a Successor which is so highly contrary to the nature of this Priesthood 3. Of the Apostolical Mission When Christ sent his Apostles as his father sent him 1. These words enclude a fulness of Ecclesiastical and spiritual authority or the power of the Keys which was given to all the Apostles 2. But they do not make the Apostles equal in dignity or dominion with Christ himself in being Saviour and head of the Church or Lord over and Judge of the quick and the dead 3. Even Christ himself when he was upon Earth being as man under the law was not only obliged to practise the duties of the first table and the other Commandments of the second table but even to the observance of the fifth Commandment al 's 4. And the Office of the Ministry And those persons who in general defence of Ecclesiastical Supremacy urge that they who are Officers of Christ and furnished with his authority ought not to be in subjection to secular rulers but superiour to them to whom Christs authority is superiour may consider 1. That Parents and Husbands have authority from God and from Christ and yet are under Kings and Princes 2. The superiority of any Officer of Christ must not be measured by the height of Soveraignty which Christ himself hath which would make the servant even every Deacon equal with his Lord and by the like pretence every petty Constable must have equal authority with the King but by the constitution of his office and the power thereby conveyed to him For neither God in governing the World nor Christ in governing the Church ever gave to any other an authority equal to what he possesseth 3. Christ came not to overturn the Government of God his father in the World which hath established the supreme temporal power yea his mediatory Kingdom and administration is in subjection to the Father and our Saviours Doctrine yieldeth that authority to Princes that it earnestly presseth a general and necessary subjection for Conscience sake to their Government 5. And as to what Baronius urgeth The Royal Priesthood from the Royal Priesthood mentioned by S. Peter 1 Pet. 2.9 it may be observed 1. That that expression hath not respect to a peculiar sacerdotal office in the Church but to the dignity of the Christian Church in general as is manifest from the place it self Salian an 2544. n. 347. Estius in loc and acknowledged by their own Writers 2. If this Text did express any peculiar power in Ecclesiastical Officers it must have particular respect to those Eastern Churches to whom that Epistle was written 1 Pet. 1.1 and 3. It is well observed by Bishop Andrews that even that Royal Priesthood v. 9. is commanded to be subject to every ordinance of man Ch. 4. S. 2. n. 3. and to the King as supreme v. 13. as I above observed 6. And while some say Of the Plea of expediency for the Churches good it is expedient for the Churches good that the Ecclesiastical Authority should be superiour to the temporal otherwise its welfare and good is not sufficiently provided for this Plea might appear more plausible 1. If there could be no ignorance heresy pride or ill designs in any who have the title of chief Officers in the Church which no man can believe who reads the Lives of the Popes written by their own Authors 2. If Kings and Princes must never be expected to be nursing Fathers to the Church and to take care of it 3. If the great design of Christianity was to take care that Christians must never follow their Saviour in bearing the Cross and that this Religion did not aim at the promoting true faith and holiness meekness and peace but at outward splendor dominion and power in the World according to that notion the Jews had of a Messias And this is not only a weak but a presumptuous way of reasoning to controul and affront the Gospel of Christ and to dare to tell him how he ought to have established his Kingdom to other purposes than he hath done 7. And after all this S. Peters Authority not peculiar to Rome there is nothing more unreasonable than for the Church of Rome to monopolize unto its self alone that authority which was committed to S. Peter and the other Apostles For it is not at all to be doubted but the Apostles committed a chief presidential and Governing authority in their several limits to other Churches besides the Roman Basil Ep. 55. Cyp. Epist 69. Firmil in Cyp. Ep. 75. The ancient Fathers frequently express the Bishops of the Christian Church in general to be the Apostles Successors S. Cyprian and Firmilian assert all Bishops to succeed the Apostles even ordinatione vicaria as placed in their stead and possessed of that power which was from them fixed in the Church Hier. ad Marcellam Aug. in Ps 44. Amongst us saith S. Hierome the Bishops do hold the place of the Apostles and for or instead of the Apostles are appointed Bishops saith S. Austin Tertullian declares that to his time Cathedrae Apostolorum the Cathedral Sees placed by the Apostles themselves did still continue their presidency in the Apostolical Churches of which he mentions many by name and Rome as one of them 8. And as there is no evidence that S. Peter who also presided at Antioch left all his authority peculiarly to Rome so there is sufficient evidence that S. Peter who was commanded to feed the Sheep of Christ did yield this authority to the Elders or Bishops of Pontus Galatia Cappadocia Asia and Bithynia that they should 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 feed the flock of God which was among them 1 Pet. 5.2 And hereby he either committed that pastoral authority which he received from Christ unto the Bishops of those free Churches of the Ephesine Thracian and Pontick Dioceses to whom he wrote and which afterward were placed under the Patriarch of Constantinople or at least he acknowledged this authority in them And therefore so far as concerneth a divine right these Eastern Churches in the Territories of Constantinople have fully as fair a Plea hereby for deriving a pastoral authority from S. Peter or having it particularly confirmed by him as they at Rome ever had 9. But with respect to England This Realm not feudatory Bellarm. in Apol. pro Resp ad Jac. Reg. c. 3. in Respons ad Bel. Ap. c. 3. divers Romish Writers alledge that it became feudatory to the See of Rome by King Johns resigning his Crown to Pandulphus the Popes Legate to which thing objected and misrepresented by Bellarmine divers things are returned in Answer by Bishop Andrews But waving such particular answers as might be given I shall chuse to observe in General that this Case is the same as if any seditious persons or Vsurpers should by fraud or force reduce the King to straits and difficulties and should then by like methods gain a promise from him that he
IMPRIMATVR Liber cui Titulus Christian Loyalty c. Ex Aed Lamb. Julii 10. 1678. Geo. Thorp Rev. in Christo Patri Dom. Domino Guliel Archiep. Cant. Ã Sacris Domesticis Christian Loyalty OR A DISCOURSE Wherein is Asserted that just Royal Authority and Eminency which in this Church and Realm of England is yielded to the KING Especially concerning Supremacy in CAUSES ECCLESIASTICAL Together with The disclaiming all Foreign Jurisdiction And the unlawfulness of Subjects TAKING ARMS Against the KING By WILLIAM FALKNER Preacher at S. Nicholas in Lyn Regis LONDON Printed by J. M. for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops-Head in St Paul's Church-Yard MDCLXXIX To the MOST REVEREND FATHER in GOD WILLIAM By DIVINE PROVIDENCE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBVRY Primate of all ENGLAND and Metropolitan And one of His Majesties most Honourable Privy Council c. May it please your Grace I Have in the following Discourse undertaken a Vindication of those publick Loyal Declarations of this Church and Kingdom which are of great concernment not only in the Civil Government but also in the Christian Religion and I hope your Grace will therefore not account it improper that this should be presented unto your self For the chief things I have taken upon me to defend are such special Branches of the Doctrine of our Church that in this part and Age of the World they are in a manner peculiar to it and to them who with it have herein imbraced the true Reformed profession But both the Roman Church and divers other different Sects and parties among their other Errours and Heresies entertain such disloyal Positions as are of dangerous importance unto Government wherein besides some other things there is too near a Conjunction between them And these things are of so great consequence in Christianity that the main Foundations of Righteousness Peace and Obedience are thereby established all which necessary duties are much insisted on by our Saviours Doctrine And therein the regular and orderly behaviour of inferiour Relations is particularly enjoined for the gaining reputation to our Religion because a temper fitted for Christian subjection supposeth Pride Passion and Perverseness to be subdued and that in the fear of God an Humble Meek and peaceable Spirit is introduced which are things wherein our Saviour hath given us his Example And the principal matter of this Discourse concerning the Kings Supremacy in all Causes and the unlawfulness of Subjects taking Armes is of the greater concernment because the contrary ill Principles which many have imbibed have been very pernicious to several parts of the World for many hundred years past Which hurtful Positions have prevailed the more among men by their being covered over with plausible pretences as if those of the former sort were needful to assert the just interest and honour of the Christian Church and those of the latter sort to provide for the safety of the Common-wealth and of every Man 's own propriety All which would represent the secular Authority which was ordained by divine wisdom for the good of Mankind to be a thing exceeding hurtful and mischievous to the World Wherefore since men are much led by the consideration of their interests that what I propose may be the more successful and effectual I have shewed that Obedience and peaceable subjection to Governours without resistance is not only a duty which is enough to perswade all good men to practise it but that it is the common advantage of the World as the whole duty of Man is both to Rulers and to Subjects And that Royal Supremacy in Causes Ecclesiastical is not prejudicial to the Christian Church I have only expressed more covertly and succinctly because though this may be considered by some men there is another interest to wit that of the boundless ambition and avarice of the Romish Court and Church which chiefly instigates their opposition hereunto and I must confess that the truth I defend doth not gratify this interest But that tendeth best to promote the advantages of the Church in the World when the goodness of our Religion and its preserving all just rights of Superiours as well as others doth so recommend it to the World as may gain to it the good opinion of all men the favour of Princes and the blessing of God And though I am conscious to my self that by reason of the greatness and copiousness of the subject I have taken in hand there may be several defects in my performances notwithstanding my diligent endeavours yet I presume humbly to tender them to your Grace in confidence that your Candor and readiness to give a favourable acceptance to well designed and not unuseful undertakings and to make charitable allowances for their imperfections doth bear an equal proportion with other parts of your great worth by reason of which you possess your great dignity with a general satisfaction to good men and the Friends of Truth and Peace And that you may long and happily continue here to the benefit of the Church and may see the Church it self in Prosperity and true Piety flourishing all the dayes of your Life is the desire and Prayer of him Who Honoureth your Grace With humble and dutiful Reverence William Falkner TO THE READER THE Government and Constitution of this Realm requiring a solemn acknowledgment to be made by all who bear any office therein concerning the Regal Power and Dignity and the different parties using their several methods and pretences to oppose the matters of these publick Declarations I have endeavoured in the following Discourse to give a true and clear account of these things in order to the removing those mistakes or doubts which may either perplex any persons or tempt them to neglect their duty And I have oft thought that those things which are publickly professed in this Church and Realm by these particular acknowledgments which are made by so many persons are very useful to be discoursed of both because these things themselves were selected as being of great concernment by the grave and prudent consideration of publick Authority and the due complyance with them includeth the practising Obedience and following the things which make for Peace and also because the unjust oppositions made against these things are either managed by ill designs or at least have a tendency to promote ill effects in Church and State And the truth which in this Discourse I undertake to maintain doth also speak much the Integrity and Simplicity of the Christian Religion that it is not a Worldly contrivance or a way laid to intitle any Professors thereof to claim or to enable them to usurp upon or oppose the temporal Power and Authority as hath been shamefully done in the Church of Rome and not a little by other sorts of men a considerable part of the Popish Usurpations being founded in their unjust encroaching upon the Rights of Soveraignty And they who have observed the State of the World cannot be unsensible what Horrid and Mischievous
Supremacy according to this article of our Church At the end of his Answer to the Jesuits Challenge King James so approved his explication thereof that he returned him particular thanks for the same which is printed with his speech And the Bishop therein plainly asserted that God had established two distinct powers on earth the one of the Keys committed to the Church and the other of the Sword which is committed to the civil Magistrate and by which the King governeth And therewith he declareth that as the spiritual Rulers have not only respect to the first table but to the second so the Magistrates power hath not only respect to the second table but also to the first 5. From all this we have this plain sense That the King is supreme Governour that is under God say the Injunctions and with the civil sword say the Articles as well in all spiritual or Ecclesiastical things or causes as temporal that is he hath the Soveraignty and rule over all manner of persons born in these Dominions of what estate soever either Ecclesiastical or temporal say the Injunctions and to the same purpose the Articles Only here we must observe that the King 's being supreme Governour in all things and causes is one and the same thing with his having the chief Government over the persons of all his subjects with respect to their places actions and employments and therefore is well explained thereby For it must necessarily be the same thing to have the command or oversight of any Officer subject or servant about his business and to have a command or over-sight concerning the business in which he is to be employed and the same is to be said concerning the power of examining their cases or punishing neglects and offences 6. And from hence we may take an account Of supreme head of the Church of England Def. of Apol Part 6. Ch. 11. div 1. of the true sense of that title used by King Henr. 8. and King Edw. 6. of supreme head of the Church of England This stile was much misunderstood by divers Foreigners seemed not pleasing to Bishop Juel and some others of our own Church was well and wisely changed by our Governours and hath been out of date for above sixscore years past And though this title was first given to King Hen. 8. Tit. Of this civil Magistrate by a Convocation and Parliament of the Roman Communion it was used all King Edwards days and then owned even in the book of Articles And the true intended sense from the expressions above mentioned appeareth manifestly to be this to acknowledge the King to be head or chief Governour even in Ecclesiastical things of that number of Christians or that part of the Catholick Church who reside in these Realms and are subjects to his Crown even as Saul by being anointed King Wh. Treat 8. ch 1. div 4. Bishop Saund. Episcop not prejud to reg p. 130 131. Mas de Min. Anglic l. 3. c. 4. was made head of the tribes of Israel 1 Sam. 15.17 And according to this sense the use of this title was allowed and justified by very worthy men such as Bishop Whitgift Bishop Saunderson Mr Mason and others And to this end and purpose it is the just right of the King of England to own himself the supreme Governour of the Church of England which was a stile sometime used by our pious and gracious King Charles the First Declar. before 39. Articles in his publick Declaration about Ecclesiastical things but with due respect to the Ecclesiastical Officers 7. In the ancient Church it was not unusual for him who had the chief preeminence over a Province or a considerable part of the Christian Church to be owned as their head Can. Apost 34. whence in the ancient Collection or Code called the Canons of the Apostles the chief Bishop in every Nation was required to be esteemed by the rest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as their head And that Bishops may be called heads of their Churches is asserted by Gregorius de Valentia from that expression of Scripture lately mentioned concerning Saul Tom. 4. Disp 1. qu. 8. punct 4. which yet must more directly and immediately prove that title to be applicable to a Sovereign Prince And as the name of head is only taken for a chief and governing member the Author of the Annotations upon the Epistles under S. Hierom's name was not afraid of this expression In 1 Cor. 12. Sacerdos caput Ecclesiae the Priest is the head of the Church 8. And though that Statute whereby the title of supreme head of the Church of England was yielded to King Hen. 8. 26 Hen. 8.1 doth assert the Kings power to correct and amend by spiritual authority and Jurisdiction yet that this was intended only objectively concerning his government in spiritual and Ecclesiastical things and causes or his seeing these things be done by Ecclesiastical Officers and was only so claimed and used we have further plain evidence both concerning the time of King Hen. 8. and King Edw. 6. Under the Reign of King Hen. 8. by his particular command for the acquainting his subjects with such truths as they ought to profess was published a Book called The Institution of a Christian man which was subscribed by twenty one Bishops and divers others of the Clergy and the Professors of Civil and Canon law and in the dedication thereof to the King Of the Sacr. of Orders f. 39. by them all is given to him this title of Supreme head in Earth immediately under Christ of the Church of England In this Book besides very many other things to the same purpose it is asserted That Christ and his Apostles did institute and ordain in the new testament that besides the civil powers and governance of Kings and Princes which is called potestas gladii the power of the sword there should also be continually in the Church militant certain other Ministers or Officers which should have special power authority and commission under Christ to preach and teach the word of God to dispense and administer the Sacraments to loose and absolve to bind and to excommunicate to order and consecrate others in the same room order and office f. 40. And again This said power and administration in some places is called claves sive potestas clavium that is to say the Keys or the power of the Keys whereby is signified a certain limited office restrained unto the execution of a special function or ministration f. 41. And yet further we have therein this very clear passage That this office this power and authority was committed and given by Christ and his Apostles unto certain persons only that is to say unto Priests or Bishops whom they did elect call and admit thereto by their prayer and imposition of their hands 9. And concerning the office and power of Kings the Doctrine and positions then received were such as
Officers not excluded from all civil Government that though these offices be so distinct that none ought to perform the Ecclesiastical ministrations but they who are ordained thereto and that no Ecclesiastical person hath any civil power by mere vertue of his Ecclesiastical office and though the intermedling with such matters of civil affairs as in the nature of them are unsuitable to the Clergy are reasonably prohibited by the ancient Canons yet it would be against all reason to imagine that all civil Government because civil and political is inconsistent with the state of an Ecclesiastical person since he is a part also of the civil Society or the body politick In the Jewish state Syn. Ep. 121. in some extraordinary cases that was very true which Synesius observed that the chief secular power was in the Priest so it was under the government of Eli in the days of the Maccabees and the succeeding times when Aristobulus is observed by S Hierome Hier. in Dan. 9. to be the first who there joined the royal authority and Diadem with the Priesthood But even under the reign of David the Levites and in the time of Jehosophat Deut. 17. v. 8 -12 the Priests and Levites are plainly according to the law declared to have been appointed for Judges and Officers of the Realm 1 Chr. 26 29-32 2 Chr. 19.8 and many other expressions of the Old Testament are interpreted by Mr Thorndike to import the same Of Religious Assembl c. 2. concerning other times of the Jewish Government And in the time of Christianity I suppose no man will doubt but that according to the Command of the Apostle those who are Officers in the Church ought to take care of the Government of their own Families which is a civil affair and authority And whilest the Church was under Pagan Princes V. Const Apostol l. 2. c. 46. Ch. 5. Sect. 6. it was usual for the Officers thereof to sit in judgment to decide all matters of controversy among Christians which was according to the direction of our Saviour Mat. 18.17 and of this Apostle 1 Cor. 6. as I shall in another place take notice And the making peace and deciding differences was thought a work so well becoming such persons and was so usually practised by them about S. Austins time Aug. de Oper. Monach c. 29. Posid de Vit. Aug. c. 19. that he mentions these things as those the hearing and determining of which took up a considerable portion of his time And nothing is more manifest than that divers Imperial Edicts of pious Princes did peculiarly reserve the cognisance of most causes relating to the Clergy besides others Sozom. l. 1. c. 9. Cod. l. 1. Tit. 4. leg 7 8. Novel 83 86 123. to the hearing and decision of the Bishop And as Ecclesastical Officers are members of the Community and subjects to their Prince it is very allowable that they should so far as they can be every way useful unto both and thereby also to the Churches good 10. But this distinct constitution of the Church and its Offices A distinct Ecclesiastical power no prejudice to the civil is no diminution of the civil authority and its supremacy but rather an enlargement thereof and an advancement of its dignity For the whole state of the Christian Church is founded in the superabundant grace and favour of God towards man and the Ecclesiastical authority of its Officers being the ministry of reconciliation is quite of a different nature from secular power being wholly superadded over and above it and without any infringment thereof Right of the Church ch 4. p. 168. Review ch 1. p. 13. Didocl Alt. Dam. cap. 1. p. 15. And hereupon the whole power of the Church is by some Writers termed a cumulative and not a privative power as taking nothing from the civil and the same terms are used concerning the right of the secular power in matters Ecclesiastical as being without any abatement of the proper spiritual power Yea the whole civil authority towards all subjects whatsoever doth not only still remain intire to the secular Ruler but he also receiveth this accession thereunto from the constitution of Christianity that the object of his government is so far enlarged thereby that he hath a right of inspection and care even of those matters which the grace of God or the Gospel dispensation hath established And this doth also so much the more exalt his honour and dignity in that not only all subjects in their general capacity as such Sect. 5 are obliged to submit themselves to their Kings and Princes but that even those Officers of the Church which in their Realms are established by the peculiar appointment of Jesus Christ the King of Kings are also included under this duty and are not the less subjects notwithstanding their relation to the Church To which I may add that there are peculiar arguments for honour and reverence unto Rulers which the doctrine of the Christian Church affordeth SECT V. A particular account of this Supremacy in some chief matters Ecclesiastical with some notice of the opposition which is made thereunto To give a more particular account of Supremacy in some chief matters Ecclesiastical we may observe 1. The Princes care about the power of the Keys That though the power of the Keys in admitting any person into rejecting him from or guideing him in the Communion of the Church as a Society founded by Christ and the dispensing Christian mysteries can be exercised by none but the particular Officers of Christs Church to whom it is committed yet the Prince may command them to mind and do their duty therein and if need so require punish their neglect Indeed it belongeth to the Ecclesiastical power to determine rules for the due exercise of the power of the Keys and the ordering such rules is part of that power which hath been frequently exercised in very many Canons of several Councils But the soveraign power hath a right to take care that these rules of Government be practised and observed Cod. l. 1. Tit. 3. l. 3. Nov. 6. 123. And the establishing laws of this nature was very frequent both in the Empire and in other Christian Kingdoms and those of Justinian have been especially taken notice of to this purpose And though the late Canonists do broadly censure him as intermedling too far in Church affairs yet Baronius himself is here so modest Annal. Eccles An. 528. n. 1. as to allow low that there is much in this particular to be said in his excuse and the late learned Archbishop of Paris P. de Marcâ— de Concord Sacerd Imp. l. 2. cap. 10. hath sufficiently shewed that the more ancient Bishops Patriarchs and Councils did applaud and honour these his Constitutions in things Ecclesiastical 2. And the worship of God 2. Touching the worship of God since the divine establishment of the publick Christian service is
