 
 judge any ordinance of man unlawful, for 
 we are to be subject to all for the Lord's 
 sake. (1 Pet. ii. 13 ; Tit. iii. 1 ; 1 Tim. ii. 
 1 — 3.) 2. Though monarchy should seem 
 the rule of all other governments, in regard 
 of resemblance of the Supreme Monarch 
 of all, yet it is not the moral rule from 
 which, if other governments shall err, they 
 are to be judged sinful deviations. 
 
 Quest. 2. — Whether royalty is an im- 
 mediate issue and spring of nature. 
 
 Ans. — No; for a man, fallen in sin, 
 knowing naturally he hath need of a law 
 and a government, could have, by reason, 
 devised governors, one or more ; and the 
 supervenient institution of God, comino- 
 upon this ordinance, doth more fully assure 
 us, that God, for man's good, hath appointed 
 governors ; but, if we consult with nature, 
 many judges and governors, to fallen nature, 
 seem nearer of blood to nature than one 
 only ; for two, because of man's weakness, 
 are better than one. Now, nature seemeth 
 to me not to teach that only one sinful man 
 should be the sole and only ruler of a whole 
 kingdom ; God, in his word, ever joined 
 with the supreme ruler many rulers, who, 
 as touching the essence of a judge, (which is, 
 to rule for God,) were all equally judges: 
 some reserved acts, or a longer cubit of 
 power in regard of extent, being due to the 
 king. 
 
 Quest. 3. — Whether magistrates, as ma- 
 gistrates, be natural. 
 
 Ans. — Nature is considered as whole and 
 sinless, or as fallen and broken. In the for- 
 mer consideration, that man should stand 
 in need of some one to compel him with 
 
228 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 the sword to do his duty, and not oppress, 
 was no more natural to man than to stand 
 in need of lictors and hangmen, or physi- 
 cians for the body, which in this state was 
 not in a capacity of sickness or death ; and 
 so government by parents and husbands was 
 only natural in the latter consideration. 
 Magistrates, as magistrates, are two ways 
 considered, — 1. According to the knowledge 
 of such an ordinance ; 2. According to the 
 actual erection of the practice of the office 
 of magistrates. In the former notion, I 
 humbly conceive, that by nature's light, man 
 now fallen and broken, even under all the 
 fractions of the powers and faculties of the 
 soul, doth know, that promises of reward, 
 fear of punishment, and the co-active power 
 of the sword, as Plato said, are natural 
 means to move us, and wings to promote 
 obedience and to do our duty ; and that go- 
 vernment by magistrates is natural. But, 
 in the second relation, it is hard to deter- 
 mine that kings, rather than other gover- 
 nors, are more natural. 
 
 Quest. 4. — Whether nature hath deter- 
 mined that there should be one supreme 
 ruler, a king, or many rulers, in a free com- 
 munity. 
 
 Ans. — It is denied. 
 
 Quest. 6. — Whether every free common- 
 wealth hath not in it a supremacy of ma- 
 jesty, which it may formally place in one or 
 many. 
 
 Ans. — It is affirmed. 
 
 Quest 6. — Whether absolute and un- 
 limited power of royalty be a ray and beam 
 of divine majesty immediately derived from 
 God? 
 
 Ans. — Not at all. Such a creature is not 
 in the world of God's creation. Royalists 
 and flatterers of kings are parents to this 
 prodigious birth. There is no shadow of 
 power to do ill in God. An absolute power 
 is essentially a power to do without or above 
 law, and a power to do ill, to destroy ; and 
 so it cannot come from God as a moral 
 power by institution, though it come from 
 God by a flux of permissive providence ; 
 but so things unlawful and sinful come from 
 God. 
 
 Quest. 7. — Whether the king may in his 
 actions intend his own prerogative and ab- 
 soluteness. 
 
 Ans. — He can neither intend it as his 
 nearest end, nor as his remote end. Not 
 the former, for if he fight and destroy his 
 people for a prerogative, he destroycth his 
 
 people that he may have a power to destroy 
 them, which must be mere tyranny, nor can 
 it be his remote end ; for, granting that his 
 supposed absolute prerogative were lawful, 
 he is to refer all lawful power and all his ac- 
 tions to a more noble end, to wit, to the 
 safety and good of the people. 
 
 Quest. 8. — Do not they that resist the 
 parliament's power, resist the parliament ; 
 and they that resist the king's power, resist 
 the king ; God hath joined king and power, 
 who dare separate them ? 
 
 Ans. — 1. If the parliament abuse their 
 power, we may resist their abused power, 
 and not their power parliamentary. Mi- 
 Bridges doth well distinguish (in his Anno- 
 tations on the " Loyal Convert ") betwixt 
 the king's power, and the king's will. 2. 
 The resisters do not separate king and 
 power, but the king himself doth separate 
 his lawful power from his will, if he work 
 and act tyranny out of this principle, will, 
 passion, lust ; not out of the royal principle 
 of kingly power. So far we may resist the 
 one, and not the other. 
 
 Quest. 9. — Why, if God might work a 
 miracle in the three children's resistance 
 active, why doth he evidence omnipotence 
 in the passive obedience of these witnesses? 
 The kingdom of Judah was Christ's birth- 
 right, as man and David's son. Why did 
 he not, by legions of men and angels, 
 rather vindicate his own flesh and blood, 
 than triumph by non-resistance, and the 
 omnipotence of glory to shine in his mere 
 suffering ? 
 
 Ans. — Who art thou that disputest with 
 God? He that killeth with the jaw-bone 
 of an ass, thousands, and he that destroyed 
 the numberless Midianites by only three 
 hundred, should no more put the three 
 children to an unlawful act in the one, if 
 they had by three men killed Nebuchad- 
 nezzar and all his subjects, than in the 
 other. But nothing is said against us in a 
 sophism a non causa pro causa ; except it 
 be proved, God would neither deliver his 
 three children, nor Christ from death, and 
 the Jews from bondage, by miraculous re- 
 sistance, because resistance is unlawful. And 
 if patient suffering is lawful, therefore, is 
 resistance unlawful? It is a poor conse- 
 quent, and a begging of the question : both 
 must be lawful to us ; and so we hold, of 
 ten lawful means, fit to compass God's 
 blessed end, he may choose one and let go 
 nine. Shall any infer, therefore, these other 
 
THE LAW AND THE PKINCE. 
 
 229 
 
 nine means are unlawful, because God chose 
 a mean different from those nine, and re- 
 fused them? So may I answer by retor- 
 tion. The three hundred sinned in resisting 
 Midian, and defeating them. Why ? Be- 
 cause it should be more honour to God, 
 if they had, by suffering patiently the 
 sword of Midian, glorified God in martyr- 
 dom. So Christ and the apostles, who 
 could have wrought miracles, might have 
 wrought reformation by the sword, and de- 
 stroyed kings and emperors, the opposers of 
 the Lamb ; and they did reform by suffer- 
 ing ; therefore, the sword is unlawful in re- 
 formation. It followeth not. The mean 
 Christ used, is lawful ; therefore, all other 
 means that he used not, are unlawful. It 
 is vain logic. 
 
 Quest. 10. — Whether the coronation of 
 a king is any other thing but a ceremony. 
 
 Ans. — In the coronation there is, and 
 may be, the ceremony of a shout and an 
 acclamation, and the placing of a sceptre 
 in his right hand who is made king, and the 
 like ; but the coronation, in concrcto, ac- 
 cording to the substance of the act, is no 
 ceremony, nor any accidental ingredient in 
 the constitution of a king. 1. Because Is- 
 rael should have performed a mere ceremo- 
 nial action on Saul when they made him 
 king, which we cannot say ; for as the peo- 
 ple's act of coronation is distinctive, so is it 
 constitutive : it distinguished Saul from all 
 Israel, and did constitute him in a new 
 relation, that he was changed from no king 
 to be a king. 2. The people cannot, by a 
 ceremony, make a king ; they must really 
 put some honour on him, that was not put 
 on him before. Now this ceremony, which 
 royalists do fancy coronation to be, is only 
 symbolical and declarative, not really dative. 
 It placeth nothing in the king. 
 
 Quest. 11. —Whether subjects may limit 
 the power that they gave not to the king, 
 it being the immediate result (without in- 
 tervening of law or any act of man) issuing 
 from God only. 
 
 Ans. — 1. Though we should allow (which 
 in reason we cannot grant) that royal power 
 were a result of the immediate bounty of 
 God, without any act of man, yet it may be 
 limited by men, that it over-swell not its 
 banks. Though God immediately make Pe- 
 ter an apostle, without any act of men, yet 
 Paul, by a sharp rebuke, (Gal. ii.) curbeth 
 and limiteth his power, that he abuse it 
 not to Judaising. Royalists deny not, but 
 
 they teach, that the eighty priests that re- 
 strained Uzziah's power " from burning in- 
 cense to the Lord," gave no royal power to 
 Uzziah. Do not subjects, by flight, lay re- 
 straint upon a king's power, that he kill not 
 the subjects without cause ? yet they teach 
 that subjects gave no power to the king. 
 Certainly this is a proof of the immediate 
 power of the King of kings, that none can fly 
 from his pursuing hand, (Psal. cxxxix. 1 — 3 ; 
 Amos ix. 1 — 4,) whereas men may fly from 
 earthly kings. Nebuchadnezzar, as royalists 
 teach, might justly conquer some kingdoms, 
 for conquest is a just title to the crown, say 
 they. Now, the conqueror then justly not 
 only hmiteth the royal power of the con- 
 quered king, but wholly removeth his roy- 
 alty and unkinoeth him ; yet, we know, the 
 conqueror gave no royal power to the con- 
 quered king. Joshua and David took away 
 royal power which they never gave, and 
 therefore this is no good reason, — the people 
 gave not to the king royal power, therefore 
 they could not lawfully limit it and take it 
 away. 2. We cannot admit that God giv- 
 eth royal power immediately, without the 
 intervention of any act of law ; for it is an 
 act of law, that (Deut. xvii.) the people 
 chooseth such a king, not such a king ; that 
 the people, by a legal covenant, make Saul, 
 David, and Joash, kings, and that God ex- 
 erciseth any political action of making a 
 king over such subjects, upon such a con- 
 dition, is absurd and inconceivable ; for how 
 can God make Saul and David kings of Is- 
 rael upon this political and legal condition, 
 that they rule in justice and judgment, but 
 there must intervene a political action ? and 
 so they are not made kings immediately. 
 If God feed Moses by bread and manna, the 
 Lord's act of feeding is mediate, by the me- 
 diation of second causes ; if he feed Moses 
 forty days without eating any thing, the act 
 of feeding is immediate ; if God made Da- 
 vid king, as he made him a prophet, I should 
 think God immediately made him king; for 
 God asked consent of no man, of no people, 
 no, not of David himself, before he infused in 
 him the spirit of prophecy ; but he made him 
 formally king, by the political and legal co- 
 venant betwixt him and the people. I shall 
 not think that a covenant and oath of God 
 is a ceremony, especially a law-covenant, or 
 a political paction between David and the 
 people, the contents whereof behoved to be 
 de materia gravi et onerosa, concerning a 
 great part of obedience to the fifth command- 
 
230 
 
 LEX, REX : OR, 
 
 ment of God's moral law, the duties moral 
 concerning religion, and mercy, and justice, 
 to be performed reciprocally between king 
 and people. Oaths, I hope, are more than 
 ceremonies. 
 
 Quest. 12. — Whether or no the common- 
 wealth is not ever a pupil, never growing 
 to age, as a minor under nonage doth come 
 not to need a tutor, but the commonwealth 
 being still in need of a tutor, a governor, or 
 king, must always be a tutor, and so the 
 kingdom can never come to that condition 
 as to accuse the king, it always being minor. 
 
 Ans. — 1. Then can they never accuse infe- 
 rior judges, for a kingdom is perpetually in 
 such a nonage, as it cannot want them, when 
 sometimes it wanteth a king. 2. Can the 
 commonwealth, under democracy and aristo- 
 cracy, being perpetually under nonage, ever 
 then quarrel at these governments and never 
 seek a king ? By this reason they cannot. 3. 
 The king, in all respects, is not a tutor — 
 every comparison in something beareth a 
 leg ; for the commonwealth, in their own 
 persons, do choose a king, complain of a 
 king, and resist an Uzziah, and tie their 
 elective prince to a law. A pupil cannot 
 choose his tutor, either his dying father, or 
 the living law doth that service lor him ; he 
 cannot resist his tutor, he cannot tie his 
 tutor to a law, nor limit him, when first he 
 chooseth him. Pupillo non licet postulare 
 tutorem suspecti, quamdiu sub tutela est, et 
 manetimpubes. (I. Pietatis 6, in sin. C. de 
 susp. Tutor. I. impuberem. 7, and sect, irn- 
 puberes. Just. eod). 
 
 Quest. 13. — Whether or no subjects are 
 more obnoxious to a king than clients to 
 patrons, and servants to masters, because 
 the patron cannot be the client's judge, but 
 some superior magistrate must judge both, 
 and the slave had no refuge against his 
 master, but only flight ; and the king doth 
 confer infinite greater benefits on the sub- 
 jects, than the master doth on the slave, be- 
 cause he exposeth his life, pleasure, ease, 
 credit, and all for the safety of his subjects. 1 
 
 Ans. — 1. It is denied, for to draw the 
 case to fathers and lords, in respect of chil- 
 dren and vassals, the reason why sons, clients, 
 vassals, can neither formally judge, nor judi- 
 cially punish, fathers, patrons, lords, and mas- 
 ters, though never so tyrannous, is a moral 
 impotency, or a political incongruity, because 
 these relations of patron and client, fathers 
 
 1 Arnisaeus de authorit. princip., c. 3, n. 6. 
 
 and children, are supposed to be in a com- 
 munity, in which are rulers and judges above 
 the father and son, the patron and the client ; 
 but there is no physical incongruity that the 
 politic inferior punish the superior, if we sup- 
 pose there were no judges on the earth, and 
 no relation but patron and client ; and, be- 
 cause, for the father to destroy the children, 
 is a troubling of the harmony of nature, and 
 the highest degree of violence, therefore one 
 violence of self-defence, and that most just, 
 though contrary to nature, must be a remedy 
 against another violence ; but in a kingdom 
 there is no political ruler above both king and 
 people, and therefore, though nature have 
 not formally appointed the political relation 
 of a king rather than many governors and sub- 
 jects, yet hath nature appointed a court and 
 tribunal of necessity, in which the people may, 
 by innocent violence, repress the unjust vio- 
 lence of an injuring prince, so as the people 
 injured in the matter of self-defence may be 
 their own judge. 2. 1 wonder that any should 
 teach, That oppressed slaves had of old no 
 refuge against the tyranny of masters, but 
 only flight; for, (1.) The law expressly saith 
 that they might not only fly but also change 
 masters, which we all know was a great da- 
 mage to the master, to whom the servant 
 was as good as money in the purse. 1 (2.) I 
 have demonstrated before, by the law of na- 
 ture, and out of divers learned jurists, that 
 all inferiors may defend themselves by op- 
 posing violence against unjust violence ; to 
 say nothing that unanswerably I have proved 
 that the kingdom is superior to the king. 3. 
 It is true, Qui plus dat, plus obligat, as the 
 Scripture saith, (Luke vii.,) He that giveth 
 a greater benefit layeth a foundation of a 
 greater obligation. But, 1. If benefit be 
 compared with benefit, it is disputable if a 
 king give a greater benefit than an earthly 
 father, to whom, under God, the son is 
 debtor for life and being, if we regard the 
 compensation of eminency of honour and 
 riches, that the people putteth upon the 
 king ; but I utterly deny that a power to 
 act tyrannous acts, is any benefit or obliga- 
 tion, that the people in reason can lay upon 
 their prince, as a compensation or hire for 
 his great pains he taketh in his royal watch- 
 tower. I judge it no benefit, but a great 
 hurt, damage, and an ill of nature, both to 
 
 1 Servi indigne habiti confugiendi ad statuas, et 
 dominum mutandi copiaui habent, 1. 2. De bis qui 
 sunt sui. Item, C. de lat. Hered. toll. 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 231 
 
 king and people, that the people should 
 give to their prince any power to destroy 
 themselves, and therefore that people do 
 reverence and honour the prince most, who 
 lay strongest chains and iron fetters on him, 
 that he cannot tyrannise. 
 
 Quest. 14. — But are not subjects more 
 subject to their prince, (seeing the subjection 
 is natural, as we see bees and cranes,) to obey 
 him, than servants to their Lord ? x (C. in 
 Apib. 7, 9, 1, ex Hiero. 4, ad Rustic. 
 Monach. Plin. n. 17.) F.or jurists teach, 
 that servitude is beside or against nature, 
 (/. 5, de stat. homi. sect. 2, just, et jur. 
 pers. c. 3, sect, et sicut Nov. 89, quib. med. 
 not. eff. sui.) 
 
 Ans. — There is no question, in active 
 subjection to princes and fathers command- 
 ing in the Lord, we shall grant as high a 
 measure as you desire. But the question is, 
 if either active subjection to ill and unjust 
 mandates, or passive subjection to penal in- 
 flictions of tyranny and abused power, be 
 natural or most natural ; or if subjects do 
 renounce natural subjection to their prince, 
 when they oppose violence to unjust viol- 
 ence. This is to beg the question. And for 
 the commonwealth of bees and cranes, and 
 crown and sceptre amongst them, give me 
 leave to doubt of it. To be subject to 
 kings, is a divine moral law of God ; but 
 not properly natural to be subject to co- 
 action of the sword. Government and sub- 
 jection to parents, is natural ; but that a 
 king is juris naturae, strictim, I must crave 
 leave to doubt. I hold him to be a divine 
 moral ordinance, to which, in conscience, 
 we are to submit in the Lord. 
 
 Quest. 15. — Whether king Uzziah was 
 dethroned by the people ? 
 
 Ans. — Though we should say he was not 
 formally unkinged and dethroned, yet if the 
 royal power consist in an indivisible point, 
 as some royalists say, and if Uzziah was re- 
 moved to a private house, and could not 
 reign, being a leper ; certainly much royal 
 power was taken from. It is true, Arni- 
 saeus saith, 2 he neither could be compelled to 
 resign his power, nor was he compelled to 
 resign his royal authority ; but he willingly 
 resigned actual government, and remained 
 king, as tutors and curators are put upon 
 kings that are mad or stupid, and children, 
 
 1 Arnisaeus de authorit. princip. in popul. c. 3, n. 7. 
 
 2 Arnisaeus de jure Pontif. Rom. in Regna et 
 Princ. c. 5, n, 30. 
 
 who yet govern all by the authority of law- 
 ful kings. But that Uzziah did not denude 
 himself of the royal power voluntarily, is 
 clear. The reason (2 Chron. xxvi. 21) 
 why he dwelt in a house apart, and did not 
 actually reign, is, because he was a leper ; 
 for, " He was cut off (saith the text) from 
 the house of the Lord ; and Jotham, his 
 son, was over the king's house, judging the 
 people of the land." Whereby it is clear, 
 by the express law of God, he being a leper, 
 and so not by law to enter into the congre- 
 gation, he was cut off from the house of the 
 Lord ; and he being passive, is said to be 
 cut off from the Lord's house. Whether, 
 then, Uzziah turned necessity to a virtue, I 
 know not : it is evident, that God's law re- 
 moved the actual exercise of his power. If 
 we obtain this, which God's word doth give 
 us, we have enough for our purpose, though 
 Uzziah kept the naked title of a king, as in- 
 deed he took but up room in the catalogue of 
 kings. Now, if by law he was cut off from 
 actual governing, whether he was willing or 
 not willing to denude himself of reigning, 
 is all one. And to say, that furious men, 
 idiots, stupid men, and children, who must 
 do all royal acts by curators and tutors, are 
 kings jure, with correction, is petitio prin- 
 cipii ; for then hath God infused immedi- 
 ately from heaven (as royalists teach us) a 
 royal power to govern a kingdom, on those 
 who are as capable of royalty as blocks. I 
 conceive that the Lord (Deut. xvii. 14 — 17) 
 commandeth the people to make no blocks 
 kings ; and that the Lord hath not done 
 that himself in a binding law to us, which 
 we have no commandment from him to do. 
 I conceive that God made Josiah and Joash 
 kings typical, and in destination, for his pro- 
 mise sake to David, while they were chil- 
 dren, as well as he made them kings ; but 
 not actu completo ratione officii, to be a 
 rule to us now, to make a child of six years 
 of age a king by office. I conceive children 
 are to us only kings in destination and ap- 
 pointment ; and for idiots and fools, I shall 
 not believe (let royalists break their faith 
 upon so rocky and stony a point, at their 
 pleasure) that God hath made them gover- 
 nors of others, by royal office, who can scarce 
 number their own fingers ; or that God 
 tyeth a people to acknowledge stupid blocks 
 for royal governors of a kingdom, who can- 
 not govern themselves. But far be it from 
 me to argue with Bellarmme, (de pcenit. I. 
 3, c. 2,) from Uzziah's bodily leprosy to 
 
232 
 
 LEX, REX ; OR, 
 
 infer that any prince who is spiritually lep- 
 rous and turned heretical, is presently to be 
 dethroned. Nothing can dethrone a king 
 but such tyranny as is inconsistent with his 
 royal office. Nor durst I infer that kings, 
 now a-days, may be removed from actual 
 government for one single transgression. It 
 is true, eighty priests, and the whole king- 
 dom, so serving king Uzziah (their motives, 
 I know, were divine) proveth well that the 
 subjects may punish the transgression of 
 God's express law in the king, in some 
 cases even to remove him from the throne ; 
 but as from God's commanding to stone the 
 man that gathered sticks on the Sabbath- 
 day, we cannot infer that Sabbath-breakers 
 are now to be punished with death ; yet we 
 may well argue, Sabbath-breakers may be 
 punished, and Sabbath-breakers are not un- 
 punishable, and above all law; so may we 
 argue here, Uzziah, though a king, was pun- 
 ished ; therefore kings are punishable by 
 subjects. 
 
 Quest. 16. — "Whether or no, as the de- 
 nial of active obedience in things unlawful 
 is not dishonourable to the king, as king, he 
 being obliged to command in the Lord 
 only, so the denial of passive subjection to 
 the king using unjust violence, be also no 
 dishonouring of the king. 
 
 Ans. — As the king is under God's law 
 both in commanding and in exacting active 
 obedience, so is he under the same regulat- 
 ing law of God, in punishing or demanding 
 of us passive subjection, and as he may not 
 command what he will, but what the King 
 of kings warranteth him to command, so may 
 he not punish as he will, but by warrant 
 also of the Supreme Judge of all the earth ; 
 and therefore it is not dishonourable to the 
 majesty of the ruler, that we deny passive 
 subjection to him when he punisheth beside 
 his warrant, more than it is against Ids ma- 
 jesty and honour that we deny active obe- 
 dience when he commandeth illegally ; else 
 I see not how it is lawful to fly from a ty- 
 rannous king, as Elias, Christ, and other of 
 the witnesses of our Lord have done ; and, 
 therefore, what royalists say here is a great 
 untruth, namely, that in things lawful we 
 must be subject actively, — in things unlaw- 
 ful, passively. For as we are in things lawful 
 to be subject actively, so there is no duty in 
 point of conscience, laying on us to be sub- 
 ject passively, because I may lawfully fly, 
 and so lawfully deny passive subjection to 
 the king's will, punishing unjustly. 
 
 Quest. 17. — Whether the prince may make 
 away any part of his dominions, as an island, 
 or a kingdom, for the safety of the whole 
 kingdoms he hath ; as if goods be like to 
 sink an over-burthened ship, the seamen 
 cast away a part of the goods in the sea, to 
 save the lives of the whole passengers ; and 
 if three thousand passengers being in one 
 ship, and the ship in a storm like to be 
 lost, it would seem that a thousand may 
 be cast over board, to save the lives of the 
 whole passengers. 
 
 Ans. — The kingdom being not the king's 
 proper heritage, it would seem he cannot 
 make away any part of his kingdom to save 
 the whole, without the express consent of 
 that part, though they be made away to 
 save the whole. In things of this kind, 
 men are not as the commodities of mer- 
 chants, nor is the case alike ; as when one 
 thousand, of three thousand, are to be cast 
 into the sea to save all the rest, and that 
 either by common consent, or by lots, or some 
 other way ; for it is one thing, when destruc- 
 tion is evidently inevitable, as in the casting 
 so many men into the sea to save the whole 
 and many passengers, and when a king for 
 peace, or for help from another king, mak- 
 eth away part of his dominion. The Lord 
 is here to be waited on in his good provi- 
 dence, and events are to be committed to 
 him ; but far less, can it be imaginably law- 
 ful for a king to make away a part of his do- 
 minions without their consent, that he may 
 have help from a foreign prince to destroy 
 the rest : this were to make merchandise of 
 the lives of men. 1 
 
 Quest. 18. — Whether or no the conven- 
 ing of the subjects, without the king's will, 
 be unlawful. 
 
 Ans. — The convention of men, of itself, 
 is an indifferent thing, and taketh its speci- 
 fication from its causes, and manner of con- 
 vening, though some convention of the sub- 
 jects without the king, be forbidden ; yet 
 ratio legis est anima legis, the reason and 
 intent of the law, is the soul of the law. 
 Convention of the subjects, in a tumultuary 
 way, for a seditious end, to make war with- 
 out warrant of law, is forbidden ; but not 
 when religion, laws, liberties, invasion of fo- 
 reign enemies, necessitateth the subjects to 
 
 i Ferdinan. Vasquez Must, quest. 1. 1, c. 3, n. 8, 
 juri alieno quisquam nee in minima parte obesse 
 potest. 1. id quod nostru. F. de reg. jur. 1. jur. natu. 
 cod. titul. 1. 
 
THE LAW AND THE PRIXCE. 
 
 23: ; 
 
 convene, though the king and ordinary judi- 
 catures, going a corrupt way to pervert judg- 
 ment, shall refuse to consent to their con- 
 ventions. Upon which ground, no conven- 
 tion of tahles at Edinburgh, or any other 
 place, (an. 1637, 1638, 1639,) can be judged 
 there unlawful ; for if these be unlawful, be- 
 cause they are conventions of the leagues, 
 without express act of parliament, then the 
 convention of the leagues to quench a house 
 on fire, and the convention of a country to 
 pursue a wolf entered in the land to destroy 
 women and children, which are warranted 
 | by the law of nature, should be lawless, or 
 against acts of parliament. 
 
 Quest. 19. — Whether the subjects be ob- 
 liged to pay the debts of the king. 
 
 Ans. — These debts which the king con- 
 tracted! as king, in throno regali, the peo- 
 ple are to pay. For the law of nature and 
 the divine law doth prove, that to every ser- 
 vant and minister wages is due. (Horn. xiii. 
 5, 6, compared with verse 4, and 1 Cor. ix. 
 9—12 ; 1 Tim. v. 18.) If the prince be 
 taken in a war, for the defence of the people, 
 it is just that he be redeemed by them : so 
 the law saith, (tit. F. et C. de negotiis ges- 
 tis, et F. et C. Manda.) But, Ferdinandus 
 Vasquez (Must, quest. I. 1, c. 7, n. 6, 
 Vicesimo tertio apparet, &c.) saith, if the 
 prince was not doing the business of the 
 public, and did make war without advice 
 and consent of the people, then are they not 
 to redeem him. Now certain it is, when 
 the king raiseth war, and saith, " God do 
 so to me and mine, if I intend any thing but 
 peace," yet maketh war not only against his 
 oath, but also without consent of the parlia- 
 ment, and a parliament at that time convo- 
 cated by his own royal writ, and not raised, 
 and dissolved at all, but still sitting formally a 
 parliament ; if he borrow money from his own 
 subjects, and from foreign princes, to raise war 
 against his subjects and parliament, then the 
 people are not obliged to pay his debts, 1. Be- 
 cause they are obliged to the king only as a 
 king, and not as an enemy ; but in so raising- 
 war he cannot he considered as a king. 2. 
 Though if the people agree with him, and 
 still acknowledge him king ; it is impossible, 
 physice, he can be their king, and they not 
 pay his debts ; yet they sin not, but may, 
 ex decentia, non ex debito legali, pay his 
 debts, yet are they not obliged by any law 
 of God or man to pay his debts. But though 
 it be true, by all law the king is obliged to 
 pay his debt, (except we say, that all the 
 
 people's goods are the king's : a compendious 
 way, I confess, to pay all that any voluptu- 
 ous Heliogabolus shall contract,) yet it may 
 easily be proved, that what his subjects and fo- 
 reign princes lent him to the raising of an un- 
 just war are not properly debts, but expenses 
 unjustly given out under the reduplication of 
 formal enemies to the country, and so not 
 payable by the subjects ; and this is evident 
 by law, because one may give most unjustly 
 monies to his neighbour, under the notion of 
 loan, which yet hath nothing of the essence 
 of loan and debt, but is mere delapidation, 
 and cannot properly be debt by God's law ; for 
 the law regulateth a man in borrowing and 
 lending, as in other politic actions. If I, out 
 of desire of revenge, should lend monies to 
 a robber to buy powder and fuel to burn 
 an innocent city, or to buy armour to kill 
 innocent men, I deny that that is legally 
 debt. I dispute not whether A. B., bor- 
 rowing money formally, that thereby he may 
 waste it on debauchery, shall be obliged to 
 repay it to C. D. under the reduplication 
 of debt ; or if the borrower be obliged 
 to pay what the lender hath unjustly lent. 
 I dare not pray to God that all our king's 
 debts may be paid ; I have scarce faith so 
 to do. 
 
 Quest. 20. — Whether subsidies be due to 
 the king as king. 
 
