Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	king_n	kingdom_n	parliament_n	5,178	5	6.3666	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50955	The tenure of kings and magistrates proving that it is lawfull, and hath been held so through all ages, for any who have the power, to call to account a tyrant, or wicked king, and after due conviction, to depose and put the author, J.M.	Milton, John, 1608-1674.	1649 (1649)	Wing M2181; ESTC R21202	25,266	46

object that Gildas condemns the Britanes for so doing the answer is as ready that he condemns them no more for so doing then hee did before for choosing such for saith he They anointed them Kings not of God but such as were more bloody then therest Next hee condemns them not at all for deposing or putting them to death but for doing it over hastily without tryal or well examining the cause and for electing others worse in thir room Thus we have here both Domestic and most ancient examples that the people of Britain have deposd and put to death thir Kings in those primitive Christian times And to couple reason with example if the Church in all ages Primitive Romish or Protestant held it ever no less thir duty then the power of thir Keyes though without express warrant of Scripture to bring indifferently both King and Peasant under the utmost rigor of thir Canons and Censures Ecclesiastical eev'n to the smiting him with a final excommunion if he persist impenitent what hinders but that the temporal Law both may and ought though without a special Text or president extend with like indifference the civil Sword to the cutting off without exemption him that capitally offends Seeing that justice and Religion are from the same God and works of justice ofttimes more acceptable Yet because that some lately with the tongues and arguments of Malignant backsliders have writt'n that the proceedings now in Parlament against the King are without president from any Protestant State or Kingdom the examples which follow shall be all Protestant and chiefly Presbyterian In the yeare 1546. The Duke of Saxonie Lantgrave of Hessen and the whole Protestant league raysd open Warr against Charles the fifth thir Emperor sent him a defiance renounc'd all faith and allegeance toward him and debated long in Counsell whether they should give him so much as the title of Caesar Sleidan l. 17. Let all men judge what this wanted of deposing or of killing but the power to doe it In the yeare 1559. the Scotch Protestants claiming promise of thir Queen Regent for libertie of conscience she answering that promises were not to be claim'd of Princes beyond what was commodious for them to grant told her to her face in the Parlament then at Sterling that if it were so they renounc'd thir obedience and soone after betooke them to Armes Buchanan Hist. l. 16. certainely when allegeance is renounc'd that very hour the King or Queen is in effect depos'd In the yeare 1564. John Kn●x a most famous Divine and the reformer of Scotland to the Presbyterian discipline at a generall Assembly maintaind op'nly in a dispute against Lethington the Secretary of State that Subjects might and ought execute Gods judgements upon thir King that the fact of Jehu and others against thir King having the ground of Gods ordinary command to put such and such offenders to death was not extraordinary but to bee imitated of all that prefer'd the honour of God to the affection of flesh and wicked Princes that Kings if they offend have no privilege to be exempted from the punishments of Law more then any other subject so that if the King be a Murderer Adulterer or Idolater he should suffer not as a King but as an offender and this position hee repeates againe and againe before them Answerable was the opinion of John Craig another learned Divine and that Lawes made by the tyranny of Princes or the negligence of people thir posterity might abrogate and reform all things according to the original institution of Common-wealths And Knox being commanded by the Nobilitie to write to Calvin and other learned men for thir judgements in that question refus'd alleging that both himselfe was fully resolv'd in conscience and had heard thir judgements and had the same opinion under hand-writing of many the most godly and most learned that he knew in Europe that if he should move the question to them againe what should he doe but shew his owne forgetfulness or inconstancy All this is farr more largely in the Ecclesiastic History of Scotland l. 4. with many other passages to this effect all the book over set out with diligence by Scotchmen of best repute among them at the beginning of these troubles as if they labourd to inform us what wee were to doe and what they intended upon the like occasion And to let the world know that the whole Church and Protestant State of Scotland in those purest times of reformation were of the same belief three years after they met in the feild Mary thir lawful and hereditary Queen took her prisoner yeilding before fight kept her in prison and the same yeare deposd her Buchan Hist. l. 18. And four years after that the Scots in justification of thir deposing Queen Mary sent Embassadors to Queen Elizabeth and in a writt'n Declaration alleag'd that they had us'd towards her more lenity then shee deservd that thir Ancestors had heretofore punishd thir Kings by death or banishment that the Scots were a free Nation made King whom they freely chose and with the same freedome un-Kingd him if they saw cause by right of ancient laws and Ceremonies yet remaining and old customers yet among the High-landers in choosing the head of thir Clanns or Families all which with many other arguments bore witness that regal power was nothing else but a mutuall Covnant or stipulation between King and people Buch. Hist. l. 20. These were Scotchmen and Presbyterians but what measure then have they lately offerd to think such liberty less beseeming us then themselves presuming to put him upon us for a Maister whom thir Law scarce allows to be thir own equall If now then we heare them in another straine then heretofore in the purest times of thir Church we may be confident it is the voice of Faction speaking in them not of truth and Reformation In the yeare 1581. the States of Holland in a general Assembly at the Hague abjur'd all obedience and subjection to Philip King of Spaine and in a Declaration justifie thir so doing for that by his tyrannous goverment against faith so oft'n giv'n and brok'n he had lost his right to all the Belgic Provinces that therfore they deposd him and declar'd it lawful to choose another in his stead Thuan. l. 74. From that time to this no State or Kingdom in the World hath equally prosperd But let them remember not to look with an evil and prejudicial eye upon thir neighbours walking by the same rule But what need these examples to Presbyterians I meane to those who now of late would seem so much to abhorr deposing whenas they to all Christendom have giv'n the latest and the liveliest example of doing it themselves I question not the lawfulness of raising Warr against a Tyrant in defence of Religion or civil libertie for no Protestant Church from the first Waldenses of Lyons and Languedoc to this day but have don it round and maintaind it

