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	law_n	majesty_n	3,064	5	5.9700	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89562	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 ministry, against that altogether groundlesse, most unjust, and ungodly aspersion cast upon him by certaine 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 perpetuall infamy. 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 arms.	Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.	1643 (1643)	Wing M750; Thomason E102_10; ESTC R21572	25,726	33

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 authority to rule for the publike good and that even among them who are under the scepter of Christ against the Anabaptisis 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 sound and taken out of the severall Lawes Customs 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 lawes 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 lawes of all Nations doe determine But whether for instance in England Shipmoney 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 goe 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 beames of his authority put upon them and therefore called Gods and all of them the children of the most High Secondly Loyalty 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 lawes themselves Thirdly maintenance with payment of all lawfull Customs Tributes and impositions Fourthly all manner of supplications prayers Intercessions and giving of thanks their usefullnesse 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 not only to the King as Supream but in proportion to all inferior Governors who are sent by God also for the punishment of evill doers and for the praise of them that doe well they being all the ministers of God for our good and this is the first Commandement with promise But sixthly if our Governours whether supream or inferior 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 threatening 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 lawes 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 judg 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 musike often chanted in the eares of our Princes and no doubt was one great occasion of these heavy yoaks we have of late groaned under But these absurdities need no refutation Egiptian Pharaoh claimed not the wealth of his people till he had bought it And Ahab himselfe who durst not lay claim 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 heavy illegall exactions borrowing allwayes a colour of law and the known laws of the land enabling the meanest subject to maintain his Propriety even in a two-peny matter against his Soveraign 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 S●ate to the vassallage which this Popish Army would bring it to we shall heare 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 to 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 ea●e 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 lachrymae to cry unto our God but no liberty to defend our selves by Armes against such tyranni 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 will 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 mee 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 lex terrae 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 lawes of God and man I may not secure with

Councell of Basil proved the Councell to be above the Pope and a Kingdom above the King and said they were but flatterers who taught otherwise And fourthly doth not right reason as much abhorre this that whereas Princes are the publike fathers and the people owe them the duty of children that these children should be prohibited from keeping their publike 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 disarme 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 evill 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 cleare 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 misled 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 Ionathan nor pluck an haire from his head though Saul had sworne by God he should die knew no such Scripture and I believe that if the same men had been 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 himselfe bound in conscience to render himselfe 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 Vzziah 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 shewes they understood to bind them to yeeld Honour Loyalty Obedience and Subjection to their Magistrates according to law but not that they were bound to let them doe what mischeife 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 and 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 will say that Tyrannie is Gods Ordinance that Tyrants beare the sword for the punishment of evill doers are the Ministers of God c. full proof there is that we must be under the authoritie 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 ablibitum but ablicitum not to obey their lawlesse lusts and wills 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 Jewes 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 unhappy differences yet how constantly have our most learned Divines Bishops as well as others defended by their Pens and our Princes and States