after he saith In this Kingdom there were Officers of the Realm rege superiores I say saith he in this Kingdom which was established and ordained not by Plato or Aristotle but by God himself the supreme founder of all Monarchy 4. And it is very manifest The pretended power of the Sanhedrin that the greater part of the Jewish Rabbinical Writers and from them divers Christians some of them so judicious that it is strange they should be so much imposed upon by Fables and Romances do assert that the Sanhedrim or Senate of seventy one persons had such a power over the Kings of Judah as to call them to account and punish them And they also assert that according to the original establishment of the Jewish laws and polity the chief causes of moment both of an Ecclesiastical and civil nature were exempt from the Kings jurisdiction and reserved to the Synedrial cognisance Grot. Schick ubi supra To this purpose Grotius declareth aliqua judicia arbitror regibus adempta I think there were some cases of judgment reserved from the King which remained in the Sanhedrim of seventy men i. e. besides the Nasi or president Schickard goes farther and sayes sine senatus magni assensu Rex in gravioribus causis nihil poterat decernere that the King could determine nothing in the more weighty matters without the assent of this great Senate And our Author de Synedriis De Synedr l. 3. c. 9. n. 1. among other things discourses de Judiciis adeo Synedrio magno propriis ut nec à Regibus aut impediri aut ad tribunal suum vocari jure potuerunt in which words he fetters and confines the Kings power but that of the Sanhedrim is set at large 5. Carpzov in Schick c. 2. p. 142. But it may be a sufficient prejudice against these positions that they have no better a foundation than a tradition delivered by some of the Jewish Rabbins This a fabulous tradition of the Rabbins against the evidence of whose testimony in this particular there lie these exceptions 1. That none of those persons who assert this Synedrial power were contemporary with the flourishing of royal authority before the captivity but all of them lived near or fully a thousand years and many of them above fifteen hundred years after that time and therefore can give no testimony upon their own knowledge and writing one from another with a zeal for all traditions any of their wise men have delivered the number of them who are produced can add nothing to their testimony But both divine and humane writers who are of an ancienter date do sufficiently contradict this position as I hope to make plain He therefore who can believe that the Apostolical form of Church Government was by Lay-elders because divers of late but neither Scripture nor ancient Writers do assert it and he who can perswade himself that our Saviour made the Bishop of Rome the Vniversal Monarch of the whole World and gave him a plenitude of all temporal and spiritual power because many Writers of that Communion do now assert this while what is inconsistent therewith was declared by Christ his Apostles and the ancient Christian Church such men have understandings of a fit fize and sutable disposition to receive these Rabbinical traditions concerning the Synedrial authority and Supremacy which are also things fit for their purpose 6. Gemar Sanhed Cocc c. 2. Sect. 10. Secondly It is evident that the Rabbins out of affection to their own Nation were forward to extol it even beyond the bounds of truth of which that prodigious instance may be given in the Talmud of the number of the Horses for Salomons own Stables which are there brought up to an hundred and sixty millions accounting a thousand thousand to a Million Now the great Sanhedrim was the chief Jewish consistory for a considerable time Sed. Olam zut in fin before the reign of Aristobulus and under the Roman Government and some continuance thereof remained towards five hundred years after the destruction of Jerusalem as their Chronicle informs us which was till about the time of some of those Rabbinical Writers And it is very probable that the pressures and sufferings which the Jews sustained under the Roman Emperours or Kings might prejudice them against Monarchical Government 7. Thirdly There are other Rabbinical and Talmudical Writers of good note who will by no means be perswaded to embrace this tradition which disparageth the Royal power Seld. de Syn. l. 2. c. 16. n. 4. p. 666. De Synedr l. 3. c. 9. n. 3. Grot. de J. B. P. l. 1. c. 3. n. 20. To this purpose the words of the Jerusalem Gemara and of R. Jeremias mentioned in Dabarim Rabba and others are cited by Mr Selden and the testimony of Barnachmoni by Grotius who assert that no mortal man hath any power of judging the King And that the highest authority is in the King who standeth in Gods place is asserted by R. Abarbanel Carpzov in Schick p. 165. Their pretended power over the person of the King refuted whose words are in Carpzov 8. But because a due examination of these pretences may be of good use I shall first particularly reflect upon that strange power which these Writers give to the Sanhedrim over the person of the King They deal with the royal authority as the Jews did with our Saviour who gave him the title of the King of the Jews but yet scourged him and treated him with great indignity For these Writers do assert that the King might be scourged by the Sanhedrim only by the great Sanhedrim at Jernsalem saith Schickard De Jur. Reg. c. 2. Theor. 7. and he acknowledgeth that even this appeared to him valde paradoxum a thing far from truth and very unlikely until his own apprehensions were moulded into a complyance with the Jewish Writers But Mr Selden addeth De Syn. l. 2. c. 9. n. 5. that according to the testimony of the Rabbins he might be scourged by the lesser Sanhedrim of twenty three which was the Government of every particular City And among the 168. Cases punished by scourging enumerated by Maimonides Ibid. c. 13. n. 8. and mentioned from him by Selden the three last are if the King multiply Wives if he multiply Horses and if he multiply silver and gold Now these things are so strange in themselves reducing the King to the same circumstances with every common and petty offender that how this can consist with the majesty and soveraignty of a Prince is utterly unconceiveable and he who can entertain such dreams and fancies must also perswade himself to believe against the plainest evidence that David and those who sat upon his throne were not Kings and chief rulers in the Kingdom of Israel and Judah but were all of them subjects under the common and ordinary government and authority of that Common-wealth 9. Schickard de Jur.
from all these and governing the Church Cyp. Ep. 27. 73. Aug. in Joh. Tract 50. But this power as the ancient Church did acknowledge the other Apostles did also enjoy and were actually possessed of as appears Mat. 18.18 Jo. 20.21 22 23. Ans 2. How vastly different is this power from the temporal Dominion over the Kingdoms of the World of which there is not any world here spoken by our Lord And surely any man who considereth the doctrine and lives of the Apostles cannot imagine that every one or any one of them was intended and designed of God to be the Soveraign Potentate and grand Emperour of the World It is therefore a just complaint against the Romish party that ex clavibus cudunt enses Conf. Helvet c. 14. lanceas sceptra coronas out of the Keys they forge Swords and Spears Scepters and Crowns and usurp temporal Dominion equal with or superiour unto Kings notwithstanding that our Saviour expresly rejected from his Apostles such Dominion as the Kings of the Gentiles exercised Mat. 20.25 26. 9. But Pasce oves meas Feed my sheep Jo. 21.16 is a place chiefly insisted upon And if no more was hence inferred than a spiritual and Apostolical authority in S. Peter this is readily granted and asserted and the other Apostles enjoyed the like But Bellarmine will have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bellarm. de Rom. Pont. l. 1. c. 14 15 16. Layman Theolog. Moral l. 1. Tr. 4. c. 6. to be a Charter of Soveraignty and to enclude governing and commanding as a King doth And he and others also infer the extent of S. Peters power over all Apostles and Kings because they are Christs Sheep To which I Ans 1. Not S. Peter only but all Bishops and Elders are commanded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to feed or have a Pastoral care over the Flock Ambr. de dign Sacerd c. 2. Ignat. Ep. ad Philad ad Rom. Eus Hist Ecc. l. 8. c. 25. Act. 20.28 1 Pet. 5.2 And among all Ecclesiastical Writers beginning from Ignatius and downwards the Bishops and chief Officers of the Church have been acknowledged to be Pastors Now if this Office of Pastor doth not necessarily enclude a Soveraign or supreme Government then no such can be asserted to s. Peter or his pretended Successor from this Text if it doth then must this be ascribed to every Bishop which will necessarily overthrow the Popes Vniversal claim Ans 2. Government over the Sheep of Christ is also too narrow a compass for an Vniversal Monarchy 10. Ans 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being a Metaphor from Shepherds is thence sometimes used for to take care and feed and at other times for to rule and govern and oft for both Now though the Officers of Christ have a pastor al authority over his Flock yet these words Joh. 21.15 16 17. were principally directed to S. Peter as supposing in him this authority and requiring his duty of care and feeding and not as conveying to him a peculiar authority and Dominion because this is enjoined upon him as an evidence of his love to Christ and because among the three Precepts to take care of the Sheep of Christ and his Lambs two of them are there expressed by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which must be understood only of feeding Ans 4. Civil Governours also are to be as Shepherds over their Flock with particular respect to rule and Government The Government of God is sometimes expressed by his being the Shepherd of Israel and a Prince whom Homer stiles the Pastor of the people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is by Philo and other Writers oft mentioned by a like name Phil. de Agricult de Joseph quod omnis probus liber And a civil pastoral power over all their people is yielded to them Num. 27.17 Is 44.28 which is expressed in the Septuagint by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Sam. 5.2 Ch. 7.7 Ps 78.71 72. But every one must use their power according to their office Ecclesiastical Officers are to use the spiritual authority but temporal Soveraignty is reserved to Princes Ans 5. The pastoral office of the guides of the Church doth extend it self even to Kings with respect to the conduct of their Souls but yet this doth not exempt them from being under the Regal Soveraignty A Prince may be ruled by a Physician concerning his health or be led by a guide at Land or a Pilot at Sea and not lose his Soveraignty over these Subjects And the Kings of the House of David were the chief Rulers over the Realm though the Priests were to offer Sacrifice for Prince and People to direct them in Religion and to judge in case of Leprosy and such like SECT IV. Other arguments for the pretences of Papal Authority answered and refuted 1. Annal. Ecclesian 57. n. 28 29 30. The support which Baronius affords for the Popes Supremacy is that Christ himself is a Priest after the order of Melchisedek being both King and Priest according to the Apostle Heb. 7. and that from him the regal and sacerdotal authority are together conferred upon his Church first upon the Apostles and then upon their Successors which he further undertakes to prove because our Saviour declared to his Disciples Jo. 20. As my father sent me so send I you and did establish in his Church a Royal Priesthood 1 Pet. 2. Ibid. n. 31 32. And though the Cardinal will not allow that this authority in the Church doth make void the political power yet he doth assert that this Regal Ecclesiastical Authority must be superiour thereunto The Priesthood of Melchisedek 2. But concerning the Melchisedekian Priesthood Sect. 4 he did not consider these two things 1. That the making the supremacy of power to be conjunct with the Priesthood doth destroy the peculiarity of power challenged by the Bishop of Rome for thence it must be inferred that they who equally partake of Priesthood with the Bishop of Rome must have an equal supreme authority with him 2. That one thing which the Apostle did most especially insist on concerning the Priesthood of Melchisedek is that the Priest or High Priest of that Order must not derive or receive his Priesthood from any Predecessor nor leave it to any Successor but must abide a Priest for ever through that whole dispensation under which he is Priest Heb. 7.3 8 16 17 21 23 24 28. And therefore the Melchisedekian Priesthood is no more transferred from Christ to any other person in the Church then his proper mediatory office is Beyerl de Episc Rom. And they who say that this Priesthood of Christ cannot indeed be enjoyed by any as successor to him but only as his Vicar do not so avoid the force of this argument For it remains certain that no such pretended Vicar can partake of this Priesthood because in him it must be received from a Predecessor viz. in that Vicarship and Priesthood and be left to
doctrines but also all those who do appeal to any future Council Wherefore as much as it is the duty of any Church or Christian to own Gods authority and embrace his truth so much it must be their duty to reject the Romish authority which opposeth and withstandeth them 12. Fourthly From the sin of pursuing Schism with which the Romish Bishop and Church do stand chargeable 4. From Schism No Christian Bishop can have any authority against the Vnity of the Christian Church and against that authority whereby that Unity is established And therefore all Christians are obliged to avoid sinful divisions and Schisms though the names of Paul or Apollos or Cephas may be pretended to head them And it was the fault of S. Barnabas to comply with and be led by S. Peter himself in a groundless withdrawing from the Church of Antioch And it could not be the duty of any Catholick Christians who lived within the Dioceses of the Donatist Bishops to submit to them and thereby not hold the Catholick Communion Cyp. Ep. 52. ad Anton For as S. Cyprian said he who doth not keep the Vnity of the Spirit and the conjunction of peace and separateth himself from the bond of the Church and the Society of its Priests Episcopi nec potestatem potest habere nec honorem can neither have the honour nor the power of a Bishop And he who submits to or complyeth with the manager of a Schism in his prosecution thereof doth involve himself in the same crime 13. Gr. de Valent Tom. 3. disp 3. qu. 15. Punct 2. Bannes in 2. â—ae qu. 1. Art 10. p. 83 84. qu. 39. Art 1. Now that the Bishop of Rome himself may be a Schismatick in separating from the Unity of the Church is acknowledged by their own Writers And he is actually guilty of Schism in rejecting Communion with a great part and with the best and purest part of the Catholick Church and requiring them to be accounted Hereticks And his Schism hath such aggravations as these 1. In the ill design of upholding corrupt doctrines and practises of that Church without due reformation 2 From his high uncharitableness in not allowing salvation to other Christian Churches besides the Roman 3. From his great usurpation excommunicating all who do not yield obedience to him and the free Churches who reform themselves although their power of holding Synods includeth a right to reform themselves and all who appeal from him to a general Council who are subjected to excommunication Jac. de Graf Decis Aur. l. 4. c. 18. n. 55. as some who write upon the bull in coena domini tell us for accounting a general Council superior to the Pope 14. Wherefore the Bishop of Rome as things now stand hath no just right to a Patriarchal Power in any part whatsoever of the Christian Church having forfeited this by the corrupt doctrines and interests and by the Schism which are there managed And he is excluded from Foreign Soveraign Princes Dominions by the Supremacy of their Crown and by his undue claims inconsistent with their regalities But if he would become truly Catholick both as to Christian Vnity and doctrine and therein give due honour to secular authority he might then claim a Patriarchal right so far as the present civil power of Rome reacheth but no further unless by the leave and pleasure of other Princes and Churches And he might then expect and would receive an high honour all over the Christian World upon account of the ancient prime Patriarchal See CHAP. VIII B. 1. C. 8. Some pretences of other parties against the Supremacy of Princes in Causes Ecclesiastical refuted SECT I. Of Liberty of Conscience and Toleration AGainst the Authority of the Civil Power in matters of Religion there are some who undertake such a Patronage of Liberty of Conscience as thereby to infer a necessity of Toleration And what is urged upon this Topick hath either respect to Conscience it self or else the peace of the Christian World and so either pretendeth that it is the proper right of Conscience to be free from subjection to any men in matters Ecclesiastical and the affairs of Religion or else that the yielding this liberty to every man is a principle of peace The consequences from the Pleas for General liberty of Conscience and would tend greatly to the quiet of the World 2. the chief force of what is said upon the first pretence lyeth in this kind of reasoning which some account plausible to wit That every man hath a Conscience or capacity of discerning what is his duty in matters of Religion and that what he thus discerns to be his duty he ought to practise and no man ought to hinder or restrain him and the consequence of this is that concerning the affairs of Religion he ought to be under no Government whether Civil or Ecclesiastical But the vanity and fallaciousness of this way of arguing will sufficiently appear by improving the same to a further purpose to which it is altogether as well adapted concerning matters of common right For it may be said here that man is a Creature endued with principles of Conscience and capacities to discern what is just and honest and what he discerneth to be so he ought to pursue and should be permitted so to do and therefore according to the former method of argumentation he must in civil affairs be under no Government and no judge ought to question him Now the result of all this and what it would tend to prove is that man is such a Creature who ought not to be a subject or under Government and from hence it would follow that all the Precepts of subjection and obedience in the Gospel and the whole establishment which God hath made of Civil and Ecclesiastical power and authority are all of them opposite to the nature of man and to the rights and priviledges of his being And now would it not heartily grieve any pious and understanding man to see by what pitiful pretences men undertake to argue against the institution and authority of God 3. Men may not safely be left to the sole conduct of themselves and their Consciences But they who make use of such arguments about matters of Religion will be ready to say concerning things civil that though men have Consciences to guide them yet they may sometimes mistake the due measures of justice and right and sometimes an inordinate pursuing their own interest or gratifying some evil temper of mind may make men act contrary to what they know to be right and by such means other mens properties would be injured if there were not a civil judge to interpose and laws established for the securing these properties And all this is indeed truth but then these two things are also to be observed 1. That hereby it is granted that even in those things wherein men ought to be directed by the rules of Conscience they
authority of men the substance of which I have in another discourse taken notice of But this will be more apparently manifest from another position which I shall now reflect upon 2. It is asserted by them that if a Minister shall speak treason in his Pulpit by way of doctrine the Church only is to try whether it be treason indeed Ibid. Ch. 24. p. 551 552. The like Plea was used by A. Melvil a chief Modeller of the Scotish Presbytery in his own Case 1584. and he may decline the civil judg and appeal to a Synod This is not only affirmed by Mr Rutherford but this position was in an exceeding strange manner espoused by the General Assembly of the Kirk who contested with King James concerning it upon this occasion Mr D. Blake having in his Sermon at S. Andrews declared that the King had discovered the treachery of his heart That all Kings are the Devils Bearnes That the Queen of England Queen Elizabeth was an Atheist with many more dangerous assertions and being cited by the Kings authority to answer these things he alledged that he could not in this case be judged by the King till the Church had taken the first cognition thereof Spotsw Hist of Sc. l. 6. p. 330. And the Kirk-Commissioners enter a Declinator and Protestation against the Kings proceedings and would not consent that any punishment should be inflicted upon Mr Blake because there was no tryal before a proper judge and declared that if he should submit his doctrine to be tryed by the Council the liberty of the Church and the spiritual Government of the House of God Hist of Sc. l. 6. an 1596. would be quite subverted A full and particular account of this whole matter is expressed by Bishop Spotswood and this contest was so great and famous and the disturbances ensuing thereupon so notorious that they were thought fit to be signified to the States General of the united Provinces Adr. Damman in Praest Viror Epist p. 49. c. by their Agent then sent into Scotland in the entrance of 1597. But such positions and undertakings as these are calculated for a Meridian equal in Elevation with the Italian 3. One thing insisted on for this exemption of the Church and its Officers from the Civil Authority is that the Officers of the Church act by Authority from Christ and therefore are not to be in immediate subjection to Kings and Princes Chap. 6. Sect. 4. But this hath been particularly answered above 4. But they further argue Christs Royal Authority not invaded by Princes governing in causes Ecclesiasticale that it is the Royalty of Christ to Govern his Church in matters of Religion and if the Civil Rulers do intermeddle herein they thereby invade Christs Kingly Government To which I answer 1. That this way of arguing put into other language would amount to thus much That because Christ is the King of his Church or of all Christians yea and of all the earth therefore Christians and the whole World ought not to be subject to any other King or Ruler but to Christ And this would serve the design of the highest Fifth Monarchy men if it had any weight in it 2. It is a gross falshood that no act that Christ doth as King may be performed by any other King There are some great things in the Kingly power of Christ which are wholly incommunicable in the nature of them to any other human person whomsoever being founded on his Mediatory Office Such are his giving the Sanction to the Laws and Precepts of the Gospel to become the rule of the Christian Religion his Soveraign dispensing divine grace upon account of his own merits his pronouncing the final sentence of Absolution and Condemnation and his having by a peculiar right an Vniversal authority over all the World all power in heaven and earth being committed to him And all such things as these are as far disclaimed from Kings as from other men But there are other acts of Christs Government of his Church where some thing of like nature ought to be performed by others though in a different manner thus Christ ruleth Christians and so may all Christian Kings do Christ doth protect his Church and so ought all Soveraign Powers to do Christ by his Authority encourageth the pious and devout and discountenanceth the negligent and so ought all Rulers as well as all other good men to do by theirs 3. If governing others with respect to Religion were peculiar to Christ himself and his Royal Authority the authority of Ecclesiastical Officers would by this method become void also for Christ hath not conveyed the peculiarities of his Royal Authority to them But as they in their places have authority from Christ so the civil power is in subordination to him who is King of Kings and is confirmed by him 5. There have been also other very pernicious principles which undermine the whole foundation of the Royal Supremacy both in matters civil and Ecclesiastical In our late dreadful times of Civil War the whole management of things against the King and the undertaking to alter and order publick affairs without him was a manifest and practical disowning the Kings Supremacy Popular Supremacy disclaimed Some persons then who would be thought men of sense did assert that though the King was owned to be supreme Governour yet the supremest Soveraign power was in the people Others declared that the title of Supreme Governour was an honourary title given to the King to please him instead of fuller power And in the Issue July 17. 1649. by a pretended Act it was called Treason to say that the Commons assembled in Parliament were not the supreme authority of the Nation But there were also some who then affirmed the whole body of the people to be superiour to the Parliament and that they might call them to an account 6. But because I hope these positions are now forsaken and because much in the following Book is designed against the dangerous effect of them in taking Arms I shall content my self here to observe three things First that those who would disprove the Royal Supremacy because of some actions which have been undertaken by some of the people or by any in their name against their Kings or even to the deposing of them do first stand bound to prove all these actions to be regular and justifiable or else it is no better argument than they might make use of against the authority of God from the disobedience of men 7. Secondly The asserting supremacy of Government in the body of the people is a position big with nonsense and irreligion 'T is nonsense like a whole Army being General since Supremacy of Government in the whole body of the people can be over no body unless something could be supreme over it self whereas if there be no higher power than what is in the whole body of the people this must be a state of