 Ans. — There is a twofold subsidy ; one 
 dcbitum, of debt; another, eharitativum, 
 by way of charity. A subsidy of debt is 
 rather the kingdom's due for their neces- 
 sity than the king's due, as a part of his 
 rent. We read ol customs due to the king- 
 as king, and for conscience sake, (Rom. xiii. 
 5, 6,) never of a subsidy or taxation to the 
 kings of Israel and Judah, at any conven- 
 tion of the states. Augustus Caesar's taxing 
 of all the world (Luke ii.) for the mainten- 
 ance of wars, cannot be the proper rent of 
 Augustus, as emperor, but the rent of the 
 Roman empire ; and it is but the act of a 
 man. Charitative subsidies to the king, of 
 indulgence, because, through bad husband- 
 ing oi the king's rente, he hath contracted 
 debts, I judge no better than royal and 
 princely begging. Yet lawful they are, as 
 I owe charity to my brother, so to my father, 
 so to my politic father the king. See Ferd. 
 Vasq. (Must, quest. 1.1, e. 8) who desireth 
 that superiors, under the name of charity, 
 hide not rapine, and citeth Cicero, gravely 
 saying, (ojic. 1. 1,) " Nulla generi humano et 
 justitice major pestis est, quam eorum, qui 
 
234 
 
 LEX, HEX. 
 
 dum maxime fallunt, id agunt, ut boni viri 
 esse videantur," fyc 
 
 Quest. 21. — Whether the seas, floods, 
 roadways, castles, ports, public magazine, 
 militia, armour, forts, and strongholds be 
 the king's. 
 
 Arts. — All these may be understood to 
 be the king's in divers notions. 1. They 
 are the king's, quoad custodiam, et publi- 
 cam possessionem, as a pawn is the man's in 
 whose hand the pawn is laid down. 2. They 
 are the king's, quoad jurisdictionem cumu- 
 lativam, non privativam. The king is to 
 direct, and royally to command, that the 
 castles, forts, ports, strongholds, armour, ma- 
 gazine, militia, be employed for the safety of 
 the kingdom. All the ways, bridges, and 
 public roadways, are the king's, in so far as 
 he, as a public and royal watchman, is to se- 
 cure the subject from robbers, and to cog- 
 nosce of unknown murders, by himself and 
 the inferior judges ; yet may not the king- 
 employ any of these against the kingdom. 
 3. They are the kings, as he is king, quoad 
 ojicialem, et regalem, et publicam proprie- 
 iate.n ; for he hath a royal and princely pro- 
 
 priety to all these, as his own, in so far as he 
 useth them according to law. 4. And thus 
 they are the king's also, quoad usum, in 
 regard of official use. But, 1. They are 
 the kingdom's, quoad fructum, in regard 
 of the effect and fruit. 2. They are the 
 kingdom's, finaliter, being destinated for the 
 safety and security of the kingdom. 3. 
 They are the kingdom's, quoad proprie- 
 tatem propriam, et legalem stride sump- 
 tam, according to the proper and legal 
 propriety ; and are not the king's proper 
 heritage as he is a man: 1. Because he 
 may not sell these forts, strongholds, ports, 
 magazine, bridges, &c. to a stranger, or a 
 foreign prince. 2. When the king is dead, 
 and his heirs and royal line interrupted, 
 these all remain proper to the kingdom ; yet 
 so as the state cannot, as they are men, 
 make them away, or sell them, more than 
 the king ; for no public persons, yea the mul- 
 titude cannot make away the security, safety, 
 and that which necessarily conduceth to the 
 security of the posterity. " The Lord build 
 his own Zion, and appoint salvation for 
 walls and bulwarks !" 
 
DE JURE REGNI APUD SCOTOS; 
 
 A DIALOGUE 
 
 CONCERNING 
 
 THE RIGHTS OF THE CROWN IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 J5Y GEORGE BUCHANAN. 
 
 TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH 
 
 BY ROBERT MACFARLAN. A.M. 
 
GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 WISHES MUCH GOOD HEALTH TO 
 
 JAMES THE SIXTH, KING OF THE SCOTS. 
 
 Several years ago, when public affairs were in 
 the greatest confusion, I wrote on the prerogative 
 of the Scottish crown a Dialogue, in which I en- 
 deavoured to explain from their very cradle, if I 
 may use the expression, the mutual rights of our 
 kings and of their subjects. Though that book 
 seemed to have been serviceable at the time, by 
 shutting the mouths of certain persons, who with 
 importunate clamours rather inveighed against the 
 existing state of things than weighed what was right 
 in the scale of reason, yet influenced by the return 
 of a little tranquillity, I also laid down my arms with 
 pleasure on the altar of public concord. But having 
 lately by accident lighted on this composition among 
 my papers, and thought it interspersed with many 
 remarks necessary to a person raised like you to an 
 eminence so interesting to mankind, I have judged 
 its publication expedient, that it might both testify 
 my zeal for your service and also remind you of 
 your duty to the community. Many circumstances 
 also assure me that my endeavour on this occasion 
 will not be fruitless ; especially your age not yet 
 corrupted by wrong opinions ; and a genius above 
 your years spontaneously urging you to everything 
 noble; and an easy flexibility in obeying not only 
 your preceptors, but also all wise monitors ; and 
 that judgment and sagacity in disquisition, which 
 prevent you from allowing great weight to autho- 
 rity, when it is not supported by solid arguments. 
 I see also that, by a kind of natural instinct, you so 
 abhor flattery, the vile nurse of tyranny and the 
 
 very pest of legal sovereignty, that you hate the 
 solecisms and barbarisms of courtiers no less than 
 they are relished and affected by those who in their 
 own eyes appear connoisseurs in every species of 
 elegance, and, as if they were delicate seasonings to 
 conversation, interlard every sentence with majes- 
 ties, lordships, excellencies, and, if it be possible, 
 with other expressions of a still more offensive 
 savour. Though you be at present secured from 
 this error, both by the goodness of your natural 
 disposition and by the instructions of your gover- 
 nors, yet I cannot help being somewhat afraid that 
 the blandishments of that pander of vice, evil com- 
 munication, should give a wrong bias to a mind that 
 is yet so pliant and tender; especially as I am not 
 ignorant with what facility our other senses yield to 
 seduction. This treatise, therefore, I have sent you 
 not only as a monitor, but also as an importunate 
 and even impudent dun ; that in this critical turn of 
 life it may guide you beyond the rocks of flattery, 
 and not only give you advice, but also keep you in 
 the road which you so happily entered, and, in case 
 of any deviation, replace you in the line of your duty. 
 If you obey its directions, you will insure to your- 
 self and to your family in the present life temporal 
 tranquillity, and in the future, eternal glory. Fare- 
 well. 
 
 At Stirling on the 10th of Jan- j 
 uary in the year of the Chris- > 
 tian Era 1579. J 
 
DE JURE REGNI APUD SCOTOS; 
 
 A DIALOGUE 
 
 CONCERNING* 
 
 THE RIGHTS OF THE CROWN IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 When, upon Thomas Maitland's return 
 lately from the continent, I had questioned 
 him minutely about the state of affairs in 
 France, I began, out of my attachment to 
 his person, to recommend to him a persever- 
 ance in that career to glory which he had so 
 happily begun, and to inspire him with the 
 best hopes of the progress and result of his 
 studies. For, if I, with moderate talents, 
 with hardly any fortune, and in an illiterate 
 acre, had still maintained such a conflict 
 with the iniquity of the times, as to be 
 thought to have achieved something, as- 
 suredly those who were born in happier 
 days, and possess time, wealth and genius in 
 abundance, ought not to be deterred from 
 so honourable a purpose by its labour ; and, 
 when aided by so many resources, cannot 
 reasonably yield to despair. They should 
 therefore proceed to use every effort in 
 communicating splendour to literature, and 
 in recommending themselves and their coun- 
 trymen to the notice of posterity. If they 
 continued for a little their joint exertions, 
 the consequence would be, that they would 
 eradicate from the minds of men an opinion, 
 that in the frigid regions of the globe the 
 learning, politeness and ingenuity of the in- 
 habitants diminish in proportion to their 
 distance from the sun ; for, though nature 
 may have favoured the Africans, Egyptians, 
 and most other nations with quicker con- 
 ceptions and greater keenness of intellect, 
 
 yet she has been so unkind to no tribe as to 
 
 have entirely precluded it from all access to 
 
 virtue and glory. 
 
 Here, when, according to his usual mo- 
 desty, he had spoken of himself with diffi- 
 dence, but of me with more affection than 
 truth, the course of conversation at last led 
 us so far, that, when he had questioned me 
 concerning the convulsed state of our coun- 
 try, and I had made him such an answer as 
 I thought calculated for the time, I began, 
 in my turn, to ask him what sentiments 
 either the French, or any strangers that 
 he met in France, entertained concerning 
 Scottish affairs ; for I had no doubt that 
 the novelty of the events would, as is usual, 
 have furnished occasion and matter for poli- 
 tical discussions. 
 
 " Why," says he, " do you address to me 
 such a question ? For, since you know the 
 whole train of events, and are not unac- 
 quainted with what most people say, and al- 
 most all think, you may easily conjecture, 
 from the internal conviction of your own 
 mind, what is, or at least what ought to be, 
 the opinion of all mankind." 
 
 B.— But the more distant foreign nations 
 are, and the fewer causes they have from 
 that distance for anger, for hatred, for love, 
 and for other passions likely to make the 
 mind swerve from truth, the more ingenu- 
 ous and open they commonly are in judging, 
 and the more freely they speak what they 
 think ; and this very freedom of speech and 
 mutual interchange of thought removes much 
 obscurity, disentangles many knotty points, 
 converts doubts into certainties, and may shut 
 the mouths of the dishonest and designing, 
 and instruct the weak and unenlightened. 
 
240 
 
 DE JURE REGNI APUD SCOTOS ; OR, 
 
 M. — Would you have me be ingenuous in 
 my answer? 
 
 B.— Why not ? 
 
 M. — Though I was strongly actuated by 
 a desire of revisiting, after a long absence, 
 my country, my parents, my relations and 
 friends, yet nothing inflamed this passion so 
 much as the language of the untutored 
 multitude. For, however firm I had thought 
 the temper of my mind, rendered either by 
 the effects of habit or by the precepts of 
 philosophy, yet, when the event now under 
 consideration occurred, I could not, by some 
 fatality, conceal its softness and effeminacy. 
 For, as the shocking enormity here lately 
 exhibited was unanimously detested by all 
 orders of men, and the perpetrator still un- 
 certain, the vulgar, always swayed rather by 
 momentary impulse than by sound discre- 
 tion, imputed a fault of a few to the many ; 
 and the common hatred to the misdeed of 
 private individuals so overwhelmed the 
 whole nation, that even those who stood 
 most remote from suspicion laboured under 
 the infamy of other men's crimes. There- 
 fore, till this storm of calumny should sub- 
 side into a calm, I readily took shelter in 
 this port, where, however, I fear that I 
 have struck against a rock. 
 
 B. — For what reason, I beseech you ? 
 
 M. — Because the minds of all men, being 
 already heated, seem to me likely to be so 
 much inflamed by the atrocity of the late 
 crime as to leave no room for defence. For 
 how can I resist the attack not only of the 
 uninformed multitude, but even of those 
 who assume the character of politicians, 
 while both will exclaim that our ferocious 
 rage was not satiated by murdering, with 
 unparalleled cruelty, an innocent youth, but 
 exhibited a new example of barbarity in 
 the persecution of women, a sex that is 
 spared even by hostile armies at the capture 
 of cities ? From what horror, indeed, will 
 any dignity or any majesty deter men who 
 are guilty of such outrage to their princes ? 
 After these enormities, whom will justice, 
 morality, law, respect for sovereignty or 
 reverence for legal magistracy, restrain 
 through shame or check through fear? 
 When the exercise of the supreme execu- 
 tive power is become the ridicule of the 
 lowest rabble, when trampling upon every 
 distinction between right and wrong, be- 
 tween honour and dishonour, men degener- 
 ate, almost by common consent, into savage 
 barbarity. To these and still more atrocious 
 
 charges I know that I shall be forced, upon 
 my return to France, to listen, as the 
 ears of all have in the meantime been so 
 thoroughly shut as to be susceptible of no 
 apology, nor even of a satisfactory defence. 
 
 B. — But I will easily relieve you from 
 this apprehension, and clear our nation from 
 so false an imputation. For, if foreigners 
 so heartily execrate the heinousness of the 
 antecedent crime, where is the propriety of 
 reprobating the severity of the subsequent 
 punishment ? Or, if they are vexed at the 
 degradation of the queen, the former must 
 necessarily meet with their approbation. 
 Do you, therefore, choose to which of the 
 two cases you wish to attach guilt ; for 
 neither they nor you, if you mean to be 
 consistent, can either praise or dispraise 
 both. 
 
 M. — The murder of the king I certainly 
 detest and abominate, and am glad that the 
 odium of conscious guilt does not fall upon 
 the public, but is attributable to the villany 
 of a few desperadoes ; but the latter act I 
 cannot either wholly approve or disapprove. 
 The detection by sagacity and industry of 
 the most nefarious deed mentioned in any 
 history, and the vengeance awaiting the 
 wicked perpetrators from open hostilities, 
 appear to me glorious and memorable 
 achievements. But with the degradation of 
 the chief magistrate, and with the contempt 
 brought upon the royal name, which has 
 been among all nations constantly held 
 sacred and inviolable, I know not how all 
 the nations of Europe will be effected, 
 especially those that live under a regal 
 government. As for myself, though not 
 ignorant of the adverse pretences and alle- 
 gations, I feel violent emotions either from 
 the magnitude or novelty of the event ; and 
 the more so that some of its authors are 
 connected with me by the closest intimacy. 
 
 B. — Now, methinks, I can nearly discern 
 what it is that affects you, but not perhaps 
 so much as it touches those iniquitous esti- 
 mators of other men's merit, to whom you 
 think, satisfaction is due. Of those who will 
 violently condemn the forcible seizure of the 
 queen, I reckon three principal divisions. 
 One is peculiarly pernicious, as it compre- 
 hends the panders to the lusts of tyrants, 
 wretches who think no act unjust or dis- 
 honourable by which they conceive that 
 kings may be gratified, and who measure 
 every thing not by its intrinsic value, but by 
 the passions of their masters. These are 
 
THE RUMITS OF THE CROWN IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 241 
 
 such venal devotees to the desires of an- 
 other that they have retained freedom 
 neither of speech nor of action. From this 
 band proceeded the banditti, who, [without 
 any cause of enmity, and merely with the 
 hopes of preferment and power at court, 
 sacrificed, in the most cruel manner, an in- 
 nocent youth to another's lust. While these 
 hypocrites pretend to lament the fate of the 
 queen, and to sigh and groan over her mise- 
 ries, they mean only to provide for their 
 own security, and really grieve at seeing the 
 enormous reward for their execrable villany, 
 which they had devoured in imagination, 
 snatched out of their jaws. This sort of 
 people ought, therefore, in my opinion, to 
 be chastised not so much by words as by 
 the severity of the laws and by the force of 
 arms. Others look totally to their own af- 
 fairs. These, though in other respects by 
 no means bad men, are not vexed, as they 
 would wish us to think, at the injury done to 
 the public, but at their own domestic losses ; 
 and therefore seem to me to need consola- 
 tion rather than any remedy derivable from 
 reason or from law. The remainder consist 
 of the rude and undistinguishing multitude, 
 who wonder and gape at every novelty, who 
 censure almost every occurrence, and think 
 hardly anything right but what is either 
 their own act or what is done under their 
 own eye. For every departure from the 
 practice of their ancestors they think a pro- 
 portionate deviation from justice and equity. 
 These being swayed neither by malice nor 
 by envy, nor by any regard to self-interest, 
 are generally susceptible of instruction and 
 of being reclaimed from error, and com- 
 monly yield to the force of reasoning and 
 conviction ; a truth of which we now have, 
 and formerly often had, experience in the 
 case of religion ; for 
 
 Where's the savage we to tame should fear, 
 If he to culture lend a patient ear ? 
 
 M. — That remark we have more than 
 once found to be perfectly just. 
 
 B. — What if, in order to silence this 
 multitude, you should ask the most clamor- 
 ous and importunate their opinion concern- 
 ing the fate of Caligula, of Nero and of Do- 
 mitian ; I presume that none of them would 
 be so servilely attached to the regal name 
 as not to acknowledge that they were justly 
 punished ? 
 
 M. — Possibly what you say may be true. 
 But the same persons will immediately ex- 
 
 claim that they do not complain of the 
 punishment of tyrants, but feel indignant 
 at the undeserved calamities of legal sove- 
 reigns. 
 
 B. — Do not you then see how easily the 
 multitude may be pacified ? 
 
 M. — Not yet. The matter seems to re- 
 quire more elucidation. 
 
 B. — I will, by a few words, make it intel- 
 ligible. The vulgar, according to you, ap- 
 prove the murder of tyrants, but compas- 
 sionate the sufferings of kings. Do not you 
 think, then, that if they should clearly un- 
 derstand the difference between a tyrant 
 and a king, it will be possible, in most par- 
 ticulars, to alter their opinion ? 
 
 M. — Were all to acknowledge the justice 
 of killing tyrants, it would open a wide inlet 
 for the diffusion of light upon the subject. 
 But some men there are, and those of no 
 contemptible authority, who, though they 
 subject legal sovereigns to penal laws, con- 
 tend for the sacredness of tyrants; and, 
 though their decision is certainly in my opi- 
 nion absurd, yet they are ready to fight 
 for their government, however extravagant 
 and intolerable, as for their own altars "and 
 hearths. 
 
 B. — I also have more than once met with 
 various individuals who obstinately main- 
 tained the same doctrine ; but whether 
 they were right or wrong we shall else- 
 where more commodiously examine. In 
 the meantime, if you will, let this point be 
 taken for granted, upon condition that, if 
 you do not afterwards find it sufficiently de- 
 monstrated, you may at pleasure resume the 
 subject for discussion. 
 
 M. — Upon these terms I have no objec- 
 tion. 
 
 B. — We shall then establish it as an axiom 
 that a king and a tyrant are contraries. 
 
 M.— Be it so. 
 
 B. — He then who has explained the ori- 
 gin and the causes of creating kinos, and the 
 duties of kings to their subjects, and of sub- 
 jects to their kings, must be allowed to have 
 by the contrast, nearly explained whatever 
 relates to the nature of a tyrant. 
 
 M. — I think so. 
 
 B. — And when the picture of each is ex- 
 hibited, do not you think that the people 
 will also understand what is their duty to 
 each? 
 
 M. — Nothing is more likely. 
 
 B.— But in things extremely dissimilar, 
 and withal of the same general class, there 
 2 K 
 
212 
 
 JURE REGNI APUD SCOTOS ; OR, 
 
 may be certain dissimilarities very apt to 
 lead the inadvertent into error. 
 
 M. — That may indisputably be the case, 
 and particularly when an inferior character 
 finds it easy to assume the appearance of a 
 superior, and studies nothing so much as to 
 impose upon ignorance. 
 
 B. — Have you in your mind any distinct 
 picture of a king and a tyrant, for, if you 
 have, you will ease me of much labour ? 
 
 M. — The figure of both, which I have in 
 my mind, I could certainly delineate with 
 ease ; but it would appear to your eyes, I 
 fear, rude and misshapen. Therefore, lest, 
 by forcing you to rectify my errors, the con- 
 versation should exceed the due bounds, I 
 choose rather to hear the sentiments adop- 
 ted by you, who have the advantage of me 
 both in age and experience, and not only 
 know the opinions of others, but have also 
 visited in person many states, and noted 
 their manners and customs. 
 
 B. — That I shall do, and with pleasure ; 
 nor shall I expound so much my own as the 
 opinion of the ancients, that more weight and 
 authority may accompany my words, as not 
 being framed for the present occasion, but 
 extracted from the doctrines of those who 
 were entirely unconnected with this contro- 
 versy, anddelivered their sentiments with no 
 less eloquence than brevity, without hatred, 
 without favour or envy, for which they could 
 not have the most distant motive ; and I 
 shall adopt principally the opinions not of 
 those who grew old in the shades of inacti- 
 vity, but of men who were in well-regulated 
 states distinguished at home and abroad for 
 wisdom and virtue. But, before I produce 
 their testimony, I wish to ask you a few 
 questions, that, when we have agreed upon 
 some points of no small importance, I may 
 not be compelled to deviate from my in- 
 tended course, and to dwell either upon 
 the explanation or confirmation of matters 
 that are evident, and almost acknowledged 
 truths. 
 
 M. — Your plan I approve ; and, there- 
 fore, if you have any question to ask, pro- 
 ceed? 
 
 B. — Is it your opinion that there was a 
 time when men lived in huts and even in 
 caves, and strolled at random, without laws, 
 without settled habitations, like mere va- 
 grants, uniting in herds as they were led by 
 fancy and caprice, or invited by some con- 
 venience and common advantage ? 
 
 M. — That is certainly my firm belief; 
 
 for it is not only consonant to the order of 
 nature, but also sanctioned by almost all the 
 histories of all nations. Of that rude and 
 uncultivated life we have, from Homer's pen, 
 a picturesque description soon after the Tro- 
 jan war among the Sicilians : — 
 
 " By them no statute and no right was known, 
 No council held, no monarch fills the throne ; 
 But high on hills or airy cliffs they dwell, 
 Or deep in caverns or some rocky cell ; 
 Each rules his race, his neighbour not his care, 
 Heedless of others, to his own severe." 
 
 At the same period, too, Italy is said to 
 have been equally uncultivated; so that, 
 from the state of the most fertile regions of 
 the globe, it is easy to form a conjecture that 
 the rest were nothing but wild and desolate 
 wastes. 
 
 B. — But which of the two do you think 
 most conformable to nature ; that vagrant 
 and solitary life, or the social and unanimous 
 assemblage of men ? 
 
 M. — Undoubtedly the unanimous assem- 
 blage of men, whom 
 
 " Utility herself, from whom, on earth, 
 Justice and equity derive their birth," 
 
 first collected into masses and taught, 
 
 " Fenc'd by one wall, and by one key and bar, 
 From open'd gates to pour the tide of war." 
 
 B. — What ! do you imagine that utility 
 was the first and principal cause of human 
 union? 
 
 M. — Why not ? since the lesson incul- 
 cated by the greatest sages is, that men 
 were made by nature for men. 
 
 B.— To certain individuals, indeed, uti- 
 lity seems to have great influence, both in 
 the formation and in the maintenance of 
 society. But, if I am not mistaken, their 
 assemblage claims a much higher origin, 
 and the bond of their union is of a much 
 earlier and more venerable date. For, if 
 every individual were to pay attention only 
 to his own interest, there is ground for sus- 
 pecting, I fear, that this very utility would 
 rather dissolve than unite society. 
 
 M. — That observation may, perhaps, be 
 true. But I should be glad to hear what is 
 your other source of human association. 
 
 B. — It is a certain innate propensity, not 
 only in men, but also in other animals of 
 the gentler tribes, to associate readily, even 
 without the allurements of utility, with be- 
 ings of their own species. But of the brute 
 creation it is not our present business to 
 
THE RIGHTS OF THE CROWN IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 243 
 
 treat. Men we certainly find so deeply 
 impressed, and so forcibly swayed by this 
 natural principle, that, if any of them were 
 to enjoy, in abundance, everything that is 
 calculated either for the preservation and 
 health of the body, or for the pleasure and 
 amusement of the mind, he must, without 
 human intercourse, experience life to be a 
 burden. This is such a notorious truth that 
 even the persons who, from a love of science 
 and a desire of investigating truth, have re- 
 tired from the bustle of the world and lived 
 recluse in sequestered retreats, have neither 
 been able, for a length of time, to bear a per- 
 petual exertion of mind, nor, upon discover- 
 ing the necessity of relaxation, to remain 
 immured in solitude, but readily produced 
 the very result of their studies ; and, as if 
 they had laboured for the common good, 
 added the fruit of their labours to the com- 
 mon stock. Hence it is my opinion, that if 
 any person be so attached to solitude as to 
 shun and fly the society of men, he is ac- 
 tuated rather by a disease of the mind than a 
 principle of nature. Such, according to 
 report, was Timon of Athens, and Belle- 
 rophon of Corinth, 
 
 " A wretch, who, preying in corrosive pain 
 On his own vitals, roam'd the Aleian plain 
 With comfortless and solitary pace, 
 Shunning the commerce of the human race." 
 
 M. — Here our sentiments are not far 
 from coincidence. But the term nature, 
 adopted by you, is an expression, which, 
 from habit, I often use rather than under- 
 stand ; and it is applied by others so va- 
 riously, and to such a multitude of objects, 
 that I am generally at a loss about the idea 
 which it conveys. 
 
 B. — At present I certainly wish nothing 
 else to be understood by it but the light in- 
 fused into our minds by the divinity ; for, 
 since God created this dignified animal 
 
 " Erect, of deeper reach of thought possess'd, 
 And fit to be the lord of all the rest," 
 
 he not only bestowed upon his body eyes, 
 by whose guidance he might shun what is 
 adverse, and pursue what is adapted to his 
 condition, but also presented to his mind a 
 kind of light, by which he might distinguish 
 vice and infamy from virtue and honour. 
 This power some call nature, some the law 
 of nature : I certainly hold it to be divine, 
 and am thoroughly persuaded that 
 
 " Nature and wisdom's voices are the same," 
 
 Of this law, too, we have from God a kind 
 of abridgement, comprehending the whole 
 in a few words, when he commands us to 
 love him with all our heart, and our neigh- 
 bours as ourselves. The sacred volumes, in 
 all the books which relate to the formation 
 of mortals, contain hardly anything else but 
 an explanation of this law. 
 
 M. — Do you then conceive that human 
 society derives its origin not from any ora- 
 tor or lawyer that collected the dispersed 
 tribes of men, but from God himself? 
 
 B. — That is positively my opinion ; and, 
 in the words of Cicero, I think that no- 
 thing done upon earth is more acceptable to 
 the sovereign Diety, that rules this world, 
 than assemblages of men called states, and 
 united upon principles of justice. The dif- 
 ferent members of these states politicians 
 wish to have connected by ties similar to 
 the coherence subsisting between all the 
 limbs of our body, to be cemented by mu- 
 tual good offices, to labour for the general 
 interest, to repel dangers and secure ad- 
 vantages in common, and, by a reciprocation 
 of benefits, to conciliate the affections of 
 the whole community. 
 
 M. — You do not then assign utility as 
 the cause of men's union in society, but the 
 law implanted in our minds by God at our 
 birth, which you hold to be a much higher 
 and more divine origin ? 
 
 B. — I admit of utility as one cause, but 
 not as the absolute mother of justice and 
 equity, as some would have her ; but rather 
 as her handmaid, and one of the guardians 
 of a well-regulated community. 
 
 M. — Here also I have no difficulty in 
 expressing my concurrence and assent. 
 
 B. — Now as our bodies, which consist of 
 repugnant principles, are liable to diseases, 
 that is, to passions and certain internal com- 
 motions ; so in like manner must those 
 larger bodies called states, as they are com- 
 posed of different, and in some measure, of 
 incompatible ranks, conditions, and disposi- 
 tions of men, and of men, too, 
 
 " Who cannot, with a fixed and steady view, 
 Even for an hour a single plan pursue." 
 
 Hence, the latter must certainly, like the 
 former, come to a speedy dissolution, unless 
 their tumults are calmed by a kind of phy- 
 sician, who, adopting an equable and salu- 
 tary temperament, braces the weaker parts 
 by fomentations, checks the redundant hu- 
 mours, and provides for the several mem- 
 
2i4 
 
 JURE RKGXI APUD SCOTOS ; OR, 
 
 bers, so that neither the feebler parts may 
 waste through want, nor the stronger grow 
 tao luxuriant through excess. 
 
 M. — These would be the consequences 
 that must inevitably ensue. 
 
 B.— By what name shall we qualify him 
 who shall perform the part of physician to 
 the body politic ? 
 
 M. — About the name I am not very 
 anxious; but such a personage, whatever 
 Ins name may be, I hold to be of the first 
 excellence, and to have the strongest re- 
 semblance to the divinity. In this respect 
 much forecast seems discovered in the wis- 
 dom of our ancestors, who distinguished an 
 office so honourable in its own nature by a 
 very splendid name. For you mean, I sup- 
 pose, a king, a term, of which the import 
 is such, that it renders a thing of the most 
 excellent and transcendent nature almost 
 visible to our eyes. 
 
 B. — You judge rightly, for by that ap- 
 pellation we address the Deity; since we 
 have not a more magnificent title to express 
 the pre-eminence of his excellent nature, 
 nor one better adapted for expressing Lis 
 paternal care and affection. Why should I 
 collect other words that are metaphorically 
 used to signify the office of a king, such as 
 father, shepherd of the people, guide, prince, 
 and governor? The latent intention of all 
 these expressions is to show that kings were 
 made not for themselves but for the people. 
 And, now that we seem agreed about the 
 name, let us, if you please, discuss the office, 
 still treading the path which we have hither- 
 to pursued. 
 
 M. — What path I beseech you ? 
 
 B. — You recollect what has been just 
 said, that states have a great resemblance 
 to the human body, civil commotions to di- 
 seases, and kings to physicians. If there- 
 fore we understand the business of a physi- 
 cian, we shall not be far, I presume, from 
 comprehending the duty of a king. 
 
 M. — It may be so ; for, by the compara- 
 tive view which you have exhibited, they 
 i '■ appear to have not only a great resemblance, 
 but even a strong affinity. 
 
 B. — Do not expect that I should here 
 discuss every minute particular ; for it is 
 what is neither allowed by the limits of our 
 time, nor required by the nature of the sub- 
 ject. But, if I show you that there is a strik- 
 ing similarity in the most prominent features, 
 your own imagination will readily suggest 
 what is omitted, and complete the picture. 
 
 M. — Proceed, as you have begun. 
 B. — Each seems also to have the same 
 object in view. 
 
 M.— What object ? 
 
 B. — The preservation of the body com- 
 mitted to his care. 
 
 M. — I understand. For the one ought, 
 as far as the nature of the case will admit, 
 to maintain the human body, and the other 
 the body politic, in a sound state ; and, 
 when they happen to be affected with a 
 disease, to restore them to good health. 
 
