Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	king_n	power_n	subject_n	18,588	5	7.0694	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52047	A plea for defensive armes, or, A copy of a letter written by Mr. Stephen Marshall to a friend of his in the city, for the necessary vindication of himself and his ministerie, against that altogether groundlesse, most unjust and ungodly aspersion cast upon him by certain malignants in the city, and lately printed at Oxford, in their Mendacium aulicum, otherwise called, Mercurius Aulicus, and sent abroad into other nations to his perpetual infamie in which letter the accusation is fully answered, and together with that, the lawfulnesse of the Parliaments taking up defensive arms is briefly and learnedly asserted and demonstrated, texts of Scripture cleared, all objections to the contrary answered, to the full satisfaction of all those that desire to have their consciences informed in this great controversie.; Plea for defensive armes	Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.	1643 (1643)	Wing M768; ESTC R15835	25,154	32

Princes and States by their aides of men and money their distressed and oppressed Brethren and Neighbours in the like case and now in our own sight both the King and States have acquitted the Scots as having done nothing in their late defence but what became good subjects And what the judgment of this Nation was in the time of popery is plain enough by their practice in their usuall taking of Armes and not leaving till they had compelled their Princes to ratifie their Priviledges and Charters which through ill Counsellors they had infringed And observeable it is that because the Bishops and Clergie of those times saw the Princes go about to take down their pride they were ever the most forward to justifie the proceeding of the State and I suspect in case the Tables were turned and we had a King endeavouring to take down the Bishops to take away Pluralites Non-residents c. And a Parliament seeking to maintain them the world would hear another Divinitie from many of them who now cry out that all our defence is damnable But lest I might be thought not to have vveighed the Scripture and reasons of both sides equally I vvill give you a further account vvhat my thoughts vvere and are concerning the Scriptures usually pleaded against this resistance and the reasons deduced from them The strongest hold they pretend to is built upon Romans 13. 1. c. 1. Peter 2. 13 14. vvhere vve are enjoyned subjection to the Higher Powers especially to the King as Supreme and all know that Nero the then supreme Governour was no better then a Tyrant Answ. First it is observable that this objection and almost all the rest taken out of the Scripture make the case of all Subjects in all Kingdomes to be alike that although as I touched before there are hardly two Kingdomes in the world but do differ in Lavves Customes and Constitutions bounding the Kings authority and the Subjects obedience yet if any of these would change the bounds of his authoritie for instance If the King of Denmarke or Sweden or Polonia vvould invade the libertie of his Subjects and make himselfe as absolute not onely as the King of England but as the King of France or Spaine or the great Turke this argument tyes all their Subjects from resisting let any man shew an out-gate for the Subjects of the one vvhich vvill not let out others and for my part I vvill yeeld the cause If they say these Kings took their Crowns upon those termes and the Subjects indented to have liberty of resistance in such cases then they grant that vvhere the Laws of the Kingdome allovv a liberty of resistance resistance may be used notvvithstanding these texts which is as much as vve plead for If any people have covenanted in no case to resist let them seek another answer in the mean time these Texts tie not those from resisting by their own answer who have not tyed themselves Secondly I appeal to their own judgements whether these Texts forbid all forcible resistance Suppose a Prince in his rage should go about to kill himself or run some innocent man thorow with his sword might no man take the sword out of his hand and if it be lawfull for a private man to dis-arme him of the weapons wherewith he would kill one may not the State take such weapons out of his or the hands of his Instruments wherewith they go about to destroy all Thirdly both Texts lay the same charge for subjection to inferiour Magistrates who likewise have their authoritie from God though under the Superiour As our Saviour said to Pilate who was buta Deputy thou couldst have no {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} no power at all against me if it were not given thee from above And may no resistance be made against the unjust violence of inferiour Officers if there may it is sufficient sure I am the Texts have not one word to allow the one and prohibite the other Fourthly what one syllable in either of these Texts so much as looks towards the forbidding of a people to resist Tyrannie but onely that we resist not the Magistrates in the rightfull exercise of their authority given them by God the Texts speak not of their persons but of their power not of their dictates but of their legall commands no more of Kings than of an higher power in an Aristocracie or Democracie binding all persons to subject themselves to that Power and Authoritie which in the severall places vvhere they live is the highest or supreme power Object But Nero was a Tyrant Answ. Not in his five first years nor secondly vvas he a Tyrant in all things he had authoritie to rule according to Law that was not his Tyrannie his Tyrannie was what he usurped contrary to the Law nor thirdly vvere all his under-officers Tyrants many of them could say with Festus Acts 25. It is not the manner of the Romanes to deliver any man to die before that hee which is accused have the accusers face to face and have leave to answer for himself and vvould accordingly dismisse them if they had done nothing worthie of death or of bonds Object 2. But doth not the thirteenth Chapter of the Romanes plainly binde up mens hands from resisting the supreme Power Answ. By the Supreme power must be meant that power which by the originall and fundamentall Constitution of any people and Nation hath authoritie