considered with other things which have affinity therewith from Mat. 18.17 and 1 Cor. 6. Chap. VI. Of the renouncing all Foreign Jurisdiction and Authority and particularly the supreme Power of the Bishop of Rome Sect. 1. The latter part of the Oath of Supremacy considered Sect. 2. The high claims of Papal Supremacy declared Sect. 3. Such claims can have no Foundation from the Fathers and have none in the direct expressions of Scripture which they alledge Sect. 4. Other Arguments for the pretended Papal Authority answered and refuted Chap. VII The Romish Bishop hath no right to any Patriarchal Authority over the Church of England Sect. 1. The whole Christian Church was never under the Patriarchal Sees Sect. 2. No Patriarch ever had any just right to Patriarchal Authority in this Island Sect. 3. The present Jurisdiction of those Churches which have been called Patriarchal ought not to be determined by the ancient bounds of their Patriarchates Chap. VIII Some pretences of other parties against the Supremacy of Princes in Causes Ecclesiastical refuted Sect. 1. Of Liberty of Conscience and Toleration Sect. 2. Of some other rigid and dangerous Principles against the Supremacy of Princes Chap. IX Corollaries concerning some duties of subjection The Second BOOK Of the unlawfulness of Subjects taking Armes against the King Chap. I. THE publick Forms of Declaration against the lawfulness of resisting the King by Armes considered Sect. 1. Of the Oath of Allegiance or Obedience and its disclaiming the Popes Power of deposing the King or licensing his Subjects to offer any violence to his Person State or Government Sect. 2. Of the unlawfulness of taking Armes upon any pretence whatsoever against the King Sect. 3. Of the traiterous Position of taking Armes by the Kings Authority against his Person or against those who are Commissionated by him Chap. II. The Laws of Nature and of General Equity and the right grounds of Humane Polity do condemn all Subjects taking Armes against the Soveraign Power Sect. 1. The preservation of Peace and common Rights will not allow Armes to be taken in a Kingdom against the Soveraign Sect. 2. The Rights and properties of Subjects may be secured without allowing them to take Armes against their Prince Sect. 3. The condition of Subjects would not be the better but the worse if it were lawful for them to take Armes against their Soveraign Sect. 4. The Plea that Self-defence is enjoined by the Law of Nature considered and of the end of Soveraign Power with a representation of the pretence that Soveraign Authority is in Rulers derived from the people and the inference thence deduced examined Sect. 5. The Divine Original of Soveraign Power asserted Chap. III. Of the unlawfulness of Subjects taking Armes against their King under the time of the Old Testament Sect. 1. The need and usefulness of considering this Case Sect. 2. The general unlawfulness of Subjects taking Armes against their Prince under the Old Testament evidenced Sect. 3. Objections from the behaviour of David answered Sect. 4. Divers Objections from the Maccabees Zealots Jehu and others answered Chap. IV. The Rules and Precepts delivered by Christ and his Apostles concerning resistance and the practice of the Primitive Christians declared Sect. 1. The Doctrine delivered by our Saviour himself Sect. 2. Of the Apostolical Doctrine against resistance with a reflexion on contrary practices Sect. 3. The practice and sense of the Primitive Church concerning resistance Chap. V. Of the Extent of the Duty and obligation of non-resistance Sect. 1. Resistance by force against the Soveraign Prince is not only sinful in particular private persons but also in the whole body of the people and in subordinate and inferiour Magistrates and Governours Sect. 2. Some Cases which have respect to the Prince himself reflected on and considered ERRATA PAge 64. line 8. read 2 Kin. 1.10 12. p. 71. l. 19. Marg. r. de Vit. Const l. 4. c. 40. p. 95. l. 2. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 100. l. 1. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 106. l. 3. Marg. r. n. 6. p. 107. l. 4. r. Frischmuthius p. 219. l. 14. r. Sword and p. 223. l. 25. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 265. l. 1. Marg. r. Comen p. 268. l. 25. r. Patriarchdoms Christian Loyalty The First BOOK Of Regal Supremacy especially in matters Ecclesiastical and the renouncing all Foreign Jurisdiction CHAP. I. The Kings Supremacy in Causes Ecclesiastical declared SECT I. The Royal Supremacy acknowledged and asserted in the Church and Realm of England 1. THE things established in the Church of England which all Ecclesiastical persons are required to declare their consent unto B. 1. C. 1. do concern matters of so high importance that both the being and the purity and perfection of a Church doth very much depend upon the consideration thereof to wit the order and way of its worship the due honour it gives to the King and Secular Authority the truth of its doctrine and the right and regular ordination of its Ministry That the publick worship of God in our Church is free from all just exception and agreeable to the rules of Christianity and the best and primitive patterns I have given some account in a former Treatise And in this discourse I shall treat of that Authority and Dignity which is justly yielded and ascribed to the supreme civil power 2. Loyal Principles useful to the world And if a general right understanding of this matter could every where be obtained together with a practice suitable thereunto it would greatly contribute to the advancement and honour of Christianity and the peace of the world The great miscarriages and irregular practices by not yielding to Soveraign Princes their due Authority hath strangely appeared in the enormous Usurpations of the Romish Church and the frequent distractions of the Empire and other Kingdoms which have been thence derived For the Roman Bishop who still claimeth even where he possesseth not Sect. 1 by his exorbitant encroachment upon the Royalty of Kings especially in matters Ecclesiastical and thereupon in Civil also did advance himself unto the highest step of his undue Papal exaltation And he thereby also more firmly fixed and rivetted his usurpation over other Christian Bishops and put himself into a capacity of propagating his corrupt doctrines without probable appearance of any considerable check or controul and with the less likelyhood of redress and reformation And from the like cause have proceeded divers exorbitancies in opinion and practice concerning the Church and its Government in another sort of men And the want of Conscientious observance of the duties of subjection hath too often manifested it self in the world by the sad effects of open tumult and rebellion all which hath highly tended to the scandal of Religion 3. It seemeth also considerable that almost all Sects and erring parties about matters of Religion and many of them to very ill purposes do nourish false conceptions and mistaken opinions concerning the civil power
which intirely flow from the institutions of Christ as the right of consecrating ordaining and the whole power of the Keys doth Now the asserting the supremacy of Government is never designed in any wise to violate either these divine or Christian institutions or to assert it lawful for any Prince to invade that authority and right which is made peculiar thereby whether in matters temporal or spiritual Grot. de Imp. S. m. cap. 2. n. 1. Abbot de suprem pot Reg. prael 2. n. 2. Mas de Min. Angl. l. 3. c. 5. n. 2. l. 4. c. 1. Ecclesiastical and civil rights asserted Wherefore there was just cause for understanding men to tax the vanity and inconsiderateness of those men who will understand nothing else by the Kings Supremacy in causes Ecclesiastical but this that he may assume to himself the performance of all proper Ecclesiastical actions 6. Obs 2. Since the asserting the Kings Supremacy in things temporal doth not exclude the subject from a real propriety in his own estate nor declare it lawful for a Prince when he pleaseth to alienate his subjects possessions and inheritance the owning his supremacy in matters Ecclesiastical must not be so far strained as to acknowledge that the revenue of the Church may be alienated at the pleasure of the Civil power For besides that in our English laws this hath the same legal security that all other properties have Magn. Char. c. 1. and with a priority and precedence thereto it is but reasonable that that possession which beareth a respect to God should be as inviolable as the rights of any men And that revenue which is set apart for the support of the service of God and of those administrations which tend to mens eternal felicity ought not to be less secured than what concerneth their temporal welfare 7. Obs 3. Things good and evil cannot be altered but must be established by authority The Soveraign power is so supreme in things temporal as that whatsoever is good or evil by the law of nature or the command of God cannot be altered thereby viz. so as to make theft and murder good or justice chastity and speaking truth evil And in things Ecclesiastical all matters of faith worship and order which Christ hath determined in his Church must remain equally unmoveable and unalterable notwithstanding the acknowledgment of Royal Supremacy in causes Ecclesiastical And in temporal affairs what authority the God of nature hath planted in any other persons still remaineth intire notwithstanding the Royal Government over them thus for instance the power right and authority of Parents is still acknowledged such as that it is neither derived from the regal authority nor can be forbidden by it And this power which both the laws of nature and of Christianity establish hath been universally owned throughout the world and it is observed by Philo Phil. de Leg. ad Caium that when Tiberius the Son of Drusus a minor was left Copartner with Caligula in the right of the Empire by the will of Tiberius the deceased Emperour Caligula by this subtile and wicked method brought him to be so under his immediate government as to have opportunity to destroy him Sect. 3 by taking him to be his adopted Son And as the paternal power must be preserved so likewise whatsoever officers or order of men Christ hath committed his authority unto in his Church this authority doth fully still remain and reside in them and as it is not derived from any temporal power neither may it be taken away or abolished thereby But the supreme civil government hath in all these things a right and authority V. Thorndike Right of the Church Ch. 4. p. 168. of enjoining to every one the performance of their duty and also of determining many particularities which have relation to these general heads and to punish irregular exorbitances and miscarriages SECT III. The declaration of this sense by publick authority observed 1. Though these things might of themselves seem clear enough we have yet further two authentick expositions of this supremacy in causes Ecclesiastical confirmed by the greatest authority of this Church and Realm The former with a particular respect to the Oath of Supremacy was at first published in the Queens Injunctions There the Queen disclaiming all authority of ministring divine offices in the Church In the Admonition to simple peopled deceived by malicious as that which cannot by any equity of words or good sense be intended by the Oath doth declare that no other duty or allegiance is meant or intended by the Oath nor any other authority challenged therein than what was challenged by K. Hen. 8. and K. Edw. 6. and which is and was due to the Imperial Crown of this Realm the more particular explication of which followeth in these words that is under God to have the Soveraignty and rule over all manner of persons born within these her Realms Dominions and Countries of what estate either Ecclesiastical or temporal soever they be so as no other foreign power shall have or ought to have any superiority over them And then it follows and if any person shall accept the same Oath with this interpretation sense and meaning her Majesty is well pleased to accept every such person in that behalf as her good and obedient subjects 2. But this explication received a more solemn and ample publick Sanction by a statute law not long after the publication of these Injunctions 5 Eliz. 1. Therein it was enacted that the Oath of Supremacy should be taken and expounded in such form as is set forth in an admonition annexed to the Queens Injunctions in the first year of her Reign that is to say to confess and acknowledge in her Majesty her Heirs and Successors none other authority than that was challenged and lately used by the noble King Henry the Eighth and King Edward the Sixth as in the same admonition it plainly may appear 3. The other publickly acknowledged exposition of the sense of this Supremacy is in the Articles of the Church of England agreed on in the Convocation and confirmed or established by a legal Sanction 13 Eliz. 12. Artic. 37. Therein are these words Where we attribute to the Queens Majesty the chief Government by which title we understand the minds of some slanderous folk to be offended we give not our Princes the ministring of Gods word or of the Sacraments the which thing the Injunctions set forth by Elizabeth our Queen do most plainly testify but that only prerogative which we see to have been given alway to all godly Princes in holy Scripture by God himself that is that they should rule all estates and degrees committed to their charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or temporal and restrain with the civil sword the stubborn and evil doers 4. And when Bishop Vsher in his Speech at the sentencing some Recusants in the Castle Chamber at Duâ—lin explained the Kings
these which are in that Book expressed f. 49. That God constituted and ordained the authority of Christen Kings and Princes to be the most high and supreme above all other powers and offices in the regiment and governance of his people f. 50. Vnto them of right and by Gods commandment it belongeth principally to defend the faith of Christ and his Religion and to abolish all abuses heresies and idolatries Notwithstanding we may not think that it doth appertain unto the office of Kings and Princes to preach and teach to administer the Sacraments to absolve to excommunicate and such other things belonging to the office and administration of Bishops and Priests but we must think and believe that God hath made Christian Kings to be as the chief heads and over-lookers over the said Priests and Bishops to cause them to administer their office and power committed unto them purely and sincerely and in case they shall be negligent in any part thereof to cause them to supply and repair the same again 10. And for the time of King Edward it is manifest from the Book of Ordination that the offices of Bishop Priest and Deacon the power of remitting and retaining sins and the Pastoral authority in the Church was accounted by ordination to be committed to those persons only who receive such ordination And in his time the royal authority and dignity is described K. Edw. Inj. 1. and asserted in his Injunctions in the very same words whereby it is declared in the injunctions of Queen Elizabeth and no otherwise Qu. Elizab. Injunct 1. and almost in the same phrases which are made use of in our Canons Can. 1. 1603. i. e. that the Kings power within his Realms and Dominions is the highest power under God to whom all men within the same Realms and Dominions by Gods law owe most loyalty and obedience afore and above all other powers and potentates upon earth 11. Now these things do clearly manifest that the spiritual authority of the Clergy was both in King Hen. and King Edwards reign owned to be really distinct from the secular authority and was not swallowed up into it And this I have the rather taken notice of because it gives us a clearer prospect into the plain sense of the interpretation of the Kings Supremacy Sect. 4 as it was declared in the Admonition annexed to the Queens Injunctions unto which the explication of the statute and Articles do refer And what is herein observed from the Institution of a Christian man is the more considerable because that Book was then designed by the King and Bishops as a guide to direct the Bishops and Preachers what they should teach the people committed to their spiritual charge as is very often expressed throughout the whole Book almost in every leaf of a great part thereof SECT IV. The spiritual authority of the Ecclesiastical Officers is of a distinct nature from the secular power and is no way prejudicial to Royal Supremacy 1. The wisdom and goodness of God is eminently conspicuous both in founding his Church and establishing an Ecclesiastical Society and authority and also in ordering a civil polity in the world And these two things were well observed by Justinian to be high instances of the great goodness and bounty of God towards men Maxima inter homines dona Dei sunt a superna collata clementia Novel 6. sacerdotium imperium And these two being both of them from God do not if rightly understood clash with but are useful and helpful to one another 2. Of old the same person oft King and Priest Whilst God was worshipped only in some particular Families of the holy Patriarchs he who was the chief Governour of those Societies was also in the place of a Priest to that Family whence Noah Abraham and Job offered Sacrifice And in those ancient times in some principalities the same person was King and Priest as Melchisedec was both King of Salem and Priest of the most high God and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in the Hebrew is the ordinary word to express a Priest Phil. de vit Mos l. 3. p. 681. doth also signify a Prince And Moses himself before the Jewish Government was compleatly formed sustained the office both of a Prince and a Priest whence Philo in his description of a compleat Governour maketh the Priesthood to reside in him as then it was in Moses 3. And from the traditions of the ancient times the general custom of divers Pagan Nations might have its original who in several distant parts of the world conjoined in the same person the royal authority and the Priesthood This was done saith Clemens Alexandrinus by those who were the wisest of them Cl. Alex. Str. l. 7. p. 720. Diod. Sic. l. 3. c. 1. Aelian Var. Hist l. 14. c. 34. and is particularly averred by Diodorus Siculus concerning the ancient Ethiopians and of the Egyptians also by Aelianus as also by Plato in Politic. and by Synesius Ep. 121. And that Jethro Moses his Father in Law was both King and Priest is expressed by Ezekielus a Poet of Jewish Extraction in some Verses mentioned by Eusebius Eus Pr. Evang. l. c. 28. Cont. Ap. l. 1. That the same usage did sometimes take place among the Tyrians of old appears from Josephus and in the time of Aeneas his travels Virg. Aeneid 3. after the destruction of Troy at Delos there was saith Virgil Rex idem hominum PhoebÃque sacerdos The Pagan Emperours at Rome had likewise the Office of Pontifex Maximus and used this title in several Edicts as part of their stile of dignity of which we have a plain instance in Eusebius Hist Eccl. l. 8. c. 29. concerning Galerius Maximinus and Constantius This was also ordinarily impressed upon their coins where sometimes the proper imperial title was stamped on the one side and that of Pontifex Maximus on the other as appears in that Medal exhibited to this purpose M. Freh Tr. de Numism censûs Xenoph. de Inst Cyr. l. 2 3 8. by Marquardus Freherus And that Cyrus the King of Persia did himself both Sacrifice and annex his Prayers therewith is observed by Xenophon And there are several learned men who assert that this title of Pontifex Maximus was retained Bar. An. 312. n. 94 95 97 c. and an 383. n. 6. Seld. de Syn. l. 1. c. 10. à p. 329. ad 344. as an ordinary part of the Imperial stile even by the first Christian Emperours until the time of Gratian who according to the testimony of Zosimus is said to have rejected it as unsuitable to Christianity And it is certain that this title was given to some of them and even to Gratian himself as well and as oft as to any other in some few publick inscriptions which are urged to this purpose by Baronius and Selden But as these inscriptions were probably ordered by others and not by these
take care of the service of God in the World for if any servant be empowered to govern other servants in his Masters Family and to oversee his affairs can it be supposed that he ought only to keep these servants from abusing one another and not to take care of the interest of his Master who employs him whether his business be done or no and whether they express due respect to him or vilify and despise him And if a Prince appointeth any inferiour Governour is it not expected that this man in his place should take care to maintain the honour and soveraignty of his Prince as well as the interests of particular men 2. This needful and reasonable And since it is manifest by the experience of the World that the duties to God are not duly performed by all men of their own accord nor with the sole help of the spiritual guides and since the authority of the civil power hath a like influence upon discountenancing or reclaiming offenders in matters of Religion and in common honesty it cannot be less necessary that those whom God intrusts with secular authority should take care of his worship honour and service than of other things unless it could be presumed that the acknowledging and honouring humane authority and being just is more a duty to man and more his interest than the acknowledging and honouring of God is But God being above all and the common father of mankind upon whom we all depend and unto whom we are most engaged it justly seemed strangely unreasonable to Philo the Jew Phil. de Temul p. 259. de profug p. 462. that it should be thought needful that care be used to secure the performance of honour and duty to other Parents and Governours and that no such regard should be had to God And it was esteemed an high absurdity by S. Austin S. Augustin conr Gaud. Ep. l. 2. c. 11. that offences against men should be punished and corrected but not those against God And this was so much the general sense of mankind De Benef. l. 3. c. 6. that Seneca could aver Violatarum religionum aliubi atque aliubi diversa poena est sed uhique aliqua that there were different punishments in several places but every where some for them who violate Religion And even our holy Saviour in his prophetick zeal thought fit by a scourge twice to drive out them who polluted the temple who would not undertake to divide inheritances or to pass a judicial sentence upon the Adulteress And all Governours as they have received greater accessions of honour from God than others have are obliged thereby the more to honour him and promote his service 3. Religion of great use to the good of Mankind De Charit p. 717. De Decalogo pag. 751. It being generall acknowledged that the secular authority is to take care that justice honesty peace and vertue be established and preserved in the World even from hence we may infer the necessity of its care about matters of Religion the exercise of which is the best and surest principle of all honesty justice and vertue Religion as Philo observed rendreth the men who embrace it sober just and faithful whilst the contrary spirit prevaileth in them who reject piety as the same Author observeth De Charit Foid And he who considers how mightily the Christian doctrine enjoineth righteousness meekness peace love and all goodness and how it enforceth the practice of all these by a lively sense of God and a belief of his dreadful threatnings and excellent and glorious promises must confess that these practices and exercises are powerfully promoted by the embracing and establishing the true Christian Religion Indeed there are many who profess but do not practise this holy Religion but in them who embrace the true principles thereof as the primitive Christians generally did its defenders could with confidence appeal even unto their Enemies as Tertullian and Origen do whether Christians were not hereby more free Tert. ad Scapulam c. 2. Orig. cont Celf. l. 3. p. 128 129. than other sorts of men were from Sedition against Princes from all acts of wrong and injury against men and profaneness and impiety against God 4. And even they who persecuted Christianity have acknowledged that upon the strictest enquiry they discovered that men therein obliged themselves by sacred vows not to the committing any kind of wickedness but against it ne furta Plin. Ep l. 10. Ep. 97. ne latrocinia ne adulteria committerent ne fidem fallerent c. Indeed a right principle of Religion is much more effectual for the promoting honesty and righteousness than all outward penalities as laying a powerful restraint upon all ways of unrighteousness even when no eye of man can observe Now can it be thought reasonable that the Rulers charge should be to take care of these ends now mentioned and should be constituted of God to that purpose and yet should be obliged to have no care of those things without which these ends can never be secured To assert this would be to cast a high reflexion upon the wisdom and Government of God 5. We may also now compare the paternal and oeconomical Government with the Regal These are so near of Kin that it is not only acknowledged by Protestants but even by the Jews as we may see in Philo Ph. de Decal p. 767. Catech. de Decal Praecept Royal Government and paternal compared and by Papists as is declared in the Catechism according to the Decree of the Council of Trent that in the fifth commandment of the Decalogue the Royal Authority is included under the name of the paternal Now the Governour of a Family hath such an authority as extendeth it self to the things of Religion in that he is to take care of the welfare and good of his Family For there is great good included in the nature of Religion which brings inward quiet peace and satisfaction of mind by subduing violent passions and inordinate appetites and by eying Gods providence in all things with submissiveness to him and dependance upon him and it also brings very high advantages as it is the way to enjoy Gods blessing here and eternal happiness hereafter and therefore there cannot be any exercise of a true Fatherly love where it doth not dispose the person to a care of so great a concernment as Religion is And accordingly the Apostle commands Parents to bring up their Children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord Eph. 6.4 and God declared his great approbation of Abraham in that he would command his Children and his Houshold after him and they would keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment Gen. 18.19 or that they would so entertain the principles of true Religion that this should be a foundation of righteousness and well-doing 6. And there are the same reasons V. Sacr. Imp. ad Conc. Eph. in Tom.