 B. — Your conception of the matter is 
 just ; for the office of each is twofold,- — the 
 maintenance of a sound, and the recovery of 
 a distempered constitution. 
 M.— Such is my idea. 
 B. — For in both cases the diseases are 
 similar. 
 
 M. — So they seem. 
 
 B. — For both are injured by a certain 
 redundance of what is noxious, and by a 
 deficiency of what is salutary; and they 
 are both cured nearly by a similar process, 
 either by nursing, or gently cherishing the 
 body when emaciated, or relieving it when 
 full and overburdened by the discharge of 
 superfluities, and by moderate exercise and 
 labour. 
 
 M. — Such is the fact. But there seems 
 to be this difference, that in the one the 
 humours, in the other the morals, must be 
 duly tempered. 
 
 B. — You are perfect master of the sub- 
 ject ; for the body politic, like the natural, 
 has its peculiar kind of temperament, which 
 I think we may, with the greatest propriety, 
 denominate justice ; since it is she that pro- 
 vides for its distinct members, and makes 
 them perform their duties with uniformity. 
 Sometimes by the operation of bleeding, 
 sometimes by the discharge of noxious mat- 
 ter, she, by a kind of evacuation, expels re- 
 dundancies; sometimes she rouses despon- 
 dence and pusillanimity, and administers 
 consolation to diffidence, and reduces the 
 whole body to the temper mentioned above, 
 and exercises it, when thus reduced, by 
 suitable labours; so that, by a regular and 
 due intermixture of labour and rest, she 
 preserves, as far as the thing is possible, the 
 renovated constitution. 
 
 M. — To all your positions I would x-eadily 
 assent, had you not made justice the tem- 
 perament of the body politic ; for, by its 
 very name and profession, temperance seems 
 rightfully entitled to that office. 
 
Tin: wghts of Tiui crowx ix scotlaxd. 
 
 245 
 
 B. — I think it of no great moment on 
 which of the two you confer this honour. 
 For, as all the virtues, of which the energy- 
 is visible in action, consist in the observation 
 of a due and uniform medium, they are so 
 mutually interwoven and connected, that 
 they seem all to have but one object, the 
 moderation of the passions. Under what- 
 ever general head it may be classed, it is of 
 little impoi-tance which of the two names 
 you adopt ; and yet that moderation, which 
 is exerted in common affairs and in the or- 
 dinary commerce of life, may, in my opinion, 
 be with the greatest propriety denominated 
 justice. 
 
 M. — Here I have no difficulty in yielding 
 my assent. 
 
 B. — Now, I imagine that the intention 
 of the ancients in creating a king was, ac- 
 cording to what we are told of bees in their 
 hives, spontaneously to bestow the sove- 
 reignty on him who was most distinguished 
 among his countrymen for singular merit, 
 and who seemed to surpass all his fellows in 
 wisdom and equity. 
 
 M. — That is probably the fact. 
 
 B. — But what must be done, if no such 
 ' person can be found in the community ? 
 
 M. — By the law of nature mentioned be- 
 fore, an equal has neither the power nor 
 : right of assuming authority over his equals ; 
 for I think it but justice that among persons 
 in other respects equal, the returns of com- 
 : mand and obedience should also be equal. 
 
 B. — But, if the people, from a dislike to 
 an ambitious canvass every year, should 
 choose to elect as king an individual not 
 possessed indeed of every regal virtue, but 
 still eminent for nobility, for wealth or 
 military glory, might not he, with the great- 
 est justice, be deemed a king ? 
 
 M. — Undoubtedly ; for the people have 
 a right of investing whom they please with 
 the sovereign power. 
 
 B. — Suppose that we should employ, for 
 the cure of diseases, a man of considerable 
 acuteness, but still not possessed of extra- 
 ordinary skill in the medical art, must we 
 directly, upon his election by the generality, 
 consider him as a physician ? 
 
 M. — By no means. For learning and 
 experience in many arts, and not votes, 
 constitute a physician. 
 
 B. — What do you think of the artists in 
 the other professions ? 
 
 M. — I think that the same reasoning is 
 applicable to them all. 
 
 B. — Do you believe that it requires any 
 art to discharge the functions of a king ? 
 
 M.— Why should I not ? 
 
 B. — Can you give any reason for your 
 belief? 
 
 M. — I think I can; and it is that which 
 is peculiar to all the arts. 
 
 B. — What reason do you mean ? 
 
 M. — All the arts certainly originated in 
 experience. For, while most people pro- 
 ceeded at random and without method in 
 the performance of many actions, which 
 others completed with superior skill and 
 address, men of discernment, having re- 
 marked the results on both sides, and 
 weighed the causes of these results, ar- 
 ranged several classes of precepts, and called 
 each class an art. 
 
 B. — By the means, therefore, of similar 
 remarks, the art of sovereignty may be de- 
 scribed as well as that of medicine ? 
 
 M. — That I think possible. 
 
 B. — On what precepts then must it be 
 founded ? 
 
 M. — I am not prepared to give you a 
 satisfactory answer. 
 
 B. — Perhaps its comparison with other 
 arts may lead to its comprehension. 
 
 M. — In what manner ? 
 
 B. — Thus. There are certain precepts 
 peculiar to grammar, to medicine, and to 
 agriculture. 
 
 M. — I comprehend. 
 
 B. — May we not call these precepts of 
 grammar and medicine also arts and laws, 
 and so on in other cases ? 
 
 M. — So I certainly think. 
 
 B. — What do you think of the civil law ? 
 Is it not a system of precepts calculated for 
 sovereigns ? 
 
 M. — So it seems. 
 
 B. — Ought it not then to be understood 
 by him who would be created a king ? 
 
 M. — The inference appears to be una- 
 voidable. 
 
 B. — What shall we then say of him who 
 does not understand it ? Do you conceive 
 that, even after his nomination by the peo- 
 ple, he shall not be called king ? 
 
 M. — Here you reduce me to a dilemma ; 
 for, to make my answer compatible with the 
 preceding concessions, I must affirm that 
 the suffrages of the people can no more 
 make a king than any other artist. 
 
 B. — What, then, do you think ought to 
 be done in this case ? For, if the person 
 elected by common suffrage is not a king, 
 
246 
 
 DE JURE REGNI APUD SCOTOS ; OR, 
 
 I fear that we are not likely to have any 
 legal sovereign. 
 
 M. — I also am not without the same fear. 
 
 B. — Is it your pleasure, then, that the 
 position just laid down in comparing the 
 arts should he discussed with greater mi- 
 nuteness ? 
 
 M. — Be it so, if you think it necessary. 
 
 B. — Did we not, in the several arts, call 
 the precepts of the several artists laws ? 
 
 M.— We did. 
 
 B. — But I fear that we did not then use 
 sufficient circumspection. 
 
 M.— Why so ? 
 
 B. — Because it seems an absurdity to 
 suppose that he who understands any art 
 should not be an artist. 
 
 M. — It is an absurdity. 
 
 B. — Ought we not therefore to consider 
 him, who can perform what belongs to art, 
 an artist, whether it proceeds from the 
 spontaneous impulse of nature, or from an 
 habitual facility acquired by a constant re- 
 petition of similar acts ? 
 
 M. — I think so. 
 
 B. — Him, then, who possesses either the 
 method or the skill to do anything lightly, 
 we may term an artist, if he has by practice 
 acquired the requisite power ? 
 
 M. — With more propriety, undoubtedly, 
 than the other who understands only the 
 bare precepts, without practice and experi- 
 ence. 
 
 B. — The precepts, then, are not to be 
 considered as the art ? 
 
 M. — By no means ; but rather the sem- 
 blance of art, or, more nearly still, its 
 shadow. 
 
 B. — What then is that directing power 
 in states that we are to call either the art 
 or science of politics. 
 
 M. — I suppose that you mean the provi- 
 dential wisdom, from which, as a fountain, 
 all laws calculated for the benefit of human 
 society must flow. 
 
 B. — You have hit the mark. Therefore, 
 if any man should possess this wisdom in the 
 highest degree of perfection, we might call 
 him a king by nature, not by suffrage, and 
 invest him with unlimited power. But, if 
 no such person can be found, we must be 
 satisfied with the nearest approach to this 
 excellency of nature, and, in its possessor 
 grasping a certain resemblance of the desired 
 reality, call him king. 
 
 M. — Let us honour him with that title, 
 if you 
 
 B. — And, because there is reason to fear 
 that he may not have sufficient firmness of 
 mind to resist those affections which may, 
 and often do, cause deviations from recti- 
 tude, we shall give him the additional assist- 
 ance of law, as a colleague, or rather as a 
 regulator of his passions. 
 
 M. — It is not, then, your opinion, that a 
 king should in all matters be invested with 
 arbitrary power ? 
 
 B. — By no means; for I recollect that 
 he is not only a king, but also a man erring 
 much through ignorance, offending much 
 through inclination, and much almost against 
 his will ; as he is an animal readily yielding 
 to every breath of favour or hatred. This 
 imperfection of nature too is generally in- 
 creased by the possession of office ; so that 
 here, if anywhere, I recognise the force of 
 the sentiment in the comedy, when it says, 
 that " by unrestrained authority we all be- 
 come worse." For this reason legislative 
 sages supplied their king with law, either to 
 instruct his ignorance or to rectify his mis- 
 takes. From these remarks you may, I 
 presume, conceive, as in a typical represen- 
 tation, what my idea isof a genuine king's 
 duty. 
 
 M. — In whatever regards the creation of 
 kings, their name and their office, you have 
 given me entire satisfaction ; and yet, if you 
 wish to make any additions, I am ready to 
 listen. But, though my imagination hurries 
 on with eagerness to the remainder of your 
 discussion, one circumstance, which through 
 your whole discourse gave me some offence, 
 must not pass in silence ; and it is this, that 
 you seemed to be a little too hard upon 
 kings ; an act of injustice of which I have 
 before frequently suspected you, when I 
 heard the ancient republics and the modern 
 state of Venice become in your mouth the 
 subjects of extravagant encomiums. 
 
 B. — In this case you did not form a just 
 idea of my sentiments ; for, among the Ko- 
 mans, the Massilians, the Venetians, and 
 others who held the directions of the laws to 
 be more sacred than the commands of then- 
 kings, it is not so much the diversity as the 
 equity of their civil administration that I 
 admire ; nor do I think it of much conse- 
 quence whether the supreme magistrate be 
 called king, duke, emperor, or consul, if it 
 be observed as an invariable maxim, that it 
 was for the express purpose of maintaining 
 justice and equity that he was invested with 
 the magistracy. For, if the plan of govern- 
 
THE RIGHTS OF THE CROWN IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 247 
 
 merit be founded on law, there is no just 
 reason for disputing about its name. The 
 person whom we call the Doge of Venice is 
 nothing else but a legal sovereign ; and the 
 first Roman consuls retained not only the 
 ensigns but also the powers of the ancient 
 kings. The only difference was that, as, to 
 your knowledge, was the case with the per- 
 petual kings of the Lacedaemonians, the pre- 
 siding magistrates were two, and established 
 not for a perpetuity, but for a single year. 
 Hence, we must still adhere steadily to what 
 was asserted at the commencement, that 
 kings were at first constituted for the main- 
 tenance of justice and equity. Had they 
 been able to abide inviolably by this rule, 
 they might have secured perpetual posses- 
 sion of the sovereignty, such as they had 
 received it, that is, free and unshackled by 
 laws. But, as the state of human affairs 
 has, according to the usual progress of every 
 created existence, a constant tendency to 
 deterioration, regal government, which was 
 originally instituted for the purposes of pub- 
 lic utility, degenerated gradually into impo- 
 tent tyranny. For, when kings observed no 
 laws but their capricious passions, and find- 
 ing their power uncircumscribed and immo- 
 derate, set no bounds to their lusts, and were 
 swayed much by favour, much by hatred, 
 and much by private interest, their domi- 
 neering insolence excited an universal desire 
 for laws. On this account, statutes were 
 enacted by the people, and kings were, in 
 their judicial decisions, obliged to adopt, not 
 what their own licentious fancies dictated, 
 but what the laws, sanctioned by the people, 
 ordained. For they had been taught, by 
 many experiments, that it was much safer 
 to trust their liberties to laws than to kings; 
 since many causes might induce the latter 
 to deviate from rectitude; and the former, 
 being equally deaf to prayers and to threats, 
 always maintained an even and invariable 
 tenor. Kings being accordingly left, in 
 other respects, free, found their power con- 
 fined to prescribed limits only by the neces- 
 sity of squaring their words and actions by 
 the directions of law, and by inflicting pun- 
 ishments and bestowing rewards, the two 
 strongest ties of human society, according to 
 its ordinances ; so that, in conformity to the 
 expressions of a distinguished adept in poli- 
 tical science, a king became a speaking law, 
 and law a dumb king. 
 
 M. — x\t the first outset of your discourse, 
 you were so lavish in praise of kings, that 
 
 the veneration due to their august majesty 
 seemed to render them almost sacred and 
 inviolable. But now, as if actuated by 
 repentance, you confine them to narrow 
 bounds, and thrust them, as it were, into 
 the cells of law, so as not to leave them 
 even the common freedoms of speech. Me 
 you have egregiously disappointed ; for I 
 was in great hopes that, in the progress of 
 your discourse, you would, either of your 
 own accord or at my suggestion, restore 
 what an illustrious historian calls the most 
 glorious spectacle in the eyes of gods and 
 men to its original splendour ; but, by spoil- 
 ing of every ornament, and circumscribing 
 within a close prison the magistracy first 
 known in the world, you have so debased it, 
 that to any person in his sober senses it 
 must be an object of contempt rather than 
 of desire. For can there be a man, whose 
 brain is not deranged, that would not choose 
 rather to rest satisfied with a moderate for- 
 tune in a private station, than, while he is 
 intent upon other men's business and inat- 
 tentive to his own, to be obliged, in the 
 midst of perpetual vexations, to regulate the 
 whole course of his life by the caprice of the 
 multitude ? Hence, if it be proposed that 
 this should everywhere be the condition of 
 royalty, I fear that there will soon be a 
 greater scarcity of kings than in the first 
 infancy of our religion there was of bishops. 
 Indeed, if this be the criterion by which we 
 are to estimate kings, I am not surprised 
 that the persons who formerly accepted of 
 such an illustrious dignity, w T ere found only 
 among shepherds and ploughmen. 
 
 B. — Mark, I beseech you, the egregious 
 mistake which you commit, in supposing 
 that nations created kings not for the main- 
 tenance of justice, but for the enjoyment of 
 pleasure. Consider how much, by this plan, 
 you retrench and narrow their greatness. 
 And, that you may the more easily compre- 
 hend what I mean, compare any of the kings 
 whom you have seen, and whose resemblance 
 you wish to find in the king that I describe, 
 when he appears at his levee dressed, for 
 idle show, like a girl's doll, in all the colours 
 of the rainbow, and surrounded with vast 
 parade by an immense crowd ; compare, I 
 say, any of these with the renowned princes 
 of antiquity, whose memory still lives and 
 flourishes, and will be celebrated among the 
 latest posterity, and you will perceive that 
 they were the originals of the picture that I 
 have just sketched. Have you never heard 
 
248 
 
 DE JURE REGNI APUD SCOTOS 
 
 in conversation, that Philip of Macedon, 
 upon answering an old woman that begged 
 of him to inquire into a grievance of which 
 she complained, " That he was not at lei- 
 sure," and upon receiving this reply, " Cease, 
 then, to be a king ;" — have you heard, I say, 
 that this king, the conqueror of so many 
 states, and the lord of so many nations, when 
 reminded of his functions by a poor old 
 woman, complied and recognised the official 
 duty of a king ? Compare this Philip, then, 
 not only with the greatest kings that now 
 exist in Europe, but also with the most re- 
 nowned in ancient story, and you will find 
 none his match in prudence, fortitude, and 
 patience of labour, and few his equals in 
 extent of dominion. Leonidas, Agesilaus, 
 and other Spartan kings, all great men, I 
 forbear to mention, lest I should be thought 
 to produce obsolete examples. One saying, 
 however, of Gorgo, a Spartan maid, and the 
 daughter of king Cleomedes, I cannot pass 
 unnoticed. Seeing his slave pulling off the 
 slippers of an Asiatic guest, she exclaimed, 
 in running up to her father, " Father, your 
 guest has no hands." From these expres- 
 sions, you may easily form an estimate of 
 the whole discipline of Sparta, and of the 
 domestic economy of its kings. Yet, to this 
 rustic, but manly, discipline, we owe our 
 present acquisitions, such as they are ; while 
 the Asiatic school has only furnished slug- 
 gards, by whom the fairest inheritance, the 
 fruit of ancestral virtue, has been lost 
 through luxury and effeminacy. And, 
 without mentioning the ancients, such not 
 long ago among the Gallicians was Pelagius, 
 who gave the first shock to the power of the 
 Saracens in Spain. Though 
 
 " Beneath one humble roof, their common shade, 
 His sheep, his shepherds, and his gods were laid ;" 
 
 yet the Spanish kings are so far from being 
 ashamed of him, that they reckon it their 
 greatest glory to find their branch of the 
 genealogic tree terminate in his trunk. But, 
 as this topic requires a more ample discus- 
 sion, let us return to the point at which the 
 digression began. For I wish, with all pos- 
 sible speed, to evince what I first promised, 
 that this representation of royalty is not a 
 fiction of my brain, but its express image, as 
 conceived by the most illustrious statesmen 
 in all ages; and, therefore, I shall briefly 
 enumerate the originals from which it has 
 been copied. Marcus Tullius Cicero's vo- 
 lume concerning moral duties is in universal 
 
 esteem, and in the second book of it you will 
 find these expressions : — " In my opinion, 
 not only the Medes, as Herodotus says, but 
 also our ancestors, selected men of good 
 morals as kings, for the purpose of enjoying 
 the benefit of justice. For, when the needy 
 multitude happened to be oppressed by the 
 wealthy, they had recourse to some person 
 of eminent merit, who might secure the 
 weak from injury, and, with a steady arm, 
 hold the balance of law even between the 
 high and low. And the same cause, which 
 rendered kings necessary, occasioned the in- 
 stitution of laws. For the constant object of 
 pursuit was uniform justice, since otherwise 
 it would not be justice. When this advan- 
 tage could be derived from one just and 
 good man, they were satisfied; but, when 
 that was not the case, they enacted laws 
 that should at all times, and to all persons, 
 speak the same language. Hence the de- 
 duction is evident, that those were usually 
 selected for supreme magistrates of whose 
 justice the multitude entertained a high 
 opinion ; and, if besides they had the addi- 
 tional recommendation of wisdom, there was 
 nothing which they thought themselves in- 
 capable of acquiring under their auspices." 
 From these words you understand, I pre- 
 sume, what, in Cicero's opinion, induced 
 nations to wish both for kings and for laws. 
 Here I might recommend to your perusal 
 the works of Xenophon, who was no less 
 distinguished for military achievements than 
 for attachment to philosophy, did I not 
 know your familiarity with him to be such 
 that you can repeat almost all his sentences. 
 Of Plato, however, and Aristotle, though I 
 know how much you prize their opinions, I 
 say nothing at present; because I choose 
 rather to have men illustrious for real action, 
 than for their name in the shades of acade- 
 mies, for my auxiliaries. The stoical king, 
 such as he is described by Seneca in his 
 Thyestes, I am still less disposed to offer to 
 your consideration, not so much because he 
 is not a perfect image of a good king, as be- 
 cause that pattern of a good prince is solely 
 an ideal conception of the mind, calculated 
 for admiration rather than a well-grounded 
 hope ever likely to be gratified. Besides, 
 that there might be no room for malevolent 
 insinuations against the examples which I 
 have produced, I have not travelled into the 
 desert of the Scythians for men who either 
 curried their own horses, or performed any 
 other servile work incompatible with our 
 
THE RIGHTS OF THE CROWN IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 249 
 
 manners, but into the heai-t of Greece, and 
 for those men who, at the very time when 
 the Greeks were most distinguished for the 
 liberal and polite arts, presided over the 
 greatest nations and the best-regulated com- 
 munities, and presided over them in such a 
 manner, that, when alive, they acquired the 
 highest veneration among their countrymen, 
 and left, when dead, their memory glorious 
 to posterity. 
 
 M. — Here, if you should insist upon a de- 
 claration of my sentiments, I must say that 
 I dare hardly confess either my inconsistency, 
 or timidity, or other anonymous mental in- 
 firmity. For, whenever I read in the most 
 excellent historians, the passages which you 
 have either quoted or indicated, or hear their 
 doctrines commended by sages whose autho- 
 rity I have not the confidence to question, 
 and praised by all good men, they appear 
 to me not only true, just, and sound, but 
 even noble and splendid. Again, when I 
 direct my eye to the elegancies and niceties 
 of our times, the sanctity and sobriety of the 
 ancients seem rather uncouth and destitute 
 of the requisite polish. But this subject we 
 may, perhaps, discuss some other time at 
 our leisure. Now proceed, if you please, 
 to finish the plan which you have begun. 
 
 B. — Will you allow me, then, to make a 
 brief abstract of what has been said ? Thus 
 we shall best gain a simultaneous view of 
 what has passed, and have it in our power to 
 retract any inconsiderate or rash concession. 
 
 M. — By all means. 
 
 B. — First of all, then, we ascertained that 
 the human species was, by nature, made for 
 society, and for living in a community ? 
 
 M. — We did so. 
 
 B. — We also agreed that a king, for being 
 a man of consummate virtue, was chosen as 
 a guardian to the society. 
 
 M. — That is true. 
 
 B. — And, as the mutual quarrels of the 
 people had introduced the necessity of creat- 
 ing kings, so the injuries done by kings to 
 their subjects occasioned the desire of laws. 
 
 M — I own it. 
 
 B. — Laws, therefore, we judged a speci- 
 men of the regal art, as the precepts of me- 
 dicine are of the medical art. 
 
 M.— We did so. 
 
 B. — As we could not allow to either a 
 singular and exact knowledge of his art, we 
 judged it safer that each should, in his me- 
 thod of cure, follow the prescribed rules of 
 his art, than act at random. 
 
 M. — It is safer undoubtedly. 
 
 B. — But the precepts of the medical art 
 seemed not of one single kind. 
 
 M.— How ? 
 
 B. — Some we found calculated for pre- 
 serving, and others for restoring health. 
 
 M. — The division is just. 
 
 B. — How is it with the regal art ? 
 
 M. — It contains, I think, as many spe- 
 cies. 
 
 B. — The next point to be considered is, 
 what answer ought to be given to the fol- 
 lowing question — " Can you think that phy- 
 sicians are so thoroughly acquainted with all 
 diseases and their remedies that nothing far- 
 ther can be desired for their cure ?" 
 
 M. — By no means. For many new kinds 
 of diseases start up almost every age ; and 
 likewise new remedies for each are, almost 
 every year, either discovered by the indus- 
 try of men or imported from distant re- 
 gions. 
 
 B. — What do you think of the civil laws 
 of society ? 
 
 M. — They seem, in their nature, to be 
 similar, if not the same. 
 
 B. — The written precepts of their arts 
 then will not enable either physicians or 
 kings to prevent or to cure all the diseases 
 of individuals or of communities. 
 
 M. — I deem the thing impossible. 
 
 B. — Why, then, should we not investigate 
 as well the articles which can, as those which 
 cannot, come within the purview of laws ? 
 
 M. — Our labour will not be fruitless. 
 
 B. — The matters which it is impossible 
 to comprehend within laws seem to me 
 numerous and important ; and first of all 
 comes whatever admits of deliberation con- 
 cerning the future. 
 
 M. — That is certainly one head of ex- 
 ception. 
 
 B. — The next is a multitude of past 
 events ; such as those where truth is inves- 
 tigated by conjectures, or confirmed by wit- 
 nesses, or wrung from criminals by tortures. 
 
 M. — Nothing can be clearer. 
 
 B. — In elucidating these questions, then, 
 what will be the duty of a king ? 
 
 M. — Here I think that there is no great 
 occasion for long discussion, since, in what 
 regards provision for the future, kings are 
 so tar from arrogating supreme power, that 
 they readily invite to their assistance coun- 
 sel learned in the law. 
 
 B. — What do you think of matters which 
 are collected from conjectures, or cleared 
 2 L 
 
250 
 
 DE JURE REGNI APUD SCOTOS I OR, 
 
 up by witnesses, such as are the crimes of 
 murder, of adultery, and impoisonment ? 
 
 M. — These points, after they have been 
 discussed by the ingenuity, and cleared up 
 by the address of lawyers, I see generally 
 left to the determination of judges. 
 
 B. — And, perhaps, with propriety ; for if 
 the king should take it into his head to hear 
 the causes of individuals, when will he have 
 leisure to think of war, of peace, and of those 
 important affairs which involve the safety 
 and existence of the community ? When, in 
 a word, will he have time to recruit nature 
 by doing nothing ? 
 
 M. — The cognisance of every question I 
 do not wish to see devolved upon the king 
 alone ; because, if it were devolved, he, a 
 single man, would never be equal to the task 
 of canvassing all the causes of all his sub- 
 jects. I therefore highly approve the advice 
 no less wise than necessary given to Moses, 
 by his father-in-law, " To divide among 
 numbers the burden of judicature ;" upon 
 which I forbear to enlarge, because the story 
 is universally known. 
 
 B. — But even these judges, I suppose, are 
 to administer justice according to the direc- 
 tions of the laws? 
 
 M. — They are, undoubtedly. But, from 
 what you have said, I see that there are 
 but few things for which the laws can, in 
 comparison of those for which they cannot, 
 provide. 
 
 B. — There is another additional difficulty 
 of no less magnitude, that all the cases, for 
 which laws may be enacted, cannot be com- 
 prised within any prescribed and determi- 
 nate form of words. 
 
 M. — How so ? 
 
 B. — The lawyers, who greatly magnify 
 their art, and would be thought the high- 
 priests of justice, allege, That the multitude 
 of cases is so great, that they may be deemed 
 almost infinite, and that every day there 
 arise in states new crimes, like new kinds of 
 ulcers. What is to be done here by the le- 
 gislator, who must adapt his laws to what is 
 present and past ? 
 
 M. — Not much, if he should not be some 
 divinity dropped from heaven. 
 
 B. — To these inconveniences add another, 
 and that not a small difficulty, that, from 
 the great mutability of human affairs, hard- 
 ly any art can furnish precepts that ought to 
 be universally permanent and invariably ap- 
 plicable. 
 
 M. — Nothing can be truer. 
 
 B. — The safest plan then seems to be, to 
 entrust a skilful physician with the health 
 of his patient, and a king with the preserva- 
 tion of his people : for the physician, by 
 venturing beyond the rules of his art, will 
 often cure the diseased, either with their 
 consent, or sometimes against their will ; and 
 the king will impose a new but still a salu- 
 tary law upon his subjects, by persuasion, or 
 even by compulsion. 
 
 M. — I can see no obstacle to prevent him. 
 
 B. — When both are engaged in these 
 acts, do they not seem each to exert a vigour 
 beyond his own law ? 
 
 M. — To me each appears to adhere to his 
 art. For it was one of our preliminary posi- 
 tions, that it is not precepts that constitute 
 art, but the mental powers employed by the 
 artist in treating the subject-matter of art. 
 At one thing, however, if you really speak 
 from your heart, I am in raptures — that, 
 compelled by a kind of injunction from 
 truth, you restored kings to the dignified 
 rank from which they had been violently de- 
 graded. 
 
 B. — Come not so hastily to a conclusion, 
 for you have not yet heard all. The empire 
 of law is attended with another inconve- 
 nience. For the law, like an obstinate and 
 unskilful task-master, thinks nothing right 
 but what itself commands ; while a king 
 may perhaps excuse weakness and temerity, 
 and find reason to pardon even detected 
 error. Law is deaf, unfeeling, and inexor- 
 able. A youth may allege the slippery 
 ground which he treads, as the cause of his 
 fall, and a woman the infirmity of her sex ; 
 one may plead poverty, a second drunken- 
 ness, and a third friendship. To all these 
 subterfuges what does the law say ? Go, 
 executioner, chain his hands, cover his head, 
 and hang him, when scourged, upon the ac- 
 cursed tree. Now, you cannot be ignorant 
 how dangerous it is, in the midst of so much 
 human frailty, to depend for safety on inno- 
 cence alone. 
 
 M. — What you mention is undoubtedly 
 pregnant with danger. 
 
 B. — I observe, that, on recollecting these 
 circumstances, certain persons are somewhat 
 alarmed. 
 
 M. — Somewhat, do you say ! 
 
 B. — Hence, when I carefully revolve in 
 my own mind the preceding positions, I fear 
 that my comparison of a physician and a 
 king may, in this particular, appear to have 
 been improperly introduced. 
 
THE RIGHTS OF THE CROWN IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 251 
 
 M. — In what particular ? 
 
 B. — In releasing both from ail bondage to 
 precepts, and in leaving them the power of 
 curing at their will. 
 
 M. — What do you find here most offen- 
 sive? 
 
 B. — When you have heard me, I shall 
 leave yourself to judge. For the inexpedi- 
 ence of exempting kings from the shackles 
 of laws we assigned two causes, love and 
 hatred, which, in judging, lead the minds of 
 men astray. In the case of a physician, 
 there is no reason to fear that he should act 
 amiss through love, as from restoring the 
 health of his patient he may even expect a 
 reward. And again, if a sick person should 
 suspect that his physician is solicited by 
 prayers, promises, and bribes, to aim at his 
 life, he will be at liberty to call in another ; 
 or, if another be not within his reach, he 
 will naturally have recourse for a remedy to 
 dumb books, rather than to a bribed mem- 
 ber of the faculty. As to our complaint con- 
 cerning the inflexible nature of laws, we 
 ought to consider whether it is not charge- 
 able with inconsistency. 
 
 M. — In what manner ? 
 
 B. — A king of superior excellence, such 
 as is visible rather to the mind than to the 
 eye, we thought proper to subject to no law. 
 