enthrone him why may not the peoples act of rejection be as well pleaded by the people as the act of God and the most just reason to depose him So that we see the title and just right of reigning or deposing in reference to God is found in Scripture to be all one visible onely in the people and depending meerly upon justice and demerit Thus farr hath bin considerd briefly the power of Kings and Magistrates how it was and is originally the peoples and by them conferrd in trust onely to bee imployd to the common peace and benefit with libertie therfore and right remaining in them to reassume it to themselves if by Kings or Magistrats it be abus'd or to dispose of it by any alteration as they shall judge most conducing to the public good Wee may from hence with more ease and force of argument determin what a Tyrant is and what the people may doe against him A Tyrant whether by wrong or by right comming to the Crowne is he who regarding neither Law nor the common good reigns onely for himself and his faction Thus St. Basil among others defines him And because his power is great his will boundless and exorbitant the fulfilling whereof is for the most part accompanied with innumerable wrongs and oppressions of the people murders massacres rapes adulteries desolation and subversion of Citties and whole provinces look how great a good and happiness a just King is so great a mischeife is a Tyrant as hee the public Father of his Countrie so this the common enemie Against whom what the people lawfully may doe as against a common pest and destroyer of mankinde I suppose no man of cleare judgement need goe surder to be guided then by the very principles of nature in him But because it is the vulgar folly of men to desert thir owne reason and shutting thir eyes to think they see best with other mens I shall shew by such examples as ought to have most waight with us what hath bin don is this case heretofore The Greeks and Romans as thir prime Authors witness held it not onely lawfull but a glorious and Heroic deed rewarded publicly with Statues and Garlands to kill an infamous Tyrant at any time without tryal and but reason that he who trod down all Law should not bee voutsaf'd the benefit of Law Insomuch that Seneca the Tragedian brings in Hercules the grand suppressor of Tyrants thus speaking Victima haud ulla amplior Potest magisque opima mactari Jovi Quam Rex iniquus There can be slaine No sacrifice to God more accetable Then an unjust and wicked King But of these I name no more lest it bee objected they were Heathen and come to produce another sort of men that had the knowledge of true Religion Among the Jews this custome of tyrant-killing was not unusual First Ehud a man whom God had raysd to deliver Israel from Eglon King of Moab who had conquerd and rul'd over them eighteene yeares being sent to him as an Ambassador with a present slew him in his owne house But hee was a forren Prince an enemie and Ehud besides had special warrant from God To the first I answer it imports not whether forren or native For no Prince so native but professes to hold by Law which when he himselfe overturnes breaking all the Covnants and Oaths that gave him title to his dignity and were the bond and alliance between him and his people what differs he from an outlandish King or from an enemie For looke how much right the King of Spaine hath to govern us at all so much right hath the King of England to govern us tyrannically If he though not bound to us by any league comming from Spaine in person to subdue us or to destroy us might lawfully by the people of England either bee slaine in fight or put to death in captivity what hath a native King to plead bound by so many Covnants benefits and honours to the welfare of his people why he through the contempt of all Laws and Parlaments the onely tie of our obedience to him for his owne wills sake and a boasted praerogative unaccountable after sev'n years warring and destroying of his best subjects overcom and yeilded prisoner should think to scape unquestionable as a thing divine in respect of whom so many thousand Christians destroy'd should lye unaccounted for polluting with thir slaughterd carcasses all the Land over and crying for vengeance against the living that should have righted them Who knows not that there is a mutual bond of amity and brotherhood between man and man over all the World neither is it the English Sea that can sever us from that duty and relation a straiter bond yet there is between fellow-subjects neighbours and friends But when any of these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to another so as hostility 〈…〉 doth the Law decree less against them then oepn enemies and invaders or if the Law be not present or too weake what doth it warrant us to less then single defence or civil warr and from that time forward the Law of civill defensive Warr differs nothing from the Law of forren hostility Nor is it distance of place that makes enmitie but enmity that makes distance He therefore that keeps peace with me neer or remote of whatsoever Nation is to mee as farr as all civil and human offices an Englishman and a nighbour but if an Englishman forgetting all Laws human civil and religious offend against life and libertie to him offended and to the Law in his behalf though born in the same womb he is no better then a Turk a Sarasin a Heathen This is Gospel and this was ever Law among equals how much rather then in force against any King whatsoever who in respect of the people is coufessd inferior and not equal to distinguish therfore of a Tyrant by outlandish or domestic is a weak evasion To the second that he was an enemie I answer what Tyrant is not yet Eglon by the Jewes had bin acknowledgd as thir Sovran they had servd him eighteen yeares as long almost as wee our VVilliam the Conqueror in all which time he could not be so unwise a Statesman but to have tak'n of them Oaths of Fealty and Allegeance by which they made themselves his proper subjects as thir homage and present sent by Ehud testifyd To the third that he had special warrant to kill Eglon in that manner it cannot bee granted because not expressd t is plain that he was raysd by God to be a Deliverer and went on just principles such as were then and ever held allowable to deale so by a Tyrant that could no otherwise be dealt with Neither did Samuell though a Profet with his owne hand abstain from Agag a forren enemie no doubt but mark the reason As thy Sword hath made women childless a cause that by the sentence of Law it selfe nullifies all relations And as the Law is between Brother and Brother