that concerned his safety and defence from the violence of others misgoverning themselves toward him and that necessarily brings in Empire So that unlesse we can imagine some Kingdome to consist of people sprung of themselves in perfection of righteousnes not depending nor obliged to God or nature nor obnoxious to those conditions to which the fall of man has subjected all men we cannot devise how men should naturally be free from subjection to government and lesse how being subject private men in any State should in their naturall capacity meddle with any thing concerning government or so much as goe about the making changing on anulling of ordinances or so compell Governours to doe them without being criminally culpable not only against the positive lawes of the land but even against conscience pressed with the bonds of naturall or morall and also divine law Therefore to explicate the sense which all intend but some not well distinguishing confound It is certainly true that all the people of a Kingdome must needs comprehend all power whatsoever is or may be exercised in it but when we say so we by all the people meane the whole entire body of the members politique from head to foot every one of them abiding and working according to his proper and ordained office politique But if beside their ordained office power any shall doe or attempt any alteration in the State howsoever intended for common good their act must needs be so farre from being lawfull as being from the beginning repugnant and resisting the ordained power it can never become a lawfull act though all the Subjects of a Kingdome should after consent unto it But in the third place we are farther to consider That if the Kingdome be also a Church of God then is the originall and authority of it of farre higher nature and more remote from the reach and power of the people It is true God is King of all Kings and highest Soveraigne in all Kingdomes as well Heathen as Christian yet as he cautioned in the behalfe of his Church that no stranger should be King there but by any meanes one that was of the Brethren of the people so in His Church He himselfe is a neerer and as it were a more cognate Soveraigne then in other Kingdomes and his Vicegerents there are of more immediate and more important subordination to him For which cause he there reserves to himselfe the choice of the man and leaves the people no more then the bare investing of him Not but that God in all Kingdomes makes Kings whom he pleaseth but he will have it known that in his Church the choice is not only his and to be sought at his hand but that he more strictly requires the observance of his right in his Church then he does otherwhere Therefore he expresly commands there Thou shalt in any case set him over thee whom thy Lord thy God shall chuse And as in his Church he to himselfe reserved the nomination so when he had nominated he did not leave it to the people there to declare the right and manner of the Kingdom but by the Prophet by whom he signified his choice by the same was the manner of the Kingdom declared to the people written in a book and laid up before the Lord Kings of Gods Church having from God a more immediate and more sacred ordination have also a more especiall endowment of his spirit for which cause they have beene ever instituted with annointing their persons therewith consecrate for the exercise of their function This we see in Saul whose person though he were a wicked Prince David in this respect declared so sacred as that he pronounced a curse upon the Mountaines of Gilboa because in them his person was cast downe and vilefied without regard of the sacrednesse of his annointing Their annointing therefore is not a meere outward solemnity but is significant of the spirit of God in a more especiall manner given unto them and from thence proceeds that which the Scripture witnesseth A divine sentence in the lipps of the King yea and a sacred integrity also His mouth transgresseth not in judgement And suitable to their Prerogative of graces beyond the ordinary of other Princes God vouchsafes them his eare with more favour and familiarity then to the other as we may see by his ready hearing gratious answers vouchsafed messages sent and will declared touching them not only to the good as David Salomon Asa Iehosaphat Hezechiah Iosiah c. but even to Coniah Saul Ieroboam Ahab Jehu and other wicked Princes And we not only heare God himselfe saying by me Kings Raigne and I have said yee are Gods but his word couples also the feare that is to be rendred unto Kings with the feare that is due unto himselfe Feare God and the King Keepe the Kings Commandement in regard of the oath of the Lord Nor is it ordinary obedience that is commanded but the highest under God Submit unto the King as unto the Supreame And that not for the danger that may ensue but as the Apostle saith Not for wrath only but also for conscience sake Now if the King be supreame then is there in no Kingdome any superintending power or authority that may lawfully call the King to account for that power only is the supreame over which there is not any other to take account So high and sacred is the authority of them whom God has made nursing fathers and nursing mothers to his Church When Kings then both in their Persons and Functions are of so sacred an ordination and so hedged in by Gods especiall protection where is there place for the people to interpose and meddle with the affaires that