 M.— To none. 
 
 B. — For what reason ? 
 
 M. — Because, I suppose, he would, ac- 
 cording to the words of Paul, be a law to 
 himself and to others ; as his life would be a 
 just expression of what the law ordains. 
 
 B. — Your judgment is correct; and, 
 what may perhaps surprise you, some ages 
 before Paul, the same discovery had been 
 made by Aristotle, through the mere light 
 of nature. This remark I make solely for 
 the purpose of showing the more clearly that 
 the voice of God and of nature is the same. 
 But, that we may complete the plan which 
 has been sketched, will you tell me what 
 object the original founders of laws had prin- 
 cipally in view ? 
 
 M. — Equity, I presume, as was before 
 observed. 
 
 B. — What I now inquire is not what 
 end, but rather what pattern, they kept be- 
 fore their eyes. 
 
 M. — Though, perhaps, I understand your 
 meaning, yet I wish to hear it explained, 
 that, if I am right, you may corroborate 
 my opinion ; and, if not, that you may cor- 
 rect my error. 
 
 B. — You know, I apprehend, the nature 
 of the mind's power over the body. 
 
 M. — Some conception of it I can cer- 
 tainly form. 
 
 B. — You must also know, that of what- 
 ever is not thoughtlessly done by men they 
 have previously a certain picture in their 
 mind, and that it is far more perfect than 
 the works which even the greatest artists 
 fashion and express by that model. 
 
 M. — Of the truth of that observation I 
 have myself, both in speaking and writing, 
 frequently an experimental proof; for I am 
 sensible that my words are no less inade- 
 quate to my thoughts than my thoughts to 
 their objects. For neither can our mind, 
 when confined in this dark and turbid pri- 
 son of the body, clearly discern the subtile 
 essence of all things ; nor can we, by lan- 
 guage, convey to others our ideas, however 
 preconceived, so as not to be greatly in- 
 ferior to those formed by our own intel- 
 lects. 
 
 B. — What then shall we say was the ob- 
 ject of legislators in their institutions ? 
 
 M.— Your meaning, I think myself not 
 far from comprehending ; and, if I mistake 
 not, it is that they called to their aid the 
 picture of a perfect king; and by it ex- 
 pressed the figure, not of his person but of 
 his thoughts, and ordered that to be law 
 which he should deem good and equitable. 
 
 B. — Your conception of the matter is 
 just ; for that is the very sentiment which I 
 meant to communicate. Now, I wish that 
 you would consider what were the qualities 
 which we originally gave to our ideal king. 
 Did we not suppose him unmoved by love, 
 by hatred, by anger, by envy, and by the 
 other passions ? 
 
 M. — Such we certainly made his effigy, 
 or even believed him to have actually been 
 in the days of ancient virtue. 
 
 B. — But do not the laws seem to have 
 been, in some measure, framed according to 
 his image. 
 
 M. — Nothing is more likely. 
 
 B. — A good king then will be no less un- 
 feeling and inexorable than a good law. 
 
 M. — He will be equally relentless ; and 
 yet, though I neither can effect, nor ought 
 to desire, a change in either, I may still 
 wish, if it be possible, to render both a little 
 flexible. 
 
 B. — But in judicial proceedings God does 
 not desire us to pity even the poor, but com- 
 mands us to look solely to what is right and 
 
252 
 
 DE JURE REGM A.FUD SCOTOS J OR, 
 
 equitable, and according to that rule alone 
 to pronounce sentence. 
 
 M. — I acknowledge the soundness of the 
 doctrine, and submit to the force of truth. 
 Since then we must not exempt the king 
 from a dependence on law, who is to be the 
 legislator that we are to give him as an in- 
 structor ? 
 
 B. — Whom do you think most fit for the 
 superintendence of this office ? 
 
 M. — If you ask my opinion, I answer, the 
 king himself. For in most other arts the 
 artists themselves deliver the precepts, which 
 serve as memorandums to aid their own re- 
 collection, and to remind others of then- 
 duty. 
 
 B. — I, on the contrary, can see no differ- 
 ence between leaving a king free and at 
 large, and granting liim the power of enact- 
 ing laws : as no man will spontaneously put 
 on shackles. Indeed, I know not whether 
 it is not better to leave him quite loose, 
 than to vex him with unavailing chains 
 which he may shake off at pleasure. 
 
 B. — But, since you trust the helm of 
 state to laws rather than to kings, take care, 
 I beseech you, that you do not subject the 
 person, whom you verbally term king, to a 
 tyrant 
 
 " With chains and jails his actions to control, 
 And thwart each liberal purpose of his soul ;" 
 
 and that you do not expose him, when 
 loaded with fetters, to the indignity of toil- 
 ing with slaves in the field, or with male- 
 factors in the house of correction. 
 
 B. — Forbear harsh words, I pray ; for I 
 subject him to no master, but desire that 
 the people, from whom he derived his power, 
 should have the liberty of prescribing its 
 bounds ; and I require that he should exer- 
 cise over the people only those rights which 
 he has received from their hands. Nor do 
 I wish, as you conceive, to impose these laws 
 upon him by force ; but declare it as my 
 opinion, that, after an interchange of coun- 
 sels with the king, the community should 
 make that a general statute which is con- 
 ducive to the general good. 
 
 M. — Would you then assign this province 
 to the people ? 
 
 B. — To the people, undoubtedly, if you 
 should not chance to alter my opinion. 
 
 M. — Nothing, in my conception, can be 
 more improper. 
 
 B. — For what reason ? 
 
 M. — You know the proverb, " the people 
 
 is a monster of many heads." You are 
 sensible, undoubtedly, of their great rash- 
 ness and great inconstancy. 
 
 B. — It was never my idea that this busi- 
 ness should be left to the sole decision of all 
 the people ; but that, nearly in conformity 
 to our practice, representatives selected 
 from all orders should assemble as council 
 to the king, and that, when they had pre- 
 viously discussed and passed a conditional 
 act, it should be ultimately referred to the 
 people for their sanction. 
 
 M. — Your plan I perfectly understand ; 
 but I think that you gain nothing by your 
 circumspective caution. You do not choose 
 to leave a king above the laws. And, for 
 what ? Because there are in human nature 
 two savage monsters, cupidity and irasci- 
 bility, that wage perpetual war with reason. 
 Laws, therefore, become an object of desire, 
 that they might check their licentiousness, 
 and reclaim their excessive extravagance to 
 a due respect for legal authority. What 
 purpose does it answer to assign him these 
 counsellors selected from the people ? Are 
 they not equally the victims of the same in- 
 testine war ? Do they not suffer as much 
 as kings from the same evils ? Therefore, 
 the more assessors you attach to a king, 
 the greater will be the number of fools ; 
 and what is to be expected from them is 
 obvious. 
 
 B. — What you imagine is totally differ- 
 ent from the result which I expect; and, 
 why I expect it, I will now unfold. First 
 of all, it is not absolutely true, as you sup- 
 pose, that there is no advantage in a multi- 
 tude of counsellors, though none of them, 
 perhaps, should be a man of eminent wis- 
 dom. For numbers of men not only see 
 farther, and with more discriminating eyes 
 than any one of them separately, but also 
 than any man that surpasses any single in- 
 dividual among them in understanding and 
 sagacity ; for individuals possess certain por- 
 tions of the virtues, which, being accumu- 
 lated into one mass, constitute one trans- 
 cendent virtue. In medical preparations, 
 and particularly in the antidote called mi- 
 thridatic, this truth is evident ; for though 
 most of its ingredients are separately nox- 
 ious, they afford, when mixed, a sovereign 
 remedy against poisons. After a similar 
 manner, slowness and hesitation prove in- 
 jurious in some men, as precipitate rashness 
 does in others ; but diffused among a multi- 
 tude, they yield a certain temperament, or 
 
THE RIGHTS OF THE CROWN IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 253 
 
 that golden mean, for which we look in 
 every species of virtue. 
 
 M. — Well, since you press the matter, 
 let the people have the right of proposing 
 and of enacting laws, and let kings be in 
 some measure only keepers of the records. 
 Yet when these laws shall happen to be 
 contradictory, or to contain clauses indis- 
 tinctly or obscurely worded, is the king to 
 act no part, especially since, if you insist 
 upon the strict interpretation of them ac- 
 cording to the written letter, many absurdi- 
 ties must inevitably ensue ? And here, if I 
 produce as an example the hackneyed law 
 of the schools, " If a stranger mount the 
 wall, let him forfeit his head," what can be 
 more absurd than that a country's saviour, 
 the man who overturned the enemies on 
 their scaling-ladders, should himself be 
 dragged as a criminal to execution ? 
 
 M. — You approve then of the old saying, 
 " The extremity of law is the extremity of 
 injustice." 
 
 B. — I certainly do. 
 
 M. — If any question of this kind should 
 come into a court of justice, a necessity 
 arises for a merciful interpreter to mitigate 
 the severity of the law, and to prevent what 
 was intended for the general good from 
 proving ruinous to worthy and innocent 
 men. 
 
 B. — Your sentiments are just; and, if 
 you had been sufficiently attentive, you 
 would have perceived that in the whole of 
 this disquisition I have aimed at nothing 
 else but at preserving sacred and inviolate 
 Cicero's maxim — " Let the safety of the 
 people be the supreme law." Therefore, if 
 any case should occur in a court of justice of 
 such a complexion, that there can be no 
 question about what is good and equitable, 
 it will be part of the king's prospective 
 duty to see the law squared by the fors- 
 mentioned rule. But you seem to me, in 
 the name of kings, to demand more than 
 what the most imperious of them ever ar- 
 rogate. For you know that, when the law 
 seems to dictate one thing, and its author to 
 have meant another, such questions, as well 
 as controversies grounded upon ambiguous 
 or contradictory laws, are generally referred 
 to the judges. Hence arise the numerous 
 cases solemnly argued by grave counsellors 
 at the bar, and the minute precepts appli- 
 cable to them in the works of ingenuous 
 rhetoricians. 
 
 M. — I know what you assert to be fact 
 
 But I think that, in this point, no less injury 
 is done to the laws than to kings. For I 
 judge it better, by the immediate decision of 
 one good man, to end a suit, than to allow 
 ingenious, and sometimes knavish, casuists, 
 the power of obscuring, rather than of ex- 
 plaining the law. For, while the barristers 
 contend not only for the cause of their clients, 
 but also for the glory of ingenuity, discord 
 is in the meantime cherished, religion and 
 irreligion, right and wrong, are confounded ; 
 and what we deny to a king, we grant to 
 persons of inferior rank, less studious, in 
 general, of truth than of litigation. 
 
 B. — You have forgotten, I suspect, a 
 point which we just now ascertained. 
 
 M.— What may that be ? 
 
 B. — That to the perfect king, whom we 
 at first delineated, such unlimited power 
 ought to be granted, that he can have no 
 occasion for any laws ; but that, when this 
 honour is conferred on one of the multitude, 
 not greatly superior, and perhaps even infe- 
 rior to others, it is dangerous to leave him 
 at large and unfettered by laws. 
 
 M. — But what is all this to the interpre- 
 tation of the laws ? 
 
 B. — A great deal ; you would find, had 
 you not overlooked a material circumstance, 
 that now we restore in other words to the 
 king, what we had before denied him, the 
 undefined and immoderate power of acting 
 at pleasure, and of unhinging and derang- 
 ing every thing. 
 
 M. — If I am guilty of any such thing, it 
 is the guilt of inadvertence. 
 
 B. — I shall, therefore, endeavour to ex- 
 press my ideas more perspicuously, that 
 there be no misconception. When you grant 
 to the king the interpretation of the law, 
 you allow him the power of making the law 
 speak, not what the legislator intends, or 
 what is for the general good of the commu- 
 nity, but what is for the advantage of the 
 interpreter, and, for his own interest, of 
 squaring all proceedings by it, as by an un- 
 erring rule. Appius Claudius had, in his 
 decemvirate, enacted a very equitable law, 
 " That in a litigation concerning freedom, 
 the claim of freedom should be favoured." 
 What language could be clearer ? But the 
 very author of this law, by his interpreta- 
 tion, made it useless. You see, I presume, 
 how much you contribute, in one line, to the 
 licentiousness of your king, by enabling him 
 to make the law utter what he wishes, and 
 not utter what he does not wish. If this 
 
254 
 
 DE JURE REGN1 APUD SCOTOS ; OR, 
 
 doctrine be once admitted, it will avail no- 
 thing to pass good laws to remind a good 
 king of his duty, and to confine a bad one 
 within due bounds. Nay, (for I will speak 
 my sentiments openly and without disguise,) 
 it would be better to have no laws at all, 
 than, under the cloak of law, to tolerate un- 
 restrained and even honourable robbery. 
 
 M. — Do you imagine that any king will 
 be so impudent as to pay no regard to his 
 reputation and character among the people, 
 or so forgetful of himself and of his family, 
 as to degenerate into the depravity of those 
 whom he overawes and coerces by igno- 
 miny, by prison, by confiscation of goods, 
 and by the heaviest punishments ? 
 
 B. — Let us not believe such events pos- 
 sible, if they are not already historical facts, 
 known by the unspeakable mischiefs which 
 they have occasioned to the whole world. 
 
 M. — Where, I beseech you, are these 
 facts to be traced ? 
 
 B. — Where ! do you ask ? As if all the 
 European nations had not only seen, but 
 also felt, the incalculable mischiefs done to 
 humanity by, I will not say, the immode- 
 rate power, but by the unbridled licentious- 
 ness of the Roman pontiff. From what 
 moderate, and apparently honourable, mo- 
 tives it first arose, with what little ground 
 for apprehension it furnished the improvi- 
 dent, none can be ignorant. The laws ori- 
 ginally proposed for our direction had not 
 only been derived from the inmost recesses 
 of nature, but also ordained by God, ex- 
 plained by his inspired prophets, confirmed 
 by the Son of God, himself also God, re- 
 commended in the writings, and expressed 
 in the lives, and sealed by the blood, of the 
 most approved and sanctified personages. 
 Nor was there, in the whole law, a chapter 
 more carefully penned, more clearly ex- 
 plained, or more strongly enforced, than 
 that which describes the duty of bishops. 
 Hence, as it is an impiety to add, to re- 
 trench, to repeal, or alter, a single article 
 in those laws, nothing remained for episco- 
 pal ingenuity but the interpretation. The 
 bishop of Rome having assumed this privi- 
 lege, not only oppressed the other churches, 
 but exercised the most enormous tyranny 
 that ever was seen in the world ; for having 
 the audacity to assume authority not only 
 over men, but even over angels, he absolutely 
 degraded Christ ; except it be not degrada- 
 tion, that in heaven, on earth and in hell, 
 the Pope's will should be law ; and that 
 
 Christ's will should be law only if the Pope 
 pleases. For, if the law should appear ra- 
 ther adverse to his interest, he might, by 
 his interpretation, mould it so as to compel 
 Christ to speak, not only through his mouth, 
 but also according to his mind. Hence, 
 when Christ spoke by the mouth of the 
 Roman pontiff, Pepin seized the crown of 
 Chilperic, and Ferdinand of Arragon de- 
 throned Joan of Navarre ; sons took up 
 impious arms against their father, and sub- 
 jects against their king ; and Christ being 
 himself poisoned, was obliged afterwards to 
 become a poisoner, that he might, by poison, 
 destroy Henry of Luxemburg. 
 
 M. — This is the first time that I ever 
 heard of these enormities. I wish, however, 
 to see what you have advanced concerning 
 the interpretation of laws a little more elu- 
 cidated. 
 
 B. — I will produce one single example, 
 from which you may conceive the whole 
 force and tendency of this general argu- 
 ment. " There is a law, that a bishop 
 should be the husband of one wife ;" and 
 what can be more plain or less perplexed? 
 But " this one wife the Pope interprets to 
 be one church," as if the law was ordained 
 for not repressing the lust, but the avarice 
 of bishops. This explanation, however, 
 though nothing at all to the purpose, bear- 
 ing on its face the specious appearance of 
 piety and decorum, might pass muster, had 
 ne not vitiated the whole by a second in- 
 terpretation. What then does this pontiff 
 contrive ? " The interpretation," says he, 
 " must vary with persons, causes, places, and 
 times." Such is the distinguished nobility 
 of some men, that no number of churches 
 can be sufficient for their pride. Some 
 churches, again, are so miserably poor, that 
 they cannot afford even to a monk, lately a 
 beggar, now a mitred prelate, an adequate 
 livelihood, if he would maintain the charac- 
 ter and dignity of a bishop. By this knav- 
 ish interpretation of the law there was de- 
 vised a form, by which those who were called 
 the bishops of single churches held others in 
 commendam, and enjoyed the spoils of all. 
 The day would fail me should I attempt to 
 enumerate the frauds which are daily con- 
 trived to evade this single ordinance. But, 
 though these practices are disgraceful to the 
 pontifical name and to the Christian charac- 
 ter, the tyranny of the popes did not stop 
 at this limit. For such is the nature of all 
 things, that, when they once begin to slide 
 
THE RIGHTS OF THE CROWN IX SCOTLAND. 
 
 255 
 
 down the precipice, they never stop till they 
 reach the bottom. Do you wish to have 
 this point elucidated by a splendid example ? 
 Do you recollect, among the emperors of 
 Roman blood, any that was either more 
 cruel or more abandoned than Caius Cali- 
 gula? 
 
 M. — None that I can remember. 
 
 B. — Among his enormities which do you 
 think the most infamous action ? I do not 
 mean those actions which clerical casuists 
 class among reserved cases, but such as occur 
 in the rest of his life. 
 
 M. — I cannot recollect. 
 
 B. — What do you think of his conduct in 
 inviting his horse, called Incitatus, to sup- 
 per, of laying before him barley of gold, and 
 in naming him consul elect ? 
 
 M. — It was certainly the act of an aban- 
 doned wretch. 
 
 B. — What then is your opinion of his 
 conduct, when he chose him as his colleague 
 in the pontificate ? 
 
 M. — Are you serious in these stories ? 
 
 B. — Serious, undoubtedly ; and yet I do 
 not wonder that these facts seem to you fic- 
 titious. But our modern Boman Jupiter 
 has acted in such a manner as to justify 
 posterity in deeming these events no longer 
 incredibilities but realities. Here I speak 
 of the pontiff, Julius the third, who seems 
 to me to have entered into a contest for 
 superiority in infamy with that infamous 
 monster, Caius Caligula. 
 
 M. — What enormity of this kind did he 
 commit ? 
 
 B. — He chose for his colleague in the 
 priesthood his ape's keeper, a fellow more 
 detestable than that vile beast. 
 
 M. — There was, perhaps, another reason 
 for his choice. 
 
 B. — Another is assigned ; but I have se- 
 lected the least dishonourable. Therefore, 
 since not only so great a contempt for the 
 priesthood, but so total a forgetfulness of 
 human dignity, arose from the licentiousness 
 of interpreting the law, I hope that you will 
 no longer reckon that power inconsiderable. 
 
 M. — But the ancients do not seem to me 
 to have thought this office of interpretation 
 so very important as you wish to make it ap- 
 pear. The truth of this observation may be 
 collected from a single circumstance, that 
 the Roman emperors granted the privilege 
 to counsellors ; a fact which overturns the 
 whole of your verbose dissertation, and re- 
 futes not only what you asserted concerning 
 
 the magnitude of that power, but, in oppo- 
 sition to your earnest wish, clearly demons- 
 trates that the liberty of answering legal 
 questions, which they granted to others, was 
 not denied to themselves, if their inclination 
 prompted, or their occupation permitted its 
 exercise. 
 
 B. — The Roman emperors, whom the 
 soldiers placed at their head, without any 
 discrimination, or the least regard to the 
 public good, do not stand in the predica- 
 ment of the kings that we have been de- 
 scribing ; as they were generally chosen by 
 the most abandoned class of men for their 
 abandoned character, or forced their way to 
 the purple by open violence. Their con- 
 duct in granting to counsellors the power of 
 answering legal questions, I find not at all 
 reprehensible ; for, though it is of very great 
 importance, it is, with some degree of safety, 
 entrusted to men to whom it cannot be an 
 instrument of tyranny. Besides, as it was 
 entrusted to numbers, they were kept to 
 their duty by mutual reverence; since, if 
 any of them deviated from rectitude, he was 
 refuted by the answer of another. Nay, if a 
 knot of counsellors entered into a knavish 
 conspiracy, recourse might be had for re- 
 lief to the judge, who was not under the ne- 
 cessity of holding their answers law. Re- 
 course might also be had to the emperor, 
 who had the power of inflicting punishment 
 on every violator of the laws. Since these 
 men were thus bound by so many chains, 
 and more in dread of penalties for malver- 
 sation than in expectation of rewards for 
 fraud, you see, I apprehend, that the dan- 
 ger from them could not be very formid- 
 able. 
 
 M. — Have you any further remarks to 
 make about your king ? 
 
 B. — First of all, if you please, let us col- 
 lect in a few words what has been said ; for 
 thus we shall most easily discover whether 
 we have been guilty of any omission. 
 
 M. — Your plan has my approbation. 
 
 B. — We seemed to be pretty well agreed 
 about the origin and cause of creating kings, 
 and of establishing laws, but to differ a lit- 
 tle about the author of the law. Compelled, 
 however, at last by the evidence of truth, 
 you appeared, though with some reluctance, 
 to yield your assent. 
 
 M. — Though, as an advocate, I made the 
 most strenuous exertions, you certainly wrest- 
 ed from the king not only the power of or- 
 daining, but even of interpreting the laws ; 
 
256 
 
 DE JURE REGNI APUD SCOTOS ; OR, 
 
 and here I fear that, if the matter should 
 become public, I may be charged with pre- 
 varication ; since I allowed a cause, which, 
 at the outset, I thought so good, to be so 
 easily wrested out of my hands. 
 
 B. — Be not alarmed ; for, if any one 
 should, in this case, charge you with preva- 
 rication, I promise you my counsel gratis. 
 
 M. — Of that promise, perhaps, we shall 
 soon have a trial. 
 
 B. — We discovered also many sorts of 
 business, that seemed incapable of being in- 
 cluded in any laws ; and of these we refer- 
 red, with the king's consent, part to the or- 
 dinary judges, and part to his council. 
 
 M. — That we did so, I recollect. And, 
 in the interim, what do you think came into 
 my head ? 
 
 B. — How can I, unless you tell me ? 
 M. — I thought you carved out kings in 
 some degree similar to those figures of stone 
 that seem generally to lean upon the heads 
 of columns, as if they supported the whole 
 structure, while, in reality, they bear no 
 more of the weight than any other stone. 
 
 B. — What an excellent advocate for kings ! 
 You complain that I impose upon them too 
 light a burden, while their sole business, 
 night and day, is hardly any thing else but 
 to discover associates, with whom they may 
 either divide the burden of government, or 
 upon whom they may lay its whole weight ! 
 And yet you seem, at the same time, to be 
 enraged that I administer some relief to 
 their distress. 
 
 M. — These auxiliaries I also embrace with 
 cordiality ; but wish them, as servants, not 
 as masters ; as guides to point out the way, 
 not to lead where they please, or rather to 
 drag and impel a king as a machine, and 
 leave him nothing else but the mere power 
 of giving his assent. I have, therefore, been 
 for some time in expectation of seeing you, 
 after closing your discourse upon royalty, 
 make a digression to tyranny or to any other 
 subject. For so narrow are the limits to 
 which you have confined your king, that, I 
 fear, if we should dwell longer upon that to- 
 pic, you will, in addition to the loss of his 
 high estate and sovereign power, banish him 
 to some desert island, where, shorn of all 
 his honours, he may drag a comfortless old 
 ao-e in penury and wretchedness. 
 °B. — You dread, as you allege, the charge 
 of prevarication. Now I, on the other hand, 
 fear that the king, whom you attempt to 
 defend, will be injured by your chicanery. 
 
 For, in the first place, why do you wish to 
 see him idle, if you would not encourage 
 idleness in architects ; and in the next, to 
 rob him of the good ministers and faithful 
 counsellors that I gave him, not as guar- 
 dians to superintend his conduct, but as as- 
 sociates to relieve him from part of his la- 
 bour ? By their removal you leave him sur- 
 rounded by a legion of knaves, who render 
 him a terror to his subjects ; and you do not 
 think his power sufficiently formidable, un- 
 less we leave him at liberty to do much 
 harm. I wish to see him beloved by his 
 subjects ; and guarded, not by terror, but 
 by affection ; the only armour that can ren- 
 der kings perfectly secure. And, if you do 
 not act with obstinacy, this is what, I trust, 
 I shall soon effect. For I shall bring him 
 out of what you call a narrow dungeon into 
 broad daylight, and, by one law, invest him 
 with such additional power and majesty, 
 that, if he should wish for more, you will 
 not hesitate yourself to charge him with ef- 
 frontery. 
 
 M. — That is a topic which I long to see 
 elucidated. 
 
 B. — That I may, therefore, satisfy your 
 eagerness with all possible speed, I shall 
 proceed directly to the essential point. One 
 of our late and uncontroverted deductions 
 was, that no law can be so clearly and ex- 
 plicitly worded as to leave no room for fraud 
 by a knavish interpretation. This matter 
 you will best understand by the production 
 of an example. It was provided by law, 
 that an illegitimate son should not succeed 
 his father in an ecclesiastical benefice. Even 
 in this affair, which one would imagine could 
 admit of no fraud, an evasion was found 
 practicable; for the father substituted an- 
 other in his son's place, and that other re- 
 signed the benefice to the bastard. When, 
 after this subterfuge, it was expressly pro- 
 vided, by an additional clause, that the bene- 
 fice which the father had at any time held 
 should never be held by the son, nothing 
 was gained even by this provision ; for, to 
 render it ineffectual, the priests agreed mu- 
 tually to substitute one another's sons. When 
 this practice also was forbidden, the law was 
 eluded by a fresh kind of fraud. There starts 
 up against the father a suppositious claimant, 
 who pretends a right to the benefice ; and, 
 while the father is engaged in a sham fight 
 with the suppositious sycophant, the son re- 
 quests the benefice, by petition, of the Roman 
 pontiff, if the right of neither litigant should 
 
THE RIGHTS OF THE CROWN IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 257 
 
 be found valid. Thus both parties are, by 
 their voluntary and spontaneous cession, 
 worsted, and the son possesses the benefice 
 of the father by the father's prevarication. 
 In one law, then, you see what various kinds 
 of frauds are practised. 
 
 M.— I do. 
 
 B. — Do not legislators, in this case, ap- 
 pear to you to act entirely like the medical 
 practitioners, who, in attempting by the ap- 
 plication of plasters, to check the eruptions 
 of the scurvy, or of any other distemper, 
 force the repelled humours to burst out at 
 once through various channels, and, for one 
 head amputated to exhibit numbers sprout- 
 ing up like the hydra's? 
 
 M. — There cannot be a more apt com- 
 parison. 
 
 B. — As the physician of the body ought 
 at first to have expelled entirely all noxious 
 humours, ought not the physician of the 
 state to imitate him, and to exterminate 
 universally all corrupt morals ? 
 
 M.— That, though I think it difficult, I 
 hold to be the only genuine method of cure. 
 
 B.— And, if this object can be attained, I 
 think there will be occasion but for few laws. 
 
 M. — That is certainly matter of fact. 
 
 B. — Does it not appear likely to you, that 
 the person who can make a proper applica- 
 tion of this medicine, will contribute more to 
 the public good than all the assemblies of 
 all the orders collected for the enactment of 
 laws? 
 
 M. — Infinitely more, without doubt. But 
 let me ask, in the words of the comic poet, 
 "Where is the person mighty enough to 
 confer so great a favour ?" 
 
 B. — What do you think of entrusting the 
 king with this charge ? 
 
 M. — An admirable contrivance truly ! 
 What was a pleasant and a smooth down-hill 
 path you have left the people in a mass to 
 tread ; but the laborious, rugged, and ar- 
 duous departments you make the sole pro- 
 vince of the king, as if it were not enough 
 to confine him chained within a close prison, 
 unless you also imposed upon him so heavy 
 a burden that he must sink. 
 
 B. — You mistake the case. I ask no- 
 thing of him that is unreasonable or difficult. 
 I do not insist, but request, that he would 
 listen to entreaty. 
 
 M. — To what do you allude ? 
 
 B. — To the natural behaviour of a good 
 father to his children, judging that a king 
 should, through his whole lite, behave in the 
 
 same manner to his subjects, whom he ought 
 to consider as his children. 
 
 M. — What is that remark to the present 
 purpose ? 
 
 B. — This is certainly the only, at least a 
 very powerful, antidote against the poison 
 of corrupt morals ; and, that you may not 
 think it a fiction of my brain, listen to 
 Claudian's advice to a king : 
 
 " Of citizen and father you should act the part, 
 The general interest wearing next your heart. 
 O'er one great body, you, as head, preside, 
 And from its good can ne'er your own divide. 
 To your own laws, if you should think them fit, 
 Others to bind, be foremost to submit. 
 To laws the people willing homage pay, 
 Whene'er their author can himself obey. 
 The king's example as a model serves, 
 As in a hive none from the sov'reign swerves. 
 An ear to edicts when no man will lend, 
 The prince's life the human mind can bend. 
 The vulgar herd, a changeful servile race, 
 Still ape their betters, even in clothes and face." 
 