1. Con. Eph. c. 32. to engage the Royal power to take care of Religion because all civil powers are to intend the good of their inferiours according to the doctrine of S. Paul Rom. 13.4 And the instances of David Jehosaphat Hezekiah Josiah Constantine Theodosius and many other pious Kings and Emperours do manifest that they are capable of procuring very great good to their Subjects by their pious care about the matters of Religion And no doubt S. Austin might with good reason be confident Cont. Ep. Gaudent l. 2. c. 17. in Epist 50. that the Laws of Christian Princes about Religion had been the occasion of bringing many to Salvation by Jesus Christ 7. And the Royal Government is much of the same nature with the paternal enlarged in the extent thereof over several Families but not restrained in the nature of it and in the most excellent and useful part of its authority Gods Ordinance hereby placing others in that authority which Adam and Noah had Phil. de creat princip p. 727. over their multiplyed and enlarged Progeny Hence Princes are fitly stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the common Parents of Cities and Kingdoms their political and civil being having a dependance also upon them who were called Patres patriae 8. And the consideration of the paternal power will remove the objections which some men make use of against the authority of Princes in matters of Religion For if Religion must be so far left free as not to be commanded and enjoined by any humane civil power then would Abrahams commanding his Children and Houshold have been blameable he being in his Sphere a secular Ruler as well as a Prince is Or if it be pretended that grown men who are come to years of understanding and have undertaken the profession of true Religion ought to be so far left to their own choice as not to be under the Government of any civil power with respect to Religion this also is refuted by the instance of Abraham's commanding his Houshold which was so large V. Salian An. M. 2118. n. 13. an 2138. that many years before this time of the destruction of Sodom when God gave Abraham this commendation he could arm three hundred and eighteen Souldiers of his own Houshold Gen. 14.14 and all his numerous Family had been Circumcised And since Abraham continued under the blessing of God it is very probable that his Family was further enlarged before the time of this commendation of him 9. To all this I shall add that he who doth soberly consider what sad disturbances and commotions in divers Kingdoms have been the product of the corruptions and errors in the Christian Religion both upon the account of the Papal Vsurpations under the pretence of spiritual power and by reason of the disloyal positions and tumultuous practices of other Sects and their frequent Rebellions shall need no other argument to convince him that the Princes exercise of Government about the affairs of Religion is greatly necessary for the securing his own authority the peace of his Kingdoms and the property of his subjects SECT II. The same established by the Christian Doctrine 1. That the Gospel Doctrine never intended to destroy or diminish the right of secular powers is granted by some of chief note amongst the Romanists Christus saith P. de Marca cum Evangelium suum institueret De Concord in proleg p. 25. regum dignitatem non laesit And this is not only manifest from the tendency of those great Christian duties of humility meekness peace and righteousness but also from the many particular injunctions of subjection to Rulers and from our blessed Saviour his commanding to give unto Caesar the things that are Caesars Christianity establisheth Regal Supremacy And also in that the Christian Doctrine doth peculiarly enjoin fidelity and obedience in all all inferiour relations towards their superiours that by the practice of this duty Christianity may be adorned and recommended in the World even to those who did oppose or reject it Tit. 2.9 10. 1 Pet. 2.12 13 14 15. ch 3.1 2. 2. And with some prospect to Christianity the Kings of the Earth are called upon to serve the Lord Ps 2.10 11. and are foretold to be nursing Fathers Is 49.23 Sect. 2 And both this and their undertaking Christianity and being baptized into it doth require them in their places and by their interest and authority to take care of the honour of God of his Church and Religion And S. Austin well declares Conr. Cresc l. 3. c. 51. that Kings then serve God in their Kingdoms when they therein command what things are good and prohibit evil non solum quae pertinent ad humanam societatem verum etiam quae ad divinant Religionem as well concerning Religion as humane affairs 3. And lest any should think that the establishing the Kingdom of Christ according to the Gospel Doctrine should give any exemption to the subjects thereof from any part of that duty which was incumbent upon them towards other Kings and Governours S. Peter speaking to Christians under the Titles of a chosen Generation a Royal Priesthood and a holy Nation In Resp ad Bellarm. Apol. c. 3. doth yet as Bishop Andrews observed particularly enjoin upon these persons submission to the King as supreme and to the Governours sent by him 1 Pet. 2.9 13 14. And the business of the civil power is there declared to be so general as to be for the punishment of evil doers and the praise of them that do well and to the same purpose writeth S. Paul Rom. 13.3 4. So that he who would exclude matters Ecclesiastical or concerns of Religion from their government and care under the New Testament must undertake to assert that the performances of Religion contain nothing in them of well doing and that the neglecting contemning or opposing it is no part of evil doing which are such blasphemous assertions as no man can embrace unless he be sunk into Atheism and so really owneth no Religion at all Aug. Epist 160. And S. Aug. from Rom. 13.2 infers that he who contemns the Emperour commanding for truth brings judgment upon himself 4. 1 Tim. 2.12 And when the Apostle requireth that Prayers be made for Kings and all in authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty which includeth both Righteousness and Sobriety he thereby expresseth the right administration of Government to be advantageous to these ends Now as it is manifest that Rulers should not only not oppose Peace but establish it and not only not prostitute honesty and sobriety but defend and enjoin the practice of them so the Apostle mentioneth godliness as that which they should advance equally and in like manner with peace and honesty Nor can we suppose that the Christian Prayers were only designed that Kings and Rulers with respect to these particulars mentioned should do no hurt but since Gods
Ordinance of Government is a useful institution that Christian Prayer which suiteth the Christian doctrine can desire no less than that this institution should attain its end and become every way effectual for the doing good And many Christian Princes have signally advanced both the doctrine and practice of Godliness and Religion Ecclesiastical persons subject to Princes 5. And that Ecclesiastical persons as well as others are included under the duty of yielding obedience and subjection to this authority doth appear from that general Precept Rom. 13.1 Let every soul be subject to the higher powers Where as the expression is universal and unlimited so the Comments of S. Chrysostome Theodoret In Loc. Theophylact and Oecumenius S. Bernard Ep. ad Senonens Archiep. Est in loc Gr. de Valent Tom. 4. Disp 9. qu. 5. punct 4. Bell. de Rom Pont. l. 2. c. 29. do plainly declare all Ecclesiastical persons and Officers of what degree soever even Apostles and Evangelists to be concerned therein But this sense of these words though urged also by S. Bernard is not embraced by the present Romish Writers but their exceptions made use of to elude this testimony are of no great force For while they tell us that these words do as much if not more require subjection to the Ecclesiastical power as to the temporal those who thus interpret are by S. Aug. censured Aug. cont Ep. Parm. l. 1. c. 7. to be sane imperitissimi And that the Apostle doth directly discourse here of obedience to the civil and temporal Rulers appears evidently from his mentioning their bearing the sword v. 4. and receiving tribute v. 6. 6. And the pretence that this command doth only oblige them who are properly subjects but not those Ecclesiastical persons who are pretended not to be subject but superior to the secular power doth proceed upon such a Notion which was wholly unknown to the ancient times of Christianity For it was then usual to hear such expressions as these Tertul. ad Scap. c. 2. Colimus Imperatorem ut hominem à Deo secundum solo Deo minorem we reverence the Emperour as being next to God and inferior to none besides him Hom. 2. ad Antioch And S. Chrysostome owned Theodosius as the head over all men upon Earth i. e. in his Dominions And according to this perverse Exposition there is no more evidence from the Apostles doctrine concerning any Christians in general being subject to Princes than concerning Ecclesiastical Officers because his doctrine must then be owned only to declare that those who are in subjection ought to be subject but not to determine whether any Christians were to be esteemed subjects to the Pagan Rulers or no. 7. But though the Apostles were ready to declare all needful truth even before Princes and Consistories we never find them when they were accused before Magistrates to plead against their power of judicature or that they had no authority over them but they defended themselves and their doctrine before them And when S. Paul declared Act. 25.10 11. S. Paul's appeal considered I stand at Caesars Judgment-seat where I ought to be judged if I be an offender or have committed any thing worthy of death I refuse not to dy I appeal unto Caesar he doth thereby acknowledge the Emperour to have such a power over him who was a great Ecclesiastical Officer as to take cognisance of his acting whether he did any thing worthy of death or of civil punishment 8. But against this instance Bellarmine who in his Controversies did yield De Rom. Pont. l. 2. c. 29. that the Apostle did appeal to Caesar as to his superiour in civil causes afterwards retracts this and declares that the clergy being Ministers of the King of Kings are exempt de jure from the power not only of Christian but of Pagan Kings and therefore asserteth that S. Paul appealed unto Caesar In Libr. Recognit not as to his superiour but as to one who was superiour to the President of Judea and to the Jews 9. But such shifts are first contrary to the sense of the ancient Church concerning this case as may be observed from the words of Athanasius who being accused before Constantius telleth him if I had been accused before any other Athan. Apol ad Constant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I would have appealed unto your piety even as the Apostle did appeal unto Caesar but from thee to whom should I appeal but to the father of him who said I am the truth which words declare this appeal to be as to a superiour and the highest on Earth who is only under God Secondly this perverteth the Apostles sense and contradicteth his words who declared in his appealing where he ought to be judged if he had done any thing worthy of death which is a plain acknowledgment of superiority over him 10. Thirdly Besides that all appeals are owned by Civilians and Canonists as an application from an inferiour judge to a superiour judge this particular liberty of appealing to the Roman Emperour was a priviledge granted only to them who were free Citizens of Rome and the Apostle could not claim this but by owning himself a Citizen of Rome and therefore a subject to the chief Governour thereof For this appeal was founded upon that Roman law which condemned that inferiour Judge as deeply criminal who should punish any Citizen of Rome thus appealing To this purpose Jul. Paul Sentent l. 5. Tit. 28. n. 1. Julius Paulus saith Lege Julia de vi publica damnatur qui aliqua potestate praeditus civem Romanum antea ad populum nunc ad Imperatorem appellantem necarit necarive jusserit torserit verberaverit condemnaverit in vincula publica duci jusserit And accordingly upon this appeal S. Paul declared that no man no not Festus himself the President of Judea who otherwise was enclinable to have done it might deliver him to the Jews Act. 25.11 SECT III. What authority such Princes have in matters Ecclesiastical who are not members of the Church 1. It may be said that what is declared by S. Peter and by S. Paul to the Romans and also his appeal did immediately respect Heathen Governours and therefore if these places will prove any thing of the Princes power in matters Ecclesiastical they must fix it in Pagan Princes as well as in Christian Div. right of Ch. Gov. ch 26. And this is the principal thing objected against the argument from S. Paul's appeal by Mr. Rutherford who tells us that this would own the Great Turk to be Supreme Governour of the Church 2. And it must be confessed that it is a very sad and heavy calamity to the Church when those soveraign powers who are not of the true Religion will intermeddle in the affairs of the Church without the fear of God and due respect to the Rules of Religion Such was the case of the Jewish Church under the Roman power
which undertook to dispose of the High Priesthood in Jewry against both the letter of the law and the design of it But no Governours whosoever they be whether of the Church or Strangers from it have any right to do such things no more than Jeroboam had to set up the worship of the ten Tribes of Israel contrary to the Law or than the Arian Emperours had to oppose the Deity of the Son of God against the Gospel But though it be very desireable that all parts of the Christian Church should be under Christian and pious Princes yet where other powers do take care Sect. 3 that the Christian Church and Ministers do observe the true Christian Rules Spalat Ostensio Error Fr. Suar. c. 3. n. 23. as the Archbishop of Spalato tells us was done in that part of his Province which was under the Turk this so far as it is regularly performed is an advantage to the Christian Religion and no blameable exercise of their authority 3. I think it a very plain and clear truth All Soveraign powers ought to profess and promote true Religion that Kings and Princes are invested with an authority to govern in matters of Religion not as originally arising from their Christianity but from their general right of Dominion and Soveraignty Nor will there be any difficulty in this assertion if we consider that this power of governing about Religion encludeth only a right of establishing by their authority what is truly unblameable orderly useful and necessary with respect to Religion and of enquiring into the practices of their subjects thereupon in order to approbation or punishment but gives no authority against truth or goodness 4. And though some persons by popular expressions declaim against this position De Minist angl l. 3. c. 4. yet the substance of it hath been yielded by men of various perswasions Mr Mason in his defence of the Ministry of England asserteth That they who are Heathens have the same office and authority of the higher power that the Christian Magistrate hath but want the right exercise of it in matters Ecclesiastical Our English Presbyterians have asserted that Heathen Magistrates may be nursing Fathers Jas div Reg. Eccl. c. 9. S. 1. may protect the Church and Religion and order many things in a ploitical way about Religion may not extirpate or persecute the Church may help her in reforming and may not hinder her Spalatens ubi sup And Spalatensis asserteth that the power of the Prince in the external things of the Church is so necessarily connected by divine natural and positive right with the Royal power ut infidelis etiam princeps tali si velit sciat legitime uti possit potestate that even an infidel Prince may use that power if he understand his duty and be willing to perform it And this assertion is approved even by Didoclavius or Mr Caldwood Altar Dam. c. 1. fin Didoclavius being the Anagram of Caldivodius one of the most eager of the Scotish Presbyterians And Rivet very rightly averreth In Decal ad quint. praec In infideli principe non est defectus potestatis sed voluntatis tantùm that an infidel Prince doth not want authority but will and inclination to advance the true Religion 5. Surely it is past doubt that where ever true Religion and Christianity is declared and manifested in the World it is the duty of all men to receive and embrace it because as they are Gods Creatures they ought to obey and honour him and submit to his Laws and believe his Revelations and thereupon every supreme Magistrate ought to advance the name of Christ and the true doctrine and Religion And if a Pagan Prince upon understanding the truth shall use his authority for its advancement this power is justly exercised in such Causes Ecclesiastical I presume no Christian will deny that Nebuchadnezzar did well in making a strict Law Dan. 3.29 that none should speak amiss against the God of Israel and Darius also in making a Decree that men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel Dan. 6.26 and Cyrus Darius and Artaxerxes in giving order for the rebuilding the temple at Jerusalem restoring its Vessels and furnishing it with Sacrifices and executing judgment on the opposers hereof with respect to which thing good Ezra blessed God who had put such a thing into the heart of Artaxerxes And that other Princes in like circumstances should follow the steps of Nebuchadnezzar Darius and the King of Niniveh who proclaimed a strict fast and commanded his people to cry mightily unto God Aug. Ep. 50. Tertul. Apol c. 5. is justly asserted by S. Aug. in his Epistle to Bonifacius 6. Nor are those Heathen Emperours to be censured who acted any thing on the behalf of Christian Religion as Tiberius threatned them who at their peril should accuse Christians for their Religion and other publick rescripts there were of Adrianus Eus Hist Eccl. l. 4.9 Antoninus ibid. c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aurelius Tertul. Ap. c. 5. and Galienus Eus Hist l. 7. c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which were in the favour of Christians And it is a known and famous case concerning Paulus Samosatenus who for Heresy was deposed by the Christian Bishops in the Council of Antioch and Domnus appointed to succeed him Eus Hist l. 7. c. 24. But Paulus refusing to leave his possession the Orthodox Christians appeal to Aurelianus a Pagan Emperour who referring the case to be heard by the Bishops of Italy and about Rome ordered the Church to be given to him for whom they should determine and by his authority was Paulus ejected and neither his interposing nor their appeal unto him hath been ever thought culpable nor yet Paulus his being dispossessed Constantine before his baptism exercised authority in things Ecclesiastical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the secular power 7. But above all others the acting of Constantine the Great before the time of his Baptism seemeth very considerable to evidence what power hath been exercised in things Ecclesiastical with the general approbation of Christians by one not yet admitted into the Christian Church Of which I shall give some particular instances to which more may be added beginning with what hath relation to the peace and concord of the Church Africa in a short time gave birth to the Schism of Donatus and of Meletius and the Heresy of Arius The Donatists separated themselves from the Church upon some exceptions they made against the Ordination of Caecilianus and being condemned by the African Catholick Bishops they apply themselves to Constantine the Emperour Opt. cont Parm. l. 1. But he being not versed in things of that nature as Optatus tells us did not or as S. Austin several times saith Aug. Ep. 162. 166. durst not undertake the judging of the case himself but by his authority he appointed Melchiades then Bishop of Rome with three Bishops of Gallia to judge