want not examples of such defence in the Primitive times when once Religion was establisht by Edict of the Romane Empire and Licinius the Emperour of the East legum violator maximus contrary to Law and his Covenant would persecute the Christians they defended themselves by Arms and Constantine the great joyned with them And as Eusebius saith held it his dutie infinitum hominum genus paucis nefariis hominibus tanquam quibusdam corruptelis è medio sublatis in columes servare To deliver an infinite multitude of men by cutting off a few wicked ones as the pests and plagues of the time The Christians living under the Persian King and wronged by him sought for help from the Romane Emperour Theodosius and were assisted by him and when the King of Persia complained that Theodosius should meddle in a●fairs of his Kingdom Theodosius answered that he did not onely protect them because they were suppliants but was ready to defend them and no way to see them suffer for Religion it being the same with their own It seems they thought it as lawfull to help an innocent people against the oppressions of their own Prince as for one neighbour to succour another against theeves and robbers The Macedonians obtained of the Emperour Constantius four thousand armed men to help them drive out the Novatians from Paphlagonia the Orthodox assisted the Novatians against the unjust violence and were armed falcibus clavis securibus with sithes clubs and hatchets and cut off almost all the Souldiers and many of the Paphlagonians At Constantinople the Orthodox defended Paulus his Election against Macedonius and his abettors though assisted with the Militarie Forces and the Historian blames them onely for killing the Commander Hermogenes Justina Valentinianus mother infected with Arianisme commanded to banish Ambrose but the people resisted and for a while defeated the plot of them who would have sent Ambrose into banishment The inhabitants of Armenia the greater professing the Christian Faith were abused by the Persians among whom they lived especially for their Religion they entred into a league with the Romanes for their safetie You see here are some examples where the ancient Christians used defensive Arms and I doubt not but such as are well read in the stories of those times might produce many more But there is one Doctour who goes about to prove by reason that oppressed Subjects should not defend themselves against their Princes though bent to subvert Religion Laws and Liberties because forsooth such resistance tends to the dissolution of Order and Government that is to disable Princes from subverting Religion Law and Liberty which is the very dissolution of all Order and Government tends to the dissolution of all Order and Government as if hindring a man from pulling down his house were the pulling down the house As if the hindring the Pilot from dashing the Ship against the rock tended to dash the Ship against the rock If any man else see any colour of reason in this reason I desire them to make it appear for for my part I can see none And indeed the case is so cleer that most of them who cry down defensive Arms though they use such Scriptures and Arguments to work upon the consciences of people yet when they come to dispute it will hardly endure to have the Question rightly stated as being unwilling to dash against the rock of most learned Divines whether Protestants or Papists and I think of almost all Politicians but fall to discusse matters of fact charging the Parliament with invading the Kings just Prerogative usurping an exorbitant power and authority c. yea His Majestie in all his Declarations insists onely upon this never suggesting that in Conscience they are prohibited to defend themselves in case he should violently invade their Liberties yea expresly grants that there is power sufficient legally placed in the Parliament to prevent Tyrannie And therefore now I leave the case of Divinitie and shall more briefly give you an account what satisfied me in the second I mean matter of fact that His Majestie being seduced by wicked councell did leavie war against the Parliament My great evidence was the Parliament judged so the judgement of a Parliament of England was never questioned till now by a people of England all Patents Charters Commissions Grants Proclamations and Writs of the Kings of England receive their judgement and are often repealed and made null by a Parliament all controversies betwixt the King and Subject receive their finall determination in the Parliament the judgements of all other Courts are ratified or nullified by a Parliament I have heard some wise men say that a Parliament in England like Pauls spirituall man judgeth all and it self is judged of none and therefore if I should give you no other account of my entring upon my Office in the Armie which was not to fight nor meddle in the Councell of War but onely to teach them how to behave themselves according to the Word that God might be with them should I I say give no other account but the determination of that wise assembly I should be acquitted by indifferent men But although I had learned that no dishonourable thing should be imagined of that Honourable Assembly yet I held it my dutie not to yeeld blinde obedience or go by an implicite Faith but search whether the things were so and the rather because both sides have appealed to heaven to that God who no doubt in due time will clear the righteous cause And upon my search these things were quickly apparent It was very cleare that the persons too much prevailing with His Majesty had long before this Parliament a designe for overthrowing our Lawes enslaving our Liberties and altering our Religion and it had so far prevailed that we were tantùm non swallowed up and when through the good Providence of God this Parliament was called and many hopes conceived that now his Majesty seeing the mischiefe of adhering to such ill Counsellors would for the time to come be wholly guided by the great Councell of his Kingdome alas it soone appeared that the same kinde of Counsellors were still most prevayling insomuch that soone after the pacification with Scotland the Northerne Army should have beene brought up to London as appeares by the very Oaths of some who should have acted it a thing then thought so pernicious that not onely the chiefe actors fled beyond the Seas but many reall Courtiers earnestly solicited their friends in both Houses that this our in excusable error might be passed over and now to begin upon a new score But that which made me the more suspect their prevailing with his Majesty was that the horrid Rebellion broken out in Ireland the Rebels pretending His Majesties and the Queens Commission for their warrant it was at least three moneths after before they were proclaimed Traytors and when it was done no Copies of the Proclamations to be got

a good conscience True it is if in case it do upon circumstances duly weighed appeare 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 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 unsued whether to superiours or inferiours or equals But that men should give a liberty of defence in Law and yet absolutely condemn defence against unlawfull violence is such an {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} such an absurdity as you shall seldom 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 spoyled 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 be their supream Ruler according to Law they must therefore bee interpreted to have yeelded up all their liberty so farre as to bee 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 conquerd makes it unlawfull for them to defend themselves against the unjust violences of their conqueror or his successors 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 mee in my house in conscience I am tyed to be his servant or slave for ever Because Eglon hath mightily oppressed Israel for eighteen yeares it is unlawfull for them to shake off his yoak 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 Crowne 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 yoak 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 farre as by Covenant or Lawes 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 goe seek another master but no colour of reason that the servant hath now forfeited that immunity 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 Protector would prove their Murtherer If he who both in himselfe and instruments should be only 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 selfe-murther in suffering such a thing For instance some of our Historians relate of King Iohn that he 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 Spaine 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-Chaplaine 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 publike good yet if they degenerate and will be destroyers the people should suffer all to be spoyled as if Kingdoms 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 instead thereof will dash the ship against the rocks Or a Generall purposely chosen and to whom the souldiers have therefore sworne for the safety of the whole Army should yet turne 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 warre in the Army should be morally disabled from doing any thing to prevent their own apparant destruction By this reason the Bishop of Burgeu in the