 Do not imagine that a poet possessed of such 
 distinguished genuis and learning was mis- 
 taken in thinking that this circumstance had 
 so mighty an influence ; for the populace 
 is so much inclined to follow, and so eager 
 to imitate the manners of those who are 
 eminently conspicuous for probity and worth, 
 that they attempt in their conversation, 
 dress, and gait, to copy even some of their 
 imperfections. In their exertions, however, 
 to resemble kings in habit, manner, and 
 language, they are not actuated solely by 
 the love of imitation, but also by the hopes 
 of insinuating themselves into the favour of 
 the great, and of acquiring, by wheedling 
 arts, fortune, preferment, and power ; as 
 they know that man is by nature formed 
 not only for loving himself and his connex- 
 ions, but also for embracing, with cordiality, 
 in others, his own likeness, however imper- 
 fect and vicious. This homage, though not 
 demanded with pride and effrontery, but 
 courted as a precarious favour, has a far 
 greater effect than what the threats of the | 
 laws, the engines of punishment, and files 
 of musketeers can produce. This propen- 
 sity recals the people without violence to 
 moderation, procures to the king the affec- 
 tion of his subjects, gives permanence to 
 the tranquillity of the public, and solidity to 
 the property of individuals. Let a king, 
 therefore, constantly revolve in his own 
 mind, that, as he stands in a public theatre, 
 exhibited as a spectacle to every beholder, 
 all his words and actions must be noted and 
 subject to comments ; and that 
 2 m 
 
258 
 
 DE JURE REGXI APUD SCOTOS ; OR, 
 
 " To regal vice no secrecy is known, 
 Expos'd aloft upon a splendid throne : 
 Whatever shape it takes, or new disguise, 
 All is explor'd by fame's quick prying eyes." 
 
 With what great caution, then, ought princes, 
 in both cases, to act; since neither their 
 virtues nor their vices can remain concealed, 
 nor come to light, without effecting num- 
 berless changes. If you should still doubt 
 j the great influence of the king's life upon 
 the public discipline, take a retrospective 
 view^ of infant Rome in its nascent state, 
 and in its first cradle. When this rude and 
 uncivilised people, composed (for I will use no 
 harsher terms) of shepherds and strangers, 
 ferocious itself by nature, with a most fero- 
 cious king at its head, had formed a kind of 
 camp, to disturb the peace, and to provoke 
 the arms of the surrounding nations, how 
 great must have been the hatred, how vio- 
 lent the alarm of its neighbours ! That very 
 people, having chosen for its head a pious 
 and upright king, was thought so suddenly 
 changed, that any violence offered to it, in 
 the service of the gods, and in the exercise 
 of justice, was reckoned almost impiety by 
 those very neighbours whose lands it had 
 ravaged, whose cities it had burnt, and 
 whose relations and children it had dragged 
 into slavery. Now, if in the midst of such 
 brutal manners and uncultivated times, 
 Numa Pompilius, a king lately fetched from 
 a hostile nation, could effect such a mighty 
 alteration, what may we expect, or rather, 
 what may we not expect, from those princes 
 who have been born and bred to the hopes 
 of royalty, and who receive an empire sup- 
 ported by relations, by dependents, and by- 
 ancient connexions ? How much ought their 
 minds to be inflamed with the love of vir- 
 tue, by considering that they may not only 
 hope for the praise of a single day, like 
 actors who have performed their part well, 
 but also presume that they secure the love 
 and admiration of their own age, and per- 
 petual renown, and honours nearly divine 
 among posterity. The picture of this ho- 
 nour, which I have conceived in my mind, 
 I wish I could express to you in words. 
 But that I may, in some measure, delineate 
 to you a faint sketch, figure to yourself the 
 brazen serpent erected by Moses in the de- 
 sert of Arabia, and curing solely by its pre- 
 sence the wounds inflicted by other serpents; 
 conceive some of the numerous host stung 
 by the serpents, and crowding to the infal- 
 lible remedy ; others looking astonished at 
 
 the novelty of the unprecedented miracle ; 
 and all with every species of praise celebrat- 
 ing the unbounded and incredible benefi- 
 cence of God in removing the pains of a 
 deadly wound, — not by medicines, with tor- 
 ture to the patient, with labour to the phy- 
 sician, and constant anxiety to friends, but 
 restoring the part to a sound state, not by 
 the slow operation of time, but in a single 
 moment. Now compare to this serpent a 
 king ; but so compare him, as to reckon a 
 good king among the greatest blessings of 
 God, since he alone, without expense, with- 
 out trouble to you, relieves all the distresses, 
 and quiets all the commotions of the realm, 
 and soon happily cures, by conciliatory ad- 
 dress, even ancient animosities, and proves 
 salutary, not only to those who behold him 
 personally, but also to those who are so far 
 distant as not to have the least hope of ever 
 seeing him ; and has, by his very effigy, 
 when presented to the mind, such power as 
 easily to effect what neither the learning of 
 lawyers, nor the knowledge of philosophers, 
 nor the experience of so many ages em- 
 ployed in the formation of the arts, was 
 ever able to attain. In fact, what honour, 
 what dignity, what greatness or majesty can 
 be expressed or conceived superior to that 
 of the man, who, by his language, his con- 
 versation, his look, his name, and even by 
 the presence of his image in the mind, can 
 bring back dissolute profligates to moderate 
 expenses, violent oppressors to equitable 
 practices, and furious madmen to their so- 
 ber senses ? This, if I mistake not, is the 
 true picture of a king, not indeed of a king 
 hedged round with arms, always in fear, or 
 causing fear, and, from his hatred of the 
 people, measuring their hatred to himself. 
 This portrait, which I have just exhibited, 
 has been expressed in the most beautiful 
 colours by Seneca, in his Thyestes ; and, as 
 it is a very elegant piece of poetry, it must 
 undoubtedly occur to your recollection. 
 Now do you think that I still entertain 
 mean and contemptible notions of a king, 
 and that, as you lately said, I thrust him, 
 with a load of fetters, into a legal dungeon ? 
 Have I not rather brought him forwai-d 
 into day-light, into the communities of men, 
 and into the public theatre of the human 
 race, thronged, indeed, not by a haughty 
 circle of spearmen and swordsmen, and silk- 
 clad profligates, but guarded by his own in- 
 nocence, and protected, not by the terror 
 of arms, but by the love of the people ; and 
 
THE RIGHTS OF THE CROWN IX SCOTLAND. 
 
 259 
 
 not only free and erect, but honoured, vene- 
 rable, sacred, and august, hailed by every 
 species of good omens and felicitating ac- 
 clamations, and attracting in his whole pro- 
 gress the looks, the eyes, and souls of all 
 spectators ? What ovation, what triumph, 
 can be compared to such a daily procession ? 
 Were a God in human shape to drop down 
 upon earth, what greater honour could be 
 shown him than what would be paid to a 
 genuine king, that is, to the living image 
 of God ? A greater honour than this neither 
 love could bestow, nor fear extort, nor flat- 
 tery invent. What think you of this picture 
 of a king ? 
 
 M. — It is truly splendid, and so magni- 
 ficent, that it seems impossible to conceive 
 anything more noble. But during the cor- 
 rupt morals of our times, it is difficult to 
 conceive the existence of such magnanimity, 
 unless a happy liberality of mind and natu- 
 ral goodness of disposition be aided by the 
 diligence of education. For the mind, if 
 once formed by good instructions and arts, 
 will, when confirmed by age and experi- 
 ence, pursue true glory through the paths 
 of virtue, be in vain tempted by the allure- 
 ments of pleasure, and remain unshaken by 
 the assaults of adverse fortune. For so 
 much 
 
 " To native power does discipline impart, 
 And proper culture steel the human heart," 
 
 that in the very avocations of pleasure, it 
 meets with opportunities for the exercise 
 of virtue, and considers the difficulties, 
 which usually terrify weak minds, as casual 
 materials for the acquisition of just renown. 
 Hence, as a liberal education is in every 
 point of view so momentous, what prospec- 
 tive care and anxious precaution ought to 
 be used, that the tender minds of kings may 
 be properly seasoned from theirjvery cradle ! 
 For, as the blessings conferred by good 
 kings on their subjects are so numerous, and 
 the calamities originating with bad princes 
 are, on the other hand, equally numerous, 
 nothing appears to me to have, in every re- 
 spect, a greater weight than the moral cha- 
 racters and political dispositions of kings 
 themselves, and of those who enjoy with 
 them a share of the supreme power. For 
 the good or bad conduct of individuals gene- 
 rally escapes the notice of the multitude, or 
 the obscurity of its author allows the exam- 
 ple to reach but a few ; but all the words 
 and deeds of those who direct the helm of 
 
 state being written, as Horace says, in a 
 kind of votive tablet, cannot remain con- 
 cealed, but lie open to general imitation. 
 Nor is it merely by a fondness for pleasing, 
 but by the inviting blandishments of inte- 
 rest, that ministers attach the minds of 
 courtiers, and make the public discipline 
 veer with the veering inclinations of kings. 
 I fear, however, that we shall not be able 
 to prevail upon our princes to discharge 
 those functions, of which you have just given 
 a detail. For they are so corrupted by the 
 allurements of pleasure, and so much de- 
 ceived by a false idea of honour, that I think 
 them likely to experience nearly the same 
 misfortune which, as we are told by some 
 poets, befel the Trojans in their voyage 
 under Paris. Having left the real Helen 
 in Egypt with Proteus, a man of uncom- 
 mon sanctity, and indeed of a godlike cha- 
 racter, they sought, during ten years, for 
 her image with such obstinacy, that the 
 same moment proved the end of the most 
 destructive of wars, and of the most opulent 
 kingdom then in existence. This false idol 
 of royalty, when once possessed by right or 
 by wrong, impotent tyrants embrace with 
 fondness, and can neither retain without a 
 crime, nor relinquish without ruin. If any 
 man were to hint that the true Helen, for 
 whom they believe themselves contending, 
 is concealed in some remote anc 
 region, they would declare him insane. 
 
 B. — It is with much pleasure I find, that 
 if you have not really seen the daughter of 
 Jove, you have, from my description, at least 
 formed some idea of her beauty. For, if 
 those who, to their own great detriment, 
 are in love with the representation of the 
 imaginary Helen, were to see a perfect like- 
 ness of the real one, painted by some Proto- 
 genes or Apelles, I doubt not but they would 
 feel for it the greatest admiration, and the 
 most violent passion ; and that, if they did 
 not immediately bid adieu to the other, they 
 would justly incur the cruel punishment de- 
 nounced against tyrants in the imprecation 
 of the satirist Persius — 
 
 " Great Father of the gods, when, for our crimes, 
 Thou send'st some heavy judgment on the times, 
 Some barbarous king, the terror of the age, 
 The type and true vicegerent of thy rage, 
 Thus punish him ; — set virtue in his sight, 
 Grac'd with each charm that can the eye invite : 
 But set her distant, that he thus may see 
 His gains outweigh'd by lost felicity." 
 
 And, since tyrants have been incidentally 
 
260 
 
 DE JURE REGNI APUD SCOTOS : OR, 
 
 mentioned, what do you think of proceeding 
 directly to the consideration of them ? 
 
 M. — I have no objection, if you think 
 that no other subject claims a preference. 
 
 B. — In my opinion we shall not be in the 
 least danger of going astray, if, in the inves- 
 tigation of a tyrant, we follow the steps 
 which we trod in our search after a king. 
 
 M. — That is likewise my opinion. For 
 we shall most easily comprehend their dif- 
 ference, if we survey them contrasted. 
 
 B. — And first, if we begin with the name 
 tyrant, we shall find it uncertain to what 
 language it belongs. Accordingly, to in- 
 quire whether its etymology be Greek or 
 Latin will be superfluous. But what the 
 ancients called tyranny can, I think, be no 
 mystery to any person who is a little familiar 
 with polite literature. For both the Greeks 
 and Latins called those tyrants whose power 
 was in every respect unlimited, restrained 
 by no legal ties, and subject to the cog- 
 nizance of no judicature. And therefore, 
 in both languages, as you well know, not 
 only heroes and the most excellent men, but 
 also the greatest of the gods, and even Ju- 
 piter himself, are styled tyrants, and that 
 by those who both thought and spoke of 
 the gods with the greatest reverence and 
 honour. 
 
 M. — Of that I am by no means ignorant ; 
 and, therefore, I am the more surprised that 
 the name should be, fur so many ages, held 
 odious and even highly reproachful. 
 
 B. — This term has certainly met with the 
 fate of most others ; for words, if duly con- 
 sidered, will be found in their own nature 
 totally innocent. Though they strike the 
 ear, some with a smooth, some with a harsh 
 sound, yet they have no intrinsic power of 
 exciting in the mind anger, hatred, or mirth, 
 or in any way of creating pleasure or pain. 
 If ever we experience any such thing, it 
 generally proceeds, not from the word, but 
 from human custom, and from the idea con- 
 ceived in the mind. Hence, a word, that to 
 some is a mark of respect, cannot be uttered 
 before others without a prefatory apology. 
 
 M. — I recollect that something of a simi- 
 lar nature has happened in the case of Nero 
 and Judas ; for the former of these names 
 among the Romans, and the latter among 
 the Jews, was reckoned by the highest fa- 
 milies eminently splendid and honourable. 
 Afterwards, however, through no defect in 
 the names, but from the fault of two indivi- 
 duals, it happened that the most abandoned 
 
 would not give them to their children ; into 
 so much obscurity had they fallen through 
 infamy. 
 
 B.— That tyrant stands in the same pre- 
 dicament is evident. For, that the first 
 magistrates who received that name were 
 good men, is probable from this circumstance 
 that the name was for some time so honour- 
 able, that men applied it even to the gods. 
 Their successors, by their crimes, rendered 
 it so detestable, that all shunned it as con- 
 tagious and pestilential, and deemed it a j 
 lighter reproach to be called hangman than ! 
 tyrant. 
 
 M. — Here the same thing happened as to 
 the kings at Rome after the expulsion of the 
 Tarquins, and to the name of dictator after 
 the consulship of Antony and Dolabella. 
 
 B. — You perfectly comprehend the mat- 
 ter. On the other hand, again, humble and 
 plebeian names became, through the merit 
 of the persons to whom they belonged, illus- 
 trious, as among the Romans, Camillus, Me- 
 tellus, Scropha ; and. among the Germans, 
 Henry, Geneserick, and Charles. This ob- 
 servation you will the more easily under- 
 stand, if you consider that, after the name 
 of tyrant became extinct, the substance of 
 the thing remained, and this species of ma- 
 gistracy still retained its pristine dignity 
 among a variety of illustrious nations, as the 
 iEsymnetse among the Greeks and dictators 
 among the Romans. For both were legal 
 tyrants ; tyrants indeed, because they were 
 superior to the laws, — and legal, because 
 elected by the consent of the people. 
 
 M. — What do I hear ! that there are 
 even legal tyrants ? From you, at least, I 
 expected to have heard a quite different 
 doctrine. For now you seem to confound 
 every distinction between kings and tyrants. 
 
 B. — Among the ancients, kings and ty- 
 rants seem undoubtedly to have conveyed 
 the same idea, but, I conceive, at different 
 periods of time. For the name of tyrants 
 was, I presume, the more ancient; and, 
 when nations became tired of them, kings 
 succeeded in their place under a more sooth- 
 ing title, and with a milder sway. "When 
 these also degenerated, men had recourse to 
 the moderating power of laws, that might 
 limit the extent of their authority, and set 
 bounds to their boundless desires. But, as 
 the variations of times and manners required 
 new remedies, and old governments became 
 odious, new forms were invented. The sub- 
 jects, however, which we have at present 
 
THE RIGHTS 01? THE CROWN IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 261 
 
 undertaken to discuss, are the two species of 
 government ; that in which the power of the 
 laws is superior to the king's, and, what is 
 the worst species of tyranny, that in which 
 everything is diametrically opposite to roy- 
 alty ; and to compare them one with the 
 other. 
 
 M. — It is so ; and I long much to hear 
 you upon that topic. 
 
 B. — The first point, then, which we ascer- 
 tained was, that kings were created for the 
 maintenance of civil society ; and we estab- 
 lished it as an axiom, that it was their duty 
 to administer justice to every man according 
 to the directions of the law. 
 
 M. — I recollect it. 
 
 B. — First, then, by what name shall he, 
 who does not receive that office by the 
 people's voluntary consent, but seizes it by 
 violence, or intercepts it by fraud, be qua- 
 lified ? 
 
 M. — By that of tyrant, I conceive. 
 
 B. — There are, besides, many other dis- 
 tinctions, which, as they may be easily col- 
 lected from Aristotle, I shall lightly skim. 
 Regal government is conformable, and ty- 
 ranny contrary, to nature; a king rules 
 over a willing, a tyrant over a reluctant 
 people ; royalty is a freeman's authority over 
 freemen — tyranny a master's over his slaves ; 
 citizens act as sentinels to a king, for the 
 security of his person ; foreigners to a tyrant 
 for the oppression of the citizens. For the 
 one exercises his power for the benefit of 
 the people, and the other for his own. 
 
 M. — What, then, shall we say of those 
 who, by violence and without the people's 
 consent, obtained supreme power, and go- 
 verned their respective states for many years 
 in such a manner as to leave the public no 
 reason to be dissatisfied with their adminis- 
 tration ? For, except a legal election, how 
 little was there wanted in Hiero of Syra- 
 cuse, and in the Medicean Cosmo of Flo- 
 rence, to constitute a just and accomplished 
 king? 
 
 B. — These we can by no means help in- 
 serting in the catalogue of tyrants. For, as 
 an excellent historian has finely remarked, 
 " By force to rule your country or parents, 
 though you should have the power, and 
 should rectify their errors, is still offensive 
 and vexatious." In the next place, such 
 men seem to me to act like robbers, who, 
 by artfully dividing their ill-gotten booty, 
 expect from iniquity the reputation of jus- 
 tice, and from rapine the praise of libera- 
 
 lity, and yet never attain the object of their 
 desire. For, by the hatred arising from one 
 misdeed, they lose all gratitude for their 
 ostentatious beneficence, and gain the less 
 credit for moderation among their fellow- 
 citizens, that their view is not the public 
 good, but their own private power, that they 
 may the more securely enjoy their pleasures, 
 and, by mollifying a little the general hatred, 
 transmit their authority the more easily to 
 their descendants. When this has been 
 once effected, they resume their natural 
 character; for what fruit is likely to be 
 collected in harvest may be easily conceived 
 from the seed that has been sown in spring. 
 For to make everything bend to your own 
 nod, and to centre in your own person the 
 whole force of the laws, has the same effect 
 as if you should abrogate all the laws. But 
 this kind of tyrants ought, perhaps, to be 
 tolerated, if they cannot be removed without 
 general ruin ; as we choose to submit to cer- 
 tain bodily distempers rather than to expose 
 our life to the hazardous experiment of a 
 doubtful cure. But those who openly exer- 
 cise their power, not for their country, but 
 for themselves, and pay no regard to the 
 public interest, but to their own gratifica- 
 tion ; who reckon the weakness of their fel- 
 low-citizens the establishment of their own 
 authority, and who imagine royalty to be, 
 not a charge entrusted to them by God, but 
 a prey offered to their rapacity, are not con- 
 nected with us by any civil or human tie, 
 but ought to be put under an interdict, as 
 open enemies to God and man. For all the 
 actions of kings ought to keep in view, not 
 their own private emolument, but the gene- 
 ral safety of the state ; and the more they 
 are exalted above the most eminent citizens, 
 the more they ought to imitate those celes- 
 tial bodies that, without any act of concilia- 
 tion on our side, pour upon mankind the 
 vital and beneficent streams of their lioht 
 and heat. Even the very titles with which 
 we decorated kings (and perhaps they are 
 within your recollection,) might remind 
 them of this munificence. 
 
 M. — I think I recollect that, towards 
 their subjects, they were to practise the in- 
 dulgence of fathers to their children, to use 
 the diligence of shepherds in promoting 
 their interest, to behave as generals for the 
 security of their persons, as chief-justices in 
 displaying a pre-eminence of virtue, and as 
 emperors in issuing salutary edicts. 
 
 B. — Can he, then, be called a father, who 
 
262 
 
 DE JURE REGXI APUD SCOTOS ; OR, 
 
 treats his subjects as slaves ? or he a shep- 
 herd, who does not feed but slay his flock ? 
 or he a pilot, whose constant study it is to 
 throw the goods overboard ; and who, accord- 
 ing to the nautical adage, scuttles the vessel 
 in which he sails ? 
 
 M. — By no means. 
 
 B. — What do you think of the king who 
 governs, not for the benefit of the people, 
 but for the gratification of his own appetites 
 and passions, and is manifestly engaged in 
 an insidious conspiracy against his subjects ? 
 
 M. — I shall certainly deem him neither 
 a general, an emperor, nor a supreme judge. 
 
 B. — Should you, then, observe a man 
 usurping the name of king who excels none 
 of the multitude in any species of virtue, 
 and is even inferior to many, who discovers 
 no paternal affection for his subjects, but 
 crushes them under his proud sway; who 
 considers them as a flock entrusted to him, 
 not for their preservation but for his own 
 emolument ; will you reckon him truly a 
 king, though he should stalk along, crowded 
 by a numerous train of guards, and make an 
 ostentatious display of a magnificent dress, 
 and dazzle the eye by exhibiting the sword 
 I of the law, and conciliate the favour and 
 applause of the vulgar by prizes, games, 
 processions, mad piles of buildings, and other 
 popular signs of grandeur ? Will you, I say, 
 deem him a king ? 
 
 M. — Not at all, if I mean to be con- 
 sistent; I must consider him as an outcast 
 from human society. 
 
 B. — By what bounds do you circumscribe 
 this human society ? 
 
 M. — By the very same to which you 
 seemed to me, in your preceding disserta- 
 tion, to wish it confined to the fences of 
 law; for I see that robbers, thieves, and 
 adulterers, who transgress them, are pun- 
 ished by the public, and that their trans- 
 gression of the limits prescribed by human 
 society is thought a just cause for their pun- 
 ishment. 
 
 B. — What will you say of those who 
 never would come within the pale of human 
 society ? 
 
 M. — I should consider them as enemies 
 to God and man, and entitled to the treat- 
 ment, not of men, but of wolves and other 
 noxious animals, which, if bred by any 
 person, are bred to the destruction of him- 
 self and of others, and, if killed, are killed 
 to the advantage, not only of the individual, 
 but of the public. Nay, were I empowered 
 
 to enact a law, I would adopt the Roman 
 method of treating monsters, and order such 
 a race of men to be exposed on some deso- 
 late island, or to be sunk in the deep at a 
 distance from the sight of land, lest they 
 should, even when dead, injure the living 
 by their contagion ; and publish a decree, 
 that whoever despatched them should be 
 rewarded, not only by the whole people, 
 but by private persons, as is generally done 
 to those who have killed wolves or bears, or 
 seized their cubs. For, if any such monster 
 were to arise, and to utter human accents, 
 and to have the appearance of a man's face, 
 and his likeness in every other part, I could 
 never think myself connected with him by 
 any social tie. Or, if any one, divesting 
 himself of humanity, should degenerate into 
 savage barbarity, and refuse to unite with 
 other men, but for men's destruction, I do 
 not think him entitled to the appellation of 
 man any more than satyrs, apes, or bears, 
 though in his look, gesture, and language, 
 he should counterfeit man. 
 
 B. — Now you comprehend, if I mistake 
 not, what notion the wisest of the ancients 
 entertained of a king's, as well as of a ty- 
 rant's, character. Is it your pleasure then, 
 that the rule adopted by us, in forming an 
 idea of a king, should be followed in exhibit- 
 ing the portrait of a tyrant ? 
 
 M. — Certainly ; and, if it is not too trou- 
 blesome, I am eager to hear you proceed. 
 
 B. — You have not forgotten, I imagine, 
 what is said by the poets of the furies, and 
 by the populace of devils, that they are spi- 
 rits hostile to the human race, and, in the 
 midst of their own eternal torments, de- 
 lighting in the torture of men. This is 
 certainly a true picture of tyranny. But, 
 since this picture is discernible only to the 
 mind, and without sensation, I shall offer 
 you another, which will impress not only 
 your mind, but your senses, and rush upon 
 your eyes almost palpably visible. Imagine 
 yourself viewing a ship at sea, tossed by 
 storms, and all the shores around not only 
 destitute of harbours, but full of inveterate 
 enemies. Imagine also the master of that 
 ship engaged in a mutual contest of hatred 
 with the passengers, and yet having no hopes 
 of safety but in the fidelity of the sailors, 
 and even those not certain, as he cannot be 
 ignorant that his life is in the hands of a 
 barbarous class of men, strangers to all 
 humanity, retained in their duty solely by 
 proffers of money, and easily tempted to his 
 
THE RIGHTS OF THE CROWN IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 263 
 
 destruction by the prospect of greater hire. 
 Such, positively, is the life embraced by 
 tyrants as a state of beatitude. Abroad 
 they dread open enemies, at home their 
 subjects ; and not only their subjects, but 
 their domestics, their relations, their bro- 
 thers, their wives, their children, and their 
 parents. Accordingly, they always either 
 wage or dread an external war with foreign- 
 ers, a civil war with their subjects, or a do- 
 mestic war with their relations, and never 
 expect any assistance but from hirelings, and 
 dare not hire the good nor trust the bad. 
 What enjoyment then can life be to such 
 men ? Dionysius, dreading the application 
 of a razor to his throat, would not permit 
 his daughters, ladies of adult age, to supply 
 the place of a barber. His brother was 
 murdered by Timoleon, the Phersean Alex- 
 ander by his wife, and Spurius Cassius by 
 his father. What racks must the man, who 
 has these examples constantly before his 
 eyes, carry in his breast, when he considers 
 himself erected as a mark at which all man- 
 kind are to shoot their arrows ? when he is 
 tormented by the stings of conscience, not 
 only when awake, but is roused even in his 
 sleep by the terrific images of the living and 
 the dead, and pursued by the furies shaking 
 their torches ? For the time assigned by 
 nature to all animals for repose, and to men 
 as a relief from cares, becomes to him all 
 horror and despair ? 
 
 M. — These topics you have unfolded with 
 no inconsiderable art, and, perhaps, with 
 equal truth ; but, if I am not mistaken, with 
 little subserviency to our plan. For na- 
 tions, who have the power of electing kings, 
 have also the power of binding them, when 
 elected, by laws. But you know that ours 
 are not kings by election but by birth ; and 
 I have always been of opinion that the 
 crown was not more an hereditary right 
 than the power of making their will the 
 law. Nor have I lightly adopted this opi- 
 nion, but deliberately, and under the sanc- 
 tion of great statesmen, with whom, if I 
 have erred, I need not be ashamed of my 
 error. For, without mentioning others, the 
 lawyers affirm that, by the imperial law en- 
 acted concerning their authority, the whole 
 power of the people was transferred to them, 
 so that their pleasure should stand as law. 
 Hence arose a certain emperor's threats, 
 that he would, by one edict, wrest from all 
 the lawyers, all the power in which they so 
 much gloried. 
 
 B. — While you were quoting the very 
 worst authority in so important a case, 
 you acted with prudence in suppressing all 
 names, as it would be the name of Caius 
 Caligula, who, for the gratification of his 
 savage cruelty, wished that the Roman peo- 
 ple had but one neck, and possessed nothing 
 that belongs, I will not say to a king, but to 
 a man, but the form. You cannot, there- 
 fore, be ignorant what little credit is due 
 to his words. As to the imperial law, 
 lawyers themselves can neither explain its 
 nature, nor ascertain when, by whom, or in 
 what words, it was passed. For the Roman 
 kings never professed that power, as an ap- 
 peal lay from them to the people. The act 
 by which Lucius Flaccus, after the extinc- 
 tion of Roman liberty, established, through 
 the silence of the other laws, the tyranny of 
 Lucius Sylla, no man ever recognised as a 
 law ; for the purport of that act was, that 
 whatever Lucius Sylla did, should be valid 
 in law. Of such a power over itself, no 
 free people was ever so mad as to make a 
 voluntary grant ; or, if there was, it cer- 
 tainly deserved to live in perpetual slavery 
 to tyrants, and to suffer the punishment 
 due to its folly. However, if any such law 
 really existed, we ought to consider it as an 
 example for caution, not for imitation. 
 
 M. — Your admonition, though well found- 
 ed, is applicable only to those who have the 
 power of creating kings of specific qualities ; 
 but not at all to us, who, by our suffrages, 
 do not elect the best, but accept the gift of 
 chance. This remark, made by our lawyers, 
 peculiarly affects us, who bestowed upon the 
 ancestors of our kings such a right to bind 
 us and our posterity, that they and their de- 
 scendants hold perpetual sovereignty over 
 us. I wish, therefore, that this advice had 
 been suggested to them, I mean to our an- 
 cestors, as they were entirely at liberty to 
 adopt what kings they pleased. Your coun- 
 sel coming now too late, has certainly no 
 other tendency, but to make us deplore the 
 folly of our ancestors, and feel the misery of 
 our condition. For, sold into bondage as 
 we are, what remains for us but to suffer 
 punishment for the folly of others, and to 
 alleviate its weight by the meekness of our 
 patience ; and not to exasperate, by unsea- 
 sonable murmurs, the rage of those whose 
 yoke we cannot shake off, whose power we 
 cannot diminish, and whose violence and ty- 
 ranny we cannot escape ? The imperial law, 
 however, to which you are such a deter- 
 
264 
 
 DE JURE REGNI APUD SCOTOS ; OR, 
 
 mined foe, was not, as you wish to insinuate, 
 invented in favour of tyrants; for it was 
 sanctioned by the justest of princes, by Jus- 
 tinian, with whom such open flattery could 
 never have prevailed ; for Horace's maxim 
 is applicable even to a foolish prince : 
 
 " Whom does false honour please, or lying fame 
 
 affright ? 
 None but the wretches who in vice and lies delight." 
 
 B. — However cruelly ungrateful to Beli- 
 farius some historians paint Justinian, he is 
 certainly allowed to have been, in general, 
 a great prince. Let him, therefore, be such 
 as you wish him to appear ; you ought still 
 to recollect, that most of his contemporaries 
 have characterised Scribonian, the principal 
 compiler of the laws in question, as a most 
 abandoned man, who might have easily been 
 induced to go any lengths for the gratifica- 
 ion of the worst of sovereigns. For, 
 
 " All wish the dire prerogative to kill ; 
 Even they would have the pow'rwho want the will," 
 
 And, 
 
 " Nothing so monstrous can be said or feigned, 
 But with belief and joy is entertained, 
 When to his face the worthless wretch is praised, 
 Whom venal courtiers to a god have raised." 
 