insolently exalted himself against and cruelly murdered his own Lord and Master And if S. Martin being once brought to his Table would not upon this account drink to him or to any other with him who were partakers or might be presumed favourers of his insurrection this spake him a zealous friend to justice and the right of Princes and one who earnestly detested Usurpation and Rebellion 7. The places produced from Nazianzen Naz. orat 17. Ambr. de dign Sacerdot c. 2. S. Ambrose and S. Chrysostome do express the Ecclesiastical authority to have an higher excellency than the temporal which Gr. Nazianz. declareth by comparing his Episcopal dignity with the prefect of his City but the other two by preferring the Ecclesiastical authority in some Excellencies to the Royal. And indeed there are very great Excellencies do attend the Ecclesiastical Ministry even in some respects above those which belong unto the secular and it becomes every good Christian who hath a value for the Gospel Grace highly to esteem this Ministry but its worth and excellency doth not at all prove its superiority of Government in the state of the World 8. The Ecclesiastical Ministry hath such excellencies as these The excellency of the Christian Ministry That the persons towards whom it is exercised are not only men or members of an humane Society but are advanced to be Christians or persons admitted into the body of Christs Church and that the constitution of this Ministry was established by the dispensation of that admirable grace and love of God which was manifested to the World by our Lord and Saviour and that the design of it hath more immediate respect to the souls of men and their salvation as also that heavenly and spiritual mysteries and blessings are dispensed thereby And some of these things are those to which S. Chrysostome had peculiar respect Chrys in Esai Hom. 4. 5. as his words do particularly declare 9. Excellency and supremacy of Government are different things But that such excellencies attending this ministration doth not place the Ecclesiastical Officers above the condition of being subjects to Princes may appear by proposing a like way of arguing in another case Every truly pious man doth rightly govern his own heart and life and thereby is not only a man and a visible Christian but is a true and real Christian and member of Christ whose practice is according to his profession And his chief care is about such excellent things as the divine life and the salvation of his Soul which he attaineth effectually and this man doth receive the grace of the Gospel to the highest and most advantageous purposes and is not only dignified with the honourable titles of a King a Priest and a Son of God but doth receive those great benefits which are included under these high expressions And these are spiritual excellencies of a more sublime nature than the bare enjoying either civil or Ecclesiastical Offices 10. But if every good man because of these excellencies which attend his state should be concluded to have a greater dignity of authority and Government in the World invested in him than is in Kings and Princes and that therefore he is not nor ought not to be subject unto them then must the Christian Religion not only bring confusion into the World but also make void its own Precepts of obedience subjection and humility and must also make men and the World the worse by taking them off from performing the duties of their relations 11. And that neither S. Chrysostome nor S. Ambrose ever intended by such expressions as are above-mentioned to discharge the Clergy from the obligations to obedience and humble reverence to Kings and Emperours is manifest Chrys in Rom. 13. from S. Chrysostomes declaring that even Apostles Evangelists and all persons whosoever ought to be subject to the civil power and from the dutiful behaviour of S. Ambrose to Valentinian of which I shall give some account in the following Book SECT VI. The Canons of the Church concerning the exemption of the causes of the Clergy from secular cognisance considered with some other things which have some affinity therewith from Mat. 18.17 and 1 Cor. 6. 1. There are divers ancient Canons which require the causes which concern the Clergy especially among themselves to be examined by the Bishop or the Bishops of the Province or if it be needful by a greater Synod but not to be brought before the Courts of the secular power Some such Canons are referred to by Photius Phot. Nomoc Tit. 9. c. 1. c. 11. qu. 1. Barcl de Pot. Pap. c. 32. Conc. Agath c. 23. Conc. Matisc 1. c. 5. Conc. Antioch c. 11 12. and others are produced by Gratian and divers of them are enquired into by Barclay To this purpose tend some Canons of the Second and fourth General Councils and others of the Provincial Councils both in Africa Asia and Europe But it may be presumed that these Canons of the Church would not have thus determined unless the Church had judged such cases and persons not to be under the Supremacy and Government of the secular authority And which may seem to add strength to this Objection even the civil law it self gives some allowance to these proceedings Sect. 6 2. And it may be further added Secular causes were anciently determined in the Ecclesiastical Judicatures Mat. 18.17 that when our Saviour established his Church there is some appearance of his giving the whole body or Society of Christians a kind of immunity from the supremacy of the secular power in that in Cases of trespass and injury which are civil matters he directs the proceeding concerning them to be brought before the Church 1 Cor. 6. 1 c. And S. Paul enjoins Christians not to go to law before the civil Pagan Judicatures which things carry an appearance of a diminution of the secular Supremacy towards the members of the Christian Church And the usual Trials of the civil causes of Christians by Ecclesiastical Judges both before and after the Empire was Christian is manifest not only from the Apostolical Constitutions Ch. 1. Sect. 4. Gr. Nys in Vit. Gr. Thaum Aug. Cons l. 6. c. 3. Amb. Ep. ad Marcellum Ep. 24. and S. Aug. which I above produced but also from what Gregory Nyssen relateth concerning Gregorius Thaumaturgus Bishop of Neocesarea and from the practice of S. Ambrose an account of which we have both from S. Austin and from himself 3. But for answer hereunto and for a right understanding of all this I shall think it sufficient to observe three things Obs 1. That those rules were established out of a true Christian and peaceable design This sometime by peaceable arbitration and to prevent scandal and thereupon had no ill aspect upon secular authority If a father of a numerous Progeny or a Master of a great Family consulting the honour reputation and peace of his Family enjoin them
the sole pretence of civil rights and secular interests that there may be a provision for this Case as well as for the former it will not be unmeet to accompany this Position of his with another which is much of like nature with it and equally peaceable And this is That all men ought to suffer each other without any disturbance or complaint to take and enjoy whatsoever goods persons and possessions they shall please to possess themselves of And if this principle with the former were entertained by all men as it never was nor can be there would then be no Wars nor contests in the World neither concerning matters of Religion nor any other rights And then we should have a quiet World but with little regard to Religion Righteousness Chastity and Vertue and without all Order Government and civil Societies the Earth being then over-grown with the height of Barbarism far surpassing the wildness of the Native Indians 9. No Peace can be from thence expected But against the former method here proposed for the procuring peace I shall observe further two things 1. That there are so many things necessary for the making this proposal practicable that even that may well make any man despair of its effect For first care must be taken that there be no such pious men in the World who will think that Gods honour ought to be maintained and the true Religion defended and secured by the authority of Governours and yet either the peaceable principle must be forsaken or else thereupon these men must enjoy the liberty of their opinion as well as others Secondly there must be security given that there shall be no such furious men in the World who will at any time vent notions in Religion which may tend to undermine authority and Government to make mens minds fierce and cruel or to evacuate obedience nor yet that there be any such eager and earnest men who will be forward to use what power they can gain for the establishing their own opinions Thirdly as this proposal can never become useful for peace until all men be brought to be of the opinion of the proposer which is as unlike as any thing can be so even then there must be some provision made that the practice of this proposal be not the ready way to hinder the effect thereof For the practice of this general liberty for all opinions in Religion doth according to common experience ordinarily beget instead of peace discords oppositions disturbances confusions and other ill effects which make all men of consideration see the hurt and danger of such licentious liberty and the necessity of Order and Government Fourthly And there must be no men so far Christians and conscientious as to acknowledge that there are any doctrines of Faith duties of Christian worship or institutions of Christ so necessary and sacred that the opposers or contemners of them ought to be checked and withstood And though he be so bold as to assert P. 68 69. that we ought not to teach that any errors in belief overthrow the hope of salvation and speaks of the hopeful estate of persons whatsoever doctrines they embrace P. 70 71. in the whole compass of Religions which large expressions must include those Jews who in our Saviours time asserted him to be a blasphemer and not the Christ yet thanks be to God there are many who will believe those words of our Lord to the Jews Job 8.24 If ye believe not that I am he ye shall die in your sins And from this and many other expressions in the Scripture of the great danger of unbelief will conclude that under the clear promulgation of the Gospel it is necessary to Salvation to believe that Jesus is the Christ and Saviour of the World and to profess and obey his doctrine 10. I observe 2. That the best way to promote the peace of the World Peace best promoted by uniform establishing true Religion and worship is by endeavouring that true Christianity in doctrine and practice be with one accord and with a spirit of Vnity embraced among men For first the nature of Christianity is such that so far as it really prevaileth it must be a strong bond of peace since it makes men tender of wronging any by word or deed and enjoins a necessity of making satisfaction for injuries a readiness to forgive enemies with a care of reverence fidelity and obedience to superiours and of gentleness humility patience and charity towards all men De duodeeim abus seculi cap. 7. On this account it was thought one of the great disorders amongst men that there should be Christianus contentiosus a Christian given to contention And though there are great miscarriages in this particular among many who profess this Religion but do not live according to it yet it is apparent that the spreading of Christianity in the World did greatly amend and reform it Eus de Dem. Evang l. 9. c. 17. De laud. Const p. 486 487. and as Eusebius long since noted did advantage the peace thereof and it will mightily promote this effect in all them who heartily practise it Secondly Vnity in Religion hath a natural force to excite friendliness whence even Jews Mahometans and all Sects are more kind to one another than to others and Philo accounteth concord in the worship of God Phil. de Charit p. 717. to be the greatest cement of love and Josephs Brethren thought it a considerable argument to engage his favour because they were the servants of the God of his Father Gen. 50.17 Thirdly The quiet of the World having chief dependance upon God it may be justly feared that where the care of true Religion is neglected the flourishing and peaceable state of Kingdoms should not long continue This was frequently observable in the times of the Judges and the Kings of Israel and Judah See Judg. 5.8.1 Kin. 11.4 Gild. de Exc. Brit. Mar. Par. an 1067. P. 5. 14 23. And remarkable decay of piety was observed to precede the two great Conquests of this Realm by Foreign Armies SECT II. Of some other rigid and dangerous principles against the supremacy of Princes 1. Of the rigid Presbyterians There are some of the rigid Presbyterians especially those of the Scotish way who though they allow the King some authority both in matters Ecclesiastical and over Ecclesiastical persons do yet in terminis reject the Kings being supreme Governour Sect. 2 Rutherf of Ch. Gov. Ch. 23. p. 508. Henderson's second Paper to the King in all causes Ecclesiastical and civil and withal do plainly misrepresent the sense thereof But that those of this way do in a dangerous manner oppose the just supremacy of Princes in things Ecclesiastical may be partly manifest from their general position That the institution of God hath so provided for all things pertaining to Religion that there is no room left for any appointments of order by the
Anarchy where there is no superiour or supreme It includes Irreligion because Religion establisheth the Government of a people to be the ordinance of God and whereas Government must be by the exercise of a superiour authority there can be no authority upon Earth superiour to the supreme 8. Thirdly Supremacy cannot be asserted in a Parliament without doing violence to plain evidence For as loyal English Parliaments have constantly acknowledged supremacy in the King so it is manifest that the Parliament regularly is under the Government of the King For he Summons and gives birth to it by his Writ continues it at his pleasure and hath the authority of adjourning proroguing or dissolving it as he sees cause CHAP. IX Corollaries from the foregoing discourse concerning some duties of subjection THE Royal Supremacy being asserted it will hence follow 1. Corol. 1. Of submission and solemn professing the Kings Right That Subjects ought to own and acknowledge this just authority and supremacy of their Soveraign and heartily to manifest an humble peaceable and faithful submission thereunto This is that which the Rules of the Christian Religion do enjoin and they who are averse from the performance hereof do as much as in them lies enervate this authority and render it unmeet to attain its ends for which God did appoint it even the peace and good of the World And for the more effectual promoting of this faithful subjection the sacred bond of an Oath of homage and fidelity B. 1. C 9. is approved by God himself Eccl. 8.2 and hath been made use of by the general wisdom of the World The ancient practice of such Oaths is manifest under the Jewish Government Jud. 11.10 2 Kin. 11.17 as also under the Chaldean Empire Ezek 17.19 and under the Persian and Roman Empires Joseph Ant. l. 11. c. 8. l. 17. c. 3. Herodian l. 2. Bar. an 169. n. 9. And that the primitive Christians even in the time of persecution did by their Oaths assure their allegiance to those Princes seemeth well observed by Baronius from Tertullian Apol. c. 32. where discoursing of that fidelity and honour which the Christians had for the Emperour upon that occasion saith Sed juramus 2. Of speaking reverently Corol. 2. Subjects ought also to speak of their Princes with reverence and expressions of honour For all authority whether of Father Master or other Ruler deriving suitable degrees of honour upon the person the greatest and chief civil honour doth of right belong to him who in his Dominions is possessor of the highest authority upon earth And the ordinary using outward expressions and titles of honour is in this Case the more needful and reasonable because this hath a considerable influence upon the disposing men to obedience and because Government it self becomes most useful where it is entertained with due reverence Wherefore the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 optimus or most excellent which was the usual stile of honour which both Jews and Romans gave to the president of Judea Act. 23.26 ch 24.3 was readily made use of to Festus by S. Paul Act. 26.25 And when Priests and Rulers were none of the best men the holy Scriptures stile the Priest the Angel or Messenger of the Lord of Hosts Mal. 2.7 and the Ruler the Minister of God Rom. 13.4 and of such they use that expression Ps 82.6 I said Ye are Gods 3. And the primitive Christians were forward by such means to promote and secure the due honour of superiours Eus Hist Eccl. l. 7. c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To which purpose Dionysius Bishop of Alex andria when he was a Confessor and exposed himself to be banished for the Christian profession did yield to Valerian and Galienus persecuting Emperours the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 most pious Athan. Ap. ad Const Testim Eccl. Alexand in Athanas Eus Hist Eccl. l. 10. c. 5. Both Athanasius himself and the Alexandrian Church which held to him called Constantius the Arian Most Religious 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And when Constantine wrote to some of the Prefects of the Empire he gave to them in two Rescripts mentioned by Eusebius the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 your sanctity And that the ancient Churches did readily give to the Emperours their usual Imperial titles and did ordinarily treat them with such a stile as Sanctissimi Pientissimi Religiosissimi is not only manifest from particular Writers but is abundantly apparent from the Synodical Epistles of Provincial and even of Oecumenical Councils 4. Conc. Eph. Tom. 2. c. 10. To. 4. c. 17. And as the like expressions of honour were frequently and usually given to the Christian Bishops so when the Council of Ephesus were about to denounce the sentence of deposition against Nestorius Bishop of Constantinople for his Heresy and when they wrote to Celestine against John Bishop of Antioch as being an Enemy to the true Faith in complyance with Nestorius they gave them both the title of Most Religious And the like was done before the sentencing Dioscorus and other Bishops who complyed with Eutyches in the Council of Chalcedon Conc. Chalc. Act. 3. Evagr. Hist l. 2. c. 18. Wherefore such expressions as these were intended as titles of honour given to them upon account of their office and without respect to their personal vertues and in that sense are to be understood Mas de Min. Angl. l. 3. c. 5. n. 3. ibid. Baron Bin. 5. The use of such expressions of honourary titles is allowed and defended both by Romish and Protestant Writers And those persons who would appear backward in yielding to the supreme Governour his just stile of eminency and supremacy are wanting in giving him the honour which God enjoins and cannot easily be acquitted from the guilt of scandal in encouraging the bad temper of some and adding to the ignorance of others in that particular And they who are desirous to expose the persons actions or constitutions of their superiours may take warning by the actings of Ham towards his Father Noah which entailed a Curse upon his posterity 6. Corol. 3. it is also the duty of subjects Of praying for Kings heartily to pray for Gods blessing on the person and Government of their Soveraign because therein both Church and State and private interests also are so much concerned This was enjoined by S. Paul as a matter of principal concernment 1 Tim. 2.1 2. and was performed in the early times of Christianity Tert. Apol c. 30. Conc. Emer in Praef. And the Council of Merida did more particularly pray for their King Recessuinthus because he was Governour in all Causes Civil and Ecclesiastical quoniam de secularibus sancta illi manet cura Ecclesiastica per divinam gratiam recte disponit mente intentâ sit illi opitulatrix ineffabilis omnipotentis Dei gratia quae se quaerentibus manet propinqua But because it is an high piece of
Hypocrisy and dissembling with God to pray to him for the good of any person whose good and happiness is not really desired therefore the divine Precept to pray for Kings and the Christian practise answerable thereto was well urged as a sufficient evidence by Tertullian Apol. c. 31. to prove Christians to be true and real Friends and no Flatterers of Princes and Emperours wheresoever the true spirit of Christianity is embraced 7. Of obedience to the laws of our Governours Corol. 4. The chief and principal duty required is the practise of obedience to the laws of our superiours Even in lesser Societies a Father or Master whose authority is of an inferiour nature hath a power of commanding without which there can be no order in Families And it is the general acknowledgment of the World Arist Eth. l. 10. c. 9. Politic. l. 6. that the welfare of humane Society of which Government taketh care cannot be obtained without establishing laws and publick Rules and there is no Kingdom or Country in the World under any civil Government where laws have not been established and an authority to enjoin them acknowledged And obedience to such laws is plainly enjoined upon all Christians since they are obliged to be subject to the higher powers and to submit themselves to every ordinance of man But that this duty of obedience may be the better declared I shall take notice of three pretensions which are made use of for the undermining it Wherefore I shall observe 8. First That passive obedience as some call it or a submitting to penalties is in things which may lawfully be done no sufficient discharge of Conscience or performance of duty unto the laws of superiours The necessity of Active Obedience And here Active obedience only deserves the name of obedience and is necessary to be performed This is evident from these three things 1. From the general end and design of all Government which a true Christian subjection must comply with and this is to restrain disorders and evils and to promote what is good and useful in the World Now this end is obtained by the practising wholesome Rules but is not at all effected by the mere bearing penalties For by the suspending active obedience the order of the World would be turned into confusion since as Clemens Romanus urgeth in this Case As the serviceableness of an Army Cl. Rom. Ep. ad Cor. p. 49 50. dependeth much upon its being under Command and the usefulness of the members of our bodies appeareth from their being ready to perform the motions about which they are imployed so the good estate of the weal publick is procured by mens careful observing and attending to useful and profitable Rules and directions 2. From other parallel instances It is against the nature of Religion to imagine that wicked men and evil Angels who despise Gods laws and reject his Precepts are to be esteemed as blameless and Well-doers meerly because they bear the punishment and misery which God inflicts And surely no reasonable man can think that if a servant be idle careless and unfaithful by being only beaten for his fault without any amendment of his carriage he becomes thereby faithful and innocent or that if a Child be disobedient to his Parents and stubborn he hath sufficiently discharged all that duty which God or Man requireth from him by being corrected And the pretence of general performing obedience to Governours by bare submitting to penalties but neglecting in things lawful to practise what is enjoined is as opposite as these former instances to the Rules both of Reason and Religion 3. From the Sanction of punishment towards them who do evil and are disobedient For God who is so just that he will not condemn the righteous nor punish the innocent hath committed to Rulers the power of the sword to execute punishment on the disorderly and disobedient which he would never have done if the neglect of active obedience to laws which is the cause for which punishments are inflicted were not in it self a fault Prov. 20.2 But whoso provoketh him a King to anger sinneth against his own Soul 9. Secondly Nor are subjects disobliged from obeying the laws of their superiours by their entertaining doubts or scruples concerning the lawfulness of them But because what I have written elsewhere is sufficient for the proof of this I shall chiefly refer the Reader thither and shall only add 1. That if we consider doubts in themselves Doubts do not discharge from obedience since here is no certain evidence concerning the unlawfulness of the things commanded if these doubts and scruples proceed from a regular and uniform cautiousness of Conscience there is as much reason if not much more because of the plainness of the commands of obedience to scruple or doubt of the lawfulness of disobeying as of the lawfulness of obeying And so the consideration of doubts and scruples taken singly and alone can be no pretence against the performing obedience when even these very things ought to have as strong a force against the neglecting obedience 2. If we consider the duty and state of subjection it will thence appear that it was well asserted by S. Austin Cont. Faust l. 22. c. 75. that subjects may and ought to obey their Princes Commands where they are certain that what he Commands is not against the Command of God and even where they are not certain that it is so And indeed if an uncertain doubt did but make it safe not to perform obedience this would bring very great confusion and disorder into the World and would teach it the ready way which many would listen unto how children might safely disobey their Parents and servants their Masters as well as subjects their Governours But since next to the obeying God we owe obedience to our superiours even by the command of God no man can warrantably disobey them but where he knows he hath in that Case the Command or Authority of God to the contrary 10. Thirdly Whereas many persons are prone in general to account them who are least studious to comply with the authority of men though they be their Governours in matters of Religion to be men of the greatest Conscience and integrity who do not affect the things of this World nor aim at their own interest therein even this is a perfect misunderstanding and a gross mistake For 1. Since the due performance of obedience in things lawful is a duty Performing obedience is a part of integrity and good Conscience there is more integrity and good Conscience in the peaceable practising it than in the neglecting it This may receive greater clearness by comparing it with the parallel Case of obedience to Parents Now that person who shall forsake or disobey Father or Mother in a necessary Case of Religion acteth as one truly pious but he who will be disobedient to his Parents in things lawful is far from shewing himself