to make Laws which shall binde the whole Nation to dispose of the estates and lives of any person or persons for the good of the Nation to judge every person and persons in the Nation determinatively and conclusively so as from that judgement there is no appealing that power it self being subject to the judgement and authoritie of none but God and Aristotle makes three distinct Branches of this power 1. The power of making and repealing Lawes a Legislative power 2. The power of making War and Peace of imposing Customes and Tributes 3. The power of judging Causes and Crimes ultimately and decisively where these three meet and make their residence whether in one person as in absolute Monarchs or in many as in mixed Monarchies or Aristocracies or in the body of the people as in the ancient Romane government there is the highest power which every soul is forbidden to resist But now what ever be the higher power in England most certain it is that the Kings absolute or illegall will is not the highest power that hath neither power to make Laws nor repeale Laws that hath not power to acquit or condemne nor may men appeal from the Kings lawfull judgement Seat to the Kings absolute will but his legall will in the highest Court or the King and Parliament may make Lawes or repeal Lawes may engage the whole Nation in a War and command both the Bodies and Purses of men unto the service is the highest Court of Judicature to which all my appeal and from which none may

Churches of England I must acknowledge this made me to think that the Parliament had just cause to be jealous of great danger But when His Majesty returned from Scotland discharged the guard which the Parliament had set for their own safety and an other denied except under the charge of the Queens Chamberlain and His Majesty himself entertained divers Captaines as a super-numerary guard at Whitehall went to the House of Commons after that manner to demand the five members to be delivered unto Him The Earle of Newcastle now General of the Armie of Papists in the North sent to Hull attempting to seize it and the Magazine there his Majestie according to the Lord Digbies letters retiring from the Parliament to a place of strength and the Queen going beyond Sea to raise a partie there I must have shut my eyes if I had not seen danger and thousands of thousands would have thought the Parliament altogether senslesse if they had not importuned his Majesty as they did to settle the Militia all former settlings of it by Commissions of Lievtenancy being confessedly void His Majestie refusing this in that manner as they thought necessary for security they voted the putting of it into the hands of persons whom they thought the State might confide in though alas many of them since have discovered to us how vaine is our hope in man And secured the Town of Hull and the Magazine there soon after this his Majesty in the north seised New-Castle and under the name of a guard begun to raise an army all this was done before the Parliament voted that his Majesty seduced by wicked councell c. And when his Majesties Army was more encreased he then declared that he was resolved by strength to recover Hull and the Magazine and to suppresse the Militia After this indeed the Parliament began to make vigorous preparations by their propositions for Plate Money Horse c. This being the true progresse and state of the businesse I saw clearly all along the Kingdome and Parliament were in danger that it was therefore necessary to have the Militia and Navie in safe hands which His Majesty also acknowledged That he refused to settle it for a time in the way they conceived necessary and that by the judgement of both Houses when they were full they had power by the fundamentall Laws of the Kingdome to settle it especially for a time upon His Majesties refusall That His Majesty raised force and declared it was to suppresse the Militia and recover Hull and the Magazine is as clear and made pregnant preparations both at home and beyond the Seas And the civill Lawyers say that pregnant preparations are the beginning of a War The onely Question remaining was whether the Parliament did justly in ordering the Militia and securing the Magazine and Navy in a confessed time of danger upon such his Majesties refusall What the Kings power and perogative and what the Parliaments power was for securing the Militia in time of danger according to the Laws of England was out of my profession and in great part above my skill But certainly unlesse I vvas bound rather to beleeve the Votes of the Papists and other Delinquents about his Majesty vvho hitherto had prevailed to bring upon us all the miseries that vve have laine under then the Votes and Judgements of the highest Court of Judicature in England which so far as I have heard was never by Common Law or Statute Law presumed to be guilty of or charged with the overthrow of the Kings prerogative or the Lawes and Liberties of the Subjects untill now and who have given us so much evidence of their wisdome watchfulnesse and faithfulnesse I vvas bound to be concluded under their Testimony and so consequently that His Majesty was seduced c. And surely if men vvho serve upon Justice betvveen Prince and People party and party in matters of Life or State may rest in the resolution of the learned Judges that this or that is law vvhen themselves knovv it not vvell might I rest in the judgement and resolution of that Court which is the Judge of all the Judicatures in the Land And in case I were unsatisfied to whom should I appeale in whose judgement I might more safely rest especially when I savv their Vote agreeable to that which is the supreme Law of all Nations namely that publick safety is the highest and deepest Law and that it is requisite that every State have a povver in time of danger to preserve it self from ruine and no Lavv of England more knovvne then that the Parliament is the highest Court from vvhence there is no appeal This satisfaction I had then and since by the Declarations and Remonstrances of the Parliament concerning these Military matters and by other Books lately published it is most apparent that they have not usurped upon His Majesties prerogative but what they have done is agreeable to the practice of former Parliaments In putting the Militia Forts