 But let us return to our own princes, to 
 whom you say that the crown belongs by in- 
 heritance, not by suffrage. Now I here 
 speak only of our own ; for, were I to make 
 a digression to foreign princes, I fear that 
 the discussion would embrace too wide a 
 field. 
 
 M. — That is, in my opinion, the best 
 mode of proceeding ; as foreign transactions 
 are not very intimately connected with the 
 present subject. 
 
 B. — If then we trace the history of our 
 nation from its first origin, it will be found 
 a settled point, that the princes invested 
 with sovereign power owed their election to 
 the opinion generally entertained of their 
 merit. 
 
 M. — Such is the account contained in our 
 historical records. 
 
 B. — Nor is it a less settled point, that 
 many princes, who made a cruel or flagi- 
 tious use of their office, were called to an ac- 
 count by their subjects ; that some were, in 
 certain cases, banished, and in others exe- 
 cuted ; and that though either their sons or 
 relations were chosen in their place, yet no 
 inquiry was ever instituted against the au- 
 thors of their punishment ; but that violence 
 
 offered to good kings has, in no part of the 
 world, been punished with more exemplary 
 severity. And, since it would be tedious to 
 enumerate individuals, a few only of a late 
 date, and still fresh in the nation's memory, 
 shall be here mentioned. The murder of 
 James I., who left behind him a male heir, 
 six years of age, was so inexorably revenged 
 by the nobility, that persons sprung from 
 the most illustrious families, and of the first 
 distinction for riches and connexions, were 
 destroyed by a new and exquisite kind of 
 punishment. But, on the other hand, who 
 lamented, for I will not say revenged, the 
 death of James III., a man noted for flagi- 
 tiousness and cruelty ? On the death, how- 
 ever, of his son, James IV., even the sus- 
 picion of murder could not escape the 
 severest destiny. Nor did our ancestors 
 discover a pious affection only to good 
 kings, but also treated bad princes with 
 lenity and mercy. For Cullen being, as he 
 was coming to plead his cause, murdered on 
 the road by an enemy, was revenged in an 
 extraordinary manner by a decree of the 
 states ; and Ewen, who had been condemned 
 to perpetual imprisonment, having been si- 
 milarly killed in confinement by an enemy, 
 was similarly revenged; and the violent 
 death of the man, whose nefarious life all 
 detested, was punished as parricide. 
 
 M. — The present subject of our inquiry 
 is, not so much what has been sometimes 
 done, as what are the legal rights of our 
 sovereigns. 
 
 B. — Returning then to that question, and 
 considering the state of our kings down to 
 Kenneth III., who first established his race 
 permanently upon the throne, we shall find 
 it a clear case, that as the people, till that 
 period, exercised the right of creating and 
 correcting their kings, he must have pro- 
 cured this right to his family either by force 
 or by persuasion. 
 
 M. — The inference is undeniably just. 
 
 B.— Besides, if he extorted obedience 
 from the people by force, the people, upon 
 the first prospect of superiority in the con- 
 test, may shake off so grievous a yoke ; 
 since the received laws and the imperative 
 voice of nature proclaim, both to kings and 
 to nations, that every system upheld by 
 violence may, by the like violence, be over- 
 turned. 
 
 M. — But what will follow, if the people, 
 either circumvented by fraud, or compelled 
 by fear, should submit to slavery ? What 
 
THE LAW AND THE PKIXCE. 
 
 265 
 
 reason can be alleged why they should not 
 for ever adhere to a convention once solemnly 
 ratified ? 
 
 B. — If you talk to me of a convention, 
 what reason is there that I should not, in 
 opposition, produce those causes which may 
 effect the dissolution of compacts and con- 
 ventions ? And first, with regard to agree- 
 ments founded on violence and fear, their 
 is in all communities an established law, de- 
 rived from the pure fountains of nature. 
 Even to such as have been overreached by 
 fraud, the laws grant an entire restitution to 
 their former state, and order this rule to be 
 scrupulously observed in the case of minors, 
 and other persons, whose interest they wish 
 particularly to consult. Who then can have 
 a juster claim to restitution than the whole 
 body of the people, since an injury offered 
 to it affects not only a single part of the 
 community, but is widely diffused through 
 all the members of the body politic. 
 
 M. — I know that in the causes of private 
 persons this law is adopted, and that it is in 
 no case iniquitous. But upon this topic we 
 need not enter into any violent contest ; 
 since, as we are informed by our historians, 
 it is extremely probable that the right in 
 question was bestowed upon our kings by 
 the people's consent. 
 
 B. — It is likewise probable, that so impor- 
 tant a right was not granted without some 
 important cause. 
 
 M. — That position I readily admit, 
 
 B. — What then, do you think, was the 
 principal cause ? 
 
 M. — What other causes can I assign but 
 those recorded in history? The people's 
 impatience, under the pressure of ambition, 
 of anarchy, of murder, and of intestine war, 
 frequently terminating in the utter ruin of 
 one of the parties, and always with infinite 
 mischief to both. For those who obtained 
 the sovereign power, endeavoured to leave 
 their children in undisturbed possession, by 
 the total extinction of their brothers and 
 nearest relations; a species of policy, which, 
 we hear, is adopted among the Turks, and 
 which, we see, is practised by the chieftains 
 in our own isles, as well as in Ireland. 
 
 B, — To which of the two, then, do you 
 think the contest proved more dangerous, 
 to the people or to the princes ? 
 
 M. — To the princes indisputably ; for the 
 people, though ultimately doomed to be- 
 come the prey of the victors, may, during 
 the contest, live in perfect security. 
 
 B. — Princes then, it seems, have wished, 
 rather on their own account than for the 
 public benefit, to make the crown perma- 
 nent and hereditary in their family. 
 
 M. — The supposition appears probable. 
 
 B. — Now, in order to gain a point so 
 essential to the lasting honour, to the wealth 
 and security of their family, it is reasonable 
 to suppose that, in return, they relinquished 
 some part of their right, and that to retain 
 the good-will and affection of the people, 
 and to procure their consent, they granted, 
 on their side, some equivalent boon. 
 
 M. — I believe so. 
 
 B. — You will certainly allow it to be an 
 incredible supposition, that, in return for so 
 important a concession to their kings, they 
 should suffer their condition to be altered 
 for the worse ? 
 
 M. — Absolutely incredible. 
 
 B. — Nor would kings, had they known 
 this to be an injurious institution, disadvan- 
 tageous both to their children and to the 
 people, have solicited its adoption with such 
 ambitious zeal. 
 
 M. — By no means. 
 
 B. — Suppose then any individual, in the 
 mixed throng of a free people, freely to ask 
 the king, " What is to be done, if any of 
 our kings should have a son that is an idiot ; 
 or, what is worse still, a son that is insane ? 
 Will you grant the power of regulating our 
 conduct, to a man who cannot regulate his 
 own?" 
 
 M. — There was no occasion, I think, for 
 suggesting this exception, since, whenever 
 this class of men occurs, there is sufficient 
 provision made by the laws. 
 
 B, — An honest, as well as sound opinion. 
 Let us, therefore, inquire, whether, if kings 
 had obtained from the people unlimited 
 power over the laws, it would not have been 
 injurious, especially to those who wished to 
 provide for the welfare of their posterity ? 
 
 M. — Why, I beseech you, should we think 
 that it would prove injurious ? 
 
 B. — Because nothing contributes so much 
 to the perpetuity of sovereign authority as 
 a due temperament, no less honourable to 
 kings than equitable and salutary to the 
 people. For nature has implanted in the 
 human mind an elevated and generous prin- 
 ciple, which makes it unwilling to obey unjust 
 mandates; and there is nothing so effica- 
 cious in consolidating societies of men, as a 
 reciprocity of benefits. The answer, there- 
 fore, of Theopompus to his wife, who up- 
 2n 
 
266 
 
 DE JURE REGNI APUD SCOTOS I OR, 
 
 braided him with having, by the introduc- 
 tion of the Ephori into power, impaired the 
 energy of regal government, and with trans- 
 mitting to his children the crown less than 
 he had received it, seems not to have been 
 unwise, when he said, " I have left it so 
 much the firmer round their head." 
 
 M. — What you say concerning the per- 
 petuity of the sovereign power, I see to be 
 perfectly true. For the kingdoms of the 
 Scots and Danes are, I think, by far the 
 most ancient in Europe ; and this distinc- 
 tion they seem to me to have secured by 
 nothing so much as by the moderate use 
 of the supreme power ; while, at the same 
 time, the crowns of France, of England, 
 and of Spain, have passed from family to 
 family. Yet I know not whether our kings 
 were as wise as Theopompus. 
 
 B. — Though they should not have been 
 so provident, do you .think that the people 
 were so foolish as to neglect an opportunity 
 so seasonably offered, or so struck with 
 fear, or so seduced by flattery, as to submit 
 spontaneously to slavery ? 
 
 M. — They were not, perehaps. But let 
 them, as the thing is possible, have been so 
 blind as not to see what was for their own 
 benefit ; or let them have been, with their 
 eyes open, so regardless of their own in- 
 terest as to have despised it, will they not 
 be justly punished for their folly ? 
 
 B. — It is not likely that any of these sup- 
 positions was ever realised, since in our 
 times their conduct has been constantly the 
 reverse. For beside the constant punish- 
 ment of bad kings, whenever they became 
 tyrants to their subjects, there still remain, 
 even in old families, some vestiges of the 
 ancient practice. For the ancient Scots or 
 Highlanders continue, down to our days, to 
 elect their own chieftians, and to assign 
 them a council of elders ; and those who 
 do not obey this council are deprived of the 
 honourable office. Could then what is still 
 partially observed with the greatest scrupu- 
 lousness in certain districts be neglected in 
 providing for the general good? or would 
 those become voluntary slaves to the man, 
 who would deem the grant of royalty, under 
 legal restraints, a favour ? Can it be sup- 
 posed that the liberty, which they had se- 
 cured by valour, defended by arms, and 
 enjoyed uninterruptedly for ages, should, 
 without violence, and without war, be re- 
 signed to him as an unexpected prey ? That 
 such power was never possessed by our kings 
 
 is, without mentioning the punishments so 
 often inflicted on them for mal -administra- 
 tion, sufficiently evident from the misfortune 
 of John Baliol, who was, about 269 years 
 ago, rejected by the nobility, because he 
 had subjected himself and his kingdom to 
 Edward I. of England ; and Robert I. was 
 substituted in his place. The same truth is 
 evinced also by that uninterrupted practice, 
 which has descended from the earliest times 
 to ours. 
 
 M. — What practice do you mean ? 
 B. — Our kings, at their public inaugura- 
 tion, solemnly promise to the whole people 
 to observe the statutes, customs, and institu- 
 tions of our ancestors, and to adhere strictly 
 to that system of jurisprudence handed down 
 by antiquity. This fact is proved by the 
 whole tenor of the ceremonies at their 
 coronation, and by their first arrival in our 
 cities. From all these circumstances it may 
 be easily conceived what sort of power they 
 received from our ancestors, and that it was 
 clearly such as magistrates, elected by suf- 
 frage, are bound by oath not to exceed. 
 Upon such terms God offered the crown to 
 David and to his posterity, promising that 
 they should be kings as long as they obeyed 
 the laws which he had ordained. All this 
 evidence makes it probable that the autho- 
 rity conferred by our ancestors on their 
 kings was not unbounded and immense, but 
 circumscribed and confined to fixed limits. 
 In favour of this right in the people add, 
 besides, immemorial prescription and long 
 use, never contravened by any public de- 
 cree. 
 
 M. — But I fear that kings will not be 
 easily persuaded, by the consideration of 
 these probabilities, to submit to such laws, 
 however much sanctioned by royal oaths, or 
 justified by popular prescription. 
 
 B. — In like manner, it is my belief that 
 the people will not be easily prevailed upon 
 to relinquish a right received from their an- 
 cestors, approved by the concurring voice of 
 all, and practised for an uninterrupted series 
 of ages ; nor do I think it necessary to form 
 conjectures about what they will do, when I 
 see what they have done. But, if from the 
 obstinate perverseness of both parties, re- 
 course should be had to arms, the conqueror 
 will certainly impose what laws he pleases 
 on the conquered : but he will impose them 
 only till he, that has had the worst of the 
 contest, can resume his arms with recol- 
 lected strength. These struggles end al- 
 
THE RIGHTS OF THE CROWN IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 267 
 
 ways with mischief to the people, but gene- 
 rally with utter ruin to their kings ; and 
 in these causes all the disasters of all king- 
 doms originate. 
 
 M. — Such must necessarily be the result. 
 B. — Here, perhaps, I have entered into 
 a minuter investigation than the subject re- 
 quired ; but my design was to elucidate, more 
 completely, the limits of regal power among 
 us in ancient times. For, if I had insisted 
 upon the full extent of my legal claims, I 
 might have taken a much shorter road to 
 the object of my pursuit. 
 
 M. — Though you have nearly satisfied 
 me already, yet I shall be glad to hear you 
 explain the nature of this compendious road. 
 B. — First, then, I wish you to answer, 
 whether you approve of the definition of a 
 law given by lawyers, when they say that a 
 law is a decree made by the people, at the 
 instance of the legal magistrate. 
 
 M. — Undoubtedly it has my approbation. 
 
 B. — It was also ascertained that, when 
 
 laws were found to be defective, they might, 
 
 by the same legislators, be either arn^ided 
 
 or repealed. W 
 
 M. — It was so. 
 
 B. — You see besides, I suppose, that the 
 persons, who become our kings by birth, be- 
 come so both by the laws and by the suf- 
 frages of the people, no less than those con- 
 stituted such originally by election ; and 
 that the people, who made the laws, will 
 not be in want of remedies, not only against 
 violence and fraud, but also against neglect 
 in acknowledging the acceptance of them. 
 M. — I see it clearly. 
 B. — There is only this difference, that 
 the law relative to our kings was passed some 
 ages ago ; and that, when a new reign com- 
 mences, it is not usual to make a new law, 
 but to approve the old. But among nations 
 who hold assemblies 1'or the election of their 
 several kings successively, the same time 
 usually serves for passing the law, for mak- 
 ing and approving the king, and for the 
 commencement of the reign. 
 M.— It is so. 
 
 B. — Now, if you please, let us briefly 
 collect the substance of what has been ascer- 
 tained ; that, if we have anywhere been too 
 rash in our conclusions, there may be room 
 for recantation. 
 
 M. — With all my heart. 
 B. — First of all, it was our opinion that a 
 king is created for the benefit of the people, 
 and that nothing derived from heaven can 
 
 be a greater blessing than a good, or a 
 greater curse than a bad king. 
 M.— Bight. 
 
 B. — We also said that a bad king is called 
 a tyrant. 
 
 M.— We did so. 
 
 B. — And because the crop of good men 
 is not so abundant as to supply us constantly 
 with a succession of worthy persons for our 
 selection, or hereditary right so fortunate in 
 its line of succession as to furnish us always, 
 by accident, with a series of good princes, 
 we accept, as kings, not such as we could 
 wish, but such as either public consent has 
 sanctioned, or chance offered. The hazard, 
 however, incurred either in electino- new 
 dynasties, or in approving the casual claim- 
 ants by hereditary right, occasioned a gene- 
 ral wish for laws that should limit the ex- 
 tent of regal power. Now, these laws ought 
 to be nothing else but the express image, as 
 far as it can be attained, of a good king. 
 
 M. — That deduction also we acknowleged 
 to be legitimate. 
 
 B. — What now remains to 
 
 the punishment due to tyrants. 
 
 M. — That seems the only topic not yet 
 thoroughly examined. 
 
 B. — If a king then should break through 
 every restraint of law, and behave abso- 
 lutely as a public enemy, what conduct 
 ought, in your opinion, to be adopted ? 
 
 M. — Here I own myself at a nonplus. 
 For, though the arguments advanced by 
 you seem to evince that we cannot have any 
 natural connexion with such a king, yet the 
 power of long habit is so great, that with me 
 it has the force of law ; and, indeed, it takes 
 such deep and firm root in the minds of 
 men, that, if it should ever be productive of 
 error, it is better to bear it, than, by en- 
 deavouring to cure the disease, to endanger 
 the constitution of the whole body. For 
 such is the nature of some remedies, that it 
 is more eligible to bear the pain which they 
 occasion, than to search for doubtful reme- 
 dies, in the trial of which, though everything 
 should ultimately succeed, the pains result- 
 ing from their application are so acute, that 
 the disease itself is less pernicious than its 
 cure. In the next place, what has still more 
 weight with me is, that I see what you call 
 tyranny sanctioned by the oracle of God ; 
 and what you execrate as the ruin of law, 
 called, by the Deity, the law of the realm. 
 My judgment is more decisively swayed by 
 that single passage, than by all the argu- 
 
268 
 
 DE JURE REGNI APUD SCOTOS ; OR, 
 
 ments of all the philosophers. If you do 
 not extricate me from this dilemma, no 
 human reasoning can, with all its subtilty, 
 prevent me from deserting at once to the 
 enemy. 
 
 B. — You are involved, I see, in a com- 
 mon, but enormous cloud of error, by en- 
 | deavouring to sanction tyranny by tyranny. 
 ■ For how great the tyranny of custom is, 
 when it has once got thorough hold of the 
 human mind, we have too often experienced 
 in the present age, and learned sufficiently 
 ; from ancient examples in the father of his- 
 ) tory, Herodotus. But ancient examples I 
 need not produce, since the authors are open 
 ; for your inspection. Consider in your own 
 ; mind what multitudes of things, and those 
 not unimportant, there are, in which the 
 suggestions of reason have made you deviate 
 from customs that ages had rendered in- 
 veterate ; and you will be soon taught by 
 domestic examples, that, of all others, the 
 highway, which is here so much recom- 
 mended, is the most dangerous to follow. 
 Examine it, therefore, with cautious circum- 
 spection ; and you will see it strewed with 
 carnage, and chocked with ruins. But, if 
 this truth be, according to the usual phrase, 
 clearer than the light itself, I need not dwell 
 longer either on the proof or on the illustra- 
 tion of so evident a proposition. As to the 
 passage, however, quoted by you from the 
 book of Kings, and which you rather notice 
 than explain, beware, I beseech you, of 
 imagining that what God execrates in the 
 life of tyrants he should approve in the con- 
 duct of kings. That you may draw no such 
 inference, I desire you to consider first, 
 what the people requested of God ; next, 
 what their reasons were for a new request ; 
 and, lastly, what was God's answer? First, 
 they request a king. And of what sort ? 
 A king circumscribed by laws. Such they 
 had; for Samuel had been appointed by 
 God to preside over them ; and he had for 
 many years administered justice in a legal 
 manner, according to the directions of the 
 divine law. But Ids sons, who sat as judges 
 during his old age, were guilty of many 
 flagitious acts, and in their decisions vio- 
 lated the laws. Hitherto I cannot see that 
 they had any just reason for desiring a 
 chancre, but rather a reform of the govern- 
 ment, which they might certainly have ex- 
 pected from the beneficence of that God, 
 who had not long before, and for a reason 
 nearly similar, extirpated the whole family 
 
 of Heli. What then do they request ? A 
 king, who might, as among the neighbour- 
 ing nations, be their judge at home and 
 their general abroad. Now, these were, in 
 reality, tyrants. For, as the nations of Asia 
 discover greater servility of mind than the 
 Europeans, so they will submit with greater 
 facility to the commands of tyrants ; and, 
 hence there is not, as far as I know, men- 
 tion any where made in historians of a king 
 subject to laws in Asia. Besides, that a 
 tyrant, and not a king, is here described, is 
 readily deducible even from this circum- 
 stance, that in Deuteronomy God had be- 
 forehand prescribed to them a form of go- 
 vernment, not only different, but perfectly 
 the reverse. According to this form, 
 Samuel, and the rest of the judges, had, for 
 a series of years, administered justice ; and, 
 when they rejected it, God complained that 
 they had rejected him. 
 
 M. — Yet God everywhere styles him 
 king, and not tyrant. 
 
 B. — He does, indeed, style him king; 
 for it is peculiar to God, in addressing a 
 popular assembly, to adopt popular lan- 
 guage. Accordingly, in speaking to the 
 commonalty, he uses a common word ; but 
 that none might be deceived by its ambi- 
 guity, he explains here distinctly, in what 
 sense it was taken among the neighbouring 
 nations. 
 
 M. — Though we should admit the justness 
 of your reasonings upon that ancient exam- 
 ple, we are still more closely pressed by a 
 more modern instance in Paul, who com- 
 mands us to pray for the life of sovereigns, 
 and is far from allowing us to renounce their 
 authority, much less to dethrone, and, when 
 dethroned, to murder them. And what 
 princes does he thus recommend to our 
 prayers ? Of all that ever existed the most 
 cruel, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Ne- 
 ro ; for these were co-eval with the epistles 
 of Paul. 
 
 B. — In comparing the writings of all the 
 philosophers and lawyers with Paul's, you 
 seem to me to act rightly, in allowing to his 
 authority so much preponderance in the ba- 
 lance. But you should consider whether you 
 have sufficiently weighed his opinions ; for 
 you ought to examine, not only his words, but 
 also at what times, to what persons, and for 
 what purposes, he wrote. First, then, let 
 us see what Paul wrote. In the third 
 chapter of his letter to Titus, he writes, 
 " Put subjects in mind to be obedient to 
 
THE RIGHTS OF THE CROWN IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 269 
 
 principalities and powers, and to be ready 
 for every good work." Here you see, I 
 presume, what end he assigns to obedience. 
 In the second chapter of his epistle to Ti- 
 mothy, the same apostle writes, " That we 
 should pray for all men, even for kings and 
 and other magistrates, that we may lead a 
 peaceable life, in all godliness and purity." 
 Here, also, you see that he proposes, as the 
 end of prayer, not the security of kings, but 
 the tranquillity of the church ; and, hence, 
 it will be no difficult matter to comprehend 
 his form of prayer. In his epistle to the 
 Romans, his definition of a king is accurate, 
 even to logical subtilty ; for he says that " a 
 king is God's minister, wielding the sword 
 of the law for the punishment of the bad, 
 and for the support and aid of the good." 
 " For these passages of Paul's," says Chry- 
 sostom, " relate not to a tyrant, but to a 
 real and legitimate sovereign, who person- 
 ates a genuine god upon earth, and to whom 
 resistance is certainly resistance to the ordi- 
 nance of God." Yet, though we should 
 pray for bad princes, we ought not, there- 
 fore, to infer directly that their vices should 
 not be punished like the crimes of robbers, 
 for whom also we are ordered to pray ; nor, 
 if we are bound to obey a good, does it follow 
 that we should not resist a bad prince? 
 Besides, if you attend to the cause which 
 induced Paul to commit these ideas to writ- 
 ing, you will find, I fear, that this passage 
 is greatly against you ; since he wrote them 
 to chastise the temerity of certain persons, 
 who maintained that Christians ought not to 
 be under the control of magistrates. For, 
 since the magistrates were invested with au- 
 thority on purpose to restrain wicked men, 
 to enable us all to live under equal laws, and 
 to exhibit a living example of divine justice, 
 they contended that he was of no use among 
 persons so un contaminated by the contagion 
 of vice as to be a law to themselves. Paul, 
 therefore, does not here treat of the magis- 
 trate, but of the magistracy — that is, of the 
 function and duty of the person who presides 
 over others, nor of this nor of that species 
 of magistracy, but of every possible form of 
 government. Nor does he contend against 
 those who maintained that bad magistrates 
 ought not to be punished, but against per- 
 sons who renounced every kind of authority ; 
 who, by an absurd interpretation of Christian 
 liberty, affirmed that it was an indignity to 
 men emancipated by the Son of God, and di- 
 rected by God's Spirit, to be controlled by any 
 
 human power. To refute this erroneous opin- 
 ion, Paul shows that magistracy is not only a 
 good, but a sacred and divine ordinance, and 
 instituted expressly for connecting assem- 
 blages and communities of men, and to enable 
 them, conjointly, to acknowledge God's bless- 
 ings, and to abstain from mutual injuries. 
 Persons raised to the rank of magistrates God 
 has ordered to be the conservators of his 
 laws ; and, therefore, if we acknowledge laws 
 to be, as they certainly are, good things, we 
 must also acknowledge that their conserva- 
 tors are entitled to honour, and that their 
 office is a good and useful institution. But 
 the magistrate is terrible. To whom, I be- 
 seech you ? To the good, or to the bad ? To 
 the good he cannot be a terror, as he secures 
 them from injury ; but, if he is a terror to 
 the bad, it is nothing to you, who are directed 
 by the Spirit of God. What occasion, then, 
 is there, you will say, for subjecting me to 
 the magistrate, since I am God's freeman? 
 Much. To prove yourself God's freeman, 
 obey his laws ; for the Spirit of God, of 
 whose direction you boast, framed the laws, 
 approves of magistracy and authorises obe- 
 dience to the magistrate. On this head, 
 therefore, we shall easily come to an agree- 
 ment, that a magistrate is necessary in the 
 best-constituted societies, and that he ought 
 to be treated with every kind of respect. 
 Hence, if any person entertains contrary 
 sentiments, we deem him insane, intestable, 
 and worthy of the severest punishment ; 
 since he openly resists God's will communi- 
 cated to us in the Scriptures. For, suppos- 
 ing that no punishment for the violation of 
 all laws, human and divine, should be in- 
 flicted on a Caligula, a Nero, a Domifian, 
 and other tyrants of that sort, you have here 
 no countenance from Paul, who is discours- 
 ing of the power of magistrates and of bad 
 men by whom it is badly exercised. Indeed, 
 if you examine that kind of tyrants by Paul's 
 rule, they will not at all be magistrates. 
 Again, if you should contend that even bad 
 princes are ordained by God, take care lest 
 your language should be charged with cap- 
 tiousness. For God, to counteract poison by 
 poison, as an antidote, sometimes sets a bad 
 man over bad men for their punishment ; 
 and yet, that God is the author of human 
 wickedness, no man in his senses will dare 
 to affirm, as none can be ignorant that the 
 same God is the author of the punishments 
 inflicted on the wicked. Even a good ma- 
 gistrate generally chooses a bad man to be 
 
270 
 
 DE JURE REGNI APUD SCOTOS ; OR, 
 
 the executioner in punishing the guilty. 
 This executioner, though thus appointed by 
 the magistrate to that office, is not, in con- 
 sequence, indulged with impunity for every 
 crime, nor raised so high as not to be ame- 
 nable to the laws. On this comparison I 
 shall dwell no longer, lest the sycophants of 
 the court should cry out that I speak with 
 too little reverence of the supreme magis- 
 trate. But, let their outcries be ever so 
 loud, certainly they will never be able to 
 deny that the function of the executioner is 
 a part of public, and perhaps also of kingly 
 duty, even by the confession of kings them- 
 selves ; since, when violence is offered to any 
 public minister, they complain that their 
 own person and majesty are violated. Now, 
 if any thing can, certainly the punishment 
 of the wicked must constitute a part of the 
 king's executive duty. In what predica- 
 ment stand the governors of cities, the com- 
 mandants of camps, the mayors of corpora- 
 tions, and other superior officers? Does 
 Paul order us to be obedient also to them ? 
 or does he hold them private persons ? But 
 not only all inferior magistrates, but even 
 those who are upon an equality with kings, 
 it is customary to call to an account for mal- 
 administration. I could wish, therefore, that 
 those who dream of this mighty power con- 
 ferred on kings by Paul's words would either 
 show, from the same Paul, that kings alone 
 are to be understood in the name powers, 
 and, therefore, to be alone exempted from 
 legal animadversion ; or, if the word powers 
 mean also other magistrates appointed by 
 the authority of the same God for the same 
 purpose, that they would also show where 
 all magistrates are pronounced to be inde- 
 pendent of law, and released from the fear 
 of punishment; or, where that immunity 
 has been granted only to kings, and denied 
 to others invested with public authority. 
 
 M. — But to the higher powers he com- 
 mands all to be obedient. 
 
 B. — He does so ; but under the name of 
 powers he must necessarily comprehend 
 other magistrates also, unless you should, 
 perhaps, imagine that he thought states 
 not under a regal government to be with- 
 out powers, and therefore mere anarchies. 
 
 M. — That is not my belief, nor is the 
 thing likely ; and I am the more steadfastly 
 of this opinion, that your interpretation of 
 this passage is confirmed by the agreement 
 of all the more learned commentators, who 
 think Paul's dissertation here intended 
 
 against those that contended for a total 
 exemption from the control of all laws and 
 magistrates. 
 
 B. — What then do you think of what I 
 lately said ? Is it your belief that the most 
 cruel of all tyrants are not included in 
 Paul's form of words ? 
 
 M. — Yes. For what do you allege to 
 alter my belief? especially as Jeremiah 
 earnestly admonishes the Jews, and that 
 by divine command, to obey the king of 
 the Assyrians, and by no means to contra- 
 vene his authority. And hence the infer- 
 ence is, by a similar mode of reasoning, 
 drawn, that other tyrants also, however bar- 
 barous, ought to be obeyed. 
 
 B. — Meaning to answer first what you 
 advanced last, I must desire you to remark 
 that the prophet does not command the 
 Jews to obey all tyrants, but only the king 
 of the Assyrians. Therefore if, from a sin- 
 gle and particular command, you should be 
 inclined to collect the form of a general law, 
 you cannot be ignorant, in the first place, as 
 logic has taught you better, of what an ab- 
 surdity you will be guilty ; and that you will, 
 in the next place, be in danger of an attack, 
 with similar arms, from the enemies of ty- 
 ranny. For you must either show in what 
 the singularity of this instance consists, that 
 you offer it as a fit object of imitation to all 
 men on all occasions ; or, if that should be 
 impossible, you must acknowledge that, 
 among all the special commands of God, 
 whatever is ordered in the case of any sin- 
 gle individual, extends to all mankind. If 
 you once admit this inference, and admit it 
 you must, it will be directly objected, that 
 by God's order also Ahab was slain, and 
 that a reward was both promised and paid 
 by divine command to his murderer. There- 
 fore, when you take refuge under the shelter 
 of the obedience supposed to be due to all 
 tyrants, because God, by his prophet, com- 
 manded his own people to obey a single ty- 
 rant, your ears will immediately ring with 
 an opposite cant, that all tyrants ought to 
 be slain by their own subjects, because Ahab 
 was, by divine command, murdered by the 
 general of his own forces. Therefore I ad- 
 vise you either to provide from Scripture 
 some stronger bulwark for your tyrants, or 
 to set it aside for the present, and to return 
 to the schools of philosophers. 
 