those who in that Case acted against the Emperour And the consideration of the Popes pretence was also included in that general Declaration in our own Church Can. 1. 1640. against Subjects bearing Arms against their King upon any pretence whatsoever And these Councils though disallowed at Rome were in this respect truly Catholick because they held to the Rules and Foundations of the true and Primitive Doctrine of the Catholick Church 23. But it is unreasonable to demand This Heretical Position entertained by the Pope and his Adherents that for the declaring this to be Heresy we should produce the determination of the present Church of Rome against this detestable Position since the Pope and the main part of the Romish church are the persons who stand chargeable with maintaining either the whole or at least a considerable part of this heretical position here abjured For in this Position That Princes which be Excommunicated or deprived by the Pope may he deposed or murthered by their Subjects or any other whatsoever the two main branches do concern the deposing and the murthering of Princes deprived or Excommunicated by the Pope Touching the former the deposing of them the very forms of the Papal sentence which I have above mentioned Supra n. 5 7. not only allow but require and command that such Princes be deposed and that their Subjects do renounce all fealty and Allegiance to them Aventin Ann. Boior l. 5. p. 460. Epist Leodiens advers Paschal 2. And by the Pope his Conclave and their Adherents it hath been accounted a crime deserving Excommunication and Death also for Subjects to defend their Soveraign whom the Pope had sentenced as was long since complained of by some of them who maintained their Allegiance to the Emperour Hen. 4. and were therefore by the Pope devoted to destruction 24. Yet it is certain that there have been and are divers persons and the chief part of some Countries of the Romish Communion who own not but oppose that part of this assertion which concerneth the deposing of Princes Le Merc. Franc. an 1609. But several Writings of this sort of men as of Barclay de potestate Papae and others of the like temper have undergone a publick censure at Rome and their opinions are herein looked on with so ill an eye that at Rome they are thought not to be altogether found in the Roman Faith 25. And touching the depriving such Princes of their lives Bell. Resp ad p. 66. Apolog. pro juram fidelit when Cardinal Bellarmine had asserted that it was not the Popes method to promote any thing against their lives he explains himself that he meant this with respect to private assassinates and not to what might happen in the raising open Wars But yet concerning the more secret attempts of Parricide against such Princes C. 23. q. 5. Excommunicatorum 1. Their Canons declare that they are not accounted Murderers who in a zeal to the Catholick Church do kill some who are Excommunicate 2. The horrid act of James Clement who murthered Henry the Third of France was applauded by Sixtus the Fifth in the Roman Consistory 3. Le Mercure Francois an 1609. f. 376. The arrest of the Parliament of Paris against John Chastell who attempted the murder of Henry the Fourth and wounded him was censured at Rome by a publick Edict Nov. 9. 1609. 4. When Parry undertook to kill Queen Elizabeth Eliz. Annal Christian Subjection Part. 3. p. 503 504. his intention was not only promoted by the Popes Nuncio's and other persons in Venice and France but desiring for his full satisfaction to understand the Popes approbation by a Letter from Cardinal di Como which was read at his Arraignment and owned by him he was assured that the Pope himself highly praised and favoured his undertaking as may appear from the Letter it self in Bishop Bilson dated Januar. 30. 1584. And to these other things of like nature and of later time might be added which will shew that at least at some times such things as these have been encouraged at Rome 26. Yet it may be observed that such Positions as this expressed in this Oath But it was declared to be damnable Heresy by S. Peter were in general accounted and declared damnable Heresies by one who is owned to have had both Apostolical and Episcopal Authority at Rome even by S. Peter himself When he had foretold the comeing in and spreading of damnable Heresies 2 Pet. 2.1 2. and declared the destruction that should come upon those who received them v. 1 3 4 9. he then tells us in some particulars who they are whom God will thus punish v. 10. chiefly them who walk after the flesh in the lusts of uncleanness and despise Government presumptuous are they self-willed they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities Now the walking in the lusts of uncleanness was the practical embracing the impure and heretical doctrines of Simon Magus the Gnosticks and others like them And since Government and Dignities do very properly express Civil as well as Ecclesiastical or any other power and the temper of those who are prone to despise Civil Government is fitly described by their being presumptuous and self-willed and S. Jude in the parallel place Jude 8 11. speaks of their perishing in the gainsaying of Core these words may reasonably be thought to have a great respect to Civil Authority And if we further consider that among those ancient Hereticks some under a pretence of liberty so far opposed Dominion that they despised their Masters and would not obey them the allowing of which S. Paul condemns as a great opposition to the doctrine of Christ 1 Tim. 6.1 2 3 4. and that there is some intimation of the same spirit towards Kings and other Governours 1 Pet. 2.13 14 16. and that at last this proceeded so far that they taught that the Government of the World had its original not from God but from the evil spirit which Position Irenaeus confutes this may well perswade and manifest Iren. adv Haeres l. 5. c. 24. Tertul. adv Valent c. 22. that the Apostle had in this palce an eye to these things And then this sense must be comprehended nder these words that those assertions which eminently include the despising disobeying and speaking evil of civil Government and Authority as the declaring it lawful to depose or murder a Soveraign doth are damnable Heresies 27. I only add that pertinaciousness which is included in the description of an Heretick having respect to the temper of the person who embraceth Heretical Doctrine is not needful though it be also in this Case sufficiently evident to prove a Position to be Heretical 28. Of absolveing from the Oath of Allegiance I shall not insist particularly on that clause in the Oath of Allegiance That neither the Pope nor any person whatsoever hath power to absolve from that Oath because this must stand and
so far assert this that it was truly affirmed by a reverend person B. 2. C. 2. That since the Reformation it is now again current Episcopal doctrine as it was always Apostolical That Subjects ought not to resist nor can be disobliged of their obedience to their Soveraign upon any pretence whatsoever And that this is founded upon the necessary Principles of equity and the Laws of nature and of civil Society I shall now manifest 2. And I lay this down as an undeniable Principle Otherwise justice and peace cannot be secured by Government that in every civil Government such an authority must be acknowledged in the supreme Governour as is necessary for the administring justice securing property and the preserving of order peace and quiet For without this the benefit of Government and civil Society is lost and amongst such men where honesty and good Conscience do not greatly prevail we should live as amongst Wolves in constant danger of having our rights or lives surprized And where there are not such advantages from Authority according to the known expression among the Jews Pirk. Av. cap. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man would swallow up his Brother alive But if it be allowed lawful for Subjects or inferiours upon any pretence whatsoever to take Armes against their Rulers and Soveraign Governours neither justice nor peace can be sufficiently provided for by the authority of that Government 3. For if it be allowed lawful for Subjects in any Case to take Arms against their Soveraign this must include a right in them of judging whether their present Case be such in which they may lawfully resist or no. Subjects no fit Judges of their Superiours Otherwise they must either have a general power of resistance and taking Armes without distinction of any Cases to assert which would be all one as to declare them to be no Subjects or under no Government or else they must resist in no Case at all But to assert that the people or inferiours are of right Judges of the Cases in which they may resist their Superiours is as much as to say they are bound to subjection only so far as themselves shall think it fit and that they may claim an authority over their Governours and pass judgment upon them and deprive them of their dignity authority and life it self whensoever they shall think it requisite and needful But this cannot be otherwise than a foundation of great and general confusion in the World And as the general proceedings of justice are stopped whilest there is any open violent opposition to that power which should administer it so the particular decisions thereof must needs prove ineffectual where the execution of them may be refisted by force in any notable Case concerning a popular person 4. And besides this the judgments of the common sort of men are so apt to be imposed upon and are many times so partially affected and linked to that which they esteem their own interest that even under the best Government they are frequently prone to conceive themselves greatly injured when they are not and to make grievous complaints and out-cries against their Superiours without just cause It is truly said in our Homilies Hom. against Rebell Part 1. Some Subjects or other mislike even the best Government and wish a change And it is rightly asserted by Philo Phil. de Vit. Mos l. 1. that even plenty and prosperity sometimes dispose the generality of men to be insolent against their Superiours and their established Laws And where the persons who promote these discontents are popular men dissatisfactions and unquietness of temper oft spreadeth more than can well be imagined Discontented minds are apt to be unquiet under the best Government the minds of many men being enclined to pity and believe them who complain of injury or hard measure and in these circumstances to join with them as acting their common interest And how unsafe all Government would be and how unfixed and tumultuous a state the World is like to be in if Subjects were in any Case and upon any pretence allowed to take Armes will appear by considering some remarkable instances where besides what our own Nation may afford us I shall mention two from the Holy Scriptures as known and certain accounts of matters of fact 5. The first instance is concerning the Government of Moses They were so under Moses He was faithful in all Gods House a man of singular integrity and meekness and a great friend to Israel His conduct over the Israelites was accompanied with various miracles and admirable and extraordinary deliverances and preservations which they received under him While he guided Israel the dreadful presence of God on Mount Sinai was manifested to them and a constant visible Symbol of his presence was continued amongst them And the fame and honour of Moses was so great that even the Gentile Historians in some after Ages Joseph cont Apion l. 1. Eus pr. Ev. l. 9. c. 26. took considerable notice thereof as hath been observed by Josephus Eusebius and other ancient Writers And at that time God had also signally testified his chusing Aaron and his Family to the Priesthood both by his especial Command to Moses concerning them and by the Fire which in the presence of all the people came from before the Lord upon the Altar and Burnt-Offering at the first time of Aarons Ministration Lev. 9.24 Yet in this Case Corah Dathan and Abiram pretended themselves grievously wronged and appeared to plead the Religious rights of the whole Congregation that they were all holy as well as Aaron Num. 16.3 and to defend their civil priviledges against Moses Him as the Scripture intimateth and Josephus particularly expresseth Jos Ant. Jud. l. 4. c. 2. they accused of tyranny and charged him with a design of destroying and ruining the Congregation of Israel Num. 16.13 and that this was so apparent that unless mens eyes were put out they could not but see it v. 14. And these unjust and unreasonable out-cries were so taking that presently two hundred and fifty Princes of the Congregation took part with these men Num. 16.2 and not long after the whole body of the Israelites were gathered against Moses and Aaron v. 19. And as Josephus represents it Ibid. they were taught by Corah that it became them to inflict punishment upon such persons who secretly designed their destruction that so they might not suffer the utmost violence from them 6. And it is wonderful to observe how far these bold and confident Speeches and popular pretences did prevail even after God had manifested his abhorrence of them by the dreadful judgment of the earth opening its mouth and swallowing up Corah and his Company Num. 16.32 33. and by the fire from the Lord consuming the 250 men who offered incense v. 35. For notwithstanding this all the body of the Israelites the very next day justify the Plea of Corah
own those Rebels for the people of the Lord charge Moses and Aaron as being guilty of their blood and again gather themselves together against them v. 41 42. And as S. Austin conceives sutably to the tumultuous violence of their Spirits they came with a resolution of putting them to death Aug. de mirabil S. Scriptur l. 1. c. 30. saith he Totus populus contra Moysem Aaron ut sanguinis reos consurrexit eosque in eorundem ultionem occidere voluit And all these transactions are the more to be admired because they presently succeeded after that sad threatning and the Plague therewith that their Carcases should fall in the Wilderness and not enter into the Land of Canaan Num. 14.29 30 37. which judgment was denounced against them in part because they would forsake Moses and chuse them another Captain to return to Egypt Num. 14.4 Ant. Jud. l. 3. c. 13. and did then as Jo sephus expresseth it revile and conspire against Moses and Aaron And if under so excellent a Governour who had so highly obliged Israel and done so much good for them there were such dangerous consequences from the people or men of a popular strain exercising a power of judging concerning a Case fit to warrant a forcible resistance this must needs be a destructive principle if allowed under the best Government in the World This gave birth to so bad an undertaking as that of Corah which was an enterprise to heinous Sanhedrin c. 11. that besides the severe censures of the Scripture the Jewish Talmud reckons up the managers thereof amongst them who shall have no portion in the life to come 7. And in the time of David The other instance I shall give is in the Government of David He was peculiarly chosen of God to rule Israel and known so to be he was a man after Gods own heart and in his Government over Israel he fed or ruled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 them according to the integrity of his heart and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands Ps 78.72 He was also so potent and victorious over all his Enemies and by reason hereof Israel in his time was so renowned that Maimonides saith their Consistories would not receive Proselytes in his Reign because they supposed it was the fare of his power Maim in Inure Biah which induced them to pretend respect to the worship of the God of Israel Yet Absalom by a popular carriage and infinuating words soon perswaded the people they were greatly injured under the Government of David and that no justice could be had 2 Sam. 15.3 4. Josep Ant. l 7. c. 8. And Josephus declares he complained much of the Kings Officers that there were no good Counsellers about him And hereupon almost all the Kingdom of Israel join themselves with Absalom again2t David 2 Sam. 15.12 13 14. Ch. 16.18 Ch. 18.6 and their Elders with them Ch. 17.15 8. And though this wicked attempt of Absalom was defeated and no less than twenty thousand men slain therein in one day yet while the people in their discontent and passion took to themselves a liberty to take Armes as they thought fit it is remarkably observable that no sooner was this rebellion after Absalom over but upon some hot words between the men of Judah and the men of Israel concerning the manner of their performing their duty to the King 2 Sam. 20 2. every man of Israel went up from David and followed Sheba in a new Rebellion And though Davids Conquests had been very great over many Nations which some of the ancient Greek Historians gave an account of as was observed by Eusebius for Eupolemus neither the splendour of his Kingdom nor the sense of their duty Eus Praep. Evang. l. 9. c. 30. nor the bitter effects of their former Conspiracy nor the Kings Kindness in receiving them again into his favour could contain them under the bond of obedience and in the paths of Peace 9. Now all this will manifest how extremely unsetled any Government in the World must be and therein the authority of executing justice preserving peace and conserving all rights and properties if it be once admitted that Subjects when they shall judge it a Case of necessity for the preservation of the common good may take Armes against their Soveraign And therefore for the Securing peace and righteousness and the common rights and interests of all men it must be acknowledged that the supreme Governour hath such an authority that it is not lawful to take up Armes against him 10. The sense of Grotius concerning Subjects taking Arms. Besides these instances I shall add the judgment of the learned Grotius after his long and more mature consideration of things That worthy man in his Book de Jure Belli pacis and in another Discourse written in his younger time did make use of some unmeet expressions and notions and unsound arguments too much tending to infringe the Authority of Kings and to allow a power in the people in some Cases of making War against them But though he did not expresly retract and alter those things yet in his Writings which he published after a greater experience of the World he wrote at another rate and falls in directly with what I have not asserted Grot. in Mat. 26.52 Thus in his Commentaries upon S. Matthew he saith If it be once admitted that private persons being injuriously dealt with by the Magistrate may make forcible resistance all places would be full of tumults there would be no force or authority of Laws or Judicatures since there is no man who is not enclined to favour himself 11. And in his Votum pro pace Vot pro Pac. ad Art 16. after he had passionately complained of Armes being taken upon the pretext of Religion he goes on Ego vero non tantum subditos ab armis arceo c. But I do not only forbid Subjects from taking Armes but desire that Kings who have that power given to them would use it as feldom as may be Ibid. After this Grotius relateth at large and with approbation the proceedings of the University of Oxford about Paraeus upon the Romans with his allowance also of this their determination Subditos nullo modo vi armis Regi vel Principi suo resistere debere nec illis arma vel offensiva vel defensiva in cansa Religionis vel alia re quà cunque contra Regem vel Principem saum capessere debere That Subjects ought by no means to resist their King or Prince by force nor ought they to take either offensive or defensive Armes against their King or Prince Ibid. for the cause of Religion or for any other thing whatsoever And then asserting the generall rule of S. Paul even against the Cases excepted by Paraeus that whosoever resisteth the power receiveth to himself damnation he addeth If so many Exceptions of Paraeux i. e. underminings of S.