and Navy into safe hands in these times of danger And that it vvas therefore lavvfull for them yea necessary to take up these Defensive Armes and consequently to call in for supply from all such vvho should share with them in the benefit of preservation and to disable such from hurting them who were contrary minded I spend no time to answer the Objections that some make that His Majesty could not tarry at London with safety of His Person that the Lords and Commons that are vvith Him were driven away by popular Tumults and could not enjoy freedome of their Votes c. Because I thinke these things are now beleeved by none but such as would beleeve no good of the Parliament though one should rise from the dead again Thus Sir you have a just account of the grounds that first induced me to owne this Cause you desire to know whether I see not yet reason to repent of what I have done I confesse I never undertooke any thing but I saw cause to repent of my miscarriage through the corruption which cleaves to me and great cause I have to bewaile my many failings in this great Worke but for the Worke it self I as solemnely professe I never saw cause to repent of my appearing in it the Cause is a right cause the Cause of God my call to it a cleare call and though the Work prove harder and longer then at first it was thought yet the Cause is far clearer then at the first The work indeed is harder then I expected for whoever could have beleeved he should have seen in England so many Lords and Commons even after their solemne Protestation to defend the Priviledge of Parliament and their owne Vote that His Majesty seduced by wicked councell intended War against the Parliament so shamefully to betray the trust committed to them so many of the Protestant Profession joyning with an army of Papists under pretence of maintaining the Protestant Religion against a Protestant Parliament to fight

beginning of these unhappy differences I had both learned and taught to this purpose First That it is agreeable to Gods will that in all Countreys especially when and where the people are numerous Magistracie be set up with a sufficiencie of power and authoritie to rule for the publick good and that even among them who are under the scepter of Christ against the Anabaptists Secondly That among the divers kinds of lawfull governments Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy no one of them is so appointed of God as to exclude the other from being a lawfull government Thirdly That the bounds and limits of the Magistrates lawfull power of commanding and the subjects necessary obeying must be found and taken out of the severall Laws Customes and Constitutions of those severall States and Commonwealths There are scarce two formes especially of Regall government in the world but they differ one from the other and that in matters of moment Now I say what the power of Magistrates in one Countrey differs from the power of Magistrates in another Countrey and how the duty of Subjects differs in each must be found only in the Laws of the respective places that no mans right must be detained from him that Caesar should have rendred to him the things that are Caesars and all people the things that are their own the Scripture and Laws of all nations doe determine But whether for instance in England Ship-money be the Kings right and so to be yeelded or denyed whether this house or inheritance be this or the other pretenders to it must not be determined by any Law but by the Law of England go therefore to the Lawes and learned Lawyers and from them alone you shall learn what is the Prerogative of the Prince and both the Duty and Liberty of the Subject But then fourthly comes in Religion or the command of God and binds the consciences of Magistrates to rule and of Subjects to obey according to those Lawes And fifthly in particular of Subjects it requires these four things First to render to their Governours next under God the greatest fear and honour as being Gods vicegerents as having the greatest beams of his authority put upon them and therefore called Gods and all of them the children of the most High Secondly Loyaltie to their persons and office that is obedience according to Law and patient subjection when we cannot actively obey willingly for conscience sake to submit to the penalty of the Laws when for conscience sake we cannot observe the Laws themselves Thirdly maintenance with payment of all lawfull Customs Tributes and impositions Fourthly all manner of supplications prayers intercessions and giving of thanks their usefulnesse being great their temptations many their fall like that of great Cedars the crushing of many and the shaking of the earth round about them and all this we owe nor onely to the King as Supream but in proportion to all inferiour Governours who are sent by God also for the punishment of evill doers and for the praise of them that do well they being all the ministers of God for our good and this is the first Commandment with promise But sixthly if our Governours whether supream or inferiour leave to rule according to Law and set up their own will contrary to Law there is no word of God acquitting them from sin in Gods sight but severely threatning them for abusing his name which they bear nor any word binding the consciences of their subjects therein to yeeld them any active obedience Thus farre we have all sides agreeing in all the particulars except only a few Court flatterers who and that especially of late have endeavoured to cry up Monarchy as the only ordinance of God for the Government of States as if the other forms of Aristocracy and Democracy were not approved by him Yea and have cryed up the power and authority of princes to be such as that they are absolved from all laws and that whatsoever the Subjects enjoy under them is only by the princes favour which if they please to recall how justly or unjustly soever the subjects are bound to yeeld all unto them and have no plea against their Prince only in the Court of heaven no law no judge no Court here below having any authority to say unto him What dost thou This Divinity hath of late been preached and as sweet enchanting musicke often chanted in the ears of our Princes and no doubt was one great occasion of these heavie yokes we have of late groaned under But these