doe belong unto them besides when without the Kings consent there can be no concurrence of people to joyne in any accord for the disposing of any affaires of the Kingdome but that the matter must first passe the project sollicitation and prosecution of diverse private men no way thereunto authorized how can any act of the people to such an end be justifiable when an unlawfull beginning what number or quality soever the attempters be of can never make a lawfull act Therefore omitting those places of Scripture It is not fit to say to a King thou art wicked Who may say to a King what doest thou Feare God and the King and meddle not with those that love innovation And many others which yet block up the way against private mens medling with matters of government If it were to be granted that the people in any Kingdome had power over all rights of the Kingdome yet unlesse that by the Ordinances of that Kingdome it be expresly declared and appointed how and by whom that power shall be executed and by the way where such Ordinances are there is not a right Kingdome but a Republique and againe unlesse those ordinances be rightly pursued there can be no combinement to
none of them but as if he would shew he should be a King in fact not in right in some way in which God would own nothing but the permission only he bad him as one would say be his owne carver and take ten peices to himselfe What the progresse of the story was we all know when the people had made a King of their own then they and their King must have a Religion of their own fitted to their new framed Kingdome and to effect that the old Priests of God must be sent away as absolute impediments to the setling of their new government and when that was done then were they absolute indeed and had as much authority over their God as they before had taken liberty against their King so it followed that when the People had made an usurper King their King and they made a Calfe their God and the summe of the peoples reforming their Kings misgovernance and relieving their own grievances was they made them selves a King that made them all castawaies he himselfe the reproach of Soveraignty and an infamous stigmatique to all posterity and his sinnes for ever adhering to the People till they had caused their utter extirpation and till of free-borne Subjects under a King of their own they became perpetuall slaves to the Subjects of another Kingdome So unpleasing to God and so pernitious to the people themselves are the fruits of those reformations which only or principally are managed by the popular inclination in which though for the most part a desire of doing justice or preserving true religion be pretended yet private discontent in some and ambition in others is commonly the chief and radicall incitement of the work The means that belongs to private men to use for reforming of Kingdoms is that which the Apostle shewes Let prayers saith he and supplications be made for Kings and all that are in Authority that we may lead a Godly life The people must not with impatience and puffed up mindes invade Gods peculiar right of calling Kings to account but every man betaking himselfe to the reformation of himselfe and to prayers unto God must seek of him that has the hearts of Kings in his hand to dispose the Kings heart to the desired reformation Many think this way long and tedious and like better that the people should Offer themselves willingly and help God in some readier way But truly if such private reformation and prayer be the right means of publique good and be too long neglected that is the peoples own fault and they may not by their fault gaine a power which before they had not Yet true it is that in great misgovernances God often uses the peoples hand to doe his work of Iustice but that we may know the way is not right as not agreeable to his revealed will we shall finde that the work of justice that he so beginneth by them he endeth not till he hath finished it on them and his hand is never more heavy then against that rodd that in the way of injustice hath done his justice service But will you heare God himselfe taking cognisance of the misgovernance of Princes and determining of it In the 81. Psalme God declares himselfe to stand in the congregation of Princes and to be judge among Gods so calleth he Kings there Then he expostulâ—teth the matter with wicked Princes How long will ye give wrong judgement and accept the persons of the wicked Then he complaineth They will not be instructed but walk on in darknesse the foundations of the earth are out of square The misgovernance is great and the consequence of it desperate but does God in that case give the people power to reforme No clean contrary God without any revocation still affirmes I have said ye are Gods and ye are all children of the most high persons sacred not to be approached by the prophane hands of the people but to awe and restraine Princes he tells them that though he has made them Gods yet they shall dye like men when they must make account to him of their misgoverning so that God reserves the judgement of them to himselfe and no whit authorises the people to have any thing to doe with their misdoeings This is not to flatter Princes to say God has appointed men no meanes to relieve themselves against their misgovernment but only praiers to be made either to them or for them and that men have not otherwise to meddle with the right of liberty and duties of Princes then only by way