granting than by denying them liberty to take Armes But I here desire the Reader impartially to consider that there are as great improbabilities of any such Case as is proposed ever happening under any Prince who hath a just right to the Crown as things of this World can admit and if any such should possibly happen the second consideration which I shall propose for the Subjects security will shew a way of help and redress therein 5. How little foundation there is for nourishing the jealousies expressed in this supposition may in part be discerned by looking backwards And in turning over the Annal and Chronicles of many Ages no such thing doth appear to have been undertaken by any English Monarch to enervate and make void the force of all laws and the rights founded upon them And the most that was ever done to this purpose was by them who under a pretence of liberty did take Arms against the King or forcibly prosecuted an opposition to his Government and Authority when great numbers were illegally deprived of their Lives or Estates sequestred decimated and suffered many other injuries 6. But if we look forward no such supposition can be admitted but it must require a Concurrence of all these strange things 1. That all the subordinate Rulers and Ministers of justice in the Realm must conspire against their Consciences the Law and their Oaths either out of choice or fear to pervert justice and to cast off all pious sense of God thereby and all care of their own Souls 2. That such a Prince must have no respect either to God or to his own interest and honour abroad or safety at home which under God consisteth in the flourishing estate and good affection of his Subjects For where Laws are in any high measure violated and prostituted by the Governours and general injuries thereby sustained by the Subjects since Mankind is not only led by respect to duty but also to advantage Aurel. Vict. in Nerone Suet. in Nerone n. 47. Tacit. Hist l. 1. such Subjects may be backward in defending that Prince against those who oppose him which was the Case in which Nero was generally forsaken by his Roman Subjects and put upon destroying himself to avoid that shameful death to which he was sentenced by the Senate Yea such a Prince hath great reason to stand in fear to his own Confidents and instruments for since they must be men of no Conscience and fidelity towards God it may well be expected according to the determination of Constantius the Elder Eus de Vit. Const l. 1. c. 11. that they will also prove unfaithful to their Prince if they can thereby propose a way to advance or better themselves And such instruments may see cause to nourish fears that where injustice violence and cruelty are frequently exercised they may upon slight occasions expect a time when their turn to suffer their part will be the next and this was the occasion of the Death of Commodus the Roman Emperour Herodian l. 1. who was first poysoned and then strangled by the contrivance of some who had been his great Favourites that they might secure their own live which they discovered were suddenly like to be taken away And from this it may appear that there was just reason for that observation of Xenophon Xenop de Regn. p. 911. that tyrannical Governours are under greater terrours and have more reason of fears at all times than men ordinarily have in War because they have not only reason to be afraid of their professed Enemies but of those whom they account their friends and defence And Hieronymus Osorius observeth not without reason Osor de Reg. Instit l. 8. that in such persons the stings and frequent lashes of their own Consciences and some inward though unwilling dread of God besides other fears and jealousies make their state sad and miserable Wherefore though Vsurpers having no right may account in their best and safest contrivance to lay their foundation in force and violence until they think themselves otherwise secure this is so greatly opposite to the interest of a rightful Prince that if he be a person of any reason in the World he must needs reject it 3. It must also be supposed that all those who act as instruments in such oppressions must be devoid not only of the sense of God and good Conscience but also of humane cautionsness For if such an imaginary Prince shall have his Conscience awakened to repentance or shall consult his own honour or else shall end his dayes as his breath is in his Nostrills all such persons are then accountable to the strict judgment of the Law and being Enemies to the publick good have little reason to expect favour 7. The security of Subjects from Gods governing the World The other ground of subjects security though they may not take Armes against their Soveraign is from God being the Judge and Governour of the World Shall it be thought a sufficient restraint to the exorbitancy of a Fathers power over his Children that if he becomes unnatural the earthly judge can both vindicate them and punish him though Children be not allowed when they think fit to beat and kill their Father and shall not the judgment and authority of God over Princes be thought valuable and considerable though he is more righteous and more able to help the oppressed than any Judge upon Earth And the judgments of God have been especially remarkable in the World against such Princes as have either designed the subverting the Laws of common righteousness or have set themselves in defiance against the true Religion and worship of God Socr. l. 3. c. 21. gr Theodor. l. 3. c. 20. Sozom. l. 6. c. 1 2. Naz. Orat. 4 21. The Ecclesiastical Historians and Fathers who write of the Death of Julian which was in the second year of his Reign in his Expedition against the Persians do all agree that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or divine vengeance ordered his Death and that he who did effect it whether Man Angel or Devil for by several Writers it hath been referred to all of these was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one subservient to the divine pleasure And some of these Writers say that himself dying did express so much Hieron ad Heliodor c. 8. and S. Hierome declareth Christum sensit in Media quem primum in Gallia denegârat 8. When the horrid impieties against the God of Israel and dreadful cruelties against the Jews of Antiochus Epiphanes a puissant Prince had increased to a strange height he was at last upon a defeat given to his enterprises struck even to death with inward terrour and the affrighting perplexities of his own Conscience And he then could not but acknowledge that his own injustice and cruelty and his profaning the Temple 1 Mac. 6.8 13. were the causes which brought upon him this sad trouble and forrow adding with respect thereunto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
subject either to kill him or to take away his goods potest civis ille vim vi repellendo eum interimere that subject in repelling force by force may kill him 2. Now this disorderly and unruly management of self defence would fill the World with tumults and subvert the foundations of its Peace and Government since by this means the power of the sword would be put into every private mans hand to use it against his Governours when he shall think it fit for his own interest But that the falshood as well as the danger of this pretence may be manifest I shall return an answer thereto in three heads 1. That it is notoriously false that men are obliged by the law of nature in all Cases to defend their own lives and outward interests by force And it is a sufficient prejudice against this that he who will maintain it must acknowledge that all those who died Martyrs for the Christian Religion did violate the Laws of nature in not resisting their Persecutors and that all malefactors ought to fight for their lives rather than to submit themselves to justice The prime laws of nature to rational beings are the rules of good Conscience 2. That the prime law which the nature and being of man who is a rational Creature and capable of happiness doth oblige him to observe is that he ought to take care of his own welfare and chief good and to endeavour after true perfection And because this is chiefly procured by well doing therefore to be pious and sober loyal and peaceable just and good whereby purity of heart and integrity and peace of Conscience is preserved and a good name here and a blessed state hereafter obtained these are the things which our nature and being and our Religion also oblige us principally to design and all outward interests of this life must be placed in subordination to them And sure no Christian will believe that our Saviour by his Religion did subvert the prime laws of our nature and being when he required his Disciples to take up the Cross to be ready to lose their lives for his sake and to forsake all and follow him 3. That self defence is then only lawful to be managed by force when this may be done by lawful means and without transgressing any necessary duty to God or Man It is therefore justly allowed so far as it necessary against private violence and assaults being then warrantable by the Rules of right reason and good Conscience which are the laws of our nature But to allow a right of self-defence to every man by taking Armes against his superiour is as much as to say that no man is bound to own the Ordinance of God in the World or to submit himself and his interest to be governed by any civil power 3. It is also urged Rutherf ubi sup Qu. 25. Jun. Brut. Qu. 3. p. 110. c. that in the Constitution of Government Princes are appointed for this end to wit the good of the people and therefore the peoples good is to be pursued though against the person or Government of the Prince and they most comply with the great end of Government who will take care of the community Armin. Disp publ Thes 25. n. 10. And therefore if a Prince do not promote the peoples good the end must be preferred before the means and the good of the Common-wealth is otherwise to be provided for Of the end of Government Anbs 1. That though the good of the people be a great end of Government yet it is not the sole end thereof But as when a Prince appointeth a chief Officer of a Corporation this is not only for the benefit of the members of that Society but it is also intended that they may be more useful to do the King service and that the Common-wealth may receive benefit thereby so in Soveraignty there is a claim of Gods authority in the World for his honour and therefore out of Conscience and duty to God there must be a subjection shewed to Rulers as his Ministers besides what the interest of the community will require 2. If Government were wholly intended with respect to the good of subjects I have proved in the former Sections that order peace and justice cannot be thereby established among men unless it be acknowledged that none may resist the Rulers Authority 3. To lay down such Rules that men are no longer obliged to observe any constitution intended for a further end than as the parties concerned shall judge it to conduce to that end is dangerous and unsound By this rule discontented persons might break the indissoluble bond of conjugal Relation where they account it not to answer the end by mutual helpfulness and comfort Gemer in Sanhedr Cap. 2. Par. 11. And when God forbad the King of Israel to multiply Wives lest his heart should turn away from God Deut. 17.17 the Jewish Writers account Salomon justly blameable for his multiplying Wives though he mightpresume there would be no danger of his forsaking God thereby 4. Of the original of Government being from the people Sov power of Parl. Part. 1. p. 35 36. Ruth Civ Pol. Qu. 4. p. 10. Qu. 19. p. 148. This asserted by many Papists But thee is another thing which hath been much insisted on and will require a larger Examination concerning the original of Soveraignty and the deductions which may be made from thence It was urged in our late unhappy times in England that the Soveraign power was more in the people than in the King or Prince who was originally created by them And in Scotland it was asserted then as a ground of taking Arms against the King that Royal power was radically in the people was communicated from them and that they may take it again if the conditions on which they gave it be violated and that the people being the fountain power are still superiour to the King 5. V. Bannes in 2. 2ae Qu. 40. Art 1. Dub. 2. And it is ordinary with the Writers of the Romish Church to make the people the original of the Princes Soveraign power and many of them make use of this Assertion as one way to shew the excellency of the Pope above Princes Thus Salmeron Salm. Tom. 12. Tract 63. Civil power saith he is indeed from God so far as he made the community free and gave them light and power to set up Governours and therefore secular power doth not so descend from Heaven but that it rather ascends from the community unto the King or other chief Magistrate Dominicus Soto asserts De Justit Jur. l. 4. Qu. 4. Art 2. Reges à suis Regnis potestatem recipiunt Kings receive their power from their Kingdoms Bell. de Laicis c. 6. Bellarmine asserteth indeed political powder and Government to be from God but that he gave it immediately to the whole multitude and they transfer it to
Grotius in his Book De Jure Belli pacis should assert that men at the first did join themselves together in Civil Society non Dei praecepto sed sponte not by any command of God but of their own choice and that hence civil power hath its original which Peter therefore calls an humane ordinance and that it is also called an Ordinance of God because God approved the wholesome institution of men And upon this Principle he thinks it may be questioned whether the people ever intended to excluded themselves from a power of taking Armes in all Cases And therefore without all distinction of Cases he there is not willing to condemn their resisting their Governour But I think it needful to do him so much right as to observe that this was not his constant and fixed sense and judgment For concerning the original of Authority he in another place declares this to be the doctrine of S. Paul Grot. in Rom. 13.1 that there are now no Empires but where God gives to them his authority even as a King gives Authority to his Presidents and he also affirms that in all Governments the Authority is received from God non minus quà m si reges illi per Prophei as uncti essent as much as if those Kings had been anointed by Prophets 10. And when S. Peter requires submission to every ordinance of man for the Lords sake Grot. in 1 Pet. 2.13 Grotius in his Annotations thinks him to intend ordinationem istam quae inter homines in terra agentes locum habet that ordinance which hath place amongst men which Exposition hath this advantage of the other that according to it a good account may be given of the Apostles argument or motive injoining submission for the Lords sake For this must infer that those men who govern in the World do not act only by an humane right since if Government were not by Gods authority and constitution obedience to it could not bear a respect to God himself And touching the unlawfulness of forcible resistance of Governours besides the plain and full expressions I have above produced from Grotius Sect. 1 he in another Treatise asserts that violent defence which is lawful against an equal is unlawful against a superiour Gr. de Imp. Sum. Pot. Cap. 3. n. 6. and he judgeth that the law of nature will not allow this no not for self-preservation But saith he this is more plainly demonstrated from the written law of God for when Christ said he that takes the Sword shall perish by the Sword he expresly disallows that defence which is made by force against the most unjust but publick violence diserte improbat eam defensionem quae vi fiat contra vim injustissimam sed publicam 11. Now it may be a just prejudice against this assertion Vnreasonable inferences from this unsound foundation V. Jun. Brut. Qu. 3. p. 91. De Jure Magistr c. 6. of Soveraignty being derived from the people that according to these various Proposals it may become dangerous to the settlement of the World But withal their way of arguing who pretend that the people who make the Prince have therefore a power reserved to themselves greater than his is a kind of contradiction to it self as if they who give up their power should by that means have the greater power and they who receive authority should thereby have the less This is such a fond argument as would prove all servants by contract to be superiour of their Masters because by their contract they made them their Masters or that those Countries who became subject and tributary to the Roman Empire or any other had a superiority over that Empire because their becoming subject to it was hat which made its Dominion so large and eminent And concerning that supposition that possibly the people might not intend to deprive themselves of all power of resistance with respect to this Kingdom V. Ch. 1. it is evident from the plain expressions of our Statute Laws above produced that the Subjects did intend to reject all power of resistance And yet they who enter into any relation by their own contract do stand obliged from the nature of that relation and the Laws that God hath established concerning it and not only from their own intention Thus the contracting to become a Wife or a Servant intending to be so to a kind and courteous man doth not hinder the continuance of the bond in these relations and the obligation to the duties thereof though this man contrary to their expectation may prove ill-natured and froward And what I have discoursed in the beginning of this Chapter will evidence that even they who will assert Soveraignty to be of a mere humane original must acknowledge that the rejecting of all forcible resistance against it is necessary to the peace and welfare of the World and therefore this must be intended by the wiser part of Mankind Sect. 5 SECT V. The Divine original of Soveraign Power asserted 1. Soveraignty and rule proved to be the constitution of God By rational evidence That Government and its Authority is originally the constitution of God may receive considerable proof from rational evidence supposing Creation and Providence to be acknowledged For since God is the Lord of the whole Earth he hath a right to govern it and it is in his power to appoint Rulers and Magistrates and to command subjection to them and whosoever besides God shall undertake to confer a power to rule the World as if it were originally derived from themselves do thereby put themselves upon the disposing of Gods right It was owned by the Ancient Poets as Homer and Hesiod Hom. Il. ae Hes Theogon in init Synes de Regno that Kings are from God In Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Hesiod saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Synesius observed that it was said by Plato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Royalty was a good thing from God among men And in the Book of Wisdom Wisd 6.4 5. both the Authority of Kings is asserted to be from God and that themselves also are Gods Ministers 2. And it may well seem a strange thing that God who not only gave a being to all other parts of his Creation but framed them in an excellent and beautiful order and made the Sun to rule by Day and gave Man dominion over other lower parts of his Creation should leave Mankind only which is so excellent a being without taking any order for that useful and regular publick Society which is both suitable and beneficial to humane nature And it is yet far more unlikely that he who is the God of Order should for the peace and good of lesser Societies in private Families ordain the Authority of Parents over their Children and the Headship of the Husband over the Wife and yet should leave the more general and publick state of Mankind which is of greatest concernment in an
unsetled ungoverned confusion It would be also a reflexion upon the goodness of God to imagine that it was not his will that justice should be administred and viciousness punished among men that peace should not be preserved and goodness encouraged in the World and it would be a disparagement to his wisdom to conceive that he should appoint all these things to be done whilst he committeth no power or authority to any person or order of men to take care of them 3. By the testimony of the Scriptures But the express testimonies of the holy Scripture put this matter out of doubt There Governours as having Gods Authority are stiled Gods and Children of the most high Ps 82.6 And besides the Government of Israel which was evidently established by Gods appointment which was the reason why David so much reverenced Saul as being the Lords anointed we are told Pr. 8.15 16. By me Kings reign and Princes decree justice by me Princes rule and Nobles even all the Judges of the Earth And God declared by Jeremy Jer. 27.5 6. I have made the Earth and have given it to whom it seemed meet unto me and now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the King of Babylon my servant Cyrus also was called the Lords Shepherd Is 44.28 Princes being oft stiled Shepherds because their Office and Government is thereby much resembled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith S. Basil and the Hebrew word for a Shepherd is sometimes rendred in the Chaldee Paraphrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Prince or Governour he was also called the Lords anointed Is 45.1 And Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar that God setteth up Kings Dan. 2.21 and that the God of Heaven had given him a Kingdom v. 37. S. Paul also declares that there is no power but of God and the powers that be are ordained of God Rom. 13.1 And he stileth the power the ordinance of God v. 2. and the Ruler the Minister of God v. 4. 4. By the sense of the ancient Church The ancient Christian Church even when they were under persecution by the Roman Emperours did yet constantly acknowledge their Authority to be from God Tert. ad Sâ—â—p c. 2. Apol. c. 30. Adv. Hares l. 5. c. 24. Tertullian declares that the Christian knows that the Emperour is constituted by his God And saith he from thence is the Emperour from whence is the man from thence is his power from whence is his spirit And the same sense is expressed by Irenaeus Eus Hist l. 7. c. 11. gr And Dionysius of Alexandria in Eusebius acknowledged that it was God who gave the Empire to Valerian and Galienus The same truth is asserted by S. Aug. de Civ Dei l 5. c. 21. by Epiphanius Haeres 40. and by divers other Christian Writers Bell. in Lib. Recogn de laicis insomuch that when Bellarmine sought for the testimonies of ancient Writers to prove Dominion to be of humane original he could meet with no Theological Writer of the Christian Church who favoured his opinion amongst the Fathers and therefore takes up with Aquinas And Paulus Orosius affirms Oros HIst l. 2. c. 1. Vell. in 4. Tom. Aug. ad 22 Qu. Dc Concord l. 2. c. 2. n. 1 2 3. that all Power and Government is of god is that which they who have not read the Scriptures do think and they who have read them do know And some of the Romish Church speak to this purpose as Vellosillus and especially P. de Marca 5. And now let any equal Reader consider whether the evidence of reason Scripture and the ancient Fathers will agree with that reproachful Position of Hildebrand or Greg. 7. Greg. 7. Epist l. 8. Ep. 21. against God and his Vice-gerents That Kings had their beginning from them who affected rule by the instigation of the Devil But they all tend to confirm what hath been asserted in our church Can. 1. 1640. That the most high and sacred order of Kings is of divine right being the ordinance of God himself founded in the prime laws of nature and clearly established by express Texts both of the Old and New Testaments 6. And the nature of the Rulers power And from the nature of this Authority will further speaks its Constitution to be from God He is to judge the people but God being the judge of all the earth all acts of judgment are declared to be not for men but for the Lord 2 Chr. 19.6 and therefore must be performed by an Authority derived from him And the punishment inflicted by Governours is an act of vengeance or revenging and therefore as vengeance or revenging 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is claimed by God himself as peculiarly belonging to him Rom. 12.19 vengeance is mine so the Ruler as the Minister of God is made an Executor of Vengeance or a Revenger 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 13.4 which must be by Gods Authority derived to him And since the Ruler who bears the Sword hath an Authority of Life and Death this could not be derived to him from the community since no man hath such a Dominion over his own Life as to have a power to take away his Life Lessius de Just Jur. l. 2. c. 4. dub 10. M. Becan de Jur. c. 4. q. 1. as hath been truly asserted by Schoolmen and others and therefore cannot transfer such a power to any other person And therefore this Authority of Governours must be received from God who is Lord of life and death 7. Objections answered Having proved the Authority of Governours to be of a divine extract I shall now shew that the various pretences for founding it in the consent of men are of very little weight From the Election of some Princes It is confessed that there are elective Kingdoms and Empires in the World and that where there hath been a vacancy of a Governour and none could claim a right of succession Princes have oft been chosen by the people In this Case several Roman Emperours were Elected by their Army and received by the Senate and thus were Gideon Jephtha and other Judges established in Israel But such a liberty of choice in the people in these circumstances carries no opposition to the Authority being from God For the entring into a conjugal Society is by a free choice even so far of choice that many persons if they please may live in celibate and single life whilest men cannot live without Government and yet Matrimony and the Husbands Authority is by divine appointment And Members of a Corporation do usually chuse their chief Magistrate but thought they determine upon the person it is not they but the Princes Charter and Grant that gives him his Authority 8. And they who tell us M. Salamon de princip that Soveraign Authority cannot be a proper divine institution because then its rights would be wholly unalterable and the same in all the Governments in the World do