 M. — That hint I shall certainly take into 
 consideration. But, in the meantime, let 
 us return to the point from which we di- 
 
THE RIGHTS OF THE CROWN IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 271 
 
 gressed, and examine where the Scripture 
 grants us a licence to murder princes with 
 impunity. 
 
 B. — My first argument is, that, as there 
 is in Holy Writ, an express command for 
 the extirpation of crimes and criminals, 
 without any exception of degree or rank, 
 there is nowhere any peculiar privilege 
 granted, in that respect, to tyrants, more 
 than to private persons; and my next is, 
 that the definition of powers furnished by 
 Paul does not, in the least, refer to tyrants ; 
 as they accommodate the whole plan of their 
 government, not to the utility of the people, 
 but to the gratification of their own lusts. 
 Besides, you must note, with particular at- 
 tention, of what vast consequence Paul has 
 made bishops, bestowing upon their office 
 the highest encomiums, and making them, 
 in the opposite scale of comparison, corre- 
 spond, in some measure, to kings, at least as 
 far as the nature of their respective func- 
 tions will admit. For the former are phy- 
 sicians for internal, and the latter for exter- 
 nal maladies ; and yet he has not directed 
 that the one class should be free and loose 
 from the other's jurisdiction ; but that, as 
 bishops are, in the exercise of the common 
 duties of civil life, subject to kings, so kings 
 also should obey the spiritual admonitions 
 of bishops. Now these bishops, though ex- 
 alted to such a height of majesty and gran- 
 deur, are not exempted by any law, human 
 or divine, from punishment for their crimes. 
 And, without mentioning others, the Pope 
 himself, who is in some measure deemed a 
 bishop of bishops, and who rises so far above 
 the eminence of all kings, that he would be 
 reckoned a kind of god among mortals, is 
 not even, by his own friends, the canonists, 
 the class of men most devoted to his will, 
 exempted from legal punishment. For judg- 
 ing it absurd for a god, a name which 
 they do not hesitate to give him, to be sub- 
 ject to human animadversion, and thinking- 
 it unjust that the greatest crimes, and most 
 flagitious enormities, should remain unpun- 
 ished, they devised a method by which both 
 the crimes might be punished, and the Pope 
 be still held sacred and inviolable. For they 
 declared the right of the Pope to be one 
 thing, and the right of the person who 
 should be Pope, another ; and, while they 
 exempt the Pope, whom they invest with 
 the attribute of infallibility, from the cog- 
 nizance of the laws, they still acknowledge 
 the person, who is Pope, to be liable to vices, 
 
 and punishable for his vices ; and to this doc- 
 trine they have given their unequivocal sanc- 
 tion, not more by the subtilty of their rea- 
 sonings, than by the severity of their punish- 
 ments. It would be tedious to enumerate 
 the pontiffs, or, in their language, the men 
 who bore the character of pontiffs, and were 
 during their lives not only forced to forswear 
 the office, but, even after their death, dug 
 from their tombs and cast into the Tiber. 
 Without recurring to ancient examples, we 
 need only refer to the late instance of Paul 
 IV., whose fate is still fresh in our memo- 
 ries, and against whom his favourite Rome 
 expressed the common hatred by a new kind 
 of decree. For the vengeance from which 
 he had escaped was wreaked upon his rela- 
 tions, upon his statues, and upon his por- 
 traits. Nor ought you to imagine that ex- 
 cessive subtilty is couched under this inter- 
 pretation, by which we separate the person 
 from the power ; since it is acknowled°ed 
 even by philosophy, and approved by the an- 
 cient commentators, and it is not unknown 
 to the untutored vulgar, however little ac- 
 customed to the refinements of disputation. 
 Mechanics do not consider it as a disgrace to 
 their trade, that either a carpenter or baker 
 is punished for an act of robbery ; but re- 
 joice rather that their company is purged 
 from the stain of such infamous malefactors. 
 If any of them should entertain a contrary 
 sentiment, there is, I think, reason to fear 
 that he grieves more at the punishment of 
 men with whom he is connected by a con- 
 sciousness of guilt, than at the infamy of his 
 company. Indeed, if kings did not form 
 their councils of miscreants and flatterers, 
 and measure their own importance by the 
 gratitude due to their virtues rather than by 
 the impunity of their crimes, they would, in 
 my opinion, not be vexed at the punishment 
 of tyrants, or think that their fate, however 
 grievous, was any diminution of regal digni- 
 ty ; but rather be pleased to see its honour 
 cleared from a stain of so foul a nature, espe- 
 cially since they use to be violently angry, 
 and with great justice, with those who cloak 
 their own misdeeds under the regal name. 
 
 M. — And not without reason, assuredly. 
 But I wish that you would quit this topic, 
 and proceed to the other subjects, which 
 you proposed to handle. 
 
 B. — What subjects, pray, do you mean ? 
 
 M. — The periods in which Paul com- 
 posed his writings, and the persons to whom 
 he addressed them ; for I am eager to know 
 
272 
 
 DE JURE REGNI APUD SCOTOS ; OR, 
 
 of what advantage the knowledge of these 
 circumstances can be to your argument. 
 
 B. — Here, too, you shall be humoured. 
 And first, in treating of the time, let me 
 observe that Paul wrote these passages 
 when the infant church was still in her 
 cradle ; a time that made it necessary for 
 her not only to be free from guilt, but also 
 not to afford even an unjust cause of ac- 
 cusation to persons in active search of a 
 handle for calumny ; and, in the next place, 
 that he wrote to men collected from various 
 nations, and indeed from the whole extent 
 of the Roman empire, into one blended 
 mass. Among these there were but few 
 distinguished for opulence ; hardly any that 
 were, or had been, magistrates ; not many 
 that held the rank of citizens, and these 
 mostly lodgers, or even mere freed-men ; 
 and the rest almost all mechanics and slaves. 
 Among these, however, there were not 
 wanted men who extended Christian liberty 
 farther than the simplicity of the gospel 
 would admit. Accordingly, this multitude, 
 composed of a promiscuous crowd of plebe- 
 ians, that, with great labour, gained a scanty 
 livelihood, had not so much reason to be 
 anxious about the form of the government, 
 the majesty of the empire, and the life and 
 duty of kings, as about public tranquillity and 
 domestic repose, and could hardly claim any 
 other blessing but the happiness of being 
 any how sheltered under the shade of the 
 empire. If such men attempted to grasp 
 any part of the public administration, they 
 deserved to be considered not only as foolish, 
 but absolutely insane ; and they would de- 
 serve it still more, if they issued from their 
 cells, and proved troublesome to the minis- 
 ters who managed the helm of government. 
 There was a necessity, too, for checking 
 premature luxury, that ill-omened interpre- 
 ter of Christian liberty. What then did 
 Paul write? No new precepts, certainly, 
 but those common maxims, that subjects 
 should be obedient to the magistrates, ser- 
 vants to their masters, wives to their hus- 
 bands, and not imagine that the yoke of the 
 Lord, though light, releases us from the ties 
 of morality ; but ought rather to make us 
 more conscientious in the observance of them, 
 so that, in all the gradations of duty, we 
 might omit nothing that could help us to 
 conciliate the good will of all men by honest 
 practices. The ultimate consequence would 
 thus be, that the name of God would, to all 
 nations, sound more pleasing, and the glory 
 
 of the gospel would be more widely dif- 
 fused. To effect these purposes, there was 
 a necessity for public peace, of which princes 
 and magistrates, though, perhaps, bad men, 
 were the conservators. Do you wish to 
 have this matter set before your eyes in a 
 lively picture ? Figure to yourself any of 
 our doctors to be writing to the Christians 
 now living under the Turks ; to men, I say, 
 of slender fortune, of humble mind, without 
 arms, few in number, and exposed to every 
 injury from every man ; what other advice, 
 I pray, could he give, but the advice of Paul 
 to the church at Rome, and of Jeremiah to 
 the exiles in Assyria ? Now, a most con- 
 clusive argument, that Paul's attention was 
 here directed solely to those persons to 
 whom he was then writing, and not to the 
 whole body of the citizens, is, that though 
 he minutely explains the mutual duties of 
 husbands to their wives, of wives to their 
 husbands, of parents to their children, of 
 children to their parents, of masters to their 
 slaves, and of slaves to their masters, he 
 does not, in describing the duty of a magis- 
 trate, address, as in the preceding parts, 
 them expressly by name. For what reason 
 then must we suppose that Paul gave no 
 directions to kings and to other magistrates, 
 especially as their passions required much 
 more than those of private persons the coer- 
 cive restraints of law ? What other reason 
 can we imagine, but that, at the time in 
 question, there were neither kings nor other 
 magistrates to whom he could write. Con- 
 ceive Paul to be living in our times, when 
 not only the people, but the sovereigns adopt 
 the name of Christians. At the same period, 
 let there be a prince, who thinks that not 
 only human, but also divine laws, ought to 
 be subservient to his capricious lusts ; who 
 would have not only his decrees, but even 
 his nods, held as laws ; who, as Paul says in 
 the gospel, " neither fears God nor reve- 
 rences men ;" who, not to say anything 
 worse, squanders the revenues of the church 
 upon parasites and buffoons; who derides 
 the sincere observers of religion, and deems 
 them fools and madmen ; what, do you 
 think, would Paul write concerning such a 
 man ? If he should wish to be thought con- 
 sistent, he will declare him unworthy of 
 being reckoned a magistrate ; he will put all 
 Christians under an interdict to abstain from 
 all familiarity, all conversation, and all com- 
 munion with him ; his punishment by the 
 civil laws he will leave to the citizens, and 
 
THE RIGHTS OF THE CROWN IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 273 
 
 will not think them stepping beyond their 
 duty, when they announce that the man, 
 with whom the divine law will allow them 
 no commerce, can no longer be their king. 
 But the servile herd of courtiers, finding 
 every honourable resource fail, will have the 
 impudence to say, that God, in his wrath, 
 lets tyrants loose upon nations, as public 
 executioners, to wreak their vengeance. 
 Now, though I should acknowledge the 
 truth of this assertion, yet it is equally true, 
 that God generally excites some poor and 
 almost unknown individuals of the lowest 
 vulgar to check the extravagant pride and 
 lawless career of tyrants. For God, as was 
 said before, commands the wicked to be ex- 
 terminated, and excepts neither rank, nor 
 sex, nor condition, nor even person ; since 
 to him kings are not more acceptable than 
 beggars, it may, therefore, be truly af- 
 firmed, that God, who is equally the father 
 of all, from whose eye nothing can be hid, 
 and whose power nothing can resist, will 
 leave no crime unpunished. Besides, another 
 parasite may perhaps start up, and ask me 
 to produce, from Holy Writ, an example of 
 a king punished by his subjects ; and yet, if 
 no such instance should immediately occur, 
 it will not directly follow that what we do 
 not there read should be held wicked and 
 nefarious. I can enumerate, from the codes 
 of many nations, numerous and most whole- 
 some laws, of which there is not the least 
 trace in the sacred Scriptures. For, as it 
 has been established by the unanimous con- 
 sent of all men, that what the law commands 
 should be deemed just, and what it forbids, 
 unjust, so we find no human records which 
 forbid us ever to do what is not contained in 
 the law. For such servility has never been 
 recognised ; nor will the nature of human 
 affairs, so fruitful in new examples, allow it 
 to be recognised to such a degree, that 
 whatever is not ordained by some law, or 
 evidenced by some illustrious record, should 
 be instantly reckoned wicked and nefarious. 
 Therefore, if any man should require of me 
 to show him, in the books of the sacred 
 volumes, an instance in which the punish- 
 ment of kings is approved, I shall recipro- 
 cally ask where it is disapproved. Indeed, 
 if it should be a rule that nothing ought to 
 be done without a precedent, only a small 
 remnant of our civil constitutions, and even 
 of our laws, will continue standing ; for the 
 greatest part of them is founded, not upon 
 ancient precedents, but established in op- 
 
 position to new and unprecedented encroach- 
 ments. But now we have given a fuller answer 
 than the case required to the sticklers for pre- 
 cedents. For, though the kings of the Jews 
 should not have been punished by their sub- 
 jects, it does not greatly affect our reason- 
 ing ; as they were not originally created by 
 the people, but assigned to them by God. 
 With very good reason, therefore, he who 
 conferred the honour also exacted the pun- 
 ishment. But we contend that the people, 
 from whom our kings derive whatever power 
 they claim, is paramount to our kings ; and 
 that the commonalty has the same jurisdic- 
 tion over them which they have over any 
 individual of the commonalty. The usages 
 of all nations, that live under legal kings, 
 are in our favour ; and all states, that obey 
 kings of their own election, in common 
 adopt the opinion that whatever right the 
 people may have granted to an individual, 
 it may, for just reasons, also re-demand. 
 For this is an inalienable privilege which all 
 communities must have always retained. 
 Accordingly, Lentulus, for having conspired 
 with Cataline to overturn the republic, was 
 forced to resign the prcetorship ; and the 
 decemvirs, the founders of the laws, though 
 invested with supreme magistracy, were de- 
 graded ; and some Venetian doges, and 
 Chilperic, king of the Franks, after being 
 stripped of every imperial badge, grew old, 
 as private persons, in monasteries ; and, not 
 long ago, Christian, king of the Danes, 
 ended his life in prison twenty years after 
 he had been dethroned. Nay, even the 
 dictatorship, which was a species of despo- 
 tism, was still subordinate to the power of 
 the people. And it has been everywhere 
 an invariable usage, that public favours, im- 
 properly bestowed, might be reclaimed ; and 
 that even liberty, the favourite object of law, 
 might be taken from ungrateful freed-men. 
 These observations, which, I hope, will be 
 sufficient, I have made, that we may not seem 
 to be the only people who have adopted what 
 is called a new practice towards our kings. 
 Everything, that properly relates to us, might 
 have been despatched in few words. 
 
 M. — In what manner ? This is an argu- 
 ment which I should be much pleased to 
 hear discussed. 
 
 B. — I could enumerate twelve or more of 
 our kings, who, for their villany of flagitious- 
 ness, were either condemned to perpetual 
 imprisonment, or escaped the punishment 
 due to their crimes, by exile or by death. 
 2o 
 
274 
 
 DE JURE REGIS I APUD SCOTOS : OR, 
 
 But, that none may allege that I produce 
 antique and obsolete precedents, if 1 should 
 mention the Calens, Ewens, and Ferchars, 
 I shall go back for a few examples no far- 
 ther than the memory of our fathers. James 
 III. was, in a public assembly of all the or- 
 ders, declared to have been justly slain for 
 bis extreme cruelty to his relations, and for 
 the enormous turpitude of his life ; and in the 
 act there was inserted a clause, providing that 
 those who had projected the conspiracy, or 
 aided by their person or their purse, should 
 never, on that account, be injured ormolested. 
 What they declared, after the event, to 
 have been a just and regular act, they un- 
 doubtedly meant to propose as an example 
 to posterity, and that certainly with no less 
 propriety than Quinctius acted, when he de- 
 livered, from the tribunal, a panegyric on 
 Servilius Ahala, for having, in the forum, 
 slain Spurius Mselius, who hesitated and re- 
 fused to plead his cause in a court of law ; 
 and gave it as his opinion, that he was not 
 polluted with the blood of a citizen, but en- 
 nobled by the death of a tyrant, and found 
 his opinion confirmed by the applauding 
 voice of succeeding generations. When he 
 thus approved the assassination of a man who 
 only aimed at tyranny, what do you think 
 he would do to a tyrant, who, upon the 
 goods of his fellow-citizens, practises rob- 
 bery, and upon their persons the trade of a 
 butcher? What was the conduct of our 
 countrymen ? In granting, by a public 
 decree, impunity to a perpetrated deed, 
 I they certainly enacted a law including any 
 similar event that might occur in future. 
 For, in the result, it makes no difference 
 whether you pass sentence upon what is 
 past, or enact a statute for what is to come ; 
 tor in either way you give judgment con- 
 cerning the nature of the fact, and concern- 
 ing the punishment or reward of its author. 
 M. — These arguments, perhaps, will, 
 among our people, be deemed valid ; but 
 abroad, among other nations, I know not 
 how they will be relished. You see that I 
 must satisfy them, not as in a court of jus- 
 tice, aoitating a criminal question, but, be- 
 fore the public eye, a question of reputation, 
 affecting, indeed, not myself, as 1 am far 
 beyond the reach of suspicion, but my 
 countrymen. For I am afraid that the 
 decrees, by which you think yourself suf- 
 ficiently justified, will be blamed by foreign 
 nations more than the deed itself, however 
 pregnant with odium and atrocity. With 
 
 respect to the precedents which you have 
 produced, you know, if I mistake not, what 
 is usually said by every man according to 
 his particular disposition and discernment. 
 Therefore, since you seemed to me to have 
 derived your explanation of other topics, not 
 so much from the decrees of men, as from 
 the fountains of nature, I wish that you 
 would, in a few words, unfold what you have 
 to say for the equity of that law. 
 
 B. — Though to plead in a foreign com!, 
 in defence of a law adopted from the first 
 oi igin of the Scottish monarchy, justified by 
 the experience of so many ages, necessary to 
 the people, neither severe nor dishonourable 
 to their kings, and not till now accused of 
 inconsistency with natural law, may seem 
 unreasonable ; yet, on your account, I shall 
 make the trial. And, as if I were arguing 
 with the very persons who may be disposed 
 to give you trouble, first I ask, WTiat is it 
 that you find here worthy of censure ? Is 
 it the cause which gave rise to the law, or 
 the law itself? The cause was a desire to 
 restrain the unbridled passions of kings ; and 
 he who condemns this purpose must condemn 
 all the laws of all nations, as they were all 
 enacted for the same reason. Is it the law 
 itself that you censure, and do you think it 
 reasonable that kings should be freed from 
 every restraint of law ? Let us also exa- 
 mine whether such a plan is expedient. 
 To prove that it cannot be expedient for 
 the people, we need not waste many words. 
 For if, in the preceding part of our conver- 
 sation, we were right in comparing a king 
 to a physician, it is evident that, as it was 
 there proved not to be expedient for the 
 people that a physician should be allowed to 
 kill any man at pleasure, so it cannot be ad- 
 vantageous to the public to grant to a king a 
 license to commit promiscuous havoc among 
 the whole community. With the people, 
 therefore, who possess the sovereign power 
 in making the law, we ought not to be 
 angry, if, as they wish to be governed by a 
 good king, they should also wish that a king, 
 who is not the very best of men, should be 
 governed by the law. Now, if this law be 
 not advantageous to the king, let us see 
 whether he ought to propose to the people 
 to relinquish some part of their right, and 
 let us appoint the meeting of parliament for 
 the consideration of its repeal, not at the 
 third market, but, according to our custom, 
 on the fortieth day. In the meantime, in 
 order to discuss here between ourselves the 
 
THE RIGHTS OF THE CKUWX IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 275 
 
 propriety of the measure, allow me to ask 
 you, Whether you think that he, who re- 
 leases a man in a state of insanity from a 
 strait-waistcoat, consults the true interest of 
 the insane person ? 
 
 M. — By no means. 
 
 B. — What do you say of him, who, at his 
 constant request, gives to a man, labouring 
 under such a paroxysm of fever as not to be 
 far from insanity, cold water ? Do you con- 
 ceive him to deserve well of his patient ? 
 
 M. — But I speak of kings in their sound 
 senses; and deny that men in full health 
 have any occasion for medicines, or kings, 
 in their sound senses, for laws. But you 
 would have all kings be thought bad, for 
 upon all you impose laws. 
 
 B. — Not all bad, by any means; but 
 neither do I look upon the whole people as 
 bad ; and yet the law addresses the whole 
 with one voice. That voice the bad dread, 
 and the good, being not concerned, hear at 
 their ease. Thus neither good kings have 
 any reason for feeling indignant at this law ; 
 nor would bad kings, if they had wisdom, 
 fail to return thanks to the legislator for or- 
 daining that which he conceived likely to be 
 in the event prejudicial, should in the act be 
 illegal. If ever they recover a sound state 
 of mind, they will certainly come to this re- 
 solution, like persons relieved from distem- 
 per, and expressing their gratitude to the 
 physician whom they hated for not gratify- 
 ing the calls of their sickly appetites. But, 
 if they should continue in their state of in- 
 sanity, he who humours them most should 
 be deemed most their enemy. In this class 
 we must rank flatterers, who. by cherishing 
 their vices with blandishments, exasperate 
 their disease, and generally fall headlong at 
 last in one common ruin with their kings. 
 
 M. — Certainly I cannot deny that such 
 princes deserved, and still deserve, to be fet- 
 tered by laws ; for no monster is more out- 
 rageous, or more pernicious than man, when, 
 as in the fables of the poets, he has once de- 
 generated into a brute. 
 
 B. — On this assertion you would insist 
 still more if you had remarked what a com- 
 plicated animal man is, and of what various 
 monsters he is composed. This truth the 
 ancient poets discerned with great acuteness, 
 and expressed with no less elegance, when 
 they record that, in the formation of man, 
 Prometheus borrowed from the several ani- 
 mals certain particles with which he consti- 
 tuted his mingled frame. To recount the 
 
 natures of nil separately would be endless ; 
 but, undoubtedly, there appear evidently in 
 man two abominable monsters, anger and 
 lust. And what else is the effect, or the ob- 
 ject of laws, but to render these monsters 
 obedient to reason, and to coerce them, 
 while not obedient, by the power of their 
 mandates. He, therefore, who releases either 
 a king, or any other man, from the shackles 
 of law, releases not only a single man, but 
 sets loose against reason two of the most 
 cruel monsters, and arms them for breaking 
 through the barriers of order ; so that truth 
 and rectitude seem to have guided the 
 tongue of Aristotle, when he said that " He 
 who obeys the laws, obeys God and the law ; 
 and that he who obeys man, obeys man and 
 a wild beast." 
 
 M. — Though these doctrines seem to be 
 expressed with much neatness and elegance, 
 yet I think that we have fallen into a double 
 error; first, because our last inferences do 
 not seem to be perfectly correspondent to 
 the premises; and next, because, though we 
 should, in other respects, be found consistent, 
 yet we have not, in my opinion, made any 
 considerable progress towards the end of our 
 investigation. In the preceding part, we 
 agreed that the voice of the king and of the 
 law should be the law ; but here we have 
 made it dependent on the law. Now, 
 though we should grant all this reasoning to 
 be ever so just, what great advantage do we 
 derive from the concession ? Who will call 
 a king that has become a tyrant to an ac- 
 count ? For I fear that justice, unsupported 
 by physical strength, will not, of itself, be 
 sufficiently powerful to coerce a king that 
 has forgotten his duty, or to drag him by 
 violence to plead his cause. 
 
 B. — I suspect that you have not suffi- 
 ciently considered the conclusions founded 
 on our preceding debate about the regal 
 power. For, if you had sufficiently con- 
 sidered them, you would have easily seen 
 that the observations which you have just 
 advanced are not in the least repugnant. 
 That you may the more readily comprehend 
 my meaning, first give me an answer to this 
 question : — " When a magistrate or secre- 
 tary, puts words into the mouth of the pub- 
 lic crier, is not the voice of both the same ; 
 — the voice, I mean, of the crier and of the 
 secretary ?" 
 
 M. — The same entirely. 
 
 B. — Which of the two appears to you to 
 be the superior ? 
 
276 
 
 HE JURE HEGXI APL'D SCOTOS 
 
 M. — He that dictates the words. 
 
 B. — What do you think of the king, the 
 author of the edict ? 
 
 M. — That he is greater than either. 
 
 B. — According to this representation, 
 then, let us compare the king, the law, and 
 the people. Hence we shall find the voice 
 of" the king and of the law to be the same. 
 But whence is their authority derived ? The 
 king's from the law or the law's from the king ? 
 
 M. — The lung's from the law. 
 
 B. — How do you come at that conclusion ? 
 
 M. — By considering that a king is not in- 
 tended for restraining the law, but the law for 
 restraining the king ; and it is from the law 
 that a king derives his quality of royalty ; 
 since without it he would be a tyrant. 
 
 B. — The law then is paramount to the 
 king, and serves to direct and moderate his 
 passions and actions. 
 
 M. — That is a concession already made. 
 
 B. — Is not then the voice of the people 
 and of the law the same ? 
 
 M. — The same. 
 
 B. — Which is the more powerful, tie 
 people or the law ? 
 
 M. — The whole people, I imagine. 
 
 B. — Why do you entertain that idea ? 
 
 M. — Because the people is the parent, or 
 at least the author of the law, and has the 
 power of its enactment or repeal at pleasure. 
 
 B. — Since the people, then, is more 
 powerful than the king, let us see whether 
 it is not before the people that he must be 
 called to account. And here let us inquire, 
 whether what has been instituted for the 
 sake of another is not of less value than the 
 object of its institution. 
 
 M. — That proposition I wish to hear more 
 distinctly explained. 
 
 B. — Attend to the following line of argu- 
 ment. — Is not the bridle made for the horse ? 
 
 M. — For the horse undoubtedly. 
 
 B. — What do you say of the saddle, the 
 harness and spurs ? 
 
 M. — That they were intended for the 
 same purpose. 
 
 B. — Therefore, if there was no horse, 
 they would be of no use ? 
 
 M. — Of none. 
 
 B. — A horse then takes the lead of them 
 all? 
 
 M. — Certainly. 
 
 B. — What do you think of the horse? 
 For what use is he so much in request ? 
 
 M. — For many; and particularly for 
 gaining victory in war. 
 
 B. — Victory then we value more than 
 horses, arms, and other preparatory instru- 
 ments of war. 
 
 M. — Much more, indisputably. 
 
 B. — In the creation of a king, what had 
 men principally in view ? 
 
 M. — The interest of the people, I believe. 
 
 B. — Therefore, if there were no society 
 of men, there would be no occasion for kings. 
 
 M. — None at all. 
 
 B. — The people, therefore, take the lead 
 of the king. 
 
 M. — The conclusion is unavoidable. 
 
 B. — If the people take the lead, they are 
 entitled to the superiority. Hence, when 
 the king is called before the tribunal of the 
 people, an inferior is summoned to appear 
 before a superior. 
 
 M. — But when can we hope for the feli- 
 city of seeing the whole people unanimously 
 agree to what is right ? 
 
 B. — That is indeed a blessing, of which 
 we can scarcely have any hope, and of which 
 we need not certainly wait in expectation ; 
 since, otherwise, no law could be passed, nor 
 magistrate created. For there is hardly 
 any law so equitable to all, or any man so 
 much in possession of popular favour, as not 
 to be somewhere the object either of enmity, 
 or of envy, or of detraction. The only ques- 
 tion is, whether the law is advantageous to 
 the majority, and whether the majority has 
 a good opinion of the candidate ? Therefore, 
 if the people can ordain a law, and create a 
 magistrate, what hinders it to pass sentence 
 upon him, and to appoint judges for his 
 trial ? Or, if the tribunes of the people at 
 Borne, or the Ephori at Sparta, were ap- 
 pointed to mitigate the rigour of kingly go- 
 vernment, why should any man think it 
 iniquitous, in a free people, to adopt in a 
 similar, or even a different manner, prospec- 
 tive remedies for checking the enormities of 
 tyranny ? 
 
 M. — Here, I think, I nearly see how far 
 the power of the people extends ; but what 
 its will may be, what laws it may pass, it is 
 difficult to judge. For the majority is com- 
 monly attached to ancient usages, and abhors 
 novelty ; a circumstance the more surprising, 
 that its inconstancy in food, raiment, build- 
 ing, and every species of furniture, is no- 
 torious. 
 
 B. — Do not imagine that I have made 
 these remarks, because I wish here to intro- 
 duce any novelty. No ; my sole object was 
 to show that it was an ancient practice to 
 
THE RIGHTS OF THE CROWN IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 277 
 
 make kings plead their cause before a court 
 of justice : a thing which you conceived to 
 be not only a novelty, but almost an incredi- 
 bility. For, without mentioning the nume- 
 rous instances of it among our forefathers, as 
 we have before observed, and as you may 
 yourself easily learn from history, have you 
 never heard that candidates for the crown 
 referred their dispute to arbitrators ! 
 
 M. — That such a mode of decision was 
 adopted once by the Persians, I have cer- 
 tainly heard. 
 
 B. — Our historians record, that our 
 Grceme, and our Malcolm II., followed the 
 same plan. But, that you may not allege 
 that it is not by their own consent that the 
 litigants submit to this kind of arbitrators, 
 let us come to the ordinary judges. 
 
 M. — Hear I fear that you will be reduced 
 to the same dilemma with those who should 
 spread a net in the ocean to catch whales. 
 
 B.— How so ? 
 
 M. — Because arrest, coercion, and anim- 
 adversion, must always descend from the 
 superior to the inferior. Now, before what 
 judges will you order the king to appear ? 
 Before those on whom he is invested with 
 supreme power to pass sentence, and whose 
 proceedings he is empowered to quash by a 
 mere prohibition ? 
 
 B. — But what will you say, were we 
 able to discover a superior power that has 
 the same claim of jurisdiction over kings, 
 that kings have over others ? 
 
 M. — That topic I wish to hear argued. 
 
 B. — This very jurisdiction, if you recol- 
 lect, we found to be vested in the people. 
 
 M. — In the whole people, I own, or in 
 the greater part. Nay, I grant you still 
 more, that it is vested in those to whom the 
 people, or a majority, may have transferred 
 that power. 
 