absurdities need no refutation Egyptian Pharaoh claimed not the wealth of his people till he had bought it And Ahab himselfe who durst not lay claime to Naboths vineyard without purchase or colour of confiscation proclaims their ignorance sufficiently to the world And among our selves the constant proceedings of our princes even in their most heavie illegall exactions borrowing alwayes a colour of law and the known laws of the land enabling the meanest subject to maintain his Propriety even in a two-penny matter against his Soveraigne And the innumerable verdicts in all Courts passing for the Subject against the King assure me that unlesse God for our sins should give up our Parliament and State to the vassallage which this Popish Army would bring it to we shall hear no more of this Divinity The only Question now is about passive obedience they who cry down our defensive Arms confesse that the Magistrate cannot require any thing but by law and that the subject need not yeeld up his right but by Law no tie lies upon the conscience of Naboth to let Ahab have his vineyard but if a Saul will by force take away our sonnes to care his ground and our daughters to be his Confectioners Cookes and Bakers if he will by force take our fields even the best of them and give them their servants we have no help in that day but preces lachryma to cry unto our God but no liberty to defend our selves by Armes against such tyrannie if we do say they we resist the ordinance of God and must receive to our selves damnation But if this opinion be weighed in the ballance of Reason how much lighter than vanity will it be found how absurd a thing is it that these men wil allow me if the king pretend Law in any thing I may try it out with him and not when he or his Instruments come with open violence If the king will sue me and by pretence of Law seek to take away my coat my house my land I may defend these from him with all the strength of Law I can but if he come with armed violence to take away my liberty life religion I must yeeld up these without making any resistance I may secure that which I have nothing but lexterrae to plead my propriety in viz. my money which I may give away and in the mean time my liberty life religion which are mine by the laws of God and

man I may not secure with a good conscience True it is if in case it do upon circumstances duely weighed appear that our receding from our right and not resisting wrong will tend to the promoving of a greater and a more generall good or the preventing of a greater and a more generall evill it is agreeable to right reason and our Saviours rule Mat. 5. 39. that we should both remit of our right and submit to wrong whether sued or ensued whether to superiours or inferiours or equals But that men should give a liberty of defence in Law and yet absolutely condemne defence against unlawfull violence is such an {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} such an absurdity as you shall seldome meet with But give me leave to weigh it a little further if the Subjects defending themselves by Armes against the violence of oppressing Governours and their instruments be unlawfull either it must be because their Prince hath by conquest spoiled them of that liberty which God and nature gave them at the first Or secondly because they or their Ancestors having submitted by Covenant and Consent to him to bee their supream Ruler according to Law they must therefore be interpreted to have yeelded up all their Liberty so far as to be now unable with a good Conscience to defend themselves against his violence though contrary to Law Or thirdly because God hath lifted up Princes so far above all mortall men that all hands are by him bound from daring to resist them The first I finde not many pleading that peoples being conquered makes it unlawfull for them to defend themselves against the unjust violences of their Conquerours or his Successours Most of them grant that the peoples right is to designe the person of their Prince And indeed it is the most absurd reasoning in the world that because a strong robber hath over-powerd me in my house in conscience I am tyed to be his servant or slave for ever Because Eglon hath mightily oppressed Israel for eighteen years it is unlawfull for them to shake of● his yoke when they are able to resist him Certainly whatever of mine another takes by violence from me let him keep it never so long it is but Continuata injuria a continued wrong till I consent to his holding it And all reason allowes me to recover it again as soon as I can And I fear not to say that had William sirnamed the conquerour taken and held this Crown only by his sword and ruled over the Nation only by force and all his successors to this day had no other claim to it all the reason in the world would allow us to redeem our selves from that yoke if we were able But though the sword begin the Conquest yet many times the Consent of the people comes in and makes their Conquerour their lawfull King and then so far as by Covenant or Laws they agree to be under him for the publike safety and good they are bound up from any resistance But that their parting with some of their liberty for the publike good should upon the usurpation of him whom they have trusted deprive them of that liberty which they never parted with is most abhorring to reason Suppose a free man indents with another to be his servant in some ingenious employment as suppose to attend upon his person and expresly indents that his master shall not have power to command him to rub his horse heels or fill his dung cart or the like If now this master shall usurp and command him to such sordid employment and by force seek to compell him to them some shew of reason at least there would be for the servant to plead that his master had forfeited all his power over him and that he was free from his service and might go seek another master but no colour of reason that the servant hath now forfeited that immunitie from sordid and drudgery works that he first covenanted and must thenceforth lie at his masters feet as wholly prostitute to all his Imperious humours Secondly can it be imagined by reason that a people submitting to a lawfull government should thereby be necessitated to that which may overthrow the end of all government that is