rely upon a meer fallacy From the different rights of Regality For this Topick would with equal force and evidence prove the paternal right not to be founded in the laws of nature or the institution of God because the authority of the Father and the priviledges of Children are not the same in different parts of the World The Rules of inheriting by the right of devolution in some part of the Low-Countries Goâ—osred not ad Dig. l. 1. Tit. 6. n. 1. de jure Capp de vor Jephthae Instit l. 1. Tit. 9. and of Gavelkind and some other tenures in England do vary from the more general usage And in many places of the World the Father had Jus vitae neeis and Cappellus asserteth him to have had that power of life and death among the Jews The Institutions of Justinian expresly testify that that right of power which the Roman Fathers had over their Children was that which was proper to the Citizens of Rome and it is there added no other men have that power over their Children which we have Nor will it prove Matrimony to be no institution of God because the priviledges of the Wife are esteemed greater in England than in other Countries and are not the same at the Death of the Husband in the Province of York and the City of London with the other parts of the Kingdom But the truth is in those States or Relations which are fixed by divine institution there are some things so necessary and essential that they cannot be separated from them such are in the Conjugal Relation the Headship of the Husband the ordinary inseparableness of that Society till Death and the performance of Conjugal Duties and such are in the supreme Government the necessary care of justice and the common good and even of matters of Religion and the having a power fitted to these ends and which in pursuance of them may not by inferiours be forcibly resisted But in many other particular things the priviledges of inseriour relations and the dignities and rights of superiours may be greater or less according to what is concluded by their mutual consent 9. The Solemnity of Coronation From the Rites of Coronation when the people acknowledge their King and the King again gives the people assurance that he will preserve their Religion Rights and Laws and govern them according to those Laws is far from intending to express the Kings Authority to be derived from the people by a contract as some have weakly argued For the King is actually King by his right of inheritance and succession upon the Death of his Predecessor antecedently to this Solemnity as our Law-Books do generally acknowledge and Henry the Sixth Reigned divers years in England before he was Crowned Du May 's Estate of the Empire Diâ—l 2. vers fin Extrav Com. l. 5. Tit. 10. c. 4. And even in Elective Principalities the rights of Soveraignty are invested in the person elected thereto before the Coronation both in the Empire it self and other Dominions But the intent of this Solemnity is that as the Rites of Inauguration in other Magistrates tend to make such impressions in the people as may beget a reverence towards them so the Prince his appearing with splendour to his people doth both excite them to and give them opportunity for publick acknowledgments and expressions of affection and honour towards him and joyful acclamations To this purpose Henry the Third was twice Crowned once in the first year of his Reign Mat. Par. an 1216. where M. Paris treateth De prima Coronatione Regis Henrici and again in his twentieth year as is manifest in the preamble of the Statute of Merton Fullers Hist an 1194. and Richard the First was observed also to have been twice Crowned In like manner David notwithstanding his right by Divine appointment besides his being anointed by Samuel was twice anointed by the people Sed. Olam Rab. c. 13. Joseph Ant. Jud. l. 6. c. 6. And both the Jewish Chronicle and Josephus declare that Saul also was anointed a second time And the kind expressions of the Prince and the assurance that he gives his people that he will govern them by their laws and maintain their Religion and Rights is designed to banish and expel all jealous fears from them and to encrease their affection to him and make their obedience and submission the more ready and chearful by their having security from their Princes reputation honour and integrity that he will intend the preservation of the great things which conduce to their welfare 10. It hath also been objected From the Civil Law Digest l. 1. Tit. 4. n. 1. quod Principi that besides the like expressions in other Law-Books the Civil Law declares Lege Regia quae de ejus Principis imperio lata est populus ei in eum omne suum imperium potestatem confert which words declare that by that Law which was made concerning the Empire of the Prince the people yield to him all their authority and power It also asserteth that Nations were divided and Kingdoms established by the Jus gentium or the Law of Nations Ibid. Tit. 1. n. 5. Ex hoc jurc Ibid. Tit. 1. n. 4. Manumiss Justin Inst l. 1. Tit. 3. and also that liberty is the natural state and servitude is introduced by the Law of Nations Now though it might be said against the force of any such allegations which seem to oppose this truth that the right of God and of his constitution and authority is not to be determined by any humane writings especially if they speak against the Scripture and rational evidence Yet I further observe 1. That the first expression hath respect to the political sanction or establishment of the Civil Government of the Roman Empire and even with respect to the peculiar priviledges of the Emperour himself as having a legislative power in his own breast to which purpose that very law declares Quod Principi placuit legis habet vigorem utpote lege regia quae de ejus imperio c. Novel 73. Novel 85. passim And though these political sanctions be a proper consideration for humane Laws to take notice of yet this hinders not but that there may be a superiour divine constitution of Soveraignty and secular power which also is oft asserted in the Civil Law 2. The following expression doth speak of the like political sanction and doth further acknowledge and assert the bounds and limits of the several Kingdoms and Nations to be established by the Law of Nations jure gentium discretae gentes regna condita 3. That liberty which in the last clause above-cited is declared to be the natural state and the servitude which is there said to be introduced do not respect freedom from Government and Laws but from vasallage which is evident because in the Digests this servitude is said to be discharged by
of God and that they who resist them shall receive to themselves damnation Rom. 13.1 2. the sense of these truths was contained under the acknowledgment which David made in the Old Testament who can stretch forth his hand against the Lords anointed Hom. 1. de Dav. Saul and be guiltless For as S. Chrysostome noted when David declared Saul to be the Lords anointed he did acknowledge him to have Gods Authority and that to resist him was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to fight against God or in the Apostles words to resist the Ordinance of God Aug. Quaest ex Vet. Test c. 35. And S. Austin observing that David called Saul the Lords anointed after the Lord had departed from him he adds that David was not ignorant divinam esse traditionem in officio ordinis Regalis that the royal office was Gods Ordinance and appointment and therefore he both did honour Saul and ought so to do 6. Some possibly may here urge that the Laws and Rules of right and all the Precepts of Religion amongst the Israelites were there established antecedently to the being of the Royal Authority among them and that these things standing by Divine Authority no King had any power to repeal or break them and on this account they might have liberty from the nature of their Constitution to defend these rights by the Sword though Christians have not But even this also will not alter the Case For throughout all the World the common Rules of right and justice have a divine stamp and are of as great Antiquity as the World it self and the nature of man and there is scarce any Kingdom in the World which hath continued without interruption of its succession and establishment so long as the doctrine of Christianity hath been in the World Tert. Ap. c. 4. Cl. Alex. Strom. l. 4. Orig. cont Cel. l. 1. l. 5. l. 8. which peculiarly is from God And however no prescription can be pleaded against the right of God and the Soveraignty of Christ no more than it could be pleaded for the establishment of the Pagan Idolatry in which Case the ancient Christians constantly asserted their duty to God and his Religion to be above that which they owed to the contrary Laws and Constitutions of humane Authority 7. Wherefore it will be of considerable moment clearly to prove that Subjects in the Church of Israel according to the will of God under the Old Testament were not allowed in any such Cases as have been pretended to take Armes against their Soveraign And if this was then unlawful it is now much more so under the dispensation of the Gospel SECT II. The general unlawfulness of Subjects takeing Armes against their Prince under the Old Testament evidenced Sect. 2 1. Because the unlawfulness of Subjects taking Armes against their King Kings under the Old Testament might not be resisted under the Old Testament will receive the fullest evidence from the behaviour of David towards Saul and those principles of duty whereby he was guided I shall pass by many other things with much brevity When Samuel declared the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the manner or as very many Translations render it and the word most frequently signifies V. Vers Vulg. Syr. Arab. Par. Chald. Sept. Barclai adv Monarch l. 2. p. 64. the judgment or right of the King 1 Sam. 8.11 18. and Ch. 10.25 many judicious men with great reason have accounted it to contain this sense that such was the right dignity and authority of their King that though the people might bear and sustain such injuries as are there mentioned Carpzov in Schick Th. 1. p. 1. Th. 7. p. 160. Grot. ubi sup in 1 Sam. 8.11 de Imp. c. 3. n. 6. they had no lawful power of redressing themselves by force but only must apply themselves to God This Grotius in his Annotat. upon that place thus expresseth si peccarent reges graviter in Dei legem ad Deum ultio pertinebat non ad singulos ac ne ad populum quidem And de Imperio summarum potestatum circa sacra he saith Jus regis vocatur quia ita agenti nemini liceret vim ullam opponere And to the like sense Salmasius Defens Reg. c. 2. 2. Salomon perswading to that duty and reverence which Subjects owe to Princes Eccl. 8.2 3. declareth v. 4. where the word of a King is there is power and who may say unto him What dost thou and speaks of the King against whom there is no rising up Prov. 30.31 which words give a fair intimation that the dignity of the King of Israel was such that no opposition or resistance might be made against him by inferiours And when David declared Ps 51.4 Against thee only have I sinned Ambr. Apol Dav. c. 10. S. Ambrose gives this sense thereof That David being King was not subject to the penalties of any humane Laws but the whole punishment of his sin was in the hands of God alone This is owned by Vega Veg. in Ps 4. Poenit. Conc. 2. to be the sense also of S. Hierome Austin Chrysostome and Cassiodorus and he himself gives this as a kind of Paraphrase upon that expression nullum alium praeter te unum in terra superiorem recognosco I acknowledge none other besides thee alone my superiour upon earth And this interpretation was received in the Christian Church as early as the time of Clemens Alexandrinus and though other Expositions also have been given Strom. l. 4. p. 517. this shews what apprehensions these Christian Writers had of the nature of Davids Regal Authority And this hath so much evidence of truth that when Murder and Adultery in inferiour persons was punished by the Judges of Israel according to the Law of Moses Davids judgment must be according as God himself would pronounce and execute And though God so far pardoned David as to spare his life 2 Sam. 12.13 yet his Child must die v. 14. even by the hand of God v. 15 18 22. And God denounced against him that the Sword should not depart from his house v. 10. whereby Amnon Absalom and Adonijah were cut off And the Rebellion of Absalom as a judgment which God inflicted was part of the punishment of this sin v. 11. 3. When there were any corruptions in Religion publickly tolerated as the worshipping in high places and Groves the holy Scriptures lay the blame constantly upon the King and Prince whereas if the people and subjects had the power of defending their Religion and the purity thereof by the Sword the fault would have been equally chargeable upon them under the Government of their Kings For the same pious spirit which would engage a good Prince must also oblige a pious people to make use of their just power for the honour and service of God and if the Case had been lawful it would have been a kind of Martyrdom to hazard or lay down their
President the Holy Jesus was crucified and St. James killed with the Sword And yet out Saviour in his days required the rights of Soveraignty to be preserved And this was commanded though the Jews were tributary to Caesar whose right over them was founded upon the Roman Conquest and the Submission which they had thereupon for many years yielded and the very tribute-money upon sight of which our Saviour gave this Precept is related by some Writers to have had upon it an Inscription expressing the years from the Roman Conquest over Judea and consequently of the Jews being subdued into Subjection whereas free Subjects towards their natural Prince Dr. Ham. Annot. on Mat. 22.20 have greater motives and obligations to honour and obedience 3. From the Reproof given to St. Peter But the clearest account of the Doctrine and Practice also of our Saviour against Subjects taking Arms may be had from what he declared to this purpose when himself was seized on by the Souldiers the night before he was crucified Where when Peter drew his Sword and smote a Servant of the High Priest and cut off his ear Jesus saith unto him Mat. 26.52 Put up again thy Sword into its place for all they that take the Sword shall perish by the Sword By which words the making use of the Sword against the Authority of Superiours is sharply condemned Musc in Mat. 26. This is as Musculus said well locus not and us omnibus subditis a place to be marked by all Subjects and what Peter did saith he was therefore unlawful because the Power against which he made use of the Sword was ordered by the Command of their Rulers whereas the Magistrates Power though used against an innocent person may not forcibly be repelled by Subjects Thus also Aegidius Hunnius Peter saith he took the Sword of his own private pleasure and that unlawfully whilst he rose up against his Governours and fount with the Sword against their Ministers Aegid Hun. in Rom. 1 1. in Mat. 26. Par. 4. Petrus privato arbitrio saith he on the Epistle to the Romans rapuit Gladium quidem illegitime dum contra Magistratum suum in surgit contra ministros eorum Gladio dimicat To the same purpose also he speaketh upon 3. Mat. and Melancthon from this Text urgeth the unlawfulness of those persons taking the Sword Melancth Loc. Com. de Vindicta de Magistr Civ who have it not committed to them by the Law and their Governour 4. And the true and natural sense of these words is that as the Laws given to Noah and his Sons condemned homicide Gen. 9.6 Whoso sheddeth mans blood by man shall his blood be shed so as with some respect thereto our Saviour here condemns the making Resistance even for defence by a private person against publick Authority And as the rules of his Doctrine forbid and blame it as evil so this further censure he passeth upon it that it is an undertaking that deserveth death or to perish by the Sword And this hath a general respect to all private persons Munst in Loc. hoc dicitur saith Munster contra privatos quosque qui nullo jure permittuntur uti Gladio non autem contra Magistratum qui jussa Dei perficit c. And the circumstances of this case are very remarkable 5. 1. In a case in which Religion and Civil Rights were interested For first this was a cause wherein both Religion and civil Rights were greatly concerned For the Jews were now pursuing their design to put Jesus to death and never was there an higher violation of justice upon earth than in the contrivances managed and the cruelties exercised towards him And this was such an opposition of Religion that in the highest and most impudent manner they rejected and set at nought the Messias whom God had sent and bad defiance to the mighty evidence of his miracles and intended utterly to have extirpated his holy and divine Doctrine Yet he himself here took up the Cross and became an admirable Pattern of meekness and when his Disciples had proposed the Question Luke 22.29 Shall we smite with the Sword he severely forbad any such thing and checks St. Peters hasty use thereof before Christ had returned an Answer to their Question And Chr. Hom. 85. in Mat. as St. Chrysostom observes St. Peter who was reprehended even with sharp threatnings for what he had done did so no more And when our Lord declared that his Kingdom was not of this World he did thereby so much design to shew that he denied his Subjects who were private persons any power to fight for their Religion and that neither himself nor his Gospel gave them any authority to use the Sword that he addeth if my Kingdom were of this World then would my Subjects fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews John 18.36 Such therefore are the rules of the Christian Doctrine Fer. enarrat in Mat. 26. that when Ferus had propounded the case if Magistrates neglect their Duty and become injurious as was done with respect to our Lord and Master an privato Gladii arripiendi jus est whether a Subject may take Armes he justly answers it with an Absit or a Detestation of any such thing 6. 2. With respect to Officers commissionated The Persons who came to take Jesus were a Band of Men and Officers John 18.3 no supreme Governours themselves but only persons commissionated by them And they were not sent immediately by Caesar or by Herod or Pilate who then had under the Romans the chief Jurisdiction in Jewry but by the Chief Priests and Elders of the Jews some of whom did accompany the Souldiers Luke 22.52 who were allowed to exercise some governing power under the Romans And the time when these Souldiers were sent was in all probability after the chief Synedrial Power was taken away from the Jews that they might not judge any capital Causes or put any man to death by their authority John 18.31 and therefore from Annas and Caiaphas Jesus was brought to Pilate The Talmud saith that this Power was taken away forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem which must be three or four year before our Saviours passions Buxt Lex Rab. in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hor. Heb. in Mat. 26.3 and about the time he did begin to preach Now though this stroke of St. Peter was not at any of the Chief Priests or Elders themselves but at an Officer of theirs and when their power was under its great decay and declination the Doctrine of Christ doth here condemn it 7. Thirdly 3. For mere defence if the intention of the person be considered this action was desensive or an endeavour to deliver his Master and with a kind of zeal for the preserving his safety as is sufficiently intimated in the following verses Mat. 26.53 54. And it cannot well enter into any mans thoughts that there were
any designs laid by any of the Apostles for destroying the Elders of the Jews or turning Caesar out of his Dominions by these attempts And though this defence proceeded no further than to cut off an ear our Lord not only disliked it but his action in forthwith healing the ear by a miracle may seem to intimate that he thought fit to take upon himself to make restitution and to repair the injury done by the rash action of one of his followers C. 23. Qu. 8. in Capite Thus Gratian observed that when Peter took the material Sword to defend his Master from the injury of the Jews he then received this check 8. 4. To St. Peter and therefore to his Successours Fourthly if we consider the Person who here drew the Sword which St. John declares to be Simon Peter it may well be wondred that any sort of men should believe that Christ gave this Apostle and others by vertue of succession from him a power to authorize subjects to take Arms against their Princes in a case where they shall judge the Church and Religion concerned and to deprive them of their Crowns and Dominions when himself in person was not allowed though he was then an Apostle to make such resistance as hath been declared From this instance Gratian concludes Ibidem that no bishop nor any of the Clergy whosoever have any power either by their own authority or by the authority of the Pope of Rome to take Armes and then they can have as little authority to commissionate others to take them Nor can this be evaded by saying that St. Peter was not as yet possessed with the supreme soveraign Authority For as it no where appears that he ever received any such thing so if our Saviour had ever intended to convery to him the supreme power of the Temporal sword he would never have used particularly to him so general a threatning against the use of it And therefore some Romish Writers have put themselves upon undertaking another method and that is by a very bad attempt to defend or applaud this action of St. Peter which our Lord rebuked Bar. An. 34. n. 67. Baronius when he gives us the relation of it doth it without any manner of censure but not without an Encomium declaring quid generoso accensus amoris ardore fortiter gesserit In Concord Evang Tom. 4. l. 6. c. 17. And Barradius proposing the question whether St. Peter did amiss in this action resolves it as most probable that he did not verosimilius puto saith he non peccasse And Stella saith Stell in Luc. 22. St. Peter did not sin herein and he compares this action with the zeal of Phinebas whereby he obtained the High-Priesthood and so sith he did St. Peter 9. Severalreasons why St. Peter was rebuked And there are some who would evade the argument from these words of our Saviour by saying that our Lord did prohibit St. Peter's using the Sword for his defence only because he did now intend to law down his life according to his Fathers will But it must be observed that our Saviour lays down three several grounds upon which he checks this act of his Apostle and commands him to put up his Sword and we must not so assert the validity of any one of them as to deny or enervate the force of the others 1. From the sin and unwarrantableness of such actions where persons act out of their own sphere and what they have not authority to undertake and this is that I have now discoursed of in v. 52. 2. Because he himself knew how he could sufficiently procure his own defence by lawful means whereas this action was neither a necessary nor a proper undertaking for that purpose Had the Holy Jesus intended to have his person rescued out of the hands of the Jews he could have effected this by Legions of Angels who are under no obligation of subjection to men v. 53. But Gods Providence can never be so at a loss as to need the help of any unlawful means 3. Because the thing St. Peter aimed at to hinder his Master from suffering was no good design but savoured somewhat of the same spirit by which he had formerly rebuked his Lord when he spake of his being killed Mat. 16.22 For the Scriptures must be fulfilled v. 54. and the Cup saith our Saviour which my Father gives me to drink shall I not drink it Joh. 18.11 And every one of these are parts of Christs Doctrine and the first as much as the other and is that also which our blessed Lord thought fit to mention before the other 10. With respect to this Text Mauritius This Text anciently used to their purpose Eucher Lugdunens Epist ad Sylv. who commanded the Thebaean Legion which being all Christians yielded themselves to Martyrdom under Maximianus told them how much he feared lest they being in Armes should have resisted the Emperour under the colour of defnce when this was forbidden by Christ who by the command of his own mouth would have that Sword which his Apostle had drawn to be put up And St. Austin who sometimes extenuated St. Peters fault as proceeding from his love Aug. de Agon Christ c. 29 30. and not from any cruel disposition that he did a more peacare sed non saevitia in his Books against Faustus gives this account of the sense hereof The Lord did with sufficient threatning check the fact of Peter saying Put up the Sword Contr. Faust l. 22. c. 70. in Epist 48. for he that useth the Sword shall fall by the Sword but he useth the Sword who when no Superiour and lawful Power doth either command or allow useth Armes against the blood of another And from this Text also Gratian inferreth this general rule Grat. Decubi sup that every one who besides him or without his authority who useth the lawful power who beareth not the Sword in vain and to whom every Soul ought to be subject I say every one who without such authority takes the Sword shall perish by the Sword 11. Assemb Annot. in Luk. 22.51 And even the Annotations under the name of the Assemblies Annotations do interpret these words to condemn Subjects taking the Sword especially against their Superiours Neither Peter say they nor any other private person or persons might take up the Sword to defend the cause of Christ 1. Becaue the Jus gladii belongeth not to any private person but to publick authority Rom. 13.4 much less to Ministers 2. Because they who smite with the Sword shall perish with the Sword Gr. de Imp. c. 3. n. 6. And Grotius de Imperio asserteth that when Christ said He that taketh the Sword shall perish by the Sword he doth expresly condemn that defence which is made by violence against unjust force from publick authority contra vim injustissimam sed publico nomine illatam To which I shall subjoin the