of supplication Nor is this a security for Princes for though in a lawfull and ordinate way there be no other means yet no examples are more familiar then those in which the sinne the injustice and violence of wicked Princes are in this world punished by the sinne injustice violence of wicked people sometimes their own sometime others subjects Gods extraordinary and supream justice is tied to none of those regulations with which he has circumscribed his ordinary justice committed to the administration of man but as we said before we may still observe Gods indignation not more fatally incensed against any then against those whose wickednesse has put them forward to be the instruments of his extraordinary justice upon others But to pursue the examination of the right that people may have in questioning and reforming the rule of Kings Let us farther examine what we find in Scripture David sinning by numbring the people was enforced to his choice of one of three plagues Famine Sword or Pestilence Deus malum avertat this is but a dolefull instance for the people The King sinnes and God laies all the punishment upon the people Nay he gives not them so much as the choice of the punishment which they must suffer for the King but the sinning King must choose which of the three plagues the innocent people must undergoe this is strange did not the great judge of heaven and earth doe right yes undoubtedly and the matter was the wickednesse of the people had grievously provoked God so as the King must be let goe and suffered to fall into sinne that way may be made for the peoples punishment This seems no lesse strange on the other side that because the people sinne therefore the Prince should be let fall that for the transgressions of the land the Prince as wee have it in another place should be punished with division and diminution and many should be the Princes of the land Nay that for the sinne of the people the Prince should be cast away as in that place If ye doe wickedly ye shall perish you and your King All this were strange indeed should we consider Prince and people as persons strangers in interest to one another but therefore these places shew the strict union and indivisible mutuality of interest that they have in the doings and sufferings each of other beyond any thing that can be created by the
meer constitution or agreement of men This case of Davids further teaches that if when the sinnes of the people be grown high it be any way necessary that the King be let fall into sinne before the People be punished then are Kings immediatly between God and the people and stand there like Moses in the gap to with-hold the hand of God from the people untill that they also by falling someway be removed Again if the Kings transgression in government has the originall from the sinnes of the people then are the People the prime offendors and first agents in the Kings transgression and He himselfe is as it were accessary and in a manner passive in it We see that God himselfe here judged so and laid the reall punishment upon the people whom he accounted the originall sinners as for the King to whom the sinne is verbally ascribed we see God reckons as if he were only passive in committing it and therefore inflicts no punishment on him but what he voluntarily took upon him an humbling of himself and a compassionate fellowfeeling of punishment such as a good common father has alwaies by the sense of his peoples suffering It now followes plainly that the people that have their hands in sinne are no competent Iusticiars for hearing judging and reforming of any misdemeanours especially of those in which they themselves having the principall hand are the principalls and lesse where the person questioned is but an accessary drawn in by them and least of all where he is a person sacred and one so much superiour as by Gods ordinance to stand immediatly betwixt God and them sure he that would not suffer one with a beam in his eye to pull a moat out of the eye of his brother does not permit him to doe it toward one so much superiour as his Prince nor suffer guilty Subjects to arraigne their soveraigne guilty servants their Lord nor guilty sonnes their common father To conclude we may consider the unlawfulnesse of popular animadversion into the manners and government of Princes especially of Princes that are lawfull Christian Monarchs even in this alone that there are no received nor known bounds of limitation how farre people may walk in the way of questioning and reforming the errours of Princes but that if any thing at all be lawfull for them to doe therein then may they without restraint proceed so farre as to depose Princes and deprive them of their lives if according to the doctrine of the Iesuite they finde it for the good and reformation of the Church and Commonwealth which how well it is warranted by the word of God we may see plainly enough in the case between Saul and David Saul was King but misgoverning himself and the Kingdom became as bad as excommunicate and deposed for he was rejected of God and David was by Gods expresse command annoynted to be King all which notwithstanding neither David nor the people ever sought to depose him to renounce obedience unto him to combine against him question his government or so much as meddle with ordering any of the affaires that belonged to the King Nay Saul after this persecuted David unjustly and in the midst of his unjust and hostile persecution was delivered