inability to provide for their common safety That whereas when they were free and under no government at all they might by the law of nature defend themselves against injury now having submitted though upon good conditions they are utterly disabled to defend themselves if he that should be their Protectour would prove their Murtherer If he who both in himselfe and instruments should be onely for the punishment of evill and the praise of them that doe well will goe or send or suffer a company of theeves or murtherers to goe in his name and spoile and destroy them that do well can their being subjects in reason deprive them of their defence allowed them by the law of nature yea were they not guilty of self-murther in suffering such a thing For instance some of our Historians relate of King John that hee was transported with so deep a hatred against his Nobles and Commons that he sent an Ambassadour to Miramumalin entituled the great King of Africa Morocco and Spain wherein he offered to render unto him his Kingdome and to hold the same from him by tribute as his Soveraigne Lord to forgoe the Christian faith which he held vaine and receive that of Mahomet like enough some Court Chaplain may be the Clerk that went on the errand might warrantize the Kings conscience and tell him that it was the more shame for them who profest the Christian Religion to compell him to it But whether the King did lawfully or not is not our question but whether the subjects might lawfully have resisted that attempt of his and have stood for their Religion Lives and Liberty Thirdly is it not quite contrary to reason that whereas Kings and Rulers nothing differing by nature from their meanest subjects were at first constituted and are still continued for the protection welfare benefit yea and service of the people and who therefore should value their prerogatives scepters and lives no further then they may advance the publick good yet if they degenerate and will be destroyers the people should suffer all to be spoiled as if Kingdomes and people had been created by God for the will pleasure profit yea and lusts of Princes As if a Pilot purposely appointed for the safe wafting over of passengers who in stead thereof will dash the ship against the rocks Or a Generall purposely chosen and to whom the Souldiers have therefore sworne for the safetie of the whole Army should yet turn the Cannon mouth upon his own Souldiers or deliver them all up into the hands of the enemy the passengers and souldiers yea the officers in the ship and councell of war in the Army should be morally disabled from doing any thing to prevent their own apparent destruction By this

reason the Bishop of Burgen in the Councel of Basil proved the Councel to be above the Pope and a kingdome above the King and said they were but flatterers who taught otherwise And fourthly doth not right reason as much abhor this that whereas Princes are the publick fathers and the people owe them the duty of children that these children should be prohibited from keeping their publick fathers from the greatest evils If our naturall father through ignorance or distemper should go into a pest-house his children might by force fetch him out or if in a raging passion go about to kill himself wife children or any others their children may disarm them yea we are tied not to suffer friend or foe to incurre the guilt of rapine or blood if it lie in our power to hinder it and speak to my reason what evil have Princes deserved that if they go about to murder themselves subjects and children not any of their people no not the whole body politick should have power to restrain them And if reason will allow this liberty of resistance to private persons as even Barclay and Grotius the two great propugners of the sacred and inviolable power of Kings grant how much more clear honourable and safe must such a defence needs be when done by the representative body of a state who are Gods ordinance as well as kings the ministers of God sent by him to be a terrour to evill and a praise to them that do well And in England are the highest Court of Judicature and in whom his Majesty confesses there is legally placed sufficient power to prevent Tyranny Upon such reasons as these not only Heathens have resisted their Princes when bent to subvert their laws and liberties but even most of the States of Christendome Papists and Protestants when they have been put to it have borne defensive Armes against the unlawfull violences of their mis-led Princes But now if notwithstanding all this faire shew of reason Gods word hath determined the contrary we must lay our hands upon our mouths and shall no longer deserve to be accounted the servants and subjects of Christ then while we turne our reason how specious soever out of doores when once it offers to oppose the least Iota of his revealed will But where is this Scripture to be found Certainly the good Subjects in the Old Testament knew it not Sauls Subjects who swore that Saul should not kill Jonathan nor pluck an haire from his head though Saul had sworn by God he should die knew no such Scripture and I beleeve that if the same men had bin about him when he protested the Priests of the Lord should die they would not only have with-held their own but Doegs hands from doing execution David knew no such Scripture nor the 600 men with him that would have fortified Keilah against Saul Nor those many choice men of the severall Tribes of Israel among whom were some of Sauls brethren and kindred and chief officers that fell to David though Saul had proclaimed him Traitor from day to day to help him till it was a great host like the host of God And all this while David was though an innocent yet but a private man And I think if Elias had took himself bound in conscience to render himself prisoner to the Captains which Ahaziah sent for him he would not have killed them with fire from heaven Neither would Elisha have taken such a rough course with the messengers sent to take his head Nor would the eighty valiant Priests have thrust Uzziah by force out of the Temple who was a King still though a Leper Neither can these examples be eluded with saying these were extraordinary persons for first they were not all so not the people that resisted Saul nor the people that fell to David nor the eighty