 B. — You are obliging in relieving me 
 from that labour. 
 
 M. — But you are not ignorant that the 
 greater part of the people is, either through 
 fear or rewards, or from the hope of bribes, 
 or of impunity, so corrupt as to prefer their 
 own interests or pleasures to the public uti- 
 lity, and even to personal safety. Besides, 
 those who are not influenced by these con- 
 siderations are not very many ; for 
 
 " The good are rare, and can in numbers scarce 
 pretend. 
 With Nile in mouths, or Thebes in portals, to 
 contend." 
 
 All the remainino- dregs of the sink, those 
 
 that are fattened with blood and slaughter, 
 envy other men's liberty, and sell their 
 own. But, forbearing to mention persons 
 to whom the very name even of bad kings 
 is sacred, I omit also those, who, though not 
 ignorant of the extent of law and equity, 
 still prefer peaceable sloth to honourable 
 danger, and, in suspense of mind, adapt all 
 their schemes to their expectations of the 
 event, or follow the fortune, not the cause 
 of the parties. How numerous this class of 
 people is likely to be cannot escape your 
 notice. 
 
 B. — Numerous, undoubtedly, they will 
 be; but not the most numerous class. For 
 the injuries of tyrants extend to multitudes, 
 and their favours but to few. For the de- 
 sires of the vulgar are insatiable, and, like 
 fires, require a constant supply of fresh fuel; 
 for what is forcibly extorted from multitude, 
 supports a few in a starving condition, in 
 stead of satisfying their hunger. Besides, 
 the attachment of such men is variable, — 
 
 " And still with fortune's smiles both stands and 
 falls." 
 
 But, if they were ever so consistent in their 
 plan of politics, yet they do not deserve to 
 be ranked among citizens ; for they in- 
 fringe, or rather betray, the rights of human 
 society ; a vice, which, if intolerable in a 
 king, is much more so in a private indivi- 
 dual. Who then are to be reckoned citizens? 
 Those who obey the laws and uphold the 
 social compact, who choose rather to undergo 
 all labours and all dangers for the common 
 safety than, dishonourably, to grow old in 
 ease and sloth, who always keep before their 
 eyes, not the enjoyments of the present 
 hour, but the meed of eternal fame among 
 posterity. Hence, if any persons should 
 be deterred from incurring danger through 
 fear or regard to their property, yet still the 
 splendour of a glorious action, and the beauty 
 of virtue, will rouse desponding minds; and 
 those who will not have the courage to be 
 the original authors or leading actors will 
 not refuse to be companions. Therefore, if 
 citizens be estimated, not by their number, 
 but by their worth, not only the better, but 
 also the greater part will take their stand 
 in the ranks of liberty, of honour, and of 
 national defence. For that reason, if the 
 whole body of the populace should be of a 
 different sentiment, it cannot in the least 
 affect the present argument ; because the 
 question is not what is likely to happen, but 
 
278 
 
 DE JUKE REGXI APUD SCOTOS ; OR, 
 
 what may be legally done. But now let us 
 come to the ordinary judges. 
 
 M. — Of that discussion I have been long 
 in expectation. 
 
 B. — If a private person should urge that 
 the king, in violation of all equity, keeps 
 possession of the whole, or any part of his 
 landed estate, how do you think this person 
 is to act ? Shall he resign his land, because 
 he cannot appoint a person to sit in judg- 
 ment on the king ? 
 
 M. — By no means. But he will call not 
 upon the king, but upon his attorney to ap- 
 pear in court. 
 
 B.— Now mark the force and tendency 
 of the subterfuge which you use. For it 
 makes no difference to me. whether the king 
 shall appear, or his attorney ; since, either 
 way, the litigation must proceed at the risk 
 of the king, and the loss or gain from the 
 issue of the suit will be his, and not his 
 attorney's. In a word, he is himself the 
 culprit, or the person whose interest is in 
 dispute. Now, I wish that you would con- 
 sider, not only how absurd, but also how 
 iniquitous it is to permit a suit to be com- 
 menced against a king for a paltry piece of 
 land, for a skylight or for a gutter, and to 
 refuse all justice in a case of parricide, em- 
 poisonment, or murder ; in small matters to 
 use the utmost severity of law, and on the 
 commission of the most flagitious crimes to 
 allow every license and impunity, so as to 
 make the old saying appear an absolute 
 truth, " that the laws are mere cobwebs, 
 which entangle flies, and leave a free passage 
 to large insects." Nor is there any justice 
 in the complaint and indignation of those 
 who say that it is neither decent nor equit- 
 able that a man of an inferior order should 
 pass sentence upon a king, since it is a 
 known and received practice in a question of 
 money or land, and the most elevated per- 
 sons after the king generally plead their 
 cause before judges, that are neither in 
 riches, nor in nobility, nor in merit, their 
 equals, nor indeed much superior in emin- 
 ence to the vulgar, and are much farther be- 
 low the defendants in the scale of citizen- 
 ship than men of the highest rank are below 
 kings. And yet kings and men of the first 
 quality think this circumstance no degrada- 
 tion from their dignity. Indeed, if we 
 should once acknowledge it as a received 
 maxim that the judge must always be, in 
 every respect, superior to the defendant, 
 the poor must wait in patient expectation 
 
 till the king has either inclination or leisure 
 to enquire into any charge of injustice pre- 
 ferred against a noble culprit. Besides, 
 their complaint is not only unjust, but false ; 
 for none that comes before a judge comes 
 before an inferior ; especially as God him- 
 self honours the tribe of judges so far as to 
 call them, not only kings, but even gods, and 
 thus to communicate to them, as far as the 
 thing is possible, his own dignity. Accord- 
 ingly, the popes of Home, who graciously 
 indulged kings with leave to kiss their toes, 
 who, on their approach, sent their own 
 mules to meet them, as a mark of honour, 
 who trod upon the necks of emperors, were 
 all obedience when summoned into a court 
 of justice ; and, when ordered by their 
 judges, resigned the pontifical office. John 
 the Twenty-Second having, after his flight, 
 been dragged back in chains, and released 
 at last, with difficulty, for money, prostrated 
 himself before another that was substituted 
 in his place, and by that prostration sanc- 
 tioned the decree of his judges. What was 
 the conduct of the synod of Bale ? Did it 
 not, by the common consent of all the elders, 
 determine and ordain that the Pope is sub- 
 ject to a council of priests ? By what means 
 those fathers were persuaded to come to this 
 resolution you may learn from the acts of the 
 councils. I know not, then, how kings, who 
 allow the majesty of the popes to exceed 
 theirs so much in eminence as to oversha- 
 dow them all with the height of its exalta- 
 tion, can think it any diminution of their 
 dignity to stand in that place to which a 
 pope, who sat upon a much higher throne, 
 thought it no indignity to descend ; namely, 
 to plead his cause betbre a council of cardi- 
 nals. Why should I mention the falsehood 
 chargeable upon the complaint of those who 
 express indignation at seeing kings sum- 
 moned before the tribunal of an inferior ? 
 For he that condemns or acquits in judicial 
 questions is not a Titius, or a Sempronius, 
 or a Stichus, but the law itself ; to which 
 obedience in kings is declared to be honour- 
 able by two illustrious emperors, Theodosius 
 and Valentinian. Their very words, as they 
 richly deserve to be remembered in every 
 age, I shall here quote : — •" It is an expres- 
 sion," say they, " worthy of the sovereign's 
 majesty, to confess that the prince is bound 
 by the laws. And, in reality, the imperial 
 dignity is exalted by subjecting the prince's 
 power to the laws ; and that we announce, 
 by the oracle of the present edict, which 
 
HE RIGHTS OF THE CROWN IX SCOTLAND. 
 
 279 
 
 specifies what license we do not allow to an- 
 other." These sentiments were sanctioned 
 by the best of princes, and cannot but be 
 obvious to the worst. For Nero, when 
 dressed like a musical performer, is said to 
 have been observant, not only of their mo- 
 tions and gesture, but also to have, at the 
 trial of skill, stood suspended between hope 
 and fear, in anxiety for victory; for, though 
 he knew that he should be declared victori- 
 ous, yet he thought the victory would be 
 more honourable, if he obtained it, not from 
 courtly adulation, but by a regular contest ; 
 and he imagined that the observation of its 
 rules tended not to the diminution of his 
 authority, but to the splendour of his victory. 
 M. — Your language, I see, is not so ex- 
 travagant as I first had thought, when you 
 wished to subject kings to the laws ; for it is 
 founded, not so much upon the authority of 
 philosophers, as of kings, and emperors, and 
 ecclesiastical councils. But I do not tho- 
 roughly comprehend what you mean by say- 
 ing that, in this case, the judge is not the 
 man, but the law. 
 
 B. — Refresh your memory a little with a 
 review of our former deductions. Did we 
 not say that the voice of the king and of the 
 law was the same ? 
 M.— We did. 
 
 B. — What is the voice of the secretary 
 and of the crier when the law is proclaimed ? 
 M. — The same. 
 
 B. — What is that of the judge when he 
 grounds his decisions on the law ? 
 M. — The same. 
 
 B. — But whence is their authority de- 
 rived, — the judge's from the law, or the law's 
 from the judge ? 
 
 M. — The judge's from the law. 
 B. — The efficacy of the sentence then 
 arises from the law, and the pronunciation 
 of the words only from the judge ? 
 M. — So it seems. 
 
 B. — Nay, what can be more certain, since 
 the sentence of a judge, if conformable to law, 
 is valid ; and, if otherwise, is null ? 
 M. — Nothing can be more true. 
 B.— You see, then, that the judge de- 
 rives his authority from the law, and not 
 the law from the judge. 
 M.— I do. 
 
 B. — Nor does the humble condition of 
 the publisher impair the dignity of the law ; 
 but its dignity, whether it be published by a 
 king, or by a judge, or by a crier, is always 
 the same ? 
 
 M. — Completely so. 
 
 B. — The law, therefore, when once or- 
 dained, is first the voice of the king, and 
 next of others. 
 
 M. — It is so. 
 
 B. — A king, therefore, when condemned 
 by a judge, seems to be condemned by the 
 law. 
 
 M.— Clearly. 
 
 B. — If he is condemned by the law, he is 
 condemned by his own voice ; since the voice 
 of the law and of the king is the same. 
 
 M. — By his own voice it should seem, as 
 much as if he were convicted by letters writ- 
 ten with his own hand. 
 
 B. — Why then should we be so much 
 puzzled by scruples about the judge, when 
 we have the king's own confession, that is, 
 the law, in our possession ? Nay, let us also 
 examine an idea that has just come into my 
 head, whether a king, when he sits as judge 
 in a cause, ought not to divest himself of 
 every character, — of a brother's, a father's, 
 a relation's, a friend's, and an enemy's, and 
 to consider only his function as a judge ? 
 
 M.— He ought. 
 
 B. — And to attend solely to that charac- 
 ter which is peculiarly adapted to the cause ? 
 
 M. — I wish that you would here speak 
 with more perspicuity. 
 
 B. — Attend then. — When any man clan- 
 destinely seizes another's property, what 
 name do we give to the deed ? 
 
 M.— We call it theft. 
 
 B. — And by what appellation do we qua- 
 lify the actor ? 
 
 M. — By the appellation of thief. 
 
 B. — What do we say of him who uses 
 another man's wife as his own ? 
 
 M. — That he commits adultery. 
 
 B. — What do we call him ? 
 
 M. — An adulterer. 
 
 B. — How do we denominate him who sits 
 to judge ? 
 
 M. — We style him judge. 
 
 B. — In the same manner, also, names 
 may be given to others from the actions in 
 which they are employed. 
 
 M— They may. 
 
 B. — A king, therefore, in administering 
 justice, ought to divest himself of every 
 character but a judge's. 
 
 M. He certainly ought, and particularly 
 of every character that can, in his judicial 
 capacity, be prejudicial to either of the liti- 
 gants. 
 
 B. — What do you say of him who is the 
 
280 
 
 DE JURE REGXI APUD SCOTOS ; OR, 
 
 subject of the judicial inquiry ? What name 
 shall we give him from the legal action ? 
 
 M. — We may call him culprit. 
 
 B. — And is it not reasonable that he 
 should lay aside every character likely to 
 impede the legal course of justice ? 
 
 M. — If he should stand in any other pre- 
 dicament but a culprit's, it is certainly 
 nothing to the judge; since in a judicial 
 question, God orders no respect to be paid 
 even to the poor. 
 
 B. — Therefore, if any man, who is both a 
 painter and a grammarian, should be en- 
 gaged in a law-suit about painting with an- 
 other who is a painter but no grammarian, 
 ought he, in this case, to derive any advan- 
 tage from his skill in grammar ? 
 
 M. — None. 
 
 B. — Nor from his skill in painting, if 
 he should be contending for superiority in 
 grammar ? 
 
 M. — Just as little. 
 
 B. — In a judicial trial, therefore, the 
 judge will recognise only one name ; to wit, 
 that of the crime, of which the plaintiff ac- 
 cuses the defendant. 
 
 M. — One only. 
 
 B. — Therefore, if the king be accused of 
 parricide, is the name of king of any conse- 
 quence to the judge? 
 
 M. — Of none ; for the controversy hinges, 
 not upon royalty, but upon parricide. 
 
 B. — AVhat do you say, if two parricides 
 should be summoned before a court of justice, 
 the one a king and the other a beggar ? 
 Ought not the judge to observe the same 
 rule in taking cognizance of both ? 
 
 M. — The same, undoubtedly ; and here 
 Lucan seems to me to have spoken with no 
 less truth than elegance, when he says, 
 
 " Caesar, my captain on the German plains, 
 
 Is here my mate. — Guilt equals whom it stains." 
 
 B. — With truth, certainly. Sentence, 
 therefore, is here to be pronounced, not 
 upon a king and a pauper, but upon parri- 
 cides. For the sentence would then concern 
 a king, if the question were, which of two 
 persons ought to be a king ? or if it were in- 
 quired, whether Hiero be a king or a tyrant ? 
 or if the controversy were about anything 
 else belonging properly to the office of king, 
 as a painter becomes the subject of judicial 
 disquisition, when the question is, whether 
 he knows the art of paining ? 
 
 M. — What is to be the result, if the king 
 should refuse, of his own accord, and can- 
 
 not be dragged by force, to appear in a 
 court of justice ? 
 
 B. — Here he stands in the same predica- 
 ment with all malefactors ; for no robber or 
 murderer will spontaneously submit to jus- 
 tice. But you know, I presume, the extent 
 of the law, and that it allows a thief in the 
 night to be killed any how, and a thief in 
 the day to be killed if he uses a weapon in 
 his defence. If nothing but force can drag 
 him before a court of judicature, you recol- 
 lect what then is the usual practice. For 
 robbers, too powerful to be reduced to order 
 by the regular course of law, we master by 
 war and arms. And there are hardly any 
 other pretexts for any war between nations, 
 between kings and their subjects, but inju- 
 ries, which, being incapable of a legal deci- 
 sion, are decided by the sword. 
 
 M. — Against open enemies, indeed, these 
 are usually the causes of waging war ; but 
 we must observe a different process with 
 kings, whom we are, by the pledge of a 
 most solemn oath, bound to obey. 
 
 B. — Bound, indeed, we are ; but, on the 
 other hand, they were the first to promise 
 that they would administer justice with 
 equity and benevolence. 
 
 M. — Such is the fact. 
 
 B. — A mutual compact then subsists be- 
 tween a king and his subjects ? 
 
 M. — So it should appear. 
 
 B. — Does not he then, who deviates from 
 conventions, and acts in opposition to com- 
 pacts, dissolve those compacts and conven- 
 tions. 
 
 M. — He does. 
 
 B.— Upon the dissolution then of the tie 
 which connected the king with his people, 
 whatever right belonged by agreement to 
 him who dissolves the compact, is, I pre- 
 sume, forfeited? 
 
 M.— It is. 
 
 B. — He also, with whom the agreement 
 was made, becomes as free as he was before 
 the stipulation. 
 
 M. — He clearly enjoys the same right 
 and the same liberty. 
 
 B. — If a king be guilty of acts tending 
 to the dissolution of that society, for the 
 preservation of which he was created, what 
 do we call him ? 
 
 M. — A tyrant, I suppose. 
 
 B. — But a tyrant is so far from being en- 
 titled to any just authority over a people, 
 that he is the people's open enemy. 
 
 M. — Their open enemy, undoubtedly. 
 
 
THE RIGHTS OF THE CROWN IX SCOTLAND. 
 
 281 
 
 B. — Grievous and intolerable injuries ren- 
 der a war with an open enemy just and 
 necessary. 
 
 M. — Undeniably just. 
 B. — What do you call a war undertaken 
 against the public enemy of all mankind, — 
 a tyrant ? 
 
 M. — The justest of all wars. 
 B. — But when war is, for a just carts!, 
 once proclaimed against an open enemy, not 
 only the whole people, but also each indivi- 
 dual, has a right to kill that enemy. 
 M.— I own it. 
 
 B. — What say you of a tyrant, that pub- 
 lic enemy, with whom all good men are per- 
 petually at war, — Have not all the indivi- 
 duals of the whole mass of mankind, indis- 
 criminately, a right to exercise upon him all 
 the severities of war ? 
 
 M. — I see that almost all nations enter- 
 tained that opinion. For even her husband's 
 death is generally applauded in Thebe, his 
 brother's in Timoleon, and his son's in Cas- 
 sius. Fulvius too is praised for killing his 
 son, as he was on his way to Cataline ; and 
 Brutus for condemning his sons and relations 
 to the gallows, when he learned their plan 
 to restore the tyrants. Nay, many states 
 of Greece voted public rewards and hon- 
 ours to tyrannicides ; so much did they 
 think, as was before observed, that with 
 tyrants every tie of humanity is dissolved. 
 But why do I collect the assent of single 
 persons or states, when I can produce the 
 testimony of almost all the world ? For 
 who does not severely censure Domitius 
 Corbulo for having so far neglected the in- 
 terest of the human race, as not have hurled, 
 when the deed was easy, Nero from his 
 throne ? Nor was he censured only by the 
 Romans, but even by Tiridates, king of the 
 Persians, who feared nothing less than that 
 the contagion of the example should even- 
 tually reach his own person. The minds 
 even of the worst men, who have become 
 savage through acts of cruelty, are not so 
 totally divested of this public hatred to ty- 
 ranny, that it does not, on some occasions, 
 burst forth involuntarily, and reduce them, 
 by the contemplation of truth and honour, 
 to a state of torpor and stupefaction. When, 
 upon the assassination of that cruel tyrant 
 Caius Caligula, his ministers, who were no 
 less cruel, tumultuously insisted upon the 
 punishment of the assassins, vociferating oc- 
 casionally, " Who had killed the Emperor ?" 
 Valerius Asiaticus, a man of consular dis- 
 
 tinction, exclaimed from a conspicuous place, 
 whence he might be heard and seen, " I wish 
 that I had killed him." At this expression, 
 these men, who were destitute of almost all 
 humanity, foi'bore, as if thunderstruck, all 
 riotous tumult. For so great is the power 
 of virtue, that, when its picture, however 
 imperfectly sketched, is presented to the 
 mind, its most impetuous ebullitions sub- 
 side ; the violence of its fury languishes ; 
 and madness, in spite of all resistance, ac- 
 knowledges the empire of reason. Nor do 
 those who now move heaven and earth with 
 their clamours, harbour other sentiments. 
 The truth of this observation may be evinced 
 even by this consideration, that, though they 
 censure the late events, the same, or similar 
 transactions, and even of a more atrocious na- 
 ture, when quoted from ancient history, re- 
 ceive their approbation and applause, and, 
 by that circumstance, demonstrate that they 
 are more swayed by private affections than 
 by public injuries. But why should we look 
 for surer witness of what tyrants deserve 
 than their own conscience ? Hence springs 
 their perpetual fear of all, and particularly 
 of good men ; and, hence, they behold the 
 sword, which they keep always drawn for 
 others, constantly hanging over their own 
 necks ; and, by their own hatred to others, 
 measure the attachment of others to them- | 
 selves. But good men, on the other hand, 
 reversing this order, and fearing nothing, 
 frequently incur danger by estimating the 
 benevolent disposition of mankind, not by 
 its vicious nature, but by their own merito- 
 rious conduct. 
 
 B. — You are, then, of opinion, that ty- 
 rants ought to be ranked among the most 
 ferocious beasts, and that tyrannic violence 
 is more against nature than poverty, than 
 disease, than death, and every other evil 
 that the decrees of nature have entailed 
 upon mankind ? 
 
 M.— Truly, when I estimate within my- 
 self the weights of different arguments, I 
 cannot deny the truth of these positions ; 
 but, when I reflect on the dangers and in- 
 conveniences which attend this opinion, my 
 mind, as if checked at once with a bridle, 
 fails somehow in mettle, and, bending to- 
 wards utility from the excessive rectitude of 
 stoical severity, tails almost into a swoon. 
 For, if any one be at liberty to kill a tyrant, 
 mark what a wide field you open to the vfl- 
 lany of the wicked, to what danger you ex- 
 pose the good, what licence you allow to the 
 2p 
 
282 
 
 DE JURE REGXI APUD SCOTOS ; OR, 
 
 bad, and what disorder you introduce into 
 every department. For who, after killing a 
 good, or at least not the worst king, may 
 not palliate his crime under the specious ap- 
 pearance of virtue ? Or, if even a good man 
 should unsuccessfully attempt the assassina- 
 tion of a detestable prince, or successfully 
 execute the intended deed, what great con- 
 fusion must necessarily ensue in every quar- 
 ter ! While the bad tumultuously express 
 their indignation at the loss of a leader, the 
 good will not all approve of the deed ; and 
 even those who approve will not all defend 
 the author against a wicked faction ; and the 
 generality will cloak their own sloth under 
 the honourable pretext of peace, and rather 
 calumniate the valour of others than confess 
 their own cowardice. Assuredly, though 
 this recollective attention to private interest, 
 though this mean excuse for deserting the 
 public cause, and this fear of incurring dan- 
 ger, should not entirely break, they undoubt- 
 edly weaken the spirits of most men, and 
 cause a preference of tranquillity, though 
 not very certain, to the expectation of un- 
 certain liberty. 
 
 B. — If you attend to the antecedent rea- 
 sonings, your present apprehensions will be 
 easily removed. For we remarked that some 
 nations have, by their free suffrages, sanc- 
 tioned tyrants, whom, for the lenity of their 
 administration, we dignify with regal names. 
 None will, by my advice, offer violence to 
 any of these, or even of those who have by 
 force or fraud become sovereigns, if their 
 government be but tempered by a civic dis- 
 position of mind. Such, among the Romans, 
 were Vespasian, Titus, and Pertinax, Alex- 
 ander among the Greeks, and Hiero at Sy- 
 racuse ; for, though they obtained the impe- 
 rial power by violence and arms, yet they 
 deserved, by their justice and equity, to be 
 numbered among legitimate kings. Besides, 
 I here explain, under this head, how far our 
 power and. duty extend by law, but do not 
 advise the enforcement of either. Of the 
 former, a distinct knowledge and clear ex- 
 planation are sufficient ; of the latter, the 
 plan requires wisdom, the attempt prudence, 
 and the execution valour. Though these 
 preparatives may, in the case of a rash 
 attempt, be aided or frustrated by times, 
 persons, places, and other instruments of 
 action, I shall merit blame for any errors 
 no more than the physician who properly 
 describes the various remedies for diseases, 
 ought to be censured for the folly of another, 
 
 who administers them at an improper 
 time. 
 
 M. — One thing seems still wanted to com- 
 plete this disquisition, and, if you make that 
 addition, I must acknowledge that your fa- 
 vours have reached their utmost possible 
 limit. What I mean to ask is, whether 
 tyrants ought to be liable to ecclesiastical 
 censures ? 
 
 B. — Whenever you please, you may see 
 that kind of censure justified in the first 
 epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, where the 
 apostle forbids us to have any convivial or 
 familiar converse with persons notoriously 
 wicked or flagitious. Were this precept ob- 
 served among Christians, the wicked must 
 either repent or perish with hunger, cold, 
 and nakedness. 
 
 M. — That opinion has certainly great 
 weight ; but yet I know not whether the 
 people that uses everywhere to pay so much 
 respect to magistrates, will believe that this 
 rule comprehends kings. 
 
 B. — The ancient ecclesiastical writers, to 
 a man, certainly understood, in this manner, 
 Paul's expressions. For, even the emperor 
 Theodosius was excluded by Ambrose from 
 the congregation of Christians, and Theodo- 
 sius obeyed the bishop. Nor, as far as I 
 know, is any bishop's conduct more highly 
 extolled by antiquity, nor any emperor's 
 modesty more loudly applauded. But, as to 
 the main point, what great difference does 
 it make, whether you be expelled from the 
 communion of Christians or be forbid fire 
 and water ? For, against those who refuse 
 to obey their orders, all magistrates use, for 
 their most formidable engine, the latter de- 
 cree, and all ecclesiastics the former. Now, 
 the punishment inflicted by both, for a con- 
 tempt of their authority, is death ; but the 
 one denounces the destruction of the body, 
 and the other the destruction of the whole 
 man. Will not the church, then, which con- 
 siders much lighter crimes punishable with 
 death, think death justly due to him whom 
 alive it excommunicates from the congrega- 
 tion of the godly, and whom dead it dooms 
 to the company of devils ? — For the justice 
 of my country's cause, I think that I have 
 said enough ; and if still some foreigners 
 should not be satisfied, I beg that they 
 would consider how iniquitously they treat 
 us. For, as there are hi Europe numbers 
 of great and opulent nations, having each 
 its own distinct laws, it is arrogance in them 
 to prescribe to all their own peculiar form 
 
THE RIGHTS OF THE CROWN IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 283 
 
 of government. The Swiss live in a republic; 
 the Germans, under the name of empire, 
 enjoy a legitimate monarchy; some states in 
 Germany, indeed, are, I hear, subject to a 
 nobility ; the Venetians have a government 
 that is a due mixture of all these forms; and 
 Muscovy is attached to a despotism. We 
 possess a kingdom that is, indeed, small, but 
 that has now for above two thousand years 
 remained free from a foreign yoke. Origi- 
 nally, we created kings limited by laws, just 
 to ourselves and to others. These laws, 
 length of time has proved to be advanta- 
 geous; as it is by the observance of them, 
 more than by the force of arms, that the 
 kingdom still remains unshaken. What in- 
 justice, then, it is to desire that we should 
 either repeal or disregard laws, of which we 
 have, for so many ages, experienced the uti- 
 lity ! Or, rather, what impudence it is in 
 men, who can scarcely maintain their own 
 government, to attempt an alteration in the 
 policy of another country ? Why should I 
 mention that our institutions are beneficial, 
 not only to ourselves, but also to our neigh- 
 bours ? For what can contribute more to the 
 maintenance of peace with neighbours than 
 moderation in kings ? For, in general, it is 
 through the effervescence of their unruly 
 passions that unjust wars are rashly under- 
 taken, wickedly waged, and dishonourably 
 concluded. Besides, what can be more pre- 
 judicial to any state than bad laws among its 
 neighbours, as their contagion uses frequent- 
 ly to spread wide ? Or why do they molest 
 us alone, when different laws and institutions 
 are used by so many surrounding nations, 
 and the same, entirely, by none ? Or why do 
 they now at last molest us, when we do not 
 hazard any novelty, but adhere to our old 
 system ; when we are not the only, nor the 
 first people that adopted this practice, and 
 do not now adopt it tor the first time ? But 
 some are not pleased with our laws ; per- 
 haps, also, not with their own. We do not 
 inquire curiously into other men's institu- 
 tions ; and, therefore, they should leave us 
 ours, that have been for so many years ex- 
 perimentally approved. Do we disturb their 
 councils ? or do we, in any respect, molest 
 them ? But, say they, you are seditious. To 
 
 this charge I could freely answer, What is 
 that to them ? If we are disorderly, it is at 
 our own risk, and to our own loss. Yet I 
 could enumerate not a few seditions, that 
 both commonwealths and monarchies found 
 not prejudicial. But that species of defence 
 I shall not use. I deny that any nation 
 was less seditious ; I deny that any was ever 
 in its seditions more temperate. Many con- 
 tests have occurred concerning the laws, con- 
 cerning the right to the crown, concerning 
 the administration of the government, but 
 still without danger to the general weal ; 
 nor was the conflict, as among nations in 
 general, continued to the ruin of the popu- 
 lace, — nor from hatred to our princes, but 
 from a patriotic zeal and a steady attach- 
 ment to the laws. How often, in our me- 
 mory, have large armies stood opposed in 
 battle array, and parted, not only without a 
 wound, but without a fray — without a re- 
 proach? How often have private quarrels 
 been quashed by public utility ? How often 
 has the report of a public enemy's approach 
 extinguished domestic broils ? Nor have our 
 seditions been quieted with more temperance 
 than good fortune ; since the party that had 
 justice on its side generally commanded suc- 
 cess; and, as our civil disputes were con- 
 ducted with moderation, they were amicably 
 adjusted on the basis of utility. — These are 
 the arguments which occur to me at present ; 
 and they seem calculated for checking the 
 loquacity of the malevolent, for refuting the 
 dogmatism of the obstinate, and for satisfying 
 the doubts of the equitable. The right to 
 the crown among other nations I did not 
 think of much consequence to us. Our own 
 practice I have explained in a few words ; 
 but yet in more than I intended, or than 
 the subject required; because this was a 
 labour which I undertook on your account 
 only ; and, if I have your approbation, I am 
 satisfied. 
 
 M. — As far as I am concerned, the satis- 
 faction which you have given is complete ; 
 and, if I shall be able to give others the 
 same satisfaction, I shall think myself not 
 only much benefited by your discourse, but 
 relieved from a great deal of trouble. 
 
EDINBURGH: 
 
 PRINTED BY A. MURRAY, MILXF. S<}l'AKl