into Davids hand and it was of necessity that David should take the advantage and kill him for he could not otherwise have any assurance of his owne life David did then but even cut of the skirt of Sauls garment to the end it might witnesse his faithfull loyalty because it made it manifest he could as easily have cut the thread of his life and even for this his heart so smote him as that he cries out The Lord forbid that I should doe this thing to my Maister the Lords annointed to stretch forth my hand against him That was not all neither but there were more circumstances in the case Saul was not yet reformed and going on still was another time delivered into Davids hands and the people both times understood it the speciall delivery of his enemy into his hands by God and would have embraced the opportunity and have made him away David restraines them still with the same bridle The Lord forbid c. and tells them Who can lay his hands on the Lords annointed and be guiltlesse No David though already annointed would tary Gods time the Lord should smite Saul or his day should come or he should descend into battaile and perish but Davids hand should not be against him No whatsoever Saul was or whatsoever he had done neither his falling from God nor Gods declaring him rejected nor Davids annointing by Gods command nor Sauls unjust persecution of David the Lords annointed in future could dissolve the duty of his Subjects nor make it lawfull for them to lay their hands on him no not when he was in wicked hostility against them But Saul in Davids account was still the Lords annointed still a sacred person still Davids maister notwithstanding the circumstances which might seeme to have discharged the tyes of duty which David and the people did formerly owe unto him Neither is the annointing of Kings a thing sacred as to their own Subjects only but the regard thereof is required at the hands of strangers also because of the prophanation and sacriledge that in the violation of their persons is committed even against God Wherefore we see that though the Amalekite were a stranger and made a faire pretence that he had done Saul a good office when at his own request he dispatched him of the paine of his wounds and of the pangs of his approaching death yet David taking his fact according to his owne confession makes a slight account of the causes which he pretended as a frivolous extenuation of an haynous fact and condemnes him though a stranger as an hainous Delinquent against the Majesty of God How wert thou not afraid saith he to stretch forth thy hand to destroy the Lords annointed neither his being a stranger nor any of the other circumstances were so availeable but that his bloud fell deservedly upon his own head The act is in it selfe perfectly wicked and in the degree hainous altogether against the word of God and therefore all actions of Subjects that in the progresse of them tend or by the way threaten to arrive at that upshot are all unlawfull fowle and wicked and not only the actors themselves wicked but their assistants favourers those that wish them well or as St Iohn speakes That bid them God speed are partakers of their evill deeds But errour in this point has made such impressions in the mindes of many as that they will never be perswaded but that they may disobey and resist Authority if ever they finde it faulty or the commaunds thereof not agreeing with their consciences They will grant that they may not disobey Authority in the lawfull commaunds thereof neither doe evill that good may come thereon but then they themselves will
for preservation of the bounds and fences of a Kingdom it is necessary not only to have just and equitable lawes but it must have also an institution of good and sound orders for the making and executing of those Lawes which orders must be sacredly observed for as evill words corrupt good manners so evill manners frustrate the effect of all good lawes and good manners especially those that belong to government are not preserved without strict adherence to the instituted orders of the Kingdom Neither will those orders long continue valid and of use unlesse the protection and care of them be committed into the hands of some conservatory power more especially interessed in the continuance of them Who though not absolutely nor with any single power of immediate coertion yet by their powerfull intercession in the Councells and convocate Assemblies of the State may be effectually operative to the preservation of the publike right for which cause the use of these Assemblies are by no meanes long to be neglected When then the continuance and prosperity of every State stands upon no surer ground then the observance of the Rights and Orders of the Kingdome upon no better stand the lives and fortunes of the Subject of the Prince and Royall race yea and of the inheritance and Church of God himselfe And it is then no marvaile that God should threaten to powre out his wrath like water on Princes that are like to those that remove the bounds It is no marvaile that to the Kings of Iudah to whom God no question with a promise of perpetuity gave the most absolute dominion that has beene communicable to the Princes of his Church he should command Execute Yee judgement and righteousnes c for then shall King sitting on the throne of David enter in by these gates c but otherwise I will prepare destroyers against thee It is the important consequence that makes God not give the