Priests unlesse in the extraordinarinesse and valiancy of their spirits And for the extraordinary persons themselves I know nothing why their examples may not be pleaded for our Defensive Armes as well as Davids eating the shewbread was pleaded by our Saviour for his Disciples rubbing the ears of corn unlesse they can first shew that their practice was against a known law I mean unlesse there were some known law that Innocents might not defend themselves and one another against the unjust violence of their princes Indeed we often read in the Old Testament of fearing the King honouring the King obeying the King which their practice shews they understood to binde them to yeeld Honour Loyaltie Obedience and Subjection to their Magistrates according to law but not that they were bound to let them doe what mischief they pleased Neither is there any more in the new Testament there indeed are full and frequent exhortations to submit our selves to Magistrates to be subject to the higher Powers which are ordained of God not to resist the Ordinance of God but not one word that we may not resist the Tyrannie of men no colour for it unlesse any wil say that Tyranny is Gods Ordinance that Tyrants bear the sword for the punishment of evil doers are the Ministers of God c. full proof there is that we must be under the authority of Rulers that is under their Legall Commands not one word of being at the dispose of their illegall wills The word used there is {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} derived ab {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} licet to shew as one observes that the Text bindes subjects to obey Superiours not ad libitum but ad licitum not to obey their lawlesse lusts wils but their lawfull authority without resisting And surely it were strange that if God had laid this yoke of subjection to the illegall will of Rulers that neither the Jews under their Kings nor under Antiochus nor the Churches of Christ nor the primitive Churches after once their Religion and Liberties were established by Laws nor any of the Reformed Churches have took themselves concluded under it which of all the Reformed Churches have not by their practice manifested that Religion bindes them not to give their throats to be cut or their liberties and states to be spoiled at the meer will of their Princes and their Instruments contrary to their own Laws and Edicts Were not the Lutheran Churches put to it and defended themselves against the Emperour Charles the fifth when the Smalchaldian confederacie was entring Did not both the Divines and Lawyers being consulted with agree that the inferiour Magistrates might at some time resist the Superiour Have not the States and Churches of the Netherlands done the like constantly against the King of Spain the Protestants in France against their Kings How often and how lately have our Brethren in Scotland done the same And although since the Reformation England was never put to it untill these unhappie differences yet how constantly have our most learned Divines Bishops as well as others defended by their Pens and our

appeal and consequently against which there is no resistance So that if men would read this Text of the thirteenth to the Romans in plain English it amounts directly to thus much Let every soul in England be subject to King and Parliament for they are the higher powers ordained unto you of God whosoever therefore resisteth King and Parliament resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shal receive to themselves damnation I would desire no other Text but this to confound the great Chaplains and Champions of the Antiparliamentary cause or to strike terrour into their Loynes if their long conversing with God-dammee's hath not drawn such a Kawl over their hearts that to them damnation is ridiculous Object 3. But doth not Saint Peter say expresly the King is Supreme 1 Pet. 2. 12. Answ. 1. It may as well be translated Superiour as Supreme the same word in the 13 of the Romans is translated Superiour higher not highest 2. It is plain the Apostle is not there constituting Governments but giving direction to people to obey the Government they lived under and the Text hath as much strength to enforce subjection to Aristocracy as to Monarchy If the people of Pontus Asia Cappadocia Bithynia were under an absolute Monarchy as sometimes they were being petty Kingdoms crumbled out of the great Monarchy of Alexander and it may be did retain yet the same forme of Government if not of their own yet as lately received from the Romans all that can be enforced from thence is That the Apostle names the Kings of those particular Countries to be such as they were and commands subjection to them but no wayes tyes other kingdoms to be like unto them Object 4. But we in England by our oaths do acknowledge the King to be Supreme Answ. 1. We willingly grant Him to be Supreme to judge all persons in all causes according to His Lawes and the established Orders of the Kingdom but not at or by His absolute will or pleasure 2. Whoever considers the title scope and words both of the Oath and the Act of Parliament that enjoynes it will easily see that both the Act and Oath were intended in opposition to that Supremacie which the Pope sometimes challenged and usurped in this Kingdome of England and no more And this to be the true intent and meaning of it appears more fully by that explication or limitation of the Oath made the next Parliament 5. Eliz. Wherein it is declared That that Oath made 1. Eliz. shall be taken and expounded in such form as it is set forth in an admonition added to the Queens Injunctions published Anno 1. of Her Raign viz. To confesse or acknowledge in Her Her Heirs and Successors no other Authority then that which was challenged and lately used by King Henry the eighth and Edward the sixth And by this time you may see how little offensive these two so much boasted Texts are to our defensive Arms Object Other places of Scriptures the adversaries seeme not much to confide in therefore I will passe them over the more briefly yet let us a little consider of them Matth. 26. 