charge without threatning Though God declares Princes to be Gods among men yet between him and them God as David confesses has made the observance of the rule of justice and religion to be the condition of their reigning Bear rule saith God to David over men being just and ruleing in the feare of God Indeed when Princes derive their authority from Christ and justly challeng the prerogative of his vice-gerents it well behoves them to looke that the derivatives faile not of the condition of their primitive The Scepter of Christs Kingdome is declared to be a right Scepter and therefore his seat to endure for ever If his vice-gerents would have their seates durable they also must have care their Scepters be right Scepters they must see that the aunciently-established Formes and Orders of their Kingdomes be not violated or neglected but from time to time renewed and kept they must not to be absolute breake the Rights and Orders of the Kingdome and thinke to be good and just Princes in their Arbitrary Rule it were a reproachfull incongruity and nothing suitable to the vice-gerents of Christ to be good and faire Governours of that which they have made a tyrannicall government The Governours and government must have one face and way their rule cannot otherwise escape infamy not their providence cut off occasion from after times of invading the Rights and consequently the continuance of their Kingdomes The Lawes then the Rights and Orders of Kingdomes are most sacred and binding even to Kings themselves but that is to be understood in Safety in Honour in Conscience betweene God and them not in any way wherein in their default the people can become authorized For if we looke to what is written we find that when Subjects doe amisse they ought to feare for the Ruler is Gods minister to take vengeance and beareth not the sword in vaine But we read of no authority committed to the people in case the Prince failes of his Duty nor of any sword that is to be born by them if therefore they take the sword or any course that leades unto it they take the sword of injustice to the wounding of their own soules But while we name the people in these things we doe not make all Subjects living under the obedience of Soveraignes naturally to have this protence that they may doe themselves right in case their Prince doe not For as we see them of their owne naturall inclination to desire a King so we know they naturally submit unto his government And Prince and people of themselves stand naturally well-affected one to the other But as there are those that are sinisterly officious to the one so are there toward the other also And as those often counsell the Prince as if they would have him pull out the stones from out the foundation of his Throne to build higher the roofe and enlarge the battlements thereof so these often perswade the people that they have the authority of Princes though they have neither Throne Scepter nor any thing belonging to the Sovereigne right these find pretences and broach opinions in the peoples behalfe and then the people naturally jealous and impatient of the violation of their supposed Right or Liberty are facile to entertaine suggestions and through want of judgment easily carryed away with them but wanting also moderation they so violently adhere unto them as that with their intemperate prosecution they often by their owne instruments bring upon themselves the evills that they most doe feare from others So the people of Rome having expelled their Kings and setled a Republique with such hatred to the memory of them as that they would not endure the name of King growing afterward ill satisfied with the proceedings of their Senate they would not only have Tribunes Guardians of their Liberty and Rights which was indeed no more then necessary but they would have their Tribunes indued with Consular authority then with that of the Dictator of the Pontifex Max and whatsoever other power the common-wealth afforded In the end they made them so unresistable to vindicate their Liberty against the Nobles and the Senate as that in the upshot when they were become secure against their adverse party they had no meanes of interposition against the absolutenes of their own Guardians Insomuch as that Caesar obtaining to be head of their Faction could not be hindered but that even under the formes which they ordained to preserve their Liberty he introduced a Tyranny more absolute and worse conditioned then was that of their Kings which they expelled Hitherto tends the Doctrines of those who while they pretend to instruct for the common good Liberty and Right doe as it were appeale unto the people and support their doctrines with the peoples approbation and applause and do so in shew make the people and indeed themselves the soveraigne judges of all things FINIS Prov. 29. 4. Gen. 4. 7. Deut. 17. 15. 1. Sam. 10. 25. Prov. 16. 10. Prov. 8. 15. Psal. 81. 1. Pet. 2. 13. Rom. 13. 5. Prov. 24. 21. Rom. 13. 1. 2. 1. Sam. 15. 22. 2. Sam. 6. 6. 1. Chr. 13. 10 1. Cor. 14. 32 33. Acts. 7. 25. Exod. 2. 12. Acts. 7. 30. Exod. 3. 10. 1. King 12. 4. 1. Tim. 2. 1. Prov. 21. 1. Vers. 6. 2. Sam. 24. 1. 1. Sam. 12. 25 1. Sam. 15. 23. 16. 13. 1. Sam. 24. 5. 1. Sam. 26. 9. 2. Tim. 3. 5. Matth. 7. 16. 2. Tim. 3. 6. 4. 3. Iude. 19. 2. Tim. 3. 3. 2. Pet. 2. 10. Iude. 8. 11. Numb. 16. Mat. 7. 16. 1. Pet. 2. 21. Psal. 51. Hosea 5. 10. Eccles. 36. 25. Hosea 5. 10. Ier. 22. 3. 7. 2. Sam. 23. 3. Psal. 45. 7. Rom. 13. 4. 1. Sam. 8. 5.