52. They that take the sword shall perish with the sword Where Christ seems to rebuke Peter for using defensive arms against the officers that came with a pretext of authority to apprehend Christ Answ. 1. This is not a reproof of the sword taken for just defence but of the sword taken for unjust oppression and a comfort to those that are oppressed by it for Origen Theophylact Titus Euthimius interpret the meaning to be That Christ doth not rebuke Peter for using defensive Arms but to let Peter know that he need not snatch Gods Work out of his hand for God would in due time punish those with the sword that came thus with the sword against him and that these words are a Prophesie of the punishment which the Roman sword should enact of the bloudy Jewish Nation according with the like expression Revel. 13. 10. He that kills with the sword must be killed with the sword here is the patience and faith of the Saints that is This may comfort the Saints in their persecutions that God will take vengeance for them But secondly Suppose it was a reproof of Peters using the sword then the plain meaning is to condemn Peters rashnesse who drew his sword and never staid to know his Masters minde whether he should strike or not and so reproves those who rashly unlawfully or doubtingly use the sword Adde this That now was the hour come of Christs suffering and not of his Apostles fighting wherein Christ would not be rescued no not by twelve Legions of Angels much lesse then by the sword of man Therefore he saith to Peter Put up thy sword c. But intended not that it should alwayes be unlawfull for his people to use the sword in their just defence against unjust violence for then he would never have commanded them but a little before that he that hath two Coats let him sell one and buy a sword Object Eccles. 8. 2. c. I counsell thee to keep the Kings Commandment c. He doth whatever he pleaseth c. Where the word of a King is there is power and who may say to him What dost thou Answ. 1. No man can understand it literally in all things as if every commandment of the King must be kept as if no actions of the King might be scanned nor reproved by any man as the Canonists say of the Pope That if he lead thousands to hel none may say Why dost thou so Surely if Saul command to murder the Lords Priests that commandment need not be kept If David lie with his neighbours wife Nathan may say Why dost thou so If Ahab murder Naboth and swallow his inheritance worship Baal persecute and kill the Prophets of the Lord Elijah may reprove him notwithstanding this Text Who can say unto him what dost thou Secondly The Text plainly enough interprets it self Keep the Kings commandment according to the oath of God stand not in an evil thing against him he hath power to do whatever he will Si scelus patraveris effugere non poteris If you commit evil you cannot escape punishment where the word of a King is there is power viz. to punish them that do evil and none to call him to account for doing it and who can say unto him What dost thou Object Another text is Proverb 8. 15. By me Kings reigne c. Whence they plead that because Kings and Princes receive their authority only from God and the people at the utmost only designe the Person but give him none of his power therefore they may in no case take away his power from him Answ. 1. It saith no more of Kings then of Nobles Senators and all other Judges of the earth for it follows By me Princes rule and Nobles even all the Judges of the Earth Secondly Although no such thing is in the Text

themselves into Popery so many unworthy Gentlemen fight to destroy a Parliament and thereby fight themselves and posterity into slavery so many Papists in Armes contrary to so many knowne Lawes and armed with Commission to disarme Protestants contrary to their knowne Liberties and the Protestants who exceed their number an hundred fold not to rise as one man to subdue them And who would have believed that he should have seen after all this an Army raised by the Parliament in such an extremity for such an end having hazzarded their lives undergone all these hardships performed all these services and whose untimely disbanding may prove our irrecoverable ruine straitned for want of pay while England is worth a groate Behold regard and wonder marvellously I relate a thing which many will not believe though it be told unto them Hab. 1. 5. But though the Worke be harder the case is still clearer both in regard of the intentions of the Parliament and also of their adversaries For the Parliament multitudes would not believe but that they had further aimes then their own and the publique safety that they intended if not to depose His Majesty yet by force of Armes to compell him to that which is not fit for a King to yeeld to But now by their frequent petitioning of his Majestie especially by the reasonablenesse of their late Propositions and Instructions wherein they desire a present disbanding of all Arms even before any other bills were past and were willing to have the Ports Forts and Ships c. of the Kingdome resigned up into his Majesties hands provided onely that in these times of dangers they might pro hac vice be put into the hands of such as the State might confide in The sincerity of their intentions are now so plain that I think Malignity it self cannot but be convinced of them And the intentions of the contrary councels are as plain their mask now falling off and their designe more then ever discovered to be the overthrow of Parliament Liberty Laws and Religion For at first we had Declarations to preserve all the just priviledges of Parliament but now we see men proclaimed Traytors for executing the Commands of the two Houses and the two Houses themselves if not in direct yet in equivalent termes proclaimed Traytors yea denyed to be a Parliament because his Majestie withdraws himself and after multitudes of Petitions refuses to returne and because many of their Members have deserted them and are protected by his Majestie from the Houses who have sent for them Yea they are required to recall their Votes as illegall and that such as they have fined and imprisoned may bring their Habeas Corpus to be tried in an inferiour Court Yea people provoked to scorn them and thereupon multitudes not fearing to trample upon and cast as vile scorn and contempt unjustly upon that thrice-honorable Court as ever was cast justly upon the Commissaries Courts We have heretefore been assured that the knowne Lawes of the Land should be the only rule of government but to name no other instances now we see the Commission of Array to be justified to be Law which the Parliament hath not only declared but demonstrated and the Countries where ever it hath prevailed found to be the utter destruction of all the Lawes made for the Subjects liberty Heretofore Proclamations were put out that no Papists should be entertained into his Majesties Army because the resolution was to maintaine the Protestant Religion But now we see them armed and armed with Commission and Protestant Doctors in their writings justifying it and being armed dare professe their Religion publickly set up their masse in the second City of the Kingdome cutting in pieces and burning Bibles and as multitudes of reports come from beyond the Seas and the supplies that come from thence confirme it all the Papists in Christendome contributing to this War as to the Catholicke cause Heretofore the Libertie of the Subject seemed to be stood for yea defended against the Parliament as if it were possible the representative body should enslave it self and in the meane time while these things are promised hundreds yea thousands of his Majesties Subjects plundred with His Majesties Proclamations against plundering in the hands of diverse of the plunderers And their persons led away in Ropes and Chaines like Turkish Gally-slaves and many cast into Prisons and Dungeons only for defending themselves against robbers and murderers abusing His Majesties Name where their Jaylours use them worse then the Turkes doe their Christian slaves or one that hath any thing of man in him could use a dog And vvhen all these things are now done the Parliament not only sitting but having so much strength in the Field what can vve expect when these men have prevailed vvhen at the putting on of their harnesse their usuall language is nothing but blasphemy against God not to be mentioned and against His people calling all that adhere to his and the Kingdomes Cause Parliament dogs and Parliament rogues what language will you expect to heare if once they come triumphantly to put it off If while the event is uncertaine they cut us out such kinde of Lavves Liberties and Parliament priviledges as these are if GOD for our sinnes sell us into their hands thinke if you can vvhat Lavves Liberties and Parliament-priviledges our posteritie shall finde recorded in our bloud for our selves alas who shall live when God doth this Nay who would desire to live I vvould rather vvith holy Austin make it my humble suite to that GOD vvhose are the issues of life and death that Hee vvould rather take mee from the Earth then let mee live to see His deare Church and my native Countrey delivered into the 〈◊〉 of such blasphemous and barbarous men So that in stead of repenting and withdrawing from the work I could wish that my voice were able to reach into every corner of the kingdome and that I could awaken all people to see the danger and misery that is flowing in upon them That every soul might be quickened up to make his owne and help to make Englands bleeding dying Englands peace with God and every one who hath any interest in Heaven to cry mightily unto that God in whose hand the hearts of Kings are and who rules in the Kingdomes of men that the power of our God might be great towards us in turning away these imminent calamities and turning the heart of our King towards His great and faithfull Councell and rescuing Him out of the hands of this Generation of men who delight in bllood Our God hath not yet said Pray not for this people but if the Lord say he hath no delight in us Righteous art thou O Lord and just are all thy judgements onely let us not be accessary to our own destruction and the destruction of so flourishing a Kingdome let us not through our covetousnesse or cowardize selfe-love or sloth betray our Lawes Liberties Lives Religion into the hands of men from whose hands we befoole our selves if we expect more mercy or lesse misery then the poore Christians of Constantinople found with the Turkes when thankes to their owne niggardlinesse O let it never be so with England they fell into their hands Oh let us labour to prevent their Swords thrusting into our bodies and their Swords into our Soules let our God doe with us what he vvill let us doe vvhat vve should and vvhile vve have any money in our purses any blood in our veins or any spirits in us devote all to the maintenance of this rightfull cause and if vve perish vve perish Nor doe I feare to be for this condemned by any right discerning man as an incendiary to a Civill War I knovv the miseries of a Civill War Warre is the severest of all Gods judgements and Civill Warre the cruellest of all Warres vvhere is the greatest hatred the deepest treachery the most unnaturall butcheries where the father murders the sonne the sonne the Father the brother embrues his hands in his brothers blood and vvhoever gaines all are loosers 〈…〉 Cives quae tanta licentia belli Oh the 〈◊〉 of our age and Countrey If England have such a lust to War 〈◊〉 we find no forraigne Enemies but we must Warre against our selves and at this time too Cumque superba for●t Babylon Spolianda 〈◊〉 When the proud Turrets of the whore of Babylon are to be levelled with the Earth when Germany when Ireland are to be rescued out of her bloudy pawes Can vve finde no fitter Object for the fury of the Cannon then our Townes Houses Bodies But alas The Generation vvith vvhom vve have to deal had rather a thousand times see the glory of England in the dust then the pride of Rome And though a evil War be miserable yet no such misery as the peace vvhich they vvould beteeme us a Sicilian vespers or a Parisian massacre from vvhich good Lord deliver us Save Lord let the King hear us vvhen vve call Thus Sir you have my thoughts at large you may either lay this Letter by you or communicate it for the satisfaction of others at your ovvn pleasure I blesse God I am gathering strength and hope ere long by my return to my Lord and the Army if God please not to smile upon us vvith a safe Accommodation in the mean time to give a reall proofe that my judgement is the same that formerly it hath been and I hope you believe my affection is the same still to you and therefore vvithout further trouble I subscribe my selfe Your loving friend Stephen Marshall